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Using 325 mesh flake graphite as raw material, graphite oxide (GO) was synthesized by improved Hummers method. Nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO) carrier was prepared by hydrothermal method using urea as nitrogen source, and then supported Ni/N-rGO catalyst was prepared by impregnation method. The prepared catalysts were characterized and analyzed by N2 adsorption-desorption, XRD, SEM, H2-TPR and other methods. The hydrogenation performance of Ni catalysts supported by N-rGO, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and activated carbon (AC) were compared under the reaction conditions of 150°C, 0.4 MPa and 2.0 h with selective hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone as probe reaction. The results show that the N-rGO support not only has a large specific surface area and suitable pore structure, but also has good synergistic effect with nickel metal, and the Ni/N-rGO catalyst thus shows excellent catalytic activity and selectivity.

We investigate the entanglement dynamics of a generic-spin model with weak external field. We first derive the time-dependent solutions of angular momentum operators with short-time approximation and then numerically calculate the entangled witness. It’s shown that one can dynamically generate quantum entanglement by adjusting coupling strength.

We present a scheme for generating entangled state with three-wave mixing. By analytic derivation and numerical calculation, we see that the entangled state can be generated by adjusting the phase of the pump field, the effective interaction length and the total number of photons.

The computerize numerical control (CNC) system is one of the key factors for the development of micro v-groove machine tools to fabrication micro v-groove structures. Based on the investigation on the machining of micro v-groove structures, a developed software contains five modules: editing, automatic programming, program control, manual control and human machine interface. A3200 software based motion controller integrated with the machine characteristics is used in this study to develop the motion control functions of the micro v-groove machine tool. Meanwhile, a method is proposed to redefine the instructions of M, T and S by setting monitoring points so as to enhance the scalability of CNC system. The results show that the CNC system software is not only stable and reliable, but also satisfies the basic requirements of the ultra-precision machining of micro v-groove structures.

We investigate quantum entanglement in a generic-spin model with spin squeezing criterions based on squeezing inequalities. By analytically and numerically calculating the squeezing criterions, we show that the system is always entangled except at some special times and the stronger entanglement may be achieved by decreasing the coupling strength and increasing the number of particles.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of histatin 1 (Hst1) in human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs) exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Prior to UV irradiation for various durations, HCECs were pre-treated with different concentrations of Hst1 and the effect on cell apoptosis and cell viability were examined by flow cytometry, alamarBlue® and MTT assays to determine the optimal concentration of Hst1 and UV dose. Cells were then subjected to quantitative PCR, ELISA and western blot analysis to determine the expression of cell damage-associated genes. HCECs exposed to UV light for 1 h displayed decreased viability when compared to that of control cells, and a 3 h UV exposure markedly increased the apoptotic rate of HECEs, while apoptosis was inhibited by pre-treatment with Hst1. UV radiation downregulated expression of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), while it upregulated Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax) expression. Hst1 protected HCECs against UV-induced damage by upregulating the expression of IGF-1 protein and increasing the Bcl-2/Bax ratio. In conclusion, Hst1 may prevent UV-induced damage to corneal epithelial tissue injury and promote its healing.

We propose a scheme to generate and detect quantum coherence and quantum entanglement in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate with the help of spin squeezing parameter and quantum Fisher information. It is shown that quantum coherence and quantum entanglement are independent of the Rabi frequency and the better entanglement can be achieved by increasing the number of atoms.

To reduce the high energy consumption during the traditional ordinary distillation process for recycling N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF), this paper utilized the NKA-II macroporous adsorptive resin in combination with a distillation process to recycle DMF in wastewater. First, the adsorption equilibrium data were measured in the intermittent agitation tank, which showed that the DMF adsorption equilibrium on the NKA-II resin complies with the Henry equation. The dynamic experimental studies indicated that the adsorption temperature has little effect on the adsorption process; the flow rate and the bed height affect the breakthrough time but have little effect on the mass transfer zone. With the combination of the fixed-bed adsorption model and the breakthrough curve, the surface diffusion coefficient of the DMF on the resin in the fixed bed was approximately 3.50 × 10−10 to 1.06 × 10−9 m2 s−1. The simulated values were in good agreement with the breakthrough curves determined by experiments. Furthermore, ethanol was selected as a better desorption agent. The appropriate desorption conditions were determined to be a flow rate of 8.00 × 10−5 m s−1 to 1.58 × 10−4 m s−1 and a temperature of 308–318 K. Under these conditions, the desorption rates were all greater than 99%. Finally, wastewater that contained 5% DMF was used as an example to analyze the energy consumption. The results indicated that the adsorption–distillation process can reduce the energy consumption by 79%. The adsorption–distillation process has a good applicable value for the recovery of DMF in wastewater, especially for wastewater with a low concentration of DMF.

