Evaluation of renal cold ischemia–reperfusion injury with intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion-weighted imaging and blood oxygenation level-dependent MRI in a rat model

Purpose: Cold ischemia-reperfusion injury (CIRI) is one of the most serious complications following renal transplantation. The current study investigated the feasibility of Intravoxel Incoherent Motion (IVIM) imaging and blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) in the evaluation of different degrees of renal cold ischemia-reperfusion injury in a rat model.Methods: Seventy five rats were randomly divided into three groups (N = 25 for each group): T0: sham-operated group, T2/T4: CIRI groups with different cold ischemia hours (2, 4 h, respectively). The rat model of CIRI group was established by left kidney cold ischemia with right nephrectomy. All the rats received a baseline MRI before the surgery. Five rats in each group were randomly selected to undergo an MRI examination at 1 h, day 1, day 2 and day 5 after CIRI. The IVIM and BOLD parameters were studied in the renal cortex (CO), the outer stripe of the outer medulla (OSOM), and the inner stripe of the outer medulla (ISOM) followed by histological analysis to examine Paller scores, peritubular capillary (PTC) density, apoptosis rate and biochemical indicators to obtain the contents of serum creatinine (Scr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA).Results: The D, D*, PF and T2* values in the CIRI groups were lower than those in the sham-operated group at all timepoints (all p < 0.05). The prolonged cold ischemia times resulted in gradually lower D, D*, PF and T2* values (all p < 0.05). The D and T2* values of cortex and OSOM in Group T0 and T2 returned to the baseline level (all p > 0.05) except Group T4. The D* and PF values of cortex, OSOM and ISOM in Group T2 and T4 still remained below the normal levels (all p < 0.05) except Group T0. D, D*, PF and T2* values were strongly correlated with histopathological (Paller scores, PTC density and apoptosis rate) and the biochemistry indicators (SOD and MDA) (|r|>0.6, p < 0.001). D*, PF and T2* values were moderately to poorly correlated with some biochemistry indicators (Scr and BUN) (|r|<0.5, p < 0.05).Conclusion: IVIM and BOLD can serve as noninvasive radiologic markers for monitoring different degrees of renal impairment and recovery after renal CIRI

Kronos: A Secure and Generic Sharding Blockchain Consensus with Optimized Overhead

Sharding enhances blockchain scalability by dividing the network into shards, each managing specific unspent transaction outputs or accounts. As an introduced new transaction type, cross-shard transactions pose a critical challenge to the security and efficiency of sharding blockchains. Currently, there is a lack of a generic sharding consensus pattern that achieves both security and low overhead. In this paper, we present Kronos, a secure sharding blockchain consensus achieving optimized overhead. In particular, we propose a new secure sharding consensus pattern, based on a buffer managed jointly by shard members. Valid transactions are transferred to the payee via the buffer, while invalid ones are rejected through happy or unhappy paths. Kronos is proved to achieve security with atomicity under malicious clients with optimal intra-shard overhead $k\mathcal{B}$ ($k$ for involved shard number and $\mathcal{B}$ for a Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) cost). Efficient rejection even requires no BFT execution in happy paths, and the cost in unhappy paths is still lower than a two-phase commit. Besides, we propose secure cross-shard certification methods based on batch certification and reliable cross-shard transfer. The former combines hybrid trees or vector commitments, while the latter integrates erasure coding. Handling $b$ transactions, Kronos is proved to achieve reliability with low cross-shard overhead $\mathcal{O}(n b \lambda)$ ($n$ for shard size and $\lambda$ for the security parameter). Notably, Kronos imposes no restrictions on BFT and does not rely on time assumptions, offering optional constructions in various modules. Kronos could serve as a universal framework for enhancing the performance and scalability of existing BFT protocols, supporting generic models, including asynchronous networks, increasing the throughput by several orders of magnitude. We implement Kronos using two prominent BFT protocols: asynchronous Speeding Dumbo (NDSS\u2722) and partial synchronous Hotstuff (PODC\u2719). Extensive experiments (over up to 1000 AWS EC2 nodes across 4 AWS regions) demonstrate Kronos scales the consensus nodes to thousands, achieving a substantial throughput of 320 ktx/sec with 2.0 sec latency. Compared with the past solutions, Kronos outperforms, achieving up to a 12$\times$ improvement in throughput and a 50% reduction in latency when cross-shard transactions dominate the workload

