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Intelligent scheduling of urban drainage systems is generally regarded as a potentially sustainable strategy for urban flood management. To investigate the effectiveness of the intelligent scheduling strategy in mitigating urban flooding, a new intelligent scheduling model (ISM) that couples the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) and a multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed for a simulation–optimization framework. The objectives of the ISM are to minimize the flooding volume, front-pool water level fluctuation, and operational cost. Synthetic rainfall events with different durations and return periods based on the Gumbel distribution and observed rainfall events are utilized to comprehensively assess the designed model's performance in the Dealim3 catchment, South Korea. The selected ISM-based scheduling strategies are assessed in accordance with climate change mitigation (i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and local adaptation strategies (i.e., improving drainage systems). The results indicate that these strategies generated by ISM lead to reductions in flooding, water level fluctuation, and operational costs. The maximum daily rainfall with a 100-year return period increased by 2.1% and 6.8% during 2025–2064 under SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5, respectively, compared with the historical period (1975–2014), thereby increasing the magnitude of urban flooding. The ISM may also significantly lower the flooding process at specific nodes. The ISM-based strategy outperforms climate change mitigation and other adaptation strategies. This study shows that the ISM-based strategy are very useful to deal with the impact of climate change on urban flooding.

A new schizotheriine mandible from the early Miocene Xianshuihe Formation in Lanzhou Basin, Northwest China is described here. Compared with other contemporaneous taxa, the lower jaw is most similar to Borissiakia betpakdalensis from Kazakhstan based on mandibular morphology and dental features, except for a much smaller body size which is hardly explained by intraspecific variation and suggests it represents a smaller body-sized species of Borissiakia. The type specimen of Phyllotillon huangheensis, from the same strata of the Lanzhou Basin, shares characters with the new specimen in the lower cheek teeth and the tapered morphology of the anterior horizontal ramus. Differences between both are reflected in the height of the ramus, especially the level of the symphysis, which may be an expression of sexual dimorphism. Therefore, schizotheriine mandibles from the early Miocene of Lanzhou Basin are regarded as the same taxon, and both are recognized as Borissiakia huangheensis. The occurrence of a chalicothere and other large perissodactyls may suggest that a certain amount of open woodland was distributed across the basin and that the paleoclimate might have been more humid during the early Miocene.

In this paper, we study the unsupervised person re-identification (re-ID) problem, which does not require any annotation information. Our approach considers three aspects in unsupervised re-ID task, i.e., variance across various cameras, label allocation to unlabeled images and hard negative mining. First, an unsupervised style transfer model is adopted to generate style-transferred images with different camera styles, which contributes to reduce the variance across various cameras. Then we apply k-reciprocal encoding method to obtain k-reciprocal nearest neighbors. According to the feature similarity of the probe person with its neighbors, soft pseudo labels are allocated to the probe person iteratively. Due to lack of annotation information to pairwise images, we propose the k-reciprocal nearest neighbors loss (KNNL) to learn discriminative features. Furthermore, a hard negative mining strategy is adopted to improve the accuracy and robustness of our framework. We conduct experiments on three large-scale datasets: Market-1501, DukeMTMC-reID and MSMT17. Results show that our method not only outperforms the state-of-the-art unsupervised re-ID approaches, but also is superior to unsupervised domain adaptation methods (UDA) and semi-supervised learning methods.

Herein, the spectroscopic methods were applied for investigating the interaction between human serum albumin (HSA) and midazolam in simulated physiological environments. The fluorescence quenching of HSA by midazolam followed the static mode. The association constant at 293 K was obtained as 1.73 × 104 M−1 with probably one binding site between midazolam and HSA. The results of thermodynamic parameters revealed that the hydrogen bonding was the dominating force in the interaction. The results of UV–Vis spectra, synchronous fluorescence, and circular dichroism results showed that binding with midazolam subtly changed the HSA’s conformation along with the secondary structure. The results of Forster resonance energy transfer showed a possible 3.48 nm energy transfer distance with Trp-214 to midazolam. This study aimed to provide valuable information for further research on pharmacological mechanisms and the toxicological and distribution of midazolam in vivo.

A novel Cu(II) compound [CuL2]·2H2O was synthesized by hydrothermal methods, and its crystal structure was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The title compound crystallized in the monoclinic space group P21/c as an isolated monocyte structure. The strong π…π stacking and hydrogen bonding interactions produce one-dimensional (1D) chains. A series of properties of the title compound were tested by solid state photoluminescence, CIE analysis and solid-state diffuse reflectance. The results show that the compound is a blue light emitter, CIE (0.1291, 0.0783) and has an energy bandwidth of 1.65 eV. Time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculation results show that the emission of the compound can be attributed to charge transfer from metal to ligand and ligand to ligand (MLCT and LLCT). A novel Cu (II) complex is synthesized via hydrothermal preparation, which is characteristic of an isolated structure, at the same time, it displays a narrow and intense photoluminescence emission band in the blue region and theoretical study reveals that the photoluminescence emission is originated from the metal-to-ligand and ligand-to-ligand charge transfer transition.

The free vibration of axially functionally graded (FG) tapered Timoshenko curved beams is studied with the numerical approach. By using the non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) basis functions, the exact geometry and the generalized displacement field are formulated. Variable geometric parameters and material properties, including the curvature, cross-sectional area, area moment of inertia, mass density, and Young’s modulus, are expanded as functions of the coordinate in a parametric domain. Based on Hamilton’s principle, the weak formulation is derived by applying a refined constitutive relation which considers the thickness effect. Natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained from the eigenvalue equation. Circular, elliptic, and parabolic curved beams are considered in numerical examples. The obtained results are in good agreement with those in the existing studies and those calculated by the finite element software ANSYS. Moreover, the effects of the material gradient, taper ratio, slenderness ratio, and height-span ratio on vibration behaviors are discussed.

To investigate the effect of dexmedetomidine post-conditioning on the inflammatory response and autophagy effect of focal cerebral ischemia reperfusion injury in rats, and further to study its potential mechanisms. Water maze was conducted to evaluate spatial learning and memory ability of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rats. TTC staining was used to observe the area of cerebral infarction. The expressions of inflammatory factors in serum were detected by ELISA. TUNEL assay, HE staining, and transmission electron microscopy were used to detect the apoptosis of neurons, neuro-cytopathic changes, and the formation of auto-phagosome in hippocampus CA1 region, respectively. The mRNA and protein expression of Beclin-1, Caspase-3, and light chain 3 (LC3) were detected by qRT-PCR and Western blot. Moreover, the activity of C-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway was detected by Western blot. The escape latency (EL); cerebral infarction area ratio; positive apoptosis; neuron pathological changes; auto-phagosome numbers; inflammatory factor contents; mRNA and protein expressions of Beclin-1, Caspase-3 and LC3II/I; and the phosphorylation level of JNK were decreased, while the times across platform and the times stayed in the quadrant of the original platform were increased after dexmedetomidine treatment. However, the protective effect of dexmedetomidine on brain injury in MCAO rats was reversed by JNK pathway activator. Dexmedetomidine post-conditioning could improve learning and memory dysfunction caused by MCAO in rats and reduce the inflammatory response and autophagy effect. The mechanism may be related to inhibition of JNK pathway activation.

In this study, the effects of lithium(Li) content (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 wt%) on the microstructure, micro-yield strength (MYS) and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of Al–Cu–Mg–Li–Sc–Ag alloys were investigated. The results showed that increased Li content promoted the formation of primary T1 phases and secondary T1 precipitates. While the primary T1 phases decreased the MYS of the Al–Cu–Mg–Li–Sc–Ag alloys due to large residual stress and stress concentration, secondary T1 precipitates increased the MYS due to their excellent pinning and impeding effect on mobile dislocations. In addition, the increase in Li content caused the CTETT (i.e., CTE transition temperature) first increased and then decreased, while the CTEH (CTETT to 300 °C) of alloys to first decrease and then increase. The CTEH and CTETT values were influenced by the MYS rather than by the macro-yield strength of alloys, arising from the differences in the amounts of the T1 precipitates among the four tested alloys; this was due to the superior thermal stability of the T1 precipitates.

The need to avoid computer system breaches is increasing. Many researchers have adopted different approaches, such as intrusion detection systems (IDSs), to handle various threats. Intrusion detection has become an imperative system to detect various security breaches. Until today, researchers face the problem of building reliable and effective IDSs that can handle numerous attacks with changing patterns. This paper deals with feed-forward neural network (FNN) training problems using the application of a recently invented meta-heuristic optimization algorithm locust swarm optimization (LSO) for the first time. FNN is combined with LSO (FNN-LSO) to build an advanced detection system and improve the performance of IDS. Our method is applied to a series of experiments to study the capability and performance of the proposed approach. Experimental studies began by using intrusion detection evaluation data, namely, NSL-KDD and UNSW-NB15, to benchmark the performance of the proposed approach. The most common evolutionary trainers, namely, particle swarm optimizer PSO-based trainer and genetic algorithm GA-based trainer, were implemented to verify the results. Compared with existing methods in the literature, our proposed approach provides to be more accurate to be an alternative solution for IDS. The experimental results show that our training algorithm not only attained a very good performance in terms of speed convergence but also achieved reliability due to the reduced likelihood of being trapped in local minima. Furthermore, our proposed model improves the detection rate.

A multilayer piezoelectric actuator, with dimension of 10 mm×10 mm×60 mm, which can output a tensile displacement directly by exploring the d31 effect of piezoelectrics, was fabricated using soft Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) ceramics. The performance of the actuator was characterized by a special home-made experimental setup under electric fields varying from 200 to 1 000 V/mm with the preload varying from -150 to 100 N at room temperature. Results showed that it can output a maximum tensile displacement of 12 μm under unipolar electric field of 1 000 V/mm and preload was independent with generative displacement in the range of testing preload. Additionally, using the actuator, we built a micro loading apparatus, which can be used to test the fracture behavior of brittle materials.

