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The domain Archaea is composed of several subdomains, and prominent among them are the Crenarchaeota and the Euryarchaeota. Biochemically characterized archaeal family Y DNA polymerases (Pols) or DinB homologs, to date, are all fr...
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The domain Archaea is composed of several subdomains, and prominent among them are the Crenarchaeota and the Euryarchaeota. Biochemically characterized archaeal family Y DNA polymerases (Pols) or DinB homologs, to date, are all from crenarchaeal organisms, especially the genus Sulfolobus. Here, we demonstrate that archaeal family Y Pols fall into five clusters based on phylogenetic analysis. MacDinB-1, the homolog from the euryarchaeon Methanosarcina acetivorans that is characterized in this study, belongs to cluster II. Therefore, MacDinB-1 is different from the Sulfolobus DinB proteins, which are members of cluster I. In addition to translesion DNA synthesis activity, MacDinB-1 synthesized unusually long products ( approximately 7.2 kb) in the presence of its cognate proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). The PCNA-interacting site in MacDinB-1 was identified by mutational analysis in a C-terminally located heptapeptide akin to a PIP (PCNA-interacting protein) box. In vitro assays from the present report suggested that MacDinB-1 works in an error-free mode to repair cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers. This study on a euryarchaeal DinB homolog provides important insights into the functional diversity of the family Y Pols, and the availability of a genetic system for this archaeon should allow subsequent elucidation of the physiological significance of this enzyme in M. acetivorans cells.
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Aloha and Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) are two representative random-access protocols. Despite their simplicity in concept, the performance analysis of Aloha and CSMA networks has long been known as notoriously difficult. ...
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Aloha and Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) are two representative random-access protocols. Despite their simplicity in concept, the performance analysis of Aloha and CSMA networks has long been known as notoriously difficult. Numerous models and analytical approaches have been proposed in the past four decades. Yet how to integrate them into a coherent theory remains an open challenge. Toward this end, a unified analytical framework was recently proposed in , based on which a comprehensive study of throughput, delay and stability performance of Aloha networks was presented. In this paper, the framework is further extended to CSMA networks. The analysis shows that both CSMA and Aloha have the same bi-stable property, and the performance of both networks critically depends on the selection of backoff parameters. Different from Aloha, however, substantial gains can be achieved in CSMA networks by reducing the mini-slot length a and the collision-detection time x. The maximum throughput with CSMA is derived as an explicit function of a and x, and shown to be higher than that with Aloha if a收起
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L-type calcium channels play an essential role in synaptic activity-dependent gene expression and are implicated in long-term alterations in synaptic efficacy underlying learning and memory in the hippocampus. The two principal po...
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L-type calcium channels play an essential role in synaptic activity-dependent gene expression and are implicated in long-term alterations in synaptic efficacy underlying learning and memory in the hippocampus. The two principal pore-forming subunits of L-type Ca2+ channels expressed in neurons are the Ca(v)1.2 (alpha(1C)) or Ca(v)1.3 (alpha(1D)) subtypes. Experimental evidence suggests that calcium entry through Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 Ca2+ channels occurs in close proximity to key signalling molecules responsible for triggering signalling pathways leading to transcriptional responses. Determining the subcellular distribution of Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 L-type channels in neurons is clearly important for unravelling the molecular mechanisms underlying long-term alterations in neuronal function. In this study, we used immunogold-labelling techniques and electron-microscopy (EM) to analyse the subcellular distribution and density of both Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 Ca2+ channels in rat hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells in vivo. We confirm that both Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 channel subtypes are predominantly but not exclusively located in postsynaptic dendritic processes and somata. Both Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 are distributed throughout the dendritic tree. However, the smallest (distal) dendritic processes and spines have proportionally more calcium channels inserted into their plasma membrane than located within cytoplasmic compartments indicating the potential targeting of calcium channels to microdomains within neurons. Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 Ca2+ channels are located at the postsynaptic density and also at extra-synaptic sites. The location of L-type Ca(v)1.2 and Ca(v)1.3 channels in distal dendrites and spines would thus place them at appropriate sites where they could initiate synapse to nucleus signalling.
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Software testing remains the most widely used approach to verification in industry today, consuming between 30-50 percent of the entire development cost. Test input selection for intelligent agents presents a problem due to the ve...
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Software testing remains the most widely used approach to verification in industry today, consuming between 30-50 percent of the entire development cost. Test input selection for intelligent agents presents a problem due to the very fact that the agents are intended to operate robustly under conditions which developers did not consider and would therefore be unlikely to test. Using methods to automatically generate and execute tests is one way to provide coverage of many conditions without significantly increasing cost. However, one problem using automatic generation and execution of tests is the oracle problem: How can we automatically decide if observed program behavior is correct with respect to its specification? In this paper, we present a model-based oracle generation method for unit testing belief-desire-intention agents. We develop a fault model based on the features of the core units to capture the types of faults that may be encountered and define how to automatically generate a partial, passive oracle from the agent design models. We evaluate both the fault model and the oracle generation by testing 14 agent systems. Over 400 issues were raised, and these were analyzed to ascertain whether they represented genuine faults or were false positives. We found that over 70 percent of issues raised were indicative of problems in either the design or the code. Of the 19 checks performed by our oracle, faults were found by all but 5 of these checks. We also found that 8 out the 11 fault types identified in our fault model exhibited at least one fault. The evaluation indicates that the fault model is a productive conceptualization of the problems to be expected in agent unit testing and that the oracle is able to find a substantial number of such faults with relatively small overhead in terms of false positives.
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The Mark Twain Lake/Salt River Basin was selected as one of the USDAAgricultural Research Service benchmark watersheds for the Conservation Effects Assessment Project because of documented soil and water quality problems and broad...
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The Mark Twain Lake/Salt River Basin was selected as one of the USDAAgricultural Research Service benchmark watersheds for the Conservation Effects Assessment Project because of documented soil and water quality problems and broad stakeholder interest. The basin is located in northeastern Missouri within the Central Claypan Region, and it is the source of water to Mark Twain Lake, the major public water supply in the region. At the outlet to Mark Twain Lake, the basin drains 6,417 km~2 (2,478 mi~2), including 10 major watersheds that range in area from 271 to 1,579 km~2 (105 to 609 mi~2). The basin is characterized by flat to gently rolling topography with a predominance of claypan soils that result in high runoff potential. The claypan soils are especially vulnerable to soil erosion, which has degraded soil and water quality throughout the basin, and to surface transport of herbicides. Results from cropping system best management practice studies showed that no-till cropping systems did not reduce surface runoff compared to tilled systems, and no-till led to increased transport of soil-applied herbicides. A major challenge is the need to develop cropping systems that incorporate herbicides yet maintain sufficient crop residue cover to control soil erosion. Results of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model simulations showed that the model was capable of simulating observed long-term trends in atrazine concentrations and loads and the impact of grass waterways on atrazine concentrations. Current and future research efforts will continue to focus on best management practice studies, development of needed tools to improve watershed management, and refinements in the calibration and validation of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model.
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BACKGROUND: Application of electrical stimulation to the gut, primarily the stomach, has rapidly advanced in the last two decades, from mostly animal studies to the clinical arena. Most studies focused on the use of electrical sti...
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BACKGROUND: Application of electrical stimulation to the gut, primarily the stomach, has rapidly advanced in the last two decades, from mostly animal studies to the clinical arena. Most studies focused on the use of electrical stimulation for gastroparesis, the only approved indication for such intervention. AIM: To review the physiological basis of gastric electrical activity and the technical aspects and clinical outcome of gastric electrical stimulation (GES) for gastroparesis. METHODS: PubMed search from 1966 to 2009, using gastroparesis and GES as search terms. Areas in focus were systematically reviewed. RESULTS: The literature consists of open-label studies, mostly from single centres, published in the last decade. Improvement in symptoms, quality of life and nutritional status was reported by most studies. Physiologically, stimulation parameters approved in clinical practice do not regulate gastric slow wave activity and have inconsistent effect on gastric emptying. The mechanism of action of GES is not fully known, but data support modulation of gastric biomechanical activity and afferent neural mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS: Gastric electrical stimulation is a helpful intervention in recalcitrant gastroparesis. Controlled studies and better understanding of mechanisms of action of electrical stimulation are needed to evaluate further the clinical utility of this intervention and to exploit its therapeutic potential better.
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Experiments are conducted here to investigate how the channel size affects the R-407C saturated flow boiling heat transfer and associated bubble characteristics in a horizontal narrow annular duct. The gap of the duct is fixed at ...
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Experiments are conducted here to investigate how the channel size affects the R-407C saturated flow boiling heat transfer and associated bubble characteristics in a horizontal narrow annular duct. The gap of the duct is fixed at 1.0 and 2.0 mm in this study. The measured data indicate that the saturated flow boiling heat transfer coefficient increases with a decrease in the duct gap. Besides, raising the imposed heat flux can cause a significant increase in the boiling heat transfer coefficients. However, the effects of the refrigerant mass flux and saturated temperature on the boiling heat transfer coefficient are milder. The results from the flow visualization show that the mean diameter of the bubbles departing from the heating surface decreases noticeably at increasing R-407C mass flux. Moreover, the bubble departure frequency increases at reducing duct size and at a high imposed heat flux many bubbles generated from the cavities in the heating surface tend to merge together to form big bubbles. Meanwhile comparison of the present heat transfer data for R-407C with R-134a in the same duct and with some existing correlations is conducted. Furthermore, correlation for the present R-407C saturated flow boiling heat transfer data is proposed. Additionally, the present data for some quantitative bubble characteristics such as the mean bubble departure diameter and frequency and the active nucleation site density are also correlated.
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This work investigates the joint detection and decoding of MIMO-OFDM signals. Traditional receivers either utilize disjoint serial detector and decoder or require turbo message passing between the two functional blocks of detectio...
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This work investigates the joint detection and decoding of MIMO-OFDM signals. Traditional receivers either utilize disjoint serial detector and decoder or require turbo message passing between the two functional blocks of detection and decoding. We present a novel approach that can jointly achieve detection and decoding of low density parity check (LDPC) coded multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) signals as a unified optimization algorithm. Our receiver integrates the MIMO-OFDM signal detection and the decoding of LDPC coded data by formulating a linear programming problem regardless of affine or nonaffine quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) mapping. The proposed joint MIMO-OFDM detector and decoder achieves substantial performance gain over existing joint detection receivers of comparable computational complexity. Furthermore, the proposed receiver also substantially outperforms the more traditional turbo receiver with only modest cost in complexity.
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Achieving accurate and effective modeling of the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication channel has proven to be a challenging task, particularly owing to the highly dynamic nature of vehicular environments. V2V channels generally...
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Achieving accurate and effective modeling of the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication channel has proven to be a challenging task, particularly owing to the highly dynamic nature of vehicular environments. V2V channels generally may have contributions from the line-of-sight path, reflections from large stationary and moving objects such as bridges and other vehicles, and a diffuse base from large numbers of small stationary objects in the environment. We propose a new geometrical model for the diffuse component based on scattering objects distributed along the roadside, and use this model to predict the Doppler spectrum and angle-of-arrival distribution associated with this component for various V2V scenarios. In contrast with previous roadside scattering models that sum the contributions from large numbers of randomly-generated scattering objects, our model assumes a uniform linear distribution along the roadside. This permits a computationally efficient, closed-form model. Comparisons with on-road measurement data as well as the double ring model demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed model.
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For iterative detection and decoding (IDD) in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the log-likelihood ratio (LLR) of each coded bit can be found by an optimal bit-wise maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector. How...
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For iterative detection and decoding (IDD) in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the log-likelihood ratio (LLR) of each coded bit can be found by an optimal bit-wise maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector. However, since this MAP detector requires a prohibitively high computational complexity, low-complexity suboptimal detectors are desirable. In this paper, lattice reduction (LR)-based MIMO detection is investigated to derive a low-complexity detector that can achieve near MAP performance for IDD. In order to approximate LLR values incorporating the extrinsic information provided by a soft-input soft-output (SISO) decoder, bit-wise LR-based minimum mean square error (MMSE) filters are derived. Furthermore, in order to minimize the performance degradation due to quantization (or rounding) errors in the LR-based detection, a low-complexity integer perturbed list generation method is proposed, where no tree search is used by taking advantage of a near orthogonal channel basis obtained by LR. Through a complexity analysis and simulations, it is shown that the proposed approach achieves near optimal performance, while the complexity is comparable with that of the MMSE soft cancellation method, which is known to be computationally efficient. As a bit-wise detector, a parallel implementation of the proposed method would be straightforward, which lowers the detection delay.
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