Search

A Crank–Nicolson finite element method is proposed to solve the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations. We prove that for a given smooth initial value, if a fully discrete finite element solution of the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations is bounded in a certain norm, then the strong solution of the Navier–Stokes equations satisfies uniqueness and smoothness. Further, the fully discrete solution converges to the strong solution as temporal step size τ → 0 and spatial step size h → 0 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the size of micro light-emitting diodes (μLEDs) decreases, μLEDs encounter etching damage especially at the sidewalls that critically affects their properties. In this study, we investigated the influence of etching bias power (Pbias) on the performance of μLEDs and found that the current–voltage and light output–current characteristics of μLEDs were enhanced when Pbias was reduced. It was shown that at low Pbias, the chemical reaction between etching gas and gallium nitride, rather than ion sputtering, dominated the etching process, leading to low plasma damage and rough surface morphology. Additionally, to understand the etching-induced surface roughening behaviors, various substrates with different threading dislocation densities were treated at low Pbias. It was found that for the sample (with p-contact size of 10 × 10 μm2), the efficiency droop was approximately 20%, although the current reached 10 mA due most probably to the suppressed polarization effect in the quantum well. It was further observed that the external quantum efficiency (EQE) was dependent on Pbias, where the lowest Pbias yielded the highest maximum EQE, indicating that the plasma damage was mitigated by reducing Pbias. Optimization of dry etching and polarization-suppression conditions could pave the way for realizing high-performance and brightness μLEDs for next-generation displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies aim to understand the influence of genetic variants on gene expression. The colocalization of eQTL mapping and GWAS strategy could help identify essential candidate genes and causal DNA variants vital to complex traits in human and many farm animals. However, eQTL mapping has not been conducted in ducks. It is desirable to know whether eQTLs within GWAS signals contributed to duck economic traits. Results: In this study, we conducted an eQTL analysis using publicly available RNA sequencing data from 820 samples, focusing on liver, muscle, blood, adipose, ovary, spleen, and lung tissues. We identified 113,374 cis-eQTLs for 12,266 genes, a substantial fraction 39.1% of which were discovered in at least two tissues. The cis-eQTLs of blood were less conserved across tissues, while cis-eQTLs from any tissue exhibit a strong sharing pattern to liver tissue. Colocalization between cis-eQTLs and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 50 traits uncovered new associations between gene expression and potential loci influencing growth and carcass traits. SRSF4, GSS, and IGF2BP1 in liver, NDUFC2 in muscle, ELF3 in adipose, and RUNDC1 in blood could serve as the candidate genes for duck growth and carcass traits. Conclusions: Our findings highlight substantial differences in genetic regulation of gene expression across duck primary tissues, shedding light on potential mechanisms through which candidate genes may impact growth and carcass traits. Furthermore, this availability of eQTL data offers a valuable resource for deciphering further genetic association signals that may arise from ongoing extensive endeavors aimed at enhancing duck production traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genomic selection (GS) has great potential to increase genetic gain in poultry breeding. However, the performance of genomic prediction in duck growth and breast morphological (BM) traits remains largely unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate the benefits of genomic prediction for duck growth and BM traits using methods such as GBLUP, single‐step GBLUP, Bayesian models, and different marker densities. This study collected phenotypic data for 14 growth and BM traits in a crossbreed population of 1893 Pekin duck × mallard, which included 941 genotyped ducks. The estimation of genetic parameters indicated high heritabilities for body weight (0.54–0.72), whereas moderate‐to‐high heritabilities for average daily gain (0.21–0.57) traits. The heritabilities of BM traits ranged from low to moderate (0.18–0.39). The prediction ability of GS on growth and BM traits increased by 7.6% on average compared to the pedigree‐based BLUP method. The single‐step GBLUP outperformed GBLUP in most traits with an average of 0.3% higher reliability in our study. Most of the Bayesian models had better performance on predictive reliability, except for BayesR. BayesN emerged as the top‐performing model for genomic prediction of both growth and BM traits, exhibiting an average increase in reliability of 3.0% compared to GBLUP. The permutation studies revealed that 50 K markers had achieved ideal prediction reliability, while 3 K markers still achieved 90.8% predictive capability would further reduce the cost for duck growth and BM traits. This study provides promising evidence for the application of GS in improving duck growth and BM traits. Our findings offer some useful strategies for optimizing the predictive ability of GS in growth and BM traits and provide theoretical foundations for designing a low‐density panel in ducks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A detailed understanding of genetic variants that affect beef merit helps maximize the efficiency of breeding for improved production merit in beef cattle. To prioritize the putative variants and genes, we ran a comprehensive genome-wide association studies (GWAS) analysis for 21 agronomic traits using imputed whole-genome variants in Simmental beef cattle. Then, we applied expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) mapping between the genotype variants and transcriptome of three tissues (longissimus dorsi muscle, backfat, and liver) in 120 cattle. Results: We identified 1,580 association signals for 21 beef agronomic traits using GWAS. We then illuminated 854,498 cis-eQTLs for 6,017 genes and 46,970 trans-eQTLs for 1,903 genes in three tissues and built a synergistic network by integrating transcriptomics with agronomic traits. These cis-eQTLs were preferentially close to the transcription start site and enriched in functional regulatory regions. We observed an average of 43.5% improvement in cis-eQTL discovery using multi-tissue eQTL mapping. Fine-mapping analysis revealed that 111, 192, and 194 variants were most likely to be causative to regulate gene expression in backfat, liver, and muscle, respectively. The transcriptome-wide association studies identified 722 genes significantly associated with 11 agronomic traits. Via the colocalization and Mendelian randomization analyses, we found that eQTLs of several genes were associated with the GWAS signals of agronomic traits in three tissues, which included genes, such as NADSYN1, NDUFS3, LTF and KIFC2 in liver, GRAMD1C, TMTC2 and ZNF613 in backfat, as well as TIGAR, NDUFS3 and L3HYPDH in muscle that could serve as the candidate genes for economic traits. Conclusions: The extensive atlas of GWAS, eQTL, fine-mapping, and transcriptome-wide association studies aid in the suggestion of potentially functional variants and genes in cattle agronomic traits and will be an invaluable source for genomics and breeding in beef cattle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Carcass traits are crucial for broiler ducks, but carcass traits can only be measured postmortem. Genomic selection (GS) is an effective approach in animal breeding to improve selection and reduce costs. However, the performance of genomic prediction in duck carcass traits remains largely unknown. Results: In this study, we estimated the genetic parameters, performed GS using different models and marker densities, and compared the estimation performance between GS and conventional BLUP on 35 carcass traits in an F2 population of ducks. Most of the cut weight traits and intestine length traits were estimated to be high and moderate heritabilities, respectively, while the heritabilities of percentage slaughter traits were dynamic. The reliability of genome prediction using GBLUP increased by an average of 0.06 compared to the conventional BLUP method. The Permutation studies revealed that 50K markers had achieved ideal prediction reliability, while 3K markers still achieved 90.7% predictive capability would further reduce the cost for duck carcass traits. The genomic relationship matrix normalized by our true variance method instead of the widely used ∑ 2 p i (1 - p i) could achieve an increase in prediction reliability in most traits. We detected most of the bayesian models had a better performance, especially for BayesN. Compared to GBLUP, BayesN can further improve the predictive reliability with an average of 0.06 for duck carcass traits. Conclusion: This study demonstrates genomic selection for duck carcass traits is promising. The genomic prediction can be further improved by modifying the genomic relationship matrix using our proposed true variance method and several Bayesian models. Permutation study provides a theoretical basis for the fact that low-density arrays can be used to reduce genotype costs in duck genome selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate high, up to 30% In content InGaN sub-micrometer platelets on GaN by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. These InGaN platelets were selectively grown on flat GaN seeds formed in sub-micrometer-scale openings in a SiNx mask. The platelets were highly uniform without any dislocations or pits, with an atomically flat (0001) surface. The typical height was ∼120 nm, which significantly exceeded the normal critical layer thickness of a c-plane InGaN film. The strain state was comprehensively characterized by microbeam x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Due to a gradual elastic relaxation of strain, the In content increased almost linearly from bottom to top because of the strong strain-dependent In incorporation. These platelets can serve as high-quality strain-relaxed templates for long wavelength micro-light-emitting diodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an implicit Crank–Nicolson finite element (FE) scheme for solving a nonlinear Schrödinger–type system, which includes Schrödinger–Helmholz system and Schrödinger–Poisson system. In our numerical scheme, we employ an implicit Crank–Nicolson method for time discretization and a conforming FE method for spatial discretization. The proposed method is proved to be well-posedness and ensures mass and energy conservation at the discrete level. Furthermore, we prove optimal L 2 error estimates for the fully discrete solutions. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to verify the convergence rate and conservation properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose and analyze three efficient methods for numerical approximation of oscillatory integrals with products of two Bessel functions. Firstly, the explicit formulas and asymptotic estimates of the generalized moments are derived by using the Meijer G function. Next, we design a Filon-type method by utilizing ordinary Hermite interpolation polynomials. On this basis, we propose a modified Filon-type method based on Taylor interpolation polynomials with two points. In particular, based on special Hermite interpolation polynomials at Clenshaw–Curtis points, we also give a more efficient Clenshaw–Curtis–Filon-type method that can produce more accurate numerical results. Moreover, the recursive relations of the required modified moments are derived. Importantly, we perform rigorous error analysis of the proposed numerical methods in inverse powers of the oscillation frequency by large amount of theoretical analysis. With the increase of the oscillation frequency, the accuracy improves rapidly when both the number of nodes and the multiplicities are fixed. For the fixed oscillation frequency, the accuracy of the obtained approximate values also increases greatly as either the multiplicities or the number of nodes becomes large. Finally, we compare two of these methods at the same computational cost and find that the Clenshaw–Curtis–Filon-type method gives more accurate results. Some preliminary numerical experiments validate our theoretical analysis and verify the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An error estimate is presented for a fully discrete, linearized and stabilized finite element method for solving the coupled system of nonlinear hyperbolic and parabolic equations describing incompressible flow with variable density in a two-dimensional convex polygon. In particular, the error of the numerical solution is split into the temporal and spatial components, separately. The temporal error is estimated by applying discrete maximal Lp-regularity of time-dependent Stokes equations, and the spatial error is estimated by using energy techniques based on the uniform regularity of the solutions given by semi-discretization in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, we propose a linearized finite element method (FEM) for solving the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation with wave operator. In this method, a modified leap–frog scheme is applied for time discretization and a Galerkin finite element method is applied for spatial discretization. We prove that the proposed method keeps the energy conservation in the given discrete norm. Comparing with non–conservative schemes, our algorithm keeps higher stability. Meanwhile, an optimal error estimate for the proposed scheme is given by an error splitting technique. That is, we split the error into two parts, one from temporal discretization and the other from spatial discretization. First, by introducing a time–discrete system, we prove the uniform boundedness for the solution of this time–discrete system in some strong norms and obtain error estimates in temporal direction. With the help of the preliminary temporal estimates, we then prove the pointwise uniform boundedness of the finite element solution, and obtain the optimal L 2 –norm error estimates in the sense that the time step size is not related to spatial mesh size. Finally, numerical examples are provided to validate the convergence–order, unconditional stability and energy conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lysine plays a crucial role in promoting development, enhancing immune function, and improving the function of central nervous system tissues. The two configurational isomers of amino acids have significantly different effects. Currently, methods for chiral recognition of lysine have been reported; however, previous detection methods have drawbacks such as expensive equipment and complicated detection processes. Fluorescence analysis, on the other hand, boasts high sensitivity, strong selectivity, and simple operation. In this study, we synthesized four novel Binaphthyl-Amine (BINAM)-based fluorescent probes capable of specifically identifying the L-configuration of lysine among the twenty amino acids that constitute human proteins. The enantiomeric fluorescence enhancement ratio (ef or ΔIL/ΔID) reached up to 15.29, demonstrating high enantioselectivity. In addition, we assessed the probe's recognition capabilities under varying pH levels, reaction times, and metal ion conditions, along with its limit of detection (LOD) and quantum yield. Our results suggest that this probe serves as a highly stable tool for the detection of chiral lysine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes unconditional optimal error estimates for a 2-step backward differentiation formula (BDF2) method for a nonlinear Schrödinger equation. In the analysis, we split an error estimate into two parts, one from the spatial discretization and the other from the temporal discretization. We present the boundedness of the solution of the time-discrete system in the certain strong norms, and the error estimates for time discretization. By these boundedness and temporal error estimates, we obtain the L 2 error estimates without any conditions on a time step size. Numerical experiments are provided to validate our analysis and check the efficiency of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The myofibrillar structure of muscle was more seriously damaged by neck-arm restraint suspension than Achilles tendon suspension. • A total of 59 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified to impact meat quality. • Integrating DEPs with gene functions and meat quality-related QTLs, 11 proteins (MYL6B, MYO1A, COL3A1, AFP, CLN6, FGB, GLS2, BAG4, FGG, A2M, WNT10A) were proposed to be candidate biomarkers during the early postmortem aging process. The aging process of beef is impacted by the suspension method and aging time during the postmortem process. The neck-arm restraint (NR) suspension can accelerate the aging of beef carcasses compared with Achilles tendon (AT) suspension. However, the muscle protein changes between these two suspension methods in early postmortem aging are still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the proteomes of longissimus thoracis (LT) muscles between AT and NR suspension methods at 1 h and 72 h postmortem by the multiplexed isobaric tagging technology for relative quantitation (iTRAQ) technique and uncover the critical protein biomarkers of beef quality. A total of 59 proteins were differentially expressed between different suspension methods or postmortem aging times, which were mainly involved in actin cytoskeleton reorganization, actomyosin structure organization, response to calcium ions, and muscle contraction. Through the analysis of protein-protein interaction (PPI), we detected that ALB, APOA1, FGA, and TTN could be served as the hub proteins. Integration with the reported