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A new negative-strand RNA (nsRNA) virus genome was discovered in Edgeworthia chrysantha Lindl. This virus, tentatively named "Edgeworthia chrysantha mosaic-associated virus" (ECMaV), has a bipartite genome that comprises (i) a nsRNA1, encoding the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), and (ii) an ambisense RNA2, coding for the putative movement protein (MP) and nucleocapsid protein (NP), with the open reading frames separated by a long AU-rich intergenic region (IR). Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analysis showed that the RdRp is closely related to those of other recently discovered plant-infecting nsRNA viruses in the new genus Coguvirus and that ECMaV can be classified as a member of a novel species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The 1-mode and 0-mode transient voltage integrals are analyzed in the pure-fault network. • A single-end protection method using adaptive thresholds is proposed for the MMC-HVDC grid. • The proposed method is sensitive to single-pole high-resistance faults and suitableness for weak boundaries. For the bipolar modular multilevel converter-based high voltage DC (MMC-HVDC) grids, single-end protection methods suffer from low sensitivity in detecting high-resistance faults (HRF). The performance further deteriorates in a weak boundary configuration. To improve the deficiency, this paper proposes a protection method with adaptive thresholds. First, an MMC simplified circuit, an internal fault analysis network, and a DC bus fault analysis network are presented in pure-fault networks. The integral characteristics for 1-mode and 0-mode voltage fault components are studied under different locations. It is discovered that the relative size for two modal voltage integrals is different for internal faults and DC bus faults. A new form of mathematical morphology filter is proposed to select the required integral time. With 1-mode and 0-mode voltage integral, the fault identification method using adaptive threshold is proposed as well as its setting method. Simulations of a four-terminal MMC-HVDC system built in PSCAD/EMTDC verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The method can fast detect internal single-pole HRFs of different locations and operate reliability under active power reversal, AC-side faults, and noise interference. Compared to some existing methods, the proposed method can detect high-resistance faults under weak boundary configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast frequency response (FFR) is an option in maintaining system security under low inertia conditions. Power electronics interfaced energy resources such as wind and photovoltaics have the capability to deliver FFR. At present, almost all installed power electronics interfaced energy resources are connected to the grid by the phase locked loop (PLL)-synchronized voltage source converter (VSC) and they usually implement inertial response by measuring the rate of change of frequency (RoCoF). However, RoCoF measurements are highly susceptible to disturbances in the grid. In this paper, a novel inertia controller is developed for PLL-synchronized VSC interfaced energy resources to implement natural inertial response without measuring RoCoF. A thorough stability analysis is performed to study the impact of proposed inertia controller on the VSC in weak grid. The proposed inertia controller makes the deviation of DC voltage proportional to the deviation of system frequency. Further, a method of primary frequency control is proposed by measuring DC voltage rather than grid frequency. The proposed FFR scheme of inertia and primary frequency control is applied to a direct-drive windfarm connected to a grid, and its correctness and advantages are verified by simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge graph completion (KGC) aims to infer missing links between entities in knowledge graphs (KGs). Recently, models based on graph neural networks (GNNs) have gained widespread attention due to their effectiveness in leveraging the topological structure information of entities. Meanwhile, contrastive learning (CL) has been employed in GNNs-based models to provide more supervised signals for better entity representation in a self-supervised manner. However, existing methods overlook the potential global semantic collaboration among entities within the entire KG. And the application of CL in KGC models often adopt random graph augmentation or basic node structure contrast, leading to suboptimal performance. To tackle them, we propose a G lobal and L ocal S emantic- E nhanced C ontrastive Framework (GLSEC) for KGC. Specifically, we develop a global Attribute-aware encoder to capture the global semantic features of entities based on an entity-entity Attribute Interaction Graph (AIG). Additionally, we design a Light Graph Aggregation Network (Light-GAN) that innovatively updates the global semantic features using the AIG, combining both efficiency and a lightweight design. Furthermore, we introduce a Global-Local cross-view Contrastive Learning (GLCL) method that contrasts embeddings from global and local views, thereby improving contrastive sample quality and boosting the model's understanding of entities in various contexts. Extensive experiments show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art KGC methods on benchmark datasets FB15k-237 and WN18RR. • We consider both global attribute and local topology information of entities. • We construct a global attribute interaction graph based on entity attribute pairs. • We design a light graph aggregation network for efficient vector updates. • We develop a novel global-local cross-view contrastive learning method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The snowline altitude at the end of melting season (SLA-EMS) provides a possibility to rapidly obtain a proxy for their equilibrium line altitude (ELA) which in turn is an indicator for the glacier mass balance. SLA-EMS is also an important parameter for the study of the relationships between climate and cryosphere. High Mountain Asia (HMA) hosts the largest glacier and perennial snow cover concentration outside the polar regions, but the spatial and temporal patterns of SLA-EMS are poorly understood. Here we investigate the spatial and temporal variation characteristics of SLA-EMS over the HMA on a grid-by-grid (30 km) basis, by using the cloud-removed MODIS fractional snow cover datasets from 2001 to 2016. The possible linkages between the SLA-EMS, temperature, precipitation and solar radiation changes over the HMA are also investigated. The results are as follows: (1) the proposed MODIS-based grids (30 km) SLA-EMS extracting method is efficient in monitoring the spatiotemporal patterns of the SLA-EMS for a large-scale area. (2) In the HMA, the spatial change of the SLA-EMS (from 3114 to 6907 m) exhibits a large spatial heterogeneity. The SLA-EMS decreases from the high altitude region of Himalayas and inner Tibet to surrounding low mountainous area. (3) The SLA-EMS of HMA generally shows a rising trend in the recent years (2001–2016). In total, 82.35% (26.32% with a significant increase) and 17.65% (0.74% with a significant decrease) of the study area show increasing and decreasing trends in SLA-EMS, respectively. The SLA-EMS significantly increases in east Tien Shan (5.16 m yr−1), west Tien Shan (4.64 m yr−1), Inner Tibet (3.64 m yr−1), south and east Tibet (9.18 m yr−1), east Himalaya (8.52 m yr−1) and Hengduan Shan (7.48 m yr−1). (4) The summer temperature trends to be the dominant climatic factor affecting the variations of SLA-EMS over the HMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User interest mining is widely used in the fields of personalized search and personalized recommendation. Traditional methods ignore the formation of user interest which is a process that evolves over time. This leads to the inability to accurately describe the distribution of user interest. In this paper, we propose the interest tracking model (ITM). To add the timing, ITM uses Dirichlet distribution and multinomial distribution to describe the evolutional process of interest topics and frequent patterns, which well adapts to the evolution of user interest hidden in short texts between different time slices. In addition, it is well known that user interest is composed of long-term interest and situational interest including short-term interest and social hot topics. State-of-the-art methods simply regard the users' long-term interest as the users' final interest, which makes those unable to completely describe the user interest distribution. To solve this problem, we propose the deformable