4%, respectively. The genotypic and phenotypic evidence suggests that strain DR-f4T should be classified as a novel species, for which the name Mucilaginibacter dorajii sp. nov. is www.selleckchem.com/products/ly2157299.html proposed. The type strain for the novel species is DR-f4T (=KACC 14556T=JCM 16601T). The genus Mucilaginibacter was originally proposed by Pankratov et al. (2007) and emended by Urai et al. (2008) and Baik et al. (2010). The genus Mucilaginibacter accommodates Gram-negative and chemo-organotrophic bacteria, which are strictly aerobic or facultatively anaerobic. It contains menaquinone-7 (MK-7) as the major respiratory quinone and straight- and branched-saturated

fatty acids as the major fatty acids. The DNA G+C content of this genus ranges from 42.4 to 47.0 mol% (Pankratov Gefitinib et al., 2007; Urai et al., 2008; Baik et al., 2010). Currently, the genus Mucilaginibacter comprises 10 species, including the recently described

Mucilaginibacter rigui, Mucilaginibacter frigoritolerans, Mucilaginibacter lappiensis and Mucilaginibacter mallensis (Baik et al., 2010; Männistöet al., 2010). A number of bacterial strains were isolated from the rhizosphere of Platycodon grandiflorum, which is known as Doraji. The Doraji root is famous as an ingredient in salads and traditional cuisine in Korea. One of these isolates was regarded as a novel bacterium according to 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. This isolate, designated as DR-f4T, belonged to the genus Mucilaginibacter. In the present work, we describe its taxonomic position based on the results of polyphasic analyses, and we propose the name Mucilaginibacter dorajii. A

rhizosphere sample of P. grandiflorum was collected at Chungcheongnam-Do (36°24′15.33″N, 127°14′00.56″E), Korea. The rhizosphere sample was diluted serially with a sterile 0.85% (w/v) NaCl solution, and these dilutions were plated onto R2A agar plates (BD). These plates were incubated at 25 °C for 5 days. The colonies grown on the R2A agar plates were transferred three consecutive times to obtain pure ALOX15 cultures. Strain DR-f4T, one of the pure cultures, was routinely cultured on R2A plates at 25 °C for 3 days under aerobic conditions and stored at 4 °C or under frozen conditions in 20% (v/v) glycerol at −70 °C. Strain DR-f4T was deposited in the Korean Agricultural Culture Collection (KACC) as KACC 14556T and in the Japan Collection of Microorganisms (JCM) as JCM 16601T. Escherichia coli KCTC 2441T was received from the Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC) and was used as a reference strain for G+C content analysis. Mucilaginibacter lappiensis ANJLI2T and M. rigui WPCB133T were received from KCTC and were used as reference strains. The morphology of live cells was observed using light microscopy (Nikon Eclipse 80i; Nikon, Japan), and cell size was measured using transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Patients are seen every 3–6 months or as clinically indicated. YRG CARE has developed a voluntary counselling and testing

(VCT) programme for partners of HIV-infected individuals receiving care [27]. At the time of HIV VCT, each patient gave informed consent. All patients tested for HIV underwent pre- and post-test counselling. Data were collected under the approval of YRG CARE’s free-standing Institutional Review Board (IRB). This case–control study nested within a larger cohort of 2135 discordant couples included patients presenting consecutively with the HIV-infected partner PD0332991 purchase (index patient) seeking care at YRGCARE between June 2006 and March 2008. Analyses were restricted to couples in whom one partner was infected with HIV and one partner was HIV negative (discordant) at enrolment and for whom there was at least 12 months of follow-up. The outcome variable was the couple’s HIV status (concordant

or discordant). Patients were encouraged to attend all clinic visits with their spouses. HIV-infected patients were interviewed separately click here without their spouses at the time of enrolment to care. A total of 2135 discordant couples enrolled in care during this time period amongst whom, 84.7% of the men and 58.6% of the women later initiated highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Among these discordant couples at enrolment, 70 couples (3.3%) later seroconverted (concordant). Sorafenib nmr The current analyses were undertaken using a nested case–control model in which 167 discordant couples (controls) were matched to the 70 concordant couples

