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The development of universal anode materials with superlative electrochemical performance poses a great challenge for rechargeable alkali metal (AM) ion battery technologies. In the present work, the viability of the gapless Dirac t-BN (tetragonal boron nitride) monolayer as a lightweight binder-free anode has been systematically evaluated via comprehensive first-principles calculations. Aside from the desirable electronic conductivity, the t-BN monolayer exhibits an excellent ionic conductivity as well due to its moderate affinity for Li, Na, and K atoms with favorable in-plane barriers of 0.36, 0.18, and 0.19 eV, respectively. Meanwhile, the presence of B4N4octagons allows the AM atoms to penetrate through the t-BN monolayer. Excitingly, the host material delivers an ultrahigh specific capacity up to 1080 mA h g–1for Li, 5400 mA h g–1for Na, and 2160 mA h g–1for K in the wake of low mean open-circuit voltages of 0.033, 0.203, and 0.300 V at the half-cell level. According to the standard hydrogen electrode methodology, the energy densities are forecasted to be as large as 3240, 13500, and 5680 mW h g–1for Li, Na, and K ion batteries, respectively, with robust thermal stability up to at least 400 K. The safety and cycling durability of the t-BN monolayer are jointly corroborated via the moderate mechanical strengths and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at the maximum intercalated states, as well as via the small lattice changes and its ultrahigh tolerable ultimate tensile strain. These findings unambiguously promise that the t-BN monolayer can serve as an appealing candidate for anode applications in AM ion batteries.

To alleviate the bias generated by the $\ell_{1}$-norm in the low-rank tensor completion problem, nonconvex surrogates/regularizers have been suggested to replace the tensor nuclear norm, although both can achieve sparsity. However, the thresholding functions of these nonconvex regularizers may not have closed-form expressions and thus iterations are needed, which implies high computational load. To solve this issue, we devise a framework to generate sparsity-inducing regularizers with closed-form thresholding functions. These regularizers are applied to low-tubal-rank tensor completion, and efficient algorithms based on the alternating direction method of multipliers are developed. Furthermore, convergence of our methods is analyzed and it is proved that the generated sequences are bounded and converge to a stationary point. Experimental results using synthetic and real-world datasets show that the proposed algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art methods in terms of restoration performance.

Tensor completion (TC) refers to restoring the missing entries in a given tensor by making use of the low-rank structure. Most existing algorithms have excellent performance in Gaussian noise or impulsive noise scenarios. Generally speaking, the Frobenius-norm-based methods achieve excellent performance in additive Gaussian noise, while their recovery severely degrades in impulsive noise. Although the algorithms using the $\ell _{p}$ -norm ( $0< p< 2$ ) or its variants can attain high restoration accuracy in the presence of gross errors, they are inferior to the Frobenius-norm-based methods when the noise is Gaussian-distributed. Therefore, an approach that is able to perform well in both Gaussian noise and impulsive noise is desired. In this work, we use a capped Frobenius norm to restrain outliers, which corresponds to a form of the truncated least-squares loss function. The upper bound of our capped Frobenius norm is automatically updated using normalized median absolute deviation during iterations. Therefore, it achieves better performance than the $\ell _{p}$ -norm with outlier-contaminated observations and attains comparable accuracy to the Frobenius norm without tuning parameter in Gaussian noise. We then adopt the half-quadratic theory to convert the nonconvex problem into a tractable multivariable problem, that is, convex optimization with respect to (w.r.t.) each individual variable. To address the resultant task, we exploit the proximal block coordinate descent (PBCD) method and then establish the convergence of the suggested algorithm. Specifically, the objective function value is guaranteed to be convergent while the variable sequence has a subsequence converging to a critical point. Experimental results based on real-world images and videos exhibit the superiority of the devised approach over several state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of recovery performance. MATLAB code is available at https://github.com/Li-X-P/Code-of-Robust-Tensor-Completion.

In this letter, we put forth a novel strategy to boost the reliability of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing differential chaos shift keying (OFDM-DCSK) systems over doubly selective fading channels. Provided the accessibility of channel state information, singular value decomposition is exploited to partition the channel into distinct sub-channels, which is realized by multiplying the right singular vectors by the symbol matrix at the transmitter. Subsequently, the sub-channel associated with the largest singular value is allocated to the reference chaotic sequence, leading to a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of demodulated symbols and lower bit error rate (BER) at the receiver. Inspired by the water-filling principle, the BER can be further reduced by permuting the symbols in a strategic manner. This approach of channel decomposition integrated with symbol reallocation, referred to as singular-vector pre-coded OFDM-DCSK (SVP-OFDM-DCSK), is able to escalate the SNR over doubly selective channels, ultimately enhancing the system reliability. The BER of the SVP-OFDM-DCSK system is also analyzed. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed system with and without symbol permutation step achieves lower BERs than existing schemes over doubly selective fading channels.

