Changes in sugars in organs of Phalaenopsis florets during different flowering stages of intact plant inflorescences

Phalaenopsis flowers possess extraordinary longevity. However, the changes of sugars, including glucose, fructose and sucrose, in organs of floret during different flowering stages of inflorescences attached to a plant have not been reported. To accomplish this, the sugars level in different floret organs were studied at 4 different stages (1. half open, 2. bloom 1 month, 3. bloom 2 months, and 4. wilting). Glucose and fructose were the major soluble sugars in the sepal, petal, labellum, pedicel, and remainder (including the column, anther cap, pollinia, and stigma) of a floret, but their levels decreased from stages 1 to 4. However, the amount of sucrose increased significantly at stage 4 in the sepal, petal, pedicel, and remainder, with the exception that the labellum remained constant throughout all stages. These results demonstrate that glucose and fructose are the major solutes that contribute to floret opening and blooming, and sucrose is salvaged and exported before floret senescence for opening other florets on the same inflorescence. Meanwhile, labellum possesses different sugar metabolism from other organs of Phalaenopsis floret

Crystallographic origin of cycle decay of the high-voltage LiNi\u3csub\u3e0.5\u3c/sub\u3eMn\u3csub\u3e1.5\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e spinel lithium-ion battery electrode

High-voltage spinel LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 (LNMO) is considered a potential high-power-density positive electrode for lithium-ion batteries, however, it suffers from capacity decay after extended charge-discharge cycling, severely hindering commercial application. Capacity fade is thought to occur through the significant volume change of the LNMO electrode occurring on cycling, and in this work we use operando neutron powder diffraction to compare the structural evolution of the LNMO electrode in an as-assembled 18650-type battery containing a Li4Ti5O12 negative electrode with that in an identical battery following 1000 cycles at high-current. We reveal that the capacity reduction in the battery post cycling is directly proportional to the reduction in the maximum change of the LNMO lattice parameter during its evolution. This is correlated to a corresponding reduction in the MnO6 octahedral distortion in the spinel structure in the cycled battery. Further, we find that the rate of lattice evolution, which reflects the rate of lithium insertion and removal, is ∼9 and ∼10% slower in the cycled than in the as-assembled battery during the Ni2+/Ni3+ and Ni3+/Ni4+ transitions, respectively

Effect of Supplementation of Tanshinone IIA and Sodium Tanshinone IIA Sulfonate on the Anticancer Effect of Epirubicin: An In Vitro Study

Tanshinone IIA (Tan IIA) and sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) were found to have protective effects on cardiomyocyte against adriamycin-induced damage and may be used clinically. It is unclear whether the supplementation of STS or Tan IIA would affect the anticancer activity of anthracycline. To evaluate the effect of Tan IIA or STS on the anticancer of epirubicin, the cell viability, apoptosis, Akt expression, and uptake of epirubicin after supplementation of Tan IIA or STS in the epirubicin-treated BT-20 cells were measured and compared. Tan IIA inhibited BT-20 cell growth and induced apoptosis in a time- and dose-dependent manner. When Tan IIA was used with epirubicin, an increase of BT-20 cells apoptosis was accompanied by the decreasing phosphorylation of Akt. STS had no effect on the cell viability of BT-20 cells. However, when used with epirubicin, STS decreased the epirubicin-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis in BT-20 cells. The antagonistic effect of STS on epirubicin-induced cytotoxicity in BT-20 cells occurred concomitantly with the reduced epirubicin uptake and the increased phosphorylation of Akt. STS decreased the uptake of epirubicin in BT-20 cells and blocked epirubicin-induced apoptosis through activation of Akt

Mobile Cloud-Based Blood Pressure Healthcare for Education

Mercury, pneumatic, and electronic sphygmomanometers were widely used for traditional blood pressure (BP) measurement. Cloud BP database, and mobile information and communication technology (MICT) do not integrate to these BP measurement methods. Pen and papers were employed to record BP values for nurses and physicians, and recording errors are possible to occur. In the chapter, the cloud-based BP platform solution and advanced wireless hospital BP measurement technologies were studied. These cloud-based BT measurement technologies were used as teaching aids to train students of electrical and nursing fields for mobile BP healthcare and health promotion education, and hence interdisciplinary teaching and learning were conducted. The teachers include professors of electrical and nursing fields, physicians, hospital nurses, and the engineer and health management experts of Microlife. The interdisciplinary teaching and learning of mobile BP healthcare and health promotion for smart aging were conducted in the Department of Nursing Division, Chang Cung Memorial Hospital, Keelung Branch, Department of Nursing Ching Kuo Institute of Management and Health, School of Nursing Chung Shan Medical University, and Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University. The students of electrical and nursing fields participated for joint interdisciplinary learning. The concepts of interdisciplinary mobile BP healthcare learning and teaching involve nursing and technology, healthy aging, BP health care for smart aging, telenursing, BP care for smart aging, community/home telecare, and MICT. The objective of teaching and learning is training the design and making electrical engineers to understand BP healthcare and health promotion, and nurses to understand mobile BP healthcare and health promotion system for smart aging

Identification of a New Peptide for Fibrosarcoma Tumor Targeting and Imaging In Vivo

A 12-mer amino acid peptide SATTHYRLQAAN, denominated TK4, was isolated from a phage-display library with fibrosarcoma tumor-binding activity. In vivo biodistribution analysis of TK4-displaying phage showed a significant increased phage titer in implanted tumor up to 10-fold in comparison with normal tissues after systemic administration in mouse. Competition assay confirmed that the binding of TK4-phage to tumor cells depends on the TK4 peptide. Intravenous injection of 131I-labeled synthetic TK4 peptide in mice showed a tumor retention of 3.3% and 2.7% ID/g at 1- and 4-hour postinjection, respectively. Tumor-to-muscle ratio was 1.1, 5.7, and 3.2 at 1-, 4-, and 24-hour, respectively, and tumors were imaged on a digital γ-camera at 4-hour postinjection. The present data suggest that TK4 holds promise as a lead structure for tumor targeting, and it could be further applied in the development of diagnostic or therapeutic agent

Transcriptome Changes in Relation to Manic Episode

Bipolar disorder (BD) is highly heritable and well known for its recurrent manic and depressive episodes. The present study focused on manic episode in BD patients and aimed to investigate state-specific transcriptome alterations between acute episode and remission, including messenger RNAs (mRNAs), long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), and micro-RNAs (miRNAs), using microarray and RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) platforms. BD patients were enrolled with clinical information, and peripheral blood samples collected at both acute and remission status spanning for at least 2 months were confirmed by follow-ups. Symptom severity was assessed by Young Mania Rating Scale. We enrolled six BD patients as the discovery samples and used the Affymetrix Human Transcriptome Array 2.0 to capture transcriptome data at the two time points. For replication, expression data from Gene Expression Omnibus that consisted of 11 BD patients were downloaded, and we performed a mega-analysis for microarray data of 17 patients. Moreover, we conducted RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) in additional samples of 7 BD patients. To identify intraindividual differentially expressed genes (DEGs), we analyzed data using a linear model controlling for symptom severity. We found that noncoding genes were of majority among the top DEGs in microarray data. The expression fold change of coding genes among DEGs showed moderate to high correlations (∼0.5) across platforms. A number of lncRNAs and two miRNAs (MIR181B1 and MIR103A1) exhibited high levels of gene expression in the manic state. For coding genes, we reported that the taste function-related genes, including TAS2R5 and TAS2R3, may be mania state-specific markers. Additionally, four genes showed a nominal p-value of less than 0.05 in all our microarray data, mega-analysis, and RNA-Seq analysis. They were upregulated in the manic state and consisted of MS4A14, PYHIN1, UTRN, and DMXL2, and their gene expression patterns were further validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (qRT-PCR). We also performed weight gene coexpression network analysis to identify gene modules for manic episode. Genes in the mania-related modules were different from the susceptible loci of BD obtained from genome-wide association studies, and biological pathways in relation to these modules were mainly related to immune function, especially cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction. Results of the present study elucidated potential molecular targets and genomic networks that are involved in manic episode. Future studies are needed to further validate these biomarkers for their roles in the etiology of bipolar illness

