Faune corallienne d'âge Cénomanien inférieur de Nea Nikopoli (Kozani, Grèce ; Crétacé)

A Lower Cenomanian marine succession rich in corals is reported from the western margin of the Pelagonian zone in central Greece. The succession starts with a coarse conglomerate followed by sandstone, nodular limestone and massive limestone. Fifteen levels contain corals with the nodular limestone being the most species-rich. As a total, 78 species in 46 genera are described. They belong to 15 superfamilies. Three genera and four species are described as new. The new genera belong to the families Heterocoeniidae and Felixaraeidae, and the informal Plesiosmiliids. The record of six genera results in stratigraphical range extensions. The coral associations show more relationships to Lower than to Upper Cretaceous faunas. Thirty-nine genera already existed before the Cenomanian and 33 genera continued into the Middle Cenomanian, but only 19 genera persisted into the Turonian. The coral fauna has close palaeobiogeographic relationships with mainly Boreal or North Tethyan Cenomanian faunas such as those of the Aquitanian Basin, the Basque-Cantabrian Basin, or with faunas from the northern margin of the Rhenish Massif, but shares also species with the Upper Aptian to Lower Albian of the Bisbee Basin in North America and with faunas of the Lower to Middle Albian of the Northern Pyrenees.Une série marine riche en coraux d'âge Cénomanien inférieur est signalée sur la marge occidentale de la zone pélagonienne en Grèce centrale. La série débute par un conglomérat grossier suivi d'un grès, d'un calcaire noduleux et d'un calcaire massif. Quinze niveaux renferment des coraux, le calcaire noduleux étant le plus riche en espèces. En tout 78 espèces réparties en 46 genres et 15 superfamilles sont décrites. Trois genres et quatre espèces sont nouveaux. Les nouveaux genres appartiennent à la famille des Heterocoeniidae et à celle des Felixaraeidae, ainsi qu'à celle informelle des Plésiosmiliidés. Les assemblages de coraux montrent plus de relations avec des faunes du Crétacé inférieur qu'avec celles du Crétacé supérieur. 39 genres existaient déjà avant le Cénomanien et 33 se sont prolongés dans le Cénomanien moyen, mais seulement 19 ont persisté jusque dans le Turonien. La faune corallienne montre des relations paléobiogéographiques étroites avec principalement des faunes du Cénomanien boréal ou nord-téthysien comme celles du Bassin d'Aquitaine, du Bassin Basco-Cantabrique, ou avec des faunes de la marge nord du Massif rhénan, mais elle partage aussi des espèces avec l'Aptien supérieur ou l'Albien inférieur du Bassin de Bisbee en Amérique du Nord ainsi qu'avec des faunes de l'Albien inférieur à moyen des Pyrénées septentrionales

Mining for Social Serendipity

A common social problem at an event in which people do not personally know all of the other participants is the natural tendency for cliques to form and for discussions to mainly happen between people who already know each other. This limits the possibility for people to make interesting new acquaintances and acts as a retarding force in the creation of new links in the social web. Encouraging users to socialize with people they don't know by revealing to them hidden surprising links could help to improve the diversity of interactions at an event. The goal of this paper is to propose a method for detecting "surprising" relationships between people attending an event. By "surprising" relationship we mean those relationships that are not known a priori, and that imply shared information not directly related with the local context of the event (location, interests, contacts) at which the meeting takes place. To demonstrate and test our concept we used the Flickr community. We focused on a community of users associated with a social event (a computer science conference) and represented in Flickr by means of a photo pool devoted to the event. We use Flickr metadata (tags) to mine for user similarity not related to the context of the event, as represented in the corresponding Flickr group. For example, we look for two group members who have been in the same highly specific place (identified by means of geo-tagged photos), but are not friends of each other and share no other common interests or, social neighborhood

