Isolation and Characterization of a Phosphate-Solubilizing Halophilic Bacterium Kushneria sp. YCWA18 from Daqiao Saltern on the Coast of Yellow Sea of China

Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) function in soil phosphorus cycle, increasing the bioavailability of soil phosphorus for plants. Isolation and application of salt-tolerant or halophilic PSB will facilitate the development of saline-alkali soil-based agriculture. A moderately halophilic bacterium was isolated from the sediment of Daqiao saltern on the eastern coast of China, which also performs phosphate-solubilizing ability. The bacterium was assigned to genus Kushneria according to its 16S rRNA gene sequence, and accordingly named as Kushneria sp. YCWA18. The fastest growth was observed when the culturing temperature was 28°C and the concentration of NaCl was 6% (w/v). It was founds that the bacterium can survive at a concentration of NaCl up to 20%. At the optimum condition, the bacterium solubilized 283.16 μg/mL phosphorus in 11 days after being inoculated in 200 mL Ca3(PO4)2 containing liquid medium, and 47.52 μg/mL phosphorus in 8 days after being inoculated in 200 mL lecithin-containing liquid medium. The growth of the bacterium was concomitant with a significant decrease of acidity of the medium

Effects of Emoticons on the Acceptance of Negative Feedback in Computer-Mediated Communication

Delivering negative performance feedback is inevitable in the workplace. However, recipients may feel uncomfortable and behave defensively, and may be unwilling to accept negative feedback mainly because they fear losing face. Such unproductive responses are heightened when negative feedback is delivered through computer-mediated communication (CMC) channels in which many nonverbal cues in face-to-face communication cannot be used to alleviate the concerns of losing face. This study examines the effectiveness of emoticons, which are designed as surrogates for facial expressions in CMC environments, in conveying social and emotional signals of the feedback provider. Specifically, based on the feedback process model and the dissonance reduction theory, this study investigates the differing effects of two types of emoticons (i.e., liking and disliking ones) on the acceptance of negative feedback by considering feedback specificity as a contingent factor. Our results suggest that using liking emoticons increases perceived good intention of the feedback provider and decreases perceived feedback negativity when the feedback is specific; however, it has no significant effect for unspecific feedback. By contrast, our results suggest that using disliking emoticons decreases perceived good intention of the feedback provider and increases perceived feedback negativity when the feedback is unspecific, whereas such effects are not significant for specific feedback. In turn, both perceived good intention of the feedback provider and perceived feedback negativity affect acceptance of the negative feedback

Influences of luminance contrast and ambient lighting on visual context learning and retrieval

Invariant spatial context can guide attention and facilitate visual search, an effect referred to as “contextual cueing.” Most previous studies on contextual cueing were conducted under conditions of photopic vision and high search item to background luminance contrast, leaving open the question whether the learning and/or retrieval of context cues depends on luminance contrast and ambient lighting. Given this, we conducted three experiments (each contains two subexperiments) to compare contextual cueing under different combinations of luminance contrast (high/low) and ambient lighting (photopic/mesopic). With high-contrast displays, we found robust contextual cueing in both photopic and mesopic environments, but the acquired contextual cueing could not be transferred when the display contrast changed from high to low in the photopic environment. By contrast, with low-contrast displays, contextual facilitation manifested only in mesopic vision, and the acquired cues remained effective following a switch to high-contrast displays. This pattern suggests that, with low display contrast, contextual cueing benefited from a more global search mode, aided by the activation of the peripheral rod system in mesopic vision, but was impeded by a more local, fovea-centered search mode in photopic vision

Electromagnetic Performance Comparison between 12-Phase Switched Flux and Surface-Mounted PM Machines for Direct-Drive Wind Power Generation

