How are ego-centric networks of researchers coupled?

Scientific knowledge creation can be viewed as social-economic activities, which inspires us to explore researchers' interpersonal capital and its impact on scientific performance. In this study, we investigate on multiple types of interpersonal relationships between researchers, including co-authorship, author citation, and social relation, which are considered as interpersonal capital of researchers. Thus, three types of ego-centric networks (ECNs) are constructed by using the data from Twitter and Web of Science. The composition of social networks and the coupling relationships between ECNs in terms of the same researchers are analyzed. The preliminary results on the field of Cheminformatics show that most researchers tend to interact with research related accounts in social networks. The coupling degree between co-authorship networks and author citation networks is significantly higher than that between co-authorship networks and friend networks. Researchers are more likely to collaborate with the researchers who have close scholarly communication with them than the friends from social networks. This study contributes to the understanding of interpersonal relationship in scientific community. Future research will focus on the impact of interpersonal capital on scientific performance

China is on the track tackling Enteromorpha spp forming green tide

Green tide management is supposed to be a long term fight rather than an episode during the 29th Olympic Games for China, since it has been gaining in scale and frequency during the past 3 decades in both marine and estuary environment all over the world. A number of rapid-responding studies including oceanographic comprehensive surveys along the coastline have been conducted during the bloom and post-bloom periods in 2008 by Chinese marine scientists. The preliminary results are as below: (1) phylogenetic analysis indicates that the bloom forming alga forms a clade with representatives of the green seaweed Enteromorpha linza, though, the alga has been identified as E. proliera by means of morphological; (2) the present data suggest that the bloom was originated from south of Yellow Sea, but not the severely affected area near Qingdao City; (3) pathways of reproduction for E. prolifera have approved to be multifarious, including sexual, asexual and vegetative propagation; (4) somatic cells may act as a propagule bank, which is supposed to be a very dangerous transmitting way for its marked movability, adaptability and viability; (5) pyrolysis of the alga showed that three stages appeared during the process, which are dehydration (18–20^o^C), main devolatilization (200–450^o^C) and residual decomposition (450–750^o^C), and activation energy of the alga was determined at 237.23 KJ•mol^-1^. Although the scarce knowlegde on E. prolifera not yet allow a fully understanding of the green tide, some of the results suggests possible directions in further green tide research and management

Toll-like receptor 2 -196 to -174 del polymorphism influences the susceptibility of Han Chinese people to Alzheimer's disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Toll-like receptor 2 (<it>TLR2</it>) represents a reasonable functional and positional candidate gene for Alzheimer's disease (AD) as it is located under the linkage region of AD on chromosome 4q, and functionally is involved in the microglia-mediated inflammatory response and amyloid-β clearance. The -196 to -174 del polymorphism affects the <it>TLR2 </it>gene and alters its promoter activity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We recruited 800 unrelated Northern Han Chinese individuals comprising 400 late-onset AD (LOAD) patients and 400 healthy controls matched for gender and age. The -196 to -174 del polymorphism in the <it>TLR2 </it>gene was genotyped using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were significant differences in genotype (P = 0.026) and allele (P = 0.009) frequencies of the -196 to -174 del polymorphism between LOAD patients and controls. The del allele was associated with an increased risk of LOAD (OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.07-1.60, Power = 84.9%). When these data were stratified by apolipoprotein E (<it>ApoE</it>) ε4 status, the observed association was confined to <it>ApoE </it>ε4 non-carriers. Logistic regression analysis suggested an association of LOAD with the polymorphism in a recessive model (OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.13-2.39, Bonferroni corrected P = 0.03).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data suggest that the -196 to -174 del/del genotype of <it>TLR2 </it>may increase risk of LOAD in a Northern Han Chinese population.</p

Microstructure evolution of extruded Mg-Gd-Y magnesium alloy under dynamic compression

AbstractFor the purpose of investigating the microstructure evolution and deformation behavior of magnesium under high strain rates, the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus was used under high strain rates from 755 s−1 to 2826 s−1 in the present work at room temperature. The microstructures of extruded Mg-Gd-Y Magnesium alloy under different strain rates and along different compression directions were observed by metallographic microscope. The results show that, microstructures of extruded Mg-Gd-Y Magnesium alloy along ED, TD and ND compression directions are sensitive to strain rates. The amount of twins firstly increases and then decreases with strain rates being increased, and the recrystal grains increase and grow up. When the strain rate reaches 2500 s−1, the adiabatic shear band (ASB) begins to form. The formation process of the adiabatic shear band can be divided into three stages. In the first stage, under the impact load a great deal of twins form and the deformation mechanism is twinning. In the second stage, discontinuous ASB forms due to twins adjusting the directions of located grains and the deformation mechanisms are twinning and non-basal slip. In the last stage, non-basal slip turns to basal slip and continuous ASB forms. The dynamic compression fracture mechanism of extruded Mg-Gd-Y Magnesium alloy is multi-crack propagation

Cochlear homeostasis and its role in genetic deafness

AbstractEach component of the human ear performs a specific function in hearing. The actual process of sound transduction takes place in the auditory portion of the inner ear, the fluid-filled cochlea. In the cochlea, the sensitivity and efficiency of sensory apparatus to convert mechanical energy into neural activity, largely depends on the fluidic and ionic environment. In the lateral wall of cochlea, the secretory epithelium stria vascularis plays an important role in the maintenance of fluidic and ionic homeostasis. A variety of gene mutations disturbs the cochlear homeostasis and subsequently leads to hearing impairment. The review covers several aspects of cochlear homeostasis, from cochlear fluid and the functional role of stria vascularis, cochlear K+recycling and its molecular substrates to genetic deafness with abnormal cochlear homeostasis

The improved separation method of coherent sources with two measurement surfaces based on statistically optimized near-field acoustical holography

A technique for separating coherent sources measured by two parallel arrays is proposed. The two measurement surfaces located in the opposite directions of the coherent sources. Similar to separate the aim source from background noise, this method can separate the single source from coherent sources, which makes the sound field information of single source in complex environment more accurate. Such improved separation method based on statistically optimized near-field acoustical holography, according to the sound pressure relationship between measurement surfaces and reconstruction surfaces to separate the sources, reduces the measurement data and obtains higher precision of reconstruction. The present paper uses the improved separation method to obtain the single source results from numerical simulations, gives the relative reconstruction errors with frequency from 100 Hz to 1400 Hz, and practical measurement