Functional mapping of single spines in cortical neurons in vivo

The individual functional properties and spatial arrangement of afferent synaptic inputs on dendrites have a critical role in the processing of information by neurons in the mammalian brain. Although recent work has identified visually-evoked local dendritic calcium signals in the rodent visual cortex, sensory-evoked signalling on the level of dendritic spines, corresponding to individual afferent excitatory synapses, remains unexplored. Here we used a new variant of high-resolution two-photon imaging to detect sensory-evoked calcium transients in single dendritic spines of mouse cortical neurons in vivo. Calcium signals evoked by sound stimulation required the activation of NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptors. Active spines are widely distributed on basal and apical dendrites and pure-tone stimulation at different frequencies revealed both narrowly and widely tuned spines. Notably, spines tuned for different frequencies were highly interspersed on the same dendrites: even neighbouring spines were mostly tuned to different frequencies. Thus, our results demonstrate that NMDA-receptor-dependent single-spine synaptic inputs to the same dendrite are highly heterogeneous. Furthermore, our study opens the way for in vivo mapping of functionally defined afferent sensory inputs with single-synapse resolution.     

基于Landsat数字影像的阿尔泰山乔木林空间分布

【目的】以新疆阿勒泰林场乔木林为研究对象,通过遥感与地理信息技术量化分析森林的空间分布规律,为定量评估森林的生态功能提供数据基础和支撑。【方法】运用3S技术,基于DEM数据、Landsat数据和森林资源调查数据,定量分析乔木林与地形因子的空间关系。 【结果】地形因子与乔木林的空间分布在0.01水平上显著相关。研究区乔木林90%分布在海拔≥1 500～2 400 m,其中在海拔≥1 800～2 100 m分布频率最大,达39%; 其次是≥2 100～2 400 m,为27%; 海拔≥900～1 200 m和≥2 400～2 700区域林地乔木林分布较小。78%的乔木林分布在北坡、东北坡、西北坡,其中,在北坡的比例达到45%,在东北坡、西北坡的比例为33%。在坡度上主要集中于斜坡、陡坡、急坡,占比达到85%,其中在陡坡分布频率最大,达到37%。【结论】海拔、坡向和坡度是影响乔木林空间分布的主要生态因子。阿尔泰山乔木林适宜生长在海拔≥1 500～2 400 m,坡向为北坡、东北坡、西北坡,坡度涵盖斜坡、陡坡、急坡的区域。     

福建省天然乔木林碳储量动态变化及增汇策略

【目的】根据福建省森林资源清查数据,估算天然乔木林的生物量碳库及其变化,并提出增汇策略,为天然林的固碳能力提升和科学经营管理提供依据。【方法】基于福建省2003—2018年4次森林资源清查数据,采用生物量转换因子连续函数法,结合主要林分组含碳率、根冠比,估算福建省天然乔木林碳储量变化和碳密度。【结果】福建省天然乔木林碳储量由2003年的156.11 Tg增加到2018年的248.68 Tg,年均增长率为3.15%;碳密度由2003年的47.30 Mg/hm²增加到2018年的76.24 Mg/hm²,年均增长1.93 Mg/hm²。天然乔木林碳储量以阔叶类树种(含针阔混交林)占主体,4个清查时期占比均超过70%,最高达86.47%。2003—2018年,天然乔木林幼龄林和中龄林面积占比58.78%~73.76%,碳储量占比50.72%~61.90%,面积和碳储量都以幼、中龄林为主,但占比均呈现明显下降趋势,且呈现碳储量占比明显低于面积占比的特征。天然乔木林碳密度随着林龄的增加呈现明显上升趋势,各林分的碳密度总体上以阔叶类高于针叶类。【结论】福建省天然乔木林碳储量呈较快增长趋势,碳密度不断提高,碳汇能力明显增强,随着天然林保护、生态修复的持续,现阶段以中幼龄林为主的天然乔木林已进入快速增长期,未来固碳潜力巨大。     

