In silico synteny based comparative genomics approach for identification and characterization of novel therapeutic targets in Chlamydophila pneumoniae

Chlamydophila pneumoniae is one of the most important and well studied gram negative bacterial strain with respect to community acquired pneumonia and other respiratory diseases like Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Chronic asthma, Alzheimer''s disease, Atherosclerosis and Multisclerosis which have a great potential to infect humans and many other mammals. According to WHO prediction, COPD is to become the third leading cause of death by 2030. Unfortunately, the molecular mechanisms leading to chronic infections are poorly understood and the difficulty in culturing C pneumoniae in experimental conditions and lack of entirely satisfactory serological methods for diagnosis is also a hurdle for drug discovery and development. We have performed an insilico synteny based comparative genomics analysis of C pneumoniae and other eight Chlamydial organisms to know the potential of C pneumoniae which cause COPD but other Chlamydial organisms lack in potential to cause COPD though some are involved in human pathogenesis. We have identified total 354 protein sequences as non-orthologous to other Chlamydial organisms, except hypothetical proteins 70 were found functional out of which 60 are non homologous to Homo sapiens proteome and among them 18 protein sequences are found to be essential for survival of the C pneumoniae based on BLASTP search against DEG database of essential genes. CELLO analysis results showed that about 80% proteins are found to be cytoplasmic, Among which 5 were found as bacterial exotoxins and 2 as bacterial endotoxins, remaining 11 proteins were found to be involved in DNA binding, RNA binding, catalytic activity, ATP binding, oxidoreductase activity, hydrolase activity and proteolysis activity. It is expected that our data will facilitate selection of C pneumoniae proteins for successful entry into drug design pipelines.     

Specific Staining of Nucleolar Substance with Aceto-Carmine

A method is described for staining nucleoli intensely by treating tissues with formaldehyde, hydrolysing in normal HC1 at 60°C. and staining with aceto-carmine. With correct hydrolysis time, chromosomes and cytoplasm are almost colorless.

Formaldehyde increases the acidity of cell parts, especially the nucleolus, presumably by neutralizing the basic protein groups, and increases the resistance to hydrolysis, perhaps by protecting the phospholipoprotein complexes which are most abundant in the nucleolus.

Hydrolysis reduces the acidity of cell parts, chiefly by removal of nucleic acids.

Aceto-carmine stains cell structures which are weakly acid in character (about pH 4-5) probably by precipitating as large dye aggregates.

The technic appears to be highly specific for nucleoli and related cell bodies.     

The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

We know that even young children are proficient tool users, but until recently, little was known about how they make tools. Here, we will explore the concepts underlying tool making, and the kinds of information and putative cognitive abilities required for children to manufacture novel tools. We will review the evidence for novel tool manufacture from the comparative literature and present a growing body of data from children suggesting that innovation of the solution to a problem by making a tool is a much more challenging task than previously thought. Children''s difficulty with these kinds of tasks does not seem to be explained by perseveration with unmodified tools, difficulty with switching to alternative strategies, task pragmatics or issues with permission. Rather, making novel tools (without having seen an example of the required tool within the context of the task) appears to be hard, because it is an example of an ‘ill-structured problem’. In this type of ill-structured problem, the starting conditions and end goal are known, but the transformations and/or actions required to get from one to the other are not specified. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the development of problem-solving in humans and other animals.     

Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) accessions evaluated by SRAP and ISSR

Understanding genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships is useful for plant breeding. In this study, we assessed the genetic diversity in a panel of 84 accessions of kenaf from 26 countries using SRAP and ISSR markers. The kenaf accessions could be divided into L1 (60 cultivated varieties) and L2 (24 wild accessions) at the level of 0.145 genetic dissimilarity coefficient by UPGMA. The L₂ group was further divided into two subgroups (16 relative-wide and 9 origin wide accessions) at the level of 0.207 genetic dissimilarity. Out of the 9 wild accessions in the L₂ group, 6 were from Tanzania and the remaining 3 lines were from Kenya. These results suggest that the center of origin for kenaf might be Tanzania and Kenya.     

