Efficient and power-awareness query over sensor networks

Sensor networks consisted of low-cost, low-power, muhifunctional miniature sensor devices have played an important role in our daily life. Light and humidity monitoring, seismic and animal activity detection, environment and habitat monitoring are the most common applications. However, due to the limited power supply, ordinary query methods and algorithms can not be applied on sensor networks. Queries over sensor networks should be power-aware to guarantee the maximum power savings. The minimal power consumption by avoiding the expensive communication of the redundant sensor nodes is concentrated on. A lot of work have been done to reduce the participated nodes, but none of them have considered the overlapping minimum bounded rectangle （MBR） of sensors which make them impossible to reach the optimization solution. The proposed OMSI-tree and OMR algorithm can efficiently solve this problem by executing a given query only on the sensors involved. Experiments show that there is an obvious improvement compared with TinyDB and other spatial index, adopting the proposed schema and algorithm.     

AOP event manager in open service gateway 〖WT5"HZ〗Abstract:〖WT5"BZ〗 〖WT5”HZ〗Key words:〖WT5”BZ〗

The Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi) has played an important role in ubiquitous environments that support interoperability among embedded devices, such as home appliances and network devices. However, the OSGi does not have a common event mechanism yet, and it is difficult to communicate among services asynchronously. In the present work, a common event manager, AspectOriented Event Manager (AOEM), was designed on an OSGi framework. AOEM supports services to generate and provide notification of events. This paper presents the implementation of AOEM as an OSGi bundle with AspectJ. The experiment on transferring between device service and application service demonstrate that AOEM provides good abstraction of the services and convenience.     

PPAR γ partial agonist, KR-62776, inhibits adipocyte differentiation via activation of ERK

Indenone KR-62776 acts as an agonist of PPARγ without inducing obesity in animal models and cells. X-ray crystallography reveals that the indenone occupies the binding pocket in a different manner than rosiglitazone. 2-Dimensional gel-electrophoresis showed that the expression of 42 proteins was altered more than 2.0-fold between KR-62776- or rosiglitazone-treated adipocyte cells and control cells. Rosiglitazone down-regulated the expression of ERK1/2 and suppressed the phosphorylation of ERK1/2 in these cells. However, the expression of ERK1/2 was up-regulated in KR-62776-treated cells. Phosphorylated ERK1/2, activated by indenone, affects the localization of PPARγ, suggesting a mechanism for indenone-inhibition of adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 preadipocyte cells. The preadipocyte cells are treated with ERK1/2 inhibitor PD98059, a large amount of the cells are converted to adipocyte cells. These results support the conclusion that the localization of PPARγ is one of the key factors explaining the biological responses of the ligands. Received 04 March 2009; received after revision 13 March 2009; accepted 17 March 2009     

BRD7 regulates the insulin-signaling pathway by increasing phosphorylation of GSK3β

Reduced hepatic expression levels of bromodomain-containing protein 7 (BRD7) have been suggested to play a role in the development of glucose intolerance in obesity. However, the molecular mechanism by which BRD7 regulates glucose metabolism has remained unclear. Here, we show that BRD7 increases phosphorylation of glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β) in response to activation of the insulin receptor-signaling pathway shortly after insulin stimulation and the nutrient-sensing pathway after feeding. BRD7 mediates phosphorylation of GSK3β at the Serine 9 residue and this effect on GSK3β occurs even in the absence of AKT activity. Using both in vitro and in vivo models, we further demonstrate that BRD7 mediates phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 kinase (S6K) and leads to increased phosphorylation of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4E-BP1) and, therefore, relieves its inhibition of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E). However, the increase in phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 with BRD7 overexpression is blunted in the absence of AKT activity. In addition, using liver-specific BRD7 knockout (LBKO) mice, we show that BRD7 is required for mTORC1 activity on its downstream molecules. These findings show a novel basis for understanding the molecular dynamics of glucose metabolism and suggest the unique function of BRD7 in the regulation of glucose homeostasis.     

A latent ability to persist: differentiation in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Toxoplasma gondii</Emphasis>

A critical factor in the transmission and pathogenesis of Toxoplasma gondii is the ability to convert from an acute disease-causing, proliferative stage (tachyzoite), to a chronic, dormant stage (bradyzoite). The conversion of the tachyzoite-containing parasitophorous vacuole membrane into the less permeable bradyzoite cyst wall allows the parasite to persist for years within the host to maximize transmissibility to both primary (felids) and secondary (virtually all other warm-blooded vertebrates) hosts. This review presents our current understanding of the latent stage, including the factors that are important in bradyzoite induction and maintenance. Also discussed are the recent studies that have begun to unravel the mechanisms behind stage switching.     

