For both glasses, the nonlinear layer is found to be sodium-depleted up to 4 mu m inside the anode, in accordance with quantitative energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy characterizations. This comparative study indicates complex space-charge-migration processes during the poling treatment. The relative enhancement of the SHG signal of the silver doped glass is correlated with the increase in its linear

susceptibility.”
“The NF-��B inhibitor integration of water quality monitoring variables is essential in environmental decision making. Nowadays, advanced techniques to manage subjectivity, imprecision, uncertainty, vagueness, and variability are required in such complex evaluation process. We here propose a probabilistic fuzzy hybrid model to assess river water quality. Fuzzy logic reasoning has been used to compute a water quality integrative index. By applying a Monte Carlo technique, selleckchem based on non-parametric probability

distributions, the randomness of model inputs was estimated. Annual histograms of nine water quality variables were built with monitoring data systematically collected in the Colombian Cauca River, and probability density estimations using the kernel smoothing method were applied to fit data. Several years were assessed, and river sectors upstream and downstream the city of Santiago de Cali, a big city with basic wastewater treatment and high industrial activity, were analyzed. STI571 The probabilistic fuzzy water quality index was able to explain the reduction in water quality, as the river receives a larger number of agriculture, domestic, and industrial effluents. The results of the hybrid model were compared to traditional water quality indexes. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it considers

flexible boundaries between the linguistic qualifiers used to define the water status, being the belongingness of water quality to the diverse output fuzzy sets or classes provided with percentiles and histograms, which allows classify better the real water condition. The results of this study show that fuzzy inference systems integrated to stochastic non-parametric techniques may be used as complementary tools in water quality indexing methodologies. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Deletion polymorphisms for the glutathione S-transferase (GST) gene are associated with increased risk of cancer, and are implicated in detoxifying mutagenic electrophilic compounds. GST Polymorphic variants were reported for different populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequencies of GSTM1 and GSTT1 null genotypes among Bahraini, Lebanese and Tunisian Arabs. GST genotyping was done by multiplex PCR-based methods. Study subjects comprised 167 Bahrainis, 141 Lebanese and 186 Tunisians unrelated healthy individuals. GSTM1 deletion homozygosity of 49.7%, 52.5% and 63.4% were recorded for Bahraini, Lebanese and Tunisians, respectively.