The potential of Manitoba chokecherry as a source of high natural antioxidants

Consumption of fruits and vegetables is shown to be beneficial for protecting health and preventing some chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. The positive health effects have been mainly due to the contributions of their natural antioxidant capacity. Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), a unique fruit, is a member of the Rose family and native to North America. Here we demonstrate that chokecherry fruit with strong antioxidant capacity is available in Manitoba, and that its potent antioxidant potential can be developed for health benefits in value-added applications.These findings are useful for developing novel value-added antioxidant products from chokecherry because of its phytochemical profile associated with health protection and prevention of disease. The results provide evidence essential for breeding novel cultivars of fruit plants with strong natural antioxidants

Prediction of the Concentration Polarization and the Fouling Formation in Membrane Desalination Processes

Membrane desalination provides fresh water product beyond the hydrologic cycle, and is promising especially for coastal regions with a freshwater shortage. Membrane lifetime and permeate flux are affected by the concentration polarization (CP) phenomenon and membrane surface fouling. A numerical simulation model based on the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is developed and an effective flux boundary scheme is proposed in this study to predict CP and inorganic fouling growth. Results of the CP and permeate flux prediction are compared with published results in a complete rejection condition. When the membrane rejection rate is considered, prediction results show that a higher membrane rejection rate results in not only better product water quality but also higher CP and lower permeate flux. CP and permeate prediction results in a spacer filled desalination channel indicate that there is a higher fouling potential immediately behind the spacer filaments. Coupling of the CP prediction model with gypsum growth kinetics provides an approach to study inorganic fouling growth on the membrane surface at a single crystal level. The axially asymmetric growth of the gypsum crystal shown in the fouling growth result could be explained by the concentration field result that the salt concentration decreases from the crystal frontal flow-stagnation edge to the rear of the crystal. Predicted equivalent radius and accumulated mass of the growing gypsum crystal agree with analytical results and published test data. A vibration assisted desalination process is proposed and experimentally realized using a periodically oscillating desalination cell. Test data shows that CP near membrane surface can be reduced in the vibration assisted desalination. A slower flux decline can be observed in the vibration assisted desalination with a larger vibration velocity. Experimental observations validate that the proposed vibration assisted desalination process helps enhance the permeate flux and mitigate the formation of inorganic fouling on the RO membrane surface. A novel desalination centrifuge is designed in this study to reduce desalination hardware cost and mitigate membrane fouling. An estimation of energy consumption of the designed centrifuge shows that under certain conditions, the power usage by the desalination centrifuge is less than the industrial average

High-Amylose Corn Exhibits Better Antioxidant Activity than Typical and Waxy Genotypes

The consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains rich in antioxidative phytochemicals is associated with a reduced risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, coronary heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer\u27s disease, cataract, and aged-related functional decline. For example, phenolic acids are among the main antioxidative phytochemicals in grains that have been shown to be beneficial to human health. Corn (Zea mays L.) is a major staple food in several parts of the world; thus, the antioxidant activity of several corn types was evaluated. The 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picryhydrazyl free radical (DPPH•) scavenging activity, total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant capacity of lipid-soluble substances (ACL), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), and phenolic acid compositions of typical and mutant genotypes (typical-1, waxy, typical-2, and high-amylose) were investigated. The DPPH• scavenging activity at 60 min was 34.39−44.51% in methanol extracts and 60.41−67.26% in HCl/methanol (1/99, v/v) extracts of corn. The DPPH• scavenging activity of alkaline hydrolysates of corn ranged from 48.63 to 64.85%. The TPC ranged from 0.67 to 1.02 g and from 0.91 to 2.15 g of ferulic acid equiv/kg of corn in methanol and HCl/methanol extracts, respectively. The TPC of alkaline hydrolysates ranged from 2.74 to 6.27 g of ferulic acid equiv/kg of corn. The ACL values were 0.41−0.80 and 0.84−1.59 g of Trolox equiv/kg of corn in methanol and HCl/methanol extracts, respectively. The ORAC values were 10.57−12.47 and 18.76−24.92 g of Trolox equiv/kg of corn in methanol and HCl/methanol extracts, respectively. ORAC values of alkaline hydrolysates ranged from 42.85 to 68.31 g of Trolox equiv/kg of corn. The composition of phenolic acids in alkaline hydrolysates of corn was p-hydroxybenzoic acid (5.08−10.6 mg/kg), vanillic acid (3.25−14.71 mg/kg), caffeic acid (2.32−25.73 mg/kg), syringic acid (12.37−24.48 mg/kg), p-coumaric acid (97.87−211.03 mg/kg), ferulic acid (1552.48−2969.10 mg/kg), and o-coumaric acid (126.53−575.87 mg/kg). Levels of DPPH• scavenging activity, TPC, ACL, and ORAC in HCl/methanol extracts were obviously higher than those present in methanol extracts. There was no significant loss of antioxidant capacity when corn was dried at relatively high temperatures (65 and 93 °C) postharvest as compared to drying at ambient temperatures (27 °C). Alkaline hydrolysates showed very high TPC, ACL, and ORAC values when compared to methanol and HCl/methanol extracts. High-amylose corn had a better antioxidant capacity than did typical (nonmutant) corn genotypes

