Age, growth, and mortality of Bogue (<em>Boops boops</em>, Linnaeus, 1758) from the Antalya Bay (Northwest Mediterranean Sea, Türkiye)

Bogue (Boops boops, Linnaeus, 1758) that was gathered in Antalya Bay had their ages, growth rates, and mortality examined. Using the von Bertalanffy equation, Lt = 37.50 (1 - e-0.15(t + 1.32)) (R2 = 0.988), growth in length was expressed for the entire sample without revealing any disparities between the sexes. The values of the allometric coefficient (b) of the length-weight relationships specify negative allometric growth (b &lt; 3) in females, males, and overall sexes. Total and natural mortality were found to be Z= 1.12 y-1, and M= 0.36 y-1. The exploitation ratio E = 0.68 indicated that the population was overexploited

A hybrid representation for modeling, interactive editing, and real-time visualization of terrains with volumetric features

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Terrain rendering is a crucial part of many real-time applications. The easiest way to process and visualize terrain data in real time is to constrain the terrain model in several ways. This decreases the amount of data to be processed and the amount of processing power needed, but at the cost of expressivity and the ability to create complex terrains. The most popular terrain representation is a regular 2D grid, where the vertices are displaced in a third dimension by a displacement map, called a heightmap. This is the simplest way to represent terrain, and although it allows fast processing, it cannot model terrains with volumetric features. Volumetric approaches sample the 3D space by subdividing it into a 3D grid and represent the terrain as occupied voxels. They can represent volumetric features but they require computationally intensive algorithms for rendering, and their memory requirements are high. We propose a novel representation that combines the voxel and heightmap approaches, and is expressive enough to allow creating terrains with caves, overhangs, cliffs, and arches, and efficient enough to allow terrain editing, deformations, and rendering in real time

Assessment of the Extracts of Centaurea tchihatcheffii Fischer for Anti-inflammatory and Analgesic Activities in Animal Models

Purpose: To evaluate the ethanol extracts of the flowers, leaves, and stems of Centaurea tchihatcheffii Fischer & C.A. Meyer (Asteraceae) for their anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities in male Swissalbino mice.Methods: For the evaluation of anti-inflammatory activity, hind paw oedema was induced in the mice with carrageenan and prostaglandin-E2 (PGE2 ) and the mice received either 100 and 200 mg/kg bodyweight doses of the flower extract or 200 mg/kg body weight dose of the leaf and stem extracts. Furthermore, ear oedema was induced in other groups of mice with 12-O-tetradecanoyl-13-acetate (TPA) and then administered with 0.5 mg/ear dose of the extract of either of the three plant parts. In order to evaluate analgesic activity, p-benzoquinone-induced abdominal constriction test was used with 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight doses of the flower or 200mg/kg body weight dose of the leaf and stem extracts administered. Indomethacin and acetylsalicylic acid were the reference drugs for antiinflamatory and analgesic evaluations, respectively. Phytochemical screening of the flower extract wascarried out by thin layer chromatography (TLC).Results: The results of evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activities induced by carrageenan and PGE2 showed that the flower extract diminished cyclo-oxygenase activitiy at the 200 mg/kg dose to the samelevel as the reference drug, indomethacin. However, no anti-inflamatory activity was seen in the TPAinduced ear oedema model. The extracts from all three parts of the plant showed analgesia in pbenzoquinone-induced abdominal constriction test. TLC analysis of the flower extract indicated the presence of sesquiterpen lactones, which may have been responsible for the analgesic activity.Conclusion: Our results support the use of C. tchihatcheffii in traditional medicine in Turkey for their anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties

Particle-based simulation of the interaction between fluid and knitwear

We present a particle-based method to simulate and visualize the interaction of knitwear with fluids. The knitwear is modeled using spring-mass systems and the fluid is modeled using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method. Two-way coupling is achieved by considering surface tension, capillary, and interparticle forces between the fluid and knitwear. The simulation of fluid and knitwear particles is performed on the graphics processing unit. Photorealistic rendering of knitwear and fluid is achieved by using a hardware-accelerated rasterization-based rendering technique. Our method is able to simulate and visualize the macro- and microstructure of free-form knitwear and reflective and refractive characteristics of the fluid surface. © 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited

Saliency for animated meshes with material properties

We propose a technique to calculate the saliency of animated meshes with material properties. The saliency computation considers multiple features of 3D meshes including their geometry, material and motion. Each feature contributes to the final saliency map which is view independent; and therefore, can be used for view dependent and view independent applications. To verify our saliency calculations, we performed an experiment in which we use an eye tracker to compare the saliencies of the regions that the viewers look with the other regions of the models. The results confirm that our saliency computation gives promising results. We also present several applications in which the saliency information is used. © 2010 ACM

