Many-to-One Communication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper proposes a novel communication protocol, called Many-to-One Sensors-to-Sink (MOSS), tailored to wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It exploits the unique sensors-to-sink traffic pattern to realize low-overhead medium access and low- latency sensors-to-sink routing paths. In conventional schedule-based MAC protocols such as S-MAC, sensor nodes in the proximity of the event generate reports simultaneously, causing unreliable and unpredictable performance during a brief but critical period of time when an event of interest occurs. MOSS is based on time division multiple access (TDMA) that avoids energy waste due to collisions, idle listening and overhearing and avoids unreliable behavior mentioned above. A small test-bed consisting of 12 TelosB motes as well as extensive simulation study based on ns-2 have shown that MOSS reduces the sensor-to-sink latency by as much as 50.5% while consuming only 12.8 ∼ 19.2% of energy compared to conventional TDMA algorithm

The Occurrence of Cold Spells in the Alps Related to ClimateChange

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected];Tel.: +39-011-670-7891; Fax: +39-011-658-444.Received: 23 June 2010; in revised form: 27 July 2010 / Accepted: 27 July 2010 /Published: 2 August 2010Abstract: Climate change is not only a likely prospect for the end of this century, butit is already occurring. Part of the changes will include global warming and increasingtemperature variability, both at global and regional scales. This increased variability wasinvestigated in this paper from the point of view of the occurrence of cold spells in theAlps in the future climate (2071–2100), compared with the present climate (1961–1990).For this purpose, a regionalisation of the climate change effects was performed within theAlps. To avoid possible errors in the estimate of the 2m air temperature, the analysis wasperformed on the soil surface temperature. To get realistic values for this variable, a landsurface scheme, UTOPIA, has been run on the selected domain, using the output of theRegional Climate Model (RegCM3) simulations as the driving force. The results show that,in general, the number of cold breaks is decreasing over the Alps, due to the temperatureincrement. However, there are certain zones where the behaviour is more complicated. Theanalysis of the model output also allowed a relationship to be found between the numberof cold breaks and their duration. The significance of these results over the whole area wasassessed.Keywords: cold spells; climate change; LSPM; UTOPIA; climate extreme

Context-Based Trit-Plane Coding for Progressive Image Compression

Trit-plane coding enables deep progressive image compression, but it cannot use autoregressive context models. In this paper, we propose the context-based trit-plane coding (CTC) algorithm to achieve progressive compression more compactly. First, we develop the context-based rate reduction module to estimate trit probabilities of latent elements accurately and thus encode the trit-planes compactly. Second, we develop the context-based distortion reduction module to refine partial latent tensors from the trit-planes and improve the reconstructed image quality. Third, we propose a retraining scheme for the decoder to attain better rate-distortion tradeoffs. Extensive experiments show that CTC outperforms the baseline trit-plane codec significantly in BD-rate on the Kodak lossless dataset, while increasing the time complexity only marginally. Our codes are available at https://github.com/seungminjeon-github/CTC.Comment: Accepted to CVPR 202

The rice SnRK family: biological roles and cell signaling modules

Stimulus-activated signaling pathways orchestrate cellular responses to control plant growth and development and mitigate the effects of adverse environmental conditions. During this process, signaling components are modulated by central regulators of various signal transduction pathways. Protein phosphorylation by kinases is one of the most important events transmitting signals downstream, via the posttranslational modification of signaling components. The plant serine and threonine kinase SNF1-related protein kinase (SnRK) family, which is classified into three subgroups, is highly conserved in plants. SnRKs participate in a wide range of signaling pathways and control cellular processes including plant growth and development and responses to abiotic and biotic stress. Recent notable discoveries have increased our understanding of how SnRKs control these various processes in rice (Oryza sativa). In this review, we summarize current knowledge of the roles of OsSnRK signaling pathways in plant growth, development, and stress responses and discuss recent insights. This review lays the foundation for further studies on SnRK signal transduction and for developing strategies to enhance stress tolerance in plants