quantitative trait loci (QTL) of beef quality revealed that 30 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were involved in 46 QTL, in which, 11 proteins were differentially expressed in both the suspension method and time point comparison groups. We inferred these 11 proteins (MYL6B, MYO1A, COL3A1, AFP, CLN6, FGB, GLS2, BAG4, FGG, A2M, and WNT10A) as the most promising markers for the beef quality during the aging process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on a linearized backward Euler scheme with a Galerkin finite element approximation for the time-dependent nonlinear Schrödinger equation. By splitting an error estimate into two parts, one from the spatial discretization and the other from the temporal discretization, we obtain unconditionally optimal error estimates of the fully-discrete backward Euler method for a generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Numerical results are provided to support our theoretical analysis and efficiency of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetation phenology is a sensitive indicator of ecosystem response to climate change, and plays an important role in the terrestrial biosphere. Improving our understanding of alpine vegetation phenology dynamics and the correlation with climate and grazing is crucial for high mountains in arid areas subject to climatic warming. Using a time series of SPOT Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from 1998 to 2013, the start of the growing season (SOS), end of the growing season (EOS), growing season length (GSL), and maximum NDVI (MNDVI) were extracted using a threshold-based method for six vegetation groups in the Heihe River headwaters. Spatial and temporal patterns of SOS, EOS, GSL, MNDVI, and correlations with climatic factors and livestock production were analyzed. The MNDVI increased significantly in 58% of the study region, whereas SOS, EOS, and GSL changed significantly in < 5% of the region. The MNDVI in five vegetation groups increased significantly by a range from 0.045 to 0.075. No significant correlation between SOS and EOS was observed in any vegetation group. The SOS and GSL were highly correlated with temperature in May and April–May, whereas MNDVI was correlated with temperature in August and July–August. The EOS of different vegetation groups was correlated with different climatic variables. Maximum and minimum temperature, accumulated temperature, and effective accumulated temperature showed stronger correlations with phenological metrics compared with those of mean temperature, and should receive greater attention in phenology modeling in the future. Meat and milk production were significantly correlated with the MNDVI of scrub, steppe, and meadow. Although the MNDVI increased in recent years, ongoing monitoring for rangeland degradation is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been an excellent treasury for centuries' accumulation of clinical experiences, which deserves to be tapped for potential drugs and improved using modern scientific methods. 14-Deoxy-11,12-didehydroandrographolide (DAP), a major component of an important TCM named Andrographis paniculata , with non-toxic concentration of 1000 mg/kg/day, effectively reduced the mortality and weight loss of mice lethally challenged with A/chicken/Hubei/327/2004 (H5N1) or A/PR/8/34 (H1N1) influenza A viruses (IAV) when initiated at 4 h before infection, or A/duck/Hubei/XN/2007 (H5N1) when initiated at 4 h or 48 h before infection, or 4 h post-infection (pi). DAP (1000 or 500 mg/kg/day) also significantly diminished lung virus titres of infected mice when initiated at 4 h or 48 h before infection, or 4 h pi. In the infection of A/duck/Hubei/XN/2007 (H5N1), DAP (1000 mg/kg/day) treatment initiated at 48 h before infection gained the best efficacy that virus titres in lungs of mice in log 10 TCID 50 /mL reduced from 2.61 ± 0.14 on 3 days post-infection (dpi), 2.98 ± 0.17 on 5 dpi, 3.54 ± 0.19 on 7 dpi to 1.46 ± 0.14 on 3 dpi, 1.86 ± 0.18 on 5 dpi, 2.03 ± 0.21 on 7 dpi. Moreover, DAP obviously alleviated lung histopathology and also strongly inhibited proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines expression. The mRNA levels of TNF- α , IL-1 β , IL-6, CCL-2/MCP-1, IFN- α , IFN- β , IFN- γ , MIP-1 α , MIP-1 β in lungs of A/duck/Hubei/XN/2007 (H5N1)-infected mice and serum protein expression of TNF- α , IL-1 β , IL-6, CCL-2/MCP-1 and CXCL-10/IP-10 in mice infected with all the three strains of IAV were all significantly reduced by DAP. Results demonstrated that DAP could restrain both the host intense inflammatory responses and high viral load, which were considered to contribute to the pathogenesis of H5N1 virus and should be controlled together in a clinical setting. Considering the anti-inflammatory and anti-IAV activities of DAP, DAP may be a promising active component obtained from A. paniculata , which can be further investigated as a useful constitute of curative strategies in the future against IAV, the H5N1 strains in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus has become a worldwide public health threat, and current antiviral therapies have limited activity against the emerging, resistant influenza viruses. Therefore, effective drugs with novel targets against influenza A viruses, H5N1 strains in particular, should be developed. In the present study, 14-deoxy-11,12-dehydroandrographolide (DAP), a major component of the traditional Chinese medicine Andrographis paniculata , exerted potent anti-influenza A virus activity against A/chicken/Hubei/327/2004 (H5N1), A/duck/Hubei/XN/2007 (H5N1), A/PR/8/34 (H1N1), A/NanChang/08/2010 (H1N1) and A/HuNan/01/2014 (H3N2) in vitro . To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, a series of experiments was conducted using A/chicken/Hubei/327/2004 (H5N1) as an example. Our results demonstrated that DAP strongly inhibited H5N1 replication by reducing the production of viral nucleoprotein (NP) mRNA, NP and NS1proteins, whereas DAP had no effect on the absorption and release of H5N1 towards/from A549 cells. DAP also effectively restrained the nuclear export of viral ribonucleoprotein (vRNP) complexes. This inhibitory effect ought to be an important anti-H5N1 mechanism of DAP. Meanwhile, DAP significantly reduced the upregulated expression of all the tested proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, IFN-α, IL-1β and IFN-β) and chemokines (CXCL-10 and CCL-2) stimulated by H5N1. Overall results suggest that DAP impairs H5N1 replication at least in part by restraining nuclear export of vRNP complexes, and the inhibition of viral replication leads to a subsequent decrease of the intense proinflammatory cytokine/chemokine expression. In turn, the effect of modification of the host excessive immune response may contribute to overcoming H5N1. To our knowledge, this study is the first to reveal the antiviral and anti-inflammatory activities of DAP in vitro against H5N1 influenza A virus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonradiative recombination rate that consists of dislocation‐related nonradiative recombination rate (A0) and surface recombination rate (As) is one of the major parameters determining the performance of microlight‐emitting diodes (µLEDs). Recent demonstrations improving the efficiency of blue InGaN or red AlGaInP µLEDs using specific methods such as atomic layer deposition or chemical treatment confirm the suppression of As. However, it is hardly found that those methods effectively improve the efficiency of red InGaN µLEDs so far. Here, it is discovered that the dislocation leads to an ineffective As. First, an intrinsic As degrades the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of blue InGaN µLEDs, resulting in EQE decreases with shrinking size. Second, panchromatic cathodoluminescence finds evidence that most of the carriers can be trapped before reaching the sidewall due to high A0. This results in shortened diffusion length of carriers and reduces the number of carriers reaching the sidewall. Consequently, the opposite trend of increasing EQE with shrinking size occurs in the case of red InGaN µLEDs due to an ineffective As. Furthermore, an 8.3 nm quantum well of InGaN with 13% Indium content that can reach a ≈690 nm wavelength at the low current is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sidewall condition is a key factor determining the performance of micro‐light emitting diodes (µLEDs). In this study, equilateral triangular III‐nitride blue µLEDs are prepared with exclusively m‐plane sidewall surfaces to confirm the impact of sidewall conditions. It is found that inductively coupled plasma‐reactive ion etching (ICP‐RIE) causes surface damages to the sidewall and results in rough surface morphology. As confirmed by time‐resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) and X‐ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) eliminates the etching damage and flattens the sidewall surface. After ICP‐RIE, 100 µm2‐µLEDs yield higher external quantum efficiency (EQE) than 400 µm2‐µLEDs. However, after TMAH treatment, the peak EQE of 400 µm2‐µLEDs increases by ≈10% in the low current regime, whereas that of 100 µm2‐µLEDs slightly decreases by ≈3%. The EQE of the 100 µm2‐µLEDs decreases after TMAH treatment although the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) increases. Further, the IQE of the 100 µm2‐µLEDs before and after TMAH treatment is insignificant at temperatures below 150 K, above which it becomes considerable. Based on PL, XPS, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy results, mechanisms for the size dependence of the EQE of µLEDs are explained in terms of non‐radiative recombination rate and light extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, we investigate micro-light-emitting diodes (μLEDs) ranging in size from 160 × 160 to 10 × 10 μm2 and report that the differences in the behavior of InGaN-based blue (∼460 nm) and red (∼600 nm) μLEDs are related to carrier localization. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) of blue μLEDs decreases with size regardless of sidewall conditions, whereas that of red μLEDs is insignificant due to carrier localization. Atomic probe tomography examination of 30%, 15%, and 7.5% indium-concentrated InGaN layers used in red μLEDs shows that higher indium concentrations result in greater indium fluctuations, which promote carrier localization and thus shorten the diffusion length of carriers. Finally, by observing the peak wavelength of electroluminescence and the current density at peak EQE for both blue and red μLEDs, we find that radiative recombination rate in μLEDs is likely to be chip size dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Session-based recommendation, which aims to match user needs with rich resources based on anonymous sessions, nowadays plays a critical role in various online platforms (e.g., media streaming sites, search and e-commerce). Existing recommendation algorithms usually model a session as a sequence or a session graph to model transitions between items. Despite their effectiveness, we would argue that the performance of these methods is still flawed: (1) Using only fixed session item embedding without considering the diversity of users' interests and target items. (2) For user's long-term interest, the difficulty of capturing the different priorities for different items accurately. To tackle these defects, we propose a novel model which leverages both the target attentive network and self-attention network to improve the graph-neural-network (GNN)-based recommender. In our model, we first model user's interaction sequences as session graphs which serves as the input of the GNN, and each node vector involved in session graph can be obtained via the GNN. Next, target attentive network can activates different user interests corresponding to varied target items (i.e., the session embedding learned varies with different target items), which can reveal the relevance between users' interests and target items. At last, after applying the self-attention mechanism, the different priorities for different items can be captured to improve the precision of the long-term session representation. By using a hybrid of long-term and short-term session representation, we can capture users' comprehensive interests at multiple levels. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm on two real-world datasets for session-based recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influenza A virus (IAV) infection represents a global health challenge. Excavating antiviral active components from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a promising anti-IAV strategy. Our previous studies have demonstrated that 14-deoxy-11,12-didehydroandrographolide (DAP), a major ingredient of a TCM herb called Andrographis paniculata , shows anti-IAV activity that is mainly effective against A/chicken/Hubei/327/2004 (H5N1), A/duck/Hubei/XN/2007 (H5N1), and A/PR/8/34 (H1N1) in vitro and in vivo. However, the underlying anti-IAV molecular mechanism of DAP needs further investigation. In the present work, we found that DAP can significantly inhibit the apoptosis of human lung epithelial (A549) cells infected with A/chicken/Hubei/327/2004 (H5N1). After DAP treatment, the protein expression levels of cleaved PARP, cleaved caspase-3, and cleaved caspase-9, and the activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9 in H5N1-infected A549 cells were all obviously downregulated. However, DAP had no inhibitory effect on caspase-8 activity and cleaved caspase-8 production. Meanwhile, the efficacy of DAP in reducing the apoptotic cells was lost after using the inhibitor of caspase-3 or caspase-9 but remained intact after the caspase-8 inhibitor treatment. Moreover, DAP efficiently attenuated the dissipation of mitochondrial membrane potential, suppressed cytochrome c release from the mitochondria to the cytosol, and decreased the protein expression ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 in the mitochondrial fraction. Furthermore, the silencing of caspase-9 reduced the yield of nucleoprotein (NP) and disabled the inhibitory ability of DAP in NP production in A549 cells. Overall results suggest that DAP exerts its antiviral effects by inhibiting H5N1-induced apoptosis on the caspase-9-dependent intrinsic/mitochondrial pathway, which may be one of the anti-H5N1 mechanisms of DAP. • DAP inhibits caspase-3 and caspase-9 activation induced by influenza A(H5N1) virus in vitro. • DAP reduces mitochondrial membrane potential loss and represses cytochrome c release. • DAP exerts anti-apoptotic effect via the caspase-9-dependent intrinsic pathway. • Anti-H5N1 ability of DAP partly depends on the inhibition of caspase-9 activity. • We propose that DAP is a potential candidate of anti-influenza drug. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid increase in the popularity of big data and internet technology, sequential recommendation has become an important method to help people find items they are potentially interested in. Traditional recommendation methods use only recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to process sequential data. Although effective, the results may be unable to capture both the semantic-based preference and the complex transitions between items adequately. In this paper, we model separated session sequences into session graphs and capture complex transitions using graph neural networks (GNNs). We further link items in interaction sequences with existing external knowledge base (KB) entities and integrate the GNN-based recommender with key-value memory networks (KV-MNs) to incorporate KB knowledge. Specifically, we set a key matrix to many relation embeddings that learned from KB, corresponding to many entity attributes, and set up a set of value matrices storing the semantic-based preferences of different users for the corresponding attribute. By using a hybrid of a GNN and KV-MN, each session is represented as the combination of the current interest (i.e., sequential preference) and the global preference (i.e., semantic-based preference) of that session. Extensive experiments on three public real-world datasets show that our method performs better than baseline algorithms consistently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oxidation behavior and oxidation mechanism of TA5 titanium alloy were clarified through high-temperature oxidation experiments carried out at 500, 600, 700, 800 °C for 1, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h, respectively. The results show that the TA5 alloy has the best oxidation resistance at 500 °C and the worst oxidation resistance at 800 °C. Analysis of the surface oxidation morphology and cross-sectional morphology of the oxide layer by SEM/EDS/XRD/XPS/TEM and other characterization analysis methods, and it was found that the Ti–O binary compound was transformed from Ti 6 O to Rutile-TiO 2 from 500 °C to 600 °C, and the needle-like Al 2 O 3 phase began to appear from 700 °C, and the massive and large particles of Rutile-TiO 2 appeared on the surface of the oxide layer at 800 °C. The oxide layer gradually formed a multilayer structure with time, and the oxidation mechanism of TA5 titanium alloy was found to be the best one. The oxide layers gradually form a multilayer structure with time, and the TiO 2 and Al2O 3 oxide layers formed on the surface show higher hardness compared to the substrate. • The high-temperature oxidation behavior of TA5 titanium alloy at 500–800 °C for 1–96h was investigated. • The kinetics shift from parabolic to linear-parabolic with increasing temperature. • The structure of the oxide layer at 600 °C is a monolayer of rutile titanium dioxide and at 700 °C is Al 2 O 3 –TiO 2. • TiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 –TiO 2 oxide layer structure formed at 800 °C. • Characterization methods such as XRD, XPS, Raman spectroscopy and TEM were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sarcopenia is an age-related syndrome that may have negative impact on surgical outcomes and long-term survival of patients with gastric cancer. Serum creatinine/cystatin C (Cr/CysC) ratio has attracted attention as a surrogate marker for sarcopenia but has not been adequately studied in patients with gastric cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of serum Cr/CysC ratio as a predictor of sarcopenia, evaluate a statistical cut-off value, and assess the relationship between Cr/CysC ratio and prognosis of patients with gastric cancer.Methods: We retrospectively studied 327 patients who underwent surgery for gastric cancer from June 2009 to October 2021. The skeletal muscle mass index was calculated using computed tomography (CT). We determined the relevance of serum Cr/CysC ratio as a surrogate maker for sarcopenia by comparing it with various biomarkers. The Concordance index (C-index) was calculted to measure whether the Cr/CysC ratio can prognosis of patients with gastric cancer.Results: Serum Cr/CysC was significantly correlated with with Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI) (r = 0.221, p < 0.001) and Skeletal Muscle Area (SMA) (r = 0.258, p < 0.001). The area under the curve for sarcopenia was significantly larger for serum Cr/CysC ratio than for other biomarkers (Cr/CysC: 0.644, CysC: 0.535, Cr: 0.556). Patients in the high-Cr/CysC group have longer survival time than that in low-Cr/CysC group, defined by the cutoff value 0.67. The C-index of both Cr/CysC ratio and SMI with OS was 0.63.Conclusions: Serum Cr/CysC ratio can be used accurately, inexpensively, and easily to evaluate sarcopenia in male patients with gastric cancer. Our study shows that patients with Cr/CysC below 0.67 had possibility of sarcopenia and would be poor prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic modification provides a means to enhancing disease resistance in animals. In this study, the first generation of genetically modified (GM) sheep overexpressing TLR4 was produced by microinjection for better disease resistance. To compare semen characteristics including sperm quality, seminal plasma biochemical index, sperm DNA methylation and pregnancy rate of three-year old transgenic sheep with TLR4 overexpressed (toll like receptor 4, TLR4) and non-transgenic ram. Sixteen transgenic ram of F0 generation were produced by microinjection of the TLR4 plasmid into the pronucleus of fertilized ova. Seven transgenic sheep of F1 generation was produced by breeding F0 transgenic founders with non-transgenic sheep of the same breed. There were no significant differences between transgenic and control rams for all semen quality parameters, including semen volume, sperm concentration, sperm viability, and percentages of sperm with an intact plasma membrane, acrosomal integrity, and viable sperm with high mitochondrial membrane potential in both F0 and F1 generation. Furthermore, no significant differences were found for seminal plasma concentrations of zinc, neutral alpha-glucosidase, acid phosphatase or fructose, nor for levels of H19 and IGF2R methylation in sperm DNA. In addition, pregnancy rate was also similar between these two groups. In conclusion, there was no evidence that TLR4 overexpression altered the sperm quality, seminal plasma or sperm DNA of transgenic sheep. • No significant difference semen quality parameters for transgenic sheep. • No significant difference of CASA motility parameters for transgenic sheep. • No significant difference of H19 and IGF2R methylation levels in sperm DNA. • Pregnancy rate were also similar between transgenic and control sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The zero-dimensional Mn2+-based halides have efficient emission and good stability due to their unique crystal and electronic structures. Herein, a rapid anti-solvent method was used to prepare two lead-free manganese-based metal halides, (PP) 3 MnBr 5 and (CP) 2 MnBr 4 , where PPB (1-phenacylpyridinium bromide) and CPB (cetylpyridinium bromide) were used as organic ion sources. Single crystal of (PP) 3 MnBr 5 was grown and its structure was solved by XRD. In both compounds, (MnBr 4)2- is isolated by organic molecules to form a 0-dimensional structures, exhibiting different fluorescent thermal stability and photoluminescence lifetimes. (PP) 3 MnBr 5 shows a strong narrow emission band at 510 nm with a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 73 % and high environmental and thermal stability. (CP) 2 MnBr 4 has a yellow-green emission band at 525 nm with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 28 %. (PP) 3 MnBr 5 has a higher atmosphere and thermal stability than (CP) 2 MnBr 4. After exposure in air for 1000 h, the luminescence intensity of (PP) 3 MnBr 5 is 95 % of the initial value. At 423.15 K, the luminescence intensity of (PP) 3 MnBr 5 is 79 % of the initial value. • Single crystal of (PP)3MnBr5 was grown by a solvent evaporation method. • The structure of (PP)3MnBr5 was solved by single crystal XRD method. • Two stable manganese-based halides were synthesized by an anti-solvent method. • (PP)3MnBr5 and (CP)2MnBr4 show good green emission under UV light irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As presented in article number 2203128, the small area at the sidewall of LEDs changes the performance of LEDs including internal quantum efficiency and light extraction efficiency. External quantum efficiency, inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching, internal quantum efficiency, light extraction efficiency, micro-LEDs, sidewall conditions, tetramethylammonium hydroxide Keywords: external quantum efficiency; inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching; internal quantum efficiency; light extraction efficiency; micro-LEDs; sidewall conditions; tetramethylammonium hydroxide EN external quantum efficiency inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching internal quantum efficiency light extraction efficiency micro-LEDs sidewall conditions tetramethylammonium hydroxide 1 1 1 05/24/23 20230519 NES 230519 Highly-bright, highly-efficient, and ultra-small micro-light emitting diodes ( LEDs) are necessary for realizing next-generation displays. [Extracted from the article]

The albumin‐bilirubin (ALBI) score was originally used to accurately assess liver dysfunction and predict the prognoses of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Following its more recent application to patients with gastrointestinal tumors, this study analyzed the prognostic value of the ALBI score in Chinese patients with advanced resectable (tumor‐node‐metastasis [TNM] stages I–III) gastric cancer (GC). This study investigated 1185 patients with advanced GC, including 429 with TNM stage I. The patients were divided into training and verifications groups (593 and 592 patients, respectively) in which these patients were classified as high risk (ALBI score ≥ −2.65) or low risk (ALBI score < −2.65). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed, and a visual survival prediction model (nomogram) was created. On Kaplan–Meier analysis, patients who were low‐risk and high‐risk according to their ALBI scores had significantly different survival rates in both the training and verification groups (p < 0.01). The difference was also significant when analyzing only patients with TNM stage I GC (p = 0.031). Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the ALBI score (p = 0.014), age (p < 0.001), Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 score (p = 0.024), sarcopenia (p = 0.049), tumor differentiation (p = 0.027), and TNM stage (p < 0.001) were independent risk factors for survival. Our survival prediction model that incorporated the ALBI score accurately predicted the 5‐year survival rate of Chinese patients with GC. Therefore, the ALBI score is a valid clinical indicator and good predictor of survival after surgery for progressive GC. Moreover, this score is simple to derive and does not burden patients with additional costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Numerical simulation for the action range of carbon dioxide blasting-induced cracking of HDR was conducted, in which the cooling effect of drilling fluid on the HDR reservoir close to the wellbore is taken into consideration. • The reservoir's material properties in the damaged section were established using fitting functions with temperature difference. Additionally, the temperature field of the reservoir in the affected region was established using temperature distribution functions. • The process of carbon dioxide blasting to stimulate HDR reservoir is modelled. The findings demonstrate that multiple stress concentrations occur during the carbon dioxide blasting process that causes HDR to crack. • The blasting crushing zone's scope is greatly influenced by the beginning temperature, but the fracture zone's scope is mostly unaffected. The extent of the crushing zone, which primarily determines the distribution of the blasting fracture zone, is not significantly impacted by the pressure plate's thickness. A cutting-edge technique for igniting hot dry rock (HDR) reservoirs is carbon dioxide blasting. The