Method for manufacturing of three-dimensional freestanding porous thin-graphite with hierarchical porosity

The present invention includes an apparatus and a method of making a three dimensional graphite structure with a controlled porosity comprising: plating a metal layer on at least one of a nickel, an iron or a cobalt foam substrate; annealing the metal and the nickel, iron or cobalt foam into a porous metal-nickel, iron or cobalt catalyst, wherein the catalyst has a smooth and a porous surface; etching the smooth surface of the annealed porous metal-nickel, iron or cobalt catalyst; growing a carbonaceous layer on the porous surface of the annealed porous metal-nickel, iron or cobalt catalyst; and completely etching the porous metal-nickel, iron or cobalt catalyst to obtain the graphite layer.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Research on Environmental Regeneration Evaluation System and Design of Industrial Heritage from the Perspective of City-Industry Integration

As China gradually enters the post-industrial era, the problem of industrial heritage has become an important issue in recent years. Taking industrial heritage as the research object, city-industry integration as the means, regeneration design as the goal, and Xi\u27an Liucunbu Petrochemical Plant as the carrier, an evaluation system for the industrial heritage of Xi\u27an Liucunbu Petrochemical Plant was established by Delphi method and analytic hierarchy process, and the regeneration design of industrial heritage was carried out according to the evaluation system. The results were as follows: (1) the positioning strategy of regeneration evaluation system of Xi\u27an Liucunbu Petrochemical Plant should be "transformation and utilization" through calculation; (2) the transformation value of tank farm, process plant area and build-up area was determined by weight value, and the corresponding design activities that had certain rationality were carried out, which reduced design positioning errors caused by subjectivity; (3) the construction of a new small-town design strategy system integrating "innovative and entrepreneurial manufacturing factory, modern logistics factory, public facility supporting area and petrochemical plant ruins park" could reasonably solve the problem of industrial heritage in the Xixian New Area of Shaanxi Province, China. Therefore, an evaluation system should be first established for the research of industrial heritage, which will guide the design practice, and the industrial heritage of this plot is further designed based on the national upper-level planning

Computational evaluation of TIS annotation for prokaryotic genomes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Accurate annotation of translation initiation sites (TISs) is essential for understanding the translation initiation mechanism. However, the reliability of TIS annotation in widely used databases such as RefSeq is uncertain due to the lack of experimental benchmarks.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Based on a homogeneity assumption that gene translation-related signals are uniformly distributed across a genome, we have established a computational method for a large-scale quantitative assessment of the reliability of TIS annotations for any prokaryotic genome. The method consists of modeling a positional weight matrix (PWM) of aligned sequences around predicted TISs in terms of a linear combination of three elementary PWMs, one for true TIS and the two others for false TISs. The three elementary PWMs are obtained using a reference set with highly reliable TIS predictions. A generalized least square estimator determines the weighting of the true TIS in the observed PWM, from which the accuracy of the prediction is derived. The validity of the method and the extent of the limitation of the assumptions are explicitly addressed by testing on experimentally verified TISs with variable accuracy of the reference sets. The method is applied to estimate the accuracy of TIS annotations that are provided on public databases such as RefSeq and ProTISA and by programs such as EasyGene, GeneMarkS, Glimmer 3 and TiCo. It is shown that RefSeq's TIS prediction is significantly less accurate than two recent predictors, Tico and ProTISA. With convincing proofs, we show two general preferential biases in the RefSeq annotation, <it>i.e</it>. over-annotating the longest open reading frame (LORF) and under-annotating ATG start codon. Finally, we have established a new TIS database, SupTISA, based on the best prediction of all the predictors; SupTISA has achieved an average accuracy of 92% over all 532 complete genomes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Large-scale computational evaluation of TIS annotation has been achieved. A new TIS database much better than RefSeq has been constructed, and it provides a valuable resource for further TIS studies.</p

Prenatal echocardiography diagnosis of a novel combination of bilateral ductus arteriosus and cardiovascular anomalies: a case report and literature review

