Cistos de dinoflagelados do Paleoceno-Oligoceno do Anticlinal de Siah, Bacia de Zagros, sudoeste do Irã

A section of the Pabdeh Formation dating back to the Paleocene-Oligocene has been sampled in the Zagros Basin in Southwest Iran for palynological investigations and evaluation of thermal maturity and hydrocarbon generation potential. In total, 125 rock samples were collected and processed palynologically. The samples yielded rich assemblages of dinoflagellate cysts, and 65 cyst species were identified. Some index species allowed us age dating and establishment of seven dinoflagellate cyst zones in accordance with the existing European zonation. The dinoflagellate cyst zones allowed precise age assignment of the formation under study to late Paleocene to early Oligocene. For thermal maturity evaluation, spore and pollen grain color were correlated against the standard color chart prepared by the Shell Oil Company. The properties of the samples, according to palynomorph color changes, suggest that this formation is potentially oil prone and may have produced oil.Uma seção da Formação Pabdeh do Paleoceno-Oligoceno foi amostrada na Bacia Zagros, no sudoeste do Irã, para investigações palinológicas e avaliação de maturidade térmica e potencial de geração de hidrocarbonetos. Ao todo, 125 amostras de rochas foram coletadas e processadas palinologicamente. As amostras produziram assembleias ricas de cistos de dinoflagelados, nas quais foram identificadas 65 espécies de cistos. Algumas espécies-guia permitiram datação por meio do estabelecimento de sete biozonas de dinoflagelados de acordo com o arcabouço de biozoneamento europeu existente. As zonas de cistos de dinoflagelados permitiram atribuir a idade precisa da formação em estudo, a qual se estende do Neopaleoceno até o Eo-oligoceno. Para maturidade térmica, a coloração de esporos e grãos de pólen foi correlacionada com a escala padrão de cores da companhia de petróleo Shell. Propriedades das amostras, indicadas pela mudança de cor dos palinomorfos, sugerem que a formação é potencialmente geradora, podendo ter produzido petróleo

Paleogene dinoflagellate cysts and thermal maturity from Pabdeh Formation ( Zagros basin, west of Iran)

Palynological investigation on 132 samples from the 428m thick outcrop section of Late Paleocene to Early  Oligocene of the Pabdeh Formation in southwestern Iran yielded 55 species of dinoflagellate cysts and allowed  establishment of seven biozones. Quantity of marine palynomorph elements indicate an open marine  environment at that time interval but, a slight increase in number of spore and pollen grains in some samples  indicate suitable conditions for forest development as a consequence of increase in climate humidity. The  species are common in various latitudes and most of them are cosmopolitan. Thermal maturity index  measurement indicates oil prone nature for majority of the samples.Keyword: Pabdeh Formation, Dinoflagellate cysts, Paleogene, Palynostratigraphy, Thermal maturit

Numb “Adapting” Notch for Endocytosis

AbstractDuring sensory organ precursor divisions in Drosophila, the numb gene product segregates asymmetrically into one of the two daughter cells, to which it confers a specific fate by inhibiting Notch signaling. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Berdnik et al. show that Numb recruits α-Adaptin and that this physical interaction plays a role in downregulating Notch, presumably by stimulating endocytosis of Notch

Synthesis and formulation of diethyltoluamide as an insect repellent

During World War II more than 10,000 chemical substances were tested as insect repellents. Perhaps the best and all-purpose repellent developed since then is diethyltoluamide, which in various tests has been shown to be the most effective agent against a wide variety of insects. In this study diethyltoluamide was synthesized and formulated as a gel. Reaction of primary acid with thionylchloride produced acyl halide, which in reaction with diethylamine produced diethyltoluamide, with 96% yield. Reaction of diethylamine with ethyl ester of primary acid did not yield diethyltoluamide even in different experimental conditions. For production of diethyltoluamid gel, various gelling agents such as carbapol and hydroxy propyl methylcellulose (HPMC) were tested. The results showed that a suitable gel could be formulated by HPMC. Physical stability, spread and viscosity of gels were evaluated. The gels that contained 14 and 18% of diethyltoluamide were stable. Rheograms of the gels that were plotted by brockfild viscometer showed that the gels have a psudoplastic characteristic

Gene Clusters, Molecular Evolution and Disease: A Speculation

Traditionally eukaryotic genes are considered independently expressed under the control of their promoters and cis-regulatory domains. However, recent studies in worms, flies, mice and humans have shown that genes co-habiting a chromatin domain or “genomic neighborhood” are frequently co-expressed. Often these co-expressed genes neither constitute part of an operon nor function within the same biological pathway. The mechanisms underlying the partitioning of the genome into transcriptional genomic neighborhoods are poorly defined. However, cross-species analyses find that the linkage among the co-expressed genes of these clusters is significantly conserved and that the expression patterns of genes within clusters have coevolved with the clusters. Such selection could be mediated by chromatin interactions with the nuclear matrix and long-range remodeling of chromatin structure. In the context of human disease, we propose that dysregulation of gene expression across genomic neighborhoods will cause highly pleiotropic diseases. Candidate genomic neighborhood diseases include the nuclear laminopathies, chromosomal translocations and genomic instability disorders, imprinting disorders of errant insulator function, syndromes from impaired cohesin complex assembly, as well as diseases of global covalent histone modifications and DNA methylation. The alteration of transcriptional genomic neighborhoods provides an exciting and novel model for studying epigenetic alterations as quantitative traits in complex common human diseases

Fringe proteins modulate Notch-ligand cis and trans interactions to specify signaling states

The Notch signaling pathway consists of multiple types of receptors and ligands, whose interactions can be tuned by Fringe glycosyltransferases. A major challenge is to determine how these components control the specificity and directionality of Notch signaling in developmental contexts. Here, we analyzed same-cell (cis) Notch-ligand interactions for Notch1, Dll1, and Jag1, and their dependence on Fringe protein expression in mammalian cells. We found that Dll1 and Jag1 can cis-inhibit Notch1, and Fringe proteins modulate these interactions in a way that parallels their effects on trans interactions. Fringe similarly modulated Notch-ligand cis interactions during Drosophila development. Based on these and previously identified interactions, we show how the design of the Notch signaling pathway leads to a restricted repertoire of signaling states that promote heterotypic signaling between distinct cell types, providing insight into the design principles of the Notch signaling system, and the specific developmental process of Drosophila dorsal-ventral boundary formation

Protective Effect of Ghrelin on Oxidative Stress and Tissue Damages of Mice Testes Followed by Chemotherapy With Cyclophosphamide

Objectives: Cyclophosphamide (CP) is one of the common medications used as chemotherapy and immune-suppressive agent in organ transplantation. Despite numerous clinical applications of this drug in cancer treatment, it causes adverse effects on body tissues, especially the male reproductive organs by increasing oxidative stress. The present study aimed to analyze the effects of ghrelin, as an antioxidant substance, on testicular damages induced by CP. Materials and Methods: Forty male mice were randomly divided into 4 groups: 1) control; 2) CP; 3) CP + ghrelin; and 4) ghrelin. CP (100 mg/kg body weight) was injected intraperitoneally once a week and ghrelin (80 μg/kg body weight) was administered daily for 5 weeks. After 5 weeks, the testicles were removed and we investigated histological changes and testicular oxidative stress markers including malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and total antioxidant capacity. Results: Our results showed that CP increased malondialdehyde level and decreased glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and the total antioxidant capacity (P < 0.05). Furthermore, degenerative changes in the testicular tissue were observed in CP group. The aforementioned factors were improved in the group that was treated with ghrelin (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study revealed that ghrelin decreases the damages caused by CP in testicular tissue of mice by reducing lipid peroxidation and increasing total antioxidant capacity

A Low Cost Image Steganalysis by Using Domain Adaptation

Information hiding and data encryption are used widely to protect data and information from anonymous access. In digital world, hiding and encrypting of the desired data into an image is a smart way to protect information with a low cost. In the digital images, steganalysis is a known method to distinguish between clean and stego images. Most of recent researches in this scope exploit feature reduction algorithms to improve the performance of correct detections. However, dimension reduction alone could not tackle the problem of steganalysis because the properties of stego images change during the steganalysis process. In this work, it is intended to propose an Image Steganalysis using visual Domain Adaptation (ISDA), which this steganalysis target images to distinguish across stego and clean images. ISDA is a dimensionality reduction approach that considers the image drifts during the steganography process in the steganalysis of target images. Moreover, ISDA employs domain invariant clustering in an embedded representation to cluster clean and stego images in the reduced subspace. The results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that ISDA thoroughly outperforms all of the state of the art methods on validation parameters, accuracy of detection and time complexit

A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEASURE OF ILLIQUIDITY AND STOCK RETURNS IN TEHRAN STOCK AMIHUD EXCHANGE

Abstract The main objective of this study is examining the relationship between measure of Amihud illiquidity and stock returns in Tehran Stock Exchange (Iran). The basis of this measure is that if the stock price changes in reaction to a small volume of stock trading be significantly, Stocks will have lower liquidity (it means that measures of Amihud Illiquidity for it is high). Amihud illiquidity measure calculates stock market price reaction to order flows. In fact, this study seeks to answer the question that could Amihud illiquidity measure plays a significant role in stock returns of companies or not? For this purpose were collected the data of the 30 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange for the period 2006 to 2012 monthly. Research results show that there isn&apos;t significant relationship between returns and Amihud illiquidity measure