Adaptive Evolution of Conserved Noncoding Elements in Mammals

Conserved noncoding elements (CNCs) are an abundant feature of vertebrate genomes. Some CNCs have been shown to act as cis-regulatory modules, but the function of most CNCs remains unclear. To study the evolution of CNCs, we have developed a statistical method called the “shared rates test” to identify CNCs that show significant variation in substitution rates across branches of a phylogenetic tree. We report an application of this method to alignments of 98,910 CNCs from the human, chimpanzee, dog, mouse, and rat genomes. We find that ∼68% of CNCs evolve according to a null model where, for each CNC, a single parameter models the level of constraint acting throughout the phylogeny linking these five species. The remaining ∼32% of CNCs show departures from the basic model including speed-ups and slow-downs on particular branches and occasionally multiple rate changes on different branches. We find that a subset of the significant CNCs have evolved significantly faster than the local neutral rate on a particular branch, providing strong evidence for adaptive evolution in these CNCs. The distribution of these signals on the phylogeny suggests that adaptive evolution of CNCs occurs in occasional short bursts of evolution. Our analyses suggest a large set of promising targets for future functional studies of adaptation.</p

2013–2014 White Mountain Stewardship Project economic assessment

White Mountain Stewardship Projec

Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Related to Shift Work among Korean Workers Aged from 30 to 49 Years

This study was to compare health behaviors between day workers (DW ) and shift workers (SW), and to investigate the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among 30-49 years Korean workers. SW showed higher prevalence of smoking than DW. The proportion of adequate sleep was lower in SW than in DW. DW showed high.er prevalence of impaired fasting glucose, however, there were no significant differences in hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and metabolic syndrome between DW and SW. Further research is recommended to include mediating factors such as organizational culture or working time, etc., for scrutinizing the association between work type and CVD risk factors

A Comparison of Education, Business, and Engineering Undergraduate Students’ Internet Use and their Experience, Confidence, and Competence in Using New Literacies of the Internet

This study explored beginning and advanced pre-service teachers’ Internet use and their experience, confidence, and competence in using new literacies of the Internet. In addition, this study compared the pre-service teachers to same-aged business and engineering students. Through using an online survey, this study recruited 1350 students from the various disciplines. This study conducted comparisons between a) underclassmen across the three majors, b) seniors across the majors, and c) underclassmen and seniors within the majors. This study found that as digital natives, education, business, and engineering students used the Internet frequently. However, they were relatively unfamiliar with using new literacies of the Internet during their high school and university educational experiences. Overall, the three majors’ students were confident but they were not competent in using new literacies of the Internet including locating and evaluating information on the Internet. Comparisons between and within the majors revealed that education underclassmen were less confident and competent than engineering underclassmen peers and senior education students in evaluating information on the Internet. Education seniors were comparable to business and engineering seniors in their confidence and competence in both locating and evaluating information on the Internet. The findings imply that teacher educators need to understand the weaknesses of their pre-service teachers and provide them with appropriate opportunities and training to know how to effectively use and furthermore teach new literacies of the Internet

Issues in forest restoration: Forest restoration treatments: Their effect on wildland fire suppression costs

We modeled the effects of proposed forest restoration treatments in Arizona's Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) on fire behavior characteristics and fire suppression costs. We found two significant factors that help explain total wildfire suppression costs: 1) distance from the wildfire to the wildland-urban interface and 2) the proportion of fires with high burn severity. Given our results, we estimate a range for wildland suppression costs at $706-$825 per acre for the current conditions of the 4FRI landscape. After the proposed forest restoration treatments, the suppression costs should be reduced to $287-$327 per acre for the same size fire

