2,380 research outputs found
Perspectives for a framework to understand aril initiation and development
A differentiated structure called âarilâ has been described in seeds of several plant species during the course of evolution and might be considered as a supernumerary integument. Besides its ecological function in seed dispersal, the structure also represents a relevant character for systematic classification and exhibits important properties that impart agronomic value in certain species. Little is known about the molecular pathways underlying this morphological innovation because it is absent in currently used model species. A remarkable feature of the seeds of Passiflora species is the presence of a conspicuous aril. This genus is known for the ornamental, medicinal, and food values of its species. In view of the molecular resources and tools available for some Passiflora species, we highlight the potential of these species as models for developmental studies of the aril7CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTĂFICO E TECNOLĂGICO - CNPQCOORDENAĂĂO DE APERFEIĂOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NĂVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAĂĂO DE AMPARO Ă PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SĂO PAULO - FAPESPnĂŁo temnĂŁo temnĂŁo te
Efek Pajanan Timbal Terhadap Infertilitas Pria
Industrial and technological advances have brought a great benefit in human life, but these also bring negative effects to human and environment. Several toxic agents often influence human health, one of them is lead which give toxic effect on male reproductive system. Lead can cause male infertility through two main mechanisms. First, lead reduces the mannose receptors so that the sperms are unable to conduct the acrosome recation, or cause premature acrosome reaction. Secondly, lead competes with zinc in binding protamine, as the result, it will interfere the chromatin stability of the sperms which are closely related to male fertility.  
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TRAIL-induced variation of cell signaling states provides nonheritable resistance to apoptosis.
TNFα-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), specifically initiates programmed cell death, but often fails to eradicate all cells, making it an ineffective therapy for cancer. This fractional killing is linked to cellular variation that bulk assays cannot capture. Here, we quantify the diversity in cellular signaling responses to TRAIL, linking it to apoptotic frequency across numerous cell systems with single-cell mass cytometry (CyTOF). Although all cells respond to TRAIL, a variable fraction persists without apoptotic progression. This cell-specific behavior is nonheritable where both the TRAIL-induced signaling responses and frequency of apoptotic resistance remain unaffected by prior exposure. The diversity of signaling states upon exposure is correlated to TRAIL resistance. Concomitantly, constricting the variation in signaling response with kinase inhibitors proportionally decreases TRAIL resistance. Simultaneously, TRAIL-induced de novo translation in resistant cells, when blocked by cycloheximide, abrogated all TRAIL resistance. This work highlights how cell signaling diversity, and subsequent translation response, relates to nonheritable fractional escape from TRAIL-induced apoptosis. This refined view of TRAIL resistance provides new avenues to study death ligands in general
DRUG-NEM: Optimizing drug combinations using single-cell perturbation response to account for intratumoral heterogeneity.
An individual malignant tumor is composed of a heterogeneous collection of single cells with distinct molecular and phenotypic features, a phenomenon termed intratumoral heterogeneity. Intratumoral heterogeneity poses challenges for cancer treatment, motivating the need for combination therapies. Single-cell technologies are now available to guide effective drug combinations by accounting for intratumoral heterogeneity through the analysis of the signaling perturbations of an individual tumor sample screened by a drug panel. In particular, Mass Cytometry Time-of-Flight (CyTOF) is a high-throughput single-cell technology that enables the simultaneous measurements of multiple ([Formula: see text]40) intracellular and surface markers at the level of single cells for hundreds of thousands of cells in a sample. We developed a computational framework, entitled Drug Nested Effects Models (DRUG-NEM), to analyze CyTOF single-drug perturbation data for the purpose of individualizing drug combinations. DRUG-NEM optimizes drug combinations by choosing the minimum number of drugs that produce the maximal desired intracellular effects based on nested effects modeling. We demonstrate the performance of DRUG-NEM using single-cell drug perturbation data from tumor cell lines and primary leukemia samples
The Gaussian formula and spherical aberration of the static and moving curved mirrors from Fermat's principle
The Gaussian formula and spherical aberrations of the static and relativistic
curved mirrors are analyzed using the optical path length (OPL) and Fermat's
principle. The geometrical figures generated by the rotation of conic sections
about their symmetry axes are considered for the shapes of the mirrors. By
comparing the results in static and relativistic cases, it is shown that the
focal lengths and the spherical aberration relations of the relativistic
mirrors obey the Lorentz contraction. Further analysis of the spherical
aberrations for both static and relativistic cases have resulted in the
information about the limits for the paraxial approximation, as well as for the
minimum speed of the systems to reduce the spherical aberrations.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, uses iopart. Major revisions on the physical
