Current USDA selection indices such as lifetime net merit (NM$) estimate lifetime profit differences, which are accurately approximated by a linear combination of 13 traits. In these indices, every ...animal gets credit for 2.78 lactations of the traits expressed per lactation, such as fat and protein, independent of its productive life (PL). This formulation may over- or underestimate the net revenue from traits expressed per lactation depending on PL. The objectives were to develop 2 genetic selection indices using financial investment methods to account for differences in PL and to compare them with the 2017 NM$ for marketed Holstein sires. Selection among animals with different PL is an example of investment in mutually exclusive projects that have unequal duration. Financial investment theory says that such projects are best compared with the annualized net present value (ANPV) method when replacement occurs with technologically equal assets. However, genetic progress implies that future available replacement animals are technologically improved assets. Asset replacement theory with improved assets results in an annualized value including genetic opportunity cost (AVOC) for each animal. We developed the ANPV and AVOC and compared these with the NM$ for 1,500 marketed Holstein sires from the December 2017 genetic evaluation. The lowest Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.980 between AVOC and NM$, whereas the highest was 0.999 between ANPV and NM$ among the 1,500 sires. Correlations for the top 300 sires were lower. Although we found high correlations between indices, the 95th and 5th percentiles of individual rank changes between AVOC and NM$ were +131 and −163 positions, respectively, whereas these changes between ANPV and NM$ were +27 and −45 positions, respectively. The relative emphasis of PL in the AVOC index was half of the relative emphasis in NM$. These results show that applying financial investment methods to value differences in genetic merit of animals changes their rankings compared with the NM$ formulation. Rank changes were meaningful enough that the new indices warrant consideration for use in practice.
High resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites like TerraSAR-X are capable of acquiring images exhibiting an absolute geolocation accuracy within a few centimeters, mainly because of the ...availability of precise orbit information and by compensating range delay errors due to atmospheric conditions. In contrast, satellite images from optical missions generally exhibit comparably low geolocation accuracies because of the propagation of errors in angular measurements over large distances. However, a variety of remote sensing applications, such as change detection, surface movement monitoring or ice flow measurements, require precisely geo-referenced and co-registered satellite images. By using Ground Control Points (GCPs) derived from TerraSAR-X, the absolute geolocation accuracy of optical satellite images can be improved. For this purpose, the corresponding matching points in the optical images need to be localized. In this paper, a deep learning based approach is investigated for an automated matching of SAR-derived GCPs to optical image elements. Therefore, a convolutional neural network is pretrained with medium resolution Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery and fine-tuned on precisely co-registered TerraSAR-X and Pléiades training image pairs to learn a common descriptor representation. By using these descriptors, the similarity of SAR and optical image patches can be calculated. This similarity metric is then used in a sliding window approach to identify the matching points in the optical reference image. Subsequently, the derived points can be utilized for co-registration of the underlying images. The network is evaluated over nine study areas showing airports and their rural surroundings from several different countries around the world. The results show that based on TerraSAR-X-derived GCPs, corresponding points in the optical image can automatically and reliably be identified with a pixel-level localization accuracy.
Currently, increasing attention has been focused on light-emitting diodes (LEDs)-induced photopolymerization. The common LEDs (e.g., LED at 365 nm and LED at 405 nm) possess narrow emission bands. ...Due to their light absorption properties, most commercial photoinitiators are sensitive to UV light and cannot be optimally activated under visible LED irradiation. Although many photoinitiators have been designed for LED-induced free radical polymerization and cationic polymerization, there is still the issue of the mating between photoinitiators and LEDs. Therefore, the development of novel photoinitiators, which could be applied under LED irradiation, is significant. Many photoinitiating systems have been reported in the past decade. In this review, some recently developed photoinitiators used in LED-induced photopolymerization, mainly in the past 5 years, are summarized and categorized as Type Ⅰ photoinitiators, Type Ⅱ photoinitiators, and dye-based photoinitiating systems. In addition, their light absorption properties and photoinitiation efficiencies are discussed.
Recently, time-series from optical satellite data have been frequently used in object-based land-cover classification. This poses a significant challenge to object-based image analysis (OBIA) owing ...to the presence of complex spatio-temporal information in the time-series data. This study evaluates object-based land-cover classification in the northern suburbs of Munich using time-series from optical Sentinel data. Using a random forest classifier as the backbone, experiments were designed to analyze the impact of the segmentation scale, features (including spectral and temporal features), categories, frequency, and acquisition timing of optical satellite images. Based on our analyses, the following findings are reported: (1) Optical Sentinel images acquired over four seasons can make a significant contribution to the classification of agricultural areas, even though this contribution varies between spectral bands for the same period. (2) The use of time-series data alleviates the issue of identifying the “optimal” segmentation scale. The finding of this study can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of classification uncertainty on object-based dense multi-temporal image classification.
Like other racial minority groups, multiracial people face discrimination as a function of their racial identity, and this discrimination represents a threat to psychological well-being. Following ...the Rejection-Identification Model (RIM;
Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999
), we argue that perceived discrimination will encourage multiracial people to identify more strongly with other multiracials, and that multiracial identification, in turn, fosters psychological well-being. Thus, multiracial identification is conceptualized as a coping response that reduces the overall costs of discrimination on well-being. This study is the first to test the RIM in a sample of multiracial people. Multiracial participants' perceptions of discrimination were negatively related to life satisfaction. Consistent with the RIM, perceived discrimination was positively related to three aspects of multiracial group identification: stereotyping the self as similar to other multiracial people, perceiving people within the multiracial category as more homogenous, and expressing solidarity with the multiracial category. Self-stereotyping was the only aspect of group identification that mediated a positive relationship between perceived discrimination and life satisfaction, suggesting that multiracial identification's protective properties rest in the fact that it provides an collective identity where one "fits."
