Morphological and Physiological Changes in Sedum spectabile during Flower Formation Induced by Photoperiod

Sedum spectabile is an ornamental herbaceous perennial considered as a long-day plant. Varying levels of hormones and sugars possibly affect flower bud formation. This study aimed to determine the changes in endogenous hormones, sugars, and respiration levels in leaves and in apical buds. In addition, the current research was also conducted to observe the morphological changes during the induction, initiation and development of flower buds. Results showed that the periods of floral induction, initiation and development of S. spectabile were the period from 0 d to 1 d, 2 d to 10 d and after 11 d respectively under long day of 20 hours. High zeatin level in apical buds was conducive to floral induction; the increasing levels of gibberrelin and indole acetic acid favor floral initiation; floral development was regulated by mutually synergistic and antagonistic relationships of hormones. The total starch content in leaves remarkably decreased during floral induction. Moreover, soluble sugar content increased and reached the maximum level at 20 d of the treatment period. Afterward, soluble sugar content declined rapidly and was probably transported to the apical buds for rapid floral development. Furthermore, the total respiration of leaves maintained an upward trend; the cytochrome pathway also maintained an increasing trend after the plants were treated for 20 d. Such changes may favour the morphological differentiation of apical buds in floral development

Detection of recurrent cytogenetic aberrations in multiple myeloma: A comparison between MLPA and iFISH

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a genetically heterogeneous disease with diverse clinical characteristics and outcomes. Recently, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) has emerged as an effective and robust method for the detection of cytogenetic aberrations in MM patients. In the present study, MLPA analysis was applied to analyze cytogenetics of CD138 tumor cells of 59 MM samples, and its result was compared, retrospectively, with the interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (iFISH) data. We firstly established the normal range of each of the 42 diagnostic probes using healthy donor samples. A total of 151 aberrations were detected in 59 patient samples, and 49/59 cases (83.1%) harbored at least one copy number variation. Overall, 0–7 aberrations were detected per case using MLPA, indicating the heterogeneity and complexity of MM cytogenetics. We showed the high efficiency of MLPA and the high congruency of the two methods to assess cytogenetic aberrations. Considering that MLPA analysis is not reliable when the aberration only exits in a small population of tumor cells, it is essential to use both MLPA and iFISH as complementary techniques for the diagnosis of MM

Learned Smartphone ISP on Mobile GPUs with Deep Learning, Mobile AI & AIM 2022 Challenge: Report

The role of mobile cameras increased dramatically over the past few years, leading to more and more research in automatic image quality enhancement and RAW photo processing. In this Mobile AI challenge, the target was to develop an efficient end-to-end AI-based image signal processing (ISP) pipeline replacing the standard mobile ISPs that can run on modern smartphone GPUs using TensorFlow Lite. The participants were provided with a large-scale Fujifilm UltraISP dataset consisting of thousands of paired photos captured with a normal mobile camera sensor and a professional 102MP medium-format FujiFilm GFX100 camera. The runtime of the resulting models was evaluated on the Snapdragon's 8 Gen 1 GPU that provides excellent acceleration results for the majority of common deep learning ops. The proposed solutions are compatible with all recent mobile GPUs, being able to process Full HD photos in less than 20-50 milliseconds while achieving high fidelity results. A detailed description of all models developed in this challenge is provided in this paper

A SNP and SSR Based Genetic Map of Asparagus Bean (Vigna. unguiculata ssp. sesquipedialis) and Comparison with the Broader Species

Asparagus bean (Vigna. unguiculata ssp. sesquipedialis) is a distinctive subspecies of cowpea [Vigna. unguiculata (L.) Walp.] that apparently originated in East Asia and is characterized by extremely long and thin pods and an aggressive climbing growth habit. The crop is widely cultivated throughout Asia for the production of immature pods known as ‘long beans’ or ‘asparagus beans’. While the genome of cowpea ssp. unguiculata has been characterized recently by high-density genetic mapping and partial sequencing, little is known about the genome of asparagus bean. We report here the first genetic map of asparagus bean based on SNP and SSR markers. The current map consists of 375 loci mapped onto 11 linkage groups (LGs), with 191 loci detected by SNP markers and 184 loci by SSR markers. The overall map length is 745 cM, with an average marker distance of 1.98 cM. There are four high marker-density blocks distributed on three LGs and three regions of segregation distortion (SDRs) identified on two other LGs, two of which co-locate in chromosomal regions syntenic to SDRs in soybean. Synteny between asparagus bean and the model legume Lotus. japonica was also established. This work provides the basis for mapping and functional analysis of genes/QTLs of particular interest in asparagus bean, as well as for comparative genomics study of cowpea at the subspecies level

EFFECT SURFACE NITRIDING TREATMENT ON INTERFACE ADHESION AND SURFACE DAMAGE OF CL60 RAILWAY WHEELS UNDER ROLLING CONTACT CONDITIONS

The influence of nitriding treatment on wheel/rail rolling contact fatigue and surface wear behavior of CL60 wheel was studied on JD-DRCF/M rolling contact fatigue/wear tester,the wheel surface nitriding treatment on the mechanisms of wheel/rail surface damage are compared and analyzed. The results showed that the surface nitriding treatment could form a uniform and dense white layer about 3 μm ～ 5 μm thick and a diffusion layer about 20 μm thick on the wheel surface. Under the wheel surface after nitriding process,the adhesive coefficient between wheel/rail was reduced by 11. 7% in dry condition,and reduced by 18. 4% in aqueous media,but the nitriding treatment still can keep the higher adhesive coefficient between wheel/rail system,which can prevent the occurrence of the phenomenon such as wheel-slip; Nitriding treatment not only significantly improve the wear resistance on the surface of the wheel,but also effectively reduce the wear of the rail sample,the amount of damage reduced by 58. 05% and 10. 77%,respectively. In short,the nitriding on wheel for wheel/rail system can effectively reduce the wear,improve the rolling contact fatigue resistance of wheel materials. The method is applied to the actual,it can effectively improve the service life of wheel/rail system,reduce the damage of wheel/rail material under the heavy-load condition

Magnesium Levels in Drinking Water and Coronary Heart Disease Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analysis

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated inconsistent associations between drinking water magnesium levels and risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD); thus, a meta-analysis was performed to assess the association between them. Relevant studies were searched by the databases of Cochrane, EMBASE, PubMed and Web of Knowledge. Pooled relative risks (RR) with their 95% CI were calculated to assess this association using a random-effects model. Finally, nine articles with 10 studies involving 77,821 CHD cases were used in this study. Our results revealed an inverse association between drinking water magnesium level and CHD mortality (RR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.79–0.99, I2 = 70.6). Nine of the 10 studies came from Europe, and the association was significant between drinking water magnesium level and the risk of CHD mortality (RR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.69–0.98). In conclusion, drinking water magnesium level was significantly inversely associated with CHD mortality

N-terminus three residues deletion mutant of human beta-defensin 3 with remarkably enhanced salt-resistance.

In this study, we designed and synthesized three N-terminal deletion analogs of human beta-defensin 3 (hBD-3), namely, hBD-3Δ4, hBD-3Δ7, and hBD-3Δ10, to determine the effect of N-terminal residues on the antibacterial activity and salt resistance of these peptides. The antibacterial activities and salt resistance of hBD-3 and its analogs were tested against a broad range of standard and clinically isolated strains. The deletion of nine N-terminal residues significantly reduced the antibacterial activity of hBD-3 against most of tested strains, particularly Klebsiella pneumonia. Compared with hBD-3 and other analogs, the analog with a deletion of three residues, hBD-3Δ4, exhibited significantly higher antimicrobial activity against almost all the tested strains, especially Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecium, at high NaCl concentrations. Given its broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity and high salt resistance, hBD-3Δ4 could serve as a promising template for new therapeutic antimicrobial agents

Correlation between Allostatic Load Level and Depression among Women in Early Pregnancy

Background Chronic stress is known to be associated with the onset of depression, allostatic load (AL) may play a significant role in the pathogenesis of depression as a comprehensive physiological index to evaluate response to the chronic stress. Objective To identify the association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy. Methods 630 Women in early pregnancy who underwent prenatal examination in the 901 Hospital, Joint Logistic Support Force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Jin'an Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital from November 2021 to June 2022 were selected as the research subjects by using convenience sampling method, and were divided into the depression group (n=162) and non-depression group (n=468) according to presence or absence of depression. The general information questionnaire, Pregnancy-specific Anxiety Questionnaire and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale were used for questionnaire survey, AL-related data were collected by physical examination and laboratory tests. Multivariate Logistic regression model was used to analyze the association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy. Results A total of 630 pregnant women in early pregnancy were enrolled with the depression incidence of 25.7% (162/630) , including 427 pregnant women (67.8%) with low AL level (AL<3) and 203 (32.2%) with high AL level (AL≥3) . Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that high AL level was the risk factor for depression among women in early pregnancy〔OR=1.651, 95%CI (1.096, 2.489) , P<0.05〕. Conclusion There is a positive association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy, high AL level will increase the risk of depression