Industry/University Collaboration at the University of Michigan-Dearborn: A Focus on Relevant Technology

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154106/1/kampfner1998.pd

An Effective Image-Based Tomato Leaf Disease Segmentation Method Using MC-UNet

Tomato disease control is an urgent requirement in the field of intellectual agriculture, and one of the keys to it is quantitative identification and precise segmentation of tomato leaf diseases. Some diseased areas on tomato leaves are tiny and may go unnoticed during segmentation. Blurred edge also makes the segmentation accuracy poor. Based on UNet, we propose an effective image-based tomato leaf disease segmentation method called Cross-layer Attention Fusion Mechanism combined with Multi-scale Convolution Module (MC-UNet). First, a Multi-scale Convolution Module is proposed. This module obtains multiscale information about tomato disease by employing 3 convolution kernels of different sizes, and it highlights the edge feature information of tomato disease using the Squeeze-and-Excitation Module. Second, a Cross-layer Attention Fusion Mechanism is proposed. This mechanism highlights tomato leaf disease locations via gating structure and fusion operation. Then, we employ SoftPool rather than MaxPool to retain valid information on tomato leaves. Finally, we use the SeLU function appropriately to avoid network neuron dropout. We compared MC-UNet to the existing segmentation network on our self-built tomato leaf disease segmentation dataset and MC-UNet achieved 91.32% accuracy and 6.67M parameters. Our method achieves good results for tomato leaf disease segmentation, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed methods

Comparative Research on Metabolites of Different Species of <i>Epichloë</i> Endophytes and Their Host <i>Achnatherum sibiricum</i>

Achnatherum sibiricum can be infected by two species of fungal endophytes, Epichloë gansuensis (Eg) and Epichloë sibirica (Es). In this study, the metabolites of Eg, Es, and their infected plants were studied by GC–MS analysis. The results showed that the metabolic profiles of Eg and Es were similar in general, and only six differential metabolites were detected. The direct effect of endophyte infection on the metabolites in A. sibiricum was that endophyte-infected plants could produce mannitol, which was not present in uninfected plants. Epichloë infection indirectly caused an increase in the soluble sugars in A. sibiricum related to growth and metabolites related to the defense against pathogens and herbivores, such as α-tocopherol, α-linolenic acid and aromatic amino acids. Epichloë infection could regulate galactose metabolism, starch and sucrose metabolism, tyrosine metabolism and phenylalanine metabolism of host grass. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation in the metabolite contents between the endophyte and the host

Dual Physically Cross-Linked κ Carrageenan-Based Double Network Hydrogels with Superior Self-Healing Performance for Biomedical Application

Chemically linked double network (DN) hydrogels display extraordinary mechanical attributes but mostly suffer from poor self-healing property and unsatisfactory biocompatibility due to the irreversible breaks in their chemical-linked networks and the use of toxic chemical cross-linking agents. To address these limitations, we developed a novel κ-carrageenan/polyacrylamide (KC/PAM) DN hydrogel through a dual physical-cross-linking strategy, with the ductile, hydrophobically associated PAM being the first network, and the rigid potassium ion (K⁺) cross-linked KC being the second network. The dual physically cross-linked DN (DPC-DN) hydrogels with optimized KC concentration exhibit excellent fracture tensile stress (1320 ± 46 kPa) and toughness (fracture energy: 6900 ± 280 kJ/m³), comparable to those fully chemically linked DN hydrogels and physically chemically cross-linked hybrid DN hydrogels. Moreover, because of their unique dual physical-cross-linking structures, the KC/PAM hydrogels also demonstrated rapid self-recovery, remarkable notch-insensitivity, self-healing capability, as well as excellent cytocompatibility toward stem cells. Accordingly, this work presents a new strategy toward fabricating self-repairing DPC-DN hydrogels with outstanding mechanical behaviors and biocompatibility. The new type of DN hydrogels demonstrates strong potentiality in many challenging biomedical applications such as artificial diaphragm, tendon, and cartilage

Nonmuscle Myosin Heavy Chain IIA Recognizes Sialic Acids on Sialylated RNA Viruses To Suppress Proinflammatory Responses via the DAP12-Syk Pathway

