Expression of human clotting factor Ⅸ mediated by recom- binant lentiviral vector in cultured cells and hemophilia B mice

To explore the expression of human clotting factor Ⅸ (hFⅨ) cDNA in vitro and the feasibility of gene therapy for hemophilia B mice mediated by recombinant lentiviral vector, a recombinant hFⅨ lentiviral vector driven by ubiquitin-C promoter, FUXW, and by ABP liver specific promoter, FAXW, was constructed respectively. Recombinant lentivirus was harvested from 293T cells by calcium phosphate-mediated transient cotransfection of three plasmids (transgene vector, CMV腞8.2, VSV-G). hFⅨ expression was detected in supernatant of 293T, BHK and L-02 cells infected with FUXW virus, whereas higher expression of hFⅨ levels (630 ng/106 cells/48 h) was detected only in L-02 cells infected with FAXW virus. Serum hFⅨ antigen was detected in all hemophilia B mice treated with FAXW virus by tail vein injection, an efficiency level of hFⅨ was observed (45 ng/mL, approximately 1% of normal human levels), the expression lasted for more than 60 d. The results indicated that HIV-based lentiviral vectors offer a promising approach to the gene therapy of hemophilia B.     

Super-plasticity of Zr<Subscript>64.80</Subscript>Cu<Subscript>14.85</Subscript>Ni<Subscript>10.35</Subscript>Al<Subscript>10</Subscript> bulk metallic glass at room temperature

Generally, bulk metallic glasses （BMGs） exhibit a very limited plastic deformation under a compression load at room temperature, often less than 2% before fracturing. In this letter, through an appropriate choice of BMGs＇ composition, an amorphous rod of Zr64.80Cu14.85Ni10.35Al10 with a diameter of 2 mm was prepared by using copper mold suction casting. X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry were utilized to determine its structure and thermal stability, and the uniaxial compression test was adopted to study its plastic deformation behavior at room temperature simultaneously. The results showed that the glass transition temperature and onset temperature of the exothermic reaction of the amorphous rod were 646 and 750 K, respectively, and its micro-hardness was 594.7 Hv. During compression, when the engineering strain and engineering stress arrived at 9.05% and 1732 MPa, respectively, i.e., the true strain and true stress reached 9.42% and 1560 MPa, respectively, the amorphous rod started to yield. After yielding, with the increase of load, the strain increased and the glass rod ulti- mately were compressed into flake-like form. Although the maximum engineering strain was larger than 70%, i.e., the maximum true strain exceeded by 120%, the amorphous specimen was not fractured, indicating that it has super-plasticity at room temperature. Through the appropriate choice of composition and optimization of the technological process, flexible BMG with super-plasticity at room temperature could be produced.     

Occurrence of Neoproterozoic low-grade metagranite in the western Beihuaiyang zone,the Dabie orogen

Based on detailed field investigations and petrographic observations, we discovered Neoproterozoic-emplaced granite from the metavolcanics of the Dingyuan Formation in the western Beihuaiyang zone, the Dabie orogen. This study reports the results of zircon U-Pb dating and preliminary petrographic observations on two metagranite samples. The studied rocks experienced epidote-amphibolite facies metamorphism and strong structural deformation. Their U-Pb ages are 726 ± 6 and 758 ± 12 Ma, respectively, similar to those for the Luzhenguan complex in the eastern segment of the Beihuaiyang zone. In combination with previously determined 635 ± 5 Ma low-grade metagabbro, this study suggests the occurrence of at least two types of Neoproterozoic intrusive rocks in the Beihuaiyang zone, the northern margin of the South China Block (SCB): 726–758 Ma metagranite and 635 Ma metagabbro. These rocks occur within the metamorphosed Ordovician volcanic zone (originally named the Dingyuan Formation) and are in tectonic contact to each other, but they formed in different tectonic settings. The protolith ages for the Neoproterozoic low-grade metaigneous rocks are in good agreement not only with ages for two episodes of mid- and late-Neoproterozoic mafic and felsic magmatism in the Suizhou and Zaoyang area, Hubei Province, but also agree with protolith ages of ultrahigh-pressure metaigneous rocks in the Dabie-Sulu orogenic belt. In view of their tectonic relationships to country rocks, it appears that these Neoproterozoic low-grade rocks are exotic and they may have been detached and scraped from subducting SCB crust in the early Triassic during the initial continental subduction, and thrusted over Paleozoic metamorphosed rocks in the southern margin of the North China Block during continental collision.     

Effect of deep cryogenic treatment on the properties of 80CrMo12 5 tool steel

The effect of deep cryogenic treatment on the mechanical properties of 80CrMo12 5 tool steel was investigated. Moreover, the effects of stabilization (holding at room temperature for some periods before deep cryogenic treatment) and tempering before deep cryogenic treatment were studied. The results show that deep cryogenic treatment can eliminate the retained austenite, making a better carbide distribution and a higher carbide amount. As a result, a remarkable improvement in wear resistance of cryogenically treated specimens is observed. Moreover, the ultimate tensile strength increases, and the toughness of the sample decreases. It is also found that both stabilization and tempering before deep cryogenic treatment decrease the wear resistance, hardness, and carbides homogeneity compared to the deep cryogenically treated samples. It is concluded that deep cryogenic treatment should be performed without any delay on samples after quenching to reach the highest wear resistance and hardness.     

Analysis of fragrance composition in three cultivars of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Osmanthus fragrans</Emphasis> Albus group flower by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

With supercritical CO2 fluid extraction(SCFE), essential oil was extracted from three cultivars of Xianning osmanthus. The fresh osmanthus flower was processed with a petroleum ether digestion method to produce the extractum. The yields of essential oil and extractum were 0.19 % and 0.13 % (m/m) respectively. The essential oil and fragrance composition and content extracted were analyzed with gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The result showed that essential oil contained 36.99%(area/total area) of ionone, ionol and 13.11% of linalool; ionone and ionol contained in extractum were as high as up to 33.33%, while linalool up to 21.92%. Whether essential oil or extractum contains only about 40% fat acid and other ester matters. None of environmental estrogen (phthalic ester) was found in fragrance ingredients. The result also showed that the quality of O. fragrans Albus group fragrance in Xianning is better than that produced in Hangzhou and Anhui districts.     

Sentiment Analysis of Code-Mixed Bambara-French Social Media Text Using Deep Learning Techniques

The global growth of the Internet and the rapid expansion of social networks such as Facebook make multilingual sentiment analysis of social media content very necessary. This paper performs the first sentiment analysis on code-mixed Bambara-French Facebook comments. We develop four Long Short-term Memory (LSTM)-based models and two Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based models, and use these six models, Naïve Bayes, and Support Vector Machines (SVM) to conduct experiments on a constituted dataset. Social media text written in Bambara is scarce. To mitigate this weakness, this paper uses dictionaries of character and word indexes to produce character and word embedding in place of pre-trained word vectors. We investigate the effect of comment length on the models and perform a comparison among them. The best performing model is a one-layer CNN deep learning model with an accuracy of 83.23 %.     

Application of artificial neural networks in global climate change and ecological research: An overview

Fields that employ artificial neural networks (ANNs) have developed and expanded continuously in recent years with the ongoing development of computer technology and artificial intelligence. ANN has been adopted widely and put into practice by researchers in light of increasing concerns over ecological issues such as global warming, frequent El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, and atmospheric circulation anomalies. Limitations exist and there is a potential risk for misuse in that ANN model parameters require typically higher overall sensitivity, and the chosen network structure is generally more dependent upon individual experience. ANNs, however, are relatively accurate when used for short-term predictions; despite global climate change research favoring the effects of interactions as the basis of study and the preference for long-term experimental research. ANNs remain a better choice than many traditional methods when dealing with nonlinear problems, and possesses great potential for the study of global climate change and ecological issues. ANNs can resolve problems that other methods cannot. This is especially true for situations in which measurements are difficult to conduct or when only incomplete data are available. It is anticipated that ANNs will be widely adopted and then further developed for global climate change and ecological research.     

Zircon SHRIMP U-Pb ages of the “Xinghuadukou Group” in Hanjiayuanzi and Xinlin areas and the “Zhalantun Group” in Inner Mongolia, Da Hinggan Mountains

A report is presented of SHRIMP zircon U-Pb dating data of meta-igneous and meta-sedimentary rocks of the Xinghuadukou Group(Xinlin-Hanjiayuanzi area,Heilongjiang Province)and meta-volcanic rocks of the Zhalantun Group(Zhalantun district,Inner Mongolia).The SHRIMP analyses show that the meta-igneous rocks from the Xinghuadukou Group formed at 506±10―547±46 Ma,belonging to Early-Middle Precambrian,whereas the meta-sedimentary rocks yielded detrital zircons,with ages of 1.0―1.2,1.6―1.8 and 2.5―2.6 Ga,indicative of deposition age at least<1.0 Ga. Meta-basic volcanic rocks from the Zhalantun Group have a formation age of 506±3 Ma.These data suggest that both the Xinghuadukou and Zhalantun Groups formed during Cambrian and/or Neoproterozoic time,rather than Paleoproterozoic time as previously thought.Early Precambrian inherited zircons in the meta-igneous rocks and numerous Precambrian detrital zircons in the meta-sedimentary rocks imply that these rocks were formed proximal to older crust.It is inferred that the Xinghuadukou and Zhalantun Groups represent Cambrian and/or Neoproterozoic vol- cano-sedimentary sequences formed in an active continental margin setting.     

Synthesis of BiOCl photocatalyst by a low-cost,simple hydrolytic technique and its excellent photocatalytic activity

A novel photocatalyst, bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) micro-nano particles with a fine ferrite plate structure, was prepared by a low-cost, simple hydrolytic method. The as-prepared BiOCl was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis-differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS). The effects of preparation conditions such as sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) dispersant, HCl concentration, and heat treatment temperature on BiOCl performances were investigated. Moreover, its photocatalytic activity was evaluated on the degradation of methylene orange (MO) and was compared with that of TiO₂ (P25). The experimental results confirmed that BiOCl micro-nano particles prepared with SDBS, the HCl concentration of 1.5 mol/L, and the heat treatment temperature of 80℃ exhibited the best performance for the photodegradation of MO solution, and they showed good stability and better photocatalytic activity than P25 photocatalyst.     

Software Module Clustering Algorithm Using Probability Selection

Software module clustering problem is an important and challenging problem in software reverse engineering whose main goal is to obtain a good modular structure of the software system. The large complex software system can be divided into some subsystems that are easy to understand and maintain through the software module clustering. Aiming at solving the problem of slow convergence speed, the poor clustering result, and the complex algorithm, a software module clustering algorithm using probability selection is proposed. Firstly, we convert the software system into complex network diagram, and then we use the operation of merger, adjustment and optimization to get the software module clustering scheme. To evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithm, a set of experiments was performed on 5 real-world module clustering problems. The comparison of the experimental results proves the simplicity of the algorithm as well as the low time complexity and fast convergence speed. This algorithm provides a simple and effective engineering method for software module clustering problem.