Online Camera-to-ground Calibration for Autonomous Driving

Online camera-to-ground calibration is to generate a non-rigid body transformation between the camera and the road surface in a real-time manner. Existing solutions utilize static calibration, suffering from environmental variations such as tire pressure changes, vehicle loading volume variations, and road surface diversity. Other online solutions exploit the usage of road elements or photometric consistency between overlapping views across images, which require continuous detection of specific targets on the road or assistance with multiple cameras to facilitate calibration. In our work, we propose an online monocular camera-to-ground calibration solution that does not utilize any specific targets while driving. We perform a coarse-to-fine approach for ground feature extraction through wheel odometry and estimate the camera-to-ground calibration parameters through a sliding-window-based factor graph optimization. Considering the non-rigid transformation of camera-to-ground while driving, we provide metrics to quantify calibration performance and stopping criteria to report/broadcast our satisfying calibration results. Extensive experiments using real-world data demonstrate that our algorithm is effective and outperforms state-of-the-art techniques

Two \u3ci\u3eMagnaporthe\u3c/i\u3e appressoria-specific (MAS) proteins, MoMas3 and MoMas5, are required for suppressing host innate immunity and promoting biotrophic growth in rice cells

In the devastating rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, six Magnaporthe appressoria-specific (MAS) proteins are encoded by MoGAS1, MoGAS2 and MoMAS3–MoMAS6. MoGAS1 and MoGAS2 were previously characterized as M. oryzae virulence factors; however, the roles of the other four genes are unknown. Here, we found that, although the loss of any MAS gene did not affect appressorial formation or vegetative growth, ΔMomas3 and ΔMomas5 mutant strains (but not the others) were reduced in virulence on susceptible CO-39 rice seedlings. Focusing on ΔMomas3 and ΔMomas5 mutant strains, we found that they could penetrate host leaf surfaces and fill the first infected rice cell but did not spread readily to neighbouring cells, suggesting they were impaired for biotrophic growth. Live-cell imaging of fluorescently labelled MoMas3 and MoMas5 proteins showed that during biotrophy, MoMas3 localized to the apoplastic compartment formed between fungal invasive hyphae and the plant-derived extra-invasive hyphal membrane while MoMas5 localized to the appressoria and the penetration peg. The loss of either MoMAS3 or MoMAS5 resulted in the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in infected rice cells, resulting in the triggering of plant defences that inhibited mutant growth in planta. ΔMomas3 a nd ΔMomas5 biotrophic growth could be remediated by inhibiting host NADPH oxidases and suppressing ROS accumulation. Thus, MoMas3 and MoMas5 are novel virulence factors involved in suppressing host plant innate immunity to promote biotrophic growth

Image encryption for Offshore wind power based on 2D-LCLM and Zhou Yi Eight Trigrams

