Summary report of the PCARRD-ICLARM Workshop on Philippine Tilapia Economics

Contains abstracts of 17 presented papers and reports of four working groups of this workshop, held on 10-13 August 1983 at Los Ba±os, Laguna, Philippines, which brought together Philippine researchers who conducted an economic analysis of tilapia operations.Tilapia culture, Fishery economics, Conferences, Abstracts, Report literature, Philippines, Oreochromis

Immunonutrition as a potential strategy to prevent and cope with coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

In this article, a brief review of immunonutrition as a feasible alternative to modulating the immune system in defence of the SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 was presented. Immunonutrition is the nutritional practice that includes the necessary nutrients to modulate the activity of the immune system in health and disease. To date, studies are encouraging because they indicate that a good diet restores or improves the immune system's response to pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2. In addition, applying immunonutrition helps people recover with fewer sequelae after going through a serious infection in hospitalization and/or intensive care unit. Finally, it is suggested that immunonutrition be applied in conjunction with other good lifestyles and strictly following current health recommendations.Revisión por pare

Philippine tilapia economics

Full proceedings of the 1983 PCARRD-ICLARM Workshop on Philippine Tilapia Economics held at Laguna, Philippines. The workshop brought together Philippine researchers who had conducted economic analyses of tilapia operations. Contains 18 papers, working group reports, discussions and recommendations.Tilapia culture, Aquaculture economics, Aquaculture development, Conferences, Philippines, Oreochromis

Motor output variability, deafferentation, and putative deficits in kinesthetic reafference in Parkinson’s disease

© 2014 Torres, Cole and Poizner. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder defined by motor impairments that include rigidity, systemic slowdown of movement (bradykinesia), postural problems, and tremor. While the progressive decline in motor output functions is well documented, less understood are impairments linked to the continuous kinesthetic sensation emerging from the flow of motions. There is growing evidence in recent years that kinesthetic problems are also part of the symptoms of PD, but objective methods to readily quantify continuously unfolding motions across different contexts have been lacking. Here we present evidence from a deafferented subject (IW) and a new statistical platform that enables new analyses of motor output variability measured as a continuous flow of kinesthetic reafferent input. Systematic increasing similarities between the patterns of motor output variability in IW and the participants with increasing degrees of PD severity suggest potential deficits in kinesthetic sensing in PD.We propose that these deficits may result from persistent, noisy, and random motor patterns as the disorder progresses. The stochastic signatures from the unfolding motions revealed levels of noise in the motor output fluctuations of these patients bound to decrease the kinesthetic signal’s bandwidth.The results are interpreted in light of the concept of kinesthetic reafference (Von Holst and Mittelstaedt, 1950). In this context, noisy motor output variability from voluntary movements in PD leads to a returning stream of noisy afference caused, in turn, by those faulty movements themselves. Faulty efferent output re-enters the CNS as corrupted sensory motor input.We find here that severity level in PD leads to the persistence of such patterns, thus bringing the statistical signatures of the subjects with PD systematically closer to those of the subject without proprioception

Bogomol'nyi equations for solitons in Maxwell-Chern-Simons gauge theories with the magnetic moment interaction term

Without assuming rotational invariance, we derive Bogomol'nyi equations for the solitons in the abelian Chern-Simons gauge theories with the anomalous magnetic moment interaction. We also evaluate the number of zero modes around a static soliton configuration.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, SNUTP-94/6

Networked youth research for empowerment in digital society. The WYRED project

European Commision (EC). Funding H2020/CSA. Project Code: 72706

The distribution of transit durations for Kepler planet candidates and implications for their orbital eccentricities

‘In these times, during the rise in the popularity of institutional repositories, the Society does not forbid authors from depositing their work in such repositories. However, the AAS regards the deposit of scholarly work in such repositories to be a decision of the individual scholar, as long as the individual's actions respect the diligence of the journals and their reviewers.’ Original article can be found at : http://iopscience.iop.org/ Copyright American Astronomical SocietyDoppler planet searches have discovered that giant planets follow orbits with a wide range of orbital eccentricities, revolutionizing theories of planet formation. The discovery of hundreds of exoplanet candidates by NASA's Kepler mission enables astronomers to characterize the eccentricity distribution of small exoplanets. Measuring the eccentricity of individual planets is only practical in favorable cases that are amenable to complementary techniques (e.g., radial velocities, transit timing variations, occultation photometry). Yet even in the absence of individual eccentricities, it is possible to study the distribution of eccentricities based on the distribution of transit durations (relative to the maximum transit duration for a circular orbit). We analyze the transit duration distribution of Kepler planet candidates. We find that for host stars with T > 5100 K we cannot invert this to infer the eccentricity distribution at this time due to uncertainties and possible systematics in the host star densities. With this limitation in mind, we compare the observed transit duration distribution with models to rule out extreme distributions. If we assume a Rayleigh eccentricity distribution for Kepler planet candidates, then we find best fits with a mean eccentricity of 0.1-0.25 for host stars with T ≤ 5100 K. We compare the transit duration distribution for different subsets of Kepler planet candidates and discuss tentative trends with planetary radius and multiplicity. High-precision spectroscopic follow-up observations for a large sample of host stars will be required to confirm which trends are real and which are the results of systematic errors in stellar radii. Finally, we identify planet candidates that must be eccentric or have a significantly underestimated stellar radius.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

