The unexpected but understandable dynamics of mating, paternity and paternal care in the ocellated wrasse

PubMed Central

Alonzo, Suzanne H.; Heckman, Kellie L.

2010-01-01

Although theory generally predicts that males should reduce paternal care in response to cues that predict increased sperm competition and decreased paternity, empirical patterns are equivocal. Some studies have found the predicted decrease in male care with increased sperm competition, while even more studies report no effect of paternity or sperm competition on male care. Here, we report the first example, to our knowledge, of paternal care increasing with the risk and intensity of sperm competition, in the ocellated wrasse (Symphodus ocellatus). Theory also predicts that if paternal care varies and is important to female fitness, female choice among males and male indicators traits of expected paternal care should evolve. Despite a non-random distribution of mating success among nests, we found no evidence for female choice among parental males. Finally, we document the highest published levels of extra-pair paternity for a species with exclusive and obligate male care: genetic paternity analyses revealed cuckoldry at 100 per cent of nests and 28 per cent of all offspring were not sired by the male caring for them. While not predicted by any existing theory, these unexpected reproductive patterns become understandable if we consider how male and female mating and parental care interact simultaneously in this and probably many other species. PMID:19812085

Inferior ST-Elevation Acute Myocardial Infarction or an Inferior-Lead Brugada-like Electrocardiogram Pattern Associated With the Use of Pregabalin and Quetiapine?

PubMed

Brunetti, Natale D; Ieva, Riccardo; Correale, Michele; Cuculo, Andrea; Santoro, Francesco; Guaricci, Andrea I; De Gennaro, Luisa; Gaglione, Antonio; Di Biase, Matteo

2016-01-01

The Brugada electrocardiogram pattern is characterized by coved-type ST-elevation (>2 mm) in the right precordial leads. We report the case of a 62-year-old man, with bipolar disorder, admitted to the emergency department because of dyspnea and chest discomfort. The patient was on treatment with pregabalin and quetiapine. Unexpectedly, electrocardiogram at admission showed diffuse ST-elevation, more evident in inferior leads, where a Brugada-like pattern was present. The patient underwent coronary angiography with a diagnosis of suspected acute coronary syndrome. Coronary angiography, however, showed mild coronary artery disease not requiring coronary angioplasty. Echocardiography did not reveal left ventricular dysfunction or pericardial effusion. Troponin levels remained normal over serial controls. Eventually, chest radiography showed lung opacities and consolidation suggestive for pneumonia. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first cases showing a transient Brugada-like electrocardiogram pattern in inferior leads, probably amplified by the administration of pregabalin and quetiapine.

Magnetization dynamics in dilute Pd1-xFex thin films and patterned microstructures considered for superconducting electronics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golovchanskiy, I. A.; Bolginov, V. V.; Abramov, N. N.; Stolyarov, V. S.; Ben Hamida, A.; Chichkov, V. I.; Roditchev, D.; Ryazanov, V. V.

2016-10-01

Motivated by recent burst of applications of ferromagnetic layers in superconducting digital and quantum elements, we study the magnetism of thin films and patterned microstructures of Pd0.99Fe0.01. In this diluted ferromagnetic system, a high-sensitivity ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiment reveals spectroscopic signatures of re-magnetization and enables the estimation of the saturation magnetization, the anisotropy field, and the Gilbert damping constant. The detailed analysis of FMR spectra links the observed unexpectedly high reduced anisotropy field (0.06-0.14) with the internal anisotropy, points towards a cluster nature of the ferromagnetism, and allows estimating characteristic time scale for magnetization dynamics in Pd-Fe based cryogenic memory elements to ( 3 - 5 ) × 10 - 9 s.

Monophyly and extensive extinction of advanced eusocial bees: insights from an unexpected Eocene diversity.

PubMed

Engel, M S

2001-02-13

Advanced eusociality sometimes is given credit for the ecological success of termites, ants, some wasps, and some bees. Comprehensive study of bees fossilized in Baltic amber has revealed an unsuspected middle Eocene (ca. 45 million years ago) diversity of eusocial bee lineages. Advanced eusociality arose once in the bees with significant post-Eocene losses in diversity, leaving today only two advanced eusocial tribes comprising less than 2% of the total bee diversity, a trend analogous to that of hominid evolution. This pattern of changing diversity contradicts notions concerning the role of eusociality for evolutionary success in insects.

An intriguing high performance liquid chromatogram of a double heterozygosity for Hb Q-India/Hb D-Punjab.

PubMed

Badyal, Rama Kumari; Chhabra, Sanjeev; Sharma, Prashant; Das, Reena

2014-01-01

Cation exchange high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is commonly utilized as the first method of screening for thalassemias and hemoglobinopathies worldwide. This method of diagnosis requires knowledge of the clinical background and complete blood counts as well as skill and experience in interpreting the sometimes complex results produced. An asymptomatic 27-year-old pregnant North Indian woman was found to have a highly unusual chromatographic pattern with multiple unexpected peaks during routine antenatal screening. Most concerning was a C-window peak as Hb C (HBB: c.19G>A) is rare in ethnic Asian Indian populations. Cellulose acetate electrophoresis at alkaline pH (8.6) and parental screening were performed. These revealed the correct diagnosis to be a double heterozygosity for Hb Q-India (HBA1: c.193G>C) (an uncommon asymptomatic α-globin chain variant) plus Hb D-Punjab (HBB: c.364G>C) (a β-globin chain variant that is common in this region and is asymptomatic in the heterozygous state). The unexpected C-window peak was the hybrid of the abnormal α-Q-India and β-D-Punjab globin chains. Another small peak was explained as a variant Hb A2 formed by the combination of α-Q-India and δ-globin chains. Hematopathologists should be cognizant of the complex pattern resulting from coinheritance of both α- and β-globin structural variants. Second-line testing and parental testing are invaluable in resolving unknown peaks, especially if rare or unexpected variants are being considered. Although both Hb Q-India and Hb D-Punjab are relatively common in northwestern India, to the best of our knowledge, only two recent reports describe a total of three cases of such diagnostically puzzling coinheritance.

Different Planctomycetes diversity patterns in latitudinal surface seawater of the open sea and in sediment.

PubMed

Shu, Qinglong; Jiao, Nianzhi

2008-04-01

The 16S rRNA gene approach was applied to investigate the diversity of Planctomycetes in latitudinal surface seawater of the Western Pacific Ocean. The results revealed that the Pirellula-Rhodopirellula-Blastopirellula clade dominated the Planctomycetes community at all surface seawater sites while the minority genera Gemmata and Planctomyces were only found at sites H5 and H2 respectively. Although the clone frequency of the PRB clade seemed stable (between 83.3% and 94.1%) for all surface seawater sites, the retrieved Pirellula-Rhodopirellula-Blastopirellula clade presented unexpected diversity. Interestingly, low latitude seawater appeared to have higher diversity than mid-latitudes. integral-LIBSHUFF software analysis revealed significantly different diversity patterns between in latitudinal surface seawater and in the sediment of South China Sea station M2896. Our data suggested that different hydrological and geographic features contributed to the shift of Planctomycetes diversity in marine environments. This is, to our knowledge, the first systematic assessment of Planctomycetes in latitudinal surface seawater of the open sea and the first comparison of diversity pattern between surface seawater and sediments and has broadened our understanding of Planctomycetes diversity in marine environments.

Unexpected angular or rotational deformity after corrective osteotomy

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Codman’s paradox reveals a misunderstanding of geometry in orthopedic practice. Physicians often encounter situations that cannot be understood intuitively during orthopedic interventions such as corrective osteotomy. Occasionally, unexpected angular or rotational deformity occurs during surgery. This study aimed to draw the attention of orthopedic surgeons toward the concepts of orientation and rotation and demonstrate the potential for unexpected deformity after orthopedic interventions. This study focused on three situations: shoulder arthrodesis, femoral varization derotational osteotomy, and femoral derotation osteotomy. Methods First, a shoulder model was generated to calculate unexpected rotational deformity to demonstrate Codman’s paradox. Second, femoral varization derotational osteotomy was simulated using a cylinder model. Third, a reconstructed femoral model was used to calculate unexpected angular or rotational deformity during femoral derotation osteotomy. Results Unexpected external rotation was found after forward elevation and abduction of the shoulder joint. In the varization and derotation model, closed-wedge osteotomy and additional derotation resulted in an unexpected extension and valgus deformity, namely, under-correction of coxa valga. After femoral derotational osteotomy, varization and extension of the distal fragment occurred, although the extension was negligible. Conclusions Surgeons should be aware of unexpected angular deformity after surgical procedure involving bony areas. The degree of deformity differs depending on the context of the surgical procedure. However, this study reveals that notable deformities can be expected during orthopedic procedures such as femoral varization derotational osteotomy. PMID:24886469

Cell wall elongation mode in Gram-negative bacteria is determined by peptidoglycan architecture.

PubMed

Turner, Robert D; Hurd, Alexander F; Cadby, Ashley; Hobbs, Jamie K; Foster, Simon J

2013-01-01

Cellular integrity and morphology of most bacteria is maintained by cell wall peptidoglycan, the target of antibiotics essential in modern healthcare. It consists of glycan strands, cross-linked by peptides, whose arrangement determines cell shape, prevents lysis due to turgor pressure and yet remains dynamic to allow insertion of new material, and hence growth. The cellular architecture and insertion pattern of peptidoglycan have remained elusive. Here we determine the peptidoglycan architecture and dynamics during growth in rod-shaped Gram-negative bacteria. Peptidoglycan is made up of circumferentially oriented bands of material interspersed with a more porous network. Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy reveals an unexpected discontinuous, patchy synthesis pattern. We present a consolidated model of growth via architecture-regulated insertion, where we propose only the more porous regions of the peptidoglycan network that are permissive for synthesis.

Tile Patterns with LOGO--Part II: Tile Patterns from Rep Tiles Using LOGO.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clason, Robert G.

1991-01-01

Described is a recursive LOGO method for dissecting polygons into congruent parts (rep tiles) similar to the original polygon, thereby producing unexpected patterns. A list of descriptions for such dissections is included along with suggestions for modifications that allow extended student explorations into tile patterns. (JJK)

Control of fast elbow movement: a study of electromyographic patterns during movements against unexpectedly decreased inertial load.

PubMed

Latash, M L

1994-01-01

Predictions of three models of single-joint motor control were compared with experimental observations of the changes in electromyographic (EMG) patterns during fast voluntary movements against an unexpectedly reduced inertial load. The subjects performed elbow flexions over 40 degrees "as fast as possible" in two series. During the first series, an approximately 40% decrease in inertia, simulated by a torque-motor, might occur unpredictably on half of the trials (unloaded trials). During the second series, all the trials were unloaded. The major findings are: (1) no differences in the antagonist burst latency in unexpectedly unloaded and unperturbed trials; (2) a decrease in the antagonist latency during expected unloadings; (3) a small, statistically non significant decrease in the first agonist burst EMG integral; and (4) a larger, statistically significant increase in the antagonist burst EMG integral in unexpectedly unloaded trials as compared to unperturbed trials. The data are in good correspondence with a version of the equilibrium-point hypothesis that assumes central programming of the beginning of the antagonist burst and incorporates the possibility of reflex-induced changes in EMG amplitudes.

Unexpected recovery after robotic locomotor training at physiologic stepping speed: a single-case design.

PubMed

Spiess, Martina R; Jaramillo, Jeffrey P; Behrman, Andrea L; Teraoka, Jeffrey K; Patten, Carolynn

2012-08-01

To investigate the effect of walking speed on the emergence of locomotor electromyogram (EMG) patterns in an individual with chronic incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI), and to determine whether central pattern generator activity during robotic locomotor training (RLT) transfers to volitional EMG activity during overground walking. Single-case (B-A-B; experimental treatment-withdrawal-experimental treatment) design. Freestanding rehabilitation research center. A 50-year-old man who was nonambulatory for 16 months after incomplete SCI (sub-T11). The participant completed two 6-week blocks of RLT, training 4 times per week for 30 minutes per session at walking speeds up to 5km/h (1.4m/s) over continuous bouts lasting up to 17 minutes. Surface EMG was recorded weekly during RLT and overground walking. The Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury (WISCI-II) was assessed daily during training blocks. During week 4, reciprocal, patterned EMG emerged during RLT. EMG amplitude modulation revealed a curvilinear relationship over the range of walking speeds from 1.5 to 5km/h (1.4m/s). Functionally, the participant improved from being nonambulatory (WISCI-II 1/20), to walking overground with reciprocal stepping using knee-ankle-foot orthoses and a walker (WISCI-II 9/20). EMG was also observed during overground walking. These functional gains were maintained greater than 4 years after locomotor training (LT). Here we report an unexpected course of locomotor recovery in an individual with chronic incomplete SCI. Through RLT at physiologic walking speeds, it was possible to activate the central pattern generator even 16 months postinjury. Further, to a certain degree, improvements from RLT transferred to overground walking. Our results suggest that LT-induced changes affect the central pattern generator and allow supraspinal inputs to engage residual spinal pathways. Copyright © 2012 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Time-dependent efficiency measurements of polymer solar cells with dye additives: unexpected initial increase of efficiency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bandaccari, Kyle J.; Chesmore, Grace E.; Bugaj, Mitchel; Valverde, Parisa Tajalli-Tehrani; Barber, Richard P.; McNelis, Brian J.

2018-04-01

We report the effects of the addition of two azo-dye additives on the time-dependent efficiency of polymer solar cells. Although the maximum efficiencies of devices containing different amounts of dye do not vary greatly over the selected concentration range, the time dependence results reveal a surprising initial increase in efficiency in some samples. We observe this effect to be correlated with a leakage current, although a specific mechanism is not yet identified. We also present the measured lifetimes of these solar cells, and find that variations in dye concentrations produce a small effect at most. Characterization of the bulk heterojunction layer (active layer) morphology using atomic-force microscope (AFM) imaging reveals reordering patterns which suggest that the primary effects of the dyes arise via structural, not absorptive, characteristics.

A Neonate with Susceptibility to Long QT Syndrome Type 6 who Presented with Ventricular Fibrillation and Sudden Unexpected Infant Death.

PubMed

Sauer, Charles W; Marc-Aurele, Krishelle L

2016-07-28

BACKGROUND This is a case of a neonate with susceptibility to long QT syndrome (LQTS) who presented with a sudden unexpected infant death. Experts continue to debate whether universal electrocardiogram (ECG) screening of all newborns is feasible, practical, and cost-effective. CASE REPORT A 19-day-old neonate was found unresponsive by her mother. ECG showed ventricular fibrillation and a combination of a lidocaine drip plus multiple defibrillations converted the rhythm to normal sinus. Unfortunately, MRI brain imaging showed multiple infarcts and EEG showed burst suppression pattern with frequent seizures; life supportive treatment was stopped and the infant died. Genetic testing revealed two mutations in the KCNE2 gene consistent with susceptibility to LQTS type 6. CONCLUSIONS We believe this case is the first to demonstrate both a precipitating electrocardiographic and genetic cause of death for an infant with LQTS, showing a cause-and-effect relationship between LQTS mutation, ventricular arrhythmia, and death. We wonder whether universal ECG newborn screening to prevent LQTS death could have saved this baby.

Unexpected Patterns in Snow and Dirt

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ackerson, Bruce J.

2018-01-01

For more than 30 years, Albert A. Bartlett published "Thermal patterns in the snow" in this journal. These are patterns produced by heat sources underneath the snow. Bartlett's articles encouraged me to pay attention to patterns in snow and to understanding them. At winter's end the last snow becomes dirty and is heaped into piles. This…

Endodermal Hedgehog signals modulate Notch pathway activity in the developing digestive tract mesenchyme

PubMed Central

Kim, Tae-Hee; Kim, Byeong-Moo; Mao, Junhao; Rowan, Sheldon; Shivdasani, Ramesh A.

2011-01-01

The digestive tract epithelium and its adjoining mesenchyme undergo coordinated patterning and growth during development. The signals they exchange in the process are not fully characterized but include ligands of the Hedgehog (Hh) family, which originate in the epithelium and are necessary for mesenchymal cells to expand in number and drive elongation of the developing gut tube. The Notch signaling pathway has known requirements in fetal and adult intestinal epithelial progenitors. We detected Notch pathway activity in the embryonic gut mesenchyme and used conditional knockout mice to study its function. Selective disruption of the Notch effector gene RBP-Jκ (Rbpj) in the mesenchyme caused progressive loss of subepithelial fibroblasts and abbreviated gut length, revealing an unexpected requirement in this compartment. Surprisingly, constitutive Notch activity also induced rapid mesenchymal cell loss and impaired organogenesis, probably resulting from increased cell death and suggesting the need for a delicate balance in Notch signaling. Because digestive tract anomalies in mouse embryos with excess Notch activity phenocopy the absence of Hh signaling, we postulated that endodermal Hh restrains mesenchymal Notch pathway activity. Indeed, Hh-deficient embryos showed Notch overactivity in their defective gut mesenchyme and exposure to recombinant sonic hedgehog could override Notch-induced death of cultured fetal gut mesenchymal cells. These results reveal unexpected interactions between prominent signals in gastrointestinal development and provide a coherent explanation for Hh requirements in mesenchymal cell survival and organ growth. PMID:21750033

Patterning of a compound eye on an extinct dipteran wing.

PubMed

Dinwiddie, April; Rachootin, Stan

2011-04-23

We have discovered unexpected similarities between a novel and characteristic wing organ in an extinct biting midge from Baltic amber, Eohelea petrunkevitchi, and the surface of a dipteran's compound eye. Scanning electron microscope images now reveal vestigial mechanoreceptors between the facets of the organ. We interpret Eohelea's wing organ as the blending of these two developmental systems: the formation and patterning of the cuticle in the eye and of the wing. Typically, only females in the genus carry this distinctive, highly organized structure. Two species were studied (E. petrunkevitchi and E. sinuosa), and the structure differs in form between them. We examine Eohelea's wing structures for modes of fabrication, material properties and biological functions, and the effective ecological environment in which these midges lived. We argue that the current view of the wing organ's function in stridulation has been misconstrued since it was described half a century ago.

Data Analysis Methods for Synthetic Polymer Mass Spectrometry: Autocorrelation

PubMed Central

Wallace, William E.; Guttman, Charles M.

2002-01-01

Autocorrelation is shown to be useful in describing the periodic patterns found in high- resolution mass spectra of synthetic polymers. Examples of this usefulness are described for a simple linear homopolymer to demonstrate the method fundamentals, a condensation polymer to demonstrate its utility in understanding complex spectra with multiple repeating patterns on different mass scales, and a condensation copolymer to demonstrate how it can elegantly and efficiently reveal unexpected phenomena. It is shown that using autocorrelation to determine where the signal devolves into noise can be useful in determining molecular mass distributions of synthetic polymers, a primary focus of the NIST synthetic polymer mass spectrometry effort. The appendices describe some of the effects of transformation from time to mass space when time-of-flight mass separation is used, as well as the effects of non-trivial baselines on the autocorrelation function. PMID:27446716

The clinical value of daily routine chest radiographs in a mixed medical-surgical intensive care unit is low.

PubMed

Graat, Marleen E; Choi, Goda; Wolthuis, Esther K; Korevaar, Johanna C; Spronk, Peter E; Stoker, Jaap; Vroom, Margreeth B; Schultz, Marcus J

2006-02-01

The clinical value of daily routine chest radiographs (CXRs) in critically ill patients is unknown. We conducted this study to evaluate how frequently unexpected predefined major abnormalities are identified with daily routine CXRs, and how often these findings lead to a change in care for intensive care unit (ICU) patients. This was a prospective observational study conducted in a 28-bed, mixed medical-surgical ICU of a university hospital. Over a 5-month period, 2,457 daily routine CXRs were done in 754 consecutive ICU patients. The majority of these CXRs did not reveal any new predefined major finding. In only 5.8% of daily routine CXRs (14.3% of patients) was one or more new and unexpected abnormality encountered, including large atelectases (24 times in 20 patients), large infiltrates (23 in 22), severe pulmonary congestion (29 in 25), severe pleural effusion (13 in 13), pneumothorax/pneumomediastinum (14 in 13), and malposition of the orotracheal tube (32 in 26). Fewer than half of the CXRs with a new and unexpected finding were ultimately clinically relevant; in only 2.2% of all daily routine CXRs (6.4% of patients) did these radiologic abnormalities result in a change to therapy. Subgroup analysis revealed no differences between medical and surgical patients with regard to the incidence of new and unexpected findings on daily routine CXRs and the effect of new and unexpected CXR findings on daily care. In the ICU, daily routine CXRs seldom reveal unexpected, clinically relevant abnormalities, and they rarely prompt action. We propose that this diagnostic examination be abandoned in ICU patients.

Theory of mind for processing unexpected events across contexts.

PubMed

Dungan, James A; Stepanovic, Michael; Young, Liane

2016-08-01

Theory of mind, or mental state reasoning, may be particularly useful for making sense of unexpected events. Here, we investigated unexpected behavior across both social and non-social contexts in order to characterize the precise role of theory of mind in processing unexpected events. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how people respond to unexpected outcomes when initial expectations were based on (i) an object's prior behavior, (ii) an agent's prior behavior and (iii) an agent's mental states. Consistent with prior work, brain regions for theory of mind were preferentially recruited when people first formed expectations about social agents vs non-social objects. Critically, unexpected vs expected outcomes elicited greater activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which also discriminated in its spatial pattern of activity between unexpected and expected outcomes for social events. In contrast, social vs non-social events elicited greater activity in precuneus across both expected and unexpected outcomes. Finally, given prior information about an agent's behavior, unexpected vs expected outcomes elicited an especially robust response in right temporoparietal junction, and the magnitude of this difference across participants correlated negatively with autistic-like traits. Together, these findings illuminate the distinct contributions of brain regions for theory of mind for processing unexpected events across contexts. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Information spreading by a combination of MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern classification.

PubMed

Sato, Masashi; Yamashita, Okito; Sato, Masa-Aki; Miyawaki, Yoichi

2018-01-01

To understand information representation in human brain activity, it is important to investigate its fine spatial patterns at high temporal resolution. One possible approach is to use source estimation of magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals. Previous studies have mainly quantified accuracy of this technique according to positional deviations and dispersion of estimated sources, but it remains unclear how accurately MEG source estimation restores information content represented by spatial patterns of brain activity. In this study, using simulated MEG signals representing artificial experimental conditions, we performed MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern analysis to examine whether MEG source estimation can restore information content represented by patterns of cortical current in source brain areas. Classification analysis revealed that the corresponding artificial experimental conditions were predicted accurately from patterns of cortical current estimated in the source brain areas. However, accurate predictions were also possible from brain areas whose original sources were not defined. Searchlight decoding further revealed that this unexpected prediction was possible across wide brain areas beyond the original source locations, indicating that information contained in the original sources can spread through MEG source estimation. This phenomenon of "information spreading" may easily lead to false-positive interpretations when MEG source estimation and classification analysis are combined to identify brain areas that represent target information. Real MEG data analyses also showed that presented stimuli were able to be predicted in the higher visual cortex at the same latency as in the primary visual cortex, also suggesting that information spreading took place. These results indicate that careful inspection is necessary to avoid false-positive interpretations when MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern analysis are combined.

Information spreading by a combination of MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern classification

PubMed Central

Sato, Masashi; Yamashita, Okito; Sato, Masa-aki

2018-01-01

To understand information representation in human brain activity, it is important to investigate its fine spatial patterns at high temporal resolution. One possible approach is to use source estimation of magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals. Previous studies have mainly quantified accuracy of this technique according to positional deviations and dispersion of estimated sources, but it remains unclear how accurately MEG source estimation restores information content represented by spatial patterns of brain activity. In this study, using simulated MEG signals representing artificial experimental conditions, we performed MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern analysis to examine whether MEG source estimation can restore information content represented by patterns of cortical current in source brain areas. Classification analysis revealed that the corresponding artificial experimental conditions were predicted accurately from patterns of cortical current estimated in the source brain areas. However, accurate predictions were also possible from brain areas whose original sources were not defined. Searchlight decoding further revealed that this unexpected prediction was possible across wide brain areas beyond the original source locations, indicating that information contained in the original sources can spread through MEG source estimation. This phenomenon of “information spreading” may easily lead to false-positive interpretations when MEG source estimation and classification analysis are combined to identify brain areas that represent target information. Real MEG data analyses also showed that presented stimuli were able to be predicted in the higher visual cortex at the same latency as in the primary visual cortex, also suggesting that information spreading took place. These results indicate that careful inspection is necessary to avoid false-positive interpretations when MEG source estimation and multivariate pattern analysis are combined. PMID:29912968

Epithelial Plasticity in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: Biology of the Lethal Phenotype

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-07-01

Sorg BS, Albrecht T et al. Alternative inclusion of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 exon IIIc in Dunning prostate tumors reveals unexpected... exon 658IIIc in Dunning prostate tumors reveals unexpected epithelial 659mesenchymal plasticity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2006;103: 66014116–21. 24...variant isoforms (such as, for example FGFR2 that includes or excludes either exon IIIc or exon IIIb), or CD133, or any combination of two or more

Genetic Interaction Maps in Escherichia coli Reveal Functional Crosstalk among Cell Envelope Biogenesis Pathways

PubMed Central

Vlasblom, James; Gagarinova, Alla; Phanse, Sadhna; Graham, Chris; Yousif, Fouad; Ding, Huiming; Xiong, Xuejian; Nazarians-Armavil, Anaies; Alamgir, Md; Ali, Mehrab; Pogoutse, Oxana; Pe'er, Asaf; Arnold, Roland; Michaut, Magali; Parkinson, John; Golshani, Ashkan; Whitfield, Chris; Wodak, Shoshana J.; Moreno-Hagelsieb, Gabriel; Greenblatt, Jack F.; Emili, Andrew

2011-01-01

As the interface between a microbe and its environment, the bacterial cell envelope has broad biological and clinical significance. While numerous biosynthesis genes and pathways have been identified and studied in isolation, how these intersect functionally to ensure envelope integrity during adaptive responses to environmental challenge remains unclear. To this end, we performed high-density synthetic genetic screens to generate quantitative functional association maps encompassing virtually the entire cell envelope biosynthetic machinery of Escherichia coli under both auxotrophic (rich medium) and prototrophic (minimal medium) culture conditions. The differential patterns of genetic interactions detected among >235,000 digenic mutant combinations tested reveal unexpected condition-specific functional crosstalk and genetic backup mechanisms that ensure stress-resistant envelope assembly and maintenance. These networks also provide insights into the global systems connectivity and dynamic functional reorganization of a universal bacterial structure that is both broadly conserved among eubacteria (including pathogens) and an important target. PMID:22125496

Genetic interaction maps in Escherichia coli reveal functional crosstalk among cell envelope biogenesis pathways.

PubMed

Babu, Mohan; Díaz-Mejía, J Javier; Vlasblom, James; Gagarinova, Alla; Phanse, Sadhna; Graham, Chris; Yousif, Fouad; Ding, Huiming; Xiong, Xuejian; Nazarians-Armavil, Anaies; Alamgir, Md; Ali, Mehrab; Pogoutse, Oxana; Pe'er, Asaf; Arnold, Roland; Michaut, Magali; Parkinson, John; Golshani, Ashkan; Whitfield, Chris; Wodak, Shoshana J; Moreno-Hagelsieb, Gabriel; Greenblatt, Jack F; Emili, Andrew

2011-11-01

As the interface between a microbe and its environment, the bacterial cell envelope has broad biological and clinical significance. While numerous biosynthesis genes and pathways have been identified and studied in isolation, how these intersect functionally to ensure envelope integrity during adaptive responses to environmental challenge remains unclear. To this end, we performed high-density synthetic genetic screens to generate quantitative functional association maps encompassing virtually the entire cell envelope biosynthetic machinery of Escherichia coli under both auxotrophic (rich medium) and prototrophic (minimal medium) culture conditions. The differential patterns of genetic interactions detected among > 235,000 digenic mutant combinations tested reveal unexpected condition-specific functional crosstalk and genetic backup mechanisms that ensure stress-resistant envelope assembly and maintenance. These networks also provide insights into the global systems connectivity and dynamic functional reorganization of a universal bacterial structure that is both broadly conserved among eubacteria (including pathogens) and an important target.

Substance-Abusing Female Offenders as Victims: Chronological Sequencing of Pathways Into the Criminal Justice System

PubMed Central

Smith, Vivian C.

2017-01-01

This study assesses the entrance of substance-abusing female offenders (N=1,209) into the criminal justice system through temporal patterns (using age of first victimization, drug use and arrest). Nine pathways were identified. Unexpectedly, the leading path was a sequence where drug use preceded arrest in absence of childhood victimization. However, women under a path inclusive of victimization possessed more risk factors. Findings support feminist pathway research, which states that childhood victimization is generally present in female offenders’ lives. Nevertheless, results also revealed that a drug pathway without childhood abuse proved to be as important and even more dominant among criminal justice-involved women. PMID:28824349

That note sounds wrong! Age-related effects in processing of musical expectation.

PubMed

Halpern, Andrea R; Zioga, Ioanna; Shankleman, Martin; Lindsen, Job; Pearce, Marcus T; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2017-04-01

Part of musical understanding and enjoyment stems from the ability to accurately predict what note (or one of a small set of notes) is likely to follow after hearing the first part of a melody. Selective violation of expectations can add to aesthetic response but radical or frequent violations are likely to be disliked or not comprehended. In this study we investigated whether a lifetime of exposure to music among untrained older adults would enhance their reaction to unexpected endings of unfamiliar melodies. Older and younger adults listened to melodies that had expected or unexpected ending notes, according to Western music theory. Ratings of goodness-of-fit were similar in the groups, as was ERP response to the note onset (N1). However, in later time windows (P200 and Late Positive Component), the amplitude of a response to unexpected and expected endings was both larger in older adults, corresponding to greater sensitivity, and more widespread in locus, consistent with a dedifferentiation pattern. Lateralization patterns also differed. We conclude that older adults refine their understanding of this important aspect of music throughout life, with the ability supported by changing patterns of neural activity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Flies lacking all synapsins are unexpectedly healthy but are impaired in complex behaviour.

PubMed

Godenschwege, Tanja A; Reisch, Dietmar; Diegelmann, Sören; Eberle, Kai; Funk, Natalja; Heisenberg, Martin; Hoppe, Viviane; Hoppe, Jürgen; Klagges, Bert R E; Martin, Jean-René; Nikitina, Ekaterina A; Putz, Gabi; Reifegerste, Rita; Reisch, Natascha; Rister, Jens; Schaupp, Michael; Scholz, Henrike; Schwärzel, Martin; Werner, Ursula; Zars, Troy D; Buchner, Sigrid; Buchner, Erich

2004-08-01

Vertebrate synapsins are abundant synaptic vesicle phosphoproteins that have been proposed to fine-regulate neurotransmitter release by phosphorylation-dependent control of synaptic vesicle motility. However, the consequences of a total lack of all synapsin isoforms due to a knock-out of all three mouse synapsin genes have not yet been investigated. In Drosophila a single synapsin gene encodes several isoforms and is expressed in most synaptic terminals. Thus the targeted deletion of the synapsin gene of Drosophila eliminates the possibility of functional knock-out complementation by other isoforms. Unexpectedly, synapsin null mutant flies show no obvious defects in brain morphology, and no striking qualitative changes in behaviour are observed. Ultrastructural analysis of an identified 'model' synapse of the larval nerve muscle preparation revealed no difference between wild-type and mutant, and spontaneous or evoked excitatory junction potentials at this synapse were normal up to a stimulus frequency of 5 Hz. However, when several behavioural responses were analysed quantitatively, specific differences between mutant and wild-type flies are noted. Adult locomotor activity, optomotor responses at high pattern velocities, wing beat frequency, and visual pattern preference are modified. Synapsin mutant flies show faster habituation of an olfactory jump response, enhanced ethanol tolerance, and significant defects in learning and memory as measured using three different paradigms. Larval behavioural defects are described in a separate paper. We conclude that Drosophila synapsins play a significant role in nervous system function, which is subtle at the cellular level but manifests itself in complex behaviour.

Domain alignment within ferroelectric/dielectric PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 superlattice nanostructures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Park, Joonkyu; Mangeri, John; Zhang, Qingteng

The ferroelectric domain pattern within lithographically defined PbTiO 3/SrTiO 3 ferroelectric/dielectric heteroepitaxial superlattice nanostructures is strongly influenced by the edges of the structures. Synchrotron X-ray nanobeam diffraction reveals that the spontaneously formed 180° ferroelectric stripe domains exhibited by such superlattices adopt a configuration in rectangular nanostructures in which domain walls are aligned with long patterned edges. The angular distribution of X-ray diffuse scattering intensity from nanodomains indicates that domains are aligned within an angular range of approximately 20° with respect to the edges. Computational studies based on a time-dependent Landau–Ginzburg–Devonshire model show that the preferred direction of the alignment resultsmore » from lowering of the bulk and electrostrictive contributions to the free energy of the system due to the release of the lateral mechanical constraint. This unexpected alignment appears to be intrinsic and not a result of distortions or defects caused by the patterning process. Thus, our work demonstrates how nanostructuring and patterning of heteroepitaxial superlattices allow for pathways to create and control ferroelectric structures that may appear counterintuitive.« less

Domain alignment within ferroelectric/dielectric PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 superlattice nanostructures

DOE PAGES

Park, Joonkyu; Mangeri, John; Zhang, Qingteng; ...

2018-01-22

The ferroelectric domain pattern within lithographically defined PbTiO 3/SrTiO 3 ferroelectric/dielectric heteroepitaxial superlattice nanostructures is strongly influenced by the edges of the structures. Synchrotron X-ray nanobeam diffraction reveals that the spontaneously formed 180° ferroelectric stripe domains exhibited by such superlattices adopt a configuration in rectangular nanostructures in which domain walls are aligned with long patterned edges. The angular distribution of X-ray diffuse scattering intensity from nanodomains indicates that domains are aligned within an angular range of approximately 20° with respect to the edges. Computational studies based on a time-dependent Landau–Ginzburg–Devonshire model show that the preferred direction of the alignment resultsmore » from lowering of the bulk and electrostrictive contributions to the free energy of the system due to the release of the lateral mechanical constraint. This unexpected alignment appears to be intrinsic and not a result of distortions or defects caused by the patterning process. Thus, our work demonstrates how nanostructuring and patterning of heteroepitaxial superlattices allow for pathways to create and control ferroelectric structures that may appear counterintuitive.« less

Extracellular matrix dynamics during vertebrate axis formation.

PubMed

Czirók, András; Rongish, Brenda J; Little, Charles D

2004-04-01

The first evidence for the dynamics of in vivo extracellular matrix (ECM) pattern formation during embryogenesis is presented below. Fibrillin 2 filaments were tracked for 12 h throughout the avian intraembryonic mesoderm using automated light microscopy and algorithms of our design. The data show that these ECM filaments have a reproducible morphogenic destiny that is characterized by directed transport. Fibrillin 2 particles initially deposited in the segmental plate mesoderm are translocated along an unexpected trajectory where they eventually polymerize into an intricate scaffold of cables parallel to the anterior-posterior axis. The cables coalesce near the midline before the appearance of the next-formed somite. Moreover, the ECM filaments define global tissue movements with high precision because the filaments act as passive motion tracers. Quantification of individual and collective filament "behaviors" establish fate maps, trajectories, and velocities. These data reveal a caudally propagating traveling wave pattern in the morphogenetic movements of early axis formation. We conjecture that within vertebrate embryos, long-range mechanical tension fields are coupled to both large-scale patterning and local organization of the ECM. Thus, physical forces or stress fields are essential requirements for executing an emergent developmental pattern-in this case, paraxial fibrillin cable assembly.

Orthorexia nervosa: relationship with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, disordered eating patterns and body uneasiness among Italian university students.

PubMed

Brytek-Matera, Anna; Fonte, Maria Luisa; Poggiogalle, Eleonora; Donini, Lorenzo Maria; Cena, Hellas

2017-12-01

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between ORTO-15 score and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, disordered eating patterns and body uneasiness among female and male university students and to examine the predictive model of ORTO-15 in both groups. One hundred and twenty students participated in the present study (mean age 22.74 years, SD 7.31). The ORTO-15 test, the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Questionnaire, the Eating Attitudes Test-26 and the Body Uneasiness Test were used for the present study. Our results revealed no gender differences in ORTO-15 score. Our results show, rather unexpectedly, that in female students lower scores, corresponding to greater severity, were related to less pathological body image discomfort and obsessive-compulsive signs, while in male students, lower ORTO-15 scores were related to less pathological eating patterns, as behaviors and symptoms. Further studies regarding the relationship between ON and anorexia nervosa, as well as obsessive-compulsive symptoms, are needed to better understand the causality. Level of Evidence Level V, descriptive study.

Stratification based on reproductive state reveals contrasting patterns of age-related variation in demographic parameters in the kittiwake

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cam, E.; Monnat, J.-Y.

2000-01-01

Heterogeneity in individual quality can be a major obstacle when interpreting age-specific variation in life-history traits. Heterogeneity is likely to lead to within-generation selection, and patterns observed at the population level may result from the combination of hidden patterns specific to subpopulations. Population-level patterns are not relevant to hypotheses concerning the evolution of age-specific reproductive strategies if they differ from patterns at the individual level. We addressed the influence of age and a variable used as a surrogate of quality (yearly reproductive state) on survival and breeding probability in the kittiwake. We found evidence of an effect of age and quality on both demographic parameters. Patterns observed in breeders are consistent with the selection hypothesis, which predicts age-related increases in survival and traits positively correlated with survival. Our results also reveal unexpected age effects specific to subgroups: the influence of age on survival and future breeding probability is not the same in nonbreeders and breeders. These patterns are observed in higher-quality breeding habitats, where the influence of extrinsic factors on breeding state is the weakest. Moreover, there is slight evidence of an influence of sex on breeding probability (not on survival), but the same overall pattern is observed in both sexes. Our results support the hypothesis that age-related variation in demographic parameters observed at the population level is partly shaped by heterogeneity among individuals. They also suggest processes specific to subpopulations. Recent theoreticaI developments lay emphasis on integration of sources of heterogeneity in optimization models to account for apparently 'sub-optimal' empirical patterns. Incorporation of sources of heterogeneity is also the key to investigation of age-related reproductive strategies in heterogeneous populations. Thwarting 'heterogeneity's ruses' has become a major challenge: for detecting and understanding natural processes, and a constructive confrontation between empirical and theoretical studies.

Changes in Head Stability Control in Response to a Lateral Perturbation while Walking in Older Adults

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Buccello, Regina R.; Cromwell, Ronita L.; Bloomberg, Jacob J.

2008-01-01

Falling is a main contributor of injury in older adults. The decline in sensory systems associated with aging limits information needed to successfully compensate for unexpected perturbations. Therefore, sensory changes result in older adults having problems maintaining balance stability when experiencing an unexpected lateral perturbation (e.g. slip) in the environment. The goal of this study was to determine head stability movement strategies used by older adults when experiencing an unexpected lateral perturbation during walking. A total of 16 healthy adults, aged 66-81 years, walked across a foam pathway 6 times. One piece of the foam pathway covered a movable platform that translated to the left when the subject stepped on the foam. Three trials were randomized in which the platform shifted. Angular rate sensors were placed on the center of mass for the head and trunk segments to collect head and trunk movement in all three planes of motion. The predominant movement strategies for maintaining head stability were determined from the results of the cross-correlation analyses between the head and trunk segments. The Chi square test of independence was used to evaluate the movement pattern distributions of head-trunk coordination during perturbed and non-perturbed walking. When perturbed, head stabilization was significantly challenged in the yaw and roll planes of motion. Subjects demonstrated a movement pattern of the head leading the trunk in an effort to stabilize the head. The older adult subjects used this head stabilization movement pattern to compensate for sensory changes when experiencing the unexpected lateral perturbation.

Hydrodynamically induced oscillations and traffic dynamics in 1D microfludic networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bartolo, Denis; Jeanneret, Raphael

2011-03-01

We report on the traffic dynamics of particles driven through a minimal microfluidic network. Even in the minimal network consisting in a single loop, the traffic dynamics has proven to yield complex temporal patterns, including periodic, multi-periodic or chaotic sequences. This complex dynamics arises from the strongly nonlinear hydrodynamic interactions between the particles, that takes place at a junction. To better understand the consequences of this nontrivial coupling, we combined theoretical, numerical and experimental efforts and solved the 3-body problem in a 1D loop network. This apparently simple dynamical system revealed a rich and unexpected dynamics, including coherent spontaneous oscillations along closed orbits. Striking similarities between Hamiltonian systems and this driven dissipative system will be explained.

Should I stay or should I go? Attentional disengagement from visually unique and unexpected items at fixation.

PubMed

Brockmole, James R; Boot, Walter R

2009-06-01

Distinctive aspects of a scene can capture attention even when they are irrelevant to one's goals. The authors address whether visually unique, unexpected, but task-irrelevant features also tend to hold attention. Observers searched through displays in which the color of each item was irrelevant. At the start of search, all objects changed color. Critically, the foveated item changed to an unexpected color (it was novel), became a color singleton (it was unique), or both. Saccade latency revealed the time required to disengage overt attention from this object. Singletons resulted in longer latencies, but only if they were unexpected. Conversely, unexpected items only delayed disengagement if they were singletons. Thus, the time spent overtly attending to an object is determined, at least in part, by task-irrelevant stimulus properties, but this depends on the confluence of expectation and visual salience. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Faunal breaks and species composition of Indo-Pacific corals: the role of plate tectonics, environment and habitat distribution.

PubMed

Keith, S A; Baird, A H; Hughes, T P; Madin, J S; Connolly, S R

2013-07-22

Species richness gradients are ubiquitous in nature, but the mechanisms that generate and maintain these patterns at macroecological scales remain unresolved. We use a new approach that focuses on overlapping geographical ranges of species to reveal that Indo-Pacific corals are assembled within 11 distinct faunal provinces. Province limits are characterized by co-occurrence of multiple species range boundaries. Unexpectedly, these faunal breaks are poorly predicted by contemporary environmental conditions and the present-day distribution of habitat. Instead, faunal breaks show striking concordance with geological features (tectonic plates and mantle plume tracks). The depth range over which a species occurs, its larval development rate and genus age are important determinants of the likelihood that species will straddle faunal breaks. Our findings indicate that historical processes, habitat heterogeneity and species colonization ability account for more of the present-day biogeographical patterns of corals than explanations based on the contemporary distribution of reefs or environmental conditions.

Faunal breaks and species composition of Indo-Pacific corals: the role of plate tectonics, environment and habitat distribution

PubMed Central

Keith, S. A.; Baird, A. H.; Hughes, T. P.; Madin, J. S.; Connolly, S. R.

2013-01-01

Species richness gradients are ubiquitous in nature, but the mechanisms that generate and maintain these patterns at macroecological scales remain unresolved. We use a new approach that focuses on overlapping geographical ranges of species to reveal that Indo-Pacific corals are assembled within 11 distinct faunal provinces. Province limits are characterized by co-occurrence of multiple species range boundaries. Unexpectedly, these faunal breaks are poorly predicted by contemporary environmental conditions and the present-day distribution of habitat. Instead, faunal breaks show striking concordance with geological features (tectonic plates and mantle plume tracks). The depth range over which a species occurs, its larval development rate and genus age are important determinants of the likelihood that species will straddle faunal breaks. Our findings indicate that historical processes, habitat heterogeneity and species colonization ability account for more of the present-day biogeographical patterns of corals than explanations based on the contemporary distribution of reefs or environmental conditions. PMID:23698011

Robust passive dynamics of the musculoskeletal system compensate for unexpected surface changes during human hopping

PubMed Central

van der Krogt, Marjolein M.; de Graaf, Wendy W.; Farley, Claire T.; Moritz, Chet T.; Richard Casius, L. J.; Bobbert, Maarten F.

2009-01-01

When human hoppers are surprised by a change in surface stiffness, they adapt almost instantly by changing leg stiffness, implying that neural feedback is not necessary. The goal of this simulation study was first to investigate whether leg stiffness can change without neural control adjustment when landing on an unexpected hard or unexpected compliant (soft) surface, and second to determine what underlying mechanisms are responsible for this change in leg stiffness. The muscle stimulation pattern of a forward dynamic musculoskeletal model was optimized to make the model match experimental hopping kinematics on hard and soft surfaces. Next, only surface stiffness was changed to determine how the mechanical interaction of the musculoskeletal model with the unexpected surface affected leg stiffness. It was found that leg stiffness adapted passively to both unexpected surfaces. On the unexpected hard surface, leg stiffness was lower than on the soft surface, resulting in close-to-normal center of mass displacement. This reduction in leg stiffness was a result of reduced joint stiffness caused by lower effective muscle stiffness. Faster flexion of the joints due to the interaction with the hard surface led to larger changes in muscle length, while the prescribed increase in active state and resulting muscle force remained nearly constant in time. Opposite effects were found on the unexpected soft surface, demonstrating the bidirectional stabilizing properties of passive dynamics. These passive adaptations to unexpected surfaces may be critical when negotiating disturbances during locomotion across variable terrain. PMID:19589956

Nickel-catalyzed hydrocarboxylation of ynamides with CO2 and H2O: observation of unexpected regioselectivity.

PubMed

Doi, Ryohei; Abdullah, Iman; Taniguchi, Takahisa; Saito, Nozomi; Sato, Yoshihiro

2017-07-06

We describe the nickel-catalyzed hydrocarboxylation of ynamides with CO 2 and H 2 O to afford a variety of α-amino-α,β-unsaturated esters with high regioselectivities. The selective α-carboxylation of ynamides with this catalytic protocol is unexpected in view of the electronic bias of ynamides and is in sharp contrast to our previous study in which a stoichiometric amount of Ni(0) was used to form a β-carboxylated product exclusively. We revealed that this unexpected C-C bond formation was induced by the combination of Zn and MgBr 2 .

An orthologue of the kit-related gene fms is required for development of neural crest-derived xanthophores and a subpopulation of adult melanocytes in the zebrafish, Danio rerio.

PubMed

Parichy, D M; Ransom, D G; Paw, B; Zon, L I; Johnson, S L

2000-07-01

Developmental mechanisms underlying traits expressed in larval and adult vertebrates remain largely unknown. Pigment patterns of fishes provide an opportunity to identify genes and cell behaviors required for postembryonic morphogenesis and differentiation. In the zebrafish, Danio rerio, pigment patterns reflect the spatial arrangements of three classes of neural crest-derived pigment cells: black melanocytes, yellow xanthophores and silver iridophores. We show that the D. rerio pigment pattern mutant panther ablates xanthophores in embryos and adults and has defects in the development of the adult pattern of melanocyte stripes. We find that panther corresponds to an orthologue of the c-fms gene, which encodes a type III receptor tyrosine kinase and is the closest known homologue of the previously identified pigment pattern gene, kit. In mouse, fms is essential for the development of macrophage and osteoclast lineages and has not been implicated in neural crest or pigment cell development. In contrast, our analyses demonstrate that fms is expressed and required by D. rerio xanthophore precursors and that fms promotes the normal patterning of melanocyte death and migration during adult stripe formation. Finally, we show that fms is required for the appearance of a late developing, kit-independent subpopulation of adult melanocytes. These findings reveal an unexpected role for fms in pigment pattern development and demonstrate that parallel neural crest-derived pigment cell populations depend on the activities of two essentially paralogous genes, kit and fms.

Genome-wide Analysis Reveals SR Protein Cooperation and Competition in Regulated Splicing

PubMed Central

Pandit, Shatakshi; Zhou, Yu; Shiue, Lily; Coutinho-Mansfield, Gabriela; Li, Hairi; Qiu, Jinsong; Huang, Jie; Yeo, Gene W.; Ares, Manuel; Fu, Xiang-Dong

2013-01-01

Summary SR proteins are well-characterized RNA binding proteins that promote exon inclusion by binding to exonic splicing enhancers (ESEs). However, it has been unclear whether regulatory rules deduced on model genes apply generally to activities of SR proteins in the cell. Here, we report global analyses of two prototypical SR proteins SRSF1 (SF2/ASF) and SRSF2 (SC35) using splicing-sensitive arrays and CLIP-seq on mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs). Unexpectedly, we find that these SR proteins promote both inclusion and skipping of exons in vivo, but their binding patterns do not explain such opposite responses. Further analyses reveal that loss of one SR protein is accompanied by coordinated loss or compensatory gain in the interaction of other SR proteins at the affected exons. Therefore, specific effects on regulated splicing by one SR protein actually depend on a complex set of relationships with multiple other SR proteins in mammalian genomes. PMID:23562324

Understanding the spatial distribution of subtidal reef assemblages in the southern Baltic Sea using towed camera platform imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beisiegel, Kolja; Darr, Alexander; Zettler, Michael L.; Friedland, René; Gräwe, Ulf; Gogina, Mayya

2018-07-01

Quantitative sampling of sessile assemblages on temperate subtidal rocky reefs is expensive and severely time-limited by logistics. However, knowledge about distribution patterns of critical and endangered species and habitats at different spatial scales is needed for effective marine management strategies. To gain information of sessile community distribution on broader spatial scales (>1 km), visual imaging was employed for the first time on a reef complex in the south-western Baltic Sea. Analysis of 3000 images along 6 transects (in total 18 km long) from 10 to 40 m depth revealed high natural variation in reef physical structure, with well-defined changes in sessile species richness, cover and composition. Overall 14 morphological groups could be distinguished by imaging and 4 distinct community groups associated with specific habitat requirements were identified. Depth remained the best descriptor. However, data indicate that light intensity, concentration of organic carbon and suspended particulate matter have an effect on reef community distribution. Compared to fully marine conditions, the study revealed a unique zonation pattern in the circalittoral zone of the Fehmarnbelt brackish transition area, with an unexpected reef habitat in the trench. We conclude that towed camera platform imagery might help to close the information gap regarding rocky reefs in the temperate subtidal. It provides a valuable tool to assess the main distribution patterns of sessile assemblages on rough terrain, potentially applicable for management and conservation planning.

Characteristics of unexpected protein bands in multiple myeloma patients after autologous stem cell transplantation.

PubMed

Kim, Soo-Kyung; Jeong, Tae-Dong; Kim, So Young; Lee, Woochang; Chun, Sail; Suh, Cheol Won; Min, Won-Ki

2014-05-01

The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of unexpected protein bands (UPBs) in patients with multiple myeloma (MM). Individuals diagnosed with MM (n=193) were enrolled. Their medical records and IFE patterns were reviewed. Of the patients that underwent ASCT, 54% developed UPBs. The median time for UPB appearance and duration was 1.8 and 5.7months, respectively. IFE revealed 74.1% of UPBs to be of the immunoglobulin G type and 72.2% to be of the κ-type. At UPB appearance, 42.6% of patients were defined as sCR or CR, and 50.0% of the patients satisfying the CR criteria had an abnormal FLC ratio. Of the patients who developed UPBs, five relapsed. Among these, four patients showed disappearance of the previous IFE oligoclonality and reappearance of the original paraprotein at relapse. Close follow-up of UPBs is critical for evaluating MM therapeutic response and disease progression. The presence of monoclonal bands may indicate relapse of disease, but in the vast majority of cases with UPBs, it does not; instead, it most likely represents a transient phenomenon caused by the immune response. Copyright © 2014 The Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rotational displacement skills in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

PubMed

Hughes, Kelly D; Santos, Laurie R

2012-11-01

Rotational displacement tasks, in which participants must track an object at a hiding location within an array while the array rotates, exhibit a puzzling developmental pattern in humans. Human children take an unusually long time to master this task and tend to solve rotational problems through the use of nongeometric features or landmarks as opposed to other kinds of spatial cues. We investigated whether these developmental characteristics are unique to humans by testing rotational displacement skills in a monkey species, the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), using a looking-time method. Monkeys first saw food hidden in two differently colored boxes within an array. The array was then rotated 180° and the boxes reopened to reveal the food in an expected or unexpected location. Our first two experiments explored the developmental time-course of performance on this rotational displacement task. We found that adult macaques looked longer at the unexpected event, but such performance was not mirrored in younger-aged macaques. In a third study, we systematically varied featural information and visible access to the array to investigate which strategies adult macaques used in solving rotational displacements. Our results show that adult macaques need both sets of information to solve the task. Taken together, these results suggest both similarities and differences in mechanisms by which human and nonhuman primates develop this spatial skill.

Humanization of the anti-CD18 antibody 6.7: an unexpected effect of a framework residue in binding to antigen.

PubMed

Caldas, Cristina; Coelho, Verônica; Kalil, Jorge; Moro, Ana Maria; Maranhão, Andrea Q; Brígido, Marcelo M

2003-05-01

Humanization of monoclonal antibodies by complementary determinant region (CDR)-grafting has become a standard procedure to improve the clinical usage of animal antibodies. However, antibody humanization may result in loss of activity that has been attributed to structural constraints in the framework structure. In this paper, we report the complete humanization of the 6.7 anti-human CD18 monoclonal antibody in a scFv form. We used a germline-based approach to design a humanized VL gene fragment and expressed it together with a previously described humanized VH. The designed humanized VL has only 14 mutations compared to the closest human germline sequence. The resulting humanized scFv maintained the binding capacity and specificity to human CD18 expressed on the cell surface of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), and showed the same pattern of staining T-lymphocytes sub-populations, in comparison to the original monoclonal antibody. We observed an unexpected effect of a conserved mouse-human framework position (L37) that hinders the binding of the humanized scFv to antigen. This paper reveals a new framework residue that interferes with paratope and antigen binding and also reinforces the germline approach as a successful strategy to humanize antibodies.

From Amazonia to the Atlantic forest: molecular phylogeny of Phyzelaphryninae frogs reveals unexpected diversity and a striking biogeographic pattern emphasizing conservation challenges.

PubMed

Fouquet, Antoine; Loebmann, Daniel; Castroviejo-Fisher, Santiago; Padial, José M; Orrico, Victor G D; Lyra, Mariana L; Roberto, Igor Joventino; Kok, Philippe J R; Haddad, Célio F B; Rodrigues, Miguel T

2012-11-01

Documenting the Neotropical amphibian diversity has become a major challenge facing the threat of global climate change and the pace of environmental alteration. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies have revealed that the actual number of species in South American tropical forests is largely underestimated, but also that many lineages are millions of years old. The genera Phyzelaphryne (1 sp.) and Adelophryne (6 spp.), which compose the subfamily Phyzelaphryninae, include poorly documented, secretive, and minute frogs with an unusual distribution pattern that encompasses the biotic disjunction between Amazonia and the Atlantic forest. We generated >5.8 kb sequence data from six markers for all seven nominal species of the subfamily as well as for newly discovered populations in order to (1) test the monophyly of Phyzelaphryninae, Adelophryne and Phyzelaphryne, (2) estimate species diversity within the subfamily, and (3) investigate their historical biogeography and diversification. Phylogenetic reconstruction confirmed the monophyly of each group and revealed deep subdivisions within Adelophryne and Phyzelaphryne, with three major clades in Adelophryne located in northern Amazonia, northern Atlantic forest and southern Atlantic forest. Our results suggest that the actual number of species in Phyzelaphryninae is, at least, twice the currently recognized species diversity, with almost every geographically isolated population representing an anciently divergent candidate species. Such results highlight the challenges for conservation, especially in the northern Atlantic forest where it is still degraded at a fast pace. Molecular dating revealed that Phyzelaphryninae originated in Amazonia and dispersed during early Miocene to the Atlantic forest. The two Atlantic forest clades of Adelophryne started to diversify some 7 Ma minimum, while the northern Amazonian Adelophryne diversified much earlier, some 13 Ma minimum. This striking biogeographic pattern coincides with major events that have shaped the face of the South American continent, as we know it today. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Vector velocity profiles of the solar wind within expanding magnetic clouds at 1 AU: Some surprises

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, C.; Lepping, R. P.; Berdichevsky, D.; Ferguson, T.; Lazarus, A. J.

2002-12-01

We investigated the average vector velocity profile of 36 carefully chosen WIND interplanetary magnetic clouds occurring over about a 7 year period since spacecraft launch, to see if a differential pattern of solar wind flow exists. Particular cases were chosen of clouds whose axes were generally within 45 degrees of the ecliptic plane and of relatively well determined characteristics obtained from cloud-parameter (cylindrically symmetric force free) fitting. This study was motivated by the desire to understand the manner in which magnetic clouds expand, a well know phenomenon revealed by most cloud speed-profiles at 1 AU. One unexpected and major result was that, even though cloud expansion was confirmed, it was primarily along the Xgse axis; i.e., neither the Ygse or Zgse velocity components reveal any noteworthy pattern. After splitting the full set of clouds into a north-passing set (spacecraft passing above the cloud, where Nn = 21) and south-passing set (Ns = 15), to study the plasma expansion of the clouds with respect to the position of the observer, it was seen that the Xgse component of velocity differs for these two sets in a rather uniform and measurable way for most of the average cloud's extent. This does not appear to be the case for the Ygse or Zgse velocity components where little measurable differences exists, and clearly no pattern, across the average cloud between the north and south positions. It is not clear why such a remarkably non-axisymmetric plasma flow pattern within the "average magnetic cloud" at 1 AU should exist. The study continues from the perspective of magnetic cloud coordinate representation. ~ ~ ~

Characterization of Mus musculus Papillomavirus 1 Infection In Situ Reveals an Unusual Pattern of Late Gene Expression and Capsid Protein Localization

PubMed Central

Handisurya, Alessandra; Day, Patricia M.; Thompson, Cynthia D.; Buck, Christopher B.; Pang, Yuk-Ying S.; Lowy, Douglas R.

2013-01-01

Full-length genomic DNA of the recently identified laboratory mouse papillomavirus 1 (MusPV1) was synthesized in vitro and was used to establish and characterize a mouse model of papillomavirus pathobiology. MusPV1 DNA, whether naked or encapsidated by MusPV1 or human papillomavirus 16 (HPV 16) capsids, efficiently induced the outgrowth of papillomas as early as 3 weeks after application to abraded skin on the muzzles and tails of athymic NCr nude mice. High concentrations of virions were extracted from homogenized papillomatous tissues and were serially passaged for >10 generations. Neutralization by L1 antisera confirmed that infectious transmission was capsid mediated. Unexpectedly, the skin of the murine back was much less susceptible to virion-induced papillomas than the muzzle or tail. Although reporter pseudovirions readily transduced the skin of the back, infection with native MusPV1 resulted in less viral genome amplification and gene expression on the back, including reduced expression of the L1 protein and very low expression of the L2 protein, results that imply skin region-specific control of postentry aspects of the viral life cycle. Unexpectedly, L1 protein on the back was predominantly cytoplasmic, while on the tail the abundant L1 was cytoplasmic in the lower epithelial layers and nuclear in the upper layers. Nuclear localization of L1 occurred only in cells that coexpressed the minor capsid protein, L2. The pattern of L1 protein staining in the infected epithelium suggests that L1 expression occurs earlier in the MusPV1 life cycle than in the life cycle of high-risk HPV and that virion assembly is regulated by a previously undescribed mechanism. PMID:24067981

Pythagoras Meets Fibonacci.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boulger, William

1989-01-01

Patterns and relationships are shown between the Pythagorean theorem, Fibonacci sequences, and the golden ratio. Historical references also include the works of Euclid and Euler. These unexpected relationships can be used to motivate secondary students. (DC)

Molecular phylogeny and larval morphological diversity of the lanternfish genus Hygophum (Teleostei: Myctophidae).

PubMed

Yamaguchi, M; Miya, M; Okiyama, M; Nishida, M

2000-04-01

Larvae of the deep-sea lanternfish genus Hygophum (Myctophidae) exhibit a remarkable morphological diversity that is quite unexpected, considering their homogeneous adult morphology. In an attempt to elucidate the evolutionary patterns of such larval morphological diversity, nucleotide sequences of a portion of the mitochondrially encoded 16S ribosomal RNA gene were determined for seven Hygophum species and three outgroup taxa. Secondary structure-based alignment resulted in a character matrix consisting of 1172 bp of unambiguously aligned sequences, which were subjected to phylogenetic analyses using maximum-parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and neighbor-joining methods. The resultant tree topologies from the three methods were congruent, with most nodes, including that of the genus Hygophum, being strongly supported by various tree statistics. The most parsimonious reconstruction of the three previously recognized, distinct larval morphs onto the molecular phylogeny revealed that one of the morphs had originated as the common ancestor of the genus, the other two having diversified separately in two subsequent major clades. The patterns of such diversification are discussed in terms of the unusual larval eye morphology and geographic distribution. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

New water soluble heterometallic complex showing unpredicted coordination modes of EDTA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mudsainiyan, R.K., E-mail: mudsainiyanrk@gmail.com; Jassal, A.K.; Chawla, S.K., E-mail: sukhvinder.k.chawla@gmail.com

2015-10-15

A mesoporous 3D polymeric complex (I) having formula ([Zr(IV)O-μ{sup 3}-(EDTA)Fe(III)OH]·H{sub 2}O){sub n} has been crystallized and characterized by various techniques. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that complex (I) crystallized in chiral monoclinic space group Cc (space group no. 9) with unexpected coordination modes of EDTA and mixture of two transition metal ions. In this complex, the coordination number of Zr(IV) ion is seven where four carboxylate oxygen atoms, two nitrogen atoms, one oxide atom are coordinating with Zr(IV). Fe(III) is four coordinated and its coordination environment is composed of three different carboxylic oxygen atoms from three different EDTA and onemore » oxygen atom of –OH group. The structure consists of 4-c and 16-c (2-nodal) net with new topology and point symbol for net is (3{sup 36}·4{sup 54}·5{sup 30})·(3{sup 6}). TGA study and XRPD pattern showed that the coordination polymer is quite stable even after losing water molecule and –OH ion. Quenching behavior in fluorescence of ligand is observed by complexation with transition metal ions is due to n–π⁎ transition. The SEM micrograph shows the morphology of complex (I) exhibits spherical shape with size ranging from 50 to 280 nm. The minimum N{sub 2} (S{sub BET}=8.7693 m{sup 2}/g) and a maximum amount of H{sub 2} (high surface area=1044.86 m{sup 2}/g (STP)) could be adsorbed at 77 K. From DLS study, zeta potential is calculated i.e. −7.94 shows the negative charges on the surface of complex. Hirshfeld surface analysis and fingerprint plots revealed influence of weak or non bonding interactions in crystal packing of complex. - Graphical abstract: The complex (I) crystallized with unexpected coordination modes of EDTA having 4-c, 16-c net with new topology and point symbol is (3{sup 36}·4{sup 54}·5{sup 30})·(3{sup 6}). TGA study and XRPD pattern proved its stability with high preference of H{sub 2} uptake by complex. - Highlights: • 3D complex having unexpected coordination modes of EDTA with Zr(IV) and Fe(III). • The structure consists of 4-c and 16-c (2-nodal) net with new topology. • Reasonable S{sub BET} (8.7693 m{sup 2}/g) but high H{sub 2} uptake (1044.86 m{sup 2}/g) due to limited pore size. • Quenching behavior due to n–π⁎ transition by complexation with transition metal ions. • From DLS study, zeta potential value is −7.94.« less

Special ways of knowing in science: expansive learning opportunities with bilingual children with learning disabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martínez-Álvarez, Patricia

2017-09-01

The field of bilingual special education is currently plagued with contradictions resulting in a serious underrepresentation of emergent bilinguals with learning disabilities in professional science fields. This underrepresentation is due in large part to the fact that educational systems around the world are inadequately prepared to address the educational needs of these children; this inadequacy is rooted in a lack of understanding of the linguistic and cultural factors impacting learning. Accepting such a premise and assuming that children learn in unexpected ways when instructional practices attend to culture and language, this study documents a place-based learning experience integrating geoscience and literacy in a fourth-grade dual language classroom. Data sources include transcribed audio-taped conversations from learning experience sessions and interviews that took place as six focus children, who had been identified as having specific learning disabilities, read published science texts (i.e. texts unaltered linguistically or conceptually to meet the needs of the readers). My analysis revealed that participants generated responses that were often unexpected if solely analyzed from those Western scientific perspectives traditionally valued in school contexts. However, these responses were also full of purposeful and rich understandings that revealed opportunities for expansive learning. Adopting a cultural historical activity theory perspective, instructional tools such as texts, visuals, and questions were found to act as mediators impacting the learning in both activity systems: (a) teacher- researcher learning from children, and (b) children learning from teachers. I conclude by suggesting that there is a need to understand students' ways of knowing to their full complexity, and to deliberately recognize teachers as learners, researchers, and means to expansive learning patterns that span beyond traditional learning boundaries.

The contribution of visual and proprioceptive information to the perception of leaning in a dynamic motorcycle simulator.

PubMed

Lobjois, Régis; Dagonneau, Virginie; Isableu, Brice

2016-11-01

Compared with driving or flight simulation, little is known about self-motion perception in riding simulation. The goal of this study was to examine whether or not continuous roll motion supports the sensation of leaning into bends in dynamic motorcycle simulation. To this end, riders were able to freely tune the visual scene and/or motorcycle simulator roll angle to find a pattern that matched their prior knowledge. Our results revealed idiosyncrasy in the combination of visual and proprioceptive information. Some subjects relied more on the visual dimension, but reported increased sickness symptoms with the visual roll angle. Others relied more on proprioceptive information, tuning the direction of the visual scenery to match three possible patterns. Our findings also showed that these two subgroups tuned the motorcycle simulator roll angle in a similar way. This suggests that sustained inertially specified roll motion have contributed to the sensation of leaning in spite of the occurrence of unexpected gravito-inertial stimulation during the tilt. Several hypotheses are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Self-motion perception in motorcycle simulation is a relatively new research area. We examined how participants combined visual and proprioceptive information. Findings revealed individual differences in the visual dimension. However, participants tuned the simulator roll angle similarly, supporting the hypothesis that sustained inertially specified roll motion contributes to a leaning sensation.

Revising the recent evolutionary history of equids using ancient DNA.

PubMed

Orlando, Ludovic; Metcalf, Jessica L; Alberdi, Maria T; Telles-Antunes, Miguel; Bonjean, Dominique; Otte, Marcel; Martin, Fabiana; Eisenmann, Véra; Mashkour, Marjan; Morello, Flavia; Prado, Jose L; Salas-Gismondi, Rodolfo; Shockey, Bruce J; Wrinn, Patrick J; Vasil'ev, Sergei K; Ovodov, Nikolai D; Cherry, Michael I; Hopwood, Blair; Male, Dean; Austin, Jeremy J; Hänni, Catherine; Cooper, Alan

2009-12-22

The rich fossil record of the family Equidae (Mammalia: Perissodactyla) over the past 55 MY has made it an icon for the patterns and processes of macroevolution. Despite this, many aspects of equid phylogenetic relationships and taxonomy remain unresolved. Recent genetic analyses of extinct equids have revealed unexpected evolutionary patterns and a need for major revisions at the generic, subgeneric, and species levels. To investigate this issue we examine 35 ancient equid specimens from four geographic regions (South America, Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Africa), of which 22 delivered 87-688 bp of reproducible aDNA mitochondrial sequence. Phylogenetic analyses support a major revision of the recent evolutionary history of equids and reveal two new species, a South American hippidion and a descendant of a basal lineage potentially related to Middle Pleistocene equids. Sequences from specimens assigned to the giant extinct Cape zebra, Equus capensis, formed a separate clade within the modern plain zebra species, a phenotypicically plastic group that also included the extinct quagga. In addition, we revise the currently recognized extinction times for two hemione-related equid groups. However, it is apparent that the current dataset cannot solve all of the taxonomic and phylogenetic questions relevant to the evolution of Equus. In light of these findings, we propose a rapid DNA barcoding approach to evaluate the taxonomic status of the many Late Pleistocene fossil Equidae species that have been described from purely morphological analyses.

When cancer cannot be cured: A qualitative study on relationship changes in couples facing advanced melanoma.

PubMed

Drabe, Natalie; Jenewein, Josef; Weidt, Steffi; Engeli, Lucia; Meier, Caroline; Büchi, Stefan; Schad, Karin; Schönbucher, Verena; Canella, Claudia; Nuñez, David Garcia

2016-12-01

The aim of this qualitative study was to gain a deeper understanding about couples' relationship changes over time (the first six months) after one partner is diagnosed with an incurable advanced melanoma (stage III or IV). In semistructured interviews, eight patients and their partners were asked separately about potential changes in their relationship since diagnosis. The same questions were asked again six months later, but focusing on relationship changes over the preceding six months. Some 32 audiotaped interviews were analyzed applying qualitative content analysis. At baseline (t1), relationship changes were mostly reported in terms of caring, closeness/distance regulation, and communication patterns. While changes in caregiving and distance/closeness regulation remained main issues at six months follow-up (t2), greater appreciation of the relationship and limitations in terms of planning spare time also emerged as major issues. Unexpectedly, 50% of patients and partners reported actively hiding their negative emotions and sorrows from their counterparts to spare them worry. Furthermore, qualitative content analysis revealed relationship changes even in those patients and partners who primarily reported no changes over the course of the disease. Our findings revealed a differentiated and complex picture about relationship changes over time, which also might aid in the development of support programs for couples dealing with advanced cancer, focusing on the aspects of caring, closeness/distance regulation, and communication patterns.

Modelling reveals endogenous osmotic adaptation of storage tissue water potential as an important driver determining different stem diameter variation patterns in the mangrove species Avicennia marina and Rhizophora stylosa.

PubMed

Vandegehuchte, Maurits W; Guyot, Adrien; Hubeau, Michiel; De Swaef, Tom; Lockington, David A; Steppe, Kathy

2014-09-01

Stem diameter variations are mainly determined by the radial water transport between xylem and storage tissues. This radial transport results from the water potential difference between these tissues, which is influenced by both hydraulic and carbon related processes. Measurements have shown that when subjected to the same environmental conditions, the co-occurring mangrove species Avicennia marina and Rhizophora stylosa unexpectedly show a totally different pattern in daily stem diameter variation. Using in situ measurements of stem diameter variation, stem water potential and sap flow, a mechanistic flow and storage model based on the cohesion-tension theory was applied to assess the differences in osmotic storage water potential between Avicennia marina and Rhizophora stylosa. Both species, subjected to the same environmental conditions, showed a resembling daily pattern in simulated osmotic storage water potential. However, the osmotic storage water potential of R. stylosa started to decrease slightly after that of A. marina in the morning and increased again slightly later in the evening. This small shift in osmotic storage water potential likely underlaid the marked differences in daily stem diameter variation pattern between the two species. The results show that in addition to environmental dynamics, endogenous changes in the osmotic storage water potential must be taken into account in order to accurately predict stem diameter variations, and hence growth.

Non-conventional protrusions: the diversity of cell interactions at short and long distance.

PubMed

Caviglia, Sara; Ober, Elke A

2018-06-08

Cells use different means to communicate within and between tissues and thereby coordinate their behaviours. Following the initial observations of enigmatic long filopodia unrelated to cell movement, it became clear that the roles of cellular protrusions are not restricted to sensing functions or motility and are much more diverse than previously appreciated. Advances in live-imaging and genetic tools revealed several types of non-conventional cell protrusions and their functions, ranging from tissue patterning, proliferation and differentiation control, tissue matching and cell spacing to more unexpected roles such as priming of cell adhesion as well as bidirectional coordination of tissue movements. Here, we will highlight exciting new insights into highly diverse cell behaviours elicited by protrusions and contact-dependent cell communication, essential for embryonic development across species. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Cytoplasmic Control of Sense-Antisense mRNA Pairs.

PubMed

Sinturel, Flore; Navickas, Albertas; Wery, Maxime; Descrimes, Marc; Morillon, Antonin; Torchet, Claire; Benard, Lionel

2015-09-22

Transcriptome analyses have revealed that convergent gene transcription can produce many 3'-overlapping mRNAs in diverse organisms. Few studies have examined the fate of 3'-complementary mRNAs in double-stranded RNA-dependent nuclear phenomena, and nothing is known about the cytoplasmic destiny of 3'-overlapping messengers or their impact on gene expression. Here, we demonstrate that the complementary tails of 3'-overlapping mRNAs can interact in the cytoplasm and promote post-transcriptional regulatory events including no-go decay (NGD) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genome-wide experiments confirm that these messenger-interacting mRNAs (mimRNAs) form RNA duplexes in wild-type cells and thus have potential roles in modulating the mRNA levels of their convergent gene pattern under different growth conditions. We show that the post-transcriptional fate of hundreds of mimRNAs is controlled by Xrn1, revealing the extent to which this conserved 5'-3' cytoplasmic exoribonuclease plays an unexpected but key role in the post-transcriptional control of convergent gene expression. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Decrease of a Current Mediated by Kv1.3 Channels Causes Striatal Cholinergic Interneuron Hyperexcitability in Experimental Parkinsonism.

PubMed

Tubert, Cecilia; Taravini, Irene R E; Flores-Barrera, Eden; Sánchez, Gonzalo M; Prost, María Alejandra; Avale, María Elena; Tseng, Kuei Y; Rela, Lorena; Murer, Mario Gustavo

2016-09-06

The mechanism underlying a hypercholinergic state in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains uncertain. Here, we show that disruption of the Kv1 channel-mediated function causes hyperexcitability of striatal cholinergic interneurons in a mouse model of PD. Specifically, our data reveal that Kv1 channels containing Kv1.3 subunits contribute significantly to the orphan potassium current known as IsAHP in striatal cholinergic interneurons. Typically, this Kv1 current provides negative feedback to depolarization that limits burst firing and slows the tonic activity of cholinergic interneurons. However, such inhibitory control of cholinergic interneuron excitability by Kv1.3-mediated current is markedly diminished in the parkinsonian striatum, suggesting that targeting Kv1.3 subunits and their regulatory pathways may have therapeutic potential in PD therapy. These studies reveal unexpected roles of Kv1.3 subunit-containing channels in the regulation of firing patterns of striatal cholinergic interneurons, which were thought to be largely dependent on KCa channels. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overcoming the loss of blue sensitivity through opsin duplication in the largest animal group, beetles.