Sciences for The 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST)

The Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST) is a dedicated photometric survey facility under construction jointly by the University of Science and Technology of China and Purple Mountain Observatory. It is equipped with a primary mirror of 2.5m in diameter, an active optical system, and a mosaic CCD camera of 0.73 Gpix on the main focus plane to achieve high-quality imaging over a field of view of 6.5 square degrees. The installation of WFST in the Lenghu observing site is planned to happen in the summer of 2023, and the operation is scheduled to commence within three months afterward. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands (u, g, r, and i) at cadences from hourly/daily to semi-weekly in the deep high-cadence survey (DHS) and the wide field survey (WFS) programs, respectively. WFS reaches a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31 in AB magnitudes in a nominal 30-second exposure in the four bands during a photometric night, respectively, enabling us to search tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and systematically investigate the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. Intranight 90s exposures as deep as 23 and 24 mag in u and g bands via DHS provide a unique opportunity to facilitate explorations of energetic transients in demand for high sensitivity, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave events detected by the second/third-generation GW detectors, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions, tidal disruption events and luminous fast optical transients even beyond a redshift of 1. Meanwhile, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g about 25.5 mag in WFS or even deeper by 1.5 mag in DHS, will be of significant value to general Galactic and extragalactic sciences. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will also serve as an indispensable complement to those of LSST which monitors the southern sky.Comment: 46 pages, submitted to SCMP

La phototropine lie la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumulation d'amidon chez Chlamydomonas

