Online assessment help center questions worksheets

Online assessment help center questions worksheets

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Questions center online worksheets assessment help

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You will learn how to get jobs in the IT industry and learn computer skills that will help you in any future employment. Applicants for graduate programs must have the equivalent of a bachelors degree with a minimum GPA equivalent to 3 on a US 4. 4 percent of the entire K-12 student population in the U. The first deals with the method of doubt, the second deals with the human mind and body, and finally the third with the existence of God. The Death Penalty Debate in the United States. When a person g i v es a poor man shoes, does he do it f or the poor man or f or God. Similarly, He recognized the need to stay objective, and thus put into place methods Essat now 100 point essay rubric pdf for granted that allowed afsnit i et essay to maximize afsnit i et essay insider status Initially, Du Bois had believed that afsnit i et essay of the Main problems black Americans faced was the ignorance about their true Nature. There are typical vampires who would be right at home in a horror story or a gothic romance; historical vampires; contemporary, gritty, urban vampires; fang-in-cheek comedy; boy-meets-girl sweetheart stories if a little bloodier. Research often goes hand in hand with writing, and there are, of course, aspects that overlap, but as procedures for choosing topic, method and approach vary greatly between different fields and disciplines, our focus is limited to aspects directly linked to writing. The corporate governance structure specifies the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. For this assignment, the discussion will be focused on providing customers a better life as a strategic goal and operating in an environmentally safe working atmosphereas an operational goal. Essay Structure Here you will learn basic structure for your essay writing and will learn how to set coherent ideas to put in the essay. Organization means that your argument flows logically from one point to the next. Jonathan Weiner s The Beak of the Finch describes this very process.

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Es werden keine Aufschläge am Wochenende oder an Feiertagen erhoben. These artist express their raw talent with the way the choice of color were used in the Mona Lisa also the materials that was put into the Pieta such. Recently biofuels have been developed for use in automotive transport (for example Bioethanol and Biodiesel), but there is widespread public debate about how carbon efficient these fuels are. Dont rely on a spellchecker, as it will not pick up everything proofread as many times as possible. Toutefois, l information que l on y trouve donne un coup de pouce bien réel à quiconque doit faire face à cet examen non virtuel. If folks want to walk around uncovered and unclaimed, they need to go somewhere else. Trust me, there's just no way you are being realistically appreciative of the level of complexity inherent in the problem you're describing. The Proximal Convoluted Tubule is lined by a simple Cuboidal Epithelium that, by complex biochemical processes of active and passive transport, moves most of the filtrate out of the Nephron and into the tissue space called the Interstitial Space around it. Some believe that it is plausible that, through adequate information, we could largely correct mistaken beliefs about the link between genetic and personal identity, and thus reduce the risk of problematic expectations toward the clone Harris 1997, 2004; Tooley 1998, 84 5; Brock 1998, Pence 1998. The American Psychological Association publishes one of the most frequently used sets of publication guidelines. India Under-19 profited from three timely half-centuries to reach 255 for 7 in their first innings on the first day of the four-day match against Pakistan Under-19 at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. From the beginning of when mankind played competitive sports, they have sought to gain a cutting edge against their enemies. Others will have the opportunity to work in a preschool childcare setting. Real Estate Taxes fixed in nature as 100 of this expense would exist even if the property were 100 vacant Insurance fixed Utilities variable; assume 20 30 of this expense is fixed Repairs and Maintenance variable; assume 30 40 of this expense is fixed Grounds and Security fixed Management Fee fixed Janitorial fixed. Should persons found littering face punitive penalties. But an essay about a wrestler who takes dance classes. SME Week Youth Essay Competition 2019 Launch. This volume, while it is complete in itself, is also the first of a trilogy, the scope of which is suggested in the prologue.

Online assessment help center questions worksheets

Another successful case followed in 1990, made by eight survivors from St. We therefore assume that a database should contain a large number of illegal positions. This worksheet also demonstrates how LinguaFolio creates opportunities to help students maintain what they have learned. Make checks payable to Treasurer, Virginia Tech. As do most of the authors, I think that it is appropriate to speak of a pragmatist, instead of a merely pragmatic, approach to ethics. When something goes wrong during the fishing, an enraged Dad starts holding Miles s head underwater for longer and longer periods of time, screaming that this will teach him the correct way to do things. As the news of Jews being sent to death camps became known, the Jews began to rise up against the Nazis. Metalwork, including decoration in enamel, became very sophisticated. Now, he says he usually helps with the cleaning or bringing water from the pump with his dad so his mum can do the washing. The Effects of Color on the Moods of College Students. This is in line with my long term dream of working in public institution programs like schools, clinics and research institutions or even as a teacher in a dental hygiene center. In any given population, according to Stenner, roughly one-third of people will have authoritarian tendencies. Generalitat de Catalunya Departament de Sanitat Seguretat Social, El Pla de Salut a prop Pla de Salut de Catalunya 1996 1998, Servei Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain, 1997. The smooth sides of the cuvette is wiped clean and dry to make sure there s no dust, water and finger prints on it.

Indran of Asian Overland Services for taking us around the city. Selections are based on research s originality, quality, feasibility, and potential field contribution. But as he presently knocked the wheel against a kerbstone the people inside began to suspect what the despatch contained. Conditions drive men to form a social contract for their protection. The most important rules at a glance with a color-coded Priority Rating High Med. In South Africa, gender interventions with men have historically focused on two major problems violence and HIV transmission. She stumbles along good-naturedly She knows she is not bright Walker 290. He goes out basically every night of the week with his friend Tad Allagash and snorts lines of cocaine in shady and run down New York City clubs. However, the information to petition for a relaxation can be found on our website under FAQs. Maryland 1969, the Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment applied to the states as well as to the federal government. I was angry and roared Come back, you bastards, there are people alive in there. The peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal Otherness: Essays and Studies is now accepting submissions for its special issue: Otherness and Transgression in Fan and Celebrity Studies, Autumn 2017. And we ve seen time and time again what we call now Office of Legal Counsel legal opinions. Today, people determine a person by his or her brain.

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      This page contains information related to our GCSE Leisure and Tourism specification available in England and Wales. Riteish Vilasrao Deshmukh (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian film actor, producer and architect.

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Pollution of surface water with harmful chemicals and eutrophication of rivers and lakes with excess nutrients are serious environmental concerns. This study estimated surface water quality in a stream within the Yazoo River Basin (YRB), Mississippi, USA, using the duration curve and recurrence interval analysis techniques. Data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) surface water monitoring station located in Deer Creek east of Leland from the YRB were selected for the analysis. Results showed that the water quality constituents, namely water temperature, specific conductivity (SC) and dissolved oxygen (DO), in this stream were found not to be the major concerns as the percentages of the time when these constituents did not meet their criteria were very low. Our results further revealed that the water temperature and SC increased as time elapsed, indicating the potential global warming and contamination impacts in this stream. In contrast, the DO and pH decreased as time elapsed, postulating a potential increase in biochemical oxygen demand and an acidic trend in this stream. Over the last decade, the average recurrence intervals when the water temperature, SC, and DO did not meet their criteria or minimum conditions were around 1 year. Using a target DO value of 429 kg d−1 proposed by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, results from this study showed that there was about 25% of the time when the DO load did not meet the target value. This study suggests that the duration curve and recurrence interval analysis techniques are useful statistical tools for water quality trend estimation.

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Special Topic

Pitfalls and Promise of 3-dimensional Image Comparison for Craniofacial Surgical Assessment

Matthews, Harold S. PhD*,†,‡,§; Burge, Jonathan A. MBChB¶,∥; Verhelst, Pieter-Jan R. MD§,**; Politis, Constantinus MD, DDS, MHA, MM, PhD§,**; Claes, Peter D. PhD*,†,‡,††; Penington, Anthony J. MD*,¶,‡‡

Author Information
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery - Global Open: May 2020 - Volume 8 - Issue 5 - p e2847
doi: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000002847
  • Open
  • Belgium

Three-dimensional (3D) photography is widely used in plastic and craniomaxillofacial surgery as an accurate and reproducible record of surface anatomy. It has the potential to be a versatile tool for assessment of outcomes and is increasingly used in treatment planning. For example, it could be used to monitor facial growth in cleft patients or to estimate the volume of implant required to correct breast or other asymmetries. Not all surgeons, however, have found the technology immediately useful. Sometimes apparently simple image analysis gives anomalous answers for reasons that are not obvious. Previous reviews have considered potential applications of 3D image analysis in craniofacial surgical assessment1 and the use of color visualizations of the differences between images in particular2 but have focused more on the potential than on the problems. The aim of this special topic is to give surgeons a deeper understanding of 3D image analysis and to explain why the sort of simple analysis commonly performed on 3D images may give misleading results. It will also describe how more sophisticated techniques becoming available can solve these problems and make 3D imaging a powerful tool for outcome measurement and treatment planning, not just in craniofacial surgery but across the whole spectrum of plastic surgery.

