A Study on the Effects of Knowledge Management on Innovation Strategies and Competitive Advantages

The 21st century is a knowledge economic era when a person who could master knowledge and technologies could master the competitive future. The knowledge and technology competition and the emergence of information technology and the Internet in the future have innovation strategies enter a new era. Knowledge management and share as well as innovation strategies of a business present the importance on the enhancement of competitive advantages. Effective knowledge management and innovation strategies become the key in the success. Aiming at Kunshan German Industrial Park, the executives and employees in 6 of top 500 businesses are distributed 300 copies of questionnaires, among which 218 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 73%. The research results show the significant correlations between 1. innovation strategies and competitive advantages, 2. knowledge management and innovative strategies, and 3. knowledge management and competitive advantages. It is expected to assist businesses in constructing knowledge management

A Comparative Study of Survival, Metabolism, Immune Indicators, and Proteomics, in Five Batches of Japanese Scallop Mizuhopecten yessoensis under Short-Term High Temperature Stress

Five batches of the Japanese scallop Mizuhopecten pyessoensis were tested for survival rate, oxygen consumption, catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities, total antioxidant capacities (T-AOC) contents, and proteomics under short-term high temperature conditions. The five batches, (W1, W2, W3, W4, W5) selected from the established 21 ‘ivory white’ M. yessoensis batches, had higher survival rates than the other batches after one year of culture. Initial rearing water temperature of 15°C was increased by 1°C per day with a cooling and heating system. The temperature was raised until over 50% of the scallops from 3 batches died. This occurred at 30°C. The higher than normal culture temperature conditions showed significant or highly significant differences in the responses of some of the batches. Some showed significantly higher survival rates and significantly different rates of oxygen consumption. CAT activity, SOD activity and T-AOC content was similar in the five batches, and all three indices were significantly lower in W3 and W5 than in the other batches (P<0.01). Expression patterns of MDA content were opposite to those of CAT activity, SOD activity and T-AOC content. Protein profiles of all five batches were similar; the sizes of the predominant bands ranged from 20-110 kDa. We identified twenty-eight proteins with high scores in the database. These included heat shock proteins (HSPs), glucose-regulated protein 94, and arginine kinase

BionoiNet: Ligand-binding site classification with off-the-shelf deep neural network

© The 2020 Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Motivation: Fast and accurate classification of ligand-binding sites in proteins with respect to the class of binding molecules is invaluable not only to the automatic functional annotation of large datasets of protein structures but also to projects in protein evolution, protein engineering and drug development. Deep learning techniques, which have already been successfully applied to address challenging problems across various fields, are inherently suitable to classify ligand-binding pockets. Our goal is to demonstrate that off-the-shelf deep learning models can be employed with minimum development effort to recognize nucleotide-and heme-binding sites with a comparable accuracy to highly specialized, voxel-based methods. Results: We developed BionoiNet, a new deep learning-based framework implementing a popular ResNet model for image classification. BionoiNet first transforms the molecular structures of ligand-binding sites to 2D Voronoi diagrams, which are then used as the input to a pretrained convolutional neural network classifier. The ResNet model generalizes well to unseen data achieving the accuracy of 85.6% for nucleotide-and 91.3% for heme-binding pockets. BionoiNet also computes significance scores of pocket atoms, called BionoiScores, to provide meaningful insights into their interactions with ligand molecules. BionoiNet is a lightweight alternative to computationally expensive 3D architectures

Exploring the effects of lysozyme dietary supplementation on laying hens: performance, egg quality, and immune response

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the dietary supplementation with lysozyme's impacts on laying performance, egg quality, biochemical analysis, body immunity, and intestinal morphology. A total of 720 Jingfen No. 1 laying hens (53 weeks old) were randomly assigned into five groups, with six replicates in each group and 24 hens per replicate. The basal diet was administered to the laying hens in the control group, and it was supplemented with 100, 200, 300, or 400 mg/kg of lysozyme (purity of 10% and an enzyme activity of 3,110 U/mg) for other groups. The preliminary observation of the laying rate lasted for 4 weeks, and the experimental period lasted for 8 weeks. The findings demonstrated that lysozyme might enhance production performance by lowering the rate of sand-shelled eggs (P &lt; 0.05), particularly 200 and 300 mg/kg compared with the control group. Lysozyme did not show any negative effect on egg quality or the health of laying hens (P &gt; 0.05). Lysozyme administration in the diet could improve intestinal morphology, immune efficiency, and nutritional digestibility in laying hens when compared with the control group (P &lt; 0.05). These observations showed that lysozyme is safe to use as a feed supplement for the production of laying hens. Dietary supplementation with 200 to 300 mg/kg lysozyme should be suggested to farmers as a proper level of feed additive in laying hens breeding

Biochemical Components of Different Colored Strains of Cultured Japanese Scallop (Mizuhopecten yessoensis) Under Different Cultivation Systems

In this study, the water and total fat content, total crude protein, ash, fatty acids, amino acids and mineral elements of scallop adductor muscle were used to understand the biochemical components of different colored strain of Japanese scallop, Mizuhopecten yessoensis, cultured using different cultivation methods. Common scallops had slightly higher moisture, and total protein content, significantly higher total fat content, and significantly lower ash content than ivory white scallops when cultivated under both suspended and bottom culture conditions. For scallops of both colors, suspended culture individuals had slightly higher moisture, total protein content, significantly lower total fat and ash content, compared to bottom culture conditions. Most amino acids were more abundant in scallops from the bottom culture group than in scallops from the suspended culture group. The ivory white scallops contained slightly higher amounts of total amino acids, essential amino acids, and flavor-imparting amino acids, than the common scallops under a given culture method. In the suspended culture group, common scallops had higher content of unsaturated fatty acids, mono-unsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, lower contents of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, compared with ivory white scallops. In the bottom culture group, common scallops contained more unsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid compared with ivory white scallops. In common scallops, levels of mineral elements (apart from Fe and Mg) were higher in suspended culture than in bottom culture. Levels of mineral elements in ivory white scallops in suspended culture were higher than or the same as those in bottom culture with the exception of K and Mn. In conclusion, different cultivation methods and shell color of M. yessoensis affected biochemical composition, amino acid content, fatty acid content, and mineral element content of the scallops. The research results may provide useful information for selective breeding, culture methods, deep processing, and comprehensive utilization of M. yessoensis

A Meta-Analysis on Prehypertension and Chronic Kidney Disease.

BACKGROUND:Recent studies have demonstrated that there is an association between prehypertension and an increased risk of end-stage renal disease. However, there is conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between prehypertension and chronic kidney disease (CKD). This meta-analysis aimed to demonstrate the association between prehypertension and the incidence of CKD and identify the impacts of gender and ethnic differences. METHODS:MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library (from inception through March 2016) and article reference lists were searched for relevant studies regarding blood pressure and CKD. Blood pressure (BP) measurements were classified as follows: optimal BP (less than 120/80 mmHg), prehypertension (120-139/80-89 mmHg) and hypertension (over 140/90 mmHg). CKD was defined by estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)<60 ml/min/1.73 m2 or proteinuria. Two investigators independently extracted the data and assessed the quality of studies enrolled in this meta-analysis using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). We performed the meta-analysis using Stata/SE 12.0 (StataCorp LP). The random-effect models were used in the heterogeneous analyses. RESULTS:After retrieving data from 4,537 potentially relevant articles, we identified 7 cohort studies including 261,264 subjects, according to the predefined selection criteria. Five studies were conducted in Mongolians from East Asia, and the other two studies were performed in Indo-Europeans from Austria and Iran. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 89 years, and the proportion of females ranged from 27.2% to 63.8%. The follow-up period ranged from 2 to 11 years. Compared with the optimal BP values, prehypertension showed an increased risk of CKD (pooled RR = 1.28; 95% CI = 1.13-1.44; P = 0.000; I2 = 77.9%). In the sex-stratified analysis, we found a similar trend in women (pooled RR = 1.29; 95% CI = 1.01-1.63; P = 0.039; I2 = 76.1%) but not in men. This effect was observed only in Mongolians from East Asia (pooled RR = 1.37; 95% CI = 1.18-1.59; P = 0.000; I2 = 81.3%) and not in Indo-Europeans. CONCLUSIONS:Prehypertension is considered a potential cause of CKD. Gender and ethnic differences are exhibited in this association