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In order to explore the response of soil respiration in grassland to global warming, we carried out a warming experiment with open top chambers (OTCs) in the subalpine meadow, Mount Wutai in north China. Our results showed in the subalpine meadow across 2 500-2 700 m above the sea level (ASL), with OTCs, soil respiration increased by 2.00 μmol·m-2·s-1 as soil temperature increased by 1.25 ℃ on average. Warming decreased soil moisture over the experiment periods except in October 2019 when snow melted in OTCs. Warming effect on soil respiration peaked at 178.31% in October 2019. In control and warming treatment, based on exponential regression equations, soil temperature alone accounted for 85.3% and 61.2% of soil respiration variation, respectively. In control treatment soil moisture alone explained 23.2% of soil respiration variation based on the power regression equation while in warming treatment they were not significantly correlated with each other. The response of soil respiration to warming relied on altitudes as well as the time of the year, but was not inhibited by soil moisture, labile carbon pool, and available nitrogen. We concluded soil temperature was the main factor influencing soil respiration, and global warming would stimulate soil respiration in the subalpine meadows of Mount Wutai in the future. Our analysis provided new data on characteristics and mechanisms of the response of soil respiration to warming, and helped to further understand the relationship between carbon cycle and climate change.

Bentonite has important applications in curbing soil heavy metal pollution. Jinchang city is an important industrial city in western China, and the mining activities in this area inevitably lead to the heavy metal pollution of soil; in particular, the maximum concentrations of Ni and Cu in the soil exceeded the standard by 30 and 25 times, respectively. In this study, we conducted soil cultivation experiments to study the effects of bentonite addition (BA) on the fractions of the heavy metals Ni and Cu in an old tailings area of Jinchang city. Surface soil (0–20 cm) samples were collected, and Ni and Cu fractionation was performed using the Tessier sequential extraction method. The results showed that residual (R) was the main fraction of Ni and Cu, which accounted for 53% and 57% of their total amounts, respectively. The fraction bound to organic matter (BM), bound to Fe-Mn oxides (BO), bound to carbonates (BC), and the exchangeable (E) accounted for 20% and 16%, 18% and 12%, 6%, and 7%, 3% and 4% of the total amounts, respectively. Their contents ranked in the order: R > BM > BO > BC > E. Each fraction of Ni and Cu decreased with increasing levels of BA. The proportion of E of Ni and Cu was considerably reduced, while the proportion of BO and R increased significantly following the BA. BA can significantly reduce the mobility of Ni and Cu. Our findings indicated that BA can significantly reduce the biological toxicity and mobilization of heavy metals in polluted soil, which can be recommended as a safe stabilizer for heavy metal pollution in soil.

In this paper, a hybrid switched-capacitor/ switched-quasi-Z-source bidirectional dc-dc converter is proposed for electric vehicles (EVs) with hybrid energy sources, which has a wide voltage gain range in the bidirectional energy flows. Compared with the traditional quasi-Z-source bidirectional dc-dc converter, the proposed converter only changes the position of the main power switch, and employs a switched-capacitor cell at the output of the high voltage side. Therefore, the advantages of the wide voltage gain range and the lower voltage stresses across the power switches can be achieved. The operating principle, the voltage and current stresses across the power switches and the comparisons with other converters are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, the parameter design of the main components, the dynamic modelling analysis and the voltage control scheme are also presented. Finally, the experimental results obtained from a 400W prototype validate the characteristics and the theoretical analysis of the proposed converter.

BACKGROUND: Primary lung cancer with severe central airway obstruction (CAO) is often life-threatening. In this study, we investigated the clinical efficacy and safety of cisplatin plus recombinant human endostatin (rh-endostatin) intratumoral injection in treatment of malignant central airway obstruction (MCAO) caused by primary squamous cell lung cancer. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed patients with MCAO caused by primary squamous cell lung cancer treated with and without bronchoscopic intratumoral injection of cisplatin plus rh-endostatin between January 2007 and June 2016. RESULTS: A total of 206 patients received cisplatin plus rh-endostatin intratumoral injection, and 113 without injection. Dyspnea grade, degree of stenosis, quality of life and lung function of all patients were significantly improved at 1 week after treatment compared with baseline. Both groups achieved good airway patency (97.1% vs. 93.8%, P=0.156). Followed up at 2 months, all parameters were improved in the injection group compared with baseline, while no statistical differences were observed in the non-injection group (P>0.05). The injection group achieved airway patency in 155 (75.2%) of 206 patients, which was significantly superior to the non-injection group [20 (17.7%) of 113, P

