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  • Oxford University Press  (102.333)
  • 2015-2019  (83.816)
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  • 101
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Cellular Ca 2+ homeostasis is tightly regulated and is pivotal to life. Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP 3 Rs) and ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are the major ion channels that regulate Ca 2+ release from intracellular stores. Although these channels have been extensively investigated in multicellular organisms, an appreciation of their evolution and the biology of orthologs in unicellular organisms is largely lacking. Extensive phylogenetic analyses reveal that the IP 3 R gene superfamily is ancient and diverged into two subfamilies, IP 3 R-A and IP 3 R-B/RyR, at the dawn of Opisthokonta. IP 3 R-B/RyR further diversified into IP 3 R-B and RyR at the stem of Filozoa. Subsequent evolution and speciation of Holozoa is associated with duplication of IP 3 R-A and RyR genes, and loss of IP 3 R-B in the vertebrate lineages. To gain insight into the properties of IP 3 R important for the challenges of multicellularity, the IP 3 R-A and IP 3 R-B family orthologs were cloned from Capsaspora owczarzaki, a close unicellular relative to Metazoa (designated as CO.IP 3 R-A and CO.IP 3 R-B). Both proteins were targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum. However, CO.IP 3 R-A, but strikingly not CO.IP 3 R-B, bound IP 3 , exhibited robust Ca 2+ release activity and associated with mammalian IP 3 Rs. These data indicate strongly that CO.IP 3 R-A as an exemplar of ancestral IP 3 R-A orthologs forms bona fide IP 3 -gated channels. Notably, however, CO.IP 3 R-A appears not to be regulated by Ca 2+ , ATP or Protein kinase A-phosphorylation. Collectively, our findings explore the origin, conservation, and diversification of IP 3 R gene families and provide insight into the functionality of ancestral IP 3 Rs and the added specialization of these proteins in Metazoa.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 102
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Marriage rules, the community prescriptions that dictate who an individual can or cannot marry, are extremely diverse and universally present in traditional societies. A major focus of research in the early decades of modern anthropology, marriage rules impose social and economic forces that help structure societies and forge connections between them. However, in those early anthropological studies, the biological benefits or disadvantages of marriage rules could not be determined. We revisit this question by applying a novel simulation framework and genome-wide data to explore the effects of Asymmetric Prescriptive Alliance, an elaborate set of marriage rules that has been a focus of research for many anthropologists. Simulations show that strict adherence to these marriage rules reduces genetic diversity on the autosomes, X chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, but relaxed compliance produces genetic diversity similar to random mating. Genome-wide data from the Indonesian community of Rindi, one of the early study populations for Asymmetric Prescriptive Alliance, are more consistent with relaxed compliance than strict adherence. We therefore suggest that, in practice, marriage rules are treated with sufficient flexibility to allow social connectivity without significant degradation of biological diversity.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 103
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: The environment has profound effects on the expression of many traits and reaction norms describe the expression dynamics of a trait across a broad range of environmental conditions. Here, we analyze gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster across four different developmental temperatures (13–29 °C). Gene expression is highly plastic with 83.3% of the genes being differentially expressed. We distinguished three components of plasticity: 1) Dynamics of gene expression intensity (sum of change), 2) direction of change, and 3) curvature of the reaction norm (linear vs. quadratic). Studying their regulatory architecture we found that all three plasticity components were most strongly affected by the number of different transcription factors (TFs) binding to the target gene. More TFs were found in genes with less expression changes across temperatures. Although the effect of microRNAs was weaker, we consistently noted a trend in the opposite direction. The most plastic genes were regulated by fewer TFs and more microRNAs than less plastic genes. Different patterns of plasticity were also reflected by their functional characterization based on gene ontology. Our results suggest that reaction norms provide an important key to understand the functional requirements of natural populations exposed to variable environmental conditions.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 104
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Recent advances in paleogenomic technologies have enabled an increasingly detailed understanding of the evolutionary relationships of now-extinct mammalian taxa. However, a number of enigmatic Quaternary species have never been characterized with molecular data, often because available fossils are rare or are found in environments that are not optimal for DNA preservation. Here, we analyze paleogenomic data extracted from bones attributed to the late Pleistocene western camel, Camelops cf. hesternus, a species that was distributed across central and western North America until its extinction approximately 13,000 years ago. Despite a modal sequence length of only around 35 base pairs, we reconstructed high-coverage complete mitochondrial genomes and low-coverage partial nuclear genomes for each specimen. We find that Camelops is sister to African and Asian bactrian and dromedary camels, to the exclusion of South American camelids (llamas, guanacos, alpacas, and vicuñas). These results contradict previous morphology-based phylogenetic models for Camelops , which suggest instead a closer relationship between Camelops and the South American camelids. The molecular data imply a Late Miocene divergence of the Camelops clade from lineages that separately gave rise to the extant camels of Eurasia. Our results demonstrate the increasing capacity of modern paleogenomic methods to resolve evolutionary relationships among distantly related lineages.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 105
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Recent developments in the analysis of amino acid covariation are leading to breakthroughs in protein structure prediction, protein design, and prediction of the interactome. It is assumed that observed patterns of covariation are caused by molecular coevolution, where substitutions at one site affect the evolutionary forces acting at neighboring sites. Our theoretical and empirical results cast doubt on this assumption. We demonstrate that the strongest coevolutionary signal is a decrease in evolutionary rate and that unfeasibly long times are required to produce coordinated substitutions. We find that covarying substitutions are mostly found on different branches of the phylogenetic tree, indicating that they are independent events that may or may not be attributable to coevolution. These observations undermine the hypothesis that molecular coevolution is the primary cause of the covariation signal. In contrast, we find that the pairs of residues with the strongest covariation signal tend to have low evolutionary rates, and that it is this low rate that gives rise to the covariation signal. Slowly evolving residue pairs are disproportionately located in the protein’s core, which explains covariation methods’ ability to detect pairs of residues that are close in three dimensions. These observations lead us to propose the "coevolution paradox": The strength of coevolution required to cause coordinated changes means the evolutionary rate is so low that such changes are highly unlikely to occur. As modern covariation methods may lead to breakthroughs in structural genomics, it is critical to recognize their biases and limitations.
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 106
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We present a modified GPU (graphics processing unit) version of MrBayes, called ta(MC) 3 (GPU MrBayes V3.1), for Bayesian phylogenetic inference on protein data sets. Our main contributions are 1) utilizing 64-bit variables, thereby enabling ta(MC) 3 to process larger data sets than MrBayes; and 2) to use Kahan summation to improve accuracy, convergence rates, and consequently runtime. Versus the current fastest software, we achieve a speedup of up to around 2.5 (and up to around 90 vs. serial MrBayes), and more on multi-GPU hardware. GPU MrBayes V3.1 is available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mrbayes-gpu/ .
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 107
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Understanding the genetic and molecular bases of the ability to distinguish self from nonself (allorecognition) and mechanisms underlying evolution of allorecognition systems is an important endeavor for understanding cases where it becomes dysfunctional, such as in autoimmune disorders. In filamentous fungi, allorecognition can result in vegetative or heterokaryon incompatibility, which is a type of programmed cell death that occurs following fusion of genetically different cells. Allorecognition is genetically controlled by het loci, with coexpression of any combination of incompatible alleles triggering vegetative incompatibility. Herein, we identified, characterized, and inferred the evolutionary history of candidate het loci in the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa . As characterized het loci encode proteins carrying an HET domain, we annotated HET domain genes in 25 isolates from a natural population along with the N. crassa reference genome using resequencing data. Because allorecognition systems can be affected by frequency-dependent selection favoring rare alleles (i.e., balancing selection), we mined resequencing data for HET domain loci whose alleles displayed elevated levels of variability, excess of intermediate frequency alleles, and deep gene genealogies. From these analyses, 34 HET domain loci were identified as likely to be under balancing selection. Using transformation, incompatibility assays and genetic analyses, we determined that one of these candidates functioned as a het locus ( het-e ). The het-e locus has three divergent allelic groups that showed signatures of positive selection, intra- and intergroup recombination, and trans-species polymorphism. Our findings represent a compelling case of balancing selection functioning on multiple alleles across multiple loci potentially involved in allorecognition.
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 108
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Scoring the impact of noncoding variation on the function of cis -regulatory regions, on their chromatin state, and on the qualitative and quantitative expression levels of target genes is a fundamental problem in evolutionary genomics. A particular challenge is how to model the divergence of quantitative traits and to identify relationships between the changes across the different levels of the genome, the chromatin activity landscape, and the transcriptome. Here, we examine the use of the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) model to infer selection at the level of predicted cis -regulatory modules (CRMs), and link these with changes in transcription factor binding and chromatin activity. Using publicly available cross-species ChIP-Seq and STARR-Seq data we show how OU can be applied genome-wide to identify candidate transcription factors for which binding site and CRM turnover is correlated with changes in regulatory activity. Next, we profile open chromatin in the developing eye across three Drosophila species. We identify the recognition motifs of the chromatin remodelers, Trithorax-like and Grainyhead as mostly correlating with species-specific changes in open chromatin. In conclusion, we show in this study that CRM scores can be used as quantitative traits and that motif discovery approaches can be extended towards more complex models of divergence.
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 109
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: How populations that inhabit the same geographical area become genetically differentiated is not clear. To investigate this, we characterized phenotypic and genetic differences between two populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that in some cases inhabit the same environment but show relatively little gene flow. We profiled stress sensitivity in a group of vineyard isolates and a group of oak-soil strains and found several niche-related phenotypes that distinguish the populations. We performed bulk-segregant mapping on two of the distinguishing traits: The vineyard-specific ability to grow in grape juice and oak-specific tolerance to the cell wall damaging drug Congo red. To implicate causal genes, we also performed a chemical genomic screen in the lab-strain deletion collection and identified many important genes that fell under quantitative trait loci peaks. One gene important for growth in grape juice and identified by both the mapping and the screen was SSU1 , a sulfite-nitrite pump implicated in wine fermentations. The beneficial allele is generated by a known translocation that we reasoned may also serve as a genetic barrier. We found that the translocation is prevalent in vineyard strains, but absent in oak strains, and presents a postzygotic barrier to spore viability. Furthermore, the translocation was associated with a fitness cost to the rapid growth rate seen in oak-soil strains. Our results reveal the translocation as a dual-function locus that enforces ecological differentiation while producing a genetic barrier to gene flow in these sympatric populations.
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 110
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Species tree reconstruction has been a subject of substantial research due to its central role across biology and medicine. A species tree is often reconstructed using a set of gene trees or by directly using sequence data. In either of these cases, one of the main confounding phenomena is the discordance between a species tree and a gene tree due to evolutionary events such as duplications and losses. Probabilistic methods can resolve the discordance by coestimating gene trees and the species tree but this approach poses a scalability problem for larger data sets. We present MixTreEM-DLRS: A two-phase approach for reconstructing a species tree in the presence of gene duplications and losses. In the first phase, MixTreEM, a novel structural expectation maximization algorithm based on a mixture model is used to reconstruct a set of candidate species trees, given sequence data for monocopy gene families from the genomes under study. In the second phase, PrIME-DLRS, a method based on the DLRS model (Åkerborg O, Sennblad B, Arvestad L, Lagergren J. 2009. Simultaneous Bayesian gene tree reconstruction and reconciliation analysis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 106(14):5714–5719), is used for selecting the best species tree. PrIME-DLRS can handle multicopy gene families since DLRS, apart from modeling sequence evolution, models gene duplication and loss using a gene evolution model (Arvestad L, Lagergren J, Sennblad B. 2009. The gene evolution model and computing its associated probabilities. J ACM. 56(2):1–44). We evaluate MixTreEM-DLRS using synthetic and biological data, and compare its performance with a recent genome-scale species tree reconstruction method PHYLDOG ( Boussau B, Szöllősi GJ, Duret L, Gouy M, Tannier E, Daubin V. 2013 . Genome-scale coestimation of species and gene trees. Genome Res. 23(2):323–330) as well as with a fast parsimony-based algorithm Duptree (Wehe A, Bansal MS, Burleigh JG, Eulenstein O. 2008. Duptree: a program for large-scale phylogenetic analyses using gene tree parsimony. Bioinformatics 24(13):1540–1541). Our method is competitive with PHYLDOG in terms of accuracy and runs significantly faster and our method outperforms Duptree in accuracy. The analysis constituted by MixTreEM without DLRS may also be used for selecting the target species tree, yielding a fast and yet accurate algorithm for larger data sets. MixTreEM is freely available at http://prime.scilifelab.se/mixtreem/ .