Escape from HER-family tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy by the kinase-inactive HER3

Oncogenic tyrosine kinases have proved to be promising targets for the development of highly effective anticancer drugs. However, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) against the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) family show only limited activity against HER2-driven breast cancers, despite effective inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and HER2 in vivo. The reasons for this are unclear. Signalling in trans is a key feature of this multimember family and the critically important phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI(3)K)/Akt pathway is driven predominantly through transphosphorylation of the kinase-inactive HER3 (refs 9, 10). Here we show that HER3 and consequently PI(3)K/Akt signalling evade inhibition by current HER-family TKIs in vitro and in tumours in vivo. This is due to a compensatory shift in the HER3 phosphorylation-dephosphorylation equilibrium, driven by increased membrane HER3 expression driving the phosphorylation reaction and by reduced HER3 phosphatase activity impeding the dephosphorylation reaction. These compensatory changes are driven by Akt-mediated negative-feedback signalling. Although HER3 is not a direct target of TKIs, HER3 substrate resistance undermines their efficacy and has thus far gone undetected. The experimental abrogation of HER3 resistance by small interfering RNA knockdown restores potent pro-apoptotic activity to otherwise cytostatic HER TKIs, re-affirming the oncogene-addicted nature of HER2-driven tumours and the therapeutic promise of this oncoprotein target. However, because HER3 signalling is buffered against an incomplete inhibition of HER2 kinase, much more potent TKIs or combination strategies are required to silence oncogenic HER2 signalling effectively. The biologic marker with which to assess the efficacy of HER TKIs should be the transphosphorylation of HER3 rather than autophosphorylation.     

Small modulation of ongoing cortical dynamics by sensory input during natural vision

During vision, it is believed that neural activity in the primary visual cortex is predominantly driven by sensory input from the environment. However, visual cortical neurons respond to repeated presentations of the same stimulus with a high degree of variability. Although this variability has been considered to be noise owing to random spontaneous activity within the cortex, recent studies show that spontaneous activity has a highly coherent spatio-temporal structure. This raises the possibility that the pattern of this spontaneous activity may shape neural responses during natural viewing conditions to a larger extent than previously thought. Here, we examine the relationship between spontaneous activity and the response of primary visual cortical neurons to dynamic natural-scene and random-noise film images in awake, freely viewing ferrets from the time of eye opening to maturity. The correspondence between evoked neural activity and the structure of the input signal was weak in young animals, but systematically improved with age. This improvement was linked to a shift in the dynamics of spontaneous activity. At all ages including the mature animal, correlations in spontaneous neural firing were only slightly modified by visual stimulation, irrespective of the sensory input. These results suggest that in both the developing and mature visual cortex, sensory evoked neural activity represents the modulation and triggering of ongoing circuit dynamics by input signals, rather than directly reflecting the structure of the input signal itself.     

Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks

Neuronal connectivity is fundamental to information processing in the brain. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms of sensory processing requires uncovering how connection patterns between neurons relate to their function. On a coarse scale, long-range projections can preferentially link cortical regions with similar responses to sensory stimuli. But on the local scale, where dendrites and axons overlap substantially, the functional specificity of connections remains unknown. Here we determine synaptic connectivity between nearby layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in vitro, the response properties of which were first characterized in mouse visual cortex in vivo. We found that connection probability was related to the similarity of visually driven neuronal activity. Neurons with the same preference for oriented stimuli connected at twice the rate of neurons with orthogonal orientation preferences. Neurons responding similarly to naturalistic stimuli formed connections at much higher rates than those with uncorrelated responses. Bidirectional synaptic connections were found more frequently between neuronal pairs with strongly correlated visual responses. Our results reveal the degree of functional specificity of local synaptic connections in the visual cortex, and point to the existence of fine-scale subnetworks dedicated to processing related sensory information.     

