2,423 research outputs found
Visibility Representations of Boxes in 2.5 Dimensions
We initiate the study of 2.5D box visibility representations (2.5D-BR) where
vertices are mapped to 3D boxes having the bottom face in the plane and
edges are unobstructed lines of sight parallel to the - or -axis. We
prove that: Every complete bipartite graph admits a 2.5D-BR; The
complete graph admits a 2.5D-BR if and only if ; Every
graph with pathwidth at most admits a 2.5D-BR, which can be computed in
linear time. We then turn our attention to 2.5D grid box representations
(2.5D-GBR) which are 2.5D-BRs such that the bottom face of every box is a unit
square at integer coordinates. We show that an -vertex graph that admits a
2.5D-GBR has at most edges and this bound is tight. Finally,
we prove that deciding whether a given graph admits a 2.5D-GBR with a given
footprint is NP-complete. The footprint of a 2.5D-BR is the set of
bottom faces of the boxes in .Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2016
3D Visibility Representations of 1-planar Graphs
We prove that every 1-planar graph G has a z-parallel visibility
representation, i.e., a 3D visibility representation in which the vertices are
isothetic disjoint rectangles parallel to the xy-plane, and the edges are
unobstructed z-parallel visibilities between pairs of rectangles. In addition,
the constructed representation is such that there is a plane that intersects
all the rectangles, and this intersection defines a bar 1-visibility
representation of G.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
Evidence for a fractional quantum Hall state with anisotropic longitudinal transport
At high magnetic fields, where the Fermi level lies in the N=0 lowest Landau
level (LL), a clean two-dimensional electron system (2DES) exhibits numerous
incompressible liquid phases which display the fractional quantized Hall effect
(FQHE) (Das Sarma and Pinczuk, 1997). These liquid phases do not break
rotational symmetry, exhibiting resistivities which are isotropic in the plane.
In contrast, at lower fields, when the Fermi level lies in the third
and several higher LLs, the 2DES displays a distinctly different class of
collective states. In particular, near half filling of these high LLs the 2DES
exhibits a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance at low temperatures
(Lilly et al., 1999; Du et al., 1999). These "stripe" phases, which do not
exhibit the quantized Hall effect, resemble nematic liquid crystals, possessing
broken rotational symmetry and orientational order (Koulakov et al., 1996;
Fogler et al., 1996; Moessner and Chalker, 1996; Fradkin and Kivelson, 1999;
Fradkin et al, 2010). Here we report a surprising new observation: An
electronic configuration in the N=1 second LL whose resistivity tensor
simultaneously displays a robust fractionally quantized Hall plateau and a
strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance resembling that of the stripe
phases.Comment: Nature Physics, (2011
Insulin autoantibodies as determined by competitive radiobinding assay are positively correlated with impaired beta-cell function — The Ulm-Frankfurt population study
Out of a random population of 4208 non-diabetic pupils without a family history of Type I diabetes 44 (1.05%) individuals had islet cell antibody (ICA) levels greater or equal to 5 Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) units. 39 of these ICA-positives could be repeatedly tested for circulating insulin autoantibodies (CIAA) using a competitive radiobinding assay. The results were compared with the insulin responses in the intravenous glucose tolerance tests (IVGTT) and with HLA types. Six pupils were positive for CIAA. All of them had complement-fixing ICA, and 5 of them were HLA-DR4 positive. Three of the 6 showed a first-phase insulin response below the first percentile of normal controls. Our data indicate that in population-based studies CIAA can be considered as a high risk marker for impaired beta-cell function in non-diabetic ICA-positive individuals
Association of Amyloid Pathology With Myelin Alteration in Preclinical Alzheimer Disease
IMPORTANCE: The accumulation of aggregated β-amyloid and tau proteins into plaques and tangles is a central feature of Alzheimer disease (AD). While plaque and tangle accumulation likely contributes to neuron and synapse loss, disease-related changes to oligodendrocytes and myelin are also suspected of playing a role in development of AD dementia. Still, to our knowledge, little is known about AD-related myelin changes, and even when present, they are often regarded as secondary to concomitant arteriosclerosis or related to aging.
OBJECTIVE: To assess associations between hallmark AD pathology and novel quantitative neuroimaging markers while being sensitive to white matter myelin content.
DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Magnetic resonance imaging was performed at an academic research neuroimaging center on a cohort of 71 cognitively asymptomatic adults enriched for AD risk. Lumbar punctures were performed and assayed for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of AD pathology, including β-amyloid 42, total tau protein, phosphorylated tau 181, and soluble amyloid precursor protein. We measured whole-brain longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates as well as the myelin water fraction from each of these individuals.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Automated brain mapping algorithms and statistical models were used to evaluate the relationships between age, CSF biomarkers of AD pathology, and quantitative magnetic resonance imaging relaxometry measures, including the longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates and the myelin water fraction.