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 111
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Contrasting with birds and mammals, poikilothermic vertebrates often have homomorphic sex chromosomes, possibly resulting from high rates of sex-chromosome turnovers and/or occasional X–Y recombination. Strong support for the latter mechanism was provided by four species of European tree frogs, which inherited from a common ancestor (~5 Ma) the same pair of homomorphic sex chromosomes (linkage group 1, LG1), harboring the candidate sex-determining gene Dmrt1. Here, we test sex linkage of LG1 across six additional species of the Eurasian Hyla radiation with divergence times ranging from 6 to 40 Ma. LG1 turns out to be sex linked in six of nine resolved cases. Mapping the patterns of sex linkage to the Hyla phylogeny reveals several transitions in sex-determination systems within the last 10 My, including one switch in heterogamety. Phylogenetic trees of DNA sequences along LG1 are consistent with occasional X–Y recombination in all species where LG1 is sex linked. These patterns argue against one of the main potential causes for turnovers, namely the accumulation of deleterious mutations on nonrecombining chromosomes. Sibship analyses show that LG1 recombination is strongly reduced in males from most species investigated, including some in which it is autosomal. Intrinsically low male recombination might facilitate the evolution of male heterogamety, and the presence of important genes from the sex-determination cascade might predispose LG1 to become a sex chromosome.
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 112
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: It has been hypothesised that positive associations between age and levels of oxidative stress-generated damage to DNA may be related to an age-dependent decline in DNA repair activity. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between age and repair activity of oxidatively damaged DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). We isolated PBMCs from subjects aged 18–83 years, as part of a health survey of the Danish population that focussed on lifestyle factors. The level of DNA repair activity was measured as incisions on potassium bromate-damaged DNA by the comet assay. There was an inverse association between age and DNA repair activity with a 0.65% decline in activity per year from age 18 to 83 (95% confidence interval: 0.16–1.14% per year). Univariate regression analysis also indicated inverse associations between DNA repair activity and waist-hip ratio ( P 〈 0.05) and plasma concentrations of glycosylated hemoglobin ( P = 0.07). However, multivariate regression analysis only showed an inverse association between age and DNA repair activity ( P 〈 0.05), indicating that the decline in repair activity was not mediated by metabolic risk factors. In summary, the results show an inverse association between age and DNA repair activity of oxidatively damaged DNA.
    Print ISSN: 0267-8357
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3804
    Thema: Biologie , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 113
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We have coupled a fast, parametrized star cluster evolution code to a Markov Chain Monte Carlo code to determine the distribution of probable initial conditions of observed star clusters, that may serve as a starting point for future N -body calculations. In this paper, we validate our method by applying it to a set of star clusters which have been studied in detail numerically with N -body simulations and Monte Carlo methods: the Galactic globular clusters M4, 47 Tucanae, NGC 6397, M22, Centauri, Palomar 14 and Palomar 4, the Galactic open cluster M67, and the M31 globular cluster G1. For each cluster, we derive a distribution of initial conditions that, after evolution up to the cluster's current age, evolves to the currently observed conditions. We find that there is a connection between the morphology of the distribution of initial conditions and the dynamical age of a cluster and that a degeneracy in the initial half-mass radius towards small radii is present for clusters that have undergone a core collapse during their evolution. We find that the results of our method are in agreement with N -body and Monte Carlo studies for the majority of clusters. We conclude that our method is able to find reliable posteriors for the determined initial mass and half-mass radius for observed star clusters, and thus forms an suitable starting point for modelling an observed cluster's evolution.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
    Digitale ISSN: 1365-2966
    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 114
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We present a panoramic study of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy, using data obtained as part of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) ATLAS Survey. The data presented here – a subset of the full survey – uniformly cover a region of 25 deg 2 centred on the galaxy, in g , r and i bands. This large area coverage reveals two key differences to previous studies of Fornax. First, data extending beyond the nominal tidal radius of the dwarf highlight the presence of a second distinct red giant branch population. This bluer red giant branch appears to be co-eval with the horizontal branch population. Secondly, a shell structure located approximately 1 $_{.}^{\circ}$ 4 from the centre of Fornax is shown to be a mis-identified background overdensity of galaxies. This last result casts further doubt on the hypothesis that Fornax underwent a gas-rich merger in its relatively recent past.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 115
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Far-infrared (FIR)–radio correlation is a well-established empirical connection between continuum radio and dust emission of star-forming galaxies, often used as a tool in determining star formation rates. Here we expand the point made by Murphy that in the case of some interacting star-forming galaxies there is a non-thermal emission from the gas bridge in between them, which might cause a dispersion in this correlation. Galactic interactions and mergers have been known to give rise to tidal shocks and disrupt morphologies especially in the smaller of the interacting components. Here we point out that these shocks can also heat the gas and dust and will inevitably accelerate particles and result in a tidal cosmic ray population in addition to standard galactic cosmic rays in the galaxy itself. This would result in a non-thermal emission not only from the gas bridges of interacting systems, but from interacting galaxies as a whole in general. Thus both tidal heating and additional non-thermal radiation will obviously affect the FIR–radio correlation of these systems, the only question is how much. In this scenario the FIR–radio correlation is not stable in interacting galaxies, but rather evolves as the interaction/merger progresses. To test this hypothesis and probe the possible impact of tidal cosmic ray population, we have analysed a sample of 43 infrared-bright star-forming interacting galaxies at different merger stages. We have found that their FIR–radio correlation parameter and radio emission spectral index vary noticeably over different merger stages and behave as it would be expected from our tidal-shock scenario. Important implications of departure of interacting galaxies from the FIR–radio correlation are discussed.
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 116
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We report the alignment and shape of dark matter, stellar, and hot gas distributions in the EAGLE (Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments) and cosmo-OWLS (OverWhelmingly Large Simulations) simulations. The combination of these state-of-the-art hydrodynamical cosmological simulations enables us to span four orders of magnitude in halo mass (11 ≤ log 10 ( M 200 /[ h –1 M ]) ≤ 15), a wide radial range (–2.3 ≤ log 10 ( r /[ h –1 Mpc]) ≤ 1.3) and redshifts 0 ≤  z  ≤ 1. The shape parameters of the dark matter, stellar and hot gas distributions follow qualitatively similar trends: they become more aspherical (and triaxial) with increasing halo mass, radius, and redshift. We measure the misalignment of the baryonic components (hot gas and stars) of galaxies with their host halo as a function of halo mass, radius, redshift, and galaxy type (centrals versus satellites and early- versus late-type). Overall, galaxies align well with the local distribution of the total (mostly dark) matter. However, the stellar distributions on galactic scales exhibit a median misalignment of about 45–50 deg with respect to their host haloes. This misalignment is reduced to 25–30 deg in the most massive haloes (13 ≤ log 10 ( M 200 /[ h –1 M ]) ≤ 15). Half of the disc galaxies in the EAGLE simulations have a misalignment angle with respect to their host haloes larger than 40 deg. We present fitting functions and tabulated values for the probability distribution of galaxy–halo misalignment to enable a straightforward inclusion of our results into models of galaxy formations based on purely collisionless N -body simulations.
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 117
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We develop a simple dynamical model for the evolution of gas in the centres of barred spiral galaxies, using the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ, i.e. the central few hundred pc) as a case study. We show that, in the presence of a galactic bar, gas in a disc in the central regions of a galaxy will be driven inwards by angular momentum transport induced by acoustic instabilities within the bar's inner Lindblad resonance. This transport process drives turbulence within the gas that temporarily keeps it strongly gravitationally stable and prevents the onset of rapid star formation. However, at some point the rotation curve must transition from approximately flat to approximately solid body, and the resulting reduction in shear reduces the transport rates and causes gas to build up, eventually producing a gravitationally unstable region that is subject to rapid and violent star formation. For the observed rotation curve of the Milky Way, the accumulation happens ~100 pc from the centre of the Galaxy, in good agreement with the observed location of gas clouds and young star clusters in the CMZ. The characteristic time-scale for gas accumulation and star formation is of the order of 10–20 Myr. We argue that similar phenomena should be ubiquitous in other barred spiral galaxies.
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    Thema: Physik
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  • 118
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Exposure to traffic-related particulate matter (PM) has been associated with increased risk of lung disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease especially in elderly and overweight subjects. The proposed mechanisms involve intracellular production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), inflammation and oxidation-induced DNA damage studied mainly in young normal-weight subjects. We performed a controlled cross-over, randomised, single-blinded, repeated-measure study where 60 healthy subjects (25 males and 35 females) with age 55–83 years and body mass index above 25kg/m 2 were exposed for 5h to either particle-filtered or sham-filtered air from a busy street with number of concentrations and PM 2.5 levels of 1800/cm 3 versus 23 000/cm 3 and 3 µg/m 3 versus 24 µg/m 3 , respectively. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were collected and assayed for production of ROS with and without ex vivo exposure to nanosized carbon black as well as expression of genes related to inflammation ( chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 , interleukin-8 and tumour necrosis factor ), oxidative stress response ( heme oxygenase (decycling)-1 ) and DNA repair ( oxoguanine DNA glycosylase ). DNA strand breaks and oxidised purines were assayed by the alkaline comet assay. No statistically significant differences were found for any biomarker immediately after exposure to PM from urban street air although strand breaks and oxidised purines combined were significantly associated with the particle number concentration during exposure. In conclusion, 5h of controlled exposure to PM from urban traffic did not change the gene expression related to inflammation, oxidative stress or DNA repair, ROS production or oxidatively damaged DNA in PBMCs from elderly overweight human subjects.
    Print ISSN: 0267-8357
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3804
    Thema: Biologie , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 119
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Ionising radiation causes free radical–mediated damage in cellular DNA. This damage is manifested as chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei (MN) in proliferating cells. Sesamol, present in sesame seeds, has the potential to scavenge free radicals; therefore, it can reduce radiation-induced cytogenetic damage in cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the radioprotective potential of sesamol in bone marrow cells of mice and related haematopoietic system against radiation-induced genotoxicity. A comparative study with melatonin was designed for assessing the radioprotective potential of sesamol. C57BL/6 mice were administered intraperitoneally with either sesamol or melatonin (10 and 20mg/kg body weight) 30min prior to 2-Gy whole-body irradiation (WBI) and sacrificed after 24h. Total chromosomal aberrations (TCA), MN and cell cycle analyses were performed using bone marrow cells. The comet assay was performed on bone marrow cells, splenocytes and lymphocytes. Blood was drawn to study haematological parameters. Prophylactic doses of sesamol (10 and 20mg/kg) in irradiated mice reduced TCA and micronucleated polychromatic erythrocyte frequency in bone marrow cells by 57% and 50%, respectively, in comparison with radiation-only groups. Sesamol-reduced radiation-induced apoptosis and facilitated cell proliferation. In the comet assay, sesamol (20mg/kg) treatment reduced radiation-induced comets (% DNA in tail) compared with radiation only ( P 〈 0.05). Sesamol also increased granulocyte populations in peripheral blood similar to melatonin. Overall, the radioprotective efficacy of sesamol was found to be similar to that of melatonin. Sesamol treatment also showed recovery of relative spleen weight at 24h of WBI. The results strongly suggest the radioprotective efficacy of sesamol in the haematopoietic system of mice.
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    Thema: Biologie , Medizin
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  • 120
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    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Individualized treatment rules recommend treatments on the basis of individual patient characteristics. A high-quality treatment rule can produce better patient outcomes, lower costs and less treatment burden. If a treatment rule learned from data is to be used to inform clinical practice or provide scientific insight, it is crucial that it be interpretable; clinicians may be unwilling to implement models they do not understand, and black-box models may not be useful for guiding future research. The canonical example of an interpretable prediction model is a decision tree. We propose a method for estimating an optimal individualized treatment rule within the class of rules that are representable as decision trees. The class of rules we consider is interpretable but expressive. A novel feature of this problem is that the learning task is unsupervised, as the optimal treatment for each patient is unknown and must be estimated. The proposed method applies to both categorical and continuous treatments and produces favourable marginal mean outcomes in simulation experiments. We illustrate it using data from a study of major depressive disorder.
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  • 121
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Sufficient dimension reduction in regression aims to reduce the predictor dimension by replacing the original predictors with some set of linear combinations of them without loss of information. Numerous dimension reduction methods have been developed based on this paradigm. However, little effort has been devoted to diagnostic studies within the context of dimension reduction. In this paper we introduce methods to check goodness-of-fit for a given dimension reduction subspace. The key idea is to extend the so-called distance correlation to measure the conditional dependence relationship between the covariates and the response given a reduction subspace. Our methods require minimal assumptions, which are usually much less restrictive than the conditions needed to justify the original methods. Asymptotic properties of the test statistic are studied. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
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  • 122
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: We propose a geometric framework to assess sensitivity of Bayesian procedures to modelling assumptions based on the nonparametric Fisher–Rao metric. While the framework is general, the focus of this article is on assessing local and global robustness in Bayesian procedures with respect to perturbations of the likelihood and prior, and on the identification of influential observations. The approach is based on a square-root representation of densities, which enables analytical computation of geodesic paths and distances, facilitating the definition of naturally calibrated local and global discrepancy measures. An important feature of our approach is the definition of a geometric $\epsilon$ -contamination class of sampling distributions and priors via intrinsic analysis on the space of probability density functions. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework to generalized mixed-effects models and to directional and shape data.
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  • 123
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: With the discovery of an increasing number of causal genes for complex human disorders, it is crucial to assess the genetic risk of disease onset for individuals who are carriers of these causal mutations and to compare the distribution of the age-at-onset for such individuals with the distribution for noncarriers. In many genetic epidemiological studies that aim to estimate causal gene effect on disease, the age-at-onset of disease is subject to censoring. In addition, the mutation carrier or noncarrier status of some individuals may be unknown, due to the high cost of in-person ascertainment by collecting DNA samples or because of the death of older individuals. Instead, the probability of such individuals’ mutation status can be obtained from various other sources. When mutation status is missing, the available data take the form of censored mixture data. Recently, various methods have been proposed for risk estimation using such data, but none is efficient for estimating a nonparametric distribution. We propose a fully efficient sieve maximum likelihood estimation method, in which we estimate the logarithm of the hazard ratio between genetic mutation groups using B-splines, while applying nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation to the reference baseline hazard function. Our estimator can be calculated via an expectation-maximization algorithm which is much faster than existing methods. We show that our estimator is consistent and semiparametrically efficient and establish its asymptotic distribution. Simulation studies demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method, which is used to estimate the distribution of the age-at-onset of Parkinson's disease for carriers of mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2, LRRK2, gene.
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  • 124
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Smoothing splines provide flexible nonparametric regression estimators. However, the high computational cost of smoothing splines for large datasets has hindered their wide application. In this article, we develop a new method, named adaptive basis sampling, for efficient computation of smoothing splines in super-large samples. Except for the univariate case where the Reinsch algorithm is applicable, a smoothing spline for a regression problem with sample size n can be expressed as a linear combination of n basis functions and its computational complexity is generally O ( n 3 ). We achieve a more scalable computation in the multivariate case by evaluating the smoothing spline using a smaller set of basis functions, obtained by an adaptive sampling scheme that uses values of the response variable. Our asymptotic analysis shows that smoothing splines computed via adaptive basis sampling converge to the true function at the same rate as full basis smoothing splines. Using simulation studies and a large-scale deep earth core-mantle boundary imaging study, we show that the proposed method outperforms a sampling method that does not use the values of response variables.
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  • 125
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: We propose tests for nonlinear serial dependence in time series under the null hypothesis of general linear dependence, in contrast to the more widely studied null hypothesis of independence. The approach is based on combining an entropy dependence metric, which possesses many desirable properties and is used as a test statistic, with a suitable extension of surrogate data methods, a class of Monte Carlo distribution-free tests for nonlinearity, and a smoothed sieve bootstrap scheme. We show how, in the same way as the autocorrelation function is used for linear models, our tests can in principle be employed to detect the lags at which a significant nonlinear relationship is present. We prove the asymptotic validity of the proposed procedures and the corresponding inferences. The small-sample performance of the tests in terms of power and size is assessed through a simulation study. Applications to real datasets of different kinds are also presented.
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  • 126
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Contamination caused by outliers is inevitable in data analysis, and robust statistical methods are often needed. In this paper we develop a new approach for robust data analysis on the basis of scoring rules. A scoring rule is a discrepancy measure to assess the quality of probabilistic forecasts. We propose a simple method of estimating not only parameters in the statistical model but also the contamination ratio, i.e., the ratio of outliers. The outliers are detected based on the estimated contamination ratio. For this purpose, we use scoring rules with extended statistical models called unnormalized models. Regression problems are also considered. We study complex heterogeneous contamination wherein the contamination ratio in a response variable may depend on covariate variables, and propose a simple method to estimate a robust regression function and expected contamination ratio. Simulation studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
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  • 127
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: The sample covariance matrix, which is well known to be highly nonrobust, plays a central role in many classical multivariate statistical methods. A popular way of making such multivariate methods more robust is to replace the sample covariance matrix with some robust scatter matrix. The aim of this paper is to point out that multivariate methods often require that certain properties of the covariance matrix hold also for the robust scatter matrix in order for the corresponding robust plug-in method to be a valid approach, but that not all scatter matrices possess the desired properties. Plug-in methods for independent components analysis, observational regression and graphical modelling are considered in more detail. For each case, it is shown that replacing the sample covariance matrix with a symmetrized robust scatter matrix yields a valid robust multivariate procedure.
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  • 128
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: So-called big data are likely to have complex structure, in particular implying that estimates of precision obtained by applying standard statistical procedures are likely to be misleading, even if the point estimates of parameters themselves may be reasonably satisfactory. While this possibility is best explored in the context of each special case, here we outline a fairly general representation of the accretion of error in large systems and explore the possible implications for the estimation of regression coefficients. The discussion raises issues broadly parallel to the distinction between short-range and long-range dependence in time series theory.
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  • 129
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: This paper extends the classical two-regime threshold autoregressive model by introducing hysteresis to its regime-switching structure, which leads to a new model: the hysteretic autoregressive model. The proposed model enjoys the piecewise linear structure of a threshold model but has a more flexible regime switching mechanism. A sufficient condition is given for geometric ergodicity. Conditional least squares estimation is discussed, and the asymptotic distributions of its estimators and information criteria for model selection are derived. Simulation results and an example support the model.
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  • 130
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    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: This paper points out an error in Davidov and Iliopoulos's ( Biometrika 100 , 778–80) proof of convergence of an iterative algorithm for the proportional likelihood ratio model. It is shown that the iterative algorithm increases the likelihood in each iteration and converges under mild additional conditions when the odds ratio function is bounded.
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  • 131
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: One of the major sources of the X-ray emitting hot gas around galaxies is the feedback from supernovae (SNe), but most of this metal-enriched feedback material is often not directly detected in X-ray observations. This missing galactic feedback problem is extremely prominent in early-type galaxy bulges, where there is little cool gas to make the Type Ia SNe ejecta radiate at lower temperature beyond the X-ray domain. We herein present a deep Suzaku observation of an S0 galaxy NGC 5866, which is relatively rich in molecular gas as an S0 galaxy and shows significant evidence of cool–hot gas interaction. By jointly analysing the Suzaku and an archival Chandra data, we measure the Fe/O abundance ratio to be $\rm 7.63_{-5.52}^{+7.28}$ relative to solar values. This abundance ratio is much higher than those of spiral galaxies, and even among the highest ones of S0 and elliptical galaxies. NGC 5866 also simultaneously has the highest Fe/O abundance ratio and molecular gas mass among a small sample of gas-poor early-type galaxies. An estimation of the Fe budget indicates that NGC 5866 could preserve a larger than usual fraction, but far from the total amount of Fe injected by Type Ia SNe. We also find that the hot gas temperature increases from inner to outer haloes, with the inner region has a temperature of ~ 0.25 keV, clearly lower than that expected from Type Ia SNe heating. This low temperature could be most naturally explained by additional cooling processes related to the cool–hot gas interaction as being indicated by the existence of many extraplanar dusty filaments. Our results indicate that the large cool gas content and the presence of cool–hot gas interaction in the inner region of NGC 5866 have significantly reduced the specific energy of the SN ejecta and so the velocity of the galactic outflow. The galaxy could thus preserve a considerable fraction of the metal-enriched feedback material from being blown out.
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  • 132
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: According to the standard cosmological scenario, superclusters are objects that have just passed the turn-around point and are collapsing. The dynamics of very few superclusters have been analysed up to now. In this paper, we study the supercluster SC0028-0005, at redshift 0.22, identify the most prominent groups and/or clusters that make up the supercluster, and investigate the dynamic state of this structure. For the membership identification, we have used photometric and spectroscopic data from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10, finding six main structures in a flat spatial distribution. We have also used a deep multiband observation with MegaCam/Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope to estimate de mass distribution through the weak-lensing effect. For the dynamical analysis, we have determined the relative distances along the line of sight within the supercluster using the Fundamental Plane of early-type galaxies. Finally, we have computed the peculiar velocities of each of the main structures. The 3D distribution suggests that SC0028-005 is indeed a collapsing supercluster, supporting the formation scenario of these structures. Using the spherical collapse model, we estimate that the mass within r  = 10 Mpc should lie between 4 and 16  x  10 15 M . The farthest detected members of the supercluster suggest that within ~60 Mpc the density contrast is  ~ 3 with respect to the critical density at z  = 0.22, implying a total mass of ~4.6–16  x  10 17 M , most of which in the form of low-mass galaxy groups or smaller substructures.
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  • 133
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: We present CCD UBVRI photometry of the field of the open cluster NGC 6866. Structural parameters of the cluster are determined utilizing the stellar density profile of the stars in the field. We calculate the probabilities of the stars being physical members of the cluster, using their astrometric data, and perform further analyses using only the most probable members. The reddening and metallicity of the cluster were determined by independent methods. The LAMOST spectra and the ultraviolet excess of the F- and G-type main-sequence stars in the cluster indicate that the metallicity of the cluster is about the solar value. We estimated the reddening E ( B – V ) = 0.074 ± 0.050 mag using the U – B versus B – V two-colour diagram. The distance modula, the distance and the age of NGC 6866 were derived as μ = 10.60 ± 0.10 mag, d  = 1189 ± 75 pc and t  = 813 ± 50 Myr, respectively, by fitting colour–magnitude diagrams of the cluster with the PARSEC isochrones. The Galactic orbit of NGC 6866 indicates that the cluster is orbiting in a slightly eccentric orbit with e  = 0.12. The mass function slope x  = 1.35 ± 0.08 was derived by using the most probable members of the cluster.
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  • 134
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: The mean absolute extinction towards the central parsec of the Milky Way is A K ~= 3 mag, including both foreground and Galactic Centre dust. Here we present a measurement of dust extinction within the Galactic old nuclear star cluster (NSC), based on combining differential extinctions of NSC stars with their l proper motions along Galactic longitude. Extinction within the NSC preferentially affects stars at its far side, and because the NSC rotates, this causes higher extinctions for NSC stars with negative l , as well as an asymmetry in the l -histograms. We model these effects using an axisymmetric dynamical model of the NSC in combination with simple models for the dust distribution. Comparing the predicted asymmetry to data for ~7100 stars in several NSC fields, we find that dust associated with the Galactic Centre mini-spiral with extinction A K ~= 0.15–0.8 mag explains most of the data. The largest extinction A K ~= 0.8 mag is found in the region of the Western arm of the mini-spiral. Comparing with total A K determined from stellar colours, we determine the extinction in front of the NSC. Finally, we estimate that for a typical extinction of A K ~= 0.4 the statistical parallax of the NSC changes by ~0.4 per cent.
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  • 135
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: Regardless of the physical origin of stellar magnetic fields – fossil or dynamo induced - an inclination angle between the magnetic and rotation axes is very often observed. Absence of observational evidence in this direction in the solar case has led to generally assume that its global magnetic field and rotation axes are well aligned. We present the detection of a monthly periodic signal of the photospheric solar magnetic field at all latitudes, and especially near the poles, revealing that the main axis of the Sun's magnetic field is not aligned with the surface rotation axis. This result reinforces the view of our Sun as a common intermediate-mass star. Furthermore, this detection challenges and imposes a strong observational constraint to modern solar dynamo theories.
    Print ISSN: 1745-3925
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    Thema: Physik
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  • 136
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: The storage and transmission of high-throughput sequencing data consumes significant resources. As our capacity to produce such data continues to increase, this burden will only grow. One approach to reduce storage and transmission requirements is to compress this sequencing data. Results: We present a novel technique to boost the compression of sequencing that is based on the concept of bucketing similar reads so that they appear nearby in the file. We demonstrate that, by adopting a data-dependent bucketing scheme and employing a number of encoding ideas, we can achieve substantially better compression ratios than existing de novo sequence compression tools, including other bucketing and reordering schemes. Our method, Mince, achieves up to a 45% reduction in file sizes (28% on average) compared with existing state-of-the-art de novo compression schemes. Availability and implementation : Mince is written in C++11, is open source and has been made available under the GPLv3 license. It is available at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ckingsf/software/mince . Contact: carlk@cs.cmu.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
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  • 137
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : Current methods for motif discovery from chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) data often identify non-targeted transcription factor (TF) motifs, and are even further limited when peak sequences are similar due to common ancestry rather than common binding factors. The latter aspect particularly affects a large number of proteins from the Cys 2 His 2 zinc finger (C2H2-ZF) class of TFs, as their binding sites are often dominated by endogenous retroelements that have highly similar sequences. Here, we present recognition code-assisted discovery of regulatory elements (RCADE) for motif discovery from C2H2-ZF ChIP-seq data. RCADE combines predictions from a DNA recognition code of C2H2-ZFs with ChIP-seq data to identify models that represent the genuine DNA binding preferences of C2H2-ZF proteins. We show that RCADE is able to identify generalizable binding models even from peaks that are exclusively located within the repeat regions of the genome, where state-of-the-art motif finding approaches largely fail. Availability and implementation: RCADE is available as a webserver and also for download at http://rcade.ccbr.utoronto.ca/ . Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. Contact: t.hughes@utoronto.ca
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  • 138
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Phylogenetic estimates from published studies can be archived using general platforms like Dryad (Vision, 2010) or TreeBASE (Sanderson et al. , 1994). Such services fulfill a crucial role in ensuring transparency and reproducibility in phylogenetic research. However, digital tree data files often require some editing (e.g. rerooting) to improve the accuracy and reusability of the phylogenetic statements. Furthermore, establishing the mapping between tip labels used in a tree and taxa in a single common taxonomy dramatically improves the ability of other researchers to reuse phylogenetic estimates. As the process of curating a published phylogenetic estimate is not error-free, retaining a full record of the provenance of edits to a tree is crucial for openness, allowing editors to receive credit for their work and making errors introduced during curation easier to correct. Results : Here, we report the development of software infrastructure to support the open curation of phylogenetic data by the community of biologists. The backend of the system provides an interface for the standard database operations of creating, reading, updating and deleting records by making commits to a git repository. The record of the history of edits to a tree is preserved by git’s version control features. Hosting this data store on GitHub ( http://github.com/ ) provides open access to the data store using tools familiar to many developers. We have deployed a server running the ‘phylesystem-api’, which wraps the interactions with git and GitHub. The Open Tree of Life project has also developed and deployed a JavaScript application that uses the phylesystem-api and other web services to enable input and curation of published phylogenetic statements. Availability and implementation : Source code for the web service layer is available at https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/phylesystem-api . The data store can be cloned from: https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/phylesystem . A web application that uses the phylesystem web services is deployed at http://tree.opentreeoflife.org/curator . Code for that tool is available from https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/opentree . Contact : mtholder@gmail.com
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  • 139
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Chromatin Immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) detects genome-wide DNA–protein interactions and chromatin modifications, returning enriched regions (ERs), usually associated with a significance score. Moderately significant interactions can correspond to true, weak interactions, or to false positives; replicates of a ChIP-seq experiment can provide co-localised evidence to decide between the two cases. We designed a general methodological framework to rigorously combine the evidence of ERs in ChIP-seq replicates, with the option to set a significance threshold on the repeated evidence and a minimum number of samples bearing this evidence. Results : We applied our method to Myc transcription factor ChIP-seq datasets in K562 cells available in the ENCODE project. Using replicates, we could extend up to 3 times the ER number with respect to single-sample analysis with equivalent significance threshold. We validated the ‘rescued’ ERs by checking for the overlap with open chromatin regions and for the enrichment of the motif that Myc binds with strongest affinity; we compared our results with alternative methods (IDR and jMOSAiCS), obtaining more validated peaks than the former and less peaks than latter, but with a better validation. Availability and implementation : An implementation of the proposed method and its source code under GPLv3 license are freely available at http://www.bioinformatics.deib.polimi.it/MSPC/ and http://mspc.codeplex.com/ , respectively. Contact : marco.morelli@iit.it Supplementary information: Supplementary Material are available at Bioinformatics online.
