1,154 research outputs found
Sex-specific SCAR markers in the dioecious plant Rumex nivalis (Polygonaceae) and implications for the evolution of sex chromosomes
We developed SCAR primers based on isolated and sequenced male-specific fragments as identified in an AFLP analysis of the dioecious plant Rumex nivalis. PCR amplification using these primers on females and males resulted in fragments exclusively present in males. Co-amplification of the nuclear rDNA internal transcribed spacer 2 together with the male-specific fragment was applied as an internal control for successful PCR reactions to avoid false-negative sex scoring. With a length of about 164bp, the AFLP fragment was of a similar size as the tandemly arranged, repetitive sequences of 180bp located on the Y chromosomes of Rumex acetosa. The genetic distances between the Y-chromosomal sequences of R. nivalis and R. acetosa, both members of the section Acetosa, were substantial. We found intra-individual divergence among cloned sequences of the male-specific fragment in R. nivalis. The patterns of interspecific and intra-individual sequence variation found are in accordance with proposed modes of the evolution of sex chromosomes. Y chromosomes possibly arose only once in the genus Rumex and consist mainly of heterochromatic DNA. Due to the almost complete absence of selection on them, Y chromosomes are likely to accumulate large numbers of mutation
Recommendation model based on opinion diffusion
Information overload in the modern society calls for highly efficient
recommendation algorithms. In this letter we present a novel diffusion based
recommendation model, with users' ratings built into a transition matrix. To
speed up computation we introduce a Green function method. The numerical tests
on a benchmark database show that our prediction is superior to the standard
recommendation methods.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Human Tâcell lymphotrophic virus in solidâorgan transplant recipients: Guidelines from the American society of transplantation infectious diseases community of practice
These updated guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Community of Practice of the American Society of Transplantation review the diagnosis, prevention, and management of Human Tâcell lymphotrophic virus 1 (HTLV)â1 in the preâ and postâtransplant period. HTLVâ1 is an oncogenic human retrovirus rare in North America but endemic in the Caribbean and parts of Africa, South America, Asia, and Oceania. While most infected persons do not develop disease, <5% will develop adult Tâcell leukemia/lymphoma or neurological disease. No proven antiviral treatment for established HTLVâ1 infection is available. The effect of immunosuppression on the development of HTLVâ1âassociated disease in asymptomatically infected recipients is not well characterized, and HTLVâ1âinfected individuals should be counseled that immunosuppression may increase the risk of developing HTLVâ1âassociated disease and they should be monitored postâtransplant for HTLVâ1âassociated disease. Currently approved screening assays do not distinguish between HTLVâ1 and HTLVâ2, and routine screening of deceased donors without risk factors in low seroprevalence areas is likely to result in significant organ wastage and is not recommended. Targeted screening of donors with risk factors for HTLVâ1 infection and of living donors (as time is available to perform confirmatory tests) is reasonable.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151899/1/ctr13575.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151899/2/ctr13575_am.pd
On Functionality of Visibly Pushdown Transducers
Visibly pushdown transducers form a subclass of pushdown transducers that
(strictly) extends finite state transducers with a stack. Like visibly pushdown
automata, the input symbols determine the stack operations. In this paper, we
prove that functionality is decidable in PSpace for visibly pushdown
transducers. The proof is done via a pumping argument: if a word with two
outputs has a sufficiently large nesting depth, there exists a nested word with
two outputs whose nesting depth is strictly smaller. The proof uses technics of
word combinatorics. As a consequence of decidability of functionality, we also
show that equivalence of functional visibly pushdown transducers is
Exptime-Complete.Comment: 20 page
Graded contractions and bicrossproduct structure of deformed inhomogeneous algebras
A family of deformed Hopf algebras corresponding to the classical maximal
isometry algebras of zero-curvature N-dimensional spaces (the inhomogeneous
algebras iso(p,q), p+q=N, as well as some of their contractions) are shown to
have a bicrossproduct structure. This is done for both the algebra and, in a
low-dimensional example, for the (dual) group aspects of the deformation.Comment: LaTeX file, 20 pages. Trivial changes. To appear in J. Phys.
Review of road surface photometry methods and devices â Proposal for new measurement geometries
Specifications concerning road lighting and photometry of road surfaces were established more than 50 years ago. Road lighting design and road marking visibility were developed for vehicle driving. The observation distance defined by standards corresponds to interurban applications; however, within Europe these areas do not tend to be lit. The objective of the SURFACE project is to propose new geometries for the photometric characterisation of pavements, both adapted to different urban travel modes and new lighting technologies. This article reviews the available guidelines, standards, measuring devices and literature regarding geometries and road lighting applications, and presents the project SURFACE analysis and proposal. The SURFACE consortium recommends adding several new angles for different driving conditions and road users; 2.29 degrees for urban environments and consistency with road marking standard, and 1 degrees for extra-urban environment and consistency with previous geometries. A 5 degrees angle, corresponding to 17-m viewing distance, could be an interesting compromise, suitable for urban driving at low speed, cycling and for scooters. The angles of 10 degrees and 20 degrees are under consideration for describing the boundary between diffuse and specular behaviour
Hypergraph model of social tagging networks
The past few years have witnessed the great success of a new family of
paradigms, so-called folksonomy, which allows users to freely associate tags to
resources and efficiently manage them. In order to uncover the underlying
structures and user behaviors in folksonomy, in this paper, we propose an
evolutionary hypergrah model to explain the emerging statistical properties.
The present model introduces a novel mechanism that one can not only assign
tags to resources, but also retrieve resources via collaborative tags. We then
compare the model with a real-world dataset: \emph{Del.icio.us}. Indeed, the
present model shows considerable agreement with the empirical data in following
aspects: power-law hyperdegree distributions, negtive correlation between
clustering coefficients and hyperdegrees, and small average distances.
Furthermore, the model indicates that most tagging behaviors are motivated by
labeling tags to resources, and tags play a significant role in effectively
retrieving interesting resources and making acquaintance with congenial
friends. The proposed model may shed some light on the in-depth understanding
of the structure and function of folksonomy.Comment: 7 pages,7 figures, 32 reference
New stopping criteria for segmenting DNA sequences
We propose a solution on the stopping criterion in segmenting inhomogeneous
DNA sequences with complex statistical patterns. This new stopping criterion is
based on Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) in the model selection framework.
When this stopping criterion is applied to a left telomere sequence of yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the complete genome sequence of bacterium
Escherichia coli, borders of biologically meaningful units were identified
(e.g. subtelomeric units, replication origin, and replication terminus), and a
more reasonable number of domains was obtained. We also introduce a measure
called segmentation strength which can be used to control the delineation of
large domains. The relationship between the average domain size and the
threshold of segmentation strength is determined for several genome sequences.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Physical Review Letters, to appea
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