Effect of woodstack structure on invertebrate abundance and diversity

Reduced quantities of dead wood in managed forests have resulted in a reduction in the abundance and diversity of saproxylic invertebrates to the extent that many are now considered red list species. To mitigate against this loss, one conservation measure is the provision of dead wood, in the form of piles of chopped logs, i.e. ‘woodstacks’. The heterogeneity and volume of dead wood habitat is considered to be an important component of habitat suitability. However, the value of different woodstack types to invertebrate conservation has rarely been quantified and there is little consensus on how to best to survey the invertebrate fauna of woodstacks. This study used both sticky traps and pitfall traps to sample the invertebrate fauna of three types of sycamore woodstack. Woodstacks were made from 10 logs, 20 logs and 10 scorched logs plus a control woodstack made of unplasticised polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) plastic piping and observed over a 4-week period. A total of 1446 invertebrates from 16 orders, including 127 Coleoptera, were caught during the sampling period. A generalized linear model was used to analyse invertebrate abundance between woodstack and between trap types, and diversity was determined using Shannon diversity indices and analysed using a two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The woodstack type had no effect on the abundance of invertebrates. However, Shannon diversity was highest on the scorched woodstacks, with little difference between the 10 and 20 log stacks and the control uPVC woodstacks. However, closer inspection of orders revealed the uPVC woodstacks to have the lowest abundance and diversity of Coleoptera. This study suggests that constructing woodstacks can provide suitable habitat for a variety of invertebrates. However, these invertebrates may have simply used the structures for shelter and the true value with saproxylic invertebrates could not be measured in this 4-week study. To fully appreciate the conservation value of woodstacks will require longer term studies that examine how and when saproxylic invertebrates use dead and decaying wood

Detection and mapping of illicit drugs and their metabolites in fingermarks by MALDI MS and compatibility with forensic techniques

Despite the proven capabilities of Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (MALDI MS) in laboratory settings, research is still needed to integrate this technique into current forensic fingerprinting practice. Optimised protocols enabling the compatible application of MALDI to developed fingermarks will allow additional intelligence to be gathered around a suspect’s lifestyle and activities prior to the deposition of their fingermarks while committing a crime. The detection and mapping of illicit drugs and metabolites in latent fingermarks would provide intelligence that is beneficial for both police investigations and court cases. This study investigated MALDI MS detection and mapping capabilities for a large range of drugs of abuse and their metabolites in fingermarks; the detection and mapping of a mixture of these drugs in marks, with and without prior development with cyanoacrylate fuming or Vacuum Metal Deposition, was also examined. Our findings indicate the versatility of MALDI technology and its ability to retrieve chemical intelligence either by detecting the compounds investigated or by using their ion signals to reconstruct 2D maps of fingermark ridge details

Identifying Cloned Navigational Patterns in Web Applications

Web Applications are subject to continuous and rapid evolution. Often programmers indiscriminately duplicate Web pages without considering systematic development and maintenance methods. This practice creates code clones that make Web Applications hard to maintain and reuse. We present an approach to identify duplicated functionalities in Web Applications through cloned navigational pattern analysis. Cloned patterns can be generalized in a reengineering process, thus to simplify the structure and future maintenance of the Web Applications. The proposed method first identifies pairs of cloned pages by analyzing similarity at structure, content, and scripting code. Two pages are considered clones if their similarity is greater than a given threshold. Cloned pages are then grouped into clusters and the links connecting pages of two clusters are grouped too. An interconnection metric has been defined on the links between two clusters to express the effort required to reengineer them as well as to select the patterns of interest. To further reduce the comprehension effort, we filter out links and nodes of the clustered navigational schema that do not contribute to the identification of cloned navigational patterns. A tool supporting the proposed approach has been developed and validated in a case study

Developing Legacy System Migration Methods and Tools for Technology Transfer

This paper presents the research results of an ongoing technology transfer project carried out in coopera- tion between the University of Salerno and a small software company. The project is aimed at developing and transferring migration technology to the industrial partner. The partner should be enabled to migrate monolithic multi-user COBOL legacy systems to a multi-tier Web-based architecture. The assessment of the legacy systems of the partner company revealed that these systems had a very low level of decompos- ability with spaghetti-like code and embedded control flow and database accesses within the user interface descriptions. For this reason, it was decided to adopt an incremental migration strategy based on the reengineering of the user interface using Web technology, on the transformation of interactive legacy programs into batch programs, and the wrapping of the legacy programs. A middleware framework links the new Web-based user interface with the Wrapped Legacy System. An Eclipse plug-in, named MELIS (migration environment for legacy information systems), was also developed to support the migration process. Both the migration strategy and the tool have been applied to two essential subsystems of the most business critical legacy system of the partner company

Colostrum from cows immunized with a veterinary vaccine against bovine rotavirus displays enhanced in vitro anti-human rotavirus activity

Human rotaviruses represent a major cause of severe diarrheal disease in infants and young children. The limited impact of oral vaccines on global estimates of rotavirus mortality and the suboptimal use of oral rehydration justify the need for alternative prophylactic and therapeutic strategies, especially for immunocompromised hosts. The protective effects of colostrum\u2014the first milk produced during the initial 24 to 48 h after parturition\u2014are well documented in the literature. In particular, the ingestion of hyperimmune bovine colostrum has been proposed as an alternative preventive approach against human rotavirus gastroenteritis. Although the immunization of pregnant cows with human rotavirus boosts the release of specific immunoglobulin G in bovine colostrum, it raises regulatory and safety issues. In this study, we demonstrated that the conventional bovine rotavirus vaccine is sufficient to enhance the anti-human rotavirus protective efficacy of bovine colostrum, thus providing a conservative approach to produce hyperimmune bovine colostrum, making it exploitable as a functional food

Cooking influence on physico-chemical fruit characteristics of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)

Physico-chemical traits of three eggplant genotypes ("Tunisina", "Buia" and "L 305") were evaluated before and after two cooking treatments (grilling and boiling). Different genotypes revealed different changes after cooking, with "Tunisina" showing a better retention of phytochemicals with respect to other two genotypes. The main physical phenomena were water loss during grilling, and dry matter loss after boiling. Chlorogenic acid, the main phenolic in eggplant, resulted higher in grilled samples, while delphinidin glycosides resulted more retained in boiled samples. Glycoalkaloids, thiols and biogenic amines were generally stable, while 5-hydroxy-methyl-furfural was found only in grilled samples. Interestingly, Folin-Ciocalteu index and free radical scavenging capacity, measured with three different assays, were generally increased after cooking, with a greater formation of antioxidant substances in grilled samples. NMR relaxation experiments clarified the hypothesis about the changes of eggplant compounds in terms of decomposition of larger molecules and production of small ones after cooking