(cases) based on the median years of follow-up in care (1.7 years) of the 70 concordant couples. Both cases and controls had the same period of follow-up in clinical care based on matching; controls were sampled at the end of the follow-up period based on cumulative incidence sampling. Additional confounding variables between cases and controls were controlled in the multivariate logistic regression model. The following analyses were undertaken only among these 167 discordant controls and 70 concordant cases. After conducting baseline analyses at the time of enrolment to care, 12-month follow-up data are presented separately for cases in which HIV transmission was documented between enrolment and 6 months (N=52) and cases in which HIV transmission was documented between 6 and 12 months after enrolment (N=13). Two cases were in relationships in which the seronegative partner seroconverted after 730 days and thus these two cases are not included in this 12-month follow-up analysis. Both groups of cases (i.e. patients in which HIV transmission was documented between enrolment and 6 months and patients in which HIV transmission was documented between 6 and 12 months after enrolment) are compared with control patients who remained in discordant relationships (N=167).

Theoretically, a persistence of very high maternal bilirubin levels might disrupt the normal transplacental flow of fetal bilirubin, leading to intrauterine hyperbilirubinaemia. The actual threshold of maternal bilirubin level and the duration of elevation required to disrupt normal transplacental flow are unknown, selleck chemicals llc and data are limited to case studies with conflicting results [27–30]. This study had a conservative rule whereby a maternal bilirubin level of 10 mg/dL at any time or a level of 7.5

mg/dL persisting for 2 weeks mandated discontinuation of the study drug. However, this rule was not invoked during the study. Overall the rate of grade 3–4 hyperbilirubinaemia observed in this study was, as expected because of the reduced

ATV exposures in pregnancy, lower than observed in studies of ATV/r 300/100 mg in nonpregnant adults; for example, in study AI424089, grade 3–4 bilirubinaemia was 59% [31], in contrast to the 30% observed in the current study. This study found a weak correlation between maternal bilirubin, both on the day of delivery and over the 4 weeks prior to delivery, and infant bilirubin. Although cord blood concentrations of ATV were <20% of the plasma concentrations on average, the free drug concentrations in the fetus were, as noted, higher than in the mothers at similar Trichostatin A clinical trial total (bound+free) ATV concentrations [26]. While the ATV that crossed the placenta may have inhibited fetal UGT1A1, the placental transport system and maternal elimination of fetal bilirubin appeared to be adequate to deal with any elevated fetal bilirubin. The observed pattern of infant bilirubin was generally consistent with the neonatal physiological elevations of bilirubin. Six infants (15%) did undergo phototherapy; however, infant jaundice and phototherapy are not rare. In fact, about 60% of otherwise healthy term infants will experience jaundice and about 10% of them will require some form of treatment (phototherapy

or exchange transfusions) O-methylated flavonoid [32,33]. Regarding safety overall for the infants, only three serious adverse events were reported as related to drugs used in the study, with the drug implicated being zidovudine, and only two serious adverse events were hepatobiliary (hyperbilirubinaemia and jaundice). The majority of serious adverse events (12 of 14) experienced by infants whose mother received ATV/r 300/100 mg were unlikely to be, or were not, related to the study medication. Regarding efficacy, the selection of a suitable threshold can be controversial; maintaining a plasma concentration of protease inhibitors above a certain threshold appears to be correlated with positive outcome. The US Department of Health and Human Services Treatment guidelines suggest a minimum ATV Cmin of 150 ng/mL if therapeutic drug monitoring is to be used [34].

Escherichia coli HS996/pSC101-BAD-gbaA (Wang et al., 2006) was provided by Youming Zhang, Gene Bridges, Germany. Escherichia coli DH10B was used for the functional recombineering elements’ http://www.selleckchem.com/products/PD-98059.html integration. Escherichia coli strains were routinely grown in Luria–Bertani (LB) media. Antibiotics were added at the following concentrations for plasmid selection (μg mL−1): gentamicin (25), tetracycline (12.5), ampicillin (100), kanamycin (30) and chloramphenicol (12.5). Strains containing pSC101-BAD-gbaA were incubated at 30 °C unless otherwise mentioned. Escherichia coli strain culture, competent cell preparation, DNA transformation,

plasmid extraction, restriction enzyme digestion and agarose gel electrophoresis were performed as per standard protocols (Sambrook & Russel, 2001). Amplification of the homology arm (in recombineering research, the short homologous DNA sequence used for the recombination is often called the ‘homology arm’) flanked neo was performed in a 50-μL reaction with 100 ng of pKD4, 0.2 mM dNTP each, 0.25 μM of each sense and antisense primer

and 2.5 U of Pfu (NEB). The PCR cycling conditions consisted of an initial denaturation step at 95 °C for 5 min, followed by 30 cycles of 95 °C for 45 s, 60 °C for 60 s and 72 °C for 2 min and a final extension step at 72 °C for 10 min. The PCR product was analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis, followed by ethanol precipitation and dissolved in a suitable volume of 10 mM Tris-Cl (pH 8.0); the DNA concentration was adjusted to 100 ng μL−1. find more Short primers (≤60-mer) were purchased from Sangon Co. Ltd (China) and long primers (>60-mer) were purchased from Integrated DNA Technologies Inc. The primers used in this study are

listed in Table 1. The vector pGR harboring the functional recombineering elements for E. coli DH10B genome integration was constructed as follows: first, 0.8 kb aacC1 was amplified from pBAD322G with primers GRK1 and GRK2, 1.1 kb araC was amplified with primers GRK3 and GRK4 from pKD46, then the XhoI- and SacI-digested aacC1 and the SacI- and BamHI-digested araC were ligated and cloned into the XhoI- and BamHI-treated pBluescript KS(−), creating pKAC. With E. coli DH10B genomic DNA as a template, 420 bp endA1 upstream sequences were amplified with the primers EA1 and EA2 and digested with EcoRI and XhoI, and 370 bp endA1 Methane monooxygenase downstream sequences were amplified with primers EA3 and EA4 and digested with XhoI and KpnI. The two fragments were then ligated and cloned into EcoRI- and KpnI-treated pBluescript KS(−) to obtain pENLR. Finally, 3.2 kb λ Red genes and the recA containing XhoI–BamHI fragment excised from pSC101-BAD-gbaA and the 2.0 kb aacC1 and the araC containing BamHI–XhoI fragment excised from pKAC were ligated and cloned into the XhoI site of pENLR, generating pGR. Recombineering experiments with pKD46 (Datsenko & Wanner, 2000) and pSC101-BAD-gbaA (Wang et al.

In Figs 1 and 2 and in Table 2, the viability of cells determined as CFU is shown. The internal

K+ content in cells from the stationary growth phase was estimated as described earlier (Kinclova, et al., 2001). Briefly, cells (three aliquots per strain) were collected on Millipore membrane filters (0.8 μm pore diameter) and quickly washed with 20 mM MgCl2. The cells were then extracted with HCl and analyzed with a flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The experiments were repeated selleck chemicals llc three times. To characterize the role of plasma membrane potassium transporters upon cell dehydration and subsequent rehydration, we first estimated the desiccation survival of cells lacking either the two main potassium uptake systems (BYT12, trk1Δ trk2Δ), the two active potassium efflux systems (BYT45, nha1Δ ena1-5Δ) or all three K+ exporters (BYT345, tok1Δ nha1Δ ena1-5Δ). The experimental conditions (cf. ‘Materials and methods’) were set to

achieve c. 70% survival of the parental BY4741 strain, so that a better or worse survival rate of the mutants could be easily observed. All strains were grown in YPD supplemented with 50 mM KCl [to achieve a comparable growth of strains lacking the Trk transporters;(Navarette et al., 2010)] to the stationary phase of growth, as it has been repeatedly shown that exponentially growing cells are, compared with stationary cells, much more sensitive to various types of stress, including anhydrobiotic stress (Beker & Rapoport, 1987). Figure 1a shows that the absence of potassium exporting systems (BYT45 and BYT345 cells) did not significantly change the ability of cells to survive

find more dehydration/rehydration Oxymatrine treatment. About 65–70% of cells lacking potassium exporters were able to survive the desiccation and revitalization processes. On the other hand, the absence of potassium uptake systems (BYT12, trk1Δ trk2Δ) brought about a dramatic decrease in the survival rate. Only about 8% of cells were able to form colonies after dehydration/rehydration treatment. This result suggested the importance of potassium uptake for anhydrobiosis. To distinguish which of the two Trk transporters’ absence causes the observed phenotype, the same experiment was repeated with single mutants lacking either the Trk1 (BYT1) or Trk2 (BYT2) transporter. It was the absence of Trk2 that diminished the ability of cells to survive desiccation stress (Fig. 1b). Since the deletion of the TRK2 gene has almost no phenotype in exponential cells harboring an intact copy of TRK1 (Petrezselyova et al., 2011), we were aware of a risk of a non-specific mutation that could occur during the construction of the BYT2 mutant, e.g. upon electroporation. To be sure that the observed phenotype is related to the absence of the TRK2 gene and not to an additional non-specific mutation, we tested the survival of two independently prepared BYT1 (trk1Δ) and three BYT2 (trk2Δ) mutants (Fig. 2).

