A Simplified, Low-Cost Method for Polarized Light Microscopy

Malaria pigment is an intracellular inclusion body that appears in blood and tissue specimens on microscopic examination and can help in establishing the diagnosis of malaria. In simple light microscopy, it can be difficult to discern from cellular background and artifacts. It has long been known that if polarized light microscopy is used, malaria pigment can be much easier to distinguish. However, this technique is rarely used because of the need for a relatively costly polarization microscope. We describe a simple and economical technique to convert any standard light microscope suitable for examination of malaria films into a polarization microscope

Light-regulated and cell-specific methylation of the maize PEPC promoter

The molecular mechanisms governing PEPC expression in maize remain to be fully defined. Differential methylation of a region in the PEPC promoter has been shown to correlate with transcript accumulation, however, to date, investigations into the role of DNA methylation in maize PEPC expression have relied on the use of methylation-sensitive restriction enzymes. Bisulphite sequencing was used here to provide a single-base resolution methylation map of the maize PEPC promoter. It is shown that four cytosine residues in the PEPC promoter are heavily methylated in maize root tissue. In leaves, de-methylation of these cytosines is dependent on illumination and is coincident with elevated PEPC expression. Furthermore, light-regulated de-methylation of these cytosines occurs only in mesophyll cells. No methylation was discovered in the 0.6 kb promoter required for mesophyll-specific expression indicating that cytosine methylation is not required to direct the cell-specificity of PEPC expression. This raises interesting questions regarding the function of the cell-specific cytosine de-methylation observed in the upstream region of the PEPC promoter

ナイロンテグスの疲労寿命に対する表面傷(ノッチ)の影響

東京水産大学海洋生産学科東京水産大学海洋生産学科東京水産大学海洋生産学

Characterization of statistical features for plant microRNA prediction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several tools are available to identify miRNAs from deep-sequencing data, however, only a few of them, like miRDeep, can identify novel miRNAs and are also available as a standalone application. Given the difference between plant and animal miRNAs, particularly in terms of distribution of hairpin length and the nature of complementarity with its duplex partner (or miRNA star), the underlying (statistical) features of miRDeep and other tools, using similar features, are likely to get affected.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The potential effects on features, such as minimum free energy, stability of secondary structures, excision length, etc., were examined, and the parameters of those displaying sizable changes were estimated for plant specific miRNAs. We found most of these features acquired a new set of values or distributions for plant specific miRNAs. While the length of conserved positions (nucleus) in mature miRNAs were relatively longer in plants, the difference in distribution of minimum free energy, between real and background hairpins, was marginal. However, the choice of source (species) of background sequences was found to affect both the minimum free energy and miRNA hairpin stability. The new parameters were tested on an Illumina dataset from maize seedlings, and the results were compared with those obtained using default parameters. The newly parameterized model was found to have much improved specificity and sensitivity over its default counterpart.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In summary, the present study reports behavior of few general and tool-specific statistical features for improving the prediction accuracy of plant miRNAs from deep-sequencing data.</p

Guide for Fishing Gear Survey

The Guide for Fishing Gear Survey is a fishing technology manual developed for fishing gear technologists who have responsible to manage and undertake field survey of fishing technology. People who interested in fishing technology could use the part of appendix; Knowledge of Fishing Gear Material for Fishing Gear Surveyor, to be reference and manual of fishing technology

Quality of life and willingness to pay for receiving hemodialysis in patients who received peritoneal dialysis in Thailand

This cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate quality of life (QoL), willingness to pay (WTP) for receiving hemodialysis (HD), and factors influencing QoL in patients who received peritoneal dialysis (PD) in Thailand. Data of PD patients visiting secondary or tertiary hospitals from December 2020 through June 2021 were collected. EuroQoL EQ-5D-5L questionnaire was used to evaluate QoL. After the patients completed the questionnaire, they were interviewed using the contingent valuation method to derive their WTP for switching to HD. Patients randomly picked up one payment card as an initial price for receiving HD, then bidding by 100 Thai Baht (THB) up and down to reach the maximum affordable WTP amount. Multiple linear regression was used to identify factors affecting QoL. A total of 102 patients were included in this study. The mean age was 58 years. EQ-5D utility score was 0.71±0.32. Five variables were the factors that affect QoL included serum albumin, hospitalization, age, urine output, and hemoglobin level. Average WTP was 233±293 THB (7.2±9.0 USD) per HD session. Quality of life among these study patients was slightly higher than reported in Thai patients with low hemoglobin level. Treatment anemia to reach hemoglobin target and preservation of residual urine output might improve QoL. The average WTP for switching to HD among PD patients was only one-sixth of general billing price for HD