Nuclear transfer and cloning

Ultraviolet-induced erythema is now recognized as an important clinical marker for skin cancer risk. People with a history of repeated erythematous exposures to sunlight are more likely to develop both melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers. Is erythema the most important thing we need to be concerned about in terms of protecting the public from the harmful effects of sunlight? What do we know about UV-induced erythema, and why is it a powerful influence on skin cancer risk?     

Query answering under probabilistic uncertainty in Datalog+ / − ontologies

The recently introduced Datalog+?/?? family of ontology languages is especially useful for representing and reasoning over lightweight ontologies, and is set to play a central role in the context of query answering and information extraction for the Semantic Web. Recently, it has become apparent that it is necessary to develop a principled way to handle uncertainty in this domain. In addition to uncertainty as an inherent aspect of the Web, one must also deal with forms of uncertainty due to inconsistency and incompleteness, uncertainty resulting from automatically processing Web data, as well as uncertainty stemming from the integration of multiple heterogeneous data sources. In this paper, we take an important step in this direction by developing a probabilistic extension of Datalog+?/??. This extension uses Markov logic networks as the underlying probabilistic semantics. Here, we focus especially on scalable algorithms for answering threshold queries, which correspond to the question “what is the set of all ground atoms that are inferred from a given probabilistic ontology with a probability of at least p?”. These queries are especially relevant to Web information extraction, since uncertain rules lead to uncertain facts, and only information with a certain minimum confidence is desired. We present several algorithms, namely a basic approach, an anytime one, and one based on heuristics, which is guaranteed to return sound results. Furthermore, we also study inconsistency in probabilistic Datalog+?/?? ontologies. We propose two approaches for computing preferred repairs based on two different notions of distance between repairs, namely symmetric and score-based distance. We also study the complexity of the decision problems corresponding to computing such repairs, which turn out to be polynomial and NP-complete in the data complexity, respectively.     

The effect of neighbourhood on rodent communities: an example from Pampean agroecosystems

Pampean region agroecosystems are devoted to agricultural and farming activities, but in the crop field matrix there are relicts of remnant natural habitats. Poultry farms mainly harbour commensal species as house mice and rats, which are rarely present in surrounding habitats. We assessed if neighbourhood to poultry farms affect the presence of Mus musculus in crop fields and their borders, and if rodent community in poultry farms is influenced by the species present in surrounding crop fields and borders. We found that habitat had a significant effect on the abundance of M. musculus. This species showed higher abundance in poultry farms than in crop field borders. Calomys laucha was the unique native species that was captured in farm sheds. We found higher abundance of native species in crop field borders than in crop fields independent of the proximity to the poultry farms. We conclude that rodent communities in poultry farms are little influenced by the surroundings, and show a dominance of M. musculus independently of the presence of native rodent species in neighbour habitats. On the other hand, farms do not export M. musculus to surrounding habitats, and borders only function as corridors for dispersal among farms, while crop fields are rarely used.     

Short-term dynamics of soil chemical parameters after application of alperujo in high-density drip-irrigated olive groves in Argentina

Two-phase olive oil mills generate a semi-solid waste made of olive pulp, olive stone, and vegetation water commonly called ‘alperujo’. Lack of disposal alternatives drives many Argentinean olive oil producers to apply it directly as soil amendment to the olive orchards. Even though this practice has been widely evaluated in Mediterranean countries, there is little agreement on the environmental impact that it may produce. In this work a surface layer of alperujo was applied to a high-density, drip-irrigated olive orchard, and different parameters were monitored. This report summarises the dynamics of soil chemical properties during the first 200 days after application. The results obtained showed that soil amended with alperujo increased total organic matter (OM), nitrogen (N) and available potassium (K), without affecting soil electrical conductivity (EC), pH and C/N ratio. The results suggest that surface application of alperujo may represent an attractive alternative to disposal under conservationist management. Further research evaluating long term effects on chemical and biological indicators must be performed to ensure the sustainability of alperujo as soil amendment.     

Histamine H4 Receptor Agonism Induces Antitumor Effects in Human T-Cell Lymphoma

The discovery of the human histamine H4 receptor (H4R) has contributed to our understanding of the role of histamine in numerous physiological and pathological conditions, including tumor development and progression. The lymph nodes of patients with malignant lymphomas have shown to contain high levels of histamine, however, less is known regarding the expression and function of the H4R in T-cell lymphoma (TCL). In this work we demonstrate the expression of H4R isoforms (mRNA and protein) in three human aggressive TCL (OCI-Ly12, Karpas 299, and HuT78). Histamine and specific H4R agonists (VUF8430 and JNJ28610244) significantly reduced cell viability in a dose-dependent manner (p < 0.05). The combined treatment with the H4R antagonist (JNJ7777120, 10 µM) reversed the effects of the H4R ligands. Importantly, we screened a drug repurposing library of 433 FDA-approved compounds (1 μM) in combination with histamine (10 μM) in Hut78 cells. Histamine produced a favorable antitumor effect with 18 of these compounds, including the histone deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat. Apoptosis, proliferation, and oxidative stress studies confirmed the antitumoral effects of the combination. We conclude that the H4R is expressed in TCL, and it is involved in histamine-mediated responses.     

Auto- and allo-confrontation as tools for reflective activities

This paper presents a methodology of assistance to reflective activity, based on confronting participants with the video recording of their own activity or that of others. A typology of the various forms of use of confrontation is proposed and illustrated from a study based on the construction of technical procedures. Two categories of results are highlighted. On the one hand, individual auto-confrontation (confronting participants with their own activity) reveals the cognitive processes underlying the activity. On the other hand, individual allo-confrontation (confronting participants with an activity they practice but which is performed by someone else, without the latter being present) allows participants to develop their knowledge by getting aware of other types of representations.     

Scale up of 2,4-dichlorophenol removal from aqueous solutions using Brassica napus hairy roots

Chlorophenols are harmful pollutants, frequently found in the effluents of several industries. For this reason, many environmental friendly technologies are being explored for their removal from industrial wastewaters. The aim of the present work was to study the scale up of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) removal from synthetic wastewater, using Brassica napus hairy roots and H₂O₂ in a discontinuous stirred tank reactor. We have analyzed some operational conditions, because the scale up of such process was poorly studied. High removal efficiencies were obtained (98%) in a short time (30 min). When roots were re-used for six consecutive cycles, 2,4-DCP removal efficiency decreased from 98 to 86%, in the last cycle. After the removal process, the solutions obtained from the reactor were assessed for their toxicity using an acute test with Lactuca sativa L. seeds. Results suggested that the treated solution was less toxic than the parent solution, because neither inhibition of lettuce germination nor effects in root and hypocotyl lengths were observed. Therefore, we provide evidence that Brassica napus hairy roots could be effectively used to detoxify solutions containing 2,4-DCP and they have considerable potential for a large scale removal of this pollutant. Thus, this study could help to design a method for continuous and safe treatment of effluents containing chlorophenols.     

Continuous active T-gate travelling-wave transistor

In the letter experimental results are presented which show that a continuous active gate travelling-wave transistor (TWT) can be used for medium power applications in a wide bandwidth. To reduce the gate resistance, a T-gate configuration has been chosen. This allows one to extend the frequency bandwidth of such a device. Simulations have been performed using small- and large-signal models taking in addition the parasitic capacitances into account. A distributed Schottky diode has been used to adjust the phase synchronisation and therefore to achieve flat gain.<>