Functional integration of the circulatory, immune, and respiratory systems in mosquito larvae: pathogen killing in the hemocyte-rich tracheal tufts

E. coli injected into larvae and adults aggregate in regions of high hemolymph flow and hemocyte concentration. (A–F) Dissected larval (A–C) and adult (D–F) dorsal abdomens with fluorescently labeled hemocytes (CM-DiI; red) at 4 h after injection with GFP-E. coli (green). In larvae, E. coli preferentially aggregated in the eighth abdominal segment (A), where there is a high concentration of hemocytes (B, circles in C). In adults, E. coli aggregated at the periostial regions of the heart (D), where the periostial hemocytes are located (E, arrows in F). (G–L) Dissected larval (G–I) and adult (J–L) dorsal abdomens with fluorescently labeled hemocytes at 24 h after injection with GFP-E. coli. The aggregation pattern of E. coli in adults at 24 h after treatment was similar to that observed at 4 h post-treatment, but in larvae, fluorescence from E. coli was not observed anywhere in the body because the infection had been largely cleared. Diagonal lines in panels G–I denote the edges of rotated images. Directional arrows: A anterior, P posterior, L lateral. (PDF 679 kb

Cómo determinar los Parámetros de la Ecuación General de una Cuádrica a través de la Visualización

Las ecuaciones generales de las cuádricas en su forma general presentan un grado de dificultad al momento de determinar a qué tipo de cuádrica pertenece. En este sentido, la visualización juega un papel importante en la determinación y relación de la ecuación con su respectiva gráfica, dado que, al realizar una manipulación algebraica sobre la ecuación canónica de la superficie para transformarla a su forma general, se puede determinar por medio de la simple inspección de la ecuación general, no solamente a qué tipo de cuádrica pertenece, sino también se pueden determinar sus parámetros principale

Spin-charge separation in strongly interacting finite ladder rings

We study the conductance through Aharonov-Bohm finite ladder rings with strongly interacting electrons, modelled by the prototypical t-J model. For a wide range of parameters we observe characteristic dips in the conductance as a function of magnetic flux, predicted so far only in chains which are a signature of spin and charge separation. These results open the possibility of observing this peculiar many-body phenomenon in anisotropic ladder systems and in real nanoscopic devices.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

The Dynamics of Trade Margins: Evidence from the European Integration

We analyze the exports trade margins dynamics for ten transition countries, both at the industry and product level, during the period of accession to the EU. We find that trade along both margins was driven by only about 1% of almost 5000 (HS 6-digit) products. Moreover, the largest intensive and extensive margin gains were mostly concentrated around the same subset of sectors. Last, we find a positive correlation between productivity growth and the extensive margin across the transition economies

The New Goods Margin in New Markets

We analyze the role of the new goods margin in the Baltic countries’ exports and imports growth during the 1995–2008 period. Using the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013), we define the set of least-traded goods as those that account for the lowest 10% of total exports and imports in 1995, and then trace its growth in several markets including the Baltics’ main trade partners, the European Union and Russia. We find that, on average, by 2008 least-traded goods accounted for nearly 50% of total Baltic exports to their main trade partners. Moreover, we find that increases in the share of least-traded exports coincided with the timing of the trade liberalization reforms implemented by the Baltic countries. Least-traded imports also grew at robust rates, but their growth was lower than that of exports, accounting for slightly less than a quarter of total imports, that is, about half of the exports value. Moreover, we find that the shares of least-traded imports from the EU 15 and from Russia started diverging around the time the Baltic countries joined the EU, with the EU 15 share increasing and the Russian one declining. We also find that the Baltics’ share of least-traded exports outpaced that of other economies in Central and Eastern Europe. Finally, exports of new goods from the Baltic countries suffered noticeably during the Global Financial Crisis. After the crisis ended, the restart in new goods exports growth displayed mixed patterns

A Sketching Framework for Reduced Data Transfer in Photon Counting Lidar

Single-photon lidar has become a prominent tool for depth imaging in recent years. At the core of the technique, the depth of a target is measured by constructing a histogram of time delays between emitted light pulses and detected photon arrivals. A major data processing bottleneck arises on the device when either the number of photons per pixel is large or the resolution of the time stamp is fine, as both the space requirement and the complexity of the image reconstruction algorithms scale with these parameters. We solve this limiting bottleneck of existing lidar techniques by sampling the characteristic function of the time of flight (ToF) model to build a compressive statistic, a so-called sketch of the time delay distribution, which is sufficient to infer the spatial distance and intensity of the object. The size of the sketch scales with the degrees of freedom of the ToF model (number of objects) and not, fundamentally, with the number of photons or the time stamp resolution. Moreover, the sketch is highly amenable for on-chip online processing. We show theoretically that the loss of information for compression is controlled and the mean squared error of the inference quickly converges towards the optimal Cram\'er-Rao bound (i.e. no loss of information) for modest sketch sizes. The proposed compressed single-photon lidar framework is tested and evaluated on real life datasets of complex scenes where it is shown that a compression rate of up-to 150 is achievable in practice without sacrificing the overall resolution of the reconstructed image.Comment: 16 pages, 20 figure

The occurrence of unpigmented mature oocytes in Hypsiboas (Anura: Hylidae)

The genus Hypsiboas is composed of 90 species distributed in Central and South America from Nicaragua to Argentina, as well as on Trinidad and Tobago (Frost 2014). Previous studies on the reproductive biology of species in this genus have reported that female mature oocytes or eggs generally have pigmented animal poles (Tab. 1), which has been generally suggested as a protection of the exposed embryos from solar radiation (Wells 2007).Fil: Nali, Renato C.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Faivovich, Julián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Prado, Cynthia P. A.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; Brasi

Labor market experience and falling earnings inequality in Brazil: 1995–2012

The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in other measures of earnings inequality was even larger, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Applying micro-econometric decomposition techniques, this study parses out the proximate determinants of this substantial reduction in earnings inequality. Although a falling education premium did play a role, in line with received wisdom, this study finds that a reduction in the returns to labor market experience was a much more important factor driving lower wage disparities. It accounted for 53 percent of the observed decline in the Gini index during the period. Reductions in horizontal inequalities – the gender, race, regional and urban-rural wage gaps, conditional on human capital and institutional variables – also contributed. Two main factors operated against the decline: a greater disparity in wage premia to different sectors of economic activity, and the “paradox of progress”: the mechanical inequality-increasing effect of a more educated labor force when returns to education are convex