PubMed

Sharkey, Camilla R; Fujimoto, M Stanley; Lord, Nathan P; Shin, Seunggwan; McKenna, Duane D; Suvorov, Anton; Martin, Gavin J; Bybee, Seth M

2017-01-31

Opsin proteins are fundamental components of animal vision whose structure largely determines the sensitivity of visual pigments to different wavelengths of light. Surprisingly little is known about opsin evolution in beetles, even though they are the most species rich animal group on Earth and exhibit considerable variation in visual system sensitivities. We reveal the patterns of opsin evolution across 62 beetle species and relatives. Our results show that the major insect opsin class (SW) that typically confers sensitivity to "blue" wavelengths was lost ~300 million years ago, before the origin of modern beetles. We propose that UV and LW opsin gene duplications have restored the potential for trichromacy (three separate channels for colour vision) in beetles up to 12 times and more specifically, duplications within the UV opsin class have likely led to the restoration of "blue" sensitivity up to 10 times. This finding reveals unexpected plasticity within the insect visual system and highlights its remarkable ability to evolve and adapt to the available light and visual cues present in the environment.

An Orchestrated Intron Retention Program in Meiosis Controls Timely Usage of Transcripts during Germ Cell Differentiation.

PubMed

Naro, Chiara; Jolly, Ariane; Di Persio, Sara; Bielli, Pamela; Setterblad, Niclas; Alberdi, Antonio J; Vicini, Elena; Geremia, Raffaele; De la Grange, Pierre; Sette, Claudio

2017-04-10

Global transcriptome reprogramming during spermatogenesis ensures timely expression of factors in each phase of male germ cell differentiation. Spermatocytes and spermatids require particularly extensive reprogramming of gene expression to switch from mitosis to meiosis and to support gamete morphogenesis. Here, we uncovered an extensive alternative splicing program during this transmeiotic differentiation. Notably, intron retention was largely the most enriched pattern, with spermatocytes showing generally higher levels of retention compared with spermatids. Retained introns are characterized by weak splice sites and are enriched in genes with strong relevance for gamete function. Meiotic intron-retaining transcripts (IRTs) were exclusively localized in the nucleus. However, differently from other developmentally regulated IRTs, they are stable RNAs, showing longer half-life than properly spliced transcripts. Strikingly, fate-mapping experiments revealed that IRTs are recruited onto polyribosomes days after synthesis. These studies reveal an unexpected function for regulated intron retention in modulation of the timely expression of select transcripts during spermatogenesis. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Electrocardiographic features of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

PubMed

Chyou, Janice Y; Friedman, Daniel; Cerrone, Marina; Slater, William; Guo, Yu; Taupin, Daniel; O'Rourke, Sean; Priori, Silvia G; Devinsky, Orrin

2016-07-01

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the most common cause of epilepsy-related mortality. We hypothesized that electrocardiography (ECG) features may distinguish SUDEP cases from living subjects with epilepsy. Using a matched case-control design, we compared ECG studies of 12 consecutive cases of SUDEP over 10 years and 22 epilepsy controls matched for age, sex, epilepsy type (focal, generalized, or unknown/mixed type), concomitant antiepileptic, and psychotropic drug classes. Conduction intervals and prevalence of abnormal ventricular conduction diagnosis (QRS ≥110 msec), abnormal ventricular conduction pattern (QRS <110 msec, morphology of incomplete right or left bundle branch block or intraventricular conduction delay), early repolarization, and features of inherited cardiac channelopathies were assessed. Abnormal ventricular conduction diagnosis and pattern distinguished SUDEP cases from matched controls. Abnormal ventricular conduction diagnosis was present in two cases and no controls. Abnormal ventricular conduction pattern was more common in cases than controls (58% vs. 18%, p = 0.04). Early repolarization was similarly prevalent in cases and controls, but the overall prevalence exceeded that of published community-based cohorts. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 International League Against Epilepsy.

The role of trauma scoring in developing trauma clinical governance in the Defence Medical Services

PubMed Central

Russell, R. J.; Hodgetts, T. J.; McLeod, J.; Starkey, K.; Mahoney, P.; Harrison, K.; Bell, E.

2011-01-01

This paper discusses mathematical models of expressing severity of injury and probability of survival following trauma and their use in establishing clinical governance of a trauma system. There are five sections: (i) Historical overview of scoring systems—anatomical, physiological and combined systems and the advantages and disadvantages of each. (ii) Definitions used in official statistics—definitions of ‘killed in action’ and other categories and the importance of casualty reporting rates and comparison across conflicts and nationalities. (iii) Current scoring systems and clinical governance—clinical governance of the trauma system in the Defence Medical Services (DMS) by using trauma scoring models to analyse injury and clinical patterns. (iv) Unexpected outcomes—unexpected outcomes focus clinical governance tools. Unexpected survivors signify good practice to be promulgated. Unexpected deaths pick up areas of weakness to be addressed. Seventy-five clinically validated unexpected survivors were identified over 2 years during contemporary combat operations. (v) Future developments—can the trauma scoring methods be improved? Trauma scoring systems use linear approaches and have significant weaknesses. Trauma and its treatment is a complex system. Nonlinear methods need to be investigated to determine whether these will produce a better approach to the analysis of the survival from major trauma. PMID:21149354

Using Patterns of Summed Scores in Paper-and-Pencil Tests and Computer-Adaptive Tests to Detect Misfitting Item Score Patterns

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meijer, Rob R.

2004-01-01

Two new methods have been proposed to determine unexpected sum scores on sub-tests (testlets) both for paper-and-pencil tests and computer adaptive tests. A method based on a conservative bound using the hypergeometric distribution, denoted p, was compared with a method where the probability for each score combination was calculated using a…

Rotational Displacement Skills in Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)

PubMed Central

Hughes, Kelly D.; Santos, Laurie R.

2016-01-01

Rotational displacement tasks, in which participants must track an object at a hiding location within an array while the array rotates, exhibit a puzzling developmental pattern in humans. Human children take an unusually long time to master this task and tend to solve rotational problems through the use of nongeometric features or landmarks as opposed to other kinds of spatial cues. We investigated whether these developmental characteristics are unique to humans by testing rotational displacement skills in a monkey species, the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), using a looking-time method. Monkeys first saw food hidden in two differently colored boxes within an array. The array was then rotated 180° and the boxes reopened to reveal the food in an expected or unexpected location. Our first two experiments explored the developmental time-course of performance on this rotational displacement task. We found that adult macaques looked longer at the unexpected event, but such performance was not mirrored in younger-aged macaques. In a third study, we systematically varied featural information and visible access to the array to investigate which strategies adult macaques used in solving rotational displacements. Our results show that adult macaques need both sets of information to solve the task. Taken together, these results suggest both similarities and differences in mechanisms by which human and nonhuman primates develop this spatial skill. PMID:22866770

Esophageal Cancer Metastases to Unexpected Sites: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

The most common pattern of esophageal cancer metastases (ECM) is to the lymph nodes, lung, liver, bones, adrenal glands, and brain. On the other hand, unexpected metastasis (UM) spread to uncommon sites has increasingly reported and consequently affected the pathway of diagnosis, staging, and management. Using the PubMed database, a systematic search of the following headings “Esophageal” and “Metastasis” or “Metastases” was performed, 10049 articles were identified, and the articles were included if they demonstrated unexpected ECM. 84% of cases were men with an average age of 60.7 years. EC was located in the lower third in 65%. Two-thirds of the UM originated from the lower esophagus, and the two major histological types were adenocarcinoma 40% and squamous cell carcinoma 60%. Metastases were disseminated toward five main anatomical sites: the head and neck (42%), thoracic (17%), abdomen and pelvis (25%), extremities (9%), and multiple skin and muscle metastases (7%). The EC metastases were found to be synchronous 42% and metachronous 58%, isolated in 53.5% and multiple in 46.5%. The overall survival rate was 10.2 months. Since distant metastases are responsible for most EC-related deaths, understanding of ECM dissemination patterns needs more extensive studies. These critical data are the cornerstone of optimal cancer approach and treatment. PMID:28659974

Progressive Primary Pulmonary Tuberculosis Presenting as the Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy: A Case Report

PubMed Central

Dempers, Johan; Sens, Mary Ann; Wadee, Shabbir Ahmed; Kinney, Hannah C.; Odendaal, Hein J.; Wright, Colleen A.

2010-01-01

The classification of an unexpected infant death as the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) depends upon a complete autopsy and death scene investigation to exclude known causes of death. Here we report the death of a four-month-old infant in a tuberculosis endemic area that presented as a sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) with no apparent explanation based on the death scene characteristics. The autopsy, however, revealed progressive primary pulmonary tuberculosis with intrathoracic adenopathy, compression of the tracheobronchial tree and miliary lesions in the liver. This case underscores the clinical difficulties in the diagnosis of infantile tuberculosis, as well as the possibility of sudden death as part of its protean manifestations. The pathology and clinical progression of tuberculosis in infants differs from older children and adults due to the immature immune response in infants. This case dramatically highlights the need for complete autopsies in all sudden and unexpected infant deaths, as well as the public health issues in a sentinel infant tuberculosis diagnosis. PMID:20705406

The role of domain expertise and judgment in dealing with unexpected events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kochan, Janeen Adrion

Unexpected events, particularly those creating surprise, interrupt ongoing mental and behavioral processes, creating an increased potential for unwanted outcomes to the situation. Human reactions to unexpected events vary. One can hypothesize a number of reasons for this variation, including level of domain expertise, previous experience with similar events, emotional connotation, and the contextual surround of the event. Whereas interrupting ongoing activities and focusing attention temporarily on a surprising event may be a useful evolutionary response to a threatening situation, the same process may be maladaptive in today's highly dynamic world. The purpose of this study was to investigate how different aspects of expertise affected one's ability to detect and react to an unexpected event. It was hypothesized that there were two general types of expertise, domain expertise and judgment (Hammond, 2000), which influenced one's performance on dealing with an unexpected event. The goal of the research was to parse out the relative contribution of domain expertise, so the role of judgment could be revealed. The research questions for this study were: (a) Can we identify specific knowledges and skills which enhance one's ability to deal with unexpected events? (b) Are these skills "automatically" included in domain expertise? (c) How does domain expertise improve or deter one's reaction and response to unexpected events? (d) What role does judgment play in responding to surprise? The general hypothesis was that good judgment would influence the process of surprise at different stages and in different ways than would domain expertise. The conclusions from this research indicated that good judgment had a significant positive effect in helping pilots deal with unexpected events. This was most pronounced when domain expertise was low.

Phylogeography of the antilopine wallaroo (Macropus antilopinus) across tropical northern Australia.

PubMed

Wadley, Jessica J; Fordham, Damien A; Thomson, Vicki A; Ritchie, Euan G; Austin, Jeremy J

2016-11-01

The distribution of antilopine wallaroo, Macropus antilopinus , is marked by a break in the species' range between Queensland and the Northern Territory, coinciding with the Carpentarian barrier. Previous work on M. antilopinus revealed limited genetic differentiation between the Northern Territory and Queensland M. antilopinus populations across this barrier. The study also identified a number of divergent lineages in the Northern Territory, but was unable to elucidate any geographic structure. Here, we re-examine these results to (1) determine phylogeographic patterns across the range of M. antilopinus and (2) infer the biogeographic barriers associated with these patterns. The tropical savannahs of northern Australia: from the Cape York Peninsula in the east, to the Kimberley in the west. We examined phylogeographic patterns in M. antilopinus using a larger number of samples and three mtDNA genes: NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2, cytochrome b, and the control region. Two datasets were generated and analyzed: (1) a subset of samples with all three mtDNA regions concatenated together and (2) all samples for just control region sequences that included samples from the previous study. Analysis included generating phylogenetic trees based on Bayesian analysis and intraspecific median-joining networks. The contemporary spatial structure of M. antilopinus mtDNA lineages revealed five shallow clades and a sixth, divergent lineage. The genetic differences that we found between Queensland and Northern Territory M. antilopinus samples confirmed the split in the geographic distribution of the species. We also found weak genetic differentiation between Northern Territory samples and those from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, possibly due to the Kimberley Plateau-Arnhem Land barrier. Within the Northern Territory, two clades appear to be parapatric in the west, while another two clades are broadly sympatric across the Northern Territory. MtDNA diversity of M. antilopinus revealed an unexpectedly complex evolutionary history involving multiple sympatric and parapatric mtDNA clades across northern Australia. These phylogeographic patterns highlight the importance of investigating genetic variation across distributions of species and integrating this information into biodiversity conservation.

Genetic drift and collective dispersal can result in chaotic genetic patchiness.

PubMed

Broquet, Thomas; Viard, Frédérique; Yearsley, Jonathan M

2013-06-01

Chaotic genetic patchiness denotes unexpected patterns of genetic differentiation that are observed at a fine scale and are not stable in time. These patterns have been described in marine species with free-living larvae, but are unexpected because they occur at a scale below the dispersal range of pelagic larvae. At the scale where most larvae are immigrants, theory predicts spatially homogeneous, temporally stable genetic variation. Empirical studies have suggested that genetic drift interacts with complex dispersal patterns to create chaotic genetic patchiness. Here we use a co-ancestry model and individual-based simulations to test this idea. We found that chaotic genetic patterns (qualified by global FST and spatio-temporal variation in FST's between pairs of samples) arise from the combined effects of (1) genetic drift created by the small local effective population sizes of the sessile phase and variance in contribution among breeding groups and (2) collective dispersal of related individuals in the larval phase. Simulations show that patchiness levels qualitatively comparable to empirical results can be produced by a combination of strong variance in reproductive success and mild collective dispersal. These results call for empirical studies of the effective number of breeders producing larval cohorts, and population genetics at the larval stage. © 2012 The Author(s). Evolution © 2012 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

INTERNAL DOSE AND RESPONSE IN REAL-TIME.

EPA Science Inventory

Abstract: Rapid temporal fluctuations in exposure may occur in a number of situations such as accidents or other unexpected acute releases of airborne substances. Often risk assessments overlook temporal exposure patterns under simplifying assumptions such as the use of time-wei...

Comparative Analysis of Four Calypogeia Species Revealed Unexpected Change in Evolutionarily-Stable Liverwort Mitogenomes

PubMed Central

Ślipiko, Monika; Buczkowska-Chmielewska, Katarzyna; Bączkiewicz, Alina; Szczecińska, Monika; Sawicki, Jakub

2017-01-01

Liverwort mitogenomes are considered to be evolutionarily stable. A comparative analysis of four Calypogeia species revealed differences compared to previously sequenced liverwort mitogenomes. Such differences involve unexpected structural changes in the two genes, cox1 and atp1, which have lost three and two introns, respectively. The group I introns in the cox1 gene are proposed to have been lost by two-step localized retroprocessing, whereas one-step retroprocessing could be responsible for the disappearance of the group II introns in the atp1 gene. These cases represent the first identified losses of introns in mitogenomes of leafy liverworts (Jungermanniopsida) contrasting the stability of mitochondrial gene order with certain changes in the gene content and intron set in liverworts. PMID:29257096

Morphological and transcriptomic evidence for ammonium induction of sexual reproduction in Thalassiosira pseudonana and other centric diatoms

PubMed Central

Moore, Eric R.; Bullington, Briana S.; Weisberg, Alexandra J.; Jiang, Yuan; Chang, Jeff

2017-01-01

The reproductive strategy of diatoms includes asexual and sexual phases, but in many species, including the model centric diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, sexual reproduction has never been observed. Furthermore, the environmental factors that trigger sexual reproduction in diatoms are not understood. Although genome sequences of a few diatoms are available, little is known about the molecular basis for sexual reproduction. Here we show that ammonium reliably induces the key sexual morphologies, including oogonia, auxospores, and spermatogonia, in two strains of T. pseudonana, T. weissflogii, and Cyclotella cryptica. RNA sequencing revealed 1,274 genes whose expression patterns changed when T. pseudonana was induced into sexual reproduction by ammonium. Some of the induced genes are linked to meiosis or encode flagellar structures of heterokont and cryptophyte algae. The identification of ammonium as an environmental trigger suggests an unexpected link between diatom bloom dynamics and strategies for enhancing population genetic diversity. PMID:28686696

Cerebral complexity preceded enlarged brain size and reduced olfactory bulbs in Old World monkeys

PubMed Central

Gonzales, Lauren A.; Benefit, Brenda R.; McCrossin, Monte L.; Spoor, Fred

2015-01-01

Analysis of the only complete early cercopithecoid (Old World monkey) endocast currently known, that of 15-million-year (Myr)-old Victoriapithecus, reveals an unexpectedly small endocranial volume (ECV) relative to body size and a large olfactory bulb volume relative to ECV, similar to extant lemurs and Oligocene anthropoids. However, the Victoriapithecus brain has principal and arcuate sulci of the frontal lobe not seen in the stem catarrhine Aegyptopithecus, as well as a distinctive cercopithecoid pattern of gyrification, indicating that cerebral complexity preceded encephalization in cercopithecoids. Since larger ECVs, expanded frontal lobes, and reduced olfactory bulbs are already present in the 17- to 18-Myr-old ape Proconsul these features evolved independently in hominoids (apes) and cercopithecoids and much earlier in the former. Moreover, the order of encephalization and brain reorganization was apparently different in hominoids and cercopithecoids, showing that brain size and cerebral organization evolve independently. PMID:26138795

Electron Cloud Measurements in Fermilab Main Injector and Recycler

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Eldred, Jeffrey Scott; Backfish, M.; Tan, C. Y.

This conference paper presents a series of electron cloud measurements in the Fermilab Main Injector and Recycler. A new instability was observed in the Recycler in July 2014 that generates a fast transverse excitation in the first high intensity batch to be injected. Microwave measurements of electron cloud in the Recycler show a corresponding depen- dence on the batch injection pattern. These electron cloud measurements are compared to those made with a retard- ing field analyzer (RFA) installed in a field-free region of the Recycler in November. RFAs are also used in the Main Injector to evaluate the performance ofmore » beampipe coatings for the mitigation of electron cloud. Contamination from an unexpected vacuum leak revealed a potential vulnerability in the amorphous carbon beampipe coating. The diamond-like carbon coating, in contrast, reduced the electron cloud signal to 1% of that measured in uncoated stainless steel beampipe.« less

The Drosophila Clock Neuron Network Features Diverse Coupling Modes and Requires Network-wide Coherence for Robust Circadian Rhythms.

PubMed

Yao, Zepeng; Bennett, Amelia J; Clem, Jenna L; Shafer, Orie T

2016-12-13

In animals, networks of clock neurons containing molecular clocks orchestrate daily rhythms in physiology and behavior. However, how various types of clock neurons communicate and coordinate with one another to produce coherent circadian rhythms is not well understood. Here, we investigate clock neuron coupling in the brain of Drosophila and demonstrate that the fly's various groups of clock neurons display unique and complex coupling relationships to core pacemaker neurons. Furthermore, we find that coordinated free-running rhythms require molecular clock synchrony not only within the well-characterized lateral clock neuron classes but also between lateral clock neurons and dorsal clock neurons. These results uncover unexpected patterns of coupling in the clock neuron network and reveal that robust free-running behavioral rhythms require a coherence of molecular oscillations across most of the fly's clock neuron network. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Design and Evaluation of a Boron Dipyrrin Electrophore for Redox Flow Batteries.

PubMed

Heiland, Niklas; Cidarér, Clemens; Rohr, Camilla; Piescheck, Mathias; Ahrens, Johannes; Bröring, Martin; Schröder, Uwe

2017-08-29

A boron dipyrrin (BODIPY) dye was designed as a molecular single-component electrophore for redox flow batteries. All positions of the BODIPY core were assessed on the basis of literature data, in particular cyclic voltammetry and density functional calculations, and a minimum required substitution pattern was designed to provide solubility, aggregation, radical cation and anion stabilities, a large potential window, and synthetic accessibility. In-depth electrochemical and physical studies of this electrophore revealed suitable cathodic behavior and stability of the radical anion but rapid anodic decomposition of the radical cation. The three products that formed under the conditions of controlled oxidative electrolysis were isolated, and their structures were determined by spectroscopy and comparison with a synthetic model compound. From these structures, a benzylic radical reactivity, initiated by one-electron oxidation, was concluded to play the major role in this unexpected decomposition. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Functional imaging of conditioned aversive emotional responses in antisocial personality disorder.

PubMed

Schneider, F; Habel, U; Kessler, C; Posse, S; Grodd, W; Müller-Gärtner, H W

2000-01-01

Individuals with antisocial personality disorder (n = 12) and healthy controls (n = 12) were examined for cerebral regional activation involved in the processing of negative affect. A differential aversive classical conditioning paradigm was applied with odors as unconditioned stimuli and faces as conditioned stimuli. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) based on echo-planar imaging was used while cerebral activity was studied during habituation, acquisition, and extinction. Individually defined cerebral regions were analyzed. Both groups indicated behavioral conditioning following subjective ratings of emotional valence to conditioned stimuli. Differential effects were found during acquisition in the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Controls showed signal decreases, patients signal increases. These preliminary results revealed unexpected signal increases in cortical/subcortical areas of patients. The increases may result from an additional effort put in by these individuals to form negative emotional associations, a pattern of processing that may correspond to their characteristic deviant emotional behavior. Copyright 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Morphological and transcriptomic evidence for ammonium induction of sexual reproduction in Thalassiosira pseudonana and other centric diatoms.

PubMed

Moore, Eric R; Bullington, Briana S; Weisberg, Alexandra J; Jiang, Yuan; Chang, Jeff; Halsey, Kimberly H

2017-01-01

The reproductive strategy of diatoms includes asexual and sexual phases, but in many species, including the model centric diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, sexual reproduction has never been observed. Furthermore, the environmental factors that trigger sexual reproduction in diatoms are not understood. Although genome sequences of a few diatoms are available, little is known about the molecular basis for sexual reproduction. Here we show that ammonium reliably induces the key sexual morphologies, including oogonia, auxospores, and spermatogonia, in two strains of T. pseudonana, T. weissflogii, and Cyclotella cryptica. RNA sequencing revealed 1,274 genes whose expression patterns changed when T. pseudonana was induced into sexual reproduction by ammonium. Some of the induced genes are linked to meiosis or encode flagellar structures of heterokont and cryptophyte algae. The identification of ammonium as an environmental trigger suggests an unexpected link between diatom bloom dynamics and strategies for enhancing population genetic diversity.

Complex within a Complex: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals Hidden Diversity in Cicadetta brevipennis (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) and Unexpected Relationships with a Song Divergent Relative.

PubMed

Hertach, Thomas; Puissant, Stéphane; Gogala, Matija; Trilar, Tomi; Hagmann, Reto; Baur, Hannes; Kunz, Gernot; Wade, Elizabeth J; Loader, Simon P; Simon, Chris; Nagel, Peter

2016-01-01

Multiple sources of data in combination are essential for species delimitation and classification of difficult taxonomic groups. Here we investigate a cicada taxon with unusual cryptic diversity and we attempt to resolve seemingly contradictory data sets. Cicada songs act as species-specific premating barriers and have been used extensively to reveal hidden taxonomic diversity in morphologically similar species. The Palaearctic Cicadetta montana species complex is an excellent example where distinct song patterns have disclosed multiple recently described species. Indeed, two taxa turned out to be especially diverse in that they form a "complex within the complex": the Cicadetta cerdaniensis song group (four species studied previously) and Cicadetta brevipennis (examined in details here). Based on acoustic, morphological, molecular, ecological and spatial data sampled throughout their broad European distribution, we find that Cicadetta brevipennis s. l. comprises five lineages. The most distinct lineage is identified as Cicadetta petryi Schumacher, 1924, which we re-assign to the species level. Cicadetta brevipennis litoralis Puissant & Hertach ssp. n. and Cicadetta brevipennis hippolaidica Hertach ssp. n. are new to science. The latter hybridizes with Cicadetta brevipennis brevipennis Fieber, 1876 at a zone inferred from intermediate song patterns. The fifth lineage requires additional investigation. The C. cerdaniensis and the C. brevipennis song groups exhibit characteristic, clearly distinct basic song patterns that act as reproductive barriers. However, they remain completely intermixed in the Bayesian and maximum likelihood COI and COII mitochondrial DNA phylogenies. The closest relative of each of the four cerdaniensis group species is a brevipennis group taxon. In our favoured scenario the phylogenetic pairs originated in common Pleistocene glacial refuges where the taxa speciated and experienced sporadic inter-group hybridization leading to extensive introgression and mitochondrial capture.

Complex within a Complex: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals Hidden Diversity in Cicadetta brevipennis (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) and Unexpected Relationships with a Song Divergent Relative

PubMed Central

Hertach, Thomas; Puissant, Stéphane; Gogala, Matija; Trilar, Tomi; Hagmann, Reto; Baur, Hannes; Kunz, Gernot; Wade, Elizabeth J.; Loader, Simon P.; Simon, Chris; Nagel, Peter

2016-01-01

Multiple sources of data in combination are essential for species delimitation and classification of difficult taxonomic groups. Here we investigate a cicada taxon with unusual cryptic diversity and we attempt to resolve seemingly contradictory data sets. Cicada songs act as species-specific premating barriers and have been used extensively to reveal hidden taxonomic diversity in morphologically similar species. The Palaearctic Cicadetta montana species complex is an excellent example where distinct song patterns have disclosed multiple recently described species. Indeed, two taxa turned out to be especially diverse in that they form a “complex within the complex”: the Cicadetta cerdaniensis song group (four species studied previously) and Cicadetta brevipennis (examined in details here). Based on acoustic, morphological, molecular, ecological and spatial data sampled throughout their broad European distribution, we find that Cicadetta brevipennis s. l. comprises five lineages. The most distinct lineage is identified as Cicadetta petryi Schumacher, 1924, which we re-assign to the species level. Cicadetta brevipennis litoralis Puissant & Hertach ssp. n. and Cicadetta brevipennis hippolaidica Hertach ssp. n. are new to science. The latter hybridizes with Cicadetta brevipennis brevipennis Fieber, 1876 at a zone inferred from intermediate song patterns. The fifth lineage requires additional investigation. The C. cerdaniensis and the C. brevipennis song groups exhibit characteristic, clearly distinct basic song patterns that act as reproductive barriers. However, they remain completely intermixed in the Bayesian and maximum likelihood COI and COII mitochondrial DNA phylogenies. The closest relative of each of the four cerdaniensis group species is a brevipennis group taxon. In our favoured scenario the phylogenetic pairs originated in common Pleistocene glacial refuges where the taxa speciated and experienced sporadic inter-group hybridization leading to extensive introgression and mitochondrial capture. PMID:27851754

Dual-color STED microscopy reveals a sandwich structure of Bassoon and Piccolo in active zones of adult and aged mice.

PubMed

Nishimune, Hiroshi; Badawi, Yomna; Mori, Shuuichi; Shigemoto, Kazuhiro

2016-06-20

Presynaptic active zones play a pivotal role as synaptic vesicle release sites for synaptic transmission, but the molecular architecture of active zones in mammalian neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) at sub-diffraction limited resolution remains unknown. Bassoon and Piccolo are active zone specific cytosolic proteins essential for active zone assembly in NMJs, ribbon synapses, and brain synapses. These proteins are thought to colocalize and share some functions at active zones. Here, we report an unexpected finding of non-overlapping localization of these two proteins in mouse NMJs revealed using dual-color stimulated emission depletion (STED) super resolution microscopy. Piccolo puncta sandwiched Bassoon puncta and aligned in a Piccolo-Bassoon-Piccolo structure in adult NMJs. P/Q-type voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) puncta colocalized with Bassoon puncta. The P/Q-type VGCC and Bassoon protein levels decreased significantly in NMJs from aged mouse. In contrast, the Piccolo levels in NMJs from aged mice were comparable to levels in adult mice. This study revealed the molecular architecture of active zones in mouse NMJs at sub-diffraction limited resolution, and described the selective degeneration mechanism of active zone proteins in NMJs from aged mice. Interestingly, the localization pattern of active zone proteins described herein is similar to active zone structures described using electron microscope tomography.

Accurate and High-Coverage Immune Repertoire Sequencing Reveals Characteristics of Antibody Repertoire Diversification in Young Children with Malaria

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, Ning

Accurately measuring the immune repertoire sequence composition, diversity, and abundance is important in studying repertoire response in infections, vaccinations, and cancer immunology. Using molecular identifiers (MIDs) to tag mRNA molecules is an effective method in improving the accuracy of immune repertoire sequencing (IR-seq). However, it is still difficult to use IR-seq on small amount of clinical samples to achieve a high coverage of the repertoire diversities. This is especially challenging in studying infections and vaccinations where B cell subpopulations with fewer cells, such as memory B cells or plasmablasts, are often of great interest to study somatic mutation patterns and diversity changes. Here, we describe an approach of IR-seq based on the use of MIDs in combination with a clustering method that can reveal more than 80% of the antibody diversity in a sample and can be applied to as few as 1,000 B cells. We applied this to study the antibody repertoires of young children before and during an acute malaria infection. We discovered unexpectedly high levels of somatic hypermutation (SHM) in infants and revealed characteristics of antibody repertoire development in young children that would have a profound impact on immunization in children.

Landscape attributes and life history variability shape genetic structure of trout populations in a stream network

USGS Publications Warehouse

Neville, H.M.; Dunham, J.B.; Peacock, M.M.

2006-01-01

Spatial and temporal landscape patterns have long been recognized to influence biological processes, but these processes often operate at scales that are difficult to study by conventional means. Inferences from genetic markers can overcome some of these limitations. We used a landscape genetics approach to test hypotheses concerning landscape processes influencing the demography of Lahontan cutthroat trout in a complex stream network in the Great Basin desert of the western US. Predictions were tested with population- and individual-based analyses of microsatellite DNA variation, reflecting patterns of dispersal, population stability, and local effective population sizes. Complementary genetic inferences suggested samples from migratory corridors housed a mixture of fish from tributaries, as predicted based on assumed migratory life histories in those habitats. Also as predicted, populations presumed to have greater proportions of migratory fish or from physically connected, large, or high quality habitats had higher genetic variability and reduced genetic differentiation from other populations. Populations thought to contain largely non-migratory individuals generally showed the opposite pattern, suggesting behavioral isolation. Estimated effective sizes were small, and we identified significant and severe genetic bottlenecks in several populations that were isolated, recently founded, or that inhabit streams that desiccate frequently. Overall, this work suggested that Lahontan cutthroat trout populations in stream networks are affected by a combination of landscape and metapopulation processes. Results also demonstrated that genetic patterns can reveal unexpected processes, even within a system that is well studied from a conventional ecological perspective. ?? Springer 2006.

Revising the recent evolutionary history of equids using ancient DNA

PubMed Central

Orlando, Ludovic; Metcalf, Jessica L.; Alberdi, Maria T.; Telles-Antunes, Miguel; Bonjean, Dominique; Otte, Marcel; Martin, Fabiana; Eisenmann, Véra; Mashkour, Marjan; Morello, Flavia; Prado, Jose L.; Salas-Gismondi, Rodolfo; Shockey, Bruce J.; Wrinn, Patrick J.; Vasil'ev, Sergei K.; Ovodov, Nikolai D.; Cherry, Michael I.; Hopwood, Blair; Male, Dean; Austin, Jeremy J.; Hänni, Catherine; Cooper, Alan

2009-01-01

The rich fossil record of the family Equidae (Mammalia: Perissodactyla) over the past 55 MY has made it an icon for the patterns and processes of macroevolution. Despite this, many aspects of equid phylogenetic relationships and taxonomy remain unresolved. Recent genetic analyses of extinct equids have revealed unexpected evolutionary patterns and a need for major revisions at the generic, subgeneric, and species levels. To investigate this issue we examine 35 ancient equid specimens from four geographic regions (South America, Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Africa), of which 22 delivered 87–688 bp of reproducible aDNA mitochondrial sequence. Phylogenetic analyses support a major revision of the recent evolutionary history of equids and reveal two new species, a South American hippidion and a descendant of a basal lineage potentially related to Middle Pleistocene equids. Sequences from specimens assigned to the giant extinct Cape zebra, Equus capensis, formed a separate clade within the modern plain zebra species, a phenotypicically plastic group that also included the extinct quagga. In addition, we revise the currently recognized extinction times for two hemione-related equid groups. However, it is apparent that the current dataset cannot solve all of the taxonomic and phylogenetic questions relevant to the evolution of Equus. In light of these findings, we propose a rapid DNA barcoding approach to evaluate the taxonomic status of the many Late Pleistocene fossil Equidae species that have been described from purely morphological analyses. PMID:20007379

Expression of secreted Wnt pathway components reveals unexpected complexity of the planarian amputation response.

PubMed

Gurley, Kyle A; Elliott, Sarah A; Simakov, Oleg; Schmidt, Heiko A; Holstein, Thomas W; Sánchez Alvarado, Alejandro

2010-11-01

Regeneration is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, but our molecular understanding of this process in adult animals remains poorly understood. Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays crucial roles throughout animal life from early development to adulthood. In intact and regenerating planarians, the regulation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling functions to maintain and specify anterior/posterior (A/P) identity. Here, we explore the expression kinetics and RNAi phenotypes for secreted members of the Wnt signaling pathway in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea. Smed-wnt and sFRP expression during regeneration is surprisingly dynamic and reveals fundamental aspects of planarian biology that have been previously unappreciated. We show that after amputation, a wounding response precedes rapid re-organization of the A/P axis. Furthermore, cells throughout the body plan can mount this response and reassess their new A/P location in the complete absence of stem cells. While initial stages of the amputation response are stem cell independent, tissue remodeling and the integration of a new A/P address with anatomy are stem cell dependent. We also show that WNT5 functions in a reciprocal manner with SLIT to pattern the planarian mediolateral axis, while WNT11-2 patterns the posterior midline. Moreover, we perform an extensive phylogenetic analysis on the Smed-wnt genes using a method that combines and integrates both sequence and structural alignments, enabling us to place all nine genes into Wnt subfamilies for the first time. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Songlines to genomes: Prehistoric assisted migration of a rain forest tree by Australian Aboriginal people.

PubMed

Rossetto, Maurizio; Ens, Emilie J; Honings, Thijs; Wilson, Peter D; Yap, Jia-Yee S; Costello, Oliver; Round, Erich R; Bowern, Claire

2017-01-01

Prehistoric human activities have contributed to the dispersal of many culturally important plants. The study of these traditional interactions can alter the way we perceive the natural distribution and dynamics of species and communities. Comprehensive research on native crops combining evolutionary and anthropological data is revealing how ancient human populations influenced their distribution. Although traditional diets also included a suite of non-cultivated plants that in some cases necessitated the development of culturally important technical advances such as the treatment of toxic seed, empirical evidence for their deliberate dispersal by prehistoric peoples remains limited. Here we integrate historic and biocultural research involving Aboriginal people, with chloroplast and nuclear genomic data to demonstrate Aboriginal-mediated dispersal of a non-cultivated rainforest tree. We assembled new anthropological evidence of use and deliberate dispersal of Castanospermum australe (Fabaceae), a non-cultivated culturally important riparian tree that produces toxic but highly nutritious water-dispersed seed. We validated cultural evidence of recent human-mediated dispersal by revealing genomic homogeneity across extensively dissected habitat, multiple catchments and uneven topography in the southern range of this species. We excluded the potential contribution of other dispersal mechanisms based on the absence of suitable vectors and current distributional patterns at higher elevations and away from water courses, and by analyzing a comparative sample from northern Australia. Innovative studies integrating evolutionary and anthropological data will continue to reveal the unexpected impact that prehistoric people have had on current vegetation patterns. A better understanding of how traditional practices shaped species' distribution and assembly will directly inform cultural heritage management strategies, challenge "natural" species distribution assumptions, and provide innovative baseline data for pro-active biodiversity management.

From Songlines to genomes: Prehistoric assisted migration of a rain forest tree by Australian Aboriginal people

PubMed Central

Ens, Emilie J.; Honings, Thijs; Wilson, Peter D.; Yap, Jia-Yee S.; Costello, Oliver; Round, Erich R.; Bowern, Claire

2017-01-01

Background Prehistoric human activities have contributed to the dispersal of many culturally important plants. The study of these traditional interactions can alter the way we perceive the natural distribution and dynamics of species and communities. Comprehensive research on native crops combining evolutionary and anthropological data is revealing how ancient human populations influenced their distribution. Although traditional diets also included a suite of non-cultivated plants that in some cases necessitated the development of culturally important technical advances such as the treatment of toxic seed, empirical evidence for their deliberate dispersal by prehistoric peoples remains limited. Here we integrate historic and biocultural research involving Aboriginal people, with chloroplast and nuclear genomic data to demonstrate Aboriginal-mediated dispersal of a non-cultivated rainforest tree. Results We assembled new anthropological evidence of use and deliberate dispersal of Castanospermum australe (Fabaceae), a non-cultivated culturally important riparian tree that produces toxic but highly nutritious water-dispersed seed. We validated cultural evidence of recent human-mediated dispersal by revealing genomic homogeneity across extensively dissected habitat, multiple catchments and uneven topography in the southern range of this species. We excluded the potential contribution of other dispersal mechanisms based on the absence of suitable vectors and current distributional patterns at higher elevations and away from water courses, and by analyzing a comparative sample from northern Australia. Conclusions Innovative studies integrating evolutionary and anthropological data will continue to reveal the unexpected impact that prehistoric people have had on current vegetation patterns. A better understanding of how traditional practices shaped species’ distribution and assembly will directly inform cultural heritage management strategies, challenge “natural” species distribution assumptions, and provide innovative baseline data for pro-active biodiversity management. PMID:29117184

Preservation and phylogeny of Cambrian ecdysozoans tested by experimental decay of Priapulus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sansom, Robert S.

2016-09-01

The exceptionally preserved Cambrian fossil record provides unique insight into the early evolutionary history of animals. Understanding of the mechanisms of exceptional soft tissue preservation frames all interpretations of the fauna and its evolutionary significance. This is especially true for recent interpretations of preserved nervous tissues in fossil ecdysozoans. However, models of soft tissue preservation lack empirical support from actualistic studies. Here experimental decay of the priapulid Priapulus reveal consistent bias towards rapid loss of internal non-cuticular anatomy compared with recalcitrant cuticular anatomy. This is consistent with models of Burgess Shale-type preservation and indicates that internal tissues are unlikely to be preserved with fidelity if organically preserved. This pattern, along with extreme body margin distortion, is consistent with onychophoran decay, and is therefore resolved as general for early ecdysozoans. Application of these patterns to phylogenetic data finds scalidophoran taxa to be very sensitive to taphonomically informed character coding, but not panarthropodan taxa. Priapulid decay also have unexpected relevance for interpretation of myomeres in fossil chordates. The decay data presented serve not only as a test of models of preservation but also a framework with which to interpret ecdysozoan fossil anatomies, and the subsequent evolutionary inferences drawn from them.

Natural progression of blood-induced joint damage in patients with haemophilia: clinical relevance and reproducibility of three-dimensional gait analysis.

PubMed

Lobet, S; Detrembleur, C; Francq, B; Hermans, C

2010-09-01

A major complication in haemophilia is the destruction of joint cartilage because of recurrent intraarticular and intramuscular bleeds. Therefore, joint assessment is critical to quantify the extent of joint damage, which has traditionally been evaluated using both radiological and clinical joint scores. Our study aimed to evaluate the natural progression of haemophilic arthopathy using three-dimensional gait analysis (3DGA) and to assess the reproducibility of this technique. We hypothesized that the musculoskeletal function was relatively stable in patients with haemophilia. Eighteen adults with established haemophilic arthropathies were evaluated twice by 3DGA (mean follow-up: 18 +/- 5 weeks). Unexpectedly, our findings revealed infraclinical deterioration of gait pattern, characterized by a 3.2% decrease in the recovery index, which is indicative of the subject's ability to save energy while walking. A tendency towards modification of segmental joint function was also observed. Gait analysis was sufficiently reproducible with regards to spatiotemporal parameters as well as kinetic, mechanical and energetic gait variables. The kinematic variables were reproducible in both the sagittal and frontal planes. In conclusion, 3DGA is a reproducible tool to assess abnormal gait patterns and monitor natural disease progression in haemophilic patients.

Preservation and phylogeny of Cambrian ecdysozoans tested by experimental decay of Priapulus

PubMed Central

Sansom, Robert S.

2016-01-01

The exceptionally preserved Cambrian fossil record provides unique insight into the early evolutionary history of animals. Understanding of the mechanisms of exceptional soft tissue preservation frames all interpretations of the fauna and its evolutionary significance. This is especially true for recent interpretations of preserved nervous tissues in fossil ecdysozoans. However, models of soft tissue preservation lack empirical support from actualistic studies. Here experimental decay of the priapulid Priapulus reveal consistent bias towards rapid loss of internal non-cuticular anatomy compared with recalcitrant cuticular anatomy. This is consistent with models of Burgess Shale-type preservation and indicates that internal tissues are unlikely to be preserved with fidelity if organically preserved. This pattern, along with extreme body margin distortion, is consistent with onychophoran decay, and is therefore resolved as general for early ecdysozoans. Application of these patterns to phylogenetic data finds scalidophoran taxa to be very sensitive to taphonomically informed character coding, but not panarthropodan taxa. Priapulid decay also have unexpected relevance for interpretation of myomeres in fossil chordates. The decay data presented serve not only as a test of models of preservation but also a framework with which to interpret ecdysozoan fossil anatomies, and the subsequent evolutionary inferences drawn from them. PMID:27595908

Characterization of TALE genes expression during the first lineage segregation in mammalian embryos.

PubMed

Sonnet, Wendy; Rezsöhazy, Rene; Donnay, Isabelle

2012-11-01

Three amino acid loop extension (TALE) homeodomain-containing transcription factors are generally recognized for their role in organogenesis and differentiation during embryogenesis. However, very little is known about the expression and function of Meis, Pbx, and Prep genes during early development. In order to determine whether TALE proteins could contribute to the early cell fate decisions in mammalian development, this study aimed to characterize in a systematic manner the pattern of expression of all Meis, Pbx, and Prep genes from the precompaction to blastocyst stage corresponding to the first step of cell differentiation in mammals. To reveal to what extent TALE genes expression at these early stages is a conserved feature among mammals, this study was performed in parallel in the bovine and mouse models. We demonstrated the transcription and translation of TALE genes, before gastrulation in the two species. At least one member of Meis, Pbx, and Prep subfamilies was found expressed at the RNA and protein levels but different patterns of expression were observed between genes and between species, suggesting specific gene regulations. Taken together, these results suggest a previously unexpected involvement of these factors during the early development in mammals. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Unexpected Patterns in Snow and Dirt

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ackerson, Bruce J.

2018-01-01

For more than 30 years, Albert A. Bartlett published "Thermal patterns in the snow" in this journal. These are patterns produced by heat sources underneath the snow. Bartlett's articles encouraged me to pay attention to patterns in snow and to understanding them. At winter's end the last snow becomes dirty and is heaped into piles. This snow comes from the final clearing of sidewalks and driveways. The patterns observed in these piles defied my intuition. This melting snow develops edges where dirt accumulates, in contrast to ice cubes, which lose sharp edges and become more spherical upon melting. Furthermore, dirt absorbs more radiation than snow and yet doesn't melt and round the sharp edges of snow, where dirt accumulates.

Jobs in Unexpected Places--A Pattern for the 80s.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samuels, Jack B.

1983-01-01

Opportunities now await the leisure service professional in several employment areas not traditionally occupied by people with training or experience in the recreation or leisure service profession. Areas include theme parks, auditorium and arena management, themed restaurants, shopping centers, and resort management. (CJ)

New principle of chemotherapy resistance

Cancer.gov

A laboratory study has revealed an entirely unexpected process for acquiring drug resistance that bypasses the need to re-establish DNA damage repair in breast cancers that have mutant BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Angular dependence of DRAM upset susceptibility

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Guertin, S. M.; Swift, G. M.; Edmonds, L. D.

2000-01-01

Heavy ion irradiations of two types of commercial DRAMs reveal unexpected angular responses. One device's cross section varied by two orders of magnitude with azimuthal angle. Accurate prediction of space rates requires accommodating this effect.

New Mitochondrial and Nuclear Evidences Support Recent Demographic Expansion and an Atypical Phylogeographic Pattern in the Spittlebug Philaenus spumarius (Hemiptera, Aphrophoridae)

PubMed Central

Rodrigues, Ana S. B.; Silva, Sara E.; Marabuto, Eduardo; Silva, Diogo N.; Wilson, Mike R.; Thompson, Vinton; Yurtsever, Selçuk; Halkka, Antti; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Quartau, José A.; Paulo, Octávio S.; Seabra, Sofia G.

2014-01-01

Philaenus spumarius is a widespread insect species in the Holarctic region. Here, by focusing on the mtDNA gene COI but also using the COII and Cyt b genes and the nuclear gene EF-1α, we tried to explain how and when its current biogeographic pattern evolved by providing time estimates of the main demographic and evolutionary events and investigating its colonization patterns in and out of Eurasia. Evidence of recent divergence and expansion events at less than 0.5 Ma ago indicate that climate fluctuations in the Mid-Late Pleistocene were important in shaping the current phylogeographic pattern of the species. Data support a first split and differentiation of P. spumarius into two main mitochondrial lineages: the “western”, in the Mediterranean region and the “eastern”, in Anatolia/Caucasus. It also supports a following differentiation of the “western” lineage into two sub-lineages: the “western-Mediterranean”, in Iberia and the “eastern-Mediterranean” in the Balkans. The recent pattern seems to result from postglacial range expansion from Iberia and Caucasus/Anatolia, thus not following one of the four common paradigms. Unexpected patterns of recent gene-flow events between Mediterranean peninsulas, a close relationship between Iberia and North Africa, as well as high levels of genetic diversity being maintained in northern Europe were found. The mitochondrial pattern does not exactly match to the nuclear pattern suggesting that the current biogeographic pattern of P. spumarius may be the result of both secondary admixture and incomplete lineage sorting. The hypothesis of recent colonization of North America from both western and northern Europe is corroborated by our data and probably resulted from accidental human translocations. A probable British origin for the populations of the Azores and New Zealand was revealed, however, for the Azores the distribution of populations in high altitude native forests is somewhat puzzling and may imply a natural colonization of the archipelago. PMID:24892429

Sudden unexpected death related to enterovirus myocarditis: histopathology, immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology diagnosis at post-mortem

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Viral myocarditis is a major cause of sudden unexpected death in children and young adults. Until recently, coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) has been the most commonly implicated virus in myocarditis. At present, no standard diagnosis is generally accepted due to the insensitivity of traditional diagnostic tests. This has prompted health professionals to seek new diagnostic approaches, which resulted in the emergence of new molecular pathological tests and a more detailed immunohistochemical and histopathological analysis. When supplemented with immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology, conventional histopathology may provide important clues regarding myocarditis underlying etiology. Methods This study is based on post-mortem samples from sudden unexpected death victims and controls who were investigated prospectively. Immunohistochemical investigations for the detection of the enteroviral capsid protein VP1 and the characterization and quantification of myocardial inflammatory reactions as well as molecular pathological methods for enteroviral genome detection were performed. Results Overall, 48 sudden unexpected death victims were enrolled. As for controls, 37 cases of unnatural traffic accident victims were studied. Enterovirus was detected in 6 sudden unexpected death cases (12.5 %). The control samples were completely enterovirus negative. Furthermore, the enteroviral capsid protein VP1 in the myocardium was detected in enterovirus-positive cases revealed by means of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Unlike control samples, immunohistochemical investigations showed a significant presence of T and B lymphocytes in sudden unexpected death victims. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate clearly a higher prevalence of viral myocarditis in cases of sudden unexpected death compared to control subjects, suggesting that coxsackie B enterovirus may contribute to myocarditis pathogenesis significantly. PMID:22966951

Instability mechanisms in microfluidics and nanomaterials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thamida, Sunil Kumar

Recent scientific advances in chemical engineering are leading to synthesis of micro-scale and nano-scale functional devices and materials. However, optimal design and performance of these devices and materials requires a fundamental under standing of the interfacial phenomena at micro-scale and nano-scale. Due to new physical forces unique to small scales, new phenomena appear that are unexpected at large scales. A study of new interfacial patterns that arise from various interfacial instabilities at these scales is carried out in this dissertation. Nevertheless, interfacial patterns ranging from micro to macro scale are ubiquitous in multiphase systems and material synthesis involving a surface reaction. Fractal break up of a thin viscous oil film dewetting between two separating plates is studied experimentally. Unlike the classical patterns of pores and dendrites, it forms a fractal pattern like a branching tree with its origin at the center of the circular film. Lubrication theory is extended to such a fractal geometry, which is unlike the circular geometry of a classical dewetting problem. A power law scaling is obtained for the radial air finger length distribution to construct an idealized Cayley fractal structure. Our theory yields a result that the plate detach time decreases by half in the limit of a fully fractal pattern that is confirmed experimentally. Nanopore formation in anodized alumina is also found to bear similarities to the interfacial pattern formation of the dewetting film between two separating plates. The oxide layer formed on the aluminum during the initial stages of anodizing is found to be unstable to perturbations on the scale of a few nanometers and hence it leads to the nanopore formation. A linear stability analysis of the dual interfacial dynamics followed by a leading mode projection produces a single evolution equation for the pores. Numerical simulations of the nonlinear model reveals the hexagonal packing and self-organization dynamics of the pores. In microfluidic devices, electrokinetic flow produces spiral vortices and corner aggregation of particles and proteins at an inner corner of a channel turn that is unexplained by the short ranged DLVO forces. Field leakage effect due to the non perfectly insulating wall reveals a nonlinear singular and ejecting slip velocity condition at an acute angled sharp corner. The complete flow streamlines, vortices and the corner entrainment are revealed by conformal mapping, harmonic analysis and numerical simulation using Lattice-Boltzmann-Method (LBM). The method of hodograph transform developed for the earlier projects to solve the Laplace equation is also applied to find optimum shapes of dispersion free turns for electro-osmotic microfluidic channels.

Dynamics of Aspen Roots Colonization by Pseudomonads Reveals Strain-Specific and Mycorrhizal-Specific Patterns of Biofilm Formation

PubMed Central

Noirot-Gros, Marie-Francoise; Shinde, Shalaka; Larsen, Peter E.; Zerbs, Sarah; Korajczyk, Peter J.; Kemner, Kenneth M.; Noirot, Philippe H.

2018-01-01

Rhizosphere-associated Pseudomonas fluorescens are known plant growth promoting (PGP) and mycorrhizal helper bacteria (MHB) of many plants and ectomycorrhizal fungi. We investigated the spatial and temporal dynamics of colonization of mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal Aspen seedlings roots by the P. fluorescens strains SBW25, WH6, Pf0-1, and the P. protegens strain Pf-5. Seedlings were grown in laboratory vertical plates systems, inoculated with a fluorescently labeled Pseudomonas strain, and root colonization was monitored over a period of 5 weeks. We observed unexpected diversity of bacterial assemblies on seedling roots that changed over time and were strongly affected by root mycorrhization. P. fluorescens SBW25 and WH6 stains developed highly structured biofilms with internal void spaces forming channels. On mycorrhizal roots bacteria appeared encased in a mucilaginous substance in which they aligned side by side in parallel arrangements. The different phenotypic classes of bacterial assemblies observed for the four Pseudomonas strains were summarized in a single model describing transitions between phenotypic classes. Our findings also reveal that bacterial assembly phenotypes are driven by interactions with mucilaginous materials present at roots. PMID:29774013

Morphology informed by phylogeny reveals unexpected patterns of species differentiation in the aquatic moss Rhynchostegium riparioides s.l.

PubMed

Hutsemékers, Virginie; Vieira, Cristiana C; Ros, Rosa María; Huttunen, Sanna; Vanderpoorten, Alain

2012-02-01

Bryophyte floras typically exhibit extremely low levels of endemism. The interpretation, that this might reflect taxonomic shortcomings, is tested here for the Macaronesian flora, using the moss species complex of Rhynchostegium riparioides as a model. The deep polyphyly of R. riparioides across its distribution range reveals active differentiation that better corresponds to geographic than morphological differences. Morphometric analyses are, in fact, blurred by a size gradient that accounts for 80% of the variation observed among gametophytic traits. The lack of endemic diversification observed in R. riparioides in Macaronesia weakens the idea that the low rates of endemism observed in the Macaronesian bryophyte flora might solely be explained by taxonomic shortcomings. To the reverse, the striking polyphyly of North American and European lineages of R. riparioides suggests that the similarity between the floras of these continents has been over-emphasized. Discriminant analyses point to the existence of morphological discontinuities among the lineages resolved by the molecular phylogeny. The global rate of error associated to species identification based on morphology (0.23) indicates, however, that intergradation of shape and size characters among species in the group challenges their identification. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtual Colonoscopy

MedlinePlus

... 75. back to the top of the page Pros Less invasive way to look for polyps Relatively quick Few complications No sedation May unexpectedly reveal treatable problems outside of the colon Cons Moderate to full bowel prep Slight discomfort when ...

Digital Storytelling: Bringing Humanistic Inquiry to Management Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nesteruk, Jeffrey

2015-01-01

This essay recounts how a teaching experiment with digital storytelling unexpectedly revealed how this humanistic genre enabled by contemporary technology might contribute to a more creative integration of business study with the liberal arts.

Anatomy of Brown Dwarf Atmosphere Artist Concept

NASA Image and Video Library

2013-01-08

This artist illustration shows the atmosphere of a brown dwarf called 2MASSJ22282889-431026, which was observed simultaneously by NASA Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The results were unexpected, revealing offset layers of material.

A diagnostic technique used to obtain cross range radiation centers from antenna patterns

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, T. H.; Burnside, W. D.

1988-01-01

A diagnostic technique to obtain cross range radiation centers based on antenna radiation patterns is presented. This method is similar to the synthetic aperture processing of scattered fields in the radar application. Coherent processing of the radiated fields is used to determine the various radiation centers associated with the far-zone pattern of an antenna for a given radiation direction. This technique can be used to identify an unexpected radiation center that creates an undesired effect in a pattern; on the other hand, it can improve a numerical simulation of the pattern by identifying other significant mechanisms. Cross range results for two 8' reflector antennas are presented to illustrate as well as validate that technique.

Debugging from the Student Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fitzgerald, S.; McCauley, R.; Hanks, B.; Murphy, L.; Simon, B.; Zander, C.

2010-01-01

Learning to debug is a difficult, yet essential, aspect of learning to program. Students in this multi-institutional study report that finding bugs is harder than fixing them. They use a wide variety of debugging strategies, some of them unexpected. Time spent on understanding the problem can be effective. Pattern matching, particularly at the…

Gene dosage induction of silencing directed against an Arabidopsis Myb transgene in tobacco

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

An unexpected reduction in petal pigmentation on petunia plants genetically engineered for enhanced flower color was one of the first experimental demonstrations of the natural process of RNA-associated gene silencing. The obvious visual nature of such alterations to pigment patterns of transgenic ...

The role of high-frequency oscillatory activity in reward processing and learning.

PubMed

Marco-Pallarés, Josep; Münte, Thomas F; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni

2015-02-01

Oscillatory activity has been proposed as a key mechanism in the integration of brain activity of distant structures. Particularly, high frequency brain oscillatory activity in the beta and gamma range has received increasing interest in the domains of attention and memory. In addition, a number of recent studies have revealed an increase of beta-gamma activity (20-35 Hz) after unexpected or relevant positive reward outcomes. In the present manuscript we review the literature on this phenomenon and we propose that this activity is a brain signature elicited by unexpected positive outcomes in order to transmit a fast motivational value signal to the reward network. In addition, we hypothesize that beta-gamma oscillatory activity indexes the interaction between attentional and emotional systems, and that it directly reflects the appearance of unexpected positive rewards in learning-related contexts. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Unexpected molecular weight effect in polymer nanocomposites

DOE PAGES

Cheng, Shiwang; Holt, Adam P.; Wang, Huiqun; ...

2016-01-22

Here, the properties of the interfacial layer between the polymer matrix and nanoparticles largely determine the macroscopic properties of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs). Although the static thickness of the interfacial layer was found to increase with the molecular weight (MW), the influence of MW on segmental relaxation and the glass transition in this layer remains to be explored. In this Letter, we show an unexpected MW dependence of the interfacial properties in PNC with attractive polymer-nanoparticle interactions: the thickness of the interfacial layer with hindered segmental relaxation decreases as MW increases, in sharp constrast to theoretical predictions. Further analyses reveal amore » reduction in mass density of the interfacial layer with increasing MW, which can explain these unexpected dynamic effects. Our observations call for a significant revision of the current understandings of PNCs and suggest interesting ways to tailor their properties.« less

The buried active faults in southeastern China as revealed by the relocated background seismicity and fault plane solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, A.; Wang, P.; Liu, F.

2017-12-01

The southeastern China in the mainland corresponds to the south China block, which is characterized by moderate historical seismicity and low stain rate. Most faults are buried under thick Quaternary deposits, so it is difficult to detect and locate them using the routine geological methods. Only a few have been identified to be active in late Quaternary, which leads to relatively high potentially seismic risk to this region due to the unexpected locations of the earthquakes. We performed both hypoDD and tomoDD for the background seismicity from 2000 to 2016 to investigate the buried faults. Some buried active faults are revealed by the relocated seismicity and the velocity structure, no geologically known faults corresponding to them and no surface active evidence ever observed. The geometries of the faults are obtained by analyzing the hypocentral distribution pattern and focal mechanism. The focal mechanism solutions indicate that all the revealed faults are dominated in strike-slip mechanisms, or with some thrust components. While the previous fault investigation and detection results show that most of the Quaternary faults in southeastern China are dominated by normal movement. It suggests that there may exist two fault systems in deep and shallow tectonic regimes. The revealed faults may construct the deep one that act as the seismogenic faults, and the normal faults at shallow cannot generate the destructive earthquakes. The variation in the Curie-point depths agrees well with the structure plane of the revealed active faults, suggesting that the faults may have changed the deep structure.

Age-related changes in posture response under a continuous and unexpected perturbation.

PubMed

Tsai, Yi-Ching; Hsieh, Lin-Fen; Yang, Saiwei

2014-01-22

Aging is a critical factor to influence the functional performance during daily life. Without an appropriate posture control response when experiencing an unexpected external perturbation, fall may occur. A novel six-degree-of freedom platform with motion control protocol was designed to provide a real-life simulation of unexpected disturbance in order to discriminate the age-related changes of the balance control and the recovery ability. Twenty older adults and 20 healthy young adults participated in the study. The subjects stood barefoot on the novel movable platform, data of the center of mass (COM) excursion, joint rotation angle and electromyography (EMG) were recorded and compared. The results showed that the older adults had similar patterns of joint movement and COM excursion as the young adults during the balance reactive-recovery. However, larger proximal joint rotation in elderly group induced larger COM sway envelop and therefore loss of the compensatory strategy of posture recovery. The old adults also presented a lower muscle power. In order to keep an adequate joint stability preventing from falling, the EMG activity was increased, but the asymmetric pattern might be the key reason of unstable postural response. This novel design of moveable platform and test protocol comprised the computerized dynamic posturography (CDP) demonstrate its value to assess the possible sensory, motor, and central adaptive impairments to balance control and could be the training tool for posture inability person. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Computerized video-enhanced high temporal resolution of erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR-graphy) reveals complex dynamic and self-organizing properties of whole blood

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Voeikov, Vladimir L.; Kondakov, Sergey E.; Buravleva, Ekaterina; Kaganovsky, Isaak; Reznikov, Mikhail

2000-05-01

An automatic device for high-temporal resolution of the process of red blood sedimentation was designed. The position of the boundary between red blood and plasma may be registered each 30 sec in several pipettes simultaneously with +/- 10 mkm precision. Fractional rates of the boundary movement are deduced with high accuracy. Data are processed by a PC and presented as velocity-time curves (ESR-grams) and the curves describing time evolution of the boundary position. Several unexpected phenomena in the process of red blood sedimentation have been revealed. Upward fast movements of the boundary up to 1 mm were noted. In patients' blood sets of 5 - 10 milliHz oscillations of sedimentation rate were usually developing at early stages of blood sedimentation. In non-diluted healthy donors' blood high amplitude periodic oscillations were either absent, or were emerging only after blood resided in pipettes for several hours. When blood was diluted to a certain degree with physiological saline or with own plasma long-term low frequency (1 - 3 milliHz) rate oscillations regularly appeared. Non-trivial dependence of patterns of ESR-grams on diluting of blood with own plasma or saline was observed. Thus, non-linear dynamic behavior of living blood has been revealed due to application of the principles of the system of technical vision for the detailed analysis of red blood sedimentation kinetics.

Genetic Diversity of Coastal Bottlenose Dolphins Revealed by Structurally and Functionally Diverse Hemoglobins

PubMed Central

Remington, Nicole; Stevens, Robert D.; Wells, Randall S.; Hohn, Aleta; Dhungana, Suraj; Taboy, Celine H.; Crumbliss, Alvin L.; Henkens, Robert; Bonaventura, Celia

2007-01-01

Studies of structure-function relationships in the respiratory proteins of marine mammals revealed unexpected variations in the number and types of hemoglobins (Hbs) present in coastal bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus. We obtained blood samples from free-ranging coastal bottlenose dolphins as a component of capture-release studies. We found that the oxygen-binding functions of bottlenose dolphin blood are poised between effector-saturated and unsaturated levels, enabling exercise-dependent shifts in oxygen transfer functions. Isolated bottlenose dolphin Hbs showed elevated pH sensitivities (Bohr effects) and appreciably lower oxygen affinities than adult human Hb in the absence of allosteric effectors. These properties may be an adaptive modification that enhance oxygen delivery during diving episodes when oxygen tensions and effector levels are low. The Hbs of individual dolphins showed similar oxygen affinities, responses to effectors, and expression of heme-heme interaction in oxygen binding, but differed in their redox potentials and rates of autoxidation. The heterogeneity suggested by these functional variations in Hbs of individual dolphins was born out by variations in the molecular weights and numbers of their α and β globin chains. Although coastal bottlenose dolphins were expected to have a single type of Hb, the mass differences observed revealed considerable genetic diversity. There were multiple Hb forms in some individuals and differences in Hb patterns among individuals within the same community. PMID:17604574

Genetic diversity of coastal bottlenose dolphins revealed by structurally and functionally diverse hemoglobins.

PubMed

Remington, Nicole; Stevens, Robert D; Wells, Randall S; Holn, Aleta; Dhungana, Suraj; Taboy, Celine H; Crumbliss, Alvin L; Henkens, Robert; Bonaventura, Celia

2007-08-15

Studies of structure-function relationships in the respiratory proteins of marine mammals revealed unexpected variations in the number and types of hemoglobins (Hbs) present in coastal bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus. We obtained blood samples from free-ranging coastal bottlenose dolphins as a component of capture-release studies. We found that the oxygen-binding functions of bottlenose dolphin blood are poised between effector-saturated and unsaturated levels, enabling exercise-dependent shifts in oxygen transfer functions. Isolated bottlenose dolphin Hbs showed elevated pH sensitivities (Bohr effects) and appreciably lower oxygen affinities than adult human Hb in the absence of allosteric effectors. These properties may be an adaptive modification that enhances oxygen delivery during diving episodes when oxygen tensions and effector levels are low. The Hbs of individual dolphins showed similar oxygen affinities, responses to effectors, and expression of heme-heme interaction in oxygen binding, but differed in their redox potentials and rates of autoxidation. The heterogeneity suggested by these functional variations in Hbs of individual dolphins was born out by variations in the molecular weights and numbers of their alpha and beta globin chains. Although coastal bottlenose dolphins were expected to have a single type of Hb, the mass differences observed revealed considerable genetic diversity. There were multiple Hb forms in some individuals and differences in Hb patterns among individuals within the same community.

Global phosphoproteomic profiling reveals perturbed signaling in a mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy

PubMed Central

Kuzmanov, Uros; Guo, Hongbo; Buchsbaum, Diana; Cosme, Jake; Abbasi, Cynthia; Isserlin, Ruth; Sharma, Parveen; Gramolini, Anthony O.; Emili, Andrew

2016-01-01

Phospholamban (PLN) plays a central role in Ca2+ homeostasis in cardiac myocytes through regulation of the sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase 2A (SERCA2A) Ca2+ pump. An inherited mutation converting arginine residue 9 in PLN to cysteine (R9C) results in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in humans and transgenic mice, but the downstream signaling defects leading to decompensation and heart failure are poorly understood. Here we used precision mass spectrometry to study the global phosphorylation dynamics of 1,887 cardiac phosphoproteins in early affected heart tissue in a transgenic R9C mouse model of DCM compared with wild-type littermates. Dysregulated phosphorylation sites were quantified after affinity capture and identification of 3,908 phosphopeptides from fractionated whole-heart homogenates. Global statistical enrichment analysis of the differential phosphoprotein patterns revealed selective perturbation of signaling pathways regulating cardiovascular activity in early stages of DCM. Strikingly, dysregulated signaling through the Notch-1 receptor, recently linked to cardiomyogenesis and embryonic cardiac stem cell development and differentiation but never directly implicated in DCM before, was a prominently perturbed pathway. We verified alterations in Notch-1 downstream components in early symptomatic R9C transgenic mouse cardiomyocytes compared with wild type by immunoblot analysis and confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. These data reveal unexpected connections between stress-regulated cell signaling networks, specific protein kinases, and downstream effectors essential for proper cardiac function. PMID:27742792

CRISPR/Cas9 and active genetics-based trans-species replacement of the endogenous Drosophila kni-L2 CRM reveals unexpected complexity.

PubMed

Xu, Xiang-Ru Shannon; Gantz, Valentino Matteo; Siomava, Natalia; Bier, Ethan

2017-12-23

The knirps ( kni ) locus encodes transcription factors required for induction of the L2 wing vein in Drosophila . Here, we employ diverse CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tools to generate a series of targeted lesions within the endogenous cis-regulatory module (CRM) required for kni expression in the L2 vein primordium. Phenotypic analysis of these ' in locus ' mutations based on both expression of Kni protein and adult wing phenotypes, reveals novel unexpected features of L2-CRM function including evidence for a chromosome pairing-dependent process that promotes transcription. We also demonstrate that self-propagating active genetic elements (CopyCat elements) can efficiently delete and replace the L2-CRM with orthologous sequences from other divergent fly species. Wing vein phenotypes resulting from these trans-species enhancer replacements parallel features of the respective donor fly species. This highly sensitive phenotypic readout of enhancer function in a native genomic context reveals novel features of CRM function undetected by traditional reporter gene analysis. © 2017, Xu et al.

CRISPR/Cas9 and active genetics-based trans-species replacement of the endogenous Drosophila kni-L2 CRM reveals unexpected complexity

PubMed Central

Siomava, Natalia

2017-01-01

The knirps (kni) locus encodes transcription factors required for induction of the L2 wing vein in Drosophila. Here, we employ diverse CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tools to generate a series of targeted lesions within the endogenous cis-regulatory module (CRM) required for kni expression in the L2 vein primordium. Phenotypic analysis of these ‘in locus’ mutations based on both expression of Kni protein and adult wing phenotypes, reveals novel unexpected features of L2-CRM function including evidence for a chromosome pairing-dependent process that promotes transcription. We also demonstrate that self-propagating active genetic elements (CopyCat elements) can efficiently delete and replace the L2-CRM with orthologous sequences from other divergent fly species. Wing vein phenotypes resulting from these trans-species enhancer replacements parallel features of the respective donor fly species. This highly sensitive phenotypic readout of enhancer function in a native genomic context reveals novel features of CRM function undetected by traditional reporter gene analysis. PMID:29274230

A series of no isthmus (noi) alleles of the zebrafish pax2.1 gene reveals multiple signaling events in development of the midbrain-hindbrain boundary.

PubMed

Lun, K; Brand, M

1998-08-01

Generation of cell diversity in the vertebrate central nervous system starts during gastrulation stages in the ectodermal germ layer and involves specialized cell groups, such as the organizer located at the midbrain-hindbrain boundary (MHB). Mutations in the zebrafish no isthmus (noi) gene alter development of the MHB, and affect the pax2.1 gene (formerly pax(zf-b)). Analysis of the structure of pax2.1 reveals at least 12 normal splice variants. The noi alleles can be arranged, by molecular and phenotypic criteria, into a series of five alleles of differing strength, ranging from a null allele to weak alleles. In keeping with a role in development of the MHB organizer, gene expression is already affected in the MHB primordium of the gastrula neural ectoderm in noi mutants. eng3 activation is completely and eng2 activation is strongly dependent on noi function. In contrast, onset of wnt1, fgf8 and her5 expression occurs normally in the null mutants, but is eliminated later on. Our observations suggest that three signaling pathways, involving pax2.1, wnt1 and fgf8, are activated independently in early anterior-posterior patterning of this area. In addition, analysis of the allelic series unexpectedly suggests that noi activity is also required during dorsal-ventral patterning of the MHB in somitogenesis stages, and possibly in a later eng expression phase. We propose that noi/pax2.1 participates in sequential signaling processes as a key integrator of midbrain-hindbrain boundary development.

Crew factors in flight operations. Part 3: The operational significance of exposure to short-haul air transport operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Foushee, H. C.; Lauber, J. K.; Baetge, M. M.; Acomb, D. B.

1986-01-01

Excessive flightcrew fatigue has potentially serious safety consequences. Laboratory studies have implicated fatigue as a causal factor associated with varying levels of performance deterioration depending on the amount of fatigue and the type of measure utilized in assessing performance. These studies have been of limited utility because of the difficulty of relating laboratory task performance to the demands associated with the operation of a complex aircraft. The performance of 20 volunteer twin-jet transport crews is examined in a full-mission simulator scenario that included most aspects of an actual line operation. The scenario included both routine flight operations and an unexpected mechanical abnormality which resulted in a high level of crew workload. Half of the crews flew the simulation within two to three hours after completing a three-day, high-density, short-haul duty cycle (Post-Duty condition). The other half flew the scenario after a minimum of three days off duty (Pre-Duty) condition). The results revealed that, not surprisingly, Post-Duty crews were significantly more fatigued than Pre-Duty crews. However, a somewhat counter-intuitive pattern of results emerged on the crew performancemeasures. In general, the performance of Post-Duty crews was significantly better than that of Pre-Duty crews, as rated by an expert observer on a number of dimensions relevant to flight safety. Analyses of the flightcrew communication patterns revealed that Post-Duty crews communicated significantly more overall, suggesting, as has previous research, that communication is a good predictor of overall crew performance.

Ownership of consumer electronics is associated with measures of adiposity during health transition in Vanuatu.

PubMed

Sun, Cheng; Pomer, Alysa; Dancause, Kelsey N; Chan, Chim W; Olszowy, Kathryn M; Silverman, Harold; Lee, Gwang; Tarivonda, Len; Taleo, George; Regenvanu, Ralph; Kaneko, Akira; Weitz, Charles A; Garruto, Ralph M; Lum, J Koji

2017-03-01

The Republic of Vanuatu, like many developing nations, is undergoing a rapid health transition. Our previous study identified several behavioral risk factors for the rising prevalence of obesity. Unexpectedly, daily time spent using television and radio was revealed as a protective factor for obesity in 2007. In this study, we sought to explore associations between ownership of consumer electronics (CE) and measures of adiposity in Vanuatu in 2011. We surveyed 873 adults from five islands varying in level of economic development. Height, weight, and waist circumferences; triceps, subscapular, and suprailiac skinfolds; and percent body fat by bioelectrical impedance were measured. Ownership of eight types of CE, diet through 24-h dietary recall and leisure-time activity patterns were assessed using a questionnaire. Participants from more developed islands owned more types of CE, and revealed higher measures of adiposity on average as well as higher prevalence of obesity/central obesity. When controlling for demographic factors, and dietary and activity patterns, increased measures of adiposity and risk for obesity/central obesity were associated with ownership of cellphones, music players, televisions, video players, microwaves, and/or refrigerators. Positive correlations between CE ownership and measures of adiposity were mainly observed among men on the two most developed islands. The results of this study indicate a possible role of CE use in the rising prevalence of obesity and the shift to a sedentary lifestyle in Vanuatu and many other modernizing regions, where prevention efforts including education on healthy use of CE are imperative. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Investigating Initial Disclosures and Reactions to Unexpected, Positive HPV Diagnosis.

PubMed

Smith, Rachel A; Hernandez, Rachael; Catona, Danielle

2014-07-01

Initial disclosures of health conditions are critical communication moments. Existing research focuses on disclosers; integrating confidants into studies of initial disclosures is needed. Guided by the disclosure decision-making model (DD-MM; Greene, 2009), this study examined what diagnosed persons and confidants may say when faced with unexpected test results and unexpected disclosures, respectively. Participants ( N = 151) recorded an audio-visual message for another person, after imagining that they or the other person had just received unexpected, positive HPV test results. The qualitative analysis revealed four themes: (1) impression management and social distance, (2) invisible symptoms and advice regarding future disclosures, (3) expressing and acknowledging emotional reactions, and (4) misunderstandings and lacking knowledge about HPV. These findings suggested that DD-MM may be a relevant framework for understanding not only when disclosers share, but what disclosers and confidants say in early conversations about new diagnoses. While disclosers' and confidants' messages showed marked similarities, important differences appeared. For example, confidants focused on assuaging disclosers' fear about the consequences, whereas disclosers expressed distress related to their uncertainty about the prognosis of an HPV infection and how to prepare for next steps. The discussion highlighted implications for the DD-MM, HPV disclosures, and future interventions.

Unravelling associations between unassigned mass spectrometry peaks with frequent itemset mining techniques.

PubMed

Vu, Trung Nghia; Mrzic, Aida; Valkenborg, Dirk; Maes, Evelyne; Lemière, Filip; Goethals, Bart; Laukens, Kris

2014-01-01

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments generate spectra that are rich in information. Often only a fraction of this information is used for peptide/protein identification, whereas a significant proportion of the peaks in a spectrum remain unexplained. In this paper we explore how a specific class of data mining techniques termed "frequent itemset mining" can be employed to discover patterns in the unassigned data, and how such patterns can help us interpret the origin of the unexpected/unexplained peaks. First a model is proposed that describes the origin of the observed peaks in a mass spectrum. For this purpose we use the classical correlative database search algorithm. Peaks that support a positive identification of the spectrum are termed explained peaks. Next, frequent itemset mining techniques are introduced to infer which unexplained peaks are associated in a spectrum. The method is validated on two types of experimental proteomic data. First, peptide mass fingerprint data is analyzed to explain the unassigned peaks in a full scan mass spectrum. Interestingly, a large numbers of experimental spectra reveals several highly frequent unexplained masses, and pattern mining on these frequent masses demonstrates that subsets of these peaks frequently co-occur. Further evaluation shows that several of these co-occurring peaks indeed have a known common origin, and other patterns are promising hypothesis generators for further analysis. Second, the proposed methodology is validated on tandem mass spectrometral data using a public spectral library, where associations within the mass differences of unassigned peaks and peptide modifications are explored. The investigation of the found patterns illustrates that meaningful patterns can be discovered that can be explained by features of the employed technology and found modifications. This simple approach offers opportunities to monitor accumulating unexplained mass spectrometry data for emerging new patterns, with possible applications for the development of mass exclusion lists, for the refinement of quality control strategies and for a further interpretation of unexplained spectral peaks in mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry.

