Increased expression of aquaporin-4 in brain tissue of amygdala-kindled rats

Recurrent epileptic seizures can lead to brain edema, indicating that water regulation may be perturbed by seizures. We hypothesized that the expression of the brain water channel aq-uaporin-4 (AQP-4) may be upregulated in the epileptic brain. In the present study, we estab-lished the amygdala kindling model of epilepsy, and quantified AQP-4 protein and mRNA levels, using reverse transcription-PCR, immunohistochemistry and western blotting, in epileptic and control rats. We found that AQP-4 was overexpressed in the cerebral cortex of rats with epi-lepsy compared with controls. These findings show that AQP-4 is highly expressed in the brain of amygdala-kindled rats, suggesting that repeated seizures affect water homeostasis in the brain.

Semi-Global Inference in Phenotype-Protein Network

Discovering genetic basis of diseases is an important goal and a challenging problem in bioinformatics research. Inspired by network-based global inference approach, Semi-global inference method is proposed to capture the complex associations between phenotypes and genes. The proposed method integrates phenotype similarities and protein-protein interactions, and it establishes the profile vectors of phenotypes and proteins. Then the relevance between each candidate gene and the target phenotype is evaluated. Candidate genes are then ranked according to relevance mark and genes that are potentially associated with target disease are identified based on this ranking. The model selects nodes in integrated phenotype-protein network for inference, by exploiting Phenotype Similarity Threshold (PST), which throws lights on selection of similar phenotypes for gene prediction problem. Different vector relevance metrics for computing the relevance marks of candidate genes are discussed. The performance of the model is evaluated on Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) data sets and experimental evaluation shows high performance of proposed Semi-global method outperforms existing global inference methods.

A redox-active conjugated microporous polymer cathode for highperformance lithium/potassium-organic batteries

Organic redox-active materials have emerged as a class of electrode materials for rechargeable batteries due to their high redox activity,low cost,structure diversity and flexibility.However,the high solubility of organic small molecules in organic electrolytes commonly leads to the fast capacity decay with cycling.Herein,we report a redox-active conjugated microporous polymer of poly(pyrene-co-anthraquinone)(Py Aq)cathode material consisting of pyrene and anthraquinone units.Benefiting from the highly cross-linked polymer structure with insoluble nature in organic electrolytes,the high surface area and the plentiful redox-active carbonyl groups,the Py Aq cathode demonstrates outstanding electrochemical performances for both lithium-ion batteries(LIBs)and potassium-ion batteries(KIBs).Specifically,the Py Aq cathode for LIBs delivers a high reversible capacity of 169 m Ah g^-1 at the current density of 20 m A g^-1,a high rate capability(142 m Ah g^-1 at 1000 m A g^-1)and an excellent cycling stability for 4000 cycles.Additionally,the Py Aq cathode for KIBs also exhibits a high reversible capacity of143 m Ah g^-1 with a long cycling life over 800 cycles.The excellent electrochemical performance demonstrates that the newly developed Py Aq could be an attractive cathode material for the advanced energy storage technologies.

Range estimation based on symmetry polynomial aided Chinese remainder theorem for multiple targets in a pulse Doppler radar

To avoid Doppler ambiguity,pulse Doppler radar may operate on a high pulse repetition frequency(PRF).The use of a high PRF can,however,lead to range ambiguity in many cases.At present,the major efficient solution to solve range ambiguity is based on a waveform design scheme.It adds complexity to a radar system.However,the traditional multiple-PRF-based scheme is difficult to be applied in multiple targets because of unknown correspondence between the target range and measured range,especially using the Chinese remainder theorem(CRT)algorithm.We make a study of the CRT algorithm for multiple targets when the residue set contains noise error.In this paper,we present a symmetry polynomial aided CRT algorithm to effectively achieve range estimation of multiple targets when the measured ranges are overlapped with noise error.A closed-form and robust CRT algorithm for single target and the Aitken acceleration algorithm for finding roots of a polynomial equation are used to decrease the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm.

Target height and multipath attenuation joint estimation with complex scenarios for very high frequency radar

Low-angle estimation for very high frequency(VHF)radar is a difficult problem due to the multipath effect in the radar field,especially in complex scenarios where the reflection condition is unknown.To deal with this problem,we propose an algorithm of target height and multipath attenuation joint estimation.The amplitude of the surface reflection coefficient is estimated by the characteristic of the data itself,and it is assumed that there is no reflected signal when the amplitude is very small.The phase of the surface reflection coefficient and the phase difference between the direct and reflected signals are searched as the same part,and this represents the multipath phase attenuation.The Cramer-Rao bound of the proposed algorithm is also derived.Finally,computer simulations and real data processing results show that the proposed algorithm has good estimation performance under complex scenarios and works well with only one snapshot.