82 research outputs found
Methods of increasing resistance of crop plants to heat stress and selecting crop plants with increased resistance to heat stress
Methods of increasing the resistance of a crop plant to heat stress and in particular methods of improving the grain yield and quality of crop plants grown under heat stress in the form of increased minimal temperatures are provided. The methods include selecting plants with increased expression of HYR and growing these plants in regions expected to experience minimal temperatures above 25.degree. C. during the growing season. Methods of screening plants for increased resistance to heat stress and methods of producing grain in regions having minimal temperatures of 25.degree. C. or more are also provided
Methods of increasing resistance of crop plants to heat stress and selecting crop plants with increased resistance to heat stress
Methods of increasing the resistance of a crop plant to heat stress and in particular methods of improving the grain yield and quality of crop plants grown under heat stress in the form of increased minimal temperatures are provided. The methods include selecting plants with increased expression of HYR and growing these plants in regions expected to experience minimal temperatures above 25 degree C. during the growing season. Methods of screening plants for increased resistance to heat stress and methods of producing grain in regions having minimal temperatures of 25 degree C. or more are also provided
Nivolumab-induced immune mediated eczematous dermatitis in patient with carcinoma of buccal mucosa
An elderly man undergoing treatment for carcinoma of left buccal mucosa experienced the appearance of skin lesions on his chest, both upper limbs, and both lower limbs after receiving the first cycle of nivolumab therapy. A biopsy report confirmed that the patient had eczematous dermatitis, which was believed to be induced by nivolumab. Patient received symptomatic treatment with Prednisolone, Clobetasol propionate and Fusidic acid. The Skin lesions improved, and subsequently Framycetin cream was recommended, resulting in no further recurrence of lesion. Clinicians should remain vigilant about development of T-cell activation-related skin disorders when administrating immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as nivolumab
Robust Networked Federated Learning for Localization
This paper addresses the problem of localization, which is inherently
non-convex and non-smooth in a federated setting where the data is distributed
across a multitude of devices. Due to the decentralized nature of federated
environments, distributed learning becomes essential for scalability and
adaptability. Moreover, these environments are often plagued by outlier data,
which presents substantial challenges to conventional methods, particularly in
maintaining estimation accuracy and ensuring algorithm convergence. To mitigate
these challenges, we propose a method that adopts an -norm robust
formulation within a distributed sub-gradient framework, explicitly designed to
handle these obstacles. Our approach addresses the problem in its original
form, without resorting to iterative simplifications or approximations,
resulting in enhanced computational efficiency and improved estimation
accuracy. We demonstrate that our method converges to a stationary point,
highlighting its effectiveness and reliability. Through numerical simulations,
we confirm the superior performance of our approach, notably in outlier-rich
environments, which surpasses existing state-of-the-art localization methods
Moreau Envelope ADMM for Decentralized Weakly Convex Optimization
This paper proposes a proximal variant of the alternating direction method of
multipliers (ADMM) for distributed optimization. Although the current versions
of ADMM algorithm provide promising numerical results in producing solutions
that are close to optimal for many convex and non-convex optimization problems,
it remains unclear if they can converge to a stationary point for weakly convex
and locally non-smooth functions. Through our analysis using the Moreau
envelope function, we demonstrate that MADM can indeed converge to a stationary
point under mild conditions. Our analysis also includes computing the bounds on
the amount of change in the dual variable update step by relating the gradient
of the Moreau envelope function to the proximal function. Furthermore, the
results of our numerical experiments indicate that our method is faster and
more robust than widely-used approaches
Smoothing ADMM for Sparse-Penalized Quantile Regression with Non-Convex Penalties
This paper investigates quantile regression in the presence of non-convex and
non-smooth sparse penalties, such as the minimax concave penalty (MCP) and
smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD). The non-smooth and non-convex
nature of these problems often leads to convergence difficulties for many
algorithms. While iterative techniques like coordinate descent and local linear
approximation can facilitate convergence, the process is often slow. This
sluggish pace is primarily due to the need to run these approximation
techniques until full convergence at each step, a requirement we term as a
\emph{secondary convergence iteration}. To accelerate the convergence speed, we
employ the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and introduce a
novel single-loop smoothing ADMM algorithm with an increasing penalty
parameter, named SIAD, specifically tailored for sparse-penalized quantile
regression. We first delve into the convergence properties of the proposed SIAD
algorithm and establish the necessary conditions for convergence.
