2,460 research outputs found
Cloning, sequencing, and characterization of the hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine degradation gene cluster from Rhodococcus rhodochrous
Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) is a high explosive which presents an environmental hazard as a major land and groundwater contaminant. Rhodococcus rhodochrous strain 11Y was isolated from explosive contaminated land and is capable of degrading RDX when provided as the sole source of nitrogen for growth. Products of RDX degradation in resting-cell incubations were analyzed and found to include nitrite, formaldehyde, and formate. No ammonium was excreted into the medium, and no dead-end metabolites were observed. The gene responsible for the degradation of RDX in strain 11Y is a constitutively expressed cytochrome P450-like gene, xpLA, which is found in a gene cluster with an adrenodoxin reductase homologue, xplB. The cytochrome P450 also has a flavodoxin domain at the N terminus. This study is the first to present a gene which has been identified as being responsible for RDX biodegradation. The mechanism of action of XplA on RDX is thought to involve initial denitration followed by spontaneous ring cleavage and mineralization
There are no multiply-perfect Fibonacci numbers
Here, we show that no Fibonacci number (larger than 1) divides the sum of its divisors
Complex basis of hybrid female sterility and Haldane's rule in Heliconius butterflies: Z-linkage and epistasis
Hybrids between species are often sterile or inviable. Hybrid unfitness usually evolves first in the heterogametic sex—a pattern known as Haldane's rule. The genetics of Haldane's rule have been extensively studied in species where the male is the heterogametic (XX/XY) sex, but its basis in taxa where the female is heterogametic (ZW/ZZ), such as Lepidoptera and birds, is largely unknown. Here, we analyse a new case of female hybrid sterility between geographic subspecies of Heliconius pardalinus. The two subspecies mate freely in captivity, but female F1 hybrids in both directions of cross are sterile. Sterility is due to arrested development of oocytes after they become differentiated from nurse cells, but before yolk deposition. We backcrossed fertile male F1 hybrids to parental females and mapped quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for female sterility. We also identified genes differentially expressed in the ovary as a function of oocyte development. The Z chromosome has a major effect, similar to the ‘large X effect’ in Drosophila, with strong epistatic interactions between loci at either end of the Z chromosome, and between the Z chromosome and autosomal loci on chromosomes 8 and 20. By intersecting the list of genes within these QTLs with those differentially expressed in sterile and fertile hybrids, we identified three candidate genes with relevant phenotypes. This study is the first to characterize hybrid sterility using genome mapping in the Lepidoptera and shows that it is produced by multiple complex epistatic interactions often involving the sex chromosome, as predicted by the dominance theory of Haldane's rule
Identification of floodwater source areas in Nepal using SCIMAP‐Flood
Practical approaches for managing flooding from fluvial sources are moving away from mitigation solely at the point of impact and towards integrated catchment management. This considers the source areas, flow pathways of floodwaters and the locations and exposure to the risk of communities. For a field site in southern Nepal, we analyse catchment response to a range of simulated rainfall events, which when evaluated collectively can help guide potential flood management solutions. This is achieved through the adoption of SCIMAP-Flood, a decision support framework that works at the catchment-scale to identify critical source areas for floodwaters. The SCIMAP-Flood Fitted inverse modelling approach has been applied to the East Rapti catchment, Nepal. For multiple flood impact locations throughout the catchment, SCIMAP-Flood effectively identifies locations where flood management measures would have the most positive effects on risk reduction. The results show that the spatial targeting of mitigation measures in areas of irrigated and rainfed agriculture and the prevention of deforestation or removal of shrubland would be the most effective approaches. If these actions were in the upper catchment above Hetauda or upstream of Manahari they would have the most effective reduction in the flood peak
Fredkin Gates for Finite-valued Reversible and Conservative Logics
The basic principles and results of Conservative Logic introduced by Fredkin
and Toffoli on the basis of a seminal paper of Landauer are extended to
d-valued logics, with a special attention to three-valued logics. Different
approaches to d-valued logics are examined in order to determine some possible
universal sets of logic primitives. In particular, we consider the typical
connectives of Lukasiewicz and Godel logics, as well as Chang's MV-algebras. As
a result, some possible three-valued and d-valued universal gates are described
which realize a functionally complete set of fundamental connectives.Comment: 57 pages, 10 figures, 16 tables, 2 diagram
Colloquium: Statistical mechanics of money, wealth, and income
This Colloquium reviews statistical models for money, wealth, and income
distributions developed in the econophysics literature since the late 1990s. By
analogy with the Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution of energy in physics, it is shown
that the probability distribution of money is exponential for certain classes
of models with interacting economic agents. Alternative scenarios are also
reviewed. Data analysis of the empirical distributions of wealth and income
reveals a two-class distribution. The majority of the population belongs to the
lower class, characterized by the exponential ("thermal") distribution, whereas
a small fraction of the population in the upper class is characterized by the
power-law ("superthermal") distribution. The lower part is very stable,
stationary in time, whereas the upper part is highly dynamical and out of
equilibrium.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures; v.2 - minor stylistic changes and updates of
references corresponding to the published versio
Structural correlates of semantic and phonemic fluency ability in first and second languages
Category and letter fluency tasks are commonly used clinically to investigate the semantic and phonological processes central to speech production, but the neural correlates of these processes are difficult to establish with functional neuroimaging because of the relatively unconstrained nature of the tasks. This study investigated whether differential performance on semantic (category) and phonemic (letter) fluency in neurologically normal participants was reflected in regional gray matter density. The participants were 59 highly proficient speakers of 2 languages. Our findings corroborate the importance of the left inferior temporal cortex in semantic relative to phonemic fluency and show this effect to be the same in a first language (L1) and second language (L2). Additionally, we show that the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and head of caudate bilaterally are associated with phonemic more than semantic fluency, and this effect is stronger for L2 than L1 in the caudate nuclei. To further validate these structural results, we reanalyzed previously reported functional data and found that pre-SMA and left caudate activation was higher for phonemic than semantic fluency. On the basis of our findings, we also predict that lesions to the pre-SMA and caudate nuclei may have a greater impact on phonemic than semantic fluency, particularly in L2 speakers
Efficient implementation of selective recoupling in heteronuclear spin systems using Hadamard matrices
We present an efficient scheme which couples any designated pair of spins in
heteronuclear spin systems. The scheme is based on the existence of Hadamard
matrices. For a system of spins with pairwise coupling, the scheme
concatenates intervals of system evolution and uses at most pulses
where . Our results demonstrate that, in many systems, selective
recoupling is possible with linear overhead, contrary to common speculation
that exponential effort is always required.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, mypsfig2, revtex, submitted April 27, 199
Microglia promote glioblastoma via mTOR-mediated immunosuppression of the tumour microenvironment
Tumour-associated microglia/macrophages (TAM) are the most
numerous non-neoplastic populations in the tumour microenvironment in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common malignant brain tumour in adulthood. The mTOR pathway, an important
regulator of cell survival/proliferation, is upregulated in GBM, but
little is known about the potential role of this pathway in TAM. Here,
we show that GBM-initiating cells induce mTOR signalling in the
microglia but not bone marrow-derived macrophages in both in vitro
and in vivo GBM mouse models. mTOR-dependent regulation of STAT3
and NF-jB activity promotes an immunosuppressive microglial
phenotype. This hinders effector T-cell infiltration, proliferation and
immune reactivity, thereby contributing to tumour immune evasion
and promoting tumour growth in mouse models. The translational
value of our results is demonstrated in whole transcriptome datasets
of human GBM and in a novel in vitro model, whereby expandedpotential stem cells (EPSC)-derived microglia-like cells are conditioned by syngeneic patient-derived GBM-initiating cells. These
results raise the possibility that microglia could be the primary target
of mTOR inhibition, rather than the intrinsic tumour cells in GB
Quantum Computer with Mixed States and Four-Valued Logic
In this paper we discuss a model of quantum computer in which a state is an
operator of density matrix and gates are general quantum operations, not
necessarily unitary. A mixed state (operator of density matrix) of n two-level
quantum systems is considered as an element of 4^n-dimensional operator Hilbert
space (Liouville space). It allows to use a quantum computer model with
four-valued logic. The gates of this model are general superoperators which act
on n-ququat state. Ququat is a quantum state in a four-dimensional (operator)
Hilbert space. Unitary two-valued logic gates and quantum operations for an
n-qubit open system are considered as four-valued logic gates acting on
n-ququat. We discuss properties of quantum four-valued logic gates. In the
paper we study universality for quantum four-valued logic gates.Comment: 17 page
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