Starch is by far the major storage compound accumulated by plants and algae, one of the most abundant polysaccharides present on earth and principal source of dietary calories in the human and animal diet. Starch synthesis occurs during the day, using global outputs of photosynthesis and its degradation starts as night falls to sustain energy-demanding cellular functions. Little is known about the regulatory mechanisms governing starch metabolism in microalgae and current knowledge is lim-ited to factors impacting starch accumulation under adverse environmental conditions such as nitro-gen limitation. A link between light perception and starch accumulation has been suggested in the case of higher plants: Mutants devoid of Phytochrome have a reduced CO2 uptake but over-accumulate daytime sucrose and starch while PHOT has been found to mediate starch degradation in guard cells in the light to energize stomatal opening. Light perception and metabolism have not been associated in microalgae. Here we present a detailed PHOT-dependent signalling cascade, linking blue light perception with starch accumulation in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhard-tii:Pathway 1: Blue light, via PHOT, represses the bHLH domain-containing transcription factor (TF) GAPr4, an activator of GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, involved in glycolysis and in photosynthetic CO2 fixation). Both the PHOT knock-out mutant phot and GAP1 over-expressing lines accumulate high amounts of starch.Pathway 2: Blue light, via PHOT, activates the RWP5 TF (belonging to the RWP-K family of TFs), a re-pressor of starch accumulation in a GAP1-independent manner.Pathway 3: PHOT-dependent phosphorylation of the serine/threonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1; orthologue of the Arabidopsis HT1 kinase that controls stomatal movements in response to CO2) mediates GAP1 and starch accumulation levels in a GAPr4-independent manner.Our work advances the current understanding of how light signaling controls metabolism in microal-gae. It also adds one more aspect in the multifaceted role of PHOT so far reported to control gameto-genesis at low nitrogen, expression of genes encoding chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis, the size of the eyespot and photoprotection.L'amidon est non seulement, et de loin, le principal composé de stockage accumulé par les plantes et les algues, mais c’est également l'un des polysaccharides les plus abondants sur terre. De plus, il s’agit de la principale source de calories dans l'alimentation humaine et animale. La synthèse de l'amidon est un des produits finaux de la photosynthèse et sa synthèse se déroule pendant la journée, alors que sa dégradation commence à la tombée de la nuit pour soutenir les fonctions cellulaires exigeantes en énergie. On sait peu de choses sur les mécanismes de régu-lation qui régissent le métabolisme de l'amidon chez les micro-algues et les connaissances ac-tuelles se limitent aux facteurs qui ont un impact sur l'accumulation d'amidon dans des condi-tions environnementales défavorables telles que par exemple la disponibilité en azote. Un lien entre la perception de la lumière et l'accumulation d'amidon a été suggéré dans le cas des plantes supérieures : Les mutants dépourvus de Phytochrome ont une absorption réduite de CO2 tandis qu’ils accumulent de façon anormale du saccharose et de l'amidon pendant la journée. De plus, il a été découvert que PHOT jouait un rôle dans ce processus en servant de médiateur à la dégradation de l'amidon dans les cellules de garde à la lumière pour stimuler l'ouverture des stomates. Toutefois et jusqu’à présent, la perception de la lumière et le métabo-lisme n'ont pas été associés chez les micro-algues. Nous présentons ici une cascade de signali-sation détaillée dépendante de PHOT, reliant la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumula-tion de l'amidon dans la microalgue verte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii :Voie 1 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, réprime le facteur de transcription (TF) GAPr4 conte-nant le domaine bHLH, un activateur de GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate déshydrogé-nase, impliqué dans la glycolyse et dans la fixation photosynthétique du CO2). Le mutant PHOT knock-out phot et les lignées surexprimant GAP1 accumulent de grandes quantités d'amidon.Voie 2 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, active le TF RWP5 (appartenant à la famille des TFs RWP-K), un répresseur de l'accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAP1.Voie 3 : la phosphorylation dépendante de PHOT de la sérine/thréonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1 ; orthologue de la kinase HT1 d'Arabidopsis qui contrôle les mouvements stomatiques en réponse au CO2) sert de médiateur entre les niveaux de GAP1 et l’accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAPr4.Notre travail a fait progresser la compréhension actuelle de la façon dont la signalisation lumi-neuse contrôle le métabolisme chez les micro-algues. Il ajoute également une nouvelle fonction aux multiples rôles jouée par PHOT dont le contrôle de la gamétogenèse à faible teneur en azote, l'expression des gènes codant pour la synthèse de la chlorophylle et celle des caroté-noïdes, ainsi que la taille du stigma et la photoprotection

La phototropine lie la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumulation d'amidon chez Chlamydomonas

