Shock metamorphism in meteorites

Shock metamorphism resulting from hypervelocity collisions between planetary bodies, is a fundamental processes in the solar system. The term "shock metamorphism" is used to describe all changes in rocks and minerals resulting from the passage of shock waves. Most meteorites have experienced collisions and have a record of shock metamorphism, which includes brecciation, deformation, phase transformation, local melting and crystallization. The key to reading this record is to use the shock features to estimate the pressure and duration of shock event. In this paper, the history of the study of shock metamorphism is reviewed; basic knowledge of shock physics is discussed; recent 10 years! studies of shock-induced melt veins are summarized; and finally a short note to the shock metamorphism in general is given

Geochemistry of the Martian Meteorite GRV 90027

GRV 90027 is a Martian lherzolitic shergottites (L-S) containing poikilitic, non-poikilitic, and melted pocket components. GRV 99027 is mainly composed of olive (55 vol %) and pyroxene (37.5 vol %), with minor maskelynite (6 vol %) and chromite (1.5 vol %), and trace white lockite and troilite, ect. In this paper, the mineralogy and petrology of GRV 99027 are reported; in addition, the geochemical characteristics of the REEs and H isotopes in the GRV 99027 are also further investigated. The ∑REE in GRV 99027 is relatively low; HREEs are enriched in olivine and pyroxene grains; LREEs are enriched in plagioclase with a high positive Eu anomaly. High ∑REE value is found in rare mineral whitlockite (less than 0.2 vol %), LREE ≈ HREE, and whitlockite has a negative Eu anomaly. The REE distribution patterns of the whole rock of GRV 99027 is similar to but different from that of other L-S Martian meteorites, indicating that they came from different location of Mars. GRV 99027 has a high δD value. Different water-bearing minerals give different contribution for δD value. The δD of phosphates generally does not correlate with water content, and δD has a weak negative correlation with water content. GRV 99027 can be classified as an L-S Martian meteorite based on mineralogical assemblage patterns, REE distribution patterns, and hydrogen isotope. The isotope data of Sr, Nd, Pb, Os and REE from other L-S Martian meteorites were collected to discuss the formation history of the GRV 99027. Similar to other L-S Martian meteorites, GRV 99027 originated from part of Mars mantle; during one strong impact event about 4M years ago, the meteorites were ejected from deep mantle into space, and traveled for a different duration in space (indicated by different cosmic exposure time), and captured by the Earth later in different time, ultmiately falling on the Antarctica as L-S Martian meteor ites

Origin and evolution of a placental-specific microRNA family in the human genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short regulatory RNAs encoded in the genome of DNA viruses, some single cell organisms, plants and animals. With the rapid development of technology, more and more miRNAs are being discovered. However, the origin and evolution of most miRNAs remain obscure. Here we report the origin and evolution dynamics of a human miRNA family.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have shown that all members of the miR-1302 family are derived from MER53 elements. Although the conservation scores of the MER53-derived pre-miRNA sequences are low, we have identified 36 potential paralogs of MER53-derived miR-1302 genes in the human genome and 58 potential orthologs of the human miR-1302 family in placental mammals. We suggest that in placental species, this miRNA family has evolved following the birth-and-death model of evolution. Three possible mechanisms that can mediate miRNA duplication in evolutionary history have been proposed: the transposition of the MER53 element, segmental duplications and Alu-mediated recombination. Finally, we have found that the target genes of miR-1302 are over-represented in transportation, localization, and system development processes and in the positive regulation of cellular processes. Many of them are predicted to function in binding and transcription regulation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The members of miR-1302 family that are derived from MER53 elements are placental-specific miRNAs. They emerged at the early stage of the recent 180 million years since eutherian mammals diverged from marsupials. Under the birth-and-death model, the miR-1302 genes have experienced a complex expansion with some members evolving by segmental duplications and some by Alu-mediated recombination events.</p

Blockchain-Based Water-Energy Transactive Management with Spatial-Temporal Uncertainties

