50 CFR 216.259 - Modifications to Letters of Authorization.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapon Missions in the Gulf of Mexico § 216.259 Modifications to Letters of Authorization. (a) Except as provided in...

Internet vis-a-vis marine biology

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Chavan, V.S.

Internet is an amalgum of networks which reaches to more than 100 million people across the globe. The satellite-telecommunication based computer network web hosts information on every aspect of life. Marine biology related information too is being...

Marine biological data and information management system

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Sarupria, J.S.

Indian National Oceanographic Data Centre (INODC) is engaged in developing a marine biological data and information management system (BIODIMS). This system will contain the information on zooplankton in the water column, zoobenthic biomass...

50 CFR 216.191 - Designation of Offshore Biologically Important Marine Mammal Areas.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

...) Detailed information on the biology of marine mammals within the area, including estimated population size... Important Marine Mammal Areas. 216.191 Section 216.191 Wildlife and Fisheries NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS...

Studies on marine toxins: chemical and biological aspects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stonik, Valentin A; Stonik, Inna V

2010-01-01

The structures and mechanisms of biological action of the best known representatives of the main groups of marine toxins are presented. It is shown that many compounds have complex chemical structures and possess extremely high toxicities. Characteristic features of isolation, structure determination and syntheses of these compounds using the achievement of modern organic chemistry are discussed. The methods of identification and quantitative analysis of marine toxins are briefly reviewed.

Diversity of Secondary Metabolites from Marine Bacillus Species: Chemistry and Biological Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Mondol, Muhammad Abdul Mojid; Shin, Hee Jae; Islam, Mohammad Tofazzal

2013-01-01

Marine Bacillus species produce versatile secondary metabolites including lipopeptides, polypeptides, macrolactones, fatty acids, polyketides, and isocoumarins. These structurally diverse compounds exhibit a wide range of biological activities, such as antimicrobial, anticancer, and antialgal activities. Some marine Bacillus strains can detoxify heavy metals through reduction processes and have the ability to produce carotenoids. The present article reviews the chemistry and biological activities of secondary metabolites from marine isolates. Side by side, the potential for application of these novel natural products from marine Bacillus strains as drugs, pesticides, carotenoids, and tools for the bioremediation of heavy metal toxicity are also discussed. PMID:23941823

Bibliography of marine biology in South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Darracott, DA

1980-02-01

Full Text Available This bibliography was sponsored by the Marine Biology Section of the South African National Committee for Oceanographic Research (SANCOR). It has been attempted to include all publications which appeared before the end of 1977, either in South...

Carotenoids from Marine Organisms: Biological Functions and Industrial Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian Galasso

2017-11-01

Full Text Available As is the case for terrestrial organisms, carotenoids represent the most common group of pigments in marine environments. They are generally biosynthesized by all autotrophic marine organisms, such as bacteria and archaea, algae and fungi. Some heterotrophic organisms also contain carotenoids probably accumulated from food or partly modified through metabolic reactions. These natural pigments are divided into two chemical classes: carotenes (such as lycopene and α- and β-carotene that are composed of hydrogen and carbon; xanthophylls (such as astaxanthin, fucoxanthin and lutein, which are constituted by hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. Carotenoids, as antioxidant compounds, assume a key role in the protection of cells. In fact, quenching of singlet oxygen, light capture and photosynthesis protection are the most relevant biological functions of carotenoids. The present review aims at describing (i the biological functions of carotenoids and their benefits for human health, (ii the most common carotenoids from marine organisms and (iii carotenoids having large success in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmeceutical industries, highlighting the scientific progress in marine species cultivation for natural pigments production.

Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills In A Marine Biology Class Through Problem-Based Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Richard M. Magsino

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research was to examine students' perspectives of their learning in marine biology in the collaborative group context of Problem-based Learning (PBL. Students’ higher order thinking skills (HOTS using PBL involves the development of their logical thinking and reasoning abilities which stimulates their curiosity and associative thinking. This study aimed to investigate how critical thinking skills, particularly analysis, synthesis and evaluation were enhanced in a marine biology class through PBL. Qualitative research approach was used to examine student responses in a questionnaire involving 10 open-ended questions that target students’ HOTS on a problem presented in a marine biology class for BS Biology students. Using axial coding as a qualitative data analysis technique by which grounded theory can be performed, the study was able to determine how students manifest their higher reasoning abilities when confronted with a marine biology situation. Results show student responses yielding affirmative remarks on the 10 questions intended to know their level of analysis (e.g., analyzing, classifying, inferring, discriminating and relating or connecting, synthesis (e.g., synthesizing and collaborating, and evaluation (e.g., comparing, criticizing, and convincing of information from the presented marine biology problem. Consequently, students were able to effectively design experiments to address the presented issue through problem-based learning. Results of the study show that PBL is an efficient instructional strategy embedded within a conventional curriculum used to develop or enhance critical thinking in marine biology.

76 FR 7548 - Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-02-10

... Importing Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapons Testing and Training by Eglin Air Force Base in the Gulf of Mexico AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service... a Letter of Authorization. SUMMARY: In accordance with provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection...

75 FR 16754 - Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-02

... Importing Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapons Testing and Training by Eglin Air Force Base in the Gulf of Mexico AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service... a Letter of Authorization. SUMMARY: In accordance with provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection...

Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering for marine carotenoids: new opportunities and future prospects.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chonglong; Kim, Jung-Hun; Kim, Seon-Won

2014-09-17

Carotenoids are a class of diverse pigments with important biological roles such as light capture and antioxidative activities. Many novel carotenoids have been isolated from marine organisms to date and have shown various utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. In this review, we summarize the pathways and enzymes of carotenoid synthesis and discuss various modifications of marine carotenoids. The advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for carotenoid production are also reviewed, in hopes that this review will promote the exploration of marine carotenoid for their utilizations.

Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering for Marine Carotenoids: New Opportunities and Future Prospects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chonglong Wang

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Carotenoids are a class of diverse pigments with important biological roles such as light capture and antioxidative activities. Many novel carotenoids have been isolated from marine organisms to date and have shown various utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. In this review, we summarize the pathways and enzymes of carotenoid synthesis and discuss various modifications of marine carotenoids. The advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for carotenoid production are also reviewed, in hopes that this review will promote the exploration of marine carotenoid for their utilizations.

Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering for Marine Carotenoids: New Opportunities and Future Prospects

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chonglong; Kim, Jung-Hun; Kim, Seon-Won

2014-01-01

Carotenoids are a class of diverse pigments with important biological roles such as light capture and antioxidative activities. Many novel carotenoids have been isolated from marine organisms to date and have shown various utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. In this review, we summarize the pathways and enzymes of carotenoid synthesis and discuss various modifications of marine carotenoids. The advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for carotenoid production are also reviewed, in hopes that this review will promote the exploration of marine carotenoid for their utilizations. PMID:25233369

Effects of marine reserves on the reproductive biology and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Effects of marine reserves on the reproductive biology and recruitment rates of commonly and rarely exploited limpets. ... For recruitment, we hypothesised that if recruits are attracted to adults or survive better ... AJOL African Journals Online.

A study on biological activity of marine fungi from different habitats in coastal regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Songlin; Wang, Min; Feng, Qi; Lin, Yingying; Zhao, Huange

2016-01-01

In recent years, marine fungi have become an important source of active marine natural products. Former researches are limited in habitats selection of fungi with bioactive compounds. In this paper were to measure antibacterial and antitumor cell activity for secondary metabolites of marine fungi, which were isolated from different habitats in coastal regions. 195 strains of marine fungi were isolated and purified from three different habitats. They biologically active experiment results showed that fungi isolation from the mangrove habitats had stronger antibacterial activity than others, and the stains isolated from the estuarial habitats had the least antibacterial activity. However, the strains separated from beach habitats strongly inhibited tumor cell proliferation in vitro, and fungi of mangrove forest habitats had the weakest activity of inhibiting tumor. Meanwhile, 195 fungal strains belonged to 46 families, 84 genera, 142 species and also showed 137 different types of activity combinations by analyzing the inhibitory activity of the metabolites fungi for 4 strains of pathogenic bacteria and B-16 cells. The study investigated the biological activity of marine fungi isolated from different habitats in Haikou coastal regions. The results help us to understand bioactive metabolites of marine fungi from different habitats, and how to selected biological activity fungi from various marine habitats effectively.

Advances in the Application of Genetics in Marine Turtle Biology and Conservation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lisa M. Komoroske

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Marine turtles migrate across long distances, exhibit complex life histories, and occupy habitats that are difficult to observe. These factors present substantial challenges to understanding fundamental aspects of their biology or assessing human impacts, many of which are important for the effective conservation of these threatened and endangered species. The early development and application of genetic tools made important contributions to understanding marine turtle population and evolutionary biology, such as providing evidence of regional natal homing by breeding adults, establishing connectivity between rookeries and foraging habitats, and determining phylogeography and broad scale stock structure for most marine turtle species. Recent innovations in molecular technologies, statistical methods, and creative application of genetic tools have significantly built upon this knowledge to address key questions in marine turtle biology and conservation management. Here, we evaluate the latest major advances and potential of marine turtle genetic applications, including improved resolution and large-scale syntheses of population structure, connectivity and phylogeography, estimation of key demographic rates such as age to maturity and operational or breeding sex ratios, insight into reproductive strategies and behavior, and assessment of differential human impacts among populations. We then discuss remaining challenges and emerging capabilities, such as rapid, multiplexed genotyping, and investigation of the genomic underpinnings of adaptive variation afforded by high-throughput sequencing technologies.

Biologically-transformed zinc and its availability for bioaccumulation by marine organisms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fowler, S.W.; Heyraud, M.

1980-01-01

Zinc which occurs in sea water as a trace element exists in several different stable or meta-stable forms in the aquatic environment. One of them is ''complexed'' form which is relatively stable. Radiotracer studies were carried out to investigate the mode of formation of the complexed zinc fraction and to find whether this fraction once formed by biological means is available for accumulation by marine biota. Sea water solutions used in the experiments were filtered through double 0.45 μm Millipore filters. Chelex-100 resin which quantitatively removes zinc from sea water was used to measure the relative degree of binding of different species of 65 Zn formed by association with marine organisms. 65 Zn in exometabolites from living animals represented in this case by shrimp (Lymata seticaudata), influence of organic detritus represented in this case by dead shrimp on the conversion of different forms of zinc and bioavailability of biologically processed 65 Zn were studied. It was observed that: (1) living and dead marine animals can produce a soluble species of complexed, possibly organically bound, zinc, (2) uptake of this species is reduced relative to that of the ionic form indicating that zinc which has passed through biological cycles may be less available for bioaccumulation than zinc which has been directly introduced into the marine environment in inorganic forms. (M.G.B.)

Bioactivity of marine organisms. Part 3. Screening of marine algae of Indian coast for biological activity

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Kamat, S.Y.; Wahidullah, S.; Naik, C.G.; DeSouza, L.; Jayasree, V.; Ambiye, V.; Bhakuni, D.S.; Goel, A.K.; Garg, H.S.; Srimal, R.C.

Ethanolic extracts from Indian marine algae have been tested for anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-fertility, hypoglycaemic and a wide range of pharmacological activities. Of 34 species investigated 17 appeared biologically active. Six...

Developmental biology in marine invertebrate symbioses.

Science.gov (United States)

McFall-Ngai, M J; Ruby, E G

2000-12-01

Associations between marine invertebrates and their cooperative bacterial symbionts offer access to an understanding of the roots of host-microbe interaction; for example, several symbioses like the squid-vibrio light organ association serve as models for investigating how each partner affects the developmental biology of the other. Previous results have identified a program of specific developmental events that unfolds as the association is initiated. In the past year, published studies have focused primarily on describing the mechanisms underlying the signaling processes that occur between the juvenile squid and the luminous bacteria that colonize it.

Supermarket Marine Biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Colby, Jennifer A.; And Others

1995-01-01

Describes a survey used to determine the availability of intact marine vertebrates and live invertebrates in supermarkets. Results shows that local supermarkets frequently provide a variety of intact marine organisms suitable for demonstrations, experiments, or dissections. (ZWH)

Effectiveness of biological surrogates for predicting patterns of marine biodiversity: a global meta-analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camille Mellin

Full Text Available The use of biological surrogates as proxies for biodiversity patterns is gaining popularity, particularly in marine systems where field surveys can be expensive and species richness high. Yet, uncertainty regarding their applicability remains because of inconsistency of definitions, a lack of standard methods for estimating effectiveness, and variable spatial scales considered. We present a Bayesian meta-analysis of the effectiveness of biological surrogates in marine ecosystems. Surrogate effectiveness was defined both as the proportion of surrogacy tests where predictions based on surrogates were better than random (i.e., low probability of making a Type I error; P and as the predictability of targets using surrogates (R(2. A total of 264 published surrogacy tests combined with prior probabilities elicited from eight international experts demonstrated that the habitat, spatial scale, type of surrogate and statistical method used all influenced surrogate effectiveness, at least according to either P or R(2. The type of surrogate used (higher-taxa, cross-taxa or subset taxa was the best predictor of P, with the higher-taxa surrogates outperforming all others. The marine habitat was the best predictor of R(2, with particularly low predictability in tropical reefs. Surrogate effectiveness was greatest for higher-taxa surrogates at a <10-km spatial scale, in low-complexity marine habitats such as soft bottoms, and using multivariate-based methods. Comparisons with terrestrial studies in terms of the methods used to study surrogates revealed that marine applications still ignore some problems with several widely used statistical approaches to surrogacy. Our study provides a benchmark for the reliable use of biological surrogates in marine ecosystems, and highlights directions for future development of biological surrogates in predicting biodiversity.

A study on biological activity of marine fungi from different habitats in coastal regions

OpenAIRE

Zhou, Songlin; Wang, Min; Feng, Qi; Lin, Yingying; Zhao, Huange

2016-01-01

In recent years, marine fungi have become an important source of active marine natural products. Former researches are limited in habitats selection of fungi with bioactive compounds. In this paper were to measure antibacterial and antitumor cell activity for secondary metabolites of marine fungi, which were isolated from different habitats in coastal regions. 195 strains of marine fungi were isolated and purified from three different habitats. They biologically active experiment results show...

High Risk Behaviors in Marine Mammals: Linking Behavioral Responses to Anthropogenic Disturbance to Biological Consequences

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-30

1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. High Risk Behaviors in Marine Mammals : Linking...comprehensive evaluation of biological safety zones for diving marine mammals . In this way we intend to identify those marine mammal species or specific...improving the protection of marine mammals during naval operations. OBJECTIVES We are testing the hypothesis that extreme behaviors requiring

Authorized Course of Instruction for the Quinmester Program. Science: Introduction to Marine Science; Recreation and the Sea; Oceanography; Marine Ecology of South Florida, and Invertebrate Marine Biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

All five units, developed for the Dade County Florida Quinmester Program, included in this collection concern some aspect of marine studies. Except for "Recreation and the Sea," intended to give students basic seamanship skills and experience of other marine recreation, all units are designed for students with a background in biology or…

Meta-analysis reveals complex marine biological responses to the interactive effects of ocean acidification and warming

Science.gov (United States)

Harvey, Ben P; Gwynn-Jones, Dylan; Moore, Pippa J

2013-01-01

Ocean acidification and warming are considered two of the greatest threats to marine biodiversity, yet the combined effect of these stressors on marine organisms remains largely unclear. Using a meta-analytical approach, we assessed the biological responses of marine organisms to the effects of ocean acidification and warming in isolation and combination. As expected biological responses varied across taxonomic groups, life-history stages, and trophic levels, but importantly, combining stressors generally exhibited a stronger biological (either positive or negative) effect. Using a subset of orthogonal studies, we show that four of five of the biological responses measured (calcification, photosynthesis, reproduction, and survival, but not growth) interacted synergistically when warming and acidification were combined. The observed synergisms between interacting stressors suggest that care must be made in making inferences from single-stressor studies. Our findings clearly have implications for the development of adaptive management strategies particularly given that the frequency of stressors interacting in marine systems will be likely to intensify in the future. There is now an urgent need to move toward more robust, holistic, and ecologically realistic climate change experiments that incorporate interactions. Without them accurate predictions about the likely deleterious impacts to marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning over the next century will not be possible. PMID:23610641

Biology, genome organization and evolution of parvoviruses in marine shrimp

Science.gov (United States)

A number of parvoviruses are now know to infect marine shrimp, and these viruses alone or in combination with other viruses have the potential to cause major losses in shrimp aquaculture globally. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the biology, genome organization, gene expression, and...

Synthetic biology approaches: Towards sustainable exploitation of marine bioactive molecules.

Science.gov (United States)

Seghal Kiran, G; Ramasamy, Pasiyappazham; Sekar, Sivasankari; Ramu, Meenatchi; Hassan, Saqib; Ninawe, A S; Selvin, Joseph

2018-06-01

The discovery of genes responsible for the production of bioactive metabolites via metabolic pathways combined with the advances in synthetic biology tools, has allowed the establishment of numerous microbial cell factories, for instance the yeast cell factories, for the manufacture of highly useful metabolites from renewable biomass. Genome mining and metagenomics are two platforms provide base-line data for reconstruction of genomes and metabolomes which is based in the development of synthetic/semi-synthetic genomes for marine natural products discovery. Engineered biofilms are being innovated on synthetic biology platform using genetic circuits and cell signalling systems as represillators controlling biofilm formation. Recombineering is a process of homologous recombination mediated genetic engineering, includes insertion, deletion or modification of any sequence specifically. Although this discipline considered new to the scientific domain, this field has now developed as promising endeavor on the accomplishment of sustainable exploitation of marine natural products. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Marine biotechnologies and synthetic biology, new issues for a fair and equitable profit-sharing commercial use.

Science.gov (United States)

Bloch, Jean-François; Tardieu-Guigues, Elisabeth

2014-10-01

The sea will be a source of economic development in the next years. Today the research works in marine biotechnologies supply new products and processes. The introduction in the laboratories of a new technology, synthesis biology, is going to increase the possibilities of creation of new products. Exploitation of product stemming from marine biodiversity has to be made with regard to various rights among which industrial property law, maritime law and the Convention on BioDiversity. All participants involved in the promotion of research in marine biotechnology must address the fair and equitable sharing of any commercial exploitation. Carrying out work involving synthetic biology has increased the number of unanswered questions about how operators should manage in order to avoid any threat of being sued for infringements of IP rights or for alleged bio-piracy. This paper, by no means exhaustive in the field, analyzes some of the issues raised on the modification to the landscape in marine biotechnology by the advent of synthetic biology. Such issues indicate how important the collaboration between researchers, industrialists, lawyers is for allowing proper use of marine biotech. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Marine-derived biological macromolecule-based biomaterials for wound healing and skin tissue regeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Chandika, Pathum; Ko, Seok-Chun; Jung, Won-Kyo

2015-01-01

Wound healing is a complex biological process that depends on the wound condition, the patient's health, and the physicochemical support given through external materials. The development of bioactive molecules and engineered tissue substitutes to provide physiochemical support to enhance the wound healing process plays a key role in advancing wound-care management. Thus, identification of ideal molecules in wound treatment is still in progress. The discovery of natural products that contain ideal molecules for skin tissue regeneration has been greatly advanced by exploration of the marine bioenvironment. Consequently, tremendously diverse marine organisms have become a great source of numerous biological macromolecules that can be used to develop tissue-engineered substitutes with wound healing properties. This review summarizes the wound healing process, the properties of macromolecules from marine organisms, and the involvement of these molecules in skin tissue regeneration applications. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Natural Proline-Rich Cyclopolypeptides from Marine Organisms: Chemistry, Synthetic Methodologies and Biological Status.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Wan-Yin; Dahiya, Rajiv; Qin, Hua-Li; Mourya, Rita; Maharaj, Sandeep

2016-10-26

Peptides have gained increased interest as therapeutics during recent years. More than 60 peptide drugs have reached the market for the benefit of patients and several hundreds of novel therapeutic peptides are in preclinical and clinical development. The key contributor to this success is the potent and specific, yet safe, mode of action of peptides. Among the wide range of biologically-active peptides, naturally-occurring marine-derived cyclopolypeptides exhibit a broad range of unusual and potent pharmacological activities. Because of their size and complexity, proline-rich cyclic peptides (PRCPs) occupy a crucial chemical space in drug discovery that may provide useful scaffolds for modulating more challenging biological targets, such as protein-protein interactions and allosteric binding sites. Diverse pharmacological activities of natural cyclic peptides from marine sponges, tunicates and cyanobacteria have encouraged efforts to develop cyclic peptides with well-known synthetic methods, including solid-phase and solution-phase techniques of peptide synthesis. The present review highlights the natural resources, unique structural features and the most relevant biological properties of proline-rich peptides of marine-origin, focusing on the potential therapeutic role that the PRCPs may play as a promising source of new peptide-based novel drugs.

Molecular biology in marine science: Scientific questions, technological approaches, and practical implications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1994-12-31

This report describes molecular techniques that could be invaluable in addressing process-oriented problems in the ocean sciences that have perplexed oceanographers for decades, such as understanding the basis for biogeochemical processes, recruitment processes, upper-ocean dynamics, biological impacts of global warming, and ecological impacts of human activities. The coupling of highly sophisticated methods, such as satellite remote sensing, which permits synoptic monitoring of chemical, physical, and biological parameters over large areas, with the power of modern molecular tools for ``ground truthing`` at small scales could allow scientists to address questions about marine organisms and the ocean in which they live that could not be answered previously. Clearly, the marine sciences are on the threshold of an exciting new frontier of scientific discovery and economic opportunity.

Letter Names, Letter Sounds and Phonological Awareness: An Examination of Kindergarten Children across Letters and of Letters across Children

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Mary Ann; Bell, Michelle; Shaw, Deborah; Moretti, Shelley; Page, Jodi

2006-01-01

In this study 149 kindergarten children were assessed for knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, phonological awareness, and cognitive abilities. Through this it examined child and letter characteristics influencing the acquisition of alphabetic knowledge in a naturalistic context, the relationship between letter-sound knowledge and…

Using the marine unicellular algae in biological monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kapkov V. I.

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The possibility of using marine unicellular algae from natural plankton community in biomonitoring of pollution by heavy metals has been investigated. Algae of different taxa from the Mediterranean Sea have been allocated to culture. In the laboratory the culture conditions – i. e. growth medium, temperature, photoperiod, level of artificial light and initial density – have been selected for every species. The impact of heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Cu, Pb in the form of chloride salts on the growth of axenic algae culture has been studied in the modelling experiments. The unicellular marine algae have a very short life cycle, therefore it is possible to use them in the experiments of studying the effect of anthropogenic factors at cellular and population levels on the test-object. With biomonitoring pollution of marine environment by heavy metals and others dangerous toxicants, the major indicators of algae community condition are the cellular cycle and the condition of the photosynthetic apparatus of the cell. The subsequent lysis of cells under the influence of heavy metals leads to the excretion of secondary metabolites which can essentially affect the metal toxicity. The established scales of threshold and lethal concentration of heavy metals for algae of different taxon make it possible to use the ratio of sensitive and resistant species to heavy metals as biological markers when forecasting ecological consequences of pollution of the marine environment by heavy metals. Distinctions in the resistance of different taxon to heavy metals can result in implementing the strategy of selection of test-objects depending on the purposes of the research.

Results of efforts by the Convention on Biological Diversity to describe ecologically or biologically significant marine areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Bax, Nicholas J; Cleary, Jesse; Donnelly, Ben; Dunn, Daniel C; Dunstan, Piers K; Fuller, Mike; Halpin, Patrick N

2016-06-01

In 2004, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) addressed a United Nations (UN) call for area-based planning, including for marine-protected areas that resulted in a global effort to describe ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs). We summarized the results, assessed their consistency, and evaluated the process developed by the Secretariat of the CBD to engage countries and experts in 9 regional workshops held from 2011 to 2014. Experts from 92 countries and 79 regional or international bodies participated. They considered 250 million km(2) of the world's ocean area (two-thirds of the total). The 204 areas they examined in detail differed widely in area (from 5.5 km(2) to 11.1 million km(2) ). Despite the initial focus of the CBD process on areas outside national jurisdiction, only 31 of the areas examined were solely outside national jurisdiction. Thirty-five extended into national jurisdictions, 137 were solely within national jurisdictions, and 28 included the jurisdictions of more than 1 country (1 area lacked precise boundaries). Data were sufficient to rank 88-99% of the areas relative to each of the 7 criteria for EBSAs agreed to previously by Parties to the CBD. The naturalness criterion ranked high for a smaller percentage of the EBSAs (31%) than other criteria (51-70%), indicating the difficulty in finding relatively undisturbed areas in the ocean. The highly participatory nature of the workshops, including easy and consistent access to the relevant information facilitated by 2 technical teams, contributed to the workshop participants success in identifying areas that could be ranked relative to most criteria and areas that extend across jurisdictional boundaries. The formal recognition of workshop results by the Conference of Parties to the CBD resulted in these 204 areas being identified as EBSAs by the 196 Parties. They represent the only suite of marine areas recognized by the international community for their

Sustainable production of biologically active molecules of marine based origin.

Science.gov (United States)

Murray, Patrick M; Moane, Siobhan; Collins, Catherine; Beletskaya, Tanya; Thomas, Olivier P; Duarte, Alysson W F; Nobre, Fernando S; Owoyemi, Ifeloju O; Pagnocca, Fernando C; Sette, L D; McHugh, Edward; Causse, Eric; Pérez-López, Paula; Feijoo, Gumersindo; Moreira, Ma T; Rubiolo, Juan; Leirós, Marta; Botana, Luis M; Pinteus, Susete; Alves, Celso; Horta, André; Pedrosa, Rui; Jeffryes, Clayton; Agathos, Spiros N; Allewaert, Celine; Verween, Annick; Vyverman, Wim; Laptev, Ivan; Sineoky, Sergei; Bisio, Angela; Manconi, Renata; Ledda, Fabio; Marchi, Mario; Pronzato, Roberto; Walsh, Daniel J

2013-09-25

The marine environment offers both economic and scientific potential which are relatively untapped from a biotechnological point of view. These environments whilst harsh are ironically fragile and dependent on a harmonious life form balance. Exploitation of natural resources by exhaustive wild harvesting has obvious negative environmental consequences. From a European industry perspective marine organisms are a largely underutilised resource. This is not due to lack of interest but due to a lack of choice the industry faces for cost competitive, sustainable and environmentally conscientious product alternatives. Knowledge of the biotechnological potential of marine organisms together with the development of sustainable systems for their cultivation, processing and utilisation are essential. In 2010, the European Commission recognised this need and funded a collaborative RTD/SME project under the Framework 7-Knowledge Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) Theme 2 Programme 'Sustainable culture of marine microorganisms, algae and/or invertebrates for high value added products'. The scope of that project entitled 'Sustainable Production of Biologically Active Molecules of Marine Based Origin' (BAMMBO) is outlined. Although the Union is a global leader in many technologies, it faces increasing competition from traditional rivals and emerging economies alike and must therefore improve its innovation performance. For this reason innovation is placed at the heart of a European Horizon 2020 Strategy wherein the challenge is to connect economic performance to eco performance. This article provides a synopsis of the research activities of the BAMMBO project as they fit within the wider scope of sustainable environmentally conscientious marine resource exploitation for high-value biomolecules. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The size distribution of marine atmospheric aerosol with regard to primary biological aerosol particles over the South Atlantic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Matthias-Maser, Sabine; Brinkmann, Jutta; Schneider, Wilhelm

The marine atmosphere is characterized by particles which originate from the ocean and by those which reached the air by advection from the continent. The bubble-burst mechanism produces both sea salt as well as biological particles. The following article describes the determination of the size distribution of marine aerosol particles with special emphasis on the biological particles. Th data were obtained on three cruises with the German Research Vessel "METEOR" crossing the South Atlantic Ocean. The measurements showed that biological particles amount to 17% in number and 10% in volume concentration. Another type of particle became obvious in the marine atmosphere, the biologically contaminated particle, i.e. particles which consist partly (approximately up to one-third) of biological matter. Their concentration in the evaluated size class ( r>2 μm) is higher than the concentration of the pure biological particles. The concentrations vary over about one to two orders of magnitude during all cruises.

The marine biological week as an approach to science

Science.gov (United States)

Ransdorf, Angela; Satzinger, Viktoria

2017-04-01

The "Wiedner Gymnasium" is an academic high school with two branches: one focusses on languages and the other one on science. In the language branch the students learn at least three languages; one of which is Latin, whereas the students of the scientific branch can learn geometrical drawing and have to attend a scientific laboratory throughout the last four upper classes. As incentive highlights the language classes have a one week's school trip to France, Italy or Spain at the beginning of their 7th form in order to attend a language school and to practice their language skills. As a counterbalance, there was introduced the "marine biological week" several years ago, in which the students of the scientific branch take part whilst their colleagues have their language trips. The marine biological week takes place in Rovinj, Croatia. A team of biologists and divers leads through a programme, by which the students get an overview of different habitats, their conditions and the different ways of adaptation organisms find. Thus, they also become acquainted with several species of animals and plants which are characteristic for this area. They become familiar with some methods of scientific work and also get to know some of the problems marine ecosystems are confronted with. They also learn a little bit if the Mediterranean history and culture. Back in school all the findings are reviewed and brought into an ecological context. The insights can be used for many other topics, too, such as e.g. evolution. This week has proved to be a good start as well for the topic of ecology as for learning to think scientifically in general. So, you can call it a pivot for the scientific branch of our school.

Neutron activation analysis studies of marine biological species and related marine sediments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guinn, V.P.; Di Casa, M.; de Goeij, J.J.M.; Young, D.R.

1974-01-01

To assess the effects, if any, of elemental pollution of the Pacific Ocean from the major Southern California sewage outfalls, samples of ocean sediments were obtained and specimens of Dover Sole were caught in a number of locations. Liver tissue samples from Dover Sole specimens were analyzed for 12 elements and sediment samples for 4 elements. Although a number of the elements were highly concentrated in the surface sediments in the heavily-polluted areas, the Dover Sole showed no evidence of picking up any of the 12 elements from these polluted sediments. Sediment profiles, versus depth, (0-34 cm) were also determined for As, Sb, Se, and Hg. Stemming partly from the results of the NSF Baseline Study, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) became interested in a more intensive multi-element study of marine biological species and ocean sediments off the coast of Southern California. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects, if any, of a number of selected elements of interest being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the principal sewage outfalls in the Southern California (Los Angeles) area upon marine biological species. The 12 elements selected for study were Cr, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Ag, Cd, Sb, and Hg. Since a number of these elements were not amenable to purely instrumental NAA measurements, a suitable post-irradiation radiochemical separation procedure was devised, thoroughly tested, and then applied to 39 samples of liver tissue from specimens of Dover Sole caught in non-polluted, slightly-polluted, fairly-polluted, and heavily-polluted areas along the coast. A number of surface sediment samples from these same locations were also analyzed, by both instrumental and radiochemical NAA. In the following sections, the samples analyzed are cited, the procedures developed and employed are described, the results obtained are presented, and the conclusions reached are discussed

Synthesis and biology of cyclic imine toxins, an emerging class of potent, globally distributed marine toxins.

Science.gov (United States)

Stivala, Craig E; Benoit, Evelyne; Aráoz, Rómulo; Servent, Denis; Novikov, Alexei; Molgó, Jordi; Zakarian, Armen

2015-03-01

From a small group of exotic compounds isolated only two decades ago, Cyclic Imine (CI) toxins have become a major class of marine toxins with global distribution. Their distinct chemical structure, biological mechanism of action, and intricate chemistry ensures that CI toxins will continue to be the subject of fascinating fundamental studies in the broad fields of chemistry, chemical biology, and toxicology. The worldwide occurrence of potent CI toxins in marine environments, their accumulation in shellfish, and chemical stability are important considerations in assessing risk factors for human health. This review article aims to provide an account of chemistry, biology, and toxicology of CI toxins from their discovery to the present day.

Marine Biological Survey, Peacock Point Outfall, Wake Atoll June 1998 (NODC Accession 0000247)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), in support of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) sponsored a marine biological survey at Wake...

Marine Biology: Ecology of the Sea. A Zephyr Learning Packet. Revised.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanner, Joey

From the smallest plankton to the most massive whales, marine biology is the study of the flora and fauna, the living creatures of the ocean. This Zephyr self-directed study unit was developed to bridge the gap between students as passive learners to students as active participants. Originally developed for gifted students, these units emphasize…

Exposure factors for marine eutrophication impacts assessment based on a mechanistic biological model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cosme, Nuno Miguel Dias; Koski, Marja; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

2015-01-01

marine ecosystem (LME), five climate zones, and site-generic. The XFs obtained range from 0.45 (Central Arctic Ocean) to 15.9kgO2kgN-1 (Baltic Sea). While LME resolution is recommended, aggregated PE or XF per climate zone can be adopted, but not global aggregation due to high variability. The XF......Emissions of nitrogen (N) from anthropogenic sources enrich marine waters and promote planktonic growth. This newly synthesised organic carbon is eventually exported to benthic waters where aerobic respiration by heterotrophic bacteria results in the consumption of dissolved oxygen (DO......). This pathway is typical of marine eutrophication. A model is proposed to mechanistically estimate the response of coastal marine ecosystems to N inputs. It addresses the biological processes of nutrient-limited primary production (PP), metazoan consumption, and bacterial degradation, in four distinct sinking...

Comparison of growth methods and biological activities of brazilian marine Streptomyces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. C. Granato

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The present work describes the study of the growth and the cytotoxic and antitumor activities of the extracts of the marine microorganisms Streptomyces acrymicini and Streptomyces cebimarensis, the latter a new strain. Both microorganisms were collected from coastal marine sediments of the north coast of São Paulo state. Growth was performed in a shaker and in a bioreactor using Gym medium and the broths of both microorganisms were extracted with ethyl acetate and n-butanol. Three extracts, two organic and one aqueous, from each microorganism were obtained and tested for cytotoxic and antitumor activity using the SF-295 (Central Nervous System, HCT-8 (Colon cell lines, and the MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide method. The growth methods were compared and show that, although the shaker presented reasonable results, the bioreactor represents the best choice for growth of these microorganisms. The biological activity of the different extracts was evaluated and it was demonstrated that the growth methodology may influence the secondary metabolite production and the biological activity.

Overview on Biological Activities and Molecular Characteristics of Sulfated Polysaccharides from Marine Green Algae in Recent Years

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lingchong; Wang, Xiangyu; Wu, Hao; Liu, Rui

2014-01-01

Among the three main divisions of marine macroalgae (Chlorophyta, Phaeophyta and Rhodophyta), marine green algae are valuable sources of structurally diverse bioactive compounds and remain largely unexploited in nutraceutical and pharmaceutical areas. Recently, a great deal of interest has been developed to isolate novel sulfated polysaccharides (SPs) from marine green algae because of their numerous health beneficial effects. Green seaweeds are known to synthesize large quantities of SPs and are well established sources of these particularly interesting molecules such as ulvans from Ulva and Enteromorpha, sulfated rhamnans from Monostroma, sulfated arabinogalactans from Codium, sulfated galacotans from Caulerpa, and some special sulfated mannans from different species. These SPs exhibit many beneficial biological activities such as anticoagulant, antiviral, antioxidative, antitumor, immunomodulating, antihyperlipidemic and antihepatotoxic activities. Therefore, marine algae derived SPs have great potential for further development as healthy food and medical products. The present review focuses on SPs derived from marine green algae and presents an overview of the recent progress of determinations of their structural types and biological activities, especially their potential health benefits. PMID:25257786

The biology of marine plants

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Dring, M.J

1982-01-01

Since over 90% of the species of marine plants are algae, most of the book is devoted to the marine representatives of this group, with examples from all oceans and coasts of the world where detailed work has been done...

Should intellectual property be disseminated by "forwarding" rejected letters without permission?

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, V K

1996-08-01

Substantive scientific letter writing is a cost-effective mode of complementing observational and experimental research. The value of such philosophically uncommitted and unsponsored well-balanced scientific activity has been relegated. Critical letter writing entails the abilities to: maintain rational scepticism; refuse to conform in order to explain data; persist in keeping common sense centre-stage; exercise logic to evaluate the biological significance of mathematical figures, including statistics, and the ability to sustain the will to share insights regarding disease mechanisms on an ostensibly lower research platform. During peer review, innovative letter writing may share the occasionally unfortunate fate of innovative research. Rejected scientific letters do not automatically lose copyright. Periodicals with high letter loads will see some valuable contributions wasted, but that is the price for maintaining autonomy in scientific publication. The scientific community is an integrated whole that must respect the rights of authors at all levels. Unauthorised forwarding of rejected letters sets the dangerous precedent of justifying unjust means.

Letters in the Forest: Global precedence effect disappears for letters but not for non-letters under reading-like conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas eLachmann

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Normally-skilled reading involves special processing strategies for letters, which are habitually funneled into an abstract letter code. On the basis of previous studies we argue that this habit leads to the preferred usage of an analytic strategy for the processing of letters, while non-letters are preferably processed via a holistic strategy. The well-known Global Precedence Effect (GPE seems to contradict to this assumption, since, with compound, hierarchical figures, including letter items, faster responses are observed to the global than to the local level of the figure, as well as an asymmetric interference effect from global to local level. We argue that with letters these effects depend on presentation conditions; only when they elicit the processing strategies automatized for reading, an analytic strategy for letters in contrast to non-letters is to be expected. We compared the GPE for letters and non-letters in central viewing, with the global stimulus size close to the functional visual field in whole word reading (6.5o of visual angle and local stimuli close to the critical size for fluent reading of individual letters (.5o of visual angle. Under these conditions, the GPE remained robust for non-letters. For letters, however, it disappeared: letters showed no overall response time advantage for the global level and symmetric congruence effects (local-to-global as well as global-to local interference. We interpret these results as according to the view that reading is based on resident analytic visual processing strategies for letters.

Emerging concepts promising new horizons for marine biodiscovery and synthetic biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Reen, F Jerry; Gutiérrez-Barranquero, José A; Dobson, Alan D W; Adams, Claire; O'Gara, Fergal

2015-05-13

The vast oceans of the world, which comprise a huge variety of unique ecosystems, are emerging as a rich and relatively untapped source of novel bioactive compounds with invaluable biotechnological and pharmaceutical potential. Evidence accumulated over the last decade has revealed that the diversity of marine microorganisms is enormous with many thousands of bacterial species detected that were previously unknown. Associated with this diversity is the production of diverse repertoires of bioactive compounds ranging from peptides and enzymes to more complex secondary metabolites that have significant bioactivity and thus the potential to be exploited for innovative biotechnology. Here we review the discovery and functional potential of marine bioactive peptides such as lantibiotics, nanoantibiotics and peptidomimetics, which have received particular attention in recent years in light of their broad spectrum of bioactivity. The significance of marine peptides in cell-to-cell communication and how this may be exploited in the discovery of novel bioactivity is also explored. Finally, with the recent advances in bioinformatics and synthetic biology, it is becoming clear that the integration of these disciplines with genetic and biochemical characterization of the novel marine peptides, offers the most potential in the development of the next generation of societal solutions.

Marine polar steroids

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stonik, Valentin A

2001-01-01

Structures, taxonomic distribution and biological activities of polar steroids isolated from various marine organisms over the last 8-10 years are considered. The peculiarities of steroid biogenesis in the marine biota and their possible biological functions are discussed. Syntheses of some highly active marine polar steroids are described. The bibliography includes 254 references.

Should intellectual property be disseminated by "forwarding" rejected letters without permission?

OpenAIRE

Gupta, V K

1996-01-01

Substantive scientific letter writing is a cost-effective mode of complementing observational and experimental research. The value of such philosophically uncommitted and unsponsored well-balanced scientific activity has been relegated. Critical letter writing entails the abilities to: maintain rational scepticism; refuse to conform in order to explain data; persist in keeping common sense centre-stage; exercise logic to evaluate the biological significance of mathematical figures, including ...

Primary and Secondary Organic Marine Aerosol and Oceanic Biological Activity: Recent Results and New Perspectives for Future Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matteo Rinaldi

2010-01-01

Full Text Available One of the most important natural aerosol systems at the global level is marine aerosol that comprises both organic and inorganic components of primary and secondary origin. The present paper reviews some new results on primary and secondary organic marine aerosol, achieved during the EU project MAP (Marine Aerosol Production, comparing them with those reported in the recent literature. Marine aerosol samples collected at the coastal site of Mace Head, Ireland, show a chemical composition trend that is influenced by the oceanic biological activity cycle, in agreement with other observations. Laboratory experiments show that sea-spray aerosol from biologically active sea water can be highly enriched in organics, and the authors highlight the need for further studies on the atmospheric fate of such primary organics. With regard to the secondary fraction of organic aerosol, the average chemical composition and molecular tracer (methanesulfonic-acid, amines distribution could be successfully characterized by adopting a multitechnique analytical approach.

Parasites as biological tags in marine fisheries research: European Atlantic waters.

Science.gov (United States)

Mackenzie, K; Hemmingsen, W

2015-01-01

Studies of the use of parasites as biological tags for stock identification and to follow migrations of marine fish, mammals and invertebrates in European Atlantic waters are critically reviewed and evaluated. The region covered includes the North, Baltic, Barents and White Seas plus Icelandic waters, but excludes the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Each fish species or ecological group of species is treated separately. More parasite tag studies have been carried out on Atlantic herring Clupea harengus than on any other species, while cod Gadus morhua have also been the subject of many studies. Other species that have been the subjects of more than one study are: blue whiting Micromesistius poutassou, whiting Merlangius merlangus, haddock Melanogrammus aeglefinus, Norway pout Trisopterus esmarkii, horse mackerel Trachurus trachurus and mackerel Scomber scombrus. Other species are dealt with under the general headings redfishes, flatfish, tunas, anadromous fish, elasmobranchs, marine mammals and invertebrates. A final section highlights how parasites can be, and have been, misused as biological tags, and how this can be avoided. It also reviews recent developments in methodology and parasite genetics, considers the potential effects of climate change on the distributions of both hosts and parasites, and suggests host-parasite systems that should reward further research.

