Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity and clustered cardiometabolic risk in children and adolescents: the HAPPY study

Clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors can occur during childhood and predisposes individuals to cardiometabolic disease. This study calculated clustered cardiometabolic risk in 100 children and adolescents aged 10-14 years (59 girls) and explored differences according to cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) levels and time spent at different physical activity (PA) intensities. CRF was determined using a maximal cycle ergometer test, and PA was assessed using accelerometry. A cardiometabolic risk score was computed as the sum of the standardised scores for waist circumference, blood pressure, total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein ratio, triglycerides and glucose. Differences in clustered cardiometabolic risk between fit and unfit participants, according to previously proposed health-related threshold values, and between tertiles for PA subcomponents were assessed using ANCOVA. Clustered risk was significantly lower (p < 0.001) in the fit group (mean 1.21 ± 3.42) compared to the unfit group (mean -0.74 ± 2.22), while no differences existed between tertiles for any subcomponent of PA. Conclusion These findings suggest that CRF may have an important cardioprotective role in children and adolescents and highlights the importance of promoting CRF in youth

Prioritizing areas for watershed management activities by preparing soil erosion intensity map (Case study: Safaroud River watershed, Northern Iran)

An awareness of the state of erosion in watersheds seems to be necessary for planning and prioritizing management and conservation activities. The purpose of the present study is to prioritize areas for watershed conservation and management activities by preparing a soil erosion intensity map using a geomorphological model and the AHP technique in the Safaroud River watershed, which is located in Mazandaran Province, Northern Iran. So, criteria in the geomorphological model, such as physiographic, climatic, geological, vegetation and land use criteria were used for the erosion intensity mapping. The studied criteria were weighted using the AHP technique. The erosion facies map was prepared, and the weight of each facies for erosion incidence was calculated. By combining the raster map of each criteria weight with the raster map of the facies weight together in GIS, the raster map of erosion intensity was prepared. The results showed that the land use criterion exhibited the minimum weight (0.045), while the climatic and geological criteria the maximum (0.209). By preparing the homogeneous unit map and calculating the weighted average of the erosion intensity in each homogeneous unit, it was determined that homogeneous units No. 17, 28, 39, 29 and 14 with erosion intensity coefficients of 0.0848, 0.0663, 0.0585, 0.0571 and 0.0476, and a total area of ​​341.94 hectares had the highest erosion intensity in the area. Hence, these homogeneous units are prioritized for protection and management plans

Effects of alkalinity, extremely low carbon dioxide concentration and irradiance on spectral properties, phycobilisome, photosynthesis, photosystems and functional groups of the native cyanobacterium Calothrix sp. ISC 65

In this research, Calothrix sp. ISC 65 was characterized physiologically by the combination of extremely low irradiance (2 μE·m⁻²·s⁻¹), different alkalinity (pH 7, 9, 11), and extremely limited carbon dioxide concentration (no aeration, no carbon dioxide enrichment). In this research, Calothrix sp. ISC 65 was characterized physiologically by the combination of extremely low irradiance (2 μE·m⁻²·s⁻¹), different alkalinity (pH 7, 9, 11), and extremely limited carbon dioxide concentration (no aeration, no carbon dioxide enrichment).Исследован физиологический ответ штамма Calothrix sp. ISC 65 на культивирование в условиях сверхнизкой освещенности (2 μE·м⁻²·с⁻¹) при различных значениях рН (7, 9, 11) и низкой концентрации углекислого газа (без аэрации и обогащения углекислым газом)

Design of Confidence-Integrated Denoising Auto-Encoder for Personalized Top-N Recommender Systems

A recommender system not only “gains users’ confidence” but also helps them in other ways, such as reducing their time spent and effort. To gain users’ confidence, one of the main goals of recommender systems in an e-commerce industry is to estimate the users’ interest by tracking the users’ transactional behavior to provide a fast and highly related set of top recommendations out of thousands of products. The standard ranking-based models, i.e., the denoising auto-encoder (DAE) and collaborative denoising auto-encoder (CDAE), exploit positive-only feedback without utilizing the ratings’ ranks for the full set of observed ratings. To confirm the rank of observed ratings (either low or high), a confidence value for each rating is required. Hence, an improved, confidence-integrated DAE is proposed to enhance the performance of the standard DAE for solving recommender systems problems. The correctness of the proposed method is authenticated using two standard MovieLens datasets such as ML-1M and ML-100K. The proposed study acts as a vital contribution for the design of an efficient, robust, and accurate algorithm by learning prominent latent features used for fast and accurate recommendations. The proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by achieving improved P@10, R@10, NDCG@10, and MAP scores

Endophytes vs tree pathogens and pests: can they be used as biological control agents to improve tree health?

Like all other plants, trees are vulnerable to attack by a multitude of pests and pathogens. Current control measures for many of these diseases are limited and relatively ineffective. Several methods, including the use of conventional synthetic agro-chemicals, are employed to reduce the impact of pests and diseases. However, because of mounting concerns about adverse effects on the environment and a variety of economic reasons, this limited management of tree diseases by chemical methods is losing ground. The use of biological control, as a more environmentally friendly alternative, is becoming increasingly popular in plant protection. This can include the deployment of soil inoculants and foliar sprays, but the increased knowledge of microbial ecology in the phytosphere, in particular phylloplane microbes and endophytes, has stimulated new thinking for biocontrol approaches. Endophytes are microbes that live within plant tissues. As such, they hold potential as biocontrol agents against plant diseases because they are able to colonize the same ecological niche favoured by many invading pathogens. However, the development and exploitation of endophytes as biocontrol agents will have to overcome numerous challenges. The optimization and improvement of strategies employed in endophyte research can contribute towards discovering effective and competent biocontrol agents. The impact of environment and plant genotype on selecting potentially beneficial and exploitable endophytes for biocontrol is poorly understood. How endophytes synergise or antagonise one another is also an important factor. This review focusses on recent research addressing the biocontrol of plant diseases and pests using endophytic fungi and bacteria, alongside the challenges and limitations encountered and how these can be overcome. We frame this review in the context of tree pests and diseases, since trees are arguably the most difficult plant species to study, work on and manage, yet they represent one of the most important organisms on Earth

