Analysis of Internal Deletions of a Rat Col1a1 Promoter Fragment in Transfected ROS17/2.8 Cells

The aim of this paper is identification of regulatory sequences downstream of –1683 base pairs (bp) in the rat Col1a1 promoter important for expression in osteoblasts. Previous findings suggest that a rat Col1a1 gene fragment extending from –1719 to +115 bp linked to the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) reporter gene (ColCAT1719) is highly and selectively expressed in osteoblasts. Three internal deletions within the ColCAT1719 construct were generated and stably transfected into ROS 17/2.8 cells. CAT activity was measured in cell extracts. An internal deletion of ColCAT1719 from –1637 to –504 bp caused an almost complete loss of CAT activity, whereas deletions of –1284 to –905 bp and –1284 to –451 bp had little effect on CAT activity. We hypothesized that removal of a Runx2/Cbfa1 consensus site at –1376 bp may have caused the loss of activity produced by the –1637 to –504 bp deletion. To test this hypothesis, we produced a more restricted internal deletion of ColCAT1719 from –1418 to –1284 bp, which removes this site. This deletion did not affect promoter activity. Our results suggest that the Runx2 site at –1376 bp by itself does not influence Col1719 promoter activity. Future studies will focus on the region between –1637 to 1418 bp, which contains several potentially interesting transcription factor binding sites

Analysis of Internal Deletions of a Rat Col1a1 Promoter Fragment in Transfected ROS17/2.8 Cells

The aim of this paper is identification of regulatory sequences downstream of –1683 base pairs (bp) in the rat Col1a1 promoter important for expression in osteoblasts. Previous findings suggest that a rat Col1a1 gene fragment extending from –1719 to +115 bp linked to the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) reporter gene (ColCAT1719) is highly and selectively expressed in osteoblasts. Three internal deletions within the ColCAT1719 construct were generated and stably transfected into ROS 17/2.8 cells. CAT activity was measured in cell extracts. An internal deletion of ColCAT1719 from –1637 to –504 bp caused an almost complete loss of CAT activity, whereas deletions of –1284 to –905 bp and –1284 to –451 bp had little effect on CAT activity. We hypothesized that removal of a Runx2/Cbfa1 consensus site at –1376 bp may have caused the loss of activity produced by the –1637 to –504 bp deletion. To test this hypothesis, we produced a more restricted internal deletion of ColCAT1719 from –1418 to –1284 bp, which removes this site. This deletion did not affect promoter activity. Our results suggest that the Runx2 site at –1376 bp by itself does not influence Col1719 promoter activity. Future studies will focus on the region between –1637 to 1418 bp, which contains several potentially interesting transcription factor binding sites

Critical behavior of the long-range Ising chain from the largest-cluster probability distribution

Monte Carlo simulations of the 1D Ising model with ferromagnetic interactions decaying with distance $r$ as $1/r^{1+\sigma}$ are performed by applying the Swendsen-Wang cluster algorithm with cumulative probabilities. The critical behavior in the non-classical critical regime corresponding to $0.5 <\sigma < 1$ is derived from the finite-size scaling analysis of the largest cluster.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, in RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (Feb 2001

Developing European conservation and mitigation tools for pollination services: approaches of the STEP (Status and Trends of European Pollinators) project

Pollinating insects form a key component of European biodiversity, and provide a vital ecosystem service to crops and wild plants. There is growing evidence of declines in both wild and domesticated pollinators, and parallel declines in plants relying upon them. The STEP project (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, 2010-2015, www.stepproject.net) is documenting critical elements in the nature and extent of these declines, examining key functional traits associated with pollination deficits, and developing a Red List for some European pollinator groups. Together these activities are laying the groundwork for future pollinator monitoring programmes. STEP is also assessing the relative importance of potential drivers of pollinator declines, including climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, light pollution, and their interactions. We are measuring the ecological and economic impacts of declining pollinator services and floral resources, including effects on wild plant populations, crop production and human nutrition. STEP is reviewing existing and potential mitigation options, and providing novel tests of their effectiveness across Europe. Our work is building upon existing and newly developed datasets and models, complemented by spatially-replicated campaigns of field research to fill gaps in current knowledge. Findings are being integrated into a policy-relevant framework to create evidence-based decision support tools. STEP is establishing communication links to a wide range of stakeholders across Europe and beyond, including policy makers, beekeepers, farmers, academics and the general public. Taken together, the STEP research programme aims to improve our understanding of the nature, causes, consequences and potential mitigation of declines in pollination services at local, national, continental and global scales

A strategy to incorporate prior knowledge into correlation network cutoff selection