BackgroundBilateral ductus arteriosus (BDA) is a relatively rare vascular malformation. According to the double arch theory, BDA is formed when the distal ends of the sixth pairs of primitive arches on the left and right sides have not regressed. We describe a fetus with prenatal echocardiographic findings of BDA and right aortic arch mirror-image branching (RAA-MIB) combined with congenital heart disease. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of the embryological mechanism of BDA, we review the literature on all combinations of BDA present in 40 fetuses/infants.Case summaryA 22-year-old female patient underwent fetal echocardiography at 23 weeks of gestation. Both the two-dimensional (2D) grayscale image and color Doppler flow imaging (CDFI) revealed dextro-transposition of the great arteries combined with a ventricular septal defect and RAA-MIB. The following scan revealed a rare vascular ring, which was identified as BDA extending from the confluent of the left pulmonary artery and right pulmonary artery, completely encircling the trachea to form an “O”-shaped vascular ring before finally converging into the descending aorta. A persistent left superior vena cava was also observed. We subsequently used four-dimensional (4D) color Doppler imaging with the spatiotemporal image correlation (STIC) HD live flow and STIC HD live flow silhouette mode to clearly display ventricular arterial connectivity and the direction of vessel travel. Adjusting the image quality and display angle is very important when applying STIC. The 4D images confirmed our diagnosis. After multidisciplinary counseling and discussion with her family, this female patient decided to terminate the pregnancy.ConclusionOur review of the literature summarized nine combinations classified into three types of BDA and aortic arch pathology. However, our case differs because it is a novel combination of intracardiac structural abnormalities and vascular rings in a fetus. Prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of BDA is important and requires a combination of 2D grayscale, CDFI, and STIC images to assist in scanning

Detection of neural connections with ex vivo MRI using a ferritin-encoding trans-synaptic virus

The elucidation of neural networks is essential to understanding the mechanisms of brain functions and brain disorders. Neurotropic virus-based trans-synaptic tracing tools have become an effective method for dissecting the structure and analyzing the function of neural-circuitry. However, these tracing systems rely on fluorescent signals, making it hard to visualize the panorama of the labeled networks in mammalian brain in vivo. One MRI method, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), is capable of imaging the networks of the whole brain in live animals but without information of anatomical connections through synapses. In this report, a chimeric gene coding for ferritin and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) was integrated into Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a neurotropic virus that is able to spread anterogradely in synaptically connected networks. After the animal was injected with the recombinant VSV (rVSV), rVSV-Ferritin-EGFP, into the somatosensory cortex (SC) for four days, the labeled neural-network was visualized in the postmortem whole brain with a T2-weighted MRI sequence. The modified virus transmitted from SC to synaptically connected downstream regions. The results demonstrate that rVSV-Ferritin-EGFP could be used as a bimodal imaging vector for detecting synaptically connected neural-network with both ex vivo MRI and fluorescent imaging. The strategy in the current study has the potential to longitudinally monitor the global structure of a given neural-network in living animals

The Mitochondrial Genome of Baylisascaris procyonis

BACKGROUND: Baylisascaris procyonis (Nematoda: Ascaridida), an intestinal nematode of raccoons, is emerging as an important helminthic zoonosis due to serious or fatal larval migrans in animals and humans. Despite its significant veterinary and public health impact, the epidemiology, molecular ecology and population genetics of this parasite remain largely unexplored. Mitochondrial (mt) genomes can provide a foundation for investigations in these areas and assist in the diagnosis and control of B. procyonis. In this study, the first complete mt genome sequence of B. procyonis was determined using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based primer-walking strategy. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The circular mt genome (14781 bp) of B. procyonis contained 12 protein-coding, 22 transfer RNA and 2 ribosomal RNA genes congruent with other chromadorean nematodes. Interestingly, the B. procyonis mtDNA featured an extremely long AT-rich region (1375 bp) and a high number of intergenic spacers (17), making it unique compared with other secernentean nematodes characterized to date. Additionally, the entire genome displayed notable levels of AT skew and GC skew. Based on pairwise comparisons and sliding window analysis of mt genes among the available 11 Ascaridida mtDNAs, new primer pairs were designed to amplify specific short fragments of the genes cytb (548 bp fragment) and rrnL (200 bp fragment) in the B. procyonis mtDNA, and tested as possible alternatives to existing mt molecular beacons for Ascaridida. Finally, phylogenetic analysis of mtDNAs provided novel estimates of the interrelationships of Baylisasaris and Ascaridida. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The complete mt genome sequence of B. procyonis sequenced here should contribute to molecular diagnostic methods, epidemiological investigations and ecological studies of B. procyonis and other related ascaridoids. The information will be important in refining the phylogenetic relationships within the order Ascaridida and enriching the resource of markers for systematic, population genetic and evolutionary biological studies of parasitic nematodes of socio-economic importance