Affymetrix probes containing runs of contiguous guanines are not gene-specific

High Density Oligonucleotide arrays (HDONAs), such as the Affymetrix HG-U133A GeneChip, use sets of probes chosen to match specified genes, with the expectation that if a particular gene is highly expressed then all the probes in the designated probe set will provide a consistent message signifying the gene's presence. However, we demonstrate by data mining thousands of CEL files from NCBI's GEO database that 4G-probes (defined as probes containing sequences of four or more consecutive guanine (G) bases) do not react in the intended way. Rather, possibly due to the formation of G-quadruplexes, most 4G-probes are correlated, irrespective of the expression of the thousands of genes for which they were separately intended. It follows that 4G-probes should be ignored when calculating gene expression levels. Furthermore, future microarray designs should make no use of 4G-probes

Paleomagnetism of Four Late Cretaceous Plutons North Cascades, Washington

Paleomagnetic directions of samples from the Ten Peak and Sulphur Mtn. plutons, Hidden Lake stock, and Oval Peak batholith in the North Cascades reveal multi-component magnetization and instability. In the Hidden Lake stock and Ten Peak pluton, a strong viscous overprint parallels the present day field. The Sulphur Mountain pluton shows complete magnetic instability; making it impossible to compute a meaningful mean direction. The rocks of the Oval Peak batholith are believed to have been magnetically reset during the Eocene, although the observed declination of 167° and inclination of -67° is significantly different from the expected Eocene direction. The mean direction for the Oval Peak batholith is very similar to directions obtained by Strickler (1982) for the Black Peak batholith, and by Stauss (1982) for dikes in the Corbaley Canyon area. These three units with similar paleomagnetic discordance are found within a panel of rock bound on the east by the Ross Lake fault zone and on the west by the Entiat fault. The rock of the Corbaley Canyon area is Eocene, while the Black Peak batholith has been dated using K/Ar methods at 88.4 Ma and 103 Ma (hornblende), and 73 Ma (biotite). It seems likely that the magnetization of the Black Peak batholith was thermally reset during the Eocene, when it was intruded by the Golden Horn batholith. The inclination for the observed direction from the three units is similar to that expected for the Eocene, but the declination is discordant by approximately 170°. Acquisition of both normal and reverse aberrant directions during anomalous states of the magnetic field is improbable. Bias by an uncleaned overprint might explain the imperfection of antiparallelism, but cannot account for discordance of both normal and reverse magnetizations. Models involving large scale clockwise rotation or tilt down to the northwest could account for the observed discordance. However, there is no geologic evidence to support either model. A better explanation may be that relatively small blocks have individually rotated clockwise or have undergone large tilts down to the northwest, but again, geologic evidence for such displacement has yet to be recognized. Petrology and magnetic characteristics of rocks from this study were compared to those of magnetically stable intrusive rocks of the Mt. Stuart and Chilliwack batholiths and Fawn Peak stock. Comparison of natural remanent magnetization (NRM) with saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) for magnetically stable and unstable samples indicates that the magnetization of the unstable samples from this study resides in multi-domain magnetic grains, whereas the magnetically stable samples show single-domain grain magnetic behavior. Tiny grains of magnetite are seen in the plagioclase of the magnetically stable rocks whereas none appear in the magnetically unstable rocks. These tiny magnetite grains may be responsible for magnetic stability in the stable rocks. Lack of magnetite in the plagioclase of the unstable rocks may explain why they are magnetically unstable. Initial magmatic compositions, cooling conditions, or subsequent alteration of plagioclase may be considered as possibilities explaining the lack of magnetite. Petrographic studies show that the magnetically unstable rocks of this study are more altered (i.e., sericitization of plagioclase) and strained (recognized by undulatory extinction and recrystallized quartz) than the magnetically stable rocks from the Mt. Stuart and Chilliwack batholiths and Fawn Peak stock. Magnetically unstable rocks of this study show a persistent VRM overprint stable to approximately lOOoe and parallel to the present day field. Stott and Stacey (I960) have shown that stress may aid a rock in acquiring a VRM. It is not known when these rocks experienced deformation in their history, but, as the field direction has changed little since the Mid-Tertiary, it appears a possibility that stress may have aided in the acquisition of a VRM overprint since that time

A Case Study of Two Disabled Readers Using an Eclectic Remedial Reading Approach

This study was conducted with two disabled readers to ascertain the value of an eclectic remedial reading program. No comparisons were made between the two subjects or any other group. The purpose of the study was to fully explain the diagnostic and remedial techniques used on two disabled readers and to relate the success of the eclectic remedial approach

Voluntary control of illusory contour formation.

The extent to which visual inference is shaped by attentional goals is unclear. Voluntary attention may simply modulate the priority with which information is accessed by the higher cognitive functions involved in perceptual decision making. Alternatively, voluntary attention may influence fundamental visual processes, such as those involved in segmenting an incoming retinal signal into a structured scene of coherent objects, thereby determining perceptual organization. Here we tested whether the segmentation and integration of visual form can be determined by an observer's goals, by exploiting a novel variant of the classical Kanizsa figure. We generated predictions about the influence of attention with a machine classifier and tested these predictions with a psychophysical response classification technique. Despite seeing the same image on each trial, observers' perception of illusory spatial structure depended on their attentional goals. These attention-contingent illusory contours directly conflicted with other, equally plausible visual forms implied by the geometry of the stimulus, revealing that attentional selection can determine the perceived layout of a fragmented scene. Attentional goals, therefore, not only select precomputed features or regions of space for prioritized processing, but under certain conditions also greatly influence perceptual organization, and thus visual appearance

Visual Working Memory Is Independent of the Cortical Spacing Between Memoranda.

The sensory recruitment hypothesis states that visual short-term memory is maintained in the same visual cortical areas that initially encode a stimulus' features. Although it is well established that the distance between features in visual cortex determines their visibility, a limitation known as crowding, it is unknown whether short-term memory is similarly constrained by the cortical spacing of memory items. Here, we investigated whether the cortical spacing between sequentially presented memoranda affects the fidelity of memory in humans (of both sexes). In a first experiment, we varied cortical spacing by taking advantage of the log-scaling of visual cortex with eccentricity, presenting memoranda in peripheral vision sequentially along either the radial or tangential visual axis with respect to the fovea. In a second experiment, we presented memoranda sequentially either within or beyond the critical spacing of visual crowding, a distance within which visual features cannot be perceptually distinguished due to their nearby cortical representations. In both experiments and across multiple measures, we found strong evidence that the ability to maintain visual features in memory is unaffected by cortical spacing. These results indicate that the neural architecture underpinning working memory has properties inconsistent with the known behavior of sensory neurons in visual cortex. Instead, the dissociation between perceptual and memory representations supports a role of higher cortical areas such as posterior parietal or prefrontal regions or may involve an as yet unspecified mechanism in visual cortex in which stimulus features are bound to their temporal order.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although much is known about the resolution with which we can remember visual objects, the cortical representation of items held in short-term memory remains contentious. A popular hypothesis suggests that memory of visual features is maintained via the recruitment of the same neural architecture in sensory cortex that encodes stimuli. We investigated this claim by manipulating the spacing in visual cortex between sequentially presented memoranda such that some items shared cortical representations more than others while preventing perceptual interference between stimuli. We found clear evidence that short-term memory is independent of the intracortical spacing of memoranda, revealing a dissociation between perceptual and memory representations. Our data indicate that working memory relies on different neural mechanisms from sensory perception

A Malthusian Analysis of the So-Called Dynasty Trust

Select financial institutions and members of the Bar have seized upon the presence of the limited exemption from the generation skipping transfer tax provided under the Internal Revenue Code to promote so-called dynasty trusts as a means whereby individuals can build dynastic wealth for a family forever free from transfer taxes. To realize such benefits, state law that does not impose the Rule Against Perpetuities must govern the trust. The promise of dynastic wealth is unlikely to be realized due to several factors. Administrative and tax costs are likely to reduce the yield on such trusts to a level where inflation, rising expectations, and an ever growing band of beneficiaries are typically assured to outpace the ability of the trust to deliver the benefits anticipated by trust settlors. Whether required under current standards of professional responsibility or not, an understanding of these factors can elevate the quality of service provided by estate planners

A Malthusian Analysis of the So-Called Dynasty Trust

Select financial institutions and members of the Bar have seized upon the presence of the limited exemption from the generation skipping transfer tax provided under the Internal Revenue Code to promote so-called dynasty trusts as a means whereby individuals can build dynastic wealth for a family forever free from transfer taxes. To realize such benefits, state law that does not impose the Rule Against Perpetuities must govern the trust. The promise of dynastic wealth is unlikely to be realized due to several factors. Administrative and tax costs are likely to reduce the yield on such trusts to a level where inflation, rising expectations, and an ever growing band of beneficiaries are typically assured to outpace the ability of the trust to deliver the benefits anticipated by trust settlors. Whether required under current standards of professional responsibility or not, an understanding of these factors can elevate the quality of service provided by estate planners

Employee Assistance and Drug Testing: Fairness and Injustice in the Workplace

Every few years, the mass media report that a drug epidemic is sweeping America and sapping its economy

Event Representations for Automated Story Generation with Deep Neural Nets

Automated story generation is the problem of automatically selecting a sequence of events, actions, or words that can be told as a story. We seek to develop a system that can generate stories by learning everything it needs to know from textual story corpora. To date, recurrent neural networks that learn language models at character, word, or sentence levels have had little success generating coherent stories. We explore the question of event representations that provide a mid-level of abstraction between words and sentences in order to retain the semantic information of the original data while minimizing event sparsity. We present a technique for preprocessing textual story data into event sequences. We then present a technique for automated story generation whereby we decompose the problem into the generation of successive events (event2event) and the generation of natural language sentences from events (event2sentence). We give empirical results comparing different event representations and their effects on event successor generation and the translation of events to natural language.Comment: Submitted to AAAI'1