Management of shrimp resources the Persian Gulf (I.R. IRAN)

Shrimp is one of the most valuable marine products. Industrial exploitation of the Persian Gulf shrimp resources of Iran began in 1959. Long coastal areas of Iran provide half of the total shrimp stocks in the Persian Gulf region. In the early years of the commercial exploitation of shrimp resources, the rich stocks supported annual catches per boat of up to 118 tons of unneeded shrimps but the increase in industrial fishing vessels as well as in small wooden vessels has caused progressively reduced catches every year after to date. Although introduction of restrictive measures such as closed fishing seasons improved resources, magnitude mean annual catches of industrial vessels per boat has fallen up to 17 tons per year. In this survey, the increasing number of industrial fishing vessels serving the shrimp industry of Iran and the subsequent reduction in the annual catch of shrimp is analyzed and several recommendations for better management of shrimp resources are presented

The Autoimmune Manifestations in Patients with Genetic Defects in the B Cell Development and Differentiation Stages

Purpose: Primary B cell defects manifesting as predominantly antibody deficiencies result from variable inborn errors of the B cell lineage and their development, including impairments in early bone marrow development, class switch recombination (CSR), or terminal B cell differentiation. In this study, we aimed to investigate autoimmunity in monogenic patients with B cell development and differentiation defects. Methods: Patients with known genetic defects in the B cell development and differentiation were recruited from the Iranian inborn errors of immunity registry. Results: A total of 393 patients with a known genetic defect in the B cell development and differentiation (257 males; 65.4%) with a median age of 12 (6-20) years were enrolled in this study. After categorizing patients, 109 patients had intrinsic B cell defects. More than half of the patients had defects in one of the ATM (85 patients), BTK (76 patients), LRBA (34 patients), and DOCK8 (33 patients) genes. Fifteen patients (3.8%) showed autoimmune complications as their first manifestation. During the course of the disease, autoimmunity was reported in 81 (20.6%) patients at a median age of 4 (2-7) years, among which 65 patients had mixed intrinsic and extrinsic and 16 had intrinsic B cell defects. The comparison between patients with the mentioned four main gene defects showed that the patient group with LRBA defect had a significantly higher frequency of autoimmunity compared to those with other gene defects. Based on the B cell defect stage, 13% of patients with early B cell defect, 17% of patients with CSR defect, and 40% of patients who had terminal B cell defect presented at least one type of autoimmunity. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that gene mutations involved in human B cell terminal stage development mainly LRBA gene defect have the highest association with autoimmunity

Comparison of clinical and immunological features and mortality in common variable immunodeficiency and agammaglobulinemia patients

Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID)and agammaglobulinemia are two of the main types of symptomatic primary antibody deficiencies. The pathogenic origins of these two diseases are different; agammaglobulinemia is a group of inherited disorders that usually are caused by mutations in the gene encoding Bruton Tyrosine Kinase (BTK)protein while CVID is a heterogeneous disorder mainly without monogenic cause. However, both diseases share a characteristic of frequent bacterial infections, a decline in serum immunoglobulin levels, and abnormality in antibody responses. The demographics and immunologic parameters, clinical manifestation, and mortality statistics from 297 patients with CVID and agammaglobulinemia followed up over 2 decades in the Children's Medical Center of Iran. Age at onset of symptom in agammaglobulinemia was earlier than CVID but the course of disease in CVID patients was longer than agammaglobulinemia patients. Pulmonary infections were the most prevalent clinical manifestations in both groups of patients. Lymphadenopathy, hepatomegaly, and splenomegaly were significantly higher in CVID patients than agammaglobulinemia patients and there was a significant association between these complications and mortality in CVID patients. Among 297 patients, 128 patients (88 CVID and 40 agammaglobulinemia)deceased. The predominant causes of death in CVID patients were infections, chronic lung disease, and malignancy while in agammaglobulinemia patients were infections and respiratory failure. Infections, especially respiratory infections were the most common complication and cause of death in both CVID and agammaglobulinemia groups and recent treatment advances even Immunoglobulin replacement cannot completely control these complications. Thus prompt recognition and specific management of these complications are worthwhile. © 2019 European Federation of Immunological Societie

Requirements for building an ontology for autonomous robots

Purpose - IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group were divided into subgroups that were in charge of studying industrial robotics, service robotics and autonomous robotics. This paper aims to present the work in-progress developed by the autonomous robotics (AuR) subgroup. This group aims to extend the core ontology for robotics and automation to represent more specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots. Design/methodology/approach - For autonomous robots, various concepts for aerial robots, underwater robots and ground robots are described. Components of an autonomous system are defined, such as robotic platforms, actuators, sensors, control, state estimation, path planning, perception and decision-making. Findings - AuR has identified the core concepts and domains needed to create an ontology for autonomous robots. Practical implications - AuR targets to create a standard ontology to represent the knowledge and reasoning needed to create autonomous systems that comprise robots that can operate in the air, ground and underwater environments. The concepts in the developed ontology will endow a robot with autonomy, that is, endow robots with the ability to perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous explicit human guidance. Originality/value - Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics will have a significant impact on all R&A domains, such as on the knowledge transmission among agents, including autonomous robots and humans. This tends to facilitate the communication among them and also provide reasoning capabilities involving the knowledge of all elements using the ontology. This will result in improved autonomy of autonomous systems. The autonomy will have considerable impact on how robots interact with humans. As a result, the use of robots will further benefit our society. Many tedious tasks that currently can only be performed by humans will be performed by robots, which will further improve the quality of life. To the best of the authors'knowledge, AuR is the first group that adopts a systematic approach to develop ontologies consisting of specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots

Requirements for building an ontology for autonomous robots

Purpose IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group were divided into subgroups that were in charge of studying industrial robotics, service robotics and autonomous robotics. This paper aims to present the work in-progress developed by the autonomous robotics (AuR) subgroup. This group aims to extend the core ontology for robotics and automation to represent more specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots. Design/methodology/approach For autonomous robots, various concepts for aerial robots, underwater robots and ground robots are described. Components of an autonomous system are defined, such as robotic platforms, actuators, sensors, control, state estimation, path planning, perception and decision-making. Findings AuR has identified the core concepts and domains needed to create an ontology for autonomous robots. Practical implications AuR targets to create a standard ontology to represent the knowledge and reasoning needed to create autonomous systems that comprise robots that can operate in the air, ground and underwater environments. The concepts in the developed ontology will endow a robot with autonomy, that is, endow robots with the ability to perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous explicit human guidance. Originality/value Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics will have a significant impact on all R\&A domains, such as on the knowledge transmission among agents, including autonomous robots and humans. This tends to facilitate the communication among them and also provide reasoning capabilities involving the knowledge of all elements using the ontology. This will result in improved autonomy of autonomous systems. The autonomy will have considerable impact on how robots interact with humans. As a result, the use of robots will further benefit our society. Many tedious tasks that currently can only be performed by humans will be performed by robots, which will further improve the quality of life. To the best of the authors’knowledge, AuR is the first group that adopts a systematic approach to develop ontologies consisting of specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots