The Essential Role of Endogenous Ghrelin in Growth Hormone Expression during Zebrafish Adenohypophysis Development

Ghrelin, a multifunctional hormone, including potent GH stimulation activity, has been suggested to be important during embryonic development. Expression of ghrelin has been confirmed in the zebrafish pancreas during embryonic stages. Interfering with ghrelin function using two specific antisense morpholino oligonucleotides causes defects during zebrafish embryonic development. In ghrelin morphants the expression of GH was abolished in zebrafish somatotropes, whereas the expression patterns of the other key molecules involved in hypothalamic-pituitary development and distinct pituitary hormones genes remain largely intact at the appropriate time during zebrafish adenohypophysis development. Effective rescue of the ghrelin morphants with exogenous ghrelin mRNA showed that the correct gene had been targeted. Moreover, by analyzing the efficiencies of the ghrelin morphants rescue experiments with various forms of exogenous mutant ghrelin mRNAs, we also demonstrated the essentiality of the form acyl-ghrelin on GH stimulation during zebrafish adenohypophysis development. Our in vivo experiments, for the first time, also provided evidence of the existence of functional obestatin in the C-terminal part of zebrafish proghrelin peptides. Our research here has demonstrated that zebrafish is a unique model for functional studies of endogenous ghrelin, especially during embryonic development. (Endocrinology 150: 2767-2774, 2009)

Articulating current service development practices: a qualitative analysis of eleven mental health projects.

BACKGROUND: The utilisation of good design practices in the development of complex health services is essential to improving quality. Healthcare organisations, however, are often seriously out of step with modern design thinking and practice. As a starting point to encourage the uptake of good design practices, it is important to understand the context of their intended use. This study aims to do that by articulating current health service development practices. METHODS: Eleven service development projects carried out in a large mental health service were investigated through in-depth interviews with six operation managers. The critical decision method in conjunction with diagrammatic elicitation was used to capture descriptions of these projects. Stage-gate design models were then formed to visually articulate, classify and characterise different service development practices. RESULTS: Projects were grouped into three categories according to design process patterns: new service introduction and service integration; service improvement; service closure. Three common design stages: problem exploration, idea generation and solution evaluation - were then compared across the design process patterns. Consistent across projects were a top-down, policy-driven approach to exploration, underexploited idea generation and implementation-based evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides insight into where and how good design practices can contribute to the improvement of current service development practices. Specifically, the following suggestions for future service development practices are made: genuine user needs analysis for exploration; divergent thinking and innovative culture for idea generation; and fail-safe evaluation prior to implementation. Better training for managers through partnership working with design experts and researchers could be beneficial.

Bifunctional enzyme FBPase/SBPase is essential for photoautotrophic growth in cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp PCC 6803

From a random insertion mutant library of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, a mutant defective in photoautotrophic growth was obtained. The interrupted gene was identified to be slr2094 (rbpl), which encodes the fructose-1,6-biphosphatase (FBPase)/sedoheptulose-1,7-biphosphatase (SBPase) bifunctional enzyme (F-I). Two other independently constructed slr2094 mutants showed an identical phenotype. The FBPase activity was found to be virtually lacking in an slr2094 mutant, which was sensitive to light under mixotrophic growth conditions. These results indicate that slr2094 is the only active FBPase-encoding gene in this cyanobacterium. Inactivation of photosystem II by interrupting psbB in slr2094 mutant alleviated the sensitiveness to light. This report provides the direct genetic evidence for the essential role of F-I in the photosynthesis of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. (c) 2007 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.

alpha-tocopherol is essential for acquired chill-light tolerance in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp strain PCC 6803

Unlike Escherichia coli, the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 is insensitive to chill (5 degrees C) in the dark but rapidly losses viability when exposed to chill in the light (100 mu mol photons m(-2) s(-1)). Preconditioning at a low temperature (15 degrees C) greatly enhances the chill-light tolerance of Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803. This phenomenon is called acquired chill-light tolerance (ACLT). Preconditioned wild-type cells maintained a substantially higher level of alpha-tocopherol after exposure to chill-light stress. Mutants unable to synthesize alpha-tocopherol, such as slr1736, slr1737, slr0089, and slr0090 mutants, almost completely lost ACLT. When exposed to chill without light, these mutants showed no or a slight difference from the wild type. When complemented, the slr0089 mutant regained its ACLT. Copper-regulated expression of slr0090 from P-petE controlled the level of et-tocopherol and ACLT. We conclude that alpha-tocopherol is essential for ACLT of Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803. The role of a-tocopherol in ACLT may be based largely on a nonantioxidant activity that is not possessed by other tocopherols or pathway intermediates.

Web Services Workflows—Composition, Co-Ordination, and Transactions in Service-Oriented Computing

Web services can be seen as a newly emerging research area for Service-oriented Computing and their implementation in Service-oriented Architectures. Web services are self-contained, self-describing modular applications or components providing services. Web services may be dynamically aggregated, composed, and enacted as Web services Workflows. This requires frameworks and interaction protocols for their co-ordination and transaction support. In a Service-oriented Computing setting, transactions are more complex, involve multiple parties (roles), span many organizations, and may be long-running, consisting of a highly decentralized service partner and performed by autonomous entities. A Service-oriented Transaction Model has to provide comprehensive support for long-running propositions including negotiations, conversations, commitments, contracts, tracking, payments, and exception handling. Current transaction models and mechanisms including their protocols and primitives do not sufficiently cater for quality-aware and long running transactions comprising loosely-coupled (federated) service partners and resources. Web services transactions require co-ordination behavior provided by a traditional transaction mechanism to control the operations and outcome of an application. Furthermore, Web services transactions require the capability to handle the co-ordination of processing outcomes or results from multiple services in a more flexible manner. This requires more relaxed forms of transactions—those that do not strictly have to abide by the ACID properties—such as loosely-coupled collaboration and workflows. Furthermore, there is a need to group Web services into applications that require some form of correlation, but do not necessarily require transactional behavior. The purpose of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review and overview of some proposed standards surrounding Web services composition, co-ordination, and transaction. In particular the Business Process Execution Language for Web services (BPEL4WS), its co-ordination, and transaction frameworks (WS-Co-ordination and WS-Transaction) are discussed.

A Semi-Quantitative Analysis of Essential Micronutrient in Folium Lycii Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Technique

In this paper, the capabilities of laser-induced break down spectroscopy (LIBS) for rapid analysis to multi-component plant are illustrated using a 1064 nm laser focused onto the surface of folium lycii. Based on homogeneous plasma assumption, nine of essential micronutrients in folium lycii are identified. Using Saha equation and Boltzmann plot method electron density and plasma temperature are obtained, and the irrelative concentration (Ca, Mg, Al, Si, Ti, Na, K, Li, and Sr) are obtained employing a semi-quantitative method.

Essential elements of integrated coastal zone management

The coastal zone comprises a narrow strip of coastal lowlands and a vast area of coastal waters. While the coastal zone represents approximately 10% of the earth's surface, its coastal lowlands are inhabited by more than 50% of the world population. The coastal zone has become the major site for extensive and diverse economic activities. Many of the coastal developing countries depend heavily on the scarce coastal resources for their economic growth.