Metabolic Profiling Analysis of the Alleviation Effect of the Fractions of Niuhuang Jiedu Tablet on Realgar

Niuhuang Jiedu Tablet (NJT) is a classical formula in treating acute tonsillitis, pharyngitis, and so on. In the formula, significant level of Realgar as a potentially toxic element is contained. Our previous experiments revealed that it was less toxic for combined Realgar in NJT. However, the active fraction of this prescription with toxicity alleviation effect on Realgar was still obscure. NJT was divided into five different polar fractions (NJT-PET, NJT-25, NJT-50, NJT-75, and NJT-95), and we explored the toxicity alleviation effect on Realgar. Based on 1H NMR spectra of urine and serum from rats, PCA and PLS-DA were performed to identify different metabolic profiles. Liver and kidney histopathology examinations and serum clinical chemistry analysis were also performed. With pattern recognition analysis of metabolites in urine and serum, Realgar group showed a clear separation from control group, while the metabolic profiles of NJT-PET, NJT-25, NJT-50, and NJT-95 groups were similar to Realgar group, and the metabolic profiles of NJT and NJT-75 groups were very close to control group. Statistics results were confirmed by the histopathological examination and biochemical assay. The present work indicated that 75% EtOH fraction of NJT was the most valid fraction with the toxicity alleviation effect on Realgar

Genome-Wide Identification, Sequence Variation, and Expression of the Glycerol-3-Phosphate Acyltransferase (GPAT) Gene Family in Gossypium

Cotton is an economically important crop grown for natural fiber and seed oil production. Cottonseed oil ranks third after soybean oil and colza oil in terms of edible oilseed tonnage worldwide. Glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) genes encode enzymes involved in triacylglycerol biosynthesis in plants. In the present study, 85 predicted GPAT genes were identified from the published genome data in Gossypium. Among them, 14, 16, 28, and 27 GPAT homologs were identified in G. raimondii, G. arboreum, G. hirsutum, and G. barbadense, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that a total of 108 GPAT genes from cotton, Arabidopsis and cacao could be classified into three groups. Furthermore, through comparison, the gene structure analyses indicated that GPAT genes from the same group were highly conserved between Arabidopsis and cotton. Segmental duplication could be the major driver for GPAT gene family expansion in the four cotton species above. Expression patterns of GhGPAT genes were diverse in different tissues. Most GhGPAT genes were induced or suppressed after salt or cold stress in Upland cotton. Eight GhGPAT genes were co-localized with oil and protein quantitative trait locus (QTL) regions. Thirty-two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected from 12 GhGPAT genes, sixteen of which in nine GhGPAT genes were classified as synonymous, and sixteen SNPs in ten GhGPAT genes non-synonymous. Two SNP markers of the GhGPAT16 and GhGPAT26 genes were significantly correlated with cotton oil content in one of the three field tests. This study shed lights on the molecular evolutionary properties of GPAT genes in cotton, and provided reference for improvement of cotton response to abiotic stress and the genetic improvement of cotton oil content

Genome-Scale Analysis of the WRI-Like Family in Gossypium and Functional Characterization of GhWRI1a Controlling Triacylglycerol Content

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is the most important natural fiber crop and the source of cottonseed oil, a basic by-product after ginning. AtWRI1 and its orthologs in several other crop species have been previously used to increase triacylglycerols in seeds and vegetative tissues. In the present study, we identified 22, 17, 9, and 11 WRI-like genes in G. hirsutum, G. barbadense, G. arboreum, and G. raimondii, respectively. This gene family was divided into four subgroups, and a more WRI2-like subfamily was identified compared with dicotyledonous Arabidopsis. An analysis of chromosomal distributions revealed that the 22 GhWRI genes were distributed on eight At and eight Dt subgenome chromosomes. Moreover, GhWRI1a was highly expressed in ovules 20–35 days after anthesis and was selected for further functional analysis. Ectopic expression of GhWRI1a rescued the seed phenotype of a wri1-7 mutant and increased the oil content of Arabidopsis seeds. Our comprehensive genome-wide analysis of the cotton WRI-like gene family lays a solid foundation for further studies

Genome-wide analysis of HACD family genes and functional characterization of GhHACD2 for very long chain fatty acids biosynthesis in Gossypium hirsutum

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) not only serves as a primary textile fiber crop but also as a vital oilseed crop. It stands as the world’s fifth-largest oil crop and is rich in essential fatty acids. At present, the mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of cottonseed oil have been extensively studied in cotton. 3-Hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratase (HACD) is the third rate-limiting enzyme in the elongase complex, which plays a critical role in the biosynthesis of Very Long Chain Fatty Acids (VLCFA). However, the members of the HACD family and their roles in cottonseed oil remain uncharacterized in cotton. This study identified that G. arboreum and G. raimondii have two HACD genes, while four HACD genes exists in G. hirsutum, and G. barbadense. The phylogenetic relationships of the 12 HACD genes from the four cotton species further divided them into two subfamilies. Gene structure and conserved motif analysis revealed that members of the HACD family were relatively conserved during the evolution of cotton, but members within the same subfamily exhibited more similar structures. Homology and collinearity analysis suggest whole-genome duplication/segmental duplication may be a key factor in the amplification of the cotton HACD gene family. The qRT-PCR analysis of high-oil and low-oil genotype found significant differences in the expression levels of GhHACD1-4, which indicates GhHACD1-4 is expected to participate in the lipid oil biosynthesis process. Subcellular localization experiments confirmed the presence of the GhHACD2 inendoplasmic reticulum. The KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of co-expressed genes of GhHACD1 and GhHACD2 genes were conducted to confirm their potential involvement in fatty acid elongation and oil biosynthesis. Furthermore, transgenic overexpression analysis of GhHACD2 caused a 5.02% decrease in oil content compared with the control in yeast, while the levels of C28:0, C30:0, and VLCFAs were significantly improved. This study characterizes HACD gene family members in cotton and provides rich genetic resources for increasing cottonseed oil content and improving the nutritional value of cottonseed oil

DeepSeek LLM: Scaling Open-Source Language Models with Longtermism

The rapid development of open-source large language models (LLMs) has been truly remarkable. However, the scaling law described in previous literature presents varying conclusions, which casts a dark cloud over scaling LLMs. We delve into the study of scaling laws and present our distinctive findings that facilitate scaling of large scale models in two commonly used open-source configurations, 7B and 67B. Guided by the scaling laws, we introduce DeepSeek LLM, a project dedicated to advancing open-source language models with a long-term perspective. To support the pre-training phase, we have developed a dataset that currently consists of 2 trillion tokens and is continuously expanding. We further conduct supervised fine-tuning (SFT) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) on DeepSeek LLM Base models, resulting in the creation of DeepSeek Chat models. Our evaluation results demonstrate that DeepSeek LLM 67B surpasses LLaMA-2 70B on various benchmarks, particularly in the domains of code, mathematics, and reasoning. Furthermore, open-ended evaluations reveal that DeepSeek LLM 67B Chat exhibits superior performance compared to GPT-3.5

A Nonlinear Programming-Based Morphing Strategy for a Variable-Sweep Morphing Aircraft Aiming at Optimizing the Cruising Efficiency

This work develops a morphing decision strategy to optimize the cruising efficiency for a variable-sweep morphing aircraft, and a simple and practical guidance and control system is given as well. They can work in tandem to accomplish a cruise mission effectively. To make the morphing decision accurately, we take into account the equilibrium equations of forces; the variations in airspeed, altitude, and mass and the optimal configurations for different cruise conditions are solved based on the nonlinear programming method with the objective of minimum engine thrust. Considering that a large amount of computational resources are required to solve the nonlinear programming problems, we establish an offline database of the optimal configurations and design a database-based online morphing decision process. In addition, the proposed morphing decision strategy includes an anti-disturbance mechanism, which ensures that the optimal configuration can be given accurately without chattering under fluctuating airspeed measurements. Comparative results from the simulations finally validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy

Improving Energy Harvesting from Bridge Vibration Excited by Moving Vehicles with a Bi-Stable Harvester

To monitor the health status of the bridge, many sensors are needed to be mounted on it. Converting bridge vibration energy to electrical energy is considered as a potential solution to the problem of providing reliable electric power to these sensors. The objective of this work is to present an operable strategy for improving the electric energy output of a piezoelectric energy harvester installed on a bridge by introducing bi-stable characteristics. A bi-stable harvester is proposed. By adjusting the tip and fixed magnets, different types of potential energy can be generated, and then the harvester can exhibit the linear, mono-stable and bi-stable characteristics. In the bi-stable state, the harvester triggers snap-through motions easily and generates large outputs. The corresponding prototype was fabricated, and the experiment was carried out to validate the advantage of the bi-stable energy harvester. The experiment results show that the bi-stable energy harvester outperforms the classical linear harvester over the whole range of vehicle speed. As the vehicle speed exceeds a critical one, the snap-through motion will happen, which is beneficial to enhancing the electricity output. This conceptual design may provide guidance for promoting the performance of bridge energy harvesting

Valine and isoleucine supplementation improve performance and serum biochemical concentrations in growing gilts fed low-protein diets

This study evaluated the effects of valine and isoleucine supplementation in low-crude-protein (CP) diets on performance, serum parameters, and carcass traits in growing gilts. Two-hundred gilts (29.1 ± 1.7 kg) were allotted randomly to one of five diets that included a control CP (177 g kg−1) or four low-CP (135 g kg−1) diets for 45 d. The low-CP diets were added with lysine + threonine + methionine (LCM), LCM+ tryptophan (LCT), LCT + valine (LCV), or LCV + isoleucine (LCI), respectively. Non significant difference in average daily gain was obtained in gilts receiving the control, LCV, or LCI diets, which was higher than that of pigs fed the LCM or LCT diets (P < 0.05). The supplementation of crystalline tryptophan, valine, and isoleucine improved the average daily feed intake and serum levels of total protein, tryptophan, and isoleucine (linear and quadratic effects, P < 0.05) and serum valine concentration (linear effect, P < 0.05). The results indicated that the valine supplementation, or the both combination of valine and isoleucine, could further improve the performance in 29–62 kg gilts fed the 135 g kg−1 CP diet.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Modeling and switching adaptive control for nonlinear morphing aircraft considering actuator dynamics

This paper investigates the problems of modeling and control of the morphing aircraft. Henceforth, a nonlinear dynamic model of a wing-sweep morphing aircraft is first established in this work. This model is suitable for larger envelopes by elaborating the variation of aerodynamic coefficients, air density, mass distribution at different altitudes, Mach numbers, and sweep angles. Considering the alterations in the dynamic characteristics of the morphing aircraft owing to the various flight conditions, we design the switching adaptive backstepping controllers for the altitude subsystem and velocity subsystem. The actuator dynamics have been explicitly included in the process of the controller design to alleviate the chattering problem caused by the switching. Furthermore, the closed-loop stability is rigorously proved via the Lyapunov stability theory and the technique of compact set. Comparative results from the simulations finally validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Team Bart De Schutte