Cloning of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha cDNA from a high hypoxia tolerant mammal - plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae)

Hypoxia-inducible factor I is a transcription factor composed of HIF-1alpha and HIF-1beta. It plays an important role in the signal transduction of cell response to hypoxia. Plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) is a high hypoxia-tolerant and cold adaptation species livin only at 3000-5000m above sea level on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In this study, HIF-1alpha cDNA of plateau pika was cloned and its expression in various tissues was studied. The results indicated that plateau pika HIF-1alpha cDNA was highly identical to those of the human (82%), bovine (89%), mouse (82%), and Norway rat (77%). The deduced amino acid sequence (822 bp) showed 90%, 92%, 86%, and 86% identities with those of the human, bovine, house mouse, and Norway rat, respectively. Northern blot analyses detected two isoforms named pLHIF-1alpha and pSHIF-1alpha. The HIF-1alpha mRNA was highly expressed in the brain and kidney, and much less in the heart, lung, liver, muscle, and spleen, which was quite different from the expression pattern of mouse mRNA. Meanwhile, a new variant of plateau pika HIF-1alpha mRNA was identified by RT-PCR and characterized. The deduced protein, composed of 536 amino acids, lacks a part of the oxygen-dependent degradation domain (ODD), both transactivation domains (TADs), and the nuclear localization signal motif (NLS). Our results suggest that HIF-1alpha may play an important role in the pika's adaptation to hypoxia, especially in brain and kidney, and pika HIF-1alpha function pattern may be different from that of mouse HIF-1alpha. Further-more, for the high ratio of HIF-1alpha homology among the animals, the HIF-1alpha gene may be a good phylogenetic performer in recovering the true phylogenetic relationships among taxa. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Endothelial microparticles released in thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura express von Willebrand factor and markers of endothelial activation

It has been suggested that endothelial apoptosis is a primary lesion in the pathogenesis of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). We tested this hypothesis by examining the phenotypic signatures of endothelial microparticles (EMP) in TTP patients. In addition, the effect of TTP plasma on microvascular endothelial cells (MVEC) in culture was further delineated. EMP released by endothelial cells (EC) express markers of the parent EC; EMP released in activation carry predominantly CD54 and CD62E, while those in apoptosis CD31 and CD105. We investigated EMP release in vitro and in TTP patients. Following incubation of MVEC with TTP plasma, EMP and EC were analysed by flow cytometry for the expression of CD31, CD51, CD54, CD62E, CD105, CD106 and von Willebrand factor (VWF) antigen. EMP were also analysed in 12 TTP patients. In both EC and EMP, CD62E and CD54 expression were increased 3- to 10-fold and 8- to 10-fold respectively. However, CD31 and CD105 were reduced 40-60% in EC but increased twofold in EMP. VWF expression was found in 55 +/- 15% of CD62E(+) EMP. Markers of apoptosis were negative. In TTP patients, CD62E(+) and CD31(+)/CD42b(-) EMP were markedly elevated, and preceded and correlated well with a rise in platelet counts and a fall in lactate dehydrogenase. CD62E(+) EMP (60 +/- 20%) co-expressed VWF and CD62E. The ratio of CD31(+)/42b(-) to CD62E(+) EMP exhibited a pattern consistent with activation. In conclusion, our studies indicate endothelial activation in TTP. EMP that co-express VWF and CD62E could play a role in the pathogenesis of TTP.

高中生家庭功能与情绪问题的关系及人格的中介作用

The aim of this research is to explore the characteristics of family functioning，personality and their relation to anxiety and depression in high school students. A total of 914 high school students were assessed with The Chinese Family Assessment Instrument and Five -factor Personality Questionnaire and Mental Health Test and Middle School Students Depression Questionnaire. The result indicates, 1. The family functioning and Personality were all significant difference to school, gender, mother’s education and father’s education. 2. There were school, gender, mother’s education and father’s education differences in anxiety of students. 3. There were school, mother’s education and father’s education differences in depression of students. 4. Family functioning were predictive factor directly to anxiety of students, personality serves in part as medium between family functioning and anxiety of students. 5. Family functioning were predictive factor directly to the high school students’ depression, personality serves in part as medium between family functioning and depression of students. 6. The different schools had special features in relation models between family functioning, personality and anxiety of students. 7. The different schools had special features in relation models between family functioning, personality and depression of students.

