Sap flow in plants takes place in the xylem, a hydraulic system that is usually under negative pressure and in which gas and liquid phases are separated by nanoporous, fibrous pit membranes. It has long been known that this system is at risk of drawing gas nanobubbles through these membranes into the xylem sap, a process referred to as “air seeding”. These bubbles then can cavitate and create e...

the determination of the ultimate pit limit (upl) is the first step in the open pit mine planning process. in this stage that parts of the mineral deposit that are economic to mine are determined. there are several mathematical, heuristic and meta-heuristic algorithms to determine upl. the optimization criterion in these algorithms is maximization of the total profit whilst satisfying the...

one of the main concerns of the mining industry is to determine ultimate pit limits. final pit is a collection of blocks, which can be removed with maximum profit while following restrictions on the slope of the mine’s walls. the size, location and final shape of an open-pit are very important in designing the location of waste dumps, stockpiles, processing plants, access roads and other surfac...

background: sacral pit is a shallow or deep dimple in the lower sacral region, with a reported prevalence of 3-5% among newborns. the aim of the present study was to investigate spinal cord abnormalities in newborns with sacral pit via ultrasound examinations. methods: in this descriptive study, 3071 infants born at 34-42 weeks of gestation were studied in hospitals affiliated to islamic azad u...

OBJECTIVE Elevated serum phosphate has emerged as a major risk factor for vascular calcification. The sodium-dependent phosphate cotransporter, PiT-1, was previously shown to be required for phosphate-induced osteogenic differentiation and calcification of cultured human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), but its importance in vascular calcification in vivo and the potential role of its homo...

Although alternative splicing has been shown to give rise to isoforms of a number of transcription factors, such isoforms have not previously been detected for the POU homeodomain protein Pit-1. Screening of a rat pituitary GH3 cell cDNA expression library yielded a clone, termed pCMVPit-1a, encoding a 35.8 kD protein (Pit-1a) containing a 26 amino acid insert in the Pit-1 trans-activation doma...

One of the main concerns of the mining industry is to determine ultimate pit limits. Final pit is a collection of blocks, which can be removed with maximum profit while following restrictions on the slope of the mine’s walls. The size, location and final shape of an open-pit are very important in designing the location of waste dumps, stockpiles, processing plants, access roads and other surfac...