Chinese cabbage is an economically important Brassicavegetable worldwide, and clubroot, which is caused by the soil-borne protist plant pathogen Plasmodiophora brassicaeis regarded as a destructive disease to Brassicacrops. Previous studies on the gene transcripts related to Chinese cabbage resistance to clubroot mainly employed RNA-seq technology, although it cannot provide accurate transcript assembly and structural information. In this study, PacBio RS II SMRT sequencing was used to generate full-length transcriptomes of mixed roots at 0, 2, 5, 8, 13, and 22 days after P. brassicaeinfection in the clubroot-resistant line DH40R. Overall, 39 376 high-quality isoforms and 26 270 open reading frames (ORFs) were identified from the SMRT sequencing data. Additionally, 426 annotated long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), 56 transcription factor (TF) families, 1 883 genes with poly(A) sites and 1 691 alternative splicing (AS) events were identified. Furthermore, 1 201 of the genes had at least one AS event in DH40R. A comparison with RNA-seq data revealed six differentially expressed AS genes (one for disease resistance and five for defensive response) that are potentially involved in P. brassicaeresistance. The results of this study provide valuable resources for basic research on clubroot resistance in Chinese cabbage.

Matrix completion refers to recovering a matrix from a small subset of its entries. It is an important topic because numerous real-world data can be modeled as low-rank matrices. One popular approach for matrix completion is based on low-rank matrix factorization, but it requires knowing the matrix rank, which is difficult to accurately determine in many practical scenarios. We propose a novel algorithm based on rank-one approximation that a matrix can be decomposed as a sum of outer products. The key idea is to find the basis vectors of the underlying matrix according to the observed entries, and gradually increase the vector number until an appropriate rank estimate is reached. In contrast to the conventional rank-one schemes that employ unchanging rank-one basis matrices, our algorithm performs completion from the vector viewpoint and is able to generate continuously updated rank-one basis matrices. Besides, we theoretically show that the developed method has a linear convergence rate and a smaller recovery error than existing rank-one based algorithms. Experimental results using both synthetic data and real-world images demonstrate that our solution has the best recovery performance among the competing algorithms when the observations are contaminated by Gaussian noise.

In this paper, we devise a sparse-coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) differential chaos shift keying (DCSK) communication system based on low-rank matrix recovery which can handle Gaussian background noise and outlier-contaminated symbols simultaneously. As the noise-free OFDM-DCSK symbol matrix has rank 1, we exploit the vector outer product for its modeling, while sparse coding is also applied to reduce the transmission energy. To demodulate information bits from the sparse-coded signal, we formulate an objective function which consists of a sum of Frobenius norm for rank-1 matrix recovery and $\ell _{0}$ -norm for identifying the possibly outlier-contaminated symbols, with a self-adaptive weight parameter. The resultant optimization problem is solved iteratively via block coordinate descent, and the Laplacian kernel with the Silverman’s rule is adopted for outlier detection. Theoretical analysis including convergence of the objective function, bit error rate (BER), energy efficiency and computational complexity, are provided. Simulation results show that the proposed system has comparable mean square error and BER performance with the $\ell _{p}$ -norm minimization based matrix recovery approach at $p=2$ in additive white Gaussian noise, and is superior to that of $p=1$ in Middleton class A noise, even when sparse coding is applied. Moreover, compared with other binary DCSK systems, our system achieves higher energy efficiency thanks to the sparse coding.

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) treatment has demonstrated excellent medical effects in oncology, and it is one of the most sought after immunotherapies for tumors. However, there are several issues with ICB therapy, including low response rates and a lack of effective efficacy predictors. Gasdermin-mediated pyroptosis is a typical inflammatory death mode. We discovered that increased expression of gasdermin protein was linked to a favorable tumor immune microenvironment and prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). We used the mouse HNSCC cell lines 4MOSC1 (responsive to CTLA-4 blockade) and 4MOSC2 (resistant to CTLA-4 blockade) orthotopic models and demonstrated that CTLA-4 blockade treatment induced gasdermin-mediated pyroptosis of tumor cells, and gasdermin expression positively correlated to the effectiveness of CTLA-4 blockade treatment. We found that CTLA-4 blockade activated CD8+T cells and increased the levels of interferon γ (IFN-γ) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) cytokines in the tumor microenvironment. These cytokines synergistically activated the STAT1/IRF1 axis to trigger tumor cell pyroptosis and the release of large amounts of inflammatory substances and chemokines. Collectively, our findings revealed that CTLA-4 blockade triggered tumor cells pyroptosis via the release of IFN-γ and TNF-α from activated CD8+T cells, providing a new perspective of ICB.

Robust matrix completion refers to recovering a low-rank matrix given a subset of the entries corrupted by gross errors, and has various applications since many real-world signals can be modeled as low-rank matrices. Most of the existing methods only perform well for noise-free data or those with zero-mean white Gaussian noise, and their performance will be degraded in the presence of outliers. In this paper, based on the factorization framework, we propose a novel robust matrix completion scheme via using the truncated-quadratic loss function, which is non-convex and non-smooth, and half-quadratic theory is adopted for its optimization. By introducing an auxiliary variable, half-quadratic optimization (HO) can transform the loss function into two tractable forms, that is, additive and multiplicative formulations. Block coordinate descent method is then exploited as their solver. Compared with the additive form, the multiplicative variant has lower computational cost since we attempt to take the observations contaminated by outliers as missing entries. Numerical simulations and experimental results based on image inpainting and hyperspectral image recovery demonstrate that our algorithms are superior to the state-of-the-art methods in terms of restoration accuracy and runtime. MATLAB code is available at https://github.com/bestzywang.