ESPEN guideline on clinical nutrition in acute and chronic pancreatitis

Both acute and chronic pancreatitis are frequent diseases of the pancreas, which, despite being of benign nature, are related to a significant risk of malnutrition and may require nutritional support. Acute necrotizing pancreatitis is encountered in 20% of patients with acute pancreatitis, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, and may require artificial nutrition by enteral or parenteral route, as well as additional endoscopic, radiological or surgical interventions. Chronic pancreatitis represents a chronic inflammation of the pancreatic gland with development of fibrosis. Abdominal pain leading to decreased oral intake, as well as exocrine and endocrine failure are frequent complications of the disease. All of the above represent risk factors related to malnutrition. Therefore, patients with chronic pancreatitis should be considered at risk, screened and supplemented accordingly. Moreover, osteoporosis and increased facture risk should be acknowledged in patients with chronic pancreatitis, and preventive measures should be considered

PI(18:1/18:1) is a SCD1-derived lipokine that limits stress signaling

Cytotoxic stress activates stress-activated kinases, initiates adaptive mechanisms, including the unfolded protein response (UPR) and autophagy, and induces programmed cell death. Fatty acid unsaturation, controlled by stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD)1, prevents cytotoxic stress but the mechanisms are diffuse. Here, we show that 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1’-myo-inositol) [PI(18:1/18:1)] is a SCD1-derived signaling lipid, which inhibits p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase activation, counteracts UPR, endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation, and apoptosis, regulates autophagy, and maintains cell morphology and proliferation. SCD1 expression and the cellular PI(18:1/18:1) proportion decrease during the onset of cell death, thereby repressing protein phosphatase 2 A and enhancing stress signaling. This counter-regulation applies to mechanistically diverse death-inducing conditions and is found in multiple human and mouse cell lines and tissues of Scd1-defective mice. PI(18:1/18:1) ratios reflect stress tolerance in tumorigenesis, chemoresistance, infection, high-fat diet, and immune aging. Together, PI(18:1/18:1) is a lipokine that links fatty acid unsaturation with stress responses, and its depletion evokes stress signaling

Efficient laser-driven proton acceleration from cylindrical and planar cryogenic hydrogen jets

We report on recent experimental results deploying a continuous cryogenic hydrogen jet as a debris-free, renewable laser-driven source of pure proton beams generated at the 150 TW ultrashort pulse laser Draco. Efficient proton acceleration reaching cut-off energies of up to 20 MeV with particle numbers exceeding 109 particles per MeV per steradian is demonstrated, showing for the first time that the acceleration performance is comparable to solid foil targets with thicknesses in the micrometer range. Two different target geometries are presented and their proton beam deliverance characterized: cylindrical (∅ 5 μm) and planar (20 μm × 2 μm). In both cases typical Target Normal Sheath Acceleration emission patterns with exponential proton energy spectra are detected. Significantly higher proton numbers in laser-forward direction are observed when deploying the planar jet as compared to the cylindrical jet case. This is confirmed by two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell (2D3V PIC) simulations, which demonstrate that the planar jet proves favorable as its geometry leads to more optimized acceleration conditions

Effect of additives on the structure of SiO2 sol-gel spray coatings

SiO2 coatings were prepared from alkoxide sols by means of spray coating. Coatings prepared from sols solely containing ethanol as solvent showed heterogeneous structures. This is supposedly due to solvent evaporation during spray coating. When reaching the substrate, the droplets possess too high viscosity to enable them to disperse on the substrate. However, when additives, such as 1.3-butanediol, ethylene glycol or glycerol, with high boiling temperatures were used, smooth coatings exhibiting small surface roughness were obtained. It is shown that best results were obtained when 1.3-butanediol was used. With increasing additive concentration, the surface roughness decreased

Titania, antimony-doped tin oxide and tin-doped indium oxide sol-gel spray coatings

TiO2, antimony-doped dn oxide and tin-doped indium oxide coatings were prepared from sols using a spray coating procedure. Coatings prepared from ethanolic sols exhibited high surface roughness. Adding butanediole to the sols, however, resulted in smooth layers. Supposedly, butanediole prevents the evaporation of high quantities of ethanol from the surface of the droplets initially formed during spraying. The electrical conductivity of the layers formed is in the same range as those of dip coatings