Search for excess showers from Crab Nebula

The arrival directions of muon poor showers registrated in the Tien Shan experiment during an effective running time about I,8.IO(4)h were analyzed. It is shown that there is a significant excess of these showers coming the direction of Crab Nebula

Reduction of sanitary indicator microorganisms in anaerobic digestion of poultry litter in combination with silages

ABSTRACT: In connection with experiments aimed at optimizing anaerobic digestion of organic fertilizers, microbiological tests were performed to assess the epizootiological safety of resulting finished product to fertilize the soil by quantities of sanitary indicator microorganisms. Mixtures of substrates were composed and tested in technological parameters established for other experiments: mesophilic temperature regime 33oC, dry matter content of 7%, residence time in the digester 15 days. The substrates tested were beetroot, sugar and salad beets, corn silage and leaves of Paulownia elongata, and silage combinations of these feeds in ratio 60:40 with mulch litter from broiler chickens. It was found that significant reduction of microorganisms was realized in the final products, which were assessed as safe for soil application. The ensiling of poultry litter in combinations of these feeds had the effect of reducing the amount of microorganisms in almost all examined groups therein. The most significant was the reduction in the quantity of sanitary revealing bacteria in the manure after its ensilage with autumn leaves of P. elongata and beetroot, and the least - with the participation of sugar beet. Microbial reduction was to the greatest extent in bioslime produced by anaerobic digestion of poultry litter ensiled with corn. Of the silages from different types of beets with poultry manure, during anaerobic digestion highest decontamination was achieved in this with sugar beets. After anaerobic degradation of the studied feed without poultry litter, at least microorganisms were found in bioslimes from the three types of beet, as well from the silage from P. elongata. РЕЗЮМЕ: Във връзка с експерименти, насочени към оптимизиране на анаеробното разграждане на органични торове, са извършени микробиологични изследвания за преценка на епизоотологичната безопасност на получените крайни продукти за наторяване на почви според количествата на санитарно индикаторните микроорганизми. Съставени са смеси от субстрати при установени при други експерименти технологични параметри: мезофилен температурен режим 33оС, съдържание на сухо вещество 7%, време на престой в биореактора 15 денонощия. Изпитани са захарно, кръмно и салатно цвекло, царевичен силаж и листа от Paulownia elongata, както и силажи от комбинации на тези фуражи в съотношение 60:40 с торова постеля от пилета-бройлери. Установено е, че се осъществява значително редуциране на микроорганизмите в крайните продукти, които се преценяват като безопасни за внасяне в почвите. В най-голяма степен микробната редукция е при биошлама, получен при анаеробното разграждане на комбинацията от торова постеля с царевичен силаж. От трите вида цвекло, силажирани с птичи тор, при анаеробно разграждане се постига най-висока деконтаминация с участие на захарното цвекло. При анаеробно разграждане на изследваните фуражи без птичи тор най-малко микроорганизми се установяват в биошламовете от трите вида цвекло, както и в силажа от P. elongata

Agroecologic valuation of organic waste in different technologies of storage

A study has been conducted, based on three types of fertilizers / cow, pig and bird manure/ and bioshlam /received from clearing station/ that have been storage in different technologies in order to make an agroecologic valuation. The different types of fertilizers and wastewater in different technologies of storage have been analyzed according to the following parameters: Dry matter (DM) ,Organic matter (OM), Organic Carbon (OC), Nitrogen Kjeldahl (N), Nitrogen Ammonium (N -ammonium), Nitrogen nitrate (N- nitrate), Sulfates (SO4) , Calcium Oxide (CaO), Magnesium Oxide (MgO), Patassium (K), P (Phosphorus), pH (H2O) and heavy metals – arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Mercury (Hg), Nickel (Ni), Lead (Pd), Zinc (Zn). The received results show: variation of the percentage of dry material /from 92,12% to 4,03%/ according to the technology of storage. The way of storage has no essential influence on the content of carbon in the various stable fertilizers, where pig manure has the highest value of nitrogen in all technologies of storage. Near to the recommendable optimal values of C:N is stayed/dry/ and fresh/hard/ in all three fertilizer types. The technology of storage by the different manure types has no influence on the content of heavy metal. Exception can be observed as far as the zinc content in stale /fluid/ pig manure is concerned. High content of dry material can be observed in bioshlam received from clearing station. In both ways of production of variation in the content of dry material the ratio between the biogenic macro elements C:N remains. The free nitrogen forms (N-ammonium and Nnitrate) in bioshlam are higher to other organic waste in both technologies of storage. No values over the critically admissible in bioshlam are observed in both technologies of production

The continuum of spreading depolarizations in acute cortical lesion development: Examining Leao's legacy.

