1,674 research outputs found
Die Emotionalisierung regionaler/nationaler Marken im TV-Werbespot: Eine exemplarische Analyse der "Anker-Länderbackstuben" (1996)
Die Emotionalisierung regionaler/nationaler Marken im TV-Werbespot. Eine exemplarische Analyse der "Anker-Länderbackstuben" (1996
Mapping Regions of the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus ORF III Product Required for Infectivity
AbstractThe open reading frame (ORF) III product (PIII) of the pararetrovirus cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) has nucleic acid-binding propertiesin vitro,but its biological role is not yet determined. ORF III is closely linked to ORF II and overlaps ORF IV out of frame in the CaMV genome. A new CaMV-derived vector (CaΔ) devoid of ORF III and containing unique restriction sites between ORFs II and IV was designed. Introduction of the wild-type CaMV ORF III into CaΔ results in a clone (Ca3) infectious in turnip plants. Truncated or point-mutated versions of ORF III were then inserted into CaΔ and testedin vivo.Inoculation of the different mutants into turnip revealed that the four C-terminal amino acid residues of PIII are dispensable for infectivity as well as an internal domain (amino acids 61 to 80). Taken together the results show that PIII possesses a functional two-domain organization. Moreover, the CaMV PIII function(s) cannot be replaced either by the PIII protein of another caulimovirus, the figwort mosaic virus, or by the P2 protein of the cacao swollen shoot badnavirus, a member of the second plant pararetrovirus group
Vasculitides associated with IgG antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies in childhood
Immunoglobulin (Ig)G antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies are causally associated with necrotizing vasculitides that are characterized immunopathologically by little or no deposition of immunoreactants, such as Wegener granulomatosis, microscopic polyangiitis, Churg-Strauss angiitis, "renal-limited" vasculitis and a number of drug-induced vasculitides. Clinical routine testing targets the antigens myeloperoxidase and proteinase 3. However, in all of the conditions mentioned, the renal histopathologic findings are indistinguishable. Churg-Strauss angiitis (characterized by necrotizing vasculitis, granulomatous inflammation and tissue eosinophilia), Wegener granulomatosis (characterized by necrotizing vasculitis and granulomatous inflammation) and microscopic polyangiitis (characterized by necrotizing vasculitis) often present with fever, weight loss and a multisystem involvement (ear, nose, throat, lung, eyes, peripheral nerve and heart). Fifty years ago these conditions were very often fatal within 6months of diagnosis. The introduction of corticosteroids and cyclophosphamide has resulted in a dramatic clinical benefit. Patients who develop treatment-related morbidity can be switched from cyclophosphamide to azathioprine after achieving remission. In patients with less severe disease, methotrexate achieves remission with a success rate similar to that of cyclophosphamide. Plasma exchange, in association with immunosuppression, is likely to be a beneficial therapy for patients with severe kidney disease or pulmonary hemorrhag
Parameterisation of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles for modelling purposes
CO2 emissions of new passenger cars (PCs) registered in Europe are monitored in order to meet the objectives of Regulation EC 443/2009. This calls for an average CO2 emission of 130 g/km for new PCs registered in Europe to be met by vehicle measures in 2015. This decreases to 95 g/km in 2020. Similar regulations are gradually promoted for other vehicle categories as well, more prominently for light commercial vehicles (LCVs).
CO2 emissions of new vehicle types are determined during the vehicle type-approval by testing over the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Worries have been expressed that this driving cycle is not representative of real-world driving conditions. It is considered that fuel consumption, and hence CO2 emissions (and air pollutant emissions), measured over this cycle under-represent reality. This report uses real-world information to compare in-use fuel consumption of PCs with type-approval CO2.
