Análisis del desarrollo turístico sostenible en las aldeas de minorías étnicas chinas

En los últimos años en China, el turismo étnico es cada vez más popular, su aumento y desarrollo como una nueva fuente de recursos, va en aumento. Las aldeas de minorías étnicas tienen un patrimonio histórico y cultural relacionado con los asentamientos tradicionales, y al mismo tiempo, poseen las características de un contexto local único, así como costumbres de "una cultura diferente" y "una experiencia de participación comunitaria” singulares y que atraen poderosamente la atención tanto de visitantes como de investigadores de todo el mundo. Sin embargo, debido a varias causas internas y externas, el desarrollo sostenible de estas aldeas en China se enfrenta a muchos desafíos y problemas, tal y como se describe en el trabajo. En esta investigación se realiza un estudio descriptivo de las aldeas de minoría étnica explorando sus características y planteando estrategias de desarrollo turístico sostenible

Improving End-to-End Text Image Translation From the Auxiliary Text Translation Task

End-to-end text image translation (TIT), which aims at translating the source language embedded in images to the target language, has attracted intensive attention in recent research. However, data sparsity limits the performance of end-to-end text image translation. Multi-task learning is a non-trivial way to alleviate this problem via exploring knowledge from complementary related tasks. In this paper, we propose a novel text translation enhanced text image translation, which trains the end-to-end model with text translation as an auxiliary task. By sharing model parameters and multi-task training, our model is able to take full advantage of easily-available large-scale text parallel corpus. Extensive experimental results show our proposed method outperforms existing end-to-end methods, and the joint multi-task learning with both text translation and recognition tasks achieves better results, proving translation and recognition auxiliary tasks are complementary.Comment: Accepted at the 26TH International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR 2022

Reducing the muscle activity of walking using a portable hip exoskeleton based on human-in-the-loop optimization

Introduction: Human-in-the-loop optimization has made great progress to improve the performance of wearable robotic devices and become an effective customized assistance strategy. However, a lengthy period (several hours) of continuous walking for iterative optimization for each individual makes it less practical, especially for disabled people, who may not endure this process. Methods: In this paper, we provide a muscle-activity-based human-in-the-loop optimization strategy that can reduce the time spent on collecting biosignals during each iteration from around 120 s to 25 s. Both Bayesian and Covariance Matrix Adaptive Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) optimization algorithms were adopted on a portable hip exoskeleton to generate optimal assist torque patterns, optimizing rectus femoris muscle activity. Four volunteers were recruited for exoskeleton-assisted walking trials. Results and Discussion: As a result, using human-in-the-loop optimization led to muscle activity reduction of 33.56% and 41.81% at most when compared to walking without and with the hip exoskeleton, respectively. Furthermore, the results of human-in-the-loop optimization indicate that three out of four participants achieved superior outcomes compared to the predefined assistance patterns. Interestingly, during the optimization stage, the order of the two typical optimizers, i.e., Bayesian and CMA-ES, did not affect the optimization results. The results of the experiment have confirmed that the assistance pattern generated by muscle-activity-based human-in-the-loop strategy is superior to predefined assistance patterns, and this strategy can be achieved more rapidly than the one based on metabolic cost

Over-expression of CYP78A98, a cytochrome P450 gene from Jatropha curcas L., increases seed size of transgenic tobacco

Background: Jatropha curcas L. (further referred to as Jatropha), as a rapidly emerging biofuel crop, has attracted worldwide interest. However, Jatropha is still an undomesticated plant, the true potential of this shrub has not yet been fully realized. To explore the potential of Jatropha, breeding and domestication are needed. Seed size is one of themost important traits of seed yield and has been selected since the beginning of agriculture. Increasing the seed size is amain goal of Jatropha domestication for increasing the seed yield, but the genetic regulation of seed size in Jatropha has not been fully understood. Results: We cloned CYP78A98 gene from Jatropha, a homologue of CYP78A5 in Arabidopsis. We found that CYP78A98 was highly expressed in male flower, female flower, stem apex, leaf and developing seed. However, its transcripts were hardly detected in root and stem. CYP78A98 protein localized in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the hydrophobic domain at the N-terminus was essential for the correct protein localization. Furthermore, INNER NO OUTER promoter (pINO) drove specific overexpression of CYP78A98 in transgenic tobacco seeds resulted in increased seed size andweight, aswell as improved seed protein and fatty acid content. Conclusions: The results indicated that CYP78A98 played a role in Jatropha seed size control. This may help us to better understand the genetic regulation of Jatropha seed development, and accelerate the breeding progress of Jatropha

Diel vertical migration of Peridiniopsis niei, Liu et al., a new species of dinoflagellates in an eutrophic bay of Three-Gorge Reservoir, China

In spring, a typical dinoflagellate (Peridiniopsis niei Liu et al.) constitutes most of the phytoplankton biomass in most of eutrophic bay of Three-Gorge Reservoir (TGR, China). There are few field observations on vertical migration of the members of the genus Peridiniopsis. We studied diel vertical migration of the new species (Peridiniopsis niei) at sampling stations A and B in an eutrophic bay (Xiangxi Bay) of TGR during both day and night in March 2007. The present study suggests that vertical migration by Peridiniopsis niei is similar in nature to the migration patterns observed for other dinoflagellates. Solar irradiance incident was an important factor regulating the ascent and descent of Peridiniopsis niei. The vertical descent of Peridiniopsis niei during nighttime was restricted when the thermocline (Temperature gradient > 1A degrees C m(-1)) was present in the station B

Identification of Heat-Tolerant Genes in Non-Reference Sequences in Rice by Integrating Pan-Genome, Transcriptomics, and QTLs.