Localizing introgression on the chromosome of rice by genomic in situ hybridization (GISH)

Genomic in situ hybridization was used to detect introgressed segment from Oryza australinesis onto the chromosomes of introgression line derived from the hybrid O. sativa x O. australinesis. Genomic DNA from Oryza australinesis was labeled with biotin and hybridized to the homologous sequences on the O. sativa chromosomes. The probe hybridization fluoresced green and non labeled O. sativa chromosomes appeared red or blue due to counterstaining with propidium iodide (PI) or 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI). This differential painting of chromosomes unequivocally detected the introgressedsegment. Among the 200 cells analyzed, 6.5% of the cells showed&#160; hybridization signal. Signal appeared on one chromosome in 5%, on two homologous chromosomes in 1% and on sister chromatids in 0.5%of the cells. Hybridization was seen on the short arm of the chromosome 12 of the introgression line

Lateral distribution of muons in IceCube cosmic ray events

In cosmic ray air showers, the muon lateral separation from the center of the shower is a measure of the transverse momentum that the muon parent acquired in the cosmic ray interaction. IceCube has observed cosmic ray interactions that produce muons laterally separated by up to 400 m from the shower core, a factor of 6 larger distance than previous measurements. These muons originate in high p(T) (>2 GeV/c) interactions from the incident cosmic ray, or high-energy secondary interactions. The separation distribution shows a transition to a power law at large values, indicating the presence of a hard p(T) component that can be described by perturbative quantum chromodynamics. However, the rates and the zenith angle distributions of these events are not well reproduced with the cosmic ray models tested here, even those that include charm interactions. This discrepancy may be explained by a larger fraction of kaons and charmed particles than is currently incorporated in the simulations.R. Abbasi ... G. C. Hill ... et al. (IceCube Collaboration

Cardiopulmonary Arrest Outcome in Nemazee Hospital, Southern Iran

Abstract Background: Many factors are important determinants in the outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) such as quality of CPR, age of patients, co morbidities, time and location of arrest, and skill of rescuers. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of CPR in Shiraz, southern Iran

Endophytes vs tree pathogens and pests: can they be used as biological control agents to improve tree health?

Like all other plants, trees are vulnerable to attack by a multitude of pests and pathogens. Current control measures for many of these diseases are limited and relatively ineffective. Several methods, including the use of conventional synthetic agro-chemicals, are employed to reduce the impact of pests and diseases. However, because of mounting concerns about adverse effects on the environment and a variety of economic reasons, this limited management of tree diseases by chemical methods is losing ground. The use of biological control, as a more environmentally friendly alternative, is becoming increasingly popular in plant protection. This can include the deployment of soil inoculants and foliar sprays, but the increased knowledge of microbial ecology in the phytosphere, in particular phylloplane microbes and endophytes, has stimulated new thinking for biocontrol approaches. Endophytes are microbes that live within plant tissues. As such, they hold potential as biocontrol agents against plant diseases because they are able to colonize the same ecological niche favoured by many invading pathogens. However, the development and exploitation of endophytes as biocontrol agents will have to overcome numerous challenges. The optimization and improvement of strategies employed in endophyte research can contribute towards discovering effective and competent biocontrol agents. The impact of environment and plant genotype on selecting potentially beneficial and exploitable endophytes for biocontrol is poorly understood. How endophytes synergise or antagonise one another is also an important factor. This review focusses on recent research addressing the biocontrol of plant diseases and pests using endophytic fungi and bacteria, alongside the challenges and limitations encountered and how these can be overcome. We frame this review in the context of tree pests and diseases, since trees are arguably the most difficult plant species to study, work on and manage, yet they represent one of the most important organisms on Earth

Survey on identification and abundance of fishes in the Chitgar Lake

This study focused on population structure, biodiversity, and abundance of the Chitgar Lake fishes in October 2014. Based on the lake location fishes samples were collected at 34 stations in water body. In this study identified 8 family belong to 18 species comprised of Cyprinidae (11 species), Cichlidae (one species), Loricariidae (one species), Pangasiidae (one species), Serrasalmidae (one species), Poeciliidea (one species), Salmonidae (one species), and Scaridae (one species) were Identified. Among the fishes just one native fish from Capoeta bohsei species observed during the study. The dominant lake fishes were invasive species Hemiculter leucisculus, Alburnus hohenackeri, Carassius auratus, Carassius gibelio and Pseudorasbora parva. The highest abundance of fishes were H. leucisculus 62 % and A. hohenackeri 35 % by Seine net. Furthermore, those were dominant abundance (69 and 12 % respectively) in Gill net method. Finally in Cast net method A. hohenackeri 38 %, Pseudorasbora parva 21 % and H. leucisculus 17 % were dominated in the shore region. The lowest fishes abundance were P. hypophthalmus and Parrotfish. Overall more than 90 % of the fishes population were invasive and alien species. Thus, the present of invasive fishes and predator fishes luck in the Chitgar lake might be reason for ecosystem ruin, algae bloom, feed competitive, fish disease and trophy level rises