Impact Of Urbanization On Spatial And Temporal Variation Of Rainfall In Beijing Over The Last 50 Years

Rainfall is one of the key terms involved in many hydrological processes, and it is particularly important in the field of urban hydrology. It is well known that urbanization can have potential impact on precipitation process due to the changes it causes to the ground roughness, thermal-dynamics and many other factors. In this study, the focus is set on the impact on the precipitation patterns in Beijing in term of spatial and temporal variation, from the urbanization over last 50 years in which time the fast and continuous expansion of the city at dramatic scales, the rapid growth of residents population as well as human activities especially building of ground constructions, collectively and inevitably bring changes to the local climatic characteristics of the urbanized areas. This study looks at the two periods according to the speed of urbanization, namely the slow urbanization period of 1957-1980 and the fast urbanization period of 1981-2010. Rainfall data collected from the representative rain gauges across the region is used to analyze the spatial and temporal variation over these two periods. The results show that precipitation in urban areas exhibits the characteristics of higher intensity, shorter duration, with the rainfall mainly concentrated in 60 min or so. Local short-duration rainstorms tend to occur more frequently. Compared with suburban areas, urbanization has significant effect, especially on short-duration precipitation events evidenced by remarkable difference between the coefficients of variation of urban rainfall and those of the suburbs. In addition, for the fast urbanization period, the spatially localized, highly intensive rainfall events are found to be more frequent. Therefore, urbanization of the city has caused increase of the strong convective weather and pressure of flood control drainage, which should be paid more attentions to in city planning

Individualized analysis reveals CpG sites with methylation aberrations in almost all lung adenocarcinoma tissues

Additional file 1: Table S1. Stable and reversal CpG site pairs identified in the samples measured by two platforms

A kognitív készségek rendszere és fejlődése

Additional file 7: Figure S1. The KEGG pathways separately enriched with hypermethylated (a) and hypomethylated (b) genes in at least 10% of the 539 TCGA lung adenocarcinoma samples

Genetic characteristics, antimicrobial susceptibility, and virulence genes distribution of Campylobacter isolated from local dual-purpose chickens in central China

Food-borne antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter poses a serious threat to public health. To understand the prevalence and genetic characteristics of Campylobacter in Chinese local dual-purpose (meat and eggs) chickens, the genomes of 30 Campylobacter isolates, including 13 C. jejuni and 17 C. coli from Jianghan-chickens in central China, were sequenced and tested for antibiotic susceptibility. The results showed that CC-354 and CC-828 were the dominant clonal complexes of C. jejuni and C. coli, respectively, and a phylogenetic analysis showed that three unclassified multilocus sequence types of C. coli were more closely genetically related to C. jejuni than to other C. coli in this study. Of the six antibiotics tested, the highest resistance rates were to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline (100%), followed by lincomycin (63.3%), erythromycin (30.0%), amikacin (26.7%), and cefotaxime (20.0%). The antibiotic resistance rate of C. coli was higher than that of C. jejuni. The GyrA T86I mutation and 15 acquired resistance genes were detected with whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Among those, the GyrA T86I mutation and tet(O) were most prevalent (both 96.7%), followed by the blaOXA-type gene (90.0%), ant(6)-Ia (26.7%), aac(6’)-aph(3’’) (23.3%), erm(B) (13.3%), and other genes (3.3%). The ciprofloxacin and tetracycline resistance phenotypes correlated strongly with the GyrA T86I mutation and tet(O)/tet(L), respectively, but for other antibiotics, the correlation between genes and resistance phenotypes were weak, indicating that there may be resistance mechanisms other than the resistance genes detected in this study. Virulence gene analysis showed that several genes related to adhesion, colonization, and invasion (including cadF, porA, ciaB, and jlpA) and cytolethal distending toxin (cdtABC) were only present in C. jejuni. Overall, this study extends our knowledge of the epidemiology and antibiotic resistance of Campylobacter in local Chinese dual-purpose chickens

The Reproducibility of Lists of Differentially Expressed Genes in Microarray Studies

Reproducibility is a fundamental requirement in scientific experiments and clinical contexts. Recent publications raise concerns about the reliability of microarray technology because of the apparent lack of agreement between lists of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). In this study we demonstrate that (1) such discordance may stem from ranking and selecting DEGs solely by statistical significance (P) derived from widely used simple t-tests; (2) when fold change (FC) is used as the ranking criterion, the lists become much more reproducible, especially when fewer genes are selected; and (3) the instability of short DEG lists based on P cutoffs is an expected mathematical consequence of the high variability of the t-values. We recommend the use of FC ranking plus a non-stringent P cutoff as a baseline practice in order to generate more reproducible DEG lists. The FC criterion enhances reproducibility while the P criterion balances sensitivity and specificity

