13,973 research outputs found
Zapotec Language Activism And Talking Dictionaries
Online dictionaries have become a key tool for some indigenous communities to promote and preserve their languages, often in collaboration with linguists. They can provide a pathway for crossing the digital divide and for establishing a first-ever presence on the internet. Many questions around digital lexicography have been explored, although primarily in relation to large and well-resourced languages. Lexical projects on small and under-resourced languages can provide an opportunity to examine these questions from a different perspective and to raise new questions (Mosel, 2011). In this paper, linguists, technical experts, and Zapotec language activists, who have worked together in Mexico and the United States to create a multimedia platform to showcase and preserve lexical, cultural, and environmental knowledge, share their experience and insight in creating trilingual online Talking Dictionaries in several Zapotec languages. These dictionaries sit opposite from big data mining and illustrate the value of dictionary projects based on small corpora, including having the flexibility to make design decisions to maximize community impact and elevate the status of marginalized languages
SbcCD regulation and localization in Escherichia coli
The SbcCD complex and its homologues play important roles in DNA repair and in the maintenance of genome stability. In Escherichia coli, the in vitro functions of SbcCD have been well characterized, but its exact cellular role remains elusive. This work investigates the regulation of the sbcDC operon and the cellular localization of the SbcC and SbcD proteins. Transcription of the sbcDC operon is shown to be dependent on starvation and RpoS protein. Overexpressed SbcC protein forms foci that colocalize with the replication factory, while overexpressed SbcD protein is distributed through the cytoplasm
Physical Layer Security of Large Reflecting Surface Aided Communications with Phase Errors
The physical layer security (PLS) performance of a wireless communication
link through a large reflecting surface (LRS) with phase errors is analyzed.
Leveraging recent results that express the \ac{LRS}-based composite channel as
an equivalent scalar fading channel, we show that the eavesdropper's link is
Rayleigh distributed and independent of the legitimate link. The different
scaling laws of the legitimate and eavesdroppers signal-to-noise ratios with
the number of reflecting elements, and the reasonably good performance even in
the case of coarse phase quantization, show the great potential of LRS-aided
communications to enhance PLS in practical wireless set-ups.Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for publication. Copyright
may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be
accessibl
DNA double strand break repair in Escherichia coli perturbs cell division and chromosome dynamics
To prevent the transmission of damaged genomic material between generations, cells require a system for accommodating DNA repair within their cell cycles. We have previously shown that Escherichia coli cells subject to a single, repairable site-specific DNA double-strand break (DSB) per DNA replication cycle reach a new average cell length, with a negligible effect on population growth rate. We show here that this new cell size distribution is caused by a DSB repair-dependent delay in completion of cell division. This delay occurs despite unperturbed cell size regulated initiation of both chromosomal DNA replication and cell division. Furthermore, despite DSB repair altering the profile of DNA replication across the genome, the time required to complete chromosomal duplication is invariant. The delay in completion of cell division is accompanied by a DSB repair-dependent delay in individualization of sister nucleoids. We suggest that DSB repair events create inter-sister connections that persist until those chromosomes are separated by a closing septum
Nanoscale piezoelectric response across a single antiparallel ferroelectric domain wall
Surprising asymmetry in the local electromechanical response across a single
antiparallel ferroelectric domain wall is reported. Piezoelectric force
microscopy is used to investigate both the in-plane and out-of- plane
electromechanical signals around domain walls in congruent and
near-stoichiometric lithium niobate. The observed asymmetry is shown to have a
strong correlation to crystal stoichiometry, suggesting defect-domain wall
interactions. A defect-dipole model is proposed. Finite element method is used
to simulate the electromechanical processes at the wall and reconstruct the
images. For the near-stoichiometric composition, good agreement is found in
both form and magnitude. Some discrepancy remains between the experimental and
modeling widths of the imaged effects across a wall. This is analyzed from the
perspective of possible electrostatic contributions to the imaging process, as
well as local changes in the material properties in the vicinity of the wall
The copper transport-associated protein Ctr4 can form prion-like epigenetic determinants in Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Prions are protein-based infectious entities associated with fatal brain diseases in animals, but also modify a range of host-cell phenotypes in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Many questions remain about the evolution and biology of prions. Although several functionally distinct prion-forming proteins exist in S. cerevisiae, [HET-s] of Podospora anserina is the only other known fungal prion. Here we investigated prion-like, protein-based epigenetic transmission in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We show that S. pombe cells can support the formation and maintenance of the prion form of the S. cerevisiae Sup35 translation factor [PSI+], and that the formation and propagation of these Sup35 aggregates is inhibited by guanidine hydrochloride, indicating commonalities in prion propagation machineries in these evolutionary diverged yeasts. A proteome-wide screen identified the Ctr4 copper transporter subunit as a putative prion with a predicted prion-like domain. Overexpression of the ctr4 gene resulted in large Ctr4 protein aggregates that were both detergent and proteinase-K resistant. Cells carrying such [CTR+] aggregates showed increased sensitivity to oxidative stress, and this phenotype could be transmitted to aggregate-free [ctr–] cells by transformation with [CTR+] cell extracts. Moreover, this [CTR+] phenotype was inherited in a non-Mendelian manner following mating with naïve [ctr–] cells, but intriguingly the [CTR+] phenotype was not eliminated by guanidine-hydrochloride treatment. Thus, Ctr4 exhibits multiple features diagnostic of other fungal prions and is the first example of a prion in fission yeast. These findings suggest that transmissible protein-based determinants of traits may be more widespread among fungi
Spectroscopic Observations of Convective Patterns in the Atmospheres of Metal-Poor Stars
Convective line asymmetries in the optical spectrum of two metal-poor stars,
Gmb1830 and HD140283, are compared to those observed for solar metallicity
stars. The line bisectors of the most metal-poor star, the subgiant HD140283,
show a significantly larger velocity span that the expectations for a
solar-metallicity star of the same spectral type and luminosity class. The
enhanced line asymmetries are interpreted as the signature of the lower metal
content, and therefore opacity, in the convective photospheric patterns. These
findings point out the importance of three-dimensional convective velocity
fields in the interpretation of the observed line asymmetries in metal-poor
stars, and in particular, urge for caution when deriving isotopic ratios from
observed line shapes and shifts using one-dimensional model atmospheres.
The mean line bisector of the photospheric atomic lines is compared with
those measured for the strong Mg I b1 and b2 features. The upper part of the
bisectors are similar, and assuming they overlap, the bottom end of the
stronger lines, which are formed higher in the atmosphere, goes much further to
the red. This is in agreement with the expected decreasing of the convective
blue-shifts in upper atmospheric layers, and compatible with the high velocity
redshifts observed in the chromosphere, transition region, and corona of
late-type stars.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX; 10 Figures (14 PostScript files); to be published in
The Astrophysical Journa
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