Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Attention on Maps

Wilson’s (1998) notion of consilience among disciplines should be a goal for cartographers. Consilience requires important facts and fact-based theories to apply across disciplines. This paper reviews research on visual attention as an example of a topic shared by information science disciplines. Attention is considered as a competition between neural processes that allow information to be selected and emphasized for perceptual processing. Visual attention has been modeled as a spotlight, zoom lens, gradient, and multiple spotlights. It is argued that visual attention can impact multiple map reading processes and that cartographers can use knowledge about the effects of attention on map reading to design more effective maps. Attention can be directed to locations, objects, and features in the visual field and impacts performance on a variety of map reading tasks. Important general questions relating visual attention and map reading are stated and the literature providing answers discussed. The “dark side” of attention is also discussed and linked to the concepts of inhibition of return, visual marking, inattentional blindness, change blindness, and the attentional blink. Specific map-reading processes affected by visual attention are considered that include figure-ground segregation, visual search, and object selection and grouping. Research trends related to cartographic design and map reading are considered for these processes. Future cartographic studies are considered in four categories—vision before attention, vision with attention, vision after attention, and vision without attention. Understanding the role of visual attention in map reading should be a goal of cartographers interested in producing effective maps

Asymmetrical Learning of Locations on Maps: Implicit Learning, Prior Knowledge and Sex Differences

Women have been reported to have an advantage for the memory of unique objects in space while men have been reported to have an advantage on tests of knowledge of geographic information. The current research considers how prior knowledge and asymmetrical learning processes might be related to this apparent contradiction in the literature concerning spatial cognition. Asymmetrical brains allow us to encode map locations as both categorical and coordinate information. Categorical information is expressed verbally, for instance, “City A is located in the northwest quadrant of the map,” and is easier to learn but not very precise. Coordinate information is more precise but takes longer to learn. Prior knowledge of locations may result in subjects relying more on coordinate information.Human subject testing was used to examine differences in performance when women and men learned and recalled city locations on maps. Learning was achieved through the use of a repeated search task. Results indicated that subjects implicitly learned the locations of cities during the search task. The distribution of the cities on the maps and whether the cities were known or novel affected performance. The evidence supports the assertion that men may have a greater interest in geographic information, and the additional attention they devote to such information allows them to utilize prior knowledge and gives them an advantage when processing well-known places. The evidence also supports the assertion that women may generally have an advantage learning novel maps because they tend to encode more categorical information, and this information is useful for remembering general locations and can be learned faster

Development of bullet jacket factor and rifle barrel factors

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/3871/5/bac6878.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/3871/4/bac6878.0001.001.tx