Identification of wounding and topping responsive small RNAs in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are two major classes of small RNAs. They play important regulatory roles in plants and animals by regulating transcription, stability and/or translation of target genes in a sequence-complementary dependent manner. Over 4,000 miRNAs and several classes of siRNAs have been identified in plants, but in tobacco only computational prediction has been performed and no tobacco-specific miRNA has been experimentally identified. Wounding is believed to induce defensive response in tobacco, but the mechanism responsible for this response is yet to be uncovered.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To get insight into the role of small RNAs in damage-induced responses, we sequenced and analysed small RNA populations in roots and leaves from wounding or topping treated tobacco plants. In addition to confirmation of expression of 27 known miRNA families, we identified 59 novel tobacco-specific miRNA members of 38 families and a large number of loci generating phased 21- or 24-nt small RNAs (including ta-siRNAs). A number of miRNAs and phased small RNAs were found to be responsive to wounding or topping treatment. Targets of small RNAs were further surveyed by degradome sequencing.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The expression changes of miRNAs and phased small RNAs responsive to wounding or topping and identification of defense related targets for these small RNAs suggest that the inducible defense response in tobacco might be controlled by pathways involving small RNAs.</p

Ultrafast and Ultralight Network-Based Intelligent System for Real-time Diagnosis of Ear diseases in Any Devices

Traditional ear disease diagnosis heavily depends on experienced specialists and specialized equipment, frequently resulting in misdiagnoses, treatment delays, and financial burdens for some patients. Utilizing deep learning models for efficient ear disease diagnosis has proven effective and affordable. However, existing research overlooked model inference speed and parameter size required for deployment. To tackle these challenges, we constructed a large-scale dataset comprising eight ear disease categories and normal ear canal samples from two hospitals. Inspired by ShuffleNetV2, we developed Best-EarNet, an ultrafast and ultralight network enabling real-time ear disease diagnosis. Best-EarNet incorporates the novel Local-Global Spatial Feature Fusion Module which can capture global and local spatial information simultaneously and guide the network to focus on crucial regions within feature maps at various levels, mitigating low accuracy issues. Moreover, our network uses multiple auxiliary classification heads for efficient parameter optimization. With 0.77M parameters, Best-EarNet achieves an average frames per second of 80 on CPU. Employing transfer learning and five-fold cross-validation with 22,581 images from Hospital-1, the model achieves an impressive 95.23% accuracy. External testing on 1,652 images from Hospital-2 validates its performance, yielding 92.14% accuracy. Compared to state-of-the-art networks, Best-EarNet establishes a new state-of-the-art (SOTA) in practical applications. Most importantly, we developed an intelligent diagnosis system called Ear Keeper, which can be deployed on common electronic devices. By manipulating a compact electronic otoscope, users can perform comprehensive scanning and diagnosis of the ear canal using real-time video. This study provides a novel paradigm for ear endoscopy and other medical endoscopic image recognition applications.Comment: This manuscript has been submitted to Neural Network

Single underwater image enhancement based on adaptive correction of channel differential and fusion

Clear underwater images are necessary in many underwater applications, while absorption, scattering, and different water conditions will lead to blurring and different color deviations. In order to overcome the limitations of the available color correction and deblurring algorithms, this paper proposed a fusion-based image enhancement method for various water areas. We proposed two novel image processing methods, namely, an adaptive channel deblurring method and a color correction method, by limiting the histogram mapping interval. Subsequently, using these two methods, we took two images from a single underwater image as inputs of the fusion framework. Finally, we obtained a satisfactory underwater image. To validate the effectiveness of the experiment, we tested our method using public datasets. The results showed that the proposed method can adaptively correct color casts and significantly enhance the details and quality of attenuated underwater images

A test system for infrared focal plane arrays based on LabVIEW

Most existing test system for infrared focal plane arrays are dedicated, it costly and the application value are limited. A test method for infrared focal plane arrays is introduced in this paper, and test system includes driving circuit, control module, data acquiring and processing circuit, video synthesis module and the PC software based on LabVIEW is established, which measures the key parameters such as responsivity, NETD, non-effective pixels and nonhomogeneity of the conventional polysilicon uncooled infrared focal plane arrays, generate testing report automatically at last. The simple and reliable test system adapted to many devices with different resolution and package, possess excellent universal property and practical value at very low cost

MiR-6875-3p promotes the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma via BTG2/FAK/Akt pathway

Abstract Background Increasing evidence supports the association of microRNA with tumor occurrence and development. However, the expression of miR-6875-3p and its role in cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains elusive. Methods The expression of miR-6875-3p and BTG2 in HCC tissues and cell lines was detected by using in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and qRT-PCR, respectively. A western blot assay, qRT-PCR and Luciferase reporter assay were employed to study the interaction between miR-6875-3p and BTG2. Cell proliferation invasion and metastasis were measured by MTT, transwell and matrigel analyses in vitro. In vivo, tumorigenicity and metastasis assays were performed in nude mice. Results We found that miR-6875-3p were elevated expressed in HCC tissues and cell lines, and negatively correlated with BTG2 expression, while positively correlated with tumor staging, size, degree of differentiation, and vascular invasion of HCC. Moreover, in vitro and in vivo assays showed that miR-6875-3p regulates EMT and improve the proliferation, metastasis and stem cell-like properties of HCC cells. BTG2 was identified as a direct and functional target of miR-6875-3p via the 3’-UTR of BTG2. We also confirmed that miR-6875-3p plays its biological functions via the BTG2/FAK/Akt pathway. Conclusion Our study provides evidence that high expression of miR-6875-3p can promote tumorigenesis of HCC in vitro and in vivo, so as to function as a novel oncogene in HCC. In mechanism, we found that miR-6875-3p plays its biological functions via the BTG2/FAK/Akt pathway

