Inhibition fields for phyllotactic pattern formation: a simulation studyThis article is one of a selection of papers published on the Special Theme of Shoot Apical Meristems.

2006 ◽  
Vol 84 (11) ◽  
pp. 1635-1649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Smith ◽  
Cris Kuhlemeier ◽  
Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz

Most theories of phyllotaxis are based on the idea that the formation of new primordia is inhibited by the proximity of older primordia. Several mechanisms that could result in such an inhibition have been proposed, including mechanical interactions, diffusion of a chemical inhibitor, and signaling by actively transported substances. Despite the apparent diversity of these mechanisms, their pattern-generation properties can be captured in a unified manner by inhibition fields surrounding the existing primordia. In this paper, we introduce a class of fields that depend on both the spatial distribution and the age of previously formed primordia. Using current techniques to create geometrically realistic, growing apex surfaces, we show that such fields can robustly generate a wide range of spiral, multijugate, and whorled phyllotactic patterns and their transitions. The mathematical form of the inhibition fields suggests research directions for future studies of phyllotactic patterning mechanisms.


2011 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edyta M. Gola

Representatives of the family <em>Cactaceae</em> are characterized by a wide range of phyllotaxis. To assess the origin of this diversity, early stages of phyllotactic pattern formation were examined in seedlings. The analysis of the sequence of areole initiation revealed intertribal differences. In seedlings from the <em>Trichocereeae</em> (<em>Gymnocalycium</em>, <em>Rebutia</em>) and <em>Notocacteae</em> (<em>Parodia</em>) tribes, two opposite cotyledonal areoles developed as the first elements of a pattern. Usually, next pair of areoles was initiated perpendicularly to cotyledonal areoles, starting the decussate pattern. This pattern was subsequently transformed into bijugate or into simple spiral phyllotaxis. In seedlings from the <em>Cacteae</em> tribe (<em>Mammillaria</em> and <em>Thelocactus</em>), cotyledonal areoles were never observed and the first areoles always appeared in the space between cotyledons. It was either areole pair (mainly in <em>Mammillaria</em>), starting a decussate pattern, or a single areole (mainly in <em>Thelocactus</em>) quickly followed by areoles spirally arranged, usually in accordance with the main Fibonacci phyllotaxis. Differences in the initial stages of pattern formation do not fully explain the phyllotaxis diversity in mature cacti. Only two, the most common phyllotactic patterns occurred in the early development of studied seedlings, i.e. the main Fibonacci and the decussate pattern. Discrepancy in the range of phyllotactic spectra in seedlings and in mature plants suggests that phyllotaxis diversity emerges during further plant growth. Initial phyllotactic transformations, occurring already in the very early stages, indicate great plasticity of cactus growth and seem to support the hypothesis of the ontogenetic increase of phyllotaxis diversity due to transformations.



2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR NIKONOV ◽  
◽  
ANTON ZOBOV ◽  

The construction and selection of a suitable bijective function, that is, substitution, is now becoming an important applied task, particularly for building block encryption systems. Many articles have suggested using different approaches to determining the quality of substitution, but most of them are highly computationally complex. The solution of this problem will significantly expand the range of methods for constructing and analyzing scheme in information protection systems. The purpose of research is to find easily measurable characteristics of substitutions, allowing to evaluate their quality, and also measures of the proximity of a particular substitutions to a random one, or its distance from it. For this purpose, several characteristics were proposed in this work: difference and polynomial, and their mathematical expectation was found, as well as variance for the difference characteristic. This allows us to make a conclusion about its quality by comparing the result of calculating the characteristic for a particular substitution with the calculated mathematical expectation. From a computational point of view, the thesises of the article are of exceptional interest due to the simplicity of the algorithm for quantifying the quality of bijective function substitutions. By its nature, the operation of calculating the difference characteristic carries out a simple summation of integer terms in a fixed and small range. Such an operation, both in the modern and in the prospective element base, is embedded in the logic of a wide range of functional elements, especially when implementing computational actions in the optical range, or on other carriers related to the field of nanotechnology.



