STARVATION-INDUCED CHANGES OF HEMOCYTE PARAMETERS IN THE ZHIKONG SCALLOP CHLAMYS FARRERI

Substantial nutritional and energetic demands m-e associated with immune activation and the maintenance of an efficient immune system. One-year-old Chlamys farreri (Jones and Preston) scallops were maintained ill lantern nets ill different nutritional conditions (satiation and starvation) for 40 days. After the 40-day treatments, the condition index and the total hemocyte count (THC) decreased significantly in the starved group compared with the satiated and initial control groups. The percentage of phagocytic hemocytes also was significantly reduced with starvation. In contrast. no significant effect of starvation was observed oil reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. The acid phosphatase (ACP) activities in cell-free hemolymph increased significantly in scallops in starved and satiated treatments compared with the initial control. whereas ACP activity in hemocyte lysate was significantly lower ill the starved group. These results indicate that starvation stress compromises immunological activities of scallops.

Short-term effect of targeted placements of sheep excrement on grassland in inner mongolia on soil and plant parameters

Grazing animal excrement plays an important role in nutrient cycling and redistribution in grazing ecosystems, due to grazing in large areas and return in small areas. To elucidate the changes to the soil and pasture caused by sheep urine, fresh dung, and compost patches, a short- term field experiment using artificially placed pats was set up in the autumn of 2003 in the Inner Mongolian steppe. Urine application significantly increased soil pH during the first 32 days in soil layers at depths of both 0 - 5 cm and 5 - 15 cm. Rapid hydrolysis of urea gave large amounts of urine- nitrogen ( N) as ammonium ( NH4+) in soil extracts and was followed by apparent nitrification from day 2. Higher inorganic N content in the urine- treated soil was found throughout the experiment compared with the control. No significant effects of sheep excrement on soil microbial carbon ( C) and soil microbial N was found, but microbial activities significantly increased compared with the control after application of sheep excrement. Forty- six percent of dung- N and 27% of compost- N were transferred into vegetation after the experiment. The results from this study suggest that large amounts of nutrients have been lost from the returned excrement patches in the degraded grassland of Inner Mongolia, especially from sheep urine- N.

Theory for determining alignment parameters of symmetric top molecule using (n+1) LIF

Expressions used for extracting the population and alignment parameters of a symmetric top molecule from (n + 1) laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) are derived by employing the tensor density matrix method. The molecular population and alignment are described by molecular state multipoles. The LIF intensity is a complex function of the initial molecular state multipoles, the dynamic factors, and the excitation-detection geometrical factors. The problem of how to extract the initial molecular state multipoles from (2 + 1) LIF, as an example, is discussed in detail. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(00)30744-9].

Prediction of soil adsorption coefficients from retention parameters on three reversed-phase liquid chromatographic columns

Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) retention parameters, which are determined by the intermolecular interactions in retention process, can be considered as the chemical molecular descriptors in linear free energy relationships (LFERs). On the basis of the characterization and comparison of octadecyl-bonded silica gel (ODS), cyano-bonded silica gel (CN), and phenyl-bonded silica gel (Ph) columns with linear solvation energy relationships (LSERs), a new multiple linear regression model using RP-HPLC retention parameters on ODS and CN columns as variables for estimation of soil adsorption coefficients was developed. It was tested on a set of reference substances from various chemical classes. The results showed that the multicolumn method was more promising than a single-column method was for the estimation of soil adsorption coefficients. The accuracy of the suggested model is identical with that of LSERs.

Discriminating the xanthones in an extract of Swertia franchetiana by retention parameters

The quantitative structure-retention relationship is one of the most actively studied topics in the field of chromatography. In this paper, retention parameters of components were used to discriminate the xanthones in a methanol extract of Swertia franchetiana. The extract was analysed by HPLC under two different multistage linear gradient conditions and the retention parameters calculated from these retention data. It was found that the retention parameters of xanthones are in a specific region in the plot of log k(w) vs. S and the xanthones in the extract could be distinguished from other components by this feature. Furthermore, xanthone aglycones and xanthone glucosides could also be discriminated by retention parameters. Copyright (C) 2005 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Variation of modal parameters of pile-supported structures in seismically liquefiable soils.

This paper presents experimental results that aimed to investigate the effects of soil liquefaction on the modal parameters (i.e. frequency and damping ratio) of pile-supported structures. The tests were carried out using the shaking table facility of the Bristol Laboratory for Advanced Dynamics Engineering (BLADE) at the University of Bristol (UK) whereby four pile-supported structures (two single piles and two pile groups) with and without superstructure mass were tested. The experimental investigation aimed to monitor the variation in natural frequency and damping of the four physical models at different degrees of excess pore water pressure generation and in full-liquefaction condition. The experimental results showed that the natural frequency of pile-supported structures may decrease considerably owing to the loss of lateral support offered by the soil to the pile. On the other hand, the damping ratio of structure may increase to values in excess of 20%. These findings have important design consequences: (a) for low-period structures, substantial reduction of spectral acceleration is expected; (b) during and after liquefaction, the response of the system may be dictated by the interactions of multiple loadings, that is, horizontal, axial and overturning moment, which were negligible prior to liquefaction; and (c) with the onset of liquefaction due to increased flexibility of pile-supported structure, larger spectral displacement may be expected, which in turn may enhance Pdelta effects and consequently amplification of overturning moment. Practical implications for pile design are discussed.

Aqueous solutions of HEC and hmHEC: effects of molecular mass versus hydrophobic associations on hydrodynamic and thermodynamic parameters.

Aqueous solutions of amphiphilic polymers usually comprise of inter- and intramolecular associations of hydrophobic groups often leading to a formation of a rheologically significant reversible network at low concentrations that can be identified using techniques such as static light scattering and rheometry. However, in most studies published till date comparing water soluble polymers with their respective amphiphilic derivatives, it has been very difficult to distinguish between the effects of molecular mass versus hydrophobic associations on hydrodynamic (intrinsic viscosity [g]) and thermodynamic parameters (second virial coefficient A2), owing to the differences between their degrees of polymerization. This study focuses on the dilute and semi-dilute solutions of hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) and its amphiphilic derivatives (hmHEC) of the same molecular mass, along with other samples having a different molecular mass using capillary viscometry, rheometry and static light scattering. The weight average molecular masses (MW) and their distributions for the nonassociative HEC were determined using size exclusion chromatography. Various empirical approaches developed by past authors to determine [g] from dilute solution viscometry data have been discussed. hmHEC with a sufficiently high degree of hydrophobic modification was found to be forming a rheologically significant network in dilute solutions at very low concentrations as opposed to the hmHEC with a much lower degree of hydrophobic modification which also enveloped the hydrophobic groups inside the supramolecular cluster as shown by their [g] and A2. The ratio A2MW/[g], which takes into account hydrodynamic as well as thermodynamic parameters, was observed to be less for associative polymers compared to that of the non-associative polymers.

Double Jeopardy Without Parameters: Re-characterization in International Criminal Law

Olusanya, O. (2004). Double Jeopardy Without Parameters: Re-characterization in International Criminal Law. Series Supranational Criminal Law: Capita Selecta, volume 2. Antwerp: Intersentia. RAE2008

Estimation of long-run parameters in unbalanced cointegration

This paper analyses the asymptotic properties of nonlinear least squares estimators of the long run parameters in a bivariate unbalanced cointegration framework. Unbalanced cointegration refers to the situation where the integration orders of the observables are different, but their corresponding balanced versions (with equal integration orders after filtering) are cointegrated in the usual sense. Within this setting, the long run linkage between the observables is driven by both the cointegrating parameter and the difference between the integration orders of the observables, which we consider to be unknown. Our results reveal three noticeable features. First, superconsistent (faster than √ n-consistent) estimators of the difference between memory parameters are achievable. Next, the joint limiting distribution of the estimators of both parameters is singular, and, finally, a modified version of the ‘‘Type II’’ fractional Brownian motion arises in the limiting theory. A Monte Carlo experiment and the discussion of an economic example are included.

PARAMETERS AFFECTING THE IMAGING AND DETECTION OF MICROBUBBLES IN BLOOD

Stabilized micron-sized bubbles, known as contrast agents, are often injected into the body to enhance ultrasound imaging of blood flow. The ability to detect such bubbles in blood depends on the relative magnitude of the acoustic power backscattered from the microbubbles (‘signal’) to the power backscattered from the red blood cells (‘noise’). Erythrocytes are acoustically small (Rayleigh regime), weak scatterers, and therefore the backscatter coefficient (BSC) of blood increases as the fourth power of frequency throughout the diagnostic frequency range. Microbubbles, on the other hand, are either resonant or super-resonant in the range 5-30 MHz. Above resonance, their total scattering cross-section remains constant with increasing frequency. In the present thesis, a theoretical model of the BSC of a suspension of red blood cells is presented and compared to the BSC of Optison® contrast agent microbubbles. It is predicted that, as the frequency increases, the BSC of red blood cell suspensions eventually exceeds the BSC of the strong scattering microbubbles, leading to a dramatic reduction in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This decrease in SNR with increasing frequency was also confirmed experimentally by use of an active cavitation detector for different concentrations of Optison® microbubbles in erythrocyte suspensions of different hematocrits. The magnitude of the observed decrease in SNR correlated well with theoretical predictions in most cases, except for very dense suspensions of red blood cells, where it is hypothesized that the close proximity of erythrocytes inhibits the acoustic response of the microbubbles.

Power system parameters forecasting using Hilbert-Huang transform and machine learning

A novel hybrid data-driven approach is developed for forecasting power system parameters with the goal of increasing the efficiency of short-term forecasting studies for non-stationary time-series. The proposed approach is based on mode decomposition and a feature analysis of initial retrospective data using the Hilbert-Huang transform and machine learning algorithms. The random forests and gradient boosting trees learning techniques were examined. The decision tree techniques were used to rank the importance of variables employed in the forecasting models. The Mean Decrease Gini index is employed as an impurity function. The resulting hybrid forecasting models employ the radial basis function neural network and support vector regression. A part from introduction and references the paper is organized as follows. The second section presents the background and the review of several approaches for short-term forecasting of power system parameters. In the third section a hybrid machine learningbased algorithm using Hilbert-Huang transform is developed for short-term forecasting of power system parameters. Fourth section describes the decision tree learning algorithms used for the issue of variables importance. Finally in section six the experimental results in the following electric power problems are presented: active power flow forecasting, electricity price forecasting and for the wind speed and direction forecasting.

Water vapor line parameters in the 13 000-9250 cm-1 region.

info:eu-repo/semantics/published