A role for Q/N-rich aggregation-prone regions in P-body localization

P-bodies are cytoplasmic foci that are sites of mRNA degradation and translational repression. It is not known what causes the accumulation of RNA degradation factors in P-bodies, although RNA is required. The yeast Lsm1-7p complex is recruited to P-bodies under certain stress conditions. It is required for efficient decapping and degradation of mRNAs, but not for the assembly of P-bodies. Here we show that the Lsm4p subunit and its asparagine-rich carboxy-terminus are prone to aggregation and that this tendency to aggregate promotes efficient accumulation of Lsm1-7p in P-bodies. The presence of Q/N-rich regions in other P-body components suggests a more general role for aggregation-prone residues in P-body localization and assembly. This is supported by reduced P-body accumulation of Ccr4p, Pop2p and Dhh1p after deletion of these domains, and by the observed aggregation of the Q/N-rich region from Ccr4p

High speed development of new chemical synthesis and materials at molecular-level: Methods and approaches

Recent success of advanced computational chemistry, in example for the prediction of chemical reactivity and materials properties, reflects its reputation as a valuable and widely accepted means to tackle problems in academia. The development of new simulation methods and new computer architectures enables an enormous improvement of the productivity of research and development of new chemical synthesisand materials. These advances can be achieved in terms of less time, material, and staff compared to traditional lab experiments. Especially, approaches like virtual high throughput screenings (vHTS) are highly scalable and allow fast and deep insights into new promising system modifications. Consequently, the time to market and risk of new product development can be decreased significantly. These characteristicspaved the way for the successful application in industry nowadays

Thermal Depinning of Abrikosov Vortices in a Nb Polycrystalline Bulk Absorber for Gamma-Ray Superconducting Detector

Abstract The threshold temperature at which the thermal depinning of Abrikosov vortices starts to be pronounced, defines the upper temperature limit for secure operation of a gamma-ray superconducting detector based on Abrikosov vortices. Indeed, because of the flux creep phenomenon, unwanted spontaneous vortex jumps can take place concurrently with those resulting from the gamma-ray photon absorption, resulting in the appearance of dark counts. Low temperature magnetic force microscopy (MFM) was applied for the evaluation of the threshold temperature for a 0.3 mm thick Nb polycrystalline bulk absorber with dimensions of 5×5 mm2, which was chosen for the fabrication of Josephson tunnel junctions serving as vortex sensor element of the gamma-ray detector. Vortices were generated by cooling the sample to 4.3 K in a small magnetic field. A field of 0.1 mT was chosen in order to produce more than two vortices within the 7×7 μm2 scan area, but with sufficiently large inter-vortex spacing such that vortex-vortex interactions would be negligible. The threshold temperature associated with the thermal depinning of a single vortex was found to be 6.3 ± 0.2 K, whereas the threshold temperature associated with the thermal depinning of half of vortices was found to be 7.2 ± 0.2 K

Strategies and cues adolescents use to assess the age of an online stranger

A common risk among adolescents is sexual solicitation, in which an adolescent is asked to provide sexual information, engage in sexual talk, or in sexual activities. Although scholars increasingly address this topic from an intrapersonal perspective, there is little attention to factors of language use and message content. In two focus group studies, we investigated whether adolescent girls consider themselves capable of assessing whether an online stranger is an adult or a peer, the extent to which adolescent girls actually succeed in making this assessment, the strategies they apply to do so, and the content- and language-related cues focused on. Our findings suggest that most of the adolescent girls are confident in their ability to assess whether the stranger is a peer or an adult with possible sexual intentions. However, we also found that only 43% were able to correctly make this assessment. Most of the adolescents seem to apply the passive strategy of uncertainty reduction: They scan the profile page of the stranger, check contact information, and the profile picture. They may choose to apply the interactive strategy to find out more about the online stranger. Important content-related cues that alarm adolescent girls are: ignoring personal questions, showing an exaggerated amount of interest, acting as a friend, and being sexually oriented. Language cues mentioned related to word usage, abbreviations, sentence length, and tone

