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It was reported that Melatonin (MT) is essential for plants and can mitigate multiple abiotic stresses. However, the mechanism used by endogenous MT to alleviate chromium phytotoxicity is still unclear. In this study, the effects of MT pretreatment on growth, root architecture, subcellular Cr distribution, phytochelatin synthesis and antioxidant metabolism of wheat seedlings under chromium (50 µM Cr6+) stress were researched. Our results showed that Cr stress markedly inhibited seedlings growth and increased ROS accumulation in both roots and leaves. Importantly, growth inhibition and oxidative stress were significantly improved by MT under Cr stress. On the one hand, Cr accumulation and transport from roots to leaves were reduce by MT, which was owed to enhanced vacuolar sequestration via up-regulated phytochelatin (PC) accumulation, which was derived from that MT up-regulated the expression of key genes for PC synthesis (TaPCS and Taγ-ECS). On the other hand, MT pretreatment obviously alleviated Cr-induced oxidative damage, which proved by the diminished lipid peroxidation and cell apoptosis, profiting from the enhanced scavenging ability of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a result of the MT-induced increment of the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and glutathione reductase (GR) and the related encoding genes expression levels of TaSOD2, TaCAT, TaAPX and TaGR. Taken together, all these results revealed that MT alleviated Cr toxicity to wheat seedlings probably through altering Cr6+ subcellular distribution and enhancing antioxidant metabolism. And these findings may be helpful to increase wheat production under Cr stress.

Background JiaWeiSiWu granule (JWSWG) has been applied clinically for more than a decade, and the preliminary results show that blood pressure can be reduced while protecting the target organ at the same time. The purpose of this research is to study the pharmacological mechanism of JWSWG in treating hypertension using network pharmacology. Methods The chief active components, relevant targets, and the target genes of JWSWG were retrieved by the databases TCMSP and UniProt. The GeneCards database was used to obtain target genes of hypertension. Then, the target genes of hypertension and active components were intersected to discover the potential targets by which JWSWG acts on hypertension. Cytoscape software was employed to construct the "medicine-compound-target-disease" network. The STRING database was used to construct the protein-protein interaction network in order to screen the key target genes. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment were analyzed by RGUI and org.Hs.eg.db. Results By intersecting 102 compound target genes with 6,732 target genes of hypertension, 88 action target genes were obtained, thereby screening out the key compounds and key targets. The results of GO enrichment showed the main molecular functions, biological processes, and cellular components. The main pathways of JWSWG in treating hypertension were revealed by KEGG pathway enrichment. Conclusions This research clarified the mechanism of JWSWG in the treatment of hypertension systematically, providing new potential ideas and a theoretical foundation for further experimental and clinical research.

Spacecraft hatch needs to be tested for leakage in various environments. Hatch Quick Leak Detector (HQLD) leak testing method is a convenient and effective method for the orbital hatch. Vacuum Chamber leak testing (VCLT) method is a proper integral leakage rate method for the hatch. We performed the testing in the “CMK2000” vacuum vessel. The detection principles and steps are described in detail. Leak testing was performed on all of the hatch seals using helium mass spectrometer leak detectors and special apparatus under the Thermal Vacuum testing. We performed leak testing after finishing operating the hatch in the Thermal Vacuum environment. The relative uncertainty of the total leakage rate value of the hatch is 23.6% (k = 2). The total leakage rate testing was a successful example of complex quantitative leakage rate testing in a middle vacuum chamber.

Water immersion treatment of potato slices with various time periods (0–30 min) was studied to find out the effect on the browning of fresh‐cut potato slices during long‐term storage (1–12 days) at 5°C. The results show that water immersion for 15 min significantly inhibit browning compared to other time periods of immersion treatment. Further studies show that the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutamic acid, and proline were increased by the 15‐min water immersion treatment, while hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and superoxide anion (O₂ˉ) were lowered; and all these compounds alleviated the oxidation pressure of potato slices. Chlorogenic acid, tyrosine, and tyrosinase activities were lower than those of the controls, which helped decrease the enzymatic browning levels of treated slices. Nevertheless, the browning inhibition has no observable correlation with either total phenols or the peroxidase (POD) activity. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: The research provides a simple anti‐browning method for fresh‐cut potatoes during long‐term storage thus maintaining quality and extending shelf life; and it reports new experimental results detailing the physiological reactions induced by the short‐time water immersion of fresh‐cut potatoes. The physiological studies may promote the understanding of the browning mechanism of fresh‐cut potatoes and provide clues to further efforts in seeking novel strategies for browning inhibition of fresh‐cut potatoes.