Most 3D photographs are produced by a process called stereo-photogrammetry. Such 3D images are a composite of anywhere from two to ten 2-dimensional (2D) images taken by different cameras positioned around the subject. Proprietary software integrates the 2D images into a 3D model of the surface. The 3D “image” actually consists of many thousands of points in space, distributed across the surface of the subject, linked into a “mesh” that defines that surface (Fig. 1). Information about color and texture are then applied to produce the smooth 3D image seen on the screen. The location of each point in space is defined by 3 values: the distances, in x, y, and z coordinates, from an arbitrarily defined zero point somewhere in the image space.

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.:
Three-dimensional (3D) images. 3D photograph of a female patient with Crouzon syndrome taken pre (A) LeFort III osteotomy and distraction, lateral canthoplasties, and hydroxyapatite cranioplasty and post (B). C shows the pre image as a wireframe. D shows the raw data behind the image file. The excel file contains the 3D locations of all points comprising the image.

The most common application of 3D imaging technology is to compare 2 images of the same individual taken on separate occasions, such as pre- and postsurgery.3–5 In general, for 2 images to be comparable and for the images to accurately represent the anatomy, they should both be taken with the subject displaying a neutral facial expression. The regions of interest (eg, the face) should also be present in both images. An example is given in Figure 1 of a child with Crouzon syndrome who has undergone a LeFort III osteotomy and distraction along with hydroxyapatite cranioplasty and lateral canthoplasties. Consecutive 3D photographs, taken just before surgery at the age of 6 years and a year later at 7 years, were taken to quantify how the soft tissues were affected by surgery.

Comparison of such images is a 2-stage process. First, the 2 images need to be aligned or overlaid in some way to expose any difference in surface contour. Once this has been achieved, some objective measurement or quantification of the difference can be performed. At either stage, subtle errors can occur, which can produce misleading or confusing results.

Most imaging systems are shipped with software that allows 2 images to be represented and aligned with each other in a single workspace. Alignment can be achieved manually by the user manipulating and moving 1 image onto the other until they believe the 2 images are appropriately overlaid. Most systems also have an algorithm for automated or semiautomated image alignment. Either way, image alignment involves moving and rotating one image in 3 dimensions until it accurately overlays the other.

Given an appropriate software interface, most users do not find it hard to overlay one image onto the other in a meaningful way. Even though changes in overall shape will exist between the 2 images, the operator will instinctively avoid using the areas altered by surgery to align the image, preferentially using anatomical features distant from the surgery site to make the images correspond. Difficulties are most likely to arise when general changes unrelated to surgery have occurred in the shape of the head in the interval between images, such as those due to growth or change in weight. Manual alignment introduces subjectivity into the process and the potential for human error, so an automated or semiautomated process would generally be a better option if it is available.

Unfortunately, the results of automated alignment are not necessarily more accurate than those of a well-performed manual alignment. Alignment software typically applies an algorithm that minimizes the overall differences between the surface contours of the 2 images. However, this does not distinguish, as an expert user would, between areas that have been altered by surgery and those that have not. Without a method to identify specific changes due to surgery, automatic alignment may introduce systematic errors into subsequent analysis.

Once the images have been aligned, quantification and representation of the contour differences can be performed. In some circumstances, such as in breast surgery, all that is wanted is the overall change in volume, but, in most applications, the surgeon would like to know the magnitude and direction of change at each point across the surface. Such changes are usually presented in the form of a “color map,” in which the color of the image at each point indicates some measure of difference at that point, usually distance between the 2 surfaces. In Figure 2, the default method of comparison used in most software packages has been applied to the images in Figure 1. Here the color indicates the distance from each point in the preimage to the nearest point in the postimage. The accompanying scale indicates the distance and direction of difference (outward or inward) represented by each color: red where the postoperative contour is further out, green where it is further in. Because, using the default settings of the software, the color scale is not centered with blue at zero, a portion of the blue-green spectrum actually indicates a slight positive (outward) difference. The histogram indicates the proportion of points on the face that correspond with each color.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.:
Standard visualization of contour difference in 3dMD patient after automatic alignment. “Color map” shows the color map produced by the software and indicates the distance between the 2 surfaces at each point. “Alignment” shows the 2 aligned surfaces. The inset illustrates the discrepancy between the closest points and the anatomically corresponding points. The anatomically corresponding points are defined manually, by the authors, for illustrative purposes.

Surgeons often assume that the difference between surfaces represents the change that has occurred due to surgery at any particular point of the face. It is important to understand why this is not necessarily the case. The color indicates the distance from each point on the preimage to the closest point on the postimage, not the corresponding anatomical point on the postimage. These 2 distances are not the same. The inset in Figure 2 shows that for most points on the nose and lip, the distance to the closest point on the postimage, shown by the black arrows, is very different from the distance to the corresponding anatomical point, indicated by the red arrows. Only the red arrows suggest the actual change in position of the tissue achieved by surgery. The degree to which the discrepancy between these 2 values distorts the measurement of surgical outcomes depends on the contour of the surface being analyzed. In some circumstances, it can produce highly misleading results. An example in Figure 2 is that the tip of the nose is being matched to the bridge of the nose, and thereby the displacement of this point due to surgery is significantly underestimated. Also, the lower lip appears to be displaced as much as the upper lip, which is clearly incorrect. This problem can be addressed by applying a technique known in image analysis as image “nonrigid registration.”

The term “registration” usually refers to “rigid registration.” This is the manual, or automatic alignment of one image to another, discussed above. The purpose of nonrigid registration is to ensure that each point on 2 or more such images are linked to each other in a way that is anatomically meaningful. In other words, each point defines the same anatomical location in each image. In the last 2 decades, effective and reproducible methods of nonrigid registration of 3D biological images have been developed. Although currently used only in the research context, nonrigid registration of images can produce much more accurate, reproducible, and intuitively interpretable measurement of surgical outcomes.6,7 It also opens the door to more sophisticated techniques of image analysis.

To understand nonrigid registration, we need to return to the idea that the “image” consists of thousands of points in 3D space distributed across the surface of the object. When each 3D photograph of the same individual is taken, not only do the images have different locations and orientations in the computerized 3D “world,” but the surface of the face or head is also represented by a different number of points in each image. These points are scattered essentially randomly and have no consistent anatomical meaning. For example, point 768 may be on the tip of the nose in one image and on the cheek in another. To compare the entire surface of one image to the entire surface of the other in a way that captures anatomical changes, each surface must be represented by the same number of points and each numbered point must be in the same anatomical location in each image. Achieving this is the key outcome of a nonrigid registration. It is, in effect, an automated method of identifying “landmarks” on the face as has traditionally been performed by an expert anatomist. However, the landmarks are not just at important anatomical sites, but evenly distributed across the entire surface to be studied.

Various nonrigid registration methods have been described. An example (MeshMonk is illustrated in Figure 3. First an identical copy of the preimage is created (Gray image in Fig. 3). An algorithm is then applied, which gradually changes its shape to match that of the postimage. The key to retaining the biological meaning of each point during this warping algorithm (eg, ensuring that point 786 remains on the tip of the nose) is in that the copy is deformed toward the postimage slowly over many iterations. At the end of the process, there is a new version of the postimage that has exactly the same number of points as the preimage, and each numbered point on that image is in a location that matches the location on the preimage. This image can now be aligned and compared with the preimage. Anatomical correspondence can be verified by looking at known anatomical landmarks (see the arrows of Fig. 4 and the study by White et al8), an important quality-control measure.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.:
Image comparison by nonrigid registration. First a copy (orange) of the pre image is made. This is then warped into the shape of the post image (top row). This copy has the same number of points as the pre image but represents the shape of the post image. The warped copy can then be aligned to the original, and each point in one image is compared to its counterpart in the other.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.:
Image comparison using the standard approach compared with using nonrigid registration. Using the standard approach (left-hand image), points on one image are matched to the closest points on the other. Changes bear little relation to the expected changes of surgery. In the right hand image, a nonrigid registration has been used, and so the matched points correspond anatomically. The image created using nonrigid registration generates a much more realistic picture of the effect of the interventions.

