Homiletical Theology understands the work of preaching to be continuing the “unfinished” task of theology. Embracing a fundamentally provisional nature, homiletical theology understands its work as ...the continual negotiation of the message of the Gospel with the contexts into which preaching speaks. This unfinished quality raises questions for how the preacher, in their theological task, navigates the various theological traditions they encounter. Using the example of the “sour grapes” proverb found in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, this article explores how Scripture itself wrestles with theological traditions to consider how present-day homiletical theologians might continue to wrestle with their “unfinished” task.
At the end of the October 2014 term, the Supreme Court decided a seemingly mundane case involving municipal sign ordinances. That case, 'Reed v Town of Gilbert, Arizona', was brought by Good News ...Community Church in Gilbert, Arizona. The church and its pastor challenged the constitutionality of the town’s sign code, arguing that it interfered with the church’s ability to advertise its weekly meetings. The code imposed different dimensional and durational requirements based on the subject matter of the signs. While the code specified twenty-three categories, only three were at issue in 'Reed': “ideological signs,” “political signs,” and “temporary directional signs relating to a qualifying event.” The church’s signs fell under the final category. The Court unanimously struck down the law for violating the First Amendment, with a majority finding that the law was content based on its face and failed strict scrutiny.
Tsetse flies are the sole vectors of African trypanosomes. In addition to trypanosomes, tsetse harbor obligate
bacteria that are essential to tsetse biology. The absence of
results in fly sterility, ...thus offering promise for population control strategies. Here, microRNA (miRNAs) and mRNA expression are characterized and compared between the exclusive
-containing bacteriome and adjacent aposymbiotic tissue in females of two evolutionarily distant tsetse species (
and
). A total of 193 miRNAs were expressed in either species, with 188 of these expressed in both species, 166 of these were novel to Glossinidae, and 41 miRNAs exhibited comparable expression levels between species. Within bacteriomes, 83 homologous mRNAs demonstrated differential expression between
aposymbiotic and bacteriome tissues, with 21 of these having conserved interspecific expression. A large proportion of these differentially expressed genes are involved in amino acid metabolism and transport, symbolizing the essential nutritional role of the symbiosis. Further bioinformatic analyses identified a sole conserved miRNA::mRNA interaction (miR-31a::fatty acyl-CoA reductase) within bacteriomes likely catalyzing the reduction of fatty acids to alcohols which comprise components of esters and lipids involved in structural maintenance. The
fatty acyl-CoA reductase gene family is characterized here through phylogenetic analyses to further understand its evolutionary diversification and the functional roles of members. Further research to characterize the nature of the miR-31a::fatty acyl-CoA reductase interaction may find novel contributions to the symbiosis to be exploited for vector control.
Global registration is a fundamental task that estimates the relative pose between two viewpoints of 3D point clouds. However, there are two issues that degrade the performance of global registration ...in LiDAR SLAM: one is the sparsity issue and the other is degeneracy. The sparsity issue is caused by the sparse characteristics of the 3D point cloud measurements in a mechanically spinning LiDAR sensor. The degeneracy issue sometimes occurs because the outlier-rejection methods reject too many correspondences, leaving less than three inliers. These two issues have become more severe as the pose discrepancy between the two viewpoints of 3D point clouds becomes greater. To tackle these problems, we propose a robust global registration framework, called Quatro++. Extending our previous work that solely focused on the global registration itself, we address the robust global registration in terms of the loop closing in LiDAR SLAM. To this end, ground segmentation is exploited to achieve robust global registration. Through the experiments, we demonstrate that our proposed method shows a higher success rate than the state-of-the-art global registration methods, overcoming the sparsity and degeneracy issues. In addition, we show that ground segmentation significantly helps to increase the success rate for the ground vehicles. Finally, we apply our proposed method to the loop closing module in LiDAR SLAM and confirm that the quality of the loop constraints is improved, showing more precise mapping results. Therefore, the experimental evidence corroborated the suitability of our method as an initial alignment in the loop closing. Our code is available at https://quatro-plusplus.github.io.
Abstract
The analysis of data over space and time is a core part of descriptive epidemiology, but the complexity of spatiotemporal data makes this challenging. There is a need for methods that ...simplify the exploration of such data for tasks such as surveillance and hypothesis generation. In this paper, we use combined clustering and dimensionality reduction methods (hereafter referred to as ‘cluster embedding’ methods) to spatially visualize patterns in epidemiological time-series data. We compare several cluster embedding techniques to see which performs best along a variety of internal cluster validation metrics. We find that methods based on k-means clustering generally perform better than self-organizing maps on real world epidemiological data, with some minor exceptions. We also introduce EpiVECS, a tool which allows the user to perform cluster embedding and explore the results using interactive visualization. EpiVECS is available as a privacy preserving, in-browser open source web application at
https://episphere.github.io/epivecs
.