Theoretically, we confirm a convergence rate of
for the sub-gradient bound of augmented Lagrangian. Subsequently, we provide
numerical results to showcase the effectiveness of the SIAD algorithm. Our
findings highlight that the SIAD method outperforms existing approaches,
providing a faster and more stable solution for sparse-penalized quantile
regression
Drought Stress Acclimation Imparts Tolerance to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Pseudomonas syringae in Nicotiana benthamiana
Acclimation of plants with an abiotic stress can impart tolerance to some biotic stresses. Such a priming response has not been widely studied. In particular, little is known about enhanced defense capacity of drought stress acclimated plants to fungal and bacterial pathogens. Here we show that prior drought acclimation in Nicotiana benthamiana plants imparts tolerance to necrotrophic fungus, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and also to hemi-biotrophic bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci. S. sclerotiorum inoculation on N. benthamiana plants acclimated with drought stress lead to less disease-induced cell death compared to non-acclimated plants. Furthermore, inoculation of P. syringae pv. tabaci on N. benthamiana plants acclimated to moderate drought stress showed reduced disease symptoms. The levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in drought acclimated plants were highly correlated with disease resistance. Further, in planta growth of GFPuv expressing P. syringae pv. tabaci on plants pre-treated with methyl viologen showed complete inhibition of bacterial growth. Taken together, these experimental results suggested a role for ROS generated during drought acclimation in imparting tolerance against S. sclerotiorum and P. syringae pv. tabaci. We speculate that the generation of ROS during drought acclimation primed a defense response in plants that subsequently caused the tolerance against the pathogens tested
Thermal management system for more electric aircraft avionics using evaporative spray cooling
The aerospace industry is performing in today’s market at a narrow margin in achieving system performance and operating costs. The avionics is consuming a decent amount of energy for electronic equipment which heats up and releases heat into the system. The effective cooling system is required to be designed for aero applications which play a major role in reducing weight and operating costs. Jet impingement has been an attractive cooling option in several industries over the past few decades. Over the years, jet impingement has been explored as a cooling option in microelectronics. The main purpose of this study is to explore the potential of the evaporative spray cooling method from a modelling perspective in more electric aircraft avionics, primarily from a heat transfer viewpoint. Boiling and evaporative liquid jets provide high heat transfer coefficients (> 20,000 W/m2 K), which makes them attractive for electronic cooling applications. A zero-dimensional methodological approach is proposed, and its effectiveness is confirmed via a sensitivity analysis of different coolants with variable Reynolds no. and heating plate diameter to nozzle diameter ratio on the designed system heat load dissipation capability
Robust Linear Hybrid Beamforming Designs Relying on Imperfect CSI in mmWave MIMO IoT Networks
Linear hybrid beamformer designs are conceived for the decentralized
estimation of a vector parameter in a millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) Internet of Things network (IoTNe). The proposed designs
incorporate both total IoTNe and individual IoTNo power constraints, while also
eliminating the need for a baseband receiver combiner at the fusion center
(FC). To circumvent the non-convexity of the hybrid beamformer design problem,
the proposed approach initially determines the minimum mean square error (MMSE)
digital transmit precoder (TPC) weights followed by a simultaneous orthogonal
matching pursuit (SOMP)-based framework for obtaining the analog RF and digital
baseband TPCs. Robust hybrid beamformers are also derived for the realistic
imperfect channel state information (CSI) scenario, utilizing both the
stochastic and norm-ball CSI uncertainty frameworks. The centralized MMSE bound
derived in this work serves as a lower bound for the estimation performance of
the proposed hybrid TPC designs. Finally, our simulation results quantify the
benefits of the various designs developed.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
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