176 research outputs found

    Comparison of urinary monitoring, faecal monitoring and erythrocyte analysis of stable isotope labels to determine magnesium absorption in human subjects

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    We have evaluated urinary monitoring and erythrocyte analysis to determine Mg absorption in human subjects as alternatives to the conventional technique of faecal monitoring by stable-isotope techniques. Ten healthy adults received 2·2 mmol 25Mg in water, together with wheat bread, followed 15 min later by intravenous injection of 0·6 mmol 26Mg (day 1). Brilliant blue and Yb (given on day 0 and day 1 respectively) served as qualitative and quantitative faecal markers. Urine was collected for 6 d after test meal intake. Complete collections of faeces were made until excretion of the second brilliant blue marker (given on day 7). Mg isotope ratios were determined by thermal ionisation-MS in urine and faeces and by inductively coupled plasma-MS in erythrocytes. Absorption was determined based on: (1) 6 d urine pools; (2) 24 h urine pools (collected 22-46 h after test meal intake); (3) erythrocytes from a blood sample drawn on day 14; (4) complete 6 d faecal pools; (5) faecal pools based on the first three consecutive stools after excretion of the first brilliant blue marker. Differences in mean Mg absorption (42 44 %) were statistically insignificant between techniques, except when based on 6 d urine pools for which the value was significantly lower (33 (sd 7) %, P=0·0003, ANOVA). The results indicate that Mg absorption can be determined from 24 h urine pools or erythrocytes obtained 14 d after test meal intake, an alternative method to the more time-consuming and labour-intense faecal monitoring. The choice of technique depends on practical and financial consideration

    An review of automatic drum transcription

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    In Western popular music, drums and percussion are an important means to emphasize and shape the rhythm, often deïŹning the musical style. If computers were able to analyze the drum part in recorded music, it would enable a variety of rhythm-related music processing tasks. Especially the detection and classiïŹcation of drum sound events by computational methods is considered to be an important and challenging research problem in the broader ïŹeld of Music Information Retrieval. Over the last two decades, several authors have attempted to tackle this problem under the umbrella term Automatic Drum Transcription(ADT).This paper presents a comprehensive review of ADT research, including a thorough discussion of the task-speciïŹc challenges, categorization of existing techniques, and evaluation of several state-of-the-art systems. To provide more insights on the practice of ADT systems, we focus on two families of ADT techniques, namely methods based on Nonnegative Matrix Factorization and Recurrent Neural Networks. We explain the methods’ technical details and drum-speciïŹc variations and evaluate these approaches on publicly available datasets with a consistent experimental setup. Finally, the open issues and under-explored areas in ADT research are identiïŹed and discussed, providing future directions in this ïŹel

    Tracking Fish Lifetime Exposure to Mercury Using Eye Lenses

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    Mercury (Hg) uptake in fish is affected by diet, growth, and environmental factors such as primary productivity or oxygen regimes. Traditionally, fish Hg exposure is assessed using muscle tissue or whole fish, reflecting both loss and uptake processes that result in Hg bioaccumulation over entire lifetimes. Tracking changes in Hg exposure of an individual fish chronologically throughout its lifetime can provide novel insights into the processes that affect Hg bioaccumulation. Here we use eye lenses to determine Hg uptake at an annual scale for individual fish. We assess the widely distributed benthic round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) from the Baltic Sea, Lake Erie, and the St. Lawrence River. We aged layers of the eye lens using proportional relationships between otolith length at age and eye lens radius for each individual fish. Mercury concentrations were quantified using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The eye lens Hg content revealed that Hg exposure increased with age in Lake Erie and the Baltic Sea but decreased with age in the St. Lawrence River, a trend not detected using muscle tissues. This novel methodology for measuring Hg concentration over time with eye lens chronology holds promise for quantifying how global change processes like increasing hypoxia affect the exposure of fish to Hg