Structured printed referral letter (form letter; saves time and improves communication

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R.P.J.C. Ramanayake

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Referral of patients to hospitals, specialists and other institutions is an essential part of primary health care. Patients are referred to specialists when investigation or therapeutic options are exhausted in primary care or when opinion or advice is needed from them. Referral has considerable implications for patients, health care system and health care costs. Good communication between primary and secondary care is essential for the smooth running of any health care system. Referral and reply letters are the sole means of communication between doctors most of the time and breakdown in communication could lead to poor continuity of care, delayed diagnoses, polypharmacy, increased litigation risk and unnecessary testing. A referral letter also helps to avoid patient dissatisfaction and loss of confidence in family physician. Studies of referral letters have reported that specialists are dissatisfied with their quality and content. Inclusion of letter writing skills in the medical curriculum, peer assessment and feedback have shown to improve the quality of referral letters. . Form letters have shown to enhance information content and communication in referral process. In Sri Lanka referral letters are usually hand written and frequent complaints are that these letters do not contain adequate information and retrieval of information is a problem due to poor legibility and clarity. Sometimes Primary care doctors refer patients to hospitals and specialists with only verbal instructions. To address these short comings this form letter was introduced. Based on the guidelines and systematic review of published articles, items of information to be included were decided. Printed forms of the letter are kept in the practice and the doctor has to just fill up relevant information under each heading. The objectives of introducing this structured referral letter was to improve the quality and standard of referral letters and save time for both general

Contrasts between the marine and freshwater biological interactions of plutonium and americium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Livingston, H.D.; Bowen, V.T.

1975-01-01

Whether in lakes or the oceans the transuranic elements plutonium and americium are taken up by marine organisms, with concentration factors that would class them as nice, typical heavy metals. There is no evidence for strong, widespread discrimination against the transuranics by either plant or animal absorptive surfaces. In both freshwater and marine situations the major reservoir of Pu and Am soon becomes the sediments, and organisms are more exposed to uptake of these nuclides the closer is their ecological involvement with the sediments. Although there is little evidence that this can be an ionic strength effect, it does appear that Pu may be somewhat more available, biologically, in marine environments, and Am, conversely, in fresh water. We incline to the belief that details of these behaviors are usually controlled by local availability of organic complexers. No compelling evidence exists of increase in Pu concentration at higher levels of food chains; in marine situations this appears true of Am as well, but a few data suggest that in fresh water fish there is a progressive increase, in higher trophic levels, in the ratio Am to Pu. Although marine and fresh water biogeochemistries of transuranics are much more similar than we had expected, it will generally be dangerous to extrapolate from one to the other. In both systems there appears to us no question that we are observing real element biogeochemistry, not the redistribution of inert, labelled, fallout fragments

IPCC workshop on impacts of ocean acidification on marine biology and ecosystems. Workshop report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Field, C.B.; Barros, V.; Stocker, T.F.; Dahe, Q.; Mach, K.J.; Plattner, G.-K.; Mastrandrea, M.D.; Tignor, M.; Ebi, K.L.

2011-09-15

Understanding the effects of increasing atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentrations on ocean chemistry, commonly termed ocean acidification, as well as associated impacts on marine biology and ecosystems, is an important component of scientific knowledge about global change. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will include comprehensive coverage of ocean acidification and its impacts, including potential feedbacks to the climate system. To support ongoing AR5 assessment efforts, Working Group II and Working Group I (WGII and WGI) of the IPCC held a joint Workshop on Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biology and Ecosystems in Okinawa, Japan, from 17 to 19 January 2011. The workshop convened experts from the scientific community, including WGII and WGI AR5 authors and review editors, to synthesise scientific understanding of changes in ocean chemistry due to increased CO{sub 2} and of impacts of this changing chemistry on marine organisms, ecosystems, and ecosystem services. This workshop report summarises the scientific content and perspectives presented and discussed during the workshop. It provides syntheses of these perspectives for the workshop's core topics: (i) the changing chemistry of the oceans, (ii) impacts of ocean acidification for individual organisms, and (iii) scaling up responses from individual organisms to ecosystems. It also presents summaries of workshop discussions of key cross-cutting themes, ranging from detection and attribution of ocean acidification and its impacts to understanding ocean acidification in the context of other stressors on marine systems. Additionally, the workshop report includes extended abstracts for keynote and poster presentations at the workshop. (Author)

Marine Biology: Self-Directed Study Units for Grades K-3 and 4-8, Gifted. Easily Adapted for Regular Classroom Use. Zephyr Learning Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanner, Joey

Originally designed for the gifted student, these reproducible marine biology units emphasize the use of higher order thinking skills and are appropriate for use in any classroom. Interdisciplinary in content, the units provide a broad view of marine biology. Included are two complete units, one created for the upper elementary gifted student and…

Glycosaminoglycans analogues from marine invertebrates: structure, biological effects and potential as new therapeutics.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauro Sergio Pavao

2014-09-01

Full Text Available In this review, several glycosaminoglycan analogs obtained from different marine invertebrate are reported. The structure, biological activity and mechanism of action of these unique molecules are detailed reviewed and exemplified by experiments in vitro and in vivo. Among the glycans studied are low-sulfated heparin-like polymers from ascidians, containing significant anticoagulant activity and no bleeding effect; dermatan sulfates with significant neurite outgrowth promoting activity and anti-P-selectin from ascidians, and a unique fucosylated chondroitin sulfate from sea cucumbers, possessing anticoagulant activity after oral administration and high anti P- and L-selectin activities. The therapeutic value and safety of these invertebrate glycans have been extensively proved by several experimental animal models of diseases, including thrombosis, inflammation and metastasis. These invertebrate glycans can be obtained in high concentrations from marine organisms that have been used as a food source for decades, and usually obtained from marine farms in sufficient quantities to be used as starting material for new therapeutics.

Letter and symbol identification: No evidence for letter-specific crowding mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Castet, Eric; Descamps, Marine; Denis-Noël, Ambre; Colé, Pascale

2017-09-01

It has been proposed that letters, as opposed to symbols, trigger specialized crowding processes, boosting identification of the first and last letters of words. This hypothesis is based on evidence that single-letter accuracy as a function of within-string position has a W shape (the classic serial position function [SPF] in psycholinguistics) whereas an inverted V shape is obtained when measured with symbols. Our main goal was to test the robustness of the latter result. Our hypothesis was that any letter/symbol difference might result from short-term visual memory processes (due to the partial report [PR] procedures used in SPF studies) rather than from crowding. We therefore removed the involvement of short-term memory by precueing target-item position and compared SPFs with precueing and postcueing. Perimetric complexity was stringently matched between letters and symbols. In postcueing conditions similar to previous studies, we did not reproduce the inverted V shape for symbols: Clear-cut W shapes were observed with an overall smaller accuracy for symbols compared to letters. This letter/symbol difference was dramatically reduced in precueing conditions in keeping with our prediction. Our results are not consistent with the claim that letter strings trigger specialized crowding processes. We argue that PR procedures are not fit to isolate crowding processes.

The effect of letter string length and report condition on letter recognition accuracy.

Science.gov (United States)

Raghunandan, Avesh; Karmazinaite, Berta; Rossow, Andrea S

Letter sequence recognition accuracy has been postulated to be limited primarily by low-level visual factors. The influence of high level factors such as visual memory (load and decay) has been largely overlooked. This study provides insight into the role of these factors by investigating the interaction between letter sequence recognition accuracy, letter string length and report condition. Letter sequence recognition accuracy for trigrams and pentagrams were measured in 10 adult subjects for two report conditions. In the complete report condition subjects reported all 3 or all 5 letters comprising trigrams and pentagrams, respectively. In the partial report condition, subjects reported only a single letter in the trigram or pentagram. Letters were presented for 100ms and rendered in high contrast, using black lowercase Courier font that subtended 0.4° at the fixation distance of 0.57m. Letter sequence recognition accuracy was consistently higher for trigrams compared to pentagrams especially for letter positions away from fixation. While partial report increased recognition accuracy in both string length conditions, the effect was larger for pentagrams, and most evident for the final letter positions within trigrams and pentagrams. The effect of partial report on recognition accuracy for the final letter positions increased as eccentricity increased away from fixation, and was independent of the inner/outer position of a letter. Higher-level visual memory functions (memory load and decay) play a role in letter sequence recognition accuracy. There is also suggestion of additional delays imposed on memory encoding by crowded letter elements. Copyright © 2016 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Letters and Letter Writing in Early Modern Culture: An Introduction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The recently renewed scholarly interest in historical letters and letter writing has given rise to several studies which explore the culture of epistolarity from different perspectives. The article offers an introduction to recent scholarship on epistolary discourse and practices in early modern culture. Given the importance of letters as data for several types of diachronic investigation, the article focuses on three points that are crucial for an understanding of the relevance of epistolary discourse itself in early modern European culture. Firstly, letters are invaluable data for historical linguistics, to which they provide information for the history of languages, and sociohistorical and sociolinguistic research. A second recent field of investigation considers letters as documents and material items; the results of research in this area have contributed to the reconstruction of official relationships and information exchanges in past cultures and shed light on social interaction. A third, more traditional area of study, deals with the letter as a form that has given rise to many different genres across the centuries, both practical and literary.

Marine pollution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Albaiges, J.

1989-01-01

This book covers the following topics: Transport of marine pollutants; Transformation of pollutants in the marine environment; Biological effects of marine pollutants; Sources and transport of oil pollutants in the Persian Gulf; Trace metals and hydrocarbons in Syrian coastal waters; and Techniques for analysis of trace pollutants

Effect of orthographic processes on letter-identity and letter-position encoding in dyslexic children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Caroline eReilhac

2012-05-01

Full Text Available The ability to identify letters and encode their position is a crucial step of the word recognition process. However and despite their word identification problem, the ability of dyslexic children to encode letter-identity and letter-position within strings was not systematically investigated. This study aimed at filling this gap and further explored how letter identity and letter position encoding is modulated by letter context in developmental dyslexia. For this purpose, a letter-string comparison task was administered to French dyslexic children and two chronological-age (CA and reading-age (RA-matched control groups. Children had to judge whether two successively and briefly presented 4-letter-strings were identical or different. Letter-position and letter-identity were manipulated through the transposition (e.g., RTGM vs. RMGT or substitution of two letters (e.g., TSHF vs. TGHD. Non-words, pseudo-words and words were used as stimuli to investigate sub-lexical and lexical effects on letter encoding. Dyslexic children showed both substitution and transposition detection problems relative to CA controls. A substitution advantage over transpositions was only found for words in dyslexic children whereas it extended to pseudo-words in RA controls and to all type of items in CA controls. Letters were better identified in the dyslexic group when belonging to orthographically familiar strings. Letter position encoding was very impaired in dyslexic children who did not show any word context effect in contrast to CA controls. Overall, the current findings point to a strong letter identity and letter position encoding disorder in developmental dyslexia.

Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter across a Marine Distributed Biological Observatory in the Pacific Arctic Region

Science.gov (United States)

Berman, S. L.; Frey, K. E.; Shake, K. L.; Cooper, L. W.; Grebmeier, J. M.

2014-12-01

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays an important role in marine ecosystems as both a carbon source for the microbial food web (and thus a source of CO2 to the atmosphere) and as a light inhibitor in marine environments. The presence of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM; the optically active portion of total DOM) can have significant controlling effects on transmittance of sunlight through the water column and therefore on primary production as well as the heat balance of the upper ocean. However, CDOM is also susceptible to photochemical degradation, which decreases the flux of solar radiation that is absorbed. Knowledge of the current spatial and temporal distribution of CDOM in marine environments is thus critical for understanding how ongoing and future changes in climate may impact these biological, biogeochemical, and physical processes. We describe the quantity and quality of CDOM along five key productive transects across a developing Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) in the Pacific Arctic region. The samples were collected onboard the CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier in July 2013 and 2014. Monitoring of the variability of CDOM along transects of high productivity can provide important insights into biological and biogeochemical cycling across the region. Our analyses include overall concentrations of CDOM, as well as proxy information such as molecular weight, lability, and source (i.e., autochthonous vs. allochthonous) of organic matter. We utilize these field observations to compare with satellite-derived CDOM concentrations determined from the Aqua MODIS satellite platform, which ultimately provides a spatially and temporally continuous synoptic view of CDOM concentrations throughout the region. Examining the current relationships among CDOM, sea ice variability, biological productivity, and biogeochemical cycling in the Pacific Arctic region will likely provide key insights for how ecosystems throughout the region will respond in future

Sustained climate warming drives declining marine biological productivity

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, J. Keith; Fu, Weiwei; Primeau, Francois; Britten, Gregory L.; Lindsay, Keith; Long, Matthew; Doney, Scott C.; Mahowald, Natalie; Hoffman, Forrest; Randerson, James T.

2018-03-01

Climate change projections to the year 2100 may miss physical-biogeochemical feedbacks that emerge later from the cumulative effects of climate warming. In a coupled climate simulation to the year 2300, the westerly winds strengthen and shift poleward, surface waters warm, and sea ice disappears, leading to intense nutrient trapping in the Southern Ocean. The trapping drives a global-scale nutrient redistribution, with net transfer to the deep ocean. Ensuing surface nutrient reductions north of 30°S drive steady declines in primary production and carbon export (decreases of 24 and 41%, respectively, by 2300). Potential fishery yields, constrained by lower–trophic-level productivity, decrease by more than 20% globally and by nearly 60% in the North Atlantic. Continued high levels of greenhouse gas emissions could suppress marine biological productivity for a millennium.

Reproductive biology, family conflict, and size of offspring in marine invertebrates.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamel, Stephanie J; Oyarzun, Fernanda X; Grosberg, Richard K

2010-10-01

All organisms face two fundamental trade-offs in the allocation of energetic resources: one between many small versus a few large offspring, and the second between present and future reproduction. Nowhere are these trade-offs more apparent than in the vast range of variation in the sizes of eggs and offspring exhibited among species of marine invertebrates. It has become increasingly clear that, in many taxa of marine organisms, there is also substantial intraspecific variation in the size of eggs and hatchings. This variation has largely been attributed to adaptive maternal effects. In theory, however, the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise in families of sexually reproducing organisms over the optimal distribution of parental resources among siblings could also account for much of this variation in egg and offspring size. Here, we explore the potential impacts of family conflict on offspring traits by comparing the life histories of two exemplar species of marine organisms, the polychaete Boccardia proboscidea and the gastropod Solenosteira macrospira, emphasizing how differences in modes of fertilization and parental care might influence the phenotype and, consequently, the fitness of offspring. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved.

Marine parasites as biological tags in South American Atlantic waters, current status and perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Cantatore, D M P; Timi, J T

2015-01-01

Many marine fisheries in South American Atlantic coasts (SAAC) are threatened by overfishing and under serious risk of collapsing. The SAAC comprises a diversity of environments, possesses a complex oceanography and harbours a vast biodiversity that provide an enormous potential for using parasites as biological tags for fish stock delineation, a prerequisite for the implementation of control and management plans. Here, their use in the SAAC is reviewed. Main evidence is derived from northern Argentine waters, where fish parasite assemblages are dominated by larval helminth species that share a low specificity, long persistence and trophic transmission, parasitizing almost indiscriminately all available fish species. The advantages and constraints of such a combination of characteristics are analysed and recommendations are given for future research. Shifting the focus from fish/parasite populations to communities allows expanding the concept of biological tags from local to regional scales, providing essential information to delineate ecosystem boundaries for host communities. This new concept arose as a powerful tool to help the implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management, the new paradigm for fisheries science. Holistic approaches, including parasites as biological tags for stock delineation will render valuable information to help insure fisheries and marine ecosystems against further depletion and collapse.

Using biological effects tools to define Good Environmental Status under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lyons, B.P.; Thain, J.E.; Hylland, K.; Davis, I.; Vethaak, A.D.

2010-01-01

The use of biological effects tools offer enormous potential to meet the challenges outlined by the European Union Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) whereby Member States are required to develop a robust set of tools for defining 11 qualitative descriptors of Good Environmental Status

Anthraquinones and Derivatives from Marine-Derived Fungi: Structural Diversity and Selected Biological Activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mireille Fouillaud

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Anthraquinones and their derivatives constitute a large group of quinoid compounds with about 700 molecules described. They are widespread in fungi and their chemical diversity and biological activities recently attracted attention of industries in such fields as pharmaceuticals, clothes dyeing, and food colorants. Their positive and/or negative effect(s due to the 9,10-anthracenedione structure and its substituents are still not clearly understood and their potential roles or effects on human health are today strongly discussed among scientists. As marine microorganisms recently appeared as producers of an astonishing variety of structurally unique secondary metabolites, they may represent a promising resource for identifying new candidates for therapeutic drugs or daily additives. Within this review, we investigate the present knowledge about the anthraquinones and derivatives listed to date from marine-derived filamentous fungi′s productions. This overview highlights the molecules which have been identified in microorganisms for the first time. The structures and colors of the anthraquinoid compounds come along with the known roles of some molecules in the life of the organisms. Some specific biological activities are also described. This may help to open doors towards innovative natural substances.

Anthraquinones and Derivatives from Marine-Derived Fungi: Structural Diversity and Selected Biological Activities.

Science.gov (United States)

Fouillaud, Mireille; Venkatachalam, Mekala; Girard-Valenciennes, Emmanuelle; Caro, Yanis; Dufossé, Laurent

2016-03-25

Anthraquinones and their derivatives constitute a large group of quinoid compounds with about 700 molecules described. They are widespread in fungi and their chemical diversity and biological activities recently attracted attention of industries in such fields as pharmaceuticals, clothes dyeing, and food colorants. Their positive and/or negative effect(s) due to the 9,10-anthracenedione structure and its substituents are still not clearly understood and their potential roles or effects on human health are today strongly discussed among scientists. As marine microorganisms recently appeared as producers of an astonishing variety of structurally unique secondary metabolites, they may represent a promising resource for identifying new candidates for therapeutic drugs or daily additives. Within this review, we investigate the present knowledge about the anthraquinones and derivatives listed to date from marine-derived filamentous fungi's productions. This overview highlights the molecules which have been identified in microorganisms for the first time. The structures and colors of the anthraquinoid compounds come along with the known roles of some molecules in the life of the organisms. Some specific biological activities are also described. This may help to open doors towards innovative natural substances.

77 FR 25435 - Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School Training Operations...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-30

... B harassment, incidental to Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School (NEODS) training operations at... Importing Marine Mammals; Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School Training Operations at Eglin Air Force... and the Issuance of Letters of Authorization to Take Marine Mammals, by Level B Harassment, Incidental...

76 FR 68777 - Letters of Authorization To Take Marine Mammals

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-07

... DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS-R7-FHC-2011-N188; FF07CAMM00... of the Interior. ACTION: Notice of issuance. SUMMARY: In accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection... Acoustic July 15, 2011. Monitoring Recorder Deployment and Retrieval Project. Olgoonik Fairweather, LLC...

Marine ecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1977-01-01

Studies on marine ecology included marine pollution; distribution patterns of Pu and Am in the marine waters, sediments, and organisms of Bikini Atoll and the influence of physical, chemical, and biological factors on their movements through marine biogeochemical systems; transfer and dispersion of organic pollutants from an oil refinery through coastal waters; transfer of particulate pollutants, including sediments dispersed during construction of offshore power plants; and raft culture of the mangrove oysters

S.E.A. Lab. Science Experiments and Activities. Marine Science for High School Students in Chemistry, Biology and Physics.

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, Kathy, Ed.

A series of science experiments and activities designed for secondary school students taking biology, chemistry, physics, physical science or marine science courses are outlined. Each of the three major sections--chemistry, biology, and physics--addresses concepts that are generally covered in those courses but incorporates aspects of marine…

What Do Letter Migration Errors Reveal About Letter Position Coding in Visual Word Recognition?

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Colin J.; Bowers, Jeffrey S.

2004-01-01

Dividing attention across multiple words occasionally results in misidentifications whereby letters apparently migrate between words. Previous studies have found that letter migrations preserve within-word letter position, which has been interpreted as support for position-specific letter coding. To investigate this issue, the authors used word…

Analysis of reliability of professor recommendation letters based on concordance with self-introduction letter.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sang Hyun

2013-12-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the concordance between a checklist's categories of professor recommendation letters and characteristics of the self-introduction letter. Checklists of professor recommendation letters were analyzed and classified into cognitive, social, and affective domains. Simple correlation was performed to determine whether the characteristics of the checklists were concordant with those of the self-introduction letter. The difference in ratings of the checklists by pass or fail grades was analyzed by independent sample t-test. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine whether a pass or fail grade was influenced by ratings on the checklists. The Cronbach alpha value of the checklists was 0.854. Initiative, as an affective domain, in the professor's recommendation letter was highly ranked among the six checklist categories. Self-directed learning in the self-introduction letter was influenced by a pass or fail grade by logistic regression analysis (pprofessor recommendation letters and the sum of all characteristics in the self-introduction letter.

Pyridinoacridine alkaloids of marine origin: NMR and MS spectral data, synthesis, biosynthesis and biological activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Louis P. Sandjo

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This review focuses on pyridoacridine-related metabolites as one biologically interesting group of alkaloids identified from marine sources. They are produced by marine sponges, ascidians and tunicates, and they are structurally comprised of four to eight fused rings including heterocycles. Acridine, acridone, dihydroacridine, and quinolone cores are features regularly found in these alkaloid skeletons. The lack of hydrogen atoms next to quaternary carbon atoms for two or three rings makes the chemical shift assignment a difficult task. In this regard, one of the aims of this review is the compilation of previously reported, pyridoacridine 13C NMR data. Observations have been made on the delocalization of electrons and the presence of some functional groups that lead to changes in the chemical shift of some carbon resonances. The lack of mass spectra information for these alkaloids due to the compactness of their structures is further discussed. Moreover, the biosynthetic pathways of some of these metabolites have been shown since they could inspire biomimetic synthesis. The synthesis routes used to prepare members of these marine alkaloids (as well as their analogues, which are synthesized for biological purposes are also discussed. Pyridoacridines were found to have a large spectrum of bioactivity and this review highlights and compares the pharmacophores that are responsible for the observed bioactivity.

Progress towards the Conventionon Biological Diversity terrestrial2010 and marine 2012 targets forprotected area coverage

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Coad, Lauren; Burgess, Neil David; Fish, Lucy

2010-01-01

coverage targets. National protected areas data from the WDPA have been used to measure progress in protected areas coverage at global, regional and national scale. The mean protected area coverage per nation was 12.2% for terrestrial area, and only 5.1% for near-shore marine area. Variation in protected......Protected area coverage targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for both terrestrial and marine environments provide a major incentive for governments to review and upgrade their protected area systems. Assessing progress towards these targets will form an important component...... of the work of the Xth CBD Conference of Parties meeting to be held in Japan in 2010. The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the largest assembly of data on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas and, as such, represents a fundamental tool in tracking progress towards protected area...

A STUDY ON LEGIBILITY OF LETTERING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Merve ERSAN,

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In the most general sense, lettering is the art of drawing letters, in which the letter forms carry illustrtive features. In this research which is titled "An Analysis on Legibility in Letterings Used in Print Advertisements", letterings used in and specially designed for print ads are analysed and their contribution to the ads are examined. Legibility, which is the fundamental function of writing and typography is examined in the field of lettering that has an illustrative approach. Also, the article puts emphasis on the technique and form’s contribution on content in letterings. Keywords: Lettering, print advertisements, letter design, illustration, legibility.

Biological sampling for marine radioactivity monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fowler, S.W.

1997-01-01

Strategies and methodologies for using marine organisms to monitor radioactivity in marine waters are presented. When the criteria for monitoring radioactivity is to determine routes of radionuclide transfer to man, the ''critical pathway'' approach is often applied. Alternatively, where information on ambient radionuclide levels and distributions is sought, the approach of selecting marine organisms as ''bioindicators'' of radioactivity is generally used. Whichever approach is applied, a great deal of knowledge is required about the physiology and ecology of the specific organism chosen. In addition, several criteria for qualifying as a bioindicator species are discussed; e.g., it must be a sedentary species which reflects the ambient radionuclide concentration at a given site, sufficiently long-lived to allow long-term temporal sampling, widely distributed to allow spatial comparisons, able to bioconcentrate the radionuclide to a relatively high degree, while showing a simple correlation between radionuclide content in its tissues with that in the surrounding waters. Useful hints on the appropriate species to use and the best way to collect and prepare organisms for radioanalysis are also given. It is concluded that benthic algae and bivalve molluscs generally offer the greatest potential for use as a ''bioindicator'' species in radionuclide biomonitoring programmes. Where knowledge on contribution to radiological dose is required, specific edible marine species should be the organisms of choice; however, both purposes can be served when the edible species chosen through critical pathway analysis is also an excellent bioaccumulator of the radionuclide of interest. (author)

Ichthyoplankton of arvoredo biological marine reserve, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thais Rutkowski

Full Text Available Arvoredo Island, located in Santa Catarina state - south Brazil, and its surrounding area were defined as a Conservation Unit (CU in the category of Biological Reserve since 1990. This research aimed to analyze the inter-annual and seasonal (winter and summer variations of ichthyoplankton densities at Arvoredo Biology Marine Reserve (ABMR, and their relationship with environmental variables in 1997/1998 (Campaign 1, 2007/2008 (Campaign 2 and 2008/2009 (Campaign 3. Fish eggs and larvae were sampled using a WP-2 net with 200 µm mesh size. The study area was influenced by three water masses, (i Coastal Water throughout the whole year, (ii Subtropical Shelf Water during the winter, and (iii South Atlantic Central Water mainly in summer. A total of 4,891 eggs were collected and classified as Engraulidae and Sardinella brasiliensis (Clupeidae. The total number of larvae was 467 belonging to 5 orders, 19 families, and 21 species. Taxonomic composition demonstrated a seasonal pattern among periods, with the highest densities of Engraulidae occurring in winter and the families Carangidae, Clupeidae and Gerreidae in summer. The high number of families and abundance of ichthyoplankton observed in ABMR may be important in supplying the adjacent coastal areas impacted by fishing.

Evaluating legacy contaminants and emerging chemicals in marine environments using adverse outcome pathways and biological effects-directed analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchinson, Thomas H; Lyons, Brett P; Thain, John E; Law, Robin J

2013-09-30

Natural and synthetic chemicals are essential to our daily lives, food supplies, health care, industries and safe sanitation. At the same time protecting marine ecosystems and seafood resources from the adverse effects of chemical contaminants remains an important issue. Since the 1970s, monitoring of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals using analytical chemistry has provided important spatial and temporal trend data in three important contexts; relating to human health protection from seafood contamination, addressing threats to marine top predators and finally providing essential evidence to better protect the biodiversity of commercial and non-commercial marine species. A number of regional conventions have led to controls on certain PBT chemicals over several years (termed 'legacy contaminants'; e.g. cadmium, lindane, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs] and polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs]). Analytical chemistry plays a key role in evaluating to what extent such regulatory steps have been effective in leading to reduced emissions of these legacy contaminants into marine environments. In parallel, the application of biomarkers (e.g. DNA adducts, CYP1A-EROD, vitellogenin) and bioassays integrated with analytical chemistry has strengthened the evidence base to support an ecosystem approach to manage marine pollution problems. In recent years, however,the increased sensitivity of analytical chemistry, toxicity alerts and wider environmental awareness has led to a focus on emerging chemical contaminants (defined as chemicals that have been detected in the environment, but which are currently not included in regulatory monitoring programmes and whose fate and biological impacts are poorly understood). It is also known that natural chemicals (e.g. algal biotoxins) may also pose a threat to marine species and seafood quality. Hence complex mixtures of legacy contaminants, emerging chemicals and natural biotoxins in marine ecosystems represent

Evaluating legacy contaminants and emerging chemicals in marine environments using adverse outcome pathways and biological effects-directed analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hutchinson, Thomas H.; Lyons, Brett P.; Thain, John E.; Law, Robin J.

2013-01-01

Natural and synthetic chemicals are essential to our daily lives, food supplies, health care, industries and safe sanitation. At the same time protecting marine ecosystems and seafood resources from the adverse effects of chemical contaminants remains an important issue. Since the 1970s, monitoring of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals using analytical chemistry has provided important spatial and temporal trend data in three important contexts; relating to human health protection from seafood contamination, addressing threats to marine top predators and finally providing essential evidence to better protect the biodiversity of commercial and non-commercial marine species. A number of regional conventions have led to controls on certain PBT chemicals over several years (termed ‘legacy contaminants’; e.g. cadmium, lindane, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs] and polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs]). Analytical chemistry plays a key role in evaluating to what extent such regulatory steps have been effective in leading to reduced emissions of these legacy contaminants into marine environments. In parallel, the application of biomarkers (e.g. DNA adducts, CYP1A-EROD, vitellogenin) and bioassays integrated with analytical chemistry has strengthened the evidence base to support an ecosystem approach to manage marine pollution problems. In recent years, however, the increased sensitivity of analytical chemistry, toxicity alerts and wider environmental awareness has led to a focus on emerging chemical contaminants (defined as chemicals that have been detected in the environment, but which are currently not included in regulatory monitoring programmes and whose fate and biological impacts are poorly understood). It is also known that natural chemicals (e.g. algal biotoxins) may also pose a threat to marine species and seafood quality. Hence complex mixtures of legacy contaminants, emerging chemicals and natural biotoxins in marine ecosystems represent

78 FR 42935 - Marine Mammals; File No. 16992

Science.gov (United States)

2013-07-18

... permit has been issued to Paul Nachtigall, Ph.D., Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of... captivity at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Researchers will conduct hearing... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XB161 Marine...

Credit Card Debt Hardship Letter Samples

OpenAIRE

lissa coffey

2016-01-01

Having trouble with your credit card debt? Below you will find examples of hardship letters. There are several things to consider when writing a credit card hardship letter. A hardship letter is the first step to letting the credit card company know that things are bad. This free credit card hardship letter sample is only a guide in order to start the negotiation. Credit card debt hardship letter example, hardship letter to credit card. If you are having trouble paying off your debt and need ...

Critical contrastive rhetoric: The influence of L2 letter writing instruction on L1letter writing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehrnoosh Fakharzadeh

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The present study employed critical contrastive rhetoric to investigate the L2 to L1 transfer of organizational pattern and directness level of speech acts in business complaint letters. By examining the L1 complaint letters of 30 tourism university students in two phases of study, pre and post instruction of English complaint letter, the study revealed that the rhetorical organization of Persian letters are in a state of hybridity. The post instruction comparison of letters, however, showed a tendency towards applying English conventions both in organization and directness level of complaint speech act in the L1 complaint letters. The results also revealed that after instruction the expert in the field of tourism viewed some letters as inappropriate in terms of politeness which is reflected through some lexical items.

Will marine productivity wane?

Science.gov (United States)

Laufkötter, Charlotte; Gruber, Nicolas

2018-03-01

If marine algae are impaired severely by global climate change, the resulting reduction in marine primary production would strongly affect marine life and the ocean's biological pump that sequesters substantial amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the ocean's interior. Most studies, including the latest generation of Earth system models, project only moderate global decreases in biological production until 2100 (1, 2), suggesting that these concerns are unwarranted. But on page 1139 of this issue, Moore et al. (3) show that this conclusion might be shortsighted and that there may be much larger long-term changes in ocean productivity than previously appreciated.

Marine Science Teaching at the University Level. Report of the Unesco Workshop on University Curricula. Unesco Technical Papers in Marine Science No. 19.

Science.gov (United States)

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Paris (France). Div. of Marine Sciences.

A group of marine science education educators from several countries were requested to provide guidelines for the education and training of marine scientists and formulate recommended curricula in the following disciplines: marine biology (including fisheries biology), physical oceanography, and marine geology. Included in the report are: (1)…

A Letter to Ahmad Khan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I.M. Mirgaleev

2016-12-01

Full Text Available We bring to attention of specialists an undated letter of Ottoman ruler Mehmed II Fatih to the Great Horde khan Ahmad from the collection of famous collector of Ottoman charters Feridun-bey [1, S. 289]. The addressee is the famous ruler of the Great Horde, khan Ahmad. Daulat Khan mentioned in the letter is Nur-Davlet. He was connected with khan Ahmad, and, as indicated by the letter, he had also set in close contact with the Ottomans whose ruler openly declares in a letter that “our sight of benevolence and patronage is directed toward him”. Thereby the Sultan made it clear to the “principal” Tatar khan Akhmad that Nur-Davlet was under the patronage of the Ottoman Empire. Considering the period of activity of Nur-Davlet in Crimea, presumably the letter was written in 1477. Famous researcher of the Crimean Khanate V.D. Smirnov had already examined the letter and the question of why Ahmad Khan was named the Crimean khan in the title of the letter [2, p. 221–222].

Marine Education Knowledge Inventory.

Science.gov (United States)

Hounshell, Paul B.; Hampton, Carolyn

This 35-item, multiple-choice Marine Education Knowledge Inventory was developed for use in upper elementary/middle schools to measure a student's knowledge of marine science. Content of test items is drawn from oceanography, ecology, earth science, navigation, and the biological sciences (focusing on marine animals). Steps in the construction of…

Marine medicinal glycomics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vitor Hugo Pomin

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Glycomics is an international initiative aimed to understand the structure and function of the glycans from a given type of cell, tissue, organism, kingdom or even environment, as found under certain conditions. Glycomics is one of the latest areas of intense biological research. Glycans of marine sources are unique in terms of structure and function. They differ considerably from those of terrestrial origin. This review discusses the most known marine glycans of potential therapeutic properties. They are chitin, chitosan, and sulfated polysaccharides named glycosaminoglycans, sulfated fucans and sulfated galactans. Their medical actions are very broad. When certain structural requirements are found, these glycans can exhibit beneficial effects in inflammation, coagulation, thrombosis, cancer growth/metastasis and vascular biology. Both structure and therapeutic mechanisms of action of these marine glycans are discussed here in straight context with the current glycomic age through a project suggestively named Marine Medicinal Glycomics.

Letter Knowledge in Parent–Child Conversations

Science.gov (United States)

Robins, Sarah; Treiman, Rebecca; Rosales, Nicole

2014-01-01

Learning about letters is an important component of emergent literacy. We explored the possibility that parent speech provides information about letters, and also that children’s speech reflects their own letter knowledge. By studying conversations transcribed in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000) between parents and children aged one to five, we found that alphabetic order influenced use of individual letters and letter sequences. The frequency of letters in children’s books influenced parent utterances throughout the age range studied, but children’s utterances only after age two. Conversations emphasized some literacy-relevant features of letters, such as their shapes and association with words, but not letters’ sounds. Describing these patterns and how they change over the preschool years offers important insight into the home literacy environment. PMID:25598577

Compilation of selected marine radioecological data for the US Subseabed Program: Summaries of available radioecological concentration factors and biological half-lives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gomez, L.S.; Marietta, M.G.; Jackson, D.W.

1987-04-01

The US Subseabed Disposal Program has compiled an extensive concentration factor and biological half-life data base from the international marine radioecological literature. A microcomputer-based data management system has been implemented to provide statistical and graphic summaries of these data. The data base is constructed in a manner which allows subsets to be sorted using a number of interstudy variables such as organism category, tissue/organ category, geographic location (for in situ studies), and several laboratory-related conditions (e.g., exposure time and exposure concentration). This report updates earlier reviews and provides summaries of the tabulated data. In addition to the concentration factor/biological half-life data base, we provide an outline of other published marine radioecological works. Our goal is to present these data in a form that enables those concerned with predictive assessment of radiation dose in the marine environment to make a more judicious selection of data for a given application. 555 refs., 19 figs., 7 tabs

Compilation of selected marine radioecological data for the US Subseabed Program: Summaries of available radioecological concentration factors and biological half-lives

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gomez, L.S.; Marietta, M.G.; Jackson, D.W.

1987-04-01

The US Subseabed Disposal Program has compiled an extensive concentration factor and biological half-life data base from the international marine radioecological literature. A microcomputer-based data management system has been implemented to provide statistical and graphic summaries of these data. The data base is constructed in a manner which allows subsets to be sorted using a number of interstudy variables such as organism category, tissue/organ category, geographic location (for in situ studies), and several laboratory-related conditions (e.g., exposure time and exposure concentration). This report updates earlier reviews and provides summaries of the tabulated data. In addition to the concentration factor/biological half-life data base, we provide an outline of other published marine radioecological works. Our goal is to present these data in a form that enables those concerned with predictive assessment of radiation dose in the marine environment to make a more judicious selection of data for a given application. 555 refs., 19 figs., 7 tabs.

76 FR 12070 - Incidental Taking of Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to the Explosive Removal...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-04

... Energy's EROS operations in 2010: Marine mammals Biological impacts Company Structure Dates sighted... Taking of Marine Mammals; Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to the Explosive Removal of Offshore Structures in the Gulf of Mexico AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and...

Letter-transposition effects are not universal: The impact of transposing letters in Hebrew.

Science.gov (United States)

Velan, Hadas; Frost, Ram

2009-10-01

We examined the effects of letter transposition in Hebrew in three masked-priming experiments. Hebrew, like English has an alphabetic orthography where sequential and contiguous letter strings represent phonemes. However, being a Semitic language it has a non-concatenated morphology that is based on root derivations. Experiment 1 showed that transposed-letter (TL) root primes inhibited responses to targets derived from the non-transposed root letters, and that this inhibition was unrelated to relative root frequency. Experiment 2 replicated this result and showed that if the transposed letters of the root created a nonsense-root that had no lexical representation, then no inhibition and no facilitation were obtained. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that in contrast to English, French, or Spanish, TL nonword primes did not facilitate recognition of targets, and when the root letters embedded in them consisted of a legal root morpheme, they produced inhibition. These results suggest that lexical space in alphabetic orthographies may be structured very differently in different languages if their morphological structure diverges qualitatively. In Hebrew, lexical space is organized according to root families rather than simple orthographic structure, so that all words derived from the same root are interconnected or clustered together, independent of overall orthographic similarity.

Sensitivity and accuracy of atomic absorption spectrophotometry for trace elements in marine biological samples

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukai, R.; Oregioni, B.

1976-01-01

During the course of 1974-75 atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) has been used extensively in our laboratory for measuring various trace elements in marine biological materials in order to conduct homogeneity tests on the intercalibration samples for trace metal analysis as well as to obtain baseline data for trace elements in various kinds of marine organisms collected from different locations in the Mediterranean Sea. Several series of test experiments have been conducted on the current methodology in use in our laboratory to ensure satisfactory analytical performance in measuring a number of trace elements for which analytical problems have not completely been solved. Sensitivities of the techniques used were repeatedly checked for various elements and the accuracy of the analyses were always critically evaluated by analyzing standard reference materials. The results of these test experiments have uncovered critical points relevant to the application of the AAS to routine analysis

Marine Fisheries History: The 50th Anniversay Issue of the Marine Fisheries Review

OpenAIRE

Hobart, Willis L.

1988-01-01

The 1980's seems to have been the decade for conservation anniversaries. Celebrating centennials have been the U.S. Fishery Bulletin (1981), NMFS Woods Hole Laboratory (1985), Journal of the Marine Biological Association (1987) and the Association itself (1984), Pacific halibut fishery (1988), Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. (1988), and England's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (1989). While the U. S. Department of Commerce turned 75 (1988), 50th anniversa...

Marine Biology and Oceanography, Grades Nine to Twelve. Part II.

Science.gov (United States)

Kolb, James A.

This unit, one of a series designed to develop and foster an understanding of the marine environment, presents marine science activities for students in grades 9-12. The unit, focusing on sea plants/animals and their interactions with each other and the non-living environment, has sections dealing with: marine ecology; marine bacteriology;…

Functional genomics to assess biological responses to marine pollution at physiological and evolutionary timescales: toward a vision of predictive ecotoxicology.

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Noah M; Whitehead, Andrew

2016-09-01

Marine pollution is ubiquitous, and is one of the key factors influencing contemporary marine biodiversity worldwide. To protect marine biodiversity, how do we surveil, document and predict the short- and long-term impacts of pollutants on at-risk species? Modern genomics tools offer high-throughput, information-rich and increasingly cost-effective approaches for characterizing biological responses to environmental stress, and are important tools within an increasing sophisticated kit for surveiling and assessing impacts of pollutants on marine species. Through the lens of recent research in marine killifish, we illustrate how genomics tools may be useful for screening chemicals and pollutants for biological activity and to reveal specific mechanisms of action. The high dimensionality of transcriptomic responses enables their usage as highly specific fingerprints of exposure, and these fingerprints can be used to diagnose environmental problems. We also emphasize that molecular pathways recruited to respond at physiological timescales are the same pathways that may be targets for natural selection during chronic exposure to pollutants. Gene complement and sequence variation in those pathways can be related to variation in sensitivity to environmental pollutants within and among species. Furthermore, allelic variation associated with evolved tolerance in those pathways could be tracked to estimate the pace of environmental health decline and recovery. We finish by integrating these paradigms into a vision of how genomics approaches could anchor a modernized framework for advancing the predictive capacity of environmental and ecotoxicological science. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Overt use of a tactile-kinesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Lott, Susan Nitzberg; Carney, Aimee Syms; Glezer, Laurie S; Friedman, Rhonda B

2010-11-01

BACKGROUND: Letter-by-letter readers identify each letter of the word they are reading serially in left to right order before recognizing the word. When their letter naming is also impaired, letter-by-letter reading is inaccurate and can render even single word reading very poor. Tactile and/or kinesthetic strategies have been reported to improve reading in these patients, but only under certain conditions or for a limited set of stimuli. AIMS: The primary aim of the current study was to determine whether a tactile/kinesthetic treatment could significantly improve reading specifically under normal reading conditions, i.e. reading untrained words presented in free vision and read without overt use of the strategy. METHODS #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: Three chronic letter-by-letter readers participated in a tactile/kinesthetic treatment aimed at first improving letter naming accuracy (phase 1) and then letter-by-letter reading speed (phase 2). In a multiple case series design, accuracy and speed of reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy was assessed before phase 1, after phase 1 and again after phase 2. OUTCOMES #ENTITYSTARTX00026; RESULTS: All three patients significantly improved both their speed and accuracy reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy. All three patients required the additional practice in phase 2 to achieve significant improvement. Treatment did not target sentence level reading, yet two of the three patients became so adept that they could read entire sentences. CONCLUSIONS: This study replicates previous findings on the efficacy of tactile/kinesthetic treatment for letter-by-letter readers with poor letter naming. It further demonstrates that this treatment can alter cognitive processing such that words never specifically trained can be read in free vision without overtly using the trained strategy. The data suggest that an important element in achieving

Biodiversity's big wet secret: the global distribution of marine biological records reveals chronic under-exploration of the deep pelagic ocean.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas J Webb

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Understanding the distribution of marine biodiversity is a crucial first step towards the effective and sustainable management of marine ecosystems. Recent efforts to collate location records from marine surveys enable us to assemble a global picture of recorded marine biodiversity. They also effectively highlight gaps in our knowledge of particular marine regions. In particular, the deep pelagic ocean--the largest biome on Earth--is chronically under-represented in global databases of marine biodiversity. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We use data from the Ocean Biogeographic Information System to plot the position in the water column of ca 7 million records of marine species occurrences. Records from relatively shallow waters dominate this global picture of recorded marine biodiversity. In addition, standardising the number of records from regions of the ocean differing in depth reveals that regardless of ocean depth, most records come either from surface waters or the sea bed. Midwater biodiversity is drastically under-represented. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The deep pelagic ocean is the largest habitat by volume on Earth, yet it remains biodiversity's big wet secret, as it is hugely under-represented in global databases of marine biological records. Given both its value in the provision of a range of ecosystem services, and its vulnerability to threats including overfishing and climate change, there is a pressing need to increase our knowledge of Earth's largest ecosystem.

