A user behaviour-driven smart-home gateway for energy management

Current smart-home and automation systems have reduced generality and modularity, thus confining users in terms of functionality. This paper proposes a novel system architecture and describes the implementation of a user-centric smart-home gateway that is able to support home-automation, energy usage management and reduction, as well as smart-grid operations. This is enabled through a middleware service that exposes a control API, allowing the manipulation of the home network devices and information, irrespectively of the involved technologies. Additionally, the system places the users as the prime owners of their data, which in turn is expected to make them much more willing to install and cooperate with the system. The gateway is supported by a centralised user-centric machine-learning component that is able to extract behavioural patterns of the users and feed them back to the gateway. The results presented in this paper demonstrate the efficient operation of the gateway and examine two well-know machine learning algorithms for identifying patterns in the user’s energy consumption behaviour. This feature could be utilised to improve its performance and even identify energy saving opportunities

Different pathways in mechanical unfolding/folding cycle of a single semiflexible polymer

Kinetics of conformational change of a semiflexible polymer under mechanical external field were investigated with Langevin dynamics simulations. It is found that a semiflexible polymer exhibits large hysteresis in mechanical folding/unfolding cycle even with a slow operation, whereas in a flexible polymer, the hysteresis almost disappears at a sufficiently slow operation. This suggests that the essential features of the structural transition of a semiflexible polymer should be interpreted at least on a two-dimensional phase space. The appearance of such large hysteresis is discussed in relation to different pathways in the loading and unloading processes. By using a minimal two-variable model, the hysteresis loop is described in terms of different pathways on the transition between two stable states.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Chromatin dysregulation and DNA methylation at transcription start sites associated with transcriptional repression in cancers.

Although promoter-associated CpG islands have been established as targets of DNA methylation changes in cancer, previous studies suggest that epigenetic dysregulation outside the promoter region may be more closely associated with transcriptional changes. Here we examine DNA methylation, chromatin marks, and transcriptional alterations to define the relationship between transcriptional modulation and spatial changes in chromatin structure. Using human papillomavirus-related oropharyngeal carcinoma as a model, we show aberrant enrichment of repressive H3K9me3 at the transcriptional start site (TSS) with methylation-associated, tumor-specific gene silencing. Further analysis identifies a hypermethylated subtype which shows a functional convergence on MYC targets and association with CREBBP/EP300 mutation. The tumor-specific shift to transcriptional repression associated with DNA methylation at TSSs was confirmed in multiple tumor types. Our data may show a common underlying epigenetic dysregulation in cancer associated with broad enrichment of repressive chromatin marks and aberrant DNA hypermethylation at TSSs in combination with MYC network activation

Thermal Hall effects due to topological spin fluctuations in YMnO_3

The thermal Hall effect in magnetic insulators has been considered a powerful method for examining the topological nature of charge-neutral quasiparticles such as magnons. Yet, unlike the kagome system, the triangular lattice has received less attention for studying the thermal Hall effect because the scalar spin chirality cancels out between adjacent triangles. However, such cancellation cannot be perfect if the triangular lattice is distorted. Here, we report that the trimerized triangular lattice of multiferroic hexagonal manganite YMnO3 produces a highly unusual thermal Hall effect under an applied magnetic field. Our theoretical calculations demonstrate that the thermal Hall conductivity is related to the splitting of the otherwise degenerate two chiralities of its 120˚ magnetic structure. Our result is one of the most unusual cases of topological physics due to this broken Z2 symmetry of the chirality in the supposedly paramagnetic state of YMnO3, due to strong topological spin fluctuations with the additional intricacy of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

The transglutaminase type 2 and pyruvate kinase isoenzyme M2 interplay in autophagy regulation

Autophagy is a self-degradative physiological process by which the cell removes worn-out or damaged components. Constant at basal level it may become highly active in response to cellular stress. The type 2 transglutaminase (TG2), which accumulates under stressful cell conditions, plays an important role in the regulation of autophagy and cells lacking this enzyme display impaired autophagy/mitophagy and a consequent shift their metabolism to glycolysis. To further define the molecular partners of TG2 involved in these cellular processes, we analysed the TG2 interactome under normal and starved conditions discovering that TG2 interacts with various proteins belonging to different functional categories. Herein we show that TG2 interacts with pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2), a rate limiting enzyme of glycolysis which is responsible for maintaining a glycolytic phenotype in malignant cells and displays non metabolic functions, including transcriptional co-activation and protein kinase activity. Interestingly, the ablation of PKM2 led to the decrease of intracellular TG2's transamidating activity paralleled by an increase of its tyrosine phosphorylation. Along with this, a significant decrease of ULK1 and Beclin1 was also recorded, thus suggesting a block in the upstream regulation of autophagosome formation. These data suggest that the PKM2/TG2 interplay plays an important role in the regulation of autophagy in particular under cellular stressful conditions such as those displayed by cancer cells

KMT-2018-BLG-1292: A Super-Jovian Microlens Planet in the Galactic Plane

We report the discovery of KMT-2018-BLG-1292Lb, a super-Jovian $M_{\rm planet} = 4.5\pm 1.3\,M_J$ planet orbiting an F or G dwarf $M_{\rm host} = 1.5\pm 0.4\,M_\odot$, which lies physically within {\cal O}(10\,\pc) of the Galactic plane. The source star is a heavily extincted $A_I\sim 5.2$ luminous giant that has the lowest Galactic latitude, $b=-0.28^\circ$, of any planetary microlensing event. The relatively blue blended light is almost certainly either the host or its binary companion, with the first explanation being substantially more likely. This blend dominates the light at $I$ band and completely dominates at $R$ and $V$ bands. Hence, the lens system can be probed by follow-up observations immediately, i.e., long before the lens system and the source separate due to their relative proper motion. The system is well characterized despite the low cadence $\Gamma=0.15$--$0.20\,{\rm hr^{-1}}$ of observations and short viewing windows near the end of the bulge season. This suggests that optical microlensing planet searches can be extended to the Galactic plane at relatively modest cost.Comment: 35 pages, 3 Tables, 8 figure

Phlebosclerotic Colitis in a Cirrhotic Patient with Portal Hypertension: The First Case in Korea

Phlebosclerotic colitis is a rare form of ischemic colitis characterized by the thickening of the wall of the affected colon due to fibrous degeneration of submucosal layer of colon and fibrotic obstruction of the colono-mesenteric vein, resulting in the disturbance of venous return from the colon. The pathogenic mechanism of this entity remains unknown but chronic liver disease with portal hypertension is maybe thought to be one of the speculated mechanisms. Here we first report the case of surgically confirmed phlebosclerotic colitis, that was in the early stage but showed the aggressive nature, in a 61-yr-old cirrhotic patients with portal hypertension in Korea

Study on the tumor-induced angiogenesis using mathematical models

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI 16H06576 and JSPS Core-to-Core Project International Research Network.We studied angiogenesis using mathematical models describing the dynamics of tip cells. We reviewed the basic ideas of angiogenesis models and its numerical simulation technique to produce realistic computer graphics images of sprouting angiogenesis. We examined the classical model of Anderson-Chaplain using fundamental concepts of mass transport and chemical reaction with ECM degradation included. We then constructed two types of numerical schemes, model-faithful and model-driven ones, where new techniques of numerical simulation are introduced, such as transient probability, particle velocity, and Boolean variables.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe