Greglist: a database listing potential G-quadruplex regulated genes

The double helix is a conformation that genomic DNA usually assumes; under certain conditions, however, guanine-rich DNA sequences can form a four-stranded structure, G-quadruplex, which is found to play a role in regulating gene expression. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that the G-quadruplex formed in the c-MYC promoter suppresses its transcriptional activity. Recent studies suggest that G-quadruplex motifs (GQMs) are enriched in human gene promoters. To facilitate the research of G-quadruplex, we have constructed Greglist, a database listing potentially G-quadruplex regulated genes. Greglist harbors genes that contain promoter GQMs from genomes of various species, including humans, mice, rats and chickens. Many important genes are found to contain previously unreported promoter GQMs, such as ATM, BAD, AKT1, LEPR, UCP1, APOE, DKK1, WT1, WEE1, WNT1 and CLOCK. Furthermore, we find that not only protein coding genes, 126 human microRNAs also contain promoter GQMs. Greglist therefore provides candidates for further studying G-quadruplex functions and is freely available at http://tubic.tju.edu.cn/greglist

Sex difference and intra-operative tidal volume: Insights from the LAS VEGAS study

BACKGROUND: One key element of lung-protective ventilation is the use of a low tidal volume (VT). A sex difference in use of low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) has been described in critically ill ICU patients.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a sex difference in use of LTVV also exists in operating room patients, and if present what factors drive this difference.DESIGN, PATIENTS AND SETTING: This is a posthoc analysis of LAS VEGAS, a 1-week worldwide observational study in adults requiring intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals in 29 countries.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Women and men were compared with respect to use of LTVV, defined as VT of 8 ml kg-1 or less predicted bodyweight (PBW). A VT was deemed 'default' if the set VT was a round number. A mediation analysis assessed which factors may explain the sex difference in use of LTVV during intra-operative ventilation.RESULTS: This analysis includes 9864 patients, of whom 5425 (55%) were women. A default VT was often set, both in women and men; mode VT was 500 ml. Median [IQR] VT was higher in women than in men (8.6 [7.7 to 9.6] vs. 7.6 [6.8 to 8.4] ml kg-1 PBW, P < 0.001). Compared with men, women were twice as likely not to receive LTVV [68.8 vs. 36.0%; relative risk ratio 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.1), P < 0.001]. In the mediation analysis, patients' height and actual body weight (ABW) explained 81 and 18% of the sex difference in use of LTVV, respectively; it was not explained by the use of a default VT.CONCLUSION: In this worldwide cohort of patients receiving intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery, women received a higher VT than men during intra-operative ventilation. The risk for a female not to receive LTVV during surgery was double that of males. Height and ABW were the two mediators of the sex difference in use of LTVV.TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01601223

Classifying the evolutionary and ecological features of neoplasms

The consensus conference was supported by Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences. C.C.M. is supported in part by US NIH grants P01 CA91955, R01 CA149566, R01 CA170595, R01 CA185138 and R01 CA140657 as well as CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program Award BC132057. M.J. is supported by NIH grant K99CA201606. K.S.A. is supported by NCI 5R21 CA196460. K. Polyak is supported by R35 CA197623, U01 CA195469, U54 CA193461, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. K.J.P. is supported by NIH grants CA143803, CA163124, CA093900 and CA143055. D.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC-617457- PHYLOCANCER), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2015-63774-P) and the Education, Culture and University Development Department of the Galician Government. K.S.A. is supported in part by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and NCI R21CA196460. C.S. is supported by the Royal Society, Cancer Research UK (FC001169), the UK Medical Research Council (FC001169), and the Wellcome Trust (FC001169), NovoNordisk Foundation (ID 16584), the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), the European Research Council (THESEUS) and Marie Curie Network PloidyNet. T.A.G. is a Cancer Research UK fellow and a Wellcome Trust funded Investigator. E.S.H. is supported by R01 CA185138-01 and W81XWH-14-1-0473. M.Gerlinger is supported by Cancer Research UK and The Royal Marsden/ICR National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre. M.Ge., M.Gr., Y.Y., and A.So. were also supported in part by the Wellcome Trust [105104/Z/14/Z]. J.D.S. holds the Edward B. Clark, MD Chair in Pediatric Research, and is supported by the Primary Children's Hospital (PCH) Pediatric Cancer Research Program, funded by the Intermountain Healthcare Foundation and the PCH Foundation. A.S. is supported by the Chris Rokos Fellowship in Evolution and Cancer. Y.Y. is a Cancer Research UK fellow and supported by The Royal Marsden/ICR National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre. E.S.H. was supported in part by PCORI grants 1505–30497 and 1503–29572, NIH grants R01 CA185138, T32 CA093245, and U10 CA180857, CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program Award BC132057, a CRUK Grand Challenge grant, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. A.R.A.A. was funded in part by NIH grant U01CA151924. A.R.A.A., R.G. and J.S.B. were funded in part by NIH grant U54CA193489