Water resources are vital to the energy conversion process but few efforts have been devoted to the joint optimization problem which is fundamentally critical to the water-energy nexus for small-scale or remote energy systems (e.g., energy hubs). Traditional water and energy trading mechanisms depend on centralized authorities and cannot preserve security and privacy effectively. Also, their transaction process cannot be verified and is subject to easy tampering and frequent exposures to cyberattacks, forgery, and network failures. Toward that end, water-energy hubs (WEHs) offers a promising way to analyse water-energy nexus for greater resource utilization efficiency. We propose a two-stage blockchain-based transactive management method for multiple, interconnected WEHs. Our method considers peer-topeer (P2P) trading and demand response, and leverages blockchain to create a secure trading environment. It features auditing and resource transaction record management via system aggregators enabled by a consortium blockchain, and entails spatial-temporal distributionally robust optimization (DRO) for renewable generation and load uncertainties. A spatial-temporal ambiguity set is incorporated in DRO to characterize the spatial-temporal dependencies of the uncertainties in distributed renewable generation and load demand. We conduct a simulation-based evaluation that includes robust optimization and the moment-based DRO as benchmarks. The results reveal that our method is consistently more effective than both benchmarks. Key findings include i) our method reduces conservativeness with lower WEH trading and operation costs, and achieves important performance improvements by up to 6.1%; and ii) our method is efficient and requires 18.7% less computational time than the moment-based DRO. Overall, this study contributes to the extant literature by proposing a novel two-stage blockchain-based WEH transaction method, developing a realistic spatialtemporal ambiguity set to effectively hedge against the uncertainties for distributed renewable generation and load demand, and producing empirical evidence suggesting its greater effectiveness and values than several prevalent methods.</p

Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes and their Polymer Nanocomposites: A Review

Thermally conductive polymer composites offer new possibilities for replacing metal parts in several applications, including power electronics, electric motors and generators, heat exchangers, etc., thanks to the polymer advantages such as light weight, corrosion resistance and ease of processing. Current interest to improve the thermal conductivity of polymers is focused on the selective addition of nanofillers with high thermal conductivity. Unusually high thermal conductivity makes carbon nanotube (CNT) the best promising candidate material for thermally conductive composites. However, the thermal conductivities of polymer/CNT nanocomposites are relatively low compared with expectations from the intrinsic thermal conductivity of CNTs. The challenge primarily comes from the large interfacial thermal resistance between the CNT and the surrounding polymer matrix, which hinders the transfer of phonon dominating heat conduction in polymer and CNT. This article reviews the status of worldwide research in the thermal conductivity of CNTs and their polymer nanocomposites. The dependence of thermal conductivity of nanotubes on the atomic structure, the tube size, the morphology, the defect and the purification is reviewed. The roles of particle/polymer and particle/particle interfaces on the thermal conductivity of polymer/CNT nanocomposites are discussed in detail, as well as the relationship between the thermal conductivity and the micro- and nano-structure of the composite

MicroRNA Genes Derived from Repetitive Elements and Expanded by Segmental Duplication Events in Mammalian Genomes

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by targeting mRNAs for translation repression or mRNA degradation. Many miRNAs are being discovered and studied, but in most cases their origin, evolution and function remain unclear. Here, we characterized miRNAs derived from repetitive elements and miRNA families expanded by segmental duplication events in the human, rhesus and mouse genomes. We applied a comparative genomics approach combined with identifying miRNA paralogs in segmental duplication pair data in a genome-wide study to identify new homologs of human miRNAs in the rhesus and mouse genomes. Interestingly, using segmental duplication pair data, we provided credible computational evidence that two miRNA genes are located in the pseudoautosomal region of the human Y chromosome. We characterized all the miRNAs whether they were derived from repetitive elements or not and identified significant differences between the repeat-related miRNAs (RrmiRs) and non-repeat-derived miRNAs in (1) their location in protein-coding and intergenic regions in genomes, (2) the minimum free energy of their hairpin structures, and (3) their conservation in vertebrate genomes. We found some lineage-specific RrmiR families and three lineage-specific expansion families, and provided evidence indicating that some RrmiR families formed and expanded during evolutionary segmental duplication events. We also provided computational and experimental evidence for the functions of the conservative RrmiR families in the three species. Together, our results indicate that repetitive elements contribute to the origin of miRNAs, and large segmental duplication events could prompt the expansion of some miRNA families, including RrmiR families. Our study is a valuable contribution to the knowledge of evolution and function of non-coding region in genome