Automatic image alignment after nonrigid registration is much more accurate than a regular alignment because it minimizes the overall distances between corresponding, rather than the closest points. The alignment can be further improved by using an algorithm that iteratively identifies those parts of the image that have undergone the most change, due to surgery in this case, and weighting them least in the alignment process. This is essentially what a surgeon would do instinctively in a manual alignment, but in an automated, reproducible manner.9 More importantly, nonrigid registration allows the generation of a color map that corresponds more closely with the effects of surgery because it indicates the change between anatomical points on the images, not the nearest points. The improved analysis is shown in Figure 4. The left-hand image shows again the comparison of the 2 images in Figure 1 using standard software without nonrigid registration. The standard approach appears to show that little or no change has occurred in the midface, the area where maximum advancement is expected, while the chin seems to have moved backwards. On the right side, analysis of exactly the same images using a nonrigid registration demonstrates a much more realistic picture of the changes due to surgery. Just as with standard software, the colors of the color map created using the nonrigid registration indicate the postoperative change in millimeters. The expected forward movement of the midface relative to the rest of the head is clearly shown, and the nose has been carried forward with it. The apparent backward movement of the chin shown using the standard approach is no longer seen.

A further advantage of nonrigid image registration is that it allows the simultaneous analysis of more than 2 images. This allows meaningful comparisons to be made between populations and between individuals and populations. When images of multiple faces are all registered with a single reference face, the average location of each point across the surface can be used to generate an “average” face shape of that population. Measures of variation, such as standard deviations (SDs), can also be calculated and displayed as a color map.10 Given a set of 3D images of a population of individuals, such as a normal population or a group of patients with a particular syndrome, a normal average or a syndrome-specific average face can be generated.11–14 Such “average” faces have many potential applications in both research and clinical practice. These can be used as a frame of references against which the outcomes of surgery can be assessed.

The most obvious application is to assess how close to the population norm a particular face is either before or following surgery. This can be used to measure how effective surgery has been in bringing the face shape closer to what is “normal” for the patient’s appropriate reference population. There are various ways in which an individual face can be compared with established population norms. The simplest way is to create a color map, which shows the absolute distance of each point in the face from the population mean (Fig. 5, third column). Alternatively, a color map can be created to show which areas of the face lie within or outside a certain threshold, such as 2 SDs from the population mean. A cutoff z score is therefore used to determine if a distance between anatomically corresponding points of the image surfaces lies within or outside the accepted range of values.15,16

Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.:
Comparing the patient pre- and posttreatment to a reference population. The first column shows an age-appropriate average face constructed from the reference population. The patient image is overlayed to it in column 2. Column 3 shows the distance between the patient and the population norm. Column 4 indicates those regions that are inside (blue) or outside the normal variation at that age estimated from the reference population (red indicates >+2 SD distance from the average, and green indicates <−2 SDs).

A significant issue in the analysis of the outcomes of surgery in children is the change in face and head shape that occurs with normal growth. Pre- and postsurgery images are typically taken several months or more apart, and during this interval, the shape of the face and head would be expected to change, even if there had been no surgical intervention. Using a database of 3D images of normal children, we previously developed a method of creating an appropriate age-specific average head shape along with SDs at each point.10,17,18 This can be used to make an allowance for changes that would be expected to have occurred through normal growth in the interval between images. A similar technique could be used to model the effects of aging in adults.

Figure 5 shows an example of how this type of analysis could be used to audit the results of surgery. The images of the child from Figure 1 have been aligned to age-appropriate references and compared. The first column shows the average faces that have been calculated specifically for the 2 ages at which pre- and postoperative images were taken. The second column shows the patient aligned to the age-appropriate average face. The third column shows the distance between the patient and the population norm, and the fourth column indicates which regions are statistically abnormal. Those areas that are beyond the cutoff z scores are colored red (>2 SD) or green (<−2 SD) and those in the normal range are colored blue. We can now see how the LeFort III osteotomy and distraction has brought the midface from outside the normal range to somewhere close to the population mean (the “Distance” color map becomes less green and moves toward blue) and that this sits in the range of normal variation. The hydroxyapatite onlay graft to the forehead, as expected, has not been sufficient to bring the forehead shape into the normal range.

The change in the position of the chin, relative to population norms, may be due to a postural change in the mandible, possibly related to the altered occlusion. It may also be that the growth in the child’s lower face has failed to keep up with average population growth, which is significant at this age.15,16

The aim of many procedures in plastic and craniomaxillofacial surgery is to correct or enhance the human form, but assessment of the outcomes of such procedures is a significant challenge. CT scans are an excellent measure of outcome in craniofacial surgery, but radiation exposure and cost preclude their routine use and they are of little value in soft tissue procedures. Two-dimensional photographs are the most widely used measure of outcome, but slight changes in photograph angle and lighting are known to significantly alter assessor interpretation.19 3D photography has the potential to overcome most, if not all, of these problems. As this technology becomes cheaper and more widely available, it will inevitably replace other methods of assessment. It is vital that surgeons understand both its potential and its limitations.

A 3D image provides an accurate and objective measure of the surface contour of a body part, and so can act as a permanent record of pre- and postoperative body shape. Linear measurements and simple comparisons can be performed using software typically shipped with devices, but there are definite pitfalls that must be avoided. Some of these pitfalls have been described in this article, along with solutions that have recently been developed. Although these solutions are not able to be applied by a nonexpert user, the necessary software is open source and can be implemented by an individual with some programming expertise.

Among the most potentially powerful techniques described in this review are those that apply to populations of images. The ability to compare surgical outcomes to population norms has only previously been possible by comparing linear distances between landmarks against tabulated measurements. The comparison of the whole surface of the face and head, or indeed any body part, against population norms represents a significant advance in this field. This underlines the importance of the collection of databases of 3D images for different populations, across different ages, locations, and pathologies. Collecting such databases will require strong international collaborations.

Finally, 3D image analysis is playing an increasing role in surgical planning, making consequences of errors much more significant. This makes it all the more important for surgeons to understand the principles of 3D image analysis, rather than becoming passive users of proprietary software.

3D image analysis has huge potential in plastic and reconstructive surgery, but the techniques required to analyze 3D images are still in development. There are significant potential pitfalls in image comparison, which can be avoided by understanding the principles of image analysis and by implementation of new, automated methods of image analysis.

1. Kau CH, Richmond S, Incrapera A, et al.Three-dimensional surface acquisition systems for the study of facial morphology and their application to maxillofacial surgery. Int J Med Robot. 2007;3:97–110.
2. Jayaratne YS, Zwahlen RA, Lo J, et al.Three-dimensional color maps: a novel tool for assessing craniofacial changes. Surg Innov. 2010;17:198–205.
3. Maal TJ, van Loon B, Plooij JM, et al.Registration of 3-dimensional facial photographs for clinical use. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2010;68:2391–2401.
4. Moghaddam MB, Brown TM, Clausen A, et al.Outcome analysis after helmet therapy using 3D photogrammetry in patients with deformational plagiocephaly: the role of root mean square. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg. 2014;67:159–165.
5. van Heerbeek N, Ingels KJ, van Loon B, et al.Three dimensional measurement of rhinoplasty results. Rhinology. 2009;47:121–125.
6. Claes P, Walters M, Clement JImproved facial outcome assessment using a 3D anthropometric mask. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2012;41:324–330.
7. Walters M, Claes P, Kakulas E, et al.Robust and regional 3D facial asymmetry assessment in hemimandibular hyperplasia and hemimandibular elongation anomalies. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2013;42:36–42.
8. White JD, Ortega-Castrillón A, Matthews H, et al.MeshMonk: open-source large-scale intensive 3D phenotyping. Sci Rep. 2019;9:6085.
9. Claes P, Daniels K, Walters M, et al.Dysmorphometrics: the modelling of morphological abnormality. Theor Biol Med Model. 2012;9:5.
10. Matthews HSChanging the face of craniofacial growth curves: modelling growth and sexual dimorphism in children and adolescents using spatially dense 3D image analysis. [PhD thesis]. Melbourne: University of Melbourne;2018.
11. Shaweesh AI, Clement JG, Thomas CD, et al.Construction and use of facial archetypes in anthropology and syndrome diagnosis. Forensic Sci Int. 2006;159Suppl 1S175–S185.
12. Kau CH, Zhurov A, Richmond S, et al.The 3-dimensional construction of the average 11-year-old child face: a clinical evaluation and application. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2006;64:1086–1092.
13. Hammond PThe use of 3D face shape modelling in dysmorphology. Arch Dis Child. 2007;92:1120–1126.
14. Hammond P, Suttie MLarge-scale objective phenotyping of 3D facial morphology. Hum Mutat. 2012;33:817–825.
15. Hammond P, Suttie M, Hennekam RC, et al.The face signature of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. Am J Med Genet A. 2012;158A:1368–1380.
16. Hammond P, Hannes F, Suttie M, et al.Fine-grained facial phenotype-genotype analysis in Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. Eur J Hum Genet. 2012;20:33–40.
17. Matthews HS, Penington AJ, Hardiman R, et al.Modelling 3D craniofacial growth trajectories for population comparison and classification illustrated using sex-differences. Sci Rep. 2018;8:4771.
18. Fan Y, Matthews H, Kilpatrick N, et al.Facial morphology and growth following surgery for congenital midline cervical cleft patients. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2018;47:437–441.
19. Sommer DD, Mendelsohn MPitfalls of nonstandardized photography in facial plastic surgery patients. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2004;114:10–14.


