Ductile mandrel and parting compound facilitate tube drawing

Refractory tubing is warm drawn over a solid ductile mandrel with a powder parting compound packed between mandrel and the tubes inner surface. This method applies also to the coextrusion of a billet and a ductile mandrel

True and False Foodplants of \u3ci\u3eCallosamia Promethea\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) in Southern Michigan

A survey in 1980 of the associations of over 400 cocoons of Callosamia promethea Drury in vegetation along and adjacent to southern Michigan roadsides gave evidence for seven species of true larval foodplants (not including two others known in the area from other studies) and 17 species of false foodplants, the latter determined by the (1) rarity of their association with cocoons, (2) only one or two cocoons per plant, and (3) their proximity to a well known true foodplant. Three species, sassafras, black cherry, and buttonbush, are evidently the most important true foodplants in this area. Comparisons are made of the foodplants in terms of past literature, geography, and taxonomic relationships

Urban and Rural—Population and Energy Consumption Dynamics in Local Authorities within England and Wales

The formulation of feasible and pragmatic policies that mitigate climate change would require a thorough understanding of the interconnectivity that exists between environment, energy, and the composition of our settlements both urban and rural. This study explores the patterns of energy consumption in England and Wales by investigating consumption behavior within domestic and transport sectors as a function of city characteristics, such as population, density, and density distribution for 346 Local Authority Units (LAU). Patterns observed linking energetic behavior of these LAUs to their respective population and area characteristics highlight some distinctly contrasting consumption behaviors within urban and rural zones. This provides an overview of the correlation between urban/rural status, population, and energy consumption and highlights points of interest for further research and policy intervention. The findings show that energy consumption across cities follows common power law scaling increasing sub-linearly with their population regardless of their urban/rural classification. However, when considering per capita and sector specific consumptions, decreasing per capita consumption patterns are observed for growing population densities within more uniformly populated urban LAUs. This is while rural and sparsely populated LAUs exhibit sharply different patterns for gas, electricity, and transport per capita consumption

Productivity, infrastructure, and urban density – an allometric comparison of three European city-regions across scales

Agglomeration-based arguments citing Dutch and German city-regions have been a primary driver in advocating intercity transport strategies in the north of England. In this paper, we adopt an allometric urban model investigating the applicability and transferability of these transport-led agglomerative strategies promoted to address England’s regional economic under-performance. This is undertaken through a comparative study of the size-cost performance balance of three city-regions and the overall urban networks in the Netherlands, Germany, and England and Wales using city units defined at different spatial scales. While our results support a case for better mobility and transport comparing the three urban networks regardless of the spatial scales, comparisons of specific city-regions indicate a more nuanced interplay of productivity, mobility infrastructure, and urban density

Analysis of regulatory protease sequences identified through bioinformatic data mining of the Schistosoma mansoni genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>New chemotherapeutic agents against <it>Schistosoma mansoni</it>, an etiological agent of human schistosomiasis, are a priority due to the emerging drug resistance and the inability of current drug treatments to prevent reinfection. Proteases have been under scrutiny as targets of immunological or chemotherapeutic anti-<it>Schistosoma </it>agents because of their vital role in many stages of the parasitic life cycle. Function has been established for only a handful of identified <it>S. mansoni </it>proteases, and the vast majority of these are the digestive proteases; very few of the conserved classes of regulatory proteases have been identified from <it>Schistosoma </it>species, despite their vital role in numerous cellular processes. To that end, we identified protease protein coding genes from the <it>S. mansoni </it>genome project and EST library.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified 255 protease sequences from five catalytic classes using predicted proteins of the <it>S. mansoni </it>genome. The vast majority of these show significant similarity to proteins in KEGG and the Conserved Domain Database. Proteases include calpains, caspases, cytosolic and mitochondrial signal peptidases, proteases that interact with ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like molecules, and proteases that perform regulated intramembrane proteolysis. Comparative analysis of classes of important regulatory proteases find conserved active site domains, and where appropriate, signal peptides and transmembrane helices. Phylogenetic analysis provides support for inferring functional divergence among regulatory aspartic, cysteine, and serine proteases.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Numerous proteases are identified for the first time in <it>S. mansoni</it>. We characterized important regulatory proteases and focus analysis on these proteases to complement the growing knowledge base of digestive proteases. This work provides a foundation for expanding knowledge of proteases in <it>Schistosoma </it>species and examining their diverse function and potential as targets for new chemotherapies.</p

Aromatic ring cleavage of a β-biphenyl ether dimer catalyzed by lignin peroxidase of phanerochaete chrysosporium

