Search results for "Process"
showing 10 items of 22310 documents
Community composition and seasonal changes of archaea in coarse and fine air particulate matter
2018
Archaea are ubiquitous in terrestrial and marine environments and play an important role in biogeochemical cycles. Although air acts as the primary medium for their dispersal among different habitats, their diversity and abundance is not well characterized. The main reason for this lack of insight is that archaea are difficult to culture, seem to be low in number in the atmosphere, and have so far been difficult to detect even with molecular genetic approaches. However, to better understand the transport, residence time, and living conditions of microorganisms in the atmosphere as well as their effects on the atmosphere and vice versa, it is essential to study all groups of bioaerosols. Her…
Hierarchical architecture of sponge spicules: biocatalytic and structure-directing activity of silicatein proteins as model for bioinspired applicati…
2016
Since the first description of the silicateins, a group of enzymes that mediate the formation of the amorphous, hydrated biosilica of the skeleton of the siliceous sponges, much progress has been achieved in the understanding of this biomineralization process. These discoveries include, beside the proof of the enzymatic nature of the sponge biosilica formation, the dual property of the enzyme, to act both as a structure-forming and structure-guiding protein, and the demonstration that the initial product of silicatein is a soft, gel-like material that has to undergo a maturation process during which it achieves its favorable physical-chemical properties allowing the development of various t…
A Basic Architecture of an Autonomous Adaptive System With Conscious-Like Function for a Humanoid Robot.
2018
In developing a humanoid robot, there are two major objectives. One is developing a physical robot having body, hands, and feet resembling those of human beings and being able to similarly control them. The other is to develop a control system that works similarly to our brain, to feel, think, act, and learn like ours. In this article, an architecture of a control system with a brain-oriented logical structure for the second objective is proposed. The proposed system autonomously adapts to the environment and implements a clearly defined “consciousness” function, through which both habitual behavior and goal-directed behavior are realized. Consciousness is regarded as a function for effecti…
Decentralised trust-management inspired by ant pheromones
2017
Computational trust is increasingly utilised to select interaction partners in open technical systems consisting of heterogeneous, autonomous agents. Current approaches rely on centralised elements for managing trust ratings (i.e. control and provide access to aggregated ratings). Consider a grid computing application as illustrating example: agents share their computing resources and cooperate in terms of processing computing jobs. These agents are free to join and leave, and they decide on their own with whom to interact. The impact of malicious or uncooperative agents can be countered by only cooperating with agents that have shown to be benevolent: trust relationships are established. T…
Full-automatic computer aided system for stem cell clustering using content-based microscopic image analysis
2017
Abstract Stem cells are very original cells that can differentiate into other cells, tissues and organs, which play a very important role in biomedical treatments. Because of the importance of stem cells, in this paper we propose a full-automatic computer aided clustering system to assist scientists to explore potential co-occurrence relations between the cell differentiation and their morphological information in phenotype. In this proposed system, a multi-stage Content-based Microscopic Image Analysis (CBMIA) framework is applied, including image segmentation, feature extraction, feature selection, feature fusion and clustering techniques. First, an Improved Supervised Normalized Cuts (IS…
Survival of Enteric Viruses in the Environment and Food
2016
Enteric viruses are those human viruses that are primarily transmitted by the fecal-oral route, either by person-to-person contact or by ingestion of contaminated food or water. The importance of viral foodborne diseases is increasingly being recognized, and several international organizations have found that there is an upward trend in their incidence. Thus, in this review, state-of-the-art information regarding virus persistence in food and the environment is compiled.
Chemical messages from an ancient buried bottle: Metabolomics for wine archeochemistry.
2017
Restoration works in the old Clunisian Saint-Vivant monastery in Burgundy revealed an unidentified wine bottle (SV1) dating between 1772 and 1860. Chemical evidence for SV1 origin and nature are presented here using non-targeted Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance analyses. The SV1 chemical diversity was compared to red wines (Pinot Noir) from the Romanée Saint Vivant appellation and from six different vintages spanning from 1915 to 2009. The close metabolomic signature between SV1 and Romanée Saint Vivant wines spoke in favor of a filiation between these wines, in particular considering the Pinot noir grape variety. A further statistic…
Mesoglea Extracellular Matrix Reorganization during Regenerative Process in Anemonia viridis (Forskål, 1775)
2021
Given the anatomical simplicity and the extraordinary ability to regenerate missing parts of the body, Cnidaria represent an excellent model for the study of the mechanisms regulating regenerative processes. They possess the mesoglea, an amorphous and practically acellular extracellular matrix (ECM) located between the epidermis and the gastrodermis of the body and tentacles and consists of the same molecules present in the ECM of vertebrates, such as collagen, laminin, fibronectin and proteoglycans. This feature makes cnidarians anthozoans valid models for understanding the ECM role during regenerative processes. Indeed, it is now clear that its role in animal tissues is not just tissue su…
SNPs in bone-related miRNAs are associated with the osteoporotic phenotype
2017
AbstractBiogenesis and function of microRNAs can be influenced by genetic variants in the pri-miRNA sequences leading to phenotypic variability. This study aims to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) affecting the expression levels of bone-related mature microRNAs and thus, triggering an osteoporotic phenotype. An association analysis of SNPs located in pri-miRNA sequences with bone mineral density (BMD) was performed in the OSTEOMED2 cohort (n = 2183). Functional studies were performed for assessing the role of BMD-associated miRNAs in bone cells. Two SNPs, rs6430498 in the miR-3679 and rs12512664 in the miR-4274, were significantly associated with femoral neck BMD. Further, we…
Hydrogen Bond Fluctuations Control Photochromism in a Reversibly Photo-Switchable Fluorescent Protein
2015
Reversibly switchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs) are essential for high-resolution microscopy of biological samples, but the reason why these proteins are photochromic is still poorly understood. To address this problem, we performed molecular dynamics simulations of the fast switching Met159Thr mutant of the RSFP Dronpa. Our simulations revealed a ground state structural heterogeneity in the chromophore pocket that consists of three populations with one, two, or three hydrogen bonds to the phenolate moiety of the chromophore. By means of non-adiabatic quantum mechanics/molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrated that the subpopulation with a single hydrogen bond is responsible for of…