Screening of medicinal plant extracts as novel DNA gyrase inhibitors

Bioactivities of a number of medicinal plants; Alkanna tinctoria (L.) Tausch, Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn., Calamintha nepeta Willk. and C. nepeta, Centaurea iberica Trevir. ex Spreng., Citrus paradisi Macfad., C. paradisi, Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck, Colutea cilicica Boiss. &amp; Balansa, Cotinus coggygria Scop., Cuscuta arvensis Beyr. ex Engelm., Equisetum palustre L., Lapsana communis L., Laurus nobilis L., Olea europea L., Plantago major L., Rhus coriaria L, Salvia verticillata L., Sambucus ebulus L., Sedum acre L, Thymus capitatus (L.) Hoffmanns. &amp; Link, T. capitatus, Thymbra spicata L., T. spicata (n: 20), which are used for the prevention and treatment of diverse diseases, were investigated. The antimicrobial activities of extracts were evaluated using broth microdilution assay. The cytotoxicities of extracts were investigated on HeLa cell line by MTT assay. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism (5.0). The effects of the extracts, which have the highest antimicrobial activity, on the Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus DNA gyrase gene expression were determined by using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The MICs (µg/ml) of extracts were determined as 32-64, 2-128, 8-128,1-128, 4-128 against Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria, yeasts, dermatophytes, and Mycobacterium spp., respectively. No cytotoxicity has been observed in plant extracts tested. DNA gyrase activity was determined for T. capitatus-SFE (128 µg/mL) and L. nobilis-Hx (128 µg/mL) extracts according to the inhibition of DNA gyrase gene expression. Overall, T. capitatus-SFE and L. nobilis-Hx are good candidates for further antimicrobial studies.

Increased accuracy in climate impact studies by incorporating forest management practices within a process-based regional ecosystem modelling framework

Process-based simulation models of terrestrial ecosystem dynamics are increasingly being applied as practical tools in forest management. Regional applications of such models are, however, very limited to date. This study presents and tests the performance of a process-based regional ecosystem modelling framework, LPJ-GUESS, which incorporates forest management practices. The model is driven by historical climate data and applied on a grid across Sweden to simulate the influence of recent historical management practices on the forest structure and its productivity. The study focuses on species-level interactions and investigates how stem wood volume increment has changed during the historical time period. The performance of the model is evaluated by comparing the simulated forest composition and growth with the observed forest inventory data from Swedish forest regions. The model estimates tend to be somewhat low in the southern and high in the northern part of the country, but generally comparable with observations in all regions of Sweden. Our results emphasize the potential that models like LPJ-GUESS offers to support forestry practice, especially with regard to the choice of species and management regime in a changing environment

Family Unification in Five and Six Dimensions

In family unification models, all three families of quarks and leptons are grouped together into an irreducible representation of a simple gauge group, thus unifying the Standard Model gauge symmetries and a gauged family symmetry. Large orthogonal groups, and the exceptional groups $E_7$ and $E_8$ have been much studied for family unification. The main theoretical difficulty of family unification is the existence of mirror families at the weak scale. It is shown here that family unification without mirror families can be realized in simple five-dimensional and six-dimensional orbifold models similar to those recently proposed for SU(5) and SO(10) grand unification. It is noted that a family unification group that survived to near the weak scale and whose coupling extrapolated to high scales unified with those of the Standard model would be evidence accessible in principle at low energy of the existence of small (Planckian or GUT-scale) extra dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, minor corrections, references adde

Coming from behind to win - A Qualitative research about psychological conditions of adolescents who have undergone open-heart surgery for single ventricle between the ages 0-5

Early recognition of congenital cardiac pathologies and their treatment by means of palliative or corrective surgery at birth or infancy has vital importance. Successful repair of congenital cardiac defects by surgical methods has gained importance especially during the last twenty years. As the scope of the surveillance increased so did the interest in the outcomes of these treatments when the patients had reached puberty and adulthood. The purpose of our research was to study the psychological framework of the adolescents who had experienced these surgeries by listening both the children and the parents talk about their feelings and experiences. Our data was accumulated through interviews with 17 adolescents and their families, using qualitative methods. The main theme at the end of the analysis was "to be strong and resistive". We reached the conclusion that this condition was not a pathological build up but an attitude of coping, as it did not cause loss of functionality. The defensive psychological mechanisms used by these adolescents consisted of repression, compensation and reaction formation. We believe that this information is important to understand the real meaning of the manners displayed when these adolescents and their families pursue their daily lives, communicate and make relationships with their environment and especially professionals in the health services