The Learning and Recall of Unexpected Information in Social Schemas.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glasnapp, Pamela M.

A study examined how people respond to violations of F. Heider's (1958) balance principle when learning patterns of sentiments among people in a group. Subjects, 90 students from introductory psychology and communication courses at the University of Kansas, participated in the experiment, and were randomly assigned to one of three schema…

Circular RNAs: Unexpected outputs of many protein-coding genes

PubMed Central

Wilusz, Jeremy E.

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Pre-mRNAs from thousands of eukaryotic genes can be non-canonically spliced to generate circular RNAs, some of which accumulate to higher levels than their associated linear mRNA. Recent work has revealed widespread mechanisms that dictate whether the spliceosome generates a linear or circular RNA. For most genes, circular RNA biogenesis via backsplicing is far less efficient than canonical splicing, but circular RNAs can accumulate due to their long half-lives. Backsplicing is often initiated when complementary sequences from different introns base pair and bring the intervening splice sites close together. This process is further regulated by the combinatorial action of RNA binding proteins, which allow circular RNAs to be expressed in unique patterns. Some genes do not require complementary sequences to generate RNA circles and instead take advantage of exon skipping events. It is still unclear what most mature circular RNAs do, but future investigations into their functions will be facilitated by recently described methods to modulate circular RNA levels. PMID:27571848

Lysosomal Degradation Is Required for Sustained Phagocytosis of Bacteria by Macrophages.

PubMed

Wong, Ching-On; Gregory, Steven; Hu, Hongxiang; Chao, Yufang; Sepúlveda, Victoria E; He, Yuchun; Li-Kroeger, David; Goldman, William E; Bellen, Hugo J; Venkatachalam, Kartik

2017-06-14

Clearance of bacteria by macrophages involves internalization of the microorganisms into phagosomes, which are then delivered to endolysosomes for enzymatic degradation. These spatiotemporally segregated processes are not known to be functionally coupled. Here, we show that lysosomal degradation of bacteria sustains phagocytic uptake. In Drosophila and mammalian macrophages, lysosomal dysfunction due to loss of the endolysosomal Cl - transporter ClC-b/CLCN7 delayed degradation of internalized bacteria. Unexpectedly, defective lysosomal degradation of bacteria also attenuated further phagocytosis, resulting in elevated bacterial load. Exogenous application of bacterial peptidoglycans restored phagocytic uptake in the lysosomal degradation-defective mutants via a pathway requiring cytosolic pattern recognition receptors and NF-κB. Mammalian macrophages that are unable to degrade internalized bacteria also exhibit compromised NF-κB activation. Our findings reveal a role for phagolysosomal degradation in activating an evolutionarily conserved signaling cascade, which ensures that continuous uptake of bacteria is preceded by lysosomal degradation of microbes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Human body epigenome maps reveal noncanonical DNA methylation variation.

PubMed

Schultz, Matthew D; He, Yupeng; Whitaker, John W; Hariharan, Manoj; Mukamel, Eran A; Leung, Danny; Rajagopal, Nisha; Nery, Joseph R; Urich, Mark A; Chen, Huaming; Lin, Shin; Lin, Yiing; Jung, Inkyung; Schmitt, Anthony D; Selvaraj, Siddarth; Ren, Bing; Sejnowski, Terrence J; Wang, Wei; Ecker, Joseph R

2015-07-09

Understanding the diversity of human tissues is fundamental to disease and requires linking genetic information, which is identical in most of an individual's cells, with epigenetic mechanisms that could have tissue-specific roles. Surveys of DNA methylation in human tissues have established a complex landscape including both tissue-specific and invariant methylation patterns. Here we report high coverage methylomes that catalogue cytosine methylation in all contexts for the major human organ systems, integrated with matched transcriptomes and genomic sequence. By combining these diverse data types with each individuals' phased genome, we identified widespread tissue-specific differential CG methylation (mCG), partially methylated domains, allele-specific methylation and transcription, and the unexpected presence of non-CG methylation (mCH) in almost all human tissues. mCH correlated with tissue-specific functions, and using this mark, we made novel predictions of genes that escape X-chromosome inactivation in specific tissues. Overall, DNA methylation in several genomic contexts varies substantially among human tissues.

Inter- and intracellular colonization of Arabidopsis roots by endophytic actinobacteria and the impact of plant hormones on their antimicrobial activity.

PubMed

van der Meij, Anne; Willemse, Joost; Schneijderberg, Martinus A; Geurts, René; Raaijmakers, Jos M; van Wezel, Gilles P

2018-05-01

Many actinobacteria live in close association with eukaryotes such as fungi, insects, animals and plants. Plant-associated actinobacteria display (endo)symbiotic, saprophytic or pathogenic life styles, and can make up a substantial part of the endophytic community. Here, we characterised endophytic actinobacteria isolated from root tissue of Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) plants grown in soil from a natural ecosystem. Many of these actinobacteria belong to the family of Streptomycetaceae with Streptomyces olivochromogenes and Streptomyces clavifer as well represented species. When seeds of Arabidopsis were inoculated with spores of Streptomyces strain coa1, which shows high similarity to S. olivochromogenes, roots were colonised intercellularly and, unexpectedly, also intracellularly. Subsequent exposure of endophytic isolates to plant hormones typically found in root and shoot tissues of Arabidopsis led to altered antibiotic production against Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. Taken together, our work reveals remarkable colonization patterns of endophytic streptomycetes with specific traits that may allow a competitive advantage inside root tissue.

Transcriptomic and proteomic landscape of mitochondrial dysfunction reveals secondary coenzyme Q deficiency in mammals

PubMed Central

Atanassov, Ilian; Kuznetsova, Irina; Hinze, Yvonne; Mourier, Arnaud; Filipovska, Aleksandra

2017-01-01

Dysfunction of the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) system is a major cause of human disease and the cellular consequences are highly complex. Here, we present comparative analyses of mitochondrial proteomes, cellular transcriptomes and targeted metabolomics of five knockout mouse strains deficient in essential factors required for mitochondrial DNA gene expression, leading to OXPHOS dysfunction. Moreover, we describe sequential protein changes during post-natal development and progressive OXPHOS dysfunction in time course analyses in control mice and a middle lifespan knockout, respectively. Very unexpectedly, we identify a new response pathway to OXPHOS dysfunction in which the intra-mitochondrial synthesis of coenzyme Q (ubiquinone, Q) and Q levels are profoundly decreased, pointing towards novel possibilities for therapy. Our extensive omics analyses provide a high-quality resource of altered gene expression patterns under severe OXPHOS deficiency comparing several mouse models, that will deepen our understanding, open avenues for research and provide an important reference for diagnosis and treatment. PMID:29132502

Classification of the venous architecture of the pineal gland by 7T MRI.

PubMed

Cho, Zang-Hee; Choi, Sang-Han; Chi, Je-Gun; Kim, Young-Bo

2011-10-01

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 7.0 Tesla (7T) can show many details of anatomical structures with unprecedented resolution and contrast. In this report, we describe for the first time the unexpected wide variation in pineal gland structure, as visualized by MR images obtained with 7T in a group of healthy young volunteers. A total of 34 volunteers (22 men and 12 women) were enrolled in the study. Their 7T MR images revealed such wide variations in pineal gland shape that it led us to attempt to classify the patterns seen in these pineal glands. Indeed, they were successfully correlated with a previous human cadaver study of venous structures by Tamaki et al., who classified the venous structures of the pineal gland into three categories. This is the first human in vivo pineal vein imaging study using 7T MRI. Pineal venous imaging may permit the early diagnosis of a pineal tumor. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Great majority of recombination events in Arabidopsis are gene conversion events

PubMed Central

Yang, Sihai; Yuan, Yang; Wang, Long; Li, Jing; Wang, Wen; Liu, Haoxuan; Chen, Jian-Qun; Hurst, Laurence D.; Tian, Dacheng

2012-01-01

The evolutionary importance of meiosis may not solely be associated with allelic shuffling caused by crossing-over but also have to do with its more immediate effects such as gene conversion. Although estimates of the crossing-over rate are often well resolved, the gene conversion rate is much less clear. In Arabidopsis, for example, next-generation sequencing approaches suggest that the two rates are about the same, which contrasts with indirect measures, these suggesting an excess of gene conversion. Here, we provide analysis of this problem by sequencing 40 F2 Arabidopsis plants and their parents. Small gene conversion tracts, with biased gene conversion content, represent over 90% (probably nearer 99%) of all recombination events. The rate of alteration of protein sequence caused by gene conversion is over 600 times that caused by mutation. Finally, our analysis reveals recombination hot spots and unexpectedly high recombination rates near centromeres. This may be responsible for the previously unexplained pattern of high genetic diversity near Arabidopsis centromeres. PMID:23213238

A versatile pipeline for the multi-scale digital reconstruction and quantitative analysis of 3D tissue architecture

PubMed Central

Morales-Navarrete, Hernán; Segovia-Miranda, Fabián; Klukowski, Piotr; Meyer, Kirstin; Nonaka, Hidenori; Marsico, Giovanni; Chernykh, Mikhail; Kalaidzidis, Alexander; Zerial, Marino; Kalaidzidis, Yannis

2015-01-01

A prerequisite for the systems biology analysis of tissues is an accurate digital three-dimensional reconstruction of tissue structure based on images of markers covering multiple scales. Here, we designed a flexible pipeline for the multi-scale reconstruction and quantitative morphological analysis of tissue architecture from microscopy images. Our pipeline includes newly developed algorithms that address specific challenges of thick dense tissue reconstruction. Our implementation allows for a flexible workflow, scalable to high-throughput analysis and applicable to various mammalian tissues. We applied it to the analysis of liver tissue and extracted quantitative parameters of sinusoids, bile canaliculi and cell shapes, recognizing different liver cell types with high accuracy. Using our platform, we uncovered an unexpected zonation pattern of hepatocytes with different size, nuclei and DNA content, thus revealing new features of liver tissue organization. The pipeline also proved effective to analyse lung and kidney tissue, demonstrating its generality and robustness. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11214.001 PMID:26673893

Non-canonical TAF complexes regulate active promoters in human embryonic stem cells.

PubMed

Maston, Glenn A; Zhu, Lihua Julie; Chamberlain, Lynn; Lin, Ling; Fang, Minggang; Green, Michael R

2012-11-13

The general transcription factor TFIID comprises the TATA-box-binding protein (TBP) and approximately 14 TBP-associated factors (TAFs). Here we find, unexpectedly, that undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) contain only six TAFs (TAFs 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11), whereas following differentiation all TAFs are expressed. Directed and global chromatin immunoprecipitation analyses reveal an unprecedented promoter occupancy pattern: most active genes are bound by only TAFs 3 and 5 along with TBP, whereas the remaining active genes are bound by TBP and all six hESC TAFs. Consistent with these results, hESCs contain a previously undescribed complex comprising TAFs 2, 6, 7, 11 and TBP. Altering the composition of hESC TAFs, either by depleting TAFs that are present or ectopically expressing TAFs that are absent, results in misregulated expression of pluripotency genes and induction of differentiation. Thus, the selective expression and use of TAFs underlies the ability of hESCs to self-renew.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00068.001.

Vocational education paths, youth activities, and underage drinking in Russia: How early does the trouble start?

PubMed

Lushin, Viktor; Jaccard, James; Ivaniushina, Valeria; Alexandrov, Daniel

2017-07-01

Working-class educational paths tend to be associated with elevated drinking. Little research has examined whether disproportionate alcohol use among vocationally oriented youth begins before or after the start of their vocational education. The present study analyzes a large sample of Russian middle-school students (N=1269; mean age=14.9), comparing the patterns of drinking among middle-schoolers oriented towards vocational educational, and their peers who do not plan a vocational education path. Results suggest that the orientation towards vocational education is associated with disproportionately high alcohol involvement among Russian middle-school students, even before they enter vocational schools. We studied if such difference could be partially explained by how youth orient towards extracurricular activities: discretionary peer time in risky contexts, reading for pleasure, working for pay, and religious activities. Reading demonstrated the strongest (negative) association with alcohol use, while religious activity unexpectedly revealed a positive (though weak) association with drinking. Research and policy implications are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of Timber Harvest on River Food Webs: Physical, Chemical and Biological Responses

PubMed Central

Wootton, J. Timothy

2012-01-01

I compared physical, chemical and biological characteristics of nine rivers running through three timber harvest regimes to investigate the effects of land use on river ecosystems, to determine whether these corresponded to changes linked with downstream location, and to compare the response of different types of indicator variables. Physical variables changed with downstream location, but varied little with timber harvest. Most chemical variables increased strongly with timber harvest, but not with downstream location. Most biological variables did not vary systematically with either timber harvst or downstream location. Dissolved organic carbon did not vary with timber harvest or downstream location, but correlated positively with salmonid abundance. Nutrient manipulations revealed no general pattern of nutrient limitation with timber harvest or downstream location. The results suggest that chemical variables most reliably indicate timber harvest impact in these systems. The biological variables most relevant to human stakeholders were surprisingly insensitive to timber harvest, however, apparently because of decoupling from nutrient responses and unexpectedly weak responses by physical variables. PMID:22957030

NASA Spacecraft Sees 'Pac-Man' on Saturn Moon

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

NASA release date March 29, 2010 The highest-resolution-yet temperature map and images of Saturn’s icy moon Mimas obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal surprising patterns on the surface of the small moon, including unexpected hot regions that resemble “Pac-Man” eating a dot, and striking bands of light and dark in crater walls. The left portion of this image shows Mimas in visible light, an image that has drawn comparisons to the "Star Wars" Death Star. The right portion shows the new temperature map, which resembles 1980s video game icon "Pac Man." To learn more about this image go to: www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/features/2010/pac-man-m... Credit: NASA/JPL/Goddard/SWRI/SSI NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.

Molecular regionalization of the developing amphioxus neural tube challenges major partitions of the vertebrate brain.

PubMed

Albuixech-Crespo, Beatriz; López-Blanch, Laura; Burguera, Demian; Maeso, Ignacio; Sánchez-Arrones, Luisa; Moreno-Bravo, Juan Antonio; Somorjai, Ildiko; Pascual-Anaya, Juan; Puelles, Eduardo; Bovolenta, Paola; Garcia-Fernàndez, Jordi; Puelles, Luis; Irimia, Manuel; Ferran, José Luis

2017-04-01

All vertebrate brains develop following a common Bauplan defined by anteroposterior (AP) and dorsoventral (DV) subdivisions, characterized by largely conserved differential expression of gene markers. However, it is still unclear how this Bauplan originated during evolution. We studied the relative expression of 48 genes with key roles in vertebrate neural patterning in a representative amphioxus embryonic stage. Unlike nonchordates, amphioxus develops its central nervous system (CNS) from a neural plate that is homologous to that of vertebrates, allowing direct topological comparisons. The resulting genoarchitectonic model revealed that the amphioxus incipient neural tube is unexpectedly complex, consisting of several AP and DV molecular partitions. Strikingly, comparison with vertebrates indicates that the vertebrate thalamus, pretectum, and midbrain domains jointly correspond to a single amphioxus region, which we termed Di-Mesencephalic primordium (DiMes). This suggests that these domains have a common developmental and evolutionary origin, as supported by functional experiments manipulating secondary organizers in zebrafish and mice.

Molecular regionalization of the developing amphioxus neural tube challenges major partitions of the vertebrate brain

PubMed Central

Albuixech-Crespo, Beatriz; Maeso, Ignacio; Sánchez-Arrones, Luisa; Moreno-Bravo, Juan Antonio; Somorjai, Ildiko; Pascual-Anaya, Juan; Puelles, Eduardo; Bovolenta, Paola; Garcia-Fernàndez, Jordi; Puelles, Luis; Ferran, José Luis

2017-01-01

All vertebrate brains develop following a common Bauplan defined by anteroposterior (AP) and dorsoventral (DV) subdivisions, characterized by largely conserved differential expression of gene markers. However, it is still unclear how this Bauplan originated during evolution. We studied the relative expression of 48 genes with key roles in vertebrate neural patterning in a representative amphioxus embryonic stage. Unlike nonchordates, amphioxus develops its central nervous system (CNS) from a neural plate that is homologous to that of vertebrates, allowing direct topological comparisons. The resulting genoarchitectonic model revealed that the amphioxus incipient neural tube is unexpectedly complex, consisting of several AP and DV molecular partitions. Strikingly, comparison with vertebrates indicates that the vertebrate thalamus, pretectum, and midbrain domains jointly correspond to a single amphioxus region, which we termed Di-Mesencephalic primordium (DiMes). This suggests that these domains have a common developmental and evolutionary origin, as supported by functional experiments manipulating secondary organizers in zebrafish and mice. PMID:28422959

Systematic drug screening reveals specific vulnerabilities and co-resistance patterns in endocrine-resistant breast cancer.

PubMed

Kangaspeska, Sara; Hultsch, Susanne; Jaiswal, Alok; Edgren, Henrik; Mpindi, John-Patrick; Eldfors, Samuli; Brück, Oscar; Aittokallio, Tero; Kallioniemi, Olli

2016-07-04

The estrogen receptor (ER) inhibitor tamoxifen reduces breast cancer mortality by 31 % and has served as the standard treatment for ER-positive breast cancers for decades. However, 50 % of advanced ER-positive cancers display de novo resistance to tamoxifen, and acquired resistance evolves in 40 % of patients who initially respond. Mechanisms underlying resistance development remain poorly understood and new therapeutic opportunities are urgently needed. Here, we report the generation and characterization of seven tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell lines from four parental strains. Using high throughput drug sensitivity and resistance testing (DSRT) with 279 approved and investigational oncology drugs, exome-sequencing and network analysis, we for the first time, systematically determine the drug response profiles specific to tamoxifen resistance. We discovered emerging vulnerabilities towards specific drugs, such as ERK1/2-, proteasome- and BCL-family inhibitors as the cells became tamoxifen-resistant. Co-resistance to other drugs such as the survivin inhibitor YM155 and the chemotherapeutic agent paclitaxel also occurred. This study indicates that multiple molecular mechanisms dictate endocrine resistance, resulting in unexpected vulnerabilities to initially ineffective drugs, as well as in emerging co-resistances. Thus, combatting drug-resistant tumors will require patient-tailored strategies in order to identify new drug vulnerabilities, and to understand the associated co-resistance patterns.

Rotationally driven 'zebra stripes' in Earth's inner radiation belt.

PubMed

Ukhorskiy, A Y; Sitnov, M I; Mitchell, D G; Takahashi, K; Lanzerotti, L J; Mauk, B H

2014-03-20

Structured features on top of nominally smooth distributions of radiation-belt particles at Earth have been previously associated with particle acceleration and transport mechanisms powered exclusively by enhanced solar-wind activity. Although planetary rotation is considered to be important for particle acceleration at Jupiter and Saturn, the electric field produced in the inner magnetosphere by Earth's rotation can change the velocity of trapped particles by only about 1-2 kilometres per second, so rotation has been thought inconsequential for radiation-belt electrons with velocities of about 100,000 kilometres per second. Here we report that the distributions of energetic electrons across the entire spatial extent of Earth's inner radiation belt are organized in regular, highly structured and unexpected 'zebra stripes', even when the solar-wind activity is low. Modelling reveals that the patterns are produced by Earth's rotation. Radiation-belt electrons are trapped in Earth's dipole-like magnetic field, where they undergo slow longitudinal drift motion around the planet because of the gradient and curvature of the magnetic field. Earth's rotation induces global diurnal variations of magnetic and electric fields that resonantly interact with electrons whose drift period is close to 24 hours, modifying electron fluxes over a broad energy range into regular patterns composed of multiple stripes extending over the entire span of the inner radiation belt.

Infants’ Looking to Surprising Events: When Eye-Tracking Reveals More than Looking Time

PubMed Central

Yeung, H. Henny; Denison, Stephanie; Johnson, Scott P.

2016-01-01

Research on infants’ reasoning abilities often rely on looking times, which are longer to surprising and unexpected visual scenes compared to unsurprising and expected ones. Few researchers have examined more precise visual scanning patterns in these scenes, and so, here, we recorded 8- to 11-month-olds’ gaze with an eye tracker as we presented a sampling event whose outcome was either surprising, neutral, or unsurprising: A red (or yellow) ball was drawn from one of three visible containers populated 0%, 50%, or 100% with identically colored balls. When measuring looking time to the whole scene, infants were insensitive to the likelihood of the sampling event, replicating failures in similar paradigms. Nevertheless, a new analysis of visual scanning showed that infants did spend more time fixating specific areas-of-interest as a function of the event likelihood. The drawn ball and its associated container attracted more looking than the other containers in the 0% condition, but this pattern was weaker in the 50% condition, and even less strong in the 100% condition. Results suggest that measuring where infants look may be more sensitive than simply how much looking there is to the whole scene. The advantages of eye tracking measures over traditional looking measures are discussed. PMID:27926920

Understanding Biases in Ribosome Profiling Experiments Reveals Signatures of Translation Dynamics in Yeast.

PubMed

Hussmann, Jeffrey A; Patchett, Stephanie; Johnson, Arlen; Sawyer, Sara; Press, William H

2015-12-01

Ribosome profiling produces snapshots of the locations of actively translating ribosomes on messenger RNAs. These snapshots can be used to make inferences about translation dynamics. Recent ribosome profiling studies in yeast, however, have reached contradictory conclusions regarding the average translation rate of each codon. Some experiments have used cycloheximide (CHX) to stabilize ribosomes before measuring their positions, and these studies all counterintuitively report a weak negative correlation between the translation rate of a codon and the abundance of its cognate tRNA. In contrast, some experiments performed without CHX report strong positive correlations. To explain this contradiction, we identify unexpected patterns in ribosome density downstream of each type of codon in experiments that use CHX. These patterns are evidence that elongation continues to occur in the presence of CHX but with dramatically altered codon-specific elongation rates. The measured positions of ribosomes in these experiments therefore do not reflect the amounts of time ribosomes spend at each position in vivo. These results suggest that conclusions from experiments in yeast using CHX may need reexamination. In particular, we show that in all such experiments, codons decoded by less abundant tRNAs were in fact being translated more slowly before the addition of CHX disrupted these dynamics.

Understanding Biases in Ribosome Profiling Experiments Reveals Signatures of Translation Dynamics in Yeast

PubMed Central

Hussmann, Jeffrey A.; Patchett, Stephanie; Johnson, Arlen; Sawyer, Sara; Press, William H.

2015-01-01

Ribosome profiling produces snapshots of the locations of actively translating ribosomes on messenger RNAs. These snapshots can be used to make inferences about translation dynamics. Recent ribosome profiling studies in yeast, however, have reached contradictory conclusions regarding the average translation rate of each codon. Some experiments have used cycloheximide (CHX) to stabilize ribosomes before measuring their positions, and these studies all counterintuitively report a weak negative correlation between the translation rate of a codon and the abundance of its cognate tRNA. In contrast, some experiments performed without CHX report strong positive correlations. To explain this contradiction, we identify unexpected patterns in ribosome density downstream of each type of codon in experiments that use CHX. These patterns are evidence that elongation continues to occur in the presence of CHX but with dramatically altered codon-specific elongation rates. The measured positions of ribosomes in these experiments therefore do not reflect the amounts of time ribosomes spend at each position in vivo. These results suggest that conclusions from experiments in yeast using CHX may need reexamination. In particular, we show that in all such experiments, codons decoded by less abundant tRNAs were in fact being translated more slowly before the addition of CHX disrupted these dynamics. PMID:26656907

Getting the Words Out: Case Studies in Facilitated Communication Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Rosemary

1992-01-01

Case studies are presented of three individuals with severe communication impairments who had been judged to be intellectually impaired but revealed unexpected achievements after training in nonspeech communication. The communication training used facilitation to circumvent hand function impairments. (JDD)

Building Community in School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaps, Eric; And Others

1996-01-01

Evaluation studies of the Child Development Project revealed unexpected findings concerning students' sense of classroom community. Teachers should systematically build relationships with students, involve them in planning and problem solving, help them learn classmates' strengths and interests, downplay competition, and involve all children in…

Language and theory of mind in autism spectrum disorder: the relationship between complement syntax and false belief task performance.

PubMed

Lind, Sophie E; Bowler, Dermot M

2009-06-01

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) use their knowledge of complement syntax as a means of "hacking out" solutions to false belief tasks, despite lacking a representational theory of mind (ToM). Participants completed a "memory for complements" task, a measure of receptive vocabulary, and traditional location change and unexpected contents false belief tasks. Consistent with predictions, the correlation between complement syntax score and location change task performance was significantly stronger within the ASD group than within the comparison group. However, contrary to predictions, complement syntax score was not significantly correlated with unexpected contents task performance within either group. Possible explanations for this pattern of results are considered.

The evolutionary ecology of the Lygaeidae

PubMed Central

Burdfield-Steel, Emily R; Shuker, David M

2014-01-01

The Lygaeidae (sensu lato) are a highly successful family of true bugs found worldwide, yet many aspects of their ecology and evolution remain obscure or unknown. While a few species have attracted considerable attention as model species for the study of insect physiology, it is only relatively recently that biologists have begun to explore aspects of their behavior, life history evolution, and patterns of intra- and interspecific ecological interactions across more species. As a result though, a range of new phenotypes and opportunities for addressing current questions in evolutionary ecology has been uncovered. For example, researchers have revealed hitherto unexpectedly rich patterns of bacterial symbiosis, begun to explore the evolutionary function of the family's complex genitalia, and also found evidence of parthenogenesis. Here we review our current understanding of the biology and ecology of the group as a whole, focusing on several of the best-studied characteristics of the group, including aposematism (i.e., the evolution of warning coloration), chemical communication, sexual selection (especially, postcopulatory sexual selection), sexual conflict, and patterns of host-endosymbiont coevolution. Importantly, many of these aspects of lygaeid biology are likely to interact, offering new avenues for research, for instance into how the evolution of aposematism influences sexual selection. With the growing availability of genomic tools for previously “non-model” organisms, combined with the relative ease of keeping many of the polyphagous species in the laboratory, we argue that these bugs offer many opportunities for behavioral and evolutionary ecologists. PMID:25360267

Both your intention and mine are reflected in the kinematics of my reach-to-grasp movement.

PubMed

Becchio, Cristina; Sartori, Luisa; Bulgheroni, Maria; Castiello, Umberto

2008-02-01

The aim of the present study is to ascertain whether in a social context the kinematic parameters are influenced by the stance of the participants. In particular, we consider two basic modes of social cognition, namely cooperation and competition. Naïve subjects were asked either to cooperate or to compete with a partner (a professional female actor), whose attitude could be either congruent or incongruent with the task instructions. Thus, on congruent conditions, subjects cooperated or competed with a partner showing a congruent cooperative or competitive attitude. On incongruent trials, the partner assumed an attitude that was manifestly in contrast with the instruction: competitive for the cooperative task, cooperative for the competitive task. We hypothesized that this mismatch between partner's attitude and instruction would produce a sort of unexpected social situation, affecting the kinematics of reach-to-grasp movement performed by the agents. If cooperative and competitive kinematic patterns are sensitive to the partner's attitude, then we should expect that an incongruent attitude have the potency to determine a reversal in kinematic patterning. Results revealed that for the incongruent trials the specific kinematic patterns for cooperation and competition found for the congruent conditions where modified according to the incongruent attitude assumed by the model actor. We suggest that this 'attitude' contagion is part of a sophisticated system that allows us to infer about the intention to act in a social context.

Unexpectedly high mortality in Pacific herring embryos exposed to the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay.

PubMed

Incardona, John P; Vines, Carol A; Anulacion, Bernadita F; Baldwin, David H; Day, Heather L; French, Barbara L; Labenia, Jana S; Linbo, Tiffany L; Myers, Mark S; Olson, O Paul; Sloan, Catherine A; Sol, Sean; Griffin, Frederick J; Menard, Karl; Morgan, Steven G; West, James E; Collier, Tracy K; Ylitalo, Gina M; Cherr, Gary N; Scholz, Nathaniel L

2012-01-10

In November 2007, the container ship Cosco Busan released 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into San Francisco Bay. The accident oiled shoreline near spawning habitats for the largest population of Pacific herring on the west coast of the continental United States. We assessed the health and viability of herring embryos from oiled and unoiled locations that were either deposited by natural spawning or incubated in subtidal cages. Three months after the spill, caged embryos at oiled sites showed sublethal cardiac toxicity, as expected from exposure to oil-derived polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs). By contrast, embryos from the adjacent and shallower intertidal zone showed unexpectedly high rates of tissue necrosis and lethality unrelated to cardiotoxicity. No toxicity was observed in embryos from unoiled sites. Patterns of PACs at oiled sites were consistent with oil exposure against a background of urban sources, although tissue concentrations were lower than expected to cause lethality. Embryos sampled 2 y later from oiled sites showed modest sublethal cardiotoxicity but no elevated necrosis or mortality. Bunker oil contains the chemically uncharacterized remains of crude oil refinement, and one or more of these unidentified chemicals likely interacted with natural sunlight in the intertidal zone to kill herring embryos. This reveals an important discrepancy between the resolving power of current forensic analytical chemistry and biological responses of keystone ecological species in oiled habitats. Nevertheless, we successfully delineated the biological impacts of an oil spill in an urbanized coastal estuary with an overlapping backdrop of atmospheric, vessel, and land-based sources of PAC pollution.

Complementary Speckle Patterns: Deterministic Interchange of Intrinsic Vortices and Maxima through Scattering Media.

PubMed

Gateau, Jérôme; Rigneault, Hervé; Guillon, Marc

2017-01-27

Intensity maxima and zeros of speckle patterns obtained behind a diffuser are experimentally interchanged by applying a spiral phase delay of charge ±1 to the impinging coherent beam. This transform arises from the expectation that tightly focused beams, which have a planar wave front around the focus, are so changed into vortex beams and vice versa. The statistics of extrema locations and the intensity distribution of the so-generated "complementary" patterns are characterized by numerical simulations. It is demonstrated experimentally that the incoherent superposition of the three "complementary speckle patterns" yield a synthetic speckle grain size enlarged by a factor of sqrt[3]. A cyclic permutation of optical vortices and intensity maxima is unexpectedly observed and discussed.

Using Qualitative Research to Document Variations in Student Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friedensen, Rachel E.; McCrae, Byron P.; Kimball, Ezekiel

2017-01-01

This chapter describes a qualitative study focused on the experiences of students with disabilities within the postsecondary learning environment. Reporting unexpected findings related to athletics, it makes the case that qualitative methods are well-suited for revealing information about minoritized student populations.

Effects of unexpected chords and of performer's expression on brain responses and electrodermal activity.

PubMed

Koelsch, Stefan; Kilches, Simone; Steinbeis, Nikolaus; Schelinski, Stefanie

2008-07-09

There is lack of neuroscientific studies investigating music processing with naturalistic stimuli, and brain responses to real music are, thus, largely unknown. This study investigates event-related brain potentials (ERPs), skin conductance responses (SCRs) and heart rate (HR) elicited by unexpected chords of piano sonatas as they were originally arranged by composers, and as they were played by professional pianists. From the musical excerpts played by the pianists (with emotional expression), we also created versions without variations in tempo and loudness (without musical expression) to investigate effects of musical expression on ERPs and SCRs. Compared to expected chords, unexpected chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN, reflecting music-syntactic processing) and an N5 (reflecting processing of meaning information) in the ERPs, as well as clear changes in the SCRs (reflecting that unexpected chords also elicited emotional responses). The ERAN was not influenced by emotional expression, whereas N5 potentials elicited by chords in general (regardless of their chord function) differed between the expressive and the non-expressive condition. These results show that the neural mechanisms of music-syntactic processing operate independently of the emotional qualities of a stimulus, justifying the use of stimuli without emotional expression to investigate the cognitive processing of musical structure. Moreover, the data indicate that musical expression affects the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of musical meaning. Our data are the first to reveal influences of musical performance on ERPs and SCRs, and to show physiological responses to unexpected chords in naturalistic music.

Differential Regulation of Disheveled in a Novel Vegetal Cortical Domain in Sea Urchin Eggs and Embryos: Implications for the Localized Activation of Canonical Wnt Signaling

PubMed Central

Peng, ChiehFu Jeff; Wikramanayake, Athula H.

2013-01-01

Pattern formation along the animal-vegetal (AV) axis in sea urchin embryos is initiated when canonical Wnt (cWnt) signaling is activated in vegetal blastomeres. The mechanisms that restrict cWnt signaling to vegetal blastomeres are not well understood, but there is increasing evidence that the egg’s vegetal cortex plays a critical role in this process by mediating localized “activation” of Disheveled (Dsh). To investigate how Dsh activity is regulated along the AV axis, sea urchin-specific Dsh antibodies were used to examine expression, subcellular localization, and post-translational modification of Dsh during development. Dsh is broadly expressed during early sea urchin development, but immunolocalization studies revealed that this protein is enriched in a punctate pattern in a novel vegetal cortical domain (VCD) in the egg. Vegetal blastomeres inherit this VCD during embryogenesis, and at the 60-cell stage Dsh puncta are seen in all cells that display nuclear β-catenin. Analysis of Dsh post-translational modification using two-dimensional Western blot analysis revealed that compared to Dsh pools in the bulk cytoplasm, this protein is differentially modified in the VCD and in the 16-cell stage micromeres that partially inherit this domain. Dsh localization to the VCD is not directly affected by disruption of microfilaments and microtubules, but unexpectedly, microfilament disruption led to degradation of all the Dsh pools in unfertilized eggs over a period of incubation suggesting that microfilament integrity is required for maintaining Dsh stability. These results demonstrate that a pool of differentially modified Dsh in the VCD is selectively inherited by the vegetal blastomeres that activate cWnt signaling in early embryos, and suggests that this domain functions as a scaffold for localized Dsh activation. Localized cWnt activation regulates AV axis patterning in many metazoan embryos. Hence, it is possible that the VCD is an evolutionarily conserved cytoarchitectural domain that specifies the AV axis in metazoan ova. PMID:24236196

Mumps resurgences in the United States: A historical perspective on unexpected elements.

PubMed

Barskey, Albert E; Glasser, John W; LeBaron, Charles W

2009-10-19

In 2006 the United States experienced the largest nationwide mumps epidemic in 20 years, primarily affecting college dormitory residents. Unexpected elements of the outbreak included very abrupt time course (75% of cases occurred within 90 days), geographic focality (85% of cases occurred in eight rural Midwestern states), rapid upward and downward shift in peak age-specific attack rate (5-9-year olds to 18-24-year olds, then back), and two-dose vaccine failure (63% of case-patients had received two doses). To construct a historical context in which to understand the recent outbreak, we reviewed US mumps surveillance data, vaccination coverage estimates, and relevant peer-reviewed literature for the period 1917-2008. Many of the unexpected features of the 2006 mumps outbreak had been reported several times previously in the US, e.g., the 1986-1987 mumps resurgence had extremely abrupt onset, rural geographic focality, and an upward-then-downward age shift. Evidence suggested recurrent mumps outbreak patterns were attributable to accumulation of susceptibles in dispersed situations where the risk of endemic disease exposure was low and were triggered when this susceptible population was brought together in crowded living conditions. The 2006 epidemic followed this pattern, with two unique variations: it was preceded by a period of very high vaccination rates and very low disease incidence and was characterized by two-dose failure rates among adults vaccinated in childhood. Data from the past 80 years suggest that preventing future mumps epidemics will depend on innovative measures to detect and eliminate build-up of susceptibles among highly vaccinated populations.

The use of the picture–word interference paradigm to examine naming abilities in aphasic individuals

PubMed Central

Hashimoto, Naomi; Thompson, Cynthia K.

2015-01-01

Background Although naming deficits are well documented in aphasia, on-line measures of naming processes have been little investigated. The use of on-line measures may offer further insight into the nature of aphasic naming deficits that would otherwise be difficult to interpret when using off-line measures. Aims The temporal activation of semantic and phonological processes was tracked in older normal control and aphasic individuals using a picture–word interference paradigm. The purpose of the study was to examine how word interference results can augment and/or corroborate standard language testing in the aphasic group, as well as to examine temporal patterns of activation in the aphasic group when compared to a normal control group. Methods & Procedures A total of 20 older normal individuals and 11 aphasic individuals participated. Detailed measures of each aphasic individual's language and naming skills were obtained. A visual picture–word interference paradigm was used in which the words bore either a semantic, phonological, or no relationship to 25 pictures. These competitor words were presented at stimulus onset asynchronies of −300 ms, +300 ms, and 0 ms. Outcomes & Results Analyses of naming RTs in both groups revealed significant early semantic interference effects, mid-semantic interference effects, and mid-phonological facilitation effects. A matched control-aphasic group comparison revealed no differences in the temporal activation of effects during the course of naming. Partial support for this RT pattern was found in the aphasic naming error pattern. The aphasic group also demonstrated greater SIEs and PFEs compared to the matched control group, which indicated disruptions of the phonological processing stage. Analyses of behavioural performances of the aphasic group corroborated this finding. Conclusions The aphasic naming RTs results were unexpected given the results from the priming literature, which has supported the idea of slowed or reduced patterns of activation in aphasic individuals. However, analyses of naming RTs also confirmed the behavioural finding of a disruption surrounding phonological processes; thus, the analyses of naming latencies offers another potential means of pinpointing breakdowns of lexical access in individuals with aphasia. PMID:26166927

The transcriptome recipe for the venom cocktail of Tityus bahiensis scorpion.

PubMed

de Oliveira, Ursula Castro; Candido, Denise Maria; Dorce, Valquíria Abrão Coronado; Junqueira-de-Azevedo, Inácio de Loiola Meirelles

2015-03-01

Scorpion venom is a mixture of peptides, including antimicrobial, bradykinin-potentiating and anionic peptides and small to medium proteins, such as ion channel toxins, metalloproteinases and phospholipases that together cause severe clinical manifestation. Tityus bahiensis is the second most medically important scorpion species in Brazil and it is widely distributed in the country with the exception of the North Region. Here we sequenced and analyzed the transcripts from the venom glands of T. bahiensis, aiming at identifying and annotating venom gland expressed genes. A total of 116,027 long reads were generated by pyrosequencing and assembled in 2891 isotigs. An annotation process identified transcripts by similarity to known toxins, revealing that putative venom components represent 7.4% of gene expression. The major toxins identified are potassium and sodium channel toxins, whereas metalloproteinases showed an unexpected high abundance. Phylogenetic analysis of deduced metalloproteinases from T. bahiensis and other scorpions revealed a pattern of ancient and intraspecific gene expansions. Other venom molecules identified include antimicrobial, anionic and bradykinin-potentiating peptides, besides several putative new venom components. This report provides the first attempt to massively identify the venom components of this species and constitutes one of the few transcriptomic efforts on the genus Tityus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Degenerative joint disease: multiple joint involvement in young and mature dogs.

PubMed

Olsewski, J M; Lust, G; Rendano, V T; Summers, B A

1983-07-01

Radiologic, pathologic, and ancillary methods were used to determine the occurrence of degenerative joint disease involving multiple joints of immature and adult dogs. Animals were selected for the development of hip joint dysplasia and chronic degenerative joint disease. Of disease-prone dogs, 82% (45 of 55 dogs) had radiologic changes, indicative of hip dysplasia, by 1 year of age. At necropsy, more abnormal joints were identified than by radiographic examination. Among 92 dogs between 3 to 11 months of age that had joint abnormalities, 71% had hip joint involvement; 38%, shoulder joint involvement; 22%, stifle joint involvement; and 40% had multiple joint involvement. Polyarthritis was asymptomatic and unexpected. Radiographic examination of older dogs also revealed evidence of degenerative joint disease in many joints. Multiple joint involvement was substantiated at necropsy of young and mature dogs. A similar pattern of polyarticular osteoarthritis was revealed in a survey (computer search) of necropsy reports from medical case records of 100 adult and elderly dogs. Usually, the joint disease was an incidental observation, unrelated to the clinical disease or to the cause of death. The frequent occurrence of degenerative changes in several joints of dogs aged 6 months to 17 years indicated that osteoarthritis may be progressive in these joints and raises the possibility that systemic factors are involved in the disease process.

Nuclear and chloroplast DNA phylogeny reveals complex evolutionary history of Elymus pendulinus.

PubMed

Yan, Chi; Hu, Qianni; Sun, Genlou

2014-02-01

Evidence accumulated over the last decade has shown that allopolyploid genomes may undergo complex reticulate evolution. In this study, 13 accessions of tetraploid Elymus pendulinus were analyzed using two low-copy nuclear genes (RPB2 and PepC) and two regions of chloroplast genome (Rps16 and trnD-trnT). Previous studies suggested that Pseudoroegneria (St) and an unknown diploid (Y) were genome donors to E. pendulinus, and that Pseudoroegneria was the maternal donor. Our results revealed an extreme reticulate pattern, with at least four distinct gene lineages coexisting within this species that might be acquired through a possible combination of allotetraploidization and introgression from both within and outside the tribe Hordeeae. Chloroplast DNA data identified two potential maternal genome donors (Pseudoroegneria and an unknown species outside Hordeeae) to E. pendulinus. Nuclear gene data indicated that both Pseudoroegneria and an unknown Y diploid have contributed to the nuclear genome of E. pendulinus, in agreement with cytogenetic data. However, unexpected contributions from Hordeum and unknown aliens from within or outside Hordeeae to E. pendulinus without genome duplication were observed. Elymus pendulinus provides a remarkable instance of the previously unsuspected chimerical nature of some plant genomes and the resulting phylogenetic complexity produced by multiple historical reticulation events.

Mycoheterotrophic germination of Pyrola asarifolia dust seeds reveals convergences with germination in orchids.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Yasushi; Fukukawa, Satoru; Kunishi, Ayako; Suga, Haruhisa; Richard, Franck; Sauve, Mathieu; Selosse, Marc-André

2012-08-01

Dust seeds that germinate by obtaining nutrients from symbiotic fungi have evolved independently in orchids and 11 other plant lineages. The fungi involved in this 'mycoheterotrophic' germination have been identified in some orchids and non-photosynthetic Ericaceae, and proved identical to mycorrhizal fungi of adult plants. We investigated a third lineage, the Pyroleae, chlorophyllous Ericaceae species whose partial mycoheterotrophy at adulthood has recently attracted much attention. We observed experimental Pyrola asarifolia germination at four Japanese sites and investigated the germination pattern and symbiotic fungi, which we compared to mycorrhizal fungi of adult plants. Adult P. asarifolia, like other Pyroleae, associated with diverse fungal species that were a subset of those mycorrhizal on surrounding trees. Conversely, seedlings specifically associated with a lineage of Sebacinales clade B (endophytic Basidiomycetes) revealed an intriguing evolutionary convergence with orchids, some of which also germinate with Sebacinales clade B. Congruently, seedlings clustered spatially together, but not with adults. This unexpected transition in specificity and ecology of partners could support the developmental transition from full to partial mycoheterotrophy, but probably challenges survival and distribution during development. We discuss the physiological and ecological traits that predisposed to the repeated recruitment of Sebacinales clade B for dust seed germination. © 2012 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2012 New Phytologist Trust.

Rural families' interpretations of experiencing unexpected transition in the wake of a natural disaster.

PubMed

Fernandes, Gisele Cristina Manfrini; Boehs, Astrid Eggert; Denham, Sharon A; Nitschke, Rosane Gonçalves; Martini, Jussara Gue

2017-02-13

Natural disasters affect populations in various parts of the world. The impacts of disasters can cause many problems to the health of people and disruption to family life, potentially leading to an unexpected transition. The objective of this paper is to present the unexpected transitional experiences of rural families following a natural disaster. A multiple case study of six families was conducted with children and adolescents in a rural area affected by a 2008 disaster in southern Brazil. For data collection, we used participant observation, narrative interviews, genograms, ecomaps and an instrument called calendar routine. The analysis of the data resulted in different family interpretations about the changes resulting from the storm and compared life before and after the disaster. The loss of homes and loved ones, migration, unemployment, and losses from the farm were the main changes associated with new development tasks. The experiences of family transition after the disaster revealed that losses influenced social lives, daily routines and the preservation of cultural values.

Microbial rRNA: rDNA gene ratios may be unexpectedly low due to extracellular DNA preservation in soils

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

We tested a method of estimating the activity of detectable individual bacterial and archaeal OTUs within a community by calculating ratios of absolute 16S rRNA to rDNA copy numbers. We investigated phylogenetically coherent patterns of activity among soil prokaryotes in non-growing soil communitie...

AN UNEXPECTED TEMPORAL PATTERN OF COLIPHAGE ISOLATION IN GROUNDWATERS SAMPLED FROM WELLS AT VARIED DISTANCES FROM RECLAIMED WATER RECHARGE SITES

EPA Science Inventory

Potable and monitoring wells located in close proximity to a large groundwater recharge project which utilizes a blend of surface water and reclaimed wastewater for recharge were tested for coliphage over a period of 6 months to assess the potential for virus migration. During th...

Tales of the Unexpected: Coping among Female Collegiate Volleyball Players

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holt, Nicholas L.; Berg, Kylie-Joy; Tamminen, Katherine A.

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of appraisal, coping, and coping effectiveness in sport. Ten players from a collegiate female volleyball team were interviewed on two occasions, first in the week before a provincial final playoff tournament and in the week following the tournament. Data were transcribed verbatim and subjected to…

False Belief Understanding: The Influence of Person, Grammatical Mood, Counterfactual Reasoning and Working Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Muller, Ulrich; Miller, Michael R.; Michalczyk, Kurt; Karapinka, Aaron

2007-01-01

The present study had two major goals. The first goal was to assess the relative difficulty among different versions of the unexpected contents task by systematically varying the dimensions of grammatical mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) and person (self vs. other), and to examine the correlational pattern between these different versions of the…

Children's Developing Knowledge of "Wh"-/Quantifier Question-Answer Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Achimova, Asya; Syrett, Kristen; Musolino, Julien; Déprez, Viviane

2017-01-01

In response to questions in which a "wh"-term interacts with a universal quantifier in object position, such as "Who picked every toy?," children as old as 5 years of age often provide a list, pairing toys with the people who picked each of them. This response pattern is unexpected, it has been claimed, because children appear…

Structural Pattern Recognition Techniques for Data Retrieval in Massive Fusion Databases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vega, J.; Murari, A.; Rattá, G. A.; Castro, P.; Pereira, A.; Portas, A.

2008-03-01

Diagnostics of present day reactor class fusion experiments, like the Joint European Torus (JET), generate thousands of signals (time series and video images) in each discharge. There is a direct correspondence between the physical phenomena taking place in the plasma and the set of structural shapes (patterns) that they form in the signals: bumps, unexpected amplitude changes, abrupt peaks, periodic components, high intensity zones or specific edge contours. A major difficulty related to data analysis is the identification, in a rapid and automated way, of a set of discharges with comparable behavior, i.e. discharges with "similar" patterns. Pattern recognition techniques are efficient tools to search for similar structural forms within the database in a fast an intelligent way. To this end, classification systems must be developed to be used as indexation methods to directly fetch the more similar patterns.

Sudden death and paroxysmal autonomic dysfunction in stiff-man syndrome.

PubMed

Mitsumoto, H; Schwartzman, M J; Estes, M L; Chou, S M; La Franchise, E F; De Camilli, P; Solimena, M

1991-04-01

Two women with typical stiff-man syndrome (SMS) developed increasingly frequent attacks of muscle spasms with severe paroxysmal autonomic dysfunctions such as transient hyperpyrexia, diaphoresis, tachypnea, tachycardia, pupillary dilation, and arterial hypertension. Autoantibodies to GABA-ergic neurons were identified in the serum of both patients and in the cerebrospinal fluid of one. Both died suddenly and unexpectedly. General autopsy did not reveal the cause of death. Neuropathological studies revealed perivascular gliosis in the spinal cord and brain stem of one patient and lymphocytic perivascular infiltration in the spinal cord, brain stem, and basal ganglia of the other. The occurrence of a chronic inflammatory reaction in one of the two patients supports the idea that an autoimmune disease against GABA-ergic neurons may be involved in SMS. A review of the literature indicates that functional impairment in SMS is severe and prognosis is unpredictable because of the potential for sudden and unexpected death. Both muscular abnormalities and autonomic dysfunctions may result from autoimmunity directed against GABA-ergic neurons.

Kinase inhibitor profiling reveals unexpected opportunities to inhibit disease-associated mutant kinases

PubMed Central

Duong-Ly, Krisna C.; Devarajan, Karthik; Liang, Shuguang; Horiuchi, Kurumi Y.; Wang, Yuren; Ma, Haiching; Peterson, Jeffrey R.

2016-01-01

Summary Small-molecule kinase inhibitors have typically been designed to inhibit wild-type kinases rather than the mutant forms that frequently arise in diseases such as cancer. Mutations can have serious clinical implications by increasing kinase catalytic activity or conferring therapeutic resistance. To identify opportunities to repurpose inhibitors against disease-associated mutant kinases, we conducted a large-scale functional screen of 183 known kinase inhibitors against 76 recombinant, mutant kinases. The results revealed lead compounds with activity against clinically important mutant kinases including ALK, LRRK2, RET, and EGFR as well as unexpected opportunities for repurposing FDA-approved kinase inhibitors as leads for additional indications. Furthermore, using T674I PDGFRα as an example, we show how single-dose screening data can provide predictive structure-activity data to guide subsequent inhibitor optimization. This study provides a resource for the development of inhibitors against numerous disease-associated mutant kinases and illustrates the potential of unbiased profiling as an approach to compound-centric inhibitor development. PMID:26776524

Hypervitaminosis D in Guinea Pigs with α-Mannosidosis

PubMed Central

Jensen, JanLee A; Brice, Angela K; Bagel, Jessica H; Mexas, Angela M; Yoon, Sea Young; Wolfe, John H

2013-01-01

A colony of guinea pigs (n = 9) with α-mannosidosis was fed a pelleted commercial laboratory guinea pig diet. Over 2 mo, all 9 guinea pigs unexpectedly showed anorexia and weight loss (11.7% to 30.0% of baseline weight), and 3 animals demonstrated transient polyuria and polydipsia. Blood chemistry panels in these 3 guinea pigs revealed high-normal total calcium, high-normal phosphate, and high ALP. Urine specific gravity was dilute (1.003, 1.009, 1.013) in the 3 animals tested. Postmortem examination of 7 animals that were euthanized after failing to respond to supportive care revealed renal interstitial fibrosis with tubular mineralization, soft tissue mineralization in multiple organs, hepatic lipidosis, and pneumonia. Analysis of the pelleted diet revealed that it had been formulated with a vitamin D3 content of more than 150 times the normal concentration. Ionized calcium and 25-hydroxyvitamin D values were both high in serum saved from 2 euthanized animals, confirming the diagnosis of hypervitaminosis D. This report discusses the clinical signs, blood chemistry results, and gross and histologic findings of hypervitaminosis D in a colony of guinea pigs. When unexpected signs occur colony-wide, dietary differentials should be investigated at an early time point. PMID:23582422

Structural and Functional Survey of Environmental Aminoglycoside Acetyltransferases Reveals Functionality of Resistance Enzymes.

PubMed

Xu, Zhiyu; Stogios, Peter J; Quaile, Andrew T; Forsberg, Kevin J; Patel, Sanket; Skarina, Tatiana; Houliston, Scott; Arrowsmith, Cheryl; Dantas, Gautam; Savchenko, Alexei

2017-09-08

Aminoglycoside N-acetyltransferases (AACs) confer resistance against the clinical use of aminoglycoside antibiotics. The origin of AACs can be traced to environmental microbial species representing a vast reservoir for new and emerging resistance enzymes, which are currently undercharacterized. Here, we performed detailed structural characterization and functional analyses of four metagenomic AAC (meta-AACs) enzymes recently identified in a survey of agricultural and grassland soil microbiomes ( Forsberg et al. Nature 2014 , 509 , 612 ). These enzymes are new members of the Gcn5-Related-N-Acetyltransferase superfamily and confer resistance to the aminoglycosides gentamicin C, sisomicin, and tobramycin. Moreover, the meta-AAC0020 enzyme demonstrated activity comparable with an AAC(3)-I enzyme that serves as a model AAC enzyme identified in a clinical bacterial isolate. The crystal structure of meta-AAC0020 in complex with sisomicin confirmed an unexpected AAC(6') regiospecificity of this enzyme and revealed a drug binding mechanism distinct from previously characterized AAC(6') enzymes. Together, our data highlights the presence of highly active antibiotic-modifying enzymes in the environmental microbiome and reveals unexpected diversity in substrate specificity. These observations of additional AAC enzymes must be considered in the search for novel aminoglycosides less prone to resistance.

Hypervitaminosis D in guinea pigs with α-mannosidosis.

PubMed

Jensen, Janlee A; Brice, Angela K; Bagel, Jessica H; Mexas, Angela M; Yoon, Sea Young; Wolfe, John H

2013-04-01

A colony of guinea pigs (n = 9) with α-mannosidosis was fed a pelleted commercial laboratory guinea pig diet. Over 2 mo, all 9 guinea pigs unexpectedly showed anorexia and weight loss (11.7% to 30.0% of baseline weight), and 3 animals demonstrated transient polyuria and polydipsia. Blood chemistry panels in these 3 guinea pigs revealed high-normal total calcium, high-normal phosphate, and high ALP. Urine specific gravity was dilute (1.003, 1.009, 1.013) in the 3 animals tested. Postmortem examination of 7 animals that were euthanized after failing to respond to supportive care revealed renal interstitial fibrosis with tubular mineralization, soft tissue mineralization in multiple organs, hepatic lipidosis, and pneumonia. Analysis of the pelleted diet revealed that it had been formulated with a vitamin D3 content of more than 150 times the normal concentration. Ionized calcium and 25-hydroxyvitamin D values were both high in serum saved from 2 euthanized animals, confirming the diagnosis of hypervitaminosis D. This report discusses the clinical signs, blood chemistry results, and gross and histologic findings of hypervitaminosis D in a colony of guinea pigs. When unexpected signs occur colony-wide, dietary differentials should be investigated at an early time point.

How do microalgae perceive light in a high-rate pond? Towards more realistic Lagrangian experiments.

PubMed

Demory, David; Combe, Charlotte; Hartmann, Philipp; Talec, Amélie; Pruvost, Eric; Hamouda, Raouf; Souillé, Fabien; Lamare, Pierre-Olivier; Bristeau, Marie-Odile; Sainte-Marie, Jacques; Rabouille, Sophie; Mairet, Francis; Sciandra, Antoine; Bernard, Olivier

2018-05-01

Hydrodynamics in a high-rate production reactor for microalgae cultivation affects the light history perceived by cells. The interplay between cell movement and medium turbidity leads to a complex light pattern, whose forcing effects on photosynthesis and photoacclimation dynamics are non-trivial. Hydrodynamics of high density algal ponds mixed by a paddle wheel has been studied recently, although the focus has never been on describing its impact on photosynthetic growth efficiency. In this multidisciplinary downscaling study, we first reconstructed single cell trajectories in an open raceway using an original hydrodynamical model offering a powerful discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations tailored to systems with free surfaces. The trajectory of a particular cell was selected and the associated high-frequency light pattern was computed. This light pattern was then experimentally reproduced in an Arduino-driven computer controlled cultivation system with a low density Dunaliella salina culture. The effect on growth and pigment content was recorded for various frequencies of the light pattern, by setting different paddle wheel velocities. Results show that the frequency of this realistic signal plays a decisive role in the dynamics of photosynthesis, thus revealing an unexpected photosynthetic response compared to that recorded under the on/off signals usually used in the literature. Indeed, the light received by a single cell contains signals from low to high frequencies that nonlinearly interact with the photosynthesis process and differentially stimulate the various time scales associated with photoacclimation and energy dissipation. This study highlights the need for experiments with more realistic light stimuli to better understand microalgal growth at high cell densities. An experimental protocol is also proposed, with simple, yet more realistic, step functions for light fluctuations.

How do microalgae perceive light in a high-rate pond? Towards more realistic Lagrangian experiments

PubMed Central

Demory, David; Combe, Charlotte; Hartmann, Philipp; Talec, Amélie; Pruvost, Eric; Hamouda, Raouf; Souillé, Fabien; Lamare, Pierre-Olivier; Bristeau, Marie-Odile; Sainte-Marie, Jacques; Rabouille, Sophie; Mairet, Francis; Sciandra, Antoine

2018-01-01

Hydrodynamics in a high-rate production reactor for microalgae cultivation affects the light history perceived by cells. The interplay between cell movement and medium turbidity leads to a complex light pattern, whose forcing effects on photosynthesis and photoacclimation dynamics are non-trivial. Hydrodynamics of high density algal ponds mixed by a paddle wheel has been studied recently, although the focus has never been on describing its impact on photosynthetic growth efficiency. In this multidisciplinary downscaling study, we first reconstructed single cell trajectories in an open raceway using an original hydrodynamical model offering a powerful discretization of the Navier–Stokes equations tailored to systems with free surfaces. The trajectory of a particular cell was selected and the associated high-frequency light pattern was computed. This light pattern was then experimentally reproduced in an Arduino-driven computer controlled cultivation system with a low density Dunaliella salina culture. The effect on growth and pigment content was recorded for various frequencies of the light pattern, by setting different paddle wheel velocities. Results show that the frequency of this realistic signal plays a decisive role in the dynamics of photosynthesis, thus revealing an unexpected photosynthetic response compared to that recorded under the on/off signals usually used in the literature. Indeed, the light received by a single cell contains signals from low to high frequencies that nonlinearly interact with the photosynthesis process and differentially stimulate the various time scales associated with photoacclimation and energy dissipation. This study highlights the need for experiments with more realistic light stimuli to better understand microalgal growth at high cell densities. An experimental protocol is also proposed, with simple, yet more realistic, step functions for light fluctuations. PMID:29892466

Interpopulation Comparison of Sex-Biased Mortality and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Sea-Run Masu Salmon, Oncorhynchus masou.

PubMed

Tamate, Tsuyoshi

2015-08-01

Evolutionary ecologists often expect that natural and sexual selection result in systematic co-occurrence patterns of sex-biased mortality and sexual size dimorphism (SSD) within animal species. However, whether such patterns actually occur in wild animals is poorly examined. The following expectation, the larger sex suffers higher mortality, was primarily tested here for apparently native sea-run masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou) in three populations in Hokkaido, Japan. Field surveys on sex ratios, body sizes, and ages of smolts and returning adults revealed that two of the three populations exhibited an expected pattern, a female-biased marine mortality and SSD, but one population demonstrated an unexpected co-occurrence of male-biased marine mortality and female-biased SSD. These female-biased SSDs were attributed to faster marine growth of females because of no sex difference in smolt body size. It has been previously suggested that breeding selection favoring large size generally act more strongly in females than in males in Japanese anadromous masu, as there is a weak sexual selection on adult males but universally intensive natural selection on adult females. Thus, this hypothesis explains female-biased SSDs well in all study populations. Interpopulation variation in sex-biased mortality found here might result from differences in marine predation and/or fishing pressures, given that selection driving female-biased SSD makes females forage more aggressively than males during the marine phase. Taken together, these results raise the possibility that evolutionary forces have shaped adaptive sex-specific foraging strategies under relationships between growth and mortality, resulting in co-occurrence patterns of sex-biased mortality and SSD within animal species.

Generalization in visual recognition by the honeybee (Apis mellifera): a review and explanation.

PubMed

Horridge, Adrian

2009-06-01

During a century of studies on honeybee vision, generalization was the word for the acceptance of an unfamiliar pattern in the place of the training pattern, or the ability to learn a common factor in a group of related patterns. The ideas that bees generalize one pattern for another, detect similarity and differences, or form categories, were derived from the use of the same terms in the human cognitive sciences. Recent work now reveals a mechanistic explanation for bees. Small groups of ommatidia converge upon feature detectors that respond selectively to certain parameters that are in the pattern: modulation in the receptors, edge orientations, or to areas of black or colour. Within each local region of the eye the responses of each type of feature detector are summed to form a cue. The cues are therefore not in the pattern, but are local totals in the bee. Each cue has a quality, a quantity and a position on the eye, like a neuron response. This summation of edge detector responses destroys the local pattern based on edge orientation but preserves a coarse, sparse and simplified version of the panorama. In order of preference, the cues are: local receptor modulation, positions of well-separated black areas, a small black spot, colour and positions of the centres of each cue, radial edges, the averaged edge orientation and tangential edges. A pattern is always accepted by a trained bee that detects the expected cues in the expected places and no unexpected cues. The actual patterns are irrelevant. Therefore we have an explanation of generalization that is based on experimental testing of trained bees, not by analogy with other animals. Historically, generalization appeared when the training patterns were regularly interchanged to make the bees examine them. This strategy forced the bees to ignore parameters outside the training pattern, so that learning was restricted to one local eye region. This in turn limited the memory to one cue of each type, so that recognition was ambiguous because the cues were insufficient to distinguish all patterns. On the other hand, bees trained on very large targets, or by landing on the pattern, learned cues in several eye regions, and were able to recognize the coarse configural layout.

The effects of learning on event-related potential correlates of musical expectancy.

PubMed

Carrión, Ricardo E; Bly, Benjamin Martin

2008-09-01

Musical processing studies have shown that unexpected endings in familiar musical sequences produce extended latencies of the P300 component. The present study sought to identify event-related potential (ERP) correlates of musical expectancy by entraining participants with rule-governed chord sequences and testing whether unexpected endings created similar responses. Two experiments were conducted in which participants performed grammaticality classifications without training (Experiment 1) and with training (Experiment 2). In both experiments, deviant chords differing in instrumental timbre elicited a MMN/P3a waveform complex. Violations related to learned patterns elicited an early right anterior negativity and P3b. Latency and amplitude of peak components were modulated by the physical characteristics of the chords, expectations due to prior knowledge of musical harmony, and contextually defined expectations developed through entrainment.

Fast or slow? Compressions (or not) in number-to-line mappings.

PubMed

Candia, Victor; Deprez, Paola; Wernery, Jannis; Núñez, Rafael

2015-01-01

We investigated, in a university student population, spontaneous (non-speeded) fast and slow number-to-line mapping responses using non-symbolic (dots) and symbolic (words) stimuli. Seeking for less conventionalized responses, we used anchors 0-130, rather than the standard 0-100. Slow responses to both types of stimuli only produced linear mappings with no evidence of non-linear compression. In contrast, fast responses revealed distinct patterns of non-linear compression for dots and words. A predicted logarithmic compression was observed in fast responses to dots in the 0-130 range, but not in the reduced 0-100 range, indicating compression in proximity of the upper anchor 130, not the standard 100. Moreover, fast responses to words revealed an unexpected significant negative compression in the reduced 0-100 range, but not in the 0-130 range, indicating compression in proximity to the lower anchor 0. Results show that fast responses help revealing the fundamentally distinct nature of symbolic and non-symbolic quantity representation. Whole number words, being intrinsically mediated by cultural phenomena such as language and education, emphasize the invariance of magnitude between them—essential for linear mappings, and therefore, unlike non-symbolic (psychophysical) stimuli, yield spatial mappings that don't seem to be influenced by the Weber-Fechner law of psychophysics. However, high levels of education (when combined with an absence of standard upper anchors) may lead fast responses to overestimate magnitude invariance on the lower end of word numerals.

The role of the right temporoparietal junction in attention and social interaction as revealed by ALE meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Rottschy, C.; Oberwelland, E.; Bzdok, D.; Fox, P. T.; Eickhoff, S. B.; Fink, G. R.; Konrad, K.

2016-01-01

The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is frequently associated with different capacities that to shift attention to unexpected stimuli (reorienting of attention) and to understand others’ (false) mental state [theory of mind (ToM), typically represented by false belief tasks]. Competing hypotheses either suggest the rTPJ representing a unitary region involved in separate cognitive functions or consisting of subregions subserving distinct processes. We conducted activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses to test these hypotheses. A conjunction analysis across ALE meta-analyses delineating regions consistently recruited by reorienting of attention and false belief studies revealed the anterior rTPJ, suggesting an overarching role of this specific region. Moreover, the anatomical difference analysis unravelled the posterior rTPJ as higher converging in false belief compared with reorienting of attention tasks. This supports the concept of an exclusive role of the posterior rTPJ in the social domain. These results were complemented by meta-analytic connectivity mapping (MACM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) analysis to investigate whole-brain connectivity patterns in task-constrained and task-free brain states. This allowed for detailing the functional separation of the anterior and posterior rTPJ. The combination of MACM and RSFC mapping showed that the posterior rTPJ has connectivity patterns with typical ToM regions, whereas the anterior part of rTPJ co-activates with the attentional network. Taken together, our data suggest that rTPJ contains two functionally fractionated subregions: while posterior rTPJ seems exclusively involved in the social domain, anterior rTPJ is involved in both, attention and ToM, conceivably indicating an attentional shifting role of this region. PMID:24915964

Altitudinal Variation at Duplicated β-Globin Genes in Deer Mice: Effects of Selection, Recombination, and Gene Conversion

PubMed Central

Storz, Jay F.; Natarajan, Chandrasekhar; Cheviron, Zachary A.; Hoffmann, Federico G.; Kelly, John K.

2012-01-01

Spatially varying selection on a given polymorphism is expected to produce a localized peak in the between-population component of nucleotide diversity, and theory suggests that the chromosomal extent of elevated differentiation may be enhanced in cases where tandemly linked genes contribute to fitness variation. An intriguing example is provided by the tandemly duplicated β-globin genes of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), which contribute to adaptive differentiation in blood–oxygen affinity between high- and low-altitude populations. Remarkably, the two β-globin genes segregate the same pair of functionally distinct alleles due to a history of interparalog gene conversion and alleles of the same functional type are in perfect coupling-phase linkage disequilibrium (LD). Here we report a multilocus analysis of nucleotide polymorphism and LD in highland and lowland mice with different genetic backgrounds at the β-globin genes. The analysis of haplotype structure revealed a paradoxical pattern whereby perfect LD between the two β-globin paralogs (which are separated by 16.2 kb) is maintained in spite of the fact that LD within both paralogs decays to background levels over physical distances of less than 1 kb. The survey of nucleotide polymorphism revealed that elevated levels of altitudinal differentiation at each of the β-globin genes drop away quite rapidly in the external flanking regions (upstream of the 5′ paralog and downstream of the 3′ paralog), but the level of differentiation remains unexpectedly high across the intergenic region. Observed patterns of diversity and haplotype structure are difficult to reconcile with expectations of a two-locus selection model with multiplicative fitness. PMID:22042573

Dynamic oscillatory processes governing cued orienting and allocation of auditory attention

PubMed Central

Ahveninen, Jyrki; Huang, Samantha; Belliveau, John W.; Chang, Wei-Tang; Hämäläinen, Matti

2013-01-01

In everyday listening situations, we need to constantly switch between alternative sound sources and engage attention according to cues that match our goals and expectations. The exact neuronal bases of these processes are poorly understood. We investigated oscillatory brain networks controlling auditory attention using cortically constrained fMRI-weighted magnetoencephalography/ electroencephalography (MEG/EEG) source estimates. During consecutive trials, subjects were instructed to shift attention based on a cue, presented in the ear where a target was likely to follow. To promote audiospatial attention effects, the targets were embedded in streams of dichotically presented standard tones. Occasionally, an unexpected novel sound occurred opposite to the cued ear, to trigger involuntary orienting. According to our cortical power correlation analyses, increased frontoparietal/temporal 30–100 Hz gamma activity at 200–1400 ms after cued orienting predicted fast and accurate discrimination of subsequent targets. This sustained correlation effect, possibly reflecting voluntary engagement of attention after the initial cue-driven orienting, spread from the temporoparietal junction, anterior insula, and inferior frontal (IFC) cortices to the right frontal eye fields. Engagement of attention to one ear resulted in a significantly stronger increase of 7.5–15 Hz alpha in the ipsilateral than contralateral parieto-occipital cortices 200–600 ms after the cue onset, possibly reflecting crossmodal modulation of the dorsal visual pathway during audiospatial attention. Comparisons of cortical power patterns also revealed significant increases of sustained right medial frontal cortex theta power, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior insula/IFC beta power, and medial parietal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex gamma activity after cued vs. novelty-triggered orienting (600–1400 ms). Our results reveal sustained oscillatory patterns associated with voluntary engagement of auditory spatial attention, with the frontoparietal and temporal gamma increases being best predictors of subsequent behavioral performance. PMID:23915050

Migratory capabilities of human umbilical cord blood-derived neural stem cells (HUCB-NSC) in vitro.

PubMed

Janowski, Miroslaw; Lukomska, Barbara; Domanska-Janik, Krystyna

2011-01-01

Many types of neural progenitors from various sources have been evaluated for therapy of CNS disorders. Prerequisite for success in cell therapy is the ability for transplanted cells to reach appropriate target such as stroke lesion. We have established neural stem cell line from human umbilical cord blood neural stem (HUCB-NSC). In the present study we evaluated migratory capabilities of cells (HUCB-NSC) and the presence of various migration-related receptors. Immunocytochemical analysis revealed abundant expression of CXCR4, PDGFR-alpha, PDGFR-beta, c-Met, VEGFR, IGF-1R and PSA-NCAM receptors in non-adherent population of HUCB-NSC cultured in serum free (SF) conditions (SF cells). Biological activity of selected receptors was confirmed by HUCB-NSC in vitro migration towards SDF-1 and IGF-1 ligands. Additionally, rat brain-derived homogenates have been assessed for their chemoattractive activity of HUCB-NSC. Our experiments unveiled that brain tissue was more attracted for HUCB-NSC than single ligands with higher potency of injured than intact brain. Moreover, adherent HUCB-NSC cultured in low serum (LS) conditions (LS cells) were employed to investigate an impact of different extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins on cell motility. It turned out that laminin provided most permissive microenvironment for cell migration, followed by fibronectin and gelatin. Unexpected nuclear localization of CXCR4 in SF cells prompted us to characterize intracellular pattern of this expression in relation to developmental stage of cells cultured in different conditions. Continuous culture of LS cells revealed cytoplasmatic pattern of CXCR4 expression while HUCB-NSC cultured in high serum conditions (HS cells) resulted in gradual translocation of CXCR4 from nucleus to cytoplasm and then to arising processes. Terminal differentiation of HUCB-NSC was followed by CXCR4 expression decline.

The Measurement of Stress in Nonvisual Travel.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ponchillia, Paul E.; And Others

1984-01-01

Measurement of stress in nonvisual travel was attempted with both an electromyograph and a galvonic skin response unit in four travel situations. Results revealed significantly greater stress response when unexpected contact with objects was made than with expected contacts and street crossings. Instructors' intervention also increased stress.…

Leveraging Failure in Design Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lobato, Joanne; Walters, C. David; Hohensee, Charles; Gruver, John; Diamond, Jaime Marie

2015-01-01

Even in the resource-rich, more ideal conditions of many design-based classroom interventions, unexpected events can lead to disappointing results in student learning. However, if later iterations in a design research study are more successful, the previous failures can provide opportunities for comparisons to reveal subtle differences in…

Effects of Unexpected Chords and of Performer's Expression on Brain Responses and Electrodermal Activity

PubMed Central

Koelsch, Stefan; Kilches, Simone; Steinbeis, Nikolaus; Schelinski, Stefanie

2008-01-01

Background There is lack of neuroscientific studies investigating music processing with naturalistic stimuli, and brain responses to real music are, thus, largely unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings This study investigates event-related brain potentials (ERPs), skin conductance responses (SCRs) and heart rate (HR) elicited by unexpected chords of piano sonatas as they were originally arranged by composers, and as they were played by professional pianists. From the musical excerpts played by the pianists (with emotional expression), we also created versions without variations in tempo and loudness (without musical expression) to investigate effects of musical expression on ERPs and SCRs. Compared to expected chords, unexpected chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN, reflecting music-syntactic processing) and an N5 (reflecting processing of meaning information) in the ERPs, as well as clear changes in the SCRs (reflecting that unexpected chords also elicited emotional responses). The ERAN was not influenced by emotional expression, whereas N5 potentials elicited by chords in general (regardless of their chord function) differed between the expressive and the non-expressive condition. Conclusions/Significance These results show that the neural mechanisms of music-syntactic processing operate independently of the emotional qualities of a stimulus, justifying the use of stimuli without emotional expression to investigate the cognitive processing of musical structure. Moreover, the data indicate that musical expression affects the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of musical meaning. Our data are the first to reveal influences of musical performance on ERPs and SCRs, and to show physiological responses to unexpected chords in naturalistic music. PMID:18612459

Anxiety and the Processing of Emotionally Threatening Stimuli: Distinctive Patterns of Selective Attention among High- and Low-Test-Anxious Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vasey, Michael W.; And Others

1996-01-01

Tested for bias toward shifting attention toward threatening stimuli among high-anxious children and away from such stimuli among low-anxious children, ages 11-14. Results supported the predicted attentional bias toward threat cues among high-test-anxious children. Unexpectedly, the predicted attentional bias away from threat cues among…

Trade in Higher Education Services in Malaysia: Key Policy Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tham, Siew Yean

2010-01-01

In recent years, Malaysia has emerged as an unexpected contender in the world market for international students in higher education. Recognizing this sector as a potential new source of growth and export revenue, Malaysia aims to become a regional hub for higher education. In view of this, the objectives of this paper are to profile the pattern of…

Widespread inbreeding and unexpected geographic patterns of genetic variation in eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), an imperiled North American conifer

Treesearch

Kevin M. Potter; Robert M. Jetton; William S. Dvorak; Valerie D. Hipkins; Rusty Rhea; W. Andrew Whittier

2012-01-01

Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis [L.] Carr.) is an ecologically important tree species experiencing severe mortality across much of its eastern North American distribution, caused by infestation of the exotic hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand). To guide gene conservation strategies for this imperiled conifer, we conducted a range-wide genetic variation...

Detecting leaf phenology of seasonally moist tropical forests in South America with multi-temporal MODIS images.

