280 research outputs found
The Eternal Problem of Slavery in International Law: Killing the Vampire of Human Culture
Article published in the Michigan State Law Review
Development of novel genome-scale reconstruction strategies for production of terpenoids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The Rise and Fall of the Ridge
Recent data from heavy ion collisions at RHIC show unexpectedly large
near-angle correlations that broaden longitudinally with centrality. The
amplitude of this ridge-like correlation rises rapidly with centrality, reaches
a maximum, and then falls in the most central collisions. In this talk we
explain how this behavior can be easily understood in a picture where final
momentum-space correlations are driven by initial coordinate space density
fluctuations. We propose as a useful way to study
these effects and explain what it tells us about the collision dynamics.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, proceedings for Hard Probes 2010 in Eilat, Israe
Development of an integrated metabolic and transcriptional regulatory model for Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) is commonly used as a cell factory for research and industrial applications. The development of optimization strategies for S. cerevisiae was extensively driven by the establishment of genome-scale metabolic models. Additionally, to aid metabolic modeling, multiple attempts to infer transcriptional regulatory networks from expression data have been made. However, these data-based regulatory networks may show limited applicability. Therefore, we propose a general, knowledge-based approach involving a pipeline to evaluate regulatory interactions of transcription factors (TFs) and target genes from the YEASTRACT database, and form a regulatory network from these filtered datasets. So far, we filtered regulatory interactions based on two criteria: the existence of direct binding evidence of the TFs and their target genes, and the consensus over the regulatory effects identified among multiple studies that investigated each interaction, respectively. From 230 TFs and over 6000 genes contained in YEASTRACT, we obtained a regulatory network of 69 TFs and 1187 target genes with 1813 regulatory interactions, including 346 metabolic genes with 622 regulatory interactions. These interactions cover the majority of genes in the central carbon metabolism. Next, these regulatory interactions will be evaluated by identifying the networks attractor states and simulating their effect on the metabolic system via steady-state regulatory flux balance analysis. Finally, this integrated metabolic and regulatory model may be used to identify efficient optimization strategies for S. cerevisiae.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The ecology of immune state in a wild mammal, Mus musculus domesticus.
The immune state of wild animals is largely unknown. Knowing this and what affects it is important in understanding how infection and disease affects wild animals. The immune state of wild animals is also important in understanding the biology of their pathogens, which is directly relevant to explaining pathogen spillover among species, including to humans. The paucity of knowledge about wild animals' immune state is in stark contrast to our exquisitely detailed understanding of the immunobiology of laboratory animals. Making an immune response is costly, and many factors (such as age, sex, infection status, and body condition) have individually been shown to constrain or promote immune responses. But, whether or not these factors affect immune responses and immune state in wild animals, their relative importance, and how they interact (or do not) are unknown. Here, we have investigated the immune ecology of wild house mice-the same species as the laboratory mouse-as an example of a wild mammal, characterising their adaptive humoral, adaptive cellular, and innate immune state. Firstly, we show how immune variation is structured among mouse populations, finding that there can be extensive immune discordance among neighbouring populations. Secondly, we identify the principal factors that underlie the immunological differences among mice, showing that body condition promotes and age constrains individuals' immune state, while factors such as microparasite infection and season are comparatively unimportant. By applying a multifactorial analysis to an immune system-wide analysis, our results bring a new and unified understanding of the immunobiology of a wild mammal
The Vjosa River corridor: a model of natural hydro-morphodynamics and a hotspot of highly threatened ecosystems of European significance
Context: Large near-natural rivers have become rare in Europe, a fact reflected in the high conservation status of many riverine ecosystems. While the Balkan still harbors several intact river corridors, most of these are under pressure from planned hydropower constructions. Unfortunately, there is little information available on the hydromorphodynamics and biota of Balkan rivers under threat.
Objectives: We present a synthesis of research on the Vjosa in Southern Albania. Here, longitudinal continuity in water flow, undisturbed sediment transport and intact fluvial dynamics are still maintained, but threatened by two large dams planned in its downstream section. We intend to provide a first multidisciplinary inventory of this river system as an example of the knowledge base required for sound water management decisions in the Balkans.
