Allelic diversity and patterns of selection at the major histocompatibility complex class I and II loci in a threatened shorebird, the Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus).

Background: Understanding the structure and variability of adaptive loci such as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes is a primary research goal for evolutionary and conservation genetics. Typically, classical MHC genes show high polymorphism and are under strong balancing selection, as their products trigger the adaptive immune response in vertebrates. Here, we assess the allelic diversity and patterns of selection for MHC class I and class II loci in a threatened shorebird with highly flexible mating and parental care behaviour, the Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus) across its broad geographic range.

Active dynamics of colloidal particles in time-varying laser speckle patterns.

Colloidal particles immersed in a dynamic speckle pattern experience an optical force that fluctuates both in space and time. The resulting dynamics presents many interesting analogies with a broad class of non-equilibrium systems like: active colloids, self propelled microorganisms, transport in dynamical intracellular environments. Here we show that the use of a spatial light modulator allows to generate light fields that fluctuate with controllable space and time correlations and a prescribed average intensity profile.

[Prematurity and methods of its screening].

Objective: Premature delivery is an essential problem in the modern obstetrics. Revealing and marking the high-risk group of pregnant women in time could be used as one of the methods of its prevention.

Design: Retrospective epidemiological study of the aggregated data of pregnant patients.