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This paper investigates a layered power allocation (PA) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme for device-to-device (D2D) relaying networks, where the strategy of partial data transmission at relay nodes are adopted to improve the efficiency of resources. In addition, to satisfy different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements from multiple users, layered and grouped manners are involved. Moreover, the closed-form expressions in terms of the sum-rate (SR) and outage probability of the proposed scheme are derived for independent Rayleigh fading channels, which demonstrates our theoretical analysis. Both analytical and simulation results are provided to show the superiority of our proposed scheme compared with existing works.

Since the national vaccination program was implemented with the H5/H7 bivalent vaccine in poultry in September 2017, the prevalence of H7N9 avian influenza viruses (AIVs) has been controlled effectively in China. However, highly pathogenic H7N9 viruses still exist, causing sporadic outbreaks especially in some regions of northern China. During our routine surveillance in poultry in 2020, we isolated two strains of H7N9 subtype AIV from breeder layer farms in northern China. We found that these two chicken-origin H7N9 isolates were both highly pathogenic (HP) with a four-amino-acid (KRTA) insertion and an I326V mutation (H3 numbering) in the cleavage site of HA to make the motif PEVPKRKRTAR↓GLF. Molecular markers associated with antigenic drift and enhanced pathogenicity in mammals and interspecies transmission were detected in both isolates. Remarkably, both strains gained the F102V and N157D mutations in their HA genes, which have never been reported before. Solid-phase direct binding assay showed that these two isolates both had dual-receptor binding characteristics, while thermal and acid stability assays indicated that they were relatively stable in high-temperature or acidic conditions. In addition, the animal experiments demonstrated that both strains were highly pathogenic to chickens but low pathogenic to mice. These results suggested that the evolution of H7N9 subtype AIV is still continuing, and they pose a potential threat to poultry and public health. Thus, attention should be paid to the importance of continual surveillance of the H7N9 AIVs.

Pseudorabies (PR) is a disease that is seriously endangering the pig industry in China. To understand the current prevalence of pseudorabies virus (PRV) in Shandong Province, China, 19,292 serum samples were collected from 16 locations in Shandong from 2018 to 2020. The gE antibody was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Ninety-seven suspected cases of PRV infection were collected from sick pigs vaccinated with Bartha-K61 to isolate PRV. The results showed that the average positive rate of the PRV gE antibody decreased from 38.20% in 2018 to 18.12% in 2020, but there was a high positive rate in sows. The isolation rate of PRV was 13.40% (13/97), and four strains were purified through plaque assay (named PRV-SD1, PRV-SD2, PRV-SD3, and PRV-SD4). The homology and genetic evolution of four PRV strains based on gE, gC, gI, and TK genes were analyzed and showed that these four strains shared more than 99.0% nucleotide homology with the variant PRV XJ5 strain, and they clustered in the same sub-branch with the domestic variant PRV strains, including JS-2012 and XJ5. Furthermore, the pathogenicity of the isolated variant strain was assessed by intranasal infection of 16-week-old pigs with 1 mL PRV-SD1 strain. The results of the animal experiment demonstrated that the PRV-SD1–infected pigs exhibited obvious clinical symptoms as early as 2 days post inoculation (dpi), and all infected pigs died within 1 week. The severe hyperemia of meninges and swelling of lungs and tonsils were observed. Histopathology analysis showed the obvious lymphocytes necrosis of tonsils, interstitial pneumonia, and viral encephalitis. Many positive staining cells were observed in tonsils and brains through immunohistochemistry staining assay. Viral shedding in oropharyngeal and rectal swabs were detected at 2 dpi, reached a peak at 3 dpi, and then gradually decreased. The detection of viral loads in the tissues showed that tonsils had the highest virus titer, further proving it may be the target organ of variant PRV infection. In conclusion, variant PRV strains were still highly prevalent in Shandong Province, and they had a strong pathogenicity in pigs.

Decades have passed since the first discovery of H10-subtype avian influenza virus (AIV) in chickens in 1949, and it has been detected in many species including mammals such as minks, pigs, seals and humans. Cases of human infections with H10N8 viruses identified in China in 2013 have raised widespread attention. Two novel reassortant H10N3 viruses were isolated from chickens in December 2019 in eastern China during routine surveillance for AIVs. The internal genes of these viruses were derived from genotype S (G57) H9N2 and were consistent with H5N6, H7N9 and H10N8, which cause fatal infections in humans. Their viral pathogenicity and transmissibility were further studied in different animal models. The two H10N3 isolates had low pathogenicity in chickens and were transmitted between chickens via direct contact. These viruses were highly pathogenic in mice and could be transmitted between guinea pigs via direct contact and respiratory droplets. More importantly, these viruses can bind to both human-type SAα-2,6-Gal receptors and avian-type SAα-2,3-Gal receptors. Asymptomatic shedding in chickens and good adaptability to mammals of these H10N3 isolates would make it easier to transmit to humans and pose a threat to public health.

The R2R3-MYB family is one of the largest plant transcription factor (TF) families playing vital roles in defense, plant growth, and secondary metabolism biosynthesis. Although this gene family has been studied in many species, isoflavonoid biosynthesis-related R2R3-MYB TFs in Callerya speciosa (Champ. ex Benth.) Schot, a traditional Chinese medicinal herb, are poorly understood. Here, a total of 101 R2R3-MYB TFs were identified from C. speciosa transcriptome dataset. 25 clades divided into five functional groups were clustered based on the sequence similarity and phylogenetic tree. Conserved motifs and domain distribution, expression patterns, and coexpression networks were also employed to identify the potential R2R3-MYB TFs in the regulation of isoflavonoid biosynthesis. In silico evaluation showed that the deduced R2R3-CsMYB proteins contain highly conserved R2R3 repeat domain at the N-terminal region, that is the signature motif of R2R3-type MYB TFs. Eight potential TFs (CsMYB17, CsMYB36, CsMYB41, CsMYB44, CsMYB45, CsMYB46, CsMYB72, and CsMYB81) had high degrees of coexpression with four key isoflavonoid biosynthetic genes (CsIFS, CsCHS7, CsHID-1, and CsCHI3), in which CsMYB36 as a potential regulator possessed the highest degree. HPLC analysis showed that formononetin and maackiain contents were significantly increased during the development of tuberous roots, which might be controlled by both related R2R3-CsMYBs and structural genes involved in the isoflavonoid biosynthesis pathway. The transcriptome data were further validated by reverse transcription real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis, and similar expression profiles between TFs and key structural genes were identified. This study was the first step toward the understanding of the R2R3-MYB TFs regulating isoflavonoid biosynthesis in C. speciosa. The results will provide information for further functional analysis and quality improvement through genetic manipulation of these potential R2R3-CsMYB genes in C. speciosa.

Callerya speciosa (Champ. ex Benth.) Schot is a traditional Chinese medicine characterized by tuberous roots as the main organ of isoflavonoid accumulation. Root thickening and isoflavonoid accumulation are two major factors for yield and quality of C. speciosa. However, the underlying mechanisms of root thickening and isoflavonoid biosynthesis have not yet been elucidated. Here, integrated morphological, hormonal and transcriptomic analyses of C. speciosa tuberous roots at four different ages (6, 12, 18, 30 months after germination) were performed. The growth cycle of C. speciosa could be divided into three stages: initiation, rapid-thickening and stable-thickening stage, which cued by the activity of vascular cambia. Endogenous changes in phytohormones were associated with developmental changes during root thickening. Jasmonic acid might be linked to the initial development of tuberous roots. Abscisic acid seemed to be essential for tuber maturation, whereas IAA, cis-zeatin and gibberellin 3 were considered essential for rapid thickening of tuberous roots. A total of 4337 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified during root thickening, including 15 DEGs participated in isoflavonoid biosynthesis, and 153 DEGs involved in starch/sucrose metabolism, hormonal signaling, transcriptional regulation and cell wall metabolism. A hypothetical model of genetic regulation associated with root thickening and isoflavonoid biosynthesis in C. speciosa is proposed, which will help in understanding the underlying mechanisms of tuberous root formation and isoflavonoid biosynthesis.

As a multi hop self-organizing network, wireless sensor network (WSN) has the ability to cooper- atively sense, collect and process the information of the sensed objects. The applications of WCN in 5G-based Internet of V ehicles (5G-IoV), using information fusion and intelligent information processing technologies, can obtain more reliable and accurate detection parameters, which has been widely concerned. However, the massive connectivity and information exchange in 5G-IoV pose great challenges to the bandwidth efficiency. In order to overcome these issues in 5G-IoV networks, a performance enhanced scheme based on non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is proposed. In the proposed scheme, different vehicle locations are respectively discussed, i.e., whether in the overlap region of cluster head vehicles (CHVs). In particular, different to conventional works, each receiving node only decodes the desired signal to avoid performance loss provided from the poor channel quality limitation.On the other hand, all CHVs decode-and-forward (DF) new superposition coded signals with new power allocation factors, while that the maximum ratio combining (MRC) is utilized at receivers to further improve the ergodic sum-rate (SR) and probability of conflict. The closed-form expressions of ergodic SR for our proposed scheme are analyzed under the independent Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical results corroborating our theoretical analysis show that the superposition coded signal transmission scheme applied to the proposed NOMA-IoV improves the ergodic SR performance significantly compared with the existing works, especially for the high signal-to-noise (SNR) region.

PB2 E627K mutation of influenza A virus has been considered relevant to increased mammalian virulence and adaptation. In H7N9, the substitution is naturally confined to most human isolates and few low pathogenic avian isolates. However, we isolated two highly pathogenic H7N9 variants harboring PB2 627K from chickens in northern China.

Avian influenza virus (AIV) H7N9 that emerged in 2013 in eastern China is a novel zoonotic agent mainly circulating in poultry without clinical signs but causing severe disease with high fatality in humans in more than 5 waves. Since the emergence of highly pathogenic (HP) H7N9 variants in 2016, it has induced heavy losses in the poultry industry leading to the implementation of an intensive nationwide vaccination program at the end of wave 5 (September 2017). To characterize the ongoing evolution of H7N9 AIV, we conducted analyses of H7N9 glycoprotein genes obtained from 2013 to 2019. Bayesian analyses revealed a decreasing population size of HP H7N9 variants post wave 5. Phylogenetic topologies revealed that two novel small subclades were formed and carried several fixed amino acid mutations that were along HA and NA phylogenetic trees since wave 5. Some of the mutations were located at antigenic sites or receptor binding sites. The antigenic analysis may reveal a significant antigenic drift evaluated by hemagglutinin inhibition (HI) assay and the antigenicity of H7N9 AIV might evolute in large leaps in wave 7. Molecular simulations found that the mutations (V135T, S145P, and L226Q) around the HA receptor pocket increased the affinity to α2,3-linked sialic acid (SIA) while decreased to α2,6-linked SIA. Altered affinity may suggest that HP H7N9 variations aggravate the pathogenicity to poultry but lessen the threat to public health. Selection analyses showed that the HP H7N9 AIV experienced an increasing selection pressure since wave 5, and the national implementation of vaccination might intensify the role of natural selection during the evolution waves 6 and 7. In summary, our data provide important insights about the genetic and antigenic diversity of circulating HP H7N9 viruses from 2017 to 2019. Enhanced surveillance is urgently warranted to understand the current situation of HP H7N9 AIV.

Background Callerya speciosa Champ., a perennial shrub medicinal plant of Fabaceae, is one of the most commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and food that has been widely cultivated in South China. The tuberous roots of C. speciosa transferred from fibrous roots but few fibrous roots can transfer into tuberous roots. To date, the underlying mechanisms for tuberous root formation and development of C. speciosa have not yet been elucidated.

Multiple channels can increase network capacity by transmitting traffic on different channels in an interference area. To resolve the channel interference problem in cognitive wireless mesh networks, first, a new channel assignment algorithm based on hierarchy interference model for the cognitive wireless mesh networks is proposed in this paper. Second, a distributed capacity and interference based channel assignment and routing algorithm is proposed. Third, an efficient channel diversity based channel allocation algorithm is proposed. The main purpose of this channel allocation algorithm is to maintain the channel diversity in the neighborhood channels. Fourth, a novel joint multi-path routing and channel assignment algorithm based on path crossing is proposed. On the basis of simulations, results show that compared with the link-based channel allocation algorithm in wireless multi-channel networks, the new four algorithms have an obvious advantage in the performance of delay and throughput, and the performance of the joint multi-path routing and channel assignment algorithm is the best. Lastly, a channel merging algorithm is also proposed in the channel constrained situation. Simulation results also show that, after the implementation of the channel merging algorithm, the network average throughput and delay performance have been further improved significantly. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To resolve channel interference problem in cognitive wireless mesh network, a distributed both capacity and interference based channel assignment and routing algorithm is proposed. First, selecting the lowest cumulative cost route effectively according to the new routing metric, and then, selecting the channel with the minimum interference-capacity ratio. Simulation results show that compared to the link-based and interference-based algorithm, the new algorithm has an obvious advantage in the performance of delay and throughput.

To resolve channel interference and "Deafness" problem in cognitive wireless mesh network, a new Cross-layer Design based on Link Quality for Cognitive Wireless Mesh Networks is proposed. When the node chooses the channel, it is not only in accordance with the rank of channels, but also based on link quality. In this way, cross-layer technology can be effectively achieved, and network performance can be improved. Simulation results show that compared to the link-based channel allocation algorithm, capacity and interference based channel allocation algorithm, and channel diversity based channel allocation algorithm, the new CLDLQ algorithm has an obvious advantage in the performance of delay and throughput.

Nodes perceived environment and selected the appropriate route for business transfers in Cognitive Wireless Mesh Network. However, the variation of spectrum holes results in the change of routes which brings negative effects on the data transmission. An adaptive multi-path algorithm that uses reinforcement learning based on multi-agent is proposed in this paper. Better route can always be obtained to transmit data when route changes. The simulation results show that the algorithm can reduce network latency and improve network performance.

Multiple channels can increase network capacity by transmitting traffic on different channels in an interference area. Firstly, an efficient distributed joint routing and channel allocation strategy for cognitive wireless mesh networks is proposed in this paper. The main purpose of this channel allocation strategy is to maintain the channel diversity in the neighborhood channels. Simulation results show that compared to the link-based channel allocation algorithm in wireless multichannel network, the average throughput approximately increases by 50%, and the average delay reduces by 50% with the new algorithm. Then, a channel merging algorithm is also proposed in the channel constrained situation. Simulation results also show that, after the implementation of the channel merging algorithm, the network average throughput and delay performance have been further improved significantly, too.