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Glucocorticoids (GCs) are potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant medications and remain the cornerstone of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) therapy. However, ongoing exposure to GCs has the potential to elicit multiple adverse effects. Considering the irreplaceability of GCs in SLE therapy, it is important to explore the optimal regimen of GCs. Here, we compared the long-term efficacy and safety of pulsed and oral GC therapy in a lupus-prone mouse model. Mice were grouped using a randomized block design. We monitored survival rates, proteinuria, serum autoantibodies, and complement 3 (C3) levels up to 28 weeks of age, and assessed renal damage, bone quality, lipid deposition in the liver and marrow, glucose metabolic parameters, and levels of hormones of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Finally, we explored the mechanisms underlying the superior efficacy of the pulse regimen over oral prednisone regimen. We found that both GC regimens alleviated the poor survival rate, proteinuria, and glomerulonephritis, while also reducing serum autoantibodies and increasing the level of C3. The pulsed GC regimen showed less resistance to insulin, less suppression of the HPA axis, less bone loss, and less bone marrow fat deposition than the oral GC regimen. Additionally, GC-induced leucine zipper (GILZ) was significantly overexpressed in the GC pulse group. These results suggest that the GC pulse regimen ameliorated symptoms in lupus-prone mice, with fewer side effects, which may be related to GILZ overexpression. Our findings offer a potentially promising GC treatment option for SLE.

Abstract The humpback grouper (Cromileptes altivelis), a medium-sized coral reef teleost, is a naturally rare species distributed in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It has high market value, but artificial reproduction and breeding remain limited and need to be improved. Here, we assembled the genome with 1.08 Gb, with a contig N50 of 43.78 Mb. A total of 96.59% of the assembly anchored to 24 pseudochromosomes using Hi-C technology. It contained 24,442 protein-coding sequences, of which 99.3% were functionally annotated. The completeness of the assembly was estimated to be 97.3% using BUSCO. The phylogenomic analysis suggested that humpback grouper should be classified into the genus Epinephelus rather than Cromileptes. The comparative genomic analysis revealed that the gene families related to circadian entrainment were significantly expanded. The high-quality reference genome provides useful genomic tools for exploiting the genomic resource of humpback grouper and supports the functional genomic study of this species in the future.

The assembly and succession of the gut microbiota are important events in animal growth and have a significant impact on the productivity of aquaculture organisms, which can be influenced by the environment, growth stages, and dietary changes. However, little is known about how the growth of aquaculture organisms and dietary differences during growth affect the assembly of the gut microbiota. In this study, we fed golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus) a regular diet and a high-fat, high-protein diet, respectively. We then used bacterial 16 S rRNA gene sequencing to study the gut microbiota at different growth stages and under different dietary conditions. We found that the gut microbiota of T. ovatus changes in response to different dietary conditions. Moreover, this divergence does not change with the growth of the host. This suggests that dietary differences largely explained the gut microbiota succession, while growth stage had no significant influence on gut microbiota succession in T. ovatus from 30 to 120 dph. This study, which includes the effects of growth stage and diet, increases our understanding of how the gut microbiota of the T. ovatus assembles and colonizes and also provides new insights into the study of the gut microbiota of other aquaculture fish.

IntroductionAsian citrus psyllid (ACP, Diaphorina citri) is an important transmission vector of “Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus” (CLas), the causal agent of Huanglongbing (HLB), the most destructive citrus disease in the world. As there are currently no HLB-resistant rootstocks or varieties, the control of ACP is an important way to prevent HLB. Some viruses of insect vectors can be used as genetically engineered materials to control insect vectors.MethodsTo gain knowledge on viruses in ACP in China, the prevalence of five RNA and DNA viruses was successfully determined by optimizing reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in individual adult ACPs. The five ACP-associated viruses were identified as follows: diaphorina citri bunyavirus 2, which was newly identified by high-throughput sequencing in our lab, diaphorina citri reovirus (DcRV), diaphorina citri picorna-like virus (DcPLV), diaphorina citri bunyavirus (DcBV), and diaphorina citri densovirus-like virus (DcDV).ResultsDcPLV was the most prevalent and widespread ACP-associated virus, followed by DcBV, and it was detected in more than 50% of all samples tested. DcPLV was also demonstrated to propagate vertically and found more in salivary glands among different tissues. Approximately 60% of all adult insect samples were co-infected with more than one insect pathogen, including the five ACP-associated viruses and CLas.DiscussionThis is the first time these viruses, including the newly identified ACP-associated virus, have been detected in individual adult ACPs from natural populations in China’s five major citrus-producing provinces. These results provide valuable information about the prevalence of ACP-associated viruses in China, some of which have the potential to be used as biocontrol agents. In addition, analysis of the change in prevalence of pathogens in a single insect vector is the basis for understanding the interactions between CLas, ACP, and insect viruses.

The gut microbiota has become an essential component of the host organism and plays a crucial role in the host immune system, metabolism, and physiology. Nevertheless, our comprehension of how the fish gut microbiota contributes to enhancing nutrient utilization in the diet and improving host growth performance remains unclear. In this study, we employed a comprehensive analysis of the microbiome, metabolome, and transcriptome to analyze intestines of the normal control group and the antibiotic-treated model group of T. ovatus to investigate how the gut microbiota enhances fish growth performance and uncover the underlying mechanisms. First, we found that the growth performance of the control group was significantly higher than that of the antibiotic-treated model under the same feeding conditions. Subsequent multiomics analyses showed that the gut microbiota can improve its own composition by mediating the colonization of some probiotics represented by Lactobacillus in the intestine, improving host metabolic efficiency with proteins and lipids, and also influencing the expression of genes in signaling pathways related to cell proliferation, which together contribute to the improved growth performance of T. ovatus. Our results demonstrated the important contribution of gut microbiota and its underlying molecular mechanisms on the growth performance of T. ovatus.

Childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) is an autoimmune disease that results in significant damage and often needs more aggressive treatment. Compared to adult-onset SLE, cSLE has a stronger genetic background and more prevalent elevated type I Interferon expression. The management of cSLE is more challenging because the disease itself and treatment can affect physical, psychological and emotional growth and development. High dose oral glucocorticoid (GC) has become the rule for treating moderate to severe cSLE activity. However, GC-related side effects and potential toxicities are problems that cannot be ignored. Recent studies have suggested that GC pulse therapy can achieve disease remission rapidly and reduce GC-related side effects with a reduction in oral prednisone doses. This article reviews characteristics, including pathogenesis and manifestations of cSLE, and summarized the existing evidence on GC therapy, especially on GC pulse therapy in cSLE, followed by our proposal for GC therapy according to the clinical effects and pathogenesis.

Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) is efficiently transmitted in a semi-persistent manner by the brown citrus aphid (Toxoptera citricida (Kirkaldy)). Currently, the most sensitive method for detecting plant viruses in insect vectors is reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). In this study, the elongation factor-1 alpha (EF-1α) gene and acidic p0 ribosomal protein (RPAP0) gene were confirmed to be suitable reference genes for RT-qPCR normalization in viruliferous T. citricida aphids using the geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper tools. Then the relative CTV titer in aphids (T. citricida) at different post-acquisition feeding times on healthy plants was quantified by RT-qPCR using EF-1α and RPAP0 as reference genes. The relative CTV titer retained in the aphids gradually decreased with increasing feeding time. During the first 0.5 h of feeding time on healthy plants, the remaining CTV titer in aphids showed about 80% rapid loss for the highly transmissible isolate CT11A and 40% loss for the poorly transmissible isolate CTLJ. The relative CTV titer in aphids during more than 12 h post-acquisition times for CT11A was significantly lower than at the other feeding times, which is similar to the trend found for CTLJ. To our knowledge, this is the first report about the relative titer variation of CTV remaining in T. citricida at different post-acquisition feeding times on healthy plants.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have recently been demonstrated to be able to substantially improve the land cover classification accuracy of hyperspectral images. Meanwhile, the rapidly developing capacity for satellite and airborne image spectroscopy as well as the enormous archives of spectral data have imposed increasing demands on the computational efficiency of CNNs. Here, we propose a novel CNN framework that integrates one-dimensional (1D), two-dimensional (2D), and three-dimensional (3D) CNNs to obtain highly accurate and fast land cover classification from airborne hyperspectral images. To achieve this, we first used 3D CNNs to derive both spatial and spectral features from hyperspectral images. Then, we successively utilized a 2D CNN and a 1D CNN to efficiently acquire higher-level representations of spatial or spectral features. Finally, we leveraged the information obtained from the aforementioned steps for land cover classification. We assessed the performance of the proposed method using two openly available datasets (the Indian Pines dataset and the Wuhan University dataset). Our results showed that the overall classification accuracy of the proposed method in the Indian Pines and Wuhan University datasets was 99.65% and 99.85%, respectively. Compared to the state-of-the-art 3D CNN model and HybridSN model, the training times for our model in the two datasets were reduced by an average of 60% and 40%, respectively, while maintaining comparable classification accuracy. Our study demonstrates that the integration of 1D, 2D, and 3D CNNs effectively improves the computational efficiency of land cover classification with hyperspectral images while maintaining high accuracy. Our innovation offers significant advantages in terms of efficiency and robustness for the processing of large-scale hyperspectral images.

The hyperlipidemia mouse model was established by the induction of high-fat diet, and the difference of liver lipid metabolites in mice during the intervention of compound tea was investigated based on the widely targeted metabolome technology. Thirty mice were randomly divided into high-fat diet group (NK) and compound green tea high (DH) and low (DL) dose groups. These three groups were fed with high-fat diet and gavaged with purified water and different concentrations of compound green tea extract (840.0 and 210.0 mg/kg). After the 30 day experiment, the body weight and liver lipid metabolites of mice were analyzed. The results showed that the final body weight and weight gain of mice in the compound tea dose groups were significantly different from those in the high-fat model group (P

As a member of the forkhead box L gene family, foxl2 plays a significant role in gonadal development and the regulation of reproduction. During the evolution of deuterostome, whole genome duplication (WGD)-enriched lineage diversifications and regulation mechanisms occurs. However, only limited research exists on foxl2 duplication in teleost or other vertebrate species. In this study, two foxl2 paralogs, foxl2 and foxl2l, were identified in the transcriptome of spotted knifejaw (Oplegnathus punctatus), which had varying expressions in the gonads. The foxl2 was expressed higher in the ovary, while foxl2l was expressed higher in the testis. Phylogenetic reconstruction, synteny analysis, and the molecular evolution test confirmed that foxl2 and foxl2l likely originated from the first two WGD. The expression patterns test using qRT-PCR and ISH as well as motif scan analysis revealed evidence of potentially functional divergence between the foxl2 and foxl2l paralogs in spotted knifejaw. Our results indicate that foxl2 and foxl2l may originate from the first two WGD, be active in transcription, and have undergone functional divergence. These results shed new light on the evolutionary trajectories of foxl2 and foxl2l and highlights the need for further detailed functional analysis of these two duplicated paralogs.

The habitat occupied by flatfish fry differs considerably in light regime from that of the adult. The diversity of opsins and their expression patterns appear greatest for flatfishes to experience variable light environments. Yet, opsin repertoires and expression patterns in this group of fishes are poorly described. To understand how the visual system has adapted to such changes, we unveil that Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) has a visual system adapted to a benthic environment by fine-tuning paralogous opsins (SWS2A and RH2) for wavelength shift and regulated expression. P. olivaceus express five basic opsin genes (M/LWS, SWS1, SWS2, RH1 and RH2) and gene-specific duplications were observed in RH2 and SWS2 paralogues. The expression of the three short-wavelength sensitive genes, SWS2Aα, SWS2Aβ, and SWS2B, is significantly elevated at the benthic stages, especially in SWS2Aβ a striking expression change is observed. The four middle-wavelength sensitive genes exhibit divergent expressions, the expression of RH2A-1 and RH2A-2 increased, while that of RH2B-1 and RH2B-2 decreased significantly from pelagic to benthic stage, especially RH2A-2. At present, changes at a total of 26 sites are known to have modified the λmax of various visual pigments during vertebrate evolution. Thus, these tuning site variations in our P. olivaceus are suspected to cause a green-shift in the λmax of SWS2Aα pigments and blue-shift in that of in RH2A-2. Together, our results suggest that RH2 and SWS2 opsin repertoires serve to optimize visual function under variable light environments by gene family duplications, differential expressions, and maximum absorption wavelength (λmax) variations.

