When integral membrane proteins are visualized in detergents or other artificial systems, an important layer of information is lost regarding lipid interactions and their effects on protein structure. This is especially relevant to proteins for which lipid

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.The TRPA1 ion channel (also known as the wasabi receptor) is a detector of noxious chemical agents encountered in our environment or produced endogenously during tissue injury or drug metabolism. The

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Solar radiation considerably influences the energy consumption of buildings and the power production of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. Hourly solar insolation (Wh/m2), represented as the amount of solar irradiance collected on the ground during a 1-h period, is the most common solar radiation data available and widely used in weather files applied in building energy modeling programs (BEMPs). Because the solar beam and position vary over time, the use of hourly insolation data as the input might result in errors in the estimation of the direct incident solar radiation on a particular surface. In this study, methods used in BEMPs for direct incident solar radiation calculations are first analyzed, and an improved method adopting a new algorithm for estimating the solar irradiance is proposed. The algorithm assumes that the solar irradiance changes linearly within a 1-h period and can be estimated based on the solar irradiance at the half clock and slope. The collected direct normal solar irradiance data of 2016 from eight solar radiation stations in China were used to demonstrate the proposed method and evaluate its performance by comparing the results with those from three conventional methods used in BEMPs along with the ground truth measurements. In addition, in this study, factors affecting the accuracy of the calculation results are explored. The results of the estimated direct incident solar radiation show that the proposed method achieves the best accuracy, followed by the methods used in DOE-2, EnergyPlus, and DeST. The proposed method guarantees that the hourly direct solar insolation will remain the same and reflects the variation in the direct solar irradiance across a 1-h time frame. The proposed method can be adopted in BEMPs to improve the accuracy of the solar radiation calculation, thereby improving the accuracy of the simulated building performance and the BIPV production.

X-ray photoemission results for single crystals of M2CuO4 (M=Pr,Eu,Gd), MBa2Cu3Ox (M=Nd,Gd), and CuO are sintered La1.85Sr0.15CuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6.9 show valence-band spectra within 10 eV of the Fermi energy that are remarkably similar in appearance, with contributions that reflect Cu-O hybrid states and the rare-earth 4f states. For Pr2CuO4 and NdBa2Cu3Ox, there are two distinct 4f features due to ligand screening in the photoemission final state. The rare-earth 5p core-level emission overlaps the O 2s emission and reveals complex 5p-4f multiplet interactions. All O 1s spectra show a dominant peak at ∼528 eV that can be resolved into features separated by ∼0.7 eV. These reflect inequivalent oxygen bonding configurations in the lattice and are associated with the planes and chains for the 1:2:3 compounds and the planes and off-planes for the 2:1:4 compounds. The lower-binding-energy feature is associated with the Cu-O chains of the 1:2:3 compounds and the Cu-O planes of the 2:1:4 compounds. In addition to the O 1s main line for the Cu-O planes there is also a weak satellite. Time dependent studies of the Cu 2p and O 1s emission indicate surface modification, dependent upon the quality of the cleave. The effects of surface changes and the presence of imperfections are discussed in the context of surface studies and surface superconductivity. © 1988 The American Physical Society.

We present a structured matrix factorization approach to analyzing calciumimaging recordings of large neuronal ensembles. Our goal is to simultaneouslyidentify the locations of the neurons, demix spatially overlapping components,and denoise and deconvolve

Although subjects with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at markedly increased risk for cardiovascular mortality, the relation between CKD and aortic valve calcification has not been fully elucidated. Also, few data are available on the relation of aortic valve calcification and earlier stages of CKD. We sought to assess the relation of aortic valve calcium (AVC) with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors, and markers of bone metabolism in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study. All patients who underwent aortic valve scanning in the CRIC study were included. The relation between AVC and eGFR, traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors, and markers of calcium metabolism were analyzed using both unadjusted and adjusted regression models. A total of 1,964 CRIC participants underwent computed tomography for AVC quantification. Decreased renal function was independently associated with increased levels of AVC (eGFR 47.11, 44.17, and 39 ml/min/1.73 m2, respectively, p <0.001). This association persisted after adjusting for traditional, but not novel, AVC risk factors. Adjusted regression models identified several traditional and novel risk factors for AVC in patients with CKD. There was a difference in AVC risk factors between black and nonblack patients. In conclusion, our study shows that eGFR is associated in a dose-dependent manner with AVC in patients with CKD, and this association is independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors.

Loss of plant diversity with increased anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition in grasslands has occurred globally. In most cases, competitive exclusion driven by preemption of light or space is invoked as a key mechanism. Here, we provide evidence from a 9- yr N- addition experiment for an alternative mechanism: differential sensitivity of forbs and grasses to increased soil manganese (Mn) levels. In Inner Mongolia steppes, increasing the N supply shifted plant community composition from grass-forb codominance (primarily Stipa krylovii and Artemisia frigida, respectively) to exclusive dominance by grass, with associated declines in overall species richness. Reduced abundance of forbs was linked to soil acidification that increased mobilization of soil Mn, with a 10- fold greater accumulation of Mn in forbs than in grasses. The enhanced accumulation of Mn in forbs was correlated with reduced photosynthetic rates and growth, and is consistent with the loss of forb species. Differential accumulation of Mn between forbs and grasses can be linked to fundamental differences between dicots and monocots in the biochemical pathways regulating metal transport. These findings provide a mechanistic explanation for N- induced species loss in temperate grasslands by linking metal mobilization in soil to differential metal acquisition and impacts on key functional groups in these ecosystems.

ProLuCID, a new algorithm for peptide identification using tandem mass spectrometry and protein sequence databases has been developed. This algorithm uses a three tier scoring scheme. First, a binomial probability is used as a preliminary scoring scheme to select candidate peptides. The binomial probability scores generated by ProLuCID minimize molecular weight bias and are independent of database size. A modified cross-correlation score is calculated for each candidate peptide identified by the binomial probability. This cross-correlation scoring function models the isotopic distributions of fragment ions of candidate peptides which ultimately results in higher sensitivity and specificity than that obtained with the SEQUEST XCorr. Finally, ProLuCID uses the distribution of XCorr values for all of the selected candidate peptides to compute a Z score for the peptide hit with the highest XCorr. The ProLuCID Z score combines the discriminative power of XCorr and DeltaCN, the standard parameters for assessing the quality of the peptide identification using SEQUEST, and displays significant improvement in specificity over ProLuCID XCorr alone. ProLuCID is also able to take advantage of high resolution MS/MS spectra leading to further improvements in specificity when compared to low resolution tandem MS data. A comparison of filtered data searched with SEQUEST and ProLuCID using the same false discovery rate as estimated by a target-decoy database strategy, shows that ProLuCID was able to identify as many as 25% more proteins than SEQUEST. ProLuCID is implemented in Java and can be easily installed on a single computer or a computer cluster. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Computational Proteomics.