Writing more informative letters of reference.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Scott M; Ziegelstein, Roy C

2004-05-01

Writing a meaningful and valuable letter of reference is not an easy task. Several factors influence the quality of any letter of reference. First, the accuracy and reliability of the writer's impressions and judgment depend on how well he knows the individual being described. Second, the writer's frame of reference, which is determined by the number of persons at the same level that he has worked with, will impact the context and significance of his beliefs and estimations. Third, the letter-writing skills of the person composing the letter will naturally affect the letter. To support the other components of a candidate's application, a letter of reference should provide specific examples of how an individual's behavior or attitude compares to a reference group and should assess "intangibles" that are hard to glean from a curriculum vitae or from test scores. This report offers suggestions that should help physicians write more informative letters of reference.

Letters From Peplau.

Science.gov (United States)

Peden, Ann R

2018-03-01

Dr. Hildegard Peplau, considered to be our first modern Nurse theorist and the Mother of Psychiatric Nursing, was a prolific writer, engaging in correspondence with colleagues and students who sought her professional and theoretical expertise. Through these letters, she influenced psychiatric nursing while maintaining a broad international network of professional colleagues. An analysis of letters, written between 1990 and 1998, provides insights into Peplau's last decade of professional life and a model of how to support the next generation of nurse scholars. Using content analysis, 24 letters received between 1990 and 1998 were read, reread, and coded. Recurring themes were identified. Three themes were identified. These include Peplau, the Person: Living a Life of Professional Balance; Lighting a Spark: Investing in the Next Generation; and Work in the Vineyards of Nursing: Maintaining a Life of Scholarship. The letters depict Peplau's keen intellect, her wide professional network, her leisure time spent with family and friends, and her own work to assure that her theoretical legacy continued. Peplau's insights continue to be relevant as psychiatric mental health nursing leaders engage in activities to support the next generation of scholars and leaders.

The legibility of letters and words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beier, Sofie

2016-01-01

The saying made famous by Mathew Carter that "type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters”, highlights the fact that although a typeface consists of a number of letters it is when the letters are assembled in a word that they become type. However, research indicates...... that what makes letters legible in isolation is not necessarily the same as what makes them legible in words. Is it possible to create a typeface where both letters and words have a high level of legibility or are those factors so different that they cannot be combined? Through a literature review...... on relevant experimental investigations, I will in this talk present examples of when the legibility findings on letters and words correlate and when they differ....

Can "CANISO" Activate "CASINO"? Transposed-Letter Similarity Effects with Nonadjacent Letter Positions

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Lupker, Stephen J.

2004-01-01

Nonwords created by transposing two "adjacent" letters (i.e., transposed-letter (TL) nonwords like "jugde") are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words. This fact poses problems for most computational models of word recognition (e.g., the interactive-activation model and its extensions), which assume that exact…

Preface to: Special issue on Marine mycology

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Raghukumar, C.

the fourth symposium were published in The Biology of Marine Fungi by the late S.T.Moss from the Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1986. Interestingly, the books so far were exclusively devoted to true or obligate marine fungi but several papers describing... thraustochytrids as contaminants in their primary cell cultures of marine tunicates. They are describing six closely related species of thraustochytrids, identified by molecular markers and claim that a close biological association exist between tunicates...

Puerto Rico [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lowman, Frank G.

1967-01-01

Present research programme: Marine biology programme (marine biogeochemistry). The programme is designed to provide measurements of the distribution and movements of selected trace elements in a restricted but complete ecological and biogeochemical system. To obtain information on interactions between the marine biosphere and hydrosphere, measurements are being made of biological productivity, amounts of trace elements in the organisms and the environment, biological half-lives of trace elements, characteristics of food webs, and the influence of physical and chemical oceanographic factors upon the distribution patterns of trace elements in the marine waters, organisms and sediments offshore from the west coast of Puerto Rico

78 FR 21112 - Marine Mammals; File Nos. 16992 and 14535

Science.gov (United States)

2013-04-09

... hereby given that (1) Paul Nachtigall, Ph.D., Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii, P... (Pseudorca crassidens) maintained in captivity at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in Kaneohe, HI... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XB161 Marine...

Senior High School Earth Sciences and Marine Sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Hackenberg, Mary; And Others

This guide was developed for earth sciences and marine sciences instruction in the senior high schools of Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida. The subjects covered are: (1) Earth Science for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders; (2) Marine Biology I for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders; (3) Marine Biology II, Advanced, for 11th and 12th graders; (4) Marine…

Biological Potential of Chitinolytic Marine Bacteria

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Paulsen, Sara Skøtt; Andersen, Birgitte; Gram, Lone

2016-01-01

Chitinolytic microorganisms secrete a range of chitin modifying enzymes, which can be exploited for production of chitin derived products or as fungal or pest control agents. Here, we explored the potential of 11 marine bacteria (Pseudoalteromonadaceae, Vibrionaceae) for chitin degradation using...

ERP correlates of letter identity and letter position are modulated by lexical frequency

Science.gov (United States)

Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Perea, Manuel; Gómez, Pablo; Swaab, Tamara Y.

2013-01-01

The encoding of letter position is a key aspect in all recently proposed models of visual-word recognition. We analyzed the impact of lexical frequency on letter position assignment by examining the temporal dynamics of lexical activation induced by pseudowords extracted from words of different frequencies. For each word (e.g., BRIDGE), we created two pseudowords: A transposed-letter (TL: BRIGDE) and a replaced-letter pseudoword (RL: BRITGE). ERPs were recorded while participants read words and pseudowords in two tasks: Semantic categorization (Experiment 1) and lexical decision (Experiment 2). For high-frequency stimuli, similar ERPs were obtained for words and TL-pseudowords, but the N400 component to words was reduced relative to RL-pseudowords, indicating less lexical/semantic activation. In contrast, TL- and RL-pseudowords created from low-frequency stimuli elicited similar ERPs. Behavioral responses in the lexical decision task paralleled this asymmetry. The present findings impose constraints on computational and neural models of visual-word recognition. PMID:23454070

The letter knowledge assessment tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Pedro, Cassandra; Lousada, Marisa; Pereira, Rita; Hall, Andreia; Jesus, Luis M T

2017-10-10

There is a need to develop letter knowledge assessment tools to characterise the letter knowledge in Portuguese pre-schoolers and to compare it with pre-schoolers from other countries, but there are no tools for this purpose in Portugal. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and validation procedures of the Prova de Avaliação de Competências de Pré-Literacia (PACPL), which assesses letter knowledge. This study includes data that has been gathered in two phases: pilot and main study. In the pilot study, an expert panel of six speech and language pathologists analysed the instrument. Children (n = 216) aged 5;0-7;11 participated in the main study that reports data related to the psychometric characteristics of the PACPL. Content validity, internal consistency, reliability and contributing factors to performance were examined statistically. A modified Bland-Altman method revealed good agreement amongst evaluators. The main study showed that the PACPL has a very good internal consistency and high inter-rater (96.2% of agreement and a Cohen's k value of 0.92) and intra-rater (95.6% of agreement and a Cohen's k value of 0.91) agreement. Construct validity of the PCAPL was also assured (Cronbach's α of 0.982). Significant differences were found between age groups with children increasing their letter knowledge with age. In addition, they were better at identifying than at producing both letter names and letter sounds. The PACPL is a valid and reliable instrument to assess letter knowledge in Portuguese children.

Learning about Marine Biology. Superific Science Book VI. A Good Apple Science Activity Book for Grades 5-8+.

Science.gov (United States)

Conway, Lorraine

Based on the assumption that most students have a natural curiosity about the plant and animal life residing in the oceans, this document provides students in grades five through eight with activities in marine biology. The book provides illustrated information and learning activities dealing with: (1) diatoms; (2) the life cycle of the jellyfish;…

76 FR 25308 - Marine Mammals

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-04

...-XA165 Marine Mammals AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric... Jennifer Burns, Ph.D., University of Alaska Anchorage, Biology Department, 3101 Science Circle, Anchorage, AK, has been issued a permit to conduct [[Page 25309

Otters, Marine

Science.gov (United States)

Estes, James A.; Bodkin, James L.; Ben-David, M.; Perrin, William F.; Würsing, Bernd; Thewissen, J.G.M.

2009-01-01

The otters (Mustelidae; Lutrinae) provide an exceptional perspective into the evolution of marine living by mammals. Most extant marine mammals (e.g. the cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sirenians) have been so highly modified by long periods of selection for life in the sea that they bear little resemblance to their terrestrial ancestors. Marine otters, in contrast, are more recent expatriates from freshwater habitats and some species still live in both environments. Contrasts among species within the otters, and among the otters, terrestrial mammals, and the more highly adapted pinnipeds and cetaceans provide powerful insights into mammalian adaptations to life in the sea (Estes, 1989). Among the marine mammals, sea otters (Enhydra lutris, Fig. 1) provide the clearest understanding of consumer-induced effects on ecosystem function. This is due in part to opportunities provided by history and in part to the relative ease with which shallow coastal systems where sea otters live can be observed and studied. Although more difficult to study than sea otters, other otter species reveal the connectivity among the marine, freshwater, and terrestrial systems. These three qualities of the otters – their comparative biology, their role as predators, and their role as agents of ecosystem connectivity – are what make them interesting to marine mammalogy.The following account provides a broad overview of the comparative biology and ecology of the otters, with particular emphasis on those species or populations that live in the sea. Sea otters are features prominently, in part because they live exclusively in the sea whereas other otters have obligate associations with freshwater and terrestrial environments (Kenyon, 1969; Riedman and Estes, 1990).

Letter-Transposition Effects Are Not Universal: The Impact of Transposing Letters in Hebrew

Science.gov (United States)

Velan, Hadas; Frost, Ram

2009-01-01

We examined the effects of letter-transposition in Hebrew in three masked-priming experiments. Hebrew, like English has an alphabetic orthography where sequential and contiguous letter strings represent phonemes. However, being a Semitic language it has a non-concatenated morphology that is based on root derivations. Experiment 1 showed that…

7 CFR 3560.709 - Demand letter.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 15 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Demand letter. 3560.709 Section 3560.709 Agriculture... DIRECT MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING LOANS AND GRANTS Unauthorized Assistance § 3560.709 Demand letter. (a) If a... repayment schedule, the Agency will send the borrower a demand letter specifying: (1) The amount of...

Letters of Map Change (LOMC)

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Homeland Security — Documents, including different types of Letters of MAP Revision (LOMR) and Letters of Map Amendment (LOMA), which are issued by FEMA to revise or amend the flood...

Marine biosurfaces research program

Science.gov (United States)

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) of the U.S. Navy is starting a basic research program to address the initial events that control colonization of surfaces by organisms in marine environments. The program “arises from the Navy's need to understand and ultimately control biofouling and biocorrosion in marine environments,” according to a Navy announcement.The program, “Biological Processes Controlling Surface Modification in the Marine Environment,” will emphasize the application of in situ techniques and modern molecular biological, biochemical, and biophysical approaches; it will also encourage the development of interdisciplinary projects. Specific areas of interest include sensing and response to environmental surface (physiology/physical chemistry), factors controlling movement to and retention at surfaces (behavior/hydrodynamics), genetic regulation of attachment (molecular genetics), and mechanisms of attachment (biochemistry/surface chemistry).

The Source Book of Marine Sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Beakley, John C.; And Others

Included is a teachers resource collection of 42 marine science activities for high school students. Both the biological and the physical factors of the marine environment are investigated, including the study of tides, local currents, microscope measuring, beaches, turbidity, sea water solids, pH, and salinity, marine bacteriology, microbiology,…

Biological effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of the pharmaceutical Triclosan in the marine mussel Perna perna (Linnaeus, 1758)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanzi Cortez, Fernando, E-mail: lecotox@unisanta.br [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares IPEN-CNEN/SP, 05508-000 Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil); Laboratorio de Ecotoxicologia, Universidade Santa Cecilia, 11045-907 Santos, SP (Brazil); Dias Seabra Pereira, Camilo [Laboratorio de Ecotoxicologia, Universidade Santa Cecilia, 11045-907 Santos, SP (Brazil); Instituto do Mar, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, 11030-400 Santos, SP (Brazil); Ramos Santos, Aldo Ramos [Laboratorio de Ecotoxicologia, Universidade Santa Cecilia, 11045-907 Santos, SP (Brazil); Cesar, Augusto; Choueri, Rodrigo Brasil [Laboratorio de Ecotoxicologia, Universidade Santa Cecilia, 11045-907 Santos, SP (Brazil); Instituto do Mar, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, 11030-400 Santos, SP (Brazil); Martini, Gisela de Assis [Laboratorio de Ecotoxicologia, Universidade Santa Cecilia, 11045-907 Santos, SP (Brazil); Bohrer-Morel, Maria Beatriz [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares IPEN-CNEN/SP, 05508-000 Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2012-09-15

Triclosan (5-Chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy) phenol) is an antibacterial compound widely employed in pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Although this emerging compound has been detected in aquatic environments, scarce information is found on the effects of Triclosan to marine organisms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of a concentration range of Triclosan through fertilization assay (reproductive success), embryo-larval development assay (early life stage) and physiological stress (Neutral Red Retention Time assay - NRRT) (adult stage) in the marine sentinel organism Perna perna. The mean inhibition concentrations for fertilization (IC{sub 50} = 0.490 mg L{sup -1}) and embryo-larval development (IC{sub 50} = 0.135 mg L{sup -1}) tests were above environmental relevant concentrations (ng L{sup -1}) given by previous studies. Differently, significant reduction on NRRT results was found at 12 ng L{sup -1}, demonstrating the current risk of the continuous introduction of Triclosan into aquatic environments, and the need of ecotoxicological studies oriented by the mechanism of action of the compound. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Triclosan causes biological adverse effects at environmental relevant concentrations. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Mechanisms of action oriented assays were more sensitive to detect biological damages. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Currently there is environmental risks concerned Triclosan in aquatic ecosystems. - Triclosan causes biological adverse effects at environmentally relevant concentrations.

Biological effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of the pharmaceutical Triclosan in the marine mussel Perna perna (Linnaeus, 1758)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanzi Cortez, Fernando; Dias Seabra Pereira, Camilo; Ramos Santos, Aldo Ramos; Cesar, Augusto; Choueri, Rodrigo Brasil; Martini, Gisela de Assis; Bohrer-Morel, Maria Beatriz

2012-01-01

Triclosan (5-Chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy) phenol) is an antibacterial compound widely employed in pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Although this emerging compound has been detected in aquatic environments, scarce information is found on the effects of Triclosan to marine organisms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of a concentration range of Triclosan through fertilization assay (reproductive success), embryo-larval development assay (early life stage) and physiological stress (Neutral Red Retention Time assay - NRRT) (adult stage) in the marine sentinel organism Perna perna. The mean inhibition concentrations for fertilization (IC 50 = 0.490 mg L −1 ) and embryo-larval development (IC 50 = 0.135 mg L −1 ) tests were above environmental relevant concentrations (ng L −1 ) given by previous studies. Differently, significant reduction on NRRT results was found at 12 ng L −1 , demonstrating the current risk of the continuous introduction of Triclosan into aquatic environments, and the need of ecotoxicological studies oriented by the mechanism of action of the compound. - Highlights: ► Triclosan causes biological adverse effects at environmental relevant concentrations. ► Mechanisms of action oriented assays were more sensitive to detect biological damages. ► Currently there is environmental risks concerned Triclosan in aquatic ecosystems. - Triclosan causes biological adverse effects at environmentally relevant concentrations.

76 FR 28422 - Marine Mammals; File No. 16053

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-17

... Paul E. Nachtigall, PhD, Marine Mammal Research Program Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, P.O. Box... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XA384 Marine Mammals; File No. 16053 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

31 CFR 29.511 - Demand letters.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Demand letters. 29.511 Section 29.511... Overpayments § 29.511 Demand letters. Except as provided in § 29.516(e), before starting collection action to recover an overpayment, the Benefits Administrator must send a demand letter that informs the debtor in...

Molecular diversity of fungi from marine oxygen-deficient environments (ODEs)

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Manohar, C.S.; Forster, D.; Kauff, F.; Stoeck, T.

. Sparrow Jr F K (1936) Biological observations of the marine fungi of woods hole waters. Biol Bull 70: 236-263. States JS & Christensen M (2001) Fungi Associated with Biological Soil Crusts in Desert Grasslands of Utah and Wyoming. Mycologia 93: 432... version: Biology of marine fungi. Ed. by: Raghukumar, C. (Prog. Mol. Subcellular Biol). Springer, vol.53 (Chap 10); 2012; 189-208 Chapter # 10 Molecular diversity of fungi from marine oxygen-deficient environments (ODEs) Cathrine S. Jebaraj 1...

Letter Dice. Technical Note No. 6.

Science.gov (United States)

Gunter, Jock

Letter and syllable dice devised for a project in rural Ecuador provide inexpensive, easily reproducible learning materials for practice in basic literary skills. Eleven wooden cubes with six letters on each cube are cast onto a surface and the player constructs words from the letters on the top side of the dice. After a word is formed and…

REVIEW PAPER-MARINE MICROBIAL BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS

OpenAIRE

Kalyani. P*, Hemalatha. K. P. J

2016-01-01

Oceans have borne most of the biological activities on our planet. A number of biologically active compounds with varying degrees of action, such as anti-tumor, anti-cancer, anti-microtubule, anti-proliferative, cytotoxic, photo protective, as well as antibiotic and antifouling properties, have been isolated to date from marine sources. The marine environment also represents a largely unexplored source for isolation of new microbes (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, microalgae-cyanobacteria and...

Letter to the parliament:

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2017-01-01

This piece was a letter directed towards various ministers in the parliament, targeted at raising a discussion on the values in the education of architects in Denmark and various related topics.......This piece was a letter directed towards various ministers in the parliament, targeted at raising a discussion on the values in the education of architects in Denmark and various related topics....

Parasites as biological tags for the discrimination of marine fish stocks in Brazil: current status and perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iris Aparecida Soares

2016-11-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT. Soares I.A. & Luque J.L. [Parasites as biological tags for the discrimination of marine fish stocks in Brazil: current status and perspectives.] Parasitos como marcadores biológicos para discriminação de estoques de peixes marinhos no Brasil: estado atual e perspectivas. Revista Brasileira de Medicina Veterinária, 38(supl. 3:99-113, 2016. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Veterinárias, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, BR 465 Km 7, Seropédica, RJ 23890-000, Brasil. E-mail: luqueufrrj@gmail.com The global state of marine fisheries and its effects endanger the future of fishery resources, which may result in extinction of several species as well as threatening the overall integrity of the ecosystems. As the fish consumption growths, marine fishing and related market activities are stimulated increasing the incidence of threatened or exploited species. Aiming the future sustainability, fishery inventories need to be properly identified as a tool for implementation of more efficient policies on the management and conservation of the natural resources. Thus, by the high heterogeneity observed in the Atlantic coast of Brazil as well as the lack of related studies using this tool, the country represents great potential for the use of this technique, to improve our knowledge of local fishing resources. Therefore, the present study highlights the use of parasites as biological markers on identifying fish populations through robust statistical analysis, which represents an efficient and low cost approach and the lack of similar studies in Brazil showing the need of more research efforts on this subject in Brazil.

Resource Letter: GW-1: Global warming

Science.gov (United States)

Firor, John W.

1994-06-01

This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on the possibility of a human-induced climate change—a global warming. Journal articles and books are cited for the following topics: the Greenhouse Effect, sources of infrared-trapping gases, climate models and their uncertainties, verification of climate models, past climate changes, and economics, ethics, and politics of policy responses to climate change. [The letter E after an item indicates elementary level or material of general interest to persons becoming informed in the field. The letter I, for intermediate level, indicates material of somewhat more specialized nature, and the letter A indicates rather specialized or advanced material.

Implied reading direction and prioritization of letter encoding.

Science.gov (United States)

Holcombe, Alex O; Nguyen, Elizabeth H L; Goodbourn, Patrick T

2017-10-01

Capacity limits hinder processing of multiple stimuli, contributing to poorer performance for identifying two briefly presented letters than for identifying a single letter. Higher accuracy is typically found for identifying the letter on the left, which has been attributed to a right-hemisphere dominance for selective attention. Here, we use rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of letters in two locations at once. The letters to be identified are simultaneous and cued by rings. In the first experiment, we manipulated implied reading direction by rotating or mirror-reversing the letters to face to the left rather than to the right. The left-side performance advantage was eliminated. In the second experiment, letters were positioned above and below fixation, oriented such that they appeared to face downward (90° clockwise rotation) or upward (90° counterclockwise rotation). Again consistent with an effect of implied reading direction, performance was better for the top position in the downward condition, but not in the upward condition. In both experiments, mixture modeling of participants' report errors revealed that attentional sampling from the two locations was approximately simultaneous, ruling out the theory that the letter on one side was processed first, followed by a shift of attention to sample the other letter. Thus, the orientation of the letters apparently controls not when the letters are sampled from the scene, but rather the dynamics of a subsequent process, such as tokenization or memory consolidation. Implied reading direction appears to determine the letter prioritized at a high-level processing bottleneck. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

8. Danish meeting for marine researchers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-01-01

The publication comprises the programme for the 8th Danish meeting for marine researchers held in Odense (Denmark) on January 25th - 27th, 1994, and the abstracts of the papers that were presented at that meeting. Subjects covered are marine biology, sediments and sedimentation, fish, fishing and fishing regulation, marine processes and the monitoring of Danish straits. (AB)

The 10. Danish marine research meeting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

The publication comprises the programme for the 10th Danish meeting for marine researchers held in Hirtshals (Denmark) on January 21 - 27, 1998, and the abstracts of the papers that were presented at that meeting. Subjects covered are marine biology, sediments and sedimentation, fish, fishing and fishing regulations, marine processes and the monitoring of Danish straits. (EG)

Applications for approval to market a new drug; complete response letter; amendments to unapproved applications. Final rule.

Science.gov (United States)

2008-07-10

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending its regulations on new drug applications (NDAs) and abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) for approval to market new drugs and generic drugs (drugs for which approval is sought in an ANDA). The final rule discontinues FDA's use of approvable letters and not approvable letters when taking action on marketing applications. Instead, we will send applicants a complete response letter to indicate that the review cycle for an application is complete and that the application is not ready for approval. We are also revising the regulations on extending the review cycle due to the submission of an amendment to an unapproved application and starting a new review cycle after the resubmission of an application following receipt of a complete response letter. In addition, we are adding to the regulations on biologics license applications (BLAs) provisions on the issuance of complete response letters to BLA applicants. We are taking these actions to implement the user fee performance goals referenced in the Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2002 (PDUFA III) that address procedures and establish target timeframes for reviewing human drug applications.

Trace elements at the intersection of marine biological and geochemical evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Robbins, Leslie J.; Lalonde, Stefan V.; Planavsky, Noah J.; Partin, Camille A.; Reinhard, Christopher T.; Kendall, Brian; Scott, Clinton T.; Hardisty, Dalton S.; Gill, Benjamin C.; Alessi, Daniel S.; Dupont, Christopher L.; Saito, Mak A.; Crowe, Sean A.; Poulton, Simon W.; Bekker, Andrey; Lyons, Timothy W.; Konhauser, Kurt O.

2016-01-01

Life requires a wide variety of bioessential trace elements to act as structural components and reactive centers in metalloenzymes. These requirements differ between organisms and have evolved over geological time, likely guided in some part by environmental conditions. Until recently, most of what was understood regarding trace element concentrations in the Precambrian oceans was inferred by extrapolation, geochemical modeling, and/or genomic studies. However, in the past decade, the increasing availability of trace element and isotopic data for sedimentary rocks of all ages has yielded new, and potentially more direct, insights into secular changes in seawater composition – and ultimately the evolution of the marine biosphere. Compiled records of many bioessential trace elements (including Ni, Mo, P, Zn, Co, Cr, Se, and I) provide new insight into how trace element abundance in Earth's ancient oceans may have been linked to biological evolution. Several of these trace elements display redox-sensitive behavior, while others are redox-sensitive but not bioessential (e.g., Cr, U). Their temporal trends in sedimentary archives provide useful constraints on changes in atmosphere-ocean redox conditions that are linked to biological evolution, for example, the activity of oxygen-producing, photosynthetic cyanobacteria. In this review, we summarize available Precambrian trace element proxy data, and discuss how temporal trends in the seawater concentrations of specific trace elements may be linked to the evolution of both simple and complex life. We also examine several biologically relevant and/or redox-sensitive trace elements that have yet to be fully examined in the sedimentary rock record (e.g., Cu, Cd, W) and suggest several directions for future studies.

PREDICTION OF AEROSOL HAZARDS ARISING FROM THE OPENING OF AN ANTHRAX-TAINTED LETTER IN AN OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

OpenAIRE

FUE-SANG LIEN; HUA JI; EUGENE YEE; BILL KOURNIKAKIS

2010-01-01

Early experimental work, conducted at Defence R&D Canada–Suffield, measured and characterized the personal and environmental contamination associated with simulated anthrax-tainted letters under a number of different scenarios in order to obtain a better understanding of the physical and biological processes for detecting, assessing, and formulating potential mitigation strategies for managing the risks associated with opening an anthrax-tainted letter. These experimental investigations have ...

78 FR 15933 - Marine Mammals; File No. 17952

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-13

... Daniel P. Costa, Ph.D., Department of Biology and Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XC554 Marine Mammals; File No. 17952 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

Western Indian Ocean Journal of Marine Science: Editorial Policies

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Economics - TANZANIA. Thierry LEVITRA. Marine Biology and Mariculture - MADAGASCAR. Blandina LUGENDO. Marine Ecology - TANZANIA. Aviti MMOCHI. Mariculture - TANZANIA. Nyawira MUTHIGA. Marine Ecology and Management - KENYA. Brent NEWMAN. Contamination and Risk Assessment – SOUTH AFRICA.

48 CFR 42.504 - Postaward letters.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION AND AUDIT SERVICES Postaward Orientation 42.504 Postaward letters. In some circumstances, a letter or other written form of communication to the contractor may be adequate postaward...

A Stimulus Sampling Theory of Letter Identity and Order

Science.gov (United States)

Norris, Dennis; Kinoshita, Sachiko; van Casteren, Maarten

2010-01-01

Early on during word recognition, letter positions are not accurately coded. Evidence for this comes from transposed-letter (TL) priming effects, in which letter strings generated by transposing two adjacent letters (e.g., "jugde") produce large priming effects, more than primes with the letters replaced in the corresponding position (e.g.,…

Launch of Zoological Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Fukatsu, Takema; Kuratani, Shigeru

2016-02-01

A new open-access journal, Zoological Letters, was launched as a sister journal to Zoological Science, in January 2015. The new journal aims at publishing topical papers of high quality from a wide range of basic zoological research fields. This review highlights the notable reviews and research articles that have been published in the first year of Zoological Letters, providing an overview on the current achievements and future directions of the journal.

Letters to those who Dare Feel: Using Reflective Letter-Writing to Explore the Emotionality of Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Using reflective letter-writing as a method of generating data, a group of four researchers embarked on a collaborative autoethnographic inquiry into the emotional dimensions of researching social aspects of HIV & AIDS. In this article, we use the medium of a narrative dialogue to represent and re-examine our reflective letter-writing method. The dialogue draws attention to key features of reflective letter-writing as a collaborative autoethnographic research method and, in so doing, highlights and explores the nature, potential significance, and challenges of this method. Our discussion points to the value of a collaborative process of reflective letter-writing as a way for researchers to access and portray emotional aspects of their research experience, to deepen their engagement with these emotional dimensions, and to gain insight into their own and others' lived research experiences.

78 FR 37796 - Marine Mammals; File No. 17952

Science.gov (United States)

2013-06-24

... permit has been issued to Daniel P. Costa, Ph.D., Department of Biology and Institute of Marine Sciences... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XC554 Marine Mammals; File No. 17952 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

Written Communications Simulation: Write Me a Letter.

Science.gov (United States)

North Carolina State Dept. of Public Instruction, Raleigh. Div. of Vocational Education.

This simulation is intended for use as a culminating activity after students have been exposed to personal and/or business letter writing, use of reference manuals, typing of letters, mailing procedures, typing of numbers, punctuation practice, and filing procedures. Stated objectives are to enable students to type a mailable letter; to inspect,…

On Coding Non-Contiguous Letter Combinations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frédéric eDandurand

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Starting from the hypothesis that printed word identification initially involves the parallel mapping of visual features onto location-specific letter identities, we analyze the type of information that would be involved in optimally mapping this location-specific orthographic code onto a location-invariant lexical code. We assume that some intermediate level of coding exists between individual letters and whole words, and that this involves the representation of letter combinations. We then investigate the nature of this intermediate level of coding given the constraints of optimality. This intermediate level of coding is expected to compress data while retaining as much information as possible about word identity. Information conveyed by letters is a function of how much they constrain word identity and how visible they are. Optimization of this coding is a combination of minimizing resources (using the most compact representations and maximizing information. We show that in a large proportion of cases, non-contiguous letter sequences contain more information than contiguous sequences, while at the same time requiring less precise coding. Moreover, we found that the best predictor of human performance in orthographic priming experiments was within-word ranking of conditional probabilities, rather than average conditional probabilities. We conclude that from an optimality perspective, readers learn to select certain contiguous and non-contiguous letter combinations as information that provides the best cue to word identity.

Writing More Informative Letters of Reference

OpenAIRE

Wright, Scott M; Ziegelstein, Roy C

2004-01-01

Writing a meaningful and valuable letter of reference is not an easy task. Several factors influence the quality of any letter of reference. First, the accuracy and reliability of the writer's impressions and judgment depend on how well he knows the individual being described. Second, the writer's frame of reference, which is determined by the number of persons at the same level that he has worked with, will impact the context and significance of his beliefs and estimations. Third, the letter...

Use of Standard Guidelines for Department of Medicine Summary Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitz, Matthew; La Rochelle, Jeffrey; Lang, Valerie; DeWaay, Deborah; Adams, William; Nasraty, Farah

2018-04-12

Phenomenon: Fourth-year medical students obtain Department of Medicine (DOM) letters ("Chair" letters) to support their residency applications. Writing and interpreting DOM letters are challenging. There is heterogeneity in the letters that makes it difficult to both write and read these letters. The purpose of this study is to determine the value of new guidelines developed by a task force of clerkship directors and program directors in internal medicine and assess the implementation of these guidelines. The Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine performed a cross-sectional survey of internal medicine clerkship directors at U.S. and Canadian medical schools in 2014. In addition, the primary author's institution reviewed 1,347 DOM letters between 2012 and 2014 to assess the implementation of these guidelines. The survey response rate was 78%. DOM letter writers reported the guidelines were better, easier to implement, and more compatible with the purpose of DOM letters than previously. Most letter readers reported that letters using the guidelines were more credible. Writers of DOM letters in lower academic ranks rated the letters with guidelines higher in several domains than those in higher academic ranks. Readers of DOM letters in higher academic ranks rated the letters with guidelines higher in several domains than those in lower academic ranks. In the DOM letters examined, the odds of meeting each guideline increased with each additional year. However, for 3 guidelines there was an initial decline in adherence from 2012 to 2013 before increasing again in 2014-the recommended length, clerkship description, and detailed narrative guidelines. Letters solely written by a chair were less likely to incorporate the guidelines. Insights: Clerkship directors often write the DOM letters and identify with the purpose of the guidelines. As writers, lower ranking academic faculty value the guidelines more than higher ranking academic faculty. As readers of DOM letters

Báze nejsou písmena / The Bases Are Not the Letters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimír Matlach

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper we show some interpretation of the genetic code design. We proceed from the discovery of DNA structure to current stage of the molecular biology. Generally we introduce the basic semiotic assumptions of molecular biology in the description of the structure of DNA, proteins and genetic code. We focus on interpretations of Francis Crick, another molecular biologists, biosemioticians and linguists. For the aims of the paper we describe some fundaments of molecular biology. Core of our text is quantitative analysis (n-gram structure, Zipf ’s law of mRNA strings and natural language text. We take into consideration representative quantitative analysis of DNA, RNA and proteins too. Our analysis of mRNA confirms the assumption that the design of the genetic code cannot analogize DNA bases and letters.

Sensor Fusion and Autonomy as a Powerful Combination for Biological Assessment in the Marine Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark A. Moline

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The ocean environment and the physical and biological processes that govern dynamics are complex. Sampling the ocean to better understand these processes is difficult given the temporal and spatial domains and sampling tools available. Biological systems are especially difficult as organisms possess behavior, operate at horizontal scales smaller than traditional shipboard sampling allows, and are often disturbed by the sampling platforms themselves. Sensors that measure biological processes have also generally not kept pace with the development of physical counterparts as their requirements are as complex as the target organisms. Here, we attempt to address this challenge by advocating the need for sensor-platform combinations to integrate and process data in real-time and develop data products that are useful in increasing sampling efficiencies. Too often, the data of interest is only garnered after post-processing after a sampling effort and the opportunity to use that information to guide sampling is lost. Here we demonstrate a new autonomous platform, where data are collected, analyzed, and data products are output in real-time to inform autonomous decision-making. This integrated capability allows for enhanced and informed sampling towards improving our understanding of the marine environment.

Finestkind: The American Lobster. A Learning Experience for Marine Education. Northern New England Marine Education Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Maine Univ., Orono. Coll. of Education.

This interdisciplinary unit is intended for use in the fourth grade. Through discussion of the American Lobster, its economics, history, literature, and biology, the unit describes the effects of the marine environment on human history and culture. Sections deal with how marine organisms have evolved. Detailed descriptions are provided of lobster…

Bioactivity of marine organisms. Part 5. Screening of some marine fauna from the Indian coast

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Naik, C.G.; Kamat, S.Y.; Parameswaran, P.S.; Das, B.; Patel, J.; Ramani, P.; Bhakuni, D.S.; Goel, A.K.; Jain, S.; Srimal, R.C.

(December), 1990, pp. 153-157 BIOACTIVITY OF MARINE ORGANISMS PART V : SCREENING OF SOME MARINE FAUNA FROM THE INDIAN COAST , CG. NAIK, S.Y. KAMAT, P.S. PARAMESHWARAN, B. DAS, JIVEXA PATEL, PRITA RAMANI, D.S. BHAKUNI", A.K. GOEL", SUDHA JAIN" AND R.c. SRIMAL... of Oceanography, Goa, in collaboration with the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow for the screening of extracts ofmarine organisms for a wide range of biological activities. The programme consists of collection, identification and extraction of marine flora...

Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report

Science.gov (United States)

2016-07-01

1 Classification | CG-926 RDC | author | audience | month year Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report Authors: Irene Gonin and Gregory...Johnson   Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. July 2016 Report No. CG-D-10-16 Maritime Geo-Fence...United States Coast Guard Research & Development Center 1 Chelsea Street New London, CT 06320 Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report 1

The role of sensorimotor learning in the perception of letter-like forms: tracking the causes of neural specialization for letters.

Science.gov (United States)

James, Karin H; Atwood, Thea P

2009-02-01

Functional specialization in the brain is considered a hallmark of efficient processing. It is therefore not surprising that there are brain areas specialized for processing letters. To better understand the causes of functional specialization for letters, we explore the emergence of this pattern of response in the ventral processing stream through a training paradigm. Previously, we hypothesized that the specialized response pattern seen during letter perception may be due in part to our experience in writing letters. The work presented here investigates whether or not this aspect of letter processing-the integration of sensorimotor systems through writing-leads to functional specialization in the visual system. To test this idea, we investigated whether or not different types of experiences with letter-like stimuli ("pseudoletters") led to functional specialization similar to that which exists for letters. Neural activation patterns were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after three different types of training sessions. Participants were trained to recognize pseudoletters by writing, typing, or purely visual practice. Results suggested that only after writing practice did neural activation patterns to pseudoletters resemble patterns seen for letters. That is, neural activation in the left fusiform and dorsal precentral gyrus was greater when participants viewed pseudoletters than other, similar stimuli but only after writing experience. Neural activation also increased after typing practice in the right fusiform and left precentral gyrus, suggesting that in some areas, any motor experience may change visual processing. The results of this experiment suggest an intimate interaction among perceptual and motor systems during pseudoletter perception that may be extended to everyday letter perception.

Biomedical Applications of Enzymes From Marine Actinobacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamala, K; Sivaperumal, P

Marine microbial enzyme technologies have progressed significantly in the last few decades for different applications. Among the various microorganisms, marine actinobacterial enzymes have significant active properties, which could allow them to be biocatalysts with tremendous bioactive metabolites. Moreover, marine actinobacteria have been considered as biofactories, since their enzymes fulfill biomedical and industrial needs. In this chapter, the marine actinobacteria and their enzymes' uses in biological activities and biomedical applications are described. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bromophenols in Marine Algae and Their Bioactivities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ming, Liu; Hansen, Poul Erik; Lin, Xiukun

2011-01-01

Marine algae contain various bromophenols that have been shown to possess a variety of biological activities, including antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-diabetic, and anti-thrombotic effects. Here, we briefly review the recent progress of these marine algal biomaterials, with respect...

Immense Essence of Excellence: Marine Microbial Bioactive Compounds

OpenAIRE

Ira Bhatnagar; Se-Kwon Kim

2010-01-01

Oceans have borne most of the biological activities on our planet. A number of biologically active compounds with varying degrees of action, such as anti-tumor, anti-cancer, anti-microtubule, anti-proliferative, cytotoxic, photo protective, as well as antibiotic and antifouling properties, have been isolated to date from marine sources. The marine environment also represents a largely unexplored source for isolation of new microbes (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, microalgae-cyanobacteria and...

77 FR 25145 - Marine Mammals; File No. 978-1857

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-27

... mammals at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology through May 31, 2012. The minor amendment (No. 978-1857... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XA37 Marine Mammals; File No. 978-1857 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and...

Specific acyclic isoprenoids as biological markers of methanogenic bacteria in marine sediments.

Science.gov (United States)

Brassell, S C; Wardroper, A M; Thomson, I D; Maxwell, J R; Eglinton, G

1981-04-23

The widespread occurrence of extended hopanoids in sediments and petroleums illustrates the importance of bacterial lipid contributions to geological materials. In archaebacteria, however, hopanoids are absent; their role as structural components of biomembranes is fulfilled by acyclic isoprenoids. Recent studies of the lipid constituents of archaebacteria have greatly extended the range of acyclic isoprenoid skeletons known in organisms (Fig. 1). In particularly, isoprenoids with head-to-head linkages have been identified, and such compounds (for example, 3,7,11,15,18,22,26,30-octamethyldotriacontane, I) have been recognized in petroleum and as degradation products of Messel shale kerogen. Here we report the first recognition of 2,6,10,15,19-pentamethyleicosane (II), a known component of methanogens, in marine sediments of Recent to Cretaceous age (Table 1) and suggest that it and certain other acyclic isoprenoids may be used as biological markers for methanogens.

Teaching Complaint and Adjustment Letters--And Tact (My Favorite Assignment).

Science.gov (United States)

Deimling, Paula

1992-01-01

Describes a three-part assignment in which each student writes a complaint letter and an adjustment letter responding to another student's complaint letter. Discusses how the third part of the assignment--journal entries--allows students to formulate their own criteria for excellent letters based upon their reactions to the letters they receive.…

Pharmaceutically active secondary metabolites of marine actinobacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Manivasagan, Panchanathan; Venkatesan, Jayachandran; Sivakumar, Kannan; Kim, Se-Kwon

2014-04-01

Marine actinobacteria are one of the most efficient groups of secondary metabolite producers and are very important from an industrial point of view. Many representatives of the order Actinomycetales are prolific producers of thousands of biologically active secondary metabolites. Actinobacteria from terrestrial sources have been studied and screened since the 1950s, for many important antibiotics, anticancer, antitumor and immunosuppressive agents. However, frequent rediscovery of the same compounds from the terrestrial actinobacteria has made them less attractive for screening programs in the recent years. At the same time, actinobacteria isolated from the marine environment have currently received considerable attention due to the structural diversity and unique biological activities of their secondary metabolites. They are efficient producers of new secondary metabolites that show a range of biological activities including antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, antitumor, cytotoxic, cytostatic, anti-inflammatory, anti-parasitic, anti-malaria, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-angiogenesis, etc. In this review, an evaluation is made on the current status of research on marine actinobacteria yielding pharmaceutically active secondary metabolites. Bioactive compounds from marine actinobacteria possess distinct chemical structures that may form the basis for synthesis of new drugs that could be used to combat resistant pathogens. With the increasing advancement in science and technology, there would be a greater demand for new bioactive compounds synthesized by actinobacteria from various marine sources in future. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Presentations at the seventh Danish marine research meeting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1993-01-01

This report presents contributions from the 7th Danish marine research meeting, arranged by the Danish National Oceanologic Board the 21-24 Jan 1992 in the new Marine Geology Research centre of the Aarhus University. 310 participants presented 76 lectures and 35 posters in the field of marine geology, hydrology, biology contamination monitoring etc. (EG)

IAEA Monitors Marine Radioactivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dixit, Aabha; Kaiser, Peter

2013-01-01

The IAEA assists Member States in using scientific tools to precisely identify and track nuclear and nonnuclear contaminants, as well as to investigate their biological effects on the marine ecosystem

Where and What Is Pristine Marine Aerosol?