NMHC-IIA, a subunit of nonmuscle myosin IIA (NM-IIA), takes part in diverse physiological processes, including cell movement, cell shape maintenance, and signal transduction. Recently, NMHC-IIA has been demonstrated to be a receptor or factor contributing to viral infections. Here, we identified that NMHC-IIA recognizes sialic acids on sialylated RNA viruses, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). Upon recognition, NMHC-IIA associates with the transmembrane region of DAP12 to recruit Syk. Activation of the DAP12-Syk pathway impairs the host antiviral proinflammatory cytokine production and signaling cascades. More importantly, sialic acid mimics and sialylated RNA viruses enable the antagonism of LPS-triggered proinflammatory responses through engaging the NMHC-IIA–DAP12-Syk pathway. These results actually support that NMHC-IIA is involved in negative modulation of the host innate immune system, which provides a molecular basis for prevention and control of the sialylated RNA viruses and treatment of inflammatory diseases.Viral infections induce proinflammatory signaling cascades and inflammatory cytokine production, which is precisely regulated for host benefits. In the current study, we unravel a previously unappreciated role of nonmuscle myosin heavy chain IIA (NMHC-IIA) as a negative regulator in inflammatory responses. We identified that cell surface NMHC-IIA recognized sialic acids on sialylated RNA viruses during early infections and interacted with an immune adaptor DNAX activation protein of 12 kDa (DAP12) to recruit downstream spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk), leading to suppressed virus-triggered proinflammatory responses. More importantly, recognition of sialylated RNA viruses or sialic acid mimics by NMHC-IIA was shown to inhibit lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced proinflammatory responses via the DAP12-Syk pathway. These findings uncover a novel negative regulation mechanism of proinflammatory responses and provide a molecular basis to design anti-inflammatory drugs

Tribology of Copper Metal-Matrix Composites Reinforced with Fluorinated Graphene Oxide Nanosheets: Implications for Solid Lubricants in Mechanical Switches

Applications of copper coatings on steel switching mechanisms are abundant owing to their high conductivities and corrosion resistance that they impart on the engineered assemblies. However, applications of these coatings on such moving parts are limited due to their poor tribological properties; tendencies to generate high friction and susceptibility to degradative wear. In this study, we have fabricated a fluorinated graphene oxide-copper metal matrix composite (FGO-CMMC) on an AISI52100 bearing steel substrate by a simple electrodeposition process in water. The FGO-CMMC coatings exhibited excellent lubrication performance under pin-on-disk (PoD) tribological sliding at 1N load, which reduced CoF by 63 and 69%, compared to the GO-CMMC and pure copper coatings that were also prepared. Furthermore, FGO-CMMC achieved low friction and low wear at higher sliding loads. The lubrication enhancement of the FGO-CMMCs is attributed to the tribochemical reaction of FGO with the AISI 52100 steel counterface initiated by sliding load. The formation of an asymmetric tribofilm structure on the sliding track is critical; the performance of the FGO/Cu tribofilm formed in the track is boosted by the continued fluorination of the counterface surface during PoD sliding, passivating the tribosystem from adhesion-driven breakdown. The FGO-CMMC and GO-CMMC coatings also provide increased corrosion protection reaching 94.2 and 91.6 % compared to the bare steel substrate, allowing for the preservation of the long-term low friction performance of the coating. Other influences include the improved interlaminar shear strength of the FGO-containing composite. The excellent lubrication performance of copper coatings by FGO incorporation makes the CMMC a promising solid lubricant candidate for use in mechanical engineering applications

Dynamic changes of lipopolysaccharide levels in different phases of acute on chronic hepatitis B liver failure.

BACKGROUND: High serum levels of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) with LPS-MD-2/TLR4 complex activated NF-kb and cytokine cause hepatic necrosis in animal models. We investigated the dynamic changes of LPS levels in patients with acute on chronic hepatitis B liver failure (ACHBLF). METHODS: We enrolled ACHBLF patients for a 12-week study. Patients' LPS levels were measured along with 10 healthy controls. Patients on supportive care and recovered without intervention(s) were analyzed. Patients' LPS levels during the disease progression phase, peak phase, and remission phase were compared with healthy controls. RESULTS: Among 30 patients enrolled, 25 who received interventions or expired during the study period were excluded from the analysis, five patients on supportive care who completed the study were analyzed. Significant abnormal distributions of LPS levels were observed in patients in different phases (0.0168±0.0101 in progression phase; 0.0960±0.0680 in peak phase; 0.0249±0.0365 in remission phase; and 0.0201±0.0146 in controls; respectively, p<0.05). The highest level of LPS was in the peak phase and significantly elevated when compared to controls (0.0201±0.0146 vs. 0.0960±0.0680, p = 0.007). There were no statistically significant differences in LPS levels between healthy controls and subjects in the progression phase or remission phase. Dynamic changes of LPS were correlated with MELD-Na in the progression phase (p = 0.01, R = 0.876) and in the peak phase (p = 0.000, R = -1.00). CONCLUSIONS: Significant abnormal distributions of LPS levels were observed in ACHBLF with the highest level in the peak phase. The dynamic changes of LPS were correlated with disease severity and suggested LPS causing secondary hepatic injury