interest model (DIM) which designs an objective function to combine users' long-term interest and situational interest and more comprehensively and accurately mine user interest. Furthermore, we present the degree of deformation which measures the subinterest's degree of influence on final interest and propose in DIM the influence real-time update mechanism. The mechanism adaptively updates the degree of deformation through the linear iteration and reduces the degree of dependence of the interest model on training sets. We present results via a dataset consisting of Flickr users and their uploaded information in three months, a dataset consisting of Twitter users and their tweets in three months, and a dataset consisting of Instagram users and their uploaded information in three months, showing that the perplexity is reduced to 0.378, the average accuracy is increased to 94%, and the average NMI is increased to 0.20, which prove better interest prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cost-effective electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) play significant roles in fuel cells and metal–air batteries. Herein, novel PtCo concave nanooctahedra (CNO) with high-energy {110} facets are successfully fabricated by a facile one-pot hydrothermal synthetic approach. Iminodiacetic acid (IDA) plays a crucial role as a structure-guiding agent in regulating the morphology of the PtCo CNO due to its strong chelation with metal ions through the two carboxyl groups and imino group. Benefiting from their unique concave structure and alloy effects, the obtained PtCo CNO exhibit excellent electrochemical activity and stability for the ORR relative to pure Pt nanoparticles (NPs) and commercial Pt black catalysts in alkaline media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid and accurate diagnosis of swine diseases is indispensable for reducing their negative impacts on the pork industry. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a promising diagnostic tool for swine diseases. To support the application of NGS in the diagnosis of swine disease, we established the Swine Pathogen Database (SPDB). The SPDB represents the first comprehensive and highly specialized database and analysis platform for swine pathogens. The current version features an online genome search tool, which now contains 26 148 genomes of swine, swine pathogens and phylogenetically related species. This database offers a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis pipeline for the identification of 4403 swine pathogens and their related species in clinical samples, based on targeted 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metagenomic NGS data. The SPDB provides a powerful and user-friendly service for veterinarians and researchers to support the applications of NGS in swine disease research. Database URL : http://spdatabase.com:2080/ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strained Si/strained Si0.3Ge0.7/relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3 heterostructure p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) with high mobility and low leakage are demonstrated using laser spike annealing, despite a strained Si0.3Ge0.7 channel thickness that is two times the equilibrium critical thickness. Measured hole mobility is enhanced four times for Si0.3Ge0.7 channel MOSFETs relative to Si control devices, at an inversion charge density of 1013 cm-2. For supercritical thickness strained SiGe channel films, the use of laser spike annealing allows source/drain annealing at significantly higher temperatures than is possible with rapid thermal annealing (e.g., 975 versus 800 °C), while achieving superior leakage characteristics. For laser spike annealing temperatures above 1000 °C, mobility is found to degrade due to partial relaxation and dislocation formation in the Si0.3Ge0.7 channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Influence of MILs on LRC surface wettability was analyzed. • Mechanism of coal wettability modification was explained from adsorption. • Propose salting out the separation-strong magnetic recovery process and key parameters. Three types of magnetic ionic liquids (MIL) ([C 12 mim]FeCl 4 , [C 12 mim] 2 CoCl 4 , and [C 12 mim] 2 NiCl 4) were chosen to study the enhancement of the quality and utilization of low-rank coal (LRC). The mechanism of coal wettability modification was explained from the macrocosm and microcosm points of view by contact angle, adhesion work, and adsorption studies, and the recovery of MIL was realized by salting out the separation-strong magnetic recovery (SMR). The contact angle and adhesion work results showed that [C 12 mim]FeCl 4 had the greatest effect on coal wettability. The adsorption on the LRC surface was as follows: [C 12 mim]FeCl 4 > [C 12 mim] 2 CoCl 4 > [C 12 mim] 2 NiCl 4. The adsorption thermodynamics indicated that MIL conformed to the Langmuir isotherm model, which is a spontaneous reaction of exothermic entropy minus physical adsorption. The adsorption kinetic process belong to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and was influenced by the combined action of intraparticle and liquid film diffusion. From the contact angles and adsorption thermodynamics, it can be inferred that [C 12 mim]FeCl 4 has the highest activity and can better adsorb onto the LRC surface, covering the oxygen-containing functional groups and reducing the wettability to achieve efficient quality improvement and utilization of LRC. Through the research of salting-out separation-SMR, the most suitable salting-out reagent was found to be NaCl, and the highest recovery was obtained when the concentration reached the solubility level. As the magnetic field strength increases, the recovery rate gradually increases. The recovery of [C 12 mim]FeCl 4 was more than 90% when it reaches 1.5 T, and it could be recovered by magnetic separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • An approach to estimate the probability distribution of electrified railway traction loads using a non-parametric method. • This method accounts for both optimal bandwidth selection and boundary bias. • This method obtains more accurate results compared with parametric methods and traditional Gaussian kernel density estimator. Abstract The probabilistic modeling for traction load is one of the most basic and challenging work in the field of electrified railway. The improved diffusion-based kernel density estimator (DKDE) is used for the first time to establish the probability distribution of traction loads. Based on the diffusion partial differential equation of finite domain, DKDE can be obtained by discrete and inverse discrete cosine transform. The DKDE effectively accounts for both the optimal bandwidth selection and boundary correction. Based on the measured data (feeder currents and re/active power), four goodness-of-fit tests are applied to test the estimated probability distribution of traction loads. Compared with the parametric estimation models and Gaussian kernel density estimator (GKDE) respectively, the results show that this probability distribution of traction loads by DKDE is more accurate and suitable. Moreover, this DKDE has strong applicability and versatility for the random variation of different traction loads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The reactor line-mode transient voltage fault component in dc grid is analyzed. • The mathematical morphology-based method to select the partition time for two parts is proposed. • The protection scheme using the ratio of the two-part voltage integral is proposed. • The high sensitivity to high impedance faults is validated in a four-terminal meshed DC grid. The fast, sensitive, and reliable primary protection method can ensure the continuous and reliable operation of the modular multilevel converter (MMC)–based HVDC grid during dc faults. This paper proposes a fault detection method based on the ratio of voltage integrals to improve the single-end method sensitivity to high-resistance faults. First, the reactor line-mode transient voltage caused by the initial traveling wave (TW) is analyzed in the fault component network. The exponential term of the voltage is independent of the fault resistance and can be reflected by the proposed voltage integral ratio. Next, the influence of subsequent TWs on the integral is analyzed. The partition time, selected by the mathematical morphology, is proposed to divide the voltage sampling data into two parts. Finally, the criterion using the ratio of the two-part voltage integral is proposed to detect internal faults. The ± 500 kV bipolar MMC-HVDC grid built on PSCAD/EMTDC validates that the proposed method can fast identify internal