A More Accessible Drosophila Genome to Study Fly CNS Development: A Dissertation

Understanding the complex mechanisms to assemble a functional brain demands sophisticated experimental designs. Drosophila melanogaster, a model organism equipped with powerful genetic tools and evolutionarily conserved developmental programs, is ideal for such mechanistic studies. Valuable insights were learned from research in Drosophila ventral nerve cord, such as spatial patterning, temporal coding, and lineage diversification. However, the blueprint of Drosophila cerebrum development remains largely unknown. Neural progenitor cells, called neuroblasts (NBs), serially and stereotypically produce neurons and glia in the Drosophila cerebrum. Neuroblasts inherit specific sets of early patterning genes, which likely determine their individual identities when neuroblasts delaminate from neuroectoderm. Unique neuroblasts may hence acquire the abilities to differentially interpret the temporal codes and deposit characteristic progeny lineages. We believe resolving this age-old speculation requires a tracing system that links patterning genes to neuroblasts and corresponding lineages, and further allows specific manipulations. Using modern transgenic systems, one can immortalize transient NB gene expressions into continual labeling of their offspring. Having a collection of knockin drivers that capture endogenous gene expression patterns would open the door for tracing specific NBs and their progenies based on the combinatorial expression of various early patterning genes. Anticipating the need for a high throughput gene targeting system, we created Golic+ (gene targeting during oogenesis with lethality inhibitor and CRISPR/Cas “plus”), which features efficient homologous recombination in cystoblasts and a lethality selection for easy targeting candidate recovery. Using Golic+, we successfully generated T2AGal4 knock-ins for 6 representative early patterning genes, including lab, unpg, hkb, vnd, ind, and msh. They faithfully recapitulated the expression patterns of the targeted genes. After preserving initial NB expressions by triggering irreversible genetic labeling, we revealed the lineages founded by the NBs expressing a particular early patterning gene. Identifying the neuroblasts and lineages that express a particular early patterning gene should elucidate the genetic origin of neuroblast diversity. We believe such an effort will lead to a deeper understanding of brain development and evolution

#mytweet via Instagram: Exploring User Behaviour across Multiple Social Networks

We study how users of multiple online social networks (OSNs) employ and share information by studying a common user pool that use six OSNs - Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube. We analyze the temporal and topical signature of users' sharing behaviour, showing how they exhibit distinct behaviorial patterns on different networks. We also examine cross-sharing (i.e., the act of user broadcasting their activity to multiple OSNs near-simultaneously), a previously-unstudied behaviour and demonstrate how certain OSNs play the roles of originating source and destination sinks.Comment: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, 2015. This is the pre-peer reviewed version and the final version is available at http://wing.comp.nus.edu.sg/publications/2015/lim-et-al-15.pd

Optimization and coordination of South-to-North Water Diversion supply chain with strategic customer behavior

AbstractThe South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) Project is a significant engineering project meant to solve water shortage problems in North China. Faced with market operations management of the water diversion system, this study defined the supply chain system for the SNWD Project, considering the actual project conditions, built a decentralized decision model and a centralized decision model with strategic customer behavior (SCB) using a floating pricing mechanism (FPM), and constructed a coordination mechanism via a revenue-sharing contract. The results suggest the following: (1) owing to water shortage supplements and the excess water sale policy provided by the FPM, the optimal ordering quantity of water resources is less than that without the FPM, and the optimal profits of the whole supply chain, supplier, and external distributor are higher than they would be without the FPM; (2) wholesale pricing and supplementary wholesale pricing with SCB are higher than those without SCB, and the optimal profits of the whole supply chain, supplier, and external distributor are higher than they would be without SCB; and (3) considering SCB and introducing the FPM help increase the optimal profits of the whole supply chain, supplier, and external distributor, and improve the efficiency of water resources usage

Practical Application of Pipe Maintenance Signals in Nursing Risk Management

目的  通过使用管道护理标识，降低管道不良事件风险，消除护理安全隐患。方法  在全院临床科室使用统一的管道护理标识。结果  住院患者管道不良事件发生例数、特殊用药错误或并发症等例数明显下降，有统计学意义（P < 0.01）。结论  管道护理标识有助于降低管道不良事件风险，提高护理质量。Objective: With practical application of pipe maintenance signals, the risk of pipe adverse events is reduced, and potential safety hazard in nursing is deleted. Methods: Standardized pipe maintenance signals are used in all clinic departments in the hospital. Results: There are obviously decreasing rate in adverse events, specific medicine using mistake and complications, which has statistical significance (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Pipe maintenance signals contribute to reducing pipe adverse events so as to improve nursing quality

Four lanthanide-carboxylate coordination polymers with mixed 2,3-naphthalenedicarboxylate and phen ligands: syntheses, structures, luminescent and magnetic properties

Four new lanthanide-carboxylate coordination polymers of the formula [Ln3L4(phen)4(H2O)4](ClO4)·2H2O, (Ln = Dy (1), Tb (2), Ho (3) and Er (4), L = 2,3-naphthalenedicarboxylate and phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) were solvothermally synthesized. Their structures as well as magnetic and photoluminescent properties were completely investigated. Complexes 1-4 are isostructural and exhibit 1D ribbon-like chains with envelope-like sixteen-membered rings. The DyIII and TbIII complexes show the corresponding characteristic luminescence in the visible region and the ErIII complex shows luminescence in the near-infrared region upon excitation with UV rays. Studies on the magnetic properties are reported. The Dy(III) analog complex 1 exhibits slow magnetic relaxation and could be a new example of a Dy(III) SMM (single molecule magnet)

Iterative Schemes by a New Generalized Resolvent for a Monotone Mapping and a Relatively Weak Nonexpansive Mapping

We introduce a new generalized resolvent in a Banach space and discuss some of its properties. Using these properties, we obtain an iterative scheme for finding a point which is a fixed point of relatively weak nonexpansive mapping and a zero of monotone mapping. Furthermore, strong convergence of the scheme to a point which is a fixed point of relatively weak nonexpansive mapping and a zero of monotone mapping is proved