原特提斯的消減極性:西昆侖128公里巖體的啟示

The Yirba (128 km) pluton is an early Paleozoic dioritic intrusion of western Kunlun orogenic belt, northwest China as an important element when reconstructing the evolution history of this belt. Due to the scarcity of field data and methodological difference in studying this pluton, however, no consensus for its age, source and tectonic setting has been adopted. In this paper, we present new geochronological and geochemical data for the Yirba pluton, aiming to better understand its age, source, and hence the early Paleozoic tectonic evolutionary history of western Kunlun. U-Pb data by single grain zircon analyses suggest that the Yirba pluton was emplaced 471 ± 5 Ma ago and contains ca. 490 Ma zircon grains inherited from source, or captured in the magma chamber. The pluton is enriched in Al 2 O 3 (15.7% ∼ 18.4%), Sr (470 ∼ 864 μg/g) and other LILEs (large ion lithosphile elements), but relatively depleted in HFSE (high field strength elements and HREE), with LREE-enriched patterns and low to medium europium anomalies (δEu = ∼ 0.7), showing typical characteristics of I-type, volcanic arc granitoids. Although its relatively high Al 2 O 3, Sr and low MgO contents make it resemble adakite, its relatively high Yb (1.92 ∼ 2.88 μg/g), Y (19.4 ∼ 34.0 μg/g) contents, low Sr/Y (24.2 ∼ 37.0) , Zr/Sm (7.3 ∼ 21) and relatively high initial Sr isotope ratios (0.7075 ∼ 0.7091) do not support a subducting slab origin. Its Nd model ages (1.06 ∼ 1.35 Ga) indicate a juvenile source, while its O isotope compositions (+5.7‰ ∼ + 7.4‰) and Sr-O isotope relationship preclude significant involvement of sialic materials. The major, trace, REE and Nd-Sr-O isotope compositions strongly suggest that the Yirba pluton was formed by partial melting of mafic lower crust in a southward growing, active continental margin environment. The existence of volcanic arc granitoids in the south margin of the North Kunlun terrane suggests that the subduction polarity of the Proto-Tethys was northward.128公里巖體是西昆侖造山帶中一個早古生代的花崗閃長巖體,長期以來一直是研究西昆侖構造演化的重要參考依據。然而由于區域地質資料的不足和研究手段的不同,對該巖體的形成年代、源區性質以及構造背景等方面還存在著不同的認識。本文試圖通過地質年代學和地球化學方面的研究,明確128公里巖體的成巖時代和構造背景,進而制約西昆侖的早古生代構造演化。單顆粒鋯石的U-Pb定年結果表明128公里巖體形成于471±5 Ma并含有可能形成于早期巖漿房或繼承自源區的490 Ma左右的鋯石。128公里巖體富Al_2O_3(15.7％～18.4％),Sr(470～864μg/g)和大離子親石元素但相對虧損 高場強元素,相對富集輕稀土且具有低到中等的負銪異常(δEu=～0.7),顯示出典型的Ⅰ型弧花崗巖特征。盡管其富集Al_2O_3、Sr、相對低的MgO含量和Y/Yb比值使其非常類似于埃達克巖,但其相對高的Yb(1.92～2.88μg/g)、Y(19.4～34.0μg/g)含量,低的Sr/Y(24.2～37.0)和Zr/Sm(7.3～21)比值以及相對高的初始Sr同位素組成(0.7075～0.7091)排除了消減板塊在石榴石穩定區發生部分熔融的可能性。低的氧同位素组成( + 5.7％～7.4％) 以及Sr-O 同位素关系表明该岩体并非形成于地慢来源的岩泉与变质围岩间的同化混染。高的稀土含量、明显的稀土分馏以及相对高的Sr 同位素组成表明12 8 公里岩体不大可能形成于受陆源物质影响较小的大洋岛弧, 而更可能形成于活动大陆边缘环境中基性地壳物质的部分熔融。北昆仑地体的南缘存在火山弧型花岗岩的事实表明, 原特提斯的消减方向应当是向北的。published_or_final_versio

Simultaneous Extraction of the Fermi constant and PMNS matrix elements in the presence of a fourth generation

