Search results for "erot"

An uptake and elimination kinetics approach to assess the bioavailability of chromium, copper, and arsenic to earthworms (Eisenia andrei) in contamin…

2019

The aim of this study was to determine the bioavailability of metals in field soils contaminated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) mixtures. The uptake and elimination kinetics of chromium, copper, and arsenic were assessed in the earthworm Eisenia andrei exposed to soils from a gradient of CCA wood preservative contamination near Hartola, Finland. In soils contaminated with 1480–1590 mg Cr/kg dry soil, 642–791 mg Cu/kg dry soil, and 850–2810 mg Ag/kg dry soil, uptake and elimination kinetics patterns were similar for Cr and Cu. Both metals were rapidly taken up and rapidly excreted by Eisenia andrei with equilibrium reached within 1 day. The metalloid As, however, showed very slow uptak…

Almotriptan: meeting today’s needs in acute migraine treatment

2007

Migraine is a common disorder associated with considerable individual and economic burden. Triptans are recommended for the treatment of migraine of any severity in patients who have failed to gain adequate relief with nonspecific medication; early transition to triptans avoids prolonged morbidity in patients failing to respond to nonspecific medications. There is evidence that early intervention therapy with oral formulations in migraine, soon after the onset of an attack and when pain is still mild, improves efficacy. Seven different triptans are currently marketed, with differing pharmacologic, efficacy and tolerability profiles. Almotriptan has many positive features, which include rigo…

Nucleotide sequence of Clostridium difficile toxin A.

1990

Cloning and Characterization of Overlapping DNA Fragments of the Toxin A Gene of Clostridium difficile

1989

Clostridium difficile, a human pathogen, produces two very large protein toxins, A and B (250-600 kDa), which resist dissociation into subunits. To clone the toxin A gene, a genomic library of 3-8 kb chromosomal DNA fragments of C. difficile strain VPI 10463 established in pUC12 was screened with a rabbit polyclonal toxin A antiserum. Thirty-five clones were isolated which carried 2.5-7.0 kb inserts representing a 10 kb region of the C. difficile genome. All the inserts were oriented in the same direction, suggesting that toxin A gene expression was under control of the lac promoter of the pUC12 vector. Western blot experiments revealed the presence of low amounts of fusion proteins of vari…

Sequencing and analysis of the gene encoding the α-toxin of Clostridium novyi proves its homology to toxins A and B of Clostridium difficile

1995

A library of total Clostridium novyi DNA was established and screened for the alpha-toxin gene (tcn alpha) by hybridization with oligonucleotides derived from a partial N-terminal sequence and by using specific antisera. Overlapping subgenic tcn alpha fragments were isolated and subsequently the total sequence of tcn alpha was determined. The 6534 nucleotide open reading frame encodes a polypeptide of M(r) 250,166 and pI 5.9. The N-terminal alpha-toxin (Tcn alpha) sequence MLITREQLMKIASIP determined by Edman degradation confirmed the identity of the reading frame and the assignment of the translation start point. The toxin is not modified posttranslationally at its N-terminus nor does it co…

Serotoninergic Modulation of Phototactic Variability Underpins a Bet-Hedging Strategy in Drosophila melanogaster

2021

When organisms’ environmental conditions vary unpredictably in time, it can be advantageous for individuals to hedge their phenotypic bets. It has been shown that a bet-hedging strategy possibly underlies the high inter-individual diversity of phototactic choice in Drosophila melanogaster. This study shows that fruit flies from a population living in a boreal and relatively unpredictable climate have more variable variable phototactic biases than fruit flies from a more stable tropical climate, consistent with bet-hedging theory. We experimentally show that phototactic variability of D. melanogaster is regulated by the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT), which acts as a suppressor of the var…

Out of fuzzy chemistry: from prebiotic chemistry to metabolic networks

2012

The origin of life on Earth was a chemical affair. So how did primitive biochemical systems originate from geochemical and cosmochemical processes on the young planet? Contemporary research into the origins of life subscribes to the Darwinian principle of material causes operating in an evolutionary context, as advocated by A. I. Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane in the 1920s. In its simplest form (e.g., a bacterial cell) extant biological complexity relies on the functional integration of metabolic networks and replicative genomes inside a lipid boundary. Different research programmes have explored the prebiotic plausibility of each of these autocatalytic subsystems and combinations thereof: sel…

Different World Views

2010

When we study communication systems in other animal species, we are led to the conclusion that extraterrestrial intelligent beings are likely to have systems of communication similar to the human one in at least some aspects. That is to say, communication is accomplished by means of the combination of certain information elements playing a role analogous to words, or that the system is a symbolic language (or even both things simultaneously). But in communication, it is also very important how information is transmitted (pictorially, by means of ideograms, letters, etc.), which is going to be strongly determined by the species’specific perception of the world.

Combining conjunctive rule extraction with diffusion maps for network intrusion detection

2013

Network security and intrusion detection are important in the modern world where communication happens via information networks. Traditional signature-based intrusion detection methods cannot find previously unknown attacks. On the other hand, algorithms used for anomaly detection often have black box qualities that are difficult to understand for people who are not algorithm experts. Rule extraction methods create interpretable rule sets that act as classifiers. They have mostly been combined with already labeled data sets. This paper aims to combine unsupervised anomaly detection with rule extraction techniques to create an online anomaly detection framework. Unsupervised anomaly detectio…

Managing sensor data streams in a smart home application

2020

A challenge in developing an ambient activity recognition system for use in elder care is finding a balance between the sophistication of the system and a cost structure that fits within the budgets of public and private sector healthcare organisations. Much activity recognition research in the context of elder care is based on dense networks of sensors and advanced methods, such as supervised machine learning algorithms. This paper presents the data processing aspects of an activity recognition system based on a simpler, knowledge-based unsupervised approach, designed for a sparse network of sensors. By structuring sensor data management as a streaming system, we provide a simple programmi…