A modern understanding of how cerebral cortical lesions develop after acute brain injury is based on Aristides Leao's historic discoveries of spreading depression and asphyxial/anoxic depolarization. Treated as separate entities for decades, we now appreciate that these events define a continuum of spreading mass depolarizations, a concept that is central to understanding their pathologic effects. Within minutes of acute severe ischemia, the onset of persistent depolarization triggers the breakdown of ion homeostasis and development of cytotoxic edema. These persistent changes are diagnosed as diffusion restriction in magnetic resonance imaging and define the ischemic core. In delayed lesion growth, transient spreading depolarizations arise spontaneously in the ischemic penumbra and induce further persistent depolarization and excitotoxic damage, progressively expanding the ischemic core. The causal role of these waves in lesion development has been proven by real-time monitoring of electrophysiology, blood flow, and cytotoxic edema. The spreading depolarization continuum further applies to other models of acute cortical lesions, suggesting that it is a universal principle of cortical lesion development. These pathophysiologic concepts establish a working hypothesis for translation to human disease, where complex patterns of depolarizations are observed in acute brain injury and appear to mediate and signal ongoing secondary damage

Gac two-component system in Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci is required for virulence but not for hypersensitive reaction

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci 6605 causes wildfire disease on host tobacco plants. To investigate the regulatory mechanism of the expression of virulence, Gac two-Component system-defective mutants, Delta gacA and Delta gacS, and a double mutant, Delta gacA Delta gacS, were generated. These mutants produced smaller amounts of N-acyl homoserine lactones required for quorum sensing, had lost swarming motility, and had reduced expression of virulence-related hrp genes and the algT gene required for exopolysaccharide production. The ability of the mutants to cause disease symptoms in their host tobacco plant was remarkably reduced, while they retained the ability to induce hypersensitive reaction (HR) in the nonhost plants. These results indicated that the Gac two-component system of P. syringae pv. tabaci 6605 is indispensable for virulence on the host plant, but not for HR induction in the nonhost plants.</p

Cognitive performance among carriers of pathogenic copy number variants: analysis of 152,000 UK Biobank subjects

Background The UK Biobank is a unique resource for biomedical research, with extensive phenotypic and genetic data on half a million adults from the general population. We aimed to examine the effect of neurodevelopmental copy number variants (CNVs) on the cognitive performance of participants. Methods We used Affymetrix Power Tools and PennCNV-Affy software to analyze Affymetrix microarrays of the first 152,728 genotyped individuals. We annotated a list of 93 CNVs and compared their frequencies with control datasets. We analyzed the performance on seven cognitive tests of carriers of 12 CNVs associated with schizophrenia (n = 1087) and of carriers of another 41 neurodevelopmental CNVs (n = 484). Results The frequencies of the 93 CNVs in the Biobank subjects were remarkably similar to those among 26,628 control subjects from other datasets. Carriers of schizophrenia-associated CNVs and of the group of 41 other neurodevelopmental CNVs had impaired performance on the cognitive tests, with nine of 14 comparisons remaining statistically significant after correction for multiple testing. They also had lower educational and occupational attainment (p values between 10−7 and 10−18). The deficits in cognitive performance were modest (Z score reductions between 0.01 and 0.51), compared with individuals with schizophrenia in the Biobank (Z score reductions between 0.35 and 0.90). Conclusions This is the largest study on the cognitive phenotypes of CNVs to date. Adult carriers of neurodevelopmental CNVs from the general population have significant cognitive deficits. The UK Biobank will allow unprecedented opportunities for analysis of further phenotypic consequences of CNVs