Lily-type lectin (LTL) plays significant roles in innate immune response against pathogen infection. LTL in animals and plants has received widespread attention. In the present study, an LTL (OppLTL) was identified from spotted knifejaw Oplegnathus punctatus. The OppLTL encoded a typical Ca2+-dependent carbohydrate-binding protein containing a CRD domain. The qRT-PCR showed that it was mainly expressed in the gill and was significantly upregulated after Vibrio anguillarum challenge. The agglutination analysis showed that the recombinant OppLTL could bind and agglutinate Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria in a Ca2+-dependent manner. However, the binding activity was different. Meanwhile, the recombinant OppLTL could hemagglutinate mammalian and teleost erythrocytes. Subcellular localization revealed that OppLTL was mainly detected in the cytoplasm of HEK293T cells. The dual-luciferase analysis revealed that OppLTL could inhibit the activity of the NF-κB signal pathway in HEK293T cells after OppLTL overexpression. These findings collectively demonstrated that OppLTL could be involved in host innate immune response and defense against bacterial infection in spotted knifejaw.

To improve the poor in-cylinder combustion condition of the small spark ignition Wankel rotary engine (SI-WRE) and improve its efficiency, this paper conducted a comprehensive optimization of its ignition environment. Since there are no known effects of ignition chamber characteristics, including ignition chamber volume ( $ V_{ic} $ ) and spark plug channel diameter ( $ D_{spc} $ ), on the ignition environment, various combinations of $ V_{ic} $ and $ D_{spc} $ were established, simulated, and compared, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods with validated models. As there are small and complex structures in the small SI-WRE, along with the huge simulation load in the case study, special treatments were adopted in mesh division to maintain the fast and accurate simulation. The results showed a wide thermal efficiency range of 8.51–32.13% under various $ V_{ic} $ and $ D_{spc} $ combinations, indicating that the engine performance was deeply limited by the ignition chamber. $ V_{ic} $ and $ D_{spc} $ also had profound influences on short-term (affected by $ D_{spc} $ ) and long-term (affected by $ V_{ic} $ ) flow losses, fresh intake at spark region, combustion speed, and working stability. Stable working condition was achieved when $ V_{ic} = 1.5 $ cc and $ D_{spc} = 2 $ mm, while powerful situations were $ V_{ic} = 1.5 $ cc and $ D_{spc} = 8 $ mm, or $ V_{ic} = 0.5 $ cc and $ D_{spc} = 2 $ mm.

The sea temperature has been observed to chronically increase during the past decades, leaving unpredictable influences to the marine biological resources. Thus, it is of vital significance to study the biological responses of ocean inhabited organisms with the artificially stimulated heat stress environment. Cynoglossus semilaevis provides us with an ideal model to study the influence of chronic heat stress on the sexual differentiation in marine teleosts for its genetic sex determination (GSD) + environmental effected (EE) sex determination system. In this study, the comparative experiment was conducted employing heated seawater (HT group) and ambient seawater (CT group) to cultivate juvenile C. semilaevis respectively. Significant differences were exhibited in growth performance and a delayed germ cell development effect was found in pseudomales formed under chronic heat stress. Using transcriptome analysis, the transcription profile of 55 days post fertilization (dpf) and 100 dpf juveniles’ gonads were studied. A total of 47 libraries were constructed with an average mapping rate of 94.63% after assembling. GO and KEGG enrichment were proceeded using DEGs screened out between (1) pseudomale gonads at 55 dpf and 100 dpf in HT and CT group (2) pseudomale and female gonads at 55 dpf and 100 dpf in HT and CT group. Terms and pathways involved in steroid stimulation, reproduction ability, germ cell proliferation et al. were shed light on. The expression pattern of 29 DEGs including amh, hsp90b1, pgr et al. were also provided to supplement the results of functional enrichment. Weighted gene co-expression networks analysis (WGCNA) was constructed and hspb8-like, histone H2A.V were exhibited to play vital roles in the heat-induced masculinization. Our findings facilitate the understanding for transcriptional variations in intensive masculinization cause by chronic heat stress of C. semilaevis and provide referable study of the influences on the teleosts in elevated sea temperature.

The proven reserves of heavy oil in the Bohai oilfield exceed 600 million tons. Heavy oil is highly viscous, temperature sensitive, and suitable for thermal extraction, but due to the strong inhomogeneity of the reservoir, the recovery rate of pure thermal extraction development is low, and there is an urgent need to conduct research on profile control + thermal extraction to guide the actual production. In this paper, we propose an integrated technology of profile control and thermal recovery to enhance heavy oil recovery. The heavy oil exhibited strong temperature dependence and nonlinear flow characteristics. An inorganic gel was selected for profile control to assist thermal recovery. Thermal recovery experiments were conducted in the laboratory using cores saturated by crude oil with different viscosities to simulate the oil in areas swept by thermal fluid. The 4% to 6% inorganic gel can seal up to 99% on 2000 × 10−3 μm2 cores. As the thermal recovery temperature increased from 55 to 200 °C, the efficiency of oil recovery increased from 10.8% to 42.9% in experiments with three-layer heterogeneous cores; it increased by 8.9–13.2% when profile control was implemented using the inorganic gel with a concentration of 4%. The injection parameters for thermal recovery were optimized with a thermal fluid swept area of 3/10 times the injector–producer distance, including three slugs of crude oil with different viscosities. According to the experiments involving an inverted nine-point well pattern, the integrated technology of profile control and thermal recovery enhances oil recovery by 1.4% compared to of profile control or thermal recovery alone.

Abstract Background Both antibody secreting cells (ASCs) and memory B cells are essential for the maintenance of humoral immunity. To date, limit studies have focused on the two populations in Kawasaki disease (KD). To address the status of humoral immunity during KD, our current concentration is on the variations of ASCs and memory B cells, as well as their subsets in both acute and remission stages of KD. Methods ASCs were defined as the population with high expressions of CD27 and CD38 among CD3-CD20- lymphocytes. Based on the expression of surface marker CD138 and intracellular marker IgG, ASCs were further divided into two subsets. Memory B cells were characterized by the expressions of IgD, CD27 and IgM, upon which memory B cells were further categorized into CD27 + IgD- (switched memory, Sm), CD27-IgD- (Double negative, DN) and CD27 + IgD + IgM+ (marginal zone, MZ) B cells. Collectively, six populations were analyzed using flow cytometry. The blood samples were collected from KD patients in different stages and healthy controls. Results In the acute stage, the percentages of ASCs, CD138+ ASCs, and IgG+ ASCs were significantly increased. In contrast, the percentages of memory B cells including Sm and MZ B cells were significantly decreased. Correlation analysis found ASCs positively correlated with the level of serum IgM, whereas MZ B cells not only positively correlated with the level of serum IgG, IgA, and IgM, but also positively correlated with the level of serum complement C3 and C4 and negatively correlated with the value of C-reactive protein (CRP). In the remission stage, the percentages of IgG+ ASCs and MZ B cells were significantly reduced, whereas other subsets presented heterogeneous variations. Conclusions Our study provided direct evidence that ASCs contributed to the pathogenesis of KD, and it was the first time to describe the variation of memory B cells in this disease. Among the subsets, only IgG+ ASCs presented a significant increase in the acute stage and decreased after IVIG administration, indicating the involvement of IgG+ ASCs in the inflammation of KD and also suggesting that IVIG played an inhibitory role in the expression of cytoplasmic IgG.

The existing plugging removal operation in JZ9-3 oilfield has the disadvantages of small amount of plugging remover, fast injection speed, and short construction time. Under the condition of injection well suction profile reversal, plugging remover is difficult to enter the low permeability part and play the role of deep plugging removal. In order to improve the plugging removal effect, this paper used the physical simulation method to carry out the experimental study and mechanism analysis on the effect of water flooding, chemical flooding, and plugging removal measures of the multi-layer system combination model. The results showed that the recovery of general plugging removal after chemical flooding increases by only 0.70%, while the recovery of ‘profile control + plugging removal’ increases by ‘9.34% + 2.59%’, and the amount of produced liquid decreases by more than 40%. It can be seen that the combined operation of profile control and plugging removal has dual effects of plugging and dredging and synergistic effect, which not only expands the swept volume, but also reduces the inefficient and ineffective cycles. On this basis, the optimization design and effect prediction of the target well W4-2 plugging removal scheme were carried out by using the numerical simulation method. Recommended scheme: inorganic gel profile control agent volume 13,243.6 m3, produced by the main agent (Na2O·nSiO2), isolation fluid (Water), and auxiliary agent (CaCl2) through multiple rounds of alternating injection into the reservoir. The plug removal agent (K2S2O8) injection volume is 100 m3, the concentration is 0.8%. The post-implementation ‘Output/Input’ ratio is expected to be 3.7.

Background/Aims: Novel long non-coding RNA Fer-1-like protein 4 (FER1L4) has been reported to play crucial regulatory roles in tumor progression. However, its clinical significance and biological role in osteosarcoma (OS) is completely unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of FER1L4 in OS progression and the underlying mechanism. Methods: We analyzed the expression levels of FER1L4 in tissues of OS patients and cell lines via quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). The effect of FER1L4 on cell proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion was analyzed by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), colony formation, wound healing and transwell invasion assay, respectively. Novel targets of FER1L4 were selected through a bioinformatics soft and confirmed using a dual-luciferase reporter system and qRT-PCR. To detect the role of FER1L4 in vivo tumorigenesis, tumor xenografts were created. Results: We found that the expression of FER1L4 was significantly downregulated in OS tissues and cell lines; moreover, low expression of FER1L4 was associated with advanced tumor-nude-metastasis (TNM) stage, lymph node metastases, and poor overall survival. Functional assays showed that upregulation of FER1L4 significantly inhibited OS cell proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion in vitro, as well as suppressed tumor growth in vivo. Assays performed to determine the underlying mechanism, indicated that FER1L4 interacted directly with miR-18a-5p. Subsequently, we found that FER1L4 significantly increased PTEN expression, a known target of miR-18a-5p, in OS cells. Furthermore, PTEN was found to be down-regulated, and positively correlated with FER1L4 in OS tissues. Conclusion: These findings suggest that FER1L4, acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) of miR-18a-5p, exerts its anti-cancer role by modulating the expression of PTEN. Thus, FER1L4 may be a novel target for the prevention and treatment of OS.

Ringer’s or phosphate buffer saline (PBS) solution buffer usually was used as dilution butter in intraperitoneal injection. Stress could activate immune response, inflammatory response and glycogen metabolic process. The impact of solution buffer as a stressor to immune system was ignored in immunostimulatory experiment. In this report, we tested the hypothesis that the innate immune response and glycogen metabolic process were altered when it were challenged with Ringer’s in Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus). RNA-seq was performed after challenge with Ringer’s at 8 h and 48 h. The data revealed that the expression profiles of blood, gill, and kidney were significantly changed. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, and energy metabolic and immune-related genes were up-regulated or down-regulated obviously. GO and KEGG analyses showed that DEGs were mainly enriched in innate immune terms and pathways. Weighted gene co-expression networks analysis (WGCNA) also indicated the highest association module with stress. A total of 16 genes were detected in the gray module, which were immune-related and metabolic-related genes. These results provided fundamental information on intraperitoneal injection with solution buffer. It offered useful clues to further explore the functional mechanism of stress and immunity.

The convolutional neural network (CNN) method has been widely used in the classification of hyperspectral images (HSIs). However, the efficiency and accuracy of the HSI classification are inevitably degraded when small samples are available. This study proposes a multidimensional CNN model named MDAN, which is constructed with an attention mechanism, to achieve an ideal classification performance of CNN within the framework of few-shot learning. In this model, a three-dimensional (3D) convolutional layer is carried out for obtaining spatial–spectral features from the 3D volumetric data of HSI. Subsequently, the two-dimensional (2D) and one-dimensional (1D) convolutional layers further learn spatial and spectral features efficiently at an abstract level. Based on the most widely used convolutional block attention module (CBAM), this study investigates a convolutional block self-attention module (CBSM) to improve accuracy by changing the connection ways of attention blocks. The CBSM model is used with the 2D convolutional layer for better performance of HSI classification purposes. The MDAN model is applied for classification applications using HSI, and its performance is evaluated by comparing the results with the support vector machine (SVM), 2D CNN, 3D CNN, 3D–2D–1D CNN, and CBAM. The findings of this study indicate that classification results from the MADN model show overall classification accuracies of 97.34%, 96.43%, and 92.23% for Salinas, WHU-Hi-HanChuan, and Pavia University datasets, respectively, when only 1% HSI data were used for training. The training and testing times of the MDAN model are close to those of the 3D–2D–1D CNN, which has the highest efficiency among all comparative CNN models. The attention model CBSM is introduced into MDAN, which achieves an overall accuracy of about 1% higher than that of the CBAM model. The performance of the two proposed methods is superior to the other models in terms of both efficiency and accuracy. The results show that the combination of multidimensional CNNs and attention mechanisms has the best ability for small-sample problems in HSI classification.

The leaf area index (LAI) is of great significance for crop growth monitoring. Recently, unmanned aerial systems (UASs) have experienced rapid development and can provide critical data support for crop LAI monitoring. This study investigates the effects of combining spectral and texture features extracted from UAS multispectral imagery on maize LAI estimation. Multispectral images and in situ maize LAI were collected from test sites in Tongshan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. The spectral and texture features of UAS multispectral remote sensing images are extracted using the vegetation indices (VIs) and the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), respectively. Normalized texture indices (NDTIs), ratio texture indices (RTIs), and difference texture indices (DTIs) are calculated using two GLCM-based textures to express the influence of two different texture features on LAI monitoring at the same time. The remote sensing features are prescreened through correlation analysis. Different data dimensionality reduction or feature selection methods, including stepwise selection (ST), principal component analysis (PCA), and ST combined with PCA (ST_PCA), are coupled with support vector regression (SVR), random forest (RF), and multiple linear regression (MLR) to build the maize LAI estimation models. The results reveal that ST_PCA coupled with SVR has better performance, in terms of the VIs + DTIs (R2 = 0.876, RMSE = 0.239) and VIs + NDTIs (R2 = 0.877, RMSE = 0.236). This study introduces the potential of different texture indices for maize LAI monitoring and demonstrates the promising solution of using ST_PCA to realize the combining of spectral and texture features for improving the estimation accuracy of maize LAI.

Rice bacterial leaf streak (BLS) is a serious disease in rice leaves and can seriously affect the quality and quantity of rice growth. Automatic estimation of disease severity is a crucial requirement in agricultural production. To address this, a new method (termed BLSNet) was proposed for rice and BLS leaf lesion recognition and segmentation based on a UNet network in semantic segmentation. An attention mechanism and multi-scale extraction integration were used in BLSNet to improve the accuracy of lesion segmentation. We compared the performance of the proposed network with that of DeepLabv3+ and UNet as benchmark models used in semantic segmentation. It was found that the proposed BLSNet model demonstrated higher segmentation and class accuracy. A preliminary investigation of BLS disease severity estimation was carried out based on our BLS segmentation results, and it was found that the proposed BLSNet method has strong potential to be a reliable automatic estimator of BLS disease severity.

Abstract Background Auxin/indole-3-acetic acid (Aux/IAA) family genes encode short-lived nuclear proteins that mediate the responses of auxin-related genes and are involved in several plant developmental and growth processes. However, how Aux/IAA genes function in the fruit development and ripening of papaya (Carica papaya L.) is largely unknown. Results In this study, a comprehensive identification and a distinctive expression analysis of 18 C. papaya Aux/IAA (CpIAA) genes were performed using newly updated papaya reference genome data. The Aux/IAA gene family in papaya is slightly smaller than that in Arabidopsis, but all of the phylogenetic subfamilies are represented. Most of the CpIAA genes are responsive to various phytohormones and expressed in a tissues-specific manner. To understand the putative biological functions of the CpIAA genes involved in fruit development and ripening, quantitative real-time PCR was used to test the expression profiling of CpIAA genes at different stages. Furthermore, an IAA treatment significantly delayed the ripening process in papaya fruit at the early stages. The expression changes of CpIAA genes in ACC and 1-MCP treatments suggested a crosstalk between auxin and ethylene during the fruit ripening process of papaya. Conclusions Our study provided comprehensive information on the Aux/IAA family in papaya, including gene structures, phylogenetic relationships and expression profiles. The involvement of CpIAA gene expression changes in fruit development and ripening gives us an opportunity to understand the roles of auxin signaling in the maturation of papaya reproductive organs.

Sex reversal induced by temperature change is a common feature in fish. Usually, the sex ratio shift occurs when temperature deviates too much from normal during embryogenesis or sex differentiation stages. Despite decades of work, the mechanism of how temperature functions during early development and sex reversal remains mysterious. In this study, we used Chinese tongue sole as a model to identify features from gonad transcriptomic and epigenetic mechanisms involved in temperature induced masculinization. Some of genetic females reversed to pseudomales after high temperature treatment which caused the sex ratio imbalance. RNA-seq data showed that the expression profiles of females and males were significantly different, and set of genes showed sexually dimorphic expression. The general transcriptomic feature of pesudomales was similar with males, but the genes involved in spermatogenesis and energy metabolism were differentially expressed. In gonads, the methylation level of cyp19a1a promoter was higher in females than in males and pseudomales. Furthermore, high-temperature treatment increased the cyp19a1a promoter methylation levels of females. We observed a significant negative correlation between methylation levels and expression of cyp19ala. In vitro study showed that CpG within the cAMP response element (CRE) of the cyp19a1a promoter was hypermethylated, and DNA methylation decreased the basal and forskolin-induced activities of cyp19a1a promoter. These results suggested that epigenetic change, i.e., DNA methylation, which regulate the expression of cyp19a1a might be the mechanism for the temperature induced masculinization in tongue sole. It may be a common mechanism in teleost that can be induced sex reversal by temperature.