We present a scheme for controlling single-particle coherence and spin squeezing of atom-photon with stimulated Raman transition. Here we are focus on the dependence of spin squeezing parameter on the mean photon number. We first derive the effective Hamiltonian and then obtain the analytical solution for state vector, the single-particle coherence and spin squeezing parameter. The stronger spin squeezing can be created by adding the mean photon number.

We investigated a genetic pathway in root hair development in Arabidopsis thaliana, involving the receptor-like kinase FERONIA (FER), two guanine nucleotide exchange factors for ROPs (RopGEF4 and RopGEF10), and the small GTPase Rho of plants (ROPs). Loss- and gain-of-function analyses demonstrated distinct roles of RopGEF4 and RopGEF10 such that RopGEF4 is only important for root hair elongation, while RopGEF10 mainly contributes to root hair initiation. Domain dissection by truncation and domain-swapping experiments indicated that their functional distinctions were mainly contributed by the noncatalytic domains. Using fluorescent ratio imaging, we showed that functional loss of RopGEF4 and RopGEF10 additively reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation experiments demonstrated that RopGEF4 and RopGEF10 had the same interaction specificity as ROPs, suggesting common downstream components. We further showed that the promoting effects of environmental cues such as exogenous auxin and phosphate limitation on root hair development depended on FER. However, although functional loss of RopGEF4 and RopGEF10 largely abolished FER-induced ROS production, it did not compromise the responses to FER-mediated environmental cues on root hair development. Our results demonstrated that RopGEF4 and RopGEF10 are genetic components in FER-mediated, developmentally (but not environmentally) regulated, root hair growth.

In plant cells, secretory and endocytic routes intersect at the trans-Golgi network (TGN)/early endosome (EE), where cargos are further sorted correctly and in a timely manner. Cargo sorting is essential for plant survival and therefore necessitates complex molecular machinery. Adaptor proteins (APs) play key roles in this process by recruiting coat proteins and selecting cargos for different vesicle carriers. The µ1 subunit of AP-1 in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) was recently identified at the TGN/EE and shown to be essential for cytokinesis. However, little was known about other cellular activities affected by mutations in AP-1 or the developmental consequences of such mutations. We report here that HAPLESS13 (HAP13), the Arabidopsis µ1 adaptin, is essential for protein sorting at the TGN/EE. Functional loss of HAP13 displayed pleiotropic developmental defects, some of which were suggestive of disrupted auxin signaling. Consistent with this, the asymmetric localization of PIN-FORMED2 (PIN2), an auxin transporter, was compromised in the mutant. In addition, cell morphogenesis was disrupted. We further demonstrate that HAP13 is critical for brefeldin A-sensitive but wortmannin-insensitive post-Golgi trafficking. Our results show that HAP13 is a key link in the sophisticated trafficking network in plant cells.

We investigate how an appropriate choice of the external field allows one to control spin squeezing of a collective spin governed by one-axis twisting with decay. By adopting frozen-spin approximation, we succussed in obtaining analytical expressions of the optimally squeezing angle and the spin squeezing parameter. The squeezing parameter is a periodical function, the period depends on the decay rate and the strength of the linear interaction, while the degree of squeezing is only determined by the external field, the smaller external field induces the stronger spin squeezing.

We present two schemes for dense coding with nonmaximally entangled cluster state via local measurement. The average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes. The average amount of information transmitted from Alice to Bob depends not only on the measurement angle θ, but also on the superposition coefficients of the state. For a given nonmaximally entangled cluster state, the supervisor can control the average amount of information transmitted from the sender to the receiver by adjusting the measurement angle.