Finding the active sites of suitable metal oxides is a key prerequisite for detecting CH$$_4$$ 4 . The purpose of the paper is to investigate the adsorption of CH$$_4$$ 4 on intrinsic and oxygen-vacancies CuO (111) and (110) surfaces using density functional theory calculations. The results show that CH$$_4$$ 4 has a strong adsorption energy of −0.370 to 0.391 eV at all site on the CuO (110) surface. The adsorption capacity of CH$$_4$$ 4 on CuO (111) surface is weak, ranging from −0.156 to −0.325 eV. In the surface containing oxygen vacancies, the adsorption capacity of CuO surface to CH$$_4$$ 4 is significantly stronger than that of intrinsic CuO surface. The results indicate that CuO (110) has strong adsorption and charge transfer capacity for CH$$_4$$ 4 , which may provide experimental guidance.

An analytical method is presented to study free vibrations of functionally graded material (FGM) cylindrical shells with arbitrary intermediate ring supports. Material properties continuously vary in thickness direction in accordance with the four-parameter power-law distributions in terms of volume fractions of constituents. To establish the final governing equation, the shell is firstly divided into several shell segments according to locations of ring supports. Based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), differential equations about displacements are solved by expanding displacements as exponential functions in axial direction and Fourier series in circumferential direction. Correspondingly, five displacements and five forces at any cross section of segments are further expressed as 10 unknown coefficients for every circumferential mode number. The artificial spring technique is adopted to restrain displacements at boundaries and ring supports, and all segments are assembled to the overall shell through continuity conditions. To test the validity of the developed model, natural frequencies and mode shapes of several homogenous and FGM cylindrical shells with/without ring supports are compared with appropriate ones in the literature or calculated by finite element method (FEM), which demonstrates high accuracy and wide application of the proposed method. Furthermore, effects of ring supports and material parameters are analyzed. The results reveal that restraining radial and/or circumferential displacements at ring supports significantly affects natural frequencies, but mode shapes are mainly affected by radial displacements. In addition, natural frequencies of the FGM shell obviously vary with the power-law exponent, whereas the corresponding mode shapes almost keep unchanged.

We propose an efficient scheme for the dissipative generation of steady-state entanglement of two negatively charged silicon-vacancy (SiV $$^{-}$$ ) centers, which are coupled to two separated photonic crystal cavities, respectively. With the external driving fields to tailor the desired interaction between the Zeeman-split lower orbital branches of the ground states of the SiV $$^{-}$$ centers and the cavity fields, we show that the heavily damped cavities can induce an effective quantum reservoir coupled to the two SiV $$^{-}$$ centers. Based on a form of quantum reservoir engineering, the two SiV $$^{-}$$ centers can be cooled down to an entangled state at stationary state. Our scheme has the distinct feature that the decay of the cavities as resource is utilized for producing the steady-state entanglement, which does not need to exactly prepare the initial state of the system. The present work may open up promising perspectives for realizing quantum networks and quantum information processing with solid-state SiV $$^{-}$$ centers in nanophotonic structures.

Zirconia nanoparticle–reinforced copper matrix composites were successfully fabricated using an in situ oxidation technique with liquid Cu–Zr alloy. Cu–1 wt% Zr alloy was oxidized at liquidus temperature under an oxygen potential–controlled N2 atmosphere to yield 2.2 vol% ZrO2 particles ranging from 1 to 20 nm. TEM observation showed a semi-coherent relationship between the dispersoids (monoclinic zirconia) and Cu matrix, with uniform distribution in the Cu–ZrO2 composite. The formation of fine ZrO2 particles in the copper matrix composite was related to the selective oxidation of Zr and isothermal solidification of Cu at the liquidus temperature of the Cu–Zr alloy. A possible formation mechanism for the ZrO2 particles based on oxygen diffusion is proposed; in this model, O atom diffusion is hindered by the formation of a Cu shell on the ZrO2 particles, thereby inhibiting ZrO2 particle growth. The microhardness of the Cu–2.2 vol% ZrO2 composite was 91 HV and the maximum value of electrical conductivity was 93% IACS.

With the goal of lightweight and strong microwave absorption, polyaniline/aminopropyltriethoxysilane/silicon carbide (PANI/APTES/SiC) nano-composites with hierarchical architecture were fabricated through a facile in situ polymerization method. Herein, the SiC powders were modified with APTES in advance to achieve a more uniform envelope by PANI. The composites with different thicknesses of PANI layer and adjustable dielectric properties can be obtained by altering the PANI ratio. For the optimized sample, the minimum value of reflection loss is − 51.34 dB at 13.92 GHz with a thickness of 1.9 mm and the effective attenuation bandwidth is in a broad range from 12.19 to 17.45 GHz (bandwidth of 5.26 GHz). The outstanding absorption properties are closely related to the suitable impedance matching and the multiple loss mechanisms.

Cu-Zr-Al-(Y, Ag) amorphous alloy ribbons of Cu50Zr42Al8, Cu46Zr47-xAl7Yx(x=2, 5), Cu43Zr42Al8Ag7, and Cu43Zr42Al8Ag5Y2 were prepared using the single roller melt-spinning method. The glass forming ability and non-isothermal crystallization behavior of the amorphous alloys were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in a continuous heating mode. The experimental results show that the glass forming ability and thermal stability of Cu-Zr-Al amorphous alloys are improved by adding minor amounts of Y and Ag, and the effect of Ag on the glass forming ability is more significant than that of Y. Compared to the Cu50Zr42Al8 alloy, the width of the supercooled liquid region of the Cu46Zr47-xAl7Yx(x = 2 and 5) alloys increased by 19 K and 30 K, respectively. The reduced glass transition temperature (Trg) and the parameter γ of the two alloys enhanced separately. Compared to the Cu50Zr42Al8 alloy, the Trg and γ values of both Cu43Zr42Al8Ag7 and Cu43Zr42Al8Ag5Y2 alloys enhanced noticeably up to 0.619, 0.417, and 0.609, 0.412, respectively. The crystallization activation energies of the amorphous alloys calculated by the Kissinger and Flynn Wall Ozawa equations increased with the addition of minor Y and Ag into the Cu50Zr42Al8 alloy. The addition of Y and Ag significantly improved the thermal stability of the Cu50Zr42Al8 amorphous alloy.

Building an intrusion detection system (IDS) has become an increasingly urgent issue for detecting network security breaches in computer and network systems. However, an effective and flexible IDS is imperative. In this paper, a new natural evolutionary algorithm (EA) called multiverse optimizer (MVO) is investigated and combined with an artificial neural network (ANN) to develop advanced detection approaches for an IDS. Under this context, the combination of ANN and EA produce evolutionary neural network (ENN). ENN makes this combination a new improved system for solving problems encountered by ANNs. The main idea of this work is to use an MVO to train a feed forward multilayer artificial neural network (MVO-ANN) to identify new attacks. This approach is applied to NSL-KDD and the new benchmark dataset called UNSW-NB15. In this manner, the effectiveness of our approach on detecting various forms of attack is demonstrated. Our results using UNSW-NB15 is better than those that were obtained using NSL-KDD. Furthermore, the efficacy of our proposed method is confirmed by performing better when compared to other well-known heuristic-based approaches such as practical swarm optimizer and artificial neural network (PSO-ANN).

The Brassica genus encompasses three diploid and three allopolyploid genomes, but a clear understanding of the evolution of agriculturally important traits via polyploidy is lacking. We assembled an allopolyploid Brassica juncea genome by shotgun and single-molecule reads integrated to genomic and genetic maps. We discovered that the A subgenomes of B. juncea and Brassica napus each had independent origins. Results suggested that A subgenomes of B. juncea were of monophyletic origin and evolved into vegetable-use and oil-use subvarieties. Homoeolog expression dominance occurs between subgenomes of allopolyploid B. juncea, in which differentially expressed genes display more selection potential than neutral genes. Homoeolog expression dominance in B. juncea has facilitated selection of glucosinolate and lipid metabolism genes in subvarieties used as vegetables and for oil production. These homoeolog expression dominance relationships among Brassicaceae genomes have contributed to selection response, predicting the directional effects of selection in a polyploid crop genome.

NiAl intermetallic coating was in-situ synthesized by the plasma cladding process. The effect of atomic ratio of Ni to Al atoms 1 (coating 1), 2 (coating 2) and 3 (coating 3) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of plasma clad was studied by combining microstructural analysis and wear-resistant test. The obtained results indicated that the microstructure of the synthesized NiAl coating was compact and uniform in addition to few porosities and the NiAl coating well metallurgically bonded with the substrate. Coating 1 is mainly composed of NiAl and the solid solution γ-(Fe,Ni) phases. Coating 2 contains of NiAl, Ni3Al and γ-(Fe,Ni). Coating 3 is mainly composed of Ni3Al, γ-(Fe,Ni) and NiAl. Coating 3 has excellent wear-resistance property owing to high hardness and low friction coefficient. Ni3Al phase has great influence on wear-resistance property of coating 3. The main wear mechanism of coating 1 is multi-plastic deformation wear and adhesion wear. Grain abrasion is the main wear mechanism of coating 3. The main wear mechanism of coating 2 is grain abrasion and partly adhesive wear.

Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative anaerobic Gram-positive bacterium. It is well adapted to external environments and able to infect both humans and animals. To understand the impacts of ncRNA Rli60 on the adaptability of L. monocytogenes to environmental stresses and biofilm formation, a rli60 deletion strain of L. monocytogenes (LM-Δrli60) was constructed using splicing by overlap extension PCR (SOE-PCR) and homologous recombination and then compared it with wild-type strain L. monocytogenes EGD-e in the aspects of adaptability to environmental stresses by measuring their growth under stresses of different temperatures, and acidic, alkaline, hypertonic and alcoholic conditions, and capability of biofilm formation by using crystal violet staining, as well as the transcriptional levels of genes (gltB and gltC) related to the biofilm formation by real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR). The results showed that (1) the growth of LM-Δrli60 strain was significantly slower under environmental stresses of low temperature (30 °C), high temperature (42 °C), as well as alkaline and alcoholic conditions, (2) the amount of biofilm formed by LM-Δrli60 was attenuated, and (3) the transcriptional levels of gltB and gltC genes at 24 h and 48 h in LM-Δrli60 revealed a significant reduction. Overall, the results confirmed that ncRNA Rli60 plays important roles in regulating the adaptability of L. monocytogenes to environmental stresses and biofilm formation possibly through impacting the expression of gltB and gltC genes.

An efficient method is proposed for the generation and swapping of multi-qubit entangled state in an array of linearly coupled superconducting resonators, each of which is coupled to N superconducting qubits. With the external driving fields to adjust the desired qubit–resonator interaction, we firstly show that the multipartite entangled state of superconducting qubits hosted in two nearest-neighbor interacting resonators can be deterministically realized. Furthermore, by utilizing the produced entangled state, we put forward a protocol for the swapping of quantum entangled state in the coupled resonator array based on measurement, i.e., the multi-particle entangled state can be achieved for the qubits in long-distance separated resonators. The numerical simulation suggests that our scheme is feasible with current circuit QED technology.

Effect of microstructures such as the distribution and shape of carbide and γ′ phase on thermal fatigue property of a superalloy was investigated experimentally. The resistance of thermal fatigue of the studied alloy decreases with the rising upper temperature. For the as-cast alloy, the thermal fatigue crack mostly origins from carbide at low upper temperature and results from oxidation at high upper temperature. The thermal fatigue crack of the heat treated alloy is mainly initiated by the oxidized cavity and then propagates through the join of the oxidized cavity. The orientation of crack propagation and direction of dendrite growth of alloy have the angle of 45°. There is γ′ denuded region near the thermal fatigue crack because of oxidation.

Genome-wide association studies have identified many genes associated with digestive tract neoplasms. However, the published findings have been conflicting. The aim of our study was to evaluate the involvement of two polymorphisms (miR-146a rs2910164, miR-196a2 rs11614913) in digestive tract neoplasms risk and explore how miR-146a and miR-196a2 influence this risk. Systemic research of the PubMed, EBSCO, CBM and VIP databases was performed. The software STATA 12.0 was used to calculate odd ratios and 95 % confidence intervals. There were 14 studies (6,053 cases and 6,527 controls) available for rs2910164 and 15 studies (5,648 cases and 6,607 controls) involved in rs11614913. Rs2910164G>C was statistically significantly associated with digestive tract neoplasms (OR 1.134, 95 % CI 1.076–1.194, P < 0.001). In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, significant association was observed in Asian individuals (OR 1.145, 95 % CI 1.084–1.209, P < 0.001). We found a correlation between rs11614913 and only colorectal cancer (OR 1.325, 95 % CI 1.102–1.594, P = 0.003). This study suggested that digestive tract neoplasms might associate with miR-146a variants, but not miR-196a2 variants.

Silver-decorated titanium dioxide (Ag/TiO2) nanotube (NT) arrays were successfully prepared using a two-step synthesis route comprised of an anodic oxidation procedure followed by photochemical reduction using ultraviolet irradiation. The resulting Ag/TiO2 NT arrays were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and UV-vis diffusion reflectance spectrometry. The characterization results indicated that the silver decoration significantly enhanced the light absorption capability of the TiO2 NT arrays in the visible spectral range. The visible light photocatalytic activity of the subject NT arrays was investigated. The experimental results showed the photocatalytic activity of silver-decorated titanium dioxide Ag/TiO2 NT arrays to be dependent on the size of the silver particles. The improved visible light absorption can be attributed to plasmonic effects induced by particle size phenomenon. The Ag/TiO2 NT arrays exhibit promising application for photocatalytic degradation of dye solutions and pollutants in water using visible irradiation.

