The initial exploration of any planetary object requires a careful mission design guided by our knowledge of that object as gained by terrestrial observers. This process is very evident in the development of the Dawn mission to the minor planets 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta. This mission was designed to verify the basaltic nature of Vesta inferred both from its reflectance spectrum and from the composit...

*Correspondence: Andrey Tatarenkov, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 441 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, USA e-mail: [email protected] For more than two decades, mitochondrial DNA sequences and simple sequence repeats (SSRs, or microsatellite loci) have served as gold standards in population genetics. More recently, next generation sequencing (NGS)...

Address correspondence to: Idalí Martínez, Ph D, Department of Microbiology and Medical zoology, University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences campus, P.o. Box 365067, San Juan, P.R. 00936-5067. Tel: (787) 758-2525 ext 1354 • Fax: (787) 758-4808 • E-mail: [email protected] Background: Dengue (DEN) viruses have become a public health problem that affects approximately 100 million people worldw...

Address correspondence to: Heriberto A. Marín, Ph D, Medical Sciences Campus University of Puerto Rico PO Box 365067, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-5067. Tel: 787-758-2525, x1666 or x1444, 787-604-9571 • Fax: 787-758-2783 • Email: [email protected] Background: Tobacco use and the involuntary exposition to secondhand smoke (SHS) is one of the leading causes of all cancers in the world. The o...

BACKGROUND In studies generally involving short follow-up, exercise echocardiography has been shown to predict composite end points. We sought to study the prediction of mortality with this test and to devise a strategy for combination with standard exercise testing. METHODS AND RESULTS Clinical, exercise testing, and echocardiographic data were collected in 5375 patients (aged 54+/-14 years,...

Background: The possible impact of corneal thickness, curvature, and size on the measurement of endothelial cell density (ECD) has largely been ignored in the normal eye. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible impact of the main corneal parameters on the analysis of ECD values at the central, superior, and temporal parts of the corneal surface. Methods: All 75 participants (52 fe...

Accurate and effective management of irrigation fertilization is essential for efficient greenhouse strawberry production. Here, the effects combined application water potassium on growth were evaluated by experimenting with 12 treatments, including four transpiration (ETC)-based levels (W1: 100% ETC, W2: 85% W3: 70% W4: 55% ETC) three according to target yield (K1: 369.5 kg/hm2, K2: 307.9 K3: ...