A sharpened estimate on the pseudo-Gamma function

The pseudo-Gamma function is a key tool introduced recently by Cheng and Albeverio in the proof of \break the density hypothesis. This function is doubly symmetric, which means that it is reflectively symmetric about the real axis by the Schwarz principle, whereas it is also reflectively symmmetric about the half line where the real part of the variable is equal to $\tfrac{1}{2}$. In this article, we sharpen the estimate given in the proof of the density hypothesis for this doubly symmetric pseudo-Gamma function on the real axis near the symmetry center by taking a different approach from the way used in the density hypothesis proof directly from the definition, reducing the error caused by the fact that the difference of two pivotal parameters in the definition of the pseudo-Gamma function is much larger than the difference of the variables in this particular case.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to Journal of combinatorics and number theory, June 11, 201

Delta-8 desaturation activity varies among fatty acyl desaturases of teleost fish: high activity in delta-6 desaturases of marine species

The benefits of dietary fish and fish oil are derived from n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) that have beneficial effects in a range of human diseases and pathologies such as cardiovascular and other inflammatory disorders, neural development and neurological pathologies. The precursor of n-3 LC-PUFA, 18:3n-3 does not have the same beneficial effects prompting interest in the pathways of endogenous synthesis of LC-PUFA in vertebrates. The LC-PUFA biosynthesis pathway classically involves Δ6 and Δ5 fatty acyl desaturases (Fad), but it was recently shown that Δ6 Fad in mammals also displayed Δ8 activity demonstrating a possible alternative “Δ8-pathway” for the synthesis of LC-PUFA. Our primary hypothesis was that Δ8 desaturase activity would be a common feature of vertebrate Δ6 Fads, and so the aim of the present study was to determine the ability of teleostei Fads for Δ8 desaturation activity. To this end, cDNAs for Fads from a range of freshwater, diadromous and marine teleost fish species were assayed for Δ8 activity in the heterologous yeast expression system. In summary, the present study has demonstrated that Δ8 desaturation activity was also a characteristic of fish orthologs, although the activity varied notably between freshwater/diadromous and marine fish species, with the latter possessing Fads2-like proteins with Δ8 activity far higher than mammalian FADS2. The data showed that, generally, the fish Fad are technically υ-3 desaturases, with new double bonds introduced 3C beyond a pre-existing double bond. However, the ability of zebrafish and rabbitfish Fads, previously characterised as Δ6/Δ5 bifunctional desaturases, to introduce non-methylene interrupted double bonds in 20:3n-3 and 20:2n-6 suggested that a novel combination of regioselectivity modes operates within these enzymes

Microsatellite Markers in the Mud Crab (Scylla paramamosain) and their Application in Population Genetics and Marker- Assisted Selection

The mud crab (Scylla paramamosain) is a commercially important species for aquaculture and fisheries in China. In this study, a total of 302 polymorphic microsatellite markers have been isolated and characterized. The observed and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.04 to 1.00 and from 0.04 to 0.96 per locus. The wild populations distributed along South-eastern China coasts showed high genetic diversity (HO ranged from 0.62 to 0.77) and low genetic differentiation (FST = 0.018). Meanwhile, a significant association (r2 = 0.11) was identified between genetic and geographic distance of 11 locations. Furthermore, a PCR-based parentage assignment method was successfully developed using seven polymorphic microsatellite loci that could correctly assign 95% of the progeny to their parents. Moreover, three polymorphic microsatellite loci were identified to be significantly associated with 12 growth traits of S. paramamosain, and four genotypes were considered to be great potential for marker-assisted selection. Finally, a first preliminary genetic linkage map with 65 linkage groups and 212 molecular markers was constructed using microsatellite and AFLP markers for S. paramamosain. This map was 2746 cM in length, and covered approximately 50% of the estimated genome. This study provides novel insights into genome biology and molecular marker-assisted selection for S. paramamosain

ZJU ReLER Submission for EPIC-KITCHEN Challenge 2023: Semi-Supervised Video Object Segmentation

The Associating Objects with Transformers (AOT) framework has exhibited exceptional performance in a wide range of complex scenarios for video object segmentation. In this study, we introduce MSDeAOT, a variant of the AOT series that incorporates transformers at multiple feature scales. Leveraging the hierarchical Gated Propagation Module (GPM), MSDeAOT efficiently propagates object masks from previous frames to the current frame using a feature scale with a stride of 16. Additionally, we employ GPM in a more refined feature scale with a stride of 8, leading to improved accuracy in detecting and tracking small objects. Through the implementation of test-time augmentations and model ensemble techniques, we achieve the top-ranking position in the EPIC-KITCHEN VISOR Semi-supervised Video Object Segmentation Challenge.Comment: Top 1 solution for EPIC-KITCHEN Challenge 2023: Semi-Supervised Video Object Segmentatio

ZJU ReLER Submission for EPIC-KITCHEN Challenge 2023: TREK-150 Single Object Tracking

The Associating Objects with Transformers (AOT) framework has exhibited exceptional performance in a wide range of complex scenarios for video object tracking and segmentation. In this study, we convert the bounding boxes to masks in reference frames with the help of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) and Alpha-Refine, and then propagate the masks to the current frame, transforming the task from Video Object Tracking (VOT) to video object segmentation (VOS). Furthermore, we introduce MSDeAOT, a variant of the AOT series that incorporates transformers at multiple feature scales. MSDeAOT efficiently propagates object masks from previous frames to the current frame using two feature scales of 16 and 8. As a testament to the effectiveness of our design, we achieved the 1st place in the EPIC-KITCHENS TREK-150 Object Tracking Challenge.Comment: Top 1 solution for EPIC-KITCHEN Challenge 2023: TREK-150 Single Object Tracking. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2307.0201

Elongation of long-chain fatty acids in rabbitfish Siganus canaliculatus: Cloning, functional characterisation and tissue distribution of Elovl5- and Elovl4-like elongases

Elongases of very long-chain fatty acids (Elovl) catalyse the rate-limiting step of the elongation pathway that results in net 2 C elongation of pre-existing fatty acyl chains. As the biosynthesis of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) is particularly relevant in fish, Elovl involved in the pathway have been investigated in various studies. Here we report the molecular cloning, functional characterisation and tissue distribution of two distinct elovl-like cDNAs isolated from the herbivorous marine teleost Siganus canaliculatus. Unlike the carnivorous marine fish previously investigated, we hypothesise that the rabbitfish has an enhanced LC-PUFA biosynthetic capability as previously anticipated in a former study on fatty acyl desaturases (Fad). The results of the present study showed that rabbitfish expresses at least two elovl cDNAs, which have high homology in sequence and function to Elovl5 and Elovl4 elongases that have been investigated previously in other fish species. Furthermore, the results confirm that the activities of the Elovl5 and Elovl4 enzymes enable rabbitfish to perform all the elongation reactions required for the biosynthesis of the physiologically essential C20-22 LC-PUFA including eicosapentaenoic (20:5n-3), arachidonic (20:4n-6) and docosahexaenoic (22:6n-3, DHA) acids, as well as the less common very long-chain fatty acids (greater than C24). Rabbitfish is thus the first marine teleost in which genes encoding Fad and Elovl enzymes, with all the activities required for the production of DHA from C18 PUFA, have been characterised. Highlights Rabbitfish possess at least two fatty acid elongases. The elongases were functionally characterised as Elovl5 and Elovl4 types.  The elongases possess all the activities necessary for the biosynthesis of DHA.  Elovl4 is capable of synthesising very long-chain fatty acids up to C36 in length.  Rabbitfish represent a marine fish not dependent upon dietary EPA and DH

TimeLens: Event-based Video Frame Interpolation

State-of-the-art frame interpolation methods generate intermediate frames by inferring object motions in the image from consecutive key-frames. In the absence of additional information, first-order approximations, i.e. optical flow, must be used, but this choice restricts the types of motions that can be modeled, leading to errors in highly dynamic scenarios. Event cameras are novel sensors that address this limitation by providing auxiliary visual information in the blind-time between frames. They asynchronously measure per-pixel brightness changes and do this with high temporal resolution and low latency. Event-based frame interpolation methods typically adopt a synthesis-based approach, where predicted frame residuals are directly applied to the key-frames. However, while these approaches can capture non-linear motions they suffer from ghosting and perform poorly in low-texture regions with few events. Thus, synthesis-based and flow-based approaches are complementary. In this work, we introduce Time Lens, a novel indicates equal contribution method that leverages the advantages of both. We extensively evaluate our method on three synthetic and two real benchmarks where we show an up to 5.21 dB improvement in terms of PSNR over state-of-the-art frame-based and event-based methods. Finally, we release a new large-scale dataset in highly dynamic scenarios, aimed at pushing the limits of existing methods

Characteristics of the fads2 gene promoter in marine teleost Epinephelus coioides and role of Sp1-binding site in determining promoter activity

