I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Honghai Liu, for his constant support, guidance and encouragement. I feel especially blessed since he is not only my supervisor but also my friend. Of equal importance are my thanks to Prof. Ping Li and Dr. David

In this paper, we explore the fundamental limits of sensor network lifetime that all algorithms can possibly achieve. Specifically, under the assumptions that nodes are deployed as a Poisson point process with density λ in a square region with side length ℓ and each sensor can cover a unit-area disk, we first derive the necessary and sufficient condition of the node density in order to maintain complete k-coverage with probability approaching 1. With this result, we obtain that if λ = logℓ 2 +(k +2)loglogℓ 2 + c(ℓ),c(ℓ) → −∞, as ℓ → +∞, the sensor network lifetime (for maintaining complete coverage) is upper bounded by kT with probability approaching 1 as ℓ → +∞, whereT is the lifetime of each sensor. Second, we derive, given a fixed node density in a finite (but reasonably large) region, the upper bounds of lifetime when only α-portion of the region is required to be covered at any time. We also carry out simulations to validate the derived results. Simulation results indicate that the derived upper bounds apply not only to networks of large areas but also to small-area networks.

Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, remains a leading infectious disease despite the availability of chemotherapy and BCG vaccine. The commonly used avirulent M. tuberculosis strain H37Ra was derived from virulent strain H37 in 1935 but the basis of virulence attenuation has remained obscure despite numerous studies. We determined the complete genomic sequence of H37Ra ATCC25177 and compared that with its virulent counterpart H37Rv and a clinical isolate CDC1551. The H37Ra genome is highly similar to that of H37Rv with respect to gene content and order but is 8,445 bp larger as a result of 53 insertions and 21 deletions in H37Ra relative to H37Rv. Variations in repetitive sequences such as IS6110 and PE/PPE/PE-PGRS family genes are responsible for most of the gross genetic changes. A total of 198 single nucleotide variations (SNVs) that are different between H37Ra and H37Rv were identified, yet 119 of them are identical between H37Ra and CDC1551 and 3 are due to H37Rv strain variation, leaving only 76 H37Ra-specific SNVs that affect only 32 genes. The biological impact of missense mutations in protein coding sequences was analyzed in silico while nucleotide variations in potential promoter regions of several important genes were verified by quantitative RT-PCR. Mutations affecting transcription factors and/or global metabolic regulations related to in vitro survival under aging stress, and mutations affecting cell envelope, primary metabolism, in vivo growth as well as variations in the PE/PPE/PE-PGRS family genes, may underlie the basis of virulence attenuation. These findings have implications not only for improved

Mutations in the 81-bp rifampin resistance determining region (RRDR) and mutation V176F locating at the beginning of the ropB gene were analyzed by DNA sequencing of 86 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates (72 resistant and 14 sensitive) from different parts of China. Sixty-five mutations of 22 distinct kinds, 21 point mutations, and 1 insertion were found in 65 of 72 resistant isolates. The most common mutations were in codons 531 (41%), 526 (40%), and 516 (4%). Mutations were not found in seven (10%) of the resistant isolates. Six new alleles within the RRDR, along with five novel mutations outside the RRDR, are reported. None of isolates contained the V176 mutation. Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the main threats to humans, causing 8 million new cases and 2 million deaths each year. The problem is becoming more critical with the emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, defined as resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin (RIF). About 2 to 3 % of all new TB cases worldwide are due to MDR strain, and the highest MDR populations among new cases have been found in China (11%)

Background: Humans infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) can delete the pathogen or otherwise become latent infection or active disease. However, the factors influencing the pathogen clearance and disease progression from latent infection are poorly understood. This study attempted to use a genome-wide transcriptome approach to identify immune factors associated with MTB infection and novel biomarkers that can distinguish active disease from latent infection. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using microarray analysis, we comprehensively determined the transcriptional difference in purified protein derivative (PPD) stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in 12 individuals divided into three groups: TB patients (TB), latent TB infection individuals (LTBI) and healthy controls (HC) (n = 4 per group). A transcriptional profiling of 506 differentially expressed genes could correctly group study individuals into three clusters. Moreover, 55- and 229-transcript signatures for tuberculosis infection (TB&LTBI) and active disease (TB) were identified, respectively. The validation study by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) performed in 83 individuals confirmed the expression patterns of 81 % of the microarray identified genes. Decision tree analysis indicated that three genes of CXCL10, ATP10A and TLR6 could differentiate TB from LTBI subjects. Additional validation was performed to assess the diagnostic ability of the three biomarkers within 36 subjects, which yielded a sensitivity of 71 % and specificity of 89%. Conclusions/Significance: The transcription profiles of PBMCs induced by PPD identified distinctive gene expression

Drug resistance of pathogens has necessitated the identification of novel targets for antibiotics. Thiamin (vitamin B1) is an essential cofactor for all organisms in its active form thiamin diphosphate (ThDP). Therefore, its metabolic pathways might be one largely untapped source

Abstract—This paper proposes a fuzzy qualitative approach to vision-based human motion analysis with an emphasis on human motion recognition. It achieves feasible computational cost for hu-man motion recognition by combining fuzzy qualitative robot kine-matics with human motion tracking and recognition algorithms. First, a data-quantization process is proposed to relax the com-putational complexity suffered from visual tracking algorithms. Second, a novel human motion representation, i.e., qualitative nor-malized template, is developed in terms of the fuzzy qualitative robot kinematics framework to effectively represent human mo-tion. The human skeleton is modeled as a complex kinematic chain, and its motion is represented by a series of such models in terms of time. Finally, experiment results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. An empirical compar-ison with conventional hidden Markov model (HMM) and fuzzy HMM (FHMM) shows that the proposed approach consistently outperforms both HMMs in human motion recognition. Index Terms—Fuzzy qualitative reasoning, human motion anal-ysis, image processing, intelligent robotics. I.

Abstract. This paper based on the investigation of the Chinese coastal city. Problems for developers, such as the construction of excessive, unreasonable layout, lack of infrastructure, lack of expert guidance for analysis. Study from the planning and management, environmental features, architectural and cultural characteristics, sustainable development, the rational development of the Chinese coastal city, to seek the ideas of coastal urban development.

Observation of timing jitter reduction induced by spectral filtering in a fiber laser mode locked with a carbon nanotube-based saturable absorber

Experience suggests that fully automated schema matching is infeasible, especially for n-to-m matches involving semantic functions. It is therefore