2,656 research outputs found
Transduction by Phi Bb-1, a Bacteriophage of Borrelia Burgdorferi
We previously described a bacteriophage of the Lyme disease agent Borrelia burgdorferi designated phi BB-1. This phage packages the host complement of the 32-kb circular plasmids (cp32s), a group of homologous molecules found throughout the genus Borrelia. To demonstrate the ability of phi BB-1 to package and transduce DNA, a kanamycin resistance cassette was inserted into a cloned fragment of phage DNA, and the resulting construct was transformed into B. burgdorferi CA-11.2A cells. The kan cassette recombined into a resident cp32 and was stably maintained. The cp32 containing the kan cassette was packaged by phi BB-1 released from this B. burgdorferi strain. phi BB-1 has been used to transduce this antibiotic resistance marker into naive CA-11.2A cells, as well as two other strains of B. burgdorferi. This is the first direct evidence of a mechanism for lateral gene transfer in B. burgdorferi
An analysis of integrative outcomes in the Dayton peace negotiations
The nature of the negotiated outcomes of the eight issues of the Dayton Peace Agreement was studied in terms of their integrative and distributive aspects. in cases where integrative elements were Sound, further analysis was conducted by concentrating on Pruitt's five types of integrative solutions: expanding the pie, cost cutting, non-specific compensation, logrolling, and bridging. The results showed that real world international negotiations can arrive at integrative agreements even when they involve redistribution of resources tin this case the redistribution of former Yugoslavia). Another conclusion was that an agreement can consist of several distributive outcomes and several integrative outcomes produced by different kinds of mechanisms. Similarly, in single issues more than one mechanism can be used simultaneously. Some distributive bargaining was needed in order to determine how much compensation was required. Finally, each integrative formula had some distributive aspects as well
Black Stork Down: Military Discourses in Bird Conservation in Malta
Tensions between Maltese hunters and bird conservation NGOs have intensified over the past decade. Conservation NGOs have become frustrated with the Maltese State for conceding to the hunter lobby and negotiating derogations from the European Union’s Bird Directive. Some NGOs have recently started to organize complex field-operations where volunteers are trained to patrol the landscape, operate drones and other surveillance technologies, detect illegalities, and lead police teams to arrest poachers. We describe the sophisticated military metaphors which conservation NGOs have developed to describe, guide and legitimize their efforts to the Maltese public and their fee-paying members. We also discuss why such groups might be inclined to adopt these metaphors. Finally, we suggest that anthropological studies of discourse could help understand delicate contexts such as this where conservation NGOs, hunting associations and the State have ended in political deadlock
Many Body Theory of Charge Transfer in Hyperthermal Atomic Scattering
We use the Newns-Anderson Hamiltonian to describe many-body electronic
processes that occur when hyperthermal alkali atoms scatter off metallic
surfaces. Following Brako and Newns, we expand the electronic many-body
wavefunction in the number of particle-hole pairs (we keep terms up to and
including a single particle-hole pair). We extend their earlier work by
including level crossings, excited neutrals and negative ions. The full set of
equations of motion are integrated numerically, without further approximations,
to obtain the many-body amplitudes as a function of time. The velocity and
work-function dependence of final state quantities such as the distribution of
ion charges and excited atomic occupancies are compared with experiment. In
particular, experiments that scatter alkali ions off clean Cu(001) surfaces in
the energy range 5 to 1600 eV constrain the theory quantitatively. The
neutralization probability of Na ions shows a minimum at intermediate
velocity in agreement with the theory. This behavior contrasts with that of
K, which shows ... (7 figures, not included. Figure requests:
[email protected])Comment: 43 pages, plain TeX, BUP-JBM-
Exact solution of a two-type branching process: Clone size distribution in cell division kinetics
We study a two-type branching process which provides excellent description of
experimental data on cell dynamics in skin tissue (Clayton et al., 2007). The
model involves only a single type of progenitor cell, and does not require
support from a self-renewed population of stem cells. The progenitor cells
divide and may differentiate into post-mitotic cells. We derive an exact
solution of this model in terms of generating functions for the total number of
cells, and for the number of cells of different types. We also deduce large
time asymptotic behaviors drawing on our exact results, and on an independent
diffusion approximation.Comment: 16 page
Mathematical morphology on tensor data using the Loewner ordering
The notions of maximum and minimum are the key to the powerful tools of greyscale morphology. Unfortunately these notions do not carry over directly to tensor-valued data. Based upon the Loewner ordering for symmetric matrices this paper extends the maximum and minimum operation to the tensor-valued setting. This provides the ground to establish matrix-valued analogues of the basic morphological operations ranging from erosion/dilation to top hats. In contrast to former attempts to develop a morphological machinery for matrices, the novel definitions of maximal/minimal matrices depend continuously on the input data, a property crucial for the construction of morphological derivatives such as the Beucher gradient or a morphological Laplacian. These definitions are rotationally invariant and preserve positive semidefiniteness of matrix fields as they are encountered in DT-MRI data. The morphological operations resulting from a component-wise maximum/minimum of the matrix channels disregarding their strong correlation fail to be rotational invariant. Experiments on DT-MRI images as well as on indefinite matrix data illustrate the properties and performance of our morphological operators
Shapes of leading tunnelling trajectories for single-electron molecular ionization
Based on the geometrical approach to tunnelling by P.D. Hislop and I.M. Sigal
[Memoir. AMS 78, No. 399 (1989)], we introduce the concept of a leading
tunnelling trajectory. It is then proven that leading tunnelling trajectories
for single-active-electron models of molecular tunnelling ionization (i.e.,
theories where a molecular potential is modelled by a single-electron
multi-centre potential) are linear in the case of short range interactions and
"almost" linear in the case of long range interactions. The results are
presented on both the formal and physically intuitive levels. Physical
implications of the obtained results are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure
Clubbing masculinities: Gender shifts in gay men's dance floor choreographies
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Homosexuality, 58(5), 608-625, 2011 [copyright
Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00918369.2011.563660This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the intersections of gender, sexuality, and dance. It examines the expressions of sexuality among gay males through culturally popular forms of club dancing. Drawing on political and musical history, I outline an account of how gay men's gendered choreographies changed throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Through a notion of “technologies of the body,” I situate these developments in relation to cultural levels of homophobia, exploring how masculine expressions are entangled with and regulated by musical structures. My driving hypothesis is that as perceptions of cultural homophobia decrease, popular choreographies of gay men's dance have become more feminine in expression. Exploring this idea in the context of the first decade of the new millennium, I present a case study of TigerHeat, one of the largest weekly gay dance club events in the United States
Transcriptomics reveal an integrative role for maternal thyroid hormones during zebrafish embryogenesis
Thyroid hormones (THs) are essential for embryonic brain development but the genetic mechanisms involved in the action of maternal THs (MTHs) are still largely unknown. As the basis for understanding the underlying genetic mechanisms of MTHs regulation we used an established zebrafish monocarboxylic acid transporter 8 (MCT8) knock-down model and characterised the transcriptome in 25hpf zebrafish embryos. Subsequent mapping of differentially expressed genes using Reactome pathway analysis together with in situ expression analysis and immunohistochemistry revealed the genetic networks and cells under MTHs regulation during zebrafish embryogenesis. We found 4,343 differentially expressed genes and the Reactome pathway analysis revealed that TH is involved in 1681 of these pathways. MTHs regulated the expression of core developmental pathways, such as NOTCH and WNT in a cell specific context. The cellular distribution of neural MTH-target genes demonstrated their cell specific action on neural stem cells and differentiated neuron classes. Taken together our data show that MTHs have a role in zebrafish neurogenesis and suggest they may be involved in cross talk between key pathways in neural development. Given that the observed MCT8 zebrafish knockdown phenotype resembles the symptoms in human patients with Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome our data open a window into understanding the genetics of this human congenital condition.Portuguese Fundacao para Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) [PTDC/EXPL/MARBIO/0430/2013]; CCMAR FCT Plurianual financing [UID/Multi/04326/2013]; FCT [SFRH/BD/111226/2015, SFRH/BD/108842/2015, SFRH/BPD/89889/2012]; FCT-IF Starting Grant [IF/01274/2014]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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