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Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is a typical two-dimensional material, which is widely used in many fields because of its excellent electrical and optical properties. In recent years, the high-quality growth of MoS2 has attracted more and more attention from researchers. Many studies have reported a two-step method for the production of MoS2 by pre-deposition of molybdenum (Mo) source and then vulcanization, which is cumbersome and time-consuming, and the preparation temperature is mostly above 800 °C, increasing energy consumption and experimental risk. In this paper, S source and Mo source can be distinguished by double temperature zone tube furnace to prepare MoS2 material in one-step method. The temperatures of S and Mo sources were designed separately, and the effect of each temperature on the quality of MoS2 was investigated. And the monolayer MoS2 with high crystalline quality was obtained at a S source temperature of 165 °C and a Mo source temperature of 680 °C. We produce MoS2 in one-step method at low temperature, which provides a reference for the synthesis of high-quality monolayer MoS2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The G‐allele of the ‐1019C/G (rs6295) promoter polymorphism of the serotonin receptor 1A (HTR1A) gene has been implicated in anxiety; however, the underlying neurophysiological processes are still not fully understood. Recent evidence indicates that low parasympathetic (vagal) tone is predictive of anxiety. We thus conducted a structural equation model (SEM) to examine whether the HTR1A rs6295 variant can affect anxiety by altering parasympathetic nervous activity. Method: A sample of 1141 drug‐free healthy Han Chinese was recruited for HTR1A genotyping. Autonomic nervous function was assessed by short‐term spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). Anxiety and stress levels were evaluated by the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) respectively. Results: The number of the HTR1A G allele was inversely correlated with high‐frequency power (HF), a parasympathetic index of HRV. The HF index was negatively associated with BAI scores. Furthermore, the good‐fitting SEM, adjusting for confounding variables (e.g., age and PSS levels), revealed a significant pathway linking rs6295 variant to BAI scores via HF index modulation. Conclusion: These results are the first to show that HTR1A ‐1019C/G polymorphism influences anxiety levels by modulating parasympathetic tone, providing a neurophysiological insight into the role of HTR1A in human anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents some joint source and relay power allocation algorithms in the amplify-and-forward (AF) relay networks using the efficacious geometric programming (GP). According to the constraints, approximate expressions of the received signal-to-noise ratio are first obtained. Thereafter, the problems are cast into appropriate GP forms according to the constraints. The power allocated to the source(s) and to the relays is then determined iteratively via the single condensation method. The new GP approach is shown to be applicable to a variety of constraints by using all of the relays for assistance and is amenable to asymmetric channels in both the single-user and multi-user AF relay networks. Conducted simulations show that the proposed power allocation schemes can attain superior performance compared with the previous works under various constraints in miscellaneous scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a simple and efficient genetic algorithm-assisted approach for joint quantised precoding and transmit antenna selection based on the criterion of maximum capacity. The objective is to alleviate the effect of multi-user interference and to reduce hardware costs, such as the cost of radio frequency chains associated with antennas in the downlink of multi-input multi-output systems with limited feedback. To avoid the enormous search effort required by existing approaches, the authors propose a novel variant of the conventional genetic algorithm, called the hybrid genetic algorithm, in which each chromosome is divided into a bit string for precoding vector selection and an integer string for transmit antenna selection. In addition, new crossover and mutation operations are employed to accommodate these new chromosomes. The results of simulations show that the performance of the proposed approach is close to that of the exhaustive search method, but its computational complexity is substantially lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a two-stage power allocation for the amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative networks with distributed generalised ABBA (GABBA) space-time codes. The new power allocation scheme first determines the transmit power between the source node and the relay nodes by maximising the instantaneous rate, and thereafter optimises the power distribution among the relay nodes via the water-filling. Also, a maximum-likelihood detection, which makes use of the encoding structure of the distributed GABBA space-time codes, is addressed to alleviate the computational overhead. Moreover, a performance analysis including the array gain and the diversity gain is also scrutinised to provide further insights into the cooperative networks considered, where the destination is equipped with multiple antennas. Conducted simulations show that the GABBA coded AF cooperative networks incorporated with the proposed two-stage power allocation can attain close or even superior performance compared with previous works but with substantially reduced computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was conducted to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of enrofloxacin following a single oral gavage (10 mg kg−1) in mud crab, Scylla serrata, at water temperatures of 19 and 26 °C. Enrofloxacin concentration in haemolymph was determined using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A multiple and repeated haemolymph sampling from the articular cavity of crab periopods was developed. The haemolymph of an individual crab was successfully sampled up to 11 times from the articular cavity. The profile of haemolymph enrofloxacin concentration of an individual crab versus time was thus achieved. The mean haemolymph enrofloxacin concentration versus time was described by a two-compartment model with first-order absorption at two water temperatures. The peak concentrations of haemolymph enrofloxacin at 19 and 26 °C were 7.26 and 11.03 μg mL−1, at 6 and 2 h, respectively. The absorption and distribution half-life time ( and t1/2 α) at 19 °C were 3.7 and 4.5 h, respectively, which were markedly larger than the corresponding values (1.1 and 1.5 h) at 26 °C; the elimination half-life time ( t1/2 β) was 79.1 and 56.5 h at 19 and 26 °C, respectively. The area under curve (AUC), total body clearance ( Cl) and mean residence time (MRT0–∞) at 19 °C were 636.0 mg L−1 h, 0.016 L h−1 kg−1 and 102.5 h, respectively; the corresponding values at 26 °C were 583.4 mg L−1 h, 0.018 L h−1 kg−1and 63.7 h. These results indicate that enrofloxacin is absorbed and eliminated more rapidly in mud crab at 26 °C than at 19 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a subband beamformer with the generalised sidelobe canceller (GSC) as the underlying structure. This new beamformer, referred to as the subcanceller, determines the statistically optimum filter bank succeeding the blocking matrix of the GSC based on the minimum mean-square error criterion. As a consequence, the signals passing through the lower branch of the GSC are decomposed into more appropriate subband components by such filter banks according to the input data statistics to enhance the interference suppression capability. The determination of the filter bank coefficients, however, calls for computationally demanding nonlinear optimisation. To alleviate the computational overhead, an iterative procedure is also proposed, which solves the Rayleigh quotient in each iteration. Furthermore, a detailed performance analysis of the proposed beamformer is conducted, which includes the development expression of the output signal to interference-plus-noise ratio and its implications, and the analysis of the convergence characteristic. Furnished simulations show that the new scheme yields superior interference suppression performance with a faster convergence rate compared with previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and classical swine fever (CSF) cause significant economic losses to the swine industry worldwide. As both diseases cause similar symptoms, rapid and reliable detection of these diseases is essential for disease surveillance. A quantitative SYBR Green I-based reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is described for simultaneous and differential diagnosis. The established RT-PCR for the quantitation of PRRSV and CSFV cDNA was found to provide a broad dynamic range, detecting from 103 to 1011 and 102 to 1011 copies of cDNA per reaction, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity of this method were compared with those of conventional RT-PCR and both were equal or superior to the reference method. Reproducibility was tested and the assay was proved very reliable. The assay is timesaving, easy to handle, and highly sensitive and specific. Therefore, it is a powerful tool for detecting PRRSV and CSFV simultaneously for routine outbreak investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple, yet effective, method is proposed to form the group signature sequences for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) multicarrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems. By minimising the projection onto a properly constructed subspace, the signature sequences are recursively determined group by group. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is a typical two-dimensional material, which is widely used in many fields because of its excellent electrical and optical properties. In recent years, the high-quality growth of MoS2 has attracted more and more attention from researchers. Many studies have reported a two-step method for the production of MoS2 by pre-deposition of molybdenum (Mo) source and then vulcanization, which is cumbersome and time-consuming, and the preparation temperature is mostly above 800 °C, increasing energy consumption and experimental risk. In this paper, S source and Mo source can be distinguished by double temperature zone tube furnace to prepare MoS2 material in one-step method. The temperatures of S and Mo sources were designed separately, and the effect of each temperature on the quality of MoS2 was investigated. And the monolayer MoS2 with high crystalline quality was obtained at a S source temperature of 165 °C and a Mo source temperature of 680 °C. We produce MoS2 in one-step method at low temperature, which provides a reference for the synthesis of high-quality monolayer MoS2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water scarcity is one of the most challenging issues in arid and semi-arid regions. In the Yellow River basin, rapid growth of population, urbanization, and industrialization have caused ever-increasing competition for water This study was conducted to evaluate the potential effects of climate change on mean annual runoff in the Yellow River basin under different climate change scenarios projected by the Hadley Centre's third-generation general circulation model (HadCM3) using an evaporation ratio function of the aridity index. The results showed that annual runoff was more sensitive to change in precipitation than to change in evaporation. Simulations using HadCM3 scenarios A2 and B2 indicated that the changes in annual runoff compared to 30-year average runoff for each region, which varied from region to region, ranged from -34.1% to 49.6%. In general, the potential changes in annual runoff were greater in the middle and down reaches of the Yellow River basin. For the Yellow River basin as a whole, the mean annual runoff increased up to 2.2%, 12.3%, and 11.4% for scenario A2, and the changes were 8.4%, -0.1%, and 5.3% for scenario B2 by the years 2020, 2050, and 2080, respectively. However, the increase in future annual runoff will be insufficient to meet projected water demands of the Yellow River Basin. Proper water management and water conservation technologies will need to be considered for the coming century to avoid water shortages. The expected increases in runoff require that more attention will be given to soil and water conservation practices such as vegetation and check-dam construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have revealed that the inflammatory process plays a role in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA). The S100 family and receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) participate in regulating inflammation, even in the production of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). MMP-1 degrades cartilage, which may result in OA development. Moreover, polymorphisms in RAGE, S100A8, and MMP-1 have a marked effect on ligand binding and transcription regulating. In this study, we investigated the potential genetic contribution of the RAGE, S100A8, and MMP-1 genes to OA. We performed a matched case-control association study and genotyped OA patients and healthy controls, who were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism assays. A total of 207 patients were diagnosed with knee OA and underwent total knee replacement. The control group included 207 individuals who had standard X-rays of the knee joints to confirm K/L < 2 and were matched by age and gender. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms in RAGE (-429T/C, -374T/A, and 557G/A), S100A8 (rs3795391A/G), and MMP-1 (-1607 1G/2G, -755G/T, and -519A/G) were evaluated. RAGE -374T/A, S100A8 rs3795391A/G, MMP-1 -1607 1G/2G, -755G/T, and -519A/G showed no significant difference between OA patients and healthy controls. RAGE -429T/C and 557G/A showed a significant association between OA patients and healthy controls (P = 0.016 and 0.047, respectively). In haplotype analyses, no RAGE and MMP-1 haplotypes showed associations with OA. Our results suggest that the investigated polymorphism in the RAGE gene play a role in OA in the Han Chinese population.

We investigated the chemical reactions of isodihalomethane (CH(2)X-X) and CH(2)X radical species (where X = Cl, Br, or I) with ethylene and the isomerization reactions of CH(2)X-X using density functional theory calculations. The CH(2)X-X species readily reacts with ethylene to give the cyclopropane product and an X(2) product via a one-step reaction with barrier heights of approximately 2.9 kcal/mol for CH(2)I-I, 6.8 kcal/mol for CH(2)Br-Br, and 8.9 kcal/mol for CH(2)Cl-Cl. The CH(2)X reactions with ethylene proceed via a two-step reaction mechanism to give a cyclopropane product and X atom product with much larger barriers to reaction. This suggests that photocyclopropanation reactions using ultraviolet excitation of dihalomethanes most likely occurs via the isodihalomethane species and not the CH(2)X species. The isomerization reactions of CH(2)X-X had barrier heights of approximately 14.4 kcal/mol for CH(2)I-I, 11.8 kcal/mol for CH(2)Br-Br, and 9.1 kcal/mol for CH(2)Cl-Cl. We compare our results for the CH(2)X-X carbenoids to results from previous calculations of the Simmons-Smith-type carbenoids (XCH(2)ZnX) and Li-type carbenoids (LiCH(2)X) and discuss their differences and similarities as methylene transfer agents.

We examine the chemical reactions of the isodiiodomethane (CH2I-I), .CH2I and CH2I(+) species with ethylene using density functional theory computations. The CH2I-I species readily reacts with ethylene to give the cyclopropane product and an I2 product via a one-step reaction with a barrier height of approximately 2.9 kcal/mol. However, the.CH2I and CH2I(+) species have much more difficult pathways (with larger potential barriers) to react with ethylene via a two-step reaction mechanism. Comparison of experimental results to our present calculation results indicates that the CH2I-I photoproduct species is most likely the methylene transfer agent for the cyclopropanation reaction of olefins via ultraviolet photoexcitation of diiodomethane.

The repair of 12-, 27-, 62-, and 216-nucleotide unpaired insertion/deletion heterologies has been demonstrated in nuclear extracts of human cells. When present in covalently closed circular heteroduplexes or heteroduplexes containing a single-strand break 3' to the heterology, such structures are subject to a low level repair reaction that occurs with little strand bias. However, the presence of a single-strand break 5' to the insertion/deletion heterology greatly increases the efficiency of rectification and directs repair to the incised DNA strand. Because nick direction of repair is independent of the strand in which a particular heterology is placed, the observed strand bias is not due to asymmetry imposed on the heteroduplex by the extrahelical DNA segment. Strand-specific repair by this system requires ATP and the four dNTPs and is inhibited by aphidicolin. Repair is independent of the mismatch repair proteins MSH2, MSH6, MLH1, and PMS2 and occurs by a mechanism that is distinct from that of the conventional mismatch repair system. Large heterology repair in nuclear extracts of human cells is also independent of the XPF gene product, and extracts of Chinese hamster ovary cells deficient in the ERCC1 and ERCC4 gene products also support the reaction.

We have evaluated the cytotoxicities of the combinations of calcium mobilizers and PKC inhibitors against human acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells. Here we report that calcium mobilizers alone or PKC inhibitors alone do not induce apoptosis in human ALL cells. However, the combinations of calcium mobilizers with potent inhibitors of PKC cause significant apoptosis in ALL cells. Our results provide experimental evidence that PKC blocks Ca2+-triggered apoptosis in human ALL cells. Thus, PKC inhibitors can be used to enhance the antileukemic activity of chemical or biological agents that trigger an apoptotic calcium signal in ALL cells. The exquisite sensitivity of ALL cells to calcium-dependent apoptosis in the presence of PKC inhibitors could provide the basis for new treatment programs against ALL.

Recent studies have demonstrated that the naturally occurring perylenequinone antibiotic calphostin C is a potent inhibitor of protein kinase C and can induce apoptosis in some tumor cell lines by an as yet unknown mechanism. Here we demonstrate that calphostin C induces dose-dependent apoptosis in DT40 chicken lymphoma B-cells, and targeted disruption of lyn, syk, btk, PLCgamma2, or IP3R genes does not prevent or attenuate its cytotoxicity. In our study, calphostin C also induced rapid apoptosis in human acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cell lines ALL-1 (BCR-ABL+ pre-pre-B ALL), RS4;11 (MLL-AF4+ pro-B ALL), NALM-6 (pre-B ALL), DAUDI (Burkitt's/B-cell ALL), MOLT-3 (T-ALL), and JURKAT (T-ALL), whereas other potent PKC inhibitors did not. In biochemical studies, calphostin C was discovered to induce rapid calcium mobilization from intracellular stores of ALL cell lines, and its cytotoxicity against ALL cell lines was well correlated with the magnitude of this calcium signal. Calphostin C-induced apoptosis was markedly suppressed by BAPTA/AM, a cell-permeable Ca2+ chelator as well as NiCl2, an inhibitor of Ca2+/Mg2+-dependent endonucleases. Inhibition of the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin with perfluoreperazine dimadeate (a calmodulin antagonist) or cyclosporin A (a specific inhibitor of calcineurin) also reduced the magnitude of calphostin C-induced apoptosis in ALL cell lines. Calphostin C was capable of inducing calcium mobilization and apoptosis in freshly obtained primary leukemic cells from children with ALL. Taken together, our results provide unprecedented evidence that calphostin C triggers a Ca2+-dependent apoptotic signal in human ALL cells.

1. Transformed (TR) cell lines showed faster doubling times and higher cell densities at confluence, as well as altered morphology, changing from flat epitheloid to smaller round or bipolar shapes. Since such morphological changes are suggestive of alterations in intermediate filaments, we have analyzed the expression of both vimentin and neurofilament. 2. Immunohistochemical analysis of vimentin showed a redistribution from a cytoplasmic network to a perinuclear accumulation in TR cell lines. 3. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the vimentin content was decreased 60-90%. The content of the 70-kD neurofilament protein was also decreased in TR cells, but its intracellular distribution was indistinguishable from that in the control cell lines.

A subset of sporadic colorectal tumors and most tumors developing in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer patients display frequent alterations in microsatellite sequences. Such tumors have been thought to manifest replication errors (RER+), but the basis for the alterations has remained conjectural. We demonstrate that the mutation rate of (CA)n repeats in RER+ tumor cells is at least 100-fold that in RER- tumor cells and show by in vitro assay that increased mutability of RER+ cells is associated with a profound defect in strand-specific mismatch repair. This deficiency was observed with microsatellite heteroduplexes as well as with heteroduplexes containing single base-base mismatches and affected an early step in the repair pathway. Thus, a true mutator phenotype exists in a subset of tumor cells, the responsible defect is likely to cause transitions and transversions in addition to microsatellite alterations, and a biochemical basis for this phenotype has been identified.

The human lymphoblastoid MT1 B-cell line was previously isolated as one of a series of mutant cells able to survive the cytotoxic effects of N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG). MT1 cells nevertheless remain sensitive to mutagenesis by MNNG and display a mutator phenotype. These phenotypes have been attributed to a single genetic alteration postulated to confer a defect in strand-specific mismatch repair, a proposal that attributes the cytotoxic effect of DNA alkylation in wild-type cells to futile attempts to correct mispairs that arise during replication of alkylated template strands. Our results support this view. MNNG-induced mutations in the HPRT gene of MT1 cells are almost exclusively G.C-->A.T transitions, while spontaneous mutations observed in this mutator cell line are single-nucleotide insertions, transversions, and A.T-->G.C transitions. In vitro assay has demonstrated that the MT1 line is in fact deficient in strand-specific correction of all eight base-base mispairs. This defect, which is manifest at or prior to the excision stage of the reaction, is due to simple deficiency of a required activity because MT1 nuclear extracts can be complemented by a partially purified HeLa fraction to restore in vitro repair. These findings substantiate the idea that strand-specific mismatch repair contributes to alkylation-induced cytotoxicity and imply that this process serves as a barrier to spontaneous transition, transversion, and insertion/deletion mutations in mammalian cells.

Nuclear extracts prepared from a HeLa cell line have been previously shown to support strand-specific repair of heteroduplex DNAs containing a site-specific, strand-specific incision (Holmes, J.J., Clark, S., and Modrich, P. (1990) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87, 5837-5841; Thomas, D.C., Roberts, J.D., and Kunkel, T.A. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266, 3744-3751). Further analysis of the substrate specificity of the reaction has shown that in addition to G-T, A-C, G-G, and C-C, nuclear extracts also recognize and correct in a strand-specific manner A-A, A-G, T-T, and C-T mismatches, with repair in each case being inhibited by aphidicolin. The rate of repair of a circular G-T heteroduplex was found to decrease monotonically with increasing separation between the mismatch and the strand break that targets repair, as viewed along the shorter path joining the two sites in the circular substrate. This decrease is independent of the polarity of the incised strand, suggesting that the human pathway of mismatch correction may possess a bidirectional excision capability similar to that of the Escherichia coli methyl-directed system. This possibility was confirmed by analysis of excision tracts associated with the reaction. Inhibition of DNA synthesis by aphidicolin or by omission of exogenous dNTPs leads to the mismatch-provoked formation of a single-strand gap that spans the shorter path between the strand break and the mismatch, irrespective of the polarity of the incised strand. Formation of these gaps, which extend from the site of the strand break to terminate at a number of discrete sites in the region 90 to 170 nucleotides beyond the mismatch, is therefore independent of the relative orientation of the two sites. Based on similar mismatch specificities and common features of mechanism, we have concluded that the human strand-specific mismatch repair system is functionally homologous to the bacterial methyl-directed pathway.