A Pseudorabies virus (PRV) variant has emerged in China since 2011 that is not protected by commercial vaccines, and has not been well studied. The PRV genome is large and difficult to manipulate, ...but it is feasible to use clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology. However, identification of single guide RNA (sgRNA) through screening is critical to the CRISPR/Cas9 system, and is traditionally time and labor intensive, and not suitable for rapid and high throughput screening of effective PRV sgRNAs. In this study, we developed a recombinant PRV strain expressing firefly luciferase and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) as a reporter virus for PRV-specific sgRNA screens and rapid evaluation of antiviral compounds. Luciferase activity was apparent as soon as 4 h after infection and was stably expressed through 10 passages. In a proof of the principle screen, we were able to identify several PRV specific sgRNAs and confirmed that they inhibited PRV replication using traditional methods. Using the reporter virus, we also identified PRV variants lacking US3, US2, and US9 gene function, and showed anti-PRV activity for chloroquine. Our results suggest that the reporter PRV strain will be a useful tool for basic virology studies, and for developing PRV control and prevention measures.
Risk and the January effect Sun, Qian; Tong, Wilson H.S.
Journal of banking & finance,
05/2010, Letnik:
34, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
We use a time-series GARCH framework with the conditional variance/covariance as proxies for systematic risk to reexamine the proposition by
Rozeff and Kinney (1976) and
Rogalski and Tinic (1986) ...that the January effect may be a phenomenon of risk compensation in the month. We find no clear evidence that either conditional volatility or unconditional volatility in January is predominantly higher across the sampling years. Hence, against the proposition, the January effect is not due to risk per se. Rather, we find strong evidence that the January effect is due to higher compensation for risk in the month. This may be possible if investors have an increasing RRA utility function. Although many studies find that volatility tends to be higher in January, we find it to be period-specific and mostly in value-weighted return series, but not in equal-weighted return series. This is true both for the unconditional and conditional return volatility.
The spectrin is first identified as the main component of erythrocyte membrane skeleton. It is getting growing attention since being found in multiple nonerythroid cells, providing complex mechanical ...properties and signal interface under the cell membrane. Recent genomics studies have revealed that the spectrin is highly relevant to bone disorders. However, in osteocytes, the important mechanosensors in bone, the role of spectrin is poorly understood. In this research, the role of spectrin in the mechanotransduction of MLO-Y4 osteocytes was studied. Immunofluorescence staining showed that, the spectrins were elaborately organized as a porous network throughout the cytoplasm, and linked with F-actin into a dense layer underlying the cell membrane. AFM results indicate that, the spectrin is pivotal for maintaining the overall elasticity of osteocytes, especially for the cell cortex stiffiness. Disruption of the spectrin network caused obvious softening of osteocytes, and resulted in a significant increase of Ca
influx, NO secretion, cell-cell connections and also induced a translocation of eNOS from membrane to cytoplasm. These results indicate that the spectrin network is a global structural support for osteocytes involving in the mechanotransduction process, making it a potential therapeutic target for bone disorders.
Icaritin, a compound from Epimedium Genus, has selective estrogen receptor (ER) modulating activities, and possess anti-tumor activity. Here, we examined icaritin effect on cell growth of human ...endometrial cancer Hec1A cells and found that icaritin potently inhibited proliferation of Hec1A cells. Icaritin-inhibited cell growth was associated with increased levels of p21 and p27 expression and reduced cyclinD1 and cdk 4 expression. Icaritin also induced cell apoptosis accompanied by activation of caspases as evidenced by the cleavage of endogenous substrate Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and cytochrome c release, which was abrogated by pretreatment with the pan-caspase inhibitor z-VAD-fmk. Icaritin treatment also induced expression of pro-apoptotic protein Bax with a concomitant decrease of Bcl-2 expression. Furthermore, icaritin induced sustained phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase1/2 (the MAPK/ ERK1/2) in Hec1A cells and U0126, a specific MAP kinase kinase (MEK1/2) inhibitor, blocked the ERK1/2 activation by icaritin and abolished the icaritin-induced growth inhibition and apoptosis. Our results demonstrated that icaritin induced sustained ERK 1/2 activation and inhibited growth of endometrial cancer Hec1A cells, and provided a rational for preclinical and clinical evaluation of icaritin for endometrial cancer therapy.