VIRTUOSITY AS DISPLAYED IN THE SOLO PIANO, CHAMBER, AND VOCAL LITERATURE OF TCHAIKOVSKY, RACHMANINOFF, AND BRAHMS

Virtuosity is defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as “great technical skill” and virtuosity in music continues to be a constant source of discussion for musicians. What value do virtuosic elements have in late Romantic music, particularly those featuring the piano, a virtuoso-friendly instrument? Do these elements enhance the overall musical impact of the repertoire and if so, how? Does it make a difference if the work is a solo piano work, piano chamber music or music for voice and piano? These are the questions that I will explore in this performance dissertation. Each of my three recitals will feature one of these three iconic Romantic composers: Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff. Included will be a piano concerto, two piano trios, a piano quartet, and three sets of piano/vocal works, all significant in the solo and collaborative pianist’s repertoire.By the mid-nineteenth century, pianist Franz Liszt and violinist Nicolo Paganini had paved the way to a new age of instrumental technical virtuosity. Along with expanding the possibilities of what instrumentalists could do, virtuosic elements in music have even influenced the very setting of music performance. As chamber repertoire started expanding and becoming increasingly challenging in the late-nineteenth century, chamber music performances shifted from more casual, at-home venues, to being performed in some of the larger and most prestigious concert halls. Chamber music historically had been simpler, often meant for performance at home by amateurs. This began to change with the quartets of Beethoven, especially the late quartets and certainly the Brahms’ G minor piano quartet was not composed to be played on an upright piano in someone’s living room. First of all, the performance of a forty five-minute complex chamber music work for four musicians is in itself a virtuoso accomplishment! Throughout the quartet, Brahms displays his mastery of counterpoint and thematic development, as well as his ability to balance individual instruments and create a cohesive ensemble sound. The use of virtuosic elements in the piano part adds to the complexity and richness of the work. As instrumentalists continued to become more virtuosic, composers continued creating more challenging works for them throughout the nineteenth century. Brahms, Rachmaninov, and Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most technically difficult music of the time. Since Brahms and Rachmaninov were both famous pianists and understood the capabilities of the piano, their compositions further challenged musicians. Tchaikovsky’s compositions demonstrated many technical challenges as well, as they were often composed in the style of Anton Rubinstein, who was one the greatest pianists of the time, praised for his musicianship and technical abilities. The vocal works which are included in these recitals (the four romances by Tchaikovsky, the vocal set Op. 38 by Rachmaninoff and the Brahms Zigeunerlieder) were chosen to demonstrate how these composers transitioned from writing accompanimentally to more expanded and technically demanding piano parts. Through these programs, I hope to demonstrate the variety and value of the virtuoso elements in these Romantic masterpieces and how this contributes to making mesmerizing and meaningful masterworks which continue to attract audiences today. Additionally, I will be performing music which speaks to me in a very direct and immediate way and which I hope will then speak equally significantly to the listener as well. This dissertation and recordings can be accessed in the Digital Repository (DRUM) at the University of Maryland

Flux: A Language for Programming High-Performance Servers

Programming high-performance server applications is challenging: it is both complicated and error-prone to write the concurrent code required to deliver high performance and scalability. Server performance bottlenecks are difficult to identify and correct. Finally, it is difficult to predict server performance prior to deployment. This paper presents Flux, a language that dramatically simplifies the construction of scalable high-performance server applications. Flux lets programmers compose offthe- shelf, sequential C or C++ functions into concurrent servers. Flux programs are type-checked and guaranteed to be deadlock-free. We have built a number of servers in Flux, including a web server with PHP support, an image-rendering server, a BitTorrent peer, and a game server. These Flux servers match or exceed the performance of their counterparts written entirely in C. By tracking hot paths through a running server, Flux simplifies the identification of performance bottlenecks. The Flux compiler also automatically generates discrete event simulators that accurately predict actual server performance under load and with different hardware resources

Predicting Network Hardware Faults through Layered Treatment of Alarms Logs

Maintaining and managing ever more complex telecommunication networks is an increasingly difficult task, which often challenges the capabilities of human experts. There is a consensus both in academia and in the industry on the need to enhance human capabilities with sophisticated algorithmic tools for decision-making, with the aim of transitioning towards more autonomous, self-optimizing networks. We aimed to contribute to this larger project. We tackled the problem of detecting and predicting the occurrence of faults in hardware components in a radio access network, leveraging the alarm logs produced by the network elements. We defined an end-to-end method for data collection, preparation, labelling, and fault prediction. We proposed a layered approach to fault prediction: we first detected the base station that is going to be faulty and at a second stage, and using a different algorithm, we detected the component of the base station that is going to be faulty. We designed a range of algorithmic solutions and tested them on real data collected from a major telecommunication operator. We concluded that we are able to predict the failure of a network component with satisfying precision and recall

Flux: A Language for Programming High-Performance Servers

Programming high-performance server applications is challenging: it is both complicated and error-prone to write the concurrent code required to deliver high performance and scalability. Server performance bottlenecks are difficult to identify and correct. Finally, it is difficult to predict server performance prior to deployment. This paper presents Flux, a language that dramatically simplifies the construction of scalable high-performance server applications. Flux lets programmers compose offthe- shelf, sequential C or C++ functions into concurrent servers. Flux programs are type-checked and guaranteed to be deadlock-free. We have built a number of servers in Flux, including a web server with PHP support, an image-rendering server, a BitTorrent peer, and a game server. These Flux servers match or exceed the performance of their counterparts written entirely in C. By tracking hot paths through a running server, Flux simplifies the identification of performance bottlenecks. The Flux compiler also automatically generates discrete event simulators that accurately predict actual server performance under load and with different hardware resources

Elliptic Venttsel problems with VMO coefficients

We announce new results about strong solvability of linear and quasilinear Venttsel boundary value problems with discontinuous principal coefficients

Towards a Research Data Commons in the German National Research Data Infrastructure NFDI: Vision, Governance, Architecture

The concept of a "Research Data Commons" (RDC) established itself as an infrastructure ecosystem for science based on open standards and federated resources to facilitate the sharing of research data and services. The consortia of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) have identified the collaborative provisioning of resources and services to be of key importance for a functioning and efficient RDC and are leveraging different corresponding measures to establish a sustainable concept in line with international developments.</jats:p