Effects of elevated CO2 and temperature on yield and fruit quality of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) at two levels of nitrogen application.

We investigated if elevated CO(2) could alleviate the negative effect of high temperature on fruit yield of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch. cv. Toyonoka) at different levels of nitrogen and also tested the combined effects of CO(2), temperature and nitrogen on fruit quality of plants cultivated in controlled growth chambers. Results show that elevated CO(2) and high temperature caused a further 12% and 35% decrease in fruit yield at low and high nitrogen, respectively. The fewer inflorescences and smaller umbel size during flower induction caused the reduction of fruit yield at elevated CO(2) and high temperature. Interestingly, nitrogen application has no beneficial effect on fruit yield, and this may be because of decreased sucrose export to the shoot apical meristem at floral transition. Moreover, elevated CO(2) increased the levels of dry matter-content, fructose, glucose, total sugar and sweetness index per dry matter, but decreased fruit nitrogen content, total antioxidant capacity and all antioxidant compounds per dry matter in strawberry fruit. The reduction of fruit nitrogen content and antioxidant activity was mainly caused by the dilution effect of accumulated non-structural carbohydrates sourced from the increased net photosynthetic rate at elevated CO(2). Thus, the quality of strawberry fruit would increase because of the increased sweetness and the similar amount of fruit nitrogen content, antioxidant activity per fresh matter at elevated CO(2). Overall, we found that elevated CO(2) improved the production of strawberry (including yield and quality) at low temperature, but decreased it at high temperature. The dramatic fluctuation in strawberry yield between low and high temperature at elevated CO(2) implies that more attention should be paid to the process of flower induction under climate change, especially in fruits that require winter chilling for reproductive growth

Nanocrystallization of Anthocyanin Extract from Red-Fleshed Apple ′QN-5′ Improved Its Antioxidant Effect through Enhanced Stability and Activity under Stressful Conditions

Red-flesh apples are known as functional fruits because of their rich anthocyanin. The anthocyanin content of the red flesh apple cultivar ′QN-5′ we bred can reach 361 mg·kg−1 (FW), and showed higher scavenging capacity to DPPH radicals, hydroxyl radicals, and superoxide anion radicals, with scavenging rates of 80.0%, 54.0%, and 43.3%, respectively. We used this particular anthocyanin-rich ′QN-5′ apple as material to examine how nanocrystallization affects the antixodiant effect of anthocyanin. The anthocyanin extract was encapsulated with biocompatible zein to form zein-anthocyanin nanoparticles (ZANPs). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) scanning showed that ZANPs had a regular spherical shape with an average diameter size of 50–60nm. When the ratio of the zein and the anthocyanin was 1:0.5, the results suggested that the encapsulation efficiency (EE) of the ZANPs could reach as high as 92.8%, and that scavenging rate for DPPH radicals was increased from 87.1% to 97.2% compared to the non-nanocrystallized anthocyanin extract. Interestingly, treatment under alkaline conditions (pH 9.0), high temperature (90 °C), and a storage time of 7 days could decrease the scavenging capacity of the ZANPs for DPPH radicals, but this scavenging capacity loss for ZANPs was significantly lower than that observed in the non-nanocrystallized anthocyanin, suggesting the higher stability of ZANPs is caused by encapsulation. These results would provide a theoretical basis for the application of the anthocyanin in scavenging free radicals under stress conditions

Knowledge-Aided Doppler Beam Sharpening Super-Resolution Imaging by Exploiting the Spatial Continuity Information

This paper deals with the problem of high cross-range resolution Doppler beam sharpening (DBS) imaging for airborne wide-area surveillance (WAS) radar under short dwell time situations. A knowledge-aided DBS (KA-DBS) imaging algorithm is proposed. In the proposed KA-DBS framework, the DBS imaging model for WAS radar is constructed and the cross-range resolution is analyzed. Since the radar illuminates the imaging scene continuously through the scanning movement of the antenna, there is strong spatial coherence between adjacent pulses. Based on this fact, forward and backward pulse information can be predicted, and the equivalent number of pulses in each coherent processing interval (CPI) will be doubled based on the autoregressive (AR) technique by taking advantage of the spatial continuity property of echoes. Finally, the predicted forward and backward pulses are utilized to merge with the initial pulses, then the newly merged pulses in each CPI are utilized to perform the DBS imaging. Since the number of newly merged pulses in KA-DBS is twice larger than that in the conventional DBS algorithm with the same dwell time, the cross-range resolution in the proposed KA-DBS algorithm can be improved by a factor of two. The imaging performance assessment conducted by resorting to real airborne data set, has verified the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

Immunization with Heat Shock Protein A and γ-Glutamyl Transpeptidase Induces Reduction on the Helicobacter pylori Colonization in Mice.