Recent studies have indicated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) could act as non-invasive tumor markers in both diagnosis and predicting the prognosis. In this study, we focused to determine the expression of circulating lncRNAs in patients suffering from non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), aiming to found the potential lncRNA as predictor. Twenty-one lncRNAs which previously identified were selected as candidate targets for subsequent circulating lncRNA assay. The candidate lncRNAs were validated by qRT-PCR arranged in the training and validation sets. Circulating SPRY4-IT1, ANRIL, and NEAT1 were significantly increased in plasma samples of NSCLC patients during training set and validation set. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis revealed that plasma ANRIL provided the highest diagnostic performance with an area under ROC curve value (AUC) of 0.798. Further combination with the three factors indicated a higher power (AUC, 0.876; sensitivity, 82.8 %; specificity, 92.3 %). The stableness detection of the three factors indicated that circulating SPRY4-IT1, ANRIL, and NEAT might serve as a predictor for the early warning of non-small-cell lung cancer.

Association mapping is a method to identify associations between target traits and genetic markers based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) of a quantitative trait locus. Synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) is derived from a cross between Triticum durum Desf. and Aegilops tauschii Coss. that enhances genetic diversity and broadens breeding resources. In this study, phenotypic diversity in 110 wheat accessions (86 SHW germplasm specimens and 24 conventional wheat varieties) was evaluated quantitatively for yield characteristics of grains per spike, thousand kernel weight, and spike length. Phenotypic data were collected over two years at two locations, and 1785 alleles were detected (mean 6.59), ranging from 3 to 11 alleles per locus. The average genetic diversity index was 0.749, with a range from 0.239 to 0.923. The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.145 to 0.968, with a mean value of 0.695. The genetic diversity index and PIC indicated that genome B > D > A. Accessions were grouped into three subgroups based on STRUCTURE and unweighted pair-group with arithmetic mean clustering. The mean LD decay across the genome was 11.78 cM. Association mapping between traits and simple sequence repeat markers was performed using the generalized linear model approach. Forty-six SSR loci were significantly associated with the measured agronomic traits in two geographic locations. Together, these results broaden our knowledge of how to harness elite genes and genetic diversity in SHW in genomic and marker-assisted selection.

Male sterility, especially cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) where no functional pollen is produced, plays an important role in wheat breeding. Some specific proteins are related to male sterility in wheat, especially those present in pollen. To elucidate these sterility-related proteins, we applied two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) to the proteomic analysis of pollen from a CMS line (732A) and its maintainer (732B) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), where trichloroacetic acid/acetone precipitation was used to extract pollen proteins from the wheat anthers. Analysis using PDQuest detected >350 reproducible protein spots on each 2-DE gel, where pI 4–7. In total, 41 spots were found to be differentially expressed, where 7/41 were identified by MALDI TOF/TOF–mass spectrometry analysis and protein database searching. The proteins comprised NADPH-producing dehydrogenase in the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase, cytosolic 3-phosphoglycerate kinase, caffeic acid O-methyltransferase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutamine synthetase isoform GS1a, and one unknown protein. In the uninucleate stage, all of the identified protein spots were downregulated in 732A, except the unknown protein, whereas there were no obvious differences in 732B. In the binucleate stage, the expression level of glutamine synthetase isoform GS1a did not differ between 732A and 732B, but caffeic acid O-methyltransferase was downregulated in 732A and the other five proteins were upregulated in 732A. These results suggest that male sterility in 732A is related to energy metabolism perturbation, active oxygen accumulation, programmed cell death, the pentose phosphate pathway, and glycolysis.

Feature selection is one of the core issues in designing pattern recognition and machine learning systems, and has attracted considerable attention in the literature. In this paper, a new feature subset selection algorithm with conditional mutual information is proposed, which firstly guarantees to find a subset of which the mutual information with the class is the same as that of the original set of features, and then eliminates potential redundant features from the view of minimal information loss based on the cumulate conditional mutual information minimization criterion. From the reliability point of view, this criterion can also abate the disturbance caused by sample insufficiency in conditional mutual information estimation. In addition, a fast implementation of conditional mutual information estimation is proposed and used to tackle the computationally intractable problem. Empirical results verify that our algorithm is efficient and achieves better accuracy than several representative feature selection algorithms for three typical classifiers on various datasets.

