Using Remote Sensing Data to Evaluate Habitat Loss in the Mobile, Galveston, and Tampa Bay Watersheds

The Gulf of Mexico has experienced dramatic wetland habitat area losses over the last two centuries. These losses not only damage species diversity, but contribute to water quality, flood control, and aspects of the Gulf coast economy. Overall wetland losses since the 1950s were examined using land cover/land use (LCLU) change analysis in three Gulf coast watershed regions: Mobile Bay, Galveston Bay, and Tampa Bay. Two primary causes of this loss, LCLU change and climate change, were then assessed using LCLU maps, U.S. census population data, and available current and historical climate data from NOAA. Sea level rise, precipitation, and temperature effects were addressed, with emphasis on analysis of the effects of sea level rise on salt marsh degradation. Ecological impacts of wetland loss, including fishery depletion, eutrophication, and hypoxia were addressed using existing literature and data available from NOAA. These ecological consequences in turn have had an affect on the Gulf coast economy, which was analyzed using fishery data and addressing public health impacts of changes in the environment caused by wetland habitat loss. While recent federal and state efforts to reduce wetland habitat loss have been relatively successful, this study implies a need for more aggressive action in the Gulf coast area, as the effects of wetland loss reach far beyond individual wetland systems themselves to the Gulf of Mexico as a whole

High-Pressure Stopped-Flow Study of Inclusion Reactions with α-Cyclodextrin: Dynamic Aspects in Host-Guest Interactions

The full volume and entropy profiles of the inclusion reaction between α-cyclodextrin and the guest molecules, ethylorange (1) and mordant yellow 7 (2), have been constructed from variable-pressure and -temperature stopped-flow kinetic experiments

PCS-9 Effect of Freeze Drying of Follicular Fluid from Waste of Aceh Cattle Ovary on the Estradiol Concentration

Aceh cattle are one of the many cow’s species that are widely preserved and distributed in Aceh Province. This species is the result of a cross between Bos sundaicus and Bos indicus and has been designated as a native Indonesian class of cattle in 2011 by the Minister of Agriculture of Indonesia through the decision of the Minister of Agriculture number 2907 / Kpts / OT.140 / 6/2011 [1]. Aceh's cattle population in 2017 in total was 627,629 species [2]. Slaughtering the cows results in the obtaining of byproduct or waste such as ovaries. The ovarium of female cows is one of the complement results of animal slaughter house which is infrequently used. In fact, the ovaries comprise follicles which contain many active compounds inside the follicular fluids such as insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), estrogen and progesterone [3]. Freeze drying/lyophilization is one of the preservative process which are generally used in food and non-food processing. This study was conducted to determine the effect of these methods on the concentration of estrogen in follicular fluid

Bio ceramic Zirconia/Hydroxyapatite nano composite extracted from bovine bone

These days bone and joint problem is one of the serious health issues in the whole world, millions of people are suffered from it and number is increasing with an alarming rate. Annually, there are more than million surgeries getting done in the world just because of injuries to human hard tissue system. Recently in medical applications, synthetic Hydroxyapatite (HA) has been widely used as an important material because of excellent properties such as bio affinity and high osteogenic potential. HA, particles prevent the growth of cancer cells. Recently, natural hydroxyapatite bio ceramics are extracted by normal calcinations of some bio wastes. Biologically derived natural materials such as bovine bones, fish bones, oyster shells, corals and egg shells, they have converted into useful biomaterials. Moreover, extraction of HA from bio-waste is simple, economically and environmentally preferable. The mechanical Properties of HA is low in comparison with cortical bone. As a result, incorporation of resistant oxide phase has been resistant to optimize biocompatibility and improve mechanical properties of HA. Zirconia (ZrO2), is one of the best materials which can increase the HA properties. ZrO2 is a well known material which has high mechanical properties and greater strength, low toxicity and lower magnetic susceptibility in comparison with Ti and Titanium's alloys. In the present work, HA/ZrO2 bio ceramic were fabricated in various sintering conditions and nano particle size is achieved by milling technique. HA was derived from natural sources that chosen bovine bone. Effects of ZrO2 on the composites were investigated. Adding the additive resulted in the values of higher density. Density of the sintered samples was determined by using the Archimedes method and distilled water was used as the fluid medium. The phase formation of the sintered samples was analyzed by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD). The micro structural investigation of the samples was performed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Studies on the interaction between ciprofloxacin hydrochloride and diclofenac sodium

