Modulation of γδ T cell responses by TLR ligands

Toll-like receptors (TLR) are pattern-recognition receptors that recognize a broad variety of structurally conserved molecules derived from microbes. The recognition of TLR ligands functions as a primary sensor of the innate immune system, leading to subsequent indirect activation of the adaptive immunity as well as none-immune cells. However, TLR are also expressed by several T cell subsets, and the respective ligands can directly modulate their effector functions. The present review summarizes the recent findings of γδ T cell modulation by TLR ligands. TLR1/2/6, 3, and 5 ligands can act directly in combination with T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation to enhance cytokine/chemokine production of freshly isolated human γδ T cells. In contrast to human γδ T cells, murine and bovine γδ T cells can directly respond to TLR2 ligands with increased proliferation and cytokine production in a TCR-independent manner. Indirect stimulatory effects on IFN-γ production of human and murine γδ T cells via TLR-ligand activated dendritic cells have been described for TLR2, 3, 4, 7, and 9 ligands. In addition, TLR3 and 7 ligands indirectly increase tumor cell lysis by human γδ T cells, whereas ligation of TLR8 abolishes the suppressive activity of human tumor-infiltrating Vδ1 γδ T cells on αβ T cells and dendritic cells. Taken together, these data suggest that TLR-mediated signals received by γδ T cells enhance the initiation of adaptive immune responses during bacterial and viral infection directly or indirectly. Moreover, TLR ligands enhance cytotoxic tumor responses of γδ T cells and regulate the suppressive capacity of γδ T cells.     

Revisit the K-segment of the Southeast Indian Ridge for new evidence of hydrothermal plumes

During the first leg of a Chinese research cruise to the Southeast Indian Ridge (SEIR) in 2007, we revisited the K-segment of the SEIR and observed a water column turbidity anomaly at a CTD cast station. This station was located ~400 m from a dredge site on a plume anomaly detected in 1996 by US scientists. The characteristics of the turbidity anomaly detected in our survey are different from those observed 11 years previously, implying that either the detected anomalies have distinct and different plume sources or the robustness of the plume has changed in the intervening time. In addition, turbidity anomalies were observed at two localities on the K-segment in a deep tow-yo profile. If these two anomalies are not connected, the plume incidence calculated would be about 0.28, larger than the predicted value of 0.25 for a 65 mm/a spreading rate. This increase in plume incidence on the K-segment seems to be related to the influence of the St. Paul-Amsterdam hotspot, located about 300 km to the northwest.     

Highlights of recent advances in functional coordination polymers made in China

Coordination polymers (or metal-organic frameworks, MOFs), as one of the essences of crystal engineering and coordination chemistry, have attracted considerable atten-tion from chemists,     

A venomous arthropod in the Early Cambrian Sea

A number of recently evolved animals possess poison glands for feeding and/or defense.However,examples of such animals are rare in the fossil record.We report a fossil arthropod Isoxys curvirostratus from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of China.This species is regarded as the oldest known venomous arthropod based on the presence of venomous glands in its head region.The adult animal is 2-5 cm long and the body is covered entirely with a carapace.The presence of large stalk eyes and a pair of stout grasping appendages with a terminal spine suggest it was raptorial.Interestingly,the two pear-shaped,three-dimensionally preserved objects that are present in the head region and at the base of the grasping appendages closely resemble the venom glands of some living arthropods in size,shape,and position.These features indicate that the presence of venomous predators could date back 520 million years.Furthermore,our observations suggest that the feeding strategies and organs adapted for this purpose had already reached a high level of diversity and anatomical sophistication in the Early Cambrian ecosystems.     

Normalized transfer function for characterizing conversion efficiency and harmonic distortion of all-optical sampling

A novel method for characterizing the nonlinearity of all-optical sampling is proposed based on the normalized transfer function.Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.Furthermore,an all-optical sampling experiment is performed to verify our method.Both simulation and experiment show consistency between our method and the measurements.The method only requires normalization and polynomial fitting of the transfer curve,and enables direct expression of the nonlinearity with the coefficients of the normalized transfer function.     

统计热力学偶势超稳定性证明

对连续态的正则偶势证明其满足超稳定条件，其方法是在束缚态间嵌入一满足Ｒｕｅｌｅ判据的函数，并选择最简洁的形状因子，筛选确定最佳参数，使其既能获得非理想玻色气体的每一质点高密度基态能极限，又有最理想常数，这在统计热力学领域具有较好的应用前景。     

Mean Motions in Ptolemy’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Planetary Hypotheses</Emphasis>

In the Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy summarizes the planetary models that he discusses in great detail in the Almagest, but he changes the mean motions to account for more prolonged comparison of observations. He gives the mean motions in two different forms: first, in terms of ‘simple, unmixed’ periods and next, in terms of ‘particular, complex’ periods, which are approximations to linear combinations of the simple periods. As a consequence, all of the epoch values for the Moon and the planets are different at era Philip. This is in part a consequence of the changes in the mean motions and in part due to changes in Ptolemy’s time in the anomaly, but not the longitude or latitude, of the Moon, the mean longitude of Saturn and Jupiter, but not Mars, and the anomaly of Venus and Mercury, the former a large change, the latter a small one. The pattern of parameter changes we see suggests that the analyses that yielded the Planetary Hypotheses parameters were not the elegant trio analyses of the Almagest but some sort of serial determinations of the parameters based on sequences of independent observations.     

松嫩平原海伦农区种植业与草食动物兼营规模及效益分析

根据松嫩平原农区特点，运用经济分析的方法，对国家农业攻关和重大项目海伦试验基地基点村－胜利村的种植业怀草食动物兼营户的经济效益、规模进行评估分析。在目前生产力水平下，松嫩平原农区兼户的经济效益普遍高于单一种植业户，其生产规模：种植业２ｈｍ＾２－４ｈｍ＾２养牛４－６头 。     

Performance analysis of optimal channel estimation and multiuser detection in a randomly-spread CDMA channel

<正> This paper analyzes performance of optimal channel estimation and multiuser detection(MUD) in a block-fading code-division multiple-access (CDMA) channel on the assumptions of randomspreading and large-system limit,by using the replica method developed in statistical mechanics.The authors find that the asymptotic spectral efficiency of the linear minimum mean-squared error(LMMSE) MUD which was proposed and analyzed by Evans and Tse in 2000 is indistinguishable fromthat of the optimal MUD for small system loads.Our results imply that performance of MUD scarcelyimproves even if one spends more computational cost than that of the LMMSE MUD,i.e.,at most thecube of the number of users,on the above-described conditions.     

Performance comparison of distributed state estimation algorithms for power systems

A newly proposed distributed dynamic state estimation algorithm based on the maximum a posteriori (MAP) technique is generalised and studied for power systems. The system model involves linear time-varying load dynamics and nonlinear measurements. The main contribution of this paper is to compare the performance and feasibility of this distributed algorithm with several existing distributed state estimation algorithms in the literature. Simulations are tested on the IEEE 39-bus and 118-bus systems under various operating conditions. The results show that this distributed algorithm performs better than distributed quasi-steady state estimation algorithms which do not use the load dynamic model. The results also show that the performance of this distributed method is very close to that by the centralized state estimation method. The merits of this algorithm over the centralized method lie in its low computational complexity and low communication load. Hence, the analysis supports the efficiency and benefits of the distributed algorithm in applications to large-scale power systems.