Clean up energy innovation

Countries need to agree clean energy definitions and baselines to track essential uplift of research investments to decarbonize the world’s energy supplies

Ecological IVIS design : using EID to develop a novel in-vehicle information system

New in-vehicle information systems (IVIS) are emerging which purport to encourage more environment friendly or ‘green’ driving. Meanwhile, wider concerns about road safety and in-car distractions remain. The ‘Foot-LITE’ project is an effort to balance these issues, aimed at achieving safer and greener driving through real-time driving information, presented via an in-vehicle interface which facilitates the desired behaviours while avoiding negative consequences. One way of achieving this is to use ecological interface design (EID) techniques. This article presents part of the formative human-centred design process for developing the in-car display through a series of rapid prototyping studies comparing EID against conventional interface design principles. We focus primarily on the visual display, although some development of an ecological auditory display is also presented. The results of feedback from potential users as well as subject matter experts are discussed with respect to implications for future interface design in this field

Are patient-centered care values as reflected in teaching scenarios really being taught when implemented by teaching faculty? A discourse analysis on an Indonesian medical school's curriculum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>According to The Indonesian Medical Council, 2006, Indonesian competence-based medical curriculum should be oriented towards family medicine. We aimed to find out if the educational goal of patient-centered care within family medicine (comprehensive care and continuous care) were adequately transferred from the expected curriculum to implemented curriculum and teaching process.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Discourse analysis was done by 3 general practitioners of scenarios and learning objectives of an Indonesian undergraduate medical curriculum. The coders categorized those sentences into two groups: met or unmet the educational goal of patient-centered care.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Text analysis showed gaps in patient-centered care training between the scenarios and the learning objectives which were developed by both curriculum committee and the block planning groups and the way in which the material was taught. Most sentences in the scenarios were more relevant to patient-centered care while most sentences in the learning objectives were more inclined towards disease-perspectives.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>There is currently a discrepancy between expected patient-centered care values in the scenario and instructional materials that are being used.</p

Elucidating the genetic basis of antioxidant status in lettuce (Lactuca sativa).

A diet rich in phytonutrients from fruit and vegetables has been acknowledged to afford protection against a range of human diseases, but many of the most popular vegetables are low in phytonutrients. Wild relatives of crops may contain allelic variation for genes determining the concentrations of these beneficial phytonutrients, and therefore understanding the genetic basis of this variation is important for breeding efforts to enhance nutritional quality. In this study, lettuce recombinant inbred lines, generated from a cross between wild and cultivated lettuce (Lactuca serriola and Lactuca sativa, respectively), were analysed for antioxidant (AO) potential and important phytonutrients including carotenoids, chlorophyll and phenolic compounds. When grown in two environments, 96 quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified for these nutritional traits: 4 for AO potential, 2 for carotenoid content, 3 for total chlorophyll content and 87 for individual phenolic compounds (two per compound on average). Most often, the L. serriola alleles conferred an increase in total AOs and metabolites. Candidate genes underlying these QTL were identified by BLASTn searches; in several cases, these had functions suggesting involvement in phytonutrient biosynthetic pathways. Analysis of a QTL on linkage group 3, which accounted for &gt;30% of the variation in AO potential, revealed several candidate genes encoding multiple MYB transcription factors which regulate flavonoid biosynthesis and flavanone 3-hydroxylase, an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of the flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol, which are known to have powerful AO activity. Follow-up quantitative RT-PCR of these candidates revealed that 5 out of 10 genes investigated were significantly differentially expressed between the wild and cultivated parents, providing further evidence of their potential involvement in determining the contrasting phenotypes. These results offer exciting opportunities to improve the nutritional content and health benefits of lettuce through marker-assisted breeding

Structure Modeling of All Identified G Protein–Coupled Receptors in the Human Genome

