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Feather follicles and scales are two types of skin appendages distributed on different parts of avian skin. The morphogenesis and development of scales in waterfowl remain largely unknown. Here, we used HE staining, ISH and RNA sequencing to reveal the morphological and molecular variations at the early development of scutate scales in goose shank skin. Transcriptome analysis produced 1824 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) regulating the induction of scales and further enriched gene function in cell adhesion and Wnt signaling pathway, etc. A total of 8 candidate genes (ALDOC, CSRP2, KRT15, KRT75, LGALS1, S100A6, OGN and SFRP2) were further detected by RT-qPCR to show upregulated (6 genes) and downregulated (2 genes) from pre-placodal to placode stage during the induction of goose scales. The localization of 7 candidate genes (ALDOC, CSRP2, CD109, KRT15, KRT75, S100A6, and OGN) by ISH suggests the potential roles for dermal and epidermal development during the induction of scutate scales. The dynamic molecular changes and specific gene expression patterns revealed in this report provide general knowledge of scale development in waterfowl as well as skin appendage diversity.

The genetic basis and developmental mechanism of unsealed skull in crested chicken with cerebral hernia remain unclear. Here, a genomic region including six HOXC genes was mapped by bulked segregant analysis (BSA) in a crested chicken resource population. A 195-bp intronic tandem duplication was further confirmed in the HOXC10 gene. HOXC genes, particularly HOXC10, were expressed ectopically in fetal skin and meningeal tissues of crested chicken with cerebral hernia, indicating its impact on the cranial mesenchymal tissues that drive the development of scalp skin, frontal bone, and meninges. The restricted expansion of frontal bone progenitors labeled with anti-RUNX2 antibody in the supraorbital mesenchyme of the fetal head implied abnormal migration, which contributed to the formation of the unsealed skull. This study suggests that HOXC genes were potent drivers for the abnormalities of the head crest and unsealed skull observed in crested chicken with cerebral hernia.

In birds, the sperm storage tubules (SST) are dispersed in uterovaginal junction (UVJ) and highly correlated with differential capacity of sperm storage (SS) in and among species with unspecified mechanisms. Here, the SS duration of 252 egg layer breeders was evaluated in 5 rounds with 3 phenotypic traits to screen high- and low-SS individuals, respectively, followed with transcriptome of UVJ tissues and metabolome of serum (high-SS vs. low-SS) to decipher the candidate genes and biochemical markers correlated with differential SS capacity. Histological characterization suggested slightly higher density of SST in UVJ (high-SS vs. low-SS). Transcriptome analyses identified 596 differentially expressed genes (336 upregulated vs. 260 downregulated), which were mainly enriched in gene ontology terms of homeostasis, steroid and lipid metabolism and hormone activity, and 12 significant pathways (P

The abundance, diversity and community structure of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) were investigated, using amoA gene as a molecular biomarker, to examine how cattail (Typha orientalis) growth affects the abundances and communities of AOB and AOA in the rhizosphere sediment. Clone libraries and qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) results indicated the amoA gene copies numbers, relative abundance of AOA and AOB amoA gene clone libraries were highest in rhizosphere sediment, followed by non-rhizosphere sediment and control, indicating that cattail growth has a remarkable effect on the abundance and community structure of ammonia oxidizing microorganisms. Diversity index (Chao1 and Shannon H) have an obvious variation in cattail rhizosphere, non-rhizosphere and control sediments. The average values of Shannon H of AOA and AOB in the rhizosphere sediment were higher than the non-rhizosphere sediment and control. The average value of Chao1 was highest in non-rhizosphere sediment for AOA, whereas, was highest in the rhizosphere sediment for AOB. The abundance, diversity and community structure of AOA and AOB were obvious different in the cattail's three developmental stages, and higher abundances and more complex community structure were obtained in the maturity stage, which may be attributable to the higher root exudation owing to fast growth rates and strong metabolisms in the maturity stage. In addition, despite higher abundant of AOA versus AOB was demonstrated in the cattail rhizosphere, non-rhizosphere sediment and control, bacteria, not archaeal, have more ecosystem functions and play a more important role in dominating ammonia oxidation under the conditions of this study according to the two findings from the present study. One is that AOB had a more diverse and more complex community structure than AOA; the other is that the average value of potential nitrification rates (PNRs) significantly decreased (by 49.08%, 53.69% and 10.39%, respectively) in rhizosphere, non-rhizosphere sediment and control, as compared to PNRs without the ampicillin, when ammonia-oxidizing bacteria were inhibited by ampicillin.

