Arf6 anchors Cdr2 nodes at the cell cortex to control cell size at division

Fission yeast cells prevent mitotic entry until a threshold cell surface area is reached. The protein kinase Cdr2 contributes to this size control system by forming multiprotein nodes that inhibit Wee1 at the medial cell cortex. Cdr2 node anchoring at the cell cortex is not fully understood. Through a genomic screen, we identified the conserved GTPase Arf6 as a component of Cdr2 signaling. Cells lacking Arf6 failed to divide at a threshold surface area and instead shifted to volume-based divisions at increased overall size. Arf6 stably localized to Cdr2 nodes in its GTP-bound but not GDP-bound state, and its guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), Syt22, was required for both Arf6 node localization and proper size at division. In arf6Δ mutants, Cdr2 nodes detached from the membrane and exhibited increased dynamics. These defects were enhanced when arf6Δ was combined with other node mutants. Our work identifies a regulated anchor for Cdr2 nodes that is required for cells to sense surface area.

Accelerating AutoDock VINA with GPUs

AutoDock VINA is one of the most-used docking tools in the early stage of modern drug discovery. It uses a Monte-Carlo based iterated search method and multithreading parallelism scheme on multicore machines to improve docking accuracy and speed. However, virtual screening from huge compound databases is common for modern drug discovery, which puts forward a great demand for higher docking speed of AutoDock VINA. Therefore, we propose a fast method VINA-GPU, which expands the Monte-Carlo based docking lanes into thousands of ones coupling with a largely reduced number of search steps in each lane. Furthermore, we develop a heterogeneous OpenCL implementation of VINA-GPU that leverages thousands of computational cores of a GPU, and obtains a maximum of 403-fold acceleration on docking runtime when compared with a quad-threaded AutoDock VINA implementation. In addition, a heuristic function was fitted to determine the proper size of search steps in each lane for a convenient usage. The VINA-GPU code can be freely available at https://github.com/DeltaGroupNJUPT/Vina-GPU for academic usage.

Accelerating AutoDock VINA with GPUs

AutoDock VINA is one of the most-used docking tools in the early stage of modern drug discovery. It uses a Monte-Carlo based iterated search method and multithreading parallelism scheme on multicore machines to improve docking accuracy and speed. However, virtual screening from huge compound databases is common for modern drug discovery, which puts forward a great demand for higher docking speed of AutoDock VINA. Therefore, we propose a fast method VINA-GPU, which expands the Monte-Carlo based docking lanes into thousands of ones coupling with a largely reduced number of search steps in each lane. Furthermore, we develop a heterogeneous OpenCL implementation of VINA-GPU that leverages thousands of computational cores of a GPU, and obtains a maximum of 403-fold acceleration on docking runtime when compared with a quad-threaded AutoDock VINA implementation. In addition, a heuristic function was fitted to determine the proper size of search steps in each lane for a convenient usage. The VINA-GPU code can be freely available at https://github.com/DeltaGroupNJUPT/VINA-GPU for academic usage.

Experimental investigation and parameter optimization of Cr2O3 atmospheric plasma spray nanocoatings

In this research, Cr2O3 ceramic nano-sized powder particles were prepared using ball milling and then were granulated to reach the proper size for spraying. Afterward, Cr2O3 nano-coatings were deposited by atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) process onto stainless steel substrates. To optimize APS parameters, spraying was carried out under six conditions with different parameters. Microstructures of the elemental/milled powder and coatings were characterized via a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) equipped with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). In this research, Cr2O3 coatings were deposited under different spraying conditions to understand the effect of APS parameters on the splat formation, deposition efficiency, and porosities of the coatings. After parameter optimization, spraying was performed under a high deposition efficiency of 46.0±1.3%. The optimized Cr2O3 coatings showed porosity content, Knoop microhardness, and adhesive strengths of 8.7±2.2%, 823±27 HK0.2, and 49±4 MPa, respectively; making them a good candidate for industrial use.

Face Proportions, and Analysis of Maxillary Anterior Teeth and Facial Proportions in a Thai Population

Background: Esthetics is the primary consideration for patients looking for prosthetic treatment. Determining the facial types of Thai populations is important because most studies conducted in Caucasian populations mention their facial types, and describe the gender comparisons, and GP of the teeth. Objectives: This study compared facial proportions, analyzed the maxillary anterior teeth proportions and determined the relationships between teeth with facial measurements using the Golden Proportion (GP) and Golden Standard (GS) in a Thai population. Methods: A total of 200 students (18-35 years) with well-aligned maxillary anterior teeth participated in this study. Face heights and widths were measured from the face using digital calipers and faces were classified as narrow, average, and broad. Teeth and face proportions were compared with GP and GS. One-way ANOVA was performed to compare maxillary anterior teeth proportions and facial proportions with different face types (α= 0.05). Pearson’s correlation was used (α= 0.05) to determine the correlation between facial proportion and teeth dimension among different facial types. Results: The findings showed 82.50% narrow face, 13.50% average, and 4% broad face among Thai subjects. No GP or GS was found in the face and anterior teeth, but teeth and face proportions other than GP and GS were found. No significant correlation was found between the Width of the Central Incisor (WCI) with interpupillary distance and alar width. Conclusion: In this study, the GP was not found in the facial and teeth proportion. The data obtained from this study may help to provide guidelines for prosthetic and orthodontic management and help to select the proper size and form of the maxillary anterior teeth to achieve proper esthetic outcomes in the Thai population.