The main objective was to develop functions that may enable prediction of in-use fuel consumption values, based on vehicle specifications. The functions can then be used in inventorying tools, such as COPERT and HBEFA, to correctly allocate fuel consumption to the different PC vehicle types.JRC.F.9-Sustainable Transport (Ispra
Scipio: Using protein sequences to determine the precise exon/intron structures of genes and their orthologs in closely related species
Background: For many types of analyses, data about gene structure and locations of non-coding regions of genes are required. Although a vast amount of genomic sequence data is available, precise annotation of genes is lacking behind. Finding the corresponding gene of a given protein sequence by means of conventional tools is error prone, and cannot be completed without manual inspection, which is time consuming and requires considerable experience. Results: Scipio is a tool based on the alignment program BLAT to determine the precise gene structure given a protein sequence and a genome sequence. It identifies intron-exon borders and splice sites and is able to cope with sequencing errors and genes spanning several contigs in genomes that have not yet been assembled to supercontigs or chromosomes. Instead of producing a set of hits with varying confidence, Scipio gives the user a coherent summary of locations on the genome that code for the query protein. The output contains information about discrepancies that may result from sequencing errors. Scipio has also successfully been used to find homologous genes in closely related species. Scipio was tested with 979 protein queries against 16 arthropod genomes ( intra species search). For cross- species annotation, Scipio was used to annotate 40 genes from Homo sapiens in the primates Pongo pygmaeus abelii and Callithrix jacchus. The prediction quality of Scipio was tested in a comparative study against that of BLAT and the well established program Exonerate. Conclusion: Scipio is able to precisely map a protein query onto a genome. Even in cases when there are many sequencing errors, or when incomplete genome assemblies lead to hits that stretch across multiple target sequences, it very often provides the user with the correct determination of intron-exon borders and splice sites, showing an improved prediction accuracy compared to BLAT and Exonerate. Apart from being able to find genes in the genome that encode the query protein, Scipio can also be used to annotate genes in closely related species
Photometry Results for the Globular Clusters M10 and M12: Extinction Maps, Color-Magnitude Diagrams, and Variable Star Candidates
We report on photometry results of the equatorial globular clusters (GCs) M10
and M12. These two clusters are part of our sample of GCs which we are probing
for the existence of photometrically varying eclipsing binary stars. During the
search for binaries in M10 and M12, we discovered the signature of differential
reddening across the fields of the clusters. The effect is stronger for M10
than for M12. Using our previously described dereddening technique, we create
differential extinction maps for the clusters which dramatically improve the
appearance of the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs). Comparison of our maps with
the dust emissivity maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis (SFD) shows good
agreement in terms of spatial extinction features. Several methods of adding an
E_{V-I} zero point to our differential maps are presented of which isochrone
fitting proved to be the most successful. Our E_{V-I} values fall within the
range of widely varying literature values. More specifically, our reddening
zero point estimate for M12 agrees well with the SFD estimate, whereas the one
for M10 falls below the SFD value. Our search for variable stars in the
clusters produced a total of five variables: three in M10 and two in M12. The
M10 variables include a binary system of the W Ursa Majoris (W UMa) type, a
background RR Lyrae star, and an SX Phoenicis pulsator, none of which is
physically associated with M10. M12's variables are two W UMa binaries, one of
which is most likely a member of the cluster. We present the phased photometry
lightcurves for the variable stars, estimate their distances, and show their
locations in the fields and the CMDs of the GCs.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figures, to be published in AJ October 2002. For a
higher-resolution version of this paper, please visit
http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~kaspar/M10_M12_photometry.ps.gz (gzipped
postscript) or http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~kaspar/M10_M12_photometry.pdf
(pdf file
The Star Formation History of the Carina Dwarf Galaxy
We have analyzed deep B and V photometry of the Carina dwarf spheroidal
reaching below the old main-sequence turnoff to about V = 25. Using simulated
color-magnitude diagrams to model a range of star formation scenarios, we have
extracted a detailed, global star formation history. Carina experienced three
significant episodes of star formation at about 15 Gyr, 7 Gyr, and 3 Gyr.
