Detection of low enersy solar neutrinos by a two-phase cryosenic e-bubble detector

A new two-phase cryogenic neutrino detector using electron bubble （e-bubble） specifically in liquid helium is proposed and being developed for real time, high rate measurements of low-energy p-p reac- tion neutrinos from the sun. The e-bubble detector is a time projection chamber-like （TPC） tracking detector. The task of such a neutrino detector is to detect the ionization of the elastically scattered target electrons by incident neutrinos, and then to characterize their energy and direction and to dis- tinguish them from radioactive backgrounds. The ionization signals are expected to be small and hence undergo avalanche amplification in the saturated vapor above the liquid phase by gas electron multi- pliers （GEMs） at high gain. Higher granularity and intrinsically suppressed ion feedback give a good spatial resolution and are the major advantages of this technology. It should be possible to construct such a detector to track charged particles down to 100--200 keV in a massive liquid helium target with fractional millimeter spatial resolution in three-dimensional space, using the GEM-based TPC with a high-resolution CCD camera, for both the electronic and light readout.     

Methylation of the CDH1 promoter as the second genetic hit in hereditary diffuse gastric cancer

Aberrant promoter methylation and the associated loss of gene expression is a common accompaniment of human cancers. Nonetheless, it has been challenging to demonstrate in any given tumour that methylation of a specific gene was causal and not consequent to malignant transformation. In this regard, our attention was drawn to the genesis of gastric cancers in individuals with hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). These individuals harbour germline mutations in the gene encoding E-cadherin, CDH1, but their cancers have consistently demonstrated absence of loss of heterozygosity at the CDH1 locus. These findings suggested the hypothesis that CDH1 promoter methylation might function as the 'second genetic hit' in the genesis of these cancers.     

工作流引擎在继电保护管理系统中的应用

继电保护管理系统中关键业务的应用开发离不开工作流技术的支持。针对于此,通过对系统的实际开发需求的分析,在传统的关系数据库的基础上,提出了一个适用于关键业务开发的基于关系数据库的轻量级工作流引擎的框架结构。深入讨论了采用关系数据库来设计工作流引擎的原因,并详细地给出了相关的设计原理以及具体的表示和实现方法。其原型已经应用到实际的继电保护管理系统中。实践证明,利用此工作流引擎可以显著地缩短业务的开发周期。     

Two-dimensional imaging of electronic wavefunctions in carbon nanotubes

The drive towards the development of molecular electronics is placing increasing demands on the level of control that must be exerted on the electronic structure of materials. Proposed device architectures ultimately rely on tuning the interactions between individual electronic states, which amounts to controlling the detailed spatial structure of the electronic wavefunctions in the constituent molecules. Few experimental tools are available to probe this spatial structure directly, and the shapes of molecular wavefunctions are usually only known from theoretical investigations. Here we present scanning tunnelling spectroscopy measurements of the two-dimensional structure of individual wavefunctions in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes; these measurements reveal spatial patterns that can be directly understood from the electronic structure of a single graphite sheet, and which represent an elegant illustration of Bloch's theorem at the level of individual wavefunctions. We also observe energy-dependent interference patterns in the wavefunctions and exploit these to directly measure the linear electronic dispersion relation of the metallic single-walled carbon nanotube.     

Haploinsufficiency of protamine-1 or -2 causes infertility in mice

Protamines are the major DNA-binding proteins in the nucleus of sperm in most vertebrates and package the DNA in a volume less than 5% of a somatic cell nucleus. Many mammals have one protamine, but a few species, including humans and mice, have two. Here we use gene targeting to determine if the second protamine provides redundancy to an essential process, or if both protamines are necessary. We disrupted the coding sequence of one allele of either Prm1 or Prm2 in embryonic stem (ES) cells derived from 129-strain mice, and injected them into blastocysts from C57BL/6-strain mice. Male chimeras produced 129-genotype sperm with disrupted Prm1 or Prm2 alleles, but failed to sire offspring carrying the 129 genome. We also found that a decrease in the amount of either protamine disrupts nuclear formation, processing of protamine-2 and normal sperm function. Our studies show that both protamines are essential and that haploinsufficiency caused by a mutation in one allele of Prm1 or Prm2 prevents genetic transmission of both mutant and wild-type alleles.     

Sustained translational repression by eIF2α-P mediates prion neurodegeneration

The mechanisms leading to neuronal death in neurodegenerative disease are poorly understood. Many of these disorders, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and prion diseases, are associated with the accumulation of misfolded disease-specific proteins. The unfolded protein response is a protective cellular mechanism triggered by rising levels of misfolded proteins. One arm of this pathway results in the transient shutdown of protein translation, through phosphorylation of the α-subunit of eukaryotic translation initiation factor, eIF2. Activation of the unfolded protein response and/or increased eIF2α-P levels are seen in patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and prion diseases, but how this links to neurodegeneration is unknown. Here we show that accumulation of prion protein during prion replication causes persistent translational repression of global protein synthesis by eIF2α-P, associated with synaptic failure and neuronal loss in prion-diseased mice. Further, we show that promoting translational recovery in hippocampi of prion-infected mice is neuroprotective. Overexpression of GADD34, a specific eIF2α-P phosphatase, as well as reduction of levels of prion protein by lentivirally mediated RNA interference, reduced eIF2α-P levels. As a result, both approaches restored vital translation rates during prion disease, rescuing synaptic deficits and neuronal loss, thereby significantly increasing survival. In contrast, salubrinal, an inhibitor of eIF2α-P dephosphorylation, increased eIF2α-P levels, exacerbating neurotoxicity and significantly reducing survival in prion-diseased mice. Given the prevalence of protein misfolding and activation of the unfolded protein response in several neurodegenerative diseases, our results suggest that manipulation of common pathways such as translational control, rather than disease-specific approaches, may lead to new therapies preventing synaptic failure and neuronal loss across the spectrum of these disorders.     

零价钯催化下赤霉素A3衍生物A环的反应

在（Ph3P)4Pd(0)催化下,赤霉素A3（GA3）衍生物的A环在氢供体环己烯存在时发生氢解,形成1,3－二烯生产物;而在无氢供体时则发生A环的芳构化反应。通过选择适当的反应条件,可以得到不同主要产物。