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  • 140
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : We announce the release of kSNP3.0, a program for SNP identification and phylogenetic analysis without genome alignment or the requirement for reference genomes. kSNP3.0 is a significantly improved version of kSNP v2. Availability and implementation : kSNP3.0 is implemented as a package of stand-alone executables for Linux and Mac OS X under the open-source BSD license. The executable packages, source code and a full User Guide are freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ksnp/files/ Contact: barryghall@gmail.com
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  • 141
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: We have created an R package named phylogeo that provides a set of geographic utilities for sequencing-based microbial ecology studies. Although the geographic location of samples is an important aspect of environmental microbiology, none of the major software packages used in processing microbiome data include utilities that allow users to map and explore the spatial dimension of their data. phylogeo solves this problem by providing a set of plotting and mapping functions that can be used to visualize the geographic distribution of samples, to look at the relatedness of microbiomes using ecological distance, and to map the geographic distribution of particular sequences. By extending the popular phyloseq package and using the same data structures and command formats, phylogeo allows users to easily map and explore the geographic dimensions of their data from the R programming language. Availability and Implementation: phylogeo is documented and freely available http://zachcp.github.io/phylogeo Contact : zcharlop@rockefeller.edu
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  • 142
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : Gener is a development module for programming chemical controllers based on DNA strand displacement. Gener is developed with the aim of providing a simple interface that minimizes the opportunities for programming errors: Gener allows the user to test the computations of the DNA programs based on a simple two-domain strand displacement algebra, the minimal available so far. The tool allows the user to perform stepwise computations with respect to the rules of the algebra as well as exhaustive search of the computation space with different options for exploration and visualization. Gener can be used in combination with existing tools, and in particular, its programs can be exported to Microsoft Research’s DSD tool as well as to LaTeX. Availability and implementation : Gener is available for download at the Cosbi website at http://www.cosbi.eu/research/prototypes/gener as a windows executable that can be run on Mac OS X and Linux by using Mono. Contact : ozan@cosbi.eu
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  • 143
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Molecular dynamics simulations provide atomic insight into the physicochemical characteristics of lipid membranes and hence, a wide range of force field families capable of modelling various lipid types have been developed in recent years. To model membranes in a biologically realistic lipid composition, simulation systems containing multiple different lipids must be assembled. Results: We present a new web service called MemGen that is capable of setting up simulation systems of heterogenous lipid membranes. MemGen is not restricted to certain lipid force fields or lipid types, but instead builds membranes from uploaded structure files which may contain any kind of amphiphilic molecule. MemGen works with any all-atom or united-atom lipid representation. Availability and implementation: MemGen is freely available without registration at http://memgen.uni-goettingen.de . Contact: jhub@gwdg.de Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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  • 144
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-19
    Beschreibung: Hydrocarbon reservoir pressure depletion leads to stress changes inside the reservoir and ground deformation which is registered at the surface as subsidence. As reservoirs are often overlain by layers of rocksalt (or other evaporites), which are materials that flow so as to relax stresses inside them, there is the potential for time-varying surface subsidence. This work focuses on understanding the macroscopic mechanisms that lead to rocksalt flow-induced ground displacements. A Finite Element Model is used for this purpose in which the rocksalt layer is represented by a viscoelastic Maxwell material. Two distinct mechanisms that lead to displacement are observed. These are active during different stages of the deformation and have different timescales associated with them. An important observation is that the timescale for deformation that is measured at the ground surface is not equal to the timescale for deformation of a viscoelastic material element, but can be many times larger than that. The sensitivity of the response to the thickness and location of the rocksalt layer is also presented. Conclusions are drawn which allow for the relative importance of the presence of the rocksalt layer to be assessed and for a framework for understanding time-dependent subsidence above producing hydrocarbon reservoirs to be developed. Finally the changes in stress distribution around a producing reservoir are also briefly discussed.
    Print ISSN: 0956-540X
    Digitale ISSN: 1365-246X
    Thema: Geologie und Paläontologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press im Namen von The Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft (DGG) and the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).
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  • 145
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Environmental control of flowering allows plant reproduction to occur under optimal conditions and facilitates adaptation to different locations. At high latitude, flowering of many plants is controlled by seasonal changes in day length. The photoperiodic flowering pathway confers this response in the Brassicaceae, which colonized temperate latitudes after divergence from the Cleomaceae, their subtropical sister family. The CONSTANS (CO) transcription factor of Arabidopsis thaliana , a member of the Brassicaceae, is central to the photoperiodic flowering response and shows characteristic patterns of transcription required for day-length sensing. CO is believed to be widely conserved among flowering plants; however, we show that it arose after gene duplication at the root of the Brassicaceae followed by divergence of transcriptional regulation and protein function. CO has two close homologs, CONSTANS-LIKE1 ( COL1 ) and COL2 , which are related to CO by tandem duplication and whole-genome duplication, respectively. The single CO homolog present in the Cleomaceae shows transcriptional and functional features similar to those of COL1 and COL2 , suggesting that these were ancestral. We detect cis -regulatory and codon changes characteristic of CO and use transgenic assays to demonstrate their significance in the day-length-dependent activation of the CO target gene FLOWERING LOCUS T. Thus, the function of CO as a potent photoperiodic flowering switch evolved in the Brassicaceae after gene duplication. The origin of CO may have contributed to the range expansion of the Brassicaceae and suggests that in other families CO genes involved in photoperiodic flowering arose by convergent evolution.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
    Digitale ISSN: 1537-1719
    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 146
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: The high regulatory complexity of vertebrates has been related to two rounds of whole genome duplication (2R-WGD) that occurred before the divergence of the major vertebrate groups. Following these events, many developmental transcription factors (TFs) were retained in multiple copies and subsequently specialized in diverse functions, whereas others reverted to their singleton state. TFs are known to be generally rich in amino acid repeats or low-complexity regions (LCRs), such as polyalanine or polyglutamine runs, which can evolve rapidly and potentially influence the transcriptional activity of the protein. Here we test the hypothesis that LCRs have played a major role in the diversification of TF gene duplicates. We find that nearly half of the TF gene families originated during the 2R-WGD contains LCRs. The number of gene duplicates with LCRs is 155 out of 550 analyzed (28%), about twice as many as the number of single copy genes with LCRs (15 out of 115, 13%). In addition, duplicated TFs preferentially accumulate certain LCR types, the most prominent of which are alanine repeats. We experimentally test the role of alanine-rich LCRs in two different TF gene families, PHOX2A/PHOX2B and LHX2/LHX9. In both cases, the presence of the alanine-rich LCR in one of the copies (PHOX2B and LHX2) significantly increases the capacity of the TF to activate transcription. Taken together, the results provide strong evidence that LCRs are important driving forces of evolutionary change in duplicated genes.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
    Digitale ISSN: 1537-1719
    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 147
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Studies of species with continental distributions continue to identify intraspecific lineages despite continuous habitat. Lineages may form due to isolation by distance, adaptation, divergence across barriers, or genetic drift following range expansion. We investigated lineage diversification and admixture within American black bears ( Ursus americanus ) across their range using 22 k single nucleotide polymorphisms and mitochondrial DNA sequences. We identified three subcontinental nuclear clusters which we further divided into nine geographic regions: Alaskan (Alaska-East), eastern (Central Interior Highlands, Great Lakes, Northeast, Southeast), and western (Alaska-West, West, Pacific Coast, Southwest). We estimated that the western cluster diverged 67 ka, before eastern and Alaskan divergence 31 ka; these divergence dates contrasted with those from the mitochondrial genome where clades A and B diverged 1.07 Ma, and clades A-east and A-west diverged 169 ka. We combined estimates of divergence timing with hindcast species distribution models to infer glacial refugia for the species in Beringia, Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Southeast. Our results show a complex arrangement of admixture due to expansion out of multiple refugia. The delineation of the genomic population clusters was inconsistent with the ranges for 16 previously described subspecies. Ranges for U. a. pugnax and U. a. cinnamomum were concordant with admixed clusters, calling into question how to order taxa below the species level. Additionally, our finding that U. a. floridanus has not diverged from U. a. americanus also suggests that morphology and genetics should be reanalyzed to assess taxonomic designations relevant to the conservation management of the species.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 148
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Deinococcus bacteria are extremely resistant to radiation, oxidation, and desiccation. Resilience to these factors has been suggested to be due to enhanced damage prevention and repair mechanisms, as well as highly efficient antioxidant protection systems. Here, using mutation-accumulation experiments, we find that the GC-rich Deinococcus radiodurans has an overall background genomic mutation rate similar to that of E. coli , but differs in mutation spectrum, with the A/T to G/C mutation rate (based on a total count of 88 A:T-〉G:C transitions and 82 A:T-〉C:G transversions) per site per generation higher than that in the other direction (based on a total count of 157 G:C-〉A:T transitions and 33 G:C-〉T:A transversions). We propose that this unique spectrum is shaped mainly by the abundant uracil DNA glycosylases reducing G:C-〉A:T transitions, adenine methylation elevating A:T-〉C:G transversions, and absence of cytosine methylation decreasing G:C-〉A:T transitions. As opposed to the greater than 100 x elevation of the mutation rate in MMR – (DNA Mismatch Repair deficient) strains of most other organisms, MMR – D. radiodurans only exhibits a 4-fold elevation, raising the possibility that other DNA repair mechanisms compensate for a relatively low-efficiency DNA MMR pathway. As D. radiodurans has plentiful insertion sequence (IS) elements in the genome and the activities of IS elements are rarely directly explored, we also estimated the insertion (transposition) rate of the IS elements to be 2.50 x 10 –3 per genome per generation in the wild-type strain; knocking out MMR did not elevate the IS element insertion rate in this organism.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 149
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: Because mating systems affect population genetics and ecology, they are expected to impact the molecular evolution of species. Self-fertilizing species experience reduced effective population size, recombination rates, and heterozygosity, which in turn should decrease the efficacy of natural selection, both adaptive and purifying, and the strength of meiotic drive processes such as GC-biased gene conversion. The empirical evidence is only partly congruent with these predictions, depending on the analyzed species, some, but not all, of the expected effects have been observed. One possible reason is that self-fertilization is an evolutionary dead-end, so that most current selfers recently evolved self-fertilization, and their genome has not yet been strongly impacted by selfing. Here, we investigate the molecular evolution of two groups of freshwater snails in which mating systems have likely been stable for several millions of years. Analyzing coding sequence polymorphism, divergence, and expression levels, we report a strongly reduced genetic diversity, decreased efficacy of purifying selection, slower rate of adaptive evolution, and weakened codon usage bias/GC-biased gene conversion in the selfer Galba compared with the outcrosser Physa , in full agreement with theoretical expectations. Our results demonstrate that self-fertilization, when effective in the long run, is a major driver of population genomic and molecular evolutionary processes. Despite the genomic effects of selfing, Galba truncatula seems to escape the demographic consequences of the genetic load. We suggest that the particular ecology of the species may buffer the negative consequences of selfing, shedding new light on the dead-end hypothesis.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
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    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 150
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We compare the shapes and intrinsic alignments of galaxies in the MassiveBlack-II (MBII) cosmological hydrodynamic simulation to those in an identical dark matter-only (DMO) simulation. Understanding the impact of baryonic physics on galaxy shapes should prove useful for creating mock galaxy catalogues based on DMO simulations that mimic intrinsic alignments in hydrodynamic simulations. The dark matter subhaloes are typically rounder in MBII, and the shapes of stellar matter in low-mass galaxies are more misaligned with the shapes of dark matter of the corresponding subhaloes in the DMO simulation. At z  = 0.06, the fractional difference in the mean misalignment angle between MBII and DMO simulations varies from ~28to12 per cent in the mass range 10 10.8 –6.0  x  10 14 h –1 M . We study the dark matter halo shapes and alignments as a function of radius, and find that while galaxies in MBII are more aligned with the inner parts of their dark matter subhaloes, there is no radial trend in their alignments with the corresponding subhalo in the DMO simulation. This result highlights the importance of baryonic physics in determining galaxy alignments with inner parts of their halo. Finally, we find that the stellar-dark matter misalignment suppresses the ellipticity–direction (ED) correlation of galaxies in comparison to that of dark matter haloes. In the projected shape–density correlation ( w + ), higher mean ellipticities of the stellar component reduce this effect, but differences of the order of 30–40 per cent remain on scales 〉1 Mpc.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
    Digitale ISSN: 1365-2966
    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 151
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
    Digitale ISSN: 1537-1719
    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 152
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We present a new method to find voids in cosmological simulations based on the tidal and the velocity shear tensors definitions of the cosmic web. We use the fractional anisotropy (FA) computed from the eigenvalues of each web scheme as a void tracer. We identify voids using a watershed transform based on the local minima of the FA field without making any assumption on the shape or structure of the voids. We test the method on the Bolshoi simulation and report on the abundance and radial averaged profiles for the density, velocity and FA. We find that voids in the velocity shear web are smaller than voids in the tidal web, with a particular overabundance of very small voids in the inner region of filaments/sheets. We classify voids as subcompensated/overcompensated depending on the absence/presence of an overdense matter ridge in their density profile, finding that close to 65 and 35 per cent of the total population are classified into each category, respectively. Finally, we find evidence for the existence of universal profiles from the radially averaged profiles for density, velocity and FA. This requires that the radial coordinate is normalized to the effective radius of each void. Put together, all these results show that the FA is a reliable tracer for voids, which can be used in complementarity to other existing methods and tracers.
