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(click image for larger view) A new agreement between the Air Force, the Army and the Defense Information Systems Agency is expected to save the Defense Department more than $1 billion in future IT costs, Defense CIO Teri Takai announced in a joint statement released by the Defense Department.
The savings are expected to come through a shared IT architecture and modernization arrangement that is also expected to increase bandwidth and improve network security, DOD officials said.
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As a result of changes in force structure, the Army was looking at excess information technology capacity, according to Richard Breakiron, network capacity domain manager for the Army's chief information office. At the same time, the Air Force was looking for ways to modernize its IT architecture to meet the requirements of the future joint information environment.
[ Pick up some leadership tips. Read 5 Habits Of Highly Effective Government IT Leaders. ]
By taking advantage of the Army's upgrade to faster multi-protocol label-switching routers and its regional security stacks, the Air Force was able to identify about $1.2 billion in savings, officials said. The Army had already expected to reduce its IT budget by $785 million between fiscal years 2015 and 2019 by consolidating hundreds of network security stacks into 15 joint regional security stacks, which the Air Force now will also use, officials said.
"As [the Defense Department] continues to move aggressively towards [the Joint Information Environment], this partnership is an important step forward," said Teri Takai, DOD's chief information officer, in the DOD statement.
The upgraded MLPS routers will increase the Army's backbone bandwidth to 100 Gbps, said Mike Krieger, Army deputy CIO, in the DOD statement. At Army installations, network speeds will rise to 10 Gbps, he said. To put that in perspective, he said, Fort Hood, Texas, currently operates at 650 Mbps.
By moving to regional security stacks, the Army also expects to improve command and control capabilities and situational awareness through a single security architecture as part of a joint information environment, said Krieger.
The combination of MPLS routers and the regional security stack construct will improve performance and security, DISA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronnie D. Hawkins Jr. said in the statement. "It creates a network that is fundamentally more defensible and more efficient," he said, noting that it also laid an important foundation for building the Joint Information Environment architecture.
The investment in MPLS also "allows us to do not only [Voice over Internet Protocol], it allows us to do unified capabilities and it allows us to put much more of this capability up at the enterprise level," Brig Gen Kevin Wooton, Air Force Space Command director of communication, said.
The Army and DISA said they plan to implement the joint MPLS transport cloud and JRSS consolidation in fiscal years 2013 and 2014 to support operations in Southwest Asia and the continental United States.
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers have identified the cells in two distinct areas of the body that are simultaneously targeted for damage by anthrax toxins, eventually causing illness and sometimes death. Their findings are based on testing in mice. However, the results may contribute to the development of anthrax treatments for humans, the researchers say.
We caught the first Windows 8.1 (aka Blue) news back in March, and after several betas and a preview, it's been bundled off to manufacturers. That's a mere five months from alpha code to gold master, a feat that Microsoft trumpeted as "an unparalleled level of collaboration" between customers and Windows product teams. Now, manufacturers will be able to ramp up their production lines with the new version in time for the holidays, as Redmond emphasized in its Blogging Windows post. Current Windows 8 owners will get the update for free, but all end users will have to hang on until the official October 18th release date. With a month and change left, though, it looks like all the ducks are in a row to herald the return of the tech world's most infamous button.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]As a marketing business your role is to promote your client's brand and to help sell their products or services, but what about your own brand? It's a.
Research team discovers new kind of signalling mechanism in plant cellsPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Michael Hollmann michael.hollmann@rub.de 49-234-322-4225 Ruhr-University Bochum
Glutamate-like receptor in Arabidopsis does not detect glutamate
Plants possess receptors which are similar to the glutamate receptors in the brain of humans and animals. Biochemists at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) with colleagues from the University of Wrzburg and the Agricultural University of China in Beijing have discovered that these receptors do not, however, recognise the amino acid glutamate, but many other different amino acids. The team reports in the journal "Science Signaling".