Δ6 fatty acyl desaturase (Fads2) is a rate-limiting enzyme in long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) biosynthesis. Comparative analysis of gene promoters of Fads2 between salmonids and carnivorous marine sh suggested that the lack of binding site for stimulatory protein 1 (Sp1) was responsible for the low expression of fads2 gene of carnivorous marine species. To con rm this speculation, the fads2 candidate promoter (2646 bp) was cloned from carnivorous marine teleost Epinephelus coioides, and 330 bp core regulatory region was identi ed. Several binding sites for transcriptional factors such as nuclear factor 1, nuclear factorY, sterol regulatory element and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4γ were identi ed, while that for Sp1 was shown to be absent in the promoter by both bioinformatic analysis and site-directed mutation. Moreover, after the Sp1-binding site from the fads2 promoter of herbivorous Siganus canaliculatus, the rst marine teleost demonstrated to have LC-PUFA biosynthetic ability, was inserted into the corresponding region of E. coioides fads2 promoter, activity was signi cantly increased. The results provided direct data for the importance of the Sp1- binding site in determining fads2 promoter activity, and indicated that its lack may be a reason for low expression of fads2 and poor LC-PUFA biosynthetic ability in E. coioides

Pparγ Is Involved in the Transcriptional Regulation of Liver LC-PUFA Biosynthesis by Targeting the Δ6Δ5 Fatty Acyl Desaturase Gene in the Marine Teleost Siganus canaliculatus

As the first marine teleost demonstrated to have the ability of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) biosynthesis from C18 PUFA precursors, the rabbitfish Siganus canaliculatus provides us a unique model for clarifying the regulatory mechanisms of LC-PUFA biosynthesis in teleosts aiming at the replacement of dietary fish oil (rich in LC-PUFA) with vegetable oils (rich in C18 PUFA precursors but devoid of LC-PUFA). In the study of transcription regulation of gene encoding the Δ6Δ5 fatty acyl desaturase (Δ6Δ5 Fads), a rate-limiting enzyme catalyzing the first step of LC-PUFA biosynthesis in rabbitfish, a binding site for the transcription factor (TF), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (Pparγ), was predicted in Δ6Δ5 fads2 promoter by bioinformatics analysis, and thus the present study focused on the regulatory roles of Pparγ on Δ6Δ5 fads2. First, the activity of the Δ6Δ5 fads2 promoter was proved to be downregulated by pparγ overexpression and upregulated by treatment of Pparγ antagonist (GW9662), respectively, in HEK 293T cells with the dual luciferase reporter assay. Pparγ was further confirmed to interact with the promoter by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. Moreover, in S. canaliculatus hepatocyte line (SCHL) cells, GW9662 decreased the expression of pparγ together with increase of Δ6Δ5 fads2 mRNA. Besides, Δ6Δ5 fads2 expression was increased by pparγ RNAi knockdown and reduced by its mRNA overexpression. Furthermore, knockdown of pparγ induced a high conversion of 18:3n−3 to 18:4n−3 and 18:2n−6 to 18:3n−6, while pparγ mRNA overexpression led to a lower conversion of that, and finally a significant decrease of 20:4n-6(ARA), 20:5n-3(EPA), and 22:6n-3(DHA) production. The results indicate that Pparγ is involved in the transcriptional regulation of liver LC-PUFA biosynthesis by targeting Δ6Δ5 fads2 in rabbitfish, which is the first report of Pparγ involvement in the regulation of LC-PUFA biosynthesis in teleosts

The miR-33 gene is identified in a marine teleost: a potential role in regulation of LC-PUFA biosynthesis in Siganus canaliculatus

As the first marine teleost demonstrated to have the ability to biosynthesize long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) from C18PUFA precursors, rabbitfishSiganus canaliculatusprovides a good model for studying the regulatory mechanisms of LC-PUFA biosynthesis in teleosts. Here the potential roles of miR-33 in such regulation were investigated. The miR-33 gene was identified within intron 16 of the gene encoding sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (Srebp1), an activator of LC-PUFA biosynthesis. Expression of miR-33 in rabbitfish tissues correlated with that ofsrebp1, while its expression in liver was highly responsive to ambient salinities and PUFA components, factors affecting LC-PUFA biosynthesis. Srebp1 activation promoted the expression of Δ4 and Δ6 Δ5 fatty acyl desaturases (Fad), key enzymes for LC-PUFA biosynthesis, accompanied by elevated miR-33 abundance in rabbitfish hepatocytes. miR-33 overexpression induced the expression of the twofad, but suppressed that of insulin-induced gene 1 (insig1), which encodes a repressor blocking Srebp proteolytic activation and has targeting sites of miR-33. These results indicated that miR-33, cooperating with Srebp1, may be involved in regulation of LC-PUFA biosynthesis by facilitatingfadexpression, probably through targetinginsig1. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the participation of miR-33 in LC-PUFA biosynthesis in vertebrates