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 153
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-20
    Beschreibung: We present a method to identify ultrafaint dwarf galaxies (UFDGs) candidates in the halo of the Milky Way using the future Gaia catalogue and we explore its detection limits and completeness. The method is based on the Wavelet Transform and searches for overdensities in the combined space of sky coordinates and proper motions, using kinematics in the search for the first time. We test the method with a Gaia mock catalogue that has the Gaia Universe Model Snapshot as a background, and use a library of around 30 000 UFDGs simulated as Plummer spheres with a single stellar population. For the UFDGs, we use a wide range of structural and orbital parameters that go beyond the range spanned by real systems, where some UFDGs may remain undetected. We characterize the detection limits as function of the number of observable stars by Gaia in the UFDGs with respect to that of the background and their apparent sizes in the sky and proper motion planes. We find that the addition of proper motions in the search improves considerably the detections compared to a photometric survey at the same magnitude limit. Our experiments suggest that Gaia will be able to detect UFDGs that are similar to some of the known UFDGs even if the limit of Gaia is around 2 mag brighter than that of SDSS, with the advantage of having a full-sky catalogue. We also see that Gaia could even find some UFDGs that have lower surface brightness than the SDSS limit.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 154
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Choosing the number of components in a finite mixture model is a challenging task. In this article, we study the behaviour of information criteria for selecting the mixture order, based on either the observed likelihood or the complete likelihood including component labels. We propose a new observed likelihood criterion called aic mix , which is shown to be order consistent. We further show that when there is a nontrivial level of classification uncertainty in the true model, complete likelihood criteria asymptotically underestimate the true number of components. A simulation study illustrates the potentially poor finite-sample performance of complete likelihood criteria, while aic mix and the Bayesian information criterion perform strongly regardless of the level of classification uncertainty.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 155
    facet.materialart.
    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Outlier detection is an integral component of statistical modelling and estimation. For high-dimensional data, classical methods based on the Mahalanobis distance are usually not applicable. We propose an outlier detection procedure that replaces the classical minimum covariance determinant estimator with a high-breakdown minimum diagonal product estimator. The cut-off value is obtained from the asymptotic distribution of the distance, which enables us to control the Type I error and deliver robust outlier detection. Simulation studies show that the proposed method behaves well for high-dimensional data.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 156
    facet.materialart.
    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: This paper adopts a nonparametric Bayesian approach to testing whether a function is monotone. Two new families of tests are constructed. The first uses constrained smoothing splines with a hierarchical stochastic-process prior that explicitly controls the prior probability of monotonicity. The second uses regression splines together with two proposals for the prior over the regression coefficients. Via simulation, the finite-sample performance of the tests is shown to improve upon existing frequentist and Bayesian methods. The asymptotic properties of the Bayes factor for comparing monotone versus nonmonotone regression functions in a Gaussian model are also studied. Our results significantly extend those currently available, which chiefly focus on determining the dimension of a parametric linear model.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 157
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: The paper develops hierarchical empirical Bayes and benchmarked hierarchical empirical Bayes estimators of positive small area means under multiplicative models. The usual benchmarking requirement is that the small area estimates, when aggregated, should equal the direct estimates for the larger geographical areas. However, while estimating positive small area parameters, the conventional squared error or weighted squared error loss subject to the usual benchmark constraint may not produce positive estimators, so it is necessary to seek other loss functions. We consider a multiplicative model for the original data for estimating positive small area means, and suggest a variant of the Kullback–Leibler divergence as a loss function. The prediction errors of the suggested hierarchical empirical Bayes estimators are investigated asymptotically, and their second-order unbiased estimators are provided. Bootstrapped estimators of these prediction errors for both hierarchical empirical Bayes and benchmarked hierarchical empirical Bayes estimators are also given. The performance of the suggested procedures is investigated through simulation as well as with an example.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 158
    facet.materialart.
    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Odds ratios can be estimated in case-control studies using standard logistic regression, ignoring the outcome-dependent sampling. In this paper we discuss an analogous result for treatment effects on the treated in matched cohort studies. Specifically, in studies where a sample of treated subjects is observed along with a separate sample of possibly matched controls, we show that efficient and doubly robust estimators of effects on the treated are computationally equivalent to standard estimators, which ignore the matching and exposure-based sampling. This is not the case for general average effects. We also show that matched cohort studies are often more efficient than random sampling for estimating effects on the treated, and derive the optimal number of matches for a given set of matching variables. We illustrate our results via simulation and in a matched cohort study of the effect of hysterectomy on the risk of cardiovascular disease.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 159
    facet.materialart.
    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Current status data occur in contexts including demographic studies and tumorigenicity experiments. In such cases, each subject is observed only once and the failure time of interest is either left- or right-censored (Kalbfleisch & Prentice, 2002). Many methods have been developed for the analysis of such data (Huang, 1996; Sun, 2006), most of which assume that the failure time and the observation time are independent completely or given covariates. In this paper, we present a sieve maximum likelihood approach for current status data when independence does not hold. A copula model and monotone I-splines are used and the asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are established. In particular, the estimated regression parameters are shown to be semiparametrically efficient. An illustrative example is provided.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Digitale ISSN: 1464-3510
    Thema: Biologie , Mathematik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 160
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: We report nearly exact quantum time-independent calculations of rate coefficients for the collisional (de-)excitation of H 2 by H, from low to high temperatures. Our calculations are based on a highly accurate global potential energy surface. The reactive hydrogen exchange channels are taken into account rigorously. New collisional data are obtained for the ro-vibrational relaxation of highly excited H 2 (with internal excitation up to ~=22 000 K) for temperatures ranging from 100 to 5000 K. We also provide a comparison with the available experimental rate coefficients at room temperature. The good agreement between theory and experiment is an illustration of the accuracy of the present calculations. The new results significantly differ from previous data presently used in astrophysical models, especially at low temperatures, the difference being essentially due to the inclusion of the reactive channels. The impact of these new data in astrophysics is discussed. In particular, the cooling mechanism will have to be reviewed for several astrophysical media.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
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    Thema: Physik
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  • 161
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: The emission function from ground-based light sources predetermines the skyglow features to a large extent, while most mathematical models that are used to predict the night sky brightness require the information on this function. The radiant intensity distribution on a clear sky is experimentally determined as a function of zenith angle using the theoretical approach published only recently in MNRAS, 439, 3405–3413. We have made the experiments in two localities in Slovakia and Mexico by means of two digital single lens reflex professional cameras operating with different lenses that limit the system's field-of-view to either 180º or 167º. The purpose of using two cameras was to identify variances between two different apertures. Images are taken at different distances from an artificial light source (a city) with intention to determine the ratio of zenith radiance relative to horizontal irradiance. Subsequently, the information on the fraction of the light radiated directly into the upward hemisphere ( F ) is extracted. The results show that inexpensive devices can properly identify the upward emissions with adequate reliability as long as the clear sky radiance distribution is dominated by a largest ground-based light source. Highly unstable turbidity conditions can also make the parameter F difficult to find or even impossible to retrieve. The measurements at low elevation angles should be avoided due to a potentially parasitic effect of direct light emissions from luminaires surrounding the measuring site.
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    Thema: Physik
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  • 162
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: We use the ‘Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments’ ( eagle ) suite of hydrodynamical cosmological simulations to measure offsets between the centres of stellar and dark matter components of galaxies. We find that the vast majority (〉95 per cent) of the simulated galaxies display an offset smaller than the gravitational softening length of the simulations (Plummer-equivalent  = 700 pc), both for field galaxies and satellites in clusters and groups. We also find no systematic trailing or leading of the dark matter along a galaxy's direction of motion. The offsets are consistent with being randomly drawn from a Maxwellian distribution with  ≤ 196 pc. Since astrophysical effects produce no feasible analogues for the $1.62^{+0.47}_{-0.49}$  kpc offset recently observed in Abell 3827, the observational result is in tension with the collisionless cold dark matter model assumed in our simulations.
    Print ISSN: 1745-3925
    Digitale ISSN: 1745-3933
    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 163
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: Measurements of pulsar flux densities are of great importance for understanding the pulsar emission mechanism and for predictions of pulsar survey yields and the pulsar population at large. Typically these flux densities are determined from phase-averaged ‘pulse profiles’, but this method has limited applicability at low frequencies because the observed pulses can easily be spread out by interstellar effects like scattering or dispersion, leading to a non-pulsed continuum component that is necessarily ignored in this type of analysis. In particular for the class of the millisecond pulsars (MSPs) at frequencies below 200 MHz, such interstellar effects can seriously compromise detectability and measured flux densities. In this paper, we investigate MSP spectra based on a complementary approach, namely through investigation of archival continuum imaging data. Even though these images lose sensitivity to pulsars since the on-pulse emission is averaged with off-pulse noise, they are insensitive to effects from scattering and provide a reliable way to determine the flux density and spectral indices of MSPs based on both pulsed and unpulsed components. Using the 74 MHz VLSSr as well as the 325 MHz WENSS and 1.4 GHz NVSS catalogues, we investigate the imaging flux densities of MSPs and evaluate the likelihood of spectral turn-overs in this population. We determine three new MSP spectral indices and identify six new MSPs with likely spectral turn-overs.
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  • 164
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: We propose an anisotropic generalization of the line correlation function (ALCF) to separate and quantify phase information in the large-scale structure of galaxies. The line correlation function probes the strictly non-linear regime of structure formation and since phase information drops out of the power spectrum, the line correlation function provides a complementary tool to commonly used techniques based on two-point statistics. Furthermore, it is independent of linear bias as well as the Gaussian variance on the modulus of the density field and thus may also prove to be advantageous compared to the bispectrum or similar higher order statistics for certain cases. For future applications, it is vital, though, to be able to account for observational effects that cause anisotropies in the distribution of galaxies. Based on a number of numerical studies, we find that our ALCF is well suited to accomplish this task and we demonstrate how the Alcock–Paczyłski effect and kinematical redshift-space distortions can in principle be measured via the ALCF.
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  • 165
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-21
    Beschreibung: The deepest XMM–Newton mosaic map of the central 1 $_{.}^{\circ}$ 5 of the Galaxy is presented, including a total of about 1.5 Ms of EPIC-pn cleaned exposures in the central 15 arcsec and about 200 ks outside. This compendium presents broad-band X-ray continuum maps, soft X-ray intensity maps, a decomposition into spectral components and a comparison of the X-ray maps with emission at other wavelengths. Newly discovered extended features, such as supernova remnants (SNRs), superbubbles and X-ray filaments are reported. We provide an atlas of extended features within ±1° of Sgr A * . We discover the presence of a coherent X-ray-emitting region peaking around G0.1–0.1 and surrounded by the ring of cold, mid-IR-emitting material known from previous work as the ‘Radio Arc Bubble’ and with the addition of the X-ray data now appears to be a candidate superbubble. Sgr A's bipolar lobes show sharp edges, suggesting that they could be the remnant, collimated by the circumnuclear disc, of an SN explosion that created the recently discovered magnetar, SGR J1745–2900. Soft X-ray features, most probably from SNRs, are observed to fill holes in the dust distribution, and to indicate a direct interaction between SN explosions and Galactic centre (GC) molecular clouds. We also discover warm plasma at high Galactic latitude, showing a sharp edge to its distribution that correlates with the location of known radio/mid-IR features such as the ‘GC Lobe’. These features might be associated with an inhomogeneous hot ‘atmosphere’ over the GC, perhaps fed by continuous or episodic outflows of mass and energy from the GC region.
