Foehnlike Wind with a Traditional Foehn Effect plus Dry-Diabatic Heating from the Ground Surface Contributing to High Temperatures at the End of a Leeward Area

A foehn wind is an important factor in the occurrence of many extreme high-temperature events in geographically complex regions. In this study, the authors verified the hypothesis that a foehnlike wind contributes to high temperatures at the end of the leeward (eastward) area using three difference approaches: field experiments, numerical experiments, and statistical analyses. According to the hypothesis, a foehnlike wind has the features of the sum of a traditional foehn effect with adiabatic heating, plus dry-diabatic heating from the ground surface along the fetch of the wind. Field experiments conducted at seven observational points on Nobi Plain, Japan, where a mesoscale westerly wind blew, revealed that the westerly wind clearly had the features of a traditional foehn effect in the western part of the Nobi Plain. In addition to field experiments, a simplified estimate using a simple mixed-layer model demonstrated that the wind was further heated by dry-diabatic heating (sensible heat supply) from the ground surface along the fetch (especially in urbanized areas in the eastern region of the Nobi Plain) of the wind. This diabatic heating effect along the fetch of the wind on the high temperature at the end of the leeward area was also supported by both additional numerical experiments and a statistical analysis. These results proved that the hypothesis is correct and indicated that ground conditions and the land use and land cover in the windward area were strongly related to air temperature at the end of the leeward area, where an extremely high temperature was observed

The juxtamembrane region of the cadherin cytoplasmic tail supports lateral clustering, adhesive strengthening, and interaction with p129(ctn)

Cadherin cell-cell adhesion molecules form membrane-spanning molecular complexes that couple homophilic binding by the cadherin ectodomain to the actin cytoskeleton. A fundamental issue in cadherin biology is how this complex converts the weak intrinsic binding activity of the ectodomain into strong adhesion. Recently we demonstrated that cellular cadherins cluster in a ligand-dependent fashion when cells attached to substrata coated with the adhesive ectodomain of Xenopus C-cadherin (CEC1-5). Moreover, forced clustering of the ectodomain alone significantly strengthened adhesiveness (Yap, A.S., W.M. Brieher, M. Pruschy, and B.M. Gumbiner. Curr. Biol. 7:308-315). In this study we sought to identify the determinants of the cadherin cytoplasmic tail responsible for clustering activity. A deletion mutant of C-cadherin (CT669) that retained the juxtamembrane 94-amino acid region of the cytoplasmic tail, but not the beta-catenin-binding domain, clustered upon attachment to substrata coated with CEC1-5. Like wild-type C-cadherin, this clustering was Ligand dependent. In contrast, mutant molecules lacking either the complete cytoplasmic tail or just the juxtamembrane region did not cluster. The juxtamembrane region was itself sufficient to induce clustering when fused to a heterologous membrane-anchored protein, albeit in a ligand-independent fashion. The CT669 cadherin mutant also displayed significant adhesive activity when tested in laminar flow detachment assays and aggregation assays. Purification of proteins binding to the juxtamembrane region revealed that the major associated protein is p120(ctn). These findings identify the juxtamembrane region of the cadherin cytoplasmic tail as a functionally active region supporting cadherin clustering and adhesive strength and raise the possibility that p120(ctn) is involved in clustering and cell adhesion

Calcium-dependent dynamics of cadherin interactions at cell–cell junctions

Cadherins play a key role in the dynamics of cell–cell contact formation and remodeling of junctions and tissues. Cadherin–cadherin interactions are gated by extracellular Ca^(2+), which serves to rigidify the cadherin extracellular domains and promote trans junctional interactions. Here we describe the direct visualization and quantification of spatiotemporal dynamics of N-cadherin interactions across intercellular junctions in living cells using a genetically encodable FRET reporter system. Direct measurements of transjunctional cadherin interactions revealed a sudden, but partial, loss of homophilic interactions (τ = 1.17 ± 0.06 s^(−1)) upon chelation of extracellular Ca^(2+). A cadherin mutant with reduced adhesive activity (W2A) exhibited a faster, more substantial loss of homophilic interactions (τ = 0.86 ± 0.02 s^(−1)), suggesting two types of native cadherin interactions—one that is rapidly modulated by changes in extracellular Ca^(2+) and another with relatively stable adhesive activity that is Ca^(2+) independent. The Ca^(2+)-sensitive dynamics of cadherin interactions were transmitted to the cell interior where β-catenin translocated to N-cadherin at the junction in both cells. These data indicate that cadherins can rapidly convey dynamic information about the extracellular environment to both cells that comprise a junction

A urgência do debate sobre o suicídio das pessoas LGBTQIA+: experiência e subjetividade

Apresento, neste artigo, dados obtidos por meio de uma pesquisa on-line para fazer uma reflexão sobre o suicídio de pessoas LGBTQIA+. Os números mostram que as pessoas LGBTQIA+ não somente pensam ou pensaram mais em tirar a própria vida, como tiveram uma representação maior de uma ou mais tentativas de suicídio. Por meio dos conceitos de sofrimento social, subjetividade e antropologia do devir, procuro mostrar como os discursos de suicídio estão marcados por uma negação da experiência e por agenciadores biopolíticos que determinam quais vidas podem ser continuadas e quais devem ser eliminadas

Improved Experimental Procedures for Achieving Efficient Germ Line Transmission of Nonobese Diabetic (NOD)-Derived Embryonic Stem Cells

The manipulation of a specific gene in NOD mice, the best animal model for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), must allow for the precise characterization of the functional involvement of its encoded molecule in the pathogenesis of the disease. Although this has been attempted by the cross-breeding of NOD mice with many gene knockout mice originally created on the 129 or C57BL/6 strain background, the interpretation of the resulting phenotype(s) has often been confusing due to the possibility of a known or unknown disease susceptibility locus (e.g., Idd locus) cosegregating with the targeted gene from the diabetes-resistant strain. Therefore, it is important to generate mutant mice on a pure NOD background by using NOD-derived embryonic stem (ES) cells. By using the NOD ES cell line established by Nagafuchi and colleagues in 1999 (FEBSLett., 455, 101–104), the authors reexamined various conditions in the context of cell culture, DNA transfection, and blastocyst injection, and achieved a markedly improved transmission efficiency of these NOD ES cells into the mouse germ line. These modifications will enable gene targeting on a “pure” NOD background with high efficiency, and contribute to clarifying the physiological roles of a variety of genes in the disease course of IDDM

Um olhar antropológico sobre o suicídio: devir, formas de vida e subjetividades

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre o fenômeno do suicídio, a partir de alguns referenciais teóricos antropológicos e de uma etnografia realizada em ambiente digital, entre 2014 e 2016, que resultou em uma tese de doutorado. Em um primeiro momento, explicita-se como é possível inscrever o suicídio em uma análise social, por meio de certos conceitos, como formas de vida, subjetividades e devir. A seguir são apresentados alguns sujeitos etnográficos e são analisados seus discursos de suicídio como uma forma de perda de um futuro imaginado, à luz de teorias recentes da antropologia fundamentadas nas subjetividades e nas experiências do sujeito. Assim, propõe-se uma mudança no entendimento do fenômeno do suicídio capaz de englobar também uma perspectiva multidisciplinar: mais do que um Mal a ser combatido a qualquer custo, o suicídio é, ao mesmo tempo, uma resposta e uma consequência, entranhadas na vida social e cultural, de violências e de sofrimentos sociais. Nesta intepretação, o suicídio pode ser entendido como ausência do devir ou como um devir extremo. Por fim, um olhar antropológico permite ampliar a compreensão do fenômeno, que deixa de ser somente um item nosográfico e passa a ser um elemento indissociável da experiência humana

A urgência do debate sobre suicídio das pessoas LGBTQIA+: Experiência e subjetividade

Apresento, neste artigo, dados obtidos por meio de uma pesquisa on-line para fazer uma reflexão sobre o suicídio de pessoas LGBTQIA+. Os números mostram que as pessoas LGBTQIA+ não somente pensam ou pensaram mais em tirar a própria vida, como tiveram uma representação maior de uma ou mais tentativas de suicídio. Por meio dos conceitos de sofrimento social, subjetividade e antropologia do devir, procuro mostrar como os discursos de suicídio estão marcados por uma negação da experiência e por agenciadores biopolíticos que determinam quais vidas podem ser continuadas e quais devem ser eliminadas

OUC at the NTCIR-16 QA Lab-PoliInfo-3 Budget Argument Mining

The OUC team participated in the Budget Argument Mining subtask of NTCIR-16 Question Answering Lab for Political Information 3 (QA Lab-PoliInfo-3). In this paper, we report on our methods for this task and discuss the results. We performed argument classification using a fine-tuned BERT classifier. This method showed the second highest score (0.5716) among the participants in the test data. We also performed linking relatedID using TF-IDF vectorization of documents and calculation of their cosine similarity. This method showed the highest score (0.6596) among the participants in the test data.conference pape

OUC at NTCIR-17 UFO TDE and TTRE

The OUC team participated in the Table Data Extraction (TDE) subtask and the Text-to-Table Relationship Extraction (TTRE) of NTCIR-17 Understanding of Non-Financial Objects in Financial Reports (UFO). In this paper, we report our methodology in this task and discuss the official results.conference pape