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A dynamic model of a coupled rotating drum-disk system with elastic support is developed in this paper. By considering the effects of centrifugal and Coriolis forces as well as rotation-induced hoop stress, the governing differential equation of the drum-disk is derived by Donnell's shell theory. The nonlinear amplitude-frequency characteristics of coupled structure are studied. The results indicate that the natural characteristics of the coupling structure are sensitive to the supporting stiffness of the disk, and the sensitive range is affected by rotating speeds. The circumferential wave numbers can affect the characteristics of the drum-disk structure. If the circumferential wave number n = 1 , the vibration response of the drum keeps a stable value under an unbalanced load of the disk, there is no coupling effect if n ≠ 1 . Under the excitation, the nonlinear hardening characteristics of the forward traveling wave are more evident than that of the backward traveling wave. Moreover, because of the coupling effect of the drum and the disk, the supporting stiffness of the disk has certain effect on the nonlinear characteristics of the forward and backward traveling waves. In addition, small length-radius and thickness-radius ratios have a significant effect on the nonlinear characteristics of the coupled structure, which means nonlinear shell theory should be adopted to design rotating drum's parameter for its specific structural parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Icaritin has an advantage in enhancing immunity. Besides, with its anticancer effect, it may be of great help in cancer treatment and recovery of cancer patients. As a result, icaritin is likely to become a novel anticancer drug. However, the anticancer effect of icaritin against colon cancer has not been elucidated thus far. The present study investigated the latent anticancer effect of icaritin on the inhibition of colon cancer cell growth by regulating reactive oxygen species (ROS), B-cell lymphoma (Bcl)-2 and cyclin D1/E signaling. The COLO-205 colon cancer cell line was used as a colon cancer cell model in the present study. First, cell growth and apoptosis were measured to analyze the anticancer effect of icaritin against colon cancer. Next, the possible mechanism of icaritin against colon cancer, including ROS, Bcl-2, cyclin D1, cyclin E and caspase-3/9, was explored. The results revealed that icaritin could inhibit cell growth and induce the apoptosis of COLO-205 cells. In addition, icaritin significantly induced ROS generation, suppressed Bcl-2, cyclin D1 and cyclin E protein expression, and activated caspase-3/9 activity in COLO-205 cells. The present findings demonstrated that icaritin exerted antiproliferative and anticancer effects against colon cancer through the activation of ROS generation and the suppression of Bcl-2, cyclin D1 and cyclin E signaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood is the most abundant biomass in perennial woody plants and is mainly made up of secondary cell wall. R2R3- MYB transcription factors are important regulators of secondary wall biosynthesis in plants. In this study, we describe the identification and characterization of a poplar MYB transcription factor PtoMYB92, a homolog of Arabidopsis MYB42 and MYB85, which is involved in the regulation of secondary cell wall biosynthesis. PtoMYB92 is specifically expressed in xylem tissue in poplar. Subcellular localization and transcriptional activation analysis suggest that PtoMYB92 is a nuclear-localized transcriptional activator. Overexpression of PtoMYB92 in poplar resulted in an increase in secondary cell wall thickness in stems and ectopic deposition of lignin in leaves. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that PtoMYB92 specifically activated the expression of lignin biosynthetic genes. Furthermore, transient expression assays using a β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene revealed that PtoMYB92 is an activator in the lignin biosynthetic pathway during secondary cell wall formation. Taken together, our results suggest that PtoMYB92 is involved in the regulation of secondary cell wall formation in poplar by controlling the biosynthesis of monolignols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the elasticity theory, a differential equation of forced oscillation of the blade-casing system with rub-impact excitation was deduced, and the steady analytic solution was derived. The analytic solution was verified with the FE (finite element) method, the results indicated that the eigenvalues of dynamical equation by FE method are larger than the semi-analytical method's, while the vibration modes are identical. Due to the characteristics of rub-impact excitation between the blade and casing, it is not suitable to solve impacting vibrational response for rotating blade with the steady analytic solution. Therefore, the semi-analytical solution was adopted to solve these dynamic problems, which can get the vibration response of any position for its continuity characteristic. Then, the FE and semi-analytical method is used. The comparison of dynamical response with changing speed, rub-impact depth and the friction coefficient was investigated in details. It is found that the speed has the greater effect on the dynamical vibration response, but other parameters affect the response slightly at the same rotational speed. When the friction coefficient and rub-impact depth unchanging, with the increasing speed, the contribution of each multi-frequency component to the resonant response grows obviously, especially the high-harmonic components should be pay more attention. Blade-casing model is easy to form a new resonance system, which will appear different resonant response with the increasing friction coefficient. When the friction coefficient reaches to a certain value, the response amplitude tends to be stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video quality assessment plays an important role in video processing and communication applications. We propose a full reference video quality metric by combining a content-weighted spatial pooling strategy with a temporal pooling strategy. All pixels in a frame are classified into edge, texture, and smooth regions, and their structural similarity image index (SSIM) maps are divided into increasing and saturated regions by the curve of their SSIM values, then a content weight method is applied to increasing regions to get the score of an image frame. Finally, a temporal pooling method is used to get the overall video quality. Experimental results on the LIVE and IVP video quality databases show our proposed method works well in matching subjective scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering spin softening and centrifugal stiffening effect of blades, the parameterized finite element model of rotating blades with moving rub-impact loads is established. Time domain response and frequency domain response are analyzed along with the change of speed and local vibration characteristic of the blade is studied under the different harmonic components. With investigation of the rotating blades, some conclusions have been found: The displacement caused by centrifugal effect has a maximum amplitude at blade tip and appears a smaller amplitude at blade root. And the stress change is just the opposite, which is basically a linear relation with location, and stress value caused by the centrifugal effect is basically in direct proportion to square of rotation speed within a certain range. Rub-impact can induced a variety of frequency multiplication components of the rotating blades, which cause different levels vibration response of the blade. The corresponding high-frequency components of the local stress mostly appear at angular position and root position of blade, which is easy to cause local fatigue damage of blade. Therefore, it need pay more attention to avoid frequency multiplication components caused by rub-impact approaching the natural frequency of the blade in order to prevent from local vibration. The results of the study in this paper will provide theoretical reference for the characteristic analysis and fault diagnosis of similar rotating blades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a finite element model of a nonlinear rotor-bearing system with two rub-impact faults is established, and the bifurcation and instability characteristics are analyzed along with the changing of rubbing clearance. To verify the results of the theoretical analysis, a rotorstator rubbing experimental system is established, which contains a pair of oil lubrication cylinder bearing and two disks. With monitoring the rubbing state by a designed electronic device, some qualitative analysis have been done on the rubbing response with different rotor-stator clearance. With investigation of the experimental response in time and frequency domain, some conclusions have be found: for the low eccentricity, when the rubbing clearance decreases, the rubbing fault makes the oil whirl take place earlier, the system of instability speed will decrease slightly, and lost instability through a period-doubling bifurcation. When the rubbing clearance increases, the instability speed will increase slightly, and the rotor system shows a quasi-periodic bifurcation. when the system is in a low speed state, due to the existence of the rubbing fault, the frequency domain appeared multiple frequency components, when the rotating speed is higher, because of the strong "oil whip", multiple frequency components are not obvious. In addition, due to the existence of the rubbing fault, the "oil whirl" and "oil whip" of the system become more obvious. The results of the study in this paper will provide some theoretical reference for the characteristic analysis and vibration control of similar rotor-bearing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a universal no-reference (NR) image quality assessment (QA) index that does not require training on human opinion scores. The new index utilizes perceptually relevant image features extracted from the distorted image. These include the mean phase congruency (PC) of the image, the entropy of the phase congruency PC image, the entropy of the distorted image, and the mean gradient magnitude of the distorted image. Image quality prediction is accomplished by using a simple functional relationship of these features. The experimental results show that the new index accords closely with human subjective judgments of diverse distorted images [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the health risk of heavy metals in soil and blueberry fruits in the blueberry growing area of Guizhou Province, the contents of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn were measured in nine blueberry parks. Using GB15618-2018, GB2762-2017, and GB2762-2012 as evaluation criteria, the Nemerow comprehensive pollution index method, potential ecological risk index method, and bio-concentration factors were used to evaluate the risk of planting soil and fruit in the producing areas. The results showed that the average values of As, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, and Zn in soil were higher than the background values in Guizhou Province, and 30.00%, 27.14%, 11.43%, 11.43%, 8.57%, and 7.14% of the As, Ni, Cr, Cd, Pb, and Zn values exceeded the control values, respectively. According to the Nemerow pollution index and potential ecological risk index, soil in the study area was mildly polluted, while the comprehensive potential ecological risk revealed a slight or medium pollution level. The heavy metal content in blueberry fruits in the study area did not exceed the standard and the enrichment coefficient was less than 1. The overall degree of soil pollution degree and risk was low, revealing blueberry fruit to be safe for consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the nonlinear characteristics of gear transmission system under the action of external and internal excitations, a dynamic model of a spur gear pair was established involving the backlash, damping, transmission error and the meshing stiffness. Based on the incremental harmonic balance method (IHBM), the general forms of the periodic solution with arbitrary precision are deduced. The vibration response obtained by IHBM compare very well with the results obtained by New-Mark method, which verifies the accuracy and electiveness of the analytical methodology (IHBM) and provide information on the dynamic characteristic of spur gear. The simulation results revealed that several types of steady-state periodic solution are identified and determined by employing the IHBM. Due to the effect of backlash, the nonlinear characteristics of jump discontinuity phenomena and multiple stable solutions coexist and the meshing impact phenomenon are obvious. In addition, the influences of the system damping, transmission error and excitation amplitude on the amplitude frequency characteristic are illustrated by a series of diagrams. The results implicate that increasing the external excitation amplitude and system damping can effectively decrease the system resonant amplitude and control the nonlinear vibration response of the gear system and the effect of hardening spring behavior becomes weaker. The transmission error excitation amplitude variation also tends to worse the degree of nonlinearity. Therefore, it presents some useful information to reduce the vibration and noise of gear system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most current state-of-the-art blind image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms usually require process training or learning. Here, we have developed a completely blind IQA model that uses features derived from an image's contourlet transform and singular-value decomposition. The model is used to build algorithms that can predict image quality without any training or any prior knowledge of the images or their distortions. The new method consists of three steps: first, the contourlet transform is used on the image to obtain detailed high-frequency structural information from the image; second, the singular values of the just-obtained "structural image" are computed; and finally, two new universal blind IQA indices are constructed utilizing the area and slope of the truncated singular-value curves of the "structural image." Experimental results on three open databases show that the proposed algorithms deliver quality predictions that have high correlations against human subjective judgments and are highly competitive with the state-of-the-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood formation is a complex developmental process under multi-level transcriptional control executed by a large set of transcription factors. However, only limited members have been characterized to be key regulators of lignin biosynthesis in poplar. Here we report the conserved and unique functions of PtoMYB170, a transcription factor identified from Populus tomentosa (Chinese white poplar), in lignin deposition and drought tolerance in comparison with its duplicate paralog PtoMYB216. PtoMYB170 is preferentially expressed in young leaves and xylem tissues. Overexpression of PtoMYB170 in transgenic poplar plants resulted in stronger lignification and more thickened secondary wall in xylem compared with wild-type plants, whereas the CRISPR/Cas9- generated mutation of PtoMYB170 weakened lignin deposition, thereby leading to a more flexible and collapsed xylem phenotype. Transient expression experiments demonstrated that PtoMYB170 specifically activated the expression of lignin biosynthetic genes, consistent with the function of PtoMYB216. However, GUS staining assays revealed that PtoMYB170 was specifically expressed in guard cells of transgenic Arabidopsis while PtoMYB216 was not. Heterologous expression of PtoMYB170 in Arabidopsis enhanced stomatal closure in the dark and resulted in drought tolerance of the transgenic plants through reduced water loss, indicating a diversified role from PtoMYB216. These results revealed the PtoMYB170-dependent positive transcriptional regulation on lignin deposition in poplar and its coordinated function in enhancing drought tolerance by promoting darkinduced stomatal closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WRKY transcription factors play important roles in response to diverse environmental stresses, but exact functions of these proteins in poplar defense are still largely unknown. In a previous study, we have shown that poplar WRKY89 is induced by salicylic acid (SA) treatment and plays an important role in resistance against fungi in transgenic poplars. Here, we determined an increase in transcript levels of Group IIa WRKY members in transgenic poplars overexpressing WRKY89 using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis. Yeast one-hybrid assay showed that PtrWRKY18 and PtrWRKY35 were potential target genes of WRKY89. Furthermore, we demonstrated that PtrWRKY18 and PtrWRKY35 were localized in the nucleus, and exhibited no transcription activation activity. Constitutive overexpression of PtrWRKY18 and PtrWRKY35 in poplars activated pathogenesisrelated genes, and increased resistance to the biotrophic pathogen Melampsora. The results also provided support for the involvement of SA-mediated signaling in Melampsora resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salicylic acid (SA) is a defense-related key signaling molecule involved in plant immunity. In this study, a subgroup IIa WRKY gene PtrWRKY40 was isolated from Populus trichocarpa, which displayed amino acid sequence similar to Arabidopsis AtWRKY40, AtWRKY18 and AtWRKY60. PtrWRKY40 transcripts accumulated significantly in response to SA, methyl jasmonate and hemibiotrophic fungus Dothiorella gregaria Sacc. Overexpression of PtrWRKY40 in transgenic poplar conferred higher susceptibility to D. gregaria infection. This susceptibility was coupled with reduced expression of SA-associated genes (PR1.1, PR2.1, PR5.9, CPR5 and SID2) and jasmonic acid (JA)-related gene JAZ8. Decreased accumulation of endogenous SA was observed in transgenic lines overexpressing PtrWRKY40 when compared with wild-type plants. However, constitutive expression of PtrWRKY40 in Arabidopsis thaliana displayed resistance to necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea, and the expression of JA-defense-related genes such as PDF1.2, VSP2 and PR3 was remarkably increased in transgenic plants upon infection with fugal pathogens. Together, our findings indicate that PtrWRKY40 plays a negative role in resistance to hemibiotrophic fungi in poplar but functions as a positive regulator of resistance toward the necrotrophic fungi in Arabidopsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have recently emerged as important regulators in governing fundamental biological processes, and many of which are likely to have functional roles in tumorigenesis. Maternally expressed gene 3 (MEG3) gene encodes a lncRNA whose expression is lost in an expanding list of primary human tumors and tumor cell lines, however its biological role and regulatory mechanism in gastric cancer (GC) development and progression are poorly defined. Methods: Quantitative RT-PCR analysis was used to determine whether aberrant MEG3 expression was associated with GC patients pTNM stage and pM state. Furthermore, the effect of ectopic expression of MEG3 on cell proliferation, migration, invasion and cell apoptosis was assessed by using CCK-8, wound healing, transwell invasion assays and flow cytometric analysis, respectively, in GC cell lines HGC-27 and MGC-803. Moreover, the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) activity of MEG3 on miR-181a was investigated via luciferase reporter assay and immunoblot analysis. Results: MEG3 is decreased in GC patients and cell lines, and its expression was associated with metastatic GC. Furthermore, ectopic expression of MEG3 in HGC-27 and MGC-803 cells inhibited cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and promoted cell apoptosis, which might be due to MEG3 sequestering oncogenic miR-181 s in GC cells. Furthermore, MEG3 could up-regulated Bcl-2 via its competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) activity on miR-181a. Conclusions: These findings suggest that lncRNA MEG3, a ceRNA of miR-181 s, could regulate gastric carcinogenesis and may serve as a potential target for antineoplastic therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is a new class of single-hidden layer feed forward neural network (SLFN), which is simple in theory and fast in implementation. Zong et al. propose a weighted extreme learning machine for learning data with imbalanced class distribution, which maintains the advantages from original ELM. However, the current reported ELM and its improved version are only based on the empirical risk minimization principle, which may suffer from overfitting. To solve the overfitting troubles, in this paper, we incorporate the structural risk minimization principle into the (weighted) ELM, and propose a modified (weighted) extreme learning machine (M-ELM and M-WELM). Experimental results show that our proposed M-WELM outperforms the current reported extreme learning machine algorithm in image quality assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]