Linking, leveraging and learning: sectoral systems of innovation and the development of China’s commercial aerospace industry

Developing countries often have ambitions to become major players in the commercial aerospace industry, but it remains effectively a duopoly dominated by Boeing of the US and Europe’s Airbus. China is no exception and the projects designed to bring this about have taken a number of forms. Adopting the sectoral system of innovation (SSI) as an analytical framework, this paper explores recent changes in the industry. Using China’s ARJ21 regional jet programme as a case study, it examines how these changes provide opportunities for latecomer nations to catch-up technologically. It is argued that the new institutional context and the presence of new actors within the SSI, represent an opportunity for latecomer nations like China to acquire the capability to design, develop and manufacture commercial jet airliners, through linking with Western suppliers. However the analysis reveals that as a latecomer nation, China may prove to be a special case, with the opportunities for catch-up by other latecomers much more limited

Distributed load-side frequency regulation for power systems

This paper studies frequency control of power systems by coordinating generation-side control and load-side control with nonlinear network-preserving models. A distributed consensus-based controller is designed for each bus in the transmission network. The total power imbalance of the system is discovered periodically by a distributed consensus mechanism, and then compensated by both generators and controllable loads accordingly. It is shown in simulation studies that the proposed method can achieve frequency regulation more effectively than the traditional automatic generation control (AGC) and reduce the needed system spinning reserve significantly. The impact of renewables on the system frequency under the designed control method is also discussed systematically in this paper.postprin

Intelectin contributes to allergen-induced IL-25, IL-33, and TSLP expression and type 2 response in asthma and atopic dermatitis.

The epithelial and epidermal innate cytokines IL-25, IL-33, and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) have pivotal roles in the initiation of allergic inflammation in asthma and atopic dermatitis (AD). However, the mechanism by which the expression of these innate cytokines is regulated remains unclear. Intelectin (ITLN) is expressed in airway epithelial cells and promotes allergic airway inflammation. We hypothesized that ITLN is required for allergen-induced IL-25, IL-33, and TSLP expression. In two asthma models, Itln knockdown reduced allergen-induced increases in Il-25, Il-33, and Tslp and development of type 2 response, eosinophilic inflammation, mucus overproduction, and airway hyperresponsiveness. Itln knockdown also inhibited house dust mite (HDM)-induced early upregulation of Il-25, Il-33, and Tslp in a model solely inducing airway sensitization. Using human airway epithelial cells, we demonstrated that HDM-induced increases in ITLN led to phosphorylation of epidermal growth factor receptor and extracellular-signal regulated kinase, which were required for induction of IL-25, IL-33, and TSLP expression. In two AD models, Itln knockdown suppressed expression of Il-33, Tslp, and Th2 cytokines and eosinophilic inflammation. In humans, ITLN1 expression was significantly increased in asthmatic airways and in lesional skin of AD. We conclude that ITLN contributes to allergen-induced Il-25, Il-33, and Tslp expression in asthma and AD

Cross Pixel Optical Flow Similarity for Self-Supervised Learning

We propose a novel method for learning convolutional neural image representations without manual supervision. We use motion cues in the form of optical flow, to supervise representations of static images. The obvious approach of training a network to predict flow from a single image can be needlessly difficult due to intrinsic ambiguities in this prediction task. We instead propose a much simpler learning goal: embed pixels such that the similarity between their embeddings matches that between their optical flow vectors. At test time, the learned deep network can be used without access to video or flow information and transferred to tasks such as image classification, detection, and segmentation. Our method, which significantly simplifies previous attempts at using motion for self-supervision, achieves state-of-the-art results in self-supervision using motion cues, competitive results for self-supervision in general, and is overall state of the art in self-supervised pretraining for semantic image segmentation, as demonstrated on standard benchmarks

RDX Induces Aberrant Expression of MicroRNAs in Mouse Brain and Liver

Background: Although microRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to play an important role in many biological and metabolic processes, their functions in animal response to environmental toxicant exposure are largely unknown. Objectives: We used hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), a common environmental contaminant, as a toxicant stressor to investigate toxicant-induced changes in miRNA expression in B6C3F1 mice and the potential mechanism of RDX-induced toxic action. Methods: B6C3F1 mice were fed diets with or without 5 mg/kg RDX for 28 days. After the feeding trials, we isolated RNAs from both brain and liver tissues and analyzed the expression profiles of 567 known mouse miRNAs using microarray and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction technologies. Results: RDX exposure induced significant changes in miRNA expression profiles. A total of 113 miRNAs, belonging to 75 families, showed significantly altered expression patterns after RDX exposure. Of the 113 miRNAs, 10 were significantly up-regulated and 3 were significantly down-regulated (p < 0.01) in both mouse brain and liver. Many miRNAs had tissue-specific responses to RDX exposure. Specifically, expression of seven miRNAs was up-regulated in the brain but down-regulated in the liver or up-regulated in the liver but down-regulated in the brain (p < 0.01). Many aberrantly expressed miRNAs were related to various cancers, toxicant-metabolizing enzymes, and neurotoxicity. We found a significant up-regulation of oncogenic miRNAs and a significant down-regulation of tumor-suppressing miRNAs, which included let-7, miR-17-92, miR-10b, miR-15, miR-16, miR-26, and miR-181. Conclusions: Environmental toxicant exposure alters the expression of a suite of miRNAs. Originally published Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 117, No. 2, Feb 200

Are multiple speed cameras more effective than a single one? Causal analysis of the safety impacts of multiple speed cameras

Most previous studies investigate the safety effects of a single speed camera, ignoring the potential impacts from adjacent speed cameras. The mutual influence between two or even more adjacent speed cameras is a relevant attribute worth taking into account when evaluating the safety impacts of speed cameras. This paper investigates the safety effects of two or more speed cameras observed within a specific radius which are defined as multiple speed cameras. A total of 464 speed cameras at treated sites and 3119 control sites are observed and related to road traffic accident data from 1999 to 2007. The effects of multiple speed cameras are evaluated using pairwise comparisons between treatment units with different doses based on the propensity score methods. The spatial effect of multiple speed cameras is investigated by testing various radii. There are two major findings in this study. First, sites with multiple speed cameras perform better in reducing the absolute number of road accidents than those with a single camera. Second, speed camera sites are found to be most effective with a radius of 200 m. For a radius of 200 m and 300 m, the reduction in the personal injury collisions by multiple speed cameras are 21.4 % and 13.2 % more than a single camera. Our results also suggest that multiple speed cameras are effective within a small radius (200 m and 300 m)

Deletion within the Src homology domain 3 of Bruton's tyrosine kinase resulting in X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA).

The gene responsible for X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) has been recently identified to code for a cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase (Bruton's agammaglobulinemia tyrosine kinase, BTK), required for normal B cell development. BTK, like many other cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases, contains Src homology domains (SH2 and SH3), and catalytic kinase domain. SH3 domains are important for the targeting of signaling molecules to specific subcellular locations. We have identified a family with XLA whose affected members have a point mutation (g--&gt;a) at the 5' splice site of intron 8, resulting in the skipping of coding exon 8 and loss of 21 amino acids forming the COOH-terminal portion of the BTK SH3 domain. The study of three generations within this kinship, using restriction fragment length polymorphism and DNA analysis, allowed identification of the mutant X chromosome responsible for XLA and the carrier status in this family. BTK mRNA was present in normal amounts in Epstein-Barr virus-induced B lymphoblastoid cell lines established from affected family members. Although the SH3 deletion did not alter BTK protein stability and kinase activity of the truncated BTK protein was normal, the affected patients nevertheless have a severe B cell defect characteristic for XLA. The mutant protein was modeled using the normal BTK SH3 domain. The deletion results in loss of two COOH-terminal beta strands containing several residues critical for the formation of the putative SH3 ligand-binding pocket. We predict that, as a result, one or more crucial SH3 binding proteins fail to interact with BTK, interrupting the cytoplasmic signal transduction process required for B cell differentiation

Comparison of musculoskeletal strength and body composition of Hong Kong Chinese rugby players, dragon boat paddlers and controls

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A guide to integrating immunohistochemistry and chemical imaging

© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Chemical imaging provides new insight into the fundamental atomic, molecular, and biochemical composition of tissue and how they are interrelated in normal physiology. Visualising and quantifying products of pathogenic reactions long before structural changes become apparent also adds a new dimension to understanding disease pathogenesis. While chemical imaging in isolation is somewhat limited by the nature of information it can provide (e.g. peptides, metals, lipids, or functional groups), integrating immunohistochemistry allows simultaneous, targeted imaging of biomolecules while also mapping tissue composition. Together, this approach can provide invaluable information on the inner workings of the cell and the molecular basis of diseases