Methods for backcasting,nowcasting and forecasting using factor‐MIDAS: With an application to Korean GDP

We utilize mixed‐frequency factor‐MIDAS models for the purpose of carrying out backcasting, nowcasting, and forecasting experiments using real‐time data. We also introduce a new real‐time Korean GDP dataset, which is the focus of our experiments. The methodology that we utilize involves first estimating common latent factors (i.e., diffusion indices) from 190 monthly macroeconomic and financial series using various estimation strategies. These factors are then included, along with standard variables measured at multiple different frequencies, in various factor‐MIDAS prediction models. Our key empirical findings as follows. (i) When using real‐time data, factor‐MIDAS prediction models outperform various linear benchmark models. Interestingly, the “MSFE‐best” MIDAS models contain no autoregressive (AR) lag terms when backcasting and nowcasting. AR terms only begin to play a role in “true” forecasting contexts. (ii) Models that utilize only one or two factors are “MSFE‐best” at all forecasting horizons, but not at any backcasting and nowcasting horizons. In these latter contexts, much more heavily parametrized models with many factors are preferred. (iii) Real‐time data are crucial for forecasting Korean gross domestic product, and the use of “first available” versus “most recent” data “strongly” affects model selection and performance. (iv) Recursively estimated models are almost always “MSFE‐best,” and models estimated using autoregressive interpolation dominate those estimated using other interpolation methods. (v) Factors estimated using recursive principal component estimation methods have more predictive content than those estimated using a variety of other (more sophisticated) approaches. This result is particularly prevalent for our “MSFE‐best” factor‐MIDAS models, across virtually all forecast horizons, estimation schemes, and data vintages that are analyzed.     

What everybody should know about the rat genome and its online resources

It has been four years since the original publication of the draft sequence of the rat genome. Five groups are now working together to assemble, annotate and release an updated version of the rat genome. As the prevailing model for physiology, complex disease and pharmacological studies, there is an acute need for the rat's genomic resources to keep pace with the rat's prominence in the laboratory. In this commentary, we describe the current status of the rat genome sequence and the plans for its impending 'upgrade'. We then cover the key online resources providing access to the rat genome, including the new SNP views at Ensembl, the RefSeq and Genes databases at the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, Genome Browser at the University of California Santa Cruz and the disease portals for cardiovascular disease and obesity at the Rat Genome Database.     

Feature network-driven quadrant mapping for summarizing customer reviews

With the rapid growth of e-commerce, customers increasingly write online reviews of the product they purchase. These customer reviews are one of the most valuable sources of information affecting selection of products or services. Summarizing these customer reviews is becoming an interesting area of research, inspiring researchers to develop a more condensed, concise summarization for users. However, most of the current efforts at summarization are based on general product features without feature’s relationship. As a result, these summaries either ignore feedback from customers or do a poor job of reflecting the opinions expressed in customer reviews. To remedy this summarization shortcoming, we propose a feature network-driven quadrant mapping that captures and incorporates opinions from customer reviews. Our focus is on construction of a feature network, which is based on co-occurrence and sematic similarities, and a quadrant display showing the opinions polarity of feature groups. Moreover, the proposed approach involves clustering similar product features, and thus, it is different from standard text summarization based on abstraction and extraction. The summarized results can help customers better understand the overall opinions about a product.     

A new species of Schizopera (Copepoda: Harpacticoida) from Japan,its phylogeny based on the mtCOI gene and comments on the genus Schizoperopsis

The predominantly marine genus Schizopera Sars, 1905 has only two significant inland water species-flocks, one in the ancient African Lake Tanganyika and the other in subterranean waters of Western Australia. Discovery of Schizopera abei sp. nov. from several interstitial locations in the vicinity of the ancient Lake Biwa has wider implications for the study of morphological homoplasies in the genus, as well as for the study of freshwater invasions in harpacticoid copepods. The new Schizopera species belongs to a small group of congeners with a two-segmented endopod of the fourth leg, which used to be recognised as a separate genus, Schizoperopsis Apostolov, 1982. Our reconstructed phylogenies based on the mtCOI partial sequences suggest that this character probably evolved convergently in at least some Schizopera, thus rendering the genus Schizoperopsis polyphyletic. However, almost all basal nodes in our cladograms are weakly supported, which shows limitations of a single-gene approach for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships. The new species is the first member of its genus from Japanese inland waters, and it has no close relatives among extent congeners anywhere in the world. We speculate that its ancestor may have invaded Lake Biwa, and subsequently its surrounding subterranean waters, from brackish areas around central Japan, presumably during a period of high sea water level through its major outflow river. This discovery may provide further support for the hypothesis about the role of ancient lakes as biodiversity pumps for subterranean habitats.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1F71F7AD-B7C8-4AD3-BE44-5E1BEE4E2AA8