The availability of large-scale genomic data resources makes it very convenient to mine and analyze genes that are related to important agricultural traits in rice. Pan-genomes have been constructed to provide insight into the genome diversity and functionality of different plants, which can be used in genome-assisted crop improvement. Thus, a pan-genome comprising all genetic elements is crucial for comprehensive variation study among the heat-resistant and -susceptible rice varieties. In this study, a rice pan-genome was firstly constructed by using 45 heat-tolerant and 15 heat-sensitive rice varieties. A total of 38,998 pan-genome genes were identified, including 37,859 genes in the reference and 1141 in the non-reference contigs. Genomic variation analysis demonstrated that a total of 76,435 SNPs were detected and identified as the heat-tolerance-related SNPs, which were specifically present in the highly heat-resistant rice cultivars and located in the genic regions or within 2 kbp upstream and downstream of the genes. Meanwhile, 3214 upregulated and 2212 downregulated genes with heat stress tolerance-related SNPs were detected in one or multiple RNA-seq datasets of rice under heat stress, among which 24 were located in the non-reference contigs of the rice pan-genome. We then mapped the DEGs with heat stress tolerance-related SNPs to the heat stress-resistant QTL regions. A total of 1677 DEGs, including 990 upregulated and 687 downregulated genes, were mapped to the 46 heat stress-resistant QTL regions, in which 2 upregulated genes with heat stress tolerance-related SNPs were identified in the non-reference sequences. This pan-genome resource is an important step towards the effective and efficient genetic improvement of heat stress resistance in rice to help meet the rapidly growing needs for improved rice productivity under different environmental stresses. These findings provide further insight into the functional validation of a number of non-reference genes and, especially, the two genes identified in the heat stress-resistant QTLs in rice

The MapZ-Mediated Methylation of Chemoreceptors Contributes to Pathogenicity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is notorious for causing acute and chronic infections in humans. The ability to infect host by P. aeruginosa is dependent on a complex cellular signaling network, which includes a large number of chemosensory signaling pathways that rely on the methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCPs). We previously found that the second messenger c-di-GMP-binding adaptor MapZ modulates the methylation of an amino acid-detecting MCP by directly interacting with a chemotaxis methyltransferase CheR1. The current study further expands our understanding of the role of MapZ in regulating chemosensory pathways by demonstrating that MapZ suppresses the methylation of multiple MCPs in P. aeruginosa PAO1. The MCPs under the control of MapZ include five MCPs (Aer, CtpH, CptM, PctA, and PctB) for detecting oxygen/energy, inorganic phosphate, malate and amino acids, and three MCPs (PA1251, PA1608, and PA2867) for detecting unknown chemoattractant or chemorepellent. Chemotaxis assays showed that overexpression of MapZ hampered the taxis of P. aeruginosa toward chemoattractants and scratch-wounded human cells. Mouse infection experiments demonstrated that a dysfunction in MapZ regulation had a profound negative impact on the dissemination of P. aeruginosa and resulted in attenuated bacterial virulence. Together, the results imply that by controlling the methylation of various MCPs via the adaptor protein MapZ, c-di-GMP exerts a profound influence on chemotactic responses and bacterial pathogenesis

Valence Change Ability and Geometrical Occupation of Substitution Cations Determine the Pseudocapacitance of Spinel Ferrite XFe₂O₄ (X = Mn, Co, Ni, Fe)

In recent years, spinel ferrites have attracted much attention as a merging material for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR),(1) advanced battery electrodes,(2, 3) and supercapacitors.(4, 5) Generally, the spinel structure can be described by a formula [X₁−λ²⁺Bλ³⁺]ᵀ[Xλ²⁺B₂−λ³⁺]ᴼ O₄, where λ is the inversion degree in-between 0 and 1, and superscripts T and O denote the tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively. Depending on the cation distribution, a spinel can be normal (λ = 0, 100% X in tetrahedral sites), inverse (λ = 1, 100% X in octahedral sites), or partially inverse (0 < λ < 1). Previous studies on spinel ferrites focused intensively on their magnetic properties,(6, 7) as the substitution of Fe cations by transition metals can affect the cation distribution, thus resulting in significantly different magnetic properties due to the regulation of the unpaired electron spins of Fe²⁺ in octahedral sites.(8, 9) Recent studies also showed that this substitution affects their electrochemical performance. For example, Mn substituted ferrites show nearly the same ORR activity as Pt/C in alkaline and Mn substitution also influences the capacitance more than other metal ion substituted ferrites.(1, 10) Such difference on electrochemical performance could be ascribed to the type of substituent cations and their influence. However, no systematic mechanistic investigation has been carried out. This lack of knowledge hinders the understanding of the substitution effects on the performance and, thus, the development of spinel ferrites as energy materials