Sterol metabolism in the opportunistic pathogen <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pneumocystis</Emphasis>: Advances and new insights

Pneumocystis can transiently colonize healthy individuals without causing adverse symptoms, and most people test positive for exposure to this organism early in life. However, it can cause Pneumocystis pneumonia (PcP) in people with impaired immune systems and is a major cause of death in HIV/AIDS. Although it has close affinities to the Ascomycetes, Pneumocystis has features unlike those of any single group of fungi. For example, Pneumocystis does not synthesize ergosterol, which is consistent with the inefficacy of amphotericin B and some triazoles in clearing PcP. Pneumocystis sterols include distinct Δ⁷ 24-alkylsterols. Metabolic radiolabeling experiments demonstrated that P. carinii synthesizes sterols de novo. Cholesterol is the most abundant sterol in Pneumocystis; most, if not all, is scavenged from the mammalian host lung by the pathogen. The P. carinii erg7, erg6, and erg11 genes have been cloned, sequenced, and expressed in heterologous systems. The recombinant P. carinii S-adenosyl-l-methionine:C-24 sterol methyl transferase (SAM:SMT) has a preference for lanosterol over zymosterol as substrate, and the enzyme can catalyze the transfer of either one or two methyl groups to the C-24 position of the sterol side chain. Two different sterol compositions were detected among human-derived P. jirovecii; one was dominated by C₂₈ and C₂₉ sterols, and the other had high proportions of higher molecular mass components, notably the C₃₂ sterol pneumocysterol. The latter phenotype apparently represents organisms blocked at 14α-demethylation of the sterol nucleus. These studies suggest that SAM:SMT is an attractive drug target for developing new chemotherapy for PcP.     

广西田阳县生态扶贫产业核心示范区一期工程补水泵站设计

结合广西田阳县生态扶贫产业核心示范区一期工程补水泵站实际情况,通过方案比选,采用河流入江口东岸布置方案,并对泵站进行了设计介绍,总结技术特点,为类似工程提供参考。     

基于SOAP的企业异构信息系统集成

阐述了SOAP通信协议的构成和实现机制以及与相似协议的比较。基于它的跨平台的能力,将其运用于企业的分布式环境中,实现了异构信息系统间的互操作和跨部门的数据处理,提高企业数据处理的效能,同时为企业异构信息系统集成提供了新的方法。     

A noisy-smoothing relevance feedback method for content-based medical image retrieval

In this paper, we address a new problem of noisy images which present in the procedure of relevance feedback for medical image retrieval. We concentrate on the noisy images, caused by the users mislabeling some irrelevant images as relevant ones, and a noisy-smoothing relevance feedback (NS-RF) method is proposed. In NS-RF, a two-step strategy is proposed to handle the noisy images. In step 1, a noisy elimination algorithm is adopted to identify and eliminate the noisy images. In step 2, to further alleviate the influence of noisy images, a fuzzy membership function is employed to estimate the relevance probabilities of retained relevant images. After noisy handling, the fuzzy support vector machine, which can take into account different relevant images with different relevance probabilities, is adopted to re-rank the images. The experimental results on the IRMA medical image collection demonstrate that the proposed method can deal with the noisy images effectively.     

Morphologies-Controlled Synthesis and Optical Properties of Bismuth Tungstate Nanocrystals by a Low-Temperature Molten Salt Method

Well-crystallized bismuth tungstate (Bi₂WO₆) powders with different morphologies were successfully synthesized via a low-temperature molten salt method. The powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and UV-Vis, respectively. It was found that the variation of morphology of the obtained Bi₂WO₆ powder mainly depends on the different reaction temperatures and the weight ratio of LiNO₃–NaNO₃ salt to precursor. In addition, the UV-Visible absorption spectra showed that the synthesized powders had strong light absorption properties not only in the ultraviolet light but also in the visible light region.     

Integrated size and topology optimization of skeletal structures with exact frequency constraints

The present paper studies the integrated size and topology optimization of skeletal structures under natural frequency constraints. It is found that, unlike the conventional compliance-oriented topology optimization problems, the considered problem may be strongly singular in the sense that the corresponding feasible domain may be disconnected and the global optimal solutions are often located at the tips of some separated low dimensional sub-domains when the cross-sectional areas of the structural components are used as design variables. As in the case of stress-constrained topology optimization, this unpleasant behavior may prevent the gradient-based numerical optimization algorithms from finding the true optimal topologies. To overcome the difficulties posed by the strongly singular optima, some particular forms of area/moment of inertia-density interpolation schemes, which can restore the connectedness of the feasible domain, are proposed. Based on the proposed optimization model, the probability of finding the strongly singular optimum with gradient-based algorithms can be increased. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

PVC╱NBR╱BR三元共混弹性体的制备

采用结合丙烯腈含量为26％的NBR、分子量适中的悬浮法Ⅲ型PVC和BR共混,制得了综合性能较PVC/NBR并用胶优异的弹性体。优选的工艺条件为:PVC/NBR/BR=30/60/10(质量比);补强剂选用炭黑40份,超细碳酸钙50份,轻质碳酸钙20份;硫化体系选用过氧化物加少量硫磺;混炼温度为140—170℃,混炼时间为10—15min。通过电子显微镜和动态力学分析,弹性体存在两个T,PVC为分散相,橡胶为连续相。     

基于安全隔离的边界防护体系的设计与实现

本文针对电子政务信息系统的特点,设计了基于安全隔离的边界防护体系。将安全隔离技术应用到电子政务中,实现了数据的安全高效实时传输,形成了多方位的安全边界防护体系架构。     

Photocross-linking of low-density polyethylene. III. Supermolecular structure studied by SALS

The supermolecular structure of photocross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) has been studied by small-angle light scattering (SALS). The data show that the spherulitic structure of XLPE gradually deteriorates with increasing degree of cross-linking and increasing irradiation temperature from well-developed spherulites to rodlike aggregates and disordered lamellar structures. A photocross-linked sample of PE has lower crystallinity, smaller crystallites, and smaller spherulites than does the original sample. At high degrees of cross-linking, the SALS patterns show little or no spherulitic structure. Results with photocross-linked polyethylene demonstrate that the overall effect of cross-linking on the morphological structure is similar to that of an increase in molecular weight of the polymer. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

浅谈构建安全的长江海事电子政务网络体系

电子政务已成为长江海事局工作信息化的重点工程。对长江海事电子政务网络建设的基础安全服务设施、安全管理保障体系、安全技术支撑平台和响应与恢复机制等问题进行了分析,并结合实践经验,提出了建立安全可靠的长江海事电子政务网络体系的对策。