Stimulation of B-cell progenitors by cloned murine interleukin-7

The events involved in the commitment and development of lymphoid lineage cells are poorly understood. We have used a recently described long-term culture system to establish a bioassay that can detect a novel growth factor capable of stimulating the proliferation of lymphoid progenitors. Using direct expression in mammalian cells we have isolated a complementary DNA clone encoding this novel haematopoietic growth factor, designated interleukin-7.     

使蛋白质特性和结构散发光芒的三重奖诺贝尔化学奖纵横光谱

继基因革命而来的时髦新词是蛋白质学(PRO-TEOMICS)——研究从活细胞产生的蛋白质的多样性的学说。今年的诺贝尔化学奖颁发给三位研究人员——他们研制出了用于分析蛋白质的二项关键工具。     

Neural correlates, computation and behavioural impact of decision confidence

Humans and other animals must often make decisions on the basis of imperfect evidence. Statisticians use measures such as P values to assign degrees of confidence to propositions, but little is known about how the brain computes confidence estimates about decisions. We explored this issue using behavioural analysis and neural recordings in rats in combination with computational modelling. Subjects were trained to perform an odour categorization task that allowed decision confidence to be manipulated by varying the distance of the test stimulus to the category boundary. To understand how confidence could be computed along with the choice itself, using standard models of decision-making, we defined a simple measure that quantified the quality of the evidence contributing to a particular decision. Here we show that the firing rates of many single neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex match closely to the predictions of confidence models and cannot be readily explained by alternative mechanisms, such as learning stimulus-outcome associations. Moreover, when tested using a delayed reward version of the task, we found that rats' willingness to wait for rewards increased with confidence, as predicted by the theoretical model. These results indicate that confidence estimates, previously suggested to require 'metacognition' and conscious awareness are available even in the rodent brain, can be computed with relatively simple operations, and can drive adaptive behaviour. We suggest that confidence estimation may be a fundamental and ubiquitous component of decision-making.     

带非齐次项和Sobolev-Hardy临界指数的奇异椭圆方程的多解

设2*=2(N α)(N-2 β),N≥3,是极限Sobolev指数,ΩRN是RN中的开子集.在f(x)∈Hβ-1满足合适的条件且f(x)≠0下,讨论了一个带非齐次项和Sobolev-Hardy临界指数的含权的椭圆型问题:{-div(|x|β▽u)=|x|αup*-1 εf(x),x∈Ω,u>0,x∈Ω,u=0,x∈Ω,,存在两个解u和-u在H01,,βp(Ω)中,且有u≥0,u-≥0对所有的f(x)≥0.值得注意的是,当f(x)=0时一般不成立.