The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) is a special reflecting Schmidt telescope. LAMOST's special design allows both a large aperture (effective aperture of 3.6 m-4.9 m) and a wide field of view (FOV) (5 • ). It has an innovative active reflecting Schmidt configuration which continuously changes the mirror's surface that adjusts during the observation process and combines thin deformable mirror active optics with segmented active optics. Its primary mirror (6.67 m×6.05 m) and active Schmidt mirror (5.74 m×4.40 m) are both segmented, and composed of 37 and 24 hexagonal sub-mirrors respectively. By using a parallel controllable fiber positioning technique, the focal surface of 1.75 m in diameter can accommodate 4000 optical fibers. Also, LAMOST has 16 spectrographs with 32 CCD cameras. LAMOST will be the telescope with the highest rate of spectral acquisition. As a national large scientific project, the LAMOST project was formally proposed in 1996, and approved by the Chinese government in 1997. The construction started in 2001, was completed in 2008 and passed the official acceptance in June 2009. The LAMOST pilot survey was started in October 2011 and the spectroscopic survey will launch in September 2012. Up to now, LAMOST has released more than 480 000 spectra of objects. LAMOST will make an important contribution to the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, structure and evolution of the Galaxy, and cross-identification of multiwaveband properties in celestial objects.

The Large sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) general survey is a spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately half of the celestial sphere and collect 10 million spectra of stars, galaxies and QSOs. Objects in both the pilot survey and the first year regular survey are included in the LAMOST DR1. The pilot survey started in October 2011 and ended in June 2012, and the data have been released to the public as the LAMOST Pilot Data Release in August 2012. The regular survey started in September 2012, and completed its first year of operation in June 2013. The LAMOST DR1 includes a total of 1202 plates containing 2 955 336 spectra, of which 1 790 879 spectra have observed signalto-noise ratio (SNR) ≥ 10. All data with SNR ≥ 2 are formally released as LAMOST DR1 under the LAMOST data policy. This data release contains a total of 2 204 696 spectra, of which 1 944 329 are stellar spectra, 12 082 are galaxy spectra and 5017 are quasars. The DR1 not only includes spectra, but also three stellar catalogs with measured parameters: late A,FGK-type stars with high quality spectra (1 061 918 entries), A-type stars (100 073 entries), and M-type stars (121 522 entries). This paper introduces the survey design, the observational and instrumental limitations, data reduction and analysis, and some caveats. A description of the FITS structure of spectral files and parameter catalogs is also provided.

Neuronal NO synthase (NOS) is a flavin-containing hemeprotein that generates NO from L-arginine, NADPH, and O 2 . NO has recently been proposed to autoinhibit NOS. We have investigated whether a NOS heme-NO complex forms during aerobic steady-state catalysis. Visible and resonance Raman spectra recorded during steady-state NO synthesis by NOS showed that the majority of enzyme (70 -90%) was present as its ferrous-nitrosyl complex. Ferrous-nitrosyl NOS formed only in the coincident presence of NADPH, L-arginine, and O 2 . Its level remained constant during NO synthesis until the NADPH was exhausted, after which the complex decayed to regenerate ferric resting NOS. Stoppedflow measurements revealed that the buildup of the ferrous-NO complex was rapid (<2 s) and caused a 10-fold decrease in the rate of NADPH consumption by NOS. Complex formation and decay could occur several times with no adverse affect on its subsequent formation or on NOS catalytic activity. Neither enzyme dilution nor NO scavengers (superoxide and oxyhemoglobin) diminished formation of ferrous-nitrosyl NOS or prevented the catalytic inhibition attributed to its formation. The ferrousnitrosyl complex also formed in unfractionated cell cytosol containing neuronal NOS upon initiating NO synthesis. We conclude that a majority of neuronal NOS is converted quickly to a catalytically inactive ferrousnitrosyl complex during NO synthesis independent of the external NO concentration. Thus, NO binding to the NOS heme may be a fundamental feature of catalysis and functions to down-regulate NO synthesis by neuronal NOS.

Fluorescence imaging in vivo allows non-invasive tumor diagnostic thus permitting a direct monitoring of cancer therapies progresses. It is established herein that fluorescent gold nanoclusters are spontaneously biosynthesized by cancerous cell (i.e., HepG2, human hepatocarcinoma cell line; K562, leukemia cell line) incubated with micromolar chloroauric acid solutions, a biocompatible molecular Au(III) species. Gold nanoparticles form by Au(III) reduction inside cells cytoplasms and ultimately concentrate around their nucleoli, thus affording precise cell imaging. Importantly, this does not occur in non-cancerous cells, as evidenced with human embryo liver cells (L02) used as controls. This dichotomy is exploited for a new strategy for in vivo self-bio-imaging of tumors. Subcutaneous injections of millimolar chloroauric acid solution near xenograft tumors of the nude mouse model of hepatocellular carcinoma or chronic myeloid leukemia led to efficient biosynthesis of fluorescent gold nanoclusters without significant dissemination to the surrounding normal tissues, hence allowing specific fluorescent self-bio-marking of the tumors.