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Summary: The multimedia contents shared on social network reveal public sentimental attitudes toward specific events. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct sentiment analysis automatically on abundant multimedia data posted by the public for real‐world applications. However, approaches to single‐modal sentiment analysis neglect the internal connections between textual and visual contents, and current multimodal methods fail to exploit the multilevel semantic relations of heterogeneous features. In this article, the various syncretic co‐attention network is proposed to excavate the intricate multilevel corresponding relations between multimodal data, and combine the unique information of each modality for integrated complementary sentiment classification. Specifically, a multilevel co‐attention module is constructed to explore localized correspondences between each image region and each text word, and holistic correspondences between global visual information and context‐based textual semantics. Then, all the single‐modal features can be fused from different levels, respectively. Except for fused multimodal features, our proposed VSCN also considers unique information of each modality simultaneously and integrates them into an end‐to‐end framework for sentiment analysis. The superior results of experiments on three constructed real‐world datasets and a benchmark dataset of Visual Sentiment Ontology (VSO) prove the effectiveness of our proposed VSCN. Especially qualitative analyses are given for deep explaining of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Integrated Multi‐satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement mission (IMERG) aims to deliver the "best" precipitation estimation from space and has attracted much attention. The Version 05 of IMERG products including the near‐real‐time "Early" and "Late" run products (IMERG‐E and IMERG‐L, respectively), and the post‐real‐time "Final" run IMERG product (IMERG‐F) are assessed at both national and basin scales against gauge observations over Mainland China for a 4‐year period (from April 2014 to March 2018). As control products for comparison, their predecessor Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multi‐satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) products (i.e., TMPA‐RT and TMPA‐V7) are also employed. Components analysis confirms the best performance of IMERG‐F among the five SPEs in three different categories. All five SPEs feature increasing bias and root mean square difference (RMSD) with increasing daily gauge total precipitation, and such issue is less pronounced for IMERG‐F—as evidenced by the lowest bias and RMSD across all precipitation rates. Besides, compared to TMPA, IMERG products exhibit better accuracy in detecting real precipitation evens, especially for light‐to‐medium rain (<60 mm/day), but they do not demonstrate significant improvement in the assessment of severe over/underestimation. In the basin‐scale comparison, all five SPEs catch the key variation feature of basin‐averaged precipitation time series (except TMPA‐RT over Continental River Basin). Overall, IMERG‐F demonstrates the best performance over all nine basins despite the slight overestimation, followed by TMPA‐V7. IMERG‐E and IMERG‐L show performance close to or even better than TMPA‐V7 in terms of the correlation coefficient and RMSD. Key Points: Both near‐real‐time and post‐real time TMPA and IMERG products were evaluated and compared over the Mainland ChinaIMERG‐F exhibits slight overestimation but perform best in three different categoriesIn the basin‐scale comparison, IMERG‐F outperforms TMPA‐V7, with IMERG‐E and IMERG‐L show performance close to or even better than TMPA‐V7 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scene graph provides a powerful intermediate knowledge structure for various visual tasks, including semantic image retrieval, image captioning, and visual question answering. In this paper, the task of predicting a scene graph for an image is formulated as two connected problems, ie, recognizing the relationship triplets, structured as , and constructing the scene graph from the recognized relationship triplets. For relationship triplet recognition, we develop a novel hierarchical recurrent neural network with visual attention mechanism. This model is composed of two attention‐based recurrent neural networks in a hierarchical organization. The first network generates a topic vector for each relationship triplet, whereas the second network predicts each word in that relationship triplet given the topic vector. This approach successfully captures the compositional structure and contextual dependency of an image and the relationship triplets describing its scene. For scene graph construction, an entity localization approach to determine the graph structure is presented with the assistance of available attention information. Then, the procedures for automatically converting the generated relationship triplets into a scene graph are clarified through an algorithm. Extensive experimental results on two widely used data sets verify the feasibility of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Core Ideas: Winter wheat hydrological growth seasons were used for the first time.A fixed root density distribution function was unsuitable for winter wheat.How to quantify winter wheat growth at its optimal state was a key.Daily CGWR for different hydrological growing seasons were estimated by a piecewise function. For winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) that grows during the rainless season, the contribution of groundwater to the root zone (CGWR) is an important water source for growth. Accurately estimating the CGWR is important for making decisions on irrigation and discharge