faults, and the protected zone covers the whole line length. Smulation cases analyze the influence of the reactor and sampling frequencies on the proposed method. Moreover, the method is sensitive to high-resistance faults and can work under white noise and different wiring modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) causes tracheal damage and heterophilic granulocytic infiltration and inflammation in infected chicks. In this study, we infected chick tracheal tissue with strain AE17 and produced pathological sections with proteomic sequencing. We compared the results of pathological sections from the APEC-infected group with those from the PBS control group; the pathological sections from the experimental group showed hemorrhage, fibrinization, and infiltration of heterophilic granulocytes in the tracheal tissue. In order to explore the effect on proteomics on inflammation and to further search for the caus. Results: The tandem mass tag-based (TMT) sequencing analysis showed 224 upregulated and 140 downregulated proteins after infection with the AE17 strain. Based on the results of KEGG in Complement and coagulation cascades, differential protein expression in the Protein export pathway was upregulated. Conclusions: With these results, we found that chemokines produced by the Complement and coagulation cascades pathway may cause infiltration of heterophilic granulocytes involved in inflammation, as well as antimicrobial factors produced by the complement system to fight the infection together.These results suggest that APEC causes the infiltration of heterophilic granulocytes through the involvement of the complement system with serine protease inhibitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxorubicin (DXR), which is produced by Streptomyces peucetius, is an important anthracycline-type antibiotic used for the treatment of various cancers. However, due to the low DXR productivity of wild-type S. peucetius, it is difficult to produce DXR by one-step fermentation. In this study, a DXR-resistance screening method was developed to screen for DXR high-producing mutants. Then, S. peucetius SIPI-11 was treated several times with UV and ARTP (atmospheric and room temperature plasma) to induce mutations. Treated strains were screened by spreading on a DXR-containing plate, isolating a mutant (S. peucetius 33-24) with enhanced DXR yield (570 mg/L vs. 119 mg/L for the original strain). The components of the fermentation medium, including the carbon and nitrogen sources, were optimized to further enhance DXR yield (to 850 mg/L). The pH of the fermentation medium and culture temperature were also optimized for effective DXR production. Finally, DXR production by S. peucetius 33-24 was investigated in flask culture and a fermenter. The yield of DXR was as high as 1100 mg/L in a 5-L fermenter, which is the highest DXR productivity reported thus far, suggesting that S. peucetius 33-24 has the potential to produce DXR by direct fermentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic element refines W powders significantly during the hydrogen reduction process of tungsten oxide in our previous studies. In this paper, the nanocrystalline WC-As composite powders were prepared by carbonization of nano W-As composite powders and the effects of arsenic on the growth of WC powder were discussed in detail. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetric analysis, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Inductively Coupled Plasma. The results showed that arsenic appropriately raised the initial temperature of carbonization, significantly accelerated carbonization reaction process and shorten the reaction time. Moreover, WC-As composite powders merged and grew up directly without particle expansion and cracking. And the nano WAs 2 particles attached to WC grain boundaries and hindered the growth of WC grain through grain boundary migration. The above two effects resulted in the WC-As composite powders prepared at 1300 °C for 2 h with the average size of about 121 nm in diameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the research is to obtain the relative influences of some critical electro-thermal parameters on the ablation temperature and lesion volume during temperature-controlled radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of liver tumor by parameter sensitivity analysis.Methods: The finite element method (FEM) has been used to establish the simulation model of RFA temperature field, and the sensitivity of the tissue parameters has been analyzed. The effects of six parameters have been taken into account, including the thermal specific capacity (Cp), the thermal conductivity (k), the electrical conductivity (Sigma), the density (rho), the dielectric constant (Epsilon) and the resistance (R). The simulation processes based on different parameter values have been accomplished with Comsol Multiphysics software, and the sensitivity parameters have been obtained utilizing the variance contribution rate (SS%) or the main effects.Results: It was found that the ablation temperature and lesion volume increased with increasing the values of Rand Sigma, but was a reverse situation for Cp and rho. Besides, the influence of k on ablation volume was relatively small and Epsilon had a negligible effect on ablation temperature.Conclusions: It is concluded that these parameter sensitivity results can provide scientific and reliable reference for the specificity analysis of the RF ablation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extensive existence of governor deadband has a significant influence on the minimum frequency of power system after a disturbance. However, the strong non-linearity of deadband makes it difficult to quantify its impact on the frequency response. For this end, the backlash non-linearity is adopted to represent for the governor with deadband. The non-linear characteristics of governor with deadband are thus well approximated. The describing function method is applied to linearise the backlash non-linearity. Then a first-order model of governor system is derived to consider the deadband effect quantitatively. Minimum frequency estimation algorithm is proposed based on the first-order model. The proposed algorithm is effective to reflect the effects of various widths of deadbannd on the minimum value of frequency. Case study is conducted to prove its adequate performance in minimum frequency estimation with a practical power grid in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Potassium salt has an interactive effect on the organic components of pyrolysis products. • Both potassium ions and acid ions can affect the pyrolysis products. • K 2 CO 3 has the strongest catalytic effect and its demethylation ability reaches about 57.00%. • KCl produces the highest proportion of guaiacol. • CH 3 COOK promoted the formation of acids in the product and had better fusion effect with bio-chars. There have been few investigations on the pyrolysis characteristics of furfural residue lignin in general. The effects of reaction temperature and potassium salt on the pyrolysis products of furfural residue alkali lignin were explored as a result. The char yield reduced as the pyrolysis temperature increased, whereas the gas yield increased. At 500 °C, the highest bio-oil yield was 20.88 %. The three additives then had a pattern of increasing char and gas yield while decreasing bio-oil yield. K 2 CO 3 was shown to be the greatest representation of the influence of potassium salt, with a demethylation ability that was 57.00 % greater than the other two additives. Potassium chloride, on the other hand, caused alkali lignin to create a larger amount of guaiacol. In biochar, CH 3 COOK had a good fusion effect. The effect of potassium salt additions on solid products was primarily to accelerate the condensation and cyclization of the benzene ring in char, hence increasing char yield, with little influence on gas. The cogeneration effect of various potassium salt additives on pyrolysis products was investigated, and a potential catalytic mechanism was proposed, providing a useful theoretical foundation for the high-value exploitation of furfural waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to enhance the anti-saturation capability of transformer differential protection, a new method based on graph Fourier transform is proposed. First, by analyzing the characteristics of the similarity of the differential protection of the side current and the eigenvector. Secondly, the graph Fourier transform calculates the spectral coefficient for the differential current diagram signal, and constructs the action component and braking component of the differential protection, which