Total Lipid and Fatty Acid Composition in Male and Female Larvae of Indian-Meal Moth and Almond Moth (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

The total body lipid and fatty acid composition of last instar larvae of the Indian-meal moth, Plodia interpunctella, and almond moth, Cadra cautella, reared on a turkey mash diet was determined. Male P. interpunctella larvae contained significantly higher (lA-fold) total body lipid than females, while no differences between the sexes of C. cautella larvae were observed. The relative abundance of the fatty acids palmitate, palmitoleate, stearate, oleate, lineoleate, and linolenate was similar in both sexes of P. interpunctella and C. cautella. The accumulation of individual fatty acids in larvae of both the moth species did not correspond to levels of fatty acids in the diet. The accumulation of palmitate, palmitoleate, and oleate in moth larvae of both the species was greater than linoleate and linolenate, suggesting a sparing effect by the former on the latter, more unsaturated fatty acids

Influence of Active Tuberculosis on Chemokine and Chemokine Receptor Expression in HIV-Infected Persons

Tuberculosis (TB) is the major opportunistic infection of HIV-1-infected patients in developing countries. Concurrent infection with TB results in immune cells having enhanced susceptibility to HIV-1 infection, which facilitates entry and replication of the virus. Cumulative data from earlier studies indicate that TB provides a milieu of continuous cellular activation and irregularities in cytokine and chemokine circuits that favor viral replication and disease progression. To better understand the interaction of the host with HIV-1 during active tuberculosis, we investigated in vivo expression of the HIV-1 coreceptors, CCR5 and CXCR4, and circulating levels of the inhibitory �-chemokines, macrophage inflammatory protein-1-� (MIP-1�), macrophage inflammatory protein-1-� (MIP-1�), and regulated upon activation T cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), in HIV-positive individuals with and without active pulmonary tuberculosis. We found a significant decrease from normal in the fraction of CD4� T cells expressing CCR5 and CXCR4 in individuals infected with HIV. However, CCR5 and CXCR4 expression did not differ significantly between HIV patients with and without tuberculosis. Higher amounts of MIP-1�, MIP-1�, and RANTES were detected in plasma of HIV-1-positive individuals, particularly those with dual infection, although the increase was not found to be statistically significant

A contribution to the floral anatomy of Nepenthes khasiana Hook F.

Two kinds of multicellular trichomes, glandular and non-glandular, occur on the abaxial side of the perianth lobes, androphore and ovary wall; sunken multicellular glands are generally present on the adaxial surface of the perianth lobes. The development of these trichomes and glands shows that they are epidermal in origin. The flowers are uni-sexual. The perianth is tetramerous and each perianth lobe is traversed by three bundles. The origin and distribution of the staminal traces recall the condition in fasciculate androecium. The ovary is tetralocular below and unilocular above. The placentae which lie along the septal radii receive the half ventrals of adjacent carpels but do not fuse to form common ventral bundles. Thus the placentation may be described as tending towards the parietal condition. The stigma is commissural

Insecticide resistance enhances male reproductive success in a beetle

peer reviewe

Influence of Narrative Elements on User Behaviour in Photorealistic Social VR

Social Virtual Reality (VR) applications are becoming the next big revolution in the field of remote communication. Social VR provides the possibility for participants to explore and interact with a virtual environments and objects, feelings of a full sense of immersion, and being together. Understanding how user behaviour is influenced by the shared virtual space and its elements becomes the key to design and optimize novel immersive experiences that take into account the interaction between users and virtual objects. This paper presents a behavioural analysis of user navigation trajectories in a 6 degrees of freedom, social VR movie. We analysed 48 user trajectories from a photorealistic telepresence experiment, in which subjects experience watching a crime movie together in VR. We investigate how users are affected by salient agents (i.e., virtual characters) and by the narrative elements of the VR movie (i.e., dialogues versus interactive part). We complete our assessment by conducting a statistical analysis on the collected data. Results indicate that user behaviour is affected by different narrative and interactive elements. We present our observations, and we draw conclusions on future paths for social VR experiences