Science.gov (United States)

Russell, L. M.; Frossard, A. A.; Long, M. S.; Burrows, S. M.; Elliott, S.; Bates, T. S.; Quinn, P.

2014-12-01

The sources and composition of atmospheric marine aerosol particles have been measured by functional group composition (from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) to identify the organic composition of the pristine primary marine (ocean-derived) particles as 65% hydroxyl, 21% alkane, 6% amine, and 7% carboxylic acid functional groups [Frossard et al., 2014a,b]. Pristine but non-primary components from photochemical reactions (likely from biogenic marine vapor emissions) add carboxylic acid groups. Non-pristine contributions include shipping effluent in seawater and ship emissions, which add additional alkane groups (up to 70%), and coastal or continental emissions mix in alkane and carboxylic acid groups. The pristine primary marine (ocean-derived) organic aerosol composition is nearly identical to model generated primary marine aerosol particles from bubbled seawater, indicating that its overall functional group composition is the direct consequence of the organic constituents of the seawater source. While the seawater organic functional group composition was nearly invariant across all three ocean regions studied and the ratio of organic carbon to sodium (OC/Na+) in the generated primary marine aerosol particles remained nearly constant over a broad range of chlorophyll-a concentrations, the generated primary marine aerosol particle alkane group fraction increased with chlorophyll-a concentrations. In addition, the generated primary marine aerosol particles have a hydroxyl group absorption peak location characteristic of monosaccharides and disaccharides, where the seawater hydroxyl group peak location is closer to that of polysaccharides. References Cited Frossard, Amanda A., Lynn M. Russell, Paola Massoli, Timothy S. Bates, and Patricia K. Quinn, "Side-by-Side Comparison of Four Techniques Explains the Apparent Differences in the Organic Composition of Generated and Ambient Marine Aerosol Particles," Aerosol Science and Technology - Aerosol Research Letter

Metabolic transformation of radionuclides in marine organisms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koyanagi, Taku

1987-01-01

Physico-chemical form of radionuclides is one of the important factors governing the concentration by marine organisms, whereas biological activities affect the existing states of radionuclides especially in coastal waters. Radioiodine in the form of iodate which is predominant species in seawater is reduced to iodide ion by biological activities and concentration factor of iodide is an order of magnitude higher than those of iodate. Extremely high accumulation of transition elements, actinides, or natural radionuclides in branchial heart of octopus is explained by the fuction of adenochrome, a glandular pigment in the organ as a natural complexing agent, and similar metal-binding proteins with relatively low molecular weight have been found in various marine invertebrates. High accumulation of some elements also found in mollusk kidney is considered to be caused by the intracellular concretions composed of calcium phosphate. All these biological processes suggest the significance of further investigations on metabolic transformation of radionuclides in marine organisms. (author)

Baseline marine biological survey at the Peacock Point outfall and other point-source discharges on Wake Atoll, Pacific Ocean in 1998-06 (NODC Accession 0000247)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) in support of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) sponsored a marine biological survey at Wake...

Exploring Corporate Rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's Letter.

Science.gov (United States)

Hyland, Ken

1998-01-01

Examines how metadiscourse is used to create a positive corporate image in 137 CEOs' letters, showing how CEOs use nonpropositional material to realize rational, credible, and affective appeals. Reveals the essentially rhetorical nature of CEOs' letters by comparing the frequency and distribution of metadiscourse in their letters and directors'…

Angles of Refraction: The Letters of Mary Delany

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eleonora Chiavetta

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Mary Delany (1700-1788 is particularly famous for her paper-cuttings or ‘mosaicks’ based on botanical subjects. A very lively woman of fashion, she was close to Queen Charlotte and one of the Bluestocking Ladies. She left a vivid portrait of life and society in eighteenth century England and Ireland in the six volumes of her Autobiography and Letters, edited in 1861 by her descendant Lady Llanover. Her autobiography is made up of 18 letters sent to her most intimate friend, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Portland. The first letter is dated 1740, but in this, as in the following ones, Mrs. Delany narrates her past life to her friend, starting from the early years of her life, describing her unhappy marriage, financial difficulties as a widow, and family relationships. Along with these ‘autobiographical’ letters, other letters written by her to her sister Ann are introduced, which date to the periods of life Mrs. Delany is dealing with. The aim of this paper is to focus on the textual, linguistic and content differences between the two letter types, and analyse how the identity of Mary Delany is differently constructed and perceived in the explicit autobiographical letters addressed to the Duchess of Portland, and the ones written to her sister. 

Marine natural product peptides with therapeutic potential: Chemistry, biosynthesis, and pharmacology.

Science.gov (United States)

Gogineni, Vedanjali; Hamann, Mark T

2018-01-01

The oceans are a uniquely rich source of bioactive metabolites, of which sponges have been shown to be among the most prolific producers of diverse bioactive secondary metabolites with valuable therapeutic potential. Much attention has been focused on marine bioactive peptides due to their novel chemistry and diverse biological properties. As summarized in this review, marine peptides are known to exhibit various biological activities such as antiviral, anti-proliferative, antioxidant, anti-coagulant, anti-hypertensive, anti-cancer, antidiabetic, antiobesity, and calcium-binding activities. This review focuses on the chemistry and biology of peptides isolated from sponges, bacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, ascidians, and other marine sources. The role of marine invertebrate microbiomes in natural products biosynthesis is discussed in this review along with the biosynthesis of modified peptides from different marine sources. The status of peptides in various phases of clinical trials is presented, as well as the development of modified peptides including optimization of PK and bioavailability. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Student Teacher Letters of Reference: A Critical Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Mason, Richard W.; Schroeder, Mark P.

2012-01-01

Letters of reference are commonly used in acquiring a job in education. Despite serious issues of validity and reliability in writing and evaluating letters, there is a dearth of research that systematically examines the evaluation process and defines the constructs that define high quality letters. The current study used NVivo to examine 160…

77 FR 12010 - Marine Mammals; File Nos. 1076-1789 and 14502

Science.gov (United States)

2012-02-28

... NMFS to study and document the health and biology of wild marine mammals as well as those marine... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XB040 Marine Mammals; File Nos. 1076-1789 and 14502 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic...

Marine Carotenoids and Cardiovascular Risk Markers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorenza Speranza

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Marine carotenoids are important bioactive compounds with physiological activities related to prevention of degenerative diseases.found principally in plants, with potential antioxidant biological properties deriving from their chemical structure and interaction with biological membranes. They are substances with very special and remarkable properties that no other groups of substances possess and that form the basis of their many, varied functions and actions in all kinds of living organisms. The potential beneficial effects of marine carotenoids have been studied particularly in astaxanthin and fucoxanthin as they are the major marine carotenoids. Both these two carotenoids show strong antioxidant activity attributed to quenching singlet oxygen and scavenging free radicals. The potential role of these carotenoids as dietary anti-oxidants has been suggested to be one of the main mechanisms for their preventive effects against cancer and inflammatory diseases. The aim of this short review is to examine the published studies concerning the use of the two marine carotenoids, astaxanthin and fucoxanthin, in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

Changes in FDA enforcement activities following changes in federal administration: the case of regulatory letters released to pharmaceutical companies.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Diane; Seoane-Vazquez, Enrique; Rodriguez-Monguio, Rosa; Montagne, Michael

2013-01-22

The United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the protection of the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness and security of human drugs and biological products through the enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and related regulations. These enforcement activities include regulatory letters (i.e. warning letters and notice of violation) to pharmaceutical companies. A regulatory letter represents the FDA's first official notification to a pharmaceutical company that the FDA has discovered a product or activity in violation of the FDCA.This study analyzed trends in the pharmaceutical-related regulatory letters released by the FDA during the period 1997-2011 and assessed differences in the average number and type of regulatory letters released during the last four federal administrations. Data derived from the FDA webpage. Information about the FDA office releasing the letter, date, company, and drug-related violation was collected. Regulatory letters were classified by federal administration. Descriptive statistics were performed for the analysis. Between 1997 and 2011 the FDA released 2,467 regulatory letters related to pharmaceuticals. FDA headquarters offices released 50.6% and district offices 49.4% of the regulatory letters. The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion released the largest number of regulatory letters (850; 34.5% of the total), followed by the Office of Scientific Investigations (131; 5.3%), and the Office of Compliance (105; 4.3%). During the 2nd Clinton Administration (1997-2000) the average number of regulatory letters per year was 242.8 ± 45.6, during the Bush Administration (2001-2008) it was 120.4 ± 33.7, and during the first three years of the Obama administration (2009-2011) it was 177.7.0 ± 17.0. The average number of regulatory letters released by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion also varied by administration: Clinton (122.3 ± 36.4), Bush (29.5�

Ruggedized Portable Instrumentation Package for Marine Mammal Evoked Potential Hearing Measurements (DURIP)

Science.gov (United States)

2011-09-30

NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology,Marine Mammal...Program Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology P.O. Box 1106 Kailua, Hawaii 96734 phone: (808) 247-5297 fax: (808) 247-5831 email: nachtiga...portable equipment was used at the Hilo Stranding Center to obtain the audiograms. Ready and available for RIMPAC excercises. 2 IMPACT

Sixty-Minute Review of Letter Writing

Science.gov (United States)

Cunningham, Donald H.; Graham, Louise

1974-01-01

The article describes a one-hour presentation which provides a basic stereotyped pattern of letter organization for the four types of letters (order, request, claim, and reply) the business of secretarial student is most likely to have to write. The four paragraphs of the pattern are: purpose, explanation, optional, and closing. (AG)

The Smithsonian-led Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO): Proposed Model for a Collaborative Network Linking Marine Biodiversity to Ecosystem Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Duffy, J. E.

2016-02-01

Biodiversity - the variety of functional types of organisms - is the engine of marine ecosystem processes, including productivity, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. Biodiversity remains a black box in much of ocean science, despite wide recognition that effectively managing human interactions with marine ecosystems requires understanding both structure and functional consequences of biodiversity. Moreover, the inherent complexity of biological systems puts a premium on data-rich, comparative approaches, which are best met via collaborative networks. The Smithsonian Institution's MarineGEO program links a growing network of partners conducting parallel, comparative research to understand change in marine biodiversity and ecosystems, natural and anthropogenic drivers of that change, and the ecological processes mediating it. The focus is on nearshore, seabed-associated systems where biodiversity and human population are concentrated and interact most, yet which fall through the cracks of existing ocean observing programs. MarineGEO offers a standardized toolbox of research modules that efficiently capture key elements of biological diversity and its importance in ecological processes across a range of habitats. The toolbox integrates high-tech (DNA-based, imaging) and low-tech protocols (diver surveys, rapid assays of consumer activity) adaptable to differing institutional capacity and resources. The model for long-term sustainability involves leveraging in-kind support among partners, adoption of best practices wherever possible, engagement of students and citizen scientists, and benefits of training, networking, and global relevance as incentives for participation. Here I highlight several MarineGEO comparative research projects demonstrating the value of standardized, scalable assays and parallel experiments for measuring fish and invertebrate diversity, recruitment, benthic herbivory and generalist predation, decomposition, and carbon sequestration. Key

78 FR 42757 - Marine Mammals; File No. 17411

Science.gov (United States)

2013-07-17

... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XC541 Marine Mammals; File No. 17411 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric... permit has been issued to Dr. Jennifer Burns, University of Alaska Anchorage, Biology Department...

Marine Nucleosides: Structure, Bioactivity, Synthesis and Biosynthesis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ri-Ming Huang

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Nucleosides are glycosylamines that structurally form part of nucleotide molecules, the building block of DNA and RNA. Both nucleosides and nucleotides are vital components of all living cells and involved in several key biological processes. Some of these nucleosides have been obtained from a variety of marine resources. Because of the biological importance of these compounds, this review covers 68 marine originated nucleosides and their synthetic analogs published up to June 2014. The review will focus on the structures, bioactivities, synthesis and biosynthetic processes of these compounds.

Initial and noninitial name-letter preferences as obtained through repeated letter rating tasks continue to reflect (different aspects of) self-esteem.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoorens, Vera; Takano, Keisuke; Franck, Erik; Roberts, John E; Raes, Filip

2015-09-01

We tested the usefulness of name-letter preference scores as indirect indicators of self-esteem by exploring whether multiple unsupervised self-administrations of letter rating tasks within a short period of time yield useful data. We also examined whether preferences for initials and noninitial name-letters tap different aspects of self-esteem. Participants from a community sample (N = 164; 58 men and 106 women, 17-67 years, Mage = 34.57, SD = 13.28) completed daily letter rating tasks and state self-esteem questionnaires for 7 consecutive days. They also completed a trait self-esteem questionnaire on the first measurement day as well as 6 months later. Preference scores for first-name initials were stronger but more unstable than preference scores for other name-letters. Preferences for first-name initials were primarily associated with directly measured state self-esteem whereas preferences for noninitials were primarily associated with directly measured trait self-esteem even if the latter was measured 6 months later. Thus, we showed that preferences for initials and noninitials are not simply interchangeable. Previous letter rating studies, which almost exclusively used initial preferences, should be interpreted in terms of state rather than trait self-esteem. In future studies, researchers should focus on the name-letter preference that reflects the aspect of self-esteem they wish to address. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Habitat damage, marine reserves, and the value of spatial management

KAUST Repository

Moeller, Holly V.

2013-07-01

The biological benefits of marine reserves have garnered favor in the conservation community, but "no-take" reserve implementation is complicated by the economic interests of fishery stakeholders. There are now a number of studies examining the conditions under which marine reserves can provide both economic and ecological benefits. A potentially important reality of fishing that these studies overlook is that fishing can damage the habitat of the target stock. Here, we construct an equilibrium bioeconomic model that incorporates this habitat damage and show that the designation of marine reserves, coupled with the implementation of a tax on fishing effort, becomes both biologically and economically favorable as habitat sensitivity increases. We also study the effects of varied degrees of spatial control on fisheries management. Together, our results provide further evidence for the potential monetary and biological value of spatial management, and the possibility of a mutually beneficial resolution to the fisherman-conservationist marine reserve designation dilemma. © 2013 by the Ecological Society of America.

Advice letter on policy instruments renewable electricity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-01-01

In a letter of July 2010 the Energy Council made recommendations for a policy framework with more obligations and fewer subsidies. This included the Energy Council's advice to investigate whether the introduction of a supplier obligation could play a major role in the realisation of the CO2 emission target of the Netherlands and increase the share of renewable energy in line with European agreements. This advice letter deals with one aspect of the broader considerations: the share of renewable electricity and the kind of incentive framework that is needed to achieve the target concerned. In this letter we will examine the possibilities of the SDE+ support (financial incentive for renewable energy) scheme and the supplier obligation, the effects on the market and the consequences for achieving the target. This letter closes with conclusions and recommendations. [nl

Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

OpenAIRE

Rosen, Michael

2013-01-01

From minding your Ps and Qs to wondering why X should mark the spot, Alphabetical is a book for everyone who loves words and language. Whether it's how letters are arranged on keyboards or Viking runes, textspeak or zip codes, this book will change the way you think about letters for ever. How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the hi...

78 FR 14984 - Marine Mammals; File No. 17411

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-08

... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration RIN 0648-XC541 Marine Mammals; File No. 17411 AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric.... Jennifer Burns, University of Alaska Anchorage, Biology Department, Anchorage, AK, has applied in due form...

Visual and Artistic Functions of Letters in Khaghani’s Poetry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohsen Zolfaghari

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract The intensity of emotion and fluctuation of meaning in the poet's mind causes him to go beyond the ordinary language and convey intellectual and emotional meanings through metaphors, similes and linguistic preparations. He has sharp eyes and a sensitive spirit and creative temperament and attempts strengthening his own literary language and creating personal style by inventing novel images, showing the creativity and imagination and entering in various arenas of imagination. This point more than anything else could be done by presenting images and new figures. Perhaps in the sixth century, and especially in Azerbaijani school, more than other periods, poets have been looking for creating innovative style in eloquence. Their major attempts were mainly in imaging, a wide field that they have competed. It is obvious that in this illustration the alphabet letters would be very helpful. Khaghani's Divan of poetry, as one of the greatest poets of this school, is the perfect poetical book of paintings in which meaning has been hidden under a delicate pattern and new different scientific, cultural and religious images. Letters are a broad range of elements that put a new field in front of the poet and he is aware of the potential features of the letters, new images, and artistic creativity techniques as well. This paper shows descriptive - analytical study of various aspects of Khaghani’s poetry and frequency of letters in the alphabet letters, alphabetic-based authenticity of images, different similarity reasons, semantic and literal multi-relevance of letters in the context of poetry, producing figures of speech based on letters, sensational relationship exists between images and letters which have been shown in his poetry. Letter have a double and even multiple application in Khaghani's poetic works (divan and moreover the construction of words and conveying meaning which is the real and common usage, they were used as artistic instruments

Marine Natural Product Bis-indole Alkaloid Caulerpin: Chemistry and Biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Lunagariya, Jignesh; Bhadja, Poonam; Zhong, Shenghui; Vekariya, Rohit; Xu, Shihai

2017-09-27

Marine bis-indole alkaloids comprise a large and increasingly growing class of secondary metabolites, and continue to deliver a great variety of structural templates. The alkaloids derived from marine resources play a crucial role in medicinal chemistry and as chemical agents. In particular, bis-indole alkaloid caulerpin isolated from marine green algae Caulerpa and a red algae Chondria armata at various places around the world, and tested against several therapeutic areas such as anti-diabetic, antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-larvicidal, anti-herpes, anti-tubercular, anti-microbial and immunostimulating activity as well as means of other chemical agents. Herein, we summarized discovery of caulerpin, and its potential medicinal and chemical applications in chronological order with various aspects. Additionally, synthesis of caulerpin, its functional analogues, and structural isomer have also been reviewed. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Letter position coding across modalities: the case of Braille readers.

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; García-Chamorro, Cristina; Martín-Suesta, Miguel; Gómez, Pablo

2012-01-01

The question of how the brain encodes letter position in written words has attracted increasing attention in recent years. A number of models have recently been proposed to accommodate the fact that transposed-letter stimuli like jugde or caniso are perceptually very close to their base words. Here we examined how letter position coding is attained in the tactile modality via Braille reading. The idea is that Braille word recognition may provide more serial processing than the visual modality, and this may produce differences in the input coding schemes employed to encode letters in written words. To that end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with adult Braille readers in which the pseudowords were created by transposing/replacing two letters. We found a word-frequency effect for words. In addition, unlike parallel experiments in the visual modality, we failed to find any clear signs of transposed-letter confusability effects. This dissociation highlights the differences between modalities. The present data argue against models of letter position coding that assume that transposed-letter effects (in the visual modality) occur at a relatively late, abstract locus.

Digit and letter alexia in carbon monoxide poisoning

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Qingyu Shen; Xiaoming Rong; Rui Pan; Ying Peng; Wei Peng; Yamei Tang

2012-01-01

This study examined a 24-year-old patient with delayed encephalopathy, who was admitted to hospital with complaints of headache and visual impairment 1 week after acute carbon monoxide poisoning. The results of a visual field assessment, electroencephalography and head magnetic resonance imaging indicated damage to the cerebral cortex. After a 2-week treatment period, the patient had recovered from the visual impairment, but exhibited digit- and letter-reading difficulty. The Chinese aphasia battery and the number and letter battery supplement were conducted. The results revealed that the patient exhibited digit and letter alexia, while the ability to read Chinese characters was preserved. In contrast, the patient exhibited a deficit in Chinese character writing, while number and letter writing remained intact. Following treatment, reading and writing ability was improved and electroencephalographic abnormalities were ameliorated. Overall, our experimental findings demonstrated that delayed encephalopathy following acute carbon monoxide poisoning was characterized by digit and letter alexia.

Thalassiosira mala (Bacillariophyta), a potentially harmful, marine ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Thalassiosira malaitalic> (Bacillariophyta), a potentially harmful, marine diatom from Chilka Lake and other coastal localities of Odisha, India: Nomenclature, ... Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306–4370, USA; Department of Biology, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA ...

The Biology of Heterotrophic N2-fixing Bacteria in Marine and Estuarine Waters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bentzon-Tilia, Mikkel

Biological nitrogen (N)2 fixation is of paramount importance for marine N cycling and for life in the oceans in general. It represents the sole mechanism by which microorganisms can channel inert atmospheric N2 gas into biomass and hence it may fuel a significant fraction of primary production...... heterotrophic isolates, this thesis aims at addressing these unknowns. It was found that heterotrophic diazotrophs were present and active in environments previously not associated with N2 fixation e.g. suboxic basins of the Baltic Sea and estuarine surface waters. In these environments they contributed...... with significant amounts fixed N2, suggesting that a reevaluation of the significance of N fixation in suboxic waters and estuarine coastal waters is warranted. It was also documented that heterotrophic diazotrophs could be enriched in culture based on their ability to utilize N2 as the sole N source...

The Indirect Empathic Approach to Claim Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, James D.

1985-01-01

In discussing letter-writing methods for business communication classes, the article explains that claim letter formats other than the direct approach are not only legitimate, but also effective, and suggests that the approach selected should depend upon the circumstances surrounding the claim. (CT)

Culture and subculture in transactional letter writing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaw, Philip; Okamura, Akiko

2000-01-01

This study examines the relative contributions of subculture membership and mother-tongue status/target culture membership in writing transactional letters. We examined the letters accompanying articles initially submitted for publication by 26 NSE and 23 NNSE academics, and compared them with ef...

Molecular Architecture and Biomedical Leads of Terpenes from Red Sea Marine Invertebrates

Science.gov (United States)

Hegazy, Mohamed Elamir F.; Mohamed, Tarik A.; Alhammady, Montaser A.; Shaheen, Alaa M.; Reda, Eman H.; Elshamy, Abdelsamed I.; Aziz, Mina; Paré, Paul W.

2015-01-01

Marine invertebrates including sponges, soft coral, tunicates, mollusks and bryozoan have proved to be a prolific source of bioactive natural products. Among marine-derived metabolites, terpenoids have provided a vast array of molecular architectures. These isoprenoid-derived metabolites also exhibit highly specialized biological activities ranging from nerve regeneration to blood-sugar regulation. As a result, intense research activity has been devoted to characterizing invertebrate terpenes from both a chemical and biological standpoint. This review focuses on the chemistry and biology of terpene metabolites isolated from the Red Sea ecosystem, a unique marine biome with one of the highest levels of biodiversity and specifically rich in invertebrate species. PMID:26006713

Molecular Architecture and Biomedical Leads of Terpenes from Red Sea Marine Invertebrates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamed Elamir F. Hegazy

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Marine invertebrates including sponges, soft coral, tunicates, mollusks and bryozoan have proved to be a prolific source of bioactive natural products. Among marine-derived metabolites, terpenoids have provided a vast array of molecular architectures. These isoprenoid-derived metabolites also exhibit highly specialized biological activities ranging from nerve regeneration to blood-sugar regulation. As a result, intense research activity has been devoted to characterizing invertebrate terpenes from both a chemical and biological standpoint. This review focuses on the chemistry and biology of terpene metabolites isolated from the Red Sea ecosystem, a unique marine biome with one of the highest levels of biodiversity and specifically rich in invertebrate species.

Ecological Research Division, Marine Research Program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1980-05-01

This report presents program summaries of the various projects sponsored during 1979 by the Marine Research Program of the Ecological Research Division. Program areas include the effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on the marine environment; a study of the baseline ecology of a proposed OTEC site near Puerto Rico; the environmental impact of offshore geothermal energy development; the movement of radionuclides through the marine environment; the environmental aspects of power plant cooling systems; and studies of the physical and biological oceangraphy of the continental shelves bordering the United States.

Ecological Research Division, Marine Research Program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1980-05-01

This report presents program summaries of the various projects sponsored during 1979 by the Marine Research Program of the Ecological Research Division. Program areas include the effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on the marine environment; a study of the baseline ecology of a proposed OTEC site near Puerto Rico; the environmental impact of offshore geothermal energy development; the movement of radionuclides through the marine environment; the environmental aspects of power plant cooling systems; and studies of the physical and biological oceangraphy of the continental shelves bordering the United States

Changes in FDA enforcement activities following changes in federal administration: the case of regulatory letters released to pharmaceutical companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nguyen Diane

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The United States (US Food and Drug Administration (FDA is responsible for the protection of the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness and security of human drugs and biological products through the enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA and related regulations. These enforcement activities include regulatory letters (i.e. warning letters and notice of violation to pharmaceutical companies. A regulatory letter represents the FDA’s first official notification to a pharmaceutical company that the FDA has discovered a product or activity in violation of the FDCA. This study analyzed trends in the pharmaceutical-related regulatory letters released by the FDA during the period 1997–2011 and assessed differences in the average number and type of regulatory letters released during the last four federal administrations. Methods Data derived from the FDA webpage. Information about the FDA office releasing the letter, date, company, and drug-related violation was collected. Regulatory letters were classified by federal administration. Descriptive statistics were performed for the analysis. Results Between 1997 and 2011 the FDA released 2,467 regulatory letters related to pharmaceuticals. FDA headquarters offices released 50.6% and district offices 49.4% of the regulatory letters. The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion released the largest number of regulatory letters (850; 34.5% of the total, followed by the Office of Scientific Investigations (131; 5.3%, and the Office of Compliance (105; 4.3%. During the 2nd Clinton Administration (1997–2000 the average number of regulatory letters per year was 242.8 ± 45.6, during the Bush Administration (2001–2008 it was 120.4 ± 33.7, and during the first three years of the Obama administration (2009–2011 it was 177.7.0 ± 17.0. The average number of regulatory letters released by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion also varied by

Particles and nuclei, letters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains nine separate letters on data on elastic (p,n) charge exchange: compilation, the potentialities of δ-electron control of luminosity in experiments with internal targets at the Nuclotron, pion broadening and low-mass dilepton production, fluctuation of electromagnetic cascade axis in dense amorphous segmented media, the forward detector of the ANKE spectrometer. Tracking system and its use in data analysis, quantum field theory with three-dimensional vector time, curvature decomposition and the Einstein-Yang-Mills equations, an integral equation for the spinor amplitude of a massive neutral Dirac particle in a curved space time with arbitrary geometry and surprising resonances in 147 Sm(nα) 144 Nd reaction

Production of Some Biologically Active Secondary Metabolites From Marine-derived Fungus Varicosporina ramulosa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Atalla, M. M.

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In a screening of fungal isolates associated with marine algae collected from Abou-keer, Alexanderia during the four seasons of 2004, to obtain new biologically active compounds. Varicosporina ramulosa isolate was identified and selected as a producer of 13 compounds. Out of 13 pure compounds produced, compounds 3 and 10 were considered as antibacterial and antifungal compounds, respectively as they were active against gram positive, gram negative bacteria and a fungus. Optimization of conditions (fermentation media, incubation period, temperature, initial pH, aeration levels which activate compounds 3 and 10 production were studied. Also the spectral properties (UV, MS, GC/MS, IR and 1H-NMR of the purified compounds were determined. Compound 3 suggested to be dibutyl phthalate and compound 10 may be ergosterol or one of its isomers. Biological evaluation of the two compounds towards 6 different types of tumor cell lines showed weak effect of compound 3 at different concentrations on the viable cell count of the different tumor cell lines. While compound 10 showed different activities against the viable cell count of the 6 different tumor cell lines. It kills 50% of the viable infected liver and lung cells at concentrations equal to 99.7 µg/mL, 74.9µg/mL, respectively. Compound 10 can be recommended as new anticancer compounds.

Methods to examine reproductive biology in free-ranging, fully-marine mammals.

Science.gov (United States)

Lanyon, Janet M; Burgess, Elizabeth A

2014-01-01

Historical overexploitation of marine mammals, combined with present-day pressures, has resulted in severely depleted populations, with many species listed as threatened or endangered. Understanding breeding patterns of threatened marine mammals is crucial to assessing population viability, potential recovery and conservation actions. However, determining reproductive parameters of wild fully-marine mammals (cetaceans and sirenians) is challenging due to their wide distributions, high mobility, inaccessible habitats, cryptic lifestyles and in many cases, large body size and intractability. Consequently, reproductive biologists employ an innovative suite of methods to collect useful information from these species. This chapter reviews historic, recent and state-of-the-art methods to examine diverse aspects of reproduction in fully-aquatic mammals.

Lessons learned from practical approaches to reconcile mismatches between biological population structure and stock units of marine fish

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kerr, Lisa A.; Hintzen, Niels T.; Cadrin, Steven X.

2017-01-01

for overexploitation of unique spawning components, which can lead to loss of productivity and reduced biodiversity along with destabilization of local and regional stock dynamics. Furthermore, ignoring complex population structure and stock connectivity can lead to misperception of the magnitude of fish productivity......, which can translate to suboptimal utilization of the resource. We describe approaches that are currently being applied to improve the assessment and management process for marine fish in situations where complex spatial structure has led to an observed mismatch between the scale of biological...... and resilience of fish species....

How are climate and marine biological outbreaks functionally linked?

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Marshall L.; Bonaventura, Joseph; Mitchell, Todd P.; Prospero, Joseph M.; Shinn, Eugene A.; Van Dolah, Frances; Barber, Richard T.

2001-01-01

Since the mid-1970s, large-scale episodic events such as disease epidemics, mass mortalities, harmful algal blooms and other population explosions have been occurring in marine environments at an historically unprecedented rate. The variety of organisms involved (host, pathogens and other opportunists) and the absolute number of episodes have also increased during this period. Are these changes coincidental? Between 1972 and 1976, a global climate regime shift took place, and it is manifest most clearly by a change in strength of the North Pacific and North Atlantic pressure systems. Consequences of this regime shift are: (1) prolonged drought conditions in the Sahel region of Africa; (2) increased dust supply to the global atmosphere, by a factor of approximately four; (3) increased easterly trade winds across the Atlantic; (4) increased eolian transport of dust to the Atlantic and Caribbean basins; and (5) increased deposition of iron-rich eolian dust to typically iron-poor marine regions. On the basis of well-documented climate and dust observations and the widely accepted increase in marine outbreak rates, this paper proposes that the increased iron supply has altered the micronutrient factors limiting growth of opportunistic organisms and virulence of pathogenic microbes, particularly in macronutrient-rich coastal systems.

Production of Enzymes from Marine Actinobacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, X Q; Xu, X N; Chen, L Y

Marine actinobacteria are well recognized for their capabilities to produce valuable natural products, which have great potential for applications in medical, agricultural, and fine chemical industries. In addition to producing unique enzymes responsible for biosynthesis of natural products, many marine actinobacteria also produce hydrolytic enzymes which are able to degrade various biopolymers, such as cellulose, xylan, and chitin. These enzymes are important to produce biofuels and biochemicals of interest from renewable biomass. In this chapter, the recent reports of novel enzymes produced by marine actinobacteria are reviewed, and advanced technologies that can be applied to search for novel marine enzymes as well as for improved enzyme production by marine actinobacteria are summarized, which include ribosome engineering, genome mining, as well as synthetic biology studies. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Marine biology, intertidal ecology, and a new place for biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Benson, Keith R

2015-01-01

At the present time, there is considerable interest for the physical setting of science, that is, its actual 'place' of practice. Among historians of biology, place has been considered to be a crucial component for the study of ecology. Other historians have noted the 'built' environments (laboratories) for the study of biology along the seashore, even referring to these places in terms more applicable to vacation sites. In this paper, I examine the place of intertidal ecology investigations, both in terms of the physical space and the built space. Part of the examination will investigate the aesthetic aspect of the Pacific Coast, part will evaluate the unique character of the intertidal zone, and part will consider the construction of natural laboratories and built laboratories as characteristic places for biology.

Recent Advances in Marine Algae Polysaccharides: Isolation, Structure, and Activities.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Shu-Ying; Huang, Xuesong; Cheong, Kit-Leong

2017-12-13

Marine algae have attracted a great deal of interest as excellent sources of nutrients. Polysaccharides are the main components in marine algae, hence a great deal of attention has been directed at isolation and characterization of marine algae polysaccharides because of their numerous health benefits. In this review, extraction and purification approaches and chemico-physical properties of marine algae polysaccharides (MAPs) are summarized. The biological activities, which include immunomodulatory, antitumor, antiviral, antioxidant, and hypolipidemic, are also discussed. Additionally, structure-function relationships are analyzed and summarized. MAPs' biological activities are closely correlated with their monosaccharide composition, molecular weights, linkage types, and chain conformation. In order to promote further exploitation and utilization of polysaccharides from marine algae for functional food and pharmaceutical areas, high efficiency, and low-cost polysaccharide extraction and purification methods, quality control, structure-function activity relationships, and specific mechanisms of MAPs activation need to be extensively investigated.

Letter position coding across modalities: the case of Braille readers.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuel Perea

Full Text Available The question of how the brain encodes letter position in written words has attracted increasing attention in recent years. A number of models have recently been proposed to accommodate the fact that transposed-letter stimuli like jugde or caniso are perceptually very close to their base words.Here we examined how letter position coding is attained in the tactile modality via Braille reading. The idea is that Braille word recognition may provide more serial processing than the visual modality, and this may produce differences in the input coding schemes employed to encode letters in written words. To that end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with adult Braille readers in which the pseudowords were created by transposing/replacing two letters.We found a word-frequency effect for words. In addition, unlike parallel experiments in the visual modality, we failed to find any clear signs of transposed-letter confusability effects. This dissociation highlights the differences between modalities.The present data argue against models of letter position coding that assume that transposed-letter effects (in the visual modality occur at a relatively late, abstract locus.

Experimental test of contemporary mathematical models of visual letter recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Townsend, J T; Ashby, F G

1982-12-01

A letter confusion experiment that used brief durations manipulated payoffs across the four stimulus letters, which were composed of line segments equal in length. The observers were required to report the features they perceived as well as to give a letter response. The early feature-sampling process is separated from the later letter-decision process in the substantive feature models, and predictions are thus obtained for the frequencies of feature report as well as letter report. Four substantive visual feature-processing models are developed and tested against one another and against three models of a more descriptive nature. The substantive models predict the decisional letter report phase much better than they do the feature-sampling phase, but the best overall 4 X 4 letter confusion matrix fits are obtained with one of the descriptive models, the similarity choice model. The present and other recent results suggest that the assumption that features are sampled in a stochastically independent manner may not be generally valid. The traditional high-threshold conceptualization of feature sampling is also falsified by the frequent reporting by observers of features not contained in the stimulus letter.

Marine products with anti-protozoal activity: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

García, Marley; Monzote, Lianet

2014-01-01

The marine organisms are a rich source of varied natural products with unique functionality. A variety of natural products of new molecular structures with diverse biological activities have been reported from marine flora and fauna for treatment and/or prevention of human diseases. The present review briefly illustrates current status of marine products as antiprotozoal agents. The in vitro and in vivo studies of marine algae, invertebrates and micro-organism against different protozoa parasites are included. The marine products studied, according to international criterions for selection of more promisory products in the different models reported, demonstrated their potentialities as antiprozoal agents. Herein, the interest of scientific community to search new alternatives from marine environment has been demonstrated.

When Do First Letters Mnemonics Aid Recall?

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, P. E.; Cook, N.

1978-01-01

The evidence for the effectiveness of the first letter mnemonic technique is confused. There are at least three studies showing no effect, and one where an improvement in recall occurred. Reports two experiments which attempted to locate the conditions under which the first letter mnemonic is effective. (Author/RK)

Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

Zorzi, Marco; Barbiero, Chiara; Facoetti, Andrea; Lonciari, Isabella; Carrozzi, Marco; Montico, Marcella; Bravar, Laura; George, Florence; Pech-Georgel, Catherine; Ziegler, Johannes C.

2012-01-01

Although the causes of dyslexia are still debated, all researchers agree that the main challenge is to find ways that allow a child with dyslexia to read more words in less time, because reading more is undisputedly the most efficient intervention for dyslexia. Sophisticated training programs exist, but they typically target the component skills of reading, such as phonological awareness. After the component skills have improved, the main challenge remains (that is, reading deficits must be treated by reading more—a vicious circle for a dyslexic child). Here, we show that a simple manipulation of letter spacing substantially improved text reading performance on the fly (without any training) in a large, unselected sample of Italian and French dyslexic children. Extra-large letter spacing helps reading, because dyslexics are abnormally affected by crowding, a perceptual phenomenon with detrimental effects on letter recognition that is modulated by the spacing between letters. Extra-large letter spacing may help to break the vicious circle by rendering the reading material more easily accessible. PMID:22665803

Bioavailability of sediment-bound contaminants to marine organisms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, B. [Battelle/Marine Sciences Lab., Sequim, WA (United States)]|[Colby Coll., Waterville, ME (United States); Neff, J. [Battelle/Marine Sciences Lab., Sequim, WA (United States)]|[Battelle Ocean Sciences, Duxbury, MA (United States)

1993-09-01

The bioavailability of sediment-bound contaminants to marine organisms indicates that there exists a potential for transfer of these contaminants through marine food webs to commercial fisheries products consumed by humans. However, there has been relatively little effort to combine and synthesize data on chemical/biological interactions between benthic animals and seagrasses and the sediments in which they reside on the one hand, and on the chemistry of bioaccumulation on the other. This report provides a conceptual basis for an approach to bioavailability and biomagnification of sediment-bound contaminants that reviews biological and chemical approaches.

Bioactivity of marine organisms. 4. Screening of some marine animals from the Indian coast

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Naik, C.G.; Kamat, S.Y.; Parameswaran, P.S.; Das, B.; Battacharya, J.; Ramani, P.; Bhakuni, D.S.; Goel, A.K.; Jain, S.; Srimal, R.C.

Of twenty eight alcoholic extracts of marine organisms screened for a wide range of pharmacological activities, 15 showed biological activity. Of these two were anti implantation, 3 CNS stimulant, 2 hypotensive, 4 diuretic, 4 hypoglycaemic, 2...

The Predictive Validity of Teacher Candidate Letters of Reference

Science.gov (United States)

Mason, Richard W.; Schroeder, Mark P.

2014-01-01

Letters of reference are widely used as an essential part of the hiring process of newly licensed teachers. While the predictive validity of these letters of reference has been called into question it has never been empirically studied. The current study examined the predictive validity of the quality of letters of reference for forty-one student…

Antimycobacterial Metabolites from Marine Invertebrates.

Science.gov (United States)

Daletos, Georgios; Ancheeva, Elena; Chaidir, Chaidir; Kalscheuer, Rainer; Proksch, Peter

2016-10-01

Marine organisms play an important role in natural product-based drug research due to accumulation of structurally unique and bioactive metabolites. The exploration of marine-derived compounds may significantly extend the scientific knowledge of potential scaffolds for antibiotic drug discovery. Development of novel antitubercular agents is especially significant as the emergence of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains remains threateningly high. Marine invertebrates (i.e., sponges, corals, gorgonians) as a source of new chemical entities are the center of research for several scientific groups, and the wide spectrum of biological activities of marine-derived compounds encourages scientists to carry out investigations in the field of antibiotic research, including tuberculosis treatment. The present review covers published data on antitubercular natural products from marine invertebrates grouped according to their biogenetic origin. Studies on the structure-activity relationships of these important leads are highlighted as well. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Teaching letter sounds to kindergarten English language learners using incremental rehearsal.

Science.gov (United States)

Peterson, Meredith; Brandes, Dana; Kunkel, Amy; Wilson, Jennifer; Rahn, Naomi L; Egan, Andrea; McComas, Jennifer

2014-02-01

Proficiency in letter-sound correspondence is important for decoding connected text. This study examined the effects of an evidence-based intervention, incremental rehearsal (IR), on the letter-sound expression of three kindergarten English language learners (ELLs) performing below the district benchmark for letter-sound fluency. Participants were native speakers of Hmong, Spanish, and Polish. A multiple-baseline design across sets of unknown letter sounds was used to evaluate the effects of IR on letter-sound expression. Visual analysis of the data showed an increase in level and trend when IR was introduced in each phase. Percentage of all non-overlapping data (PAND) ranged from 95% to 100%. All participants exceeded expected growth and reached the spring district benchmark for letter-sound fluency. Results suggest that IR is a promising intervention for increasing letter-sound expression for ELLs who evidence delays in acquiring letter sounds. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

40 CFR 280.99 - Letter of credit.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... (UST) Financial Responsibility § 280.99 Letter of credit. (a) An owner or operator may satisfy the... brackets are to be replaced with the relevant information and the brackets deleted: Irrevocable Standby.... We certify that the wording of this letter of credit is identical to the wording specified in 40 CFR...

Particles and Nuclei, Letters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains eight separate letters on analysis of experimental data on relativistic nuclear collisions in the Lobachevski space, relativistic contribution of the final-state interaction to deuteron photodisintegration, on the charge asymmetry of the like-sign lepton pairs induced by B - B bar - production asymmetry, limits on the ν e → ν e neutrino oscillation parameters from an experiment at the IHEP-JINR neutrino detector, excitation of high spin isomers in photonuclear reactions, study of product formation in proton-nuclear reactions on the 129 I target induced by 660-MeV protons, application of jet pumps in the cryogenic system of the Nuclotron - superconducting accelerator of relativistic particles and study of the silicon drift detector performance with inclined tracks

The biology and chemistry of the zoanthamine alkaloids.

Science.gov (United States)

Behenna, Douglas C; Stockdill, Jennifer L; Stoltz, Brian M

2008-01-01

Marine natural products have long played an important role in natural products chemistry and drug discovery. Mirroring the rich variety and complicated interactions of the marine environment, the substances isolated from sea creatures tend to be incredibly diverse in both molecular structure and biological activity. The natural products isolated from the polyps of marine zoanthids are no exception. The zoanthamine alkaloids, the first of which were isolated over 20 years ago, are of particular interest to the synthetic community because they feature a novel structural framework and exhibit a broad range of biological activities. In this Review, we summarize the major contributions to understanding the zoanthamine natural products with regard to their isolation and structure determination, as well as studies on their biological activity and total synthesis.

