Rab14 regulates the maturation of macrophage phagosomes containing the fungal pathogen Candida albicans and the outcome of the host-pathogen interaction

Date of Acceptance: 02/02/2015 Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Nutrient composition, pest and microbial status and effects of discarded biscuits on the growth performance, carcass characteristics and economic profiles of growing-finishing pigs

A ten-week experiment was conducted to evaluate discarded biscuits (DB) as an alternative to maize in pig diets. Proximate composition, pest and microbial status of the DB and its effects on growth performance, economics of production and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs were determined. Twenty Large White starter pigs aged 9-10 weeks with an average initial weight of 16.6kg were allotted to 4 dietary treatments with 5 replicates in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) based on their weight and sex. They were fed ad libitum with isonitrogenous diets containing 0%, 10%, 20% and 30% levels of DB replacing similar amounts of maize and labelled 0%DB (Control), 10%DB, 20%DB and 30%DB, respectively. Prior to the feeding trial, samples of the DB were studied for their proximate composition, pest and microbial status. The DB contained 17.0% moisture, 9.90% crude protein (CP), 0.63% crude fibre (CF), 11.0% ether extract (EE), 0.50% ash and 60.97% nitrogen-free extract (NFE). Tribolium species was the main insect pest identified in the samples; both live and dead forms were observed. The microbial analysis uncovered three (3) fungi species, namely Penicillium sp., Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus versicolor with Penicillium sp. being the most dominant. There were no significant (P>0.05) differences in the values for the average daily feed intake (ADFI), total feed intake (ATFI), daily weight gain (ADWG), total weight gain (ATWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) for the four dietary treatments. There was a linear decrease in feed cost as the level of DB increased in the diet, and the cost of gain followed a similar trend. Carcass characteristics were similar (P>0.05). It was concluded that DB could constitute as much as 30% of the diet and replace about 60% of the maize in the diet of growing pig without any adverse effect on growth performance and carcass characteristics.Keywords: Back fat, discarded biscuit, carcass, insect pests, microbial status, pig

Strangeness Enhancement in p+p, p+Pb and Pb+Pb Collisions at LHC Energies

We investigate whether the quark gluon plasma (QGP) is created in small colliding systems from analyses of various hadron yields and their ratios in proton-proton (p+p), proton-lead (p+Pb) and lead-lead (Pb+Pb) collisions at LHC energies. Recently, the ALICE Collaboration reports enhancement of yield ratio of multi-strange hadrons to charged pions as a function of multiplicity at mid-rapidity. Motivated by these results, we develop the dynamical core-corona initialization framework and find that our results describe tendencies of the ALICE data especially for multi-strange hadrons. These results indicate that the QGP is partly formed in high multiplicity events in small colliding systems.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; contribution to the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Quarks and Nuclear Physics (QNP2018), Tsukuba, November 13-17, 201

Anomalous shell effect in the transition from a circular to a triangular billiard

We apply periodic orbit theory to a two-dimensional non-integrable billiard system whose boundary is varied smoothly from a circular to an equilateral triangular shape. Although the classical dynamics becomes chaotic with increasing triangular deformation, it exhibits an astonishingly pronounced shell effect on its way through the shape transition. A semiclassical analysis reveals that this shell effect emerges from a codimension-two bifurcation of the triangular periodic orbit. Gutzwiller's semiclassical trace formula, using a global uniform approximation for the bifurcation of the triangular orbit and including the contributions of the other isolated orbits, describes very well the coarse-grained quantum-mechanical level density of this system. We also discuss the role of discrete symmetry for the large shell effect obtained here.Comment: 14 pages REVTeX4, 16 figures, version to appear in Phys. Rev. E. Qualities of some figures are lowered to reduce their sizes. Original figures are available at http://www.phys.nitech.ac.jp/~arita/papers/tricirc

Nutritional evaluation of some new maize varieties: Effects on growth performance and carcass traits of Albino rats

A study was carried out to ascertain the effects some new maize varieties: Obatanpa (OB), Opeaburoo (OP), Honampa (HO), Aseda (AS), Tintim (TT), Owanwa (OW) and Odomfo (OD) on the growth performance and carcass traits of albino rats. Aseda, Opeaburoo and Tintim are all white varieties and have been described as being moderately tolerant to drought and good for domestic purposes. Owanwa, Odomfo and Honampa on the other hand are all yellow varieties. The OW and OD varieties have a pro-vitamin A content of 6μg/g whilst HO has a pro-vitamin A content of 7μg/g. Obatanpa (OB) is a white and an open-pollinated Quality Protein Maize (QPM) variety grown widely by farmers in Ghana. Thirty-five weanling Wistar® rats with an average initial live weight of 36g were randomly allocated to seven isocaloric dietary treatments in a completely randomized design (CRD). There were five rats on each treatment, housed individually in plastic cages and each rat served as a replicate. Their growth performance was monitored for 28 days, after which the rats were euthanized and dissected to collect carcass data. The mean daily feed intakes and weight gains were similar (P>0.05) for the rats on the various dietary treatments. The feed conversion ratios (FCR) as well as feed cost per 100g weight gain were not significantly (P>0.05) influenced by the variety of maize in the diets. The abdominal fat colour score was affected by the dietary treatments with HO, OD and OW scoring 2 while treatments OB, OP, AS and TT scored 1. The carcass characteristics of all the albino rats on the seven dietary treatments were similar (P>0.05) except for empty gastrointestinal tract (GIT) weights which were higher (P<0.05) for HO and OD treatments. It was concluded that since the growth performance indicators were similar for all the dietary treatments, farmers can utilize any of these new varieties in their feeding operations but where enhanced carcass colour is desired HO, OD and OW could be the varieties of choice.Keywords: Carcass, carotene, colour, drought tolerance, maize, obatanpa, variety, yiel

SOCS3 is a modulator of human macrophage phagocytosis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by Kidney Research UK (Grant Number RP1/2012). The authors thank the staff of the Aberdeen Microscopy and Histology Core Facility for advice and technical assistance. The authors acknowledge and are grateful to all volunteers for donating blood for macrophage and neutrophil isolation.Peer reviewedPublisher PD