‘Heated’ Debates in Apoptosis

Hippocrates’ assertion that ‘what the lance does not heal, fire will’ underscores the fact that for thousands of years heat has been used to treat a variety of diseases, including cancer. Indeed, spontaneous tumor remission has been observed in patients following feverish infection [1], and expression of activated oncogenes, such as Ras, can render tumor cells sensitive to heat compared with normal cells [2, 3]. In the past, a primary drawback to the use of heat as a clinical therapy was the inability to selectively focus heat to tumors in situ. Of late, however, several approaches have been devised to deliver heat more precisely, including the use of heated nanoparticles, making hyperthermia a more clinically tractable treatment option [4, 5]. Despite these practical advances, the mechanisms responsible for heat shock-induced cell death remain controversial and ill-defined. In this Visions and Reflections we discuss recent findings surrounding the initiation of heat shock-induced apoptosis, and propose future areas of research. Received 17 March 2007; received after revision 25 April 2007; accepted 22 May 2007     

高光谱数据组分信息的盲分解方法

将基于独立成分分析(independent component analysis,ICA)技术的盲分解方法(blind signal separation,BSS)应用于遥感混合像元的定量分解,解决了幅度不确定性问题,实现了从高光谱数据中同时得到定量的组分光谱信息和组分权重信息。通过数值模拟实验提出了光谱反演区间的选择方法,进一步完善了该算法,且讨论了算法的稳健性。以陕西省横山县为试验区,从HYPERION高光谱影像中反演了各像元的植被覆盖度,并利用SPOT5影像进行了精度验证,结果表明该方法具有较高的精度。