for winter wheat fields and preventing water pollution. Because winter wheat slows and even stops root growth over winter, so the fixed root density distribution function that is suitable for soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] may not suit winter wheat calculations. Therefore, when estimating the CGWR of winter wheat with the numerical model HYDRUS‐1D, the root density distribution function should first be determined from two types: fixed or piecewise root density distribution functions. Based on field observations and local weather data for 2004–2005 and 2005–2006, HYDRUS‐1D was evaluated with different root density distribution functions by comparing simulated and measured root zone soil water contents. The evaluated model with the most suitable distribution function was used to estimate the daily CGWR for six winter wheat hydrological growth seasons. For all seasons, winter wheat growth was assumed to be at its optimal state. The main results were: (i) a piecewise root density distribution function was the most suitable for winter wheat; (ii) simulated seasonal CGWRs were 154, 128, and 136 mm in the dry, normal, and wet seasons, respectively; and (iii) the CGWR for winter wheat transpiration was about 58, 47, and 69% of the total in dry, normal, and wet seasons, respectively. Overall, we concluded that accurate description of the root density distribution was helpful to estimate the CGWR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple integrins have been implicated in modulating renal function. Modulation of integrin function can lead to pathophysiological processes associated with diabetic nephropathy such as alterations in the glomerular filtration barrier and kidney fibrosis. The complexity of these pathophysiological changes implies that multiple integrin subtypes might need to be targeted to ameliorate the progression of renal disease. To address this hypothesis, we investigated the effects of MK-0429, a compound that was originally developed as an αv β3 inhibitor for the treatment of osteoporosis, on renal function and fibrosis. We demonstrated that MK-0429 is an equipotent pan-inhibitor of multiple av integrins. MK-0429 dose-dependently inhibited podocyte motility and also suppressed TGF- β-induced fibrosis marker gene expression in kidney fibroblasts. Moreover, in the obese ZSF1 rat model of diabetic nephropathy, chronic treatment with MK-0429 resulted in significant reduction in proteinuria, kidney fibrosis, and collagen accumulation. In summary, our results suggest that inhibition of multiple integrin subtypes might lead to meaningful impact on proteinuria and renal fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Biocontrol is a promising strategy in the control of rice blast disease. In the present study, we isolated and characterized a novel antagonist to the pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae from rice endophytic actinomycetes. RESULTS Out of 482 endophytic actinomycetes isolated from rice blast infected and healthy rice, Streptomyces endus OsiSh-2 exhibited remarkable in vitro antagonistic activity. Scanning electron microscopy observations of M. oryzae treated by OsiSh-2 revealed significant morphological alterations in hyphae. In 2-year field tests, the spraying of OsiSh-2 spore solution (107 spores mL−1) is capable of reducing rice blast disease severity by 59.64%. In addition, a fermentation broth of OsiSh-2 and its cell-free filtrates could inhibit the growth of M. oryzae, suggesting the presence of active enzymes and secondary metabolites. OsiSh-2 tested positive for polyketide synthase-I and nonribosomal peptide synthetase genes and can produce cellulase, protease, gelatinase, siderophore, indole-3-acetic acid and 1-amino-cyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase. A preliminary separation indicated that the methanol extract of OsiSh-2 could suppress the growth of pathogens. The major active component was identified as nigericin. CONCLUSION Endophytic S. endus OsiSh-2 has potential as a biocontrol agent against rice blast in agriculture. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Bariatric surgery induces weight loss and improvement of insulin resistance; one aspect of both is an amelioration of hepatic steatosis. This study was undertaken to assess the changes in the hepatic lipidome after duodenal-jejunal bypass (DJB) surgery.Methods: A DJB surgical model was developed and characterized in diet-induced obese mice. In comparison with sham-operated mice, an unbiased lipidomic profiling of hepatic lipids was performed together with measurements of gene expression within key pathways of hepatic lipid metabolism.Results: In the liver of DJB mice, a dramatic reduction (by 77%) in hepatic triacylglycerols was observed. Global lipidomic profiling identified marked decreases of triacylglycerols comprised of medium length fatty acids and with low double bond content. Specific diacylglycerol species were also among the most dramatic decreases in hepatic lipids, whereas lysophosphatidic acids and phosphatidic acids were increased. Expression of fatty acid transporter and lipogenic genes was down-regulated.Conclusions: From in-depth analysis of hepatic lipid composition, specific lipid intermediates were identified that are preferentially changed following DJB surgery. These changes were most likely due to DJB-induced weight loss, and only further studies will be able to distinguish weight loss-dependent from weight loss-independent changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There can be marked variations in soil hydraulic properties in a soil vertical profile from the soil surface to the base of the root zone. Many existing two-layer soil moisture ( TLSM) models cannot well describe typical stratified soil profiles. A modified TLSM model is presented