Tarpon atlanticus in Colombia: a big fish in trouble

The natural history of Tarpon atlanticus (Valenciennes 1846) is reconstructed based on published information. Tarpon is a remarkable fish because of its peculiar larvae, large adult size, migration patterns and its capability to breathe atmospheric air. Destructive fisheries - some using dynamite - have much reduced the population of tarpon along the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and some catch data are presented which document this.

Cheshire stillwaters. Summary results of 1997 data Oak Mere, Betley Mere and Marbury Big

This is the Cheshire stillwaters. Summary results of 1997 data Oak Mere, Betley Mere and Marbury Big from the National Rivers Authority, June 1998. In May 1997, a Stillwaters meeting was held to discuss the way forward in stillwaters monitoring. It decided upon the establishment of a three year rolling programme, in which three stillwaters would be monitored three times a year, every third year. The stillwaters where chosen due to water quality (i.e potential polluted / sensitive waters), fisheries and ecological interests. The Still waters chosen for the first year (1997) were Oak Mere, Betley Mere and Marbury Big Mere. The surveys were aimed to produce a comprehensive study of the still water through monitoring a variety of parameters. Algal, zooplankton and water chemical samples were taken three times a year, (April, July and September). In addition, fisheries surveys were taken in July and marginal invertebrate surveys taken in September.

The Random Forest Kernel and other kernels for big data from random partitions

We present Random Partition Kernels, a new class of kernels derived by demonstrating a natural connection between random partitions of objects and kernels between those objects. We show how the construction can be used to create kernels from methods that would not normally be viewed as random partitions, such as Random Forest. To demonstrate the potential of this method, we propose two new kernels, the Random Forest Kernel and the Fast Cluster Kernel, and show that these kernels consistently outperform standard kernels on problems involving real-world datasets. Finally, we show how the form of these kernels lend themselves to a natural approximation that is appropriate for certain big data problems, allowing $O(N)$ inference in methods such as Gaussian Processes, Support Vector Machines and Kernel PCA.

Damage assessment and preservation of suspending system of Yongle-Big-Bell

The Yongle-Big-Bell is an exquisite heritage of ancient China and has more than 600 years history. The long history renders the suspending wooden rack serious damage. Therefore, the security is of our great concern. In order to know if the wooden rack is safe or not for the conventional striking in the festival service, a systemic research work has been done. At first the existing deformation and response to the strike of the beetle were measured, and then calculations using method of material mechanics and finite element analysis were conducted. Based on the results of our research, some concluding remarks and suggestion were given: The Yongle-Big-Bell can be struck regularly without urgent danger of collapse. In view of the existence of serious rotten damage, the repair and protection of wooden rack are pressing.

The Main Path to C, N, O Elements in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

The production of C, N, O elements in a standard big bang nucleosynthesis scenario is investigated. Using the up-to-date data of nuclear reactions in BBN, in particular the Li-8 (n, gamma) Li-9 which has been measured in China Institute of Atomic Energy, a full nucleosynthesis network calculation of BBN is carried out. Our calculation results show that the abundance of C-12 is increased for an order of magnitude after addition of the reaction chain Li-8(n, gamma) Li-9(alpha, n) B-12(beta) C-12, which was neglected in previous studies. We find that this sequence provides the main channel to convert the light elements into C, N, O in standard BBN.

Molecular cloning, expression of a big defensin gene from bay scallop Argopecten irradians and the antimicrobial activity of its recombinant protein

Antimicrobial peptides are important components of the host innate immune responses by exerting broad-spectrum microbicidal activity against pathogenic microbes. The first mollusk big defensin (designated AiBD) cDNA was cloned from bay scallop Argopecten irradians by expressed sequence tag (EST) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) techniques. The scallop AiBD consisted of 531 nucleotides with a canonical polyadenylation signal sequence AATAAA and a poly(A) tail, encoding a polypeptide of 122 amino acids. The high similarity of AiBD deduced amino acid sequence with big defensin from Tachypleus tridentatus and Branchiostoma belcheri tsingtaunese indicated that AiBD should be a member of big defensin family. The expression of AiBD in various tissues was measured by using Northern blotting analysis. mRNA transcripts of AiBD could be detected in haemocytes of unchallenged scallops. The temporal expression of AiBD in haemolymph after Vibrio anguilarum challenge was recorded by quantitative real time PCR. The relative expression level of AiBD in haemolymph was up-regulated evenly in the first 8 h, followed by a drastic increase, and increased 131.1-fold at 32 h post-injection. These results indicated that AiBD could be induced by bacterial challenge, and it should participate in the immune responses of A. irradians. Biological activity assay revealed that recombinant AiBD could inhibit the growth of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and also showed strong fungicidal activity towards the expression host. Recombinant expression of AiBD made it possible to further characterize its functions involved in immune responses, and also provided a potential therapeutic agent for disease control in aquaculture. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Explanation of Big "P" as of March 20, 1959

ERROR is a routine to provide a common location for all routines. Its celling sequence is: SXD SERROR,4 TSX SERROR+1,4 The above is normally followed immediately by up to 20 registers of BCD remarks terminated by a word of 1's. This may be left out, however. ERROR prints out the remark, if any, the location of the TSX that entered error, restores the console except for the AC overflow, and transfers to the user's error routine specified by the calling sequence of SETUP.

Gender and health: a social movement’s agenda for Big Pharma.

Social movements have an important new campaigning and organizing competence in new information communication technologies. These technologies also enable the members of social movements to readily research the accuracy of information: knowledge becomes globalized and readily accessible. In relation to Big Pharma, women’s social movements and social movements of the medicated intersect, and there is now a substantial challenge to Big Pharma both within developed and developing countries from the terrain of gender and health. This paper documents those challenges and looks towards their consequences in the future both in respect of Big Pharma but also in terms of 'academic' research