Studies on marine oil spills and their ecological damage

Science.gov (United States)

Mei, Hong; Yin, Yanjie

2009-09-01

The sources of marine oil spills are mainly from accidents of marine oil tankers or freighters, marine oil-drilling platforms, marine oil pipelines, marine oilfields, terrestrial pollution, oil-bearing atmosphere, and offshore oil production equipment. It is concluded upon analysis that there are two main reasons for marine oil spills: (I) The motive for huge economic benefits of oil industry owners and oil shipping agents far surpasses their sense of ecological risks. (II) Marine ecological safety has not become the main concern of national security. Oil spills are disasters because humans spare no efforts to get economic benefits from oil. The present paper draws another conclusion that marine ecological damage caused by oil spills can be roughly divided into two categories: damage to marine resource value (direct value) and damage to marine ecosystem service value (indirect value). Marine oil spills cause damage to marine biological, fishery, seawater, tourism and mineral resources to various extents, which contributes to the lower quality and value of marine resources.

The elaboration of motor programs for the automation of letter production.

Science.gov (United States)

Thibon, Laurence Séraphin; Gerber, Silvain; Kandel, Sonia

2018-01-01

We investigated how children learn to write letters. Letter writing evolves from stroke-by-stroke to whole-letter programming. Children of ages 6 to 9 (N=98) wrote letters of varying complexity on a digitizer. At ages 6 and 7 movement duration, dysfluency and trajectory increased with stroke number. This indicates that the motor program they activated mainly coded information on stroke production. Stroke number affected the older children's production much less, suggesting that they programmed stroke chunks or the whole letter. The fact that movement duration and dysfluency decreased from ages 6 to 8, and remained stable at ages 8 and 9 suggests that automation of letter writing begins at age 8. Automation seems to require the elaboration of stroke chunks and/or letter-sized motor programs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Peer assessment of outpatient consultation letters – feasibility and satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dojeiji Suzan

2007-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Written correspondence is one of the most important forms of communication between health care providers, yet there is little feedback provided to specialists. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and satisfaction of a peer assessment program on consultation letters and to determine inter-rater reliability between family physicians and specialists. Methods A rating scale of nine 5-point Likert scale items including specific content, style items, education value of the letter and an overall rating was developed from a previous validated tool. Nine Internal Medicine specialists/subspecialists from two tertiary care centres submitted 10 letters with patient and physician identifiers removed. Two Internal Medicine specialists, and 2 family physicians from the other centre rated each letter (to protect writer anonymity. A satisfaction survey was sent to each writer and rater after collation of the results. A follow-up survey was sent 6–8 months later. Results There was a high degree of satisfaction with the process and feedback. The rating scale information was felt to be useful and appropriate for evaluating the quality of consultation letters by 6/7 writers. 5/7 seven writers felt that the feedback they received resulted in immediate changes to their letters. Six months later, 6/9 writers indicated they had maintained changes in their letters. Raters rank ordered letters similarly (Cronbach's alpha 0.57–0.84 but mean scores were highly variant. At site 1 there were significant differences in scoring brevity (p Conclusion Most participants found peer assessment of letters feasible and beneficial and longstanding changes occurred in some individuals. Family physicians and specialists appear to have different expectations on some items. Further studies on reliability and validity, with a larger sample, are required before high stakes professional assessments include consultation letters.

Marine litter in an EBSA (Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area) of the central Mediterranean Sea: Abundance, composition, impact on benthic species and basis for monitoring entanglement.

Science.gov (United States)

Consoli, Pierpaolo; Andaloro, Franco; Altobelli, Chiara; Battaglia, Pietro; Campagnuolo, Silvana; Canese, Simonepietro; Castriota, Luca; Cillari, Tiziana; Falautano, Manuela; Pedà, Cristina; Perzia, Patrizia; Sinopoli, Mauro; Vivona, Pietro; Scotti, Gianfranco; Esposito, Valentina; Galgani, Francois; Romeo, Teresa

2018-05-01

Marine litter is commonly observed everywhere in the ocean. In this study, we analyzed 17 km of video footage, collected by a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) at depths ranging between 20 and 220 m, during 19 transects performed on the rocky banks of the Straits of Sicily. Recently, the Contracting Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognized this site as an Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area (EBSA). The research aim was to quantify the abundance of marine litter and its impact on benthic fauna. Litter density ranged from 0 items/100 m 2 to 14.02 items/100 m 2 with a mean (±standard error) of 2.13 (±0.84) items/100 m 2 . The observed average density was higher (5.2 items/100 m 2 ) at depths >100 m than at shallower depths (fishing lines contributed to 98.07% of the overall litter density, then representing the dominant source of marine debris. Litter interactions with fauna were frequently observed, with 30% of litter causing "entanglement/coverage" and 15% causing damage to sessile fauna. A total of 16 species showed interaction (entanglement/coverage or damage) with litter items and 12 of these are species of conservation concern according to international directives and agreements (CITES, Berne Convention, Habitat Directive, SPA/BD Protocol, IUCN Red List); we also observed 7 priority habitats of the SPA/BD Protocol. This research will support the implementation of monitoring "Harm" as recommended by the UN Environment/MAP Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean, and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The institution of a SPAMI in the investigated area could represent a good management action for the protection of this hotspot of biodiversity and to achieve a Good Environmental Status (GES) for the marine environment by 2020, under the MSFD. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Microbial bioavailability regulates organic matter preservation in marine sediments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koho, K. A.; Nierop, K. G. J.; Moodley, L.; Middelburg, J. J.; Pozzato, L.; Soetaert, K.; van der Plicht, J.; Reichart, G-J.; Herndl, G.

2013-01-01

Burial of organic matter (OM) plays an important role in marine sediments, linking the short-term, biological carbon cycle with the long-term, geological subsurface cycle. It is well established that low-oxygen conditions promote organic carbon burial in marine sediments. However, the mechanism

Toward a new data standard for combined marine biological and environmental datasets - expanding OBIS beyond species occurrences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daphnis De Pooter

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS is the world’s most comprehensive online, open-access database of marine species distributions. OBIS grows with millions of new species observations every year. Contributions come from a network of hundreds of institutions, projects and individuals with common goals: to build a scientific knowledge base that is open to the public for scientific discovery and exploration and to detect trends and changes that inform society as essential elements in conservation management and sustainable development. Until now, OBIS has focused solely on the collection of biogeographic data (the presence of marine species in space and time and operated with optimized data flows, quality control procedures and data standards specifically targeted to these data. Based on requirements from the growing OBIS community to manage datasets that combine biological, physical and chemical measurements, the OBIS-ENV-DATA pilot project was launched to develop a proposed standard and guidelines to make sure these combined datasets can stay together and are not, as is often the case, split and sent to different repositories. The proposal in this paper allows for the management of sampling methodology, animal tracking and telemetry data, biological measurements (e.g., body length, percent live cover, ... as well as environmental measurements such as nutrient concentrations, sediment characteristics or other abiotic parameters measured during sampling to characterize the environment from which biogeographic data was collected. The recommended practice builds on the Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A standard and on practices adopted by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF. It consists of a DwC Event Core in combination with a DwC Occurrence Extension and a proposed enhancement to the DwC MeasurementOrFact Extension. This new structure enables the linkage of measurements or facts - quantitative and qualitative properties - to

Anticancer Drugs from Marine Flora: An Overview

OpenAIRE

Sithranga Boopathy, N.; Kathiresan, K.

2010-01-01

Marine floras, such as bacteria, actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds, mangroves, and other halophytes are extremely important oceanic resources, constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. They are taxonomically diverse, largely productive, biologically active, and chemically unique offering a great scope for discovery of new anticancer drugs. The marine floras are rich in medicinally potent chemicals predominantly belonging to polyphenols and sulphated polysaccharide...

Pseudo-synesthesia through reading books with colored letters.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olympia Colizoli

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter 'a' always appears as light blue. In this study, we examine whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Non-synesthetes were given specially prepared colored books to read. A modified Stroop task was administered before and after reading. A perceptual crowding task was administered after reading. Reading one book (>49,000 words was sufficient to induce effects regarded as behavioral markers for synesthesia. The results of the Stroop tasks indicate that it is possible to learn letter-color associations through reading in color (F(1, 14 = 5.85, p = .030. Furthermore, Stroop effects correlated with subjective reports about experiencing letters in color (r(13 = 0.51, p = .05. The frequency of viewing letters is related to the level of association as seen by the difference in the Stroop effect size between upper- and lower-case letters (t(14 = 2.79, p = .014 and in a subgroup of participants whose Stroop effects increased as they continued to read in color. Readers did not show significant performance advantages on the crowding task compared to controls. Acknowledging the many differences between trainees and synesthetes, results suggest that it may be possible to acquire a subset of synesthetic behavioral traits in adulthood through training. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of acquiring letter-color associations through reading in color. Reading in color appears to be a promising avenue in which we may explore the differences and similarities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Additionally, reading in color is a plausible method for a long-term 'synesthetic' training program.

DNA barcodes for marine fungal identification and discovery

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Velmurugan, S.; Prasannakumar, C.; Manokaran, S.; AjithKumar, T.; Samkamaleson, A.; Palavesam, A.

, Parangipettai 608502, India bDivision of Biological Oceanography, National Institute of Oceanography, Panaji 403001, India cCentre for Marine Science and Technology, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Rajakamangalam 629502, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article... Mycological Society. All rights reserved. Introduction Fungi are an indispensable part of life in the biosphere as they have many functional roles in different ecosystems. Obligate marine fungi are those that grow and sporulate exclusively in a marine...

Marine Flora and Fauna of the Northeastern United States. Copepoda: Lernaeopodidae and Sphyriidae.

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, Ju-Shey

This report is part of a sub-series to aid biology students, biologists, biological oceanographers, and informed laymen in the identification and study of marine flora and fauna of the Northeastern United States. Contents of this report include: (1) Introduction; (2) Glossary; (3) Key to the marine lernaeopodoid copepods of the Northeastern United…

Letter of Map Revision

Data.gov (United States)

Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — The National Flood Hazard Layer (NFHL) data incorporates all Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map(DFIRM) databases published by FEMA, and any Letters Of Map Revision...

Particles and nuclei, letters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains nine separate letters on nonlocal chiral quark model with confinement, perturbation of finite-lattice spectral levels by nearby nuclear resonances, on the application of 'Z 0 + jet' events for determining the gluon distribution in a proton at the LHC, account of light velocity constancy in the Galilean problem on the free movement of a particle and its fall onto the ground, first results of crystal deflector investigations at the Nuclotron external beams, decay parameters of K mesons, measured at proton synchrotron U-70 using 'Hyperon' set-up and modern world data, prototype of atomic-emission spectrometer on the basis of one-electrode impulse RF discharge for analytical measurements, polarimeter for Nuclotron internal beam and primordial bubbles of colour superconducting quark matter

Patient information letters on nutrition: development and implementation.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Binsbergen, J.J. van; Drenthen, A.J.

2003-01-01

BACKGROUND: In 1998 the Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG) began developing patient information letters (PILs), based on the practice guidelines for family physicians (FPs) (NHG standards). Five nutritional guidance letters have since been developed with the Dutch Nutrition Center.

Color associations for days and letters across different languages

Science.gov (United States)

Rouw, Romke; Case, Laura; Gosavi, Radhika; Ramachandran, Vilayanur

2014-01-01

While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days). The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457) of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants. Non-random distributions of color choices were revealed; consistencies were found across the three language groups in color preferences for both days and letters. Interestingly, while the Hindi-speaking participants were presented with letter stimuli matched on phonology, their pattern of letter-to-color preferences still showed similarities with Dutch- and English-speaking participants. Furthermore, we found that that the color preferences corresponded between participants indicating to have conscious color experiences with letters or days (putative synesthetes) and participants who do not (non-synesthetes). We also explored possible mechanisms underlying the color preferences. There were a few specific associations, including red for “A,” red for “Monday,” and white for “Sunday.” We also explored more general mechanisms, such as overall color preferences as shown by Simner et al. (2005). While certainly not all variation can be explained or predicted, the results show that regularities are present in color-to-letter or color-to-day preferences in both putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes across languages. Both letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences were influenced by multiple factors. The findings support a notion of abstract concepts (such as days and letters) that are not represented in isolation, but are connected to perceptual representational systems. Interestingly, at least some of these connections to color representations are shared across different language/cultural groups. PMID

Color associations for days and letters across different languages

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romke eRouw

2014-05-01

Full Text Available While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days. The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457 of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants. Non-random distributions of color choices were revealed; consistencies were found across the three language groups in color preferences for both days and letters. Interestingly, while the Hindi-speaking participants were presented with letter stimuli matched on phonology, their pattern of letter-to-color preferences still showed similarities with Dutch- and English-speaking participants. Furthermore, we found that that the color preferences corresponded between participants indicating to have conscious color experiences with letters or days (putative synesthetes and participants who do not (non-synesthetes. We also explored possible mechanisms underlying the color preferences. There were a few specific associations, including red for A, red for Monday, and white for Sunday. We also explored more general mechanisms, such as overall color preferences shown by Simner et al (2005. While certainly not all variation can be explained or predicted, the results show that regularities are present in color-to-letter or color-to-day preferences in both putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes across languages. Both letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences were influenced by multiple factors. The findings support a notion of abstract concepts (such as days and letters that are not represented in isolation, but are connected to perceptual representational systems. Interestingly, at least some of these connections to color representations are shared across different language/cultural groups.

Biological effect produced by ionizing radiations on occupational workers in Carlos Andrade Marin Hospital

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arias Pullaguari, Ines Yolanda

2003-01-01

The objective of this study was to establish the biological effects on occupational workers. In this study, have made a bibliographic review of the changes on skin of 217 professionals; between 21 and 70 years radiologists, X-ray technicians, radioisotope workers, nurses and others, which were exposed to ionizing radiation, in the departments of Diagnosis and Treatment of the Hospital Carlos Andrade Marin of the Quito city. From this universe 133 workers were excluded of the analysis. From the totality of lesions produced on the skin; the depilation constituted 40.18%, hyper pigmentation 19.34%, hypo pigmentation 9 %, capillary fragility 13.39%, erythema 13.39%, alopecia 5.37%. From the totality of lesions produced in blood: the leukopenia constituted 20.23% between all workers. The percentage method was used for statical calculation. A bibliographic update is done and the most relevant clinical aspects are reviewed. (The author)

Michelangelo, a Tireless Letter Writer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adelin Charles Fiorato

2014-04-01

Full Text Available A titan of artistic creation, the sculptor-painter-architect Michelangelo was also a tireless letter writer. Five hundred and eighteen of his letters have reached us, stretching from his youth to the eve of his death, but we know that many others have been lost. Written in a kind of familiar Florentine and in a style of minimalist ‘realism’ – which does not prevent the presence of either impetuous polemical flights or pages of literary indulgence – these letters deal mainly with everyday subjects: day-by-day relationships, either endearing or resentful, with his relatives, financial or property matters and, above all, the marriage problems which concerned his nephew Leonardo, the sole heir of the family. But one also discovers in them the artist’s warm feelings of friendship and love, his poetic and aesthetic exchanges, his relationships, often conflictual, with his fellow-artists and patrons as well as his reflections on old age and death. All in all, these letters represent a documentary chronicle of a Florentine bourgeois family and the technical hassle of an entrepreneur’s activity. If, on the one hand, the Carteggio does not shed light either on Michelangelo’s conception of art or the way in which he realized his works, on the other it illustrates certain latent aspects of his projects, as well as of his personality, which was at the same time melancholy and aggressive, surprisingly whole and manifold. This luxuriant correspondence presents, so to speak, a ‘genetic’ interest, since it reveals the hidden face of the brilliant conceiver and creator, of the artist and entrepreneur struggling with the obstacles whose overcoming makes creation possible. 

Marine-Derived Bioactive Peptides with Pharmacological Activities- A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sana Rabiei

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Some nutritional factors are related to chronic disease. In response to increased concern regarding nutrition and health, the functional and nutraceuticals food markets have been developed. During food digestion, proteins are hydrolyzed and a wide range of peptides are formed. Some of these peptides have special structures which permit them to confer particular biological functions. Marine animals which involve more than half of the world biological varieties are a wide source of bioactive proteins and peptides. Marine derived peptides show various physiologic functions such as anti-oxidant, antimicrobial, anti-cancer, Angiotensin1-Converting Enzyme (ACE glucosidase and a-amylase inhibitory effects in vitro. Before application of marine bioactive peptides as nutraceuticals or functional food ingredients, their efficacy should be approved through pre-clinical animal and then clinical studies. The aim of this study was to review the studies conducted on the pharmacological effect of marine bioactive peptides in animal models and humans.

How To Write a Business Letter. Power of the Printed Word.

Science.gov (United States)

Forbes, Malcolm

Business letters should turn people on rather than turning them off. To write a good business letter, know what the goal is before starting to write, call the reader by name, tell what the letter is about in the first paragraph, refer to dates when answering letters, and write from the reader's point of view. Be positive, be nice, and be natural.…

DOCUMENTARY LETTER OF CREDIT IN THE REGULATION OF 600-PARIS PUBLICATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

VASILE NEMES

2011-04-01

Full Text Available In the year 2007 was adopted the Publication no. 600 of Paris regarding the Rules and the Uniform Practices for documentary letters of credit which replaced the Publication no. 500. Publication no. 600 (UCP 600 is applied to all the irrevocable documentary letters of credit when the parties make express reference to these Rules. The Publication no. 600 includes uniform rules, international practices and standards of irrevocable documentary letters of credit. The new Publication has brought a number of changes on the issues regarding the performance of the letters of credit, both in the relationship with the nonbanking institutions participants and in the relationship between the credit institutions participating in the performance of the letter of credit. This study, without being exhaustive, aims to capture the main aspects of novelty brought by the publication no. 600 and their legal approach to the new perspective of the international trade relations. It has in view, in particular, the irrevocable character of the letter of credit, the elaboration method and procedure of the letter of credit, the participants to the unfolding of the specific relationship of the letter of credit and the main duties of the involved credit institutions.

Return to sender: Constantijn Huygens as a man of letters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gosseye, L.; Blom, F.; Leerintveld, A.

2013-01-01

Return to Sender takes as its starting point Constantijn Huygens’ letters and shows us the author in his different guises: intimus of René Descartes, translator of John Donne, collector of art, writer of flirtatious love letters and the author of a long consolatory letter-poem for an ailing friend

Evidence for magnocellular involvement in the identification of flanked letters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Omtzigt, D.; Hendriks, A.W.C.J.; Kolk, H.H.J.

2002-01-01

Little is known about the role of the magno system in reading. One important hypothesis is that this system is involved in the allocation of attention. We reasoned that the presentation of a single letter automatically draws attention to this letter, whereas in the case of a flanked letter, an

Letter to Carl Niigeli

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

We reproduce an english translation of one of these letters below, in which ... contemporary scientific knowledge, and that under the circumstances ... generation it became necessary to limit the numbers because of lack of space, so that, in.

Letters of intent

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1993-01-01

Thursday 5 November was another major milestone en route to the establishment of the experimental programme for CERN's LHC protonproton collider to be built in the 27- kilometre LEP tunnel. After initial discussions of 'Expressions of Interest' at the specially arranged meeting at Evian-les-Bains, France, earlier this year (May, page 1), three Letters of Intent have emerged, together involving nearly 2000 physicists from research institutes all over the world. As well as these researchers listed on the documents, the plans in fact involve many additional technical specialists who work behind the scenes. It was a historic moment as these three detector proposals were aired at the first open meeting of the new LHC Experiments Committee. CERN's main auditorium and a large overflow room receiving relayed video pictures were both packed. From these three schemes - ATLAS, CMS and L3P - and the first reactions to their letters of intent, eventually two projects will emerge, for which full technical proposals will be prepared, including construction plans and credible costings

Basic concepts in marine biology and ecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Small, L.F.

1997-01-01

An introduction to the marine biota, and how the biota interact with their physico-chemical environment, is given in this chapter. In particular, food web and trophic level relationships are discussed, from phytopIankton production through consumer organisms and the ''microbial loop''. The effects of organism size and functional relationships within the food web paradigm are emphasized, rather than taxonomic relationships. Examples initially given in terms of carbon, nitrogen, or energy transfer through food webs are placed in context with radionuclide transfer and the concept of biomagnification. (author)

Faunistics (marine animals)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2009-01-01

These PowerPoint files are compiled from various sources: Internet, field guides, scientific monographs, textbooks, my own photos and drawings, etc. I have no copyright or permission to use most of the illustrations. The file is therefore only intended for internal use within the Marine Biology...... for identification have only been included for about a quarter of the species only, because of lack of time).     These files contain information of about 570 species of marine invertebrates found in the waters around Denmark. They should be the most common species. Which species should be selected for files like......) with the programme PowerPoint X for Mac® Service Release 1.     Comments and suggestions are welcome from students and colleagues. HD&P = Køie, Kristiansen & Weitemeyer, Havets dyr og planter. DN = Danmarks Natur, vol. 3, Havet     Tomas Cedhagen, Department of Marine Ecology, University of Aarhus, Finlandsgade 14...

Pseudo-synesthesia through reading books with colored letters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Colizoli, O.; Murre, J.M.J.; Rouw, R.

2012-01-01

Background Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter ‘a’ always appears as light blue). In this study, we examine whether traits

Letters on nuclear controversy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kafka, P.; Maier-Leibnitz, H.

1982-01-01

Heinz Maier-Leibnitz a well-known scientist, nuclear physicist, for 50 years, who publicily supported the idea not to overrate the dangers of peaceful utilization of nuclear energy, has grown tired of talking only to colleagues. He invites a junior fellow physicist, who held engaged speeches against the nuclear power plant Zwentendorf, to an exchange of thoughts. Peter Kafka, an astro-physicist studied the self organisation of the universe from the big bang to the economic crisis and encountered the question of which conditions have to be fulfilled to prevent progress from becoming caranogenous. He became one of the spokesmen of 'political ecology' and called for resistance again large-scale technological use of scientific knowledge. He was enthusiastic about the idea of an exchange of letters, because he - just like his partner - believes in gaining knowledge by discussion. The variety of subjects is sketched briefly in form of three lectures. In the letters both scientists discuss intensly about: - Freedom of science and responsibility of science. - Decisions on energy questions under time-pressure. - Risks of nuclear plants. - Large scale technology and large-scale research or decentralization. - Energy utilization and energy waste. - Nuclear energy and alternatives. - Sense and nonsense of detailed future planning. In the end no one has convinced the other. The reader however finds a lot of new incentives in the letters - printed in unabridged form - a lot of new and significant arguments for a discussion which has only just started. (orig.) [de

Opportunities in Biological Sciences; [VGM Career Horizons Series].

Science.gov (United States)

Winter, Charles A.

This book provides job descriptions and discusses career opportunities in various fields of the biological sciences. These fields include: (1) biotechnology, genetics, biomedical engineering, microbiology, mycology, systematic biology, marine and aquatic biology, botany, plant physiology, plant pathology, ecology, and wildlife biology; (2) the…

Transposed-letter priming of prelexical orthographic representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

2009-01-01

A prime generated by transposing two internal letters (e.g., jugde) produces strong priming of the original word (judge). In lexical decision, this transposed-letter (TL) priming effect is generally weak or absent for nonword targets; thus, it is unclear whether the origin of this effect is lexical or prelexical. The authors describe the Bayesian Reader theory of masked priming (D. Norris & S. Kinoshita, 2008), which explains why nonwords do not show priming in lexical decision but why they do in the cross-case same-different task. This analysis is followed by 3 experiments that show that priming in this task is not based on low-level perceptual similarity between the prime and target, or on phonology, to make the case that priming is based on prelexical orthographic representation. The authors then use this task to demonstrate equivalent TL priming effects for nonwords and words. The results are interpreted as the first reliable evidence based on the masked priming procedure that letter position is not coded absolutely within the prelexical, orthographic representation. The implications of the results for current letter position coding schemes are discussed.

Marine bioacoustics and technology: The new world of marine acoustic ecology

Science.gov (United States)

Hastings, Mardi C.; Au, Whitlow W. L.

2012-11-01

Marine animals use sound for communication, navigation, predator avoidance, and prey detection. Thus the rise in acoustic energy associated with increasing human activity in the ocean has potential to impact the lives of marine animals. Thirty years ago marine bioacoustics primarily focused on evaluating effects of human-generated sound on hearing and behavior by testing captive animals and visually observing wild animals. Since that time rapidly changing electronic and computing technologies have yielded three tools that revolutionized how bioacousticians study marine animals. These tools are (1) portable systems for measuring electrophysiological auditory evoked potentials, (2) miniaturized tags equipped with positioning sensors and acoustic recording devices for continuous short-term acoustical observation rather than intermittent visual observation, and (3) passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) systems for remote long-term acoustic observations at specific locations. The beauty of these breakthroughs is their direct applicability to wild animals in natural habitats rather than only to animals held in captivity. Hearing capabilities of many wild species including polar bears, beaked whales, and reef fishes have now been assessed by measuring their auditory evoked potentials. Miniaturized acoustic tags temporarily attached to an animal to record its movements and acoustic environment have revealed the acoustic foraging behavior of sperm and beaked whales. Now tags are being adapted to fishes in effort to understand their behavior in the presence of noise. Moving and static PAM systems automatically detect and characterize biological and physical features of an ocean area without adding any acoustic energy to the environment. PAM is becoming a powerful technique for understanding and managing marine habitats. This paper will review the influence of these transformative tools on the knowledge base of marine bioacoustics and elucidation of relationships between marine

International laboratory of marine radioactivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1981-08-01

The director's report presents the overall aims and objectives of the laboratory, and some of the significant findings to date. Among these is the different behaviour in oceans of Pu and Am. Thus, fallout Pu, in contrast to Am, tends to remain in the soluble form. The vertical downward transport of Am is much quicker than for Pu. Since 1980, uptake and depuration studies of sup(95m)Tc have been carried out on key marine species. Marine environmental behaviour of Tc is being evaluated carefully in view of its being a significant constituent of nuclear wastes. Growing demands are being made on the laboratory for providing intercalibration and instrument maintenance services, and for providing training for scientists from developing countries. The body of the report is divided into 5 sections dealing with marine biology, marine chemistry, marine geochemistry/sedimentation, environmental studies, and engineering services, respectively. Appendices list laboratory staff, publications by staff members, papers and reports presented at meetings or conferences, consultants to the laboratory from 1967-1980, fellowships, trainees and membership of committees, task forces and working groups

Biological responses of two marine organisms of ecological relevance to on-going ocean acidification and global warming.

Science.gov (United States)

Gomiero, A; Bellerby, R G J; Manca Zeichen, M; Babbini, L; Viarengo, A

2018-05-01

Recently, there has been a growing concern that climate change may rapidly and extensively alter global ecosystems with unknown consequences for terrestrial and aquatic life. While considerable emphasis has been placed on terrestrial ecology consequences, aquatic environments have received relatively little attention. Limited knowledge is available on the biological effects of increments of seawater temperature and pH decrements on key ecological species, i.e., primary producers and/or organisms representative of the basis of the trophic web. In the present study, we addressed the biological effects of global warming and ocean acidification on two model organisms, the microbenthic marine ciliate Euplotes crassus and the green alga Dunaliella tertiocleta using a suite of high level ecological endpoint tests and sub-lethal stress measures. Organisms were exposed to combinations of pH and temperature (TR1: 7.9 [pH], 25.5 °C and TR2: 7.8 [pH], 27,0 °C) simulating two possible environmental scenarios predicted to occur in the habitats of the selected species before the end of this century. The outcomes of the present study showed that the tested scenarios did not induce a significant increment of mortality on protozoa. Under the most severe exposure conditions, sub-lethal stress indices show that pH homeostatic mechanisms have energetic costs that divert energy from essential cellular processes and functions. The marine protozoan exhibited significant impairment of the lysosomal compartment and early signs of oxidative stress under these conditions. Similarly, significant impairment of photosynthetic efficiency and an increment in lipid peroxidation were observed in the autotroph model organism held under the most extreme exposure condition tested. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Insights from developmental and acquired letter position dyslexia on morphological decomposition in reading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naama eFriedmann

2015-07-01

Full Text Available We explored morphological decomposition in reading, the locus in the reading process in which it takes place and its nature, comparing different types of morphemes. We assessed these questions through the analysis of letter position errors in readers with letter position dyslexia(LPD. LPD is a selective impairment to letter position encoding in the early stage of word reading, which results in letter migrations (cloud-could. We used the fact that migrations in LPD occur mainly in word-interior letters, whereas exterior letters rarely migrate.The rationale was that if morphological decomposition occurs prior to letter position encoding and strips off affixes, word-interior letters adjacent to an affix (signs-signs would become exterior following affix-stripping and hence exhibit fewer migrations.We tested 11 Hebrew readers with developmental LPD and 1 with acquired LPD in 6 experiments of reading aloud, lexical decision, and comprehension, at the single word and sentence levels. We examined migrations next to inflectional,derivational,or bound function morphemes compared with exterior letters.Root letters adjacent to inflectional and derivational morphemes were treated like middle letters, and migrated frequently, whereas root letters adjacent to bound function morphemes patterned with exterior letters, and almost never migrated. Given that LPD is a pre-lexical deficit, these results indicate that morphological decomposition takes place in an early, pre-lexical stage. Morphologically complex nonwords showed the same pattern, indicating that this decomposition is structurally, rather than lexically, driven.We suggest that letter position encoding takes place before morphological analysis, but in some cases, as with bound function morphemes, the complex word is re-analyzed as two separate words. In this reanalysis, letter positions in each constituent word are encoded separately,and hence the exterior letters of the root are treated as exterior and

Bio screening of marine organisms from the coasts of Pakistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khan, A.M.; Ameen, M.; Naz, S.; Noureen, S.

2012-01-01

This review article covers the literature on bio screening of crude extracts, fractions and pure compounds isolated from various marine organisms including seaweeds, mangroves, invertebrates and bacteria collected from the coasts of Karachi (Pakistan) published during the period 1984-2010. Recent studies showed that a number of novel compounds have been isolated from marine organisms possessing interesting biological activities. Various research groups from Pakistan have conducted the extensive bioassay-guided investigation of chemical constituents of marine organisms which showed anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, nematicidal, anti-inflammatory, anti-leishmanial, anti-coagulation, cytotoxicity, enzyme inhibition, inhibition of edema, anti-cancer, brine shrimp lethality, Lemna minor bioassay, phyto toxicity, spasmolytic, analgesic and hypolipidaemic activities. More than 70 marine organisms have been reported with reference to their biological studies and about 100 pure compounds were isolated from these organisms but only 18 compounds and 5 synthetic analogues of compound 1 were found active. This review article is particularly focused only on the reported bioactive compounds and crude extracts of marine organisms. (author)

7 CFR 1737.80 - Description of characteristics letter.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... the amount of the proposed loan, its purposes, rate of interest, loan security requirements, and other... SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE PRE-LOAN POLICIES AND PROCEDURES COMMON TO INSURED AND GUARANTEED TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOANS Characteristics Letter § 1737.80 Description of characteristics letter. (a) After all of the...

Pseudo-Synesthesia through Reading Books with Colored Letters

Science.gov (United States)

Colizoli, Olympia; Murre, Jaap M. J.; Rouw, Romke

2012-01-01

Background Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter ‘a’ always appears as light blue). In this study, we examine whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color. Methodology/Principal Findings Non-synesthetes were given specially prepared colored books to read. A modified Stroop task was administered before and after reading. A perceptual crowding task was administered after reading. Reading one book (>49,000 words) was sufficient to induce effects regarded as behavioral markers for synesthesia. The results of the Stroop tasks indicate that it is possible to learn letter-color associations through reading in color (F(1, 14) = 5.85, p = .030). Furthermore, Stroop effects correlated with subjective reports about experiencing letters in color (r(13) = 0.51, p = .05). The frequency of viewing letters is related to the level of association as seen by the difference in the Stroop effect size between upper- and lower-case letters (t(14) = 2.79, p = .014) and in a subgroup of participants whose Stroop effects increased as they continued to read in color. Readers did not show significant performance advantages on the crowding task compared to controls. Acknowledging the many differences between trainees and synesthetes, results suggest that it may be possible to acquire a subset of synesthetic behavioral traits in adulthood through training. Conclusion/Significance To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of acquiring letter-color associations through reading in color. Reading in color appears to be a promising avenue in which we may explore the differences and similarities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Additionally, reading in color is a plausible method for a long-term ‘synesthetic’ training program. PMID

30 CFR 1.3 - Use of letters and acronym MSHA.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Use of letters and acronym MSHA. 1.3 Section 1.3 Mineral Resources MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR OFFICIAL EMBLEM AND...; ESTABLISHMENT AND USE OF OFFICIAL EMBLEM § 1.3 Use of letters and acronym MSHA. The letters and acronym MSHA may...

Anonymous letters? DNA and fingerprints technologies combined to solve a case.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbaro, A; Cormaci, P; Teatino, A; La Marca, A; Barbaro, A

2004-12-02

Two brothers, living in two different cities, received two different anonymous letters. We performed latent prints development and DNA research on the letters and also on a glass used by a cousin suspected to be the letters' sender.

Letters of Marcus Antonius Kappus from colonial America IV

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Janez Stanonik

1989-12-01

Full Text Available The letter of Marcus Antonius Kappus which we publish in our present the fourth - continuation of his letters from Colonial America, is not preserved - as the first three letters are - in a manuscript. Instead we find it published in the famous contemporary collection of Jesuitic letters which appeared from 1728 till 1758 under the editorship of Joseph Stöcklein and his successors in Augsburg and Graz under the title Der neue Welt-Bott mit Allerhand Nachrichten derer Missionariorum Soc. Jesu. Kappus' letter can be found in vol. I, part II, p. 86-88 under the number 56. It has never since 1728 been reprinted in German, neither has it ever been published in an English translation. Our reprint of the German text is justified because Stöcklein's collection is generally not available even in the largest libraries, especially in America. An English translation can be useful because of the difficulties the old form of its German with its localisms can cause to its readers.

Transit and absorption of nuclear industry derivatives by marine biota

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mayr, L.; Moraes, R.; Lopes, M.A.; Vicente, C.; Mauro, J.N.

1988-01-01

A broard research program on radionuclides became necessary due to the construction of the Nuclear Power Plant at Angra dos Reis. As part of this program the research developped by the Marine Biology Departament, UFRJ, aimed at estimating the radiation doses to wich the population of the region might be exposed and to determine biological indicators to radioactive contamination. Up to the present moment, the bioacumulation factors (BFs) of 60 Co, 137 Cs and 131 I by ''clam'' (Anomalocardia brasiliana) and the biological half-life of cobalt and cesium in this animal were determined, as well as the B.F. of 85 Sr by ''snail'' (Strombus pugilis) and by ''barnacle'' (Megabalanus tintinnabulum). The remobilization of 60 Co by microbiological activity in marine sediment was also studied. These studies were made using the standard methodology for bioaccumulation and elimination in closed water systems. The results showed an important microbiological activity in the remobilization of elements in the sediment. Due to the low bioaccumulation factors obtained the studied organisms were not considered ideal biological indicators for radioactive pollution. However, their importance as edible animals in the Angra dos Reis region recommends their radiometry for routine radiological monitoring. Studies on other organisms and/or radionuclides are now in progress at the Marine Biology Departament (UFRJ). (author) [pt

Name-letter branding under scrutiny: real products, new algorithms, and the probability of buying.

Science.gov (United States)

Stieger, Stefan

2010-06-01

People like letters matching their own first and last name initials more than nonname letters. This name-letter effect has also been found for brands, i.e., people like brands resembling their own name letters (initial or first three). This has been termed name-letter branding effect. In the present study of 199 participants, ages 12 to 79 years, this name-letter branding effect was found for a modified design (1) using real products, (2) concentrating on product names rather than brand names, (3) using five different products for each letter of the Roman alphabet, (4) asking for the buying probability, and (5) using recently introduced algorithms, controlling for individual response tendencies (i.e., liking all letters more or less) and general normative popularity of particular letters (i.e., some letters are generally preferred more than other letters).

Open Letter to Religious Leaders about Sex Education

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American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2011

2011-01-01

The "Open Letter to Religious Leaders about Sex Education" reinforces scriptural and theological commitments to truth-telling in calling for "full and honest education about sexual and reproductive health." This "Open Letter" was published in 2002, at about the midpoint of a decade-long federal government commitment to…

Copepods use chemical trails to find sinking marine snow aggregates

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lombard, Fabien; Koski, Marja; Kiørboe, Thomas

2013-01-01

Copepods are major consumers of sinking marine particles and hence reduce the efficiency of the biological carbon pump. Their high abundance on marine snow suggests that they can detect sinking particles remotely. By means of laboratory observations, we show that the copepod Temora longicornis ca...

Joint Program on Molecular Biology of Marine Organisms

Science.gov (United States)

1992-08-20

and lateral flagella formation in a marine vibrio (Belas and Colwell, 1982). Upon contact with a surface, the polar flagella of Vibrio ... parahemolyticus ceased to function. Shortl’ thereafter, lateral flagella formed around the cells, apparently mediating the "irreversible" attachment process. Pilus...Colwell. 1982. Adsorption kinetics of 18 Slaterally and polarly flagellated Vibrio . J. Bacteriol. 151:1568-1580. S-- Brown, C.M., D.C. Ellwood, and

Analyzing International Letters in a Business Communication Class.

Science.gov (United States)

Devet, Bonnie

1998-01-01

Shows how students can use persuasive principles of communication (format and writer's purpose) and of classical rhetoric (organization, ethos, pathos, logos, and style) to improve their ability to analyze business letters. Shows how applying these principles to the analysis of business letters from other countries helps students write better and…

The effects of marine carbohydrates and glycosylated compounds on human health.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Hee-Kyoung; Seo, Chang Ho; Park, Yoonkyung

2015-03-16

Marine organisms have been recognized as a valuable source of bioactive compounds with industrial and nutraceutical potential. Recently, marine-derived carbohydrates, including polysaccharides and low molecular weight glycosylated oligosaccharides, have attracted much attention because of their numerous health benefits. Moreover, several studies have reported that marine carbohydrates exhibit various biological activities, including antioxidant, anti-infection, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-diabetic effects. The present review discusses the potential industrial applications of bioactive marine carbohydrates for health maintenance and disease prevention. Furthermore, the use of marine carbohydrates in food, cosmetics, agriculture, and environmental protection is discussed.

Immense essence of excellence: marine microbial bioactive compounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Bhatnagar, Ira; Kim, Se-Kwon

2010-10-15

Oceans have borne most of the biological activities on our planet. A number of biologically active compounds with varying degrees of action, such as anti-tumor, anti-cancer, anti-microtubule, anti-proliferative, cytotoxic, photo protective, as well as antibiotic and antifouling properties, have been isolated to date from marine sources. The marine environment also represents a largely unexplored source for isolation of new microbes (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, microalgae-cyanobacteria and diatoms) that are potent producers of bioactive secondary metabolites. Extensive research has been done to unveil the bioactive potential of marine microbes (free living and symbiotic) and the results are amazingly diverse and productive. Some of these bioactive secondary metabolites of microbial origin with strong antibacterial and antifungal activities are being intensely used as antibiotics and may be effective against infectious diseases such as HIV, conditions of multiple bacterial infections (penicillin, cephalosporines, streptomycin, and vancomycin) or neuropsychiatric sequelae. Research is also being conducted on the general aspects of biophysical and biochemical properties, chemical structures and biotechnological applications of the bioactive substances derived from marine microorganisms, and their potential use as cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals. This review is an attempt to consolidate the latest studies and critical research in this field, and to showcase the immense competence of marine microbial flora as bioactive metabolite producers. In addition, the present review addresses some effective and novel approaches of procuring marine microbial compounds utilizing the latest screening strategies of drug discovery.

Immense Essence of Excellence: Marine Microbial Bioactive Compounds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ira Bhatnagar

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Oceans have borne most of the biological activities on our planet. A number of biologically active compounds with varying degrees of action, such as anti-tumor, anti-cancer, anti-microtubule, anti-proliferative, cytotoxic, photo protective, as well as antibiotic and antifouling properties, have been isolated to date from marine sources. The marine environment also represents a largely unexplored source for isolation of new microbes (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, microalgae-cyanobacteria and diatoms that are potent producers of bioactive secondary metabolites. Extensive research has been done to unveil the bioactive potential of marine microbes (free living and symbiotic and the results are amazingly diverse and productive. Some of these bioactive secondary metabolites of microbial origin with strong antibacterial and antifungal activities are being intensely used as antibiotics and may be effective against infectious diseases such as HIV, conditions of multiple bacterial infections (penicillin, cephalosporines, streptomycin, and vancomycin or neuropsychiatric sequelae. Research is also being conducted on the general aspects of biophysical and biochemical properties, chemical structures and biotechnological applications of the bioactive substances derived from marine microorganisms, and their potential use as cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals. This review is an attempt to consolidate the latest studies and critical research in this field, and to showcase the immense competence of marine microbial flora as bioactive metabolite producers. In addition, the present review addresses some effective and novel approaches of procuring marine microbial compounds utilizing the latest screening strategies of drug discovery.

The Common Marine Isopod Crustacea of Puerto Rico A handbook for marine biologists

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Menzies, Robert J.; Glynn, Peter W.

1968-01-01

The collecting sites from which isopods were obtained are located around the island (see p. 84). Concentrated collecting at several depths was done in the San Juan area at Boca de Cangrejos and at La Parguera where the Institute of Marine Biology is located. Many collections were made by washing a

The distributed neural system for top-down letter processing: an fMRI study

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jiangang; Feng, Lu; Li, Ling; Tian, Jie

2011-03-01

This fMRI study used Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) to investigate top-down letter processing with an illusory letter detection task. After an initial training that became increasingly difficult, participant was instructed to detect a letter from pure noise images where there was actually no letter. Such experimental paradigm allowed for isolating top-down components of letter processing and minimizing the influence of bottom-up perceptual input. A distributed cortical network of top-down letter processing was identified by analyzing the functional connectivity patterns of letter-preferential area (LA) within the left fusiform gyrus. Such network extends from the visual cortex to high level cognitive cortexes, including the left middle frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, left superior parietal gyrus, bilateral precuneus, and left inferior occipital gyrus. These findings suggest that top-down letter processing contains not only regions for processing of letter phonology and appearance, but also those involved in internal information generation and maintenance, and attention and memory processing.