Starch is by far the major storage compound accumulated by plants and algae, one of the most abundant polysaccharides present on earth and principal source of dietary calories in the human and animal diet. Starch synthesis occurs during the day, using global outputs of photosynthesis and its degradation starts as night falls to sustain energy-demanding cellular functions. Little is known about the regulatory mechanisms governing starch metabolism in microalgae and current knowledge is lim-ited to factors impacting starch accumulation under adverse environmental conditions such as nitro-gen limitation. A link between light perception and starch accumulation has been suggested in the case of higher plants: Mutants devoid of Phytochrome have a reduced CO2 uptake but over-accumulate daytime sucrose and starch while PHOT has been found to mediate starch degradation in guard cells in the light to energize stomatal opening. Light perception and metabolism have not been associated in microalgae. Here we present a detailed PHOT-dependent signalling cascade, linking blue light perception with starch accumulation in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhard-tii:Pathway 1: Blue light, via PHOT, represses the bHLH domain-containing transcription factor (TF) GAPr4, an activator of GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, involved in glycolysis and in photosynthetic CO2 fixation). Both the PHOT knock-out mutant phot and GAP1 over-expressing lines accumulate high amounts of starch.Pathway 2: Blue light, via PHOT, activates the RWP5 TF (belonging to the RWP-K family of TFs), a re-pressor of starch accumulation in a GAP1-independent manner.Pathway 3: PHOT-dependent phosphorylation of the serine/threonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1; orthologue of the Arabidopsis HT1 kinase that controls stomatal movements in response to CO2) mediates GAP1 and starch accumulation levels in a GAPr4-independent manner.Our work advances the current understanding of how light signaling controls metabolism in microal-gae. It also adds one more aspect in the multifaceted role of PHOT so far reported to control gameto-genesis at low nitrogen, expression of genes encoding chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis, the size of the eyespot and photoprotection.L'amidon est non seulement, et de loin, le principal composé de stockage accumulé par les plantes et les algues, mais c’est également l'un des polysaccharides les plus abondants sur terre. De plus, il s’agit de la principale source de calories dans l'alimentation humaine et animale. La synthèse de l'amidon est un des produits finaux de la photosynthèse et sa synthèse se déroule pendant la journée, alors que sa dégradation commence à la tombée de la nuit pour soutenir les fonctions cellulaires exigeantes en énergie. On sait peu de choses sur les mécanismes de régu-lation qui régissent le métabolisme de l'amidon chez les micro-algues et les connaissances ac-tuelles se limitent aux facteurs qui ont un impact sur l'accumulation d'amidon dans des condi-tions environnementales défavorables telles que par exemple la disponibilité en azote. Un lien entre la perception de la lumière et l'accumulation d'amidon a été suggéré dans le cas des plantes supérieures : Les mutants dépourvus de Phytochrome ont une absorption réduite de CO2 tandis qu’ils accumulent de façon anormale du saccharose et de l'amidon pendant la journée. De plus, il a été découvert que PHOT jouait un rôle dans ce processus en servant de médiateur à la dégradation de l'amidon dans les cellules de garde à la lumière pour stimuler l'ouverture des stomates. Toutefois et jusqu’à présent, la perception de la lumière et le métabo-lisme n'ont pas été associés chez les micro-algues. Nous présentons ici une cascade de signali-sation détaillée dépendante de PHOT, reliant la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumula-tion de l'amidon dans la microalgue verte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii :Voie 1 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, réprime le facteur de transcription (TF) GAPr4 conte-nant le domaine bHLH, un activateur de GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate déshydrogé-nase, impliqué dans la glycolyse et dans la fixation photosynthétique du CO2). Le mutant PHOT knock-out phot et les lignées surexprimant GAP1 accumulent de grandes quantités d'amidon.Voie 2 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, active le TF RWP5 (appartenant à la famille des TFs RWP-K), un répresseur de l'accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAP1.Voie 3 : la phosphorylation dépendante de PHOT de la sérine/thréonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1 ; orthologue de la kinase HT1 d'Arabidopsis qui contrôle les mouvements stomatiques en réponse au CO2) sert de médiateur entre les niveaux de GAP1 et l’accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAPr4.Notre travail a fait progresser la compréhension actuelle de la façon dont la signalisation lumi-neuse contrôle le métabolisme chez les micro-algues. Il ajoute également une nouvelle fonction aux multiples rôles jouée par PHOT dont le contrôle de la gamétogenèse à faible teneur en azote, l'expression des gènes codant pour la synthèse de la chlorophylle et celle des caroté-noïdes, ainsi que la taille du stigma et la photoprotection

La phototropine lie la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumulation d'amidon chez Chlamydomonas