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  • 166
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-22
    Beschreibung: Using results from the Herschel Astrophysical Terrahertz Large-Area Survey (H-ATLAS) and the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, we show that, for galaxy masses above ~= 10 8 M , 51 per cent of the stellar mass-density in the local Universe is in early-type galaxies (ETGs; Sérsic n  〉 2.5) while 89 per cent of the rate of production of stellar mass-density is occurring in late-type galaxies (LTGs; Sérsic n  〈 2.5). From this zero-redshift benchmark, we have used a calorimetric technique to quantify the importance of the morphological transformation of galaxies over the history of the Universe. The extragalactic background radiation contains all the energy generated by nuclear fusion in stars since the big bang. By resolving this background radiation into individual galaxies using the deepest far-infrared survey with the Herschel Space Observatory and a deep near-infrared/optical survey with the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ), and using measurements of the Sérsic index of these galaxies derived from the HST images, we estimate that ~=83 per cent of the stellar mass-density formed over the history of the Universe occurred in LTGs. The difference between this value and the fraction of the stellar mass-density that is in LTGs today implies there must have been a major transformation of LTGs into ETGs after the formation of most of the stars.
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  • 167
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-22
    Beschreibung: Underlying the crisis affecting peripheral European countries is their structural, long-term loss of competitiveness (Hadjimichalis, 2011, European Urban and Regional Studies , 18: 254–274). This article will focus on the Portuguese case and discuss the institutional constraints that hindered its economy from transitioning towards the production of higher-value added goods and services. It will discuss institutions as the product of a political process laden with power asymmetries and argue that the dominance of a relatively small community at the heart of economic and political life in Portugal has conditioned the development of the economy as a whole. Using this framework, this article will then contribute to the literatures on innovation and technological modernisation and argue that alongside a technical process of catching up there is a political process that can enable or constrain development.
    Schlagwort(e): B52 - Institutional ; Evolutionary, O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes, P16 - Political Economy
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    Thema: Geographie , Wirtschaftswissenschaften
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  • 168
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-22
    Beschreibung: This article identifies the main determinants of financial inclusion, defined as the probability of using both banking and credit services, across 18 Eastern European economies and 5 Western European ‘comparator’ countries. We elicit demographic and socio-economic information on 25,000 European households from the second round of the Life in Transition Survey undertaken during the 2008–2010 global crisis; the survey also includes several questions on households’ financial decisions collecting data at the regional and local level. Our results show that households hit by negative job or income shocks and without any asset to pledge are less likely to be financially included, especially in Eastern Europe. The individual likelihood of financial inclusion is also affected by the average use of financial services at the local level suggesting the presence of a financial multiplier effect. These results provide useful information for mapping financial inclusion across Europe during the crisis, which in turn can inform policy action at the local level.
    Schlagwort(e): D14 - Personal Finance, G21 - Banks ; Other Depository Institutions ; Micro Finance Institutions ; Mortgages
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    Thema: Geographie , Wirtschaftswissenschaften
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  • 169
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: We investigate the star formation properties of ~800 sources detected in one of the deepest radio surveys at 1.4 GHz. Our sample spans a wide redshift range (~0.1–4) and about four orders of magnitude in star formation rate (SFR). It includes both star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), further divided into radio-quiet (RQ) and radio-loud objects. We compare the SFR derived from the far-infrared luminosity, as traced by Herschel , with the SFR computed from their radio emission. We find that the radio power is a good SFR tracer not only for pure SFGs but also in the host galaxies of RQ AGNs, with no significant deviation with redshift or specific SFR. Moreover, we quantify the contribution of the starburst activity in the SFG population and the occurrence of AGNs in sources with different level of star formation. Finally, we discuss the possibility of using deep radio survey as a tool to study the cosmic star formation history.
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  • 170
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: Dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are prime targets for present and future -ray telescopes hunting for indirect signals of particle dark matter. The interpretation of the data requires careful assessment of their dark matter content in order to derive robust constraints on candidate relic particles. Here, we use an optimized spherical Jeans analysis to reconstruct the ‘astrophysical factor’ for both annihilating and decaying dark matter in 21 known dSphs. Improvements with respect to previous works are: (i) the use of more flexible luminosity and anisotropy profiles to minimize biases, (ii) the use of weak priors tailored on extensive sets of contamination-free mock data to improve the confidence intervals, (iii) systematic cross-checks of binned and unbinned analyses on mock and real data, and (iv) the use of mock data including stellar contamination to test the impact on reconstructed signals. Our analysis provides updated values for the dark matter content of 8 ‘classical’ and 13 ‘ultrafaint’ dSphs, with the quoted uncertainties directly linked to the sample size; the more flexible parametrization we use results in changes compared to previous calculations. This translates into our ranking of potentially-brightest and most robust targets – namely Ursa Minor, Draco, Sculptor – and of the more promising, but uncertain targets – namely Ursa Major 2, Coma – for annihilating dark matter. Our analysis of Segue 1 is extremely sensitive to whether we include or exclude a few marginal member stars, making this target one of the most uncertain. Our analysis illustrates challenges that will need to be addressed when inferring the dark matter content of new ‘ultrafaint’ satellites that are beginning to be discovered in southern sky surveys.
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  • 171
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: The adsorption of H atoms and their recombination to form an H 2 molecule on slab models of the crystalline Mg 2 SiO 4 forsterite (001) and (110) surfaces was studied by means of quantum mechanical calculations based on periodic density functional theory (DFT). Present results are compared with those previously reported for the most stable (010) surface, showing the relevance of the surface morphology and their stability on the H 2 formation. Different H chemisorption states were identified, mostly on the outermost O atoms of the surfaces. In agreement with the higher instability of the (001) and (110) surfaces, the calculated adsorption energies are larger than those for the (010) surface. Computed energy barriers for the H hopping on these surfaces are exceedingly high to occur at the very low temperatures of deep space. For the adsorption of two H atoms, the most stable complexes are those in which the H atoms form Mg-H and SiOH surface groups. From these complexes, we did not identify energetically feasible paths for H 2 formation through a Langmuir–Hinshelwood mechanism on the (001) surface because the initial states are more stable than the final products. However, on the (110) surface one path was found to be exoergic with very low energy barriers. This differs to that observed for the (010) surface, for which two feasible Langmuir–Hinshelwood-based channels were identified. H 2 formation through the Eley–Rideal mechanism was also simulated, in which an incoming H atom impinges on a pre-adsorbed H atom at the (001) and (110) surfaces in a barrierless way.
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  • 172
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: Feedback from outflows driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) can affect the distribution and properties of the gaseous haloes of galaxies. We study the hydrodynamics and non-thermal emission from the forward outflow shock produced by an AGN-driven outflow. We consider a few possible profiles for the halo gas density, self-consistently constrained by the halo mass, redshift and the disc baryonic concentration of the galaxy. We show that the outflow velocity levels off at ~ 10 3 km s – 1 within the scale of the galaxy disc. Typically, the outflow can reach the virial radius around the time when the AGN shuts off. We show that the outflows are energy-driven, consistent with observations and recent theoretical findings. The outflow shock lights up the haloes of massive galaxies across a broad wavelength range. For Milky Way mass haloes, radio observations by the Jansky Very Large Array and the Square Kilometre Array and infrared/optical observations by the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope can detect the emission signal of angular size ~8 arcsec from galaxies out to redshift z  ~ 5. Millimetre observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array are sensitive to non-thermal emission of angular size ~18 arcsec from galaxies at redshift z   1, while X-ray observations by Chandra , XMM–Newton and the Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics are limited to local galaxies ( z   0.1) with an emission angular size of ~2 arcmin. Overall, the extended non-thermal emission provides a new way of probing the gaseous haloes of galaxies at high redshifts.
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  • 173
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: In this paper we extend the previously published dali -approximation for likelihoods to cases in which the parameter dependence is in the covariance matrix. The approximation recovers non-Gaussian likelihoods, and reduces to the Fisher matrix approach in the case of Gaussianity. It works with the minimal assumptions of having Gaussian errors on the data, and a covariance matrix that possesses a converging Taylor approximation. The resulting approximation works in cases of severe parameter degeneracies and in cases where the Fisher matrix is singular. It is at least 1000 times faster than a typical Monte Carlo Markov Chain run over the same parameter space. Two example applications, to cases of extremely non-Gaussian likelihoods, are presented – one demonstrates how the method succeeds in reconstructing completely a ring-shaped likelihood. A public code is released here: http://lnasellentin.github.io/DALI/ .
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  • 174
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: Using star-forming galaxies sample in the nearby Universe (0.02 〈  z  〈 0.10) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR7) and Galaxy Evolution Explorer all-sky survey (GR5), we present a new empirical calibration for predicting dust extinction of galaxies from the Hα-to-FUV flux ratio. We find that the Hα dust extinction ( A Hα ) derived with Hα/Hβ ratio (Balmer decrement) increases with increasing Hα/UV ratio as expected, but there remains a considerable scatter around the relation, which is largely dependent on stellar mass and/or Hα equivalent width (EW Hα ). At fixed Hα/UV ratio, galaxies with higher stellar mass (or galaxies with lower EW Hα ) tend to be more highly obscured by dust. We quantify this trend and establish an empirical calibration for predicting A Hα with a combination of Hα/UV ratio, stellar mass, and EW Hα , with which we can successfully reduce the systematic uncertainties accompanying the simple Hα/UV approach by ~15–30 per cent. The new recipes proposed in this study will provide a convenient tool for predicting dust extinction level of galaxies particularly when Balmer decrement is not available. By comparing A Hα (derived with Balmer decrement) and A UV (derived with IR/UV luminosity ratio) for a subsample of galaxies for which AKARI far-infrared photometry is available, we demonstrate that more massive galaxies tend to have higher extra extinction towards the nebular regions compared to the stellar continuum light. Considering recent studies reporting smaller extra extinction towards nebular regions for high-redshift galaxies, we argue that the dust geometry within high-redshift galaxies resembles low-mass galaxies in the nearby Universe.
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  • 175
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: We report the redshift of an unlensed, highly obscured submillimetre galaxy (SMG), HS1700.850.1, the brightest SMG ( S 850 μm  = 19.1 mJy) detected in the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope/Submillimetre Common-user Bolometer Array-2 (JCMT/SCUBA-2) Baryonic Structure Survey, based on the detection of its 12 CO line emission. Using the Institute Radio Astronomie Millimetrique Plateau de Bure Interferometer with 3.6 GHz band width, we serendipitously detect an emission line at 150.6 GHz. From a search over 14.5 GHz in the 3- and 2-mm atmospheric windows, we confirm the identification of this line as 12 CO(5–4) at z  = 2.816, meaning that it does not reside in the z  ~ 2.30 proto-cluster in this field. Measurement of the 870 μm source size (〈0.85 arcsec) from the Sub-Millimetre Array (SMA) confirms a compact emission in a S 870 μm = 14.5 mJy, L IR  ~ 10 13  L component, suggesting an Eddington-limited starburst. We use the double-peaked 12 CO line profile measurements along with the SMA size constraints to study the gas dynamics of a HyLIRG, estimating the gas and dynamical masses of HS1700.850.1. While HS1700.850.1 is one of the most extreme galaxies known in the Universe, we find that it occupies a relative void in the Lyman-Break Galaxy distribution in this field. Comparison with other extreme objects at similar epochs (HyLIRG Quasars), and cosmological simulations, suggests such an anti-bias of bright SMGs could be relatively common, with the brightest SMGs rarely occupying the most overdense regions at z = 2–4.
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  • 176
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: We compare predictions of large-scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulations for neutral hydrogen absorption signatures in the vicinity of 10 11 –10 12.5 M haloes with observational measurements. Two different hydrodynamical techniques and a variety of prescriptions for gas removal in high-density regions are examined. Star formation and wind feedback play only secondary roles in the H i absorption signatures outside the virial radius, but play important roles within. Accordingly, we identify three distinct gaseous regions around a halo: the virialized region, the mesogalactic medium outside the virial radius arising from the extended haloes of galaxies out to about two turnaround radii and the intergalactic medium beyond. Predictions for the amount of absorption from the mesogalactic and intergalactic media are robust across different methodologies, and the predictions agree with the amount of absorption observed around star-forming galaxies and quasi-stellar object host galaxies. Recovering the measured amount of absorption within the virialized region, however, requires either a higher dynamic range in the simulations, additional physics, or both.
