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In the multi-effect evaporation salt making process, the smooth operation of the salt making process is crucial. As the salt production process continues, many unstable factors will cause the salt production process not to proceed smoothly. These factors can be discovered in advance by predicting the salt production data, thus, it is of great significance to predict the multi-effect evaporation salt production data. In the process of multi-effect evaporation and salt production, the multiple salt-making devices make the influence between the parameters closer, and the influence of a single parameter on itself is sometimes ductile. Therefore, the data of multi-effect evaporation and salt production have the characteristics of high dimensions, high complexity and temporal information. If the historical salt production data is used for data prediction directly, the prediction model will take a long time and the prediction effect is not good. Thus, how to predict the multi-effect evaporation salt production data is the main research problem of this paper. In view of the above problems, according to the characteristics of multi-effect evaporation salt production data, this paper analyzes and improves the self encoder for feature extraction of multi effect-evaporation salt production data, so as to solve the problem of high dimensions and high complexity of salt production data. On this basis, combined with the time-series information contained in the salt production data, a multi-effect evaporation salt production data prediction model is proposed based on long-term and short-term memory cycle neural network to solve the prediction problem of time-series salt production data. Experiments show that the prediction model can predict and prevent the problems in salt production line in advance. It has a certain theoretical research value and application value in the intelligent production process and production line optimization of salt chemical industry.

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which can cause progressive blindness, is characterised by choroid neovascularization (CNV) in the macular area. Although close attention has been paid to AMD, and anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs are available, its complex pathogenesis is still elusive. Tie2-expressing macrophages (TEMs) have been found to promote angiogenesis in remodel tissues and tumours. This study aimed to elucidate the role of macrophage Tie2 signalling in laser-induced CNV (LCNV). We observed that TEMs were responsible for the severity of CNV. Mechanistically, TEM deletion resulted in impaired LCNV due to the suppression of inflammatory angiogenesis and the promotion of apoptosis. We also observed that TEMs prevented apoptosis of b.End3 cells, but promoted their migration, proliferation and tube formation via VEGF, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and v-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene (AKT)-dependent signalling pathways. The flow cytometry results comparing dry AMD patients and healthy controls with wet AMD patients showed that the percentage of Tie2+CD14+ cells was higher in the wet AMD patients’ peripheral blood. This study demonstrates that Tie2 expression by macrophages intensifies CNV in LCNV murine models, thereby proposing an additional intervention option to inhibit CNV.

The white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) causes mass mortalities in the aquaculture of shrimps worldwide. The mud shrimp Austinogebia edulis (Ngoc-Ho & Chan, 1992) is an economically important sea food item occurring along the west coast of Taiwan. While the population of A. edulis began to decrease with some fluctuations in the last decade, the current study aims to discover the causes for such sporadic population decline. This study explores the effects of microbial pathogens and innate immunity on the populations of A. edulis. Here, we report firstly about WSSV infection of A. edulis from the coastal zone of western Taiwan which is one of the possible causes of population decrease of A. edulis in Shengang. However, WSSV infection is not the only reason for its population decrease because a similar infection rate of WSSV was found in Wangong. Population changes may be related to both environmental pollution stress and WSSV. Both factors likely caused a massive reduction of hemocytes and an abnormal increase of phenoloxidase and superoxide dismutase activity, which were spectrophotometrically measured. Since there is no effective way to treat WSSV infection, improving the coastal environment appears the most effective way to increase the population size of feral shrimps.

