Identification of gene-oriented exon orthology between human and mouse

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gene orthology has been well studied in the evolutionary area and is thought to be an important implication to functional genome annotations. As the accumulation of transcriptomic data, alternative splicing is taken into account in the assignments of gene orthologs and the orthology is suggested to be further considered at transcript level. Whether gene or transcript orthology, exons are the basic units that represent the whole gene structure; however, there is no any reported study on how to build exon level orthology in a whole genome scale. Therefore, it is essential to establish a gene-oriented exon orthology dataset.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using a customized pipeline, we first build exon orthologous relationships from assigned gene orthologs pairs in two well-annotated genomes: human and mouse. More than 92% of non-overlapping exons have at least one ortholog between human and mouse and only a small portion of them own more than one ortholog. The exons located in the coding region are more conserved in terms of finding their ortholog counterparts. Within the untranslated region, the 5' UTR seems to have more diversity than the 3' UTR according to exon orthology designations. Interestingly, most exons located in the coding region are also conserved in length but this conservation phenomenon dramatically drops down in untranslated regions. In addition, we allowed multiple assignments in exon orthologs and a subset of exons with possible fusion/split events were defined here after a thorough analysis procedure.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Identification of orthologs at the exon level is essential to provide a detailed way to interrogate gene orthology and splicing analysis. It could be used to extend the genome annotation as well. Besides examining the one-to-one orthologous relationship, we manage the one-to-multi exon pairs to represent complicated exon generation behavior. Our results can be further applied in many research fields studying intron-exon structure and alternative/constitutive exons in functional genomic areas.</p

Valores motivacionales y cultura de paz en estudiantes del Programa de Estudios Básicos de LA Universidad RICARDO PALMA

El propósito de esta investigación es establecer una correlación entre los valores motivacionales y la cultura de paz en los estudiantes del Programa de Estudios Básicos de la Universidad Ricardo Palma 2013, en el marco conceptual del desarrollo humano. La referencia teórica está fundamentada en la teoría transcultural de los valores humanos de Shalom Schwartz (1992, 2001, 2006), en las declaraciones sobre cultura de Paz de la UNESCO (1982, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2010 y 2012). Asimismo, en los informes sobre desarrollo humano del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD) por sus vínculos teóricos con la cultura de paz. El diseño de la investigación es no experimental exposfacto correlacional. El tamaño de la muestra es de 352 procedente de una población de 4163. Se utilizó el análisis factorial confirmatorio para comprobar la validez de los instrumentos. Con los datos de la muestra, se empleó el coeficiente de correlación de Pearson y el coeficiente de Ítem total corregido para verificar la confiabilidad de los instrumentos. Se aseguró el cuestionario de los valores de Schwartz mediante el análisis de escalamiento multidimensional (MDS) y se aplicó el Alfa de Cronbach para constatar la confiabilidad interna; se aplicó la prueba de bondad de ajuste a la curva normal de Kolmogorov- Smirnov. El resultado indica que existe una correlación significativa entre los valores motivacionales y la cultura de paz. Los estudiantes presentan diferencias significativas tanto en la intensidad de los valores motivacionales, como en la intensidad de los valores de la cultura de paz predominando en estos últimos, las puntuaciones bajas y medias

HMong Parent Day/Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv: Implementing Psychosociocultural Educational Programming to Honor Rau Siab

This paper describes the interrelated conceptual activities that took a Psychosociocultural (PSC) approach to direct best practices, interactions, and processes to implement HMong Parent Days effectively. The purpose of HMong Parent Day/ Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv, a culturally-centered community-focused intervention, was to bring HMong parents onto a midwestern predominantly White university campus for a day of college knowledge. The day honored HMong parents\u27 support of their children into and through higher education via the cultural value of rau siab (hard work). Three levels of learning that emergent as new knowledge for HMong parents were highlighted and discussed relative to the PSC approach. Implications for scholars and university personnel were provided. The benefits of a culturally-centered community-focused intervention were discussed

