30 inch Roll-Based Production of High-Quality Graphene Films for Flexible Transparent Electrodes

We report that 30-inch scale multiple roll-to-roll transfer and wet chemical doping considerably enhance the electrical properties of the graphene films grown on roll-type Cu substrates by chemical vapor deposition. The resulting graphene films shows a sheet resistance as low as ~30 Ohm/sq at ~90 % transparency which is superior to commercial transparent electrodes such as indium tin oxides (ITO). The monolayer of graphene shows sheet resistances as low as ~125 Ohm/sq with 97.4% optical transmittance and half-integer quantum Hall effect, indicating the high-quality of these graphene films. As a practical application, we also fabricated a touch screen panel device based on the graphene transparent electrodes, showing extraordinary mechanical and electrical performances

Bim and Bmf synergize to induce apoptosis in Neisseria gonorrhoeae infection

Abstract: Bcl-2 family proteins including the pro-apoptotic BH3-only proteins are central regulators of apoptotic cell death. Here we show by a focused siRNA miniscreen that the synergistic action of the BH3-only proteins Bim and Bmf is required for apoptosis induced by infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ngo). While Bim and Bmf were associated with the cytoskeleton of healthy cells, they both were released upon Ngo infection. Loss of Bim and Bmf from the cytoskeleton fraction required the activation of Jun-N-terminal kinase-1 (JNK-1), which in turn depended on Rac-1. Depletion and inhibition of Rac-1, JNK-1, Bim, or Bmf prevented the activation of Bak and Bax and the subsequent activation of caspases. Apoptosis could be reconstituted in Bim-depleted and Bmf-depleted cells by additional silencing of antiapoptotic Mcl-1 and Bcl-XL, respectively. Our data indicate a synergistic role for both cytoskeletal-associated BH3-only proteins, Bim, and Bmf, in an apoptotic pathway leading to the clearance of Ngo-infected cells. Author Summary: A variety of physiological death signals, as well as pathological insults, trigger apoptosis, a genetically programmed form of cell death. Pathogens often induce host cell apoptosis to establish a successful infection. Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ngo), the etiological agent of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea, is a highly adapted obligate human-specific pathogen and has been shown to induce apoptosis in infected cells. Here we unveil the molecular mechanisms leading to apoptosis of infected cells. We show that Ngo-mediated apoptosis requires a special subset of proapoptotic proteins from the group of BH3-only proteins. BH3-only proteins act as stress sensors to translate toxic environmental signals to the initiation of apoptosis. In a siRNA-based miniscreen, we found Bim and Bmf, BH3-only proteins associated with the cytoskeleton, necessary to induce host cell apoptosis upon infection. Bim and Bmf inactivated different inhibitors of apoptosis and thereby induced cell death in response to infection. Our data unveil a novel pathway of infection-induced apoptosis that enhances our understanding of the mechanism by which BH3-only proteins control apoptotic cell death

MBA: a literature mining system for extracting biomedical abbreviations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The exploding growth of the biomedical literature presents many challenges for biological researchers. One such challenge is from the use of a great deal of abbreviations. Extracting abbreviations and their definitions accurately is very helpful to biologists and also facilitates biomedical text analysis. Existing approaches fall into four broad categories: rule based, machine learning based, text alignment based and statistically based. State of the art methods either focus exclusively on acronym-type abbreviations, or could not recognize rare abbreviations. We propose a systematic method to extract abbreviations effectively. At first a scoring method is used to classify the abbreviations into acronym-type and non-acronym-type abbreviations, and then their corresponding definitions are identified by two different methods: text alignment algorithm for the former, statistical method for the latter.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A literature mining system MBA was constructed to extract both acronym-type and non-acronym-type abbreviations. An abbreviation-tagged literature corpus, called Medstract gold standard corpus, was used to evaluate the system. MBA achieved a recall of 88% at the precision of 91% on the Medstract gold-standard EVALUATION Corpus.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We present a new literature mining system MBA for extracting biomedical abbreviations. Our evaluation demonstrates that the MBA system performs better than the others. It can identify the definition of not only acronym-type abbreviations including a little irregular acronym-type abbreviations (e.g., <CNS1, cyclophilin seven suppressor>), but also non-acronym-type abbreviations (e.g., <Fas, CD95>).</p

Planar cell polarity genes Celsr1 and Vangl2 are necessary for kidney growth, differentiation, and rostrocaudal patterning

The mammalian kidney contains nephrons comprising glomeruli and tubules joined to ureteric bud–derived collecting ducts. It has a characteristic bean-like shape, with near-complete rostrocaudal symmetry around the hilum. Here we show that Celsr1, a planar cell polarity (PCP) gene implicated in neural tube morphogenesis, is required for ureteric tree growth in early development and later in gestation prevents tubule overgrowth. We also found an interaction between Celsr1 and Vangl2 (another PCP gene) in ureteric tree growth, most marked in the caudal compartment of the kidneys from compound heterozygous mutant mice with a stunted rump. Furthermore, these genes together are required for the maturation of glomeruli. Interestingly, we demonstrated patients with CELSR1 mutations and spina bifida can have significant renal malformations. Thus, PCP genes are important in mammalian kidney development and have an unexpected role in rostrocaudal patterning during organogenesis

Effects of Thioglycolic Acid on Parthenogenetic Activation of Xenopus Oocytes

BACKGROUND: Existing in Permanent-wave solutions (PWS), thioglycolic acid (TGA) is widely used in hairdressing industry for its contribution to hair styling. However, the toxicity of TGA, especially its reproductive toxicity, gradually calls the attention of more and more researchers. METHOD: In this work, xenopus oocytes were pretreated with different concentration of TGA, and then activated by calcium ionophore A23187. During culture, the oocytes activation rates were taken note at different time after adding calcium ionophore A23187. At the end of the culture period, the nuclear status was detected under confocal microscope. In addition, some other samples were collected for Western-Blotting analysis. RESULT: TGA significantly inhibited the oocytes activation rate and pronuclear formation. It may be resulted from the inhibition of the degradation of p-ERK1, Mos and CyclinB2. CONCLUSION: TGA inhibits in vitro parthenogenetic activation of xenopus oocytes with inhibited the degradation of proteins involved in mitogenic-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and maturation-promoting factor (MPF) pathways

SiC Nanowires Synthesized by Rapidly Heating a Mixture of SiO and Arc-Discharge Plasma Pretreated Carbon Black

SiC nanowires have been synthesized at 1,600 °C by using a simple and low-cost method in a high-frequency induction furnace. The commercial SiO powder and the arc-discharge plasma pretreated carbon black were mixed and used as the source materials. The heating-up and reaction time is less than half an hour. It was found that most of the nanowires have core-shell SiC/SiO2nanostructures. The nucleation, precipitation, and growth processes were discussed in terms of the oxide-assisted cluster-solid mechanism

Disparities and risks of sexually transmissible infections among men who have sex with men in China: a meta-analysis and data synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including Hepatitis B and C virus, are emerging public health risks in China, especially among men who have sex with men (MSM). This study aims to assess the magnitude and risks of STIs among Chinese MSM. METHODS: Chinese and English peer-reviewed articles were searched in five electronic databases from January 2000 to February 2013. Pooled prevalence estimates for each STI infection were calculated using meta-analysis. Infection risks of STIs in MSM, HIV-positive MSM and male sex workers (MSW) were obtained. This review followed the PRISMA guidelines and was registered in PROSPERO. RESULTS: Eighty-eight articles (11 in English and 77 in Chinese) investigating 35,203 MSM in 28 provinces were included in this review. The prevalence levels of STIs among MSM were 6.3% (95% CI: 3.5-11.0%) for chlamydia, 1.5% (0.7-2.9%) for genital wart, 1.9% (1.3-2.7%) for gonorrhoea, 8.9% (7.8-10.2%) for hepatitis B (HBV), 1.2% (1.0-1.6%) for hepatitis C (HCV), 66.3% (57.4-74.1%) for human papillomavirus (HPV), 10.6% (6.2-17.6%) for herpes simplex virus (HSV-2) and 4.3% (3.2-5.8%) for Ureaplasma urealyticum. HIV-positive MSM have consistently higher odds of all these infections than the broader MSM population. As a subgroup of MSM, MSW were 2.5 (1.4-4.7), 5.7 (2.7-12.3), and 2.2 (1.4-3.7) times more likely to be infected with chlamydia, gonorrhoea and HCV than the broader MSM population, respectively. CONCLUSION: Prevalence levels of STIs among MSW were significantly higher than the broader MSM population. Co-infection of HIV and STIs were prevalent among Chinese MSM. Integration of HIV and STIs healthcare and surveillance systems is essential in providing effective HIV/STIs preventive measures and treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO NO: CRD42013003721

The Survey of H5N1 Flu Virus in Wild Birds in 14 Provinces of China from 2004 to 2007

The highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza emerged in the year 1996 in Asia, and has spread to Europe and Africa recently. At present, effective monitoring and data analysis of H5N1 are not sufficient in Chinese mainland.)) were obviously higher than those in other 13 provinces. The results of sequence analysis indicated that the 17 strains isolated from wild birds were distributed in five clades (2.3.1, 2.2, 2.5, 6, and 7), which suggested that genetic diversity existed among H5N1 viruses isolated from wild birds. The five isolates from Qinghai came from one clade (2.2) and had a short evolutionary distance with the isolates obtained from Qinghai in the year 2005.We have measured the prevalence of H5N1 virus in 56 species of wild birds in 14 provinces of China. Continuous monitoring in the field should be carried out to know whether H5N1 virus can be maintained by wild birds