Search

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are being extensively studied as they function as key metabolic regulators which play a role in the heat stress response. However, the role of miRNAs in heat stress remains uncertain and many new miRNAs have not yet been discovered. In a previous study, we performed high-throughput sequencing of differentially expressed miRNAs identified on exposing rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to heat stress (18 vs. 24°C), which led to the identification of two novel miRNAs, temporarily named novel miR-434 and -242. The differential expression level of these miRNAs was extremely significant (P

Objective: This project aimed to evaluate the effects of both different additives and filling methods on nutritive quality, fermentation profile, and in situ digestibility of whole plant corn silage.Methods: Whole plant corn forage harvested at 26.72% dry matter (DM) was chopped and treated with two filling methods, i) fill silos at one time (F1), ii) fill silos at three times (F3), packing samples into one/three silo capacity at the first day, another one/three capacity at the second day, then one/three at the third day, three replicates. For each replicate, samples were treated with three additives, i) control (CTRL, no additive), ii) Sila-Max (MAX, Ralco Nutrition Inc., Marshall, MN, USA), and iii) Sila-Mix (MIX, Ralco Nutrition Inc., USA). With three replicates of each secondary treatment, there were nine silos, 54 silos in total. Each silo had a packing density of 137.61 kg of DM/m3. All silos were weighed and stored in lab at ambient temperature.Results: After 60 d of ensiling, all items showed good silage fermentation under MAX filled one time or three times (p

This study assessed breed differences in fatty acid composition and meat quality of Longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) and semitendinosus (SE) of Angus× Chinese Simmental (AS), Wagyu×Chinese Simmental (WS), and Chinese Simmental (CS). CS (n=9), AS (n=9) and WS (n=9) were randomly selected from a herd of 80 bulls which were fed and managed under similar conditions. Fatty acid profile and meat quality parameters were analyzed in duplicate. Significant breed difference was observed in fatty acid and meat quality profiles. AS exhibited significantly (p

Herein, the impact and spin‐coating process of Nafion thin films on photonic nanowaveguide structures fabricated via a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor compatible process for the first time is investigated. Particularly, the effect of Nafion thin films (≈23–776 nm) on microring resonators (MRRs) with compact waveguide sizes (480 nm by 220 nm and 380 nm by 220 nm) is focused on, where the microring provides enhanced interactions between the Nafion and light, which is related to Nafion thin‐film properties such as the refractive index, water uptake, and swelling. The results demonstrate small, compact, and cost‐effective MRR devices to characterize Nafion thin film and high‐resolution on‐chip humidity sensing for real‐time and continuous measurements.

Over the last two decades, the continuing integration of distance-to-boundary logging while drilling (LWD) workflows with the directional drilling processes, has dramatically improved geosteering of deviated and horizontal wells. However, the interpretation of underlying propagation azimuthal electromagnetic measurements has remained challenging in complex thin and multi-layered geologies. Recent technology advancements in LWD electromagnetic propagation resistivity coupled with significant software enhancements provide an opportunity for improving the formation evaluation to reduce wellbore position uncertainty, accurately detecting physical parameters such as layer resistivity and anisotropy, formation dip and azimuth. A newly developed multilayer mapping-while-drilling service with full azimuthal sensitivity is introduced for use in geosteering and formation evaluation while drilling applications. The tool offers the industry's first combination of axial, tilted and transverse antennas to produce a complete measurement set to enable the interpretation of complex and anisotropic formation. Advanced application algorithms are used to calculate a high-definition map of the formation providing horizontal and vertical resistivity (anisotropy), as well as dipping angle and azimuth. Furthermore, the tool can provide deep resistivity borehole images while drilling in real time. The new measurement set, more comprehensive than any other directional propagation resistivity tool in the industry, is discussed in detail. The measurements, combined with a new deterministic inversion, enable reconstruction of the resistivity of up to eight formation layers, and significantly outperforms existing directional propagation resistivity services. The new measurements and data processing workflow are demonstrated with several synthetic and field data. Examples show that this newly developed tool can provide a reliable two-in-one service: geosteering and advanced formation evaluation.

We present the design, fabrication, and characterization of cascaded silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal microring resonators (PhCMRRs) for dual-parameter sensing based on a multiple resonances multiple modes (MRMM) technique. Benefitting from the slow-light effect, the engineered PhCMRRs exhibit unique optical field distributions with different sensitivities via the excitation of dielectric and air modes. The multiple resonances of two distinct modes offer new possibilities for enriching the sensing receptors with additional information about environmental changes while preserving all essential properties of traditional microring resonator based sensors. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the feasibility of extracting humidity and temperature responses simultaneously with a single spectrum measurement by employing polymethyl methacrylate as the hydrophilic coating, obtaining a relative humidity (RH) sensitivity of 3.36 pm/%RH, 5.57 pm/%RH and a temperature sensitivity of 85.9 pm/°C, 67.1 pm/°C for selected dielectric mode and air mode, respectively. Moreover, the MRMM enriched data further forges the capability to perform mutual cancellation of the measurement error, which improves the sensing performance reflected by the coefficient of determination (R2-value), calculated as 0.97 and 0.99 for RH and temperature sensing results, respectively.

Owing to its attractive optical and electronic properties, silicon carbide is an emerging platform for integrated photonics. However an integral component of the platform is missing—an electro-optic modulator, a device which encodes electrical signals onto light. As a non-centrosymmetric crystal, silicon carbide exhibits the Pockels effect, yet a modulator has not been realized since the discovery of this effect more than three decades ago. Here we design, fabricate, and demonstrate a Pockels modulator in silicon carbide. Specifically, we realize a waveguide-integrated, small form-factor, gigahertz-bandwidth modulator that operates using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-level voltages on a thin film of silicon carbide on insulator. Our device is fabricated using a CMOS foundry compatible fabrication process and features no signal degradation, no presence of photorefractive effects, and stable operation at high optical intensities (913 kW/mm2), allowing for high optical signal-to-noise ratios for modern communications. Our work unites Pockels electro-optics with a CMOS foundry compatible platform in silicon carbide.

Problem definition: We study customer-centric privacy management in service systems. Academic/practical relevance: We explore the consequences of extended control over personal information by customers in such systems. Methodology: We adopt a stylized queueing model to capture a service environment that features a service provider and customers who are strategic in deciding whether to disclose personal information to the service provider—that is, customers’ privacy or information disclosure strategy. A customer’s service request can be one of two types, which affects service time but is unknown when customers commit to a privacy strategy. The service provider can discriminate among customers based on their disclosed information by offering different priorities. Results: Our analysis reveals that, when given control over their personal data, strategic customers do not always choose to withhold them. We find that control over information gives customers a tool they can use to hedge against the service provider’s will, which might not be aligned with the interests of customers. More importantly, we find that under certain conditions, giving customers full control over information (e.g., by introducing a privacy regulation) may not only distort already efficiently operating service system but might also backfire by leading to inferior system performance (i.e., longer average wait time), and it can hurt customers themselves. We demonstrate how a regulator can correct information disclosure inefficiencies through monetary incentives to customers and show that providing such incentives makes economic sense in some scenarios. Finally, the service provider itself can benefit from customers being in control of their personal information by enticing more customers joining the service. Managerial implications: Our findings yield insights into how customers’ individually rational actions concerning information disclosure (e.g., granted by a privacy regulation) can lead to market inefficiencies in the form of longer wait times for services. We provide actionable prescriptions, for both service providers and regulators, that can guide their choices of a privacy and information management approach based on giving customers the option of controlling their personal information.

Herein, we performed a proteomic analysis of tenderloin and flank steaks from Simmental cattle using the isobaric tags for a relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) approach. We identified 17 amino acids in both steaks, and Gly, Cys, Ile, Lys, and Pro differed most in abundance between the steak types (p &lt, 0.05). A comparison of the expression patterns in steaks revealed 128 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), of which 44 were up-regulated and 84 were down-regulated. Furthermore, 27 DEPs (p &lt, 0.05) were subjected to gene ontology (GO) analysis, and many were found to be related to oxidation-reduction, metabolism, hydrogen ion transmembrane transport, transport, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, mitochondrial electron transport, and the conversion of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) to ubiquinone. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis also implicated these DEPs in various signalling pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation, cardiac muscle contraction, the TCA cycle, biosynthesis, and the metabolism. These findings provide a new insight into key proteins involved in the determination of amino acid composition in beef.

