e‐Maintenance Framework for Strategic Asset Management in Tertiary Institutions

Tertiary institutions require buildings such as its senate building, classrooms, laboratories, administrative rooms, hostels and other offices in order to function. Providing and maintaining these buildings require a lot of planning and capital investment. The study examined the prospects of using e‐ Maintenance platform for strategic asset management in tertiary institutions. This study noted that adequate maintenance of the building infrastructural base of tertiary institutions is crucial for sustainability in the face of dwindling funds in the education sector. In order to automate the e‐ Maintenance process for strategic maintenance of the institution’s building maintenance, a use case diagram, system block diagram, sequence diagram and activity diagram were designed and presented in this study. Three (3) main users are essential in the sequence of operation of the e‐Maintenance platform. These users represent the building occupants, the facility manager and the management personnel; for effective oversite and performance monitoring. The methodology of this research includes using the combination of HTML, CSS and the C‐Sharp programming language for the interface design and server side scripting while MySQL was the database platform used for storing and retrieving the data used for the application. In conclusion, the study developed an e‐Maintenance framework for strategic asset management in tertiary institutions. Keywords Asset management Automation Construction industr

Polarized light field under dynamic ocean surfaces: Numerical modeling compared with measurements

As part of the Radiance in a Dynamic Ocean (RaDyO) program, we have developed a numerical model for efficiently simulating the polarized light field under highly dynamic ocean surfaces. Combining the advantages of the three-dimensional Monte Carlo and matrix operator methods, this hybrid model has proven to be computationally effective for simulations involving a dynamic air-sea interface. Given water optical properties and ocean surface wave slopes obtained from RaDyO field measurements, model-simulated radiance and polarization fields under a dynamic surface are found to be qualitatively comparable to their counterparts from field measurements and should be quantitatively comparable if the light field measurement and the wave slope/water optical property measurements are appropriately collocated and synchronized. This model serves as a bridge to connect field measurements of water optical properties, wave slopes and polarized light fields. It can also be used as a powerful yet convenient tool to predict the temporal underwater polarized radiance in a real-world situation. When appropriate surface measurements are available, model simulation is shown to reveal more dynamic features in the underwater light field than direct measurements

Draft genome sequences of five recent human uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolates

This study reports the release of draft genome sequences of five isolates of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), isolated from patients suffering from uncomplicated cystitis in 2012 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that these strains belonged to E. coli phylogroups B2 and D and are closely related to known UPEC strains. Comparative genomic analysis revealed that more conserved proteins were shared between these recent isolates and UPEC strains causing cystitis than those causing pyelonephritis. Additional genomic comparisons identified that three isolates encode a type III secretion system (T3SS) and a putative T3SS effector gene cluster along with an invasin‐like outer membrane protein. The presence of T3SS genes is a rare occurrence among UPEC strains. These genomes further substantiate the heterogeneity of the gene pool of UPEC and provide a foundation for comparative genomic studies using recent clinical isolates.This publication briefly describes the draft genomes of five recent human uropathogenic (UPEC) Escherichia coli isolates. UPEC are of increasing importance to human health. The genomes of these new isolates are clearly and simply described and will be of great utility and interest to this research community.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136326/1/fim12059.pd

FU Orionis resolved by infrared long baseline interferometry at a 2-AU scale

We present the first infrared interferometric observations of a young stellar object with a spatial projected resolution better than 2 AU. The observations were obtained with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer. FU Ori exhibits a visibility of V^2 =0.72 +/- 0.07 for a 103 +/- 5 m projected baseline at lambda = 2.2 microns. The data are consistent on the spatial scale probed by PTI both with a binary system scenario (maximum magnitude difference of 2.7 +/- 0.5 mag and smallest separation of 0.35 +/- 0.05 AU) and a standard luminous accretion disk model (approx. accretion rate of 6e-5 Mo/yr) where the thermal emission dominates the stellar scattering, and inconsistent with a single stellar photosphere.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Physiological Differences Between Low Versus High Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophic Responders to Resistance Exercise Training: Current Perspectives and Future Research Directions

