Precuneus contributes to attentive control of finger movement

AIM: To examine whether precuneus subserves the attentive control of finger movement or whether it mediates the movement preparation and motor inhibition. METHODS: In the Preparation Stage, subjects were shown with a 5-number string in which each number stood for a key-pressing response, the number strings included a complex pattern (eg, 4-1-4-2-3), or a simple one (eg, 2-2-2-2-2), or a null one (ie, x-x-x-x-x). In the Execution Stage, five reaction signs were presented one by one and subjects were required to press the corresponding key to each sign sequentially (eg, in the 4-1-4-2-3 preparation example, subjects press key 4 to the first sign, press key 1 to the second sign, key 4 to the third sign and so on). For the null preparation pattern, five numbers, rather than the reaction signs, were shown at the same pace as in the other two conditions and subjects were to press the corresponding keys. RESULTS: Left medial frontal gyrus (BA 6) and precentral gyrus (BA 6) were involved in both of the Preparation Stage and the Execution Stage, whereas left precuneus (BA 7) was activated only in the Execution Stage. CONCLUSION: Precuneus mediates the attentive control of finger movement, but not the movement preparation or motor inhibition.AIM: To examine whether precuneus subserves the attentive control of finger movement or whether it mediates the movement preparation and motor inhibition. METHODS: In the Preparation Stage, subjects were shown with a 5-number string in which each number stood for a key-pressing response, the number strings included a complex pattern (eg, 4-1-4-2-3), or a simple one (eg, 2-2-2-2-2), or a null one (ie, x-x-x-x-x). In the Execution. Stage, five reaction signs were presented one by one and subjects were required to press the corresponding key to each sign sequentially (eg, in the 4-1-4-2-3 preparation example, subjects press key 4 to the first sign, press key 1 to the second sign, key 4 to the third sign and so on). For the null preparation pattern, five numbers, rather than the reaction signs, were shown at the same pace as in the other two conditions and subjects were to press the corresponding keys. RESULTS: Left medial frontal gyrus (BA 6) and precentral gyrus (BA 6) were involved in both of the Preparation Stage and the Execution Stage, whereas left precuneus (BA 7) was activated only in the Execution Stage. CONCLUSION: Precuneus mediates the attentive control of finger movement, but not the movement preparation or motor inhibition

SUMO-2 promotes mRNA translation by enhancing interaction between eIF4E and eIF4G

Small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) proteins regulate many important eukaryotic cellular processes through reversible covalent conjugation to target proteins. In addition to its many well-known biological consequences, like subcellular translocation of protein, subnuclear structure formation, and modulation of transcriptional activity, we show here that SUMO-2 also plays a role in mRNA translation. SUMO-2 promoted formation of the active eukaryotic initiation factor 4F (eIF4F) complex by enhancing interaction between Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4E (eIF4E) and Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4G (eIF4G), and induced translation of a subset of proteins, such as cyclinD1 and c-myc, which essential for cell proliferation and apoptosis. As expected, overexpression of SUMO-2 can partially cancel out the disrupting effect of 4EGI-1, a small molecule inhibitor of eIF4E/eIF4G interaction, on formation of the eIF4F complex, translation of the cap-dependent protein, cell proliferation and apoptosis. On the other hand, SUMO-2 knockdown via shRNA partially impaired cap-dependent translation and cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis. These results collectively suggest that SUMO-2 conjugation plays a crucial regulatory role in protein synthesis. Thus, this report might contribute to the basic understanding of mammalian protein translation and sheds some new light on the role of SUMO in this process. © 2014 Chen et al

Enhancing reliability and efficiency for real-time robust adaptive steganography using cyclic redundancy check codes

The development of multimedia and deep learning technology bring new challenges to steganography and steganalysis techniques. Meanwhile, robust steganography, as a class of new techniques aiming to solve the problem of covert communication under lossy channels, has become a new research hotspot in the field of information hiding. To improve the communication reliability and efficiency for current real-time robust steganography methods, a concatenated code, composed of Syndrome–Trellis codes (STC) and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) codes, is proposed in this paper. The enhanced robust adaptive steganography framework proposed is this paper is characterized by a strong error detection capability, high coding efficiency, and low embedding costs. On this basis, three adaptive steganographic methods resisting JPEG compression and detection are proposed. Then, the fault tolerance of the proposed steganography methods is analyzed using the residual model of JPEG compression, thus obtaining the appropriate coding parameters. Experimental results show that the proposed methods have a significantly stronger robustness against compression, and are more difficult to be detected by statistical based steganalytic methods

Frequency and predictors of the lupus low disease activity state in a multi-national and multi-ethnic cohort

