Hopf bifurcation in a reaction-diffusive-advection two-species competition model with one delay

In this paper, we investigate a reaction-diffusive-advection two-species competition model with one delay and Dirichlet boundary conditions. The existence and multiplicity of spatially non-homogeneous steady-state solutions are obtained. The stability of spatially nonhomogeneous steady-state solutions and the existence of Hopf bifurcation with the changes of the time delay are obtained by analyzing the distribution of eigenvalues of the infinitesimal generator associated with the linearized system. By the normal form theory and the center manifold reduction, the stability and bifurcation direction of Hopf bifurcating periodic orbits are derived. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical results

A phage-displayed peptide recognizing porcine aminopeptidase N is a potent small molecule inhibitor of PEDV entry

Three phage-displayed peptides designated H, S and F that recognize porcine aminopeptidase N (pAPN), the cellular receptor of porcine transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) were able to inhibit cell infection by TGEV. These same peptides had no inhibitory effects on infection of Vero cells by porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). However, when PEDV, TGEV and porcine pseudorabies virus were incubated with peptide H (HVTTTFAPPPPR), only infection of Vero cells by PEDV was inhibited. Immunofluorescence assays indicated that inhibition of PEDV infection by peptide H was independent of pAPN. Western blots demonstrated that peptide H interacted with PEDV spike protein and that pre-treatment of PEDV with peptide H led to a higher inhibition than synchronous incubation with cells. These results indicate direct interaction with the virus is necessary to inhibit infectivity. Temperature shift assays demonstrated that peptide H inhibited pre-attachment of the virus to the cells

Generating Handwritten Chinese Characters using CycleGAN

Handwriting of Chinese has long been an important skill in East Asia. However, automatic generation of handwritten Chinese characters poses a great challenge due to the large number of characters. Various machine learning techniques have been used to recognize Chinese characters, but few works have studied the handwritten Chinese character generation problem, especially with unpaired training data. In this work, we formulate the Chinese handwritten character generation as a problem that learns a mapping from an existing printed font to a personalized handwritten style. We further propose DenseNet CycleGAN to generate Chinese handwritten characters. Our method is applied not only to commonly used Chinese characters but also to calligraphy work with aesthetic values. Furthermore, we propose content accuracy and style discrepancy as the evaluation metrics to assess the quality of the handwritten characters generated. We then use our proposed metrics to evaluate the generated characters from CASIA dataset as well as our newly introduced Lanting calligraphy dataset.Comment: Accepted at WACV 201

Identification of a Novel PIP2 Interaction Site and its Allosteric Regulation by the RCK1 Site Associated with Ca2+ Coordination in Slo1 Channels

We consider the Schr\"odinger operator on a combinatorial graph consisting of a finite graph and a finite number of discrete half-lines, all jointed together, and compute an asymptotic expansion of its resolvent around the threshold $0$. Precise expressions are obtained for the first few coefficients of the expansion in terms of the generalized eigenfunctions. This result justifies the classification of threshold types solely by growth properties of the generalized eigenfunctions. By choosing an appropriate free operator a priori possessing no zero eigenvalue or zero resonance we can simplify the expansion procedure as much as that on the single discrete half-line.Comment: 55 pages, minor revisions, final versio

A Tabu Search algorithm for the vehicle routing problem with discrete split deliveries and pickups

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Discrete Split Deliveries and Pickups is a variant of the Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Deliveries and Pickups, in which customers’ demands are discrete in terms of batches (or orders). It exists in the practice of logistics distribution and consists of designing a least cost set of routes to serve a given set of customers while respecting constraints on the vehicles’ capacities. In this paper, its features are analyzed. A mathematical model and Tabu Search algorithm with specially designed batch combination and item creation operation are proposed. The batch combination operation is designed to avoid unnecessary travel costs, while the item creation operation effectively speeds up the search and enhances the algorithmic search ability. Computational results are provided and compared with other methods in the literature, which indicate that in most cases the proposed algorithm can find better solutions than those in the literature

Lobaplatin arrests cell cycle progression in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) still is a big burden for China. In recent years, the third-generation platinum compounds have been proposed as potential active agents for HCC. However, more experimental and clinical data are warranted to support the proposal. In the present study, the effect of lobaplatin was assessed in five HCC cell lines and the underlying molecular mechanisms in terms of cell cycle kinetics were explored.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cytotoxicity of lobaplatin to human HCC cell lines was examined using MTT cell proliferation assay. Cell cycle distribution was determined by flow cytometry. Expression of cell cycle-regulated genes was examined at both the mRNA (RT-PCR) and protein (Western blot) levels. The phosphorylation status of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and retinoblastoma (Rb) protein was also examined using Western blot analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Lobaplatin inhibited proliferation of human HCC cells in a dose-dependent manner. For the most sensitive SMMC-7721 cells, lobaplatin arrested cell cycle progression in G₁and G₂/M phases time-dependently which might be associated with the down-regulation of cyclin B, CDK1, CDC25C, phosphorylated CDK1 (pCDK1), pCDK4, Rb, E2F, and pRb, and the up-regulation of p53, p21, and p27.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Cytotoxicity of lobaplatin in human HCC cells might be due to its ability to arrest cell cycle progression which would contribute to the potential use of lobaplatin for the management of HCC.</p

Insight into the liquid state of organo-lead halide perovskites and their new roles in dye-sensitized solar cells

Here we report that organo-lead halide perovskite CH3NH 3PbI(3-x)Clx solution can be used as a new liquid electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). We find that the presence of inorganic octahedra of [PbX6]4- (X = I or Cl, or a combination of them) in this perovskite solution can not only remarkably improve the device stability but also enhance the photo-response of DSCs

Modelling of a hybrid system for on-site power generation from solar fuels

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Optimizing de novo transcriptome assembly from short-read RNA-Seq data: a comparative study

With the fast advances in nextgen sequencing technology, high-throughput RNA sequencing has emerged as a powerful and cost-effective way for transcriptome study. De novo assembly of transcripts provides an important solution to transcriptome analysis for organisms with no reference genome. However, there lacked understanding on how the different variables affected assembly outcomes, and there was no consensus on how to approach an optimal solution by selecting software tool and suitable strategy based on the properties of RNA-Seq data. To reveal the performance of different programs for transcriptome assembly, this work analyzed some important factors, including k-mer values, genome complexity, coverage depth, directional reads, etc. Seven program conditions, four single k-mer assemblers (SK: SOAPdenovo, ABySS, Oases and Trinity) and three multiple k-mer methods (MK: SOAPdenovo-MK, trans-ABySS and Oases-MK) were tested. While small and large k-mer values performed better for reconstructing lowly and highly expressed transcripts, respectively, MK strategy worked well for almost all ranges of expression quintiles. Among SK tools, Trinity performed well across various conditions but took the longest running time. Oases consumed the most memory whereas SOAPdenovo required the shortest runtime but worked poorly to reconstruct full-length CDS. ABySS showed some good balance between resource usage and quality of assemblies. Our work compared the performance of publicly available transcriptome assemblers, and analyzed important factors affecting de novo assembly. Some practical guidelines for transcript reconstruction from short-read RNA-Seq data were proposed. De novo assembly of C. sinensis transcriptome was greatly improved using some optimized methods