This paper proposes a drawing method of frequency division fault maps for GIS partial discharge based on Ultra-high Frequency signals. By extracting Ultra-high Frequency partial discharge signals and filtering adaptively, interference signals are filtered out real-timely, and the effective frequency sequence is obtained adaptively. The characteristic quantity of each effective frequency point is calculated, and then dynamic fault map varying with effective frequency points, characteristics trend map for frequency division discharge and quantity trend map for effective frequency points are drawn. Compared with current fault maps for GIS partial discharge, test results show that the discharge law for different frequency points is drawn by contacting effective frequency points with partial discharge law proposed in this paper, which is helpful for research on discharge law with the frequency.

Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) has been approved as an accurate method to assess the insulation condition of power transformer. The ant colony optimization algorithm is competent to obtain the global optimum values of the support vector machine (SVM). This paper presents an approach of ant colony optimization SVM to recognize histograms of characteristic dissolved gas in transformer oil. DGA data of transformer oil with normal operation and four types of typical power transformer faults were selected, and characteristic dissolved gas were used to establish histograms. Statistical characteristic parameters involving mean, skewness and kurtosis, etc. were calculated as recognition features. Three approaches including IEC three ratio method, SVM and ant colony optimization SVM were used to diagnosis DGA of power transformer. Results show that the proposed approach can effectively improve the accuracy of the recognition for characteristic dissolved gas histograms compared with the other two methods.

We investigate we investigate the quantum Fisher information and phase sensitivity in Yurke-like state superposed by two special multi-particle states and a symmetric state with relative phase. By studying the influences of superposition coefficients and relative phase on the maximal quantum Fisher information and phase sensitivity, we reveal some entanglement properties of Yurke-like state.

We investigate the properties of quantum Fisher information in a general superposition of a 3-qubit GHZ state and two W states. Numerical calculation for quantum Fisher information of the 3-qubit state is given. It is shown that the mean spin direction, the length of mean spin and quantum Fisher information are determined by the coefficients of superposition and the relative phase between the GHZ state and the W states.

We investigate the spin squeezing in superpositions of a N-qubit GHZ state and two W states. The spin squeezing parameter is determined by the superposition coefficients and the relative phase. It is shown that there is squeezing in the n2 direction and there is no squeezing in the n1 direction. It is also shown that the state with more number of qubits has smaller spin squeezing parameter.

We investigate the quantum Fisher information in the symmetric pure three-qubit state. It is shown that the quantum Fisher information and the mean spin direction are determined by the probability amplitudes and the relative phase of the symmetric pure three-qubit state; while the length of mean spin is only determined by the probability amplitudes.

We investigate the properties of quantum Fisher information in a general superposition of many-body GHZ-class state and W state. It is shown that mean spin direction is determined by the superposed coefficients and the relative phase between the GHZ-class state and the W state and it is independent of the relative phase between the GHZ-class state; while mean spin length and quantum Fisher information are only determined by the superposed coefficients.

Two schemes, with entanglement concentration and via generalized measurement, for dense coding are investigated by using a extended four-qubit GHZ-W state, where the supervisors (David and Cliff) can control the average amount of information transmitted from the sender (Alice) to the receiver (Bob) by adjusting the measurement angles θ3 and θ4. We show that the results for the average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes.

A realizable scheme is proposed for implementing quantum information splitting with five-atom cluster state in cavity QED, where we explicitly illustrate the procedure. The scheme does not involve Bell-state measurement and is insensitive to the cavity and the thermal field.

Two schemes, via entanglement concentration and with generalized measurement respectively, for controlled dense coding with a one-dimensional five-qubit cluster state are investigated. In this protocol, the supervisor (Cliff) can control the entanglement of the channel and the average amount of information transmitted from the sender (Alice) to the receiver (Bob) by adjusting the local measurement angle θ. It is shown that the results for the average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes.

Two schemes for controlled dense coding with a extended GHZ-type state are investigated. In this protocol, the supervisor (Cliff) can control the channel and the average amount of information transmitted from the sender (Alice) to the receiver (Bob) by adjusting the local measurement angle θ. It is shown that the results for the average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes.

Two schemes for controlled dense coding with a extended GHZ state are investigated. In these protocols, the supervisor (Cliff) can control the average amount of information transmitted from the sender (Alice) to the receiver (Bob) only by adjusting his local measurement angle θ. It is shown that the results for the average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes.

