CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screens have been widely used to interrogate gene functions across a wide range of cell systems. However, the screening outcome is biased in amplified genomic regions, due to the ability of the Cas9 nuclease to induce multiple double-stranded breaks and strong DNA damage responses at these regions. We developed algorithms to correct biases associated with copy number variations (CNV), even when the CNV profiles are unknown. We demonstrated that our methods effectively reduced false positives in amplified regions while preserving signals of true positives. In addition, we developed a sliding window approach to estimate regions of high copy numbers for cases in which CNV information is not available.These copy number estimations can subsequently be used to effectively correct CNV-related biases in CRISPR screening experiments. Our approach is integrated into the existing MAGeCK/MAGeCK-VISPR analysis pipelines and provides a convenient framework to improve the precision of CRISPR screening results.peer-reviewed)

According to the Nyquist sampling theorem, a large number of sampled images and small intervals between capturing cameras should be met for rendering high quality virtual views without aliasing, which is hard to realize in practice. Therefore, achieving a balance between multi-view data capturing and quality of the rendered view remains as open problems. To solve this problem, we analysed the spectral bounds of the scene and designed a reconstruction filter. A proper number for rendering and a three-dimensional surface describing the relation between multi-view data capturing and quality of the rendered view were derived. Experimental results for both the modelled scene and the real scene show that only about 20% of sample images are needed compared with Nyquist sampling, while the quality of the rendered view remains higher than that of a Nyquist sampled comparison.

ABSTRACT. Endophytes from Cephalotaxus hainanensisLi, an important source of anti-leukemia drugs, have not been widely explored. In this study, 265 endophytic fungal isolates from C. hainanensis Li were screened for antimicrobial activities against tilapia, banana, rice, and rape and for antitumor activities against human leukemia cell lines (K562, NB4, and HL-60). Diversity was also analyzed. The results showed that 17.7% of the endophytic fungi had antimicrobial activities against at least three different test microbes, and activity against Fusarium oxysporum RKY102 was the highest at 15.8%. Cytotoxicity against at least one tumor cell line tested was observed in 18.5% of the endophytic fungi; with the highest value of 10.6% against K562. The endophytic fungal strains also showed relatively high activities against K562, NB4, and HL-60 while relatively fewer strains were cytotoxic against the human hepatic Hep-G2 and colon LoVo cancer cell lines. Thirty endophytic fungal strains showed both high antimicrobial and antitumor activities. Moreover, the analyses of the diversity of the 30 highly active strains showed they belonged to 20 species from 14 genera, and this is the first report of endophytic fungi Albonectria rigidiuscula, Colletotrichum magnisporum, and Nemania diffusa being isolated from Cephalotaxus plants. These findings suggest that natural antibacterial products for humans and tilapia; antifungal compounds for rice, rape, and banana; and antitumor compounds for leukemia therapy could be isolated from fungal strains derived from C. hainanensis Li.

An Urgent Rehabilitation Technique Education Program was conducted in response to the needs of the enormous number of the Wenchuan earthquake patients and the shortage of rehabilitation professionals. This program referred to an urgent training program of several rehabilitation techniques that was beneficial to earthquake victims. This short-term program covered the basic clinical technical trainings in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, prosthetics and orthotics, which were included in concentrated technical training, decentralized technical training, and disaster area technical advising. More than 1,500 health-care professionals in Sichuan province took this education program at different locations, which can improve the shortage of rehabilitation professionals, addressing to the clinical need of the earthquake patients, improving local rehabilitation technique, and standardized of the rehabilitation treatments for earthquake patients. This program could be considered as an economical and effective method to help the disaster situation especially there was shortage of health professionals.