Integrative Genomic Analyses Identify BRF2 as a Novel Lineage-Specific Oncogene in Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma

William Lockwood and colleagues show that the focal amplification of a gene, BRF2, on Chromosome 8p12 plays a key role in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung

Phosphorylation of CPAP by Aurora-A Maintains Spindle Pole Integrity during Mitosis

CPAP is required for centriole elongation during S/G2 phase, but the role of CPAP in mitosis is incompletely understood. Here, we show that CPAP maintains spindle pole integrity through its phosphorylation by Aurora-A during mitosis. Depletion of CPAP induced a prolonged delay in mitosis, pericentriolar material (PCM) dispersion, and multiple mitotic abnormalities. Further studies demonstrated that CPAP directly interacts with and is phosphorylated by Aurora-A at serine 467 during mitosis. Interestingly, the dispersal of the PCM was effectively rescued by ectopic expression of wild-type CPAP or a phospho-mimic CPAP-S467D mutant, but not a non-phosphorylated CPAP-S467A mutant. Finally, we found that CPAP-S467D has a low affinity for microtubule binding but a high affinity for PCM proteins. Together, our results support a model wherein CPAP is required for proper mitotic progression, and phosphorylation of CPAP by Aurora-A is essential for maintaining spindle pole integrity

Codebook Generation Using Partition and Agglomerative Clustering

In this paper, we present a codebook generation algorithm to produce a codebook with lower distortion. Our method combines a fast codebook generation algorithm (CGAUCD) with doubling technique and fast agglomerative clustering algorithm (FACA) to generate a codebook with less computing time and lower distortion. Instead of using FACA directly to divide training vectors into M clusters, our proposed method first generates qM clusters from these training vectors, where q>1 is an integer, and then applies FACA to merge these qM clusters into M cells. This is due to the computational complexity of CGAUCD with doubling technique is less than that of FACA. These M cluster centers are used as the initial codebook for CGAUCD. Using three real images as the training set, our method can reduce the MSE and computing time of FPNN+CGAUCD, which is the available best method to our knowledge, by 0.19 to 0.38 and 74.6% to 84.3%, respectively

Overseas Chinese Environmental Engineers and Scientists Association (OCEESA) Report, Special Issue, February 2005

This OCEESA report, which is special issue of OCEESA Journal (Overseas Chinese Environmental Engineers and Scientists Association Journal), is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Thomas To Shen 沈鐸博士. This report is OCEESA report number: OCEESA/JL-2005/22011, February 2005, ISSN 1072 -7248. Yung-Tse Hung, Permanent Executive Director, OCEESA, is editor of this report. This issue includes OCEESA profiles, OCEESA directors. This report also includes: (1) eulogy for Dr. Thomas To Shen, (2) Call for Abstracts, 10th MTEPC , (3) Report on the 20th Modern Engineering & Technology Seminar (METS) 2004, and (4) the 27th Biennial ROC-USA Business Conference 2004,November 11-16, 2004,Taipei, Taiwan, CIE-USA National Council Meeting Report. The report also includes 7 papers. (1) Lecture Trip Report: International Symposium on Environmental Management for Human Development, Baku, Azerbaijan, March 16, 2005, Pao-Chiang Yuan, (2) Birth of a Municipal Drinking Water Industry Users Group, Paul C. Li, (3) Recycling Technologies for Mercury Bearing Materials ,Yei-Shong Shieh, (4) Environmental Impact and Economic Development in China (in Chinese), Rubin Yu, (5) Report on Sabbatical Leave at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, in Spring Semester 2004, Yung-Tse Hung, (6) Disposal and Reuse of Treated Wastewater Effluents in Western Australia, Yung-Tae Hung, Brad Raymond, Howard H. Lo, (7) Water Contamination in Australia from Mining and Milling of Uranium Ores, Yung-Tae Hung, Matthew Coppen, Howard H. Lo. This report also includes OCEESA membership data, constitutions and by laws of OCEESA (5 November 2000 edition), constitutions and by laws of OCEESA (14 February 2006 edition), constitutions and by laws of OCEESA (27 October 2013 edition), membership application form, letter from Wen-Chi Ku to confirm Yung-Tse Hung OCEESA permanent executive director, letter from Lawrence Kong-Pu Wang to confirm Yung-Tse Hung OCEESA permanent executive director

Modulating the Voltage Decay and Cationic Redox Kinetics of Li-Rich Cathodes via Controlling the Local Electronic Structure

Li-rich layered oxide cathodes with conventional transition metal cation and unique oxygen anion redox reactions deliver high capacities in Li-ion batteries. However, the oxygen redox process causes the oxygen release, voltage fading/hysteresis, and sluggish electrochemical kinetics, which undermine the performance of these materials. By combining operando quick-scanning X-ray absorption spectroscopy with online gas chromatography, the effect of the local electronic structure is elucidated on the reaction mechanism and electrochemical kinetics of Li-rich cathodes. The local electronic structure of Li-rich cathodes varies with the excess Li (i.e., Li2MnO3 phase) and Ni contents. Compared to the Li-rich cathodes with higher amounts of Li2MnO3 phase (high excess lithium content (HLC) cathode), those with lower Li2MnO3 contents (low excess lithium content (LLC) cathode) exhibit reversible anion redox reactions and suppressed voltage hysteresis. The cation oxidation process of LLC cathode is kinetically slower than that of HLC cathode and the cation oxidation potential is shifted, likely due to the local coordination associated with different Li/O ratios. The obtained insights into the effect of local electronic structure on the reaction mechanism and kinetics provide a better understanding and control of Li-rich cathodes