Kinetics and mechanism of oxidation of n-butylamine and 1,3-propanediamine by potassium ferrate

The kinetics of oxidation of n-butylamine and 1,3-propanediamine by home-made potassium ferrate(VI) at different conditions has been studied spectrophotometrically in the temperature range of 283.2-298.2 K. The results show first order dependence on potassium ferrate (VI) and on each reductant. The observed rate constant (kobs) decreases with the increase of [OH-], and the reaction rate has a negative fraction order with respect to [OH-]. A plausible mechanism is proposed and the rate equations derived from the mechanism was shown to fit all the experimental results. The rate constants of the rate-determining step and the thermodynamic activation parameters are calculated

Simulated annealing based multiuser detection for synchronous SDMA system

In this treatise, a novel Simulated Annealing (SA) based Multi-User Detection (MUD) is proposed in synchronous Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) system. SA MUD modifies experiential Cooling Schedule (CS) of traditional SA algorithm according to its use in MUD. Moreover, in order to ensure sufficient diversity acquired in the whole Markov chain and to prevent from being trapped at local optima, Uniform Mutation (UM) based trial vector generation scheme is brought forward. In addition, the optimal solution recording scheme is also invoked in case of being lost during cooling process. Simulation results illustrate that in comparison with Genetic Algorithm (GA) MUD in the same simulation conditions, without turbo processing and soft-information, SA MUD proposed in this paper performs better, approaching the performance of Maximum Likelihood (ML) MUD and imposes lower complexity

A probabilistic data association based MIMO detector using joint detection of consecutive symbol vectors

A new probabilistic data association (PDA) approach is proposed for symbol detection in spatial multiplexing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. By designing a joint detection (JD) structure for consecutive symbol vectors in the same transmit burst, more a priori information is exploited when updating the estimated posterior marginal probabilities for each symbol per iteration. Therefore the proposed PDA detector (denoted as PDA-JD detector) outperforms the conventional PDA detectors in the context of correlated input bit streams. Moreover, the conventional PDA detectors are shown to be a special case of the PDA-JD detector. Simulations and analyses are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new method

Subgraph Networks Based Contrastive Learning

Graph contrastive learning (GCL), as a self-supervised learning method, can solve the problem of annotated data scarcity. It mines explicit features in unannotated graphs to generate favorable graph representations for downstream tasks. Most existing GCL methods focus on the design of graph augmentation strategies and mutual information estimation operations. Graph augmentation produces augmented views by graph perturbations. These views preserve a locally similar structure and exploit explicit features. However, these methods have not considered the interaction existing in subgraphs. To explore the impact of substructure interactions on graph representations, we propose a novel framework called subgraph network-based contrastive learning (SGNCL). SGNCL applies a subgraph network generation strategy to produce augmented views. This strategy converts the original graph into an Edge-to-Node mapping network with both topological and attribute features. The single-shot augmented view is a first-order subgraph network that mines the interaction between nodes, node-edge, and edges. In addition, we also investigate the impact of the second-order subgraph augmentation on mining graph structure interactions, and further, propose a contrastive objective that fuses the first-order and second-order subgraph information. We compare SGNCL with classical and state-of-the-art graph contrastive learning methods on multiple benchmark datasets of different domains. Extensive experiments show that SGNCL achieves competitive or better performance (top three) on all datasets in unsupervised learning settings. Furthermore, SGNCL achieves the best average gain of 6.9\% in transfer learning compared to the best method. Finally, experiments also demonstrate that mining substructure interactions have positive implications for graph contrastive learning.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Neo-sex chromosomes in the black muntjac recapitulate incipient evolution of mammalian sex chromosomes

The nascent neo-sex chromosomes of black muntjacs show that regulatory mutations could accelerate the degeneration of the Y chromosome and contribute to the further evolution of dosage compensation

Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging on brain structure and function changes in subjective cognitive decline: a mini-review

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is the initial stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Early identification of SCD and its risk factors is of great importance for targeted interventions and for delaying the onset of AD. We reviewed the relevant literature on structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and other techniques regarding SCD research in recent years. This study applied sMRI and fMRI techniques to explore abnormal brain structures and functions, which may help provide a basis for SCD diagnosis

Functional brain activity in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment: an rs-fMRI study

BackgroundAmnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Regional homogeneity (ReHo) and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) are employed to explore spontaneous brain function in patients with aMCI. This study applied ALFF and ReHo indicators to analyze the neural mechanism of aMCI by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).MethodsTwenty-six patients with aMCI were included and assigned to the aMCI group. The other 26 healthy subjects were included as a healthy control (HC) group. Rs-fMRI was performed for all participants in both groups. Between-group comparisons of demographic data and neuropsychological scores were analyzed using SPSS 25.0. Functional imaging data were analyzed using DPARSF and SPM12 software based on MATLAB 2017a. Gender, age, and years of education were used as covariates to obtain ALFF and ReHo indices.ResultsCompared with HC group, ALFF decreased in the left fusiform gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, and increased in the left cerebellum 8, left inferior temporal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus (BA11), and right inferior temporal gyrus (BA20) in the aMCI group (p < 0.05, FWE correction). In addition, ReHo decreased in the right middle temporal gyrus and right anterior cuneiform lobe, while it increased in the left middle temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, cerebellar vermis, right parahippocampal gyrus, left caudate nucleus, right thalamus, and left superior frontal gyrus (BA6) (p < 0.05, FWE correction). In the aMCI group, the ALFF of the left superior frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score (r = −0.437, p = 0.026), and the ALFF of the left superior temporal gyrus was positively correlated with the MoCA score (r = 0.550, p = 0.004). The ReHo of the right hippocampus was negatively correlated with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score (r = −0.434, p = 0.027), and the ReHo of the right middle temporal gyrus was positively correlated with MMSE score (r = 0.392, p = 0.048).ConclusionFunctional changes in multiple brain regions rather than in a single brain region have been observed in patients with aMCI. The abnormal activity of multiple specific brain regions may be a manifestation of impaired central function in patients with aMCI

Comparative chromosome maps between the stone curlew and three ciconiiform species (the grey heron, little egret and crested ibis).

BACKGROUND: Previous cytogenetic studies show that the karyotypes of species in Ciconiiformes vary considerably, from 2n = 52 to 78. Their karyotypes include different numbers of small to minute bi-armed chromosomes that have evolved probably by fusions of two ancestral microchromosomes, besides macrochromosomes and dot-like microchromosomes. However, it is impossible to define the inter-species homologies of such small-sized bi-armed chromosomes based on chromosome morphology and banding characteristics. Although painting probes from the chicken (Gallus gallus, GGA) chromosomes 1-9 and Z have been widely used to investigate avian chromosome homologies, GGA microchromosome probes are rarely used in these studies because most GGA microchromosome probes generated by flow sorting often contain multiple GGA microchromosomes. In contrast, the stone curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus, BOE, Charadriiformes) has an atypical low diploid chromosome number (42) karyotype and only 4 pairs of dot-like microchromosomes; a set of chromosome-specific painting probes that cover all BOE chromosomes has been generated. To get a genome-wide view of evolutionary chromosomal rearrangements in different lineages of Ciconiiformes, we used BOE painting probes instead of GGA painting probes to analyze the karyotypes of three ciconiiform species belonging to two different families: the eastern grey heron (Ardea cinerea, ACI, 2n = 64, Ardeidae), the little egret (Egretta garzetta, EGA, 2n = 64, Ardeidae) and the crested ibis (Nipponia nippon, NNI, 2n = 68, Threskiornithidae). RESULTS: BOE painting probes display the same hybridization pattern on chromosomes of ACI and EGA, while a different hybridization pattern is observed on chromosomes of NNI. BOE autosome probes detected 21 conserved homologous segments and 5 fusions on the sixteen pairs of recognizable chromosomes of ACI and EGA, while 16 conserved homologous segments and 4 fusions were found on the twelve pairs of recognizable chromosomes of NNI. Only a portion of smaller bi-armed chromosomes in the karyotypes of the ciconiiform species could have evolved from fusions of ancestral microchromosomes. In particular BOE 5, which is the result of a fusion between two segments homologous to GGA 7 and 8 respectively, was retained also as either a single chromosome in ACI (ACI 5) and EGA (EGA 5) or had fused with a part of the BOE 10 equivalent in NNI (NNI 5). CONCLUSION: Our painting results indicate that different chromosome rearrangements occur in different ciconiiform lineages. Some of the small-sized bi-armed chromosomes in ACI, EGA and NNI are derived from the fusions of two microchromosomes, indicating that microchromosome fusions play an important role in ciconiiform chromosome evolution. The fusion segment homologous to GGA 7 and 8 is a potential cytogenetic signature that unites Ardeidae and Threskiornithidae

Kinetics and Mechanism of Oxidation of Isobutylamine and 1,4-Butanediamine by Potassium Ferrate

The kinetics of oxidation of isobutylamine and 1,4-butanediamine by home-made potassium ferrate(VI) at different conditions has been studied spectrophotometrically in the temperature range of 288.2 -303.2 K. The results show first order dependence on potassium ferrate(VI) and on each reductant. The observed rate constant (kobs) decreases with the increase of [OH-], the reaction was negative fraction order with respect to [OH-]. A plausible mechanism was proposed and the rate equations derived from the mechanism can explain all the experimental results. The rate constants of the rate-determining step and the thermodynamic activation parameters were calculated