SmN: Expression and potential role in alternative mRNA splicing

The Sm proteins associate with small nuclear RNA (snRNA) molecules to form small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles (snRNPs) which are essential for pre mRNA splicing. A recently identified Sm protein, SmN is expressed in a tissue specific manner and is closely related to the constitutively expressed SmB protein. SmN is abundant in neurons and is expressed at lower levels in cardiac muscle while being undetectable in other tissues; it is therefore the first example of a mammalian snRNP protein of this kind. Human, rat and mouse forms of the protein are 100% identical. Mutation at the SmN locus has also been implicated in Prader-Willi syndrome suggesting an important function for this protein. Expression of SmN has been characterised in a number of neuronal and non-neuronal cell lines, in EC cells during differentiation and in tissues during embryonic development using the KSm5 antibody in conjunction with Western blotting. The KSm5 antibody has also been used to examine Sm protein distribution by immunofiourescence, and RNA probes have been used to examine SmN and SmB mRNA expression and SmN mRNA distribution in the mouse brain. The distribution of the closely related SmN, B and B' proteins has also been defined in human tissues. SmN distribution, and its association with the splicing machinery has raised the possibility that it is involved in alternative splicing. In particular, cells and tissues which express SmN have been shown to have the ability to follow an alternative splicing pathway resulting in the production of the CGRP mRNA from the primary transcript of the CALC-I gene. Characterisation of SmN expression in a number of cells and tissues allowed an investigation into the possible role of SmN in alternative splicing. A number of cell lines ectopically expressing SmN were also constructed in order to examine the role of SmN. Using a number of the cell lines and tissues characterised above, as well as the stable cell lines, the putatative role of SmN in alternatively splicing has been examined. Using quantitative PCR assays it appears that SmN is neither necessary nor sufficient to guide alternative splicing of a number of mRNAs which appeared to be candidates for regulation by SmN, from the literature, including CALC-I, NCAM (VASE exon) and c-src. A pair of CALC-I gene constructs have also been used to identify a cis-acting sequence not originally thought to be involved in CALC-I alternative splicing. The data presented here and other recent results have been used to speculate on other possible roles for SmN. The SmN expressing stable cell lines provide a model in which to examine SmN functions further and the ND neuronal cell lines provide a good model to examine CALC-I alternative splicing

Sound and Precise Malware Analysis for Android via Pushdown Reachability and Entry-Point Saturation

We present Anadroid, a static malware analysis framework for Android apps. Anadroid exploits two techniques to soundly raise precision: (1) it uses a pushdown system to precisely model dynamically dispatched interprocedural and exception-driven control-flow; (2) it uses Entry-Point Saturation (EPS) to soundly approximate all possible interleavings of asynchronous entry points in Android applications. (It also integrates static taint-flow analysis and least permissions analysis to expand the class of malicious behaviors which it can catch.) Anadroid provides rich user interface support for human analysts which must ultimately rule on the "maliciousness" of a behavior. To demonstrate the effectiveness of Anadroid's malware analysis, we had teams of analysts analyze a challenge suite of 52 Android applications released as part of the Auto- mated Program Analysis for Cybersecurity (APAC) DARPA program. The first team analyzed the apps using a ver- sion of Anadroid that uses traditional (finite-state-machine-based) control-flow-analysis found in existing malware analysis tools; the second team analyzed the apps using a version of Anadroid that uses our enhanced pushdown-based control-flow-analysis. We measured machine analysis time, human analyst time, and their accuracy in flagging malicious applications. With pushdown analysis, we found statistically significant (p < 0.05) decreases in time: from 85 minutes per app to 35 minutes per app in human plus machine analysis time; and statistically significant (p < 0.05) increases in accuracy with the pushdown-driven analyzer: from 71% correct identification to 95% correct identification.Comment: Appears in 3rd Annual ACM CCS workshop on Security and Privacy in SmartPhones and Mobile Devices (SPSM'13), Berlin, Germany, 201

Structured Near-Optimal Channel-Adapted Quantum Error Correction

We present a class of numerical algorithms which adapt a quantum error correction scheme to a channel model. Given an encoding and a channel model, it was previously shown that the quantum operation that maximizes the average entanglement fidelity may be calculated by a semidefinite program (SDP), which is a convex optimization. While optimal, this recovery operation is computationally difficult for long codes. Furthermore, the optimal recovery operation has no structure beyond the completely positive trace preserving (CPTP) constraint. We derive methods to generate structured channel-adapted error recovery operations. Specifically, each recovery operation begins with a projective error syndrome measurement. The algorithms to compute the structured recovery operations are more scalable than the SDP and yield recovery operations with an intuitive physical form. Using Lagrange duality, we derive performance bounds to certify near-optimality.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures Update: typos corrected in Appendi

Ritual, scenography and illusion: Andrea Pozzo and the religious theatre of the seventeenth century