Purpose: To study the interaction between ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (Cipro) and diclofenac sodium (DS) in the presence and absence of metal ions.Methods: Complexes were prepared in the aqueous phase at different molar ratios (r) of Cipro:DS (ranged from 0.2 – 2.0). The complexes were characterized by Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Their properties, i.e., solubility, dissolution and partition coefficient (log P), were studied along with their permeability across Caco-2 cells. Furthermore, the antimicrobial activity of Cipro and its complexes was determined using standard broth dilution method and expressed as minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).Results: Cipro formed an ion pair with DS. The product was confirmed to be a combination of the two drugs, DS and Cipro, but in a ratio that is dependent on the added amounts of each component (r = 1:1 or 1:2). The 1:1 product was more lipophilic than the individual components leading to a lower aqueous solubility and a higher octanol/water partition coefficient log P (6.7 vs. 0.77). The presence of DS within the dissolution medium appeared to modify the dissolution of Cipro depending on the concentration. Moreover, ternary complexes involving Cipro, DS and metal ions (iron and/or calcium) exhibited improved antimicrobial effect (MIC, 0.016 μg/ml compared to 0.258 μg/ml for Cipro). Caco-2 cell permeation data indicate that the presence of DS significantly improved the apparent permeability coefficient (Papp) of Cipro (20.6 × 10-6 cm/s) which was three times higher than that of free Cipro (p < 0.05). DS also appeared to counteract the well-known negative effect of metal ions on the bioavailability of Cipro.Conclusion: There is a clinically relevant interaction between DS and Cipro at the absorption level as a result of ion pair formation, which might even counteract the negative effect of metals on the absorption of Cipro. These findings should aid the design of new Cipro ion pairs that provide higher bioavailability than free Cipro.Keywords: Ciprofloxacin, Diclofenac, Interaction, Ion pair, Permeability coefficient, Bioavailability, Absorptio

Advanced methods for activated carbon from agriculture wastes; a comprehensive review

The rapid increase in various industries and the subsequent contamination of water bodies by heavy metals caused water stress circumstances globally. The adsorption is among the effective methods which is used for removing heavy metals from the water bodies. Moreover, the adsorption treatment of wastewater by activated carbon (AC) from bio-waste is getting recognition among researchers due to cost-effective. Therefore the current paper aimed to review the adsorption by activated carbon from agro waste, preparation method of AC and adsorption mechanism. The factors affecting the adsorption, adsorption isotherm and kinetics of adsorption were also reviewed. It is appeared from the reviewed papers that the AC from agro waste exhibited high efficiency in removing heavy metals from different wastewater. Moreover, the metal-adsorbed adsorbent desorption through dilute acids are HCl, HNO3, NaOH, KOH, H2SO4, NaNO3, EDTA and Na-citrate. Therefore, the suitable eluting chemicals to the adsorbent and adsorbate must be selected in order to enable maximum recovering percentage

Off line Arabic handwritten character using neural network

— Character Recognition (CR) considered as one of the most important in the field of pattern recognition. The ultimate objectives of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system is to simulate the capability of reading, hence the OCR considered as artificial intelligence. In this paper, a character-handwritten recognition for the Arabic language is developed. The main aim of the system is to save time and effort Arabic OCR. In addition, to be the alternative of the typing manual due to provide it fast and reliable. The system has four main stages; preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, classification, and recognition. The system is off-line and depends on the image acquisition. So, after acquitted the image has to go through the main stages. The Neural Network used as a classifier. The proposed system is able to recognize as many characters as can with high accuracy rate. In addition, it is focusing on the character that has similarities and the system will also be considered about the number of dots and its position, and the connected components

