Fraction Constraint in Partial Wave Analysis

To resolve the non-convex optimization problem in partial wave analysis, this paper introduces a novel approach that incorporates fraction constraints into the likelihood function. This method offers significant improvements in both the efficiency of pole searching and the reliability of resonance selection within partial wave analysis

Differentiation of Foot-and-Mouth Disease-Infected pigs from Vaccinated Pigs Using Antibody-Detecting Sandwich ELISA

The presence of serum antibodies for nonstructural proteins of the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) can differentiate FMDV-infected animals from vaccinated animals. In this study, a sandwich ELISA was developed for rapid detection of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) antibodies; it was based on an Escherichia coli-expressed, highly conserved region of the 3ABC nonstructural protein of the FMDV O/TW/99 strain and a monoclonal antibody derived from the expressed protein. The diagnostic sensitivity of the assay was 98.4%, and the diagnostic specificity was 100% for naïve and vaccinated pigs; the detection ability of the assay was comparable those of the PrioCHECK and UBI kits. There was 97.5, 93.4 and 66.6% agreement between the results obtained from our ELISA and those obtained from the PrioCHECK, UBI and CHEKIT kits, respectively. The kappa statistics were 0.95, 0.87 and 0.37, respectively. Moreover, antibodies for nonstructural proteins of the serotypes A, C, Asia 1, SAT 1, SAT 2 and SAT 3 were also detected in bovine sera. Furthermore, the absence of cross-reactions generated by different antibody titers against the swine vesicular disease virus and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) was also highlighted in this assay's specificit

Clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of patients with tubo-ovarian abscess at a tertiary care hospital in Northern Taiwan

Background/PurposeControversy exists regarding the need for surgical intervention in patients with tubo-ovarian abscess (TOA). This study was aimed at investigating the clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes in patients with TOA at a tertiary care hospital in Taiwan.MethodsThe medical records of 83 patients who presented at the hospital with TOA between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2007, were retrospectively reviewed. Outcomes of patients who received medical treatment alone or underwent surgical intervention were analyzed using univariate and logistic regression analyses.ResultsAmong the 83 patients with TOA, 13 patients (15.7%) underwent surgical intervention, and 70 patients (84.3%) received medical treatment alone. Significant variables related to surgical treatment in the univariate analysis were length of stay (short vs. long; t = −2.267, p = 0.026), department of admission (emergency room vs. outpatient department; χ2 = 7.459, p = 0.006), number of live births (nulliparous vs. multiparous; χ2 = 18.202, p = 0.001), and C-reactive protein (CRP) level (high vs. low; t = −2.250, p = 0.028). Logistic regression analysis performed to determine influential factors for surgical treatment showed that the operation odds ratio of three to four live births versus no live births was 33.995 (p = 0.043) and that of two live births versus no live births was 13.598 (p = 0.026).ConclusionPatients with TOA who underwent surgery had a longer duration of hospitalization. Among the patients who underwent surgical intervention, those admitted to the emergency room had higher CRP levels and were more likely to be multiparous

New Molecular Mechanism for Ullrich Congenital Muscular Dystrophy: A Heterozygous In-Frame Deletion in the COL6A1 Gene Causes a Severe Phenotype

Recessive mutations in two of the three collagen VI genes, COL6A2 and COL6A3, have recently been shown to cause Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy (UCMD), a frequently severe disorder characterized by congenital muscle weakness with joint contractures and coexisting distal joint hyperlaxity. Dominant mutations in all three collagen VI genes had previously been associated with the considerably milder Bethlem myopathy. Here we report that a de novo heterozygous deletion of the COL6A1 gene can also result in a severe phenotype of classical UCMD precluding ambulation. The internal gene deletion occurs near a minisatellite DNA sequence in intron 8 that removes 1.1 kb of genomic DNA encompassing exons 9 and 10. The resulting mutant chain contains a 33–amino acid deletion near the amino-terminus of the triple-helical domain but preserves a unique cysteine in the triple-helical domain important for dimer formation prior to secretion. Thus, dimer formation and secretion of abnormal tetramers can occur and exert a strong dominant negative effect on microfibrillar assembly, leading to a loss of normal localization of collagen VI in the basement membrane surrounding muscle fibers. Consistent with this mechanism was our analysis of a patient with a much milder phenotype, in whom we identified a previously described Bethlem myopathy heterozygous in-frame deletion of 18 amino acids somewhat downstream in the triple-helical domain, a result of exon 14 skipping in the COL6A1 gene. This deletion removes the crucial cysteine, so that dimer formation cannot occur and the abnormal molecule is not secreted, preventing the strong dominant negative effect. Our studies provide a biochemical insight into genotype-phenotype correlations in this group of disorders and establish that UCMD can be caused by dominantly acting mutations

2-(5-Bromo­thio­phen-2-yl)-5-[5-(10-ethyl­phenothia­zin-3-yl)thio­phen-2-yl]-1,3,4-oxadiazole

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C24H16BrN3OS3, contains three approximately planar fragments, viz. an oxadiazole ring plus two adjacent thio­phene groups, and two phenothia­zine benzene rings, with largest deviations from the least-squares planes of 0.051 (3), 0.019 (4) and 0.014 (3) Å, respectively. The phenothia­zine unit adopts a butterfly conformation, with a dihedral angle of 38.06 (15)° between the terminal benzene rings. The dihedral angle between the 2,5-bis­(thio­phen-2-yl)oxadiazole unit and the attached benzene ring is 15.35 (11)°. In the crystal, mol­ecules form stacks along the b-axis direction; neighboring mol­ecules within the stack are related by inversion centers, with shortest inter­centroid separations of 3.741 (2) and 3.767 (2) Å

Microalgae-derived hydrochar application on rice paddy soil: higher rice yield but increased gaseous nitrogen loss

Hydrothermal carbonization represents a promising technique for transforming microalgae into the hydrochar with abundant phytoavailable nutrients. However, the effects of microalgae-derived hydrochars on the gaseous nitrogen (N) loss from agricultural field are still unclear. Chlorella vulgaris powder (CVP) and two Chlorella vulgaris-derived hydrochars that employ water (CVHW) or citrate acid solution (CVHCA) as the reaction medium were applied to a soil column system grown with rice. The temporal variations of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and ammonia (NH3) volatilization were monitored during the whole rice-growing season. Results showed that CVHW and CVHCA addition significantly increased the grain yield (by 13.5–26.8% and 10.5–23.4%) compared with control and CVP group, while concomitantly increasing the ammonia volatilization (by 53.8% and 72.9%) as well as N2O emissions (by 2.17- and 2.82-fold) from paddy soil compared to control. The microbial functional genes (AOA, AOB, nirk, nirS, nosZ) in soil indicated that CVHW and CVHCA treatment stimulated the nitrification and denitrification, and inhibited the N2O oxidation in soil. Notably, CVHW was recommended in the view of improving yield and controlling NH3 volatilization because no significant difference of the yield-scale NH3 volatilization was detected between control and CVHW treatment. This study for the first time uncovered that Chlorella vulgaris-derived hydrochars have positive effects on rice N utilization and growth but negative effects on the atmospheric environment

Cell Suspension Culture-Mediated Incorporation of the Rice Bel Gene into Transgenic Cotton

Cotton plants engineered for resistance to the herbicides, glyphosate or glufosinate have made a considerable impact on the production of the crop worldwide. In this work, embryogenic cell cultures derived from Gossypium hirsutum L. cv Coker 312 hypocotyl callus were transformed via Agrobacterium tumefaciens with the rice cytochrome P450 gene, CYP81A6 (bel). In rice, bel has been shown to confer resistance to both bentazon and sulfanylurea herbicides. Transformed cells were selected on a liquid medium supplemented alternately or simultaneously with kanamycin (50mg/L) and bentazon (4.2 µmol). A total of 17 transgenic cotton lines were recovered, based on the initial resistance to bentazon and on PCR detection of the bel transgene. Bel integration into the cotton genome was confirmed by Southern blot and expression of the transgene was verified by RT-PCR. In greenhouse and experimental plot trials, herbicide (bentazon) tolerance of up to 1250mg/L was demonstrated in the transgenic plants. Transgenic lines with a single copy of the bel gene showed normal Mendelian inheritance of the characteristic. Importantly, resistance to bentazon was shown to be stably incorporated in the T1, T2 and T3 generations of self-fertilised descendents and in plants outcrossed to another upland cotton cultivar. Engineering resistance to bentazon in cotton through the heterologous expression of bel opens the possibility of incorporating this trait into elite cultivars, a strategy that would give growers a more flexible alternative to weed management in cotton crops

Learning Segment Similarity and Alignment in Large-Scale Content Based Video Retrieval

With the explosive growth of web videos in recent years, large-scale Content-Based Video Retrieval (CBVR) becomes increasingly essential in video filtering, recommendation, and copyright protection. Segment-level CBVR (S-CBVR) locates the start and end time of similar segments in finer granularity, which is beneficial for user browsing efficiency and infringement detection especially in long video scenarios. The challenge of S-CBVR task is how to achieve high temporal alignment accuracy with efficient computation and low storage consumption. In this paper, we propose a Segment Similarity and Alignment Network (SSAN) in dealing with the challenge which is firstly trained end-to-end in S-CBVR. SSAN is based on two newly proposed modules in video retrieval: (1) An efficient Self-supervised Keyframe Extraction (SKE) module to reduce redundant frame features, (2) A robust Similarity Pattern Detection (SPD) module for temporal alignment. In comparison with uniform frame extraction, SKE not only saves feature storage and search time, but also introduces comparable accuracy and limited extra computation time. In terms of temporal alignment, SPD localizes similar segments with higher accuracy and efficiency than existing deep learning methods. Furthermore, we jointly train SSAN with SKE and SPD and achieve an end-to-end improvement. Meanwhile, the two key modules SKE and SPD can also be effectively inserted into other video retrieval pipelines and gain considerable performance improvements. Experimental results on public datasets show that SSAN can obtain higher alignment accuracy while saving storage and online query computational cost compared to existing methods.Comment: Accepted by ACM MM 202