Considering the background that the current fire risk assessment methods often rely on subjective assessments based on professional knowledge and experience, they are usually limited to the special ...fire scene. Given the lack of effective tools for assessing fire risks in logistics warehouses across varying scenes, this paper aims to propose a multi-source data-driven, adaptive dynamic fire danger evaluation method. The method is established based on the fusion strategy of evidential reasoning and artificial fish swarm algorithm. According to the method, rules of danger evaluation levels related to each attribute of fire factors can be generated automatically without necessary of professional knowledges and experiences. The lightweight multi-source data at this moment can be fused to evaluate current fire danger level directly, which does not require training on extensive datasets in advance. Finally, multi-source data including temperature and CO concentration in two fire scenes of one logistics warehouse at different times are utilized to support the ability of the method. The results show that the estimated fire source location according to the center of domain with the evaluated highest danger level matches well with the real fire source location. In conclusion, the main contribution of the research is that the reasonable dynamic danger level of the logistics warehouse fire with time variation can be evaluated automatically. The method has an excellent generality, which is not limited to the specific fire scene. The danger zone of the logistics warehouse under sudden fires can be determined adaptively, which can support the fire prevention and fire safety countermeasures of logistics warehouses.
•An adaptive dynamic fire danger evaluation method is proposed.•Rules of danger evaluation levels can be generated automatically.•Multi-source data-based fire danger level can be evaluated adaptively.•Fusion strategy of evidential reasoning and smart optimization is proposed.
Catastrophically mechanical failure of soft self-healing materials is unavoidable due to their inherently poor resistance to crack propagation. Here, with a model system, i.e., soft self-healing ...polyurea, we present a biomimetic strategy of surpassing trade-off between soft self-healing and high fracture toughness, enabling the conversion of soft and weak into soft yet tough self-healing material. Such an achievement is inspired by vascular smooth muscles, where core-shell structured Galinstan micro-droplets are introduced through molecularly interfacial metal-coordinated assembly, resulting in an increased crack-resistant strain and fracture toughness of 12.2 and 34.9 times without sacrificing softness. The obtained fracture toughness is up to 111.16 ± 8.76 kJ/m
, even higher than that of Al and Zn alloys. Moreover, the resultant composite delivers fast self-healing kinetics (1 min) upon local near-infrared irradiation, and possesses ultra-high dielectric constants (~14.57), thus being able to be fabricated into sensitive and self-healing capacitive strain-sensors tolerant towards cracks potentially evolved in service.
Highlights • The haplotypes of 27 Y-STR loci of 1007 unrelated males from a Chinese Han population were typed with Yfiler® Plus system. • 1033 father–son pairs were genotyped and the average mutation ...rate for the 27 Y-STR loci is relatively high. • Population relationships were analyzed by comparison with 19 other worldwide populations.
Despite scholarly consensus on the positive influence of peers’ parental education on students’ academic achievement, less is known about whether marginalized students reap similar benefits as their ...nonmarginalized counterparts. Using data from the China Educational Panel Survey and a quasi-experimental design, we show that the impact of classmates’ parental education on test scores is significantly stronger for local students than for migrant students in urban schools. These differential effects are largely driven by rural-to-urban migrants and not by urban-to-urban migrants. Additionally, we find that rural migrant students benefit less from the positive effects of peer parental education than their local counterparts, especially when their local peers hold higher levels of discriminative attitudes toward rural migrant students in their classes.
Key challenges limiting the adoption of metallic plasmonic nanostructures for practical devices include structural stability and the ease of large‐scale fabrication. Overcoming these issues may ...require novel metamaterial fabrication with potentials for improved durability under extreme conditions. Here, a self‐assembled growth of a hybrid plasmonic metamaterial in thin‐film form is reported, with epitaxial Ag nanopillars embedded in TiN, a mechanically strong and chemically inert matrix. One of the key achievements lies in the successful control of the tilt angle of the Ag nanopillars (from 0° to 50°), which is attributed to the interplay between the growth kinetics and thermodynamics during deposition. Such an anisotropic nature offered by the tilted Ag nanopillars in TiN matrix is crucial for achieving broadband, asymmetric optical selectivity. Optical spectra coupled with numerical simulations demonstrate strong plasmonic resonance, as well as angular selectivity in a broad UV–vis to near‐infrared regime. The nanostructured metamaterials in this work, which consist of highly conductive metallic nanopillars in a durable nitride matrix, have the potential to serve as a novel hybrid material platform for highly tailorable nanoscale metamaterial designs, suitable for high temperature optical applications.
Here, self‐assembled Ag–TiN nanoscale hybrid plasmonic thin films are demonstrated with tailorable tilting angles of Ag nanopillar geometries. This hybrid platform possesses epitaxial quality and enhanced thermal stability. The tilted Ag nanopillar assembly enables strong anisotropy with asymmetric angular selectivity in the broadband regime, promising for novel functional metamaterial design toward optical selectivity and long‐term durability.
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