Numerous reports suggest there are low and high skeletal muscle hypertrophic responders following weeks to months of structured resistance exercise training (referred to as low and high responders herein). Specifically, divergent alterations in muscle fiber cross sectional area (fCSA), vastus lateralis thickness, and whole body lean tissue mass have been shown to occur in high versus low responders. Differential responses in ribosome biogenesis and subsequent protein synthetic rates during training seemingly explain some of this individual variation in humans, and mechanistic in vitro and rodent studies provide further evidence that ribosome biogenesis is critical for muscle hypertrophy. High responders may experience a greater increase in satellite cell proliferation during training versus low responders. This phenomenon could serve to maintain an adequate myonuclear domain size or assist in extracellular remodeling to support myofiber growth. High responders may also express a muscle microRNA profile during training that enhances insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) mRNA expression, although more studies are needed to better validate this mechanism. Higher intramuscular androgen receptor protein content has been reported in high versus low responders following training, and this mechanism may enhance the hypertrophic effects of testosterone during training. While high responders likely possess “good genetics,” such evidence has been confined to single gene candidates which typically share marginal variance with hypertrophic outcomes following training (e.g., different myostatin and IGF-1 alleles). Limited evidence also suggests pre-training muscle fiber type composition and self-reported dietary habits (e.g., calorie and protein intake) do not differ between high versus low responders. Only a handful of studies have examined muscle biomarkers that are differentially expressed between low versus high responders. Thus, other molecular and physiological variables which could potentially affect the skeletal muscle hypertrophic response to resistance exercise training are also discussed including rDNA copy number, extracellular matrix and connective tissue properties, the inflammatory response to training, and mitochondrial as well as vascular characteristics

TnseqDiff: identification of conditionally essential genes in transposon sequencing studies

Abstract Background Tn-Seq is a high throughput technique for analysis of transposon mutant libraries to determine conditional essentiality of a gene under an experimental condition. A special feature of the Tn-seq data is that multiple mutants in a gene provides independent evidence to prioritize that gene as being essential. The existing methods do not account for this feature or rely on a high-density transposon library. Moreover, these methods are unable to accommodate complex designs. Results The method proposed here is specifically designed for the analysis of Tn-Seq data. It utilizes two steps to estimate the conditional essentiality for each gene in the genome. First, it collects evidence of conditional essentiality for each insertion by comparing read counts of that insertion between conditions. Second, it combines insertion-level evidence for the corresponding gene. It deals with data from both low- and high-density transposon libraries and accommodates complex designs. Moreover, it is very fast to implement. The performance of the proposed method was tested on simulated data and experimental Tn-Seq data from Serratia marcescens transposon mutant library used to identify genes that contribute to fitness in a murine model of infection. Conclusion We describe a new, efficient method for identifying conditionally essential genes in Tn-Seq experiments with high detection sensitivity and specificity. It is implemented as TnseqDiff function in R package Tnseq and can be installed from the Comprehensive R Archive Network, CRAN.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137673/1/12859_2017_Article_1745.pd

LAT1 Protein Content Increases Following 12 Weeks of Resistance Exercise Training in Human Skeletal Muscle