60, P = 0.004) and Consolidation Period (F3,90 = 4.23, selleck chemical P = 0.017). Scheffe’s

post-hoc tests revealed that the main effect of Group can be attributed to significantly greater sequence-specific offline learning in the 1 Hz group compared with the Control and 5 Hz rTMS groups (P = 0.030 and 0.003, respectively) (Fig. 4A – dark grey bars). The main effect of Sequence can be attributed to greater consolidation of implicit motor learning from Day 4 to the retention test compared with consolidation between Day 2 to Day 3 and Day 3 to Day 4 (P < 0.001 and P = 0.024, respectively) (Fig. 4B – dark grey bars). The Group by Sequence anova on spatial error revealed main effects of Group (F2,30 = 5.10, P < 0.012) and Consolidation Period (F3,90 = 4.09, P < 0.014). The main effects of Group (Fig. 4A – light grey bars) and Consolidation Period (Fig. 4B – light grey bars) reveal that the changes in RMSE can be attributed to consolidation of spatial accuracy. The mixed-measures Group

by Sequence anova with time lag as the dependent measure failed to reveal any effects. None of PLX4032 in vitro the analyses on RMSE, spatial accuracy or lag revealed any effects associated with change in implicit performance from Block 1 to Block 3 on each day of practice. Online learning within each practice day was consistent for all groups. Three of the 11 individuals in the 5 Hz rTMS group acquired sufficient explicit awareness of the repeating sequence to be able to recognize it at the recognition test. This was also the case for two individuals in the 1 Hz rTMS group and one individual in

the Control group. The mixed-measures Group by Time anovas performed on RMT and MEP amplitude failed to reveal any significant effects of the varied forms of rTMS following continuous tracking on excitability in M1 (Table 2). The present study is the first to demonstrate the cumulative impact of rTMS over PMd immediately following practice upon consolidation of implicit sequence-specific motor learning. While all three experimental groups (1 Hz rTMS, 5 Hz rTMS and sham stimulation) demonstrated improvement in performance over time, only the group receiving 1 Hz rTMS Resveratrol over the PMd immediately following task practice enhanced offline learning of an implicit motor skill (Experiment 1). Enhanced implicit sequence-specific learning with 1 Hz rTMS following practice was largely explained by improved spatial rather than temporal accuracy of movements (Experiment 1). Furthermore, enhanced motor learning associated with 1 Hz rTMS over the PMd during early consolidation does not appear to be attributable to spread of stimulation to M1 or to PMd to M1 connections, as M1 excitability was not changed by rTMS over PMd (Experiment 2). The enhancement of motor learning following application of 1 Hz rTMS over PMd immediately after practice of the continuous visuomotor tracking task differs from our previous results (Boyd & Linsdell, 2009).

, 2010) and activated sludge performance (Straub, 2009; testing limited to COD removal only). The positioning of the high OC-only dosing period in the middle of the pandemic scenario (i.e. dosing of OC and antibiotics) meant that we were not able to completely differentiate the causes of the perturbation to community structure and function; however, it is clear from this study that WWTPs may experience reduced

efficiency during an influenza pandemic owing to the high concentrations of bioactive pharmaceuticals, such as antivirals and antibiotics. The SBR chosen for this study had a relatively long history of stable EBPR performance (>6 months). EBPR failure has previously been shown to occur as a result of competition with glycogen-accumulating organisms (Bond et al., 1999) and from bacteriophage infection (Barr et al., 2010; Barr STA-9090 chemical structure et al., 2010); hence, the loss in reactor function in this study might not be due to pharmaceutical exposure. However, as quantitative FISH analyses did not demonstrate a decrease in the relative abundance of Candidatus‘Accumulibacter phosphatis’, as would be expected if bacterial competition or bacteriophage predation was to blame, it was concluded that pharmaceutical exposure was the more likely cause. As the SBR was operated as a granular (rather than floccular) sludge, it remains untested whether floccular sludge

would respond differently to such exposure. Granular sludge systems do have some operational differences to floccular systems, such as longer sludge ages, higher mixed liquor SS and lower available surface click here Erythromycin area, all of which might affect sludge–pharmaceutical interactions. It was only after dosing high concentrations of antibiotics and OC that effects on EBPR performance were

