Tremorogeni učinci ekstrakata plijesni izoliranih iz prašine drveta u štakora

Among workers in the Swedish wood industry acute alveolitis, known as “woodtrimmer\u27s disease” has been recognized for some time. One of the signs in the acute phase of the disease is transitory tremor. The etiology of the disease is still not clearly understood, but it is assumed to be associated with wood dust containing fungal spores. One of the dominant fungal strains isolated from wood at the saw-mills was found to be Aspergillus fumigatus. As it is known that Aspergillus fumigatus has the ability to produce tremorgenic mycotoxins, the moulds from the working environment were isolated, cultivated and tested for the ability to produce mycotoxins, to estimate a possible relation between fungal spores and tremorgenic effects. Extracts of moulds were prepared and tested on rats after oral administration. The ability to induce tremors in rats was found in six out of nine extracts tested. A very good agreement was found between the results of the chemical analysis of extracts and those of the study in vivo. The results imply that woodtrimmer\u27s disease may at least partly, be mycotoxicosis.U Švedskoj, u radnika zaposlenih u drvnoj industriji, javlja se akutni alveolitis poznat i pod nazivom Woodtrimmer\u27s disease, popraćen prolaznim tremorom. Pojava je nepoznate etiologije ali se povezuje s izloženošću drvenoj prašini u kojoj se nalaze spore različitih plijesni. Aspergillus fumigatus je plijesan koja se najčešće izolira u sušarama drveta. Iz radne sredine izolirane su plijesni Aspergillus flavusa te je nakon kultivacije testirana njihova sposobnost stvaranja tremorogenih mikotoksina analitičkim metodama i u pokusima na štakorima. Ekstrakti plijesni aplicirani su pokusnim životinjama oralno. Šest od devet ekstrakata izazvalo je pojavu tremora u tretiranih životinja. Nađena je vrlo dobra korelacija rezultata kemijskih analiza i rezultata dobivenih u pokusima in vivo. Podaci upućuju na moguću vezu između Woodtrimmer\u27s disease i izloženosti radnika tremorogenim mikotoksinima

Privacy Mining from IoT-based Smart Homes

Recently, a wide range of smart devices are deployed in a variety of environments to improve the quality of human life. One of the important IoT-based applications is smart homes for healthcare, especially for elders. IoT-based smart homes enable elders' health to be properly monitored and taken care of. However, elders' privacy might be disclosed from smart homes due to non-fully protected network communication or other reasons. To demonstrate how serious this issue is, we introduce in this paper a Privacy Mining Approach (PMA) to mine privacy from smart homes by conducting a series of deductions and analyses on sensor datasets generated by smart homes. The experimental results demonstrate that PMA is able to deduce a global sensor topology for a smart home and disclose elders' privacy in terms of their house layouts.Comment: This paper, which has 11 pages and 7 figures, has been accepted BWCCA 2018 on 13th August 201

Simulation of electrochemical processes during oxygen evolution on Pb-MnO2 composite electrodes

The geometric properties of Pb-MnO2 composite electrodes are studied, and a general formula ispresented for the length of the triple phase boundary (TPB) on two dimensional (2D) compositeelectrodes using sphere packing and cutting simulations. The difference in the geometrical properties of2D (or compact) and 3D (or porous) electrodes is discussed. It is found that the length of the TPB is theonly reasonable property of a 2D electrode that follows a 1/r particle radius relationship. Subsequently,sphere packing cuts are used to derive a statistical electrode surface that is the basis for the earlierproposed simulations of different electrochemical mechanisms. It is shown that two of the proposedmechanisms (conductivity and a two-step-two-material kinetic mechanism) can explain the currentincrease at Pb-MnO2 anodes compared to standard lead anodes.The results show that although MnO2 has low conductivity, when combined with Pb as the metal matrix,the behaviour of the composite is not purely ohmic but is also affected by activation overpotentials,increasing the current density close to the TPB. Current density is inversely proportional to the radius ofthe catalyst particles, matching with earlier experimental results. Contrary to earlier SECM experiments,mass transport of sulphuric acid is not likely to have any influence, as confirmed with simulations.A hypothetical two-step-two-material mechanism with intermediate H2O2 that reacts on both the Pbmatrix and MnO2 catalyst is studied. It was found that assuming quasi-reversible generation of H2O2followed by its chemical decomposition on MnO2, results are obtained that agree with the experiments.If the quasi-reversible formation of H2O2 occurs near the peroxide decomposition catalyst, currentincreases, leading to an active TPB and to the current density that scales with 1/r. It is furtheremphasised that both the Pb matrix and MnO2 catalyst are necessary and their optimum ratio dependson the used current density. Yet, additional experimental evidence is needed to support the postulatedmechanism.Peer reviewe

Early search for supersymmetric dark matter models at the LHC without missing energy

We investigate early discovery signals for supersymmetry at the Large Hadron Collider without using information about missing transverse energy. Instead we use cuts on the number of jets and isolated leptons (electrons and/or muons). We work with minimal supersymmetric extensions of the standard model, and focus on phenomenological models that give a relic density of dark matter compatible with the WMAP measurements. An important model property for early discovery is the presence of light sleptons, and we find that for an integrated luminosity of only 200--300 pb$^{-1}$ at a center-of-mass energy of 10 TeV models with gluino masses up to $\sim 700$ GeV can be tested.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures; published versio

