St. Louis limestone, stratigraphy and petrography, near its type locality

The St. Louis Limestone of the Upper Meramecian Series, Mississippian System, is typically lithographic, light-to light-olive gray in color, dense, and fractures conchoidally. It is brecciated, especially in the lower part, and contains some chert nodules. Oolites are present close to the top of the formation. The Salem-St. Louis contact is placed at the base of the lowest breccia zone and the top of Salem is characterized by crystalline quartz and abundance of chert nodules. The appearance of typical Ste. Genevieve oolites with sand-size quartz grains indicates the St. Louis-Ste. Genevieve contact. The St. Louis Limestone is characterized by dominance of fine-grained texture (micritic) with fossil fragments and minor spar. Foraminifers and bryozoans are the main fossil constituents followed by algae, crinoid fragments and corals. Of the corals, Lithostrotionella and Lithostrotion are significant but of less obvious correlative value. Brachiopods and gastropods are present but to a lesser extent. The formation has about 3 to 5 percent insoluble residues (except close to the boundaries), consisting mostly of quartz. The degree of dolomitization is widely variable from one section to another. The St. Louis Limestone is high in CaD content except in the dolomitized zones. The explanation of the origin of brecciation in the St. Louis Limestone presents some difficulty. The St. Louis Limestone is tentatively subdivided into three units. The deposition of limestone was continuous from Salem through St. Louis time under quiet and shallow water environments. In the study area, the St. Louis Limestone is used for cement manufacture and road construction --Abstract, page ii

Petrography, diagenesis and environment of deposition of the Gasconade Formation, Lower Ordovician, southern Missouri

The Gasconade Formation (Lower Ordovician) has been studied in the surface and subsurface in the Ozarks of Missouri and northeastern Oklahoma. The formation is mostly dolomite with a sandstone member at the base (Gunter) and frequent occurrences of chert bodies of different shapes particularly in the middle part. The dolomite crystals in the lower and upper parts are subhedral to euhedral of equicrystalline to two-size fabric and range in size from 300-600 microns, and subhedral to anhedral of variable fabric and smaller size in the middle part. A sequence of cloudy and clear areas, named zoning, characterizes the euhedral crystals. Three different types of zoning are recognized; type A, cloudy interior-clear rims; type B, clear interior-cloudy rims and type C, a combination of both or repetition of either, the latter being the most common. Pellets, oolites, intraclasts, fossils, and algal (cryptozoan) structures characterize the formation especially the middle part. The Gunter sandstone is bimodal to polymodal. Post-dolomitization solution affected the dolomite and sandstone of the formation causing stylolites, rim and center corrosion, secondary mineral growth and pyrite replacement in dolomite and quartz. Both the dolomite and chert in the Gasconade Formation have been formed by replacement. Dolomite replacement occurred in three phases, early, middle (main) and late. Over 90 percent of the original carbonate has been dolomitized during the main phase of dolomitization. Chert replacement occurred in two phases, early and late. The early phase of chertification either interrupted or occurred soon after the main phase of dolomitization. The Gasconade Formation was deposited in the intertidal zone of a shallow sea. During the deposition of the middle part of the formation, the sea was shallower than during the deposition of either the lower or the upper parts. The diagenesis of the formation follows the following sequence: early phase of dolomitization; middle (main) phase of dolomitization; early phase of chertification; late phase of chertification and late phase of dolomitization --Abstract, pages ii-iii

Blind image separation based on exponentiated transmuted Weibull distribution

In recent years the processing of blind image separation has been investigated. As a result, a number of feature extraction algorithms for direct application of such image structures have been developed. For example, separation of mixed fingerprints found in any crime scene, in which a mixture of two or more fingerprints may be obtained, for identification, we have to separate them. In this paper, we have proposed a new technique for separating a multiple mixed images based on exponentiated transmuted Weibull distribution. To adaptively estimate the parameters of such score functions, an efficient method based on maximum likelihood and genetic algorithm will be used. We also calculate the accuracy of this proposed distribution and compare the algorithmic performance using the efficient approach with other previous generalized distributions. We find from the numerical results that the proposed distribution has flexibility and an efficient resultComment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS),Vol. 14, No. 3, March 2016 (pp. 423-433

Platelet activating factor and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 in children with refractory epilepsy

Background: Epilepsy is an important common and diverse group of symptom complexes characterized by recurrent spontaneous seizures. It is estimated that about 5-10% of all cases of epilepsy eventually become refractory. It has been suggested that inflammation plays a role in epilepsy. In refractory epilepsy, an inflammatory response is produced that leads to rapid release of pro-inflammatory cytokines as platelet activating factor (PAF) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1). Objective: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the plasma levels of the monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and platelet activating factor (PAF) in children with refractory epilepsy to explore their role in the pathogenesis of refractory epilepsy. Methods: The present study was carried out in Tanta University Hospital, Pediatric Department, Neurology unit. Forty (40) children with idiopathic refractory epilepsy (25 males and 15 females) their age ranging between 4-15 years were included in the study. The control group consisted of thirty healthy children, 20 males and 10 females aged 5 years to 13 years. The serum levels of MCP-1 and PAF were measured for children with refractory epilepsy and the control children. Results: Children with refractory epilepsy had significantly higher serum levels of PAF (P < value 0.001) and significantly higher serum level of MCP-1 (P < value 0.001) in comparison to the control children. Also there was a significant correlation between the duration of refractory epilepsy and the serum levels of PAF and MCP-1. Conclusion: Higher serum levels of the proinflammatory cytokines PAF and MCP-1 in children with refractory epilepsy suggest that both, PAF and MCP-1, may play a role in the pathogenesis of refractory epilepsy. Keywords: Platelet activating factor, Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, Neuroinflammation, Refractory epilepsyEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2012;10(1):13-1

Determination of insecticides malathion and lambda-cyhalothrin residues in zucchini by gas chromatography

AbstractA sensitive gas chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of malathion and lambda-cyhalothrin (λ-cyhalothrin) insecticide residues in zucchini. The developed method consists of extraction with acetone, purification and partitioning with methylene chloride, column chromatographic clean-up, and finally capillary gas chromatographic determination of the insecticides. The recoveries of method were greater than 90% and limit of determination was 0.001ppm for both insecticides. The method was applied to determine residues and the rate of disappearance of malathion and λ-cyhalothrin from fruits of zucchini (open field treatment, 50cc of Malason/Cormandel 57% EC (emulsifiable concentrate) for 100L of water, 20cc of LAMBDA SUPER FOG 5% liquid for 100L of water). The insecticide incorporated into the plants decreased rapidly with a half-life time around 0.77day (18.5h) for malathion and 4days for λ-cyhalothrin. It is not recommended to use zucchini before 12h of malathion application. For λ-cyhalothrin, the preharvest interval is 5days. Four market samples were chosen from different regions from A.R.E. and all of them showed no residues of malathion or λ-cyhalothrin

Comparison between polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofiber and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofiber/hydroxyapatite (HA) for removal of Zn2+ ions from wastewater

AbstractNanocomposites in the form of continuous and aligned polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers have been obtained by the electrospinning process. These fibers were used as matrix for hydroxyapatite (HA). PVA and PVA/HA nanofibers were fabricated and crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (GA). The hybrid of polymer with ceramics (HA) shows good properties of large surface area and good porosity that were demonstrated by different characterization techniques such as FTIR, SEM, XRD and EDX which illustrate the ratio of HA. The prepared nanofibrous membranes are used for removal of Zn2+ from simulated water. The potential of these synthesized sorbents to remove Zn2+ ions from aqueous solutions was investigated in batch experiments, where several parameters such as the sorbate/sorbent’s contact time, initial Zn2+ ions concentration and sorbent dosage were investigated. The equilibrium concentration of Zn2+ ions was identified by the atomic absorption spectrophotometry and the adsorption process was studied by the isotherm models such as Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin. The Zn2+ adsorption process for PVA and PVA/HA nanofibrous membranes was fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models respectively

Computational Protein-Ligand Modelling of the Enzymes DNA gyrase and IcaB

Computational modelling of proteins and their interactions with small molecule ligands is a growing field of research. Such studies provide an understanding of how protein structure relates to mechanism and function as well as informing drug discovery and design. This thesis had two main aspects: computational modelling of ciprofloxacin derivatives binding to DNA gyrase and homology modelling of the protein IcaB based on sequence alignment with a related protein, PgaB. The inhibitory activity of synthetic ciprofloxacin derivatives (with various linkage to citrate groups) was experimentally assessed by gel electrophoresis to examine the effect on DNA gyrase binding to a target DNA strand. Overall, the derivative which possessed the greatest inhibition compared to the unmodified ciprofloxacin was the c-gly-ciprofloxacin derivative, which had a 2 atom linker between the ciprofloxacin and citrate groups. This correlated with the change in interactions seen between ciprofloxacin derivatives as computationally modelled by molecular mechanics methods. The second aspect of the thesis was to generate a model of the protein IcaB to test the hypothesis that it is a deactylase of poly-N-acetyl-glucosamine (PNAG) during maturation of the poly-glycan in the extracellular matrix responsible for biofilm generation for bacteria. An initial review of deacetylase enzyme structures identified the conserved features required for activity. A homologous protein, Pga,B was then used as a template to generate a homology model of IcaB. The model maintained the orientation and positioning of the metal-binding and catalytic residues critical for proper deacetylase function. However, the PNAG binding groove, believed to be involved in the transport of the PNAG to the active site of PgaB, was not properly replicated in the IcaB model. Further modelling would require improved characterization of the binding groove of IcaB

An ultrafast 1 x M all-optical WDM packet-switched router based on the PPM header address

This paper presents an all-optical 1 x M WDM router architecture for packet routing at multiple wavelengths simultaneously, with no wavelength conversion modules. The packet header address adopted is based on the pulse position modulation (PPM) format, thus enabling the use of only a singlebitwise optical AND gate for fast header address correlation. It offers multicast as well as broadcast capabilities. It is shown that a high speed packet routing at 160 Gb/s can be achieved with a low channel crosstalk (CXT) of ~ -27 dB at a channel spacing of greater than 0.4 THz and a demultiplexer bandwidth of 500 GHz