Area effects of bednet use in a malaria-endemic area in Papua New Guinea

Relationships between area coverage with insecticide-free bednets and prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum were investigated in 7 community-based surveys over a 33-month period in 1990-1993 in 6 villages in the Wosera area of Papua New Guinea. Spatial patterns in circumsporozoite rates for P. Falciparum, P. vivax isomorphs K210 and K247, and P. malariae, and the proportions of mosquito blood meals positive for specific human, goat, cat, dog and pig antigens were determined using ELISAs. P. falciparum prevalence in humans was better explained by bednet coverage in the immediate vicinity than by personal protection alone. Circumsporozoite rates for both P. falciparum and P. vivax were also inversely related to coverage with bednets. There was some increase in zoophagy in areas with high coverage, but relatively little effect on the human blood index or on overall mosquito densities. In this setting, protracted use of untreated bednets apparently reduces sporozoite rates, and the associated effects on prevalence are greater than can be accounted for by personal protection. Even at high bednet coverage most anophelines feed on human hosts, so the decreased sporozoite rates are likely to be largely due to reduction of mosquito survival. This finding highlights the importance of local vector ecology for outcomes of bednet programmes and suggests that area effects of untreated bednets should be reassessed in other setting

Structure, Stresses and Local Dynamics in Glasses

The interrelations between short range structural and elastic aspects in glasses and glass forming liquids pose important and yet unresolved questions. In this paper these relations are analyzed for mono-atomic glasses and stressed liquids with a short range repulsive-attractive pair potentials. Strong variations of the local pressure are found even in a zero temperature glass, whereas the largest values of pressure are the same in both glasses and liquids. The coordination number z(J) and the effective first peak radius depend on the local pressures J's. A linear relation was found between components of site stress tensor and the local elastic constants. A linear relation was also found between the trace of the squares of the local frequencies and the local pressures. Those relations hold for glasses at zero temperature and for liquids. We explain this by a relation between the structure and the potential terms. A structural similarity between liquids and solids is manifested by similar dependencies of the coordination number on the pressures.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure

Lifetime of Stringy de Sitter Vacua

In this note we perform a synopsis of the life-times from vacuum decay of several de Sitter vacuum constructions in string/M-theory which have a single dS minimum arising from lifting a pre-existing AdS extremum and no other local minima existent after lifting. For these vacua the decay proceeds via a Coleman--De Luccia instanton towards the universal Minkowski minimum at infinite volume. This can be calculated using the thin--wall approximation, provided the cosmological constant of the local dS minimum is tuned sufficiently small. We compare the estimates for the different model classes and find them all stable in the sense of exponentially long life times as long as they have a very small cosmological constant and a scale of supersymmetry breaking > TeV.Comment: 1+16 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX, uses JHEP3 class, v2: references added, inclusion of an additional subclass of de Sitter vacu

Genus Two Partition and Correlation Functions for Fermionic Vertex Operator Superalgebras I

We define the partition and $n$-point correlation functions for a vertex operator superalgebra on a genus two Riemann surface formed by sewing two tori together. For the free fermion vertex operator superalgebra we obtain a closed formula for the genus two continuous orbifold partition function in terms of an infinite dimensional determinant with entries arising from torus Szeg\"o kernels. We prove that the partition function is holomorphic in the sewing parameters on a given suitable domain and describe its modular properties. Using the bosonized formalism, a new genus two Jacobi product identity is described for the Riemann theta series. We compute and discuss the modular properties of the generating function for all $n$-point functions in terms of a genus two Szeg\"o kernel determinant. We also show that the Virasoro vector one point function satisfies a genus two Ward identity.Comment: A number of typos have been corrected, 39 pages. To appear in Commun. Math. Phy

Functional responses can unify invasion ecology.

We contend that invasion ecology requires a universal, measurable trait of species and their interactions with resources that predicts key elements of invasibility and ecological impact; here, we advocate that functional responses can help achieve this across taxonomic and trophic groups, among habitats and contexts, and can hence help unify disparate research interests in invasion ecology