Previous studies have shown that IL-17 is a strong proinflammatory cytokine and that IL-17-producing autoreactive T cells play a major role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. In a previous study, we showed that injection of experimental autoimmune uveitis-susceptible mice with anti-IL-17 Abs blocked subsequent disease development. To determine whether administration of IL-17 to experimental autoimmune uveitis-susceptible Lewis rats and B10RIII mice injected with disease-inducing peptides enhanced disease susceptibility, we injected the recipient animals with various doses of human rIL-17 (hIL-17). Unexpectedly, the treated animals showed significant amelioration of disease; in addition, both the intensity of the autoreactive response and cytokine production by the autoreactive T cells induced by immunization with uveitogenic peptides were significantly decreased. Our results show that IL-17 has anti-inflammatory activity and that this cytokine can suppress the development of autoimmune disease.

A combined model of solute transport and water flow was developed to simulate the migration of methanol, a soluble organic chemical, in unsaturated soil zone. The solute transport equation considered convective-dispersive transport in the liquid phase as well as diffusion in the gas phase. The effect of rainfall and evapotranspiration on transport was considered at the boundary conditions of the governing equations. Data on the characteristics of a loam soil and the climatic conditions in southern California were also introduced to compare the results with those from a study in the USA in which the profiles of methanol distribution and water content in the soil zone at different times had been depicted. This comparison showed that there was good agreement between the two studies. The results showed that methanol contamination reached a depth of about 250 cm after 8 760 h. In contrast, if rainfall and evapotranspiration were not considered, the depth was only about 140 cm. The model therefore confirmed that rainfall strongly affected solute transport.

In this study sediment samples were collected from 13 sites of Haihe River in Tianjin City, China, sixteen of priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) listed in USEPA were analyzed by means of GC-MS. The total concentrations of PAH ranged from 774.81 to 255371.91 ng/g dw, and two to four rings of PAHs were dominant in sediment samples. Molecular ratios, such as phenanthrene/anthracene, fluoranthene/pyrene and low-molecular-weight PAH /high-molecular-weight PAH, were used to study the possible sources of pollution. It indicated a mixed pattern of parolytic and petrogenic inputs of PAHs in sediments in Haihe River. The petrogenic PAHs may be mainly derived from the leakage of refined products, e.g., gasoline, diesel fuel and fuel oil vehicle traffics or gas stations from urban area. The pyrolytic PAHs might be from the discharge of industrial wastewater and the emission of atmospheric particles from petrochemical factories. In addition, the levels of PAHs in the urban and industrial areas are far beyond the values reported from other rivers and marine systems reported. This situation may be due to polluted discharging from some petrochemical industrial manufactories and worse traffic conditions in Tianjin.

Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive, possesses serious problems to the environmental health. In the present study, a bacterial culture named A-3 which could effectively degrade MTBE was isolated from the MTBE contaminated soil. The isolate was identified as Chryseobacterium sp., a new species capable of degrading MTBE. In order to enhance its degradation ability, selected environment factors were investigated. The results showed that the optimal temperature was in the range of 25-30 degrees C, the pH was 7.0, the inoculum size was 2 x 10(8) CFU/ml and the optimal concentration of MTBE was from 50 to 100 mg/L. The maximum MTBE utilization rate (upsilon(max)) was 102 nmol MTBE/(mg cell protein x h). Furthermore, it was found that the isolate could also degrade tert-butyl alcohol (TBA). The degradation rates of TBA were much faster than those of MTBE. The additional TBA would lead to the decrease of the initial MTBE degradation rate and the inhibitory effect of TBA increased with the increase of TBA concentration. Similar protein profiles at least seven peptides were demonstrated after SDS-PAGE analysis of crude extracts obtained from the cells growing in MTBE and TBA culture.

To investigate the clinical features in children with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC)-associated cardiac rhabdomyomas (CRM).The clinical data of 15 children with TSC complicated by CRM were collected. The clinical features of the patients were analyzed, and TSC gene mutations were detected.Eleven cases (73%) developed multiple CRM. The majority of the tumors were located in the left and right ventricles. Most tumors presented as a round-like hyperechogenic mass with a clear margin on echocardiography. Arrhythmias occurred in 3 patients and 2 patients experienced heart failure. Gene mutation tests were performed in 2 patients, and pathogenic mutations were detected in both patients, which were TSC1 mutation and TSC2 mutation, respectively. Three patients were followed up for 6 to 38 months, and their CRM shrank or regressed spontaneously.TSC-associated CRM is generally multiple. Heart failure and arrhythmias may occur in some patients. Echocardiography is important for diagnosis of CRM. TSC-associated CRM has an inclination to spontaneous regression. TSC can be diagnosed at a molecular genetic level by TSC gene mutation detection.

To study the effect of Huangzhi oral liquid (HZOL) on I/R after 2 h and 4 h and determine its regulatory function on caspase-3 and protein networks. 70 SD male rats were randomly divided into seven groups and established myocardial I/R injury model by ligating the left anterior descending coronary artery. Myocardial infarction model was defined by TTC staining and color of the heart. The levels of CK-MB, CTnI, C-RPL, SOD, and MDA were tested at 2 h and 4 h after reperfusion. HE staining and ultramicrostructural were used to observe the pathological changes. The apoptotic index (AI) of cardiomyocyte was marked by TUNEL. The expression levels of caspase-3, p53, fas, Bcl-2, and Bax were tested by immunohistochemistry and western blot. HZOL corrected arrhythmia, improved the pathologic abnormalities, decreased CK-MB, CTnI, C-RPL, MDA, AI, caspase-3, p53, fas, and Bax, and increased SOD ans Bcl-2 with different times of myocardial reperfusion; this result was similar to the ISMOC (P>0.05). HZOL could inhibit arrhythmia at 2 and 4 h after I/R and ameliorate cardiac function, which was more significant at 4 h after reperfusion. This result may be related to decreased expression of caspase-3, p53, and fas and increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio.

With the development of reaction kinetics and transfer science, the modeling of NO(subscript x) formation plays more and more important roles in the protection of environment and the design of combustion reactors; in this case, turbulence-chemistry model and NO(subscript x) formation model are the two most important aspects. For thermal NO(subscript x) mechanism, this article studied the CH4/air system and applied a set of latest NO formation rate constants published at the Leed University which replaced the original model code in FLUENT to increase its precision on prediction of NO concentration. The realizable k-e model, Reynold Stress model and standard k-e model were also investigated to predict the turbulent combustion reaction, which indicated that the simulation results of velocities, temperatures and concentrations of combustion productions by the standard k-e model were in good accordance with the experimental data. With the application of the simulation results to the experimental data to fit some important kinetic parameters in the equation of O atom model and revision of the equation later, this article obtained a new NO formation rate model. It has been proved that the prediction of the developed model coincides well with the measurements.

This letter proposes an effective and robust speech feature extraction method based on statistical analysis of Pitch Frequency Distributions (PFD) for speaker identification. Compared with the conventional cepstrum, PFD is relatively insensitive to Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), but it does not show good performance for speaker identification, even if under clean environments. To compensate this shortcoming, PFD and conventional cepstrum are combined to make the ultimate decision, instead of simple taking one kind of features into account Experimental results indicate that the hybrid approach can give outstanding improvement for text-independent speaker identification under noisy environments corrupted by AWGN.

Successful reproduction of flowering plants requires constant communication between female tissues and growing pollen tubes. Female cells secrete molecules and peptides as nutrients or guidance cues for fast and directional tube growth, which is executed by dynamic changes of intracellular activities within pollen tubes. Compared with the extensive interest in female cues and intracellular activities of pollen tubes, how female cues are sensed and interpreted intracellularly in pollen is poorly understood. We show here that COBL10, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored protein, is one component of this pollen tube internal machinery. Mutations in COBL10 caused gametophytic male sterility due to reduced pollen tube growth and compromised directional sensing in the female transmitting tract. Deposition of the apical pectin cap and cellulose microfibrils was disrupted in cobl10 pollen tubes. Pollen tube localization of COBL10 at the apical plasma membrane is critical for its function and relies on proper GPI processing and its C-terminal hydrophobic residues. GPI-anchored proteins are widespread cell sensors in mammals, especially during egg-sperm communication. Our results that COBL10 is critical for directional growth of pollen tubes suggest that they play critical roles in cell-cell communications in plants.

