Utopia point method based robust vector polynomial optimization scheme

In this paper, we focus on a class of robust vector polynomial optimization problems (RVPOP in short) without any convex assumptions. By combining/improving the utopia point method (a nonlinear scalarization) for vector optimization and "joint+marginal" relaxation method for polynomial optimization, we solve the RVPOP successfully. Both theoratical and computational aspects are considered

Fabrication of the continuous carbon fiber reinforced plastic composites by additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing has been adopted in a wide range of industry. However, limited mechanical properties have prevented additive manufacturing from further development in high value applications. Carbon-fibre-reinforced composites are widely used in automobile and aerospace industries due to their improved mechanical properties and reduced weight. The introduction of carbon fibre into additive manufacturing will allow its application across a broader industrial field. In this paper, carbon-fibre-reinforced composite samples were produced by material extrusion and stereolithography. Tensile tests were performed on pure polymer and carbon-fibre-reinforced samples. Experimental results were compared to theoretical ones based on a rule of mixture. Samples produced by material extrusion showed a 73.3 % reduction in elastic modulus compared with theoretical values whereas those produced by stereolithography showed a 42.06% reduction. Micrographs showed that stereolithography samples had better bonding between the matrix and the fibre

Efficient network-matrix architecture for general flow transport inspired by natural pinnate leaves

Networks embedded in three dimensional matrices are beneficial to deliver physical flows to the matrices. Leaf architectures, pervasive natural network-matrix architectures, endow leaves with high transpiration rates and low water pressure drops, providing inspiration for efficient network-matrix architectures. In this study, the network-matrix model for general flow transport inspired by natural pinnate leaves is investigated analytically. The results indicate that the optimal network structure inspired by natural pinnate leaves can greatly reduce the maximum potential drop and the total potential drop caused by the flow through the network while maximizing the total flow rate through the matrix. These results can be used to design efficient networks in network-matrix architectures for a variety of practical applications, such as tissue engineering, cell culture, photovoltaic devices and heat transfer

Full waveform inversion based on dynamic data matching of convolutional wavefields

Cycle skipping problem caused by the absent of low frequencies and inaccurate initial model makes full waveform inversion (FWI) deviate from the true model. A novel method is proposed to mitigate cycle skipping phenomenon by dynamic data matching which improves the matching of synthetic and observed events to regulate the updating of initial model in a correct direction. 1-dimentional (1-D) Gaussian convolutional kernels with different lengths are used to extract features of each time sample in each trace which represents the integrated properties of wavefield at different time ranges centered on each time sample. According to the minimum Euclidean distance of the features, the optimally matched pairs of time samples in the observed and synthetic trace can be found. A constraint evaluates the reliability of dynamic matching by attenuating the amplitude of synthetic data according to the values of traveltime differences between each pairs of optimally matched time samples is proposed to improve the accuracy of data matching. In addition, Gaussian kernels have the capability to extract features of time samples contaminated by strong noises accurately to improve the robustness of the propose method further. The selection scheme of optimal parameters is discussed and concluded to ensure the convergence of the proposed method. Numerical tests on Marmousi model verify the feasibility of the propose method. The proposed method provides a new approach to tackle the convergence problem of FWI when using the field seismic data

Effect of Trichoderma viride on rhizosphere microbial communities and biocontrol of soybean root rot

Biological seed dressing is a cost-effective means to protect plant roots from pathogens. Trichoderma is generally considered as one of the most common biological seed dressings. However, there is still a dearth of information on the effects of Trichoderma on microbial community of rhizosphere soil. High-throughput sequencing was used to analyze the effects of Trichoderma viride and a chemical fungicide on microbial community of soybean rhizosphere soil. The results showed that both T. viride and chemical fungicide could significantly reduce the disease index of soybean (15.11% for Trichoderma and 17.33% for Chemical), while no significant difference was observed between them. Both T. viride and chemical fungicide could affect the structure of rhizosphere microbial community, they increased the β-diversity of microbial community and significantly reduce the relative abundance of Saprotroph-Symbiotroph. Chemical fungicide could reduce the complexity and stability of co-occurrence network. However, T. viride is beneficial for maintaining network stability and increasing network complexity. There were 31 bacterial genera and 21 fungal genera significantly correlated with the disease index. Furthermore, several potential plant pathogenic microorganisms were also positively correlated with disease index, such as Fusarium, Aspergillus, Conocybe, Naganishia, and Monocillium. From this work, T. viride may be used as a substitute for chemical fungicide to control soybean root rot and be more friendly to soil microecology