Mechanisms and models of somatic cell reprogramming

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (Jerome and Florence Brill Graduate Student Fellowship)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (US NIH grant RO1-CA087869)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (US NIH grant R37-CA084198)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Graduate Research Fellowship)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) ((NIH) Kirschstein National Research Service Award,1 F32 GM099153-01A1)Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Vertex Scholar

Socio-economic and Psychological Profile of Farmers Practicing Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) in Andhra Pradesh

Agriculture is always been considered as the backbone of our country. In India, 70 per cent of the rural population is engaged in agriculture and 80 per cent of the population lives directly or indirectly on agriculture. There are 115 million operational holdings in the country and about 80 per cent are marginal and small farmers [1]. Indian agriculture has been taken the responsibility of providing food and employment to its millions of people. The present study described the socio-economic and psychological profile of Integrated Farming System practicing farmers in Chittoor from Rayalaseema region, East Godavari from North East Coastal region and Srikakulam from North Coastal region. The sample constituted to a total of 189 farmers. The farmers practicing Integrated Farming System were middle aged (52.38%), completed graduation (26.98%), were small land holders (43.39%) with high experience in IFS (55.56%), had nuclear family (88.89%) and with fair cropping pattern (69.31%). The major occupation of the IFS farmers was cultivation (51.85%) with medium family size (67.72%), annual income (49.21%), extension contact (43.39%), mass media exposure (43.92%), economic motivation (54.50%), decision making ability (46.03%), risk preference (53.44%), enterprise combination (100.00%) and members of at least one organization (65.08%)

Open dichotomous venation in the leaves of Utricularia striatula (Lentibulariaceae)

The open dichotomous pattern of venation in the leaves of Utricularia striatula is described in detail and compared with Circaeaster and Kingdonia. Similar traits of dichotomous venation occur in other species of Utricularia and may be due to reduction. © 1979 Springer-Verlag

Submarine record of volcanic island construction and collapse in the Lesser Antilles arc: First scientific drilling of submarine volcanic island landslides by IODP Expedition 340

IODP Expedition 340 successfully drilled a series of sites offshore Montserrat, Martinique and Dominica in the Lesser Antilles from March to April 2012. These are among the few drill sites gathered around volcanic islands, and the first scientific drilling of large and likely tsunamigenic volcanic island-arc landslide deposits. These cores provide evidence and tests of previous hypotheses for the composition and origin of those deposits. Sites U1394, U1399, and U1400 that penetrated landslide deposits recovered exclusively seafloor-sediment, comprising mainly turbidites and hemipelagic deposits, and lacked debris avalanche deposits. This supports the concepts that i/ volcanic debris avalanches tend to stop at the slope break, and ii/ widespread and voluminous failures of pre-existing low-gradient seafloor sediment can be triggered by initial emplacement of material from the volcano. Offshore Martinique (U1399 and 1400), the landslide deposits comprised blocks of parallel strata that were tilted or micro-faulted, sometimes separated by intervals of homogenized sediment (intense shearing), while Site U1394 offshore Montserrat penetrated a flat-lying block of intact strata. The most likely mechanism for generating these large-scale seafloor-sediment failures appears to be propagation of a decollement from proximal areas loaded and incised by a volcanic debris avalanche. These results have implications for the magnitude of tsunami generation. Under some conditions, volcanic island landslide deposits comprised of mainly seafloor sediment will tend to form smaller magnitude tsunamis than equivalent volumes of subaerial block-rich mass flows rapidly entering water. Expedition 340 also successfully drilled sites to access the undisturbed record of eruption fallout layers intercalated with marine sediment which provide an outstanding high-resolution dataset to analyze eruption and landslides cycles, improve understanding of magmatic evolution as well as offshore sedimentation processes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved