Single Gene Deletions of Orexin, Leptin, Neuropeptide Y, and Ghrelin Do Not Appreciably Alter Food Anticipatory Activity in Mice

Timing activity to match resource availability is a widely conserved ability in nature. Scheduled feeding of a limited amount of food induces increased activity prior to feeding time in animals as diverse as fish and rodents. Typically, food anticipatory activity (FAA) involves temporally restricting unlimited food access (RF) to several hours in the middle of the light cycle, which is a time of day when rodents are not normally active. We compared this model to calorie restriction (CR), giving the mice 60% of their normal daily calorie intake at the same time each day. Measurement of body temperature and home cage behaviors suggests that the RF and CR models are very similar but CR has the advantage of a clearly defined food intake and more stable mean body temperature. Using the CR model, we then attempted to verify the published result that orexin deletion diminishes food anticipatory activity (FAA) but observed little to no diminution in the response to CR and, surprisingly, that orexin KO mice are refractory to body weight loss on a CR diet. Next we tested the orexigenic neuropeptide Y (NPY) and ghrelin and the anorexigenic hormone, leptin, using mouse mutants. NPY deletion did not alter the behavior or physiological response to CR. Leptin deletion impaired FAA in terms of some activity measures, such as walking and rearing, but did not substantially diminish hanging behavior preceding feeding time, suggesting that leptin knockout mice do anticipate daily meal time but do not manifest the full spectrum of activities that typify FAA. Ghrelin knockout mice do not have impaired FAA on a CR diet. Collectively, these results suggest that the individual hormones and neuropepetides tested do not regulate FAA by acting individually but this does not rule out the possibility of their concerted action in mediating FAA

The pattern of mucocutaneous disorders in HIV – infected children attending care and treatment centres in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

\ud \ud HIV/AIDS is associated with a wide range of mucocutaneous disorders some of which are useful in the clinical staging and prognosis of the syndrome. There is paucity of information regarding the prevalence and pattern of mucocutaneous disorders among HIV infected children attending paediatric Care and Treatment Centres (CTC) in Dar es Salaam. To determine the prevalence and pattern of mucocutaneous disorders among HIV infected children attending public paediatric 'Care and Treatment Centres' in Dar es Salaam. This was a cross sectional descriptive study involving public paediatric 'Care and Treatment Centres' in Dar es Salaam. Clinical information was obtained using a questionnaire. Dermatological examination was carried out in daylight. Investigations were taken as appropriate. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 10.0. Chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests were utilized. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Three hundred and forty seven HIV infected children (52% males) attending CTCs were recruited into the study. Mucocutaneous disorders were encountered in 85% of them. There was no gender difference in the prevalence of the infective mucocutaneous disorders but males had a higher prevalence of non-infective/inflammatory dermatoses (58%) than females (42%) (p = 0.02). Overall, mucocutaneous disorders (infective + non infective) were more prevalent in advanced stages of HIV disease. Children with advanced HIV disease had a significantly increased frequency of fungal and viral infections (43% and 25% respectively than those with less advanced disease; 24% and 13% respectively (p = 0.01). Seventy four percent of the HIV-infected children with mucocutaneous disorders were already on ART. Mucocutaneous disorders among HIV infected children attending Care and Treatment Centres are common and highly variable. Comprehensive management should also emphasize on the management of mucocutaneous disorders

Linear chaos for the Quick-Thinking-Driver model

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00233-015-9704-6In recent years, the topic of car-following has experimented an increased importance in traffic engineering and safety research. This has become a very interesting topic because of the development of driverless cars (Google driverless cars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car).Driving models which describe the interaction between adjacent vehicles in the same lane have a big interest in simulation modeling, such as the Quick-Thinking-Driver model. A non-linear version of it can be given using the logistic map, and then chaos appears. We show that an infinite-dimensional version of the linear model presents a chaotic behaviour using the same approach as for studying chaos of death models of cell growth.The authors were supported by a grant from the FPU program of MEC and MEC Project MTM2013-47093-P.Conejero, JA.; Murillo Arcila, M.; Seoane-Sepúlveda, JB. (2016). Linear chaos for the Quick-Thinking-Driver model. Semigroup Forum. 92(2):486-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00233-015-9704-6S486493922Aroza, J., Peris, A.: Chaotic behaviour of birth-and-death models with proliferation. J. Differ. Equ. Appl. 18(4), 647–655 (2012)Banasiak, J., Lachowicz, M.: Chaos for a class of linear kinetic models. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Série II 329, 439–444 (2001)Banasiak, J., Lachowicz, M.: Topological chaos for birth-and-death-type models with proliferation. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 12(6), 755–775 (2002)Banasiak, J., Lachowicz, M., Moszyński, M.: Topological chaos: when topology meets medicine. Appl. Math. Lett. 16(3), 303–308 (2003)Banasiak, J., Moszyński, M.: A generalization of Desch–Schappacher–Webb criteria for chaos. Discret. Contin. Dyn. Syst. 12(5), 959–972 (2005)Banasiak, J., Moszyński, M.: Dynamics of birth-and-death processes with proliferation–stability and chaos. Discret. Contin. Dyn. Syst. 29(1), 67–79 (2011)Banks, J., Brooks, J., Cairns, G., Davis, G., Stacey, P.: On Devaney’s definition of chaos. Am. Math. Mon. 99(4), 332–334 (1992)Barrachina, X., Conejero, J.A.: Devaney chaos and distributional chaos in the solution of certain partial differential equations. Abstr. Appl. Anal. 457,019, 11 (2012)Bermúdez, T., Bonilla, A., Martínez-Giménez, F., Peris, A.: Li-Yorke and distributionally chaotic operators. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 373(1), 83–93 (2011)Brackstone, M., McDonald, M.: Car-following: a historical review. Transp. Res. Part F 2(4), 181–196 (1999)Brzeźniak, Z., Dawidowicz, A.L.: On periodic solutions to the von Foerster–Lasota equation. Semigroup Forum 78, 118–137 (2009)Chandler, R.E., Herman, R., Montroll, E.W.: Traffic dynamics: studies in car following. Op. Res. 6, 165–184 (1958)Chung, C.C., Gartner, N.: Acceleration noise as a measure of effectiveness in the operation of traffic control systems. Operations Research Center. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge (1973)CNN (2014) Driverless car tech gets serious at CES. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/09/tech/innovation/self-driving-cars-ces/ . Accessed 7 Apr 2014Conejero, J.A., Rodenas, F., Trujillo, M.: Chaos for the hyperbolic bioheat equation. Discret. Contin. Dyn. Syst. 35(2), 653–668 (2015)DARPA Grand Challenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Grand_Challengede Laubenfels, R., Emamirad, H., Protopopescu, V.: Linear chaos and approximation. J. Approx. Theory 105(1), 176–187 (2000)Desch, W., Schappacher, W., Webb, G.F.: Hypercyclic and chaotic semigroups of linear operators. Ergod. Theory Dyn. Syst. 17(4), 793–819 (1997)El Mourchid, S.: The imaginary point spectrum and hypercyclicity. Semigroup Forum 73(2), 313–316 (2006)El Mourchid, S., Metafune, G., Rhandi, A., Voigt, J.: On the chaotic behaviour of size structured cell populations. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 339(2), 918–924 (2008)El Mourchid, S., Rhandi, A., Vogt, H., Voigt, J.: A sharp condition for the chaotic behaviour of a size structured cell population. Differ. Integral Equ. 22(7–8), 797–800 (2009)Engel, K.-J., Nagel, R.: One-Parameter Semigroups for Linear Evolution Equations. Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol. 194. Springer, New York, 2000. With contributions by Brendle S., Campiti M., Hahn T., Metafune G., Nickel G., Pallara D., Perazzoli C., Rhandi A., Romanelli S., and Schnaubelt RGodefroy, G., Shapiro, J.H.: Operators with dense, invariant, cyclic vector manifolds. J. Funct. Anal. 98(2), 229–269 (1991)Greenshields, B.D.: The photographic method of studying traffic behavior. In: Proceedings of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Highway Research Board, pp. 382–399 (1934)Greenshields, B.D.: A study of traffic capacity. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Highway Research Board, pp. 448–477 (1935)Grosse-Erdmann, K.G., Peris Manguillot, A.: Linear Chaos. Universitext. Springer, London (2011)Herman, R., Montroll, E.W., Potts, R.B., Rothery, R.W.: Traffic dynamics: analysis of stability in car following. Op. Res. 7, 86–106 (1959)Helly, W.: Simulation of Bottleneckes in Single-Lane Traffic Flow. Research Laboratories, General Motors. Elsevier, New York (1953)Li, T.: Nonlinear dynamics of traffic jams. Phys. D 207(1–2), 41–51 (2005)Lo, S.C., Cho, H.J.: Chaos and control of discrete dynamic traffic model. J. Franklin Inst. 342(7), 839–851 (2005)Martínez-Giménez, F., Oprocha, P., Peris, A.: Distributional chaos for backward shifts. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 351(2), 607–615 (2009)Pipes, L.A.: An operational analysis of traffic dynamics. J. Appl. Phys. 24, 274–281 (1953

Scientific Objectives of Einstein Telescope

The advanced interferometer network will herald a new era in observational astronomy. There is a very strong science case to go beyond the advanced detector network and build detectors that operate in a frequency range from 1 Hz-10 kHz, with sensitivity a factor ten better in amplitude. Such detectors will be able to probe a range of topics in nuclear physics, astronomy, cosmology and fundamental physics, providing insights into many unsolved problems in these areas.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Plenary talk given at Amaldi Meeting, July 201

The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems

We review the formation and evolution of compact binary stars consisting of white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs), and black holes (BHs). Binary NSs and BHs are thought to be the primary astrophysical sources of gravitational waves (GWs) within the frequency band of ground-based detectors, while compact binaries of WDs are important sources of GWs at lower frequencies to be covered by space interferometers (LISA). Major uncertainties in the current understanding of properties of NSs and BHs most relevant to the GW studies are discussed, including the treatment of the natal kicks which compact stellar remnants acquire during the core collapse of massive stars and the common envelope phase of binary evolution. We discuss the coalescence rates of binary NSs and BHs and prospects for their detections, the formation and evolution of binary WDs and their observational manifestations. Special attention is given to AM CVn-stars -- compact binaries in which the Roche lobe is filled by another WD or a low-mass partially degenerate helium-star, as these stars are thought to be the best LISA verification binary GW sources.Comment: 105 pages, 18 figure

Re-Shuffling of Species with Climate Disruption: A No-Analog Future for California Birds?

By facilitating independent shifts in species' distributions, climate disruption may result in the rapid development of novel species assemblages that challenge the capacity of species to co-exist and adapt. We used a multivariate approach borrowed from paleoecology to quantify the potential change in California terrestrial breeding bird communities based on current and future species-distribution models for 60 focal species. Projections of future no-analog communities based on two climate models and two species-distribution-model algorithms indicate that by 2070 over half of California could be occupied by novel assemblages of bird species, implying the potential for dramatic community reshuffling and altered patterns of species interactions. The expected percentage of no-analog bird communities was dependent on the community scale examined, but consistent geographic patterns indicated several locations that are particularly likely to host novel bird communities in the future. These no-analog areas did not always coincide with areas of greatest projected species turnover. Efforts to conserve and manage biodiversity could be substantially improved by considering not just future changes in the distribution of individual species, but including the potential for unprecedented changes in community composition and unanticipated consequences of novel species assemblages

First comprehensive contribution to medical ethnobotany of Western Pyrenees

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An ethnobotanical and medical study was carried out in the Navarre Pyrenees, an area known both for its high biological diversity and its cultural significance.</p> <p>As well as the compilation of an ethnopharmacological catalogue, a quantitative ethnobotanical comparison has been carried out in relation to the outcomes from other studies about the Pyrenees. A review of all drugs used in the area has also been carried out, through a study of the monographs published by the institutions and organizations responsible for the safety and efficacy of medicinal plants (WHO, ESCOP, and the E Commission of the German Department of Health) in order to ascertain the extent to which the Navarre Pyrenees ethnopharmacology has been officially evaluated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fieldwork was carried out over two years, from November 2004 to December 2006. During that time we interviewed 88 local people in 40 villages. Information was collected using semi-structured ethnobotanical interviews and the data was analyzed using quantitave indexes: Ethnobotonicity Index, Shannon-Wiener's Diversity, Equitability and The Informant Consensus Factor. The official review has been performed using the official monographs published by the WHO, ESCOP and the E Commission of the German Department of Health.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The ethnobotanical and medical catalogue of the Navarre Pyrenees Area comprises 92 species, of which 39 have been mentioned by at least three interviewees. The quantitative ethnobotany results show lower values than those found in other studies about the Pyrenees; and 57.6% of the Pyrenees medical ethnobotany described does not figure in documents published by the above mentioned institutions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results show a reduction in the ethnobotanical and medical knowledge in the area of study, when compared to other studies carried out in the Pyrenees. Nevertheless, the use of several species that may be regarded as possible sources for pharmacological studies is reported here such as the bark of <it>Sambucus nigra</it>, the roots of <it>Fragaria vesca</it>, or the leaves of <it>Scrophularia nodosa</it>. These species are not currently approved by the WHO, ESCOP and the E Commission of the German Department of Health, institutions that, apart from encouraging the greater use of plants for medicinal purposes, may help in the design of development plans for these rural areas by validating their traditional medicine.</p

Global application of an unoccupied aerial vehicle photogrammetry protocol for predicting aboveground biomass in non‐forest ecosystems

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData Availability Statement: The data collected for this publication, including aerial images, marker and plot coordinates and dry sample weights, as well as site and survey metadata, are available from the NERC Environmental Information Data Centre . Code for photogrammetric processing and statistical analysis is available at Zenodo Non-forest ecosystems, dominated by shrubs, grasses and herbaceous plants, provide ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and forage for grazing, and are highly sensitive to climatic changes. Yet these ecosystems are poorly represented in remotely sensed biomass products and are undersampled by in situ monitoring. Current global change threats emphasize the need for new tools to capture biomass change in non-forest ecosystems at appropriate scales. Here we developed and deployed a new protocol for photogrammetric height using unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) images to test its capability for delivering standardized measurements of biomass across a globally distributed field experiment. We assessed whether canopy height inferred from UAV photogrammetry allows the prediction of aboveground biomass (AGB) across low-stature plant species by conducting 38 photogrammetric surveys over 741 harvested plots to sample 50 species. We found mean canopy height was strongly predictive of AGB across species, with a median adjusted R2 of 0.87 (ranging from 0.46 to 0.99) and median prediction error from leave-one-out cross-validation of 3.9%. Biomass per-unit-of-height was similar within but different among, plant functional types. We found that photogrammetric reconstructions of canopy height were sensitive to wind speed but not sun elevation during surveys. We demonstrated that our photogrammetric approach produced generalizable measurements across growth forms and environmental settings and yielded accuracies as good as those obtained from in situ approaches. We demonstrate that using a standardized approach for UAV photogrammetry can deliver accurate AGB estimates across a wide range of dynamic and heterogeneous ecosystems. Many academic and land management institutions have the technical capacity to deploy these approaches over extents of 1–10 ha−1. Photogrammetric approaches could provide much-needed information required to calibrate and validate the vegetation models and satellite-derived biomass products that are essential to understand vulnerable and understudied non-forested ecosystems around the globe