金融工作者的抑郁症状的影响因素及其形成机制研究

Ill-health prevails in the workplace. A key problem encountered in the area of stress management is a lack of research into the way job burnout turns into mental problems, especially depressive symptoms, the most prevalent and costly psychiatric condition in the workplace. This research belongs to a cross-discipline area of industrial psychiatry and organizational behavior, which has seldom been investigated before. This research will contribute to the theoretical development of organizational behavior, especially to stress management and industrial psychiatry. This study aims to explore etiological factors and mechanisms of depressive symptoms of workers in the financial industry. By using literature review, semi-structured interviews and surveys as the major research methods, this Ph.D. study systematically investigated the risk factors of workers’ depressive symptoms within and outside of the work area. These risk factors are worker-work environment fits, work family conflicts, and workers’ psychological vulnerabilities to depression. A thorough literature review and 20 semi-structured interviews of brokers in different kinds of financial markets show the feasibility and necessity of this Ph.D. study when it comes to the issue of financial workers’ depressive symptoms. Two surveys of workplace-etiological factors of depressive symptoms were conducted among 244 financial workers and 1024 financial workers. This cross-sample verification showed that worker-work environment fit was a good framework to study risk factors of workers’ depressive symptoms. Results revealed that job demands-abilities misfit could lead to job burnout which in turn contributed to worker’s depressive symptoms; besides this, work effort-reward imbalance could directly cause workers’ depressive symptoms. Emotional labor enhanced the positive effect of job burnout on workers’ depressive symptoms. In the third study, a prominent risk factor outside of the work area, namely work family conflict, and workers’ psychological vulnerabilities of depression were included with workplace etiological factors to investigate the overall predictive model of depressive symptoms of financial workers. The survey was conducted among the same 1024 financial workers. Results indicated that work effort-reward imbalance, job burnout and work interfering in family life were three external etiological factors of workers’ depressive symptoms. Neuroticism, autonomy and low emotional intelligence were three individual etiological factors which had a positive effect on workers’ depressive symptoms. Moreover, neuroticism enhanced the relationship between job burnout and depressive symptoms as well as between work interfering in family life and depressive symptoms. Autonomy aggravated the relationship between job burnout and depressive symptoms. However, emotional intelligence attenuated the relationship between job burnout and depressive symptoms as well as between work effort-reward imbalance and depressive symptoms. Besides, workers’ dysfunctional attitudes played a partial mediating role in the relationships between above etiological factors and depressive symptoms. In the same sample, research evidence of impairments of workers’ depressive symptoms to their work-life quality was also obtained. Specifically, depressive symptoms could predict workers’ presenteeism, absenteeism and turnover intention. Their subjective well-being was also lowered when suffering more severe depressive symptoms. This research provides a theoretical basis to management practices targeted to set up the Employee Assistance Program or even more specilised rehabilitation programs for workers with depressive symptoms so as to improve their work-life quality and and establish a harmonious enterprise.

态度结构一致性对态度-行为关系的影响：个体与群体水平的研究

Social psychologists have long been interested in understanding the conditions under which attitudes influence behaviors, and they have formed two relatively independent theoretical perspectives in the attitude-behavior domain. One perspective, which we adopt in the present paper, focuses on investigating the effect of attitude strength on the attitude-behavior relationship. Specifically, the present research investigates the role of structural consistency, a dimension of attitude strength, on the attitude-behavior relationship. Structural consistency has typically been defined as the extent to which one aspect of individual’s attitude is consistent with either his or her overall attitude toward the object or the other aspect of the attitude, including affective-cognitive consistency (ACC), evaluative-cognitive consistency (ECC) and evaluative-affective consistency (EAC). The ECC and EAC can be integrated into the attitude base. Despite the evidence that structural consistency is associated with attitude-behavior relationship, there are some limitations in previous studies: (1) attitude base and ACC have been rarely studied together ;( 2) researchers often used the term behavior in a broad sense to encompass behavioral intentions as well as actual behaviors ;( 3) the effects were all investigated at individual level. The present research tried to explore the effects of ACC and attitude base on attitude-behavioral intention-actual behavior relationships at individual and group levels in different behavior areas including shopping, supportive behavior towards officials, and offensive behavior towards governors and central and local governments. The roles of affective and cognitive components of attitudes on general attitudes and following behaviors were also examined in this research. The results indicated that: A. At individual and group levels, the effect of structural consistency on attitude –intention relation is as the same as its effect on attitude-behavior relation, but it varies in different areas. On the other hand, the effect of structural consistency on explicit attitude-behavior relation is different from its effect on implicit attitude-behavior relation. B. The cognitive components of the individuals and groups’ implicit attitudes towards officials, the implicit and explicit attitudes towards governors, and the public’s attitudes towards central and local governments exert the stronger influence on general attitudes. Similarly, the cognitive components also exert the stronger influence on groups’ supportive behaviors towards officials and offensive behaviors towards governors and governments. C. Both group attitude and emotion can influence the group offensive behavior towards governors. The group attitude exerts its influence through the mediating effects of behavior intention and group emotion. The group emotion which is the core factor can exert the direct influence on group offensive behavior towards governors. D. At individual and group levels, the implicit and explicit measures should be used together to collect the attitude data, because the implicit and explicit attitudes can both predict behaviors under most conditions. It is the best implicit attitude measure to use the experts’ evaluations of listed words. And the emotion should be measured by the experts’ evaluations of listed words if the emotion data is used to predict the following behavior.

