1,490 research outputs found
Determining the sub-cellular localization of proteins within Caenorhabditis elegans body wall muscle.
No full textDetermining the sub-cellular localization of a protein within a cell is often an essential step towards understanding its function. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the relatively large size of the body wall muscle cells and the exquisite organization of their sarcomeres offer an opportunity to identify the precise position of proteins within cell substructures. Our goal in this study is to generate a comprehensive "localizome" for C. elegans body wall muscle by GFP-tagging proteins expressed in muscle and determining their location within the cell. For this project, we focused on proteins that we know are expressed in muscle and are orthologs or at least homologs of human proteins. To date we have analyzed the expression of about 227 GFP-tagged proteins that show localized expression in the body wall muscle of this nematode (e.g. dense bodies, M-lines, myofilaments, mitochondria, cell membrane, nucleus or nucleolus). For most proteins analyzed in this study no prior data on sub-cellular localization was available. In addition to discrete sub-cellular localization we observe overlapping patterns of localization including the presence of a protein in the dense body and the nucleus, or the dense body and the M-lines. In total we discern more than 14 sub-cellular localization patterns within nematode body wall muscle. The localization of this large set of proteins within a muscle cell will serve as an invaluable resource in our investigation of muscle sarcomere assembly and function
Michigan State University Professor Emeritus Donald A. Yates talks about Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges and his relationship with MSU
No full textIn a lecture entitled "Borges and MSU", Michigan State University Professor Emeritus Donald A. Yates discusses his long personal and professional relationship with acclaimed Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Yates describes Borges' childhood, reads from his work and tells of helping bring the author to MSU as an artist in residence in 1976. Yates says that knowing Borges "is probably the most important thing in my life". Yates is introduced by MSU Assistant Director of Libraries Peter Berg and MSU Professor Michael Koppisch
Donald Featherstone, 1918- 2013: iconic wargaming author
No full textDonald Featherstone became the iconic wargaming author of the 20th century, with over forty books on wargaming and military history. His first wargaming book in 1962, War Games, included multiple conceptual leaps to change the projectile firing toy cannon system used by H G Wells, into game systems that could be used to replicate all periods of warfare. His World War II service with the British Army tank regiment informed his later writing about the experience of the ordinary soldier from all ages of history. He used his eighteen year editorship of the Wargamer’s Newsletter to encourage and inspire many of the key amateur and professional wargamers who became key figures in the emerging hobby of wargaming and the professional use of wargaming for training and analysis
Architecture in tension: an examination of the position of the architect in the private and public sectors, focusing on the training and careers of Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) and Sir Donald Gibson (1908-1991)
No full textIn the early 1900s tensions began to appear within the architectural profession,
as private practitioners struggled to deal with the implications of professional
colleagues moving into public sector employment. Sir Basil Spence and Sir
Donald Gibson began their architectural training in the mid-1920s and, as
tensions between the sectors intensified, Spence entered private practice and
Gibson chose to enter the public sector. Each became an exemplar of his
chosen sector of the profession and yet both have, until recently, escaped
critical attention. The tensions between the public and private sectors of the
profession have been acknowledged within the historiography, but not received
detailed analysis.
This thesis advances the current historiography by presenting an examination
of the division between the sectors, focusing on the relationship between the
RIBA and the public sector union AASTA and assessing the influence of
AASTA on Gibson's Coventry City Architect's Department.
Through an examination of archival material, contemporary published material,
and buildings, this thesis builds on the work of the Sir Basil Spence Archive
Project, adding detailed accounts of his early life, architectural training, and
RIBA presidency, presenting new information and correcting certain aspects of
the accepted historiography. It likewise presents new information on Gibson's
early life and training and his central role in achieving improved status and
representation for the public sector. An analysis of selected projects provides a
comparative study of their contrasting approaches to architecture: the
technically informed, collaborative team-work of Gibson and the individual
artistry of Spence.
Both men played pivotal roles in reforming the RIBA and in changing public and
professional perceptions of the architect, nevertheless, the long lineage and
complex nature of tensions within the profession meant that the public/private
division was never be bridged and issues of status and representation
remained essentially immutable
Membrane extensions are associated with proper anterior migration of muscle cells during Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis
No full textC. elegans body wall muscle is formed after a series of well-orchestrated steps. With the onset of specification embryonic muscle cells accumulate under the hypodermal seam cells at the left and right sides of the embryo. Shortly thereafter they begin to migrate dorsally and ventrally resting beneath the dorsal and ventral hypodermis eventually forming the four muscle quadrants present upon hatching. In this study we describe the plasma membrane dynamics of these migrating cells and observe the extension of filopodia and lamellipodia during dorso-ventral migration but not during the earlier stages of accumulation. We also describe an anterior migration event during embryonic muscle morphogenesis, whereby the anterior-most pair of cells in each of the four muscle quadrants extends long processes to the anterior tip of the developing embryo. Anteriormost muscle cells then follow these extensions into their final positions in the developing embryo. Using RNAi and mutant analysis, we have identified laminin as being involved in mediating the dorsal-ventral muscle migrations. Finally we show that the α-integrin INA-1, the ephrin VAB-2 and its receptor VAB-1 and the Robo receptor SAX-3 indirectly promote the proper extension of the ventral anterior muscle processes by organizing the embryonic neurons so as to provide a clear path for muscle membrane extension.Peer reviewedfinal article publishedsax-3LamininC. elegansMuscleCell migrationina-1vab-
Discovery and characterization of novel manganese-selective cation diffusion facilitators as putative anthelminthic drug targets in Caenorhabditis elegans
No full textParasitic nematodes infect over 1.5 billion people worldwide and are a burden on the agricultural
and veterinary industries. Widespread use of the few available classes of anthelmintics have led
to the development of anthelmintic resistance amongst these parasitic helminths. It is imperative
that we find new therapeutics to address the looming threat of anthelminthic resistance. One
method for developing new chemotherapies is through rational drug design. Using C. elegans as
a surrogate for parasitic nematodes, we have taken the first steps to identify and characterize a
small group of putatively druggable “nematode-specific” proteins by generating null mutants and
endogenously-tagged reporters using CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology. To our knowledge,
this work is the first to define a family of novel manganese-selective cation diffusion facilitators
in C. elegans. Although these are not essential proteins and are unlikely to be good drug targets,
their newly discovered role in manganese tolerance advances our knowledge of the mechanisms
that underlie manganese biology and toxicity.Medicine, Faculty ofGraduat
The macroeconomics of the public sector deficit : the case of Morocco
No full textThis paper tries to uncover the reasons underlying the performance of the Moroccan economy. The author argues that wage moderation and judicious monetary policies were instrumental in restraining inflation. With one brief exception in 1983, monetary authorities remained firmly committed to eschew any inflationary financing of the budget deficit. This strategy could only succeed however because of the wide ranging system of credit and monetary regulations which worked to channel domestic funds toward the Treasury at relatively low costs. The prospects for the continuation of such a strategy are not favourable however. As far as the growth performance is concerned, it appears that it can be attributed to an outstanding export response to the new trade regime on the one hand and a set of favourable supply shocks, including a string of recordagricultural harvests and the collapse of real oil prices, on the other. The paper studies the evolution of the budget and its different components and argues that the reluctance by Morocco's policy makers to monetize existing budget deficits is well explained by the sharply unfavourable trade-offs between higher monetization and inflation existing in Morocco. It analyzes the implications that continuing budgetary disequilibria has on investment and saving decisions and finds that such implications may be substantial, even though they may not work their way exclusively through traditional interest rates channels.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Financial Intermediation
Donald O. Thompson: A remembrance
No full textThis paper was developed from the remarks delivered to honor Don Thompson by the banquet speakers at the 40th QNDE meeting, July 2013. Don died peacefully at his home just days later on July 29th after a two year battle with cancer. “Don was a tenacious fighter for what he believed in, and his vision and perseverance did much to establish NDE in both the US and wider global R&D community. He will be greatly missed by his many friends and colleagues in the NDE community”.This proceeding may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This proceeding appeared in Achenbach, Jan Drewes, G. Alers, Lester W. Schmerr Jr, and Leonard J. Bond. "Donald O. Thompson: A remembrance." AIP Conference Proceedings 1581, no. 1 (2014): 2135-2150. DOI: 10.1063/1.4865087. Posted with permission.</p
Evolution of the G+C content frontier in the rat cytomegalovirus genome
No full textWithin the 230138 bp of the rat cytomegalovirus (RCMV) genome, the G+C content changes abruptly at position 142644, constituting a G+C content frontier. To the left of this point, overall G+C content is 69.2%, and to the right it is only 47.6%. A region of extremely low G+C content (33.8%) is found in the 5 kb immediately to the right of the frontier, in which there are no predicted coding sequences. To the right of position 147501, the G+C content rises and predicted coding sequences reappear. However, these genes are much shorter (average 848bp, 50% G+C) than those in the left two-thirds of the genome (average 1462bp, 70% G+C). Whole genome alignment of several viruses indicates that the initial ultra-low G+C region appeared in the common ancestor of the genera Cytomegalovirus and Muromegalovirus, and that the lowering of G+C in the right third has been a subsequent process in the lineage leading to RCMV. The left two-thirds of RCMV has stop codon occurrences at 67.5% of their expected level, based on a modified Markov chain model of stop codon distribution, and the corresponding figure for the right third is 78%. Therefore, despite heavy mutation pressure, selective constraint has operated in the right third of the RCMV genome to maintain a degree of gene length unusual for such low G+C sequences
Talking to Oneself. A Semiotic Analysis of Donald Trump’s Hair Style
No full textThe article presents a semiotic analysis of Donald Trump’s hairstyle.
The exposition follows the inquiry step by step. Firstly the sample to
analyse is established. Any single text (verbal or visual) is linked to
the correspondent web resource so that the reader can compare
her/his view with the author’s. Incidentally, an explanation of how a
hairdo can be considered a text is given, in the frame of the semiotic
studies of clothing started by R. Barthes. Accordingly, hairdressing
is an act of dressing, which, in its turn, is a part of self-presentation
behaviour. The first level of the text, the expression, is then analysed,
establishing how Trump’s hairdressing is technically obtained. The
rest of the work is devoted to the most important semiotic element,
namely, the content or, following the pragmatic approach – adopted
by the author – interpretation. The interpretive model used to describe
the particular hairdo of the American President is that of fictional
narrations, resulting from a combination of the semiotics of text and
of Goffman’s theory of social role playing. Social narrations are explained
as well as their relations to social hierarchies. The first result
is that Donald Trump’s hairstyle is an idiolect, that is, a language spoken
only by one individual, and an aesthetic one, to be precise. To
find the specific interpretant of this particular self-presentation choice
we must move on to the metasemiotic level: the meaning of using a
language. Here a hypothesis emerges: Trump’s hair style communicates
a sort of self-presentation autism. The last step of the analysis
consists in the attempt at developing the pragmatic consequences of
the text. An attempt, of course, to be tested by future research
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