Influence of replacing fish meal with soybean meal on growth rate, feed conversion ratio and chemical composition of carcass, fillet and liver in juvenile stellate sturgeon (Acipenser stellatus)

This study was conducted to determine the effect of replacing fish meal with soybean meal on growth rate, feed conversion ratio and chemical composition of carcass, fillet and liver in juvenile stellate sturgeon (Acipenser stellatus). As in Treatments one (F), two (S1), three (S2), four (S3) and five (S4) 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 percent of fish meal was replaced with soybean meal, respectively. Five isonitrogenous and isocaloric diets formulated containing 44 percent crude proteins and 4374 Kcal gross energy kg-1 diet. Individual body weights of fish were measured every three week. Fish were sampled randomly from each treatment for whole body, fillet and liver proximate analysis. Based on the results, weight gain (WG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) had significant difference among the treatments (P0.05). Significant differences were found in fillet lipid content (P0.05). Liver proximate composition of fish did not significant difference (P>0.05)

Primary skin fibroblasts as a model of Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is the second most frequent neurodegenerative disorder. While most cases occur sporadic mutations in a growing number of genes including Parkin (PARK2) and PINK1 (PARK6) have been associated with the disease. Different animal models and cell models like patient skin fibroblasts and recombinant cell lines can be used as model systems for Parkinson's disease. Skin fibroblasts present a system with defined mutations and the cumulative cellular damage of the patients. PINK1 and Parkin genes show relevant expression levels in human fibroblasts and since both genes participate in stress response pathways, we believe fibroblasts advantageous in order to assess, e.g. the effect of stressors. Furthermore, since a bioenergetic deficit underlies early stage Parkinson's disease, while atrophy underlies later stages, the use of primary cells seems preferable over the use of tumor cell lines. The new option to use fibroblast-derived induced pluripotent stem cells redifferentiated into dopaminergic neurons is an additional benefit. However, the use of fibroblast has also some drawbacks. We have investigated PARK6 fibroblasts and they mirror closely the respiratory alterations, the expression profiles, the mitochondrial dynamics pathology and the vulnerability to proteasomal stress that has been documented in other model systems. Fibroblasts from patients with PARK2, PARK6, idiopathic Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 demonstrated a distinct and unique mRNA expression pattern of key genes in neurodegeneration. Thus, primary skin fibroblasts are a useful Parkinson's disease model, able to serve as a complement to animal mutants, transformed cell lines and patient tissues

A framework for business model with strategic innovation in ICT firms: the importance of information

Purpose – What is a business model framework with the strategic innovation approach in the SMEs of ICT industry? What are the components of this model and the relations between them? Business model is a logical response to how a business can create value. Changing business environment means that business models are rapidly growing; accordingly, innovation is no longer optional. However, innovation is important in general, but the kind of innovation that is widely and directly dependent on business model will be quite critical for all parts of the organization. In fact, Business Model Innovation is an exquisite technic to create, deliver, and earn value by changing one or more components of a typical business model. Design/methodology/approach – The present paper focuses upon SMEs in ICT. Grounded Theory had used for this purpose with 15 interviews. Findings – Emerging market is the market in which commercial exchanges of a particular industry between the countries are relatively new but with great investment attractiveness and also a high potential to grow (such as Iran).Since the ICT industry of Iran is a leader industry, and the country itself is an emerging market, the main purpose of this study is to provide a framework for designing an innovative information-based business to help fledgling businesses development in ICT industry of Iran. Originality/value – The purpose for writing the article is to help accurate and distinct understanding of the business model concept and critical steps in designing an appropriate business model. The conducted studies that simultaneously dealt with the business model and strategic innovations are few and there was no research observed in Persian sources by the time the proposal was written

Black hole solutions to Einstein-Bel-Robinson gravity

By employing a combination of perturbative analytic methods, we study the physical properties of a static-spherically symmetric black hole in the framework of the recently proposed Einstien-Bel-Robinson version of gravity. We show that interestingly the theory propagates a transverse and massive graviton on a maximally symmetric background with positive energy. There is also a single ghost-free branch that returns to the Einstein case when \beta\to 0. Then, we obtain the conserved charges of the theory to study the thermodynamics of the black hole solutions. We get the thermodynamical quantities and show that the solutions undergo a first-order phase transition with associated Van der Waals behavior. We analyze the specific heat, determining that the black holes are thermodynamically stable over large regions of parametric space.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Ret is essential to mediate GDNF’s neuroprotective and neuroregenerative effect in a Parkinson disease mouse model

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a potent survival and regeneration-promoting factor for dopaminergic neurons in cell and animal models of Parkinson disease (PD). GDNF is currently tested in clinical trials on PD patients with so far inconclusive results. The receptor tyrosine kinase Ret is the canonical GDNF receptor, but several alternative GDNF receptors have been proposed, raising the question of which signaling receptor mediates here the beneficial GDNF effects. To address this question we overexpressed GDNF in the striatum of mice deficient for Ret in dopaminergic neurons and subsequently challenged these mice with 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Strikingly, in this established PD mouse model, the absence of Ret completely abolished GDNF’s neuroprotective and regenerative effect on the midbrain dopaminergic system. This establishes Ret signaling as absolutely required for GDNF’s effects to prevent and compensate dopaminergic system degeneration and suggests Ret activation as the primary target of GDNF therapy in PD