Introduction: Amino acid transporters are essential for cellular amino acid transport and promoting protein synthesis. While previous literature has demonstrated the association of amino acid transporters and protein synthesis following acute resistance exercise and amino acid supplementation, the chronic effect of resistance exercise and supplementation on amino acid transporters is unknown. The purpose herein was to determine if amino acid transporters and amino acid metabolic enzymes were related to skeletal muscle hypertrophy following resistance exercise training with different nutritional supplementation strategies. Methods: 43 college-aged males were separated into a maltodextrin placebo (PLA, n = 12), leucine (LEU, n = 14), or whey protein concentrate (WPC, n = 17) group and underwent 12 weeks of total-body resistance exercise training. Each group\u27s supplement was standardized for total energy and fat, and LEU and WPC supplements were standardized for total leucine (6 g/d). Skeletal muscle biopsies were obtained prior to training and ~72 h following each subject\u27s last training session. Results: All groups increased type I and II fiber cross-sectional area (fCSA) following training (p \u3c 0.050). LAT1 protein increased following training (p \u3c 0.001) and increased more in PLA than LEU and WPC (p \u3c 0.050). BCKDHα protein increased and ATF4 protein decreased following training (p \u3c 0.001). Immunohistochemistry indicated total LAT1/fiber, but not membrane LAT1/fiber, increased with training (p = 0.003). Utilizing all groups, the change in ATF4 protein, but no other marker, trended to correlate with the change in fCSA (r = 0.314; p = 0.055); however, when regression analysis was used to delineate groups, the change in ATF4 protein best predicted the change in fCSA only in LEU (r2 = 0.322; p = 0.043). In C2C12 myoblasts, LAT1 protein overexpression caused a paradoxical decrease in protein synthesis levels (p = 0.002) and decrease in BCKDHα protein (p = 0.001). Conclusions: Amino acid transporters and metabolic enzymes are affected by resistance exercise training, but do not appear to dictate muscle fiber hypertrophy. In fact, overexpression of LAT1 in vitro decreased protein synthesis

Актуальність впровадження систем газового обліку в сучасних умовах

Free energy calculation has long been an important goal for molecular dynamics simulation and force field development, but historically it has been challenged by limited performance, accuracy, and creation of topologies for arbitrary small molecules. This has made it difficult to systematically compare different sets of parameters to improve existing force fields, but in the past few years several authors have developed increasingly automated procedures to generate parameters for force fields such as Amber, CHARMM, and OPLS. Here, we present a new framework that enables fully automated generation of GROMACS topologies for any of these force fields and an automated setup for parallel adaptive optimization of high-throughput free energy calculation by adjusting lambda point placement on the fly. As a small example of this automated pipeline, we have calculated solvation free energies of 50 different small molecules using the GAFF, OPLS-AA, and CGenFF force fields and four different water models, and by including the often neglected polarization costs, we show that the common charge models are somewhat underpolarized.QC 20150505</p

Astabiotics: Antimicrobial Signal Transduction Activators

poster abstractThe increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria is a major public health concern. All available antibiotics are inhibitors of targets essential for virulence or growth. CpxRA is a highly conserved bacterial signal transduction system that responds to extracytoplasmic membrane stress. CpxA is a sensor with kinase and phosphatase activity; upon activation, CpxA donates a phosphate group to CpxR, activating a transcriptional response. Activation of CpxRA reduces the flow of protein traffic through the cytoplasmic membrane, dramatically reducing the expression of virulence determinants. Activation of CpxRA abolishes the virulence of Salmonella Typhimurium in mice. We found that activation of CpxRA crippled the ability of Haemophilus ducreyi to cause disease in experimentally infected human volunteers. Using an Escherichia coli reporter strain, we developed a high throughput screen to detect compounds that activate CpxRA. In a pilot screen of 36,000 compounds, we identified 1 class of compounds that shifts the equilibrium of CpxA to kinase activity, activating CpxR. Based on its potency, the calculated effective dose of the lead compound (a nitroindole) was 10 mg/kg. Female mice tolerated 100 mg/kg of the nitroindole given twice a day for 3 days. A CpxRA activating mutant constructed in uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) was severely impaired in a murine urinary tract infection model; thus, activation of CpxRA is a valid treatment strategy for UPEC. However, when female mice were challenged with UPEC and treated with 100 mg/kg of the nitroindole using the schedule above, there were no differences in the recovered CFU in the urine, bladder, and kidney of sham and compound-treated mice. Future studies will include medicinal optimization of the nitroindole and identification and optimization other leads that activate CpxRA. Although our pilot test of efficacy was negative, astabiotics have great potential as broad-spectrum, adjunctive therapies to existing antimicrobials for treatment of Gram-negative infections