Assessing the Sensitivity of Different Life Stages for Sexual Disruption in Roach (Rutilus rutilus) Exposed to Effluents from Wastewater Treatment Works

Surveys of U.K. rivers have shown a high incidence of sexual disruption in populations of wild roach (Rutilus rutilus) living downstream from wastewater treatment works (WwTW), and the degree of intersex (gonads containing both male and female structural characteristics) has been correlated with the concentration of effluent in those rivers. In this study, we investigated feminized responses to two estrogenic WwTWs in roach exposed for periods during life stages of germ cell division (early life and the postspawning period). Roach were exposed as embryos from fertilization up to 300 days posthatch (dph; to include the period of gonadal sex differentiation) or as postspawning adult males, and including fish that had received previous estrogen exposure, for either 60 or 120 days when the annual event of germ cell proliferation occurs. Both effluents induced vitellogenin synthesis in both life stages studied, and the magnitude of the vitellogenic responses paralleled the effluent content of steroid estrogens. Feminization of the reproductive ducts occurred in male fish in a concentration-dependent manner when the exposure occurred during early life, but we found no effects on the reproductive ducts in adult males. Depuration studies (maintenance of fish in clean water after exposure to WwTW effluent) confirmed that the feminization of the reproductive duct was permanent. We found no evidence of ovotestis development in fish that had no previous estrogen exposure for any of the treatments. In wild adult roach that had previously received exposure to estrogen and were intersex, the degree of intersex increased during the study period, but this was not related to the immediate effluent exposure, suggesting a previously determined programming of ovotestis formation

Tumor detection and elimination by a targeted gallium corrole

Sulfonated gallium(III) corroles are intensely fluorescent macrocyclic compounds that spontaneously assemble with carrier proteins to undergo cell entry. We report in vivo imaging and therapeutic efficacy of a tumor-targeted corrole noncovalently assembled with a heregulin-modified protein directed at the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER). Systemic delivery of this protein-corrole complex results in tumor accumulation, which can be visualized in vivo owing to intensely red corrole fluorescence. Targeted delivery in vivo leads to tumor cell death while normal tissue is spared. These findings contrast with the effects of doxorubicin, which can elicit cardiac damage during therapy and required direct intratumoral injection to yield similar levels of tumor shrinkage compared with the systemically delivered corrole. The targeted complex ablated tumors at >5 times a lower dose than untargeted systemic doxorubicin, and the corrole did not damage heart tissue. Complexes remained intact in serum and the carrier protein elicited no detectable immunogenicity. The sulfonated gallium(III) corrole functions both for tumor detection and intervention with safety and targeting advantages over standard chemotherapeutic agents

Yukawa Textures From Heterotic Stability Walls

A holomorphic vector bundle on a Calabi-Yau threefold, X, with h^{1,1}(X)>1 can have regions of its Kahler cone where it is slope-stable, that is, where the four-dimensional theory is N=1 supersymmetric, bounded by "walls of stability". On these walls the bundle becomes poly-stable, decomposing into a direct sum, and the low energy gauge group is enhanced by at least one anomalous U(1) gauge factor. In this paper, we show that these additional symmetries can strongly constrain the superpotential in the stable region, leading to non-trivial textures of Yukawa interactions and restrictions on allowed masses for vector-like pairs of matter multiplets. The Yukawa textures exhibit a hierarchy; large couplings arise on the stability wall and some suppressed interactions "grow back" off the wall, where the extended U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken. A number of explicit examples are presented involving both one and two stability walls, with different decompositions of the bundle structure group. A three family standard-like model with no vector-like pairs is given as an example of a class of SU(4) bundles that has a naturally heavy third quark/lepton family. Finally, we present the complete set of Yukawa textures that can arise for any holomorphic bundle with one stability wall where the structure group breaks into two factors.Comment: 53 pages, 4 figures and 13 table

