Entropy of Reissner-Nordstrom Black Holes with Minimal Length Revisited

Based on the generalized uncertainty principle, we study the entropy of a four-dimensional black hole by counting degrees of freedom near the horizon and obtain the (finite) entropy proportional to the surface area at the horizon without a cutoff introduced in the conventional brick-wall method.Comment: 5 page

Teacher-student interaction in one-on-one ESL writing conferences

With a conversation analytic approach, this study analyzes how teachers and students interact in one-on-one ESL writing conferences, focusing on the preference structure of advice-giving, epistemic displays, and teachers’ management of students’ no knowledge claims. This study analyzes the preference structure of advice-giving activities, and shows that advice-giving is performed as dispreferred. Characteristics of dispreferred actions, such as being delayed and mitigated, are observed in advice-giving turns in writing conferences. Advice-giving turns are delayed, often prefaced by compliments. Advice-giving is also accompanied by justifications and often mitigated. It is further shown how conditionals can be used to characterize dispreferred responses in this context. In addition, the problem-solving sequences, in which the advice-giving turns are included, are also produced as dispreferred, as they are delayed by compliments or other comments at the beginning of the conference. The next chapter analyzes the epistemics displayed by teachers and students in one-on-one ESL writing conferences. Recently, a lot of attention has been focused on the role of knowledge in conversations. This chapter aims to contribute to this line of discussion by investigating how teachers and students in one-on-one writing conferences display epistemic access, primacy and responsibility (Stivers, Mondada, & Steensig, 2011). Analysis shows that participants’ display of epistemic access is closely related to the participants’ orientation to their epistemic responsibility. I describe how participants display epistemic access and lack of epistemic access in two different sequential contexts, as an initiation and as a response. How teachers and students display their epistemic primacy is also explored in this study. I show that there can be a conflict over who has epistemic primacy in the interaction, even between a teacher and a student. This study also analyzes how teachers manage students’ no-knowledge-claims. In a one-on-one writing conference, the teacher cannot allocate the turn to another student when a student claims no knowledge. Rather, the teacher has to interact with the student to help him/her reach a knowing ([K+]) status. This study analyzes different contexts in which the teachers use follow-up questions and provide explanations to deal with students’ no-knowledge claims. It seems to be important for the teachers to use the appropriate tool, depending on the topic of the question and the teacher’s expectation for the student to be able to provide the answer after being given additional hints. This study first contributes to our understanding of preference structure, showing how advice-giving is dispreferred in one-on-one writing conferences. This study also provides additional evidence for the claim that preference structure is context-sensitive. The findings of this study also contribute to our understanding of how epistemic displays affect the interaction in an academic setting, suggesting that there is a close relation between participants’ display of epistemic access and epistemic responsibility. Lastly, this study has implications for writing pedagogy. This study provides examples of how teachers deal with students’ no-knowledge-claims, showing two tools used by teachers in this situation. This study also sheds light on how using compliments when giving advice can help the teachers to effectively point out the students’ writing problems. This study also has implications for the training of international teaching assistants or lecturers, as this study provides a microanalysis of the interaction between American teachers and international students in writing conferences

Comparison of genetic variations between high- and low-risk Listeria monocytogenes isolates using whole-genome de novo sequencing

In this study, genetic variations and characteristics of Listeria monocytogenes isolates from enoki mushrooms (23), smoked ducks (7), and processed ground meat products (30) were examined with respect to hemolysis, virulence genes, growth patterns, and heat resistance. The isolates that showed the highest pathogenicity and the lowest pathogenicity were analyzed to obtain the whole-genome sequence, and the sequences were further analyzed to identify genetic variations in virulence, low-temperature growth-related, and heat resistance-related factors. All isolates had β-hemolysis and virulence genes (actA, hlyA, inlA, inlB, and plcB). At low temperatures, isolates with high growth (L. monocytogenes strains SMFM 201803 SD 1-1, SMFM 201803 SD 4-2, and SMFM 201804 SD 5-3) and low growth (L. monocytogenes strains SMFM 2019-FV43, SMFM 2019-FV42, and SMFM 2020-BT30) were selected. Among them, L. monocytogenes SMFM 201804 SD 5-3 showed the highest resistance at 60°C and 70°C. The strains SMFM 201804 SD 5-3 (high-risk) and SMFM 2019-FV43 (low-risk) harbored 45 virulence genes; 41 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) were identified between these two isolates. A comparison of 26 genes related to low-temperature growth revealed 18 SNVs between these two isolates; a comparison of the 21 genes related to heat resistance revealed 16 SNVs. These results indicate that the differences in the pathogenicity of L. monocytogenes SMFM 201804 SD 5-3 and L. monocytogenes SMFM 2019-FV43 are associated with the SNVs identified in virulence genes, low-temperature growth-related genes, and heat resistance-related genes

