The oyster genome reveals stress adaptation and complexity of shell formation

The Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas belongs to one of the most species-rich but genomically poorly explored phyla, the Mollusca. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of the oyster genome using short reads and a fosmid-pooling strategy, along with transcriptomes of development and stress response and the proteome of the shell. The oyster genome is highly polymorphic and rich in repetitive sequences, with some transposable elements still actively shaping variation. Transcriptome studies reveal an extensive set of genes responding to environmental stress. The expansion of genes coding for heat shock protein 70 and inhibitors of apoptosis is probably central to the oyster's adaptation to sessile life in the highly stressful intertidal zone. Our analyses also show that shell formation in molluscs is more complex than currently understood and involves extensive participation of cells and their exosomes. The oyster genome sequence fills a void in our understanding of the Lophotrochozoa. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

The Pattern of Policy Change on Disaster Management in China: A Bibliometric Analysis of Policy Documents, 1949–2016

Abstract This article presents a comprehensive review of China’s policy system for the management of natural hazard-induced disasters from 1949 to 2016 through a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 5472 policy documents on such disasters. It identifies four phases of China’s evolving disaster management system, which focused on agriculture, economic development, government and professional capacity building, and disaster governance, respectively. Characteristics of policies and contributing factors of policy change in each of the four phases are discussed in depth. This article provides a quantitative foundation for understanding the dynamic policy change of the disaster management system in China with a particular emphasis on the governance capacity and may serve as a basis for exploring the potential pathways of transformation according to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals

Exploring the Technological Collaboration Characteristics of the Global Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Industry

With the intensification of international competition, there are many international technological collaborations in the integrated circuit manufacturing (ICM) industry. The importance of improving the level of international technological collaboration is becoming more and more prominent. Therefore, it is vital for a country, a region, or an institution to understand the international technological collaboration characteristics of the ICM industry and, thus, to know how to enhance its own international technological collaboration. This paper depicts the international technological collaboration characteristics of the ICM industry based on patent analysis. Four aspects, which include collaboration patterns, collaboration networks, collaboration institutions, and collaboration impacts, are analyzed by utilizing patent association analysis and social network analysis. The findings include the following: first, in regard to international technological collaboration, the USA has the highest level, while Germany has great potential for future development; second, Asia and Europe have already formed clusters, respectively, in the cooperative network; last, but not least, research institutions, colleges, and universities should also actively participate in international collaboration. In general, this study provides an objective reference for policy making, competitiveness, and sustainability in the ICM industry. The framework presented in this paper could be applied to examine other industrial international technological collaborations

Disruptive Innovation Patterns Driven by Mega-Projects: A Sustainable Development Pattern Case of China’s High-Speed Rail

Sustainable development of mega-projects has drawn many concerns around the world. The theory of disruptive innovation in mega-projects is a typical sustainable development pattern but still lacks systematic understanding. This article takes China’s high-speed rail (CHSR) project as an example to analyze the disruptive innovation pattern of mega-projects. First, this paper systematically traces the theories of disruptive innovation and summarizes the connotations of disruptive innovation. Simultaneously, from the historical development of several typical mega-projects in China, this paper summarizes the connotations of mega-projects. Based on two connotations, this paper summarizes the theoretical basis of disruptive innovation in mega-projects. Second, this paper takes the CHSR project as a case to analyze its innovation pattern from the analysis of the development process, operation mechanism and influence in sustainability; the disruptive innovation pattern is put forward afterward. Third, the discussion is drawn from the perspectives of the characteristics, scope of application and innovation environment of the disruptive innovation of CHSR. Last, the conclusions of this article are summarized

Multilevel Analysis of International Scientific Collaboration Network in the Influenza Virus Vaccine Field: 2006–2013

Influenza virus vaccine plays an important role in preventing influenza and protecting people’s health. The international collaboration in influenza virus vaccine field is related to the sustainability of healthcare. To understand the elaborate characteristics of multiform international collaboration in the influenza virus vaccine field, this paper constructs a multilayered analytical framework (at the country, city and institution levels) of international scientific collaboration to examine the regional distribution, dynamic changes and common themes of collaboration. A total of 1878 international collaboration papers of the influenza virus vaccine field published from 2006 to 2013 were collected from the Web of Science database. Based on this dataset, the paper utilizes bibliometrics and social network analysis approaches to explore international publication trends and collaboration performance in the influenza virus vaccine field. Results show that: (1) the three kinds of collaboration networks (country, city and institution levels) all present dynamic structures, strong core-periphery characteristics, and their degree centrality distributions follows segmented Zifp-Pareto distribution; and (2) although it is known that there exist corresponding relationships among countries, cities and institutions in the geographical position, most of their associated categories, network locations and changing trends are all non-conformal. These findings suggest that multilayered analysis enables a more comprehensive understanding of international scientific collaboration in the influenza virus vaccine field. In general, detailed conclusions can help different levels of governments to draw policy implications for promoting further international collaboration research to enhance the ability on preventing the disease

Did the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake trigger a change in the conduct of research on seismic risk?

This study aims to address how the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake influenced knowledge generation and diffusion compared to the research stemming from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in the United States and the 1995 Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in Japan, for the three countries are exposed to high seismic risk. The findings show that (1) regarding research quantity, the influence of the Wenchuan Earthquake on disaster-related knowledge generation is just beginning compared with the gradual decreases in research on the other earthquakes; (2) regarding disciplinary development, the proportion of studies relating to the Wenchuan Earthquake in natural sciences and engineering technology is gradually decreasing, while the proportion of studies in medical science, social sciences and economics is increasing; (3) the quantity of earthquake-related studies is not solely related to the influence of a specific disaster but associated with the national financial support offered by the affected country. One reason why China experiences the high research output is that Chinese national finance strongly supports such research, similar to the United States and Japan. This phenomenon corresponds with the fact that the major research institutions in China are national institutions rather than universities. Finally, (4) interdisciplinary research on the Wenchuan Earthquake mainly involves interactions between natural sciences and engineering technology. Interactions between other disciplines need to be enhanced. Thus, this research argues that, although disaster knowledge generation and diffusion is imbalanced, the multidimensional nature of earthquakes has been recognized in the literature

Alterations in gut microbiota and host transcriptome of patients with coronary artery disease

Abstract Background Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a widespread heart condition caused by atherosclerosis and influences millions of people worldwide. Early detection of CAD is challenging due to the lack of specific biomarkers. The gut microbiota and host-microbiota interactions have been well documented to affect human health. However, investigation that reveals the role of gut microbes in CAD is still limited. This study aims to uncover the synergistic effects of host genes and gut microbes associated with CAD through integrative genomic analyses. Results Herein, we collected 52 fecal and 50 blood samples from CAD patients and matched controls, and performed amplicon and transcriptomic sequencing on these samples, respectively. By comparing CAD patients with health controls, we found that dysregulated gut microbes were significantly associated with CAD. By leveraging the Random Forest method, we found that combining 20 bacteria and 30 gene biomarkers could distinguish CAD patients from health controls with a high performance (AUC = 0.92). We observed that there existed prominent associations of gut microbes with several clinical indices relevant to heart functions. Integration analysis revealed that CAD-relevant gut microbe genus Fusicatenibacter was associated with expression of CAD-risk genes, such as GBP2, MLKL, and CPR65, which is in line with previous evidence (Tang et al., Nat Rev Cardiol 16:137-154, 2019; Kummen et al., J Am Coll Cardiol 71:1184-1186, 2018). In addition, the upregulation of immune-related pathways in CAD patients were identified to be primarily associated with higher abundance of genus Blautia, Eubacterium, Fusicatenibacter, and Monoglobus. Conclusions Our results highlight that dysregulated gut microbes contribute risk to CAD by interacting with host genes. These identified microbes and interacted risk genes may have high potentials as biomarkers for CAD