Pemodelan Sistem Dinamik Ketercapaian Kontribusi Biodiesel Dalam Bauran Energi Indonesia 2025

Biodiesel industry in Indonesia commercially emerged in 2005 driven by concerns on energy security triggered by high oil price, increasing environmental demand to reduce CO2 emission, while leveraging on Crude Palm Oil feed stock availability. The Government of Indonesia mandated biodiesel to contribute 10.22 million kilo litre in 2025 energy mix target, beside current weak industry performance of 27% low utilization ratio of biodiesel plant installed capacity of 4.2 million ton per annum. A system dynamic model, called Indonesia Biodiesel Industry Dynamic Model, has been developed as a platform to study the structure and behaviour of the biodiesel industry enriched with inputs from biodiesel related experts panel discussion and interview and to simulate the impact of energy policy interventions, such as biodiesel subsidy, diesel subsidy reduction and removal, blending mandate, and diesel environmental tax to the performance of biodiesel production, industry profitability EBITDA and Carbon Emission Reduction (CER) during simulation period of 2005-2030. Based on the scenario 1 of MDIBI, targeted 10.22 million tones per annum contribution of biodiesel in 2025 Indonesia\u27s energy mix would not be achieved with current structure and condition, mainly due to three factors, which are (i) low mixture of biodiesel-diesel mandate, (ii) a relatively limited supply of CPO raw materials which must be allocated for competing demand from cooking oil, oleofoods, oleochemicals and biodiesel industries, and (iii) currently available limited public service obligation (PSO) market

Linking Excessive Heat with Daily Heat-Related Mortality over the Coterminous United States

In the United States, extreme heat is the most deadly weather-related hazard. In the face of a warming climate and urbanization, which contributes to local-scale urban heat islands, it is very likely that extreme heat events (EHEs) will become more common and more severe in the U.S. This research seeks to provide historical and future measures of climate-driven extreme heat events to enable assessments of the impacts of heat on public health over the coterminous U.S. We use atmospheric temperature and humidity information from meteorological reanalysis and from Global Climate Models (GCMs) to provide data on past and future heat events. The focus of research is on providing assessments of the magnitude, frequency and geographic distribution of extreme heat in the U.S. to facilitate public health studies. In our approach, long-term climate change is captured with GCM outputs, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of short-term extremes are represented by the reanalysis data. Two future time horizons for 2040 and 2090 are compared to the recent past period of 1981- 2000. We characterize regional-scale temperature and humidity conditions using GCM outputs for two climate change scenarios (A2 and A1B) defined in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). For each future period, 20 years of multi-model GCM outputs are analyzed to develop a 'heat stress climatology' based on statistics of extreme heat indicators. Differences between the two future and the past period are used to define temperature and humidity changes on a monthly time scale and regional spatial scale. These changes are combined with the historical meteorological data, which is hourly and at a spatial scale (12 km) much finer than that of GCMs, to create future climate realizations. From these realizations, we compute the daily heat stress measures and related spatially-specific climatological fields, such as the mean annual number of days above certain thresholds of maximum and minimum air temperatures, heat indices, and a new heat stress variable developed as part of this research that gives an integrated measure of heat stress (and relief) over the course of a day. Comparisons are made between projected (2040 and 2090) and past (1990) heat stress statistics. Outputs are aggregated to the county level, which is a popular scale of analysis for public health interests. County-level statistics are made available to public health researchers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) system. This addition of heat stress measures to CDC WONDER allows decision and policy makers to assess the impact of alternative approaches to optimize the public health response to EHEs. Through CDC WONDER, users are able to spatially and temporally query public health and heat-related data sets and create county-level maps and statistical charts of such data across the coterminous U.S