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[Introduction] In the low-voltage distribution network, the residual current protection device, as an important guarantee of electricity safety, can reduce the harm caused by the leakage fault of electrical appliances and prevent human electrocution accidents. The current residual current protection device relies on the residual current signal size as the basis for the action of the protection mechanism, but has no function to identify the electrocution characteristics. To address this problem, this paper proposes a method for electrocution signal feature extraction and electrocution diagnosis in low-voltage distribution networks based on wavelet decomposition and denoising, as well as GRU. [Method] In this paper, the residual currents collected from electrocution experiments were pre-processed by downsampling and discrete wavelet denoising; The time and frequency domain electrocution characteristic parameters of the residual currents were extracted by the sliding window method, and the Fourier transform was used to extract the characteristic parameters of residual currents to the second harmonic amplitude. All the extracted feature parameters were used to form a high-dimensional feature space vector; which was subject to dimensionality reduction using the method of principal component analysis to obtain a new set of three-dimensional feature vectors. A diagnostic model for electrocution was established, and the three-dimensional feature vectors representing electrocution features were input into the model. Comparison experiments were conducted on electrocution signals using five different electrocution diagnostic models, such as recurrent gated network (GRU). [Result] The experimental results show that the convergence of the GRU-based electrocution diagnosis model is good, and the recognition rate reaches 98.33%. [Conclusion] The method provides new insights for the research and development of a new generation of residual current protection devices and offers an effective guarantee for electrical safety.

Alginate lyases can fully degrade alginate into various size-defined unsaturated oligosaccharide products by β-elimination. Here, we identified the bifunctional endolytic alginate lyase Aly35 from the marine bacterium Vibrio sp. Strain H204. The enzyme Aly35 is classified into the polysaccharide lyase 7 superfamily and contains two alginate lyase catalytic domains. The relationship and function of the two lyase domains are not well known. Thus, the full-length recombinant enzyme and its truncated proteins Aly35-CD1 (catalytic domain 1), Aly35-CD2 (catalytic domain 2 domain) were constructed. The three enzymes showed similar biochemical characteristics and exhibited temperature and pH stability. Further research showed that Aly35 and Aly35-CD2 can efficiently degrade alginate, polymannuronate (PM) and polyguluronate (PG) into a series of unsaturated oligosaccharides, while Aly35-CD1 exhibits greater PM-degrading activity than that of Aly35-CD2 but can not degraded PG efficiently. The results suggest that the domain (Trp295-His582) is critical for PG-degrading activity, the domain has (Leu53-Lys286) higher PM-degrading activity, both catalytic domains together confer increased alginate (including M-blocks and G blocks)-degrading activity. The enzyme Aly35 and its truncations Aly35-CD1 and Aly35-CD2 will be useful tools for structural analyses and for preparing bioactive oligosaccharides, especially Aly35-CD1 can be used to prepare G unit–rich oligosaccharides from alginate.

Abstract Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been implicated in tumorigenesis and progression of various cancers. However, the underlying mechanisms of circRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been fully elucidated. Herein, a new oncogenic circRNA, hsa_circ_0070039 (circNUP54), was identified to be significantly upregulated in HCC through circRNA sequencing. As verified in 68 HCC samples, circNUP54 overexpression was correlated with aggressive cancerous behaviors and poor outcomes. Moreover, the function experiments showed that knockdown of circNUP54 inhibited the malignant progression of HCC in vitro and in vivo, whereas overexpression of circNUP54 had the opposite role. Mechanistic investigations carried out by RNA pull-down, RNA immunoprecipitation, and immunofluorescence revealed that circNUP54 interacted with the RNA-binding protein Hu-antigen R (HuR) and promoted its cytoplasmic export. The cytoplasmic accumulation of HuR stabilized the downstream BIRC3 mRNA through its binding to the 3′ UTR region. Consequently, the encoded protein of BIRC3, cellular inhibitor of apoptosis 2 (cIAP2), proceeded to activate the NF-κB signal pathway and ultimately contributed to HCC progression. In addition, depletion of BIRC3 rescued the pro-tumorigenic effect of circNUP54 on HCC cells. Overall, this study demonstrated that circNUP54 facilitates HCC progression via regulating the HuR/BIRC3/NF-κB axis, which may serve as a promising therapeutic target for HCC treatment.

Abstract Background Forkhead-box protein P1 (FOXP1) has been proposed to have both oncogenic and tumor-suppressive properties, depending on tumor heterogeneity. However, the role of FOXP1 in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) has not been previously reported. Methods Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect FOXP1 expression in ICC and normal liver tissues. The relationship between FOXP1 levels and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with ICC was evaluated. Finally, in vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted to examine the regulatory role of FOXP1 in ICC cells. Results FOXP1 was significantly downregulated in the ICC compared to their peritumoral tissues (p

A large number of fully normalized associated Legendre function (fnALF) calculations are required to compute Earth’s gravity field elements using ultra high-order gravity field coefficient models. In the surveying and mapping industry, researchers typically rely on CPU-based systems for these calculations, which leads to limitations in execution speed and power efficiency. Although modern CPUs improve instruction execution efficiency through instruction-level parallelism, the constraints of a shared memory architecture impose further limitations on the execution speed and power efficiency. This results in exponential increases in computation time as demand rises alongside high power consumption. In this article, we present a new computational implementation of an fnALF based on the ZYNQ platform. We design a task-parallel “pipeline” architecture which converts the original serial logic into a more efficient hardware implementation, and we utilize a redundant calculation layer to handle repetitive coefficient computations separately. The experimental results demonstrate that our system achieved accurate and rapid calculations. Under the only one geocentric residual latitude condition, we measured the computation times for spherical harmonic coefficient degrees of 360, 720, and 1080 to be 0.155922 s, 0.520950 s, and 1.401609 s, respectively. In the case of the multiple geocentric residual latitudes condition, our design generally yielded efficiency gains of over three times those of MATLAB R2020b implementation. Additionally, our calculated results were used to determine the geoid height in the field with an error of less than ±0.1m, confirming the reliability of our computations.

Three representative purple fleshed sweet potato varieties, Taizishu NO.1, Violet and Vietnamese purple sweet potato were selected as materials. Sensory evaluation, moisture content, starch content, sugar content were explored after baking, steaming and microwave with Pushu NO.32 as the control. Combining with correlation analysis and partial least squares regression (PLSR), the correlations of consumer sensory evaluation and physicochemical property were explored. The sensory evaluation results showed that, Taizishu No.1 obtained the highest score. The sweetness and texture were the driving attributes which could determine consumer preference. The cooking method significantly affected the sensory quality of purple sweet potato. Moisture and starch content of purple sweet potato were decreased after cooking while content of reducing sugar and total sugar were increased. Moreover, sucrose and maltose content increased, while glucose and fructose showed different changes with different varieties and cooking methods. Steaming facilitated water retention and roasting was good for high temperature saccharification during ripening. The correlation analysis showed that the sensory evaluation score was significantly positively correlated with water content and reducing sugar (fructose and glucose) (P

In the context of vigorous development of new energy sources, optimizing the arrangement of phase measurement units (PMUs) is crucial to realize real-time data monitoring for distribution network (DN) condition assessment. Firstly, we propose a multi-objective model for optimal PMU placements. Secondly, we classified the buses based on the Jacobi matrix and the grid structure, and calculated the unobservable risk probability of the system by estimating the state of the PMUs installed on the buses, so as to obtain the observability of the system. Finally, two simulations of PMU placements in the DN implementing the IEEE39 bus are designed and the placement schemes are determined through solving the non-dominated Pareto solution sets by NSGA-II. The verifications show that the model reduces the placement number of PMUs, resulting in a cost reduction of 35.4% and an unobservable risk indicator δ reduction of 13.8%, and achieves an optimal placement of PMUs.

Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a desmoplastic and hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME), resulting in poor prognosis and treatment resistance. This study aimed to construct a novel prognostic classifier to investigate the degree of hypoxia and immune profiles in HCC. Patients with HCC from public databases were classified into three HIF-1α clusters according to 16 reported HIF-1α-related genes. Then, an HIF-1α score system was constructed based on nine overlapping differentially expressed genes (ODEGs) among various HIF-1α clusters. Then, an HIF-1α score system was constructed based on nine overlapping differentially expressed genes (ODEGs) among various HIF-1α cluster. Besides, oncologic pathways and immune infiltration profiles were also investigated among HCCs with different HIF-1α scores. The reliable predictive abilities of the HIF-1α score system for patients’ survival were impressively suggested by the significant C-indexes and ROC analysis. All enrolled tumors were divided into high-, medium-, and low-HIF-1α score groups. Compared with the other two groups, the high HIF-1α score group exhibited highest enrichment of multiple oncogenic pathways, such as TNF-α signaling via NF-кB, IL6-JAK-STAT3 signaling, mTORC1 signaling, MYC signaling, Hedgehog signaling. Notably, higher HIF-1α scores correlated with advanced immunosuppressive TME. Besides, tumors with high HIF-1α scores represented high non-response rate to transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). In conclusion, we developed a novel HIF-1α score system to distinguish HCC with different degree of hypoxia and immune infiltration profiles.

Introduction: Beneficial microorganisms play essential roles in plant growth and induced systemic resistance (ISR) by releasing signaling molecules. Our previous study obtained the crude extract from beneficial endophyte Paecilomyces variotii, termed ZNC (ZhiNengCong), which significantly enhanced plant resistance to pathogen even at 100 ng/ml. However, the immunoreactive components of ZNC remain unclear. Here, we further identified one of the immunoreactive components of ZNC is a nucleoside 2′-deoxyguanosine (2-dG). Objectives: This paper intends to reveal the molecular mechanism of microbial-derived 2′-deoxyguanosine (2-dG) in activating plant immunity, and the role of plant-derived 2-dG in plant immunity. Methods: The components of ZNC were separated using a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and 2-dG is identified using a HPLC–mass spectrometry system (LC-MS). Transcriptome analysis and genetic experiments were used to reveal the immune signaling pathway dependent on 2-dG activation of plant immunity. Results: This study identified 2′-deoxyguanosine (2-dG) as one of the immunoreactive components from ZNC. And 2-dG significantly enhanced plant pathogen resistance even at 10 ng/ml (37.42 nM). Furthermore, 2-dG-induced resistance depends on NPR1, pattern-recognition receptors/coreceptors, ATP receptor P2K1 (DORN1), ethylene signaling but not salicylic acid accumulation. In addition, we identified Arabidopsis VENOSA4 (VEN4) was involved in 2-dG biosynthesis and could convert dGTP to 2-dG, and vne4 mutant plants were more susceptible to pathogens. Conclusion: In summary, microbial-derived 2-dG may act as a novel immune signaling molecule involved in plant-microorganism interactions, and VEN4 is 2-dG biosynthesis gene and plays a key role in plant immunity.

Based on the data associated with cores, sidewall cores, casting thin sections, reservoir physical properties, conventional logging and imaging logging, the classification schemes of vertical reservoir units are proposed for the two types of Archaeozoic buried hills (exposed and covered ones) in the Bozhong Sag, Bohai Bay Basin. The geological characteristics and storage spaces of these reservoir units are described, and their identification markers in conventional and imaging log curves are established. The Archaeozoic metamorphic buried hills can be vertically classified into two primary reservoir units: weathering crust and inner buried hill. The weathering crust contains four secondary units, i.e., the clay zone, weathered glutenite zone, leached zone, disaggregation zone; and the interiors contain two secondary units, i.e., interior fracture zone and tight zone. In particular, the inner fracture zone was further divided into cataclasite belts and dense-fracture belts. It is proposed that the favorable reservoirs of exposed Archaeozoic metamorphic buried hills are mainly developed in four parts including weathered glutenite zone, leached zone, disintegration zone superposed with the cataclasite belt and the cataclasite belt of inner fracture zone, and are controlled by both weathering and tectonic actions. Favorable reservoirs in covered Archaeozoic metamorphic buried hills are mainly developed in the weathering crust superposed with the cataclasite belts and the cataclasite belts of inner fracture zone, and are mainly controlled by tectonic actions.

Abstract Salt stress causes osmotic stress, ion toxicity and oxidative stress, inducing the accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA) and excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, which further damage cell structure and inhibit the development of roots in plants. Previous study showed that vitamin B6 (VB6) plays a role in plant responses to salt stress, however, the regulatory relationship between ROS, VB6 and ABA under salt stress remains unclear yet in plants. In our study, we found that salt stress-induced ABA accumulation requires ROS production, in addition, salt stress also promoted VB6 (including pyridoxamine (PM), pyridoxal (PL), pyridoxine (PN), and pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP)) accumulation, which involved in ROS scavenging and ABA biosynthesis. Furthermore, VB6-deficient maize mutant small kernel2 (smk2) heterozygous is more susceptible to salt stress, and which failed to scavenge excessive ROS effectively or induce ABA accumulation in maize root under salt stress, interestingly, which can be restored by exogenous PN and PLP, respectively. According to these results, we proposed that PN and PLP play an essential role in balancing ROS and ABA levels under salt stress, respectively, it laid a foundation for VB6 to be better applied in crop salt resistance than ABA.

Abstract While joining farmer cooperatives has been identified as a way for farmers, especially small farmers, to overcome their limitations in the marketplace and increase their income, this paper presents an analytical framework for examining how farmer cooperative may increase farmer income in rural China, empirically assesses the impacts of such membership on household income, and examines how the membership may affect income inequality. Data from a large-scale survey of rural households in China are used to examine the impacts of farmer cooperative membership and other factors on household income through a multivariate regression analysis and to test whether the impacts are different across income groups through a quantile regression analysis. The propensity score matching technique is used to address potential self-selection bias problems in the dataset and quantile regression is used to examine the impact for different income quantiles or groups of farmers. The empirical results indicate that farmers participating in professional cooperatives, on average, earned significantly higher income than their counterparts, but the positive impact was not statistically significant for low-income quantiles. This finding suggests that encouraging the development of and participation in farmer cooperatives could increase the average income but may not contribute directly to the policy goal of reducing income inequality in rural China.

Abstract Circular RNAs have been reported to play essential roles in the tumorigenesis and progression of various cancers. However, the biological processes and mechanisms involved in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unclear. Initial RNA-sequencing data and qRT-PCR results in our cohort showed that hsa_circ_0072309 (also called circLIFR) was markedly downregulated in HCC tissues. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that higher levels of circLIFR in HCC patients correlated with favorable overall survival and recurrence-free survival rates. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments indicated that circLIFR inhibited the proliferation and invasion abilities of HCC cells. We therefore conducted related experiments to explore the mechanism of circLIFR in HCC. Fluorescence in situ hybridization results revealed that circLIFR was mainly located in the cytoplasm, and RNA immunoprecipitation assays indicated that circLIFR was significantly enriched by Ago2 protein. These results suggested that circLIFR may function as a sponge of miRNAs to regulate HCC progression. We further conducted bioinformatics prediction as well as dual-luciferase reporter assays, and the results of which showed that circLIFR could sponge miR-624-5p to stabilize glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK-3β) expression. Loss and gain of function experiments demonstrated that regulation of the expression of miR-624-5p or GSK-3β markedly affected HCC progression induced by circLIFR. Importantly, we also proved that circLIFR could facilitate the degradation of β-catenin and prevent its translocation to the nucleus in HCC cells. Overall, our study demonstrated that circLIFR acts as a tumor suppressor in HCC by regulating miR-624-5p and inactivating the GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway.

