Developmental imaging genetics: challenges and promises for translational research

Advances in molecular biology, neuroimaging, genetic epidemiology, and developmental psychopathology have provided a unique opportunity to explore the interplay of genes, brain, and behavior within a translational research framework. Herein, we begin by outlining an experimental strategy by which genetic effects on brain function can be explored using neuroimaging, namely, imaging genetics. We next describe some major findings in imaging genetics to highlight the effectiveness of this strategy for delineating biological pathways and mechanisms by which individual differences in brain function emerge and potentially bias behavior and risk for psychiatric illness. We then discuss the importance of applying imaging genetics to the study of psychopathology within a developmental framework. By beginning to move toward a systems-level approach to understanding pathways to behavioral outcomes as they are expressed across development, it is anticipated that we will move closer to understanding the complexities of the specific mechanisms involved in the etiology of psychiatric disease. Despite the numerous challenges that lie ahead, we believe that developmental imaging genetics has potential to yield highly informative results that will ultimately translate into public health benefits. We attempt to set out guidelines and provide exemplars that may help in designing fruitful translational research applications that incorporate a developmental imaging genetics strategy

Pengaruh Perilaku Kepemimpinan Terhadap Kinerja Layanan Akademik Pegawai Di Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia adalah salah satu LPTK yang melayani jasa pendidikandan menyiapkan tenaga kependidikan guru. Pada saat ini kondisi pelayanan akademik olehpegawai administrasi dirasakan masih belum optimal, baik dari segi kualitas atau kuantitas.Kondisi tersebut menunjukkan bahwa kinerja pelayanan, khususnya pelayanan akademik olehpegawai UPI belum sepenuhnya memberikan kepuasan kepada pelanggan. Fenomena-fenomenayang terjadi mengindikasikan bahwa belum optimalnya kinerja pegawai administrasi UPI didugadipengaruhi oleh perilaku kepemimpinan, sehingga penelitian ini hendak mengkaji adakahpengaruh perilaku kepemimpinan terhadap kinerja layanan akademik di UPI Bandung. Metodepenelitian yang digunakan adalah Explanatory Survey Method, dengan teknik pengumpulandata angket, yang dikumpulkan dari responden sebanyak 110 orang pegawai administrasi UPI.Teknik analisis data adalah Model Analisis Jalur (Path Analysis Models) dengan uji statistikaadalah uji-t dan uji-F. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: Perilaku kepemimpinan berpengaruhsecara signifikan terhadap kinerja layanan akademik pegawai UPI. Hal ini ditunjukkan olehadanya respon pegawai terhadap perilaku kepemimpinan yang dikembangkan oleh pimpinan UPIberdampak secara berarti terhadap kinerja mereka dalam pelayanan akademik bagi kepentinganpembelajaran

Amygdala reactivity predicts adolescent antisocial behavior but not callous-unemotional traits.

Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested divergent relationships between antisocial behavior (AB) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits and amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry facial expressions in adolescents. However, little work has examined if these findings extend to dimensional measures of behavior in ethnically diverse, non-clinical samples, or if participant sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, and age moderate associations. We examined links between amygdala reactivity and dimensions of AB and CU traits in 220 Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caucasian adolescents (age 11-15; 49.5% female; 38.2% Hispanic), half of whom had a family history for depression and thus were at relatively elevated risk for late starting, emotionally dysregulated AB. We found that AB was significantly related to increased right amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions independent of sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression. CU traits were not related to fear- or anger-related amygdala reactivity. The present study further demonstrates that AB is related to increased amygdala reactivity to interpersonal threat cues in adolescents, and that this relationship generalizes across sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression

A portable platform for accelerated PIC codes and its application to GPUs using OpenACC

We present a portable platform, called PIC_ENGINE, for accelerating Particle-In-Cell (PIC) codes on heterogeneous many-core architectures such as Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). The aim of this development is efficient simulations on future exascale systems by allowing different parallelization strategies depending on the application problem and the specific architecture. To this end, this platform contains the basic steps of the PIC algorithm and has been designed as a test bed for different algorithmic options and data structures. Among the architectures that this engine can explore, particular attention is given here to systems equipped with GPUs. The study demonstrates that our portable PIC implementation based on the OpenACC programming model can achieve performance closely matching theoretical predictions. Using the Cray XC30 system, Piz Daint, at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), we show that PIC_ENGINE running on an NVIDIA Kepler K20X GPU can outperform the one on an Intel Sandybridge 8-core CPU by a factor of 3.4

