To circumvent the cubic scaling and convergence difficulties encountered in the standard top-down localization of the global canonical molecular orbitals (CMOs), a bottom-up localization scheme is proposed based on the idea of "from fragments to molecule". That is, the global localized MOs (LMOs), both occupied and unoccupied, are to be synthesized from the primitive fragment LMOs (pFLMOs) obtained from subsystem calculations. They are orthonormal but are still well localized on the parent fragments of the pFLMOs and can hence be termed as "fragment LMOs" (FLMOs). This has been achieved by making use of two important factors. Physically, it is the transferability of the locality of the fragments that serves as the basis. Mathematically, it is the special block-diagonalization of the Kohn-Sham matrix that allows retention of the locality: The occupied-occupied and virtual-virtual diagonal blocks are only minimally modified when the occupied-virtual off-diagonal blocks are annihilated. Such a bottom-up localization scheme is applicable to systems composed of all kinds of chemical bonds. It is then shown that, by a simple prescreening of the particle-hole pairs, the FLMO-based time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) can achieve linear scaling with respect to the system size, with a very small prefactor. As a proof of principle, representative model systems are taken as examples to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithms. As both the orbital picture and integral number of electrons are retained, the FLMO-TDDFT offers a clear characterization of the nature of the excited states in line with chemical/physical intuition.

Although dietary α-linolenic acid (ALA) or linolenic acid (LA) intake was reported to be epidemiologically associated with a lower prevalence of hypertension, recent clinical trials have yielded conflicting results. Comparable experimental evidence for the roles of these two different fatty acids is still lacking and the underlying mechanisms need to be further elucidated. Our data showed that ALA but not LA supplementation alleviated systolic blood pressure elevation and improved ACh-induced, endothelium-dependent vasodilation in both spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and AngII-induced hypertensive mice. In addition, SHRs displayed reduced vascular Sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) expression, subsequent superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) hyperacetylation and mitochondrial ROS overproduction, all of which were ameliorated by ALA but not LA supplementation. In primary cultured endothelial cells, ALA treatment directly inhibited SIRT3 reduction, SOD2 hyperacetylation, mitochondrial ROS overproduction and alleviated autophagic flux impairment induced by AngII plus TNFα treatment. However, these beneficial effects of ALA were completely blocked by silencing SIRT3. Restoration of autophagic flux by rapamycin also inhibited mitochondrial ROS overproduction in endothelial cells exposed to AngII plus TNFα. More interestingly, SIRT3 KO mice developed severe hypertension in response to a low dose of AngII infusion, while ALA supplementation lost its anti-hypertensive and endothelium-protective effects on these mice. Our findings suggest that ALA but not LA supplementation improves endothelial dysfunction and diminishes experimental hypertension by rescuing SIRT3 impairment to restore autophagic flux and mitochondrial redox balance in endothelial cells.

Nursing Baccalaureate Teaching methods Core competency a b s t r a c t Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of nursing core competency standard education in undergraduate nursing training. Methods: Forty-two nursing undergraduates from the class of 2007 were recruited as the control group receiving conventional teaching methods, while 31 students from the class of 2008 were recruited as the experimental group receiving nursing core competency standard education. Teaching outcomes were evaluated using comprehensive theoretical knowledge examination and objective structured clinical examination. Results:The performance in the health information collection, physical assessment, scenario simulation and communication in the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05).Conclusions: Nursing core competency standard education is helpful for the training of nursing students' core competencies.