Severe Outbreak of Sorbitol-Fermenting Escherichia coli O157 via Unpasteurized Milk and Farm Visits, Finland 2012

Shiga toxin-producing, sorbitol-fermenting Escherichia coli O157 (SF O157) has emerged as a cause of severe human illness. Despite frequent human findings, its transmission routes and reservoirs remain largely unknown. Foodborne transmission and reservoir in cattle have been suspected, but with limited supporting evidence. This study describes the outbreak of SF O157 that occurred in Finland in 2012. The outbreak originated from a recreational farm selling unpasteurized milk, as revealed by epidemiologic and microbiological investigations, and involved six hospitalized children and two asymptomatic adults with culture-confirmed infection. An identical strain of SF O157 was isolated from patients, cattle and the farm environment, and epidemiologic analysis suggested unpasteurized milk as the vehicle of transmission. This study reports the first milkborne outbreak of SF O157, provides supporting evidence of cattle as a reservoir and highlights the health risks related to the consumption of unpasteurized milk

Individual tree biomass equations or biomass expansion factors for assessment of carbon stock changes in living biomass - A comparative study

AbstractSignatory countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its supplementary Kyoto Protocol (KP) are obliged to report greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Changes in the carbon stock of living biomass should be reported using either the default or stock change methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector. Traditionally, volume estimates are used as a forestry measures. Changes in living biomass may be assessed by first estimating the change in the volume of stem wood and then converting this volume to whole tree biomass using biomass expansion factors (BEFs). However, this conversion is often non-trivial because the proportion of stem wood increases with tree size at the expense of branches, foliage, stump and roots. Therefore, BEFs typically vary over time and their use may result in biased estimates. The objective of this study was to evaluate differences between biomass estimates obtained using biomass equations and BEFs with particular focus on uncertainty analysis. Assuming that the development of tree fractions in different ways can be handled by individual biomass equations, BEFs for standing stock were shown to overestimate the biomass sink capacity (Sweden). Although estimates for BEFs derived for changes in stock were found to be unbiased, the estimated BEFs varied substantially over time (0.85–1.22ton CO2/m3). However, to some extent this variation may be due to random sampling errors rather than actual changes. The highest accuracy was obtained for estimates based on biomass equations for different tree fractions, applied to data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory using a permanent sample design (estimated change in stock 1990–2005: 420million tons CO2, with a standard error amounting to 26.7million tons CO2) Many countries have adopted such a design combined with the stock change method for reporting carbon stock changes under the UNFCCC/KP

A Co-Twin Control Study of the Association Between Bullying Victimization and Self-Harm and Suicide Attempt in Adolescence

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to investigate the magnitude of an independent association between bullying victimization and self-harm and suicide attempt in adolescence after adjusting for unmeasured and measured confounding factors. METHODS: Using the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, we examined twins born between 1994 and 1999 (n = 13,852). Twins self-reported bullying victimization at age 15 years and self-harm and suicide attempt at age 18 years. We created a factor score of 13 bullying items, on which self-harm and suicide attempt items were regressed in three models: (1) among unrelated individuals; (2) among co-twins, in which a twin exposed to more bullying was compared with his/her co-twin who was exposed to less; and (3) among co-twins while adjusting for indicators of childhood psychopathology. RESULTS: Among unrelated individuals, a one standard deviation increase in bullying victimization was associated with increased odds for self-harm (odds ratio [OR], 1.29 [95% confidence interval, 1.23-1.36]) and suicide attempt (OR, 1.68 [1.53-1.85]). Among co-twins, the odds attenuated for self-harm (OR, 1.19 [1.09-1.30]) and suicide attempt (OR, 1.39 [1.17-1.66]). Finally, when accounting for childhood psychopathology, there was a 14% (1.04-1.25) and 25% (1.03-1.52) relative increase in odds of self-harm and suicide attempt, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that bullying victimization was uniquely associated with self-harm and suicide attempt over and above the confounding because of unmeasured and measured factors (i.e., familial vulnerability and pre-existing psychopathy). However, magnitudes were small, suggesting that additional interventions and screenings are needed to address suicidality apart from bullying interventions

Development of new all-optical signal regeneration technique

All-optical signal regeneration have been the active research area since last decade due to evolution of nonlinear optical signal processing. Existing all-optical signal regeneration techniques are agitated in producing low Bit Error Rate (BER) of 10-10 at below than -10 dBm power received. In this paper, a new all-optical signal regeneration technique is developed by using phase sensitive amplification and designed optical phase locked signal mechanism. The developed all-optical signal regeneration technique is tested for different 10 Gb/s Differential Phase Shift Keying degraded signals. It is determined that the designed all-optical signal regeneration technique is able to provide signal regeneration with noise mitigation for degraded signals. It is analyzed that overall, for all degraded test signals, average BER of 10-13 is achieved at received power of -14 dBm. The designed technique will be helpful to enhance the performance of existing signal regeneration systems in the presence of severe noise by providing minimum BER at low received power