185,815 research outputs found
Case Studies: Feng Shui Integrated Applications for Built Environment Analysis
No full textThis chapter outlines both the Feng Shui and Western concepts and practice for built environment analysis, and then compares Feng Shui model with Western contemporary models using three residential apartments as case studies
Hedonic Prices and House Numbers: The Influence of Feng Shui
No full textIn contemporary practice, feng shui incorporates a wide range of concepts considered to affect a person’s luck. These include traditional ideas about site selection and building design, as well as newer beliefs about the “luckiness” of certain numbers. Focusing on an area with a relatively high percentage of Chinese households in Auckland, New Zealand, this paper uses hedonic price analysis to investigate whether house values are affected by lucky and unlucky numbers. Sales transactions for 1989 to 1996 are used in this analysis. The results demonstrate that lucky house numbers are capitalised into house values.Feng shui, hedonic price model, lucky, New Zealand
A Transgenic Mouse Model of Merkel Cell Virus Small Tumor Antigen
No full textMerkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a primary cutaneous neoplasm, originates in the mechanoreceptor Merkel cells in the basal layer of the epidermis. Risk factors include UV exposure, advanced age and immunosuppression, suggesting an infectious etiology. MCC
incidence in the US is rising, with approximately 1500 cases per year. The non-enveloped, double-stranded DNA Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) is responsible for approximately 80% of MCC cases. The virus was discovered by subjecting MCC tissue samples to digital transcriptome subtraction, in which mRNA is isolated, the human transcripts subtracted in silico and the remaining transcripts compared to viral sequences.
MCV expresses differentially spliced Large (LT), Small (sT) and 57 kT tumor antigens from the T antigen early locus, similar to other polyomaviruses such as SV40. Both LT and sT are critical for transformation. LT is a helicase responsible for replication of the viral genome, however in integrated viral genomes it is either truncated or mutated to eliminate its replicative functions. sT contributes to transformation via hyperphosphorylation and inhibition of the cap-dependent translation inhibitor 4E-BP1. The function of 57 kT remains unknown. Knockdown of LT induces necroptosis of MCVpositive MCC cells, whereas sT expression in rodent Rat-1 cells is transformative.
Being that sT is the transformative agent in rodent cells, it would be of interest to develop a mouse model expressing sT in a tissue-specific manner to determine whether tumor formation occurs. Indeed, several mouse models of SV40 T antigen have been developed over the past decades, each resulting in tissue-specific tumor formation. We developed a MCV sT transgenic mouse model, in which a lox-stop-lox sT is expressed via an ER-inducible Cre gene under the control of the ubiquitin promoter. Upon tamoxifen induced MCV sT expression, ER-Cre-positive mice demonstrate severe weight loss, ruffled fur and a hunched posture, necessitating euthanasia. Western blotting reveals sT expression in several tissues, whereas TUNEL staining shows significant cell death. While
we were unable to observe transformation, we believe this drastic phenotype demonstrates the validity of our MCV sT transgenic mouse model and warrants further investigation into the mechanism of death
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Coauthor prediction for junior researchers
No full textResearch collaboration can bring in different perspectives and generate more productive results. However, finding an appropriate collaborator can be difficult due to the lacking of sufficient information. Link prediction is a related technique for collaborator discovery; but its focus has been mostly on the core authors who have relatively more publications. We argue that junior researchers actually need more help in finding collaborators. Thus, in this paper, we focus on coauthor prediction for junior researchers. Most of the previous works on coauthor prediction considered global network feature and local network feature separately, or tried to combine local network feature and content feature. But we found a significant improvement by simply combing local network feature and global network feature. We further developed a regularization based approach to incorporate multiple features simultaneously. Experimental results demonstrated that this approach outperformed the simple linear combination of multiple features. We further showed that content features, which were proved to be useful in link prediction, can be easily integrated into our regularization approach. © 2013 Springer-Verlag
Kolla emphysematosa Feng & Zhang, sp. nov.