Treesearch

Xiangming Xiao; Stephen Hagen; Qingyuan Zhang; Michael Keller; Berrien Moore III

2006-01-01

Leaf phenology of tropical evergreen forests affects carbon and water fluxes. In an earlier study of a seasonally moist evergreen tropical forest site in the Amazon basin, time series data of Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from the VEGETATION and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors showed an unexpected seasonal pattern, with higher EVI in the...

Revealing misassembled segments in the bovine reference genome by high resolution linkage disequilibrium scan

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Misassembly signatures, created by shuffling the order of sequences while assembling a genome, can be easily seen by analyzing the unexpected behaviour of the linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay. A heuristic process was proposed to identify those misassembly signatures and presented the ones found in ...

Rethinking the longitudinal stream temperature paradigm: region-wide comparison of thermal infrared imagery reveals unexpected complexity of river temperatures

EPA Science Inventory

We used an extensive dataset of remotely sensed summertime river temperature to compare longitudinal profiles (temperature versus distance) for 54 rivers in the Pacific Northwest. We evaluated (1) how often profiles fit theoretical expectations of asymptotic downstream warming, a...

Aging does not affect the intralimb coordination elicited by slip-like perturbation of different intensities.

PubMed

Aprigliano, Federica; Martelli, Dario; Tropea, Peppino; Pasquini, Guido; Micera, Silvestro; Monaco, Vito

2017-09-01

This study was aimed at verifying whether aging modifies intralimb coordination strategy during corrective responses elicited by unexpected slip-like perturbations delivered during steady walking on a treadmill. To this end, 10 young and 10 elderly subjects were asked to manage unexpected slippages of different intensities. We analyzed the planar covariation law of the lower limb segments, using the principal component analysis, to verify whether elevation angles of older subjects covaried along a plan before and after the perturbation. Results showed that segments related to the perturbed limbs of both younger and older people do not covary after all perturbations. Conversely, the planar covariation law of the unperturbed limb was systematically held for younger and older subjects. These results occurred despite differences in spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters being observed among groups and perturbation intensities. Overall, our analysis revealed that aging does not affect intralimb coordination during corrective responses induced by slip-like perturbation, suggesting that both younger and older subjects adopt this control strategy while managing sudden and unexpected postural transitions of increasing intensities. Accordingly, results corroborate the hypothesis that balance control emerges from a governing set of biomechanical invariants, that is, suitable control schemes (e.g., planar covariation law) shared across voluntary and corrective motor behaviors, and across different sensory contexts due to different perturbation intensities, in both younger and older subjects. In this respect, our findings provide further support to investigate the effects of specific task training programs to counteract the risk of fall. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study was aimed at investigating how aging affects the intralimb coordination of lower limb segments, described by the planar covariation law, during unexpected slip-like perturbations of increasing intensity. Results revealed that neither the aging nor the perturbation intensity affects this coordination strategy. Accordingly, we proposed that the balance control emerges from an invariant set of control schemes shared across different sensory motor contexts and despite age-related neuromuscular adaptations. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

Identification of Abnormal System Noise Temperature Patterns in Deep Space Network Antennas Using Neural Network Trained Fuzzy Logic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lu, Thomas; Pham, Timothy; Liao, Jason

2011-01-01

This paper presents the development of a fuzzy logic function trained by an artificial neural network to classify the system noise temperature (SNT) of antennas in the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). The SNT data were classified into normal, marginal, and abnormal classes. The irregular SNT pattern was further correlated with link margin and weather data. A reasonably good correlation is detected among high SNT, low link margin and the effect of bad weather; however we also saw some unexpected non-correlations which merit further study in the future.

Brain modulation of Dufour's gland ester biosynthesis in vitro in the honeybee ( Apis mellifera)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Katzav-Gozansky, Tamar; Hefetz, Abraham; Soroker, Victoria

2007-05-01

Caste-specific pheromone biosynthesis is a prerequisite for reproductive skew in the honeybee. Nonetheless, this process is not hardwired but plastic, in that egg-laying workers produce a queen-like pheromone. Studies with Dufour’s gland pheromone revealed that, in vivo, workers’ gland biosynthesis matches the social status of the worker, i.e., sterile workers showed a worker-like pattern whereas fertile workers showed a queen-like pattern (production of the queen-specific esters). However, when incubated in vitro, the gland spontaneously exhibits the queen-like pattern, irrespective of its original worker type, prompting the notion that ester production in workers is under inhibitory control that is queen-dependent. We tested this hypothesis by exposing queen or worker Dufour’s glands in vitro to brain extracts of queens, queenright (sterile) workers and males. Unexpectedly, worker brain extracts activated the queen-like esters biosynthesis in workers’ Dufour’s gland. This stimulation was gender-specific; queen or worker brains demonstrated a stimulatory activity, but male brains did not. Queen gland could not be further stimulated. Bioassays with heated and filtered extracts indicate that the stimulatory brain factor is below 3,000 Da. We suggest that pheromone production in Dufour’s gland is under dual, negative positive control. Under queenright conditions, the inhibitor is released and blocks ester biosynthesis, whereas under queenless conditions, the activator is released, activating ester biosynthesis in the gland. This is consistent with the hypothesis that queenright workers are unequivocally recognized as non-fertile, whereas queenless workers try to become “false queens” as part of the reproductive competition.

In vivo drug metabolite identification in preclinical ADME studies by means of UPLC/TWIMS/high resolution-QTOF MS(E) and control comparison: cost and benefit of vehicle-dosed control samples.

PubMed

Fiebig, Lukas; Laux, Ralf; Binder, Rudolf; Ebner, Thomas

2016-10-01

1. Liquid chromatography (LC)-high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) techniques proved to be well suited for the identification of predicted and unexpected drug metabolites in complex biological matrices. 2. To efficiently discriminate between drug-related and endogenous matrix compounds, however, sophisticated postacquisition data mining tools, such as control comparison techniques are needed. For preclinical absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) studies that usually lack a placebo-dosed control group, the question arises how high-quality control data can be yielded using only a minimum number of control animals. 3. In the present study, the combination of LC-traveling wave ion mobility separation (TWIMS)-HRMS(E) and multivariate data analysis was used to study the polymer patterns of the frequently used formulation constituents polyethylene glycol 400 and polysorbate 80 in rat plasma and urine after oral and intravenous administration, respectively. 4. Complex peak patterns of both constituents were identified underlining the general importance of a vehicle-dosed control group in ADME studies for control comparison. Furthermore, the detailed analysis of administration route, blood sampling time and gender influences on both vehicle peak pattern as well as endogenous matrix background revealed that high-quality control data is obtained when (i) control animals receive an intravenous dose of the vehicle, (ii) the blood sampling time point is the same for analyte and control sample and (iii) analyte and control samples of the same gender are compared.

Phylogeography of microbial phototrophs in the dry valleys of the high Himalayas and Antarctica.

PubMed

Schmidt, S K; Lynch, R C; King, A J; Karki, D; Robeson, M S; Nagy, L; Williams, M W; Mitter, M S; Freeman, K R

2011-03-07

High-elevation valleys in dry areas of the Himalayas are among the most extreme, yet least explored environments on Earth. These barren, rocky valleys are subjected to year-round temperature fluctuations across the freezing point and very low availability of water and nutrients, causing previous workers to hypothesize that no photoautotrophic life (primary producers) exists in these locations. However, there has been no work using modern biogeochemical or culture-independent molecular methods to test the hypothesis that photoautotrophs are absent from high Himalayan soil systems. Here, we show that although microbial biomass levels are as low as those of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, there are abundant microbial photoautotrophs, displaying unexpected phylogenetic diversity, in barren soils from just below the permanent ice line of the central Himalayas. Furthermore, we discovered that one of the dominant algal clades from the high Himalayas also contains the dominant algae in culture-independent surveys of both soil and ice samples from the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, revealing an unexpected link between these environmentally similar but geographically very distant systems. Phylogenetic and biogeographic analyses demonstrated that although this algal clade is globally distributed to other high-altitude and high-latitude soils, it shows significant genetic isolation by geographical distance patterns, indicating local adaptation and perhaps speciation in each region. Our results are the first to demonstrate the remarkable similarities of microbial life of arid soils of Antarctica and the high Himalayas. Our findings are a starting point for future comparative studies of the dry valleys of the Himalayas and Antarctica that will yield new insights into the cold and dry limits to life on Earth.

ERP correlates of unexpected word forms in a picture–word study of infants and adults

PubMed Central

Duta, M.D.; Styles, S.J.; Plunkett, K.

2012-01-01

We tested 14-month-olds and adults in an event-related potentials (ERPs) study in which pictures of familiar objects generated expectations about upcoming word forms. Expected word forms labelled the picture (word condition), while unexpected word forms mismatched by either a small deviation in word medial vowel height (mispronunciation condition) or a large deviation from the onset of the first speech segment (pseudoword condition). Both infants and adults showed sensitivity to both types of unexpected word form. Adults showed a chain of discrete effects: positivity over the N1 wave, negativity over the P2 wave (PMN effect) and negativity over the N2 wave (N400 effect). Infants showed a similar pattern, including a robust effect similar to the adult P2 effect. These observations were underpinned by a novel visualisation method which shows the dynamics of the ERP within bands of the scalp over time. The results demonstrate shared processing mechanisms across development, as even subtle deviations from expected word forms were indexed in both age groups by a reduction in the amplitude of characteristic waves in the early auditory evoked potential. PMID:22483072

Some See It, Some Don’t: Exploring the Relation between Inattentional Blindness and Personality Factors

PubMed Central

Kreitz, Carina; Schnuerch, Robert; Gibbons, Henning; Memmert, Daniel

2015-01-01

Human awareness is highly limited, which is vividly demonstrated by the phenomenon that unexpected objects go unnoticed when attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). Typically, some people fail to notice unexpected objects while others detect them instantaneously. Whether this pattern reflects stable individual differences is unclear to date. In particular, hardly anything is known about the influence of personality on the likelihood of inattentional blindness. To fill this empirical gap, we examined the role of multiple personality factors, namely the Big Five, BIS/BAS, absorption, achievement motivation, and schizotypy, in these failures of awareness. In a large-scale sample (N = 554), susceptibility to inattentional blindness was associated with a low level of openness to experience and marginally with a low level of achievement motivation. However, in a multiple regression analysis, only openness emerged as an independent, negative predictor. This suggests that the general tendency to be open to experience extends to the domain of perception. Our results complement earlier work on the possible link between inattentional blindness and personality by demonstrating, for the first time, that failures to consciously perceive unexpected objects reflect individual differences on a fundamental dimension of personality. PMID:26011567

Right hemisphere performance and competence in processing mental images, in a case of partial interhemispheric disconnection.

PubMed

Blanc-Garin, J; Faure, S; Sabio, P

1993-05-01

The objective of this study was to analyze dynamic aspects of right hemisphere implementation in processing visual images. Two tachistoscopic, divided visual field experiments were carried out on a partial split-brain patient with no damage to the right hemisphere. In the first experiment, image generation performance for letters presented in the right visual field (/left hemisphere) was undeniably optimal. In the left visual field (/right hemisphere), performance was no better than chance level at first, but then improved dramatically across stimulation blocks, in each of five successive sessions. This was interpreted as revealing the progressive spontaneous activation of the right hemisphere's competence not shown initially. The aim of the second experiment was to determine some conditions under which this pattern was obtained. The experimental design contrasted stimuli (words and pictures) and representational activity (phonologic and visuo-imaged processing). The right visual field (/left hemisphere: LH) elicited higher performance than the left visual field (/right hemisphere, RH) in the three situations where verbal activity was required. No superiority could be found when visual images were to be generated from pictures: parallel and weak improvement of both hemispheres was observed across sessions. Two other patterns were obtained: improvement in RH performance (although LH performance remained superior) and an unexpectedly large decrease in RH performance. These data are discussed in terms of RH cognitive competence and hemisphere implementation.

Net photosynthetic response patterns of the basidiomycete lichen Cora pavonia (Web.) E. Fries from the tropical volcano La Soufrière (Guadeloupe).

PubMed

Coxson, D S

1987-09-01

The response of net photosynthesis to temperature, moisture, and light was examined in thalli of the tropical basidiomycete lichen Cora pavonia from recent lahar flows on the volcanic summit La Soufrière (Guadeloupe, French West Indies). Although thalli of C. pavonia are typically exposed to only low light intensities and isothermal temperature conditions under prevailing cloud/shroud conditions on La Soufrière, their photosynthetic response matrix reveals an unexpected breadth of response. The temperature optimum of net photosynthetic uptake in C. pavonia rises from 6°C at a photon flux area density of 25 μmol m -2 s -1 PAR to 27°C at 1000 μmol m -2 s -1 PAR, with rates of maximal net photosynthetic uptake exceeding 25 mg CO 2 g -1 h -1 . Net photosynthesis was optimal at thallus moisture contents of 250 to 350 percent water content by weight, declining only slightly in fully saturated thalli. These response patterns pose an apparent paradox, as on most days they will act to severely restrict net photosynthetic uptake by thalli of C. pavonia on La Soufrière. This paradox is discussed in context of those selective pressures faced by lichen thalli in later successional stages as well as those imposed by brief periods of atypical weather conditions.

Enhancement of Water Evaporation on Solid Surfaces with Nanoscale Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Patterns.

PubMed

Wan, Rongzheng; Wang, Chunlei; Lei, Xiaoling; Zhou, Guoquan; Fang, Haiping

2015-11-06

Using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the evaporation of nanoscale water on hydrophobic-hydrophilic patterned surfaces is unexpectedly faster than that on any surfaces with uniform wettability. The key to this phenomenon is that, on the patterned surface, the evaporation rate from the hydrophilic region only slightly decreases due to the correspondingly increased water thickness; meanwhile, a considerable number of water molecules evaporate from the hydrophobic region despite the lack of water film. Most of the evaporated water from the hydrophobic region originates from the hydrophilic region by diffusing across the contact lines. Further analysis shows that the evaporation rate from the hydrophobic region is approximately proportional to the total length of the contact lines.

The Brazilian freshwater wetscape: Changes in tree community diversity and composition on climatic and geographic gradients

PubMed Central

Wittmann, Florian; Marques, Márcia C. M.; Damasceno Júnior, Geraldo; Budke, Jean Carlos; Piedade, Maria T. F.; de Oliveira Wittmann, Astrid; Montero, Juan Carlos; de Assis, Rafael L.; Targhetta, Natália; Parolin, Pia; Junk, Wolfgang J.

2017-01-01

Wetlands harbor an important compliment of regional plant diversity, but in many regions data on wetland diversity and composition is still lacking, thus hindering our understanding of the processes that control it. While patterns of broad-scale terrestrial diversity and composition typically correlate with contemporary climate it is not clear to what extent patterns in wetlands are complimentary, or conflicting. To elucidate this, we consolidate data from wetland forest inventories in Brazil and examine patterns of diversity and composition along temperature and rainfall gradients spanning five biomes. We collated 196 floristic inventories covering an area >220 ha and including >260,000 woody individuals. We detected a total of 2,453 tree species, with the Amazon alone accounting for nearly half. Compositional patterns indicated differences in freshwater wetland floras among Brazilian biomes, although biomes with drier, more seasonal climates tended to have a larger proportion of more widely distributed species. Maximal alpha diversity increased with annual temperature, rainfall, and decreasing seasonality, patterns broadly consistent with upland vegetation communities. However, alpha diversity-climate relationships were only revealed at higher diversity values associated with the uppermost quantiles, and in most sites diversity varied irrespective of climate. Likewise, mean biome-level differences in alpha-diversity were unexpectedly modest, even in comparisons of savanna-area wetlands to those of nearby forested regions. We describe attenuated wetland climate-diversity relationships as a shifting balance of local and regional effects on species recruitment. Locally, excessive waterlogging strongly filters species able to colonize from regional pools. On the other hand, increased water availability can accommodate a rich community of drought-sensitive immigrant species that are able to track buffered wetland microclimates. We argue that environmental conditions in many wetlands are not homogeneous with respect to regional climate, and that responses of wetland tree communities to future climate change may lag behind that of non-wetland, terrestrial habitat. PMID:28394937

Comprehensive study of unexpected microscope condensers formed in sample arrangements commonly used in optical microscopy.

PubMed

Desai, Darshan B; Aldawsari, Mabkhoot Mudith S; Alharbi, Bandar Mohammed H; Sen, Sanchari; Grave de Peralta, Luis

2015-09-01

We show that various setups for optical microscopy which are commonly used in biomedical laboratories behave like efficient microscope condensers that are responsible for observed subwavelength resolution. We present a series of experiments and simulations that reveal how inclined illumination from such unexpected condensers occurs when the sample is perpendicularly illuminated by a microscope's built-in white-light source. In addition, we demonstrate an inexpensive add-on optical module that serves as an efficient and lightweight microscope condenser. Using such add-on optical module in combination with a low-numerical-aperture objective lens and Fourier plane imaging microscopy technique, we demonstrate detection of photonic crystals with a period nearly eight times smaller than the Rayleigh resolution limit.

[Sudden death of twins: botulism because of contamination by pap vegetables].

PubMed

Fischer, D; Freislederer, A; Jorch, G

2004-01-01

Botulism is caused by the blockage of the neural transmission in the cholinergic synapses by botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) which is produced by Clostridium botulinum or other Clostridia. The classic form of botulism occurs after the ingestion of food contaminated by BoNT. The course of the infection can be asymptomatic, mild with subtle paralysis ("failure to thrive") oder severe with generalized paralysis ("floppy infant"). Infected infants can also die sudden and unexpectedly. These deaths often are attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), unless a thorough postmortem examination reveals Botulism. The rate of fatal Botulism falsely attributed to SIDS is not known, because it is difficult in most cases to show the causal relationship between contamination, disease and death. We report the sudden and unexpected simultaneous death of twins of 22 months which could be attributed to Botulism. Contamination of food, colonization of the gut by Clostridia and infection with specific pathomorphological changes could be proven. The initial suspicion of infanticide could be excluded. lt could be shown, that Botulism is a potential cause of simultaneous unexpected deaths in twins.

Unexpected complexes from meta-phenylene bis(tert-butyl nitroxides) and gadolinium(III) 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoropentane-2,4-dionate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sekine, Hiroyasu; Ishida, Takayuki

2018-01-01

Coordination reaction of the stable ground triplet biradical biphenyl-3,5-diyl bis(tert-butyl nitroxide) and [Gd(hfac)3(H2O)2] unexpectedly gave complexes containing a dimerized diamagnetic ligand via a [3+3] cycloaddition of the benzene rings (hfac = 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoropentane-2,4-dionate). To avoid such dimerization, we introduced a bulkier substituent into the ligand; namely, a new ground triplet biradical 5-mesityl-1,3-phenylene bis(tert-butyl nitroxide) was applied to this complexation scheme. However, an unexpected complex was again obtained in a different way, and the magnetic study revealed that the novel ligand involved was diamagnetic. The crystallographic analysis of the product clarified isomerization from the paramagnetic ligand to a diamagnetic N-tert-butylaminoquinone imine N-oxide ligand as a result of disproportionation from two open-shell nitroxide groups to closed-shell groups, an amine and a nitrone. The present paper reports the first structural evidence for a diamagnetic isomer of m-phenylene-bridged bisnitroxde compounds.

Unexpected inhibition of CO 2 gas hydrate formation in dilute TBAB solutions and the critical role of interfacial water structure

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nguyen, Ngoc N.; Nguyen, Anh V.; Nguyen, Khoi T.

Gas hydrates formed under moderated conditions open up novel approaches to tackling issues related to energy supply, gas separation, and CO 2 sequestration. Several additives like tetra-n-butylammonium bromide (TBAB) have been empirically developed and used to promote gas hydrate formation. Here we report unexpected experimental results which show that TBAB inhibits CO 2 gas hydrate formation when used at minuscule concentration. We also used spectroscopic techniques and molecular dynamics simulation to gain further insights and explain the experimental results. They have revealed the critical role of water alignment at the gas-water interface induced by surface adsorption of tetra-n-butylammonium cation (TBAmore » +) which gives rise to the unexpected inhibition of dilute TBAB solution. The water perturbation by TBA + in the bulk is attributed to the promotion effect of high TBAB concentration on gas hydrate formation. We explain our finding using the concept of activation energy of gas hydrate formation. Our results provide a step toward to mastering the control of gas hydrate formation.« less

The crystal structures of EAP domains from Staphylococcus aureus reveal an unexpected homology to bacterial superantigens.

PubMed

Geisbrecht, Brian V; Hamaoka, Brent Y; Perman, Benjamin; Zemla, Adam; Leahy, Daniel J

2005-04-29

The Eap (extracellular adherence protein) of Staphylococcus aureus functions as a secreted virulence factor by mediating interactions between the bacterial cell surface and several extracellular host proteins. Eap proteins from different Staphylococcal strains consist of four to six tandem repeats of a structurally uncharacterized domain (EAP domain). We have determined the three-dimensional structures of three different EAP domains to 1.8, 2.2, and 1.35 A resolution, respectively. These structures reveal a core fold that is comprised of an alpha-helix lying diagonally across a five-stranded, mixed beta-sheet. Comparison of EAP domains with known structures reveals an unexpected homology with the C-terminal domain of bacterial superantigens. Examination of the structure of the superantigen SEC2 bound to the beta-chain of a T-cell receptor suggests a possible ligand-binding site within the EAP domain (Fields, B. A., Malchiodi, E. L., Li, H., Ysern, X., Stauffacher, C. V., Schlievert, P. M., Karjalainen, K., and Mariuzza, R. (1996) Nature 384, 188-192). These results provide the first structural characterization of EAP domains, relate EAP domains to a large class of bacterial toxins, and will guide the design of future experiments to analyze EAP domain structure/function relationships.

Synthesis of (±)-amathaspiramide F and discovery of an unusual stereocontrolling element for the [2,3]-Stevens rearrangement.

PubMed

Soheili, Arash; Tambar, Uttam K

2013-10-04

A formal total synthesis of (±)-amathaspiramide F through a tandem palladium-catalyzed allylic amination/[2,3]-Stevens rearrangement is reported. The unexpected diastereoselectivity of the [2,3]-Stevens rearrangement was controlled by the substitution patterns of an aromatic ring. This discovery represents a new stereocontrolling element for [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements in complex molecular settings.

Meta-Profiles of Gene Expression during Aging: Limited Similarities between Mouse and Human and an Unexpectedly Decreased Inflammatory Signature

PubMed Central

Swindell, William R.; Johnston, Andrew; Sun, Liou; Xing, Xianying; Fisher, Gary J.; Bulyk, Martha L.; Elder, James T.; Gudjonsson, Johann E.

2012-01-01

Background Skin aging is associated with intrinsic processes that compromise the structure of the extracellular matrix while promoting loss of functional and regenerative capacity. These processes are accompanied by a large-scale shift in gene expression, but underlying mechanisms are not understood and conservation of these mechanisms between humans and mice is uncertain. Results We used genome-wide expression profiling to investigate the aging skin transcriptome. In humans, age-related shifts in gene expression were sex-specific. In females, aging increased expression of transcripts associated with T-cells, B-cells and dendritic cells, and decreased expression of genes in regions with elevated Zeb1, AP-2 and YY1 motif density. In males, however, these effects were contrasting or absent. When age-associated gene expression patterns in human skin were compared to those in tail skin from CB6F1 mice, overall human-mouse correspondence was weak. Moreover, inflammatory gene expression patterns were not induced with aging of mouse tail skin, and well-known aging biomarkers were in fact decreased (e.g., Clec7a, Lyz1 and Lyz2). These unexpected patterns and weak human-mouse correspondence may be due to decreased abundance of antigen presenting cells in mouse tail skin with age. Conclusions Aging is generally associated with a pro-inflammatory state, but we have identified an exception to this pattern with aging of CB6F1 mouse tail skin. Aging therefore does not uniformly heighten inflammatory status across all mouse tissues. Furthermore, we identified both intercellular and intracellular mechanisms of transcriptome aging, including those that are sex- and species-specific. PMID:22413003

Abundance patterns of evolved stars with Hipparcos parallaxes and ages based on the APOGEE data base

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, Y. P.; Chen, Y. Q.; Zhao, G.; Bari, M. A.; Zhao, J. K.; Tan, K. F.

2018-01-01

We investigate the abundance patterns for four groups of stars at evolutionary phases from sub-giant to red clump (RC) and trace the chemical evolution of the disc by taking 21 individual elemental abundances from APOGEE and ages from evolutionary models with the aid of Hipparcos distances. We find that the abundances of six elements (Si, S, K, Ca, Mn and Ni) are similar from the sub-giant phase to the RC phase. In particular, we find that a group of stars with low [C/N] ratios, mainly from the second sequence of RC stars, show that there is a difference in the transfer efficiency of the C-N-O cycle between the main and the secondary RC sequences. We also compare the abundance patterns of C-N, Mg-Al and Na-O with giant stars in globular clusters from APOGEE and find that field stars follow similar patterns as M107, a metal-rich globular cluster with [M/H] ∼- 1.0, which shows that the self-enrichment mechanism represented by strong C-N, Mg-Al and Na-O anti-correlations may not be important as the metallicity reaches [M/H] > -1.0 dex. Based on the abundances of above-mentioned six elements and [Fe/H], we investigate age versus abundance relations and find some old super-metal-rich stars in our sample. Their properties of old age and being rich in metal are evidence for stellar migration. The age versus metallicity relations in low-[α/M] bins show unexpectedly positive slopes. We propose that the fresh metal-poor gas infalling on to the Galactic disc may be the precursor for this unexpected finding.

A genomic storm in critically injured humans

PubMed Central

Xiao, Wenzhong; Mindrinos, Michael N.; Seok, Junhee; Cuschieri, Joseph; Cuenca, Alex G.; Gao, Hong; Hayden, Douglas L.; Hennessy, Laura; Moore, Ernest E.; Minei, Joseph P.; Bankey, Paul E.; Johnson, Jeffrey L.; Sperry, Jason; Nathens, Avery B.; Billiar, Timothy R.; West, Michael A.; Brownstein, Bernard H.; Mason, Philip H.; Baker, Henry V.; Finnerty, Celeste C.; Jeschke, Marc G.; López, M. Cecilia; Klein, Matthew B.; Gamelli, Richard L.; Gibran, Nicole S.; Arnoldo, Brett; Xu, Weihong; Zhang, Yuping; Calvano, Steven E.; McDonald-Smith, Grace P.; Schoenfeld, David A.; Storey, John D.; Cobb, J. Perren; Warren, H. Shaw; Moldawer, Lyle L.; Herndon, David N.; Lowry, Stephen F.; Maier, Ronald V.; Davis, Ronald W.

2011-01-01

Human survival from injury requires an appropriate inflammatory and immune response. We describe the circulating leukocyte transcriptome after severe trauma and burn injury, as well as in healthy subjects receiving low-dose bacterial endotoxin, and show that these severe stresses produce a global reprioritization affecting >80% of the cellular functions and pathways, a truly unexpected “genomic storm.” In severe blunt trauma, the early leukocyte genomic response is consistent with simultaneously increased expression of genes involved in the systemic inflammatory, innate immune, and compensatory antiinflammatory responses, as well as in the suppression of genes involved in adaptive immunity. Furthermore, complications like nosocomial infections and organ failure are not associated with any genomic evidence of a second hit and differ only in the magnitude and duration of this genomic reprioritization. The similarities in gene expression patterns between different injuries reveal an apparently fundamental human response to severe inflammatory stress, with genomic signatures that are surprisingly far more common than different. Based on these transcriptional data, we propose a new paradigm for the human immunological response to severe injury. PMID:22110166

Coupled counterrotating polariton condensates in optically defined annular potentials

PubMed Central

Dreismann, Alexander; Cristofolini, Peter; Balili, Ryan; Christmann, Gabriel; Pinsker, Florian; Berloff, Natasha G.; Hatzopoulos, Zacharias; Savvidis, Pavlos G.; Baumberg, Jeremy J.

2014-01-01

Polariton condensates are macroscopic quantum states formed by half-matter half-light quasiparticles, thus connecting the phenomena of atomic Bose–Einstein condensation, superfluidity, and photon lasing. Here we report the spontaneous formation of such condensates in programmable potential landscapes generated by two concentric circles of light. The imposed geometry supports the emergence of annular states that extend up to 100 μm, yet are fully coherent and exhibit a spatial structure that remains stable for minutes at a time. These states exhibit a petal-like intensity distribution arising due to the interaction of two superfluids counterpropagating in the circular waveguide defined by the optical potential. In stark contrast to annular modes in conventional lasing systems, the resulting standing wave patterns exhibit only minimal overlap with the pump laser itself. We theoretically describe the system using a complex Ginzburg–Landau equation, which indicates why the condensate wants to rotate. Experimentally, we demonstrate the ability to precisely control the structure of the petal condensates both by carefully modifying the excitation geometry as well as perturbing the system on ultrafast timescales to reveal unexpected superfluid dynamics. PMID:24889642

Ancient genomics

PubMed Central

Der Sarkissian, Clio; Allentoft, Morten E.; Ávila-Arcos, María C.; Barnett, Ross; Campos, Paula F.; Cappellini, Enrico; Ermini, Luca; Fernández, Ruth; da Fonseca, Rute; Ginolhac, Aurélien; Hansen, Anders J.; Jónsson, Hákon; Korneliussen, Thorfinn; Margaryan, Ashot; Martin, Michael D.; Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor; Raghavan, Maanasa; Rasmussen, Morten; Velasco, Marcela Sandoval; Schroeder, Hannes; Schubert, Mikkel; Seguin-Orlando, Andaine; Wales, Nathan; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Willerslev, Eske; Orlando, Ludovic

2015-01-01

The past decade has witnessed a revolution in ancient DNA (aDNA) research. Although the field's focus was previously limited to mitochondrial DNA and a few nuclear markers, whole genome sequences from the deep past can now be retrieved. This breakthrough is tightly connected to the massive sequence throughput of next generation sequencing platforms and the ability to target short and degraded DNA molecules. Many ancient specimens previously unsuitable for DNA analyses because of extensive degradation can now successfully be used as source materials. Additionally, the analytical power obtained by increasing the number of sequence reads to billions effectively means that contamination issues that have haunted aDNA research for decades, particularly in human studies, can now be efficiently and confidently quantified. At present, whole genomes have been sequenced from ancient anatomically modern humans, archaic hominins, ancient pathogens and megafaunal species. Those have revealed important functional and phenotypic information, as well as unexpected adaptation, migration and admixture patterns. As such, the field of aDNA has entered the new era of genomics and has provided valuable information when testing specific hypotheses related to the past. PMID:25487338

Isomerization, Perturbations, Calculations and the S_{1} State of C_{2}H_{2}

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baraban, J. H.; Changala, P. B.; Berk, J. R. P.; Field, R. W.; Stanton, J. F.; Merer, A. J.

2013-06-01

Preliminary analysis of the energy region of the cis-trans isomerization transition state on the S_{1} surface of C_{2}H_{2} has revealed novel patterns and surprising perturbations, including unusually large (and high-order) anharmonicities, as well as K-staggerings of several vibrational levels. These effects complicate the analysis considerably, and require new models and calculations to account for and predict features of the observed spectra. The ˜{A}-˜{X} spectrum of acetylene has been studied both experimentally and theoretically for almost a century, and this cycle of unexpected phenomena eliciting innovative responses is found throughout its history. Especially in the last ten years, progress in understanding the S_{1} state rovibrational level structure and cis-trans isomerization has been accelerated by combining the information available from both ab initio computation and spectroscopic observations. The resulting dialogue has then frequently suggested fruitful avenues for further experiments and calculations. Current challenges and recent results in understanding the cis-trans isomerization transition state region will be discussed in this context.

The elusive character of discontinuous deep-water channels: New insights from Lucia Chica channel system, offshore California

USGS Publications Warehouse

Maier, K.L.; Fildani, A.; Paull, C.K.; Graham, S.A.; McHargue, T.R.; Caress, D.W.; McGann, M.

2011-01-01

New high-resolution autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) seafloor images, with 1 m lateral resolution and 0.3 m vertical resolution, reveal unexpected seafloor rugosity and low-relief (<10 m), discontinuous conduits over ~70 km2. Continuous channel thalwegs were interpreted originally from lower-resolution images, but newly acquired AUV data indicate that a single sinuous channel fed a series of discontinuous lower-relief channels. These discontinuous channels were created by at least four avulsion events. Channel relief, defined as the height from the thalweg to the levee crest, controls avulsions and overall stratigraphic architecture of the depositional area. Flowstripped turbidity currents separated into and reactivated multiple channels to create a distributary pattern and developed discontinuous trains of cyclic scours and megaflutes, which may be erosional precursors to continuous channels. The diverse features now imaged in the Lucia Chica channel system (offshore California) are likely common in modern and ancient systems with similar overall morphologies, but have not been previously mapped with lower-resolution detection methods in any of these systems. ?? 2011 Geological Society of America.

Structure and Misfolding of the Flexible Tripartite Coiled-Coil Domain of Glaucoma-Associated Myocilin

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hill, Shannon E.; Nguyen, Elaine; Donegan, Rebecca K.

2017-11-01

Glaucoma-associated myocilin is a member of the olfactomedins, a protein family involved in neuronal development and human diseases. Molecular studies of the myocilin N-terminal coiled coil demonstrate a unique tripartite architecture: a Y-shaped parallel dimer-of-dimers with distinct tetramer and dimer regions. The structure of the dimeric C-terminal 7-heptad repeats elucidates an unexpected repeat pattern involving inter-strand stabilization by oppositely charged residues. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal an alternate accessible conformation in which the terminal inter-strand disulfide limits the extent of unfolding and results in a kinked configuration. By inference, full-length myocilin is also branched, with two pairs of C-terminal olfactomedin domains.more » Selected variants within the N-terminal region alter the apparent quaternary structure of myocilin but do so without compromising stability or causing aggregation. In addition to increasing our structural knowledge of naturally occurring extracellular coiled coils and biomedically important olfactomedins, this work broadens the scope of protein misfolding in the pathogenesis of myocilin-associated glaucoma.« less

Homeostatic circuits selectively gate food cue responses in insular cortex

PubMed Central

Livneh, Yoav; Ramesh, Rohan n.; Burgess, christian R.; Levandowski, Kirsten M.; Madara, Joseph c.; Fenselau, henning; Goldey, Glenn J.; Diaz, Veronica E.; Jikomes, nick; Resch, Jon M.; Lowell, Bradford B.; Andermann, Mark L.

2017-01-01

Physiological needs bias perception and attention to relevant sensory cues. This process is ‘hijacked’ by drug addiction, causing cue-induced cravings and relapse. Similarly, its dysregulation contributes to failed diets, obesity, and eating disorders. Neuroimaging studies in humans have implicated insular cortex in these phenomena. However, it remains unclear how ‘cognitive’ cortical representations of motivationally relevant cues are biased by subcortical circuits that drive specific motivational states. Here we develop a microprism-based cellular imaging approach to monitor visual cue responses in the insular cortex of behaving mice across hunger states. Insular cortex neurons demonstrate food- cue-biased responses that are abolished during satiety. Unexpectedly, while multiple satiety-related visceral signals converge in insular cortex, chemogenetic activation of hypothalamic ‘hunger neurons’ (expressing agouti-related peptide (AgRP)) bypasses these signals to restore hunger-like response patterns in insular cortex. Circuit mapping and pathway-specific manipulations uncover a pathway from AgRP neurons to insular cortex via the paraventricular thalamus and basolateral amygdala. These results reveal a neural basis for state-specific biased processing of motivationally relevant cues. PMID:28614299

Structure and Misfolding of the Flexible Tripartite Coiled-Coil Domain of Glaucoma-Associated Myocilin.

PubMed

Hill, Shannon E; Nguyen, Elaine; Donegan, Rebecca K; Patterson-Orazem, Athéna C; Hazel, Anthony; Gumbart, James C; Lieberman, Raquel L

2017-11-07

Glaucoma-associated myocilin is a member of the olfactomedins, a protein family involved in neuronal development and human diseases. Molecular studies of the myocilin N-terminal coiled coil demonstrate a unique tripartite architecture: a Y-shaped parallel dimer-of-dimers with distinct tetramer and dimer regions. The structure of the dimeric C-terminal 7-heptad repeats elucidates an unexpected repeat pattern involving inter-strand stabilization by oppositely charged residues. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal an alternate accessible conformation in which the terminal inter-strand disulfide limits the extent of unfolding and results in a kinked configuration. By inference, full-length myocilin is also branched, with two pairs of C-terminal olfactomedin domains. Selected variants within the N-terminal region alter the apparent quaternary structure of myocilin but do so without compromising stability or causing aggregation. In addition to increasing our structural knowledge of naturally occurring extracellular coiled coils and biomedically important olfactomedins, this work broadens the scope of protein misfolding in the pathogenesis of myocilin-associated glaucoma. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Non-canonical TAF complexes regulate active promoters in human embryonic stem cells

PubMed Central

Maston, Glenn A; Zhu, Lihua Julie; Chamberlain, Lynn; Lin, Ling; Fang, Minggang; Green, Michael R

2012-01-01

The general transcription factor TFIID comprises the TATA-box-binding protein (TBP) and approximately 14 TBP-associated factors (TAFs). Here we find, unexpectedly, that undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) contain only six TAFs (TAFs 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11), whereas following differentiation all TAFs are expressed. Directed and global chromatin immunoprecipitation analyses reveal an unprecedented promoter occupancy pattern: most active genes are bound by only TAFs 3 and 5 along with TBP, whereas the remaining active genes are bound by TBP and all six hESC TAFs. Consistent with these results, hESCs contain a previously undescribed complex comprising TAFs 2, 6, 7, 11 and TBP. Altering the composition of hESC TAFs, either by depleting TAFs that are present or ectopically expressing TAFs that are absent, results in misregulated expression of pluripotency genes and induction of differentiation. Thus, the selective expression and use of TAFs underlies the ability of hESCs to self-renew. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00068.001 PMID:23150797

Sequence Diversity Diagram for comparative analysis of multiple sequence alignments.

PubMed

Sakai, Ryo; Aerts, Jan

2014-01-01

The sequence logo is a graphical representation of a set of aligned sequences, commonly used to depict conservation of amino acid or nucleotide sequences. Although it effectively communicates the amount of information present at every position, this visual representation falls short when the domain task is to compare between two or more sets of aligned sequences. We present a new visual presentation called a Sequence Diversity Diagram and validate our design choices with a case study. Our software was developed using the open-source program called Processing. It loads multiple sequence alignment FASTA files and a configuration file, which can be modified as needed to change the visualization. The redesigned figure improves on the visual comparison of two or more sets, and it additionally encodes information on sequential position conservation. In our case study of the adenylate kinase lid domain, the Sequence Diversity Diagram reveals unexpected patterns and new insights, for example the identification of subgroups within the protein subfamily. Our future work will integrate this visual encoding into interactive visualization tools to support higher level data exploration tasks.

Use of the Fluidigm C1 platform for RNA sequencing of single mouse pancreatic islet cells.

PubMed

Xin, Yurong; Kim, Jinrang; Ni, Min; Wei, Yi; Okamoto, Haruka; Lee, Joseph; Adler, Christina; Cavino, Katie; Murphy, Andrew J; Yancopoulos, George D; Lin, Hsin Chieh; Gromada, Jesper

2016-03-22

This study provides an assessment of the Fluidigm C1 platform for RNA sequencing of single mouse pancreatic islet cells. The system combines microfluidic technology and nanoliter-scale reactions. We sequenced 622 cells, allowing identification of 341 islet cells with high-quality gene expression profiles. The cells clustered into populations of α-cells (5%), β-cells (92%), δ-cells (1%), and pancreatic polypeptide cells (2%). We identified cell-type-specific transcription factors and pathways primarily involved in nutrient sensing and oxidation and cell signaling. Unexpectedly, 281 cells had to be removed from the analysis due to low viability, low sequencing quality, or contamination resulting in the detection of more than one islet hormone. Collectively, we provide a resource for identification of high-quality gene expression datasets to help expand insights into genes and pathways characterizing islet cell types. We reveal limitations in the C1 Fluidigm cell capture process resulting in contaminated cells with altered gene expression patterns. This calls for caution when interpreting single-cell transcriptomics data using the C1 Fluidigm system.

Of Feral Faculty and Magisterial Mowglis: The Domestication of Junior Faculty

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reddick, Richard J.

2015-01-01

This chapter presents an assistant professor's scholarly personal narrative at the precipice of promotion, and reveals how the feral child metaphor might aptly describe many junior professors' experiences as they navigate a path toward tenure. This chronicling of mentorship in sometimes unexpected venues may aid new faculty and those invested in…

A whole-plant perspective reveals unexpected impacts of above- and belowground herbivores on plant growth and defense

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Tradeoffs between plant growth and defense are central to theoretical frameworks used to study the ecology and evolution of plant defense against herbivores. However, these frameworks, as well as the experiments designed to test them, rarely include the remarkable diversity of belowground herbivores...

Talking about "Real Stuff": Explorations of Agency and Romance in an All-Girls' Book Club.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Sally A.

2000-01-01

Examines six adolescent girls' talk around a young adult novel ("The Beggar's Ride" by T. Nelson). Reveals unexpected reading purposes: adolescent girls' reading for the combined purposes of agency and desire, exploring the fears and potentialities of being female and of the possibilities of autonomy. (SR)

Unexpected Preferential Dehydration of Artemisinin in Ionic Liquids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sanders, Marc W.; Wright, Lawrence; Tate, Lauren; Fairless, Gayle; Crowhurst, Lorna; Bruce, Neil C.; Walker, Adam J.; Hembury, Guy A.; Shimizu, Seishi

2009-09-01

Thermodynamic measurements (at 298 K) reveal that a crucial step in the extraction process of the key antimalarial drug artemisinin by ionic liquids (ILs), namely, precipitation through the addition of water, is driven by artemisinin dehydration due to the differences in the water's interaction with the bulk ILs, rather than with the artemisinin itself.

Adult Structure and Development of the Human Fronto-Opercular Cerebral Cortex (Broca's Region)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Judas, Milos; Cepanec, Maja

2007-01-01

Broca's area encompasses opercular and triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus, covered by Brodmann's areas 44 and 45, respectively. Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed that, in addition to classical language functions, Broca's area has novel and unexpected functions, serving as a likely interface of action and perception important for…

Myopathy and hepatic lipidosis in weaned lambs due to vitamin E deficiency.

PubMed

Menzies, Paula; Langs, Lisa; Boermans, Herman; Martin, John; McNally, John

2004-03-01

A sheep flock experienced losses in weaned lambs from myopathy and hepatic lipidosis. Investigation revealed painful ambulation, illthrift, and unexpected death in lambs with normal selenium levels, deficient vitamin E levels, and elevated muscle and liver enzyme levels. Vitamin E deficiency should be considered when investigating myopathy and illthrift in lambs.

Urbanism and Voter Turnout: A Note on Some Unexpected Findings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monroe, Alan D.

1977-01-01

Analysis of voter turnout reveals rural areas to have much higher turnout than urban. Furthermore, these rural areas have lower levels of education, income, and industrialization. Several theoretical arguments are examined. Available from: the Wayne State University Press, 5980 Cass Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202, $4.00 single copy. (Author/MLF)

Chlamydia Pneumoniae Infections and Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Denmark.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johannsen, Finn

1993-01-01

Blood samples from 38 runners on the Danish national orienteering team revealed no ongoing chlamydia pneumoniae, although 42% had an earlier infection, similar to the incidence in the general population. However, over 2% had an ongoing lyme borreliosis infection, and 18% had an earlier infection, which is a higher incidence than in the general…

Sudden unexpected death due to severe pulmonary and cardiac sarcoidosis.

PubMed

Ginelliová, Alžbeta; Farkaš, Daniel; Farkašová Iannaccone, Silvia; Vyhnálková, Vlasta

2016-09-01

In this paper we report the autopsy findings of a 57 year old woman who died unexpectedly at home. She had been complaining of shortness of breath, episodes of dry coughing, and nausea. Her past medical and social history was unremarkable. She had no previous history of any viral or bacterial disease and no history of oncological disorders. Autopsy revealed multiple grayish-white nodular lesions in the pleura and epicardial fat and areas resembling fibrosis on the cut surface of the anterior and posterior wall of the left ventricle and interventricular septum. Histological examination of the lungs and heart revealed multiple well-formed noncaseating epithelioid cell granulomas with multinucleated giant cells. Death was attributed to myocardial ischemia due to vasculitis of intramural coronary artery branches associated with sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is a multisystemic disease of unknown etiology characterized by the formation of noncaseating epithelioid cell granulomas in the affected organs and tissues. The diagnosis of sarcoidosis in this case was established when other causes of granulomatous disease such as tuberculosis, berylliosis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and giant cell myocarditis had been reasonably excluded.

Complexity and time asymmetry of heart rate variability are altered in acute mental stress.

PubMed

Visnovcova, Z; Mestanik, M; Javorka, M; Mokra, D; Gala, M; Jurko, A; Calkovska, A; Tonhajzerova, I

2014-07-01

We aimed to study the complexity and time asymmetry of short-term heart rate variability (HRV) as an index of complex neurocardiac control in response to stress using symbolic dynamics and time irreversibility methods. ECG was recorded at rest and during and after two stressors (Stroop, arithmetic test) in 70 healthy students. Symbolic dynamics parameters (NUPI, NCI, 0V%, 1V%, 2LV%, 2UV%), and time irreversibility indices (P%, G%, E) were evaluated. Additionally, HRV magnitude was quantified by linear parameters: spectral powers in low (LF) and high frequency (HF) bands. Our results showed a reduction of HRV complexity in stress (lower NUPI with both stressors, lower NCI with Stroop). Pattern classification analysis revealed significantly higher 0V% and lower 2LV% with both stressors, indicating a shift in sympathovagal balance, and significantly higher 1V% and lower 2UV% with Stroop. An unexpected result was found in time irreversibility: significantly lower G% and E with both stressors, P% index significantly declined only with arithmetic test. Linear HRV analysis confirmed vagal withdrawal (lower HF) with both stressors; LF significantly increased with Stroop and decreased with arithmetic test. Correlation analysis revealed no significant associations between symbolic dynamics and time irreversibility. Concluding, symbolic dynamics and time irreversibility could provide independent information related to alterations of neurocardiac control integrity in stress-related disease.

Molecular complexity of successive bacterial epidemics deconvoluted by comparative pathogenomics.

PubMed

Beres, Stephen B; Carroll, Ronan K; Shea, Patrick R; Sitkiewicz, Izabela; Martinez-Gutierrez, Juan Carlos; Low, Donald E; McGeer, Allison; Willey, Barbara M; Green, Karen; Tyrrell, Gregory J; Goldman, Thomas D; Feldgarden, Michael; Birren, Bruce W; Fofanov, Yuriy; Boos, John; Wheaton, William D; Honisch, Christiane; Musser, James M

2010-03-02

Understanding the fine-structure molecular architecture of bacterial epidemics has been a long-sought goal of infectious disease research. We used short-read-length DNA sequencing coupled with mass spectroscopy analysis of SNPs to study the molecular pathogenomics of three successive epidemics of invasive infections involving 344 serotype M3 group A Streptococcus in Ontario, Canada. Sequencing the genome of 95 strains from the three epidemics, coupled with analysis of 280 biallelic SNPs in all 344 strains, revealed an unexpectedly complex population structure composed of a dynamic mixture of distinct clonally related complexes. We discovered that each epidemic is dominated by micro- and macrobursts of multiple emergent clones, some with distinct strain genotype-patient phenotype relationships. On average, strains were differentiated from one another by only 49 SNPs and 11 insertion-deletion events (indels) in the core genome. Ten percent of SNPs are strain specific; that is, each strain has a unique genome sequence. We identified nonrandom temporal-spatial patterns of strain distribution within and between the epidemic peaks. The extensive full-genome data permitted us to identify genes with significantly increased rates of nonsynonymous (amino acid-altering) nucleotide polymorphisms, thereby providing clues about selective forces operative in the host. Comparative expression microarray analysis revealed that closely related strains differentiated by seemingly modest genetic changes can have significantly divergent transcriptomes. We conclude that enhanced understanding of bacterial epidemics requires a deep-sequencing, geographically centric, comparative pathogenomics strategy.

Absence of the Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein results in defects of RNA editing of neuronal mRNAs in mouse

PubMed Central

Filippini, Alice; Bonini, Daniela; Lacoux, Caroline; Zingariello, Maria; Sancillo, Laura; Bosisio, Daniela; Salvi, Valentina; Mingardi, Jessica; La Via, Luca; Zalfa, Francesca; Bagni, Claudia

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT The fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common form of inherited intellectual disability, is due to the absence of FMRP, a protein regulating RNA metabolism. Recently, an unexpected function of FMRP in modulating the activity of Adenosine Deaminase Acting on RNA (ADAR) enzymes has been reported both in Drosophila and Zebrafish. ADARs are RNA-binding proteins that increase transcriptional complexity through a post-transcriptional mechanism called RNA editing. To evaluate the ADAR2-FMRP interaction in mammals we analyzed several RNA editing re-coding sites in the fmr1 knockout (KO) mice. Ex vivo and in vitro analysis revealed that absence of FMRP leads to an increase in the editing levels of brain specific mRNAs, indicating that FMRP might act as an inhibitor of editing activity. Proximity Ligation Assay (PLA) in mouse primary cortical neurons and in non-neuronal cells revealed that ADAR2 and FMRP co-localize in the nucleus. The ADAR2-FMRP co-localization was further observed by double-immunogold Electron Microscopy (EM) in the hippocampus. Moreover, ADAR2-FMRP interaction appeared to be RNA independent. Because changes in the editing pattern are associated with neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, we propose that the increased editing observed in the fmr1-KO mice might contribute to the FXS molecular phenotypes. PMID:28640668

STED super-resolution microscopy reveals an array of MINOS clusters along human mitochondria

PubMed Central

Jans, Daniel C.; Wurm, Christian A.; Riedel, Dietmar; Wenzel, Dirk; Stagge, Franziska; Deckers, Markus; Rehling, Peter; Jakobs, Stefan

2013-01-01

The mitochondrial inner membrane organizing system (MINOS) is a conserved large hetero-oligomeric protein complex in the mitochondrial inner membrane, crucial for the maintenance of cristae morphology. MINOS has been suggested to represent the core of an extended protein network that controls mitochondrial function and structure, and has been linked to several human diseases. The spatial arrangement of MINOS within mitochondria is ill-defined, however. Using super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and immunogold electron microscopy, we determined the distribution of three known human MINOS subunits (mitofilin, MINOS1, and CHCHD3) in mammalian cells. Super-resolution microscopy revealed that all three subunits form similar clusters within mitochondria, and that MINOS is more abundant in mitochondria around the nucleus than in peripheral mitochondria. At the submitochondrial level, mitofilin, a core MINOS subunit, is preferentially localized at cristae junctions. In primary human fibroblasts, mitofilin labeling uncovered a regularly spaced pattern of clusters arranged in parallel to the cell growth surfaces. We suggest that this array of MINOS complexes might explain the observed phenomenon of largely horizontally arranged cristae junctions that connect the inner boundary membrane to lamellar cristae. The super-resolution images demonstrate an unexpectedly high level of regularity in the nanoscale distribution of the MINOS complex in human mitochondria, supporting an integrating role of MINOS in the structural organization of the organelle. PMID:23676277

The cognitive nuances of surprising events: exposure to unexpected stimuli elicits firing variations in neurons of the dorsal CA1 hippocampus.

PubMed

Valenti, Ornella; Mikus, Nace; Klausberger, Thomas

2018-05-22

The ability to recognize novel situations is among the most fascinating and vital of the brain functions. A hypothesis posits that encoding of novelty is prompted by failures in expectancy, according to computation matching incoming information with stored events. Thus, unexpected changes in context are detected within the hippocampus and transferred to downstream structures, eliciting the arousal of the dopamine system. Nevertheless, the precise locus of detection is a matter of debate. The dorsal CA1 hippocampus (dCA1) appears as an ideal candidate for operating a mismatch computation and discriminating the occurrence of diverse stimuli within the same environment. In this study, we sought to determine dCA1 neuronal firing during the experience of novel stimuli embedded in familiar contexts. We performed population recordings while head-fixed mice navigated virtual environments. Three stimuli were employed, namely a novel pattern of visual cues, an odor, and a reward with enhanced valence. The encounter of unexpected events elicited profound variations in dCA1 that were assessed both as opposite rate directions and altered network connectivity. When experienced in sequence, novel stimuli elicited specific responses that often exhibited cross-sensitization. Short-latency, event-triggered responses were in accordance with the detection of novelty being computed within dCA1. We postulate that firing variations trigger neuronal disinhibition, and constitute a fundamental mechanism in the processing of unexpected events and in learning. Elucidating the mechanisms underlying detection and computation of novelty might help in understanding hippocampal-dependent cognitive dysfunctions associated with neuropathologies and psychiatric conditions.

[Individual identification of cadaver parts after a bomb explosion using oligonucleotide fingerprinting by (GTG)5].

PubMed

Kondo, T; Ohshima, T

1998-01-01

A blind shell suddenly and unexpectedly exploded, and 20 dismembered human remains were discovered. DNA fingerprint was performed to determine whether the 20 human remains were derived from one person or not. DNA was isolated from each of the remains and digested by the restriction enzyme Hinf I and Hae III and hybridized with the oligonucleotide probe (GTG)5. DNA fingerprint using Hinf I demonstrated the same band pattern in 17 out of the 20 remains. However, in the remaining 3 samples, two novel strange bands were observed. DNA fingerprint using Hae III showed completely identical pattern in all of the remains.

Patterns of Occurrence and Marine Mammal Acoustic Behavior in Relation to Navy Sonar Activity Off Jacksonville, Florida.

PubMed

Oswald, Julie N; Norris, Thomas F; Yack, Tina M; Ferguson, Elizabeth L; Kumar, Anurag; Nissen, Jene; Bell, Joel

2016-01-01

Passive acoustic data collected from marine autonomous recording units deployed off Jacksonville, FL (from 13 September to 8 October 2009 and 3 December 2009 to 8 January 2010), were analyzed for detection of cetaceans and Navy sonar. Cetaceans detected included Balaenoptera acutorostrata, Eubalaena glacialis, B. borealis, Physeter macrocephalus, blackfish, and delphinids. E. glacialis were detected at shallow and, somewhat unexpectedly, deep sites. P. macrocephalus were characterized by a strong diel pattern. B. acutorostrata showed the strongest relationship between sonar activity and vocal behavior. These results provide a preliminary assessment of cetacean occurrence off Jacksonville and new insights on vocal responses to sonar.

Molecular anatomy of the developing limb in the coquí frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui.

PubMed

Gross, Joshua B; Kerney, Ryan; Hanken, James; Tabin, Clifford J

2011-01-01

The vertebrate limb demonstrates remarkable similarity in basic organization across phylogenetically disparate groups. To gain further insight into how this morphological similarity is maintained in different developmental contexts, we explored the molecular anatomy of size-reduced embryos of the Puerto Rican coquí frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui. This animal demonstrates direct development, a life-history strategy marked by rapid progression from egg to adult and absence of a free-living, aquatic larva. Nonetheless, coquí exhibits a basal anuran limb structure, with four toes on the forelimb and five toes on the hind limb. We investigated the extent to which coquí limb bud development conforms to the model of limb development derived from amniote studies. Toward this end, we characterized dynamic patterns of expression for 13 critical patterning genes across three principle stages of limb development. As expected, most genes demonstrate expression patterns that are essentially unchanged compared to amniote species. For example, we identified an EcFgf8-expression domain within the apical ectodermal ridge (AER). This expression pattern defines a putatively functional AER signaling domain, despite the absence of a morphological ridge in coquí embryos. However, two genes, EcMeis2 and EcAlx4, demonstrate altered domains of expression, which imply a potential shift in gene function between coquí frogs and amniote model systems. Unexpectedly, several genes thought to be critical for limb patterning in other systems, including EcFgf4, EcWnt3a, EcWnt7a, and EcGremlin, demonstrated no evident expression pattern in the limb at the three stages we analyzed. The absence of EcFgf4 and EcWnt3a expression during limb patterning is perhaps not surprising, given that neither gene is critical for proper limb development in the mouse, based on knockout and expression analyses. In contrast, absence of EcWnt7a and EcGremlin is surprising, given that expression of these molecules appears to be absolutely essential in all other model systems so far examined. Although this analysis substantiates the existence of a core set of ancient limb-patterning molecules, which likely mediate identical functions across highly diverse vertebrate forms, it also reveals remarkable evolutionary flexibility in the genetic control of a conserved morphological pattern across evolutionary time. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The heart-break of social rejection versus the brain wave of social acceptance

PubMed Central

van der Molen, Maurits W.; Sahibdin, Priya P.; Franken, Ingmar H. A.

2014-01-01

The effect of social rejection on cardiac and brain responses was examined in a study in which participants had to decide on the basis of pictures of virtual peers whether these peers would like them or not. Physiological and behavioral responses to expected and unexpected acceptance and rejection were compared. It was found that participants expected that about 50% of the virtual judges gave them a positive judgment. Cardiac deceleration was strongest for unexpected social rejection. In contrast, the brain response was strongest to expected acceptance and was characterized by a positive deflection peaking around 325 ms following stimulus onset and the observed difference was maximal at fronto-central positions. The cardiac and electro-cortical responses were not related. It is hypothesized that these differential response patterns might be related to earlier described differential involvement of the dorsal and ventral portion of the anterior cingulate cortex. PMID:23887821

AWARE: Adaptive Software Monitoring and Dynamic Reconfiguration for Critical Infrastructure Protection

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-29

in which we applied these adaptation patterns to an adaptive news web server intended to tolerate extremely heavy, unexpected loads. To address...collection of existing models used as benchmarks for OO-based refactoring and an existing web -based repository called REMODD to provide users with model...invariant properties. Specifically, we developed Avida- MDE (based on the Avida digital evolution platform) to support the automatic generation of software

Oculomotor Capture by New and Unannounced Color Singletons during Visual Search.

PubMed

Retell, James D; Venini, Dustin; Becker, Stefanie I

2015-07-01

The surprise capture hypothesis states that a stimulus will capture attention to the extent that it is preattentively available and deviates from task-expectancies. Interestingly, it has been noted by Horstmann (Psychological Science 13: 499-505. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00488, 2002, Human Perception and Performance 31: 1039-1060. doi: 10.1037/00961523.31.5.1039, 2005, Psychological Research, 70, 13-25, 2006) that the time course of capture by such classes of stimuli appears distinct from that of capture by expected stimuli. Specifically, attention shifts to an unexpected stimulus are delayed relative to an expected stimulus (delayed onset account). Across two experiments, we investigated this claim under conditions of unguided (Exp. 1) and guided (Exp. 2) search using eye-movements as the primary index of attentional selection. In both experiments, we found strong evidence of surprise capture for the first presentation of an unannounced color singleton. However, in both experiments the pattern of eye-movements was not consistent with a delayed onset account of attention capture. Rather, we observed costs associated with the unexpected stimulus only once the target had been selected. We propose an interference account of surprise capture to explain our data and argue that this account also can explain existing patterns of data in the literature.

Direct patterning of highly-conductive graphene@copper composites using copper naphthenate as a resist for graphene device applications.

PubMed

Bi, Kaixi; Xiang, Quan; Chen, Yiqin; Shi, Huimin; Li, Zhiqin; Lin, Jun; Zhang, Yongzhe; Wan, Qiang; Zhang, Guanhua; Qin, Shiqiao; Zhang, Xueao; Duan, Huigao

2017-11-09

We report an electron-beam lithography process to directly fabricate graphene@copper composite patterns without involving metal deposition, lift-off and etching processes using copper naphthenate as a high-resolution negative-tone resist. As a commonly used industrial painting product, copper naphthenate is extremely cheap with a long shelf time but demonstrates an unexpected patterning resolution better than 10 nm. With appropriate annealing under a hydrogen atmosphere, the produced graphene@copper composite patterns show high conductivity of ∼400 S cm -1 . X-ray diffraction, conformal Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to analyze the chemical composition of the final patterns. With the properties of high resolution and high conductivity, the patterned graphene@copper composites could be used as conductive pads and interconnects for graphene electronic devices with ohmic contacts. Compared to common fabrication processes involving metal evaporation and lift-off steps, this pattern-transfer-free fabrication process using copper naphthenate resist is direct and simple but allows comparable device performance in practical device applications.

Unexpected infant death due to hypoplastic left heart syndrome: a case report.

PubMed

Hayashizaki, Yoshie; Usui, Kiyotaka; Moriya, Takuya; Hashiyada, Masaki; Usui, Akihito; Hosokai, Yoshiyuki; Kawasumi, Yusuke; Saito, Haruo; Funayama, Masato

2011-11-01

A female infant was found unresponsive at home. The mother alleged that she delivered the baby at home 13 days prior to the death. The mother did not have any prenatal examinations during the pregnancy and the infant was not examined by a doctor until death. The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and the infant's chest showed bilateral breast enlargement. Forensic pathologists may encounter very rare pathological findings with unexpected infant deaths. Some, like HLHS, are serious congenital heart defects related to the cause of death, and others are unique phenomena unrelated to the cause of death such as breast swelling and discharge called "witch's milk." In this case, we observed both findings. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The transcriptional diversity of 25 Drosophila cell lines

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cherbas, Lucy; Willingham, Aarron; Zhang, Dayu

2010-12-22

Drosophila melanogaster cell lines are important resources for cell biologists. In this article, we catalog the expression of exons, genes, and unannotated transcriptional signals for 25 lines. Unannotated transcription is substantial (typically 19% of euchromatic signal). Conservatively, we identify 1405 novel transcribed regions; 684 of these appear to be new exons of neighboring, often distant, genes. Sixty-four percent of genes are expressed detectably in at least one line, but only 21% are detected in all lines. Each cell line expresses, on average, 5885 genes, including a common set of 3109. Expression levels vary over several orders of magnitude. Major signalingmore » pathways are well represented: most differentiation pathways are ‘‘off’’ and survival/growth pathways ‘‘on.’’ Roughly 50% of the genes expressed by each line are not part of the common set, and these show considerable individuality. Thirty-one percent are expressed at a higher level in at least one cell line than in any single developmental stage, suggesting that each line is enriched for genes characteristic of small sets of cells. Most remarkable is that imaginal disc-derived lines can generally be assigned, on the basis of expression, to small territories within developing discs. These mappings reveal unexpected stability of even fine-grained spatial determination. No two cell lines show identical transcription factor expression. We conclude that each line has retained features of an individual founder cell superimposed on a common ‘‘cell line‘‘ gene expression pattern. We report the transcriptional profiles of 25 Drosophila melanogaster cell lines, principally by whole-genome tiling microarray analysis of total RNA, carried out as part of the modENCODE project. The data produced in this study add to our knowledge of the cell lines and of the Drosophila transcriptome in several ways. We summarize the expression of previously annotated genes in each of the 25 lines with emphasis on what those patterns reveal about the origins of the lines and the stability of spatial expression patterns. In addition, we offer an initial analysis of previously unannotated transcripts in the cell lines.« less

Emotional Disorder in XYY Children: Four Case Reports.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ratcliffe, Shirley G.; Field, Michael A. S.

1982-01-01

Four boys ages 7 to 9 years, who were identified at birth as having an XYY sex chromosome constitution, were studied in order to examine the thesis that XYY karyotype creates a predisposition to violent or antisocial childhood behavior. Results gave no support to this thesis, but reveal an unexpected shift towards a depression reaction to…

Myopathy and hepatic lipidosis in weaned lambs due to vitamin E deficiency

PubMed Central

2004-01-01

Abstract A sheep flock experienced losses in weaned lambs from myopathy and hepatic lipidosis. Investigation revealed painful ambulation, illthrift, and unexpected death in lambs with normal selenium levels, deficient vitamin E levels, and elevated muscle and liver enzyme levels. Vitamin E deficiency should be considered when investigating myopathy and illthrift in lambs. PMID:15072198

The State of Play: Gallup Survey of Principals on School Recess

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2010

2010-01-01

When most people talk about how to improve education, they tend to focus only on what happens in the classroom. But the most unexpected opportunity to boost learning lies outside the classroom: on the playground at recess. A new, first-of-its-kind Gallup poll reveals that elementary school principals overwhelmingly believe recess has a positive…

Complex within complex: integrative taxonomy reveals hidden diversity in Cicadetta brevipennis (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) and unexpected relationships with a song divergent relative

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Multiple sources of data in combination are essential for species delimitation and classification of difficult taxonomic groups. Here we investigate a cicada taxon with unusual cryptic diversity and we attempt to resolve seemingly contradictory data sets. Cicada songs act as species-specific premati...

Adhesive micro-line periodicity determines guidance of axonal outgrowth†

PubMed Central

Huang, Yu; Fothergill, Thomas; Lumbard, Derek C.; Dent, Erik W.; Williams, Justin C.

2014-01-01

Adhesive micro-lines of various sub-cellular geometries were created using a non-traditional micro stamping technique. This technique employed the use of commercially available diffraction gratings as the molds for the micro stamps, a method which is quick and inexpensive, and which could easily be adopted as a patterning tool in a variety of research efforts. The atypical saw-tooth profile of the micro stamps enabled a unique degree of control and flexibility over patterned line and gap widths. Cortical neurons cultured on patterned poly-lysine micro-lines on PDMS exhibit a startling transition in axonal guidance: From the expected parallel guidance to an unexpected perpendicular guidance that becomes dominant as patterned lines and gaps become sufficiently narrow. This transition is most obvious when the lines are narrow relative to gaps, while the periodicity of the pattern is reduced. Axons growing perpendicular to micro-lines exhibited ‘vinculated’ growth, a unique morphological phenotype consisting of periodic orthogonal extensions along the axon. PMID:23250489

An equilibrium-point model of electromyographic patterns during single-joint movements based on experimentally reconstructed control signals.

PubMed

Latash, M L; Goodman, S R

1994-01-01

The purpose of this work has been to develop a model of electromyographic (EMG) patterns during single-joint movements based on a version of the equilibrium-point hypothesis, a method for experimental reconstruction of the joint compliant characteristics, the dual-strategy hypothesis, and a kinematic model of movement trajectory. EMG patterns are considered emergent properties of hypothetical control patterns that are equally affected by the control signals and peripheral feedback reflecting actual movement trajectory. A computer model generated the EMG patterns based on simulated movement kinematics and hypothetical control signals derived from the reconstructed joint compliant characteristics. The model predictions have been compared to published recordings of movement kinematics and EMG patterns in a variety of movement conditions, including movements over different distances, at different speeds, against different-known inertial loads, and in conditions of possible unexpected decrease in the inertial load. Changes in task parameters within the model led to simulated EMG patterns qualitatively similar to the experimentally recorded EMG patterns. The model's predictive power compares it favourably to the existing models of the EMG patterns. Copyright © 1994. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Multiple, Distinct Intercontinental Lineages but Isolation of Australian Populations in a Cosmopolitan Lichen-Forming Fungal Taxon, Psora decipiens (Psoraceae, Ascomycota)

PubMed Central

Leavitt, Steven D.; Westberg, Martin; Nelsen, Matthew P.; Elix, John A.; Timdal, Einar; Sohrabi, Mohammad; St. Clair, Larry L.; Williams, Laura; Wedin, Mats; Lumbsch, H. T.

2018-01-01

Multiple drivers shape the spatial distribution of species, including dispersal capacity, niche incumbency, climate variability, orographic barriers, and plate tectonics. However, biogeographic patterns of fungi commonly do not fit conventional expectations based on studies of animals and plants. Fungi, in general, are known to occur across exceedingly broad, intercontinental distributions, including some important components of biological soil crust communities (BSCs). However, molecular data often reveal unexpected biogeographic patterns in lichenized fungal species that are assumed to have cosmopolitan distributions. The lichen-forming fungal species Psora decipiens is found on all continents, except Antarctica and occurs in BSCs across diverse habitats, ranging from hot, arid deserts to alpine habitats. In order to better understand factors that shape population structure in cosmopolitan lichen-forming fungal species, we investigated biogeographic patterns in the cosmopolitan taxon P. decipiens, along with the closely related taxa P. crenata and P. saviczii. We generated a multi-locus sequence dataset based on a worldwide sampling of these taxa in order to reconstruct evolutionary relationships and explore phylogeographic patterns. Both P. crenata and P. decipiens were not recovered as monophyletic; and P. saviczii specimens were recovered as a monophyletic clade closely related to a number of lineages comprised of specimens representing P. decipiens. Striking phylogeographic patterns were observed for P. crenata, with populations from distinct geographic regions belonging to well-separated, monophyletic lineages. South African populations of P. crenata were further divided into well-supported sub-clades. While well-supported phylogenetic substructure was also observed for the nominal taxon P. decipiens, nearly all lineages were comprised of specimens collected from intercontinental populations. However, all Australian specimens representing P. decipiens were recovered within a single well-supported monophyletic clade consisting solely of Australian samples. Our study supports up to 10 candidate species-level lineages in P. decipiens, based on genealogical concordance and coalescent-based species delimitation analyses. Our results support the general pattern of the biogeographic isolation of lichen-forming fungal populations in Australia, even in cases where closely related congeners have documented intercontinental distributions. Our study has important implications for understanding factors influencing diversification and distributions of lichens associated with BSC. PMID:29527197

Native American lithic procurement along the international border in the boot heel region of southwestern New Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeigler, K. E.; Hogan, P.; Hughes, C.; Kurota, A.

2011-06-01

Multidisciplinary field projects can be very useful to a more fundamental understanding of the world around us, though these projects are not as common as they should be. In particular, the combination of archeology and geology combines our understanding of human behavior and human use of the landscape with an intimate knowledge of geologic processes and the materials available for human use in order to gain a broader understanding of human-Earth interaction. Here we present data from a cross-disciplinary project that uses a common dataset, archeological artifacts, to explore the anthropological and geologic implications of useage patterns. Archeological excavations and surveys conducted by the Office of Contract Archeology in 2007 along the route of the proposed international border fence reveal patterns of use of geologic materials by Archaic, Formative and Protohistoric Native Americans in the Boot Heel of southwestern New Mexico. Thousands of artifacts were recorded in multiple sites from Guadalupe Pass in the southern Peloncillo Mountains to the Carrizalillo Hills west of Columbus. We identified the lithologies of artifacts, ranging from projectile points to groundstones, and then constructed material movement maps based on either known procurement sites ("quarries") or outcrops identified as the closest source to a given site for each lithology. Not unexpectedly, the majority of the rock types utilized by native peoples are local siliceous volcanic materials. However, several artifacts constructed from obsidian were transported into the region from northern Mexico and eastern Arizona, indicating long-distance travel and/or trade routes. We also examine useage pattern difference between Archaic, Formative and Protohistoric sites. Additionally, a dramatic change in distribution of sources for geologic materials occurs between one pre-Spanish site and one post-Spanish site that are adjacent to one another.

Native American lithic procurement along the international border in the boot heel region of southwestern New Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeigler, K. E.; Hughes, C.; Kurota, A.; Hogan, P.

2010-12-01

Multidisciplinary field projects can be very useful to a more fundamental understanding of the world around us, though these projects are not as common as they should be. In particular, the combination of archeology and geology combines our understanding of human behavior and human use of the landscape with an intimate knowledge of geologic processes and the materials available for human use in order to gain a broader understanding of human-Earth interaction. Here we present data from a cross-disciplinary project that uses a common dataset, archeological artifacts, to explore the anthropological and geologic implications of useage patterns. Archeological excavations and surveys conducted by the Office of Contract Archeology in 2007 along the route of the proposed international border fence reveal patterns of use of geologic materials by Archaic, Formative and Protohistoric Native Americans in the Boot Heel of southwestern New Mexico. Thousands of artifacts were recorded in multiple sites from Guadalupe Pass in the southern Peloncillo Mountains to the Carrizalillo Hills west of Columbus. We identified the lithologies of artifacts, ranging from projectile points to groundstones, and then constructed material movement maps based on either known procurement sites ("quarries") or outcrops identified as the closest source to a given site for each lithology. Not unexpectedly, the majority of the rock types utilized by native peoples are local siliceous volcanic materials. However, several artifacts constructed from obsidian were transported into the region from northern Mexico and eastern Arizona, indicating long-distance travel and/or trade routes. We also examine useage pattern difference between Archaic, Formative and Protohistoric sites. Additionally, a dramatic change in distribution of sources for geologic materials occurs between one pre-Spanish site and one post-Spanish site that are adjacent to one another.

Characterization of task-free and task-performance brain states via functional connectome patterns.