Forecasting methods are notoriously difficult to interpret, particularly when the relationship between the data and the resulting forecasts is not obvious. Interpretability is an important property ...of a forecasting method because it allows the user to complement the forecasts with their own knowledge, a process which leads to more applicable results. In general, mechanistic methods are more interpretable than non-mechanistic methods, but they require explicit knowledge of the underlying dynamics. In this paper, we introduce EpiForecast, a tool which performs interpretable, non-mechanistic forecasts using interactive visualization and a simple, data-focused forecasting technique based on empirical dynamic modelling. EpiForecast's primary feature is a four-plot interactive dashboard which displays a variety of information to help the user understand how the forecasts are generated. In addition to point forecasts, the tool produces distributional forecasts using a kernel density estimation method-these are visualized using color gradients to produce a quick, intuitive visual summary of the estimated future. To ensure the work is FAIR and privacy is ensured, we have released the tool as an entirely in-browser web-application.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Kilopower Project was initiated by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate/Game Changing Development Program in fiscal year 2015 to demonstrate subsystem-level technology readiness of small ...space fission power in a relevant environment (Technology Readiness Level 5) for space science and human exploration power needs. The Kilopower Project centerpiece is the Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY (KRUSTY) test, which consists of the development and testing of a ground technology demonstrator of a 1-kW(electric)-class fission power system (FPS). The technologies to be developed and validated by KRUSTY are extensible to space FPSs from 1 to 10 kW(electric), which can enable modular surface FPSs for human exploration as well as higher-power future potential deep space science missions. The KRUSTY demonstration is cofunded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration. The KRUSTY demonstration in the National Critical Experiment Research Center's Device Assembly Facility was completed in the first quarter of 2018.
β-arrestins are multivalent adaptor proteins that bind active phosphorylated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to inhibit G protein signaling, mediate receptor internalization, and initiate ...alternative signaling events. β-arrestins link agonist-stimulated GPCRs to downstream signaling partners, such as the c-Raf-MEK1-ERK1/2 cascade leading to ERK1/2 activation. β-arrestins have been thought to transduce signals solely via passive scaffolding by facilitating the assembly of multiprotein signaling complexes. Recently, however, β-arrestin 1 and 2 were shown to activate two downstream signaling effectors, c-Src and c-Raf, allosterically. Over the last two decades, ERK1/2 have been the most intensely studied signaling proteins scaffolded by β-arrestins. Here, we demonstrate that β-arrestins play an active role in allosterically modulating ERK kinase activity in vitro and within intact cells. Specifically, we show that β-arrestins and their GPCR-mediated active states allosterically enhance ERK2 autophosphorylation and phosphorylation of a downstream ERK2 substrate, and we elucidate the mechanism by which β-arrestins do so. Furthermore, we find that allosteric stimulation of dually phosphorylated ERK2 by active-state β-arrestin 2 is more robust than by active-state β-arrestin 1, highlighting differential capacities of β-arrestin isoforms to regulate effector signaling pathways downstream of GPCRs. In summary, our study provides strong evidence for a new paradigm in which β-arrestins function as active "catalytic" scaffolds to allosterically unlock the enzymatic activity of signaling components downstream of GPCR activation.
Tsetse flies have socioeconomic significance as the obligate vector of multiple
Trypanosoma
parasites, the causative agents of Human and Animal African Trypanosomiases. Like many animals subsisting ...on a limited diet, microbial symbiosis is key to supplementing nutrient deficiencies necessary for metabolic, reproductive, and immune functions. Extensive studies on the microbiota in parallel to tsetse biology have unraveled the many dependencies partners have for one another. But far less is known mechanistically on how products are swapped between partners and how these metabolic exchanges are regulated, especially to address changing physiological needs. More specifically, how do metabolites contributed by one partner get to the right place at the right time and in the right amounts to the other partner? Epigenetics is the study of molecules and mechanisms that regulate the inheritance, gene activity and expression of traits that are not due to DNA sequence alone. The roles that epigenetics provide as a mechanistic link between host phenotype, metabolism and microbiota (both in composition and activity) is relatively unknown and represents a frontier of exploration. Here, we take a closer look at blood feeding insects with emphasis on the tsetse fly, to specifically propose roles for microRNAs (miRNA) and DNA methylation, in maintaining insect-microbiota functional homeostasis. We provide empirical details to addressing these hypotheses and advancing these studies. Deciphering how microbiota and host activity are harmonized may foster multiple applications toward manipulating host health, including identifying novel targets for innovative vector control strategies to counter insidious pests such as tsetse.
•Involving community scientists can improve sustainability of long-term monitoring.•Community scientists can reliably contribute high quality scientific data.•Commitment by volunteers can be high ...even under demanding conditions.
Long-term monitoring is integral to assessing ecological trends, but fluctuations in funding, available resources, and institutional priorities present challenges to the sustainability of monitoring programs. Incorporating community science has the potential to increase the spatial and temporal extent of monitoring efforts while minimizing cost and may be particularly useful for monitoring under-funded species such as amphibians. Concern over the reliability and integrity of data collected by volunteers, however, hampers broader use of community science in ecological monitoring. We assessed the quality of data collected by and the reliability of community scientists participating in a collaborative amphibian monitoring project requiring strict adherence to data collection protocols. Community scientists’ ability to correctly identify and detect species was on par with that of professional biologists. Agreement in species detected by community scientists and biologists ranged from 77% to 99% at sites surveyed by both surveyor types in the same season and modeled detection probabilities were similar for all but one species. Follow-through within a season was high. Since 2014, community scientists (n = 328) completed 75% of surveys to which they had committed. However, retention of community scientists across years was low, with 81% of participants only involved for one season. Community scientists offset agency resource limitations by conducting 32% of surveys and substantially contributed to meeting sample size goals. Furthermore, although time invested in project management and coordination increased with community science involvement, cost savings from field surveys and centralized coordination offset this increase. Our results suggest that with careful project planning and volunteer training, community scientists can contribute robust data to rigorous scientific studies, but project and participants’ goals must align to improve retention across years. Successful programs will require substantial investment by personnel for volunteer recruitment, training, data validation, and dissemination of results, however, involvement of community scientists can improve the sustainability of long-term monitoring programs through collaboration and cost savings. Our results support an increasing body of evidence that community science can contribute significantly to ecological monitoring even when considerable commitment and scientific rigor are essential.
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