220 research outputs found

    Mobile collaborative video

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    The emergence of pico projectors as a part of future mobile devices presents unique opportunities for collaborative settings, especially in entertainment applications, such as video playback. By aggregating pico projectors from several users, it is possible to enhance resolution, brightness, or frame rate. In this paper we present a camera-based methodology for the alignment and synchronization of multiple projectors. The approach does not require any complicated ad hoc network setup among the mobile devices. A prototype system has been set up and used to test the proposed techniques

    Investigation on propagation of Sparidentex hasta (sobaity) in spawning tanks and rearing of larvae up to fingerling

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    In order to achieve biotechnic normative of Sobaity Sparidentex hasta propagation and its fries rearing, 96 brood stocks were caught by using hook from Bandar Imam and Mahshahr creeks. For natural spawning, at first stage some selected broodstocks (sex ratio 2:1 & 1:1 male to female) were directly introduced to spawning tanks. In this method eggs were absorbed and spawning was not occured. For artificial spawning (natural spawning with hormone injection): At second stage for males, in one step, 40 g kg-1 and 200 Iu kg-1 body weight and for females, in two steps, 75 g kg-1 and 500 Iu kg-1 LRHa & HCG hormones were injected. After introducing broodstocks to 40- tone oval tanks, spawning occurred only in female and also some injected broodstocks were spawned artificially and all obtained larvae died after four days. At third stage 6 g kg-1 and 1000 Iu kg-1 body weight of PG and HCG hormones were injected to broodstock respectively. HCG hormone injected in two steps (1/2 dose each stop in 24 hours duration). Metoclopramide was used at the first step and PG hormone injected with second step of HCG coincidentally. In this method spawning, fertilization and fry production occurred. The results indicated that sobaity, with hormone injection is able to spawn at 12-19 c (which is available in Khouzestan in March). The time of hatching was 42-50 hours, absorption of larvae Yolk sac 96-120 hours. The size of one- day- larvae was 1.4- 1.7mm and 65-day- fry was 24mm

    Educational difference in the prevalence of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women: a study in northern Iran

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Osteoporosis is the most common metabolic bone disease in the world and it is rapidly increasing in Iran. In this study the relationship between educational levels and osteoporosis was investigated among Iranian postmenopausal women.</p> <p>Method and subjects</p> <p>Seven hundred and six women aged 50-75 years old were randomly recruited from urban (<it>n </it>= 440) and rural (<it>n </it>= 266) areas in Guilan. Osteoporosis was diagnosed by quantitative ultrasound technique and dual X-ray absorptiometry. Serum 25(OH) D3, body weight and height were measured in all subjects. Other data including age, educational level, menopause age, medications and history of illness were also collected.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that the prevalence of osteoporosis was significantly greater among women with low educational level than women with high educational status (18.0% vs 3.8% <it>P </it>< 0.0001). However, women with low educational level had higher mean serum level of vitamin D than women with high educational level. Osteoporosis was significantly more prevalent among women living in rural areas than women living in urban areas (19.1% v.s 13.3%, <it>P </it>< 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study showed that educational level is associated with bone health in this population of postmenopausal women with significantly higher osteoporosis found in lower social groups. Therefore, we suggest that women with low social level should be carefully evaluated for signs of osteoporosis during routine physical examinations.</p

    Lithium attenuated the depressant and anxiogenic effect of juvenile social stress through mitigating the negative impact of interlukin-1β and nitric oxide on hypothala...

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    Abstract—The neuroimmune-endocrine dysfunction has been accepted as one of fundamental mechanisms contributing to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders including depression and anxiety. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the involvement of hypothalamic–pituitary–adre nal (HPA) axis, interleukin-1b, and nitrergic system in mediating the negative behavioral impacts of juvenile social isolation stress (SIS) in male mice. We also investigated the possible protective effects of lithium on behavioral and neurochemical changes in socially isolated animals. Results showed that experiencing 4-weeks of juvenile SIS provoked depressive and anxiety-like behaviors that were associated with hyper responsiveness of HPA axis, upregulation of interleukin-1b, and nitric oxide (NO) overproduction in the pre-frontal cortex and hippocampus. Administration of lithium (10 mg/kg) significantly attenuated the depressant and anxiogenic effects of SIS in behavioral tests. Lithium also restored the negative effects of SIS on cortical and hippocampal interleukin-1b and NO as well as HPA axis deregulation. Unlike the neutralizing effects of L-arginine (NO precursor), administration of L-NAME (3 mg/kg) and aminoguanidine (20 mg/kg) potentiated the positive effects of lithium on the behavioral and neurochemical profile of isolated mice. In conclusion, our results revealed that juvenile SIS-induced behavioral deficits are associated with abnormalities in HPA-immune function. Also, we suggest that alleviating effects of lithium on behavioral profile of isolated mice may be partly mediated by mitigating the negative impact of NO on HPA-immune function. � 2015 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

    Change Point Estimation in Monitoring Survival Time

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    Precise identification of the time when a change in a hospital outcome has occurred enables clinical experts to search for a potential special cause more effectively. In this paper, we develop change point estimation methods for survival time of a clinical procedure in the presence of patient mix in a Bayesian framework. We apply Bayesian hierarchical models to formulate the change point where there exists a step change in the mean survival time of patients who underwent cardiac surgery. The data are right censored since the monitoring is conducted over a limited follow-up period. We capture the effect of risk factors prior to the surgery using a Weibull accelerated failure time regression model. Markov Chain Monte Carlo is used to obtain posterior distributions of the change point parameters including location and magnitude of changes and also corresponding probabilistic intervals and inferences. The performance of the Bayesian estimator is investigated through simulations and the result shows that precise estimates can be obtained when they are used in conjunction with the risk-adjusted survival time CUSUM control charts for different magnitude scenarios. The proposed estimator shows a better performance where a longer follow-up period, censoring time, is applied. In comparison with the alternative built-in CUSUM estimator, more accurate and precise estimates are obtained by the Bayesian estimator. These superiorities are enhanced when probability quantification, flexibility and generalizability of the Bayesian change point detection model are also considered

    A Systematic Survey of Mini-Proteins in Bacteria and Archaea

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    BACKGROUND: Mini-proteins, defined as polypeptides containing no more than 100 amino acids, are ubiquitous in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. They play significant roles in various biological processes, and their regulatory functions gradually attract the attentions of scientists. However, the functions of the majority of mini-proteins are still largely unknown due to the constraints of experimental methods and bioinformatic analysis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this article, we extracted a total of 180,879 mini-proteins from the annotations of 532 sequenced genomes, including 491 strains of Bacteria and 41 strains of Archaea. The average proportion of mini-proteins among all genomic proteins is approximately 10.99%, but different strains exhibit remarkable fluctuations. These mini-proteins display two notable characteristics. First, the majority are species-specific proteins with an average proportion of 58.79% among six representative phyla. Second, an even larger proportion (70.03% among all strains) is hypothetical proteins. However, a fraction of highly conserved hypothetical proteins potentially play crucial roles in organisms. Among mini-proteins with known functions, it seems that regulatory and metabolic proteins are more abundant than essential structural proteins. Furthermore, domains in mini-proteins seem to have greater distributions in Bacteria than Eukarya. Analysis of the evolutionary progression of these domains reveals that they have diverged to new patterns from a single ancestor. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Mini-proteins are ubiquitous in bacterial and archaeal species and play significant roles in various functions. The number of mini-proteins in each genome displays remarkable fluctuation, likely resulting from the differential selective pressures that reflect the respective life-styles of the organisms. The answers to many questions surrounding mini-proteins remain elusive and need to be resolved experimentally

    The effects of slurry on larviculture of Rutilus frisii kutum and chienes carp yield and determination of efficient concentration for increasing of production

