Daily Archives: December 12, 2014

* DNA demands higher funds for 2015 * Budget Minister points out that the Public Ministrys total budget will be …

Posted: December 12, 2014 at 11:44 pm

* DNA demands higher funds for 2015 * Budget Minister points out that the Public Ministrys total budget will be higher in 2015 * Salary hikes in education, health, defense, infrastructure

The 2015 budget has not been finalized and approved within the government yet and disputes are already surfacing in the public space. The interesting fact is that those dissatisfied with the budget allocations are not trade unions, on behalf of their employees, but important state institutions.

Thus, the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) points out in a communiqu that the annexes of the draft 2015 budget do not contain the distinct budget page for the DNA, as stipulated by Article 4, Paragraph 4 of Emergency Government Ordinance 43/2002, the annexes containing instead only a centralizing page for the whole Public Ministry, which does not point out the funds earmarked for the DNA for 2015. The centralizing page for the whole Public Ministry shows that the value of its budget is 31.94 per cent smaller than the 2014 budget. Moreover, the budget cuts for 2015 target a series of expenditures that are absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the Public Ministry (including for judicial surveys, fuel, operational materials and services), the communiqu shows.

On the other hand, Budget Minister Darius Valcov points out that the Public Ministrys total budget in 2015 will stand at RON 707.88 M, up by RON 19.29 M year-on-year, Agerpres informs.

The Public Ministrys total budget for 2015 is growing, not dropping, being of RON 707.88 M, meaning a growth of RON 19.29 M compared to 2014. Moreover, the Public Finance Ministry has received the Public Ministrys requests concerning the expenditure limits for 2015, and, automatically, the budgets of DNA and DIICOT have registered growth. () According to the 2014 state budget law, the sum of RON 323 M in personnel expenditures was added to the Public Ministrys total budget. We point out that, in line with the law, throughout 2015 the Public Ministrys budget will be hiked by executory titles that will be paid throughout this year, Valcov explained.

A communiqu issued by the Public Finance Ministry reads: Considering the importance of the proper functioning of DNA and DIICOT, the Public Finance Ministrys interest of ensuring the resources needed by these institutions, of offering transparent public information and clarifying all aspects, the Budget Minister will meet the leadership of the Justice Ministry and the Public Ministry on December 12.

Amicable and positive talks are expected to take place today between the Public Finance Ministry and the Public Ministry (including the DNA), probably ahead of the government meeting that will approve the draft budget for 2015 in order to forward it to Parliament.

Before closing the edition we received information that Budget Minister Darius Valcov held a meeting with Chief Prosecutor of the DNA, Laura Codrua Kovesi, and Justice Minister Robert Cazanciuc. During the meeting it was confirmed that the DNA will be requested budget in 2015.

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Unlocking doggy DNA

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If I have one regret about bringing home my little rescue dog, it is this. His past is a complete mystery to me.

I wish I knew more about how this sweet pup came into existence and what his home life was like before he arrived at the center of the universe.

I want the puppy pictures, darn it.

That's one of the reasons that having a DNA profile of my Chihuahua, Bailey, appealed to me. It couldn't tell me if he had been the apple of his mama's eye, but it could tell me more about who he is and who his ancestors are.

Bailey's ears are a clue that he's something besides all Chihuahua. (Joan Morris/Contra Costa Times)

I used Mars Veterinary's Wisdom Panel (www.wisdompanel.com). The DNA testing company has been around since the beginning of doggy DNA testing about a decade ago. The test costs about $80 and is easy to administer. A couple of swabs of Bailey's cheeks and that was it. The hardest part was waiting two weeks for the test results.

Angela Hughes, the veterinary geneticist with Wisdom Panel, explained that once the DNA is extracted and processed, computers take over and compare Bailey's unique DNA to more than 7 million pattern combinations, looking at what he is as well as what he isn't.

All dogs are descended from the wolf, and genetic propensities were honed by nature. We then stepped in with selective breeding to emphasize those characteristics and develop the breeds we now know.

Of all the genes that make up a dog, only about 200 determine a dog's appearance. Coat color, texture and length, shape of the nose and ears, size and even some personality traits are all decided by this handful of genes.

For example, Hughes says, most mixed-breed dogs have black coats. That's because black is a dominant gene and requires only one copy to drop into the "coat color" slot on the DNA strand. Other colors are recessive and require a matching gene from each parent.

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Download THE HUMAN GENOME Third Edition PDF – Video

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Download THE HUMAN GENOME Third Edition PDF
To View More Detail Download PDF here : http://bit.ly/15Yrduf.

By: Galilahi Comanche

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Manuel Rivas – Python for Personal and Population Genome Interpretation – Video

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Manuel Rivas - Python for Personal and Population Genome Interpretation
PyData NYC 2014 Over the past five years the drop in DNA sequencing costs has quickly transformed our ability to understand the genome. In this tutorial, we will introduce you to pyPLINK/SEQ,...

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Genome mufflerImpreza sti(GDB-F) Exhaust Note – Video

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Genome mufflerImpreza sti(GDB-F) Exhaust Note
Impreza Exhaust Note(no running enginracing only) http://youtu.be/yW6JgH3CqMY Car specification GDB-F ...

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Genome mufflerImpreza sti(GDB-F) Exhaust Note - Video

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osu! daidai genome 424peepee – Video

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osu! daidai genome 424peepee
watch with my skin!

By: koutei pengin

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A 3D Map of the Human Genome – Video

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A 3D Map of the Human Genome
Suhas Rao and Miriam Huntley (of the Aiden Lab) describe a 3D map of the human genome at kilobase resolution, revealing the principles of chromatin looping. Guest Origami Folding: Sarah Nyquist....

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Scientists reconstruct genome of common ancestor of crocodiles, birds, dinosaurs

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

11-Dec-2014

Contact: Tim Stephens stephens@ucsc.edu 831-459-4352 University of California - Santa Cruz @ucsc

Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of the birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs. A new study of crocodilian genomes led by scientists at UC Santa Cruz reveals an exceptionally slow rate of genome evolution in the crocodilians (a group that includes crocodiles, caimans, alligators, and gharials).

The UC Santa Cruz team used the crocodilian genomes, combined with newly published bird genomes, to reconstruct a partial genome of the common ancestor of crocodiles, birds, and dinosaurs. The study, part of an ambitious international collaboration to analyze the genomes of modern birds and gain insights into their evolution, is one of eight papers from the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium being published in a December 12 special issue of Science.

Richard E. (Ed) Green, lead author of the crocodilian genome paper and an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at UC Santa Cruz, said the slow evolutionary rate in the crocodilian lineage was helpful in reconstructing the genome of the common ancestor.

"The ticking of the molecular clock in the crocodilians is much slower than in other lineages we're used to looking at, like mammals, which means we can see back into their past more cleanly," Green said.

The reconstructed genome of the common ancestor will be a valuable tool for investigating the evolution of the "archosaurs," the group that includes all dinosaurs, pterosaurs, birds, and crocodilians. (Crocodilians are actually more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to other reptiles, i.e., lizards, snakes, and turtles.) Green said the genome reconstruction effort, led by UC Santa Cruz research specialist Benedict Paten, yielded about half of the genome sequence of the common ancestor with an accuracy of about 91 percent, and he expects that to improve as more data on bird and crocodile genomes become available.

The team sequenced the genomes of three crocodilian species: the American alligator, the saltwater crocodile, and the Indian gharial. Their analysis indicates that the ancestor of all archosaurs probably had an extremely slow rate of molecular evolution, and that the rate of change sped up in the bird lineage. The rate of molecular evolution of crocodilians is an order of magnitude slower than that of mammals. The most likely reason for this relates to the relatively long time between generations in crocodilians, Green said.

"When it takes longer to get from one generation to the next, you expect the evolutionary rate to be slower, and big animals tend to have long generation times," he said. "We know from fossils that the body plan of crocs has remained largely unchanged for millions of years. Mammals, however, if you go back 50 or 60 million years there were no big mammals, so we see a faster rate of evolutionary change."

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Biologists map crocodilian genomes

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A Texas Tech University biologist led a team of more than 50 scientists who mapped the genomes of three crocodilians.

By mapping these genomes, scientists may better understand the evolution of birds, which are the toothy predators' closest living relatives, said David Ray, an associate professor of biology. The team completed genomes of a crocodile, an alligator and a true gharial to complete the genomic family portrait.