Rare earth nanomaterials (RENMs) are widely used in various applications, leading to potential release of these materials into the environment. The study of interactions between RENMs and plants are of particular importance. In this review paper, we summarize recent advances on this topic, including three sections: (1) toxicological effects of RENMs on plants, (2) uptake and translation, and (3) transformation. It is expected that this review will provide necessary background information to further advance the knowledge on the phytotoxicity of RENMs.

Clone library construction and quantitative polymerase chain reaction were used to investigate the effects of three emergent aquatic plant species (Iris pseudacorus, Thalia dealbata and Typha orientalis L.) on the abundances and community structures of ammonia-oxidising archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB). The abundances of archaeal and bacterial amoA genes ranged from 2.91 × 107 to 3.20 × 109 and 1.03 × 107 to 5.10 × 108, respectively. At the study area, T. orientalis showed the highest abundances of AOA and AOB. I. pseudacorus harbored higher AOA richness and diversity than T. orientalis, but lowest AOB abundance. Nitrososphaera, Nitrosopumilus and Nitrosotalea clusters were observed in AOA, in which the Nitrososphaera cluster was predominant. Moreover, Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira clusters were detected in AOB, in which the Nitrosospira cluster was dominant. Assays of potential nitrification rates (PNRs) in the samples cultivated with or without ampicillin suggested that AOA may be important in nitrification in unvegetated and I. pseudacorus-associated sediments, whereas AOB may dominate nitrification in the other species.

Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries were used to document the abundance, diversity and community structure of anaerobic ammonia-oxidising (anammox) bacteria in the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere sediments of three emergent macrophyte species (Iris pseudacorus, Thalia dealbata and Typha orientalis). The qPCR results confirmed the existence of anammox bacteria (AMX) with observed log number of gene copies per dry gram sediment ranging from 5.00 to 6.78. AMX was more abundant in T. orientalis-associated sediments than in the other two plant species. The I. pseudacorus- and T. orientalis-associated sediments had higher Shannon diversity values, indicating higher AMX diversity in these sediments. Based on the 16S rRNA gene, Candidatus ‘Brocadia’, Candidatus ‘Kuenenia’, Candidatus ‘Jettenia’ and new clusters were observed with the predominant Candidatus ‘Kuenenia’ cluster. The I. pseudacorus-associated sediments contained all the sequences of the C. ‘Jettenia’ cluster. Sequences obtained from T. orientalis-associated sediments contributed more than 90 % sequences in the new cluster, whereas none was found from I. pseudacorus. The new cluster was distantly related to known sequences; thus, this cluster was grouped outside the known clusters, indicating that the new cluster may be a new Planctomycetales genus. Further studies should be undertaken to confirm this finding.

The side-glowing optical fibers (SOFs) were chosen as the conducting medium of endogenous light; and 20 mg·L −1 methylene blue was chosen as the target to be degraded. The SOF is made up of quartz core with a silicon cladding, which can emit light through side surface more uniformly and transmit light for longer distance to avoid attenuation of light by liquid medium. The filament lamp was chosen as visible light source. Different reaction conditions, such as the presence of optical fiber or not, the quantity of SOF, light irradiation intensity were tested by measuring the methylene blue degradation of methylene blue. The results show that suitable reaction conditions were 1.167 gL −1 Ag + /TiO 2 with 7% (by mass) of Ag + doped in TiO 2 , and 500 roots of SOF (30 cm length in solution). The photocatalytic degradation efficiency under 300W lamp irradiation for 8h was about 97%. And the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of methylene blue degradation was proportional to SOF quantity, light irradiation intensity and catalytic dosage within a certain range. Compared with general UV and visible light SOFs could save a huge amount of energy and cost, in the potential applications in dealing with organic pollutants on a large scale.

