Assessing the agronomic value of hog manure-derived struvite as a phosphorus source for spring wheat

Non-Peer ReviewedRecovery of phosphorus (P) from liquid hog manure is one option for minimizing P loss from hog operations to surface water bodies, where it can cause eutrophication. The P, recovered as magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate (MgNH4PO4∙6H2O), commonly known as struvite, has slow-release properties, which could improve P use efficiency in cropping systems. This greenhouse bioassay evaluated the effectiveness of struvite as a P source for spring wheat. Struvite, monoammonium phosphate (MAP), and polymer-coated monoammonium phosphate (CMAP) were applied at rates of 25 and 50 kg P2O5 ha-1 either in the seed-row or in a side-band in the first of three crop cycles. Results for Cycle 1 indicated no significant P source, rate, application method, and soil main effects on aboveground wheat dry matter yield (DMY). Phosphorus uptake (PU) in Cycle 1, averaged across soils, rates, and applications methods, was significantly greater with MAP (5.1 mg kg-1) and CMAP (4.9 mg kg-1) than with struvite (4.1 mg kg-1) application. Similarly, P uptake efficiency (PUE) was greater for MAP (21%) and CMAP (18%) than for struvite (12%). For the second and third crop cycles in which wheat followed canola, DMY, PU, and PUE were similar for the P sources, regardless of rate, placement, or soil. These results suggest that while struvite was as good as the commercial P fertilizers with respect to DMY and, in Cycles 2 and 3, PU and PUE, it did not exhibit the beneficial residual effects that typically characterize slow release fertilizers. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to note that the unrefined struvite, which is a by-product of manure management for environmental goals, can perform as well as commercial fertilizers that are optimized for agronomic performance

Pulsed Beam Tests at the SANAEM RFQ Beamline

A proton beamline consisting of an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source, two solenoid magnets, two steerer magnets and a radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) is developed at the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority's (TAEA) Saraykoy Nuclear Research and Training Center (SNRTC-SANAEM) in Ankara. In Q4 of 2016, the RFQ was installed in the beamline. The high power tests of the RF power supply and the RF transmission line were done successfully. The high power RF conditioning of the RFQ was performed recently. The 13.56 MHz ICP source was tested in two different conditions, CW and pulsed. The characterization of the proton beam was done with ACCTs, Faraday cups and a pepper-pot emittance meter. Beam transverse emittance was measured in between the two solenoids of the LEBT. The measured beam is then reconstructed at the entrance of the RFQ by using computer simulations to determine the optimum solenoid currents for acceptance matching of the beam. This paper will introduce the pulsed beam test results at the SANAEM RFQ beamline. In addition, the high power RF conditioning of the RFQ will be discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Proceedings of the International Particle Accelerator Conference 2017 (IPAC'17), May 14-19, 2017, TUPAB015, p. 134

Pattern manipulation via on-chip phase modulation between orbital angular momentum beams

An integrated approach to thermal modulation of relative phase between two optical vortices with opposite chirality has been demonstrated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. The device consists of a silicon-integrated optical vortex emitter and a phase controlled 3 dB coupler. The relative phase between two optical vortices can be actively modulated on chip by applying a voltage on the integrated heater. The phase shift is shown to be linearly proportional to applied electrical power, and the rotation angle of the interference pattern is observed to be inversely proportional to topological charge. This scheme can be used in lab-on-chip, communications and sensing applications. It can be intentionally implemented with other modulation elements to achieve more complicated applications

An Inductive Transfer Learning Approach using Cycle-consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptation with Application to Brain Tumor Segmentation

With recent advances in supervised machine learning for medical image analysis applications, the annotated medical image datasets of various domains are being shared extensively. Given that the annotation labelling requires medical expertise, such labels should be applied to as many learning tasks as possible. However, the multi-modal nature of each annotated image renders it difficult to share the annotation label among diverse tasks. In this work, we provide an inductive transfer learning (ITL) approach to adopt the annotation label of the source domain datasets to tasks of the target domain datasets using Cycle-GAN based unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA). To evaluate the applicability of the ITL approach, we adopted the brain tissue annotation label on the source domain dataset of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images to the task of brain tumor segmentation on the target domain dataset of MRI. The results confirm that the segmentation accuracy of brain tumor segmentation improved significantly. The proposed ITL approach can make significant contribution to the field of medical image analysis, as we develop a fundamental tool to improve and promote various tasks using medical images

The Influence of Temperature and Drug Concentrations Prednisolone in NIPAAm Copolymer

Controlled delivery systems would be more beneficial and ideal if the drug could be delivered with respond to external environmental change. It could be used to overcome the shortcomings of conventional dosage forms. Therefore, the correct amount of drug would be released upon the stimulation of such a temperature and concentration change. The purpose of study is to investigate the influence of temperature and drug concentration from poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and N-isopropylacrylamide)/poly(HEMA-NIPAAm). The macroporous structure 5HEMA15NIPAAm was showed the most rapid responsiveness in swelling ratio, polymer volume fraction, swelling and deswelling kinetics. The high drug loading capacity was achieved at or below ambient temperature, whilst the release profile was revealed sustain release of conventional anti-inflammatory drug; prednisolone 21 hemisuccinate sodium salt. In general, drug loading capacity and drug diffusion kinetics are influence by the porosity of hydrogels, temperature, and drug concentration

Counter-current chromatography for the separation of terpenoids: A comprehensive review with respect to the solvent systems employed

Copyright @ 2014 The Authors.This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.Natural products extracts are commonly highly complex mixtures of active compounds and consequently their purification becomes a particularly challenging task. The development of a purification protocol to extract a single active component from the many hundreds that are often present in the mixture is something that can take months or even years to achieve, thus it is important for the natural product chemist to have, at their disposal, a broad range of diverse purification techniques. Counter-current chromatography (CCC) is one such separation technique utilising two immiscible phases, one as the stationary phase (retained in a spinning coil by centrifugal forces) and the second as the mobile phase. The method benefits from a number of advantages when compared with the more traditional liquid-solid separation methods, such as no irreversible adsorption, total recovery of the injected sample, minimal tailing of peaks, low risk of sample denaturation, the ability to accept particulates, and a low solvent consumption. The selection of an appropriate two-phase solvent system is critical to the running of CCC since this is both the mobile and the stationary phase of the system. However, this is also by far the most time consuming aspect of the technique and the one that most inhibits its general take-up. In recent years, numerous natural product purifications have been published using CCC from almost every country across the globe. Many of these papers are devoted to terpenoids-one of the most diverse groups. Naturally occurring terpenoids provide opportunities to discover new drugs but many of them are available at very low levels in nature and a huge number of them still remain unexplored. The collective knowledge on performing successful CCC separations of terpenoids has been gathered and reviewed by the authors, in order to create a comprehensive document that will be of great assistance in performing future purifications. © 2014 The Author(s)

Ectopic thyroid in an adrenal mass: a case report

BACKGROUND: It is difficult to explain ectopic thyroid beneath the diaphragm because during the development the thyroid descends from the tongue to the anterior of the trachea. A few cases of ectopic lesions have been reported in the literature for abdominal organs including the adrenal glands, but the mechanism by which the thyroid components migrate into the abdomen has been poorly understood. CASE PRESENTATION: A 54-year-old woman was diagnosed as having an adrenal mass. Laparoscopic adrenalectomy was carried out. Microscopically, the mass was composed of normal adrenal and ectopic thyroid tissues. CONCLUSION: We herein describe the fourth case reported of ectopic thyroid in the adrenal gland

Treatment of acne with intermittent and conventional isotretinoin: a randomized, controlled multicenter study

Oral isotretinoin is the most effective choice in the treatment of severe acne. Application of isotretionin to acne has been expanded to treat those patients with less severe but scarring acne who are responding unsatisfactorily to conventional therapies. However, its use is associated with many side effects, some of which can result in very disastrous consequences. Data related with intermittent isotretinoin therapy is still limited. Our aim was to asses the efficacy and tolerability of two different intermittent isotretinoin courses and compare them with conventional isotretinoin treatment. In this multicenter and controlled study, 66 patients with moderate to severe cases were randomized to receive either isotretionin for the first 10 days of each month for 6 months (group 1), or each day in the first month, afterwards the first 10 days of each month for 5 months (group 2) or daily for 6 months (group 3). The drug dosage was 0.5 mg/kg/day in all groups. Patients were followed-up for 12 months. Efficacy values were evaluable for 22 patients in group 1, 19 patients in group 2, and 19 patients in group 3. Acne scores in each group were significantly lower at the end of treatment and follow-up periods (P < 0.001). When patients were evaluated separately as moderate (n = 31) and severe (n = 29), no statistically significant differences were obtained among the treatment protocols in patients with moderate acne. However, there was a significant difference between groups 1 and 3 to the response of the treatments in severe acne patients at the end of follow-up period (P = 0.013). The frequency and severity of isotretionin-related side effects were found to be lower in groups 1 and 2 compared with group 3. Intermittent isotretinoin may represent an effective alternative treatment, especially in moderate acne with a low incidence and severity of side effects. The intermittent isotretinoin can be recommended in those patients not tolerating the classical dosage

An approach for the identification of targets specific to bone metastasis using cancer genes interactome and gene ontology analysis

Metastasis is one of the most enigmatic aspects of cancer pathogenesis and is a major cause of cancer-associated mortality. Secondary bone cancer (SBC) is a complex disease caused by metastasis of tumor cells from their primary site and is characterized by intricate interplay of molecular interactions. Identification of targets for multifactorial diseases such as SBC, the most frequent complication of breast and prostate cancers, is a challenge. Towards achieving our aim of identification of targets specific to SBC, we constructed a 'Cancer Genes Network', a representative protein interactome of cancer genes. Using graph theoretical methods, we obtained a set of key genes that are relevant for generic mechanisms of cancers and have a role in biological essentiality. We also compiled a curated dataset of 391 SBC genes from published literature which serves as a basis of ontological correlates of secondary bone cancer. Building on these results, we implement a strategy based on generic cancer genes, SBC genes and gene ontology enrichment method, to obtain a set of targets that are specific to bone metastasis. Through this study, we present an approach for probing one of the major complications in cancers, namely, metastasis. The results on genes that play generic roles in cancer phenotype, obtained by network analysis of 'Cancer Genes Network', have broader implications in understanding the role of molecular regulators in mechanisms of cancers. Specifically, our study provides a set of potential targets that are of ontological and regulatory relevance to secondary bone cancer.Comment: 54 pages (19 pages main text; 11 Figures; 26 pages of supplementary information). Revised after critical reviews. Accepted for Publication in PLoS ON