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The Function of Cortactin in the Clustering of Acetylcholine Receptors at the Vertebrate Neuromuscular Junction

Background: Postsynaptic enrichment of acetylcholine receptors (AChRs) at the vertebrate neuromuscular junction (NMJ) depends on the activation of the muscle receptor tyrosine MuSK by neural agrin. Agrin-stimulation of MuSK is known to initiate an intracellular signaling cascade that leads to the clustering of AChRs in an actin polymerization-dependent manner, but the molecular steps which link MuSK activation to AChR aggregation remain incompletely defined. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study we used biochemical, cell biological and molecular assays to investigate a possible role in AChR clustering of cortactin, a protein which is a tyrosine kinase substrate and a regulator of F-actin assembly and which has also been previously localized at AChR clustering sites. We report that cortactin was co-enriched at AChR clusters in situ with its target the Arp2/3 complex, which is a key stimulator of actin polymerization in cells. Cortactin was further preferentially tyrosine phosphorylated at AChR clustering sites and treatment of myotubes with agrin significantly enhanced the tyrosine phosphorylation of cortactin. Importantly, forced expression in myotubes of a tyrosine phosphorylation-defective cortactin mutant (but not wild-type cortactin) suppressed agrin-dependent AChR clustering, as did the reduction of endogenous cortactin levels using RNA interference, and introduction of the mutant cortactin into muscle cells potently inhibited synaptic AChR aggregation in response to innervation. Conclusion: Our results suggest a novel function of phosphorylation-dependent cortactin signaling downstream fro

Observation of a ppb mass threshoud enhancement in \psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p}) decay

The decay channel $\psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p})$ is studied using a sample of $1.06\times 10^8$ $\psi^\prime$ events collected by the BESIII experiment at BEPCII. A strong enhancement at threshold is observed in the $p\bar{p}$ invariant mass spectrum. The enhancement can be fit with an $S$-wave Breit-Wigner resonance function with a resulting peak mass of $M=1861^{+6}_{-13} {\rm (stat)}^{+7}_{-26} {\rm (syst)} {\rm MeV/}c^2$ and a narrow width that is $\Gamma<38 {\rm MeV/}c^2$ at the 90% confidence level. These results are consistent with published BESII results. These mass and width values do not match with those of any known meson resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Chinese Physics

Towards Visible Light Hydrogen Generation: Quantum Dot-Sensitization via Efficient Light Harvesting of Hybrid-TiO2

We report pronounced enhancement of photoelectrochemical hydrogen generation of a quantum dot-sensitized hybrid-TiO2 (QD/H-TiO2) electrode that is composed of a mesoporous TiO2 layer sandwiched by a double sided energy harvesting layer consisting of a surface-textured TiO2 inverse opals layer on the bottom and a patterned mesoporous TiO2 layer on the top. CdSe/H-TiO2 exhibits a maximum photocurrent density of similar to 16.2 mA/cm(2), which is 35% higher than that of the optimized control sample (CdSe/P25), achieved by matching of the bandgap of quantum dot-sensitization with the wavelength where light harvesting of H-TiO2 is observed. Furthermore, CdSe/H-TiO2 under filtered exposure conditions recorded current density of similar to 14.2 mA/cm(2), the greatest value in the visible range. The excellent performance of the quantum dot-sensitized H-TiO2 suggests that alteration of the photoelectrodes to suitable nanostructures with excellent light absorption may offer optimal strategies for attaining maximum efficiency in a variety of photoconversion systems.open3

Lattice Boltzmann simulations of soft matter systems

This article concerns numerical simulations of the dynamics of particles immersed in a continuum solvent. As prototypical systems, we consider colloidal dispersions of spherical particles and solutions of uncharged polymers. After a brief explanation of the concept of hydrodynamic interactions, we give a general overview over the various simulation methods that have been developed to cope with the resulting computational problems. We then focus on the approach we have developed, which couples a system of particles to a lattice Boltzmann model representing the solvent degrees of freedom. The standard D3Q19 lattice Boltzmann model is derived and explained in depth, followed by a detailed discussion of complementary methods for the coupling of solvent and solute. Colloidal dispersions are best described in terms of extended particles with appropriate boundary conditions at the surfaces, while particles with internal degrees of freedom are easier to simulate as an arrangement of mass points with frictional coupling to the solvent. In both cases, particular care has been taken to simulate thermal fluctuations in a consistent way. The usefulness of this methodology is illustrated by studies from our own research, where the dynamics of colloidal and polymeric systems has been investigated in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium situations.Comment: Review article, submitted to Advances in Polymer Science. 16 figures, 76 page