Professional Citation Practices in Child Maltreatment Forensic Letters

Science.gov (United States)

Schryer, Catherine F.; Bell, Stephanie; Mian, Marcellina; Spafford, Marlee M.; Lingard, Lorelei

2011-01-01

Using rhetorical genre theory and research on reported speech, this study investigates the citation practices in 81 forensic letters written by paediatricians and nurse practitioners that provide their opinion for the courts as to whether a child has experienced maltreatment. These letters exist in a complex social situation where a lack of…

The developing framework of marine ecotoxicology: Pollutants as a variable in marine ecosystems?

Science.gov (United States)

Luoma, Samuel N.

1996-01-01

Marine ecosystems include a subset in which at least some interrelated geochemical, biochemical, physiological, population and community characteristics are changed by pollutants. Moderate contamination is relatively widespread in coastal and estuarine ecosystems, so the subset of ecosystems with at least some processes affected could be relatively large. Pollutant influences have changed and will probably continue to change on time scales of decades. Biological exposures and dose in such ecosystems are species-specific and determined by how the species is exposed to different environmental media and the geochemistry of individual pollutants within those media. Bioaccumulation models offer significant promise for interpreting such exposures. Biological responses to pollutants need to be more directly linked to exposure and dose. At the level of the individual this might be improved by better understanding relationships between tissue concentrations of pollutants and responses to pollutants. Multi-discipline field and laboratory studies combined with advanced understanding of some basic processes have reduced the ambiguities in interpreting a few physiological/organismic responses to pollutants in nature. Recognition of pollutant-induced patterns in population responses could lead to similar advances. A rational framework for ecotoxicology is developing, but its further advance is dependent upon better integration of ecotoxicology with basic marine ecology and biology.

Readability of "Dear Patient" device advisory notification letters created by a device manufacturer.

Science.gov (United States)

Mueller, Luke A; Sharma, Arjun; Ottenberg, Abigale L; Mueller, Paul S

2013-04-01

In 2006, the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) recommended that cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) manufacturers use advisory notification letters to communicate with affected patients. To evaluate the readability of the HRS sample "patient device advisory notification" letter and those created by 1 CIED manufacturer. The HRS sample letter and 25 Boston Scientific Corporation letters dated from 2005 through 2011 were evaluated by using 6 readability tests. Readability (Flesch-Kincaid score) of the HRS sample letter was grade level 12.5, and median readability of the device manufacturer letters was grade level 12.8 (range 10.8-18.9). Similar results were obtained by using other readability scales. No letters had readability scores at the National Work Group on Literacy and Health's recommended reading level-fifth grade; the letters' readability exceeded this recommended level by an average of 7.7 grades (95% confidence interval 6.9-8.5; Preadability scores at the average reading level of US adults-eighth grade; the letters' readability exceeded this level by an average of 4.7 grades (95% confidence interval 3.9-5.5; Preadability of the HRS sample letter and those created by a CIED manufacturer significantly exceeded the recommended and average US adults' reading skill levels. Such letters are unlikely to be informative to many patients. CIED manufacturers should ensure that advisory letters are comprehensible to most affected patients. Copyright © 2013 Heart Rhythm Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Visual and Artistic Functions of Letters Khaghani’s Poetry

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Dr. M. Zolfaghari

Full Text Available The intensity of emotion and vibration of meaning in the poet's mind causes him to go beyond the ordinary language and through metaphors, similes and linguistic preparation he conveys intellectual and emotional meanings. He has a sharp eye and a sensitive spirit and creative temprement and by inventing new images shows the creativity and imagination in various arenas and attempts in the way of literary strength and creating personal style and this point more than anything else must be done by presenting images and newness. Perhaps in the sixth century, and especially in Azerbaijani school, more than other periods, poets have been looking for creating innovative style in eloquence. Their major attempts were mainly in imaging, it was a wide field that they have competed and it is natural that in this illustration the alphabet letters would be very helpful. Khaghani poetry as one of the greatest poets of this school has the perfect poetrical book of painting and meaning, and delicated pattern in new and different scientific, cultural and religious paintings and letters are a broad range of elements that put a new field in front of the poet and he is aware of the potential features of the letters and also the new images and the artistic creativity.This paper shows descriptive - analytical study of various aspects of Khaghani’s poetry and frequency of letters in the alphabet, authentic images based on alphabet, taken at different pseudo relevance of poetry in the context of multiple semantic and literal characters, making figures of speech based on literary characters, images and characters and the sense of connection . . . which has been shown in his poetry.Letter has double and even multiple uses in Khaghani poetic works (divan and more than the construction of words which is the real and common sense that is used as an artistic. There is a world in the heart of every letter, word and morpheme lies in the poet's point of view is the last and

Marine snow formation in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Passow, U; Ziervogel, K; Asper, V; Diercks, A

2012-01-01

The large marine snow formation event observed in oil-contaminated surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) after the Deepwater Horizon accident possibly played a key role in the fate of the surface oil. We characterized the unusually large and mucus-rich marine snow that formed and conducted roller table experiments to investigate their formation mechanisms. Once marine snow lost its buoyancy, its sinking velocity, porosity and excess density were then similar to those of diatom or miscellaneous aggregates. The hydrated density of the component particles of the marine snow from the GoM was remarkably variable, suggesting a wide variety of component types. Our experiments suggest that the marine snow appearing at the surface after the oil spill was formed through the interaction of three mechanisms: (1) production of mucous webs through the activities of bacterial oil-degraders associated with the floating oil layer; (2) production of oily particulate matter through interactions of oil components with suspended matter and their coagulation; and (3) coagulation of phytoplankton with oil droplets incorporated into aggregates. Marine snow formed in some, but not all, experiments with water from the subsurface plume of dissolved hydrocarbons, emphasizing the complexity of the conditions leading to the formation of marine snow in oil-contaminated seawater at depth. (letter)

Letter Frequency Analysis of Lithuanian and Other Languages Using the Latin Alphabet

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Gintautas Grigas

2015-12-01

Full Text Available It is important to evaluate specificities of alphabets, particularly the letter frequencies while designing keyboards, analyzing texts, designing games based on alphabets, and doing some text mining. In order to adequately compare lettter frequences of Lithuanian language to other languages in the Internet space, Wikipedia source was selected which content is common to different languages. The method of letter frequency jumps is used. The main attention is paid to the analysis of letter frequencies at the boundary between native letters and foreign letters used in Lithuanian and other languages.

Environmental Impacts—Marine Ecosystems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brander, Keith; Ottersen, Geir; Bakker, J.P.

2016-01-01

This chapter presents a review of what is known about the impacts of climate change on the biota (plankton, benthos, fish, seabirds and marine mammals) of the North Sea. Examples show how the changing North Sea environment is affecting biological processes and organisation at all scales, including...... the physiology, reproduction, growth, survival, behaviour and transport of individuals; the distribution, dynamics and evolution of populations; and the trophic structure and coupling of ecosystems. These complex responses can be detected because there are detailed long-term biological and environmental records...

Letter-By-Letter Reading: Natural Recovery and Response to Treatment

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Pélagie M. Beeson

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The present investigation provides a longitudinal study of an individual (RB with acquired alexia following left posterior cerebral artery stroke. At initial testing, RB exhibited acquired alexia characterized by letter-by-letter (LBL reading, mild anomic aphasia, and acquired agraphia. Repeated measures of reading accuracy and rate were collected for single words and text over the course of one year, along with probes of naming and spelling abilities. Improvements associated with natural recovery (i.e., without treatment were documented up to the fourth month post onset, when text reading appeared to be relatively stable. Multiple oral reading (MOR treatment was initiated at 22 weeks post-stroke, and additional improvements in reading rate and accuracy for text were documented that were greater than those expected on the basis of spontaneous recovery alone. Over the course of one year, reading reaction times for single words improved, and the word-length effect that is the hallmark of LBL reading diminished. RB's response to treatment supports the therapeutic value of MOR treatment to in LBL readers. His residual impairment of reading and spelling one-year post stroke raised the question as to whether further progress was impeded by degraded orthographic knowledge.

Standardized Letter of Recommendation for Otolaryngology Residency Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Perkins, Jonathan N.; Liang, Conan; McFann, Kim; Abaza, Mona M.; Streubel, Sven-Olrik; Prager, Jeremy D.

2013-01-01

Objectives/Hypothesis Develop a standardized letter of recommendation (SLOR) for otolaryngology residency application that investigates the qualities desired in residents and letter writer’s experience. Compare this SLOR to narrative letters of recommendation (NLOR). Study Design Prospective SLOR/NLOR Comparison. Methods The SLOR was sent to a NLOR writer for each applicant. The applicant’s NLOR/SLOR pair was blinded and ranked in seven categories by three reviewers. Inter-rater reliability and NLOR/SLOR rankings were compared. Means of cumulative NLOR and SLOR scores were compared to our departmental rank list. Results Thirty-one SLORs (66%) were collected. The SLORs had higher inter-rater reliability for applicant’s qualifications for otolaryngology, global assessment, summary statement, and overall letter ranking. Writer’s background, comparison to contemporaries/predecessors, and letter review ease had higher inter-rater reliability on the NLORs. Mean SLOR rankings were higher for writer’s background (p=0.0007), comparison of applicant to contemporaries/predecessors (p=0.0031), and letter review ease (p<0.0001). Mean SLOR writing time was 4.17±2.18 minutes. Mean ranking time was significantly lower (p<0.0001) for the SLORs (39.24±23.45 seconds) compared to the NLORs (70.95±40.14 seconds). Means of cumulative SLOR scores correlated with our rank list (p=0.004), whereas means of cumulative NLOR scores did not (p=0.18). Means of cumulative NLOR and SLOR scores did not correlate (p=0.26). Conclusions SLORs require little writing time, save reviewing time, and are easier to review compared to NLORs. Our SLOR had higher inter-rater reliability in 4 of 7 categories and was correlated with our rank list. This tool conveys standardized information in an efficient manner. PMID:23172646

Biological Carbon Dioxide Assimilation Process Using Marine Phytoplankton Tetraselmis suecica and Bivalve Perna viridis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sirichai Dharmvanij

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The Biological CO2 assimilation process using marine phytoplankton and marine bivalve was evaluated by carbon assimilation of the green mussel Perna viridis fed with Tetraselmis suecica under laboratory condition. Incorporation of carbon dioxide into phytoplankton biomass was performed through aeration. The experiment consisted of three treatments i.e. mussels without feeding (Control, mussels fed with T. suecica cultured with air (Treatment 1: T-Air, and mussels fed with T. suecica cultured with 1.5% CO2 in air (Treatment 2: T-CO2. The results showed that growth of mussels in T-Air and T-CO2 was 22.4 ± 4.0 mg/individual/day and 28.9 ± 12.3 mg/individual/day, respectively, which was significantly higher than control (mussels without feeding. Growth of mussels in T-Air was significantly lower than in T-CO2. Carbon content in shell (15.59 ± 0.57 % D.W. and meat (38.28 ± 1.72 % D.W. of mussels fed with aerated T. suecica (T-Air was significantly higher than that found in mussels fed with 1.5% CO2 T. suecica (14.2 ± 0.47 and 36.61± 0.43 % D.W. in shell and in meat, respectively (p≤0.05. With T-Air, 1.95±0.27 and 9.36±1.24% of carbon from T. suecica cells was assimilated into shell and meat of the mussel, respectively, while in T-CO2 , carbon assimilation from T. suecica cells in shell and meat was 2.19±0.55 and 11.22±2.76% respectively.

Letters to a Young Baller: Exploring Epistolary Criticism

Science.gov (United States)

Chawansky, Megan

2010-01-01

This article explores the possibilities of epistolary criticism within the realm of sport studies and aspires to encourage scholars to consider the use of non-traditional sport memorabilia and source materials when telling emotive stories about sport and sport practices. The use of letters and the letter-writing format to tell a personal narrative…

Chapter 5:Biological Properties of Wood

Science.gov (United States)

Rebecca E. Ibach

2013-01-01

There are numerous biological degradations that wood is exposed to in various environments. Biological damage occurs when a log, sawn product, or final product is not stored, handled, or designed properly. Biological organisms such as bacteria, mold, stain, decay fungi, insects, and marine borers depend heavily on temperature and moisture conditions to grow. Figure 5.1...

Melanie Klein's letters addressed to Marcelle Spira (1955-1960).

Science.gov (United States)

Quinodoz, Jean-Michel

2009-12-01

Between 1955 and 1960, Melanie Klein wrote some 45 hitherto unpublished letters to Marcelle Spira, the Swiss psychoanalyst living at that time in Geneva. In 2006, after Spira's death, these letters were deposited with the Raymond de Saussure Psychoanalysis Centre in Geneva. They are the only known letters that Klein addressed to her psychoanalyst colleagues. Several topics are mentioned in them: (1) the meetings between the two women in Geneva and London; (2) Spira's contribution to Boulanger's translation into French of The Psychoanalysis of Children, which Klein herself carefully revised; (3) the papers that Klein was at that time working on, including Envy and Gratitude; (4) Spira's own work; (5) the difficulties that Spira, a Kleinian psychoanalyst who trained in Buenos Aires, was encountering in her attempt to be admitted to the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society; and (6) a few items of personal and family news. In addition to the invaluable historical information that these letters provide, they offer us a very moving epistolary self-portrait of Melanie Klein, enabling us to discover her personality in the final years of her life - she died in September 1960, just two months after writing her last letter to Spira.

[Representation of letter position in visual word recognition process].

Science.gov (United States)

Makioka, S

1994-08-01

Two experiments investigated the representation of letter position in visual word recognition process. In Experiment 1, subjects (12 undergraduates and graduates) were asked to detect a target word in a briefly-presented probe. Probes consisted of two kanji words. The latters which formed targets (critical letters) were always contained in probes. (e.g. target: [symbol: see text] probe: [symbol: see text]) High false alarm rate was observed when critical letters occupied the same within-word relative position (left or right within the word) in the probe words as in the target word. In Experiment 2 (subject were ten undergraduates and graduates), spaces adjacent to probe words were replaced by randomly chosen hiragana letters (e.g. [symbol: see text]), because spaces are not used to separate words in regular Japanese sentences. In addition to the effect of within-word relative position as in Experiment 1, the effect of between-word relative position (left or right across the probe words) was observed. These results suggest that information about within-word relative position of a letter is used in word recognition process. The effect of within-word relative position was explained by a connectionist model of word recognition.

Use of biological indicators for evaluating environmental stress

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Letourneau, C.; Castonguay, J.

1988-09-01

This report examines the usefulness of biological analyses for evaluating environmental stress. All forms of stress are addressed; particular attention, however, is paid to the use of biological analyses to evaluate the impact on the environment from radioactive releases of the nuclear industry. First, we will review different biological analyses which are grouped into two approaches: the holistic approach (biotic and diversity indices) and the reductionist approach ('biological indicators' per se). Secondly, we will compare the usefulness of plants and animals as indicators based on the established criteria. This report ends with a compilation of letters received from different organizations which outline the present use in Canada of biological indicators for evaluating environmental stress

Use of biological indicators to evaluate environmental stress

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Letourneau, C.; Castonguay, J.

1987-09-01

This report examines the usefulness of biological analyses for evaluating environmental stress. All forms of stress are addressed; particular attention, however, is paid to the use of biological analyses to evaluate the impact on the environment from radioactive releases of the nuclear industry. First, we will review different biological analyses which are grouped into two approaches: the holistic approach (biotic and diversity indices) and the reductionist approach ('biological indicators' per se). Secondly, we will compare the usefulness of plants and animals as indicators based on the established criteria. This report ends with a compilation of letters received from different organizations which outline the present usage in Canada of biological indicators for evaluating environmental stress

[Patients' letters and pre-modern medical lay-culture].

Science.gov (United States)

Stolberg, Michael

2007-01-01

Consulting by letter was fairly common practice among the educated, upper classes of early modern Europe. Surviving letters of consultation written by patients, relatives or friends count among the most valuable source for the analysis of pre-modern experiences of disease and the body. This essay gives a brief overview of the various types of consultation letters and related documents which resulted from this practice before tracing the historical development of epistolary consultations from the late Middle Ages through the heyday medical correspondence in the 18th c. before its decline in the 19th c. It presents "experience", "self-fashioning" and "discourse" as three particularly fruitful levels of analysis on which patients' letters can be used within the wider framework of a cultural history of medicine. These three levels of analysis, or three distinct approaches, enable historians to access a greater awareness of the ways in which the experience of illness and the body is culturally framed with an analysis of the performative effects of patients' narratives and the influence of medical discourse among the wider society.

Biological and Climate Controls on North Atlantic Marine Carbon Dynamics Over the Last Millennium: Insights From an Absolutely Dated Shell-Based Record From the North Icelandic Shelf

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, D. J.; Hall, I. R.; Scourse, J. D.; Richardson, C. A.; Wanamaker, A. D.; Butler, P. G.

2017-12-01

Given the rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (pCO2) over the industrial era, there is a pressing need to construct long-term records of natural carbon cycling prior to this perturbation and to develop a more robust understanding of the role the oceans play in the sequestration of atmospheric carbon. Here we reconstruct the past biological and climate controls on the carbon isotopic (δ13Cshell) composition of the North Icelandic shelf waters over the last millennium, derived from the shells of the long-lived marine bivalve mollusk Arctica islandica. Variability in the annually resolved δ13Cshell record is dominated by multidecadal variability with a negative trend (-0.003 ± 0.002‰ yr-1) over the industrial era (1800-2000 Common Era). This trend is consistent with the marine Suess effect brought about by the sequestration of isotopically light carbon (δ13C of CO2) derived from the burning of fossil fuels. Comparison of the δ13Cshell record with Contemporaneous proxy archives, over the last millennium, and instrumental data over the twentieth century, highlights that both biological (primary production) and physical environmental factors, such as relative shifts in the proportion of Subpolar Mode Waters and Arctic Intermediate Waters entrained onto the North Icelandic shelf, atmospheric circulation patterns associated with the winter North Atlantic Oscillation, and sea surface temperature and salinity of the subpolar gyre, are the likely mechanisms that contribute to natural variations in seawater δ13C variability on the North Icelandic shelf. Contrasting δ13C fractionation processes associated with these biological and physical mechanisms likely cause the attenuated marine Suess effect signal at this locality.

Rethinking Trade-Driven Extinction Risk in Marine and Terrestrial Megafauna.

Science.gov (United States)

McClenachan, Loren; Cooper, Andrew B; Dulvy, Nicholas K

2016-06-20

Large animals hunted for the high value of their parts (e.g., elephant ivory and shark fins) are at risk of extinction due to both intensive international trade pressure and intrinsic biological sensitivity. However, the relative role of trade, particularly in non-perishable products, and biological factors in driving extinction risk is not well understood [1-4]. Here we identify a taxonomically diverse group of >100 marine and terrestrial megafauna targeted for international luxury markets; estimate their value across three points of sale; test relationships among extinction risk, high value, and body size; and quantify the effects of two mitigating factors: poaching fines and geographic range size. We find that body size is the principal driver of risk for lower value species, but that this biological pattern is eliminated above a value threshold, meaning that the most valuable species face a high extinction risk regardless of size. For example, once mean product values exceed US$12,557 kg(-1), body size no longer drives risk. Total value scales with size for marine animals more strongly than for terrestrial animals, incentivizing the hunting of large marine individuals and species. Poaching fines currently have little effect on extinction risk; fines would need to be increased 10- to 100-fold to be effective. Large geographic ranges reduce risk for terrestrial, but not marine, species, whose ranges are ten times greater. Our results underscore both the evolutionary and ecosystem consequences of targeting large marine animals and the need to geographically scale up and prioritize conservation of high-value marine species to avoid extinction. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Design of laboratory radiotracer studies in marine radioecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schulte, E.H.

1997-01-01

A condensed description of methods used in laboratory radiotracer studies in marine radioecology is presented showing also the difficulties which may be encountered in order to obtain realistic and comparable information on the general behaviour of radionuclides in marine organisms. Practical guidance on the choice of the biological material and how to setup laboratory experiments and to control properly important experimental conditions are given. Key parameters like concentration factors and biological half-lives are defined and the theoretical estimation and practical determination of input, uptake, accumulation and loss of radionuclides in marine biota are formulated by the aid of mathematical equations. Examples of uptake and loss curves obtained in the laboratory are shown. The importance of some environmental factors (temperature, food, growth) on uptake and loss of radionuclides are demonstrated. Comparison of experimental and field data of concentration factors is reported to show the difficulty in extrapolating from laboratory experiments to nature. (author)

Collected Letters of José Martí: a linguistic approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guerra, Ana Jústiz

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Any approach to José Marti’s literary production should consider the study of his collected letters, which are noticeable for its content and expressive devices. This article synthesizes the criteria of former researchers who have considered Marti’s collected letters as a privileged genre among the multiple and diverse cultivated by the Apostle (speeches, dramas, essays, journal article, short stories and literary criticism. The collected letters takes a large proportion of his prolific literary production and its expressive force has been widely recognized as a source of inspiration for other poets. His collection of letters is outstanding and lasting in time for its expressive magnificence, its depth of content and precise choice of words. Originally written for a definite addressee, the letters are currently read by new generations of readers, who rediscover a new message in each. Topic considered in this article is part of a wider range study which is been prepared as Ph. D. thesis.

The Complaint Letter and Response.

Science.gov (United States)

Shukla, P. K.

1998-01-01

Describes an assignment in which students write a letter of complaint, and discusses how this assignment aids students in seeing the importance of effective written communication to their daily lives. (SR)

Scientific Letter: Monosymptomatic Hypochondriacal Psychosis ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Scientific Letter: Monosymptomatic Hypochondriacal Psychosis (somatic delusional disorder): A report of two cases. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives.

Chemical Constituents and Biological Properties of the Marine Soft ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

1001/PKIMIA/811187); and the authors. (F.A.) and (Y.C.K.) are also grateful to. Universiti Sains Malaysia for the USM fellowship awards. . REFERENCES. 1. John Faulkner D. Marine natural products. Natural. Product Reports, 1999; 16(2): 155-198. 2. Bowden BF, Coll JC, Mitchell SJ. Studies of. Australian soft corals. XXI.

Particles and nuclei, letters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains thirteen separate letters on start-to-end simulations of SASE FEL at the TESLA test facility, possible ways of improvement of the FEM oscillator with a Bragg resonator, the status and perspectives of the electron cooling method development, crystalline ion beams in storage rings, latest results of modeling of LHC beam injection, charge exchange injection in a synchrotron equipped with an electron cooling system, fringe and hysteresis effects in electron guns, nonstationary regimes of electron flow formation in secondary emission inverse coaxial diodes, a proposal of the experiment testing of the fine structure of the Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation, computer simulation of the electron beam dynamics at the accelerator structure and the injector of S-band linac with energies of 3 and 10 MeV, calculation of the electron beam dynamics of the accelerator LUE-200, the accelerator-accumulation facility ITEP-TWAC and accelerators-drivers of electronuclear facilities

Marine oils: Complex, confusing, confounded?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Benjamin B. Albert

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Marine oils gained prominence following the report that Greenland Inuits who consumed a high-fat diet rich in long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs also had low rates of cardiovascular disease. Marine n-3 PUFAs have since become a billion dollar industry, which will continue to grow based on current trends. However, recent systematic reviews question the health benefits of marine oil supplements, particularly in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Marine oils constitute an extremely complex dietary intervention for a number of reasons: i the many chemical compounds they contain; ii the many biological processes affected by n-3 PUFAs; iii their tendency to deteriorate and form potentially toxic primary and secondary oxidation products; and iv inaccuracy in the labelling of consumer products. These complexities may confound the clinical literature, limiting the ability to make substantive conclusions for some key health outcomes. Thus, there is a pressing need for clinical trials using marine oils whose composition has been independently verified and demonstrated to be minimally oxidised. Without such data, it is premature to conclude that n-3 PUFA rich supplements are ineffective.

Using the marine unicellular algae in biological monitoring

OpenAIRE

Kapkov V. I.; Shoshina E. V.; Belenikina O. A.

2017-01-01

The possibility of using marine unicellular algae from natural plankton community in biomonitoring of pollution by heavy metals has been investigated. Algae of different taxa from the Mediterranean Sea have been allocated to culture. In the laboratory the culture conditions – i. e. growth medium, temperature, photoperiod, level of artificial light and initial density – have been selected for every species. The impact of heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Cu, Pb) in the form of chloride salts on the growth...

The ecology, status, and conservation of marine and shoreline birds on the west coast of Vancouver Island

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vermeer, K.; Butler, R.W.; Morgan, K.H.

1992-01-01

A symposium was held to combine various disciplines to provide a review of current knowledge about the marine biology of the west coast of Vancouver Island, with a particular emphasis on birds. Papers were presented on the physical and biological environment of the study region, the population and breeding ecology of marine and shoreline birds, the distribution of marine and shoreline birds at sea, the effects of oil pollution on the bird population, and the conservation of marine and shoreline birds. Separate abstracts have been prepared for two papers from this symposium

Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters

OpenAIRE

Keomany, Melanie

2016-01-01

In her article "Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters" Melanie Keomany discusses the contents of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg's The Yage Letters which could be dismissed as openly bigoted and racist. Keomany posits that the text reveals valuable connections between the colonial expansion of the eighteenth century and 1950s USA and Latin America. By re-shaping Burroughs's lived experiences in the Amazon into a text where the narrator William Lee mimics sardonically an...

Letters to a Young Writer.

Science.gov (United States)

Waldman, Anne; Becker, Robin

2002-01-01

Presents words of encouragement to a young poet. Includes empathetic words and motivating ideas. Presents a letter including a quote from "Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth and ideas about that quote. (SG)

Sexual selection in marine plankton

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sichlau, Mie Hylstofte

Copepods are among the most abundant metazoans on the planet and play an important role in the marine food web. Many aspects of their ecology have consequently been studied, including details of their reproductive biology and mating behaviour. Sexual selection, the part of evolution which selects...

The impact of familiarization strategies on the missing-letter effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Plamondon, Andréanne; Roy-Charland, Annie; Chamberland, Justin; Quenneville, Joannie; Laforge, Christian

2017-08-01

When reading a text and searching for a target letter, readers make more omissions of the target letter if it is embedded in frequent function words than if it is in rare content words. While word frequency effects are consistently found, few studies have examined the impacts of passage familiarity on the missing-letter effect and studies that have present conflicting evidence. The present study examines the effects of passage familiarity, as well as the impacts of passage familiarization strategy promoting surface or deep encoding, on the missing-letter effect. Participants were familiarized with a passage by retyping a text, replacing all common nouns with synonyms, or generating a text on the same topic as that of the original text, and then completed a letter search task on the familiar passage as well as an unfamiliar passage. In Experiment 1, when both familiar and unfamiliar passages use the same words, results revealed fewer omissions for the retyping and synonyms conditions. However, in Experiment 2, when different words are used in both types of texts, no effect of familiarization strategy was observed. Furthermore, the missing-letter effect is maintained in all conditions, adding support to the robustness of the effect regardless of familiarity with the text.

Alabama ESI: M_MAMMAL (Marine Mammal Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for dolphins and manatees in Alabama. Vector polygons in this data set represent marine mammal distribution...

Virginia ESI: M_MAMMAL (Marine Mammal Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for dolphin, seals, whales, and porpoise in Virginia. Vector polygons in this data set represent marine...

Maryland ESI: M_MAMMAL (Marine Mammal Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for seals, whales, porpoise, and dolphin in Maryland. Vector polygons in this data set represent marine...

Open letter to EU Commission about proposed EDC Criteria

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ågerstrand, Marlene; Bero, Lisa; Beronius, Anna

2016-01-01

Open letter in response to the proposed criteria for identification and regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals, under the PPP and Biocides Regulations......Open letter in response to the proposed criteria for identification and regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals, under the PPP and Biocides Regulations...

Bioactivity and Applications of Sulphated Polysaccharides from Marine Microalgae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rui Manuel Santos Costa de Morais

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Marine microalgae have been used for a long time as food for humans, such as Arthrospira (formerly, Spirulina, and for animals in aquaculture. The biomass of these microalgae and the compounds they produce have been shown to possess several biological applications with numerous health benefits. The present review puts up-to-date the research on the biological activities and applications of polysaccharides, active biocompounds synthesized by marine unicellular algae, which are, most of the times, released into the surrounding medium (exo- or extracellular polysaccharides, EPS. It goes through the most studied activities of sulphated polysaccharides (sPS or their derivatives, but also highlights lesser known applications as hypolipidaemic or hypoglycaemic, or as biolubricant agents and drag-reducers. Therefore, the great potentials of sPS from marine microalgae to be used as nutraceuticals, therapeutic agents, cosmetics, or in other areas, such as engineering, are approached in this review.

David Bohm : causality and chance, letters to three women

CERN Document Server

2017-01-01

The letters transcribed in this book were written by physicist David Bohm to three close female acquaintances in the period 1950 to 1956. They provide a background to his causal interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Marxist philosophy that inspired his scientific work in quantum theory, probability and statistical mechanics. In his letters, Bohm reveals the ideas that led to his ground breaking book Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. The political arguments as well as the acute personal problems contained in these letters help to give a rounded, human picture of this leading scientist and twentieth century thinker.

Contributions of Emergent Literacy Skills to Name Writing, Letter Writing, and Spelling in Preschool Children

Science.gov (United States)

Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.; Kim, Young-Suk

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children’s emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4–5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children’s letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children’s emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. PMID:21927537

Marine biodiversity in Colombia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diaz, Juan Manuel

2002-01-01

One decade ago, the seas and oceans were considered biologically less diverse that the terrestrial environment. Now it is known that it is on the contrary; 33 of the 34 categories of animals (phylum), they are represented in the sea, compared with those solely 15 that exist in earth. The investigation about the diversity of life in the sea has been relatively scorned, but there are big benefits that we can wait if this is protected. The captures of fish depend on it; the species captured by the fisheries are sustained of the biodiversity of their trophic chains and habitats. The marine species are probably the biggest reservoir of chemical substances that can be used in pharmaceutical products. The genetic material of some species can be useful in biotechnical applications. The paper treats topics like the current state of the knowledge in marine biodiversity and it is done a diagnostic of the marine biodiversity in Colombia

Israel Marine Bio-geographic Database (ISRAMAR-BIO)

Science.gov (United States)

Greengrass, Eyal; Krivenko, Yevgeniya; Ozer, Tal; Ben Yosef, Dafna; Tom, Moshe; Gertman, Isaac

2015-04-01

The knowledge of the space/time variations of species is the basis for any ecological investigations. While historical observations containing integral concentrations of biological parameters (chlorophyll, abundance, biomass…) are organized partly in ISRAMAR Cast Database, the taxon-specific data collected in Israel has not been sufficiently organized. This has been hindered by the lack of standards, variability of methods and complexity of biological data formalization. The ISRAMAR-BIO DB was developed to store various types of historical and future available information related to marine species observations and related metadata. Currently the DB allows to store biological data acquired by the following sampling devices such as: van veer grab, box corer, sampling bottles, nets (plankton, trawls and fish), quadrates, and cameras. The DB's logical unit is information regarding a specimen (taxa name, barcode, image), related attributes (abundance, size, age, contaminants…), habitat description, sampling device and method, time and space of sampling, responsible organization and scientist, source of information (cruise, project and publication). The following standardization of specimen and attributes naming were implemented: Taxonomy according to World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS: http://www.marinespecies.org). Habitat description according to Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standards (CMECS: http://www.cmecscatalog.org) Parameter name; Unit; Device name; Developmental stage; Institution name; Country name; Marine region according to SeaDataNet Vocabularies (http://www.seadatanet.org/Standards-Software/Common-Vocabularies). This system supports two types of data submission procedures, which support the above stated data structure. The first is a downloadable excel file with drop-down fields based on the ISRAMAR-BIO vocabularies. The file is filled and uploaded online by the data contributor. Alternatively, the same dataset can be assembled by

77 FR 14348 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; Marine Recreational Information Program

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-09

... Collection; Comment Request; Marine Recreational Information Program AGENCY: National Oceanic and Atmospheric... for revision of a current information collection. Marine recreational anglers are surveyed to collect catch and effort data, fish biology data, and angler socioeconomic characteristics. These data are...

On the ecological role of Copepoda in the Suez Canal marine ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Moreover, the importance of copepods in the marine food web and secondary productivity in the canal water, as well as their response to environmental variations in the Suez Canal ecosystem were discussed. KEY WORDS: Zooplankton, Copepoda, food web, marine ecosystem, Suez Canal Egyptian Journal of Biology ...

LETTERS OF MARIA KUNCEWICZOWA TO HER LATE HUSBAND

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Wzorek

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the last book of Maria Kuncewiczowa – a set of twenty-three letters (provided with a postscript addressed to her deceased husband. The uniqueness of this correspondence, presented in literary form, lies in the fact that the recipient is dead, treated by the sender as someone constantly present in the real world and still associated with the temporality. "Listy do Jerzego" ("Letters to Jerzy" are – as Tadeusz Swat, one of the reviewers say – “an attempt at denial of death, to save Jerzy by love, memory, and literature.” The analysis of the work highlights the occurring axiological categories. It has been demonstrated that "Letters to Jerzy" is a book about eternal love reaching beyond the grave (in this respect, in stark contrast with "Tristan" 1946, felt with dignity of old age, and finally transcending into faith. "Letters to Jerzy" is also an attempt to reduce the suffering of the writer over the loss of her beloved husband. To some extent, therefore, they correspond to her earlier work "Cudzoziemka" ("Foreigner" in which Kuncewiczowa liberates from the negative emotions associated with the death of her mother.

Referral letters to the psychiatrist in Nigeria: is communication ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

history, may not be elements that non-psychiatrist phy- sicians routinely collect during their examinations and, therefore, one would not expect such information to be available to be included in referral letters. Conclusion. Deficits in communication or information transfer through referral letters to the psychiatrist are common.

Referral letters to the psychiatrist in Nigeria: is communication ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Result: A majority (>80%) of the referral letters had no information on the current medication list, relevant psychosocial history, outline of management to date, results of investigations to date, and known allergies. Conclusion: Deficits in communication or information transfer through referral letters to the psychiatrist are ...

Love letters to the dead: resurrecting an epistolary art.

Science.gov (United States)

Lander, Dorothy A; Graham-Pole, John R

This article explores the art of letter-writing, specifically to our beloved dead, as a form of autoethnographic research, pedagogy, and care work. As university teachers and qualitative researchers in palliative and end-of-life care, we review the literature and history of epistolary communications with the deceased, as a prelude to writing our own letters. John writes to his long-dead mother and Dorothy to her recently deceased spouse Patrick, each letter followed by a reflective dialogue between us. Through this dialogue, we highlight the potential application of this art, or handcraft, to formal and informal palliative care, and the implications for practice, pedagogy, policy, and research. We propose that such direct, non-mediated, communications can offer a valuable form of healing for bereaved people. The therapeutic potential of letter writing and the abundance of literary and popular culture exemplars of responses from the dead are also largely unexplored in death education and research.

Letters in this Issue

Science.gov (United States)

1998-01-01

Reforming the General Chemistry Textbook individual letters by Edward T. Samulski; Stephen J. Hawkes; Stephen J. Fisher; J. Stephen Hartman; A. R. H. Cole; Stanley Pine, Ronald Archer, and Herbert Kaesz; Jimmy Reeves; Robert Hill; and Brock Spencer, C. Bradley Moore and Nedah Rose. Re: article by R. J. Gillespie The author replies

Glycobiology of Reproductive Processes in Marine Animals: The State of the Art

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Costantini

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Glycobiology is the study of complex carbohydrates in biological systems and represents a developing field of science that has made huge advances in the last half century. In fact, it combines all branches of biomedical research, revealing the vast and diverse forms of carbohydrate structures that exist in nature. Advances in structure determination have enabled scientists to study the function of complex carbohydrates in more depth and to determine the role that they play in a wide range of biological processes. Glycobiology research in marine systems has primarily focused on reproduction, in particular for what concern the chemical communication between the gametes. The current status of marine glycobiology is primarily descriptive, devoted to characterizing marine glycoconjugates with potential biomedical and biotechnological applications. In this review, we describe the current status of the glycobiology in the reproductive processes from gametogenesis to fertilization and embryo development of marine animals.

Letter processing and font information during reading: beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanocki, Thomas; Dyson, Mary C

2012-01-01

Letter identification is a critical front end of the reading process. In general, conceptualizations of the identification process have emphasized arbitrary sets of distinctive features. However, a richer view of letter processing incorporates principles from the field of type design, including an emphasis on uniformities across letters within a font. The importance of uniformities is supported by a small body of research indicating that consistency of font increases letter identification efficiency. We review design concepts and the relevant literature, with the goal of stimulating further thinking about letter processing during reading.

The Syntax of Persuasion: Two Business Letters of Request.

Science.gov (United States)

Limaye, Mohan R.

1983-01-01

Business letter-writers are advised to develop reader empathy and benefit before they ask a favor. The author analyzed two model 16th century letters of request to determine if similar advice was given in the past, and found that the request was subordinate to building a mutually beneficial relationship. (PD)

Undergraduate nursing students writing therapeutic letters to families: an educational strategy.

Science.gov (United States)

Erlingsson, Christen

2009-02-01

Writing therapeutic letters to families is discussed in this article as an educational strategy encouraging students to think reflectively about family nursing. At the University of Kalmar, Sweden, undergraduate nursing students in a primary care module interviewed families using the Calgary Family Assessment Model and wrote therapeutic letters to these families. This article describes (a) the examination process, which was the context for writing therapeutic letters, (b) results of analyses of the letters, and (c) student's post-examination evaluation comments. Results indicate that most students needed encouragement to focus on the family's strengths and resources instead of focusing on own feelings or problems they perceived the family as having. Students also needed support in relinquishing their hierarchical role of "expert nurse." Students' evaluation comments showed that writing therapeutic letters provided students with opportunities to reflect about the connections between family nursing theory and the family itself.

A Fragmentary Archive: Migratory Feelings in Early Anglo-Saxon Women's Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Watt, Diane

2017-01-01

The letters by Anglo-Saxon women in the Boniface correspondence are connected by cultural practices and emotions centered on the conversion mission that functioned to maintain connections between the Anglo-Saxon diaspora. A striking recurring focus of these letters is on loss and isolation, which connects them to the Old English elegies. Many of the letters describe the writers' traumatic experiences that result from the death or absence of kin. These are women who endured the trauma of being left behind when others migrated overseas or who, in traveling away from their homeland, found themselves isolated in an alien environment, displaced in time as well as space. This article offers an analysis of the letters, focusing on the queer temporalities they explore, the queer emotions they evoke, and the queer kinships that they forge. It argues that the women's letters represent fragments of an early queer archive of migratory feelings.

Open letter to the Vatican.

Science.gov (United States)

1999-01-01

An open letter was published by Latin American and Caribbean women during the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the International Conference on Population and Development. The letter generally focused on the Church¿s stand on women's reproductive rights. In particular, it questioned the Church on the following aspects of reproductive health, which include: 1) maternal death related to lack of access to reproductive health care; 2) Vatican representatives insisting that only parents can supervise their children education and health, which also lead to many cases of sexual abuse and incest; 3) women's sexual inequality and daily violence; 4) the Vatican delegation blocking the advances of contraception, sexual education, and HIV prevention; 5) problems of migrants and allocation of resources; and 6) the Church failing to recognize the capacity of young people to make decisions based on their own conscience.

Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent scale: a case report. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current ... Abstract. Scientific Letter - No Abstract Available ...

Bioactive Pigments from Marine Bacteria: Applications and Physiological Roles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azamjon B. Soliev

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Research into natural products from the marine environment, including microorganisms, has rapidly increased over the past two decades. Despite the enormous difficulty in isolating and harvesting marine bacteria, microbial metabolites are increasingly attractive to science because of their broad-ranging pharmacological activities, especially those with unique color pigments. This current review paper gives an overview of the pigmented natural compounds isolated from bacteria of marine origin, based on accumulated data in the literature. We review the biological activities of marine compounds, including recent advances in the study of pharmacological effects and other commercial applications, in addition to the biosynthesis and physiological roles of associated pigments. Chemical structures of the bioactive compounds discussed are also presented.

Marine biodiversity in Japanese waters.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katsunori Fujikura

Full Text Available To understand marine biodiversity in Japanese waters, we have compiled information on the marine biota in Japanese waters, including the number of described species (species richness, the history of marine biology research in Japan, the state of knowledge, the number of endemic species, the number of identified but undescribed species, the number of known introduced species, and the number of taxonomic experts and identification guides, with consideration of the general ocean environmental background, such as the physical and geological settings. A total of 33,629 species have been reported to occur in Japanese waters. The state of knowledge was extremely variable, with taxa containing many inconspicuous, smaller species tending to be less well known. The total number of identified but undescribed species was at least 121,913. The total number of described species combined with the number of identified but undescribed species reached 155,542. This is the best estimate of the total number of species in Japanese waters and indicates that more than 70% of Japan's marine biodiversity remains un-described. The number of species reported as introduced into Japanese waters was 39. This is the first attempt to estimate species richness for all marine species in Japanese waters. Although its marine biota can be considered relatively well known, at least within the Asian-Pacific region, considering the vast number of different marine environments such as coral reefs, ocean trenches, ice-bound waters, methane seeps, and hydrothermal vents, much work remains to be done. We expect global change to have a tremendous impact on marine biodiversity and ecosystems. Japan is in a particularly suitable geographic situation and has a lot of facilities for conducting marine science research. Japan has an important responsibility to contribute to our understanding of life in the oceans.

[Changes in CIRUGIA ESPANOLA Letters to the Editor between 2000 and 2007].

