Patterns of Prehistoric Epidemiology and Human Paleopathology

Human paleopathologists are interested in the visible marks of diagnosable disease that reflect various aspects of human biocultural interaction. Whether infectious, nutritional, or a combination of both, pathological characteristics in the dry bone provide some insight into the health of past human populations. Paleoepidemiology and human paleopathology are important parts of ecology in that they deal directly with a major aspect of man\u27s relationship to his environment. The significance of this relationship has, to a large extent, been neglected by human skeletal biologists. The purpose of this study is to examine one of the most important aspects of human biocultural interaction: patterns of nutritional stress

Recurrence Relations for Moments of Dual Generalized Order Statistics from Weibull Gamma Distribution and Its Characterizations

In this paper, we establish explicit forms and new recurrence relations satisfied by the single and product moments of dual generalized order statistics from Weibull gamma distribution (WGD). The results include as particular cases the relations for moments of reversed order statistics and lower records.We present characterizations ofWGD based on (i) recurrence relation for single moments, (ii) truncated moments of certain function of the variable and (iii) hazrad function

Validity of Finite Element Method: Analysis of Laminated Composite Decks Plates Subjected to in Plane Loading

To verify the accuracy of the present technique, buckling loads are evaluated and validated with other works available in the literature. Further comparisons were carried out and compared with the results obtained by the ANSYS package and experimental results. The good agreement with available data demonstrates the reliability of the finite element method used

Stability of Thin Laminated Decks Plates Under Plane Compressive Loading

It was found that symmetric laminates are stiffer than the anti – symmetric one due to coupling between bending and stretching which decreases the buckling loads of symmetric laminates. The buckling load increases with increasing aspect ratio, and decreases with increase in modulus ratio. The buckling load will remain the same even when the lamination order is reversed. The buckling load increases with the mode number but at different rates depending on the type of end support. It is also observed that as the mode number increases, the plate needs additional support

Optically-enhanced performance of polymer solar cells with low concentration of gold nanorods in the anodic buffer layer

In this work, the effect of gold nanorods on the performance of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric-acid-methyl-ester bulk heterojunction solar cells was investigated. Gold nanorods were introduced into the anodic buffer layer by simply blending them with the solution of poly(3,4-ethyl enedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate). Even with a fairly low density of the nanorods, the resulting devices showed a remarkable 21.3% enhancement in the power conversion efficiency and a 13% enlargement in the short circuit current. By examining the absorbance profiles of active films made with different conditions,\ud such enhancements can be related to the localized transverse and longitudinal plasmon resonance modes in the metallic nanoparticles. Gold nanorods helped as well in reducing the device series resistance by up to 36%, which also contributed to the global enhancement in the efficiency

The Shigella ProU system is required for osmotic tolerance and virulence : Shigella ProU in osmotic tolerance and virulence

To cope with hyperosmotic stress encountered in the environments and in the host, the pathogenic as well as non-pathogenic microbes use diverse transport systems to obtain osmoprotectants. To study the role of Shigella sonnei ProU system in response to hyperosmotic stress and virulence, we constructed deletion and complementation strains of proV and used an RNAi approach to silence the whole ProU operon. We compared the response between wild type and the mutants to the hyperosmotic pressure in vitro, and assessed virulence properties of the mutants using gentamicin protection assay as well as Galleria mellonella moth larvae model. In response to osmotic stress by either NaCl or KCl, S. sonnei highly up-regulates transcription of proVWX genes. Supplementation of betaine greatly elevates the growth of the wild type S. sonnei but not the proV mutants in M9 medium containing 0.2 M NaCl or 0.2 M KCl. The proV mutants are also defective in intracellular growth compared with the wild type. The moth larvae model of G. mellonella shows that either deletion of proV gene or knockdown of proVWX transcripts by RNAi significantly attenuates virulence. ProU system in S. sonnei is required to cope with osmotic stress for survival and multiplication in vitro and ex vivo, and for infection

Gold nanorods on the cathode electrode for enhancing the efficiency of polymer solar cells

Different densities of gold nanorods (GNRs) were incorporated on the back electrode of bulk heterojunction organic solar cell (OSC). GNRs layers (1, 3, and 5) were deposited on top of the poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and phenyl- C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) layer using spin-casting technique. According to the optical and structural characterizations, the solar cell devices incorporated with one layer of gold nanorods showed an enhancement in both power conversion efficiency and short-circuit current by up to 14% and 22% respectively as compared to the devices without gold nanorods. This result suggests that GNRs in the back electrode of polymer solar cells act as backscattering elements. They not only increase the optical path length in the active layer but also store energy in localized surface plasmon resonance mode. Both mechanisms lead to enhancement of light absorption and in turn contribute to photocurrent generation and the overall power conversion efficiency. On the other hand, the solar cells with high density GNRs on the back electrode showed inferior performance compared to that of low density integrated ones. The decrease in PCE would stem from enhanced charge recombination induced by high density GNRs. Furthermore, generation of intense local electric fields named hotspots, would reduce the charge transportation and exciton dissociation probability. In such cases, the power conversion efficiency of the device is observed to be less than that for one layer GNRs or even the control device