In this paper, an interleaved switched-capacitor bidirectional dc-dc converter with a high step-up/step-down voltage gain is proposed. The interleaved structure is adopted in the low-voltage side of this converter to reduce the ripple of the current through the low-voltage side, and the series-connected structure is adopted in the high-voltage side to achieve the high step-up/step-down voltage gain. In addition, the bidirectional synchronous rectification operations are carried out without requiring any extra hardware, and the efficiency of the converter is improved. Furthermore, the operating principles, voltage and current stresses, and current ripple characteristics of the converter are analyzed. Finally, a 1 kW prototype has been developed which verifies a wide voltage-gain range of this converter between the variable low-voltage side (50–120 V) and the constant high-voltage side (400 V). The maximum efficiency of the converter is 95.21% in the step-up mode and 95.30% in the step-down mode. The experimental results also validate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed topology.

In order to match the voltages between high voltage battery stacks and low voltage super-capacitors with a high conversion efficiency in hybrid energy sources electric vehicles (HESEVs), a high ratio bidirectional DC-DC converter with a synchronous rectification H-Bridge is proposed in this paper. The principles of high ratio step down and step-up operations are analyzed. In terms of the bidirectional characteristic of the H-Bridge, the bidirectional synchronous rectification (SR) operation is presented without any extra hardware. Then the SR power switches can achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off during dead time, and the power conversion efficiency is improved compared to that of the diode rectification (DR) operation, as well as the utilization of power switches. Experimental results show that the proposed converter can operate bidirectionally in the wide ratio range of 3~10, when the low voltage continuously varies between 15V and 50V. The maximum efficiencies are 94.1% in the Buck mode, and 93.6% in the Boost mode. In addition, the corresponding largest efficiency variations between SR and DR operations are 4.8% and 3.4%. This converter is suitable for use as a power interface between the battery stacks and super-capacitors in HESEVs.

This paper introduces a whole project of augmented reality interaction mode based on netty communication method, determines the main technical difficulties in the implementation process, and finds the solution by means of system architecture design and communication protocol development. In this paper, the netty framework is adopted to deal with network IO and business logic, and the communication between each terminal device, virtual environment and server is established through long connection, This paper adopts the netty framework to deal with network IO and business logic, establishes communication between each terminal device and virtual environment and server through long connection, so as to realize fast and natural real-time interaction between various interactive devices and other augmented reality devices and virtual environments under multiple users. It can also solve the problem of high concurrency of real-time communication between various devices and the virtual environment in augmented reality.

We report here the design and facile synthesis of multifunctional gold nanostars based nanocomposites (MGSNs) through direct organosilica coating onto anisotropic gold nanostars followed by the conjugation of Gd chelates. The as-synthesized MGSNs possess strong NIR absorbance, SERS signal and enhanced T1-MR imaging capability with excellent dispersivity and uniform size, as well as great photothermal stability and Raman stability under photothermal conditions. Importantly, MGSNs present excellent performance in vivo after their intravenous injection for both MR and SERS imaging and the high efficiency for killing tumor cells through photothermal ablation with NIR irradiation. A combination of the high spatial resolution of MR and the exciting sub-cell-level sensitivity and resolution of SERS can provide comprehensive information about the tumor to achieve the optimized therapeutic outcome. Therefore, MGSNs are of great potential as a multifunctional nanoplatform for MR-SERS bimodal imaging-guided, focused photothermal tumor therapy.

Background Trichophyton mentagrophytes is an important zoonotic dermatophytic (ringworm) pathogen; causing severe skin infection in humans and other animals worldwide. Fortunately, commonly used fungal skin disease prevention and treatment measures are relatively simple. However, T. mentagrophytes is primarily studied at the epidemiology and drug efficacy research levels, yet current study has been unable to meet the needs of clinical medicine. Zinc is a crucial trace element for the growth and reproduction of fungi and other microorganisms. The metal ions coordinate within a variety of proteins to form zinc finger proteins, which perform many vital biological functions. Zinc transport regulatory networks have not been resolved in T. mentagrophytes. The T. mentagrophytes transcriptome will allow us to discover new genes, particularly those genes involved in zinc uptake. Result We found T. mentagrophytes growth to be restricted by zinc deficiency; natural T. mentagrophytes growth requires zinc ions. T. Mentagrophytes must acquire zinc ions for growth and development. The transcriptome of T. mentagrophytes was sequenced by using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 technology and the de novo assembly of the transcriptome was performed by using the Trinity method, and functional annotation was analyzed. We got 10,751 unigenes. The growth of T. mentagrophytes is severely inhibited and there were many genes showing significant up regulation and down regulation respectively in T. mentagrophytes when zinc deficiency. Zinc deficiency can affect the expression of multiple genes of T. mentagrophytes. The effect of the zinc deficiency could be recovered in the normal medium. And we finally found the zinc-responsive activating factor (ZafA) and speculated that 4 unigenes are zinc transporters. We knocked ZafA gene by ATMT transformation in T. mentagrophytes, the result showed that ZafA gene is very important for the growth and the generation of conidia in T. mentagrophytes. The expression of 4 zinc transporter genes is potentially regulated by the zinc-responsive activating factor. The data of this study is also sufficient to be used as a support to study T. mentagrophytes. Conclusion We reported the first large transcriptome study carried out in T. mentagrophytes where we have compared physiological and transcriptional responses to zinc deficiency, and analyzed the expression of genes involved in zinc uptake. The study also produced high-resolution digital profiles of global genes expression relating to T. mentagrophytes growth. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-017-4284-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Semi-supervised learning has been an attractive research tool for using unlabeled data in pattern recognition. Applying a novel semi-definite programming (SDP) relaxation strategy to a class of continuous semi-supervised support vector machines (S^3VMs), a new convex relaxation framework for the S^3VMs is proposed based on SDP. Compared with other SDP relaxations for S^3VMs, the proposed methods only require solving the primal problems and can implement L"1-norm regularization. Furthermore, the proposed technique is applied directly to recognize the purity of hybrid maize seeds using near-infrared spectral data, from which we find that the proposed method achieves equivalent performance to the exact solution algorithm for solving the S^3VM in different spectral regions. Experiments on several benchmark data sets demonstrate that the proposed convex technique is competitive with other SDP relaxation methods for solving semi-supervised SVMs in generalization.

Hydrophilic, fluorescent hybrid nanoprobes (NDI@HNPs) encapsulated with the hydrophobic pH-responsive fluorophore (N,N'-di-n-dodecyl-2,6-di(4-methyl-piperazin-1-yl)naphthalene-1,4,5,8-tetracarboxylic acid diimide, NDI) for recognizing and mapping the route of cell phagocytosis have been fabricated based on the self-assembly of amphiphilic diblock copolymer PS-b-PAA and the subsequent shell cross-linking with 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxy silane (MPTMS). The as-synthesized NDI@HNPs has a typical spherical morphology of 46 nm in diameter with excellent monodispersity in aqueous solution. The NDI@HNPs probe exhibits extremely low cytotoxicity, fast real time pH response and enhanced fluorescence intensity under acidic environment with respect to the corresponding free dye in highly polar aqueous system because of the encapsulation of NDI molecules inside nanoparticle cores with weak polarity environment. The fluorescence intensity of NDI@HNPs is enhanced by 55-fold upon changing from neutral (pH = 7.4) or basic (pH = 8.4) to acid (pH = 3.4) in aqueous system, in contrast to the serious fluorescence quenching of free NDI in the same medium, which can exactly meet the physiological pH range in cells. The favorably long emission wavelength is beneficial to the low scattering and minimal interfering requirements to fluorescent bioimaging. Moreover, functionalization with rapid cell-penetrating peptides (HIV-1 TAT) allows them to overcome the physiological and biological barriers during the phagocytosis process. Its characteristic fluorescent response to pH benefits the intracellular labeling and organelle targeting, realizing the real time tracking of the probe entry into cancer cells, the accumulation into the endolysosome and the further escape.

Three pairs of primers that can amplify zinc-responsive. (DOCX 15Â kb)

The primers of qRT-PCR. (DOCX 15Â kb)

The pathways of unigenes. (DOCX 29Â kb)

Estrogen signaling plays an important role in breast carcinogenesis. An increased understanding of estrogen gene targets and their effects will allow for more directed and effective therapies for individuals with breast cancer, particularly those with estrogen receptor positive tumors resistant to tamoxifen therapy. Here, we identify YPEL3 as a growth suppressive protein down-regulated by estrogen in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer cell lines. Estrogen repression of YPEL3 expression was found to be independent of p53 but dependent on estrogen receptor alpha expression. Importantly, YPEL3 expression, which is induced by the removal of estrogen or treatment with tamoxifen triggers cellular senescence in MCF-7 cells while loss of YPEL3 increases the growth rate of MCF-7 cells. Taken together these findings suggest that YPEL3 may represent a potential target for directed hormonal therapy for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients.

SUMMARYThis article will review the utility of comparative animal models in understanding the molecular biology of ion transport. Due to the breadth of this field some `disclaimers' need to be established up front. `Comparative'will be defined as non-mammalian. `Genetic species' will be defined as organisms that have been selected as models for genetic studies and for which the genome has been largely sequenced. `Non-genetic species' will include other non-mammalian organisms. The review will be limited to ions that play a major role in extracellular (EC) ionoregulation (Na/K/Ca/Cl) and not to micronutrients (Fe) or heavy metals (Cd, Zn). The review will focus only on ion motive proteins that have been associated with vectorial transfer at epithelial tissues. The review is therefore intended as a guidepost to researchers new to the field as well as to inform biologists of the power of comparative genomics.

SUMMARYThe discontinuous pattern of crustacean cuticular mineralization (the molting cycle) has emerged as a model system to study the spatial and temporal regulation of genes that code for Ca2+-transporting proteins including pumps, channels and exchangers. The plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPase (PMCA) is potentially of significant interest due to its role in the active transport of Ca2+ across the basolateral membrane, which is required for routine maintenance of intracellular Ca2+ as well as unidirectional Ca2+ influx. Prior research has suggested that PMCA expression is upregulated during periods of elevated Ca2+ influx associated with postmolt cuticular mineralization. This paper describes the cloning, sequencing and functional characterization of a novel PMCA3 gene from the antennal gland(kidney) of the crayfish Procambarus clarkii. The complete sequence,the first obtained from a non-genetic invertebrate species, was obtained through reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) techniques. Crayfish PMCA3 consists of 4148 bp with a 3546 bp open reading frame coding for 1182 amino acid residues with a molecular mass of 130 kDa. It exhibits 77.5-80.9% identity at the mRNA level and 85.3-86.9% identity at the protein level with PMCA3 from human, mouse and rat. Membrane topography was typical of published mammalian PMCAs. Northern blot analysis of total RNA from crayfish gill, antennal gland,cardiac muscle and axial abdominal muscle revealed that a 7.5 kb species was ubiquitous. The level of PMCA3 mRNA expression in all tissues(transporting epithelia and muscle) increased significantly in pre/postmolt stages compared with relatively low abundance in intermolt. Western analysis confirmed corresponding changes in PMCA protein expression (130 kDa).

SUBJECT: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common disease worldwide. This study aimed to investigate the health status of patients with newly diagnosed COPD. METHODS: A total of 45 healthy controls and 218 patients with newly diagnosed COPD were recruited. Pulmonary function test (PFT) values, COPD assessment test (CAT) scores, exacerbation history, and demographics were recorded. RESULTS: Forced expiratory volume in 1 s percent (FEV1%) predicted was significantly decreased and the CAT score was significantly increased in patients with COPD compared with healthy controls (P

This article discusses how to use queue to make non-recursion algorithm of binary link tree. As for a general binary tree, if we adopt sequence storage, firstly we should extend it first into a complete binary tree, secondly we store it to a temporary queue according to the sequence of up-down and left-right. On the basis of the properties of the complete binary tree and the queue, if we can confirm every element in the queue, then we can find the left and right children of the element in the queue. When we recur these steps, we can create a binary link bit tree. This algorithm enriches the method from recursion to non-recursion.

