Two mechanisms drive pronuclear migration in mouse zygotes

A new life begins with the unification of the maternal and paternal chromosomes upon fertilization. The parental chromosomes first become enclosed in two separate pronuclei near the surface of the fertilized egg. The mechanisms that then move the pronuclei inwards for their unification are only poorly understood in mammals. Here, we report two mechanisms that act in concert to unite the parental genomes in fertilized mouse eggs. The male pronucleus assembles within the fertilization cone and is rapidly moved inwards by the flattening cone. Rab11a recruits the actin nucleation factors Spire and Formin-2 into the fertilization cone, where they locally nucleate actin and further accelerate the pronucleus inwards. In parallel, a dynamic network of microtubules assembles that slowly moves the male and female pronuclei towards the cell centre in a dynein-dependent manner. Both mechanisms are partially redundant and act in concert to unite the parental pronuclei in the zygote’s centre

Controlling Narrative Generation with Planning Trajectories: The Role of Constraints

Abstract. AI planning has featured in a number of Interactive Storytelling prototypes: since narratives can be naturally modelled as a sequence of actions it has been possible to exploit state of the art planners in the task of narrative generation. However the characteristics of a “good ” plan, such as optimality, aren’t necessarily the same as those of a “good ” narrative, where errors and convoluted sequences may offer more reader interest, so some narrative structuring is required. In our work we have looked at injecting narrative control into plan generation through the use of PDDL3.0 state trajectory constraints which enable us to express narrative control information within the planning representation. As part of this we have developed an approach to planning with such trajectory constraints. The approach decomposes the problem into a set of smaller subproblems using the temporal orderings described by the constraints and then solves these subproblems incrementally. In this paper we outline our method and present results that illustrate the potential of the approach.

Endothelial Injury in Human Atherosclerosis

A light and electron microscopic investigation (scanning and transmission electron microscopy) was performed on 51 human atherosclerotic carotid lesions. The purpose of this study was to establish whether features of endothelial injury such as those described in animals occur in man and whether these features can be related to specific stages of human atherosclerosis. Irrespective of their histological appearance the atherosclerotic lesions were covered with endothelium which showed non-specific changes in cell shape and size. However, all complicated lesions appeared denuded. Moreover, a peculiar interaction of endothelium with monocytes and lymphocytes as well as blood components (e.g., fibrin and lipoproteins) was observed in intimal thickenings, fatty streaks and uncomplicated plaques. The surface exposure of macrophage-derived foam cells was seen on florid fatty lesions. Large areas of the arterial surface lacking any endothelial coverage Were characteristic of complicated plaques. They appeared to be a consequence of the arterial wall degeneration with an associated failure in endothelial repair

The IRIS Network of Excellence:: Integrating Research in Interactive Storytelling

Abstract. Interactive Storytelling is a major endeavour to develop new media which could offer a radically new user experience, with a potential to revolutionise digital entertainment. European research in Interactive Storytelling has played a leading role in the development of the field, and this creates a unique opportunity to strengthen its position even further by structuring collaboration between some of its main actors. IRIS (Integrating Research in Interactive Storytelling) aims at creating a virtual centre of excellence that will be able to progress the understanding of fundamental aspects of Interactive Storytelling and the development of corresponding technologies

Under the influence::Using natural language in interactive storytelling

Interacting in natural language with virtual actors is an important aspect of the development of future Interactive Storytelling systems. We describe a paradigm for speech interfaces in interactive storytelling based on the notion of influence. In this paradigm, the user is mainly a spectator who is however able to interfere with the course of action by issuing advice to the characters. This is achieved by recognising corresponding speech acts and mapping them to the plans which implement characters' behaviours in the story. We discuss some examples based on a preliminary, yet fully implemented, prototype

Idiopathic Pulmonary Lymphoid Diffuse Hyperplasia

We describe a 70 year old woman affected by diffuse pulmonary lymphoid hyperplasia (DPLH). DPLH is a rare clinical-pathological entity generally associated with connective tissue diseases, but we diagnosed our case as an idiopathic DPLH. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of idiopathic DPLH reported in medical literature

Stepping into the Interactive Drama

Interactive Drama is the ultimate challenge of digital entertainment. In this paper, from our seven year experience in Interactive Drama, we try to shape the history of the field and envision what will be (or should be) the future of this history. Two main directions in particular are stressed, because we feel that the success of Interactive Drama lies in these two directions. The first one concerns the architecture of systems and how it would manage both narrative constraints and character's intelligence, believability and roundness. The second one focuses on project management by sketching a methodology of co-design fo

A new Low Gain Avalanche Diode concept: the double-LGAD

This paper describes the new concept of the double-LGAD. The goal is to increase the charge at the input of the electronics, keeping a time resolution equal or better than a standard (single) LGAD; this has been realized by adding the charges of two coupled LGADs while still using a single front-end electronics. The study here reported has been done starting from single LGAD with a thickness of 25 \textmu{m}, 35 \textmu{m} and 50 \textmu{m}.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.0571