271 research outputs found
Influence of geology, glacial processes and land use on soil composition and Quaternary landscape evolution in The Burren National Park, Ireland
No full text
Can the MOLES acronym and scoring system improve the management of patients with melanocytic choroidal tumours?
No full textIt can be difficult for practitioners to determine the likelihood of malignancy in melanocytic choroidal tumours. This author has therefore devised the MOLES acronym to highlight the most informative clinical features, which comprise mushroom shape, orange pigment, large size, enlargement, and subretinal fluid. Each of these is scored 0 if absent, 1 if subtle or uncertain, and 2 if present. Tumours are categorised as ‘common naevus’, ‘low-risk naevus’, ‘high-risk naevus’ and ‘probable melanoma’ according to whether the sum of these five scores is 0, 1, 2 or 3 or more, respectively. Tentative recommendations, subject to future studies, include: review of ‘common naevi’ by a community optometrist whenever the patient attends for another reason, such as a two-yearly ‘check-up’ (i.e., ‘self-care’); non-urgent referral of patients with ‘low-risk naevi’ or ‘high-risk naevi’ to an ophthalmologist to plan long-term surveillance (i.e., determining the frequency of assessments and whether these should be undertaken by an ophthalmologist or a community optometrist); and urgent referral of patients with a MOLES score >2 (i.e., ‘probable melanoma’) to an ophthalmologist for immediate referral to an ocular oncologist if a suspicion of malignancy is confirmed. The MOLES system does not require assessment of internal acoustic reflectivity by ultrasonography. MOLES scores correlate well with diagnosis of choroidal naevi and melanomas by ocular oncologists; however, further evaluation of this aid in routine optometric practice and other situations is needed. MOLES should prevent unnecessary referral of patients with naevi for second opinion and non-essential monitoring of these patients at hospital eye services
Influence of geology, glacial processes and land use on soil composition and Quaternary landscape evolution in The Burren National Park, Ireland
No full textThe Burren in County Clare, western Ireland is a glaciated karstic landscape with a fragmented soil and vegetation cover on a predominantly limestone substrate. A representative area approximately 4 km2 in extent located within The Burren National Park was studied in order to determine the distributions of soil types and relate these to geology, glacial erosion and deposition, post-glacial mass movements and land use. Mineralogical and particle size analyses indicate the presence of two distinct soil types, one shale-bearing, the other granite-bearing. Geochemical analyses confirm this division and also reveal soils of mixed composition and a distinctive subtype of granite-bearing soil that occurs exclusively on drumlin-like landforms. The soils on the drumlins formed by the decalcification of limestone-rich glacial diamicton (till) containing granite and metamorphic rocks derived from County Galway to the north. The occurrence of mineralogically similar though geochemically heterogeneous soils throughout the area suggests that there was once an extensive thin cover of diamicton, which has almost entirely vanished because of pedogenesis and erosion. Soils containing shale fragments occur in a glacial dispersion train extending south from outcrops of a small body of shale-rich limestone breccia. Isolated patches of shale-bearing soil occurring up to 1.2 km from these outcrops may have formed by the weathering of ice-transported boulders. The presence of relatively deep soil cover on outcrops of the shale/limestone unit is attributed to Holocene weathering to form an erosion-resistant clay-rich soil. Tree charcoal, 14C-dated to 3300 BP and buried to a depth of 2 m by mixed granite- and shale-bearing soil, indicates that Bronze Age deforestation triggered mass movement and soil erosion. Denudation processes are still active in the Burren landscape
Volume 10, Number 27
No full textThis is an 8-page weekly magazine for children in Catholic religious education. Pages 6-7 are given to "Gospel Activity." Six cartoon panels are filled with black-and-white line drawings. Pupils are urged to draw in the last two empty panels. The story is presented as "The Porcupine and the Moles" telling one of Aesop's fables. Porcupine asks the moles if he could share their cave for the winter, and the welcome him. After a week, the moles are suffering from the porcupine's needles. They decide to talk with the porcupine and ask him to leave. "Oh, no! This place suits me well." Pupils are asked to talk through with each other how the porcupine and moles can solve their problem. Five questions help. They are to write or draw their group's solution into the two empty panels. I would say that this is a good challenge. Mom wrote on a post-it note "I wish you could have heard the solutions my students gave to this problem."No Autho
The impact of environmental factors on the distribution of plant species in a Burren grassland patch: implications for conservation
No full textThe selection of appropriate conservation prescriptions for Burren grassland is complicated by its fragmented pattern of occurrence and by marked interpatch and intrapatch heterogeneity in both vegetation and environmental variables. Here, a patch scale study into the relationship between flowering plant species distribution and environmental variables aims to inform prescription selection. We found that patterns in species distribution were related to those in environmental variables such as soil pH and slope. Environmental heterogeneity is created by soil decalcification and downslope mass movement, resulting in exposure of calcareous subsoils on steeper slopes and accumulation of carbonate-poor, more sandy soils at slope bases. Conservation of vegetation diversity requires that processes important in creating this environmental heterogeneity continue to operate. Possible threats to the continuance of these processes are identified
