Final report of the Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia: an English summary

An unofficial summary is provided of the Final Report of the Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia, submitted to the Minister of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs and the Minister of Justice on 19 Aug 1985. It describes the establishment of the State Commission, its working methods, and its recommendations for changes in the Criminal Code with regard to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Commission proposes that the Code be amended so that the intentional termination of another person's life at the latter's request would not be an offense if carried out by a doctor on a patient who is "in an untenable situation with no prospect of improvement." It makes recommendations regarding minors, the mentally handicapped, and prisoners, and regarding procedures for funeral arrangements and death certificates, the noninvolvement of parties other than patients and physicians in decision making, and the preparation and dispensing of drugs designed to terminate life.     

湖北安陆新的恐龙蛋类型的发现及其意义

本文记述的恐龙蛋化石标本,采自湖北省江汉盆地公安寨组下部.蛋化石保存完好.在普通光学显微镜和扫描电镜下观察,蛋壳的显微结构完整,清晰可见.根据钙质蛋壳基本结构单位的形态及排列特征,笔者建立了—新属,新种——Dendroolithus wangdianensis gen. et sp. nov.,代表恐龙蛋类一个新科——Dendroolithidae fam. nov.此外,残存的卵壳膜纤维化石的发现,将为进一步研究恐龙蛋卵壳膜的结构和氨基酸组成提供宝贵材料.     

中国海洋浮游端足类的物种多样性

中国海域已发现浮游端足类122种,呈现从北部往南部海区、从近海往外海区种数逐渐增加,且暖水性也逐渐增强的分布特征。渤海、黄海北部和西南部的浮游端足类同属暖温带分布,黄海东南部和东海西北部为暖温带分布和热带分布的过渡带,东海东部和东海西南部以及台湾海峡、南海均属热带分布,其中东海东部和南海中、南部热带大洋分布的特征显著。     

Proximity association in polygynous western black crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor jingdongensis): network structure and seasonality

We investigated the structure and seasonality of the proximity network in a group of polygynous western black crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor) using social network analysis. The spatial proximity changed seasonally and was affected by temperature and rainfall. Preferred proximity association was not distributed randomly among individuals. Kinship was one explanation for the social structure, as offspring preferred to maintain close proximity with their mothers. The proximity of infants to mothers decreased with age, and independent offspring had lower proximity to mothers than dependent ones. We found that the adult male had different proximity relationships with two different adult females. The frequency of proximity between the male and the infant-carrying female was significantly higher than that between the male and the female who had immigrated carrying one offspring of uncertain paternity into the group. Infanticide avoidance and/or predation protection for dependent infants might explain the proximity relationship differences. Temperature influenced group proximity association, with individual proximity increasing in the cold months and decreasing in the hot months. Group proximity decreased in months with higher anthropogenic disturbance.     

Forum on frontiers of science and technology:Lifeomics and translational medicine

The Chinese Academy of Sciences held its 7th forum on frontiers of Science and Technology,April 12-13,2012,in the academy hall of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.The Forum was organized by the Life Science and Medicine Division and co-organized by Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Science China Press.The theme of the 7th Forum was "Lifeomics and Translational Medicine",and the purpose was to discuss the significance of lifeomics(i.e.,     

An Efficient Rice Mutagenesis System Based on Suspension-Cultured Cells

Plant mutants are important bio-resources for crop breeding and gene functional studies. Conventional methods for generating mutant libraries by mutagenesis of seeds with physical or chemical agents are of low efficiency. Here, we developed a highly-efficient ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis system based on suspension-cultured cells, with rice (Oryza sativa L.) as an example. We show that treatment of suspension-cultured tiny cell clusters with 0.4% EMS for 18-22h followed by differentiation and regeneration produced as high as 29.4% independent mutant lines with visible phenotypic variations, including a number of important agronomic traits such as grain size, panicle size, grain or panicle shape, tiller number and angle, heading date, male sterility, and disease sensitivity. No mosaic mutant was observed in the mutant lines tested. In this mutant library, we obtained a mutant with an abnormally elongated uppermost internode. Sequencing and functional analysis revealed that this is a new allelic mutant of eui (elongated uppermost internode) caused by two point mutations in the first exon of the EUI gene, representing a successful example of this mutagenesis system.     

The Arabidopsis Anaphase-Promoting Complex/Cyclosome Subunit 1 is Critical for Both Female Gametogenesis and Embryogenesis

Anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C), a multisubunit E3 ligase, plays a critical role in cell cycle control, but the functional characterization of each subunit has not yet been completed. To investigate the function of APC1 in Arabidopsis, we analyzed four mutant alleles of APC1, and found that mutation in APC1 resulted in significantly reduced plant fertility, accumulation of cyclin B, and disrupted auxin distribution in embryos. The three mutant alleles apc1-1, apc1-2 and apc1-3 shared variable defects in female gametogenesis including degradation, abnormal nuclear number, and disrupted polarity of nuclei in the embryo sac as well as in embryogenesis, in which embryos were arrested at multiple stages. All of these defects are similar to those previously identified in apc4. The mutant apc1-4, in which the T-DNA was inserted after the transmembrane domain at the C-terminus, showed much more severe phenotypes; that is, most of the ovules were arrested at the one-nucleate female gametophyte stage (stage FG1). In the apc1 apc4 double mutants, the fertility was further reduced by one-third in apc1-1/+ apc4-1/+, and in some cases no ovules even survived in siliques of apc1-4/+ apc4-1/+. Our data thus suggest that APC1, an essential component of APC/C, plays a synergistic role with APC4 both in female gametogenesis and in embryogenesis.     

基于SIFT特征和近似最近邻算法的医学CT图像检索

针对医学X线计算机断层（Computed Tomography,CT）图像,提出了一种基于尺度不变特征变换（Scale InvariantFeature Transform,SIFT）特征和近似最近邻算法的检索方法。首先通过SIFT算法得到图像的特征点和相应的特征向量,再采用近似最近邻算法进行SIFT特征向量的匹配搜索,得到数据库中与参考图像最相似的图像序列。实验结果表明,该法能检索到与目标图像细节相符的结果,大大提高了检索速度。与传统的基于纹理的检索方法相比,查准率和检索结果与目标图像的相似程度方面更佳,符合医学CT图像检索的要求。     

Identification and characterization of Mini1, a gene regulating rice shoot development

The aerial parts of higher plants are generated from the shoot apical meristem(SAM). In this study, we isolated a small rice(Oryza sativa L.) mutant that showed premature termination of shoot development and was named mini rice 1(mini1). The mutant was first isolated from a japonica cultivar Zhonghua11(ZH11) subjected to ethyl methanesulfonate(EMS)treatment. With bulked segregant analysis(BSA) and map-based cloning method, Mini1 gene was finally fine-mapped to an interval of 48.6 kb on chromosome 9. Sequence analyses revealed a single base substitution from G to A was found in the region, which resulted in an amino acid change from Gly to Asp.The candidate gene Os09g0363900 was predicted to encode a putative adhesion of calyx edges protein ACE(putative HOTHEAD precursor) and genetic complementation experiment confirmed the identity of Mini1. Os09g0363900 contains glucose-methanol-choline(GMC) oxidoreductase and NAD(P)-binding Rossmann-like domain, and exhibits high similarity to Arabidopsis HOTHEAD(HTH). Expression analysis indicated Mini1 was highly expressed in young shoots but lowly in roots and the expression level of most genes involved in auxin biosynthesis and signal transduction were reduced in mutant.We conclude that Mini1 plays an important role in maintaining SAM activity and promoting shoot development in rice.