This paper presents a location model that assigns online demands to the capacitated regional warehouses currently serving in-store demands in a multi-channel supply chain. The model explicitly considers the trade-off between the risk pooling effect and the transportation cost in a two-echelon inventory/logistics system. Keeping the delivery network of the in-store demands unchanged, the model aims to minimize the transportation cost, inventory cost, and fixed handling cost in the system when assigning the online demands. We formulate the assignment problem as a non-linear integer programming model. Lagrangian relaxation based procedures are proposed to solve the model, both the general case and an important special case. Numerical experiments show the efficiency of our algorithms. Furthermore, we find that because of the pooling effect the variance of in-store demands currently served by a warehouse is an important parameter of the warehouse when it is considered as a candidate for supplying online demands. Highly uncertain in-store demands, as well as low transportation cost per unit, can make a warehouse appealing. We illustrate with numerical examples the trade-off between the pooling effect and the transportation cost in the assignment problem. We also evaluate the cost savings between the policy derived from the model, which integrates the transportation cost with the pooling effect, and the commonly used policy, which is based only on the transportation cost. Results show that the derived policy can reduce 1.5–7.5% cost in average and in many instances the percentage of cost savings is more than 10%.

This paper addresses the capacity allocation problem for a capacitated manufacturer who can distribute her product to the end customers through an independent retailer channel as well as through her direct channel. Demands of the channels are substitutable, which induces competition between them. We show that to avoid channel competition, it is possible for the manufacturer to deny the retailer of capacity. Specifically, if channel substitution rate is high, a retailer of low demand will never be allocated any capacity even when the available capacity is ample. While, if the channel substitution rate is low, capacity allocation strategy depends on the retailer’s demand and the available capacity. Many other interesting managerial insights are provided and illustrated with numerical examples.

One class of effective methods for the optimization problem with inequality constraints are to transform the problem to a unconstrained optimization problem by constructing a smooth potential function. In this paper, we modifies a dual algorithm for constrained optimization problems and establishes a corresponding improved dual algorithm; It is proved that the improved dual algorithm has the local Q-superlinear convergence; Finally, we performed numerical experimentation using the improved dual algorithm for many constrained optimization problems, the numerical results are reported to show that it is valid in practical computation.

Guanxi in China is a very ancient concept embedded in the Confucian concept of life and one that is a ‚hot' topic in that it is currently attracting increasing attention from both Western and Chinese scholars. One aspect of Guanxi which has been the subject of most of the research of late is the influence of Guanxi on firm performance. However, relatively few studies have examined how Guanxi at the individual level is transferred into a firm to influence its financial performance. This study first reclassifies Guanxi into obligatory, reciprocal, and utilitarian types at the individual level as a means to clarifying the confusion brought above from previous studies. It then provides a conceptual framework in which to systematically characterize the link between Guanxi at the individual level and organizational dynamics: that is, how is Guanxi at the individual level shifted to a firm and how does it affect organizational dynamics of that firm at the organizational level. Finally, it provides a deeper understanding of the financial implications of Guanxi to business firms in China.

The paper develops an algorithm that solves economic lot size problem in O(n2) time in the Wagner-Whitin case. The algorithm is based on the standard dynamic programming approach which requires the computation of the maximal relative benefit for some possible subplans of the production plan. In this algorithm the authors have studied the forward property and decomposition properties which can make computation easy. The proposed algorithm appears to perform quite reasonably for practical application.

The health check up flow of digital hospital can be consulted with the assembly line of industry factory. Because they have the following same features: highly specialized workstation, closeness and continuance, rhythm, balanced production, continuous production. The essential prerequisites are as the follows: The inspecting items and methods should be stable; advanced product mix and stable production design; standardized raw material, consumption, procedure, inspection method; there are lots of request for health inspection; the customers move at the least unit; the space arrangement should be reasonable; the time arrangement should be proportion. With the computer net, the digital inspection can achieves the raw material controlling accurately. The basis of check up line concerns about equipment, net and software, data collection, and personnel. The group technology is used in the health inspection flow design of the digital hospital in the field of items customers and zone redivided. The digital assembly linemic health inspect has the following stages: member registering, notice, check in, arrange order, time control, report, feedback and analysis. The assembly linemic has following advantages: increasing the productivity, the space utility, satisfaction of customer, fund returning, lowering the cost and ensuring the quality.

