Effects of pH on Growth of Salvinia molesta Mitchell

Growth of giant salvinia ( Salvinia molesta Mitchell) under different pH regimes was examined at the Lewisville Aquatic Ecosystem Research Facility (LAERF) in Lewisville, Texas.(PDF has 5 pages.

Developmental Neurotransmitters?

AbstractPrevious studies support an early role for neurotransmitter signaling before synaptogenesis, but puzzlingly, a neurological phenotype is absent in embryonic mice that lack vesicular release. Demarque et al. (in this issue of Neuron) now report that early release of transmitter is unconventional in not requiring action potentials, Ca2+ entry, or vesicle fusion, thus potentially reconciling the discrepancy

Lives in the balance? Gender, age and assets in late-nineteenth-century England and Wales

Studies of wealth-holding in nineteenth-century Britain focus either on establishing aggregate measures or on individual case studies. These do not allow for a comparative analysis of the way that the composition of wealth was influenced by age and gender. This article explores the importance of these factors using both a case-study approach and a more comprehensive analysis of wealth left at death for a sample of 1,444 individuals. By establishing the age at death for 1,274 of these individuals, together with evidence from a series of death duty records, it is possible to determine the composition of assets by age and gender. For both men and women, shares became more important over the life course. Real estate was more important for men of all ages compared to women, for whom safe investments in government securities assumed greater significance with age. These findings confirm that both age and gender influenced the amount and composition of wealth and demonstrate that these factors need to be taken into account in any model that seeks to make generalizations about the pattern of wealth-holding in the population at large. Emphasizing these demand-side factors provides a different perspective on the rise of Britain as a 'nation of investors'

Recombinant Human Insulin in Global Diabetes Management – Focus on Clinical Efficacy

Biosynthetic human insulin and insulin analogues are the mainstay of insulin therapy for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes although access to human insulin at affordable prices remains a global issue. The world is experiencing an exponential rise in the prevalence of diabetes presenting an urgent need to establish effective diabetes therapy in countries burdened by inadequate health care budgets, malnutrition and infectious diseases. Recombinant human insulin has replaced animal insulins and animal-based semisynthetic human insulin thereby available in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices able to provide global access to insulin therapy. In many patients, analog insulins can offer additional clinical benefit, although at a considerably higher price thus severely restricting availability in low income countries. The approval process for recombinant human insulins (i.e. biosimilars) and analogue insulins is highly variable in the developing countries in contrast to Europe and in North America, where it is well established within a strict regulatory framework. This review aims to discuss the future access to human insulin therapy in a global context with an ever increasing burden of diabetes and significant economic implications

Evaluating the conceptual strategy change account of test-potentiated new learning in list recall

Prior testing potentiates new learning, an effect known as test-potentiated new learning (TPNL). Research using lists of related words has established that testing, by free recall, also increases semantic clustering of later recall output. It has been suggested that this is evidence that testing induces a strategy change in encoding and retrieval towards greater conceptual organisation. The current research evaluated whether this conceptual strategy change explains TPNL in three experiments. We found a) that a retrieval task that did not increase semantic clustering (list discrimination) consistently produced TPNL, and b) that factors (word-relatedness and list structure) that influenced the amount of semantic clustering had no effect on the magnitude of TPNL. These results suggest that conceptual strategy change is neither necessary nor sufficient for TPNL and is more likely to be an effect of testing, rather than a cause of TPNL

Robust Machine Learning Applied to Astronomical Datasets I: Star-Galaxy Classification of the SDSS DR3 Using Decision Trees

We provide classifications for all 143 million non-repeat photometric objects in the Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using decision trees trained on 477,068 objects with SDSS spectroscopic data. We demonstrate that these star/galaxy classifications are expected to be reliable for approximately 22 million objects with r < ~20. The general machine learning environment Data-to-Knowledge and supercomputing resources enabled extensive investigation of the decision tree parameter space. This work presents the first public release of objects classified in this way for an entire SDSS data release. The objects are classified as either galaxy, star or nsng (neither star nor galaxy), with an associated probability for each class. To demonstrate how to effectively make use of these classifications, we perform several important tests. First, we detail selection criteria within the probability space defined by the three classes to extract samples of stars and galaxies to a given completeness and efficiency. Second, we investigate the efficacy of the classifications and the effect of extrapolating from the spectroscopic regime by performing blind tests on objects in the SDSS, 2dF Galaxy Redshift and 2dF QSO Redshift (2QZ) surveys. Given the photometric limits of our spectroscopic training data, we effectively begin to extrapolate past our star-galaxy training set at r ~ 18. By comparing the number counts of our training sample with the classified sources, however, we find that our efficiencies appear to remain robust to r ~ 20. As a result, we expect our classifications to be accurate for 900,000 galaxies and 6.7 million stars, and remain robust via extrapolation for a total of 8.0 million galaxies and 13.9 million stars. [Abridged]Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, to be published in ApJ, uses emulateapj.cl

