Inferring the function of genes from synthetic lethal mutations

Techniques for detecting synthetic lethal mutations in double gene deletion experiments are emerging as powerful tool for analysing genes in parallel or overlapping pathways with a shared function. This paper introduces a logic-based approach that uses synthetic lethal mutations for mapping genes of unknown function to enzymes in a known metabolic network. We show how such mappings can be automatically computed by a logical learning system called eXtended Hybrid Abductive Inductive Learning (XHAIL)

Improving School Leadership: The Connection of Transformational Leadership and Psychological Well-Being of the Followers

In this current era of public school accountability in the United States, the passage of No Child Left Behind resulted in dramatic changes for public school districts (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Although the recent reauthorization, entitled Every Student Succeeds Act, allowed greater flexibility on the state and local levels, effective school leadership still remained a critical factor when establishing and maintaining high standards of student learning (Executive Office of the President, 2015). Onorato (2013) noted the federal and state accountability mandates have forced public school administrators to transform the educational environment while serving as instructional leaders for teachers and students. Additionally, Onorato noted as accountability pressures increased, educational leaders were compelled to strengthen student achievement through increased leadership qualities. Furthermore, transformational leadership empowered the followers to strive with higher levels of confidence and motivation while the followers also assumed the traits and actions of transformational leadership (Onorato, 2013). This phenomenological narrative study was designed to describe the transformational leadership components of selected superintendents in the state of Texas, which directly affected a follower\u27s psychological well-being. All seven individuals who participated in the research study were current or recent superintendents with experience in turning around a low-performing campus or district. The leader participants self-identified their own transformational leadership skills using the MLQ SX-Short by Avolio and Bass (2013). The research questions allowed for further investigation into the influence of the four components of transformational leadership on the follower\u27s psychological well-being. Findings indicated idealized influence and inspirational motivation as the most dominant transformational leadership components of the participants. Findings also emphasized the importance of the positive impact of transformational leadership processes on the follower\u27s psychological well-being

Lights Attracting Insects

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Pruning classification rules with instance reduction methods

Generating classification rules from data often leads to large sets of rules that need to be pruned. A new pre-pruning technique for rule induction is presented which applies instance reduction before rule induction. Training three rule classifiers on datasets that have been reduced earlier with instance reduction methods leads to a statistically significant lower number of generated rules, without adversely affecting the predictive performance. The search strategies used by the three algorithms vary in terms of both type (depth-first or beam search) and direction (general-to-specific or specific-to-general)

Semiconductor-metal nanoparticle molecules: hybrid excitons and non-linear Fano effect

Modern nanotechnology opens the possibility of combining nanocrystals of various materials with very different characteristics in one superstructure. The resultant superstructure may provide new physical properties not encountered in homogeneous systems. Here we study theoretically the optical properties of hybrid molecules composed of semiconductor and metal nanoparticles. Excitons and plasmons in such a hybrid molecule become strongly coupled and demonstrate novel properties. At low incident light intensity, the exciton peak in the absorption spectrum is broadened and shifted due to incoherent and coherent interactions between metal and semiconductor nanoparticles. At high light intensity, the absorption spectrum demonstrates a surprising, strongly asymmetric shape. This shape originates from the coherent inter-nanoparticle Coulomb interaction and can be viewed as a non-linear Fano effect which is quite different from the usual linear Fano resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Coordinating Diverse Public Programs in the Library

In spring of 2015, the University of Oregon Libraries (UO Libraries) co-sponsored a release event for the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015 Report to increase campus diversity initiatives and community engagement. The event inspired collaboration across the campus and state to bring together multiple university and community partners, including UO Libraries, the University of Oregon’s Planning, Public Policy, and Management Program (PPPM), and the Urban League of Portland (ULPDX). Collaborations between libraries, nonprofit organizations, and other stakeholders highlight one aspect of the central role libraries serve as connectors in the local and regional communities. By co-sponsoring this event, UO Libraries furthered the University of Oregon’s educational mission to promote public scholarship and civic engagement, support community development, and increase diversity through meaningful and thoughtful programs. This article will detail how this partnership materialized, from buy-in to execution, as well as recommendations for libraries interested in coordinating with local community-centered nonprofit organizations to develop opportunities for diverse public programs throughout Oregon

Modelling the Northeast Atlantic circulation : implications for the spring invasion of shelf regions by Calanus finmarchicus

The appearance in spring of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus in continental shelf waters of the northeastern Atlantic has been hypothesized to be mainly attributable to invasion from across the continental slope rather than in situ overwintering. This paper describes the application of a hydrodynamic circulation model and a particle-tracking model to Northeast Atlantic waters in order to assess the influence of the flow field and ascent migration parameters on the spring invasion of C. finmarchicus. For hydrodynamic modelling, the Hamburg Shelf-Ocean Model (HAMSOM) was applied to the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas and forced with daily mean atmospheric data. Simulated flow fields from HAMSOM serve as forcing functions for a particle-tracking model of the same region. The robustness of the simulated shelf invasion in three target boxes of the Northeast Atlantic Shelf was assessed by means of a sensitivity analysis with respect to variations in four key migration parameters: overwintering depth, ascent rate, ascent timing, and depth during residence in upper layers. The invasion of the northern North Sea and Norwegian Shelf waters is more sensitive to ascent migration parameters than invasion of the Faroese Shelf. The main reason for enhanced sensitivity of the North Sea invasion is the time and space-dependent flow structure in the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Dense aggregations of overwintering C. finmarchicus are found in the Channel, but because of the complex flow field only a proportion of the overwintering stock has the capacity to reach the North Sea

Deciding Quantifier-Free Presburger Formulas Using Parameterized Solution Bounds

Given a formula in quantifier-free Presburger arithmetic, if it has a satisfying solution, there is one whose size, measured in bits, is polynomially bounded in the size of the formula. In this paper, we consider a special class of quantifier-free Presburger formulas in which most linear constraints are difference (separation) constraints, and the non-difference constraints are sparse. This class has been observed to commonly occur in software verification. We derive a new solution bound in terms of parameters characterizing the sparseness of linear constraints and the number of non-difference constraints, in addition to traditional measures of formula size. In particular, we show that the number of bits needed per integer variable is linear in the number of non-difference constraints and logarithmic in the number and size of non-zero coefficients in them, but is otherwise independent of the total number of linear constraints in the formula. The derived bound can be used in a decision procedure based on instantiating integer variables over a finite domain and translating the input quantifier-free Presburger formula to an equi-satisfiable Boolean formula, which is then checked using a Boolean satisfiability solver. In addition to our main theoretical result, we discuss several optimizations for deriving tighter bounds in practice. Empirical evidence indicates that our decision procedure can greatly outperform other decision procedures.Comment: 26 page