PP13, Maternal ABO Blood Groups and the Risk Assessment of Pregnancy Complications

Placental Protein 13 (PP13), an early biomarker of preeclampsia, is a placenta-specific galectin that binds beta-galactosides, building-blocks of ABO blood-group antigens, possibly affecting its bioavailability in blood.We studied PP13-binding to erythrocytes, maternal blood-group effect on serum PP13 and its performance as a predictor of preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Datasets of maternal serum PP13 in Caucasian (n = 1078) and Hispanic (n = 242) women were analyzed according to blood groups. In vivo, in vitro and in silico PP13-binding to ABO blood-group antigens and erythrocytes were studied by PP13-immunostainings of placental tissue-microarrays, flow-cytometry of erythrocyte-bound PP13, and model-building of PP13--blood-group H antigen complex, respectively. Women with blood group AB had the lowest serum PP13 in the first trimester, while those with blood group B had the highest PP13 throughout pregnancy. In accordance, PP13-binding was the strongest to blood-group AB erythrocytes and weakest to blood-group B erythrocytes. PP13-staining of maternal and fetal erythrocytes was revealed, and a plausible molecular model of PP13 complexed with blood-group H antigen was built. Adjustment of PP13 MoMs to maternal ABO blood group improved the prediction accuracy of first trimester maternal serum PP13 MoMs for preeclampsia and IUGR.ABO blood group can alter PP13-bioavailability in blood, and it may also be a key determinant for other lectins' bioavailability in the circulation. The adjustment of PP13 MoMs to ABO blood group improves the predictive accuracy of this test

FPGA acceleration of the phylogenetic likelihood function for Bayesian MCMC inference methods

Background Likelihood (ML)-based phylogenetic inference has become a popular method for estimating the evolutionary relationships among species based on genomic sequence data. This method is used in applications such as RAxML, GARLI, MrBayes, PAML, and PAUP. The Phylogenetic Likelihood Function (PLF) is an important kernel computation for this method. The PLF consists of a loop with no conditional behavior or dependencies between iterations. As such it contains a high potential for exploiting parallelism using micro-architectural techniques. In this paper, we describe a technique for mapping the PLF and supporting logic onto a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based co-processor. By leveraging the FPGA\u27s on-chip DSP modules and the high-bandwidth local memory attached to the FPGA, the resultant co-processor can accelerate ML-based methods and outperform state-of-the-art multi-core processors. Results We use the MrBayes 3 tool as a framework for designing our co-processor. For large datasets, we estimate that our accelerated MrBayes, if run on a current-generation FPGA, achieves a 10× speedup relative to software running on a state-of-the-art server-class microprocessor. The FPGA-based implementation achieves its performance by deeply pipelining the likelihood computations, performing multiple floating-point operations in parallel, and through a natural log approximation that is chosen specifically to leverage a deeply pipelined custom architecture. Conclusions Heterogeneous computing, which combines general-purpose processors with special-purpose co-processors such as FPGAs and GPUs, is a promising approach for high-performance phylogeny inference as shown by the growing body of literature in this field. FPGAs in particular are well-suited for this task because of their low power consumption as compared to many-core processors and Graphics Processor Units (GPUs)

An effector from the Huanglongbing-associated pathogen targets citrus proteases

The citrus industry is facing an unprecedented challenge from Huanglongbing (HLB). All cultivars can be affected by the HLB-associated bacterium ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ (CLas) and there is no known resistance. Insight into HLB pathogenesis is urgently needed in order to develop effective management strategies. Here, we use Sec-delivered effector 1 (SDE1), which is conserved in all CLas isolates, as a molecular probe to understand CLas virulence. We show that SDE1 directly interacts with citrus papain-like cysteine proteases (PLCPs) and inhibits protease activity. PLCPs are defense-inducible and exhibit increased protein accumulation in CLas-infected trees, suggesting a role in citrus defense responses. We analyzed PLCP activity in field samples, revealing specific members that increase in abundance but remain unchanged in activity during infection. SDE1-expressing transgenic citrus also exhibit reduced PLCP activity. These data demonstrate that SDE1 inhibits citrus PLCPs, which are immune-related proteases that enhance defense responses in plants

Spontaneous Abortion and Preterm Labor and Delivery in Nonhuman Primates: Evidence from a Captive Colony of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Preterm birth is a leading cause of perinatal mortality, yet the evolutionary history of this obstetrical syndrome is largely unknown in nonhuman primate species.We examined the length of gestation during pregnancies that occurred in a captive chimpanzee colony by inspecting veterinary and behavioral records spanning a total of thirty years. Upon examination of these records we were able to confidently estimate gestation length for 93 of the 97 (96%) pregnancies recorded at the colony. In total, 78 singleton gestations resulted in live birth, and from these pregnancies we estimated the mean gestation length of normal chimpanzee pregnancies to be 228 days, a finding consistent with other published reports. We also calculated that the range of gestation in normal chimpanzee pregnancies is approximately forty days. Of the remaining fifteen pregnancies, only one of the offspring survived, suggesting viability for chimpanzees requires a gestation of approximately 200 days. These fifteen pregnancies constitute spontaneous abortions and preterm deliveries, for which the upper gestational age limit was defined as 2 SD from the mean length of gestation (208 days).The present study documents that preterm birth occurred within our study population of captive chimpanzees. As in humans, pregnancy loss is not uncommon in chimpanzees, In addition, our findings indicate that both humans and chimpanzees show a similar range of normal variation in gestation length, suggesting this was the case at the time of their last common ancestor (LCA). Nevertheless, our data suggest that whereas chimpanzees' normal gestation length is ∼20-30 days after reaching viability, humans' normal gestation length is approximately 50 days beyond the estimated date of viability without medical intervention. Future research using a comparative evolutionary framework should help to clarify the extent to which mechanisms at work in normal and preterm parturition are shared in these species

Synphne accelerated stroke rehabilitation system - lower limb attachments development

This report presents the research development of the existing lower-limb rehabilitation system with rehabilitation therapy protocols for the SynphNe Rehabilitation Platform. Along the way, the lower-limb rehabilitation device is developed by working together with research engineer and clinical team. This report is focused on developing the electronics connections and design of the original device done by previous project team. The original design with cable wiring is developed for wireless device. The testing of the device is completed by using the software of SynphNE. To furnish with visualization, Solidworks software is used for parts drawings and assembly. Along the way of to develop the device, student has learnt the basic knowledge about lower limb’s muscles of our human body. The most challenging part of this project is preparing the prototype of the flexible cable runner for the retractable string connecting to the circuit board house which is to be placed at lower leg. Beside assembly parts drawing is one of the challenging tasks since student is not so familiar with the Solidworks software. Besides the design and drawing, student has done with the prototype. As a result, the device is developed in the way of flexible and comfortable device to help stroke patient to be able to walk and sit. It is designed to be light weight and have a retractable design while providing safe usage.Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace Engineering

Classifying Textual Documents Using Two Dimensional Probabilistic Model

This paper presents the probabilistic model named TwodimensionalProbabilistic Model (2DPM). In this model, terms are seen as disjoinevents, and terms and categories are realeated to each other. Since the documentsare represented as the union of terms, disjoint event, document and categories arealso rreleated. Terms are measured with their presence and expressiveness. Thepresentce and expressivencess of a term is defined as the peculiarity of that term. Adocument is defined as set of terms and it also has presence and expressivenessfor a category. So, the 2DPM model defines a direct relationship between theprobability of a document given a category of interest and a point on atwodimensionalspace. With the points, entire collections of documents are graphed ona Cartesian plane and documents are classifie directly on the two-dimensionalrepresentation. To experiment the system, Reuters-21578 newswire dataset is usedfor text classification

Molecular Characterization of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genotypes From Yangon Region in Myanmar using SSR Markers

Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important stable crops, consumed daily more than half of the world population. In Asia, Myanmar is center of rice genetic diversity as there are numerous rice varieties under diverse agro-ecological zones. In order to estimate genetic diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) germplasm in Yangon region of Myanmar, 102 genotypes from different parts of region were analyzed by 12 microsatellite (SSR) markers. In SSR characterization, the mean value of Polymorphic information content (PIC) was found 0.69 for all accessions. The maximum and minimum Polymorphic information content (PIC) values were found to be 0.79 and 0.21 for the primers RM229 and RM201 respectively.The total number of alleles was 91 and the average number of alleles per locus was 7.58. Average gene diversity was 0.72 indicating high genetic diversity among the genotypes. Phylogenetic cluster analysis of SSR data based on UPGMA and Nei's genetic distance divided into eight groups. These results reflect the high genetic differentiation existing in rice germplasm. The results from molecular data will improve in the part of rice varieties improvement programme. This study will support the information for breeders in rice breeding programme