Synoptic-scale controls of persistent low temperature and icy weather over southern China in January 2008

In January 2008, central and southern China experienced persistent low temperatures, freezing rain, and snow. The large-scale conditions associated with the occurrence and development of these snowstorms are examined in order to identify the key synoptic controls leading to this event. Three main factors are identified: 1) the persistent blocking high over Siberia, which remained quasi-stationary around 65°E for 3 weeks, led to advection of dry and cold Siberian air down to central and southern China; 2) a strong persistent southwesterly flow associated with the western Pacific subtropical high led to enhanced moisture advection from the Bay of Bengal into central and southern China; and 3) the deep inversion layer in the lower troposphere associated with the extended snow cover over most of central and southern China. The combination of these three factors is likely responsible for the unusual severity of the event, and hence a long return perio

The Development of Finite Element Model to Investigate the Structural Performance of Reinforced Concrete Hollow Beams

The self-weight of a reinforced concrete beam contributes to the permanent loads of a structure. This can be reduced by creating a longitudinal void along the beam so that it will not affect the performance of the beam. In addition, this process can reduce the amount of building cost. Therefore, a finite element model was developed in this study with the aid of a computer program, Ansys, to investigate the behavior of the hollow beam. The model was tested for reliability by comparing the predicted results with those obtained from the experiment in terms of the load-displacement responses, mechanical properties, and parametric responses. The result showed that the reliability of the model was questionable. The main cause of the non-reliability was the inaccurate prediction of the beam deflection by the model. The poor prediction of beam deflection led to significant variations of relevant mechanical properties including stiffness, deflection, and ductility. For beam deflection, only 1/3 of the specimens were correctly predicted with a reliability of 36% while the strength properties were discovered to have higher values as observed in the yield and the ultimate strengths with 73% and 64% respectively. However, both the model and experimental results showed the hollow beam was relatively effective when the diameter of the longitudinal void was 1/3 times the beam width and placed at the neutral axis. For the evaluation to improve the reliability, some revision including the properties of the materials, boundary conditions of the beam support, bonding conditions between different materials, and meshing shape and size suppose to be applied to the model.

Effects of environmental parameters to total, quantum and classical correlations

We quantify the total, quantum, and classical correlations with entropic measures, and quantitatively compare these correlations in a quantum system, as exemplified by a Heisenberg dimer which is subjected to the change of environmental parameters: temperature and nonuniform external field. Our results show that the quantum correlation may exceed the classical correlation at some nonzero temperatures, though the former is rather fragile than the later under thermal fluctuation. The effect of the external field to the classical correlation is quite different from the quantum correlation.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Trust as a mediator in the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and IL-6 level in adulthood

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been shown to predict the coupling of depression and inflammation in adulthood. Trust within intimate relationships, a core element in marital relations, has been shown to predict positive physical and mental health outcomes, but the mediating role of trust in partners in the association between CSA and inflammation in adulthood requires further study. The present study aimed to examine the impact of CSA on inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6 and IL-1β) in adults with depression and the mediating role of trust. A cross-sectional survey data set of adults presenting with mood and sleep disturbance was used in the analysis. CSA demonstrated a significant negative correlation with IL-6 level (r = -0.28, p<0. 01) in adults with clinically significant depression, while trust showed a significant positive correlation with IL-6 level (r = 0.36, p < .01). Sobel test and bootstrapping revealed a significant mediating role for trust between CSA and IL-6 level. CSA and trust in partners were revealed to have significant associations with IL-6 level in adulthood. Counterintuitively, the directions of association were not those expected. Trust played a mediating role between CSA and adulthood levels of IL-6. Plausible explanations for these counterintuitive findings are discussed

Discovery and characterization of medaka miRNA genes by next generation sequencing platform

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-protein-coding RNA genes which exist in a wide variety of organisms, including animals, plants, virus and even unicellular organisms. Medaka (Oryzias latipes) is a useful model organism among vertebrate animals. However, no medaka miRNAs have been investigated systematically. It is beneficial to conduct a genome-wide miRNA discovery study using the next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, which has emerged as a powerful sequencing tool for high-throughput analysis. Results In this study, we adopted ABI SOLiD platform to generate small RNA sequence reads from medaka tissues, followed by mapping these sequence reads back to medaka genome. The mapped genomic loci were considered as candidate miRNAs and further processed by a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. As result, we identified 599 novel medaka pre-miRNAs, many of which were found to encode more than one isomiRs. Besides, additional minor miRNAs (also called miRNA star) can be also detected with the improvement of sequencing depth. These quantifiable isomiRs and minor miRNAs enable us to further characterize medaka miRNA genes in many aspects. First of all, many medaka candidate pre-miRNAs position close to each other, forming many miRNA clusters, some of which are also conserved across other vertebrate animals. Secondly, during miRNA maturation, there is an arm selection preference of mature miRNAs within precursors. We observed the differences on arm selection preference between our candidate pre-miRNAs and their orthologous ones. We classified these differences into three categories based on the distribution of NGS reads. Finally, we also investigated the relationship between conservation status and expression level of miRNA genes. We concluded that the evolutionally conserved miRNAs were usually the most abundant ones. Conclusions Medaka is a widely used model animal and usually involved in many biomedical studies, including the ones on development biology. Identifying and characterizing medaka miRNA genes would benefit the studies using medaka as a model organism

Identification of ankle sprain motion from common sporting activities by dorsal foot kinematics data

This study presented a method to identify ankle sprain motion from common sporting activities by dorsal foot kinematics data. Six male subjects performed 300 simulated supination sprain trials and 300 non-sprain trials in a laboratory. Eight motion sensors were attached to the right dorsal foot to collect three-dimensional linear acceleration and angular velocity kinematics data, which were used to train up a support vector machine (SVM) model for the identification purpose. Results suggested that the best identification method required only one motion sensor located at the medial calcaneus, and the method was verified on another group of six subjects performing 300 simulated supination sprain trials and 300 non-sprain trials. The accuracy of this method was 91.3%, and the method could help developing a mobile motion sensor system for ankle sprain detection

Entanglement and quantum phase transition in the asymmetric Hubbard chain: density-matrix renormalization group calculations

We study the ground state quantum phase transition by means of entanglement in the one-dimensional asymmetric Hubbard model with open boundary condition. The local entanglement between the middle two sites and the rest of the system, and the block entanglement between the left and right portions of the system, are calculated using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. We find that the entanglement shows interesting scaling and singular behavior around the phase transition line.Comment: 9 pages, 17 figures. One figure is remove

Trypsin-induced proteome alteration during cell subculture in mammalian cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is essential to subculture the cells once cultured cells reach confluence. For this, trypsin is frequently applied to dissociate adhesive cells from the substratum. However, due to the proteolytic activity of trypsin, cell surface proteins are often cleaved, which leads to dysregulation of the cell functions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study, a triplicate 2D-DIGE strategy has been performed to monitor trypsin-induced proteome alterations. The differentially expressed spots were identified by MALDI-TOF MS and validated by immunoblotting.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>36 proteins are found to be differentially expressed in cells treated with trypsin, and proteins that are known to regulate cell metabolism, growth regulation, mitochondrial electron transportation and cell adhesion are down-regulated and proteins that regulate cell apoptosis are up-regulated after trypsin treatment. Further study shows that bcl-2 is down-regulated, p53 and p21 are both up-regulated after trypsinization.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In summary, this is the first report that uses the proteomic approach to thoroughly study trypsin-induced cell physiological changes and provides researchers in carrying out their experimental design.</p

Seroprevalence of enterovirus 71 and no evidence of crossprotection of enterovirus 71 antibody against the other enteroviruses in kindergarten children in Taipei city

Background/PurposeEnterovirus 71 (EV71) infection may cause severe neurological and cardiopulmonary complications, especially in preschool children. This study is to investigate the seroprevalence and seroconversion of EV71, and the crossprotection of EV71 antibody against other enteroviruses among kindergarteners.MethodsOverall 228 children in a public kindergarten were enrolled during two academic years, 2006 and 2007, in Taipei, Taiwan and we measured their EV71 neutralizing antibody. When the participants had herpangina; hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD); febrile illness or respiratory symptoms, throat swabs were sampled and processed for viral culture and enterovirus real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Questionnaires, completed by the participants’ guardians, surveyed the history of allergy and annual incidence of symptoms related to enterovirus infection.ResultsSeropositive rates of EV71 were 20% (32/163) in 2006 and 6% (4/65) in 2007. The rate of EV71 seropositivity increased with age (p < 0.01) in 2006 but it did not differ between genders (p = 0.14). No seroconversion was observed from 2006 to 2007. Herpangina occurred in 64% of children with EV71 seropositivity and 48% of those without EV71 antibodies (p = 0.12). Non-71 enterovirus infection, confirmed by viral study, occurred in 53% (19/36) of the EV71-seropositive children and in 53% (102/192) of EV71-seronegative children (p = 0.89). No participants had EV71 infection during the study period.ConclusionEV71 did not frequently circulate in Taipei City from September 2006 to June 2008. Presence of EV71 neutralizing antibody was not associated with lower incidence of enterovirus infection caused by non-71 serotypes