Structural Characterization of Phosphatidyl-myo-Inositol Mannosides from Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette Gúerin by Multiple-Stage Quadrupole Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometry with Electrospray Ionization. II. Monoacyl- and Diacyl-PIMs

The multiple-stage ion-trap mass spectrometric approaches towards to the structural characterization of the monoacyl-PIM (triacylated PIM) and the diacyl-PIM (tetracylated PIM), namely, the PIM (diacylated PIM) consisting of one or two additional fatty acid substituents attached to the glycoside, respectively, were described. While the assignment and confirmation of the fatty acid substituents on the glycerol backbone can be easily achieved by the methods described in the previous article, the identity of the glycoside moiety and its acylation state can be determined by the observation of a prominent acylglycoside ion arising from cleavage of the diacylglycerol moiety ([M − H − diacylglycerol]−) in the MS2-spectra of monoacyl-PIM and diacyl-PIM. The distinction of the fatty acid substituents on the 2-O-mannoside (i.e., R3CO2H) from that on the inositol (i.e., R4CO2H) is based on the findings that the MS3-spectrum of [M − H − diacylglycerol]− contains a prominent ion arising from further loss of the fatty acid at the 2-O-mannoside (i.e., the [M − H − diacylglycerol − R3CO2H]− ion), while the ion arising from loss of the fatty acid substituent at the inositol (i.e., the [M − H − diacylglycerol − R4CO2H]− ion) is of low abundance. The fatty acyl moiety on the inositol can also be identified by the product-ion spectrum from MS4 of the [M − H − diacylglycerol − R3CO2H]− ion, which gives rise to a prominent ion corresponding to loss of R4CO2H. An [M − H − acylmannose]− ion was also observed in the MS2-spectra and, thus, the identity of the fatty acid substituent attached to 2-O-mannoside can be confirmed. The combined information obtained from the multiple-stage product-ion spectra from MS2, MS3, and MS4 permit the assignment of the complex structures of monoacyl-PIMs and diacyl-PIMs in a mixture isolated from M. bovis Bacillus Calmette Guérin

Here and then: Learning by making places with digital spatial story lines

In this article, we introduce and analyze learning experiences made possible by a teaching framework that we have developed and call digital spatial story lines (DSSLs). DSSLs offer a novel approach to learning on the move by engaging learners with related conceptual practices of archival curation, digital mapping, and the production of public history. Learners collaborate to make and follow map-based story lines that bridge archival media they curate in public libraries and museums onto city neighborhoods these media describe. Story lines can be followed as tours to explore under- or untold stories about a city’s public history at walking scale. To illustrate and study learning within the DSSL framework, we describe and analyze one design iteration from a larger, multi-year research project with local museum, library, and high school partners. Our analysis shows how making and following story lines provided opportunities for pre-service social studies teachers to engage with and learn about the public history of racial segregation, Civil Rights Movement activism, and American Roots Music in Nashville, Tennessee (aka the “Music City”). Our analysis focuses on using archival material to create and share public history as a mobile experience of being both “here-and-then”—a form of palimpsest in which learning on the move layers together historic places and the voices of different historical actors. We end with a discussion of who speaks for the public history of city neighborhoods and the prospects and limitations for teaching and learning with the DSSL framework

Evaluation of Color Imagery and Direct Referencing for Mapping Submersed Aquatic Vegetation in Chesapeake Bay - Final Report

The VIMS Annual Submersed Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) Monitoring Program has used black and white aerial photography to map SAV in Chesapeake Bay each year from 1984 to the present, with the exception of 1988. In 2008, VIMS initiated a pilot project to address two potential enhancements identified by a recent external program review: color film and direct referencing technology. Simultaneous color and black and white imagery was captured for three regions. In addition, GPS/inertial mapping unit (IMU) direct referencing data was acquired for two of the regions

Use of a basal-plus insulin regimen in persons with type 2 diabetes stratified by age and body mass index: A pooled analysis of four clinical trials

AIMS: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of adding a single bolus dose of insulin glulisine to basal insulin ('basal-plus') in persons with type 2 diabetes. METHODS: Data from patients with poor glycemic control on oral antihyperglycemic drugs who were initiated on a 'basal-plus' regimen for up to 6 months were pooled from four randomized, multicenter studies. Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), fasting blood glucose, postprandial glucose (PPG), insulin dose and demographics were measured at baseline and end of study. RESULTS: 711 patients with a mean age of 59.9 years and a mean duration of diabetes of 11.0 years were included in the analysis population. A 'basal-plus' regimen was associated with significant decreases in HbA1c and PPG at 6 months, an increase in glargine and glulisine doses and small, but statistically significant, changes in body weight and BMI in all patient subsets. The proportion of patients with HbA1c<7% also increased in all populations studied, while the prevalence of severe hypoglycemia was low and did not significantly differ across patient groups. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the use of 'basal-plus' can achieve a good therapeutic response with a low risk of hypoglycemia and weight gain, regardless of a patient's age or BMI. Copyright © 2015 Primary Care Diabetes Europe. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved