Boston University

About: Boston University is a education organization based out in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 48688 authors who have published 119622 publications receiving 6276020 citations. The organization is also known as: BU & Boston U.

Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991

Abstract: Variations in the amplitude and timing of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 have shown an association with surface air temperature consistent with the hypothesis that warmer temperatures have promoted increases in plant growth during summer1 and/or plant respiration during winter2 in the northern high latitudes. Here we present evidence from satellite data that the photosynthetic activity of terrestrial vegetation increased from 1981 to 1991 in a manner that is suggestive of an increase in plant growth associated with a lengthening of the active growing season. The regions exhibiting the greatest increase lie between 45°N and 70°N, where marked warming has occurred in the spring time3 due to an early disappearance of snow4. The satellite data are concordant with an increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeding 20% since the early 1970s, and an advance of up to seven days in the timing of the drawdown of CO2 in spring and early summer1. Thus, both the satellite data and the CO2 record indicate that the global carbon cycle has responded to interannual fluctuations in surface air temperature which, although small at the global scale, are regionally highly significant.

Strategic alignment: leveraging information technology for transforming organizations

Abstract: It is cleaaar that eventhough information technology (I/T) has evolved form its traditional orientation of administrative support toward a more strategic role within an organization, there is still a glaring lack of fundamental frameworks within which to understand the potential of I/T for tomorrow's organizations. In this paper, we develop a model for conceptualizing and directing the emerging area of strategic management of information technology. This model, termed the Strategic Allgnment Model, is defined in terms of four fundamental domains of strategic choice: business strategy, information technology strategy, organlzational infrastructure and processes, and information technology Infrastuvture and processes--each with its own underlying dimenslons. We illustrate the power of this model in terms of two fundamental characteristics fo strategic management: strategic fit (the interrelationships between external and internal components) and functional Integration (integration between business and functional domains). More specifically, we derive foru perspectives for gulding management practice in this Important area.

The sva package for removing batch effects and other unwanted variation in high-throughput experiments

Abstract: Summary: Heterogeneity and latent variables are now widely recognized as major sources of bias and variability in high-throughput experiments. The most well-known source of latent variation in genomic experiments are batch effects—when samples are processed on different days, in different groups or by different people. However, there are also a large number of other variables that may have a major impact on high-throughput measurements. Here we describe the sva package for identifying, estimating and removing unwanted sources of variation in high-throughput experiments. The sva package supports surrogate variable estimation with the sva function, direct adjustment for known batch effects with the ComBat function and adjustment for batch and latent variables in prediction problems with the fsva function. Availability: The R package sva is freely available from http://www.bioconductor.org. Contact: jleek@jhsph.edu Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Distinct and predictive chromatin signatures of transcriptional promoters and enhancers in the human genome.

Abstract: Eukaryotic gene transcription is accompanied by acetylation and methylation of nucleosomes near promoters, but the locations and roles of histone modifications elsewhere in the genome remain unclear. We determined the chromatin modification states in high resolution along 30 Mb of the human genome and found that active promoters are marked by trimethylation of Lys4 of histone H3 (H3K4), whereas enhancers are marked by monomethylation, but not trimethylation, of H3K4. We developed computational algorithms using these distinct chromatin signatures to identify new regulatory elements, predicting over 200 promoters and 400 enhancers within the 30-Mb region. This approach accurately predicted the location and function of independently identified regulatory elements with high sensitivity and specificity and uncovered a novel functional enhancer for the carnitine transporter SLC22A5 (OCTN2). Our results give insight into the connections between chromatin modifications and transcriptional regulatory activity and provide a new tool for the functional annotation of the human genome.