cooling effect of the drilling fluid was taken into consideration during a numerical simulation of the action range of carbon dioxide blasting-induced cracking. A temperature difference was used to determine the reservoir's material properties. Additionally, temperature distribution functions were used to create the temperature field in the reservoir. The blasting load is calculated using the pertinent theories and formulas of explosive blasting, and the process of blasting carbon dioxide to excite the HDR reservoir is modeled using COMSOL. The findings show that several stress concentrations take place during the blasting process. The fracture zone is created by the tensile stress concentration outside of the crushing zone, whereas the compressive stress concentration close to the blast hole creates the crushing zone. Furthermore, the effectiveness of carbon dioxide blasting fracturing would be affected by the beginning temperature and pressure plate thickness. Although the scope of the fracture zone is mostly unchanged, the initial temperature has a significant impact on the blasting crushing zone. The size of the crushing zone, which determines how the blasting fracture zone is distributed, is unaffected by the pressure plate's thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genomic prediction (GP) based on haplotype alleles can capture quantitative trait loci (QTL) effects and increase predictive ability because the haplotypes are expected to be in linkage disequilibrium (LD) with QTL. In this study, we constructed haploblocks using LD‐based and the fixed number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (fixed‐SNP) methods with Illumina BovineHD chip in beef cattle. To evaluate the performance of different haplotype block partitioning methods, we constructed haploblocks based on LD thresholds (from r2 > 0.2 to r2 > 0.8) and the number of fixed‐SNPs (5, 10, 20). The performance of predictive methods for three carcass traits including liveweight (LW), dressing percentage (DP), and longissimus dorsi muscle weight (LDMW) was evaluated using three approaches (GBLUP and BayesB model based on the SNP, GHBLUP, and BayesBH models based on the haploblock, and GHBLUP+GBLUP and BayesBH+BayesB models based on the combined haploblock and the nonblocked SNPs, which were located between blocks). In this study, we found the accuracies of LD‐based and fixed‐SNP haplotype Bayesian methods outperformed the Bayesian models (up to 8.54 ± 7.44% and 5.74 ± 2.95%, respectively). GHBLUP showed a high improvement (up to 11.29 ± 9.87%) compared with GBLUP. The Bayesian models have higher accuracies than BLUP models in most scenarios. The average computing time of the BayesBH+BayesB model can reduce by 29.3% compared with the BayesB model. The prediction accuracies using the LD‐based haplotype method showed higher improvements than the fixed‐SNP haplotype method. In addition, to avoid the influence of rare haplotypes generated from haplotype construction, we compared the performance of GP by filtering four types of minor haplotype allele frequency (MHAF) (0.01, 0.025, 0.05, and 0.1) under different conditions (LD levels were set at r2 > 0.3, and the fixed number of SNPs was 5). We found the optimal MHAF threshold for LW was 0.01, and the optimal MHAF threshold for DP and LDMW was 0.025. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machining tools are a critical component in machine manufacturing, the life cycle of which is an asymmetrical process. Extracting and modeling the tool life variation features is very significant for accurately predicting the tool's remaining useful life (RUL), and it is vital to ensure product reliability. In this study, based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM), a tool wear evolution and RUL prediction method by combining CNN-BiLSTM and attention mechanism is proposed. The powerful CNN is applied to directly process the sensor-monitored data and extract local feature information; the BiLSTM neural network is used to adaptively extract temporal features; the attention mechanism can selectively study the important degradation features and extract the tool wear status information. By evaluating the performance and generalization ability of the proposed method under different working conditions, two datasets are applied for experiments, and the proposed method outperforms the traditional method in terms of prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Although major advances have been made in bovine epigenome study, the epigenetic basis for fetal skeletal muscle development still remains poorly understood. The aim is to recapitulated the time course of fetal skeletal muscle development in vitro, and explore the dynamic changes of chromatin accessibility and gene expression during bovine myoblasts proliferation and differentiation. Methods: PDGFR‐ cells were isolated from bovine fetal skeletal muscle, then cultured and induced myogenic differentiation in vitro in a time‐course study (P, D0, D2,and D4). The assay for transposase‐accessible chromatin sequencing (ATAC‐seq) and RNA sequencing (RNA‐seq) were performed. Results: Among the enriched transcriptional factors with high variability, we determined the effects of MAFF, ZNF384, and KLF6 in myogenesis using RNA interference (RNAi). In addition, we identified both stage‐specific genes and chromatin accessibility regions to reveal the sequential order of gene expression, transcriptional regulatory, and signal pathways involved in bovine skeletal muscle development. Further investigation integrating chromatin accessibility and transcriptome data was conducted to explore cis‐regulatory regions in line with gene expression. Moreover, we combined bovine GWAS results of growth traits with regulatory regions defined by chromatin accessibility, providing a suggestive means for a more precise annotation of genetic variants of bovine growth traits. Conclusion: Overall, these findings provide valuable information for understanding the stepwise regulatory mechanisms in skeletal muscle development and conducting beef cattle genetic improvement programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a deliberate etching-based top-down approach is proposed to fabricate the GaN nanorod (NR) Schottky barrier diode (SBD). As a key step during the fabrication, the impact of the wet-etching process on device performance is systematically studied. By virtue of the reduced surface states at the sidewall, the performance of NR SBD with the wet-etching process is substantially improved, delivering a forward turn-on voltage of 0.65 V, a current density of ∼10 kA/cm2 at 3 V, an ideality factor of 1.03, an ON/OFF current ratio of ∼1010, and no severe current collapse, along with a reverse breakdown voltage of 772 V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a dual‐responsive, self‐assembled nano micelle for co‐delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) and a previously reported cyclopalladated anti‐cancer agent (CP). In this micelle system, doxorubicin and CP were electrostatically complexed to form a hydrophobic core while a conjugation of polyethylene glycol and β‐cyclodextrin (CD) was designed to construct the hydrophilic out‐layer and stabilize the micelle. The interaction between pegylated CD and DOX‐CP composite was achieved via inclusion of ferrocene moiety by CD, which could be broken by stimulating ROS that is over‐expressed in many cancer cell lines. Moreover, the DOX‐CP adduct can be destabilized under an acidic environment that exists in most solid tumors, which can further disassemble the micelle and release the two drugs. The fabricated micelle was characterized by TEM, DLS and its stimulus‐responsive characteristic were confirmed by drug‐release profile. The in vitro cellular cytotoxicity was also evaluated, which showed improved anti‐cancer effect of drug‐loaded micelle compared to free drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aggravation of global aging, the rapid rise in the obesity rate, and the increasing number of patients with intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), the principles and mechanism of this disease remain unclear. This study explored the molecular mechanism of IDD treatment through interactions of the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA-signaling pathways and the effects on the proliferation and apoptosis of human nucleus pulposus cells (HNPCs) cultured in vitro. Our study revealed that lncRNA JPX is expressed at low levels in HNPCs under normoxic conditions. Luciferase and RNA pull-down assays were used to verify that lncRNA JPX directly bound to miR-18a-5p and influenced HNPC proliferation and apoptosis. Subsequently, a luciferase assay confirmed the direct binding of miR-18a-5p to HIF-1α and demonstrated a negative correlation between miR-18a-5p and HIF-1α. In addition, the HIF-1α antagonist reversed the inhibition of the Hippo-YAP pathway by the miR-18a-5p inhibitor. In conclusion, overexpression of lncRNA JPX upregulated HIF-1α by inhibiting the expression of miR-18a-5p, thereby