IMPROVING SPECIES REINTRODUCTION THROUGH CONSERVATION GENOMICS

Reintroduction is the release of a species collected from captive or wild sources into its historical habitat where it has been locally extirpated with the aim to re-establish a self-sustaining population. Increasing pressures on global biodiversity caused by human activities has led to an upsurge in reintroductions in the last decades, but the reintroduction success rate is generally low. Populations can differ in reintroduction performance because of their genetic background which may limit their scope for adapting to novel environments as well as narrow their tolerance ranges for environmental stressors likely to be encountered in the initial acclimation phase of reintroduction. Thus, selecting an appropriate population is very important for conservation related applications including reintroduction. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) was extirpated in Lake Ontario by 1900s, and decades of reintroduction attempts have been largely unsuccessful. This dissertation focuses on two important reasons for the unsuccessful reintroduction of Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario: inappropriate source population selection and stress caused by established non-native salmonids. I explored population differences between two Atlantic salmon populations (LaHave and Sebago) and their responses to interspecific competition by characterization of gene expression and gut microbiota. The regulation of gene expression plays an important role in acclimation and adaptation. The gut microbial community mediates a variety of biological processes and can directly impact host fitness. In this dissertation, I addressed basic genetic (genetic components of gene expression variance), evolutionary (selection versus genetic drift on gene expression variance), and ecological (in response to interspecific competition) theories of gene expression. I also addressed population differences in competitive ability and possible molecular mechanisms that mediated negative effects on Atlantic salmon caused by non-native competitors. I found that populations showed substantial differences in gene expression and genetic components of gene expression variance at rest state, and populations showed different response patterns to interspecific competition in gene expression and gut microbiota. The Sebago population is more suitable for reintroduction in Lake Ontario than the LaHave population. The results highlighted the fact that populations can possess different responses to biotic stressors despite not encountering the stressor during their past evolutionary history

Micro-vibration isolation measurement platform using permanent magnet negative-stiffness devices and air springs

Environmental micro-vibration affects the accuracy of precision measurement devices. Passive isolation system can isolate most external vibration, decreasing its stiffness will improve isolation effect. Permanent magnet negative-stiffness device (PMNSD), which is mainly constructed from three permanent magnets, can decrease the system dynamic stiffness of isolation system without any effect to the static stiffness, when it is used parallel with positive-stiffness isolator. The mechanism of its negative stiffness is analyzed, and its stiffness is calculated by theory method and finite element method, it proves that the stiffness will decrease with the decrease of the initial air gap of magnets. A micro-vibration isolation platform using PMNSDs and air springs is constructed, it can carry many kinds of measurement instruments which weight 0-2000 Kg, keeping the system natural frequency under 1 Hz, it has good isolation capacity for micro-vibration over 2 Hz. The PMNSD will have greatly practical applications for its tunable negative stiffness, zero static stiffness, contact free, long life and so on

Topic-based integrator matching for pull request

Pull Request (PR) is the main method for code contributions from the external contributors in GitHub. PR review is an essential part of open source software developments to maintain the quality of software. Matching a new PR for an appropriate integrator will make the PR reviewing more effective. However, PR and integrator matching are now organized manually in GitHub. To make this process more efficient, we propose a Topic-based Integrator Matching Algorithm (TIMA) to predict highly relevant collaborators(the core developers) as the integrator to incoming PRs . TIMA takes full advantage of the textual semantics of PRs. To define the relationships between topics and collaborators, TIMA builds a relation matrix about topic and collaborators. According to the relevance between topics and collaborators, TIMA matches the suitable collaborators as the PR integrator

BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC AND STATIC BALANCE WITH DIFFERENT ARM POSITION

This study is aimed to explore the balance of participants between arms-free and arms-control conditions with the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) and Romberg\u27s Test. Twenty healthy young males volunteered to participate in the test. Optitrack Optoelectronic system was utilized to capture the spatiotemporal parameters and the three-dimensional coordinates of the lower extremities. Besides, DIERS formetric 4D system was used to analyse the motion amplitude of spine and pelvis. Arms-control could reduce the dynamic balance based on the results of SEBT, and it would increase the static balance in the instability static condition from Romberg’s Test. Results of this study have provided information on clinical evaluation using arm position during dynamic and static balance from a biomechanical perspective

Optimization of Hybrid Hub-and-Spoke Network Operation for Less-Than-Truckload Freight Transportation considering Incremental Quantity Discount

This paper presents a mixed integer linear programming model (MILP) for optimizing the hybrid hub-and-spoke network operation for a less-than-truckload transportation service. The model aims to minimize the total operation costs (transportation cost and transfer cost), given the determined demand matrix, truck load capacity, and uncapacitated road transportation. The model also incorporates an incremental quantity discount function to solve the reversal of the total cost and the total demand. The model is applied to a real case of a Chinese transportation company engaged in nationwide freight transportation. The numerical example shows that, with uncapacitated road transportation, the total costs and the total vehicle trips of the hybrid hub-and-spoke network operation are, respectively, 8.0% and 15.3% less than those of the pure hub-and-spoke network operation, and the assumed capacity constraints in an extension model result in more target costs on the hybrid hub-and-spoke network. The two models can be used to support the decision making in network operations by transportation and logistics companies

Role of genomics and transcriptomics in selection of reintroduction source populations

The use and importance of reintroduction as a conservation tool to return a species to its historical range where it has become extirpated will only increase as climate change and human development accelerate habitat loss and population extinctions. Although the number of reintroduction attempts has rapidly increased over the past two decades, the success rate is generally low. As a result of population differences in fitness-related traits and divergent responses to environmental stresses, there is a high likelihood for differential performance among potential source populations upon reintroduction. It is well known that population performance upon reintroduction is highly variable and it is generally agreed that selecting an appropriate source population is a critical component of a successful reintroduction

Browning mechanism and process optimization during MaizeMaize KX7349 drying: Poster

Browning of KX7349 maize during drying occurred mainly in the pericarp layer. Browning was caused by oxidation of water soluble matter in the pericarp layer. Moisture content had no significant influence on browning rate. Drying temperature, drying time and drying method (vacuum drying or hot-air drying) had significant influence on the browning rate. Through lab research, a prediction model for the relationship between browning rate and drying air temperature was developed. Total drying time is y=- 13.086+0.289X<sub>1</sub>+1.045X<sub>2</sub>, where y is the browning rate(%), X<sub>1</sub> is drying temperature(°C), X<sub>2</sub> is total drying time(h), the value range of X<sub>1</sub> was 30~80, the value range of X<sub>2</sub> was 2~10. The concurrent and counter current dryer was applied in Nenjiang to optimize the drying process. The hot air temperature in each drying stage was reduced. When the hot air temperature of the 1<sup>st</sup>, 2<sup>nd</sup>, 3<sup>rd</sup> drying stage was reduced to 95°C,75°C,60°C respectively, the browning rate was reduced to 15%~16%. Keeping the hot air temperature constant at each drying stage, by drying twice, the browning rate was reduced to 4%~6%.Browning of KX7349 maize during drying occurred mainly in the pericarp layer. Browning was caused by oxidation of water soluble matter in the pericarp layer. Moisture content had no significant influence on browning rate. Drying temperature, drying time and drying method (vacuum drying or hot-air drying) had significant influence on the browning rate. Through lab research, a prediction model for the relationship between browning rate and drying air temperature was developed. Total drying time is y=- 13.086+0.289X<sub>1</sub>+1.045X<sub>2</sub>, where y is the browning rate(%), X<sub>1</sub> is drying temperature(°C), X<sub>2</sub> is total drying time(h), the value range of X<sub>1</sub> was 30~80, the value range of X<sub>2</sub> was 2~10. The concurrent and counter current dryer was applied in Nenjiang to optimize the drying process. The hot air temperature in each drying stage was reduced. When the hot air temperature of the 1<sup>st</sup>, 2<sup>nd</sup>, 3<sup>rd</sup> drying stage was reduced to 95°C,75°C,60°C respectively, the browning rate was reduced to 15%~16%. Keeping the hot air temperature constant at each drying stage, by drying twice, the browning rate was reduced to 4%~6%

The Linguistic Study of Gong Xunming’s Ceramic Painting Art

Gong Xunming is an artist who devotes to ceramic painting art and sticks to his artistic pursuit. His innovation and exploration in ceramic painting art are forever vigorously progressive. Gong commits all his efforts to seek for artistic innovation and newer, higher objectives, without hesitation and never off the track. He shakes off the bondages of nature and traditions. Everything in his paintings faces the sharp contradiction between reality and imagination. His technique of balancing colors gestates the potential genes for modern and future styles. Gong transforms the natural images into abstract ones, and makes them the language to express surreal forms. The new style of his works represents new artistic language and a new world view