G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), encoded by about 5% of human genes, comprise the largest family of integral membrane proteins and act as cell surface receptors responsible for the transduction of endogenous signal into a cellular response. Although tertiary structural information is crucial for function annotation and drug design, there are few experimentally determined GPCR structures. To address this issue, we employ the recently developed threading assembly refinement (TASSER) method to generate structure predictions for all 907 putative GPCRs in the human genome. Unlike traditional homology modeling approaches, TASSER modeling does not require solved homologous template structures; moreover, it often refines the structures closer to native. These features are essential for the comprehensive modeling of all human GPCRs when close homologous templates are absent. Based on a benchmarked confidence score, approximately 820 predicted models should have the correct folds. The majority of GPCR models share the characteristic seven-transmembrane helix topology, but 45 ORFs are predicted to have different structures. This is due to GPCR fragments that are predominantly from extracellular or intracellular domains as well as database annotation errors. Our preliminary validation includes the automated modeling of bovine rhodopsin, the only solved GPCR in the Protein Data Bank. With homologous templates excluded, the final model built by TASSER has a global C(α) root-mean-squared deviation from native of 4.6 Å, with a root-mean-squared deviation in the transmembrane helix region of 2.1 Å. Models of several representative GPCRs are compared with mutagenesis and affinity labeling data, and consistent agreement is demonstrated. Structure clustering of the predicted models shows that GPCRs with similar structures tend to belong to a similar functional class even when their sequences are diverse. These results demonstrate the usefulness and robustness of the in silico models for GPCR functional analysis. All predicted GPCR models are freely available for noncommercial users on our Web site (http://www.bioinformatics.buffalo.edu/GPCR)

Outcome-related metabolomic patterns from 1H/31P NMR after mild hypothermia treatments of oxygen–glucose deprivation in a neonatal brain slice model of asphyxia

Human clinical trials using 72 hours of mild hypothermia (32°C–34°C) after neonatal asphyxia have found substantially improved neurologic outcomes. As temperature changes differently modulate numerous metabolite fluxes and concentrations, we hypothesized that 1H/31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy of intracellular metabolites can distinguish different insults, treatments, and recovery stages. Three groups of superfused neonatal rat brain slices underwent 45 minutes oxygen–glucose deprivation (OGD) and then were: treated for 3 hours with mild hypothermia (32°C) that began with OGD, or similarly treated with hypothermia after a 15-minute delay, or not treated (normothermic control group, 37°C). Hypothermia was followed by 3 hours of normothermic recovery. Slices collected at different predetermined times were processed, respectively, for 14.1 Tesla NMR analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) cell-death quantification, and superoxide production. Forty-nine NMR-observable metabolites underwent a multivariate analysis. Separated clustering in scores plots was found for treatment and outcome groups. Final ATP (adenosine triphosphate) levels, severely decreased at normothermia, were restored equally by immediate and delayed hypothermia. Cell death was decreased by immediate hypothermia, but was equally substantially greater with normothermia and delayed hypothermia. Potentially important biomarkers in the 1H spectra included PCr-1H (phosphocreatine in the 1H spectrum), ATP-1H (adenosine triphosphate in the 1H spectrum), and ADP-1H (adenosine diphosphate in the 1H spectrum). The findings suggest a potential role for metabolomic monitoring during therapeutic hypothermia

