Testing antimatter gravity with muonium

The debate about how antimatter or different antimatter systems behave gravitationally will be ultimately decided by experiments measuring directly the acceleration of various antimatter probes in the gravitational field of the Earth or perhaps redshift effects in antimatter atoms caused by the annual variation of the Sun's gravitational potential at the location of the Earth. Muonium atoms may be used to probe the gravitational interaction of leptonic, second generation antimatter. We discuss the progress of our work towards enabling such experiments with muonium.Comment: 8 pages, presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Antimatter and Gravity (WAG 2013

Considerations about effective dissemination of improved fish strains

Aquaculture production systems in developing countries are largely based on the use of unimproved species and strains. As knowledge and experience are accumulated in relation to the management, feeding and animal health issues of such production systems, the availability of genetically more productive stock becomes imperative in order to more effectively use resources. For instance, there is little point in providing ideal water conditions and optimum feed quality to fish that do not have the potential to grow faster and to be harvested on time, providing a product of the desired quality. Refinements in the production system and improvement of the stock used must progress hand in hand. In this paper we deal separately with genetic and non-genetic issues pertaining to the multiplication and dissemination of improved strains. The separation is somewhat arbitrary, and as will be evident from our discussion, there is frequent interaction between the two

Strain comparisons in aquaculture species: a manual

When different strains or breeds of a particular species are available, the best choice is seldom immediately obvious for producers. Scientists are also interested in the relative performance of different strains because it provides a basis for recommendations to producers and it often stimulates the conduct of work aimed at unraveling the underlying biological mechanisms involved in the expression of such differences. Hence, strain or breed comparisons of some sort are frequently conducted. This manual is designed to provide general guidelines for the design of strain comparison trials in aquaculture species. Example analyzes are provided using SAS and SPSS. The manual is intended to serve a wide range of readers from developing countries with limited access to information. The users, however, are expected to have a basic knowledge of quantitative genetics and experience in statistical methods and data analysis as well as familiarity with computer software. The manual mainly focuses on the practical aspects of design and data analysis, and interpretation of results

Impact Of Lean Manufacturing Practices On Job Satisfaction Among Employees In Lean Manufacturing Companies; Moderated By Lean Culture And Mediated By Job Characteristics

Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk menyiasat kesan amalan pembuatan lean terhadap kepuasan kerja di kalangan kakitangan syarikat-syarikat pembuatan lean, ditapis oleh budaya lean dan berperantaraan dengan ciri kerja. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of lean manufacturing practices on job satisfaction among employees in lean manufacturing companies, moderated by lean culture and mediated by job characteristics

Segmentation Of Region Of Interest And Extraction Of Significant Features For Hep-2 Images

Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) images are important in detecting the antinuclear autoantibody (ANA) in diagnosis of autoimmune disease in human body. Generally, HEp-2 cells can be classified into six main patterns, namely Centromere, Nucleolar, Homogeneous, Cytoplasmic, Fine Speckled and Coarse Speckled. However, in current technology, HEp-2 images can only be analysed manually by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) test. The result of IIF test has very high variability and very dependent on the experience of physicists. Therefore, digitalize the IIF test becomes the new interest to researchers as well as in this research, where segmentation and features extraction of HEp-2 images will be focused. In segmentation of HEp-2 images, the current state-of-the-art techniques failed to provide a satisfied segmented result. Therefore, a combination of two conventional methods (i.e. Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering and thresholding) has been proposed in this study. From the result, the segmented images are smoother, more consistent and with lesser noises compared to other state-of-the-art methods. In feature extraction stage, this study proposes to extract five features, which are Contrast, Energy, Correlation, Homogeneity, and Entropy. Based on the results obtained, the five proposed features can successfully differentiate the staining patterns of HEp-2 cells. In short, the proposed methods in this research have high capability to be introduced in hospital for detection of HEp-2 images for xix autoimmune disease. The proposed method has been proven with higher accuracy which can reduce the shortcoming of the existing IIF test