In this article, the 12-phase switched flux permanent magnet (PM) (SFPM) machine and three surface-mounted PM (SPM) machines designed for direct-drive wind power generation are comparatively analyzed. First, feasible stator-slot/rotor-pole combinations for symmetrical 12-phase winding layout are investigated for both machine topologies. Second, the key design parameters of the PM generators including the split ratio and stator teeth width ratio are optimized by finite element analysis to achieve a high phase fundamental EMF per turn and a low cogging torque, both of which are desired by the direct-drive wind power generator. Third, electromagnetic performances including air-gap field, cogging torque, static torque, inductance, output voltage and its regulation factor, output power, and efficiency of the generators are compared. A 10-kW 24-slot/22-pole SFPM prototype is built and tested to validate the FE predicted results.</p

Deep3DSketch+: Rapid 3D Modeling from Single Free-hand Sketches

The rapid development of AR/VR brings tremendous demands for 3D content. While the widely-used Computer-Aided Design (CAD) method requires a time-consuming and labor-intensive modeling process, sketch-based 3D modeling offers a potential solution as a natural form of computer-human interaction. However, the sparsity and ambiguity of sketches make it challenging to generate high-fidelity content reflecting creators' ideas. Precise drawing from multiple views or strategic step-by-step drawings is often required to tackle the challenge but is not friendly to novice users. In this work, we introduce a novel end-to-end approach, Deep3DSketch+, which performs 3D modeling using only a single free-hand sketch without inputting multiple sketches or view information. Specifically, we introduce a lightweight generation network for efficient inference in real-time and a structural-aware adversarial training approach with a Stroke Enhancement Module (SEM) to capture the structural information to facilitate learning of the realistic and fine-detailed shape structures for high-fidelity performance. Extensive experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance on both synthetic and real datasets

Reality3DSketch: Rapid 3D Modeling of Objects from Single Freehand Sketches

The emerging trend of AR/VR places great demands on 3D content. However, most existing software requires expertise and is difficult for novice users to use. In this paper, we aim to create sketch-based modeling tools for user-friendly 3D modeling. We introduce Reality3DSketch with a novel application of an immersive 3D modeling experience, in which a user can capture the surrounding scene using a monocular RGB camera and can draw a single sketch of an object in the real-time reconstructed 3D scene. A 3D object is generated and placed in the desired location, enabled by our novel neural network with the input of a single sketch. Our neural network can predict the pose of a drawing and can turn a single sketch into a 3D model with view and structural awareness, which addresses the challenge of sparse sketch input and view ambiguity. We conducted extensive experiments synthetic and real-world datasets and achieved state-of-the-art (SOTA) results in both sketch view estimation and 3D modeling performance. According to our user study, our method of performing 3D modeling in a scene is $>$5x faster than conventional methods. Users are also more satisfied with the generated 3D model than the results of existing methods.Comment: IEEE Transactions on MultiMedi

Regulation of IκBα expression involves both NF-κB and the MAP kinase signaling pathways

IκBα is an inhibitor of the nuclear transcription factor NF-κB. Binding of IκBα to NF-κB inactivates the transcriptional activity of NF-κB. Expression of IκBα itself is regulated by NF-κB, which provides auto-regulation of this signaling pathway. Here we present a mouse model for monitoring in vivo IκBα expression by imaging IκBα-luc transgenic mice for IκBα promoter driven luciferase activity. We demonstrated a rapid and systemic induction of IκBα expression in the transgenic mice following treatment with LPS. The induction was high in liver, spleen, lung and intestine and lower in the kidney, heart and brain. The luciferase induction in the liver correlated with increased IκBα mRNA level. Pre-treatment with proteasome inhibitor bortezomib dramatically suppressed LPS-induced luciferase activity. The p38 kinase inhibitor SB203580 also showed moderate inhibition of LPS-induced luciferase activity. Analysis of IκBα mRNA in the liver tissue showed a surprising increase of the IκBα mRNA after bortezomib and SB203580 treatments, which could be due to increased IκBα mRNA stability. Our data demonstrate that regulation of IκBα expression involves both the NF-κB and the p38 signaling pathways. The IκBα-luc transgenic mice are useful for analyzing IκBα expression and the NF-κB transcriptional activity in vivo

