75,215 research outputs found

    Supplemental material for Mangrove Productivity Estimation using Modelling Approach and Tree Parameters Assessment

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    Supplemental Material for Mangrove Productivity Estimation using Modelling Approach and Tree Parameters Assessment by Waseem R. Khan, Syaizwan Z. Zulkifli, Mohamad Roslan B. M. Kasim, Ahmad Mustapha Pazi, Roslan Mostapa and M. Nazre in Tropical Conservation Science</p

    The Benefits of Being Economics Professor A (and not Z)

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    Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the convention in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been a first author more often than Professor Z, will have published more articles and experienced afaster growth rate over the course of her career as a result of reputation and visibility. Moreover, authors know that name ordering matters and indeed take ordering seriously: Several characteristics of an author group composition determine the decision to deviate from the default alphabetic name order to a significant extent.performance measurement, incentives, economists, name ordering

    Final word on Jersey Dutch

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    In this article, William Z. Shetter compares and contrasts the dialects that developed between different Dutch colonies in the New World. He explores in-depth the nuances of Jersey Dutch, and provides theories to explain how Dutch and colonial languages blended. The article is reprinted from American Speech, December 1958, Volum XXXIII, No. 4

    Two mechanisms regulate keratin K15 expression in keratinocytes:role of PKC/AP-1 and FOXM1 mediated signalling

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    Background: Keratin 15 (K15) is a type I keratin that is used as a marker of stem cells. Its expression is restricted to the basal layer of stratified epithelia, and the bulge in hair follicles. However, in certain clinical situations including oral lichen planus, K15 is induced in suprabasal layers, which is inconsistent with the role of a stem cell marker. This study provides insights into the mechanisms of K15 expression in the basal and differentiating keratinocytes. Methodology/Principal Findings: Human keratinocytes were differentiated by three different methods; suspension in methylcellulose, high cell density and treatment with phorbol ester. The expression of mRNA was determined by quantitative PCR and protein by western blotting and immunostaining. Keratinocytes in suspension suppressed ß1-integrin expression, induced differentiation-specific markers and K15, whereas FOXM1 (a cell cycle regulated protein) and K14 were downregulated. Rescuing ß1-integrin by either fibronectin or the arginine-glycine-aspartate peptide suppressed K15 but induced K14 and FOXM1 expression. Specific inhibition of PKCd, by siRNA, and AP-1 transcription factor, by TAM67 (dominant negative c-Jun), suppressed K15 expression, suggesting that PKC/AP-1 pathway plays a role in the differentiation-specific expression of K15. The basal cell-specific K15 expression may involve FOXM1 because ectopic expression of the latter is known to induce K15. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation, we have identified a single FOXM1 binding motif in the K15 promoter. Conclusions/Significance: The data suggests that K15 is induced during terminal differentiation mediated by the down regulation of ß1-integrin. However, this cannot be the mechanism of basal/stem cell-specific K15 expression in stratified epithelia, because basal keratinocytes do not undergo terminal differentiation. We propose that there are two mechanisms regulating K15 expression in stratified epithelia; differentiation-specific involving PKC/AP-1 pathway, and basal-specific mediated by FOXM1, and therefore the use of K15 expression as a marker of stem cells must be viewed with caution

    Botulinum Toxin A for the Treatment of Keloids

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    Introduction: Keloids are the result of excessive scar tissue formation. Besides their poor aesthetic appearance, keloids can be associated with severe clinical symptoms such as pain, itching, and rigidity. Unfortunately, most therapeutic approaches remain clinically unsatisfactory. Recently, injections with botulinum toxin A (BTA) were proposed for the treatment of established keloids in a clinical trial. In this study, we aimed to verify the effects of intralesional BTA for the treatment of therapy-resistant keloids using objective measurements. In addition, the underlying molecular mechanisms were investigated using cultured keloid-derived fibroblasts. Materials and Methods: Four patients received BTA (doses varying from 70 to 140 Speywood units per session) injected directly into their keloids every 2 months for up to 6 months. Differences in height and volume were evaluated clinically and measured with a 3-D optical profiling system. Keloid-derived fibroblasts were treated with different concentrations of BTA, and expression of collagen (COL)1A1, COL1A2, COL3A1, TGF-beta 1, TGF-beta 2, TGF-beta 3, fibronectin-1, laminin-beta 2, and alpha-SMA was determined by real-time quantitative PCR. MTT and BrdU assays were used to analyze the effects of BTA on fibroblast proliferation and metabolism. Results: Intralesional administration of BTA did not result in regression of keloid tissue. No differences in expression of ECM markers, collagen synthesis, or TGF-beta could be observed after BTA treatment of keloid fibroblasts. In addition, cell proliferation and metabolism of keloid fibroblasts was not affected by BTA treatment. Conclusion: The suggested clinical efficiency of intralesional BTA for the therapy of existent keloids could not be confirmed in this study. Based on our data, the potential mechanisms of action of BTA on keloid-derived fibroblasts remain unclear. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

    Logarithmic variance profiles and the corresponding f-1 spectra of temperature fluctuations in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

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    We report experimental results for the temperature variance 2(z) and the corresponding frequency spectra P(f) in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a cylindrical sample of aspect ratioT= D/L = 1:00 (D = 1:12 m is the diameter and L = 1:12 m the height). The measurements were conducted in the Rayleigh-number range 1011 < Ra < 1:35 1014 and Pr ' 0:8. For Ra = 1:35x1014, 2(z) could be described well by a logarithmic dependence on the vertical position z in a range of z 1 < z < z 2 with z 1 ' 70 and z 2 = 0:1L. Here L=(2Nu) is the thickness of a thin thermal sublayer adjacent to the horizontal plate where the heat flux (denoted by the Nusselt number Nu) is carried mostly by thermal diffusion. In the log layer, we found that the temperature spectra had a significant frequency range over which P(f) f with close to 1. As Ra decreased, increased so that the log layer became thinner. At Ra = 2:05 1011, z 2 < z 1 and therefore there was no range for a log layer. Correspondingly, the temperature spectrum near the horizontal plate did not have the f1 scaling form either

    Statistics of the subgrid scales after the shock-turbulence interaction

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    The interaction of a normal shock with isotropic turbulence (IT) represents a basic problem for studying some of the phenomena associated with high speed flows, such as hypersonic flight, supersonic combustion and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). In general, in practical applications, the shock width is much smaller than the turbulence scales and the upstream turbulent Mach number is modest. In this case, recent high resolution shock-resolved Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) (Ryu and Livescu, J. Fluid Mech., 756, R1, 2014) show that the interaction can be described by the Linear Interaction Approximation (LIA). By using LIA to alleviate the need to solve the shock, DNS post-shock data can be generated at much higher Reynolds numbers than previously possible. Here, such results with Taylor Reynolds number around 180180 are used to investigate the properties of the subgrid scales (SGS). In particular, it is shown that the shock interaction decreases the asymmetry of the SGS dissipation PDF as the shock Mach number increases, with a significant enhancement in size of the regions and magnitude of backscatter

    Transition to turbulence in a qblique shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction at M=15

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    Direct numerical simulations are carried out for different forcing techniques to trigger transition during the interaction between an oblique shock-wave and a laminar boundary-layer at M = 1.5. Three forcing methods are used: a) forcing of oblique unstable modes, whose shape and behaviour are determined by the local linear stability theory, b) broadband free-stream acoustic disturbances, and c) a cold plasma flow control device. While the oblique-mode breakdown is dominant for low-amplitude forcing, long streaky structures drive the transition process in a high-amplitude disturbance environment. LES are also performed on the experimental setup by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) from Novosibirsk State University with cold plasma actuation. As well as the disturbance type, the effect of Reynolds number and forcing amplitude will be investigated

    Triangular Constellations in Flows

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    Particles advected on the surface of a fluid can exhibit fractal clustering. The local structure of a fractal set is described by its dimension DD, which is the exponent of a power-law relating the mass N{\cal N} in a ball to its radius ε\varepsilon: NεD{\cal N}\sim \varepsilon^D. It is desirable to characterise the {\em shapes} of constellations of points sampling a fractal measure, as well as their masses. The simplest example is the distribution of shapes of triangles formed by triplets of points, which we investigate for fractals generated by chaotic dynamical systems. The most significant parameter describing the triangle shape is the ratio zz of its area to the radius of gyration squared. We show that the probability density of zz has a phase transition: P(z)P(z) is independent of ε\varepsilon and approximately uniform below a critical flow compressibility βc\beta_{\rm c}, which we estimate. For β>βc\beta>\beta_{\rm c} the distribution appears to be described by two power laws: P(z)zα1P(z)\sim z^{\alpha_1} when 1zzc(ε)1\gg z\gg z_{\rm c}(\varepsilon), and P(z)zα2P(z)\sim z^{\alpha_2} when zzc(ε)z\ll z_{\rm c}(\varepsilon)

    Using TF-IDF n-gram and word embedding cluster ensembles for author profiling: Notebook for PAN at CLEF 2017

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    This paper presents our approach and results for the 2017 PAN Author Profiling Shared Task. Language-specific corpora were provided for four langauges: Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Arabic. Each corpus consisted of tweets authored by a number of Twitter users labeled with their gender and the specific variant of their language which was used in the documents (e.g. Brazilian or European Portuguese). The task was to develop a system to infer the same attributes for unseen Twitter users. Our system employs an ensemble of two probabilistic classifiers: a Logistic regression classifier trained on TF-IDF transformed n-grams and a Gaussian Process classifier trained on word embedding clusters derived for an additional, external corpus of tweets
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