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    Rutilus frisii kutum is one of the important fish of Caspian Sea which has significant economical role in the region .The objective of this project is a comparative study on traditional culture of fishes versus slurry. This survey were conducted on nine pound of 1.7 hec triplicate with their treatment with stocking densities of 1.7 million fish larva at Dr yousefpoor center (Affiliated of Shahid Beheshti culture and propagation) at Siakal village , 32 km far from Rasht city in North of Iran, the first treatment considered as control which practice traditionally (using concentrated food plus grinded kilka fish) .In the second treatment for 13 days the pound supplied only by slurry then followed by concentrated fish food only .The tired treatment started with slurry for 13 days and followed by slurry plus concentrated food. The physical and chemical parameters of water, plankton, biometry of fish, growth indices such as daily weight growth (DWG), daily length growth (DLG) as well as specific ratio (SGR) were monitored weekly. The result indicate that net fish production was 1.7 to 2 times higher in slurry than traditional treatment also the survival rate were 1.7 times higher in slurry treatment . The treatment of slurry follow by addition of concentrated food plus slurry showed higher yield camper to others. Slurry with several active substances is more effective and can promote the growth of zooplanktons which is the food of larval stage of rutilus frisi kutum. In second phase of this project the effect of slurry was surveyed on Chinese carp. This experiment was conducted in triplicate with two treatment (one treatment is control which use cow manure plus chemical fertilizer and second treatment was conducted with slurry) and stocked with 2375 N/hec (Silver carp 60%, Big head 15%, common carp 17% and grass carp 8%) at June. In this survey common carp and grass carp were feed with concentrate food and fresh grasses respectively. Chemical factors were measured once for each two week and density of plankton was determined when it was necessarily. Nutritional content of phosphorous, nitrogen, calcium, potassium and magnesium after anaerobic fermentation as well as protein and lipid content with 1.4and 1.9 times respectively were higher in slurry treatment than control. The results showed that survival rate and yield were higher in slurry than control. The increasing percent of yield were 13.5, 2.6, 18.4 and 85.3 in Silver carp, Big head, common carp and grass carp respectively. The survival rate of grass carp was twice higher in slurry treatment than control. Zooplankton abundant in slurry pounds was more but blue- green algae density was less than control. Protein and lipid analysis reviled no significant difference between control and slurry. In general the result indicate that the slurry with higher nutritional content is more effective on the survival and growth rate of fishes and also is more efficient in proliferation of plankton in particular zooplankton

    Determination of suitable size of Rutilus frisii kutum for releasing by evaluation of osmotic regulation ability

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    The study was done in Nutrition and Live Food Station was located in Bandar Anzali Ghaziyan. Juveniles weighted average 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 g were randomly selected in three water conditions with a salinity of 11 ppt (Caspian sea water), water 7 ppt and freshwater (with three replicates per group) were included. At intervals of 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 72, 168, 240 hours, blood samples were heparinized capillary tubes by caudal juveniles and ion concentrations Mg, Ca,Cl using the spectrophotometer and sodium and potassium ions with Flaym photometry (flame photometric), the osmotic pressure of blood plasma by osmometer and cortisol levels were measured by RIA method. To study the microstructure of gill and kidney tissue for each treatment , tissue samples by classical histological methods and stained with hematoxylin - eosin slides were prepared. The frequency and location of the enzyme Na^+, K^+ - ATPase and chloride cells with immunohistochemical localization was performed. Studies micrometric gill chloride cells and renal glomerular networks by software Image tool (version 2.0) was performed. Measurement of enzyme Na^+, K^+-ATPase, by Zaugg (1982) method was conducted. Data analyzed by one-way ANOVA (Oneway ANOVA) with Tukey's test was performed. Overall, the results of measuring ions and osmotic pressure on the tenth day of treatment, the osmotic potential juveniles 2.5, 5, 10, 20 gr in Caspian sea water and all groups except the 0.5 in water of 7 ppt confirmed. But in case of unfavorable conditions for the release in estuaries river and river, fish with weight 1 to 3 release directly to beach (where the salinity is 7 grams per liter) and fishes with weight from 10 to 20 gr to sea. Although suitable river conditions necessary condition for release of juveniles in riverine areas to adaptation juveniles occur gradually
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