At present, there is still a lack of relevant theoretical guidance on the deployment of roadside RSU on expressways. In the face of the coexistence of V2V and V2I communication in the future, the deployment adjustment after the penetration of intelligent vehicles is not considered. Therefore, this paper proposes a roadside RSU deployment income model in consideration of the influence of V2V and V2I communication. Based on the optimal income of roadside RSU nodes, it achieves the optimization of the RSU deployment range and determines the optimal deployment spacing through the forwarding and relaying role of V2V communication so as to achieve cost savings. In terms of RSU coverage of positive income, it considers the impact of intelligent vehicles and reconstructs the traditional information flow–traffic flow coupling theory to innovatively realize the modeling of income within the information life cycle. In terms of the information transmission deficit, the WSN node energy loss model is reconstructed with permeability. Also, in terms of the construction and maintenance costs, the cost models are constructed for different cluster lengths. In order to provide a basis for expressway sensor network deployment, MATLAB software (version R2016B) is used to analyze the three-dimensional relationship between expressway traffic density, intelligent vehicle permeability, and roadside RSU deployment spacing as well as to determine the optimal roadside RSU deployment spacing with the income model. Finally, the model reliability is validated by the Warshell algorithm and the Kmeans clustering algorithm.

When the magnitude of a gaze is too large, human beings change the orientation of their head or body to assist their eyes in tracking targets because saccade alone is insufficient to keep a target at the center region of the retina. To make a robot gaze at targets rapidly and stably (as a human does), it is necessary to design a body–head–eye coordinated motion control strategy. A robot system equipped with eyes and a head is designed in this paper. Gaze point tracking problems are divided into two sub-problems: in situ gaze point tracking and approaching gaze point tracking. In the in situ gaze tracking state, the desired positions of the eye, head and body are calculated on the basis of minimizing resource consumption and maximizing stability. In the approaching gaze point tracking state, the robot is expected to approach the object at a zero angle. In the process of tracking, the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of the object are obtained by the bionic eye and then converted to the head coordinate system and the mobile robot coordinate system. The desired positions of the head, eyes and body are obtained according to the object’s 3D coordinates. Then, using sophisticated motor control methods, the head, eyes and body are controlled to the desired position. This method avoids the complex process of adjusting control parameters and does not require the design of complex control algorithms. Based on this strategy, in situ gaze point tracking and approaching gaze point tracking experiments are performed by the robot. The experimental results show that body–head–eye coordination gaze point tracking based on the 3D coordinates of an object is feasible. This paper provides a new method that differs from the traditional two-dimensional image-based method for robotic body–head–eye gaze point tracking.

The gravity gradient is a secondary derivative of gravity potential, containing more high-frequency information of Earth's gravity field. Gravity gradient observation data require deducting its prior and intrinsic parts to obtain more variational information. A model generated from a topographic surface database is more appropriate to represent gradiometric effects derived from near-surface mass, as other kinds of data can hardly reach the spatial resolution requirement. The rectangle prism method, namely an analytic integration of Newtonian potential integrals, is a reliable and commonly used approach to modeling gravity gradient, whereas its computing efficiency is extremely low. A modified rectangle prism method and a graphical processing unit (GPU) parallel algorithm were proposed to speed up the modeling process. The modified method avoided massive redundant computations by deforming formulas according to the symmetries of prisms' integral regions, and the proposed algorithm parallelized this method's computing process. The parallel algorithm was compared with a conventional serial algorithm using 1″ elevation data in two topographic areas (rough and moderate terrain). Modeling differences between the two algorithms were less than 0.1 E, which is attributed to precision differences between single-precision and double-precision float numbers. The parallel algorithm showed computational efficiency approximately 200 times higher than the serial algorithm in experiments, demonstrating its effective speeding up in the modeling process. Further analysis indicates that both the modified method and computational parallelism through GPU contributed to the proposed algorithm's performances in experiments.

High temperature negatively affects reproductive process significantly, leading to tremendous losses in crop quality and yield. Zhinengcong (ZNC), a crude extract from the endophytic fungus Paecilomyces variotii, has been shown to improve plant growth and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. We show here that ZNC can also alleviate heat stress-induced reproductive defects in Solanum lycopersicum, such as short-term heat-induced inhibition on pollen viability, germination and tube growth, and long-term heat stress-induced pollen developmental defects. We further demonstrated that ZNC alleviates heat stress by downregulating the expressions of ROS production-related genes, RBOHs, and upregulating antioxidant related genes and the activities of the corresponding enzymes, thus preventing the over accumulation of heat-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) in anther, pollen grain and pollen tube. Furthermore, spraying application of ZNC onto tomato plants under long-term heat stress promotes fruit and seed bearing in the field. In summary, plant endophytic fungus extract ZNC promotes the reproductive process and yield of tomato plants under heat stress and presents excellent potential in agricultural applications.

BackgroundSmith-like (LSM) family members play critical roles in multiple oncologic processes in several types of malignancies. The study on LSM family members of HCC might provide new insights into the tumorigenesis and therapeutic strategies of HCC.MethodsThe clinical significance and oncologic biological functions of LSM family members were assessed through multiple bioinformatics methods and in vitro studies. The potential correlation between LSM family members and tumor immunity was also investigated using single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and the ESTIMATE algorithm.ResultsLSM family member overexpression in HCC was significantly correlated with poor clinical outcomes such as higher TNM stage, advanced histologic grade, and worse prognosis. A risk score system based on LSM5, LSM10, LSM12, and LSM14B showed a reliable predictive ability for OS of HCC patients. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that LSM family members overexpressed were all involved in cell cycle related biological processes. Besides, LSM12, LSM14A, and LSM14B were found to be significantly associated with PI3K-Akt-mTOR and T cell receptor signaling pathways. Tumors with LSM12, LSM14A, and LSM14B overexpression exhibited lower infiltration of activated CD8+ T cells with declined cytolytic activity and immune score, but increased infiltration of Th2 cells and Th2/Th1. LSM12, LSM14A, and LSM14B overexpression is also associated with higher tumor-related immune checkpoints (e.g., PD-L1, B7-H3, and PVR) expression and increased therapeutic insensitivity to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Moreover, the knockdown of LSM12, LSM14A, and LSM14B significantly inhibited the proliferation and invasion of HCC cells.ConclusionThis study systematically investigated the expression pattern and biological values of LSM family members in HCC and identified LSM family members as novel therapeutic targets in HCC.

The purposes of this study are to assess the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on the dairy industries in China and the United States and to derive policy recommendations for enhancing the diary industries' resilience to pandemics and other market shocks. Specifically, data from the two nations are used to analyze and compare the mechanisms through which the pandemic has affected their dairy industries and to discuss potential lessons from their experiences. The findings suggest that this pandemic has heavily affected the dairy industries in both China and the United States through similar mechanisms, such as decreased farmgate milk prices, disruption and difficulties of moving milk within the supply chains, worker shortages, increased production costs, and lack of operating capital. There were also significant differences in the affecting mechanisms between the two nations, including transportation difficulties from widespread road closures and significant reduction in holiday sales of dairy products in China, and the shutdown of many dairy processors in the United States due to the closing of schools, restaurants, and hotels. While government financial reliefs are highly needed to help many dairy farms and processors survive this pandemic in the short term, the dairy industries and governments need to work together to develop long-term strategies and policies to balance the industries' efficiency and flexibility, product specialization and diversification, supply chain integration and local food systems, and market mechanisms and policy regulations and interventions.

This study examines the development and trends of China's alfalfa market and imports, identifies key factors for the rapid increase in China's alfalfa imports, and discusses potential impacts of the U.S.–China trade dispute and retaliations on the alfalfa markets and trade in both nations. China's rapid transition toward larger-scale commercial dairy production, with enhanced feed and cost management as well as quality and safety control, and its limited resources for high-quality alfalfa production are key factors for the dramatic increase in its alfalfa imports, from 19 601 metric tons in 2008 to 1.38 million metric tons (mmt) in 2018. While the United States dominated China's alfalfa imports with an average share of 97.01% from 2007 to 2017, the share dropped to 83.76% in 2018 and 63.28% in January 2019 due to the trade dispute and retaliations started in 2018. China will likely remain a large importer of alfalfa because of both its growing demand and the comparative advantages of imported alfalfa in quality and price, but the imports from the United States will be highly affected by the ongoing trade dispute and negotiations. China is also expected to make more efforts to reduce its dependence on U.S. alfalfa through increased investment in domestic alfalfa production and identification of alternative sources of alfalfa and other hay imports.

