ALBERT

Description: We present CCD UBVRI photometry of the field of the open cluster NGC 6866. Structural parameters of the cluster are determined utilizing the stellar density profile of the stars in the field. We calculate the probabilities of the stars being physical members of the cluster, using their astrometric data, and perform further analyses using only the most probable members. The reddening and metallicity of the cluster were determined by independent methods. The LAMOST spectra and the ultraviolet excess of the F- and G-type main-sequence stars in the cluster indicate that the metallicity of the cluster is about the solar value. We estimated the reddening E ( B – V ) = 0.074 ± 0.050 mag using the U – B versus B – V two-colour diagram. The distance modula, the distance and the age of NGC 6866 were derived as μ = 10.60 ± 0.10 mag, d  = 1189 ± 75 pc and t  = 813 ± 50 Myr, respectively, by fitting colour–magnitude diagrams of the cluster with the PARSEC isochrones. The Galactic orbit of NGC 6866 indicates that the cluster is orbiting in a slightly eccentric orbit with e  = 0.12. The mass function slope x  = 1.35 ± 0.08 was derived by using the most probable members of the cluster.

Description: Freed from the competition of large raptors, Paleocene carnivores could expand their newly acquired habitats in search of prey. Such changing conditions might have led to their successful distribution and rapid radiation. Today, molecular evolutionary biologists are faced, however, with the consequences of such accelerated adaptive radiations, because they led to sequential speciation more rapidly than phylogenetic markers could be fixed. The repercussions being that current genealogies based on such markers are incongruent with species trees. Our aim was to explore such conflicting phylogenetic zones of evolution during the early arctoid radiation, especially to distinguish diagnostic from misleading phylogenetic signals, and to examine other carnivore-related speciation events. We applied a combination of high-throughput computational strategies to screen carnivore and related genomes in silico for randomly inserted retroposed elements that we then used to identify inconsistent phylogenetic patterns in the Arctoidea group, which is well known for phylogenetic discordances. Our combined retrophylogenomic and in vitro wet lab approach detected hundreds of carnivore-specific insertions, many of them confirming well-established splits or identifying and solving conflicting species distributions. Our systematic genome-wide screens for Long INterspersed Elements detected homoplasy-free markers with insertion-specific truncation points that we used to distinguish phylogenetically informative markers from conflicting signals. The results were independently confirmed by phylogenetic diagnostic Short INterspersed Elements. As statistical analysis ruled out ancestral hybridization, these doubly verified but still conflicting patterns were statistically determined to be genomic remnants from a time of ancestral incomplete lineage sorting that especially accompanied large parts of Arctoidea evolution.

Description: Using a Bayesian technology, we derived distances and extinctions for over 100 000 red giant stars observed by the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) survey by taking into account spectroscopic constraints from the APOGEE stellar parameters and photometric constraints from Two Micron All-Sky Survey, as well as a prior knowledge on the Milky Way. Derived distances are compared with those from four other independent methods, the Hipparcos parallaxes, star clusters, APOGEE red clump stars, and asteroseismic distances from APOKASC and Strömgren survey for Asteroseismology and Galactic Archaeology catalogues. These comparisons covers four orders of magnitude in the distance scale from 0.02 to 20 kpc. The results show that our distances agree very well with those from other methods: the mean relative difference between our Bayesian distances and those derived from other methods ranges from –4.2 per cent to +3.6 per cent, and the dispersion ranges from 15 per cent to 25 per cent. The extinctions towards all stars are also derived and compared with those from several other independent methods: the Rayleigh–Jeans Colour Excess (RJCE) method, Gonzalez's 2D extinction map, as well as 3D extinction maps and models. The comparisons reveal that, overall, estimated extinctions agree very well, but RJCE tends to overestimate extinctions for cool stars and objects with low log g .

Description: The motility of MCF-7 cells increases following expression of a human PMR1 transgene and the current study sought to identify the molecular basis for this phenotypic change. Ensemble and single cell analyses show increased motility is dependent on the endonuclease activity of hPMR1, and cells expressing active but not inactive hPMR1 invade extracellular matrix. Nanostring profiling identified 14 microRNAs that are downregulated by hPMR1, including all five members of the miR-200 family and others that also regulate invasive growth. miR-200 levels increase following hPMR1 knockdown, and changes in miR-200 family microRNAs were matched by corresponding changes in miR-200 targets and reporter expression. PMR1 preferentially cleaves between UG dinucleotides within a consensus YUGR element when present in the unpaired loop of a stem–loop structure. This motif is present in the apical loop of precursors to most of the downregulated microRNAs, and hPMR1 targeting of pre-miRs was confirmed by their loss following induced expression and increase following hPMR1 knockdown. Introduction of miR-200c into hPMR1-expressing cells reduced motility and miR-200 target gene expression, confirming hPMR1 acts upstream of Dicer processing. These findings identify a new role for hPMR1 in the post-transcriptional regulation of microRNAs in breast cancer cells.

Description: 〈p〉Studies of drug resistance mostly characterize genetic mutation, and we know much less about phenotypic mechanisms of drug resistance, especially at a quantitative level. p53 is an important mediator of cellular response to chemotherapy, but even p53 wild-type cells vary in drug sensitivity for unclear reasons. Here, we elucidated a new resistance mechanism to a DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic through bimodal modulation of p53 activation dynamics. By combining single-cell imaging with computational modeling, we characterized a four-component regulatory module, which generates bimodal p53 dynamics through coupled feed-forward and feedback, and found that the inhibitory strength between ATM and Mdm2 determined the differential modular output between drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cancer cell lines. We further showed that the combinatorial inhibition of Mdm2 and Wip1 was an effective strategy to alter p53 dynamics in resistant cancer cells and sensitize their apoptotic response. Our results point to p53 pulsing as a potentially druggable mechanism that mediates chemoresistance.〈/p〉

Description: 〈p〉Current-induced spin-orbit torques provide an effective way to manipulate magnetization in spintronic devices, promising for fast switching applications in nonvolatile memory and logic units. Recent studies have revealed that the spin-orbit torque is strongly altered by the oxidation of heterostructures with broken inversion symmetry. Although this finding opens a new field of metal-oxide spin-orbitronics, the role of the oxidation in the spin-orbit physics is still unclear. Here, we demonstrate a marked enhancement of the spin-orbit torque induced by a fine-tuning of oxygen-induced modification of orbital hybridization. This is evidenced by a concomitant enhancement of the interface spin-orbit torque, interface spin loss, and interface perpendicular magnetic anisotropy within a narrow range of the oxidation level of metallic heterostructures. This result reveals the crucial role of the atomic-scale effects in the generation of the spin-orbit torques, opening the door to atomic-level engineering of the spin-orbit physics.〈/p〉

Description: To study the secular evolution of the activity of Centaur 166P/2001 T4 (Near Earth Asteroid Tracking, NEAT) and its physical properties, we present the results of optical observations of the Centaur taken on 2009 March 29 with the Keck 10-m telescope located atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. It was still active at r h  = 11.9 au post-perihelion. An upper limit of the nucleus radius of a N  〈 14.32 km is derived. The colour index is B  –  R  = 1.59 ± 0.05. The Af value is measured to be 288 ± 19 cm and the corresponding dust production rate is 252 kg s –1 . Finally, a possible mechanism of activity is discussed.

Description: Following DNA double-strand breaks, poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) is quickly and heavily synthesized to mediate fast and early recruitment of a number of DNA damage response factors to the sites of DNA lesions and facilitates DNA damage repair. Here, we found that EXO1, an exonuclease for DNA damage repair, is quickly recruited to the sites of DNA damage via PAR-binding. With further dissection of the functional domains of EXO1, we report that the PIN domain of EXO1 recognizes PAR both in vitro and in vivo and the interaction between the PIN domain and PAR is sufficient for the recruitment. We also found that the R93G variant of EXO1, generated by a single nucleotide polymorphism, abolishes the interaction and the early recruitment. Moreover, our study suggests that the PAR-mediated fast recruitment of EXO1 facilities early DNA end resection, the first step of homologous recombination repair. We observed that other PIN domains could also recognize DNA damage-induced PAR. Taken together, our study demonstrates a novel class of PAR-binding module that plays an important role in DNA damage response.

Description: We introduce the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) stellar parameter pipeline at Peking University – lsp3 , developed and implemented for the determinations of radial velocity V r and stellar atmospheric parameters (effective temperature T eff , surface gravity log  g , metallicity [Fe/H]) for the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anticentre (LSS-GAC). We describe the algorithms of lsp3 and examine the accuracy of parameters yielded by it. The precision and accuracy of parameters yielded are investigated by comparing results of multi-epoch observations and of candidate members of open and globular clusters, with photometric calibration, as well as with independent determinations available from a number of external data bases, including the PASTEL archive, the APOGEE, SDSS and RAVE surveys, as well as those released in the LAMOST DR1. The uncertainties of lsp3 parameters are characterized and quantified as a function of the spectral signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and stellar atmospheric parameters. We conclude that the current implementation of lsp3 has achieved an accuracy of 5.0 km s –1 , 150 K, 0.25 dex, 0.15 dex for the radial velocity, effective temperature, surface gravity and metallicity, respectively, for LSS-GAC spectra of FGK stars of SNRs per pixel higher than 10. The lsp3 has been applied to over a million LSS-GAC spectra collected hitherto. Stellar parameters yielded by the lsp3 will be released to the general public following the data policy of LAMOST, together with estimates of the interstellar extinction E ( B – V ) and stellar distances, deduced by combining spectroscopic and multiband photometric measurements using a variety of techniques.

Description: As a major component of the LAMOST Galactic surveys, the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anticentre (LSS-GAC) aims to survey a significant volume of the Galactic thin/thick discs and halo for a contiguous sky area of over 3400 deg 2 centred on the Galactic anticentre (| b | ≤ 30°, 150 ≤  l  ≤ 210°), and obtain 3700–9000 low-resolution ( R  ~ 1800) spectra for a statistically complete sample of ~3 M stars of all colours down to a limiting magnitude of r  ~ 17.8 mag (to 18.5 mag for limited fields). Together with Gaia , the LSS-GAC will yield a unique data set to advance our understanding of the structure and assemblage history of the Galaxy, in particular its disc(s). In addition to the main survey, the LSS-GAC will also target hundreds of thousands objects in the vicinity fields of M 31 and M 33 and survey a significant fraction (over a million) of randomly selected very bright stars ( r  ≤ 14 mag) in the Northern hemisphere. During the Pilot and the first year Regular Surveys of LAMOST, a total of 1042 586 [750 867] spectra of a signal-to-noise ratio S/N(7450 Å) ≥ 10 [S/N(4650 Å) ≥ 10] have been collected. In this paper, we present a detailed description of the target selection algorithm, survey design, observations and the first data release of value-added catalogues (including radial velocities, effective temperatures, surface gravities, metallicities, values of interstellar extinction, distances, proper motions and orbital parameters) of the LSS-GAC.