Residual compressive stress can improve fretting fatigue strength. In this paper, the effects of residual stress on fretting fatigue of Al 2024-T351 alloy specimens are studied using a numerical approach. The extended finite element method combined with the cyclic cohesive zone model is adopted to model fretting fatigue crack growth behavior. It is shown that residual stress changes the fretting fatigue crack growth path and enhances fretting fatigue life. Crack initiation angle, depth of knee point, crack initiation life, crack propagation life and total life are greater for specimens with residual stress compared to specimens without residual stress. The effects of residual stress are more remarkable for specimens with a high intensity of residual stress. However, the effects of residual stress reduce at a high bulk load level.

Tungsten trioxide (WO3) is a wide band gap semiconductor material, which is commonly not only used, but also investigated as a significant electrochromic layer in electrochromic devices. WO3 films have been prepared by inorganic and sol-gel free ammonium tungstate ((NH4)2WO4), with the modification of glycerol using the spin coating technique. The surface tension, the contact angle and the dynamic viscosity of the precursor solutions demonstrated that the sample solution with a 25% volume fraction of glycerol was optimal, which was equipped to facilitate the growth of WO3 films. The thermal gravimetric and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) analysis represented that the optimal sample solution transformed into the WO3 range from 220 °C to 300 °C, and the transformation of the phase structure of WO3 was taken above 300 °C. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectra analysis indicated that the composition within the film was WO3 above the 300 °C annealing temperature, and the component content of WO3 was increased with the increase in the annealing temperature. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern revealed that WO3 films were available for the formation of the cubic and monoclinic crystal structure at 400 °C, and were preferential for growing monoclinic WO3 when annealed at 500 °C. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images showed that WO3 films prepared using ammonium tungstate with modification of the glycerol possessed less rough surface roughness in comparison with the sol-gel-prepared films. An ultraviolet spectrophotometer (UV) demonstrated that the sample solution which had been annealed at 400 °C obtained a high electrochromic modulation ability roughly 40% at 700 nm wavelength, as well as the optical band gap (Eg) of the WO3 films ranged from 3.48 eV to 3.37 eV with the annealing temperature increasing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate combustion characteristics for rotary engine via numerical studies. A 3D numerical model was developed to study the influence of several operative parameters on combustion characteristics. A novel rotary engine called, “Leaf Spring Rotary Engine”, was used to illustrate the structure and principle of the engine. The aims are to (1) improve the understanding of combustion process, and (2) quantify the influence of rotational speed, excess air ratio, initial pressure and temperature on combustion characteristics. The chamber space changed with crankshaft rotation. Due to the complexity of chamber volume, an equivalent modeling method was presented to simulate the chamber space variation. The numerical simulations were performed by solving the incompressible, multiphase Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes Equations via the commercial code FLUENT using a transport equation-based combustion model; a realizable turbulence model and finite-rate/eddy-dissipation model were used to account for the effect of local factors on the combustion characteristics.

PRDM14 is a PR (PRDI-BF1-RIZ1 homologous) domain protein with six zinc fingers and essential roles in genome-wide epigenetic reprogramming. This protein is required for the establishment of germ cells and the maintenance of the embryonic stem cell ground state. In this study, we cloned the full-length cDNA and genomic DNA of the Paralichthys olivaceus prdm14 (Po-prdm14) gene and isolated the 5' regulatory region of Po-prdm14 by whole-genome sequencing. Peptide sequence alignment, gene structure analysis, and phylogenetic analysis revealed that Po-PRDM14 was homologous to mammalian PRDM14. Results of real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction amplification (RT-qPCR) and in situ hybridization (ISH) in embryos demonstrated that Po-prdm14 was highly expressed between the morula and late gastrula stages, with its expression peaking in the early gastrula stage. Relatively low expression of Po-prdm14 was observed in the other developmental stages. ISH of gonadal tissues revealed that the transcripts were located in the nucleus of the oocytes in the ovaries but only in the spermatogonia and not the spermatocytes in the testes. We also presume that the Po-prdm14 transcription factor binding sites and their conserved binding region among vertebrates. The combined results suggest that Po-PRDM14 has a conserved function in teleosts and mammals.

Immunoglobulin A vasculitis (IgAV) is the most common vasculitis in children. Previously, we demonstrated that patients with IgAV show abnormal proliferation of cluster of differentiation (CD)4+C-X-C chemokine receptor type (CXCR)5+ follicular helper T (Tfh) cells. Here, we explored the status of Tfh cell subsets and plasma cytokine levels in patients with IgAV.CD4+CXCR5+CD45RA-, CD45RA-CXCR3+CCR6-, CD45RA-CXCR3-CCR6-, CD45RA-CXCR3-CCR6+, and CD45RA-CXCR3+CCR6+ Tfh cell fractions and plasma concentrations of interferon-γ, interleukin (IL)-4, and IL-17A were evaluated by flow cytometry and a flow cytometric bead array, respectively, in 30 patients with IgAV and 15 healthy controls (HCs).Tfh2 and Tfh17 cell fractions were larger and the Tfh2+Tfh17/Tfh1 ratio and plasmaIL-4 and -17A levels were higher in patients with IgAV than in the HCs. Only Tfh1 cell counts were reduced in the abdominal subtype. The elevations in Tfh2 and Tfh17 cell counts and plasma IL-4 levels were abrogated by treatment. Tfh2 cell number was positively correlated with serum IgA and plasma IL-4 levels, but negatively correlated with the serum C4 concentration, while Tfh17 cell number was positively correlated with the serum IgA level and Tfh2 cell counts.Abnormally high numbers of Tfh2 and Tfh17 cells are linked to the occurrence and development of IgAV, but are not specific to the abdominal type. Only Tfh1 cells play a critical role in abdominal-type IgAV.

