An overview of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment discovered an unexpectedly large neutrino oscillation related to the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ in 2012. This finding paved the way to the next generation of neutrino oscillation experiments. In this article, we review the history, featured design, and scientific results of Daya Bay. Prospects of the experiment are also described.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. An overview to appear in the Special Issue on neutrino oscillations of Nuclear Physics

Genetic Deficiency of CD40 in Mice Exacerbates Metabolic Manifestations of Diet-induced Obesity: A Dissertation

The past two decades have seen an explosive increase of obesity rates worldwide, with more than one billion adults overweight and 300 million of them obese. Obesity and its associated complications have become leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States and major contributing factors to the rising costs of national health care. The pathophysiology of obesity and type 2 diabetes in rodents and humans is characterized by low-grade inflammation and chronic activation of immune pathways in adipose tissue and liver. The CD40 receptor and its ligand, CD40L, initiate immune cell signaling promoting inflammation, but conflicting data on CD40L-null mice confound its role in obesity-associated insulin resistance. A clear understanding of how CD40 and its ligand communicate to regulate and sustain the inflammatory environment of obesity is lacking. Here we demonstrate that CD40 receptor deficient mice on a high-fat diet display the expected decrease in hepatic cytokine levels, but paradoxically exhibit liver steatosis, insulin resistance and glucose intolerance compared with their age-matched wild-type controls. Hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp studies also demonstrated insulin resistance in glucose utilization by the CD40-null mice compared with wild-type mice. In contrast to liver, visceral adipose tissue in CD40 deficient animals harbors elevated cytokine levels and infiltration of inflammatory cells, particularly macrophages and CD8+ effector T cells. In addition, ex vivo explants of epididymal adipose tissue from CD40-null mice display elevated basal and isoproterenol-stimulated lipolysis, suggesting a potential increase of lipid efflux from visceral fat to the liver. These findings reveal that 1) CD40-null mice represent an unusual model of hepatic steatosis with reduced hepatic inflammation, and 2) CD40 unexpectedly functions in adipose tissue to attenuate the chronic inflammation associated with obesity, thereby protecting against hepatic steatosis

On Obstacles to E-Business Development in Mainland China

Although Internet-based e-business has been developing very rapidly in Mainland China in the last 6 years, the following obstacles have hindered its development: 1. computer illiteracy and English illiteracy among elderly business decision makers; 2. incomplete understanding of the real sense of e-business; 3. insufficient technical and legal protection; 4. no sense of security and no trust in e -business; 5. insufficient human resources in information technology; 6. underdeveloped infrastructure and financial unavailability; 7. lack of a system of Certificate Authority, a national payment system and national credit system; 8. lack of a reliable and efficient logistic system; 9. lack of a unified national technology standard to guarantee interoperability; 10. uneven interregional Internet and e-business development. But if great importance is attached to these obstacles and effective measures are taken to overcome them, e-business in Mainland China will make more rapid progress. Otherwise, it will lag farther behind developed countries in this respect and China will be in a disadvantageous position in the era of information and knowledge-based economy. This paper at first reviews the e-business development in Mainland China, reveals the obstacles and challenges it is confronted with and puts forward some countermeasures to overcome them. Finally it concludes that the e-business future of Mainland China is promising in the coming years if the Chinese government on different levels acts as a strong regulator, an effective coordinator, an aggressive infrastructure builder, and an active e-business initiator and consumer