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Adecoy (derived from the Dutchdekooi, literally "the cage"[1] or possiblyeenden kooi, "duck cage"[2]) is usually a person,device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to lure them. Decoys have been used for centuries most notably in gamehunting, but also inwartime and in the committing or resolving ofcrimes.
In hunting wildfowl, the term decoy may refer to two distinct devices. One, theduck decoy (structure), is a long cone-shapedwickerwork tunnel installed on a small pond to catch wildducks. After the ducks settled on the pond, a small, trained dog would herd the birds into the tunnel. The catch was formerly sent to market for food, but now these are used only byornithologists to catch ducks to beringed and released. The worddecoy, also originally found in English as "coy", derives from theDutchde Kooi (the cage) and dates back to the early 17th century, when this type of duck trap was introduced to England from the Netherlands. As "decoy" came more commonly to signify a person or a device than a pond with a cage-trap, the latter acquired theretronym decoy pool.[3]
The other form, aduck decoy (model), otherwise known as a 'decoy duck', 'hunting decoy' or 'wildfowl decoy', is a life-size model of the creature. The hunter places a number about the hunting area as they will encourage wild birds to land nearby, hopefully within the range of the concealed hunter. Originally carved from wood, they are now typically made from plastic.[4]
Wildfowl decoys (primarily ducks, geese, shorebirds, and crows, but including some other species) are considered a form offolk art.Collecting decoys has become a significant hobby both for folk art collectors and hunters. The world record was set in September 2007 when a pintail drake and Canada goose, both byA. Elmer Crowell, sold for 1.13 million dollars apiece.[5][6]
The decoy in war is a low-cost device intended to represent a real item of military equipment.
They may be used in different ways:
Inirregular warfare,improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are commonly used as roadside bombs to target military patrols. Someguerrillas also use imitation IEDs to intimidate civilians,[7] to wastebomb disposal resources,[8] or to set up an ambush.[9][10][11] Some terrorist groups use fake bombs during ahostage siege, in order to limit hostage rescue efforts.[12][13][14]
A sonar decoy is a device designed to create a misleading reading onsonar, such as the appearance of a false target.
In biochemistry, there are decoyreceptors, decoysubstrates and decoyRNA. In addition, digital decoys are used inprotein folding simulations.
Decoy receptors, or sink receptors,[15] are receptors that bind aligand, inhibiting it from binding to its normal receptor. For instance, the receptorVEGFR-1 can preventvascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) from binding to theVEGFR-2[15] TheTNF inhibitoretanercept exerts its anti-inflammatory effect by being a decoy receptor that binds to TNF.[16]
Adecoy substrate orpseudosubstrate is a protein that has similar structure to thesubstrate of anenzyme, in order to make the enzyme bind to the pseudosubstrate rather than to the real substrate, thus blocking the activity of the enzyme. These proteins are thereforeenzyme inhibitors.
Examples includeK3L produced byvaccinia virus, which prevents theimmune system from phosphorylating the substrateeIF-2 by having a similar structure to eIF-2. Thus, the vaccinia virus avoids the immune system.
In protein folding simulations, a decoy is a computer-generated protein structure which is designed so tocompete with the real structure of the protein. Decoys are used to test the validity of a protein model; the model is considered correct only if it is able to identify the native state configuration of the protein among the decoys.
Decoys are generally used to overcome a main problem in protein folding simulations: the size of theconformational space. For very detailed protein models, it can be practically impossible to explore all the possible configurations to find the native state.To deal with this problem, one can make use of decoys. The idea behind this is that it is unnecessary to search blindly through all possible conformations for the native conformation; the search can be limited to a relevant sub-set of structures. To start with, all non-compact configurations can be excluded.A typical decoy set will include globular conformations of various shapes, some having no secondary structures, some having helices and sheets in different proportions.The computer model being tested will be used to calculate thefree energy of the protein in the decoy configurations. The minimum requirement for the model to be correct is that it identifies the native state as the minimum free energy state (seeAnfinsen's dogma).
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