Expression patterns and action analysis of genes associated with hepatitis virus infection during rat liver regeneration

AIM： To study the action of hepatitis virus infectionassociated genes at transcription level during liver regeneration （LR）. METHODS： Hepatitis virus infection-associated genes were obtained by collecting the data from databases and retrieving the correlated articles, and their expression changes in the regenerating rat liver were detected with the rat genome 230 2.0 array. RESULTS： Eighty-eight genes were found to be associated with liver regeneration. The number of genes initially and totally expressed during initial LR [0.5-4 h affer partial hepatectomy （PH）], transition from （30 to G1 （4-6 h affer PH）, cell proliferation （6-66 h after PH）, cell differentiation and reorganization of structurefunction （66-168 h after PH） was 37, 8, 48, 3 and 37, 26, 80, 57, respectively, indicating that the genes were mainly triggered at the early stage of LR （0.5-4 h after PH）, and worked at different phases. These genes were classified into 5 types according to their expression similarity, namely 37 up-regulated, 9 predominantly upregulated, 34 down-regulated, 6 predominantly downregulated and 2 up/down-regulated genes. Their total up- and down-regulation frequencies were 359 and 149 during LR, indicating that the expression of most genes was enhanced, while the expression of a small number of genes was attenuated during LR. According to time relevance, they were classified into 12 groups （0.5 and 1h, 2 and 4h, 6h, 8 and 12h, 16 and 96h, 18 and 24 h, 30 and 42 h, 36 and 48 h, 54 and 60 h, 66 and 72 h, 120 and 144 h, 168 h）, demonstrating that the cellular physiological and biochemical activities during LR were fluctuated. According to expression changes of the genes, their expression patterns were classified into 23 types, suggesting that the cellular physiological and biochemical activities during LR were diverse and complicated. CONCLUSION： The anti-virus infection capacity of regenerating liver can be enhanced and 88 genes play an important role in LR.

Calibration and data restoration of light field modulated imaging spectrometer

A light field modulated imaging spectrometer （LFMIS） can acquire the spatial-spectral datacube of targets of interest or a scene in a single shot. The spectral information of a point target is imaged on the pixels covered by a microlens. The pixels receive spectral information from different spectral filters to the diffraction and misalignments of the optical components. In this paper, we present a linear spectral multiplexing model of the acquired target spectrum. A calibration method is proposed for calibrating the center wavelengths and bandwidths of channels of an LFMIS system based on the liner-variable filter （LVF） and for determining the spectral multiplexing matrix. In order to improve the accuracy of the restored spectral data, we introduce a reconstruction algorithm based on the total least square （TLS） approach. Simulation and experimental results confirm the performance of the spectrum reconstruction algorithm and validate the feasibility of the proposed calibrating scheme.

Effects of Mg–Ca treatment and Ca treatment on impact toughness and morphology of sulfides in 45MnVS non-quenched and tempered steel

An industrial experiment was conducted at a certain steel plant in China to compare and analyze the effects of Ca treatment and Mg–Ca treatment on inclusions in 45MnVS non-quenched and tempered steel. Through scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive scanning analysis of the morphology and composition of inclusions, as well as Aspex quantitative analysis of their quantity, type and size, the formation mechanism of MnS–oxide (MnS inclusions with oxide cores) was intensively studied. The influence of sulfide morphology on the impact properties of steel was also analyzed. The results show that the quantity percentage of spindle-shaped sulfides in Ca-treated steel is 19.99%, and that in Mg–Ca-treated steel is 35.38%. Compared with Ca-treated steel, there are more MnS–oxide inclusions in Mg–Ca-treated steel. Controlling the content of Ca and Mg in the oxide core of MnS–oxide inclusion above 10 wt.% and the area ratio below 5 would contribute to the formation of spindle-shaped inclusions after rolling. The mismatch between MnS and oxides decreases with the increase in MgO content in the oxides, which is beneficial to nucleation and precipitation of MnS with this type of oxides as the core. Under the same deformation conditions, the size of sulfide does not affect its aspect ratio. Under the experimental conditions, the inclusion containing a certain amount of MgO can enhance its sulfur capacity, facilitating the formation of composite sulfides. The transverse impact energy of Ca-treated steel is 25.785 J, and that of Mg–Ca-treated steel is 32.119 J. Compared with the traditional Ca-treatment, Mg–Ca treatment can increase the number of spindle-shaped sulfides in the steel, thereby improving the transverse impact toughness of the steel and reducing the anisotropy of the mechanical properties of the material.

