Male Genital Allometry in Scathophagidae (Diptera)

Male genital structures are extremely divergent across species and sexual selection is largely responsible. Many sexually selected traits show positive allometry and have high phenotypic coefficients of variation (CV). Sexually-selected genital traits that come into contact with females during copula may be an exception to this general pattern. We compared the within species size allometry of the genital claspers, mandibular palps, and testes in a comparative study across the Scathophagidae. We additionally compared the levels of phenotypic variation in these traits and in hind tibia length. Within species, claspers typically displayed negative allometry and had low CV, indicative of stabilizing selection. In contrast, testis size was more like sexually selected display traits, typically being positively allometric and having very large CV. Palps tended to be positively allometric or isometric, and intermediate in levels of phenotypic variation, much like leg length. In spite of intraspecific stabilizing selection on the genital claspers, there has been major divergence of these characters across specie

Shear strength of an unsaturated silty sand

This paper presents a series of direct shear tests performed on a silty sand at three different gravimetric water contents. The soil was sampled from test pits south of Ruedlingen in North East Switzerland, where a landslide triggering experiment was carried out on a 37°-40° steep forested slope through infiltration of extreme artificial rainfall. The aim of this work was mainly to establish a correlation between the degree of saturation and slope stability. Direct shear tests were performed on reconstituted samples with a direct shear apparatus under undrained conditions for the water phase. Three of the samples were saturated after the shear phase in order to analyse the effect of wetting on shear strength. The results were interpreted with the assistance of a soil water retention curve (WRC) and an analytical slope stability analysis was performed to apply the laboratory results to the field experimen

When resources collide: Towards a theory of coincidence in information spaces

This paper is an attempt to lay out foundations for a general theory of coincidence in information spaces such as the World Wide Web, expanding on existing work on bursty structures in document streams and information cascades. We elaborate on the hypothesis that every resource that is published in an information space, enters a temporary interaction with another resource once a unique explicit or implicit reference between the two is found. This thought is motivated by Erwin Shroedingers notion of entanglement between quantum systems. We present a generic information cascade model that exploits only the temporal order of information sharing activities, combined with inherent properties of the shared information resources. The approach was applied to data from the world's largest online citizen science platform Zooniverse and we report about findings of this case study

Crystal structure of the human ATP-dependent splicing and export factor UAP56

Pre-mRNA splicing requires the function of a number of RNA-dependent ATPases/helicases, yet no three-dimensional structure of any spliceosomal ATPases/helicases is known. The highly conserved DECD-box protein UAP56/Sub2 is an essential splicing factor that is also important for mRNA export. The expected ATPase/helicase activity appears to be essential for the UAP56/Sub2 functions. Here, we show that purified human UAP56 is an active RNA-dependent ATPase, and we also report the crystal structures of UAP56 alone and in complex with ADP, as well as a DECD to DEAD mutant. The structures reveal a unique spatial arrangement of the two conserved helicase domains, and ADP-binding induces significant conformational changes of key residues in the ATP-binding pocket. Our structural analyses suggest a specific protein-RNA displacement model of UAP56/Sub2. The detailed structural information provides important mechanistic insights into the splicing function of UAP56/Sub2. The structures also will be useful for the analysis of other spliceosomal DExD-box ATPases/helicases

BPMN task instance streaming for efficient micro-task crowdsourcing processes

The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a standard for modeling and executing business processes with human or machine tasks. The semantics of tasks is usually discrete: a task has exactly one start event and one end event; for multi-instance tasks, all instances must complete before an end event is emitted. We propose a new task type and streaming connector for crowdsourcing able to run hundreds or thousands of micro-task instances in parallel. The two constructs provide for task streaming semantics that is new to BPMN, enable the modeling and efficient enactment of complex crowdsourcing scenarios, and are applicable also beyond the special case of crowdsourcing. We implement the necessary design and runtime support on top of Crowd- Flower, demonstrate the viability of the approach via a case study, and report on a set of runtime performance experiments

Breaking the entangling gate speed limit for trapped-ion qubits using a phase-stable standing wave

All laser-driven entangling operations for trapped-ion qubits have hitherto been performed without control of the optical phase of the light field, which precludes independent tuning of the carrier and motional coupling. By placing $^{88}$Sr$^+$ ions in a $\lambda=674$ nm standing wave, whose relative position is controlled to $\approx\lambda/100$, we suppress the carrier coupling by a factor of $18$, while coherently enhancing the spin-motion coupling. We experimentally demonstrate that the off-resonant carrier coupling imposes a speed limit for conventional traveling-wave M{\o}lmer-S{\o}rensen gates; we use the standing wave to surpass this limit and achieve a gate duration of $15\ \mu$s, restricted by the available laser power.Comment: S. Saner and O. B\u{a}z\u{a}van contributed equally to this wor

