Schematic map of the Kherson region with settlements

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Schematic map of the Kherson region with no details

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Coronavirus Infection and Diversity in Bats in the Australasian Region

Following the SARS outbreak, extensive surveillance was undertaken globally to detect and identify coronavirus diversity in bats. This study sought to identify the diversity and prevalence of coronaviruses in bats in the Australasian region. We identified four different genotypes of coronavirus, three of which (an alphacoronavirus and two betacoronaviruses) are potentially new species, having less than 90% nucleotide sequence identity with the most closely related described viruses. We did not detect any SARS-like betacoronaviruses, despite targeting rhinolophid bats, the putative natural host taxa. Our findings support the virus-host co-evolution hypothesis, with the detection of Miniopterus bat coronavirus HKU8 (previously reported in Miniopterus species in China, Hong Kong and Bulgaria) in Australian Miniopterus species. Similarly, we detected a novel betacoronavirus genotype from Pteropus alecto which is most closely related to Bat coronavirus HKU9 identified in other pteropodid bats in China, Kenya and the Philippines. We also detected possible cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses, and the apparent enteric tropism of these viruses. Thus, our findings are consistent with a scenario wherein the current diversity and host specificity of coronaviruses reflects co-evolution with the occasional host shift.

Sketch map of settlements in the Skadovsʹkyĭ region

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Schematic map of the Sholokhovski region

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Comments on "Diffuse sound reflection by maximum length sequences"

Some improvements are suggested to Schroeder's scheme [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 57, 149–150 (1975)] of achieving diffuse sound reflection in concert halls.Subject Classification

Sustainable development indicators : Much wanted, less used?

For the past twenty years, several indicator sets have been produced on international, national and regional levels. Most of the work has concentrated on the selection of the indicators and on collection of the pertinent data, but less attention has been given to the actual users and their needs. This dissertation focuses on the use of sustainable development indicator sets. The dissertation explores the reasons that have deterred the use of the indicators, discusses the role of sustainable development indicators in a policy-cycle and broadens the view of use by recognising three different types of use. The work presents two indicator development processes: The Finnish national sustainable development indicators and the socio-cultural indicators supporting the measurement of eco-efficiency in the Kymenlaakso Region. The sets are compared by using a framework created in this work to describe indicator process quality. It includes five principles supported by more specific criteria. The principles are high policy relevance, sound indicator quality, efficient participation, effective dissemination and long-term institutionalisation. The framework provided a way to identify the key obstacles for use. The two immediate problems with current indicator sets are that the users are unaware of them and the indicators are often unsuitable to their needs. The reasons for these major flaws are irrelevance of the indicators to the policy needs, technical shortcomings in the context and presentation, failure to engage the users in the development process, non-existent dissemination strategies and lack of institutionalisation to promote and update the indicators. The importance of the different obstacles differs among the users and use types. In addition to the indicator projects, materials used in the dissertation include 38 interviews of high-level policy-makers or civil servants close to them, statistics of the national indicator Internet-page downloads, citations of the national indicator publication, and the media coverage of both indicator sets. According to the results, the most likely use for a sustainable development indicator set by policy-makers is to learn about the concept. Very little evidence of direct use to support decision-making was available. Conceptual use is also common for other user groups, namely the media, civil servants, researchers, students and teachers. Decision-makers themselves consider the most obvious use for the indicators to be the promotion of their own views which is a form of legitimising use. The sustainable development indicators have different types of use in the policy cycle and most commonly expected instrumental use is not very likely or even desirable at all stages. Stages of persuading the public and the decision-makers about new problems as well as in formulating new policies employ legitimising use. Learning by conceptual use is also inherent to policy-making as people involved learn about the new situation. Instrumental use is most likely in policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. The dissertation is an article dissertation, including five papers that are published in scientific journals and an extensive introductory chapter that discusses and weaves together the papers.

Is there an athermal region of plastic flow in metals at intermediate temperatures?

The question of the existence or otherwise of an athermal temperature region of plastic flow in metals is examined. It is suggested that the athermal region is absent in metals with large dislocation densities. Such an explanation is provoked by a fairly recent proposition that the unzipping of attractive junctions is a plausible rate-controlling mechanism at high temperatures.

Heat transfer to power-law fluids in thermal entrance region with viscous dissipation for constant heat flux conditions

An analytical solution of the heat transfer problem with viscous dissipation for non-Newtonian fluids with power-law model in the thermal entrance region of a circular pipe and two parallel plates under constant heat flux conditions is obtained using eigenvalue approach by suitably replacing one of the boundary conditions by total energy balance equation. Analytical expressions for the wall and the bulk temperatures and the local Nusselt number are presented. The results are in close agreement with those obtained by implicit finite-difference scheme. It is found that the role of viscous dissipation on heat transfer is completely different for heating and cooling conditions at the wall. The results for the case of cooling at the wall are of interest in the design of the oil pipe line.

The Linker Region in Receptor Guanylyl Cyclases Is a Key Regulatory Module MUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF GUANYLYL CYCLASE C

Receptor guanylyl cyclases are multidomain proteins, and ligand binding to the extracellular domain increases the levels of intracellular cGMP. The intracellular domain of these receptors is composed of a kinase homology domain (KHD), a linker of similar to 70 amino acids, followed by the C-terminal guanylyl cyclase domain. Mechanisms by which these receptors are allosterically regulated by ligand binding to the extracellular domain and ATP binding to the KHD are not completely understood. Here we examine the role of the linker region in receptor guanylyl cyclases by a series of point mutations in receptor guanylyl cyclase C. The linker region is predicted to adopt a coiled coil structure and aid in dimerization, but we find that the effects of mutations neither follow a pattern predicted for a coiled coil peptide nor abrogate dimerization. Importantly, this region is critical for repressing the guanylyl cyclase activity of the receptor in the absence of ligand and permitting ligand-mediated activation of the cyclase domain. Mutant receptors with high basal guanylyl cyclase activity show no further activation in the presence of non-ionic detergents, suggesting that hydrophobic interactions in the basal and inactive conformation of the guanylyl cyclase domain are disrupted by mutation. Equivalent mutations in the linker region of guanylyl cyclase A also elevated the basal activity and abolished ligand-and detergent-mediated activation. We, therefore, have defined a key regulatory role for the linker region of receptor guanylyl cyclases which serves as a transducer of information from the extracellular domain via the KHD to the catalytic domain.