Glutamate-like receptor in Arabidopsis recognises many amino acids
To exchange information, cells send out signalling molecules that are recognised by receptors of other cells. Fifteen years ago, researchers discovered glutamate-like receptors, in short GLRs, in a plant. A team led by the RUB biochemists Prof. Dr. Michael Hollmann and Dr. Daniel Tapken has now identified the respective signalling molecules for one of the, in total, 20 GLRs from the thale cress (Arabidopsisthaliana). "Surprisingly, the receptor responds not only to one amino acid, but to many different ones just not to glutamate", says Hollmann. The most effective is methionine, an amino acid that humans have to obtain from food, but which plants can produce themselves. When the research team mutated the plant so that it no longer contained the receptor AtGLR1.4, it hardly responded to methionine.
Plant receptor is an ion channel
In some respects, the receptor AtGLR1.4 behaves in a way similar to the glutamate receptors in the brain. It is a channel, so it opens activated by a signalling molecule a pore and allows various positively charged particles to flow into the cell, thus triggering an electrical signal. "A special feature of this receptor is that not all amino acids that bind to it trigger an electrical signal. On the contrary! Some suppress the signal by displacing methionine from the receptor", says Daniel Tapken.
Function of methionine receptors in plants unclear
"Why the plant recognises methionine and similar amino acids at all is still absolutely unclear", the Bochum biochemist goes on. "One possibility is that it reacts in this way to nutrient sources in the environment that contain amino acids. However, it is also possible that the plant deliberately produces amino acids itself to send signals similar to the way it happens in the human brain."
Receptors expressed in frog egg cells for analysis
For the analyses, the RUB team isolated the glutamate-like receptor from plant cells and implemented it in a cell that has no similar receptors an unfertilised frog egg cell. "It is almost impossible to examine the receptor directly in the plant", Hollmann explains. "There are so many processes operating at the same time that it is extremely difficult to filter out the critical signals."
###
Bibliographic record
D. Tapken, U. Anschtz, L.-H. Liu, T. Huelsken, G. Seebohm, D. Becker, M. Hollmann (2013): A plant homolog of animal glutamate receptors is an ion channel gated by multiple hydrophobic amino acids, Science Signaling, DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.2003762
Figure online
A figure related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00191.html.en
Further information
Dr. Daniel Tapken, Department of Biochemistry I Receptor Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24233, E-mail: daniel.tapken@rub.de
Prof. Dr. Michael Hollmann, Department of Biochemistry I Receptor Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24225, E-mail: michael.hollmann@rub.de
Editor: Dr. Julia Weiler
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Research team discovers new kind of signalling mechanism in plant cellsPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Michael Hollmann michael.hollmann@rub.de 49-234-322-4225 Ruhr-University Bochum
Glutamate-like receptor in Arabidopsis does not detect glutamate
Plants possess receptors which are similar to the glutamate receptors in the brain of humans and animals. Biochemists at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) with colleagues from the University of Wrzburg and the Agricultural University of China in Beijing have discovered that these receptors do not, however, recognise the amino acid glutamate, but many other different amino acids. The team reports in the journal "Science Signaling".
Glutamate-like receptor in Arabidopsis recognises many amino acids
To exchange information, cells send out signalling molecules that are recognised by receptors of other cells. Fifteen years ago, researchers discovered glutamate-like receptors, in short GLRs, in a plant. A team led by the RUB biochemists Prof. Dr. Michael Hollmann and Dr. Daniel Tapken has now identified the respective signalling molecules for one of the, in total, 20 GLRs from the thale cress (Arabidopsisthaliana). "Surprisingly, the receptor responds not only to one amino acid, but to many different ones just not to glutamate", says Hollmann. The most effective is methionine, an amino acid that humans have to obtain from food, but which plants can produce themselves. When the research team mutated the plant so that it no longer contained the receptor AtGLR1.4, it hardly responded to methionine.
