Online social lending: Borrower-generated content

This article explores online social lending, an innovative venture that represents a reintermediation in financial services. Borrowers and lenders now have access to online financial information services such as Motley Fool, http://www.fool.com/ , and the opportunity to communicate directly with each other online, sharing user-generated content, in the spirit of Web 2.0. In this environment, new possibilities emerge. Drawing on the literature of community banks, finance, and online banking, we conducted a structurational analysis of ZOPA(2007) a newly founded venture in online social lending whereby borrower/lender interactions take place within an open and transparent environment using discussion boards and blogs. ZOPA offers a service as an intermediary but one that differs from the intermediating role played by a traditional bank. We analyzed the possible attractions and risks of ZOPA’s service to customers, from the perspective of social lending and social networking, using public data from ZOPA’s website. Our intention is to understand the nature of this reintermediation and explain the development of this process through Giddens’ propositions

Alimentación práctica del cerdo

The feed represent over 65% of production costs, so should be established as a priority. It is not enough that a diet meets the nutritional needs of pigs, the ration formulation must right with official regulations governing each country for the use and manufacture of feed. Also, the feed should be easy to preserve and supplying, taking into the wide variety to installations (feeders and drinkers) used in various stages of pigs. However, the fundamental objective of the formulation of a diet is that it contains the necessary nutrients in the correct proportions and balance, considering the physiological stage, weight, age, sex, genetic potential, health status, season and production objectives with a the legal constraints. Once accomplished the formulation, the next step will be insure preparing the feed under conditions that ensure the safety, traceability and lower cost of the same. To this challenge, is adding the need to the right with environmental regulations related to feed and animal welfare.La alimentación representan alrededor del 65% de los costes de producción, por ello debe establecerse como una prioridad. No es suficiente que una dieta cumpla con las necesidades nutricionales de los cerdos, la formulación debe obedecer las normativas oficiales que rigen en cada país para el uso y fabricación de alimentos. Asimismo, el alimento debe ser fácil de conservar y suministrar, asumiendo la gran variedad de instalaciones (comederos y bebederos) utilizadas en las distintas etapas de los cerdos. Sin embargo, el objetivo fundamental de la formulación de una dieta es que contenga los nutrientes necesarios en las cantidades correctas y equilibradas, considerando la etapa fisiológica, peso, edad, sexo, potencial genético, estado de salud, época del año, objetivos productivos y de producto final, así como las limitantes legales. Una vez cumplida la formulación, el siguiente paso es asegurar que ésta sea elaborada bajo condiciones que garanticen la inocuidad, trazabilidad y bajo costo de la misma. A este desafío, se añade la necesidad de cumplir con las normativas ambientales relacionadas con la alimentación y bienestar animal

The functional head of the Cambrian radiodontan (stem-group Euarthropoda) Amplectobelua symbrachiata

© The Author(s). 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published version of the article

Predicting Distribution of Aedes Aegypti and Culex Pipiens Complex, Potential Vectors of Rift Valley Fever Virus in Relation to Disease Epidemics in East Africa.

The East African region has experienced several Rift Valley fever (RVF) outbreaks since the 1930s. The objective of this study was to identify distributions of potential disease vectors in relation to disease epidemics. Understanding disease vector potential distributions is a major concern for disease transmission dynamics. DIVERSE ECOLOGICAL NICHE MODELLING TECHNIQUES HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED FOR THIS PURPOSE: we present a maximum entropy (Maxent) approach for estimating distributions of potential RVF vectors in un-sampled areas in East Africa. We modelled the distribution of two species of mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti and Culex pipiens complex) responsible for potential maintenance and amplification of the virus, respectively. Predicted distributions of environmentally suitable areas in East Africa were based on the presence-only occurrence data derived from our entomological study in Ngorongoro District in northern Tanzania. Our model predicted potential suitable areas with high success rates of 90.9% for A. aegypti and 91.6% for C. pipiens complex. Model performance was statistically significantly better than random for both species. Most suitable sites for the two vectors were predicted in central and northwestern Tanzania with previous disease epidemics. Other important risk areas include western Lake Victoria, northern parts of Lake Malawi, and the Rift Valley region of Kenya. Findings from this study show distributions of vectors had biological and epidemiological significance in relation to disease outbreak hotspots, and hence provide guidance for the selection of sampling areas for RVF vectors during inter-epidemic periods

Perspectives on the Trypanosoma cruzi-host cell receptor interaction

Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. The critical initial event is the interaction of the trypomastigote form of the parasite with host receptors. This review highlights recent observations concerning these interactions. Some of the key receptors considered are those for thromboxane, bradykinin, and for the nerve growth factor TrKA. Other important receptors such as galectin-3, thrombospondin, and laminin are also discussed. Investigation into the molecular biology and cell biology of host receptors for T. cruzi may provide novel therapeutic targets

A xandarellid artiopodan from Morocco – a middle Cambrian link between soft-bodied euarthropod communities in North Africa and South China

NB. A corrigendum [correction] for this article was published online on 09 May 2017; this has been attached to this article as an additional file. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © The Author(s) 2017. The attached file is the published version of the article

Spatial heterogeneity of habitat suitability for Rift Valley fever occurrence in Tanzania: an ecological niche modelling approach

Despite the long history of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in Tanzania, extent of its suitable habitat in the country remains unclear. In this study we investigated potential effects of temperature, precipitation, elevation, soil type, livestock density, rainfall pattern, proximity to wild animals, protected areas and forest on the habitat suitability for RVF occurrence in Tanzania. Presence-only records of 193 RVF outbreak locations from 1930 to 2007 together with potential predictor variables were used to model and map the suitable habitats for RVF occurrence using ecological niche modelling. Ground-truthing of the model outputs was conducted by comparing the levels of RVF virus specific antibodies in cattle, sheep and goats sampled from locations in Tanzania that presented different predicted habitat suitability values. Habitat suitability values for RVF occurrence were higher in the northern and central-eastern regions of Tanzania than the rest of the regions in the country. Soil type and precipitation of the wettest quarter contributed equally to habitat suitability (32.4% each), followed by livestock density (25.9%) and rainfall pattern (9.3%). Ground-truthing of model outputs revealed that the odds of an animal being seropositive for RVFV when sampled from areas predicted to be most suitable for RVF occurrence were twice the odds of an animal sampled from areas least suitable for RVF occurrence (95% CI: 1.43, 2.76, p < 0.001). The regions in the northern and central-eastern Tanzania were more suitable for RVF occurrence than the rest of the regions in the country. The modelled suitable habitat is characterised by impermeable soils, moderate precipitation in the wettest quarter, high livestock density and a bimodal rainfall pattern. The findings of this study should provide guidance for the design of appropriate RVF surveillance, prevention and control strategies which target areas with these characteristics

Non-invasive monitoring of Streptococcus pyogenes vaccine efficacy using biophotonic imaging.

Streptococcus pyogenes infection of the nasopharynx represents a key step in the pathogenic cycle of this organism and a major focus for vaccine development, requiring robust models to facilitate the screening of potentially protective antigens. One antigen that may be an important target for vaccination is the chemokine protease, SpyCEP, which is cell surface-associated and plays a role in pathogenesis. Biophotonic imaging (BPI) can non-invasively characterize the spatial location and abundance of bioluminescent bacteria in vivo. We have developed a bioluminescent derivative of a pharyngeal S. pyogenes strain by transformation of an emm75 clinical isolate with the luxABCDE operon. Evaluation of isogenic recombinant strains in vitro and in vivo confirmed that bioluminescence conferred a growth deficit that manifests as a fitness cost during infection. Notwithstanding this, bioluminescence expression permitted non-invasive longitudinal quantitation of S. pyogenes within the murine nasopharynx albeit with a detection limit corresponding to approximately 10(5) bacterial colony forming units (CFU) in this region. Vaccination of mice with heat killed streptococci, or with SpyCEP led to a specific IgG response in the serum. BPI demonstrated that both vaccine candidates reduced S. pyogenes bioluminescence emission over the course of nasopharyngeal infection. The work suggests the potential for BPI to be used in the non-invasive longitudinal evaluation of potential S. pyogenes vaccines

The renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system and its suppression

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/1/jvim15454-sup-0001-supinfo.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/2/jvim15454-sup-0002-figures.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/3/jvim15454-sup-0005-TableS3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/4/jvim15454-sup-0004-TableS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/5/jvim15454-sup-0007-TableS5.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/6/jvim15454_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/7/jvim15454.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/8/jvim15454-sup-0006-TableS4.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/9/jvim15454-sup-0003-TableS1.pd

Virtual Patients and Sensitivity Analysis of the Guyton Model of Blood Pressure Regulation: Towards Individualized Models of Whole-Body Physiology

Mathematical models that integrate multi-scale physiological data can offer insight into physiological and pathophysiological function, and may eventually assist in individualized predictive medicine. We present a methodology for performing systematic analyses of multi-parameter interactions in such complex, multi-scale models. Human physiology models are often based on or inspired by Arthur Guyton's whole-body circulatory regulation model. Despite the significance of this model, it has not been the subject of a systematic and comprehensive sensitivity study. Therefore, we use this model as a case study for our methodology. Our analysis of the Guyton model reveals how the multitude of model parameters combine to affect the model dynamics, and how interesting combinations of parameters may be identified. It also includes a “virtual population” from which “virtual individuals” can be chosen, on the basis of exhibiting conditions similar to those of a real-world patient. This lays the groundwork for using the Guyton model for in silico exploration of pathophysiological states and treatment strategies. The results presented here illustrate several potential uses for the entire dataset of sensitivity results and the “virtual individuals” that we have generated, which are included in the supplementary material. More generally, the presented methodology is applicable to modern, more complex multi-scale physiological models