Correlation networks are frequently used to statistically extract biological interactions between omics markers. Network edge selection is typically based on the statistical significance of the correlation coefficients. This procedure, however, is not guaranteed to capture biological mechanisms. We here propose an alternative approach for network reconstruction: a cutoff selection algorithm that maximizes the overlap of the inferred network with available prior knowledge. We first evaluate the approach on IgG glycomics data, for which the biochemical pathway is known and well-characterized. Importantly, even in the case of incomplete or incorrect prior knowledge, the optimal network is close to the true optimum. We then demonstrate the generalizability of the approach with applications to untargeted metabolomics and transcriptomics data. For the transcriptomics case, we demonstrate that the optimized network is superior to statistical networks in systematically retrieving interactions that were not included in the biological reference used for optimization

Electromagnetic Wave Theory and Applications

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on four research projects.California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Agreement 959548National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NAGW-1617National Aeronautics and Space Administration Agreement 958461U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-89-J-1107U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1616U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-4098Digital Equipment CorporationJoint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Agreement N00014-90-J-1002U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Agreement N00014-89-J-1019DEMACOU.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory Contract DACA89-93-K-0009U.S. Department of Transportation Agreement DTRS-57-92-C-00054TTD1Advanced Research Projects Agency/Consortium for Superconducting Electronics Contract MDA972-90-C-0021National Science Foundation Fellowship MIP 88-58764National Science Foundatio

Toxicological Effects of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Noxious Agents in Modern Warfare and Terorrism

Oružja za masovno uništavanje najbolji su primjer uporabe civilizacijskih tehnoloških dostignuća u štetne svrhe i protiv ljudske civilizacije. Unatoč nastojanjima oko kontrole i smanjenja njihove količine, rizik zbog samoga postojanja pa čak i širenja zahtijeva da se o njihovoj uporabi i dalje vodi računa i da se povećaju obrambene mjere – nuklearno-biološko-kemijske obrane (NBKO). Osim suvremenog vojnika koji je u vojnim i mirovnim operacijama diljem svijeta izložen raznim noksama kemijskog, biološkog i radiološkog podrijetla, nezaštićeno i uglavnom slabo educirano civilno stanovništvo može biti izloženo terorističkim napadima. Oružja za masovno uništavanje i nokse kemijskog, biološkog i radiološkog podrijetla uzrokuju razne toksikološke posljedice, a bez obzira na njihovo podrijetlo, imaju zajednički nazivnik djelovanja – poremećaj fi ziološkog stanja u organizmu. Poremećaji proizašli nakon izlaganja tim noksama nerijetko se teško determiniraju, dijagnosticiraju i liječe. U ovome su radu s biomedicinskog aspekta obrađene važnije nokse kemijskog, biološkog i radiološkog podrijetla na temelju odabranih primjera iz terorizma i suvremenog ratovanja: polonij-210, osiromašeni uran, salmonela, bedrenica (antraks), genetički modifi cirane bakterije, polimerno predivo “paučina” i bojni otrovi sarin i iperit.Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) best portray the twisted use of technological achievements against the human species. Despite arm control efforts, WMD threat continues to exist and even proliferate. This in turn calls for improvement in defensive measures against this threat. The modern soldier is exposed to a number of chemical, biological, and radiological agents in military and peace operations, while civilians are mainly exposed to terrorist attacks. Regardless of origin or mode of action, WMDs and other noxious agents aim for the same – to make an organism dysfunctional. Because their effects are often delayed, these agents are hard to spot on time and treat. This review presents a biomedical aspect of agents used in warfare and terrorism, including polonium-210, depleted uranium, salmonella, anthrax, genetically modifi ed bacteria, cobweb-like polymer fi bre, sarin, and mustard gas

An update on the Axion Helioscopes front: current activities at CAST and the IAXO project

Although they have not yet been detected, axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) continue to maintain the interest (even increasingly so) of the rare-event searches community as viable candidates for the Dark Matter of the Universe but also as a solution for several other puzzles of astrophysics. Their property of coupling to photons has inspired different experimental methods for their detection, one of which is the helioscope technique. The CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) is the most sensitive helioscope built up to date and has recently published part of the latest data taken with the magnet bores gradually filled with 3He, probing the mass range up to 1.17 eV. The International AXion Observatory (IAXO) is being proposed as a facility where different axion studies can be performed, with the primary goal to study axions coming from the Sun. Designed to maximize sensitivity, it will improve the levels reached by CAST by almost 5 orders of magnitude in signal detection, that is more than one order of magnitude in terms of gaγ. Here we will summarize the most important aspects of the helioscopes, and focus mainly on IAXO, based on the recent papers [1, 2]