Exotic herbaceous species interact with severe drought to alter soil N cycling in a semi-arid shrubland

Mediterranean-type ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate change and exotic annual species, jeopardizing the native communities and their global biodiversity. In these systems, soil nitrogen (N) limits net primary production, and its availability can be influenced by both of these stressors. To understand the interactive effects of droughts and exotic herbaceous species on soil N, we monitored the temporal variability of soil inorganic N, net N mineralization, net nitrification, and NO3- leaching under native- and exotic-dominated stands exposed to rainfall manipulation plots in a Mediterranean-type shrub-dominated community. Increasing drought severity resulted in the accumulation of soil NH4+ and NO3-, with a more pronounced increase in exotic-dominated plots. Increased net N mineralization and net nitrification and reduced leaching losses were observed as mechanisms of inorganic N accumulation. In comparison to soils under native plants, soils under exotic plants had enhanced leaching losses upon soil rewetting. We propose that distinct traits of exotic annual herbaceous species associated with higher N inputs, faster turnover, and reduced temporal uptake determine the changes in N cycling in response to droughts. Severe droughts and exotic plants may produce a larger, more vulnerable pool of N that is prone to losses while providing a competitive advantage to promote exotic growth in these N-limited ecosystems

Scientometric Tools and Technique Tested from Nanophysics Research Publication: A Global Perspective

This paper indicates the growth and development of publications of Nanao physics during the period of 2010-2017.1914 records collected through Web of Science. The highest productive journal in this field is the Journal of Applied Physics. In the authorship pattern, the top-ranked position is Wang H with 14 records. The publication level is high in the year 2012 with 514 papers. Chinese Academic Science was. The USA is the most top collaborative country with 495 records, and most of the articles are published in the English language. The most prolific single authors with 199 papers were in the year 2011 and multi authors in the year 2012 with 499 records. In this article Bradford law, Price square root law, and Pareto principles are applied. In the Bradford law, the core zone of the journal, 2 articles covered 714 articles and second zone 24 journals included in 616 articles and 393 journals covered 584 articles

EVALUATION OF ANTIPROLIFERATIVE ACTIVITY OF SIDDHA ANTI-PSORIATIC FORMULATION PANCHAMUGA CHENDHURAM USING CULTURED HUMAN KERATINOCYTE CELL LINES

Objectives: This study was aimed at scientifically evaluating the in vitro antipsoriatic activity of Siddha drug Panchamuga Chendhuram (PMC) in human keratinocyte (HacaT) cell lines. Methods: The Siddha drug PMC tested for antipsoriatic activity on HacaT cell lines was morphologically examined by phase contrast microscopy, and the cell viability was determined by 3- (4, 5 dimethyl thiazole-2 yl) -2.5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay. About 100 μl of different concentrations (2, 6, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 μg/ml) of the test samples were prepared in the cell culture medium and incubated for 24 h and 48 h to determine the viable cells. Results: The results revealed that Siddha drug PMC showed hopeful antiproliferative activity. In vitro studies showed that after 24 h and 48 h incubation, the inhibitory concentration 50 (IC50) values of PMC (IC50 20 μg/ml) were 72.08±27.56 μg/ml and 43.91±17.71 μg/ml, respectively, as compared with Asiaticoside as a positive control with an IC50 value of 20.13 μg/ml. Conclusion: Thus, this study provides scientific evidence about the efficacy of the Siddha drug PMC against the HacaT cell lines confirming its traditional use in psoriasis treatment and also emphasizes the need for antipsoriatic evaluation in animal models

Physical Activity and Adiposity Markers at Older Ages: Accelerometer Vs Questionnaire Data

Physical activity is critically important for successful aging, but its effect on adiposity markers at older ages is unclear as much of the evidence comes from self-reported data on physical activity. We assessed the associations of questionnaire-assessed and accelerometer-assessed physical activity with adiposity markers in older adults

A molecular line survey of CRL 2688 at 1 mm and 3 mm wavelengths

Author: Dinh-V-Trung (Dinh, VT) = Dinh Van TrungIt is well established that circumstellar envelopes (CSEs) around evolved stars are active sites of molecular synthesis, and CSEs are one of the major sources of chemical enrichment in the interstellar space. The investigation of molecular compositions in CSEs is essential to understand the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. In order to study circumstellar chemistry in different environments, we have been systematically performing molecular line surveys of a sample of evolved stars from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, proto-planetary nebulae (PPNs), to planetary nebulae (PNs). The dynamical time scales in different evolutionary stages can impose a time limit on the reaction time scales. Here we report our results for CRL 2688. © 2013 International Astronomical Union.published_or_final_versio

Existence of solution to a new class of coupled variational-hemivariational inequalities

The objective of this paper is to introduce and study a complicated nonlinear system, called coupled variational-hemivariational inequalities, which is described by a highly nonlinear coupled system of inequalities on Banach spaces. We establish the nonemptiness and compactness of the solution set to the system. We apply a new method of proof based on a multivalued version of the Tychonoff fixed point principle in a Banach space combined with the generalized monotonicity arguments, and elements of the nonsmooth analysis. Our results improve and generalize some earlier theorems obtained for a very particular form of the system.Comment: 17

Discovering Implicational Knowledge in Wikidata

Knowledge graphs have recently become the state-of-the-art tool for representing the diverse and complex knowledge of the world. Examples include the proprietary knowledge graphs of companies such as Google, Facebook, IBM, or Microsoft, but also freely available ones such as YAGO, DBpedia, and Wikidata. A distinguishing feature of Wikidata is that the knowledge is collaboratively edited and curated. While this greatly enhances the scope of Wikidata, it also makes it impossible for a single individual to grasp complex connections between properties or understand the global impact of edits in the graph. We apply Formal Concept Analysis to efficiently identify comprehensible implications that are implicitly present in the data. Although the complex structure of data modelling in Wikidata is not amenable to a direct approach, we overcome this limitation by extracting contextual representations of parts of Wikidata in a systematic fashion. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of our approach through several experiments and show that the results may lead to the discovery of interesting implicational knowledge. Besides providing a method for obtaining large real-world data sets for FCA, we sketch potential applications in offering semantic assistance for editing and curating Wikidata

Arsenic removal by a membrane hybrid filtration system

Arsenic is a toxic semi-metallic element that can be fatal to human health. Membrane filtration can remove a number of contaminants from water, including arsenic. Removal of arsenic by membrane filtration is highly dependent on the species of arsenic and the properties of the membrane. The performance of the nanofilter is better for removing As(V) than As(III). About 57% of As(III) and 81% of As(V) was removed from 500 mg/L arsenic solutions by nanofiltration (NTR729HF, Nitto Denko Corp., Japan) of 700 molecular weight (MW) cutoff. The removal efficiency of microfiltration (MF) was much lower than that of nanofiltration (NF) due to its larger pore size. By comparison only 37% of As(III) and 40% of As(V) were removed by microfiltration (PVA membrane, Pure-Envitech, Korea). However, the removal efficiency of microfiltration was increased dramatically when a small amount of nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) was added. The removal efficiency by MF increased up to 90% with As(V) and 84% with As(III) when an amount of 0.1 g/L of nZVI was added into the arsenic solution. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Obesity, diabetes and OSAS induce of sleep disorders: Exercise as therapy

Sleep is an integral part of good health. Sleep disorders and variations in sleep habits are associated with a low-grade inflammatory status, which may be either a cause or consequence of other conditions, including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Several strategies are available to counteract these conditions including continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), pharmacological and nutritional interventions, and even surgery. At present, our group is investigating the effect of chronic endurance exercise on sleep alterations

Carbon nanotube four-terminal devices for pressure sensing applications

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are of high interest for sensing applications,owing to their superior mechanical strength, high Young’s modulus and low density. In this work, we report on a facile approach for the fabrication of carbon nanotube devices using a four terminal configuration. Oriented carbon nanotube films were pulled out from a CNT forest wafer and then twisted into a yarn. Both the CNT film and yarn were arranged on elastomer membranes/diaphragms which were arranged on a laser cut acrylic frame to form pressure sensors. The sensors were calibrated using a precisely controlled pressure system, showing a large change of the output voltage of approximately 50 mV at a constant supply current of 100 μA and under a low applied pressure of 15 mbar. The results indicate the high potential of using CNT films and yarns for pressure sensing applications