As a widely-used tool to resist outliers, the correntropy criterion or Welsch function has recently been exploited for robust matrix recovery. However, it down-weighs all observations including uncontaminated data. On the other hand, its implicit regularizer (IR) cannot achieve sparseness, which is a desirable property in many practical scenarios. To address these two issues, we devise a novel M-estimator called hybrid ordinary-Welsch (HOW) function, which only down-weighs the outlier-contaminated data, and the IR generated by the HOW can attain sparseness. To verify the effectiveness of the HOW function, we apply it to robust matrix completion and principal component analysis. An efficient algorithm is developed and we prove that any generated limit point is a critical point. Finally, extensive experimental results based on synthetic and real-world data demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of recovery accuracy and runtime.

Hundreds of leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases (LRR-RKs) have evolved to control diverse processes of growth, development and immunity in plants, but the mechanisms that link LRR-RKs to distinct cellular responses are not understood. Here we show that two LRR-RKs, the brassinosteroid hormone receptor BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1 (BRI1) and the flagellin receptor FLAGELLIN SENSING 2 (FLS2), regulate downstream glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) and mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, respectively, through phosphocoding of the BRI1-SUPPRESSOR1 (BSU1) phosphatase. BSU1 was previously identified as a component that inactivates GSK3s in the BRI1 pathway. We surprisingly found that the loss of the BSU1 family phosphatases activates effector-triggered immunity and impairs flagellin-triggered MAP kinase activation and immunity. The flagellin-activated BOTRYTIS-INDUCED KINASE 1 (BIK1) phosphorylates BSU1 at serine 251. Mutation of serine 251 reduces BSU1’s ability to mediate flagellin-induced MAP kinase activation and immunity, but not its abilities to suppress effector-triggered immunity and interact with GSK3, which is enhanced through the phosphorylation of BSU1 at serine 764 upon brassinosteroid signalling. These results demonstrate that BSU1 plays an essential role in immunity and transduces brassinosteroid–BRI1 and flagellin–FLS2 signals using different phosphorylation sites. Our study illustrates that phosphocoding in shared downstream components provides signalling specificities for diverse plant receptor kinases.

Numerous real-world systems can be represented as complex networks of some sort. Mining communities can aid in the analysis of the structural traits and functionalities of complex networks, as community structure is a crucial component of these networks. Seed nodes are crucial as they can influence the outcome of the community detection algorithm and help identify community structures. So far, several techniques have been presented to identify communities based on seed nodes as influential nodes. Nevertheless, most of these studies develop techniques in which seed nodes are considered as community centers. Also, these works include shortcomings such as instability, weak scalability, and low accuracy, which lead to the identification of different communities in successive executions. With this motivation, this paper develops a strategy based on Node Influence analysis for high-quality Community Detection in complex networks (NICD). NICD provides a new centrality metric to calculate node importance, which is based on the probability of information transfer between each pair of nodes and applying the influence scope. Unlike conventional weighting techniques, NICD compares the node influence vector using the Pareto archive to select a set of non-dominant nodes as influential nodes. According to the proposed centrality metric, the influential nodes are used to determine the centers of the communities, and then the final community structures are created using the k-medoid algorithm. Lastly, numerical simulations are applied on several real-world networks to verify the effectiveness of the proposed influential node-based community detection strategy. The results show the success of the proposed strategy by comparing the findings from different aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An asymmetric InAlGaN/GaN superlattice barrier structure without the first quantum barrier layer (FQB) is designed, and its effect on the optoelectronic performance of GaN-based green laser diode (LD) has been investigated based on simulation experiment and analytical results. It is found that, compared with conventional GaN barrier LD, device performance is significantly improved by using FQB-free asymmetric InAlGaN/GaN superlattice barrier structure, including low threshold current, high output power, and high photoelectric conversion efficiency. The threshold current of LD with novel structure is 16.19 mA, which is 22.46% less than GaN barrier LD. Meanwhile, the output power is 110.69 mW at an injection current of 120 mA, which is 16.20% higher compared to conventional LD, and the wall-plug efficiency has an enhancement of 9.5%, reaching 20.27%. FQB-free asymmetric InAlGaN/GaN superlattice barrier layer can reduce optical loss, suppress the polarization effect, and improve the carrier injection efficiency, which is beneficial to improve output power and photoelectric conversion efficiency. The novel epitaxial structure provides theoretical guidance and data support for improving the optoelectronic performance of GaN-based green LD.

A set of shaking table tests were conducted to investigate the dynamic response characteristics of a single-layer cylindrical reticulated shell (SLCRS) with three-dimensional column-top seismic isolation. The influence of infilled wall on the seismic and isolation performance of the structure was investigated. The dynamic response characteristics of structures with and without seismic isolation were compared to investigate the effects of seismic isolation. The dynamic responses of lower-frame models with and without an infilled wall were also compared to investigate the effects of the infilled wall on the seismic isolation. Results show that the three-dimensional column-top seismic isolation improved the seismic safety of infilled wall. At the same time, the three-dimensional column-top isolation bearing can significantly reduce the acceleration and stress of the structure. The excellent isolation performance of the three-dimensional isolation bearing promises outstanding application prospects for this isolation bearing in highly seismic areas. In addition, under a small earthquake, the acceleration of the second floor with the isolation bearing was unfavorably magnified. Therefore, the seismic performance of the acceleration-sensitive nonstructural components should be improved when the three-dimensional column-top seismic isolation is applied in the areas of low seismicity. The test data and conclusions obtained in the present study can provide theoretical and technical support for the actual engineering application of such three-dimensional seismic isolation bearings.

