Creation and suppression of point defects through a kick-out substitution process of Fe in InP

Indium antisite defect In P-related photoluminescence has been observed in Fe-diffused semi-insulating (SI) InP. Compared to annealed undoped or Fe-predoped SI InP, there are fewer defects in SI InP obtained by long-duration, high-temperature Fe diffusion. The suppression of the formation of point defects in Fe-diffused SI InP can be explained in terms of the complete occupation by Fe at indium vacancy. The In P defect is enhanced by the indium interstitial that is caused by the kick out of In and the substitution at the indium site of Fe in the diffusion process. Through these Fe-diffusion results, the nature of the defects in annealed undoped SI InP is better understood. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Identifying component modules

A computer-based system for modelling component dependencies and identifying component modules is presented. A variation of the Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) representation was used to model component dependencies. The system utilises a two-stage approach towards facilitating the identification of a hierarchical modular structure. The first stage calculates a value for a clustering criterion that may be used to group component dependencies together. A Genetic Algorithm is described to optimise the order of the components within the DSM with the focus of minimising the value of the clustering criterion to identify the most significant component groupings (modules) within the product structure. The second stage utilises a 'Module Strength Indicator' (MSI) function to determine a value representative of the degree of modularity of the component groupings. The application of this function to the DSM produces a 'Module Structure Matrix' (MSM) depicting the relative modularity of available component groupings within it. The approach enabled the identification of hierarchical modularity in the product structure without the requirement for any additional domain specific knowledge within the system. The system supports design by providing mechanisms to explicitly represent and utilise component and dependency knowledge to facilitate the nontrivial task of determining near-optimal component modules and representing product modularity

Characterisation of the Immunophenotype of Dogs with Primary Immune-Mediated Haemolytic Anaemia

Immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia (IMHA) is reported to be the most common autoimmune disease of dogs, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality in affected animals. Haemolysis is caused by the action of autoantibodies, but the immunological changes that result in their production have not been elucidated.To investigate the frequency of regulatory T cells (Tregs) and other lymphocyte subsets and to measure serum concentrations of cytokines and peripheral blood mononuclear cell expression of cytokine genes in dogs with IMHA, healthy dogs and dogs with inflammatory diseases.19 dogs with primary IMHA, 22 dogs with inflammatory diseases and 32 healthy control dogs.Residual EDTA-anti-coagulated blood samples were stained with fluorophore-conjugated monoclonal antibodies and analysed by flow cytometry to identify Tregs and other lymphocyte subsets. Total RNA was also extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells to investigate cytokine gene expression, and concentrations of serum cytokines (interleukins 2, 6 10, CXCL-8 and tumour necrosis factor α) were measured using enhanced chemiluminescent assays. Principal component analysis was used to investigate latent variables that might explain variability in the entire dataset.There was no difference in the frequency or absolute numbers of Tregs among groups, nor in the proportions of other lymphocyte subsets. The concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines were greater in dogs with IMHA compared to healthy controls, but the concentration of IL-10 and the expression of cytokine genes did not differ between groups. Principal component analysis identified four components that explained the majority of the variability in the dataset, which seemed to correspond to different aspects of the immune response.The immunophenotype of dogs with IMHA differed from that of dogs with inflammatory diseases and from healthy control dogs; some of these changes could suggest abnormalities in peripheral tolerance that permit development of autoimmune disease. The frequency of Tregs did not differ between groups, suggesting that deficiency in the number of these cells is not responsible for development of IMHA

Analysis of the Constituents in Rat Serum after Oral Administration of Fufang Zhenzhu Tiaozhi Capsule by UPLC–Q–TOF–MS/MS

A rapid and sensitive UPLC/Q–TOF–MS method has been established for analysis of the constituents in rat serum after oral administration of Fufang Zhenzhu Tiaozhi (FTZ) capsule, an effective compound prescription for treating hyperlipidemia in the clinic. The UPLC/MS information of samples was obtained first in FTZ preparation and FTZ-treated rat serum. Mass spectra were acquired in both negative and positive ion modes. Thirty-six constituents in rat serum after oral administration of FTZ were detected, including the alkaloids, ginsenosides, pentacyclic triterpenes, and their metabolites. These chemicals were identified based on the retention time and mass spectrometry data with those of authentic standards or comparison of the literatures reports. Twenty-seven prototype components originated from FTZ and nine were the metabolites of the FTZ constituents. These results shed light on the potential active constituents of the complex traditional Chinese medicinal formulas

Computational Cancer Biology: An Evolutionary Perspective

ISSN:1553-734XISSN:1553-735

Investigation into the annotation of protocol sequencing steps in the sequence read archive

BACKGROUND: The workflow for the production of high-throughput sequencing data from nucleic acid samples is complex. There are a series of protocol steps to be followed in the preparation of samples for next-generation sequencing. The quantification of bias in a number of protocol steps, namely DNA fractionation, blunting, phosphorylation, adapter ligation and library enrichment, remains to be determined. RESULTS: We examined the experimental metadata of the public repository Sequence Read Archive (SRA) in order to ascertain the level of annotation of important sequencing steps in submissions to the database. Using SQL relational database queries (using the SRAdb SQLite database generated by the Bioconductor consortium) to search for keywords commonly occurring in key preparatory protocol steps partitioned over studies, we found that 7.10%, 5.84% and 7.57% of all records (fragmentation, ligation and enrichment, respectively), had at least one keyword corresponding to one of the three protocol steps. Only 4.06% of all records, partitioned over studies, had keywords for all three steps in the protocol (5.58% of all SRA records). CONCLUSIONS: The current level of annotation in the SRA inhibits systematic studies of bias due to these protocol steps. Downstream from this, meta-analyses and comparative studies based on these data will have a source of bias that cannot be quantified at present

Observation of a ppb mass threshoud enhancement in \psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p}) decay

The decay channel $\psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p})$ is studied using a sample of $1.06\times 10^8$ $\psi^\prime$ events collected by the BESIII experiment at BEPCII. A strong enhancement at threshold is observed in the $p\bar{p}$ invariant mass spectrum. The enhancement can be fit with an $S$-wave Breit-Wigner resonance function with a resulting peak mass of $M=1861^{+6}_{-13} {\rm (stat)}^{+7}_{-26} {\rm (syst)} {\rm MeV/}c^2$ and a narrow width that is $\Gamma<38 {\rm MeV/}c^2$ at the 90% confidence level. These results are consistent with published BESII results. These mass and width values do not match with those of any known meson resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Chinese Physics

Body mass index and risk of pancreatic cancer in a Chinese population

10.1371/journal.pone.0085149PLoS ONE91-POLN