Remote Sensing of Climatic Anomalies and West Nile Virus Incidence in the Northern Great Plains of the United States

The northern Great Plains (NGP) of the United States has been a hotspot of West Nile virus (WNV) incidence since 2002. Mosquito ecology and the transmission of vector-borne disease are influenced by multiple environmental factors, and climatic variability is an important driver of inter-annual variation in WNV transmission risk. This study applied multiple environmental predictors including land surface temperature (LST), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and actual evapotranspiration (ETa) derived from Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products to establish prediction models for WNV risk in the NGP. These environmental metrics are sensitive to seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, and are hypothesized to influence mosquito population dynamics and WNV transmission. Non-linear generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to evaluate the influences of deviations of cumulative LST, NDVI, and ETa on inter-annual variations of WNV incidence from 2004–2010. The models were sensitive to the timing of spring green up (measured with NDVI), temperature variability in early spring and summer (measured with LST), and moisture availability from late spring through early summer (measured with ETa), highlighting seasonal changes in the influences of climatic fluctuations on WNV transmission. Predictions based on these variables indicated a low WNV risk across the NGP in 2011, which is concordant with the low case reports in this year. Environmental monitoring using remote-sensed data can contribute to surveillance of WNV risk and prediction of future WNV outbreaks in space and time.     

Systemic delivery of enkephalin peptide through eyes

Leu-enkephalin is one of the important peptides which could become useful drugs in the clinics because of its analgesic action and its availability in mass quantity through biotechnology production. It is found in this study that enkephalin can be effectively absorbed systemically through eyes without using a surfactant as absorption enhancer. Enkephalin at 0.125% (31.25 micrograms/25 microliter) reached a plateau of blood concentration at 11.5 ng/ml in 3-4 hrs and stayed high for 8-9 hrs. In contrast, the blood concentration of enkephalin declined rapidly after i.v. administration with a T1/2 of less than 30 min and reached the lowest point at 22 ng/ml in 5 hrs. With higher concentrations at 1% (.25 mg/25 microliter) and 5% (1.25 mg/25 microliter) similar absorption kinetics was observed except that they reached higher plateau of blood concentration at 72 ng/ml and 233 ng/ml, respectively.     

Inhibition of the initiation of leukemic transcription by N-trifluoroacetyladriamycin-14-O-hemiadipate in vitro. Impaired formation of RNA polymerase-DNA complex

The effect of N-trifluoroacetyladriamycin-14-O-hemiadipate (AD 143), a new derivative of adriamycin, on various steps of the enzymic reaction catalyzed by chicken myeloblastosis RNA polymerase II was studied. AD 143 inhibition of RNA synthesis, which was evident at the beginning of the reaction, could not be reversed by increasing the concentrations of any one of the four nucleoside triphosphate substrates of the reaction. Furthermore, the RNA synthesis inhibition was not affected by varying the concentrations of template DNA. The AD 143-induced inhibition caused a reduction of the frequency of RNA chain initiation, whereas the average chain length of RNA synthesized at the end of the reaction remained unaltered. The susceptible step in the initiation process was found to be the formation of stable complexes between RNA polymerase and the DNA template. While AD 143 causes no inhibition of Escherichia coli RNA polymerase activity, it was found not to affect the E. coli RNA polymerase-template DNA complex formation.     

Long-Term GABA Treatment Elicits Supersensitivity of Quisqualate-Preferring Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor in Cultured Rat Cerebellar Neurons

Abstract: In primary cultures of rat cerebellar granule neurons, GABA treatment (50 μ M , 7 days) caused a withdrawal supersensitivity selective for the metabotropic glutamate receptors that mainly prefer l -glutamate, quisqua- late and, to a lesser extent, kainate. The withdrawal supersensitivity was absent when 10 μ M SR-95531 was coadministered with GABA during the treatment period, an event that suggests the GABA_A receptors primarily produced the GABA treatment effect. This was supported further by the inability of baclofen treatment to mimic completely the treatment effect of GABA. Withdrawal from 7 days of baclofen treatment only produced a slight increase in the metabotropic effect of l -glutamate and carbachol. In addition, in untreated neurons, baclofen had no acute effect, whereas GABA inhibited the effect of l -glutamate and carbachol. The inhibitory effect of GABA was reversed by SR-95531 and was absent in neurons treated with GABA. These observations suggest the involvement of GABA_A receptors and the apparent development of tolerance to GABA, respectively. Also, dependence on GABA may have occurred; the metabotropic effects of glutamate, kainate, and quisqualate were not altered in neurons maintained with GABA treatment.     

Assessing and improving the green performance using a compound approach

This study presents a compound approach with a five-phase process to assess and improve the green performance. Based on the Six Sigma approach, the five-phase process consists of definition, measurement, analysis, improvement and control (DMAIC) phases. During the first three phases, an evaluation the assessment model is developed based on the analytical hierarchy process. Particle swarm optimization is also performed to search for the sequence of actions in order to improve the green performance based on the output of the assessment model. Managers can monitor the progress of the improvement plan during the control phase. A case study involving two global footwear manufacturers demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.