Starch is by far the major storage compound accumulated by plants and algae, one of the most abundant polysaccharides present on earth and principal source of dietary calories in the human and animal diet. Starch synthesis occurs during the day, using global outputs of photosynthesis and its degradation starts as night falls to sustain energy-demanding cellular functions. Little is known about the regulatory mechanisms governing starch metabolism in microalgae and current knowledge is lim-ited to factors impacting starch accumulation under adverse environmental conditions such as nitro-gen limitation. A link between light perception and starch accumulation has been suggested in the case of higher plants: Mutants devoid of Phytochrome have a reduced CO2 uptake but over-accumulate daytime sucrose and starch while PHOT has been found to mediate starch degradation in guard cells in the light to energize stomatal opening. Light perception and metabolism have not been associated in microalgae. Here we present a detailed PHOT-dependent signalling cascade, linking blue light perception with starch accumulation in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhard-tii:Pathway 1: Blue light, via PHOT, represses the bHLH domain-containing transcription factor (TF) GAPr4, an activator of GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, involved in glycolysis and in photosynthetic CO2 fixation). Both the PHOT knock-out mutant phot and GAP1 over-expressing lines accumulate high amounts of starch.Pathway 2: Blue light, via PHOT, activates the RWP5 TF (belonging to the RWP-K family of TFs), a re-pressor of starch accumulation in a GAP1-independent manner.Pathway 3: PHOT-dependent phosphorylation of the serine/threonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1; orthologue of the Arabidopsis HT1 kinase that controls stomatal movements in response to CO2) mediates GAP1 and starch accumulation levels in a GAPr4-independent manner.Our work advances the current understanding of how light signaling controls metabolism in microal-gae. It also adds one more aspect in the multifaceted role of PHOT so far reported to control gameto-genesis at low nitrogen, expression of genes encoding chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis, the size of the eyespot and photoprotection.L'amidon est non seulement, et de loin, le principal composé de stockage accumulé par les plantes et les algues, mais c’est également l'un des polysaccharides les plus abondants sur terre. De plus, il s’agit de la principale source de calories dans l'alimentation humaine et animale. La synthèse de l'amidon est un des produits finaux de la photosynthèse et sa synthèse se déroule pendant la journée, alors que sa dégradation commence à la tombée de la nuit pour soutenir les fonctions cellulaires exigeantes en énergie. On sait peu de choses sur les mécanismes de régu-lation qui régissent le métabolisme de l'amidon chez les micro-algues et les connaissances ac-tuelles se limitent aux facteurs qui ont un impact sur l'accumulation d'amidon dans des condi-tions environnementales défavorables telles que par exemple la disponibilité en azote. Un lien entre la perception de la lumière et l'accumulation d'amidon a été suggéré dans le cas des plantes supérieures : Les mutants dépourvus de Phytochrome ont une absorption réduite de CO2 tandis qu’ils accumulent de façon anormale du saccharose et de l'amidon pendant la journée. De plus, il a été découvert que PHOT jouait un rôle dans ce processus en servant de médiateur à la dégradation de l'amidon dans les cellules de garde à la lumière pour stimuler l'ouverture des stomates. Toutefois et jusqu’à présent, la perception de la lumière et le métabo-lisme n'ont pas été associés chez les micro-algues. Nous présentons ici une cascade de signali-sation détaillée dépendante de PHOT, reliant la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumula-tion de l'amidon dans la microalgue verte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii :Voie 1 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, réprime le facteur de transcription (TF) GAPr4 conte-nant le domaine bHLH, un activateur de GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate déshydrogé-nase, impliqué dans la glycolyse et dans la fixation photosynthétique du CO2). Le mutant PHOT knock-out phot et les lignées surexprimant GAP1 accumulent de grandes quantités d'amidon.Voie 2 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, active le TF RWP5 (appartenant à la famille des TFs RWP-K), un répresseur de l'accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAP1.Voie 3 : la phosphorylation dépendante de PHOT de la sérine/thréonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1 ; orthologue de la kinase HT1 d'Arabidopsis qui contrôle les mouvements stomatiques en réponse au CO2) sert de médiateur entre les niveaux de GAP1 et l’accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAPr4.Notre travail a fait progresser la compréhension actuelle de la façon dont la signalisation lumi-neuse contrôle le métabolisme chez les micro-algues. Il ajoute également une nouvelle fonction aux multiples rôles jouée par PHOT dont le contrôle de la gamétogenèse à faible teneur en azote, l'expression des gènes codant pour la synthèse de la chlorophylle et celle des caroté-noïdes, ainsi que la taille du stigma et la photoprotection