Lithium batteries with new manganese oxide materials as lithium intercalation hosts, U.S. Patent 6,465,129
No full textAmorphous manganese dioxide cathodes for lithium batteries with lithium metal or other lithium-containing anodes, the cathode being synthesized by a sol-gel approach involving reduction of sodium permanganate with fumaric acid disodium salt carried out at room temperature to ensure an amorphous structure. The resulting amorphous manganese dioxide has a nanoporous structure and a high internal surface area of 350 m2/g. The amorphous manganese dioxide can electrochemically intercalate more than 1.6 moles of lithium per mole of manganese, and its theoretical capacity is 2 moles of lithium per mole of manganese. The host structure remains amorphous in the entire intercalation range and the intercalation process is reversible. Lithium battery cathodes comprising the amorphous manganese dioxide, a carbon powder and a binder provide a charge capacity in the level of 436 mAh/g and store energy at the level of 1056 mWh/g. Copper doped amorphous manganese oxides showed significant improvement in cycling performance
Patients with familial biparental hydatidiform moles have normal methylation at imprinted genes
No full textIn molar tissues from patients with recurrent biparental hydatidiform moles, we could previously demonstrate that differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of four imprinted genes are abnormally methylated on the maternal alleles. It remained unclear if this abnormal methylation originated de novo in the molar tissues or if it is even recognizable in the patient somatic tissues. To address this question, we investigated the DNA methylation of four imprinted genes in total blood from the two sister-patients. Here, we show that both patients retain normal methylation levels at the DMRs of the four genes in blood tissues. For two maternally expressed genes, we could use informative SNPs to follow the inheritance of the abnormally methylated maternal alleles in the molar tissues. We find that the transmitted abnormally methylated maternal alleles to the moles originated from the maternal grandmother and that the same alleles are not methylated in the patients. Our data suggest that the abnormal methylation in familial biparental molar tissues was acquired de novo in the patients'germline as a result of a false reprogramming or during the postzygotic development of the conceptuses that led to moles. © 2005 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved.Barro C, 2002, ANN BIOL CLIN-PARIS, V60, P325; Cui HM, 2001, CANCER RES, V61, P4947; El-Maarri O, 2002, NUCLEIC ACIDS RES, V30, DOI 10.1093-nar-30.6.e25; El-Maarri O, 2003, HUM MOL GENET, V12, P1405, DOI 10.1093-hmg-ddg152; El-Maarri Osman, 2004, Methods Mol Biol, V287, P195; Fisher RA, 2002, HUM MOL GENET, V11, P3267, DOI 10.1093-hmg-11.26.3267; Hashimoto K, 1997, HUM PATHOL, V28, P862, DOI 10.1016-S0046-8177(97)90162-3; Judson H, 2002, NATURE, V416, P539, DOI 10.1038-416539a; KONDO M, 1995, ONCOGENE, V10, P1193; Kumar K S D, 2003, J Obstet Gynaecol, V23, P55, DOI 10.1080-0144361021000043263; Li XR, 1998, INT J CANCER, V75, P176, DOI 10.1002-(SICI)1097-0215(19980119)75:2176::AID-IJC23.0.CO;2-R; Maegawa S, 2001, MOL CARCINOGEN, V31, P1, DOI 10.1002-mc.1034; Mann MRW, 2004, DEVELOPMENT, V131, P3727, DOI 10.1242-dev.01241; Moglabey YB, 1999, HUM MOL GENET, V8, P667, DOI 10.1093-hmg-8.4.667; MOULTON T, 1994, NAT GENET, V7, P440, DOI 10.1038-ng0794-440; Nakagawa H, 2001, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V98, P591, DOI 10.1073-pnas.011528698; Nelen WLDM, 2000, HUM REPROD, V15, P954, DOI 10.1093-humrep-15.4.954; Nelen WLDM, 2000, OBSTET GYNECOL, V95, P519, DOI 10.1016-S0029-7844(99)00610-9; Nelen WLDM, 2000, FERTIL STERIL, V74, P1196, DOI 10.1016-S0015-0282(00)01595-8; REZNIKOFFETIEVANT, 2002, EUR J OBSTET GYN R B, V104, P156; STEENMAN MJC, 1994, NAT GENET, V7, P433, DOI 10.1038-ng0794-433; TANIGUCHI T, 1995, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V92, P2159, DOI 10.1073-pnas.92.6.215915141
Author Correction: Incorrect interpretation of carbon mass balance biases global vegetation fire emission estimates.
No full textCorrection to: Nature Communications, published online 05 May 2016 The original version of this Article contained an error in Equation 2. Equation 2 incorrectly read: (Formula presented.) The correct form of Equation 2 is: (Formula presented.) The original version of this Article contained an error in Equation 4. Equation 4 incorrectly read: EX = A × B × CF × Cpre × UC × EFX The correct form of Equation 4 is: EX = A × B × CF × CCF,pre × UC × EFX The original version of this Article contained an error in the description of equation 2 in the Methods section, which incorrectly read ‘where UC is a conversion factor used to convert between atomic and molar masses, CX is the number of moles of species X and CT is the total number of carbon moles emitted to the atmosphere.’ The correct version replaces this with ‘where CCF,pre is the pre-fire carbon fraction of the fuel, UC is a conversion factor used to convert between atomic and molar masses, CX is the number of moles of species X and CT is the total number of carbon moles emitted to the atmosphere.’. This has been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article
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