Effects of mixed volatile fatty acid sodium salt on insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) in plasma and rumen tissue, and rumen epithelium development in lambs

Fifteen cross-bred male lambs (Dorset × Small Tail Han), aged 7 weeks, with average liveweight of 13.8±0.8 kg, were used to study effects of feeding mixed volatile fatty acid (VFA) sodium salt on insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) in plasma and rumen tissue and rumen epithelium development. The lambs were randomly divided into 5 groups with 3 lambs in each group. Graded levels of mixed VFA sodium salt (the molar proportion of acetate, propionate, and butyrate was 65:25:10), i.e. 0, 5, 15, 30 and 60g/d was added into milk replacer as experimental treatments I, II, III, IV and V, respectively. The trial lasted 24 days. No differences were found in plasma IGF-I and IGFBP-3 between different treatments (P>0.05), or in IGF-I and IGFBP-3 in rumen dorsal sac and in IGF-I in ventral sac between different treatments (P>0.05), while IGFBP- 3 of treatments IV and V was higher than other treatments in ventral sac (P<0.05). In rumen dorsal sac, the length and density of rumen papillae of treatments III, IV and V were higher than treatment I (P<0.05) while no differences were found in the width and surface area of rumen papillae between different treatments or in length, width, density and surface area of rumen papillae in ventral sac between different treatments (P>0.05). It was concluded that feeding mixed VFA sodium salt up to 60 g/d per lamb in milk replacer had no significant effect on development of rumen epithelium.Key words: volatile fatty acid sodium salt; insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I); insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3); rumen epithelium; lambs

State Ownership and Product Innovation in China: An Integrated View of Institutional and Efficiency Logics

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Effects of annealing on the electrical properties of Fe-doped InP

The electrical properties of Fe-doped semi-insulating (SI) InP were investigated before and after annealing. The annealing conditions were controlled by changing either the temperature or duration. Correlation between the change of electrical parameters with the change of defect concentration at different annealing stage was observed. The defects and the change of the concentrations in Fe-doped SI InP were detected by room-temperature photocurrent spectroscopy.published_or_final_versio

Studies of SARS virus vaccines

1. Intranasal vaccination using inactivated SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) vaccine with adjuvant can induce strong systemic (serum immunoglobulin [Ig] G) and respiratory tract local (tracheal-lung wash fluid IgA) antibody responses with neutralising activity. 2. RBD-Fc (protein-based vaccine) is able to induce effective neutralising antibodies able to provide protection from SARS-CoV infection in animal models. 3. A single dose of RBD-rAAV vaccination can induce adequate neutralising antibody against SARS-CoV infection. 4. Additional doses of vaccine increased the production of neutralising antibody 5-fold compared with a single dose. 5. RBD-rAAV vaccination provoked a prolonged antibody response with continually increasing levels of neutralising activity. 6. Intranasal vaccination with RBD-rAAV induced local IgA and systemic IgG neutralising antibodies and specific T-cell responses, able to protect against SARS-CoV infection in animal models. 7. When compared with the RBD-rAAV prime/boost vaccination, RBD-rAAV prime/RBD-peptide boost induced similar levels of Th1 and neutralising antibody responses that protected vaccinated mice from subsequent SARS-CoV challenges,but stronger Th2 and CTL responses. 8. Overall, our findings suggest that the inactivated vaccine, RBD-Fc and RBD-rAAV, can be further developed into effective and safe vaccines against SARS and that intranasal vaccination may be the preferred route of administration.published_or_final_versio

Electrical and FT-IR measurements of undoped N-type INP materials grown from various stoichiometric melts

P-rich, In-rich and Stoichiometric undoped InP melts have been synthesed by phosphorus in-situ injection method. InP crystal ingots have been grown from these melts by Liquid Encapsulated Czochralski (LEC). Samples from these ingots grown from various Stoichiometric melts have been characterized by Hall Effect and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy measurements respectively. The Hall Effect measurement results indicate that the net carrier concentration of P-inch undoped InP is higher than that of In-rich and Stoichiometric undoped InP materials. FT-IR spectroscopy measurements reveal that there are intensive absorption peaks which have been proved to be hydrogen related indium vacancy complex V InH 4. By comparing FT-IR spectra, it is found that P-rich InP material has the most intensive absorption peak of V InH 4, while In-rich InP material has the weakest absorption peak.published_or_final_versio

