Taxonomy Induction using Hypernym Subsequences

We propose a novel, semi-supervised approach towards domain taxonomy induction from an input vocabulary of seed terms. Unlike all previous approaches, which typically extract direct hypernym edges for terms, our approach utilizes a novel probabilistic framework to extract hypernym subsequences. Taxonomy induction from extracted subsequences is cast as an instance of the minimumcost flow problem on a carefully designed directed graph. Through experiments, we demonstrate that our approach outperforms stateof- the-art taxonomy induction approaches across four languages. Importantly, we also show that our approach is robust to the presence of noise in the input vocabulary. To the best of our knowledge, no previous approaches have been empirically proven to manifest noise-robustness in the input vocabulary

Electronic Instrumentation

Contains research objectives and reports on four research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 505 FR07047-01

The site of attachment of retinal in bacteriorhodopsin. The epsilon-amino group in Lys-41 is not required for proton translocation

Chymotryptic fragments C-1 (amino acids 72-248) and C-2 (amino acids 1-71) of bacteriorhodopsin have been shown previously to reassociate so as to regenerate the native bacteriorhodopsin chromophore in lipid/detergent mixtures and to form functional proton-translocating vesicles. The fragment C-2 has now been selectively methylated with formaldehyde and sodium cyanoborohydride to give the epsilon-dimethylamino derivatives of Lys-30, 40, and 41 in 96-99% average yield. The methylated and unmethylated C-2 fragments were identical in their ability to reassociate with fragment C-1 and retinal to regenerate the bacteriorhodopsin chromophore and to form functional proton-translocating vesicles. In contrast, dimethylation of the lysine residues of the C-1 fragment gave a derivative which did not form an active complex with unmethylated C-2. We conclude that the epsilon-amino group in Lys-41 is not required for Schiff's base formation with retinal at any step in the light-driven proton-translocation cycle

Association between self-rating depression scores and total ghrelin and adipokine serum levels in a large population-based sample

Background: Ghrelin and the adipokines leptin and adiponectin have been suggested to be involved in mood and anxiety regulation and to be altered in affective disorders. However, studies investigating the association between ghrelin, leptin and adiponectin and depressive symptomatology are scarce but might contribute to a better understanding of their involvement in mood regulation. We thus aimed investigating the association between depressive symptomatology and total ghrelin as well as leptin and adiponectin serum levels in a large population-based sample. Methods: Total serum ghrelin, adiponectin and leptin levels were determined in 1666 subjects of a population-based cross-sectional study (“LIFE”). The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and the Inventory of Depressive Symptoms – Self Rating (IDS-SR) were administered. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between total serum ghrelin, leptin and adiponectin and the intensity of depressive symptoms. Results: In the total sample (n = 1,092), neither ghrelin nor leptin or adiponectin serum levels showed a significant association with CES-D or IDS-SR sum scores (N = 1,092) or in depressed/non-depressed subjects. Leptin serum levels showed a significantly positive association with IDS-SR sum scores in elderly men (≥60 years; β = 0.122, 95% CI: 0.009; 0.236; p = 0.035). Conclusion: Our study suggests that peripheral levels of ghrelin and adipokines in a cross-sectional study design might not be sufficient to measure their involvement in depression, suggesting that associations are more complex and multi-layered. Copyright © 2022 Wittekind, Kratzsch, Biemann, Mergl, Riedel-Heller, Witte, Villringer and Kluge

Fecal Metaproteomics Reveals Reduced Gut Inflammation and Changed Microbial Metabolism Following Lifestyle-Induced Weight Loss

Gut microbiota-mediated inflammation promotes obesity-associated low-grade inflammation, which represents a hallmark of metabolic syndrome. To investigate if lifestyle-induced weight loss (WL) may modulate the gut microbiome composition and its interaction with the host on a functional level, we analyzed the fecal metaproteome of 33 individuals with metabolic syndrome in a longitudinal study before and after lifestyle-induced WL in a well-defined cohort. The 6-month WL intervention resulted in reduced BMI (−13.7%), improved insulin sensitivity (HOMA-IR, −46.1%), and reduced levels of circulating hsCRP (−39.9%), indicating metabolic syndrome reversal. The metaprotein spectra revealed a decrease of human proteins associated with gut inflammation. Taxonomic analysis revealed only minor changes in the bacterial composition with an increase of the families Desulfovibrionaceae, Leptospiraceae, Syntrophomonadaceae, Thermotogaceae and Verrucomicrobiaceae. Yet we detected an increased abundance of microbial metaprotein spectra that suggest an enhanced hydrolysis of complex carbohydrates. Hence, lifestyle-induced WL was associated with reduced gut inflammation and functional changes of human and microbial enzymes for carbohydrate hydrolysis while the taxonomic composition of the gut microbiome remained almost stable. The metaproteomics workflow has proven to be a suitable method for monitoring inflammatory changes in the fecal metaproteome

Novel model of neuronal bioenergetics: postsynaptic utilization of glucose but not lactate correlates positively with Ca2+ signalling in cultured mouse glutamatergic neurons

We have previously investigated the relative roles of extracellular glucose and lactate as fuels for glutamatergic neurons during synaptic activity. The conclusion from these studies was that cultured glutamatergic neurons utilize glucose rather than lactate during NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate)-induced synaptic activity and that lactate alone is not able to support neurotransmitter glutamate homoeostasis. Subsequently, a model was proposed to explain these results at the cellular level. In brief, the intermittent rises in intracellular Ca2+ during activation cause influx of Ca2+ into the mitochondrial matrix thus activating the tricarboxylic acid cycle dehydrogenases. This will lead to a lower activity of the MASH (malate–aspartate shuttle), which in turn will result in anaerobic glycolysis and lactate production rather than lactate utilization. In the present work, we have investigated the effect of an ionomycin-induced increase in intracellular Ca2+ (i.e. independent of synaptic activity) on neuronal energy metabolism employing 13C-labelled glucose and lactate and subsequent mass spectrometric analysis of labelling in glutamate, alanine and lactate. The results demonstrate that glucose utilization is positively correlated with intracellular Ca2+ whereas lactate utilization is not. This result lends further support for a significant role of glucose in neuronal bioenergetics and that Ca2+ signalling may control the switch between glucose and lactate utilization during synaptic activity. Based on the results, we propose a compartmentalized CiMASH (Ca2+-induced limitation of the MASH) model that includes intracellular compartmentation of glucose and lactate metabolism. We define pre- and post-synaptic compartments metabolizing glucose and glucose plus lactate respectively in which the latter displays a positive correlation between oxidative metabolism of glucose and Ca2+ signalling

Анализ применимости численных алгоритмов для моделирования процессов в топке котла с циркулирующим кипящим слоем

Моделирование различных задач связано с решением систем дифференциальных уравнений с большим числом неизвестных, что приводит к их упрощению и соответственно отражается на качестве расчета. Данная работа направлена на оценку применимости тех или иных математических алгоритмов для получения качественного моделирования процессов в энергетических котлах с циркулирующим кипящим слоемModeling of various tasks related to the solution of systems of differential equations with a large number of unknowns, which leads to their simplification and, accordingly, affect the quality of the calculation. This work aims to assess the applicability of those or other mathematical algorithms to obtain a quantitative simulation of processes in power boilers with circulating fluidized bed