Bem1p contributes to secretory pathway polarization through a direct interaction with Exo70p.

The exocyst serves to tether secretory vesicles to cortical sites specified by polarity determinants, in preparation for fusion with the plasma membrane. Although most exocyst components are brought to these sites by riding on secretory vesicles as they are actively transported along actin cables, Exo70p displays actin-independent localization to these sites, implying an interaction with a polarity determinant. Here we show that Exo70p directly and specifically binds to the polarity determinant scaffold protein Bem1p. The interaction involves multiple domains of both Exo70p and Bem1p. Mutations in Exo70p that disrupt its interaction with Bem1, without impairing its interactions with other known binding partners, lead to the loss of actin-independent localization. Synthetic genetic interactions confirm the importance of the Exo70p-Bem1p interaction, although there is some possible redundancy with Sec3p and Sec15p, other exocyst components that also interact with polarity determinants. Similar to Sec3p, the actin-independent localization of Exo70p requires a synergistic interaction with the phosphoinositide PI(4,5)P2

An open-economy macro-finance model of international interdependence : The OECD, US and the UK

This paper develops a multi-country macro-finance model to study international economic and financial linkages. This approach models the economy and financial markets jointly using both types of data to throw light on such issues. The world economy is modelled using data for the US and aggregate OECD economies as well as the US Treasury bond market using latent variables to represent a common inflation trend and a US real interest rate factor. We find strong evidence of global effects on both the US and UK, calling into question the standard closed economy macro-finance specification. These economic linkages also help to explain the co-movement of yields in the US and UK Treasury bond markets. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Articulated Pose Estimation Using Hierarchical Exemplar-Based Models

Exemplar-based models have achieved great success on localizing the parts of semi-rigid objects. However, their efficacy on highly articulated objects such as humans is yet to be explored. Inspired by hierarchical object representation and recent application of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) on human pose estimation, we propose a novel formulation that incorporates both hierarchical exemplar-based models and DCNNs in the spatial terms. Specifically, we obtain more expressive spatial models by assuming independence between exemplars at different levels in the hierarchy; we also obtain stronger spatial constraints by inferring the spatial relations between parts at the same level. As our method strikes a good balance between expressiveness and strength of spatial models, it is both effective and generalizable, achieving state-of-the-art results on different benchmarks: Leeds Sports Dataset and CUB-200-2011.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Synchronization of dissipative dynamical systems driven by non-Gaussian Lévy noises

Dynamical systems driven by Gaussian noises have been considered extensively in modeling, simulation, and theory. However, complex systems in engineering and science are often subject to non-Gaussian fluctuations or uncertainties. A coupled dynamical system under a class of Lévy noises is considered. After discussing cocycle property, stationary orbits, and random attractors, a synchronization phenomenon is shown to occur, when the drift terms of the coupled system satisfy certain dissipativity and integrability conditions. The synchronization result implies that coupled dynamical systems share a dynamical feature in some asymptotic sense

Triggering waves in nonlinear lattices: Quest for anharmonic phonons and corresponding mean free paths

Guided by a stylized experiment we develop a self-consistent anharmonic phonon concept for nonlinear lattices which allows for explicit "visualization." The idea uses a small external driving force which excites the front particles in a nonlinear lattice slab and subsequently one monitors the excited wave evolution using molecular dynamics simulations. This allows for a simultaneous, direct determination of the existence of the phonon mean free path with its corresponding anharmonic phonon wavenumber as a function of temperature. The concept for the mean free path is very distinct from known prior approaches: the latter evaluate the mean free path only indirectly, via using both, a scale for the phonon relaxation time and yet another one for the phonon velocity. Notably, the concept here is neither limited to small lattice nonlinearities nor to small frequencies. The scheme is tested for three strongly nonlinear lattices of timely current interest which either exhibit normal or anomalous heat transport