In this PhD thesis I offer an examination of the work of Jesuit Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709), an artist known primarily for his works of perspectival fresco painting. Pozzo's development, his career and his multifaceted practice––which included painting, scenography, architecture, and a two-volume treatise on perspective–– together serve as a prime case study for understanding the relationship of the religious art and architecture of the seventeenth century to the period's culture of ritual and performance. Pozzo's work, I argue, is religious theatre, and the key to reading both his ephemeral scenographies and the permanent works of painting and architecture lies in religious performance. Each of the works, I contend, functions as a work of religious theatre: architectural space, images, narrative, illusion and light are used to communicate messages, to engage the senses and the intellect, to activate the memory and the imagination, and to directly involve the spectator both internally and externally as a performer. In my first two chapters I present an analysis of the environment in which Pozzo emerged, beginning with the religious, intellectual and visual culture of the Jesuits, before turning to the religious theatre of Northern Italy. Here I concentrate on the Counter-Reform culture of religious spectacle, before arriving at Pozzo’s first recorded scenographies. In addition to their ritual function, I demonstrate how these works establish many of the recurring visual themes and techniques we see across Pozzo's work. In the third chapter I study Pozzo's earliest surviving major painting commission: the church of San Francesco Saverio at Mondovì. I present the church as a teatro sacro—a permanent ritual scenography of architecture and painting which evokes the elaborate ritual processions of the time. My fourth chapter focuses on the ephemeral scenographic works of Pozzo’s Roman period. Pozzo’s innovations in scenography and perspectival illusionism in Rome quickly establish his reputation and lead to the major commissions in the church of Sant'Ignazio, which I discuss with several major Roman works in my final chapter. The examination of the Roman projects returns us to the central theme of my thesis: art and architecture as theatre; both a setting for religious ritual and a means of persuasion through intellectual and spiritual engagement of the observer in a ritual performance. In order to pursue this line of argument I have consulted a wide array of sources and secondary literature across a number of fields. Important primary sources studied include Pozzo's two-volume treatise, Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum (1693,1700), Jesuit documents and archived correspondence, eighteenth-century biographies of Pozzo, prints and commemorative publications of festivals, works of classical authors, and theological writings of major figures in the seventeenth century. This project embraces a wide range of topics including painting, perspective, architecture, illusion, theatre and scenography, ritual and spectacle, theology, philosophy, early modern science, Counter-Reform religious culture, and Jesuit history

Fault recovery in process control

Fault Recovery in process control requires effective fault detection, diagnosis and recovery schemes, and a fault-tolPi-ant system design. Fault detection and diagnosis involves creating a realistic model of the process, and using this model to analyse for fault conditions. The fault detection principles include feature extraction and pattern recognition, and analogue value limits and rate cf change limits. Fault recovery scheme? cover the realisation of redundancy ana back-up sub-systems, and state restoration techniques in the form of complete shutdowns, backward and forward recovery to a safe operating state. System design concepts include for the development of process control systems towards *hierarchical, level based distribution of functions. The level-based discussion is used as the basis for effective fault tolerant system design. Two case studies are included to show how fault recovery schemes were effected in a single process computer and in a distributed control system. Abstrac

The Administrative Aspects of Education for Librarianship: A Symposium (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio

Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital Series: Andrew Rummel, Tuba; Gloria Cardoni-Smith, Piano; Brandon Sinnock, Horn; October 13, 2009

Center for the Performing ArtsOctober 13, 2009Tuesday Evening8:00 p.m

Faculty Brass Quintet: Amy Gilreath, Trumpet; Andrew Gerbitz, Trumpet; Libby Jones, Horn; Stephen Parsons, Trombone; Andrew Rummel, Tuba; March 30, 2010

Center for the Performing ArtsMarch 30, 2010Tuesday Evening8:00 p.m

Small scale rotational disorder observed in epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001)

Interest in the use of graphene in electronic devices has motivated an explosion in the study of this remarkable material. The simple, linear Dirac cone band structure offers a unique possibility to investigate its finer details by angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES). Indeed, ARPES has been performed on graphene grown on metal substrates but electronic applications require an insulating substrate. Epitaxial graphene grown by the thermal decomposition of silicon carbide (SiC) is an ideal candidate for this due to the large scale, uniform graphene layers produced. The experimental spectral function of epitaxial graphene on SiC has been extensively studied. However, until now the cause of an anisotropy in the spectral width of the Fermi surface has not been determined. In the current work we show, by comparison of the spectral function to a semi-empirical model, that the anisotropy is due to small scale rotational disorder ($\sim\pm$ 0.15$^{\circ}$) of graphene domains in graphene grown on SiC(0001) samples. In addition to the direct benefit in the understanding of graphene's electronic structure this work suggests a mechanism to explain similar variations in related ARPES data.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure