358 research outputs found

    Interactive Polymedia Pixel and Protocol for Collaborative creative content generation on urban digital media displays

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    This research is an investigation into a creative and technical 'pixel' element that may facilitate Urban Digital Media, a field that inhabits the intersection between architecture, information and culture in the arena of technology and building. It asks how contemporary requirements of public space in our everyday life, such as adaptability, new modes of communication and transformative environments that offer flexibility for future needs and uses, can be addressed by a new form of public display, assembled through the use of an advanced pixel, described as an interactive Polymedia Pixel with situated media device protocol. The weakness of many current media facades for building-scale interactive installation environments lies in the dearth of quality creative content and unresponsiveness in terms of potential human factors, richness of locative situation and contextual interaction (Sauer, 2004). Media facades have evolved from simple 2D visual displays to 3D voxel arrays for depicting static and moving images with a spatial depth dimension (Haeusler, 2009). As a subsequent step in this development, the research investigates a display that reacts to the need for empathetic and responsive urban digital media; integrates multiple modalities; smart energy-saving; and collaborative community engagement. The Polymedia Pixel, which is presented in its research and development in this paper, contributes to the evolution of building-scale interactive installation environments. The paper firstly discusses the attributes of the Polymedia Pixel in order to address the above mentioned weaknesses of public displays. In responding to these necessities, the prototype of the developed Polymedia Pixel with its technology is outlined. The Polymedia Pixel reserach aims to addres

    On Representations Of Affine Temperley-Lieb Algebras, II

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    . We study some non-semisimple representations of affine Temperley--Lieb algebras and related cellular algebras. In particular, we classify extensions between simple standard modules. Moreover, we construct a completion which is an infinite dimensional cellular algebra. 1. Introduction The affine Temperley--Lieb algebra, TL( b A n\Gamma1 ), is an infinite dimensional algebra which occurs as a quotient of the Hecke algebra associated to a Coxeter system of type b A n\Gamma1 . It occurs naturally in the context of statistical mechanics [10, 11], and may be thought of as an algebra of diagrams (see [3, x4]). In [6], the second author used the diagram calculus and the theory of cellular algebras as described by Graham and Lehrer [4] to classify and characterise most finite dimensional irreducible modules for TL( b A n\Gamma1 ) and for a larger algebra of diagrams, D n . In fact, all simple modules for these algebras are finite dimensional; this follows for example from [12, 13.10.3]. In g..

    An Open and Shut Genome: The Dynamic Relationship between DNA Sequence, Transcription Factors, and Chromatin in S. cerevisiae

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    Transcription factors bind to regulatory regions to help activate or repress genes. Compaction of the genome into nucleosomes helps reduce the physical space that must be sampled to find in vivo targets, yet forces transcription factors and histones to compete for access to DNA. The equilibrium of this competition can be altered via post-translational modifications of the histone core and regulation of nucleosome position. I examined the differential contributions of DNA sequence, transcription factors, and chromatin to the regulation of gene expression in the model organism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. While transcription factors bind DNA in a sequence specific fashion, the contribution of DNA in determining in vivo usage of consensus sequences is specific to the biological role of the transcription factor itself. Chromatin shows limited changes in different growth conditions, but localized changes surrounding transcription factor binding sites are evident. Chromatin stability appears to be regulated by the underlying DNA sequence of the genome and modified by active mechanisms such as post-translational modifications. Together, these processes establish stable chromatin in the body of genes and unstable chromatin at promoters. Depletion of nucleosomes is sufficient to alter transcription of 50% of the yeast genome, suggesting that chromatin plays a major role in regulating gene expression via regulating DNA accessibility to transcription factors as well as less direct effects, such as blocking assembly of the transcriptional machinery

    Quasi-hereditary covers of Temperley-Lieb algebras and relative dominant dimension

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    Many connections and dualities in representation theory can be explained using quasi-hereditary covers in the sense of Rouquier. The concepts of relative dominant and codominant dimension with respect to a module, introduced recently by the first-named author, are important tools to evaluate and classify quasi-hereditary covers. In this paper, we prove that the relative dominant dimension of the regular module of a quasi-hereditary algebra with a simple preserving duality with respect to a summand QQ of a characteristic tilting module equals twice the relative dominant dimension of a characteristic tilting module with respect to QQ. To resolve the Temperley-Lieb algebras of infinite global dimension, we apply this result to the class of Schur algebras S(2,d)S(2, d) and Q=VdQ=V^{\otimes d} the dd-tensor power of the 2-dimensional module and we completely determine the relative dominant dimension of the Schur algebra S(2,d)S(2, d) with respect to VdV^{\otimes d}. The qq-analogues of these results are also obtained. As a byproduct, we obtain a Hemmer-Nakano type result connecting the Ringel duals of qq-Schur algebras and Temperley-Lieb algebras. From the point of view of Temperley-Lieb algebras, we obtain the first complete classification of their connection to their quasi-hereditary covers formed by Ringel duals of qq-Schur algebras. These results are compatible with the integral setup, and we use them to deduce that the Ringel dual of a qq-Schur algebra over the ring of Laurent polynomials over the integers together with some projective module is the best quasi-hereditary cover of the integral Temperley-Lieb algebra.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure. Comments are welcom

    The role of Set2, transcription factor residence, and nucleosome spacing in the dynamic access of genomic information

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    DNA is a heteropolymer that serves as a mutable form of storage for genomic information. Nucleosomes condense genomes by wrapping 147 bp of negatively charged DNA around a positively charged histone core. Histone modifications and selective placement of nucleosomes expand and allow for regulated access of the information content in DNA. Understanding and predicting the placement and organization of nucleosomes, as well as the dynamics of genome utilization, is therefore critical for expanding our knowledge of life. A complex set of machinery regulates RNA polymerase II passage through a nucleosomal template. Loss of the histone H3K36 methyltransferase, SET2, leads to aberrant (cryptic) transcription initiation from within the coding region of genes due to an inability to regulate chromatin reassembly following transcription. We used whole genome microarrays to map and identify sites of aberrant transcription initiation in set2Δ. We developed a statistically principled algorithm to show there is no evidence that cryptic initiation occurs more frequently in long or infrequently transcribed genes. I adapted an assay to study the residence dynamics of the S. cerevisiae transcription factor, Rap1, genome-wide. Rap1 binds with a long residence at highly transcribed genes promoters. These sites typically have a high Rap1 affinity motif and low in vitro affinity for the formation of nucleosomes. In contrast, we find that sites with short Rap1 binding typically have high nucleosome occupancy and fast histone turnover. We propose that an active regulated competition between transcription factors and nucleosomes can regulate transcription factor residence and function. The HMGB class of proteins is known to influence the dynamics of nucleosomes and transcription factors. We mapped the distribution of the major nuclear HMGB containing proteins by ChIP-seq, genome accessibility using FAIRE-seq, and mapped nucleosomes using MNase-seq in an HMGB mutant. We identified linker length differences between several strains. This linker length change allowed us to identify invariant nucleosome boundaries and test the underlying principles of nucleosome positioning in S. cerevisiae. Collectively, these studies provide a richer picture of how DNA access is regulated by complex nucleosome-mediated mechanisms.Doctor of Philosoph

    The genomic distribution and function of NFI and histone variant H2A.Z during C. elegans development

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    Development relies on precise spatial and temporal access of the transcription regulatory machinery to genomic information. Throughout development, transcription factors bind a discrete set of specific targets that cannot be predicted through sequence alone. Identification and access to regulatory elements is heavily influenced by the heterogeneous chromatin landscape that packages eukaryotic genomes. Local chromatin environments may specify a genomic index of sequence availability and genome function. To begin to examine this genomic index in development, I mapped the occupancy of a developmentally essential variant histone, H2A.Z, and a model transcription factor, NFI-1. In one of the first utilizations of Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation on genomic DNA microarrays (ChIP-chip) in C. elegans, I show that the histone variant H2A.Z occupies a subset of promoters that tend to be required for development and occupied by RNA Polymerase II. As in other metazoans, we show that C. elegans H2A.Z is required for proper development. H2A.Z identifies transcription start sites in both canonical genes and genes likely to be independently regulated within operons. Fewer sites of H2A.Z occupancy exist on the X chromosome, though the data suggests no direct role for H2A.Z in dosage compensation. Our data suggests H2A.Z plays a vital role in establishing or maintaining a specialized chromatin environment at developmental promoters. We then mapped the in vivo binding of the animal-specific transcription factor, NFI. Despite a overabundance of the discovered binding motif in the genome, NFI binds few sites in vivo. There is little difference in the in vitro and in vivo sequence affinity of NFI. In vivo NFI sites have low nucleosome occupancy, suggesting that nucleosomes positioned at NFI binding sites may be susceptible to loss. C. elegans NFI targets are conserved, and 84% of the C. briggsae homologs have NFI promoter motifs. This study provides a basis for understanding NFI function and recruitment to a paucity of in vivo sites, despite an abundance of sequence motifs. These studies present the first genome-wide maps of a chromatin component and transcription factor in C. elegans and provide a foundation for future studies of chromatin and transcription factor-genome interactions in a native developmental context

    Chromatin Profiles of Human Cells in Health and Disease Using FAIRE

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    Breast cancer is a heterogenous disease comprised of molecularly distinct subtypes with diverse clinical outcomes. Understanding the molecular composition of each subtype will aid in the effective diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The composition and activity of subtype-selective regulatory pathways operate, in part, through binding of proteins at distinct sites throughout the genome, often referred to as regulatory elements, to govern levels of gene expression. One of the characteristics of these binding events is the displacement of nucleosomes. Here we have developed a technique called FAIRE (Formaldehyde-Assisted Isolation of Regulatory Elements), which is capable of the genome-wide identification of active regulatory elements in human cells based on the nucleosome-depleted nature of these sites. Using FAIRE we have identified the genome-wide set of active regulatory elements in the luminal and basal-like tumor subtypes. Here most of the active regulatory elements were distinct to each subtype and tended to occur not at transcriptional start sites, but at distal regulatory elements. Many of these unique sites also reflected the activity of the regulatory mechanisms present in a given subtype. For example, in the hormone-responsive luminal cells we detected strong FAIRE signals at estrogen-receptor alpha binding sites, whereas the signals are diminished or absent in the hormone nonresponsive basal-like cells. These distal regulatory elements tended to be clustered to form distinct genomic domains containing the set of all expressed genes in the respective subtype, regardless of whether the gene was differentially expressed between the subtypes. This suggests that the combination of gene expression and the subtype-selective active regulatory elements provides an expanded understanding of the molecular complexity between subtypes. The subtype-selective regulatory elements were also enriched with sequence motifs for DNA-binding proteins, which included factors known to be active in the respective subtypes. The remaining sequence motifs should serve as a useful starting point for the identification of additional candidates that distinguish the subtypes, especially for the relatively uncharacterized basal-like subtype. We also used FAIRE to investigate the set of active regulatory elements associated with the transformation of a mammary epithelial cell line to a cancerous phenotype, which included a subset of the population becoming cancer stem cells. The transformed state was achieved with only modest changes in the set of active regulatory elements (5%). The transformation can instead be attributed to relatively subtle changes in the expression of transcription factors that share a common DNA-binding site, which through both competitive and cooperative interactions at existing regulatory elements alter regulatory interactions and global expression levels. Examination of the cancer stem cells, isolated by flow-cytometry, using FAIRE revealed quite unexpectedly that these cells were in fact derived from a separate starting population. Although these findings ultimately left us with many unanswered questions, it provided us an opportunity to explore the properties regulatory components underlying the cancer stem cell phenotype. Together, these findings indicate that FAIRE will be a powerful tool for discovery of the molecular characteristics underlying cancer and that FAIRE holds promise as a clinical diagnostic tool

    Histone H3 Lysine 36 modification distinguishes transcribed and non-transcribed regions of the S. cerevisiae genome

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    Chromatin plays a dynamic role in regulating gene transcription. Regulation of accessibility of DNA template is mediated in part by nucleosome occupancy such that nucleosomes are relatively depleted upstream of genes and relatively enriched in the coding regions. One of the factors that influence this differential nucleosome occupancy is histone post translational modifications. One such modification is dimethylation of histone H3 at Lysine 36 (H3K36me2). It is mediated by Set2, a histone methyl transferase (HMT) in yeast which had been shown to associate with RNA polymerase II (RNA pol-II) during transcription elongation at individual loci. To study the role of Set2 in gene regulation, I sought to determine the genome wide localization of H3K36me2. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by DNA microarray hybridization (ChIP-chip), we show that H3K36me2 is predominantly localized to RNA pol-II transcribed regions and is depleted in the regulatory (promoter) regions genome-wide. Mating loci, telomeres, RNA pol-III transcribed regions have scarce or low levels of H3K36me2. H3K36me2 modification begins within RNA pol-II transcribed ORFs at approximately same location, independent of the length of the ORF. This further confirms that Set2 associates with RNA pol-II after the initiation phase of transcription. Levels of H3K36me2 do not correlate with the transcriptional frequencies of genes. However, genes that are transcribed at some detectably level tend to have higher levels of H3K36me2 than genes that are completely repressed. H3K36me2 therefore acts as a mark that demarcates coding and regulatory regions. The function of such a mark became clear with the finding by other groups that localization of Set2 and H3K36me2 at coding regions was essential for maintaining the fidelity of transcriptional initiation. Absence of Set2 leads to hyperacetylation in the coding regions and, as a consequence, aberrant initiation events. My studies show that H3K36me2 is a chromatin mark that demarcates functionally distinct regions of the genome by marking the coding regions specifically. Studies by others show that this localization of H3K36me2 is important for maintaining proper chromatin structure. H3 Lysine 36 is also acetylated and ChIP-chip analysis showed that H3K36ac is enriched in the promoter regions in the entire yeast genome. The function of H3K36ac is not yet known but it is possible that one way H3K36me2 is restricted to the coding regions by acetylating this residue in the regulatory regions. Another way organisms demarcate specific functional boundaries is by restricting tri methyl Lysine 4 at histone H3 (H3K4me3) to the 5' end of coding regions. Ctk1, a kinase that has been shown to phosphorylate Serine 2 of C-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA pol-II was shown to regulate the levels of H3K4me3. Ctk1 is required for the recruitment of Set2 to RNA pol-II. My genome wide studies show that absence of Ctk1 causes spreading of H3K4me3 into the 3' region of ORFs globally resulting in disruption of chromatin structure within the ORFs and occurrence of aberrant transcription initiation. These studies show that specific histone modification patterns are important for maintaining chromatin structure. Organisms have developed multiple mechanisms to ensure proper localization of these modifications disruption of which could cause disturbances in transcriptional programs

    Enhanced Lieb-Robinson bounds for a class of Bose-Hubbard type Hamiltonians

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    Several recent works have considered Lieb-Robinson bounds (LRBs) for Bose-Hubbard-type Hamiltonians. For certain special classes of initial states (e.g., states with particle-free regions or perturbations of stationary states), the velocity of information propagation was bounded by a constant in time, vCv\leq C, similarly to quantum spin systems. However, for the more general class of bounded-density initial states, the first-named author together with Vu and Saito derived the velocity bound vCtD1v\leq C t^{D-1}, where DD is the spatial lattice dimension. For D2D\geq 2, this bound allows for accelerated information propagation. It has been known since the work of Eisert and Gross that some systems of lattice bosons are capable of accelerated information propagation. It is therefore a central question to understand under what conditions the bound vCtD1v\leq C t^{D-1} can be enhanced. Here, we prove that additional physical constraints, translation-invariance and a pp-body repulsion of the form nxpn_x^p with p>D+1p>D+1, lead to a LRB with vCtDpD1v\leq C t^{\frac{D}{p-D-1}} for any initial state of bounded energy density. We also identify examples of quantum states which show that no further enhancement is possible without using additional dynamical constraints.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figure
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