Introducing a ‘Different Lives’ Approach to the Valuation of Health and Well-Being

We introduce a new different lives survey format, which asks respondents to rank hypothetical lives described in terms of longevity, health, happiness, income, and other elements of the quality of life. In this short paper, we show that the format is of policy relevance whether a mental state, preference satisfaction or extra-welfarist account of well-being is adopted and discuss some of the advantages the format has over standard formats, such as contingent valuation surveys and QALY-type methods. An exploratory survey indicates that the format is feasible and that health and happiness might be more important than income and life expectancy

Suspension and levitation in nonlinear theories

I investigate stable equilibria of bodies in potential fields satisfying a generalized Poisson equation: divergence[m(grad phi) grad phi]= source density. This describes diverse systems such as nonlinear dielectrics, certain flow problems, magnets, and superconductors in nonlinear magnetic media; equilibria of forced soap films; and equilibria in certain nonlinear field theories such as Born-Infeld electromagnetism. Earnshaw's theorem, totally barring stable equilibria in the linear case, breaks down. While it is still impossible to suspend a test, point charge or dipole, one can suspend point bodies of finite charge, or extended test-charge bodies. I examine circumstances under which this can be done, using limits and special cases. I also consider the analogue of magnetic trapping of neutral (dipolar) particles.Comment: Five pages, Revtex, to appear in Physics Letters

The frizzled pathway regulates the development of arista laterals.

BACKGROUND: The frizzled pathway in Drosophila has been studied intensively for its role in the development of planar polarity in wing hairs, thoracic bristles and ommatidia. Selected cells in the arista (the terminal segment of the antenna) elaborate a lateral projection that shares characteristics with both hairs and bristles. RESULTS: We found that mutations in putative downstream members of the frizzled pathway, such as inturned resulted in multipled and split laterals, but no obvious polarity defects. Mutations in upstream genes such as frizzled did not show an adult arista phenotype. When we examined lateral development in the mutants we found that, as is the case on the wing for hair development the frizzled pathway regulated the subcellular location for lateral initiation. However, on the arista an altered location for lateral initiation did not result in altered polarity, as did an altered site for hair initiation. The regulation of lateral development involved the preferential accumulation of Frizzled protein at the distal edges of lateral cells much as is seen on the wing. In contrast to the situation in wing cells, in arista cells the location for lateral initiation was close to but did not overlap the region of preferential Frizzled accumulation. CONCLUSION: Our data indicates that a modified version of the frizzled pathway regulates arista development. We conclude that the lack of a polarity defect in mutant aristae is likely to be a consequence of inherent differences in the cell biology of wing hair and lateral forming cells

Origin and Evolution of Dishevelled

Dishevelled (Dsh or Dvl) is an important signaling protein, playing a key role in Wnt signaling and relaying cellular information for several developmental pathways. Dsh is highly conserved among metazoans and has expanded into a multigene family in most bilaterian lineages, including vertebrates, planarians, and nematodes. These orthologs, where explored, are known to have considerable overlap in function, but evidence for functional specialization continues to mount. We performed a comparative analysis of Dsh across animals to explore protein architecture and identify conserved and divergent features that could provide insight into functional specialization with an emphasis on invertebrates, especially nematodes. We find evidence of dynamic evolution of Dsh, particularly among nematodes, with taxa varying in ortholog number from one to three. We identify a new domain specific to some nematode lineages and find an unexpected nuclear localization signal conserved in many Dsh orthologs. Our findings raise questions of protein evolution in general and provide clues as to how animals have dealt with the complex intricacies of having a protein, such as Dsh, act as a central messenger hub connected to many different and vitally important pathways. We discuss our findings in the context of functional specialization and bring many testable hypotheses to light

Entomopathogenic nematodes

What are entomopathogenic nematodes? Nematodes seem to have evolved to occupy nearly every niche imaginable, including a wide diversity of parasitic niches. Among the vast variety of parasitic nematodes, some have evolved an association with insect-pathogenic bacteria. Together the bacteria and nematode are a lethal duo. These nematodes are called ‘entomopathogenic nematodes’. Essentially the nematodes serve as mobile vectors for their insect-pathogenic bacteria cargo, like little Typhoid Marys. The nematodes seek out and invade potential hosts and release their pathogenic payload into the nutrient-rich hemolymph. Infected insect hosts die quickly, the bacteria proliferate, the nematodes feed on bacteria and insect tissues, and reproduce. When the host cadaver is depleted of resources, nematodes associated with pathogenic bacteria emerge and search for new hosts to infect (Figure 1). The cooperation with bacteria and the speed with which they kill set entomopathogenic nematodes apart from other nematode parasites

