Erythropoietin Suppresses the Hepatic Fibrosis Caused by Thioacetamide: Role of the PI3K/Akt and TLR4 Signaling Pathways

Erythropoietin (EPO) is recognized for its function in erythropoiesis; however, its potential antifibrotic effect against liver fibrosis remains unknown. This study examined whether EPO affects thioacetamide (TAA)-induced liver fibrosis by concentrating on the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) cascade and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway as possible pathways. Male Wistar rats were randomized into four groups, which included: the negative control group, the TAA group (intraperitoneal; TAA 100 mg/kg three times per week for 2 weeks), and EPO-treated groups (150 and 300 IU/kg, i.p.) for 2 weeks after TAA injections. EPO attenuated hepatic fibrosis in a dosage-dependent way, as manifested by the diminution in serum alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase activities, as well as the increase in albumin level. EPO inhibited the increase in tissue levels of tumor necrosis factors-α, interleukin-1β, transforming growth factor-β1, and TLR4 and raised tissue levels of PI3K and p-PI3K. EPO antioxidant properties were demonstrated by restoring hepatic glutathione and superoxide dismutase by preventing the accumulation of hepatic malondialdehyde. Further, EPO increased the protein expression of PI3K and Akt and decreased TLR4 protein expression. Immunohistochemically, EPO treatment altered tissue histology and downregulated mitogen-activated protein kinase protein expression. Overall, the research suggested that EPO could prevent TAA-induced hepatic fibrosis through upregulating the PI3K/Akt signaling cascade and downregulation the TLR4 downstream axis

UK informative inventory report (1990 to 2013)

This is the 10th Informative Inventory Report (IIR) from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) Programme. The report is compiled to accompany the UK’s 2015 data submission under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) and contains detailed information on annual emission estimates of air quality pollutants by source in the UK from 1990 onwards

Air quality assessment for Portugal

According to the Air Quality Framework Directive, air pollutant concentration levels have to be assessed and reported annually by each European Union member state, taking into consideration European air quality standards. Plans and programmes should be implemented in zones and agglomerations where pollutant concentrations exceed the limit and target values. The main objective of this study is to perform a long-term air quality simulation for Portugal, using the CHIMERE chemistry-transport model, applied over Portugal, for the year 2001. The model performance was evaluated by comparing its results to air quality data from the regional monitoring networks and to data from a diffusive sampling experimental campaign. The results obtained show a modelling system able to reproduce the pollutant concentrations' temporal evolution and spatial distribution observed at the regional networks of air quality monitoring. As far as the fulfilment of the air quality targets is concerned, there are excessive values for nitrogen and sulfur dioxides, ozone also being a critical gaseous pollutant in what concerns hourly concentrations and AOT40 (Accumulated Over Threshold 40 ppb) values

Are returns received by householders from electricity generated by solar panels assessable income?

More than one million households in Australia are generating electricity from solar photovoltaic panels installed on their homes and they receive a credit or payment, namely a return in some form for the electricity generated. The focus of this article is on domestic households and the returns they receive from solar panels installed on their roofs. This article contends that such returns in the form of a credit or actual payment to households for electricity generated from solar panels is ordinary income from property and should be treated as assessable income. Where the electricity generated is fed back into the household it will not be assessable income, but in all those cases where the electricity is fed into the grid and a payment or credit is given, then that return is income according to ordinary concepts and assessable as such. If the government wants to encourage investment in solar energy by householders in Australia then it should clarify this issue by passing legislation exempting the returns from assessable income. Alternatively the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) could release a public ruling on the issue. This at least would provide greater certainty for households who now tentatively rely on private rulings given to taxpayers by the ATO that consider credits and payments not to be assessable income on the basis that the householder is not conducting a business or that the arrangement is of a private or domestic nature

Transferring semantic categories with vertex kernels:recommendations with SemanticSVD++

Matrix Factorisation is a recommendation approach that tries to understand what factors interest a user, based on his past ratings for items (products, movies, songs), and then use this factor information to predict future item ratings. A central limitation of this approach however is that it cannot capture how a user’s tastes have evolved beforehand; thereby ignoring if a user’s preference for a factor is likely to change. One solution to this is to include users’ preferences for semantic (i.e. linked data) categories, however this approach is limited should a user be presented with an item for which he has not rated the semantic categories previously; so called cold-start categories. In this paper we present a method to overcome this limitation by transferring rated semantic categories in place of unrated categories through the use of vertex kernels; and incorporate this into our prior SemanticSVD  + +  model. We evaluated several vertex kernels and their effects on recommendation error, and empirically demonstrate the superior performance that we achieve over: (i) existing SVD and SVD  + +  models; and (ii) SemanticSVD  + +  with no transferred semantic categories

Combining Linked Data and knowledge engineering best practices to design a lightweight role ontology

Defining roles of agents (i.e., people, organisations, etc.) is required in various Semantic Web applications, including access control, knowledge management and skill repository. So far, many theoretical discussions have taken place on the nature of roles and how to represent them. In this paper, we present how we implemented a lightweight OWL-DL ontology that allows to represent roles and their relations to agents. We especially focus on the various steps for choosing a well-founded model that is compatible with the general design principle of creating (and consuming) lightweight and easily re-usable ontology components for the Semantic Web. Our criteria to assess the beauty of an ontology component, in particular, are derived from practical requirements that are typical to Linked Data applications. Hence, our modeling proposal follows an original approach that bridges a gap between the Linked Data philosophy and more theoretical issues of ontology engineering. We also describe a use-case in which this ontology has been used, demonstrating in practice the benefits of our model for maintaining, browsing and querying Linked Data. © 2011-IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved