Advances in the ADAMTS Family in Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease is a serious threat to human life and health. The number of people who die from cardiovascular disease is up to 15 million every year, ranking the first cause of all causes of death. ADAMTS family (A Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase With Thrombospondin Motifs, ADAMTSs) are matrix-associated zinc metallopeptidases with secretory function. It has diverse roles in tissue morphogenesis, pathophysiological remodeling, inflammation, and vascular biology. Controlling the structure and function of the Extracellular Matrix (ECM) is the central theme of the biology of ADAMTSs. ADAMTSs mainly play a biological role by regulating the structure and function of extracellular mechanisms, and the abnormal expression or dysfunction of some family members is associated with cardiovascular diseases. ADAMTS family plays an important role in the occurrence and development of various cardiovascular diseases. This paper aims to study the role of ADAMTS family in cardiovascular diseases

High-throughput functional analysis of autism genes in zebrafish identifies convergence in dopaminergic and neuroimmune pathways

Advancing from gene discovery in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) to the identification of biologically relevant mechanisms remains a central challenge. Here, we perform parallel in vivo functional analysis of 10 ASD genes at the behavioral, structural, and circuit levels in zebrafish mutants, revealing both unique and overlapping effects of gene loss of function. Whole-brain mapping identifies the forebrain and cerebellum as the most significant contributors to brain size differences, while regions involved in sensory-motor control, particularly dopaminergic regions, are associated with altered baseline brain activity. Finally, we show a global increase in microglia resulting from ASD gene loss of function in select mutants, implicating neuroimmune dysfunction as a key pathway relevant to ASD biology

Genome sequencing and population genomic analyses provide insights into the adaptive landscape of silver birch

Silver birch (Betula pendula) is a pioneer boreal tree that can be induced to flower within 1 year. Its rapid life cycle, small (440-Mb) genome, and advanced germplasm resources make birch an attractive model for forest biotechnology. We assembled and chromosomally anchored the nuclear genome of an inbred B. pendula individual. Gene duplicates from the paleohexaploid event were enriched for transcriptional regulation, whereas tandem duplicates were overrepresented by environmental responses. Population resequencing of 80 individuals showed effective population size crashes at major points of climatic upheaval. Selective sweeps were enriched among polyploid duplicates encoding key developmental and physiological triggering functions, suggesting that local adaptation has tuned the timing of and cross-talk between fundamental plant processes. Variation around the tightly-linked light response genes PHYC and FRS10 correlated with latitude and longitude and temperature, and with precipitation for PHYC. Similar associations characterized the growth-promoting cytokinin response regulator ARR1, and the wood development genes KAK and MED5A.Peer reviewe

Author Correction: Genome sequencing and population genomic analyses provide insights into the adaptive landscape of silver birch.

In the version of this article initially published, there was a mistake in the calculation of the nucleotide mutation rate per site per generation: 1 × 10−9 mutations per site per generation was used, whereas 9.5 × 10−9 was correct. This error affects the interpretation of population-size changes over time and their possible correspondence with known geological events, as shown in the original Fig. 4 and supporting discussion in the text, as well as details in the Supplementary Note. Neither the data themselves nor any other results are affected. Figure 4 has been revised accordingly. Images of the original and corrected figure panels are shown in the correction notice

Assessing the Impact on Hydrocarbon Production from Tight and Shale Plays by Depletion and Injection Using Thermodynamic and Transport Properties from Confined Spaces

Unconventional shale and tight reservoirs have contributed over a half of oil and gas of total U.S. production these years. As well known, phase behavior of the fluid in unconventional reservoir is quite different from that in conventional reservoir. And the variation of the thermodynamic and transport properties of fluids has a significant impact on the well performance and ultimate recovery of unconventional reservoirs. Therefore, an effective and reliable method to investigate and predict the impact of confinement on well performance and ultimate recovery of unconventional reservoirs is necessary and of great importance. In this study, a mechanistic model of both depletion and injection for well performance prediction of unconventional reservoirs was developed, incorporating capillary pressure and pore size distribution, to provide a comprehensive approach to simulate the effect of confinement in unconventional reservoirs. With the developed mechanistic model, fluid model and pore size distribution models, a series of sensitivity analysis were conducted to investigate the impact of the variables including: capillary pressure, production modes, pore size distribution, pressure decline steps, wettability angle, injection dose per step, bottom-hole pressure (BHP) and injection fluid distribution. The developed mechanistic model gives a rapid prediction and estimation of the production performance especially for unconventional reservoirs by incorporating the capillary pressure and pore size distribution. It also can predict the production performance changing with different operation conditions, which is of vital importance in the field operation to optimize production. Furthermore, this mechanistic model provides the best and the worst extreme boundaries of the production performance, and two different injection fluid distribution models, which can be used as a guidance for other reservoir simulation methods

Assessing the Impact on Hydrocarbon Production from Tight and Shale Plays by Depletion and Injection Using Thermodynamic and Transport Properties from Confined Spaces

Unconventional shale and tight reservoirs have contributed over a half of oil and gas of total U.S. production these years. As well known, phase behavior of the fluid in unconventional reservoir is quite different from that in conventional reservoir. And the variation of the thermodynamic and transport properties of fluids has a significant impact on the well performance and ultimate recovery of unconventional reservoirs. Therefore, an effective and reliable method to investigate and predict the impact of confinement on well performance and ultimate recovery of unconventional reservoirs is necessary and of great importance. In this study, a mechanistic model of both depletion and injection for well performance prediction of unconventional reservoirs was developed, incorporating capillary pressure and pore size distribution, to provide a comprehensive approach to simulate the effect of confinement in unconventional reservoirs. With the developed mechanistic model, fluid model and pore size distribution models, a series of sensitivity analysis were conducted to investigate the impact of the variables including: capillary pressure, production modes, pore size distribution, pressure decline steps, wettability angle, injection dose per step, bottom-hole pressure (BHP) and injection fluid distribution. The developed mechanistic model gives a rapid prediction and estimation of the production performance especially for unconventional reservoirs by incorporating the capillary pressure and pore size distribution. It also can predict the production performance changing with different operation conditions, which is of vital importance in the field operation to optimize production. Furthermore, this mechanistic model provides the best and the worst extreme boundaries of the production performance, and two different injection fluid distribution models, which can be used as a guidance for other reservoir simulation methods

A Theoretic Approach for Prolonging Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks Based on the Coalition Game Model

Energy consumption is one of the most important performance measures in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In order to reduce energy consumption, some nodes in the network will work together as a coalition but will not work independently. In this paper, towards forming coalitions, an energy-efficient coalition game model is proposed based on the Markov process and from the theoretic point of view. First, we propose the performance measure of the Markov process states based on the concept of absorbing coefficient and bargaining set. Consequently, we give a simulation algorithm to calculate the absorbing coefficient and simulate the forming process of the coalitions. Moreover, to determine the strategies of coalitions to ensure the WSNs’ reachability, we give the genetic-algorithm based method for calculating the approximate Nash equilibrium. Experimental results show that our model can guarantee longer lifetime and effective reachability for WSNs

Nondestructive Evaluation of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites Using Reflective Terahertz Imaging

Terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) imaging is considered a nondestructive evaluation method for composite materials used for examining various defects of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites and fire-retardant coatings in the reflective imaging modality. We demonstrate that hidden defects simulated by Teflon artificial inserts are imaged clearly in the perpendicular polarization mode. The THz TDS technique is also used to measure the thickness of thin fire-retardant coatings on CFRP composites with a typical accuracy of about 10 micrometers. In addition, coating debonding is successfully imaged based on the time-delay difference of the time-domain waveforms between closely adhered and debonded sample locations