Seiberg-Witten-Floer Homology and Gluing Formulae

This paper gives a detailed construction of Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology for a closed oriented 3-manifold with a non-torsion \spinc structure. Gluing formulae for certain 4-dimensional manifolds splitting along an embedded 3-manifold are obtained.Comment: 63 pages, LaTe

Removal of invasive fish and exclusion of koi carp from Lake Ohinewai

The lower Waikato River floodplain contains many shallow lakes. The floodplain has been highly developed for pastoral agriculture, primarily dairy farming, resulting in extensive drainage and flood control measures to regulate river and lake levels. Most lakes have degraded water quality as a result of nutrient and sediment enrichment, and the additional impacts of pest fish such as koi carp, goldfish, catfish and rudd have generally contribute9 to the total collapse of submerged macrophytes and progression to a highly eutrophic state. Of all New Zealand lakes monitored regularly for water quality, around 25% of those categorised as supertrophic or hypertrophic are on the Waikato River floodplain (Verburg et al. 2010). Lake Ohinewai is a shallow (4.5 m depth), 16.8 ha lake on the floodplain. The lake has a 331 ha catchment that is primarily flat and dominated by intensive pastoral farming with several inlet drains. A single outlet drain leads to Lake Waikare via Lake Rotokawau and passes through a circular road culvert 930 m from the lake outlet. Lake Ohinewai deteriorated from a stable oligotrophic (macrophyte-dominated) state to a stable eutrophic (algal-dominated) state during the early 1990s, and now lacks aquatic macrophytes. In 1981, 80% of the lake was covered in aquatic macrophytes but by 1991 none remained (Edwards et al. 2005). Invasion by koi carp over this period was implicated in this change of state

Remediation of oily wastewater from an interceptor tank using a novel photocatalytic drum reactor.

A novel photocatalytic reactor has been developed to remediate oily wastewaters. In the first instance degradation rates of model organic compounds, methylene blue (MB) and 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) were determined. The experimental set-up investigated a 1:10 w/v catalyst to organic solution volume, 30 g catalyst, 300 mls MB (10 μM) or 4-CP (100 μM). The catalyst investigated was a pellet catalyst to improve separation of the remediated volume from the catalyst following treatment. MB concentration decreased by 93% after 15 mins irradiation whilst 4-CP concentration decreased by 94% following 90 mins irradiation. Oily waste water (OWW) from an interceptor tank typically containing diesel oils was obtained from Sureclean, an environmental clean-up company. The OWW was treated using the same conditions as MB and 4-CP, the model organic compounds. Levels of total organic carbon (TOC) and total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) were used to monitor the efficacy of the photocatalytic reactor. TOC reduced by 45% following two 90 mins treatment cycles. TPH reduced by 45% following 90 mins irradiation and by a further 25% during a second stage of treatment. This reactor can be used as a polishing technique assembled within a wastewater treatment plant. Allowing for more than one pass through the reactor improves its efficiency. Presented at the 2009 International workshop on urbanisation, land use, land degradation and environment (ULE 2009), 28 September - 1 October 2009, Denizli, Turkey

Larval settlement in echinoderms: a review of processes and patterns

Echinoderms are a common component of benthic marine ecosystems, with many being ecologically and/or economically important. Like many marine organisms, most echinoderms have a bipartite life history with a planktonic larval phase and a benthic adult phase. The transition between these phases (i.e. settlement) is complex and comprises a cascade of events including the location, exploration and selection of suitable benthic habitat, and metamorphosis to adapt from a pelagic to a benthic lifestyle. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the various processes involved in the settlement phase across all five extant classes of echinoderms. Central to the review is a detailed assessment of settlement behaviour and the diverse mechanisms of settlement induction. Most echinoderms, including keystone sea urchins, starfishes and sea cucumbers, do not settle indiscriminately; specific environmental conditions or cues are often necessary for settlement to occur, resulting in marked spatial and temporal variability in settlement rates. Fluctuations in settlement, in turn, lead to major changes in the local abundance of echinoderms and often have profound ecological consequences, due to the pivotal role that many echinoderms play in ecosystem functioning. Given important knowledge gaps persist, this review also explores opportunities for future research to advance our understanding of this critical early life-history phase

Comparing plasma and faecal measures of steroid hormones in Adelie penguins Pygoscelis adeliae

Physiological measurements of both stress and sex hormones are often used to estimate the consequences of natural or human-induced change in ecological studies of various animals. Different methods of hormone measurement exist, potentially explaining variation in results across studies; methods should be cross-validated to ensure that they correlate. We directly compared faecal and plasma hormone measurements for the first time in a wild free-living species, the Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae). Blood and faecal samples were simultaneously collected from individual penguins for comparison and assayed for testosterone and corticosterone (or their metabolites). Sex differences and variability within each measure, and correlation of values across measures were compared. For both hormones, plasma samples showed greater variation than faecal samples. Males had higher mean corticosterone concentrations than females, but the difference was only statistically significant in faecal samples. Plasma testosterone, but not faecal testosterone, was significantly higher in males than females. Correlation between sample types was poor overall, and weaker in females than in males, perhaps because measures from plasma represent hormones that are both free and bound to globulins, whereas measures from faeces represent only the free portion. Faecal samples also represent a cumulative measure of hormones over time, as opposed to a plasma ‘snapshot’ concentration. Our data indicate that faecal sampling appears more suitable for assessing baseline hormone concentrations, whilst plasma sampling may best define immediate responses to environmental events. Consequently, future studies should ensure that they select the most appropriate matrix and method of hormone measurement to answer their research questions

A proteomics study of rheumatoid arthritis patients on etanercept identifies putative biomarkers associated with clinical outcome measures

\ua9 The Author(s) 2023. Objectives: Biologic DMARDs (bDMARDs) are widely used in patients with RA, but response to bDMARDs is heterogeneous. The objective of this work was to identify pretreatment proteomic biomarkers associated with RA clinical outcome measures in patients starting bDMARDs. Methods: Sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra mass spectrometry (SWATH-MS) was used to generate spectral maps of sera from patients with RA before and after 3 months of treatment with the bDMARD etanercept. Protein levels were regressed against RA clinical outcome measures, i.e. 28-joint DAS (DAS28) and its subcomponents and DAS28 <2.6 (i.e. remission). The proteins with the strongest evidence for association were analysed in an independent, replication dataset. Finally, subnetwork analysis was carried out using the Disease Module Detection algorithm and biological plausibility of identified proteins was assessed by enrichment analysis. Results: A total of 180 patients with RA were included in the discovery dataset and 58 in the validation dataset from a UK-based prospective multicentre study. Ten individual proteins were found to be significantly associated with RA clinical outcome measures. The association of T-complex protein 1 subunit g with DAS28 remission was replicated in an independent cohort. Subnetwork analysis of the 10 proteins from the regression analysis identified the ontological theme, with the strongest associations being with acute phase and acute inflammatory responses. Conclusion: This longitudinal study of 180 patients with RA commencing etanercept has identified several putative protein biomarkers of treatment response to this drug, one of which was replicated in an independent cohort

Deficiency of annexins A5 and A6 induces complex changes in the transcriptome of growth plate cartilage but does not inhibit the induction of mineralization

Initiation of mineralization during endochondral ossification is a multistep process and has been assumed to correlate with specific interactions of annexins A5 and A6 and collagens. However, skeletal development appears to be normal in mice deficient for either A5 or A6, and the highly conserved structures led to the assumption that A5 and A6 may fulfill redundant functions. We have now generated mice deficient of both proteins. These mice were viable and fertile and showed no obvious abnormalities. Assessment of skeletal elements using histologic, ultrastructural, and peripheral quantitative computed tomographic methods revealed that mineralization and development of the skeleton were not significantly affected in mutant mice. Otherwise, global gene expression analysis showed subtle changes at the transcriptome level of genes involved in cell growth and intermediate metabolism. These results indicate that annexins A5 and A6 may not represent the essential annexins that promote mineralization in vivo