Multi-aperture foveated imaging

Foveated imaging, such as that evolved by biological systems to provide high angular resolution with a reduced space–bandwidth product, also offers advantages for man-made task-specific imaging. Foveated imaging systems using exclusively optical distortion are complex, bulky, and high cost, however. We demonstrate foveated imaging using a planar array of identical cameras combined with a prism array and superresolution reconstruction of a mosaicked image with a foveal variation in angular resolution of 5.9:1 and a quadrupling of the field of view. The combination of low-cost, mass-produced cameras and optics with computational image recovery offers enhanced capability of achieving large foveal ratios from compact, low-cost imaging systems

Isolation and identification of two galangin metabolites from rat urine and determination of their in vitro hypolipidemic activity

Purpose: To investigate the lipid-lowering activity of two metabolites of galangin, namely, galangin-3-O-β-D-glucuronic acid (GG-1) and galangin-7-O-β-D-glucuronic acid (GG-2).Methods: Female Sprague-Dawley rats were orally administered with galangin. The two metabolites of galangin were isolated from urine sample and purified using Sephadex LH-20 and semi-preparative high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The structures of the metabolites were identified by analyzing spectroscopic data. Hypolipidemic activity was evaluated in HepG2 cells. The down- or upregulation of lipogenic genes was detected using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).Results: Both metabolites of galangin showed hypolipidemic activity. These  activities are closely associated with the down-regulation of lipogenic genes such as SREBP-1a, SREBP-1c, and SREBP-2 transcription factors, and the downstream genes such as FAS, ACC, and HMGR were revealed by realtime qPCR data.Conclusion: The results show that both metabolites possess better lipid-lowering activities than galangin. These hypolipidemic activities are closely associated with inhibiting key genes or proteins that regulated the biosynthesis of both cholesterol and triglycerides.Keywords: Galangin, Galangin-3-O-β-D-glucuronic acid, Galangin-7-O-β- D-glucuronic acid, Hypolipidemic, Lipogenic genes, Metabolite

A Brain-Machine Interface Based on ERD/ERS for an Upper-Limb Exoskeleton Control

To recognize the user’s motion intention, brain-machine interfaces (BMI) usually decode movements from cortical activity to control exoskeletons and neuroprostheses for daily activities. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether self-induced variations of the electroencephalogram (EEG) can be useful as control signals for an upper-limb exoskeleton developed by us. A BMI based on event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) is proposed. In the decoder-training phase, we investigate the offline classification performance of left versus right hand and left hand versus both feet by using motor execution (ME) or motor imagery (MI). The results indicate that the accuracies of ME sessions are higher than those of MI sessions, and left hand versus both feet paradigm achieves a better classification performance, which would be used in the online-control phase. In the online-control phase, the trained decoder is tested in two scenarios (wearing or without wearing the exoskeleton). The MI and ME sessions wearing the exoskeleton achieve mean classification accuracy of 84.29% ± 2.11% and 87.37% ± 3.06%, respectively. The present study demonstrates that the proposed BMI is effective to control the upper-limb exoskeleton, and provides a practical method by non-invasive EEG signal associated with human natural behavior for clinical applications

PyMYB10 and PyMYB10.1 Interact with bHLH to Enhance Anthocyanin Accumulation in Pears

<div><p>Color is an important agronomic trait of pears, and the anthocyanin content of fruit is immensely significant for pear coloring. In this study, an anthocyanin-activating R2R3-MYB transcription factor gene, <i>PyMYB10</i>.<i>1</i>, was isolated from fruits of red sand pear (<i>Pyrus pyrifolia</i> cv. Aoguan). Alignments of the nucleotide and amino acid sequences suggested that PyMYB10.1 was involved in anthocyanin regulation. Similar to <i>PyMYB10</i>, <i>PyMYB10</i>.<i>1</i> was predominantly expressed in red tissues, including the skin, leaf and flower, but it was minimally expressed in non-red fruit flesh. The expression of this gene could be induced by light. Dual-luciferase assays indicated that both PyMYB10 and PyMYB10.1 activated the <i>AtDFR</i> promoter. The activation of <i>AtDFR</i> increased to a greater extent when combined with a bHLH co-factor, such as PybHLH, MrbHLH1, MrbHLH2, or AtbHLH2. However, the response of this activation depended on the protein complex formed. PyMYB10-AtbHLH2 activated the <i>AtDFR</i> promoter to a greater extent than other combinations of proteins. PyMYB10-AtbHLH2 also induced the highest anthocyanin accumulation in tobacco transient-expression assays. Moreover, PybHLH interacted with PyMYB10 and PyMYB10.1. These results suggest that both PyMYB10 and PyMYB10.1 are positive anthocyanin biosynthesis regulators in pears that act via the formation of a ternary complex with PybHLH. The functional characterization of <i>PyMYB10</i> and <i>PyMYB10</i>.<i>1</i> will aid further understanding of the anthocyanin regulation in pears.</p></div

Patches of anthocyanin production in tobacco leaves infused with <i>Agrobacterium tumefaciens</i>.

<p>Photos of infiltration areas were taken 8 days after transformation with PyMYB10 or PyMYB10.1 together with AtbHLH2, PybHLH, MrbHLH1, or MrbHLH2.</p

Activation of the <i>AtDFR</i> promoter by PyMYB10, PyMYB10.1 and anthocyanin-related bHLH transcription factors in a tobacco transient-expression assay.

<p>LUC and REN activities were analyzed three days after transformation. Error bars represent means ± SE (n = 6).Asterisks, * and **, indicate significant differences (P<0.05 and P<0.01).</p

Interactions between PyMYB10 or PyMYB10.1 and PybHLH were detected through the yeast two-hybrid assay.

<p>AH109 yeast cells containing plasmids AD+BD, AD-PyMYB10+BD, AD-PyMYB10.1+BD, AD+BD-PybHLH, AD-PyMYB10+BD-PybHLH, or AD-PyMYB10.1+BD-PybHLH were grown on double- and quadruple-selection media. The X-gal assay was performed to confirm positive interactions.</p