Science.gov (United States)

Rosell-Pradas, Jorge; Sánchez-Cantalejo, Emilio

2008-09-01

To describe the frequency and bibliographic characteristics of letters to the editor in the journal, Cirugía Española published between 2000 and 2007 and to compare the differences in the periods between 2000-2003 and 2004-2007. A descriptive and cross-sectional study, using the letters to the editor published in Spanish surgery between 2000 and 2007, as observation units. The variables considered were: the number of letters according to the volume and year of publication, substantive content of the paper, text length, graphics resources use, number of signatories and their professional profile, institutions of the authors, by origin and number of Autonomous Communities and number of bibliographical references. To meet the second objective, we compared letters from the period 2000-2003 with the period 2004-2007 against the rest of variables considered as a result. We used descriptive statistics and statistical analysis for comparison of distributions (chi2), with a level of significance of p < 0.05, using the SPSS software (Version 15.0). We identified 312 documents classified as letters. Between 2002 and 2005 their number was small. Often referring to clinical cases 187 (59.9%) and related letters, 98 (31.4%). Of those, 81.1% met the standard length of the text and only 6 letters (1.9%) was the use of graphics exceeded. In 122 letters (39.1%) the permitted number of authors was exceeded. They were mostly contributed by surgeons, 238 cases (76.3%), usually a single hospital, with 294 letters (94.2%) mainly from, Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid and Valencia. Only 58.1% of the letters complied with the permitted number of references. More related letters were published in the last period (59 letters; 42.1%) than during the years 2000-2003 (39 letters; 22.7%) (chi2 = 14.79; p < 0.001). The correct length of the text improved in the second period, 136 (97.1%), compared to the first 117 (68%) (chi2 = 42.67; p < 0.001. The graphics resources were used properly in both

A Balanced Marine Aquarium [and] The Biology of Marine Aquarium Fishes Collected in Monroe County, Florida. A Two-Paper NOAA Technical Memorandum.

Science.gov (United States)

Palko, Barbara Jayne; And Others

This document consists of two separate papers. The first paper, "A Balanced Marine Aquarium" (Barbara Jayne Palko), discusses various aspects of a balanced marine aquarium. Information provided includes the basic and optional equipment needed to construct a balanced aquarium, preparations for setting up the aquarium, preparing the…

Comparing marine and terrestrial ecosystems: Implications for the design of coastal marine reserves

Science.gov (United States)

Carr, M.H.; Neigel, J.E.; Estes, J.A.; Andelman, S.; Warner, R.R.; Largier, J. L.

2003-01-01

Concepts and theory for the design and application of terrestrial reserves is based on our understanding of environmental, ecological, and evolutionary processes responsible for biological diversity and sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems and how humans have influenced these processes. How well this terrestrial-based theory can be applied toward the design and application of reserves in the coastal marine environment depends, in part, on the degree of similarity between these systems. Several marked differences in ecological and evolutionary processes exist between marine and terrestrial ecosystems as ramifications of fundamental differences in their physical environments (i.e., the relative prevalence of air and water) and contemporary patterns of human impacts. Most notably, the great extent and rate of dispersal of nutrients, materials, holoplanktonic organisms, and reproductive propagules of benthic organisms expand scales of connectivity among near-shore communities and ecosystems. Consequently, the "openness" of marine populations, communities, and ecosystems probably has marked influences on their spatial, genetic, and trophic structures and dynamics in ways experienced by only some terrestrial species. Such differences appear to be particularly significant for the kinds of organisms most exploited and targeted for protection in coastal marine ecosystems (fishes and macroinvertebrates). These and other differences imply some unique design criteria and application of reserves in the marine environment. In explaining the implications of these differences for marine reserve design and application, we identify many of the environmental and ecological processes and design criteria necessary for consideration in the development of the analytical approaches developed elsewhere in this Special Issue.

32 CFR 884.17 - Commander's instruction letter to member.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... instruction letter to member. Subject: Instructions in Case of Release on Bail or Personal Recognizance 1. You... 32 National Defense 6 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Commander's instruction letter to member. 884.17... civilian custody on bail or on your own recognizance, report immediately in person or by telephone to the...

Marine protected area restricts demographic connectivity: Dissimilarity in a marine environment can function as a biological barrier.

Science.gov (United States)

Sato, Masaaki; Honda, Kentaro; Uy, Wilfredo H; Baslot, Darwin I; Genovia, Tom G; Nakamura, Yohei; Bernardo, Lawrence Patrick C; Kurokochi, Hiroyuki; Pantallano, Allyn Duvin S; Lian, Chunlan; Nadaoka, Kazuo; Nakaoka, Masahiro

2017-10-01

The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) can often lead to environmental differences between MPAs and fishing zones. To determine the effects on marine dispersal of environmental dissimilarity between an MPA and fishing zone, we examined the abundance and recruitment patterns of two anemonefishes ( Amphiprion frenatus and A. perideraion ) that inhabit sea anemones in different management zones (i.e., an MPA and two fishing zones) by performing a field survey and a genetic parentage analysis. We found lower levels of abundance per anemone in the MPA compared to the fishing zones for both species ( n  = 1,525 anemones, p  = .032). The parentage analysis also showed that lower numbers of fishes were recruited from the fishing zones and outside of the study area into each anemone in the MPA than into each anemone in the fishing zones ( n  = 1,525 anemones, p  fishing zones ( n  = 384 females, p  = .516). Because the ocean currents around the study site were unlikely to cause a lower settlement intensity of larvae in the MPA, the ocean circulation was not considered crucial to the observed abundance and recruitment patterns. Instead, stronger top-down control and/or a lower density of host anemones in the MPA were potential factors for such patterns. Our results highlight the importance of dissimilarity in a marine environment as a factor that affects connectivity.

Lost and Found, Letters and Methods: Assessing Attitudes toward Chiropractic and Medical Care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hannah Kern

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Attitudes toward traditional and chiropractic medicine were compared using Milgram's lost letter technique. A total of 192 letters were placed on the windshields of vehicles in parking lots at six restaurants and department stores in each of four quadrants of a medium-sized, Southeastern city. These letters were addressed to "Admissions" at either a fictitious Institute of Medicine or Institute of Chiropractic Care. Return addresses included either a male or a female name. Thus, those who found a lost letter were faced with the option of returning or not returning a letter from either a male or a female, addressed to an Institute of traditional or non-traditional medicine. After examining previous studies which had used the lost letter technique, numerous methodological improvements were implemented. For example, letters were randomly assigned to potential drop spots for each of 24 study locations (six study locations in each of four city quadrants, and a Latin square design was used to control for possible order effects in the four study conditions that were implemented. Nearly 65% of the letters (124 of 192 were returned. We found: 1 letters addressed to a fictitious Institute of Chiropractic Care were just as likely to be returned as those addressed to a fictitious Institute of Medicine; 2 letters with female return addresses were as likely to be returned as those with male return addresses; 3 there was no interaction between study conditions; 4 based on what was essentially a replication study, a comparison of the pattern of returns using the first and second cycle of lost letters (n = 96 for each cycle revealed an equivalent pattern of no-difference findings. DOI: 10.2458/azu_jmmss.v1i1.78

A review of the biological and geochemical behaviour of technetium in the marine environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beasley, T.M.; Lorz, H.V.

1986-01-01

Present understanding of the behavior of Tc in the marine environment is summarised. The prevalent valence state of Tc in oxygenated seawater is +7, arguing that pertechnetate ion, TcO - 4 , represents the most likely form of this radioelement in seawater. Laboratory experiments using radio-labeled pertechnetate ion have shown that binding of this anion to different classes of marine sediments is slight. Concentration factors for the majority of marine organisms studied to date are small; notable exceptions are seen in certain species of brown algae, polychaetes and macrocrustaceans. Uptake and loss kinetics are generally rapid with the majority of the Tc being associated with shell, exoskeleton and gut. There are, as yet, no data supporting the contention that stable element analogs such as iodate can be used to predict the long-term behavior of 99 Tc (as pertechnetate) in the marine environment. (author)

Contemporary trends in the research of the Letter to Philemon

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Bartosz Adamczewski

2005-03-01

Full Text Available In the period of last two or three decades interpretation of the Letter to Philemon has undergone significant changes. Exegetes applying the historical-critical method proposed recently several new ways of reconstructing the situation that occasioned Paul’s writing the letter. It has been suggested e.g. that Onesimus was no runaway, but probably an envoy from Colossae, or Philemon’s estranged brother, or a slave justifiably seeking intercession, or a roamer. Synchronic methods applied by many exegetes (structural, rhetorical, narrative and pragmatic criticism elucidate various kinds of influence of the letter upon the reader. More and more popular becomes also nowadays manifold liberationist approach. However, beyond applying these various hermeneutic procedures there is also, at least for believing exegetes, an important task of adequate explaining the significance of the Letter to Philemon as an inspired writing.

A classification of marked hijaiyah letters' pronunciation using hidden Markov model

Science.gov (United States)

Wisesty, Untari N.; Mubarok, M. Syahrul; Adiwijaya

2017-08-01

Hijaiyah letters are the letters that arrange the words in Al Qur'an consisting of 28 letters. They symbolize the consonant sounds. On the other hand, the vowel sounds are symbolized by harokat/marks. Speech recognition system is a system used to process the sound signal to be data so that it can be recognized by computer. To build the system, some stages are needed i.e characteristics/feature extraction and classification. In this research, LPC and MFCC extraction method, K-Means Quantization vector and Hidden Markov Model classification are used. The data used are the 28 letters and 6 harakat with the total class of 168. After several are testing done, it can be concluded that the system can recognize the pronunciation pattern of marked hijaiyah letter very well in the training data with its highest accuracy of 96.1% using the feature of LPC extraction and 94% using the MFCC. Meanwhile, when testing system is used, the accuracy decreases up to 41%.

The A.I.D.A. Plan and the Writing of Sales Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Jong, Rowena

A study based on textual analysis of sales letters is reported that evaluates the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA) approach to teaching the writing of sales letters. Thirty business letters written by undergraduate business students and executives were analyzed. The forms of cohesion, voice pattern, and information focus of the…

Quantifying Stress in Marine Mammals: Measuring Biologically Active Cortisol in Cetaceans and Pinnipeds

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-30

boonstra/ LONG-TERM GOALS This research will improve our ability to measure stress in marine mammals. Stress hormones ( glucocorticoids ...either cortisol or corticosterone) are easily measured in blood and are an important measure of stress. However, a large proportion of glucocorticoids ...are best estimated by measuring “free glucocorticoid ” levels (i.e. that hormone not bound by CBG). This project will improve the capacity of marine

78 FR 30273 - Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to a...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-22

..., breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering [Level B harassment].'' Summary of Request We received... fish populations; however, the entire barge mooring project is scheduled to be completed by September...), biological (e.g., sounds produced by marine mammals, fish, and invertebrates), and anthropogenic sound (e.g...

76 FR 39386 - Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Port of Anchorage...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-06

...) consist of multiple animals and animals such as beluga whales often travel in groups. There were 731... MARAD complied with this requirement by assembling a monitoring team from the Alaska Pacific University... graduate and undergraduate marine biology students conducted approximately 600 hours of scientific...

75 FR 38465 - Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Port of Anchorage...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-02

... monitoring team from the Alaska Pacific University (APU) to implement a NMFS-approved scientific monitoring..., from May 4 through November 18, 2009, trained graduate and undergraduate marine biology students..., comprising 54 groups, and one harbor seal traveling through the study area. Spatial distribution analysis...

Effects of gelling agent and extracellular signaling molecules on the culturability of marine bacteria

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rygaard, Anita Mac; Schmidt Thøgersen, Mariane; Nielsen, Kristian Fog

2017-01-01

Only 1 % of marine bacteria are currently culturable using standard laboratory procedures and this is a major obstacle for our understanding of the biology of marine microorganisms and for the discovery of novel microbial natural products. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to invest......Only 1 % of marine bacteria are currently culturable using standard laboratory procedures and this is a major obstacle for our understanding of the biology of marine microorganisms and for the discovery of novel microbial natural products. Therefore, the purpose of the present study...... was to investigate if improved cultivation conditions, including the use of an alternative gelling agent, and supplementation with signaling molecules, could improve the culturability of bacteria from seawater. Substituting agar with gellan gum improved viable counts 3 – 40-fold, depending on medium composition...

Firms plunge into the sea. Marine Biotechnology Industry, a first investigation

OpenAIRE

Gaia Raffaella eGreco; Marco eCinquegrani

2016-01-01

Marine biology made in the last four decades giant leaps. Several scientific and technological breakthroughs shaped research in the marine environment. Thanks to the revelation of the enormous width and complexity of sea life, marine biotechnology began a fast path of development that involved both the public and the private domain. Although there exist some studies on the dimensions and the evolution of the industry, few and scattered is the knowledge about the firms and the dynamics that ch...

22 CFR 201.71 - Terms of letters of credit.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... shall not be inconsistent with or contrary to the terms of the letter of commitment. Any such letter of credit or agreement may be modified or extended at any time in such a manner and to such extent as is acceptable to the approved applicant and the bank: Provided, That such modification or extension may not be...

American Samoa ESI: M_MAMMAL (Marine Mammal Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for whales and dolphins in American Samoa. Vector polygons in this data set represent marine mammal...

Biosurfactants Produced by Marine Microorganisms with Therapeutic Applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Gudiña, Eduardo J; Teixeira, José A; Rodrigues, Lígia R

2016-02-18

Marine microorganisms possess unique metabolic and physiological features and are an important source of new biomolecules, such as biosurfactants. Some of these surface-active compounds synthesized by marine microorganisms exhibit antimicrobial, anti-adhesive and anti-biofilm activity against a broad spectrum of human pathogens (including multi-drug resistant pathogens), and could be used instead of existing drugs to treat infections caused by them. In other cases, these biosurfactants show anti-cancer activity, which could be envisaged as an alternative to conventional therapies. However, marine biosurfactants have not been widely explored, mainly due to the difficulties associated with the isolation and growth of their producing microorganisms. Culture-independent techniques (metagenomics) constitute a promising approach to study the genetic resources of otherwise inaccessible marine microorganisms without the requirement of culturing them, and can contribute to the discovery of novel biosurfactants with significant biological activities. This paper reviews the most relevant biosurfactants produced by marine microorganisms with potential therapeutic applications and discusses future perspectives and opportunities to discover novel molecules from marine environments.

Biosurfactants Produced by Marine Microorganisms with Therapeutic Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo J. Gudiña

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Marine microorganisms possess unique metabolic and physiological features and are an important source of new biomolecules, such as biosurfactants. Some of these surface-active compounds synthesized by marine microorganisms exhibit antimicrobial, anti-adhesive and anti-biofilm activity against a broad spectrum of human pathogens (including multi-drug resistant pathogens, and could be used instead of existing drugs to treat infections caused by them. In other cases, these biosurfactants show anti-cancer activity, which could be envisaged as an alternative to conventional therapies. However, marine biosurfactants have not been widely explored, mainly due to the difficulties associated with the isolation and growth of their producing microorganisms. Culture-independent techniques (metagenomics constitute a promising approach to study the genetic resources of otherwise inaccessible marine microorganisms without the requirement of culturing them, and can contribute to the discovery of novel biosurfactants with significant biological activities. This paper reviews the most relevant biosurfactants produced by marine microorganisms with potential therapeutic applications and discusses future perspectives and opportunities to discover novel molecules from marine environments.

24 CFR 242.49 - Funds and finances: deposits and letters of credit.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... collection under the letter of credit. In the event a demand for payment thereunder is not immediately met... letters of credit. 242.49 Section 242.49 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and...: deposits and letters of credit. (a) Deposits. Where HUD requires the mortgagor to make a deposit of cash or...

Marine Carotenoids against Oxidative Stress: Effects on Human Health

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Alessandra Gammone

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Carotenoids are lipid-soluble pigments that are produced in some plants, algae, fungi, and bacterial species, which accounts for their orange and yellow hues. Carotenoids are powerful antioxidants thanks to their ability to quench singlet oxygen, to be oxidized, to be isomerized, and to scavenge free radicals, which plays a crucial role in the etiology of several diseases. Unusual marine environments are associated with a great chemical diversity, resulting in novel bioactive molecules. Thus, marine organisms may represent an important source of novel biologically active substances for the development of therapeutics. In this respect, various novel marine carotenoids have recently been isolated from marine organisms and displayed several utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Marine carotenoids (astaxanthin, fucoxanthin, β-carotene, lutein but also the rare siphonaxanthin, sioxanthin, and myxol have recently shown antioxidant properties in reducing oxidative stress markers. This review aims to describe the role of marine carotenoids against oxidative stress and their potential applications in preventing and treating inflammatory diseases.

Marine Carotenoids against Oxidative Stress: Effects on Human Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Gammone, Maria Alessandra; Riccioni, Graziano; D'Orazio, Nicolantonio

2015-09-30

Carotenoids are lipid-soluble pigments that are produced in some plants, algae, fungi, and bacterial species, which accounts for their orange and yellow hues. Carotenoids are powerful antioxidants thanks to their ability to quench singlet oxygen, to be oxidized, to be isomerized, and to scavenge free radicals, which plays a crucial role in the etiology of several diseases. Unusual marine environments are associated with a great chemical diversity, resulting in novel bioactive molecules. Thus, marine organisms may represent an important source of novel biologically active substances for the development of therapeutics. In this respect, various novel marine carotenoids have recently been isolated from marine organisms and displayed several utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Marine carotenoids (astaxanthin, fucoxanthin, β-carotene, lutein but also the rare siphonaxanthin, sioxanthin, and myxol) have recently shown antioxidant properties in reducing oxidative stress markers. This review aims to describe the role of marine carotenoids against oxidative stress and their potential applications in preventing and treating inflammatory diseases.

Scientific Letter: Stabbing nails into the neck: an unusual self ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Scientific Letter: Stabbing nails into the neck: an unusual self-damaging behavior mandating neurosurgery. A Aghabiklooei, R Aghabiklooei, N Zamani. Abstract. Scientific Letter - No Abstract Available. Full Text: EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT.

Involuntary attention with uncertainty: peripheral cues improve perception of masked letters, but may impair perception of low-contrast letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerzel, Dirk; Gauch, Angélique; Buetti, Simona

2010-10-01

Improvements of perceptual performance following the presentation of peripheral cues have been ascribed to accelerated accrual of information, enhanced contrast perception, and decision bias. We investigated effects of peripheral cues on the perception of Gabor and letter stimuli. Non-predictive, peripheral cues improved perceptual accuracy when the stimuli were masked. In contrast, peripheral cues degraded perception of low-contrast letters and did not affect the perception of low-contrast Gabors. The results suggest that involuntary attention accelerates accrual of information but are not entirely consistent with the idea that involuntary attention enhances subjective contrast. Rather, peripheral cues may cause crowding with single letter targets of low contrast. Further, we investigated the effect of the amount of uncertainty on involuntary attention. Cueing effects were (initially) larger when there were more possible target locations. In addition, cueing effects were larger when error feedback was absent and observers had no knowledge of results. Despite these strategic factors, location uncertainty was not sufficient to produce cueing effects, showing that location uncertainty paired with non-predictive cues reveals perceptual and not (only) decisional processes.

Marine oxygen holes as a consequence of oceanic acidification

Science.gov (United States)

Hofmann, M.; Schellnhuber, H.-J.

2009-04-01

An increase of atmospheric CO2 levels will not only drive future global mean temperatures towards values unprecedented during the whole Quaternary, but will also lead to an acidification of sea water which could harm the marine biota. Here we assess possible impacts of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations on the marine biological carbon pump by utilizing a business-as-usual emission scenario of anthropogenic CO2. A corresponding release of 4075 Petagrams of Carbon in total has been applied to simulate the current millennium by employing an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity (EMIC). This work is focused on studying the implications of reduced biogenic calcification caused by an increasing degree of oceanic acidification on the marine biological carbon pump. The attenuation of biogenic calcification imposes a small negative feedback on rising atmospheric pCO2 levels, tending to stabilize the Earth's climate. Since mineral ballast, notably particulate CaCO3, plays a dominant role in carrying organic matter through the water column, a reduction of its export fluxes weakens the strength of the biological carbon pump. There is, however, a dramatic effect discovered in our model world with severe consequences: since organic matter is oxidized in shallow waters when mineral-ballast fluxes weaken, oxygen holes (hypoxic zones) start to expand considerably in the oceans with potentially harmful impacts on a variety of marine ecosystems. Our study indicates that unbridled ocean acidification would exacerbate the observed hypoxia trends due to various environmental factors as reported in recent empirical studies.

[Research advances in ecological stoichiometry of marine plankton].

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Lei; Li, Chao-Lun

2014-10-01

Ecological stoichiometry can be simply defined as: The biology of elements from molecules to the biosphere, which spans all levels of the environment and of the life. It's a new idea to build a unified theory and becomes an inevitable trend to develop the ecological science. Marine ecosystems, which contribute to 50% of the biosphere biomass, are the important component of the global biogeochemical cycles. Marine zooplankton plays an important role in the material circulation and energy flow of marine ecosystems and serves as a connecting link between the preceding and the following in a more precise understanding of the key elemental cycles. However, research on ecological stoichiometry of marine plankton is fragmentary and rare. This article summarized the ecological phenomena and mechanisms of limiting elements affecting marine plankton, the response of biochemical substances to nutrition limitation, and the food chain transmission and feedback of nutrition limitation. Meanwhile, we also put forward some perspectives for future research of ecological stoichiometry of plankton in China' s seas.

The Danish letters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beier, Sofie; Ejlers, Steen

2011-01-01

The talk will focus on Danish type designers and their work on Æ (AE), Ø (Oslash) and Å (Aring). These 'anomalies' found in the Danish written language, often causes difficulties for type designers. The counters of Ø/ø sometimes appear overcrowded, the uppercase Æ can result in an uncomfortably o......' attempt to create the optimal variation of these letters, we will give a brief introduction to the Danish typography tradition ranging from the early 20th Century and up until today....

Letters to the Editor

Science.gov (United States)

1999-09-01

All the Letters to the Editor in this issue are in the same PostScript or PDF file. Contents The imaginary Sun? Harold Aspden Energy Science Ltd, PO Box 35, Southampton SO16 7RB, UK Difficult physics? Tim Akrill Chief Examiner, A-level Physics, Edexcel Foundation Was it a dream? Bill Jarvis 6 Peggy's Mill Road, Edinburgh EH4 6JY

Marine ecosystem response to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Edwards

Full Text Available Against the backdrop of warming of the Northern Hemisphere it has recently been acknowledged that North Atlantic temperature changes undergo considerable variability over multidecadal periods. The leading component of natural low-frequency temperature variability has been termed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO. Presently, correlative studies on the biological impact of the AMO on marine ecosystems over the duration of a whole AMO cycle (∼60 years is largely unknown due to the rarity of continuously sustained biological observations at the same time period. To test whether there is multidecadal cyclic behaviour in biological time-series in the North Atlantic we used one of the world's longest continuously sustained marine biological time-series in oceanic waters, long-term fisheries data and historical records over the last century and beyond. Our findings suggest that the AMO is far from a trivial presence against the backdrop of continued temperature warming in the North Atlantic and accounts for the second most important macro-trend in North Atlantic plankton records; responsible for habitat switching (abrupt ecosystem/regime shifts over multidecadal scales and influences the fortunes of various fisheries over many centuries.

Review Paper Trends in tagging of marine mammals: a review of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The number of scientific papers resulting from biologging instruments deployed on marine mammals is increasing as improved technologies result in smaller devices and improved sensor-, storage- and transmission capabilities. I undertook a comprehensive review of papers resulting from biologging deployments on ...

Biological activities of secondary metabolites of the order Zoanthids

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zahra Aminikhoei

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The phylum Cnidaria is a large, diverse and ecologically important group of marine invertebrates, which produce powerful toxins and venoms. The number of marine natural product from cnidarians isolated from class Anthozoa. Among the Anthozoa, the order of zoanthids are sessile, clonal and mostly brightly colored invertebrate which produce high biodiversity of cytolitic, neurotoxic and cardiotoxic compounds. Zoanthids containing palytoxins are reportedly among the most toxic marine organisms known. In addition, a high concentration of zoanthamine alkaloids extracted from this group.The zoanthamine alkaloids were isolated over 20 years ago, exhibit a broad range of biological activities.The best studied and most well-known biological activity of zoanthamine derivative significantly suppressed bone resorption and enhanced bone formation.

75 FR 21231 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-23

... Collection; Comment Request; Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey AGENCY: National Oceanic and... Andrews, (301) 713-2328, ext. 148 or [email protected] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Abstract Marine recreational anglers are surveyed for catch and effort data, fish biology data, and angler socioeconomic...

The neurologic effects of noxious marine creatures.

Science.gov (United States)

Southcott, R V

1975-01-01

The concept of the sea as a source of noxious agents is perhaps not a familiar one to clinical neurologists, judging by the lack of reference to these agents in standard textbooks. Chemical, physiologic, and pharmacologic laboratories are increasingly investigating the properties of marine toxins, finding in them compounds with interesting and novel structures or unusual physiologic effects. Such substances are seen as possible agents for biologic and, more particularly, physiologic research, and as possible sources of new pharmaceuticals. These include hormone-like substances and antiviral or antitumor agents. Despite these specialized developments, which are in large measure a consequence of the technological advances of the present century, the clinician is at times directly concerned with the effects of marine toxic substances. For example, in Japan, puffer fish or tetrodotoxic poisoning is one of the major causes of deaths from food poisoning. Another marine toxin that has caused many explosive outbreaks of food poisoning. with many deaths in various parts of the world, comes from clams or mussels. This toxin, saxitoxin, is produced by species of marine protozoa including Gonyaulax, and is concentrated in filter-feeding molluscs. These two examples were of significant interest in medicine long before the technologic developments of the twentieth century. In the last few decades, entirely new problems of marine intoxication have arisen as a result of marine pollution from the disposal of industrial wastes in the sea. The most striking example of a man-made marine intoxication has been the outbreak of Minamata disease. In Minamata, Japan, the disposal of mercury-contaminated industrial wastes from a plastics factory into an enclosed bay, followed by human consumption of the contaminated fishes, crabs, or shellfish, led to many instances of acute cerebral degeneration. With the increasing exploration of the sea for both pleasure and economic exploitation, which

Biological toxicity of lanthanide elements on algae.

Science.gov (United States)

Tai, Peidong; Zhao, Qing; Su, Dan; Li, Peijun; Stagnitti, Frank

2010-08-01

The biological toxicity of lanthanides on marine monocellular algae was investigated. The specific objective of this research was to establish the relationship between the abundance in the seawater of lanthanides and their biological toxicities on marine monocellular algae. The results showed that all single lanthanides had similar toxic effects on Skeletonema costatum. High concentrations of lanthanides (29.04+/-0.61 micromol L(-1)) resulted in 50% reduction in growth of algae compared to the controls (0 micromol L(-1)) after 96 h (96 h-EC50). The biological toxicity of 13 lanthanides on marine monocellular algae was unrelated with the abundance of different lanthanide elements in nature, and the "Harkins rule" was not appropriate for the lanthanides. A mixed solution that contained equivalent concentrations of each lanthanide element had the same inhibition effect on algae cells as each individual lanthanide element at the same total concentration. This phenomenon is unique compared to the groups of other elements in the periodic table. Hence, we speculate that the monocellular organisms might not be able to sufficiently differentiate between the almost chemically identical lanthanide elements. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysis of letter name knowledge using Rasch measurement.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowles, Ryan P; Skibbe, Lori E; Justice, Laura M

2011-01-01

Letter name knowledge (LNK) is a key predictor of later reading ability and has been emphasized strongly in recent educational policy. Studies of LNK have implicitly treated it as a unidimensional construct with all letters equally relevant to its measurement. However, some empirical research suggests that contextual factors can affect the measurement of LNK. In this study, we analyze responses from 909 children on measures of LNK using the Rasch model and its extensions, and consider two contextual factors: the format of assessment and the own-name advantage, which states that children are more likely to know letters in their own first names. Results indicate that both contextual factors have important impacts on measurement and that LNK does not meet the requirements of Rasch measurement even when accounting for the contextual factors. These findings introduce philosophical concerns for measurement of constrained skills which have limited content for assessment.

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 4, July-August 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Learning Progressions in Science: A New Approach Emphasizes Sustained Instruction in Big Ideas (Patti Hartigan); (2) Putting the "Boy Crisis" in…

29 CFR 1621.3 - Procedure for requesting an opinion letter.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 1621.3 Labor Regulations Relating to Labor (Continued) EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION PROCEDURES-THE EQUAL PAY ACT § 1621.3 Procedure for requesting an opinion letter. (a) A request for an opinion letter should be submitted in writing to the Chairman, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...

[Marine science in Revista de Biologia Tropical in its 50th anniversary].

Science.gov (United States)

Cortés, Jorge; Nielsen, Vanessa

2002-01-01

The first paper published in the Revista de Biología Tropical (RBT) on anything related to marine science was in 1963. Since then the number of marine-related papers has increased to 637, which represents 27% of the total production of RBT (excluding the Supplements), and 33% since 1979. Most publications are Full Articles on Ecology (135 papers). The marine ecosystem of which there is more publications is the coral reefs (28); and fish is the most studied taxonomic group (165). Almost half of the Supplements are marine related (12). The RBT must continue its efforts to maintain itself as a leading marine science publication in Latin America.

Oceanic acidification affects marine carbon pump and triggers extended marine oxygen holes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hofmann, Matthias; Schellnhuber, Hans-Joachim

2009-03-03

Rising atmospheric CO(2) levels will not only drive future global mean temperatures toward values unprecedented during the whole Quaternary but will also lead to massive acidification of sea water. This constitutes by itself an anthropogenic planetary-scale perturbation that could significantly modify oceanic biogeochemical fluxes and severely damage marine biota. As a step toward the quantification of such potential impacts, we present here a simulation-model-based assessment of the respective consequences of a business-as-usual fossil-fuel-burning scenario where a total of 4,075 Petagrams of carbon is released into the atmosphere during the current millennium. In our scenario, the atmospheric pCO(2) level peaks at approximately 1,750 microatm in the year 2200 while the sea-surface pH value drops by >0.7 units on global average, inhibiting the growth of marine calcifying organisms. The study focuses on quantifying 3 major concomitant effects. The first one is a significant (climate-stabilizing) negative feedback on rising pCO(2) levels as caused by the attenuation of biogenic calcification. The second one is related to the biological carbon pump. Because mineral ballast, notably CaCO(3), is found to play a dominant role in carrying organic matter through the water column, a reduction of its export fluxes weakens the strength of the biological carbon pump. There is, however, a third effect with severe consequences: Because organic matter is oxidized in shallow waters when mineral-ballast fluxes weaken, oxygen holes (hypoxic zones) start to expand considerably in the oceans in our model world--with potentially harmful impacts on a variety of marine ecosystems.

Pirates at Parties: Letter Position Processing in Developing Readers

Science.gov (United States)

Kohnen, Saskia; Castles, Anne

2013-01-01

There has been much recent interest in letter position coding in adults, but little is known about the development of this process in children learning to read. Here, the letter position coding abilities of 127 children in Grades 2, 3, and 4 (aged 7-10 years) were examined by comparing their performance in reading aloud "migratable" words (e.g.,…

HPLC-ESI-IT-MS/MS Analysis and Biological Activity of Triterpene Glycosides from the Colombian Marine Sponge Ectyoplasia ferox

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jhonny Colorado-Ríos

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The marine sponge Ectyoplasia ferox produces antipredatory and allelopathic triterpenoid glycosides as part of its chemical defense repertoire against predators, competitors, and fouling organisms. These molecules are responsible for the pharmacological potential found in the glycosides present in this species. In order to observe the glycochemical diversity present in E. ferox, a liquid chromatography coupled to a tandem mass spectrometry approach to analyse a complex polar fraction of this marine sponge was performed. This gave valuable information for about twenty-five compounds three of which have been previously reported and another three which were found to be composed of known aglycones. Furthermore, a group of four urabosides, sharing two uncommon substitutions with carboxyl groups at C-4 on the terpenoid core, were identified by a characteristic fragmentation pattern. The oxidized aglycones present in this group of saponins can promote instability, making the purification process difficult. Cytotoxicity, cell cycle modulation, a cell cloning efficiency assay, as well as its hemolytic activity were evaluated. The cytotoxic activity was about IC50 40 µg/mL on Jurkat and CHO-k1 cell lines without exhibiting hemolysis. Discussion on this bioactivity suggests the scanning of other biological models would be worthwhile.

Antimicrobial Compounds from Marine Invertebrates-Derived Microorganisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Juan; Jung, Jee H; Liu, Yonghong

2016-01-01

It is known that marine invertebrates, including sponges, tunicates, cnidaria or mollusks, host affluent and various communities of symbiotic microorganisms. The microorganisms associated with the invertebrates metabolized various biologically active compounds, which could be an important resource for the discovery and development of potentially novel drugs. In this review, the new compounds with antimicrobial activity isolated from marine invertebrate-derived microorganisms in the last decade (2004-2014) will be presented, with focus on the relevant antimicrobial activities, origin of isolation, and information of strain species. New compounds without antimicrobial activity were not revealed.

Referral letters to the emergency department: is the medication list accurate?

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

McCullagh, M

2015-02-01

Medication errors are common when patients transfer across healthcare boundaries. This study was designed to investigate the quality of information on medicines provided by general practitioners (GPs) on emergency department (ED) referral letters. A convenience sample of referral letters to the ED of a teaching hospital was reviewed. The medication list and\\/or patient\\'s drug allergy status were noted. Medicines reconciliation including patient (or carer) interview was conducted to determine the patient\\'s actual home medication list. This was compared with the GP list and any discrepancies were identified and addressed. A total of 92 referral letters were included in the analysis of which 60 were computer-generated and 32 were hand-written. GPs provided dose and frequency of administration information in 47 (51%) of the letters sampled i.e. 44 (71%) computer-generated versus 3 (10%) hand-written; p < 0.001. In addition, the patient was taking their medicines exactly as per the GP list in 20 (22%) of cases. The patient\\'s drug allergy status was documented in 13 (14%) of the letters.

Combining of radionuclides with constituent materials of marine algae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakamura, Ryoichi; Nakahara, Motokazu; Ishii, Toshiaki; Ueda, Taishi; Shimizu, Chiaki.

1979-01-01

The relations between the accumulation-elimination of radionuclides and the constituent materials of marine algae were studied to determine more precisely the mechanism of the radioactive contamination of marine organisms. This will increase the information about the behavior of radionuclides in marine organisms in relation to the environmental conditions (temperature, physico-chemical state of radioisotope, and so on) and the biological conditions (feeding habits, species, and so on). Eisenia contaminated by 137 Cs and 106 Ru- 106 Rh was fractionated by solvent extraction into 6 fractions. The largest portion of 137 Cs was in the boiling water fraction; 106 Ru- 106 Rh was most extracted by 24% KOH solution. Elution patterns by Sephadex G-100 gel-filtration of samples differed largely from each other, both among the 3 kinds of radionuclides and between the 2 species of the algae. Therefore, the accumulation of the radionuclides by the marine algae was proved to be not only due to a physical absorption to the surface of the algae but also to the biological combining of the radionuclides with the constituents of the algae. Furthermore, it was found that radionuclides which combine with a few constituents of alga are not eliminated equally. This is considered to be useful for the physiological analysis of elimination curves. (author)

Marine Flora and Fauna of the Northeastern United States. Sipuncula.

Science.gov (United States)

Cutler, Edward B.

This report is part of a subseries entitled "Marine Flora and Fauna of the Northeastern United States" which is designed for use by biology students, biologists, biological oceanographers and informed laymen. Contents of this report include: (1) Introduction; (2) Key to Sipuncula (Peanut Worms); (3) Annotated Systematic List of Species;…

Proceedings of the Third Annual Student Symposium on Marine Affairs (University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, January 13, 1978).

Science.gov (United States)

1978

This volume of the proceedings of the Third Annual Student Symposium on Marine Affairs contains 32 papers in eight categories: (1) coastal zone management; (2) marine resources; (3) aquaculture; (4) alternative marine energy sources; (5) ocean engineering; (6) recreational facilities; (7) marine biology; and (8) options. The papers are the…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 1, January-February 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Response to Intervention: A New Approach to Reading Instruction Aims to Catch Struggling Readers Early (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting Advisory Right: Focus and…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 2, March-April 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Online Testing, Version 1.0: Oregon's Adaptive Computer-Based Accountability Test Offers a Peek at a Brave New Future (Robert Rothman); (2) Beyond…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 5, September-October 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Nancy, Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Scenes from the School Turnaround Movement: Passion, Frustration, Mid-Course Corrections Mark Rapid Reforms (Laura Pappano); (2) The Media Savvy Educator:…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 28, Number 2, March-April 2012

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2012-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Course Credits on the Quick: Controversial Online Recovery Programs Speed the Path to Graduation (Andrew Brownstein); (2) Collaborating to Make Schools More Inclusive…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 4, July-August 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Integrated Data Systems Link Schools and Communities: Researchers Combine School and Non-School Data to Inform Interventions and Policy (Patti Hartigan);…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 3, May-June 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds (Lee Teitel); (2) Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing: New Reports Outline Key Principles…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 6, November-December 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) "Platooning" Instruction: Districts Weigh Pros and Cons of Departmentalizing Elementary Schools (Lucy Hood); (2) Behind the Classroom Door: A Rare Glimpse Indicates the…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 4, July-August 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Taking the Measure of New Teachers: California Shifts from Standardized Tests to Performance-Based Assessment as a Condition of Licensure (Robert Rothman);…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 1, January-February 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Caroline T., Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Greening of Environmental Ed: Teachers Focus on Complexity, Evidence, and Letting Students Draw Their Own Conclusions (Lucy Hood); (2) Like Teacher,…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 3, May-June 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Bringing Art into School, Byte by Byte: Innovative Programs Use Technology to Expand Access to the Arts (Patti Hartigan); (2) Differentiated Instruction…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 4, July-August 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Putting the Brakes on "Summer Slide": Modified School Calendars Build in Time to Enrich Learning and Sustain Gains (Brigid Schulte); (2) Closing…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 1, January-February 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Learning Across Distance: Virtual-Instruction Programs Are Growing Rapidly, but the Impact on "Brick-and-Mortar" Classrooms Is Still up in the Air…

Different letter-processing strategies in diagnostic subgroups of developmental dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Lachmann, Thomas; van Leeuwen, Cees

2008-07-01

Normally reading adults (N = 15) and primary school children (N = 24) and two diagnostic subgroups of children with developmental dyslexia (N = 21)-all native German speakers-performed a successive same-different task with pairs of letters and nonletters (pseudoletters or geometrical shapes). The first item of a pair was always presented on its own, and the second either on its own or surrounded by a congruent or incongruent nontarget shape. Adults showed congruence effects with nonletters but not with letters, and children with both types of stimuli. Frequent-word reading-impaired dyslexics (N = 11) in addition showed dramatically slower overall reaction times. Nonword reading-impaired dyslexics (N = 10) showed congruence effects with nonletters but negative congruence effects with letters. The results support the notion that normal readers have established a special visual processing strategy for letters. Processing speed rather than reading expertise seems crucial for this strategy to emerge. The contrasting effects between subgroups of dyslexics reveal specific underlying deficits.

How to write effective business letters: scribing information for pharmacists.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamilton, C W

1993-11-01

Pharmacists frequently write letters but lack specific training on how to do it well. This review summarizes strategies for improving business correspondence, emphasizes basic writing guidelines, and offers practical advice for pharmacists. The first steps for effective communication are careful planning and identifying the main message to be conveyed. The purpose for writing should be stated in the opening paragraph of the letter. To ensure a successful outcome, actions needed should be clearly summarized and visually highlighted. The tone of the letter should reflect a reasonable speech pattern, not the cryptic writing found in many scientific papers. The layout of the letter should be inviting, which is readily achievable through judicious use of word processing. Many delivery options are available, such as traditional postal services, express mail, and facsimile transmission. Readers are encouraged to test these basic writing principles and decide for themselves whether these recommendations affect the success of business correspondence.

John von Neumann selected letters

CERN Document Server

2005-01-01

John von Neuman was perhaps the most influential mathematician of the twentieth century, especially if his broad influence outside mathematics is included. Not only did he contribute to almost all branches of mathematics and created new fields, but he also changed post-World War II history with his work on the design of computers and with being a sought-after technical advisor to many figures in the U.S. military-political establishment in the 1940s and 1950s. The present volume is the first substantial collection of (previously mainly unpublished) letters written by von Neumann to colleagues, friends, government officials, and others. The letters give us a glimpse of the thinking of John von Neumann about mathematics, physics, computer science, science management, education, consulting, politics, and war. Readers of quite diverse backgrounds will find much of interest in this fascinating first-hand look at one of the towering figures of twentieth century science.

Bibliography on marine pollution in South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Darracott, DA

1976-06-01

Full Text Available The South African Committee in Oceanographic Research (SANCOR) has been requested to compile a comprehensive bibliography on marine biology in South Africa. It is hoped that it will appear in 1977. SANCOR has made funds available on its 1976 budget...

Italy. Report 1 [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Argiero, L.

1967-01-01

Present research programme: Studies on radioactive, biological and hydrographic characteristics of Tyrrhenian Sea; Organization of suitable control network of marine water and fauna: systematic measurement of present components of natural and artificial radioactivity of water, sediments and of the marine food chain techniques of sampling; analysis and measurement of particular radioisotopes in marine water. α, β, γ analysis of samples; γ spectrometry, research on 90 Sr and 137 Cs. Determination of concentration factors of radioisotopes which are responsible for contamination of principal components of the flora and fauna in the Tyrrhenian Sea; research of hydrographie factors influencing the distribution of marine radioactivity. Nuclide content of other organisms of the Tyrrhenian flora and fauna

Anticancer drugs from marine flora: an overview.

Science.gov (United States)

Sithranga Boopathy, N; Kathiresan, K

2010-01-01

Marine floras, such as bacteria, actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds, mangroves, and other halophytes are extremely important oceanic resources, constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. They are taxonomically diverse, largely productive, biologically active, and chemically unique offering a great scope for discovery of new anticancer drugs. The marine floras are rich in medicinally potent chemicals predominantly belonging to polyphenols and sulphated polysaccharides. The chemicals have displayed an array of pharmacological properties especially antioxidant, immunostimulatory, and antitumour activities. The phytochemicals possibly activate macrophages, induce apoptosis, and prevent oxidative damage of DNA, thereby controlling carcinogenesis. In spite of vast resources enriched with chemicals, the marine floras are largely unexplored for anticancer lead compounds. Hence, this paper reviews the works so far conducted on this aspect with a view to provide a baseline information for promoting the marine flora-based anticancer research in the present context of increasing cancer incidence, deprived of the cheaper, safer, and potent medicines to challenge the dreadful human disease.

