RNA editing of cytochrome c maturation transcripts is responsive to the energy status of leaf cells in Arabidopsis thaliana

published_or_final_versio

Thermoelectric properties of Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films

Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films were synthesized by a sol-gel process and an evaporation-induced self-assembly process. In this work, the effects of Al doping concentration on the electrical conductivity and characterization of mesoporous ZnO thin films were investigated. By changing the Al doping concentration, ZnO grain growth is inhibited, and the mesoporous structure of ZnO is maintained during a relatively high temperature annealing process. The porosity of Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films increased slightly with increasing Al doping concentration. Finally, as electrical conductivity was increased as electrons were freed and pore structure was maintained by inhibiting grain growth, the thermoelectric property was enhanced with increasing Al concentration. © 2013 Min-Hee Hong et al

Effect of surfactant concentration variation on the thermoelectric properties of mesoporous ZnO

The electrical and thermal conductivities and the Seebeck coefficient of mesoporous ZnO thin films were investigated to determine the change of their thermoelectric properties by controlling surfactant concentration in the mesoporous ZnO films, because the thermoelectric properties of mesoporous ZnO films can be influenced by the porosity of the mesoporous structures, which is primarily determined by surfactant concentration in the films. Mesoporous ZnO thin films were successfully synthesized by using sol-gel and evaporation-induced self-assembly processes. Zinc acetate dihydrate and Brij-76 were used as the starting material and pore structure-forming template, respectively. The porosity of mesoporous ZnO thin films increased from 29% to 40% with increasing surfactant molar ratio. Porosity can be easily altered by controlling the molar ratio of surfactant/precursor. The electrical and thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficients showed a close correlation with the porosity of the films, indicating that the thermoelectric properties of thin films can be changed by altering their porosity. Mesoporous ZnO thin films with the highest porosity had the best thermoelectric properties (the lowest thermal conductivity and the highest Seebeck coefficient) of the films examined. © 2013 Min-Hee Hong et al

AtPAP2 modulates the import of the small subunit of Rubisco into chloroplasts

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Correlates of Complete Childhood Vaccination in East African Countries.

Despite the benefits of childhood vaccinations, vaccination rates in low-income countries (LICs) vary widely. Increasing coverage of vaccines to 90% in the poorest countries over the next 10 years has been estimated to prevent 426 million cases of illness and avert nearly 6.4 million childhood deaths worldwide. Consequently, we sought to provide a comprehensive examination of contemporary vaccination patterns in East Africa and to identify common and country-specific barriers to complete childhood vaccination. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, we looked at the prevalence of complete vaccination for polio, measles, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and DTwPHibHep (DTP) as recommended by the WHO among children ages 12 to 23 months. We conducted multivariable logistic regression within each country to estimate associations between complete vaccination status and health care access and sociodemographic variables using backwards stepwise regression. Vaccination varied significantly by country. In all countries, the majority of children received at least one dose of a WHO recommended vaccine; however, in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda less than 50% of children received a complete schedule of recommended vaccines. Being delivered in a public or private institution compared with being delivered at home was associated with increased odds of complete vaccination status. Sociodemographic covariates were not consistently associated with complete vaccination status across countries. Although no consistent set of predictors accounted for complete vaccination status, we observed differences based on region and the location of delivery. These differences point to the need to examine the historical, political, and economic context of each country in order to maximize vaccination coverage. Vaccination against these childhood diseases is a critical step towards reaching the Millennium Development Goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds by 2015 and thus should be a global priority

Deep Probabilistic Modelling of Price Movements for High-Frequency Trading

In this paper we propose a deep recurrent architecture for the probabilistic modelling of high-frequency market prices, important for the risk management of automated trading systems. Our proposed architecture incorporates probabilistic mixture models into deep recurrent neural networks. The resulting deep mixture models simultaneously address several practical challenges important in the development of automated high-frequency trading strategies that were previously neglected in the literature: 1) probabilistic forecasting of the price movements; 2) single objective prediction of both the direction and size of the price movements. We train our models on high-frequency Bitcoin market data and evaluate them against benchmark models obtained from the literature. We show that our model outperforms the benchmark models in both a metric-based test and in a simulated trading scenario

Brazilin Isolated from Caesalpinia sappan Suppresses Nuclear Envelope Reassembly by Inhibiting Barrier-to-Autointegration Factor Phosphorylation

To date, many anticancer drugs have been developed by directly or indirectly targeting microtubules, which are involved in cell division. Although this approach has yielded many anticancer drugs, these drugs produce undesirable side effects. An alternative strategy is needed, and targeting mitotic exit may be one alternative approach. Localization of phosphorylated barrier-to-autointegration factor (BAF) to the chromosomal core region is essential for nuclear envelope compartment relocalization. In this study, we isolated brazilin from Caesalpinia sappan Leguminosae and demonstrated that it inhibited BAF phosphorylation in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, we demonstrated direct binding between brazilin and BAF. The inhibition of BAF phosphorylation induced abnormal nuclear envelope reassembly and cell death, indicating that perturbation of nuclear envelope reassembly could be a novel approach to anticancer therapy. We propose that brazilin isolated from C. sappan may be a new anticancer drug candidate that induces cell death by inhibiting vaccinia-related kinase 1-mediated BAF phosphorylation.X1153Ysciescopu

ECF: An MPTCP path scheduler to manage heterogeneous paths

© 2017 ACM. Multi-Path TCP (MPTCP) is a new standardized transport protocol that enables devices to utilize multiple network interfaces. The default MPTCP path scheduler prioritizes paths with the smallest round trip time (RTT). In this work, we examine whether the default MPTCP path scheduler can provide applications the ideal aggregate bandwidth, i.e., the sum of available bandwidths of all paths. Our experimental results show that heterogeneous paths cause under-utilization of the fast path, resulting in undesirable application behaviors such as lower video streaming quality than can be obtained using the available aggregate bandwidth. To solve this problem, we propose and implement a new MPTCP path scheduler, ECF (Earliest Completion First), that utilizes all relevant information about a path, not just RTT. Our results show that ECF consistently utilizes all available paths more efficiently than other approaches under path heterogeneity, particularly for streaming video

International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force recommendations for a veterinary epilepsy-specific MRI protocol

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological diseases in veterinary practice. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is regarded as an important diagnostic test to reach the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. However, given that the diagnosis requires the exclusion of other differentials for seizures, the parameters for MRI examination should allow the detection of subtle lesions which may not be obvious with existing techniques. In addition, there are several differentials for idiopathic epilepsy in humans, for example some focal cortical dysplasias, which may only apparent with special sequences, imaging planes and/or particular techniques used in performing the MRI scan. As a result, there is a need to standardize MRI examination in veterinary patients with techniques that reliably diagnose subtle lesions, identify post-seizure changes, and which will allow for future identification of underlying causes of seizures not yet apparent in the veterinary literature. There is a need for a standardized veterinary epilepsy-specific MRI protocol which will facilitate more detailed examination of areas susceptible to generating and perpetuating seizures, is cost efficient, simple to perform and can be adapted for both low and high field scanners. Standardisation of imaging will improve clinical communication and uniformity of case definition between research studies. A 6–7 sequence epilepsy-specific MRI protocol for veterinary patients is proposed and further advanced MR and functional imaging is reviewed

On the Importance of Countergradients for the Development of Retinotopy: Insights from a Generalised Gierer Model

During the development of the topographic map from vertebrate retina to superior colliculus (SC), EphA receptors are expressed in a gradient along the nasotemporal retinal axis. Their ligands, ephrin-As, are expressed in a gradient along the rostrocaudal axis of the SC. Countergradients of ephrin-As in the retina and EphAs in the SC are also expressed. Disruption of any of these gradients leads to mapping errors. Gierer's (1981) model, which uses well-matched pairs of gradients and countergradients to establish the mapping, can account for the formation of wild type maps, but not the double maps found in EphA knock-in experiments. I show that these maps can be explained by models, such as Gierer's (1983), which have gradients and no countergradients, together with a powerful compensatory mechanism that helps to distribute connections evenly over the target region. However, this type of model cannot explain mapping errors found when the countergradients are knocked out partially. I examine the relative importance of countergradients as against compensatory mechanisms by generalising Gierer's (1983) model so that the strength of compensation is adjustable. Either matching gradients and countergradients alone or poorly matching gradients and countergradients together with a strong compensatory mechanism are sufficient to establish an ordered mapping. With a weaker compensatory mechanism, gradients without countergradients lead to a poorer map, but the addition of countergradients improves the mapping. This model produces the double maps in simulated EphA knock-in experiments and a map consistent with the Math5 knock-out phenotype. Simulations of a set of phenotypes from the literature substantiate the finding that countergradients and compensation can be traded off against each other to give similar maps. I conclude that a successful model of retinotopy should contain countergradients and some form of compensation mechanism, but not in the strong form put forward by Gierer