noticed. Therefore, it may be that it is only under severe pandemic scenarios that disruption to WWTPs is of concern. Nonetheless, this research highlights the reality of this chemical risk to WWTP function and the need for additional mixed-pharmaceutical dosing studies in WWTP systems. These will be important for optimizing WWTP operation to contend with threats to WWTP function, and for understanding and modelling the release of pharmaceuticals into the environment. We thank F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd for the kind donation of OC and Michael Poole for assistance with Fig. S1. This work was funded by a UQ New Staff Research Start-up Grant awarded to F.R.S. and the Natural Environment Research Council – Knowledge Transfer Initiative (PREPARE) contract no. NE/F009216/1 awarded to A.C.S. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the text. Fig. S1. Simulated effluent OC concentrations based on measured influent OC concentrations and four SBR draw and fill occurrences per day, each with a volumetric exchange ratio of 1:4, and assuming no sorption or biological transformation (i.e.

At greater depths hard substrates become more common; they are occupied by red algal communities: at 3–4 m depth by Polysiphonia fucoides and from 4 to 16 m by Furcellaria lumbricalis ( Bučas 2009). The most conspicuous macrozoobenthos species on the hard substrates are blue mussels Mytilus trossulus and bay barnacles Balanus improvisus ( Olenin & Daunys 2004). The Baltic herring spawning grounds were mapped in 2009–2010 during the spawning period (March–May). In the 2009 season the sampling points were evenly

distributed (the average distance between the sampling points was approximately 800 m) over the F. lumbricalis biotopes, reported to be the most important for Baltic herring spawning in Lithuanian coastal waters ( BaltNIIRH 1989, Olenin selleck chemical & Labanauskas 1995, Maksimov et al. 1996, Fedotova 2010) ( Figure 1). In the 2010 season sampling efforts were concentrated in the central part of the study area, where high resolution (1.9 × 1.9 m per pixel) multibeam bathymetry (KU MARSTEC, unpublished data) opportunistically became available. This data allowed the small geomorphological bottom features to be derived for the assessment of their role in the

distribution of Baltic herring spawning beds. Baltic herring eggs are relatively small (<2 mm) and semi-transparent, therefore hardly detectable by remote methods (e.g. underwater video), especially in GDC-0980 cell line low visibility conditions. Field data were collected by SCUBA divers. At each sampling point the diver recorded the presence/absence of Baltic herring eggs and spawning substrate. Additionally, a benthic sample was collected from the substrate using a 0.04 m2 frame (Kautsky 1993). The benthic samples were analysed using a Nikon Eclipse E200 microscope to confirm the presence/absence of eggs, and developmental stages (from a to q) were distinguished according to Veersalu & Saat (2003). In 2009–2010 93 points were sampled by SCUBA divers. Opportunistic

data from five occasional findings TCL of Baltic herring eggs in 2006–2008 (KU MARSTEC unpublished data) were added (Table 1, Figure 1). The total data consisted of 98 sampling points, 56 of which were in the multibeam area (Figure 1). The samples were collected at depths from 3 to 14 m, whereas most of them within the 5–10 m depth interval (Figure 2). Weather conditions were very calm during the 2009 season, allowing us to perform an additional detailed survey of a single spawning bed: five transects, the lengths of which ranged from 46 to 149 m (Figure 3). The presence/absence of Baltic herring eggs was recorded by divers who used a floating buoy to signal their findings and position to the crew on the boat. During the same season the sampling window was relatively wide (22 days) with more or less evenly distributed sampling dates, which allowed egg development to be monitored.

SOCS proteins have been implicated in the control of the Th1/Th2 polarisation balance and cytokine signalling.9 In addition, SOCS proteins positively and negatively regulate the activation of antigen presenting cells and are essential for T-cell development

and differentiation.9 Macrophages, DCs, and fibroblasts find more from Socs1−/− mice produce increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and IL-12, in response to Toll-like receptor (TLR) signalling. 10 SOCS1-mediated repression of IL-4/STAT6 signalling in Th1 cells regulates interferon γ (IFN-γ) production. 9 SOCS-1 is a negative regulator of IL-4-dependent pathways in vitro and has been reported to be importance in Th2 immunity-associated traits, such as immunoglobulin E, IL-13 induction, and allergic asthma. 11 Overexpression

of SOCS1 in Th2 cells represses STAT6 activation, while depletion of SOCS1 by using an antisense SOCS1 cDNA construct induces constitutive activation of STAT6. 12 Given the facts that SOCS1 can regulate Th1 reaction and augmented Th2 immune response has been proposed to be a hallmark of DHF, we monitor whether DHF have altered SOCS-1 expression, resulting in a skewed Th1/Th2 cytokine production. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs approximately Selleck MG-132 22 nucleotides (nt) in length. They are typically derived from a single arm of imperfect, ∼80-nt RNA hairpins, referred to as primary miRNAs that are

located within polymerase II-derived transcripts. Recently, hundreds of small, non-coding miRNAs have been identified in worms, flies, fish, frogs, mammals, and flowering plants using molecular cloning and bioinformatics-based prediction strategies.13 and 14 These miRNAs are transcribed from specific miRNA genes present throughout the genome as independent transcriptional units, or they can be produced during intron processing of certain mRNAs.14 MicroRNAs are known to regulate cytokine production,15, 16 and 17 however, whether miRNAs check regulate SOCS1 expression during the DENV infection-induced inflammatory response resulting in the development of DHF is not known. We sought to determine whether SOCS1 is involved in the development of DHF and whether certain miRNAs regulate SOCS1 expression during dengue infection and its development into DHF. To achieve this, we performed reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to evaluate the expression of SOCS1 and its potential regulatory miRNAs in mononuclear leukocytes derived from patients with and without DHF. This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan (Document No.: 97-0072B).

Shuanggen Jin (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory CAS, China) ■ Dr Danijela Joksimovic (Institute of Marine Biology, Kotor, Montenegro) ■ Dr Juan Junoy (Universidad de Alcalá, Spain)

■ Dr Genrik S. Karabashev (P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, Moscow, Russia) ■ Dr Bengt Karlson (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Gothenburg, Sweden) ■ Dr Monika Kędra (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Dr Agnieszka Kijewska (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Dr Are Kont (Tallinn University, Estonia) ■ Dr Oleg V. Kopelevich (P. P. Shirshov EX 527 ic50 Institute of Oceanology RAS, Moscow, Russia) ■ Dr Matthew S. Kornis (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, USA) ■ Dr Vladimir E. Kostylev (Natural Resources, Dartmouth, Canada) ■ Prof. Grażyna Kowalewska (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, PLX4032 Poland ) ■ Dr Marek Kowalewski (University of Gdańsk, Poland) ■ Prof. Adam Krężel (University of Gdańsk, Poland ) ■ Dr Adam Kubicki (Senckenberg am Meer, Wilhelmshaven, Germany) ■ Prof. Natalia Kuczyńska-Kippen (Adam Mickiewicz

University, Poznań, Poland ) ■ Prof. Ewa Kulczykowska (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Dr Jolanta Kuśmierczyk-Michulec (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), The Hague, The Netherlands) ■ Dr Jaan Laanemets (Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia) ■ Dr Troels Laier (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Copenhagen, Denmark ) ■ Prof. Timothy Leighton (University of Southampton, United Kingdom) ■ Dr Thomas Leipe (Baltic Sea Research Institute, Warnemünde, Germany) ■ Dr Elżbieta Łysiak-Pastuszak (Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, Gdynia, Poland ) ■ Prof. Artur Magnuszewski (Warsaw University, Poland ) ■ Dr Wojciech Majewski old (Institute of Paleobiology PAS, Warszawa, Poland ) ■ Prof. Richard Manasseh (University of Melbourne, Australia) ■ Prof. Roman Marks (University of Szczecin, Poland ) ■ Prof. Stanisław R. Massel (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Dr Mauro Mazzola (National Research Council, Bologna, Italy) ■ Dr David McKee (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom) ■ Prof. Mirosław Miętus (University

of Gdańsk, Poland ) Leonardo K. Miyashita (University of São Paulo, Brazil ) ■ Prof. Jacek Namieśnik (Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland ) ■ Dr Leo Nykjaer (Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra, Italy) ■ Dr J. Pablo Ortiz de Galisteo (Meteorological State Agency, Valladolid, Spain) ■ Prof. Ilia Ostrovsky (Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, Migdal, Israel ) ■ Prof. Marianna Pastuszak (National Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Gdynia, Poland ) ■ Prof. Ksenia Paz■ Dro (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Prof. Janusz Pempkowiak (Institute of Oceanology PAS, Sopot, Poland ) ■ Prof. Vladimir Pešić (University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro) ■ Prof.