2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Mioc ◽  
Sorin Avram ◽  
Vasile Bercean ◽  
Mihaela Balan Porcarasu ◽  
Codruta Soica ◽  
...  

Angiogenesis plays an important function in tumor proliferation, one of the main angiogenic promoters being the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) which activates specific receptors, particularly VEGFR-2. Thus, VEGFR-2 has become an essential therapeutic target in the development of new antitumor drugs. 1,2,4-triazoles show a wide range of biological activities, including antitumor effect, which was documented by numerous reports. In the current study the selection of 5-mercapto-1,2,4-triazole structure (1H-3-styryl-5-benzylidenehydrazino-carbonyl-methylsulfanil-1,2,4-triazole, Tz3a.7) was conducted based on molecular docking that emphasized it as suitable ligand for VEGFR-2 and EGFR1 receptors. Compound Tz3a.7 was synthesized and physicochemically and biologically evaluated thus revealing a moderate antiproliferative activity against breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231.



1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuen-Huei Liou ◽  
Hsiang Hsi Lin ◽  
F. B. Oswald ◽  
D. P. Townsend

This paper presents a computer simulation showing how the gear contact ratio affects the dynamic load on a spur gear transmission. The contact ratio can be affected by the tooth addendum, the pressure angle, the tooth size (diametral pitch), and the center distance. The analysis presented in this paper was performed by using the NASA gear dynamics code DANST. In the analysis, the contact ratio was varied over the range 1.20 to 2.40 by changing the length of the tooth addendum. In order to simplify the analysis, other parameters related to contact ratio were held constant. The contact ratio was found to have a significant influence on gear dynamics. Over a wide range of operating speeds, a contact ratio close to 2.0 minimized dynamic load. For low-contact-ratio gears (contact ratio less than two), increasing the contact ratio reduced gear dynamic load. For high-contact-ratio gears (contact ratio equal to or greater than 2.0), the selection of contact ratio should take into consideration the intended operating speeds. In general, high-contact-ratio gears minimized dynamic load better than low-contact-ratio gears.



1998 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 100-105
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Norton ◽  
Mark H. Jones

The Open University is the UK's foremost distance teaching university. For over twenty five years we have been presenting courses to students spanning a wide range of degree level and vocational subjects. Since we have no pre-requisites for entry, a major component of our course profile is a selection of foundation courses comprising one each in the Arts, Social Science, Mathematics, Technology and Science faculties. The Science Faculty's foundation course is currently undergoing a substantial revision. The new course, entitled “S103: Discovering Science”, will be presented to students for the first time in 1998.



2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 2104
Author(s):  
Pedro Robles ◽  
Víctor Quesada

Eleven published articles (4 reviews, 7 research papers) are collected in the Special Issue entitled “Organelle Genetics in Plants.” This selection of papers covers a wide range of topics related to chloroplasts and plant mitochondria research: (i) organellar gene expression (OGE) and, more specifically, chloroplast RNA editing in soybean, mitochondria RNA editing, and intron splicing in soybean during nodulation, as well as the study of the roles of transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of OGE in plant adaptation to environmental stress; (ii) analysis of the nuclear integrants of mitochondrial DNA (NUMTs) or plastid DNA (NUPTs); (iii) sequencing and characterization of mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes; (iv) recent advances in plastid genome engineering. Here we summarize the main findings of these works, which represent the latest research on the genetics, genomics, and biotechnology of chloroplasts and mitochondria.



2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (15) ◽  
pp. 7773
Author(s):  
Neann Mathai ◽  
Conrad Stork ◽  
Johannes Kirchmair