Contrary to the generic picture of galaxy evolution, however, the bulk of star
formation, at least 50%, occured during the episode 7 Gyr ago, which may have
lasted as long as 2 Gyr. For unknown reasons, Carina formed only 10-20% of its
stars at an ancient epoch and then remained quiescent for more than 4 Gyr. The
remainder (~30%) formed relatively recently, only 3 Gyr ago. Interest in the
local population of dwarf galaxies has increased lately due to their potential
importance in the understanding of faint galaxy counts. We surmise that objects
like Carina, which exhibits the most extreme episodic behavior of any of the
dwarf spheroidal companions to the Galaxy, are capable of contributing to the
observed excess of blue galaxies at B = 24 only if the star formation occurred
instantaneously.Comment: 23 pages of text, 20 figures, 8 tables. AJ, in pres
Dwarf Cepheids in the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
We have discovered 20 dwarf Cepheids (DC) in the Carina dSph galaxy from the
analysis of individual CCD images obtained for a deep photometric study of the
system. These short-period pulsating variable stars are by far the most distant
(~100 kpc) and faintest (V ~ 23.0) DCs known. The Carina DCs obey a
well-defined period-luminosity relation, allowing us to readily distinguish
between overtone and fundamental pulsators in nearly every case. Unlike RR Lyr
stars, the pulsation mode turns out to be uncorrelated with light-curve shape,
nor do the overtone pulsators tend towards shorter periods compared to the
fundamental pulsators. Using the period-luminosity (PL) relations from Nemec et
al. (1994 AJ, 108, 222) and McNamara (1995, AJ, 109, 1751), we derive (m-M)_0 =
20.06 +/- 0.12, for E(B-V) = 0.025 and [Fe/H] = -2.0, in good agreement with
recent, independent estimates of the distance/reddening of Carina. The error
reflects the uncertainties in the DC distance scale, and in the metallicity and
reddening of Carina. The frequency of DCs among upper main sequence stars in
Carina is approximately 3%. The ratio of dwarf Cepheids to RR Lyr stars in
Carina is 0.13 +/- 0.10, though this result is highly sensitive to the
star-formation history of Carina and the evolution of the Horizontal Branch. We
discuss how DCs may be useful to search effectively for substructure in the
Galactic halo out to Galactocentric distances of ~100 kpc.Comment: 20 pages of text, 7 figure
AUGUSTUS: ab initio prediction of alternative transcripts
AUGUSTUS is a software tool for gene prediction in eukaryotes based on a Generalized Hidden Markov Model, a probabilistic model of a sequence and its gene structure. Like most existing gene finders, the first version of AUGUSTUS returned one transcript per predicted gene and ignored the phenomenon of alternative splicing. Herein, we present a WWW server for an extended version of AUGUSTUS that is able to predict multiple splice variants. To our knowledge, this is the first ab initio gene finder that can predict multiple transcripts. In addition, we offer a motif searching facility, where user-defined regular expressions can be searched against putative proteins encoded by the predicted genes. The AUGUSTUS web interface and the downloadable open-source stand-alone program are freely available from
Learning Extremal Representations with Deep Archetypal Analysis
Archetypes are typical population representatives in an extremal sense, where
typicality is understood as the most extreme manifestation of a trait or
feature. In linear feature space, archetypes approximate the data convex hull
allowing all data points to be expressed as convex mixtures of archetypes.
However, it might not always be possible to identify meaningful archetypes in a
given feature space. Learning an appropriate feature space and identifying
suitable archetypes simultaneously addresses this problem. This paper
introduces a generative formulation of the linear archetype model,
parameterized by neural networks. By introducing the distance-dependent
archetype loss, the linear archetype model can be integrated into the latent
space of a variational autoencoder, and an optimal representation with respect
to the unknown archetypes can be learned end-to-end. The reformulation of
linear Archetypal Analysis as deep variational information bottleneck, allows
the incorporation of arbitrarily complex side information during training.
Furthermore, an alternative prior, based on a modified Dirichlet distribution,
is proposed. The real-world applicability of the proposed method is
demonstrated by exploring archetypes of female facial expressions while using
multi-rater based emotion scores of these expressions as side information. A
second application illustrates the exploration of the chemical space of small
organic molecules. In this experiment, it is demonstrated that exchanging the
side information but keeping the same set of molecules, e. g. using as side
information the heat capacity of each molecule instead of the band gap energy,
will result in the identification of different archetypes. As an application,
these learned representations of chemical space might reveal distinct starting
points for de novo molecular design.Comment: Under review for publication at the International Journal of Computer
Vision (IJCV). Extended version of our GCPR2019 paper "Deep Archetypal
Analysis
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