Japan disregards whaling review again

Postprin

Monitoring fish passes using infrared beaming: a case study in an Iberian river

An application of a new automated fish counting device – the Riverwatcher System (RW) – was used to monitor upstream fish movements in a pool-and-weir fish pass in the River Zeˆ zere, Portugal, for 141 days from June 2002 to May 2003. Fish populations were also collected downstream using multimesh gillnets (5 different mesh sizes ranging from 30 mm to 85 mm knot to knot; ratio between mesh sizes of about 1.30) and electrofishing for comparison with fish records produced by the RW. More than 3000 individual Iberian nase Chondrostoma polylepis ascended the fish pass and moved through the RW during the study period. However, only 18% of the records produced by the RW contained silhouettes similar to fish; no individual smaller than 15 cm TL was recorded by the counter. Most seasonal movements (73.9%) occurred in spring and were associated with reproduction. Displacements seemed to occur independently of time of day. Water temperature (range: 12–22 C) was the only significant environmental variable (P < 0.01) influencing upstream movements of this species. Further development of hardware and software will be necessary to improve performance of the counter, particularly in Mediterranean rivers, where more turbid waters and a greater proportion of small-size species are presen

Sexual Functioning in Spanish and Portuguese Young Adults: Initial Validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale

Objectives: The authors conducted an initial validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) and examined the sexual function of Spanish and Portuguese young adults. Methods: Participants were 523 Spanish and 595 Portuguese heterosexual young adults who completed a background questionnaire, the ASEX, and measures of sexual sensation seeking, excitation, and inhibition. Results: The ASEX showed good reliability and validity. Participants reported good sexual function. The most prevalent difficulties in men were related to desire and orgasm, and to orgasm and satisfaction in women. Conclusions: This is a psychometrically sound instrument to assess sexual functioning in Spanish and Portuguese young adults

Trends in Mesenchymal Stem Cells\u27 Applications for Skeletal Muscle Repair and Regeneration

Skeletal muscle injuries are quite frequent in traumatic scenarios, such as war injuries or road- or work-related accidents. The skeletal muscle has good regenerative ability, but the extent or recurrence of muscle injury might impair complete structural and functional recovery. Severe tissue loss overwhelms skeletal muscle´s intrinsic regenerative capabilities and culminates in the development of noncontractile fibrous tissue scar. Conservative RICE -based and surgical treatments show limited efficacy in terms of improving these severe cases outcomes, pressing the need for new approaches on skeletal muscle’s therapy. Since the first suggestions of the potential of mesenchymal stem cells for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, many applications have been explored for a variety of tissues and diseases, including the skeletal muscle, which is the focus of this literature review

Weak-field approximation of effective gravitational theory with local Galilean invariance

We examine the weak-field approximation of locally Galilean invariant gravitational theories with general covariance in a $(4+1)$-dimensional Galilean framework. The additional degrees of freedom allow us to obtain Poisson, diffusion, and Schr\"odinger equations for the fluctuation field. An advantage of this approach over the usual $(3+1)$-dimensional General Relativity is that it allows us to choose an ansatz for the fluctuation field that can accommodate the field equations of the Lagrangian approach to MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) known as AQUAdratic Lagrangian (AQUAL). We investigate a wave solution for the Schr\"odinger equations.Comment: 15 page

Schistosome and liver fluke derived catechol-estrogens and helminth associated cancers

Infection with helminth parasites remains a persistent public health problem in developing countries. Three of these pathogens, the liver flukes Clonorchis sinensis, Opisthorchis viverrini and the blood fluke Schistosoma haematobium, are of particular concern due to their classification as Group 1 carcinogens: infection with these worms is carcinogenic. Using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) approaches, we identified steroid hormone like (e.g., oxysterol-like, catechol estrogen quinone-like, etc.) metabolites and related DNA-adducts, apparently of parasite origin, in developmental stages including eggs of S. haematobium, in urine of people with urogenital schistosomiasis, and in the adult stage of O. viverrini. Since these kinds of sterol derivatives are metabolized to active quinones that can modify DNA, which in other contexts can lead to breast and other cancers, helminth parasite associated sterols might induce tumor-like phenotypes in the target cells susceptible to helminth parasite associated cancers, i.e., urothelial cells of the bladder in the case of urogenital schistosomiasis and the bile duct epithelia or cholangiocytes, in the case of O. viverrini and C. sinensis. Indeed we postulate that helminth induced cancers originate from parasite estrogen-host epithelial/urothelial cell chromosomal DNA adducts, and here we review recent findings that support this conjecture.José M. Correia da Costa, Maria J. Gouveia, Mónica C. Botelho, Lúcio L. Santos, and Júlio H. Santos thank FCT for Pest- OE/AGR/UI0211/2011 and Strategic Project UI211-2011- 2013, Clínica Sagrada Esperança and Hospital Américo Boavida, Luanda, Angola. Nuno Vale thanks to Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) and FEDER (European Union) for funding through project grants CONCREEQ/275/QUI and PEstC/QUI/UI0081/2011. Nuno Vale also thanks FCT for Post-Doc grant SFRH/BPD/48345/2008. The research findings reviewed here were supported by award R01CA155297 (Paul J. Brindley, Gabriel Rinaldi, Banchob Sripa) from the National Cancer Institute, NIH and P50 P50AI098639 (Banchob Sripa, Paul J. Brindley) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH

Effects of the type of exercise performed on the vibration delivered during whole-body vibration exercises

While the internal load factors of whole-body vibration training have been widely investigated, the study of external load magnitude has been overlooked. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate differences in whole-body vibration stimulus magnitude between static/dynamic whole-body vibration training at various vibration conditions. Four Pro 5 Plate vibration platforms were exposed to twelve different vibration conditions and a triaxial USB Impact X250-2 accelerometer was used to measure platform acceleration during each condition. Paired samples t-test was calculated to evaluate differences among amplitude, frequency, time of acceleration and time of deceleration of each platform at each vibration condition and during static (squat of 90° knee flexion) or dynamic exercise (from stand to 90° knee flexion squat). Also, the intra-class correlation coefficients were examined in order to assess the inter-instrument reliability. Peak-to-peak amplitude, frequency, time of acceleration and deceleration of the vibration platform were not modified by the type of exercise performed. Moreover, the four platforms tested showed high repeatability values during the execution of free vibration, static or dynamic squat in all vibration conditions. This study confirms that the vibration delivered by the Pro 5 Plate vibration platform is not modified during the realization of static or dynamic exercises

SAPP: functional genome annotation and analysis through a semantic framework using FAIR principles

There are currently more than 150.000 sequenced genomes available from which considerable amounts of information can be extracted. However, annotation information is often not interoperable, static, lacks provenance and is quickly outdated. Keeping these datasets up-to-date, and interoperable is a challenging ..

Measuring the elements of the optical density matrix

Most methods for experimentally reconstructing the quantum state of light involve determining a quasiprobability distribution such as the Wigner function. In this paper we present a scheme for measuring individual density matrix elements in the photon number state representation. Remarkably, the scheme is simple, involving two beam splitters and a reference field in a coherent state.Comment: 6 pages and 1 figur

Relativistic transition wavelenghts and probabilities for spectral lines of Ne II

Transition wavelengths and probabilities for several 2p4 3p - 2p4 3s and 2p4 3d - 2p4 3p lines in fuorine-like neon ion (NeII) have been calculated within the multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock (MCDF) method with quantum electrodynamics (QED) corrections. The results are compared with all existing experimental and theoretical data