闹市桃源

由于职业缘故,IsabelleChouvet一家既需要生活在交通便利,繁华喧嚣的闹市,又希望能享受到世外桃源般的安静。在几乎看遍了上海的老房子后,这对法国夫妇终于在一栋建于上世纪30年代的三层小洋房前驻足。尽管房屋建造的年代已有些久远,但从花园的     

室内潮流新动态——2010科隆国际家具展

2010年科隆国际家具展imm cologne为期六天,于2010年1月24日顺利闭幕。本次科隆国际家具展采用了纯实木的展览形式,将家装生活各个领域的不同产品类别放到一起。世界上著名的家具、纺织品、照明和卫浴品牌既展示了各具特色的单件设计品,也带来了创意家装的全新理念。此次展会紧扣室内设计潮流趋势,呈现出鲜明而又激动人心的家居生活新动态。     

Automated measurement of nitrogen trifluoride in ambient air

We present an analytical method for the in situ measurement of atmospheric nitrogen trifluoride (NF(3)), an anthropogenic gas with a 100-year global warming potential of over 16,000. This potent greenhouse gas has a rising atmospheric abundance due to its emission from a growing number of manufacturing processes and an expanding end-use market. Here we present a modified version of the "Medusa" preconcentration gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) system of Miller, B. R.; Weiss, R. F.; Salameh, P. K.; Tanhua, T.; Greally, B. R.; Mühle, J.; Simmonds, P. G. Anal. Chem.2008, 80 (5), 1536-1545. By altering the techniques of gas separation and chromatography after initial preconcentration, we are now able to make atmospheric measurements of NF(3) with relative precision <2% (1σ) for current background clean air samples. Importantly, this method augments the currently operational Medusa system, so that the quality of data for species already being measured is not compromised and NF(3) is measured from the same preconcentrated sample. We present the first in situ measurements of NF(3) from La Jolla, California made 11 times daily, illustrating how global deployment of this technique within the AGAGE (Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment) network could facilitate estimation of global and regional NF(3) emissions over the coming years.     

Marginally monotonic maintenance policies for a multi-state deteriorating machine with probabilistic monitoring, and silent failures

We characterize the structure of optimal policies for maintenance & replacement actions over a finite horizon. The context is machine monitoring when the following are true: 1) The machine can operate in one of N states in S/spl isin/{0,1,...,N-1} where 0 is good, 1 to N-2 represent increasing levels of deterioration (i.e., the system becomes increasingly worn, but is still able to produce usable parts), and N-1 is bad (or failed). 2) Observations are related probabilistically to the state of the process. 3) The machine's state is known with certainty only immediately after a replacement. The last assumption, consistent with "silent" failures, distinguishes our results from others. We prove [using the theory & results of partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP)] that the policy that minimizes the total expected cost of system maintenance has a "marginally monotonic" structure. The concept of "marginal monotonicity", which requires a component-wise partial ordering, and monotonicity of the expected total cost function with respect to each component of the state space, allows characterization of the policy that minimizes the total expected cost. This feature allows us to represent the optimal policy by a collection of decision rules characterized by at most N functions.     

Acute hemodynamic effects of pulsed delivery of low flow nasal nitric oxide in children with pulmonary hypertension

DNA duplex and dumbbells containing chemically active acylphosphate internucleotide groups were synthesized. To obtain these compounds the chemical ligation method was used. The acylphosphate group was inserted into a DNA duplex and dumbbells as a result of template-directed condensation of 5'-phosphate and especially introduced 3'-carboxy groups of oligonucleotides. 1-Ethyl-3-(3'-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC) was used as a condensing agent. Oligonucleotides containing a carboxy group were obtained by the interaction of their 3'-phosphate with glycine methyl ester under the action of EDC, followed by ester hydrolysis. The yields of acylphosphate-containing double-stranded oligonucleotides achieved 15-25% depending on the structure of their precursors. It was shown that these compounds are acylating agents and are efficiently cleaved in near-physiological conditions under the action of ethylenediamine or N-methylimidazole. These results indicate that double-stranded oligonucleotides carrying acylphosphate internucleotide groups could constitute new crosslinking reagents for affinity modification of DNA recognizing proteins.     

简单生活

家是一个365天里时刻都在运转的地方,也是承载着最多功能的场所,这里是停歇的旅店,又是温馨的饭馆;在这里随时可以开个热闹的派对,或是选择默默地沉思,随时能够尽情地玩耍或是放松地工作.听上去很复杂的组织,实际上生     

Listeria monocytogenes F2365 carries several authentic mutations potentially leading to truncated gene products, including inlB, and demonstrates atypical phenotypic characteristics

Searches of the genome annotation of Listeria monocytogenes F2365, an isolate from the 1985 listeriosis epidemic in California, showed that this strain carries 20 authentic mutations resulting in premature stop codons, including a nonsense mutation in inlB. Here we showed that L. monocytogenes F2365 demonstrates atypical virulence-associated characteristics, including significantly (P < 0.05) reduced invasion efficiency in Caco-2 cells as compared with a closely related lineage I serotype 4b strain as well as significantly (P < 0.05) greater variation in invasiveness when grown under different conditions compared with standard laboratory control and other lineage I serotype 4b strains. In addition, L. monocytogenes F2365 demonstrated distinct growth characteristics, including a significantly (P < 0.05) reduced exponential growth rate when compared with laboratory control and other lineage I serotype 4b outbreak-associated strains as well as a significantly (P < 0.05) longer lag phase duration time compared with another lineage I serotype 4b strain. Our results support that L. monocytogenes F2365 is characterized by genotypic and phenotypic properties that are atypical of other L. monocytogenes strains.     

Hybrid robust watermarking for color images

In this paper, we present a blind and highly robust watermarking scheme method for color images by combining the advantages of both spatial and frequency domain. Watermark is generated for each channel (RGB) of the color image by extracting spatial domain features using Gray Level Co-occurence Matrix as well as a unique identification number. The watermark is embedded in Principal Component Analysis (PCA)-based less correlated low and high frequency sub bands in such a way that the perceptual quality of the image is preserved. Imperceptibility is achieved by embedding the watermark in less correlated sub bands and robustness is achieved by spreading the watermark using Laplacian Pyramid in contourlet transform. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can survive various image processing and signal processing attacks. The proposed method achieves high transparency, imperceptibility and robustness compared to some of the existing schemes.     

Combined electromechanical dynamic fracture behavior of lead zirconate titanate (PZT)

Coupon specimens of poled and depoled lead zirconate titanate (PZT) are examined under combined stress wave and electric loading conditions. Mode-I crack initiation and fracture behavior is examined using ultrahigh-speed imaging and two-dimensional digital image correlation. The dynamic critical stress intensity factor () is extracted using measured displacement fields ahead of the impulsively loaded crack tip, and compared between poled and depoled plates that were either under no electric field, positive 0.46 kV/mm electric field, or negative 0.46 kV/mm electric field. Poled specimens had a poling direction and applied electric field direction normal to the crack front. The addition of an electric field resulted in a crack-enhancing effect, where the dynamic fracture toughness of poled specimens under 0.46 kV/mm was almost half that of samples with no electric field. Depoled samples experienced almost no change in dynamic fracture toughness with the addition of an electric field.     

The untapped potential of proteomic analysis in pediatric pulmonary hypertension

Analysis of the human proteome has become increasingly sophisticated, and offers invaluable potential insight into the pathophysiology of human disease. The increasing standardization of methods, speed, and sophistication of mass spectrometric analysis, availability of reliable antibodies, and dissemination of information among the scientific community has allowed for exponential growth of our knowledge base. The continued effort to provide a molecular explanation for future medical applications based on biomarker discovery is epitomized by the outstanding efforts of the human proteome project, whose goal is to generate a map of the human proteome. However, proteomic analysis is underrepresented in pediatric illness; given the unique challenges of research in the pediatric population, proteomic analysis represents enormous untapped potential, especially in the further elucidation of the pathophysiology of rare diseases such as pulmonary hypertension (PH). In this article, we will describe the unique challenge of pediatric research, the importance of alternative avenues such as proteomics for in-depth analysis of pediatric pathobiology at the cellular level, the specific need for proteomic investigation of pediatric PH, the current status of PH proteomics, and future directions.