NOVA2-mediated RNA regulation is required for ... - Semantic Scholar

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May 25, 2016 - 21, Epha5 exon 7, Arhgef12 exon 4, Ppp3cb exon 10b, Neo1 exon 26, and Rock1 exon 27b) were significantly changed in Nova2-/- but not in ...

NOVA2-mediated RNA regulation is required for axonal pathfinding during development Yuhki Saito1, Soledad Miranda-Rottmann1†‡, Matteo Ruggiu1†§, Christopher Y Park2, John J Fak1, Ru Zhong1, Jeremy S Duncan3¶, Brian A Fabella4, Harald J Junge5, Zhe Chen5, Roberto Araya6‡, Bernd Fritzsch3, A J Hudspeth4, Robert B Darnell1,2* 1

*For correspondence: [email protected]

Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York, United States; 2New York Genome Center, New York, United States; 3Department of Biology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States; 4Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York, United States; 5Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, United States; 6Department of Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada

These authors contributed equally to this work

Present address: ‡Department of Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada; §Department of Biological Sciences, St. John’s University, Utopia Parkway, United States; ¶Division of Otolaryngology, University of Utah, Salt Lake city, United States Competing interests: The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Abstract The neuron specific RNA-binding proteins NOVA1 and NOVA2 are highly homologous alternative splicing regulators. NOVA proteins regulate at least 700 alternative splicing events in vivo, yet relatively little is known about the biologic consequences of NOVA action and in particular about functional differences between NOVA1 and NOVA2. Transcriptome-wide searches for isoform-specific functions, using NOVA1 and NOVA2 specific HITS-CLIP and RNA-seq data from mouse cortex lacking either NOVA isoform, reveals that NOVA2 uniquely regulates alternative splicing events of a series of axon guidance related genes during cortical development. Corresponding axonal pathfinding defects were specific to NOVA2 deficiency: Nova2-/- but not Nova1-/- mice had agenesis of the corpus callosum, and axonal outgrowth defects specific to ventral motoneuron axons and efferent innervation of the cochlea. Thus we have discovered that NOVA2 uniquely regulates alternative splicing of a coordinate set of transcripts encoding key components in cortical, brainstem and spinal axon guidance/outgrowth pathways during neural differentiation, with severe functional consequences in vivo.

Funding: See page 24

DOI: 10.7554/eLife.14371.001

Received: 12 January 2016 Accepted: 23 May 2016 Published: 25 May 2016

Reviewing editor: Huda Y Zoghbi, Baylor College of Medicine, United States Copyright Saito et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

During central nervous system (CNS) development, a neuron extends its axon through a complex yet precise path to reach its final destination by sensing extracellular signals called guidance cues. These cues are sensed by the growth cone, a motile structure at the extending axon edge, and they control growth cone motility through directed cytoskeletal remodeling. Netrins, slits, semaphorins, and ephrins are the major classic guidance cues and elicit attractive or repulsive responses in growth cones via specific receptors (Brose et al., 1999; Cheng et al., 1995; Drescher et al., 1995; Fan and Raper, 1995; Kapfhammer and Raper, 1987; Kennedy et al., 1994; Kidd et al., 1999; Serafini et al., 1994). An important aspect of axon guidance is the spatial and temporal control of response to the guidance cues. For example, the spinal cord commissural axon reaching the midline senses netrin-1, secreted from the floorplate as a chemoattractive cue; however, once it has crossed the floorplate, this cue becomes repulsive (Kennedy et al., 1994; Kidd et al., 1998; Tessier-

Saito et al. eLife 2016;5:e14371. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.14371

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Research article

eLife digest The first step of producing a protein involves the DNA of a gene being copied to form a molecule of RNA. This RNA molecule can often be processed to create several different “messenger” RNAs (mRNAs), each of which are used to produce a different protein by a process known as alternative splicing. A class of proteins that bind to RNA molecules controls alternative splicing. These “splicing factors” ensure that the right protein variant is produced at the right time and in the right place to carry out the appropriate activity. Many genes that play important roles in the nervous system have been reported to undergo alternative splicing to generate different protein variants. However, it is unclear whether alternative splicing is important for controlling how the nervous system develops, during which time the neurons connect to the cells that they will communicate with. Forming these connections involves part of the neuron, called the axon, growing along a precise path through the nervous system to reach its destination. Two RNA-binding proteins called NOVA1 and NOVA2 are produced exclusively in the central nervous system, where they regulate a number of actions including alternative splicing. So far, no differences in the roles of NOVA1 and NOVA2 have been identified, and relatively little is known about their actions in the brain. Saito et al. have addressed these missing puzzle pieces by combining RNA analysis methods with an analysis of the structure of the nervous system of mice that lack either NOVA1 or NOVA2. This approach identified where NOVA1 and NOVA2 bind on mRNAs, and showed that the mRNAs are processed in different ways in the developing mouse brain depending on which form of the NOVA protein is bound to it. Further analysis of the data revealed that NOVA2, and not NOVA1, regulates splicing in a series of RNA molecules that help to guide axons to the correct locations in the developing mouse brain. A related study by Leggere et al. also reported on the role that NOVA proteins play in the alternative splicing of one of these genes, called Dcc. Saito et al. also found defects in the nervous systems of the mice that lacked NOVA2 that only occurred in these mice and resulted from certain axons being unable to follow the correct path to their target cells. These led to major defects, such as agenesis of the corpus callosum (a complete lack of connection between the right and left sides of the brain). Further defects affected how specific subsets of motor neurons connect to muscles and how cochlear neurons in the brainstem connect to the inner ear. The next steps are to explore how the processing of RNA molecules by NOVA2 causes these defects, and to assess whether these actions relate to developmental brain disorders in humans. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.14371.002

Lavigne et al., 1988; Zou et al., 2000). Furthermore, the spatiotemporally restricted expression of Robo3 alternative splicing isoforms in spinal cord commissure axons are essential for the switching of the growth cone response to the axon guidance cues (Chen et al., 2008), indicating that spatiotemporally regulated protein isoform expression and diversity is crucial to establish proper neuronal networks. Alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation can produce multiple messenger RNAs (mRNAs) possessing distinct coding and regulatory sequences from a single gene. The regulated processes that generate such mRNA diversity are orchestrated by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). In the nervous system, alternative splicing has many important roles, including controlling the spatial and temporal expression of protein isoforms that are necessary for neurodevelopment and the modification of synaptic plasticity (Li et al., 2007; Licatalosi et al., 2008; Ule and Darnell, 2006). Significantly, human genetic studies have indicated that RNA misregulation resulting from defects in RBP expression and function are linked to numerous diseases, including Fragile X syndrome, spinal muscular atrophy, spinocerebellar ataxias, motoneuron disease and others (Cooper et al., 2009; Darnell, 2010; Lukong et al., 2008). NOVA1 and NOVA2, RBPs initially identified as targets in autoimmune motor neuron disease (Buckanovich et al., 1993; Darnell and Posner, 2003), are RNA-binding splicing regulators

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Research article

Figure 1. Generation of Nova2 null mice and characterization of SuperNOVA2. (Ai) The wild-type Nova2 locus illustrated contains the first exon (green box, with initiator ATG indicated). (Aii) A targeting construct was generated harboring a genomic fragment (left: 2.2 kb) flanking the initiator methionine, an IRES-Cre FRT-NEO-FRT (FNF) insertion, and an intronic genomic fragment flanking the first coding exon (right: 6 kb). (Aiii) The Nova2 null locus following FLP-mediated excision of FNF cassette. Restriction enzyme sites were indicated for BamHI (B), HindIII (H), SacI (S), SmaI (Sm) and XbaI (X). The probes position used for Southern blot was indicated in red. (B) Genotypic analysis of Nova2 null mice. Southern blot analysis was performed on tail DNA digested with BamHI, using the probe described in (A). (C) Genotyping PCR analysis of Nova2 null mice. (D) Western blot analysis of NOVA1 and NOVA2 proteins. Extracts of mouse cortex (10 mg/lane) were made from age-matched P0 wild-type, Nova2-/-, and Nova1-/mice, loaded on SDS-PAGE gels, and blotted with anti-pan NOVA (POMA antisera), anti-NOVA1 specific, anti-NOVA2 specific, anti-PTBP2, and antiGAPDH antibodies. Quantification and comparison of NOVA1 and NOVA2 proteins expression amounts in the cortex of wild-type, Nova2-/-, and Nova1-/- mice. Data are presented as mean ± SD. *p=10) were enriched in introns, while 74.1% of NOVA1 specific BC2 clusters (PH>=10) were in exons (Figure 2—figure supplement 2), indicating that NOVA2 binds preferentially to introns than exons, suggesting that NOVA2 may play a greater nuclear role than NOVA1, and demonstrating that RNA-interaction profiles on a genome-wide scale are different between NOVA homologues. The distribution of NOVA2 throughout the brain mirrored previous immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization data (Yang et al., 1998) showed that NOVA2 was expressed at high levels in cortex and hippocampus, and at lower levels in midbrain and spinal cord, where NOVA1 was expressed at high levels in a generally reciprocal fashion, with low levels in the cortex and relatively high levels in the midbrain and spinal cord (Figure 2—figure supplement 3). The NOVA2 expressed cell in the cortical plate of neocortex was ubiquitously distributed at comparable expression level, yet NOVA1 was expressed in the specified cell types. Taken together, the HITS-CLIP and immunohistochemical

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Research article

Figure 4. NOVA2 unique alternative splicing events of axon guidance related genes in E18.5 mice cortex. Left Diagrams showing RefSeq annotation genes, changed alternative splicing events, RNA-seq results of wild-type (grey) and Nova2-/- (blue), NOVA2 CLIP clusters (light blue), RNA-seq results of wild-type (grey) and Nova1-/- (red), and NOVA1 CLIP clusters (pink). Right panels and graphs showing RT-PCR results and quantification data in E18.5 wild-type, Nova2-/-, and Nova1-/- mice cortex, respectively. *p

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Recently came across one of your post on Talk to Me Johnnie regarding linear progression, and that in order for it to work, there needs to be fifteen repetitions of each movement. As of right now I’m not looking to gain any more mass in my lower half because I already have large legs as it is. Instead of doing my squats for 3×5 would the linear progression work if I did 5×3 to focus on strength more with minimal growth? If that would work, would I do 1×3 of deadlift rather then the normal 1×5? I understand you are very busy but if you could give me some insight it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for the great programming and information.

Julian C.

Really? Legs too large? Are you serious? Have you not read anything I have posted on this site in the last two years? Personally, I think your problems run much deeper if you are worried your legs are too big.

Hell, even if this site was dedicated to bodybuilding, and we had a burning desired for symmetry and men painted brown, we would still squat to have massive legs. Tom Platz, who had the biggest legs anyone had seen, squatted daily.

I realize you are at a pivotal junction in your life and training, and I feel obligated to point you down the right path. The following exert is from the 3rd edition of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, which should be available in the next few weeks. It discusses the training effect different reps ranges on the body, and the need for keeping 5s in the program to drive adaption.

“How many reps should a work set consist of? It depends on the adaptation desired. Five reps is a good number for most purposes, but an understanding of the reasons for this is essential so that special circumstances can be accommodated correctly.

When you’re trying to understand the nature of any given set of variables, it is often helpful to start with the extremes, the limits of which can reveal things about the stuff in the middle. In this case, let’s compare a one-rep max, or 1RM, squat to a 20RM squat and look at the different physiological requirements for doing each set.

There are other adaptations that are secondary to the main ones, but they all involve helping the body perform a brief, intense effort. Psychological adaptations enable the lifter to overcome his fear of a heavy weight. The heart adapts by getting better at working with a huge load on the back, and the blood vessels adapt by becoming capable of responding to the demands of increased peak blood pressure. The tendons thicken to better transmit force, and the ligaments thicken and tighten to hold the joints together under the load. The skin under the bar gets thicker, the eyeballs get used to bugging out, and new words are learned that express the emotions accompanying success or failure with a new PR squat. But the primary adaptation is increased force production.

On the other hand, a heavy set of 20 reps is an entirely different experience, one of the most demanding in sports conditioning. A set of 20 squats can usually be done with a weight previously assumed to be a 10RM, given the correct mental preparation and a certain suicidal desire to either grow or die. The demands of a 20RM, and therefore the adaptation to it, are completely different. A 20RM is done with about 80% of the weight of a 1RM, and even the last rep is not really heavy, in terms of the amount of force necessary to squat it. The hard part of a set of 20 is that the last 5 reps are done in a state resembling a hellish nightmare: making yourself squat another rep with the pain from the falling muscle pH, an inability to catch your breath, and the inability of your heart to beat any faster than it already is. The demands of a 20RM involve continued muscle contraction under circumstances of increasing oxygen debt and metabolic depletion.

In response to this type of stress, the body gets better at responding to the high metabolic demand that is created. Systemic adaptations are primarily cardiovascular in nature, since the main source of stress involves managing blood flow and oxygen supply during and after the set. The heart gets better at pumping blood under a load, the vessels expand and become more numerous, and the lungs get better at oxygenating the blood – although not in the same way that a runner’s lungs do. The main muscular adaptations are those that support local metabolism during the effort. Glycolytic capacity increases. The contractile part of the muscle tissue gets better at working under the acidic conditions produced by the stress of the long work set. Psychologically, 20RM work is very hard, due to the pain, and lifters who are good at it develop the ability to displace themselves from the situation during the set. Or they just get very tough.

It is essential to understand that the 1RM work does not produce the conditioning stress that the 20RM work does, and that the long set of 20 reps is not heavy in the same way that the 1RM is. They are both hard, but for different reasons. Because they are so completely different, they cause the body to adapt in two completely different ways. These extremes represent a continuum, with a heavy set of 3 more closely resembling 1RM in its adaptation, and a set of 10 sharing more of the characteristics of a 20RM. Sets of five reps are a very effective compromise for the novice, and even for the advanced lifter more interested in strength than in muscular endurance. They allow enough weight to be used that force production must increase, but they are not so heavy that the cardiovascular component is completely absent from the exercise. Sets of five may be the most useful rep range you will use over your entire training career, and as long as you lift weights, sets of five will be important.”


All About Air Core Inductor!!

  • 28 Nov, 2019

Electric and electronic appliances are composed of many small and large parts which help in the easy flow of the energy. Most of the electronic applications consist of the inductors which are an electronic component. It stores the energy which results from the current when passes through the magnetic field. The manufacturing of the inductor is very complicated because it is made by wrapping conducting wire into a coil around a central core. Each turn of the wire is specifically termed as winding and the number of windings relates to the inductance. There are several inductors available in the market according to the functions that they perform and one of them is the air core inductor.

In air core inductor, non-magnetic coils or no coil are used instead of a ferromagnetic coil. The benefit of using this category of inductor ensures the lower peak of inductance but reduces the energy loss which is found with the ferrite inductors. Due to the balanced working module of the air core inductor, it can be operated at the high frequencies.