Preparation and properties of poly(ε-caprolactone)/bioactive glass nanofibre membranes for skin tissue engineering

Poly(ε-caprolactone) composite nanofibres for skin tissue engineering and regeneration applications were prepared via electrospinning of poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofibres with bioactive glass nanoparticles at bioactive glass contents of 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt%. The surface properties, water absorptivities, porosities, mechanical properties and biocompatibilities of the composite electrospun nanofibres were characterised in detail. Addition of bioactive glass improved the hydrophilicity and elastic modulus of membranes. The fibre diameter of the neat poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofibres was only 700 nm, but reinforcement with 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt% bioactive glass nanofibres increased the diameter to 1000, 1100, 900 and 800 nm, respectively. The minimum elongation at break of the bioactive glass–reinforced poly(ε-caprolactone) exceeded 100%, which indicated that the composite nanofibres had good mechanical properties. The porosities of the various nanofibres containing different mass loadings of bioactive glass all exceeded 90%. The best performance in terms of cell proliferation and adhesion was found when the bioactive glass mass percent reached 6 wt%. However, higher loadings were unfavourable for cell growth. These preliminary results indicate that poly(ε-caprolactone)/bioactive glass composite nanofibres have promise for skin tissue engineering applications.</p

Characteristics of pantograph-catenary arc under low air pressure and strong airflow

Pantograph-catenary arc fault is the primary factor threatening the stability of the power transmission for high-speed railway. The motion characteristics of the pantograph-catenary arc under low air pressure and strong airflow is significantly different from the case under atmospheric pressure. In this paper, an experimental platform of pantograph-catenary arc was built to investigate arc root position-time and arc column longitudinal drift height-time characteristic curves under different air pressures and airflow velocites. Via analysing the corresponding results, it can be found that there are different arc root–arc column traction mechanisms at different stages of arc development. The arcing time and arc root stagnation time under low air pressure are significantly longer than the case under atmospheric pressure, resulting in more serious electrode ablation. The arc column longitudinal drift velocity and height are greater with the increase of airflow velocity. Two typical irregular arc motion phenomena—arc root jumping and arc reignition are observed. To clarify the internal mechanism of the above phenomenon, a magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model of the pantograph-catenary arc was lauched, the influence mechanism of the pantograph-catenary arc temperature and voltage are studied, and the physical process of arc temperature oscillation is analysed. The research results provide theoretical support for arc protection in high-altitude areas.Published versionFunding Information: NEEC project, Grant/Award Number: NEEC‐2018‐B06; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 51807167, 51837009, 51922090, 52077182, U19A20105; Science and Technology Project of Headquarter of SGCC, Grant/Award Number: SGTYHT/19‐JS‐215

Ta₂O₅/rGO Nanocomposite Modified Electrodes for Detection of Tryptophan <i>through</i> Electrochemical Route

l-tryptophan is one of the eight kinds of essential amino acids for sustainable human life activity. It is common to detect the concentration of tryptophan in human serum for diagnosing and preventing brain related diseases. Herein, in this study, GCE (glassy carbon electrode) modified by Ta2O5-reduced graphene oxide (-rGO) composite (Ta2O5-rGO-GCE) is synthesized by the hydrothermal synthesis-calcination methods, which is used for detecting the concentration of tryptophan in human serum under the as-obtained optimal detection conditions. As a result, the obtained Ta2O5-rGO-GCE shows larger electrochemical activity area than other bare GCE and rGO-GCE due to the synergistic effect of Ta2O5 NPs and rGO. Meanwhile, Ta2O5-rGO-GCE shows an excellent response to tryptophan during the oxidation process in 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution (pH = 6). Moreover, three wide linear detection range (1.0&#8722;8.0 &#956;M, 8.0&#8722;80 &#956;M and 80&#8722;800 &#956;M) and a low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.84 &#956;M (S/N = 3) in the detection of tryptophan are also presented, showing the larger linear ranges and lower detection limit by employing Ta2O5-rGO-GCE. Finally, the as-proposed Ta2O5-rGO-GCE with satisfactory recoveries (101~106%) is successfully realized for the detection of tryptophan in human serum. The synthesis of Ta2O5-rGO-GCE in this article could provide a slight view for the synthesis of other electrochemical catalytic systems in detection of trace substance in human serum

Investigation of Acoustic Injection on the MPU6050 Accelerometer

Acoustic injection is one of the most dangerous ways of causing micro-electro&ndash;mechanical systems (MEMS) failures. In this paper, the failure mechanism of acoustic injection on the microprocessor unit 6050 (MPU6050) accelerometer is investigated by both experiment and simulation. A testing system was built to analyze the performance of the MPU6050 accelerometer under acoustic injection. A MEMS disassembly method was adopted and a MATLAB program was developed to establish the geometric model of MPU6050. Subsequently, a finite element model of MPU6050 was established. Then, the acoustic impacts on the sensor layer of MPU6050 were studied by acoustic&ndash;solid coupling simulations. The effects of sound frequencies, pressures and directions were analyzed. Simulation results are well agreed with the experiments which indicate that MPU6050 is most likely to fail under the sounds of 11,566 Hz. The failure mechanism of MPU6050 under acoustic injection is the relative shift of the capacitor flats caused by acoustic&ndash;solid resonance that make the sensor detect false signal and output error data. The stress is focused on the center linkage. MPU6050 can be reliable when the sound pressure is lower than 100 dB