HYL1 regulates the balance between adaxial and abaxial identity for leaf flattening via miRNA-mediated pathways

HYPONASTIC LEAVES1 (HYL1) is an important regulator of microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis. Incurvature of rosette leaves in loss-of-function mutants of HYL1 implicates the regulation of leaf flatness by HYL1 via miRNA pathways. Recent studies have identified jba-1D, jaw-1D, and oe-160c, the dominant mutants of MIR166g, MIR319a, and MIR160c genes, respectively, which display three types of leaf curvature. However, it remains unclear whether or how HYL1 controls leaf flatness through the pathways mediated by these miRNAs. To define which miRNAs and target genes are relevant to the hyl1 phenotype in terms of leaf incurvature, the effects of three mutated MIRNA genes and their targets on the direction and extent of leaf curvature in hyl1 mutants were examined. The genetic analysis shows that the hyl1 phenotype is strongly rescued by jba-1D, but not by jaw-1D or oe-160c, whereas the mutant phenotypes of jba-1D, jaw-1D, or oe-160c leaves are compromised by the hyl1 allele. Expression analysis indicates that reduced accumulation of miR166, rather than of miR319a or miR160, causes incurvature of hyl1 leaves, and that miR319a-targeted TCP3 positively regulates the adaxial identity gene PHABULOSA while miR160-targeted ARF16 negatively regulates the abaxial identity gene FILAMENTOUS FLOWER. In these cases, the direction and extent of leaf incurvature are associated with the expression ratio of adaxial to abaxial genes (adaxial to abaxial ratio). HYL1 regulates the balance between adaxial and abaxial identity and modulates leaf flatness by preventing leaf incurvature, wavy margins, and downward curvature. It is concluded that HYL1 monitors the roles of miR165/166, miR319a, and miR160 in leaf flattening through the relative activities of adaxial and abaxial identity genes, thus playing an essential role in leaf development

Classification and quantification of leaf curvature

Various mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana deficient in polarity, cell division, and auxin response are characterized by certain types of leaf curvature. However, comparison of curvature for clarification of gene function can be difficult without a quantitative measurement of curvature. Here, a novel method for classification and quantification of leaf curvature is reported. Twenty-two mutant alleles from Arabidopsis mutants and transgenic lines deficient in leaf flatness were selected. The mutants were classified according to the direction, axis, position, and extent of leaf curvature. Based on a global measure of whole leaves and a local measure of four regions in the leaves, the curvature index (CI) was proposed to quantify the leaf curvature. The CI values accounted for the direction, axis, position, and extent of leaf curvature in all of the Arabidopsis mutants grown in growth chambers. Comparison of CI values between mutants reveals the spatial and temporal variations of leaf curvature, indicating the strength of the mutant alleles and the activities of the corresponding genes. Using the curvature indices, the extent of curvature in a complicated genetic background becomes quantitative and comparable, thus providing a useful tool for defining the genetic components of leaf development and to breed new varieties with leaf curvature desirable for the efficient capture of sunlight for photosynthesis and high yields

Comparative whole genome DNA methylation profiling across cattle tissues reveals global and tissue-specific methylation patterns

