Effect of feeding frequencies on the growth of the European mudminnow larvae (Umbra krameri WALBAUM, 1792) reared in controlled conditions.

Effects of feeding frequency were examined on European mudminnow larval growth (initial average total body length: 7.5 mm) under controlled rearing conditions. Two treatments were set in 3 replicates: „Group A”: fed with Artemia salina nauplii four times day-1 and “Group B”: fed with Artemia nauplii six times -1 day. At the end of the 21-day-long examination period significant differences (p<0.05) were found in the total length between the two groups. Average final total lengths were the followings in the groups: “A” 15.5 mm, „B” 16.6 mm. Average live weights of the fish in experimental groups reached 34.4±2.4g, and 44.4±1.4g at the end of the trial in groups A and B, respectively. At the end of the trial period larvae were suitable for stocking into natural waters

Phylogenetic quantification of intra-tumour heterogeneity.

Intra-tumour genetic heterogeneity is the result of ongoing evolutionary change within each cancer. The expansion of genetically distinct sub-clonal populations may explain the emergence of drug resistance, and if so, would have prognostic and predictive utility. However, methods for objectively quantifying tumour heterogeneity have been missing and are particularly difficult to establish in cancers where predominant copy number variation prevents accurate phylogenetic reconstruction owing to horizontal dependencies caused by long and cascading genomic rearrangements. To address these challenges, we present MEDICC, a method for phylogenetic reconstruction and heterogeneity quantification based on a Minimum Event Distance for Intra-tumour Copy-number Comparisons. Using a transducer-based pairwise comparison function, we determine optimal phasing of major and minor alleles, as well as evolutionary distances between samples, and are able to reconstruct ancestral genomes. Rigorous simulations and an extensive clinical study show the power of our method, which outperforms state-of-the-art competitors in reconstruction accuracy, and additionally allows unbiased numerical quantification of tumour heterogeneity. Accurate quantification and evolutionary inference are essential to understand the functional consequences of tumour heterogeneity. The MEDICC algorithms are independent of the experimental techniques used and are applicable to both next-generation sequencing and array CGH data.This is the final published version. It was originally published by PLoS in PLoS Computational Biology here: http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1003535

Gajenje karaša (Carassius carassius) u ribnjacima

Uzgoj juvenilnih jedinki karaša (C. carassius) analiziran je u pet ribnjačkih objekata veličine 100 m2. Karaš je gajen u monokulturi u dva, dok je sa linjakom gajen u bikulturi u tri ribnjačka jezera. Stopa preživljavanja karaša u monokulturi iznosila je 21.15±6.86 %, a u bikulturi 47.07±16.86%. Kod linjaka je zabeležena veca stopa preživljavanja (69.33±16.76) i brži rast u odnosu na karaša. Iako je prema dobijenim rezultatima teško proceniti razlike između uzgoja u monokulturi i bikulturi, može se zaključiti da linjak nije značajan kompetitor karašu

Feasibility of Group Schema Therapy for Outpatients with Severe Borderline Personality Disorder in Germany:A Pilot Study with Three Year Follow-Up

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe, challenging to treat mental disorder. Schema therapy (ST) as an individual therapy has been proven to be an effective psychological treatment for BPD. A group format of ST (GST) has been developed and evaluated in a randomized controlled trial in the United States and piloted in The Netherlands. These results suggest that GST speeds up and amplifies treatment effects of ST and might reduce delivery costs. However, feasibility in the German health care system and with BPD patients with high BPD severity and comorbidity, and frequent hospitalization, has not been tested to date. We investigated GST in 10 severely impaired, highly comorbid female patients with BPD, that needed frequent hospital admission. Patients received an outpatient ST-treatment program with weekly group and individual sessions for 1 year. Outcome measures including BPD severity, general psychopathology, psychosocial functioning, quality of life, happiness, schemas, and modes, and days of hospitalization were assessed at the start of treatment and 6, 12, and 36 months later with semi-structured interviews and self-report measures. We observed significant decreases in severity of BPD symptoms, general symptom severity, dysfunctional BPD-specific modes and schemas, and days of hospitalization. Functional modes, quality of live and happiness improved. The results of this feasibility study are promising and encourage further implementation of ST outpatient treatment programs even for patients with severe BPD and high hospitalization risk. However, small sample size and the missing of a control group do not allow the generalizability of these findings

Translocation of PEGylated quantum dots across rat alveolar epithelial cell monolayers

Farnoosh Fazlollahi1,8, Arnold Sipos1,2, Yong Ho Kim1,2, Sarah F Hamm-Alvarez6, Zea Borok1&amp;ndash;3, Kwang-Jin Kim1,2,5&amp;ndash;7, Edward D Crandall1,2,4,8 1Will Rogers Institute Pulmonary Research Center, 2Department of Medicine, 3Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 4Department of Pathology, 5Department of Physiology and Biophysics, 6Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 7Department of Biomedical Engineering, 8Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Background: In this study, primary rat alveolar epithelial cell monolayers (RAECM) were used to investigate transalveolar epithelial quantum dot trafficking rates and underlying transport mechanisms. Methods: Trafficking rates of quantum dots (PEGylated CdSe/ZnS, core size 5.3 nm, hydrodynamic size 25 nm) in the apical-to-basolateral direction across RAECM were determined. Changes in bioelectric properties (ie, transmonolayer resistance and equivalent active ion transport rate) of RAECM in the presence or absence of quantum dots were measured. Involvement of endocytic pathways in quantum dot trafficking across RAECM was assessed using specific inhibitors (eg, methyl-&amp;szlig;-cyclodextrin, chlorpromazine, and dynasore for caveolin-, clathrin-, and dynamin-mediated endocytosis, respectively). The effects of lowering tight junctional resistance on quantum dot trafficking were determined by depleting Ca2+ in apical and basolateral bathing fluids of RAECM using 2 mM EGTA. Effects of temperature on quantum dot trafficking were studied by lowering temperature from 37&amp;deg;C to 4&amp;deg;C. Results: Apical exposure of RAECM to quantum dots did not elicit changes in transmonolayer resistance or ion transport rate for up to 24 hours; quantum dot trafficking rates were not surface charge-dependent; methyl-&amp;szlig;-cyclodextrin, chlorpromazine, and dynasore did not decrease quantum dot trafficking rates; lowering of temperature decreased transmonolayer resistance by approximately 90% with a concomitant increase in quantum dot trafficking by about 80%; and 24 hours of treatment of RAECM with EGTA decreased transmonolayer resistance by about 95%, with increased quantum dot trafficking of up to approximately 130%. Conclusion: These data indicate that quantum dots do not injure RAECM and that quantum dot trafficking does not appear to take place via endocytic pathways involving caveolin, clathrin, or dynamin. We conclude that quantum dot translocation across RAECM takes place via both transcellular and paracellular pathways and, based on comparison with our prior studies, interactions of nanoparticles with RAECM are strongly dependent on nanoparticle composition and surface properties. Keywords: alveolar epithelial barrier, transport, paracellular pathways, endocytosi

Direct effect of bile on colonic mucosa in alimentary induced hyperlipidemy in rats

An experimental surgical model was developed in rats after a short term alimentary induced hyperlipidemy to study the direct effect of bile on the colonic mucosa, with regard to the cancerogenic properties of lipid rich diet. The purpose of this study was to light on the role of fatty acid alteration and lipid peroxidation processes of bile in the epithelial cell damage. Animals were fed with normal (group A) and fat rich diet (group B) for 10 days and then bile samples were collected by the cannulation of the common bile duct in deep anaesthesia. The circulation preserved colons of control rats were treated either with bile from the control or hyperlipidemic rats. The treatment was carried out for 30 minutes. The electronmicroscopic alterations of epithelial cells (both enterocytes and goblet cells) caused by bile from hyperlipidemic rats were significantly greater than that of controls. Unfavourable changes of the redox state of the colonic mucosa were also detected both in the hyperlipidemic and bile treated groups. A significant increase was observed in the free-SH concentration of the two bile treated groups against the untreated animals. The changes could be explained among others by the modified bile fatty acid composition. The present study supports that the alimentary modified bile can influence the structure of the epithelium of colonic mucosa and it can be one of the inducing factor of carcinogenesis

Molecular Typing of Foodborne Coagulase-Positive Staphylococcus Isolates Identified by MALDI-TOF MS

The aim of the study was the identification and characterisation of coagulase-positive Staphylococcus bacteria obtained from food matrices by mass spectrometry and molecular methods. A total of 46 coagulase-positive Staphylococcus isolates were collected from different foodstuffs. The Staphylococcus isolates were identified by MALDI-TOF MS and confirmed by the presence and sequence analysis of the Staphylococcus protein A gene. Staphylococcal enterotoxin genes were also investigated by multiplex PCR. Based on the identification of strains by the MALDI-TOF MS technique and spa-typing, all strains were identified as Staphylococcus aureus. Based on their MS peak profiles, the isolates matched the spectra of three S. aureus reference strains in the Bruker MALDI Biotyper database, with identification scores higher than 1.999 in the case of all 46 (100%) isolates. The isolates showed great genetic variability. Twenty spa types were identified, from which most lineages are capable of colonizing humans. Fifty percent of the strains harboured at least one of four enterotoxin genes (seg, seh, sei, and ser), but none of the classical enterotoxin genes could be detected

Objective and Subjective Components of the First-Night Effect in Young Nightmare Sufferers and Healthy Participants

The first-night effect—marked differences between the first- and the second-night sleep spent in a laboratory—is a widely known phenomenon that accounts for the common practice of excluding the first-night sleep from any polysomnographic analysis. The extent to which the first-night effect is present in a participant, as well as its duration (1 or more nights), might have diagnostic value and should account for different protocols used for distinct patient groups. This study investigated the first-night effect on nightmare sufferers (NM; N D 12) and healthy controls .N D 15/ using both objective (2-night-long polysomnography) and subjective (Groningen Sleep Quality Scale for the 2 nights spent in the laboratory and 1 regular night spent at home) methods. Differences were found in both the objective (sleep efficiency, wakefulness after sleep onset, sleep latency, Stage-1 duration, Stage-2 duration, slow-wave sleep duration, and REM duration) and subjective (self-rating) variables between the 2 nights and the 2 groups, with a more pronounced first-night effect in the case of the NM group. Furthermore, subjective sleep quality was strongly related to polysomnographic variables and did not differ among 1 regular night spent at home and the second night spent in the laboratory. The importance of these results is discussed from a diagnostic point of view

A discrete random model describing bedrock profile abrasion

We use a simple, collision-based, discrete, random abrasion model to compute the profiles for the stoss faces in a bedrock abrasion process. The model is the discrete equivalent of the generalized version of a classical, collision based model of abrasion. Three control parameters (which describe the average size of the colliding objects, the expected direction of the impacts and the average volume removed from the body due to one collision) are sufficient for realistic predictions. Our computations show the robust emergence of steady state shapes, both the geometry and the time evolution of which shows good quantitative agreement with laboratory experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure