Consideration of Categories and Tools for Holistic Thinking

Ethical thinking strives to understand the shape of the perceptions of all the stakeholders and eschews thinking in terms of simplistic categories or binary oppositions. This paper attempts to provide some tools for workers who are concerned about the quality of their practice and wish to find creative solutions. Tools can be used to enhance the ability of human service workers in both the corporate and the public sector to think creatively. Theoretical literacy is a response to a postmodernist reality of competing constructs of truth. The complexity of the variables with which we are faced needs to be considered in each instance, not brushed aside with a uniformly applied formula.     

Portugal: Recent Information from the Department of International Relations of the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica,Lisboa (INIC)

Science Policy News

Portugal: Recent Information from the Department of International Relations of the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica, Lisboa (INIC)     

Identification of the gene responsible for methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria, cblC type

Methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria, cblC type (OMIM 277400), is the most common inborn error of vitamin B(12) (cobalamin) metabolism, with about 250 known cases. Affected individuals have developmental, hematological, neurological, metabolic, ophthalmologic and dermatologic clinical findings. Although considered a disease of infancy or childhood, some individuals develop symptoms in adulthood. The cblC locus was mapped to chromosome region 1p by linkage analysis. We refined the chromosomal interval using homozygosity mapping and haplotype analyses and identified the MMACHC gene. In 204 individuals, 42 different mutations were identified, many consistent with a loss of function of the protein product. One mutation, 271dupA, accounted for 40% of all disease alleles. Transduction of wild-type MMACHC into immortalized cblC fibroblast cell lines corrected the cellular phenotype. Molecular modeling predicts that the C-terminal region of the gene product folds similarly to TonB, a bacterial protein involved in energy transduction for cobalamin uptake.     

基于工艺随机扰动的非均匀RLC互连线串扰分析

提出一种基于工艺随机扰动的非均匀RLC互连线串扰分析方法;同时建立了互连线随机扰动模型.通过解耦技术将耦合非均匀互连线模型转化为独立互连线模型,从而简化了分析,并利用新的逼近模型对数值结果进行复频域的函数逼近,提高了算法精度.最后将算法应用到多根耦合互连线互连的情况,拓展了算法可计算的电路规模.实验结果表明算法可以对工艺随机扰动下的耦合互连线串扰进行有效评估.     

Endothelial cells and VEGF in vascular development

The intricate patterning processes that establish the complex vascular system during development depend on a combination of intrinsic pre-patterning and extrinsic responses to environmental parameters. Mutational studies in mice and fish have shown that the vascular system is highly sensitive to genetic disruption and have identified potential targets for therapeutic interventions. New insights into non-vascular roles of vascular endothelial growth factor and the requirement for endothelial cells in adult organs and stem-cell niches highlight possible side effects of anti-angiogenic therapy and the need for new targets.     

Isolation of biologically active alkaloids from Korean mistletoeViscum album,coloratum

Summary Anticancer activity of certain highly cytotoxic alkaloids present in Korean mistletoe has been demonstrated in experimental animals. Unlike European mistletoe, no cytotoxic proteins were found in the Korean mistletoe.This work was presented at ACS/CSJ Chemical Congress, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 1–6, 1979.We are thankful to Jerome Foundation, Los Angeles, California for a generous grant for the support of this work.     

Metagenomic analysis of a permafrost microbial community reveals a rapid response to thaw

Permafrost contains an estimated 1672?Pg carbon (C), an amount roughly equivalent to the total currently contained within land plants and the atmosphere. This reservoir of C is vulnerable to decomposition as rising global temperatures cause the permafrost to thaw. During thaw, trapped organic matter may become more accessible for microbial degradation and result in greenhouse gas emissions. Despite recent advances in the use of molecular tools to study permafrost microbial communities, their response to thaw remains unclear. Here we use deep metagenomic sequencing to determine the impact of thaw on microbial phylogenetic and functional genes, and relate these data to measurements of methane emissions. Metagenomics, the direct sequencing of DNA from the environment, allows the examination of whole biochemical pathways and associated processes, as opposed to individual pieces of the metabolic puzzle. Our metagenome analyses reveal that during transition from a frozen to a thawed state there are rapid shifts in many microbial, phylogenetic and functional gene abundances and pathways. After one week of incubation at 5?°C, permafrost metagenomes converge to be more similar to each other than while they are frozen. We find that multiple genes involved in cycling of C and nitrogen shift rapidly during thaw. We also construct the first draft genome from a complex soil metagenome, which corresponds to a novel methanogen. Methane previously accumulated in permafrost is released during thaw and subsequently consumed by methanotrophic bacteria. Together these data point towards the importance of rapid cycling of methane and nitrogen in thawing permafrost.