4,468 research outputs found
Bioinformatics and the politics of innovation in the life sciences: Science and the state in the United Kingdom, China, and India
The governments of China, India, and the United Kingdom are unanimous in their belief that bioinformatics should supply the link between basic life sciences research and its translation into health benefits for the population and the economy. Yet at the same time, as ambitious states vying for position in the future global bioeconomy they differ considerably in the strategies adopted in pursuit of this goal. At the heart of these differences lies the interaction between epistemic change within the scientific community itself and the apparatus of the state. Drawing on desk-based research and thirty-two interviews with scientists and policy makers in the three countries, this article analyzes the politics that shape this interaction. From this analysis emerges an understanding of the variable capacities of different kinds of states and political systems to work with science in harnessing the potential of new epistemic territories in global life sciences innovation
Googling the brain: discovering hierarchical and asymmetric network structures, with applications in neuroscience
Hierarchical organisation is a common feature of many directed networks arising in nature and technology. For example, a well-defined message-passing framework based on managerial status typically exists in a business organisation. However, in many real-world networks such patterns of hierarchy are unlikely to be quite so transparent. Due to the nature in which empirical data is collated the nodes will often be ordered so as to obscure any underlying structure. In addition, the possibility of even a small number of links violating any overall âchain of commandâ makes the determination of such structures extremely challenging. Here we address the issue of how to reorder a directed network in order to reveal this type of hierarchy. In doing so we also look at the task of quantifying the level of hierarchy, given a particular node ordering. We look at a variety of approaches. Using ideas from the graph Laplacian literature, we show that a relevant discrete optimization problem leads to a natural hierarchical node ranking. We also show that this ranking arises via a maximum likelihood problem associated with a new range-dependent hierarchical random graph model. This random graph insight allows us to compute a likelihood ratio that quantifies the overall tendency for a given network to be hierarchical. We also develop a generalization of this node ordering algorithm based on the combinatorics of directed walks. In passing, we note that Googleâs PageRank algorithm tackles a closely related problem, and may also be motivated from a combinatoric, walk-counting viewpoint. We illustrate the performance of the resulting algorithms on synthetic network data, and on a real-world network from neuroscience where results may be validated biologically
Local shell-to-shell energy transfer via nonlocal Interactions in fluid turbulence
In this paper we analytically compute the strength of nonlinear interactions
in a triad, and the energy exchanges between wavenumber shells in
incompressible fluid turbulence. The computation has been done using
first-order perturbative field theory. In three dimension, magnitude of triad
interactions is large for nonlocal triads, and small for local triads. However,
the shell-to-shell energy transfer rate is found to be local and forward. This
result is due to the fact that the nonlocal triads occupy much less Fourier
space volume than the local ones. The analytical results on three-dimensional
shell-to-shell energy transfer match with their numerical counterparts. In
two-dimensional turbulence, the energy transfer rates to the near-by shells are
forward, but to the distant shells are backward; the cumulative effect is an
inverse cascade of energy.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex
Energy Efficient Algorithms based on VM Consolidation for Cloud Computing: Comparisons and Evaluations
Cloud Computing paradigm has revolutionized IT industry and be able to offer computing as the fifth utility. With the pay-as-you-go model, cloud computing enables to offer the resources dynamically for customers anytime. Drawing the attention from both academia and industry, cloud computing is viewed as one of the backbones of the modern economy. However, the high energy consumption of cloud data centers contributes to high operational costs and carbon emission to the environment. Therefore, Green cloud computing is required to ensure energy efficiency and sustainability, which can be achieved via energy efficient techniques. One of the dominant approaches is to apply energy efficient algorithms to optimize resource usage and energy consumption. Currently, various virtual machine consolidation-based energy efficient algorithms have been proposed to reduce the energy of cloud computing environment. However, most of them are not compared comprehensively under the same scenario, and their performance is not evaluated with the same experimental settings. This makes users hard to select the appropriate algorithm for their objectives. To provide insights for existing energy efficient algorithms and help researchers to choose the most suitable algorithm, in this paper, we compare several state-of-the-art energy efficient algorithms in depth from multiple perspectives, including architecture, modelling and metrics. In addition, we also implement and evaluate these algorithms with the same experimental settings in CloudSim toolkit. The experimental results show the performance comparison of these algorithms with comprehensive results. Finally, detailed discussions of these algorithms are provided
Radio-Loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 as a New Class of Gamma-Ray AGN
We report the discovery with Fermi/LAT of gamma-ray emission from three
radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies: PKS 1502+036 (z=0.409), 1H 0323+342
(z=0.061) and PKS 2004-447 (z=0.24). In addition to PMN J0948+0022 (z=0.585),
the first source of this type to be detected in gamma rays, they may form an
emerging new class of gamma-ray active galactic nuclei (AGN). These findings
can have strong implications on our knowledge about relativistic jets and the
unified model of AGN.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication on ApJ Letters.