Rewiring of PDZ Domain-Ligand Interaction Network Contributed to Eukaryotic Evolution

PDZ domain-mediated interactions have greatly expanded during metazoan evolution, becoming important for controlling signal flow via the assembly of multiple signaling components. The evolutionary history of PDZ domain-mediated interactions has never been explored at the molecular level. It is of great interest to understand how PDZ domain-ligand interactions emerged and how they become rewired during evolution. Here, we constructed the first human PDZ domain-ligand interaction network (PDZNet) together with binding motif sequences and interaction strengths of ligands. PDZNet includes 1,213 interactions between 97 human PDZ proteins and 591 ligands that connect most PDZ protein-mediated interactions (98%) in a large single network via shared ligands. We examined the rewiring of PDZ domain-ligand interactions throughout eukaryotic evolution by tracing changes in the C-terminal binding motif sequences of the PDZ ligands. We found that interaction rewiring by sequence mutation frequently occurred throughout evolution, largely contributing to the growth of PDZNet. The rewiring of PDZ domain-ligand interactions provided an effective means of functional innovations in nervous system development. Our findings provide empirical evidence for a network evolution model that highlights the rewiring of interactions as a mechanism for the development of new protein functions. PDZNet will be a valuable resource to further characterize the organization of the PDZ domain-mediated signaling proteome

The COOH-terminus of TM4SF5 in hepatoma cell lines regulates c-Src to form invasive protrusions via EGFR Tyr845 phosphorylation

AbstractTransmembrane 4 L six family member 5 (TM4SF5) enhances cell migration and invasion, although how TM4SF5 mechanistically mediates these effects remains unknown. In the study, during efforts to understand TM4SF5-mediated signal transduction, TM4SF5 was shown to bind c-Src and thus hepatoma cell lines expressing TM4SF5 were analyzed for the significance of the interaction in cell invasion. The C-terminus of TM4SF5 bound both inactive c-Src that might be sequestered to certain cellular areas and active c-Src that might form invasive protrusions. Wildtype (WT) TM4SF5 expression enhanced migration and invasive protrusion formation in a c-Src-dependent manner, compared with TM4SF5-null control hepatoma cell lines. However, tailless TM4SF5ΔC cells were more efficient than WT TM4SF5 cells, suggesting a negative regulatory role by the C-terminus. TM4SF5 WT- or TM4SF5ΔC-mediated formation of invasive protrusions was dependent or independent on serum or epidermal growth factor treatment, respectively, although they both were dependent on c-Src. The c-Src activity of TM4SF5 WT- or TM4SF5ΔC-expressing cells correlated with enhanced Tyr845 phosphorylation of epidermal growth factor receptor. Y845F EGFR mutation abolished the TM4SF5-mediated invasive protrusions, but not c-Src phosphorylation. Our findings demonstrate that TM4SF5 modulates c-Src activity during TM4SF5-mediated invasion through a TM4SF5/c-Src/EGFR signaling pathway, differentially along the leading protrusive edges of an invasive cancer cell

3D Cascaded U-Net with a Squeeze-and-Exicitation Block for Semantic Segmentation on Kidney and Renal Cell Carcinoma in Abdonimal Volumetric CT

Segmentation is a fundamental process in medical image analysis. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has allowed for automatic segmentation; however, segmentaiton of complex organs and diseases including the kidney or renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remains a different task due to limited data and labor-intensive labeling work. The purpose of this study is to segment kideny and RCC in CT using cascaded 3D U-Net with a squeeze-and-excitation (SE) block using a cascaded method. 210 kidneys and their RCC in abdominal CT images were used as training and validation sets. The Dice similarity coefficients (DSCs) of kidney and RCC in test set were 0.963 and 0.734 respectively. The cascaded semantic segmentation can potentially reduce segmentation efforts and increase the efficiency in clinical workflow

Computed tomographic characteristics of acute thoracolumbar intervertebral disc disease in dogs

Forty canine patients with a presumptive diagnosis of the intervertebral disc herniation at the thoracolumbar region were imaged. A neurological examination was performed and all patients were classified under four grades by the examination. The degrees of attenuation of the herniated disc material were measured in Housefield units (HU) in each image. The ratio of the area to herniated disc material and the height to disc material were measured. The clinical grade was correlated with the area ratio of the herniated disc material to the spinal cord, but not correlated with the height ratio of that. In the patients with epidural hemorrhage at surgery, HUs of the herniated disc material was lower than those with no epidural hemorrhage at surgery. Non-contrast computed tomography scans of the spine can be useful in diagnosing acute intervertebral disc disease in chondrodystrophoid breeds, evaluating patient status and identifying concurrent epidural hemorrhage