abstract background: and soils with which it comes in contact. there is dual exposure from radon in water i.e. due toinhalation of the radon released from the water into the ambient air and through ingestion whenwater is used for drinking. as radon contaminated water adversely affects the health, it istherefore fundamental from health and hygiene point of view to measure radium concentrationand...

PURPOSE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral mineralocorticoid-receptor antagonist (MRa) therapy in three clinical presentations of nonresolving central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) with chronic epitheliopathy. METHODS Retrospective case series of consecutive patients with nonresolving CSCR treated with oral eplerenone or spironolactone. Treatment criteria were: persistent CSCR with...

Each year more than two billion songbirds cross the Sahara, but how they perform this formidable task is largely unknown. Using geolocation tracks from 27 pied flycatchers, a nocturnally migrating passerine, we show that most birds made diurnal flights in both autumn and spring. These diurnal flights were estimated to be part of non-stop flights of mostly 40-60 h. In spring, birds flew across t...

Using daily minimum air-temperature (Tmin) data from the state of Illinois, the dates of spring and fall freezes – and the resulting growing-season length – are examined for trends during the period 1906–1997. Of the stations in the Daily Historical Climate Network, most show trends toward earlier spring freezes; however, trends in fall freezes are not consistent over the station network. Altho...

With current programming languages programmers have to manually keep track of device connectivity state changes while interacting with multiple partners in an ambient environment. This leads to complex code which is hard to evolve and maintain. We propose ambient contracts, a novel programming abstraction which tracks connectivity states in order to react appropriately when failure occurs. With...

Trotting and hopping animals use muscles, tendons and ligaments to store and return elastic energy as they bounce along the ground. We examine how the musculoskeletal spring system operates at different speeds and in animals of different sizes. We model trotting and hopping as a simple spring-mass system which consists of a leg spring and a mass. We find that the stiffness of the leg spring (k(...

Passive acoustic tracking provides an unobtrusive method of studying the movement of sound-producing animals in the marine environment where traditional tracking methods may be costly or infeasible. We used passive acoustic tracking to characterize the fine-scale movements of singing humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) on a northwest Atlantic feeding ground. Male humpback whales produce co...

Institute of Biotechnology One of the defining characteristics of memory is that Hsinchu 30043 initially it is labile, but with time it can be consolidated Taiwan to a longer-lasting form that is resistant to disruption. 2 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Immediately after training, for instance, memory can be 1 Bungtown Road disrupted by a variety of anesthetic agents or by electroCold Spring Har...