A Preliminary Look into Unsolicited Mobile App Traffic

The number of smart devices keeps on growing every year, and with that the potential market for mobile apps. As of May 2016, Google Play hosted 2.6 million apps and had an accumulative total of 65 billion app downloads. Any developer can publish apps through Play, and it is quite prevalent to granting apps permission use the phone's network network interfaces at will and under very limited supervision (beyond overall traffic volume and bitwise access to an interface). This raises the following questions: can certain apps be harmful to users? Should we trust mobile developers to 'do no evil' in terms of the volume and type of traffic their apps generate? We are motivated to identify whether there is a need for more scrutiny on the connections apps make, especially when not in use

Signal Sequence Processing in Rough Microsomes

Secretory proteins are synthesized with a signal sequence that is usually cleaved from the nascent protein during the translocation of the polypeptide chain into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum. To determine the fate of a cleaved signal sequence, we used a synchronized in vitro translocation system. We found that the cleaved signal peptide of preprolactin is further processed close to its COOH terminus. The resulting fragment accumulated in the microsomal fraction and with time was released into the cytosol. Signal sequence cleavage and processing could be reproduced with reconstituted vesicles containing Sec61, signal recognition particle receptor, and signal peptidase complex

Dnmt2-dependent methylomes lack defined DNA methylation patterns

Several organisms have retained methyltransferase 2 (Dnmt2) as their only candidate DNA methyltransferase gene. However, information about Dnmt2-dependent methylation patterns has been limited to a few isolated loci and the results have been discussed controversially. In addition, recent studies have shown that Dnmt2 functions as a tRNA methyltransferase, which raised the possibility that Dnmt2-only genomes might be unmethylated. We have now used whole-genome bisulfite sequencing to analyze the methylomes of Dnmt2-only organisms at single-base resolution. Our results show that the genomes of Schistosoma mansoni and Drosophila melanogaster lack detectable DNA methylation patterns. Residual unconverted cytosine residues shared many attributes with bisulfite deamination artifacts and were observed at comparable levels in Dnmt2-deficient flies. Furthermore, genetically modified Dnmt2-only mouse embryonic stem cells lost the DNA methylation patterns found in wild-type cells. Our results thus uncover fundamental differences among animal methylomes and suggest that DNA methylation is dispensable for a considerable number of eukaryotic organisms

Mutagenesis of Raphanus sativus Using Ionizing Radiation

Mutagenesis of Raphanus sativus was conducted using 10kR, 20kR, and 30kR radiation in an attempt to determine the dosage which produces most mutants without being lethal. Pelargonidin production and physical characteristics of the storage root of the radishes were used as measures of mutagenicity. Plants which received of radiation exhibited the poorest development in every measured aspect except germination which was high. The results of this study suggest that at least 30kR of radiation should be used in experiments involving mutagenesis of Raphanus plants

Cross-Species Analysis of Genic GC(3) Content and DNA Methylation Patterns

The GC content in the third codon position (GC3) exhibits a unimodal distribution in many plant and animal genomes. Interestingly, grasses and homeotherm vertebrates exhibit a unique bimodal distribution. High GC3 was previously found to be associated with variable expression, higher frequency of upstream TATA boxes, and an increase of GC3 from 5′ to 3′. Moreover, GC3-rich genes are predominant in certain gene classes and are enriched in CpG dinucleotides that are potential targets for methylation. Based on the GC3 bimodal distribution we hypothesize that GC3 has a regulatory role involving methylation and gene expression. To test that hypothesis, we selected diverse taxa (rice, thale cress, bee, and human) that varied in the modality of their GC3 distribution and tested the association between GC3, DNA methylation, and gene expression. We examine the relationship between cytosine methylation levels and GC3, gene expression, genome signature, gene length, and other gene compositional features. We find a strong negative correlation (Pearson’s correlation coefficient r = −0.67, P value < 0.0001) between GC3 and genic CpG methylation. The comparison between 5′-3′ gradients of CG3-skew and genic methylation for the taxa in the study suggests interplay between gene-body methylation and transcription-coupled cytosine deamination effect. Compositional features are correlated with methylation levels of genes in rice, thale cress, human, bee, and fruit fly (which acts as an unmethylated control). These patterns allow us to generate evolutionary hypotheses about the relationships between GC3 and methylation and how these affect expression patterns. Specifically, we propose that the opposite effects of methylation and compositional gradients along coding regions of GC3-poor and GC3-rich genes are the products of several competing processes

DON’T KITSCH YOURSELF!: A Social and Political Critique of American Culture through the Ceramic Collectible and Souvenir

The objective of this thesis paper is to describe my current projects and research within my studio practice. First, this thesis illustrates my personal relationship with kitsch, my ordinary suburban childhood experience, and how these relate to my artwork. Then, the paper discusses my research interests in self fashioning, nostalgia, and sentiment and how it affects the content, imagery and material choices that I make. Next, the thesis goes on to describe particular projects, their subject matter and content. Finally, the thesis concludes that the artwork is successful but where is goes in the world has yet to be determined

Epigenetics as a mechanism driving polygenic clinical drug resistance

Aberrant methylation of CpG islands located at or near gene promoters is associated with inactivation of gene expression during tumour development. It is increasingly recognised that such epimutations may occur at a much higher frequency than gene mutation and therefore have a greater impact on selection of subpopulations of cells during tumour progression or acquisition of resistance to anticancer drugs. Although laboratory-based models of acquired resistance to anticancer agents tend to focus on specific genes or biochemical pathways, such 'one gene : one outcome' models may be an oversimplification of acquired resistance to treatment of cancer patients. Instead, clinical drug resistance may be due to changes in expression of a large number of genes that have a cumulative impact on chemosensitivity. Aberrant CpG island methylation of multiple genes occurring in a nonrandom manner during tumour development and during the acquisition of drug resistance provides a mechanism whereby expression of multiple genes could be affected simultaneously resulting in polygenic clinical drug resistance. If simultaneous epigenetic regulation of multiple genes is indeed a major driving force behind acquired resistance of patients' tumour to anticancer agents, this has important implications for biomarker studies of clinical outcome following chemotherapy and for clinical approaches designed to circumvent or modulate drug resistance

Joint profiling of DNA methylation and chromatin architecture in single cells.

We report a molecular assay, Methyl-HiC, that can simultaneously capture the chromosome conformation and DNA methylome in a cell. Methyl-HiC reveals coordinated DNA methylation status between distal genomic segments that are in spatial proximity in the nucleus, and delineates heterogeneity of both the chromatin architecture and DNA methylome in a mixed population. It enables simultaneous characterization of cell-type-specific chromatin organization and epigenome in complex tissues

Pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces of signature (2,2)

We study all four-dimensional simply-connected indecomposable non-semisimple pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces whose metric has signature (2,2). We present models and compute their isometry groups. We solve the problem of the existence or non-existence of compact quotients by properly acting discrete subgroups of the isometry group. This continues and completes earlier work by Maeta.Comment: 48 page