Study on major legal issues of carriage of dangerous goods at sea

This dissertation focuses on major legal issues of carriage of dangerous goods by sea. Due to the particular features and high risk of dangerous goods during the process of transportation, dangerous goods transportation by sea has always caught the public eye. Nowadays, due to technological development and increasing volume of dangerous goods trade, concerns relating to its legal issues have been seen as a critical matter in the ship-ping industry. This study discusses the present situation and the trend of maritime dangerous goods legislation first, and then, looks into the various definitions of dangerous goods in differ-ent conventions and regulations. The argument largely focuses on the critical issue that there are no unified definitions across various laws. Therefore, this research will exam-ine a definition of dangerous goods in order to analyze the major legal issues of carriage of dangerous goods by sea. In regards to legal issues of shipper and carrier, the thesis focuses on their qualification, rights, obligations and liabilities respectively. By comparing the differences among four regulations, namely, Hague Rules, Hamburg Rules, Rotterdam Rules and China Mari-time Code (and any applicable Chinese national laws), clarification of the foregoing top-ic is presented. The study concludes the need of amendment of China Maritime Code in terms of carriage of dangerous goods by sea

Genome-wide association and genomic prediction for resistance to southern corn rust in DH and testcross populations

Southern corn rust (SCR), caused by Puccinia polysora Underw, is a destructive disease that can severely reduce grain yield in maize (Zea mays L.). Owing to P. polysora being multi-racial, it is very important to explore more resistance genes and develop more efficient selection approaches in maize breeding programs. Here, four Doubled Haploid (DH) populations with 384 accessions originated from selected parents and their 903 testcross hybrids were used to perform genome-wide association (GWAS). Three GWAS processes included the additive model in the DH panel, additive and dominant models in the hybrid panel. As a result, five loci were detected on chromosomes 1, 7, 8, 8, and 10, with P-values ranging from 4.83×10-7 to 2.46×10-41. In all association analyses, a highly significant locus on chromosome 10 was detected, which was tight chained with the known SCR resistance gene RPPC and RPPK. Genomic prediction (GP), has been proven to be effective in plant breeding. In our study, several models were performed to explore predictive ability in hybrid populations for SCR resistance, including extended GBLUP with different genetic matrices, maker based prediction models, and mixed models with QTL as fixed factors. For GBLUP models, the prediction accuracies ranged from 0.56-0.60. Compared with traditional prediction only with additive effect, prediction ability was significantly improved by adding additive-by-additive effect (P-value< 0.05). For maker based models, the accuracy of BayesA and BayesB was 0.65, 8% higher than other models (i.e., RRBLUP, BRR, BL, BayesC). Finally, by adding QTL into the mixed linear prediction model, the accuracy can be further improved to 0.67, especially for the G_A model, the prediction performance can be increased by 11.67%. The prediction accuracy of the BayesB model can be further improved significantly by adding QTL information (P-value< 0.05). This study will provide important valuable information for understanding the genetic architecture and the application of GP for SCR in maize breeding

Inhibition of Notch signaling by a γ-secretase inhibitor attenuates hepatic fibrosis in rats.

Notch signaling is essential to the regulation of cell differentiation, and aberrant activation of this pathway is implicated in human fibrotic diseases, such as pulmonary, renal, and peritoneal fibrosis. However, the role of Notch signaling in hepatic fibrosis has not been fully investigated. In the present study, we show Notch signaling to be highly activated in a rat model of liver fibrosis induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)), as indicated by increased expression of Jagged1, Notch3, and Hes1. Blocking Notch signaling activation by a γ-secretase inhibitor, DAPT, significantly attenuated liver fibrosis and decreased the expression of snail, vimentin, and TGF-β1 in association with the enhanced expression of E-cadherin. The study in vitro revealed that DAPT treatment could suppress the EMT process of rat hepatic stellate cell line (HSC-T6). Interestingly, DAPT treatment was found not to affect hepatocyte proliferation in vivo. In contrast, DAPT can inhibit hepatocyte apoptosis to some degree. Our study provides the first evidence that Notch signaling is implicated in hepatic fibrogenesis and DAPT treatment has a protective effect on hepatocytes and ameliorates liver fibrosis. These findings suggest that the inhibition of Notch signaling might present a novel therapeutic approach for hepatic fibrosis

Establishment of a dmp based maternal haploid induction system for polyploid Brassica napus and Nicotiana tabacum

Doubled haploid (DH) technology is used to obtain homozygous lines in a single generation, a technique that significantly accelerates the crop breeding trajectory. Traditionally, in vitro culture is used to generate DHs, but this technique is limited by species and genotype recalcitrance. In vivo haploid induction (HI) through seed is widely and efficiently used in maize and was recently extended to several other crops. Here we show that in vivo HI can be triggered by mutation of DMP maternal haploid inducer genes in allopolyploid (allotetraploid) Brassica napus and Nicotiana tabacum. We developed a pipeline for selection of DMP orthologs for clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats mutagenesis and demonstrated average amphihaploid induction rates of 2.4% and 1.2% in multiple B. napus and N. tabacum genotypes, respectively. These results further confirmed the HI ability of DMP gene in polyploid dicot crops. The DMP-HI system offers a novel DH technology to facilitate breeding in these crops. The success of this approach and the conservation of DMP genes in dicots suggest the broad applicability of this technique in other dicot crops

The protein levels of Notch signaling components in fibrotic liver.

<p><b>A</b>. Rats treated with olive oil or CCl₄ were killed. The protein levels of Notch3-ICD, Jagged1, and Hes1 were analyzed by Western blot. <b>B.</b> The expression was normalized against β-actin. *<i>P</i><0.05 versus rats in normal group. ^#<i>P</i><0.05 versus rats at 8 weeks.</p

Effects of DAPT on inhibiting Notch signaling activation in fibrotic liver. A.

<p>The protein levels of Notch3-ICD, Hes1, and TGF-β1 were examined by Western blot. <b>B.</b> The expression was normalized against β-actin. *<i>P</i>>0.05 versus rats in fibrosis group. ^#<i>P</i><0.05 versus rats in fibrosis group. 1 indicates normal rats; 2 indicates rats in fibrosis group treated with DMSO and CCl₄; 3 indicates rats treated with CCl₄ and DAPT (10 mg/kg); 4 indicates rats treated with CCl₄ and DAPT (50 mg/kg).</p

Effects of DAPT treatment on cell proliferation and apoptosis.

<p><b>A.</b> Immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence staining were used to determine the expression of PCNA and TUNEL in fibrosis induced by CCl₄ in liver tissues from normal, fibrosis, and DAPT-treated rats. <b>B, C.</b> Regions with positive PCNA or TUNEL staining were quantified using ImageJ as described in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0046512#s4" target="_blank">Materials and Methods</a>. The white bars represent 50 µm. ^#<i>P</i>>0.05 versus DAPT-treated rats; *<i>P</i><0.01 versus normal rats; ^##<i>P</i>>0.05 versus rats in fibrosis group; **<i>P</i><0.05 versus rats in fibrosis group.</p