Corresponding author: Luigi Foschin
The development and application of a new tool to assess the adequacy of the content and timing of antenatal care
Abstract
Background: Current measures of antenatal care use are limited to initiation of care and number of visits. This
study aimed to describe the development and application of a tool to assess the adequacy of the content and
timing of antenatal care.
Methods: The Content and Timing of care in Pregnancy (CTP) tool was developed based on clinical relevance for
ongoing antenatal care and recommendations in national and international guidelines. The tool reflects minimal
care recommended in every pregnancy, regardless of parity or risk status. CTP measures timing of initiation of care,
content of care (number of blood pressure readings, blood tests and ultrasound scans) and whether the
interventions were received at an appropriate time. Antenatal care trajectories for 333 pregnant women were then
described using a standard tool (the APNCU index), that measures the quantity of care only, and the new CTP tool.
Both tools categorise care into 4 categories, from âInadequateâ (both tools) to âAdequate plusâ (APNCU) or
âAppropriateâ (CTP). Participants recorded the timing and content of their antenatal care prospectively using diaries.
Analysis included an examination of similarities and differences in categorisation of care episodes between the
tools.
Results: According to the CTP tool, the care trajectory of 10,2% of the women was classified as inadequate, 8,4%
as intermediate, 36% as sufficient and 45,3% as appropriate. The assessment of quality of care differed significantly
between the two tools. Seventeen care trajectories classified as âAdequateâ or âAdequate plusâ by the APNCU were
deemed âInadequateâ by the CTP. This suggests that, despite a high number of visits, these women did not receive
the minimal recommended content and timing of care.
Conclusions: The CTP tool provides a more detailed assessment of the adequacy of antenatal care than the
current standard index. However, guidelines for the content of antenatal care vary, and the tool does not at the
moment grade over-use of interventions as âInappropriateâ. Further work needs to be done to refine the content
items prior to larger scale testing of the impact of the new measure
A review of physical supply and EROI of fossil fuels in China
This paper reviews Chinaâs future fossil fuel supply from the perspectives of physical output and net energy output. Comprehensive analyses of physical output of fossil fuels suggest that Chinaâs total oil production will likely reach its peak, at about 230Â Mt/year (or 9.6Â EJ/year), in 2018; its total gas production will peak at around 350Â Bcm/year (or 13.6Â EJ/year) in 2040, while coal production will peak at about 4400Â Mt/year (or 91.9Â EJ/year) around 2020 or so. In terms of the forecast production of these fuels, there are significant differences among current studies. These differences can be mainly explained by different ultimately recoverable resources assumptions, the nature of the models used, and differences in the historical production data. Due to the future constraints on fossil fuels production, a large gap is projected to grow between domestic supply and demand, which will need to be met by increasing imports. Net energy analyses show that both coal and oil and gas production show a steady declining trend of EROI (energy return on investment) due to the depletion of shallow-buried coal resources and conventional oil and gas resources, which is generally consistent with the approaching peaks of physical production of fossil fuels. The peaks of fossil fuels production, coupled with the decline in EROI ratios, are likely to challenge the sustainable development of Chinese society unless new abundant energy resources with high EROI values can be found
Aurora-A/STK15/BTAK overexpression induces centrosome amplification, chromosomal instability, and transformation in human urothelial cells
Aurora-A/STK15/BTAK kinase encoding gene, located on chromosome 20q13, is frequently amplified and overexpressed in human cancers. Sen et al. previously demonstrated that Aurora-A amplification and overexpression are associated with aneuploidy and clinically aggressive bladder cancer (J Natl Cancer Inst (2002) 94, 1320-1329). To examine if this association is the direct result of Aurora-A gene amplification and overexpression, an immortalized human urothelial cell line (SV-HUC) was infected with an adenoviral Aurora-A-green fluorescent protein (Ad-Aurora-A-GFP) fusion construct inducing ectopic expression of the resulting fusion protein. Controls included mock-infected and adenoviral-GFP infected cells. Ectopic expression of transduced Aurora-A did not alter the doubling time of the SV-HUC cells but significantly increased the number of cells with multiple centrosomes displaying aneuploidy and increased colony formation in soft agar. This is the first report demonstrating that overexpression of Aurora-A induces centrosome anomalies together with chromosomal instability and malignant transformation-associated phenotypic changes in immortalized human urothelial cells, thus supporting the hypothesis that this gene plays an important role in the development of aggressive bladder cancer
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