Sustainable forest management : ecologically sound and socially accepted

This dissertation explored the ecological dimension of ecologically sustainable forest management in boreal forests, and factors of the socio-cultural dimension that affect how the concept of ecologically sustainable forest management is defined. My approach was problem-oriented and generalistic-holistic. I examined associations between the abundances of wildlife groups (grouse, large predators, small predators, ungulates) and Siberian flying squirrels, and their co-occurrence with tree structural characteristics at the regional level. The trade-offs between ecological, social and economic sustainability in forestry were explored at the regional scale. I identified a potential 'shopping basket' of regional indicators for ecologically sustainable forest management, combining the relative abundance of Siberian flying squirrels, a wildlife richness index (WRI) for grouse, diversity indices of saw-timber trees, tree age classes and the proportion of old-growth (> 120 yr) forests. I suggest that the close association between forestry activity, the proportion of young forests (< 40 yr) and a WRI for small predators can be considered as potential 'alarm bells' for regions in which the creation of trade-offs (negative relationships) between economic and ecological components of sustainable forestry is ongoing. Explorative analyses revealed negative relationships between forestry activity and a WRI of 16 game species, the WRI for grouse and tree age diversity. Socially sustainable communities compete less intensively with ecological components of forests than communities where forestry is important. Interestingly, forest ownership types (farmers, other private forest owners, the forestry industry, the State) correlated significantly with the co-occurrence of flying squirrels, grouse and diverse forest structural characteristics rather than, for instance, with the total number of protection areas, suggesting that private forest ownership can lead to increased ecological sustainability. I examined forest actors’ argumentation to identify characteristics that affect the interpretation of ecologically sustainable forest management. Four argumentation frame types were constructed: information, work, experience and own position based. These differed in terms of their emphasis on external experts or own experiences. The closer ecologically sustainable forest management is to the forest actor’s daily life, the more profiled policy tools (counselling, learning through experiences) are needed to guide management behaviour to become more ecologically sound. I illustrated that forest actors interpret, use and understand information through meaningful framing. I analysed the extent to which ecological research information has been perceived in the Forestry Development Centre TAPIO’s recommendations and revised PEFC Finland criteria. We noticed that the political value for decaying wood was much lower in PEFC Finland critera (4 m3) than could be expected as a socially acceptable level (9 m3) or ecologically sound (10-20 m3). I consider it important for scientists to join political discourses and become involved in policy making concerning sustainable forest management to learn to present their results in a way that is reasonable from the user’s perspective.

Nucleotide sequence of the 3' terminal region of belladonna mottle virus-Iowa (renamed Physalis mottle virus) RNA and an analysis of the relationships of tymoviral coat proteins

The 3prime terminal 1255nt sequence of Physalis mottle virus (PhMV) genomic RNA has been determined from a set of overlapping cDNA clones. The open reading frame (ORF) at the 3prime terminus corresponds to the amino acid sequence of the coat protein (CP) determined earlier except for the absence of the dipeptide, Lys-Leu, at position 110-111. In addition, the sequence upstream of the CP gene contains the message coding for 178 amino acid residues of the C-terminus of the putative replicase protein (RP). The sequence downstream of the CP gene contains an untranslated region whose terminal 80 nucleotides can be folded into a characteristic tRNA-like structure. A phylogenetic tree constructed after aligning separately the sequence of the CP, the replicase protein (RP) and the tRNA-like structure determined in this study with the corresponding sequences of other tymoviruses shows that PhMV wrongly named belladonna mottle virus [BDMV(I)] is a separate tymovirus and not another strain of BDMV(E) as originally envisaged. The phylogenetic tree in all the three cases is identical showing that any subset of genomic sequence of sufficient length can be used for establishing evolutionary relationships among tymoviruses.

Urban Growth Analysis Using Spatial and Temporal Data

Urban growth identification, quantification, knowledge of rate and the trends of growth would help in regional planning for better infrastructure provision in environmentally sound way. This requires analysis of spatial and temporal data, which help in quantifying the trends of growth on spatial scale. Emerging technologies such as Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS) along with Global Positioning System (GPS) help in this regard. Remote sensing aids in the collection of temporal data and GIS helps in spatial analysis. This paper focuses on the analysis of urban growth pattern in the form of either radial or linear sprawl along the Bangalore - Mysore highway. Various GIS base layers such as builtup areas along the highway, road network, village boundary etc. were generated using collateral data such as the Survey of India toposheet, etc. Further, this analysis was complemented with the computation of Shannon's entropy, which helped in identifying prevalent sprawl zone, rate of growth and in delineating potential sprawl locations. The computation Shannon's entropy helped in delineating regions with dispersed and compact growth. This study reveals that the Bangalore North and South taluks contributed mainly to the sprawl with 559% increase in built-up area over a period of 28 years and high degree of dispersion. The Mysore and Srirangapatna region showed 128% change in built-up area and a high potential for sprawl with slightly high dispersion. The degree of sprawl was found to be directly proportional to the distances from the cities.