The human gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a successful colonizer of the stomach. H. pylori infection strongly correlates with the development and progression of chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and gastric malignances. Vaccination is a promising strategy for preventing H. pylori infection. In this study, we evaluated the candidate antigens heat shock protein A (HspA) and H. pylori γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) for their effectiveness in development of subunit vaccines against H. pylori infection. rHspA, rGGT, and rHspA-GGT, a fusion protein based on HspA and GGT, were constructed and separately expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. Mice were then immunized intranasally with these proteins, with or without adjuvant. Immunized mice exhibited reduced bacterial colonization in stomach. The highest reduction in bacterial colonization was seen in mice immunized with the fusion protein rHspA-GGT when paired with the mucosal adjuvant LTB. Protection against H. pylori colonization was mediated by a strong systemic and localized humoral immune response, as well as a balanced Th1/Th2 cytokine response. In addition, immunofluorescence microscopy confirmed that rHspA-GGT specific rabbit antibodies were able to directly bind H. pylori in vitro. These results suggest antibodies are essential to the protective immunity associated with rHspA-GGT immunization. In summary, our results suggest HspA and GGT are promising vaccine candidates for protection against H. pylori infection

Total fruit dry weight (a), total fruit number (b) and fruit grades (c, d, e) of strawberry plants cultivated under different conditions (mean ± SD, n = 4).

<p>The berries were graded in three size classes depending on fruit dry weight (FDW; FDW <0.4 g, grade 1; 0.4≤ FDW ≤0.7 g, grade 2; FDW >0.7 g, grade 3). The frequency distribution of grade 1, 2 and 3 is showed in figures c, d and e, respectively. Bars indicate standard deviation, while ^* and ^** indicate significant differences at <i>P</i><0.05 and 0.01, respectively.</p

Risk consequence assessment of dam breach in cascade reservoirs considering risk transmission and superposition

Compared with a single reservoir, the risk in cascade reservoirs has the transmission and superposition effect, which increases the complexity of its risk consequence assessment. In view of this problem, the direct consequence (DC) and potential consequence (PC) were defined as two parts of the dam breach risk consequence of cascade reservoirs. The upstream dam-break flood inundation line and the downstream reservoir land acquisition line were taken as the upper and lower boundaries of the assessment space, which made the risk consequence assessment more intuitive and further improved its scientificity and practicability. Subsequently, the conditional probability of downstream dam breach under the upstream dam-break flood was determined to quantify the risk transmission and superposition. On this basis, the relevant concepts and formulas for calculating the dam breach risk consequence in cascade reservoirs were proposed. Taking five cascade reservoirs as examples, the risk consequences of each cascade dam breach were evaluated. The results show that the proposed method is effective in assessing the risk consequence of dam breach in cascade reservoirs and is more in line with the connotation of dam risk management, which can provide reference for the design and risk control of cascade reservoirs.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Safety and Security Scienc

Calculation of dam risk probability of cascade reservoirs considering risk transmission and superposition

Because of the risk transmission and superposition among dams in cascade reservoirs, the analysis and probability calculation of dam risk become more complex compared with a single reservoir. By analyzing the main risk sources and actionmechanisms, the disaster-causing factors, disaster-transmitting body and disaster-bearing body in the cascade reservoirs system were determined. By defining the influence coefficient (IC) to express the transmission and superposition degree of dam risk among cascade reservoirs, dam risk was divided into two parts: own risk (OR) and additional risk (AR). On this basis, the relevant concepts and equations for the calculation of the dam risk probability of cascade reservoirs were proposed. The numerical simulation was carried out to quantify the IC, and a Bayesian network analysis model was constructed to calculate the OR. Finally, taking five cascade reservoir dams in the Dadu River basin as examples, the value of their ORs, ARs and risk probabilities were calculated, and thereafter the weakest cascade, controlling cascade and general cascade in the system were divided. The proposed methodology realizes an effective connection with the dam risk calculation method of a single reservoir, which can provide a reference for the risk assessment and management of cascade reservoirs in the basin.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Safety and Security Scienc

MGLM analysis of treatment (CO₂, temperature and nitrogen) main effects and their interactions on AC, TP, TF, DPPH, ABTS and FNC of strawberry fruits for plants cultivated at ambient (360 ppm) and elevated (720 ppm) CO₂, high and low temperature, and high and low nitrogen^a.

a<p>Data are expressed as F values, and *, **, ***, **** indicate P<0.05, 0.01, 0.001 and 0.0001, respectively. Abbreviations are: FW- fresh weight; Temp- Temperature; N- Nitrogen; 3-Way- CO₂×Temperature<b>×</b>Nitroge.</p

Correlations between fruit dry weight and total achene number (TAN) of strawberry fruits grown in different conditions^a.

a<p>the linear regression: y  =  a x + b, a-slope of linear regression, b-increment of linear regression, r-correlation coefficient.</p>**<p>indicate P<0.01.</p

MGLM analysis of treatment (CO₂, temperature and nitrogen) main effects and their interactions on Fru, Glu, Suc, TSW, SI and DWC of strawberry fruits for plants cultivated at ambient (360 ppm) and elevated (720 ppm) CO₂, high and low temperature, and high and low nitrogen^a.

a<p>Data are expressed as F values, and *, **, ***, **** indicate P<0.05, 0.01, 0.001 and 0.0001, respectively. Abbreviations are: FW- fresh weight; Temp- Temperature; N- Nitrogen; 3-Way- CO₂×Temperature<b>×</b>Nitrogen.</p