Strong light-matter coupling in two-dimensional atomic crystals

Two dimensional (2D) atomic crystals of graphene, and transition metal dichalcogenides have emerged as a class of materials that show strong light-matter interaction. This interaction can be further controlled by embedding such materials into optical microcavities. When the interaction is engineered to be stronger than the dissipation of light and matter entities, one approaches the strong coupling regime resulting in the formation of half-light half-matter bosonic quasiparticles called microcavity polaritons. Here we report the evidence of strong light-matter coupling and formation of microcavity polaritons in a two dimensional atomic crystal of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) embedded inside a dielectric microcavity at room temperature. A Rabi splitting of 46 meV and highly directional emission is observed from the MoS2 microcavity owing to the coupling between the 2D excitons and the cavity photons. Realizing strong coupling effects at room temperature in a disorder free potential landscape is central to the development of practical polaritonic circuits and switches.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure

Small heat-shock protein HspL is induced by VirB protein(s) and promotes VirB/D4-mediated DNA transfer in Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a Gram-negative plant-pathogenic bacterium that causes crown gall disease by transferring and integrating its transferred DNA (T-DNA) into the host genome. We characterized the chromosomally encoded alpha-crystallin-type small heat-shock protein (α-Hsp) HspL, which was induced by the virulence (vir) gene inducer acetosyringone (AS). The transcription of hspL but not three other α-Hsp genes (hspC, hspAT1, hspAT2) was upregulated by AS. Further expression analysis in various vir mutants suggested that AS-induced hspL transcription is not directly activated by the VirG response regulator but rather depends on the expression of VirG-activated virB genes encoding components of the type IV secretion system (T4SS). Among the 11 virB genes encoded by the virB operon, HspL protein levels were reduced in strains with deletions of virB6, virB8 or virB11. VirB protein accumulation but not virB transcription levels were reduced in an hspL deletion mutant early after AS induction, implying that HspL may affect the stability of individual VirB proteins or of the T4S complex directly or indirectly. Tumorigenesis efficiency and the VirB/D4-mediated conjugal transfer of an IncQ plasmid RSF1010 derivative between A. tumefaciens strains were reduced in the absence of HspL. In conclusion, increased HspL abundance is triggered in response to certain VirB protein(s) and plays a role in optimal VirB protein accumulation, VirB/D4-mediated DNA transfer and tumorigenesis

Low Dielectric Properties and Transmission Loss of Polyimide/Organically Modified Hollow Silica Nanofiber Composites

In this study, a series of low dielectric constant and transmission loss of polyimide (PI)/organically modified hollow silica nanofiber (m-HSNF) nanocomposites were synthesized via two-step polymerization. Two different PIs were fabricated using two types of diamine monomers with or without fluorine-containing groups and biphenylene structure of dianhydride. The chemical structure and morphology of the fabricated composites were characterized using Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The two-step polymerization process successfully manufactured and converted from polyamic acid to polyimide after thermal imidization was proved by the NMR and FTIR results. The FESEM and their related energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) images of nanocomposites indicate that the m-HSNF is extremely dispersed into the polyimide matrix. The high-frequency dielectric constants of the nanocomposite materials decrease as the presence of fluorine-containing groups in diamine monomers and the loadings of the m-HSNF increase. These findings are probably attributed to the presence of the steric hindrance effect brought by trifluoromethyl groups, and the m-HSNF can disrupt the chain packing and increase the free volume, thus reducing the dielectric properties of polyimides. The transmission loss and its related uncertainty of fabricated composite materials contain excellent performance, suggesting that the fabricated materials could be used as substrate materials for 5G printed circuit board