Metabolomics and Transcriptomics Reveal the Response Mechanisms of Mikania micrantha to Puccinia spegazzinii Infection

Mikania micrantha is one of the worst invasive species globally and can cause significant negative impacts on agricultural and forestry economics, particularly in Asia and the Pacific region. The rust Puccinia spegazzinii has been used successfully as a biological control agent in several countries to help manage M. micrantha. However, the response mechanisms of M. micrantha to P. spegazzinii infection have never been studied. To investigate the response of M. micrantha to infection by P. spegazzinii, an integrated analysis of metabolomics and transcriptomics was performed. The levels of 74 metabolites, including organic acids, amino acids, and secondary metabolites in M. micrantha infected with P. spegazzinii, were significantly different compared to those in plants that were not infected. After P. spegazzinii infection, the expression of the TCA cycle gene was significantly induced to participate in energy biosynthesis and produce more ATP. The content of most amino acids, such as L-isoleucine, L-tryptophan and L-citrulline, increased. In addition, phytoalexins, such as maackiain, nobiletin, vasicin, arachidonic acid, and JA-Ile, accumulated in M. micrantha. A total of 4978 differentially expressed genes were identified in M. micrantha infected by P. spegazzinii. Many key genes of M. micrantha in the PTI (pattern-triggered immunity) and ETI (effector-triggered immunity) pathways showed significantly higher expression under P. spegazzinii infection. Through these reactions, M. micrantha is able to resist the infection of P. spegazzinii and maintain its growth. These results are helpful for us to understand the changes in metabolites and gene expression in M. micrantha after being infected by P. spegazzinii. Our results can provide a theoretical basis for weakening the defense response of M. micrantha to P. spegazzinii, and for P. spegazzinii as a long-term biological control agent of M. micrantha

A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Deep Model Robustness

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved remarkable performance across a wide range of applications, while they are vulnerable to adversarial examples, which motivates the evaluation and benchmark of model robustness. However, current evaluations usually use simple metrics to study the performance of defenses, which are far from understanding the limitation and weaknesses of these defense methods. Thus, most proposed defenses are quickly shown to be attacked successfully, which results in the ``arm race'' phenomenon between attack and defense. To mitigate this problem, we establish a model robustness evaluation framework containing 23 comprehensive and rigorous metrics, which consider two key perspectives of adversarial learning (i.e., data and model). Through neuron coverage and data imperceptibility, we use data-oriented metrics to measure the integrity of test examples; by delving into model structure and behavior, we exploit model-oriented metrics to further evaluate robustness in the adversarial setting. To fully demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework, we conduct large-scale experiments on multiple datasets including CIFAR-10, SVHN, and ImageNet using different models and defenses with our open-source platform. Overall, our paper provides a comprehensive evaluation framework, where researchers could conduct comprehensive and fast evaluations using the open-source toolkit, and the analytical results could inspire deeper understanding and further improvement to the model robustness.Comment: Submitted to Pattern Recognitio

Differences in the Content of Protein and Essential Amino Acids between Different Rice Varieties

Evaluation of the protein content is a major indicator of the nutritional quality of rice, and the protein quality of rice is the best among cereal crops. Essential amino acids play an irreplaceable role in human growth, development and health care. Essential amino acid is a key ingredient to measure the nutritional value of rice. Using the experimental rice processed from the rice variety "Yuzhenxiang" sprayed with plant nutrients (patent number: ZL201110103910.9), namely high essential amino acid nutritional rice, combined with five kinds of high quality rice imported by COFCO and homegrown "Wuchang rice", we send the samples of the seven kinds of rice to Hunan Food Testing Center, and adopt HPLC method to test the content of protein and eight kinds of essential amino acids. Three bags of rice are randomly selected for each kind of rice, and each bag is a replication. The test results show that there are highly significant differences in the content of essential amino acids between different kinds of rice (F=246.29**, P=5×10-71), and there are also highly significant differences in the content between different kinds of essential amino acids (F=3937.09**, P=4×10-146). The test results of protein content indicate that there are highly significant differences in the content of protein between different kinds of rice (F=3937.0973.29**, P=5.81×10-11), and the test results of lysine content show that there are highly significant differences in the content of lysine between different kinds of rice (F=3937.0973.29**，P=5.81×10-11)