Applications where air core inductors are in use:

  • Electronic products and appliances
  • Computer devices
  • Communication equipment

Working of the air core inductors

The cores in the air inductors are made up of ceramic material which gives the right strength to the product. The coil in the inductor carries an electric current which produces a magnetic field around the conductor. Further, the magnetic comes into work and stimulates EMF in the coil which results in the current flow. Sometimes the flow of the current might get hampered due to the voltage applied on the appliance or the electronic items.

It happens that the inductor opposes the input current which results in changes in the magnetic field. Due to resistance from induction, the current flow decreases which scientifically termed as inductive reactance. It is easy to boost the flow of current by increasing the number of rolls in the coil. The process continues with charging and discharging along with the release of the energy.

Benefits of the air core inductors

It is an effective solution in case of switch-mode magnetic requirements as it focuses upon high linearity, high frequency and reduced core loss. It is the right introduction and solution in the electronic field if space is not the prohibition. Other than these, there are several other benefits of using air core inductors. Some of them are mentioned below:

  • No worries of saturation–Inductors with the ferromagnetic coil become saturated as the current is increased but the same is not the case with the air core conductors. It has no core to saturate and is independent of the electrical currents.
  • No loss of iron– Iron is not lost in the inductors which do not have ferromagnetic coil even when the frequency is increased. The cores offer better Q factor and lower the distortion in higher frequency.
  • Easy to operate at high frequency– The most important benefit of the air core inductor is that it can operate on the high frequency on the level of 1GHz. It gives the best performance if the intensity in on the peak.

The introduction of the air core inductors in the field of electronics is very beneficial but it can only be possible if the users purchase the same from the right buyer. It is advised that people should research in deep before making the final payment for the product because it is an electrical part which can be severely harmful if bought wrong.


To counter the claustrophobic feeling caused by some swags, the ARB SkyDome range has been designed with very generous dimensions. The industry-leading height from head to hip allows occupants to move around freely and spread out without feelings of confinement. The large mesh areas provide excellent ventilation to reduce internal condensation, with additional canvas flaps and insect-proof mesh in the roof zone of the Series II improving cross-flow ventilation to enhance airflow and make it cooler and even more comfortable during warmer nights.

The freestanding architecture means ARB SkyDome swags require no pegs or guy ropes when deployed on flat surfaces. Matched with waterproof materials and a high-density corrugated 75mm foam mattress, the ARB SkyDome Swag will ensure a dry and comfortable night’s sleep in any conditions.

The ARB SkyDome range includes both single and double configurations.


A question I get asked quite frequently, even in today’s economy, is: ” Is my money safe?” There is no doubt that the level of distrust and incredulity that was directed towards banks after the Celtic Tiger crisis had turned a once sacred cow into a national pariah. And from that, depositors feared for their own account balances like never before. The ongoing, but necessary, rationalisation and merging of the whole banking system has only served to feed these concerns.

Ironically, the more that Irish depositors withdrew from local banks in order to protect their own vested interests of personal money, the more the national interest got compromised and required further bail-outs. This became a vicious circle which had fed on itself and only stopped feeding once a sense of calmness settled on deposit holders, particularly private account holders.

If you were one such person, then perhaps now is the time to take stock and in particular to identify what protections are in place for your money.

As I write, there are two levels of protection afforded to Irish retail depositors, as distinct from institutional or corporate. These protections are the Deposit Guarantee Scheme and the Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme.

The Deposit Guarantee Scheme is operated by the Central Bank of Ireland and extends to particular retail deposits held with banks, building societies and credit unions that have been established and authorised to trade in the Republic of Ireland. Other EU countries have similar schemes covering their deposits held with banks established in that State. The EU limit on all such schemes is €100,000 per depositor or €200,000 per couple and covers the sum total of all deposits held with an institution. This scheme is open ended and has no particular time limit. The scheme covers:

  • current accounts;
  • demand deposit accounts;
  • term deposit accounts;
  • notice deposit accounts
  • share accounts with building societies and credit unions.

Retail investors are defined as one of the following:

  1. private individuals, sole traders, partnerships
  2. small companies, which meet at least two of the following requirements:
    1. a balance sheet total of less than €1.9m
    2. turnover less than €3.8m,
    3. average number of employees less than 50.
  3. charities,
  4. voluntary organisations,
  5. credit unions, in respect of deposit they may hold with other financial institutions.
  6. trustees of Small Self Administered Pension Schemes.

The scheme does not protect what might be called ‘professional’ investors, such as deposits held by pension funds other than SSAPS, life and general insurance companies, investment funds, large companies, etc. Importantly, any amount the depositor owes a bank is not deducted from the deposit amount to determine the amount of compensation a depositor can get in the event of the bank being unable to repay its depositors.

However, all of the Irish banks and building societies covered by the Deposit Guarante scheme are also covered by the Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme, which covers retail deposits for the excess, if any, over €100,000 per depositor – see below.

I would add that a depositor with more than €100,000 to invest (or €200,000 for joint accounts) can split their deposits over a number of different institutions to benefit from the €100,000 limit with each institution.

The Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme was introduced on 9th December 2009, and guarantees certain deposits held with banks covered by the scheme (called the ‘covered institutions’) as follows:

  • the excess, if any, over €100,000 of deposits which are covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme, and
  • the full deposit amount, without limit, for other deposits not covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme and which are covered by the Eligible Liabilities Scheme.

At this point in time while the Deposit Guarantee Scheme is openended, the Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme only extended to 30th June 2011. It should be added that, any deposit term that commenced before 30th June 2011 was covered up to a maximum term ceasing at 30th June 2016. Interestingly, any fixed term deposit account opened with a bank before a bank joined the ELG scheme is NOT covered by the ELG scheme and may only be covered (if a retail depositor) by the DGS.

Finally, the operation of the ELG scheme is subject to ongoing approval by the European Commission, in accordance with EU State aid rules.

Foreign owned banks may be accepting deposits in the Republic of Ireland either through ownership of a separate bank established and authorised here (e.g. KBC Bank Ireland plc, which is 100% owned by KBC Bank) or through a branch established here (e.g. Rabobank operates here as a branch of its Dutch bank) or operating on a cross border basis (e.g. Investec Bank plc operating from the UK). The foreign banks which operate as separate banks established here are covered by the Irish Deposit Guarantee scheme, up to €100,000 per depositor. None of these foreign owned banks are part of the Irish Government ELG scheme.


Home | | Plant Biochemistry | Plastids possess a circular genome

Chapter: Plant Biochemistry: A plant cell has three different genomes

Plastids possess a circular genome

Many arguments support the hypothesis that plastids have evolved from prokaryotic endosymbionts.

Plastids possess a circular genome

Many arguments support the hypothesis that plastids have evolved from prokaryotic endosymbionts. The circular genome of the plas tids is similar to the genome of the prokaryotic cyanobacteria, although much smaller. The DNA of the plastid genome is named ctDNA (chloroplast) or ptDNA (plastid). In the majority of the plants investigated so far, the circular plastid genome has the size of 120 to 160 kbp. Depending on the plant, this is only 0.001% to 0.1% of the size of the nuclear genome (Table 20.1), but the cell contains many copies of the plastid DNA, because each plastid contains many genome copies. In young leaves, the number of ctDNA molecules per chloroplast is about 100, whereas in older leaves, it is between 15 and 20. Furthermore, a cell contains a large number of plastids, a mesophyll cell, for instance 20 to 50. Thus, despite the small size of the plastid genome, the plastid DNA can amount to 5% to 10% of the total cellular DNA.

The first complete analysis of the nucleotide sequence of a plastid genome was carried out in 1986 by the group of Katzuo Shinozaki in Nagoya with chloroplasts from tobacco and by Kanji Ohyama in Kyoto with chloroplasts from the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. Although the two investigated plants are very distantly related, their plastid genomes are rather similar in gene composition and arrangements. Obviously, the plastid genome has changed little during recent evolution. Present analysis of the DNA sequence of plastid genes from many plants supports this notion.