    Numerical coupling of aerosol emissions, dry removal, and turbulent mixing in the E3SM Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1), part I: dust budget analyses and the impacts of a revised coupling scheme

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    An earlier study evaluating the dust life cycle in EAMv1 has revealed that the simulated global mean dust lifetime is substantially shorter when higher vertical resolution is used, primarily due to significant strengthening of dust dry removal in source regions. This paper demonstrates that the sequential splitting of aerosol emissions, dry removal, and turbulent mixing in the model's time integration loop, especially the calculation of dry removal after surface emissions and before turbulent mixing, is the primary reason for the vertical resolution sensitivity reported in that earlier study. Based on this reasoning, we propose a simple revision to the numerical process coupling scheme, which moves the application of the surface emissions to after dry removal and before turbulent mixing. The revised scheme allows newly emitted particles to be transported aloft by turbulence before being removed from the atmosphere, and hence better resembles the dust life cycle in the real world. Sensitivity experiments are conducted and analyzed to evaluate the impact of the revised coupling on the simulated aerosol climatology in EAMv1

    S100A8 and S100A9 in experimental osteoarthritis

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    INTRODUCTION: The objective was to evaluate the changes in S100A8 S100A9, and their complex (S100A8/S100A9) in cartilage during the onset of osteoarthritis (OA) as opposed to inflammatory arthritis. METHODS: S100A8 and S100A9 protein localization were determined in antigen-induced inflammatory arthritis in mice, mouse femoral head cartilage explants stimulated with interleukin-1 (IL-1), and in surgically-induced OA in mice. Microarray expression profiling of all S100 proteins in cartilage was evaluated at different times after initiation of degradation in femoral head explant cultures stimulated with IL-1 and surgically-induced OA. The effect of S100A8, S100A9 or the complex on the expression of aggrecan (Acan), collagen II (Col2a1), disintegrin and metalloproteases with thrombospondin motifs (Adamts1, Adamts 4 &Adamts 5), matrix metalloproteases (Mmp1, Mmp3, Mmp13 &Mmp14) and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (Timp1, Timp2 &Timp3), by primary adult ovine articular chondrocytes was determined using real time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). RESULTS: Stimulation with IL-1 increased chondrocyte S100a8 and S100a9 mRNA and protein levels. There was increased chondrocyte mRNA expression of S100a8 and S100a9 in early but not late mouse OA. However, loss of the S100A8 staining in chondrocytes occurred as mouse OA progressed, in contrast to the positive reactivity for both S100A8 and S100A9 in chondrocytes in inflammatory arthritis in mice. Homodimeric S100A8 and S100A9, but not the heterodimeric complex, significantly upregulated chondrocyte Adamts1, Adamts4 and Adamts 5, Mmp1, Mmp3 and Mmp13 gene expression, while collagen II and aggrecan mRNAs were significantly decreased. CONCLUSIONS: Chondrocyte derived S100A8 and S100A9 may have a sustained role in cartilage degradation in inflammatory arthritis. In contrast, while these proteins may have a role in initiating early cartilage degradation in OA by upregulating MMPs and aggrecanases, their reduced expression in late stages of OA suggests they do not have an ongoing role in cartilage degradation in this non-inflammatory arthropathy

    Photoluminescence Stokes shift and exciton fine structure in CdTe nanocrystals

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    The photoluminescence spectra of spherical CdTe nanocrystals with zincblende structure are studied by size-selective spectroscopic techniques. We observe a resonant Stokes shift of 15 meV when the excitation laser energy is tuned to the red side of the absorption band at 2.236 eV. The experimental data are analyzed within a symmetry-based tight-binding theory of the exciton spectrum, which is first shown to account for the size dependence of the fundamental gap reported previously in the literature. The theoretical Stokes shift presented as a function of the gap shows a good agreement with the experimental data, indicating that the measured Stokes shift indeed arises from the electron-hole exchange interaction.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, LaTe
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