A monostrain test apparatus

Test apparatus is designed for determining tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, elongation, and thermal coefficient of contraction or expansion of uniformly shaped plastics, adhesives, and foam materials over temperature range of 700 to 90 K (800 to -300). Tests may be used in design quality control, and in evaluation of new adhesives and plastic materials

Ultrafast and Distinct Spin Dynamics in Magnetic Alloys

Controlling magnetic order on ultrashort timescales is crucial for engineering the next-generation magnetic devices that combine ultrafast data processing with ultrahigh-density data storage. An appealing scenario in this context is the use of femtosecond (fs) laser pulses as an ultrafast, external stimulus to fully set the orientation and the magnetization magnitude of a spin ensemble. Achieving such control on ultrashort timescales, e.g., comparable to the excitation event itself, remains however a challenge due to the lack of understanding the dynamical behavior of the key parameters governing magnetism: The elemental magnetic moments and the exchange interaction. Here, we investigate the fs laser-induced spin dynamics in a variety of multi-component alloys and reveal a dissimilar dynamics of the constituent magnetic moments on ultrashort timescales. Moreover, we show that such distinct dynamics is a general phenomenon that can be exploited to engineer new magnetic media with tailor-made, optimized dynamic properties. Using phenomenological considerations, atomistic modeling and time-resolved X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), we demonstrate demagnetization of the constituent sub-lattices on significantly different timescales that depend on their magnetic moments and the sign of the exchange interaction. These results can be used as a “recipe” for manipulation and control of magnetization dynamics in a large class of magnetic materials

Impact on diarrhoeal illness of a community educational intervention to improve drinking water quality in rural communities in Puerto Rico

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Waterborne disease is a major risk for small water supplies in rural settings. This study was done to assess the impact of an educational intervention designed to improve water quality and estimate the contribution of water to the incidence of diarrhoeal disease in poor rural communities in Puerto Rico a two-part study was undertaken.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An educational intervention was delivered to communities relying on community water supplies. This intervention consisted of student operators and administrators supervising and assisting community members who voluntarily "operate" these systems. These voluntary operators had no previous training and were principally concerned with seeing that some water was delivered. The quality of that water was not something they either understood or addressed. The impact of this intervention was measured through water sampling for standard bacteriological indicators and a frank pathogen. In addition, face-to-face epidemiological studies designed to determine the base-line occurrence of diarrhoeal disease in the communities were conducted. Some 15 months after the intervention a further epidemiological study was conducted in both the intervention communities and in control communities that had not received any intervention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Diarrhoeal illness rates over a four week period prior to the intervention were 3.5%. <it>Salmonella </it>was isolated from all of 5 distributed samples prior to intervention and from only 2 of 12 samples after the intervention. In the 15 months follow-up study, illness rates were lower in the intervention compared to control communities (2.5% <it>vs </it>3.6%%) (RR = 0.70, 95%CI 0.43, 1.15), though this was not statistically significant. However, in the final Poisson regression model living in an intervention system (RR = 0.318; 95%CI 0.137 - 0.739) and owning a dog (RR = 0.597, 95%CI 0.145 - 0.962) was negatively associated with illness. Whilst size of system (RR = 1.006, 95%CI 1.001 - 1.010) and reporting problems with sewage system (RR = 2.973, 95%CI 1.539 - 5.744) were positively associated with illness.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Educational interventions directed both at identified individuals and the community in general in small communities with poor water quality is a way of giving communities the skills and knowledge to manage their own drinking water quality. This may also have important and sustainable health benefits, though further research preferably using a randomised control trial design is needed.</p

Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology Information

In addition to maintaining the GenBank(R) nucleic acid sequence database, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) provides data retrieval systems and computational resources for the analysis of data in GenBank and other biological data made available through NCBI's website. NCBI resources include Entrez, Entrez Programming Utilities, PubMed, PubMed Central, Entrez Gene, the NCBI Taxonomy Browser, BLAST, BLAST Link (BLink), Electronic PCR, OrfFinder, Spidey, RefSeq, UniGene, HomoloGene, ProtEST, dbMHC, dbSNP, Cancer Chromosomes, Entrez Genomes and related tools, the Map Viewer, Model Maker, Evidence Viewer, Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs), Retroviral Genotyping Tools, HIV-1/Human Protein Interaction Database, SAGEmap, Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), the Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB), the Conserved Domain Database (CDD) and the Conserved Domain Architecture Retrieval Tool (CDART). Augmenting many of the Web applications are custom implementations of the BLAST program optimized to search specialized datasets. All of the resources can be accessed through the NCBI home page at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

One health: the importance of companion animal vector-borne diseases

The international prominence accorded the 'One Health' concept of co-ordinated activity of those involved in human and animal health is a modern incarnation of a long tradition of comparative medicine, with roots in the ancient civilizations and a golden era during the 19th century explosion of knowledge in the field of infectious disease research. Modern One Health tends to focus on zoonotic pathogens emerging from wildlife and production animal species, but one of the most significant One Health challenges is rabies for which there is a canine reservoir. This review considers the role of small companion animals in One Health and specifically addresses the major vector-borne infectious diseases that are shared by man, dogs and cats. The most significant of these are leishmaniosis, borreliosis, bartonellosis, ehrlichiosis, rickettsiosis and anaplasmosis. The challenges that lie ahead in this field of One Health are discussed, together with the role of the newly formed World Small Animal Veterinary Association One Health Committee

