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Polyneuropathy is a disease involving multiple peripheral nerves injuries. Axon regrowth remains the major prerequisite for plasticity, regeneration, circuit formation, and eventually functional recovery and therefore, regulation of neurite outgrowth might be a candidate for treating polyneuropathies. In a recent study, we synthesized and established the methylene-cycloalkylacetate (MCAs) pharmacophore as a lead for the development of a neurotropic drug (inducing neurite/axonal outgrowth) using the PC12 neuronal model. In the present study we extended the characterizations of the in vitro neurotropic effect of the derivative 3-(3-allyl-2-methylenecyclohexyl) propanoic acid (MCA-13) on dorsal root ganglia and spinal cord neuronal cultures and analyzed its safety properties using blood biochemistry and cell counting, acute toxicity evaluation in mice and different in vitro "off-target" pharmacological evaluations. This MCA derivative deserves further preclinical mechanistic pharmacological characterizations including therapeutic efficacy in in vivo animal models of polyneuropathies, toward development of a clinically relevant neurotropic drug.

Geostatistical tools were used to estimate spatial relations between wheat yield and soil parameters under organic farming field conditions. Thematic maps of each factor were created as raster images in R software using kriging. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) calculated the principal component analysis raster images for soil parameters and yield. The correlation between the raster arising from the PC1 of soil and yield parameters showed high linear correlation (r = 0.75) and explained 48.50% of the data variance. The data show that durum wheat yield is strongly affected by soil parameter variability, and thus, the average production can be substantially lower than its potential. Soil water content was the limiting factor to grain yield and not nitrate as in other similar studies. The use of precision agriculture tools helped reduce the level of complexity between the measured parameters by the grouping of several parameters and demonstrating that precision agriculture tools can be applied in small organic fields, reducing costs and increasing wheat yield. Consequently, site-specific applications could be expected to improve the yield without increasing excessively the cost for farmers and enhance environmental and economic benefits. Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia), Portugal [SFRH/BD/8303/2002]; Research Center of Spatial and Organizational Dynamics (CIEO); Ministery of Science, Culture and Sport, Israel; Bundesmenisterium fuer Bildung and Forschung (BMBF)

We prove that the genus polynomials of the graphs called iterated claws are realrooted. This continues our work directed toward the 25-year-old conjecture that the genus distribution of every graph is log-concave. We have previously established log-concavity for sequences of graphs constructed by iterative vertex-amalgamation or iterative edgeamalgamation of graphs that satisfy a commonly observable condition on their partitioned genus distributions, even though it had been proved previously that iterative amalgamation does not always preserve real-rootedness of the genus polynomial of the iterated graph. In this paper, the iterated topological operation is adding a claw, rather than vertex- or edge-amalgamation. Our analysis here illustrates some advantages of employing a matrix representation of the transposition of a set of productions. Dokažemo, da imajo rodovni polinomi grafov, imenovanih iterirane klešče, realne korene. To je nadaljevanje našega dela usmerjenega k 25 let stari domnevi, da je rodovna porazdelitev vsakega grafa log-konkavna. Pokazali smo že log-konkavnost za zaporedja grafov, konstruiranih z iterativno vozliščno amalgamacijo ali iterativno povezavno amalgamacijo grafov, ki zadoščajo zelo splošnemu pogoju glede njihovih particioniranih rodovnih porazdelitev, čeprav je bilo predhodno dokazano, da iterativna amalgamacija ne ohranja vselej realnosti korenov rodovnega polinoma iteriranega grafa. V tem članku je iterirana topološka operacija dodajanje klešč, ne pa vozliščna ali povezavna amalgamacija. Naša tukajšnja analiza ilustrira nekaj prednosti uporabe matrične reprezentacije transpozicije množice produkcij.

De-ubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs) reverse protein ubiquitylation and thereby control essential cellular functions. Screening for a DUB that counteracts caspase ubiquitylation to regulate cell survival, we identified the Drosophila ovarian tumour-type DUB DUBA (CG6091). DUBA physically interacts with the initiator caspase death regulator Nedd2-like caspase (Dronc) and de-ubiquitylates it, thereby contributing to efficient inhibitor of apoptosis-antagonist-induced apoptosis in the fly eye. Searching also for non-apoptotic functions of DUBA, we found that Duba-null mutants are male sterile and display defects in spermatid individualisation, a process that depends on non-apoptotic caspase activity. Spermatids of DUBA-deficient flies showed reduced caspase activity and lack critical structures of the individualisation process. Biochemical characterisation revealed an obligate activation step of DUBA by phosphorylation. With genetic rescue experiments we demonstrate that DUBA phosphorylation and catalytic activity are crucial in vivo for DUBA function in spermatogenesis. Our results demonstrate for the first time the importance of de-ubiquitylation for fly spermatogenesis.

The outcome from the research being reported in this paper is the design of an accessibility audit to evaluate Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for accessibility and to arrive at solutions and adaptations that can meet user needs. This accessibility audit includes expert-based heuristic evaluations and user-based evaluations of the MOOC platforms and individual courses.

Cholesterol crystallization from mixtures of unesterified cholesterol with phospholipids and cholesterol esters is believed to be a key event in atherosclerosis progression. Not much is understood, however, about the influence of the lipid environment on cholesterol crystallization. Here we study cholesterol monohydrate crystal formation from mixed bilayers with palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine (POPC), dipalmitoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) and sphingomyelin. We show that disordered phospholipids and sphingomyelin stabilize the formation of crystal plates of the triclinic cholesterol monohydrate polymorph, whereas saturated glycerolipids stabilize helical and tubular crystals of the metastable monoclinic polymorph. We followed the subsequent transformation of these helical crystals into the stable triclinic plates. Discovering the relations between membrane lipid composition and cholesterol crystal polymorphism may provide important clues to the understanding of cholesterol crystal formation in atherosclerosis.

We initiate the systematic computation of the heat-kernel coefficients for Laplacian operators obeying anisotropic dispersion relations in curved spacetime. Our results correctly reproduce the limit where isotropy is restored and special anisotropic cases considered previously in the literature. Subsequently, the heat kernel is used to derive the scalar-induced one-loop effective action and beta functions of Horava-Lifshitz gravity. We identify the Gaussian fixed point which is supposed to provide the UV completion of the theory. In the present setting, this fixed point acts as an infrared attractor for the renormalization group flow of Newton's constant and the high-energy phase of the theory is screened by a Landau pole. We comment on the consequences of these findings for the renormalizability of the theory. Comment: 32 pages, 2 figures

For compressed sensing of Poissonian measurements, there is a need for nonnegative measurement matrices. We seek an optimal measurement matrix that conserves energy. Moreover, the signals pass a known but uncontrolled mixing matrix, before being multiplexed and measured. This situation is relevant to various optical applications. We optimize the measurement matrix by mutual coherence minimization, under nonnegativity and energy conservation constraints. Nonnegativity excludes the known approach of seeking an equiangular tight frame as the optimal matrix. We thus seek a quasi-equiangular frame, which is approximated by a tight frame. Simulation results demonstrate superior reconstruction using our optimized matrices, compared to random nonnegative matrices.

Abstract A number of recent papers have established connections between reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces H of entire functions, de Branges spaces, sampling formulas and a class of symmetric operators with deficiency indices ( 1 , 1 ) . In this paper analogous connections between reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces of entire vector valued functions, de Branges spaces of entire vector valued functions, sampling formulas and symmetric operators with deficiency indices ( p , p ) are obtained. Enroute, an analog of L. de Branges' characterization of the reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces of entire functions that are now called de Branges spaces is obtained for the p × 1 vector valued case. A special class of these de Branges spaces of p × 1 vector valued entire functions is identified as a functional model for M. G. Krein's class of entire operators with deficiency indices ( p , p ) .