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  • 177
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: In this paper, we consider random phase fluctuations imposed during wave propagation through a turbulent plasma (e.g. ionosphere) as a source of additional noise in interferometric visibilities. We derive expressions for visibility variance for the wide field of view case (FOV ~10°) by computing the statistics of Fresnel diffraction from a stochastic plasma, and provide an intuitive understanding. For typical ionospheric conditions (diffractive scale ~5–20 km at 150 MHz), we show that the resulting ionospheric ‘scintillation noise’ can be a dominant source of uncertainty at low frequencies (  200 MHz). Consequently, low-frequency widefield radio interferometers must take this source of uncertainty into account in their sensitivity analysis. We also discuss the spatial, temporal, and spectral coherence properties of scintillation noise that determine its magnitude in deep integrations, and influence prospects for its mitigation via calibration or filtering.
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  • 178
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: We estimate the accretion rates of 235 Classical T Tauri star (CTTS) candidates in the Lagoon Nebula using ugri H α photometry from the VST Photometric H α survey+. Our sample consists of stars displaying H α excess, the intensity of which is used to derive accretion rates. For a subset of 87 stars, the intensity of the u -band excess is also used to estimate accretion rates. We find the mean variation in accretion rates measured using H α and u -band intensities to be ~0.17 dex, agreeing with previous estimates (0.04–0.4 dex) but for a much larger sample. The spatial distribution of CTTS align with the location of protostars and molecular gas suggesting that they retain an imprint of the natal gas fragmentation process. Strong accretors are concentrated spatially, while weak accretors are more distributed. Our results do not support the sequential star-forming processes suggested in the literature.
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  • 179
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Photometric redshifts, which have become the cornerstone of several of the largest astronomical surveys like PanStarrs, DES, J-PAS and LSST, require precise measurements of galaxy photometry in different bands using a consistent physical aperture. This is not trivial, due to the variation in the shape and width of the point spread function (PSF) introduced by wavelength differences, instrument positions and atmospheric conditions. Current methods to correct for this effect rely on a detailed knowledge of PSF characteristics as a function of the survey coordinates, which can be difficult due to the relative paucity of stars tracking the PSF behaviour. Here we show that it is possible to measure accurate, consistent multicolour photometry without knowing the shape of the PSF. The Chebyshev–Fourier functions (CHEFs) can fit the observed profile of each object and produce high signal-to-noise integrated flux measurements unaffected by the PSF. These total fluxes, which encompass all the galaxy populations, are much more useful for galaxy evolution studies than aperture photometry. We compare the total magnitudes and colours obtained using our software to traditional photometry with SExtractor , using real data from the COSMOS survey and the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF). We also apply the CHEF technique to the recently published eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) and compare the results to those from ColorPro on the HUDF. We produce a photometric catalogue with 35 732 sources (10 823 with signal-to-noise ratio ≥5), reaching a photometric redshift precision of 2 per cent due to the extraordinary depth and wavelength coverage of the eXtreme Deep Field images.
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  • 180
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: We investigate the evolution of the galaxy two-point correlation function (CF) over a wide redshift range, 0.2 〈  z   3. For the first time, the systematic analysis covers the redshifts above 1–1.5. The catalogue of ~250 000 galaxies with i +  〈 25 and known photometric redshifts in the Subaru Deep field is used. The galaxies are divided into three luminosity classes and several distance/redshift bins. First, the 2D CF is determined for each luminosity class and distance bin. Calculations are based on the quantitative differences between the surface distributions of galaxy pairs with comparable and distinctly different photometric redshifts. The power-law approximation for the CF is used. A limited accuracy of photometric redshifts as compared to the spectroscopic ones has been examined and taken into account. Then, the 3D functions for all the selected luminosities and distance are calculated. The power-law parameters of the CF, the slope and the correlation length are determined. Both parameters do not show strong variations over the whole investigated redshift range. The slope of the luminous galaxies appears to be consistently steeper than that for the fainter ones. The linear bias factor, b ( z ), grows systematically with redshift; assuming the local normalization b (0)  1.1–1.2, the bias reaches 3–3.5 at the high-redshift limit.
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  • 181
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAeBes) span a key mass range that links low- and high-mass stars, and thus provide an ideal window from which to explore their formation. This paper presents Very Large Telescope/X-shooter spectra of 91 HAeBes, the largest spectroscopic study of HAeBe accretion to date. A homogeneous approach to determining stellar parameters is undertaken for the majority of the sample. Measurements of the ultraviolet are modelled within the context of magnetospheric accretion, allowing a direct determination of mass accretion rates. Multiple correlations are observed across the sample between accretion and stellar properties: the youngest and often most massive stars are the strongest accretors, and there is an almost 1:1 relationship between the accretion luminosity and stellar luminosity. Despite these overall trends of increased accretion rates in HAeBes when compared to classical T Tauri stars, we also find noticeable differences in correlations when considering the Herbig Ae and Herbig Be subsets. This, combined with the difficulty in applying a magnetospheric accretion model to some of the Herbig Be stars, could suggest that another form of accretion may be occurring within Herbig Be mass range.
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  • 182
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: In this first paper we discuss the linear theory and the background evolution of a new class of models we dub SCDEW: Strongly Coupled DE, plus WDM. In these models, WDM dominates today's matter density; like baryons, WDM is uncoupled. Dark energy is a scalar field ; its coupling to ancillary cold dark matter (CDM), whose today's density is 〈〈1 per cent, is an essential model feature. Such coupling, in fact, allows the formation of cosmic structures, in spite of very low WDM particle masses (~100 eV). SCDEW models yield cosmic microwave background and linear large scale features substantially undistinguishable from CDM, but thanks to the very low WDM masses they strongly alleviate CDM issues on small scales, as confirmed via numerical simulations in the second associated paper. Moreover SCDEW cosmologies significantly ease the coincidence and fine tuning problems of CDM and, by using a field theory approach, we also outline possible links with inflationary models. We also discuss a possible fading of the coupling at low redshifts which prevents non-linearities on the CDM component to cause computational problems. The (possible) low- z coupling suppression, its mechanism, and its consequences are however still open questions – not necessarily problems – for SCDEW models. The coupling intensity and the WDM particle mass, although being extra parameters in respect to CDM, are found to be substantially constrained a priori so that, if SCDEW is the underlying cosmology, we expect most data to fit also CDM predictions.
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  • 183
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: The evidence that stellar systems surrounding the Milky Way (MW) are distributed in a Vast Polar Structure (VPOS) may be observationally biased by satellites detected in surveys of the northern sky. The recent discoveries of more than a dozen new systems in the Southern hemisphere thus constitute a critical test of the VPOS phenomenon. We report that the new objects are located close to the original VPOS, with half of the sample having offsets less than 20 kpc. The positions of the new satellite galaxy candidates are so well aligned that the orientation of the revised best-fitting VPOS structure is preserved to within 9°and the VPOS flattening is almost unchanged (31 kpc height). Interestingly, the shortest distance of the VPOS plane from the MW centre is now only 2.5 kpc, indicating that the new discoveries balance out the VPOS at the Galactic centre. The vast majority of the MW satellites are thus consistent with sharing a similar orbital plane as the Magellanic Clouds, confirming a hypothesis proposed by Kunkel & Demers and Lynden-Bell almost 40 yr ago. We predict the absolute proper motions of the new objects assuming they orbit within the VPOS. Independent of the VPOS results, we also predict the velocity dispersions of the new systems under three distinct assumptions: that they (i) are dark matter free star clusters obeying Newtonian dynamics, (ii) are dwarf satellites lying on empirical scaling relations of galaxies in dark matter haloes and (iii) obey modified Newtonian dynamics.
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  • 184
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-24
    Beschreibung: The solar wind magnetic field contains rotations at a broad range of scales, which have been extensively studied in the magnetohydrodynamics range. Here, we present an extension of this analysis to the range between ion and electron kinetic scales. The distribution of rotation angles was found to be approximately lognormal, shifting to smaller angles at smaller scales almost self-similarly, but with small, statistically significant changes of shape. The fraction of energy in fluctuations with angles larger than α was found to drop approximately exponentially with α, with e-folding angle 9.8° at ion scales and 0 $_{.}^{\circ}$ 66 at electron scales, showing that large angles (α 〉 30°) do not contain a significant amount of energy at kinetic scales. Implications for kinetic turbulence theory and the dissipation of solar wind turbulence are discussed.
    Print ISSN: 1745-3925
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  • 185
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: In practice, identifying and interpreting the functional impacts of the regulatory relationships between micro-RNA and messenger-RNA is non-trivial. The sheer scale of possible micro-RNA and messenger-RNA interactions can make the interpretation of results difficult. Results: We propose a supervised framework, pMim, built upon concepts of significance combination, for jointly ranking regulatory micro-RNA and their potential functional impacts with respect to a condition of interest. Here, pMim directly tests if a micro-RNA is differentially expressed and if its predicted targets, which lie in a common biological pathway, have changed in the opposite direction. We leverage the information within existing micro-RNA target and pathway databases to stabilize the estimation and annotation of micro-RNA regulation making our approach suitable for datasets with small sample sizes. In addition to outputting meaningful and interpretable results, we demonstrate in a variety of datasets that the micro-RNA identified by pMim, in comparison to simpler existing approaches, are also more concordant with what is described in the literature. Availability and implementation: This framework is implemented as an R function, pMim , in the package sydSeq available from http://www.ellispatrick.com/r-packages . Contact: jean.yang@sydney.edu.au Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
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  • 186
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Cellular mRNA levels originate from the combined action of multiple regulatory processes, which can be recapitulated by the rates of pre-mRNA synthesis, pre-mRNA processing and mRNA degradation. Recent experimental and computational advances set the basis to study these intertwined levels of regulation. Nevertheless, software for the comprehensive quantification of RNA dynamics is still lacking. Results: INSPEcT is an R package for the integrative analysis of RNA- and 4sU-seq data to study the dynamics of transcriptional regulation. INSPEcT provides gene-level quantification of these rates, and a modeling framework to identify which of these regulatory processes are most likely to explain the observed mRNA and pre-mRNA concentrations. Software performance is tested on a synthetic dataset, instrumental to guide the choice of the modeling parameters and the experimental design. Availability and implementation: INSPEcT is submitted to Bioconductor and is currently available as Supplementary Additional File S1 . Contact: mattia.pelizzola@iit.it Supplementary Information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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  • 187
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Experimentally determined gene regulatory networks can be enriched by computational inference from high-throughput expression profiles. However, the prediction of regulatory interactions is severely impaired by indirect and spurious effects, particularly for eukaryotes. Recently, published methods report improved predictions by exploiting the a priori known targets of a regulator (its local topology) in addition to expression profiles. Results: We find that methods exploiting known targets show an unexpectedly high rate of false discoveries. This leads to inflated performance estimates and the prediction of an excessive number of new interactions for regulators with many known targets. These issues are hidden from common evaluation and cross-validation setups, which is due to Simpson’s paradox. We suggest a confidence score recalibration method (CoRe) that reduces the false discovery rate and enables a reliable performance estimation. Conclusions: CoRe considerably improves the results of network inference methods that exploit known targets. Predictions then display the biological process specificity of regulators more correctly and enable the inference of accurate genome-wide regulatory networks in eukaryotes. For yeast, we propose a network with more than 22 000 confident interactions. We point out that machine learning approaches outside of the area of network inference may be affected as well. Availability and implementation: Results, executable code and networks are available via our website http://www.bio.ifi.lmu.de/forschung/CoRe . Contact: robert.kueffner@helmholtz-muenchen.de Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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  • 188
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Stoichiometric and constraint-based methods of computational strain design have become an important tool for rational metabolic engineering. One of those relies on the concept of constrained minimal cut sets (cMCSs). However, as most other techniques, cMCSs may consider only reaction (or gene) knockouts to achieve a desired phenotype. Results : We generalize the cMCSs approach to constrained regulatory MCSs (cRegMCSs), where up/downregulation of reaction rates can be combined along with reaction deletions. We show that flux up/downregulations can virtually be treated as cuts allowing their direct integration into the algorithmic framework of cMCSs. Because of vastly enlarged search spaces in genome-scale networks, we developed strategies to (optionally) preselect suitable candidates for flux regulation and novel algorithmic techniques to further enhance efficiency and speed of cMCSs calculation. We illustrate the cRegMCSs approach by a simple example network and apply it then by identifying strain designs for ethanol production in a genome-scale metabolic model of Escherichia coli. The results clearly show that cRegMCSs combining reaction deletions and flux regulations provide a much larger number of suitable strain designs, many of which are significantly smaller relative to cMCSs involving only knockouts. Furthermore, with cRegMCSs, one may also enable the fine tuning of desired behaviours in a narrower range. The new cRegMCSs approach may thus accelerate the implementation of model-based strain designs for the bio-based production of fuels and chemicals. Availability and implementation: MATLAB code and the examples can be downloaded at http://www.mpi-magdeburg.mpg.de/projects/cna/etcdownloads.html . Contact : krishna.mahadevan@utoronto.ca or klamt@mpi-magdeburg.mpg.de Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
    Print ISSN: 1367-4803
    Digitale ISSN: 1460-2059
    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 189
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Lipids are a large and diverse group of biological molecules with roles in membrane formation, energy storage and signaling. Cellular lipidomes may contain tens of thousands of structures, a staggering degree of complexity whose significance is not yet fully understood. High-throughput mass spectrometry-based platforms provide a means to study this complexity, but the interpretation of lipidomic data and its integration with prior knowledge of lipid biology suffers from a lack of appropriate tools to manage the data and extract knowledge from it. Results: To facilitate the description and exploration of lipidomic data and its integration with prior biological knowledge, we have developed a knowledge resource for lipids and their biology—SwissLipids. SwissLipids provides curated knowledge of lipid structures and metabolism which is used to generate an in silico library of feasible lipid structures. These are arranged in a hierarchical classification that links mass spectrometry analytical outputs to all possible lipid structures, metabolic reactions and enzymes. SwissLipids provides a reference namespace for lipidomic data publication, data exploration and hypothesis generation. The current version of SwissLipids includes over 244 000 known and theoretically possible lipid structures, over 800 proteins, and curated links to published knowledge from over 620 peer-reviewed publications. We are continually updating the SwissLipids hierarchy with new lipid categories and new expert curated knowledge. Availability: SwissLipids is freely available at http://www.swisslipids.org/ . Contact: alan.bridge@isb-sib.ch Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
    Print ISSN: 1367-4803
    Digitale ISSN: 1460-2059
    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 190
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Both the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and quantitative isothermal amplification (qIA) are standard methods for nucleic acid quantification. Numerous real-time read-out technologies have been developed. Despite the continuous interest in amplification-based techniques, there are only few tools for pre-processing of amplification data. However, a transparent tool for precise control of raw data is indispensable in several scenarios, for example, during the development of new instruments. Results: chipPCR is an R package for the pre-processing and quality analysis of raw data of amplification curves. The package takes advantage of R ’s S 4 object model and offers an extensible environment. chipPCR contains tools for raw data exploration: normalization, baselining, imputation of missing values, a powerful wrapper for amplification curve smoothing and a function to detect the start and end of an amplification curve. The capabilities of the software are enhanced by the implementation of algorithms unavailable in R , such as a 5-point stencil for derivative interpolation. Simulation tools, statistical tests, plots for data quality management, amplification efficiency/quantification cycle calculation, and datasets from qPCR and qIA experiments are part of the package. Core functionalities are integrated in GUIs (web-based and standalone shiny applications), thus streamlining analysis and report generation. Availability and implementation: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/chipPCR . Source code: https://github.com/michbur/chipPCR . Contact : stefan.roediger@b-tu.de Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
    Print ISSN: 1367-4803
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 191
    facet.materialart.
    Unbekannt
    Oxford University Press
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : A key to understanding RNA function is to uncover its complex 3D structure. Experimental methods used for determining RNA 3D structures are technologically challenging and laborious, which makes the development of computational prediction methods of substantial interest. Previously, we developed the iFoldRNA server that allows accurate prediction of short (〈50 nt) tertiary RNA structures starting from primary sequences. Here, we present a new version of the iFoldRNA server that permits the prediction of tertiary structure of RNAs as long as a few hundred nucleotides. This substantial increase in the server capacity is achieved by utilization of experimental information such as base-pairing and hydroxyl-radical probing. We demonstrate a significant benefit provided by integration of experimental data and computational methods. Availability and implementation: http://ifoldrna.dokhlab.org Contact: dokh@unc.eu
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 192
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : The ms-data-core-api is a free, open-source library for developing computational proteomics tools and pipelines. The Application Programming Interface, written in Java, enables rapid tool creation by providing a robust, pluggable programming interface and common data model. The data model is based on controlled vocabularies/ontologies and captures the whole range of data types included in common proteomics experimental workflows, going from spectra to peptide/protein identifications to quantitative results. The library contains readers for three of the most used Proteomics Standards Initiative standard file formats: mzML, mzIdentML, and mzTab. In addition to mzML, it also supports other common mass spectra data formats: dta, ms2, mgf, pkl, apl (text-based), mzXML and mzData (XML-based). Also, it can be used to read PRIDE XML, the original format used by the PRIDE database, one of the world-leading proteomics resources. Finally, we present a set of algorithms and tools whose implementation illustrates the simplicity of developing applications using the library. Availability and implementation: The software is freely available at https://github.com/PRIDE-Utilities/ms-data-core-api . Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online Contact: juan@ebi.ac.uk
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    Digitale ISSN: 1460-2059
    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 193
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is already a relevant tool in biological research at the nanoscale. We present ‘Flatten plus’, a recent and helpful implementation in the well-known WSxM free software package. ‘Flatten plus’ allows reducing low-frequency noise in SPM images in a semi-automated way preventing the appearance of typical artifacts associated with such filters. Availability and implementation: WSxM is a free software implemented in C++ supported on MS Windows, but it can also be run under Mac or Linux using emulators such as Wine or Parallels. WSxM can be downloaded from http://www.wsxmsolutions.com/ . Contact: ignacio.horcas@wsxmsolutions.com
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 194
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: : Despite the plethora of methods available for the functional analysis of omics data, obtaining comprehensive-yet detailed understanding of the results remains challenging. This is mainly due to the lack of publicly available tools for the visualization of this type of information. Here we present an R package called GOplot, based on ggplot2, for enhanced graphical representation. Our package takes the output of any general enrichment analysis and generates plots at different levels of detail: from a general overview to identify the most enriched categories (bar plot, bubble plot) to a more detailed view displaying different types of information for molecules in a given set of categories (circle plot, chord plot, cluster plot). The package provides a deeper insight into omics data and allows scientists to generate insightful plots with only a few lines of code to easily communicate the findings. Availability and Implementation: The R package GOplot is available via CRAN-The Comprehensive R Archive Network: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/GOplot . The shiny web application of the Venn diagram can be found at: https://wwalter.shinyapps.io/Venn/ . A detailed manual of the package with sample figures can be found at https://wencke.github.io/ Contact: fscabo@cnic.es or mricote@cnic.es
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    Digitale ISSN: 1460-2059
    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 195
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-25
    Beschreibung: Motivation: Horizontal transfer of transposable (HTT) elements among eukaryotes was discovered in the mid-1980s. As then, 〉300 new cases have been described. New findings about HTT are revealing the evolutionary impact of this phenomenon on host genomes. In order to provide an up to date, interactive and expandable database for such events, we developed the HTT-DB database. Results: HTT-DB allows easy access to most of HTT cases reported along with rich information about each case. Moreover, it allows the user to generate tables and graphs based on searches using Transposable elements and/or host species classification and export them in several formats. Availability and implementation: This database is freely available on the web at http://lpa.saogabriel.unipampa.edu.br:8080/httdatabase . HTT-DB was developed based on Java and MySQL with all major browsers supported. Tools and software packages used are free for personal or non-profit projects. Contact: bdotto82@gmail.com or gabriel.wallau@gmail.com
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    Thema: Biologie , Informatik , Medizin
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 196
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-09
    Beschreibung: We conduct a comprehensive search for X-ray emission lines from sterile neutrino dark matter, motivated by recent claims of unidentified emission lines in the stacked X-ray spectra of galaxy clusters and the centres of the Milky Way and M31. Since the claimed emission lines lie around 3.5 keV, we focus on galaxies and galaxy groups (masking the central regions), since these objects emit very little radiation above ~2 keV and offer a clean background against which to detect emission lines. We develop a formalism for maximizing the signal-to-noise of decaying dark matter emission lines by weighing each X-ray event according to the expected dark matter profile. In total, we examine 81 and 89 galaxies with Chandra and XMM–Newton , respectively, totalling 15.0 and 14.6 Ms of integration time. We find no significant evidence of any emission lines, placing strong constraints on the mixing angle of sterile neutrinos with masses between 4.8 and 12.4 keV. In particular, if the 3.57 keV feature from Bulbul et al. were due to 7.1 keV sterile neutrino emission, we would have detected it at 4.4 and 11.8 in our two samples. The most conservative estimates of the systematic uncertainties reduce these constraints to 4.4 and 7.8, or letting the line energy vary between 3.50 and 3.60 keV reduces these constraints to 2.7 and 11.0, respectively. Unlike previous constraints, our measurements do not depend on the model of the X-ray background or on the assumed logarithmic slope of the centre of the dark matter profile.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
    Digitale ISSN: 1365-2966
    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 197
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-12
    Beschreibung: Historically, genome-wide and molecular characterization of the genus Listeria has concentrated on the important human pathogen Listeria monocytogenes and a small number of closely related species, together termed Listeria sensu strictu. More recently, a number of genome sequences for more basal, and nonpathogenic, members of the Listeria genus have become available, facilitating a wider perspective on the evolution of pathogenicity and genome level evolutionary dynamics within the entire genus (termed Listeria sensu lato). Here, we have sequenced the genomes of additional Listeria fleischmannii and Listeria newyorkensis isolates and explored the dynamics of genome evolution in Listeria sensu lato. Our analyses suggest that acquisition of genetic material through gene duplication and divergence as well as through lateral gene transfer (mostly from outside Listeria ) is widespread throughout the genus. Novel genetic material is apparently subject to rapid turnover. Multiple lines of evidence point to significant differences in evolutionary dynamics between the most basal Listeria subclade and all other congeners, including both sensu strictu and other sensu lato isolates. Strikingly, these differences are likely attributable to stochastic, population-level processes and contribute to observed variation in genome size across the genus. Notably, our analyses indicate that the common ancestor of Listeria sensu lato lacked flagella, which were acquired by lateral gene transfer by a common ancestor of Listeria grayi and Listeria sensu strictu, whereas a recently functionally characterized pathogenicity island, responsible for the capacity to produce cobalamin and utilize ethanolamine/propane-2-diol, was acquired in an ancestor of Listeria sensu strictu.
    Digitale ISSN: 1759-6653
    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 198
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-12
    Beschreibung: Taeniid cestodes (including the human parasites Echinococcus spp. and Taenia solium ) have very few mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in their genome, despite lacking a canonical PIWI pathway. The MGEs of these parasites are virtually unexplored, and nothing is known about their expression and silencing. In this work, we report the discovery of a novel family of small nonautonomous long terminal repeat retrotransposons (also known as terminal-repeat retrotransposons in miniature, TRIMs) which we have named ta-TRIM (taeniid TRIM). ta-TRIM s are only the second family of TRIM elements discovered in animals, and are likely the result of convergent reductive evolution in different taxonomic groups. These elements originated at the base of the taeniid tree and have expanded during taeniid diversification, including after the divergence of closely related species such as Echinococcus multilocularis and Echinococcus granulosus . They are massively expressed in larval stages, from a small proportion of full-length copies and from isolated terminal repeats that show transcriptional read-through into downstream regions, generating novel noncoding RNAs and transcriptional fusions to coding genes. In E. multilocularis , ta-TRIM s are specifically expressed in the germinative cells (the somatic stem cells) during asexual reproduction of metacestode larvae. This would provide a developmental mechanism for insertion of ta-TRIM s into cells that will eventually generate the adult germ line. Future studies of active and inactive ta-TRIM elements could give the first clues on MGE silencing mechanisms in cestodes.
    Digitale ISSN: 1759-6653
    Thema: Biologie
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 199
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-13
    Beschreibung: The distribution of warm molecular gas (1000–3000 K), traced by the near-IR H 2 2.12 μm line, has been imaged with a resolution 〈0.5 arcsec in the central 1 kpc of seven nearby Seyfert galaxies. We find that this gas is highly concentrated towards the central 100 pc and that its morphology is often symmetrical. Lanes of warm H 2 gas are observed only in three cases (NGC 1068, NGC 1386 and Circinus) for which the morphology is much wider and extended than the dust filaments. We conclude that there is no one-to-one correlation between dust and warm gas. This indicates that, if the dust filaments and lanes of warm gas are radial streaming motions of fuelling material, they must represent two different phases of accretion : the dust filaments represent a colder phase than the gas close to the nucleus (within ~100 pc). We predict that the morphology of the nuclear dust at these scales should resemble that of the cold molecular gas (e.g. CO at 10–40 K), as we show for CenA and NGC 1566 by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations, whereas the inner H 2 gas traces a much warmer phase of material identified with warmer (40–500 K) molecular gas such as CO(6–5) or HCN (as shown by ALMA for NGC 1068 and NGC 1097). We also find that X-ray heating is the most likely dominant excitation mechanism of the H 2 gas for most sources.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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  • 200
    Publikationsdatum: 2015-08-13
    Beschreibung: We present the results of extensive multiband intranight optical monitoring of BL Lacertae during 2010–2012. BL Lacertae was very active in this period and showed intense variability in almost all wavelengths. We extensively observed it for a total for 38 nights; on 26 of them, observations were done quasi-simultaneously in B, V, R and I bands (totalling 113 light curves), with an average sampling interval of around 8 min. BL Lacertae showed significant variations on hour-like time-scales in a total of 19 nights in different optical bands. We did not find any evidence for periodicities or characteristic variability time-scales in the light curves. The intranight variability amplitude is generally greater at higher frequencies and decreases as the source flux increases. We found spectral variations in BL Lacertae in the sense that the optical spectrum becomes flatter as the flux increases but in several flaring states, deviates from the linear trend suggesting different jet components contributing to the emission at different times.
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
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    Thema: Physik
    Publiziert von Oxford University Press
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