No full textKolla emphysematosa Feng & Zhang sp. nov. (Figs. 1 A–D, 2 A–H) Description. Crown with small round black spot corresponding to each ocellus, coronal suture black, pair of transverse black submedial maculae on anterior margin and small black spot at apex of head; face yellow with distinct clypeal muscle impressions and longitudinal brownish spot on anteclypeus; pronotum with black anterior transverse band interrupted by median oval pale spot, pair of small black sublateral maculae at midlenght, midline and broad posterior transverse band black; scutellum orange with basolateral triangles black; forewing black except for narrow transparent yellow stripe along costal margin and narrowly yellow commissural margin of clavus. Male pygofer with macrosetae located posterodorsally and dense microsetae near middle of disk; ventral process with group of stubby microsetae at base, abruptly narrowed near midlength, then becoming slender with acute apex in lateral view, curved posteromesad; plates concave near midlength of outer margin, inner margin almost straight, with uniseriate macrosetae and scattered microsetae. Aedeagus bent dorsad in lateral view, lobes of shaft broadly rounded with acute dorsal projection, aedeagal shaft wide basally in lateral view, without protuberance between two lobes in caudoventral view. Measurement. Length of male 5.5–5.7mm Material examined. Holotype: ♂, China, Sichuan Province, Batang, 11 July 2001, coll. Sun Qiang; Paratype: 1 ♂, same data as holotype but with light trap. Remarks. This species is similar to K. lunulata Li & Wang, 1991, but can be easily distinguished from the latter by the following differences: anteclypeus with longitudinal brownish spot (Fig. 1 D), pronotum with pair of small black sublateral maculae at midlength (Fig. 1 C), pygofer posterior margin smoothly convex (Fig. 2 A), and processes abruptly narrowed near midlength (Fig. 2 D), connective‘Y’- shaped with inflated manubrium near midlength (Fig. 2 E), and apex of aedeagus not significantly hooked (Figs 2 G, 2 H). Etymology. This new specific epithet is derived from Latin word “emphysematosus” referring to the wide base of the aedeagal shaft.Published as part of Feng, Ling & Zhang, Yalin, 2015, Leafhopper genus Kolla Distant (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Cicadellinae) with descriptions of four new species from China, pp. 430-438 in Zootaxa 3999 (3) on page 432, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3999.3.8, http://zenodo.org/record/23624
Enantioenriched Oxazolidinones as Synthesis Scaffolds and Efforts towards the Total Synthesis of Marineosin A
No full textEnantioenriched Oxazolidinones as Synthesis Scaffolds and
Efforts towards the Total Synthesis of Marineosin
Feng Lang, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2018
The utility of enantioenriched oxazolidinones in the preparation of small chiral building blocks has been investigated. Hard nucleophile induced ring opening reactions of oxazolidinones provided a series of enantioenriched α-hydroxy carbonyl compounds. Soft nucleophile induced ring opening reactions of oxazolidinones have been attempted. Aldol reactions and Mannich reactions of oxazolidinones afforded the addition products with good results. Additionally, the aldol addition products were able to be converted to enantioenriched α,β-dihydroxy carbonyl compounds with a quaternary chirality center at the α position. In addition, chiral diol was also obtained through the reductive ring opening reaction of oxazolidinone.
The synthesis of marineosin A, a structurally unique natural product exhibiting acute cytotoxicity, has been under investigation in our laboratory. The previously unreported spiroaminal structure consisting of tetrahydropyrrole ring and dihydropyran ring has been synthesized through a radical cyclization in model study. The 12-membered macrocyclic pyrrole core synthesis has been accomplished by Stetter reaction in model study. It is worth noting that this is the first time that Stetter reaction was used in macrocyclization reaction. Both the diene fragment and the dienophile fragment have been prepared successfully towards the synthesis of the densely functionalized tetrahydropyran ring in marineosin A
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Magnetostructural investigations into an S=1/2 sheet and a tetranuclear butterfly cluster
No full textWe present a detailed analysis of the magnetic properties of two Cu(II) coordination compounds with the tetrazole-1-acetate ligand (t1a), previously reported in literature by Yu et al. [Q. Yu, X. Zhang, H. Bian, H. Liang, B. Zhao, S. Yan, D. Liao, Cryst. Growth Des. 8 (2008) 1140] and simultaneously synthesised independently by ourselves. We focus on methods of describing the susceptibility and magnetisation of a ferromagnetically-coupled S = 1/2 square network (2) and a tetranuclear S = 1/2 'butterfly' cluster (4) as well as discussion of the energy levels of such a cluster
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