Abstract Background Plant viruses cause severe economic losses in agricultural production. An ultrahigh activity plant immune inducer (i.e., ZhiNengCong, ZNC) was extracted from endophytic fungi, and it could promote plant growth and enhance resistance to bacteria. However, the antiviral function has not been studied. Our study aims to evaluate the antiviral molecular mechanisms of ZNC in tobacco. Results Here, we used Potato X virus (PVX), wild-type tobacco and NahG transgenic tobacco as materials to study the resistance of ZNC to virus. ZNC exhibited a high activity in enhancing resistance to viruses and showed optimal use concentration at 100–150 ng/mL. ZNC also induced reactive oxygen species accumulation, increased salicylic acid (SA) content by upregulating the expression of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) gene and activated SA signaling pathway. We generated transcriptome profiles from ZNC-treated seedlings using RNA sequencing. The first GO term in biological process was positive regulation of post-transcriptional gene silencing, and the subsequent results showed that ZNC promoted RNA silencing. ZNC-sprayed wild-type leaves showed decreased infection areas, whereas ZNC failed to induce a protective effect against PVX in NahG leaves. Conclusion All results indicate that ZNC is an ultrahigh-activity immune inducer, and it could enhance tobacco resistance to PVX at low concentration by positively regulating the RNA silencing via SA pathway. The antiviral mechanism of ZNC was first revealed in this study, and this study provides a new antiviral bioagent.

Rice sheath blight (ShB) caused by Rhizoctonia solani is one of the most destructive diseases in rice. Fungicides are widely used to control ShB in agriculture. However, decades of excessive traditional fungicide use have led to environmental pollution and increased pathogen resistance. Generally, plant elicitors are regarded as environmentally friendly biological pesticides that enhance plant disease resistance by triggering plant immunity. Previously, we identified that the plant immune inducer ZhiNengCong (ZNC), a crude extract of the endophyte, has high activity and a strong ability to protect plants against pathogens. Here, we further found that guanine, which had a significant effect on inducing plant resistance to pathogens, might be an active component of ZNC. In our study, guanine activated bursts of reactive oxygen species, callose deposition and mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation. Moreover, guanine-induced plant resistance to pathogens depends on ethylene and jasmonic acid but is independent of the salicylic acid signaling pathway. Most importantly, guanine functions as a new plant elicitor with broad-spectrum resistance to activate plant immunity, providing an efficient and environmentally friendly biological elicitor for bacterial and fungal disease biocontrol.

Compared with endophytes, metabolites from endophytes (MEs) have great potential in agriculture. However, a technique for industrializing the production of MEs is still scarce. Moreover, the establishment of effective methods for evaluating the quality of MEs is hampered by the fact that some compounds with beneficial effects on crops have not been clearly identified. Herein, a system was established for the production, quality control and application of MEs by using the extract from Paecilomyces variotii SJ1 (ZNC). First, the extraction conditions of ZNC were optimized through response surface methodology, after which each batch (500 L) met the consumption requirements of crops in 7,467 hectares. Then, chromatographic fingerprinting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were applied to evaluate the similarity and specificity of unknown effective components in ZNC, ensuring a similarity of more than 90% and a quantitative accuracy of greater than 99.9% for the products from different batches. Finally, the bioactivity of industrially produced ZNC was evaluated in the field, and it significantly increased the potato yields by 4.4–10.8%. Overall, we have established a practical technical system for the large-scale application of ZNC in agriculture.

