ASSESSMENT OF BIODIVERSITY IN THE MUTHURAJAWELA WETLAND SANCTUARY

Muthurajawela wetland. located as the west coast of Sri Lanka is the largestcoastal peal bag of the island. At present. the biodiversity of Muthurajawela isthreatened by unplanned development activities and growing human population.Therefore, an ecological survey was carried out in order to assess the presentstatus of biodiversity in Muthurajawela, and also to identify critical habitats forthe conservation and sustence of biodiversity. Field monitoring of fauna and florawas carried out at fortnightly intervals, using scientifically accepted rapidbiodiversity assessment techniques (fauna - line transects; flora - plots, Braun-Blanquet cover), The data was analysed using ecological indices(diversity/species richness), and critical habitats were identified using avifauna asa correlate of biodiversity. Ground truthing of vegetation maps was carried out todocument changes of major vegetation communities.The study enabled to identify 192 species of flora, distributed over seven majorvegetation communities at Muthurajawela; marsh, lentic flora, reed swamp, shortgrassland, scrubland, stream bank flora and mangrove swamp. The vertebratefauna documented included 40 species of fish, 14 species of amphibians, 31species of reptiles, 102 species of birds and 22 species of mammals. Among thetotal vertebrate species documented, 17 are endemic, 26 are considered asnationally threatened, while 36 are new records to Muthurajawela. The selectedinvertebrate species documented consisted of 48 species of butterflies and 22species odonates, the latter which turned out to be a useful indicator of habitatquality. The threats documented included direct exploitation (poaching, cutting oftrees), habitat degradation/modification (land reclamation, dumping of garbage,clearing of natural vegetation, pollution and eutrophication) and the spread ofseveral alien invasive species (including unmanaged domestic animals). Thenorthern part of the marsh serve as an ecotone, with a mixture of the above plantcommunities/habitat types which were relatively undisturbed. Analysis carriedout using ecological indices highlighted the northern region as a high biodiversityzone, which is critical for the conservation and future sustenance of biodiversity atMuthurajawela. Ground truthing of vegetation maps, supported with results of thevegetation survey showed that the composition of dominant flora has changedover a period of 10 years, in most places in the Muthurajawela Wetland, as aresult of human disturbances. Data on the avifauna also highlighted aconsiderable decrease in migrant birds at Muthurajawela, possibly due to habitatdeterioration.The findings have important conservation and managementimplications, in particular greater emphasis need to be placed on the more ciritcalareas of the marsh. An important policy implication would be the need

Clinico-pathological factors influencing the recurrence free interval of patients with recurrent breast cancer

Objectives: Clinico-pathological factors affect the prognosis of breast cancer (BC) reflecting the heterogeneity of the disease. Following initial treatment, there is an ongoing risk of recurrence. The influence of these prognostic factors on the time taken to develop recurrence is not well established. This study was designed to determine the effect of clinic-pathological factors on the recurrence free interval (RFI) of BC patients with recurrent disease.Methods: This retrospective study included BC patients who had sought the immunohistochemistry laboratory services of our unit from May 2006 to December 2012. Mean follow up time was 45±23 months. All BC patients who had recurrences (loco-regional and distant metastasis) during the follow up period were enrolled. RFI was measured from the date of first therapeutic intervention to the date of confirmation of recurrence. Chi-square test was used for analysis.Results: Out of 944 BC patients, 188(mean age 50±11 years), had recurrences (loco-regional =35, distant metastasis =153). More than 50% of them had recurrence within 24 months of initial treatment (local=18/35 and distant=81/153). Mean RFI was 33±21 months for oestrogen receptor (ER)/progesterone receptor (PR) positive BC and 22±16 months for ER/PR negative BC. ER/PR positive BCs had a significant upward trend in developing recurrences over time (χ2 trend<0.001) while the rest had a downward trend. Other clinico-pathological factors were not associated with RFI. Majority (49/53) of the ER/PR positive BC patients had received hormone therapy and 179/188 BC patients had received chemotherapy.Conclusions: ER/PR positive BC patients develop late recurrences while hormone receptor negative patients develop early recurrences depicting late and early treatment failure in respective groups

Moment Closure - A Brief Review

Moment closure methods appear in myriad scientific disciplines in the modelling of complex systems. The goal is to achieve a closed form of a large, usually even infinite, set of coupled differential (or difference) equations. Each equation describes the evolution of one "moment", a suitable coarse-grained quantity computable from the full state space. If the system is too large for analytical and/or numerical methods, then one aims to reduce it by finding a moment closure relation expressing "higher-order moments" in terms of "lower-order moments". In this brief review, we focus on highlighting how moment closure methods occur in different contexts. We also conjecture via a geometric explanation why it has been difficult to rigorously justify many moment closure approximations although they work very well in practice.Comment: short survey paper (max 20 pages) for a broad audience in mathematics, physics, chemistry and quantitative biolog

Characterizing the multi-dimensional reaction dynamics of dihalomethanes using XUV-induced Coulomb explosion imaging