The balance of reproducibility, sensitivity, and specificity of lists of differentially expressed genes in microarray studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Reproducibility is a fundamental requirement in scientific experiments. Some recent publications have claimed that microarrays are unreliable because lists of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are not reproducible in similar experiments. Meanwhile, new statistical methods for identifying DEGs continue to appear in the scientific literature. The resultant variety of existing and emerging methods exacerbates confusion and continuing debate in the microarray community on the appropriate choice of methods for identifying reliable DEG lists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using the data sets generated by the MicroArray Quality Control (MAQC) project, we investigated the impact on the reproducibility of DEG lists of a few widely used gene selection procedures. We present comprehensive results from inter-site comparisons using the same microarray platform, cross-platform comparisons using multiple microarray platforms, and comparisons between microarray results and those from TaqMan – the widely regarded "standard" gene expression platform. Our results demonstrate that (1) previously reported discordance between DEG lists could simply result from ranking and selecting DEGs solely by statistical significance (<it>P</it>) derived from widely used simple <it>t</it>-tests; (2) when fold change (FC) is used as the ranking criterion with a non-stringent <it>P</it>-value cutoff filtering, the DEG lists become much more reproducible, especially when fewer genes are selected as differentially expressed, as is the case in most microarray studies; and (3) the instability of short DEG lists solely based on <it>P</it>-value ranking is an expected mathematical consequence of the high variability of the <it>t</it>-values; the more stringent the <it>P</it>-value threshold, the less reproducible the DEG list is. These observations are also consistent with results from extensive simulation calculations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We recommend the use of FC-ranking plus a non-stringent <it>P </it>cutoff as a straightforward and baseline practice in order to generate more reproducible DEG lists. Specifically, the <it>P</it>-value cutoff should not be stringent (too small) and FC should be as large as possible. Our results provide practical guidance to choose the appropriate FC and <it>P</it>-value cutoffs when selecting a given number of DEGs. The FC criterion enhances reproducibility, whereas the <it>P </it>criterion balances sensitivity and specificity.</p

Uneven spread of cis- and trans-editing aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase domains within translational compartments of P. falciparum

Accuracy of aminoacylation is dependent on maintaining fidelity during attachment of amino acids to cognate tRNAs. Cis- and trans-editing protein factors impose quality control during protein translation, and 8 of 36 Plasmodium falciparum aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) assemblies contain canonical putative editing modules. Based on expression and localization profiles of these 8 aaRSs, we propose an asymmetric distribution between the parasite cytoplasm and its apicoplast of putative editing-domain containing aaRSs. We also show that the single copy alanyl- and threonyl-tRNA synthetases are dually targeted to parasite cytoplasm and apicoplast. This bipolar presence of two unique synthetases presents opportunity for inhibitor targeting their aminoacylation and editing activities in twin parasite compartments. We used this approach to identify specific inhibitors against the alanyl- and threonyl-tRNA synthetases. Further development of such inhibitors may lead to anti-parasitics which simultaneously block protein translation in two key parasite organelles, a strategy of wider applicability for pathogen control

Crosstalk between Spinal Astrocytes and Neurons in Nerve Injury-Induced Neuropathic Pain

Emerging research implicates the participation of spinal dorsal horn (SDH) neurons and astrocytes in nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain. However, the crosstalk between spinal astrocytes and neurons in neuropathic pain is not clear. Using a lumbar 5 (L5) spinal nerve ligation (SNL) pain model, we testified our hypothesis that SDH neurons and astrocytes reciprocally regulate each other to maintain the persistent neuropathic pain states. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was used as the astrocytic specific marker and Fos, protein of the protooncogene c-fos, was used as a marker for activated neurons. SNL induced a significant mechanical allodynia as well as activated SDH neurons indicated by the Fos expression at the early phase and activated astrocytes with the increased expression of GFAP during the late phase of pain, respectively. Intrathecal administration of c-fos antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ASO) or astroglial toxin L-α-aminoadipate (L-AA) reversed the mechanical allodynia, respectively. Immunofluorescent histochemistry revealed that intrathecal administration of c-fos ASO significantly suppressed activation of not only neurons but also astrocytes induced by SNL. Meanwhile, L-AA shortened the duration of neuronal activation by SNL. Our data offers evidence that neuronal and astrocytic activations are closely related with the maintenance of neuropathic pain through a reciprocal “crosstalk”. The current study suggests that neuronal and non-neuronal elements should be taken integrally into consideration for nociceptive transmission, and that the intervention of such interaction may offer some novel pain therapeutic strategies

Grid box-level evaluation of IMERG over Brazil at various space and time scales

This study evaluates the performance of the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) Final Run product over Brazil by means of multi-temporal and -spatial analyses. The assessment of the IMERG Final Run product is based on six statistics obtained for the period between January-December 2016 (daily, monthly, and annual basis). The analysis consisted of comparing the satellite-based estimates against a ground-based gridded rainfall product created using daily records from 4,911 rain gauges distributed throughout Brazil. Overall, the results show that the IMERG product can effectively capture the spatial patterns of rainfall across Brazil. However, the IMERG product presents a slight tendency in overestimating the ground-based rainfall at all timescales. Furthermore, the performance of the satellite product varies throughout the region. The higher errors and biases are found in the North and Central-West regions, but the low density of rain gauges in those regions can be a source of large deviations between IMERG estimates and observations. A large underestimation of the IMERG data is evident along the coastal zone of the Northeast region, probably due to the inability of the passive microwave and infrared sensors to detect warm-rain processes over land. This study shows that the IMERG product can be a good source of rainfall data to complement the ground precipitation measurements in most of Brazil, although some uncertainties are found and need to be further studied