Studies of SARS virus vaccines

1. Intranasal vaccination using inactivated SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) vaccine with adjuvant can induce strong systemic (serum immunoglobulin [Ig] G) and respiratory tract local (tracheal-lung wash fluid IgA) antibody responses with neutralising activity. 2. RBD-Fc (protein-based vaccine) is able to induce effective neutralising antibodies able to provide protection from SARS-CoV infection in animal models. 3. A single dose of RBD-rAAV vaccination can induce adequate neutralising antibody against SARS-CoV infection. 4. Additional doses of vaccine increased the production of neutralising antibody 5-fold compared with a single dose. 5. RBD-rAAV vaccination provoked a prolonged antibody response with continually increasing levels of neutralising activity. 6. Intranasal vaccination with RBD-rAAV induced local IgA and systemic IgG neutralising antibodies and specific T-cell responses, able to protect against SARS-CoV infection in animal models. 7. When compared with the RBD-rAAV prime/boost vaccination, RBD-rAAV prime/RBD-peptide boost induced similar levels of Th1 and neutralising antibody responses that protected vaccinated mice from subsequent SARS-CoV challenges,but stronger Th2 and CTL responses. 8. Overall, our findings suggest that the inactivated vaccine, RBD-Fc and RBD-rAAV, can be further developed into effective and safe vaccines against SARS and that intranasal vaccination may be the preferred route of administration.published_or_final_versio

Crystal structure of Zen4 in the apo state reveals a missing conformation of kinesin

© 2017 The Author(s). Kinesins hydrolyse ATP to transport intracellular cargoes along microtubules. Kinesin neck linker (NL) functions as the central mechano-chemical coupling element by changing its conformation through the ATPase cycle. Here we report the crystal structure of kinesin-6 Zen4 in a nucleotide-free, apo state, with the NL initial segment (NIS) adopting a backward-docked conformation and the preceding α6 helix partially melted. Single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET) analyses indicate the NIS of kinesin-1 undergoes similar conformational changes under tension in the two-head bound (2HB) state, whereas it is largely disordered without tension. The backward-docked structure of NIS is essential for motility of the motor. Our findings reveal a key missing conformation of kinesins, which provides the structural basis of the stable 2HB state and offers a tension-based rationale for an optimal NL length to ensure processivity of the motor

A porcine gene, PBK, differentially expressed in the longissimus muscle from Meishan and Large White pig

An investigation of differences in gene expression in the longissimus muscle of Meishan and Large White pigs was undertaken, using the mRNA display technique. A fragment of one differentially expressed gene was isolated and sequenced, whereupon the complete cDNA sequence was then obtained by using the rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE). The nucleotide sequence of the gene is not related to any known porcine gene. Sequence analysis revealed that the open reading frame of this gene encodes a protein with 322 amino acids, thus displaying high sequence identity with the PDZ binding kinase (PBK) of eleven other animal species – dog, horse, cattle, human, chimpanzee, crab-eating macaque, rhesus monkey, rat, mouse, gray short-tailed opossum and platypus, so it can be defined as the porcine PBK gene. This gene was finally assigned GeneID:100141310. Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the swine PBK gene has a closer genetic relationship with the PBK gene of platypus. Gene expression analysis of eight tissues of a Meishan x Large White cross showed that the porcine PBK gene is differentially expressed in various tissues. Our experiment established the primary foundation for further research on this gene

Rethinking Outage Constraints for Resource Management in NOMA Networks

© 2007-2012 IEEE. In non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems, the outage is regarded to happen when a user cannot correctly decode the messages for users with higher decoding order and hence cannot perform the successive interference cancelation (SIC). However, in this case, the user may still correctly decode its message by treating the uncanceled signal as interference and avoid the outage. By considering this behavior, the outage probability should be redefined. In this paper, we investigate user scheduling and power allocation for a downlink NOMA system with imperfect SIC by using the alternative outage probability as a constraint. In order to tackle the complicated non-convex resource allocation problem, we propose a two-phase algorithm, in which the user scheduling is first optimized through a matching theory based algorithm, and then power allocation is performed with the aid of the branch and bound technique and the concave-convex procedure method. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed low-complexity algorithm is near-optimal and the algorithm based on the alternative outage probability outperforms that based on the traditional one when the residual interference from imperfect SIC significantly affects the decoding