The primary circadian pacemaker, in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the mammalian brain, is photoentrained by light signals from the eyes through the retinohypothalamic tract. Retinal rod and ...cone cells are not required for photoentrainment. Recent evidence suggests that the entraining photoreceptors are retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) that project to the SCN. The visual pigment for this photoreceptor may be melanopsin, an opsin-like protein whose coding messenger RNA is found in a subset of mammalian RGCs. By cloning rat melanopsin and generating specific antibodies, we show that melanopsin is present in cell bodies, dendrites, and proximal axonal segments of a subset of rat RGCs. In mice heterozygous for tau-lacZ targeted to the melanopsin gene locus, β-galactosidase-positive RGC axons projected to the SCN and other brain nuclei involved in circadian photoentrainment or the pupillary light reflex. Rat RGCs that exhibited intrinsic photosensitivity invariably expressed melanopsin. Hence, melanopsin is most likely the visual pigment of phototransducing RGCs that set the circadian clock and initiate other non-image-forming visual functions.
Summary
Background
Acral melanoma (AM) is the most common histopathological subtype of malignant melanoma in Asians. However, differences in the mutational profiles underlying AM and nonacral ...cutaneous melanoma (NAM) in Asians are not well understood.
Objectives
To augment the understanding of the prevalence, patterns and associations of various mutations between different subtypes of melanoma.
Methods
We performed comprehensive genomic profiling of 409 cancer‐associated genes, using next‐generation sequencing, in 66 primary melanomas comprised of 45 AMs and 21 NAMs.
Results
Most of the AMs (n = 27/45; 60%), but only five of 21 (24%) NAMs, were triple wild‐type (triple‐WT) tumours. Compared with AMs, NAMs exhibited a significantly higher frequency of BRAF mutations. The frequencies of NRAS/KRAS mutations, cell‐cycle aberrations, copy number gains in BIRC2, BIRC3 and BIRC5, and gains of receptor tyrosine kinase genes were significantly higher in AMs. Ulceration was found at significantly higher rates in the AMs and NAMs with cell‐cycle aberrations and gains of receptor tyrosine kinase genes. Notably, cell‐cycle aberrations and copy number gains in BIRC2, BIRC3 and BIRC5 were significantly associated with poor melanoma‐specific survival in the 66 patients with melanoma and especially in the 45 patients with AM. Multivariate analysis showed that lymph node metastasis and cell‐cycle aberrations were independent prognostic factors of melanoma‐specific survival.
Conclusions
This study strengthens our understanding of the patterns and clinical associations of oncogenic mutations in AMs and NAMs in Asians.
What's already known about this topic?
Mutation frequencies of driver genes vary between melanoma subtypes.
Acral melanoma is the most common subtype of melanoma in Asians.
KIT mutations and copy number variations occur more frequently in the acral subtype of melanoma than in the nonacral subtype
What does this study add?
NRAS/KRAS mutations, cell‐cycle aberrations, copy number gains in BIRC2, BIRC3 and BIRC5, and amplifications of receptor tyrosine kinase genes were significantly enriched in acral melanoma and could be potential targets for treatment.
Melanomas with cell‐cycle aberrations and gains in receptor tyrosine kinase genes were significantly more likely to contain ulceration.
What is the translational message?
Cell‐cycle aberrations and copy number gains in BIRC2, BIRC3 and BIRC5 were significantly associated with poor melanoma‐specific survival.
These observations should be explored further for future drug development.
Linked Comment: Johansson. Br J Dermatol 2020; 182:1085.
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FeFETs with 5-nm-thick Hf 0.5 Zr 0.5 O 2 (HZO) have been demonstrated in memory operations for the ON/OFF current ratio >10 4 at zero gate voltage and a memory window (MW) of 0.6-0.7 V. A gradual ...transition of the ferroelectricity with an increasing crystallization temperature for the gate-last process was presented. The excellent data retention are the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{\sim }\textsf {2}\times \textsf {10}^{\textsf {4}} </tex-math></inline-formula> ON/OFF ratio and 0.67 V extrapolated to ten years with V P/E = ±4.8 V. The MW remains >0.2 V after 10 6 cycles for read and vanishes with cycles of 10 3 −10 4 for write, which is the bottleneck for ferroelectric (FE)-type memories. The mechanism of retention and endurance is discussed. The characteristic of this letter is an unaffected coercive-field (~1 MV/cm) with scaling FE-HZO down to 5-nm thickness, which is beneficial for reducing the operation voltage. A comparable performance with thick HZO (>5 nm) on high data retention and endurance with low voltage for read is achieved. The ultrathin FE layer proposes a realistic emerging memory for 1T architecture.