Methods: Based on field work of a multidisciplinary consortium of scientists from Albania and other countries conducted from 2017 onwards, we summarize the most important findings on geomorphology of the riverine landscape, habitat turnover rates, vegetation ecology and selected animal taxa.
Results: We found evidence that significant areas (86%) of the river corridor are covered by habitats listed in Annex 1 of the European Union Habitats Directive. These are associated with a high number of threatened biota.
Conclusions: Our findings underscore the value of the Vjosa as one of the few remaining reference sites for dynamic floodplains in Europe and as a natural laboratory for interdisciplinary research. We emphasize that such multidisciplinary studies are a prerequisite for informed evaluation of potential impacts caused by hydropower plants
Why Does Disaster Recovery Work Influence Mental Health?: Pathways through Physical Health and Household Income
Disaster recovery work increases risk for mental health problems, yet the mechanisms underlying this association are unclear. We explored links from recovery work to posttraumatic stress (PTS), major depression (MD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms through physical health symptoms and household income in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As part of the NIEHS GuLF STUDY, participants (N = 10,141) reported on cleanup work activities, spill-related physical health symptoms, and household income at baseline, and mental health symptoms an average of 14.69 weeks (SD = 16.79) thereafter. Cleanup work participation was associated with higher physical health symptoms, which in turn were associated with higher PTS, MD, and GAD symptoms. Similar pattern of results were found in models including workers only and investigating the influence of longer work duration and higher work-related oil exposure on mental health symptoms. In addition, longer worker duration and higher work-related oil exposure were associated with higher household income, which in turn was associated with lower MD and GAD symptoms. These findings suggest that physical health symptoms contribute to workers’ risk for mental health symptoms, while higher household income, potentially from more extensive work, might mitigate risk
Analyzing the Power Spectrum of the Little Bangs
In this talk we discuss the analogy between data from heavy-ion collisions
and the Cosmic Microwave Background. We identify p_T correlations data as the
heavy-ion analogy to the CMB and extract a power-spectrum from the heavy-ion
data. We define the ratio of the final state power-spectrum to the initial
coordinate-space eccentricity as the transfer-function. From the
transfer-function we find that higher terms are suppressed and we argue
that the suppression provides information on length scales like the
mean-free-path. We make a rough estimate of the mean-free-path and find that it
is larger than estimates based on the centrality dependence of v_2.Comment: 4 pages, talk given at Hard Probes 2010, Eilat, Israe
Order-dependent structure of High Harmonic Wavefronts
The physics of high harmonics has led to the generation of attosecond pulses
and to trains of attosecond pulses. Measurements that confirm the pulse
duration are all performed in the far field. All pulse duration measurements
tacitly assume that both the beam's wavefront and intensity profile are
independent of frequency. However, if one or both are frequency dependent, then
the retrieved pulse duration depends on the location where the measurement is
made. We measure that each harmonic is very close to a Gaussian, but we also
find that both the intensity profile and the beam wavefront depend
significantly on the harmonic order.
Thus, our findings mean that the pulse duration will depend on where the
pulse is observed. Measurement of spectrally resolved wavefronts along with
temporal characterization at one single point in the beam would enable complete
space-time reconstruction of attosecond pulses. Future attosecond science
experiments need not be restricted to spatially averaged observables
High Energy Physics in the Atmosphere: Phenomenology of Cosmic Ray Air Showers
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 10**6 GeV have to be
deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers
which they initiate. In this review we summarize the phenomenology of these
giant air showers. We describe the hadronic interaction models used to
extrapolate results from collider data to ultra high energies, and discuss the
prospects for insights into forward physics at the LHC. We also describe the
main electromagnetic processes that govern the longitudinal shower evolution,
as well as the lateral spread of particles. Armed with these two principal
shower ingredients and motivation from the underlying physics, we provide an
overview of some of the different methods proposed to distinguish primary
species. The properties of neutrino interactions and the potential of
forthcoming experiments to isolate deeply penetrating showers from baryonic
cascades are also discussed. We finally venture into a terra incognita endowed
with TeV-scale gravity and explore anomalous neutrino-induced showers.Comment: Typo in caption of Fig. 8 corrected, references adde
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