inhibiting the Hippo-YAP pathway. By inhibiting this pathway, JPX overexpression promoted the proliferation of HNPCs and decreased their apoptosis. Therefore, the lncRNA JPX is a potential new target. • Gene Expression Omnibus data mining was used to explore lncRNAs. • LncRNA JPX is a potential target to treat intervertebral disc degeneration. • The direct binding of lncRNA JPX and miR-18a-5p was confirmed for the first time. • LncRNA JPX, miR-18a-5p, HIF-1α, and Hippo-YAP pathways interact with each other. • The interactions affect nucleus pulposus cell proliferation and apoptosis in vitro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have demonstrated non-polar GaN power diodes (Schottky barrier diode and p–n junction diode) on foreign substrates featuring the true-lateral p–n and metal–semiconductor junctions. The diodes were fabricated on GaN islands laterally overgrown on the mask-patterned sapphire and Si substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. The anode and cathode were formed on the opposed a-plane sidewalls of the island, making the device architecture essentially like the 90° rotation of the desired true-vertical power diodes. The ideality factor of the Schottky barrier diode remained 1.0 (from 1.00 to 1.05) over 7 decades in current. Specifically, a high critical electric field of 3.3 MV/cm was demonstrated on the p–n junction diode with avalanche capability. These performances reveal a strong potential of non-polar GaN with the true-lateral junctions for high power applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water holding capacity (WHC) is an important sensory attribute that greatly influences meat quality. However, the molecular mechanism that regulates the beef WHC remains to be elucidated. In this study, the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscles of 49 Chinese Simmental beef cattle were measured for meat quality traits and subjected to RNA sequencing. WHC had significant correlation with 35 kg water loss (r = − 0.99, p < 0.01) and IMF content (r = 0.31, p < 0.05), but not with SF (r = − 0.20, p = 0.18) and pH (r = 0.11, p = 0.44). Eight individuals with the highest WHC (H-WHC) and the lowest WHC (L-WHC) were selected for transcriptome analysis. A total of 865 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between two groups, of which 633 genes were up-regulated and 232 genes were down-regulated. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment revealed that DEGs were significantly enriched in 15 GO terms and 96 pathways. Additionally, based on protein–protein interaction (PPI) network, animal QTL database (QTLdb), and relevant literature, the study not only confirmed seven genes (HSPA12A, HSPA13, PPARγ, MYL2, MYPN, TPI, and ATP2A1) influenced WHC in accordance with previous studies, but also identified ATP2B4, ACTN1, ITGAV, TGFBR1, THBS1, and TEK as the most promising novel candidate genes affecting the WHC. These findings could offer important insight for exploring the molecular mechanism underlying the WHC trait and facilitate the improvement of beef quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we revisit the numerical solution of the scalar second-order wave equation by discontinuous Galerkin methods. The numerical methods are different from the ones found in existing literature. Moreover, we provide a stability analysis and derive optimal order error estimates through a more direct approach. The error estimate in an H 1 (Ω) -like norm is derived based on an analysis of the truncation error while that in the L 2 (Ω) norm based on an application of the Aubin-Nitsche technique. Numerical simulation results are reported in support of the theoretical error estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitochondria are crucial cellular organelles in eukaryotes and participate in many cell processes including immune response, growth development, and tumorigenesis. Marek's disease (MD), caused by an avian alpha-herpesvirus Marek's disease virus (MDV), is characterized with lymphomas and immunosuppression. In this research, we hypothesize that mitochondria may play roles in response to MDV infection. To test it, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) abundance and gene expression in immune organs were examined in two well-defined and highly inbred lines of chickens, the MD-susceptible line 72 and the MD-resistant line 63. We found that mitochondrial DNA contents decreased significantly at the transformation phase in spleen of the MD-susceptible line 72 birds in contrast to the MD-resistant line 63. The mtDNA-genes and the nucleus-genes relevant to mtDNA maintenance and transcription, however, were significantly up-regulated. Interestingly, we found that POLG2 might play a potential role that led to the imbalance of mtDNA copy number and gene expression alteration. MDV infection induced imbalance of mitochondrial contents and gene expression, demonstrating the indispensability of mitochondria in virus-induced cell transformation and subsequent lymphoma formation, such as MD development in chicken. This is the first report on relationship between virus infection and mitochondria in chicken, which provides important insights into the understanding on pathogenesis and tumorigenesis due to viral infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat shock 70 kDa protein 8 (HSPA8) and erb-b2 receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (ERBB2) were the promising candidates for milk protein concentration in dairy cattle revealed through previous RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) study. The objective of this post-RNA-Seq study was to confirm genetic effects of HSPA8 and ERBB2 on milk protein concentration in a large Chinese Holstein population and to evaluate the genetic effects of both genes on other milk production traits. There were 2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified for HSPA8 and 11 SNPs for ERBB2 by sequencing 17 unrelated Chinese Holstein sires. The SNP-rs136632043 in HSPA8 had significant associations with all five milk production traits (p = 0.0086 to p < 0.0001), whereas SNP-rs132976221 was remarkably associated with three yield traits (p < 0.0001). Nine (ss1996900615, rs109017161, rs109122971, ss1996900614, rs110133654, rs109941438, rs110552983, rs133031530, and rs109763505) of 11 SNPs in ERBB2 were significantly associated with milk protein percentage (p = 0.0177 to p < 0.0001). A 12 Kb haplotype block was formed in ERBB2 and haplotype associations revealed similar effects on milk protein traits. Our findings confirmed the significant genetic effects of HSPA8 and ERBB2 on milk protein concentration and other milk production traits and SNP phenotypic variances above 1% may serve as genetic markers in dairy cattle breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how patterns of leaf nutrient traits respond to groundwater depth is crucial for modeling the nutrient cycling of desert riparian ecosystems and forecasting the responses of ecosystems to global changes. In this study, we measured leaf nutrients along a transect across a groundwater depth gradient in the downstream Heihe River to explore the response of leaf nutrient traits to groundwater depth and soil properties. We found that leaf nutrient traits of dominant species showed different responses to groundwater depth gradient. Leaf C, leaf N, leaf P, and leaf K decreased significantly with groundwater depth, whereas patterns of leaf C/N and leaf N/P followed quadratic relationships with groundwater depth. Meanwhile, leaf C/P did not vary significantly along the groundwater depth gradient. Variations in leaf nutrient traits were associated with soil properties (e.g., soil bulk density, soil pH). Groundwater depth and soil pH jointly regulated the variation of leaf nutrient traits; however, groundwater depth explained the variation of leaf nutrient traits better than did soil pH. At the local scale in the typical desert riparian ecosystem, the dominant species was characterized by low leaf C, leaf N, and leaf P, but high leaf N/P and leaf C/P, indicating that desert riparian plants might be more limited by P than N in the growing season. Our observations will help to reveal specific adaptation patterns in relation to the groundwater depth gradient for dominant desert riparian species, provide insights into adaptive trends of leaf nutrient traits, and add information relevant to understanding the adaptive strategies of desert riparian forest vegetation to moisture gradients. We explore the patterns of leaf nutrient traits respond to groundwater depth in a desert riparian ecosystem along the lower reaches of the Heihe River. Leaf nutrient traits were associated with soil properties in Heihe river. Groundwater depth play a key role on leaf nutrient traits, soil properties especially soil saline‐alkali properties may also have important effect on leaf nutrient traits at local scale in this hyperarid region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elevated CO2 levels can improve growth and water use