Effect of amniotic fluid and fetal bovine serum on the morphogenesis of mouse duodenal villi in organ culture

Summary When duodenal explants of 15-day mouse foetuses are cultured in Trowell T8 medium during 72 h, villi do not develop. If mouse amniotic fluid (25%) is added to the same medium, short villi appear after 12 h of culture and medium size villi are seen at 48 h. Bovine amniotic fluid and fetal bovine serum promote cell growth but morphogenesis of intestinal villi is far less stimulated.Supported by grand MA-6069 from the Medical Research Council of Canada.     

A novel high-efficiency crystal/polymer composite material for nonlinear optics

FOR practical applications in optoelectronic devices, nonlinear optical materials should ideally combine appropriate optical properties (that is, a nonlinear response to an electric field, characterized by second-harmonic generation) with the mechanical properties, such as strength and rigidity, required for ease of processibility. As reported here, we have developed a new class of material that combines these attributes, by growing aligned crystals of an optically nonlinear organic compound in a transparent polymer matrix. The host conveys desirable mechanical characteristics to the otherwise fragile organic crystals. The composites are transparent and non-scattering, with a refractive index that can be varied by modification of the polymer host. Given, in addition, the high chemical stability of these materials, we believe that they will have an important part to play in the development of optoelectronic devices.     

A Kind of Systems Methodology——The SPIPRO Principle

This paper deals with the Self-Increasing-Difficulty system (SIDIS) separated from general systems, with emphasis on the relevant methodology based on the Spiral Combining Propulsion Principle (SPIPRO principle in short). The system feature and its causative factors are analysed, and the implications and mechanism of the SPIPRO principle are discussed. Finally, the application possibilities of this methodology are illustrated with some examples.     

In vitro formation of a complex between cytoskeletal proteins of the human erythrocyte.

The formation of a high-molecular weight complex between spectrin and F-actin depends on the presence of a third cytoskeletal constituent, protein 4.1. Electron microscopy shows that in this ternary complex the actin filaments are linked by bridges, which have the appearance of spectrin. The spectrin must be in the tetrameric state for such bridges to form: the dimer is evidently univalent, for it binds but forms no cross-links. G-actin also fails to form extended complexes. It is inferred that in the native cytoskeleton the spectrin is tetrameric and associated with 4.1 and probably oligomers of actin.     

Membrane protein diffusion sets the speed of rod phototransduction

Retinal rods signal the activation of a single receptor molecule by a photon. To ensure efficient photon capture, rods maintain about 109 copies of rhodopsin densely packed into membranous disks. But a high packing density of rhodopsin may impede other steps in phototransduction that take place on the disk membrane, by restricting the lateral movement of, and hence the rate of encounters between, the molecules involved. Although it has been suggested that lateral diffusion of proteins on the membrane sets the rate of onset of the photoresponse, it was later argued that the subsequent processing of the complexes was the main determinant of this rate. The effects of protein density on response shut-off have not been reported. Here we show that a roughly 50% reduction in protein crowding achieved by the hemizygous knockout of rhodopsin in transgenic mice accelerates the rising phases and recoveries of flash responses by about 1.7-fold in vivo. Thus, in rods the rates of both response onset and recovery are set by the diffusional encounter frequency between proteins on the disk membrane.     

Reduced nitrogen fixation in the glacial ocean inferred from changes in marine nitrogen and phosphorus inventories.

To explain the lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations during glacial periods, it has been suggested that the productivity of marine phytoplankton was stimulated by an increased flux of iron-bearing dust to the oceans. One component of this theory is that iron-an essential element/nutrient for nitrogen-fixing organisms-will increase the rate of marine nitrogen fixation, fuelling the growth of other marine phytoplankton and increasing CO2 uptake. Here we present data that questions this hypothesis. From a sediment core off the northwestern continental margin of Mexico, we show that denitrification and phosphorite formation-processes that occur in oxygen-deficient upwelling regions, removing respectively nitrogen and phosphorus from the ocean-declined in glacial periods, thus increasing marine inventories of nitrogen and phosphorus. But increases in phosphorus were smaller and less rapid, leading to increased N/P ratios in the oceans. Acknowledging that phytoplankton require nitrogen and phosphorus in constant proportions, the Redfield ratio, and that N/P ratios greater than the Redfield ratio are likely to suppress nitrogen fixation, we suggest therefore that marine productivity did not increase in glacial periods in response to either increased nutrient inventories or greater iron supply.     

Programming biomolecular self-assembly pathways

In nature, self-assembling and disassembling complexes of proteins and nucleic acids bound to a variety of ligands perform intricate and diverse dynamic functions. In contrast, attempts to rationally encode structure and function into synthetic amino acid and nucleic acid sequences have largely focused on engineering molecules that self-assemble into prescribed target structures, rather than on engineering transient system dynamics. To design systems that perform dynamic functions without human intervention, it is necessary to encode within the biopolymer sequences the reaction pathways by which self-assembly occurs. Nucleic acids show promise as a design medium for engineering dynamic functions, including catalytic hybridization, triggered self-assembly and molecular computation. Here, we program diverse molecular self-assembly and disassembly pathways using a 'reaction graph' abstraction to specify complementarity relationships between modular domains in a versatile DNA hairpin motif. Molecular programs are executed for a variety of dynamic functions: catalytic formation of branched junctions, autocatalytic duplex formation by a cross-catalytic circuit, nucleated dendritic growth of a binary molecular 'tree', and autonomous locomotion of a bipedal walker.     

融合双通道音节特征的藏文La格例句自动分类模型

基于藏文La格(??????)例句的自动分类在藏语自然语言处理领域的重要性,根据藏文La格的用法和添接规则,在对藏文La格例句进行分类并定义分类概念的基础上,提出一种融合双通道音节特征的藏文La格例句自动分类模型.该模型首先使用word2vec和Glove构建双通道藏文音节嵌入,分别在每路卷积中融合双通道音节特征,丰富...