Adaptive High Voltage Pulse Signal Generator Circuit Design

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is widely used in area of geologic exploration, hidden stationary subject detection and quality inspection on various infrastructures. The pulse generator, which offers very accurate timing information, is the most cardinal component in GPR systems. It is easy to design a pulse generator which produces pulse with pre-settled peak value and pulse width in nanosecond scale. However, since the system is working in complicated environments, various pulses in different pulse widths and amplitudes are needed. In this background, pulse generators in tunability and stability are precious in value and universal in use. Indeed, a few adaptive high voltage pulse signal generators in UWB circuit level have been developed. A pulse generator with tunable pulse width and controllable voltage amplitude is proposed under these demands. The proposed circuit implementation combines System-On-Chip (SOC) design with Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design because we intend to realize modulation separately. We also design an easy input console named Binary Input Array in the research to realize control simplicity. Furthermore, we employ mathematical model to optimize parameters in each component in order to have an improved performance. Simulation data are obtained from Cadence Virtuoso and OrCAD Capture

The genome and gene editing system of sea barleygrass provide a novel platform for cereal domestication and stress tolerance studies

The tribe Triticeae provides important staple cereal crops and contains elite wild species with wide genetic diversity and high tolerance to abiotic stresses. Sea barleygrass (Hordeum marinum Huds.), a wild Triticeae species, thrives in saline marshlands and is well known for its high tolerance to salinity and waterlogging. Here, a 3.82-Gb high-quality reference genome of sea barleygrass is assembled de novo, with 3.69 Gb (96.8%) of its sequences anchored onto seven chromosomes. In total, 41 045 high-confidence (HC) genes are annotated by homology, de novo prediction, and transcriptome analysis. Phylogenetics, non-synonymous/synonymous mutation ratios (Ka/Ks), and transcriptomic and functional analyses provide genetic evidence for the divergence in morphology and salt tolerance among sea barleygrass, barley, and wheat. The large variation in post-domestication genes (e.g. IPA1 and MOC1) may cause interspecies differences in plant morphology. The extremely high salt tolerance of sea barleygrass is mainly attributed to low Na+ uptake and root-to-shoot translocation, which are mainly controlled by SOS1, HKT, and NHX transporters. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing systems were developed for sea barleygrass to promote its utilization for exploration and functional studies of hub genes and for the genetic improvement of cereal crops

Stomatal morphological variation contributes to global ecological adaptation and diversification of Brassica napus

Main Conclusion: Stomatal density and guard cell length of 274 global core germplasms of rapeseed reveal that the stomatal morphological variation contributes to global ecological adaptation and diversification of Brassica napus. Abstract: Stomata are microscopic structures of plants for the regulation of CO2 assimilation and transpiration. Stomatal morphology has changed substantially in the adaptation to the external environment during land plant evolution. Brassica napus is a major crop to produce oil, livestock feed and biofuel in the world. However, there are few studies on the regulatory genes controlling stomatal development and their interaction with environmental factors as well as the genetic mechanism of adaptive variation in B. napus. Here, we characterized stomatal density (SD) and guard cell length (GL) of 274 global core germplasms at seedling stage. It was found that among the significant phenotypic variation, European germplasms are mostly winter rapeseed with high stomatal density and small guard cell length. However, the germplasms from Asia (especially China) are semi-winter rapeseed, which is characterized by low stomatal density and large guard cell length. Through selective sweep analysis and homology comparison, we identified several candidate genes related to stomatal density and guard cell length, including Epidermal Patterning Factor2 (EPF2; BnaA09g23140D), Epidermal Patterning Factor Like4 (EPFL4; BnaC01g22890D) and Suppressor of LLP1 (SOL1 BnaC01g22810D). Haplotype and phylogenetic analysis showed that natural variation in EPF2, EPFL4 and SOL1 is closely associated with the winter, spring, and semi-winter rapeseed ecotypes. In summary, this study demonstrated for the first time the relation between stomatal phenotypic variation and ecological adaptation in rapeseed, which is useful for future molecular breeding of rapeseed in the context of evolution and domestication of key stomatal traits and global climate change

Responses of Transgenic Melatonin-Enriched Goats on LPS Stimulation and the Proteogenomic Profiles of Their PBMCs