Several recent studies performed on constraints of a fourth generation of quarks and leptons suffer from the ad-hoc assumption that 3 x 3 unitarity holds for the first three generations in the neutrino sector. Only under this assumption one is able to determine the Fermi constant G_F from the muon lifetime measurement with the claimed precision of G_F = 1.16637 (1) x 10^-5 GeV^-2. We study how well G_F can be extracted within the framework of four generations from leptonic and radiative mu and tau decays, as well as from K_l3 decays and leptonic decays of charged pions, and we discuss the role of lepton universality tests in this context. We emphasize that constraints on a fourth generation from quark and lepton flavour observables and from electroweak precision observables can only be obtained in a consistent way if these three sectors are considered simultaneously. In the combined fit to leptonic and radiative mu and tau decays, K_l3 decays and leptonic decays of charged pions we find a p-value of 2.6% for the fourth generation matrix element |U_{e 4}|=0 of the neutrino mixing matrix.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures with 16 subfigures, references and text added refering to earlier related work, figures and text in discussion section added, results and conclusions unchange

Use of structure-activity landscape index curves and curve integrals to evaluate the performance of multiple machine learning prediction models

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Standard approaches to address the performance of predictive models that used common statistical measurements for the entire data set provide an overview of the average performance of the models across the entire predictive space, but give little insight into applicability of the model across the prediction space. Guha and Van Drie recently proposed the use of structure-activity landscape index (SALI) curves via the SALI curve integral (SCI) as a means to map the predictive power of computational models within the predictive space. This approach evaluates model performance by assessing the accuracy of pairwise predictions, comparing compound pairs in a manner similar to that done by medicinal chemists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The SALI approach was used to evaluate the performance of continuous prediction models for MDR1-MDCK <it>in vitro </it>efflux potential. Efflux models were built with ADMET Predictor neural net, support vector machine, kernel partial least squares, and multiple linear regression engines, as well as SIMCA-P+ partial least squares, and random forest from Pipeline Pilot as implemented by AstraZeneca, using molecular descriptors from <it>SimulationsPlus </it>and AstraZeneca.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate that the choice of training sets used to build the prediction models is of great importance in the resulting model quality and that the SCI values calculated for these models were very similar to their Kendall τ values, leading to our suggestion of an approach to use this SALI/SCI paradigm to evaluate predictive model performance that will allow more informed decisions regarding model utility. The use of SALI graphs and curves provides an additional level of quality assessment for predictive models.</p

Health-related quality of life as measured with EQ-5D among populations with and without specific chronic conditions: A population-based survey in Shaanxi province, China

© 2013 Tan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Introduction: The aim of this study was to examine health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as measured by EQ-5D and to investigate the influence of chronic conditions and other risk factors on HRQoL based on a distributed sample located in Shaanxi Province, China. Methods: A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method was performed to select subjects. EQ-5D was employed to measure the HRQoL. The likelihood that individuals with selected chronic diseases would report any problem in the EQ-5D dimensions was calculated and tested relative to that of each of the two reference groups. Multivariable linear regression models were used to investigate factors associated with EQ VAS. Results: The most frequently reported problems involved pain/discomfort (8.8%) and anxiety/depression (7.6%). Nearly half of the respondents who reported problems in any of the five dimensions were chronic patients. Higher EQ VAS scores were associated with the male gender, higher level of education, employment, younger age, an urban area of residence, access to free medical service and higher levels of physical activity. Except for anemia, all the selected chronic diseases were indicative of a negative EQ VAS score. The three leading risk factors were cerebrovascular disease, cancer and mental disease. Increases in age, number of chronic conditions and frequency of physical activity were found to have a gradient effect. Conclusion: The results of the present work add to the volume of knowledge regarding population health status in this area, apart from the known health status using mortality and morbidity data. Medical, policy, social and individual attention should be given to the management of chronic diseases and improvement of HRQoL. Longitudinal studies must be performed to monitor changes in HRQoL and to permit evaluation of the outcomes of chronic disease intervention programs. © 2013 Tan et al.National Nature Science Foundation (No. 8107239

Interstellar Turbulence II: Implications and Effects

Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory of these effects. Metallicity fluctuations are summarized, and the theory of turbulent transport of passive tracers is reviewed. Modeling methods, turbulent concentration of dust grains, and the turbulent washout of radial abundance gradients are discussed. Interstellar chemistry is affected by turbulent transport of various species between environments with different physical properties and by turbulent heating in shocks, vortical dissipation regions, and local regions of enhanced ambipolar diffusion. Cosmic rays are scattered and accelerated in turbulent magnetic waves and shocks, and they generate turbulence on the scale of their gyroradii. Radio wave scintillation is an important diagnostic for small scale turbulence in the ionized medium, giving information about the power spectrum and amplitude of fluctuations. The theory of diffraction and refraction is reviewed, as are the main observations and scintillation regions.Comment: 46 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysic

A hysteretic multiscale formulation for nonlinear dynamic analysis of composite materials

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.A new multiscale finite element formulation is presented for nonlinear dynamic analysis of heterogeneous structures. The proposed multiscale approach utilizes the hysteretic finite element method to model the microstructure. Using the proposed computational scheme, the micro-basis functions, that are used to map the microdisplacement components to the coarse mesh, are only evaluated once and remain constant throughout the analysis procedure. This is accomplished by treating inelasticity at the micro-elemental level through properly defined hysteretic evolution equations. Two types of imposed boundary conditions are considered for the derivation of the multiscale basis functions, namely the linear and periodic boundary conditions. The validity of the proposed formulation as well as its computational efficiency are verified through illustrative numerical experiments

Diabetes causes marked inhibition of mitochondrial metabolism in pancreatic β-cells

Diabetes is a global health problem caused primarily by the inability of pancreatic β-cells to secrete adequate levels of insulin. The molecular mechanisms underlying the progressive failure of β-cells to respond to glucose in type-2 diabetes remain unresolved. Using a combination of transcriptomics and proteomics, we find significant dysregulation of major metabolic pathways in islets of diabetic βV59M mice, a non-obese, eulipidaemic diabetes model. Multiple genes/proteins involved in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis are upregulated, whereas those involved in oxidative phosphorylation are downregulated. In isolated islets, glucose-induced increases in NADH and ATP are impaired and both oxidative and glycolytic glucose metabolism are reduced. INS-1 β-cells cultured chronically at high glucose show similar changes in protein expression and reduced glucose-stimulated oxygen consumption: targeted metabolomics reveals impaired metabolism. These data indicate hyperglycaemia induces metabolic changes in β-cells that markedly reduce mitochondrial metabolism and ATP synthesis. We propose this underlies the progressive failure of β-cells in diabetes.Peer reviewe

An overview of the current status of CMB observations

In this paper we briefly review the current status of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations, summarising the latest results obtained from CMB experiments, both in intensity and polarization, and the constraints imposed on the cosmological parameters. We also present a summary of current and future CMB experiments, with a special focus on the quest for the CMB B-mode polarization.Comment: Latest CMB results have been included. References added. To appear in "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V", Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, 7-11 July, 200

Characterization of mercury bioremediation by transgenic bacteria expressing metallothionein and polyphosphate kinase

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The use of transgenic bacteria has been proposed as a suitable alternative for mercury remediation. Ideally, mercury would be sequestered by metal-scavenging agents inside transgenic bacteria for subsequent retrieval. So far, this approach has produced limited protection and accumulation. We report here the development of a transgenic system that effectively expresses metallothionein (<it>mt-1</it>) and polyphosphate kinase (<it>ppk</it>) genes in bacteria in order to provide high mercury resistance and accumulation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, bacterial transformation with transcriptional and translational enhanced vectors designed for the expression of metallothionein and polyphosphate kinase provided high transgene transcript levels independent of the gene being expressed. Expression of polyphosphate kinase and metallothionein in transgenic bacteria provided high resistance to mercury, up to 80 μM and 120 μM, respectively. Here we show for the first time that metallothionein can be efficiently expressed in bacteria without being fused to a carrier protein to enhance mercury bioremediation. Cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry analyzes revealed that the <it>mt-1 </it>transgenic bacteria accumulated up to 100.2 ± 17.6 μM of mercury from media containing 120 μM Hg. The extent of mercury remediation was such that the contaminated media remediated by the <it>mt-1 </it>transgenic bacteria supported the growth of untransformed bacteria. Cell aggregation, precipitation and color changes were visually observed in <it>mt-1 </it>and <it>ppk </it>transgenic bacteria when these cells were grown in high mercury concentrations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The transgenic bacterial system described in this study presents a viable technology for mercury bioremediation from liquid matrices because it provides high mercury resistance and accumulation while inhibiting elemental mercury volatilization. This is the first report that shows that metallothionein expression provides mercury resistance and accumulation in recombinant bacteria. The high accumulation of mercury in the transgenic cells could present the possibility of retrieving the accumulated mercury for further industrial applications.</p