Summary
Ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi form symbiotic associations with plant roots that regulate nutrient exchange between forest plants and soil. Environmental metagenomics approaches that employ ...next‐generation sequencing show great promise for studying EM symbioses; however, metatranscriptomic studies have been constrained by the inherent difficulties associated with isolation and sequencing of RNA from mycorrhizae. Here we apply an optimized method for combined DNA/RNA extraction using field‐collected EM fungal–pine root clusters, together with protocols for taxonomic identification of expressed ribosomal RNA, and inference of EM function based on plant and fungal metatranscriptomics. We used transcribed portions of ribosomal RNA genes to identify several transcriptionally dominant fungal taxa associated with loblolly pine including Amphinema, Russula and Piloderma spp. One taxon, Piloderma croceum, has a publically available genome that allowed us to identify patterns of gene content and transcript abundance. Over 1500 abundantly expressed Piloderma genes were detected from mycorrhizal roots, including genes for protein metabolism, cell signalling, electron transport, terpene synthesis and other extracellular activities. In contrast, Piloderma gene encoding an ammonia transporter showed highest transcript abundance in soil samples. Our methodology highlights the potential of metatranscriptomics to identify genes associated with symbiosis and ecosystem function using field‐collected samples.
This paper reports the current potentials of cold gas dynamic spraying (CGDS). CGDS has been significantly developed to produce several functional solutions categorized as follows: deposits with a ...single powder nature, composites-based deposits, nanotechnological deposits and hybrid coating/substrate assemblies. CGDS process has improved in proficiency and is still gaining attention from scientists and industry. Covering a wide range of materials, both standard and advanced, this additive manufacturing process offers substantial applications for surface functionalization, structural or dimensional restoration, bulk production providing specific material properties, and art/decoration. Progress in terms of material processing capabilities and applications are ongoing. CGDS brings opportunities of better materials and innovative solutions. This review also indicates some recent challenges of cold spraying. Those represent future research directions to increase the enactment of CGDS as a proven viable innovative additive manufacturing method.
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•CGDS has been significantly developed to produce several functional solutions.•CGDS offers substantial applications for surface functionalization, restoration, bulk production, and art/decoration.•CGDS enables producing various deposits possibilities and hybrid coating/substrate assemblies.•Current challenges of cold gas dynamic spraying are reported.
The aim of this study is to promote significant bond strength with laser surface texturing tools for different coating deposited by spray processes. Pulsed nanosecond laser has been used to improve ...the ultimate adhesion strength of thermal spray coating designed for specific applications, and the full potential of this technology must be further explored. This technology proposes several benefits such as free of grit-particle inclusions, limited affected zone and the interface contact quality. The most important improvement is the coating anchoring in the substrate by laser patterned surface. Adhesion bond strength has been improved and evaluated with the contact area. Fracture mechanic analysis has been studied and it showed that the pattern morphology has an impact on crack propagation. A mixed-mode failure has been defined and chosen to explain adhesion strength improvements for the different applications. Laser surface texturing was performed on light metal alloys substrates before cold spraying of light metal alloys powder, wire-arc metallization and atmospheric plasma spraying of thermal barrier coating without bond coat. This study has highlighted laser potential to enhance adhesion bond strength in the dry deposition field.
•Our study covers surface laser texturing to enhance coating adhesion strength•This paper focuses on anchoring mechanisms induced by prior surface treatments•Adhesion strength and deposition efficiency were increased for different thermal spray processes with laser surface texturing•A short pulsed laser is used with a low power (20W), a high frequency (varying between 10 and 100kHz) and an adapted wavelength (λ=1064μm)•Bonding mechanisms and failures mode are described for conventional and laser treated samples
With the usage of gas ferrocene Fe(C 5 H 5 ) 2 as a reactant, which is different from the traditional thin Fe film, to grow the high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the high aspect ratio (AR) ...trench structure, it has many advantages to be the through-silicon vias (TSVs) material for the three-dimensional (3-D) stacking technology. In this work, we successfully demonstrate the full process flow, including CNT growing, chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), and wafer temporary bonding for CNTs as TSVs in the 3-D stacking connection. The flexibility for this demonstrated process flow makes the integration of real high dense devices and CNTs as TSVs for the 3-D connection more easily.
We propose a novel multipurpose watermarking scheme, in which robust and fragile watermarks are simultaneously embedded, for copyright protection and content authentication. By quantizing a host ...image's wavelet coefficients as masking threshold units (MTUs), two complementary watermarks are embedded using cocktail watermarking and they can be blindly extracted without access to the host image. For the purpose of image protection, the new scheme guarantees that, no matter what kind of attack is encountered, at least one watermark can survive well. On the other hand, for the purpose of image authentication, our approach can locate the part of the image that has been tampered with and tolerate some incidental processes that have been executed. Experimental results show that the performance of our multipurpose watermarking scheme is indeed superb in terms of robustness and fragility.
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