Anticancer Drugs from Marine Flora: An Overview

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Sithranga Boopathy

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Marine floras, such as bacteria, actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds, mangroves, and other halophytes are extremely important oceanic resources, constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. They are taxonomically diverse, largely productive, biologically active, and chemically unique offering a great scope for discovery of new anticancer drugs. The marine floras are rich in medicinally potent chemicals predominantly belonging to polyphenols and sulphated polysaccharides. The chemicals have displayed an array of pharmacological properties especially antioxidant, immunostimulatory, and antitumour activities. The phytochemicals possibly activate macrophages, induce apoptosis, and prevent oxidative damage of DNA, thereby controlling carcinogenesis. In spite of vast resources enriched with chemicals, the marine floras are largely unexplored for anticancer lead compounds. Hence, this paper reviews the works so far conducted on this aspect with a view to provide a baseline information for promoting the marine flora-based anticancer research in the present context of increasing cancer incidence, deprived of the cheaper, safer, and potent medicines to challenge the dreadful human disease.

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 22, Number 6, November-December 2006

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2006-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) (In)formative Assessments: New Tests and Activities Can Help Teachers Guide Student Learning (Robert Rothman); (2) Recent Research on the Achievement Gap: How Lifestyle…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 5, September-October 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Invisible Hand in Education Policy: Behind the Scenes, Economists Wield Unprecedented Influence (David McKay Wilson); (2) Bonding and Bridging: Schools Open Doors for…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 1, January-February 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Charters and Unions: What's the Future for This Unorthodox Relationship? (Alexander Russo); (2) From Special Ed to Higher Ed: Transition Planning for Disabled Students Focuses…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 3, May-June 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) "Equity, Access, and Opportunity": Despite Challenges, More Districts Adopt One-to-One Laptop Programs (Colleen Gillard); (2) Small Kids, Big Words: Research-Based Strategies…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 6, November-December 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Nancy, Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Video Games Take Testing to the Next Level: Researchers See Promise in Game-Like Assessments That Measure Complex Skills (Robert Rothman); (2) An Academic…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 28, Number 1, January-February 2012

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Nancy, Ed.

2012-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Using Theater to Teach Social Skills: Researchers Document Improvements for Children with Autism (Patti Hartigan); (2) The Family Model of Schooling Revisited: Few Teachers,…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 5, September-October 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Confronting the Autism Epidemic: New Expectations for Children with Autism Means a New Role for Public Schools (Kate McKenna); (2) Internet Research 101:…

Intertextuality in Ba's So Long a Letter and Umunnakwe's Dear ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Intertextuality takes for granted the interdependence of literary texts because every artistic creation is a re-echoing of past knowledge. Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter and Ndubisi Umunnakwe's Dear Ramatoulaye are African examples. This work examines how Ba's So Long A Letter intertextualises with Umunnakwe's Dear ...

24 CFR 200.63 - Required deposits and letters of credit.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... Commissioner for collection under the letter of credit. In the event a demand for payment thereunder is not... credit. 200.63 Section 200.63 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and Urban... Required deposits and letters of credit. (a) Deposits. Where the Commissioner requires the mortgagor to...

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 21, Number 6, November-December 2005

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2005-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Is History... History?: Standards, Accountability, and the Future of Our Nation's Past (Robert Rothman); (2) Curriculum Access for All: How Teachers Can Use Universal Design…

Electronic Discharge Letter Mobile App

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lezcano, Leonardo; Triana, Michel; Ternier, Stefaan; Hartkopf, Kathleen; Stieger, Lina; Schroeder, Hanna; Sopka, Sasa; Drachsler, Hendrik; Maher, Bridget; Henn, Patrick; Orrego, Carola; Specht, Marcus

2014-01-01

The electronic discharge letter mobile app takes advantage of Near Field Communication (NFC) within the PATIENT project and a related post-doc study. NFC enabled phones to read passive RFID tags, but can also use this short-range wireless technology to exchange (small) messages. NFC in that sense

Traditions of martyrdom in the Ignatian Letters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Fuhrmann

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The letters of Ignatius represent one of the key texts for the emergence of martyrdom during the second century AD in Christianity. This article is concerned with the question whether Ignatius contributed to a “theology of martyrdom” or whether he rather relied on previous traditions. The author argues, by undertaking an analysis of certain pragmatics and semantics, that the motif of martyrdom is solely used to buttress Ignatius’ claim for authority among his intended addressees by referring to an understanding of martyrdom that has its roots in the New Testament. An identification of the author of the letters with a historical martyr is regarded as unlikely.

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 2, March-April 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Nancy, Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Hybrid Schools for the iGeneration: New Schools Combine "Bricks" and "Clicks" (Brigid Schulte); (2) Dual Language Programs on the Rise: "Enrichment" Model Puts Content Learning…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 3, May-June 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2010-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Unleashing the "Brain Power" of Groups in the Classroom: The Neuroscience behind Collaborative Work (Nancy Walser); (2) Putting AP to the Test: New Research Assesses the…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 2, March-April 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2009-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Money and Motivation: New Initiatives Rekindle Debate over the Link between Rewards and Student Achievement (David McKay Wilson); (2) An Inexact Science: What Are the Technical…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 6, November-December 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) When Worlds Collide: Universal PreK Brings New Challenges for Public Elementary Schools (David McKay Wilson); (2) Answers and Questions: Schools Survey Their Students--and…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 6, November-December 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Charting a New Course toward Racial Integration: Districts Seek Legal Routes to Capture the Benefits of Diversity (Brigid Schulte); (2) Voluntary Integration: Two Views--(a)…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 6, November-December 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Walser, Nancy, Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) With Cheating on the Rise, Schools Respond (David McKay Wilson); (2) Waldorf Education in Public Schools: Educators Adopt--and Adapt--This Developmental, Arts-Rich Approach…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 2, March-April 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Educating Teenage Immigrants: High Schools Experiment with Ways to Group New English-Language Learners (Lucy Hood); (2) Hot Topics and Key Words: Pilot Project Brings Teachers…

Letter-Sound Reading: Teaching Preschool Children Print-to-Sound Processing

Science.gov (United States)

Wolf, Gail Marie

2016-01-01

This intervention study investigated the growth of letter sound reading and growth of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word decoding abilities for a representative sample of 41 US children in preschool settings. Specifically, the study evaluated the effectiveness of a 3-step letter-sound teaching intervention in teaching preschool children to…

Why Doctors Do Not Answer Referral Letters | Smith | South African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Background: Healthcare workers at primary healthcare (PHC) clinics are frustrated by the fact that they do not receive replies to their referral letters to doctors. Referral letters act as permission slips to allow patients easy access to treatment by specialists at secondary and tertiary service levels and communicate reasons for ...

21 CFR 170.6 - Opinion letters on food additive status.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 3 2010-04-01 2009-04-01 true Opinion letters on food additive status. 170.6... (CONTINUED) FOOD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION (CONTINUED) FOOD ADDITIVES General Provisions § 170.6 Opinion letters on food additive status. (a) Over the years the Food and Drug Administration has given informal...

Teaching Braille Letters, Numerals, Punctuation, and Contractions to Sighted Individuals

Science.gov (United States)

Putnam, Brittany C.; Tiger, Jeffrey H.

2015-01-01

Braille-character recognition is one of the foundational skills required for teachers of braille. Prior research has evaluated computer programming for teaching braille-to-print letter relations (e.g., Scheithauer & Tiger, 2012). In the current study, we developed a program (the Visual Braille Trainer) to teach not only letters but also…

Trends in the Employment Process: Resumes and Job Application Letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Spinks, Neld; Wells, Barron

1999-01-01

Surveys of Fortune 500 companies in 1978, 1985, and 1995 revealed trends and preferences in content of resumes and cover letters. Compared to earlier years, current preferences were for both letters and resumes in the initial contact, more emphasis on grammar and spelling, and acceptance of two-page resumes. (SK)

Italy. Report 2 [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schreiber, B. [Istituto di Zoologia, Universita-Parma (Italy)

1967-03-15

Present research programme (long-term): Radionuclides in plankton an marine sediments. Ecology of Anvantheria as Sr ''scanengers''. General distribution of radionuclides in marine environment Systematics and ecology of Avantharia, studied in different seas as a biological problem. Content of {sup 90}Sr in plankton in relation to the presence or absence of Avantharia Radiochemistry of sea sediments (littoral); sedimentological and petrographical researches for stratigraphic purposes. Fall-out and wastes radionuclides absorbed by sediments. Correlation between Acantharia and concentration factor for {sup 90}Sr. Stratigraphy of fall-out radionuclides in sea sediments. Biological researches on Acantharia rearing for turnover studies in vitro. Stratigraphical researches on recent coastal sediments for geochronological problems by means of fall-out radionuclides.

Italy. Report 2 [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schreiber, B.

1967-01-01

Present research programme (long-term): Radionuclides in plankton an marine sediments. Ecology of Anvantheria as Sr ''scanengers''. General distribution of radionuclides in marine environment Systematics and ecology of Avantharia, studied in different seas as a biological problem. Content of 90 Sr in plankton in relation to the presence or absence of Avantharia Radiochemistry of sea sediments (littoral); sedimentological and petrographical researches for stratigraphic purposes. Fall-out and wastes radionuclides absorbed by sediments. Correlation between Acantharia and concentration factor for 90 Sr. Stratigraphy of fall-out radionuclides in sea sediments. Biological researches on Acantharia rearing for turnover studies in vitro. Stratigraphical researches on recent coastal sediments for geochronological problems by means of fall-out radionuclides

Encyclopedic approach to Marine History of Russia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrey V. Ishin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Marine direction of foreign policy is for Russia one of key. It is determined geographical position of the Russian state banks of which is washed plenty of Maureies. Also it is related to that considerable part of population lives on the coast of Russian Maureies, and industry, located in an off-shore bar brings, in a large contribution to the economy.Many Russian marine travelers were the discoverers of «new» earths. The contribution of the Russian scientists to the hydrophysical, geological and biological study of Maureies and Oceans is great. Russia possesses a navy, to the constituents approximately one-third of total tonnage of world VMF and one of large in the world a rybopromyslovym fleet. Transport ships under the flag of Russian Federation it is possible to meet planets in the remotest corners. In a number of areas of military shipbuilding and civil shipbuilding Russia had and continues to save priority.Enhanceable interest to the Seas and Oceans found the reflection in the fundamental Russian documents, including, in the Marine doctrine of Russian Federation, ratified Russia President in 2015. In it the value of marine spaces for the Russian state is marked. In the Marine doctrine of Russian Federation is writtenin: «The skilled providing, marine teaching and education play an important role in the increase of efficiency of marine activity. They are directed on preparation, bringing in and maintainance of skilled shots of all levels, maintenance of professionalism, marine traditions and not indifferent relation of citizens to marine history of country, serve positive presentation, propaganda and support of national marine policy, to marine activity and marine service in society».Marine direction, marine science about regions found a reflection in the publications of row of the Russian authors, devoted research of policy of Russia in such regions, as: Black Sea region, Caspian region, Arctic, and also in the series of Encyclopaedias

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 1, January-February 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Leadership Lessons From Schools Becoming "Data Wise" (Jennifer L. Steele and Kathryn Parker Boudett); (2) A Guide on the Side: Mentors Help New Leaders Prepare for Life in the…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 5, September-October 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

2011-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One Small Change Can Yield Big Results (Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana); (2) Voice of Experience: Jerry Weast--Leading a System…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 2, March-April 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) More Than "Making Nice": Getting Teachers to (Truly) Collaborate (Laura Pappano); (2) "Doing the Critical Things First": An Aligned Approach to PreK and Early Elementary Math;…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 5, September-October 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2008-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Teaching 21st Century Skills: What Does It Look Like in Practice? (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting and Spending: Schools and Districts Share Lessons on the Effective Uses of…

21 CFR 570.6 - Opinion letters on food additive status.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 6 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Opinion letters on food additive status. 570.6... (CONTINUED) ANIMAL DRUGS, FEEDS, AND RELATED PRODUCTS FOOD ADDITIVES General Provisions § 570.6 Opinion letters on food additive status. (a) Over the years the Food and Drug Administration has given informal...

Mud, Blood, and Bullet Holes: Teaching History with War Letters

Science.gov (United States)

Carroll, Andrew

2013-01-01

From handwritten letters of the American Revolution to typed emails from Iraq and Afghanistan, correspondence from U.S. troops offers students deep insight into the specific conflicts and experiences of soldiers. Over 100,000 correspondences have been donated to the Legacy Project, a national initiative launched in 1998 to preserve war letters by…

World Register of marine Cave Species (WoRCS): a new Thematic Species Database for marine and anchialine cave biodiversity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gerovasileiou, Vasilis; Martínez, Alejandro; Álvarez, Fernando; Boxshall, Geoff; Humphreys, William F.; Jaume, Damià; Becking, L.E.; Muricy, Guilherme; Hengstum, van Peter J.; Dekeyzer, Stefanie; Decock, Wim; Vanhoorne, Bart; Vandepitte, Leen; Bailly, Nicolas; Iliffe, Thomas M.

2016-01-01

Scientific exploration of marine cave environments and anchialine ecosystems over recent decades has led to outstanding discoveries of novel taxa, increasing our knowledge of biodiversity. However, biological research on underwater caves has taken place only in a few areas of the world and relevant

46 CFR 308.522 - Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA-302.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 46 Shipping 8 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA... Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA-302. The standard form of letter of transmittal for use in establishing a collateral deposit fund, may be obtained from the American War Risk Agency or...

Marine Flora and Fauna of the Northeastern United States. Echinodermata: Holothuroidea.

Science.gov (United States)

Pawson, David L.

This report is part of a subseries entitled "Marine Flora and Fauna of the Northeastern United States" which is designed for use by biology students, biologists, biological oceanographers and informed laymen. Contents of this report include: (1) Introduction; (2) Morphology; (3) Systematic Characters; (4) Examination Procedures; (5)…

Resource Letter MP-3: The Manhattan Project and Related Nuclear Research

Science.gov (United States)

Reed, B. Cameron

2016-10-01

This Resource Letter is a supplement to the earlier Resource Letters MP-1 and MP-2, and provides further sources on the Manhattan Project and related research. Books, review papers, journal articles, videos, and websites are cited for the following topics: general works, technical works, biographical and autobiographical works, foreign wartime nuclear programs and related allied intelligence, the use of the bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, technical papers of historical interest, postwar policy and technical developments, and educational materials. Together, these three Resource Letters describe nearly 400 sources of information on the Manhattan Project.

Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Jeremy E; Amiot, Romain; Lécuyer, Christophe; Benton, Michael J

2014-08-18

During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, four distinct crocodylomorph lineages colonized the marine environment. They were conspicuously absent from high latitudes, which in the Mesozoic were occupied by warm-blooded ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Despite a relatively well-constrained stratigraphic distribution, the varying diversities of marine crocodylomorphs are poorly understood, because their extinctions neither coincided with any major biological crises nor with the advent of potential competitors. Here we test the potential link between their evolutionary history in terms of taxic diversity and two abiotic factors, sea level variations and sea surface temperatures (SST). Excluding Metriorhynchoidea, which may have had a peculiar ecology, significant correlations obtained between generic diversity and estimated Tethyan SST suggest that water temperature was a driver of marine crocodylomorph diversity. Being most probably ectothermic reptiles, these lineages colonized the marine realm and diversified during warm periods, then declined or became extinct during cold intervals.

Canada. Report 2 [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ophel, I.L.

1967-01-01

There are two areas where I have long thought that knowledge is sadly lacking. These have considerable fundamental interest but the knowledge is even more Important for the setting of permissible levels of radioactive waste disposals into the oceans. They are as follows: (1) Effects of chronic irradiation on the developmental and adult stages of marine organisms - particularly edible fish; (2) Biological half-lives of fission products in marine organisms

Canada. Report 2 [Marine Radioecology. Current Research and Future Scope

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ophel, I. L. [Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Biology and Health Physics Division, Environmental Research Branch, Chalk River, ON (Canada)

1967-03-15

There are two areas where I have long thought that knowledge is sadly lacking. These have considerable fundamental interest but the knowledge is even more Important for the setting of permissible levels of radioactive waste disposals into the oceans. They are as follows: (1) Effects of chronic irradiation on the developmental and adult stages of marine organisms - particularly edible fish; (2) Biological half-lives of fission products in marine organisms.

Isolation of microplastics in biota-rich seawater samples and marine organisms

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Matthew; Webb, Hannah; Lindeque, Pennie K.; Fileman, Elaine S.; Halsband, Claudia; Galloway, Tamara S.

2014-01-01

Microplastic litter is a pervasive pollutant present in aquatic systems across the globe. A range of marine organisms have the capacity to ingest microplastics, resulting in adverse health effects. Developing methods to accurately quantify microplastics in productive marine waters, and those internalized by marine organisms, is of growing importance. Here we investigate the efficacy of using acid, alkaline and enzymatic digestion techniques in mineralizing biological material from marine surface trawls to reveal any microplastics present. Our optimized enzymatic protocol can digest >97% (by weight) of the material present in plankton-rich seawater samples without destroying any microplastic debris present. In applying the method to replicate marine samples from the western English Channel, we identified 0.27 microplastics m−3. The protocol was further used to extract microplastics ingested by marine zooplankton under laboratory conditions. Our findings illustrate that enzymatic digestion can aid the detection of microplastic debris within seawater samples and marine biota. PMID:24681661

Dear Hacker Letters to the Editor of 2600

CERN Document Server

Goldstein, Emmanuel

2010-01-01

Actual letters written to the leading hackers' magazine. For 25 years, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has given voice to the hacker community in all its manifestations. This collection of letters to the magazine reveals the thoughts and viewpoints of hackers, both white and black hat, as well as hacker wannabes, technophiles, and people concerned about computer security. Insightful and entertaining, the exchanges illustrate 2600 's vast readership, from teenage rebels, anarchists, and survivalists to law enforcement, consumer advocates, and worried parents.: 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has been the

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 3, May-June 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Road to School Improvement: It's Hard, It's Bumpy, and It Takes as Long as It Takes (Richard F. Elmore and Elizabeth A. City); (2) Better Teaching with Web Tools: How…

Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 4, July-August 2007

Science.gov (United States)

Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

2007-01-01

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Meeting of the Minds: The Parent-Teacher Conference Is the Cornerstone of School-Home Relations. How Can It Work for All Families? (Laura Pappano); (2) In Search of That "Third…

PREDICTION OF AEROSOL HAZARDS ARISING FROM THE OPENING OF AN ANTHRAX-TAINTED LETTER IN AN OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

FUE-SANG LIEN

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Early experimental work, conducted at Defence R&D Canada–Suffield, measured and characterized the personal and environmental contamination associated with simulated anthrax-tainted letters under a number of different scenarios in order to obtain a better understanding of the physical and biological processes for detecting, assessing, and formulating potential mitigation strategies for managing the risks associated with opening an anthrax-tainted letter. These experimental investigations have been extended in the present study to simulate numerically the contamination from the opening of anthrax-tainted letters in an open office environment using computational fluid dynamics (CFD. A quantity of 0.1 g of Bacillus atropheus (formerly referred to as Bacillus subtilis var globigii (BG spores in dry powder form, which was used here as a surrogate species for Bacillus anthracis (anthrax, was released from an opened letter in the experiment. The accuracy of the model for prediction of the spatial distribution of BG spores in the office from the opened letter is assessed qualitatively (and to the extent possible, quantitatively by detailed comparison with measured BG concentrations obtained under a number of different scenarios, some involving people moving within the office. The observed discrepancy between the numerical predictions and experimental measurements of concentration was probably the result of a number of physical processes which were not accounted for in the numerical simulation. These include air flow leakage from cracks and crevices of the building shell; the dispersion of BG spores in the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC system; and, the effect of deposition and re-suspension of BG spores from various surfaces in the office environment.

Sensitivity of Coastal Environments and Wildlife to Spilled Oil: Hudson River: M_MAMMAL (Marine Mammal Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for marine mammals (seals) in the Hudson River. Vector polygons in this data set represent marine mammal...

Marine geochemistry ocean circulation, carbon cycle and climate change

CERN Document Server

Roy-Barman, Matthieu

2016-01-01

Marine geochemistry uses chemical elements and their isotopes to study how the ocean works. It brings quantitative answers to questions such as: What is the deep ocean mixing rate? How much atmospheric CO2 is pumped by the ocean? How fast are pollutants removed from the ocean? How do ecosystems react to the anthropogenic pressure? The book provides a simple introduction to the concepts (environmental chemistry, isotopes), the methods (field approach, remote sensing, modeling) and the applications (ocean circulation, carbon cycle, climate change) of marine geochemistry with a particular emphasis on isotopic tracers. Marine geochemistry is not an isolated discipline: numerous openings on physical oceanography, marine biology, climatology, geology, pollutions and ecology are proposed and provide a global vision of the ocean. It includes new topics based on ongoing research programs such as GEOTRACES, Global Carbon Project, Tara Ocean. It provides a complete outline for a course in marine geochemistry. To favor a...

Composing chaotic music from the letter m

Science.gov (United States)

Sotiropoulos, Anastasios D.

Chaotic music is composed from a proposed iterative map depicting the letter m, relating the pitch, duration and loudness of successive steps. Each of the two curves of the letter m is based on the classical logistic map. Thus, the generating map is xn+1 = r xn(1/2 - xn) for xn between 0 and 1/2 defining the first curve, and xn+1 = r (xn - 1/2)(1 - xn) for xn between 1/2 and 1 representing the second curve. The parameter r which determines the height(s) of the letter m varies from 2 to 16, the latter value ensuring fully developed chaotic solutions for the whole letter m; r = 8 yielding full chaotic solutions only for its first curve. The m-model yields fixed points, bifurcation points and chaotic regions for each separate curve, as well as values of the parameter r greater than 8 which produce inter-fixed points, inter-bifurcation points and inter-chaotic regions from the interplay of the two curves. Based on this, music is composed from mapping the m- recurrence model solutions onto actual notes. The resulting musical score strongly depends on the sequence of notes chosen by the composer to define the musical range corresponding to the range of the chaotic mathematical solutions x from 0 to 1. Here, two musical ranges are used; one is the middle chromatic scale and the other is the seven- octaves range. At the composer's will and, for aesthetics, within the same composition, notes can be the outcome of different values of r and/or shifted in any octave. Compositions with endings of non-repeating note patterns result from values of r in the m-model that do not produce bifurcations. Scores of chaotic music composed from the m-model and the classical logistic model are presented.

Verse Letter from Gregory of Nazianzus to Vitalianus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erika Brodňanská

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The article offers a complex view of the poetic letter of Gregory of Nazianzus II, II, 3 Ad Vitalianum, which has not yet been the subject of modern criticism. The letter is a plea by Vitalianus’ banished sons for their father to take them back. Based on the manuscript tradition, the article’s author concludes that the fictional author of the letter is the son Phocas rather than Peter. The disrupted relationship between father and sons is reflected in both the content of the poem and the forms of salutations used: the seemingly positive epithets φέριστε, μακάρτατε, and φίλε; forms of address which directly express a certain distance and coldness (μέγα φέρτατε, ὦ ἄνα, or even animosity towards the father (ὀλοώτατε δαῖμον, ὦ κακόβουλε. The poetic letter has a concentric structure (A; B; C; D; E; F; G; F´; E´; D´; C´; B´; A´, with individual com­ponents linked for the most part thematically. The letter is written in dactylic hexameter. The most frequently used metre in the verses is the holodactyl, and the most frequent caesura is the caesura post tertium trochaeum. As far as the breach of Hermann’s bridge in verses is concerned, and based on the understanding of the term ‘word’ in metrics, the author of the article concludes that in the majority of cases the breach is only ‘visual’, and cannot be detected when listened to. Gregory did not avoid three true hiatuses; and in two verses, in order to keep the rhythm of dactylic hexameter, it is essential to measure a long syllable as a short one. However, metric errors may be related to prosodic licence.

Marine disposal of radioactive wastes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Woodhead, D.S.

1980-01-01

In a general sense, the main attraction of the marine environment as a repository for the wastes generated by human activities lies in the degree of dispersion and dilution which is readily attainable. However, the capacity of the oceans to receive wastes without unacceptable consequences is clearly finite and this is even more true of localized marine environments such as estuaries, coastal waters and semi-enclosed seas. Radionuclides have always been present in the marine environment and marine organisms and humans consuming marine foodstuffs have always been exposed, to some degree, to radiation from this source. The hazard associated with ionizing radiations is dependent upon the adsorption of energy from the radiation field within some biological entity. Thus any disposal of radioactive wastes into the marine environment has consequences, the acceptability of which must be assessed in terms of the possible resultant increase in radiation exposure of human and aquatic populations. In the United Kingdom the primary consideration has been and remains the safe-guarding of public health. The control procedures are therefore designed to minimize as far as practicable the degree of human exposure within the overall limits recommended as acceptable by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. There are several approaches through which control could be exercised and the strenghs and weaknesses of each are considered. In this review the detailed application of the critical path technique to the control of the discharge into the north-east Irish Sea from the fuel reprocessing plant at Windscale is given as a practical example. It will be further demonstrated that when human exposure is controlled in this way no significant risk attaches to the increased radiation exposure experienced by populations of marine organisms in the area. (orig.) [de

Allograph priming is based on abstract letter identities: Evidence from Japanese kana.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Schubert, Teresa; Verdonschot, Rinus G

2018-04-23

It is well-established that allographs like the uppercase and lowercase forms of the Roman alphabet (e.g., a and A) map onto the same "abstract letter identity," orthographic representations that are independent of the visual form. Consistent with this, in the allograph match task ("Are 'a' and 'A' the same letter?"), priming by a masked letter prime is equally robust for visually dissimilar prime-target pairs (e.g., d and D) and similar pairs (e.g., c and C). However, in principle this pattern of priming is also consistent with the possibility that allograph priming is purely phonological, based on the letter name. Because different allographic forms of the same letter, by definition, share a letter name, it is impossible to rule out this possibility a priori. In the present study, we investigated the influence of shared letter names by taking advantage of the fact that Japanese is written in two distinct writing systems, syllabic kana-that has two parallel forms, hiragana and katakana-and logographic kanji. Using the allograph match task, we tested whether a kanji prime with the same pronunciation as the target kana (e.g., - い, both pronounced /i/) produces the same amount of priming as a kana prime in the opposite kana form (e.g., イ- い). We found that the kana primes produced substantially greater priming than the phonologically identical kanji prime, which we take as evidence that allograph priming is based on abstract kana identity, not purely phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Marine Enzymes: Production and Applications for Human Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, T Eswara; Imchen, M; Kumavath, R

Marine microbial enzymes have wide applications in bioindustries. Selection of microorganisms for enzyme production at the industrial level requires good yield and high production rate. A number of enzymes such as amylase, caseinase, lipase, gelatinase, and DNases have been discovered from microbes isolated from extreme marine environments. Such enzymes are thermostable, tolerant to a varied range of pH and other harsh conditions required in industrial applications. Novelty in their structure and characteristics has shown promising scope to the researchers in academia and industry. In this chapter, we present a bird's eye view on recent research works in the field of enzyme production from marine origin as well as their potential biological applications relevant to human health. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Marine Carotenoids: Biological Functions and Commercial Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Vílchez, Carlos; Forján, Eduardo; Cuaresma, María; Bédmar, Francisco; Garbayo, Inés; Vega, José M.

2011-01-01

Carotenoids are the most common pigments in nature and are synthesized by all photosynthetic organisms and fungi. Carotenoids are considered key molecules for life. Light capture, photosynthesis photoprotection, excess light dissipation and quenching of singlet oxygen are among key biological functions of carotenoids relevant for life on earth. Biological properties of carotenoids allow for a wide range of commercial applications. Indeed, recent interest in the carotenoids has been mainly for their nutraceutical properties. A large number of scientific studies have confirmed the benefits of carotenoids to health and their use for this purpose is growing rapidly. In addition, carotenoids have traditionally been used in food and animal feed for their color properties. Carotenoids are also known to improve consumer perception of quality; an example is the addition of carotenoids to fish feed to impart color to farmed salmon. PMID:21556162

Open letter to Mr Christian Bataille, Deputy of Nord region, France. Open letter on nuclear energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Delacroix P

2007-02-01

The author, by means of a letter to the deputy Christian Bataille, presents arguments to the shutdown of old nuclear power plants. He points out the environmental and economical arguments in favor of a decrease of the nuclear power use in France. (A.L.B.)

Letter: Meyerhofer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mackinnon, A.J.

2011-01-01

This letter confirms that the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) was an important part of the FY10 NIF Polar Drive Exploding Pusher experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). These experiments were designed by LLE to produce requested neutron yields to calibrate and qualify nuclear diagnostics. LLE built a deuterium-tritium filling system for the glass shells and provided them to LLNL for mounting. In FY10, four exploding pusher implosions were performed with measured neutron yields within a factor of two of requested and ion temperatures within 20% of requested. These implosions are proving to be an ideal platform for commissioning the nuclear diagnostic suite on the NIF and are achieving all of the objectives planned for this campaign.

Horns Rev offshore wind farm. Environmental impact assessment of sea bottom and marine biology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Leonhard, S.B.

2000-03-15

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of a planned 150 MW offshore wind farm at Horns Rev has been carried out for the marine biology and sea bottom in the area, and includes vegetation and benthic fauna. The study forms part of a total EIA of the planned offshore wind farm. This EIA study has been drawn up in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Environment and Energy in the publication, 'Guidelines for preparation of EIAstudies for offshore wind farms. Horns Rev is situated off Blaevands Huk, which is Denmark's most westerly point. It is a shallow reef with water depths between 2 and 9 metres and is primarily composed of sand, gravel and pebbles. The area designated for the wind farm lies directly south of Horns Rev and is dominated by sand with a median particle size of 0.3 mm. Along the edges, towards areas of greater depth, the particle size increases. There are areas of fine sand in the deepest area, and in isolated pockets within the proposed wind farm site. The sediment is characterised by a very low (<1%) organic matter content. On the basis of the expected impact from the establishment of the wind farm, it is not deemed necessary to carry out special programmes during the construction phase for monitoring of the environmental-biological conditions. A monitoring and control programme is recommended during the production phase in order to follow the copper concentration in bivalves, or alternatively to initiate recovery or elimination of the copper-laden waste. A control programme is recommended during the production phase in order to follow the establishment and succession of the fouling community on the wind turbine foundations and scour-protecting revetments. (BA)

Horns Rev offshore wind farm. Environmental impact assessment of sea bottom and marine biology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Leonhard, S B

2000-03-15

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of a planned 150 MW offshore wind farm at Horns Rev has been carried out for the marine biology and sea bottom in the area, and includes vegetation and benthic fauna. The study forms part of a total EIA of the planned offshore wind farm. This EIA study has been drawn up in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Environment and Energy in the publication, 'Guidelines for preparation of EIAstudies for offshore wind farms. Horns Rev is situated off Blaevands Huk, which is Denmark's most westerly point. It is a shallow reef with water depths between 2 and 9 metres and is primarily composed of sand, gravel and pebbles. The area designated for the wind farm lies directly south of Horns Rev and is dominated by sand with a median particle size of 0.3 mm. Along the edges, towards areas of greater depth, the particle size increases. There are areas of fine sand in the deepest area, and in isolated pockets within the proposed wind farm site. The sediment is characterised by a very low (<1%) organic matter content. On the basis of the expected impact from the establishment of the wind farm, it is not deemed necessary to carry out special programmes during the construction phase for monitoring of the environmental-biological conditions. A monitoring and control programme is recommended during the production phase in order to follow the copper concentration in bivalves, or alternatively to initiate recovery or elimination of the copper-laden waste. A control programme is recommended during the production phase in order to follow the establishment and succession of the fouling community on the wind turbine foundations and scour-protecting revetments. (BA)

SiD Letter of Intent

CERN Document Server

Aihara, H.; Oreglia, M.; Berger, E.L.; Guarino, V.; Repond, J.; Weerts, H.; Xia, L.; Zhang, J.; Zhang, Q.; Srivastava, A.; Butler, J.M.; Goldstein, Joel; Velthuis, J.; Radeka, V.; Zhu, R.-Y.; Lutz, P.; de Roeck, A.; Elsener, K.; Gaddi, A.; Gerwig, H.; Grefe, C.; Klempt, W.; Linssen, L.; Schlatter, D.; Speckmayer, P.; Thom, J.; Yang, J.; Christian, D.C.; Cihangir, S.; Cooper, W.E.; Demarteau, M.; Fisk, H.E.; Garren, L.A.; Krempetz, K.; Kutschke, R.K.; Lipton, R.; Para, A.; Tschirhart, R.; Wenzel, H.; Yarema, R.; Grunewald, M.; Pankov, A.; U., Gomel State Tech.; Dutta, T.; Dauncey, P.D.; Balbuena, J.P.; Fleta, C.; Lozano, M.; Ullan, M.; Christian, G.B.; Faus-Golfe, A.; Fuster, J.; Lacasta, C.; Marinnas, C.; Vos, M.; Duarte, J.; Fernandez, M.; Gonzalez, J.; Jaramillo, R.; Lopez, Virto A.; Martinez-Eivero, C.; Moya, D.; Ruiz-Mimeno, A.; Vila, I.; Colledani, C.; Dorokhov, A.; Hu-Guo, C.; Winter, M.; Moortgat-Pick, G.; Onoprienko, D.V.; Kim, G.N.; Park, H.; Adloff, C.; Blaha, J.; Blaising, J.-J.; Cap, S.; Chefdeville, M.; Drancourt, C.; Espargiliare, A.; Gaglione, R.; Geffroy, N.; Jacquemier, J.; Karyotakis, Y.; Prast, J.; Vouters, G.; Gronberg, J.; Walston, S.; Wright, D.; Sawyer, L.; Laloum, M.; Ciobanu, C.; Chauveau, J.; Savoy-Navarro, A.; Andricek, L.; Moser, H.-G.; Cowan, R.f.; Fisher, P.; Yamamoto, R.K.; Kenney, ClMl; Boos, E.E.; Merkin, M.; Chen, S.; Chakraborty, D.; Dyshkant, A.; Hedin, D.; Zutshi, V.; Galkin, V.; D'Ascenzo, N.; Ossetski, D.; Saveliev, V.; Kapusta, F.; De Masi, R.; Vrba, V.; Lu, C.; McDonald, K.T.; Smith, A.J.S.; Bortoletto, D.; Coath, R.; Crooks, J.; Damerell, C.; Gibson, M.; Nichols, A.; Stanitzki, M.; Strube, J.; Turchetta, R.; Tyndel, M.; Weber, M.; Worm, S.; Zhang, Z.; Barklow, T.L.; Belymam, A.; Breidenbach, M.; Cassell, R.; Craddock, W.; Deaconu, C.; Dragone, A.; Graf, N.A.; Haller, G.; Herbst, R.; Hewett, J.L.; Jaros, J.A.; Johnson, A.S.; Kim, P.C.; MacFarlane, D.B.; Markiewicz, T.; Maruyama, T.; McCormick, J.; Moffeit, K.; Neal, H.A.; Nelson, T.K.; Oriunno, M.; Partridge, R.; Peskin, M.E.; Rizzo, T.G.; Rowson, P.; Su, D.; Woods, M.; Chakrabarti, S.; Dieguez, A.; Garrido, Ll.; Kaminski, J.; Conway, J.S.; Chertok, M.; Gunion, J.; Holbrook, B.; Lander, R.L.; Tripathi, S.M.; Fadeyev, V.; Schumm, B.A.; Oreglia, M.; Gill, J.; Nauenberg, U.; Oleinik, G.; Wagner, S.R.; Ranjan, K.; Shivpuri, R.; Varner, G.S.; Orava, R.; Van Kooten, R.; Bilki, B.; Charles, M.; Kim, T.J.; Mallik, U.; Norbeck, E.; Onel, Y.; Brau, B.P.; Willocq, S.; Taylor, G.N.; Riles, Keith; Yang, H.-J.; Kriske, R.; Cremaldi, L.; Rahmat, R.; Lastovicka-Medin, G.; Seidel, S.; Hildreth, M.D.; Wayne, M.; Brau, J.E.; Frey, R.; Sinev, N.; Strom, D.M.; Torrence, E.; Banda, Y.; Burrows, P.N.; Devetak, E.; Foster, B.; Lastovicka, T.; Li, Y.-M.; Nomerotski, A.; Riera-Babures, J.; Vilasis-Cardona, X.; Manly, S.; Adeva, B.; Iglesias Escudero, C.; Vazquez Regueiro, P.; Saborido Silva, J.J.; Gallas Torreira, A.; Gao, D.; Jie, W.; Jungfeng, Y.; Li, C.; Liu, S.; Liu, Y.; Sun, Y.; Wang, Q.; Yi, J.; Yonggang, W.; Zhao, Z.; De, K.; Farbin, A.; Park, S.; Smith, J.; White, A.P.; Yu, J.; Lou, X.C.; Abe, T.; Iwasaki, M.; Lubatti, H.J.; Band, H.R.; Feyzi, F.; Prepost, R.; Karchin, P.E.; Milstene, C.; Baltay, C.; Dhawan, S.; Kwon, Y.-J.

2009-01-01

Letter of intent describing SiD (Silicon Detector) for consideration by the International Linear Collider IDAG panel. This detector concept is founded on the use of silicon detectors for vertexing, tracking, and electromagnetic calorimetry. The detector has been cost-optimized as a general-purpose detector for a 500 GeV electron-positron linear collider.

DNA Sequencing as a Tool to Monitor Marine Ecological Status

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kelly D. Goodwin

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Many ocean policies mandate integrated, ecosystem-based approaches to marine monitoring, driving a global need for efficient, low-cost bioindicators of marine ecological quality. Most traditional methods to assess biological quality rely on specialized expertise to provide visual identification of a limited set of specific taxonomic groups, a time-consuming process that can provide a narrow view of ecological status. In addition, microbial assemblages drive food webs but are not amenable to visual inspection and thus are largely excluded from detailed inventory. Molecular-based assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem function offer advantages over traditional methods and are increasingly being generated for a suite of taxa using a “microbes to mammals” or “barcodes to biomes” approach. Progress in these efforts coupled with continued improvements in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics pave the way for sequence data to be employed in formal integrated ecosystem evaluation, including food web assessments, as called for in the European Union Marine Strategy Framework Directive. DNA sequencing of bioindicators, both traditional (e.g., benthic macroinvertebrates, ichthyoplankton and emerging (e.g., microbial assemblages, fish via eDNA, promises to improve assessment of marine biological quality by increasing the breadth, depth, and throughput of information and by reducing costs and reliance on specialized taxonomic expertise.

Letter knowledge in parent-child conversations: differences between families differing in socio-economic status.

Science.gov (United States)

Robins, Sarah; Ghosh, Dina; Rosales, Nicole; Treiman, Rebecca

2014-01-01

When formal literacy instruction begins, around the age of 5 or 6, children from families low in socioeconomic status (SES) tend to be less prepared than children from families of higher SES. The goal of our study is to explore one route through which SES may influence children's early literacy skills: informal conversations about letters. The study builds on previous studies (Robins and Treiman, 2009; Robins et al., 2012, 2014) of parent-child conversations that show how U. S. parents and their young children talk about writing and provide preliminary evidence about similarities and differences in parent-child conversations as a function of SES. Focusing on parents and children aged three to five, we conducted five separate analyses of these conversations, asking whether and how family SES influences the previously established patterns. Although we found talk about letters in both upper and lower SES families, there were differences in the nature of these conversations. The proportion of letter talk utterances that were questions was lower in lower SES families and, of all the letter names that lower SES families talked about, more of them were uttered in isolation rather than in sequences. Lower SES families were especially likely to associate letters with the child's name, and they placed more emphasis on sequences in alphabetic order. We found no SES differences in the factors that influenced use of particular letter names (monograms), but there were SES differences in two-letter sequences (digrams). Focusing on the alphabet and on associations between the child's name and the letters within it may help to interest the child in literacy activities, but they many not be very informative about the relationship between letters and words in general. Understanding the patterns in parent-child conversations about letters is an important first step for exploring their contribution to children's early literacy skills and school readiness.

Marine proteomics: a critical assessment of an emerging technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Slattery, Marc; Ankisetty, Sridevi; Corrales, Jone; Marsh-Hunkin, K Erica; Gochfeld, Deborah J; Willett, Kristine L; Rimoldi, John M

2012-10-26

The application of proteomics to marine sciences has increased in recent years because the proteome represents the interface between genotypic and phenotypic variability and, thus, corresponds to the broadest possible biomarker for eco-physiological responses and adaptations. Likewise, proteomics can provide important functional information regarding biosynthetic pathways, as well as insights into mechanism of action, of novel marine natural products. The goal of this review is to (1) explore the application of proteomics methodologies to marine systems, (2) assess the technical approaches that have been used, and (3) evaluate the pros and cons of this proteomic research, with the intent of providing a critical analysis of its future roles in marine sciences. To date, proteomics techniques have been utilized to investigate marine microbe, plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate physiology, developmental biology, seafood safety, susceptibility to disease, and responses to environmental change. However, marine proteomics studies often suffer from poor experimental design, sample processing/optimization difficulties, and data analysis/interpretation issues. Moreover, a major limitation is the lack of available annotated genomes and proteomes for most marine organisms, including several "model species". Even with these challenges in mind, there is no doubt that marine proteomics is a rapidly expanding and powerful integrative molecular research tool from which our knowledge of the marine environment, and the natural products from this resource, will be significantly expanded.

ERP Indices of Stimulus Prediction in Letter Sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Edith Kaan

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Given the current focus on anticipation in perception, action and cognition, including language processing, there is a need for a method to tap into predictive processing in situations in which cue and feedback stimuli are not explicitly marked as such. To this aim, event related potentials (ERPs were obtained while participants viewed alphabetic letter sequences (“A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, “E”, …, in which the letters were highly predictable, and random sequences (“S”, “B”, “A”, “I”, “F”, “M”, …, without feedback. Occasionally, the presentation of a letter in a sequence was delayed by 300 ms. During this delay period, an increased negativity was observed for predictive versus random sequences. In addition, the early positivity following the delay was larger for predictive compared with random sequences. These results suggest that expectation-sensitive ERP modulations can be elicited in anticipation of stimuli that are not explicit targets, rewards, feedback or instructions, and that a delay can strengthen the prediction for a particular stimulus. Applications to language processing will be discussed.

Marine Carotenoids: Biological Functions and Commercial Applications