Interleukin-17 (IL-17), also called IL-17A, is an important regulator of cardiac diseases, but its role in calcium-related cardiac dysfunction remains to be explored. Thus, we investigated the influence of IL-17 on calcium handling process and its contribution to the development of heart failure. Mice were subjected to transaortic constriction (TAC) to induce heart failure. In these mice, the levels of IL-17 in the plasma and cardiac tissue were significantly increased compared with the sham group. In 77 heart failure patients, the plasma level of IL-17 was significantly higher than 49 non-failing subjects, and was negatively correlated with cardiac ejection fraction and fractional shortening. In IL-17 knockout mice, the shortening of isolated ventricular myocytes was increased compared with that in wild-type mice, which was accompanied by significantly increased amplitude of calcium transient and the upregulation of SERCA2a and Cav1.2. In cultured neonatal cardiac myocytes, treatment of with IL-17 (0.1, 1 ng/mL) concentration-dependently suppressed the amplitude of calcium transient and reduced the expression of SERCA2a and Cav1.2. Furthermore, IL-17 treatment increased the expression of the NF-κB subunits p50 and p65, whereas knockdown of p50 reversed the inhibitory effects of IL-17 on SERCA2a and Cav1.2 expression. In mice with TAC-induced mouse heart, IL-17 knockout restored the expression of SERCA2a and Cav1.2, increased the amplitude of calcium transient and cell shortening, and in turn improved cardiac function. In addition, IL-17 knockout attenuated cardiac hypertrophy with inhibition of calcium-related signaling pathway. In conclusion, upregulation of IL-17 impairs cardiac function through NF-κB-mediated disturbance of calcium handling and cardiac remodeling. Inhibition of IL-17 represents a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of heart failure.

C12H16Br2O4, monoclinic, P21/n(no. 14), a= 12.594(5) Å, b= 4.4613(16) Å, c= 12.878(4) Å, β= 91.209(12)∘, V= 723.4(4) Å3, Z= 2, Rgt(F) = 0.0450, wRref(F2) = 0.1103, T= 293 (2) K.

C12H8Br2O2, monoclinic, P21/c(no. 14), a= 4.1957(13) Å, b= 13.402(4) Å, c= 11.160(3) Å, β= 99.645(10)°, V= 618.7(3) Å3, Z= 2, Rgt(F) = 0.0287, wRref(F2) = 0.0701, T= 273(2) K.

C24H16N2S, monoclinic, P21/n(no. 14), a= 18.443(2) Å, b= 4.0161(6) Å, c= 23.396(4) Å, β= 99.246(6)°, V= 1710.4(4) Å3, Z= 4, Rgt(F) = 0.0589, wRref(F2) = 0.1173, T= 273.15 K.

C8H8N6·C5H9O2, monoclinic, I2/a(no. 15), a= 13.2666(17) Å, b= 11.0435(15) Å, c= 19.778(3) Å, β= 92.707(10)°, V= 2894.4(7) Å3, Z= 8, Rgt(F) = 0.0528, wRref(F2) = 0.1511, T= 293(2) K.

C20H22Br2N2O4, triclinic, P1‾$P\overline{1}$(no. 2), a= 5.0060(12) Å, b= 9.135(2) Å, c= 11.650(3) Å, V= 518.6(2) Å3, Z= 1, Rgt(F) = 0.0474, wRref(F2) = 0.1270, T= 273(2) K, β= 78.492(7).

Much effort has been made to discover new two-dimensional semiconductors with exotic properties for exciting applications. Herein, we predict a class of group IV–V monolayers by first-principles calculations with chemical stoichiometry α′-MIVXV(M= C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb; X= N, P, As, Sb, Bi), which consist of four sublayers in the M-X-X-Mrather than the earlier extensively reported X-M-M-Xstacking sequence. Among these 25 allotropes, we identify that 19 combinations hold great possibility to be realized in experiments by securing their robust bonding, energetic, dynamical, thermal, and mechanical stabilities. Electronic band structures reveal that except for 3 metallic materials verified by the HSE06 hybrid functional in the presence of the spin–orbit coupling (SOC) effect, the remaining 16 monolayers are intrinsic semiconductors due to the absence of surface dangling bonds, whose direct or indirect bandgaps range from 0.01 to 1.23 eV at the PBE + SOC level. Also, it is found that all of these semiconductors exhibit a pair of inequivalent K valleys in the conduction and valence bands. The strong SOC effect in semiconductors made up of heavy elements leads to the remarkable valley spin splitting in the absence of inversion symmetry. The robust spin-valley locking can not only realize the coexistence of spin and valley Hall effects but also achieve fascinating valley polarization by the irradiation of circularly polarized infrared light. The ultrahigh ultimate tensile strengths endow these semiconducting systems with superior tailored properties. Their considerable and anisotropic mobilities facilitate fast carrier transportation and exciton separation efficiency. Overall, these appealing properties along with viable synthesizability will provide semiconducting α′-MIVXVmonolayers with tremendous opportunities in a broad variety of potential applications.