Saccharification Of Palm Oil Mill Effluent Solid And Oil Palm Fruit Fiber To Fermentable Sugars For Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol Fermentation

The effect of chemical pretreatments on saccharification of palm oil mill effluent (POME) solid and 'oil palm fruit fiber (OPFF) was investigated. Among the chemical pretreatments applied to the substrate (NaOH 0.5%, Nth 0.5%, HCI 0.5%, HN03 0.5% and EDTA 0.5%), the OPFF treated with 0.5% NaOH gave the highest production of fermentable sugars. However, the saccharification performance for chemically treated POME solid was not significantly different as compared to untreated POME solid. The used of autoclaved OPFF at 121 oC, 15 psi with NaOH for 5 minute, increased the degree of hydrolysis up to 46% as compared to untreated OPFF. The optimum concentration of NaOH for the treatment of OPFF was 2%. The improvement in hydrolysis of OPFF was related to an increase of cellulose content, and a decrease in hemicellulose and lignin content

Development of a Diagnostic Oligonucleotide DNA Probe for the Rapid Detection of Vibrio Cholerae O139

Vibrio cholerae O139 Bengal emerged as the second etiologic agent of cholera in the Indian subcontinent in late 1992, it then spread to several neighboring countries and also some developed countries. V. cholerae O139 Bengal is closely related to V. cholerae O1 E1 Tor strains associated with the seventh pandemic, and it causes a disease which is virtually indistinguishable from cholera caused by V. cholerae O1. V. cholerae O139 Bengal and V. cholerae O1 E1 Tor share several phenotypic and genotypic properties. However, all the genes of the rfb complex which encode the O antigen in V. cholerae 01 El Tor have been found deleted in V. cholerae O139. In their place, there is a new chromosomal region detected. Based on a published sequence, six set of V. cholerae O139 primers have been designed. Primer combination Sl -AS2 (5'-AGATGCCGAAGACTATAA-3' and 5'-GAGGAATAACAACTGAGA-3') was found to be specific for detection of V. cholerae O139 in a polymerase chain reaction (peR) assay, as they produced an amplicon of 520 bp from all tested pure cultures of V. cholerae O139 strains but not from 39 pure cultures of other bacteria. The newly designed primer combination has been used to develop a, diagnotic kit for the identification of V. cholerae O139 in our laboratory

The effects of growth factors and antiproliferative agents on ocular fibroblasts and wound healing after glaucoma filtration surgery

Glaucoma (visual damage associated with raised intraocular pressure) is a major cause of worldwide blindness. The most effective treatment for glaucoma is filtration surgery, but the major cause of failure and suboptimal lowering of the intraocular pressure is scarring at the site of the surgery. In this thesis, I investigated the role of stimulatory molecules found in aqueous humour, and the effects of antiproliferative agents on ocular fibroblasts. Fibronectin levels were found to be significantly raised in the aqueous of patients with glaucoma, but the chemoattractant activity of the aqueous was not. All growth factors tested stimulated proliferation, migration and collagen production, but transforming growth factor-β1 stimulated proliferation, migration and proline uptake at much lower concentrations than the other growth factors (epidermal, basic fibroblast and insulin-like growth factor-1). Following treatments with antiproliferative agents ocular fibroblasts could be growth arrested for periods much longer than previously thought, suggesting that single short treatments with these agents would inhibit fibroblast proliferation in the long term. The animal model results confirmed the in vitro findings with 5 minute applications of antiproliferative agents. Long term titratable effects on wound healing were shown in an experimental model of wound healing after glaucoma filtration surgery. The effects were focal and confined to the treated areas. Cells growth arrested by treatment could still be stimulated to increase RNA levels after stimulation with TGF-β1. The experiments in this thesis have shown that growth factors present in the aqueous can have profound effects on the proliferation, migration and collagen production of ocular fibroblasts. In addition, the studies have led to a new understanding of the long term effects of short exposures to antiproliferative agents in vitro and in vivo, particularly that long term growth arrest can be induced and this effect can be localised, and can be varied to some degree. Finally, fibroblasts can still respond to growth factors despite being growth arrested