Finding an efficient way to discover Markov blanket is one of the core issue s in data mining. This paper first discusses the problems existed in IAMB algorithm which is a typical algorithm for discovering the Markov b lanket of a target variable from the training dat a, and then proposes an improved algorithm λ -IAMB based on the improving approach which contains two aspects: code optimization and the improving strategy for conditional independence testing. E xperimental results show that λ -IAMB algorithm performs better than IAMB by finding Markov blanket of variables in typical Bayesian network and by testing the performance of them as feature selection method on some well-known real world datasets .

Costumer feature selection is one of the core issues of Costumer churn prediction in telecom industry. This paper proposes a hybrid two-phase feature selection method which can effectively reduce feature dimension and promote predicting performance by using both traditional expertise approach and Markov blanket discovery technique. Empirical results of a branch of a Chinese wireless telecom company show that it is a feasible and superior method for telecom costumer feature selection. The results also show better performance of our method than the method based on traditional expertise approach.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are an information-processing method of a simulation of the structure for biological neurons. This paper makes a research on the approach of the artificial neural network for fault diagnosis of short-wave radios and constructs a fault diagnosis system of short-wave radios with ANN. And the system can analyze fault phenomena and detect radios fault. It will greatly improve the response to the radio fault diagnosis and maintenance efficiency.

This paper present a new method and model to analysis the venture investment decision based on the signaling game. We analyze and describe the venture investment decision making of two-period using mathematics models under the uncertainty to establish our option value model of venture investment. We analyze the asymmetric information between venture enterprises and venture investment corporations. Boil down the game between venture enterprises and venture investment corporations to signaling game under the incompleteness information. Get a solution of combination perfect Bayesian equilibrium.

When the retailer of one supply chain is out of stock, his customers are likely, with some probability, to switch to other products of a substitutable brand from the retailer of another supply chain. Providing a two-brand substitution situation, this paper examines what impacts it has on the stocking level and expected profit of two supply chains when they are on three scenarios, namely, the 'both chains implement Retailer-managed Inventory (RMI)' scenario, the 'one chain implements RMI and another chain implements Vendor-managed Inventory (VMI)' scenario and the 'both chains implement VMI' scenario. No matter what scenario the two supply chains are on, the degree of substitution has similar effects on the stocking level and expected profit of every member. Under certain conditions, one supply chain that changes its own stocking decision can significantly affect not only its own stocking level and expected profit, but also the stocking level and expected profit of another supply chain because of the existence of competition.

In this paper, we consider a two-stage supply chain involving a manufacturer of limited capacity and an independent retailer. The manufacturer can distribute her product to the end customers through the independent retailer as well as her wholly-owned direct channel. We assume that the manufacturer has the authority to select her distribution channel before the selling season. Using a three-stage dynamic game model, we develop the optimal decision of channel selection for the manufacturer. We find that when the capacity is very tight, the direct channel does take priority and the retailer will be excluded; when the capacity is moderately tight, the manufacturer will sell to the retailer if the retailer's optimal order quantity is small enough; when the capacity is very ample, the channel selection decision depends upon the prices and the retailer's order. We also show that there can be situations in which the manufacturer will deny the retailer's order even when the capacity is not entirely utilised. Many other interesting managerial insights are provided and illustrated with numerical examples.

There are many excellent features about drop-shipping. However, the focus of this article is on analysing how drop-shipping will affect the supply chain members' payoffs, and hence their incentive to adopt drop-shipping. So, we are interested in finding answers to the following questions: how will the supply chain members' payoffs be affected when moving from traditional channel to drop-shipping channel? Will anyone be worse or better off, or can everyone be better off? Under what conditions will they be worse or better off? We find the cases under which retailer and vendor, both agree to adopt the drop-shipping channel. Sometimes, even if supply chain total expected payoff is smaller in drop-shipping channel than in the traditional channel, it is still possible for them to achieve Pareto improving payoffs by adopting drop-shipping channel, provided that risk sharing is allowed.

Recently, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) has emerged as a significant development towards collaboration in supply chain management. This paper develops a model to compare the performance of VMI with the performance of decentralised inventory policy. A two-member (vendor and buyer) system implementing (r, Q) replenishment strategy with multi-period, uncertain and price-sensitive customer demand is considered. We find that under a certain cost condition, although VMI likely reduces the vendor's profit, it, compared with decentralised inventory policy, will decrease the retail price and consequently brings higher expected profit level for the buyer and the whole supply chain. However, if the cost condition is not satisfied, VMI will result in a higher retail price, possibly lead a lower expected profit for vendor and not necessarily lead to a higher expected profit for the buyer or the whole supply chain.