A Constant-Factor Approximation Algorithm for Embedding Unweighted Graphs into Trees

We present a constant-factor approximation algorithm for computing an embedding of the shortest path metric of an unweighted graph into a tree, that minimizes the multiplicative distortion.

Capillary zone electrophoresis investigation of interactions between granulocyte-colony stimulating factor and dextran sulfate/carrageenan oligosaccharide

The interactions between granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and dextran sulfate/kappa-carrageenan oligosaccharide were studied by capillary zone electrophoresis. Dextran sulfate could strongly interact with G-CSF and the complex was detected. The binding constant and stoichiometry were determined to be 1.2x10(6) (mol/L)(-1) and 3:1, respectively. However, the interaction between K-carrageenan oligosaccharide and G-CSF was not found.

The lack of associations between alleles at the hypoxia-Inducible factor 1A C1772T loci and responses to acute hypoxia.

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between alleles of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1A (HIF1A) C1772T polymorphism and several physiological responses to hypoxia, including the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR), and serum erythropoietin (EPO), arterial oxygen saturation (Sao2), and acute mountain sickness (AMS) responses during 8 hours of exposure to normobaric hypoxia. Methods A total of 76 males participated in the study; 52 participants completed an 8-hour exposure to 12.7% oxygen, during which time Sao2, EPO concentrations, and AMS scores were measured, while 62 individuals took part in an HVR trial (in total 38 individuals completed both protocols). DNA was obtained from leukocytes, and a 346-bp fragment of the HIF1A gene containing the C1772T polymorphism was amplified using polymerase chain reaction. Fragments were sequenced to reveal individual genotypes, and the associations between HIF1A genotype and EPO, Sao2, AMS responses to hypoxia and HVR were examined. Results The magnitude of the hypoxic responses was highly variable between individuals. The increase in participants' EPO responses ranged from 89% to 388% of baseline values following hypoxia, while Sao2 values during the exposure ranged from 71% to 89%. The HVR ranged from −0.04 to +2.18 L · min−1 · Sao2%−1 among participants. No significant differences in EPO, Sao2, AMS, or HVR results were observed between the HIF1A CC genotype and the combined CT/TT genotype group. Conclusion In this study, the HIF1A C1772T polymorphism does not appear to influence EPO, Sao2, or AMS responses during acute hypoxic exposure, or the magnitude of the HVR.

The effect of the product cost factor on error handling in industrial robots

N.W. Hardy and M.H. Lee. The effect of the product cost factor on error handling in industrial robots. In Maria Gini, editor, Detecting and Resolving Errors in Manufacturing Systems. Papers from the 1994 AAAI Spring Symposium Series, pages 59-64, Menlo Park, CA, March 1994. The AAAI Press. Technical Report SS-94-04, ISBN 0-929280-60-1.

A role for LH in the regulation of expression of mRNAs encoding components of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system in the ovine corpus luteum

P.M. Hastie and W. Haresign (2006). A role for LH in the regulation of expression of mRNAs encoding components of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system in the ovine corpus luteum. Animal Reproduction Science, 96(1-2), 196-209. Sponsorship: DEFRA RAE2008

The rpf gene of Micrococcus luteus encodes an essential secreted growth factor

Galina V. Mukamolova, Obolbek A. Turapov, Konstantin Kazarian, Miroslav Telkov, Arseny S. Kaprelyants, Douglas B. Kell and Michael Young (2002). The rpf gene of Micrococcus luteus encodes an essential secreted growth factor. Molecular Microbiology, 46 (3), 611-621. Sponsorship: BBSRC / Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 00-04-48691)/ WHO Global Programme for Vaccines and Immunization / Wellcome Trust RAE2008