In planta expression of human polyQ-expanded huntingtin fragment reveals mechanisms to prevent disease-related protein aggregation

In humans, aggregation of polyglutamine repeat (polyQ) proteins causes disorders such as Huntington’s disease. Although plants express hundreds of polyQ-containing proteins, no pathologies arising from polyQ aggregation have been reported. To investigate this phenomenon, we expressed an aggregation-prone fragment of human huntingtin (HTT) with an expanded polyQ stretch (Q69) in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. In contrast to animal models, we find that Arabidopsis sp. suppresses Q69 aggregation through chloroplast proteostasis. Inhibition of chloroplast proteostasis diminishes the capacity of plants to prevent cytosolic Q69 aggregation. Moreover, endogenous polyQ-containing proteins also aggregate on chloroplast dysfunction. We find tha

Kepler-22b: A 2.4 Earth-radius Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Sun-like Star

A search of the time-series photometry from NASA's Kepler spacecraft reveals a transiting planet candidate orbiting the 11th magnitude G5 dwarf KIC 10593626 with a period of 290 days. The characteristics of the host star are well constrained by high-resolution spectroscopy combined with an asteroseismic analysis of the Kepler photometry, leading to an estimated mass and radius of 0.970 +/- 0.060 MSun and 0.979 +/- 0.020 RSun. The depth of 492 +/- 10ppm for the three observed transits yields a radius of 2.38 +/- 0.13 REarth for the planet. The system passes a battery of tests for false positives, including reconnaissance spectroscopy, high-resolution imaging, and centroid motion. A full BLENDER analysis provides further validation of the planet interpretation by showing that contamination of the target by an eclipsing system would rarely mimic the observed shape of the transits. The final validation of the planet is provided by 16 radial velocities obtained with HIRES on Keck 1 over a one year span. Although the velocities do not lead to a reliable orbit and mass determination, they are able to constrain the mass to a 3{\sigma} upper limit of 124 MEarth, safely in the regime of planetary masses, thus earning the designation Kepler-22b. The radiative equilibrium temperature is 262K for a planet in Kepler-22b's orbit. Although there is no evidence that Kepler-22b is a rocky planet, it is the first confirmed planet with a measured radius to orbit in the Habitable Zone of any star other than the Sun.Comment: Accepted to Ap

Estimation of the global amount of submarine gas hydrates formed via microbial methane formation based on numerical reaction-transport modeling and a novel parameterization of Holocene sedimentation

This study provides new estimates for the global offshore methane hydrate inventory formed due to microbial CH4 production under Quaternary and Holocene boundary conditions. A multi-1D model for particular organic carbon (POC) degradation, gas hydrate formation and dissolution is presented. The novel reaction-transport model contains an open three-phase system of two solid compounds (organic carbon, gas hydrates), three dissolved species (methane, sulfates, inorganic carbon) and one gaseous phase (free methane). The model computes time-resolved concentration profiles for all compounds by accounting for chemical reactions as well as diffusive and advective transport processes. The reaction module builds upon a new kinetic model of POC degradation which considers a down-core decrease in reactivity of organic matter. Various chemical reactions such as organic carbon decay, anaerobic oxidation of methane, methanogenesis, and sulfate reduction are resolved using appropriate kinetic rate laws and constants. Gas hydrates and free gas form if the concentration of dissolved methane exceeds the pressure, temperature, and salinity-dependent solubility limits of hydrates and/or free gas, with a rate given by kinetic parameters. Global input grids have been compiled from a variety of oceanographic, geological and geophysical data sets including a new parameterization of sedimentation rates in terms of water depth. We find prominent gas hydrate provinces offshore Central America where sediments are rich in organic carbon and in the Arctic Ocean where low bottom water temperatures stabilize methane hydrates. The world’s total gas hydrate inventory is estimated at 0.82 x 10sup13 m3 - 2.10 x 10sup15 m3 CH4 (at STP conditions) or, equivalently, 4.18–995 Gt of methane carbon. The first value refers to present day conditions estimated using the relatively low Holocene sedimentation rates; the second value corresponds to a scenario of higher Quaternary sedimentation rates along continental margins. Our results clearly show that in-situ POC degradation is at present not an efficient hydrate forming process. Significant hydrate deposits in marine settings are more likely to have formed at times of higher sedimentation during the Quaternary or as a consequence of upward fluid transport at continental margins