From leaf to crop : quantifying photosynthesis responses of two flower crops

Variations in environment factors, e.g., light intensity, light spectrum, water and nutrient level, and crop structure manipulations may occur in the greenhouse. Changes in these factors could affect ornamental crop production in the greenhouse through affecting plant photosynthesis at different levels, e.g., leaf, plant and crop level. The aim of this thesis was to quantify photosynthesis responses to (i) combined changes in photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and red to far-red ratio (R:FR), (ii) water and nitrogen stress combinations and (iii) crop structure manipulations at different levels for two ornamental crops: lily and rose. Using the photosynthesis model of Farquhar, von Caemmerer and Berry (the FvCB model) and the stomatal conductance model of Ball, Woodrow and Berry (the BWB model), leaf photosynthesis responses to water and nitrogen stress combinations were quantified for lily. The changes of the FvCB model parameters due to variations of water and nitrogen conditions were linearly correlated with the changes of leaf nitrogen per unit leaf area. Most of the BWB model parameters did not depend on the nitrogen level. Using a functional-structural plant model, photosynthesis responses to changes in PAR and R:FR, and the presence of bent shoots were quantified at plant and crop level for rose. At mild shade, plant responses to low R:FR were more important for plant photosynthesis, while with the increase of shade level, plant responses to low PAR became more important. Moreover, the consequences of responses to changes in PAR and R:FR for plant photosynthesis tended to mitigate each other. The presence of bent shoots increased flower shoots dry weight, which was entirely due to the contribution of extra photosynthesis by bent shoots. In addition, bent shoots reflected relatively more far-red than red light, which lowered the R:FR in light reflected upwards that can be received by flower shoots. The low R:FR from below was associated with a steeper leaf angle in flower shoots, which increased canopy photosynthesis by allowing more light to penetrate to the lower plant parts. Overall this thesis illustrates the importance of considering the interactions of multiple factors when quantifying photosynthesis responses to environmental variations. A functional-structural plant model is a useful tool to upscale photosynthesis responses from leaf to crop level.</p

Topoisomerase II trapping agent teniposide induces apoptosis and G2/M or S phase arrest of oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Teniposide (VM-26) has been widely used in the treatment of small cell lung cancer, malignant lymphoma, breast cancer, etc. However, there are few reports on VM-26 against oral cancers. The present study was designed to identify the effect of VM-26 against oral squamous cell carcinoma in vitro, and to provide evidence for the feasibility and effectiveness of VM-26 for application to the patients with oral cancer. METHODS: Human tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line, Tca8113, was used. Cells were incubated with different concentrations of VM-26 for a variety of time span. Cisplatin (CDDP) was employed as a control reagent. MTT assay was used to assess the inhibitory rate of Tca8113 growth. Flow cytometer (FCM), transmission electronic microscope (TEM) and fluorescence staining were employed for determining the cell apoptotic rate. Cell cycle distribution of Tca8113 incubated with VM-26 was examined by flow cytometer assay. Statistic software (SAS 6.12, USA) was used for one-way ANOVA. RESULTS: The IC50 of VM-26 against Tca8113 cells was 0.35 mg/l and that of CDDP was 1.1 mg/l. The morphological changes of Tca8113 cells were observed with fluorescence microscope and TEM. Apoptotic morphological feature could be found in the nucleus. Apoptotic rate of Tca8113 cells incubated with 5.0 mg/l of VM-26 for 72 hours was 81.67% and cells waere arrested at S phase. However, when exposed to 0.15 mg/l of VM-26 for 72 hours, G2/M phase increased from 12.75% to 98.71%, while the apoptotic rate was 17.38%, which was lower than that exposed to 5.0 mg/l of VM-26. CONCLUSION: VM-26 could significantly induce apoptosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma and inhibit cell growth. There may be another pathway to induce apoptosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma cells except for G2/M phase arrest

Achieving Adversarial Robustness via Sparsity

Network pruning has been known to produce compact models without much accuracy degradation. However, how the pruning process affects a network's robustness and the working mechanism behind remain unresolved. In this work, we theoretically prove that the sparsity of network weights is closely associated with model robustness. Through experiments on a variety of adversarial pruning methods, we find that weights sparsity will not hurt but improve robustness, where both weights inheritance from the lottery ticket and adversarial training improve model robustness in network pruning. Based on these findings, we propose a novel adversarial training method called inverse weights inheritance, which imposes sparse weights distribution on a large network by inheriting weights from a small network, thereby improving the robustness of the large network

SpOctA: A 3D Sparse Convolution Accelerator with Octree-Encoding-Based Map Search and Inherent Sparsity-Aware Processing

Point-cloud-based 3D perception has attracted great attention in various applications including robotics, autonomous driving and AR/VR. In particular, the 3D sparse convolution (SpConv) network has emerged as one of the most popular backbones due to its excellent performance. However, it poses severe challenges to real-time perception on general-purpose platforms, such as lengthy map search latency, high computation cost, and enormous memory footprint. In this paper, we propose SpOctA, a SpConv accelerator that enables high-speed and energy-efficient point cloud processing. SpOctA parallelizes the map search by utilizing algorithm-architecture co-optimization based on octree encoding, thereby achieving 8.8-21.2x search speedup. It also attenuates the heavy computational workload by exploiting inherent sparsity of each voxel, which eliminates computation redundancy and saves 44.4-79.1% processing latency. To optimize on-chip memory management, a SpConv-oriented non-uniform caching strategy is introduced to reduce external memory access energy by 57.6% on average. Implemented on a 40nm technology and extensively evaluated on representative benchmarks, SpOctA rivals the state-of-the-art SpConv accelerators by 1.1-6.9x speedup with 1.5-3.1x energy efficiency improvement.Comment: Accepted to ICCAD 202

Multifunctional Voltage Source Inverter for Renewable Energy Integration and Power Quality Conditioning

In order to utilize the energy from the renewable energy sources, power conversion system is necessary, in which the voltage source inverter (VSI) is usually the last stage for injecting power to the grid. It is an economical solution to add the function of power quality conditioning to the grid-connected VSI in the low-voltage distribution system. Two multifunctional VSIs are studied in this paper, that is, inductive-coupling VSI and capacitive-coupling VSI, which are named after the fundamental frequency impedance of their coupling branch. The operation voltages of the two VSIs are compared when they are used for renewable energy integration and power quality conditioning simultaneously. The operation voltage of the capacitive-coupling VSI can be set much lower than that of the inductive-coupling VSI when reactive power is for compensating inductive loads. Since a large portion of the loads in the distribution system are inductive, the capacitive-coupling VSI is further studied. The design and control method of the multifunctional capacitive-coupling VSI are proposed in this paper. Simulation and experimental results are provided to show its validity

Protection against H1N1 influenza challenge by a DNA vaccine expressing H3/H1 subtype hemagglutinin combined with MHC class II-restricted epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple subtypes of avian influenza viruses have crossed the species barrier to infect humans and have the potential to cause a pandemic. Therefore, new influenza vaccines to prevent the co-existence of multiple subtypes within a host and cross-species transmission of influenza are urgently needed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here we report a multi-epitope DNA vaccine targeted towards multiple subtypes of the influenza virus. The protective hemagglutinin (HA) antigens from H5/H7/H9 subtypes were screened for MHC II class-restricted epitopes overlapping with predicted B cell epitopes. We then constructed a DNA plasmid vaccine, pV-H3-EHA-H1, based on HA antigens from human influenza H3/H1 subtypes combined with the H5/H7/H9 subtype Th/B epitope box.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Epitope-specific IFN-γ ELISpot responses were significantly higher in the multi-epitope DNA group than in other vaccine and control groups (<it>P </it>< 0.05). The multi-epitope group significantly enhanced Th2 cell responses as determined by cytokine assays. The survival rate of mice given the multi-epitope vaccine was the highest among the vaccine groups, but it was not significantly different compared to those given single antigen expressing pV-H1HA1 vaccine and dual antigen expressing pV-H3-H1 vaccine (<it>P </it>> 0.05). No measurable virus titers were detected in the lungs of the multi-epitope immunized group. The unique multi-epitope DNA vaccine enhanced virus-specific antibody and cellular immunity as well as conferred complete protection against lethal challenge with A/New Caledonia/20/99 (H1N1) influenza strain in mice.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This approach may be a promising strategy for developing a universal influenza vaccine to prevent multiple subtypes of influenza virus and to induce long-term protective immune against cross-species transmission.</p

Focos de interés y tendencias sobre la investigaciónen el baile flamenco: Análisis CiteSpace

Flamenco dance, which is increasingly internationalized and globalized, has a huge market demand all over the world and it has been popular and valued by researchers nowadays. Thus, hotspots and trends research is essential to provide information for industrial development and further development lines. Based on 130 articles published from 1982 to 2021 (database updated on 4 December 2021) about flamenco dance in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection, this research by using CiteSpaceV software explored the research hotspots and trends of the flamenco dance from the time horizon, collaborate network incorporates authors, institutions, regions, and keywords. Result: The number of publications shows an upward trend with fluctuations Since 2008. 9 main research groups are formed. The University of Seville is the most prolific institution and the Saint Anthony Catholic University of Murcia ranks the highest centrality. Spain is the highest yield region. The hotspots included cultural aspects, which include identity and art in Andalusia, as well as biomechanical and physical aspects, including body, anthropometry, and physical activity focusing on dancers. The trend of this field will be physical and psychological aspects. Conclusion: future research may focus on the body and psychological aspects.El baile flamenco se encuentra cada vez más internacionalizado y globalizado, teniendo una enorme demanda de mercado a nivel mundial. Actualmente es un campo de estudio para investigadores y profesionales del arte flamenco. Así, las zonas de referencia y tendencias en la investigación sobre el baile flamenco son esenciales para proporcionar información para el desarrollo industrial y futuras líneas de desarrollo.La muestra se basó en 130 artículos publicados desde 1982 hasta 2021 (base de datos actualizada el 4 de diciembre de 2021) sobre baile flamenco en las bases de datos de Scopus y Web of Science Core Collection. El análisis se realizó mediante el uso del software CiteSpaceV. Se exploraron los focos de interés y las tendencias de investigación en el baile flamenco desde el horizonte temporal. La red de colaboración incorpora autores, instituciones, regiones y palabras clave. Resultados: el número de publicaciones muestra una tendencia al alza con fluctuaciones desde 2008. Se forman 9 grupos de investigación principales. La Universidad de Sevilla es la institución más prolífica y la Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia ocupa el puesto de centralidad más alto. España es la región de mayor rendimiento. Los focos de interés incluyeron aspectos culturales, que incluyen la identidad y el arte en Andalucía, así como aspectos biomecánicos y físicos, incluidos el cuerpo, la antropometría y la actividad física centrada en los bailarines. La tendencia de este campo se basa en aspectos físicos y psicológicos. Conclusión: Investigaciones futuras pueden centrarse en aspectos corporales y psicológicos.Actividad Física y Deport