Successful detection and removal of predictable juvenile polyp: a case report

Juvenile polyp makes up 70% to 80% of pediatric colon polyp, and the average age of diagnosis is 2 to 5 years. The treatment of juvenile polyp in children is polypectomy through colonoscopy. The fact that the lumen of intestine is much smaller than that of adults and the need to perform polypectomy is a heavy burden on the endoscopists. Recently, fecal calprotectin (FC) has been found to be related to juvenile polyp. A previously healthy 34-month-old female patient presented to the pediatric gastroenterology department with intermittent bloody stools that were progressively worsening. FC level was abnormally elevated at 2,719 µg/g (normal, < 50 µg/g). The polyp was successfully removed with a endoscopic polypectomy. This is the first case in Korea to show that FC can be used to screen juvenile polyp in children. Caution must be taken that FC levels can increase with inflammation, regardless of the number or size of the polyps

Flood Estimation and Prediction Using Particle Filters

Data assimilation methods have received increased attention to accomplish uncertainty assessment and enhancement of forecasting capability in various areas. Despite their potential, applicable software frameworks for probabilistic approaches and data assimilation are still limited because most hydrologic modeling software are based on a deterministic approach. In this study, we developed a hydrologic modeling framework for data assimilation, namely MPI-OHyMoS. While adapting object-oriented features of the original OHyMoS, MPI-OHyMoS allows user to build a probabilistic hydrologic model with data assimilation. In this software framework, sequential data assimilation based on particle filtering is available for any hydrologic models considering various sources of uncertainty originating from input forcing, parameters, and observations. Ensemble simulations are parallelized by a message passing interface (MPI), which can take advantage of high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Structure and implementation processes of data assimilation via MPI-OHyMoS are illustrated using a simple lumped model. We apply this software framework for uncertainty assessment of a distributed hydrologic model in synthetic and real experiment cases. In the synthetic experiment, dual state-parameter updating results in a reasonable estimation of parameters to cover synthetic true within their posterior distributions. In the real experiment, dual updating with identifiable parameters results in a reasonable agreement to the observed hydrograph with reduced uncertainty of parameters

Laccase-catalyzed polymerization for coating and material modification

The enzymatic polymerization and material modification with laccases is a promising technology especially for the coating of the natural and synthetic materials at mild conditions of temperature and pH [1]. The “in situ” enzymatic coating of several natural materials as sisal, linum, cotton and wood were performed, in a batchwise process at different temperature and pH. Small colorless aromatic compounds such as diamines, aminophenols, aminonaphtols, and phenols, were oxidized by laccase resulting in dimeric, oligomeric, and polymeric molecules [2]. The coupling and polymerizing ability of laccase was used for colored and non-colored surface modifications of the materials in order to obtain coating with water-proof, flame retardant, strength and adhesive properties. Sisal and wood were enzymatic coated with laccase using several phenols and amines. Interesting waterproof properties as well as different hues and depth of shades in the color pallet were observed. Enzymatic coating with catechol of amized cellulose fibers was also performed in the presence of laccase [3]. The LC/MS analysis of the hydrolyzed coated-cellulose confirming the presence of functionalized glucose and cellobiose units coupled to poly(catechol) molecules (m/z 580 and m/z 633). Furthermore, laccase was tested in combination with ultrasound to improve coloration of wool by “in situ” radical polymerization of catechol [4]. In the sonicated laccase/catechol system a large polymerization was observed even more than the laccase/catechol stirring system. The ultrasonic waves produce hydroxyl radicals, improve the diffusion processes and may also have positive effect on the laccase active center structure [5]. Extension of these methods to other laccase substrates, using appropriate and costefficient functionalization techniques, may provide a new route to environmentally friendly materials with predefined structures and properties

New developments of enzymatic treatments on cellulosic fibers

ACS Symposium Series, Vol. 972In this review, we focused on the recent and non-conventional enzyme bioconversions of cellulosic fibers. Cellulosic fibers are the largest market of textile industry and also represent the most successful market for enzymes base processes in the textile area. The new enzyme developments presented on this paper include the strength recovering in resin-crosslinked fabrics, phosphorylation for better antiflame retardancy, coating and funcionalization of cellulosic fabrics