We demonstrate an integrated photonic crystal microring resonator sensor incorporating microwave photonic filtering technique. The results show 114-fold improvement in the resolution for temperature sensing and 50 dB notch rejection enhancement for magnetic field detection. © 2020 The Authors

Oligomer metasurfaces have attracted a lot of attention in recent years because of their ability to drive strong resonance effects. In this work, by perturbing the symmetry of the structure, we find that there are a large number of resonance modes in the oligomer metasurfaces associated with the optical bound states in the continuum (BICs) near the communication wavelength. When the positions of two nanodisks of the hexamer oligomers are moved along the x- or y-directions at the same time, the mirror symmetry is broken, and an electric quadrupole BIC and three magnetic dipole BICs are excited. The results of near-field distribution of three-dimensional nanodisks and far-field scattering of multiple dipoles in each quasi-BIC reveal that the four BICs present different optical characteristics. It is noted that the method of symmetry breaking by moving the position of nanodisks can accurately control the asymmetric parameter of symmetry-protected BICs, which provides a route for the realization of ultrahigh quality (Q)-factor oligomer metasurfaces in experiment.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play key roles in the stress response in animals. The rainbow trout is a widely cultivated cold-water fish species that usually encounters heat stress, which affects its growth and may cause diseases. However, there is limited information on the miRNAs involved in heat stress in this species. To identify the heat-responsive miRNAs at the genome level in rainbow trout, we conducted high-throughput sequencing of 6 small RNA libraries from the liver tissues of rainbow trout specimens under control and heat-treated conditions. A total of 363 conserved miRNAs and 638 novel miRNAs were identified, among which 39 (21 conserved and 18 novel) miRNAs were differentially expressed in response to heat stress. Eight important miRNAs were further validated using quantitative real-time PCR. GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analyses of the potential target genes of the DE miRNAs, revealed DNA replication and protein folding and unfolding were affected by heat stress. Several key pathways involved in the heat stress response were characterized, such as protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, and progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation. In addition, 20 important functional interaction pairs among the 65 negatively correlated miRNA-mRNA pairs were identified using integrated miRNA-mRNA analysis and miRNA prediction algorithms, which including potential important miRNAs and target genes such as miR-301a, miR-301d, let-7c, novel_1181 and HSP90BA, HSP90BB, HSP40, PDIA3. This study showed that the identified miRNAs probably play important roles in the heat stress response and lay a foundation for further studies on the thermal adaptation mechanisms in rainbow trout.

BACKGROUND The present organ shortage has led to increased use of kidneys from expanded-criteria donors, but the prognosis is disappointing due to poor graft quality. As a promising kidney protector, the Klotho gene's role in predicting short-term prognosis has not been assessed. MATERIAL AND METHODS We retrospectively analyzed data from 41 recipients and 25 donors. Multiple clinical variables were compared between different subgroups of donors or their corresponding recipients. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was used to evaluate the distinguishing ability. Dynamic changes in serum Klotho, FGF-23, and urinary NGAL were assessed. RESULTS Serum Klotho level was significantly lower in donors age ≥50 years (p=0.017), and there was a moderate negative correlation between serum Klotho expression and age (r=-0.464, p=0.019). Moreover, detection of Klotho mRNA and immunohistochemical analysis in kidneys revealed the same trend as in serum. Furthermore, for older donors (age ≥50 years), serum Klotho level had a strong negative correlation with recipient eGFR 1 month post-transplant (r=-0.686, p=0.007), which was proved to be a good predictor for estimating graft function by ROC analysis. Additionally, during the post-transplant follow-up, serum Klotho levels increased slightly after a temporary decline, while serum FGF-23 and urinary NGAL decreased significantly and then stayed low thereafter. CONCLUSIONS Klotho level, which decreases with age, may be a potential predictor of short-term renal function, especially for grafts from older donors.

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are widely cultured throughout the word for commercial aquaculture. However, as a cold-water species, rainbow trout are highly susceptible to heat stress, which may cause pathological signs or diseases by alleviating the immune roles and then lead to mass mortality. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that occur in the rainbow trout in response to heat stress will be useful to decrease heat stress-related morbidity and mortality in trout aquaculture. In the present study, we conducted transcriptome analysis of head kidney tissue in rainbow trout under heat-stress (24 °C) and control (18 °C) conditions, to identify heat stress-induced genes and pathways. More than 281 million clean reads were generated from six head kidney libraries. Using an adjusted P-value of P < 0.05 as the threshold, a total of 443 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, including members of the HSP90, HSP70, HSP60, and HSP40 family and several cofactors or cochaperones. The RNA-seq results were confirmed by RT-qPCR. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis of DEGs were performed. Many genes involved in maintaining homeostasis or adapting to stress and stimuli were highly induced in response to high temperature. The most significantly enriched pathway was "Protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum (ER)", a quality control system that ensures correct protein folding or degradation of misfolded polypeptides by ER-associated degradation. Other signaling pathways involved in regulation of immune system and post-transcriptional regulation of spliceosome were also critical for thermal adaptation. These findings improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of heat stress responses and are useful to develop strategies for the improvement of rainbow trout survival rate during summer high-temperature period.

How would the growing prevalence of real-time delay information affect a service system? We consider a single-server queueing system where customers arrive according to a Poisson process and the service time follows an exponential distribution. There are two streams of customers, one informed about real-time delay and the other uninformed. The customers’ uninformed behavior may be due to information ignorance or rational behavior in the presence of an information fee. We characterize the equilibrium behavior of customers with information heterogeneity and investigate how the presence of a larger fraction of informed customers affects the system performance measures, i.e., throughput and social welfare. We show that the effects of growing information prevalence on system performance measures are determined by the equilibrium joining behavior of uninformed customers. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that throughput and social welfare can be unimodal in the fraction of informed customers. In other words, some amount of information heterogeneity in the population can lead to more efficient outcomes, in terms of the system throughput or social welfare, than information homogeneity. For example, under a very mild condition, throughput in a system with an offered load of 1 will always suffer if there are more than 58% of informed customers in the population. Moreover, it is shown that for an overloaded system with offered load sufficiently higher than 1, social welfare always reaches its maximum when some fraction of customers is uninformed of the congestion level in real time. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2747 . This paper was accepted by Gad Allon, operations management.

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is an important economic fish in China. Skin color affects the economic value of trout. However, the molecular mechanism of the skin color variation between wild-type (WR) and yellow mutant rainbow trout (YR) is unclear. We sequenced mRNAs and miRNAs of dorsal skin to identify key color variation-associated mRNAs and miRNAs between WR and YR. Overall, 2060 out of 3625 differentially expressed genes were upregulated in YR, and 196 out of 275 differentially expressed miRNAs were downregulated in WR. We identified three key YR-upregulated genes related to the formation of xanthophores (GCH1, SLC2A11, and SOX10). Interestingly, several genes related to melanogenesis (TYR, TYRP1, TYRP2, MC1R, MITF, PMEL, SLC45A2, and OCA2) were downregulated in WR. Integrated analysis identified five miRNAs that target at least two skin color-related genes (miR-495-y, miR-543-y, miR-665-z, miR-433-y, and miR-382-x). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses of target genes identified noncoding RNA metabolic process as the most significantly enriched GO term, and several metabolic pathways associated with skin color were enriched significantly, such as tyrosine metabolism, histidine metabolism, and vitamin B6 metabolism. Quantitative real-time PCR of selected mRNAs and miRNAs validated the reliability of the integrated analysis. This study provides in-depth insights into the molecular mechanism of skin color variation between WR and YR, which will accelerate the genetic selection and breeding of rainbow trout with consumer-favored traits.

Using nitrogen as the blanket for the construction of a gas storage salt cavern by the solution mining under gas (SMUG) method has many advantages, such as improved safety, enhanced environmental protection and better economy. A critical issue for its field application is how to accurately predict and optimize the cavern leaching parameters when using SMUG. We propose a mathematical model for predicting leaching parameters based on the “U-tube” principle and the pressure equilibrium of liquid columns in the wellbore. We derive expressions of leaching parameters, including water injection pressure, nitrogen injection pressure, volume of nitrogen blanket, and depth of Gas-Brine (GB) interface. A calculation program is developed based on the derived equations using C# computer language. We take the JT1 cavern in Jintan district, Jiangsu province, China, as an example, and simulate the water injection pressure, nitrogen injection pressure, volume of nitrogen blanket, and depth of GB interface under different leaching rates and different de-brining pressures. The optimized leaching parameters were used in the leaching of the JT1 cavern for field tests. Compared with field monitoring data, the proposed mathematical model has high accuracy and strong reliability with an overall error of less than 3.7%, which satisfies the requirements of field cavern leaching. This study provides guidance for predicting and optimizing leaching parameters for gas storage salt cavern leaching with a nitrogen blanket.

In this work, we measured the porosity, permeability, electrical resistivity and NMR T 2 spectrum of the tight sandstone samples from Yanchang Formation Ordos Basin China. The experimental results indicate weak correlation between porosity and other bulk properties. A workflow of multi-scale digital rock technique is proposed to characterize pore geometry and connectivity in order to understand the ability of fluid flow or electric conduct of tight sandstones. A series of SEM images tiles (MAPS technique) with a resolution of 100 nm in a large field of view (FOV) are first recorded on one end surface of sample and then stitched together to reveal fine pore structure, pore type and pore size distribution. Energy-Dispersive SEM (EDS-SEM) is performed on one the same end of the samples to obtain a mineralogy mapping which will be further used to identify mineralogy. The samples with the diameter of 25.4 mm are scanned by X-ray Micro Computed Tomography (CT) to obtain 3D grayscale images, on which image registration, segmentation and cluster-labelling algorithms are applied to generate multi-mineral digital rock and investigate pore connectivity in 3D. The results of digital rock analysis demonstrate that the pore space of tight sandstone is classified into three types, residual intergranular pore, dissolved pore and micro pore in clay mineral. The results of pore size distribution for each type of pore indicate that the micro pore in clay dominates pore space in tight sandstone. The original intergranular pores are partly filled by clay minerals, where the micro pores contained in form percolation pathway and control the fluid flow through pore pace. The permeability and electrical properties of tight sandstones are dominated by micro pore and have higher dependence of the pore structure than only on porosity. The multi-mineral digital rock proposed in the study can be further applied in numerical simulation of bulk properties and quantitate analysis in nano-geoscience.

AIMS: The aim of this study is to report on the hydrolytic action of Alcaligenes faecalis isolated from soil samples and its ability to degrade ochratoxin A. METHODS AND RESULTS: An A. faecalis strain was identified and characterized by employing both a phenotypic analysis and 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The results show that this strain could degrade ochratoxin A efficiently but could not use it as a sole carbon source. Ochratoxin α was confirmed as a degradation product in the intracellular extract of A. faecalis using UPLC‐MS/MS. Our results suggest that the biodegradation of ochratoxin A by the A. faecalis strain occurs through the hydrolysis of the ochratoxin A amide bond by a putative peptidase. This is the first report to date on the degradation of ochratoxin A by A. faecalis. CONCLUSION: The A. faecalis strain is presumably a suitable candidate for use in the biodegradation of ochratoxin A. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: Ochratoxin A, which is produced by some filamentous fungi, severely impacts human and animal health by contaminating several types of food and feed. Our study contributes to the identification of the function of A. faecalis 0D‐1, which is capable of producing hydrolytic enzyme(s) to biodegrade ochratoxin A into nontoxic ochratoxin α, to minimize the risk associated with ochratoxin A exposure.

We present an integrated continuously tunable microwave photonic phase shifter based on the strain effects in silicon-oninsulator microring resonators, which eliminates the use of microheaters in conventional phase shifter tuning schemes. We demonstrate the tunability of the radiofrequency phase shift by mechanically inducing a strain-dependent variation in the ring resonator circumference, which causes a subsequent shift in the resonant wavelength and optical phase of the resonator. By applying a small strain, large changes in the radiofrequency phase shifting is demonstrated. As an application example, the proposed strain based microwave photonic phase shifter reveals a phase-shifting of a full range.