Functionally distinct synapses exhibit diverse and complex organisation at molecular and nanoscale levels. Synaptic diversity may be dependent on developmental stage, anatomical locus and the neural circuit within which synapses reside. Furthermore, astrocytes, which align with pre and post-synaptic structures to form 'tripartite synapses', can modulate neural circuits and impact on synaptic organisation. In this study, we aimed to determine which factors impact the diversity of excitatory synapses throughout the lumbar spinal cord. We used PSD95-eGFP mice, to visualise excitatory postsynaptic densities (PSDs) using high-resolution and super-resolution microscopy. We reveal a detailed and quantitative map of the features of excitatory synapses in the lumbar spinal cord, detailing synaptic diversity that is dependent on developmental stage, anatomical region and whether associated with VGLUT1 or VGLUT2 terminals. We report that PSDs are nanostructurally distinct between spinal laminae and across age groups. PSDs receiving VGLUT1 inputs also show enhanced nanostructural complexity compared with those receiving VGLUT2 inputs, suggesting pathway-specific diversity. Finally, we show that PSDs exhibit greater nanostructural complexity when part of tripartite synapses, and we provide evidence that astrocytic activation enhances PSD95 expression. Taken together, these results provide novel insights into the regulation and diversification of synapses across functionally distinct spinal regions and advance our general understanding of the 'rules' governing synaptic nanostructural organisation.

Heart disease is a malignant threat to human health. Electrocardiogram (ECG) tests are used to help diagnose heart disease by recording the heart’s activity. However, automated medical-aided diagnosis with computers usually requires a large volume of labeled clinical data without patients' privacy to train the model, which is an empirical problem that still needs to be solved. To address this problem, we propose a generative adversarial network (GAN), which is composed of a bidirectional long short-term memory(LSTM) and convolutional neural network(CNN), referred as BiLSTM-CNN,to generate synthetic ECG data that agree with existing clinical data so that the features of patients with heart disease can be retained. The model includes a generator and a discriminator, where the generator employs the two layers of the BiLSTM networks and the discriminator is based on convolutional neural networks. The 48 ECG records from individuals of the MIT-BIH database were used to train the model. We compared the performance of our model with two other generative models, the recurrent neural network autoencoder(RNN-AE) and the recurrent neural network variational autoencoder (RNN-VAE). The results showed that the loss function of our model converged to zero the fastest. We also evaluated the loss of the discriminator of GANs with different combinations of generator and discriminator. The results indicated that BiLSTM-CNN GAN could generate ECG data with high morphological similarity to real ECG recordings.

In view of the influence of variability of low-frequency noise frequency on noise prevention in real life, we present a novel two-dimensional tunable phononic crystal plate which is consisted of lead columns deposited in a silicone rubber plate with periodic holes and calculate its bandgap characteristics by finite element method. The low-frequency bandgap mechanism of the designed model is discussed simultaneously. Accordingly, the influence of geometric parameters of the phononic crystal plate on the bandgap characteristics is analyzed and the bandgap adjustability under prestretch strain is further studied. Results show that the new designed phononic crystal plate has lower bandgap starting frequency and wider bandwidth than the traditional single-sided structure, which is due to the coupling between the resonance mode of the scatterer and the long traveling wave in the matrix with the introduction of periodic holes. Applying prestretch strain to the matrix can realize active realtime control of low-frequency bandgap under slight deformation and broaden the low-frequency bandgap, which can be explained as the multiple bands tend to be flattened due to the localization degree of unit cell vibration increases with the rise of prestrain. The presented structure improves the realtime adjustability of sound isolation and vibration reduction frequency for phononic crystal in complex acoustic vibration environments.

Determining the number of synapses that are present in different brain regions is crucial to understand brain connectivity as a whole. Membrane-associated guanylate kinases (MAGUKs) are a family of scaffolding proteins that are expressed in excitatory glutamatergic synapses. We used genetic labeling of two of these proteins (PSD95 and SAP102), and Spinning Disc confocal Microscopy (SDM), to estimate the number of fluorescent puncta in the CA1 area of the hippocampus. We also used FIB-SEM, a three-dimensional electron microscopy technique, to calculate the actual numbers of synapses in the same area. We then estimated the ratio between the three-dimensional densities obtained with FIB-SEM (synapses/µm) and the bi-dimensional densities obtained with SDM (puncta/100 µm). Given that it is impractical to use FIB-SEM brain-wide, we used previously available SDM data from other brain regions and we applied this ratio as a conversion factor to estimate the minimum density of synapses in those regions. We found the highest densities of synapses in the isocortex, olfactory areas, hippocampal formation and cortical subplate. Low densities were found in the pallidum, hypothalamus, brainstem and cerebellum. Finally, the striatum and thalamus showed a wide range of synapse densities., This work was supported by grants from the following entities: the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades” (Grant PGC2018-094307-B-I00 and the Cajal Blue Brain Project [C080020-09; the Spanish partner of the Blue Brain Project initiative from EPFL, Switzerland]; the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 785907 (Human Brain Project, SGA2); the Wellcome Trust (Technology Development Grant 202932); and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (695568 SYNNOVATE). L.T.-R. is a recipient of grants from the EMBO Long-term fellowship 2016–2018 and the IBRO-PERC InEurope grants programme.

This work for funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC; BB/M021793/1), RS MacDonald Charitable Trust, Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association UK (Miles/Apr18/863-791), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; EP/P030017/1), Welcome Trust (202932/Z/16/Z), European Research Council (ERC; 695568) and the Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain. Functionally distinct synapses exhibit diverse and complex organisation at molecular and nanoscale levels. Synaptic diversity may be dependent on developmental stage, anatomical locus and the neural circuit within which synapses reside. Furthermore, astrocytes, which align with pre and post-synaptic structures to form “tripartite synapses”, can modulate neural circuits and impact on synaptic organisation. In this study, we aimed to determine which factors impact the diversity of excitatory synapses throughout the lumbar spinal cord. We used PSD95-eGFP mice, to visualise excitatory postsynaptic densities (PSDs) using high-resolution and super-resolution microscopy. We reveal a detailed and quantitative map of the features of excitatory synapses in the lumbar spinal cord, detailing synaptic diversity that is dependent on developmental stage, anatomical region and whether associated with VGLUT1 or VGLUT2 terminals. We report that PSDs are nanostructurally distinct between spinal laminae and across age groups. PSDs receiving VGLUT1 inputs also show enhanced nanostructural complexity compared with those receiving VGLUT2 inputs, suggesting pathway-specific diversity. Finally, we show that PSDs exhibit greater nanostructural complexity when part of tripartite synapses, and we provide evidence that astrocytic activation enhances PSD95 expression. Taken together, these results provide novel insights into the regulation and diversification of synapses across functionally distinct spinal regions and advance our general understanding of the ‘rules’ governing synaptic nanostructural organisation. Publisher PDF

Ceramidases (CDases) are vital enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of sphingolipids, which are essential components of eukaryotic membranes. The function of these enzymes in insects, however, is poorly understood. We identified a neutral ceramidase (NlnCDase) from the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, one of the most destructive hemipteran pests of rice. The C12-ceramide was the most preferred substrate for the NlnCDase enzyme. The activity of the NlnCDase enzyme was highest in the neutral-pH range (pH 6.0). It was inhibited by EGTA, Cs+ and Fe2+, while stimulated by EDTA and Ca2+. Moreover, the NlnCDase has higher transcript level and activity in adults than in eggs and nymphs, and in the reproductive organs (ovaries and spermaries) than in other tissues (i.e. heads, thorax, legs, midguts), which suggested that the NlnCDase might be elevated to mediate developmental process. In addition, transcripts and activity of the NlnCDase were up-regulated under abiotic stresses including starvation, abnormal temperature, and insecticides, and biotic stress of resistant rice varieties. Knocking down NlnCDase by RNA interference increased female survival under starvation and temperature stresses, suggesting that NlnCDase might be involved in the stress response in N. lugens.

The title compounds can be considered as simple analogues of quaternary benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids (QBAs). In order to develop potent QBA-like antifungal agents, as our continuing study, a series of new title compounds were synthesized and evaluated for bioactivity against five plant pathogenic fungi by the mycelium growth rate method in this study. The SAR were also derived. The majority of the compounds showed good to excellent inhibition activity with average EC50 values of 7.87–20.0 μM for the fungi, superior to sanguinarine and cherythrine (two QBAs) and the commercial fungicide azoxystrobin. Part of the compounds were more active than commercial fungicides thiabendazole or carbendazim against F. solani, F. graminearum and C. gloeosporioides. Six compounds with average EC50 of 3.5–5.1 μg/mL possessed very great potential for development of new antifungal agents. SAR found that substitution patterns of the two aryl-rings significantly affect the activity. There exists a complex interaction effect between substituents of the two aryl-rings on the activity. Generally, the presence of electron-withdrawing groups on the C-ring can significantly increase the activity. These findings will be of great importance for the design of more potent antifungal isoquinoline agents.

In this paper, we propose a nanostructure with Au nanoparticles (NPs), as electron sinks, located at the most outside layer of CdS sensitized TiO2 nanorod arrays (TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au). By the introduction of Au NPs, TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au performs higher visible light photocatalytic capacity in the degradation of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine wastewater than TiO2 NRAs/CdS. The optimal deposition time for Au NPs is 30 s. The visible light induced degradation ability of TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au (30 s) is 1.4 times that of TiO2 NRAs/CdS. The cycling stability of TiO2 NRAs/CdS is greatly enchanced after Au NPs decoration, which can maintain 95.86% after three cycles. Photoluminescence spectra and photoelectrochemical measurements were carried out to reveal the underlying mechanism for the improved visible light photocatalytic capacity of TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au. This work demonstrates a promising way for the rational design of metal-semiconductor photocatalysts used in decomposition reaction that can achieve high photocatalytic efficiency.

In this paper, we propose a nanostructure with Au nanoparticles (NPs), as electron sinks, located at the most outside layer of CdS sensitized TiO2 nanorod arrays (TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au). By the introduction of Au NPs, TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au performs higher visible light photocatalytic capacity in the degradation of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine wastewater than TiO2 NRAs/CdS. The optimal deposition time for Au NPs is 30 s. The visible light induced degradation ability of TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au (30 s) is 1.4 times that of TiO2 NRAs/CdS. The cycling stability of TiO2 NRAs/CdS is greatly enchanced after Au NPs decoration, which can maintain 95.86% after three cycles. Photoluminescence spectra and photoelectrochemical measurements were carried out to reveal the underlying mechanism for the improved visible light photocatalytic capacity of TiO2 NRAs/CdS/Au. This work demonstrates a promising way for the rational design of metal-semiconductor photocatalysts used in decomposition reaction that can achieve high photocatalytic efficiency.

In this study, we discovered that shrimp miR-100 was up-regulated at 24 h after WSSV or Vibrio alginolyticus infection, confirming its participation in the innate immune system of shrimp. The anti-miRNA oligonucleotide (AMO-miR-100) was applied to inhibit the expression of miR-100. After AMO-miR-100 treatment, the shrimp was challenged with WSSV or V. alginolyticus. The knockdown of miR-100 expression decreased the mortality of WSSV-infected shrimp from 24 h to 72 h post-infection and enhanced the mortality of V. alginolyticus-infected shrimp significantly. The knockdown of miR-100 affected phenoloxidase (PO) activity, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and total hemocyte count (THC) after the infection with WSSV or V. alginolyticus, indicating a regulative role of miR-100 in the immune potential of shrimp in the response to WSSV or V. alginolyticus infection. The knockdown of miR-100 induced the apoptosis of shrimp hemocytes, and V. alginolyticus + AMO-miR-100 treatment caused more hemocyte apoptosis than V. alginolyticus treatment. The miR-100 influenced also the morphology of shrimp hemocytes and regulated the phagocytosis of WSSV or V. alginolyticus. Thus, we concluded that miR-100 may promote the anti-Vibrio immune response of shrimp through regulating apoptosis, phagocytosis and PO activity and affects the progression of WSSV infection at a certain level.

Precursor ion scan and multiple reaction monitoring scan (MRM) are two typical scan modes in mass spectrometry analysis. Here, we developed a strategy by combining stable isotope labeling (IL) with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) under double precursor ion scan (DPI) and MRM for analysis of thiols in 5 types of human cancer urine. Firstly, the IL-LC-DPI-MS method was applied for non-targeted profiling of thiols from cancer samples. Compared to traditional full scan mode, the DPI method significantly improved identification selectivity and accuracy. 103 thiol candidates were discovered in all cancers and 6 thiols were identified by their standards. It is worth noting that pantetheine, for the first time, was identified in human urine. Secondly, the IL-LC-MRM-MS method was developed for relative quantification of thiols in cancers compared to healthy controls. All the MRM transitions of light and heavy labeled thiols were acquired from urines by using DPI method. Compared to DPI method, the sensitivity of MRM improved by 2.1–11.3 folds. In addition, the concentration of homocysteine, γ-glutamylcysteine and pantetheine enhanced more than two folds in cancer patients compared to healthy controls. Taken together, the method demonstrated to be a promising strategy for identification and comprehensive quantification of thiols in human urines.

Phagocytosis is a required mechanism for the defense against pathogens. Staphylococcus aureus, an important bacterial pathogen, can promptly escape from phagosomes and proliferate within the cytoplasm of host. However, the mechanism of phagocytosis against S. aureus has not been intensively investigated. In this study, the S. aureus was engulfed by macrophages (RAW264.7 cells) but not digested by the cells, suggesting that the phagosomes did not maturate in macrophages. Further investigation revealed that peptidoglycan (PG) induced the phagosome maturation of macrophages, resulting in the eradication of S. aureus. Genome-wide analysis and quantitative real-time PCR indicated that the JAK-STAT pathway was activated by PG during the phagosome maturation of macrophages against S. aureus. This finding presented that the PG-activated JAK-STAT pathway was required for phagosome maturation. Therefore, our study contributed evidence that revealed a novel aspect of PG-triggered JAK-STAT pathway in the phagosome maturation of macrophages.

Phagocytosis is crucial for triggering host defenses against invading pathogens in animals. However, the receptors on phagocyte surface required for phagocytosis of virus have not been extensively explored. This study demonstrated that white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), a major pathogen of shrimp, could be engulfed but not digested by Drosophila S2 cells, indicating that the virus was not recognized and taken up by a pathway that was silent and would not activate the phagosome maturation and digestion pathway. The results showed that the activation of receptors on S2 cell surface by lipopolysaccharide or peptidoglycan resulted in the phagocytosis of S2 cells against WSSV virions. Gene expression profiles revealed that the dally-mediated Wnt signaling pathway was involved in S2 phagocytosis. Further data showed that the Wnt signaling pathway played an essential role in phagocytosis. Therefore, our study contributed novel insight into the molecular mechanism of phagocytosis in animals.

Support from the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreements no. 604102 (HBP), 241995 (GENCODYS), 242498 (EUROSPIN), 242167 (SYNSYS). The molecular features of synapses in the hippocampus underpin current models of learning and cognition. Although synapse ultra-structural diversity has been described in the canonical hippocampal circuitry, our knowledge of sub-synaptic organisation of synaptic molecules remains largely unknown. To address this, mice were engineered to express Post Synaptic Density 95 protein (PSD95) fused to either eGFP or mEos2 and imaged with two orthogonal super-resolution methods: gated stimulated emission depletion (g-STED) microscopy and photoactivated localisation microscopy (PALM). Large-scale analysis of ~100,000 synapses in 7 hippocampal sub-regions revealed they comprised discrete PSD95 nanoclusters that were spatially organised into single and multi-nanocluster PSDs. Synapses in different sub-regions, cell-types and locations along the dendritic tree of CA1 pyramidal neurons, showed diversity characterised by the number of nanoclusters per synapse. Multi-nanocluster synapses were frequently found in the CA3 and dentate gyrus sub-regions, corresponding to large thorny excrescence synapses. Although the structure of individual nanoclusters remained relatively conserved across all sub-regions, PSD95 packing into nanoclusters also varied between sub-regions determined from nanocluster fluorescence intensity. These data identify PSD95 nanoclusters as a basic structural unit, or building block, of excitatory synapses and their number characterizes synapse size and structural diversity. Publisher PDF