Watching gene expression in color.

A combination of two fluorescent proteins with different half-lives allows gene expression to be followed with improved time resolution

The Face Semigroup Algebra of a Hyperplane Arrangement

This article presents a study of an algebra spanned by the faces of a hyperplane arrangement. The quiver with relations of the algebra is computed and the algebra is shown to be a Koszul algebra. It is shown that the algebra depends only on the intersection lattice of the hyperplane arrangement. A complete system of primitive orthogonal idempotents for the algebra is constructed and other algebraic structure is determined including: a description of the projective indecomposable modules; the Cartan invariants; projective resolutions of the simple modules; the Hochschild homology and cohomology; and the Koszul dual algebra. A new cohomology construction on posets is introduced and it is shown that the face semigroup algebra is isomorphic to the cohomology algebra when this construction is applied to the intersection lattice of the hyperplane arrangement.Comment: 37 pages, LaTeX; Added section 8.3B; Changed the wording of a few paragraphs in the introduction and abstract. No major change

Ordered silicon nanocones arrays for label-free DNA quantitative analysis by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

published_or_final_versio

Chemical characteristics of air from different source regions during the second Pacific Exploratory Mission in the Tropics (PEM-Tropics B)

Ten-day backward trajectories are used to determine the origins of air parcels arriving at locations of airborne DC-8 chemical measurements during NASA's second Pacific Exploratory Mission in the Tropics B that was conducted during February-April 1999. Chemical data at sites where the trajectories had a common geographical origin and transport history are grouped together, and statistical measures of chemical characteristics are computed. Temporal changes in potential temperature are used to determine whether trajectories experienced a significant convective influence during the 10-day period. Trajectories describing the aged marine Southern Hemispheric category remain over the South Pacific Ocean during the 10-day period, and their corresponding chemical signature indicates very clean air. The category aged marine air in the Northern Hemisphere is found to be somewhat dirtier. Subdividing its trajectories based on the direction from which the air had traveled is found to be important in explaining the various chemical signatures. Similarly, long-range northern hemispheric trajectories passing over Asia are subdivided depending on whether they had followed a mostly zonal path, had originated near the Indian Ocean, or had originated near Central or South America and subsequently experienced a stratospheric influence. Results show that the chemical signatures of these subcategories are different from each other. The chemical signature of the southern hemispheric long-range transport category apparently exhibits the effects of pollution from Australia, southern Africa, and South America. Parcels originating over Central and northern South America are found to contain the strongest pollution signature of all categories, due to biomass burning and other sources. The convective category exhibits enhanced values of nitrogen species, probably due to emissions from lightning associated with the convection. Values of various species, including peroxides and acids, confirm that parcels were influenced by the removal of soluble gas and particle species due to precipitation. Finally, current results are compared with those from the first PEM-Tropics mission that was conducted in the same region during the southern hemispheric dry season (August-October 1996) when extensive biomass burning occurred. Results show that air samples during PEM-Tropics B are considerably cleaner than those of its dry season counterpart. Copyright 2001 by the American Geophysical Union

A versatile interface model for thermal conduction phenomena and its numerical implementation by XFEM

International audienceA general interface model is presented for thermal conduction and characterized by two jump relations. The first one expresses that the temperature jump across an interface is proportional to the interfacial average of the normal heat flux while the second one states that the normal heat flux jump is proportional to the surface Laplacian of the interfacial average of the temperature. By varying the two scalar proportionality parameters, not only the Kapitza resistance and highly conducting interface models can be retrieved but also all the intermediate cases can be covered. The general interface model is numerically implemented by constructing its weak form and by using the level-set method and XFEM. The resulting numerical procedure, whose accuracy and robustness are thoroughly tested and discussed with the help of a benchmark problem, is shown to be efficient for solving the problem of thermal conduction in particulate composites with various imperfect interfaces

Diverse proteomic alterations in gastric adenocarcinoma

Gastric adenocarcinoma is one of the most common cancers in Asian countries including China. Although its incidence rates in the West are lower than that in Asia, gastric cancer is still a major health problem worldwide, being second only to lung cancers in the number of deaths it causes. Helicobacter pylori infection has been identified as the major pathogen, but the detailed pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma remains elusive. Due to the lack of suitable and specific biomarkers for early detection, most cases of the disease are diagnosed at late stages and the survival rate is low. In this study, we used a proteomic approach to globally analyze the protein profiles of paired surgical specimens of primary gastric adenocarcinoma and nontumor mucosa aiming at identifying specific disease-associated proteins as potential clinical biomarkers and for carcinogenetic study. Compared to nontumor tissues, multiple protein alterations were found in tumor tissues. Some of these alterations involve variations in the expression of cytoskeleton proteins, including an increase in cytokeratin 8 and tropomyosin isoform and a decrease in cytokeratin 20. Co-up-regulations of heat-shock proteins and glycolytic enzymes were observed in tumor tissues, indicating self-protective efforts of cells and the growing energy requirement during malignant transformation. Diverse regulations also occurred with proteins involved in cell proliferation and differentiation, such as GMP reductase 2 and creatine kinase B, and proteins bearing potential tumor suppressor activities, including prohibitin and selenium binding protein 1. More interestingly, a human stomach-specific protein, 18 kDa antrum mucosa protein, was found to be dramatically under-expressed in cancer tissues, implicating a possible special pathological role for this protein in gastric carcinogenesis. Further comprehensive evaluation by globally considering the altered factors may result in the discovery of a biomarker index for effective assessment of the disease and may provide in-depth information for better understanding the pathogenesis of gastric cancer.postprin

Recurrent deletions of ULK4 in schizophrenia : a gene crucial for neuritogenesis and neuronal motility

Peer reviewedPublisher PD