Figure 20.22A shows a complete gene map of the chloroplast genome of tobacco and Figure 20.22B shows schematic representations of the plastid genomes of other plants. The plastid genome of most plants contains so-called inverted repeats (IR), which divide the remaining genome into a large or small single copy region. The repeat IRA and IRB each encode the genes for the four ribosomal RNAs as well as the genes for some transfer RNAs, and the repeat sizes vary from 20 to 50 kbp. These inverted repeats are not found in the plastid genomes of pea, broad bean, and other legumes (Fig. 20.22C), where the inverted repeats probably have been lost during the course of evolution. On the remainder of the genome (single-copy region), genes are present usually only in a single copy.

Analysis of the ctDNA sequence of tobacco revealed that the genome encodes 122 genes (146 if the genes of each of the two inverted repeats are counted) (Table 20.4). The gene for the large subunit of ribulose bisphos phate carboxylase/oxygenase (RubisCO) is located in the large single-copy region, whereas the gene for the small subunit is present in the nuclear genome. The single-copy region of the plastid genome also encodes six subunits of F-ATP synthase, whereas the remaining genes of F-ATP synthase are encoded in the nucleus. Also encoded in the plastid genome are subunits of photosystem I and II, of the cytochrome-b6/f complex, and of an NADH dehydrogenase (which also occurs in mitochondria,), and furthermore, proteins of plastid protein synthe sis and gene transcription. Some of these plastid structural genes contain introns. In addition, there are putative genes on the genome with so-called open reading frames (ORF), which, like the other genes, are bordered by a start and a stop codon, but where the encoded proteins are not yet known. The plastid genome encodes only a fraction of plastid proteins, as the majority is encoded in the nucleus. It is assumed that many genes of the original endosymbiont have been transferred during evolution to the nucleus, but there also are indications for gene transfer between the plas tids and the mitochondria .

All four rRNAs, which are constituents of the plastid ribosome (4.5S-, 5S-, 16S-, and 23S-rRNA) are encoded in the plastid genome. The plastid ribosomes (sedimentation constants 70S) are smaller than the eukaryotic ribosomes (80S) present in the cytosol, but are similar in size to the ribosomes of bacteria. As in bacteria, these four rRNAs are encoded in the plastid genome in one transcription unit (polycistronic transcription) (Fig. 20.23). Between the 16S and 23S DNA a large spacer is situated (intergenic spacer), which encodes the sequence for one or two tRNAs. In total, about 30 tRNAs are encoded in the plastid genome. Additional tRNAs needed for transcrip tion in the plastids are encoded in the nucleus.

The transcription apparatus of the plastids resembles that of bacteria

In the plastids two types of RNA polymerases are active, of which only one is encoded in the plastid genome and the other in the nucleus:

1.  The RNA polymerase encoded in the plastids enables the transcrip tion of plastid genes for subunits of the photosynthesis complex. This RNA polymerase is a multienzyme complex resembling that of bacteria. In contrast to the RNA polymerase of bacteria, the plastid enzyme is insensitive to rifampicin, a synthetic derivative of an antibiotic fromStreptomyces.

2.  The plastid RNA polymerase, which is encoded in the nucleus, is derived from the duplication of mitochondrial RNA polymerase. This “imported” RNA polymerase is homologous to RNA polymerases from bacteriophages. The nucleus-encoded RNA polymerase transcribes the so-called housekeeping genes in the plastids. These are the genes that have general functions in metabolism, such as the synthesis of rRNA or tRNA.

As in bacteria, many plastid genes contain a box 10 bp upstream from the transcription start with the consensus sequence TATAAT and at 35 bp upstream a further promoter site with the consensus sequence TTGACA. Some structural genes are polycistronically transcribed, which means that several are in one transcription unit and are transcribed together as a large primary transcript. Polycistronic transcription often occurs with bacterial genes. In some cases, the primary transcript is subsequently processed by ribonucleases of which many details are still not known (see Figure 20.13)


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Food banks

Food banks

It turns out, there are hundreds of food banks spread all over the Kingdom. The biggest is The Trussell Trust, who have a network of over 400 of such points. Moreover, there are around 100 of others, independent ones working together with local communities, churches thanks to donations from people of good will.

Not everyone, who feels hungry all of a sudden, can use a food bank. The rules stating who and what food and when one can use differ depending on individual organization.

Trussell Trust, for example, gives away 3 day emergency packages of non-perishable food to people with vouchers, who are issued by various care professionals such as doctors, health visitors, social workers and police who identify people in crisis.
Other charities also need a referral; usually issued by a local Citizens’ Advice Bureau or County Council. You will need a proof of your income at hand.

What is important, most food banks help does not end with giving away food. Volunteers working there try to help people stand on their feet by talking and giving advice or referring them to other agencies, who can then solve their long -term problems.

Here is a list of useful links:

Free food banks in Somerset

The Trussell Trust

Food Banks in Somerset - help and advice

Citizens' Advice


Cloud security best practices and tips

With the adoption of cloud computing continuing to accelerate, the need to adopt and maintain effective security and compliance practices is more important that ever.

To help enterprises maintain compliance while using the cloud, and keep their networks, applications and data safe, Verizon is offering the following best practices and tips.

Cloud infrastructure security is at the heart of the matter:

Physical security. Facilities should be hardened with climate control, fire prevention and suppression systems, and uninterruptable power supplies, and have round-the-clock onsite security personnel. Look for a provider that offers biometric capabilities, such as fingerprints or facial recognition, for physical access control, and video cameras for facility monitoring.

Network security and logical separation. Virtualized versions of firewalls and intrusion prevention systems should be utilized. Portions of the cloud environment containing sensitive systems and data should be isolated. Regularly scheduled audits using industry-recognized methods and standards, such as SAS 70 Type II, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, ISO 27001/27002 and the Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix, should be conducted.

Cloud application security is a must:

Application and data security. Applications should utilize dedicated databases wherever possible, and application access to databases should be limited. Many security compliance standards require monitoring and logging of applications and related databases.

Authentication and authorization. Two-factor authentication, such as digital authentication, should be used for user names and passwords and are a necessity for remote access and any type of privileged access. Roles of authorized users should be clearly defined and kept to the minimum necessary to complete their assigned tasks. Password encryption is advisable. In addition, authentication, authorization and accounting packages should not be highly customized, as this often leads to weakened security protection.

Public, private and hybrid clouds: What you should know:

Shared virtualized environment. Public clouds, many using a shared virtualized environment, offer basic security features. This means proper segmentation and isolation of processing resources should be an area of focus. To meet your enterprise’s security and compliance requirements, be prudent in choosing the proper cloud environment.

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Parametric Exhibition

Parametric Exhibition

Parametric is an interactive digital artwork that investigates our individual and collective emotional state in a post isolated world to create unique pieces of art.

You are invited to input your feelings on a sliding scale across a series of questions about how you feel about your life and relationships. Each input changes the artwork and renders a morphing and shifting piece of art on the screen before your very eyes.

When you’re ready to share into the “cloud”, your data will be merged with other people’s data, creating a dynamic piece of art that displays our collective feelings in real-time.

The culmination of this project will be shown at this exhibition, held at the leading artists' studio in Maroochydore.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, there are only 30 places available. Please only register for this event if you plan on attending, and if you need to cancel for any reason please contact us.

How to get there

All Ages
Venue is wheelchair accessible


Minas was a Greek designer who had a keen eye for detail and an innovative way of expressing it. He lived and worked for 11 years in New York as a freelancer and established his presence as a designer. In 1980 he moved back to Athens to begin a new limited production of personally signed pieces. He then expanded his horizons to architectural and industrial design. Today, through the medium of wood, stainless steel, carbonfiber and marble, his creativity and ingenuity live on through his brand, which keeps his spirit present!

What defines your style?

What defines the style and desgins is harmony. I believe that it pre-exists in every one of us, since each of us hides within herself/himself the need for harmony.

What are your most commonly used materials?

Silver 925 and Gold 18k.

MINAS designer Portrait

Our Favourite Jewellery Pieces by MINAS


A Rose for Emily

William Faulkner

The Grierson Family House

Built during or just after the Reconstruction Era in the 1870s, the Grierson family house, passed down from Emily’s father to his daughter, was once grand and lovely, an embodiment of Southern pride, and… (read full symbol analysis)

Miss Emily’s Hair

In a sense, one of our greatest sources of insight into Miss Emily’s character, who she is and how she changes, is (shockingly enough) her hair. For example, after her father dies, Miss… (read full symbol analysis)


Memphis News & Weather | Memphis, TN | WATN - localmemphis.com

Paris police ban another protest citing spread of COVID-19

Protesters were asked to gather Saturday at the Eiffel Tower, and other demonstrations were set to take place outside the US Embassy.