Olf1/EBF associated zinc finger protein interfered with antinuclear antibody production in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract Introduction The aim of the study was to determine whether Olf1/EBF associated zinc finger protein (OAZ), a transcription factor encoded by a positional systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) candidate gene, plays a functional role in the pathogenesis in SLE. Methods Gene expression levels in peripheral blood cells (PBLs) measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) were assessed for association with disease activity and the presence of specific autoantibodies. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were incubated with specific siRNAs for three days, then cells were harvested for measuring mRNA levels using qPCR, and supernatants for levels of total immunoglobulin (Ig)G and IgM as well as secreted cytokines, chemokine and antinuclear antibodies (ANA) using ELISA. Indirect immunofluorescence was also applied for ANA detection. Results OAZ gene expressions in PBLs from 40 ANA-positive SLE patients were significantly increased than those from 30 normal controls (P &lt; 0.0001) and 18 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (P &lt; 0.01). In SLE patients, OAZ transcripts were positively correlated with SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI) score (r = 0.72, P &lt; 0.0001) and higher in those positive for anti-dsDNA or anti-Sm antibodies (both P &lt; 0.05). Co-culturing with OAZ siRNAs reduced mRNA levels of OAZ by 74.6 ± 6.4% as compared to those co-cultured with non-targeting siRNA and OAZ silencing resulted in reduced total IgG, ANA, interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-10, IL-12 and IL-21, but elevated CCL2 levels in culture supernatants (P &lt; 0.05). The declined ANA levels correlated with inhibited OAZ expression (r = 0.88, P = 0.05), reduced IL-21 levels (r = 0.99, P &lt; 0.01), and elevated chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 levels (r = -0.98, P &lt; 0.01). Expressions of ID1-3 were significantly down-regulated by 68.7%, 70.2% and 67.7% respectively after OAZ silence, while ID3 was also highly expressed in SLE PBLs (P &lt; 0.0001) and associated with disease activity (r = 0.76, P &lt; 0.0001) as well as anti-dsDNA or anti-Sm antibodies (both P &lt; 0.05). Conclusions Elevated expression of OAZ transcripts in SLE PBLs were strongly correlated with disease activity. Suppression of OAZ expression inhibited downstream ID levels, and secretion of ANA and IL-21, implicating a role of OAZ pathway in the pathogenesis of SLE

SAM Fails to Segment Anything? -- SAM-Adapter: Adapting SAM in Underperformed Scenes: Camouflage, Shadow, and More

The emergence of large models, also known as foundation models, has brought significant advancements to AI research. One such model is Segment Anything (SAM), which is designed for image segmentation tasks. However, as with other foundation models, our experimental findings suggest that SAM may fail or perform poorly in certain segmentation tasks, such as shadow detection and camouflaged object detection (concealed object detection). This study first paves the way for applying the large pre-trained image segmentation model SAM to these downstream tasks, even in situations where SAM performs poorly. Rather than fine-tuning the SAM network, we propose \textbf{SAM-Adapter}, which incorporates domain-specific information or visual prompts into the segmentation network by using simple yet effective adapters. Our extensive experiments show that SAM-Adapter can significantly elevate the performance of SAM in challenging tasks and we can even outperform task-specific network models and achieve state-of-the-art performance in the task we tested: camouflaged object detection and shadow detection. We believe our work opens up opportunities for utilizing SAM in downstream tasks, with potential applications in various fields, including medical image processing, agriculture, remote sensing, and more

Possible Role of Hydrogen Sulfide in Insulin Secretion and in Development of Insulin Resistance

H2S has been proposed as physiological important molecule. It is considered as first endogenous gaseous K+ channel opener. K+ ATP channel activity is mainly responsible for insulin secretion. K+ATP channel opening of β cells leads to inhibition of insulin secretion and channels closing leads to secretion. H2S is the gaseous K+ ATP channel opener but it does not have channel specificity. So, H2S may have some effect on insulin secretion. H2S is high in Zuker diabetic fatty rats. That means H2S is high in insulin resistance condition. We tried to find out the role of H2S in insulin secretion and in development of insulin resistance. From the result of our study, H2S have K+ ATP channel opening activity on β cells. H2S does not have any role in the development of insulin resistance. Decrease in insulin level in Zuker diabetic rat and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat is due to high H2S level