RESULTS: The mean (SD) age for the 19 male participants and 52 female participants in the study was 61.6 (6.4) years. Widespread age-related changes to myelin were observed across the brain, particularly in late myelinating brain regions such as frontal white matter and the genu of the corpus callosum. Quantitative relaxometry measures were negatively associated with levels of CSF biomarkers across brain white matter and in areas preferentially affected in AD. Furthermore, significant age-by-biomarker interactions were observed between myelin water fraction and phosphorylated tau 181/β-amyloid 42, suggesting that phosphorylated tau 181/β-amyloid 42 levels modulate age-related changes in myelin water fraction.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These findings suggest amyloid pathologies significantly influence white matter and that these abnormalities may signify an early feature of the disease process. We expect that clarifying the nature of myelin damage in preclinical AD may be informative on the disease’s course and lead to new markers of efficacy for prevention and treatment trials
A survey of integral α-helical membrane proteins
Membrane proteins serve as cellular gatekeepers, regulators, and sensors. Prior studies have explored the functional breadth and evolution of proteins and families of particular interest, such as the diversity of transport-associated membrane protein families in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the composition of integral membrane proteins, and family classification of all human G-protein coupled receptors. However, a comprehensive analysis of the content and evolutionary associations between membrane proteins and families in a diverse set of genomes is lacking. Here, a membrane protein annotation pipeline was developed to define the integral membrane genome and associations between 21,379 proteins from 34 genomes; most, but not all of these proteins belong to 598 defined families. The pipeline was used to provide target input for a structural genomics project that successfully cloned, expressed, and purified 61 of our first 96 selected targets in yeast. Furthermore, the methodology was applied (1) to explore the evolutionary history of the substrate-binding transmembrane domains of the human ABC transporter superfamily, (2) to identify the multidrug resistance-associated membrane proteins in whole genomes, and (3) to identify putative new membrane protein families
A Multi-commodity network flow model for cloud service environments
Next-generation systems, such as the big data cloud, have to cope with several challenges, e.g., move of excessive amount of data at a dictated speed, and thus, require the investigation of concepts additional to security in order to ensure their orderly function. Resilience is such a concept, which when ensured by systems or networks they are able to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of various faults and challenges. In this paper, we investigate the multi-commodity flows problem, as a task within our D 2 R 2 +DR resilience strategy, and in the context of big data cloud systems. Specifically, proximal gradient optimization is proposed for determining optimal computation flows since such algorithms are highly attractive for solving big data problems. Many such problems can be formulated as the global consensus optimization ones, and can be solved in a distributed manner by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. Numerical evaluation of the proposed model is carried out in the context of specific deployments of a situation-aware information infrastructure
Comparative Expression Profiling of the Chlamydia trachomatis pmp Gene Family for Clinical and Reference Strains
Chlamydia trachomatis, an obligate intracellular pathogen, is a leading worldwide cause of ocular and urogenital diseases. Advances have been made in our understanding of the nine-member polymorphic membrane protein (Pmp) gene (pmp) family of C. trachomatis. However, there is only limited information on their biologic role, especially for biological variants (biovar) and clinical strains.We evaluated expression for pmps throughout development for reference strains E/Bour and L2/434, representing different biovars, and for clinical E and L2 strains. Immunoreactivity of patient sera to recombinant (r)Pmps was also determined. All pmps were expressed at two hours. pmpA had the lowest expression but was up-regulated at 12 h for all strains, indicating involvement in reticulate body development. For pmpD, expression peaked at 36 h. Additionally, 57.7% of sera from infected and 0% from uninfected adolescents were reactive to rPmpD (p = 0.001), suggesting a role in immunogenicity. pmpF had the highest expression levels for all clinical strains and L2/434 with differential expression of the pmpFE operon for the same strains. Sera were nonreactive to rPmpF despite immunoreactivity to rMOMP and rPmpD, suggesting that PmpF is not associated with humoral immune responses. pmpFE sequences for clinical strains were identical to those of the respective reference strains. We identified the putative pmpFE promoter, which was, surprisingly, 100% conserved for all strains. Analyses of ribosomal binding sites, RNase E, and hairpin structures suggested complex regulatory mechanism(s) for this >6 Kb operon.The dissimilar expression of the same pmp for different C. trachomatis strains may explain different strain-specific needs and phenotypic distinctions. This is further supported by the differential immunoreactivity to rPmpD and rPmpF of sera from patients infected with different strains. Furthermore, clinical E strains did not correlate with the E reference strain at the gene expression level, reinforcing the need for expansive studies of clinical strains
International evidence-based medicine survey of the veterinary profession: information sources used by veterinarians
Veterinarians are encouraged to use evidence to inform their practice, but it is unknown what resources (e.g. journals, electronic sources) are accessed by them globally. Understanding the key places veterinarians seek information can inform where new clinically relevant evidence should most effectively be placed. An international survey was conducted to gain understanding of how veterinary information is accessed by veterinarians worldwide. There were 2137 useable responses to the questionnaire from veterinarians in 78 countries. The majority of respondents (n = 1835/2137, 85.9%) undertook clinical work and worked in a high income country (n = 1576/1762, 89.4%). Respondents heard about the survey via national veterinary organisations or regulatory bodies (31.5%), online veterinary forums and websites (22.7%), regional, discipline-based or international veterinary organisations (22.7%) or by direct invitation from the researchers or via friends, colleagues or social media (7.6%). Clinicians and non-clinicians reportedly used journals most commonly (65.8%, n = 1207/1835; 75.6%, n = 216/286) followed by electronic resources (58.7%, n = 1077/1835; 55.9%, n = 160/286), respectively. Respondents listed a total of 518 journals and 567 electronic sources that they read. Differences in veterinarian preference for resources in developed, and developing countries, were found. The nominated journals most read were the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (12.7% of nominations) for clinicians and the Veterinary Record (5.7%) for non-clinicians. The most accessed electronic resource reported was the Veterinary Information Network (25.6%) for clinicians and PubMed (7.4%) for non-clinicians. In conclusion, a wide array of journals and electronic resources appear to be accessed by veterinarians worldwide. Veterinary organisations appear to play an important role in global communication and outreach to veterinarians and consideration should be given to how these channels could be best utilised for effective dissemination of key research findings
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