RELATED: Black Lives Matter protests mostly peaceful in Australia


Opening Pandora's Box

Crowdsourcing Morality

Epi Ludvik

— In the recent years, AI development has quickly accelerated and is finally making its way into our lives in the form of self-driving cars and smart personal assistants. As AI gets more and more reliable, people are slowly overcoming their suspicions towards it and embracing it as a part of their day-to-day lives. With adoption rates soaring, now is the correct time to switch the focus of the debate to Moral Machine Learning: which ethics do we want machines to have? And how do we bestow these values onto them?

As self-driving cars make headlines for both their life-changing potential and ethical implications, we have ask ourselves: which moral values does a car need when it finds itself in a dangerous situation? In Arizona on March 18, one autonomous car killed a pedestrian who was crossing the street. This casualty highlights how urgent it is to dig into this topic: does AI have a sense of what is good and what is bad?

To answer such a complex question, we have to get back to the basics of human morality, reflect on our ethical codes and the common agreements that are currently in place. We can’t instil a sense of morality in AI if there is no consensus about what “ethical” is for us in the first place.

AI, born in the late ‘50s, is a very young branch of Informatics — which is why it behaves just like a child, observing and learning anything it comes across without any sort of filter. So far, we’ve just kept on “feeding” it with uncontrolled stimuli; but children won’t grow their own ethics if parents fail to provide them with ethical guidelines. Our duty as the parents in this relationship is to control the machines’ learning paths – expunging any chance that the data we are feeding this technology is creating unethical entities. Unfortunately, we have no real control on the future output, but it’s essential to start applying an ethical framework to AI even at this current (relatively early) stage.

Even though human ethics are fluid and differ over time and across cultures, we do have certain, common basic moral codes that regulate societies. As a preliminary step we should apply this framework to machines. This sounds like a non sequitur, but truth is it hasn’t been done yet. There are two main reasons to this: first, the lack of connection between how we make technological decisions and create algorithms and social life experiences. Second, the fact that regulatory institutions and tech giants have never really sparked off a debate — the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica case has done nothing but make this disconnect more explicit than ever.

The risk of casualties caused by automation will most likely never cease to exist, but avoiding a one-size-fits-all ethical mindset and gathering a human perspective, tapping into different views on specific moral questions people might have, is a good start in mitigating the likelihood of an incident taking place. Thanks to crowdsourcing, which means involving internet users and tapping into their knowledge to develop a project, we now have the opportunity to have everyone contribute to this growing ethical issue – hopefully preventing accidents through the creation of a more secure system. Something similar has been theorized by Microsoft’s Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon and, in 2016, experimented with by MIT through their project, “Moral Machines” – a platform that is collecting a human perspective on moral decisions made by intelligent machines.

Moral Machines was based on the doctrine of double effect, an ethical idea that has been utilised in health at home and war abroad.

These are examples of how crowdsourcing can contribute to create an inclusive society for machines and humans: the collective moral view of a crowd on various issues creates an ethical system that’s inherently better than one built by an individual. Triple-entry accounting, an innovative system used today for blockchain to ensure the legitimacy of a transaction, could find a new application in the AI environment and be the best solution in ensuring a higher level of transparency when it comes to opening the decision-making process to the crowd.

Eventually, we’ll also have to consider who should be held accountable for the final decisions made by AI with preprogrammed morals. Many world leaders and industry analysts are crying out for the establishment of a decisional process in this sense — Germany has actually started to develop a regulatory masterplan for self-driving cars, for example. However, governments are rarely equipped with the full technological know-how needed to do that, and the best solution may be to create, along with entrepreneurs, an international, neutral “governing body” based on open leadership.

As we age year on year, AI does too — only a lot faster than us. This means that we have a maximum of 10 years (maybe less) to set up an AI moral system and a legislative framework. It’s a very small amount of time — and that’s why we should stop focusing on the potentially negative aspects of tech developments and work on the positive ones.

As the acclaimed documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?showed, innovation can indeed be slowed down or even stopped entirely by caging the debate in a single-minded mindset. This may ultimately prevent us from experiencing the incredible opportunities offered by AI, just as has happened with electric cars: a great invention whose failure was due to a lack of vision and shared decision-making process.

Learning from this big mistake and tapping into people’s knowledge through crowdsourcing is the right path to follow if we want AI to unfold its full potential and become an ethical technology that is in harmony with our own morality codes and principles.

Epi Ludvik
Epi Ludvik

Founder & CEO, Crowdsourcing week, and BOLD Awards

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chapter  18
16 Pages

Biofuel Cellulases

Diversity, Distribution and Industrial Outlook
WithLavika Jain, Deepti Agrawal

In the last twenty years, several innovations in the scientific know-how of enzymes have spurred the growth of biofuel and bio-based chemical industry from second generation feedstocks. These renewable feedstocks primarily comprises of forest and agricultural residues, non-food energy crops, including municipal, industrial waste etc. Biofuels, through this route, popularly termed as second generation biofuels are not only sustainable but they are expected to strengthen nation’s self-reliance in terms of energy security, reduce net carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency and eliminate the dilemma of food vs fuel.

The major components of lignocellulosic biomass include cellulose, hemicellulose (xylan and galactomannan), pectic substances (galactouran and arabinogalactan) and polymeric lignin.

Cellulose a homopolymer of glucose represents one of the most abundant imperishable carbon sources. Biotechnological production of fermentable sugars from cellulosic biomass essentially requires the use of enzymes specifically cellulases. Cellulases are complex group of synergistically acting enzymes namely endo b-1,4- glucanases cellobiohydrolyases or exo b-1,4, glucanases and β- glucosidase or cellobiase.

A diverse group of microorganisms such as aerobic bacteria, fungi, yeast and actinomycetes have been reported to produce cellulases. However, most of the commercial cellulases belong to the fungal origin, predominantly Trichoderma reesei and Aspergillus niger.

The present book chapter provides an overview of biofuel cellulases derived from the microbial route. The chapter further discusses the global players of biofuel cellulases, the innovative platforms created to improve the efficacy of these enzymes and the current industrial scenario in the area of second-generation biofuels, more particularly cellulosic ethanol.


chapter  17
12 Pages

Much Ado about Italians in Renaissance London

ByDuncan Salkeld

Much Ado About Nothing is widely celebrated as one of Shakespeare’s most sparkling Italianate comedies. Kenneth Branagh’s famous 1993 film version depicted its story as a light-hearted romance set in the sun-drenched foothills of a faraway Tuscan idyll. Yet this is not how early criticism saw the play. Instead, readers were struck by its realism. Charles Gildon was so shocked at the play’s treatment of Hero that he felt it inappropriate as comedy. Hazlitt saw Dogberry and Verges as imitations of characters Shakespeare must have observed in real life, Mrs. Anna Jameson regarded Beatrice as powerfully and psychologically complex, and more recently, Barbara Everett has identified in the play a “novelistic sense of the real”.1 The play itself, however, seems on the face of it to eschew realism. Its opening scene removes us from the muddy pathways of Holywell, Shoreditch, and the crowded lanes in Bishopsgate, to introduce “Don Pedro of Aragon”, a “young Florentine” named Claudio, and “Benedick of Padua”, nicknamed Mountanto (a fencing term meaning “up thrust”), all newly greeted at the house of the genial Leonato of Messina. For the two hours of its performance, the creaky stage-boards of the Curtain have become sea-bound, amicable Sicily, and the players are all exuberantly Italian. This world is bookish, imagined from the pages of Ludovico Ariosto, Matteo Bandello, and perhaps William Painter and George Whetstone as well; even its central character, “My Lady Disdain”, traces a literary ancestry to Plautus’s Bacchides (“contemtricem meam”). The argument of this chapter is that the play’s earlier critics were largely right to register a degree of unease at the play’s realism. The play simultaneously gives us two versions of the same society: one predicated on courtship leading to nuptial happiness, the other on sexual betrayal and more readily recognizable. However removed the literary world of Much Ado may have seemed to be at the time, the play blends elements of a more local citywide actuality into its Italianicity. The play reaches its hymeneal conclusion, but only by reminding its audience of discomfiting truths that lie just beyond the playhouse walls, in the streets and lanes of early modern London.