Rainfall Variability along the Southern Flank of the Bambouto Mountain(West-Cameroon)

This paper presents the rainfall variability along the southern flank of the Bambouto mountain. Data were collected from rain gauges, while spatial variability was estimated through daily recorded data. Monthly and annual data were used to draw isohyetes via the triangular method, with linear interpolations between observation points. Results show that rainfall is highly variable along the slope. Daily rainfall amounts range from 0.1 mm to 120 mm. Mean yearly rainfall is 1918.1 mm. Rainfall amount does not have a linear relationship with altitude. Dschang is characterised by abnormally high rainfall. Following a North-South direction, rainfall decreases from Dschang to a Melang-Loung-Djuttitsa axis. From this axis, the gradient reverses as rainfall increases rapidly towards the Mélétan mountain. The existence of the relatively dry zone within the hillside seems to be due to the influence of two air masses. The first is cold and very wet which moves from the Mamfe basin to the summit zone where it starts to warm up as it flows towards Melang and Loung where temperature increases. The second comes from the south to south-east monsoon which is also impoverished during the ascension to higher altitudes. It is also likely that a third air mass from the dry harmattan is involved depending on the position of the ITCZ

Plasma amino-acid determinations by reversed-phase HPLC: Improvement of the orthophthalaldehyde method and comparison with ion exchange chromatography

Reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RPHPLC) determination of amino-acids with on-line pre-column ortho-phthalaldehyde (OPA) derivatization and fluorescence detection is rapid and sensitive. However, high-performance ionexchange chromatography (HP-IEC) with post-column ninhydrine reaction is the most widely used amino-acid (AA) assay for biological samples. These two methods have been compared for the determination of individual plasma AA concentrations

Skolem properties, value-functions, and divisorial ideals

AbstractLet D be the ring of integers of a number field K. It is well known that the ring Int(D) = {f ϵ K[X] ¦ f (D) ⊆ D} of integer-valued polynomials on D is a Prüfer domain. Here we study the divisorial ideals of Int(D) and prove in particular that Int(D) has no divisorial prime ideal.We begin with the local case. We show that, if V is a rank-one discrete valuation domain with finite residue field, then the unitary ideals of Int(V) (that is, the ideals containing nonzero constants) are entirely determined by their values on the completion of V. This improves on the Skolem properties which only deal with finitely generated ideals. We then globalize and consider a Dedekind domain D with finite residue fields. We show that a prime ideal of t(D) is invertible if and only if it is divisorial, and also, in the case where the characteristic of D is 0, if and only if it is an upper to zero which is maximal

Copy number variation (CNV) and insecticide resistance in mosquitoes: evolving knowledge or an evolving problem?

Copy number variation (CNV) in insect genomes is a rich source of potentially adaptive polymorphism which may help overcome the constraints of purifying selection on conserved genes and/or permit elevated transcription. Classic studies of amplified esterases and acetylcholinesterase duplication in Culex pipiens quantified evolutionary dynamics of CNV driven by insecticidal selection. A more complex and potentially medically impactful form of CNV is found in Anopheles gambiae, with both heterogeneous duplications and homogeneous amplifications strongly linked with insecticide resistance. Metabolic gene amplification, revealed by shotgun sequencing, appears common in Aedes aegypti, but poorly understood in other mosquito species. Many methodologies have been used to detect CNV in mosquitoes, but relatively few can detect both duplications and amplifications, and contrasting methods should be combined. Genome scans for CNV have been rare to date in mosquitoes, but offer immense potential to determine the overall role of CNV as a component of resistance mechanisms.sequencing, appears common in Aedes aegypti, but poorly understood in other mosquito species. Many methodologies have been used to detect CNV in mosquitoes, but relatively few can detect both duplications and amplifications, and contrasting methods should be combined. Genome scans for CNV have been rare to date in mosquitoes, but offer immense potential to determine the overall role of CNV as a component of resistance mechanisms

Kadeploy3: Efficient and Scalable Operating System Provisioning for HPC Clusters

Operating system provisioning is a common and critical task in cluster computing environments. The required low-level operations involved in provisioning can drastically decrease the performance of a given solution, and maintaining a reasonable provisioning time on clusters of 1000+ nodes is a significant challenge. We present Kadeploy3, a tool built to efficiently and reliably deploy a large number of cluster nodes. Since it is a keystone of the Grid'5000 experimental testbed, it has been designed not only to help system administrators install and manage clusters but also to provide testbed users with a flexible way to deploy their own operating systems on nodes for their own experimentation needs, on a very frequent basis. In this paper we detail the design principles of Kadeploy3 and its main features, and evaluate its capabilities in several contexts. We also share the lessons we have learned during the design and deployment of Kadeploy3 in the hope that this will help system administrators and developers of similar solutions