Designing energy-efficient and visually-thermally comfortable shading systems for office buildings in a cooling-dominant climate

Windows and their control elements including shading systems are among the most critical building components affecting both energy consumption and occupant comfort With the increasing demand for full glazed facades designers and researchers are actively devising advanced control strategies to address the challenges posed by excessive sunlight penetration and heat transfer These strategies aim to harmonize the benefits of natural light with the need for comfortable indoor environments and energy consumption reduction This study investigates the impact of external shading configurations for an office room in Tehran categorized as group B in the K ppen climate classification to reduce total building energy consumption and improve occupant thermal and visual comforts The shading parameters include shading angle shading depth and the number of shading slats More specifically this study analyzes and compares two design configurations for the considered office room The first configuration consists of a single southern window with horizontal shading whereas the second configuration consists of two windows on the south and west one being horizontal shading on the southern side and the other being vertical shading on the western side There are a total of 1330 models investigated from which 20 models are selected as the most suitable solutions Finally this paper examines the effect of each design parameter on the overall performance of each configuration in terms of energy efficiency and visual thermal comfor

THz and IR spectroscopy of endofullerene H₂O@C₆₀

Terahertz time-domain and infrared Fourier-transform spectroscopy techniques are used to investigate the properties of H2O@C60 endofullerene in 6 K – 300 K temperature interval. A number of absorption lines associated with rotational transitions of water molecule entrapped inside C60 cages are observed and assigned. Fitting the resonances with Lorenzian lineshapes allowed us to obtain temperature dependencies of absorption lines parameters – frequency, strength and damping

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 comparative risk assessment (CRA) is a comprehensive approach to risk factor quantification that offers a useful tool for synthesising evidence on risks and risk outcome associations. With each annual GBD study, we update the GBD CRA to incorporate improved methods, new risks and risk outcome pairs, and new data on risk exposure levels and risk outcome associations. Methods: We used the CRA framework developed for previous iterations of GBD to estimate levels and trends in exposure, attributable deaths, and attributable disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), by age group, sex, year, and location for 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or groups of risks from 1990 to 2017. This study included 476 risk outcome pairs that met the GBD study criteria for convincing or probable evidence of causation. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from 46 749 randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL), we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We explored the relationship between development and risk exposure by modelling the relationship between the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and risk-weighted exposure prevalence and estimated expected levels of exposure and risk-attributable burden by SDI. Finally, we explored temporal changes in risk-attributable DALYs by decomposing those changes into six main component drivers of change as follows: (1) population growth; (2) changes in population age structures; (3) changes in exposure to environmental and occupational risks; (4) changes in exposure to behavioural risks; (5) changes in exposure to metabolic risks; and (6) changes due to all other factors, approximated as the risk-deleted death and DALY rates, where the risk-deleted rate is the rate that would be observed had we reduced the exposure levels to the TMREL for all risk factors included in GBD 2017. Findings: In 2017,34.1 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 33.3-35.0) deaths and 121 billion (144-1.28) DALYs were attributable to GBD risk factors. Globally, 61.0% (59.6-62.4) of deaths and 48.3% (46.3-50.2) of DALYs were attributed to the GBD 2017 risk factors. When ranked by risk-attributable DALYs, high systolic blood pressure (SBP) was the leading risk factor, accounting for 10.4 million (9.39-11.5) deaths and 218 million (198-237) DALYs, followed by smoking (7.10 million [6.83-7.37] deaths and 182 million [173-193] DALYs), high fasting plasma glucose (6.53 million [5.23-8.23] deaths and 171 million [144-201] DALYs), high body-mass index (BMI; 4.72 million [2.99-6.70] deaths and 148 million [98.6-202] DALYs), and short gestation for birthweight (1.43 million [1.36-1.51] deaths and 139 million [131-147] DALYs). In total, risk-attributable DALYs declined by 4.9% (3.3-6.5) between 2007 and 2017. In the absence of demographic changes (ie, population growth and ageing), changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs would have led to a 23.5% decline in DALYs during that period. Conversely, in the absence of changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs, demographic changes would have led to an 18.6% increase in DALYs during that period. The ratios of observed risk exposure levels to exposure levels expected based on SDI (O/E ratios) increased globally for unsafe drinking water and household air pollution between 1990 and 2017. This result suggests that development is occurring more rapidly than are changes in the underlying risk structure in a population. Conversely, nearly universal declines in O/E ratios for smoking and alcohol use indicate that, for a given SDI, exposure to these risks is declining. In 2017, the leading Level 4 risk factor for age-standardised DALY rates was high SBP in four super-regions: central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia; north Africa and Middle East; south Asia; and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania. The leading risk factor in the high-income super-region was smoking, in Latin America and Caribbean was high BMI, and in sub-Saharan Africa was unsafe sex. O/E ratios for unsafe sex in sub-Saharan Africa were notably high, and those for alcohol use in north Africa and the Middle East were notably low. Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning