Earticle

The swine leukocyte antigen class II molecules are possibly associated with the induction of protective immunity. The study described here was to investigate the relationship between polymorphisms in exon 2 of the swine DQA gene and piglet diarrhea. This study was carried out on 425 suckling piglets from three purebred pig strains (Large White, Landrace and Duroc). The genetic diversity of exon 2 in swine DQA was detected by PCR-SSCP and sequencing analysis, eight unique SSCP patterns (AB, BB, BC, CC, CD, BD, BE and DD) representing five specific allele (A to E) sequences were detected. Sequence analysis revealed 21 nucleotide variable sites and resulting in 12 amino acid substitutions in the populations. A moderate level polymorphism and significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of the genotypes distribution were observed in the populations (p<0.01). The association analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in the score of piglet diarrhea between different genotypes, individuals with genotype CC showed a lower diarrhea score than genotypes AB ($0.98{\pm}0.09$), BB ($0.85{\pm}0.77$) and BC ($1.25{\pm}0.23$) (p<0.05), and significantly low than genotype BE ($1.19{\pm}0.19$) (p<0.01), CC genotype may be a most resistance genotype for piglet diarrhea.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the worldwide disease which causes enormous losses every year. Recent studies suggested that environmental and gene factors might be the etiologies in increasing the risk of morbidity. Nitric oxide synthase 3 (NOS3) gene polymorphisms are said to be associated with CRC risk but the conclusion is still controversial. Materials and Methods: Pubmed and HuGENet databases up to December 2013 were used in this meta-analysis. Three different certain genotypic models were applied, namely dominant (AA+AC versus CC), recessive (AA versus AC+CC), per-allele analysis (A vs C). In addition, information on tumor sites and pathologic stages was collected. The strength of associations was assessed through combining odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Results: Finally, five and three studies about the rs1799983 and rs2070744 were covered in the analysis with 2,745 cases and 2,478 controls. Three models were applied, but no significant association was found for NOS3 G894T/rs1799983 (dominant: OR=0.999, 95%CI=0.797-1.253, $I^2$=63.8%; recessive: OR=0.924, 95%CI=0.589-1.450, $I^2$=59.3%; allele analysis: OR=0.979, 95%CI=0.788-1.216, $I^2$=74.9%) and T-786C/rs2070744 (dominant: OR=1.138, 95%CI=0.846-1.530, $I^2$=67.9%; recessive: OR=0.956, 95%CI=0.708-1.291, $I^2$=0.0%; allele analysis: OR=1.110, 95%CI=0.865-1.425, $I^2$=69.4%). The same results were also obtained for tumor sites and pathologic stage subgroups. After further analyzing the NOS3 gene, rs1799983 as the tag- and functional SNP was presented. Conclusions: On the basis of this meta-analysis and the characteristics of the NOS3 gene, we suggested rs1799983 might be a key locus associated with CRC risk. Further prospective studies were needed to make more comprehensive explanation of the associations.

This paper presents the structure and process technology of simple and low-cost wafer-level packaging (WLP) for thin film radio frequency (RF) devices. Low-cost practical micromachining processes were proposed as an alternative to high-cost processes, such as silicon deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) or electro-plating, in order to reduce the fabrication cost. Gold (Au)/Tin (Sn) alloy was utilized as the solder material for bonding and hermetic sealing. The small size fabricated WLP of $1.04{\times}1.04{\times}0.4mm^3$ had an average shear strength of 10.425 $kg/mm^2$, and the leakage rate of all chips was lower than $1.2{\times}10^{-5}$ atm.cc/sec. These results met Military Standards 883F (MIL-STD-883F). As the newly proposed WLP structure is simple, and its process technology is inexpensive, the fabricated WLP is a good candidate for thin film type RF devices.