708 research outputs found
Seasonal variation of Sargassum ilicifolium (Phaeophyceae) growth on equatorial coral reefs
Temporal and spatial variations in Sargassum ilicifolium thallus density and length were investigated on equatorial coral reefs in Singapore from November 2011 to October 2012. Thalli density varied little throughout the year, however, we found strong seasonal patterns in thallus length and identified temperature as the significant driver. Sargassum ilicifolium reached maximum length in December (110.39 ± 2.37 cm) during periods of cooler water temperatures, and minimum length in May (9.88 ± 0.48 cm) during periods of warmer water temperatures. Significant spatial variation was also observed for both thallus density and length of S. ilicifolium among reefs. Within reefs, densities of S. ilicifolium were higher on reef flats (20.40 ± 0.40 individuals · 0.25 m−2) compared to upper reef slopes (5.66 ± 0.23 individuals · 0.25 m−2). Our findings highlight that marked seasonality in the growth of canopy-forming macroalgae can occur within equatorial reef systems where temperature ranges are restricted (\u3c3°C)
Metrology Camera System of Prime Focus Spectrograph for Subaru Telescope
The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is a new optical/near-infrared multi-fiber
spectrograph designed for the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope. The
metrology camera system of PFS serves as the optical encoder of the COBRA fiber
motors for the configuring of fibers. The 380mm diameter aperture metrology
camera will locate at the Cassegrain focus of Subaru telescope to cover the
whole focal plane with one 50M pixel Canon CMOS sensor. The metrology camera is
designed to provide the fiber position information within 5{\mu}m error over
the 45cm focal plane. The positions of all fibers can be obtained within 1s
after the exposure is finished. This enables the overall fiber configuration to
be less than 2 minutes.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and
Instrumentation 201
Nonlocal Form of the Rapid Pressure-Strain Correlation in Turbulent Flows
A new fundamentally-based formulation of nonlocal effects in the rapid
pressure-strain correlation in turbulent flows has been obtained. The resulting
explicit form for the rapid pressure-strain correlation accounts for nonlocal
effects produced by spatial variations in the mean-flow velocity gradients, and
is derived through Taylor expansion of the mean velocity gradients appearing in
the exact integral relation for the rapid pressure-strain correlation. The
integrals in the resulting series expansion are solved for high- and
low-Reynolds number forms of the longitudinal correlation function , and
the resulting nonlocal rapid pressure-strain correlation is expressed as an
infinite series in terms of Laplacians of the mean strain rate tensor. The new
formulation is used to obtain a nonlocal transport equation for the turbulence
anisotropy that is expected to provide improved predictions of the anisotropy
in strongly inhomogeneous flows.Comment: 11 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Heterogeneous network embedding enabling accurate disease association predictions.
BackgroundIt is significant to identificate complex biological mechanisms of various diseases in biomedical research. Recently, the growing generation of tremendous amount of data in genomics, epigenomics, metagenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, nutriomics, etc., has resulted in the rise of systematic biological means of exploring complex diseases. However, the disparity between the production of the multiple data and our capability of analyzing data has been broaden gradually. Furthermore, we observe that networks can represent many of the above-mentioned data, and founded on the vector representations learned by network embedding methods, entities which are in close proximity but at present do not actually possess direct links are very likely to be related, therefore they are promising candidate subjects for biological investigation.ResultsWe incorporate six public biological databases to construct a heterogeneous biological network containing three categories of entities (i.e., genes, diseases, miRNAs) and multiple types of edges (i.e., the known relationships). To tackle the inherent heterogeneity, we develop a heterogeneous network embedding model for mapping the network into a low dimensional vector space in which the relationships between entities are preserved well. And in order to assess the effectiveness of our method, we conduct gene-disease as well as miRNA-disease associations predictions, results of which show the superiority of our novel method over several state-of-the-arts. Furthermore, many associations predicted by our method are verified in the latest real-world dataset.ConclusionsWe propose a novel heterogeneous network embedding method which can adequately take advantage of the abundant contextual information and structures of heterogeneous network. Moreover, we illustrate the performance of the proposed method on directing studies in biology, which can assist in identifying new hypotheses in biological investigation
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Decreases in Antimicrobial Use Associated With Multihospital Implementation of Electronic Antimicrobial Stewardship Tools.