The article is mainly about how to employ IC card and mobile phone short messages to construct a convenient and real time information communication platform in the educational field, and to quicken the transmission of educational information so as to realize benefits of communication to education. It introduces the whole schematic design, and the designs of the software mainly include Web serving software, the desktop application software, background service software, two types of machines, controlling software, short messages gateway and so on.

SUMMARYThis study describes the cloning, sequencing and functional characterization of an epithelial Ca2+ channel (ECaC)-like gene isolated from antennal gland (kidney) of the freshwater crayfish Procambarus clarkii. The full-length cDNA consisted of 2687 bp with an open reading frame of 2169 bp encoding a protein of 722 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 81.7 kDa. Crayfish ECaC had 76–78% identity at the mRNA level (80–82% amino acid identity) with published fish sequences and 56–62% identity at the mRNA level (52–60% amino acid identity) with mammalian ECaCs. Secondary structure of the crayfish ECaC closely resembled that of cloned ECaCs. Postmolt ECaC expression was exclusively restricted to epithelia associated with Ca2+ influx and was virtually undetectable in non-epithelial tissues (eggs, muscle). Compared with expression levels in hepatopancreas, expression in gill was 10-fold greater and expression was highest in antennal gland (15-fold greater than in hepatopancreas). Compared with baseline expression levels in intermolt stage,expression of ECaC in antennal gland increased 7.4- and 23.8-fold,respectively, in pre- and postmolt stages of the molting cycle. This increase was localized primarily in the labyrinth and nephridial canal, regions of the antennal gland associated with renal Ca2+ reabsorption. The ECaC in crayfish appears to be expressed in epithelia associated with unidirectional Ca2+ influx and relative expression is correlated with rate of Ca2+ influx.

NCX (sodium/calcium exchanger) is a bidirectional Ca2+ transporter that plays a critical role in Ca2+ homeostasis. The present study employed real-time PCR and in-situ hybridization techniques to c...

The availability of ambient calcium is vastly different in fresh water versus salt water. This leads to the evolution of different calcium conservation strategies in freshwater crustaceans versus t...

SUMMARY This paper describes the cloning and functional characterization of the heart muscle isoform of Sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase(SERCA) from crayfish Procambarus clarkii. The complete crayfish heart SERCA, identified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE), consists of 4495 bp with a 3060 bp open reading frame, coding for 1020 amino acids. This isoform differs from the previously identified axial abdominal (tail) muscle SERCA solely in its C-terminal amino acids. The last nine amino acids of the tail muscle isoform are replaced by 27 hydrophobic amino acids in the heart isoform that have the potential to form an additional transmembrane domain. Consistent with other invertebrate studies, Southern blot analysis suggested that the heart and tail muscle isoforms are encoded from the same gene that is equally related to SERCA-1, -2 and -3 of vertebrates. The tissue distributions of these two isoforms have been assessed using isoform-specific probes and northern analysis. A cardiac-specific probe bound only to a 5.8 kb species in heart and had minimal cross-hybridization with 7.6 and 5.8 kb species in eggs and no hybridization with tail muscle. A tail-isoform-specific probe hybridized with a 4.5 kb species in tail muscle and cross-hybridized with a 4.5 kb species in eggs and 8.8 kb in heart muscle. Both isoforms are expressed in eggs suggesting that transcripts are formed early in development and are subsequently broadly expressed in all tissue types. Expression of the cardiac muscle SERCA isoform varied with the stage of moulting. Expression was high in intermoult and decreased in premoult. However, expression was restored rapidly in postmoult (within 2 days) unlike expression of tail muscle SERCA,which remained downregulated for weeks. Differences in contractility between the two muscle types in the postmoult period may explain these expression patterns.

A switched-capacitor bidirectional DC-DC converter with a high step-up/step-down voltage gain is proposed for electric vehicles (EVs) with a hybrid energy source system (HESS). The converter presented has the advantages of being a simple circuit, a reduced number of components, a wide voltage-gain range, a low voltage stress, and a common ground. In addition, the synchronous rectifiers allow zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off without requiring any extra hardware, and the efficiency of the converter is improved. A 300W prototype has been developed which validates the wide voltage-gain range of this converter using a variable low-voltage side (40V-100V) and to give a constant high-voltage side (300V). The maximum efficiency of the converter is 94.45% in step-down mode and 94.39% in step-up mode. The experimental results also validate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed topology.