Canine Morphology: Hunting for Genes and Tracking Mutations

In this essay, Abigail Shearin and Elaine Ostrander discuss the proposed genomic mechanisms for the extraordinary level of phenotypic variation observed in the domestic dog and the evidence detailing the variants responsible for the many shapes, sizes, textures, and colors of man's best friend

Gradual transition from mosaic to global DNA methylation patterns during deuterostome evolution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA methylation by the Dnmt family occurs in vertebrates and invertebrates, including ascidians, and is thought to play important roles in gene regulation and genome stability, especially in vertebrates. However, the global methylation patterns of vertebrates and invertebrates are distinctive. Whereas almost all CpG sites are methylated in vertebrates, with the exception of those in CpG islands, the ascidian genome contains approximately equal amounts of methylated and unmethylated regions. Curiously, methylation status can be reliably estimated from the local frequency of CpG dinucleotides in the ascidian genome. Methylated and unmethylated regions tend to have few and many CpG sites, respectively, consistent with our knowledge of the methylation status of CpG islands and other regions in mammals. However, DNA methylation patterns and levels in vertebrates and invertebrates have not been analyzed in the same way.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using a new computational methodology based on the decomposition of the bimodal distributions of methylated and unmethylated regions, we estimated the extent of the global methylation patterns in a wide range of animals. We then examined the epigenetic changes <it>in silico </it>along the phylogenetic tree. We observed a gradual transition from fractional to global patterns of methylation in deuterostomes, rather than a clear demarcation between vertebrates and invertebrates. When we applied this methodology to six piscine genomes, some of which showed features similar to those of invertebrates.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The mammalian global DNA methylation pattern was probably not acquired at an early stage of vertebrate evolution, but gradually expanded from that of a more ancient organism.</p

Random Amino Acid Mutations and Protein Misfolding Lead to Shannon Limit in Sequence-Structure Communication

The transmission of genomic information from coding sequence to protein structure during protein synthesis is subject to stochastic errors. To analyze transmission limits in the presence of spurious errors, Shannon's noisy channel theorem is applied to a communication channel between amino acid sequences and their structures established from a large-scale statistical analysis of protein atomic coordinates. While Shannon's theorem confirms that in close to native conformations information is transmitted with limited error probability, additional random errors in sequence (amino acid substitutions) and in structure (structural defects) trigger a decrease in communication capacity toward a Shannon limit at 0.010 bits per amino acid symbol at which communication breaks down. In several controls, simulated error rates above a critical threshold and models of unfolded structures always produce capacities below this limiting value. Thus an essential biological system can be realistically modeled as a digital communication channel that is (a) sensitive to random errors and (b) restricted by a Shannon error limit. This forms a novel basis for predictions consistent with observed rates of defective ribosomal products during protein synthesis, and with the estimated excess of mutual information in protein contact potentials

Dr. PIAS: an integrative system for assessing the druggability of protein-protein interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The amount of data on protein-protein interactions (PPIs) available in public databases and in the literature has rapidly expanded in recent years. PPI data can provide useful information for researchers in pharmacology and medicine as well as those in interactome studies. There is urgent need for a novel methodology or software allowing the efficient utilization of PPI data in pharmacology and medicine.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To address this need, we have developed the 'Druggable Protein-protein Interaction Assessment System' (Dr. PIAS). Dr. PIAS has a meta-database that stores various types of information (tertiary structures, drugs/chemicals, and biological functions associated with PPIs) retrieved from public sources. By integrating this information, Dr. PIAS assesses whether a PPI is druggable as a target for small chemical ligands by using a supervised machine-learning method, support vector machine (SVM). Dr. PIAS holds not only known druggable PPIs but also all PPIs of human, mouse, rat, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) proteins identified to date.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The design concept of Dr. PIAS is distinct from other published PPI databases in that it focuses on selecting the PPIs most likely to make good drug targets, rather than merely collecting PPI data.</p

Mapping Oil and Gas Development Potential in the US Intermountain West and Estimating Impacts to Species

Many studies have quantified the indirect effect of hydrocarbon-based economies on climate change and biodiversity, concluding that a significant proportion of species will be threatened with extinction. However, few studies have measured the direct effect of new energy production infrastructure on species persistence. in the western US and translate the build-out scenarios into estimated impacts on sage-grouse. We project that future oil and gas development will cause a 7–19 percent decline from 2007 sage-grouse lek population counts and impact 3.7 million ha of sagebrush shrublands and 1.1 million ha of grasslands in the study area.Maps of where oil and gas development is anticipated in the US Intermountain West can be used by decision-makers intent on minimizing impacts to sage-grouse. This analysis also provides a general framework for using predictive models and build-out scenarios to anticipate impacts to species. These predictive models and build-out scenarios allow tradeoffs to be considered between species conservation and energy development prior to implementation