University of Hawaii at Manoa

About: University of Hawaii at Manoa is a education organization based out in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 13693 authors who have published 25161 publications receiving 1023924 citations.

The Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey: A 3.1 M ⊕ Planet in the Habitable Zone of the Nearby M3V Star Gliese 581

Abstract: We present 11 years of HIRES precision radial velocities (RVs) of the nearby M3V star Gliese 581, combining our data set of 122 precision RVs with an existing published 4.3-year set of 119 HARPS precision RVs. The velocity set now indicates six companions in Keplerian motion around this star. Differential photometry indicates a likely stellar rotation period of ~94 days and reveals no significant periodic variability at any of the Keplerian periods, supporting planetary orbital motion as the cause of all the RV variations. The combined data set strongly confirms the 5.37-day, 12.9-day, 3.15-day, and 67-day planets previously announced by Bonfils et al., Udry et al., and Mayor et al.. The observations also indicate a fifth planet in the system, GJ 581f, a minimum-mass 7.0 M ⊕ planet orbiting in a 0.758 AU orbit of period 433 days, and a sixth planet, GJ 581g, a minimum-mass 3.1 M ⊕ planet orbiting at 0.146 AU with a period of 36.6 days. The estimated equilibrium temperature of GJ 581g is 228 K, placing it squarely in the middle of the habitable zone of the star and offering a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet around a very nearby star. That a system harboring a potentially habitable planet has been found this nearby, and this soon in the relatively early history of precision RV surveys, indicates that η⊕, the fraction of stars with potentially habitable planets, is likely to be substantial. This detection, coupled with statistics of the incompleteness of present-day precision RV surveys for volume-limited samples of stars in the immediate solar neighborhood, suggests that η⊕ could well be on the order of a few tens of percent. If the local stellar neighborhood is a representative sample of the galaxy as a whole, our Milky Way could be teeming with potentially habitable planets.

The Vibrio fischeri quorum-sensing systems ain and lux sequentially induce luminescence gene expression and are important for persistence in the squid host.

Abstract: Bacterial quorum sensing using acyl-homoserine lactones (acyl-HSLs) as cell-density dependent signalling molecules is important for the transcriptional regulation of many genes essential in the establishment and the maintenance of bacteria-host associations. Vibrio fischeri, the symbiotic partner of the Hawaiian bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes, possesses two distinct acyl-HSL synthase proteins, LuxI and AinS. Whereas the cell density-dependent regulation of luminescence by the LuxI-produced signal is a well-described phenomenon, and its role in light organ symbiosis has been defined, little is known about the ain system. We have investigated the impact of the V. fischeri acyl-HSL synthase AinS on both luminescence and symbiotic colonization. Through phenotypic studies of V. fischeri mutants we have found that the AinS-signal is the predominant inducer of luminescence expression in culture, whereas the impact of the LuxI-signal is apparent only at the high cell densities occurring in symbiosis. Furthermore, our studies revealed that ainS regulates activities essential for successful colonization of E. scolopes, i.e. the V. fischeri ainS mutant failed to persist in the squid light organ. Mutational inactivation of the transcriptional regulator protein LuxO in the ainS mutant partially or completely reversed all the observed phenotypes, demonstrating that the AinS-signal regulates expression of downstream genes through the inactivation of LuxO. Taken together, our results suggest that the two quorum-sensing systems in V. fischeri, ain and lux, sequentially induce the expression of luminescence genes and possibly other colonization factors.

SAX-VSM: Interpretable Time Series Classification Using SAX and Vector Space Model

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel method for discovering characteristic patterns in a time series called SAX-VSM. This method is based on two existing techniques - Symbolic Aggregate approximation and Vector Space Model. SAX-VSM automatically discovers and ranks time series patterns by their "importance" to the class, which not only facilitates well-performing classification procedure, but also provides an interpretable class generalization. The accuracy of the method, as shown through experimental evaluation, is at the level of the current state of the art. While being relatively computationally expensive within a learning phase, our method provides fast, precise, and interpretable classification.

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology Can Transform Mental Health Research

Abstract: For more than a century, research on psychopathology has focused on categorical diagnoses. Although this work has produced major discoveries, growing evidence points to the superiority of a dimensional approach to the science of mental illness. Here we outline one such dimensional system-the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)-that is based on empirical patterns of co-occurrence among psychological symptoms. We highlight key ways in which this framework can advance mental-health research, and we provide some heuristics for using HiTOP to test theories of psychopathology. We then review emerging evidence that supports the value of a hierarchical, dimensional model of mental illness across diverse research areas in psychological science. These new data suggest that the HiTOP system has the potential to accelerate and improve research on mental-health problems as well as efforts to more effectively assess, prevent, and treat mental illness.