PubMed

Zhang, Xin; Guo, Lei; Li, Xiang; Zhang, Tuo; Zhu, Dajiang; Li, Kaiming; Chen, Hanbo; Lv, Jinglei; Jin, Changfeng; Zhao, Qun; Li, Lingjiang; Liu, Tianming

2013-12-01

Both resting state fMRI (R-fMRI) and task-based fMRI (T-fMRI) have been widely used to study the functional activities of the human brain during task-free and task-performance periods, respectively. However, due to the difficulty in strictly controlling the participating subject's mental status and their cognitive behaviors during R-fMRI/T-fMRI scans, it has been challenging to ascertain whether or not an R-fMRI/T-fMRI scan truly reflects the participant's functional brain states during task-free/task-performance periods. This paper presents a novel computational approach to characterizing and differentiating the brain's functional status into task-free or task-performance states, by which the functional brain activities can be effectively understood and differentiated. Briefly, the brain's functional state is represented by a whole-brain quasi-stable connectome pattern (WQCP) of R-fMRI or T-fMRI data based on 358 consistent cortical landmarks across individuals, and then an effective sparse representation method was applied to learn the atomic connectome patterns (ACPs) of both task-free and task-performance states. Experimental results demonstrated that the learned ACPs for R-fMRI and T-fMRI datasets are substantially different, as expected. A certain portion of ACPs from R-fMRI and T-fMRI data were overlapped, suggesting some subjects with overlapping ACPs were not in the expected task-free/task-performance brain states. Besides, potential outliers in the T-fMRI dataset were further investigated via functional activation detections in different groups, and our results revealed unexpected task-performances of some subjects. This work offers novel insights into the functional architectures of the brain. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Characterization of Task-free and Task-performance Brain States via Functional Connectome Patterns

PubMed Central

Zhang, Xin; Guo, Lei; Li, Xiang; Zhang, Tuo; Zhu, Dajiang; Li, Kaiming; Chen, Hanbo; Lv, Jinglei; Jin, Changfeng; Zhao, Qun; Li, Lingjiang; Liu, Tianming

2014-01-01

Both resting state fMRI (R-fMRI) and task-based fMRI (T-fMRI) have been widely used to study the functional activities of the human brain during task-free and task-performance periods, respectively. However, due to the difficulty in strictly controlling the participating subject's mental status and their cognitive behaviors during R-fMRI/T-fMRI scans, it has been challenging to ascertain whether or not an R-fMRI/T-fMRI scan truly reflects the participant's functional brain states during task-free/task-performance periods. This paper presents a novel computational approach to characterizing and differentiating the brain's functional status into task-free or task-performance states, by which the functional brain activities can be effectively understood and differentiated. Briefly, the brain's functional state is represented by a whole-brain quasi-stable connectome pattern (WQCP) of R-fMRI or T-fMRI data based on 358 consistent cortical landmarks across individuals, and then an effective sparse representation method was applied to learn the atomic connectome patterns (ACP) of both task-free and task-performance states. Experimental results demonstrated that the learned ACPs for R-fMRI and T-fMRI datasets are substantially different, as expected. A certain portion of ACPs from R-fMRI and T-fMRI data were overlapped, suggesting some subjects with overlapping ACPs were not in the expected task-free/task-performance brain states. Besides, potential outliers in the T-fMRI dataset were further investigated via functional activation detections in different groups, and our results revealed unexpected task-performances of some subjects. This work offers novel insights into the functional architectures of the brain. PMID:23938590

Membrane tension regulates clathrin-coated pit dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Allen

2014-03-01

Intracellular organization depends on close communication between the extracellular environment and a network of cytoskeleton filaments. The interactions between cytoskeletal filaments and the plasma membrane lead to changes in membrane tension that in turns help regulate biological processes. Endocytosis is thought to be stimulated by low membrane tension and the removal of membrane increases membrane tension. While it is appreciated that the opposing effects of exocytosis and endocytosis have on keeping plasma membrane tension to a set point, it is not clear how membrane tension affects the dynamics of clathrin-coated pits (CCPs), the individual functional units of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Furthermore, although it was recently shown that actin dynamics counteracts membrane tension during CCP formation, it is not clear what roles plasma membrane tension plays during CCP initiation. Based on the notion that plasma membrane tension is increased when the membrane area increases during cell spreading, we designed micro-patterned surfaces of different sizes to control the cell spreading sizes. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy of living cells and high content image analysis were used to quantify the dynamics of CCPs. We found that there is an increased proportion of CCPs with short (<20s) lifetime for cells on larger patterns. Interestingly, cells on larger patterns have higher CCP initiation density, an effect unexpected based on the conventional view of decreasing endocytosis with increasing membrane tension. Furthermore, by analyzing the intensity profiles of CCPs that were longer-lived, we found CCP intensity decreases with increasing cell size, indicating that the CCPs are smaller with increasing membrane tension. Finally, disruption of actin dynamics significantly increased the number of short-lived CCPs, but also decreased CCP initiation rate. Together, our study reveals new mechanistic insights into how plasma membrane tension regulates the dynamics of CCPs.

The CRC orthologue from Pisum sativum shows conserved functions in carpel morphogenesis and vascular development

PubMed Central

Fourquin, Chloé; Primo, Amparo; Martínez-Fernández, Irene; Huet-Trujillo, Estefanía; Ferrándiz, Cristina

2014-01-01

Background and Aims CRABS CLAW (CRC) is a member of the YABBY family of transcription factors involved in carpel morphogenesis, floral determinacy and nectary specification in arabidopsis. CRC orthologues have been functionally characterized across angiosperms, revealing additional roles in leaf vascular development and carpel identity specification in Poaceae. These studies support an ancestral role of CRC orthologues in carpel development, while roles in vascular development and nectary specification appear to be derived. This study aimed to expand research on CRC functional conservation to the legume family in order to better understand the evolutionary history of CRC orthologues in angiosperms. Methods CRC orthologues from Pisum sativum and Medicago truncatula were identified. RNA in situ hybridization experiments determined the corresponding expression patterns throughout flower development. The phenotypic effects of reduced CRC activity were investigated in P. sativum using virus-induced gene silencing. Key Results CRC orthologues from P. sativum and M. truncatula showed similar expression patterns, mainly restricted to carpels and nectaries. However, these expression patterns differed from those of other core eudicots, most importantly in a lack of abaxial expression in the carpel and in atypical expression associated with the medial vein of the ovary. CRC downregulation in pea caused defects in carpel fusion and style/stigma development, both typically associated with CRC function in eudicots, but also affected vascular development in the carpel. Conclusions The data support the conserved roles of CRC orthologues in carpel fusion, style/stigma development and nectary development. In addition, an intriguing new aspect of CRC function in legumes was the unexpected role in vascular development, which could be shared by other species from widely diverged clades within the angiosperms, suggesting that this role could be ancestral rather than derived, as so far generally accepted. PMID:24989787

In search of the Golden Fleece: Unraveling principles of morphogenesis by studying the integrative biology of skin appendages

PubMed Central

Hughes, Michael W.; Wu, Ping; Jiang, Ting-Xin; Lin, Sung-Jan; Dong, Chen-Yuan; Li, Ang; Hsieh, Fon-Jou; Widelitz, Randall B.; Choung, Cheng Ming

2013-01-01

Summary The mythological story of the Golden Fleece symbolizes the magical regenerative power of skin appendages. Similar to the adventurous pursuit of the Golden Fleece by the multi-talented Argonauts, today we also need an integrated multi-disciplined approach to understand the cellular and molecular processes during development, regeneration and evolution of skin appendages. To this end, we have explored several aspects of skin appendage biology that contribute to the Turing activator / inhibitor model in feather pattern formation, the topo-biological arrangement of stem cells in organ shape determination, the macro-environmental regulation of stem cells in regenerative hair waves, and potential novel molecular pathways in the morphological evolution of feathers. Here we show our current integrative biology efforts to unravel the complex cellular behavior in patterning stem cells and the control of regional specificity in skin appendages. We use feather / scale tissue recombination to demonstrate the timing control of competence and inducibility. Feathers from different body regions are used to study skin regional specificity. Bioinformatic analyses of transcriptome microarrays show the potential involvement of candidate molecular pathways. We further show Hox genes exhibit some region specific expression patterns. To visualize real time events, we applied time-lapse movies, confocal microscopy and multiphoton microscopy to analyze the morphogenesis of cultured embryonic chicken skin explants. These modern imaging technologies reveal unexpectedly complex cellular flow and organization of extracellular matrix molecules in three dimensions. While these approaches are in preliminary stages, this perspective highlights the challenges we face and new integrative tools we will use. Future work will follow these leads to develop a systems biology view and understanding in the morphogenetic principles that govern the development and regeneration of ectodermal organs. PMID:21437328

Crystal structure of a small heat-shock protein from Xylella fastidiosa reveals a distinct high-order structure.

PubMed

Fonseca, Emanuella Maria Barreto; Scorsato, Valéria; Dos Santos, Marcelo Leite; Júnior, Atilio Tomazini; Tada, Susely Ferraz Siqueira; Dos Santos, Clelton Aparecido; de Toledo, Marcelo Augusto Szymanski; de Souza, Anete Pereira; Polikarpov, Igor; Aparicio, Ricardo

2017-04-01

Citrus variegated chlorosis is a disease that attacks economically important citrus plantations and is caused by the plant-pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. In this work, the structure of a small heat-shock protein from X. fastidiosa (XfsHSP17.9) is reported. The high-order structures of small heat-shock proteins from other organisms are arranged in the forms of double-disc, hollow-sphere or spherical assemblies. Unexpectedly, the structure reported here reveals a high-order architecture forming a nearly square cavity.

Skull ontogeny: developmental patterns of fishes conserved across major tetrapod clades.

PubMed

Schoch, Rainer R

2006-01-01

In vertebrates, the ontogeny of the bony skull forms a particularly complex part of embryonic development. Although this area used to be restricted to neontology, recent discoveries of fossil ontogenies provide an additional source of data. One of the most detailed ossification sequences is known from Permo-Carboniferous amphibians, the branchiosaurids. These temnospondyls form a near-perfect link between the piscine osteichthyans and the various clades of extant tetrapods, retaining a full complement of dermal bones in the skull. For the first time, the broader evolutionary significance of these event sequences is analyzed, focusing on the identification of sequence heterochronies. A set of 120 event pairs was analyzed by event pair cracking, which helped identify active movers. A cladistic analysis of the event pair data was also carried out, highlighting some shared patterns between widely divergent clades of tetrapods. The analyses revealed an unexpected degree of similarity between the widely divergent taxa. Most interesting is the apparently modular composition of the cranial sequence: five clusters of bones were discovered in each of which the elements form in the same time window: (1) jaw bones, (2) marginal palatal elements, (3) circumorbital bones, (4) skull roof elements, and (5) neurocranial ossifications. In the studied taxa, these "modules" have in most cases been shifted fore and back on the trajectory relative to the Amia sequence, but did not disintegrate. Such "modules" might indicate a high degree of evolutionary limitation (constraint).

Unexpected Diversity during Community Succession in the Apple Flower Microbiome

PubMed Central

Shade, Ashley; McManus, Patricia S.; Handelsman, Jo

2013-01-01

ABSTRACT Despite its importance to the host, the flower microbiome is poorly understood. We report a culture-independent, community-level assessment of apple flower microbial diversity and dynamics. We collected flowers from six apple trees at five time points, starting before flowers opened and ending at petal fall. We applied streptomycin to half of the trees when flowers opened. Assessment of microbial diversity using tag pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes revealed that the apple flower communities were rich and diverse and dominated by members of TM7 and Deinococcus-Thermus, phyla about which relatively little is known. From thousands of taxa, we identified six successional groups with coherent dynamics whose abundances peaked at different times before and after bud opening. We designated the groups Pioneer, Early, Mid, Late, Climax, and Generalist communities. The successional pattern was attributed to a set of prevalent taxa that were persistent and gradually changing in abundance. These taxa had significant associations with other community members, as demonstrated with a cooccurrence network based on local similarity analysis. We also detected a set of less-abundant, transient taxa that contributed to general tree-to-tree variability but not to the successional pattern. Communities on trees sprayed with streptomycin had slightly lower phylogenetic diversity than those on unsprayed trees but did not differ in structure or succession. Our results suggest that changes in apple flower microbial community structure are predictable over the life of the flower, providing a basis for ecological understanding and disease management. PMID:23443006

Phylogeography of the tropical planktonic foraminifera lineage globigerinella reveals isolation inconsistent with passive dispersal by ocean currents.

PubMed

Weiner, Agnes K M; Weinkauf, Manuel F G; Kurasawa, Atsushi; Darling, Kate F; Kucera, Michal; Grimm, Guido W

2014-01-01

Morphologically defined species of marine plankton often harbor a considerable level of cryptic diversity. Since many morphospecies show cosmopolitan distribution, an understanding of biogeographic and evolutionary processes at the level of genetic diversity requires global sampling. We use a database of 387 single-specimen sequences of the SSU rDNA of the planktonic foraminifera Globigerinella as a model to assess the biogeographic and phylogenetic distributions of cryptic diversity in marine microplankton on a global scale. Our data confirm the existence of multiple, well isolated genetic lineages. An analysis of their abundance and distribution indicates that our sampling is likely to approximate the actual total diversity. Unexpectedly, we observe an uneven allocation of cryptic diversity among the phylogenetic lineages. We show that this pattern is neither an artifact of sampling intensity nor a function of lineage age. Instead, we argue that it reflects an ongoing speciation process in one of the three major lineages. Surprisingly, four of the six genetic types in the hyperdiverse lineage are biogeographically restricted to the Indopacific. Their mutual co-occurrence and their hierarchical phylogenetic structure provide no evidence for an origin through sudden habitat fragmentation and their limitation to the Indopacific challenges the view of a global gene flow within the warm-water provinces. This phenomenon shows that passive dispersal is not sufficient to describe the distribution of plankton diversity. Rather, these organisms show differentiated distribution patterns shaped by species interactions and reflecting phylogenetic contingency with unique histories of diversification rates.

Ciliary behavior of a negatively phototactic Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

PubMed

Josef, Keith; Saranak, Jureepan; Foster, Kenneth W

2005-06-01

With an instrument that can record the motion of both cilia of the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for many hours, the behavioral differences of its two cilia have been studied to determine their specific role in phototaxis. The organism was held on a fixed micropipette with the plane of ciliary beating rotated into the imaging plane of a quadrant photodetector. The responses to square-wave light patterns of a wide range of temporal frequencies were used to characterize the responses of each cilium. Eighty-one cells were examined showing an unexpectedly diverse range of responses. Plausible common signals for the linear and nonlinear signals from the cell body are suggested. Three independent ciliary measures--the beat frequency, stroke velocity, and phasing of the two cilia--have been identified. The cell body communicates to the cilia the direction of phototaxis the cell desires to go, the absolute light intensity, and the appropriate graded transient response for tracking the light source. The complexity revealed by each measure of the ciliary response indicates many independent variables are involved in the net phototactic response. In spite of their morphological similarity, the two cilia of Chlamydomonas respond uniquely. Probably the signals from the cell body fan out to independent pathways in the cilia. Each cilium modifies the input in its own way. The change in the pattern of the effective and recovery strokes of each cilium associated with negative phototaxis has been demonstrated and its involvement in phototactic turning is described. Copyright (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Digging up the roots of an insular hotspot of genetic diversity: decoupled mito-nuclear histories in the evolution of the Corsican-Sardinian endemic lizard Podarcis tiliguerta.

PubMed

Salvi, Daniele; Pinho, Catarina; Harris, D James

2017-03-02

Mediterranean islands host a disproportionately high level of biodiversity and endemisms. Growing phylogeographic evidence on island endemics has unveiled unexpectedly complex patterns of intra-island diversification, which originated at diverse spatial and temporal scales. We investigated multilocus genetic variation of the Corsican-Sardinian endemic lizard Podarcis tiliguerta with the aim of shedding more light on the evolutionary processes underlying the origin of Mediterranean island biodiversity. We analysed DNA sequences of mitochondrial (12S and nd4) and nuclear (acm4 and mc1r) gene fragments in 174 individuals of P. tiliguerta from 81 localities across the full range of the species in a geographic and genealogical framework. We found surprisingly high genetic diversity both at mitochondrial and nuclear loci. Seventeen reciprocally monophyletic allopatric mitochondrial haplogroups were sharply divided into four main mitochondrial lineages (two in Corsica and two in Sardinia) of Miocene origin. In contrast, shallow divergence and shared diversity within and between islands was observed at the nuclear loci. We evaluated alternative biogeographic and evolutionary scenarios to explain such profound discordance in spatial and phylogenetic patterning between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. While neutral models provided unparsimonious explanations for the observed pattern, the hypothesis of environmental selection driving mitochondrial divergence in the presence of nuclear gene flow is favoured. Our study on the genetic variation of P. tiliguerta reveals surprising levels of diversity underlining a complex phylogeographic pattern with a striking example of mito-nuclear discordance. These findings have profound implications, not only for the taxonomy and conservation of P. tiliguerta. Growing evidence on deep mitochondrial breaks in absence of geographic barriers and of climatic factors associated to genetic variation of Corsican-Sardinian endemics warrants additional investigation on the potential role of environmental selection driving the evolution of diversity hotspots within Mediterranean islands.

Cell-type specific roles for PTEN in establishing a functional retinal architecture.

PubMed

Cantrup, Robert; Dixit, Rajiv; Palmesino, Elena; Bonfield, Stephan; Shaker, Tarek; Tachibana, Nobuhiko; Zinyk, Dawn; Dalesman, Sarah; Yamakawa, Kazuhiro; Stell, William K; Wong, Rachel O; Reese, Benjamin E; Kania, Artur; Sauvé, Yves; Schuurmans, Carol

2012-01-01

The retina has a unique three-dimensional architecture, the precise organization of which allows for complete sampling of the visual field. Along the radial or apicobasal axis, retinal neurons and their dendritic and axonal arbors are segregated into layers, while perpendicular to this axis, in the tangential plane, four of the six neuronal types form patterned cellular arrays, or mosaics. Currently, the molecular cues that control retinal cell positioning are not well-understood, especially those that operate in the tangential plane. Here we investigated the role of the PTEN phosphatase in establishing a functional retinal architecture. In the developing retina, PTEN was localized preferentially to ganglion, amacrine and horizontal cells, whose somata are distributed in mosaic patterns in the tangential plane. Generation of a retina-specific Pten knock-out resulted in retinal ganglion, amacrine and horizontal cell hypertrophy, and expansion of the inner plexiform layer. The spacing of Pten mutant mosaic populations was also aberrant, as were the arborization and fasciculation patterns of their processes, displaying cell type-specific defects in the radial and tangential dimensions. Irregular oscillatory potentials were also observed in Pten mutant electroretinograms, indicative of asynchronous amacrine cell firing. Furthermore, while Pten mutant RGC axons targeted appropriate brain regions, optokinetic spatial acuity was reduced in Pten mutant animals. Finally, while some features of the Pten mutant retina appeared similar to those reported in Dscam-mutant mice, PTEN expression and activity were normal in the absence of Dscam. We conclude that Pten regulates somal positioning and neurite arborization patterns of a subset of retinal cells that form mosaics, likely functioning independently of Dscam, at least during the embryonic period. Our findings thus reveal an unexpected level of cellular specificity for the multi-purpose phosphatase, and identify Pten as an integral component of a novel cell positioning pathway in the retina.

The Unexpected in Primary Care: A Multicenter Study on the Emergence of Unvoiced Patient Agenda

PubMed Central

Peltenburg, Michael; Fischer, Joachim E.; Bahrs, Ottomar; van Dulmen, Sandra; van den Brink-Muinen, Atie

2004-01-01

PURPOSE Within the time constraints of a typical physician-patient encounter, the full patient agenda will rarely be voiced. Unexpectedly revealed issues that were neither on the patient’s list of items for discussion nor anticipated by the physician constitute an emerging agenda. We aimed to quantify the occurrence rate of emerging agendas in primary care practices and to explain the variation between patients and practices. METHODS This observational cross-sectional study involved 182 primary care practices in 9 European cultural regions. Consecutive primary care consultations were videotaped and rated. Patients completed preconsultation and postconsultation questionnaires assessing their expectations and perceived care. Emerging agenda, determined by using 11-item preconsultation and postconsultation questionnaires, was defined as care perceived by the patient to be in addition to expected care, after adjustment for cultural variations of patient expectations. RESULTS For consultations involving 2,243 patients (mean age, 44.8 years, 58.4% women), every sixth (15.8%) consultation revealed emerging psychosocial agenda. Biomedical agenda emerged in14.5% of the consultations. Rates for unmet expectations were 13.6% and 10.3%, respectively, for psychosocial and biomedical problems. Practices showed considerable heterogeneity of occurrence of emerging agenda (biomedical, median 13%, range 0%–67%; psychosocial, median 14%, range 0%–53%). After controlling for region and patient baseline characteristics, variables significantly related to emerging agenda were patient expectations and biomedical or psychosocial discourse content, but not consultation time or sex of the patient. A large proportion of the variance attributable to physicians remained concealed in a practice dummy variable (explaining up to 8% of the variance). CONCLUSION Unexpected agenda emerges in every sixth to seventh consultation in outpatient primary care visits. PMID:15576537

Structure of human Fe-S assembly subcomplex reveals unexpected cysteine desulfurase architecture and acyl-ACP-ISD11 interactions.

PubMed

Cory, Seth A; Van Vranken, Jonathan G; Brignole, Edward J; Patra, Shachin; Winge, Dennis R; Drennan, Catherine L; Rutter, Jared; Barondeau, David P

2017-07-03

In eukaryotes, sulfur is mobilized for incorporation into multiple biosynthetic pathways by a cysteine desulfurase complex that consists of a catalytic subunit (NFS1), LYR protein (ISD11), and acyl carrier protein (ACP). This NFS1-ISD11-ACP (SDA) complex forms the core of the iron-sulfur (Fe-S) assembly complex and associates with assembly proteins ISCU2, frataxin (FXN), and ferredoxin to synthesize Fe-S clusters. Here we present crystallographic and electron microscopic structures of the SDA complex coupled to enzyme kinetic and cell-based studies to provide structure-function properties of a mitochondrial cysteine desulfurase. Unlike prokaryotic cysteine desulfurases, the SDA structure adopts an unexpected architecture in which a pair of ISD11 subunits form the dimeric core of the SDA complex, which clarifies the critical role of ISD11 in eukaryotic assemblies. The different quaternary structure results in an incompletely formed substrate channel and solvent-exposed pyridoxal 5'-phosphate cofactor and provides a rationale for the allosteric activator function of FXN in eukaryotic systems. The structure also reveals the 4'-phosphopantetheine-conjugated acyl-group of ACP occupies the hydrophobic core of ISD11, explaining the basis of ACP stabilization. The unexpected architecture for the SDA complex provides a framework for understanding interactions with acceptor proteins for sulfur-containing biosynthetic pathways, elucidating mechanistic details of eukaryotic Fe-S cluster biosynthesis, and clarifying how defects in Fe-S cluster assembly lead to diseases such as Friedreich's ataxia. Moreover, our results support a lock-and-key model in which LYR proteins associate with acyl-ACP as a mechanism for fatty acid biosynthesis to coordinate the expression, Fe-S cofactor maturation, and activity of the respiratory complexes.

Postmodern Feminism: Cultural Trauma in Construction of Female Identities in Virginia Woolf's "The Waves"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jamili, Leila Baradaran; Roshanzamir, Ziba

2017-01-01

The present article sheds new light on trauma as a devastating phenomenon respecting the construction of male and female characters' identities and reveals reconstruction of male and female identities in Virginia Woolf's (1882-1941) "The Waves" (1931). Trauma is defined as an unexpected event that leaves the most terrible marks on the…

Analysis of utilization of desert habitats with dynamic simulation

USGS Publications Warehouse

Williams, B.K.

1986-01-01

The effects of climate and herbivores on cool desert shrubs in north-western Utah were investigated with a dynamic simulation model. Cool desert shrublands are extensively managed as grazing lands, and are defoliated annually by domestic livestock. A primary production model was used to simulate harvest yields and shrub responses under a variety of climatic regimes and defoliation patterns. The model consists of six plant components, and it is based on equations of growth analysis. Plant responses were simulated under various combinations of 20 annual weather patterns and 14 defoliation strategies. Results of the simulations exhibit some unexpected linearities in model behavior, and emphasize the importance of both the pattern of climate and the level of plant vigor in determining optimal harvest strategies. Model behaviors are interpreted in terms of shrub morphology, physiology and ecology.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Strons, Philip; Bailey, James L.

Anemometer readings alone cannot provide a complete picture of air flow patterns at an open gloveport. Having a means to visualize air flow for field tests in general provides greater insight by indicating direction in addition to the magnitude of the air flow velocities in the region of interest. Furthermore, flow visualization is essential for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) verification, where important modeling assumptions play a significant role in analyzing the chaotic nature of low-velocity air flow. A good example is shown Figure 1, where an unexpected vortex pattern occurred during a field test that could not have been measuredmore » relying only on anemometer readings. Here by, observing and measuring the patterns of the smoke flowing into the gloveport allowed the CFD model to be appropriately updated to match the actual flow velocities in both magnitude and direction.« less

Sequence tagging reveals unexpected modifications in toxicoproteomics

PubMed Central

Dasari, Surendra; Chambers, Matthew C.; Codreanu, Simona G.; Liebler, Daniel C.; Collins, Ben C.; Pennington, Stephen R.; Gallagher, William M.; Tabb, David L.

2010-01-01

Toxicoproteomic samples are rich in posttranslational modifications (PTMs) of proteins. Identifying these modifications via standard database searching can incur significant performance penalties. Here we describe the latest developments in TagRecon, an algorithm that leverages inferred sequence tags to identify modified peptides in toxicoproteomic data sets. TagRecon identifies known modifications more effectively than the MyriMatch database search engine. TagRecon outperformed state of the art software in recognizing unanticipated modifications from LTQ, Orbitrap, and QTOF data sets. We developed user-friendly software for detecting persistent mass shifts from samples. We follow a three-step strategy for detecting unanticipated PTMs in samples. First, we identify the proteins present in the sample with a standard database search. Next, identified proteins are interrogated for unexpected PTMs with a sequence tag-based search. Finally, additional evidence is gathered for the detected mass shifts with a refinement search. Application of this technology on toxicoproteomic data sets revealed unintended cross-reactions between proteins and sample processing reagents. Twenty five proteins in rat liver showed signs of oxidative stress when exposed to potentially toxic drugs. These results demonstrate the value of mining toxicoproteomic data sets for modifications. PMID:21214251

Transgenic mice reveal unexpected diversity of On-Off direction selective retinal ganglion cell subtypes and brain structures involved in motion processing

PubMed Central

Rivlin-Etzion, Michal; Zhou, Kaili; Wei, Wei; Elstrott, Justin; Nguyen, Phong L.; Barres, Ben; Huberman, Andrew D.; Feller, Marla B.

2011-01-01

On-Off direction selective retinal ganglion cells (DSGCs) encode the axis of visual motion. They respond strongly to an object moving in a preferred direction and weakly to an object moving in the opposite, ‘null’, direction. Historically, On-Off DSGCs were classified into 4 subtypes according to their directional preference (anterior, posterior, superior or inferior). Here, we compare two genetically identified populations of On-Off DSGCs: DRD4-DSGCs and TRHR-DSGCs. We find that although both populations are tuned for posterior motion, they can be distinguished by a variety of physiological and anatomical criteria. First, the directional tuning of TRHR-DSGCs is broader than that of DRD4-DSGCs. Second, whereas both populations project similarly to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, they project differently to the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus and the superior colliculus. Moreover, TRHR-DSGCs, but not DRD4-DSGCs, also project to the zona incerta, a thalamic area not previously known to receive direction-tuned visual information. Our findings reveal unexpected diversity among mouse On-Off DSGC subtypes that uniquely process and convey image motion to the brain. PMID:21677160

Long-Term Adaptations to Unexpected Surface Perturbations: Postural Control During Stance and Gait in Train Conductors.

PubMed

Baumgart, Christian; Hoppe, Matthias Wilhelm; Freiwald, Jürgen

2016-01-01

The authors aimed to evaluate the differences in postural control during stance and gait between train conductors and controls. Twenty-one train conductors and 21 office workers performed 6 unilateral and bilateral balance tests on stable and unstable surfaces as well as a gait analysis. In the balance tests, the mean velocity of the center of pressure and unstable surface was measured. In the bilateral balance tests the selected stance width was measured. During gait the length, width, frequency, and velocity of the steps were calculated from the ground reaction forces. Train conductors showed a significantly greater step width during gait (15.4 ± 4.7 vs. 13.0 ± 3.4 cm; p = .035) and stance width during the bilateral stance on the unstable surface (21.0 ± 5.1 vs. 17.8 ± 3.7 cm; p = .026) than the office workers, while no differences were revealed in balance variables. The revealed differences between train conductors and office workers may represent task-specific feedforward control strategies, which increase the base of support and may be helpful to resist unexpected perturbations in trains.

Intelligent system for topic survey in MEDLINE by keyword recommendation and learning text characteristics.

PubMed

Tanaka, M; Nakazono, S; Matsuno, H; Tsujimoto, H; Kitamura, Y; Miyano, S

2000-01-01

We have implemented a system for assisting experts in selecting MEDLINE records for database construction purposes. This system has two specific features: The first is a learning mechanism which extracts characteristics in the abstracts of MEDLINE records of interest as patterns. These patterns reflect selection decisions by experts and are used for screening the records. The second is a keyword recommendation system which assists and supplements experts' knowledge in unexpected cases. Combined with a conventional keyword-based information retrieval system, this system may provide an efficient and comfortable environment for MEDLINE record selection by experts. Some computational experiments are provided to prove that this idea is useful.

Basalt geochemistry reveals high frequency of prehistoric tool exchange in low hierarchy Marquesas Islands (Polynesia)

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Exchange activities, formal or otherwise, serve a variety of purposes and were prominent in many Pacific Island societies, both during island settlement and in late prehistory. Recent Polynesian studies highlight the role of exchange in the region’s most hierarchical polities where it contributed to wealth economies, emergent leadership, and status rivalry in late prehistory. Building on this research, we hypothesized that exchange in low hierarchy chiefdoms (kin-based polities where there are distinctions between commoners and elites but ranking within the latter is lacking, weak, or ephemeral) would differ in frequency and function from that associated with strongly hierarchical polities. We address this hypothesis through geochemical, morphological, and distributional analyses of stone tools on Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands. Non-destructive Energy-Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and destructive Wavelength-Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (WDXRF) analyses of 278 complete and broken tools (adzes, chisels, preforms) from four valleys identify use of stone from at least seven sources on three islands: five on Nuku Hiva and one each on Eiao and Ua Pou. A functional analysis demonstrates that no tool form is limited to a particular source, while inter-valley distributions reveal that the proportions of non-local or extra-valley tools (43 to 94%, mean = 77%) approximate or exceed results from other archipelagoes, including those from elite and ritual sites of Polynesian archaic states. Intra-valley patterns also are unexpected, with non-local stone tools being recovered from both elite and commoner residential areas in near-equal proportions. Our findings unambiguously demonstrate the importance of exchange in late prehistoric Marquesan society, at varied social and geographic scales. We propose the observed patterns are the result of elites using non-local tools as political currency, aimed at reinforcing status, cementing client-patron relations, and building extra-valley alliances, consistent with prestige societies elsewhere and early historic accounts from the Marquesan Islands. PMID:29281652

Molecular cloning and characterization of three genes encoding dihydroflavonol-4-reductase from Ginkgo biloba in anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway.

PubMed

Hua, Cheng; Linling, Li; Shuiyuan, Cheng; Fuliang, Cao; Feng, Xu; Honghui, Yuan; Conghua, Wu

2013-01-01

Dihydroflavonol-4-reductase (DFR, EC1.1.1.219) catalyzes a key step late in the biosynthesis of anthocyanins, condensed tannins (proanthocyanidins), and other flavonoids important to plant survival and human nutrition. Three DFR cDNA clones (designated GbDFRs) were isolated from the gymnosperm Ginkgo biloba. The deduced GbDFR proteins showed high identities to other plant DFRs, which form three distinct DFR families. Southern blot analysis showed that the three GbDFRs each belong to a different DFR family. Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the GbDFRs share the same ancestor as other DFRs. The expression of the three recombinant GbDFRs in Escherichia coli showed that their actual protein sizes were in agreement with predictions from the cDNA sequences. The recombinant proteins were purified and their activity was analyzed; both GbDFR1 and GbDFR3 could catalyze dihydroquercetin conversion to leucocyanidin, while GbDFR2 catalyzed dihydrokaempferol conversion to leucopelargonidin. qRT-PCR showed that the GbDFRs were expressed in a tissue-specific manner, and transcript accumulation for the three genes was highest in young leaves and stamens. These transcription patterns were in good agreement with the pattern of anthocyanin accumulation in G.biloba. The expression profiles suggested that GbDFR1 and GbDFR2 are mainly involved in responses to plant hormones, environmental stress and damage. During the annual growth cycle, the GbDFRs were significantly correlated with anthocyanin accumulation in leaves. A fitted linear curve showed the best model for relating GbDFR2 and GbDFR3 with anthocyanin accumulation in leaves. GbDFR1 appears to be involved in environmental stress response, while GbDFR3 likely has primary functions in the synthesis of anthocyanins. These data revealed unexpected properties and differences in three DFR proteins from a single species.

Molecular Cloning and Characterization of Three Genes Encoding Dihydroflavonol-4-Reductase from Ginkgo biloba in Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway

PubMed Central

Hua, Cheng; Linling, Li; Shuiyuan, Cheng; Fuliang, Cao; Feng, Xu; Honghui, Yuan; Conghua, Wu

2013-01-01

Dihydroflavonol-4-reductase (DFR, EC1.1.1.219) catalyzes a key step late in the biosynthesis of anthocyanins, condensed tannins (proanthocyanidins), and other flavonoids important to plant survival and human nutrition. Three DFR cDNA clones (designated GbDFRs) were isolated from the gymnosperm Ginkgo biloba. The deduced GbDFR proteins showed high identities to other plant DFRs, which form three distinct DFR families. Southern blot analysis showed that the three GbDFRs each belong to a different DFR family. Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the GbDFRs share the same ancestor as other DFRs. The expression of the three recombinant GbDFRs in Escherichia coli showed that their actual protein sizes were in agreement with predictions from the cDNA sequences. The recombinant proteins were purified and their activity was analyzed; both GbDFR1 and GbDFR3 could catalyze dihydroquercetin conversion to leucocyanidin, while GbDFR2 catalyzed dihydrokaempferol conversion to leucopelargonidin. qRT-PCR showed that the GbDFRs were expressed in a tissue-specific manner, and transcript accumulation for the three genes was highest in young leaves and stamens. These transcription patterns were in good agreement with the pattern of anthocyanin accumulation in G.biloba. The expression profiles suggested that GbDFR1 and GbDFR2 are mainly involved in responses to plant hormones, environmental stress and damage. During the annual growth cycle, the GbDFRs were significantly correlated with anthocyanin accumulation in leaves. A fitted linear curve showed the best model for relating GbDFR2 and GbDFR3 with anthocyanin accumulation in leaves. GbDFR1 appears to be involved in environmental stress response, while GbDFR3 likely has primary functions in the synthesis of anthocyanins. These data revealed unexpected properties and differences in three DFR proteins from a single species. PMID:23991027

On the relationship between boreal forest browning and tree mortality: insights from Alaska

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rogers, B. M.; Goetz, S. J.

2015-12-01

Long-term satellite measurements of vegetation productivity in high-latitude environments have revealed profound and widespread responses to climate warming. Although warmer and longer summers are causing the Arctic to "green", many regions of boreal forest are showing the opposite response, particularly since the mid 1990s. This "browning" phenomenon was generally unexpected at the time of discovery, is not captured by global models, and may have profound consequences for the boreal biome. A number of studies have linked satellite-based browning trends to tree productivity through tree rings. However, our understanding of the environmental controls and ecosystem consequences of browning remains remarkably limited. Here we examine to what extent browning patterns are related to a fundamental demographic process: tree mortality. We focus on a long-term inventory database in Alaska to characterize mortality events and trends from 1994 to 2014. These patterns were related to vegetation productivity indices from MODIS and the AVHRR-based GIMMS3g data set. We explore three central hypotheses: (1) mortality events are likely to be preceded by 5-10 year browning trends ("press stress"), (2) mortality events are likely to be preceded by distinct pulses of low productivity ("pulse stress"), and (3) long-term trends in mortality are related to long-term browning. Within our study region, which encompasses eastern Alaskan from the Pacific coastal mountains up through the interior, we find strong evidence for the first two hypotheses. The third is weakly supported, which may be a consequence of the episodic nature of mortality in the region. However, preliminary analyses in the southern Canadian boreal reveal a markedly stronger relationship between long-term mortality and browning. Taken together, our study suggests a robust correlation between satellite-based metrics of productivity and forest demography; one that has consequences for forest composition, carbon stocks, and early signs of a biome shift in boreal forests.

Analysis of HIV-1 intersubtype recombination breakpoints suggests region with high pairing probability may be a more fundamental factor than sequence similarity affecting HIV-1 recombination.

PubMed

Jia, Lei; Li, Lin; Gui, Tao; Liu, Siyang; Li, Hanping; Han, Jingwan; Guo, Wei; Liu, Yongjian; Li, Jingyun

2016-09-21

With increasing data on HIV-1, a more relevant molecular model describing mechanism details of HIV-1 genetic recombination usually requires upgrades. Currently an incomplete structural understanding of the copy choice mechanism along with several other issues in the field that lack elucidation led us to perform an analysis of the correlation between breakpoint distributions and (1) the probability of base pairing, and (2) intersubtype genetic similarity to further explore structural mechanisms. Near full length sequences of URFs from Asia, Europe, and Africa (one sequence/patient), and representative sequences of worldwide CRFs were retrieved from the Los Alamos HIV database. Their recombination patterns were analyzed by jpHMM in detail. Then the relationships between breakpoint distributions and (1) the probability of base pairing, and (2) intersubtype genetic similarities were investigated. Pearson correlation test showed that all URF groups and the CRF group exhibit the same breakpoint distribution pattern. Additionally, the Wilcoxon two-sample test indicated a significant and inexplicable limitation of recombination in regions with high pairing probability. These regions have been found to be strongly conserved across distinct biological states (i.e., strong intersubtype similarity), and genetic similarity has been determined to be a very important factor promoting recombination. Thus, the results revealed an unexpected disagreement between intersubtype similarity and breakpoint distribution, which were further confirmed by genetic similarity analysis. Our analysis reveals a critical conflict between results from natural HIV-1 isolates and those from HIV-1-based assay vectors in which genetic similarity has been shown to be a very critical factor promoting recombination. These results indicate the region with high-pairing probabilities may be a more fundamental factor affecting HIV-1 recombination than sequence similarity in natural HIV-1 infections. Our findings will be relevant in furthering the understanding of HIV-1 recombination mechanisms.

Metamodels for Transdisciplinary Analysis of Wildlife Population Dynamics

PubMed Central

Lacy, Robert C.; Miller, Philip S.; Nyhus, Philip J.; Pollak, J. P.; Raboy, Becky E.; Zeigler, Sara L.

2013-01-01

Wildlife population models have been criticized for their narrow disciplinary perspective when analyzing complexity in coupled biological – physical – human systems. We describe a “metamodel” approach to species risk assessment when diverse threats act at different spatiotemporal scales, interact in non-linear ways, and are addressed by distinct disciplines. A metamodel links discrete, individual models that depict components of a complex system, governing the flow of information among models and the sequence of simulated events. Each model simulates processes specific to its disciplinary realm while being informed of changes in other metamodel components by accessing common descriptors of the system, populations, and individuals. Interactions among models are revealed as emergent properties of the system. We introduce a new metamodel platform, both to further explain key elements of the metamodel approach and as an example that we hope will facilitate the development of other platforms for implementing metamodels in population biology, species risk assessments, and conservation planning. We present two examples – one exploring the interactions of dispersal in metapopulations and the spread of infectious disease, the other examining predator-prey dynamics – to illustrate how metamodels can reveal complex processes and unexpected patterns when population dynamics are linked to additional extrinsic factors. Metamodels provide a flexible, extensible method for expanding population viability analyses beyond models of isolated population demographics into more complete representations of the external and intrinsic threats that must be understood and managed for species conservation. PMID:24349567

Propionibacterium acnes Bacteriophages Display Limited Genetic Diversity and Broad Killing Activity against Bacterial Skin Isolates

PubMed Central

Marinelli, Laura J.; Fitz-Gibbon, Sorel; Hayes, Clarmyra; Bowman, Charles; Inkeles, Megan; Loncaric, Anya; Russell, Daniel A.; Jacobs-Sera, Deborah; Cokus, Shawn; Pellegrini, Matteo; Kim, Jenny; Miller, Jeff F.; Hatfull, Graham F.; Modlin, Robert L.

2012-01-01

ABSTRACT Investigation of the human microbiome has revealed diverse and complex microbial communities at distinct anatomic sites. The microbiome of the human sebaceous follicle provides a tractable model in which to study its dominant bacterial inhabitant, Propionibacterium acnes, which is thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of the human disease acne. To explore the diversity of the bacteriophages that infect P. acnes, 11 P. acnes phages were isolated from the sebaceous follicles of donors with healthy skin or acne and their genomes were sequenced. Comparative genomic analysis of the P. acnes phage population, which spans a 30-year temporal period and a broad geographic range, reveals striking similarity in terms of genome length, percent GC content, nucleotide identity (>85%), and gene content. This was unexpected, given the far-ranging diversity observed in virtually all other phage populations. Although the P. acnes phages display a broad host range against clinical isolates of P. acnes, two bacterial isolates were resistant to many of these phages. Moreover, the patterns of phage resistance correlate closely with the presence of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat elements in the bacteria that target a specific subset of phages, conferring a system of prokaryotic innate immunity. The limited diversity of the P. acnes bacteriophages, which may relate to the unique evolutionary constraints imposed by the lipid-rich anaerobic environment in which their bacterial hosts reside, points to the potential utility of phage-based antimicrobial therapy for acne. PMID:23015740

Unexpected death of a ventilator-dependent amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient.

PubMed

di Paolo, M; Evangelisti, L; Ambrosino, N

2013-01-01

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal, progressive, neurodegenerative disease and most patients affected die of respiratory compromise and/or pneumonia within 2-3 years of diagnosis. As ALS progresses, ventilator assistance is required. In the end stages of the disease, patients suffer from respiratory failure and may become ventilator-dependent. Deaths due to malfunction of mechanical ventilators are reported but there are very few forensic autopsy records. We report the case of a 69-year-old ALS female ventilator-dependent, trachostomised patient who was found dead by her husband, with the ventilator in "stand-by" mode. A forensic autopsy was performed. Samples of internal organs were taken for histological and toxicological examination. The ventilator internal memory was also analysed and tested in order to find possible malfunction. Gross examination did not reveal any sign of trauma but showed brain and lung congestion. Pulmonary histological examination revealed thickening of peribronchial interstitial space, alveolar over-distension, break of inter-alveolar walls and diffuse alveolar haemorrhages. Focal microhemorrhages were also detected in other organs. Analysis of the ventilator internal memory showed that during the night of death, there had been several voltage drops. Specific tests revealed malfunction of the internal battery which was unable to provide the necessary voltage, as a consequence the ventilator switched off, stopping ventilation. Battery malfunction reduced the volume of the ventilator alarm, which was not heard by the caregiver. Histological pattern, with acute pulmonary emphysema and focal polivisceral haemorrhages, is strongly suggestive of a death due to "acute" asphyxia. The authors also discuss the need for strict supervision and follow up of these ventilatory dependent patients and their devices. Copyright © 2012 Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia. Published by Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Yolk protein is expressed in the insect testis and interacts with sperm

PubMed Central

Bebas, Piotr; Kotwica, Joanna; Joachimiak, Ewa; Giebultowicz, Jadwiga M

2008-01-01

Background Male and female gametes follow diverse developmental pathways dictated by their distinct roles in fertilization. While oocytes of oviparous animals accumulate yolk in the cytoplasm, spermatozoa slough off most of their cytoplasm in the process of individualization. Mammalian spermatozoa released from the testis undergo extensive modifications in the seminal ducts involving a variety of glycoproteins. Ultrastructural studies suggest that glycoproteins are involved in sperm maturation in insects; however, their characterization at the molecular level is lacking. We reported previously that the circadian clock controls sperm release and maturation in several insect species. In the moth, Spodoptera littoralis, the secretion of glycoproteins into the seminal fluid occurs in a daily rhythmic pattern. The purpose of this study was to characterize seminal fluid glycoproteins in this species and elucidate their role in the process of sperm maturation. Results We collected seminal fluid proteins from males before and after daily sperm release. These samples were separated by 2-D gel electrophoresis, and gels were treated with a glycoprotein-detecting probe. We observed a group of abundant glycoproteins in the sample collected after sperm release, which was absent in the sample collected before sperm release. Sequencing of these glycoproteins by mass spectroscopy revealed peptides bearing homology with components of yolk, which is known to accumulate in developing oocytes. This unexpected result was confirmed by Western blotting demonstrating that seminal fluid contains protein immunoreactive to antibody against yolk protein YP2 produced in the follicle cells surrounding developing oocytes. We cloned the fragment of yp2 cDNA from S. littoralis and determined that it is expressed in both ovaries and testes. yp2 mRNA and YP2 protein were detected in the somatic cyst cells enveloping sperm inside the testis. During the period of sperm release, YP2 protein appears in the seminal fluid and forms an external coat on spermatozoa. Conclusion One of the yolk protein precursors YP2, which in females accumulate in the oocytes to provision developing embryos, appears to have a second male-specific role. It is produced in the testes and released into the seminal fluid where it interacts with sperm. These data reveal unexpected common factor in the maturation of insect eggs and sperm. PMID:18549506

Evidence for Long-Timescale Patterns of Synaptic Inputs in CA1 of Awake Behaving Mice.

PubMed

Kolb, Ilya; Talei Franzesi, Giovanni; Wang, Michael; Kodandaramaiah, Suhasa B; Forest, Craig R; Boyden, Edward S; Singer, Annabelle C

2018-02-14

Repeated sequences of neural activity are a pervasive feature of neural networks in vivo and in vitro In the hippocampus, sequential firing of many neurons over periods of 100-300 ms reoccurs during behavior and during periods of quiescence. However, it is not known whether the hippocampus produces longer sequences of activity or whether such sequences are restricted to specific network states. Furthermore, whether long repeated patterns of activity are transmitted to single cells downstream is unclear. To answer these questions, we recorded intracellularly from hippocampal CA1 of awake, behaving male mice to examine both subthreshold activity and spiking output in single neurons. In eight of nine recordings, we discovered long (900 ms) reoccurring subthreshold fluctuations or "repeats." Repeats generally were high-amplitude, nonoscillatory events reoccurring with 10 ms precision. Using statistical controls, we determined that repeats occurred more often than would be expected from unstructured network activity (e.g., by chance). Most spikes occurred during a repeat, and when a repeat contained a spike, the spike reoccurred with precision on the order of ≤20 ms, showing that long repeated patterns of subthreshold activity are strongly connected to spike output. Unexpectedly, we found that repeats occurred independently of classic hippocampal network states like theta oscillations or sharp-wave ripples. Together, these results reveal surprisingly long patterns of repeated activity in the hippocampal network that occur nonstochastically, are transmitted to single downstream neurons, and strongly shape their output. This suggests that the timescale of information transmission in the hippocampal network is much longer than previously thought. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We found long (≥900 ms), repeated, subthreshold patterns of activity in CA1 of awake, behaving mice. These repeated patterns ("repeats") occurred more often than expected by chance and with 10 ms precision. Most spikes occurred within repeats and reoccurred with a precision on the order of 20 ms. Surprisingly, there was no correlation between repeat occurrence and classical network states such as theta oscillations and sharp-wave ripples. These results provide strong evidence that long patterns of activity are repeated and transmitted to downstream neurons, suggesting that the hippocampus can generate longer sequences of repeated activity than previously thought. Copyright © 2018 the authors 0270-6474/18/381822-14$15.00/0.

STM on Gate-Tunable Graphene

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Yuanbo

2009-03-01

We have successfully performed atomically-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STS) on mechanically exfoliated graphene samples having tunable back-gates. We have discovered that the tunneling spectra of graphene flakes display an unexpected gap-like feature that is pinned to the Fermi level for different gate voltages, and which coexists with another depression in density-of-states that moves with gate voltage. Extensive tests and careful analysis show that the gap-feature is due to phonon-assisted inelastic tunneling, and the depression directly marks the location of the graphene Dirac point. Using tunneling spectroscopy as a new tool, we further probe the local energetic variations of the graphene charge neutral point (Dirac point) to map out spatial electron density inhomogeneities in graphene. Such measurements are two orders of magnitude higher in resolution than previous experiments, and they can be directly correlated with nanometer scale topographic features. Based on our observation of energy-dependent periodic electronic interference patterns, our measurements also reveal the nature of impurity scattering of Dirac fermions in graphene. These results are significant for understanding the sources of electron density inhomogeneity and electron scattering in graphene, and the microscopic causes of graphene electron mobility.

cis-Proline-mediated Ser(P)[superscript 5] Dephosphorylation by the RNA Polymerase II C-terminal Domain Phosphatase Ssu72

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Werner-Allen, Jon W.; Lee, Chul-Jin; Liu, Pengda

2012-05-16

RNA polymerase II coordinates co-transcriptional events by recruiting distinct sets of nuclear factors to specific stages of transcription via changes of phosphorylation patterns along its C-terminal domain (CTD). Although it has become increasingly clear that proline isomerization also helps regulate CTD-associated processes, the molecular basis of its role is unknown. Here, we report the structure of the Ser(P){sup 5} CTD phosphatase Ssu72 in complex with substrate, revealing a remarkable CTD conformation with the Ser(P){sup 5}-Pro{sup 6} motif in the cis configuration. We show that the cis-Ser(P){sup 5}-Pro{sup 6} isomer is the minor population in solution and that Ess1-catalyzed cis-trans-proline isomerizationmore » facilitates rapid dephosphorylation by Ssu72, providing an explanation for recently discovered in vivo connections between these enzymes and a revised model for CTD-mediated small nuclear RNA termination. This work presents the first structural evidence of a cis-proline-specific enzyme and an unexpected mechanism of isomer-based regulation of phosphorylation, with broad implications for CTD biology« less

Taming active turbulence with patterned soft interfaces.

PubMed

Guillamat, P; Ignés-Mullol, J; Sagués, F

2017-09-15

Active matter embraces systems that self-organize at different length and time scales, often exhibiting turbulent flows apparently deprived of spatiotemporal coherence. Here, we use a layer of a tubulin-based active gel to demonstrate that the geometry of active flows is determined by a single length scale, which we reveal in the exponential distribution of vortex sizes of active turbulence. Our experiments demonstrate that the same length scale reemerges as a cutoff for a scale-free power law distribution of swirling laminar flows when the material evolves in contact with a lattice of circular domains. The observed prevalence of this active length scale can be understood by considering the role of the topological defects that form during the spontaneous folding of microtubule bundles. These results demonstrate an unexpected strategy for active systems to adapt to external stimuli, and provide with a handle to probe the existence of intrinsic length and time scales.Active nematics consist of self-driven components that develop orientational order and turbulent flow. Here Guillamat et al. investigate an active nematic constrained in a quasi-2D geometrical setup and show that there exists an intrinsic length scale that determines the geometry in all forcing regimes.

Most Uv-Induced Reciprocal Translocations in SORDARIA MACROSPORA Occur in or near Centromere Regions

PubMed Central

Leblon, G.; Zickler, D.; Lebilcot, S.

1986-01-01

In fungi, translocations can be identified and classified by the patterns of ascospore abortion in asci from crosses of rearrangement x normal sequence. Previous studies of UV-induced rearrangements in Sordaria macrospora revealed that a major class (called type III) appeared to be reciprocal translocations that were anomalous in producing an unexpected class of asci with four aborted ascospores in bbbbaaaa linear sequence (b = black; a = abortive). The present study shows that the anomalous type III rearrangements are, in fact, reciprocal translocations having both breakpoints within or adjacent to centromeres and that bbbbaaaa asci result from 3:1 disjunction from the translocation quadrivalent.—Electron microscopic observations of synaptonemal complexes enable centromeres to be visualized. Lengths of synaptonemal complexes lateral elements in translocation quadrivalents accurately reflect chromosome arm lengths, enabling breakpoints to be located reliably in centromere regions. All genetic data are consistent with the behavior expected of translocations with breakpoints at centromeres.—Two-thirds of the UV-induced reciprocal translocations are of this type. Certain centromere regions are involved preferentially. Among 73 type-III translocations, there were but 13 of the 21 possible chromosome combinations and 20 of the 42 possible combinations of chromosome arms. PMID:17246312

Most Uv-Induced Reciprocal Translocations in SORDARIA MACROSPORA Occur in or near Centromere Regions.

PubMed

Leblon, G; Zickler, D; Lebilcot, S

1986-02-01

In fungi, translocations can be identified and classified by the patterns of ascospore abortion in asci from crosses of rearrangement x normal sequence. Previous studies of UV-induced rearrangements in Sordaria macrospora revealed that a major class (called type III) appeared to be reciprocal translocations that were anomalous in producing an unexpected class of asci with four aborted ascospores in bbbbaaaa linear sequence (b = black; a = abortive). The present study shows that the anomalous type III rearrangements are, in fact, reciprocal translocations having both breakpoints within or adjacent to centromeres and that bbbbaaaa asci result from 3:1 disjunction from the translocation quadrivalent.-Electron microscopic observations of synaptonemal complexes enable centromeres to be visualized. Lengths of synaptonemal complexes lateral elements in translocation quadrivalents accurately reflect chromosome arm lengths, enabling breakpoints to be located reliably in centromere regions. All genetic data are consistent with the behavior expected of translocations with breakpoints at centromeres.-Two-thirds of the UV-induced reciprocal translocations are of this type. Certain centromere regions are involved preferentially. Among 73 type-III translocations, there were but 13 of the 21 possible chromosome combinations and 20 of the 42 possible combinations of chromosome arms.

The Unexpected Tuners: Are LncRNAs Regulating Host Translation during Infections?

PubMed Central

Knap, Primoz; Tebaldi, Toma; Di Leva, Francesca; Biagioli, Marta; Dalla Serra, Mauro; Viero, Gabriella

2017-01-01

Pathogenic bacteria produce powerful virulent factors, such as pore-forming toxins, that promote their survival and cause serious damage to the host. Host cells reply to membrane stresses and ionic imbalance by modifying gene expression at the epigenetic, transcriptional and translational level, to recover from the toxin attack. The fact that the majority of the human transcriptome encodes for non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) raises the question: do host cells deploy non-coding transcripts to rapidly control the most energy-consuming process in cells—i.e., host translation—to counteract the infection? Here, we discuss the intriguing possibility that membrane-damaging toxins induce, in the host, the expression of toxin-specific long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which act as sponges for other molecules, encoding small peptides or binding target mRNAs to depress their translation efficiency. Unravelling the function of host-produced lncRNAs upon bacterial infection or membrane damage requires an improved understanding of host lncRNA expression patterns, their association with polysomes and their function during this stress. This field of investigation holds a unique opportunity to reveal unpredicted scenarios and novel approaches to counteract antibiotic-resistant infections. PMID:29469820

Theoretical study on electronic and vibrational properties of hydrogen bonds in glycine-water clusters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Yulei; Zhang, Zhiyuan; Jiang, Wanrun; Wang, Zhigang

2017-09-01

The hydrogen bond (H-bond) in organic-water molecules is essential in nature, and it present unique properties distinct from those in pure water or organic clusters. Combining with the charge-transfer and energy decomposition analyses, we investigated the penetrating molecular-orbitals in glycine-water clusters, which give evidences of the covalent-like characteristics of H-bonds in this system. Besides, the infrared spectral features provide a rare opportunity to discover the exceedingly-evident redshifts of symmetric stretching modes (Symst) in water on forming H-bond, in contrast to the slightly-redshifted asymmetric stretching modes (Asyst) in water. To explain these intriguing behaviors, we further analyzed the nuclear vibrating patterns, which clearly reveal that H-bond retains two unexpected effects on nuclear motions in water: (i) Intensifying donor Symst, and (ii) Inhibiting donor Asyst. Furthermore, we also quantified the impact of anharmonic quantum fluctuations on each hydrogen bond. For the stretching modes involved in H-bonds, red shifts up to more than one hundred wave numbers are observed under anharmonic vibration, explicitly indicating the increased 'covalency' of H-bonds. These finds shed light on the essential understanding of H-bonding comprehensively, and should provide incentives for future experimental studies.

Inattentional blindness in older adults: Effects of attentional set and to-be-ignored distractors.

PubMed

Horwood, Sally; Beanland, Vanessa

2016-04-01

Inattentional blindness (IB) involves failing to detect an unexpected visual stimulus while undertaking another task. Previous research has predominantly investigated IB using young adult samples, with few studies exploring whether or how an observer's age affects their detection of unexpected events. To help address this gap, we compared younger adults (18-25 years of age) and older adults (60-80 years of age) on two IB tasks: one dynamic, one static. In the static task, older age was associated with substantially increased IB rates: 89 % for older adults versus 5 % for younger adults. In the dynamic task, we systematically manipulated the presence of to-be-ignored distractors and whether the unexpected stimulus color matched the observers' attentional set. We found a main effect of age on IB: As in the static task, older age was associated with increased IB rates (38 % for older adults vs. 8 % for younger adults). The presence of to-be-ignored distractors and attentional set mismatch interacted to substantially increase IB rates, but age did not interact with either factor. Overall, the results indicate that older age is associated with large increases in IB rates across a range of tasks. The pattern of results is consistent with attentional capacity models of cognitive aging, suggesting that older adults' reduced cognitive resources result in failure to consciously process stimuli that are inconsistent with their attentional set.

Non-Gaussian Correlations between Reflected and Transmitted Intensity Patterns Emerging from Opaque Disordered Media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Starshynov, I.; Paniagua-Diaz, A. M.; Fayard, N.; Goetschy, A.; Pierrat, R.; Carminati, R.; Bertolotti, J.

2018-04-01

The propagation of monochromatic light through a scattering medium produces speckle patterns in reflection and transmission, and the apparent randomness of these patterns prevents direct imaging through thick turbid media. Yet, since elastic multiple scattering is fundamentally a linear and deterministic process, information is not lost but distributed among many degrees of freedom that can be resolved and manipulated. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that the reflected and transmitted speckle patterns are robustly correlated, and we unravel all the complex and unexpected features of this fundamentally non-Gaussian and long-range correlation. In particular, we show that it is preserved even for opaque media with thickness much larger than the scattering mean free path, proving that information survives the multiple scattering process and can be recovered. The existence of correlations between the two sides of a scattering medium opens up new possibilities for the control of transmitted light without any feedback from the target side, but using only information gathered from the reflected speckle.

Counter-rotational cell flows drive morphological and cell fate asymmetries in mammalian hair follicles.

PubMed

Cetera, Maureen; Leybova, Liliya; Joyce, Bradley; Devenport, Danelle

2018-05-01

Organ morphogenesis is a complex process coordinated by cell specification, epithelial-mesenchymal interactions and tissue polarity. A striking example is the pattern of regularly spaced, globally aligned mammalian hair follicles, which emerges through epidermal-dermal signaling and planar polarized morphogenesis. Here, using live-imaging, we discover that developing hair follicles polarize through dramatic cell rearrangements organized in a counter-rotational pattern of cell flows. Upon hair placode induction, Shh signaling specifies a radial pattern of progenitor fates that, together with planar cell polarity, induce counter-rotational rearrangements through myosin and ROCK-dependent polarized neighbour exchanges. Importantly, these cell rearrangements also establish cell fate asymmetry by repositioning radial progenitors along the anterior-posterior axis. These movements concurrently displace associated mesenchymal cells, which then signal asymmetrically to maintain polarized cell fates. Our results demonstrate how spatial patterning and tissue polarity generate an unexpected collective cell behaviour that in turn, establishes both morphological and cell fate asymmetry.

Visualizing Dynamic Bitcoin Transaction Patterns.

PubMed

McGinn, Dan; Birch, David; Akroyd, David; Molina-Solana, Miguel; Guo, Yike; Knottenbelt, William J

2016-06-01

This work presents a systemic top-down visualization of Bitcoin transaction activity to explore dynamically generated patterns of algorithmic behavior. Bitcoin dominates the cryptocurrency markets and presents researchers with a rich source of real-time transactional data. The pseudonymous yet public nature of the data presents opportunities for the discovery of human and algorithmic behavioral patterns of interest to many parties such as financial regulators, protocol designers, and security analysts. However, retaining visual fidelity to the underlying data to retain a fuller understanding of activity within the network remains challenging, particularly in real time. We expose an effective force-directed graph visualization employed in our large-scale data observation facility to accelerate this data exploration and derive useful insight among domain experts and the general public alike. The high-fidelity visualizations demonstrated in this article allowed for collaborative discovery of unexpected high frequency transaction patterns, including automated laundering operations, and the evolution of multiple distinct algorithmic denial of service attacks on the Bitcoin network.

Visualizing Dynamic Bitcoin Transaction Patterns

PubMed Central

McGinn, Dan; Birch, David; Akroyd, David; Molina-Solana, Miguel; Guo, Yike; Knottenbelt, William J.

2016-01-01

Abstract This work presents a systemic top-down visualization of Bitcoin transaction activity to explore dynamically generated patterns of algorithmic behavior. Bitcoin dominates the cryptocurrency markets and presents researchers with a rich source of real-time transactional data. The pseudonymous yet public nature of the data presents opportunities for the discovery of human and algorithmic behavioral patterns of interest to many parties such as financial regulators, protocol designers, and security analysts. However, retaining visual fidelity to the underlying data to retain a fuller understanding of activity within the network remains challenging, particularly in real time. We expose an effective force-directed graph visualization employed in our large-scale data observation facility to accelerate this data exploration and derive useful insight among domain experts and the general public alike. The high-fidelity visualizations demonstrated in this article allowed for collaborative discovery of unexpected high frequency transaction patterns, including automated laundering operations, and the evolution of multiple distinct algorithmic denial of service attacks on the Bitcoin network. PMID:27441715

Exploring the Roles of Extracurricular Activity Quantity and Quality in the Educational Resilience of Vulnerable Adolescents: Variable- and Pattern-Centered Approaches

PubMed Central

Peck, Stephen C.; Roeser, Robert W.; Zarrett, Nicole; Eccles, Jacquelynne S.

2009-01-01

This longitudinal study examines how extracurricular activity involvement contributes to “educational resilience”—the unexpected educational attainments of adolescents who are otherwise vulnerable to curtailed school success due to personal- and social-level risks. Educationally vulnerable youth characterized by significant risks and an absence of assets were identified during early adolescence (approximately age 14) using measures of academic motivation, achievement, and mental health as well as family, school, and peer contexts. Using a mixture of variable- and pattern-centered analytic techniques, we investigate how both the total amount time that vulnerable youth spent in positive extracurricular activities and the specific pattern of their extracurricular activity involvement during late adolescence (approximately age 17) predict their subsequent enrollment in college during early adulthood (up through approximately age 21). Educational resilience was predicted uniquely by some, but not all, activity patterns. These results suggest that positive extracurricular activity settings afford vulnerable youth developmentally appropriate experiences that promote educational persistence and healthy development. PMID:19543445

Exploring the Roles of Extracurricular Activity Quantity and Quality in the Educational Resilience of Vulnerable Adolescents: Variable- and Pattern-Centered Approaches.

PubMed

Peck, Stephen C; Roeser, Robert W; Zarrett, Nicole; Eccles, Jacquelynne S

2008-01-01

This longitudinal study examines how extracurricular activity involvement contributes to "educational resilience"-the unexpected educational attainments of adolescents who are otherwise vulnerable to curtailed school success due to personal- and social-level risks. Educationally vulnerable youth characterized by significant risks and an absence of assets were identified during early adolescence (approximately age 14) using measures of academic motivation, achievement, and mental health as well as family, school, and peer contexts. Using a mixture of variable- and pattern-centered analytic techniques, we investigate how both the total amount time that vulnerable youth spent in positive extracurricular activities and the specific pattern of their extracurricular activity involvement during late adolescence (approximately age 17) predict their subsequent enrollment in college during early adulthood (up through approximately age 21). Educational resilience was predicted uniquely by some, but not all, activity patterns. These results suggest that positive extracurricular activity settings afford vulnerable youth developmentally appropriate experiences that promote educational persistence and healthy development.

Neighborhood diversity of large trees shows independent species patterns in a mixed dipterocarp forest in Sri Lanka.

PubMed

Punchi-Manage, Ruwan; Wiegand, Thorsten; Wiegand, Kerstin; Getzin, Stephan; Huth, Andreas; Gunatilleke, C V Savitri; Gunatilleke, I A U Nimal

2015-07-01

Interactions among neighboring individuals influence plant performance and should create spatial patterns in local community structure. In order to assess the role of large trees in generating spatial patterns in local species richness, we used the individual species-area relationship (ISAR) to evaluate the species richness of trees of different size classes (and dead trees) in circular neighborhoods with varying radius around large trees of different focal species. To reveal signals of species interactions, we compared the ISAR function of the individuals of focal species with that of randomly selected nearby locations. We expected that large trees should strongly affect the community structure of smaller trees in their neighborhood, but that these effects should fade away with increasing size class. Unexpectedly, we found that only few focal species showed signals of species interactions with trees of the different size classes and that this was less likely for less abundant focal species. However, the few and relatively weak departures from independence were consistent with expectations of the effect of competition for space and the dispersal syndrome on spatial patterns. A noisy signal of competition for space found for large trees built up gradually with increasing life stage; it was not yet present for large saplings but detectable for intermediates. Additionally, focal species with animal-dispersed seeds showed higher species richness in their neighborhood than those with gravity- and gyration-dispersed seeds. Our analysis across the entire ontogeny from recruits to large trees supports the hypothesis that stochastic effects dilute deterministic species interactions in highly diverse communities. Stochastic dilution is a consequence of the stochastic geometry of biodiversity in species-rich communities where the identities of the nearest neighbors of a given plant are largely unpredictable. While the outcome of local species interactions is governed for each plant by deterministic fitness and niche differences, the large variability of competitors causes also a large variability in the outcomes of interactions and does not allow for strong directed responses at the species level. Collectively, our results highlight the critical effect of the stochastic geometry of biodiversity in structuring local spatial patterns of tropical forest diversity.

Biogeography, phylogeny, and morphological evolution of central Texas cave and spring salamanders

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Subterranean faunal radiations can result in complex patterns of morphological divergence involving both convergent or parallel phenotypic evolution and cryptic species diversity. Salamanders of the genus Eurycea in central Texas provide a particularly challenging example with respect to phylogeny reconstruction, biogeography and taxonomy. These predominantly aquatic species inhabit karst limestone aquifers and spring outflows, and exhibit a wide range of morphological and genetic variation. We extensively sampled spring and cave populations of six Eurycea species within this group (eastern Blepsimolge clade), to reconstruct their phylogenetic and biogeographic history using mtDNA and examine patterns and origins of cave- and surface-associated morphological variation. Results Genetic divergence is generally low, and many populations share ancestral haplotypes and/or show evidence of introgression. This pattern likely indicates a recent radiation coupled with a complex history of intermittent connections within the aquatic karst system. Cave populations that exhibit the most extreme troglobitic morphologies show no or very low divergence from surface populations and are geographically interspersed among them, suggesting multiple instances of rapid, parallel phenotypic evolution. Morphological variation is diffuse among cave populations; this is in contrast to surface populations, which form a tight cluster in morphospace. Unexpectedly, our analyses reveal two distinct and previously unrecognized morphological groups encompassing multiple species that are not correlated with spring or cave habitat, phylogeny or geography, and may be due to developmental plasticity. Conclusions The evolutionary history of this group of spring- and cave-dwelling salamanders reflects patterns of intermittent isolation and gene flow influenced by complex hydrogeologic dynamics that are characteristic of karst regions. Shallow genetic divergences among several species, evidence of genetic exchange, and nested relationships across morphologically disparate cave and spring forms suggests that cave invasion was recent and many troglobitic morphologies arose independently. These patterns are consistent with an adaptive-shift hypothesis of divergence, which has been proposed to explain diversification in other karst fauna. While cave and surface forms often do not appear to be genetically isolated, morphological diversity within and among populations may be maintained by developmental plasticity, selection, or a combination thereof. PMID:24044519

"I Would Rather Be Size 10 Than Have Straight A's": A Focus Study Group of Adolescent Girls' Wish To Be Thinner.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tiggemann, Marika; Gardiner, Maria; Slater, Amy

2000-01-01

Investigates the body concerns of adolescent girls (N=67), together with the underlying motivations for wishes to be thinner. Results of focus group studies reveal that sociocultural influences exerted the strongest pressures to be thin. The girls displayed an unexpected sophistication in their conceptualization of the role of both media effects…

Genetic Linkage Mapping of Genomic Regions Conferring Tolerance to High Aluminum in Slash Pine

Treesearch

Thomas L. Kubisiak; C. Dana Nelson; J. Nowak; A.L. Friend

2000-01-01

Reports of reduced growth and vigor of forest trees in Europe and North America have been accumulating in recent years. In eastern North America, increased mortality and reduced radial growth rates have been noted for red spruce, frasier fir, and sugar maple. USDA Forest Service inventory data from permanent survey plots has revealed an unexpected reduction of radial...

Ex vivo drug response profiling detects recurrent sensitivity patterns in drug-resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

PubMed

Frismantas, Viktoras; Dobay, Maria Pamela; Rinaldi, Anna; Tchinda, Joelle; Dunn, Samuel H; Kunz, Joachim; Richter-Pechanska, Paulina; Marovca, Blerim; Pail, Orrin; Jenni, Silvia; Diaz-Flores, Ernesto; Chang, Bill H; Brown, Timothy J; Collins, Robert H; Uhrig, Sebastian; Balasubramanian, Gnana P; Bandapalli, Obul R; Higi, Salome; Eugster, Sabrina; Voegeli, Pamela; Delorenzi, Mauro; Cario, Gunnar; Loh, Mignon L; Schrappe, Martin; Stanulla, Martin; Kulozik, Andreas E; Muckenthaler, Martina U; Saha, Vaskar; Irving, Julie A; Meisel, Roland; Radimerski, Thomas; Von Stackelberg, Arend; Eckert, Cornelia; Tyner, Jeffrey W; Horvath, Peter; Bornhauser, Beat C; Bourquin, Jean-Pierre

2017-03-16

Drug sensitivity and resistance testing on diagnostic leukemia samples should provide important functional information to guide actionable target and biomarker discovery. We provide proof of concept data by profiling 60 drugs on 68 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) samples mostly from resistant disease in cocultures of bone marrow stromal cells. Patient-derived xenografts retained the original pattern of mutations found in the matched patient material. Stromal coculture did not prevent leukemia cell cycle activity, but a specific sensitivity profile to cell cycle-related drugs identified samples with higher cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo as leukemia xenografts. In patients with refractory relapses, individual patterns of marked drug resistance and exceptional responses to new agents of immediate clinical relevance were detected. The BCL2-inhibitor venetoclax was highly active below 10 nM in B-cell precursor ALL (BCP-ALL) subsets, including MLL -AF4 and TCF3-HLF ALL, and in some T-cell ALLs (T-ALLs), predicting in vivo activity as a single agent and in combination with dexamethasone and vincristine. Unexpected sensitivity to dasatinib with half maximal inhibitory concentration values below 20 nM was detected in 2 independent T-ALL cohorts, which correlated with similar cytotoxic activity of the SRC inhibitor KX2-391 and inhibition of SRC phosphorylation. A patient with refractory T-ALL was treated with dasatinib on the basis of drug profiling information and achieved a 5-month remission. Thus, drug profiling captures disease-relevant features and unexpected sensitivity to relevant drugs, which warrants further exploration of this functional assay in the context of clinical trials to develop drug repurposing strategies for patients with urgent medical needs. © 2017 by The American Society of Hematology.

Visual Space and Object Space in the Cerebral Cortex of Retinal Disease Patients

PubMed Central

Spileers, Werner; Wagemans, Johan; Op de Beeck, Hans P.

2014-01-01

The lower areas of the hierarchically organized visual cortex are strongly retinotopically organized, with strong responses to specific retinotopic stimuli, and no response to other stimuli outside these preferred regions. Higher areas in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex show a weak eccentricity bias, and are mainly sensitive for object category (e.g., faces versus buildings). This study investigated how the mapping of eccentricity and category sensitivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging is affected by a retinal lesion in two very different low vision patients: a patient with a large central scotoma, affecting central input to the retina (juvenile macular degeneration), and a patient where input to the peripheral retina is lost (retinitis pigmentosa). From the retinal degeneration, we can predict specific losses of retinotopic activation. These predictions were confirmed when comparing stimulus activations with a no-stimulus fixation baseline. At the same time, however, seemingly contradictory patterns of activation, unexpected given the retinal degeneration, were observed when different stimulus conditions were directly compared. These unexpected activations were due to position-specific deactivations, indicating the importance of investigating absolute activation (relative to a no-stimulus baseline) rather than relative activation (comparing different stimulus conditions). Data from two controls, with simulated scotomas that matched the lesions in the two patients also showed that retinotopic mapping results could be explained by a combination of activations at the stimulated locations and deactivations at unstimulated locations. Category sensitivity was preserved in the two patients. In sum, when we take into account the full pattern of activations and deactivations elicited in retinotopic cortex and throughout the ventral object vision pathway in low vision patients, the pattern of (de)activation is consistent with the retinal loss. PMID:24505449

Characteristics of the Unexpected Message Queue of MPI applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Keller, Rainer; Graham, Richard L

2010-01-01

High Performance Computing systems are used on a regular basis to run a myriad of application codes, yet a surprising dearth of information exists with respect to communications characteristics. Even less information is available on the low-level communication libraries, such as the length of MPI Unexpected Message Queues (UMQs) and the length of time such messages spend in these queues. Such information is vital to developing appropriate strategies for handling such data at the library and system level. In this paper we present data on the communication characteristics of three applications GTC, LSMS, and S3D. We present data on themore » size of their UMQ, the time spend searching the UMQ and the length of time such messages spend in these queues. We find that for the particular inputs used, these applications have widely varying characteristics with regard to UMQ length and show patterns for specific applications which persist over various scales.« less

Local atmospheric forcing driving an unexpected California Current System response during the 2015-2016 El Niño

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frischknecht, Martin; Münnich, Matthias; Gruber, Nicolas

2017-01-01

The 2015-2016 El Niño contributed to large anomalies across the California Current System (CalCS), but these anomalies ceased unexpectedly in late 2015. Here we use a suite of three hindcast simulations with the Regional Oceanic Modeling System to assess the responsible mechanisms for this development. We find that the early buildup was primarily driven by the early onset of this event in the tropical Pacific, driving anomalies in the CalCS through the propagation of coastally trapped waves. In contrast, the abrupt end in the central CalCS was caused by the unusual onset of upwelling favorable winds in the fall of 2015, which offset the continuing remote forcing through the coastal waveguide. Nevertheless, low-nutrient anomalies persisted, causing anomalously low phytoplankton abundance in the upwelling season of 2016. This is a recurring pattern for all El Niño events over the last 37 years, suggesting predictive skill on seasonal timescales.

Post-licensure safety surveillance of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1990-2013.

