Occurrence and significance of prist-1-ene in kerogen pyrolysates

A SERIES of acylic isoprenoid alkanes, of which pristane and phytane are typical, frequently occurs in crude oils, shales, coals, bitumens and so on. It is generally agreed that the primary source of these compounds is the phytyl side chain of chlorophyll(1,2) although the mechanisms of its incorporation into sediments and its subsequent diagenesis, are not completely understood. At present, little is known about the role of kerogen as a source, or sink, of isoprenoid moieties and we report here that the principal isoprenoid, obtained by the high temperature (600 degrees C) pyrolysis of kerogens has been identified as prist-1-ene.     

Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change.

Habitat degradation and climate change are thought to be altering the distributions and abundances of animals and plants throughout the world, but their combined impacts have not been assessed for any species assemblage. Here we evaluated changes in the distribution sizes and abundances of 46 species of butterflies that approach their northern climatic range margins in Britain-where changes in climate and habitat are opposing forces. These insects might be expected to have responded positively to climate warming over the past 30 years, yet three-quarters of them declined: negative responses to habitat loss have outweighed positive responses to climate warming. Half of the species that were mobile and habitat generalists increased their distribution sites over this period (consistent with a climate explanation), whereas the other generalists and 89% of the habitat specialists declined in distribution size (consistent with habitat limitation). Changes in population abundances closely matched changes in distributions. The dual forces of habitat modification and climate change are likely to cause specialists to decline, leaving biological communities with reduced numbers of species and dominated by mobile and widespread habitat generalists.     

基于驾驶员眼动分析的事故多发点改造方案评价方法研究

对事故多发点进行改造是减少事故的发生、增强交通安全的重要措施。其中增加标志标线等交通安全设施是常见的改造方式。由于驾驶行为是影响交通安全的重要因素,因此有必要从驾驶员角度对改造效进行评价。研究了某二级公路的事故多发点特点。在现场实验的基础上结合驾驶员眼动注视点的特征分析,分别从驾驶员注视特征、运营速度、改造前后的事故分析,综合评价事故多发点的改造效果。同时分析驾驶员负荷特征,为未来事故多发点的安全改造方案提出可行建议。     

Interaction between ERAP1 and HLA-B27 in ankylosing spondylitis implicates peptide handling in the mechanism for HLA-B27 in disease susceptibility

Ankylosing spondylitis is a common form of inflammatory arthritis predominantly affecting the spine and pelvis that occurs in approximately 5 out of 1,000 adults of European descent. Here we report the identification of three variants in the RUNX3, LTBR-TNFRSF1A and IL12B regions convincingly associated with ankylosing spondylitis (P < 5 × 10(-8) in the combined discovery and replication datasets) and a further four loci at PTGER4, TBKBP1, ANTXR2 and CARD9 that show strong association across all our datasets (P < 5 × 10(-6) overall, with support in each of the three datasets studied). We also show that polymorphisms of ERAP1, which encodes an endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase involved in peptide trimming before HLA class I presentation, only affect ankylosing spondylitis risk in HLA-B27-positive individuals. These findings provide strong evidence that HLA-B27 operates in ankylosing spondylitis through a mechanism involving aberrant processing of antigenic peptides.     

A Mal functional variant is associated with protection against invasive pneumococcal disease, bacteremia, malaria and tuberculosis

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and members of their signaling pathway are important in the initiation of the innate immune response to a wide variety of pathogens. The adaptor protein Mal (also known as TIRAP), encoded by TIRAP (MIM 606252), mediates downstream signaling of TLR2 and TLR4 (refs. 4-6). We report a case-control study of 6,106 individuals from the UK, Vietnam and several African countries with invasive pneumococcal disease, bacteremia, malaria and tuberculosis. We genotyped 33 SNPs, including rs8177374, which encodes a leucine substitution at Ser180 of Mal. We found that heterozygous carriage of this variant associated independently with all four infectious diseases in the different study populations. Combining the study groups, we found substantial support for a protective effect of S180L heterozygosity against these infectious diseases (N = 6,106; overall P = 9.6 x 10(-8)). We found that the Mal S180L variant attenuated TLR2 signal transduction.     

道路交通驾驶员差异性分类定量研究

驾驶员个体差异是影响城市道路交通运营、效率及安全的一个重要因素之一。为了实现对驾驶员差异性的影响分析,采用驾驶模拟舱研究平台对驾驶员样本进行和归类。本研究分别选取了反映驾驶员特征的静态驾驶适性和动态驾驶两类共计15个指标。采用因子分析的方法将相关指标归纳为驾驶员的5个类因子,并通过主成份分析的方法找出每类因子中的主导指标,并以此指标作为聚类分析的输入变量。结果表明聚类分析得到的三类驾驶员具有明显的各自特征。