Climate rather than geography separates two European honeybee subspecies.

Both climatic and geographical factors play an important role for the biogeographical distribution of species. The Carpathian mountain ridge has been suggested as a natural geographical divide between the two honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera carnica and A. m. macedonica. We sampled one worker from one colony each at 138 traditional apiaries located across the Carpathians spanning from the Hungarian plains to the Danube delta. All samples were sequenced at the mitochondrial tRNA(Leu)-cox2 intergenic region and genotyped at twelve microsatellite loci. The Carpathians had only limited impact on the biogeography because both subspecies were abundant on either side of the mountain ridge. In contrast, subspecies differentiation strongly correlated with the various temperature zones in Romania. A. m. carnica is more abundant in regions with the mean average temperature below 9 °C, whereas A. m. macedonica honeybees are more frequent in regions with mean temperatures above 9 °C. This range selection may have impact on the future biogeography in the light of anticipated global climatic changes.

Seasonal changes of buffalo colostrum: physicochemical parameters, fatty acids and cholesterol variation.

BACKGROUND: Colostrum has many beneficial effects on newborns due to its main compounds (proteins, fats, lactose, essential fatty acids, amino acids) as well as protective antibodies that confer to the body. The buffaloes are the second important species for milk production in the world after cows. The importance of the species is also conferred by a longer longevity, high dry content of milk and a strong organic resistance when compared with cows. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of buffalo colostrum compounds such as fatty acids, cholesterol and physicochemical parameters during the first seven days postpartum and under the impact of the season, summer on pasture and winter on dry diet (hay based). RESULTS: Fat from colostrum differs depending on the postpartum day showing mean values of 11.31-7.56% (summer season) and 11.22-7.51% (winter season). These values gradually decreased starting with first day postpartum until day seven. Dry substance and protein presented a similar evolution to fat reaching the lowest values at the end of the colostral period. Lactose, ash and pH showed a gradually increase reaching the maximum on day seven postpartum. The highest titres of fatty acids from colostrum are: butyric acid (C4:0), myristic acid (C14:0), palmitic acid (C16:0), oleic acid (C18:1) and the lowest values showed up in myristoleic acid (C14:1), cis-10-pentadecanoic acid (C15:1), pentadecylic acid (C15:0) and margaric acid (C17:0) for both seasons. Higher concentrations have been recorded for the summer season in general. Cholesterol concentration decreased from 12.93 and 12.68 mg/100 mL (summer and winter season) to 9.02 and 7.88 mg/100 mL in the end of the colostral period. CONCLUSIONS: Physicochemical compounds of buffalo colostrum were influenced by season and postpartum day of milking. Excepting lactose all other parameters gradually decreased during colostral period. Fatty acids and cholesterol showed the same evolution, presenting higher values for the summer season. Specific feeding in the summer season (on pasture) did lead in more concentrated colostrum in dry substance, fatty acids and cholesterol.

Implementation of an iPhone for characterizing Parkinson's disease tremor through a wireless accelerometer application.

Parkinson's disease represents a chronic movement disorder, which is generally proportionally to age. The status of Parkinson's disease is traditionally classified through ordinal scale strategies, such as the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. However, the application of the ordinal scale strategy inherently requires highly specialized and limited medical resources for interpretation. An alternative strategy involves the implementation of an iPhone application that enables the device to serve as a functional wireless accelerometer system. The Parkinson's disease tremor attributes may be recorded in either an effectively autonomous public or private setting, for which the resultant accelerometer signal of the tremor can be conveyed wireless and through email to a remote location for data post-processing. The initial testing and evaluation of the iPhone wireless accelerometer application for quantifying Parkinson's disease tremor successfully demonstrates the capacity to acquire tremor characteristics in an effectively autonomous environment, while potentially alleviating strain on limited and highly specialized medical resources.

Implementation of an iPhone as a wireless accelerometer for quantifying gait characteristics.

The capacity to quantify and evaluate gait beyond the general confines of a clinical environment under effectively autonomous conditions may alleviate rampant strain on limited and highly specialized medical resources. An iPhone consists of a three dimensional accelerometer subsystem with highly robust and scalable software applications. With the synthesis of the integral iPhone features, an iPhone application, which constitutes a wireless accelerometer system for gait quantification and analysis, has been tested and evaluated in an autonomous environment. The acquired gait cycle data was transmitted wireless and through email for subsequent post-processing in a location remote to the location where the experiment was conducted. The iPhone application functioning as a wireless accelerometer for the acquisition of gait characteristics has demonstrated sufficient accuracy and consistency.

Wireless accelerometer reflex quantification system characterizing response and latency.

The evaluation of the deep tendon reflex is a standard aspect of a neurological evaluation, which is frequently evoked through the patellar tendon reflex. Important features of the reflex are response and latency, providing insight to status for peripheral neuropathy and upper motor neuron syndrome. A wireless accelerometer reflex quantification system has been developed, tested, and evaluated. The reflex input is derived from a potential energy setting. Wireless accelerometers characterize the reflex hammer strike and reflex response acceleration waveforms, enabling the quantification of reflex response and latency. Spectral analysis of the reflex response acceleration waveform elucidates the frequency domain, opening the potential for new reflex classification metrics. The wireless accelerometer reflex quantification system yields accurate and consistent quantification of reflex response and latency.

Virtual proprioception with real-time step detection and processing.

Virtual proprioception is a novel device for providing near autonomous biofeedback of hemiparetic gait disparity in real time. With virtual proprioception a user may modify gait dynamics to develop a more suitable gait in tandem with real time feedback. Accelerometers are fundamental to the operation of the device, and a thorough consideration of the accelerometry technology space for locomotion quantification is included. The role of traumatic brain injury and respective decrements to gait quality and proprioceptive feedback are addressed. Virtual proprioception conceptual test and evaluation yielded positive results. The active 'on' status of the virtual proprioception biofeedback for alternative gait strategy was bounded by a 90% confidence level with a 10% margin of error.

Med-type GATA factors and the evolution of mesendoderm specification in nematodes.

In the nematode, C. elegans, the divergent GATA-type transcription factors MED-1 and MED-2 are encoded by an unlinked, redundant pair of intronless genes. The med-1,2 genes are among the first to be activated in the embryo and are critical for the specification of the 7-cell stage MS (mesoderm) and E (endoderm) precursor cells. We have previously shown that the binding site recognized by MED-1 is a noncanonical RAGTATAC site that is not expected from the resemblance of its single C4-type zinc finger to those of other known GATA factors, which recognize the consensus HGATAR. To date, no MED-like zinc fingers have been described outside of C. elegans. In order to understand the evolution of these transcription factors, and the evolution of gene networks that specify early cell fates in Caenorhabditis, we have identified med sequence homologs in the related nematodes C. briggsae and C. remanei. While C. briggsae encodes two med-like genes similar to C. elegans, we find evidence for seven distinct med-like genes in C. remanei. Somewhat unexpectedly, the coding regions of all med genes appear to lack introns. We report that the med homologs have similar expression in their respective species. We further show that the C. briggsae homologs, and at least five of the seven C. remanei homologs, can fully complement the embryonic lethal phenotype of a C. elegans med-1,2(-) strain. We conclude that Med function and expression have been conserved over tens of millions of years of evolution, and that there may be a mechanism that selects against the acquisition of introns in these genes.