Arf6 anchors Cdr2 nodes at the cell cortex to control cell size at division

Fission yeast cells prevent mitotic entry until a threshold cell surface area is reached. The protein kinase Cdr2 contributes to this size control system by forming multiprotein nodes that inhibit Wee1 at the medial cell cortex. Cdr2 node anchoring at the cell cortex is not fully understood. Through a genomic screen, we identified the conserved GTPase Arf6 as a component of Cdr2 signaling. Cells lacking Arf6 failed to divide at a threshold surface area and instead shifted to volume-based divisions at increased overall size. Arf6 stably localized to Cdr2 nodes in its GTP-bound but not GDP-bound state, and its GEF (guanine nucleotide exchange factor) Syt22 was required for both Arf6 node localization and proper size at division. In arf6∆ mutants, Cdr2 nodes detached from the membrane and exhibited increased dynamics. These defects were enhanced when arf6∆ was combined with other node mutants. Our work identifies a regulated anchor for Cdr2 nodes that is required for cells to sense surface area.

Exploration on Research Methods for Exploring Human Response to Luminous Environment with Chromogenic Windows Applied

Chromogenic windows enable both energy-saving and daylighting regulation. However, the human response to the luminous environment affected by them is difficult to test, since their features of dynamic change and tinting automatically. This study explores the research methods, including experimental design and statistical analysis, by literature review and an experiment demonstration. The results show that a proper size of the test room is significant to obtain desired data, and the advanced VR technologies have the potential to be applied for testing these dynamic variables. Bayesian approaches are recommended to be tried and get more accurate interference about the experimental results.

COMPLETE SUBSET AVERAGING FOR QUANTILE REGRESSIONS

We propose a novel conditional quantile prediction method based on complete subset averaging (CSA) for quantile regressions. All models under consideration are potentially misspecified, and the dimension of regressors goes to infinity as the sample size increases. Since we average over the complete subsets, the number of models is much larger than the usual model averaging method which adopts sophisticated weighting schemes. We propose to use an equal weight but select the proper size of the complete subset based on the leave-one-out cross-validation method. Building upon the theory of Lu and Su (2015, Journal of Econometrics 188, 40–58), we investigate the large sample properties of CSA and show the asymptotic optimality in the sense of Li (1987, Annals of Statistics 15, 958–975) We check the finite sample performance via Monte Carlo simulations and empirical applications.

Computationally efficient source grid selection and source interpolation in computational aeroacoustics applied to an axial fan.

The noise generation of an axial fan is mainly caused by flow-induced noise and can therefore be extracted from its aeroacoustics. To do so, a hybrid approach separating flow and acoustics is well suited due to its low Mach number. Such a computationally efficient hybrid workflow requires a robust conservative mesh-to-mesh transformation of the acoustic sources as well as a suitable mesh refinement to guarantee good convergence behavior. This contribution focuses on the mesh-to-mesh transformation, comparing two interpolation algorithms of different complexity towards the applicability to the aeroacoustic computation of an axial fan. The basic cell-centroid approach is generally suited for fine computational acoustic (CA) meshes and low phase shift, while the more complex cut-volume method generally yields better results for coarse acoustic meshes. While the cell-centroid interpolation scheme produces source artifacts inside the propagation domain, a grid study using the grid convergence index shows monotonic convergence behavior for both interpolation methods. By selection of a proper size for the source grid and source interpolation algorithm, the computational effort of the experimentally validated simulation model could be reduced by a factor 4.06.

Nano-powered nanorobots offer promises in gene therapy and nanomedicine

Cancer-fighting, blood-roaming Nanorobots have the potential to transform our lives, but they have yet to demonstrate their use in real-world settings. This review describes the requirements for a nanomotor to survive the in vivo environment, locate its targets, operate as needed, and terminate when the mission is complete. A nanorobot should be the proper size, constructed of biocompatible or biodegradable materials, and capable of rapid, autonomous propulsion through a network of blood arteries with a flow rate of about cm s1. A major transformation of the existing system is now required, since progress is reported across multiple laboratories and in different areas. Other options exist, such as hybrid nanomotors that combine chemotaxis with biological propulsion.