Nowadays, micro engine miniaturization is one of the most challenging issues, especially for the design and fabrication of the high-power-density micro Wankel engine. With the decrease of the size of the micro engine, the problem of the heat deformation of the cylinder becomes more serious. In this paper, a micro Wankel engine with microtextures on the outer surface of the cylinder is designed and manufactured to diffuse the heat dissipation and regulate the temperature gradient, so as to increase the power output density. First, a series of finite element simulations are conducted to design a type of ideal surface microtexture. Then, the machining condition is optimized to fabricate microtextures by micro cutting on the cylinder surface by studying the processing parameters. Finally, the performance of the new micro Wankel engine in terms of the temperature gradient regulation and the mechanical power output is tested and compared with that of the un-textured micro engine. The comparison results show that temperature of the textured micro engine was dropped from 185 °C to 125 °C and the mechanical power output increased by 10.74% from that of its un-textured counterpart, verifying the proposed methods for temperature gradient regulation.

This study analyzes the effects of shot peening on the crack initiation behavior under fretting loading by using a numerical method. The residual stress relaxation and the contact stress evolution are both considered. The crack initiation life is predicted by the critical plane Smith–Watson–Topper (SWT) model. Considering that the fretting contact region has a high stress gradient along the depth direction, the process volume approach is adopted to calculate the SWT parameters. The results show that the remaining residual stress after relaxation strongly affects crack initiation life. The remaining residual stress decreases with the increase of fatigue loading, and the effect of shot peening on the improvement of crack initiation life is more obvious under smaller fatigue loading. Furthermore, under smaller fatigue loading, the crack initiation life of specimens with high shot peening intensity is longer than that of specimens with low shot peening intensity. However, the opposite phenomenon appears when the fatigue loading is large enough.

Tetrahydrofuran (THF) is well known as a former and a promoter of clathrate hydrates, but the molecular mechanism for the formation of these compounds is not yet well understood. We performed ab initio calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the formation, structure, and stability of THF·(H2O)n=1⁻10 and its significance to the formation of the THF hydrate. Weak hydrogen bonds were found between THF and water molecules, and THF could promote water molecules from the planar pentagonal or hexagonal ring. As a promoter, THF could increase the binding ability of the CH4, CO2, or H2 molecule onto a water face, but could also enhance the adsorption of other THF molecules, causing an enrichment effect.

By using Bush viscometer, dynamic and static laser scatter instrument, scanning electron microscope and core flow experimental apparatus, experiments were conducted to study the viscosity, molecular coil dimensions, molecular configuration and static gelation of amphoteric polymer solution and linked amphoteric polymer solution in porous media and affecting factors, and to analyze the gelation mechanism of linked polymer solution in the core. The results showed that with the increase of solvent water salinity, the cross-linking reaction rate increases; with increase of aging time, the gelling effect gets stronger and stable; with the increase of shear time, the lineation of polymer molecules gets more obvious, the gelling effect in pores gets worse; under the condition of low permeability, the cross-linking reaction mainly is intramolecule cross-linking; with the increase of core permeability, i.e. the increase of pore size, the gelling effect gets better in the core, and inter-molecular cross linking reaction is more likely to take place. The experimental data and theoretical analysis showed that in the linked amphoteric polymer solution, the cross-linking reaction occurs between the different branched-chain of the same molecule firstly (intra-molecular cross-linking), then the cross-linking reaction extends to different polymer molecules (i.e. inter-molecular cross-linking). Key words: amphoteric polymer, linked polymer solution, salinity, cross-linking reaction, porous media, mechanism analysis

Following the two rounds of whole-genome duplication (WGD) during deuterosome evolution, a third genome duplication occurred in the ray-fined fish lineage and is considered to be responsible for the teleost-specific lineage diversification and regulation mechanisms. As a receptor-regulated SMAD (R-SMAD), the function of SMAD3 was widely studied in mammals. However, limited information of its role or putative paralogs is available in ray-finned fishes. In this study, two SMAD3 paralogs were first identified in the transcriptome and genome of Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus). We also explored SMAD3 duplication in other selected species. Following identification, genomic structure, phylogenetic reconstruction, and synteny analyses performed by MrBayes and online bioinformatic tools confirmed that smad3a/3b most likely originated from the teleost-specific WGD. Additionally, selection pressure analysis and expression pattern of the two genes performed by PAML and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) revealed evidence of subfunctionalization of the two SMAD3 paralogs in teleost. Our results indicate that two SMAD3 genes originate from teleost-specific WGD, remain transcriptionally active, and may have likely undergone subfunctionalization. This study provides novel insights to the evolution fates of smad3a/3b and draws attentions to future function analysis of SMAD3 gene family.

Background. Following the two rounds of whole-genome duplication that occurred during deuterostome evolution, a third genome duplication occurred in the lineage of teleost fish and is considered to be responsible for much of the biological diversification within the lineage. GATA2, a member of GATA family of transcription factors, is an important regulator of gene expression in hematopoietic cell in mammals, yet the role of this gene or its putative paralogs in ray-finned fishes remains relatively unknown. Methods. In this study, we attempted to identify GATA2 sequences from the transcriptomes and genomes of multiple teleosts using the bioinformatic tools MrBayes, MEME, and PAML. Following identification, comparative analysis of genome structure, molecular evolution rate, and expression by real-time qPCR were used to predict functional divergence of GATA2 paralogs and their relative transcription in organs of female and male tongue soles (Cynoglossus semilaevis). Results. Two teleost GATA2 genes were identified in the transcriptomes of tongue sole and Japanese flounder (Paralichthysolivaceus). Synteny and phylogenetic analysis confirmed that the two genes likely originated from the teleost-specific genome duplication . Additionally, selection pressure analysis predicted these gene duplicates to have undergone purifying selection and possible divergent new functions. This was supported by differential expression pattern of GATA2a and GATA2b observed in organs of female and male tongue soles. Discussion. Our results indicate that two GATA2 genes originating from the first teleost-specific genome duplication have remained transcriptionally active in some fish species and have likely undergone neofunctionalization. This knowledge provides novel insights into the evolution of the teleost GATA2 genes and constituted important groundwork for further research on the GATA gene family.