Offshore wind power is an important part of the new power system, due to the complex and changing situation at ocean, its normal operation and maintenance cannot be done without information such as images, therefore, it is especially important to transmit the correct image in the process of information transmission. In this paper, we propose a new encryption algorithm for offshore wind power based on two-dimensional lagged complex logistic mapping (2D-LCLM) and Zhou Yi Eight Trigrams. Firstly, the initial value of the 2D-LCLM is constructed by the Sha-256 to associate the 2D-LCLM with the plaintext. Secondly, a new encryption rule is proposed from the Zhou Yi Eight Trigrams to obfuscate the pixel values and generate the round key. Then, 2D-LCLM is combined with the Zigzag to form an S-box. Finally, the simulation experiment of the algorithm is accomplished. The experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm can resistant common attacks and has prefect encryption performance.Comment: accepted by Int. J. of Bio-Inspired Computatio

Unraveling the Influence of Land-Use Change on δ 13C, δ 15N, and Soil Nutritional Status in Coniferous, Broadleaved, and Mixed Forests in Southern China: A Field Investigation

Natural isotopic abundance in soil and foliar can provide integrated information related to the long-term alterations of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles in forest ecosystems. We evaluated total carbon (TC), total nitrogen (TN), and isotopic natural abundance of C (δ 13C) and N (δ 15N) in soil and foliar of coniferous plantation (CPF), natural broadleaved forest (NBF), and mixed forest stands at three different soil depths (i.e., 0–10, 10–20, and 20–40 cm). This study also explored how soil available nutrients are affected by different forest types. Lutou forest research station, located in Hunan Province, central China, was used as the study area. Results demonstrated that the topsoil layer had higher TC and TN content in the mixed forest stand, resulting in a better quality of organic materials in the topsoil layer in the mixed forest than NBF and CPF. In general, soil TC, TN, and δ 15N varied significantly in different soil depths and forest types. However, the forest type did not exhibit any significant effect on δ 13C. Overall, soil δ 13C was significantly enriched in CPF, and δ 15N values were enriched in mixed forest. Foliar C content varied significantly among forest types, whereas foliar N content was not significantly different. No big differences were observed for foliar δ 15N and δ 13C across forest types. However, foliar δ 13C and δ 15N were positively related to soil δ 13C and δ 15N, respectively. Foliar N, soil and foliar C:N ratio, soil moisture content (SMC), and forest type were observed as the major influential factors affecting isotopic natural abundance, whereas soil pH was not significantly correlated. In addition, forest type change and soil depth increment had a significant effect on soil nutrient availability. In general, soil nutrient availability was higher in mixed forest. Our findings implied that forest type and soil depth alter TC, TN, and soil δ 15N, whereas δ 13C was only driven by soil depth. Moreover, plantations led to a decline in soil available nutrient content compared with NBF and mixed forest stand

Perspectives of plantation forests in the sustainable forest development of China

Modern forestry is gradually moving towards man-made forests on a large scale. Plantations with advanced forestry system have been introduced with the goal of sustainable forestry development and to enhance social, ecological, and economic benefits. Forest plantations with native and exotic species have been established in China and worldwide with shorter rotation cycles than natural forests. In this paper, we discuss the role and perspectives of plantation forests in the Chinese sustainable forest development, the evolution of various plantation programs, the ecological effects of plantations, and the measures to improve plantation forestry. The Chinese government has given substantial importance to nurturing plantation forest resources through various large scale afforestation programs. In 2019, the total area covered by plantations in China reached 79.54 million ha, with a stock volume of 3.39 billion m³ (59.30 m³ per ha); coniferous forests (26.11 million ha, 32.83%) and broad-leaved forests (26.45 million ha, 33.25%) are the dominant types. Plantations have been primarily distributed in the central and southern parts of the country. Plantations with fast-growing and high-yielding tree species facilitated Chinese afforestation activities and improved the administration of forest production, which effectively boosted the forest industry. Plantation forest resources offer many potential productive, economic, and social advantages, though they are also associated with a loss of biodiversity and climate change makes them likely susceptible to disease and insect attack. Appropriate forest management practices during planning, execution, and maintenance of plantations can contribute to the conservation, promotion, and restoration of biodiversity, with the final aim of attaining a balance between having forest plantations and natural forests.We thank the great help from two anonymous reviews. We also thank our friend Chris Ijeoma for the grammar checking of the manuscript. The funding sources included the Postdoctoral research funding of Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, China (70702-4520 0003