Cardiovascular mortality and exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields: a cohort study of Swiss railway workers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Exposure to intermittent magnetic fields of 16 Hz has been shown to reduce heart rate variability, and decreased heart rate variability predicts cardiovascular mortality. We examined mortality from cardiovascular causes in railway workers exposed to varying degrees to intermittent 16.7 Hz magnetic fields.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We studied a cohort of 20,141 Swiss railway employees between 1972 and 2002, including highly exposed train drivers (median lifetime exposure 120.5 μT-years), and less or little exposed shunting yard engineers (42.1 μT-years), train attendants (13.3 μT-years) and station masters (5.7 μT-years). During 464,129 person-years of follow up, 5,413 deaths were recorded and 3,594 deaths were attributed to cardio-vascular diseases. We analyzed data using Cox proportional hazards models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For all cardiovascular mortality the hazard ratio compared to station masters was 0.99 (95%CI: 0.91, 1.08) in train drivers, 1.13 (95%CI: 0.98, 1.30) in shunting yard engineers, and 1.09 (95%CI: 1.00, 1.19) in train attendants.Corresponding hazard ratios for arrhythmia related deaths were 1.04 (95%CI: 0.68, 1.59), 0.58 (95%CI: 0.24, 1.37) and 1.30 (95%CI: 0.87, 1.93) and for acute myocardial infarction 1.00 (95%CI: 0.73, 1.36), 1.56 (95%CI: 1.04, 2.32), and 1.14 (95%CI: 0.85, 1.53). The hazard ratio for arrhythmia related deaths per 100 μT-years of cumulative exposure was 0.94 (95%CI: 0.71, 1.24) and 0.91 (95%CI: 0.75, 1.11) for acute myocardial infarction.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides evidence against an association between long-term occupational exposure to intermittent 16.7 Hz magnetic fields and cardiovascular mortality.</p

Hexokinase 3 enhances myeloid cell survival via non-glycolytic functions.

The family of hexokinases (HKs) catalyzes the first step of glycolysis, the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of glucose to glucose-6-phosphate. While HK1 and HK2 are ubiquitously expressed, the less well-studied HK3 is primarily expressed in hematopoietic cells and tissues and is highly upregulated during terminal differentiation of some acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell line models. Here we show that expression of HK3 is predominantly originating from myeloid cells and that the upregulation of this glycolytic enzyme is not restricted to differentiation of leukemic cells but also occurs during ex vivo myeloid differentiation of healthy CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Within the hematopoietic system, we show that HK3 is predominantly expressed in cells of myeloid origin. CRISPR/Cas9 mediated gene disruption revealed that loss of HK3 has no effect on glycolytic activity in AML cell lines while knocking out HK2 significantly reduced basal glycolysis and glycolytic capacity. Instead, loss of HK3 but not HK2 led to increased sensitivity to ATRA-induced cell death in AML cell lines. We found that HK3 knockout (HK3-null) AML cells showed an accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as DNA damage during ATRA-induced differentiation. RNA sequencing analysis confirmed pathway enrichment for programmed cell death, oxidative stress, and DNA damage response in HK3-null AML cells. These signatures were confirmed in ATAC sequencing, showing that loss of HK3 leads to changes in chromatin configuration and increases the accessibility of genes involved in apoptosis and stress response. Through isoform-specific pulldowns, we furthermore identified a direct interaction between HK3 and the proapoptotic BCL-2 family member BIM, which has previously been shown to shorten myeloid life span. Our findings provide evidence that HK3 is dispensable for glycolytic activity in AML cells while promoting cell survival, possibly through direct interaction with the BH3-only protein BIM during ATRA-induced neutrophil differentiation

Liver Transplantation because of Acute Liver Failure due to Heme Arginate Overdose in a Patient with Acute Intermittent Porphyria

In acute attacks of acute intermittent porphyria, the mainstay of treatment is glucose and heme arginate administration. We present the case of a 58-year-old patient with acute liver failure requiring urgent liver transplantation after erroneous 6-fold overdose of heme arginate during an acute attack. As recommended in the product information, albumin and charcoal were administered and hemodiafiltration was started, which could not prevent acute liver failure, requiring super-urgent liver transplantation after 6 days. The explanted liver showed no preexisting liver cirrhosis, but signs of subacute liver injury and starting regeneration. The patient recovered within a short time. A literature review revealed four poorly documented cases of potential hepatic and/or renal toxicity of hematin or heme arginate. This is the first published case report of acute liver failure requiring super-urgent liver transplantation after accidental heme arginate overdose. The literature and recommendations in case of heme arginate overdose are summarized. Knowledge of a potentially fatal course is important for the management of future cases. If acute liver failure in case of heme arginate overdose is progressive, super-urgent liver transplantation has to be evaluated