2,392 research outputs found
Hindgut specification and cell-adhesion functions of Sphox11/13b in the endoderm of the sea urchin embryo
Sphox11/13b is one of the two hox genes of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus expressed in the embryo. Its
dynamic pattern of expression begins during gastrulation, when the transcripts are transiently located in a
ring of cells at the edge of the blastopore. After gastrulation, expression is restricted to the anusâhindgut
region at the boundary between the ectoderm and the endoderm. The phenotype that results when translation
of Sphox11/13b mRNA is knocked down by treatment with morpholino antisense oligonucleotides (MASO)
suggests that this gene may be indirectly involved in cell adhesion functions as well as in the proper
differentiation of the midgutâhindgut and midgutâforegut sphincters. The MASO experiments also reveal that
Sphox11/13b negatively regulates several downstream endomesoderm genes. For some of these genes,
Sphox11/13b function is required to restrict expression to the midgut by preventing ectopic expression in the
hindgut. The evolutionary conservation of these functions indicates the general roles of posterior Hox genes
in regulating cell-adhesion, as well as in spatial control of gene regulatory network subcircuits in the
regionalizing gut
Spatial expression of Hox cluster genes in the ontogeny of a sea urchin
The Hox cluster of the sea urchin Strongylocentrous purpuratus contains ten genes in a 500 kb span of the genome. Only two of these genes are expressed during embryogenesis, while all of eight genes tested are expressed during development of the adult body plan in the larval stage. We report the spatial expression during larval development of the five 'posterior' genes of the cluster: SpHox7, SpHox8, SpHox9/10, SpHox11/13a and SpHox11/13b. The five genes exhibit a dynamic, largely mesodermal program of expression. Only SpHox7 displays extensive expression within the pentameral rudiment itself. A spatially sequential and colinear arrangement of expression domains is found in the somatocoels, the paired posterior mesodermal structures that will become the adult perivisceral coeloms. No such sequential expression pattern is observed in endodermal, epidermal or neural tissues of either the larva or the presumptive juvenile sea urchin. The spatial expression patterns of the Hox genes illuminate the evolutionary process by which the pentameral echinoderm body plan emerged from a bilateral ancestor
Optimal map of the modular structure of complex networks
Modular structure is pervasive in many complex networks of interactions
observed in natural, social and technological sciences. Its study sheds light
on the relation between the structure and function of complex systems.
Generally speaking, modules are islands of highly connected nodes separated by
a relatively small number of links. Every module can have contributions of
links from any node in the network. The challenge is to disentangle these
contributions to understand how the modular structure is built. The main
problem is that the analysis of a certain partition into modules involves, in
principle, as many data as number of modules times number of nodes. To confront
this challenge, here we first define the contribution matrix, the mathematical
object containing all the information about the partition of interest, and
after, we use a Truncated Singular Value Decomposition to extract the best
representation of this matrix in a plane. The analysis of this projection allow
us to scrutinize the skeleton of the modular structure, revealing the structure
of individual modules and their interrelations.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure
On the universality of the scaling of fluctuations in traffic on complex networks
We study the scaling of fluctuations with the mean of traffic in complex
networks using a model where the arrival and departure of "packets" follow
exponential distributions, and the processing capability of nodes is either
unlimited or finite. The model presents a wide variety of exponents between 1/2
and 1 for this scaling, revealing their dependence on the few parameters
considered, and questioning the existence of universality classes. We also
report the experimental scaling of the fluctuations in the Internet for the
Abilene backbone network. We found scaling exponents between 0.71 and 0.86 that
do not fit with the exponent 1/2 reported in the literature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Magnetodielectric coupling of infrared phonons in single crystal CuOSeO
Reflection and transmission as a function of temperature have been measured
on a single crystal of the magnetoelectric ferrimagnetic compound
CuOSeO utilizing light spanning the far infrared to the visible
portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The complex dielectric function and
optical properties were obtained via Kramers-Kronig analysis and by fits to a
Drude-Lortentz model. The fits of the infrared phonons show a magnetodielectric
