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Supplementary Data. Supplementary Table1 Cis-element categories based on biological process. Supplementary Table 2 Primers used in the experiment. Supplementary Table 3 Predicted WAK/WAKL family members in strawberrySupplementary Table 4 Predicted WAK/WAKL family members in apple. Supplementary Table 5 Predicted WAK/WAKL family members in peach. Supplementary Table 6 Number of WAK/WAKL genes in different species. Supplementary Figure 1 Venn diagrams of Genes containing different domains. (a) to (c) represents the quantitative relationships of apple, peach and strawberry respectively. GUB_ WAK_ Bind, galacturonan binding domain, EGF_ CA, calcium binding EGF domain, PKinase, serine/threonine kinase. SignalP&TM, signal peptide and transmembrane helix. Supplementary Figure 2 DNA structures and conserved domains of the WAK/WAKL gene family. Supplementary Figure 3 Paralogous genes pairs in four Rosaceae crops. (a) to (d) represent microsyntenic analysis of apple, peach, rose and strawberry, respectively. The grey lines represent pairs of genes that has syntenic relationship around the genome, and the highlighted red line indicating paralogous pairs ofWAK/WAKL family. Supplementary Figure 4 Syntenic map of orthologous genes running through Rosaceae species. The different coloured bars indicate their chromosomes, the grey lines indicate pairs of genes that are covalently related, and the highlighted red lines mean both of the genes from the WAK/WAKL family. Supplementary Figure 5 Comparison of CDS (coding sequence) of RcWAK2 and RcWAK22. Sequence alignment was performed by DNAMAN with default parameters in pairwise alignment.

The non-line-of-sight imaging technique aims to reconstruct targets from multiply reflected light. For most existing methods, dense points on the relay surface are raster scanned to obtain high-quality reconstructions, which requires a long acquisition time. In this work, we propose a signal-surface collaborative regularization (SSCR) framework that provides noise-robust reconstructions with a minimal number of measurements. Using Bayesian inference, we design joint regularizations of the estimated signal, the 3D voxel-based representation of the objects, and the 2D surface-based description of the targets. To our best knowledge, this is the first work that combines regularizations in mixed dimensions for hidden targets. Experiments on synthetic and experimental datasets illustrated the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method under both confocal and non-confocal settings. We report the reconstruction of the hidden targets with complex geometric structures with only $5 \times 5$ confocal measurements from public datasets, indicating an acceleration of the conventional measurement process by a factor of 10000. Besides, the proposed method enjoys low time and memory complexities with sparse measurements. Our approach has great potential in real-time non-line-of-sight imaging applications such as rescue operations and autonomous driving., main article: 10 pages, 7 figures supplement: 11 pages, 24 figures

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were found to play important roles in transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and epigenetic gene regulation in various biological processes. However, lncRNAs and their regulatory roles remain poorly studied in horticultural plants. Rose is economically important not only for their wide use as garden and cut flowers but also as important sources of natural fragrance for perfume and cosmetics industry, but presently little was known about the regulatory mechanism of the floral scent production. In this paper, a RNA-Seq analysis with strand-specific libraries, was performed to rose flowers in different flowering stages. The scented variety ‘Tianmidemeng’ (Rosa hybrida) was used as plant material. A total of 13,957 lncRNAs were identified by mining the RNA-Seq data, including 10,887 annotated lncRNAs and 3070 novel lncRNAs. Among them, 10,075 lncRNAs were predicted to possess a total of 29,622 target genes, including 54 synthase genes and 24 transcription factors related to floral scent synthesis. 425 lncRNAs were differentially expressed during the flowering process, among which 19 were differentially expressed among all the three flowering stages. Using weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA), we correlate the differentially-expressed lncRNAs to synthesis of individual floral scent compounds. Furthermore, regulatory function of one of candidate lncRNAs for floral scent synthesis was verified using VIGS method in the rose. In this study, we were able to show that lncRNAs may play important roles in floral scent production in the rose. This study also improves our understanding of how plants regulate their secondary metabolism by lncRNAs.

Background: Cistus munbyi Pomel is a well-known medicinal plant in Western Algeria for its several applications in medicine and food. This endemic species from North Africa is poorly studied among the genus of Cistus, which gives the opportunity to carry out original pharmacological studies to value this medicinal plant. Objective: To investigate the antioxidant and the antimicrobial activities of Cistus munbyi, an endemic medicinal plant from Algeria. Methods: The antioxidant properties of C. munbyi crudes extracts were evaluated using the DPPH radical-scavenging activity tests. While their antimicrobial activity was studied by the agar diffusion method and MICs determination against eighteen bacterial and fungal strains, some of which were clinical. Results: The obtained results showed that aqueous and ethanol extracts possess a strong scavenging activity against DPPH radicals with EC50 values estimated at 1.12 and 8.31 μg/mL, respectively. On the other hand, extracts from C. munbyi revealed homogeneous and good antimicrobial activity, in which the inhibition zone diameters observed were ranging from 08 to 19 mm, and the MICs values were included from 0.312 to 5.000 mg/mL. The aqueous extract was less active except against Proteus mirabilis and Staphylococcus aureus. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that C. munbyipossesses a strong antioxidant activity and an interesting antimicrobial potential, which allows justifying its uses by the local population in several applications. Therefore, C. munbyi could be a good source of natural antioxidants and antimicrobial agents.

We propose an infinity Laplacian method to address the problem of interpolation on an unstructured point cloud. In doing so, we find the labeling function with the smallest infinity norm of its gradient. By introducing the non-local gradient, the continuous functional is approximated with a discrete form. The discrete problem is convex and can be solved efficiently with the split Bregman method. Experimental results indicate that our approach provides consistent interpolations and the labeling functions obtained are globally smooth, even in the case of extreme low sampling rate. More importantly, convergence of the discrete minimizer to the optimal continuous labeling function is proved using $\Gamma$-convergence and compactness, which guarantees the reliability of the infinity Laplacian method in various potential applications., Comment: 44 pages, 4 figures

We propose an infinity Laplacian method to address the problem of interpolation on an unstructured point cloud. In doing so, we find the labeling function with the smallest infinity norm of its gradient. By introducing the non-local gradient, the continuous functional is approximated with a discrete form. The discrete problem is convex and can be solved efficiently with the split Bregman method. Experimental results indicate that our approach provides consistent interpolations and the labeling functions obtained are globally smooth, even in the case of extreme low sampling rate. More importantly, convergence of the discrete minimizer to the optimal continuous labeling function is proved using $��$-convergence and compactness, which guarantees the reliability of the infinity Laplacian method in various potential applications., 44 pages, 4 figures

Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging aims at reconstructing targets obscured from the direct line of sight. Existing NLOS imaging algorithms require dense measurements at rectangular grid points in a large area of the relay surface, which severely hinders their availability to variable relay scenarios in practical applications such as robotic vision, autonomous driving, rescue operations and remote sensing. In this work, we propose a Bayesian framework for NLOS imaging with no specific requirements on the spatial pattern of illumination and detection points. By introducing virtual confocal signals, we design a confocal complemented signal-object collaborative regularization (CC-SOCR) algorithm for high quality reconstructions. Our approach is capable of reconstructing both albedo and surface normal of the hidden objects with fine details under the most general relay setting. Moreover, with a regular relay surface, coarse rather than dense measurements are enough for our approach such that the acquisition time can be reduced significantly. As demonstrated in multiple experiments, the new framework substantially enhances the applicability of NLOS imaging., Comment: main article: 32 pages with 8 figures; supplementary information: 49 pages with 26 figures

Emerging evidence suggests that atherosclerosis, one of the leading phenotypes of cardiovascular diseases, is a chronic inflammatory disease. During the atherosclerotic process, immune cells play critical roles in vascular inflammation and plaque formation. Meanwhile, gastrointestinal disorder is considered a risk factor in mediating the atherosclerotic process. The present study aimed to utilize sivelestat, a selective inhibitor of neutrophil elastase, to investigate its pharmacological benefits on atherosclerosis and disclose the gastrointestinal–vascular interaction. The activation of intestinal neutrophil was increased during atherosclerotic development in Western diet-fed ApoE-/- mice. Administration of sivelestat attenuated atherosclerotic phenotypes, including decreasing toxic lipid accumulation, vascular monocyte infiltration, and inflammatory cytokines. Sivelestat decreased intestinal permeability and endotoxemia in atherosclerotic mice. Mechanistically, sivelestat upregulated the expression of zonula occludens-1 in the atherosclerotic mice and recombinant neutrophil elastase protein-treated intestinal epithelial cells. Meanwhile, treatment of sivelestat suppressed the intestinal expression of inflammatory cytokines and NF-κB activity. In contrast, administration of lipopolysaccharides abolished the anti-atherosclerotic benefits of sivelestat in the Western diet-fed ApoE-/- mice. Further clinical correlation study showed that the circulating endotoxin level and intestinal neutrophil elastase activity were positively correlated with carotid intima-medial thickness in recruited subjects. In conclusion, sivelestat had pharmacological applications in protection against atherosclerosis, and intestinal homeostasis played one of the critical roles in atherosclerotic development.

Following the development of the 5G technology, wireless IoT communication is becoming reality. Therefore, how to cut the cost of energy in the channel transmission is coming to the forefront of the wireless IoT communication field. To solve this problem, a low energy consumption LDPC coding technology is presented. It includes two parts: a coding preprocessing system and LDPC coding system. The biggest problem of channel transmission is that the high and low levels in the signal change very frequently, which costs a lot of extra energy. In this paper, a scheme aiming at cutting the cost of the energy in channel transmission is presented. The frequency of signal’s changing between the low and high levels is decreased without any designs of complex coding algorithms. And with the amount of information increasing, the effect of decreasing the energy costs in the channel will be significant

In this study, we amplified aquaporin 1(AQP1) promoter sequence with polymerase chain reaction(PCR), then AQP1 promoter fragment and pGL2 basic vector were linked to create an artificial pGL2/AQP1 promoter re-porter system. A certain concentration of 17β-estradiol(E2) activated pGL2/AQP1p, which demonstrated the pGL2/AQP1p transcriptional system effective. The pGL2/AQP1 promoter reporter system was applied to evaluate the activate effect on AQP1 of different kinds of phytoestrogens. Dual luciferase reporter gene activity assay showed that a certain concentration phytoestrogens including daidzein and genistein can increase AQP1 promoter transcription activity. In addition, E2, daidzein and genistein can make AQP1 protein endoge- nous expression level increase and promote the function of water scretion. The result can guide the clinical application to treat the Sjogren’s syndrome and provide a necessary molecular tool for the subsequent drug screening.

Additional file 2: Supplemental Table S2. Plant WAK/WAKL genes involved in disease resistance [29���35]

Additional file 1: Supplemental Table S1. List of primers used in this study

Additional file 6: Supplemental Data. WAK/WAKL protein sequences

This paper describes a 12–27 GHz VGA with low phase shift variation and dB-linear gain. A pre-distortion technique for extending the gain tuning range is employed to allow a dB-linear dynamic range of 31 dB, and a compensation structure for reducing the phase shift variation is adopted to make the phase shift varies less than 4° within the entire gain range. Besides, a DAC cell is innovatively introduced to achieve the dB linearity and low phase shift variation balance. A fourth-order LC-ladder filter is used for input matching and a peak inductor technique is used to broaden bandwidth of the VGA. The proposed variable gain amplifier operating in Ku and K bands is implemented in 0.18 μm BiCMOS technology. The simulation results show that the input and output return loss are less than −10 dB in the whole work frequency band, an IIP3 of −2.8 dBm, an IP1dB of −12 dBm and a power consumption of 62.1 mW are achieved at maximum gain mode in center frequency.

Heteroatom-doped graphene materials have emerged as highly efficient and inexpensive and variations of graphene doping structures; however, there is still a lack of fundamental understanding of the trend and mechanisms in their ORR activity, which greatly hinders the development of highly active graphene-based catalysts. Here we use density-functional calculations to study the ORR activity and mechanism of nonmetal-element doped graphene catalysts with different doping configurations. Our results demonstrate that binding energies of ORR intermediates (i.e., *OH) on the catalysts can serve as a good descriptor for the ORR activity, attaining the optimal value at the vicinity of ∼2.6 eV. The analysis of electronic structures indicates that the ORR activity of doped graphene catalysts depends on the abundance of electronic states at the Fermi level, which dominates the charge transfer between ORR intermediates and the catalysts. Using binding energy as a descriptor, we predict the realization of highly activ...

Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted HighlightsWe solve the coordinated path planning problems for multi-UAVs.Our proposed k-degree smoothing method smooths the path obtained by IACO.We propose an algorithm to achieve strong coordination and weak coordination. Coordinated path planning for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs) is a highly significant problem encountered in their coordinated control. In the interests of completing mission securely and efficiently, the advanced multi-UAVs control technology requires a universal smoothing method as well as a precise coordination strategy. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-UAVs coordinated path planning method based on the k-degree smoothing, a more complex environment consists of multiple threat sources of which is constructed. By employing the Improved Ant Colony Optimization algorithm, a k-degree smoothing method is also presented aiming at obtaining a more flyable path. Additionally, the multi-UAVs coordination algorithm is induced by k-degree smoothing, allowing the UAVs to arrive at the destination simultaneously or in an acceptable time interval. Finally, simulations of the comparison between the Improved Ant Colony Optimization and classic algorithm, the detailed smoothing method, and the coordination are respectively conducted to validate that the proposed approach is feasible and effective in multi-UAVs coordinated path planning problems.

Qingtao Hou,1,* Yang Guan,1,* Weihua Yu,2 Xintong Liu,1 Lihua Wu,2 Mingzhao Xiao,3 Yang Lü1 1Department of Geriatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Anatomy, Institute of Neuroscience, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between obesity and cognitive impairment in the Chinese elderly.Patients and methods: Patients aged 60 years or above were enrolled from the Department of Geriatrics of The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University from March 2013 to May 2017. Mini-Mental State Examination scale was used to assess the cognitive function. Body mass index (BMI) and waist–hip ratio were used to classify obesity. Student’s t-test, Mann–Whitney U-test, or chi-squared test was used to compare the data between participants with normal cognition and participants with cognitive impairment as appropriate. Univariate logistic regression models and multivariate logistic regression models were performed to explore the relationship between BMI or abdominal obesity and cognitive impairment.Results: A total of 1,100 patients including 568 men and 532 women aged 60–98 years (median age 79 years) were enrolled. After adjusting for age, gender, smoking, drinking, education level, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and diabetes, overweight was significantly associated with a decreased risk of cognitive impairment (OR=0.458, 95% CI=0.298–0.703, P

In order to improve the ability of data exchange and balanced scheduling in power network, a balanced switching algorithm based on baud interval equalisation and channel distortion compensation is ...

This is a game that simulates an earthquake rescue, where the goal is to save people buried under rocks by lifting up all the rocks from the disaster area in the middle to safe areas on each side in 3 minutes using the provided tools.

With the rapid development in recent decades, the electric power communication network plays a more and more important role and needs to meet the requirements of higher reliability. But the increase of network scale heightens the risk of failure. In order to guarantee the operation of electric power communication network safely and reliably, the complex network theory is used to evaluate the topology structure of power communication network in this paper. The robustness and the performance function of the network are analyzed after the node attack, the static risk point of the network is determined and the topology of the network is optimized.

The electric power communication network is composed of communication devices and heterogeneous networks. In order to ensure the reliability and security of this large and complex network, which contains multi-technology and multi-layer, it is required to evaluate the security status of the electric power communication network. This paper carries out the technology of electric power communication network's security assessment. By analyzing the main factors affecting the safe operation of the communication network, we determine the appropriate safety evaluation index, and achieve the establishment of Electric Communication Network Security Assessment System based on the algorithm of Fuzzy AHP. We applied the Tianjin Electric Power Communication Network to the Security Assessment System, determine the assessment index and calculate the corresponding risk value.

In this thesis, we systematically examine the ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) mechanism to be applied to some AQM (Active Queue Management) techniques developed in recent years, namely, RED (Random Early Detection), BLUE, ARED (Adaptive RED) and PI-RED (Proportional and Integral RED). We use packet marking as the indication of network congestion, instead of the strategy of dropping packet currently adopted by these AQM algorithms. The performance comparison of ECN-AQM with AQM has been conducted in not only a single bottleneck network but also a multi-bottleneck network environment. The simulation results have shown that ECN-AQM algorithms can greatly decrease unnecessary packet loss, one of the main shortcomings of RED and some other AQM algorithms. They can also reduce average queue size in most cases, but the queue size oscillation problem remains. We therefore investigate the application of the head dropping policy to AQM techniques, as a simple solution to the problem of queue oscillation, another shortcoming of RED and its variants. With this method, instead of tail dropping, which is currently used by RED and many other AQM schemes, the TCP source can be informed of the congestion occurring in the bottleneck router earlier by getting rid of time to wait through the queuing delay. We have compared DH-RED (Drop Head RED) and DH-BLUE (Drop Head BLUE) with the current RED and BLUE in both of the single bottleneck and the multi-bottleneck networks. We found the performance of queue size stability can be greatly improved by DH-RED and DH-BLUE.

In this paper, the neural network and fuzzy logic are introduced to the grinding process to prediction and control workpiece size. Dynamic Elman neural network is used in the prediction model. We modified the hidden layer structure, and the first and the second derivative of the actual amount removed from the workpiece are added into the network input, which can greatly improve the prediction accuracy. A fuzzy control model with flexible factor is used to control workpiece size. Simulation and experiment verify that the developed prediction control model is feasible and has high prediction and control precision.