interpretations of the results. Accepted for publication in J. Op
Polysaccharide utilization loci and nutritional specialization in a dominant group of butyrate-producing human colonic Firmicutes
Acknowledgements The Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health (University of Aberdeen) receives financial support from the Scottish Government Rural and Environmental Sciences and Analytical Services (RESAS). POS is a PhD student supported by the Scottish Government (RESAS) and the Science Foundation Ireland, through a centre award to the APC Microbiome Institute, Cork, Ireland. Data Summary The high-quality draft genomes generated in this work were deposited at the European Nucleotide Archive under the following accession numbers: 1. Eubacterium rectale T1-815; CVRQ01000001âCVRQ0100 0090: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB9320 2. Roseburia faecis M72/1; CVRR01000001âCVRR010001 01: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB9321 3. Roseburia inulinivorans L1-83; CVRS01000001âCVRS0 100 0151: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB9322Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Towards understanding interactions between Sustainable Development Goals: the role of environmentâhuman linkages
Only 10 years remain to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally, so there is a growing need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of action by targeting multiple SDGs. The SDGs were conceived as an âindivisible wholeâ, but interactions between SDGs need to be better understood. Several previous assessments have begun to explore interactions including synergies and possible conflicts between the SDGs, and differ widely in their conclusions. Although some highlight the role of the more environmentally-focused SDGs in underpinning sustainable development, none specifically focuses on environment-human linkages. Assessing interactions between SDGs, and the influence of environment on them, can make an important contribution to informing decisions in 2020 and beyond.
Here, we review previous assessments of interactions among SDGs, apply an influence matrix to assess pairwise interactions between all SDGs, and show how viewing these from the perspective of environment-human linkages can influence the outcome.
Environment, and environment-human linkages, influence most interactions between SDGs. Our action-focused assessment enables decision makers to focus environmental management to have the greatest impacts, and to identify opportunities to build on synergies and reduce trade-offs between particular SDGs. It may enable sectoral decision makers to seek support from environment managers for achieving their goals.
We explore cross-cutting issues and the relevance and potential application of our approach in supporting decision making for progress to achieve the SDGs
A New Simulation Metric to Determine Safe Environments and Controllers for Systems with Unknown Dynamics
We consider the problem of extracting safe environments and controllers for
reach-avoid objectives for systems with known state and control spaces, but
unknown dynamics. In a given environment, a common approach is to synthesize a
controller from an abstraction or a model of the system (potentially learned
from data). However, in many situations, the relationship between the dynamics
of the model and the \textit{actual system} is not known; and hence it is
difficult to provide safety guarantees for the system. In such cases, the
Standard Simulation Metric (SSM), defined as the worst-case norm distance
between the model and the system output trajectories, can be used to modify a
reach-avoid specification for the system into a more stringent specification
for the abstraction. Nevertheless, the obtained distance, and hence the
modified specification, can be quite conservative. This limits the set of
environments for which a safe controller can be obtained. We propose SPEC, a
specification-centric simulation metric, which overcomes these limitations by
computing the distance using only the trajectories that violate the
specification for the system. We show that modifying a reach-avoid
specification with SPEC allows us to synthesize a safe controller for a larger
set of environments compared to SSM. We also propose a probabilistic method to
compute SPEC for a general class of systems. Case studies using simulators for
quadrotors and autonomous cars illustrate the advantages of the proposed metric
for determining safe environment sets and controllers.Comment: 22nd ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and
Control (2019
Quantum repeaters and quantum key distribution: analysis of secret key rates
We analyze various prominent quantum repeater protocols in the context of
long-distance quantum key distribution. These protocols are the original
quantum repeater proposal by Briegel, D\"ur, Cirac and Zoller, the so-called
hybrid quantum repeater using optical coherent states dispersively interacting
with atomic spin qubits, and the Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller-type repeater using
atomic ensembles together with linear optics and, in its most recent extension,
heralded qubit amplifiers. For our analysis, we investigate the most important
experimental parameters of every repeater component and find their minimally
required values for obtaining a nonzero secret key. Additionally, we examine in
detail the impact of device imperfections on the final secret key rate and on
the optimal number of rounds of distillation when the entangled states are
purified right after their initial distribution.Comment: Published versio
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