13 research outputs found

    Criminal Law--Use of Presumptions To Shift Burden of Proof

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    Abstracts of Recent Cases

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    Attorney and Client--Union Programs To Obtain Legal Counsel

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    High temperature fiber optic microphone having a pressure-sensing reflective membrane under tensile stress

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    A fiber optic microphone is provided for measuring fluctuating pressures. An optical fiber probe having at least one transmitting fiber for transmitting light to a pressure-sensing membrane and at least one receiving fiber for receiving light reflected from a stretched membrane is provided. The pressure-sensing membrane may be stretched for high frequency response. Further, a reflecting surface of the pressure-sensing membrane may have dimensions which substantially correspond to dimensions of a cross section of the optical fiber probe. Further, the fiber optic microphone can be made of materials for use in high temperature environments, for example greater than 1000 F. A fiber optic probe is also provided with a backplate for damping membrane motion. The backplate further provides a means for on-line calibration of the microphone

    Whole-Genome and Chromosome Evolution Associated with Host Adaptation and Speciation of the Wheat Pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola

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    The fungus Mycosphaerella graminicola has been a pathogen of wheat since host domestication 10,000–12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. The wheat-infecting lineage emerged from closely related Mycosphaerella pathogens infecting wild grasses. We use a comparative genomics approach to assess how the process of host specialization affected the genome structure of M. graminicola since divergence from the closest known progenitor species named M. graminicola S1. The genome of S1 was obtained by Illumina sequencing resulting in a 35 Mb draft genome sequence of 32X. Assembled contigs were aligned to the previously sequenced M. graminicola genome. The alignment covered >90% of the non-repetitive portion of the M. graminicola genome with an average divergence of 7%. The sequenced M. graminicola strain is known to harbor thirteen essential chromosomes plus eight dispensable chromosomes. We found evidence that structural rearrangements significantly affected the dispensable chromosomes while the essential chromosomes were syntenic. At the nucleotide level, the essential and dispensable chromosomes have evolved differently. The average synonymous substitution rate in dispensable chromosomes is considerably lower than in essential chromosomes, whereas the average non-synonymous substitution rate is three times higher. Differences in molecular evolution can be related to different transmission and recombination patterns, as well as to differences in effective population sizes of essential and dispensable chromosomes. In order to identify genes potentially involved in host specialization or speciation, we calculated ratios of synonymous and non-synonymous substitution rates in the >9,500 aligned protein coding genes. The genes are generally under strong purifying selection. We identified 43 candidate genes showing evidence of positive selection, one encoding a potential pathogen effector protein. We conclude that divergence of these pathogens was accompanied by structural rearrangements in the small dispensable chromosomes, while footprints of positive selection were present in only a small number of protein coding genes

    Standardized Metadata for Human Pathogen/Vector Genomic Sequences

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    <div><p>High throughput sequencing has accelerated the determination of genome sequences for thousands of human infectious disease pathogens and dozens of their vectors. The scale and scope of these data are enabling genotype-phenotype association studies to identify genetic determinants of pathogen virulence and drug/insecticide resistance, and phylogenetic studies to track the origin and spread of disease outbreaks. To maximize the utility of genomic sequences for these purposes, it is essential that metadata about the pathogen/vector isolate characteristics be collected and made available in organized, clear, and consistent formats. Here we report the development of the GSCID/BRC Project and Sample Application Standard, developed by representatives of the Genome Sequencing Centers for Infectious Diseases (GSCIDs), the Bioinformatics Resource Centers (BRCs) for Infectious Diseases, and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), informed by interactions with numerous collaborating scientists. It includes mapping to terms from other data standards initiatives, including the Genomic Standards Consortium’s minimal information (MIxS) and NCBI’s BioSample/BioProjects checklists and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). The standard includes data fields about characteristics of the organism or environmental source of the specimen, spatial-temporal information about the specimen isolation event, phenotypic characteristics of the pathogen/vector isolated, and project leadership and support. By modeling metadata fields into an ontology-based semantic framework and reusing existing ontologies and minimum information checklists, the application standard can be extended to support additional project-specific data fields and integrated with other data represented with comparable standards. The use of this metadata standard by all ongoing and future GSCID sequencing projects will provide a consistent representation of these data in the BRC resources and other repositories that leverage these data, allowing investigators to identify relevant genomic sequences and perform comparative genomics analyses that are both statistically meaningful and biologically relevant.</p></div

    Core Project Attributes.

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    <p>*Mandatory NCBI BioProject attributes.</p

    Semantic Network of the Core Sample Data Fields.

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    <p>A semantic representation of the entities relevant to describe infectious disease samples based on the OBI and other OBO Foundry ontologies is shown. Distinctions are made between material entities (blue outlines), information entities and qualities (black outlines), and processes (red outlines). Entities are connected by standard semantic relations, in <i>italic</i>. The subset of entities selected as Core Sample fields are noted with ovals containing the respective Field ID. For example, the OBI:organism <i>has_quality</i> “Specimen Source Gender” (CS5), which is equivalent to the PATO:biological sex, and <i>has_quality</i> PATO:age, and <i>has_quality</i> “Specimen Source Health Status” (CS8), which is equivalent to PATO:organismal status. PATO:age <i>is_quality_measured_as</i> OBI:age since birth measurement datum, which <i>has_measurement_value</i> “Specimen Source Age – Value” (CS6) and <i>has_measurement_unit_label</i> “Specimen Source Age – Unit” (CS7).</p

    Semantic Network of the Core Project Data Fields.

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    <p>A semantic representation of the entities relevant to describe infectious disease projects based on the OBI and other OBO Foundry ontologies is shown. Distinctions are made between material entities (blue outlines), information entities and qualities (black outlines), and processes (red outlines). Entities are connected by standard semantic relations, in <i>italic</i>. The subset of entities selected as Core Project fields are noted with ovals containing the respective Field ID. For example, both the “Project Title” (CP1) and “Project ID” (CP2) <i>denote</i> an OBI:Investigation; the “Project Description” (CP3) <i>is_about</i> the same OBI:Investigation.</p
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