Asymmetric divisions are crucial for generating cell diversity; they rely on coupling between polarity cues and spindle positioning, but how this coupling is achieved is poorly understood. In one-cell stage Caenorhabditis elegans embryos, polarity cues set by the PAR proteins mediate asymmetric spindle positioning by governing an imbalance of net pulling forces acting on spindle poles. We found...

A method for detecting buried mines in ground penetrating radar (GPR) data using a Hough transform approach is described. GPR is one of three sensors used in the Mine Hunter/Killer (MH/K) system for detecting buried mines. A buried mine modeled as a point scatterer in object space gives rise to a hyperbolic response in GPR measurement space. Our approach uses the Hough transform to recover the ...

BACKGROUND Several hepatic cirrhosis-derived noninvasive models have been developed to predict the incidence and outcomes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We aimed to investigate the prognostic significance of the two novel established cirrhosis-associated models based on gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) and platelets in hepatitis B-associated HCC. METHODS We retrospectively evaluated 18...

The germination protease (GPR) of Bacillus megaterium initiates the degradation of small, acid-soluble proteins during spore germination. Trypsin treatment of the 46-kDa GPR zymogen (termed P46) removes an approximately 15-kDa C-terminal domain generating a 30-kDa species (P30) which is stable against further digestion. While P30 is not active, it does autoprocess to a smaller form by cleavage ...

Offset-dependent reflectivity or amplitude-variationwith-offset AVO analysis of ground-penetrating radar GPR data may improve the resolution of subsurface dielectric permittivity estimates. A horizontally stratified medium has a limiting layer thickness below which thin-bed AVO analysis is necessary. For a typical GPR signal, this limit is approximately 0.75 of the characteristic wavelength of ...

Structural degradation of road pavements has a considerable impact on traffic safety. Roadway surface defects or discontinuities make driving uncomfortable and increase chances of accidents. GPR is an effective and non-destructive technique to discover and trace the causes of road pavement damages so characterizing road integrity. The paper shows the findings of a GPR survey carried out on degr...

Modeling and simulation results of a system analysis of Ground Penetrating Radars (GPR) using Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) techniques are presented. Performance issues with GPRs need to be isolated in order to optimize of the radar’s ability to detect and identify buried objects. Using a system engineering approach, FDTD models were used to characterize the variables associated with the...