车床上镗孔时镗刀杆尺寸的优化

在制定车床上镗孔的工艺规程时,镗刀杆尺寸的确定十分重要。本文以镗刀杆质量最轻为优化目标,根据镗刀杆强度、刚度和工艺要求建立约束条件,得到镗刀杆优化设计的数学模型。用约束随机方向法进行优化,合理的确定了镗刀杆的尺寸。     

各向异性影响非等温凝固过程的相场法模拟

采用相场法,模拟Ni-Cu二元合金非等温凝固时各向异性系数对晶体生长行为的影响.结果表明,各向异性系数越大,二次枝晶越发达,枝晶生长速度越快.潜热的释放,致使固相区温度比液相的高,而且在二次枝晶生长速度最快的固/液界面处的温度最高.固/液界面温度的升高,使过冷度降低,晶体的生长受到抑制,生长速度出现波动.     

Retinotopic order in the absence of axon competition

The retinotectal projection has long been studied experimentally and theoretically, as a model for the formation of topographic brain maps. Neighbouring retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) project their axons to neighbouring positions in the optic tectum, thus re-establishing a continuous neural representation of visual space. Mapping along this axis requires chemorepellent signalling from tectal cells, expressing ephrin-A ligands, to retinal growth cones, expressing EphA receptors. High concentrations of ephrin A, increasing from anterior to posterior, prevent temporal axons from invading the posterior tectum. However, the force that drives nasal axons to extend past the anterior tectum and terminate in posterior regions remains to be identified. We tested whether axon-axon interactions, such as competition, are required for posterior tectum innervation. By transplanting blastomeres from a wild-type (WT) zebrafish into a lakritz (lak) mutant, which lacks all RGCs, we created chimaeras with eyes that contained single RGCs. These solitary RGCs often extended axons into the tectum, where they branched to form a terminal arbor. Here we show that the distal tips of these arbors were positioned at retinotopically appropriate positions, ruling out an essential role for competition in innervation of the ephrin-A-rich posterior tectum. However, solitary arbors were larger and more complex than under normal, crowded conditions, owing to a lack of pruning of proximal branches during refinement of the retinotectal projection. We conclude that dense innervation is not required for targeting of retinal axons within the zebrafish tectum but serves to restrict arbor size and shape.     

多模式语音端点检测

在语音信号处理系统中,基于帧能量的语音端点检测(voiceactivitydetection,VAD)往往受到语音段能量不平稳及噪声的影响,为了提高语音端点检测的性能和鲁棒性,引入视觉信息。该文提出采用基于数据驱动的线性变换生成视觉特征,在提出一个基于统计的VAD一般模型的基础上构建两个单模式的VAD系统,通过两步式的融合方法,得到了多模式的VAD系统。实验表明:同时利用音频和视觉信息的多模式VAD比基于帧能量的听觉VAD在帧错误率上有55.0%的相对下降,在断句错误率上有98.5%的相对下降。这一结果说明多模式VAD方法基本可以避免断句错误,也能够显著改善帧检测性能,是一种相当有效的方法。     

The contribution of sensory experience to the maturation of orientation selectivity in ferret visual cortex.

Sensory experience begins when neural circuits in the cerebral cortex are still immature; however, the contribution of experience to cortical maturation remains unclear. In the visual cortex, the selectivity of neurons for oriented stimuli at the time of eye opening is poor and increases dramatically after the onset of visual experience. Here we investigate whether visual experience has a significant role in the maturation of orientation selectivity and underlying cortical circuits using two forms of deprivation: dark rearing, which completely eliminates experience, and binocular lid suture, which alters the pattern of sensory driven activity. Orientation maps were present in dark-reared ferrets, but fully mature levels of tuning were never attained. In contrast, only rudimentary levels of orientation selectivity were observed in lid-sutured ferrets. Despite these differences, horizontal connections in both groups were less extensive and less clustered than normal, suggesting that long-range cortical processing is not essential for the expression of orientation selectivity, but may be needed for the full maturation of tuning. Thus, experience is beneficial or highly detrimental to cortical maturation, depending on the pattern of sensory driven activity.     

