Fish, Freshwater, and the Promise of Biodiversity History for Indonesian Studies

Freshwater fishes abound in Indonesia. They are everywhere in the archipelago—from rice fields and irrigation canals to brackish lagoons and highland rivers. They even populate the most unassuming bodies of water. Some species are found in the remotest of volcanic lakes while others call the blackest and most acidic peat swamps their home. Every island has its habitats and every habitat has its fishes, making Indonesia one of the world’s richest centers of ichthyofauna diversity. And yet, thinking with freshwater fishes—and their biodiversity history—has been largely absent from the field of Indonesian studies. A telling example of this biological blindspot can be found in the ways in which the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project (CMIP) has produced—and continues to constitute—Indonesia as an area of study and attachment. In CMIP’s Producing Indonesia: The State of the Field of Indonesian Studies, a landmark volume published in 2014, there were twenty-seven contributions that spanned the humanities and social sciences but none that looked at the role local scientists played in knowing the archipelago’s freshwater fauna or even broader the interplay between environment and society in shaping the study of modern Indonesia. In response, this essay centers the interplay between environment and society to show how it can open up new directions for future research and interdisciplinary collaboration. In doing so, and in particular, the paper argues that the story of fish and freshwater illustrates the promise of biodiversity history for the field of Indonesian studies in the age of environmental humanities and beyond

DAILY KNEE JOINT LAXITY IN FEMALES ACROSS A MENSTRUAL CYCLE AND MALES ACROSS A CALENDAR MONTH

Increased athletic participation of females has resulted in a high occurrence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. Excessive knee joint laxity during hormonal peaks of endogenous sex hormones during the follicular, ovulatory, and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle has been associated with ACL injury risk. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of gender and menstrual phase on knee joint laxity over the full course of a normal menstrual cycle in females and across a calendar month in males. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed no interaction effect between gender and phase, no main effect for gender, but a statistically significant main effect for phase. Since male participants demonstrated a similar inclination between phases, the significance of this trend should be interpreted as a possible random occurrence

The Challenges for Smart Cities in the UK

The rising interest in smart cities in the UK and Europe is in danger of sliding into a public/private debate. While the literature on smart cities is extensive, it is also confusing and often contradictory. Moreover, the technology advances that enable smart cities to develop advance far more quickly than does the academic analysis that follows. In this article we briefly summarize the literature in order to create a progress report for smart cities in the UK. We begin with a short review of the Smart Cities concept. Our main finding is that the implementation of smart city concepts across the UK is patchy, partly because in the UK cities control only about 18% of their budgets and their ability to act locally is constrained. As a result, smart city initiatives and investments leave much to be desired in terms of function and impact. We conclude that in the UK, the challenges to meeting the smart city ideal are many and profound, but not insuperable. The results can be summarized in four main issues that cities face in becoming smarter: 1. Critical political challenges--as opposed to technological—require involvement of highly placed political leaders, 2. Marketplace forces need to be shaped for the broader community to benefit, 3. Smart cities cannot be either bottom up or top down, they have to be both, 4. Concerns about privacy, engagement, and appropriate use of all aspects of smart city interfaces need to be better understood

Reliable Lifespan Evaluation of a Remote Environment Monitoring System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks and Global System for Mobile Communications

The use of wireless sensor networks (WSN) for monitoring physical and chemical variables in large areas allows density and frequency measurements which have been unavailable to date in classical measurement systems. To fully take advantage of this technology in a particular application, besides an accurate design and selection of all the components involved in its operation, it is essential to dispose of reliable lifetime estimation prior to deployment. This paper presents an experimental approach to determine the actual lifetime of such battery-operated systems, making use of a custom WSN architecture, and for different batteries technologies. To render a reliable evaluation, the energy consumption of the sensor nodes under their different operation modes, in correlation with the battery characteristics and the voltage regulation system, is jointly considered. The result is a complete and practical lifetime model, whose appropriate performance has been validated in a real deployment scenario

Transcriptomic Profiles of Monocyte-Derived Macrophages in Response to Escherichia coli is Associated with the Host Genetics.

Reactive Nitrogen Species (RNS) are a group of bactericidal molecules produced by macrophages in response to pathogens in a process called oxidative burst. Nitric oxide (NO-) is a member of RNS produced from arginine by inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase (iNOS) enzyme. The activity of iNOS and production of NO- by macrophages following stimulation is one of the indicators of macrophage polarization towards M1/proinflammatory. Production of NO- by bovine monocyte-derived macrophage (MDM) and mouse peritoneal macrophages has been shown to be strongly associated with host genetic with the heritability of 0.776 in bovine MDM and 0.8 in mouse peritoneal macrophages. However, the mechanism of genetic regulation of macrophage response has remained less explored. In the current study, the transcriptome of bovine MDMs was compared between two extreme phenotypes that had been classified as high and low responder based on NO- production. The results showed that 179 and 392 genes were differentially expressed (DE) between high and low responder groups at 3 and 18 hours after exposure to Escherichia coli, respectively. A set of 11 Transcription Factors (TFs) (STAT1, IRF7, SPI1, STAT4, IRF1, HIF1A, FOXO3, REL, NFAT5, HIC1, and IRF4) at 3 hours and a set of 13 TFs (STAT1, IRF1, HIF1A, STAT4, ATF4, TP63, EGR1, CDKN2A, RBL1, E2F1, PRDM1, GATA3, and IRF4) at 18 hours after exposure to E. coli were identified to be differentially regulated between the high and low responder phenotypes. These TFs were found to be divided into two clusters of inflammatory- and hypoxia-related TFs. Functional analysis revealed that some key canonical pathways such as phagocytosis, chemotaxis, antigen presentation, and cell-to-cell signalling are enriched among the over-expressed genes by high responder phenotype. Based on the results of this study, it was inferred that the functional characteristics of bovine MDMs are associated with NO-based classification. Since NO- production is strongly associated with host genetics, this study for the first time shows the distinct proinflammatory profiles of macrophages are controlled by the natural genetic polymorphism in an outbred population. In addition, the results suggest that genetics can be considered as a new dimension in the current model of macrophage polarization which is currently described by the combination of stimulants, only