PubMed

Miller, Elaine R; Moro, Pedro L; Cano, Maria; Lewis, Paige; Bryant-Genevier, Marthe; Shimabukuro, Tom T

2016-05-27

23-Valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, trade name Pneumovax(®)23 (PPSV23), has been used for decades in the Unites States and has an extensive clinical record. However, limited post-licensure safety assessment has been conducted. To analyze reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following PPSV23 from 1990 to 2013 in order to characterize its safety profile. We searched the VAERS database for US reports following PPSV23 for persons vaccinated from 1990 to 2013. We assessed safety through: automated analysis of VAERS data, crude adverse event (AE) reporting rates based on PPSV23 doses distributed in the US market, clinical review of death reports and reports involving vaccine administered to pregnant women, and empirical Bayesian data mining to assess for disproportional reporting. During the study period, VAERS received 25,168 PPSV23 reports; 92% were non-serious, 67% were in females and 86% were in adults aged ≥19 years. When PPSV23 was administered alone, fever (43%), injection site erythema (28%) and injection site pain (25%) were the most commonly reported non-serious AEs in children. Injection site erythema (32%), injection site pain (27%) and injection site swelling (23%) were the most commonly reported non-serious AEs in adults. Of serious reports (2129, 8% of total), fever was most commonly reported in both children (69%) and adults (39%). There were 66 reports of death, four in children and 62 in adults. Clinical review of death reports did not reveal any concerning patterns that would suggest a causal association with PPSV23. No disproportional reporting of unexpected AEs was observed in empirical Bayesian data mining. We did not identify any new or unexpected safety concerns for PPSV23. The VAERS data are consistent with safety data from pre-licensure clinical trials and other post-licensure studies. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Gene Expression Dynamics in Major Endocrine Regulatory Pathways along the Transition from Solitary to Social Life in a Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris.

PubMed

Jedlička, Pavel; Ernst, Ulrich R; Votavová, Alena; Hanus, Robert; Valterová, Irena

2016-01-01

Understanding the social evolution leading to insect eusociality requires, among other, a detailed insight into endocrine regulatory mechanisms that have been co-opted from solitary ancestors to play new roles in the complex life histories of eusocial species. Bumblebees represent well-suited models of a relatively primitive social organization standing on the mid-way to highly advanced eusociality and their queens undergo both, a solitary and a social phase, separated by winter diapause. In the present paper, we characterize the gene expression levels of major endocrine regulatory pathways across tissues, sexes, and life-stages of the buff-tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris , with special emphasis on critical stages of the queen's transition from solitary to social life. We focused on fundamental genes of three pathways: (1) Forkhead box protein O and insulin/insulin-like signaling, (2) Juvenile hormone (JH) signaling, and (3) Adipokinetic hormone signaling. Virgin queens were distinguished by higher expression of forkhead box protein O and downregulated insulin-like peptides and JH signaling, indicated by low expression of methyl farnesoate epoxidase ( MFE ) and transcription factor Krüppel homolog 1 ( Kr-h1 ). Diapausing queens showed the expected downregulation of JH signaling in terms of low MFE and vitellogenin ( Vg ) expressions, but an unexpectedly high expression of Kr-h1 . By contrast, reproducing queens revealed an upregulation of MFE and Vg together with insulin signaling. Surprisingly, the insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1) turned out to be a queen-specific hormone. Workers exhibited an expression pattern of MFE and Vg similar to that of reproducing queens. Males were characterized by high Kr-h1 expression and low Vg level. The tissue comparison unveiled an unexpected resemblance between the fat body and hypopharyngeal glands across all investigated genes, sexes, and life stages.

H3.Y discriminates between HIRA and DAXX chaperone complexes and reveals unexpected insights into human DAXX-H3.3-H4 binding and deposition requirements

PubMed Central

Zink, Lisa-Maria; Delbarre, Erwan; Eberl, H. Christian; Keilhauer, Eva C.; Bönisch, Clemens; Pünzeler, Sebastian; Bartkuhn, Marek; Collas, Philippe; Mann, Matthias

2017-01-01

Abstract Histone chaperones prevent promiscuous histone interactions before chromatin assembly. They guarantee faithful deposition of canonical histones and functionally specialized histone variants into chromatin in a spatial- and temporally-restricted manner. Here, we identify the binding partners of the primate-specific and H3.3-related histone variant H3.Y using several quantitative mass spectrometry approaches, and biochemical and cell biological assays. We find the HIRA, but not the DAXX/ATRX, complex to recognize H3.Y, explaining its presence in transcriptionally active euchromatic regions. Accordingly, H3.Y nucleosomes are enriched in the transcription-promoting FACT complex and depleted of repressive post-translational histone modifications. H3.Y mutational gain-of-function screens reveal an unexpected combinatorial amino acid sequence requirement for histone H3.3 interaction with DAXX but not HIRA, and for H3.3 recruitment to PML nuclear bodies. We demonstrate the importance and necessity of specific H3.3 core and C-terminal amino acids in discriminating between distinct chaperone complexes. Further, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing experiments reveal that in contrast to euchromatic HIRA-dependent deposition sites, human DAXX/ATRX-dependent regions of histone H3 variant incorporation are enriched in heterochromatic H3K9me3 and simple repeat sequences. These data demonstrate that H3.Y's unique amino acids allow a functional distinction between HIRA and DAXX binding and its consequent deposition into open chromatin. PMID:28334823

Signaling mechanisms underlying the robustness and tunability of the plant immune network

PubMed Central

Kim, Yungil; Tsuda, Kenichi; Igarashi, Daisuke; Hillmer, Rachel A.; Sakakibara, Hitoshi; Myers, Chad L.; Katagiri, Fumiaki

2014-01-01

Summary How does robust and tunable behavior emerge in a complex biological network? We sought to understand this for the signaling network controlling pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) in Arabidopsis. A dynamic network model containing four major signaling sectors, the jasmonate, ethylene, PAD4, and salicylate sectors, which together explain up to 80% of the PTI level, was built using data for dynamic sector activities and PTI levels under exhaustive combinatorial sector perturbations. Our regularized multiple regression model had a high level of predictive power and captured known and unexpected signal flows in the network. The sole inhibitory sector in the model, the ethylene sector, was central to the network robustness via its inhibition of the jasmonate sector. The model's multiple input sites linked specific signal input patterns varying in strength and timing to different network response patterns, indicating a mechanism enabling tunability. PMID:24439900

Flow visualization methods for field test verification of CFD analysis of an open gloveport

DOE PAGES

Strons, Philip; Bailey, James L.

2017-01-01

Anemometer readings alone cannot provide a complete picture of air flow patterns at an open gloveport. Having a means to visualize air flow for field tests in general provides greater insight by indicating direction in addition to the magnitude of the air flow velocities in the region of interest. Furthermore, flow visualization is essential for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) verification, where important modeling assumptions play a significant role in analyzing the chaotic nature of low-velocity air flow. A good example is shown Figure 1, where an unexpected vortex pattern occurred during a field test that could not have been measuredmore » relying only on anemometer readings. Here by, observing and measuring the patterns of the smoke flowing into the gloveport allowed the CFD model to be appropriately updated to match the actual flow velocities in both magnitude and direction.« less

A Hydrodynamic Instability Is Used to Create Aesthetically Appealing Patterns in Painting

PubMed Central

Zetina, Sandra; Godínez, Francisco A.; Zenit, Roberto

2015-01-01

Painters often acquire a deep empirical knowledge of the way in which paints and inks behave. Through experimentation and practice, they can control the way in which fluids move and deform to create textures and images. David Alfaro Siqueiros, a recognized Mexican muralist, invented an accidental painting technique to create new and unexpected textures. By pouring layers of paint of different colors on a horizontal surface, the paints infiltrate into each other creating patterns of aesthetic value. In this investigation, we reproduce the technique in a controlled manner. We found that for the correct color combination, the dual viscous layer becomes Rayleigh-Taylor unstable: the density mismatch of the two color paints drives the formation of a spotted pattern. Experiments and a linear instability analysis were conducted to understand the properties of the process. We also argue that this flow configuration can be used to study the linear properties of this instability. PMID:25942586

Unexpected patterns of fisheries collapse in the world's oceans.

PubMed

Pinsky, Malin L; Jensen, Olaf P; Ricard, Daniel; Palumbi, Stephen R

2011-05-17

Understanding which species are most vulnerable to human impacts is a prerequisite for designing effective conservation strategies. Surveys of terrestrial species have suggested that large-bodied species and top predators are the most at risk, and it is commonly assumed that such patterns also apply in the ocean. However, there has been no global test of this hypothesis in the sea. We analyzed two fisheries datasets (stock assessments and landings) to determine the life-history traits of species that have suffered dramatic population collapses. Contrary to expectations, our data suggest that up to twice as many fisheries for small, low trophic-level species have collapsed compared with those for large predators. These patterns contrast with those on land, suggesting fundamental differences in the ways that industrial fisheries and land conversion affect natural communities. Even temporary collapses of small, low trophic-level fishes can have ecosystem-wide impacts by reducing food supply to larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.

Enigma Variations for Peptides and Their Transporters in Higher Plants

PubMed Central

WATERWORTH, WANDA M.; BRAY, CLIFFORD M.

2006-01-01

• Background. Two families of proteins that transport small peptides, the oligopeptide transporters (OPTs) and the peptide transporters (PTRs), have been recognized in eukaryotes. Higher plants contain a far greater number of genes for these transporters than do other eukaryotes. This may be indicative of the relative importance of (oligo)peptides and their transport to plant growth and metabolism. • Recent progress. Recent studies are now allowing us to assign functions to these transporters and are starting to identify their in-planta substrates, revealing unexpected and important contributions of the transporters to plant growth and developmental processes. This Botanical Briefing appraises recent findings that PTRs and OPTs have key roles to play in the control of plant cell growth and development. Evidence is presented that some of these transporters have functions outside that of nitrogen nutrition and that these carriers can also surprise us with their totally unexpected choice of substrates. PMID:16735405

The architecture of a eukaryotic replisome

DOE PAGES

Sun, Jingchuan; Yuan, Zuanning; Shi, Yi; ...

2015-11-02

At the eukaryotic DNA replication fork, it is widely believed that the Cdc45–Mcm2–7–GINS (CMG) helicase is positioned in front to unwind DNA and that DNA polymerases trail behind the helicase. Here we used single-particle EM to directly image a Saccharomyces cerevisiae replisome. Contrary to expectations, the leading strand Pol ε is positioned ahead of CMG helicase, whereas Ctf4 and the lagging-strand polymerase (Pol) α–primase are behind the helicase. This unexpected architecture indicates that the leading-strand DNA travels a long distance before reaching Pol ε, first threading through the Mcm2–7 ring and then making a U-turn at the bottom and reachingmore » Pol ε at the top of CMG. Lastly, our work reveals an unexpected configuration of the eukaryotic replisome, suggests possible reasons for this architecture and provides a basis for further structural and biochemical replisome studies.« less

[Unexpected cutaneous purpura in an infant].

PubMed

Luo, Yang-Yang; Wei, Zhu; Zeng, Ying-Hong; Zhou, Bin; Tang, Jian-Ping

2016-11-01

A two-month-old boy visited the hospital due to unexpected cutaneous purpura and thrombocytopenia for 2 days. The physical examination revealed a purple mass on the back. The soft tissue color Doppler ultrasound showed rich blood signals in the tissue, and the results of bone marrow puncture indicated an increased number of megakaryocytes. After the treatment with hormone and gamma globulin, the platelet count rapidly increased and maintained at a normal level. Meanwhile, the boy was given oral administration of propranolol. He was followed up for 4 months and the volume of the mass on the back was reduced significantly. He had a definite diagnosis of hemangioma and immune thrombocytopenia. As for the patients with hemangioma complicated by thrombocytopenia, knowledge of Kasabach-Merritt syndrome should be enhanced and there should be a clarification of the association between thrombocytopenia and hemangioma. There should also be an alertness for thrombocytopenia of other causes.

Particle-hole symmetry reveals failed superconductivity in the metallic phase of two-dimensional superconducting films

DOE PAGES

Breznay, Nicholas P.; Kapitulnik, Aharon

2017-09-15

Electrons confined to two dimensions display an unexpected diversity of behaviors as they are cooled to absolute zero. Noninteracting electrons are predicted to eventually “localize” into an insulating ground state, and it has long been supposed that electron correlations stabilize only one other phase: superconductivity. However, many two-dimensional (2D) superconducting materials have shown surprising evidence for metallic behavior, where the electrical resistivity saturates in the zero-temperature limit; the nature of this unexpected metallic state remains under intense scrutiny. We report electrical transport properties for two disordered 2D superconductors, indium oxide and tantalum nitride, and observe a magnetic field–tuned transition frommore » a true superconductor to a metallic phase with saturated resistivity. Lastly, this metallic phase is characterized by a vanishing Hall resistivity, suggesting that it retains particle-hole symmetry from the disrupted superconducting state.« less

Particle-hole symmetry reveals failed superconductivity in the metallic phase of two-dimensional superconducting films

PubMed Central

Breznay, Nicholas P.; Kapitulnik, Aharon

2017-01-01

Electrons confined to two dimensions display an unexpected diversity of behaviors as they are cooled to absolute zero. Noninteracting electrons are predicted to eventually “localize” into an insulating ground state, and it has long been supposed that electron correlations stabilize only one other phase: superconductivity. However, many two-dimensional (2D) superconducting materials have shown surprising evidence for metallic behavior, where the electrical resistivity saturates in the zero-temperature limit; the nature of this unexpected metallic state remains under intense scrutiny. We report electrical transport properties for two disordered 2D superconductors, indium oxide and tantalum nitride, and observe a magnetic field–tuned transition from a true superconductor to a metallic phase with saturated resistivity. This metallic phase is characterized by a vanishing Hall resistivity, suggesting that it retains particle-hole symmetry from the disrupted superconducting state. PMID:28929135

Particle-hole symmetry reveals failed superconductivity in the metallic phase of two-dimensional superconducting films.

PubMed

Breznay, Nicholas P; Kapitulnik, Aharon

2017-09-01

Electrons confined to two dimensions display an unexpected diversity of behaviors as they are cooled to absolute zero. Noninteracting electrons are predicted to eventually "localize" into an insulating ground state, and it has long been supposed that electron correlations stabilize only one other phase: superconductivity. However, many two-dimensional (2D) superconducting materials have shown surprising evidence for metallic behavior, where the electrical resistivity saturates in the zero-temperature limit; the nature of this unexpected metallic state remains under intense scrutiny. We report electrical transport properties for two disordered 2D superconductors, indium oxide and tantalum nitride, and observe a magnetic field-tuned transition from a true superconductor to a metallic phase with saturated resistivity. This metallic phase is characterized by a vanishing Hall resistivity, suggesting that it retains particle-hole symmetry from the disrupted superconducting state.

Medications as causes of intraluminal hyperdensities: what radiologists need to know.

PubMed

Sin, Francesca Nga Yee; Tsang, Jane Pui Ki; Siu, Kwong Lok; Ma, Johnny Ka Fai; Yung, Alfred Wei Tak

2012-07-01

In computed tomography (CT) angiogram or some dedicated CT studies of the abdomen, the use of positive enteric contrast should be avoided as its presence could decrease the sensitivity of the test. There are, however, cases of CT scans with unexpected hyperdense intraluminal contents detected due to the use of certain oral or rectal medications. Reports on medications as causes of intraluminal hyperdensities are sparse in the English literature. We have studied several commonly used medications and revealed that many drugs appear hyperdense in CT scans. The presence of unexpected intraluminal hyperdensities can potentially cause erroneous interpretation of images and in some cases decrease the sensitivity of the test. The hyperdense bowel contents may be mistaken as acute hemorrhage in CT angiogram for detection of GI bleeding. Active GI bleeding, presented as intraluminal extravasation of contrast material, can also be obscured. Certain intra-abdominal pathologies could be masked, for example, in plain CT scan for detection of urinary tract stones or in contrast CT study for suspected bowel ischaemia. It is important for radiologists and clinicians to be aware of this situation in order to prevent misinterpretation of images and to select the most appropriate imaging modality when such unexpected intraluminal hyperdensities are encountered. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The enhanced susceptibility of ADAM-17 hypomorphic mice to DSS-induced colitis is not ameliorated by loss of RIPK3, revealing an unexpected function of ADAM-17 in necroptosis

PubMed Central

Luzius, Anne; Saggau, Carina; Ruder, Barbara; Bolik, Julia; Schmidt-Arras, Dirk; Linkermann, Andreas; Becker, Christoph; Rosenstiel, Philip; Rose-John, Stefan; Adam, Dieter

2018-01-01

The disintegrin metalloprotease ADAM17 has a critical role in intestinal inflammation and regeneration in mice, as illustrated by the dramatically increased susceptibility of ADAM17 hypomorphic (ADAM17ex/ex) mice to dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. Similarly, necroptosis has been implicated in inflammatory responses in the intestine. In this study, we have investigated the contribution of necroptosis to ADAM17-regulated intestinal inflammation in vivo by crossing ADAM17ex/ex mice with mice that lack the necroptotic core protein RIPK3. Despite the loss of RIPK3, ADAM17ex/ex/RIPK3−/− mice showed the same increased susceptibility as ADAM17ex/ex mice in both acute and chronic models of DSS-induced colitis. Mice of both genotypes revealed comparable results with regard to weight loss, disease activity index and colitis-associated changes of inner organs. Histopathological analyses confirmed similar tissue destruction, loss of barrier integrity, immune cell infiltration, and cell death; serum analyses revealed similar levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine KC. Resolving these unexpected findings, ADAM17ex/ex mice did not show phosphorylation of RIPK3 and its necroptotic interaction partner MLKL during DSS-induced colitis, although both proteins were clearly expressed. Consistent with these findings, murine embryonic fibroblasts derived from ADAM17ex/ex mice were protected from tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced necroptosis and failed to show phosphorylation of MLKL and RIPK3 after induction of necroptosis by TNF, revealing a novel, undescribed role of the protease ADAM17 in necroptosis. PMID:29560122

The enhanced susceptibility of ADAM-17 hypomorphic mice to DSS-induced colitis is not ameliorated by loss of RIPK3, revealing an unexpected function of ADAM-17 in necroptosis.

PubMed

Fuchslocher Chico, Johaiber; Falk-Paulsen, Maren; Luzius, Anne; Saggau, Carina; Ruder, Barbara; Bolik, Julia; Schmidt-Arras, Dirk; Linkermann, Andreas; Becker, Christoph; Rosenstiel, Philip; Rose-John, Stefan; Adam, Dieter

2018-02-27

The disintegrin metalloprotease ADAM17 has a critical role in intestinal inflammation and regeneration in mice, as illustrated by the dramatically increased susceptibility of ADAM17 hypomorphic (ADAM17 ex/ex ) mice to dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. Similarly, necroptosis has been implicated in inflammatory responses in the intestine. In this study, we have investigated the contribution of necroptosis to ADAM17-regulated intestinal inflammation in vivo by crossing ADAM17 ex/ex mice with mice that lack the necroptotic core protein RIPK3. Despite the loss of RIPK3, ADAM17 ex/ex /RIPK3 -/- mice showed the same increased susceptibility as ADAM17 ex/ex mice in both acute and chronic models of DSS-induced colitis. Mice of both genotypes revealed comparable results with regard to weight loss, disease activity index and colitis-associated changes of inner organs. Histopathological analyses confirmed similar tissue destruction, loss of barrier integrity, immune cell infiltration, and cell death; serum analyses revealed similar levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine KC. Resolving these unexpected findings, ADAM17 ex/ex mice did not show phosphorylation of RIPK3 and its necroptotic interaction partner MLKL during DSS-induced colitis, although both proteins were clearly expressed. Consistent with these findings, murine embryonic fibroblasts derived from ADAM17 ex/ex mice were protected from tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced necroptosis and failed to show phosphorylation of MLKL and RIPK3 after induction of necroptosis by TNF, revealing a novel, undescribed role of the protease ADAM17 in necroptosis.

Identifying Future Unexpected Survivors: A Retrospective Cohort Study of Fatal Injury Patterns in Victims of Improvised Explosive Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-01-01

e003130. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2013-003130 ▸ Prepublication history for this paper is available online . To view these files please visit the journal... online (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ bmjopen-2013-003130). Received 26 April 2013 Revised 21 June 2013 Accepted 24 June 2013 For numbered affiliations see...harass and often incorporating military stores ’.2 IEDs have been shown to generate a different injury profile compared to con- ventional munitions, and

Diabetes insipidus, diabetes mellitus, optic atrophy and deafness. A clinical and genetic study.

PubMed Central

Nagi, N. A.

1979-01-01

Two Iraqi sisters and a female cousin developed diabetes insipidus (DI), diabetes mellitus (DM), optic atrophy (OA), and deafness (D), (the 'DIDMOAD' syndrome) before the age of 12 years. One girl exhibited all the features of this disease complex only 3 months after an unusually late onset of recognizable symptoms at 11 years 9 months. Another girl died suddenly and unexpectedly. This family study illustrates the recessive inheritance pattern of the syndrome. Images Fig. 2 Fig. 3 PMID:482181

Always expect the unexpected: lung abscess due to pseudomonas aeruginosa mimicking pulmonary aspergilloma in acute B-cell leukemia.

PubMed

Dieks, J-K; von Bueren, A O; Schaefer, I-M; Menke, J; Lex, C; Krause, U; Zenker, D; Kühnle, I; Kramm, C M

2013-11-01

We report on a case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis and consecutive lung abscess in a 13-year-old patient with acute B-cell leukemia. At first, radiographic findings strongly suggested presence of pulmonary aspergilloma and only microbiological testing of the surgically enucleated mass revealed the correct underlying pathogen and confirmed final diagnosis. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Initial-state colour dipole emission associated with QCD Pomeron exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bialas, A.; Peschanski, R.

1995-02-01

The initial-state radiation of soft colour dipoles produced together with a single QCD Pomeron exchange (BFKL) in onium-onium scattering is calculated in the framework of Mueller's approach. The resulting dipole production grows with increasing energy and reveals an unexpected feature of a power-law tail at appreciably large transverse distances from the collision axis, this phenomenon being related to the scale-invariant structure of dipole-dipole correlations.

Colors of the Daytime Overcast Sky

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-09-20

sunlight) spectra beneath overcast skies reveal an unexpectedly wide gamut of pastel colors. Analyses of these spectra indicate that at visible wavelengths...care, however, we also were able to acquire some data in drizzle, light rain, and snow. What kinds of chromaticity gamuts do such overcasts produce...noteworthy in Fig. 1. First, its chromaticity gamut for clear daylight is much less than for its two stratus and stratocumu- lus overcasts. Using the

Newborn infant with maternal anti-SSA antibody-induced complete heart block accompanying cardiomyopathy.

PubMed

Iida, Midori; Inamura, Noboru; Takeuchi, Makoto

2006-01-01

Newborn case of maternal anti-SSA antibody-induced congenital complete heart block (CCHB) accompanying cardiomyopathy is presented. Unexpectedly, she died of ventricular tachycardia, not bradycardia, 6 days after birth. Autopsy revealed left ventricular cardiomyopathy with endocardial fibroelastosis. Thus, when evaluating fetal cardiac performance in cases of maternal anti-SSA antibody-induced CCHB, it is necessary to pay attention to myocardial attributes such as endocardial hyperplasia.

Chronicle of a Neuronal Death Foretold: Preventing Aging by Keeping MGRN1 at the Nucleus.

PubMed

Ortolano, Natalya A; Gama, Vivian

2017-05-04

In this issue of Molecular Cell, Benvegnù et al. (2017) report an unexpected phenomenon by which the E3 ligase mahogunin ring finger-1 (MGRN1) translocates to the nucleus in an age-dependent manner, revealing an intriguing mechanism that allows for an adaptive neuronal response to proteotoxic stress, often seen with aging. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dualities of fields and strings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Polchinski, Joseph

2017-08-01

Duality, the equivalence between seemingly distinct quantum systems, is a curious property that has been known for at least three quarters of a century. In the past two decades it has played a central role in mapping out the structure of theoretical physics. I discuss the unexpected connections that have been revealed among quantum field theories and string theories. Written for a special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics.

Changing the picture of Earth's earliest fossils (3.5-1.9 Ga) with new approaches and new discoveries.

PubMed

Brasier, Martin D; Antcliffe, Jonathan; Saunders, Martin; Wacey, David

2015-04-21

New analytical approaches and discoveries are demanding fresh thinking about the early fossil record. The 1.88-Ga Gunflint chert provides an important benchmark for the analysis of early fossil preservation. High-resolution analysis of Gunflintia shows that microtaphonomy can help to resolve long-standing paleobiological questions. Novel 3D nanoscale reconstructions of the most ancient complex fossil Eosphaera reveal features hitherto unmatched in any crown-group microbe. While Eosphaera may preserve a symbiotic consortium, a stronger conclusion is that multicellular morphospace was differently occupied in the Paleoproterozoic. The 3.46-Ga Apex chert provides a test bed for claims of biogenicity of cell-like structures. Mapping plus focused ion beam milling combined with transmission electron microscopy data demonstrate that microfossil-like taxa, including species of Archaeoscillatoriopsis and Primaevifilum, are pseudofossils formed from vermiform phyllosilicate grains during hydrothermal alteration events. The 3.43-Ga Strelley Pool Formation shows that plausible early fossil candidates are turning up in unexpected environmental settings. Our data reveal how cellular clusters of unexpectedly large coccoids and tubular sheath-like envelopes were trapped between sand grains and entombed within coatings of dripstone beach-rock silica cement. These fossils come from Earth's earliest known intertidal to supratidal shoreline deposit, accumulated under aerated but oxygen poor conditions.

Changing the picture of Earth's earliest fossils (3.5–1.9 Ga) with new approaches and new discoveries

PubMed Central

Brasier, Martin D.; Antcliffe, Jonathan; Saunders, Martin; Wacey, David

2015-01-01

New analytical approaches and discoveries are demanding fresh thinking about the early fossil record. The 1.88-Ga Gunflint chert provides an important benchmark for the analysis of early fossil preservation. High-resolution analysis of Gunflintia shows that microtaphonomy can help to resolve long-standing paleobiological questions. Novel 3D nanoscale reconstructions of the most ancient complex fossil Eosphaera reveal features hitherto unmatched in any crown-group microbe. While Eosphaera may preserve a symbiotic consortium, a stronger conclusion is that multicellular morphospace was differently occupied in the Paleoproterozoic. The 3.46-Ga Apex chert provides a test bed for claims of biogenicity of cell-like structures. Mapping plus focused ion beam milling combined with transmission electron microscopy data demonstrate that microfossil-like taxa, including species of Archaeoscillatoriopsis and Primaevifilum, are pseudofossils formed from vermiform phyllosilicate grains during hydrothermal alteration events. The 3.43-Ga Strelley Pool Formation shows that plausible early fossil candidates are turning up in unexpected environmental settings. Our data reveal how cellular clusters of unexpectedly large coccoids and tubular sheath-like envelopes were trapped between sand grains and entombed within coatings of dripstone beach-rock silica cement. These fossils come from Earth’s earliest known intertidal to supratidal shoreline deposit, accumulated under aerated but oxygen poor conditions. PMID:25901305

Simultaneous Downregulation of MTHFR and COMT in Switchgrass Affects Plant Performance and Induces Lesion-Mimic Cell Death.

PubMed

Liu, Sijia; Fu, Chunxiang; Gou, Jiqing; Sun, Liang; Huhman, David; Zhang, Yunwei; Wang, Zeng-Yu

2017-01-01

Switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum ) has been developed into a model lignocellulosic bioenergy crop. Downregulation of caffeic acid O -methyltransferase (COMT), a key enzyme in lignin biosynthesis, has been shown to alter lignification and increase biofuel yield in switchgrass. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) mediates C1 metabolism and provides methyl units consumed by COMT. It was predicted that co-silencing of MTHFR and COMT would impact lignification even more than either of the single genes. However, our results showed that strong downregulation of MTHFR in a COMT -deficient background led to altered plant growth and development, but no significant change in lignin content or composition was found when compared with COMT plants. Another unexpected finding was that the double MTHFR/COMT downregulated plants showed a novel lesion-mimic leaf phenotype. Molecular analyses revealed that the lesion-mimic phenotype was caused by the synergistic effect of MTHFR and COMT genes, with MTHFR playing a predominant role. Microarray analysis showed significant induction of genes related to oxidative and defense responses. The results demonstrated the lack of additive effects of MTHFR and COMT on lignification. Furthermore, this research revealed an unexpected role of the two genes in the modulation of lesion-mimic cell death as well as their synergistic effects on agronomic performance.

Simultaneous Downregulation of MTHFR and COMT in Switchgrass Affects Plant Performance and Induces Lesion-Mimic Cell Death

PubMed Central

Liu, Sijia; Fu, Chunxiang; Gou, Jiqing; Sun, Liang; Huhman, David; Zhang, Yunwei; Wang, Zeng-Yu

2017-01-01

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) has been developed into a model lignocellulosic bioenergy crop. Downregulation of caffeic acid O-methyltransferase (COMT), a key enzyme in lignin biosynthesis, has been shown to alter lignification and increase biofuel yield in switchgrass. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) mediates C1 metabolism and provides methyl units consumed by COMT. It was predicted that co-silencing of MTHFR and COMT would impact lignification even more than either of the single genes. However, our results showed that strong downregulation of MTHFR in a COMT-deficient background led to altered plant growth and development, but no significant change in lignin content or composition was found when compared with COMT plants. Another unexpected finding was that the double MTHFR/COMT downregulated plants showed a novel lesion-mimic leaf phenotype. Molecular analyses revealed that the lesion-mimic phenotype was caused by the synergistic effect of MTHFR and COMT genes, with MTHFR playing a predominant role. Microarray analysis showed significant induction of genes related to oxidative and defense responses. The results demonstrated the lack of additive effects of MTHFR and COMT on lignification. Furthermore, this research revealed an unexpected role of the two genes in the modulation of lesion-mimic cell death as well as their synergistic effects on agronomic performance. PMID:28676804

High-throughput sequencing-based analysis of endogenetic fungal communities inhabiting the Chinese Cordyceps reveals unexpectedly high fungal diversity

PubMed Central

Xia, Fei; Chen, Xin; Guo, Meng-Yuan; Bai, Xiao-Hui; Liu, Yan; Shen, Guang-Rong; Li, Yu-Ling; Lin, Juan; Zhou, Xuan-Wei

2016-01-01

Chinese Cordyceps, known in Chinese as “DongChong XiaCao”, is a parasitic complex of a fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis) and a caterpillar. The current study explored the endogenetic fungal communities inhabiting Chinese Cordyceps. Samples were collected from five different geographical regions of Qinghai and Tibet, and the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer-1 sequences from each sample were obtained using Illumina high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that Ascomycota was the dominant fungal phylum in Chinese Cordyceps and its soil microhabitat from different sampling regions. Among the Ascomycota, 65 genera were identified, and the abundant operational taxonomic units showed the strongest sequence similarity to Ophiocordyceps, Verticillium, Pseudallescheria, Candida and Ilyonectria Not surprisingly, the genus Ophiocordyceps was the largest among the fungal communities identified in the fruiting bodies and external mycelial cortices of Chinese Cordyceps. In addition, fungal communities in the soil microhabitats were clustered separately from the external mycelial cortices and fruiting bodies of Chinese Cordyceps from different sampling regions. There was no significant structural difference in the fungal communities between the fruiting bodies and external mycelial cortices of Chinese Cordyceps. This study revealed an unexpectedly high diversity of fungal communities inhabiting the Chinese Cordyceps and its microhabitats. PMID:27625176

Long-term stream discharge and chemistry observations reveal unexpected ecosystem dynamics: Coweeta Watershed 7 clearcut manipulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jackson, C. R.; Webster, J. R.; Knoepp, J. D.; Elliott, K.; Emanuel, R. E.; Miniat, C.

2017-12-01

In the 1970s, the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory Watershed 7 was clearcut from ridge to ridge to observe how far the perturbation would move the ecosystem and how quickly the ecosystem would return to its pre-disturbance state. Nearly 40 years of observations of streamflow and DIN export demonstrate that this view of ecosystem resistance and resilience was too simplistic. Forest disturbance triggered a chain of ecological dynamics that are still evolving. For the first 12 years following watershed road building, forest harvest, and forest regeneration, streamflows and DIN concentrations temporarily increased and then appeared to return to pre-harvest behavior. Thereupon the ecosystem trajectory diverged from expectations. Unexpected successional changes in forest composition interacted with drought cycles, climate change effects, and forest changes due to pests and diseases to push the biogeochemical system into an alternate state featuring persistently high DIN concentrations and hydrological rather than biological control of DIN exports. Thirty years after harvest, these forest changes also increased evapotranspiration and reduced water yields. These ecosystem dynamics were only revealed because of long-term monitoring, and they inspired new research to elucidate mechanisms behind these dynamics. We conclude that long-term approaches are critical for understanding ecosystem dynamics and responses to disturbances.

Perturbed neural activity disrupts cerebral angiogenesis during a postnatal critical period.

PubMed

Whiteus, Christina; Freitas, Catarina; Grutzendler, Jaime

2014-01-16

During the neonatal period, activity-dependent neural-circuit remodelling coincides with growth and refinement of the cerebral microvasculature. Whether neural activity also influences the patterning of the vascular bed is not known. Here we show in neonatal mice, that neither reduction of sensory input through whisker trimming nor moderately increased activity by environmental enrichment affects cortical microvascular development. Unexpectedly, chronic stimulation by repetitive sounds, whisker deflection or motor activity led to a near arrest of angiogenesis in barrel, auditory and motor cortices, respectively. Chemically induced seizures also caused robust reductions in microvascular density. However, altering neural activity in adult mice did not affect the vasculature. Histological analysis and time-lapse in vivo two-photon microscopy revealed that hyperactivity did not lead to cell death or pruning of existing vessels but rather to reduced endothelial proliferation and vessel sprouting. This anti-angiogenic effect was prevented by administration of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor L-NAME and in mice with neuronal and inducible NOS deficiency, suggesting that excessive nitric oxide released from hyperactive interneurons and glia inhibited vessel growth. Vascular deficits persisted long after cessation of hyperstimulation, providing evidence for a critical period after which proper microvascular patterning cannot be re-established. Reduced microvascular density diminished the ability of the brain to compensate for hypoxic challenges, leading to dendritic spine loss in regions distant from capillaries. Therefore, excessive sensorimotor stimulation and repetitive neural activation during early childhood may cause lifelong deficits in microvascular reserve, which could have important consequences for brain development, function and pathology.

Why don't you like me? Midfrontal theta power in response to unexpected peer rejection feedback.

PubMed

van der Molen, M J W; Dekkers, L M S; Westenberg, P M; van der Veen, F M; van der Molen, M W

2017-02-01

Social connectedness theory posits that the brain processes social rejection as a threat to survival. Recent electrophysiological evidence suggests that midfrontal theta (4-8Hz) oscillations in the EEG provide a window on the processing of social rejection. Here we examined midfrontal theta dynamics (power and inter-trial phase synchrony) during the processing of social evaluative feedback. We employed the Social Judgment paradigm in which 56 undergraduate women (mean age=19.67 years) were asked to communicate their expectancies about being liked vs. disliked by unknown peers. Expectancies were followed by feedback indicating social acceptance vs. rejection. Results revealed a significant increase in EEG theta power to unexpected social rejection feedback. This EEG theta response could be source-localized to brain regions typically reported during activation of the saliency network (i.e., dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, insula, inferior frontal gyrus, frontal pole, and the supplementary motor area). Theta phase dynamics mimicked the behavior of the time-domain averaged feedback-related negativity (FRN) by showing stronger phase synchrony for feedback that was unexpected vs. expected. Theta phase, however, differed from the FRN by also displaying stronger phase synchrony in response to rejection vs. acceptance feedback. Together, this study highlights distinct roles for midfrontal theta power and phase synchrony in response to social evaluative feedback. Our findings contribute to the literature by showing that midfrontal theta oscillatory power is sensitive to social rejection but only when peer rejection is unexpected, and this theta response is governed by a widely distributed neural network implicated in saliency detection and conflict monitoring. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Risk factors and consequences of unexpected trapping for ruptured anterior communicating artery aneurysms

PubMed Central

Fukuda, Hitoshi; Iwasaki, Koichi; Murao, Kenichi; Yamagata, Sen; Lo, Benjamin W.Y.; Macdonald, R. Loch

2014-01-01

Background: While clipping cerebral aneurysms at the neck is optimal, in some cases this is not possible and other strategies are necessary. The purpose of this study was to describe the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes for inability to clip reconstruct ruptured anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysms. Methods: Of the 70 cases of ruptured ACoA aneurysms between January 2006 and December 2013, our institutional experience revealed four cases of small ACoA aneurysms that had been considered clippable prior to operation but required trapping. When a unilateral A2 segment of anterior cerebral artery (ACA) was compromised by trapping, revascularization was performed by bypass surgery. Clinical presentation, angiographic characteristics, operative approach, intraoperative findings, and treatment outcomes were assessed. Results: Very small aneurysm under 3 mm was a risk factor for unexpected trapping. The reason for unexpected trapping was laceration of the aneurysmal neck in two cases, and lack of clippaple component due to disintegration of entire aneurysmal wall at the time of rupture in the others. Aneurysms with bilateral A1 were treated with sole trapping through pterional approach in two cases. The other two cases had hypoplastic unilateral A1 segment of ACA and were treated with combination of aneurysm trapping and revascularization of A2 segment of ACA through interhemispheric approach. No patients had new cerebral infarctions of cortical ACA territory from surgery. Cognitive dysfunction was observed in three cases, but all patients became independent at 12-month follow up. Conclusions: Unexpected trapping was performed when ruptured ACoA aneurysms were unclippable. Trapping with or without bypass can result in reasonable outcomes, with acceptable risk of cognitive dysfunction. PMID:25101201

Soft J-tipped guide wire-induced cardiac perforation in a patient with right ventricular lipomatosis and wall thinning.

PubMed

Hiroshima, Yuki; Tajima, Katsushi; Shiono, Yousuke; Suzuki, Ikuko; Kohno, Kei; Kato, Yuichi; Shunji, Kawamura; Kato, Takeo

2012-01-01

Cardiac tamponade caused by perforation is a rare but potentially lethal complication of central venous catheter (CVC) insertion. We herein report a case of cardiac perforation associated with the use of a soft J-tipped guide wire. Twenty minutes after the insertion of a CVC, the patient developed unexpected cardiac arrest. An autopsy revealed 400 mL of pericardial blood. The right ventricular wall was 1 mm thick with about 10 myocyte layers, which is one-third that of the normal heart. A histological analysis revealed widespread fatty infiltration of the right ventricular wall (right ventricular lipomatosis).

Blackbody emission from laser breakdown in high-pressure gases.

PubMed

Bataller, A; Plateau, G R; Kappus, B; Putterman, S

2014-08-15

Laser induced breakdown of pressurized gases is used to generate plasmas under conditions where the atomic density and temperature are similar to those found in sonoluminescing bubbles. Calibrated streak spectroscopy reveals that a blackbody persists well after the exciting femtosecond laser pulse has turned off. Deviation from Saha's equation of state and an accompanying large reduction in ionization potential are observed at unexpectedly low atomic densities-in parallel with sonoluminescence. In laser breakdown, energy input proceeds via excitation of electrons whereas in sonoluminescence it is initiated via the atoms. The similar responses indicate that these systems are revealing the thermodynamics and transport of a strongly coupled plasma.

Blackbody Emission from Laser Breakdown in High-Pressure Gases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bataller, A.; Plateau, G. R.; Kappus, B.; Putterman, S.

2014-08-01

Laser induced breakdown of pressurized gases is used to generate plasmas under conditions where the atomic density and temperature are similar to those found in sonoluminescing bubbles. Calibrated streak spectroscopy reveals that a blackbody persists well after the exciting femtosecond laser pulse has turned off. Deviation from Saha's equation of state and an accompanying large reduction in ionization potential are observed at unexpectedly low atomic densities—in parallel with sonoluminescence. In laser breakdown, energy input proceeds via excitation of electrons whereas in sonoluminescence it is initiated via the atoms. The similar responses indicate that these systems are revealing the thermodynamics and transport of a strongly coupled plasma.

Characterizing individual differences in reward sensitivity from the brain networks involved in response inhibition.

PubMed

Fuentes-Claramonte, Paola; Ávila, César; Rodríguez-Pujadas, Aina; Costumero, Víctor; Ventura-Campos, Noelia; Bustamante, Juan Carlos; Rosell-Negre, Patricia; Barrós-Loscertales, Alfonso

2016-01-01

A "disinhibited" cognitive profile has been proposed for individuals with high reward sensitivity, characterized by increased engagement in goal-directed responses and reduced processing of negative or unexpected cues, which impairs adequate behavioral regulation after feedback in these individuals. This pattern is manifested through deficits in inhibitory control and/or increases in RT variability. In the present work, we aimed to test whether this profile is associated with the activity of functional networks during a stop-signal task using independent component analysis (ICA). Sixty-one participants underwent fMRI while performing a stop-signal task, during which a manual response had to be inhibited. ICA was used to mainly replicate the functional networks involved in the task (Zhang and Li, 2012): two motor networks involved in the go response, the left and right fronto-parietal networks for stopping, a midline error-processing network, and the default-mode network (DMN), which was further subdivided into its anterior and posterior parts. Reward sensitivity was mainly associated with greater activity of motor networks, reduced activity in the midline network during correct stop trials and, behaviorally, increased RT variability. All these variables explained 36% of variance of the SR scores. This pattern of associations suggests that reward sensitivity involves greater motor engagement in the dominant response, more distractibility and reduced processing of salient or unexpected events, which may lead to disinhibited behavior. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nonseizure SUDEP: Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy without preceding epileptic seizures.

PubMed

Lhatoo, Samden D; Nei, Maromi; Raghavan, Manoj; Sperling, Michael; Zonjy, Bilal; Lacuey, Nuria; Devinsky, Orrin

2016-07-01

To describe the phenomenology of monitored sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) occurring in the interictal period where death occurs without a seizure preceding it. We report a case series of monitored definite and probable SUDEP where no electroclinical evidence of underlying seizures was found preceding death. Three patients (two definite and one probable) had SUDEP. They had a typical high SUDEP risk profile with longstanding intractable epilepsy and frequent generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS). All patients had varying patterns of respiratory and bradyarrhythmic cardiac dysfunction with profound electroencephalography (EEG) suppression. In two patients, patterns of cardiorespiratory failure were similar to those seen in some patients in the Mortality in Epilepsy Monitoring Units Study (MORTEMUS). SUDEP almost always occur postictally, after GTCS and less commonly after a partial seizure. Monitored SUDEP or near-SUDEP cases without a seizure have not yet been reported in literature. When nonmonitored SUDEP occurs in an ambulatory setting without an overt seizure, the absence of EEG information prevents the exclusion of a subtle seizure. These cases confirm the existence of nonseizure SUDEP; such deaths may not be prevented by seizure detection-based devices. SUDEP risk in patients with epilepsy may constitute a spectrum of susceptibility wherein some are relatively immune, death occurs in others with frequent GTCS with one episode of seizure ultimately proving fatal, while in others still, death may occur even in the absence of a seizure. We emphasize the heterogeneity of SUDEP phenomena. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 International League Against Epilepsy.

Use of whole body CT to detect patterns of CPR-related injuries after sudden cardiac arrest.

PubMed

Dunham, Gregor M; Perez-Girbes, Alexandre; Bolster, Ferdia; Sheehan, Kellie; Linnau, Ken F

2017-11-09

We have recently implemented a dedicated sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) - whole-body computed tomography (WBCT) protocol to evaluate SCA patients with return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) following cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of this study is to evaluate the number and pattern of CPR-related injuries in ROSC patients with SCA-WBCT. Single-centre retrospective review of 39 patients (13 female; 20 male, mean age 51.8 years) with non-traumatic, out-of-hospital SCA and ROSC and evaluation with dedicated SCA-WBCT over a 10-month period. In-hospital mortality was 54%. CPR-related injuries were detected in 85% (33/39). Chest injuries were most common on WBCT: 85% (33) subjects had rib fractures (mean of 8.5 fractures/subject); 31% (12) sternal fractures; 13% (5) mediastinal haematoma; 10% (4) pneumothorax; 8% (3) pneumomediastinum and 3% (1) haemothorax. Three subjects (8%) had abdominal injuries on WBCT, including one hepatic haematoma with active haemorrhage. CPR-related injuries on WBCT after ROSC are common, with serial rib fractures detected most commonly. An unexpectedly high rate of abdominal injuries was detected on SCA-WBCT. Radiologists need to be attuned to the spectrum of CPR-related injuries in WBCT, including abdominal injuries and subtle rib fractures. • CPR frequently causes injuries. • Radiologists should be aware of the spectrum of CPR related injuries. • Rib fractures are frequent and radiologic findings often subtle. • Clinically unexpected abdominal injuries may be present.

An approximately Bayesian delta-rule model explains the dynamics of belief updating in a changing environment.

PubMed

Nassar, Matthew R; Wilson, Robert C; Heasly, Benjamin; Gold, Joshua I

2010-09-15

Maintaining appropriate beliefs about variables needed for effective decision making can be difficult in a dynamic environment. One key issue is the amount of influence that unexpected outcomes should have on existing beliefs. In general, outcomes that are unexpected because of a fundamental change in the environment should carry more influence than outcomes that are unexpected because of persistent environmental stochasticity. Here we use a novel task to characterize how well human subjects follow these principles under a range of conditions. We show that the influence of an outcome depends on both the error made in predicting that outcome and the number of similar outcomes experienced previously. We also show that the exact nature of these tendencies varies considerably across subjects. Finally, we show that these patterns of behavior are consistent with a computationally simple reduction of an ideal-observer model. The model adjusts the influence of newly experienced outcomes according to ongoing estimates of uncertainty and the probability of a fundamental change in the process by which outcomes are generated. A prior that quantifies the expected frequency of such environmental changes accounts for individual variability, including a positive relationship between subjective certainty and the degree to which new information influences existing beliefs. The results suggest that the brain adaptively regulates the influence of decision outcomes on existing beliefs using straightforward updating rules that take into account both recent outcomes and prior expectations about higher-order environmental structure.

Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?

PubMed Central

Meuret, Alicia E.; Rosenfield, David; Wilhelm, Frank H.; Zhou, Enlu; Conrad, Ansgar; Ritz, Thomas; Roth, Walton T.

2012-01-01

Background Spontaneous or unexpected panic attacks, per definition, occur out-of-the blue, in absence of cues or triggers. Accordingly, physiological arousal or instability should occur at the onset of or during the attack, but not preceding it. To test this hypothesisweexaminedif points of significant autonomic changes preceded the onset of spontaneous panic attacks. Methods Forty-three panic disorder patients underwent repeated 24-hour ambulatory monitoring. Thirteen naturally panic attacks were recorded during 1,960 hours of monitoring. Minute-by-minute epochs beginning 60 minutes before, and continuing to 10 minutes after, the onset of individual attacks were examined for respiration, heart rate, and skin conductance level. Measures were controlled for physical activity and vocalization, and compared to time matched control periods within the same person. Results Significant patterns of instability across a numberof autonomic and respiratory variables were detected as early as 47 minutes before panic onset. The final minutes prior to onset were dominated by respiratory changes, with significant decreases in tidal volume followed by abrupt PCO2 increases. Panic attack onset was characterized by heart rate and tidal volume increases and a drop in PCO2. Symptom report was consistent with these changes. Skin conductance levels were generally elevated in the hour before and duringthe attacks. Changes in the matched control periods were largely absent. Conclusions Significant autonomic irregularities preceded the onset of attacks that were reported as abrupt and unexpected. The findings invite reconsideration of the current diagnostic distinction betweenuncuedand cued panic attacks. PMID:21783179

Do macroeconomic contractions induce or 'harvest' suicides? A test of competing hypotheses.

PubMed

Gemmill, Alison; Falconi, April; Karasek, Deborah; Hartig, Terry; Anderson, Elizabeth; Catalano, Ralph

2015-11-01

Researchers often invoke a mortality displacement or 'harvesting' mechanism to explain mortality patterns, such that those with underlying health vulnerabilities die sooner than expected in response to environmental phenomena, such as heat waves, cold spells and air pollution. It is unclear if this displacement mechanism might also explain observed increases in suicide following economic contraction, or if suicides are induced in persons otherwise unlikely to engage in self-destructive behaviour. Here, we test two competing hypotheses explaining an observed increase in suicides following unemployment-induction or displacement. We apply time series methods to monthly suicide and unemployment data from Sweden for the years 2000-2011. Tests are conducted separately for working age (20-64 years old) men and women as well as older (aged 65 years and older) men and women. Displacement appeared among older men and women; an unexpected rise in unemployment predicted an increase in suicides 6 months later, followed by a significant decrease 8 months later. Induction appeared among working age men, but not among working age women; an unexpected rise in unemployment predicted an increase in suicides 4-6 months later. Displacement and induction both appear to have operated following unexpected labour market contractions in Sweden, though with different population segments. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Plants and climate change: complexities and surprises

PubMed Central

Parmesan, Camille; Hanley, Mick E.

2015-01-01

Background Anthropogenic climate change (ACC) will influence all aspects of plant biology over coming decades. Many changes in wild species have already been well-documented as a result of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, warming climate and changing precipitation regimes. A wealth of available data has allowed the use of meta-analyses to examine plant–climate interactions on more sophisticated levels than before. These analyses have revealed major differences in plant response among groups, e.g. with respect to functional traits, taxonomy, life-history and provenance. Interestingly, these meta-analyses have also exposed unexpected mismatches between theory, experimental, and observational studies. Scope We reviewed the literature on species’ responses to ACC, finding ∼42 % of 4000 species studied globally are plants (primarily terrestrial). We review impacts on phenology, distributions, ecophysiology, regeneration biology, plant–plant and plant–herbivore interactions, and the roles of plasticity and evolution. We focused on apparent deviations from expectation, and highlighted cases where more sophisticated analyses revealed that unexpected changes were, in fact, responses to ACC. Conclusions We found that conventionally expected responses are generally well-understood, and that it is the aberrant responses that are now yielding greater insight into current and possible future impacts of ACC. We argue that inconclusive, unexpected, or counter-intuitive results should be embraced in order to understand apparent disconnects between theory, prediction, and observation. We highlight prime examples from the collection of papers in this Special Issue, as well as general literature. We found use of plant functional groupings/traits had mixed success, but that some underutilized approaches, such as Grime's C/S/R strategies, when incorporated, have improved understanding of observed responses. Despite inherent difficulties, we highlight the need for ecologists to conduct community-level experiments in systems that replicate multiple aspects of ACC. Specifically, we call for development of coordinating experiments across networks of field sites, both natural and man-made. PMID:26555281

Saturation Mutagenesis of 5S rRNA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

PubMed Central

Smith, Maria W.; Meskauskas, Arturas; Wang, Pinger; Sergiev, Petr V.; Dinman, Jonathan D.

2001-01-01

rRNAs are the central players in the reactions catalyzed by ribosomes, and the individual rRNAs are actively involved in different ribosome functions. Our previous demonstration that yeast 5S rRNA mutants (called mof9) can impact translational reading frame maintenance showed an unexpected function for this ubiquitous biomolecule. At the time, however, the highly repetitive nature of the genes encoding rRNAs precluded more detailed genetic and molecular analyses. A new genetic system allows all 5S rRNAs in the cell to be transcribed from a small, easily manipulated plasmid. The system is also amenable for the study of the other rRNAs, and provides an ideal genetic platform for detailed structural and functional studies. Saturation mutagenesis reveals regions of 5S rRNA that are required for cell viability, translational accuracy, and virus propagation. Unexpectedly, very few lethal alleles were identified, demonstrating the resilience of this molecule. Superimposition of genetic phenotypes on a physical map of 5S rRNA reveals the existence of phenotypic clusters of mutants, suggesting that specific regions of 5S rRNA are important for specific functions. Mapping these mutants onto the Haloarcula marismortui large subunit reveals that these clusters occur at important points of physical interaction between 5S rRNA and the different functional centers of the ribosome. Our analyses lead us to propose that one of the major functions of 5S rRNA may be to enhance translational fidelity by acting as a physical transducer of information between all of the different functional centers of the ribosome. PMID:11713264

Metatranscriptomic analysis of a high-sulfide aquatic spring reveals insights into sulfur cycling and unexpected aerobic metabolism

PubMed Central

Elshahed, Mostafa S.; Najar, Fares Z.; Krumholz, Lee R.

2015-01-01

Zodletone spring is a sulfide-rich spring in southwestern Oklahoma characterized by shallow, microoxic, light-exposed spring water overlaying anoxic sediments. Previously, culture-independent 16S rRNA gene based diversity surveys have revealed that Zodletone spring source sediments harbor a highly diverse microbial community, with multiple lineages putatively involved in various sulfur-cycling processes. Here, we conducted a metatranscriptomic survey of microbial populations in Zodletone spring source sediments to characterize the relative prevalence and importance of putative phototrophic, chemolithotrophic, and heterotrophic microorganisms in the sulfur cycle, the identity of lineages actively involved in various sulfur cycling processes, and the interaction between sulfur cycling and other geochemical processes at the spring source. Sediment samples at the spring’s source were taken at three different times within a 24-h period for geochemical analyses and RNA sequencing. In depth mining of datasets for sulfur cycling transcripts revealed major sulfur cycling pathways and taxa involved, including an unexpected potential role of Actinobacteria in sulfide oxidation and thiosulfate transformation. Surprisingly, transcripts coding for the cyanobacterial Photosystem II D1 protein, methane monooxygenase, and terminal cytochrome oxidases were encountered, indicating that genes for oxygen production and aerobic modes of metabolism are actively being transcribed, despite below-detectable levels (<1 µM) of oxygen in source sediment. Results highlight transcripts involved in sulfur, methane, and oxygen cycles, propose that oxygenic photosynthesis could support aerobic methane and sulfide oxidation in anoxic sediments exposed to sunlight, and provide a viewpoint of microbial metabolic lifestyles under conditions similar to those seen during late Archaean and Proterozoic eons. PMID:26417542

Metatranscriptomic analysis of a high-sulfide aquatic spring reveals insights into sulfur cycling and unexpected aerobic metabolism.

PubMed

Spain, Anne M; Elshahed, Mostafa S; Najar, Fares Z; Krumholz, Lee R

2015-01-01

Zodletone spring is a sulfide-rich spring in southwestern Oklahoma characterized by shallow, microoxic, light-exposed spring water overlaying anoxic sediments. Previously, culture-independent 16S rRNA gene based diversity surveys have revealed that Zodletone spring source sediments harbor a highly diverse microbial community, with multiple lineages putatively involved in various sulfur-cycling processes. Here, we conducted a metatranscriptomic survey of microbial populations in Zodletone spring source sediments to characterize the relative prevalence and importance of putative phototrophic, chemolithotrophic, and heterotrophic microorganisms in the sulfur cycle, the identity of lineages actively involved in various sulfur cycling processes, and the interaction between sulfur cycling and other geochemical processes at the spring source. Sediment samples at the spring's source were taken at three different times within a 24-h period for geochemical analyses and RNA sequencing. In depth mining of datasets for sulfur cycling transcripts revealed major sulfur cycling pathways and taxa involved, including an unexpected potential role of Actinobacteria in sulfide oxidation and thiosulfate transformation. Surprisingly, transcripts coding for the cyanobacterial Photosystem II D1 protein, methane monooxygenase, and terminal cytochrome oxidases were encountered, indicating that genes for oxygen production and aerobic modes of metabolism are actively being transcribed, despite below-detectable levels (<1 µM) of oxygen in source sediment. Results highlight transcripts involved in sulfur, methane, and oxygen cycles, propose that oxygenic photosynthesis could support aerobic methane and sulfide oxidation in anoxic sediments exposed to sunlight, and provide a viewpoint of microbial metabolic lifestyles under conditions similar to those seen during late Archaean and Proterozoic eons.

Mechanisms of peripheral phylogeographic divergence in the indo-Pacific: lessons from the spiny lobster Panulirus homarus.

PubMed

Farhadi, Ahmad; Jeffs, Andrew G; Farahmand, Hamid; Rejiniemon, Thankappan Sarasam; Smith, Greg; Lavery, Shane D

2017-08-18

There is increasing recognition of the concordance between marine biogeographic and phylogeographic boundaries. However, it is still unclear how population-level divergence translates into species-level divergence, and what are the principal factors that first initiate that divergence, and then maintain reproductive isolation. This study examines the likely forces driving population and lineage divergences in the broadly-distributed Indo-Pacific spiny lobster Panulirus homarus, which has peripheral divergent lineages in the west and east. The study focuses particularly on the West Indian Ocean, which is emerging as a region of unexpected diversity. Mitochondrial control region (mtCR) and COI sequences as well as genotypes of 9 microsatellite loci were examined in 410 individuals from 17 locations grouped into 7 regions from South Africa in the west, and eastward across to Taiwan and the Marquesas Islands. Phylogenetic and population-level analyses were used to test the significance and timing of divergences and describe the genetic relationships among populations. Analyses of the mtCR revealed high levels of divergence among the seven regions (Ф ST  = 0.594, P < 0.001). Microsatellite analyses also revealed significant divergence among regions, but at a much lower level (F ST  = 0.066, P < 0.001). The results reveal different patterns of mtCR v. nDNA divergence between the two distinct peripheral lineages: a subspecies in South Africa and Madagascar, and a phylogeographically diverged population in the Marquesas. The results also expose a number of other more fine-scale population divergences, particularly in the Indian Ocean. The divergence of peripheral lineages in the west and east of the species' range appear to have been initiated and maintained by very different processes. The pattern of mitochondrial and nuclear divergence of the western lineage, implicates processes of parapatric isolation, secondary contact and introgression, and suggests possible maintenance through adaptation and behavioural reproductive isolation. In contrast, the eastern lineage appears to have diverged through a rare colonisation event, maintained through long-term isolation, and matches expectations of the core-periphery hypothesis. The process of active peripheral speciation may be a common force in the Indo-Pacific that helps drive some of the regions' recognized biogeographic boundaries.

Salt appetite is not increased in summer heat.

PubMed

Leshem, Micah

2017-01-01

We tested the hypothesis that salt appetite increases in summer heat due to increased sodium loss due to increased drinking and perspiration. A test battery in the same sample of healthy young people tested in summer and winter revealed no seasonal differences in salt appetite (or fluid intake) despite a 10 °C rise in mean environmental temperature. Unexpectedly, sweet preference is reduced in summer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

What New Parents "Really" Want to Know. A Principal Responds When a Parent Survey Reveals Some Unexpected Concerns

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Anne

2005-01-01

Part of Clark Elementary School was built in 1911 as a rural school housing grades 1-12 that also served as the community center. In l984, when I first taught there, it was a school with 225 students where the staff knew not only the students, but their immediate families, extended families, and even long-deceased relatives who had attended Clark…

Lessons from the Unexpected: The Importance of Data Infrastructure, Conceptual Models, and Serendipity in Health Services Research

PubMed Central

Mechanic, David

2001-01-01

In examining the importance of data systems, conceptual models, and serendipity in understanding health services, the case is made for a vigorous and responsive data infrastructure and more emphasis on conceptual development. Particularly important is the development of data systems that can keep pace with changes in health care organization and patterns of care. Three examples—from managed care, deinstitutionalization, and physician remuneration—demonstrate the need to empirically examine seemingly obvious assumptions about health patterns and trends, and the lessons to be learned when assumptions are proved incorrect. Major future challenges include incorporating patient preferences into outcomes research, meaningful communication about treatment options and health plan choices, and understanding how organizational culture and norms affect decision processes. PMID:11565164

Recovery after mass extinction: evolutionary assembly in large-scale biosphere dynamics.

PubMed Central

Solé, Ricard V; Montoya, José M; Erwin, Douglas H

2002-01-01

Biotic recoveries following mass extinctions are characterized by a process in which whole ecologies are reconstructed from low-diversity systems, often characterized by opportunistic groups. The recovery process provides an unexpected window to ecosystem dynamics. In many aspects, recovery is very similar to ecological succession, but important differences are also apparently linked to the innovative patterns of niche construction observed in the fossil record. In this paper, we analyse the similarities and differences between ecological succession and evolutionary recovery to provide a preliminary ecological theory of recoveries. A simple evolutionary model with three trophic levels is presented, and its properties (closely resembling those observed in the fossil record) are compared with characteristic patterns of ecological response to disturbances in continuous models of three-level ecosystems. PMID:12079530

Selection against recombinant hybrids maintains reproductive isolation in hybridizing Populus species despite F1 fertility and recurrent gene flow.

PubMed

Christe, Camille; Stölting, Kai N; Bresadola, Luisa; Fussi, Barbara; Heinze, Berthold; Wegmann, Daniel; Lexer, Christian

2016-06-01

Natural hybrid zones have proven to be precious tools for understanding the origin and maintenance of reproductive isolation (RI) and therefore species. Most available genomic studies of hybrid zones using whole- or partial-genome resequencing approaches have focused on comparisons of the parental source populations involved in genome admixture, rather than exploring fine-scale patterns of chromosomal ancestry across the full admixture gradient present between hybridizing species. We have studied three well-known European 'replicate' hybrid zones of Populus alba and P. tremula, two widespread, ecologically divergent forest trees, using up to 432 505 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing. Estimates of fine-scale chromosomal ancestry, genomic divergence and differentiation across all 19 poplar chromosomes revealed strikingly contrasting results, including an unexpected preponderance of F1 hybrids in the centre of genomic clines on the one hand, and genomically localized, spatially variable shared variants consistent with ancient introgression between the parental species on the other. Genetic ancestry had a significant effect on survivorship of hybrid seedlings in a common garden trial, pointing to selection against early-generation recombinants. Our results indicate a role for selection against recombinant genotypes in maintaining RI in the face of apparent F1 fertility, consistent with the intragenomic 'coadaptation' model of barriers to introgression upon secondary contact. Whole-genome resequencing of hybridizing populations will clarify the roles of specific genetic pathways in RI between these model forest trees and may reveal which loci are affected most strongly by its cyclic breakdown. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Transgenic zebrafish reveal tissue-specific differences in estrogen signaling in response to environmental water samples.

PubMed

Gorelick, Daniel A; Iwanowicz, Luke R; Hung, Alice L; Blazer, Vicki S; Halpern, Marnie E

2014-04-01

Environmental endocrine disruptors (EEDs) are exogenous chemicals that mimic endogenous hormones such as estrogens. Previous studies using a zebrafish transgenic reporter demonstrated that the EEDs bisphenol A and genistein preferentially activate estrogen receptors (ERs) in the larval heart compared with the liver. However, it was not known whether the transgenic zebrafish reporter was sensitive enough to detect estrogens from environmental samples, whether environmental estrogens would exhibit tissue-specific effects similar to those of BPA and genistein, or why some compounds preferentially target receptors in the heart. We tested surface water samples using a transgenic zebrafish reporter with tandem estrogen response elements driving green fluorescent protein expression (5xERE:GFP). Reporter activation was colocalized with tissue-specific expression of ER genes by RNA in situ hybridization. We observed selective patterns of ER activation in transgenic fish exposed to river water samples from the Mid-Atlantic United States, with several samples preferentially activating receptors in embryonic and larval heart valves. We discovered that tissue specificity in ER activation was due to differences in the expression of ER subtypes. ERα was expressed in developing heart valves but not in the liver, whereas ERβ2 had the opposite profile. Accordingly, subtype-specific ER agonists activated the reporter in either the heart valves or the liver. The use of 5xERE:GFP transgenic zebrafish revealed an unexpected tissue-specific difference in the response to environmentally relevant estrogenic compounds. Exposure to estrogenic EEDs in utero was associated with adverse health effects, with the potentially unanticipated consequence of targeting developing heart valves.

Morphologic changes in the mesolimbic pathway in Parkinson's disease motor subtypes.

PubMed

Nyberg, Eric M; Tanabe, Jody; Honce, Justin M; Krmpotich, Theodore; Shelton, Erika; Hedeman, Jessica; Berman, Brian D

2015-05-01

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder associated with gray matter atrophy. Cortical atrophy patterns may further help distinguish between PD motor subtypes. Comparable differences in subcortical volumes have not been found. Twenty-one cognitively intact and treated PD patients, including 12 tremor dominant (TD) subtype, Nine postural instability gait dominant (PIGD) subtype, and 20 matched healthy control subjects underwent 3.0 T high-resolution structural MRI scanning. Subcortical volumetric analysis was performed using FreeSurfer and shape analysis was performed with FIRST to assess for differences between PD patients and controls and between PD subtypes. No significant differences in subcortical volumes were found between motor PD subtypes, but comparing grouped PD patients with controls revealed a significant increase in hippocampal volume in PD patients (p = 0.03). A significant shape difference was detected in the right nucleus accumbens (NAcc) between PD and controls and between motor subtypes. Shape differences were driven by positive deviations in the TD subtype. Correlation analysis revealed a trend between hippocampal volume and decreasing MDS-UPDRS (p = 0.06). While no significant differences in subcortical volumes between PD motor subtypes were found, increased hippocampal volumes were observed in PD patients compared to controls. Right NAcc shape differences in PD patients were driven by changes in the TD subtype. These unexpected findings may be related to the effects of chronic dopaminergic replacement on the mesolimbic pathway. Further studies are needed to replicate and determine the clinical significance of such morphologic changes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamic simulation as an approach to understanding hurricane risk response: insights from the Stormview lab.

PubMed

Meyer, Robert; Broad, Kenneth; Orlove, Ben; Petrovic, Nada

2013-08-01

This article investigates the use of dynamic laboratory simulations as a tool for studying decisions to prepare for hurricane threats. A prototype web-based simulation named Stormview is described that allows individuals to experience the approach of a hurricane in a computer-based environment. In Stormview participants can gather storm information through various media, hear the opinions of neighbors, and indicate intentions to take protective action. We illustrate how the ability to exert experimental control over the information viewed by participants can be used to provide insights into decision making that would be difficult to gain from field studies, such as how preparedness decisions are affected by the nature of news coverage of prior storms, how a storm's movement is depicted in graphics, and the content of word-of-mouth communications. Data from an initial application involving a sample of Florida residents reveal a number of unexpected findings about hurricane risk response. Participants who viewed forecast graphics, which contained track lines depicting the most likely path of the storm, for example, had higher levels of preparation than those who saw graphics that showed only uncertainty cones-even among those living far from the predicted center path. Similarly, the participants who were most likely to express worry about an approaching storm and fastest to undertake preparatory action were those who, ironically, had never experienced one. Finally, external validity is evidenced by a close rank-order correspondence between patterns of information use revealed in the lab and that found in previous cross-sectional field studies. © 2012 Society for Risk Analysis.

History of Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

NASA Image and Video Library

1996-01-16

Taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), this image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, reveals its true shape to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. The arc-like etchings could be the remnants of discrete shells ejected from the star when it was younger, flow instabilities, or could result from the action of a narrow beam of matter impinging on the hourglass walls. According to one theory on the formation of planetary nebulae, the hourglass shape is produced by the expansion of a fast stellar wind within a slowly expanding cloud, which is denser near its equator than near its poles. Hubble has also revealed other features in MyCn18 which are completely new and unexpected. For example, there is a pair of intersecting elliptical rings in the central region which appear to be the rims of a smaller hourglass. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken in the light of ionized nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green) and doubly-ionized oxygen (blue). The results are of great interest because they shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of sun-like stars. An unseen companion star and accompanying gravitational effects may well be necessary in order to explain the structure of MyCn18. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) had responsibility for design, development, and construction of the HST.

Transgenic zebrafish reveal tissue-specific differences in estrogen signaling in response to environmental water samples

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gorelick, Daniel A.; Iwanowicz, Luke R.; Hung, Alice L.; Blazer, Vicki; Halpern, Marnie E.

2014-01-01

Background: Environmental endocrine disruptors (EED) are exogenous chemicals that mimic endogenous hormones, such as estrogens. Previous studies using a zebrafish transgenic reporter demonstrated that the EEDs bisphenol A and genistein preferentially activate estrogen receptors (ER) in the larval heart compared to the liver. However, it was not known whether the transgenic zebrafish reporter was sensitive enough to detect estrogens from environmental samples, whether environmental estrogens would exhibit similar tissue-specific effects as BPA and genistein or why some compounds preferentially target receptors in the heart. Methods: We tested surface water samples using a transgenic zebrafish reporter with tandem estrogen response elements driving green fluorescent protein expression (5xERE:GFP). Reporter activation was colocalized with tissue-specific expression of estrogen receptor genes by RNA in situ hybridization. Results: Selective patterns of ER activation were observed in transgenic fish exposed to river water samples from the Mid-Atlantic United States, with several samples preferentially activating receptors in embryonic and larval heart valves. We discovered that tissue-specificity in ER activation is due to differences in the expression of estrogen receptor subtypes. ERα is expressed in developing heart valves but not in the liver, whereas ERβ2 has the opposite profile. Accordingly, subtype-specific ER agonists activate the reporter in either the heart valves or the liver. Conclusion: The use of 5xERE:GFP transgenic zebrafish has revealed an unexpected tissue-specific difference in the response to environmentally relevant estrogenic compounds. Exposure to estrogenic EEDs in utero is associated with adverse health effects, with the potentially unanticipated consequence of targeting developing heart valves.

Assembly of a phased diploid Candida albicans genome facilitates allele-specific measurements and provides a simple model for repeat and indel structure

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Candida albicans is a ubiquitous opportunistic fungal pathogen that afflicts immunocompromised human hosts. With rare and transient exceptions the yeast is diploid, yet despite its clinical relevance the respective sequences of its two homologous chromosomes have not been completely resolved. Results We construct a phased diploid genome assembly by deep sequencing a standard laboratory wild-type strain and a panel of strains homozygous for particular chromosomes. The assembly has 700-fold coverage on average, allowing extensive revision and expansion of the number of known SNPs and indels. This phased genome significantly enhances the sensitivity and specificity of allele-specific expression measurements by enabling pooling and cross-validation of signal across multiple polymorphic sites. Additionally, the diploid assembly reveals pervasive and unexpected patterns in allelic differences between homologous chromosomes. Firstly, we see striking clustering of indels, concentrated primarily in the repeat sequences in promoters. Secondly, both indels and their repeat-sequence substrate are enriched near replication origins. Finally, we reveal an intimate link between repeat sequences and indels, which argues that repeat length is under selective pressure for most eukaryotes. This connection is described by a concise one-parameter model that explains repeat-sequence abundance in C. albicans as a function of the indel rate, and provides a general framework to interpret repeat abundance in species ranging from bacteria to humans. Conclusions The phased genome assembly and insights into repeat plasticity will be valuable for better understanding allele-specific phenomena and genome evolution. PMID:24025428

Unexpected diversity during community succession in the apple flower microbiome.

PubMed

Shade, Ashley; McManus, Patricia S; Handelsman, Jo

2013-02-26

Despite its importance to the host, the flower microbiome is poorly understood. We report a culture-independent, community-level assessment of apple flower microbial diversity and dynamics. We collected flowers from six apple trees at five time points, starting before flowers opened and ending at petal fall. We applied streptomycin to half of the trees when flowers opened. Assessment of microbial diversity using tag pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes revealed that the apple flower communities were rich and diverse and dominated by members of TM7 and Deinococcus-Thermus, phyla about which relatively little is known. From thousands of taxa, we identified six successional groups with coherent dynamics whose abundances peaked at different times before and after bud opening. We designated the groups Pioneer, Early, Mid, Late, Climax, and Generalist communities. The successional pattern was attributed to a set of prevalent taxa that were persistent and gradually changing in abundance. These taxa had significant associations with other community members, as demonstrated with a cooccurrence network based on local similarity analysis. We also detected a set of less-abundant, transient taxa that contributed to general tree-to-tree variability but not to the successional pattern. Communities on trees sprayed with streptomycin had slightly lower phylogenetic diversity than those on unsprayed trees but did not differ in structure or succession. Our results suggest that changes in apple flower microbial community structure are predictable over the life of the flower, providing a basis for ecological understanding and disease management. Flowering plants (angiosperms) represent a diverse group of an estimated 400,000 species, and their successful cultivation is essential to agriculture. Yet fundamental knowledge of flower-associated microbiotas remains largely unknown. Even less well understood are the changes that flower microbial communities experience through time. Flowers are particularly conducive to comprehensive temporal studies because they are, by nature, ephemeral organs. Here, we present the first culture-independent time series of bacterial and archaeal communities associated with the flowers of apple, an economically important crop. We found unexpected diversity on apple flowers, including a preponderance of taxa affiliated with Deinococcus-Thermus and TM7, phyla that are understudied but thought to be tolerant to an array of environmental stresses. Our results also suggest that changes in microbial community structure on the apple flower may be predictable over the life of the flower, providing the basis for ecological understanding and disease management.

Film growth kinetics and electric field patterning during electrospray deposition of block copolymer thin films

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toth, Kristof; Hu, Hanqiong; Choo, Youngwoo; Loewenberg, Michael; Osuji, Chinedum

The delivery of sub-micron droplets of dilute polymer solutions to a heated substrate by electrospray deposition (ESD) enables precisely controlled and continuous growth of block copolymer (BCP) thin films. Here we explore patterned deposition of BCP films by spatially varying the electric field at the substrate using an underlying charged grid, as well as film growth kinetics. Numerical analysis was performed to examine pattern fidelity by considering the trajectories of charged droplets during flight through imposed periodic field variations in the vicinity of the substrate. Our work uncovered an unexpected modality for improving the resolution of the patterning process via stronger field focusing through the use of a second oppositely charged grid beneath a primary focusing array, with an increase in highly localized droplet deposition on the intersecting nodes of the grid. Substrate coverage kinetics are considered for homopolymer deposition in the context of simple kinetic models incorporating temperature and molecular weight dependence of diffusivity. By contrast, film coverage kinetics for block copolymer depositions are additionally convoluted with preferential wetting and thickness-periodicity commensurability effects. NSF GRFP.

Ancient deuterostome origins of vertebrate brain signalling centres.

PubMed

Pani, Ariel M; Mullarkey, Erin E; Aronowicz, Jochanan; Assimacopoulos, Stavroula; Grove, Elizabeth A; Lowe, Christopher J

2012-03-14

Neuroectodermal signalling centres induce and pattern many novel vertebrate brain structures but are absent, or divergent, in invertebrate chordates. This has led to the idea that signalling-centre genetic programs were first assembled in stem vertebrates and potentially drove morphological innovations of the brain. However, this scenario presumes that extant cephalochordates accurately represent ancestral chordate characters, which has not been tested using close chordate outgroups. Here we report that genetic programs homologous to three vertebrate signalling centres-the anterior neural ridge, zona limitans intrathalamica and isthmic organizer-are present in the hemichordate Saccoglossus kowalevskii. Fgf8/17/18 (a single gene homologous to vertebrate Fgf8, Fgf17 and Fgf18), sfrp1/5, hh and wnt1 are expressed in vertebrate-like arrangements in hemichordate ectoderm, and homologous genetic mechanisms regulate ectodermal patterning in both animals. We propose that these genetic programs were components of an unexpectedly complex, ancient genetic regulatory scaffold for deuterostome body patterning that degenerated in amphioxus and ascidians, but was retained to pattern divergent structures in hemichordates and vertebrates. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Testing the validity of a continuous false belief task in 3- to 7-year-old children.

