Upper intestinal lipids regulate energy and glucose homeostasis

Upon the entry of nutrients into the small intestine, nutrient sensing mechanisms are activated to allow the body to adapt appropriately to the incoming nutrients. To date, mounting evidence points to the existence of an upper intestinal lipid-induced gut–brain neuronal axis to regulate energy homeostasis. Moreover, a recent discovery has also revealed an upper intestinal lipid-induced gut–brain–liver neuronal axis involved in the regulation of glucose homeostasis. In this mini-review, we will focus on the mechanisms underlying the activation of these respective neuronal axes by upper intestinal lipids.     

Hormonal induction of steroid sulphatase in the mouse

By comparing steroid sulphatase levels per se, and also ratios to alpha-galactosidase, in 6 sets of mice - normal females, entire and castrated males both with and without exogenous testosterone administration - we obtained support for the contention that induction of this enzyme is in part controlled by male hormones.     

A threshold stochastic volatility model

This article introduces a new model to capture simultaneously the mean and variance asymmetries in time series. Threshold non‐linearity is incorporated into the mean and variance specifications of a stochastic volatility model. Bayesian methods are adopted for parameter estimation. Forecasts of volatility and Value‐at‐Risk can also be obtained by sampling from suitable predictive distributions. Simulations demonstrate that the apparent variance asymmetry documented in the literature can be due to the neglect of mean asymmetry. Strong evidence of the mean and variance asymmetries was detected in US and Hong Kong data. Asymmetry in the variance persistence was also discovered in the Hong Kong stock market. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two tobacco DNA-binding proteins with homology to the nuclear factor CREB

The 35S promoter of the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) contains a tandem repeat of the sequence TGACG in the region -83 to -63. This 21-base pair (bp) sequence, called as-1, is involved in root expression of the 35S promoter. When inserted in a promoter of a gene expressed specifically in photosynthetic tissues, as-1 confers high level expression in roots. We have described a factor, ASF-1, that binds specifically to as-1 in vitro. There is a good correlation between ASF-1 binding affinity to as-1 related sequences in vitro and the function of these sequences in vivo. These results strongly suggest that ASF-1 is responsible for the function of as-1. Here we report the isolation of tobacco complementary DNA clones encoding two TGACG-sequence-specific binding-proteins (TGA1a and TGA1b). Sequence analysis of the cDNA clones shows that both proteins contain a basic region that shows high homology to a stretch of basic amino acids in the nuclear factors CREB, GCN4, and c-Jun to a 'leucine-zipper' region. On the basis of binding specificity we propose TGA1a to be a good candidate for ASF-1.     

Population structure, differential bias and genomic control in a large-scale, case-control association study

The main problems in drawing causal inferences from epidemiological case-control studies are confounding by unmeasured extraneous factors, selection bias and differential misclassification of exposure. In genetics the first of these, in the form of population structure, has dominated recent debate. Population structure explained part of the significant +11.2% inflation of test statistics we observed in an analysis of 6,322 nonsynonymous SNPs in 816 cases of type 1 diabetes and 877 population-based controls from Great Britain. The remainder of the inflation resulted from differential bias in genotype scoring between case and control DNA samples, which originated from two laboratories, causing false-positive associations. To avoid excluding SNPs and losing valuable information, we extended the genomic control method by applying a variable downweighting to each SNP.     

The ovicidal activity of cis-dehydromatricaria ester: time-dependance of its enhancement by UV light

Freshly laid eggs of Drosophila melanogaster were treated with the polyacetylenic compound cis-dehydromatricaria ester. The toxicity of the chemical was enhanced by treatments with long-wavelength ultraviolet light, and the maximum effect was observed when the UV irradiation was performed 4-5 h after the initial contact of the eggs with the chemical.     

Store Environment: Its Importance and Consumers' Expectations on Ca-sual - wear Chain Stores in Honk Kong

This study attempted to examine the importance of storeenvironment in affecting consumers'store choice deci-sion;the relative importance among the three environ-mental factors;and consumers'expectations on store en-vironment for the casual-wear chain stores in HongKong.Julie Baker's Three-category framework onstore environments namely ambient,design and socialfactors was adopted for investigation.The results indi-cated that the store environment was important in affect-ing consumers'selection of store for shopping.It alsorevealed that social factor was perceived relatively im-portant than ambient and design factors.Nine store ex-pectation dimensions were categorised and the resultdemonstrated that most respondents were concerned onthe social aspect in their expectation of having a satisfy-ing store environment.     

A tiling resolution DNA microarray with complete coverage of the human genome

We constructed a tiling resolution array consisting of 32,433 overlapping BAC clones covering the entire human genome. This increases our ability to identify genetic alterations and their boundaries throughout the genome in a single comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) experiment. At this tiling resolution, we identified minute DNA alterations not previously reported. These alterations include microamplifications and deletions containing oncogenes, tumor-suppressor genes and new genes that may be associated with multiple tumor types. Our findings show the need to move beyond conventional marker-based genome comparison approaches, that rely on inference of continuity between interval markers. Our submegabase resolution tiling set for array CGH (SMRT array) allows comprehensive assessment of genomic integrity and thereby the identification of new genes associated with disease.     

近48年新疆博州地区气候变化趋势的分析

采用线性回归、Molet小波和Mann-Kendall突变检测等方法,对博州地区所辖4个气象台站1961-2008年的年平均气温、降水量、日照时数和平均风速以及年潜在蒸散量和湿润指数等要素的变化趋势和变化特征进行了分析,结果表明:1)近48年博州地区年平均气温、降水量呈升高(增多)趋势,日照时数和年平均风速呈减少(小)的趋势;2)博州地区潜在蒸散量与年平均气温、日照时数和平均风速呈极显著的正相关关系,而与年降水量呈极显著的负相关关系,受其综合影响,潜在蒸散量呈减小趋势而湿润指数呈增大趋势;3)博州地区年平均气温、降水量和湿润指数分别在1972年和1971年发生了突变性的升高,年日照时数、平均风速和潜在蒸散量分别于1979年、1970年和1978年发生了极显著的突变性减小,综合气温、降水和湿润指数的突变特征,可以认为,博州地区气候在1971-1972年发生了"暖湿化"的突变;4)各气候要素和潜在蒸散量、湿润指数分别存在不同时间尺度的周期性变化。