316 research outputs found
Combinational analysis of linkage and exome sequencing identifies the causative mutation in a Chinese family with congenital cataract
Emissions of NO and NH3 from a Typical Vegetable-Land Soil after the Application of Chemical N Fertilizers in the Pearl River Delta
Conceived and designed the experiments: DL. Performed the experiments: DL. Analyzed the data: DL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DL. Wrote the paper: DL.Cropland soil is an important source of atmospheric nitric oxide (NO) and ammonia (NH3). Chinese croplands are characterized by intensive management, but limited information is available with regard to NO emissions from croplands in China and NH3 emissions in south China. In this study, a mesocosm experiment was conducted to measure NO and NH3 emissions from a typical vegetable-land soil in the Pearl River Delta following the applications of 150 kg N ha−1 as urea, ammonium nitrate (AN) and ammonium bicarbonate (ABC), respectively. Over the sampling period after fertilization (72 days for NO and 39 days for NH3), mean NO fluxes (± standard error of three replicates) in the control and urea, AN and ABC fertilized mesocosms were 10.9±0.9, 73.1±2.9, 63.9±1.8 and 66.0±4.0 ng N m−2 s−1, respectively; mean NH3 fluxes were 8.9±0.2, 493.6±4.4, 144.8±0.1 and 684.7±8.4 ng N m−2 s−1, respectively. The fertilizer-induced NO emission factors for urea, AN and ABC were 2.6±0.1%, 2.2±0.1% and 2.3±0.2%, respectively. The fertilizer-induced NH3 emission factors for the three fertilizers were 10.9±0.2%, 3.1±0.1% and 15.2±0.4%, respectively. From the perspective of air quality protection, it would be better to increase the proportion of AN application due to its lower emission factors for both NO and NH3.Yeshttp://www.plosone.org/static/editorial#pee
Observation of a ppb mass threshoud enhancement in \psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p}) decay
The decay channel
is studied using a sample of events collected
by the BESIII experiment at BEPCII. A strong enhancement at threshold is
observed in the invariant mass spectrum. The enhancement can be fit
with an -wave Breit-Wigner resonance function with a resulting peak mass of
and a
narrow width that is at the 90% confidence level.
These results are consistent with published BESII results. These mass and width
values do not match with those of any known meson resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Chinese Physics
Nonmonotone Barzilai-Borwein Gradient Algorithm for -Regularized Nonsmooth Minimization in Compressive Sensing
This paper is devoted to minimizing the sum of a smooth function and a
nonsmooth -regularized term. This problem as a special cases includes
the -regularized convex minimization problem in signal processing,
compressive sensing, machine learning, data mining, etc. However, the
non-differentiability of the -norm causes more challenging especially
in large problems encountered in many practical applications. This paper
proposes, analyzes, and tests a Barzilai-Borwein gradient algorithm. At each
iteration, the generated search direction enjoys descent property and can be
easily derived by minimizing a local approximal quadratic model and
simultaneously taking the favorable structure of the -norm. Moreover, a
nonmonotone line search technique is incorporated to find a suitable stepsize
along this direction. The algorithm is easily performed, where the values of
the objective function and the gradient of the smooth term are required at
per-iteration. Under some conditions, the proposed algorithm is shown to be
globally convergent. The limited experiments by using some nonconvex
unconstrained problems from CUTEr library with additive -regularization
illustrate that the proposed algorithm performs quite well. Extensive
experiments for -regularized least squares problems in compressive
sensing verify that our algorithm compares favorably with several
state-of-the-art algorithms which are specifically designed in recent years.Comment: 20 page
Repetitive sequence analysis and karyotyping reveals centromere-associated DNA sequences in radish (Raphanus sativus L.)
A microRNA profile of human CD8(+) regulatory T cells and characterization of the effects of microRNAs on Treg cell-associated genes.
Recently, regulatory T (Treg) cells have gained interest in the fields of immunopathology, transplantation and oncoimmunology. Here, we investigated the microRNA expression profile of human natural CD8(+)CD25(+) Treg cells and the impact of microRNAs on molecules associated with immune regulation.
We purified human natural CD8(+) Treg cells and assessed the expression of FOXP3 and CTLA-4 by flow cytometry. We have also tested the ex vivo suppressive capacity of these cells in mixed leukocyte reactions. Using TaqMan low-density arrays and microRNA qPCR for validation, we could identify a microRNA 'signature' for CD8(+)CD25(+)FOXP3(+)CTLA-4(+) natural Treg cells. We used the 'TargetScan' and 'miRBase' bioinformatics programs to identify potential target sites for these microRNAs in the 3'-UTR of important Treg cell-associated genes.
The human CD8(+)CD25(+) natural Treg cell microRNA signature includes 10 differentially expressed microRNAs. We demonstrated an impact of this signature on Treg cell biology by showing specific regulation of FOXP3, CTLA-4 and GARP gene expression by microRNA using site-directed mutagenesis and a dual-luciferase reporter assay. Furthermore, we used microRNA transduction experiments to demonstrate that these microRNAs impacted their target genes in human primary Treg cells ex vivo.
We are examining the biological relevance of this 'signature' by studying its impact on other important Treg cell-associated genes. These efforts could result in a better understanding of the regulation of Treg cell function and might reveal new targets for immunotherapy in immune disorders and cancer
Effects of Tillage and Nitrogen Fertilizers on CH4 and CO2 Emissions and Soil Organic Carbon in Paddy Fields of Central China
Quantifying carbon (C) sequestration in paddy soils is necessary to help better understand the effect of agricultural practices on the C cycle. The objective of the present study was to assess the effects of tillage practices [conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT)] and the application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer (0 and 210 kg N ha−1) on fluxes of CH4 and CO2, and soil organic C (SOC) sequestration during the 2009 and 2010 rice growing seasons in central China. Application of N fertilizer significantly increased CH4 emissions by 13%–66% and SOC by 21%–94% irrespective of soil sampling depths, but had no effect on CO2 emissions in either year. Tillage significantly affected CH4 and CO2 emissions, where NT significantly decreased CH4 emissions by 10%–36% but increased CO2 emissions by 22%–40% in both years. The effects of tillage on the SOC varied with the depth of soil sampling. NT significantly increased the SOC by 7%–48% in the 0–5 cm layer compared with CT. However, there was no significant difference in the SOC between NT and CT across the entire 0–20 cm layer. Hence, our results suggest that the potential of SOC sequestration in NT paddy fields may be overestimated in central China if only surface soil samples are considered
Reconfiguration point decision method based on dynamic complexity for reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS)
Crop residue, manure and fertilizer in dryland maize under reduced tillage in northern China: I grain yields and nutrient use efficiencies
Improving grain yield and reducing N loss using polymer-coated urea in southeast China
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