Exacerbation of pain by chronic stress and comorbidity of pain with stress-related disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), represent significant clinical challenges. Previously we have documented that chronic forced swim (FS) stress exacerbates neuropathic pain in spared nerve injury (SNI) rats, associated with an up-regulation of GluN2B-containing N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (GluN2B-NMDARs) in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA). However, the molecular mechanisms underlying chronic FS stress (CFSS)-mediated exacerbation of pain sensitivity in SNI rats still remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that exposure of CFSS to rats activated the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF)/CRF receptor type 1 (CRFR1) signaling in the CeA, which was shown to be necessary for CFSS-induced depressive-like symptoms in stressed rats, and as well, for CFSS-induced exacerbation of pain hypersensitivity in SNI rats exposed to chronic FS stress. Furthermore, we discovered that activation of CRF/CRFR1 signaling in the CeA upregulated the phosphorylation of GluN2B-NMDARs at tyrosine 1472 (pGluN2BY1472) in the synaptosomal fraction of CeA, which is highly correlated to the enhancement of synaptic GluN2B-NMDARs expression that has been observed in the CeA in CFSS-treated SNI rats. In addition, we revealed that activation of CRF/CRFR1 signaling in the CeA facilitated the CFSS-induced reinforcement of long-term potentiation (LTP) as well as the enhancement of NMDAR-mediated excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) in the BLA-CeA pathway in SNI rats. These findings suggest that activation of CRF/CRFR1 signaling in the CeA contributes to chronic stress-induced exacerbation of neuropathic pain by enhancing GluN2B-NMDAR-mediated synaptic plasticity in rats subjected to nerve injury.

The synthesis of symmetric biaryls viathe iron‐catalyzed homo‐coupling of aryllithium reagents was developed under a mild condition, in the absence of ligand, with wide range of scope, and in good yields. Investigation on reaction concentration and practical utility of this environmentally friendly procedure also indicates a promising application outlook. Synthesisof symmetric biaryls via the iron‐catalyzed homo‐coupling of aryllithium reagents was developed under mild conditions, in the absence of ligand, with wide range of scope, and in good yields.

As emerging ambient energy harvesting technology, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have proven to be a robust power source and have demonstrated the unique ability to power micro–nano electronics autonomously to form self-powered devices. Although four working modes of TENGs have been developed to promote the feasibility of self-powered micro–nano systems, the relatively complicated structure composed of multilayer and movable components limits the practical applications of TENGs. Herein, we propose a single-layer triboelectric nanogenerator (SL-TENG) based on ion-doped natural nanofibrils. Compared with the simplest mode of currently existing TENGs, i.e., the single-electrode type, this novel single-electrode TENG further simplifies the configuration by the removal of the dielectric layer. The underlying mechanism of the proposed SL-TENG is comprehensively investigated through electrical measurements and the analysis of the effect of ion species at different concentrations. In contrast to conventional TENGs that require electrodes to realize charge transfer, it is revealed that the ions doped into natural nanofibrils effectively realize charge transfer due to the separation and migration of cations and anions. This new working principle based on the combination of electrons and ions enables TENGs to show greater potential for applications since the ultrasimple single-layer configuration enables them to be more easily integrated with other electronic components; additionally, the whole device of the proposed SL-TENG is biodegradable because the natural nanofibrils are completely extracted from carrots.

Lithium has been used to treat major depressive disorder, yet the neural circuit mechanisms underlying this therapeutic effect remain unknown. Here, we demonstrated that the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons that project to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but not to nucleus accumbens (NAc), contributed to the antidepressive-like effects of lithium. Projection-specific electrophysiological recordings revealed that high concentrations of lithium increased firing rates in mPFC-, but not NAc-, projecting VTA DA neurons in mice treated with chronic unpredictable mild stress (CMS). In parallel, chronic administration of high-dose lithium in CMS mice restored the firing properties of mPFC-projecting DA neurons, and also rescued CMS-induced depressive-like behaviors. Nevertheless, chronic lithium treatment was insufficient to change the basal firing rates in NAc-projecting VTA DA neurons. Furthermore, chemogenetic activation of mPFC-, but not NAc-, projecting VTA DA neurons mimicked the antidepressive-like effects of lithium in CMS mice. Chemogenetic downregulation of VTA-mPFC DA neurons’ firing activity abolished the antidepressive-like effects of lithium in CMS mice. Finally, we found that the antidepressant-like effects induced by high-dose lithium were mediated by BNDF signaling in the mesocortical DA circuit. Together, these results demonstrated the role of mesocortical DA projection in antidepressive-like effects of lithium and established a circuit foundation for lithium-based antidepressive treatment.

Background: Genetic variation in regulatory sequences that alter transcription factor (TF) binding is a major cause of phenotypic diversity. Brassinosteroid is a growth hormone that has major effects on plant phenotypes. Genetic variation in brassinosteroid-responsive cis-elements likely contributes to trait variation. Pinpointing such regulatory variations and quantitative genomic analysis of the variation in TF-target binding, however, remains challenging. How variation in transcriptional targets of signaling pathways such as the brassinosteroid pathway contributes to phenotypic variation is an important question to be investigated with innovative approaches. Results: Here, we use a hybrid allele-specific chromatin binding sequencing (HASCh-seq) approach and identify variations in target binding of the brassinosteroid-responsive TF ZmBZR1 in maize. HASCh-seq in the B73xMo17 F1s identifies thousands of target genes of ZmBZR1. Allele-specific ZmBZR1 binding (ASB) has been observed for 18.3% of target genes and is enriched in promoter and enhancer regions. About a quarter of the ASB sites correlate with sequence variation in BZR1-binding motifs and another quarter correlate with haplotype-specific DNA methylation, suggesting that both genetic and epigenetic variations contribute to the high level of variation in ZmBZR1 occupancy. Comparison with GWAS data shows linkage of hundreds of ASB loci to important yield and disease-related traits. Conclusion: Our study provides a robust method for analyzing genome-wide variations of TF occupancy and identifies genetic and epigenetic variations of the brassinosteroid response transcription network in maize.

A new strategy was developed for the efficient synthesis of di-, tetra-, and hexa-substituted 1,3-butadienes. This one-pot procedure involves lithium–iodine exchange to generate the corresponding vinyllithium intermediates. A subsequent iron-catalyzed ligand-free oxidative homo-coupling eventually led to the formation of 1,3-butadienes in acceptable to excellent isolated yields.

Abrading is a very important sub-technology of the surface treatment technology with vast applications in the industry. This study aims at analyzing the inherent laws of friction systems during abrading. In particle flow code modeling, the abrading process can be simplified to the movement of particles in a parallel-plate shear friction system. In this study, the PFC2D software is used to construct the particle flow friction system with the set of parallel plates and the model parameters according to the abrading processing equipment and processing materials, control the simulation of a single variable, and compare the output data to estimate the impact of change of parameters on the force chain. The simulation results show that the shear dilatancy can be divided into three stages: plastic strain, macroscopic failure, and granular recombination stages. The distribution and load rates of the weak force chains depend on the load, velocity, friction coefficient between granules, granular diameter, and number of granular layers. The number of granular layers and the load increase cause the direction of the force chain to be oriented with the vertical direction, and the force chains move toward the horizontal direction as the velocity increases. The increase in load does not cause the shear dilatancy stage to occur; the velocity, friction coefficient between granules, and granular diameter increase cause the shear dilatancy to occur gradually.

Plant growth is controlled by integration of hormonal and light-signaling pathways. BZS1 is a B-box zinc finger protein previously characterized as a negative regulator in the brassinosteroid (BR)-signaling pathway and a positive regulator in the light-signaling pathway. However, the mechanisms by which BZS1/BBX20 integrates light and hormonal pathways are not fully understood. Here, using a quantitative proteomic workflow, we identified several BZS1-associated proteins, including light-signaling components COP1 and HY5. Direct interactions of BZS1 with COP1 and HY5 were verified by yeast two-hybrid and co-immunoprecipitation assays. Overexpression of BZS1 causes a dwarf phenotype that is suppressed by the hy5mutation, while overexpression of BZS1 fused with the SRDX transcription repressor domain (BZS1-SRDX) causes a long-hypocotyl phenotype similar to hy5, indicating that BZS1's function requires HY5. BZS1 positively regulates HY5 expression, whereas HY5 negatively regulates BZS1 protein level, forming a feedback loop that potentially contributes to signaling dynamics. In contrast to BR, strigolactone (SL) increases BZS1 level, whereas the SL responses of hypocotyl elongation, chlorophyll and HY5 accumulation are diminished in the BZS1-SRDXseedlings, indicating that BZS1 is involved in these SL responses. These results demonstrate that BZS1 interacts with HY5 and plays a central role in integrating light and multiple hormone signals for photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis.

The effects of both repulsive and attractive image-charge forces on the structure of electric double layers are addressed by Monte Carlo determination, based on a primitive model of electrolytes in contact with two types of identically charged surfaces: one with a homogeneously smeared-out charge density and the other with discrete interfacial groups. It is shown that the behavior of ions is closely related to surface charge distributions. Moreover, charge reversal in the absence of image charges witnesses an initial enhancement and then follows a fast suppression with increasing valence of the interfacial groups. The situation is quite similar to what are observed in the presence of repulsive image charges, which can significantly facilitate counterion condensation by overcoming the electrostatic barrier presented by the low dielectric substrate. With transition to attractive image-charge interactions, however, charge reversal remains widely unaffected in different surface charge representations, which even becomes much weaker when compared to the corresponding cases of both no images and repulsive images, provided that the interfacial groups have adequate valences. The overall scenario is found to be independent of the surface charge density values under study. These findings clearly illustrate the enormous improvement in our quantitative understanding of the electric double layer structure and the associated charge reversal phenomenon at the interface of various substrates.

This study presents the first large-scale analysis of plant intact glycopeptides. Using wheat germ agglutinin lectin weak affinity chromatography to enrich modified peptides, followed by electron transfer dissociation (ETD)1fragmentation tandem mass spectrometry, glycan compositions on over 1100 glycopeptides from 270 proteins found in Arabidopsisinflorescence tissue were characterized. While some sites were only detected with a single glycan attached, others displayed up to 16 different glycoforms. Among the identified glycopeptides were four modified in nonconsensus glycosylation motifs. While most of the modified proteins are secreted, membrane, endoplasmic reticulum (ER), or Golgi-localized proteins, surprisingly, N-linked sugars were detected on a protein predicted to be cytosolic or nuclear.

