Elastic-plastic endochronic constitutive model of 0Crl7Ni4Cu4Nb stainless steels

We presented an elastic-plastic endochronic constitutive model of 0Crl7Ni4Cu4Nb stainless steel based on the plastic endochronic theory (which does not need the yield surface) and experimental stress-strain curves. The key feature of the model is that it can precisely describe the relation of stress and strain under various loading histories, including uniaxial tension, cyclic loading-unloading, cyclic asymmetric-stress axial tension and compression, and cyclic asymmetric-stress axial tension and compression. The effects of both mean stress and amplitude of stress on hysteresis loop based on the elastic-plastic endochronic constitutive model were investigated. Compared with the experimental and calculated results, it is demonstrated that there was a good agreement between the model and the experiments. Therefore, the elastic-plastic endochronic constitutive model provides a method for the accurate prediction of mechanical behaviors of 0Crl7Ni4Cu4Nb stainless steel subjected to various loadings

Population structure of Coilia nasus in the Yangtze River revealed by insertion of short interspersed elements

AbstractCoilia nasus is found in the Yangtze River and the coastal waters of China, Korea, and Japan. Two ecotypes (anadromous and freshwater-resident populations) are distributed throughout the Yangtze River basin based on their ecology and behavior, but relatively little is known about the population structure of this species. Analysis of short interspersed element (SINE) insertions, which vary among individuals, has been acknowledged to provide a unique way to study population divergence. SINEs isolated from C. nasus were characterized, and this enabled analysis of the SINE insertion pattern in six populations distributed throughout the Yangtze River basin. In all populations, four SINE loci displayed individual polymorphism, and two SINE loci showed a stochastic loss in all individuals of two resident populations. The correlation between genetic and geographic populations indicated a degree of genetic isolation in this species. In contrast with Coilia grayii and Coilia mystus, two SINE loci appeared only in C. nasus. Sequencing analysis indicated that the high insertion variability of SINEs was attributed mainly to the tails, which contained various repeat copies. The results in this study will be useful for sustainable management of fishery resources and conservation of this species

Mesozoic–Tertiary exhumation history of the Altai Mountains, northern Xinjiang, China: New constraints from apatite fission track data

This study uses apatite fission track (FT) analysis to constrain the exhumation history of bedrock samples collected from the Altai Mountains in northern Xinjiang, China. Samples were collected as transects across the main structures related to Palaeozoic crustal accretion events. FT results and modeling identify three stages in sample cooling history spanning the Mesozoic and Tertiary. Stage one records rapid cooling to the low temperature part of the fission track partial annealing zone circa 70 ± 10 °C. Stage two, records a period of relative stability with little if any cooling taking place between 75 and 25–20 Ma suggesting the Altai region had been reduced to an area of low relief. Support for this can be found in the adjacent Junngar Basin that received little if any sediment during this interval. Final stage cooling took place in the Miocene at an accelerated rate bringing the sampled rocks to the Earth's surface. This last stage, linked to the far field effects of the Himalayan collision, most likely generated the surface uplift and relief that define the present-day Altai Mountains

PCR and Magnetic Bead-Mediated Target Capture for the Isolation of Short Interspersed Nucleotide Elements in Fishes

Short interspersed nucleotide elements (SINEs), a type of retrotransposon, are widely distributed in various genomes with multiple copies arranged in different orientations, and cause changes to genes and genomes during evolutionary history. This can provide the basis for determining genome diversity, genetic variation and molecular phylogeny, etc. SINE DNA is transcribed into RNA by polymerase III from an internal promoter, which is composed of two conserved boxes, box A and box B. Here we present an approach to isolate novel SINEs based on these promoter elements. Box A of a SINE is obtained via PCR with only one primer identical to box B (B-PCR). Box B and its downstream sequence are acquired by PCR with one primer corresponding to box A (A-PCR). The SINE clone produced by A-PCR is selected as a template to label a probe with biotin. The full-length SINEs are isolated from the genomic pool through complex capture using the biotinylated probe bound to magnetic particles. Using this approach, a novel SINE family, Cn-SINE, from the genomes of Coilia nasus, was isolated. The members are 180–360 bp long. Sequence homology suggests that Cn-SINEs evolved from a leucine tRNA gene. This is the first report of a tRNALeu-related SINE obtained without the use of a genomic library or inverse PCR. These results provide new insights into the origin of SINEs

Genomic signatures and prognosis of advanced stage Chinese pediatric T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma by whole exome sequencing

ObjectiveTo investigate the genomic signatures and prognosis of advanced-stage T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) and to examine the relationship between T-LBL and T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).Methods35 Chinese T-LBL children with stage III or IV disease were recruited for this study. They were treated with combination chemotherapy and whole exome sequencing. The relationship of the clinical features, prognosis and specific gene mutations was researched. Gene chips of T-LBL and T-ALL were downloaded from a database, and differential gene expression was analyzed.ResultsGermline causal gene mutations (CARS or MAP2K2) were detected in 2 patients; 3.06 ± 2.21 somatic causal gene mutations were identified in the 35 patients, and somatic mutations were observed in the NOTCH1, FBXW7, PHF6 and JAK3 genes. NOTCH1 mutations were significantly associated with FBXW7 mutations, and the age at diagnosis of patients with NOTCH1-FBXW7 mutations was less than that of patients without such mutations (P < 0.05). 32 patients achieved complete remission (CR), and 14 and 18 patients were classified into the intermediate risk (IR) group and high risk (HR) group. During a median follow-up of 44 months, 3 patients relapsed. Three-year prospective event free survival (pEFS) was 82.286%, and no significant differences of pEFS were found for different sexes, ages, or statuses of NOTCH1-FBXW7 mutations, (P > 0.05); however, the mean survival time of the IR group was longer than that of the HR group (P < 0.05). Differential expression of genes in the T-LBL and/or T-ALL datasets was analyzed using the R package limma, and 1/3 of the differentially expressed genes were found in both the T-ALL and T-LBL datasets. High expression of PI3K-Akt signal pathway genes and the USP34 gene was found in the T-LBL dataset.ConclusionAlthough T-ALL and T-LBL both originate from precursor T-cells and are considered different manifestations of the same disease and the outcome of T-LBL is favorable when using T-ALL-based chemotherapy, there are differences in the gene distribution between T-LBL and T-ALL. It seems that the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and the USP34 gene play important roles in T-LBL, but medicines targeting the USP34 gene or the PI3K-Akt pathway may be invalid

A novel strategy for power sources management in connected plug-in hybrid electric vehicles based on mobile edge computation framework

This paper proposes a novel control framework and the corresponding strategy for power sources management in connected plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (cPHEVs). A mobile edge computation (MEC) based control framework is developed first, evolving the conventional on-board vehicle control unit (VCU) into the hierarchically asynchronous controller that is partly located in cloud. Elaborately contrastive analysis on the performance of processing capacity, communication frequency and communication delay manifests dramatic potential of the proposed framework in sustaining development of the cooperative control strategy for cPHEVs. On the basis of MEC based control framework, a specific cooperative strategy is constructed. The novel strategy accomplishes energy flow management between different power sources with incorporation of the active energy consumption plan and adaptive energy consumption management. The method to generate the reference battery state-of-charge (SOC) trajectories in energy consumption plan stage is emphatically investigated, fast outputting reference trajectories that are tightly close to results by global optimization methods. The estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) is employed to output reference control policies under the specific terminal conditions assigned via the machine learning based method. Finally, simulation results highlight that the novel strategy attains superior performance in real-time application that is close to the offline global optimization solutions

A photo-triggered and photo-calibrated nitric oxide donor: rational design, spectral characterizations, and biological applications

Nitric oxide (NO) donors are valuable tools to probe the profound implications of NO in health and disease. The elusive nature of NO bio-relevance has largely limited the use of spontaneous NO donors and promoted the development of next generation NO donors, whose NO release is not only stimulated by a trigger, but also readily monitored via a judiciously built-in self-calibration mechanism. Light is without a doubt the most sensitive, versatile and biocompatible method of choice for both triggering and monitoring, for applications in complex biological matrices. Herein, we designed and synthesized an N-nitroso rhodamine derivative (NOD560) as a photo-triggered and photo-calibrated NO donor to address this need. NOD560 is essentially non-fluorescent. Upon irradiation by green light (532nm), it efficiently release NO and a rhodamine dye, the dramatic fluorescence turn-on from which could be harnessed to conveniently monitor the localization, flux, and dose of NO release. The potentials of NOD560 for in vitro biological applications were also exemplified in in vitro biological models, i.e. mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) migration suppression. NOD560 is expected to complement the existing NO donors and find widespread applications in chemical biological studies

Clinical Characteristics of 26 Human Cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus Infection in China