Site-selective probing of iodine 4d orbitals at 13.1 nm was used to characterize the photolysis of CH2I2 and CH2BrI initiated at 202.5 nm. Time-dependent fragment ion momenta were recorded using Coulomb explosion imaging mass spectrometry and used to determine the structural dynamics of the dissociating molecules. Correlations between these fragment momenta, as well as the onset times of electron transfer reactions between them, indicate that each molecule can undergo neutral three-body photolysis. For CH2I2, the structural evolution of the neutral molecule was simultaneously characterized along the C-I and I-C-I coordinates, demonstrating the sensitivity of these measurements to nuclear motion along multiple degrees of freedom

AN ASSESSMENT OF BIODIVERSITY IN THE REKAWA, USSANGODA AND KALAMETIYA INLAND COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS IN SOUTHERN SRI LANKA

The survey was carried out to document the status of inland biodiversity in the Rekawa,Ussangoda and Kalametiya area along the Southern coastal zone of Sri Lanka. Thesurvey extended from October 2002 - March 2003 (6 months). A reconnaissance surveyof the inland areas was conducted, prior to the regular field sampling, in order to selectrepresentative sampling sites within the Ruk area. Eight sites were selected for regularfield sampling at fortnightly intervals, and the plants and animals of the area weresurveyed in a scientific manner, using appropriate sampling techniques.The survey area harbours a variety of natural and man-made vegetationlhabitat types,including both terrestrial and wetland systems. A total of 287 plant species belonging to222 genera under 94 families were documented from the above inland vegetationlhabitattypes of the Ruk area. Several sub types of Mangroves, based mainly on floristics, couldbe found in the RUK area. These include the Lumnitzera dominated stands (Rekawa),Ceriops dominated stands (Rekawa), Avicennia dominated stands (Rekawa), Mixedstands (Rekawa, Kahanda), Excoecaria dominated stands (between Lunawa andKalametiya) and Sonneratia dominated stands (Kalametiya, Malpeththawa). It isinteresting to note that some mangrove stands are represented by only a single species.A total of 328 species of vertebrates were recorded from the RUK area, of which 14species (4%) are endemic, while 27 species (8%) are nationally threatened. Thevertebrates include 52 species of fish, 17 species of amphibians, 49 species of reptiles,184 species of birds, and 26 species of mammals. The invertebrates include 72 species ofcolorful butterflies, 25 spec.es of terrestrial molluscs an": 9 species of aquatic molluscs.Three beach stretches that are important turtle nesting sites, eleven birding hotspots andthree bird roosting sites were identified within the RUK area.The study area has been identified for major development initiatives, under the SouthernDevelopment Programme of the Government of Sri Lanka. Therefore, the relevantconservation agencies should take steps to ensure that, biodiversity conservation concernsare adequately addressed in specific developmental activities planned for the area.

The tourism and economic growth enigma: Examining an ambiguous relationship through multiple prisms

This paper revisits the ambiguous relationship between tourism and economic growth, providing a comprehensive study of destinations across the globe which takes into account the key dynamics that influence tourism and economic performance. We focus on 113 countries over the period 1995-2014, clustered, for the first time, around six criteria that reflect their economic, political and tourism dimensions. A Panel Vector Autoregressive model is employed which, in contrast to previous studies, allows the data to reveal any tourism-economy interdependencies across these clusters, without imposing a priori the direction of causality. Overall, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis seems to prevail in countries which are developing, non-democratic, highly bureaucratic and have low tourism specialization. Conversely, bidirectional relationships are established for economies which are stronger, democratic and with higher levels of government effectiveness. Thus, depending on the economic, political and tourism status of a destination, different policy implications apply

Genome of the Avirulent Human-Infective Trypanosome—Trypanosoma rangeli

Background: Trypanosoma rangeli is a hemoflagellate protozoan parasite infecting humans and other wild and domestic mammals across Central and South America. It does not cause human disease, but it can be mistaken for the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi. We have sequenced the T. rangeli genome to provide new tools for elucidating the distinct and intriguing biology of this species and the key pathways related to interaction with its arthropod and mammalian hosts.  Methodology/Principal Findings: The T. rangeli haploid genome is ,24 Mb in length, and is the smallest and least repetitive trypanosomatid genome sequenced thus far. This parasite genome has shorter subtelomeric sequences compared to those of T. cruzi and T. brucei; displays intraspecific karyotype variability and lacks minichromosomes. Of the predicted 7,613 protein coding sequences, functional annotations could be determined for 2,415, while 5,043 are hypothetical proteins, some with evidence of protein expression. 7,101 genes (93%) are shared with other trypanosomatids that infect humans. An ortholog of the dcl2 gene involved in the T. brucei RNAi pathway was found in T. rangeli, but the RNAi machinery is non-functional since the other genes in this pathway are pseudogenized. T. rangeli is highly susceptible to oxidative stress, a phenotype that may be explained by a smaller number of anti-oxidant defense enzymes and heatshock proteins.  Conclusions/Significance: Phylogenetic comparison of nuclear and mitochondrial genes indicates that T. rangeli and T. cruzi are equidistant from T. brucei. In addition to revealing new aspects of trypanosome co-evolution within the vertebrate and invertebrate hosts, comparative genomic analysis with pathogenic trypanosomatids provides valuable new information that can be further explored with the aim of developing better diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic targets