Primary production and respiration of the phytoplankton in the Blue and White Niles at Khartoum

Phytoplankton production and respiration in the Blue Nile and White Nile at Khartoum were measured during the period November 1969–January 1971 using the light and dark bottle technique. Maximum rates of production coincided with periods of maximum phytoplankton densities. In the Blue Nile gross production varied between 0.00 gCm^–3d^–1 during the flood season and 2.19 gCm^–3d^–1 (0.49 mgO₂l^–1h^–1) during November 1969. In the White Nile the range was from 0.41 gCm^–3d^–1 (0.09 MgO₂l^–1h^–1) in May to 3.74 gCm^–3d^–1 (0.83 MgO₂l^–1h^–1) in November. The maximum rates of respiration in the Blue Nile and White Nile were 0.10 and 0.63 MgO₂l^–1h^–1 respectively. The ratios net:gross production were generally higher in the White Nile than in the Blue Nile.     

Biopharmaceutical studies of spirobishexahydropyrimidine.

Oral administration of spirobishexahydropyrimidine showed an increase in the activity of serum transaminases, lactate dehydrogenase and alkaline phosphatase. Biological half life and other pharmacokinetic parameters showed rapid absorption and slow elimination of the drug.     

Biopharmaceutical studies of 3-substituted isatin derivatives

The metabolic fate of isatin hydrazone (Ia), isatin-3-thiosemicarbazone (Ib), isatin-3-semicarbazone (Ic), isatin-3-phenylhydrazone (Id), isatin oxime (Ie) and 3-hydroxy-3-acetonyl oxindole (II) was studied in rabbits. The compounds were administered orally in the dose of 300 mg/kg body wt. Isatin anthranilic acid, tryptophan and nicotinic acid were identified as the major metabolites excreted in urine. The 3-hydroxy-3-acetonyl oxindole (II) gave on additional metabolite, oxindole. The major metabolites were separated and identified unambiguously on thin layer silica gel plate. Metabolic pathways have been proposed to explain the biotransformation of the compounds investigated.     

Effects of salt stress on nitrogenase activity and growth of four legumes

The effects of salt stress on nitrogenase (N2-ase) activity, growth and nitrogen content ofVicia faba (L.),Medicago sativa (L.) Merrill,Glycine max andVigna sinensis (L.) were investigated. Four levels of salinity were applied and salt treatments were imposed on inoculated and N-fertilized plants.M. sativa tolerated mild levels of salinity but higher salt concentrations depressed N₂-ase activity of this species. The other three legumes were considerably affected by salt treatments, and N₂-ase activity was significantly reduced by salinity. Vicia faba, carrying elongate nodules, could restore a partial N₂-ase activity upon recovery from salt stress whereasG. max andV. sinesis, both with spherical nodules, could not regain significant activity when salinity was removed. Salt stress retarded growth of both inoculated and N-fertilized plants. The nitrogen content of both treatments was also affected by salinity and the effect was more severe for inoculated than N-fertilized plants.     

Fast-HBR: Fast hash based duplicate read remover

The Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms produce massive amounts of data to analyze various features in environmental samples. These data contain multiple duplicate reads which impact the analyzing process efficiency and accuracy. We describe Fast-HBR, a fast and memory-efficient duplicate reads removing tool without a reference genome using de-novo principles. It uses hash tables to represent reads in integer value to minimize memory usage for faster manipulation. Fast-HBR is faster and has less memory footprint when compared with the state of the art De-novo duplicate removing tools. Fast-HBR implemented in Python 3 is available at https://github.com/Sami-Altayyar/Fast-HBR.     

Synthesis of some novel 6-benzyl(or substituted benzyl)-2-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-1,2,4-triazolo[4,3-b][1,2,4]triazines as potential antimicrobial chemotherapeutics

Glucosidation of the new 8-amino-6-benzyl(or substituted benzyl)-2,8-dihydro-1,2,4-triazolo[4,3-b][1,2,4]triazin-7(3H)-ones (3a-d) with 2,3,4,6-tetra-O-acetyl-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl bromide 4 gave the corresponding N-glucosides 5a-d. Chemical transformations leading to new functionalities have also been achieved to give compounds 7-12. Antimicrobial activity of compounds 5a-c against Aspergillus fumigatus, Penicillium italicum, Syncephalastrum racemosum, Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli is described.     

Listening to Puns Elicits the Co-Activation of Alternative Homophone Meanings during Language Production

Recent evidence suggests that lexical-semantic activation spread during language production can be dynamically shaped by contextual factors. In this study we investigated whether semantic processing modes can also affect lexical-semantic activation during word production. Specifically, we tested whether the processing of linguistic ambiguities, presented in the form of puns, has an influence on the co-activation of unrelated meanings of homophones in a subsequent language production task. In a picture-word interference paradigm with word distractors that were semantically related or unrelated to the non-depicted meanings of homophones we found facilitation induced by related words only when participants listened to puns before object naming, but not when they heard jokes with unambiguous linguistic stimuli. This finding suggests that a semantic processing mode of ambiguity perception can induce the co-activation of alternative homophone meanings during speech planning.