Valores motivacionales y autoatribución de comportamientos socialmente responsables en estudiantes del Programa de Estudios Básicos de la Universidad Ricardo Palma 2017

Se partió del supuesto de que existe una relación significativa entre los valores humanos y la autoatribución de comportamientos socialmente responsables de los estudiantes del Programa de Estudios Básicos de la Universidad Ricardo Palma. El diseño de la investigación es no experimental, ex post facto, en base a un muestreo probabilístico de tamaño n= 353 (185 hombres y 168 mujeres; rango de edad: 16-21 años), de una población de 4297 estudiantes. Se aplicó el Cuestionario de valores por retratos (PVQ), de Schwartz (2006) y el cuestionario de auto-atribución de comportamientos socialmente responsables diseñado y validado para esta investigación. Para probar la hipótesis se diseñó un modelo sustentado en el marco teórico que diagnosticara la influencia de los valores en los comportamientos socialmente responsables, basado en el análisis de las estructuras de covarianzas y de correlaciones de las variables latentes y las variables observables. Con los datos, se comprobó que el modelo teórico de las relaciones causales entre los valores y los comportamientos socialmente responsables es un modelo adecuado. El modelo permite concluir que existe una correlación positiva y significativa (r=0.550, p_valor<0.05) entre los valores y la auto-atribución de frecuencias de comportamientos socialmente responsables.Trabado de investigacio

Solitary Metastasis of Bronchogenic Adenocarcinoma to the Internal Auditory Canal: A Case Report

We report a patient with an isolated metastasis to the internal auditory canal (IAC) of bronchogenic adenocarcinoma. A 58-yr-old man who had received 6-cycle of chemotherapy under diagnosis of non-small cell lung carcinoma (T4N2M0) two years ago was referred to our department with vertigo, right-sided facial paralysis and right-sided hearing loss. A provisional diagnosis of vestibular schwannoma or meningioma involving right IAC was made from magnetic resonance imaging. The patient underwent a translabyrinthine removal of the tumor. Histopathological study of the resected lesion showed a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma compatible with bronchogenic origin. The patient died 9 months after surgery from extensive brain metastasis despite postoperative radiation therapy. In patients with a previous history of treatment of malignancy elsewhere in the body, the possibility of IAC metastasis must be considered when an IAC lesion is detected

From regular expressions to smaller NFAs

Several methods have been developed to construct -free automata that represent a regular expression. Among the most widely known are the position automaton (Glushkov), the partial derivatives automaton (Antimirov) and the follow automaton (Ilie and Yu). All these automata can be obtained with quadratic time complexity, thus, the comparison criterion is usually the size of the resulting automaton. The methods that obtain the smallest automata (although, for general expressions, they are not comparable), are the follow and the partial derivatives methods. In this paper, we propose another method to obtain a -free automaton from a regular expression. The number of states of the automata we obtain is bounded above by the size of both the partial derivatives automaton and of the follow automaton. Our algorithm also runs with the same time complexity of these methods. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia under project TIN2007-60769.García Gómez, P.; López Rodríguez, D.; Ruiz Ochando, J.; Álvarez Vargas, GI. (2011). From regular expressions to smaller NFAs. Theoretical Computer Science. 412(41):5802-5807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2011.05.058S580258074124

A Robust Determination of the Time Delay in 0957+561A,B and a Measurement of the Global Value of Hubble's Constant

Photometric monitoring of the gravitational lens system 0957+561A,B in the g and r bands with the Apache Point Observatory (APO) 3.5 m telescope during 1996 shows a sharp g band event in the trailing (B) image light curve at the precise time predicted from the observation of an event during 1995 in the leading (A) image with a delay of 415 days. This success confirms the "short delay," and the lack of any feature at a delay near 540 days rejects the "long delay" for this system, resolving a long-standing controversy. A series of statistical analyses of our light curve data yield a best fit delay of 417 +/- 3 days (95% confidence interval). Recent improvements in the modeling of the lens system (consisting of a galaxy and cluster) allow us to derive a value of the global (at z = 0.36) value of Hubble's constant H_0 using Refsdal's method, a simple and direct distance determination based on securely understood physics and geometry. The result is H_0 = 63 +/- 12 km/s/Mpc (for Omega = 1) where this 95% confidence interval is dominated by remaining lens model uncertainties.Comment: accepted by ApJ, AASTeX 4.0 preprint, 4 PostScript figure

Design and rationale of a matched cohort study to assess the effectiveness of a combined household-level piped water and sanitation intervention in rural Odisha, India.

