Development And Testing Of A Model To Predict Environmentally Appropriate Behavior Related To Recycling Municipal Solid Waste

The reduction of excessive solid waste is one environmental problem requiring a change in human behavior

Hot gas flows on global and nuclear galactic scales

Since its discovery as an X-ray source with the Einstein Observatory, the hot X-ray emitting interstellar medium of early-type galaxies has been studied intensively, with observations of improving quality, and with extensive modeling by means of numerical simulations. The main features of the hot gas evolution are outlined here, focussing on the mass and energy input rates, the relationship between the hot gas flow and the main properties characterizing its host galaxy, the flow behavior on the nuclear and global galactic scales, and the sensitivity of the flow to the shape of the stellar mass distribution and the mean rotation velocity of the stars.Comment: 22 pages. Abbreviated version of chapter 2 of the book "Hot Interstellar Matter in Elliptical Galaxies", Springer 201

Cathepsin F cysteine protease of the human liver fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini

Opisthorchis viverrini is an important helminth pathogen of humans that is endemic in Thailand and Laos. Adult flukes reside within host bile ducts and feed on epithelial tissue and blood cells. Chronic opisthorchiasis is associated with severe hepatobiliary diseases such as cholangiocarcinoma. Here we report that adult O. viverrini secrete two major cysteine proteases: cathepsin F (Ov-CF-1) and cathepsin B1 (Ov-CB-1). Ov-CF-1 is secreted as an inactive zymogen that autocatalytically processes and activates to a mature enzyme at pH 4.5 via an intermolecular cleavage at the prosegment-mature domain junction. Ov-CB-1 is also secreted as a zymogen but, in contrast to Ov-CF-1, is fully active against peptide and macromolecular substrates despite retaining the N-terminal prosegment. The active Ov-CB-1 zymogen was capable of trans-activating Ov-CF-1 by proteolytic removal of its prosegment at pH 5.5, a pH at which the Ov-CF-1 zymogen cannot autocatalytically activate. Both cathepsins hydrolyse human haemoglobin but their combined action more efficiently degrades haemoglobin to smaller peptides than each enzyme alone. Ov-CF-1 degraded extracellular matrix proteins more effectively than Ov-CB-1 at physiological pH. We propose that Ov-CB-1 regulates Ov-CF-1 activity and that both enzymes work together to degrade host tissue contributing to the development of liver fluke-associated cholangiocarcinoma. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

AGN Feedback in Elliptical Galaxies: Numerical Simulations

The importance of feedback (radiative and mechanical) from massive black holes at the centers of elliptical galaxies is not in doubt, given the well established relation among black hole mass and galaxy optical luminosity. Here, with the aid of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations, we discuss how this feedback affects the hot ISM of isolated elliptical galaxies of different mass. The cooling and heating functions include photoionization plus Compton heating, the radiative transport equations are solved, and the mechanical feedback due to the nuclear wind is also described on a physical basis; star formation is considered. In the medium-high mass galaxies the resulting evolution is highly unsteady. At early times major accretion episodes caused by cooling flows in the recycled gas produced by stellar evolution trigger AGN flaring: relaxation instabilities occur so that duty cycles are small enough to account for the very small fraction of massive ellipticals observed to be in the QSO-phase, when the accretion luminosity approaches the Eddington luminosity. At low redshift all models are characterized by smooth, very sub-Eddington mass accretion rates. The mass accumulated by the central black hole is limited to range observed today, even though the mass lost by the evolving stellar population is roughly two order of magnitude larger than the black hole masses observed in elliptical galaxies.Comment: 20 pages, 4 (low-resolution) figures. Abbreviated version of the article to appear in book "Hot Interstellar Matter in Elliptical Galaxies", D.-W. Kim and S. Pellegrini eds., Astrophysics and Space Science Library (ASSL), Springe