579 research outputs found
GridLabs: Facilitating collaborative access to remote laboratories
eScience is usually characterized by the cooperation of distributed groups of researchers who share data and computing environments and perform experiments together. Often immense data sets that were produced by expensive equipments need to be accessed and evaluated. Such eScience scenarios require both, support for collaboration of researchers at distant locations and also the remote control of the shared laboratory devices. However, this type of remote experimentation and collaboration must be taught during university education. In this paper, we propose a framework that supports the training of above practices through the provision of a dedicated collaboration environment. It extends current approaches with support for a life cycle of remote labs, including scheduling the access to remote labs as well as defining access permissions. Our experiences in teaching lab courses suggest that the approach is also applicable in eScience scenarios
Particle interactions and lattice dynamics: Scenarios for efficient bidirectional stochastic transport?
Intracellular transport processes driven by molecular motors can be described
by stochastic lattice models of self-driven particles. Here we focus on
bidirectional transport models excluding the exchange of particles on the same
track. We explore the possibility to have efficient transport in these systems.
One possibility would be to have appropriate interactions between the various
motors' species, so as to form lanes. However, we show that the lane formation
mechanism based on modified attachment/detachment rates as it was proposed
previously is not necessarily connected to an efficient transport state and is
suppressed when the diffusivity of unbound particles is finite. We propose
another interaction mechanism based on obstacle avoidance that allows to have
lane formation for limited diffusion. Besides, we had shown in a separate paper
that the dynamics of the lattice itself could be a key ingredient for the
efficiency of bidirectional transport. Here we show that lattice dynamics and
interactions can both contribute in a cooperative way to the efficiency of
transport. In particular, lattice dynamics can decrease the interaction
threshold beyond which lanes form. Lattice dynamics may also enhance the
transport capacity of the system even when lane formation is suppressed.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, 2 table
L-histidine inhibits production of lysophosphatidic acid by the tumor-associated cytokine, autotaxin
BACKGROUND: Autotaxin (ATX, NPP-2), originally purified as a potent tumor cell motility factor, is now known to be the long-sought plasma lysophospholipase D (LPLD). The integrity of the enzymatic active site, including three crucial histidine moieties, is required for motility stimulation, as well as LPLD and 5'nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) activities. Except for relatively non-specific chelation agents, there are no known inhibitors of the ATX LPLD activity. RESULTS: We show that millimolar concentrations of L-histidine inhibit ATX-stimulated but not LPA-stimulated motility in two tumor cell lines, as well as inhibiting enzymatic activities. Inhibition is reversed by 20-fold lower concentrations of zinc salt. L-histidine has no significant effect on the Km of LPLD, but reduces the Vmax by greater than 50%, acting as a non-competitive inhibitor. Several histidine analogs also inhibit the LPLD activity of ATX; however, none has greater potency than L-histidine and all decrease cell viability or adhesion. CONCLUSION: L-histidine inhibition of LPLD is not a simple stoichiometric chelation of metal ions but is more likely a complex interaction with a variety of moieties, including the metal cation, at or near the active site. The inhibitory effect of L-histidine requires all three major functional groups of histidine: the alpha amino group, the alpha carboxyl group, and the metal-binding imidazole side chain. Because of LPA's involvement in pathological processes, regulation of its formation by ATX may give insight into possible novel therapeutic approaches
The double Ringel-Hall algebra on a hereditary abelian finitary length category
In this paper, we study the category of semi-stable
coherent sheaves of a fixed slope over a weighted projective curve. This
category has nice properties: it is a hereditary abelian finitary length
category. We will define the Ringel-Hall algebra of and
relate it to generalized Kac-Moody Lie algebras. Finally we obtain the Kac type
theorem to describe the indecomposable objects in this category, i.e. the
indecomposable semi-stable sheaves.Comment: 29 page
Prognostic value of lymph node ratio and extramural vascular invasion on survival for patients undergoing curative colon cancer resection
There was no study funding. We are grateful to Tony Rafferty (Tailored Information for the People of Scotland, TIPs) for providing survival data.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The historical development of zoo elephant survivorship
In the discussion about zoo elephant husbandry, the report of Clubb et al. (2008, Science 322: 1649) that zoo elephants had a “compromised survivorship” compared to certain non-zoo populations is a grave argument, and was possibly one of the triggers of a large variety of investigations into zoo elephant welfare, and changes in zoo elephant management. A side observation of that report was that whereas survivorship in African elephants (Loxodonta africana) improved since 1960, this was not the case in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). We used historical data (based on the Species360 database) to revisit this aspect, including recent developments since 2008. Assessing the North American and European populations from 1910 until today, there were significant improvements of adult (≥10 years) survivorship in both species. For the period from 1960 until today, survivorship improvement was significant for African elephants and close to a significant improvement in Asian elephants; Asian elephants generally had a higher survivorship than Africans. Juvenile (<10 years) survivorship did not change significantly since 1960 and was higher in African elephants, most likely due to the effect of elephant herpes virus on Asian elephants. Current zoo elephant survivorship is higher than some, and lower than some other non-zoo populations. We discuss that in our view, the shape of the survivorship curve, and its change over time, are more relevant than comparisons with specific populations. Zoo elephant survivorship should be monitored continuously, and the expectation of a continuous trend towards improvement should be met
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in a two-lane model for bidirectional overtaking traffic
First we consider a unidirectional flux \omega_bar of vehicles each of which
is characterized by its `natural' velocity v drawn from a distribution P(v).
The traffic flow is modeled as a collection of straight `world lines' in the
time-space plane, with overtaking events represented by a fixed queuing time
tau imposed on the overtaking vehicle. This geometrical model exhibits platoon
formation and allows, among many other things, for the calculation of the
effective average velocity w=\phi(v) of a vehicle of natural velocity v.
Secondly, we extend the model to two opposite lanes, A and B. We argue that the
queuing time \tau in one lane is determined by the traffic density in the
opposite lane. On the basis of reasonable additional assumptions we establish a
set of equations that couple the two lanes and can be solved numerically. It
appears that above a critical value \omega_bar_c of the control parameter
\omega_bar the symmetry between the lanes is spontaneously broken: there is a
slow lane where long platoons form behind the slowest vehicles, and a fast lane
where overtaking is easy due to the wide spacing between the platoons in the
opposite direction. A variant of the model is studied in which the spatial
vehicle density \rho_bar rather than the flux \omega_bar is the control
parameter. Unequal fluxes \omega_bar_A and \omega_bar_B in the two lanes are
also considered. The symmetry breaking phenomenon exhibited by this model, even
though no doubt hard to observe in pure form in real-life traffic, nevertheless
indicates a tendency of such traffic.Comment: 50 pages, 16 figures; extra references adde
Fabry disease: progression of nephropathy, and prevalence of cardiac and cerebrovascular events before enzyme replacement therapy
Background. In Fabry disease, progressive glycolipid accumulation leads to organ damage and early demise, but the incidence of renal, cardiac and cerebrovascular events has not been well characterized
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