“The Mary Janes”

In this paper I will discuss, analyze, and explain the process of creating my thesis film, The Mary Janes. I will begin with a discussion of the theme, and continue with explaining each aspect of making the film in relation to that theme. I will recount my greatest challenges during the process. I will also relate my use of knowledge and skills accumulated through study. Finally, I will analyze the outcome of the work of art, and question how well my theme was actualized and understood. I will evaluate the film as whole, including the process of creation, successes and failures, and determine how well I was able to create a clearly articulated story with a strong genre style

“The Mary Janes”

In this paper I will discuss, analyze, and explain the process of creating my thesis film, The Mary Janes. I will begin with a discussion of the theme, and continue with explaining each aspect of making the film in relation to that theme. I will recount my greatest challenges during the process. I will also relate my use of knowledge and skills accumulated through study. Finally, I will analyze the outcome of the work of art, and question how well my theme was actualized and understood. I will evaluate the film as whole, including the process of creation, successes and failures, and determine how well I was able to create a clearly articulated story with a strong genre style

Regulatory mechanisms of surfactant secretion

AbstractSurfactant secretion is a critical regulated process in the metabolism of pulmonary surfactant. Presumably, because this process is vital to the survival of the organism, there are several independent pathways for stimulating secretion which work through different cell surface receptors and signaling mechanisms. In addition, there is apparent homeostatic regulation in that two components of surfactant, namely SP-A and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine, can inhibit secretion. Although secretion of surfactant has been studied for over two decades, there remains some important issues to be resolved. In vivo secretion can be stimulated by hyperventilation or even a single large breath. However, we do not know the biochemical mechanism for this physiologically important form of stimulation. In vitro, we know many of the proximal events in signaling, but we do not know how the lamellar bodies move within a cell or the docking mechanism at the plasma membrane. Many investigators have demonstrated that SP-A will inhibit secretion in vitro, but the mechanism is not known. Finally, there is a route of secretion of SP-A independent of lamellar bodies, but we do not know details of this pathway nor its regulation

Human-Inspired Neurorobotic System for Classifying Surface Textures by Touch

© 2016 IEEE. Giving robots the ability to classify surface textures requires appropriate sensors and algorithms. Inspired by the biology of human tactile perception, we implement a neurorobotic texture classifier with a recurrent spiking neural network, using a novel semisupervised approach for classifying dynamic stimuli. Input to the network is supplied by accelerometers mounted on a robotic arm. The sensor data are encoded by a heterogeneous population of neurons, modeled to match the spiking activity of mechanoreceptor cells. This activity is convolved by a hidden layer using bandpass filters to extract nonlinear frequency information from the spike trains. The resulting high-dimensional feature representation is then continuously classified using a neurally implemented support vector machine. We demonstrate that our system classifies 18 metal surface textures scanned in two opposite directions at a constant velocity. We also demonstrate that our approach significantly improves upon a baseline model that does not use the described feature extraction. This method can be performed in real-time using neuromorphic hardware, and can be extended to other applications that process dynamic stimuli online

Making heads or tails of phospholipids in mitochondria

Mitochondria are dynamic organelles whose functional integrity requires a coordinated supply of proteins and phospholipids. Defined functions of specific phospholipids, like the mitochondrial signature lipid cardiolipin, are emerging in diverse processes, ranging from protein biogenesis and energy production to membrane fusion and apoptosis. The accumulation of phospholipids within mitochondria depends on interorganellar lipid transport between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria as well as intramitochondrial lipid trafficking. The discovery of proteins that regulate mitochondrial membrane lipid composition and of a multiprotein complex tethering ER to mitochondrial membranes has unveiled novel mechanisms of mitochondrial membrane biogenesis