In this paper, an improved delayed detached eddy simulation method combined with shear-stress transport (SST) model was used to study the three-dimensional turbulent characteristics in a small rotary engine with a peripheral port. The turbulent characteristics including instantaneous velocity, turbulent fluctuation, coherent structure and velocity circulation were analysed based on a dynamic model of the small rotary engine. Three sets of conclusions on the basis of computational results were obtained. First, it was found that large-scale vortex structures with high intensity were distributed in the center of the chamber in the intake process and broke into lots of small vortex structures in the compression process. Second, flow stability in the X direction decreased from the leading to the trailing in the small rotary engine. The fluctuation velocity of the Y direction showed the paraboloid feature and its peak position moved from the mid-back to the middle of the chamber during the operation process. Third, during the intake process, two vortices occurred in the cross section parallel to the covers and were located at the leading and trailing of the cross section, respectively. Compared to the intake process, more vortices occur at cross sections which were far away from the central section during the compression process.

GATA-binding protein 6 (GATA6), a highly-conserved transcription factor of the GATA family plays an important role in gonadal cell proliferation, differentiation and endoderm development. In this study, the full-length cDNA of GATA6 of Paralichthys olivaceus (Japanese flounder) was obtained. Phylogenetic, gene structure and synteny analyses demonstrated that GATA6 of P. olivaceus is homologous to that of teleosts and tetrapods. The P. olivaceus GATA6 transcript showed higher expression in testis than in ovary, demonstrating a sexually dimorphic gene expression. During embryonic development, the expression of P. olivaceus GATA6 increased at the blastula stage, demonstrating that GATA6 is involved in morphogenesis. Results of in situ hybridization showed that GATA6 signals were detected in Sertoli cells, oogonia and oocytes. Moreover, 17α methyl testosterone, a male hormone, could moderately upregulate P. olivaceus GATA6 and downregulate P. olivaceus aromatase CYP19A1 in testis cells. These results suggest that GATA6 may play an important role in gonadal development in P. olivaceus. This study provides valuable information on the function of P. olivaceus GATA6, laying the foundation for further development of breeding techniques in this species.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of persistent organochlorine compounds that have the potential to disrupt the homeostasis of thyroid hormones (THs) in fish, particularly juveniles. In this study, thyroid histology, plasma TH levels, and iodothyronine deiodinase (IDs, including ID1, ID2, and ID3) gene expression patterns were examined in juvenile Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) following 25- and 50-day waterborne exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of a commercial PCB mixture, Aroclor 1254 (10, 100, and 1000 ng/L) with two-thirds of the test solutions renewed daily. The results showed that exposure to Aroclor 1254 for 50 d increased follicular cell height, colloid depletion, and hyperplasia. In particular, hypothyroidism, which was induced by the administration of 1000 ng/L Aroclor 1254, significantly decreased plasma TT4, TT3, and FT3 levels. Profiles of the changes in mRNA expression levels of IDs were observed in the liver and kidney after 25 and 50 d PCB exposure, which might be associated with a reduction in plasma THs levels. The expression level of ID2 mRNA in the liver exhibited a dose-dependent increase, indicating that this ID isotype might serve as sensitive and stable indicator for thyroid-disrupting chemical (TDC) exposure. Overall, our study confirmed that environmentally relevant concentrations of Aroclor 1254 cause significant thyroid disruption, with juvenile Japanese flounder being suitable candidates for use in TDC studies.

In the past decade, the cohesive zone model has been receiving increasing attention as a powerful tool for the simulation of fatigue crack growth. When applying cohesive zone model to fatigue fracture problem, three aspects should generally be taken into account, that is, unloading-reloading path, damage evolution during cyclic loading, and crack surface contact and friction behavior. This paper addresses the critical views of these aspects. Before that, the formulation of cohesive zone model and identification of cohesive zone model parameters and its numerical implementation have been reviewed.

A unified cohesive zone model is proposed. By introducing a parameter which denotes the ductility of the material, the proposed model can be used to simulate both brittle and ductile fracture. No fitting experimental data is needed in calibrating the parameters of the proposed model, and this leads to a high predictive ability of the model. Several numerical examples for brittle and ductile materials are given using finite element method. The good agreement between numerical results and experimental data proves the applicability and accuracy of the proposed cohesive zone model.

Insects stimulate specific behaviors by the correct recognition of the chemicals in the external environment. Rhodojaponin III is a botanical grayanoid diterpenid oviposition deterrent isolated from Rhododendron molle. In this study we aimed to determine whether the CSPs involved in the recognition of Rhodojaponin III. A full-length cDNA encoding chemosensory protein was isolated from the antennae of Spodoptera litura Fabricius (CSPSlit, GenBank Accession No. DQ007458). The full-length cDNA of NlFoxA is 1789 bp and has an open reading frame (ORF) of 473 bp, encoding a protein of 126 amino acids, Northern blot analysis revealed that CSPSlit mRNA was mainly expressed in the antennae, legs, wings and female abdomens. A three-dimensional model of CSPSlit was constructed using homology modeling method, and its reliability was evaluated. The active site of CSPSlit was calculated using CDOCKER program indicated that the Tyr24, Ile45, Leu49, Thr64, Leu68, Trp79 and Leu82 were responsible ligand-binding active site on identifying Rhodojaponin III in the CSPSlit. The recombinant CSPSlit protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified using single-step Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Fluorescence emission spectra revealed that the CSPSlit protein had significant affinity to rhodojaponin III. These results mean that CSPSlit is critical for insects identify the Rhodojaponin III.