The liver maintains important homeostatic functions such as metabolism and detoxification. Failure to remove toxic intermediates can cause hepatic damage, fibrosis, even cancer development. This review focuses on acetaldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs), a group of key enzymes within the ALDH superfamily with ability convert highly reactive aldehyde substrates corresponding carboxylic acids in NAD(P...

conflagration of forests and rangelands is one of the most frequent events in iran. it is regarded as one of the most important parts of land degradation that occurred due to range destruction and desertification. this study was conducted in boroujerd, lorestan province in west of iran in 2013 to determine the fire risk model. the data prepared for the study area involved the vegetation types, ...

The river reach is a pervasive term within contemporary river research and applications. Yet, despite its prevalence, there is a notable lack of consistency in its definition. This paper identifies the prevalence of two broad types of reach definition within the academic literature: operational, and functional, and argues that a functional definition is more suitable for applications within riv...

Even though fewer people die as a result of fire than other natural disasters, such as earthquake, flood, landslide, etc., the average loss of property due to fire is high. Kathmandu Metropolitan City is becoming more vulnerable to fire due to haphazard urbanization and increase in population. To control problems due to fire, systematic studies are necessary, including fire potential mapping an...

Preliminary palaeomagnetic data are presented for the AND-1B drill core. A total of 1309 samples were collected from the drill core immediately following recovery and splitting. Natural remanent magnetisation (NRM) and bulk magnetic susceptibility data were determined for all samples using a Molspin spinner magnetometer and Bartington Instruments susceptibility bridge, respectively, immediately...

The role of habitat complexity has been widely neglected in the study of meiofaunal community patterns. We studied the intertidal nematode community of a structurally complex macrotidal beach exhibiting contrasting microhabitats (sandbars and runnels) to understand the influence of environmental gradients and habitat heterogeneity in the community structure. We tested whether topographical comp...

Speciation often has a strong geographical and environmental component, but the ecological factors that potentially underlie allopatric and parapatric speciation remain understudied. Two ecological mechanisms by which speciation may occur on geographic scales are allopatric speciation through niche conservatism and parapatric or allopatric speciation through niche divergence. A previous study o...

Periportal and perivenous hepatocytes were isolated from rats subjected to different treatments that induce (starvation, cold exposure) or depress (refeeding after starvation) hepatic fatty acid oxidation. These experiments were designed to determine factors that may be involved in creating and maintaining the asymmetrical distribution of this metabolic pathway in the acinus of the liver. The u...

[1] We have investigated the potential of combining cross-hole georadar velocity and attenuation tomography as a method for characterizing heterogeneous alluvial aquifers. A multivariate statistical technique, known as k-means cluster analysis, is used to correlate and integrate information contained in velocity and attenuation tomograms. Cluster analysis allows us to identify objectively the m...