The abundance, diversity and community structure of ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) in rice rhizosphere soils under three different irrigation cultivated modes, named continuous irrigation mode (C), intermittent irrigation mode (I) and semi-arid mode (M), respectively, were investigated using amoA gene as a molecular biomarker. Clone libraries and quantitative polymerase chain reaction results indicated the highest number of archaeal amoA gene copy was detected in M cultivation mode, then in I and C, whereas, their order of amoA gene copy numbers were I > M > C for AOB, and those were obvious higher than in the bulk soil. The ratios of AOA/AOB were greater than 1 for all samples, suggested the predominance of AOA throughout the period of rice growth in the three different irrigation cultivation modes. Diversity index (SChao1 and Shannon H) have an obvious variation in three different irrigation cultivation modes. For AOA, SChao1 was highest in M and lowest in I mode, whereas, Shannon H was highest in M cultivation mode and lowest in C mode. For AOB, mode M exhibited the highest diversity index (SChao1 and Shannon H), while C showed the lowest highest diversity, suggested long-term water input (continuous mode) may decrease diversity of ammonia oxidizers, whereas mode M may be more appropriate for them. In addition, AOA sequences fall within Nitrososphaera, Nitrosopumilus and Nitrosotalea cluster with proportion of 89.38, 8.85 and 1.77 %, respectively. AOB gene sequences belonged to the Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira genera with proportion of 90.97 and 9.03 %, respectively. In addition, the abundances, diversity and community structure had an obvious temporal variation in three developmental stages of rice, further suggested rice growth obviously affected the ammonia oxidizing prokaryotes in their rhizosphere soil.

A highly selective imprinted amino-functionalized Fe3O4@SiO2 sorbent was prepared by surface molecular imprinting technique for selective removal of trace 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) in water samples. The 2,4-DCP-imprinted amino-functionalized Fe3O4@SiO2 sorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared, transmission electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer, thermogravimetric analysis and batch-mode binding studies. The imprinted functionalized Fe3O4@SiO2 sorbent exhibited high selectivity and offered a fast kinetics for the adsorption of 2,4-DCP. The prepared sorbent was shown to be promising for selective removal of trace levels of 2,4-DCP in environmental water samples.

The gaze tracking system has become an active research field for handicapped persons as well as general people in recent years. The precise mapping method plays an important role in the system. In this paper, a novel infrared gaze tracking system based on nonuniform interpolation is proposed. In this system, the eye images for the computer to analyze are extracted under two infrared light sources and a charge-coupled device camera, and the users do not require wearing any device. First, the integral projection algorithm and canny edge detection are applied to extract the pupil boundary points from the captured eye images, and then the pupil center is computed using an efficient and accurate ellipse-fitting algorithm. Finally, to estimate where the user looks, a novel mapping method based on the nonuniform interpolation algorithm is proposed. In this mapping method, the complicated geometric eyeball model and the nonlinear mapping between the pupil center coordinates and computer monitor screen coordinates do not need to be taken into account. Experimental results show that the proposed mapping method is simple, fast and more accurate. Moreover, our system is the remote eye gaze tracking system. The users do not need to wear any device, which make the users feel more comfortable.

Photocatalysis of supported TiO2 film photocatalyst in a pulsed discharge system for phenol degradation was studied in this paper. The obtained results revealed that the supported TiO2 film with anatase structure had preferable photocatalytic activity in the pulsed discharge system. Phenol degradation and main byproduct generation were better in the discharge/TiO2 system. The photocatalyst prepared with eight times dipping process had higher photocatalytic activity than other photocatalysts and testified a preferable photocatalyst condition in the pulsed discharge system. Furthermore, the supported TiO2 photocatalyst kept photocatalytic activity after using five times in the pulsed discharge system.

Rare-earth-loaded Ag3VO4 catalysts (RE3+-Ag3VO4, RE = Nd, Sm, and Eu) were prepared by the wetness impregnation technique and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The photocatalytic activities of the samples were evaluated by rhodamine B (RhB) dye degradation under visible-light irradiation. It was found that the presence of rare-earth oxides in the host Ag3VO4 could decrease the band gap and accelerate the separation of photogenerated electron−hole pairs, which led to higher photocatalytic activities. Among the rare-earth-loaded samples, Nd3+-loaded Ag3VO4 catalyst showed the highest photocatalytic activity. The optimum contents of Nd3+, Eu3+, and Sm3+ were found to be 2, 3, and 2 wt %, respectively. It was also found that the photocatalytic degradation of RhB over RE3+-Ag3VO4 (2 wt %) followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. A possible mech...

