Cultural differences in intimacy: The influence of gender-role ideology and individualism-collectivism

Two studies examined emotional intimacy in European Canadian and Chinese Canadian dating relationships. Cultural differences in gender-role ideology and individualism–collectivism were hypothesized to differentially contribute to selfdisclosure and responsiveness, and in turn, intimacy. Study 1 revealed that Chinese Canadians’ lower intimacy relative to European Canadians was mediated by their greater gender-role traditionalism but not by their individualism or collectivism. Study 2 further linked greater gender-role traditionalism to lower self-disclosure, and in turn, lower intimacy. Results also revealed that Chinese Canadians’ lower intimacy mediated their lower relationship satisfaction and higher rate of relationship termination in Study 1, but that Chinese Canadians were not any more likely to terminate their relationships in Study 2

Fusion of SpCas9 to E.coli Rec A protein enhances CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene knockout in mammalian cells

Mammalian cells repair double-strand DNA breaks (DSB) by a range of different pathways following DSB induction by the engineered clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated protein Cas9. While CRISPR-Cas9 thus enables predesigned modifications of the genome, applications of CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome-editing are frequently hampered by the unpredictable and varying pathways for DSB repair in mammalian cells. Here we present a strategy of fusing Cas9 to recombinant proteins for fine-tuning of the DSB repair preferences in mammalian cells. By fusing Streptococcus Pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) to the recombinant protein A (Rec A, NP_417179.1) from E. coli, we create a recombinant Cas9 protein (rSpCas9) which enhances the generation of indel mutations at DSB sites in mammalian cells, increases the frequency of DSB repair by homology-directed single-strand annealing (SSA), and represses homology-directed gene conversion by approximately 33%. Our study thus proves for the first time that fusing SpCas9 to recombinant proteins can influence the balance between DSB repair pathways in mammalian cells. This approach may form the basis for further investigations of the applications of recombinant Cas9 proteins to fine-tuning DSB repair pathways in eukaryotic cells

Size Scaling of Turbulent Transport in Magnetically Confined Plasmas

Transport scaling with respect to device size in magnetically confined plasmas is critically examined for electrostatic ion temperature gradient turbulence using global gyrokinetic particle simulations. It is found, by varying device size normalized by ion gyroradius while keeping other dimensionless plasma parameters fixed, that fluctuation scale length is microscopic in the presence of zonal flows. The local transport coefficient exhibits a gradual transition from a Bohm-like scaling for device sizes corresponding to present-day experiments to a gyro-Bohm scaling for future larger devices

High-level expression of Trigonopsis variabilis D-amino acid oxidase in Escherichia coli using lactose as inducer

The use of lactose as inducer for the expression of Trigonopsis variabilis D-amino acid oxidase gene (daao) was investigated in Escherichia coli regulated by T7 or T5 promoter. The daao gene was prepared by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and cloned into pET21b and pQE-30 to yield pET-DAAO and pQE-DAAO, respectively. The His(6)-tagged DAAO was expressed in E. coli and had a M-r value of approximately 39.3 kDa. In lactose-induced E. coli BL21 (DE3) (pET-DAAO), the expressed DAAO could comprise up to 15% of total soluble proteins and a productivity of 23.4 U ml(-1) was obtained

quasiharmonic equations of state for dynamically-stabilized soft-mode materials

We introduce a method for treating soft modes within the analytical framework of the quasiharmonic equation of state. The corresponding double-well energy-displacement relation is fitted to a functional form that is harmonic in both the low- and high-energy limits. Using density-functional calculations and statistical physics, we apply the quasiharmonic methodology to solid periclase. We predict the existence of a B1--B2 phase transition at high pressures and temperatures

An adaptive multi-population differential artificial bee colony algorithm for many-objective service composition in cloud manufacturing

Several conflicting criteria must be optimized simultaneously during the service composition and optimal selection (SCOS) in cloud manufacturing, among which tradeoff optimization regarding the quality of the composite services is a key issue in successful implementation of manufacturing tasks. This study improves the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm by introducing a synergetic mechanism for food source perturbation, a new diversity maintenance strategy, and a novel computing resources allocation scheme to handle complicated many-objective SCOS problems. Specifically, differential evolution (DE) operators with distinct search behaviors are integrated into the ABC updating equation to enhance the level of information exchange between the foraging bees, and the control parameters for reproduction operators are adapted independently. Meanwhile, a scalarization based approach with active diversity promotion is used to enhance the selection pressure. In this proposal, multiple size adjustable subpopulations evolve with distinct reproduction operators according to the utility of the generating offspring so that more computational resources will be allocated to the better performing reproduction operators. Experiments for addressing benchmark test instances and SCOS problems indicate that the proposed algorithm has a competitive performance and scalability behavior compared with contesting algorithms

Polarimetric Properties of Flux-Ropes and Sheared Arcades in Coronal Prominence Cavities

The coronal magnetic field is the primary driver of solar dynamic events. Linear and circular polarization signals of certain infrared coronal emission lines contain information about the magnetic field, and to access this information, either a forward or an inversion method must be used. We study three coronal magnetic configurations that are applicable to polar-crown filament cavities by doing forward calculations to produce synthetic polarization data. We analyze these forward data to determine the distinguishing characteristics of each model. We conclude that it is possible to distinguish between cylindrical flux ropes, spheromak flux ropes, and sheared arcades using coronal polarization measurements. If one of these models is found to be consistent with observational measurements, it will mean positive identification of the magnetic morphology that surrounds certain quiescent filaments, which will lead to a greater understanding of how they form and why they erupt.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, Solar Physics topical issue: Coronal Magnetis

A Multi-Phase Transport model for nuclear collisions at RHIC

To study heavy ion collisions at energies available from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, we have developed a multi-phase transport model that includes both initial partonic and final hadronic interactions. Specifically, the parton cascade model ZPC, which uses as input the parton distribution from the HIJING model, is extended to include the quark-gluon to hadronic matter transition and also final-state hadronic interactions based on the ART model. Predictions of the model for central Au on Au collisions at RHIC are reported.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Typicality versus thermality: An analytic distinction

In systems with a large degeneracy of states such as black holes, one expects that the average value of probe correlation functions will be well approximated by the thermal ensemble. To understand how correlation functions in individual microstates differ from the canonical ensemble average and from each other, we study the variances in correlators. Using general statistical considerations, we show that the variance between microstates will be exponentially suppressed in the entropy. However, by exploiting the analytic properties of correlation functions we argue that these variances are amplified in imaginary time, thereby distinguishing pure states from the thermal density matrix. We demonstrate our general results in specific examples and argue that our results apply to the microstates of black holes.Comment: 22 pages + appendices, 3 eps figure