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Pila globosa, an edible variety of apple snail is a common inhabitant of lentic ecosystem and feeds on plant detritus. The tissue extract of gastrointestinal tract from Pila globosa demonstrated the presence of carboxymethyl cellulase, xylanase, alginate lyase and pectinase activity. Culture-dependent method was used to isolate carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) degrading bacteria from the gastrointestinal tract of apple snail. Morphologically identical colonies were obtained on M9 gelrite plates containing CMC as carbon source. One such bacterial isolate was purified by streaking and designated as strain PG-1. Bacterial strain PG-1 degraded CMC, pectin, starch and alginate. The 16S rDNA sequence of strain PG1 was 99% identical to Klebsiella oxytoca. Phylogenetic analysis using maximum likelihood revealed the clustering of strain PG1 with the clade belonging to Klebsiella oxytoca type strain.

This microgenetic study examined social influences on children's development of analogical reasoning during peer-led small-group discussions of stories about controversial issues. A total of 277 analogies were identified among 7,215 child turns for speaking during 54 discussions from 18 discussion groups in 6 fourth-grade classrooms (N = 120; age M = 10.0, SD = 0.6). Use of analogy was found to spread among the children in discussion groups and occur at an accelerating rate, primarily because of the increasing use of novel analogies. Relational analogies with shared surface features triggered purely relational analogies during the next 2 speaking turns, showing a trend of relational shift. These results provide distinctive new evidence for the importance of social interaction in an aspect of cognitive development.

We are interested in two questions on extremes relating to world records in athletics. The first question is: What is the ultimate world record in a specific athletic event (such as the 100-m race for men or the high jump for women), given today's state of the art? Our second question is: How \"good\" is a current athletic world record? An answer to the second question also enables us to compare the quality of world records in different athletic events. We consider these questions for each of 28 events (14 for both men and women). We approach the two questions with the probability theory of extreme values and the corresponding statistical techniques. The statistical model is of a nonparametric nature; only some \"weak regularity\" of the tail of the distribution function is assumed. We derive the limiting distribution of the estimated quality of a world record. While almost all attempts to predict an ultimate world record are based on the development of world records over time, this is not our method. Instead, we use all top performances. Our estimated ultimate world record tells us what, in principle, is possible in the near future, given the present knowledge, material (shoes, suits, equipment), and drug laws.

The British Olympic Association was formed by men whose class attitudes were reflected in their adherence to traditional notions of amateurism. An emphasis on elegance and a suspicion of professional coaches were central to their ethos and resulted in the middle-class amateur focusing on events that accommodated the symmetrical body while avoiding events that demanded a more proletarian, highly trained functional body. The result was the almost complete absence of amateurs from the field-event arena to the long-term detriment of the competitiveness of British international teams, although, between the 1908 London Games and the outbreak of war in 1914, efforts were made to redress the balance between track and field. Using press reports and organizational archives, this paper uncovers some of these initiatives and concludes that their failure to make a difference is confirmation of how deeply amateur values had been embedded within the British athletic system.

Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) are a class of chaperones with low molecular weight, feathered by a C-terminal α-crystallin domain (ACD). They participate in reestablishing the stability of partially denatured proteins and therefore contribute to cellular homeostasis. In this work, we identified a sHsp homolog (designated as sHsp19) from Haliotis discus hannai, an economically important farmed mollusk in East Asia. sHsp19 possesses a sHsp hallmark domain, which exhibits the typical fold of ACD as revealed by a three-dimensional model constructed through an iterative threading assembly refinement method. The amino acid sequence sHsp19 shares low identities with any other known sHsps, with percentages below 35 %. Besides, sHsp19 shows relatively distant phylogenetic relationships with sHsps of various mollusks, including two other identified sHsps of abalone subspecies. qRT-PCR analysis indicated that the expression of sHsp19 occurred in multiple tissues. Upon exposure to thermal, oxidative, and multiple toxic metal stresses, the level of sHsp19 mRNA was rapidly elevated in a persistent fashion, with the maximum increase up to 170.58-, 405.84-, and 361.96-fold, respectively. These results indicate sHsp is a novel sHsp that possesses the distinguishing structural feature of sHsps but has remote homologies with known sHsps. It is likely to be important in stress adaptation of abalone and may be applied as a bioindicator for monitoring pollution or detrimental changes of environment in abalone culture.