Evaluation Study of Boundary and Depth of the Soil Structure for Geotechnical Site Investigation using MASW

This study reviews the correlation between the experimental Rayleigh dispersion curve and the Vp & Vs ground model versus depth. Six samples of stations A , B , C , D , E and F were used in the experiment.The geophone spacing used was set 1 m and total length of each line was 23 m. The result shows positive significance (best fit) of R2 that ranges from 0.80 to 0.90. The fk (frequency-wave number method) dispersion curves analysis confirmed that the soil structure investigated is divided into three zones: (1) Unsaturated soil zone (clay soil), in which the layer is dominated by soil with typically alluvial clayey silt and sand. The Vp ranges from 240 m/s to 255 m/s at a depth of 2 to 8 m. (2) The intermediate zone (stiff soil), in which the layer is dominated by sand, silt, clayey sand, sandy clay and clay of low plasticity. This structure is interpreted as partially saturated soil zone, the soil is typically very dense. It contains soft rock typically fill with cobble, sand, slight gravel and highly weathered at depth of 18 to 30 m with Vp of 255 to 300 m/s. (3) Saturated soil zone at a depth of 8 to 18 m with Vp of 300 to 390 m/s. There is a very good agreement between wave-number (k) and phase velocity (Vw) produced. Both the two parameters shows similar pattern in the topsoil and subsurface layer, which constitute boundary field of soil structure. Moreover, relationship between phase velocity versus wave-length shows best fit of model from inversion with measured value (observed) in implementation of the boundary and depth of each layer

Evaluation Study of Boundary and Depth of the Soil Structure for Geotechnical Site Investigation using MASW

This study reviews the correlation between the experimental Rayleigh dispersion curve and the Vp & Vs ground model versus depth. Six samples of stations A , B , C , D ,  E  and  F  were used in the experiment.The geophone spacing used was set 1 m and total length of each line was 23 m. The result shows positive significance (best fit) of R2 that ranges from 0.80 to 0.90. The fk (frequency-wave number method) dispersion curves analysis confirmed that the soil structure investigated is divided into three zones: (1) Unsaturated soil zone (clay soil), in which the layer is dominated by soil with typically alluvial clayey silt and sand. The Vp ranges from 240 m/s to 255 m/s at a depth of 2 to 8 m. (2) The intermediate zone (stiff soil), in which the layer is dominated by sand, silt, clayey sand, sandy clay and clay of low plasticity. This structure is interpreted as partially saturated soil zone, the soil is typically very dense. It contains soft rock typically fill with cobble, sand, slight gravel and highly weathered at depth of 18 to 30 m with Vp of  255 to 300 m/s. (3) Saturated soil zone at a depth of  8 to 18 m with Vp of 300 to 390 m/s. There is a very good agreement between wave-number (k) and phase velocity (Vw)  produced. Both the two parameters shows similar pattern in the topsoil and subsurface layer, which constitute boundary field of soil structure. Moreover, relationship between phase velocity versus wave-length shows best fit of model from inversion with measured value (observed) in  implementation of the boundary and depth of each layer

On the rules for aquatic locomotion

We present unifying rules governing the efficient locomotion of swimming fish and marine mammals. Using scaling and dimensional analysis, supported by new experimental data, we show that efficient locomotion occurs when the values of the Strouhal (St) number St(=f A/U) and A∗(=A/L), two nondimensional numbers that relate forward speed U, tail-beat amplitude A, tail-beat frequency f , and the length of the swimmer L are bound to the tight ranges of 0.2–0.4 and 0.1–0.3, respectively. The tight range of 0.2–0.4 for the St number has previously been associated with optimal thrust generation. We show that the St number alone is insufficient to achieve optimal aquatic locomotion, and an additional condition on A∗ is needed. More importantly, we show that when swimming at minimal power consumption, the Strouhal number of a cruising swimmer is predetermined solely by the shape and drag characteristics of the swimmer. We show that diverse species of fish and cetaceans cruise indeed with the St number and A∗ predicted by our theory. Our findings provide a physical explanation as to why fast aquatic swimmers cruise with a relatively constant tail-beat amplitude of approximately 20% of the body length, and their swimming speed is nearly proportional to their tail-beat frequenc