Neurogenic hypothesis and psychiatric disorders

Psychiatric illness, such as affective disorders, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia, exerts exceptional personal burden on affected individuals. Although not physically noticeable, these disorders cost enormously on ones’ family and society. Currently pharma-ceutical and psychological treatments are generally accepted as effective for psychiatric disorders, while the exact mechanisms underlying the treatment efficacy, etiology and neurobiology of the disorders remain elusive. In the past decade, "neurogenic hy-pothesis" emerged as an attempt to explain the nature of psychiatric illness. The origination of the hypothesis is based on several pre-clinical and clinical observations. First, stress, which is a common risk factor of the disorders, was found to suppress neurogenesis; second, treatment for the illnesses like antidepressants and antipsychotics were shown to improve neurogenesis and behavioral deficits simultaneously; and third, the therapeutic effect of antidepressants was abolished in animal models when neuro-genesis was blocked. Increasing efforts were invested to determine whether neurogenesis is a key to the understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders, although contrasting results are also found and thus the importance of neurogenesis remains a matter of debate. The present chapter will discuss the recent findings about the involvement of neurogenesis in major depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia, and whether neurogenesis would be a potential target for development of the treatment in the future.     

Ubiquitin-like and ubiquitin-associated domain proteins: significance in proteasomal degradation

The ubiquitin–proteasome pathway of protein degradation is one of the major mechanisms that are involved in the maintenance of the proper levels of cellular proteins. The regulation of proteasomal degradation thus ensures proper cell functions. The family of proteins containing ubiquitin-like (UbL) and ubiquitin-associated (UBA) domains has been implicated in proteasomal degradation. UbL–UBA domain containing proteins associate with substrates destined for degradation as well as with subunits of the proteasome, thus regulating the proper turnover of proteins.     

Pulsed UV Laser Modification of Polyester Textile Materials:Effect on Wettability

There has recently been great interest in ablative photodecomposition(APD), notably in pulsed UV laser treatment on polymers, for modification of physical and chemical properties, such as dyeability, printability, adhesion, Iuster and many more. Very little attention was focused, however, on the property of wetting behaviour,which is one of the most fundamental properties in affecting polymer science. Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fibers drawn to two different draw ratios and under two temperatures, and three white knitted polyester fabrics made of 100% PET fibre were used to investigate their wetting behaviour due to excimer laser treatment.Experiments like water contact angle measurement, vertical drop test and moisture regain were conducted upon samples and all results give the same conclusion that laser treatment increases the hydrophobicity of all samples tested. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation reveals how the morphological modification of polymers by laser treatment is correlate     

Antiinflammatory reaction associated with murine L1210 leukemia

Summary Mice bearing L1210 leukemia did not show impaired humoral or cellular immune response to antigenic stimulation during the early stage of the tumor, and a depressed response was noted only in the terminal stage. L1210 cells were shown to suppress inflammatory reaction in vivo.Supported in part by USPHS research grant No.5-01-RR05-352-12, and by theIndependent Order of Foresters, San Bernardino District 3208. We acknowledge the valuable assistance ofJudith Johnson andJames Tan in this project. Histopathological examination byDick H. Koobs is appreciated.     

The src gene product of transformed and morphologically reverted ASV-infected mammalian cells.

Morphological revertants of avian sarcoma virus transformed vole cells contain the sarcoma gene product (pp60src) in an enzymatically active form, suggesting that the presence of pp60src protein kinase activity is infussicient to induce morphological transformation. Structural analyses of pp60src from infected vole cell clones suggest that in one of the revertant clones on alteration in pp60src may be responsible for morphological reversion while in a second clone, reversion may result from an alteration in a cell gene product with which pp60src must interact. As these morphological revertant cells are tumorigenic, different cell components are required to interact with pp60src to facilitate the two events.     

全球纳米技术研究文献计量分析

本研究采用文本挖掘技术，从在全球公开的纳米科学和技术研究文献数据库（SCI/SSCI 数据
库）中提取技术情报。在SCI/SSCI数据库中利用纳米科学和技术领域的300多个术语进行相关文献的检
索；利用摘要共现词汇的自相关图来揭示的技术核心领域；通过词汇间的互相关图来揭示因共现而发生
关系的词汇的技术核心领域；采用因子矩阵进一步量化研究机构之间、国家之间的关系强度，并对图中
揭示的合作出版网络给予确证。     

Quantum suppression of superconductivity in ultrathin nanowires

It is of fundamental importance to establish whether there is a limit to how thin a superconducting wire can be, while retaining its superconducting character--and if there is a limit, to determine what sets it. This issue may also be of practical importance in defining the limit to miniaturization of superconducting electronic circuits. At high temperatures, the resistance of linear superconductors is caused by excitations called thermally activated phase slips. Quantum tunnelling of phase slips is another possible source of resistance that is still being debated. It has been theoretically predicted that such quantum phase slips can destroy superconductivity in very narrow wires. Here we report resistance measurements on ultrathin (< or = 10 nm) nanowires produced by coating carbon nanotubes with a superconducting Mo-Ge alloy. We find that nanowires can be superconducting or insulating depending on the ratio of their normal-state resistance (R(N)) to the quantum resistance for Cooper pairs (Rq). If R(N) < Rq, quantum tunnelling of phase slips is prohibited by strong damping, and so the wires stay superconducting. In contrast, we observe an insulating state for R(N) > Rq, which we explain in terms of proliferation of quantum phase slips and a corresponding localization of Cooper pairs.     

BALANCING TORQUE OF SINGLES COTTON ROTOR YARNS

This paper reports a recent development of a yarn modification process to produce torque balanced singles spun yarns. Taking advantages of the core-sheath structure of unconventional spun yarns, we have developed a yarn modification process and applied it to singles yarns spun by rotor spinning. Torque free singles yarns have been produced from 100% cotton fibers. The spirality of resultant single jersey knit fabrics has been greatly reduced or, in some cases, completely eliminated. Properties and performance characteristics of both parent and modified yarns as well as their resultant fabrics have been evaluated including the yarn tensile properties, surface properties, handle, air permeability, burst strength, and pilling resistance of the fabrics.     

A Nonlinear Programming Approach to Metric Unidimensional Scaling

Classical unidimensional scaling provides a difficult combinatorial task. A procedure formulated as a nonlinear programming (NLP) model is proposed to solve this problem. The new method can be implemented with standard mathematical programming software. Unlike the traditional procedures that minimize either the sum of squared error (L ₂ norm) or the sum pf absolute error (L ₁ norm), the proposed method can minimize the error based on any L _p norm for 1 ≤p < ∞. Extensions of the NLP formulation to address a multidimensional scaling problem under the city-block model are also discussed.