Comparison of Gametogenic Cycles of the Endemic European Carpet Shell Clam (Ruditapes decussatus) and the Introduced Manila Clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) from a Temperate Coastal Mediterranean Lagoon in the Dardanelles, Turkey

In this study, the gametogenic cycle of the newly introducedManila clam Ruditapes philippinarum was described for the first time for Turkish waters and compared with that of the native European grooved carpet shell clam Ruditapes decussatus coexisting in Çardak Lagoon (Çanakkale, Turkey) in the Dardanelles. A total of 480 individuals were sampled for each species between January andDecember 2011. Both species exhibited similar distinct seasonal changes in gonad activity and completed their gametogenic cycles. In both species, gonads advanced very fast after winter reaching ripe stage in April and May in theManila clams and carpet shell clams, respectively. In Manila clams, spawning commenced in April and continued until October. In carpet shell clams, spawning started in May, but the main spawning event occurred in June and continued until July with a discontinuation in August and a marginal spawning taking place in September and possibly in October. Gonad index (GI) values were indicated similarities in gonad development between males and females of both species with apparent synchronism between sexes during early development, first maturation and early spawning until July. We report for the first time the reproduction of the Manila clam in Turkish waters and show that optimal conditions for gametogenesis and spawning exist for this exotic species from March until October in the Dardanelles. This information will be useful for clam fishery management especially in areas where carpet shell clam and the Manila clam are known to coexist

w Night Time CFD Simulations of the Distributed Climate inside a Glasshouse

International audienceThe aim of this study is to implement an unsteady 2D CFD model to predict the time-evolution of greenhouse temperature and humidity distributions all night long in winter, taking account of both radiative transfers and crop interactions with the inside climate. Beyond the classical conservation equations, specific radiative- and crop-submodels were activated. The latter takes account of both the heat and transpiration fluxes induced by the plants and their associated mechanical resistances which depend on the transfers from the plant to the air. Simulations were performed for a clear night on the basis of data collected in winter 2011 inside a 100 m(2) Venlo glasshouse with Impatiens New Guinea crop grown on shelves. The boundary conditions were modified at each time step. Numerical results were validated against data recorded inside the greenhouse: roof temperature, inside air temperature, transpiration flux and air humidity. They highlight the influence of the dynamic boundary conditions on the evolution of the microclimate inside the greenhouse. This study demonstrates the ability of the CFD code to simulate the greenhouse climate evolution with realism. It also suggests a potential exploitation for designing the heating devices in order to optimize the inside climate and energy consumption for various outside conditions

Scheduling Scientific Workflows on Clouds Using a Task Duplication Approach

By renting pay-as-you-go cloud resources (e.g., virtual machines) to do science, the data transfers required during the execution of data-intensive scientific workflows may be remarkably costly not only regarding the workflow execution time (makespan) but also regarding money. As such transfers are prone to delays, they may jeopardise the makespan, stretch the period of resource rentals and, as a result, compromise budgets. In this paper, we explore the possibility of trading some communication for computation during the scheduling production, aiming to schedule a workflow by duplicating some computation of its tasks on which other dependent-tasks critically depend upon to lessen communication between them. This paper explores this premise by enhancing the Heterogeneous Earliest Finish Time (HEFT) algorithm and the Lookahead variant of HEFT. The proposed approach is evaluated using simulation and synthetic data from four real-world scientific workflow applications. Our proposal, which is based on task duplication, can effectively reduce the size of data transfers, which, in turn, contributes to shortening the rental duration of the resources, in addition to minimising network traffic within the cloud

Estimation of the available bandwidth in inter-cloud links for task scheduling in hybrid clouds

In hybrid clouds, inter-cloud links play a key role in the execution of jobs with data dependencies. Insufficient available bandwidth in inter-cloud links can increase the makespan and the monetary cost to execute the application on public clouds. Imprecise information about the available bandwidth can lead to inefficient scheduling decisions. This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of imprecise information about the available bandwidth in inter-cloud links on workflow schedules, and it proposes a mechanism to cope with imprecise information about the available bandwidth and its impact on the makespan and cost estimates. The proposed mechanism applies a deflating factor on the available bandwidth value furnished as input to the scheduler. Simulation results showed that the mechanism is able to increase the number of solutions with makespans that are shorter than the defined deadline and reduce the underestimations of the makespan and cost provided by workflow schedulers716274CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPNão temNão tem2012/02778-6; 2014/08607-

Prevention of DNA damage and anticarcinogenic activity of Activia ® in a preclinical model of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 License

ABSTRACT. Colorectal cancer is a global public health issue. Studies have pointed to the protective effect of probiotics on colorectal carcinogenesis. Activia ® is a lacto probiotic product that is widely consumed all over the world and its beneficial properties are related, mainly, to the lineage of traditional yoghurt bacteria combined with a specific bacillus, DanRegularis, which gives the product a proven capacity to intestinal regulation in humans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antigenotoxic, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenic proprieties of the Activia product, in response to damage caused by 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) in Swiss mice. Activia does not have shown antigenotoxic activity. However, the percent of DNA damage reduction, evaluated by the antimutagenicity assay, ranged from 69.23 to 96.15% indicating effective chemopreventive action. Activia reduced up to 79.82% the induction of aberrant crypt foci by DMH. Facing the results, it is inferred that Activia facilitates the weight loss, prevents DNA damage and pre-cancerous lesions in the intestinal mucosa