Experimental Investigation on Viscosity of CaO-MgO(-Al_2O_3)-SiO_2 Slags and Solid-liquid Mixtures

The viscosities for the selected CaO-MgO-SiO2 and CaO-MgO Al2 O3-SiO2 slags were measured by rota- ting cylinder method in a wide temperature range from 1608 K to 1 823 K. The effects of temperature, slag basicity and Al2 O3 content were studied. The results indicated that the viscosity decreased with increasing the slag basicity at the same temperature. And the viscosities of the slag initially increased linearly with increasing Al2 O3 content in the slags and then decreased as the Al2 O3 content in the slags continued to increase. Al2 O3 addition has a more signifi- cant effect on the viscosity than slag basicity in the selected slags. Based on the experimental data and the fraction of solid phases calculated by the thermodynamic software, the effect of solid phases on slag viscosity was evaluated. The results indicated that the relationship between the relative viscosity and the volume fraction of solid phases esti- mated from the slag composition can be reasonable by allowing the inverse maximum fraction of solid particles to vary.

Interface characteristics between TiN and matrix and their effect on solidification structure

Heterogeneous nucleation is an effective way to promote the dispersion and precipitation of second-phase particles in steel and refine the grain size of the solidification structure.Not only refining as-cast structure grain size,but TiN in ferritic stainless steel can also pin grain boundaries and restrain the overgrowth of grains during rolling.The interface characteristics between TiN and heterogeneous phases(high-melting inclusions and ferrite phase)were studied based on the wetting angles between molten steel with different compositions and TiN substrate,and on the matching degree between TiN and ferrite lattice.It was found that,for the molten steel with the same composition,the wetting angle with the TiN substrate was significantly smaller than the contact angles with the other three substrates,while the wetting angle between ferrite phase and TiN was the smallest.The lattice matching was compared among MgAl_(2)O_(4),TiN andδmatrix by means of a high-resolution transmission electron microscope,which revealed that a coherent or semi-coherent interface was formed between the crystal plane(400)of MgAl_(2)O_(4)and the crystal plane(200)of TiN,as well as between the crystal plane(200)of TiN and the crystal plane(110)ofδmatrix,with a lattice misfit of 5.1%and 3.4%,respectively.Finally,these two characteristics between TiN and ferrite phase were both explained from the perspective of interfacial energy.The microstructure refinement mechanism from high temperature to room temperature can be better reflected by the proposed wetting–lattice misfit theory.

Transcriptional analysis of sex pheromone biosynthesis signal genes in Bombyx mori

Six sex pheromone synthesis signal genes, including aeyl coenzyme A （acyl- CoA） desaturase （desatl）, fatty acyl reduetase （FAR）, pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide receptor （PBANR）, fatty acid transport protein （FATP）, acyl-CoA binding protein （ACBP） and store-operated channel protein （OrailA）, were studied for their tran- scriptional regulations. The expression profiles of these transcripts at different develop- mental stages （from -96 to 48 h） revealed that the genes are expressed in an age-dependent manner. The transcripts of these genes continued to increase despite decapitation, and compared with normally developmental females, decapitation significantly inhibited their expression. Further experiments with a methoprene, a juvenile hormone （JH） analogue, challenge showed that JH was not a key inhibiting factor in the expression of these genes, and mating was found to significantly inhibit the expression of these marker genes. Alto- gether, the results provide a reference for understanding the mechanism of sex pheromone synthesis.