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Deoxynivalenol is a mycotoxin, produced by Fusarium from contaminated corn, wheat, and other grains, that induces multiple effects in humans and animals, including cytotoxic, genotoxic, immunotoxic, and carcinogenic effects. Recent studies show that deoxynivalenol also affects the reproductive system of mammals, including oocyte quality. However, the effects of deoxynivalenol on early embryonic development have not been reported. In this study, fluorescence intensity analysis was used to show that deoxynivalenol disrupted the first cleavage of the zygote. The high deoxynivalenol dose disturbed the movement of the pronucleus after fertilization, while the low deoxynivalenol dose caused aberrant spindle morphology during the metaphase of the first cleavage. Further analysis showed that the reactive oxygen species level increased in the deoxynivalenol-exposed two-cell embryos, indicating oxidative stress. Moreover, deoxynivalenol caused DNA damage in the embryos, as positive γH2A.X signals were detected in the nucleus. These events led to the early apoptosis of mouse embryos, which was confirmed by autophagy. Taken together, our study provides evidence for the toxicity of deoxynivalenol during early embryonic development in the mouse model.

Background Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) has few cotton varieties suitable for mechanical harvesting. The plant height of the cultivar is one of the key features that need to modify. Hence, this study was planned to locate the QTL for plant height in a 60Co γ treated upland cotton semi-dwarf mutant Ari1327. Results Interestingly, bulk segregant analysis (BSA) and genotyping by sequencing (GBS) methods exhibited that candidate QTL was co-located in the region of 5.80–9.66 Mb at D01 chromosome in two F2 populations. Using three InDel markers to genotype a population of 1241 individuals confirmed that the offspring’s phenotype is consistent with the genotype. Comparative analysis of RNA-seq between the mutant and wild variety exhibited that Gh_D01G0592 was identified as the source of dwarfness from 200 genes. In addition, it was also revealed that the appropriate use of partial separation markers in QTL mapping can escalate linkage information. Conclusions Overwhelmingly, the results will provide the basis to reveal the function of candidate genes and the utilization of excellent dwarf genetic resources in the future.

Nonylphenol (NP) belongs to the metabolites of commercial detergents, which acts as an environmental endocrine disruptor. NP is reported to have multiple toxicity including reproductive toxicity. In present study, we reported the protective effects of melatonin on the NP-exposed oocyte quality. We set up a mouse in vivo model of NP exposure (500 μg/L), by daily drinking and continued feeding for 4 weeks; and we gave a daily dose of melatonin (30 mg/kg) to the NP-exposed mice. Melatonin supplementation restores the development ability of oocytes exposed to NP, and this was due to the reduction of ROS level and DNA damage by melatonin. Melatonin could rescue aberrant mitochondria distribution, mitochondria membrane potential, which also was reflected by ATP content and mtDNA copy number. Moreover, melatonin could restore the RPS3 expression to ensure the ribosome function for protein synthesis, and reduced GRP78 protein level to protect against ER stress and ER distribution defects. We also found that vesicle protein Rab11 from Golgi apparatus was protected by melatonin at the spindle periphery of oocytes of NP-exposed mice, which further moderated LAMP2 for lysosome function. Our results indicate that melatonin protects oocytes from NP exposure through its effects on the reduction of oxidative stress and DNA damage, which might be through its amelioration on the organelles in mice.

Background: To date, it has been widely accepted that the risk of autosomal aneuploidies (including T21, T18 and T13) is directly related to the increase in maternal age. However, up to now, the relationship between maternal age and fetal sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs) was still unclear. This study aimed to investigate maternal age-specific rates for common SCAs (including 45,X, 47,XXY, 47,XXX and 47,XYY) in fetuses. Methods: We retrospectively investigated a 8-year experience of prenatal diagnosis for fetal chromosome aberrations by second-trimester amniocentesis at a university teaching hospital in China. 20,409 amniotic fluid specimens collected at 19–22+6 gestational weeks were included in this study. Conventional cytogenetic analysis was performed on all samples. Maternal age was as the only indication for the statistical analysis. The women were categorized into five age groups (≤23, 24-28, 29-33, 34-38, ≥39 years) based on maternal age at the time of amniocentesis and entered as a categorical variable in all samples. The correlation between fetal SCAs and maternal age was determined using the logistic regression analysis. A chi-square test was performed to compare the incidence of fetal SCAs among age groups. Results: A total of 179 cases of fetal SCAs were detected, and the incidence was 8.77‰ (about 1/114), far higher than the earlier publication of 1/500. The incidence of all SCAs increased significantly with advancing maternal age (SE, 0.014; odds ratio, 1.044; P=0.002), from 5.81 per 1,000 fetuses at the 24-28 years to 10.92 per 1,000 at the ≥39 years. The incidence of all SCAs was also significantly different among age groups (χ2=10.197, P=0.037P=0.017) and 47,XXY (SE, 0.024; odds ratio, 1.127; P=0.000) had significant correlation with maternal age, while the incidence of 47,XXX and 47,XYY had no correlation with maternal age (P=0.473; P=0.272, respectively). Conclusions: Maternal age was ascertained to be a strong risk factor for fetal SCAs. The incidence of 45,X and 47,XXY was significantly correlated with maternal age, while the incidence of 47,XXX and 47,XYY was not.

Complex action potentials of the brain neurons from extracellular recordings are usually represented as overlapping superimposed spikes resulting from the neuron spike bursts. In this paper, a novel feature fusion strategy is proposed for the high-precision classification of the neuron spikes. Based on the wavelet coefficients and the principal component analysis (PCA) features of the spikes, the eigenvectors of the adjacency matrices are constructed using the Locality Preserving Projections (LPP) algorithm. The fusion adjacency matrix of different features is constructed using different weighted adjacency matrices method. The feature fusion data based on the wavelet coefficients and PCA features are projected from high-dimensional space to low-dimensional space. The experiment results show that the noise level is 0.4, and the accuracy of this method is increased by 9% on average compared with non-fusion feature classification. According to the experimental results, a high-precision classification is obtained based on the feature fusion method with a low-dimensional feature space. The proposed feature fusion method effectively reduces the dimension number of the features and remedies the missing information.

The carrier frequency harmonics and significant high-frequency energy of electromagnetic interference (EMI) produced is a major concern in pulse width modulation (PWM) circuit. This paper proposes a chaotic PWM generator for the reduction of EMI. The chaotic CMOS circuit presented is based on a stroboscopic map to realize the chaotic sequence generator, and then, this chaotic frequency generator is used to replace the constant-frequency generator. The main components of the chaotic PWM circuit are chaotic sequence generator for the chaotic triangle waveforms, the chaotic frequency modulation circuit based on one chip. The chaotic PWM generator is fabricated by a 0.35 μ m standard CMOS process. The energy peak of EMC experiment values are all within the limit of CISPR 22. The peak EMI reduction of the proposed chaotic PWM is 12.85 dB. The experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed CMOS chaotic PWM in reducing EMI.

Organic transistor has been widely studied for next generation flexible semiconductor process. In this paper, we proposed the organic thin-film transistors (OTFT) model for the display device at the moderately high temperature (above 273K). The model based on hopping theory of Gaussian disordered density-of-states (DOS) considers the dependences relationship of the carrier mobility with temperature and carrier concentrations. Charge transport is controlled by carrier jumps from trap states around the Fermi level to tail trap states at large carrier concentrations. The sub-threshold model is modified using an exponential function to make the model cover all regimes of OTFT operation. A pentacene-based thin film transistor (TFT) model has been designed using Verilog-A language. The model has been verified by device simulations and measurements.

This paper presents a bulk-driven CMOS amplifier with high immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI). The approach is based on a bulk-driven input stage of MOSFET, thereby providing a low-voltage realization of a gate-driven stage. The bulk-driven amplifier includes the positive feedback, an input voltage drop, and dual input-stage symmetrical topology to improve the equivalent transconductance, dc linearity, and ac performance. As demonstrated by the measurements, the dc offset of the proposed amplifier is less than 70 mV, the measured PSD is about −66 dBm with 1 − V pp EMI conveyed. The amplifier chip is implemented using a 0.35 μm standard CMOS process with a 1-V power supply.

This paper proposes an 8-bit grayscale AMOLED driver IC with a mixed modulation DAC. This architecture maintains a digital logic component, high-precision 8-bit compensated gamma correction and an output amplifier buffer with low-complexity configuration for the AMOLED display panel. The proposed driver IC with gamma correction consists of a 6-bit resistor-string DAC and a 2-bit polynomial interpolation current-modulation sub-DAC. The two-stage DAC leads to a more compact die size than conventional 8-bit resistor-string DAC, and the polynomial interpolation method provides higher accuracy gray level voltages than linear methods. The source driver IC of the 240 RGB AMOLED display was implemented in the 0.35 $\mu$ m CMOS process with a die area of 2.95 $\times$ 8.9 mm $^{2}$ , including a digital core area of approximately 7.0 $\times$ 1.0 mm $^{2}$ . The DNL and INL of the proposed mixed modulation DAC are of 0.43 LSB and, 0.4 LSB, respectively.

The paper proposes a low area 10-bit DAC for AMOLED source driver ICs. The proposed driver consists of a 7-bit gamma correction resistor-string DAC and a 3-bit sub-DAC based on programmable current cell (PCC) within the output buffer. The output buffer with 3-bit sub-DAC could implement voltage interpolation with only two differential pairs and three CMOS switches. This leads to a compact die size. The AMOLED driver is realized in 0.35μm CMOS process with DNL and INL of 0.11 LSB and 0.15 LSB, respectively. The settling time within 0.2% tolerance of the final voltage is 3.7μs with a 30kΩ resistance and 20pF capacitance load.

In the paper, we proposed the electromagnetic interference (EMI) reduction method with chaotic spread spectrum for boost DC-DC converter. To reduce the maximum peak of EMI effectively, a chaotic triangular wave is proposed as carrier totally generated by analogue circuit, as a chaotic spread spectrum has its advantages over the periodic in this respect. Simulations have been made on a DC-DC converter and the results show that the chaotic frequency-spreading has an obvious improvement on EMI suppressing. Besides, a lower output ripple voltage is proposed through the up-spread frequency modulation.

The mechanism of improving compressive strength of magnetite pellet by adding boron-bearing iron concentrate was studied. Boron-bearing iron concentrate and magnetite were mixed, pelletized and roasted under different roasting conditions. Then, compressive strength of pellets was tested, and polished sections of the roasted pellets were analyzed from the perspective of mineralogy. Finally, the effects of different proportions, roasting temperatures and roasting time of boron-bearing iron concentrate on the compressive strength of magnetite pellets were investigated and explained.

1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-hydroxypyrazole-4-carbaldehyde-(4′-hyd roxybenzoyl) hydrazone and Ln(III) complexes have been synthesized and characterized. The interaction between these compounds and biomacromolecules was investigated by fluorescence and UV/vis absorption spectroscopy. The results suggested that the compounds caused fluorescence quenching of BSA through a static quenching procedure. Hydrophobic interaction force also played a major role in stabilizing the compounds. Moreover, interactions between calf thymus DNA and compound H3L and its Ln(III) complexes were studied by spectroscopy and viscosity measurements. These studies showed that these compounds bind to DNA via an intercalation mode. Furthermore, antioxidant activities of compounds were determined by hydroxyl radical scavenging methods in detail. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Synthesis and Reactivity in Inorganic, Metal-Organic, and Nano-Metal Chemistry to view the supplemental file.