can more accurately and effectively identify the faults in the differential protection area, and significantly improves the anti-saturation ability. The dynamic imitation and engineering cases have proved that the new criterion has high sensitivity and maximum TA saturation ability compared to the current mode value and maximum braking methods widely used in the current engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to integrated the control mode of the High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) into the power flow solution method and make it applicable to large-scale AC/DC hybrid system, a multi-core CPU parallel power flow computation method was proposed. First, the mathematical model of HVDC system and the frequently-used control methods of converter are introduced, and then models that have not been considered by conventional power flow programs, such as the adjustment of converter transformer tap and reactive power control management of the converting station, are built. Next, the loop-iteration algorithm is proposed to simulate the conversion of the HVDC control modes, and the AC/DC sequential solution is adopted to solve the AC/DC hybrid power flow. To solve the low speed problem of power flow solution for large-scale systems containing multi-circuit two-terminal DC, this paper handles each circuit separately so that the parallel computation capability of multi-core CPU can be used to improve the computation speed. Finally, the accuracy of the algorithms is validated in a small-scale hybrid system with 5-node and 2-circuit DC, and the excellent convergence and computation efficiency of the algorithms are proved by a large-scale hybrid system with 9241-node and 60-circuit DC as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptive power system critical eigenvalues tracing approach based on the projected continuation of invariant subspace (CIS) is proposed in this study. The proposed method reduces problem size by applying projections to invariant subspace corresponding to critical eigenvalues to ensure efficiency. An adaptive update strategy is adopted to detect and include new critical eigenvalues, ensuring that eigenvalues of interest are always traced. Testing on New England 39‐ and IEEE‐118 bus systems shows that the proposed approach can detect and trace new critical eigenvalues as soon as they emerge and immediately find bifurcation, thus avoiding missing instability information. It also shows that the proposed approach has an advantage in terms of computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased penetration of wind power into the electric grid of China, many challenges emerge due to its fluctuation and intermittence. In this context, it is crucial to achieve higher accuracy of the short-term wind power forecasting for safe and economical operation of the power system. Hence, this paper proposes a novel hybrid methodology for short-term wind power forecasting, successfully combining three individual forecasting models using the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The backpropagation neural network (BPNN), radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) are selected as the individual forecasting models. A new data preprocessing method based on Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) is also applied for selecting proper inputs for three individual models. Results obtained show the advancement of the PCC based data preprocessing method. Also, the comparison studies demonstrate that the proposed hybrid methodology presents a significant improvement in accuracy with respect to three individual models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A quantitative calculation and analysis method of the correlation degree between traction load sequences based on the optimal delay is proposed. • The generalized EM algorithm combined with the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) is proposed to solve the optimal delay model. • Considering the effects of no-load removal processing, inverse transformation, and different sampling intervals, the maximum correlation coefficient of Pearson, Spearman and Kendall and the corresponding optimal delay amount are obtained. • The proposed method provides the basic information of correlation for traction load modeling and its application. The correlation between traction load sequences is an important basic information for traction load modeling, but the correlation and time difference between traction load sequences restrict each other. The analysis method for the correlation between traction load sequences based on the optimal delay method is proposed in this paper. This method appropriately delays the sequences between different traction loads and taps the indirect correlation between traction load sequences. Firstly, the maximum correlation coefficient between the two traction load sequences after delaying is taken as the objective function to establish the optimal delay model. The delay time range and the monotonicity of sequence occurrence time constitute the constraints. Secondly, combined with the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) index, the generalized expectation maximization (EM) algorithm is proposed to solve the optimal delay model. Finally, the traction load sequence with one and two trains at any period of time from the four traction substations of high-speed railway are taken as case examples. Considering the effects of no-load removal processing, inverse transformation, and different test intervals, the maximum correlation coefficients of Pearson, Spearman and Kendall, as well as the corresponding optimal delay amount are calculated. The analysis results show that the proposed method in this paper can dig out the potential delay correlation between traction load sequences, as well as provide basic reference information for traction load modeling and its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commitment and differentiation of the alveolar type I (AT1) cell lineage is a critical step for the formation of distal lung saccules, which are the primitive alveolar units required for postnatal respiration. How AT1 cells arise from the distal lung epithelial progenitor cells prior to birth and whether this process depends on a developmental niche instructed by mesenchymal cells is poorly understood. We show that mice lacking histone deacetylase 3 specifically in the developing lung mesenchyme display lung hypoplasia including decreased mesenchymal proliferation and a severe impairment of AT1 cell differentiation. This is correlated with a decrease in Wnt/β-catenin signaling in the lung epithelium. We demonstrate that inhibition of Wnt signaling causes defective AT1 cell lineage differentiation ex vivo . Importantly, systemic activation of Wnt signaling at specific stages of lung development can partially rescue the AT1 cell differentiation defect in vivo . These studies show that histone deacetylase 3 expression generates an important developmental niche in the lung mesenchyme through regulation of Wnt signaling, which is required for proper AT1 cell differentiation and lung sacculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a severe malignant cancer worldwide, in both adult and pediatric patients. Since bone marrow cell transplantation is seriously limited by the availability of the immune-paired donor sources, the therapy for pediatric leukemia remains challenging. Ginsenoside Rh2 (GRh2) is a well-characterized component in red ginseng, and has established therapeutic effects for different diseases, although whether GRh2 may have a therapeutic effect on pediatric leukemia has not been investigated. Methods: We examined the effects of GRh2 on the survival of mice in an acute leukemia model. We analyzed the effects of GRh2 on the cell viability of leukemia cell lines in vitro, using a CCK-8 assay and an MTT assay. We analyzed the effects of GRh2 on the apoptosis of leukemia cell lines in vitro, by flow cytometry. We analyzed the levels of Bcl-2 and microRNA-21 (miR-21) in GRh2-treated leukemia cells. Prediction of binding between miR-21 and 3'-UTR of Bcl-2 mRNA was performed by a bioinformatics algorithm and confirmed by a dual luciferase reporter assay. Results: GRh2 significantly prolonged the survival of mice with pediatric leukemia. GRh2 significantly decreased the viability of leukemia cells in vitro, through induction of apoptosis. GRh2 significantly decreased the levels of an anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 in leukemia cells, possibly through induction of miR-21, which suppressed the translation of Bcl-2 mRNA via 3'-UTR binding. Conclusion: GRh2 may be an effective treatment for pediatric leukemia, and GRh2 may induce apoptosis of leukemia cells through miR-21-modulated suppression of Bcl-2. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Motors are widely utilized in industry. When the mechanical load oscillates, a motor injects interharmonic currents to the grid and becomes an interharmonic source. The interharmonic currents have an important impact on power quality. This paper, respectively, presents the spectrum of the stator interharmonic currents of the induction and synchronous motors. The mathematical models of both motors, which are nonlinear when the load torque oscillates, are linearized. Then, the spectrum expressions of the interharmonic currents of the two types of motors are derived, respectively. On this basis, the relationship between load torque oscillations and the spectrum of the stator interharmonic currents is analyzed. The effect of the various induction motor steady output powers on the spectrum of the interharmonics is investigated. Simulation results validate the theoretical analysis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] The Ibrahim time domain (ITD) method is able to identify the frequencies, damping and mode shapes of the interarea modes. [•] A zero-phase low-pass filter will greatly improve the performance of the ITD method in the presence of measurement noise. [•] The ITD method is much faster than the stochastic subspace identification (SSI) method in estimating interarea modes. [•] When the input ring-downs are contaminated by ambient noise, the ITD method performs better than the SSI method. [•] The ITD method may still give quite acceptable estimation results when only limited input signals are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the present study, the interaction of vanillin and human serum albumin (HSA) has been characterised by molecular modelling, fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopic methods. The results of molecular modelling suggested that vanillin was located within the binding pocket of subdomain IIA of HSA mainly by hydrophobic forces. The quenching of HSA fluorescence takes place with a binding constant (K) of 8.8, 7.7, 5.7, 4.2×104 M−1 at four different temperatures (288, 298, 308, 318K), respectively. Meanwhile, the number of binding site (n ≈1) was also obtained from fluorescence titration data. The enthalpy change ΔH 0 and the entropy change ΔS 0 were calculated to be −20kJmol−1 and 5.8Jmol−1 K−1 according to the Van’t Hoff equation. Furthermore, the alterations of protein secondary structure in the presence of vanillin were explored by FT-IR and CD spectra. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this study, the interaction of the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA) and human serum albumin (HSA) was investigated by molecular modelling, fluorescence, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–vis), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD). The association constants between BPA and HSA were determined using the Scatchard equation. The thermodynamic parameters of the binding reaction (ΔG 0, ΔH 0 and ΔS 0) were measured, and they indicated the presence of hydrophobic forces in the BPA–HSA interaction, which agreed well with the results from molecular modelling. The alterations of protein secondary structure in the presence of BPA were confirmed by UV–vis, FT-IR and CD spectroscopy. Lastly, the average binding distance, r, between BPA and HSA was evaluated and found to be 1.82nm according to Förster’s theory of non-radiation energy transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhanced anticoagulation and/or even bleeding are often observed when patients on long-term warfarin (WAR) therapy consumed Danshen, a well-known medicinal herb in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This study demonstrates that altered WAR metabolism, arising from its interaction with the active components in Danshen, played a significant role in this curative effect. Mass spectrometric techniques including ESI-ITMS (electrospray ionization ion-trap mass spectrometry) and ESI-TOF (time-of-flight)-MS have been developed for the study of such drug–herb interactions. The experimental approach involved a detailed analysis and comparison of WAR metabolites in vivo from blood or urine of rats that had been orally administrated with WAR, either singly or together with the representative bioactive component of Danshen–lipid soluble TIIA (Tanshinon IIA), and a study of the interaction of human serum albumin (HSA), WAR, and water-soluble sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) in vitro. Results demonstrate that TIIA accelerates the metabolic rate of WAR, whereas STS displaces WAR from the WAR–HSA complex, resulting in an increase of free WAR concentration in blood. It is suggested that the elevated level and enhanced metabolism of WAR is responsible for the over-anticoagulation effect observed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A new pair of estimate points with only first three-order moments are added for additional calculation to improve the calculation accuracy of 3PEM. • It avoids the calculation of higher order center moments and the non-real number solutions that may occur with normalized center distances. • Taking into account the different coefficients of variation and the results of MCS method as a reference, the results have been compared with those obtained by the existing 2PEM and 3PEM in the presence of Normal distribution inputs, correlated inputs and non-normal inputs. • The performance and applicability to system size of the improved three point-estimate method scheme are discussed and compared. An improved three point-estimate method (I3PEM) scheme is proposed to estimate the probability moments of probabilistic power flow (PLF) in this paper. I3PEM is obtained by the existing three point-estimate method (3PEM), two point-estimate method (2PEM) and Chebyshev inequality. With only first three order moments (mean, standard deviation and skewness) of input random variables, the additional calculations in I3PEM are performed by a newly added pair of estimate points to improve the accuracy of estimated moments for output random variables. It is avoided the calculation of higher order center moments and the non-real number solutions that may occur with normalized center distances. The case studies of IEEE 14-bus and 118-bus system are employed to verify the performance of I3PEM in the presence of Normal distribution inputs, correlated inputs and non-normal inputs. Under the different coefficient of variation (CV) conditions, the results of MCS are used as benchmark. The accuracy of results obtained by I3PEM have been validated by comparing with those obtained from the basic 3PEM and 2PEM. Further, the advantages and applicability of I3PEM are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, few-shot knowledge graph completion (FKGC) has gained popularity as a solution to the long-tail distribution problem of real-world knowledge graphs (KGs). The previous knowledge graph completion (KGC) models obtain triple representation merely relying on the structure view, ignoring the valuable semantic knowledge. In this paper, we propose a multi-view framework for few-shot relation learning to address the issue. Specifically, based the structural information of the graph obtained using the structure view, we add the text view and the commonsense view. The text view employs text descriptions of entities and relations to obtain a richer semantic representation. The commonsense view performs high-quality negative sampling based on complex relations. Moreover, commonsense semantic constraints are invoked to suppress the overfitting caused by the complexity of the relation matrix. Extensive experiments show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art FKGC methods on the frequently-used benchmark datasets FB15k237-One and NELL-One. • We design a multi-view joint encoder to learn semantic information. • Commonsense semantic constraints are introduced to explore semantic relations. • We leverage the commonsense view to generate high-quality negative triples. • We identify candidate entities that match commonsense in the prediction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is critical for microwave ablation (MWA) treatment planning to evaluate the changes of thermal coagulation zones. In MWA procedures, the shapes and sizes of thermal coagulation zones are gradually evolving over time. To this end, a novel characterization and mapping method of thermal coagulation zones is presented in this article. Firstly, finite element method (FEM) models of temperature distributions for 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 W microwave ablations were built to derive thermal ablation data of ex vivo porcine livers and were compared with experimental results. Secondly, growth models of characteristic lengths were fitted. Finally, characterization functions of thermal coagulation zones were developed using these growth models. In addition, shape variation factors were incorporated to handle the minor shape variations of thermal coagulation zones. Experimental results showed that these characterization functions could accurately represent the changes of thermal coagulation zones. The standard deviations between prediction results and simulated values were less than 1 mm. The comparative results were statistically analyzed by paired t test (P > 0.05), indicating no significant differences. The proposed method can simply and effectively predict the changes of MWA coagulation zones with time, thus providing reliable coagulation dimensions for the thermal ablation therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature predictions of microwave ablation (MWA) are currently restricted by the specific temperature‐dependent data of tissue characteristic parameters. To address this issue, a new parameter feedback method based on temperature simulations and single‐thermometry measurements was presented. Experimental data of 2450‐MHz microwave antenna was obtained from ex vivo porcine livers. A temperature distribution model was constructed, and the contributions of characteristic parameters were acquired by the sensitivity analysis method. Subsequently, parameter feedbacks were conducted based on a minimization of the errors between numerical data and single‐thermometry measurements. The temperature distribution model was then optimized using the feedback parameters. Finally, temperature measurements were compared with simulation data to validate the accuracy of the model. According to the temperature distribution model with parameter feedback, the averages of maximum error, average error, as well as SD between the simulation temperatures and the measurements were 2.952, 1.323, and 0.852°C, respectively. The simulated and measured temperature changes were generally in good agreement. The proposed method can be useful in MWA temperature simulations to improve temperature prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphofructokinase, platelet (PFKP) is a rate-limiting enzyme of glycolysis that plays a decisive role in various human physio-pathological processes. PFKP has been reported to have multiple functions in different cancer types, including lung cancer and breast cancer. However, no systematic pancancer analysis of PFKP has been performed; this type of analysis could elucidate the clinical value of PFKP in terms of diagnosis, prognosis, drug sensitivity, and immunological correlation. Systematic bioinformation analysis of PFKP was performed based on several public datasets, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), and Human Protein Atlas (HPA). Prospective carcinogenesis of PFKP across cancers was estimated by expression analysis, effect on patient prognosis, diagnosis significance evaluation, and immunity regulation estimation. Then, pancancer functional enrichment of PFKP was also assessed through its effect on the signaling score and gene expression profile. Finally, upstream expression regulation of PFKP was explored by promoter DNA methylation and transcription factor (TF) prediction. Our analysis revealed that high expression of PFKP was found in most cancer types. Additionally, a high level of PFKP displayed a significant correlation with poor prognosis in patients across cancers. The diagnostic value of PFKP was performed based on its positive correlation with programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). We also found an obvious immune-regulating effect of PFKP in most cancer types. PFKP also had a strong negative correlation with several cancer drugs. Finally, ectopic expression of PFKP may depend on DNA methylation and several predicated transcription factors, including the KLF (KLF transcription factor) and Sp (Sp transcription factor) families. This pancancer analysis revealed that a high expression level of PFKP might be a useful biomarker and predictor in most cancer types. Additionally, the performance of PFKP across cancers also suggested its meaningful role in cancer immunity regulation, even in immunotherapy and drug resistance. Overall, PFKP might be explored as an auxiliary monitor for pancancer early prognosis and diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Use quantum chemistry predict MIL structure and properties. • MIL break hydrogen bond in coal and cause coal swelling by simulation methods. • Pretreatment of coal reduces the loss of weight temperature and improves tar yield. Since direct combustion of low-rank coal is inefficient, expansion and dissolution are essential for better use of coal as an energy source. In this study, [C 8 mim]FeCl 4 molecular configuration was synthesized by quantum chemical simulation method, and Magnetic ionic liquid (MIL) was used to modify coal to improve its swelling efficiency. The FT-IR and Raman properties of MIL were measured by simulation combined with practical methods. Dmol3 was used to study the hydrogen bond changes of coal molecules induced by MIL. When MIL interacts violently with organic matter in coal, the cross-linking network structure generated by non-covalent bonds is destroyed, resulting in the break of covalent bonds such as hydrogen bonds. Further experimental study shows that the pore structure and surface morphology of modified coal samples will be damaged, indicating that the MIL has the ability to dissolve hydrogen bonds and pretreat low-rank coal. It was found by TGA that MIL treatment can increase the tar yield of coal by up to 4.79% and reduce ash content by 3.51%. Through the integration of molecular modeling and experimental analysis, this study elucidates the fundamental principles underlying MIL pretreatment of coal, thereby providing a viable strategy for efficient quality improvement utilization of low-rank coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The time sequence probabilistic model of traction station load of high-speed railway considering the spatial correlation is proposed by applying the diffusion-based kernel density estimator (DKDE). • The model of time sequence three-phase probabilistic power flow (3PPF) calculation for power system connected with traction load is proposed through the port transformation of traction power supply system (TPSS). • The algorithm of time sequence 3PPF calculation model based on the three-point estimation method (3PEM) owned both the accuracy and the computational efficiency. • The time sequence probability density curves of voltage amplitude and three phase voltage unbalance degree of grid are obtained under the impact of the asymmetry and spatiotemporal of traction load of high-speed railway. The increasing traction station load of high-speed railway with single-phase, high-power, spatiotemporal mobility, and uncertainty has brought major impacts and challenges to the power system. The non-negligible characteristics are the spatial distribution of traction stations on high-speed railway lines, the time sequence of traction load moving with EMUs, as well as the nonparametric probabilistic features and correlation of traction load. A method of time sequence three-phase probabilistic power flow (3PPF) calculation for power system including traction station load of high-speed railway is proposed in this paper. Firstly, through the port transformation of traction power supply system (TPSS), the three-phase equivalent model of TPSS is established to construct an unbalanced three-phase power flow calculation model of grid with traction station load. Secondly, considering the spatial correlation, time sequence and non-parametric probabilistic feature of traction load, the time sequence probabilistic models of multiple traction station loads are built based on diffusion-based kernel density estimator (DKDE). Then, the algorithm of time sequence 3PPF calculation based on three-point estimation method (3PEM) is applied to deal with the computational efficiency and accuracy problems of 3PPF considering correlation and timing. Finally, the two modified three-phase power systems are employed for case studies in combination with the measured data of traction station of a high-speed railway. The validity and computing efficiency of the proposed method are verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphofructokinase, platelet (PFKP) is a rate-limiting enzyme of glycolysis that plays a decisive role in various human physio-pathological processes. PFKP has been