On finding widest empty curved corridors

Open archive-ElsevierAn α-siphon of width w is the locus of points in the plane that are at the same distance w from a 1-corner polygonal chain C such that α is the interior angle of C. Given a set P of n points in the plane and a fixed angle α, we want to compute the widest empty α-siphon that splits P into two non-empty sets.We present an efficient O(n log3 n)-time algorithm for computing the widest oriented α-siphon through P such that the orientation of a half-line of C is known.We also propose an O(n3 log2 n)-time algorithm for the widest arbitrarily-oriented version and an (nlog n)-time algorithm for the widest arbitrarily-oriented α-siphon anchored at a given point

Cytochrome c signalosome in mitochondria

Cytochrome c delicately tilts the balance between cell life (respiration) and cell death (apoptosis). Whereas cell life is governed by transient electron transfer interactions of cytochrome c inside the mitochondria, the cytoplasmic adducts of cytochrome c that lead to cell death are amazingly stable. Interestingly, the contacts of cytochrome c with its counterparts shift from the area surrounding the heme crevice for the redox complexes to the opposite molecule side when the electron flow is not necessary. The cytochrome c signalosome shows a higher level of regulation by post-translational modifications—nitration and phosphorylation—of the hemeprotein. Understanding protein interfaces, as well as protein modifications, would puzzle the mitochondrial cytochrome c-controlled pathways out and enable the design of novel drugs to silence the action of pro-survival and pro-apoptotic partners of cytochrome c.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation BFU2009-07190Andalusian Government BIO198 P08-CVI-387

Maths, Computation and Flamenco: overview and challenges

Flamenco is a rich performance-oriented art music genre from Southern Spain which attracts a growing community of aficionados around the globe. Due to its improvisational and expressive nature, its unique musical characteristics, and the fact that the genre is largely undocumented, flamenco poses a number of interesting mathematical and computational challenges. Most existing approaches in Musical Information Retrieval (MIR) were developed in the context of popular or classical music and do often not generalize well to non-Western music traditions, in particular when the underlying music theoretical assumptions do not hold for these genres. Over the recent decade, a number of computational problems related to the automatic analysis of flamenco music have been defined and several methods addressing a variety of musical aspects have been proposed. This paper provides an overview of the challenges which arise in the context of computational analysis of flamenco music and outlines an overview of existing approaches

NRT2.5 a putative sodium dependent high affinity nitrate trasnporter of zostera marina l.

Seagrasses are the only group of vascular plants that recolonized the marine environment, possibly the most severe habitat shift ever accomplished by flowering plants. These plants have regained functions enabling them to thrive in liquid medium with an extremely high salinity (0.5 M Na+), high alkaline conditions (pH 8.2) and very low concentration of essential nutrients as NO3- or Pi. Despite this, seagrasses form one of the highest productive and widespread ecosystems of the planet (Larkum et al., 2006). Zostera marina was the first seagrass fully sequenced and its genome reveals important insights about this secondary adaption. Comparison with land plants indicates that less than 20 % of the genes families are specific in the genome of seagrasses. Thus, adaptation to marine environment seems to be due to molecular changes of the same family genes rather that the speciation of pre-existing genes. This appears to be the case of the high affinity nitrate transporter belonging to the NRT family. In contrast to terrestrial vascular plants, where NRT2 encode high affinity NO3- transporters that operate as H+ symporters, our electrophysiological analysis indicate that in Z. marina high affinity NO3- uptake is mediated by a Na+-dependent mechanism. A detailed analysis of the Z. marina genome indicates the presence of only one gene encoding for this type of transporter: Zosma70g00300.1. Phylogenetic analysis shows that this high affinity nitrate transporter is more related to NRT2.5 than to NTRT2.1, sharing a common ancestor with both, monocot and dicot plants. We have cloned Zosma70g00300.1 and the high-affinity nitrate transporter accessory protein NAR2 (Zosma63g00220.1) in order to characterize the specific transport mechanism mediated by these proteins in Z. marina. Thus, the putative Z. marina NRT2.5 transporter could have evolved to use Na+ as a driving ion, which might be an essential adaptation of seagrasses to colonize the marine environment.MICINN (BFU2017-85117-R; BIO2016-81957-REDT) Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Determinant factors of pull up performance in trainedathletes

Aim: to investigate the relationship among pull up and lat pull exercises and differentanthropometric dimensions in trained athletes. Methods: twenty-five males were evaluated for maximum number of pull ups, one-repetitionmaximum lat pull (1RM Lat Pull), lat pull repetitions at 80% 1RM (Lat Pull at 80% 1RM), latpull repetitions at a load equivalent to body mass (Lat Pull at BM-load), and differentanthropometric variables. Furthermore, the subjects were divided in higher (HPG, n = 12) andlower pull up performance (LPG, n = 13) to compare the differences in the variables analyzedbetween both levels. Results: pull ups were significantly correlated with Lat Pull at BM-load (r = .62, P < .01) butneither with 1RM Lat Pull (r = .09) nor with Lat Pull at 80% 1RM (r = -.15). Pull ups showed asignificant (P < .05) negative relationship with body mass (BM, r = -.55), lean body mass(LBM, r = -.51), and fat mass (FM, r = -.52), while BM and LBM were significantly correlatedwith 1RM Lat Pull (r = .55, P < .05). HPG showed significantly (P < .05) lower BM (0/3/97%),FM (1/3/97%) and LBM (1/4/95%) than LPG. Furthermore, HPG attained significantly (P < .05– .001) greater performance in Lat Pull at BM-load (100/0/0%) and 1RM Lat Pull•BM-1(96/3/2%) than LPG. Conclusion: these findings suggest that pull up and lat pull exercises have common elements.Moreover, the anthropometric dimensions seem to influence differently on both exercises,depending on the strength indicator evaluated