Plant receptor is an ion channel
In some respects, the receptor AtGLR1.4 behaves in a way similar to the glutamate receptors in the brain. It is a channel, so it opens activated by a signalling molecule a pore and allows various positively charged particles to flow into the cell, thus triggering an electrical signal. "A special feature of this receptor is that not all amino acids that bind to it trigger an electrical signal. On the contrary! Some suppress the signal by displacing methionine from the receptor", says Daniel Tapken.
Function of methionine receptors in plants unclear
"Why the plant recognises methionine and similar amino acids at all is still absolutely unclear", the Bochum biochemist goes on. "One possibility is that it reacts in this way to nutrient sources in the environment that contain amino acids. However, it is also possible that the plant deliberately produces amino acids itself to send signals similar to the way it happens in the human brain."
Receptors expressed in frog egg cells for analysis
For the analyses, the RUB team isolated the glutamate-like receptor from plant cells and implemented it in a cell that has no similar receptors an unfertilised frog egg cell. "It is almost impossible to examine the receptor directly in the plant", Hollmann explains. "There are so many processes operating at the same time that it is extremely difficult to filter out the critical signals."
###
Bibliographic record
D. Tapken, U. Anschtz, L.-H. Liu, T. Huelsken, G. Seebohm, D. Becker, M. Hollmann (2013): A plant homolog of animal glutamate receptors is an ion channel gated by multiple hydrophobic amino acids, Science Signaling, DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.2003762
Figure online
A figure related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00191.html.en
Further information
Dr. Daniel Tapken, Department of Biochemistry I Receptor Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24233, E-mail: daniel.tapken@rub.de
Prof. Dr. Michael Hollmann, Department of Biochemistry I Receptor Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24225, E-mail: michael.hollmann@rub.de
Editor: Dr. Julia Weiler
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gary David Goldberg, whose hit 1980s television sitcom "Family Ties" gave a warm portrayal of generational conflict and launched the acting career of Michael J. Fox, has died at age 68, his son-in-law said on Monday.
Goldberg died of a brain tumor on Saturday at his home in Montecito, California, said his son-in-law Rob Dubbin.
"Family Ties" aired between 1982 and 1989 on network NBC and ranked second only to "The Cosby Show" in viewership between 1985 and 1987.
"With a full heart I say goodbye to my mentor, benefactor, partner, second father and beloved friend, Gary David Goldberg," Fox said in a statement. "He touched so many with his enormous talent and generous spirit. He changed my life profoundly."
In 1987, Goldberg won an Emmy for his writing work on "Family Ties," a show that also earned Fox three Emmy Awards for lead actor in a comedy series.
Born and raised in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, Goldberg worked as a waiter, traveled the world with his future wife, Diana Meehan, and ran a daycare center in Northern California before, in his early 30s, he landed a job writing for TV's "The Bob Newhart Show," according to Goldberg's website.
Goldberg went on to create his own company, UBU Productions, naming it after his Labrador Retriever, and it was through that company that he launched "Family Ties" in 1982 on NBC.
The show starred Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter as Steven and Elyse Keaton, a couple who were left-wing activists in the 1960s but went on to adopt a middle-class life as they raised four children in suburban Columbus, Ohio.
Much of the show's humor centered on the clashing values between the former hippies and their teenage Republican son, Alex, played by Michael J. Fox. Alex admired then President Ronald Reagan and read the Wall Street Journal, to the chagrin of his parents.
The Keatons' oldest daughter, Mallory, played by Justine Bateman, was less political than Alex, but differed from her mother by showing little interest in feminism.
In 2008, Goldberg told USA Today that "Family Ties" was "totally autobiographical in concept" for him.
"Diana and I were the parents, and our daughter Shana was as smart as Alex but could shop with Mallory," he told the paper.
After "Family Ties," Goldberg went on to co-create the television comedy "Spin City," which debuted in 1996 and starred Fox as the deputy mayor of New York. The show ran until 2002.
Goldberg also produced the 2005 romantic comedy "Must Love Dogs" starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.
He is survived by his wife, a brother, two children and three grandchildren.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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Public release date: 25-Jun-2013
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