Fungal cytochrome P450 database

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cytochrome P450 enzymes play critical roles in fungal biology and ecology. To support studies on the roles and evolution of cytochrome P450 enzymes in fungi based on rapidly accumulating genome sequences from diverse fungal species, an efficient bioinformatics platform specialized for this super family of proteins is highly desirable.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Fungal Cytochrome P450 Database (FCPD) archives genes encoding P450s in the genomes of 66 fungal and 4 oomycete species (4,538 in total) and supports analyses of their sequences, chromosomal distribution pattern, and evolutionary histories and relationships. The archived P450s were classified into 16 classes based on InterPro terms and clustered into 141 groups using tribe-MCL. The proportion of P450s in the total proteome and class distribution in individual species exhibited certain taxon-specific characteristics.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The FCPD will facilitate systematic identification and multifaceted analyses of P450s at multiple taxon levels via the web. All data and functions are available at the web site <url>http://p450.riceblast.snu.ac.kr/</url>.</p

m6A mRNA demethylase FTO regulates melanoma tumorigenicity and response to anti-PD-1 blockade

Melanoma is one of the most deadly and therapy-resistant cancers. Here we show that N6-methyladenosine (m6A) mRNA demethylation by fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) increases melanoma growth and decreases response to anti-PD-1 blockade immunotherapy. FTO level is increased in human melanoma and enhances melanoma tumorigenesis in mice. FTO is induced by metabolic starvation stress through the autophagy and NF-κB pathway. Knockdown of FTO increases m6A methylation in the critical protumorigenic melanoma cell-intrinsic genes including PD-1 (PDCD1), CXCR4, and SOX10, leading to increased RNA decay through the m6A reader YTHDF2. Knockdown of FTO sensitizes melanoma cells to interferon gamma (IFNγ) and sensitizes melanoma to anti-PD-1 treatment in mice, depending on adaptive immunity. Our findings demonstrate a crucial role of FTO as an m6A demethylase in promoting melanoma tumorigenesis and anti-PD-1 resistance, and suggest that the combination of FTO inhibition with anti-PD-1 blockade may reduce the resistance to immunotherapy in melanoma. © 2019, The Author(s)

The efficacy of aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index for assessing hepatic fibrosis in childhood nonalcoholic steatohepatitis for medical practice

PurposeChildhood obesity is associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and it has become one of the most common causes of childhood chronic liver diseases which significant as a cause of liver related mortality and morbidity in children in the United States. The development of simpler and easier clinical indices for medical practice is needed to identify advanced hepatic fibrosis in childhood NAFLD instead of invasive method like liver biopsy. FibroScan and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) have been proposed as a simple and noninvasive predictor to evaluate hepatic fibrosis in several liver diseases. APRI could be a good alternative to detect pathologic change in childhood NAFLD. The purpose of this study is to validate the efficacy of APRI for assessing hepatic fibrosis in childhood NAFLD based on FibroScan.MethodsThis study included 23 children with NAFLD who underwent FibroScan. Clinical, laboratory and radiological evaluation including APRI was performed. To confirm the result of this study, 6 patients received liver biopsy.ResultsFactors associated with hepatic fibrosis (stiffness measurement >5.9 kPa Fibroscan) were triglyceride, AST, alanine aminotransferase, platelet count, APRI and collagen IV. In multivariate analysis, APRI were correlated with hepatic fibrosis (>5.9 kPa). In receiver operating characteristics curve, APRI of meaningful fibrosis (cutoff value, 0.4669; area under the receiver operating characteristics, 0.875) presented sensitivity of 94%, specificity of 66%, positive predictive value of 94%, and negative predictive value of 64%.ConclusionAPRI might be a noninvasive, simple, and readily available method for medical practice to predict hepatic fibrosis of childhood NAFLD

Depression Symptoms Mediate Mismatch Between Perceived Severity of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Preventive Motives

The present study monitored changes in beliefs about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, depressive symptoms, and preventive motives between the first and second waves in South Korea using an online survey administered to 1,144 individuals nationally representative for age, gender, and areas of residence. While participants correctly updated their beliefs about the worsening pandemic situations, the perceived importance of social distancing did not change, and their motives to follow prevention measures shifted toward compulsory rather than voluntary motives. This inconsistency appeared to be mediated by depressive symptoms, such that negative belief changes followed by increased depressive symptoms were associated with the decreased perceived importance of social distancing and decreased voluntary motives. Our data highlights the importance of psychological responses to the dynamically evolving pandemic situations in promoting preventive behaviors