Neural Network and Bioinformatic Methods for Predicting HIV-1 Protease Inhibitor Resistance

This article presents a new method for predicting viral resistance to seven protease inhibitors from the HIV-1 genotype, and for identifying the positions in the protease gene at which the specific nature of the mutation affects resistance. The neural network Analog ARTMAP predicts protease inhibitor resistance from viral genotypes. A feature selection method detects genetic positions that contribute to resistance both alone and through interactions with other positions. This method has identified positions 35, 37, 62, and 77, where traditional feature selection methods have not detected a contribution to resistance. At several positions in the protease gene, mutations confer differing degress of resistance, depending on the specific amino acid to which the sequence has mutated. To find these positions, an Amino Acid Space is introduced to represent genes in a vector space that captures the functional similarity between amino acid pairs. Feature selection identifies several new positions, including 36, 37, and 43, with amino acid-specific contributions to resistance. Analog ARTMAP networks applied to inputs that represent specific amino acids at these positions perform better than networks that use only mutation locations.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0423); National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NMA 201-01-1-2016); National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624

“One More for Luck”: The Destruction of U971 by HMCS Haida and HMS Eskimo, 24 June 1944

On the evening of 23 June 1944, HMCS Haida and HMS Eskimo set out from Plymouth, operational base of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla (10th DF), to conduct a sweep of the Western Approaches to the English Channel. Their role was to assist in securing these waters for the ongoing delivery of supplies and reinforcements to the Normandy bridgehead. Across the Channel to the southest, American, British and Canadian forces were now in their third week of fighting across the fields and hedgerows of Normandy. Operation OVERLORD had been the largest amphibious invasion in history and, dependent as it was on the unimpeded use of the sea, required an intensive concentration of air and naval forces to protect Allied supply convoys. This naval counterpart of OVERLORD was Operation NEPTUNE, and it was as part of this massive undertaken that Haida and Eskimo now steamed out of Plymouth

The influence of boards of directors’ characteristics on strategic decision-making: Evidence from Greek companies

This article is available open access from the publisher’s website at the link below.This study explores the influence Boards of Directors’ demographic characteristics on the process of making strategic decisions. Empirical testing is based on a sample of 105 Greek companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. The results suggest that educational level affect both the financial reporting and the hierarchical decentralisation in the strategic decision-making process. Also, functional background of executives was found to be related with financial reporting. However, the educational specialty did not appear to have any significant influence on the strategic decision-making process. In light of these findings, implications for practitioners are made and avenues for future research are suggested

Organisational change and development of reformed Chinese township and village enterprises

This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here (http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8263). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the organisational changes (OCs) and the development of Chinese reformed township and village enterprises (RTVEs), their marketing and R&D strategies, and the impact of changes in terms of overall performance. Design/methodology/approach – A case study methodology involving semi-structured interviews is adopted. The unit chosen is the Guotai International Group (GTIG) in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, in which the organisational changes over a period of over 40 years are analysed. Findings – OCs in Chinese RTVEs are found to be driven by a combination of local government plans and market forces. Considering the hybrid nature of the organisation and ownership structures, changes in Chinese RTVEs follow a very much “top-down” approach. Research limitations/implications – The findings imply that managers appointed by the state in RTVEs usually lack the necessary skills in marketing and business management, and can be resistant to organisational changes, such as the willingness to undertake risks. As a result, RTVEs may become stuck in a cycle of low-cost, low-tech products, inhibiting any breakthrough in developing their own quality brands. Originality/value – This is one of few papers studying change over a long span of time to arrive at research findings that will be useful to academic researchers in their future work. The qualitative findings from this paper would also enrich the literatures on organisational change in Chinese RTVEs

A survey of UK selection practices across different organization sizes and industry sectors

This paper presents results of a study examining the methods used to select employees in 579 UK organizations representing a range of different organization sizes and industry sectors. Overall, a smaller proportion of organizations in this sample reported using formalized methods (e.g., assessment centres) than informal methods (e.g., unstructured interviews). The curriculum vitae (CVs) was the most commonly used selection method, followed by the traditional triad of application form, interviews, and references. Findings also indicated that the use of different selection methods was similar in both large organizations and small-to-medium-sized enterprises. Differences were found across industry sector with public and voluntary sectors being more likely to use formalized techniques (e.g., application forms rather than CVs and structured rather than unstructured interviews). The results are discussed in relation to their implications, both in terms of practice and future research

Some natural zero one laws for ordinals below ε0

We are going to prove that every ordinal α with ε_0 > α ≥ ω^ω satisfies a natural zero one law in the following sense. For α < ε_0 let Nα be the number of occurences of ω in the Cantor normal form of α. (Nα is then the number of edges in the unordered tree which can canonically be associated with α.) We prove that for any α with ω ω  ≤ α < ε_0 and any sentence ϕ in the language of linear orders the asymptotic density of ϕ along α is an element of  {0,1}. We further show that for any such sentence ϕ the asymptotic density along ε_0 exists although this limit is in general in between 0 and 1. We also investigate corresponding asymptotic densities for ordinals below ω^ω

American Culture: A Sociological Perspectives

The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western origin but is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes African, Native American, Asian, Pacific Island, and Latin American people and their cultures. American culture encompasses the customs and traditions of the United States. The United States is sometimes described as a "melting pot" in which different cultures have contributed their own distinct "flavors" to American culture. The United States of America is a North American nation that is the world\u27s most dominant economic and military power. Likewise, its cultural imprint spans the world, led in large part by its popular culture expressed in music, movies and television. The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western culture (European) origin and form but is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes African, Native American, Asian, Polynesian, and Latin American people and their cultures. The American way of life or simply the American way is the unique lifestyle of the people of the United States of America. It refers to a nationalist ethos that adheres to the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Magma flow through elastic-walled dikes

A convection–diffusion model for the averaged flow of a viscous, incompressible magma through an elastic medium is considered. The magma flows through a dike from a magma reservoir to the Earth’s surface; only changes in dike width and velocity over large vertical length scales relative to the characteristic dike width are considered. The model emerges when nonlinear inertia terms in the momentum equation are neglected in a viscous, low-speed approximation of a magma flow model coupled to the elastic response of the rock.\ud Stationary- and traveling-wave solutions are presented in which a Dirichlet condition is used at the magma chamber; and either a (i) free-boundary condition, (ii) Dirichlet condition, or (iii) choked-flow condition is used at the moving free or fixed-top boundary. A choked-flow boundary condition, generally used in the coupled elastic wave and magma flow model, is also used in the convection–diffusion model. The validity of this choked-flow condition is illustrated by comparing stationary flow solutions of the convection–diffusion and coupled elastic wave and magma flow model for parameter values estimated for the Tolbachik volcano region in Kamchatka, Russia. These free- and fixed-boundary solutions are subsequently explored in a conservative, local discontinuous Galerkin finite-element discretization. This method is advantageous for the accurate implementation of the choked flow and free-boundary conditions. It uses a mixed Eulerian–Lagrangian finite element with special infinite curvature basis function near the free boundary and ensures positivity of the mean aperture subject to a time-step restriction. We illustrate the model further by simulating magma flow through host rock of variable density, and magma flow that is quasi-periodic due to the growth and collapse of a lava dome

Supply Chain Management and the Changing Structure of U.S. Organic Produce

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/31/06.supply chain, produce, organic, vertical coordination, Agribusiness,

APPLE INDUSTRY STRATEGIC PLANNING AND INTEGRATION WITH UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

Agribusiness,