Mutual exclusion between related phages

The discovery of the breakdown of superinfecting phage needs to be supplemented by genetic tests to find out whether the phage whose nucleic acid is broken down is, indeed, unable to contribute genetic markers to the progeny. The present paper presents experiments of this kind, whose results leave no doubt that the breakdown of superinfecting phage is strictly paralleled by exclusion from the progeny of the genetic markers it contains. We are presenting also some experiments in which the stimulating phage alone or both the stimulating and the superinfecting phage have been inactivated by irradiation with ultraviolet light. These experiments serve to characterize functions which have remained unimpaired in ultraviolet treated phage and their relation to multiplicity reactivation of ultraviolet treated phage

Gravitational Waves and Time Domain Astronomy

The gravitational wave window onto the universe will open in roughly five years, when Advanced LIGO and Virgo achieve the first detections of high frequency gravitational waves, most likely coming from compact binary mergers. Electromagnetic follow-up of these triggers, using radio, optical, and high energy telescopes, promises exciting opportunities in multi-messenger time domain astronomy. In the next decade, space-based observations of low frequency gravitational waves from massive black hole mergers, and their electromagnetic counterparts, will open up further vistas for discovery. This two-part workshop at featured brief presentations and stimulating discussions on the challenges and opportunities presented by gravitational wave astronomy. Highlights from the workshop, with the emphasis on strategies for electromagnetic follow-up, are presented in this report.Comment: Submitted to Proc. IAU 285, "New Horizons in Transient Astronomy", Oxford, Sept. 201

Experimental approaches to understanding the role of protein phosphorylation in the regulation of neuronal function

Studies by Earl Sutherland and his colleagues on hormonal regulation of the breakdown of glycogen in liver resulted in the discovery that the first step in the action of many hormones is to increase the synthesis of cAMP by activating adenylate cyclase (Raft et al 1957, Sutherland & Rall 1958, Robison et al 1968). It was later established that cAMP exerts its effects by stimulating protein kinases that catalyze the phosphorylation of specific functional proteins and thereby regulate their activity (Walsh et al 1968, Kuo & Greengard 1969, Krebs & Beavo 1979). The discovery that the brain contains a high concentration of cAMP-dependent protein kinase led to the proposal that protein phosphorylation might play an important role in regulation of neuronal properties by neurotransmitters and neurohormones (Miyamoto et al 1969). In particular, it seemed that protein phosphorylation, which usually takes place on a time scale of hundreds of milliseconds or longer, might be a mechanism underlying relatively long-lasting changes in neuronal properties such as "slow" changes in post-synaptic potentials (McAfee & Greengard 1972), changes in the rate of transmitter synthesis (Morgenroth et al 1975), or changes in gene expression (Klein & Berg 1970). The biochemists and neurobiologists who took up the study of brain protein phosphorylation hoped to gain insight into some of the mechanisms underlying changes in neuronal excitability and synaptic efficacy and also, perhaps, into processes that govern the development of various neuronal types during the formation of the nervous system. This line of research was bolstered by the findings that the brain contains not only high concentrations of protein kinases, but also protein phosphatases, adenylate cyclase, and phosphodiesterase (Greengard 1976), and also by the discovery that several neurotransmitters stimulate the synthesis of second messengers such as cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP by binding to specific receptors on the surfaces of neurons (for reviews see Nathanson 1977, Greengard 1981)

Photoreceptor System for Melatonin Regulation and Phototherapy

The present invention involves a light system for stimulating or regulating neuroendocrine, circadian, and photoneural systems in mammals based upon the discovery of peak sensitivity ranging from 425-505 nm; a light meter system for quantifying light which stimulates or regulates mammalian circadian, photoneural, and neuroendocrine systems. The present invention also relates to translucent and transparent materials, and lamps or other light sources with or without filters capable of stimulating or regulating neuroendocrine, circadian, and photoneural systems in mammals. Additionally, the present invention involves treatment of mammals with a wide variety of disorders or deficits, including light responsive disorders, eating disorders, menstrual cycle disorders, non-specific alerting and performance deficits, hormone-sensitive cancers, and cardiovascular disorders

Open-Ended Evolutionary Robotics: an Information Theoretic Approach

This paper is concerned with designing self-driven fitness functions for Embedded Evolutionary Robotics. The proposed approach considers the entropy of the sensori-motor stream generated by the robot controller. This entropy is computed using unsupervised learning; its maximization, achieved by an on-board evolutionary algorithm, implements a "curiosity instinct", favouring controllers visiting many diverse sensori-motor states (sms). Further, the set of sms discovered by an individual can be transmitted to its offspring, making a cultural evolution mode possible. Cumulative entropy (computed from ancestors and current individual visits to the sms) defines another self-driven fitness; its optimization implements a "discovery instinct", as it favours controllers visiting new or rare sensori-motor states. Empirical results on the benchmark problems proposed by Lehman and Stanley (2008) comparatively demonstrate the merits of the approach

Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care

The Digital Connections Council (DCC) of the Committee for Economic Development (CED) has been developing the concept of openness in a series of reports. It has analyzed information and processes to determine their openness based on qualities of "accessibility" and "responsiveness." If information is not available or available only under restrictive conditions it is less accessible and therefore less "open." If information can be modified, repurposed, and redistributed freely it is more responsive, and therefore more "open." This report looks at how "openness" is being or might usefully be employed in the healthcare arena. This area, which now constitutes approximately 16-17 percent of GDP, has long frustrated policymakers, practitioners, and patients. Bringing greater openness to different parts of the healthcare production chain can lead to substantial benefits by stimulating innovation, lowering costs, reducing errors, and closing the gap between discovery and treatment delivery. The report is not exhaustive; it focuses on biomedical research and the disclosure of research findings, processes of evaluating drugs and devices, the emergence of electronic health records, the development and implementation of treatment regimes by caregivers and patients, and the interdependence of the global public health system and data sharing and worldwide collaboration

Definition of a family of tissue-protective cytokines using functional cluster analysis: a proof-of-concept study

The discovery of the tissue-protective activities of erythropoietin (EPO) has underlined the importance of some cytokines in tissue-protection, repair, and remodeling. As such activities have been reported for other cytokines, we asked whether we could define a class of tissue-protective cytokines. We therefore explored a novel approach based on functional clustering. In this pilot study, we started by analyzing a small number of cytokines (30). We functionally classified the 30 cytokines according to their interactions by using the bioinformatics tool STRING (Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes), followed by hierarchical cluster analysis. The results of this functional clustering were different from those obtained by clustering cytokines simply according to their sequence. We previously reported that the protective activity of EPO in a model of cerebral ischemia was paralleled by an upregulation of synaptic plasticity genes, particularly early growth response 2 (EGR2). To assess the predictivity of functional clustering, we tested some of the cytokines clustering close to EPO (interleukin-11, IL-11; kit ligand, KITLG; leukemia inhibitory factor, LIF; thrombopoietin, THPO) in an in vitro model of human neuronal cells for their ability to induce EGR2. Two of these, LIF and IL-11, induced EGR2 expression. Although these data would need to be extended to a larger number of cytokines and the biological validation should be done using more robust in vivo models, rather then just one cell line, this study shows the feasibility of this approach. This type of functional cluster analysis could be extended to other fields of cytokine research and help design biological experiments