CD4+ T cells from alpha beta-T-cell receptor transgenic mice were analyzed for coexpression of cytokine mRNAs during phenotype development using a double-label in situ hybridization technique. T cells that produced cytokines in the primary response were a fraction of the activated population, and only a minority of the cytokine-positive cells coexpressed two cytokines. In secondary responses, frequencies of double-positive cells increased, although they remained a minority of the total. Of the cytokine pairs examined, interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5 were the most frequently coexpressed. IL-4 and interferon gamma showed the greatest tendency toward segregation of expression, being rarely coexpressed after the primary stimulation. These data indicate that there is significant heterogeneity of cytokine gene expression by individual CD4+ T cells during early antigenic responses. Coexpression of any pairs of cytokines, much less Th1 and Th2 cytokines, is generally the exception. The Th0 phenotype is a population phenotype rather than an individual cell phenotype.

T helper type 0 (Th0), Th1, and Th2 CD4+ T cell clones derived from a T cell receptor alpha/beta (TCR-alpha/beta) transgenic mouse were activated by antigen presented on "artificial" antigen-presenting cells that expressed or lacked the costimulatory molecule B7-1, and were analyzed for single cell cytokine mRNA expression by in situ hybridization. There was significant heterogeneity in the frequency of T cells that expressed individual cytokine mRNAs within each clonal population, suggesting that transcriptional control of each of the cytokine genes was not coordinate within an individual cell. The majority of antigen-stimulated Th1 cells expressed mRNA for interferon gamma (IFN-gamma), but far fewer cells in the same population expressed interleukin 2 (IL-2). Similarly, the frequency of IL-4-expressing cells was greater than that of IL-5- or IL-10-expressing cells in the same Th2 population, but the difference in expression frequencies was more variable between clones. The expression frequencies of each of the cytokines was quite heterogeneous in the antigen-activated Th0 population. The principal effect of increased antigen on the activation of individual cytokine genes in each of the clonal populations was to increase recruitment of mRNA-positive cells, with little or no effect on the level of cytokine mRNA expression in individual positive cells. The effects of B7 costimulation were variable depending on the cytokine gene analyzed. B7 costimulation markedly increased the frequency and the level of IL-2 mRNA expression in individual positive cells in the Th1 and Th0 populations, with less effect on the recruitment and single cell expression level of IFN-gamma. IL-4 frequencies were modestly increased by B7 costimulation of the Th2 clones, but there was no detectable increase in single cell IL-4 expression level. The observed patterns of cytokine mRNA expression favor a model of T cell activation in which all-or-none, rather than graded, responses of cytokine genes are dominant.

To investigate the relationship between interleukin-6 (IL-6) gene -572C/G polymorphism and the risk of chronic periodontitis disease.IL-6-572C/G genotype polymorphism was examined in 93 patients with chronic periodontitis and 96 control subjects by PCR restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method.IL-6-572GG genotype and G allele were more frequent in chronic periodontitis patients than that in control subjects (P0.05). -572CC, CG and GG genotype frequency were 52.7 % , 40.9 %, 6.4 % in chronic periodontitis patients and 67.7 %, 31.3%, 1.0 % in control subjects, respectively. -572CG + GG genotype and G allele were more frequent in patients than that in control subjects (P0.05). Compared with CC genotype,the odds ratio for chronic periodontitis was 1.88 (95% CI: 1.04-3.40, P0.05) for CG + GG genotype.The frequency of -572CG + GG genotype was higher in patients with chronic periodontitis compared with the control subjects. IL-6-572C/G polymorphism may be a genetic susceptibility factor for chronic periodontitis in Chinese Hans population.

Air sparging (AS) is an emerging method to remove VOCs from saturated soils and groundwater. Air sparging performance highly depends on the air distribution resulting in the aquifer. In order to study gas flow characterization, a two-dimensional experimental chamber was designed and installed. In addition, the method by using acetylene as the tracer to directly image the gas distribution results of AS process has been put forward. Experiments were performed with different injected gas flow rates. The gas flow patterns were found to depend significantly on the injected gas flow rate, and the characterization of gas flow distributions in porous media was very different from the acetylene tracing study. Lower and higher gas flow rates generally yield more irregular in shape and less effective gas distributions.

Two schemes for controlled dense coding with a one-dimensional four-particle cluster state are investigated. In this protocol, the supervisor (Cliff) can control the channel and the average amount of information transmitted from the sender (Alice) to the receiver (Bob) by adjusting the local measurement angle θ. It is shown that the results for the average amounts of information are unique from the different two schemes.