To allow for increased gas turbine efficiencies, new insulating thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) must be developed to protect the underlying metallic components from higher operating temperatures. ...This work focused on using rare earth doped (Yb and Gd) yttria stabilized zirconia (t′ low-k) and Gd2Zr2O7 pyrochlores (GZO) combined with novel nanolayered and thick layered microstructures to enable operation beyond the 1200°C stability limit of current 7wt.% yttria stabilized zirconia (7YSZ) coatings. It was observed that the layered system can reduce the thermal conductivity by ~45% with respect to YSZ after 20h of testing at 1316°C. The erosion rate of GZO is shown to be an order to magnitude higher than YSZ and t′ low-k, but this can be reduced by almost 57% when utilizing a nanolayered structure. Lastly, the thermal instability of the layered system is investigated and thought is given to optimization of layer thickness.
•Mutlilayer and nanolayer TBCs were fabricated using EB-PVD.•Coatings were composed of alternating layers of t′ low-k and Gd2Zr2O7.•Erosion and thermal conductivity results out-performed baseline materials.•Thermal stability is strongly influenced by layer thickness.
We test common sense psychology of intragroup relations whereby people assume that intragroup respect and ingroup prototypicality are positively related. In Study 1a, participants rated a group ...member as more prototypical if they learned that group member was highly respected rather than disrespected. In Study 1b, participants rated a group member as more respected by other group members if they learned that group member was prototypical rather than unprototypical. As a commonsense psychology of groups, we reasoned that the perceived relationship between prototypicality and intragroup respect would be stronger for cohesive groups compared to incohesive groups. The effect of intragroup respect on perceptions of prototypicality (Study 2a & 2c) and the effect of prototypicality on perceptions of intragroup respect (Study 2b) were generally stronger for participants considering cohesive groups relative to incohesive groups. However, the interaction effect of prototypicality and group cohesion on intragroup respect did fail to replicate in Study 2d. In Studies 3, 4a, and 4b we manipulated the relationship between prototypicality and intragroup respect and found that when these variables were in perceptual harmony participants perceived groups as more cohesive. The results of eight out of nine studies conducted are consistent with the prediction that people make inferences about intragroup respect, prototypicality, and group cohesion in a manner that maintains perceptual harmony.
Implications of genetic heterogeneity in cancer Schmitt, Michael W.; Prindle, Marc J.; Loeb, Lawrence A.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
September 2012, Letnik:
1267, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
DNA sequencing studies have established that many cancers contain tens of thousands of clonal mutations throughout their genomes, which is difficult to reconcile with the very low rate of mutation in ...normal human cells. This observation provides strong evidence for the mutator phenotype hypothesis, which proposes that a genome‐wide elevation in the spontaneous mutation rate is an early step in carcinogenesis. An elevated mutation rate implies that cancers undergo continuous evolution, generating multiple subpopulations of cells that differ from one another in DNA sequence. The extensive heterogeneity in DNA sequence and continual tumor evolution that would occur in the context of a mutator phenotype have important implications for cancer diagnosis and therapy.
The use of hemin iron by Corynebacterium diphtheriae requires the DtxR- and iron-regulated ABC hemin transporter HmuTUV and the secreted Hb-binding protein HtaA. We recently described two surface ...anchored proteins, ChtA and ChtC, which also bind hemin and Hb. ChtA and ChtC share structural similarities to HtaA; however, a function for ChtA and ChtC was not determined. In this study, we identified additional host iron sources that are utilized by C. diphtheriae . We show that several C. diphtheriae strains use the hemoglobin-haptoglobin (Hb-Hp) complex as an iron source. We report that an htaA deletion mutant of C. diphtheriae strain 1737 is unable to use the Hb-Hp complex as an iron source, and we further demonstrate that a chtA-chtC double mutant is also unable to use Hb-Hp iron. Single-deletion mutants of chtA or chtC use Hb-Hp iron in a manner similar to that of the wild type. These findings suggest that both HtaA and either ChtA or ChtC are essential for the use of Hb-Hp iron. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) studies show that HtaA binds the Hb-Hp complex, and the substitution of a conserved tyrosine (Y361) for alanine in HtaA results in significantly reduced binding. C. diphtheriae was also able to use human serum albumin (HSA) and myoglobin (Mb) but not hemopexin as iron sources. These studies identify a biological function for the ChtA and ChtC proteins and demonstrate that the use of the Hb-Hp complex as an iron source by C. diphtheriae requires multiple iron-regulated surface components.
The propensity of particle brush materials to form long-ranged ordered assembly structures is shown to sensitively depend on the brush architecture (i.e., the particle radius as well as molecular ...weight and grafting density of surface-bound chains). In the limit of stretched chain conformations of surface-grafted chains the formation of regular particle array structures is observed and interpreted as a consequence of hard-sphere-type interactions between polymer-grafted particles. As the degree of polymerization of surface-grafted chains increases beyond a threshold value, a reduction of the structural regularity is observed that is rationalized with the increased volume occupied by relaxed polymer segments. The capacity of polymer grafts to increase or decrease order in particle brush assembly structures is interpreted on the basis of a mean-field scaling model, and “design criteria” are developed to help guide the future synthesis of colloidal systems that are capable of forming mechanically robust yet ordered assembly structures.
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