effect near the transition temperature (~K). Assignments to
strong far infrared phonon modes have been made, especially those exhibiting
anomalous behavior around the transition temperature
The backbone of the climate network
We propose a method to reconstruct and analyze a complex network from data
generated by a spatio-temporal dynamical system, relying on the nonlinear
mutual information of time series analysis and betweenness centrality of
complex network theory. We show, that this approach reveals a rich internal
structure in complex climate networks constructed from reanalysis and model
surface air temperature data. Our novel method uncovers peculiar wave-like
structures of high energy flow, that we relate to global surface ocean
currents. This points to a major role of the oceanic surface circulation in
coupling and stabilizing the global temperature field in the long term mean
(140 years for the model run and 60 years for reanalysis data). We find that
these results cannot be obtained using classical linear methods of multivariate
data analysis, and have ensured their robustness by intensive significance
testing.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Explosive Synchronization Transitions in Scale-free Networks
The emergence of explosive collective phenomena has recently attracted much
attention due to the discovery of an explosive percolation transition in
complex networks. In this Letter, we demonstrate how an explosive transition
shows up in the synchronization of complex heterogeneous networks by
incorporating a microscopic correlation between the structural and the
dynamical properties of the system. The characteristics of this explosive
transition are analytically studied in a star graph reproducing the results
obtained in synthetic scale-free networks. Our findings represent the first
abrupt synchronization transition in complex networks thus providing a deeper
understanding of the microscopic roots of explosive critical phenomena.Comment: 6 pages and 5 figures. To appear in Physical Review Letter
Paths to Synchronization on Complex Networks
The understanding of emergent collective phenomena in natural and social
systems has driven the interest of scientists from different disciplines during
decades. Among these phenomena, the synchronization of a set of interacting
individuals or units has been intensively studied because of its ubiquity in
the natural world. In this paper, we show how for fixed coupling strengths
local patterns of synchronization emerge differently in homogeneous and
heterogeneous complex networks, driving the process towards a certain global
synchronization degree following different paths. The dependence of the
dynamics on the coupling strength and on the topology is unveiled. This study
provides a new perspective and tools to understand this emerging phenomena.Comment: Final version published in Physical Review Letter
Nonequilibrium phase transition in a model for the propagation of innovations among economic agents
We characterize the different morphological phases that occur in a simple
one-dimensional model of propagation of innovations among economic agents [X.\
Guardiola, {\it et. al.}, Phys. Rev E {\bf 66}, 026121 (2002)]. We show that
the model can be regarded as a nonequilibrium surface growth model. This allows
us to demonstrate the presence of a continuous roughening transition between a
flat (system size independent fluctuations) and a rough phase (system size
dependent fluctuations). Finite-size scaling studies at the transition strongly
suggest that the dynamic critical transition does not belong to directed
percolation and, in fact, critical exponents do not seem to fit in any of the
known universality classes of nonequilibrium phase transitions. Finally, we
present an explanation for the occurrence of the roughening transition and
argue that avalanche driven dynamics is responsible for the novel critical
behavior
A message-passing approach to epidemic tracing and mitigation with apps
(5 pages,4 figures +SM)(5 pages,4 figures +SM)With the hit of new pandemic threats, scientific frameworks are needed to understand the unfolding of the epidemic. The use of mobile apps that are able to trace contacts is of utmost importance in order to control new infected cases and contain further propagation. Here we present a theoretical approach using both percolation and message--passing techniques, to the role of contact tracing, in mitigating an epidemic wave. We show how the increase of the app adoption level raises the value of the epidemic threshold, which is eventually maximized when high-degree nodes are preferentially targeted. Analytical results are compared with extensive Monte Carlo simulations showing good agreement for both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. These results are important to quantify the level of adoption needed for contact-tracing apps to be effective in mitigating an epidemic
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