Mineralogical Characterization of Aeolian Sands from Inner Mongolia, China

Aeolian sand sample from Tengger desert, located in the southern part of Inner Mongolia (China) was characterized for major elemental composition and mineralogy by EPMA, XRF and XRD methods. The objective of this research was to provide data which would be a guide to aid future beneficiation of this sand, especially for the economic exploitation of feldspar and quartz which have a wide range of applications in various industries like plastic, paint, ceramics and glass industries. The elemental analysis of the sample was carried out by X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and chemical analysis while the minerals present were identified by an X-ray diffraction analyzer. The sand was discovered to contain basically SiO2 (82.43%), Al2O3 (7.68%), Na2O + K2O (4.37%) and TiO2 and Fe2O3 as the main impurities. It was also discovered that grinding of the sand is required to enhance the liberation of the minerals and the separation methods recommended are magnetic separation and flotation. It was therefore concluded that aeolian sand is a suitable source of quartz and feldspar for use in the industry.

Research on Intelligent Organization and Application of Multi-source Heterogeneous Knowledge Resources for Energy Internet

To improve the informationization and intelligence of the energy Internet industry and enhance the capability of knowledge services,it is necessary to organize the energy Internet body of knowledge from existing knowledge resources of the State Grid,which have the characteristics of large scale,multiple sources,and heterogeneity.At the same time,the business fields of State Grid cover a wide range.There are many sub-fields under each business field,and the relationship between fields is diverse and complex.The key to establishing the energy Internet body of knowledge is how to fuse the heterogeneous knowledge resources from multiple sources,extract the knowledge contents from them,and organize the different relationships.This paper considers transforming the original knowledge resources of State Grid into a unified and wellorganized knowledge system described in OWL language to meet the requirements of heterogeneous resource integration,multi-source resource organization,and knowledge service provision.For the State Grid knowledge resources mainly in XML format,this paper proposes a Knowledge Automatic Fusion and Organization idea and method based on XSD Directed Graph.According to the method,the XML corresponding XSD documents are transformed into a directed graph in the first stage during which the graph neural network detects hidden knowledge inside the structure to add semantic information to the graph.In the second stage,for other structured knowledge resources(e.g.,databases,spreadsheets),the knowledge contents and the relationships are analyzed manually to establish the mappings from structured resources to graph structures,using which the original knowledge resources are transformed into graph structures,and merged with the directed graphs obtained in the first stage to achieve the fusion of heterogeneous knowledge resources.And expert knowledge is introduced for heterogeneous knowledge fusion to further extend the directed graph.And in the third stage,the expanded directed graph is converted to the body of knowledge in the form of OWL.This paper takes the knowledge resources in the field of human resources of the State Grid as an example,to establish the ontology of the human resources training field in a unified manner,initially demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Author Correction:A crucial role of the PD-1H coinhibitory receptor in suppressing experimental asthma

In the Acknowledgement section of this article,NIH grants numbered P50 CA196530 and P30 CA016359 were incorrectly attributed to author Lieping Chen and should not have been cited.The original article has been corrected.

B7-DC (PD-L2) costimulation of CD4^(+) T-helper 1 response via RGMb

The role of B7-DC in T-cell responses remains controversial because both coinhibitory and costimulatory functions have been reported in various experimental systems in vitro and in vivo.In addition to interacting with the coinhibitory receptor PD-1,B7-DC has also been shown to bind repulsive guidance molecule b(RGMb).The functional consequences of the B7-DC/RGMb interaction,however,remain unclear.More than a decade ago,we reported that replacement of a murine B7-DC mutant lysine with serine(K113S)at positive 113 resulted in a loss of binding capacity to PD-1.Nevertheless,K113S remained costimulatory for T cells in vitro,implicating a dual functionality for B7-DC in T-cell responses.Here we show that recombinant K113S protein interacts with RGMb with a similar affinity to wild-type B7-DC.More importantly,K113S costimulates CD4^(+)T-cell responses via RGMb and promotes Th1 polarization.RGMb is expressed on the surface of naive mouse T cells,macrophages,neutrophils and dendritic cells.Finally,K113S/RGMb costimulation suppresses Th2-mediated asthma and ameliorates small airway inflammation and lung pathology in an experimental mouse model.Our findings indicate that RGMb is a costimulatory receptor for B7-DC.These findings from the K113S variant provide not only a possible explanation for the B7-DC-triggered contradictory effects on T-cell responses,but also a novel approach to investigate the B7-DC/PD-1/RGMb axis.Recombinant K113S or its derivatives could potentially be developed as an agonist for RGMb to costimulate the Th1 response without triggering PD-1-mediated T-cell inhibition.

A crucial role of the PD-1H coinhibitory receptor in suppressing experimental asthma

Programmed death one homolog (PD-1H) is a cell surface molecule of the B7/CD28 immune modulatory genefamily. Although PD-1H has been shown to function as a coinhibitory receptor on T cells to limit naive T-cellactivation and proliferation, its role in the regulation of the T-cell response to allergens is unknown. We report herethat genetic ablation or blockade of PD-1H drastically promotes pulmonary inflammation with massive accumulationof eosinophils in a mouse model of experimental asthma, indicating a suppressive function of PD-1H in allergicinflammation. The loss of PD-1H led to elevated production of both innate cytokines (IL-6, MCP-1 and TNFα) andTh2 cytokines (IL-5 and IL-13) in the lung, indicating a critical role of PD-1H in suppressing the production ofairway inflammatory cytokines. In addition, the loss of PD-1H also impaired the expansion of systemic andpulmonary regulatory T cells during asthma induction. These findings support a critical role of intrinsic PD-1H inthe regulation of inflammatory responses to allergens. Finally, we showed that treatment with a PD-1H agonisticmonoclonal antibody reduced the severity of asthma, which was accompanied by suppressed lung inflammation.Our findings support PD-1H as a potential target and suggest a possible strategy for the treatment of allergicasthma in humans.

The development and functions of CD41 T cells expressing a transgenic TCR specific for an MHC-I-restricted tumor antigenic epitope

It has been reported that the ratio of CD41 to CD81 T cells has no bias in a few class I major histocompatibility complex(MHC-I)-restricted T-cell receptor(TCR)-transgenic mice specific for alloantigens or autoantigens,in which most CD41 T cells express an MHC-I-restricted TCR.In this study,we further showed that more than 50%of CD41 T cells in MHC-I-restricted P1A tumor antigen-specific TCR(P1ATCR)-transgenic mice could specifically bind to MHC-I/P1A peptide complex.P1A peptide could stimulate the transgenic CD41 T cells to proliferate and secrete both type 1 helper T cell and type 2 helper T cell cytokines.The activated CD41 T cells also showed cytotoxicity against P1A-expressing tumor cells.The analysis of TCR a-chains showed that these CD41 T cells were selected by co-expressing endogenous TCRs.Our results show that CD41 T cells from P1ATCR transgenic mice co-expressed an MHC-I-restricted transgenic TCR and another rearranged endogenous TCRs,both of which were functional.