Causing Physical Change to Create Art

The presentation involves students in a hands-on analysis of artifacts to create a time line of their local area's past societies. This exercise is more of a unit rather than a one-time activity. Procedures, ideas, and background for developing your own unit are presented in this article. The purpose of this unit is to engage students in applying the scientific method to archaeological research. Students will gain experience in designing and conducting their own investigations.     

Efficient approximate k‐fold and leave‐one‐out cross‐validation for ridge regression

In model building and model evaluation, cross‐validation is a frequently used resampling method. Unfortunately, this method can be quite time consuming. In this article, we discuss an approximation method that is much faster and can be used in generalized linear models and Cox’ proportional hazards model with a ridge penalty term. Our approximation method is based on a Taylor expansion around the estimate of the full model. In this way, all cross‐validated estimates are approximated without refitting the model. The tuning parameter can now be chosen based on these approximations and can be optimized in less time. The method is most accurate when approximating leave‐one‐out cross‐validation results for large data sets which is originally the most computationally demanding situation. In order to demonstrate the method's performance, it will be applied to several microarray data sets. An R package penalized, which implements the method, is available on CRAN.     

杉木不同生长类型对养分供应的持续效应

应用“正态分布标准差分类法”把杉木(Cunninghamia lanceolata)试验林分树高生长划分为5个生长类型，按不同生长类型进行施肥试验。结果表明，不同生长类型杉木施肥后2年生长期的树高年生长量表现为，生长类型好的群体对施肥有更好的持续促进高生长效应；生长类型差的群体，在施肥量相对少时高生长持续效应不明显，当施肥量较大时能有较好的树高年生长量持续生长效应。不同生长类型杉木胸径年生长量对施肥量的响应表现为，相同条件下，好的生长类型比差的生长类型有更好的胸径年生长量效果，施肥量相对不足时，差的生长类型群体胸径年生长持续效应逐渐衰退，好的生长类型对施肥有更好的持续促进生长效果，施肥量大对胸径年生长有更好的持续促进作用，与树高生长表现基本一致。研究表明，遗传品质好的杉木群体对立地适应能力越强，有更好的耐瘠薄能力和更好的年生长量。施肥措施对不同遗传品质生长类型杉木树高与胸径年生长量都有较好的促进效应，能有效恢复与提高杉木低产林分生长，为杉木低产与小老林林分改良提供理论指导。     

基于SBE法的广东省生态景观林带美景度评价

采用美景度评价法(SBE法)对广东省生态景观林带进行评价，分析影响生态景观林带景观水平的主要因子，探讨生态景观林带景观构成要素与景观质量的关系。结果表明，不同专业、性别、学历、年龄的人群在森林审美态度上具有一致性，其评判结果能够反映森林美景度的实际情况；对53张照片评价SBE值，最大为1.4454，最小为-1.6917；对美景度影响较大的4个因子，即色彩丰富度(X6)、色泽明度(X7)、生活型(X8)、生长状况(X9)，建立的多元线性回归模型是 Y=1.902-0.346X6-0.461X7+ 0.206X8-0.584X9。     

Development of the hand and wrist bones in chimpanzees

Skeletal developmental of chimpanzees was studied cross-sectionally. By application of the TW2 method, we described the skeletal development of chimpanzees and compared their skeletal development with humans'. A development pattern of chimpanzees repeated accelerations and decelerations displaying “early-juvenile trough,” “pre-adolescent peak,” “mid-adolescent trough,” and “post-adolescent peak” in incremental curves. Sex differences in skeletal development are slower development in males during infant and early juvenile phases, and greater increment around the adolescent phase in males. Females are fully mature at younger ages than males, e.g. about one and a half years. In comparison with chimpanzees, humans have such characteristics as a longer slower period of juvenile development and a shorter spurt-like adolescent fast period which ends with full maturity.