On Real-Time Synthetic Primate Vision

The primate vision system exhibits numerous capabilities. Some important basic visual competencies include: 1) a consistent representation of visual space across eye movements; 2) egocentric spatial perception; 3) coordinated stereo fixation upon and pursuit of dynamic objects; and 4) attentional gaze deployment. We present a synthetic vision system that incorporates these competencies.We hypothesize that similarities between the underlying synthetic system model and that of the primate vision system elicit accordingly similar gaze behaviors. Psychophysical trials were conducted to record human gaze behavior when free-viewing a reproducible, dynamic, 3D scene. Identical trials were conducted with the synthetic system. A statistical comparison of synthetic and human gaze behavior has shown that the two are remarkably similar

Drivers and subseasonal predictability of heavy rainfall in equatorial East Africa and relationship with flood risk

Equatorial East Africa (EEA) suffers from significant flood risks. These can be mitigated with pre-emptive action, however currently available early warnings are limited to a few days lead time. Extending warnings using subseasonal climate forecasts could open a window for more extensive preparedness activity. However before these forecasts can be used, the basis of their skill and relevance for flood risk must be established. Here we demonstrate that subseasonal forecasts are particularly skillful over EEA. Forecasts can skillfully anticipate weekly upper quintile rainfall within a season, at lead times of two weeks and beyond. We demonstrate the link between the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and extreme rainfall events in the region, and confirm that leading forecast models accurately represent the EEA teleconnection to the MJO. The relevance of weekly rainfall totals for fluvial flood risk in the region is investigated using a long record of streamflow from the Nzoia river in Western Kenya. Both heavy rainfall and high antecedent rainfall conditions are identified as key drivers of flood risk, with upper quintile weekly rainfall shown to skillfully discriminate flood events. We additionally evaluate GloFAS global flood forecasts for the Nzoia basin. Though these are able to anticipate some flooding events with several weeks lead time, analysis suggests action based on these would result in a false alarm more than 50% of the time. Overall, these results build on the scientific evidence base that supports the use of subseasonal forecasts in EEA, and activities to advance their use are discussed

Side-chain supramolecular polymers employing conformer independent triple hydrogen bonding arrays

Derivatives of thymine have been extensively used to promote supramolecular materials assembly. Such derivatives can be synthetically challenging to access and may be susceptible to degradation. The current article uses a conformer-independent acceptor-donor-acceptor array (ureidopyrimidine) which forms moderate affinity interactions with diamidopyridine derivatives to effect supramolecular blend formation between polystyrene and poly(methyl methacrylate) polymers obtained by RAFT which have been functionalized with the hydrogen bonding motifs

Rare variants in non-coding regulatory regions of the genome that affect gene expression in systemic lupus erythematosus

Personalized medicine approaches are increasingly sought for diseases with a heritable component. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the prototypic autoimmune disease resulting from loss of immunologic tolerance, but the genetic basis of SLE remains incompletely understood. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) identify regions associated with disease, based on common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within them, but these SNPs may simply be markers in linkage disequilibrium with other, causative mutations. Here we use an hierarchical screening approach for prediction and testing of true functional variants within regions identified in GWAS; this involved bioinformatic identification of putative regulatory elements within close proximity to SLE SNPs, screening those regions for potentially causative mutations by high resolution melt analysis, and functional validation using reporter assays. Using this approach, we screened 15 SLE associated loci in 143 SLE patients, identifying 7 new variants including 5 SNPs and 2 insertions. Reporter assays revealed that the 5 SNPs were functional, altering enhancer activity. One novel variant was linked to the relatively well characterized rs9888739 SNP at the ITGAM locus, and may explain some of the SLE heritability at this site. Our study demonstrates that non-coding regulatory elements can contain private sequence variants affecting gene expression, which may explain part of the heritability of SLE

The small heat-shock proteins HSPB2 and HSPB3 form well-defined heterooligomers in a unique 3 to 1 subunit ratio

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