No abstract

ALICE is the heavy-ion experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The experiment continuously took data during the first physics campaign of the machine from fall 2009 until early 2013, using proton and lead-ion beams. In this paper we describe the running environment and the data handling procedures, and discuss the performance of the ALICE detectors and analysis methods for various physics observables.

Summary Argonaute (AGO) proteins are critical components of RNA silencing pathways that bind small RNAs and mediate gene silencing at their target sites. We found that Arabidopsis AGO2 is highly induced by the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst). Further genetic analysis demonstrated that AGO2 functions in antibacterial immunity. One abundant species of AGO2-bound small RNAs is miR393b*, which targets a Golgi-localized SNARE gene MEMB12. Pst infection down-regulates MEMB12 in a miR393b*-dependent manner. Loss-of-function of MEMB12 but not SYP61, another intracellular SNARE, leads to increased exocytosis of an antimicrobial pathogenesis-related protein PR1. Overexpression of miR393b* resembles memb12 mutant in resistance responses. Thus, AGO2 functions in antibacterial immunity by binding miR393b* to modulate exocytosis of antimicrobial PR proteins via MEMB12. Since miR393 also contributes to antibacterial responses, miR393*/miR393 represent an example of a miRNA*/miRNA pair that functions in immunity through two distinct AGOs - miR393* through AGO2 while miR393 through AGO1.

"Two-dimensional (2D) materials as electrodes" is believed to be the trend for future Li-ion and Na-ion battery technologies. Here, by using first-principles methods, we predict that the recently reported borophene (2D boron sheets) can serve as an ideal electrode material with high electrochemical performance for both Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. The calculations are performed on two experimentally stable borophene structures, namely β12 and χ3 structures. The optimized Li and Na adsorption sites are identified, and the host materials are found to maintain good electric conductivity before and after adsorption. Besides advantages including small diffusion barriers and low average open-circuit voltages, most remarkably, the storage capacity can be as high as 1984 mA h g(-1) in β12 borophene and 1240 mA h g(-1) in χ3 borophene for both Li and Na, which are several times higher than the commercial graphite electrode and are the highest among all the 2D materials discovered to date. Our results highly support that borophenes can be appealing anode materials for both Li-ion and Na-ion batteries with extremely high power density.

Cattle domestication and the complex histories of East Asian cattle breeds warrant further investigation. Through analysing the genomes of 49 modern breeds and eight East Asian ancient samples, worldwide cattle are consistently classified into five continental groups based on Y-chromosome haplotypes and autosomal variants. We find that East Asian cattle populations are mainly composed of three distinct ancestries, including an earlier East Asian taurine ancestry that reached China at least ~3.9 kya, a later introduced Eurasian taurine ancestry, and a novel Chinese indicine ancestry that diverged from Indian indicine approximately 36.6–49.6 kya. We also report historic introgression events that helped domestic cattle from southern China and the Tibetan Plateau achieve rapid adaptation by acquiring ~2.93% and ~1.22% of their genomes from banteng and yak, respectively. Our findings provide new insights into the evolutionary history of cattle and the importance of introgression in adaptation of cattle to new environmental challenges in East Asia.

Cycling exercise initiated early in pregnancy and performed at least 30 minutes, 3 times per week, is associated with a significant reduction in the frequency of gestational diabetes mellitus in overweight/obese pregnant women. And this effect is very relevant to that exercise at the beginning of pregnancy decreases the gestational weight gain before the mid-second trimester. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the exercise prescribed in this study increased the risk of preterm birth or reduced the mean gestational age at birth.

Neutrophils are one of the first lines of defense against microbial pathogens and are rapidly recruited at the infection site upon inflammatory conditions. We show here that after bacterial stimulation, and in contrast to monocytes and macrophages, murine neutrophils contributed poorly to inflammatory responses; however, they secreted high amounts of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 in a DAP12 adaptor-Syk kinase and MyD88 adaptor-dependent manner. Cotriggering of TLR-MyD88- and C-type lectin receptor (CLR)-Syk-dependent pathways led to a quick and sustained phosphorylation of p38 MAP and Akt kinases in neutrophils. In vivo, both Gram-negative bacteria and mycobacteria induced the recruitment of neutrophils secreting IL-10. In acute mycobacterial infection, neutrophil-derived IL-10 controlled the inflammatory response of dendritic cells, monocytes and macrophages in the lung. During a chronic infection, neutrophil depletion promoted inflammation and decreased the mycobacterial burden. Therefore, neutrophils can have a previously unsuspected regulatory role during acute and chronic microbial infections.

An elevated level of fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF-23) is the earliest abnormality of mineral metabolism in CKD. High FGF-23 levels promote left ventricular hypertrophy but not coronary artery calcification. We used survival analysis to determine whether elevated FGF-23 is associated with greater risk of adjudicated congestive heart failure (CHF) and atherosclerotic events (myocardial infarction, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease) in a prospective cohort of 3860 participants with CKD stages 2-4 (baseline estimated GFR [eGFR], 44615 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 ). During a median follow-up of 3.7 years, 360 participants were hospitalized for CHF (27 events/1000 person-years) and 287 had an atherosclerotic event (22 events/1000 person-years). After adjustment for demographic characteristics, kidney function, traditional cardiovascular risk factors, and medications, higher FGF-23 was independently associated with graded risk of CHF (hazard ratio [HR] . Elevated FGF-23 was associated more strongly with CHF than with atherosclerotic events (P=0.02), and uniformly was associated with greater risk of CHF events across subgroups stratified by eGFR, proteinuria, prior heart disease, diabetes, BP control, anemia, sodium intake, income, fat-free mass, left ventricular mass index, and ejection fraction. Thus, higher FGF-23 is independently associated with greater risk of cardiovascular events, particularly CHF, in patients with CKD stages 2-4.