Host-Virus Interactions of Infectious Laryngotracheitis Virus Infection in Cultured Cells

Infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV; Gallid herpesvirus 1) causes upper respiratory diseases in mainly chickens and exhibits 90-100% of high morbidity and up to 70% of mortality, resulting in huge economic losses in the poultry industry worldwide. To study host-ILTV interactions, the changes in genome-wide gene expressions in response to wild-type and vaccine ILTV infections in primary chicken embryo lung cells were investigated using microarray analysis. Results provide crucial insights into host cell pathogenic and immunogenic responses against wild-type and vaccine ILTV infections. Using microarray method and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) bioinformatics tool, 273 and 306 differentially expressed genes were identified responding to wild-type and vaccine ILTV infections, respectively. Further integrated analysis to compare differentially expressed genes revealed that eight host genes including coagulation factor II (thrombin) receptor-like 1 (F2RL1), bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2), inhibitor of NF-kB (IkB) kinase subunit beta (IKBKB) interacting protein (IKBIP), thymidylate synthetase (TYMS), chromosome 8 open reading frame 79 (C8orf79), coagulation factor X (F10), prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) were regulated differently between wild-type and vaccine ILTV infections in an opposite direction, suggesting that these host factors may play important roles in host immune responses against ILTV infection. In addition, the transcriptome changes of ILTV encoding genes were studied during infection time courses using quantitative PCR. In this study, infected-cells polypeptide (ICP) 4 showed the highest expression level and UL21 and UL42 showed unique expression patterns, unlike most of the other ILTV gene which exhibited continuous elevation of expression during lytic infection. Kinetic analysis of ILTV gene expression in host cells may provide new knowledge to understand ILTV pathogenesis

Pulsed Laser Deposition of Rocksalt Magnetic Binary Oxides

Here we systematically explore the use of pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) to grow three basic oxides that have rocksalt structure but different chemical stability in the ambient atmosphere: NiO (stable), MnO (metastable) and EuO (unstable). By tuning laser fluence, an epitaxial single-phase nickel oxide thin-film growth can be achieved in a wide range of temperatures from 10 to 750 {\deg}C. At the lowest growth temperature, the out-of-plane strain raises to 1.5%, which is five times bigger than that in a NiO film grown at 750 {\deg}C. MnO thin films that had long-range ordered were successfully deposited on the MgO substrates after appropriate tuning of deposition parameters. The growth of MnO phase was strongly influenced by substrate temperature and laser fluence. EuO films with satisfactory quality were deposited by PLD after oxygen availability had been minimized. Synthesis of EuO thin films at rather low growth temperature prevented thermally-driven lattice relaxation and allowed growth of strained films. Overall, PLD was a quick and reliable method to grow binary oxides with rocksalt structure in high quality that can satisfy requirements for applications and for basic research

Stock Market Liquidity And Dividend Policy In Korean Corporations

The liquidity hypothesis predicts a negative relationship between stock liquidity and dividend payout propensity, i.e., a firm will decide to pay dividends to compensate for the liquidity demand of investors. This study comprehensively examines whether the liquidity hypothesis applies to the sample of Korean firms listed in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets. The main results of this paper are as follows. First, the dividend policy in Korean firms does not support the liquidity hypothesis, contradictory to the existing empirical studies. Next, the explanatory power of the liquidity hypothesis is even weaker for the KOSDAQ market, inconsistent with international evidence. Finally, even when we focus on the firm-year observations with non-negligible dividend payments, the liquidity hypothesis does not explain the dividend policy of Korean firms either. Our findings significantly contribute to the literature by robustly confirming the very limited role of the liquidity hypothesis for Korean financial markets. 

Construction of biorthogonal wavelet vectors

AbstractThe construction of all possible biorthogonal wavelet vectors corresponding to a given biorthogonal scaling vector may not be easy as that of biorthogonal uniwavelets. In this paper, we give some theorems about the construction of biorthogonal wavelet vectors, which is followed by simple computations for constructing all parametrized biorthogonal wavelet vectors supported in [-1,1]. This approach is also suitable for the case of compactly supported orthogonal uniwavelet. Moreover, we give examples parametrizing all biorthogonal wavelet vectors corresponding to well known biorthogonal scaling vectors