in this study. The modified model results and those from two existing models are compared with field observations. The modified TLSM model had the best agreement with the field observations. In both the surface layer and the root zone layer, the root mean square errors of soil moisture estimated by the modified model were smaller than those for the other models. The parameters in the modified TLSM model are relatively easy to determine. The modified TLSM model offers clear advantages over current TLSM models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, birch wood chips were treated in one-step ball milling (BM) hydrolysis with dilute citric acid and fungus Penicillium simplicissimum at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. An efficient conversion process for the production of fermentable sugars from woody biomasses using wet BM system was developed, in which wood lignocellulose was hydrolyzed into reducing sugars with the total yield of 245.3 mg/g wood. The concentrations of several major substances in the hydrolyzate were discussed in detail. The yields of the monomeric sugars were notably increased in the presence of fungus P. simplicissimum. Corresponding structure transformations before and after milling were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, UV spectroscopy, transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and environmental scanning electron microscopy clearly indicated that this combined treatment could be attributed to the crystalline and chemical structure changes of wood lignocellulose during BM. When compared with traditional method of BM, this work showed a more simple, novel, and environmental friendly way in mechanochemical treatment of lignocellulosic biomass, especially woody biomass. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When hydrology model parameters are determined, a traditional data assimilation method (such as Kalman filter) and a hydrology model can estimate the root zone soil water with uncertain state variables (such as initial soil water content). The simulated result can be quite good. However, when a key soil hydraulic property, such as the saturated hydraulic conductivity, is overestimated or underestimated, the traditional soil water assimilation process will produce a persistent bias in its predictions. In this paper, we present and demonstrate a new multi-scale assimilation method by combining the direct insertion assimilation method, particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm and Richards equation. We study the possibility of estimating root zone soil water with a multi-scale assimilation method by using observed in situ data from the Wudaogou experiment station, Huaihe River Basin, China. The results indicate there is a persistent bias between simulated and observed values when the direct insertion assimilation surface soil water content is used to estimate root zone soil water contents. Using a multi-scale assimilation method (PSO algorithm and direct insertion assimilation) and an assumed bottom boundary condition, the results show some obvious improvement, but the root mean square error is still relatively large. When the bottom boundary condition is similar to the actual situation, the multi-scale assimilation method can well represent the root zone soil water content. The results indicate that the method is useful in estimating root zone soil water when available soil water data are limited to the surface layer and the initial soil water content even when the soil hydraulic conductivities are uncertain. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates the impact of biological soil crusts (BSCs) formation and revegetation programme on soil hydrological processes in the Shapotou region in China. It states that HYDRUS-ID model simulations and field measurements were used to examine the impact. It mentions that the study found that BSCs formation changes the patterns of soil water storage and increases its moisture content. Moreover, the changes are evident in plant community succession.

The cover image, by Ting Xu et al., is based on the Research Article Isolation and evaluation of endophytic Streptomyces endus OsiSh-2 with potential application for biocontrol of rice blast disease, DOI: . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWe investigated the role of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways in hypoxic neuronal injury using primary cultures from murine cerebral cortex. Hypoxia caused the death of ∼50% of neurons at 16 h and ∼65% of neurons at 24 h. This was associated with phospho-activation of the MAPK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) kinase MEK1/2 and its downstream target ERK1/2, but not p38 MAPK or c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), as detected by western blotting. The MEK1/2 inhibitor, PD98059, increased neuronal death in hypoxic cultures, suggesting that MEK1/2 promotes neuronal survival, whereas the p38 inhibitors, SB202190 and SB203580, had no effect. To identify downstream effects of ERK1/2 that might regulate hypoxic neuronal death, we measured hypoxia-induced phosphorylation of three ERK1/2 targets: the 90-kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase (RSK), the transcription factor ELK1, and the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family protein Bad. We observed increased abundance of inactivated (phospho-)Bad, but no change in phospho-RSK or phospho-ELK1. Moreover, the MEK inhibitor PD98059 reduced phospho-inactivation of Bad in hypoxic cultures. These findings suggest that a cell-survival program involving phospho-activation of MEK1/2 and ERK1/2 and inactivation of Bad is mobilized in hypoxic neurons, and may help to regulate neuronal fate following hypoxic-ischemic injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]