888 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Valuation accuracy: reconciling the timing of the valuation and sale
Carsberg (2002) suggested that the periodic valuation accuracy studies undertaken by, amongst others, IPD/Drivers Jonas (2003) should be undertaken every year and be sponsored by the RICS, which acts as the self-regulating body for valuations in the UK. This paper does not address the wider issues concerning the nature of properties which are sold and whether the sale prices are influenced by prior valuations, but considers solely the technical issues
concerning the timing of the valuation and sales data.
This study uses valuations and sales data from the Investment Property Databank UK Monthly Index to attempt to identify the date that sale data is divulged to valuers. This information will inform accuracy studies that use a cut-off date as to the closeness of valuations to sales completion date as a yardstick for excluding data from the analysis. It will also, assuming valuers are informed quickly of any agreed sales, help to determine the actual
sale agreed date rather than the completion date, which includes a period of due diligence between when the sale is agreed and its completion. Valuations should be updated to this date, rather than the formal completion date, if a reliable measure of valuation accuracy is to be determined.
An accuracy study is then undertaken using a variety of updating periods and the differences between the results are examined. The paper concludes that the sale only becomes known to valuers in the month prior to the sale taking place and that this assumes either that sales due
diligence procedures are shortening or valuers are not told quickly of agreed sale prices. Studies that adopt a four-month cut-off date for any valuations compared to sales completion dates are over cautious, and this could be reduced to two months without compromising the data
Stability of Intercelular Exchange of Biochemical Substances Affected by Variability of Environmental Parameters
Communication between cells is realized by exchange of biochemical
substances. Due to internal organization of living systems and variability of
external parameters, the exchange is heavily influenced by perturbations of
various parameters at almost all stages of the process. Since communication is
one of essential processes for functioning of living systems it is of interest
to investigate conditions for its stability. Using previously developed
simplified model of bacterial communication in a form of coupled difference
logistic equations we investigate stability of exchange of signaling molecules
under variability of internal and external parameters.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
A repurposing strategy for Hsp90 inhibitors demonstrates their potency against filarial nematodes
Novel drugs are required for the elimination of infections caused by filarial worms, as most commonly used drugs largely target the microfilariae or first stage larvae of these infections. Previous studies, conducted in vitro, have shown that inhibition of Hsp90 kills adult Brugia pahangi. As numerous small molecule inhibitors of Hsp90 have been developed for use in cancer chemotherapy, we tested the activity of several novel Hsp90 inhibitors in a fluorescence polarization assay and against microfilariae and adult worms of Brugia in vitro. The results from all three assays correlated reasonably well and one particular compound, NVP-AUY922, was shown to be particularly active, inhibiting Mf output from female worms at concentrations as low as 5.0 nanomolar after 6 days exposure to drug. NVP-AUY922 was also active on adult worms after a short 24 h exposure to drug. Based on these in vitro data, NVP-AUY922 was tested in vivo in a mouse model and was shown to significantly reduce the recovery of both adult worms and microfilariae. These studies provide proof of principle that the repurposing of currently available Hsp90 inhibitors may have potential for the development of novel agents with macrofilaricidal properties
Extension of Lorenz Unpredictability
It is found that Lorenz systems can be unidirectionally coupled such that the
chaos expands from the drive system. This is true if the response system is not
chaotic, but admits a global attractor, an equilibrium or a cycle. The
extension of sensitivity and period-doubling cascade are theoretically proved,
and the appearance of cyclic chaos as well as intermittency in interconnected
Lorenz systems are demonstrated. A possible connection of our results with the
global weather unpredictability is provided.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figure
Renormalization Group Functional Equations
Functional conjugation methods are used to analyze the global structure of
various renormalization group trajectories, and to gain insight into the
interplay between continuous and discrete rescaling. With minimal assumptions,
the methods produce continuous flows from step-scaling {\sigma} functions, and
lead to exact functional relations for the local flow {\beta} functions, whose
solutions may have novel, exotic features, including multiple branches. As a
result, fixed points of {\sigma} are sometimes not true fixed points under
continuous changes in scale, and zeroes of {\beta} do not necessarily signal
fixed points of the flow, but instead may only indicate turning points of the
trajectories.Comment: A physical model with a limit cycle added as section IV, along with
reference
Cryptographic requirements for chaotic secure communications
In recent years, a great amount of secure communications systems based on
chaotic synchronization have been published. Most of the proposed schemes fail
to explain a number of features of fundamental importance to all cryptosystems,
such as key definition, characterization, and generation. As a consequence, the
proposed ciphers are difficult to realize in practice with a reasonable degree
of security. Likewise, they are seldom accompanied by a security analysis.
Thus, it is hard for the reader to have a hint about their security. In this
work we provide a set of guidelines that every new cryptosystems would benefit
from adhering to. The proposed guidelines address these two main gaps, i.e.,
correct key management and security analysis, to help new cryptosystems be
presented in a more rigorous cryptographic way. Also some recommendations are
offered regarding some practical aspects of communications, such as channel
noise, limited bandwith, and attenuation.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Recommended from our members
Individual differences in emotion-cognition interactions: Emotional valence interacts with serotonin transporter genotype to influence brain systems involved in emotional reactivity and cognitive control
The serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) influences emotional reactivity and attentional bias toward or away from emotional stimuli, and has been implicated in psychopathological states, such as depression and anxiety disorder. The short allele is associated with increased reactivity and attention toward negatively-valenced emotional information, whereas the long allele is associated with increased reactivity and attention towardpositively-valenced emotional information. The neural basis for individual differences in the ability to exert cognitive control over these bottom-up biases in emotional reactivity and attention is unknown, an issue investigated in the present study. Healthy adult participants were divided into two groups, either homozygous carriers of the 5-HTTLPR long allele or homozygous carriers of the short allele, and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing an Emotional Stroop-like task that varied in the congruency of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information and the emotional valence of the task-irrelevant information. Behaviorally, participants demonstrated the classic “Stroop effect” (responses were slower for incongruent than congruent trials), which did not differ by 5-HTTLPR genotype. However, fMRI results revealed that genotype influenced the degree to which neural systems were engaged depending on the valence of the conflicting task-irrelevant information. While the “Long” group recruited prefrontal control regions and superior temporal sulcus during conflict when the task-irrelevant information was positively-valenced, the “Short” group recruited these regions during conflict when the task-irrelevant information was negatively-valenced. Thus, participants successfully engaged cognitive control to overcome conflict in an emotional context using similar neural circuitry, but the engagement of this circuitry depended on emotional valence and 5-HTTLPR status. These results suggest that the interplay between emotion and cognition is modulated, in part, by a genetic polymorphism that influences serotonin neurotransmission
Assay strategies for the discovery and validation of therapeutics targeting <i>Brugia pahangi</i> Hsp90
The chemotherapy of lymphatic filariasis relies upon drugs such as diethylcarbamazine and ivermectin that largely target the microfilarial stages of the parasite, necessitating continued treatment over the long reproductive life span of the adult worm. The identification of compounds that target adult worms has been a long-term goal of WHO. Here we describe a fluorescence polarization assay for the identification of compounds that target Hsp90 in adult filarial worms. The assay was originally developed to identify inhibitors of Hsp90 in tumor cells, and relies upon the ability of small molecules to inhibit the binding of fluorescently labelled geldanamycin to Hsp90. We demonstrate that the assay works well with soluble extracts of Brugia, while extracts of the free-living nematode C. elegans fail to bind the probe, in agreement with data from other experiments. The assay was validated using known inhibitors of Hsp90 that compete with geldanamycin for binding to Hsp90, including members of the synthetic purine-scaffold series of compounds. The efficacy of some of these compounds against adult worms was confirmed in vitro. Moreover, the assay is sufficiently sensitive to differentiate between binding of purine-scaffold compounds to human and Brugia Hsp90. The assay is suitable for high-throughput screening and provides the first example of a format with the potential to identify novel inhibitors of Hsp90 in filarial worms and in other parasitic species where Hsp90 may be a target
On the density of periodic configurations in strongly irreducible subshifts
Let be a residually finite group and let be a finite set. We prove
that if is a strongly irreducible subshift of finite type
containing a periodic configuration then periodic configurations are dense in
. The density of periodic configurations implies in particular that every
injective endomorphism of is surjective and that the group of automorphisms
of is residually finite. We also introduce a class of subshifts , including all strongly irreducible subshifts and all irreducible sofic
subshifts, in which periodic configurations are dense
Invariant varieties of periodic points for some higher dimensional integrable maps
By studying various rational integrable maps on with
invariants, we show that periodic points form an invariant variety of dimension
for each period, in contrast to the case of nonintegrable maps in which
they are isolated. We prove the theorem: {\it `If there is an invariant variety
of periodic points of some period, there is no set of isolated periodic points
of other period in the map.'}Comment: 24 page
- …