Nuclear modification factor in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions

The transverse momentum dependent nuclear modification factors (NMF), namely $R_{CP}$, is investigated for protons produced in Au + Au at 1$A$ GeV within the framework of the isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) model. It is found that the radial collective motion during the expansion stage affects the NMF at low transverse momentum a lot. By fitting the transverse mass spectra of protons with the distribution function from the Blast-Wave model, the magnitude of radial flow can be extracted. After removing the contribution from radial flow, the $R_{CP}$ can be regarded as a thermal one and is found to keep unitary at transverse momentum lower than 0.6 GeV/c and enhance at higher transverse momentum, which can be attributed to Cronin effect.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; aceepted by Physics Letters

Numerical simulation of solid tumor blood perfusion and drug delivery during the “vascular normalization window” with antiangiogenic therapy

This Article is provided by the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund - Copyright @ 2011 Hindawi PublishingTo investigate the influence of vascular normalization on solid tumor blood perfusion and drug delivery, we used the generated blood vessel network for simulations. Considering the hemodynamic parameters changing after antiangiogenic therapies, the results show that the interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) in tumor tissue domain decreases while the pressure gradient increases during the normalization window. The decreased IFP results in more efficient delivery of conventional drugs to the targeted cancer cells. The outcome of therapies will improve if the antiangiogenic therapies and conventional therapies are carefully scheduled

A new 111 type iron pnictide superconductor LiFeP

A new iron pnictide LiFeP superconductor was found. The compound crystallizes into a Cu2Sb structure containing an FeP layer showing superconductivity with maximum Tc of 6K. This is the first 111 type iron pnictide superconductor containing no arsenic. The new superconductor is featured with itinerant behavior at normal state that could helpful to understand the novel superconducting mechanism of iron pnictide compounds.Comment: 3 figures + 1 tabl

Throughput Maximization and Fairness Assurance in Data and Energy Integrated Communication Networks

A typical data and energy integrated network (DEIN) conceives a conventional base station (BS), which is capable of simultaneously transmitting the data and energy to user equipments (UEs) during the downlink (DL) transmissions by invoking the time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) protocol in the medium access control (MAC) layer. Several UEs operating in this DEIN are capable of harvesting the energy from the DL transmissions by adopting the power splitting (PS) technique and they are also capable of exploiting the harvested energy for powering their uplink (UL) data transmissions by invoking the TDMA protocol in the MAC layer. Both of the UL sum-throughput and the UL fair-throughput of the DEIN is maximised by deciding the duration of each time-slot during the DL/UL transmissions and by determining the optimal PS factor for each UE. Both of these optimization problems are finally solved by the classic method of Lagrange multipliers in close-form. An interesting observation shows that supporting low-throughput data services during the DL transmissions does not degrade the wireless energy transfer and hence does not reduce the throughput of the UL transmissions

Diversity of eukaryotic plankton of aquaculture ponds with Carassius auratus gibelio, using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) were used to explore the relationship between eukaryotic plankton community succession and environmental factors in two aquaculture pond models with gibel carp Carassius auratus gibelio. The main culture species of pond 1 were gibel carp and grass carp, and the combined density was 46224 fingerling/ha (gibel carp/grass carp/silver carp/bighead carp, 17:4:6:1). The main culture species of pond 2 was gibel carp, and the combined density was 37551 fingerling/ha (gibel carp/silver carp/bighead carp, 52:1:1). Water samples were collected monthly. The results showed that the annual average concentrations of TP and PO_4-P in pond 1 were significantly higher than pond 2 (p>0.05). The concentration of chlorophyll a (chl a) has no significantly difference between pond 1 and pond 2. DGGE profiles of 18S rRNA gene fragments from the two ponds revealed that the diversity of eukaryotic plankton assemblages was highly variable. 91 bands and 71 bands were detected in pond 1 and pond 2, respectively. The average Shannon–Wiener index of pond 1 was significantly higher than pond 2. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) revealed that temperature played a key role in the structure of the eukaryotic plankton community in both ponds, but the nutrient concentration did not affect it. Our results suggest that DGGE method is a cost-effective way to gain insight into seasonal dynamics of eukaryotic plankton communities in culture ponds, and the increase in the number of filter-feeding silver carp and bighead carp could increase the diversity of the eukaryotic plankton community

Cloning and characterization of peptidylprolyl isomerase B in the silkworm, Bombyx mori

Peptidylprolyl isomerases (PPIases) play essential roles in protein folding and are implicated in immune response and cell cycle control. Our previous proteomic analysis indicated that Bombyx mori PPIases may be involved in anti- Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) response. To help investigate this mechanism, we cloned a B. mori PPIase gene PPIB and characterized it by bioinformatic and experimental analysis. We found that the B. mori PPIB gene contains 4 exons and its cDNA is about of618 bp, encoding a protein of 205 amino acid residues (21474.41 Da) with an isoelectric point of 8.05. PPIB contains conserved and unique cyclophilin domain and belongs to cyclophilin superfamily. Its transcription could be detected by PCR in all the B. mori tissue samples, which is consistent withnormal PPIase expression pattern and their essential roles. It is localized in cytoplasm revealed by fluorescence microscopy. We also successfully expressed this protein in E. coli and characterized it by SDS-PAGE and Mass Spectrometry. The cloned DNA sequence was submitted to GenBank (EU583493)

Antiviral treatment alters the frequency of activating and inhibitory receptor-expressing natural killer cells in chronic Hepatitis B virus infected patients

Natural killer (NK) cells play a critical role in innate antiviral immunity, but little is known about the impact of antiviral therapy on the frequency of NK cell subsets. To this aim, we performed this longitudinal study to examine the dynamic changes of the frequency of different subsets of NK cells in CHB patients after initiation of tenofovir or adefovir therapy. We found that NK cell numbers and subset distribution differ between CHB patients and normal subjects; furthermore, the association was found between ALT level and CD158b+ NK cell in HBV patients. In tenofovir group, the frequency of NK cells increased during the treatment accompanied by downregulated expression of NKG2A and KIR2DL3. In adefovir group, NK cell numbers did not differ during the treatment, but also accompanied by downregulated expression of NKG2A and KIR2DL3. Our results demonstrate that treatment with tenofovir leads to viral load reduction, and correlated with NK cell frequencies in peripheral blood of chronic hepatitis B virus infection. In addition, treatments with both tenofovir and adefovir in chronic HBV infected patients induce a decrease of the frequency of inhibitory receptor+ NK cells, which may account for the partial restoration of the function of NK cells in peripheral blood following treatment