PubMed

Mahy, Caitlin E V; Bernstein, Daniel M; Gerrard, Lindsey D; Atance, Cristina M

2017-08-01

In two studies, we examined young children's performance on the paper-and-pencil version of the Sandbox task, a continuous measure of false belief, and its relations with other false belief and inhibition tasks. In Study 1, 96 children aged 3 to 7years completed three false belief tasks (Sandbox, Unexpected Contents, and Appearance/Reality) and two inhibition tasks (Head-Shoulders-Knees-Toes and Grass/Snow). Results revealed that false belief bias-a measure of egocentrism-on the Sandbox task correlated with age but not with the Unexpected Contents or Appearance/Reality task or with measures of inhibition after controlling for age. In Study 2, 90 3- to 7-year-olds completed five false belief tasks (Sandbox, Unexpected Contents, Appearance/Reality, Change of Location, and a second-order false belief task), two inhibition tasks (Simon Says and Grass/Snow), and a receptive vocabulary task (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test). Results showed that false belief bias on the Sandbox task correlated negatively with age and with the Change of Location task but not with the other false belief or inhibition tasks after controlling for age and receptive vocabulary. The Sandbox task shows promise as an age-sensitive measure of false belief performance during early childhood and shows convergent and discriminant validity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The importance of working memory for school achievement in primary school children with intellectual or learning disabilities.

PubMed

Maehler, Claudia; Schuchardt, Kirsten

2016-11-01

Given the well-known relation between intelligence and school achievement we expect children with normal intelligence to perform well at school and those with intelligence deficits to meet learning problems. But, contrary to these expectations, some children do not perform according to these predictions: children with normal intelligence but sub-average school achievement and children with lower intelligence but average success at school. Yet, it is an open question how the unexpected failure or success can be explained. This study examined the role of working memory sensu Baddeley (1986) for school achievement, especially for unexpected failure or success. An extensive working memory battery with a total of 14 tasks for the phonological loop, the visual-spatial sketchpad and central executive skills was presented in individual sessions to four groups of children differing in IQ (normal vs. low) and school success (good vs. poor). Results reveal that children with sub-average school achievement showed deficits in working memory functioning, irrespective of intelligence. By contrast, children with regular school achievement did not show deficits in working memory, again irrespective of intelligence. Therefore working memory should be considered an important predictor of academic success that can lead both to unexpected overachievement and failure at school. Individual working memory competencies should be taken into account with regard to diagnosis and intervention for children with learning problems. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Global Precipitation Patterns Associated with Short-Term Extratropical Climate Fluctuations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huffman, George J.; Adler, Robert F.; Bolvin, David T.

1999-01-01

Two globally-complete, observation-only precipitation datasets have recently been developed for the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP). Both depend heavily on a variety of satellite input, as well as gauge data over land. The first, Version 2x79, provides monthly estimates on a 2.5 deg. x 2.5 deg. lat/long grid for the period 1979 through late 1999 (by the time of the conference). The second, the One-Degree Daily (1DD), provides daily estimates on a 1 deg. x l deg. grid for the period 1997 through late 1999 (by the time of the conference). Both are in beta test preparatory to release as official GPCP products. These datasets provide a unique perspective on the hydrological effects of the various atmospheric flow anomalies that have been identified by meteorologists. In this paper we discuss the regional precipitation effects that result from persistent extratropical flow anomalies. We will focus on the Pacific-North America (PNA) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) patterns. Each characteristically becomes established on synoptic time scales, but then persists for periods that can exceed a month. The onset phase of each appears to have systematic mobile features, while the mature phase tend to be more stationary. Accordingly, composites of monthly data for outstanding positive and negative events (separately) contained in the 20-year record reveal the climatological structure of the precipitation during the mature phase. The climatological anomalies of the positive, negative, and (positive-negative) composites show the expected storm-track-related shifts in precipitation, and provide the advantage of putting the known precipitation effects over land in the context of the total pattern over land and ocean. As well, this global perspective points out some unexpected areas of correlation. Day-by-day composites of daily data anchored to the onset date demonstrate the systematic features during the onset. Although the 1DD has a fairly short record, some preliminary results are shown and compared to previous work with numerical weather prediction models.

The CRC orthologue from Pisum sativum shows conserved functions in carpel morphogenesis and vascular development.

PubMed

Fourquin, Chloé; Primo, Amparo; Martínez-Fernández, Irene; Huet-Trujillo, Estefanía; Ferrándiz, Cristina

2014-11-01

CRABS CLAW (CRC) is a member of the YABBY family of transcription factors involved in carpel morphogenesis, floral determinacy and nectary specification in arabidopsis. CRC orthologues have been functionally characterized across angiosperms, revealing additional roles in leaf vascular development and carpel identity specification in Poaceae. These studies support an ancestral role of CRC orthologues in carpel development, while roles in vascular development and nectary specification appear to be derived. This study aimed to expand research on CRC functional conservation to the legume family in order to better understand the evolutionary history of CRC orthologues in angiosperms. CRC orthologues from Pisum sativum and Medicago truncatula were identified. RNA in situ hybridization experiments determined the corresponding expression patterns throughout flower development. The phenotypic effects of reduced CRC activity were investigated in P. sativum using virus-induced gene silencing. CRC orthologues from P. sativum and M. truncatula showed similar expression patterns, mainly restricted to carpels and nectaries. However, these expression patterns differed from those of other core eudicots, most importantly in a lack of abaxial expression in the carpel and in atypical expression associated with the medial vein of the ovary. CRC downregulation in pea caused defects in carpel fusion and style/stigma development, both typically associated with CRC function in eudicots, but also affected vascular development in the carpel. The data support the conserved roles of CRC orthologues in carpel fusion, style/stigma development and nectary development. In addition, an intriguing new aspect of CRC function in legumes was the unexpected role in vascular development, which could be shared by other species from widely diverged clades within the angiosperms, suggesting that this role could be ancestral rather than derived, as so far generally accepted. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Molecules, morphometrics and new fossils provide an integrated view of the evolutionary history of Rhinopomatidae (Mammalia: Chiroptera).

PubMed

Hulva, Pavel; Horácek, Ivan; Benda, Petr

2007-09-14

The Rhinopomatidae, traditionally considered to be one of the most ancient chiropteran clades, remains one of the least known groups of Rhinolophoidea. No relevant fossil record is available for this family. Whereas there have been extensive radiations in related families Rhinolophidae and Hipposideridae, there are only a few species in the Rhinopomatidae and their phylogenetic relationship and status are not fully understood. Here we present (a) a phylogenetic analysis based on a partial cytochrome b sequence, (b) new fossils from the Upper Miocene site Elaiochoria 2 (Chalkidiki, Greece), which represents the first appearance datum of the family based on the fossil record, and (c) discussion of the phylogeographic patterns in both molecular and morphological traits. We found deep divergences in the Rhinopoma hardwickii lineage, suggesting that the allopatric populations in (i) Iran and (ii) North Africa and the Middle East should have separate species status. The latter species (R. cystops) exhibits a shallow pattern of isolation by distance (separating the Middle East and the African populations) that contrasts with the pattern of geographic variation in the morphometrical traits. A deep genetic gap was also found in Rhinopoma muscatellum (Iran vs. Yemen). We found only minute genetic distance between R. microphyllum from the Levant and India, which fails to support the sub/species distinctness of the Indian form (R. microphyllum kinneari). The mtDNA survey provided phylogenetic tree of the family Rhinopomatidae for the first time and revealed an unexpected diversification of the group both within R. hardwickii and R. muscatellum morphospecies. The paleobiogeographic scenario compiled in respect to molecular clock data suggests that the family originated in the region south of the Eocene Western Tethyan seaway or in India, and extended its range during the Early Miocene. The fossil record suggests a Miocene spread into the Mediterranean region, followed by a post-Miocene retreat. Morphological analysis compared with genetic data indicates considerable phenotypic plasticity in this group.

The ambiguous ripening nature of the fig (Ficus carica L.) fruit: a gene-expression study of potential ripening regulators and ethylene-related genes

PubMed Central

Freiman, Zohar E.; Rosianskey, Yogev; Dasmohapatra, Rajeswari; Kamara, Itzhak; Flaishman, Moshe A.

2015-01-01

The traditional definition of climacteric and non-climacteric fruits has been put into question. A significant example of this paradox is the climacteric fig fruit. Surprisingly, ripening-related ethylene production increases following pre- or postharvest 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) application in an unexpected auto-inhibitory manner. In this study, ethylene production and the expression of potential ripening-regulator, ethylene-synthesis, and signal-transduction genes are characterized in figs ripening on the tree and following preharvest 1-MCP application. Fig ripening-related gene expression was similar to that in tomato and apple during ripening on the tree, but only in the fig inflorescence–drupelet section. Because the pattern in the receptacle is different for most of the genes, the fig drupelets developed inside the syconium are proposed to function as parthenocarpic true fruit, regulating ripening processes for the whole accessory fruit. Transcription of a potential ripening regulator, FcMADS8, increased during ripening on the tree and was inhibited following 1-MCP treatment. Expression patterns of the ethylene-synthesis genes FcACS2, FcACS4, and FcACO3 could be related to the auto-inhibition reaction of ethylene production in 1-MCP-treated fruit. Along with FcMADS8 suppression, gene expression analysis revealed upregulation of FcEBF1, and downregulation of FcEIL3 and several FcERFs by 1-MCP treatment. This corresponded with the high storability of the treated fruit. One FcERF was overexpressed in the 1-MCP-treated fruit, and did not share the increasing pattern of most FcERFs in the tree-ripened fig. This demonstrates the potential of this downstream ethylene-signal-transduction component as an ethylene-synthesis regulator, responsible for the non-climacteric auto-inhibition of ethylene production in fig. PMID:25956879

Demographic modelling reveals a history of divergence with gene flow for a glacially tied stonefly in a changing post-Pleistocene landscape

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hotaling, Scott; Muhlfeld, Clint C.; Giersch, J. Joseph; Ali, Omar; Jordan, Steve; Miller, Michael R.; Luikart, Gordon; Weisrock, David W.

2018-01-01

AimClimate warming is causing extensive loss of glaciers in mountainous regions, yet our understanding of how glacial recession influences evolutionary processes and genetic diversity is limited. Linking genetic structure with the influences shaping it can improve understanding of how species respond to environmental change. Here, we used genome-scale data and demographic modelling to resolve the evolutionary history of Lednia tumana, a rare, aquatic insect endemic to alpine streams. We also employed a range of widely used data filtering approaches to quantify how they influenced population structure results.LocationAlpine streams in the Rocky Mountains of Glacier National Park, Montana, USA.TaxonLednia tumana, a stonefly (Order Plecoptera) in the family Nemouridae.MethodsWe generated single nucleotide polymorphism data through restriction-site associated DNA sequencing to assess contemporary patterns of genetic structure for 11 L. tumana populations. Using identified clusters, we assessed demographic history through model selection and parameter estimation in a coalescent framework. During population structure analyses, we filtered our data to assess the influence of singletons, missing data and total number of markers on results.ResultsContemporary patterns of population structure indicate that L. tumana exhibits a pattern of isolation-by-distance among populations within three genetic clusters that align with geography. Mean pairwise genetic differentiation (FST) among populations was 0.033. Coalescent-based demographic modelling supported divergence with gene flow among genetic clusters since the end of the Pleistocene (~13-17 kya), likely reflecting the south-to-north recession of ice sheets that accumulated during the Wisconsin glaciation.Main conclusionsWe identified a link between glacial retreat, evolutionary history and patterns of genetic diversity for a range-restricted stonefly imperiled by climate change. This finding included a history of divergence with gene flow, an unexpected conclusion for a mountaintop species. Beyond L. tumana, this study demonstrates the complexity of assessing genetic structure for weakly differentiated species, shows the degree to which rare alleles and missing data may influence results, and highlights the usefulness of genome-scale data to extend population genetic inquiry in non-model species.

Space communications scheduler: A rule-based approach to adaptive deadline scheduling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Straguzzi, Nicholas

1990-01-01

Job scheduling is a deceptively complex subfield of computer science. The highly combinatorial nature of the problem, which is NP-complete in nearly all cases, requires a scheduling program to intelligently transverse an immense search tree to create the best possible schedule in a minimal amount of time. In addition, the program must continually make adjustments to the initial schedule when faced with last-minute user requests, cancellations, unexpected device failures, quests, cancellations, unexpected device failures, etc. A good scheduler must be quick, flexible, and efficient, even at the expense of generating slightly less-than-optimal schedules. The Space Communication Scheduler (SCS) is an intelligent rule-based scheduling system. SCS is an adaptive deadline scheduler which allocates modular communications resources to meet an ordered set of user-specified job requests on board the NASA Space Station. SCS uses pattern matching techniques to detect potential conflicts through algorithmic and heuristic means. As a result, the system generates and maintains high density schedules without relying heavily on backtracking or blind search techniques. SCS is suitable for many common real-world applications.

Satellite-based observations of unexpected coastal changes due to the Saemangeum Dyke construction, Korea.

PubMed

Lee, Yoon-Kyung; Ryu, Joo-Hyung; Choi, Jong-Kuk; Lee, Seok; Woo, Han-Jun

2015-08-15

Spatial and temporal changes around an area of conventional coastal engineering can be easily observed from field surveys because of the clear cause-and-effect observable in the before and after stages of the project. However, it is more difficult to determine environmental changes in the vicinity of tidal flats and coastal areas that are a considerable distance from the project. To identify any unexpected environmental impacts of the construction of Saemangeum Dyke in the area, we examined morphological changes identified by satellite-based observations through a field survey on Gomso Bay tidal flats (15km from Saemangeum Dyke), and changes in the suspended sediment distribution identified by satellite-based observations through a hydrodynamic analysis in the Saemangeum and Gomso coastal area. We argue that hydrodynamic changes due to conventional coastal engineering can affect the sedimentation pattern in the vicinity of tidal flats. We suggest that the environmental impact assessment conducted before a conventional coastal engineering project should include a larger area than is currently considered. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Finding the missing link between ictal bradyarrhythmia, ictal asystole, and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

PubMed

Leung, H; Kwan, P; Elger, C E

2006-08-01

Basic science studies of the human brain have supported the cortical representation of cardiovascular responses, including heart rate variability. Clinical observations of ictal bradyarrhythmia may be mechanistically explained by the influence of the central autonomic network, although the localization and lateralization issues need to be considered in the light of patterns of seizure spread, hand dominance, and presence of lesions. Ictal bradyarrhythmia also offers a mechanistic explanation of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), though it may explain only some but not all cases of SUDEP. The missing links are (1) clinical evidence of common factors shared by patients with ictal bradyarrhythmia and patients who die from SUDEP, (2) evidence of arrhythmia as a risk factor for SUDEP from epidemiological studies, and, (3) determination of the importance of ictal bradyarrhythmia in SUDEP with respect to other proposed mechanisms including apnea and intrinsic cardiac abnormalities. There remains a need to review the seizure mechanisms in cases of SUDEP and to step up the amount of concurrent ECG/intracranial EEG analysis in both ictal bradyarrhythmia and SUDEP cases.

Unexpected case of pneumomediastinum and subcutaneous emphysema: primary or secondary aetiology?

PubMed

Cheng, Amanda J L; Sadler, Timothy J

2018-04-19

A 77-year-old man was admitted with a relapse of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive vasculitis with pulmonary involvement and acute kidney injury. There was a background of pulmonary fibrosis (non-specific interstitial pneumonia type pattern) and superadded pulmonary haemorrhage, acute pulmonary oedema and sepsis. The patient was intubated for 4 days and remained dependent on high flow oxygen and continuous positive airway pressure after extubation. A chest radiograph performed 2 weeks after extubation demonstrated unexpected, extensive pneumomediastinum and subcutaneous emphysema. This was confirmed on CT which raised the possibility of a tracheal defect at the level of the prior endotracheal tube cuff position. Tracheal injury was considered clinically unlikely due to the considerable interval since extubation and a short, uneventful intubation period. The cardiothoracic team recommended a diagnostic bronchoscopy but this was felt too high risk by the clinical team. The cause of pneumomediastinum and subcutaneous emphysema remained indeterminate. © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Solvothermally Synthesized Sb2Te3 Platelets Show Unexpected Optical Contrasts in Mid-Infrared Near-Field Scanning Microscopy.

PubMed

Hauer, Benedikt; Saltzmann, Tobias; Simon, Ulrich; Taubner, Thomas

2015-05-13

We report nanoscale-resolved optical investigations on the local material properties of Sb2Te3 hexagonal platelets grown by solvothermal synthesis. Using mid-infrared near-field microscopy, we find a highly symmetric pattern, which is correlated to a growth spiral and which extends over the entire platelet. As the origin of the optical contrast, we identify domains with different densities of charge carriers. On Sb2Te3 samples grown by other means, we did not find a comparable domain structure.

Matrix recrystallization for MALDI-MS imaging of maize lipids at high-spatial resolution

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Duenas, Maria Emilia; Carlucci, Laura; Lee, Young Jin

Matrix recrystallization is optimized and applied to improve lipid ion signals in maize embryos and leaves. A systematic study was performed varying solvent and incubation time. During this study, unexpected side reactions were found when methanol was used as a recrystallization solvent, resulting in the formation of a methyl ester of phosphatidic acid. Furthermore, using an optimum recrystallization condition with isopropanol, there is no apparent delocalization demonstrated with a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) pattern and maize leaf images obtained at 10 μm spatial resolution.

Matrix recrystallization for MALDI-MS imaging of maize lipids at high-spatial resolution

DOE PAGES

Duenas, Maria Emilia; Carlucci, Laura; Lee, Young Jin

2016-06-27

Matrix recrystallization is optimized and applied to improve lipid ion signals in maize embryos and leaves. A systematic study was performed varying solvent and incubation time. During this study, unexpected side reactions were found when methanol was used as a recrystallization solvent, resulting in the formation of a methyl ester of phosphatidic acid. Furthermore, using an optimum recrystallization condition with isopropanol, there is no apparent delocalization demonstrated with a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) pattern and maize leaf images obtained at 10 μm spatial resolution.

Matrix Recrystallization for MALDI-MS Imaging of Maize Lipids at High-Spatial Resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dueñas, Maria Emilia; Carlucci, Laura; Lee, Young Jin

2016-09-01

Matrix recrystallization is optimized and applied to improve lipid ion signals in maize embryos and leaves. A systematic study was performed varying solvent and incubation time. During this study, unexpected side reactions were found when methanol was used as a recrystallization solvent, resulting in the formation of a methyl ester of phosphatidic acid. Using an optimum recrystallization condition with isopropanol, there is no apparent delocalization demonstrated with a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) pattern and maize leaf images obtained at 10 μm spatial resolution.

Predictive information processing is a fundamental learning mechanism present in early development: evidence from infants.

PubMed

Trainor, Laurel J

2012-02-01

Evidence is presented that predictive coding is fundamental to brain function and present in early infancy. Indeed, mismatch responses to unexpected auditory stimuli are among the earliest robust cortical event-related potential responses, and have been measured in young infants in response to many types of deviation, including in pitch, timing, and melodic pattern. Furthermore, mismatch responses change quickly with specific experience, suggesting that predictive coding reflects a powerful, early-developing learning mechanism. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Shape diagram of vesicles in Poiseuille flow.

PubMed

Coupier, Gwennou; Farutin, Alexander; Minetti, Christophe; Podgorski, Thomas; Misbah, Chaouqi

2012-04-27

Soft bodies flowing in a channel often exhibit parachutelike shapes usually attributed to an increase of hydrodynamic constraint (viscous stress and/or confinement). We show that the presence of a fluid membrane leads to the reverse phenomenon and build a phase diagram of shapes-which are classified as bullet, croissant, and parachute-in channels of varying aspect ratio. Unexpectedly, shapes are relatively wider in the narrowest direction of the channel. We highlight the role of flow patterns on the membrane in this response to the asymmetry of stress distribution.

Matrix Recrystallization for MALDI-MS Imaging of Maize Lipids at High-Spatial Resolution.

PubMed

Dueñas, Maria Emilia; Carlucci, Laura; Lee, Young Jin

2016-09-01

Matrix recrystallization is optimized and applied to improve lipid ion signals in maize embryos and leaves. A systematic study was performed varying solvent and incubation time. During this study, unexpected side reactions were found when methanol was used as a recrystallization solvent, resulting in the formation of a methyl ester of phosphatidic acid. Using an optimum recrystallization condition with isopropanol, there is no apparent delocalization demonstrated with a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) pattern and maize leaf images obtained at 10 μm spatial resolution. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Evidence for a Time-Invariant Phase Variable in Human Ankle Control

PubMed Central

Gregg, Robert D.; Rouse, Elliott J.; Hargrove, Levi J.; Sensinger, Jonathon W.

2014-01-01

Human locomotion is a rhythmic task in which patterns of muscle activity are modulated by state-dependent feedback to accommodate perturbations. Two popular theories have been proposed for the underlying embodiment of phase in the human pattern generator: a time-dependent internal representation or a time-invariant feedback representation (i.e., reflex mechanisms). In either case the neuromuscular system must update or represent the phase of locomotor patterns based on the system state, which can include measurements of hundreds of variables. However, a much simpler representation of phase has emerged in recent designs for legged robots, which control joint patterns as functions of a single monotonic mechanical variable, termed a phase variable. We propose that human joint patterns may similarly depend on a physical phase variable, specifically the heel-to-toe movement of the Center of Pressure under the foot. We found that when the ankle is unexpectedly rotated to a position it would have encountered later in the step, the Center of Pressure also shifts forward to the corresponding later position, and the remaining portion of the gait pattern ensues. This phase shift suggests that the progression of the stance ankle is controlled by a biomechanical phase variable, motivating future investigations of phase variables in human locomotor control. PMID:24558485

Spontaneous Chloroplast Mutants Mostly Occur by Replication Slippage and Show a Biased Pattern in the Plastome of Oenothera[OPEN

PubMed Central

Massouh, Amid; Schubert, Julia; Yaneva-Roder, Liliya; Ulbricht-Jones, Elena S.; Johnson, Marc T.J.; Wright, Stephen I.; Pellizzer, Tommaso; Sobanski, Johanna; Greiner, Stephan

2016-01-01

Spontaneous plastome mutants have been used as a research tool since the beginning of genetics. However, technical restrictions have severely limited their contributions to research in physiology and molecular biology. Here, we used full plastome sequencing to systematically characterize a collection of 51 spontaneous chloroplast mutants in Oenothera (evening primrose). Most mutants carry only a single mutation. Unexpectedly, the vast majority of mutations do not represent single nucleotide polymorphisms but are insertions/deletions originating from DNA replication slippage events. Only very few mutations appear to be caused by imprecise double-strand break repair, nucleotide misincorporation during replication, or incorrect nucleotide excision repair following oxidative damage. U-turn inversions were not detected. Replication slippage is induced at repetitive sequences that can be very small and tend to have high A/T content. Interestingly, the mutations are not distributed randomly in the genome. The underrepresentation of mutations caused by faulty double-strand break repair might explain the high structural conservation of seed plant plastomes throughout evolution. In addition to providing a fully characterized mutant collection for future research on plastid genetics, gene expression, and photosynthesis, our work identified the spectrum of spontaneous mutations in plastids and reveals that this spectrum is very different from that in the nucleus. PMID:27053421

Buffering of crucial functions by paleologous duplicated genes may contribute cyclicality to angiosperm genome duplication.

PubMed

Chapman, Brad A; Bowers, John E; Feltus, Frank A; Paterson, Andrew H

2006-02-21

Genome duplication followed by massive gene loss has permanently shaped the genomes of many higher eukaryotes, particularly angiosperms. It has long been believed that a primary advantage of genome duplication is the opportunity for the evolution of genes with new functions by modification of duplicated genes. If so, then patterns of genetic diversity among strains within taxa might reveal footprints of selection that are consistent with this advantage. Contrary to classical predictions that duplicated genes may be relatively free to acquire unique functionality, we find among both Arabidopsis ecotypes and Oryza subspecies that SNPs encode less radical amino acid changes in genes for which there exists a duplicated copy at a "paleologous" locus than in "singleton" genes. Preferential retention of duplicated genes encoding long complex proteins and their unexpectedly slow divergence (perhaps because of homogenization) suggest that a primary advantage of retaining duplicated paleologs may be the buffering of crucial functions. Functional buffering and functional divergence may represent extremes in the spectrum of duplicated gene fates. Functional buffering may be especially important during "genomic turmoil" immediately after genome duplication but continues to act approximately 60 million years later, and its gradual deterioration may contribute cyclicality to genome duplication in some lineages.

Buffering of crucial functions by paleologous duplicated genes may contribute cyclicality to angiosperm genome duplication

PubMed Central

Chapman, Brad A.; Bowers, John E.; Feltus, Frank A.; Paterson, Andrew H.

2006-01-01

Genome duplication followed by massive gene loss has permanently shaped the genomes of many higher eukaryotes, particularly angiosperms. It has long been believed that a primary advantage of genome duplication is the opportunity for the evolution of genes with new functions by modification of duplicated genes. If so, then patterns of genetic diversity among strains within taxa might reveal footprints of selection that are consistent with this advantage. Contrary to classical predictions that duplicated genes may be relatively free to acquire unique functionality, we find among both Arabidopsis ecotypes and Oryza subspecies that SNPs encode less radical amino acid changes in genes for which there exists a duplicated copy at a “paleologous” locus than in “singleton” genes. Preferential retention of duplicated genes encoding long complex proteins and their unexpectedly slow divergence (perhaps because of homogenization) suggest that a primary advantage of retaining duplicated paleologs may be the buffering of crucial functions. Functional buffering and functional divergence may represent extremes in the spectrum of duplicated gene fates. Functional buffering may be especially important during “genomic turmoil” immediately after genome duplication but continues to act ≈60 million years later, and its gradual deterioration may contribute cyclicality to genome duplication in some lineages. PMID:16467140

Spatiotemporal characterization of mTOR kinase activity following kainic acid induced status epilepticus and analysis of rat brain response to chronic rapamycin treatment.

PubMed

Macias, Matylda; Blazejczyk, Magdalena; Kazmierska, Paulina; Caban, Bartosz; Skalecka, Agnieszka; Tarkowski, Bartosz; Rodo, Anna; Konopacki, Jan; Jaworski, Jacek

2013-01-01

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a protein kinase that senses nutrient availability, trophic factors support, cellular energy level, cellular stress, and neurotransmitters and adjusts cellular metabolism accordingly. Adequate mTOR activity is needed for development as well as proper physiology of mature neurons. Consequently, changes in mTOR activity are often observed in neuropathology. Recently, several groups reported that seizures increase mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) kinase activity, and such increased activity in genetic models can contribute to spontaneous seizures. However, the current knowledge about the spatiotemporal pattern of mTOR activation induced by proconvulsive agents is rather rudimentary. Also consequences of insufficient mTOR activity on a status epilepticus are poorly understood. Here, we systematically investigated these two issues. We showed that mTOR signaling was activated by kainic acid (KA)-induced status epilepticus through several brain areas, including the hippocampus and cortex as well as revealed two waves of mTOR activation: an early wave (2 h) that occurs in neurons and a late wave that predominantly occurs in astrocytes. Unexpectedly, we found that pretreatment with rapamycin, a potent mTOR inhibitor, gradually (i) sensitized animals to KA treatment and (ii) induced gross anatomical changes in the brain.

Diversity in 113 cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp] accessions assessed with 458 SNP markers.

PubMed

Egbadzor, Kenneth F; Ofori, Kwadwo; Yeboah, Martin; Aboagye, Lawrence M; Opoku-Agyeman, Michael O; Danquah, Eric Y; Offei, Samuel K

2014-01-01

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers were used in characterization of 113 cowpea accessions comprising of 108 from Ghana and 5 from abroad. Leaf tissues from plants cultivated at the University of Ghana were genotyped at KBioscience in the United Kingdom. Data was generated for 477 SNPs, out of which 458 revealed polymorphism. The results were used to analyze genetic dissimilarity among the accessions using Darwin 5 software. The markers discriminated among all of the cowpea accessions and the dissimilarity values which ranged from 0.006 to 0.63 were used for factorial plot. Unexpected high levels of heterozygosity were observed on some of the accessions. Accessions known to be closely related clustered together in a dendrogram drawn with WPGMA method. A maximum length sub-tree which comprised of 48 core accessions was constructed. The software package structure was used to separate accessions into three groups, and the programme correctly identified varieties that were known hybrids. The hybrids were those accessions with numerous heterozygous loci. The structure plot showed closely related accessions with similar genome patterns. The SNP markers were more efficient in discriminating among the cowpea germplasm than morphological, seed protein polymorphism and simple sequence repeat studies reported earlier on the same collection.

Families of Nuclear Receptors in Vertebrate Models: Characteristic and Comparative Toxicological Perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yanbin; Zhang, Kun; Giesy, John P.; Hu, Jianying

2015-02-01

Various synthetic chemicals are ligands for nuclear receptors (NRs) and can cause adverse effects in vertebrates mediated by NRs. While several model vertebrates, such as mouse, chicken, western clawed frog and zebrafish, are widely used in toxicity testing, few NRs have been well described for most of these classes. In this report, NRs in genomes of 12 vertebrates are characterized via bioinformatics approaches. Although numbers of NRs varied among species, with 40-42 genes in birds to 66-74 genes in teleost fishes, all NRs had clear homologs in human and could be categorized into seven subfamilies defined as NR0B-NR6A. Phylogenetic analysis revealed conservative evolutionary relationships for most NRs, which were consistent with traditional morphology-based systematics, except for some exceptions in Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Evolution of PXR and CAR exhibited unexpected multiple patterns and the existence of CAR possibly being traced back to ancient lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods (Sarcopterygii). Compared to the more conservative DBD of NRs, sequences of LBD were less conserved: Sequences of THRs, RARs and RXRs were >=90% similar to those of the human, ERs, AR, GR, ERRs and PPARs were more variable with similarities of 60%-100% and PXR, CAR, DAX1 and SHP were least conserved among species.

SncRNA (microRNA & snoRNA) opposite expression pattern found in multiple sclerosis relapse and remission is sex dependent

PubMed Central

Muñoz-Culla, Maider; Irizar, Haritz; Sáenz-Cuesta, Matías; Castillo-Triviño, Tamara; Osorio-Querejeta, Iñaki; Sepúlveda, Lucía; López de Munain, Adolfo; Olascoaga, Javier; Otaegui, David

2016-01-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common inflammatory and degenerative disease that causes neurological disability. It affects young adults and its prevalence is higher in women. The most common form is manifested as a series of acute episodes of neurological disability (relapses) followed by a recovery phase (remission). Recently, non-coding RNAs have emerged as new players in transcriptome regulation, and in turn, they could have a significant role in MS pathogenesis. In this context, our aim was to investigate the involvement of microRNAs and snoRNAs in the relapse-remission dynamics of MS in peripheral blood leucocytes, to shed light on the molecular and regulatory mechanisms that underlie this complex process. With this approach, we found that a subset of small non-coding RNAs (sncRNA) is altered in relapse and remission, revealing unexpected opposite changes that are sex dependent. Furthermore, we found that a relapse-related miRNA signature regulated general metabolism processes in leucocytes, and miRNA altered in remission are involved in the regulation of innate immunity. We observed that sncRNA dysregulation is different in relapse and remission leading to differences in transcriptome regulation, and that this process is sex dependent. In conclusion, relapse and remission have a different molecular background in men and women. PMID:26831009

Tryptophan 2,3-Dioxygenfase and Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase 1 Make Separate, Tissue-Specific Contributions to Basal and Inflammation-Induced Kynurenine Pathway Metabolism in Mice

PubMed Central

Larkin, Paul B.; Sathyasaikumar, Korrapati V.; Notarangelo, Francesca M.; Funakoshi, Hiroshi; Nakamura, Toshikazu; Schwarcz, Robert; Muchowski, Paul J.

2018-01-01

In mammals, the majority of the essential amino acid tryptophan is degraded via the kynurenine pathway (KP). Several KP metabolites play distinct physiological roles, often linked to immune system functions, and may also be causally involved in human diseases including neurodegenerative disorders, schizophrenia and cancer. Pharmacological manipulation of the KP has therefore become an active area of drug development. To target the pathway effectively, it is important to understand how specific KP enzymes control levels of the bioactive metabolites in vivo. Here, we conducted a comprehensive biochemical characterization of mice with a targeted deletion of either tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO) or indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), the two initial rate-limiting enzymes of the KP. These enzymes catalyze the same reaction, but differ in biochemical characteristics and expression patterns. We measured KP metabolite levels and enzyme activities and expression in several tissues in basal and immune-stimulated conditions. Although our study revealed several unexpected downstream effects on KP metabolism in both knockout mice, the results were essentially consistent with TDO-mediated control of basal KP metabolism and a role of IDO in phenomena involving stimulation of the immune system. PMID:27392942

Satellite imagery-based monitoring of archaeological site damage in the Syrian civil war

PubMed Central

Laugier, Elise Jakoby

2017-01-01

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the rich archaeological heritage of Syria and northern Iraq has faced severe threats, including looting, combat-related damage, and intentional demolition of monuments. However, the inaccessibility of the conflict zone to archaeologists or cultural heritage specialists has made it difficult to produce accurate damage assessments, impeding efforts to develop mitigation strategies and policies. This paper presents results of a project, undertaken in collaboration with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the US Department of State, to monitor damage to archaeological sites in Syria, northern Iraq, and southern Turkey using recent, high-resolution satellite imagery. Leveraging a large database of archaeological and heritage sites throughout the region, as well as access to continually updated satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe, this project has developed a flexible and efficient methodology to log observations of damage in a manner that facilitates spatial and temporal queries. With nearly 5000 sites carefully evaluated, analysis reveals unexpected patterns in the timing, severity, and location of damage, helping us to better understand the evolving cultural heritage crisis in Syria and Iraq. Results also offer a model for future remote sensing-based archaeological and heritage monitoring efforts in the Middle East and beyond. PMID:29190783

The Maize PI/GLO Ortholog Zmm16/sterile tassel silky ear1 Interacts with the Zygomorphy and Sex Determination Pathways in Flower Development[OPEN

PubMed Central

Bartlett, Madelaine E.; Williams, Steven K.; Taylor, Zac; DeBlasio, Stacy; Hall, Darren H.; Schmidt, Robert J.; Jackson, David P.

2015-01-01

In monocots and eudicots, B class function specifies second and third whorl floral organ identity as described in the classic ABCE model. Grass B class APETALA3/DEFICIENS orthologs have been functionally characterized; here, we describe the positional cloning and characterization of a maize (Zea mays) PISTILLATA/GLOBOSA ortholog Zea mays mads16 (Zmm16)/sterile tassel silky ear1 (sts1). We show that, similar to many eudicots, all the maize B class proteins bind DNA as obligate heterodimers and positively regulate their own expression. However, sts1 mutants have novel phenotypes that provide insight into two derived aspects of maize flower development: carpel abortion and floral asymmetry. Specifically, we show that carpel abortion acts downstream of organ identity and requires the growth-promoting factor grassy tillers1 and that the maize B class genes are expressed asymmetrically, likely in response to zygomorphy of grass floral primordia. Further investigation reveals that floral phyllotactic patterning is also zygomorphic, suggesting significant mechanistic differences with the well-characterized models of floral polarity. These unexpected results show that despite extensive study of B class gene functions in diverse flowering plants, novel insights can be gained from careful investigation of homeotic mutants outside the core eudicot model species. PMID:26518212

Deuterium supersaturation in low-energy plasma-loaded tungsten surfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, L.; Jacob, W.; von Toussaint, U.; Manhard, A.; Balden, M.; Schmid, K.; Schwarz-Selinger, T.

2017-01-01

Fundamental understanding of hydrogen-metal interactions is challenging due to a lack of knowledge on defect production and/or evolution upon hydrogen ingression, especially for metals undergoing hydrogen irradiation with ion energy below the displacement thresholds reported in literature. Here, applying a novel low-energy argon-sputter depth profiling method with significantly improved depth resolution for tungsten (W) surfaces exposed to deuterium (D) plasma at 300 K, we show the existence of a 10 nm thick D-supersaturated surface layer (DSSL) with an unexpectedly high D concentration of ~10 at.% after irradiation with ion energy of 215 eV. Electron back-scatter diffraction reveals that the W lattice within this DSSL is highly distorted, thus strongly blurring the Kikuchi pattern. We explain this strong damage by the synergistic interaction of energetic D ions and solute D atoms with the W lattice. Solute D atoms prevent the recombination of vacancies with interstitial W atoms, which are produced by collisions of energetic D ions with W lattice atoms (Frenkel pairs). This proposed damaging mechanism could also be active on other hydrogen-irradiated metal surfaces. The present work provides deep insight into hydrogen-induced lattice distortion at plasma-metal interfaces and sheds light on its modelling work.

Trichostatin A specifically improves the aberrant expression of transcription factor genes in embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer

PubMed Central

Inoue, Kimiko; Oikawa, Mami; Kamimura, Satoshi; Ogonuki, Narumi; Nakamura, Toshinobu; Nakano, Toru; Abe, Kuniya; Ogura, Atsuo

2015-01-01

Although mammalian cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been established in various species, the low developmental efficiency has hampered its practical applications. Treatment of SCNT-derived embryos with histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors can improve their development, but the underlying mechanism is still unclear. To address this question, we analysed gene expression profiles of SCNT-derived 2-cell mouse embryos treated with trichostatin A (TSA), a potent HDAC inhibitor that is best used for mouse cloning. Unexpectedly, TSA had no effect on the numbers of aberrantly expressed genes or the overall gene expression pattern in the embryos. However, in-depth investigation by gene ontology and functional analyses revealed that TSA treatment specifically improved the expression of a small subset of genes encoding transcription factors and their regulatory factors, suggesting their positive involvement in de novo RNA synthesis. Indeed, introduction of one of such transcription factors, Spi-C, into the embryos at least partially mimicked the TSA-induced improvement in embryonic development by activating gene networks associated with transcriptional regulation. Thus, the effects of TSA treatment on embryonic gene expression did not seem to be stochastic, but more specific than expected, targeting genes that direct development and trigger zygotic genome activation at the 2-cell stage. PMID:25974394

Computation of the influence of scanning probe microscope (SPM) on quantum dot eigenstates and 2DEG potential

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stopa, Michael

2005-03-01

We calculate the electronic structure of GaAs-AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) devices, such as quantum dots and quantum point contacts (QPCs) in the presence of a tip of a scanning probe microscope at some distance above the surface. The calculation employs standard density functional theory with exchange and correlation treated in the local density approximation. The position and voltage on the tip are varied and the conditions for depletion of the 2DEG are shown to compare favorably to experiment [1]. We show that the size of the depletion region created (by a negative tip voltage) is unexpectedly small due to focusing of the potential lines by the higher dielectric. We study the interaction of the tip with an isolated quantum dot that contains one or two electrons. The raster pattern of the difference between single particle energies reveals that the tip distorts the shape of the confining potential and suggests that excited state properties, if they can be measured experimentally, can contribute to the resolution of spatial information. [1] M.A. Topinka, R.M. Westervelt, E.J. Heller, ``http://meso.deas.harvard.edu/papers/Topinka, PT 56 12 (2003)'' (Imaging Electron Flow), Physics Today 56, 12 (2003).

Satellite imagery-based monitoring of archaeological site damage in the Syrian civil war.

PubMed

Casana, Jesse; Laugier, Elise Jakoby

2017-01-01

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the rich archaeological heritage of Syria and northern Iraq has faced severe threats, including looting, combat-related damage, and intentional demolition of monuments. However, the inaccessibility of the conflict zone to archaeologists or cultural heritage specialists has made it difficult to produce accurate damage assessments, impeding efforts to develop mitigation strategies and policies. This paper presents results of a project, undertaken in collaboration with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the US Department of State, to monitor damage to archaeological sites in Syria, northern Iraq, and southern Turkey using recent, high-resolution satellite imagery. Leveraging a large database of archaeological and heritage sites throughout the region, as well as access to continually updated satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe, this project has developed a flexible and efficient methodology to log observations of damage in a manner that facilitates spatial and temporal queries. With nearly 5000 sites carefully evaluated, analysis reveals unexpected patterns in the timing, severity, and location of damage, helping us to better understand the evolving cultural heritage crisis in Syria and Iraq. Results also offer a model for future remote sensing-based archaeological and heritage monitoring efforts in the Middle East and beyond.

Spatiotemporal Characterization of mTOR Kinase Activity Following Kainic Acid Induced Status Epilepticus and Analysis of Rat Brain Response to Chronic Rapamycin Treatment

PubMed Central

Macias, Matylda; Blazejczyk, Magdalena; Kazmierska, Paulina; Caban, Bartosz; Skalecka, Agnieszka; Tarkowski, Bartosz; Rodo, Anna; Konopacki, Jan; Jaworski, Jacek

2013-01-01

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a protein kinase that senses nutrient availability, trophic factors support, cellular energy level, cellular stress, and neurotransmitters and adjusts cellular metabolism accordingly. Adequate mTOR activity is needed for development as well as proper physiology of mature neurons. Consequently, changes in mTOR activity are often observed in neuropathology. Recently, several groups reported that seizures increase mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) kinase activity, and such increased activity in genetic models can contribute to spontaneous seizures. However, the current knowledge about the spatiotemporal pattern of mTOR activation induced by proconvulsive agents is rather rudimentary. Also consequences of insufficient mTOR activity on a status epilepticus are poorly understood. Here, we systematically investigated these two issues. We showed that mTOR signaling was activated by kainic acid (KA)-induced status epilepticus through several brain areas, including the hippocampus and cortex as well as revealed two waves of mTOR activation: an early wave (2 h) that occurs in neurons and a late wave that predominantly occurs in astrocytes. Unexpectedly, we found that pretreatment with rapamycin, a potent mTOR inhibitor, gradually (i) sensitized animals to KA treatment and (ii) induced gross anatomical changes in the brain. PMID:23724051

On the nature and consequences of early loss.

PubMed

Hofer, M A

1996-01-01

To describe how an animal model system can be used to explore basic questions about the nature of loss and the effects of early loss on later vulnerability to disease. The physiological and behavioral responses of infant rats to separation from their mothers are first described and then analyzed experimentally into component mechanisms. These studies have revealed an extensive layer of processes underlying the psychological constructs generally used to understand the response to loss. Hidden within the observable interactions of parent and offspring, we found a number of discrete sensorimotor, thermal, and nutrient-based events that have unexpected long-term regulatory effects on specific components of infant physiology and behavior. Release from all of these inhibitory and excitatory regulators together during maternal separation constitutes a novel mechanism by which the experience of loss can be translated into a complex patterned response. Evidence for early regulatory processes has also been found in monkey and human mother-infant interactions. Here they may well constitute the building blocks from which attachment and object representations develop. We and others have found long-term effects of loss, and of selective replacement of regulators, on behavioral development and on later vulnerability to disease. The results give us a new understanding of early attachment as a developmental force and of human grief as a risk to health.

Phylogenetic relationships among zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium) associated to excavating sponges (Cliona spp.) reveal an unexpected lineage in the Caribbean.

PubMed

Granados, C; Camargo, C; Zea, S; Sánchez, J A

2008-11-01

Phylogenetic relationships of symbiotic dinoflagellate lineages, distributed in all tropical and subtropical seas, suggest strategies for long distance dispersal but at the same time strong host specialization. Zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium: Dinophyta), which are associated to diverse shallow-water cnidarians, also engage in symbioses with some sponge species of the genus Cliona. In the Caribbean, zooxanthellae-bearing Cliona has recently become abundant due to global warming, overfishing, and algae abundance. Using molecular techniques, the symbionts from five excavating species (Clionacaribbaea, C. tenuis, C. varians, C. aprica and C. laticavicola) from the southern and southwestern Caribbean were surveyed. Several DNA sequence regions were used in order to confirm zooxanthellae identity; 18S rDNA, domain V of chloroplast large subunit (cp23S), internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2), and ITS2 secondary structure. Sequence analyses corroborated the presence of three zooxanthellae clades: A, B, and G. Presence of clades A and B in common boring sponges of the Caribbean fit with the general pattern of the province. The discovery of clade G for the first time in any organism of the Atlantic Ocean leads us to consider this unusual finding as a phylogenetic relict through common ancestors of sponge clades or an invasion of the sponge from the Indo-Pacific.

Encoding of temporal signals by the TGF-β pathway and implications for embryonic patterning

PubMed Central

Sorre, Benoit; Warmflash, Aryeh; Brivanlou, Ali H.; Siggia, Eric D.

2014-01-01

Summary Genetics and biochemistry have defined the components and wiring of the signaling pathways that pattern the embryo. Among them, the TGF-β pathway has the potential to behave as a morphogen: invitro experiments have clearly established that it can dictate cell fate in a concentration dependent manner. How morphogens convey positional information in a developing embryo, where signal levels are changing with time, is less understood. Using integrated microfluidic cell culture and time-lapse microscopy, we demonstrate here that the speed of ligand presentation has a key and previously unexpected influence on TGF-β signaling outcomes. The response to a TGF-β concentration step is transient and adaptive, slowly increasing the ligand concentration diminishes the response and well-spaced pulses of ligand combine additively resulting in greater pathway output than with constant stimulation. Our results suggest that in an embryonic context, the speed of change of ligand concentration is an instructive signal for patterning. PMID:25065773

Women's experiences of hassles and uplifts in their everyday patterns of occupations.

PubMed

Erlandsson, Lena-Karin; Eklund, Mona

2003-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate experiences of hassles and uplifts among women. One hundred working mothers were interviewed using the Target Complaints instrument. Content analysis, resulting in both qualitative categories and quantitative variables, was used. Working mothers' hassles were mainly generated by their social, temporal and doing contexts and illustrate the importance of considering women's total patterns of everyday occupations and not focusing one-sidedly on the work situation when treating occupation-related ill-health. Women's uplifts were experienced through the social context and by doing such different occupations as going to the movies, cleaning the house, or attending a class. This indicates the appropriateness of using a client-centred approach in interventions with openness to the client's unique situation. Unexpected occupations were identified almost exclusively among the hassles. This is important knowledge for occupational therapists since women will continue to be dual workers and at potential risk of developing unbalanced and detrimental patterns of occupations, in turn causing ill health.

Motion patterns and phase-transition of a defender-intruder problem and optimal interception strategy of the defender

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jiangliu; Li, Wei

2015-10-01

In this paper, we consider a defense-intrusion interaction, in which an intruder is attracted by a protected stationary target but repulsed by a defender; while the defender tries to move towards an appropriate interception position (IP) between the intruder and the target in order to intercept the intruder and expel the intruder away from the target as maximum as possible. Intuitionally, to keep the intruder further away, one may wonder that: is it a better strategy for the defender trying to approach the intruder as near as possible? Unexpectedly and interestingly enough, this is not always the case. We first introduce the flexibility for IP selection, then investigate the system dynamics and the stable motion patterns, and characterize the phase-transition surface for the motion patterns. We show that, the phase-transition surface just defines the optimal interception strategy of the defender for IP selection; and from the perspective of mobility of agents, the optimal strategy just depends on relative mobility of the two agents.

Versatile robotic interface to evaluate, enable and train locomotion and balance after neuromotor disorders.

PubMed

Dominici, Nadia; Keller, Urs; Vallery, Heike; Friedli, Lucia; van den Brand, Rubia; Starkey, Michelle L; Musienko, Pavel; Riener, Robert; Courtine, Grégoire

2012-07-01

Central nervous system (CNS) disorders distinctly impair locomotor pattern generation and balance, but technical limitations prevent independent assessment and rehabilitation of these subfunctions. Here we introduce a versatile robotic interface to evaluate, enable and train pattern generation and balance independently during natural walking behaviors in rats. In evaluation mode, the robotic interface affords detailed assessments of pattern generation and dynamic equilibrium after spinal cord injury (SCI) and stroke. In enabling mode,the robot acts as a propulsive or postural neuroprosthesis that instantly promotes unexpected locomotor capacities including overground walking after complete SCI, stair climbing following partial SCI and precise paw placement shortly after stroke. In training mode, robot-enabled rehabilitation, epidural electrical stimulation and monoamine agonists reestablish weight-supported locomotion, coordinated steering and balance in rats with a paralyzing SCI. This new robotic technology and associated concepts have broad implications for both assessing and restoring motor functions after CNS disorders, both in animals and in humans.

A "present" for the future: the unexpected value of rediscovery.

PubMed

Zhang, Ting; Kim, Tami; Brooks, Alison Wood; Gino, Francesca; Norton, Michael I

2014-10-01

Although documenting everyday activities may seem trivial, four studies reveal that creating records of the present generates unexpected benefits by allowing future rediscoveries. In Study 1, we used a time-capsule paradigm to show that individuals underestimate the extent to which rediscovering experiences from the past will be curiosity provoking and interesting in the future. In Studies 2 and 3, we found that people are particularly likely to underestimate the pleasure of rediscovering ordinary, mundane experiences, as opposed to extraordinary experiences. Finally, Study 4 demonstrates that underestimating the pleasure of rediscovery leads to time-inconsistent choices: Individuals forgo opportunities to document the present but then prefer rediscovering those moments in the future to engaging in an alternative fun activity. Underestimating the value of rediscovery is linked to people's erroneous faith in their memory of everyday events. By documenting the present, people provide themselves with the opportunity to rediscover mundane moments that may otherwise have been forgotten. © The Author(s) 2014.

A new fossil from the mid-Paleocene of New Zealand reveals an unexpected diversity of world's oldest penguins.

PubMed

Mayr, Gerald; De Pietri, Vanesa L; Paul Scofield, R

2017-04-01

We describe leg bones of a giant penguin from the mid-Paleocene Waipara Greensand of New Zealand. The specimens were found at the type locality of Waimanu manneringi and together with this species they constitute the oldest penguin fossils known to date. Tarsometatarsus dimensions indicate a species that reached the size of Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi, one of the largest known penguin species. Stem group penguins therefore attained a giant size very early in their evolution, with this gigantism existing for more than 30 million years. The new fossils are from a species that is phylogenetically more derived than Waimanu, and the unexpected coexistence of Waimanu with more derived stem group Sphenisciformes documents a previously unknown diversity amongst the world's oldest penguins. The characteristic tarsometatarsus shape of penguins evolved early on, and the significant morphological disparity between Waimanu and the new fossil conflicts with recent Paleocene divergence estimates for penguins, suggesting an older, Late Cretaceous, origin.

Does working memory capacity predict cross-modally induced failures of awareness?

PubMed

Kreitz, Carina; Furley, Philip; Simons, Daniel J; Memmert, Daniel

2016-01-01

People often fail to notice unexpected stimuli when they are focusing attention on another task. Most studies of this phenomenon address visual failures induced by visual attention tasks (inattentional blindness). Yet, such failures also occur within audition (inattentional deafness), and people can even miss unexpected events in one sensory modality when focusing attention on tasks in another modality. Such cross-modal failures are revealing because they suggest the existence of a common, central resource limitation. And, such central limits might be predicted from individual differences in cognitive capacity. We replicated earlier evidence, establishing substantial rates of inattentional deafness during a visual task and inattentional blindness during an auditory task. However, neither individual working memory capacity nor the ability to perform the primary task predicted noticing in either modality. Thus, individual differences in cognitive capacity did not predict failures of awareness even though the failures presumably resulted from central resource limitations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A dual contribution to the involuntary semantic processing of unexpected spoken words.

PubMed

Parmentier, Fabrice B R; Turner, Jacqueline; Perez, Laura

2014-02-01

Sounds are a major cause of distraction. Unexpected to-be-ignored auditory stimuli presented in the context of an otherwise repetitive acoustic background ineluctably break through selective attention and distract people from an unrelated visual task (deviance distraction). This involuntary capture of attention by deviant sounds has been hypothesized to trigger their semantic appraisal and, in some circumstances, interfere with ongoing performance, but it remains unclear how such processing compares with the automatic processing of distractors in classic interference tasks (e.g., Stroop, flanker, Simon tasks). Using a cross-modal oddball task, we assessed the involuntary semantic processing of deviant sounds in the presence and absence of deviance distraction. The results revealed that some involuntary semantic analysis of spoken distractors occurs in the absence of deviance distraction but that this processing is significantly greater in its presence. We conclude that the automatic processing of spoken distractors reflects 2 contributions, one that is contingent upon deviance distraction and one that is independent from it.

Unexpected Formation of Early Late Heterobimetallic Complexes from Transition Metal Frustrated Lewis Pairs.

PubMed

Chapman, Andy M; Flynn, Stephanie R; Wass, Duncan F

2016-02-01

Reaction of transition metal "frustrated" Lewis pair compounds of the type [Cp2Zr(Me)(OC(CF3)2CH2P(t)Bu2)] with the low valent platinum species [Pt(norbornene)3] leads to the unexpected formation of a heterobimetallic species [Cp2Zr{ Pt(Me)}(OC(CF3)2CH2 P(t)Bu2)]. Single crystal X-ray analysis reveals an unusual T-shaped geometry at the platinum center, with a relevant C-Pt-P angle of 163.3(3)°. Treatment of this compound with PMe3 yields [Pt(PMe3)4] and regenerates the zirconium precursor. Treatment with [(Et2O)2H][B(C6F5)4] protonates off the methyl ligand to give an ether adduct at platinum. Analogous observations are made with titanium-platinum species. We propose the chemistry is best rationalized as a formal insertion of Pt(0) into a Zr-C or Ti-Cl bond.

The C-terminal residue of phage Vp16 PDF, the smallest peptide deformylase, acts as an offset element locking the active conformation.

PubMed

Grzela, Renata; Nusbaum, Julien; Fieulaine, Sonia; Lavecchia, Francesco; Bienvenut, Willy V; Dian, Cyril; Meinnel, Thierry; Giglione, Carmela

2017-09-08

Prokaryotic proteins must be deformylated before the removal of their first methionine. Peptide deformylase (PDF) is indispensable and guarantees this mechanism. Recent metagenomics studies revealed new idiosyncratic PDF forms as the most abundant family of viral sequences. Little is known regarding these viral PDFs, including the capacity of the corresponding encoded proteins to ensure deformylase activity. We provide here the first evidence that viral PDFs, including the shortest PDF identified to date, Vp16 PDF, display deformylase activity in vivo, despite the absence of the key ribosome-interacting C-terminal region. Moreover, characterization of phage Vp16 PDF underscores unexpected structural and molecular features with the C-terminal Isoleucine residue significantly contributing to deformylase activity both in vitro and in vivo. This residue fully compensates for the absence of the usual long C-domain. Taken together, these data elucidate an unexpected mechanism of enzyme natural evolution and adaptation within viral sequences.

Platinum-nanoparticle-supported core-shell polymer nanospheres with unexpected water stability and facile further modification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Conghui; Xu, Yiting; Luo, Weiang; Zeng, Birong; Qiu, Wuhui; Liu, Jie; Huang, Huiling; Dai, Lizong

2012-05-01

Core-shell nanospheres (CSNSs) with hydrophobic cores and hydrophilic shells were fabricated via a simple mini-emulsion polymerization for the stabilization of platinum nanoparticles (Pt-NPs). The CSNSs showed extremely high loading capacity of Pt-NPs (the largest loading amount of the Pt-NPs was about 49.2 wt%). Importantly, the Pt-NPs/CSNSs nanocomposites had unexpected stability in aqueous solution. DLS results revealed that the CSNSs loaded with Pt-NPs exhibited almost no aggregation after standing for a long time . However, the Pt-NPs immobilized on the CSNSs were not straitlaced: they could transport and redistribute between CSNSs freely when the environmental temperature was higher than the melting point of the CSNS shell. Owing to their excellent stability in aqueous solution, the surface of the Pt-NPs/CSNSs nanocomposites could be further decorated easily. For example, polyaniline (PANI)-coated Pt-NPs/CSNSs, nickel (Ni)-coated Pt-NPs/CSNSs and PANI/Pt-NPs dual-layer hollow nanospheres were facilely fabricated from the Pt-NPs/CSNS nanocomposites.

Boundaries for martensitic transition of 7Li under pressure

DOE PAGES

Schaeffer, Anne Marie; Cai, Weizhao; Olejnik, Ella; ...

2015-08-14

We report that physical properties of lithium under extreme pressures continuously reveal unexpected features. These include a sequence of structural transitions to lower symmetry phases, metal-insulator-metal transition, superconductivity with one of the highest elemental transition temperatures, and a maximum followed by a minimum in its melting line. The instability of the bcc structure of lithium is well established by the presence of a temperature-driven martensitic phase transition. The boundaries of this phase, however, have not been previously explored above 3 GPa. All higher pressure phase boundaries are either extrapolations or inferred based on indirect evidence. Here we explore the pressuremore » dependence of the martensitic transition of lithium up to 7 GPa using a combination of neutron and X-ray scattering. We find a rather unexpected deviation from the extrapolated boundaries of the hR3 phase of lithium. Furthermore, there is evidence that, above ~3 GPa, once in fcc phase, lithium does not undergo a martensitic transition.« less

An unexpected N-terminal loop in PD-1 dominates binding by nivolumab

PubMed Central

Tan, Shuguang; Zhang, Hao; Chai, Yan; Song, Hao; Tong, Zhou; Wang, Qihui; Qi, Jianxun; Wong, Gary; Zhu, Xiaodong; Liu, William J.; Gao, Shan; Wang, Zhongfu; Shi, Yi; Yang, Fuquan; Gao, George F.; Yan, Jinghua

2017-01-01

Cancer immunotherapy by targeting of immune checkpoint molecules has been a research ‘hot-spot' in recent years. Nivolumab, a human monoclonal antibody targeting PD-1, has been widely used clinically since 2014. However, the binding mechanism of nivolumab to PD-1 has not yet been shown, despite a recent report describing the complex structure of pembrolizumab/PD-1. It has previously been speculated that PD-1 glycosylation is involved in nivolumab recognition. Here we report the complex structure of nivolumab with PD-1 and evaluate the effects of PD-1 N-glycosylation on the interactions with nivolumab. Structural and functional analyses unexpectedly reveal an N-terminal loop outside the IgV domain of PD-1. This loop is not involved in recognition of PD-L1 but dominates binding to nivolumab, whereas N-glycosylation is not involved in binding at all. Nivolumab binds to a completely different area than pembrolizumab. These results provide the basis for the design of future inhibitory molecules targeting PD-1. PMID:28165004

The hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis and biological rhythms: The discovery of TSH's unexpected role using animal models.

PubMed

Ikegami, Keisuke; Yoshimura, Takashi

2017-10-01

Thyroid hormones (TH) are important for development, growth, and metabolism. It is also clear that the synthesis and secretion of TH are regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis. Animal models have helped advance our understanding of the roles and regulatory mechanisms of TH. The animals' bodies develop through coordinated timing of cell division and differentiation. Studies of frog metamorphosis led to the discovery of TH and their role in development. However, to adapt to rhythmic environmental changes, animals also developed various endocrine rhythms. Studies of rodents clarified the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying the circadian regulation of the HPT axis. Moreover, birds have a sophisticated seasonal adaptation mechanism, and recent studies of quail revealed unexpected roles for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and TH in the seasonal regulation of reproduction. Interestingly, this mechanism is conserved in mammals. Thus, we review how animal studies have shaped our general understanding of the HPT axis in relation to biological rhythms. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Impact of critical illness news on the family: hermeneutic phenomenological study.

PubMed

Mendes, Anabela Pereira

2018-01-01

Understand the impact of critical-illness news on the experience of family members at an Intensive Care Unit. Phenomenological approach according to Van Manen's method. Open interviews were held with 21 family members. From analysis and interpretation of the data, three essential themes were identified: the unexpected; the pronouncement of death; and the impact on self-caring within the family. The study complied with the ethical principles inherent to research involving humans. The unexpected news and death of the sick person influence the well-being and self-care of family members, affecting their ability for analysis and decision making. It was observed that the family experiences the news with suffering, mainly due to the anticipation arising from the events. The humanity of nurses was revealed in response to the needs of the family. In view of the requirements for information, it was verified that the information transmitted allowed them to become aware of themselves, to become empowered in their daily lives and to alleviate the emotional burden experienced.

A new fossil from the mid-Paleocene of New Zealand reveals an unexpected diversity of world's oldest penguins

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mayr, Gerald; De Pietri, Vanesa L.; Paul Scofield, R.

2017-04-01

We describe leg bones of a giant penguin from the mid-Paleocene Waipara Greensand of New Zealand. The specimens were found at the type locality of Waimanu manneringi and together with this species they constitute the oldest penguin fossils known to date. Tarsometatarsus dimensions indicate a species that reached the size of Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi, one of the largest known penguin species. Stem group penguins therefore attained a giant size very early in their evolution, with this gigantism existing for more than 30 million years. The new fossils are from a species that is phylogenetically more derived than Waimanu, and the unexpected coexistence of Waimanu with more derived stem group Sphenisciformes documents a previously unknown diversity amongst the world's oldest penguins. The characteristic tarsometatarsus shape of penguins evolved early on, and the significant morphological disparity between Waimanu and the new fossil conflicts with recent Paleocene divergence estimates for penguins, suggesting an older, Late Cretaceous, origin.

Phospho-ubiquitin: upending the PINK–Parkin–ubiquitin cascade

PubMed Central

Matsuda, Noriyuki

2016-01-01

Mitochondria with decreased membrane potential are characterized by defects in protein import into the matrix and impairments in high-efficiency synthesis of ATP. These low-quality mitochondria are marked with ubiquitin for selective degradation. Key factors in this mechanism are PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1, a mitochondrial kinase) and Parkin (a ubiquitin ligase), disruption of which has been implicated in predisposition to Parkinson’s disease. Previously, the clearance of damaged mitochondria had been thought to be the end result of a simple cascading reaction of PINK1–Parkin–ubiquitin. However, in the past year, several research groups including ours unexpectedly revealed that Parkin regulation is mediated by PINK1-dependent phosphorylation of ubiquitin. These results overturned the simple hierarchy that posited PINK1 and ubiquitin as the upstream and downstream factors of Parkin, respectively. Although ubiquitylation is well-known as a post-translational modification, it has recently become clear that ubiquitin itself can be modified, and that this modification unexpectedly converts ubiquitin to a factor that functions in retrograde signalling. PMID:26839319

In vivo and in vitro evidence of somatostatin receptors expression in a dedifferentiated retroperitoneal liposarcoma.

PubMed

Imperiale, Alessio; Chenard, Marie-Pierre; Rohr, Serge; Barlier, Anne; Goichot, Bernard

2014-10-01

A 62-year-old patient presented with mildly elevated catecholamines and an abdominal painless mass. Abdominal CT revealed an 18 × 12 cm tumor in the right retroperitoneum with intense contrast enhancement. Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (SRS) showed pathologic uptake by the lesion. Given the suspicion of paraganglioma, the patient was referred to surgery for tumor removal. Surprisingly, the histopathological examination revealed a dedifferentiated liposarcoma. Somatostatin receptors of type 2 were identified and quantified by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The unexpected presentation of our patient draws clinicians' attention when performing diagnostic procedure for retroperitoneal lesions, even though hormone secretion and positive SRS strongly suggest paraganglioma.

SPQR - Spectroscopy: Prospects, Questions & Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pennington, M. R.

2014-06-01

Tremendous progress has been made in mapping out the spectrum of hadrons over the past decade with plans to make further advances in the decade ahead. Baryons and mesons, both expected and unexpected, have been found, the results of precision experiments often with polarized beams, polarized targets and sometimes polarization of the final states. All these hadrons generate poles in the complex energy plane that are consequences of the strong coupling regime of QCD. They reveal how this works.

Self-assembly of Zn(salphen) complexes: steric regulation, stability studies and crystallographic analysis revealing an unexpected dimeric 3,3'-t-Bu-substituted Zn(salphen) complex.

PubMed

Martínez Belmonte, Marta; Wezenberg, Sander J; Haak, Robert M; Anselmo, Daniele; Escudero-Adán, Eduardo C; Benet-Buchholz, Jordi; Kleij, Arjan W

2010-05-21

The self-assembly features of a series of (non)symmetrical Zn(salphen) complexes have been studied in detail by X-ray crystallography, NMR and UV-vis techniques. The combined data demonstrate that the stability of these dimeric assemblies and the relative position of each monomeric unit within the dinuclear structure depend on the location and combination of the aromatic ring substituents.

What happens to your brain on the way to Mars.

PubMed

Parihar, Vipan K; Allen, Barrett; Tran, Katherine K; Macaraeg, Trisha G; Chu, Esther M; Kwok, Stephanie F; Chmielewski, Nicole N; Craver, Brianna M; Baulch, Janet E; Acharya, Munjal M; Cucinotta, Francis A; Limoli, Charles L

2015-05-01

As NASA prepares for the first manned spaceflight to Mars, questions have surfaced concerning the potential for increased risks associated with exposure to the spectrum of highly energetic nuclei that comprise galactic cosmic rays. Animal models have revealed an unexpected sensitivity of mature neurons in the brain to charged particles found in space. Astronaut autonomy during long-term space travel is particularly critical as is the need to properly manage planned and unanticipated events, activities that could be compromised by accumulating particle traversals through the brain. Using mice subjected to space-relevant fluences of charged particles, we show significant cortical- and hippocampal-based performance decrements 6 weeks after acute exposure. Animals manifesting cognitive decrements exhibited marked and persistent radiation-induced reductions in dendritic complexity and spine density along medial prefrontal cortical neurons known to mediate neurotransmission specifically interrogated by our behavioral tasks. Significant increases in postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD-95) revealed major radiation-induced alterations in synaptic integrity. Impaired behavioral performance of individual animals correlated significantly with reduced spine density and trended with increased synaptic puncta, thereby providing quantitative measures of risk for developing cognitive decrements. Our data indicate an unexpected and unique susceptibility of the central nervous system to space radiation exposure, and argue that the underlying radiation sensitivity of delicate neuronal structure may well predispose astronauts to unintended mission-critical performance decrements and/or longer-term neurocognitive sequelae.

Unexpected Genetic Diversity among and within Populations of the Toxic Dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella as Revealed by Nuclear Microsatellite Markers▿

PubMed Central

Masseret, Estelle; Grzebyk, Daniel; Nagai, Satoshi; Genovesi, Benjamin; Lasserre, Bernard; Laabir, Mohamed; Collos, Yves; Vaquer, André; Berrebi, Patrick

2009-01-01

Since 1998, blooms of Alexandrium catenella associated with paralytic shellfish poisoning have been repeatedly reported for Thau Lagoon (French Mediterranean coast). Based on data obtained for rRNA gene markers, it has been suggested that the strains involved could be closely related to the Japanese temperate Asian ribotype of the temperate Asian clade. In order to gain more insight into the origin of these organisms, we carried out a genetic analysis of 61 Mediterranean and 23 Japanese strains using both ribosomal and microsatellite markers. Whereas the phylogeny based on ribosomal markers tended to confirm the previous findings, the analysis of microsatellite sequences revealed an unexpected distinction between the French and Japanese populations. This analysis also highlighted great intraspecific diversity that was not detected with the classical rRNA gene markers. The Japanese strains are divided into two differentiated A. catenella lineages: the Sea of Japan lineage and the east coast lineage, which includes populations from the Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean. A. catenella strains isolated from Thau Lagoon belong to another lineage. These findings indicate that microsatellite markers are probably better suited to investigations of the population genetics of this species that is distributed worldwide. Finally, application of the population genetics concepts available for macroorganisms could support new paradigms for speciation and migration in phytoplankton assemblages. PMID:19201972

Sudden death from systemic sarcoidosis: a case of legal medicine.

PubMed

Zoja, R; Andreola, S; Gentile, G; Rancati, A

2012-03-01

The sarcoid condition of vital organs such as heart, lungs, liver and brain, may constitute, though rarely, a dangerous situation for survival. In forensic pathology, sudden death related to such disease represents an unusual event occurring in subjects who die unexpectedly in spite of their previous good health, and whose autopsy reveals, mainly, the involvement of heart or the central nervous system (CNS). The Authors describe a case of sudden death due to systemic sarcoidosis with atypical presentation in a young South American nulliparous woman showing, as the only symptom, occasional episodes of spotting during the last two months of her life. The only noteworthy finding from the autopsy resulted in secondary obstructive hydrocephalus. The subsequent forensic toxicological examination was negative, whereas the histopathological examination, conducted by means of post-fixation techniques and standard coloring methods on the viscera removed during autopsy, revealed useful data to determine the cause of death, consisting of a diffuse inflammatory reaction with giant cells and epithelioid cells of sarcoid type localized in the CNS and in the genitourinary apparatus. The case presented, ranking among deaths occurred unexpectedly, is a useful opportunity both for clinical remarks, given its inherent diagnostic difficulties, especially in the presence of atypical symptoms, and for legal medicine ones, given the inclusion of sarcoidosis in cases of sudden death that can give rise to criminal investigations.

Gap Junction-Mediated Signaling from Motor Neurons Regulates Motor Generation in the Central Circuits of Larval Drosophila.

PubMed

Matsunaga, Teruyuki; Kohsaka, Hiroshi; Nose, Akinao

2017-02-22

In this study, we used the peristaltic crawling of Drosophila larvae as a model to study how motor patterns are regulated by central circuits. We built an experimental system that allows simultaneous application of optogenetics and calcium imaging to the isolated ventral nerve cord (VNC). We then investigated the effects of manipulating local activity of motor neurons (MNs) on fictive locomotion observed as waves of MN activity propagating along neuromeres. Optical inhibition of MNs with halorhodopsin3 in a middle segment (A4, A5, or A6), but not other segments, dramatically decreased the frequency of the motor waves. Conversely, local activation of MNs with channelrhodopsin2 in a posterior segment (A6 or A7) increased the frequency of the motor waves. Since peripheral nerves mediating sensory feedback were severed in the VNC preparation, these results indicate that MNs send signals to the central circuits to regulate motor pattern generation. Our results also indicate segmental specificity in the roles of MNs in motor control. The effects of the local MN activity manipulation were lost in shaking-B 2 ( shakB 2 ) or ogre 2 , gap-junction mutations in Drosophila , or upon acute application of the gap junction blocker carbenoxolone, implicating electrical synapses in the signaling from MNs. Cell-type-specific RNAi suggested shakB and ogre function in MNs and interneurons, respectively, during the signaling. Our results not only reveal an unexpected role for MNs in motor pattern regulation, but also introduce a powerful experimental system that enables examination of the input-output relationship among the component neurons in this system. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Motor neurons are generally considered passive players in motor pattern generation, simply relaying information from upstream interneuronal circuits to the target muscles. This study shows instead that MNs play active roles in the control of motor generation by conveying information via gap junctions to the central pattern-generating circuits in larval Drosophila , providing novel insights into motor circuit control. The experimental system introduced in this study also presents a new approach for studying intersegmentally coordinated locomotion. Unlike traditional electrophysiology methods, this system enables the simultaneous recording and manipulation of populations of neurons that are genetically specified and span multiple segments. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/372045-16$15.00/0.

The hidden anatomy of paranasal sinuses reveals biogeographically distinct morphotypes in the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus).

PubMed

Billet, Guillaume; Hautier, Lionel; de Thoisy, Benoit; Delsuc, Frédéric

2017-01-01

With their Pan-American distribution, long-nosed armadillos (genus Dasypus ) constitute an understudied model for Neotropical biogeography. This genus currently comprises seven recognized species, the nine-banded armadillo ( D. novemcinctus ) having the widest distribution ranging from Northern Argentina to the South-Eastern US. With their broad diversity of habitats, nine-banded armadillos provide a useful model to explore the effects of climatic and biogeographic events on morphological diversity at a continental scale. Based on a sample of 136 skulls of Dasypus spp. belonging to six species, including 112 specimens identified as D. novemcinctus , we studied the diversity and pattern of variation of paranasal cavities, which were reconstructed virtually using µCT-scanning or observed through bone transparency. Our qualitative analyses of paranasal sinuses and recesses successfully retrieved a taxonomic differentiation between the traditional species D. kappleri , D. pilosus and D. novemcinctus but failed to recover diagnostic features between the disputed and morphologically similar D. septemcinctus and D. hybridus . Most interestingly, the high variation detected in our large sample of D. novemcinctus showed a clear geographical patterning, with the recognition of three well-separated morphotypes: one ranging from North and Central America and parts of northern South America west of the Andes, one distributed across the Amazonian Basin and central South America, and one restricted to the Guiana Shield. The question as to whether these paranasal morphotypes may represent previously unrecognized species is to be evaluated through a thorough revision of the Dasypus species complex integrating molecular and morphological data. Remarkably, our recognition of a distinct morphotype in the Guiana Shield area is congruent with the recent discovery of a divergent mitogenomic lineage in French Guiana. The inflation of the second medialmost pair of caudal frontal sinuses constitutes an unexpected morphological diagnostic feature for this potentially distinct species. Our results demonstrate the benefits of studying overlooked internal morphological structures in supposedly cryptic species revealed by molecular data. It also illustrates the under-exploited potential of the highly variable paranasal sinuses of armadillos for systematic studies.

On the globality of motor suppression: unexpected events and their influence on behavior and cognition

PubMed Central

Wessel, Jan R.; Aron, Adam R.

2016-01-01

SUMMARY Unexpected events are part of everyday experience. They come in several varieties – action errors, unexpected action outcomes, and unexpected perceptual events – and they lead to motor slowing and cognitive distraction. While different varieties of unexpected events have been studied largely independently, and many different mechanisms are thought to explain their effects on action and cognition, we suggest a unifying theory. We propose that unexpected events recruit a fronto-basal-ganglia network for stopping. This network includes specific prefrontal cortical nodes and is posited to project to the subthalamic nucleus, with a putative global suppressive effect on basal-ganglia output. We argue that unexpected events interrupt action and impact cognition, partly at least, by recruiting this global suppressive network. This provides a common mechanistic basis for different types of unexpected events, links the literatures on motor inhibition, performance-monitoring, attention, and working memory, and is relevant for understanding clinical symptoms of distractibility and mental inflexibility. PMID:28103476

On the Globality of Motor Suppression: Unexpected Events and Their Influence on Behavior and Cognition.