The anti-inflammatory activity of melatonin (MT) has been well documented; however, little is known regarding endogenously occurring MT in this respect, especially for large animals. In the current study, we created a MT-enriched animal model (goats) overexpressing the MT synthetase gene Aanat. The responses of these animals to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation were systematically studied. It was found that LPS treatment exacerbated the inflammatory response in wild-type (WT) goats and increased their temperature to 40 °C. In addition, their granulocyte counts were also significantly elevated. In contrast, these symptoms were not observed in transgenic goats with LPS treatment. The rescue study with MT injection into WT goats who were treated with LPS confirmed that the protective effects in transgenic goats against LPS were attributed to a high level of endogenously produced MT. The proteomic analysis in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from the transgenic animals uncovered several potential mechanisms. MT suppressed the lysosome formation as well as its function by downregulation of the lysosome-associated genes Lysosome-associated membrane protein 2 (LAMP2), Insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor (IGF2R), and Arylsulfatase B (ARSB). A high level of MT enhanced the antioxidant capacity of these cells to reduce the cell apoptosis induced by the LPS. In addition, the results also uncovered previously unknown information that showed that MT may have protective effects on some human diseases, including tuberculosis, bladder cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, by downregulation of these disease-associated genes. All these observations warranted further investigations

The association between early-onset cardiac events caused by neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer patients and some novel autophagy-related polymorphisms in their genomic DNA: a real-world study

Abstract Background An increasing number of cancer patients die of cardiovascular diseases. The cardiotoxicity of chemotherapy is particularly important in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) with limited therapeutic options. Cardiac autophagy is an important mechanism of cardiotoxicity. This research was aimed to investigate the cardiotoxicity of chemotherapy in TNBC, screen the susceptible population, and determine the relationship between cardiotoxicity and autophagy-related polymorphisms. Methods From a total of 2450 stage I-III TNBC patients, 147 met the inclusion criteria and finally recruited. Electrocardiography (ECG) was performed before most chemotherapy cycles, and echocardiography (UCG) was performed according to clinical needs. All ECG and UCG records were re-interpreted by cardiologists at the National Center for Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the Catalog of Somatic Mutations in Cancer database, we selected 25 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to autophagy and genotyped the 147 TNBC patients. Paired-sample T tests, Chi squared tests, and logistic regression models were employed for the analysis. Results Only 46 (31.3%) patients had normal ECG records after every chemotherapy cycle. Among the 16 patients who underwent UCG, 2 (12.5%) had a reversible decrease of left ventricular ejection fraction. The use of anthracyclines and excessive alcohol consumption were risk factors of ECG abnormalities. With the continuation of chemotherapy, heart rate gradually increased. Anthracyclines were associated with QRS duration abnormalities (P = 0.043). After genotyping for 25 autophagy-related SNPs, we found that the G allele of autophagy-related 13 (ATG13) rs10838611 was significantly associated with ECG abnormalities (odds ratio = 2.258, 95% confidence interval = 1.318–3.869; P = 0.003). Conclusion ECG abnormalities caused by chemotherapy are common in the real world. Autophagy-related SNPs are associated with chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity, thereby providing new evidence for autophagy as a cause of chemotherapy-induced cardiac damage

Additional file 1: of Noninvasive versus invasive mechanical ventilation for immunocompromised patients with acute respiratory failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Supplement 1. Risk of bias graph: review authors’ judgements about each risk of bias item presented as percentages across all included studies. Supplement 2. Risk of bias summary: review authors’ judgements about each risk of bias item for each included study. Supplement 3. CENTRAL search strategy. Supplement 4. PubMed search strategy. Supplement 5. EMBASE search strategy. Supplement 6. CBM search strategy. Supplement 7. Assessment of risk of bias in cohort studies. Supplement 8. Assessment of risk of bias in case-control studies. Supplement 9. Newcastle-Ottawa Grading Results. Supplement 10. Subgroup meta-analysis based on intubation rate in NIV group. Supplement 11. Mortality in hospital by intubation rate. Supplement 12. Mortality in ICU by intubation rate. Supplement 13. 30-day mortality by intubation rate. Supplement 14. Duration of hospitalization by intubation rate. Supplement 15. Duration of ICU stay by intubation rate. Supplement 16. Nosocomial infection by intubation rate. Supplement 17. Duration of mechanical ventilaiton by intubation rate. (DOC 194 kb