1,423 research outputs found
Overwaaien, atmosferische depositie en afspoelen van bestrijdingsmiddelen in de akkerbouw en groenteteelt op kleigrond
De omvang van enkele bovengrondse emissieroutes voor bestrijdingsmiddelen naar waterlopen bij lage vollegrondsteelten is onderzocht. Het overwaaien van spuitvloeistof bij de toediening leidt veelal tot grote overschrijding van de ecotoxicologische norm en van de norm voor oppervlaktewater bestemd voor de drinkwaterbereiding. De 90e-percentielwaarden voor bestrijdingsmiddelen in de neerslag liggen veelal wat boven de drinkwaternorm van 0,1 Ĺ g/l. Het onderzoek naar de afspoeling over het bodemoppervlakdient te worden voortgezet voor gevoelige situaties (bodem, neerslag), omdat de betrokken bestrijdingsmiddelconcentraties hoog kunnen zijn
Zika virus and the current outbreak:an overview
Zika virus (ZIKV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus closely related to yellow fever virus and dengue virus, is currently causing a large outbreak in the Americas. Historically, ZIKV infection was considered a sporadic, relatively mild disease characterised by fever, maculopapular rash, conjunctivitis and often arthralgia. However, current observational studies suggest that ZIKV may cause more severe neurological sequelae such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, and birth defects, mainly microcephaly, in babies of whom the mother was infected with ZIKV during pregnancy. This article provides a clinically focussed overview of ZIKV, with emphasis on the current outbreak, clinical manifestations, diagnostic tools and caveats. </p
Using contextual queries
Search engines generally treat search requests in isolation. The results
for a given query are identical, independent of the user, or the context
in which the user made the request. An approach is demonstrated that
explores implicit contexts as obtained from a document the user is
reading. The approach inserts into an original (web) document
functionality to directly activate context driven queries that yield
related articles obtained from various information sources
Ambiguity of human gene symbols in LocusLink and MEDLINE: creating an inventory and a disambiguation test collection
Genes are discovered almost on a daily basis and new names have to be
found. Although there are guidelines for gene nomenclature, the naming
process is highly creative. Human genes are often named with a gene symbol
and a longer, more descriptive term; the short form is very often an
abbreviation of the long form. Abbreviations in biomedical language are
highly ambiguous, i.e., one gene symbol often refers to more than one
gene.Using an existing abbreviation expansion algorithm,we explore MEDLINE
for the use of human gene symbols derived from LocusLink. It turns out
that just over 40% of these symbols occur in MEDLINE, however, many of
these occurrences are not related to genes. Along the process of making an
inventory, a disambiguation test collection is constructed automatically
Ecdysteroid Hormones Link the Juvenile Environment to Alternative Adult Life Histories in a Seasonal Insect
The conditional expression of alternative life strategies is a widespread feature of animal life and a pivotal adaptation to life in seasonal environments. To optimally match suites of traits to seasonally changing ecological opportunities, animals living in seasonal environments need mechanisms linking information on environmental quality to resource allocation decisions. The butterfly Bicyclus anynana expresses alternative adult life histories in the alternating wet and dry seasons of its habitat as endpoints of divergent developmental pathways triggered by seasonal variation in preadult temperature. Pupal ecdysteroid hormone titers are correlated with the seasonal environment, but whether they play a functional role in coordinating the coupling of adult traits in the alternative life histories is unknown. Here, we show that manipulating pupal ecdysteroid levels is sufficient to mimic in direction and magnitude the shifts in adult reproductive resource allocation normally induced by seasonal temperature. Crucially, this allocation shift is accompanied by changes in ecologically relevant traits, including timing of reproduction, life span, and starvation resistance. Together, our results support a functional role for ecdysteroids during development in mediating strategic reproductive investment decisions in response to predictive indicators of environmental quality. This study provides a physiological mechanism for adaptive developmental plasticity, allowing organisms to cope with variable environments.European Union’s FP6 Programme (Network of Excellence LifeSpan FP6/036894), FCT fellowship (SFRH/BD/45486/2008)
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