efficiency (WUE). However, the influence of atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than 800 ppm has been less of a concern and has received little attention. In this study, experiments were conducted to explore the responses of four species to elevated CO2 levels. Seedlings of the four species were grown in growth chambers under four different CO2 concentrations. The results showed that elevated CO2 levels resulted in increased net assimilation rates (NARs) (12%-90%) and WUEs (1%-258%) as well as decreased leaf area ratios (LARs) (11%-72%) for the four species. For the two Artemisia species ( Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch. and Artemisia ordosica Krasch.), elevated CO2 significantly increased the relative growth rate (RGRs) (4%-8%) and total biomass increment (19%-44%), while elevated CO2 concentrations resulted in decreased RGRs (2%-20%) and transpiration rates (49%-61%) for Hedysarum laeve Maxim., and increased the height increment (7%-96%) of Caragana korshinskii Kom. The differences among the two Artemisia species (C4 species), and C. korshinskii and H. laeve (C3 species) might be associated with their different photosynthetic pathways. These findings suggest that the two Artemisia species had a stronger ability to adapt to CO2 concentration elevation. Considering its high WUE, C. korshinskii should be applied for vegetation restoration in water-limited areas affected by a warming climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetation patterns and spatial organization are influenced by the changing environmental conditions and human activities. However, the effect of environment on vegetation at different vegetation classification levels has been unclear. We conducted an analysis to explore the relationship between environment and vegetation in the land use/land cover (LULC), vegetation group, vegetation type, and formation and subformation levels using redundancy analysis with seven landscape metrics and 33 environmental factors in the upper reaches of the Heihe River basin in an arid area of China to clarify this uncertainty. Atmospheric counter radiation was the most important factor at the four levels. The effect of soil was the second determinant factor at three levels (except in vegetation formation and subformation level). The number of variables whose relationship to vegetation reached significant levels varied from 26 to 28, and 20 variables were the same at all four levels. The factors affecting vegetation were basically the same at vegetation group level and vegetation-type level. It was sufficient to analyze the relationship between environmental and vegetation patterns only in LULC, vegetation group and vegetation formation and subformation level in mountainous regions; different factors should be considered at different vegetation levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salvia miltiorrhiza (the roots of S. miltiorrhiza Bunge, Danshen in Chinese), a traditional Chinese medicine, has been clinically used to prevent and treat various diseases, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, and hepatitis B, in China and some other Asian countries. Lithospermic acid (LA), a polyphenol derived from S. miltiorrhiza , has been reported to exhibit multiple pharmacological properties, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-HIV, and anti-carbon tetrachloride-induced liver injury activities. However, little is known about the anti-hepatitis B virus (HBV) activity of LA. The study was projected to investigate the anti-HBV activity of LA in vitro (HepG2.2.15 and pHBV1.3-transfected HepG2 cells) and in vivo (pAAV-HBV1.2 hydrodynamic injection [HBV-HDI] mice) and explore the potential mechanism as well. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) contents were detected by ELISA kits. HBV DNA and hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) levels were evaluated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry assay, respectively. The proteins in autophagy process, lysosomal acidic function, and autophagy-related signaling pathways were examined by Western blot. Transmission electron microscopy was used to observe the number of autophagosomes and autolysosomes. Confocal microscopy was applied to analyze the autophagic flux and lysosomal acidification, using mCherry-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-microtubule-associated protein light chain (LC)3 and lysosomal probes, respectively. LA exhibited anti-HBV activity by inhibiting HBV DNA replication in HepG2.2.15 and pHBV-transfected HepG2 cells in dose- and time-dependent manners and hampering HBsAg and HBeAg levels in HepG2.2.15 cells to a certain extent. LA reduced HBV DNA, HBsAg/HBeAg, and HBcAg levels in the serum/liver tissues of HBV-HDI C57BL/6 mice during the 3-week treatment and suppressed the withdrawal rebound of HBV DNA and HBsAg in the mice serum. LA increased LC3-II protein expression and the number of autolysosomes/autophagosomes and promoted the degradation of sequestosome 1(p62) protein in vitro and in vivo. LA enhanced the co-localization of LC3 protein with autolysosomes, further confirming the ability of LA to induce a complete autophagy. Knockdown of autophagy-related gene (Atg) 7 or 5 in vitro and administration of 3-methyladenine (an autophagic inhibitor) in vivo disabled the inhibitory efficacy of LA on HBV DNA replication, suggesting that the anti-HBV efficacy of LA depended on its ability of inducing autophagy. LA could enhance lysosomal acidification and improve the function of lysosomes by promoting the protein expression of lysosomal-associated membrane protein (LAMP)-1, LAMP-2, and mature cathepsin D, which may contribute to the autophagic induction of LA. LA inhibited the activation of AKT and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) induced by HBV, which was reversed by IGF-1 (an agonist of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway), indicating that LA elicited autophagy through hampering the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. We revealed the anti-HBV activity and mechanism of LA in vitro and in vivo. This study facilitates a new understanding of the anti-HBV potent components of S. miltiorrhiza and sheds light on LA for further development as an active constituent or candidate used in the therapy against HBV infection. Lithospermic acid (LA), a kind of polyphenol from an important TCM, Salvia miltiorrhiza , exhibited anti-HBV activity in vitro (transfected HepG2 cells) and in vivo (HBV hydrodynamic injection mice). The mechanistic research showed that LA induced a complete autophagy, as evidenced mainly by upregulating LC3-II protein expression, enhancing the acidic function of lysosomes, promoting the co-localization of LC3 protein with autolysosomes, and increasing the degradation of p62 protein. The autophagy induced by LA counteracted HBV-elicited autophagy and was unfavorable to HBV replication. This may be one of anti-HBV mechanisms of LA. Further study showed that LA elicited autophagy through hampering the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. [Display omitted] • Lithospermic acid, a polyphenol from Salvia miltiorrhiza, exhibits anti-HBV activity. • Lithospermic acid induces a complete autophagy confronting HBV-elicited autophagy. • Anti-HBV ability of LA depends on its induced autophagy. • We propose that LA is a potential constituent or candidate in anti-HBV therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fat deposition is a complex economic trait regulated by polygenic genetic basis and environmental factors. Therefore, integrating multi-omics data to uncover its internal regulatory mechanism has attracted extensive attention. Here, we performed genomics and transcriptomics analysis to detect candidates affecting subcutaneous fat (SCF) deposition in beef cattle. The association of 770K SNPs with the backfat thickness captured nine significant SNPs within or near 11 genes. Additionally, 13 overlapping genes regarding fat deposition were determined via the analysis of differentially expressed genes and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). We then calculated the correlations of these genes with BFT and constructed their interaction network. Finally, seven biomarkers including ACACA , SCD , FASN , ACOX1 , ELOVL5 , HACD2 , and HSD17B12 were screened. Notably, ACACA , identified by the integration of genomics and transcriptomics, was more likely to exert profound effects on SCF deposition. These findings provided novel insights into the regulation mechanism underlying bovine fat accumulation. • We explored the candidate genes affecting fat deposition in beef cattle. • These candidates regulated fat deposition via fatty acid synthesis, oxidation, and metabolism, adipogenesis, and glycolysis. • The ACACA was most likely to affect subcutaneous fat deposition by integrating genomics and transcriptomics analysis. • These findings could provide novel insights into the regulation mechanism underlying bovine fat accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]