The existence of an allometric relationship between mortality rates and body mass has been theorized and extensively documented across taxa. Within species, however, the allometry between mortality rates and body mass has received substantially less attention and the consistency of such scaling patterns at the intra-specific level is controversial. We reviewed 73 experimental studies to examine the relationship between mortality rates and body size among seven species of abalone (Haliotis spp.), a marine herbivorous mollusk. Both in the field and in the laboratory, log-transformed mortality rates were negatively correlated with log-transformed individual body mass for all species considered, with allometric exponents remarkably similar among species. This regular pattern confirms previous findings that juvenile abalones suffer higher mortality rates than adult individuals. Field mortality rates were higher overall than those measured in the laboratory, and the relationship between mortality and body mass tended to be steeper in field than in laboratory conditions for all species considered. These results suggest that in the natural environment, additional mortality factors, especially linked to prédation, could significantly contribute to mortality, particularly at small body sizes. On the other hand, the consistent allometry of mortality rates versus body mass in laboratory conditions suggests that other sources of mortality, beside prédation, are size-dependent in abalone.

The most common goal of interventions that support youth from care in the transition to independent living is to help them to become relatively self-sufficient. It was in this context that a project was created to implement and evaluate group work strategies for this population. Two sources of information were used: the youths who participated in the program (n=31) and all the facilitators. The intent behind this research was not only to monitor the trajectory of the youth participants through the group process, but also to expose the workers who intervened in the transition to adulthood to an alternative treatment paradigm and a different way to work with groups. The results reveal that the implementation of new intervention approaches is a process that takes time, and must take the context of the work into account. This research raises issues in relation to the definition, the implementation and the evaluation of programs that support the transition to adulthood for vulnerable young people. El objetivo más común de las intervenciones que apoyan a los jóvenes en su tránsito a la vida independiente es el de ayudarles a convertirse en relativamente autosuficientes. Fue en este contexto en el que el proyecto se creó para implementar y evaluar las estrategias de trabajo en grupo con esta población. Se utilizaron dos fuentes de información: los jóvenes que participaron en el programa (n=31) y todos los facilitadores. La intención de esta investigación ha sido no sólo la de seguir la trayectoria de los jóvenes participantes a través de procesos grupales, sino también la de proponer a los profesionales que intervinieron en esa transición a la vida adulta un paradigma de tratamiento alternativo y una manera diferente de trabajar con grupos. Los resultados revelan que la aplicación de nuevos enfoques de intervención es un proceso que lleva tiempo y debe tener en cuenta el contexto en el que se interviene. Esta investigación plantea una serie de cuestiones centrales en relación con la definición, la ejecución y la evaluación de programas que apoyan la transición a la vida adulta de los jóvenes vulnerables.

Population connectivity among 7 fishery grounds of Ezo abaloneHaliotis discus hannaion the northern Miyagi coast (approximately 80 km) was investigated using hydrodynamic and particle-tracking models. The objectives were to: (1) clarify the larval dispersal processes, (2) quantify the dispersal distance of larvae and (3) estimate the population connectivity. To simulate larval dispersal, particles were released at the timings of spawning estimated from the shell lengths of newly settled abalone. The larval dispersal was simulated for 2 periods. The modeled hydrodynamics in the first period simulated stormy conditions because of the passage of a low-pressure system whereas that in the second period simulated relatively calm conditions. In the first period, the spawning appeared to be triggered by the low-pressure system, and the larval dispersal was estimated to be generally greater than that in the second period. The mean dispersal distances were less than 40 km in both periods. Model results indicate that abalone in the fishery grounds on the mid- and southern coast exhibit 2 distinct larval dispersal patterns. The number of connected sites was 3 to 7 and 2 to 4 in the stormy and relatively calm conditions, respectively. The calmer hydrodynamic conditions were favorable for self-replenishment. Self-recruitment was usually greater than the connectivity with the other fishery grounds; however, poor self-recruitment occurred in some fishery grounds. This implies that the restocking and protection of local resources do not always lead to an increase in local recruitment, and it is necessary to investigate the larval dispersal processes from each larval source for successful management.

This column seeks to provide a forum in which we can lean on each other to investigate and improve the quality of our classroom discussion leadership.

This article examines the discourse of 10 groups of children during text-based online discussions. Analysis of the discourse in the discussions showed that 8 different rhetorical moves, or argument stratagems, were used by most groups of children, whereas 3 other stratagems were used by 1 group. The use of argument stratagems snowballed; that is, once an argument stratagem emerged in a discussion, it tended to spread to other children in the Web group, and the likelihood that it would occur again remained high over the course of the discussion. Most stratagems began to spread when initiated by other children but not when introduced by the adult moderator. Children were eager to participate and displayed a high rate of participation in discussions with Webmates from distant classrooms. These findings suggest that collaborative online discussions may provide an effective instructional medium for promoting children's learning of reasoning strategies and thinking skills. We wish to acknowledge the contributions of Kathy Brake, Kay Grabow, So-young Kim, Brian McNurlen, Ann Quackenbush, Alina Reznitskaya, and David Stovall to the research reported in this article. The research was supported in part with grants from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and the Institute of Educational Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education.