INTRODUCTION: Government efforts to address massive shortfalls in rural water and sanitation in India have centred on construction of community water sources and toilets for selected households. However, deficiencies with water quality and quantity at the household level and community coverage and actual use of toilets have led Gram Vikas, a local non-governmental organization in Odisha, India, to develop an approach that provides household-level piped water connections contingent on full community-level toilet coverage. METHODS: This matched cohort study was designed to assess the effectiveness of a combined piped water and sanitation intervention. Households with children <5 years in 45 randomly selected intervention villages and 45 matched control villages will be followed over 17 months. The primary outcome is prevalence of diarrhoeal diseases; secondary health outcomes include soil-transmitted helminth infection, nutritional status, seroconversion to enteric pathogens, urogenital infections and environmental enteric dysfunction. In addition, intervention effects on sanitation and water coverage, access and use, environmental fecal contamination, women's empowerment, as well as collective efficacy, and intervention cost and cost-effectiveness will be assessed. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol has been reviewed and approved by the ethics boards of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK and KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India. Findings will be disseminated via peer-reviewed literature and presentation to stakeholders, government officials, implementers and researchers. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02441699

Mitochondrial Rejuvenation After Induced Pluripotency

Background: As stem cells of the early embryo mature and differentiate into all tissues, the mitochondrial complement undergoes dramatic functional improvement. Mitochondrial activity is low to minimize generation of DNA-damaging reactive oxygen species during pre-implantation development and increases following implantation and differentiation to meet higher metabolic demands. It has recently been reported that when the stem cell type known as induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) are re-differentiated for several weeks in vitro, the mitochondrial complement progressively re-acquires properties approximating input fibroblasts, suggesting that despite the observation that IPSC conversion ‘‘resets’ ’ some parameters of cellular aging such as telomere length, it may have little impact on other age-affected cellular systems such as mitochondria in IPSC-derived cells. Methodology/Principal Findings: We have examined the properties of mitochondria in two fibroblast lines, corresponding IPSCs, and fibroblasts re-derived from IPSCs using biochemical methods and electron microscopy, and found a dramatic improvement in the quality and function of the mitochondrial complement of the re-derived fibroblasts compared to input fibroblasts. This observation likely stems from two aspects of our experimental design: 1) that the input cell lines used were of advanced cellular age and contained an inefficient mitochondrial complement, and 2) the re-derived fibroblasts were produced using an extensive differentiation regimen that may more closely mimic the degree of growth and maturatio

Tunable Heparan Sulfate Mimetics for Modulating Chemokine Activity

Heparan sulfate (HS) glycosaminoglycans participate in critical biological processes by modulating the activity of a diverse set of protein binding partners. Such proteins include all known members of the chemokine superfamily, which are thought to guide the migration of immune cells through their interactions with HS. Here, we describe an expedient, divergent synthesis to prepare defined HS glycomimetics that recapitulate the overall structure and activity of HS glycosaminoglycans. Our approach uses a core disaccharide precursor to produce a variety of differentially sulfated glycopolymers. We demonstrate that a specific trisulfated mimetic antagonizes the chemotactic activity of the proinflammatory chemokine RANTES with potency similar to that of heparin, without inhibiting serine proteases in the blood coagulation cascade. Our work provides a general strategy for modulating chemokine activity and dissecting the pleiotropic functions of HS/heparin through the presentation of defined sulfation motifs within polymeric scaffolds