Advantage analysis of aluminum honeycomb composite used in motorhomes

In the light weight, high weather resistance and environmental protection requirements of the panel used for the motorhome, aluminum honeycomb composite, new material with mature the quality improvement and material upgrading of the panel used for the motorhome. In this paper, the existing problems of the panel used for the motorhome and the properties of aluminum honeycomb composite are discussed, the advantages of applying aluminum honeycomb composite to the board of the motorhome are analyzed. The application of aluminum honeycomb composite materials to motorhomes will meet the requirements for improving the quality of panels, such as reduced in weight, environmentally friendly, non-combustible, recyclable, improved weather resistance and increased service life

Removal of Antimony and Bismuth in Copper Electrolyte by Resin Adsorption

Resin Adsorption was adopted for removal of Sb and Bi in copper electrolyte. A series of investigations were done respectively on: adsorption capacity of resin for Sb and Bi, affects of solution flow rate and temperature for the adsorption of Sb and Bi, affects of eluent types, temperature and additives for the elution efficiency of Sb and Bi. The experimental results showed that, the resin has the same adsorption capacity for Sb and Bi, the adsorption could be improved by the solution flow rate reducing and the temperature increasing. In the dynamic adsorption test, the resin has adsorption effect on Sb, Bi, Pb and Fe in copper electrolyte, and the average adsorption rates are 94.4%, 97.3%, 75.9% and 28.3%, respectively. The elution of Sb was mainly influenced by the concentrations of H+ and Cl-. The elution of Bi was mainly influenced by the concentrations of Cl-. It was beneficial for the elution of Sb (V) by adding thiourea in high concentration HCl solution at a certain temperature

Properties and Applications of High Emissivity Composite Films Based on Far-Infrared Ceramic Powder

Polymer matrix composite materials that can emit radiation in the far-infrared region of the spectrum are receiving increasing attention due to their ability to significantly influence biological processes. This study reports on the far-infrared emissivity property of composite films based on far-infrared ceramic powder. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and X-ray powder diffractometry were used to evaluate the physical properties of the ceramic powder. The ceramic powder was found to be rich in aluminum oxide, titanium oxide, and silicon oxide, which demonstrate high far-infrared emissivity. In addition, the micromorphology, mechanical performance, dynamic mechanical properties, and far-infrared emissivity of the composite were analyzed to evaluate their suitability for strawberry storage. The mechanical properties of the far-infrared radiation ceramic (cFIR) composite films were not significantly influenced (p ≥ 0.05) by the addition of the ceramic powder. However, the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) properties of the cFIR composite films, including a reduction in damping and shock absorption performance, were significant influenced by the addition of the ceramic powder. Moreover, the cFIR composite films showed high far-infrared emissivity, which has the capability of prolonging the storage life of strawberries. This research demonstrates that cFIR composite films are promising for future applications

Atmospheric icing status and type of southwest China networks

Transmission line disconnection, tower collapse and insulator flashover caused by icing seriously threaten power system security. Ice type and state of transmission lines, which vary a lot with terrain and climate, in typical areas such as Daqing-ridge, Yak Mountain and Erlang Mountain in Sichuan Province in South China were investigated in this paper. It is shown that mixed-phase ice with obvious layered structure, low density, strong adhesive force and windward-side growth is the main type of ice threatening the security of transmission lines and insulators. There is more ice on the ends of insulators than other areas in severe cases, where all sheds of the insulator is bridged by ice. Besides, temperature, humidity and precipitation intensity are main factors influencing the icing process. As a result, terrain and climate play a leading role in determination of icing type and severity