In this paper, 10 frequently used sequence-derived structural and physicochemical features, which can be easily computed by the PROFEAT (Protein Features) web server, were taken as inputs of support vector machines to develop statistical learning models for predicting the protein structural class. More importantly, a strategy of merging different features, called

best-first search, was developed. It was shown through the rigorous jackknife cross-validation test that the success rates by our method were significantly improved. We anticipate that the present method may also have important impacts on boosting the predictive accuracies for a series of other protein attributes, such as subcellular localization, membrane types, enzyme family and subfamily classes, among many others. (C) 2008 selleckchem Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Orientation selectivity is an important C59 wnt cost emergent property of neurons in the primary visual cortex, and inhibition

is thought to play an important role in establishing this selectivity. But the relationship between strength of inhibition and orientation selectivity is unclear. To investigate this relationship, we electrophoretically applied the inhibitory transmitter GABA and the GABA(A) antagonist bicuculline on the same individual area 17 neurons in anesthetized cats. Neurons were classified as weakly orientation-selective, moderately orientation-selective, or strongly orientation-selective, according to the values of an orientation bias index. Orientation bias, half-width of the tuning curve at half-height and an orientation-specificity index (orthogonal to optimal ratio) were compared most with or without GABA and bicuculline administration. GABA improved orientation selectivity with the greatest effects on weakly orientation-selective cells, smaller effects on moderately orientation-selective cells, and minimal effects on strongly orientation-selective cells; bicuculline diminished orientation selectivity the most on moderately and strongly

orientation-selective cells, with minimal effects on weakly orientation-selective cells. We also found that orientation selectivity correlated with the level of neurons’ spontaneous activity. These results suggest that the degree of orientation selectivity of an area 17 neuron correlates with its endogenous inhibition strength, and that GABAergic inhibition can bi-directionally regulate orientation selectivity. This correlation indicates that GABA-mediated inhibition plays an important role in establishing sharp orientation selectivity of individual neurons. (C) 2008 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Although recent investigations [Ryan, M.G., Yoder, BJ., 1997. Hydraulic limits to tree height and tree growth. Bioscience 47, 235-242; Koch, G.W., Sillett, S.C.Jennings, G.M.,Davis, S.D., 2004. The limits to tree height. Nature 428, 851-854; Niklas, K.J., Spatz, H., 2004.