Plant Copper Amine Oxidases: Key Players in Hormone Signaling Leading to Stress-Induced Phenotypic Plasticity

Polyamines are ubiquitous, low-molecular-weight aliphatic compounds, present in living organisms and essential for cell growth and differentiation. Copper amine oxidases (CuAOs) oxidize polyamines to aminoaldehydes releasing ammonium and hydrogen peroxide, which participates in the complex network of reactive oxygen species acting as signaling molecules involved in responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. CuAOs have been identified and characterized in different plant species, but the most extensive study on a CuAO gene family has been carried out in Arabidopsis thaliana. Growing attention has been devoted in the last years to the investigation of the CuAO expression pattern during development and in response to an array of stress and stress-related hormones, events in which recent studies have highlighted CuAOs to play a key role by modulation of a multilevel phenotypic plasticity expression. In this review, the attention will be focused on the involvement of different AtCuAOs in the IAA/JA/ABA signal transduction pathways which mediate stress-induced phenotypic plasticity events.     

Software assurance practices for mobile applications

Mobile software applications have to cope with a particular environment that involves small size, limited resources, high autonomy requirements, competitive business models and many other challenges. To provide development guidelines that respond to these needs, several practices have been introduced; however, it is not clear how these guidelines may contribute to solve the issues present in the mobile domain. Furthermore, the rapid evolution of the mobile ecosystem challenges many of the premises upon which the proposed practices were designed. In this paper, we present a survey of the literature on software assurance practices for mobile applications, with the objective of describing them and assessing their contribution and success. We identified, organized and reviewed a body of research that spans in three levels: software development processes, software product assurance practices, and software implementation practices. By carrying out this literature survey, we reviewed the different approaches that researchers on Software Engineering have provided to address the needs that raise in the mobile software development arena. Moreover, we review the evolution of these practices, identifying how the constant changes and modernization of the mobile execution environment has impacted the methods proposed in the literature. Finally, we introduced discussion on the application of these practices in a real productive setting, opening an area for further research that may determine if practitioners have followed the proposed assurance paradigms.     

Enoxaparin in the prevention of deep venous thrombosis after major surgery: multicentric study. The Italian Study Group

Four hundred forty-six patients with Tourette Syndrome (TS) and/or their parents completed a 52-item self-report survey about vocal and motor tics, and the frequency of associated co-morbid conditions of aggression, obsessions and compulsions, attentional problems, sleep disturbance, mood disturbance, anxiety, and self-mutilative behaviours which have been frequently reported in the literature on TS. Respondents also responded to an open-ended question regarding the most disabling aspects of TS. Results were analyzed within two age groups; under 18 years of age (N = 245) and 18 years of age or older (N = 177). Tics and associated conditions were the most frequently reported disabling aspect by both age groups. Subjects under age 18, however, reported significantly more frequent problems with hyperactivity, temper control, aggressive behaviours and sleepwalking than adults with TS.     

Volatile compounds produced by irradiation of butterfat

Anhydrous butterfat was irradiated at 6 megarads in a special glass reaction flask, and the headspace and total condensate samples were examined by wide-range (−180C to 125C) gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. The nature and amounts of volatile compounds were not greatly influenced by whether the butterfat was irradiated under oxygen or under vacuum, nor (apart fromn-alkanoic acids) by storage for 1 and 9 weeks. Carbon dioxide was produced in greatest amount. Of the remaining compounds, aliphatic hydrocarbons predominated both in number and amount. Aliphatic oxygenated compounds including carbonyl compounds were isolated in relatively small amounts. The following compounds were identified positively: C_1–13 n-alkanes; C_4–9 2-methylalkanes; C_2–14 alk-l-enes; C_2–9 alk-l-ynes; C_2–5 n-alkanoic acids; C_1–5 n-alkan-l-ols and propan-2-ol; C_2–8 n-alkanals and 2-methylbut-2-enal; C_3–5,7 alkan-2-ones; C_1–4 n-alkyl formates, vinyl and isoamyl formate, methyl acetate and methyln-hexanoate; and carbon dioxide. Visiting Scientist from Division of Dairy Research, C.S.I.R.O., Highett, Victoria, Australia.     

A local landscape mapping method for protein structure prediction in the HP model

The hydrophobic-polar (HP) model has been widely studied in the field of protein structure prediction both for theoretical purposes and as a benchmark for new optimization strategies. In this work we present results of the recently proposed Hybrid Monte Carlo Ant Colony Optimization heuristic in the HP model using a fragment assembly-like strategy. Moreover we extend that method introducing a general framework for optimization in the HP model, called Local Landscape Mapping, and we test it using the pull moves set to generate solutions. We describe the heuristic and compare results obtained on well known HP instances in the 3-dimensional cubic lattice to those obtained with standard Ant Colony optimization and Simulated Annealing. Fragment assembly-like tests were performed using a modified objective function to prevent the creation of overlapping walks. Results show that our method performs better than the other heuristics in all benchmark instances when the fragment assembly-like strategy is used while in the case of pull moves-based neighborhood its performance is comparable to that of simulated annealing.     

An ensemble evolutionary constraint-based approach to understand the emergence of metabolic phenotypes

Constraint-based modeling is largely used in computational studies of metabolism. We propose here a novel approach that aims to identify ensembles of flux distributions that comply with one or more target phenotype(s). The methodology has been tested on a small-scale model of yeast energy metabolism. The target phenotypes describe the differential pattern of ethanol production and O₂ consumption observed in “Crabtree-positive” and “Crabtree-negative” yeasts in changing environment (i.e., when the upper limit of glucose uptake is varied). The ensembles were obtained either by selection among sampled flux distributions or by means of a search heuristic (genetic algorithm). The former approach provided indication about the probability to observe a given phenotype, but the resulting ensembles could not be unambiguously partitioned into “Crabtree-positive” and “Crabtree-negative” clusters. On the contrary well-separated clusters were obtained with the latter method. The cluster analysis further allowed identification of distinct groups within each target phenotype. The method may thus prove useful in characterizing the design principles underlying metabolic plasticity arising from evolving physio-pathological or developmental constraints.     

A bio-inspired predictive sensory-motor coordination scheme for robot reaching and preshaping

This paper presents a sensory-motor coordination scheme for a robot hand-arm-head system that provides the robot with the capability to reach an object while pre-shaping the fingers to the required grasp configuration and while predicting the tactile image that will be perceived after grasping. A model for sensory-motor coordination derived from studies in humans inspired the development of this scheme. A peculiar feature of this model is the prediction of the tactile image. The implementation of the proposed scheme is based on a neuro-fuzzy module that, after a learning phase, starting from visual data, calculates the position and orientation of the hand for reaching, selects the best-suited hand configuration, and predicts the tactile feedback. The implementation of the scheme on a humanoid robot allowed experimental validation of its effectiveness in robotics and provided perspectives on applications of sensory predictions in robot motor control.