Open Transactions on Shared Memory

Transactional memory has arisen as a good way for solving many of the issues of lock-based programming. However, most implementations admit isolated transactions only, which are not adequate when we have to coordinate communicating processes. To this end, in this paper we present OCTM, an Haskell-like language with open transactions over shared transactional memory: processes can join transactions at runtime just by accessing to shared variables. Thus a transaction can co-operate with the environment through shared variables, but if it is rolled-back, also all its effects on the environment are retracted. For proving the expressive power of TCCS we give an implementation of TCCS, a CCS-like calculus with open transactions

Anti-jamming techniques for multichannel SAR imaging

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2006 IEE Proceedings online no. 20045090An airborne broadband jammer present in the mainbeam of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can potentially destroy a large region of the SAR image. In addition to this, multipath reflections from the ground, known as hot-clutter or terrain scattered interference will add a non-stationary interference component to the image. The goal of interference suppression for SAR is to successfully suppress these interferences while not significantly effecting the image quality by blurring, reducing the resolution or raising the sidelobe level. The paper provides an analysis of the degradation from hot-clutter, the limited restoration that multichannel imaging and slow-time space time adaptive processing (STAP) can provide and how fast-time STAP can improve the final image quality.L. Rosenberg and D. Gra

Novel Characteristics of Valveless Pumping

This study investigates the occurrence of valveless pumping in a fluidfilled system consisting of two open tanks connected by an elastic tube. We show that directional flow can be achieved by introducing a periodic pinching applied at an asymmetrical location along the tube, and that the flow direction depends on the pumping frequency. We propose a relation between wave propagation velocity, tube length, and resonance frequencies associated with shifts in the pumping direction using numerical simulations. The eigenfrequencies of the system are estimated from the linearized system, and we show that these eigenfrequencies constitute the resonance frequencies and the horizontal slope frequencies of the system; 'horizontal slope frequency' being a new concept. A simple model is suggested, explaining the effect of the gravity driven part of the oscillation observed in response to the tank and tube diameter changes. Results are partly compared with experimental findings.Art. no. 22450

Testing R-parity with geometry

We present a complete classification of the vacuum geometries of all renormalizable superpotentials built from the fields of the electroweak sector of the MSSM. In addition to the Severi and affine Calabi-Yau varieties previously found, new vacuum manifolds are identified; we thereby investigate the geometrical implication of theories which display a manifest matter parity (or R-parity) via the distinction between leptonic and Higgs doublets, and of the lepton number assignment of the right-handed neutrino fields. We find that the traditional R-parity assignments of the MSSM more readily accommodate the neutrino see-saw mechanism with non-trivial geometry than those superpotentials that violate R-parity. However there appears to be no geometrical preference for a fundamental Higgs bilinear in the superpotential, with operators that violate lepton number, such as νHH¯, generating vacuum moduli spaces equivalent to those with a fundamental bilinear

The use of non-pharmacological interventions for dementia behaviours in care homes: findings from four in-depth, ethnographic case studies

Background: antipsychotic medications have been used to manage behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). Due to the potential risks associated with these medications for people with dementia, non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) have been recommended as safer alternatives. However, it is unknown if, or how, these interventions are used in care homes to help people experiencing BPSD. Aim: to explore the use of NPIs in care homes to manage BPSD. Methods: In-depth, ethnographic case studies were conducted in four care homes; in total, they included interviews with 40 care-home staff and 384 hours of participant observations. Findings: NPIs, some of which are the focus of efficacy research, were used in care homes but predominantly as activities to improve the quality of life of all residents and not identified by staff as meeting individual needs in order to prevent or manage specific behaviours. Socially relevant activities such as offering a cup of tea were used to address behaviours in the moment. Residents with high levels of need experienced barriers to inclusion in the activities. Conclusions: there is a gap between rhetoric and practice with most NPIs in care homes used as social activities rather than as targeted interventions. If NPIs are to become viable alternatives to antipsychotic medications in care homes, further work is needed to embed them into usual care practices and routines. Training for care-home staff could also enable residents with high needs to gain better access to suitable activities