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Is increased sensitivity to punishment a common characteristic of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder? An experimental study of response allocation in Japanese children
Get PDFResearch on motivational processes in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) focuses on reward. Studies with punishment are limited and findings mixed. This study evaluated the effects of punishment on response allocation in Japanese children with and without ADHD. Thirty-four children meeting DSM-IV criteria for ADHD and 59 typically developing control-group children completed an operant task in which they choose between playing two simultaneously available games. Reward was arranged symmetrically across the games under concurrent variable interval schedules. Asymmetric punishment schedules were superimposed with responses on one game punished four times as often as responses on the other. Children with ADHD showed greater behavioral sensitivity to punishment than controls. They allocated significantly more responses to the less frequently punished alternative and were more likely to play this game on consecutive trials and responded more slowly to the more punished game. Control group children allocated their responses evenly across games. Punishment exerted greater control over the behavior of Japanese children with ADHD than controls, similar to findings with children from Western countries, suggesting this is a common characteristic of the disorder. The behavior of typically developing Japanese children, while demonstrating awareness of punishment, was not controlled by the frequency of its occurrence.journal articl
Hyperbolic fracton model, subsystem symmetry, and holography. II. The dual eight-vertex model
Get PDFThe discovery of fracton states of matter opens up an exciting, largely unexplored field of many-body physics. Certain fracton states' similarity to gravity is an intriguing property. In an earlier work [Phys. Rev. B 99, 155126 (2019)], we have demonstrated that a simple fracton model in anti-de Sitter space satisfies several major holographic properties. In this follow-up paper, we study the eight-vertex model dual to the original model. The dual model has the advantage of illuminating the mutual information and subsystem charges pictorially, which helps to reveal its connections to various other topics in the study of holography and fracton phases. At zero temperature, the dual eight-vertex model is a discrete realization of the bit-thread model, a powerful tool developed to visualize holography. The bit-thread picture combined with subsystem charges can give a quantitative account of the isometry between the bulk and the boundary at finite energy, which is also a key issue for holography. The black hole microscopic degrees of freedom can be identified in this picture, which turn out to be encoded nonlocally on the horizon. The eight-vertex model proves to be a very helpful venue to improve our understanding of the hyperbolic fracton model as a toy model of holography.journal articl
Is there a Function for a Sex Pheromone Precursor?
Get PDFFunctional coupling and comparative genomics analysis have been applied to study functional associations of orthologs of enterococcal cAD1 sex pheromone (P13268) known to be responsible for biofilm formation, conjugative plasmid transfer and spreading of bacterial antibiotics resistance. cAD1 peptide pheromone is released from the membrane lipoprotein with the peptide precursor encoded by a gene cad (tr|C2JQE7). Our analysis of genomic neighbourhood of cad and motifs of the encoded polypeptide and its orthologs suggests a close functional association between cAD1 and ApbE protein (Q82Z24), a FMN insertion and trafficking facilitator. The cad and apbE orthologs were coupled in the genomes and ApbE-specific motifs for FMN covalent attachment were identified in cad-encoded protein sequence and its orthologs. These findings suggest a potential role of FMN-based reductase function of the cAD1 lipoprotein precursor in its processing and release of the active sex pheromone peptide. They may lead to a new approach in prevention of antibiotic resistance spread via targeting sex pheromone processing chaperones or by suppression of the FMN availability and covalent binding. This methods can be also applied to a controlled evolution of bacterial pathogenicity in microbial fuel cells, as the findings suggest the crosstalk between bacterial pathogenicity and bacterial electro-activity.journal articl
Design of Mammalian ON-Riboswitches Based on Tandemly Fused Aptamer and Ribozyme
Get PDFSelf-cleaving ribozymes engineered to be activated or inhibited by a small molecule binding to an RNA aptamer inserted within a ribozyme (aptazymes) have proven to be useful for controlling gene expression in living cells. In mammalian cells, an aptazyme embedded in the 5′ or 3′ untranslated region of an mRNA functions as a synthetic riboswitch to chemically regulate gene expression. However, the variety of aptazyme architectures and the ribozyme scaffolds that have been used for mammalian riboswitches has been limited. In particular, fewer synthetic riboswitches that activate gene expression in response to a small molecule (ON-switches) in mammalian cells have been reported compared to OFF-switches. In this work, we developed mammalian riboswitches that function as guanine-activated ON-switches based on a novel aptazyme architecture in which an aptamer and a ribozyme are fused in tandem. The riboswitch performance was optimized by fine-tuning the stability of a critical stem that controls the ribozyme structure and function, yielding switches with ON/OFF ratios greater than 6.0. Our new aptazyme architecture expands the RNA device toolbox for controlling gene expression in mammalian cells.journal articl
New Distributional Records of Two Termitophilous Rove Beetles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) in Japan
Get PDFTwo rove beetle species in the tribe Termitohospitini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae), Sinophilus yukoae MaruyaMa et Iwata, 2002 and Japanophilus hojoi MaruyaMa et Iwata, 2002, are termitophiles associated with the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus ShIrakI, 1909 (Blattodea, Rhinotermitidae). Sinophilus yukoae was recorded from the Nansei Archipelago (Iheya-jima, Ishigaki-jima, and Iriomote-jima Islands), and J. hojoi was reported from the Tokara Archipelago (Nakano-shima and Suwanose-jima Islands) and Yaku-shima Island in the original descriptions (MaruyaMa & Iwata, 2002). Subsequently, both beetles were collected in coastal regions of Wakayama Prefecture, Central Japan (MaruyaMa et al., 2012). We renew the distributional ranges of the two beetles here.journal articl
Overcoming Steric Hindrance in Aryl‐Aryl Homocoupling via On‐Surface Copolymerization
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Orchestrated ensemble activities constitute a hippocampal memory engram
Get PDFThe brain stores and recalls memories through a set of neurons, termed engram cells. However, it is unclear how these cells are organized to constitute a corresponding memory trace. We established a unique imaging system that combines Ca2+ imaging and engram identification to extract the characteristics of engram activity by visualizing and discriminating between engram and non-engram cells. Here, we show that engram cells detected in the hippocampus display higher repetitive activity than non-engram cells during novel context learning. The total activity pattern of the engram cells during learning is stable across post-learning memory processing. Within a single engram population, we detected several sub-ensembles composed of neurons collectively activated during learning. Some sub-ensembles preferentially reappear during post-learning sleep, and these replayed sub-ensembles are more likely to be reactivated during retrieval. These results indicate that sub-ensembles represent distinct pieces of information, which are then orchestrated to constitute an entire memory.journal articl
Negative Regulation of the Mis17-Mis6 Centromere Complex by mRNA Decay Pathway and EKC/KEOPS Complex in Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Get PDFThe mitotic kinetochore forms at the centromere for proper chromosome segregation. Deposition of the centromere-specific histone H3 variant, spCENP-A/Cnp1, is vital for the formation of centromere-specific chromatin and the Mis17-Mis6 complex of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe is required for this deposition. Here we identified extragenic suppressors for a Mis17-Mis6 complex temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant, mis17-S353P, using whole-genome sequencing. The large and small daughter nuclei phenotype observed in mis17-S353P was greatly rescued by these suppressors. Suppressor mutations in two ribonuclease genes involved in the mRNA decay pathway, exo2 and pan2, may affect Mis17 protein level, as mis17 mutant protein level was recovered in mis17-S353P exo2 double mutant cells. Suppressor mutations in EKC/KEOPS complex genes may not regulate Mis17 protein level, but restored centromeric localization of spCENP-A/Cnp1, Mis6 and Mis15 in mis17-S353P. Therefore, the EKC/KEOPS complex may inhibit Mis17-Mis6 complex formation or centromeric localization. Mutational analysis in protein structure indicated that suppressor mutations in the EKC/KEOPS complex may interfere with its kinase activity or complex formation. Our results suggest that the mRNA decay pathway and the EKC/KEOPS complex negatively regulate Mis17-Mis6 complex-mediated centromere formation by distinct and unexpected mechanisms.journal articl
Second order structure functions for higher powers of turbulent velocity
Get PDFWe experimentally study the temporal second-order structure functions for integer powers of turbulent fluid velocity fluctuations [Formula: see text], in three dimensional (3D) and two dimensional (2D) turbulence. Here [Formula: see text] is a composite time-series constructed by averaging the concurrent time-series ([Formula: see text]) sampled at N spatially distributed Eulerian points. The N = 1 case has been extensively studied for velocity fluctuations (m = 1) and to a lesser extent for m > 1. The averaging method in case of N > 1 diverges from the Kolmogorov framework and has not been studied because fluctuations in [Formula: see text] are expected to smooth with increasing N leaving behind uninteresting large-scale mean flow information, but we find this is not so. We report the evolution of scaling exponents [Formula: see text] for [Formula: see text] in going from a single (N = 1) to a spatial average over several Eulerian points ([Formula: see text]). Our 3D experiments in a tank with rotating jets at the floor show [Formula: see text] for all m-values in agreement with prior results and evolves to an asymptotic value of [Formula: see text]. The evolution of [Formula: see text] follows the functional form [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] points is the only fit parameter representing the convergence rate constant. Results for the 2D experiments conducted in a gravity assisted soap film in the enstrophy cascade regime are in sharp contrast with their 3D counterparts. Firstly [Formula: see text] varies polynomially with m and asymptotes to a constant value at m = 5. Secondly, the evolution of [Formula: see text] is logarithmic [Formula: see text], where A and B are fit parameters and eventually deviates at large N and asymptotes to [Formula: see text] for all m. The starkly different convergence forms (exponential in 3D versus logarithmic in 2D) may be interpreted as a signature of inter-scale couplings in the respective turbulent flows by decomposing the two-point correlator for [Formula: see text] into a self-correlation and cross-correlation term. In addition to aiding in the theoretical development, the results may also have implications for determination of resolution in 2D turbulence experiments and simulations, wind energy and atmospheric boundary layer turbulence.journal articl