New isoforms and assembly of glutamine synthetase in the leaf of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

Glutamine synthetase (GS; EC 6.3.1.2) plays a crucial role in the assimilation and re-assimilation of ammonia derived from a wide variety of metabolic processes during plant growth and development. Here, three developmentally regulated isoforms of GS holoenzyme in the leaf of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seedlings are described using native-PAGE with a transferase activity assay. The isoforms showed different mobilities in gels, with GSII>GSIII>GSI. The cytosolic GSI was composed of three subunits, GS1, GSr1, and GSr2, with the same molecular weight (39.2kDa), but different pI values. GSI appeared at leaf emergence and was active throughout the leaf lifespan. GSII and GSIII, both located in the chloroplast, were each composed of a single 42.1kDa subunit with different pI values. GSII was active mainly in green leaves, while GSIII showed brief but higher activity in green leaves grown under field conditions. LC-MS/MS experiments revealed that GSII and GSIII have the same amino acid sequence, but GSII has more modification sites. With a modified blue native electrophoresis (BNE) technique and in-gel catalytic activity analysis, only two GS isoforms were observed: one cytosolic and one chloroplastic. Mass calibrations on BNE gels showed that the cytosolic GS1 holoenzyme was ~490kDa and likely a dodecamer, and the chloroplastic GS2 holoenzyme was ~240kDa and likely a hexamer. Our experimental data suggest that the activity of GS isoforms in wheat is regulated by subcellular localization, assembly, and modification to achieve their roles during plant development

Atmospheric Pollution and Microecology of Respiratory Tract

This chapter elaborates the source and ingredients of atmospheric pollutants, the microecology of respiratory tract in animals and humans and the effect of atmospheric pollution on it and thus clarifies the relationship between air pollution and microecology of the respiratory tract based on the experiments

C2B Orders Decision-making in Multiple Supply Chains Under Cloud Manufacturing

Considering the background of cloud manufacturing and cluster supply chain, we build the basic model to assign the orders priority within each capacity. Then, considering the inter-chain horizontal cooperation, the extended model is proposed to parallel allocation of cross-chain orders as the orders exceeding one single- chain’s capacity. Lagrange algorithm is implemented, and the simulation analysis shown that the opportunity cost of rejected orders factor and cross-chain orders manufacturing cost factor have significant impacts on orders’ allocation decision, and there is a critical point in the combinations of those two factors. Through combinations, the cluster supply chain can make the acceptance decisions policy and production schedules of priority orders and cross- chain orders, so that customers’ satisfaction and the cluster supply chain’s total profits achieve the best situations

Pixel Adapter: A Graph-Based Post-Processing Approach for Scene Text Image Super-Resolution

Current Scene text image super-resolution approaches primarily focus on extracting robust features, acquiring text information, and complex training strategies to generate super-resolution images. However, the upsampling module, which is crucial in the process of converting low-resolution images to high-resolution ones, has received little attention in existing works. To address this issue, we propose the Pixel Adapter Module (PAM) based on graph attention to address pixel distortion caused by upsampling. The PAM effectively captures local structural information by allowing each pixel to interact with its neighbors and update features. Unlike previous graph attention mechanisms, our approach achieves 2-3 orders of magnitude improvement in efficiency and memory utilization by eliminating the dependency on sparse adjacency matrices and introducing a sliding window approach for efficient parallel computation. Additionally, we introduce the MLP-based Sequential Residual Block (MSRB) for robust feature extraction from text images, and a Local Contour Awareness loss ($\mathcal{L}_{lca}$) to enhance the model's perception of details. Comprehensive experiments on TextZoom demonstrate that our proposed method generates high-quality super-resolution images, surpassing existing methods in recognition accuracy. For single-stage and multi-stage strategies, we achieved improvements of 0.7\% and 2.6\%, respectively, increasing the performance from 52.6\% and 53.7\% to 53.3\% and 56.3\%. The code is available at https://github.com/wenyu1009/RTSRN

Urban Feature Extraction within a Complex Urban Area with an Improved 3D-CNN Using Airborne Hyperspectral Data

Article describes how airborne hyperspectral data has high spectral-spatial information, but mining and using this information effectively is still a great challenge. Therefore, a 3D-1D-CNN model was proposed for feature extraction in complex urban with hyperspectral images affected by cloud shadows

Effects of elevated atmospheric [CO2] on grain starch characteristics in different specialized wheat

The increasing atmospheric [CO2] poses great challenges to wheat production. Currently, the response of starch characteristics in different specialized wheat cultivars to elevated [CO2], as well as the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms remains unclear. Therefore, an experiment was conducted with open-top chambers to study the effects of ambient [CO2] [a(CO2)] and elevated [CO2] [e(CO2)] on photosynthetic performance, yield and starch characteristics of bread wheat (Zhengmai 369, ZM369) and biscuit wheat (Yangmai 15, YM15) from 2020 to 2022. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in photosynthetic performance, yield, amylose and amylopectin content, volume ratio of large granules under e[CO2]. Moreover, e[CO2] upregulated the gene expression and enzyme activities of GBSS (Granule-bound starch synthase) and SSS (Soluble starch synthase), increased starch pasting viscosity, gelatinization enthalpy and crystallinity. Compared to YM15, ZM369 exhibited a higher upregulation of GBSSI, greater increase in amylose content and volume ratio of large granules, as well as higher gelatinization enthalpy and crystallinity. However, ZM369 showed a lower increase in amylopectin content and a lower upregulation of SSSI and SSSII. Correlation analysis revealed amylose and amylopectin content had a positive correlation with GBSS and SSS, respectively, a significant positively correlation among the amylose and amylopectin content, starch granule volume, and pasting properties. In conclusion, these changes may enhance the utilization value of biscuit wheat but exhibit an opposite effect on bread wheat. The results provide a basis for selecting suitable wheat cultivars and ensuring food security under future climate change conditions

