347 research outputs found
Degradation of Rutin by Aspergillus flavus STUDIES WITH OXYGEN 18 ON THE ACTION OF A DIOXYGENASE ON QUERCETIN
Abstract The enzymatic oxygenation and cleavage of quercetin by quercetinase, an oxygenase produced by Aspergillus flavus, yield carbon monoxide and a depside, 2-protocatechuoyl-phloroglucinolcarboxylic acid. The enzyme does not incorporate oxygen from 18O2 into carbon monoxide, but incorporates both atoms of 18O2 into the depside. One atom of 18O2 is incorporated into the carboxyl group and the other into the ester carbonyl; thus quercetinase is a dioxygenase. Oxygen from H218O is not incorporated into either the depside or carbon monoxide. Both the carbon and oxygen of carbon monoxide are derived from the hydroxylated carbon 3 of quercetin. The reaction probably involves a direct and concerted addition of "activated oxygen" to quercetin at positions 2 and 4 to form an unstable cyclic peroxide intermediate which rapidly decomposes to give the products
On Objective Measures of Rule Surprisingness
Most of the literature argues that surprisingness is an inherently subjective aspect of the discovered knowledge, which cannot be measured in objective terms. This paper departs from this view, and it has a twofold goal: (1) showing that it is indeed possible to define objective (rather than subjective) measures of discovered rule surprisingness; (2) proposing new ideas and methods for defining objective rule surprisingness measures
Cerulean: A hybrid assembly using high throughput short and long reads
Genome assembly using high throughput data with short reads, arguably,
remains an unresolvable task in repetitive genomes, since when the length of a
repeat exceeds the read length, it becomes difficult to unambiguously connect
the flanking regions. The emergence of third generation sequencing (Pacific
Biosciences) with long reads enables the opportunity to resolve complicated
repeats that could not be resolved by the short read data. However, these long
reads have high error rate and it is an uphill task to assemble the genome
without using additional high quality short reads. Recently, Koren et al. 2012
proposed an approach to use high quality short reads data to correct these long
reads and, thus, make the assembly from long reads possible. However, due to
the large size of both dataset (short and long reads), error-correction of
these long reads requires excessively high computational resources, even on
small bacterial genomes. In this work, instead of error correction of long
reads, we first assemble the short reads and later map these long reads on the
assembly graph to resolve repeats.
Contribution: We present a hybrid assembly approach that is both
computationally effective and produces high quality assemblies. Our algorithm
first operates with a simplified version of the assembly graph consisting only
of long contigs and gradually improves the assembly by adding smaller contigs
in each iteration. In contrast to the state-of-the-art long reads error
correction technique, which requires high computational resources and long
running time on a supercomputer even for bacterial genome datasets, our
software can produce comparable assembly using only a standard desktop in a
short running time.Comment: Peer-reviewed and presented as part of the 13th Workshop on
Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI2013
The expression of classical rhetoric in televisual advertising : Portraying science and scientists.
The origins of classical rhetoric are to be found in Greece of the 4th and 5th centuries BCE. Developed principally for spoken delivery, though sometimes applied to written work, it became a much sought after skill due to the newly emerging democracies in the city-states. It was the refinement of the Greek philosophers' fundamental principles for the practice of classical rhetoric by their Roman successors, during the last century BCE and the first century CE, that later established its robust canonical structure.After drawing on semiotic wisdom in order to interpret the meanings embedded in illustrations and advertising film the following research shows to what degree classical rhetoric has a visual expression in which those ancient canonical principles have contemporary relevance rendering it a major mechanism in the persuasive function of television advertising. In so doing its contribution to knowledge comprises an innovative analytical methodology whilst also exposing a link, previously unremarked upon by scholars in the field, whereby the canon of classical rhetoric known as arrangement can be seen to have a common structural basis with narrative.Touching on the use of scientists, often presented as figures of unquestionable authority in televisual advertising during the middle part of the last century, this thesis now finds a more subtle rhetoric directed at an increasingly more media-aware culture in the third millennium. It will be suggested, however, that such rhetorical devices, as are revealed to be operating, are more likely to be as a result of intuition and empirical adroitness rather than being born of academically acquired knowledge on the part of creative media personnel
Attachment Styles Within the Coach-Athlete Dyad: Preliminary Investigation and Assessment Development
The present preliminary study aimed to develop and examine the psychometric properties of a new sport-specific self-report instrument designed to assess athletes’ and coaches’ attachment styles. The development and initial validation comprised three main phases. In Phase 1, a pool of items was generated based on pre-existing self-report attachment instruments, modified to reflect a coach and an athlete’s style of attachment. In Phase 2, the content validity of the items was assessed by a panel of experts. A final scale was developed and administered to 405 coaches and 298 athletes (N = 703 participants). In Phase 3, confirmatory factor analysis of the obtained data was conducted to determine the final items of the Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale (CAAS). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed acceptable goodness of fit indexes for a 3-first order factor model as well as a 2-first order factor model for both the athlete and the coach data, respectively. A secure attachment style positively predicted relationship satisfaction, while an insecure attachment style was a negative predictor of relationship satisfaction. The CAAS revealed initial psychometric properties of content, factorial, and predictive validity, as well as reliability
Tidal Venuses: Triggering a Climate Catastrophe via Tidal Heating
Traditionally stellar radiation has been the only heat source considered
capable of determining global climate on long timescales. Here we show that
terrestrial exoplanets orbiting low-mass stars may be tidally heated at high
enough levels to induce a runaway greenhouse for a long enough duration for all
the hydrogen to escape. Without hydrogen, the planet no longer has water and
cannot support life. We call these planets "Tidal Venuses," and the phenomenon
a "tidal greenhouse." Tidal effects also circularize the orbit, which decreases
tidal heating. Hence, some planets may form with large eccentricity, with its
accompanying large tidal heating, and lose their water, but eventually settle
into nearly circular orbits (i.e. with negligible tidal heating) in the
habitable zone (HZ). However, these planets are not habitable as past tidal
heating desiccated them, and hence should not be ranked highly for detailed
follow-up observations aimed at detecting biosignatures. Planets orbiting stars
with masses <0.3 solar masses may be in danger of desiccation via tidal
heating. We apply these concepts to Gl 667C c, a ~4.5 Earth-mass planet
orbiting a 0.3 solar mass star at 0.12 AU. We find that it probably did not
lose its water via tidal heating as orbital stability is unlikely for the high
eccentricities required for the tidal greenhouse. As the inner edge of the HZ
is defined by the onset of a runaway or moist greenhouse powered by radiation,
our results represent a fundamental revision to the HZ for non-circular orbits.
In the appendices we review a) the moist and runaway greenhouses, b) hydrogen
escape, c) stellar mass-radius and mass-luminosity relations, d) terrestrial
planet mass-radius relations, and e) linear tidal theories. [abridged]Comment: 59 pages, 11 figures, accepted to Astrobiology. New version includes
an appendix on the water loss timescal
Effects of maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in the first trimester on subsequent pregnancy outcomes in an Australian population
Whole exome sequence analysis reveals a homozygous mutation in PNPLA2 as the cause of severe dilated cardiomyopathy secondary to neutral lipid storage disease.
Accepted manuscript 12 month embargo, pre-print immediately
Conceptual design of the early implementation of the NEutron Detector Array (NEDA) with AGATA
The NEutron Detector Array (NEDA) project aims at the construction of a new high-efficiency compact neutron detector array to be coupled with large (Formula presented.) -ray arrays such as AGATA. The application of NEDA ranges from its use as selective neutron multiplicity filter for fusion-evaporation reaction to a large solid angle neutron tagging device. In the present work, possible configurations for the NEDA coupled with the Neutron Wall for the early implementation with AGATA has been simulated, using Monte Carlo techniques, in order to evaluate their performance figures. The goal of this early NEDA implementation is to improve, with respect to previous instruments, efficiency and capability to select multiplicity for fusion-evaporation reaction channels in which 1, 2 or 3 neutrons are emitted. Each NEDA detector unit has the shape of a regular hexagonal prism with a volume of about 3.23l and it is filled with the EJ301 liquid scintillator, that presents good neutron- (Formula presented.) discrimination properties. The simulations have been performed using a fusion-evaporation event generator that has been validated with a set of experimental data obtained in the 58Ni + 56Fe reaction measured with the Neutron Wall detector array
The Mathematical Universe
I explore physics implications of the External Reality Hypothesis (ERH) that
there exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans.
I argue that with a sufficiently broad definition of mathematics, it implies
the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) that our physical world is an
abstract mathematical structure. I discuss various implications of the ERH and
MUH, ranging from standard physics topics like symmetries, irreducible
representations, units, free parameters, randomness and initial conditions to
broader issues like consciousness, parallel universes and Godel incompleteness.
I hypothesize that only computable and decidable (in Godel's sense) structures
exist, which alleviates the cosmological measure problem and help explain why
our physical laws appear so simple. I also comment on the intimate relation
between mathematical structures, computations, simulations and physical
systems.Comment: Replaced to match accepted Found. Phys. version, 31 pages, 5 figs;
more details at http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/toe.htm
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