Efficient and Scalable OS Provisioning with Kadeploy 3

National audienceKadeploy3 est un logiciel permettant de déployer de manière efficace et fiable des ensembles de machines, notamment dans le contexte des clusters de calcul à haute performance. Kadeploy3 permet de déployer des milliers de machines grâce à l'utilisation de mécanismes de diffusion d'image et d'exécution de commande particulièrement optimisés pour la grande échelle. Il permet aussi de résister correctement aux pannes et erreurs inévitables à cette échelle grâce à un moteur de workflow proposant des mécanismes de reprise sur erreur. Une grande attention est également portée à l'utilisabilité et à l'adaptabilité de Kadeploy3, avec notamment la gestion d'une bibliothèque d'environnements, et une gestion fine des droits. Le poster détaille différents aspects de Kadeploy, notamment: - ses fonctionnalités principales ; - sa capacité à passer à l'échelle ; - sa résistance aux pannes ; - quelques éléments d'évaluation. Kadeploy est diffusé sous licence libre, et est activement développé et maintenu par Inria Nancy Grand-Est

Kadeploy3: Efficient and Scalable Operating System Provisioning for Clusters

International audienceInstalling an operating system can be very tedious when it must be repro- duced on several computers, for instance, on large scale clusters. Since it is not realistic to install the nodes independently, disk cloning or imaging with tools such as Clonezilla[1], Rocks [5], SystemImager [6] or xCAT [8] is a com- mon approach. In that case the administrator must keep updated only one node (sometimes called golden node), that will be replicated to other nodes. This article presents Kadeploy3, a tool designed to perform operating system provi- sioning using disk imaging and cloning. Thanks to its e ciency, scalability, and reliability, it is particularly suited for large scale clusters

A life-attenuated BLV deletant as a candidate vaccine to inhibit viral transmission in bovine herds

A life-attenuated BLV deletant as a candidate vaccine to inhibit viral transmission in bovine herds Sabrina M. Rodríguez1*†, Gerónimo Gutiérrez2*, Arnaud Florins3, Lucas Vagnoni2, Irene Alvarez2, Nicolas Gillet1, Karina Trono2‡, Luc Willems1,3‡ *‡S.M. Rodríguez / G. Gutiérrez and K.Trono / L. Willems contributed equally to this work. 1 Molecular and Cellular Epigenetics, Interdisciplinary Cluster for Applied Genoproteomics (GIGA), University of Liège (ULg), Liège (4100), Belgium. 2 Instituto de Virología, CICVyA, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, (1712), Castelar, Argentina. 3 Molecular and Cellular Biology, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège (ULg), Gembloux (5030), Belgium †E-mail: [email protected] Bovine Leukemia Virus (BLV) is a major sanitary concern in many countries where the virus is widely disseminated among dairy herds with obvious economic impact. Different control strategies have been implemented worldwide to control BLV infection or eradicate the disease with diverse success. Eradication by culling is not economically sustainable in highly infected regions such as Argentina, US or Japan. Segregation of BLV-infected cattle is expensive due to duplication of facilities. Finally, several candidate vaccines based on recombinant viral proteins were unsuccessful to protect from challenge. Therefore, here we propose a novel strategy aimed to decrease seroprevalence based on the employ of a life-attenuated BLV provirus as a candidate vaccine. The rationale behind this strategy is the deletion of genes required to induce pathogenesis leaving those involved in infectivity, resulting in an attenuated deletant with impaired transmissibility. Preliminary experiments showed that the deletant provirus is infectious and elicits an efficient immune response in sheep (n=3) and in the natural host, bovines (n=9). Lack of spread to sentinels further supports the safety of the vaccine. Based on these promissory results, an ongoing validation program is being performed to evaluate the capacity of the candidate vaccine to protect from wild-type BLV infection in herd conditions (n=105). Infection will be routinely monitored and proviral loads will be determined. The efficiency of the immune response will be evaluated by titration of specific antibodies, cytotoxic lysis efficiency and cytokine profile. Viral expression ex vivo and provirus clonality will be also evaluated. This data will be instrumental for understanding the basic mechanisms undergoing during BLV infection and for elaborating a novel vaccine. We do believe this practical and cost-effective vaccination strategy is the sole economically viable in countries with high prevalence