Influence of herd diet on the metabolome of Maasdam cheeses

peer-reviewedThe untargeted metabolic profiles of ripened Maasdam cheese samples prepared from milk derived from three herd groups, fed: (1) indoors on total mixed ration (TMR), or outdoors on (2) grass only pasture (GRA) or (3) grass and white clover pasture (CLO) were studied using high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), high resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (1H HRMAS NMR) and headspace (HS) gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 31 compounds were identified using 1H NMR and 32 volatile compounds including 7 acids, 5 esters, 4 alcohols, 4 ketones, 4 sulfur compounds, 2 aldehydes, 3 hydrocarbons, 2 terpenes and a lactone were identified using GC–MS in Maasdam cheeses ripened for 97-d. On comparing the 1H NMR metabolic profiles, TMR-derived cheese had higher levels of citrate compared to GRA-derived cheese. The toluene content of cheese was significantly higher in GRA or CLO compared to TMR cheeses and dimethyl sulfide was identified only in CLO-derived cheese samples as detected using HS GC–MS. These compounds are proposed as indicator compounds for Maasdam cheese derived from pasture-fed milk. Clear differences between outdoor or indoor feeding systems in terms of cheese metabolites were detected in the lipid phase, as indicated by principal component analysis (PCA) from 1H HRMAS NMR spectra, although differences based on PCA of all 1H NMR spectra and HS-GC–MS were less clear. Overall, this study presented the metabolite profile and identified specific compounds which may be useful for discriminating between ripened Maasdam cheese and related cheese varieties manufactured from indoor or outdoor herd-feeding systems

Differential Dynamics of Transposable Elements during Long-Term Diploidization of Nicotiana Section Repandae (Solanaceae) Allopolyploid Genomes

PubMed ID: 23185607This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

ICP0 antagonizes Stat 1-dependent repression of herpes simplex virus: implications for the regulation of viral latency

BACKGROUND: The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) ICP0 protein is an E3 ubiquitin ligase, which is encoded within the HSV-1 latency-associated locus. When ICP0 is not synthesized, the HSV-1 genome is acutely susceptible to cellular repression. Reciprocally, when ICP0 is synthesized, viral replication is efficiently initiated from virions or latent HSV-1 genomes. The current study was initiated to determine if ICP0's putative role as a viral interferon (IFN) antagonist may be relevant to the process by which ICP0 influences the balance between productive replication versus cellular repression of HSV-1. RESULTS: Wild-type (ICP0(+)) strains of HSV-1 produced lethal infections in scid or rag2(-/- )mice. The replication of ICP0(- )null viruses was rapidly repressed by the innate host response of scid or rag2(-/- )mice, and the infected animals remained healthy for months. In contrast, rag2(-/- )mice that lacked the IFN-α/β receptor (rag2(-/- )ifnar(-/-)) or Stat 1 (rag2(-/- )stat1(-/-)) failed to repress ICP0(- )viral replication, resulting in uncontrolled viral spread and death. Thus, the replication of ICP0(- )viruses is potently repressed in vivo by an innate immune response that is dependent on the IFN-α/β receptor and the downstream transcription factor, Stat 1. CONCLUSION: ICP0's function as a viral IFN antagonist is necessary in vivo to prevent an innate, Stat 1-dependent host response from rapidly repressing productive HSV-1 replication. This antagonistic relationship between ICP0 and the host IFN response may be relevant in regulating whether the HSV-1 genome is expressed, or silenced, in virus-infected cells in vivo. These results may also be clinically relevant. IFN-sensitive ICP0(- )viruses are avirulent, establish long-term latent infections, and induce an adaptive immune response that is highly protective against lethal challenge with HSV-1. Therefore, ICP0(- )viruses appear to possess the desired safety and efficacy profile of a live vaccine against herpetic disease

Resolving debris discs in the far-infrared: early highlights from the DEBRIS survey

We present results from the earliest observations of DEBRIS, a Herschel Key Programme to conduct a volume- and flux-limited survey for debris discs in A-type through M-type stars. PACS images (from chop/nod or scan-mode observations) at 100 and 160 micron are presented toward two A-type stars and one F-type star: beta Leo, beta UMa and eta Corvi. All three stars are known disc hosts. Herschel spatially resolves the dust emission around all three stars (marginally, in the case of beta UMa), providing new information about discs as close as 11 pc with sizes comparable to that of the Solar System. We have combined these data with existing flux density measurements of the discs to refine the SEDs and derive estimates of the fractional luminosities, temperatures and radii of the discs.Comment: to be published in A&A, 5 pages, 2 color figure