PubMed

Wessel, Jan R; Aron, Adam R

2017-01-18

Unexpected events are part of everyday experience. They come in several varieties-action errors, unexpected action outcomes, and unexpected perceptual events-and they lead to motor slowing and cognitive distraction. While different varieties of unexpected events have been studied largely independently, and many different mechanisms are thought to explain their effects on action and cognition, we suggest a unifying theory. We propose that unexpected events recruit a fronto-basal-ganglia network for stopping. This network includes specific prefrontal cortical nodes and is posited to project to the subthalamic nucleus, with a putative global suppressive effect on basal-ganglia output. We argue that unexpected events interrupt action and impact cognition, partly at least, by recruiting this global suppressive network. This provides a common mechanistic basis for different types of unexpected events; links the literatures on motor inhibition, performance monitoring, attention, and working memory; and is relevant for understanding clinical symptoms of distractibility and mental inflexibility. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Global biogeography of microbial nitrogen-cycling traits in soil

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, M.; Martiny, A.; Martiny, J. B. H.

2016-12-01

Microorganisms drive much of the Earth's nitrogen (N) cycle. However, despite their importance, many ecosystem models do not explicitly consider microbial communities and their functions. One obstacle in doing this is that we lack a complete understanding of the role that microbes play in biogeochemical processes. To address this challenge we used metagenomics to assess various N cycling traits of soil microorganisms in samples from around the globe. As measurable characteristics of an organism, traits can be used to quantify the role of microbes in ecosystem processes. Using 365 publically available soil metagenomes, we characterized the biogeography of microbial N cycling traits, defined as the abundance and composition of eight N pathways. We found strong biogeographic patterns in the frequency of N pathway traits; however, our models explained much less variation in taxonomic composition across sites. Focusing on individual N pathways, we identified the prominent taxa harboring these pathways. In addition, we found an unexpectedly high frequency of Bacteria encoding the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) pathway, a little studied N cycle process in soils. Finally, across all N pathways, phylogenetic analysis revealed that some phyla seem to be N cycle generalists (i.e delta-Proteobacteria), with the potential to carry out many N transformations, whereas others seem to be specialists (i.e. Cyanobacteria). As the most comprehensive map to date of the global distribution of microbial N traits, this study provides a springboard for further investigation of the prominent players in N cycling in soils. Overall, biogeographic patterns of traits can provide a foundation for understanding how microbial diversity impacts ecosystem processes and ultimately predicting how this diversity may shift in the face of global change.

Similar Spectral Power Densities Within the Schumann Resonance and a Large Population of Quantitative Electroencephalographic Profiles: Supportive Evidence for Koenig and Pobachenko

PubMed Central

Saroka, Kevin S.; Vares, David E.; Persinger, Michael A.

2016-01-01

In 1954 and 1960 Koenig and his colleagues described the remarkable similarities of spectral power density profiles and patterns between the earth-ionosphere resonance and human brain activity which also share magnitudes for both electric field (mV/m) and magnetic field (pT) components. In 2006 Pobachenko and colleagues reported real time coherence between variations in the Schumann and brain activity spectra within the 6–16 Hz band for a small sample. We examined the ratios of the average potential differences (~3 μV) obtained by whole brain quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) between rostral-caudal and left-right (hemispheric) comparisons of 238 measurements from 184 individuals over a 3.5 year period. Spectral densities for the rostral-caudal axis revealed a powerful peak at 10.25 Hz while the left-right peak was 1.95 Hz with beat-differences of ~7.5 to 8 Hz. When global cerebral measures were employed, the first (7–8 Hz), second (13–14 Hz) and third (19–20 Hz) harmonics of the Schumann resonances were discernable in averaged QEEG profiles in some but not all participants. The intensity of the endogenous Schumann resonance was related to the ‘best-of-fitness’ of the traditional 4-class microstate model. Additional measurements demonstrated real-time coherence for durations approximating microstates in spectral power density variations between Schumann frequencies measured in Sudbury, Canada and Cumiana, Italy with the QEEGs of local subjects. Our results confirm the measurements reported by earlier researchers that demonstrated unexpected similarities in the spectral patterns and strengths of electromagnetic fields generated by the human brain and the earth-ionospheric cavity. PMID:26785376

Similar Spectral Power Densities Within the Schumann Resonance and a Large Population of Quantitative Electroencephalographic Profiles: Supportive Evidence for Koenig and Pobachenko.

PubMed

Saroka, Kevin S; Vares, David E; Persinger, Michael A

2016-01-01

In 1954 and 1960 Koenig and his colleagues described the remarkable similarities of spectral power density profiles and patterns between the earth-ionosphere resonance and human brain activity which also share magnitudes for both electric field (mV/m) and magnetic field (pT) components. In 2006 Pobachenko and colleagues reported real time coherence between variations in the Schumann and brain activity spectra within the 6-16 Hz band for a small sample. We examined the ratios of the average potential differences (~3 μV) obtained by whole brain quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) between rostral-caudal and left-right (hemispheric) comparisons of 238 measurements from 184 individuals over a 3.5 year period. Spectral densities for the rostral-caudal axis revealed a powerful peak at 10.25 Hz while the left-right peak was 1.95 Hz with beat-differences of ~7.5 to 8 Hz. When global cerebral measures were employed, the first (7-8 Hz), second (13-14 Hz) and third (19-20 Hz) harmonics of the Schumann resonances were discernable in averaged QEEG profiles in some but not all participants. The intensity of the endogenous Schumann resonance was related to the 'best-of-fitness' of the traditional 4-class microstate model. Additional measurements demonstrated real-time coherence for durations approximating microstates in spectral power density variations between Schumann frequencies measured in Sudbury, Canada and Cumiana, Italy with the QEEGs of local subjects. Our results confirm the measurements reported by earlier researchers that demonstrated unexpected similarities in the spectral patterns and strengths of electromagnetic fields generated by the human brain and the earth-ionospheric cavity.

Directing clinical care using lower extremity biomechanics in patients with ankle osteoarthritis and ankle arthroplasty.

PubMed

Queen, Robin

2017-11-01

Ankle osteoarthritis is a debilitating disease with approximately 50,000 new cases per year leading to skeletal deformity, severe and recurrent pain, cartilage breakdown, and gait dysfunction limiting patient mobility and well-being. Although many treatments (total ankle arthroplasty [TAA], ankle fusion [arthrodesis], and ankle distraction arthroplasty) relieve pain, it is not clear that these procedures significantly improve patient mobility. The goal of the research presented here is to summarize what is presently known about lower extremity gait mechanics and outcomes and to quantify the impact of ankle osteoarthritis and TAA have on these measures using an explicitly holistic and mechanistic approach. Our recent studies have explored physical performance and energy recovery and revealed unexpected patterns and sequelae to treatment including incomplete restoration of gait function. These studies demonstrated for the first time the extreme levels and range of gait and balance dysfunction present in ankle osteoarthritis patients as well as quantifying the ways in which the affected joint alters movement and loading patterns not just in the painful joint, but throughout both the ipsilateral and contralateral lower extremity. Through this work, we determined that relieving pain alone through TAA is not enough to restore normal walking mechanics and balance due to underlying causes including limited ankle range of motion and balance deficits leading to long-term disability despite treatment. The results indicate the need to consider additional therapeutic interventions aimed at restoring balance, ankle range of motion, and movement symmetry in order to improve long-term health and function. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 35:2345-2355, 2017. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Using DNA barcodes for assessing diversity in the family Hybotidae (Diptera, Empidoidea)

PubMed Central

Nagy, Zoltán T.; Sonet, Gontran; Mortelmans, Jonas; Vandewynkel, Camille; Grootaert, Patrick

2013-01-01

Abstract Empidoidea is one of the largest extant lineages of flies, but phylogenetic relationships among species of this group are poorly investigated and global diversity remains scarcely assessed. In this context, one of the most enigmatic empidoid families is Hybotidae. Within the framework of a pilot study, we barcoded 339 specimens of Old World hybotids belonging to 164 species and 22 genera (plus two Empis as outgroups) and attempted to evaluate whether patterns of intra- and interspecific divergences match the current taxonomy. We used a large sampling of diverse Hybotidae. The material came from the Palaearctic (Belgium, France, Portugal and Russian Caucasus), the Afrotropic (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the Oriental realms (Singapore and Thailand). Thereby, we optimized lab protocols for barcoding hybotids. Although DNA barcodes generally well distinguished recognized taxa, the study also revealed a number of unexpected phenomena: e.g., undescribed taxa found within morphologically very similar or identical specimens, especially when geographic distance was large; some morphologically distinct species showed no genetic divergence; or different pattern of intraspecific divergence between populations or closely related species. Using COI sequences and simple Neighbour-Joining tree reconstructions, the monophyly of many species- and genus-level taxa was well supported, but more inclusive taxonomical levels did not receive significant bootstrap support. We conclude that in hybotids DNA barcoding might be well used to identify species, when two main constraints are considered. First, incomplete barcoding libraries hinder efficient (correct) identification. Therefore, extra efforts are needed to increase the representation of hybotids in these databases. Second, the spatial scale of sampling has to be taken into account, and especially for widespread species or species complexes with unclear taxonomy, an integrative approach has to be used to clarify species boundaries and identities. PMID:24453562

Testing for the Effects and Consequences of Mid Paleogene Climate Change on Insect Herbivory

PubMed Central

Wappler, Torsten; Labandeira, Conrad C.; Rust, Jes; Frankenhäuser, Herbert; Wilde, Volker

2012-01-01

Background The Eocene, a time of fluctuating environmental change and biome evolution, was generally driven by exceptionally warm temperatures. The Messel (47.8 Ma) and Eckfeld (44.3 Ma) deposits offer a rare opportunity to take a census of two, deep-time ecosystems occurring during a greenhouse system. An understanding of the long-term consequences of extreme warming and cooling events during this interval, particularly on angiosperms and insects that dominate terrestrial biodiversity, can provide insights into the biotic consequences of current global climatic warming. Methodology/Principal Findings We compare insect-feeding damage within two middle Eocene fossil floras, Messel and Eckfeld, in Germany. From these small lake deposits, we studied 16,082 angiosperm leaves and scored each specimen for the presence or absence of 89 distinctive and diagnosable insect damage types (DTs), each of which was allocated to a major functional feeding group, including four varieties of external foliage feeding, piercing- and-sucking, leaf mining, galling, seed predation, and oviposition. Methods used for treatment of presence–absence data included general linear models and standard univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques. Conclusions/Significance Our results show an unexpectedly high diversity and level of insect feeding than comparable, penecontemporaneous floras from North and South America. In addition, we found a higher level of herbivory on evergreen, rather than deciduous taxa at Messel. This pattern is explained by a ca. 2.5-fold increase in atmospheric CO2 that overwhelmed evergreen antiherbivore defenses, subsequently lessened during the more ameliorated levels of Eckfeld times. These patterns reveal important, previously undocumented features of plant-host and insect-herbivore diversification during the European mid Eocene. PMID:22815805

Cofactor-binding sites in proteins of deviating sequence: comparative analysis and clustering in torsion angle, cavity, and fold space.

PubMed

Stegemann, Björn; Klebe, Gerhard

2012-02-01

Small molecules are recognized in protein-binding pockets through surface-exposed physicochemical properties. To optimize binding, they have to adopt a conformation corresponding to a local energy minimum within the formed protein-ligand complex. However, their conformational flexibility makes them competent to bind not only to homologous proteins of the same family but also to proteins of remote similarity with respect to the shape of the binding pockets and folding pattern. Considering drug action, such observations can give rise to unexpected and undesired cross reactivity. In this study, datasets of six different cofactors (ADP, ATP, NAD(P)(H), FAD, and acetyl CoA, sharing an adenosine diphosphate moiety as common substructure), observed in multiple crystal structures of protein-cofactor complexes exhibiting sequence identity below 25%, have been analyzed for the conformational properties of the bound ligands, the distribution of physicochemical properties in the accommodating protein-binding pockets, and the local folding patterns next to the cofactor-binding site. State-of-the-art clustering techniques have been applied to group the different protein-cofactor complexes in the different spaces. Interestingly, clustering in cavity (Cavbase) and fold space (DALI) reveals virtually the same data structuring. Remarkable relationships can be found among the different spaces. They provide information on how conformations are conserved across the host proteins and which distinct local cavity and fold motifs recognize the different portions of the cofactors. In those cases, where different cofactors are found to be accommodated in a similar fashion to the same fold motifs, only a commonly shared substructure of the cofactors is used for the recognition process. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Scale-dependent effects of land cover on water physico-chemistry and diatom-based metrics in a major river system, the Adour-Garonne basin (South Western France).

PubMed

Tudesque, Loïc; Tisseuil, Clément; Lek, Sovan

2014-01-01

The scale dependence of ecological phenomena remains a central issue in ecology. Particularly in aquatic ecology, the consideration of the accurate spatial scale in assessing the effects of landscape factors on stream condition is critical. In this context, our study aimed at assessing the relationships between multi-spatial scale land cover patterns and a variety of water quality and diatom metrics measured at the stream reach level. This investigation was conducted in a major European river system, the Adour-Garonne river basin, characterized by a wide range of ecological conditions. Redundancy analysis (RDA) and variance partitioning techniques were used to disentangle the different relationships between land cover, water-chemistry and diatom metrics. Our results revealed a top-down "cascade effect" indirectly linking diatom metrics to land cover patterns through water physico-chemistry, which occurred at the largest spatial scales. In general, the strength of the relationships between land cover, physico-chemistry, and diatoms was shown to increase with the spatial scale, from the local to the basin scale, emphasizing the importance of continuous processes of accumulation throughout the river gradient. Unexpectedly, we established that the influence of land cover on the diatom metric was of primary importance both at the basin and local scale, as a result of discontinuous but not necessarily antagonist processes. The most detailed spatial grain of the Corine land cover classification appeared as the most relevant spatial grain to relate land cover to water chemistry and diatoms. Our findings provide suitable information to improve the implementation of effective diatom-based monitoring programs, especially within the scope of the European Water Framework Directive. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Concurrent encoding of frequency and amplitude modulation in human auditory cortex: encoding transition.

PubMed

Luo, Huan; Wang, Yadong; Poeppel, David; Simon, Jonathan Z

2007-12-01

Complex natural sounds (e.g., animal vocalizations or speech) can be characterized by specific spectrotemporal patterns the components of which change in both frequency (FM) and amplitude (AM). The neural coding of AM and FM has been widely studied in humans and animals but typically with either pure AM or pure FM stimuli. The neural mechanisms employed to perceptually unify AM and FM acoustic features remain unclear. Using stimuli with simultaneous sinusoidal AM (at rate f(AM) = 37 Hz) and FM (with varying rates f(FM)), magnetoencephalography (MEG) is used to investigate the elicited auditory steady-state response (aSSR) at relevant frequencies (f(AM), f(FM), f(AM) + f(FM)). Previous work demonstrated that for sounds with slower FM dynamics (f(FM) < 5 Hz), the phase of the aSSR at f(AM) tracked the FM; in other words, AM and FM features were co-tracked and co-represented by "phase modulation" encoding. This study explores the neural coding mechanism for stimuli with faster FM dynamics (< or =30 Hz), demonstrating that at faster rates (f(FM) > 5 Hz), there is a transition from pure phase modulation encoding to a single-upper-sideband (SSB) response (at frequency f(AM) + f(FM)) pattern. We propose that this unexpected SSB response can be explained by the additional involvement of subsidiary AM encoding responses simultaneously to, and in quadrature with, the ongoing phase modulation. These results, using MEG to reveal a possible neural encoding of specific acoustic properties, demonstrate more generally that physiological tests of encoding hypotheses can be performed noninvasively on human subjects, complementing invasive, single-unit recordings in animals.

Unexpectedly increased anorexigenic postprandial responses of PYY and GLP-1 to fast ice cream consumption in adult patients with Prader-Willi syndrome.

PubMed

Rigamonti, A E; Bini, S; Grugni, G; Agosti, F; De Col, A; Mallone, M; Cella, S G; Sartorio, A

2014-10-01

The effect of eating rate on the release of anorexigenic gut peptides in Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a neurogenetic disorder clinically characterized by hyperphagia and excessive obesity, has not been investigated so far. Postprandial PYY and GLP-1 levels to fast (5 min) and slow (30 min) ice cream consumption were measured in PWS adult patients and age-matched patients with simple obesity and normal-weighted subjects. Visual analog scales (VASs) were used to evaluate the subjective feelings of hunger and satiety. Fast ice cream consumption stimulated GLP-1 release in normal subjects, a greater increase being observed with slow feeding. Fast or slow feeding did not change circulating levels of GLP-1 in obese patients, while, unexpectedly, fast feeding (but not slow feeding) stimulated GLP-1 release in PWS patients. Plasma PYY concentrations increased in all groups, irrespective of the eating rate. Slow feeding was more effective in stimulating PYY release in normal subjects, while fast feeding was more effective in PWS patients. Slow feeding evoked a lower hunger and higher satiety compared with fast feeding in normal subjects, this finding being not evident in obese patients. Unexpectedly, fast feeding evoked a lower hunger and higher satiety in PWS patients in comparison with slow feeding. Fast feeding leads to higher concentrations of anorexigenic gut peptides and favours satiety in PWS adult patients, this pattern being not evident in age-matched patients with simple obesity, thus suggesting the existence of a different pathophysiological substrate in these two clinical conditions. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The neural coding of expected and unexpected monetary performance outcomes: dissociations between active and observational learning.

PubMed

Bellebaum, C; Jokisch, D; Gizewski, E R; Forsting, M; Daum, I

2012-02-01

Successful adaptation to the environment requires the learning of stimulus-response-outcome associations. Such associations can be learned actively by trial and error or by observing the behaviour and accompanying outcomes in other persons. The present study investigated similarities and differences in the neural mechanisms of active and observational learning from monetary feedback using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Two groups of 15 subjects each - active and observational learners - participated in the experiment. On every trial, active learners chose between two stimuli and received monetary feedback. Each observational learner observed the choices and outcomes of one active learner. Learning performance as assessed via active test trials without feedback was comparable between groups. Different activation patterns were observed for the processing of unexpected vs. expected monetary feedback in active and observational learners, particularly for positive outcomes. Activity for unexpected vs. expected reward was stronger in the right striatum in active learning, while activity in the hippocampus was bilaterally enhanced in observational and reduced in active learning. Modulation of activity by prediction error (PE) magnitude was observed in the right putamen in both types of learning, whereas PE related activations in the right anterior caudate nucleus and in the medial orbitofrontal cortex were stronger for active learning. The striatum and orbitofrontal cortex thus appear to link reward stimuli to own behavioural reactions and are less strongly involved when the behavioural outcome refers to another person's action. Alternative explanations such as differences in reward value between active and observational learning are also discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identifying Threats Using Graph-based Anomaly Detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eberle, William; Holder, Lawrence; Cook, Diane

Much of the data collected during the monitoring of cyber and other infrastructures is structural in nature, consisting of various types of entities and relationships between them. The detection of threatening anomalies in such data is crucial to protecting these infrastructures. We present an approach to detecting anomalies in a graph-based representation of such data that explicitly represents these entities and relationships. The approach consists of first finding normative patterns in the data using graph-based data mining and then searching for small, unexpected deviations to these normative patterns, assuming illicit behavior tries to mimic legitimate, normative behavior. The approach is evaluated using several synthetic and real-world datasets. Results show that the approach has high truepositive rates, low false-positive rates, and is capable of detecting complex structural anomalies in real-world domains including email communications, cellphone calls and network traffic.

Structural sensitivity of Csbnd H vibrational band in methyl benzoate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roy, Susmita; Maiti, Kiran Sankar

2018-05-01

The Csbnd H vibrational bands of methyl benzoate are studied to understand its coupling pattern with other vibrational bands of the biological molecule. This will facilitate to understand the biological structure and dynamics in spectroscopic as well as in microscopic study. Due to the congested spectroscopic pattern, near degeneracy, and strong anharmonicity of the Csbnd H stretch vibrations, assignment of the Csbnd H vibrational frequencies are often misleading. Anharmonic vibrational frequency calculation with multidimensional potential energy surface interprets the Csbnd H vibrational spectra more accurately. In this article we have presented the importance of multidimensional potential energy surface in anharmonic vibrational frequency calculation and discuss the unexpected red shift of asymmetric Csbnd H stretch vibration of methyl group. The Csbnd D stretch vibrational band which is splitted to double peaks due to the Fermi resonance is also discussed here.

OsLYP4 and OsLYP6 play critical roles in rice defense signal transduction.

PubMed

Liu, Bing; Li, Jian-Feng; Ao, Ying; Li, Zhangqun; Liu, Jun; Feng, Dongru; Qi, Kangbiao; He, Yanming; Zeng, Liexian; Wang, Jinfa; Wang, Hong-Bin

2013-02-01

Plant innate immunity relies on successful detection of trespassing pathogens through recognizing their microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) at the cell surface. We recently reported two rice lysin motif (LysM)-containing proteins, OsLYP4 and OsLYP6, as dual functional PRRs sensing bacterial peptidoglycan (PGN) and fungal chitin. Here we further demonstrated the important roles of OsLYP4 and OsLYP6 in rice defense signaling, as silencing of either LYP impaired the defense marker gene activation induced by either bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas oryzaecola or fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae. Moreover, we found that OsLYP4 and OsLYP6 could form homo- and hetero-dimers, and could interact with CEBiP, suggesting an unexpected complexity of chitin perception in rice.

Innate immunity phenotypic features point toward simultaneous raise of activation and modulation events following 17DD live attenuated yellow fever first-time vaccination.

PubMed

Martins, Marina Angela; Silva, Maria Luiza; Elói-Santos, Silvana Maria; Ribeiro, José Geraldo Leite; Peruhype-Magalhães, Vanessa; Marciano, Ana Paula Vieira; Homma, Akira; Kroon, Erna Geessien; Teixeira-Carvalho, Andréa; Martins-Filho, Olindo Assis

2008-02-26

Detailed multiparametric phenotypic investigation aiming to characterize the kinetics of the innate immune response in the peripheral blood following 17DD yellow fever (17DD-YF) first-time vaccination was performed. Results showed increased frequency of monocytes and NK cell subpopulations besides unexpected up-regulation of granulocytes activation status (CD28+/CD23+ and CD28+/HLA-DR+, respectively). Up-regulation of Fcgamma-R and IL-10-R expression emerge as putative events underlying the mixed pattern of phenotypic features triggered by the 17DD yellow fever (17DD-YF) vaccination. Mixed pattern of chemokine receptors expression further support our hypothesis that a parallel establishment of activation/modulation microenvironment plays a pivotal role in the protective immunity triggered by the 17DD-YF vaccine.

The strategic control of prospective memory monitoring in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues.

PubMed

Bugg, Julie M; Ball, B Hunter

2017-07-01

Participants use simple contextual cues to reduce deployment of costly monitoring processes in contexts in which prospective memory (PM) targets are not expected. This study investigated whether this strategic monitoring pattern is observed in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which words or nonwords were presented in upper or lower locations on screen. The specific condition was informed that PM targets ("tor" syllable) would occur only in words in the upper location, whereas the nonspecific condition was informed that targets could occur in any location or word type. Context was blocked such that word type and location changed every 8 trials. In Experiment 1, the specific condition used the complex contextual cue to reduce monitoring in unexpected contexts relative to the nonspecific condition. This pattern largely was not evidenced when the complex contextual cue was probabilistic (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 confirmed that strategic monitoring is observed for a complex cue that is deterministic, but not one that is probabilistic. Additionally, Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated a disadvantage associated with strategic monitoring-namely, that the specific condition was less likely to respond to a PM target in an unexpected context. Experiment 3 provided evidence that this disadvantage is attributable to impaired noticing of the target. The novel findings suggest use of a complex contextual cue per se is not a boundary condition for the strategic, context-specific allocation of monitoring processes to support prospective remembering; however, strategic monitoring is constrained by the predictive utility of the complex contextual cue.

Directed evolution reveals unexpected epistatic interactions that alter metabolic regulation and enable anaerobic xylose use by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

DOE PAGES

Sato, Trey K.; Tremaine, Mary; Parreiras, Lucas S.; ...

2016-10-14

The inability of native Saccharomyces cerevisiae to convert xylose from plant biomass into biofuels remains a major challenge for the production of renewable bioenergy. Despite extensive knowledge of the regulatory networks controlling carbon metabolism in yeast, little is known about how to reprogram S. cerevisiae to ferment xylose at rates comparable to glucose. Here we combined genome sequencing, proteomic profiling, and metabolomic analyses to identify and characterize the responsible mutations in a series of evolved strains capable of metabolizing xylose aerobically or anaerobically. We report that rapid xylose conversion by engineered and evolved S. cerevisiae strains depends upon epistatic interactionsmore » among genes encoding a xylose reductase ( GRE3), a component of MAP Kinase (MAPK) signaling ( HOG1), a regulator of Protein Kinase A (PKA) signaling ( IRA2), and a scaffolding protein for mitochondrial iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster biogenesis ( ISU1). Interestingly, the mutation in IRA2 only impacted anaerobic xylose consumption and required the loss of ISU1 function, indicating a previously unknown connection between PKA signaling, Fe-S cluster biogenesis, and anaerobiosis. Proteomic and metabolomic comparisons revealed that the xylose-metabolizing mutant strains exhibit altered metabolic pathways relative to the parental strain when grown in xylose. Further analyses revealed that interacting mutations in HOG1 and ISU1 unexpectedly elevated mitochondrial respiratory proteins and enabled rapid aerobic respiration of xylose and other non-fermentable carbon substrates. Lastly, our findings suggest a surprising connection between Fe-S cluster biogenesis and signaling that facilitates aerobic respiration and anaerobic fermentation of xylose, underscoring how much remains unknown about the eukaryotic signaling systems that regulate carbon metabolism.« less

Directed Evolution Reveals Unexpected Epistatic Interactions That Alter Metabolic Regulation and Enable Anaerobic Xylose Use by Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

PubMed

Sato, Trey K; Tremaine, Mary; Parreiras, Lucas S; Hebert, Alexander S; Myers, Kevin S; Higbee, Alan J; Sardi, Maria; McIlwain, Sean J; Ong, Irene M; Breuer, Rebecca J; Avanasi Narasimhan, Ragothaman; McGee, Mick A; Dickinson, Quinn; La Reau, Alex; Xie, Dan; Tian, Mingyuan; Reed, Jennifer L; Zhang, Yaoping; Coon, Joshua J; Hittinger, Chris Todd; Gasch, Audrey P; Landick, Robert

2016-10-01

The inability of native Saccharomyces cerevisiae to convert xylose from plant biomass into biofuels remains a major challenge for the production of renewable bioenergy. Despite extensive knowledge of the regulatory networks controlling carbon metabolism in yeast, little is known about how to reprogram S. cerevisiae to ferment xylose at rates comparable to glucose. Here we combined genome sequencing, proteomic profiling, and metabolomic analyses to identify and characterize the responsible mutations in a series of evolved strains capable of metabolizing xylose aerobically or anaerobically. We report that rapid xylose conversion by engineered and evolved S. cerevisiae strains depends upon epistatic interactions among genes encoding a xylose reductase (GRE3), a component of MAP Kinase (MAPK) signaling (HOG1), a regulator of Protein Kinase A (PKA) signaling (IRA2), and a scaffolding protein for mitochondrial iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster biogenesis (ISU1). Interestingly, the mutation in IRA2 only impacted anaerobic xylose consumption and required the loss of ISU1 function, indicating a previously unknown connection between PKA signaling, Fe-S cluster biogenesis, and anaerobiosis. Proteomic and metabolomic comparisons revealed that the xylose-metabolizing mutant strains exhibit altered metabolic pathways relative to the parental strain when grown in xylose. Further analyses revealed that interacting mutations in HOG1 and ISU1 unexpectedly elevated mitochondrial respiratory proteins and enabled rapid aerobic respiration of xylose and other non-fermentable carbon substrates. Our findings suggest a surprising connection between Fe-S cluster biogenesis and signaling that facilitates aerobic respiration and anaerobic fermentation of xylose, underscoring how much remains unknown about the eukaryotic signaling systems that regulate carbon metabolism.

Directed Evolution Reveals Unexpected Epistatic Interactions That Alter Metabolic Regulation and Enable Anaerobic Xylose Use by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

PubMed Central

Tremaine, Mary; Hebert, Alexander S.; Myers, Kevin S.; Sardi, Maria; Dickinson, Quinn; Reed, Jennifer L.; Zhang, Yaoping; Coon, Joshua J.; Hittinger, Chris Todd; Gasch, Audrey P.; Landick, Robert

2016-01-01

The inability of native Saccharomyces cerevisiae to convert xylose from plant biomass into biofuels remains a major challenge for the production of renewable bioenergy. Despite extensive knowledge of the regulatory networks controlling carbon metabolism in yeast, little is known about how to reprogram S. cerevisiae to ferment xylose at rates comparable to glucose. Here we combined genome sequencing, proteomic profiling, and metabolomic analyses to identify and characterize the responsible mutations in a series of evolved strains capable of metabolizing xylose aerobically or anaerobically. We report that rapid xylose conversion by engineered and evolved S. cerevisiae strains depends upon epistatic interactions among genes encoding a xylose reductase (GRE3), a component of MAP Kinase (MAPK) signaling (HOG1), a regulator of Protein Kinase A (PKA) signaling (IRA2), and a scaffolding protein for mitochondrial iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster biogenesis (ISU1). Interestingly, the mutation in IRA2 only impacted anaerobic xylose consumption and required the loss of ISU1 function, indicating a previously unknown connection between PKA signaling, Fe-S cluster biogenesis, and anaerobiosis. Proteomic and metabolomic comparisons revealed that the xylose-metabolizing mutant strains exhibit altered metabolic pathways relative to the parental strain when grown in xylose. Further analyses revealed that interacting mutations in HOG1 and ISU1 unexpectedly elevated mitochondrial respiratory proteins and enabled rapid aerobic respiration of xylose and other non-fermentable carbon substrates. Our findings suggest a surprising connection between Fe-S cluster biogenesis and signaling that facilitates aerobic respiration and anaerobic fermentation of xylose, underscoring how much remains unknown about the eukaryotic signaling systems that regulate carbon metabolism. PMID:27741250

Transgenic Zebrafish Reveal Tissue-Specific Differences in Estrogen Signaling in Response to Environmental Water Samples

PubMed Central

Iwanowicz, Luke R.; Hung, Alice L.; Blazer, Vicki S.; Halpern, Marnie E.

2014-01-01

Background: Environmental endocrine disruptors (EEDs) are exogenous chemicals that mimic endogenous hormones such as estrogens. Previous studies using a zebrafish transgenic reporter demonstrated that the EEDs bisphenol A and genistein preferentially activate estrogen receptors (ERs) in the larval heart compared with the liver. However, it was not known whether the transgenic zebrafish reporter was sensitive enough to detect estrogens from environmental samples, whether environmental estrogens would exhibit tissue-specific effects similar to those of BPA and genistein, or why some compounds preferentially target receptors in the heart. Methods: We tested surface water samples using a transgenic zebrafish reporter with tandem estrogen response elements driving green fluorescent protein expression (5xERE:GFP). Reporter activation was colocalized with tissue-specific expression of ER genes by RNA in situ hybridization. Results: We observed selective patterns of ER activation in transgenic fish exposed to river water samples from the Mid-Atlantic United States, with several samples preferentially activating receptors in embryonic and larval heart valves. We discovered that tissue specificity in ER activation was due to differences in the expression of ER subtypes. ERα was expressed in developing heart valves but not in the liver, whereas ERβ2 had the opposite profile. Accordingly, subtype-specific ER agonists activated the reporter in either the heart valves or the liver. Conclusion: The use of 5xERE:GFP transgenic zebrafish revealed an unexpected tissue-specific difference in the response to environmentally relevant estrogenic compounds. Exposure to estrogenic EEDs in utero was associated with adverse health effects, with the potentially unanticipated consequence of targeting developing heart valves. Citation: Gorelick DA, Iwanowicz LR, Hung AL, Blazer VS, Halpern ME. 2014. Transgenic zebrafish reveal tissue-specific differences in estrogen signaling in response to environmental water samples. Environ Health Perspect 122:356–362; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1307329 PMID:24425189

Detailed monitoring of a small but recovering population reveals sublethal effects of disease and unexpected interactions with supplemental feeding.

PubMed

Tollington, Simon; Greenwood, Andrew; Jones, Carl G; Hoeck, Paquita; Chowrimootoo, Aurélie; Smith, Donal; Richards, Heather; Tatayah, Vikash; Groombridge, Jim J

2015-07-01

Infectious diseases are widely recognized to have substantial impact on wildlife populations. These impacts are sometimes exacerbated in small endangered populations, and therefore, the success of conservation reintroductions to aid the recovery of such species can be seriously threatened by outbreaks of infectious disease. Intensive management strategies associated with conservation reintroductions can further compound these negative effects in such populations. Exploring the sublethal effects of disease outbreaks among natural populations is challenging and requires longitudinal, individual life-history data on patterns of reproductive success and other indicators of individual fitness. Long-term monitoring data concerning detailed reproductive information of the reintroduced Mauritius parakeet (Psittacula echo) population collected before, during and after a disease outbreak was investigated. Deleterious effects of an outbreak of beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) were revealed on hatch success, but these effects were remarkably short-lived and disproportionately associated with breeding pairs which took supplemental food. Individual BFDV infection status was not predicted by any genetic, environmental or conservation management factors and was not associated with any of our measures of immune function, perhaps suggesting immunological impairment. Experimental immunostimulation using the PHA (phytohaemagglutinin assay) challenge technique did, however, provoke a significant cellular immune response. We illustrate the resilience of this bottlenecked and once critically endangered, island-endemic species to an epidemic outbreak of BFDV and highlight the value of systematic monitoring in revealing inconspicuous but nonetheless substantial ecological interactions. Our study demonstrates that the emergence of such an infectious disease in a population ordinarily associated with increased susceptibility does not necessarily lead to deleterious impacts on population growth and that negative effects on reproductive fitness can be short-lived. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.

Molybdenum Trafficking for Nitrogen Fixation†

PubMed Central

Hernandez, Jose A.; George, Simon J.; Rubio, Luis M.

2009-01-01

The molybdenum nitrogenase is responsible for most biological nitrogen fixation, a prokaryotic metabolic process that determines the global biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and carbon. Here we describe the trafficking of molybdenum for nitrogen fixation in the model diazotrophic bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii. The genes and proteins involved in molybdenum uptake, homeostasis, storage, regulation, and nitrogenase cofactor biosynthesis are reviewed. Molybdenum biochemistry in A. vinelandii reveals unexpected mechanisms and a new role for iron-sulfur clusters in the sequestration and delivery of molybdenum. PMID:19772354

Cancer therapy based on oncogene addiction.

PubMed

McCormick, Frank

2011-05-01

Tumor cells contain multiple mutations, yet they often depend on continued expressed of a single oncoprotein for survival. Targeting these proteins has led to dramatic responses. Unfortunately, patients usually progress, through drug resistance or adaptive resistance through reprogramming of signaling networks. The Ras-MAPK pathway provides examples of these successes and failures, and has revealed unexpected degrees of oncogene addiction and signaling complexity that are likely to be useful lessons for the future of targeted therapy. Copyright © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Incidental Detection of Urinary Leakage on FDG PET/CT Imaging for Staging of Gastric Cancer.

PubMed

Kim, Dae-Weung; Kim, Myoung Hyoun; Kim, Chang Guhn

2016-03-01

A 71-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with right flank pain and dysuria. An abdominal CT scan detected a gastric malignancy and hydronephrosis with urinary leakage of the right kidney. Percutaneous nephrostomy was performed on the right kidney. F-FDG PET/CT for staging the gastric malignancy revealed additional urinary leakage of the contralateral kidney. The interest in this case is the incidental detection of unexpected urinary leakage during an oncologic assessment with FDG PET/CT.

Olive ingestion causing a false suspicion of relapsed neuroblastoma: A case of "oliveblastoma?"

PubMed

Flynn, Nick; LeFebvre, Amanda; Messahel, Boo; Hogg, Sarah L

2018-06-19

Measurement of the urine catecholamine metabolites homovanillic acid (HVA) and vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) are the standard method for detecting disease recurrence in neuroblastoma. We present a case of abnormal concentrations of catecholamine metabolites that prompted investigations for relapsed neuroblastoma. However, further study revealed that the abnormal biochemistry was likely due to ingestion of olives. Olive ingestion should be considered when interpreting urine HVA and VMA results, and excluded if concentrations are unexpectedly abnormal. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Explanation of the quantum phenomenon of off-resonant cavity-mode emission

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Echeverri-Arteaga, Santiago; Vinck-Posada, Herbert; Gómez, Edgar A.

2018-04-01

We theoretically investigate the unexpected occurrence of an extra emission peak that has been experimentally observed in off-resonant studies of cavity QED systems. Our results within the Markovian master equation approach successfully explain why the central peak arises, and how it reveals that the system is suffering a dynamical phase transition induced by the phonon-mediated coupling. Our findings are in qualitative agreement with previous reported experimental results, and the fundamental physics behind this quantum phenomenon is understood.

Cartography and Connectomes Perspective article for Neuron 25th Anniversary Issue

PubMed Central

Van Essen, David C.

2013-01-01

The past 25 years have seen great progress in parcellating the cerebral cortex into a mosaic of many distinct areas in mice, monkeys, and humans. Quantitative studies of inter-areal connectivity have revealed unexpectedly many pathways and a wide range of connection strengths in mouse and macaque cortex. In humans, advances in analyzing ‘structural’ and ‘functional’ connectivity using powerful but indirect noninvasive neuroimaging methods are yielding intriguing insights about brain circuits, their variability across individuals, and their relationship to behavior. PMID:24183027

Wybutosine biosynthesis: Structural and mechanistic overview

PubMed Central

Perche-Letuvée, Phanélie; Molle, Thibaut; Forouhar, Farhad; Mulliez, Etienne; Atta, Mohamed

2014-01-01

Over the last 10 years, significant progress has been made in understanding the genetics, enzymology and structural components of the wybutosine (yW) biosynthetic pathway. These studies have played a key role in expanding our understanding of yW biosynthesis and have revealed unexpected evolutionary ties, which are presently being unraveled. The enzymes catalyzing the 5 steps of this pathway, from genetically encoded guanosine to wybutosine base, provide an ensemble of amazing reaction mechanisms that are to be discussed in this review article. PMID:25629788

Connection between nitrogen and manganese cycles revealed by transcriptomic analysis in Shewanella algae C6G3

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Michotey, V.; Aigle, A.; Armougom, F.; Mejean, V.; Guasco, S.; Bonin, P.

2016-02-01

In sedimentary systems, the repartition of terminal electron-accepting molecules is often stratified on a permanent or seasonal basis. Just below to oxic zone, the suboxic one is characterized by high concentrations of oxidized inorganic compounds such as nitrate, manganese oxides (MnIII/IV) and iron oxides that are in close vicinity. Several studies have reported unexpected anaerobic nitrite/nitrate production at the expense of ammonium mediated by MnIII/IV, however this transient processes is difficult to discern and poorly understood. In the frame of this study, genes organization of nitrate and MnIII/IV respiration was investigated in S.algae. Additional genes were identified in S. algae compare to S. oneidensis: genes coding for nitrate and nitrite reductase (napA-a and nrfA-2) and an OMC protein (mtrH). In contrast to S. oneidensis, an anaerobic transitory nitrite accumulation at the expense of ammonium was observed in S. algae during growth with MnIII/IV, concomitantly with expression of nitrate/nitrite reductase genes (napA, nrfA, nrfA-2). Among the hypothesis explaining this data, the potential putative expression of unidentified gene able to perform ammonium oxidation was not observed on the global transcriptional level, however several signs of oxidative stress were detected and the existence of a secondary reaction generated by a putative oxidative s could not be excluded. Another option could be the action of reverse reaction by an enzyme such as NrfA or NrfA-2 due to the electron flow equilibrium. Whatever the electron acceptor (Nitrate/ MnIII/IV), the unexpected expression level of of omcA, mtrF, mtrH, mtrC was observed and peaked at the end of the exponential phase. Different expression patterns of the omc genes were observed depending on electron acceptor and growth phase. Only mtrF-2 gene was specifically expressed in Mn(III/IV) condition. Nitrate and Mn(III/IV) respirations seem connected at physiological as well as at transcriptional level

Genetic investigation of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy cohort by panel target resequencing.

PubMed

Coll, Monica; Allegue, Catarina; Partemi, Sara; Mates, Jesus; Del Olmo, Bernat; Campuzano, Oscar; Pascali, Vincenzo; Iglesias, Anna; Striano, Pasquale; Oliva, Antonio; Brugada, Ramon

2016-03-01

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is defined as the abrupt, no traumatic, witnessed or unwitnessed death, occurring in benign circumstances, in an individual with epilepsy, with or without evidence for a seizure and excluding documented status epilepticus (seizure duration ≥ 30 min or seizures without recovery), and in which postmortem examination does not reveal a cause of death. Although the physiopathological mechanisms that underlie SUDEP remain to be clarified, the genetic background has been described to play a role in this disorder. Pathogenic variants in genes associated with epilepsy and encoding cardiac ion channels could explain the SUDEP phenotype. To test this we use the next-generation sequencing technology to sequence a cohort of SUDEP cases and its translation into clinical and forensic fields. A panel target resequencing was used to study 14 SUDEP cases from both postmortem (2 cases) and from living patients (12 cases). Genes already associated with SUDEP and also candidate genes had been investigated. Overall, 24 rare genetic variants were identified in 13 SUDEP cases. Four cases showed rare variants with complete segregation in the SCN1A, FBN1, HCN1, SCN4A, and EFHC1 genes, and one case with a rare variant in KCNQ1 gene showed incomplete pattern of inheritance. In four cases, rare variants were detected in CACNA1A, SCN11A and SCN10A, and KCNQ1 genes, but familial segregation was not possible due to lack of DNA from relatives. Finally, in the four remaining cases, the rare variants did not segregate in the family. This study confirms the link between epilepsy, sudden death, and cardiac disease. In addition, we identified new potential candidate genes for SUDEP: FBN1, HCN1, SCN4A, EFHC1, CACNA1A, SCN11A, and SCN10A. Further confirmation in larger cohorts will be necessary especially if genetic screening for SUDEP is applied to forensic and clinical medicine. Nevertheless, this study supports the emerging concept of a genetically determined cardiocerebral channelopathy.

Dynamic Neuromuscular Control of the Lower Limbs in Response to Unexpected Single-Planar versus Multi-Planar Support Perturbations in Young, Active Adults.

PubMed

Malfait, Bart; Staes, Filip; de Vries, Aijse; Smeets, Annemie; Hawken, Malcolm; Robinson, Mark A; Vanrenterghem, Jos; Verschueren, Sabine

2015-01-01

An anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury involves a multi-planar injury mechanism. Nevertheless, unexpected multi-planar perturbations have not been used to screen athletes in the context of ACL injury prevention yet could reveal those more at risk. The objective of this study was to compare neuromuscular responses to multi-planar (MPP) and single-planar perturbations (SPP) during a stepping-down task. These results might serve as a basis for future implementation of external perturbations in ACL injury screening programs. Thirteen young adults performed a single leg stepping-down task in eight conditions (four MPP and four SPP with a specified amplitude and velocity). The amplitudes of vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), hamstrings lateralis (HL), hamstrings medialis (HM) EMG activity, medio-lateral and anterior-posterior centre of mass (COM) displacements, the peak knee flexion and abduction angles were compared between conditions using an one-way ANOVA. Number of stepping responses were monitored during all conditions. Significantly greater muscle activity levels were found in response to the more challenging MPP and SPP compared to the less challenging conditions (p < 0.05). No differences in neuromuscular activity were found between the MPP conditions and their equivalents in the SPP. Eighteen stepping responses were monitored in the SPP versus nine in the MPP indicating that the overall neuromuscular control was even more challenged during the SPP which was supported by greater COM displacements in the SPP. The more intense MPP and SPP evoked different neuromuscular responses resulting in greater muscle activity levels compared to small perturbations. Based on the results of COM displacements and based on the amount of stepping responses, dynamic neuromuscular control of the knee joint appeared less challenged during the MPP. Therefore, future work should investigate extensively if other neuromuscular differences (i.e. co-activation patterns and kinetics) exist between MPP and SPP. In addition, future work should examine the influence on the neuromuscular control of the magnitude of the perturbations and the magnitude of stepping height and stepping distance.

Self-assembled indium arsenide quantum dots: Structure, formation dynamics, optical properties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Hao

1998-12-01

In this dissertation, we investigate the properties of InAs/GaAs quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The structure and formation dynamics of InAs quantum dots are studied by a variety of structural characterization techniques. Correlations among the growth conditions, the structural characteristics, and the observed optical properties are explored. The most fundamental structural characteristic of the InAs quantum dots is their shape. Through detailed study of the reflection high energy electron diffraction patterns, we determined that self-assembled InAs islands possess a pyramidal shape with 136 bounding facets. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy images and atomic force microscopy images strongly support this model. The 136 model we proposed is the first model that is consistent with all reported shape features determined using different methods. The dynamics of coherent island formation is also studied with the goal of establishing the factors most important in determining the size, density, and the shape of self- organized InAs quantum dots. Our studies clearly demonstrate the roles that indium diffusion and desorption play in InAs island formation. An unexpected finding (from atomic force microscopy images) was that the island size distribution bifurcated during post- growth annealing. Photoluminescence spectra of the samples subjected to in-situ annealing prior to the growth of a capping layer show a distinctive double-peak feature. The power-dependence and temperature-dependence of the photoluminescence spectra reveals that the double- peak emission is associated with the ground-state transition of islands in two different size branches. These results confirm the island size bifurcation observed from atomic force microscopy images. The island size bifurcation provides a new approach to the control and manipulation of the island size distribution. Unexpected dependence of the photoluminescence line-shape on sample temperature and pump intensity was observed for samples grown at relatively high substrate temperatures. The behavior is modeled and explained in terms of competition between two overlapping transitions. The study underscores that the growth conditions can have a dramatic impact on the optical properties of the quantum dots. This dissertation includes both my previously published and unpublished authored materials.

The French 35-hour workweek: a wide-ranging social change.

PubMed

Prunier-Poulmaire, S; Gadbois, C

2001-12-01

The reduction of the legal working week to 35 hours in France has generated wide-ranging social change. We examine the resulting changes in working-time patterns as well as their repercussions on the use of the time gained and on the quality of life and health. To compensate the reduction in the length of the working week, companies have modified the working-time patterns, by extending operation time (shiftwork, atypical schedules) and by matching the on-site workforce to production requirements (flexible working hours). They have sought to make more efficient use of working time: job intensification or job compression. The effects on the off-the-job life and health are linked to the shiftwork and atypical schedules designed to increase the company's operating time, and adjustments to the company's need for flexibilization impose working time/free time patterns that are at odds with biological rhythms and social life patterns. Changes to working-time patterns have unexpected consequences for work organization: heightened difficulties for the individual and the crew. These changes may generate a range of health problems related to overwork and stress. The way some companies have adapted may call into question the usefulness of work done by employees, thus damaging their social identity and mental well-being.

Beyond Corroboration: Strengthening Model Validation by Looking for Unexpected Patterns

PubMed Central

Chérel, Guillaume; Cottineau, Clémentine; Reuillon, Romain

2015-01-01

Models of emergent phenomena are designed to provide an explanation to global-scale phenomena from local-scale processes. Model validation is commonly done by verifying that the model is able to reproduce the patterns to be explained. We argue that robust validation must not only be based on corroboration, but also on attempting to falsify the model, i.e. making sure that the model behaves soundly for any reasonable input and parameter values. We propose an open-ended evolutionary method based on Novelty Search to look for the diverse patterns a model can produce. The Pattern Space Exploration method was tested on a model of collective motion and compared to three common a priori sampling experiment designs. The method successfully discovered all known qualitatively different kinds of collective motion, and performed much better than the a priori sampling methods. The method was then applied to a case study of city system dynamics to explore the model’s predicted values of city hierarchisation and population growth. This case study showed that the method can provide insights on potential predictive scenarios as well as falsifiers of the model when the simulated dynamics are highly unrealistic. PMID:26368917

Unsupervised EEG analysis for automated epileptic seizure detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Birjandtalab, Javad; Pouyan, Maziyar Baran; Nourani, Mehrdad

2016-07-01

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder which can, if not controlled, potentially cause unexpected death. It is extremely crucial to have accurate automatic pattern recognition and data mining techniques to detect the onset of seizures and inform care-givers to help the patients. EEG signals are the preferred biosignals for diagnosis of epileptic patients. Most of the existing pattern recognition techniques used in EEG analysis leverage the notion of supervised machine learning algorithms. Since seizure data are heavily under-represented, such techniques are not always practical particularly when the labeled data is not sufficiently available or when disease progression is rapid and the corresponding EEG footprint pattern will not be robust. Furthermore, EEG pattern change is highly individual dependent and requires experienced specialists to annotate the seizure and non-seizure events. In this work, we present an unsupervised technique to discriminate seizures and non-seizures events. We employ power spectral density of EEG signals in different frequency bands that are informative features to accurately cluster seizure and non-seizure events. The experimental results tried so far indicate achieving more than 90% accuracy in clustering seizure and non-seizure events without having any prior knowledge on patient's history.

Proteomic and computational analysis of bronchoalveolar proteins during the course of the acute respiratory distress syndrome.

PubMed

Chang, Dong W; Hayashi, Shinichi; Gharib, Sina A; Vaisar, Tomas; King, S Trevor; Tsuchiya, Mitsuhiro; Ruzinski, John T; Park, David R; Matute-Bello, Gustavo; Wurfel, Mark M; Bumgarner, Roger; Heinecke, Jay W; Martin, Thomas R

2008-10-01

Acute lung injury causes complex changes in protein expression in the lungs. Whereas most prior studies focused on single proteins, newer methods allowing the simultaneous study of many proteins could lead to a better understanding of pathogenesis and new targets for treatment. The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in protein expression in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of patients during the course of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Using two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (DIGE), the expression of proteins in the BALF from patients on Days 1 (n = 7), 3 (n = 8), and 7 (n = 5) of ARDS were compared with findings in normal volunteers (n = 9). The patterns of protein expression were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA). Biological processes that were enriched in the BALF proteins of patients with ARDS were identified using Gene Ontology (GO) analysis. Protein networks that model the protein interactions in the BALF were generated using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. An average of 991 protein spots were detected using DIGE. Of these, 80 protein spots, representing 37 unique proteins in all of the fluids, were identified using mass spectrometry. PCA confirmed important differences between the proteins in the ARDS and normal samples. GO analysis showed that these differences are due to the enrichment of proteins involved in inflammation, infection, and injury. The protein network analysis showed that the protein interactions in ARDS are complex and redundant, and revealed unexpected central components in the protein networks. Proteomics and protein network analysis reveals the complex nature of lung protein interactions in ARDS. The results provide new insights about protein networks in injured lungs, and identify novel mediators that are likely to be involved in the pathogenesis and progression of acute lung injury.

Characterization of N-Succinylation of L-Lysylphosphatidylglycerol in Bacillus subtilis Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Atila, Metin; Katselis, George; Chumala, Paulos; Luo, Yu

2016-10-01

Phospholipids generally dominate in bacterial lipids. The negatively charged nature of phospholipids renders bacteria susceptible to cationic antibiotic peptides. In comparison with Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria in general have much less zwitterionic phosphatidylethanolamine. However, they are known for producing aminoacylated phosphatidylglycerol (PG), especially positively charged l-lysyl-PG, which is catalyzed by lysyl-PG synthase MprF, which appears to have a broad range of specificity for l-aminoacyl transfer RNAs. In addition, many Gram-positive bacteria also have a dlt-gene-coded d-alanylation pathway for lipoteichoic acids and wall teichoic acids covalently attached to a glycolipid or peptidoglycan. d-Alanylation also masks the dominant negative charge of the phosphate-rich polymers of teichoic acids. Using mass spectrometry, we have recently observed that precursor scans in negative mode for deprotonated amino acid fragments were most sensitive for ester-linked amino acids. Such a scan for precursors generating an m/ z 145 lysyl anion revealed lysyl-PG as well as an additional species 100 m/ z units greater than lysyl-PG. This unexpected species corresponded precisely to the expected mass of N-succinylated lysyl-PG. Tandem mass spectrometry revealed a precise match to the fragmentation pattern of this putative new species. PG, lysyl-PG, and N-succinyl-lysyl-PG may form a complete loop of charge reversal from -1 to +1 and then back to -1. Analogous charge reversal by N-succinylation of lysine residues in the bacterial as well as eukaryotic proteomes has been recently discovered as a major posttranslational modification. Such modification in bacterial lipids is possibly catalyzed by an enzyme homologous to the enzymes that modify lysine residues in proteins.

Transcriptional profiling reveals progeroid Ercc1-/Δ mice as a model system for glomerular aging

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Aging-related kidney diseases are a major health concern. Currently, models to study renal aging are lacking. Due to a reduced life-span progeroid models hold the promise to facilitate aging studies and allow examination of tissue-specific changes. Defects in genome maintenance in the Ercc1-/Δ progeroid mouse model result in premature aging and typical age-related pathologies. Here, we compared the glomerular transcriptome of young and aged Ercc1-deficient mice to young and aged WT mice in order to establish a novel model for research of aging-related kidney disease. Results In a principal component analysis, age and genotype emerged as first and second principal components. Hierarchical clustering of all 521 genes differentially regulated between young and old WT and young and old Ercc1-/Δ mice showed cluster formation between young WT and Ercc1-/Δ as well as old WT and Ercc1-/Δ samples. An unexpectedly high number of 77 genes were differentially regulated in both WT and Ercc1-/Δ mice (p < 0.0001). GO term enrichment analysis revealed these genes to be involved in immune and inflammatory response, cell death, and chemotaxis. In a network analysis, these genes were part of insulin signaling, chemokine and cytokine signaling and extracellular matrix pathways. Conclusion Beyond insulin signaling, we find chemokine and cytokine signaling as well as modifiers of extracellular matrix composition to be subject to major changes in the aging glomerulus. At the level of the transcriptome, the pattern of gene activities is similar in the progeroid Ercc1-/Δ mouse model constituting a valuable tool for future studies of aging-associated glomerular pathologies. PMID:23947592

Genomic Diversity of Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora and Its Correlation with Virulence

PubMed Central

Yap, Mee-Ngan; Barak, Jeri D.; Charkowski, Amy O.

2004-01-01

We used genetic and biochemical methods to examine the genomic diversity of the enterobacterial plant pathogen Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora. The results obtained with each method showed that E. carotovora subsp. carotovora strains isolated from one ecological niche, potato plants, are surprisingly diverse compared to related pathogens. A comparison of 23 partial mdh sequences revealed a maximum pairwise difference of 10.49% and an average pairwise difference of 2.13%, values which are much greater than the maximum variation (1.81%) and average variation (0.75%) previously reported for Escherichia coli. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis of I-CeuI-digested genomic DNA revealed seven rrn operons in all E. carotovora subsp. carotovora strains examined except strain WPP17, which had only six copies. We identified 26 I-CeuI restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns and observed significant polymorphism in fragment sizes ranging from 100 to 450 kb for all strains. We detected large plasmids in two strains, including the model strain E. carotovora subsp. carotovora 71. The two least virulent strains had an unusual chromosomal structure, suggesting that a particular pulsotype is correlated with virulence. To compare chromosomal organization of multiple enterobacterial genomes, several genes were mapped onto I-CeuI fragments. We identified portions of the genome that appear to be conserved across enterobacteria and portions that have undergone genome rearrangements. We found that the least virulent strain, WPP17, failed to oxidize cellobiose and was missing several hrp and hrc genes. The unexpected variability among isolates obtained from clonal hosts in one region and in one season suggests that factors other than the host plant, potato, drive the evolution of this common environmental bacterium and key plant pathogen. PMID:15128563

Synthesis of Mitochondrial DNA Precursors during Myogenesis, an Analysis in Purified C2C12 Myotubes*

PubMed Central

Frangini, Miriam; Franzolin, Elisa; Chemello, Francesco; Laveder, Paolo; Romualdi, Chiara; Bianchi, Vera; Rampazzo, Chiara

2013-01-01

During myogenesis, myoblasts fuse into multinucleated myotubes that acquire the contractile fibrils and accessory structures typical of striated skeletal muscle fibers. To support the high energy requirements of muscle contraction, myogenesis entails an increase in mitochondrial (mt) mass with stimulation of mtDNA synthesis and consumption of DNA precursors (dNTPs). Myotubes are quiescent cells and as such down-regulate dNTP production despite a high demand for dNTPs. Although myogenesis has been studied extensively, changes in dNTP metabolism have not been examined specifically. In differentiating cultures of C2C12 myoblasts and purified myotubes, we analyzed expression and activities of enzymes of dNTP biosynthesis, dNTP pools, and the expansion of mtDNA. Myotubes exibited pronounced post-mitotic modifications of dNTP synthesis with a particularly marked down-regulation of de novo thymidylate synthesis. Expression profiling revealed the same pattern of enzyme down-regulation in adult murine muscles. The mtDNA increased steadily after myoblast fusion, turning over rapidly, as revealed after treatment with ethidium bromide. We individually down-regulated p53R2 ribonucleotide reductase, thymidine kinase 2, and deoxyguanosine kinase by siRNA transfection to examine how a further reduction of these synthetic enzymes impacted myotube development. Silencing of p53R2 had little effect, but silencing of either mt kinase caused 50% mtDNA depletion and an unexpected decrease of all four dNTP pools independently of the kinase specificity. We suggest that during development of myotubes the shortage of even a single dNTP may affect all four pools through dysregulation of ribonucleotide reduction and/or dissipation of the non-limiting dNTPs during unproductive elongation of new DNA chains. PMID:23297407

Comparative Transcriptomic Approaches Exploring Contamination Stress Tolerance in Salix sp. Reveal the Importance for a Metaorganismal de Novo Assembly Approach for Nonmodel Plants1[OPEN

PubMed Central

Brereton, Nicholas J. B.; Marleau, Julie; Nissim, Werther Guidi; Labrecque, Michel; Joly, Simon; Pitre, Frederic E.

2016-01-01

Metatranscriptomic study of nonmodel organisms requires strategies that retain the highly resolved genetic information generated from model organisms while allowing for identification of the unexpected. A real-world biological application of phytoremediation, the field growth of 10 Salix cultivars on polluted soils, was used as an exemplar nonmodel and multifaceted crop response well-disposed to the study of gene expression. Sequence reads were assembled de novo to create 10 independent transcriptomes, a global transcriptome, and were mapped against the Salix purpurea 94006 reference genome. Annotation of assembled contigs was performed without a priori assumption of the originating organism. Global transcriptome construction from 3.03 billion paired-end reads revealed 606,880 unique contigs annotated from 1588 species, often common in all 10 cultivars. Comparisons between transcriptomic and metatranscriptomic methodologies provide clear evidence that nonnative RNA can mistakenly map to reference genomes, especially to conserved regions of common housekeeping genes, such as actin, α/β-tubulin, and elongation factor 1-α. In Salix, Rubisco activase transcripts were down-regulated in contaminated trees across all 10 cultivars, whereas thiamine thizole synthase and CP12, a Calvin Cycle master regulator, were uniformly up-regulated. De novo assembly approaches, with unconstrained annotation, can improve data quality; care should be taken when exploring such plant genetics to reduce de facto data exclusion by mapping to a single reference genome alone. Salix gene expression patterns strongly suggest cultivar-wide alteration of specific photosynthetic apparatus and protection of the antenna complexes from oxidation damage in contaminated trees, providing an insight into common stress tolerance strategies in a real-world phytoremediation system. PMID:27002060

Transcriptional profiling reveals progeroid Ercc1(-/Δ) mice as a model system for glomerular aging.

PubMed

Schermer, Bernhard; Bartels, Valerie; Frommolt, Peter; Habermann, Bianca; Braun, Fabian; Schultze, Joachim L; Roodbergen, Marianne; Hoeijmakers, Jan Hj; Schumacher, Björn; Nürnberg, Peter; Dollé, Martijn Et; Benzing, Thomas; Müller, Roman-Ulrich; Kurschat, Christine E

2013-08-16

Aging-related kidney diseases are a major health concern. Currently, models to study renal aging are lacking. Due to a reduced life-span progeroid models hold the promise to facilitate aging studies and allow examination of tissue-specific changes. Defects in genome maintenance in the Ercc1(-/Δ) progeroid mouse model result in premature aging and typical age-related pathologies. Here, we compared the glomerular transcriptome of young and aged Ercc1-deficient mice to young and aged WT mice in order to establish a novel model for research of aging-related kidney disease. In a principal component analysis, age and genotype emerged as first and second principal components. Hierarchical clustering of all 521 genes differentially regulated between young and old WT and young and old Ercc1(-/Δ) mice showed cluster formation between young WT and Ercc1(-/Δ) as well as old WT and Ercc1(-/Δ) samples. An unexpectedly high number of 77 genes were differentially regulated in both WT and Ercc1(-/Δ) mice (p < 0.0001). GO term enrichment analysis revealed these genes to be involved in immune and inflammatory response, cell death, and chemotaxis. In a network analysis, these genes were part of insulin signaling, chemokine and cytokine signaling and extracellular matrix pathways. Beyond insulin signaling, we find chemokine and cytokine signaling as well as modifiers of extracellular matrix composition to be subject to major changes in the aging glomerulus. At the level of the transcriptome, the pattern of gene activities is similar in the progeroid Ercc1(-/Δ) mouse model constituting a valuable tool for future studies of aging-associated glomerular pathologies.

Multiple instances of paraphyletic species and cryptic taxa revealed by mitochondrial and nuclear RAD data for Calandrella larks (Aves: Alaudidae).

PubMed

Stervander, Martin; Alström, Per; Olsson, Urban; Ottosson, Ulf; Hansson, Bengt; Bensch, Staffan

2016-09-01

The avian genus Calandrella (larks) was recently suggested to be non-monophyletic, and was divided into two genera, of which Calandrella sensu stricto comprises 4-5 species in Eurasia and Africa. We analysed mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) and nuclear Restriction-site Associated DNA (RAD) sequences from all species, and for cytb we studied 21 of the 22 recognised subspecies, with the aim to clarify the phylogenetic relationships within the genus and to compare large-scale nuclear sequence patterns with a widely used mitochondrial marker. Cytb indicated deep splits among the currently recognised species, although it failed to support the interrelationships among most of these. It also revealed unexpected deep divergences within C. brachydactyla, C. blanfordi/C. erlangeri, C. cinerea, and C. acutirostris. It also suggested that both C. brachydactyla and C. blanfordi, as presently circumscribed, are paraphyletic. In contrast, most of the many subspecies of C. brachydactyla and C. cinerea were unsupported by cytb, although two populations of C. cinerea were found to be genetically distinct. The RAD data corroborated the cytb tree (for the smaller number of taxa analysed) and recovered strongly supported interspecific relationships. However, coalescence analyses of the RAD data, analysed in SNAPP both with and without an outgroup, received equally strong support for two conflicting topologies. We suggest that the tree rooted with an outgroup - which is not recommended for SNAPP - is more trustworthy, and suggest that the reliability of analyses performed without any outgroup species should be thoroughly evaluated. We also demonstrate that degraded museum samples can be phylogenetically informative in RAD analyses following careful bioinformatic treatment. We note that the genus Calandrella is in need of taxonomic revision. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

New water soluble heterometallic complex showing unpredicted coordination modes of EDTA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mudsainiyan, R. K.; Jassal, A. K.; Chawla, S. K.

2015-10-01

A mesoporous 3D polymeric complex (I) having formula {[Zr(IV)O-μ3-(EDTA)Fe(III)OH]·H2O}n has been crystallized and characterized by various techniques. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that complex (I) crystallized in chiral monoclinic space group Cc (space group no. 9) with unexpected coordination modes of EDTA and mixture of two transition metal ions. In this complex, the coordination number of Zr(IV) ion is seven where four carboxylate oxygen atoms, two nitrogen atoms, one oxide atom are coordinating with Zr(IV). Fe(III) is four coordinated and its coordination environment is composed of three different carboxylic oxygen atoms from three different EDTA and one oxygen atom of -OH group. The structure consists of 4-c and 16-c (2-nodal) net with new topology and point symbol for net is (336·454·530)·(36). TGA study and XRPD pattern showed that the coordination polymer is quite stable even after losing water molecule and -OH ion. Quenching behavior in fluorescence of ligand is observed by complexation with transition metal ions is due to n-π* transition. The SEM micrograph shows the morphology of complex (I) exhibits spherical shape with size ranging from 50 to 280 nm. The minimum N2 (SBET=8.7693 m2/g) and a maximum amount of H2 (high surface area=1044.86 m2/g (STP)) could be adsorbed at 77 K. From DLS study, zeta potential is calculated i.e. -7.94 shows the negative charges on the surface of complex. Hirshfeld surface analysis and fingerprint plots revealed influence of weak or non bonding interactions in crystal packing of complex.

Genes versus environment: geography and phylogenetic relationships shape the chemical profiles of stingless bees on a global scale

PubMed Central

Leonhardt, Sara D.; Rasmussen, Claus; Schmitt, Thomas

2013-01-01

Chemical compounds are highly important in the ecology of animals. In social insects, compounds on the body surface represent a particularly interesting trait, because they comprise different compound classes that are involved in different functions, such as communication, recognition and protection, all of which can be differentially affected by evolutionary processes. Here, we investigate the widely unknown and possibly antagonistic influence of phylogenetic and environmental factors on the composition of the cuticular chemistry of tropical stingless bees. We chose stingless bees because some species are unique in expressing not only self-produced compounds, but also compounds that are taken up from the environment. By relating the cuticular chemistry of 40 bee species from all over the world to their molecular phylogeny and geographical occurrence, we found that distribution patterns of different groups of compounds were differentially affected by genetic relatedness and biogeography. The ability to acquire environmental compounds was, for example, highly correlated with the bees' phylogeny and predominated in evolutionarily derived species. Owing to the presence of environmentally derived compounds, those species further expressed a higher chemical and thus functional diversity. In Old World species, chemical similarity of both environmentally derived and self-produced compounds was particularly high among sympatric species, even when they were less related to each other than to allopatric species, revealing a strong environmental effect even on largely genetically determined compounds. Thus, our findings do not only reveal an unexpectedly strong influence of the environment on the cuticular chemistry of stingless bees, but also demonstrate that even within one morphological trait (an insect's cuticular profile), different components (compound classes) can be differentially affected by different drivers (relatedness and biogeography), depending on the functional context. PMID:23658202

Subpopulations of neurokinin 1 receptor-expressing neurons in the rat lateral amygdala display a differential pattern of innervation from distinct glutamatergic afferents.

PubMed

Sreepathi, H K; Ferraguti, F

2012-02-17

Substance P by acting on its preferred receptor neurokinin 1 (NK1) in the amygdala appears to be critically involved in the modulation of fear and anxiety. The present study was undertaken to identify neurochemically specific subpopulations of neuron expressing NK1 receptors in the lateral amygdaloid nucleus (LA), a key site for regulating these behaviors. We also analyzed the sources of glutamatergic inputs to these neurons. Immunofluorescence analysis of the co-expression of NK1 with calcium binding proteins in LA revealed that ~35% of NK1-containing neurons co-expressed parvalbumin (PV), whereas no co-localization was detected in the basal amygdaloid nucleus. We also show that neurons expressing NK1 receptors in LA did not contain detectable levels of calcium/calmodulin kinase IIα, thus suggesting that NK1 receptors are expressed by interneurons. By using a dual immunoperoxidase/immunogold-silver procedure at the ultrastructural level, we found that in LA ~75% of glutamatergic synapses onto NK1-expressing neurons were labeled for the vesicular glutamate transporter 1 indicating that they most likely are of cortical, hippocampal, or intrinsic origin. The remaining ~25% were immunoreactive for the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (VGluT2), and may then originate from subcortical areas. On the other hand, we could not detect VGluT2-containing inputs onto NK1/PV immunopositive neurons. Our data add to previous localization studies by describing an unexpected variation between LA and basal nucleus of the amygdala (BA) in the neurochemical phenotype of NK1-expressing neurons and reveal the relative source of glutamatergic inputs that may activate these neurons, which in turn regulate fear and anxiety responses. Copyright © 2011 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Subpopulations of neurokinin 1 receptor-expressing neurons in the rat lateral amygdala display a differential pattern of innervation from distinct glutamatergic afferents

PubMed Central

Sreepathi, H.K.; Ferraguti, F.

2012-01-01

Substance P by acting on its preferred receptor neurokinin 1 (NK1) in the amygdala appears to be critically involved in the modulation of fear and anxiety. The present study was undertaken to identify neurochemically specific subpopulations of neuron expressing NK1 receptors in the lateral amygdaloid nucleus (LA), a key site for regulating these behaviors. We also analyzed the sources of glutamatergic inputs to these neurons. Immunofluorescence analysis of the co-expression of NK1 with calcium binding proteins in LA revealed that ∼35% of NK1-containing neurons co-expressed parvalbumin (PV), whereas no co-localization was detected in the basal amygdaloid nucleus. We also show that neurons expressing NK1 receptors in LA did not contain detectable levels of calcium/calmodulin kinase IIα, thus suggesting that NK1 receptors are expressed by interneurons. By using a dual immunoperoxidase/immunogold-silver procedure at the ultrastructural level, we found that in LA ∼75% of glutamatergic synapses onto NK1-expressing neurons were labeled for the vesicular glutamate transporter 1 indicating that they most likely are of cortical, hippocampal, or intrinsic origin. The remaining ∼25% were immunoreactive for the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (VGluT2), and may then originate from subcortical areas. On the other hand, we could not detect VGluT2-containing inputs onto NK1/PV immunopositive neurons. Our data add to previous localization studies by describing an unexpected variation between LA and basal nucleus of the amygdala (BA) in the neurochemical phenotype of NK1-expressing neurons and reveal the relative source of glutamatergic inputs that may activate these neurons, which in turn regulate fear and anxiety responses. PMID:22210508

Visual interaction in recently admitted and chronic long-stay schizophrenic patients.

PubMed

Rutter, D R

1976-09-01

Several reports have suggested that schizophrenic patients engage in very little Looking and eye-contact. However, previous work, much of it methodologically unsatisfactory, has been based almost always on the clinical psychiatric interview, with the result that several important questions remain unanswered. In particular, we do not know how schizophrenic patients behave in free conversation, how their behaviour with another patient may differ from their behaviour with a psychiatrically normal partner, nor even whether they show individual consistency across encounters. The first study was designed to examine these questions, by observing recently admitted schizophrenic patients in two free dyadic conversations, one with a schizophrenic partner and one with a psychiatrically normal partner, and comparing them with three control groups: depressive patients; patients suffering from neurotic or personality disorders; and psychiatrically normal chest patients. The second study went on to test whether the early descriptions of gross abnormality may be more appropriate to chronic long-stay patients than to recently admitted patients, and the design consisted of a comparison between the two groups. The first study revealed a quite unexpected pattern of results. Consistently across their two encounters, schizophrenic subjects behaved similarly for the most part to all three control groups, normal and abnormal alike. Moreover, the few differences which did emerge conflicted sharply with previous findings, including the writer's, and were no more marked in patient-patient than patient-normal encounters. The second study revealed no differences between chronic long-stay and recently admitted schizophrenic patients. It is suggested that the differences in findings between the present two studies and previous reports are most likely to be attributable to differences in verbal content: schizophrenic patients show abnormalities of visual interaction when talking about personal matters, but behave quite normally when the topic is not of immediate personal relevance.

Band gaps and Brekhovskikh attenuation of laser-generated surface acoustic waves in a patterned thin film structure on silicon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maznev, A. A.

2008-10-01

Surface acoustic modes of a periodic array of copper and SiO2 lines on a silicon substrate are studied using a laser-induced transient grating technique. It is found that the band gap formed inside the Brillouin zone due to “avoided crossing” of Rayleigh and Sezawa modes is much greater than the band gap in the Rayleigh wave dispersion formed at the zone boundary. Another unexpected finding is that a very strong periodicity-induced attenuation is observed above the longitudinal threshold rather than above the transverse threshold.

Measures with locally finite support and spectrum.

PubMed

Meyer, Yves F

2016-03-22

The goal of this paper is the construction of measures μ on R(n)enjoying three conflicting but fortunately compatible properties: (i) μ is a sum of weighted Dirac masses on a locally finite set, (ii) the Fourier transform μ f μ is also a sum of weighted Dirac masses on a locally finite set, and (iii) μ is not a generalized Dirac comb. We give surprisingly simple examples of such measures. These unexpected patterns strongly differ from quasicrystals, they provide us with unusual Poisson's formulas, and they might give us an unconventional insight into aperiodic order.

Measures with locally finite support and spectrum

PubMed Central

Meyer, Yves F.

2016-01-01

The goal of this paper is the construction of measures μ on Rn enjoying three conflicting but fortunately compatible properties: (i) μ is a sum of weighted Dirac masses on a locally finite set, (ii) the Fourier transform μ^ of μ is also a sum of weighted Dirac masses on a locally finite set, and (iii) μ is not a generalized Dirac comb. We give surprisingly simple examples of such measures. These unexpected patterns strongly differ from quasicrystals, they provide us with unusual Poisson's formulas, and they might give us an unconventional insight into aperiodic order. PMID:26929358

Computed tomography angiography reveals the crime instrument – case report

PubMed Central

Banaszek, Anna; Guziński, Maciej; Sąsiadek, Marek

2010-01-01

Summary Background: The development of multislice CT technology enabled imaging of post-traumatic brain lesions with isotropic resolution, which led to unexpected results in the presented case Case Report: An unconscious, 49-year-old male with a suspected trauma underwent a routine CT examination of the head, which revealed an unusual intracerebral bleeding and therefore was followed by CT angiography (CTA). The thorough analysis of CTA source scans led to the detection of the bleeding cause. Conclusions: The presented case showed that a careful analysis of a CT scan allows not only to define the extent of pathological lesions in the intracranial space but it also helps to detect the crime instrument, which is of medico-legal significance. PMID:22802784