Fatty Acid Composition and Contents of Seven Commercial Fish Species of Genus <Emphasis Type="Italic">Coregonus</Emphasis> from Russian Subarctic Water Bodies

In several Russian northern lakes and rivers, Arctic cisco Coregonus autumnalis, least cisco C. sardinella, peled C. peled, tugun C. tugun, broad whitefish C. nasus, whitefish C. lavaretus and vendace C. albula were sampled in periods of officially permitted commercial fishery. Special attention was paid to contents (mg g^?1 of wet weight) of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in muscle tissues (filets), which are essential for human nutrition. The highest values of EPA + DHA content in semi‐anadromous fish and freshwater fish were recorded for C. autumnalis from the Yenisei River, 17.60 mg g^?1 wet weight, and for C. lavaretus from the Sobachye Lake, 16.61 mg g^?1 wet weight, respectively. Intra‐genus variations of EPA + DHA contents of Coregonus species were from 1.87 to 17.60 mg g^?1 wet weight. Since the congeneric species were genetically close to each other, the variations in EPA and DHA contents were thought to be caused primarily by ecological factors: migrational capability, type of feeding and trophic status of aquatic ecosystems. In general, the majority of studied species appeared to be of a high nutritive value for humans, although unfavorable environmental conditions could considerably diminish this value.     

Is the Fatty Acid Composition of Freshwater Zoobenthic Invertebrates Controlled by Phylogenetic or Trophic Factors?

We studied the fatty acid (FA) content and composition of ten zoobenthic species of several taxonomic groups from different freshwater bodies. Special attention was paid to essential polyunsaturated fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3), and arachidonic acid (ARA, 20:4n-6); and the n-3/n-6 and DHA/ARA ratios, which are important for consumers of higher trophic levels, i.e., fish. The content and ratios of these FA varied significantly in the studied zoobenthic species, consequently, the invertebrates were of different nutritional quality for fish. Eulimnogammarus viridis (Crustacea) and Dendrocoelopsis sp. (Turbellaria) had the highest nutrition value for fish concerning the content of EPA and DHA and n-3/n-6 and DHA/ARA ratios. Using canonical correspondence analysis we compared the FA profiles of species of the studied taxa taking into account their feeding strategies and habitats. We gained evidence that feeding strategy is of importance to determine fatty acid profiles of zoobenthic species. However, the phylogenetic position of the zoobenthic species is also responsible and may result in a similar fatty acid composition even if species or populations inhabit different water bodies or have different feeding strategies.     

Possible Impact of Heterogeneous Photocatalysis on the Global Chemistry of the Earth's Atmosphere

Photochemistry is recognized to be important for various physicochemical processes in the atmosphere, such as formation of the ozone layer and smogs, degradation of waste substances, etc. [1]. However, up to the present the emphasis in atmospheric photochemistry has been mainly on the study of photochemical reactions that occur with molecules directly excited by absorption of light quanta. However, the major components and impurities of the earth's atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, water, carbon dioxide, methane, methane halides, etc.) are totally transparent to most solar radiation. Electronically excited states of these molecules are formed only upon absorption of vacuum ultraviolet light quanta with energy hv ≥ 5 eV (i.e., with wavelength λ ≤ 200 nm). Only a small portion of the energy of solar light is found in this spectral region. In other words, most of the energy of the solar flux cannot participate in such direct photochemical reactions.     

Remission of refractory Crohn's disease with anti-IL-12/23 therapy in a patient undergoing hemodialysis: A case report

Crohn's disease is a relapsing chronic inflammatory condition of the intestine with increasing prevalence around the world. Biologic therapies are currently widely used and have proved safe and effective in treating moderate to severe Crohn's disease. However, contemporary bibliography contains little information about the use of these drugs in patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing hemodialysis. Here we present a case of a 47-year-old female patient with treatment-refractory Crohn's disease on hemodialysis. In this patient, treatment with the anti-IL-12/23 receptor antibody ustekinumab was effective in inducing and maintaining remission while being safe in administering throughout hemodialysis.     

A new approach to artificial and modified proteins: theory-based design, synthesis in a cell-free system and fast testing of structural properties by radiolabels

A novel approach to the creation of artificial and modifiedproteins has been elaborated. The approach includes a sequencedesign based on the molecular theory of protein secondary structureand folding patterns, gene expression in a cell-free systemand testing of structural properties of the synthesized polypeptidesat a nanogram level using radiolabelled chains. The approachhas been applied to a new synthetic protein albebetin whichhas been designed to form a 3-D fold which does not contradictany structural rule but has been never observed up to now innatural proteins. Using size-exclusion chromatography, urea-gradientelectrophoresis and limited proteolysis of a radiolabelled chain,it has been shown that the artificial protein is nearly as compactas natural proteins, cooperatively unfolds at high urea concentrationsand has some structural features of a definite structure consistentwith the designed one. As albebetin has been designed as consistingof two structural repeats, a ‘halfalbebetin’ (oneof these repeats) has also been synthesized and studied. Itwas shown that ‘half-albebetin’ is also compact     

Robust control of nonlinear MAGLEV suspension system with mismatched uncertainties via DOBC approach

Robust control of a class of uncertain systems that have disturbances and uncertainties not satisfying “matching” condition is investigated in this paper via a disturbance observer based control (DOBC) approach. In the context of this paper, “matched” disturbances/uncertainties stand for the disturbances/uncertainties entering the system through the same channels as control inputs. By properly designing a disturbance compensation gain, a novel composite controller is proposed to counteract the “mismatched” lumped disturbances from the output channels. The proposed method significantly extends the applicability of the DOBC methods. Rigorous stability analysis of the closed-loop system with the proposed method is established under mild assumptions. The proposed method is applied to a nonlinear MAGnetic LEViation (MAGLEV) suspension system. Simulation shows that compared to the widely used integral control method, the proposed method provides significantly improved disturbance rejection and robustness against load variation.     

Thromboangiitis obliterans (Buerger''s disease) in visceral vessels confirmed by angiographic and histological findings

There are substantial numbers of reports showing that leukotrienes (LTs) play important roles in adult asthma. No definite evidence has been demonstrated that LTs are involved in asthma attacks in children, although it is highly expected. In this report, we demonstrated that the levels of LTB4 and LTC4 but not thromboxane B2 (TXB2), a stable metabolite of TXA2, were significantly elevated in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, which was obtained from intubated and mechanically ventilated children with severe asthma attacks. This is direct evidence that LTB4 and LTC4 predominantly participate in asthma attacks in pediatric patients.     

Using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems for the detection of centroblasts in microscopic images of follicular lymphoma

In this paper, a complete methodology for automatic detection of centroblasts (CBs) in microscopic images acquired from tissue biopsies of follicular lymphoma is presented. In the proposed method, tissue sections are sliced at a low thickness level, around 1–1.5 \(\upmu \)m, which provides a more detailed depiction of the nuclei and other textural information. Initially, images are segmented into their basic cytological components, i.e., blood cells, nuclei and extra-cellular material, and then a novel touching-cell splitting algorithm is applied using a Gaussian mixture model and expectation–maximization algorithm. Additionally, a morphological and textural analysis of CBs is applied in order to extract various features related to their nuclei, nucleoli and cytoplasm. In the final step, a novel classification scheme is proposed based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems to classify the candidate cells. The methodology yielded promising results with an average detection rate of 90.35 %.