Evidence for changes in large-scale upwelling in the California Current over the past 700 years [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Bidecadal radiocarbon measurements on tree rings provide a detailed series of carbon-14 activities at isotopic equilibrium with atmospheric carbon dioxide. ... Most marine environments do not permit development of a comparable series of carbon-14 ages with which to compare the terrestrial tree ring series. However, we have recently begun work on such a series using material from the varved sediments of the Santa Barbara Basin off southern California. ... We now have a nearly continuous record of carbon-14 dates representing the age of the water over the upper 100 meters. ... The ocean reservoir ages show an increase prior to 1450 and a progressive decrease with time after 1450. Although there may be other explanations, we believe this trend is principally the result of changes in large-scale upwelling of water from below 500 meters. These changes were probably also associated with changes in the intensity of the California Current.

Biodeterioration of wooden boats: a major problem facing marine fisheries

In India, the fishing industry alone incurs an annual loss of over 120 million rupees on account of biodeterioration of wooden fishing craft. None of the timber species, currently in demand for boat-building, possesses an natural bioresistance and will be completely destroyed within 6 to 12 months. Preventive measures against biodeterioration range from application of several indigenous formulations to metallic sheathings and pressure impregnation of wood with preservative chemicals. These methods do not provide lasting protection, as each has its own short-comings and inadequacies. The need for long-term research in the field of marine biodeterioration for improving the efficiency of currently known control measures, with emphasis on application of non-polluting biological methods, is stressed.

A new, fast response CO2 sensor

The inability of emissions reduction methods to meet upcoming legislation without an unacceptable increase in vehicle cost is a major problem of automobile manufacturer. This work aims to develop a cost-effective reduction of automobile emissions. A prototype CO2 sensor with 5 msec response time was built and bench tested, then used on an engine. The sensor design was based on standard emissions measurement technology using non-dispersive IR absorption. An improved sensor has now been completed with significant improvements in terms of signal to noise ratio and long-term stability. The improved sensor will be used to measure CO2 concentrations on three different engines. The results will then be used to validate engine and catalyst models and to propose control strategies aimed at reducing overall emissions. A brief description of the sensor itself was presented. Original is an abstract.

Construction of a BAC library for Chinese amphioxus Branchiostoma belcheri and identification of clones containing Amphi-pax genes

Amphioxus is a crucial organism for the study of vertebrate evolution. Although a genomic BAC library of Branchiostoma floridae has been constructed, we report here another BAC library construction of its distant relative species Branchiostoma belcheri. The amphioxus BAC library established in present study consists of 45,312 clones arrayed in one hundred and eighteen 384-well plates. The average insert fragment size was 120 kb estimated by Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis of 318 randomly selected clones. The representation of the library is about 12 equivalent to the genome, allowing a 99.9995% probability of recovering any specific sequence of interest. We further screened the library with 4 single copied Amphi-Pax genes and identified total of 26 positive clones with average of 6.5 clones for each gene. The result indicates this library is well suited for many applications and should also serve as a useful complemental resource for the scientific community.

Gaussian mixture modeling with Gaussian process latent variable models

Density modeling is notoriously difficult for high dimensional data. One approach to the problem is to search for a lower dimensional manifold which captures the main characteristics of the data. Recently, the Gaussian Process Latent Variable Model (GPLVM) has successfully been used to find low dimensional manifolds in a variety of complex data. The GPLVM consists of a set of points in a low dimensional latent space, and a stochastic map to the observed space. We show how it can be interpreted as a density model in the observed space. However, the GPLVM is not trained as a density model and therefore yields bad density estimates. We propose a new training strategy and obtain improved generalisation performance and better density estimates in comparative evaluations on several benchmark data sets. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽及其基因和在制药中的应用

本发明涉及一种无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽及及其基因和在制药中的应用，属于生物医学领域。无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽是无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽基因编码的一种单链多肽，分子量3015.63道尔顿，等电点10.3，多肽全序列一级结构为： Ala Thr Ala Leu Gly Leu Ser Ser Arg Gly Leu Leu Pro Ile Gly Phe Met Phe Lys Asp Thr Ile Arg Cys Arg Lys Tyr(ATALGLSSRGLLPIGFMFKDTIRCRKY)。编码无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽的基因由312个核苷酸组成，其中编码成熟无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽为第141-222位核苷酸。人工合成的无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽具有很强的抑制细菌和真菌生长的作用，可以作为制备病原微生物感染疾病的治疗药物被应用。无指盘臭蛙皮肤活性肽具有结构简单、人工合成方便、抗菌谱系广、抗菌活性强的特点。

无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽及其基因和在制药中的应用

本发明涉及一种无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽及其基因和在制药中的应用，属于生物医学领域。无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽是无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽基因编码的一种单链多肽，分子量1814.11道尔顿，等电点8.08，多肽全序列一级结构为： Gly Cys Ser Arg Trp Ile Ile Gly Ile His Gly Gln Ile Cys Arg Asp。(GCSRWIIGIHGQICRD)。编码无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽的基因由312个核苷酸组成，其中编码成熟无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽为第141-189位核苷酸。人工合成的无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽具有很强的抑制细菌和真菌生长的作用，可以作为制备病原微生物感染疾病的治疗药物被应用。本发明的无指盘臭蛙臭蛙肽具有结构简单、人工合成方便、抗菌谱系广、抗菌活性强的特点。

An evaluation of volumetric interest points

This paper presents the first performance evaluation of interest points on scalar volumetric data. Such data encodes 3D shape, a fundamental property of objects. The use of another such property, texture (i.e. 2D surface colouration), or appearance, for object detection, recognition and registration has been well studied; 3D shape less so. However, the increasing prevalence of depth sensors and the diminishing returns to be had from appearance alone have seen a surge in shape-based methods. In this work we investigate the performance of several detectors of interest points in volumetric data, in terms of repeatability, number and nature of interest points. Such methods form the first step in many shape-based applications. Our detailed comparison, with both quantitative and qualitative measures on synthetic and real 3D data, both point-based and volumetric, aids readers in selecting a method suitable for their application. © 2011 IEEE.

双峰驼线粒体DNA地高辛标记探针的制备及其应用

利用地高辛标记技术，对从双峰驼肝脏和肾脏提纯的线粒体ＤＮＡ进行了标记，制成探针，并用它检测了包含于白细胞总ＤＮＡ中的微量线粒体ＤＮＡ。结果表明这一技术完全可以成功地用于微量线粒体ＤＮＡＲＦＬＰ的分析。