A series of Cu-loaded BiVO(4) (Cu-BiVO(4)) catalysts were prepared by impregnation method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and special surface area. The photocatalytic activities of Cu-BiVO(4) catalysts for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) were found to depend largely on the Cu content and the calcination temperature. The optimum Cu loading and calcination temperature were found to be 5 at.% and 300 degrees C, respectively. The results of XPS and SEM analysis indicated that Cu, CuO in this case, was dispersed on the surface of BiVO(4). The results of DRS analysis showed that the Cu-BiVO(4) series catalysts had significant optical absorption in the visible region between 550 and 800 nm and found that the absorption intensity increased with the enhancement of Cu content. An efficient N-demethylation of MB using Cu-BiVO(4) catalyst (5 at.% Cu content) calcined at 300 degrees C was also observed.

The Fe-, Co- and Cu-loaded BiVO 4 were synthesized by wet impregnation method. The physical and photophysical properties of the samples were characterized by ICP-OES, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–vis diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence (PL) and specific surface area. The XRD analysis confirmed that all photocatalysts had the same crystal forms with the single monoclinic scheelite structure. The results showed that Fe 2 O 3 , Co 3 O 4 and CuO existed on the surface of M-BiVO 4 catalysts (M = Fe, Co and Cu), respectively. The red-shifted trend of absorption band by DRS studies was as follows: Co-BiVO 4 > Cu-BiVO 4 > Fe-BiVO 4 > pure BiVO 4 . The observed trends for the PL intensities of M-BiVO 4 were Co-BiVO 4 > Fe-BiVO 4 > Cu-BiVO 4 . The influence of different transition metal oxides loading (Fe 2 O 3 , Co 3 O 4 and CuO) on the photocatalytic activity for photocatalytic decolorization of methylene blue (MB) was discussed under UV and visible light irradiation. It is found that Cu-loaded BiVO 4 showed the highest reaction activity among all transition metal oxides-loaded samples.

In this paper, an intelligent control scheme based on remote gaze tracking is proposed. First, the eye-moving video of the user is captured by ordinary resolution camera under the illumination of near infrared light sources, then the images of the eye region and the pupil region are extracted by processing the video in real time. We process the image of the pupil region, and get the coordinates of the pupil center and the corneal glints produced by the infrared light sources. The coordinates of the points on the screen that the user is observing are computed by the gaze-tracking algorithm based on cross-ratio-invariant, and a procedure of calibration is needed to eliminate the error produced by the deviation of the optical and visual axes of the eyeball. Finally, the gaze is tracked in real-time. The results show that the accuracy of the gaze tracking system is about 0.327 degree horizontally and 0.300 degree vertically, which is better than most gaze tracking system reported in other papers.

Super resolution reconstruction of images has become a very important research topic nowadays. The accuracy of the image registration plays a crucial role in super resolution. In this paper we present a new sub-pixel registration method which makes use of the combination of mutual information measure criteria and the NEDI interpolation algorithm. Experimental results show that our proposed method can yield accurate registration results. When applying this registration results in SR image reconstruction, PSNR of the image estimated by our proposed method is 1−2 dB higher than those of the images reconstructed by other registration methods.

This paper presents a super-resolution method based on gradient-based adaptive interpolation. In this method, in addition to considering the distance between the interpolated pixel and the neighboring valid pixel, the interpolation coefficients take the local gradient of the original image into account. The smaller the local gradient of a pixel is, the more influence it should have on the interpolated pixel. And the interpolated high resolution image is finally deblurred by the application of wiener filter. Experimental results show that our proposed method not only substantially improves the subjective and objective quality of restored images, especially enhances edges, but also is robust to the registration error and has low computational complexity., Comment: 4pages, 7figures, This paper presents a super-resolution method based on gradient-based adaptive interpolation

In this paper, based on Circularly Symmetrical Gabor Transform (CSGT) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we propose a face hallucination approach. In this approach, all of the face images (both input face image and original training database) are transformed through CSGT at first and then local extremes criteria is utilized to extract the intrinsic features of the faces. Based on these features, we calculate Euclidean distances between the input face image and every face image in the original training database, and then Euclidean distances are used as criteria to choose the reasonable training database. Once the training database is chosen, PCA is applied to hallucinate the input face image as the linear combination of the chosen training images. Experimental results show that our approach can choose training database automatically according to the input face image and get high quality super-resolution image.