Coexistence of diploid, triploid and tetraploid crucian carp (Carassius auratus) in natural waters

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Crucian carp (abbreviated CC) belongs to the genus of <it>Carassius </it>within the family of <it>Cyprinidae</it>. It has been one of the most important freshwater species for Chinese aquaculture and is especially abundant in the Dongting water system of Hunan province. CC used to be considered as all diploid forms. However, coexistence of diploid (abbreviated 2nCC), triploid (abbreviated 3nCC) and tetraploid crucian carp (abbreviated 4nCC) population of the Dongting water system was first found by our recently researches.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We examined the ploidy level and compared biological characteristics in different ploidy CC. In reproductive mode, 2nCC was bisexual generative and 4nCC generated all-female offspring by gynogenesis. However, 3nCC generated progenies in two different ways. 3nCC produced bisexual triploid offspring fertilized with 3nCC spermatozoa, while it produced all-female triploid offspring by gynogenesis when its ova were activated by heterogenous spermatozoa. The complete mitochondrial DNA of three different ploidy fishes was sequenced and analyzed, suggesting no significant differences. Interestingly, microchromosomes were found only in 3nCC, which were concluded to be the result of hybridization. Allogenetic DNA fragments of Sox genes were obtained in 3nCC and 4nCC, which were absent in 2nCC. Phylogenetics analysis based on Sox4 gene indicated 3nCC and 4nCC formed a separate group from 2nCC.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In summary, this is the first report of the co-existence of three types of different ploidy crucian carps in natural waters in China. It was proved that the coexistence of different ploidy CC was reproductively maintained. We further hypothesized that 3nCC and 4nCC were allopolyploids that resulted from hybridization. The different ploidy CC population we obtained in this study possesses great significance for the study of polyploidization and the evolution of vertebrates.</p

Perceptual Metric Guided Deep Attention Network for Single Image Super-Resolution

Deep learning has been widely applied to image super-resolution (SR) tasks and has achieved superior performance over traditional methods due to its excellent feature learning capabilities. However, most of these deep learning-based methods require training image sets to pre-train SR network parameters. In this paper, we propose a new single image SR network without the need of any pre-training. The proposed network is optimized to achieve the SR reconstruction only from a low resolution observation rather than training image sets, and it focuses on improving the visual quality of reconstructed images. Specifically, we designed an attention-based decoder-encoder network for predicting the SR reconstruction, in which a residual spatial attention (RSA) unit is deployed in each layer of decoder to capture key information. Moreover, we adopt the perceptual metric consisting of L1 metric and multi-scale structural similarity (MSSSIM) metric to learn the network parameters. Different than the conventional MSE (mean squared error) metric, the perceptual metric coincides well with perceptual characteristics of the human visual system. Under the guidance of the perceptual metric, the RSA units are capable of predicting the visually sensitive areas at different scales. The proposed network can thus pay more attention to these areas for preserving visual informative structures at multiple scales. The experimental results on the Set5 and Set14 image set demonstrate that the combination of Perceptual metric and RSA units can significantly improve the reconstruction quality. In terms of PSNR and structural similarity (SSIM) values, the proposed method achieves better reconstruction results than the related works, and it is even comparable to some pre-trained networks

Comparison of atopy patch testing to skin prick testing for diagnosing mite-induced atopic dermatitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background Atopic dermatitis (AD) can occur after contact with aeroallergens like house dust mites, pollen, and animal dander. Despite its controversial diagnostic value, the atopy patch test (APT) has been used as an important tool in the diagnosis of AD caused by house dust mites. Here, we present a meta-analysis comparing APT to the common skin prick test (SPT) in the diagnosis of mite-induced AD. Methods A structured search was performed using online databases and bibliographies published as of April 30, 2017. All studies evaluating the accuracy of APT and SPT in the diagnosis of mite-induced atopic eczema/dermatitis syndrome were selected, appraised, and data was extracted. Results Ten studies were identified for inclusion in our analysis. Meta-analysis revealed that the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratios for APT were 0.54 (95% CI 0.42–0.66), 0.72 (95% CI 0.56–0.85), 1.97 (95% CI 1.20–3.23), 0.63 (95% CI 0.48–0.83), and 3.12 (95% CI 1.53–6.39). The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.65 (95% CI 0.61–0.69). Conclusions Our analysis indicates that APT is a useful tool in the screening of mite-induced AD, although this conclusion must be interpreted cautiously due to high heterogeneity among the included studies

Wind driven natural ventilation through multiple gridirons of a pile-supported wharf to prevent atmospheric corrosion in the marine environment

Salt fog originating from the offshore zone can easily accumulate in the semi-enclosed space (called the gridiron space) formed by the beams and slabs of a pile-supported wharf. Such accumulation can lead to the premature failure of the durability of the wharf’s substructure. Previous works have mainly focused on material-level measures to eliminate the adverse effects of salt fog accumulation, such as the use of anti-corrosion concrete and anti-corrosion coatings, which could result in increased construction costs. In fact, salt fog can be extracted from a gridiron by natural ventilation in some cases, so it is important to examine the flow characteristics of the gridiron space. In this work, a numerical simulation was conducted with natural ventilation and auxiliary ventilation groups. The critical value of the shield ratio (defined as the height ratio of edge stringer to air inlet) that led to the weakest turbulence of airflow inside the gridiron was studied in the natural ventilation group. In addition, the effect of various configurations of vents was discussed; in accordance with the results, design recommendations were proposed to enhance the durability of a pile-supported wharf.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

Correlation between Serum Bone Turnover Markers and Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate in Chinese Patients with Diabetes

Objective. Diabetes is a growing global public health concern with many significant disease complications. Multiple studies show that bone turnover markers (BTMs) are decreased in diabetes patients, indicating impaired bone metabolism in diabetes patients. A recent study also showed that in diabetes patients, BTMs are correlated with urine albumin to creatinine ratio, an indicator of nephropathy. However, whether BTMs are correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in diabetes remains unknown. This retrospective study accessed correlations between serum BTMs and eGFR in Chinese patients with diabetes and compare levels of BTMs and eGFR between diabetic patients and healthy individuals. Methods. This study analyzed data from 221 diabetic patients (include type1 and type 2 diabetes) and 155 healthy individuals. Serum BTM levels and eGFR were compared between diabetic patients and healthy individuals. Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess correlations between BTMs and eGFR. Multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for gender and age was performed to measure odd ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of BTMs on diabetes. Results. Patients with diabetes had significant lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels (15.07±6.20 ng/mL) than healthy group (17.89±6.41 ng/mL) (P<0.05). For patients with diabetes, eGFR was negatively correlated with osteocalcin (OC) (r=−0.434, P<0.05), procollagen type 1 intact N-terminal propeptide (P1NP) (r=−0.350, P<0.05), and β-carboxy-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type I collagen (β-CTX) (r=−0.179, P<0.05) levels. For healthy people, eGFR was negatively correlated with 25(OH)D (r=−0.290, P<0.05) levels. Multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for age and gender (mean age of diabetes was 64.9 years and the percentage of female was 66.9%, mean age of healthy people was 48.4 years and the percentage of female was 37.4%) showed that 25(OH)D (OR=0.909, 95%CI=0.862−0.959, P<0.05) was protective factors for diabetes. Conclusions. In the stage of diabetic nephropathy, bone turnover may accelerate. It is important to detect BTMs in the stage of diabetic nephropathy

Influence of rubbing-alignment on microwave modulation induced by liquid crystal

The microwave modulation induced by liquid crystal is decided by the liquid crystal director distribution under an external applied voltage. The rubbing-alignment of substrate has an effect on the liquid crystal director, which must result in the change of microwave phase-shift. To illustrate the influence of rubbing-alignment on the microwave phase-shift, the microwave modulation property of twisted nematic liquid crystal is researched adopting the elastic theory of liquid crystal and the finite-difference iterative method. The variations of microwave phase-shift per unit-length for different pre-tilt and pre-twist angles of liquid crystal on the substrate surface and anchoring energy strengths with the applied voltage are numerically simulated. The result indicates that with the increase of pre-tilt angle and with the decrease of anchoring energy strength the weak anchoring twisted cell with pre-twisted angle 90° relative to the strong anchoring non-twisted cell can increase the microwave phase-shift per unit-length. As a result, for achieving the maximum microwave modulation, the weak anchoring twisted cell with pre-tilt angle 5° and anchoring energy strength 1×10−5J/m2 should be selected, which provides a reliably theoretical foundation for the design of liquid crystal microwave modulator

Impacts of future climate and agricultural land-use changes on regional agricultural water use in a large irrigation district of northwest China

Contains fulltext : 204492.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access