Background:Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by dopaminergic neuron degeneration in the substantia nigra (SN) accompanied by pathology of the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMV). Gastroparesis is a common non-motor system symptom of PD in patients and in animal models. However, the underlying mechanism of this symptom is not clear. We previously reported on the expression of enhanced tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and decreased choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) in the DMV of a PD animal model and colocalization of TH and ChAT with the dopamine receptors D1and D2. We hypothesize that these receptors might contribute to the delayed gastric emptying observed in PD. Objective:To investigate the distribution of D1and D2in gastric-projecting DMV neurons and alteration of their distribution in a PD rat model. Methods:Retrograde tracing, double-labeling immunofluorescence techniques and western blotting were used. Results:After injection of the retrograde tracer fluoro-gold (FG) into the gastric wall, FG-labeled gastric-projecting motoneurons were observed in the caudal and rostral parts of the DMV, and neurons with D1-, D2- and ChAT- immunoreactivity (IR) were widely colocalized in the DMV. Many TH-IR fibers were observed around the D1- and D2-IR neurons. Moreover, decreased D1and enhanced D2expression in the DMV was observed in 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) rats that were treated with a bilateral microinjection of 6-OHDA in the SN. Conclusions:The results indicate that dopamine receptors might affect the activity of gastric-projecting neurons in the DMV, their altered expression may contribute to the gastroparesis observed in PD.

SWI/SNF-type chromatin remodelers, such as BRAHMA (BRM), and H3K27 demethylases both have active roles in regulating gene expression at the chromatin level, but how they are recruited to specific genomic sites remains largely unknown. Here we show that RELATIVE OF EARLY FLOWERING 6 (REF6), a plant-unique H3K27 demethylase, targets genomic loci containing a CTCTGYTY motif via its zinc-finger (ZnF) domains and facilitates the recruitment of BRM. Genome-wide analyses showed that REF6 colocalizes with BRM at many genomic sites with the CTCTGYTY motif. Loss of REF6 results in decreased BRM occupancy at BRM–REF6 co-targets. Furthermore, REF6 directly binds to the CTCTGYTY motif in vitro, and deletion of the motif from a target gene renders it inaccessible to REF6 in vivo. Finally, we show that, when its ZnF domains are deleted, REF6 loses its genomic targeting ability. Thus, our work identifies a new genomic targeting mechanism for an H3K27 demethylase and demonstrates its key role in recruiting the BRM chromatin remodeler.

Over the last few decades, the range of engineering materials encountered in machine shops has increased greatly, as has the variety of cutting tools that are capable of machining these materials. The tasks of tool selection and cutting parameter recommendation for performing the operations are complex and require development of intelligent system. A cutting tool database system model is proposed in this paper. And base on the model, this paper presents a cutting tool database system for selection of cutting tools and conditions of turning operations. The model incorporates intelligent tool selection technology, optimization methods of tool selection and cutting parameter. An application example of the system was performed to demonstrate the practicability and validity of the prototype system.

The particles of zinc oxide are distinguished from the other additive particles in natural rubber vulcanizate by AFM nanomechanical mapping. The results show that the size of zinc oxide particles is mostly less than 100 nm. Young’s modulus of zinc oxide particles in natural rubber matrix is 55.6 ±5.2 MPa, and that of interface is 16.6 ± 1.5 MPa. The width of the interface is 18±9.2 nm for the NR vulcanizate. This technique for direct visualization of ZnO particles domains and interfaces should open a new direction for studies directed at the elucidation of factors that control the domains, boundaries, structures and properties of particles in composites.

A novel copper-catalyzed dual oxidative benzylic CH aminations of methylarenes with 2-aminobenzoketones in the presence of ammonium acetate was developed. This reaction represents a new avenue for 2-arylquinazolines with good yields.

Steroid hormones are key regulators of growth and physiology in both plants and animals. The plant steroid hormones known as brassinosteroids (BRs) are essential for a wide range of developmental processes throughout the life cycle. In contrast with animal steroid hormones, which act mostly through nuclear receptors, BRs act through a cell-surface receptor kinase. The BR signal transduction pathway from the cell-surface receptor to nuclear gene expression has been elucidated in great molecular detail, and thus serves as a paradigm for receptor kinase signalling in plants. Furthermore, several mechanisms of signal integration have been identified that explain how BRs and other hormonal and environmental signals co-regulate specific developmental outputs in a synergistic or antagonistic manner.

The asymmetric α-amination of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds with dialkyl azodicarboxylates has been achieved by C2-symmetric BINOL-squaramide bearing multiple hydrogen bond donors to provide the desired products in excellent yields and enantioselectivities (up to 99% yield and 98% ee).

Excellent performance is necessary for compressor blade when aircraft engine serves in harsh environment, where it will go through scouring from jet-stream and extraneous sand, shaking of blades and corrosion from corrosive medium, taking moisture, salt, SO2 for example. Due to the shortage of scouring resistant and anti-corrosion property, shedding of damaged coating is a fundamental reason for the breakdown of aircraft engine blades, which is also the technique bottleneck that hinders the engineering application of compressor blades. Aiming at such problems, an amino modified epoxy coating which performed excellent scouring resistent and anti-corrosion property was fabricated on blades in this paper. Physical properties, anti-corrosion performance, abrasion resistant profiles and scouring resistant test were comprehensively evaluated. Results showed that the coating displayed a high hardness (pendulum hardness 0.9), overlong pot life, well anti-corrosion performance and excellent scouring resistant property. Pot life extends from 8h which is that of common coatings to 36h, so that it is benefit to large scale coating in engineering application. The anti-corrosion performance is similar to traditional aluminizing/inorganic silicate protect coatings, and abrasion resistant property is superior to common protect coatings. Moreover, scouring resistance performance is 3~4 times that of traditional coatings. Hence, such protective coatings could ensure the long lasting of blades protection.

