Intercellular protein–protein interactions at synapses

Chemical synapses are asymmetric intercellular junctions through which neurons send nerve impulses to communicate with other neurons or excitable cells. The appropriate formation of synapses, both spatially and temporally, is essential for brain function and depends on the intercellular protein-protein interactions of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) at synaptic clefts. The CAM proteins link pre- and post-synaptic sites, and play essential roles in promoting synapse formation and maturation, maintaining synapse number and type, accumulating neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels, controlling neuronal differentiation, and even regulating synaptic plasticity directly. Alteration of the interactions of CAMs leads to structural and functional impairments, which results in many neurological disorders, such as autism, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the functions of CAMs during development and in the mature neural system, as well as in the pathogenesis of some neurological disorders. Here, we review the function of the major classes of CAMs, and how dysfunction of CAMs relates to several neurological disorders.Cell BiologySCI(E)中国科学引文数据库(CSCD)[email protected]; [email protected]

Facile synthesis of metal-organic framework films via in situ seeding of nanoparticles

A facile in situ nanoparticle seeding method is reported to prepare MIL-101(Cr) films on alumina supports. The in situ seeding of MIL-101(Cr) nanoparticles was promoted by use of dimethylacetamide (DMA). The generality of this approach is further demonstrated for Cu 3(btc) 2 films by using a (poly)acrylate promoter

Benign Shortcut for Debiasing: Fair Visual Recognition via Intervention with Shortcut Features

Machine learning models often learn to make predictions that rely on sensitive social attributes like gender and race, which poses significant fairness risks, especially in societal applications, such as hiring, banking, and criminal justice. Existing work tackles this issue by minimizing the employed information about social attributes in models for debiasing. However, the high correlation between target task and these social attributes makes learning on the target task incompatible with debiasing. Given that model bias arises due to the learning of bias features (\emph{i.e}., gender) that help target task optimization, we explore the following research question: \emph{Can we leverage shortcut features to replace the role of bias feature in target task optimization for debiasing?} To this end, we propose \emph{Shortcut Debiasing}, to first transfer the target task's learning of bias attributes from bias features to shortcut features, and then employ causal intervention to eliminate shortcut features during inference. The key idea of \emph{Shortcut Debiasing} is to design controllable shortcut features to on one hand replace bias features in contributing to the target task during the training stage, and on the other hand be easily removed by intervention during the inference stage. This guarantees the learning of the target task does not hinder the elimination of bias features. We apply \emph{Shortcut Debiasing} to several benchmark datasets, and achieve significant improvements over the state-of-the-art debiasing methods in both accuracy and fairness.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2211.0125

Deformation characteristics and exploration potential of the West Kunlun foreland fold-and-thrust belt

The West Kunlun foreland is dominated by segmented fold-and-thrust belts with significant potential for hydrocarbon exploration, while the extent of exploration in this area has been relatively limited. In this paper, by conducting complex structural interpretation, the geometric and kinematic characteristics, as well as the variations in the segmented fold-and-thrust belts within this region are revealed. The West Kunlun foreland fold-and-thrust belts are divided into three structural segments, which exhibit distinct structural styles. The Pusha-Kedong segment in the east is characterized by large-scale northward propagation, with high-angle basement-involved faults in the root belt and thin-skinned thrusts in the front belt. Additionally, three-row anticlines developed in the middle to the upper structural layers. The Kashi-Yecheng segment, located in the middle, is characterized by strike-slip faults and basement-involved structural wedges transitioning to detachment structures. Within this segment, the Sugaite structure in the mountain front is a wedge structure composed of basement-involved faults and an upper back-thrust fault. Meanwhile, the Yingjisha structure in the thrust front consists of a fold in the lower part and a back-thrust system above it. The lower fold is controlled by the Cambrian detachment thrust, which terminates upward in the Paleogene, while the back-thrust faults truncate upper structural layers and terminate downwards in the Miocene strata. The Wupoer segment in the northwest is controlled by the Main Pamir Thrust and the Front Pamir Thrust, which are low angular forward thrust faults with an arc distribution. A piggyback basin has developed in the root belt and upper structural layer since the Pliocene. Based on the deformation characteristics and the accumulation of oil-gas reservoirs discovered so far, two types of oil and gas-rich thrust belts with different hydrocarbon exploration fields in the West Kunlun foreland are described.Document Type: Original articleCited as: Jiang, L., Dong, H., Li, Y., Zhao, W., Zhang, Y., Bo, D. Deformation characteristics and exploration potential of the West Kunlun foreland fold-and-thrust belt. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2024, 11(3): 181-193. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2024.03.0