Connected Search for a Lazy Robber

The node search game against a lazy (or, respectively, agile) invisible robber has been introduced as a search-game analogue of the treewidth parameter (and, respectively, pathwidth). In the connected variants of the above two games, we additionally demand that, at each moment of the search, the clean territories are connected. The connected search game against an agile and invisible robber has been extensively examined. The monotone variant (where we also demand that the clean territories are progressively increasing) of this game, corresponds to the graph parameter of connected pathwidth. It is known that the price of connectivty to search for an agile robber is bounded by 2, that is the connected pathwidth of a graph is at most twice (plus some constant) its pathwidth. In this paper, we investigate the connected search game against a lazy robber. A lazy robber moves only when the searchers' strategy threatens the location that he currently occupies. We introduce two alternative graph-theoretic formulations of this game, one in terms of connected tree decompositions, and one in terms of (connected) layouts, leading to the graph parameter of connected treewidth. We observe that connected treewidth parameter is closed under contractions and prove that for every k >= 2, the set of contraction obstructions of the class of graphs with connected treewidth at most k is infinite. Our main result is a complete characterization of the obstruction set for k=2. One may observe that, so far, only a few complete obstruction sets are explicitly known for contraction closed graph classes. We finally show that, in contrast to the agile robber game, the price of connectivity is unbounded

Pengaruh Akhir Pekan dan Pengaruh Januari di Bursa Efek Indonesia

Based on the analysis of stock returns during this research period, which refers to year-by-year analysis outlined within the research timeframe, it can be observed that there is a variation in both negative and positive return rates. According to the processed data, it is known that in the year 2022, only Thursday returns had an impact on Monday returns. Thursday in 2022 had a positive influence on Monday returns in 2022. Additionally, based on the processed data, it is also found that in the year 2023, Wednesday and Friday returns could affect Monday returns. Statistically, it is concluded with 95% confidence that Monday trading volume does not affect Monday returns. Furthermore, it is statistically concluded with 95% confidence that January trading volume does not influence January returns. Based on the combined results of 2022 and 2023, it is evident that Stock Prices on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday can influence Stock Prices on Monday. Statistically, it is concluded with 95% confidence that Stock Prices from February to December positively affect Stock Prices in January

Model based learning for accelerated, limited-view 3D photoacoustic tomography

Recent advances in deep learning for tomographic reconstructions have shown great potential to create accurate and high quality images with a considerable speed-up. In this work we present a deep neural network that is specifically designed to provide high resolution 3D images from restricted photoacoustic measurements. The network is designed to represent an iterative scheme and incorporates gradient information of the data fit to compensate for limited view artefacts. Due to the high complexity of the photoacoustic forward operator, we separate training and computation of the gradient information. A suitable prior for the desired image structures is learned as part of the training. The resulting network is trained and tested on a set of segmented vessels from lung CT scans and then applied to in-vivo photoacoustic measurement data

ChtVis-Tomato, a genetic reporter for in vivo visualization of chitin deposition in Drosophila

Chitin is a polymer of N-acetylglucosamine that is abundant and widely found in the biological world. It is an important constituent of the cuticular exoskeleton that plays a key role in the insect life cycle. To date, the study of chitin deposition during cuticle formation has been limited by the lack of a method to detect it in living organisms. To overcome this limitation, we have developed ChtVis-Tomato, an in vivo reporter for chitin in Drosophila. ChtVis-Tomato encodes a fusion protein that contains an apical secretion signal, a chitin-binding domain (CBD), a fluorescent protein and a cleavage site to release it from the plasma membrane. The chitin reporter allowed us to study chitin deposition in time lapse experiments and by using it we have identified unexpected deposits of chitin fibers in Drosophila pupae. ChtVis-Tomato should facilitate future studies on chitin in Drosophila and other insects