High sulfur loading and shuttle inhibition of advanced sulfur cathode enabled by graphene network skin and N, P, F-doped mesoporous carbon interfaces for ultra-stable lithium sulfur battery

Achieving high loading of active sulfur yet rational regulating the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfide (LiPS) is of great significance in pursuit of high-performance lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery. Herein, we develop a free-standing graphene-nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and fluorine (F) co-doped mesoporous carbon-sulfur (G-NPFMC-S) film, which was used as a binder-free cathode in Li-S battery. The developed mesoporous carbon (MC) achieved a high specific surface area of 921 m2·g–1 with a uniform pore size distribution of 15 nm. The inserted graphene network inside G-NPFMC-S cathode can effectively improve its electrical conductivity and simultaneously restrict the shuttle of LiPS. A high sulfur loading of 86% was achieved due to the excellent porous structures of graphene-NPFMC (G-NPFMC) composite. When implemented as a freestanding cathode in Li-S battery, this G-NPFMC-S achieved a high specific capacity (1,356 mAh·g–1), favorable rate capability, and long-term cycling stability up to 500 cycles with a minimum capacity fading rate of 0.025% per cycle, outperforming the corresponding performances of NPFMC-sulfur (NPFMC-S) and MC-sulfur (MC-S). These promising results can be ascribed to the featured structures that formed inside G-NPFMC-S film, as that highly porous NPFMC can provide sufficient storage space for the loading of sulfur, while, the N, P, F-doped carbonic interface and the inserted graphene network help hinder the shuttle of LiPS via chemical adsorption and physical barrier effect. This proposed unique structure can provide a bright prospect in that high mass loading of active sulfur and restriction the shuttle of LiPS can be simultaneously achieved for Li-S battery

Endogenous production of IL-1B by breast cancer cells drives metastasis and colonisation of the bone microenvironment

Background: Breast cancer bone metastases are incurable highlighting the need for new therapeutic targets. After colonizing bone, breast cancer cells remain dormant, until signals from the microenvironment stimulate outgrowth into overt metastases. Here we show that endogenous production of IL-1B by tumor cells drives metastasis and growth in bone. Methods: Tumor/stromal IL-B and IL-1R1 expression was assessed in patient samples and effects of the IL-1R antagonist, Anakinra or the IL-1B antibody Canakinumab on tumor growth and spontaneous metastasis were measured in a humanized mouse model of breast cancer bone metastasis. Effects of tumor cell-derived IL-1B on bone colonisation and parameters associated with metastasis were measured in MDA-MB-231, MCF7 and T47D cells transfected with IL-1B/control. Results: In tissue samples from >1300 patients with stage II/III breast cancer, IL-1B in tumor cells correlated with relapse in bone (hazard ratio 1.85; 95% CI 1.05-3.26; P=0.02) and other sites (hazard ratio 2.09; 95% CI 1.26-3.48; P=0.0016). In a humanized model of spontaneous breast cancer metastasis to bone, Anakinra or Canakinumab reduced metastasis and reduced the number of tumor cells shed into the circulation. Production of IL-1B by tumor cells promoted EMT (altered E-Cadherin, N-Cadherin and G-Catenin), invasion, migration and bone colonisation. Contact between tumor and osteoblasts or bone marrow cells increased IL-1B secretion from all three cell types. IL-1B alone did not stimulate tumor cell proliferation. Instead, IL-1B caused expansion of the bone metastatic niche leading to tumor proliferation. Conclusion: Pharmacological inhibition of IL-1B has potential as a novel treatment for breast cancer metastasis

CRUSOE: Data Model for Cyber Situation Awareness

Attaining and keeping cyber situational awareness is crucial for the proper incident response, especially in critical infrastructures. Incident handlers need to process heterogeneous data, such as network topology and organisation's missions and objectives, to effectively mitigate the threats. The development of tools for attaining cyber situational awareness often faces the problem of effectively obtaining, correlating, and storing such heterogeneous data. In this paper, we present CRUSOE, an extensible layered data model for attaining and keeping information on cyber situational awareness. We conducted interviews with incident handlers from several security teams and evaluated existing requirements on cyber situational awareness to formalise the requirements on the proposed data model so that can be used in today's common network settings. The CRUSOE data model keeps track of missions, systems, networks, hosts, threats, detection and response capabilities, and access control in a network of an organisation. It is also designed to be filled primarily with the data that can be obtained in a semi- or fully-automated fashion in today's common network environments