Sequential conformational rearrangements in flavivirus membrane fusion

The West Nile Virus (WNV) envelope protein, E, promotes membrane fusion during viral cell entry by undergoing a low-pH triggered conformational reorganization. We have examined the mechanism of WNV fusion and sought evidence for potential intermediates during the conformational transition by following hemifusion of WNV virus-like particles (VLPs) in a single particle format. We have introduced specific mutations into E, to relate their influence on fusion kinetics to structural features of the protein. At the level of individual E subunits, trimer formation and membrane engagement of the threefold clustered fusion loops are rate-limiting. Hemifusion requires at least two adjacent trimers. Simulation of the kinetics indicates that availability of competent monomers within the contact zone between virus and target membrane makes trimerization a bottleneck in hemifusion. We discuss the implications of the model we have derived for mechanisms of membrane fusion in other contexts. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04389.00

EC94-872-S Nebraska Crop Budgets

Resource Persons • Crops Budgeting Procedure • Prices Used for 1994 Panhandle • Gravity Irrigated Crops • Sugar Beets • Dry Edible Beans • Corn for Grain • Corn for Silage • Establish Alfatfa with Oats • Alfalfa Hay Gravity Irrigated • Center Pivot Irrigated Crops • Sugar Beets • Dry Edible Beans • Corn for Grain • Winter Wheat • Alfalfa Hay • Non-Irrigated Crops • Winter Wheat Stubble Much Fallow • Winter Wheat, Eco-Fallow (Chemical and Tillage Combination) • Sunflower, Wheat-Sunflower-Fallow Rotation • Millet, Wheat, Fallow, Millet, Fallow Southwest • Corn for Grain, Gravity Irrigated • Corn for Silage, Gravity Irrigated • Corn for Grain, Ditch Irrigated, Platte Valley • Corn for Grain, Ridge Planted, Gravity Irrigated • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated, Fine Texture Soil • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated, Sandy Soil • Pinto Beans, Center Pivot Irrigated • Soybeans, Center Pivot Irrigated • Fall Seed Alfalfa, Center Pivot Irrigated • Alfalfa Hay, Center Pivot Irrigated • Alfalfa Hay, Sub-Irrigated, Platte Valley • Fall Seed Grass, Center Pivot Irrigated • Pasture, Center Pivot Irrigated • Wheat, Center Pivot Irrigated • Wheat, Stubble Mulch Fallow • Wheat, Clean Till Fallow • Wheat, Continuous, Chemical Weed Control • Wheat, Followed by Corn, 3 Year Rotation, Eco-Fallow • Corn, Following Eco-Fallow Wheat • Grain Sorghum, Non-Irrigated • Grain Sorghum, Non-Irrigated, No-TUI Continuous • Cane Hay, Non-Irrigated North • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated • Corn for Silage, Center Pivot Irrigated • Establish Alfalfa, Center Pivot Irrigated • Alfalfa Hay, Center Pivot Irrigated • Establish Grass, Center Pivot Irrigated • Pasture, Center Pivot Irrigated • Native Hay, Wet Meadow • Native Hay, Upland Central • Corn for Grain Center Pivot Irrigated • Corn for Silage Center Pivot Irrigated • Grain Sorghum for Grain, Limited Irrigation, Center Pivot • Corn for Grain, Gravity Irrigated • Corn for Silage Gravity Irrigated • Soybeans, Gravity Irrigated , • Establish Alfalfa, Gravity Irrigated • Alfalfa for Hay, Gravity Irrigated • Corn for Grain, Non-Irrigated • Corn for Grain, Eco-Fallow, Follows Wheat in 3 Year Rotation • Corn for Silage, Non-Irrigated • Grain Sorghum for Grain, Non-Irrigated • Grain Sorghum for Grain, Eco-Fallow, Follows Wheat in 3 Year Rotation • Grain Sorghum for Grain, Continuous, No Till, Non-Irrigated • Soybeans, Non-Irrigated • Wheat for Grain, Continuous Cropped, Non-Irrigated • Wheat for Grain, Continuous, No Till, Non-Irrigated • Wheat for Grain, Fallow Every Third Year • Establish Alfalfa, Non-Irrigated • Alfalfa for Hay, Non-Irrigated • Establish and Maintain Cover Crop on Set Aside Acres Northeast • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated, Sandy Soils • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated, Rolling Hills • Corn for Grain, Till-Plant, Rolling Hills • Soybeans, Non-Irrigated • Soybeans, Center Pivot Irrigated • Oats, Non-Irrigated 8 • Oats With Spring Alfalfa Seeding • Alfalfa Seeding • Establish Alfalfa, Sandy Soil, Fall Seeding • Alfalfa Hay, Large Round Baler • Alfalfa Hay Small Square Baler • East Central • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated • Soybeans, Center Pivot Irrigated • Corn tor Grain, Non-Irrigated • No-Till Com in Soybean Residue • Grain Sorghum, Non-Irrigated • Soybeans, Non-Irrigated • Soybeans, After Corn Reduced Till • Wheat • Establish Alfalfa, Fall Seeded • Establish Alfalfa, Spring With Herbicide • Alfalfa Hay, Large Round Baler • Alfalfa Hay, Field Stacker • Oats, Non-Irrigated Southeast • Corn for Grain, Center Pivot Irrigated • Corn for Silage, Center Pivot Irrigated • Corn for Grain, Non-Irrigated • Grain Sorghum, Non-Irrigated • Forage Sorghum Silage, Non-Irrigated • Soybeans, Non-Irrigated • Wheat • Alfalfa Hay, Large Round Bale

Coincident light and clock regulation of pseudoresponse regulator protein 37 (PRR37) controls photoperiodic flowering in sorghum

Optimal flowering time is critical to the success of modern agriculture. Sorghum is a short-day tropical species that exhibits substantial photoperiod sensitivity and delayed flowering in long days. Genotypes with reduced photoperiod sensitivity enabled sorghum's utilization as a grain crop in temperate zones worldwide. In the present study, Ma(1), the major repressor of sorghum flowering in long days, was identified as the pseudoresponse regulator protein 37 (PRR37) through positional cloning and analysis of SbPRR37 alleles that modulate flowering time in grain and energy sorghum. Several allelic variants of SbPRR37 were identified in early flowering grain sorghum germplasm that contain unique loss-of-function mutations. We show that in long days SbPRR37 activates expression of the floral inhibitor CONSTANS and represses expression of the floral activators Early Heading Date 1, FLOWERING LOCUS T, Zea mays CENTRORADIALIS 8, and floral induction. Expression of SbPRR37 is light dependent and regulated by the circadian clock, with peaks of RNA abundance in the morning and evening in long days. In short days, the evening-phase expression of SbPRR37 does not occur due to darkness, allowing sorghum to flower in this photoperiod. This study provides insight into an external coincidence mechanism of photoperiodic regulation of flowering time mediated by PRR37 in the short-day grass sorghum and identifies important alleles of SbPRR37 that are critical for the utilization of this tropical grass in temperate zone grain and bioenergy production

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia