The knockout mouse project

Mouse knockout technology provides a powerful means of elucidating gene function in vivo, and a publicly available genome-wide collection of mouse knockouts would be significantly enabling for biomedical discovery. To date, published knockouts exist for only about 10% of mouse genes. Furthermore, many of these are limited in utility because they have not been made or phenotyped in standardized ways, and many are not freely available to researchers. It is time to harness new technologies and efficiencies of production to mount a high-throughput international effort to produce and phenotype knockouts for all mouse genes, and place these resources into the public domain.     

An age-colour relationship for main-belt S-complex asteroids

Asteroid collisions in the main belt eject fragments that may eventually land on Earth as meteorites. It has therefore been a long-standing puzzle in planetary science that laboratory spectra of the most populous class of meteorite (ordinary chondrites, OC) do not match the remotely observed surface spectra of their presumed (S-complex) asteroidal parent bodies. One of the proposed solutions to this perplexing observation is that 'space weathering' modifies the exposed planetary surfaces over time through a variety of processes (such as solar and cosmic ray bombardment, micro-meteorite bombardment, and so on). Space weathering has been observed on lunar samples, in Earth-based laboratory experiments, and there is good evidence from spacecraft data that the process is active on asteroid surfaces. Here, we present a measurement of the rate of space weathering on S-complex main-belt asteroids using a relationship between the ages of asteroid families and their colours. Extrapolating this age-colour relationship to very young ages yields a good match to the colour of freshly cut OC meteorite samples, lending strong support to a genetic relationship between them and the S-complex asteroids.     

Antagonistic pathways in neurons exposed to body fluid regulate social feeding in Caenorhabditis elegans

Wild isolates of Caenorhabditis elegans can feed either alone or in groups. This natural variation in behaviour is associated with a single residue difference in NPR-1, a predicted G-protein-coupled neuropeptide receptor related to Neuropeptide Y receptors. Here we show that the NPR-1 isoform associated with solitary feeding acts in neurons exposed to the body fluid to inhibit social feeding. Furthermore, suppressing the activity of these neurons, called AQR, PQR and URX, using an activated K(+) channel, inhibits social feeding. NPR-1 activity in AQR, PQR and URX neurons seems to suppress social feeding by antagonizing signalling through a cyclic GMP-gated ion channel encoded by tax-2 and tax-4. We show that mutations in tax-2 or tax-4 disrupt social feeding, and that tax-4 is required in several neurons for social feeding, including one or more of AQR, PQR and URX. The AQR, PQR and URX neurons are unusual in C. elegans because they are directly exposed to the pseudocoelomic body fluid. Our data suggest a model in which these neurons integrate antagonistic signals to control the choice between social and solitary feeding behaviour.     

Increasing dominance of large lianas in Amazonian forests

Ecological orthodoxy suggests that old-growth forests should be close to dynamic equilibrium, but this view has been challenged by recent findings that neotropical forests are accumulating carbon and biomass, possibly in response to the increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. However, it is unclear whether the recent increase in tree biomass has been accompanied by a shift in community composition. Such changes could reduce or enhance the carbon storage potential of old-growth forests in the long term. Here we show that non-fragmented Amazon forests are experiencing a concerted increase in the density, basal area and mean size of woody climbing plants (lianas). Over the last two decades of the twentieth century the dominance of large lianas relative to trees has increased by 1.7-4.6% a year. Lianas enhance tree mortality and suppress tree growth, so their rapid increase implies that the tropical terrestrial carbon sink may shut down sooner than current models suggest. Predictions of future tropical carbon fluxes will need to account for the changing composition and dynamics of supposedly undisturbed forests.     

Selective imprinting of gut-homing T cells by Peyer's patch dendritic cells

Whereas naive T cells migrate only to secondary lymphoid organs, activation by antigen confers to T cells the ability to home to non-lymphoid sites. Activated effector/memory T cells migrate preferentially to tissues that are connected to the secondary lymphoid organs where antigen was first encountered. Thus, oral antigens induce effector/memory cells that express essential receptors for intestinal homing, namely the integrin alpha4beta7 and CCR9, the receptor for the gut-associated chemokine TECK/CCL25 (refs 6, 8, 9). Here we show that this imprinting of gut tropism is mediated by dendritic cells from Peyer's patches. Stimulation of CD8-expressing T cells by dendritic cells from Peyer's patches, peripheral lymph nodes and spleen induced equivalent activation markers and effector activity in T cells, but only Peyer's patch dendritic cells induced high levels of alpha4beta7, responsiveness to TECK and the ability to home to the small intestine. These findings establish that Peyer's patch dendritic cells imprint gut-homing specificity on T cells, and thus license effector/memory cells to access anatomical sites most likely to contain their cognate antigen.     

Simulating FAS-induced apoptosis by using P systems

In contrast to differential equations, P systems are an unconventional model of computation which takes into consideration the discrete character of the quantity of components and the inherent randomness that exists in biological phenomena. The key feature of P systems is their compartmentalised structure which represents the heterogeneity of the structural organisation of the cells, and where one can take into account the role played by membranes in the functioning of the system, for example signalling at the cell surface, selective uptake of substances from the media, diffusion across different compartments, etc. We show here that P systems can be a reliable tool for Systems Biology and could even outperform in some cases the current simulation techniques based on differential equations. We will also use a strategy based on the well known Gillespie algorithm but running on more than one compartment called Multi-compartmental Gillespie Algorithm.     

超低分辨率人脸图像高速重建方法

文中采用软硬件相结合的方法,实现了一种基于学习的超低分辨率人脸图像的高速重建系统.硬件系统的工作频率为60MHz,采用了FPGA组成并行处理单元,采用多内存形成并行数据,高速实现了计算复杂度高的相似度计算、相似度排序,从而解决了基于学习的超低分辨率人脸图像重建的处理速度问题.文中实现了8×6,16×12,32×24三个级别的人脸图像尺寸的重建系统,重建倍率分别为4×4倍、8×8倍、16×16倍,取得了好的视觉效果和低的RMS误差率,在速度上与C相比,最大可达到7900多倍的加速比,在保证重建质量的同时在处理速度上也有显著的提高.     

欧洲焊接标准体系在不锈钢车体制造中的应用分析

在目前世界各国的城市交通体系中,轨道车辆扮演的觉得愈加重要。由于社会对轨道车辆安全性的特殊要求,在轨道车辆制造规程中的每一个环节都起着非常重要的作用。特别是焊接环节。本文主要探讨在不锈钢地铁车体设计和制造过程中,出口的不锈钢车辆的企业怎样利用欧洲焊接标准体系来生产达到欧洲制造标准要求的车辆,在车辆制造焊接各个环节企业的管理。     

CoFeB/Pt反常霍尔效应标度关系的研究

本文研究了磁控溅射法制备的CoFeB/Pt薄膜的反常霍尔效应.通过测量不同温度下（5-300K）的反常霍尔效应,系统研究了反常霍尔效应的标度关系,发现反常霍尔系数RS与纵向电阻率ρxx之间的关系满足RS=aρxx＋bρ2xx,当CoFeB较薄时,Skew-Scattering机制对反常霍尔效应的贡献占主导地位,随者CoFeB厚度的增加,反常霍尔效应的物理机制过渡为SideJump机制.