AbstractUnder aerobic conditions homogeneous lignin peroxidase catalyzed the oxidation of 1-(4'-methoxyphenyl)-2-(2″,5′-dimethoxy-4″-phenylphenoxy)-1,3-dihydroxypropane (I) to yield four products: 1-(4'-methoxy-phenyl)-1,2,3-trihydroxypropane (X), 4-[α-hydroxy-α-(4'-methoxyphenyl)-methyl]-1,3-dioxolane-2-one (V), 4-(4'-methoxyphenyl)-5-hydroxymethyl-1,3-dioxolane-2-one (VI) and 5-hydroxy-5-carbomethoxy-4-phenyl-oxol-3-en-2-one (VIII). V, VI and VIII are all products of ring opening reactions. When the reaction was conducted under anaerobic conditions, the substrate was oxidized but no ring-cleaved products were detected. During the oxidation of I, 4 atoms of 18O from 18O2 were incorporated into the lactol product VIII

Reduced Genetic Variation in Populations of Black Cherry (Prunus serotina subsp. serotina, Rosaceae) at Its Western Range Limit in Kansas

Citation: Beck, J. B., Ferguson, C. J., Mayfield, M. H., & Shaw, J. (2015). Reduced Genetic Variation in Populations of Black Cherry (Prunus serotina subsp. serotina, Rosaceae) at Its Western Range Limit in Kansas. Northeastern Naturalist, 21(3), 472-478. doi:10.1656/045.021.0313We compared genetic variation at five nuclear simple sequence repeat loci between three populations of Black Cherry (Prunus serotina subsp. serotina) at the edge of its western range in Kansas to four populations from within the range interior. Although within-population expected heterozygosity did not differ between edge and core populations, allelic richness was significantly lower in the edge populations. This finding is consistent with a loss of rare alleles due to genetic drift in demographically unstable edge populations

Requirements for the spatial storage effect are weakly evident for common species in natural annual plant assemblages

Coexistence in spatially varying environments is theorised to be promoted by a variety of mechanisms including the spatial storage effect. The spatial storage effect promotes coexistence when: (i) species have unique vital rate responses to their spatial environment and, when abundant, (ii) experience stronger competition in the environmental patches where they perform better. In a naturally occurring southwest Western Australian annual plant system we conducted a neighbour removal experiment involving eleven focal species growing in high-abundance populations. Specifically, we measured species' fecundity across a variety of environmental gradients in both the presence and absence of neighbours. For the environmental variables that we measured, there was only limited evidence for species-specific responses to the environment, with a composite variable describing overstory cover and leaf litter cover being the best predictor of fecundity for a subset of focal species. In addition, although we found strong evidence for intra-specific competition, positive environment-competition covariance was only detected for one species. Thus, positive environment-competition covariance may not be as common as expected in populations of species growing at high abundance, at least when tested in natural assemblages. Our findings highlight the inherent limitations of using natural assemblages to study spatial coexistence mechanisms, and we urge empirical ecologists to take these limitations into account when designing future experiments

Use of geographically weighted logistic regression to quantify spatial variation in the environmental and sociodemographic drivers of leptospirosis in Fiji: a modelling study.

BACKGROUND: Leptospirosis is a globally important zoonotic disease, with complex exposure pathways that depend on interactions between human beings, animals, and the environment. Major drivers of outbreaks include flooding, urbanisation, poverty, and agricultural intensification. The intensity of these drivers and their relative importance vary between geographical areas; however, non-spatial regression methods are incapable of capturing the spatial variations. This study aimed to explore the use of geographically weighted logistic regression (GWLR) to provide insights into the ecoepidemiology of human leptospirosis in Fiji. METHODS: We obtained field data from a cross-sectional community survey done in 2013 in the three main islands of Fiji. A blood sample obtained from each participant (aged 1-90 years) was tested for anti-Leptospira antibodies and household locations were recorded using GPS receivers. We used GWLR to quantify the spatial variation in the relative importance of five environmental and sociodemographic covariates (cattle density, distance to river, poverty rate, residential setting [urban or rural], and maximum rainfall in the wettest month) on leptospirosis transmission in Fiji. We developed two models, one using GWLR and one with standard logistic regression; for each model, the dependent variable was the presence or absence of anti-Leptospira antibodies. GWLR results were compared with results obtained with standard logistic regression, and used to produce a predictive risk map and maps showing the spatial variation in odds ratios (OR) for each covariate. FINDINGS: The dataset contained location information for 2046 participants from 1922 households representing 81 communities. The Aikaike information criterion value of the GWLR model was 1935·2 compared with 1254·2 for the standard logistic regression model, indicating that the GWLR model was more efficient. Both models produced similar OR for the covariates, but GWLR also detected spatial variation in the effect of each covariate. Maximum rainfall had the least variation across space (median OR 1·30, IQR 1·27-1·35), and distance to river varied the most (1·45, 1·35-2·05). The predictive risk map indicated that the highest risk was in the interior of Viti Levu, and the agricultural region and southern end of Vanua Levu. INTERPRETATION: GWLR provided a valuable method for modelling spatial heterogeneity of covariates for leptospirosis infection and their relative importance over space. Results of GWLR could be used to inform more place-specific interventions, particularly for diseases with strong environmental or sociodemographic drivers of transmission. FUNDING: WHO, Australian National Health & Medical Research Council, University of Queensland, UK Medical Research Council, Chadwick Trust