Reconstructing gene regulatory networks with a memetic-neural hybrid based on fuzzy cognitive maps

Reconstructing gene regulatory networks (GRNs) plays an important role in identifying the complicated regulatory relationships, uncovering regulatory patterns in cells, and gaining a systematic view for biological processes. In order to reconstruct large-scale GRNs accurately, in this paper, we first use fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), which are a kind of cognition fuzzy influence graphs based on fuzzy logic and neural networks, to model GRNs. Then, a novel hybrid method is proposed to reconstruct GRNs from time series expression profiles using memetic algorithm (MA) combined with neural network (NN), which is labeled as MANN_FCM-GRN. In MANN_FCM-GRN, the MA is used to determine regulatory connections in GRNs and the NN is used to determine the interaction strength of the regulatory connections. In the experiments, the performance of MANN_FCM-GRN is validated on both synthetic data and the benchmark dataset DREAM3 and DREAM4. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of MANN_FCM-GRN and show that MANN_FCM-GRN can reconstruct GRNs with high accuracy without expert knowledge. The comparison with existing algorithms also shows that MANN_FCM-GRN outperforms ant colony optimization, non-linear Hebbian learning, and real-coded genetic algorithms.

     

烟道流量计量标准装置

为了解决我国烟道流量计的量值溯源问题,中国计量科学研究院建立了烟道流量计量标准装置。装置使用可溯源至标准转盘的激光多普勒测速仪作为原级标准器,采用激光多普勒流速剖面扫描和超声流量计波动修正的方式测量标准流量,经校准的8声道超声流量计为工作级标准表,具备了908~104840m3/h的测量能力,扩展不确定度为0.62%(k=2),可对最大口径为1m的流量计进行校准。装置下游测试段包括圆形管段和矩形管段,能够开展烟道流量计测量性能的研究。     

Visual Detection of Adenosine Triphosphate by Taylor Rising: A Simple Point-of-Care Testing Method Based on Rolling Circle Amplification

Rapid and sensitive point-of-care testing (POCT) is an extremely critical mission in practical applications, especially for rigorous military medicine, home health care, and in the third world. Here, we report a visual POCT method for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection based on Taylor rising in the corner of quadratic geometries between two rod surfaces. We discuss the principle of Taylor rising, demonstrating that it is significantly influenced by contact angle, surface tension, and density of the sample, which are controlled by ATP-dependent rolling circle amplification (RCA). In the presence of ATP, RCA reaction effectively suppresses Taylor-rising behavior, due to the increased contact angle, density, and decreased surface tension. Without addition of ATP, untriggered RCA reaction is favorable for Taylor rising, resulting in a significant height. With this proposed method, visual sensitive detection of ATP without the aid of other instruments is realized with only a 5 μL droplet, which has good selectivity and a low detection limit (17 nM). Importantly, this visual method provides a promising POCT tool for user-friendly molecular diagnostics.     

YSZ/MoS2 self-lubricating coating fabricated by thermal spraying and hydrothermal reaction

Thermal sprayed ceramic coatings have extensively been used in components to protect them against friction and wear. However, the poor lubricating ability severely limits their application. Herein, yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ)/MoS₂ composite coatings were successfully fabricated on steel substrate with the combination of thermal spraying technology and hydrothermal reaction. Results show that the synthetic MoS₂ powders are composed of numbers of ultra-thin sheets (about 7 ~ 8?nm), and the sheet has obvious lamellar structure. After vacuum impregnation and hydrothermal reaction, numbers of MoS₂ powders, look like flowers, generate inside the plasma sprayed YSZ coating. Moreover, the growing point of the MoS₂ flower is the intrinsic micro-pores of YSZ coating. The friction and wear tests under high vacuum environment indicate that the composite coating has an extremely long lifetime (>?100,000 cycles) and possesses a low friction coefficient less than 0.1, which is lower by about 0.15 times than that of YSZ coating. Meanwhile, the composite shows an extremely low wear rate (2.30?×?10^?7 mm³ N^?1 m^?1) and causes slight wear damage to the counterpart. The excellent lubricant and wear-resistant ability are attributed to the formation of MoS₂ transfer films and the ultra-smooth of the worn surfaces of hybrid coatings.     

Cu基络合物催化甲醇液相氧化羰化反应

针对甲醇液相氧化羰基化法合成碳酸二甲酯(DMC)工艺,开发了新型Cu基络合催化剂(CuB rnLm)。对CuB rnLm催化剂的活性及其稳定性进行了研究。实验结果表明,采用该催化剂,甲醇转化率和DMC选择性较高;元素价态和物质结构分析表明,CuB rnLm催化剂循环使用5次后仍保持较好的稳定性。采用正交设计和中心响应曲面法设计实验,并使用S tatistica软件进行统计分析,寻求出反应的主要影响因素,并得到优化的工艺条件:反应温度100~110℃、反应压力3.0~3.5M Pa、反应时间4~6h、CuB rnLm催化剂质量浓度(以甲醇的体积计)0.15~0.20g/mL。在此工艺条件下,甲醇转化率可达23%以上,DMC的选择性为96%~98%。     

溶剂对环氧乙烷催化水合制乙二醇的影响

研究了NY催化剂催化环氧乙烷水合制乙二醇(EG)过程中,溶剂、催化剂添加量和水与环氧乙烷的摩尔比(简称水比)对EG选择性的影响。实验结果表明,以丙三醇作为溶剂使催化剂进行循环,能提高EG的选择性,效果好于以生成的EG作为溶剂循环催化剂。催化剂添加量、水比和溶剂添加量对EG选择性具有较大影响,其中溶剂添加量对EG选择性的影响最显著。在低水比(1.0~4.0)条件下,EG质量分数小于30%、催化剂质量分数大于7.2%时,EG选择性稳定在95.63%~97.92%,平均值为96.80%,此结果对于进一步降低EG合成工艺的能耗具有指导意义。     

Battery-Aware Routing for Streaming Data Transmissions in Wireless Sensor Networks

Recent technological advances have made it possible to support long lifetime and large volume streaming data transmissions in sensor networks. A major challenge is to maximize the lifetime of battery-powered sensors to support such transmissions. Battery, as the power provider of the sensors, therefore emerges as the key factor for achieving high performance in such applications. Recent study in battery technology reveals that the behavior of battery discharging is more complex than we used to think. Battery powered sensors might waste a huge amount of energy if we do not carefully schedule and budget their discharging. In this paper we study the effect of battery behavior on routing for streaming data transmissions in wireless sensor networks. We first give an on-line computable energy model to mathematically model battery discharge behavior. We show that the model can capture and describe battery behavior accurately at low computational complexity and thus is suitable for on-line battery capacity computation. Based on this battery model we then present a battery-aware routing (BAR) protocol to schedule the routing in wireless sensor networks. The routing protocol is sensitive to the battery status of routing nodes and avoids energy loss. We use the battery data from actual sensors to evaluate the performance of our protocol. The results show that the battery-aware protocol proposed in this paper performs well and can save a significant amount of energy compared to existing routing protocols for streaming data transmissions. Network lifetime is also prolonged with maximum data throughput. As far as we know, this is the first work considering battery-awareness with an accurate analytical on-line computable battery model in sensor network routing. We believe the battery model can be used to explore other energy efficient schemes for wireless networks as well.