"One of the major finds in our case was that crocodilian genomes change very slowly when compared to birds," Ray said. "We compared both birds and crocodilians to turtles, which are the closest living relatives of the group that includes both birds and crocodilians. We found that they evolved slowly also. The best explanation for this is that the common ancestor of all three was a 'slow evolver,' which in turn suggests that rapid evolution is something that evolved independently in birds."

Research began in 2009 as an attempt to map only 1 percent of crocodilian DNA. However, shortly after starting, the price for mapping a million bases dropped from $1,000 eventually down to $1.

"We had proposed to sequence about 2.4 million bases from the three crocodilians in the original proposal," Ray said. "By the time we got the funds, it became clear that we could easily accomplish a thousand times that much and could afford to sequence an entire genome of 3 billion bases."

Ray said that when biologists look at a group of organisms, they look for what makes that group unique as well as what all members of one group of organisms share that other groups do not. The best way to do that is to examine their closest relatives.

"Technically, birds' closest relatives are the dinosaurs," he said. "So we can only look at their fossils and this can provide only limited information on their biology when compared to examining organisms that are alive today. We get insight into differences in behavior, structures that don't fossilize, and in our case, the makeup of the genome."

Ray said he and other scientists were surprised to see how genetically uniform the alligators that the group sequenced were. Initially, the group suspected severe hunting during most of the 20th century may be to blame.

"Because alligators underwent a severe population decline, we first thought that might be what happened," he said. "However, we see the same pattern in all three species and the likelihood that all three were subject to the same genetic bottlenecks is small. We suggested instead that change just occurs slowly in crocodilians. In other words, it wasn't that the genetic differences were reduced because of overhunting. Rather, the amount of variation in crocodilians is low because change simply occurs slowly in these genomes."

The DNA in alligators, crocodiles and gharials is about 93 percent identical across the genome. By comparison, a human shares about 93 percent of his or her DNA with a macaque.

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Relationship between personality, health: Study sheds new light on link

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Researchers have found new evidence that explains how some aspects of our personality may affect our health and wellbeing, supporting long-observed associations between aspects of human character, physical health and longevity.

A team of health psychologists at The University of Nottingham and the University of California in Los Angeles carried out a study to examine the relationship between certain personality traits and the expression of genes that can affect our health by controlling the activity of our immune systems.

The study did not find any results to support a common theory that tendencies toward negative emotions such as depression or anxiety can lead to poor health (disease-prone personality). What was related to differences in immune cell gene expression were a person's degree of extraversion and conscientiousness.

The study used highly sensitive microarray technology to examine relationships between the five major human personality traits and two groups of genes active in human white blood cells (leukocytes): one involving inflammation, and another involving antiviral responses and antibodies.

A group of 121 ethnically diverse and healthy adults were recruited. These were comprised of 86 females and 35 males with an average age of 24 (range 18-59) and an average body mass index of 23. The participants completed a personality test which measures five major dimensions of personality -- extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness -- (NEO-FFI McCrae and Costa, 2004). Blood samples were collected from each volunteer for gene expression analysis and their typical smoking, drinking and exercise behaviors were also recorded for control purposes. Gene expression analysis was carried out at the Social Genomics Core Laboratory at UCLA.

Leading the research, Professor Kavita Vedhara, from The University of Nottingham's School of Medicine, said: "Our results indicated that 'extraversion' was significantly associated with an increased expression of pro-inflammatory genes and that 'conscientiousness' was linked to a reduced expression of pro-inflammatory genes. In other words, individuals who we would expect to be exposed to more infections as a result of their socially orientated nature (i.e., extraverts) appear to have immune systems that we would expect can deal effectively with infection. While individuals who may be less exposed to infections because of their cautious/conscientious dispositions have immune systems that may respond less well. We can't, however, say which came first. Is this our biology determining our psychology or our psychology determining our biology?"

These two clear associations were independent of the recorded health behaviors of the participants and subsets of white blood cells which are the cells of the body's immune system. They were also independent of the amount of negative emotions people experienced. The study also found that expression of antiviral/antibody-related genes was not significantly associated with any personality dimension.

In the remaining three categories of personality, 'openness' also trended towards a reduced expression of pro-inflammatory genes and 'neuroticism' and 'agreeableness' remained unassociated with gene expression.

The research concludes that although the biological mechanisms of these associations need to be explored in future research, these new data may shed new light on the long-observed epidemiological associations between personality, physical health, and human longevity.

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