Fe-C二元合金凝固过程强制对流作用下柱状晶生长行为的数值模拟

文章在前期建立的微观元胞自动机模型的基础上,耦合动量传输模型、质量传输模型和热量传输模型,建立了考虑流体流动的宏微观多尺度二维枝晶生长数学模型CA-FVM。并采用CA-FVM模型研究了强制对流作用下Fe-0.82C二元合金凝固过程枝晶生长规律。数值模拟表明:强制对流明显地改变了枝晶生长规律,靠近强制对流入口处枝晶生长受抑制作用较明显,枝晶生长较慢,远离强制对流入口处枝晶受抑制作用较弱,枝晶生长较快。同时,随着强制对流强度的增加,枝晶生长受熔体流动的影响更加明显,加剧了枝晶的非对称生长。     

Pathway selection by growth cones of identified motoneurones in live zebra fish embryos

How is the adult pattern of connections between motoneurones and the muscles that they innervate established during vertebrate development? Populations of motoneurones are thought to follow one of two patterns of development: (1) motor axons initially follow stereotyped pathways and project to appropriate regions of the developing muscle or (2) motor axons initially project to some regions that are incorrect, the inappropriate projections being eliminated subsequently. Here we observed individually identified motoneurones in live zebra fish embryos as they formed growth cones and as their growth cones navigated towards their targets. We report that from axogenesis, each motor axon followed a stereotyped pathway and projected only to the specific region of the muscle appropriate for its adult function. In addition, the peripheral arbor established by each motoneurone was restricted to a stereotyped region of its own segment and did not overlap with the peripheral arbor of the other motoneurones in that segment. We conclude that the highly stereotyped pattern of innervation seen in the adult is due to initial selection of the appropriate pathway, rather than elimination of incorrect projections.     

乔木林丧失的时空变化及驱动力分析

【目的】乔木林是森林生态系统的主体,对调节气候、保持水土等生态功能起着决定性作用。本研究的主要目的是了解乔木林丧失时空变化趋势,并探索乔木林丧失驱动因子。【方法】以我国30省市自治区为研究对象,基于Sen+Mann-Kendall显著性检验法和标准差椭圆法(SDE),从时间和空间两个维度分析2005—2018年乔木林丧失的动态变化;借助探索性回归分析法筛选乔木林(树高>5 m)丧失的主要驱动因子,在此基础上,利用地理加权回归(GWR)模型探讨乔木林丧失驱动因子作用的时空分异格局。【结果】①2005—2018年全国乔木林丧失面积呈现上升趋势,丧失量年均增加412.451 km²;②2005—2018年乔木林丧失重心迁移路径不规则变化且丧失严重区域向南部集聚;③乔木林丧失率与人均GDP主要呈负相关关系;与城镇居民人均可支配收入正相关区域明显扩大但影响降低;与城镇化率主要表现为正相关关系且影响程度有所下降;与道路密度则主要表现为负相关关系,其对乔木林丧失的负面影响并不明显。【结论】在我国森林资源整体持续向好的背景下,乔木林的丧失存在明显的区域差异特征,东北林区及三北防护林工程实施区域的乔木丧失量较小并呈现显著减弱趋势,而东南林区,如湖南、江西、广东、广西等省区的乔木林丧失量较大且仍然呈现较显著增加的趋势。     

西宁市南北山主要乔木树种的生长量调查

对西宁市南北山主要乔木树种青海云杉、油松、青杨、白榆的年高生长量和年地径生长量进行调查,结果表明青海云杉、油松、青杨、白榆的年高生长量、年地径生长量均达到该树种的生长指标,但以青杨的长势最好,提示出这4种乔木树种均适于在西宁市南北山种植。     

