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Human orthopneumovirus (OPV) is a common respiratory virus that mostly causes respiratory illness in children. Development of therapeutic strategies to treat OPV infection has attracted considerable interest in the medicinal and biological communities. Over the past decades, significant effects have been addressed on disrupting membrane fusion events by targeting viral fusogenic glycoprotein (F-protein) with chemical small-molecule fusion inhibitors. Here, we focus on the rational design of biologic peptide inhibitors to disrupt the peptide-mediated interaction (PMI) between phosphoprotein (P-protein) and nucleoprotein (N-protein) involved in OPV genomic ribonucleoprotein complex. It is revealed that the core 9-mer peptide segment (C-peptide) derived from the C-terminal tail of P-protein is intrinsically disordered in an unbound state but would be structured into an ordered helical conformation when bound to N-protein, representing a biophysical process known as coupled folding-upon-binding. We demonstrated that the process is a compromise between the favorable enthalpy contribution and unfavorable entropy penalty, thus rendering the weak and transient nature of PMI, which could therefore be readily disrupted by competitive agents. Hydrocarbon stapling strategy was used to constrain the helical conformation of C-peptide in an unbound state by chemically introducing an all-hydrocarbon bridge spanning two [ i , i + 4 ] residues of C-peptide. The stapling is observed to considerably enhance the helical propensity of peptide in an unbound state and to effectively improve the binding affinity of peptide to N-protein. Structural modeling analysis suggests that the stapled counterparts can bind to the active site of N-protein in a similar mode with unstapled C-peptide, where the stapled peptide is folded into a helical-like conformation, its anchor residue Phe241 deeply roots in a small druggable pocket of the active site, and the all-hydrocarbon bridge, as designed, is out of N–C complex interface to avoid disrupting the complex interaction. The peptide-mediated interaction between OPV P-protein and N-protein is investigated systematically at structural, energetic and dynamic levels. A C-peptide is derived from the C-terminal tail of P-protein, which exhibits decreased disorder in free state and increased affinity to N-protein upon hydrocarbon stapling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, the fifth most important cereal worldwide, is a multi‐use crop for feed, food, forage and fuel. To enhance the sorghum and other important crop plants, establishing gene function is essential for their improvement. For sorghum, identifying genes associated with its notable abiotic stress tolerances requires a detailed molecular understanding of the genes associated with those traits. The limits of this knowledge became evident from our earlier in‐depth sorghum transcriptome study showing that over 40% of its transcriptome had not been annotated. Here, we describe a full spectrum of tools to engineer, edit, annotate and characterize sorghum's genes. Efforts to develop those tools began with a morphogene‐assisted transformation (MAT) method that led to accelerated transformation times, nearly half the time required with classical callus‐based, non‐MAT approaches. These efforts also led to expanded numbers of amenable genotypes, including several not previously transformed or historically recalcitrant. Another transformation advance, termed altruistic, involved introducing a gene of interest in a separate Agrobacterium strain from the one with morphogenes, leading to plants with the gene of interest but without morphogenes. The MAT approach was also successfully used to edit a target exemplary gene, phytoene desaturase. To identify single‐copy transformed plants, we adapted a high‐throughput technique and also developed a novel method to determine transgene independent integration. These efforts led to an efficient method to determine gene function, expediting research in numerous genotypes of this widely grown, multi‐use crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital light-field display suffers from low resolution due to lack of planar pixels transformed into spatial information, which limits three-dimensional (3D) visual effect obviously. Herein, a pre-coding optimization of rendering the elemental image array (EIA) using a resolution-enhanced deep neural network (RE-DNN) is proposed, and it is used to enhance each reconstructed view perspective with high clarity besides using the holographic functional screen (HFS). The RE-DNN is used to cooperate with the HFS to form additional effective visual pixels/sub-pixels without increasement of physical planar resolution. The simulation and experimental presented 3D images with high clarity are demonstrated, verifying the feasibility and superiority of the proposed resolution enhancement method. • A deep neural network-enabled resolution enhancement method for the digital light field display based on holographic functional screen is proposed. • The resolution-enhanced deep neural network is designed and used to cooperate with the HFS to form additional effective visual pixels/sub-pixels without increasement of physical planar resolution, which can enhance each reconstructed view perspective with high clarity. • The proposed resolution enhancement method is theoretically available to any kind of digital light field display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tracheobronchial foreign body (TFB) aspiration is a significant cause of respiratory problems in children. The timely diagnosis of TFB is important to decrease the mortality rate and the incidence of complications. Advances in radiology have led multi‐slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) to become the best technique for diagnosing TFB. Methods: We performed a retrospective study over 5 years from July 2008 to June 2013. We collected information on children who were diagnosed with a TFB by bronchoscopy, and analyzed age, sex, location, type of foreign body, and various MSCT manifestations. Results: A total of 382 children were included and 68.6% of them were aged 1 to <2 years. The majority (95.8%) of aspirated foreign bodies were vegetation items, and nearly half (47.6%) of them were peanut kernels, followed by sunflower seeds (26.2%). A total of 4.7% of TFBs were in the trachea, 51.0% were in the left main bronchus, and 44.2% were in the right main bronchus. Among the TFBs, 359 (95.5%) showed a high‐density shadow in the tracheal / bronchial lumen using MSCT, which could establish the presence of a foreign body directly. Emphysema, localized obstruction and pneumonia were more commonly detected in the 7–21 days and ≥21 days group compared with those in the <7 days group (all P < 0.01). Bronchiectasis was found in two children who were diagnosed at least 21 days after aspiration. Conclusions: Multi‐slice spiral computed tomography is very sensitive to TFBs. Timely diagnosis and treatment of TFB is important to prevent long‐term sequelae in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each reconstructed view perspective suffers low display quality due to the shortage of planar pixels for mapping light rays with designated intensity and directions to integrate the 3D image, which limits the 3D visual effect of the digital glass-free three-dimensional (3D) display. Here, a pre-coding optimization method of rendering the elemental image array (EIA) is further proposed and used to enhance each reconstructed view perspective with high clarity and rich details besides using the holographic functional screen (HFS). The pre-coding is realized by reassigning designated sub-pixels of the parallax images (PIs), which are used to synthesize the EIA, by linearly weighting their adjacent sub-pixels with the normalized Gaussian function before the synthetization of the EIA with the PIs. The normalized Gaussian function based reassignment of sub-pixels is consistent with the visual property of the human eye. The simulation and experimental presented 3D images with high clarity and rich details are demonstrated, verifying the feasibility and superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social Network Sites offer users the opportunity to portray themselves with much freedom. People get an impression about a user based on this user’s online profile, posted content and interactions with friends. In this paper, we examine how Neuroticism and Extraversion traits are expressed through such behaviors of a user on Facebook. While previous research relied on self-reported Facebook usage from small samples of college students, we developed a Facebook application to directly retrieve data from 1327 users. This enables us to study fine-grained signals embedded in users’ behaviors, such as writing styles or number of “likes”, and correlate them with users’ personality. We present the features found to be significant and show that these features can be used to infer a user’s Neuroticism and Extraversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We analyzed similarity and difference between users’ email and SNS (Social Network Sites) behavior. [•] We retrieved data directly from 1327 participants’ Facebook and Gmail accounts. [•] Users with more Facebook friends tend to email to more people through Gmail. [•] Producing more content on Facebook does not necessarily affect the production of email on Gmail. [•] Users write content more emotionally and expressively on Facebook than on Gmail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Photoperiod-sensitive male sterility (PSMS) is a valuable germplasm for hybrid rice breeding. Recently, we cloned pms3, a locus controlling PSMS, which encodes a long non-coding RNA called LDMAR required for normal male fertility of the rice plant under long-day conditions. Increased methylation in the promoter of LDMAR in the PSMS rice (Nongken 58S) relative to the wild-type (Nongken 58) reduced expression of LDMAR leading to male sterility under long-day conditions. In this study, we identified a siRNA named Psi–LDMAR in the LDMAR promoter region that was more abundant in Nongken 58S than in Nongken 58. We showed that Psi–LDMAR was likely derived from AK111270, a transcript obtained from the sense strand of the LDMAR promoter with its 3’-end having a 110-base overlap with the 5’-end of LDMAR. Overexpressing AK111270 in Nongken 58S greatly enriched Psi–LDMAR, which induced RNA-directed DNA methylation in the LDMAR promoter and repressed the expression of LDMAR. Reduction of LDMAR in Nongken 58S changed the critical day length for fertility recovery and delayed the fertility recovery under short-day conditions. This result added to our understanding of the molecular mechanism for PSMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MicroRNAs are a class of endogenous small RNA molecules (20-24 nucleotides) that have pivotal roles in regulating gene expression mostly at posttranscriptional levels in plants. Plant microRNAs have been implicated in the regulation of diverse biological processes including growth and stress responses. However, the information about microRNAs in regulating abiotic stress responses in rice is limited. We optimized a one-tube stem-loop reverse transcription quantitative PCR (ST-RT qPCR) for high-throughput expression profiling analysis of microRNAs in rice under normal and stress conditions. The optimized ST-RT qPCR method was as accurate as small RNA gel blotting and was more convenient and time-saving than other methods in quantifying microRNAs. With this method, 41 rice microRNAs were quantified for their relative expression levels after drought, salt, cold, and abscisic acid (ABA) treatments. Thirty-two microRNAs showed induced or suppressed expression after stress or ABA treatment. Further analysis suggested that stress-responsive cis-elements were enriched in the promoters of stress-responsive microRNA genes. The expressions of five and seven microRNAs were significantly affected in the rice plant with defects in stress tolerance regulatory genes OsSKIPa and OsbZIP23, respectively. Some of the predicted target genes of these microRNAs were also related to abiotic stresses. We conclude that ST-RT qPCR is an efficient and reliable method for expression profiling of microRNAs and a significant portion of rice microRNAs participate in abiotic stress response and regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, on the basis of our previous research on bandwidth of non-collinear phase-matching second harmonic generation (SHG) and nonlinear Cherenkov radiation (NCR) generated on the boundary of bulk nonlinear crystal, we demonstrated theoretically the coupled wave equation of SHG generated by a Gaussian beam on the boundary of 5%/mol M g O : L i N b O 3. Using the Fourier-transform technique, we solved this coupled wave equation. The results can explain theoretically the generation mechanism of two different experimental phenomena which corresponded to non-collinear phase-matching SHG under anomalous-dispersion-like dispersion condition and nonlinear NCR under normal dispersion condition, respectively. The theoretical results show a good agreement with the experimental data. This work can provide theoretical fundamental for more complicated research on the boundary of nonlinear media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium (Li) metal batteries hold considerable promise for numerous energy‐dense applications. However, the dendritic Li anode produced during Li+/Li deposition‐stripping endangers battery safety and shortens cycle lifespan. Herein, an electrolyte interphase built from 2D anionic covalent organic frameworks (ACOF) is coated on Li for dendrite suppression. The ACOF with Li+‐affinity facilitates rapid and exclusive passage of Li‐ions from the electrolyte, yielding near‐unity Li+ transference number (0.82) and ionic conductivity beyond 3.7 mS cm‐1 at the interphase. Such high transport efficiency of Li‐ions can fundamentally circumvent the Li+ deficiency that results in dendrite formation. Pairing the ACOF‐coated Li against a high‐voltage LiCoO2 cathode (4.5 V) achieves exceptional cycle stability, mitigated polarization, as well as improved rate capability. Accordingly, this strategy vastly expands the pool of electrolyte interphases that can be used for coating and protecting Li anode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of lithium batteries is heavily governed by the transport of ions within the electrolytes. Commercial liquid electrolytes, however, generally exhibit a low lithium‐ion transference number, causing concentration polarization, side reactions, and deteriorated battery performance. Herein, a novel class of electrolyte additives based on particles of metal–organic framework is proposed to immobilize the anions while allowing efficient transport of lithium ions in the electrolytes. The use of such additives effectively increases the lithium‐ion transference number, enhances the rate capability, and prolongs the cycling life, which provides a facile yet effective strategy toward lithium batteries with dramatically improved performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Plant cell wall composition and structure can be modified as plants adapt to environmental stresses; however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain elusive.Here, we report that OsTMF, a homologue of the human TATA modulatory factor (TMF) in rice (Oryza sativa) and highly conserved in plants, negatively regulates cold tolerance through modification of cell wall properties.Cold stress increased the expression of OsTMF and accumulation of OsTMF in the nucleus, where OsTMF acts as a transcription activator and modulates the expression of genes involved in pectin degradation (OsBURP16), cellulose biosynthesis (OsCesA4 and OsCesA9), and cell wall structural maintenance (genes encoding proline‐rich proteins and peroxidases). OsTMF directly activated the expression of OsBURP16, OsCesA4, and OsCesA9 through binding to the TATA cis‐elements in their promoters. Under cold stress conditions, OsTMF negatively regulated pectin content and peroxidase activity and positively regulated cellulose content, causing corresponding alterations to cell wall properties, all of which collectively contribute to the negative effect of OsTMF on cold tolerance.Our findings unravel a previously unreported molecular mechanism of a conserved plant TMF protein in the regulation of cell wall changes under cold stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Histone H2B monoubiquitination (H2Bub1) plays important roles in several physiological and developmental processes, but its roles in the regulation of plant stress responses remain elusive. Here, we report that H2Bub1 is crucially involved in abscisic acid (ABA) signaling and drought response in rice. We found that rice HISTONE MONOUBIQUITINATION2 (OsHUB2), an E3 ligase for H2Bub1, interacted with OsbZIP46, a key transcription factor regulating ABA signaling and drought response in rice. Genetic analyses suggest that OsHUB2 , upregulated by drought and ABA, positively modulates ABA sensitivity and drought resistance. The H2Bub1 levels were increased in the target genes of OsbZIP46 under the drought stress and ABA treatments, which were positively correlated with their increased expression levels. Interestingly, MODD, a reported suppressor of ABA signaling and drought resistance by mediating OsbZIP46 deactivation and degradation, could reduce the H2Bub1 levels in the target genes of OsbZIP46 by recruiting a putative deubiquitinase OsOTLD1. Suppression of OsOTLD1 in vivo resulted in increased H2Bub1 levels and expression of OsbZIP46 target genes. Collectively, these findings established an elaborate mechanism of histone monoubiquitination in the fine-turning of ABA signaling and drought response by balancing H2Bub1 deposition and removal. Rice HISTONE MONOUBIQUITINATION2 (OsHUB2) interacts with a key transcription factor OsbZIP46 to modulate ABA signaling and drought resistance through regulating histone H2B monoubiquitination and expression levels of stress-responsive genes, which are antagonistically regulated by OsbZIP46-OsHUB2 and MODD (mediator of OsbZIP46 deactivation and degradation)-OsOTLD1 (a putative deubiquitinase) complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A systematical investigation on the electronic structures of the interface of MoO x /mixed organic cations perovskite (FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3) was carried out with ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS), X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL) and absorption spectra (ABS). It is found that the pristine FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 film behaves as heavy n-type semiconductor. Some weakly chemical interactions are detected at the interface of MoO x /FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 from the evolution of the ratio of Mo5+/Mo6+ and attenuation of I. The results of the energy level alignment indicate a total band bending-up (shift to low binding energy) of 0.68 eV and 0.2 eV in the FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 and the MoO x layer, respectively, with the deposition of up to 128 Å MoO x. The built-in field in FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 induces a strong accumulation of photogenerated holes at the interface region, which facilitates the growth of a conducting channel when the interface is used for photodetectors. A low applied voltage ∼0.8 V can overcome the interfacial potential barrier and generate continuous photocurrents based on this conducting channel in the MoO x /FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 -based photodetectors. The analyses are supported by the Au/MoO x (5 nm)/FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 prototype photodetector, which obtains high performances with a detectivity of up to 2.34 × 1012 Jones and a responsivity of 0.356 A W−1, 2 times higher than the Au/FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 photodetector. Meanwhile the optimized photodector has high repeatability and stability. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • The electronic structures of the interface of MoO x /FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3. • The bands bending-up indicate a potential application as photodetectors. • The Au/MoO x /FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3 photodetector has high performance. • Weakly chemical interactions occur at the interface of MoO x /FA 0.4 MA 0.6 PbI 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid organolead halide perovskites, a class of materials used in optoelectronic devices, have attracted significant attention due to their performance and fabrication process. This paper reports on a pinhole free, compact, high-quality, mixed-cation (consisting of formamidinium (FA) and methylammonium (MA)) FA x MA (1− x ) PbI 3 polycrystalline perovskite film prepared in a one-step solution process using a doctor-blading deposition technology under ambient conditions with no subsequent annealing. A perovskite film domain size of up to 100 μm was obtained. A FA x MA (1− x ) PbI 3 -based photodetector using a simplestructure glass/FA x MA (1− x ) PbI 3 /Au device was fabricated. Ultraviolet (UV) high photoresponse reached the near-infrared (NIR) range. Its best responsivity (R) was 10.57 AW -1 with a response speed of ∼9.0 ms. Results indicate that this technique results in high-quality, phase-pure, FA x MA (1− x ) PbI 3 perovskite films and high-performance optoelectronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic-inorganic hybrid halide perovskites have attracted much research interest in optoelectronic field due to their excellent photoelectric properties. Herein, we report large-area and high-performance perovskite CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 photodetectors fabricated via in-situ thermal-treatment doctor blading technique in ambient condition (humidity ∼45%). As compared with spin-coating deposition technique, the doctor-bladed CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 films have larger grain size, as well as good reliability and reproducibility in large area. The doctor-bladed CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 photodetectors exhibited high detectivity ( D* ) of 2.9 × 10 12 Jones and high responsivity ( R ) of 8.95 A/W, as well as the fast response time of less than 7.7 ms. The results indicate that doctor-bladed CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 film is a very promising candidate for fabricating large-scale and high-performance optoelectronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-purity black α-phase formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI 3 , FA is NH 2 CH NH + ) perovskite polycrystalline film was prepared using low-cost, high-output doctor-blading deposition technique in ambient condition without further annealing process and any additives. The resulting α-phase FAPbI 3 perovskite has a large domain size over 200 μm with (00 l ) preferential crystallographic orientation. The photodetectors with an extremely simple structure were fabricated via doctor-blading, resulting in a responsivity as high as 11.46 AW −1 , a ratio of photocurrent/dark current ( I light /I dark ) as large as 10 5 and a response speed as fast as 5.4 ms. The results suggest that low-cost doctor-blading technique in ambient condition potentially pave a way to eliminate the yellow δ-phase FAPbI 3 and get a high-quality black α-FAPbI 3 perovskite film, as well as fabricate efficient FAPbI 3 perovskite optoelectronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from vegetative to reproductive growth is a critical process in the life cycle of higher plants. Previously, we cloned Rice Indeterminate 1 (RID1), which acts as the master switch for the transition from the vegetative to reproductive phase in rice. Although the photoperiod pathway of RID1 inducing expression of the florigen genes Hd3a and RFT1 via Ehd1 has been established, the alternative pathways for the essential flowering transition need to be further examined. Here, we identified a Suppressor of rid1 (SID1), which rescues the never-flowering phenotype of rid1. SID1 encodes an INDETERMINATE DOMAIN (IDD) transcription factor. Mutation in SID1 showed the delayed flowering phenotype. Gain-of-function of SID1, OsIDD1, or OsIDD6 could restore the rid1 to flowering. Further analyses showed SID1 and RID1 directly target the promoter regions of Hd3a and RFT1, two florigen genes in rice. Taken together, our results reveal an autonomous flowering pathway might be mediated by RID1, thereby controlling the phase transition from vegetative to reproductive development in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]