Keywords and Co-Occurrence Patterns in the Voynich Manuscript: An Information-Theoretic Analysis

The Voynich manuscript has remained so far as a mystery for linguists and cryptologists. While the text written on medieval parchment -using an unknown script system- shows basic statistical patterns that bear resemblance to those from real languages, there are features that suggested to some researches that the manuscript was a forgery intended as a hoax. Here we analyse the long-range structure of the manuscript using methods from information theory. We show that the Voynich manuscript presents a complex organization in the distribution of words that is compatible with those found in real language sequences. We are also able to extract some of the most significant semantic word-networks in the text. These results together with some previously known statistical features of the Voynich manuscript, give support to the presence of a genuine message inside the book

Early myoclonic encephalopathy caused by a disruption of the neuregulin-1 receptor ErbB4

The tyrosine kinase receptor ErbB4 (erythroblastic leukemia viral oncogene homolog 4) plays a crucial role in numerous neurobiological processes in the developing and adult brain. Moreover, recent molecular genetics studies implicate ErbB4 in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. However, the phenotypic consequences of haploinsufficiency of ErbB4 are not known, as no coding mutations have been identified until now. Here, we present a patient with early myoclonic encephalopathy and profound psychomotor delay with a de novo reciprocal translocation t(2;6)(q34;p25.3), disrupting the ErbB4 gene. This patient represents the first case of haploinsufficiency for one of the ErbB family members of tyrosine kinase receptors

The solar isotope spectrometer for the advanced composition explorer

The Solar Isotope Spectrometer (SIS), one of nine instruments on the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), is designed to provide high resolution measurements of the isotopic composition of energetic nuclei from He to Zn (Z = 2 to 30) over the energy range from 10 to 100 MeV/nuc. During large solar events SIS will measure the isotopic abundances of solar energetic particles to determine directly the composition of the solar corona and to study particle acceleration processes. During solar quiet times SIS will measure the isotopes of low-energy cosmic rays from the Galaxy and isotopes of the anomalous cosmic ray component, which originates in the nearby interstellar medium. SIS has two telescopes composed of silicon solid-state detectors that provide measurements of the nuclear charge, mass, and kinetic energy of incident nuclei. Within each telescope, particle trajectories are measured with a pair of two-dimensional silicon strip detectors instrumented with custom very-largescale integrated (VLSI) electronics to provide both position and energy-loss measurements. SIS was especially designed to achieve excellent mass resolution under the extreme, high flux conditions encountered in large solar particle events. It provides a geometry factor of 40 cm 2 sr, significantly greater than earlier solar particle isotope spectrometers. A microprocesso

Wound-healing defect of CD18(−/−) mice due to a decrease in TGF-β(1) and myofibroblast differentiation

We studied the mechanisms underlying the severely impaired wound healing associated with human leukocyte-adhesion deficiency syndrome-1 (LAD1) using a murine disease model. In CD18(−/−) mice, healing of full-thickness wounds was severely delayed during granulation-tissue contraction, a phase where myofibroblasts play a major role. Interestingly, expression levels of myofibroblast markers α-smooth muscle actin and ED-A fibronectin were substantially reduced in wounds of CD18(−/−) mice, suggesting an impaired myofibroblast differentiation. TGF-β signalling was clearly involved since TGF-β(1) and TGF-β receptor type-II protein levels were decreased, while TGF-β(1) injections into wound margins fully re-established wound closure. Since, in CD18(−/−) mice, defective migration leads to a severe reduction of neutrophils in wounds, infiltrating macrophages might not phagocytose apoptotic CD18(−/−) neutrophils. Macrophages would thus be lacking their main stimulus to secrete TGF-β(1). Indeed, in neutrophil–macrophage cocultures, lack of CD18 on either cell type leads to dramatically reduced TGF-β(1) release by macrophages due to defective adhesion to, and subsequent impaired phagocytic clearance of, neutrophils. Our data demonstrates that the paracrine secretion of growth factors is essential for cellular differentiation in wound healing

Artificial Intelligence and Information Retrieval

International audienceInformation Retrieval (IR) is a process involving activities related to human cognition and to knowledge management; as such, the definition of Information Retrieval Systems can benefit of the application of artificial intelligence techniques to account for the intrinsic uncertainty and imprecision that characterize the subjectivity of this task. This chapter presents a synthetic analysis of the IR task from an AI perspective and explores how AI techniques are employed within IR