A review of IATTC research on the early life history and reproductive biology of scombrids conducted at the Achotines Laboratory from 1985 to 2005

English: For nearly a century, fisheries scientists have studied marine fish stocks in an effort to understand how the abundances of fish populations are determined. During the early lives of marine fishes, survival is variable, and the numbers of individuals surviving to transitional stages or recruitment are difficult to predict. The egg, larval, and juvenile stages of marine fishes are characterized by high rates of mortality and growth. Most marine fishes, particularly pelagic species, are highly fecund, produce small eggs and larvae, and feed and grow in complex aquatic ecosystems. The identification of environmental or biological factors that are most important in controlling survival during the early life stages of marine fishes is a potentially powerful tool in stock assessment. Because vital rates (mortality and growth) during the early life stages of marine fishes are high and variable, small changes in those rates can have profound effects on the properties of survivors and recruitment potential (Houde 1989). Understanding and predicting the factors that most strongly influence pre-recruit survival are key goals of fisheries research programs. Spanish: Desde hace casi un siglo, los científicos pesqueros han estudiado las poblaciones de peces marinos en un intento por entender cómo se determina la abundancia de las mismas. Durante la vida temprana de los peces marinos, la supervivencia es variable, y el número de individuos que sobrevive hasta las etapas transicionales o el reclutamiento es difícil de predecir. Las etapas de huevo, larval, y juvenil de los peces marinos son caracterizadas por tasas altas de mortalidad y crecimiento. La mayoría de los peces marinos, particularmente las especies pelágicas, son muy fecundos, producen huevos y larvas pequeños, y se alimentan y crecen en ecosistemas acuáticos complejos. La identificación los factores ambientales o biológicos más importantes en el control de la supervivencia durante las etapas tempranas de vida de los peces marinos es una herramienta potencialmente potente en la evaluación de las poblaciones. Ya que las tasas vitales (mortalidad y crecimiento) durante las etapas tempranas de vida de los peces marinos son altas y variables, cambios pequeños en esas tasas pueden ejercer efectos importantes sobre las propiedades de los supervivientes y el potencial de reclutamiento (Houde 1989). Comprender y predecir los factores que más afectan la supervivencia antes del reclutamiento son objetivos clave de los programas de investigación pesquera

Anomaly Cancellation in Supergravity with Fayet-Iliopoulos Couplings

We review and clarify the cancellation conditions for gauge anomalies which occur when N=1, D=4 supergravity is coupled to a Kahler non-linear sigma-model with gauged isometries and Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings. For a flat sigma-model target space and vanishing Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings, consistency requires just the conventional anomaly cancellation conditions. A consistent model with non-vanishing Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings is unlikely unless the Green-Schwarz mechanism is used. In this case the U(1) gauge boson becomes massive and the D-term potential receives corrections. A Green-Schwarz mechanism can remove both the abelian and certain non-abelian anomalies in models with a gauge non-invariant Kahler potential.Comment: 27 page

Proteomic data on the nuclear interactome of human MCM9

AbstractWe present data relating to the interactome of MCM9 from the nuclei of human cells. MCM9 belongs to the AAA+ superfamily, and contains an MCM domain and motifs that may confer DNA helicase activity. MCM9 has been shown to bind MCM8, and has been implicated in DNA replication and homologous recombination. However, the mechanistic basis of MCM9’s role in DNA repair is poorly understood, and proteins with which it interacts were hitherto unknown. We performed tandem affinity purification of MCM9 and its interacting proteins from nuclear extracts of human cells, followed by proteomic analysis, thereby generating a set of mass spectrometry data corresponding to the MCM9 interactome [1]. The proteomic data set comprises 29 mass spectrometry RAW files, deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium, and freely available from the PRIDE partner repository with the data set identifier http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/archive/projects/PXD000212. A set of 22 interacting proteins identified from the proteomic data was used to create an MCM9-centered interactive network diagram, using the Cytoscape program. These data allow the scientific community to access, mine and explore the human nuclear MCM9 interactome

Surface Instability in Windblown Sand

We investigate the formation of ripples on the surface of windblown sand based on the one-dimensional model of Nishimori and Ouchi [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 197 (1993)], which contains the processes of saltation and grain relaxation. We carry out a nonlinear analysis to determine the propagation speed of the restabilized ripple patterns, and the amplitudes and phases of their first, second, and third harmonics. The agreement between the theory and our numerical simulations is excellent near the onset of instability. We also determine the Eckhaus boundary, outside which the steady ripple patterns are unstable.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Review of Immunotherapy Classification: Application Domains, Datasets, Algorithms and Software Tools from Machine Learning Perspective

YesImmunotherapy treatments can be essential sometimes and a waste of valuable resources in other cases, depending on the diagnosis results. Therefore, researchers in immunotherapy need to be updated on the current status of research by exploring: application domains e.g. warts, datasets e.g. immunotherapy, classifiers or algorithms e.g. kNN and software tools. The research objectives were: 1) to study the immunotherapy-related published literature from a supervised machine learning perspective. In addition, to reproduce immunotherapy classifiers reported in research papers. 2) To find gaps and challenges both in publications and practical work, which may be the basis for further research. Immunotherapy, diabetes, cryotherapy, exasens data and ”one unbalanced dataset” are explored. The results are compared with published literature. To address the found gaps in further research: novel experiments, unbalanced studies, focus on effectiveness and a new classifier algorithm are suggested

Plaque formation by bluetongue virus

The formation of plaques in a line of mouse fibroblast cells under agarose, by 16 tissue culture and 14 egg adapted strains of bluetongue virus is described. Optimal conditions for routine plaque assay were determined and certain basic requirements substantiated. The technique was used to determine the thermal stability of the virus under various conditions and in selected biological stabilizers.The journals have been scanned in colour with a HP 5590 scanner; 600 dpi. Adobe Acrobat v.11 was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

Spin Reduction Transition in Spin-3/2 Random Heisenberg Chains

Random spin-3/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chains are investigated using an asymptotically exact renormalization group. Randomness is found to induce a quantum phase transition between two random-singlet phases. In the strong randomness phase the effective spins at low energies are S_eff=3/2, while in the weak randomness phase the effective spins are S_eff=1/2. Separating them is a quantum critical point near which there is a non-trivial mixture of S=1/2, S=1, and S=3/2 effective spins at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Typos correcte

Some FRW Models of Accelerating Universe with Dark Energy

The paper deals with a spatially homogeneous and isotropic FRW space-time filled with perfect fluid and dark energy components. The two sources are assumed to interact minimally, and therefore their energy momentum tensors are conserved separately. A special law of variation for the Hubble parameter proposed by Berman (1983) has been utilized to solve the field equations. The Berman's law yields two explicit forms of the scale factor governing the FRW space-time and constant values of deceleration parameter. The role of dark energy with variable equation of state parameter has been studied in detail in the evolution of FRW universe. It has been found that dark energy dominates the universe at the present epoch, which is consistent with the observations. The physical behavior of the universe is discussed in detail.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Active facilitation of focus groups: exploring the implementation of inclusive education with research participants

In this article, we explain how we took an “active” approach to focus group discussions with teachers in three South African schools. The topic of discussion was their views on the implementation of inclusive education. We shall also show how we sought feedback from the participants on their experiences of these discussions. In seeking this feedback, we were interested in seeing if they interpreted the sessions as being learning experiences – that is, as sessions that enabled the participants to learn from each other as well as from facilitators with a view to promoting mutual learning. We indicate how the participants chose to use the feedback opportunity to suggest that further processes should be put in place (by us) in the light of their expressed concerns. Finally, we outline how we took responsibility by creating a further forum for discussion with those who were regarded as having additional “actioning” power.ABET and Youth Developmen