Phototropin links blue-light perception with starch accumulation in Chlamydomonas

L'amidon est non seulement, et de loin, le principal composé de stockage accumulé par les plantes et les algues, mais c’est également l'un des polysaccharides les plus abondants sur terre. De plus, il s’agit de la principale source de calories dans l'alimentation humaine et animale. La synthèse de l'amidon est un des produits finaux de la photosynthèse et sa synthèse se déroule pendant la journée, alors que sa dégradation commence à la tombée de la nuit pour soutenir les fonctions cellulaires exigeantes en énergie. On sait peu de choses sur les mécanismes de régu-lation qui régissent le métabolisme de l'amidon chez les micro-algues et les connaissances ac-tuelles se limitent aux facteurs qui ont un impact sur l'accumulation d'amidon dans des condi-tions environnementales défavorables telles que par exemple la disponibilité en azote. Un lien entre la perception de la lumière et l'accumulation d'amidon a été suggéré dans le cas des plantes supérieures : Les mutants dépourvus de Phytochrome ont une absorption réduite de CO2 tandis qu’ils accumulent de façon anormale du saccharose et de l'amidon pendant la journée. De plus, il a été découvert que PHOT jouait un rôle dans ce processus en servant de médiateur à la dégradation de l'amidon dans les cellules de garde à la lumière pour stimuler l'ouverture des stomates. Toutefois et jusqu’à présent, la perception de la lumière et le métabo-lisme n'ont pas été associés chez les micro-algues. Nous présentons ici une cascade de signali-sation détaillée dépendante de PHOT, reliant la perception de la lumière bleue à l'accumula-tion de l'amidon dans la microalgue verte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii :Voie 1 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, réprime le facteur de transcription (TF) GAPr4 conte-nant le domaine bHLH, un activateur de GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate déshydrogé-nase, impliqué dans la glycolyse et dans la fixation photosynthétique du CO2). Le mutant PHOT knock-out phot et les lignées surexprimant GAP1 accumulent de grandes quantités d'amidon.Voie 2 : La lumière bleue, via PHOT, active le TF RWP5 (appartenant à la famille des TFs RWP-K), un répresseur de l'accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAP1.Voie 3 : la phosphorylation dépendante de PHOT de la sérine/thréonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1 ; orthologue de la kinase HT1 d'Arabidopsis qui contrôle les mouvements stomatiques en réponse au CO2) sert de médiateur entre les niveaux de GAP1 et l’accumulation d'amidon d'une manière indépendante de GAPr4.Notre travail a fait progresser la compréhension actuelle de la façon dont la signalisation lumi-neuse contrôle le métabolisme chez les micro-algues. Il ajoute également une nouvelle fonction aux multiples rôles jouée par PHOT dont le contrôle de la gamétogenèse à faible teneur en azote, l'expression des gènes codant pour la synthèse de la chlorophylle et celle des caroté-noïdes, ainsi que la taille du stigma et la photoprotection.Starch is by far the major storage compound accumulated by plants and algae, one of the most abundant polysaccharides present on earth and principal source of dietary calories in the human and animal diet. Starch synthesis occurs during the day, using global outputs of photosynthesis and its degradation starts as night falls to sustain energy-demanding cellular functions. Little is known about the regulatory mechanisms governing starch metabolism in microalgae and current knowledge is lim-ited to factors impacting starch accumulation under adverse environmental conditions such as nitro-gen limitation. A link between light perception and starch accumulation has been suggested in the case of higher plants: Mutants devoid of Phytochrome have a reduced CO2 uptake but over-accumulate daytime sucrose and starch while PHOT has been found to mediate starch degradation in guard cells in the light to energize stomatal opening. Light perception and metabolism have not been associated in microalgae. Here we present a detailed PHOT-dependent signalling cascade, linking blue light perception with starch accumulation in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhard-tii:Pathway 1: Blue light, via PHOT, represses the bHLH domain-containing transcription factor (TF) GAPr4, an activator of GAP1, (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, involved in glycolysis and in photosynthetic CO2 fixation). Both the PHOT knock-out mutant phot and GAP1 over-expressing lines accumulate high amounts of starch.Pathway 2: Blue light, via PHOT, activates the RWP5 TF (belonging to the RWP-K family of TFs), a re-pressor of starch accumulation in a GAP1-independent manner.Pathway 3: PHOT-dependent phosphorylation of the serine/threonine kinase Blue Starch Kinase 1 (BSK1; orthologue of the Arabidopsis HT1 kinase that controls stomatal movements in response to CO2) mediates GAP1 and starch accumulation levels in a GAPr4-independent manner.Our work advances the current understanding of how light signaling controls metabolism in microal-gae. It also adds one more aspect in the multifaceted role of PHOT so far reported to control gameto-genesis at low nitrogen, expression of genes encoding chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis, the size of the eyespot and photoprotection

Phase Transformation and Dissolution Behavior of Pyrite in the Roasting-Sulfuric Acid Leaching Process of Vanadium-Bearing Stone Coal

The selective leaching of vanadium and iron has been one of the main concerns in the field of vanadium recovery from stone coal, but the source of iron ions and their release characteristics were still unclear. In this work, the dissolution of pyrite and its roasted product, under conditions in accordance with the vanadium leaching process from stone coal by blank roasting-acid leaching, were studied. The results indicated that the leaching performances of V and Fe in stone coal were significantly correlated, with both depending on the leaching parameters of the H2SO4 concentration, the leaching temperature, the leaching time and the solid to liquid ratio. Under air conditions, with a roasting temperature of 700 °C, the roasted product of pyrite was hematite. Approximately 45% of the roasted product dissolved at its optimal leaching condition—35% higher than that of the raw pyrite. However, any further improvement was difficult, due to the difference in texture between its outer sphere and inner core. The results demonstrated that the roasting treatment led to a significant increase in the release of iron ions during the vanadium leaching process. The pre-removal of pyrite from the raw ore was necessary to reduce the concentration of iron ions in the leachate

Product Quality Measurement, Dynamic Changes, and the Belt and Road Initiative Distribution Characteristics: Evidence from Chinese Wooden Furniture Exports

As the most important forest product in the export of China, wooden furniture is facing increasingly fierce international competition and has a strong need for quality improvement. Based on the endogenous determination model of quality, this paper measures the quality of Chinese wooden furniture in exports from 1998 to 2017, by using product-level trade data of BACI CEPII. From the perspectives of the overall and sub-category quality, it examines the characteristics of dynamic changes in the product quality and its regional distribution of “the Belt and Road Initiative” countries. The results show that the quality of Chinese wooden furniture in exports is lower than that of wood-based panels and paper products. It remains stable after a slight increase from 2001 to 2005, but the quality level is always low. Among the sub-categories, wooden furniture not for kitchens, offices, or bedrooms has the lowest quality, while wooden office furniture has the highest one. The three dominant sub-categories that account for a high export share are all low in quality, while the small proportion sub-categories are all of higher quality, implying a strong imbalance. In particular, the quality of the main export products, upholstered wooden seats and wooden furniture not for kitchen, office, or bedroom use, has continued to decline, highlighting the plight of the quality growth of Chinese wooden furniture. For the BRI markets, the quality of Chinese wooden furniture exported to the region has declined slightly since 2012. However, different markets have shown different characteristics in the quality level and the direction of change. In terms of quality level, the qualities of wooden furniture exported to Malaysia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and the Philippines are relatively high. In terms of changing trends, the qualities of wooden furniture to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Israel are showing a rising trend. In this case, accurately identifying the quality of different export categories of furniture products and their changing characteristics can help furniture enterprises make better production and operation decisions, promote the formation of a good business environment, and foster new comparative advantages and international competitiveness