BACKGROUND: While human cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) virus infection continue to increase globally, available clinical data on H5N1 cases are limited. We conducted a retrospective study of 26 confirmed human H5N1 cases identified through surveillance in China from October 2005 through April 2008. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Data were collected from hospital medical records of H5N1 cases and analyzed. The median age was 29 years (range 6-62) and 58% were female. Many H5N1 cases reported fever (92%) and cough (58%) at illness onset, and had lower respiratory findings of tachypnea and dyspnea at admission. All cases progressed rapidly to bilateral pneumonia. Clinical complications included acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS, 81%), cardiac failure (50%), elevated aminotransaminases (43%), and renal dysfunction (17%). Fatal cases had a lower median nadir platelet count (64.5 x 10(9) cells/L vs 93.0 x 10(9) cells/L, p = 0.02), higher median peak lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) level (1982.5 U/L vs 1230.0 U/L, p = 0.001), higher percentage of ARDS (94% [n = 16] vs 56% [n = 5], p = 0.034) and more frequent cardiac failure (71% [n = 12] vs 11% [n = 1], p = 0.011) than nonfatal cases. A higher proportion of patients who received antiviral drugs survived compared to untreated (67% [8/12] vs 7% [1/14], p = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The clinical course of Chinese H5N1 cases is characterized by fever and cough initially, with rapid progression to lower respiratory disease. Decreased platelet count, elevated LDH level, ARDS and cardiac failure were associated with fatal outcomes. Clinical management of H5N1 cases should be standardized in China to include early antiviral treatment for suspected H5N1 cases

Human Cytomegalovirus IE1 Protein Elicits a Type II Interferon-Like Host Cell Response That Depends on Activated STAT1 but Not Interferon-γ

Human cytomegalovirus (hCMV) is a highly prevalent pathogen that, upon primary infection, establishes life-long persistence in all infected individuals. Acute hCMV infections cause a variety of diseases in humans with developmental or acquired immune deficits. In addition, persistent hCMV infection may contribute to various chronic disease conditions even in immunologically normal people. The pathogenesis of hCMV disease has been frequently linked to inflammatory host immune responses triggered by virus-infected cells. Moreover, hCMV infection activates numerous host genes many of which encode pro-inflammatory proteins. However, little is known about the relative contributions of individual viral gene products to these changes in cellular transcription. We systematically analyzed the effects of the hCMV 72-kDa immediate-early 1 (IE1) protein, a major transcriptional activator and antagonist of type I interferon (IFN) signaling, on the human transcriptome. Following expression under conditions closely mimicking the situation during productive infection, IE1 elicits a global type II IFN-like host cell response. This response is dominated by the selective up-regulation of immune stimulatory genes normally controlled by IFN-γ and includes the synthesis and secretion of pro-inflammatory chemokines. IE1-mediated induction of IFN-stimulated genes strictly depends on tyrosine-phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and correlates with the nuclear accumulation and sequence-specific binding of STAT1 to IFN-γ-responsive promoters. However, neither synthesis nor secretion of IFN-γ or other IFNs seems to be required for the IE1-dependent effects on cellular gene expression. Our results demonstrate that a single hCMV protein can trigger a pro-inflammatory host transcriptional response via an unexpected STAT1-dependent but IFN-independent mechanism and identify IE1 as a candidate determinant of hCMV pathogenicity

Molecular and cellular impact of Psoriasin (S100A7) on the healing of human wounds

Psoriasin, which is also known as S100A7, is a member of the S100 protein family, a group of calcium‑responsive signalling proteins. Psoriasin expression remains high in patients with psoriasis, whereas it is downregulated in patients with invasive breast carcinoma. This observation suggests that this protein may be a notable marker of keratinocyte function and differentiation during wound healing. The aim of the present study was to determine the cellular impact of Psoriasin in keratinocytes, which are the primary cell type associated with wound healing. Psoriasin expression in wound tissues was examined using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunochemical staining. Knockdown of Psoriasin in HaCaT cells was performed using anti‑Psoriasin ribozyme transgenes and the effect on growth, adhesion and migration of keratinocytes was subsequently determined using in vitro cellular functional assays. Psoriasin expression is upregulated in wounds, particularly at the wound edges. The present study demonstrated that Psoriasin is expressed in keratinocytes and is a fundamental regulator of keratinocyte migration. Significant increases in the rate of keratinocyte adhesion, migration and growth were observed in Psoriasin‑deficient cells (P<0.01 vs. control). Application of small inhibitors identified the potential association of neural Wiskott‑Aldrich syndrome protein, focal adhesion primase and rho‑associated protein kinase signalling pathways with Psoriasin‑regulated cell adhesion and motility. In conclusion, Psoriasin serves an important role in the wound healing process, suggesting that it may be utilized as a potential wound healing biomarker