Search results for "EPA"

Epibiontes en juveniles de tortugas carey Eretmochelys imbricata varadas en la costa del Departamento de Rocha, Uruguay

2016

The hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is the most threatened sea turtle species in the world. An important aspect of the biology of sea turtles is the study of colonizing fauna, i.e., their epibiota. The aim of this study is a taxonomic determination on the epibiota found on 4 hawksbills turtles stranded in 2009 and 2011 on the coast of Rocha Department, Uruguay. The epibiota was composed by algae from the class Phaeophyceae (Sphacelaria sp. and Hincksia mitchelliae) and invertebrates from the classes Cirripedia (Platylepas hexastylos, Chelonibia testudinaria and Amphibalanus improvisus) and Hirudinea (Ozobranchus margoi), with greater predominance of P. hexastylos cirripeds (n= 365…

2017

Diversification in flower shape and function is triggered by the high plasticity of flower meristems. Minute changes in space and time can profoundly affect the formation of adult structures. Dipsacoideae provides an excellent model system to investigate the evolutionary aspects of temporal and spatial changes in flower development due to its small size, the resolved phylogenetic framework, and significant diversity of perianth form and merosity. In the present study, we investigated the sequence of floral organ initiation and quantified the interactions between flower meristem expansion and petal primordium size in eight species representing two major clades of Dipsacoideae. Our quantitati…

Spectroscopic analysis of hot-water- and dilute-acid-extracted hardwood and softwood chips

2017

Hot-water and dilute sulfuric acid pretreatments were performed prior to chemical pulping for silver/white birch (Betula pendula/B. pubescens) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) chips to determine if varying pretreatment conditions on the original wood material were detectable via attenuated total reflectance (ATR) infrared spectroscopy. Pretreatment conditions varied with respect to temperature (130 °C and 150 °C) and treatment time (from 30 min to 120 min). The effects of the pretreatments on the composition of wood chips were determined by ATR infrared spectroscopy. The spectral data were compared to those determined by common wood chemistry analyses to evaluate the suitability of ATR spe…

Are sacred caves still safe havens for the endemic bats of Madagascar?

2018

AbstractDespite conservation discourses in Madagascar increasingly emphasizing the role of customary institutions for wildlife management, we know relatively little about their effectiveness. Here, we used semi-structured interviews with 54 adults in eight villages to investigate whether sacred caves and taboos offer conservation benefits for cave-dwelling bats in and around Tsimanampetsotsa National Park, south-west Madagascar. Although some caves were described as sites of spiritual significance for the local communities, most interviewees (c. 76%) did not recognize their present-day sacred status. Similarly, only 22% of the interviewees recognized taboos inhibiting bat hunting and consum…

Occurrence of the LiverwortPallavicinia lyelliiin Poland

2018

Stebel, A., Fojcik, B., Rosadzinski, S. & Wierzcholska, S. 2018. Occurrence of the liverwort Pallavicinia lyellii in Poland. – Herzogia 31: 26–36.Pallavicinia lyellii, a liverwort species threatened in Europe, is a rare component of the bryoflora in Poland. This paper presents information on its 27 published and new sites, a brief discussion about ecology and threats, as well as a map of its current distribution in Poland.

Self-assembled multivalent (SAMul) ligand systems with enhanced stability in the presence of human serum

2019

Self-assembled cationic micelles are an attractive platform for binding biologically-relevant polyanions such as heparin. This has potential applications in coagulation control, where a synthetic heparin rescue agent could be a useful replacement for protamine, which is in current clinical use. However, micelles can have low stability in human serum and unacceptable toxicity profiles. This paper reports the optimi- sation of self-assembled multivalent (SAMul) arrays of amphiphilic ligands to bind heparin in competitive conditions. Specifically, modification of the hydrophobic unit kinetically stabilises the self-assembled nanostructures, preventing loss of binding ability in the presence of…

The role of extracellular polymeric substances on aerobic granulation with stepwise increase of salinity

2018

Abstract A granular sequencing batch reactor (GSBR) worked for 164 days to study the effect of salinity on aerobic granulation. The feeding had an organic loading rate (OLR) of 1.6 kg COD⋅m −3 ⋅d −1 and a gradual increase of salinity (from 0.30 to 38 g NaCl − ⋅L −1 ) to promote a biological salt-adaptation. First aggregates (average diameter ≈ 0.4 mm) appeared after 14 days. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) analyses revealed that proteins were mainly higher than polysaccharides, and microorganisms metabolized EPSs as additional carbon source, mostly in feast phase, to face the energy demand for salinity adaptation. No significant worsening of organic matter removal was observed. Th…

Occurrence of antibiotics and antiretroviral drugs in source-separated urine, groundwater, surface water and wastewater in the peri-urban area of Chu…

2020

Recently, there has been an increased interest in bridging the knowledge gap in the occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in African urban water  cycles. In this study, the occurrence of 7 antibiotics and 3 antiretrovirals in source-separated urine, groundwater, wastewater and surface water of the peri-urban area of Chunga in Lusaka, Zambia, was studied. In groundwater, the pharmaceuticals were only sporadically present with 4 antibiotics and 1 antiretroviral detected. The concentration of the antibiotics ranged from below limit of quantification (<LOQ) to 880 ng/L, with sulfamethoxazole having the highest detection frequency of 42.3%. In the surface water, a comparatively high concentrati…

Towards a Reference Architecture for Archival Systems: Use Case With Product Data

2014

Long-term preservation of product data is imperative for many organizations. A product data archive should be designed to ensure information accessibility and understanding over time. Approaches, such as the Open Archival Information System Reference Model (OAIS RM) and the Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories (ACTDR), provide a framework for conceptually describing and evaluating archives. These approaches are generic and do not focus on particular contexts or content types such as product data. Moreover, these approaches offer no guidance on how to formally and comprehensively describe archival systems. Such descriptions should include the business activities that a…

Robustness with Respect to Delay Uncertainties of a Predictor-Observer Based Discrete-Time Controller

2006

This paper focuses on the delay-dependent stability problem of a discrete-time prediction scheme to stabilize possible unstable continuous-time systems. The delay-dependent stability condition is expressed in terms of LMIs. The separation principle between the proposed predictor and a state observer is also proved. The closed-loop system is shown to be robust with respect to uncertainties in the knowledge on the plant parameters, the delay and the sampling period. The proposed scheme has been tested in a real-time application to control the roll angle in a prototype of a quad-rotor mini-helicopter.