Experimental screening of large sets of compounds against macromolecular targets is a key strategy to identify novel bioactivities. However, large-scale screening requires substantial experimental resources and is time-consuming and challenging. Therefore, small to medium-sized compound libraries with a high chance of producing genuine hits on an arbitrary protein of interest would be of great value to fields related to early drug discovery, in particular biochemical and cell research. Here, we present a computational approach that incorporates drug-likeness, predicted bioactivities, biological space coverage, and target novelty, to generate optimized compound libraries with maximized chances of producing genuine hits for a wide range of proteins. The computational approach evaluates drug-likeness with a set of established rules, predicts bioactivities with a validated, similarity-based approach, and optimizes the composition of small sets of compounds towards maximum target coverage and novelty. We found that, in comparison to the random selection of compounds for a library, our approach generates substantially improved compound sets. Quantified as the “fitness” of compound libraries, the calculated improvements ranged from +60% (for a library of 15,000 compounds) to +184% (for a library of 1000 compounds). The best of the optimized compound libraries prepared in this work are available for download as a dataset bundle (“BonMOLière”).



Mindfulness ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Matko ◽  
Ulrich Ott ◽  
Peter Sedlmeier

Abstract Objectives Meditation is an umbrella term for a vast range of contemplative practices. Former proposals have struggled to do justice to this variety. To our knowledge, there is to date no comprehensive overview of meditation techniques spanning all major traditions. The present studies aimed at providing such a comprehensive list of meditation techniques. Methods In a qualitative study, we compiled a collection of 309 meditation techniques through a literature search and interviews with 20 expert meditators. Then, we reduced this collection to 50 basic meditation techniques. In a second, quantitative study, 635 experienced meditators from a wide range of meditative backgrounds indicated how much experience they had with each of these 50 meditation techniques. Results Meditators’ responses indicated that our choice of techniques had been adequate and only two techniques had to be added. Our additional statistical and cluster analyses illustrated preferences for specific techniques across and within diverse traditions as well as sets of techniques commonly practiced together. Body-centered techniques stood out in being of exceptional importance to all meditators. Conclusions In conclusion, we found an amazing variety of meditation techniques, which considerably surpasses previous collections. Our selection of basic meditation techniques might be of value for future scientific investigations and we encourage researchers to use this set.



Author(s):  
Joanna Balcerek ◽  
Evelin Trejo ◽  
Kendall Levine ◽  
Paul Couey ◽  
Zoe V Kornberg ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives Serologic testing for antibodies to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in potential donors of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent plasma (CCP) may not be performed until after blood donation. A hospital-based recruitment program for CCP may be an efficient way to identify potential donors prospectively Methods Patients who recovered from known or suspected COVID-19 were identified and recruited through medical record searches and public appeals in March and April 2020. Participants were screened with a modified donor history questionnaire and, if eligible, were asked for consent and tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (IgG and IgM). Participants positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG were referred for CCP collection. Results Of 179 patients screened, 128 completed serologic testing and 89 were referred for CCP donation. IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 were detected in 23 of 51 participants with suspected COVID-19 and 66 of 77 participants with self-reported COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The anti–SARS-CoV-2 IgG level met the US Food and Drug Administration criteria for “high-titer” CCP in 39% of participants confirmed by PCR, as measured by the Ortho VITROS IgG assay. A wide range of SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels were observed. Conclusions A hospital-based CCP donor recruitment program can prospectively identify potential CCP donors. Variability in SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels has implications for the selection of CCP units for transfusion.



2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Divya Saxena ◽  
Jiannong Cao

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) is a novel class of deep generative models that has recently gained significant attention. GANs learn complex and high-dimensional distributions implicitly over images, audio, and data. However, there exist major challenges in training of GANs, i.e., mode collapse, non-convergence, and instability, due to inappropriate design of network architectre, use of objective function, and selection of optimization algorithm. Recently, to address these challenges, several solutions for better design and optimization of GANs have been investigated based on techniques of re-engineered network architectures, new objective functions, and alternative optimization algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, there is no existing survey that has particularly focused on the broad and systematic developments of these solutions. In this study, we perform a comprehensive survey of the advancements in GANs design and optimization solutions proposed to handle GANs challenges. We first identify key research issues within each design and optimization technique and then propose a new taxonomy to structure solutions by key research issues. In accordance with the taxonomy, we provide a detailed discussion on different GANs variants proposed within each solution and their relationships. Finally, based on the insights gained, we present promising research directions in this rapidly growing field.



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