Background: Antiangiogenic therapies have been proven effective in cancer treatment. Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) has been functionally implicated in tumour angiogenesis and is an important target of antiangiogenic therapies. The aim of this work was to develop a novel FGF-2 inhibitor for cancer therapy. Methods: Eleven fusion proteins were developed by fusing various truncated extracellular regions of FGFR1 with the Fc region of IgG1. The optimal decoy receptor fusion protein with the highest binding affinity for FGF-2 was identified by an FGF-2-binding assay and its potential antitumour effects were investigated. Results: We obtained a soluble decoy receptor fusion protein with the highest binding activity for FGF-2, named FGF-Trap. Fibroblast growth factor-Trap significantly abolished FGF-2-stimulated activation of FGF signalling as demonstrated by its suppression of FGF-2-mediated phosphorylation of Erk1/2 and Akt, upregulation of cyclins D1 and E and the increase in mRNA levels of vascular endothelial growth factor R1 and R2 (VEGFR1 and VEGFR2). Furthermore, FGF-Trap effectively suppressed FGF-2-induced proliferation and migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in vitro. Most importantly, FGF-Trap potently inhibited tumour growth and angiogenesis in Caki-1 and A549 xenograft models in vivo. Conclusions: Fibroblast growth factor-Trap potently inhibits tumour growth by blocking FGF-2 signalling pathways and could be an effective therapeutic agent for cancer patients.

Opportunistic routing (OR) involves multiple candidate forwarders to relay packets by taking advantage of the broadcast nature and multi-user diversity of the wireless medium. Compared with traditional routing (TR), OR is more suitable for the unreliable wireless link, and can evidently improve the end to end throughput. At present, there are many achievements concerning OR in the single radio wireless network. However, the study of OR in multi-radio wireless network stays the beginning stage. To demonstrate the benefit of OR in multi-radio multi-channel network, we propose a new route metric — multi-channel expected anypath transmission time (MEATT), which exploits the channel diversity and resource of multiple candidate forwarders for OR. Based on the new metric, a distributed algorithm named Channel Aware Opportunistic Routing (CAOR) is proposed. The simulation results demonstrate that MEATT improves 1.14 and 1.53 times of the average throughput than existing expected anypath transmission time (EATT)and metric of interference and channel switching cost (MIC) respectively. The average delay of MEATT is 17% and 40% lower than those of EATT, MIC, respectively.

In order to improve the surface hardness and wear resistance of magnesium, Al-13%Si (mass fraction) alloy coating was deposited on pure magnesium by droplet spraying process. The microstructure was studied by electron probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction. The micro-hardness and wear resistance of coating were investigated in comparison with those of the substrate. It is found that the coating layer is composed of α-Al cellular due to rapid solidification. Formation mechanism of the coating is due to the obstruction of diffusion by in-situ formed Mg2Si in interfacial layer. The coating exhibits higher hardness compared to that of the Mg substrate. As result of its high hardness, the wear resistance of the coating layer is about ten times that of the substrate. The droplet spraying process demonstrates that the magnesium surface can be strengthened by using the existing Al-Si alloys.

Low-temperature germination (LTG) is an important agronomic trait for direct seeding of rice in temperate regions of East Asia. To dissect the genetic control of LTG, we constructed a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross of japonica variety USSR5 and indica variety N22. Three putative QTL involved in LTG were detected and named qLTG-7, qLTG-9 and qLTG-12. They explained 9.5, 12.12 and 7.08 % of the phenotypic variation, respectively, and the alleles from USSR5 enhanced LTG. A set of advanced backcross lines selected for the presence of qLTG-9 (with the biggest contribution of the three QTL), by both linked markers and phenotype, was used to validate qLTG-9 in different generations, years and locations. A near-isogenic line in USSR5 background with a qLTG-9 insertion from N22 had retarded germination under low-temperature conditions. Finally, qLTG-9 was fine mapped between markers L9-25D and ID-1, to a 72.3-kb region in chromosome 9, which in the Nipponbare genome contains five predicted genes. This result provides a springboard for map-based cloning of qLTG-9 and is helpful in understanding the mechanism of seed germination under low-temperature conditions.

Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) plays important roles in the progression of pancreatic cancer. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of IGF1R knockdown on the proliferation, apoptosis and chemosensitivity of pancreatic cancer cells, and explore the possible mechanisms. Pancreatic cancer cells expressing IGF1R shRNA were established, and the cell proliferation, colony formation, and chemosensitivity to gemcitabine were examined in vitro. The activation of AKT and NF-κB was detected by Western blot analysis and luciferase assay, respectively. Xenograft mice models were established to evaluate the in vivo anti-tumor effects of IGF1R knockdown. IGF1R knockdown notably inhibited pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and colony formation, induced apoptosis, and inhibited xenograft tumor growth. Moreover, IGF1R knockdown significantly enhanced chemosensitivity to gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer cells, and this was correlated with the inhibition of PI3K/AKT and NF-κB pathways. IGF1R knockdown suppresses tumor growth and enhances chemosensitivity in pancreatic cancer via the inhibition of PI3K/AKT and NF-κB pathways, and is a promising approach to overcome the chemoresistance of pancreatic cancer.

Cooperative communication for wireless networks has gained a lot of recent interest due to its ability to mitigate fading with exploration of spatial diversity. In this paper, we study a joint optimization problem of jointly considering transmission mode selection, relay assignment and power allocation to maximize the capacity of the network through cooperative wireless communications. This problem is much more challenging than relay assignment considered in literature work which simply targets to maximize the transmission capacity for a single transmission pair. We formulate the problem as a variation of the maximum weight matching problem where the weight is a function over power values which must meet power constraints (VMWMC). Although VMWMC is a non-convex problem whose complexity increases exponentially with the number of relay nodes, we show that the duality gap of VMWMC is virtual zero. Based on this result, we propose a solution using Lagrange dual decomposition to reduce the computation complexity. We do simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed solution. The results show that our solution can achieve maximum network capacity with much less computation time compared with exhaustive search, and our solution outperforms existing sub-optimal solutions that can only achieve much lower network capacity.

Improving grain-quality is an important goal in rice breeding programs. One vital step is to find major quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for quality related traits and then investigate the relationships among them. We crossed ‘N22’, an indica variety with good appearance but low grain weight, to a japonica variety, ‘Nanjing35’, with superior grain yield but poor appearance. This enabled us to construct an F2 population and a set of backcross inbred lines (BILs) for QTL-mapping for the traits related grain appearance. In all, 37 QTLs were identified for grain length (GL), grain width (GW), grain thickness (GT), thousand-grain weight (TGW), and the percentage of grains with chalkiness (PGWC). Of these, 17 QTLs detected from 184 plants in the F2 population explained 4.97–27.26 % of the phenotypic variance, another 20 QTLs were identified using BILs from 2009 to 2010. Quantitative trait loci for major effects were detected in different populations and across years. A new QTL hot spot (marker interval RM504–RM520) was found on Chromosome 3, which harbored QTLs for GL, GW, GT, and TGW. Among our five examined traits, grain shape was significantly correlated with TGW and PGWC. The PGWC values of two heavier grains BILs, L93, and L145 are much lower than Nanjiing35, the analysis of genotype showed that this greater weight may due to the locus for GL occurring within RM504–RM520 on Chromosome 3. Therefore, those two lines will allow us to develop a long-grain high-yield rice variety with less chalkiness.

A previously constructed introgression lines (ILs) population including 239 lines was used to evaluate the cold-tolerant ability. The ILs with strong cold tolerance which were identified in the present study were used for further cytological and microsatellite (SSR) marker analyses. The results showed that the IL5243 and IL5335 had strong cold-tolerant ability. Cytological analysis showed that the rate of pollen mother cells (PMCs) with normal meiotic behavior in the IL5243 and IL5335 was to 89.93 and 90.22 %, respectively, and finally formed normal mature pollen. And meanwhile, the low frequency of abnormal chromosome behavior was observed in the IL5243 and IL5335, such as univalent, 8-shape bivalent, multivalent at diakinesis. At anaphase I, one or two lagging chromosomes were observed in some PMCs (3.95–5.15 %). The results of SSR marker analysis further confirmed that partial alien DNA of common wild rice has been transferred into the IL5243 and IL5335. These results implied that the IL5243 and IL5335 might be excellent bridging germplasm for exploring and utilizing the cold-tolerant gene of common wild rice. In addition, IL5243 and IL5335 would provide a better experimental system for understanding some epigenetic phenomenon induced by alien gene introgression.

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced by the colonic bacterial fermentation of dietary fiber contribute a significant proportion of daily energy requirement. Furthermore, these compounds are modulators of macrophage function and potential targets for the development of new drugs. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of three types of SCFAs (sodium acetate (NaAc), sodium propionate (NaP), and sodium butyrate (NaB)) on the production of NO and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and proinflammatory and antiinflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin (IL-1, IL-6, and IL-10)) and to observe the effect of NaAc on inhibiting lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced NF-κB activation in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. The results show that three types of SCFAs (acetate, propionate, and butyrate) reduced the production of proinflammatory factors, including TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, and NO, and inhibited the vitality of iNOS. Meanwhile, SCFAs enhanced the production of antiinflammatory cytokine IL-10 in lower concentrations (1-1,200 μmol/L). Like NaB, NaAC inhibited LPS-induced NF-κB activation. These results may hold promise on the role that SCFAs have on the prevention and treatment of various inflammatory conditions.

Although several features of apoptosis and autophagy have been reported in the larval organs of Lepidoptera during metamorphosis, solid experimental evidence for autophagy is still lacking. Moreover, the role of the two processes and the nature of their relationship are still cryptic. In this study, we perform a cellular, biochemical and molecular analysis of the degeneration process that occurs in the larval midgut of Bombyx mori during larval-adult transformation, with the aim to analyze autophagy and apoptosis in cells that die under physiological conditions. We demonstrate that larval midgut degradation is due to the concerted action of the two mechanisms, which occur at different times and have different functions. Autophagy is activated from the wandering stage and reaches a high level of activity during the spinning and prepupal stages, as demonstrated by specific autophagic markers. Our data show that the process of autophagy can recycle molecules from the degenerating cells and supply nutrients to the animal during the non-feeding period. Apoptosis intervenes later. In fact, although genes encoding caspases are transcribed at the end of the larval period, the activity of these proteases is not appreciable until the second day of spinning and apoptotic features are observable from prepupal phase. The abundance of apoptotic features during the pupal phase, when the majority of the cells die, indicates that apoptosis is actually responsible for cell death and for the disappearance of larval midgut cells.

The distribution, potential ecological hazards, and homologous relativity of heavy metals in the water-level fluctuating zone (WLFZ) of the Yangtze River within the Wanzhou Section (YRWS) were investigated. The heavy metal content (Cd, Cu, Cr, and Ni) of the surface soil was analysed via atomic absorption spectroscopy. The potential ecological hazards of the heavy metals in the WLFZ soil of YRWS were also evaluated using the classical Lars Hakanson potential ecological risk index method, and the relevance of the heavy metals in the soil was investigated. The average Cd, Cr, Cu, and Ni concentrations were 2.14, 35.43, 18.47, and 34.52 mg/kg, respectively. The Cd and Ni contents in the soil exceeded the reference values in China by about 28.6- and 1.1-fold, respectively. Correlation analysis shows a highly significant correlation between Cd and Cr, indicating that their sources were the same. The major pollutant was Cd, which reached a very strong ecological hazard level. The potential ecological risk individual coefficients of the four heavy metals were ranked as follows: Cd (802.61) > Cu (4.43) > Ni (4.15) > Cr (1.23). The risk levels in the different regions were ranked as follows: Zhuxi River > mainstream > Mixi valley. The potential ecological risk in the WLFZ within the Zhuxi River was the highest among the regions and poses a certain health risk.

Following publication of this article, the authors have corrected 426 chimeric scaffolds in this genome (total scaffold number 10,684). The genome assembly has now been improved as V1.5, and the updated genome assembly is available to be downloaded from http://brassicadb.org/brad/datasets/pub/Genomes/Brassica_juncea/V1.5/ .

The intrachromosomal positions of the two grain dormancy quantitative trait loci (QTL) qSdn-1 (chromosome 1) and qSdn-5 (chromosome 5) were obtained from the segregation analysis of the advanced backcross populations derived from the cross between rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars N22 (indica) and Nanjing35 (japonica). Marker-assisted selection (MAS) was applied to select derivatives carrying one or both of qSdn-1 and qSdn-5 in a genetic background which was nearly isogenic to Nanjing35. An analysis of dormancy in the BC4F2 population allowed qSdn-1 to be located between the simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers RM11669 and RM1216; the QTL explained 24.58% of the overall phenotypic variation and the most closely linked marker was RM11694. qSdn-5 was mapped between RM480 and RM3664, and explained 17.58% of the overall phenotypic variation. The SSR locus RM19080 mapped within 0.4 cM of qSdn-5. No epistasis was observed between qSdn-1 and qSdn-5. The mean germination rates of lines containing qSdn-1, qSdn-5 and both qSdn-1 and qSdn-5 were 7.9, 11.1 and 6.1%, respectively, whereas that of the check line lacking both QTL was 86.3%. The SSR loci linked most tightly to qSdn-1 and qSdn-5 are suitable for MAS for reduced pre-harvest sprouting in rice. The dormancy of both qSdn-1 and qSdn-5 could be readily broken by a 7-day post-harvest treatment at 50°C.

Rice seed dormancy is an important trait related to the preharvest sprouting resistance of rice and is controlled by a polygene network. To identify the genes involved in this process, transcriptome analysis was applied to strong seed dormancy indica cultivar N22 and its weak dormancy mutant Q4646. The results showed that 280 genes were significantly upregulated and 244 genes significantly downregulated in the seed of Q4646 as compared to N22 during 25 to 28 days after heading. These genes were mainly involved in stress response, C-compound metabolism, plant development, DNA processing, and lipid metabolism. Some of these genes were colocalized with several reported dormancy QTLs, suggesting that they are possibly candidate genes underlying rice seed dormancy. Our work provides important clues for future effort to clone seed dormant genes in rice.

This Review describes the pathways that are used to insert newly synthesized proteins into the cytoplasmic membranes of bacteria, and provides insight into the function of two of the evolutionarily conserved translocases that catalyse this process. These highly sophisticated translocases are responsible for decoding the topogenic sequences within membrane proteins that direct membrane protein insertion and orientation. The role of the Sec and YidC translocases in the folding of bacterial membrane proteins is also highlighted.

Objective To observe the clinical efficacy of electroacupuncture andrehabilitation exercises in the treatment of cerebral infarction.

Using a new tortoise coordinate transformation, the Hawking radiation of the acoustic black hole was discussed by studying the Klein–Gordon equation of scalar particles in the curve space-time. It was found that the Hawking temperature is connected with time and position on the event horizon.