University of Marburg

About: University of Marburg is a education organization based out in Marburg, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 23195 authors who have published 42907 publications receiving 1506069 citations. The organization is also known as: Philipps University of Marburg & Philipps-Universität.

Objects predict fixations better than early saliency.

Abstract: Humans move their eyes while looking at scenes and pictures. Eye movements correlate with shifts in attention and are thought to be a consequence of optimal resource allocation for high-level tasks such as visual recognition. Models of attention, such as “saliency maps,” are often built on the assumption that “early” features (color, contrast, orientation, motion, and so forth) drive attention directly. We explore an alternative hypothesis: Observers attend to “interesting” objects. To test this hypothesis, we measure the eye position of human observers while they inspect photographs of common natural scenes. Our observers perform different tasks: artistic evaluation, analysis of content, and search. Immediately after each presentation, our observers are asked to name objects they saw. Weighted with recall frequency, these objects predict fixations in individual images better than early saliency, irrespective of task. Also, saliency combined with object positions predicts which objects are frequently named. This suggests that early saliency has only an indirect effect on attention, acting through recognized objects. Consequently, rather than treating attention as mere preprocessing step for object recognition, models of both need to be integrated.

SARS — beginning to understand a new virus

Abstract: The 114-day epidemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) swept 29 countries, affected a reported 8,098 people, left 774 patients dead and almost paralysed the Asian economy. Aggressive quarantine measures, possibly aided by rising summer temperatures, successfully terminated the first eruption of SARS and provided at least a temporal break, which allows us to consolidate what we have learned so far and plan for the future. Here, we review the genomics of the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), its phylogeny, antigenic structure, immune response and potential therapeutic interventions should the SARS epidemic flare up again.

Controlling interpenetration in metal-organic frameworks by liquid-phase epitaxy.

Abstract: Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly porous materials generally consisting of two building elements: inorganic coupling units and organic linkers. These frameworks offer an enormous porosity, which can be used to store large amounts of gases and, as demonstrated in more recent applications, makes these compounds suitable for drug release. The huge sizes of the pores inside MOFs, however, also give rise to a fundamental complication, namely the formation of sublattices occupying the same space. This interpenetration greatly reduces the pore size and thus the available space within the MOF structure. We demonstrate here that the formation of the second, interpenetrated framework can be suppressed by using liquid-phase epitaxy on an organic template. This success demonstrates the potential of the step-by-step method to synthesize new classes of MOFs not accessible by conventional solvothermal methods.

ENETS Consensus Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Digestive Neuroendocrine Neoplasms of the Digestive System: Well-Differentiated Pancreatic Non-Functioning Tumors

Abstract: ENETS Consensus Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Digestive Neuroendocrine Neoplasms of the Digestive System : Well-Differentiated Pancreatic Non-Functioning Tumors

Processing of the Ebola virus glycoprotein by the proprotein convertase furin

Abstract: In the present study, we have investigated processing and maturation of the envelope glycoprotein (GP) of Ebola virus. When GP expressed from vaccinia virus vectors was analyzed by pulse–chase experiments, the mature form and two different precursors were identified. First, the endoplasmic reticulum form preGPer, full-length GP with oligomannosidic N-glycans, was detected. preGPer (110 kDa) was replaced by the Golgi-specific form preGP (160 kDa), full-length GP containing mature carbohydrates. preGP was finally converted by proteolysis into mature GP1,2, which consisted of two disulfide-linked cleavage products, the amino-terminal 140-kDa fragment GP1, and the carboxyl-terminal 26-kDa fragment GP2. GP1,2 was also identified in Ebola virions. Studies employing site-directed mutagenesis revealed that GP was cleaved at a multibasic amino acid motif located at positions 497 to 501 of the ORF. Cleavage was blocked by a peptidyl chloromethylketone containing such a motif. GP is cleaved by the proprotein convertase furin. This was indicated by the observation that cleavage did not occur when GP was expressed in furin-defective LoVo cells but that it was restored in these cells by vector-expressed furin. The Reston subtype, which differs from all other Ebola viruses by its low human pathogenicity, has a reduced cleavability due to a mutation at the cleavage site. As a result of these observations, it should now be considered that proteolytic processing of GP may be an important determinant for the pathogenicity of Ebola virus.