Disentangling the effects of photosynthetically active radiation and red to far-red ratio on plant photosynthesis under canopy shading. A simulation study using a functional-structural plant model

Background and AimsShading by an overhead canopy (i.e., canopy shading) entails simultaneous changes in both photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and red to far-red ratio (R:FR). As plant responses to PAR (e.g. changes in leaf photosynthesis) are different from responses to R:FR (e.g. changes in plant architecture), and these responses occur at both organ and plant levels, understanding plant photosynthesis responses to canopy shading needs separate analysis of responses to reductions in PAR and R:FR at different levels.MethodsIn a greenhouse experiment we subjected plants of woody perennial rose (Rosa hybrida) to different light treatments, and so separately quantified the effects of reductions in PAR and R:FR on leaf photosynthetic- and plant architectural traits. Using a functional-structural plant model, we separately quantified the effects of responses in these traits on plant photosynthesis, and evaluated the relative importance of changes of individual traits for plant photosynthesis under mild and heavy shading caused by virtual overhead canopies.Key ResultsModel simulations showed that the individual trait responses to canopy shading could have positive and negative effects on plant photosynthesis. Under mild canopy shading, trait responses to reduced R:FR on photosynthesis were generally negative and with a larger magnitude than effects of responses to reduced PAR. Conversely, under heavy canopy shading, the positive effects of trait responses to reduced PAR became dominant. The combined effects of low-R:FR responses and low-PAR responses on plant photosynthesis were not equal to the sum of the separate effects, indicating interactions between individual trait responses.ConclusionsOur simulation results indicate that under canopy shading, the relative importance of plant responses to PAR and R:FR for plant photosynthesis changes with shade levels. This suggests that the adaptive significance of plant plasticity responses to one shading factor depends on plant responses to the other

Large Trajectory Models are Scalable Motion Predictors and Planners

Motion prediction and planning are vital tasks in autonomous driving, and recent efforts have shifted to machine learning-based approaches. The challenges include understanding diverse road topologies, reasoning traffic dynamics over a long time horizon, interpreting heterogeneous behaviors, and generating policies in a large continuous state space. Inspired by the success of large language models in addressing similar complexities through model scaling, we introduce a scalable trajectory model called State Transformer (STR). STR reformulates the motion prediction and motion planning problems by arranging observations, states, and actions into one unified sequence modeling task. With a simple model design, STR consistently outperforms baseline approaches in both problems. Remarkably, experimental results reveal that large trajectory models (LTMs), such as STR, adhere to the scaling laws by presenting outstanding adaptability and learning efficiency. Qualitative results further demonstrate that LTMs are capable of making plausible predictions in scenarios that diverge significantly from the training data distribution. LTMs also learn to make complex reasonings for long-term planning, without explicit loss designs or costly high-level annotations

Ankle active range of motion as an essential factor of footwork technique in the prevention of overuse injuries in flamenco dancers

Flamenco dance is a performing art which is based on footwork technique where the foot and ankle play an important role. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of ankle active range of motion on external load and its efficacy as a predictor during a flamenco footwork technique, with consideration of accelerometer positions and dance proficiency. Twelve flamenco dancers composed of 6 professional and 6 amateurs participated voluntarily in this study for whom no significant differences were detected regarding age, mass or height. Participants completed a 15-second Zap-3 footwork test at a speed of 160 bpm (beats per minute), 180 bpm and as fast as they could. Triaxial accelerometers were positioned at the dominant ankle, 5th lumbar vertebrae and 7th cervical vertebrae to calculate accumulated PlayerLoad and uniaxial PlayerLoad of the3 planes (anteroposterior, mediolateral and vertical) for each speed level. Percentage contributions were also calculated. The effect of dorsiflexion on the external load of the dominant ankle of both professional and amateur dancers existed only in the anteroposterior axis while dorsiflexion was related to the external load at the 7th cervical vertebrae and only amateurs were affected. Plantarflexion only affected the uniaxial contribution of the vertical-axis of professional dancers. These programs would be applied to develop a technique feedback system for the flamenco dancer to follow their own model with respect to the ideal. This would allow intervention in the prevention of overuse injuries in flamenco dance artists