Assessment of 137Cs in the Environment of Hetauda City, Nepal by In-Situ Gamma Ray Spectrometry

A significant amount of 137Cs radioactive fallout have been spread in the atmosphere due to nuclear weapon testing and nuclear reactor disasters. This fallout eventually settles on the Earth's surface, and because 137Cs has a long half-life, it remains in the environment for an extended period. Mapping the distribution of 137Cs is crucial, and this study aims to assess the radioactive deposition of 137Cs in the ground to establish baseline data for its distribution in the environment of Hetauda City, Nepal. Recently, Hetauda City has been designated as the capital city of the Bagmati province. To measure 137Cs deposition, portable (backpack) gamma ray spectrometer was used with a 0.347-liter NaI(Tl) detector.  Rapid measurement was carried out while walking at a pace of less than 2 km/h, and the distance between the detector and the ground was maintained at less than 1 m with the detector pointing downward. The surface activity of 137Cs was measured in the range of 0.003 to 2.382 kBq/m2, with an average value of 0.581 ± 0.343 kBq/m2. The spatial variability of 137Cs was found to be smooth in the area, and the mean annual effective dose calculated was 0.379 ± 0.224 µSv. The low dose rates and smooth spatial distribution of 137Cs in the environment indicate no contamination, and the trace amount present could be due to global fallout from weapons testing and nuclear accidents. The results were compared with previously reported values worldwide

Dataset from: Lapses in perceptual decisions reflect exploration.

Perceptual decision-makers often display a constant rate of errors independent of evidence strength. These “lapses” are treated as a nuisance arising from noise tangential to the decision, e.g. inattention or motor errors. Here, we use a multisensory decision task in rats to demonstrate that these explanations cannot account for lapses’ stimulus dependence. We propose a novel explanation: lapses reflect a strategic trade-off between exploiting known rewarding actions and exploring uncertain ones. We tested the model’s predictions by selectively manipulating one action’s reward magnitude or probability. As uniquely predicted by this model, changes were restricted to lapses associated with that action. Finally, we show that lapses are a powerful tool for assigning decision-related computations to neural structures based on disruption experiments (here, posterior striatum and secondary motor cortex). These results suggest that lapses reflect an integral component of decision-making and are informative about action values in normal and disrupted brain states

CRISPR-Cas9 Editing of Nitrate Transporter Gene, um03849, in Ustilago maydis

Ustilago maydis, the basidiomycete smut-fungus, can infect and cause tumors in corn plants. For this, mating between compatible haploid cells is important. The mating and subsequent dimorphic transition in U. maydis require starvation for nutrients such as nitrogen, in addition to pheromone-receptor interactions between compatible partners. In this research, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique was used to create INDEL mutations (sequence insertion or deletion) in the nitrate transporter gene, um03849, in U. maydis. The gene was edited in mating compatible haploid strains 1/2 and 2/9. The phenotypes were characterized for the um03849 mutants as to growth ability, mating efficiency and pathogenesis. DNA sequence analysis confirmed isolates with 3 bp-deletion, 19 bp-deletion and 2 bp-substitution in the 1/2 mating strain, while a 3 bp-deletion and a 66 bp-insertion were found in independent isolates of the 2/9 strain. The matting assay results showed that any forms of mutation in um03849 in U. maydis didn’t affect mating with its compatible partner, as assessed by “fuzz” on charcoal media. However, the growth of mutated 1/2 strains was affected when grown in a medium with nitrate or nitrite as a source of nitrogen. With respect to host plant pathogenesis, the 1/2 strain with 2 bp substitution crossed with 2/9 WT strain showed dramatically reduced infection. Base substitution in the 1/2 strain resulted in arginine being substituted for lysine. Thus, this study suggests that the nitrate transporter affects the growth and pathogenesis of U. maydis on its host plant in a manner dependent on the 1/2 background.https://ir.library.louisville.edu/uars/1006/thumbnail.jp

Projecting Nepal's Demographic Future- How to deal with spatial and demographic heterogeneity

This Working Paper outlines the efforts of the cooperation between researchers at IIASA’s World Population Program and the Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal to conduct small-area population projections on Village Development Committee and Municipality levels for Nepal from 2011 to 2031. In order to fulfil this aim it was necessary to compile, harmonize and estimate small-area population data based on the latest census and survey data. Due to the lack of comprehensive fine-grained data on the demographic determinants fertility, mortality, and migration we estimate those with different methodological approaches like the Child-Women-Ratio or mortality corrections. In recent time, internal and international migration has become the most common of the three demographic components; therefore, most efforts went into estimating the rates of migration flows to and from several directions. The creation of this small-area fertility, mortality and migration data by age and sex enables us to apply the well-known cohort component method in a multi-state framework (each district as a state) and to create reasonable scenarios on the prospective population development for Nepal on regional and local level. This will help national, regional and local actors and policymakers to set appropriate measures to steer and adapt to the future characteristics of the Nepalese society on all administrative levels

