Metagenomic study of the human skin microbiome associated with acne

The human microbiota contributes to our normal postnatal development and plays a significant role in defining our physiology. To understand the role of microbiota in human health and disease, we study the skin microbiome in pilosebaceous units (hair follicles) and its association with acne.

Acne is one of the most common skin diseases. Although its etiology still needs to be defined, a bacterial factor has been suggested in the development of the disease. In fact, antibiotic therapy targeting _Propionibacterium acnes_ has been a mainstay treatment for more than 30 years.

Our preliminary study shows that the microcomedone, a specialized skin compartment where acne arises, has a tractable microbiome, with a single dominant species, _P. acnes_. This system offers a unique advantage allowing in-depth analysis of a human microbiome at the subspecies level by sequencing. Our preliminary study suggests that the microbiome associated with acne offers promise for understanding the correlation between the composition of the microbiome and human health and disease.

The goal of the project is to determine whether the microbiota in the pilosebaceous units contributes to acne. We plan to investigate the microbiome associated with acne in three directions. First, we plan to investigate the strain diversity of _P. acnes_ in a disease cohort and a normal cohort and examine whether certain strains of _P. acnes_ are correlated with the disease. Second, we plan to investigate the non- _P. acnes_ microbes in microcomedones and disease lesions and examine whether they correlate with acne pathogenesis. Third, we will examine the interactions between the microbes and the host by transcriptional profiling of both the microbiota and the host.

During the first year of this project, two main questions were asked. 1. Are certain strains of _P. acnes_ associated with acne, but rarely found in normal individuals? 2. If specific strains are associated with acne, what are the differences in their genetic composition compared to other _P. acnes_ strains that are not associated with acne? We collected microcomedone samples from more than 100 subjects, including acne patients and normal individuals. Genomic DNA was extracted from each sample, and 16S rDNA was amplified using universal primers (8F and 1510R), cloned and sequenced using Sanger method. Approximately 384 near full length 16S rDNA sequences were obtained for each sample. Some of the microcomedone samples were also cultured under anaerobic condition to isolate different P. acnes strains. Sixty-eight isolates were selected for whole genome shotgun sequencing using Solexa/Illumina platform. By the end of the first year of the project, we completed the sequencing of more than 40,000 16S rDNA clones and 68 genomes of _P. acnes_ isolates.
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Determinants of Polarized Sales Distribution in E-market: C2C Mobile Phone Market Scenario of China

The factors influencing huge divisions of wealth in society are widely studied by researchers. However, with the rapid development of the Internet, whether polarization or equalization of market shares exists in e-market among sellers springing up online, and how e-commerce affects its formation is still unknown to us. With a seller sample retrieved from Taobao, our study examines the polarization phenomenon and explores the determinants of its formation in the context of online markets. The descriptive analysis suggests a polarized phenomenon exists in e-commerce. Then this study applies quantile regression approach to investigate the factors that influence the formation of polarization in C2C mobile phone market. The results indicate that, a polarized sales distribution is existed; reputation and negative ratio play more important roles, while the number of items has a lower influence gradually. The empirical results can help us find the reason of polarization in C2C e-market

A study of the problems associated with Dalangdian reservoir, China

There are over 2,300 lakes over 1 km2 in China (total area 80 000 km2). In addition there are approximately 87 000 reservoirs with a storage capacity of 413 billion m3. These form the main supply of drinking water as well as water for industrial and agricultural production and aquaculture. Because of a lack of understanding of the frailty of lake ecosystems and poor environmental awareness, human activities have greatly affected freshwater systems. This article focuses on the problems of one water supply reservoir, Dalangdian Reservoir, and considers options for improving its management. Dalangdian Reservoir is described and occurrence of algal genera given. The authors conclude with remarks on the future of the Dalangdian Reservoir

Sizing Up Transport Poverty Alleviation: A Structural Equation Modeling Empirical Analysis

The aim of this paper was to systematically obtain the poverty reduction effects and diversified poverty alleviation paths of road infrastructure, to assist in the planning of transport poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in the concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken areas. The measurement methods for impact effects and paths of transport poverty alleviation have been scientifically proposed based on methods of transportation economics and transportation geography. Firstly, an overview of the interactive mechanism and processes by which road infrastructure investment influences poverty reduction has been offered, and the characteristics of poverty space and spatial coupling result of road infrastructure have been systematically obtained. The results show that about 70% of the district counties’ road infrastructure and poverty rate are in a state of spatial coupling imbalance; the coordinated synchronous type is mainly distributed along the road network. Secondly, the structural equation model system has been formulated with variables that reflect transportation input in adjacent geographical units to consider spatial spillover effects. The results show that the direct poverty reduction effect of road infrastructure (0.105) is much lower than the indirect poverty reduction effect (0.830). Thirdly, empirical analysis at regional level of the concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China has been conducted. As a result, while addressing the limitations of previous studies, the poverty alleviation path that has been proposed also aims to catalyze actions to reduce the transport-related exclusion in poverty-stricken areas caused by the lack of access to basic facilities

No-reference analysis of decoded MPEG images for PSNR estimation and post-processing

We propose no-reference analysis and processing of DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) coded images based on estimation of selected MPEG parameters from the decoded video. The goal is to assess MPEG video quality and perform post-processing without access to neither the original stream nor the code stream. Solutions are presented for MPEG-2 video. A method to estimate the quantization parameters of DCT coded images and MPEG I-frames at the macro-block level is presented. The results of this analysis is used for deblocking and deringing artifact reduction and no-reference PSNR estimation without code stream access. An adaptive deringing method using texture classification is presented. On the test set, the quantization parameters in MPEG-2 I-frames are estimated with an overall accuracy of 99.9% and the PSNR is estimated with an overall average error of 0.3dB. The deringing and deblocking algorithms yield improvements of 0.3dB on the MPEG-2 decoded test sequences