IL-10修饰的树突状细胞的体外生物学效应研究

探讨lL-10修饰的树突状细胞（DC）对T细胞增殖和细胞毒性T细胞（CTL）胞毒活性的影响。采用乳酸脱氢酶法和ELISA法，分别测定细胞毒活性及T细胞凋亡。结果表明，IL-10对同种细胞刺激的增殖反应和特异性CTI．细胞毒活性有明显的抑制作用，修饰的DC诱导淋巴细胞增殖反应明显降低，而未修饰的DC诱导淋巴细胞增殖反应较强；IL-10和修饰的DC可诱导淋巴细胞凋亡．可见，稳定表达IL-10的DC，对T细胞增殖和对胞毒活性有明显的抑制作用，并可诱导T细胞凋亡。     

基于森林资源清查数据的江西省主要森林类型净生产力研究

【目的】基于江西省2011年和2016年的森林资源清查数据,分别估算不同森林类型的净生产力,为森林资源科学经营提供依据。【方法】以江西省2011年和2016年两期森林资源清查数据为样本,采用生物量回归模型法,在样木水平上计算单木生物量、累计样地水平生物量并扩大到总体水平,测算乔木层生物量的生长量和枯损量,结合乔木层生物量结果估测灌木层和草本层,并估算不同森林类型的净生产力。【结果】综合考虑森林乔木层生长与枯损、林下灌木层、草本层生物量,基于复位样木,由单木生物量模型得到样地生物量,进而计算江西省主要森林类型的净生产力,得出阔叶混交林的净生产力最高,针阔混交林次之,而针叶林和阔叶纯林的净生产力较低。2011—2016年,江西省森林平均净生产力为7.28 t/(hm²·a),阔叶混交林净生产力最高为11.26 t/(hm²·a)。【结论】在国家标准框架下的森林净生产力估算模式,可为更大范围内、统一标准下客观准确评估森林净生产力提供参考。     

Molecular identification of a danger signal that alerts the immune system to dying cells

In infections, microbial components provide signals that alert the immune system to danger and promote the generation of immunity. In the absence of such signals, there is often no immune response or tolerance may develop. This has led to the concept that the immune system responds only to antigens perceived to be associated with a dangerous situation such as infection. Danger signals are thought to act by stimulating dendritic cells to mature so that they can present foreign antigens and stimulate T lymphocytes. Dying mammalian cells have also been found to release danger signals of unknown identity. Here we show that uric acid is a principal endogenous danger signal released from injured cells. Uric acid stimulates dendritic cell maturation and, when co-injected with antigen in vivo, significantly enhances the generation of responses from CD8+ T cells. Eliminating uric acid in vivo inhibits the immune response to antigens associated with injured cells, but not to antigens presented by activated dendritic cells. Our findings provide a molecular link between cell injury and immunity and have important implications for vaccines, autoimmunity and inflammation.     

吉林东部天然次生林下光强衰减的空间分布特征

【目的】探究长白山北坡不同林型天然次生林下空间尺度及方位间的光强衰减特征。【方法】以吉林东部长白山北坡天然次生林5块0.6 hm²样地为研究对象,调查了样地内乔木生长及光强衰减状况,对林型、空间尺度及方位进行划分,采用移动窗口法分析不同空间尺度下森林群落结构对林下光强衰减的影响。【结果】吉林东部天然次生林乔木胸高断面积与林下光强衰减率相关性显著(P<0.01)。随着空间尺度增大,乔木胸高断面积与光强衰减率的相关系数逐渐增大,大部分林型在内侧窗口达到10 m×10 m时,光强衰减率与乔木胸高断面积显著正相关(P<0.01),在25 m×25 m尺度时相关系数最大,内侧窗口周围10 m内的乔木也与内侧窗口下的光强衰减率显著正相关(P<0.01)。东侧、南侧的树木对于内侧窗口下的光强衰减率影响比西侧、北侧影响更大。【结论】通过移动窗口法可以分析不同林型乔木对于林下光强衰减的影响范围,与耐阴树种相比,喜光树种乔木胸高断面积与光强衰减率在更多尺度下显著相关;在(10 m×10 m)～(40 m×40 m)的尺度范围内,多数林型乔木胸高断面积与光强衰减率显著...