BackgroundAntimicrobial stewards may benefit from comparative data to inform interventions that promote optimal inpatient antimicrobial use.MethodsAntimicrobial stewards from 8 geographically dispersed Veterans Affairs (VA) inpatient facilities participated in the development of antimicrobial use visualization tools that allowed for comparison to facilities of similar complexity. The visualization tools consisted of an interactive web-based antimicrobial dashboard and, later, a standardized antimicrobial usage report updated at user-selected intervals. Stewards participated in monthly learning collaboratives. The percent change in average monthly antimicrobial use (all antimicrobial agents, anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus [anti-MRSA] agents, and antipseudomonal agents) was analyzed using a pre-post (January 2014-January 2016 vs July 2016-January 2018) design with segmented regression and external comparison with uninvolved control facilities (n = 118).ResultsIntervention sites demonstrated a 2.1% decrease (95% confidence interval [CI], -5.7% to 1.6%) in total antimicrobial use pre-post intervention vs a 2.5% increase (95% CI, 0.8% to 4.1%) in nonintervention sites (absolute difference, 4.6%; P = .025). Anti-MRSA antimicrobial use decreased 11.3% (95% CI, -16.0% to -6.3%) at intervention sites vs a 6.6% decrease (95% CI, -9.1% to -3.9%) at nonintervention sites (absolute difference, 4.7%; P = .092). Antipseudomonal antimicrobial use decreased 3.4% (95% CI, -8.2% to 1.7%) at intervention sites vs a 3.6% increase (95% CI, 0.8% to 6.5%) at nonintervention sites (absolute difference, 7.0%; P = .018).ConclusionsComparative data visualization tool use by stewards at 8 VA facilities was associated with significant reductions in overall antimicrobial and antipseudomonal use relative to uninvolved facilities
Calpain 3 Is a Rapid-Action, Unidirectional Proteolytic Switch Central to Muscle Remodeling
Calpain 3 (CAPN3) is a cysteine protease that when mutated causes Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy 2A. It is thereby the only described Calpain family member that genetically causes a disease. Due to its inherent instability little is known of its substrates or its mechanism of activity and pathogenicity. In this investigation we define a primary sequence motif underlying CAPN3 substrate cleavage. This motif can transform non-related proteins into substrates, and identifies >300 new putative CAPN3 targets. Bioinformatic analyses of these targets demonstrate a critical role in muscle cytoskeletal remodeling and identify novel CAPN3 functions. Among the new CAPN3 substrates are three E3 SUMO ligases of the Protein Inhibitor of Activated Stats (PIAS) family. CAPN3 can cleave PIAS proteins and negatively regulates PIAS3 sumoylase activity. Consequently, SUMO2 is deregulated in patient muscle tissue. Our study thus uncovers unexpected crosstalk between CAPN3 proteolysis and protein sumoylation, with strong implications for muscle remodeling
C5 Palsy After Cervical Spine Surgery: A Multicenter Retrospective Review of 59 Cases.
STUDY DESIGN: A multicenter, retrospective review of C5 palsy after cervical spine surgery.
OBJECTIVE: Postoperative C5 palsy is a known complication of cervical decompressive spinal surgery. The goal of this study was to review the incidence, patient characteristics, and outcome of C5 palsy in patients undergoing cervical spine surgery.
METHODS: We conducted a multicenter, retrospective review of 13 946 patients across 21 centers who received cervical spine surgery (levels C2 to C7) between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2011, inclusive. P values were calculated using 2-sample t test for continuous variables and χ(2) tests or Fisher exact tests for categorical variables.
RESULTS: Of the 13 946 cases reviewed, 59 patients experienced a postoperative C5 palsy. The incidence rate across the 21 sites ranged from 0% to 2.5%. At most recent follow-up, 32 patients reported complete resolution of symptoms (54.2%), 15 had symptoms resolve with residual effects (25.4%), 10 patients did not recover (17.0%), and 2 were lost to follow-up (3.4%).
CONCLUSION: C5 palsy occurred in all surgical approaches and across a variety of diagnoses. The majority of patients had full recovery or recovery with residual effects. This study represents the largest series of North American patients reviewed to date
Quantum dynamics and thermalization for out-of-equilibrium phi^4-theory
The quantum time evolution of \phi^4-field theory for a spatially homogeneous
system in 2+1 space-time dimensions is investigated numerically for
out-of-equilibrium initial conditions on the basis of the Kadanoff-Baym
equations including the tadpole and sunset self-energies. Whereas the tadpole
self-energy yields a dynamical mass, the sunset self-energy is responsible for
dissipation and an equilibration of the system. In particular we address the
dynamics of the spectral (`off-shell') distributions of the excited quantum
modes and the different phases in the approach to equilibrium described by
Kubo-Martin-Schwinger relations for thermal equilibrium states. The
investigation explicitly demonstrates that the only translation invariant
solutions representing the stationary fixed points of the coupled equation of
motions are those of full thermal equilibrium. They agree with those extracted
from the time integration of the Kadanoff-Baym equations in the long time
limit. Furthermore, a detailed comparison of the full quantum dynamics to more
approximate and simple schemes like that of a standard kinetic (on-shell)
Boltzmann equation is performed. Our analysis shows that the consistent
inclusion of the dynamical spectral function has a significant impact on
relaxation phenomena. The different time scales, that are involved in the
dynamical quantum evolution towards a complete thermalized state, are discussed
in detail. We find that far off-shell 1 3 processes are responsible for
chemical equilibration, which is missed in the Boltzmann limit. Finally, we
address briefly the case of (bare) massless fields. For sufficiently large
couplings we observe the onset of Bose condensation, where our scheme
within symmetric \phi^4-theory breaks down.Comment: 77 pages, 26 figure
Prime Focus Instrument of Prime Focus Spectrograph for Subaru Telescope
The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is a new optical/near-infrared multi-fiber
spectrograph design for the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope. PFS will
cover 1.3 degree diameter field with 2394 fibers to complement the imaging
capability of Hyper SuprimeCam (HSC). The prime focus unit of PFS called Prime
Focus Instrument (PFI) provides the interface with the top structure of Subaru
telescope and also accommodates the optical bench in which Cobra fiber
positioners are located. In addition, the acquisition and guiding (A&G)
cameras, the optical fiber positioner system, the cable wrapper, the fiducial
fibers, illuminator, and viewer, the field element, and the telemetry system
are located inside the PFI. The mechanical structure of the PFI was designed
with special care such that its deflections sufficiently match those of the HSC
Wide Field Corrector (WFC) so the fibers will stay on targets over the course
of the observations within the required accuracy.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation
201
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