In present study, the performance and separation characteristics of nine macroporous resins for the enrichment and purification of gardenia yellow from Gardenia jasminoides var. radicans Makino have been evaluated. The adsorption and desorption properties of crude gardenia yellow solution on macroporous resins including HPD722, HPD100, HPD100A, HPD400, HPD400A, D101, AB-8, XAD-16, and NKA-9 have been compared. Then, HPD722 was chosen to purify gardenia yellow because of its strong adsorption and desorption abilities as well as high selectivity. Column packed with HPD722 resin was used to perform dynamic adsorption and desorption tests to optimize the separation process of gardenia yellow. The optimal conditions were as follows: The crude gardenia yellow solution with concentration of 15 mg/mL was loaded in column packed with HPD722 resin at the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, and the adsorbate-laden column was washed with 800 mL water, 600 mL 15% ethanol water solution respectively at the speed of 2.5 mL/min, then desorbed with 200 mL 80% ethanol water solution at the speed of 3.5 mL/min. The colority of the product obtained were up to 300. The method developed in this study provides a new approach for scale-up separation and purification of gardenia yellow from G. jasminoides var. radicans Makino.

A Schiff-base ligand derived from 1-phenyl-3-methyl-4-formyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one (PMFP) and isoniazid was prepared and its La(III) complex was characterized by X-ray single crystal diffraction. The La(III) is nine-coordinate in a space group P21/n. DNA-binding was investigated by UV-Vis, fluorescence titration, ethidium bromide displacement experiments, and viscosity measurements, which indicated that the ligand and La(III) complex strongly binds to calf thymus DNA presumably via groove binding and intercalation. The intrinsic binding constants of the ligand and La(III) complex were 0.86 × 105 and 2.46 × 105 mol L−1, respectively. Antioxidant data from hydroxyl radical scavenging experiments in vitro suggest that the La(III) complex possesses higher scavenging ratio than the free ligand, metallic salt, and some standard antioxidants like mannitol.

The whole melting curve of iron ore during sintering process was obtained, and the melting characteristics of iron ore were defined and explained. The whole melting process of mixture, mixed by iron ore and CaO reagent at basicity of 2.0 and 4.0, respectively, was observed using a SiC heating furnace with camcorder unit, and the melting curves of mixture that were relative height vs temperature curves were obtained. Besides, the melting characteristics of iron ore during sintering were introduced through defining some points in the melting curves, such as liquid forming temperature, inflexion temperature and flowing temperature, and the meaning of different shapes of the melting curves was clarified.

Two lanthanide complexes (Ln = La, Pr) with a PMFP Schiff-base, 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-hydroxypyrazole-4-carbaldhyde-(benzoyl)hydrazone (H2L) were synthesized and characterized. The crystal structure of the La complex was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, the coordination polyhedron is a tricapped trigonal prism configuration with the nine-coordinate atoms composed of three nitrogens and six oxygens from three ligands. The complex crystallized in the monoclinic lattice with a space group P2/c. Electronic absorption titration spectra, fluorescence titration spectra, EtBr competitive experiment, viscosity measurement and CD spectra indicate that all the complexes can strongly bind calf thymus DNA, presumably via groove binding and intercalation mechanism. Furthermore, investigations of antioxidation properties show that all the complexes have some scavenging effects for hydroxyl radicals.

An original Schiff-base type fluorescent chemosensor 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-hydroxypyrazole-4-carbaldehyde(benzoyl)hydrazone (H2L) for Cu2+ has been designed and synthesized. An obvious fluorescence quenching only for Cu2+ demonstrates that ligand H2L exhibits high selectivity and efficient signaling behavior toward micromolar concentration of Cu2+ compared with other metal ions. At the same time, the coordination form between ligand and Cu2+ is elucidated via crystal structure.

In this paper, a new feature fusion strategy is proposed directing at the classification issue of overlapping spikes. Firstly, wavelet coefficient features and PCA (principal component analysis) features of spikes are extracted. Secondly, based on the idea of local preserving projection, for different features, the graph incorporating neighborhood information of the data sets was built. A key issue in feature fusion is to derive a fusion graph to reflect relative importance of different features, which can be achieved by a weighted method. Using the notion of the Laplacian of the graph, then a transformation matrix, which maps the data points to a subspace was computed. The two features extracted are fused into a new eigenvector by the transformation matrix. According to the experiment under different noise, this method can obtain an ideal classification effect by adopting lower-dimension features. When the noise level is 0.4, the accuracy rate of this method is increased by 9% compared with single-feature classification on average.

background: The present study was designed to investigate the possible association between infertility of male uremic patients and expression of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein in their sperm. methods: Semen was collected and analyzed. Serum levels of FSH, LH and testosterone were measured by radioimmunoassay. The sperm CFTR expressions of 21 uremic patients and 15 renal transplant patients were measured and compared with those of 32 healthy and 33 infertile men. results: Only 9+ 5.9% of sperm from uremic patients expressed CFTR, significantly less than those of the renal transplant patients (29+ 14.3%, P , 0.001), the infertile men (42+ 20.7%, P , 0.001) and the healthy men (51+ 20.5%, P , 0.001). Furthermore, significantly fewer sperm from renal transplant patients expressed CFTR than those of the infertile men (P , 0.05) and the healthy men (P , 0.01). LH levels in uremic patients were significantly higher than in all other groups, whereas FSH levels in uremic patients were only significantly higher than in infertile and healthy men. There was no significant difference in testosterone level among the four categories. conclusions: Sperm CFTR expression is depressed in uremic patients but recovers to some degree after renal transplant along with some improvement in fertility, indicating a ‘reversible’ change. These results suggest that the CFTR expression rate in sperm is correlated with the decline of uremic patients’ fertility, and may be considered as a potential marker to assess the fertility of male uremic patients.

Total flavonoids were extracted from Eucommia ulmoides leaves using Supercritical fluid extraction and purified with AB-8 macroporous resin. In order to contrast the antioxidant activities of flavonoids before and after purification, three antioxidative tests including 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radicals (DPPH·), superoxide radicals and xanthine oxidase, have been used in this study. The results indicated that the antioxidant capacities of purified flavonoids are stronger than the crude flavonoids from Eucommia ulmoides leaves. For the crude flavonoids, IC 50 of scavenging DPPH· and superoxide radicals were 0.21 mg/mL and 4.38 mg/mL. IC 50 for inhibiting XOD was 7.5 mg/mL. But for the purified flavonoids, IC 50 was found to be 0.14 mg/mL, 3.37 mg/mL and 1.2 mg/mL respectively.

Some technical problems such as low thermal efficiency, high auxiliary power ratio and severe abrasion of heating surface are existed in the operation of circulating fluidized bed boilers which combust bad fuels generally, these disadvantages restrict the farther expansion of circulating fluidized bed boiler to the power field. Based on the balance of material, energy and carbon content, and on the guarantee of 900?bed temperature and optimal oxygen concentration at the exit of furnace, the static operating variables: fuel, limestone, primary air, secondary air and bottom ash, are determined on different load, the operating parameters and structural parameters are taken into account such as coal type, limestone component, particle size distribution, bed pressure drop, desulfurization efficiency, boiler capacity, boiler structure and the performance of cyclone. A software for static behaviors of circulating fluidized bed boiler has been designed, this work can provide precious technical support for optimization operation of the boiler, and provide technical methods for the development of advanced circulating fluidized bed combustion technology.

Deceiving may expend more brain power than telling a truth during changing the truth into another story. The lie-truth law means that the ratio be less than 0.618 times of the truth brain power and the deceiving brain power for every mimic liar in MRI tests. To prove this scientific hypothesis should show the experimental evidences. Through infrared probe in wavelength 940 nm at the right side auricular point named Antitragus's No. 2, the self-made instrument I grasped the ratio of 0.605 with db3 wavelet in low frequencies order 10 for subjects 10 with validity of 84%, and the self-made instrument II gained the ratio of 0.861 with db4 wavelet in the same order 10 for subject 6 in validity of 86%.