reported to have multiple functions in different cancer types, including lung cancer and breast cancer. However, no systematic pancancer analysis of PFKP has been performed; this type of analysis could elucidate the clinical value of PFKP in terms of diagnosis, prognosis, drug sensitivity, and immunological correlation. Systematic bioinformation analysis of PFKP was performed based on several public datasets, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), and Human Protein Atlas (HPA). Prospective carcinogenesis of PFKP across cancers was estimated by expression analysis, effect on patient prognosis, diagnosis significance evaluation, and immunity regulation estimation. Then, pancancer functional enrichment of PFKP was also assessed through its effect on the signaling score and gene expression profile. Finally, upstream expression regulation of PFKP was explored by promoter DNA methylation and transcription factor (TF) prediction. Our analysis revealed that high expression of PFKP was found in most cancer types. Additionally, a high level of PFKP displayed a significant correlation with poor prognosis in patients across cancers. The diagnostic value of PFKP was performed based on its positive correlation with programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). We also found an obvious immune-regulating effect of PFKP in most cancer types. PFKP also had a strong negative correlation with several cancer drugs. Finally, ectopic expression of PFKP may depend on DNA methylation and several predicated transcription factors, including the KLF (KLF transcription factor) and Sp (Sp transcription factor) families. This pancancer analysis revealed that a high expression level of PFKP might be a useful biomarker and predictor in most cancer types. Additionally, the performance of PFKP across cancers also suggested its meaningful role in cancer immunity regulation, even in immunotherapy and drug resistance. Overall, PFKP might be explored as an auxiliary monitor for pancancer early prognosis and diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is a highly pathogenic bacterium for maricultured fish and causes serious losses. A transcriptional regulator gene RK21_RS10315 was found up-regulated during the whole infection process, which was confirmed by qRT-PCR. Five shRNA were designed to silence RK21_RS10315 gene, and the gene expression was reduced up to 96.1%. Compared with the counterpart infected with wild type strain, the infection of RK21_RS10315 -RNAi strain resulted in the death time delay, and 90% reduction in mortality of Epinephelus coioides , as well as the alleviation in the symptoms of E. coioides spleen. Moreover, compared with the fish infected with wild type strain, the infection of RK21_RS10315 -RNAi strain of P. plecoglossicida resulted in a significant change both in transcriptome of spleen of infected E. coioides and P. plecoglossicida. The KEGG analysis showed that genes of 16 immune pathways in E. coioides were affected by the silence of RK21_RS10315 of P. plecoglossicida. Among them, intestinal immune network for IgA production pathway and leukocyte transendothelial migration pathway were more prominent than other pathways. 19 euk-DEMs in these immune pathways had varying degrees of correlation with 19 pro-DEMs, and the expression of ipxA , grpE , yhbJ , truD and suhB from 19 pro-DEMs were predicted more related to RK21_RS10315 in P. plecoglossicida. Highlights • RNAi significantly reduced the content of RK21_RS10315 mRNA of P. plecoglossicida. • RNAi of RK21_RS10315 significantly reduced the pathogenicity of P. plecoglossicida to E. coioides. • Correlations in gene expression between euk-DEMs and pro-DEMs were affected in the pathogen-host interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is an important and highly pathogenic bacterium for aquaculture and causes serious losses. The expression level of flgM was found to be significantly upregulated post-infection compared with in vitro results, which was confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. RNAi significantly reduced the expression level of flgM mRNA of P. plecoglossicida. Compared with infection with the wild-type strain, infection with the flgM -RNAi strain resulted in a delay in death and a 75% reduction in the mortality of Epinephelus coioides , followed by alleviation of the symptoms in E. coioides spleen. Moreover, compared with infection with the wild-type strain, infection with the flgM -RNAi strain of P. plecoglossicida resulted in a significant change in the transcriptome of the spleens of infected E. coioides and P. plecoglossicida. KEGG analysis for E. coioides showed that genes of 17 immune pathways were most affected by flgM -RNAi of P. plecoglossicida. Among them, the expression of mhc2 , zap70 , rhoh , tlr2 , ca79a , hcst and cd32 in E. coioides spleen was predicted to be negatively related to flgM in P. plecoglossicida but positively related to genes involved in communication, metabolism and motility. Highlights • The pathogenicity of P. plecoglossicida to E. coioides was significantly reduced for the flgM -RNAi strain. •. RNAi of flgM significantly resulted in upregulation of immune pathways in E. coioides infected with P. plecoglossicida • The upregulated E. coioides immune genes co-expressed with P. plecoglossicida genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An annealing method capable of forming highly activated shallow junctions in Ge CMOS is still lacking. For the first time, nonmelt submillisecond laser spike annealing (LSA) is demonstrated to achieve high activation level, excellent diffusion control, and resulting low contact resistivity for both n-type and p-type Ge junctions when using P and B as the dopants, respectively. The thermal stability of the junctions activated by LSA is investigated. In addition, our results on Ge junctions and contacts are benchmarked systematically against published results using sheet resistance-junction depth ( Rs-{X}{\!{j}} ) plots and contact resistivity-dopant concentration ( \rho c-{N} ) plots. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two novel Bacillus glycoside hydrolase family 53 (GH53) endo-1,4-β-galactanases (Bs936 and Bs4828) were identified. The recombinant Bs936 and Bs4828 displayed maximal activities at pH 5.5/55 °C and pH 6.5/65 °C, respectively. Stability analyses revealed that the enzymes were stable between pH 4.5–10, retaining over 80% activities after 12 h incubation at 25 °C. Moreover, Bs936 maintained about 75% activity after being treated at 45 °C for 2 h, while Bs4828 kept full activity after 4 h of incubation at 50 °C. Importantly, Bs936 and Bs4828 exhibited good activity towards β-1,4-galactan, showing specific activities of 1859.46- and 3110.79 U/mg towards potato galactan, respectively. The corresponding K m and k cat /K m were 4.93 mg/mL and 296.35 mL/mg/s for Bs936, and 6.60 mg/mL and 707.12 mL/mg/s for Bs4828. Extensive synergy assays revealed that each endo-1,4-β-galactanase acted synergistically with the other β-galactosidase (Bs937 or Bs4829), endo-1,5-α-L-arabinosidase (BsAbn2) and an endoxylanase/endoglucanase+cellulase mixture (BaXynA + LsCel) towards the hydrolysis of galactan, debranched arabinan/arabinan, and pretreated corn stover, respectively. The corresponding degrees of synergy were 1.28, 1.17/1.09, and 1.15 for Bs486 and 1.55, 1.04/1.08, and 1.11 for Bs4828, respectively. This study expands the repertoire of GH53 enzymes, and demonstrates the role of two highly active endo-1,4-β-galactanases in polysaccharides hydrolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bacteria deliver effector proteins into the host cell via a secretory system that can directly act on the target to cause disease. As an important pipeline structural protein of the type VI secretion system (T6SS) complex, Hcp acts together with other virulence factors in the target cell. There is growing evidence that T6SS plays a key role in the pathogenic mechanism of APEC. However, the regulatory function played by the effector protein Hcp during its interaction with host cells is not clear. Here, tandem mass tag (TMT) analysis was used to quantify the proteins affected by increased expression of Hcp2a in DF-1 cells. Results: The host response was significantly different between the overexpression and null groups at the protein level. A total of 195 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were detected in the overexpression group (upregulated, n = 144, downregulated, n = 51). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to predict the biological functions and pathways of differentially expressed proteins. The results showed that these DEPs were mainly enriched in RNA degradation, spliceosome, and mRNA surveillance pathways. Conclusions: This study suggests that Hcp2a, the effector protein of APEC, plays an important role in regulating mRNA splicing and protein quality control in DF-1 cells. These findings provide useful clues to elucidate the pathogenic mechanism of effector protein Hcp2a on host target cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is a Gram-negative pathogenic bacterium that causes visceral white spot disease in several marine fish species, resulting in high mortality and financial loss. Based on previous RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) results, rpoD gene expression is significantly up-regulated in P. plecoglossicida during infection, indicating that rpoD may contribute to bacterial pathogenicity. To investigate the role of this gene, five specific short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) were designed and synthesized based on the rpoD gene sequence, with all five mutants exhibiting a significant decrease in rpoD gene expression in P. plecoglossicida. The mutant with the highest silencing efficiency (89.2%) was chosen for further study. Compared with the wild-type (WT) P. plecoglossicida strain NZBD9, silencing rpoD in the rpoD -RNA interference (RNAi) strain resulted in a significant decrease in growth, motility, chemotaxis, adhesion, and biofilm formation in P. plecoglossicida. Silencing of rpoD also resulted in a 25% increase in the survival rate, a one-day delay in the onset of death, and a significant decrease in the number of white spots on the spleen surface of infected orange-spotted groupers (Epinephelus coioides). In addition, rpoD expression and pathogen load were significantly lower in the spleens of E. coioides infected with the rpoD -RNAi strain than with the WT strain of P. plecoglossicida. We performed RNA-seq of E. coioides spleens infected with different P. plecoglossicida strains. Results showed that rpoD silencing in P. plecoglossicida led to a significant change in the infected spleen transcriptomes. In addition, comparative transcriptome analysis showed that silencing rpoD caused significant changes in complement and coagulation cascades and the IL-17 signaling pathway. Thus, this study revealed the effects of the rpoD gene on P. plecoglossicida pathogenicity and identified the main pathway involved in the immune response of E. coioides. • Pseudomonas plecoglossicida rpoD gene was silenced by RNA interference with an efficiency of 89.2%. • Silencing rpoD resulted in a 25% increase in the survival rate of E. coioides infected by P. plecoglossicida. • Silencing rpoD significant affected the immune response of infected E. coioides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate awareness of the properties of the interarea electromechanical oscillation modes is essential for the secure operation of the power systems. Previously, the Ibrahim time domain (ITD) method has been applied to estimate the interarea oscillation modes using ring-down signals caused by major disturbances (such as three phase faults). In this paper, through the combination of the random decrement technique (RDT) and the ITD method, the RDT–ITD method is proposed to estimate the interarea modes during ambient operation of the power systems, using random responses caused by random changes of the loads. The estimated parameters include the frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes. Considering the fact that both the ambient excitations and the measurement noise are stochastic in nature, Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to evaluate the performances of the RDT–ITD method in a statistical way. Simulation results in the 16 machine nonlinear power system model, as well as comparison results with the RDT-Prony method, the NExT-ERA method and the Subspace method realized by N4SID (Numerical algorithm for Subspace State Space System Identification) show that the RDT–ITD method is promising in estimating the interarea modes during ambient operation conditions. The RDT–ITD method was also validated using real PMU measurements from Sichuan power grid of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A range of La–Ca–Mn–O films have been grown using pulsed-laser deposition on hot Si substrates. The composition of the films is found to be strongly dependent on substrate temperature (T[sub s]) with the calcium and oxygen content being significantly reduced at high T[sub s] (>700 °C). The kinetic energies of the various ions in the laser generated plume are found to be distributed in the 10–100 eV range, high enough to induce resputtering from deposited films. Surface segregation was also observed in the films grown at high T[sub s] (>700 °C), resulting in a Ca-rich surface. Preferential resputtering of these surface Ca-rich segregated samples, driven by a mixture of high energy ion irradiation and thermally activated processes, is proposed to explain the observed phenomena. © 1998 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TNF receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6) has been reported to be associated with the development of cancer. Nevertheless, the exact role of TRAF6 in cancer remains unclear. The purpose of the present study was to explore the mechanism of 2-benzoyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-9H-xanthen-9-one leading to the inhibition of the activation of AKT and TGF-β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1), and to the apoptosis of MCF-7 cells. Using a computational docking program and examination of AKT and TAK1 level changes, a new small molecule was identified, 2-benzoyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-9H-xanthen-9-one, which competitively bound to TRAF6. Next, the effect of this new compound on MCF-7 cells' biological behavior was studied in vitro. MTT assays were used to investigate cell viability; flow cytometry and invasion assays were performed to detect early apoptosis and invasion in MCF-7 cells, respectively. Immunoprecipitation, western blotting and caspase-3/9 activity assays were carried out to explore changes in protein expression. Briefly, the present data indicated that 2-benzoyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-9H-xanthen-9-one could suppress proliferation, induce early apoptosis and inhibit invasion in MCF-7 cells by suppressing the expression of Bcl-2 and promoting the expression of Bax, caspase-9, and caspase-3. These findings indicated that 2-benzoyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-9H-xanthen-9-one could induce apoptosis by inhibiting the activation of AKT and TAK1, and affecting the Bcl-2/Bax-caspase-9-caspase-3 pathway by competitively binding with TRAF6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WS-299 binds to RBX1 and disrupts the interaction of RBX1–UBE2M, thus causing selective inhibition of CUL3/5 neddylation and the collapse of neddylation complex. [Display omitted] • WS-299 showed excellent anti-proliferative activity in vivo and vitro. • WS-299 inhibited CUL3 neddylation by inhibiting RBX1-UBE2M interaction. • WS-299 induced ROS level was weakened by Nrf2 and the anticancer effect of WS-299 was enhanced by combination with shNrf2. The abnormal activation of Cullin RING E3 Ligases (CRLs) is closely associated with the occurrence and development of various cancers. Targeting the neddylation pathway represents an effective approach for cancer treatment. In this work, we reported that WS-299 , structurally featuring a coumarin moiety attached to the triazolopyrimidine, exhibited excellent anti-proliferative activity in MGC-803 and HGC-27 cells. WS-299 exerted potent anticancer effects by inhibiting clone formation, EdU incorporation and inducing cell cycle arrest. WS-299 inhibited CUL3/5 neddylation and caused an obvious accumulation of Nrf2 and NOXA, substrates of CRL3 and CRL5, respectively. Biochemical studies showed that WS-299 inhibited CUL3 neddylation by inhibiting RBX1-UBE2M interaction. The anti-proliferative effect of WS-299 was mainly induced by NOXA-mediated apoptosis. Of note, Nrf2 attenuated WS-299- induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Furthermore, Nrf2 accumulation also had an antagonistic effect on NOXA-induced apoptosis. Therefore, WS-299 and siNrf2 synergistically increased ROS levels, apoptotic cells and suppressed tumor growth in vivo. Taken together, our research clarified the anti-cancer mechanisms of WS-299 through targeting the RBX1-UBE2M protein-protein interaction and inhibiting the neddylation modification of CUL3 and CUL5. More importantly, our studies also demonstrated that combination of WS-299 with shNrf2 could be an effective strategy for treating gastric cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]