In this work, an organic double-layer protective coating (ODC) was fabricated through a simple spray process on aluminum and steel. The coating is built as double-layer structure of heat resist base layer and reflective surface layer. Laser with power 103~104 Wcm-2 was set to ablate samples for 4s, while the temperature of panels’ back were being measured. Also, reflectivity of the coating was tested. Results demonstrated that reflectivity of ODC was up to 94%, and the panels were less apt to be ablated by laser radiation after coated, while the temperatures measured were substantially lower compared to blank panels with respect to the coating structure and composition.

With the progress and development of society, people's living standards improve, the research of a variety of indoor service robot is more and more concerned. On the basis of technical research and development of indoor service robot positioning technology in recent year, this paper design of an indoor service robot system based on ZigBee positioning technology. The system used ARM9 microprocessor as control core, equipped with motor drive module, sensor module, ZigBee positioning module and power module, via corresponding software design, to complete stable walking, environmental monitoring, grasbing objects and so on. Experimental results show that the robot system is running well, and can be used in homes, supermarkets, museums and other indoor environments.

In this paper ,the method of the fluorescence lifetime (FL) in fluorescence optical fiber temperature sensor is used to measure the temperature. During the fluorescence information processing , because of existence of the system noise interference, measurement reliability of fluorescence lifetime has been greatly affected, thereby reducing the temperature measurement precision. This paper presents an improved wavelet threshold de-noising method to signal processing, which improves the signal-to-noise ratio and increases the measurement of fluorescence lifetime precision, reduce the error of temperature measurements at the same time. The experimental results demonstrate that this method is effective.

The thermal distortion of friction pair will be produced in high line speed frictioning. For solving interaction theory from this problem, thermal distortion micro-bulges model of two interaction friction surfaces is built by ways of micro-interaction dynamics, and equations of contact forces of micro-bulges are obtained. By using mathematic statistics and normalization, equations of macro-normal and tangential contact forces are obtained, and relation between friction coefficient and micro-parameters is found. Contact forces and friction coefficient characteristics expressed by parameters of dimensionless clearance and curvature are simulated. The results show that the interaction theory is important in deeper understanding friction and wear theory in high line speed running, and offers reliable proof for future finer structure design of friction pair and model design of clutch.

As a new field of comprehensive science, methodology and technique, health risk assessment (HRA) connected pollution of the environment and human health and had been developed swiftly recent decades. Through the study of some literatures, the problems about basic research steps of HRA, uncertainty in assessment and the development are summarized simply.

Considering the requirement of Shenzhen power grid development, this paper investigates the parameters selection for 220/20kV gas insulation transformer, including capacity, short circuit impedance, cooling mode, insulation level, over-load capability, temperature rise tolerance, loss , noise level and bushing selection. For different capacity value, the investment and loss concerning substation, 220kV grid and 20kV grid are analyzed and compared, by which the final capacity value is determined. The short circuit current level, transformer loss, manufacturing capability and investment is investigated to determine the short circuit impedance for the gas insulation transformer. The characteristic and application condition of gas cooling as well as liquid cooling mode is studied and the cooling mode for the gas insulation transformer is determined. The insulation level, overload capability and temperature rise tolerance are determined by considering related standards and the requirement of Shenzhen. The loss and noise level for the gas insulation transformer is determined by considering related standard and parameters of the domestic gas insulation transformers in operation. The gas-gas bushing is used to connect cable box and the transformer.

The mechanism of resistance enhanced by composite endomycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fertilizers under stresses had been studied. The results showed that under water stress, the seedling height, ground diameter, aboveground and underground dry weight, relative water content, WUEof WS+F treatment group were higher than that of WS+NF treatment group, to which were respectively higher 55.09%, 59.22%, 29.98%, 75%, 26.49%、142.86%. The RWD, Pro and MDA content of the inoculation of composite mycorrhizal fungi treatment under the stresses were all significantly decreased. In the aspect of antioxidant enzymes activity, SOD, CAT and POD activity of WS+F treatment group increased than that of WS+NF treatment group to 13.45%、59.88%、45.58%. Because of the series responses of Chinese fir seedling inoculated with the composite mycorrhizal fungi, which were benefit for promoting growth, improving water use efficiency, improving the physicochemical character of soil, etc, the resistance of plant had been improved to stress.

The technology of fluorescent optical fiber temperature measurement has been used in many fields to accurately measure the variations of temperature, especially in some extreme environment, such as strong electromagnetic interference under, high voltage conditions. Wavelet analysis is the most frequent method used for signal processing in this technology. This method has excellent local characteristics and its precise of processing is high, whereas its result relies heavily on the selection of the wavelet basis, and has certain limitation. In this paper, a novel approach for fluorescent signal processing based on Hilbert-Huang transform is presented. A given signal is decomposed into a collection of intrinsic mode functions (IMF) by empirical mode decomposition, then Hilbert spectral analysis is performed for each of the IMF. According to the difference of signal and noise characteristics, HHT can generate adaptive modal functions and remove the noise from signal effectively, so that the signal to noise ratio can be improved. The result of experiment shows that HHT features convenient usage, fast processing and high resolution in time and frequency domains.

The heat transfer property of double skin façade’s façade was analyzed and summarized from the façade’s ventilation pattern, shading mode, cavity width, cavity height, vent openings, the glass optical property and its sequence and convection methods. It showed that the analysis of double skin facade should employ various research methods on the basis of dynamic analysis and comprehensively take multiple factors into consideration on the grounds of actual situation for which may have effects on the heat transfer property of curtains. As a result, more double skin façade with a higher performance of heat transfer can be invented.