Regular Form (regular + form)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Structural disorder in amyloid fibrils: its implication in dynamic interactions of proteins

FEBS JOURNAL, Issue 19 2009
P. Tompa
Proteins are occasionally converted from their normal soluble state to highly ordered fibrillar aggregates (amyloids), which give rise to pathological conditions that range from neurodegenerative disorders to systemic amyloidoses. Recent methodological advances in solid-state NMR and EPR spectroscopy have enabled determination of the 3D structure of several amyloids at residue-level resolution. The general picture that emerges is that amyloids constitute parallel , sheets, in which individual polypeptide chains run roughly perpendicular to the major axis of the fibril and are stacked in-register. Thus, the unifying theme of amyloid formation is the structural transition from an initial globular or intrinsically disordered state to a highly ordered regular form. In this minireview, we show that this description is somewhat oversimplified, because part of the polypeptide chain in the amyloid remains intrinsically disordered and does not become part of the ordered core. As demonstrated through examples such as the amyloids of ,-synuclein and A, peptide and the yeast prions HET-s and Ure2p, these disordered segments are depleted in amino acids NQFYV and are enriched in DEKP. They are also significantly more charged and have a higher predicted disordered value than segments in the cross-, core. We suggest that structural disorder in amyloid is a special case of ,fuzziness', i.e. disorder in the bound state that may serve different functions, such as the accommodation of destabilizing residues and the mediation of secondary interactions between protofibrils. [source]


Parallelization of a vorticity formulation for the analysis of incompressible viscous fluid flows

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Issue 11 2002
Mary J. Brown
Abstract A parallel computer implementation of a vorticity formulation for the analysis of incompressible viscous fluid flow problems is presented. The vorticity formulation involves a three-step process, two kinematic steps followed by a kinetic step. The first kinematic step determines vortex sheet strengths along the boundary of the domain from a Galerkin implementation of the generalized Helmholtz decomposition. The vortex sheet strengths are related to the vorticity flux boundary conditions. The second kinematic step determines the interior velocity field from the regular form of the generalized Helmholtz decomposition. The third kinetic step solves the vorticity equation using a Galerkin finite element method with boundary conditions determined in the first step and velocities determined in the second step. The accuracy of the numerical algorithm is demonstrated through the driven-cavity problem and the 2-D cylinder in a free-stream problem, which represent both internal and external flows. Each of the three steps requires a unique parallelization effort, which are evaluated in terms of parallel efficiency. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Mammalian Sperm Energy Resources Management and Survival during Conservation in Refrigeration

REPRODUCTION IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS, Issue 2006
JE Rodriguez-Gil
Contents The present review has as its main aim to present an overview regarding the mechanisms utilized by mammalian sperm to manage its intracellular energy levels. This management will strongly influence the sperm's ability to maintain its overall function during its entire life span. Thus, the precise knowledge of these mechanisms will be of the utmost interest to optimize the systems utilized to conserve mammalian sperm for a medium-to-long time-lapse. Briefly, utilization of hexoses as energy substrates by mammalian sperm is very finely regulated from the very first step of its metabolization. Furthermore, the equilibrium among the separate, monosaccharide metabolization pathways in mammalian sperm depends on many factors. This prevents the possibility to draw a general vision of sperm energy utilization, which explains the results of all mammalian species in all points of the sperm life-cycle. To complicate the matter further, there are separate energy phenotypes among mammalian spermatozoa. The precise knowledge of these phenotypes is of the greatest importance in order to optimize the design of new extenders for sperm conservation in refrigerated conditions. Moreover, sugars can act on sperm not only as passive metabolic substrates, but also as direct function activators through mechanisms like specific changes in the tyrosine phosphorylation status of distinct proteins. Finally, mammalian sperm utilizes non-glucidic substrates like citrate and lactate to obtain energy in a regular form. This utilization is also finely regulated and of importance to maintain overall sperm function. This implies that the exact proportion of glucidic and non-glucidic energy substrates could be very important to optimize the survival ability of these cells in conservation. [source]


SECOND-ORDER TERMINAL SLIDING MODE CONTROL OF INPUT-DELAY SYSTEMS

ASIAN JOURNAL OF CONTROL, Issue 1 2006
Yong Feng
ABSTRACT This paper proposes a second-order terminal sliding mode control for a class of uncertain input-delay systems. The input-delay systems are firstly converted into the input-delay free systems and further converted into the regular forms. A linear sliding mode manifold is predesigned to represent the ideal dynamics of the system. Another terminal sliding mode manifold surface is presented to drive the linear sliding mode to reach zeros in finite time. In order to eliminate the chattering phenomena, a second-order sliding mode method is utilized to filter the high frequency switching control signal. The uncertainties of the systems are analysed in detail to show the effect to the systems. The simulation results validate the method presented in the paper. [source]


Overtensing and the effect of regularity

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 6 2002
Joseph Paul Stemberger
Abstract Regularly inflected forms often behave differently in language production than irregular forms. These differences are often used to argue that irregular forms are listed in the lexicon but regular forms are produced by rule. Using an experimental speech production task with adults, it is shown that overtensing errors, where a tensed verb is used in place of an infinitive, predominantly involve irregular forms, but that the differences may be due to phonological confounds, not to regularity per se. Errors involve vowel-changing irregular forms more than suffixing inflected forms, with at best a small difference between regular -ed and irregular -en. Frequency effects on overtensing errors require a model in which the past-tense and base forms of the verb are in competition and in which activation functions are nonlinear, and rule out models with specialized subnetworks for past-tense forms. Implications for theories of language production are discussed. [source]