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Adaptation to a repeated restraint stress schedule was monitored in ethanol-treated and control rats. A single episode of 2 h restraint decreased food intake in both control and ethanol-treated rats. The decreases in control rats were not observed following the 5th daily restraint of 2 h/day, suggesting that adaptation has occurred. Ethanol-treated rats, however, exhibited decreased food intake even after 5th daily restraint of 2 h/day. Ethanol administration decreased weekly but not daily cumulative food intake in unrestrained rats. Food intakes of ethanol-treated and control restrained rats were comparable following 1st-3rd daily restraints, but were smaller in ethanol-treated rats following the 4th and 5th daily restraints. Open-field ambulatory activities monitored 24 h after the 5th daily restraint on the 6th day were comparable in control restrained and unrestrained rats. Ethanol-treated and control unrestrained rats also exhibited comparable ambulation, but ethanol-treated rats exhibited smaller activity than control restrained or ethanol-treated unrestrained rats. Fluid intakes of ethanol and control rats were comparable during the 2 weeks of ethanol administration, but daily restraint schedule decreased ethanol intake. The findings show adaptation to repeated restraint in control rats and inability of ethanol-treated rats to adapt in the stress schedule. These findings imply that excessive alcohol consumption may impair adaptation to stress and thus conceivably precipitate depression.

The energy crisis and increasing fossil fuel prices due to increasing demands, controlled supplies, and global political unrest have adversely affected agricultural productivity and farm profitability across the globe and Pakistan is not an exception. To cope with this issue of energy deficiency in agriculture, the best alternate strategy is to take advantage of biomass and solid waste potential. In low-income countries such as Pakistan, the greenhouse heating system mostly relies on fossil fuels such as diesel, gasoline, and LPG. Farmers are reluctant to adopt greenhouse farming due to the continuously rising prices of the fossil fuels. To reduce reliance on fossil fuel energy, the objective of this study was to utilize biomass from crop residues to develop an efficient and economical biomass furnace that could heat greenhouses to protect the crop from seasonal temperature effects. Modifications made to the biomass furnace, such as the incorporation of insulation around the walls of the furnace, providing turbulators in fire tubes, and a secondary heat exchanger (heat recovery system) in the chimney, have increased the thermal efficiency of the biomass furnace by about 21.7%. A drastic reduction in hazardous elements of flue gases was observed due to the addition of a water scrubber smoke filter in the exit line of the flue. The efficiency of the biomass furnace ranged from 50.42% to 54.18%, whereas the heating efficiency of the diesel-fired heater was 71.19%. On the basis of the equal heating value of the fuels, the unit material and operating costs of the biomass furnace for wood, cotton stalks, corn cobs, and cow dung were USD 2.04, 1.86, 1.78, and 2.00 respectively against USD 4.67/h for the diesel heater. The capital and operating costs of the biomass furnace were about 50% and 43.7% of the diesel heater respectively, resulting in a seasonal saving of about 1573 USD. The produced smoke was tested as environmental friendly under the prescribed limits of the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), which shows potential for its large-scale adoption and wider applications.

Humidification dehumidification water desalination system using two cycles of air flow (open and closed-air cycles).

Fluorescence energy homotransfer offers a powerful tool for the investigation of the state of oligomerization of cell surface receptors on a cell-by-cell basis by measuring the polarized components of fluorescence intensity of cells labeled with fluorescently stained antibodies. Here we describe homotransfer-based methods for the flow cytometric detection and analysis of hetero- and homo-associations of cell surface receptors. Homotransfer efficiencies for two- and three-body energy transfer interactions are defined and their frequency distribution curves are computed from the fluorescence anisotropy distributions of multiple-labeled cells. The fractions of receptors involved in homo-clustering is calculated based on the dependence of the fluorescence anisotropy on the surface concentration of the fluorescently stained antibodies. A homotransfer analysis of the homo- and hetero-clustering of the MHCI and MHCII glycoproteins, the cytokine receptor IL-2Ralpha, transferrin receptor and the receptor-type tyrosine phosphatase CD45 on JY B and Kit-225-K6 T cells is presented. We investigated how various factors such as the type of dye, rotational mobility of the dye and dye-targeting antibody, as well as the wavelength of the exciting light affect the homotransfer. We show that the homotransfer technique combined with the high statistical resolution of flow cytometry is an effective tool for detecting different oligomeric states of receptors by using fluorophores having restricted rotational mobility on the time scale of fluorescence.

The main emphasis of this paper is on the power quality based comparison of two identical systems modeled in ETAP, one comprising CFLs as lighting load and the other has fluorescent lights as lighting source. Current waveforms along with its spectrum for the HTs (High Tension side) and LTs (Low Tension side) of distribution transformers, voltage waveforms and their spectrum at different buses have been compared in terms of THDv and THDi at various locations.

This paper studies the vibrational motion of a dynamical system connected to an electromagnetic device, which is one of the energy harvesting (EH) devices that transform the vibrational motion into electric energy. This system has three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) and consists of two linked parts attached together; one is a nonlinear Duffing oscillator, and the other is a nonlinear damping spring pendulum. The regulating equations of motion (EOM) are achieved utilizing Lagrange’s equations and solved analytically applying the approach of multiple scales (AMS) till the third order of approximation. The accuracy of the attained solutions has been examined by comparing them with the numerical ones of the EOM. The time histories of the solutions and the nonlinear stability analysis of the modulation equations are represented graphically in various plots. The Poincaré maps and phase portraits diagrams displayed the stable behavior of the studied dynamical system. In addition, the different ranges of the stabilities are examined and discussed. In the electromagnetic device, the output power and current time series are depicted as a function of different values of the damping coefficients, excitation amplitudes, and load resistance. It is noted that the output current and power are dropped when the damping coefficient is raised. On the other hand, the increment of the excitation has a positive effect on the electrical generation and produces increment of the output power and current. Furthermore, the output power grows when the total resistance increases to accommodate the applied load. The EH device generates high output current and power at low-frequency values. The significance of this work is limited to the numerous uses of its outcomes in everyday life, such as powering medical devices, serving as a power supply for sensors, and serving as a backup energy source for some electronic devices.

Treatment of mice in vivo with 5% w/v ethanol given in a liquid diet causes marked changes in spleen, peripheral blood, and thymus lymphocytes. In both the thymus and spleen, there is an acute cellular depletion resulting in a significant decrease in gross tissue size and cell number. In spleen and peripheral blood, the percentage of T lymphocytes is increased relative to B lymphocytes, but the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cell sub‐populations remains unchanged. Splenic natural killer (NK) cell activity is increased in ethanol‐consuming mice, although the percentage of NK1.1+ cells is relatively unchanged.