Interactions between KSHV ORF57 and the novel human TREX proteins, CHTOP and CIP29

The coupling of mRNA processing steps is essential for precise and efficient gene expression. The human transcription/export (hTREX) complex is a highly conserved multi-protein complex responsible for eukaryotic mRNA stability and nuclear export. We have previously shown that the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated ORF57 protein orchestrates the recruitment of the hTREX complex onto viral intronless mRNA forming a stable and export competent viral ribonucleoprotein particle (vRNP). Recently, additional cellular proteins, namely CHTOP, CIP29 and POLDIP3 have been proposed as novel hTREX components. Herein we extend our previous research and provide evidence that ORF57 interacts with CHTOP and CIP29, in contrast to POLDIP3. Moreover, depletion studies show both CHTOP and CIP29 effect ORF57-mediated viral mRNA processing. As such, these results suggest both CHTOP and CIP29 are hTREX components and are recruited to an ORF57-mediated vRNP

Loudly sing cuckoo : More-than-human seasonalities in Britain

This research was funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, grant number AH/E009573/1.Peer reviewedPostprin

Impact of public exhibition on the perception of birthmarks

BACKGROUND: The importance of photographs in social media, the steep rise in popularity of tattoos, and the prominence of individuals with visibly different skin in fashion are likely to be changing the landscape of self- and public perception of birthmarks. Study objectives were to assess the impact of a photoshoot and public exhibition on the self-perception of individuals with extensive birthmarks, and to explore the viewing public's reactions. METHODS: Thirty individuals with congenital melanocytic nevi (CMN) were recruited internationally. Each had a professional photoshoot portrait with their skin exposed, resulting in a public exhibition in London entitled "How do you C Me Now?" Participants/parents completed pre- and post-questionnaires relating to self-perception and the impact of their birthmarks on behavior. Over 8000 members of the public viewed the exhibition, 464 completing an on-site questionnaire on its effects. RESULTS: All participants/parents rated the experience as positive, valuable and helpful. Scores on self-appreciation and self-confidence were significantly higher after the photo shoot. Members of the general public overwhelmingly reported the exhibition increased their positive feelings towards people with birthmarks. The majority of public respondents also reported that the exhibition made them feel better about their own skin and about their looks in general. CONCLUSION: This unique exhibition and the associated research has provided a striking new perspective on potential psychological interventions for individuals with birthmarks

Are autistic traits in the general population stable across development?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic traits (AT) are on a continuum in the general population, with clinical autism representing the extreme end of a quantitative distribution. While the nature and severity of symptoms in clinical autism are known to persist over time, no study has examined the long-term stability of AT among typically developing toddlers. The current investigation measured AT in 360 males and 400 males from the general population close to two decades apart, using the Pervasive Developmental Disorder subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist in early childhood (M = 2.14 years; SD = 0.15), and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient in early adulthood (M = 19.50 years; SD = 0.70). Items from each scale were further divided into social (difficulties with social interaction and communication) and non-social (restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests) AT. The association between child and adult measurements of AT as well the influence of potentially confounding sociodemographic, antenatal and obstetric variables were assessed using Pearson's correlations and linear regression. For males, Total AT in early childhood were positively correlated with total AT (r = .16, p = .002) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) in adulthood. There was also a positive correlation for males between social AT measured in early childhood and Total (r = .17, p = .001) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) measured in adulthood. Correlations for non-social AT did not achieve significance in males. Furthermore, there was no significant longitudinal association in AT observed for males or females. Despite the constraints of using different measures and different raters at the two ages, this study found modest developmental stability of social AT from early childhood to adulthood in boys

The first legal mortgagor: a consumer without adequate protection?

This article contends that the UK government’s attempt to create a well-functioning consumer credit market will be undermined if it fails to reform the private law framework relating to the first legal mortgage. Such agreements are governed by two distinct regulatory regimes that are founded upon very different conceptions of the mortgagor. The first, the regulation of financial services overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority, derives from public law and is founded upon a conception of the mortgagor as “consumer”. The other is land law, private law regulation implemented by the judiciary and underpinned by a conception of the mortgagor as “landowner”. Evidence suggests that the operation of these two regimes prevents mortgagors from receiving fair and consistent treatment. The current reform of financial services regulation therefore will change only one part of this governance regime and will leave mortgagors heavily reliant upon a regulator that still has to prove itself. What this article argues is that reform of the rules of private law must also be undertaken with the aim of initiating a paradigm shift in the conception of the mortgagor from “landowner” to “consumer”. Cultural shifts of this kind take time but the hope is that this conceptual transformation will occur in time to deter the predicted rise in mortgage possessions

A novel profiling concept leading to a significant increase in the mechanical performance of metal to composite joints

In this work, we designed metal-CFRP joints with a profiled adherend termination to improve the mechanical performance. We have applied several profiles to the edge of titanium adherends which were adhesively bonded to CFRP substrates. We conducted finite element modelling and experimental 4PB (4-Point-Bend) testing to investigate how the geometry of the adherend edge profile effects the mechanical performance of the joint. This work shows that profiling of the metal adherend can result in increases of at least 27% in the peak load, and of at least 272% in the energy dissipated up to critical failure normalised by the mechanical energy

Utilising proteomic approaches to understand oncogenic human herpesviruses

The γ‑herpesviruses Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma‑associated herpesvirus are successful pathogens, each infecting a large proportion of the human population. These viruses persist for the life of the host and may each contribute to a number of malignancies, for which there are currently no cures. Large‑scale proteomic-based approaches provide an excellent means of increasing the collective understanding of the proteomes of these complex viruses and elucidating their numerous interactions within the infected host cell. These large‑scale studies are important for the identification of the intricacies of viral infection and the development of novel therapeutics against these two important pathogens

Hare: a file system for non-cache-coherent multicores

Hare is a new file system that provides a POSIX-like interface on multicore processors without cache coherence. Hare allows applications on different cores to share files, directories, and file descriptors. The challenge in designing Hare is to support the shared abstractions faithfully enough to run applications that run on traditional shared-memory operating systems, with few modifications, and to do so while scaling with an increasing number of cores. To achieve this goal, Hare must support features (such as shared file descriptors) that traditional network file systems don't support, as well as implement them in a way that scales (e.g., shard a directory across servers to allow concurrent operations in that directory). Hare achieves this goal through a combination of new protocols (including a 3-phase commit protocol to implement directory operations correctly and scalably) and leveraging properties of non-cache-coherent multiprocessors (e.g., atomic low-latency message delivery and shared DRAM). An evaluation on a 40-core machine demonstrates that Hare can run many challenging Linux applications (including a mail server and a Linux kernel build) with minimal or no modifications. The results also show these applications achieve good scalability on Hare, and that Hare's techniques are important to achieving scalability.Quanta Computer (Firm

Gravitational waves from supernova matter

We have performed a set of 11 three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical core collapse supernova simulations in order to investigate the dependencies of the gravitational wave signal on the progenitor's initial conditions. We study the effects of the initial central angular velocity and different variants of neutrino transport. Our models are started up from a 15 solar mass progenitor and incorporate an effective general relativistic gravitational potential and a finite temperature nuclear equation of state. Furthermore, the electron flavour neutrino transport is tracked by efficient algorithms for the radiative transfer of massless fermions. We find that non- and slowly rotating models show gravitational wave emission due to prompt- and lepton driven convection that reveals details about the hydrodynamical state of the fluid inside the protoneutron stars. Furthermore we show that protoneutron stars can become dynamically unstable to rotational instabilities at T/|W| values as low as ~2 % at core bounce. We point out that the inclusion of deleptonization during the postbounce phase is very important for the quantitative GW prediction, as it enhances the absolute values of the gravitational wave trains up to a factor of ten with respect to a lepton-conserving treatment.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted, to be published in a Classical and Quantum Gravity special issue for MICRA200

Influence of blade aerodynamic model on the prediction of helicopter high-frequency airloads

Brown’s vorticity transport model has been used to investigate the influence of the blade aerodynamic model on the accuracy with which the high-frequency airloads associated with helicopter blade–vortex interactions can be predicted. The model yields an accurate representation of the wake structure yet allows significant flexibility in the way that the blade loading can be represented. A simple lifting-line model and a somewhat more sophisticated liftingchord model, based on unsteady thin aerofoil theory, are compared. A marked improvement in the accuracy of the predicted high-frequency airloads of the higher harmonic control aeroacoustic rotor is obtained when the liftingchord model is used instead of the lifting-line approach, and the quality of the prediction is affected less by the computational resolution of the wake. The lifting-line model overpredicts the amplitude of the lift response to blade–vortex interactions as the computational grid is refined, exposing the fundamental deficiencies in this approach when modeling the aerodynamic response of the blade to interactions with vortices that are much smaller than its chord. The airloads that are predicted using the lifting-chord model are relatively insensitive to the resolution of the computation, and there are fundamental reasons to believe that properly converged numerical solutions may be attainable using this approach