The dissimilar chemical composition of the planet-hosting stars of the XO-2 binary system

Using high-quality spectra of the twin stars in the XO-2 binary system, we have detected significant differences in the chemical composition of their photospheres. The differences correlate strongly with the elements' dust condensation temperature. In XO-2N, volatiles are enhanced by about 0.015 dex and refractories are overabundant by up to 0.090 dex. On average, our error bar in relative abundance is 0.012 dex. We present an early metal-depletion scenario in which the formation of the gas giant planets known to exist around these stars is responsible for a 0.015 dex offset in the abundances of all elements while 20 M_Earth of non-detected rocky objects that formed around XO-2S explain the additional refractory-element difference. An alternative explanation involves the late accretion of at least 20 M_Earth of planet-like material by XO-2N, allegedly as a result of the migration of the hot Jupiter detected around that star. Dust cleansing by a nearby hot star as well as age or Galactic birthplace effects can be ruled out as valid explanations for this phenomenon.Comment: ApJ, in press. Complete linelist (Table 3) available in the "Other formats -> Source" downloa

1st International Conference on Bioresource Technology for Bioenergy, Bioproducts & Environmental Sustainability (BIORESTEC)

With growing global interest in bioenergy, biobased product and environmental sustainability, the first International Conference on Bioresource Technology for Bioenergy, Bioproducts & Environmental Sustainability (BIORESTEC) was organized from October 2326, 2016 in Sitges, Barcelona in Spain. The conference was organized in association with Elseviers premier journal Bioresource Technology (BITE), with an aim to provide a shared forum for researchers, academicians, industries, and policymakers, to discuss the current state-of-the-art and the emerging trends in biotechnology, bioenergy, and biobased products. The 1st BIORESTEC conference received tremendous response from all over the globe with 754 abstracts submitted. The scientific committee consisted of 13 eminent scientists from 11 countries. The committee then screened and selected 54 abstracts for oral and 166 abtsracts for poster presentations. Besides, there were 19 invited speakers from 14 countries. Apart from the scientific presentations, a workshop on How to write a scientific paper and get published was also organized for early career researchers by Elsevier. This special issue of the journal contain 29 papers (all presented at the BIORESTEC conference) after peer-review process. These papers broadly cover areas such as biomass pretreatment, algal and lignocellulose biorefinery, biological waste treatment, white biotechnology and biomass policies, LCA and techno-economics and classified as below.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ultrasonication of Sugary -2 Corn for Enhanced Enzymatic Hydrolysis

This study investigates the potential application of high powered ultrasonics as a liquefaction pretreatment of sugary-2 corn slurry. Ground sugary-2 corn ( Zea Mays L. ) slurry was treated with ultrasonics at 20kHz and amplitudes of 192-320 µ m pp (peak-to-peak) for 5, 10, 15, 20 and 40 seconds. After sonication, enzymes (Stargen TM 001) were added to the samples to hydrolyze the starch into fermentable sugars. It was found that the reducing sugar released in the treated samples were 6-fold higher than in the non-treated samples. Scanning electron microscopy images revealed that the sugary starch was partially gelatinized during sonication. This observation was confirmed by polarized-light microscopic images, where deformed “Maltese crosses” were found. The swelling rate of sonicated samples was nearly 66 times higher than when applying conventional heating. This result confirms better gelatinization capability of ultrasonics compared to conventional heating. The maximum relative net energy gain (additional chemically released energy) of the sonicated samples was at 5s of sonication time with a power setting between 248-330W. The findings in this study indicated ultrasonics as a promising pretreatment step in sugary-2 corn hydrolysis

EchoFusion: Tracking and Reconstruction of Objects in 4D Freehand Ultrasound Imaging without External Trackers

Ultrasound (US) is the most widely used fetal imaging technique. However, US images have limited capture range, and suffer from view dependent artefacts such as acoustic shadows. Compounding of overlapping 3D US acquisitions into a high-resolution volume can extend the field of view and remove image artefacts, which is useful for retrospective analysis including population based studies. However, such volume reconstructions require information about relative transformations between probe positions from which the individual volumes were acquired. In prenatal US scans, the fetus can move independently from the mother, making external trackers such as electromagnetic or optical tracking unable to track the motion between probe position and the moving fetus. We provide a novel methodology for image-based tracking and volume reconstruction by combining recent advances in deep learning and simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM). Tracking semantics are established through the use of a Residual 3D U-Net and the output is fed to the SLAM algorithm. As a proof of concept, experiments are conducted on US volumes taken from a whole body fetal phantom, and from the heads of real fetuses. For the fetal head segmentation, we also introduce a novel weak annotation approach to minimise the required manual effort for ground truth annotation. We evaluate our method qualitatively, and quantitatively with respect to tissue discrimination accuracy and tracking robustness.Comment: MICCAI Workshop on Perinatal, Preterm and Paediatric Image analysis (PIPPI), 201