Response to Divergent Selection for 35-Day Bodyweight and Realized Heritabilities over Two Generations in Japanese Quails

Selection for high (H) and low (L) body weight (BW) at 35 days of age in Japanese quail was practiced for 2 generations. The base population was a random bred population obtained from the National Veterinary Research Institute in Jos, Nigeria. Realized heritability for BW at 35 day of age for H and L males in the 2nd generation was 0.43 and 0.35 respectively, while they were 0.50 and 0.55 (respectively) for the H and L females. Body weight of the 2nd generation H and L females were 118.64 and 45.44g respectively, and that of control is 82.96g. Similar weights for the males were 120.2, 47.43 and 78.64g for the H, L and C line respectively in the 2nd generation. The H and L lines diverged significantly (P< 0.05) in body weight at 35- days of age through the two generations of selection, while the control line was intermediate to the selected lines for bodyweight. The results indicate that the base population is amenable to improvement through selection.Key words: body weight, high line, low line, control line, Japanese quails

Surface Acoustic Wave Single-Electron Interferometry

We propose an experiment to observe interference of a single electron as it is transported along two parallel quasi-one-dimensional channels trapped in a single minimum of a travelling periodic electric field. The experimental device is a modification of the surface acoustic wave (SAW) based quantum processor. Interference is achieved by creating a superposition of spatial wavefunctions between the two channels and inducing a relative phase shift via either a transverse electric field or a magnetic field. The interference can be used to estimate the decoherence time of an electron in this type of solid-state device

Anacin induced adverse drug reaction: A case report

Anacin; a brand of aspirin tablets (containing 300mg acetylsalicylic acid), is a widely used analgesics. It is recognized as one of the oldest brands of pain relievers. Its primary content is acetylsalicylic acid. Here we report a case of a 26-year old woman (64 kg in weight and 1.41m in height) who presented with adverse drug reaction secondary to Anacin ingestion following gum pain from fish bone injury. About 30mins after ingesting the drug, she presented with headache, excessive lacrimal gland secretion and facial swelling. Considering these presentations by inference, Anacin may have the potential to cause severe adverse drug reaction in some individuals. Hence, care should be taken by doctors, pharmacist and other health care providers when prescribing and monitoring patients placed on this medication. Additionally, a detailed history should be taken prior to prescribing and appropriate reporting should be made to relevant health authorities when such severe reactions are observed.Keyword: Anacin, adverse drug reaction, pain, Acetylsalicylic acid

Geometric Quantum Computation

We describe in detail a general strategy for implementing a conditional geometric phase between two spins. Combined with single-spin operations, this simple operation is a universal gate for quantum computation, in that any unitary transformation can be implemented with arbitrary precision using only single-spin operations and conditional phase shifts. Thus quantum geometrical phases can form the basis of any quantum computation. Moreover, as the induced conditional phase depends only on the geometry of the paths executed by the spins it is resilient to certain types of errors and offers the potential of a naturally fault-tolerant way of performing quantum computation.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, uses cite, eepic, epsfig, graphicx and amsfonts. Accepted by J. Mod. Op

Alterations in the antioxidant status of patients suffering from diabetes mellitus and associated cardiovascular complications

In view of the high prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus, this study aimed at determining the total plasma antioxidant capacity of type 2 diabetic patients with and without macrovascular complications. The erythrocyte catalase level was also evaluated because of the implication of catalase as a risk factor in diabetes. 90 age-­‐, gender-­‐ and body mass index-­‐matched subjects were used for this study and divided into healthy subjects (Group I, n=30), diabetic patients (Group II, n=30) and diabetic patients with cardiovascular complications (Group III, n=30). Blood samples collected from 90 eligible subjects were analyzed for glucose, HbA1c, urea, creatinine, total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL and  LDL cholesterol levels. Blood antioxidant activity and erythrocyte catalase levels were assessed. The mean antioxidant status values of Groups II and III were found to be significantly lower than that of Group I (p < 0.05). A significant decrease was also observed in the mean catalase level of Groups II and III as compared to Group I (p < 0.05) while a significant increase in fasting blood glucose level, glycated hemoglobin, triglycerides and urea was observed in Groups II and III compared to Group I. These data suggest that the in vivo antioxidant defense was highly compromised in patients with diabetes and associated cardiovascular complications although they were on medication, thereby suggesting the potential contributory beneficial effects of exogenous antioxidants. Furthermore, a reduction in catalase level may suggest the role of increasing hydrogen peroxide concentration in the disease progression.KEY WORDS: Antioxidant; Erythrocyte catalase; Cardiovascular complications; Type 2 diabetes mellitu

Evolutionary history of tall fescue morphotypes inferred from molecular phylogenetics of the Lolium-Festuca species complex