A wireless instrumentation control system based on low-cost single board computer gateways

Nowadays, most of the automatized measurement processes are carried out by VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) compatible instruments, that execute the instructions provided by a host computer connected through wired standard buses, as USB (Universal Serial Bus), GPIB (General-Purpose Instrumentation Bus), PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation) or Ethernet. To overcome the intrinsic limitations associated to these wired systems, this work presents an instrumentation control system based on the IEEE 802.11 wireless communications standard. Intended for instruments having a USB control port, this port is connected to a gateway based on a compact Raspberry Single Board Computer (SBC) and thus the instrument can be connected to the host computer via Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), easily allowing the deployment of an ad-hoc instruments communication network in the working area or its connection to a previously deployed general purpose WiFi network. Developed under Python, the operation commands, wireless link protocol, and USB connection allow two modes of operation to provide system flexibility: a live mode, where commands are sent individually from the host computer to the selected instrument; and a standalone mode, where a full measurement process can be entirely downloaded in the gateway to be autonomously executed on the instrumentation. The system performance in both operation modes, distance of operation, time latencies, and operating lifetime in battery operation have been characterized

A wearable wireless sensor network for indoor smart environment monitoring in safety applications

This paper presents the implementation of a wearable wireless sensor network aimed at monitoring harmful gases in industrial environments. The proposed solution is based on a customized wearable sensor node using a low-power low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) communications protocol, which as a first approach measures CO2 concentration, and employs different low power strategies for appropriate energy handling which is essential to achieving long battery life. These wearables nodes are connected to a deployed static network and a web-based application allows data storage, remote control and monitoring of the complete network. Therefore, a complete and versatile remote web application with a locally implemented decision-making system is accomplished, which allows early detection of hazardous situations for exposed workers

Density of instantaneous frequencies in the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi model

We obtain a formula for the statistical distribution of instantaneous frequencies in the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi model. This work is based on the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi's theory of globally coupled phase oscillators, which we review in full detail by discussing its assumptions and showing all steps behind the derivation of its main results. Our formula is a stationary probability density function with a complex mathematical structure, is consistent with numerical simulations and gives a description of the stationary collective states of the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi model

A high performance LIA-based interface for battery powered sensing devices

This paper proposes a battery-compatible electronic interface based on a general purpose lock-in amplifier (LIA) capable of recovering input signals up to the MHz range. The core is a novel ASIC fabricated in 1.8 V 0.18 µm CMOS technology, which contains a dual-phase analog lock-in amplifier consisting of carefully designed building blocks to allow configurability over a wide frequency range while maintaining low power consumption. It operates using square input signals. Hence, for battery-operated microcontrolled systems, where square reference and exciting signals can be generated by the embedded microcontroller, the system benefits from intrinsic advantages such as simplicity, versatility and reduction in power and size. Experimental results confirm the signal recovery capability with signal-to-noise power ratios down to -39 dB with relative errors below 0.07% up to 1 MHz. Furthermore, the system has been successfully tested measuring the response of a microcantilever-based resonant sensor, achieving similar results with better power-bandwidth trade-off compared to other LIAs based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and commercial LIA equipment

Non-Coding RNA Sequencing of Equine Endometrium During Maternal Recognition of Pregnancy.

Maternal recognition of pregnancy (MRP) in the mare is not well defined. In a non-pregnant mare, prostaglandin F2α (PGF) is released on day 14 post-ovulation (PO) to cause luteal regression, resulting in loss of progesterone production. Equine MRP occurs prior to day 14 to halt PGF production. Studies have failed to identify a gene candidate for MRP, so attention has turned to small, non-coding RNAs. The objective of this study was to evaluate small RNA (<200 nucleotides) content in endometrium during MRP. Mares were used in a cross-over design with each having a pregnant and non-mated cycle. Each mare was randomly assigned to collection day 11 or 13 PO (n = 3/day) and endometrial biopsies were obtained. Total RNA was isolated and sequencing libraries were prepared using a small RNA library preparation kit and sequenced on a HiSeq 2000. EquCab3 was used as the reference genome and DESeq2 was used for statistical analysis. On day 11, 419 ncRNAs, representing miRNA, snRNA, snoRNA, scaRNA, and vaultRNA, were different between pregnancy statuses, but none on day 13. Equine endometrial ncRNAs with unknown structure and function were also identified. This study is the first to describe ncRNA transcriptome in equine endometrium. Identifying targets of these ncRNAs could lead to determining MRP