Use of the GATE Monte Carlo package for dosimetry applications

6 pages, 3 figures - submitted to NIM A, presented by D. VisvikisInternational audienceOne of the roles for MC simulation studies is in the area of dosimetry. A number of different codes dedicated to dosimetry applications are available and widely used today, such as MCNP, EGSnrc and PTRAN. However, such codes do not easily facilitate the description of complicated 3D sources or emission tomography systems and associated data flow, which may be useful in different dosimetry application domains. Such problems can be overcome by the use of specific MC codes such as GATE, which is based on Geant4 libraries, providing a scripting interface with a number of advantages for the simulation of SPECT and PET systems. Despite this potential, its major disadvantage is in terms of efficiency involving long execution times for applications such as dosimetry. The strong points and disadvantages of GATE in comparison to other dosimetry specific codes are discussed and illustrated in terms of accuracy, efficiency and flexibility. A number of features, such as the use of voxelised and moving sources, as well as developments such as advanced visualisation tools and the development of dose estimation maps allowing GATE to be used for dosimetry applications are presented. In addition, different examples from dosimetry applications with GATE are given. Finally, future directions with respect to the use of GATE for dosimetry applications are outlined

Genome-wide linkage analysis of 972 bipolar pedigrees using single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

Because of the high costs associated with ascertainment of families, most linkage studies of Bipolar I disorder (BPI) have used relatively small samples. Moreover, the genetic information content reported in most studies has been less than 0.6. Although microsatellite markers spaced every 10 cM typically extract most of the genetic information content for larger multiplex families, they can be less informative for smaller pedigrees especially for affected sib pair kindreds. For these reasons we collaborated to pool family resources and carried out higher density genotyping. Approximately 1100 pedigrees of European ancestry were initially selected for study and were genotyped by the Center for Inherited Disease Research using the Illumina Linkage Panel 12 set of 6090 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Of the ~1100 families, 972 were informative for further analyses, and mean information content was 0.86 after pruning for linkage disequilibrium. The 972 kindreds include 2284 cases of BPI disorder, 498 individuals with bipolar II disorder (BPII) and 702 subjects with recurrent major depression. Three affection status models (ASMs) were considered: ASM1 (BPI and schizoaffective disorder, BP cases (SABP) only), ASM2 (ASM1 cases plus BPII) and ASM3 (ASM2 cases plus recurrent major depression). Both parametric and non-parametric linkage methods were carried out. The strongest findings occurred at 6q21 (non-parametric pairs LOD 3.4 for rs1046943 at 119 cM) and 9q21 (non-parametric pairs logarithm of odds (LOD) 3.4 for rs722642 at 78 cM) using only BPI and schizoaffective (SA), BP cases. Both results met genome-wide significant criteria, although neither was significant after correction for multiple analyses. We also inspected parametric scores for the larger multiplex families to identify possible rare susceptibility loci. In this analysis, we observed 59 parametric LODs of 2 or greater, many of which are likely to be close to maximum possible scores. Although some linkage findings may be false positives, the results could help prioritize the search for rare variants using whole exome or genome sequencing

Schizophrenia copy number variants and associative learning

Large-scale genomic studies have made major progress in identifying genetic risk variants for schizophrenia. A key finding from these studies is that there is an increased burden of genomic copy number variants (CNVs) in schizophrenia cases compared with controls. The mechanism through which these CNVs confer risk for the symptoms of schizophrenia, however, remains unclear. One possibility is that schizophrenia risk CNVs impact basic associative learning processes, abnormalities of which have long been associated with the disorder. To investigate whether genes in schizophrenia CNVs impact on specific phases of associative learning we combined human genetics with experimental gene expression studies in animals. In a sample of 11 917 schizophrenia cases and 16 416 controls, we investigated whether CNVs from patients with schizophrenia are enriched for genes expressed during the consolidation, retrieval or extinction of associative memories. We show that CNVs from cases are enriched for genes expressed during fear extinction in the hippocampus, but not genes expressed following consolidation or retrieval. These results suggest that CNVs act to impair inhibitory learning in schizophrenia, potentially contributing to the development of core symptoms of the disorder