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The agriculturally important pasture grass tall fescue (<it>Festuca arundinacea </it>Schreb. syn. <it>Lolium arundinaceum </it>(Schreb.) Darbysh.) is an outbreeding allohexaploid, that may be more accurately described as a species complex consisting of three major (Continental, Mediterranean and rhizomatous) morphotypes. Observation of hybrid infertility in some crossing combinations between morphotypes suggests the possibility of independent origins from different diploid progenitors. This study aims to clarify the evolutionary relationships between each tall fescue morphotype through phylogenetic analysis using two low-copy nuclear genes (encoding plastid acetyl-CoA carboxylase [<it>Acc1</it>] and <it>centroradialis </it>[<it>CEN</it>]), the nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (rDNA ITS) and the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) genome-located <it>matK </it>gene. Other taxa within the closely related <it>Lolium</it>-<it>Festuca </it>species complex were also included in the study, to increase understanding of evolutionary processes in a taxonomic group characterised by multiple inter-specific hybridisation events.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Putative homoeologous sequences from both nuclear genes were obtained from each polyploid species and compared to counterparts from 15 diploid taxa. Phylogenetic reconstruction confirmed <it>F. pratensis </it>and <it>F. arundinacea </it>var. <it>glaucescens </it>as probable progenitors to Continental tall fescue, and these species are also likely to be ancestral to the rhizomatous morphotype. However, these two morphotypes are sufficiently distinct to be located in separate clades based on the ITS-derived data set. All four of the generated data sets suggest independent evolution of the Mediterranean and Continental morphotypes, with minimal affinity between cognate sequence haplotypes. No obvious candidate progenitor species for Mediterranean tall fescues were identified, and only two putative sub-genome-specific haplotypes were identified for this morphotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study describes the first phylogenetic analysis of the <it>Festuca </it>genus to include representatives of each tall fescue morphotype, and to use low copy nuclear gene-derived sequences to identify putative progenitors of the polyploid species. The demonstration of distinct tall fescue lineages has implications for both taxonomy and molecular breeding strategies, and may facilitate the generation of morphotype and/or sub-genome-specific molecular markers.</p

Archaeological supplement B to Damgaard et al. 2018: discussion of the archaeology of Central Asian and East Asian Neolithic to Bronze Age hunter-gatherers and early pastoralists, including consideration of horse domestication

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Zenodo via the DOI in this recordThis is part of the additional supplementary material for Damgaard et al., The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7711. Note that the author accepted manuscript version of the article plus supplementary material and additional supplementary material is in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/32791The archaeological evidence relating to selected key cultures from Central and East Asia from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age is summarized. These cultures include the Eneolithic (Copper Age) Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan, the Bronze Age Okunevo culture from the Minusinsk Basin in Russia and Neolithic to Bronze Age cultures of the Baikal Region in East Siberia. Special consideration is given to the debate surrounding horse domestication within the Botai Culture, and the key lines of evidence are summarized

Synthesis of Nanostructured Catalysts by Surfactant-Templating of Large-Pore Zeolites

Zeolites and related crystalline molecular sieves are utilised in a wide range of reactions and processes due to their regular microporous structure, strong acidity, shape selectivity and ion-exchange properties. However, their practical applications can be limited by the small size of the channels and cavities of the microporous structures, and therefore, a great deal of effort have been devoted to enhancing the transport of large-sized molecules in the host pores. Several commercially available zeolites, including faujasite (FAU), mordenite (MOR), beta (BEA), ZSM-5 (MFI) and zeolite L (LTL) have been exposed to a variety of acid and base treatments in the presence of a surfactant (cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide, CTAB), which led to the controlled introduction of intracrystalline mesoporosity. A detailed characterisation of the obtained mesostructured zeolites has been carried out using FTIR spectroscopy, high resolution TEM, XRD, N2 adsorption, 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR. This work demonstrates a successful application of the supramolecular templating approach for generating tuneable mesoporosity in a range of zeolites possessing 12-membered ring channels, which has been applied to zeolite L for the first time, thus producing hierarchical meso-microporous materials with improved accessibility of active sites and enhanced catalytic performance in dealkylation of tri-isopropylbenzene

An experimental observation of geometric phases for mixed states using NMR interferometry

Examples of geometric phases abound in many areas of physics. They offer both fundamental insights into many physical phenomena and lead to interesting practical implementations. One of them, as indicated recently, might be an inherently fault-tolerant quantum computation. This, however, requires to deal with geometric phases in the presence of noise and interactions between different physical subsystems. Despite the wealth of literature on the subject of geometric phases very little is known about this very important case. Here we report the first experimental study of geometric phases for mixed quantum states. We show how different they are from the well understood, noiseless, pure-state case.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Optimality criteria without constraint qualications for linear semidenite problems

We consider two closely related optimization problems: a problem of convex Semi- Infinite Programming with multidimensional index set and a linear problem of Semidefinite Programming. In study of these problems we apply the approach suggested in our recent paper [14] and based on the notions of immobile indices and their immobility orders. For the linear semidefinite problem, we define the subspace of immobile indices and formulate the first order optimality conditions in terms of a basic matrix of this subspace. These conditions are explicit, do not use constraint qualifications, and have the form of criterion. An algorithm determining a basis of the subspace of immobile indices in a finite number of steps is suggested. The optimality conditions obtained are compared with other known optimality conditions