Efforts to improve animal health, and understand genetic bases for production, may benefit from a comprehensive analysis of animal genomes and epigenomes. Although DNA methylation has been well studied in humans and other model species, its distribution patterns and regulatory impacts in cattle are still largely unknown. Here, we present the largest collection of cattle DNA methylation epigenomic data to date. Using Holstein cattle, we generated 29 whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) datasets for 16 tissues, 47 corresponding RNA-seq datasets, and 2 whole genome sequencing datasets. We did read mapping and DNA methylation calling based on two different cattle assemblies, demonstrating the high quality of the long-read-based assembly markedly improved DNA methylation results. We observed large differences across cattle tissues in the methylation patterns of global CpG sites, partially methylated domains (PMDs), hypomethylated regions (HMRs), CG islands (CGIs), and common repeats. We detected that each tissue had a distinct set of PMDs, which showed tissue-specific patterns. Similar to human PMD, cattle PMDs were often linked to a general decrease of gene expression and a decrease in active histone marks and related to long-range chromatin organizations, like topologically associated domains (TADs). We tested a classification of the HMRs based on their distributions relative to transcription start sites (TSSs) and detected tissue-specific TSS-HMRs and genes that showed strong tissue effects. When performing cross-species comparisons of paired genes (two opposite strand genes with their TSS located in the same HMR), we found out they were more consistently co-expressed among human, mouse, sheep, goat, yak, pig, and chicken, but showed lower consistent ratios in more divergent species. We further used these WGBS data to detect 50,023 experimentally supported CGIs across bovine tissues and found that they might function as a guard against C-to-T mutations for TSS-HMRs. Although common repeats were often heavily methylated, some young Bov-A2 repeats were hypomethylated in sperm and could affect the promoter structures by exposing potential transcription factor binding sites. This study provides a comprehensive resource for bovine epigenomic research and enables new discoveries about DNA methylation and its role in complex traits.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-00793-

Forebrain NR2B Overexpression Facilitating the Prefrontal Cortex Long-Term Potentiation and Enhancing Working Memory Function in Mice

Prefrontal cortex plays an important role in working memory, attention regulation and behavioral inhibition. Its functions are associated with NMDA receptors. However, there is little information regarding the roles of NMDA receptor NR2B subunit in prefrontal cortical synaptic plasticity and prefrontal cortex-related working memory. Whether the up-regulation of NR2B subunit influences prefrontal cortical synaptic plasticity and working memory is not yet clear. In the present study, we measured prefrontal cortical synaptic plasticity and working memory function in NR2B overexpressing transgenic mice. In vitro electrophysiological data showed that overexpression of NR2B specifically in the forebrain region resulted in enhancement of prefrontal cortical long-term potentiation (LTP) but did not alter long-term depression (LTD). The enhanced LTP was completely abolished by a NR2B subunit selective antagonist, Ro25-6981, indicating that overexpression of NR2B subunit is responsible for enhanced LTP. In addition, NR2B transgenic mice exhibited better performance in a set of working memory paradigms including delay no-match-to-place T-maze, working memory version of water maze and odor span task. Our study provides evidence that NR2B subunit of NMDA receptor in prefrontal cortex is critical for prefrontal cortex LTP and prefrontal cortex-related working memory

Action Mechanism of Inhibin α-Subunit on the Development of Sertoli Cells and First Wave of Spermatogenesis in Mice

Inhibin is an important marker of Sertoli cell (SC) activity in animals with impaired spermatogenesis. However, the precise relationship between inhibin and SC activity is unknown. To investigate this relationship, we partially silenced both the transcription and translation of the gene for the α-subunit of inhibin, Inha, using recombinant pshRNA vectors developed with RNAi-Ready pSIREN-RetroQ-ZsGreen Vector (Clontech Laboratories, Mountain View, Calif). We found that Inha silencing suppresses the cell-cycle regulators Cyclin D1 and Cyclin E and up-regulates the cell-cycle inhibitor P21 (as detected by Western blot analysis), thereby increasing the number of SCs in the G1 phase of the cell cycle and decreasing the amount in the S-phase of the cell cycle (as detected by flow cytometry). Inha silencing also suppressed Pdgfa, Igf1, and Kitl mRNA levels and up-regulated Tgfbrs, Inhba, Inhbb, Cyp11a1, Dhh, and Tjp1 mRNA levels (as indicated by real-time polymerase chain reaction [PCR] analysis). These findings indicate that Inha has the potential to influence the availability of the ligand inhibin and its antagonist activin in the SC in an autocrine manner and inhibit the progression of SC from G1 to S. It may also participate in the development of the blood–testis barrier, Leydig cells, and spermatogenesis through its effect on Dhh, Tjp1, Kitl, and Pdgfa. Real-time PCR and Western blot analyses of Inha, Inhba, and Inhbb mRNA and Inha levels over time show that Inha plays an important role in the formation of round spermatid during the first wave of spermatogenesis in mice