B758: A Biomass Study of the Thinning Potential and Productivity of Immature Forest Stands in Maine

The purpose of this study is to establish the degree of reliability that can be placed in biomass as a means of assessing thinning potential and site productivity of immature forest stands in Maine. The above ground biomass on 205 plots representing a variety of age classes in immature hardwood and softwood stands on meso, wet, and dry sites was cut and weighed including the standing dead trees on softwood sites. In addition, 45 point sample biomass plots were located and measured in mature all aged stands. Graphical analysis was used to relate stand characteristics to age by site and species groups for the immature stands.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_bulletin/1064/thumbnail.jp

An Update on Automatic Positioning, Inspection, and Signal Processing Techniques in the RFC/NDE Inspection System

This paper updates several techniques developed for the Retirement For Cause (RFC) Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Inspection System eddy current inspection module. Techniques to be discussed include: (1) Scallop Centering — development of an automatic scallop centering routine makes scallop inspections reliable.; (2) Soft Survey Mode — improvements have been made for fast peak detection.; (3) Method 2 Select Mode — a fine flaw detection technique based on the acquired waveform.; (4) Antirotation Window Inspection — a frequency select mode has been established for detecting flaws in antirotation windows.; (5) Scaling of Flaw Depth — a scaling factor has been developed, based on Phase I Reliability Test data, which converts flaw signal amplitude into estimated flaw depth

Acceleration of Solar Wind Ions by Nearby Interplanetary Shocks: Comparison of Monte Carlo Simulations with Ulysses Observations

The most stringent test of theoretical models of the first-order Fermi mechanism at collisionless astrophysical shocks is a comparison of the theoretical predictions with observational data on particle populations. Such comparisons have yielded good agreement between observations at the quasi-parallel portion of the Earth's bow shock and three theoretical approaches, including Monte Carlo kinetic simulations. This paper extends such model testing to the realm of oblique interplanetary shocks: here observations of proton and alpha particle distributions made by the SWICS ion mass spectrometer on Ulysses at nearby interplanetary shocks are compared with test particle Monte Carlo simulation predictions of accelerated populations. The plasma parameters used in the simulation are obtained from measurements of solar wind particles and the magnetic field upstream of individual shocks. Good agreement between downstream spectral measurements and the simulation predictions are obtained for two shocks by allowing the the ratio of the mean-free scattering length to the ionic gyroradius, to vary in an optimization of the fit to the data. Generally small values of this ratio are obtained, corresponding to the case of strong scattering. The acceleration process appears to be roughly independent of the mass or charge of the species.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures, AASTeX format, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal, February 20, 199

Unc45b Forms a Cytosolic Complex with Hsp90 and Targets the Unfolded Myosin Motor Domain

Myosin folding and assembly in striated muscle is mediated by the general chaperones Hsc70 and Hsp90 and a myosin specific co-chaperone, UNC45. Two UNC45 genes are found in vertebrates, including a striated muscle specific form, Unc45b. We have investigated the role of Unc45b in myosin folding. Epitope tagged murine Unc45b (Unc45bFlag) was expressed in muscle and non-muscle cells and bacteria, isolated and characterized. The protein is a soluble monomer in solution with a compact folded rod-shaped structure of ∼19 nm length by electron microscopy. When over-expressed in striated muscle cells, Unc45bFlag fractionates as a cytosolic protein and isolates as a stable complex with Hsp90. Purified Unc45bFlag re-binds Hsp90 and forms a stable complex in solution. The endogenous Unc45b in muscle cell lysates is also found associated with Hsp90. The Unc45bFlag/Hsp90 complex binds the partially folded myosin motor domain when incubated with myosin subfragments synthesized in a reticulocyte lysate. This binding is independent of the myosin rod or light chains. Unc45bFlag does not bind native myosin subfragments consistent with a chaperone function. More importantly, Unc45bFlag enhances myosin motor domain folding during de novo motor domain synthesis indicating that it has a direct role in myosin maturation. Thus, mammalian Unc45b is a cytosolic protein that forms a stable complex with Hsp90, selectively binds the unfolded conformation of the myosin motor domain, and promotes motor domain folding

Re-visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

10.2139/ssrn.15462511-2

An Integrated Strategy to Study Muscle Development and Myofilament Structure in Caenorhabditis elegans

A crucial step in the development of muscle cells in all metazoan animals is the assembly and anchorage of the sarcomere, the essential repeat unit responsible for muscle contraction. In Caenorhabditis elegans, many of the critical proteins involved in this process have been uncovered through mutational screens focusing on uncoordinated movement and embryonic arrest phenotypes. We propose that additional sarcomeric proteins exist for which there is a less severe, or entirely different, mutant phenotype produced in their absence. We have used Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) to generate a comprehensive profile of late embryonic muscle gene expression. We generated two replicate long SAGE libraries for sorted embryonic muscle cells, identifying 7,974 protein-coding genes. A refined list of 3,577 genes expressed in muscle cells was compiled from the overlap between our SAGE data and available microarray data. Using the genes in our refined list, we have performed two separate RNA interference (RNAi) screens to identify novel genes that play a role in sarcomere assembly and/or maintenance in either embryonic or adult muscle. To identify muscle defects in embryos, we screened specifically for the Pat embryonic arrest phenotype. To visualize muscle defects in adult animals, we fed dsRNA to worms producing a GFP-tagged myosin protein, thus allowing us to analyze their myofilament organization under gene knockdown conditions using fluorescence microscopy. By eliminating or severely reducing the expression of 3,300 genes using RNAi, we identified 122 genes necessary for proper myofilament organization, 108 of which are genes without a previously characterized role in muscle. Many of the genes affecting sarcomere integrity have human homologs for which little or nothing is known

In Silico Identification of Specialized Secretory-Organelle Proteins in Apicomplexan Parasites and In Vivo Validation in Toxoplasma gondii

Apicomplexan parasites, including the human pathogens Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium falciparum, employ specialized secretory organelles (micronemes, rhoptries, dense granules) to invade and survive within host cells. Because molecules secreted from these organelles function at the host/parasite interface, their identification is important for understanding invasion mechanisms, and central to the development of therapeutic strategies. Using a computational approach based on predicted functional domains, we have identified more than 600 candidate secretory organelle proteins in twelve apicomplexan parasites. Expression in transgenic T. gondii of eight proteins identified in silico confirms that all enter into the secretory pathway, and seven target to apical organelles associated with invasion. An in silico approach intended to identify possible host interacting proteins yields a dataset enriched in secretory/transmembrane proteins, including most of the antigens known to be engaged by apicomplexan parasites during infection. These domain pattern and projected interactome approaches significantly expand the repertoire of proteins that may be involved in host parasite interactions

Binary systems and their nuclear explosions

Peer ReviewedPreprin

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery