Are We Responsible for Our Emotions and Moods?

The short answer to the question in the title of this paper is yes. Our thesis is that we are indeed responsible for our emotions and moods. We want to help children understand that just as they are responsible for what they do and say, or omit to do or say (along with the consequences of these acts), so are they responsible for much of their affective life. What remains is to explain what we mean by responsibility, emotions, and moods

U.S. Biodiesel Development: New Markets for Conventional and Genetically Modified Agricultural Products

With environmental and energy source concerns on the rise, using agricultural fats and oils as fuel in diesel engines has captured increasing attention. Substituting petroleum diesel with biodiesel may reduce air emissions, increase the domestic supply of fuel, and create new markets for farmers. U.S. agricultural fats and oils could support a large amount of biodiesel, but high production costs and competing uses for biodiesel feedstocks will likely prevent mass adoption of biodiesel fuel. Higher-priced niche markets could develop for biodiesels as a result of environmental regulations. Biodiesel has many environmental advantages relative to petroleum diesel, such as lower CO, CO2, SOx, and particulate matter emissions. Enhancing fuel properties by genetically modifiying oil crops could improve NOx emissions, cold flow, and oxidative stability, which have been identified as potential problems for biodiesel. Research activities need to be directed toward cost reduction, improving fuel properties, and analyzing the economic effects of biodiesel development on U.S. agriculture.biodiesel, biodiesel blends, fatty acid esters, soybean, oil crops, animal fats, plant genetics, diesel engines, alternative fuels, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Structural investigations of hydroxylase proteins and complexes in bacterial multicomponent monooxygenase systems

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemistry, 2008.Vita.Includes bibliographical references.Bacterial multicomponent monooxgenases (BMMs) such as toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase (ToMO), phenol hydroxylase (PH), and soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) catalyze hydrocarbon oxidation reactions at a carboxylatebridged non-heme diiron center common to many systems in biology, as discussed in the first and subsequent chapters of this document. Chapter 1 provides a summary of various relationships between structure and activity in BMMs, as they have been determined through decades of research into BMM hydrocarbon catalysis. Presented in Chapter 2 are the structures of the native (ToMOH) and manganese(ll)-reconstituted (Mn(ll)-ToMOH) ToMO hydroxylase, at 1.85 A and 2.20 A resolution, respectively. The structure of Mn(ll)-ToMOH reveals an active site coordination and geometry similar to that in diferrous and manganese(ll)-reconstituted MMOH, indicating that it represents an analog of the diferrous ToMOH structure. Through comparison of the native ToMOH and Mn(II)-ToMOH structures, a collection of metal site oxidation state dependent conformational changes in conserved residues on the surface of the hydroxylase a-suibunit are observed, suggesting a relationship between active site oxidation state and component interactions in BMMs. Through analysis of the 1.85 A ToMOH structure, a series of hydrophobic cavities through the asubunit connecting the active site to the protein surface analogous to those previously noted in MMOH were also discovered as part of this work. Chapter 3 describes three X-ray crystal structures of ToMOH T201X mutants, and four structures of ToMOH N202X mutants at resolutions ranging from 1.90 to 2.90 A.(cont.) These data reveal alterations in the ToMOH active site pocket surface topology and malformed hydrogen bonding interactions resulting from the various mutations that may respectively be responsible for substrate hydroxylation regiospecificity and proton translocation differences observed of the mutant proteins in future biochemical studies when compared to the wild-type system. Reported in Chapter 4 is a 1.95 A X-ray crystal structure of the xenon gas pressurized PH hydroxylase (Xe-PHH), along with computational analyses of the various surface-to-diiron center cavities, channels, and pores in the a-subunits of all three structurally characterized BMM hydroxylase proteins. The structure of Xe-PHH reveals extensive xenon binding in the conserved a-subunit hydrophobic cavities and suggests a role for the pathway in dioxygen transport to the active site during catalysis. Computational analyses of surface-to-diiron center cavities, channels, and pores in the BMM hydroxylase a-subunits supports findings from the Xe-PHH structure, and provides insight into how the various molecular substrate transport pathways may have been carved into the different hydroxylase proteins through evolution.by Michael S. McCormick.Ph.D

Drug-tolerant persister cancer cells are vulnerable to GPX4 inhibition.

Acquired drug resistance prevents cancer therapies from achieving stable and complete responses. Emerging evidence implicates a key role for non-mutational drug resistance mechanisms underlying the survival of residual cancer 'persister' cells. The persister cell pool constitutes a reservoir from which drug-resistant tumours may emerge. Targeting persister cells therefore presents a therapeutic opportunity to impede tumour relapse. We previously found that cancer cells in a high mesenchymal therapy-resistant cell state are dependent on the lipid hydroperoxidase GPX4 for survival. Here we show that a similar therapy-resistant cell state underlies the behaviour of persister cells derived from a wide range of cancers and drug treatments. Consequently, we demonstrate that persister cells acquire a dependency on GPX4. Loss of GPX4 function results in selective persister cell ferroptotic death in vitro and prevents tumour relapse in mice. These findings suggest that targeting of GPX4 may represent a therapeutic strategy to prevent acquired drug resistance

Relationship between Surface Water Temperature and Steelhead Distributions in Lake Michigan

Salmonines support valuable recreational fisheries and are the predominant predators in the open waters of the Great Lakes, yet the spatial distributions of salmonines in these systems have not been fully documented. We analyzed the horizontal distributions of steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss in Lake Michigan from 1992 to 1997 and related these distributions to mean surface temperature and temperature variation. We used angler catch rate data from Lake Michigan natural resources agencies to index the spatial and temporal distributions of steelhead and obtained surface water temperature data from advanced very‐high‐resolution radiometer satellite imagery through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CoastWatch Program. During most months, steelhead catch rates were negatively related to surface temperature and were highest in areas of high temperature variation (i.e., vertical thermal fronts and upwelling zones) where thermal conditions and prey densities may have been optimal for growth. Our results demonstrate how remotely sensed and creel survey data can be integrated to allow for more effective exploitation and management of lakewide fish stocks while enabling researchers to generate and test hypotheses regarding the spatial distributions of fish populations.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141241/1/nafm0211.pd

The zebrafish xenograft platform-A novel tool for modeling KSHV-associated diseases

Kaposi\u27s sarcoma associated-herpesvirus (KSHV, also known as human herpesvirus-8) is a gammaherpesvirus that establishes life-long infection in human B lymphocytes. KSHV infection is typically asymptomatic, but immunosuppression can predispose KSHV-infected individuals to primary effusion lymphoma (PEL); a malignancy driven by aberrant proliferation of latently infected B lymphocytes, and supported by pro-inflammatory cytokines and angiogenic factors produced by cells that succumb to lytic viral replication. Here, we report the development of the firs

Onset of Surface-Tension-Driven Benard Convection

Experiments with shadowgraph visualization reveal a subcritical transition to a hexagonal convection pattern in thin liquid layers that have a free upper surface and are heated from below. The measured critical Marangoni number (84) and observation of hysteresis (3%) agree with theory. In some experiments, imperfect bifurcation is observed and is attributed to deterministic forcing caused in part by the lateral boundaries in the experiment.Comment: 4 pages. The RevTeX file has a macro allowing various styles. The appropriate style is "mypprint" which is the defaul

The first IEEE workshop on the Future of Research Curation and Research Reproducibility

This report describes perspectives from the Workshop on the Future of Research Curation and Research Reproducibility that was collaboratively sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) in November 2016. The workshop brought together stakeholders including researchers, funders, and notably, leading science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) publishers. The overarching objective was a deep dive into new kinds of research products and how the costs of creation and curation of these products can be sustainably borne by the agencies, publishers, and researcher communities that were represented by workshop participants.National Science Foundation Award #164101