Hydrothermally synthesized CeO2 nanowires for H2S sensing at room temperature

CeO2 nanowires were synthesized using a facile hydrothermal process without any surfactant, and their morphological, structural and gas sensing properties were systematically investigated. The CeO2 nanowires with an average diameter of 12.5 nm had a face-centered cubic fluorite structure and grew along [111] of CeO2. At the room temperature of 25 °C, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas sensor based on the CeO2 nanowires showed excellent sensitivity, low detection limit (50 ppb), and short response and recovery time (24 s and 15 s for 50 ppb H2S, respectively)

Detection and differentiation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lyme disease caused by <it>Borrelia burgdorferi </it>sensu lato complex is an important endemic zoonosis whose distribution is closely related to the main ixodid tick vectors. In China, isolated cases of Lyme disease infection of humans have been reported in 29 provinces. Ticks, especially ixodid ticks are abundant and a wide arrange of <it>Borrelia </it>natural reservoirs are present. In this study, we developed a reverse line blot (RLB) to identify <it>Borrelia </it>spp. in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in 7 Provinces covering the main extensive livestock regions in China.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four species-specific RLB oligonucleotide probes were deduced from the spacer region between the 5S-23S rRNA gene, along with an oligonucleotide probe which was common to all. The species specific probes were shown to discriminate between four genomic groups of <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu lato i.e. <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu stricto, <it>B. garinii, B. afzelii</it>, and <it>B. valaisiana</it>, and to bind only to their respective target sequences, with no cross reaction to non target DNA. Furthermore, the RLB could detect between 0.1 pg and 1 pg of <it>Borrelia </it>DNA.</p> <p>A total of 723 tick samples (<it>Haemaphysalis, Boophilus, Rhipicephalus </it>and <it>Dermacentor</it>) from sheep and cattle were examined with RLB, and a subset of 667 corresponding samples were examined with PCR as a comparison. The overall infection rate detected with RLB was higher than that of the PCR test.</p> <p>The infection rate of <it>B. burgdoreri </it>sensu stricto was 40% in south areas; while the <it>B. garinii infection rate </it>was 40% in north areas. The highest detection rates of <it>B. afzelii </it>and <it>B. valaisiana </it>were 28% and 22%, respectively. Mixed infections were also found in 7% of the ticks analyzed, mainly in the North. The proportion of <it>B. garinii </it>genotype in ticks was overall highest at 34% in the whole investigation area.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this study, the RLB assay was used to detect <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu lato in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in China. The results showed that <it>B. burdorferi senso stricto </it>and <it>B. afzelii </it>were mainly distributed in the South; while <it>B. garinii </it>and <it>B. valaisiana </it>were dominant in the North. <it>Borrelia </it>spirochaetes were detected in <it>Rhipicephalus </it>spp for the first time. It is suggested that the <it>Rhipicephalus </it>spps might play a role in transmitting <it>Borrelia </it>spirochaetes.</p

Hydrothermally synthesized CeO2 nanowires for H2S sensing at room temperature

CeO2 nanowires were synthesized using a facile hydrothermal process without any surfactant, and their morphological, structural and gas sensing properties were systematically investigated. The CeO2 nanowires with an average diameter of 12.5 nm had a face-centered cubic fluorite structure and grew along [111] of CeO2. At the room temperature of 25 °C, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas sensor based on the CeO2 nanowires showed excellent sensitivity, low detection limit (50 ppb), and short response and recovery time (24 s and 15 s for 50 ppb H2S, respectively)

Characterization of miRNAs in Response to Short-Term Waterlogging in Three Inbred Lines of Zea mays

Waterlogging of plants leads to low oxygen levels (hypoxia) in the roots and causes a metabolic switch from aerobic respiration to anaerobic fermentation that results in rapid changes in gene transcription and protein synthesis. Our research seeks to characterize the microRNA-mediated gene regulatory networks associated with short-term waterlogging. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate many genes involved in growth, development and various biotic and abiotic stress responses. To characterize the involvement of miRNAs and their targets in response to short-term hypoxia conditions, a quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) assay was used to quantify the expression of the 24 candidate mature miRNA signatures (22 known and 2 novel mature miRNAs, representing 66 miRNA loci) and their 92 predicted targets in three inbred Zea mays lines (waterlogging tolerant Hz32, mid-tolerant B73, and sensitive Mo17). Based on our studies, miR159, miR164, miR167, miR393, miR408 and miR528, which are mainly involved in root development and stress responses, were found to be key regulators in the post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms under short-term waterlogging conditions in three inbred lines. Further, computational approaches were used to predict the stress and development related cis-regulatory elements on the promoters of these miRNAs; and a probable miRNA-mediated gene regulatory network in response to short-term waterlogging stress was constructed. The differential expression patterns of miRNAs and their targets in these three inbred lines suggest that the miRNAs are active participants in the signal transduction at the early stage of hypoxia conditions via a gene regulatory network; and crosstalk occurs between different biochemical pathways

Depth Privileged Object Detection in Indoor Scenes via Deformation Hallucination

RGB-D object detection has achieved significant advance, because depth provides complementary geometric information to RGB images. Considering depth images are unavailable in some scenarios, we focus on depth privileged object detection in indoor scenes, where the depth images are only available in the training phase. Under this setting, one prevalent research line is modality hallucination, in which depth image and depth feature are the common choices for hallucinating. In contrast, we choose to hallucinate depth deformation, which is explicit geometric information and efficient to hallucinate. Specifically, we employ the deformable convolution layer with augmented offsets as our deformation module and regard the offsets as geometric deformation, because the offsets enable flexibly sampling over the object and transforming to a canonical shape for ease of detection. In addition, we design a quality-based mechanism to avoid negative transfer of depth deformation. Experimental results and analyses on NYUDv2 and SUN RGB-D demonstrate the effectiveness of our method against the state-of-the-art methods for depth privileged object detection