Many U.S. dairy farms, especially small farms, are struggling to stay in business due to difficult economic conditions. While switching to organic milk production has been identified as one way to improve farm profitability, there are very limited economic data available on organic dairy profitability and the key factors contributing to its variation among organic dairy farms. This study analyzes a 10-year longitudinal dataset of Vermont organic dairy farms (2006−2016), collected by the University of Vermont Extension, to identify key factors influencing farm profitability and quantify their impact on farm return on assets (ROA) through a multivariate fixed-effects regression model. Results suggest that significant factors for organic farm profitability measured by ROA include feeding management, farm management, farm size, milk price and input costs. Such findings may help many organic dairy farms identify potential areas for improving their profitability and conventional farms evaluate the potential financial benefits of switching to organic operation.

Endo-type alginate lyases usually degrade alginate completely into various size-defined unsaturated oligosaccharide products (≥disaccharides), while exoenzymes primarily produce monosaccharide products including saturated mannuronate (M) and guluronate (G) units and particularly unsaturated Δ units. Recently, two bifunctional alginate lyases have been identified as endolytic but M- and G-producing with variable action modes. However, endolytic Δ-producing alginate lyases remain undiscovered. Herein, a new Flammeovirga protein, Aly2, was classified into the polysaccharide lyase 7 superfamily. The recombinant enzyme and its truncated protein showed similar stable biochemical characteristics. Using different sugar chains as testing substrates, we demonstrated that the two enzymes are bifunctional while G-preferring, endolytic whereas monosaccharide-producing. Furthermore, the catalytic module of Aly2 can vary the action modes depending on the terminus type, molecular size, and M/G content of the substrate, thereby yielding different levels of M, G, and Δ units. Notably, the enzymes preferentially produce Δ units when digesting small size-defined oligosaccharide substrates, particularly the smallest substrate (unsaturated tetrasaccharide fractions). Deletion of the non-catalytic region of Aly2 caused weak changes in the action modes and biochemical characteristics. This study provided extended insights into alginate lyase groups with variable action modes for accurate enzyme use.

A new vision measurement system is developed with two cameras. One is fixed in pose to serve as a monitor camera. It finds and tracks objects in image space. The other is actively rotated to track the object in Cartesian space, working as an active object-gazing camera. The intrinsic parameters of the monitor camera are calibrated. The view angle corresponding to the object is calculated from the object’s image coordinates and the camera’s intrinsic parameters. The rotation angle of the object-gazing camera is measured with an encoder. The object’s depth is computed with the rotation angle and the view angle. Then the object’s three-dimensional position is obtained with its depth and normalized imaging coordinates. The error analysis is provided to assess the measurement accuracy. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed vision system and measurement method.

Volcanic activities exert a significant influence on pore fluid property and related diagenetic processes that substantially controlled reservoirs quality. Analysis of Paleogene medium-deep sandstones on the Huanghekou Sag provides insight into relating the diagenetic processes to pore fluid property evolution influenced by volcanic activities. Three distinct types of pore fluids were identified on the basis of an integrated and systematic analysis including core and thin section observation, XRD, SEM, CL, and trace element. Alkaline aqueous medium environment occurred in E2s1+2 where volcanic activities have insignificant influence on pore fluids, evidenced by typical alkaline diagenetic events such as K-feldspar albitization, quartz dissolution, feldspar dissolution, and carbonate cementation. During the deposition of E3d3, influx of terrestrial freshwater and alteration of ferromagnesian-rich pore water result in the formation of mixing aqueous medium environment through volcanic eruption dormancy causing zeolite dissolution, clay mineral transformation, and K-feldspar albitization. Ferromagnesian-rich aqueous medium environment developed resulting from the intensive hydrolysis of the unstable ferromagnesian minerals formed due to intense volcanic activities during E3d1+2 and corresponding predominant diagenetic processes were characterized by the precipitation and dissolution of low-silica zeolites. Therefore, the differential properties of pore fluids caused various diagenetic processes controlling reservoir quality.

Plants have evolved a two-layer immune system comprising pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) that is activated in response to pathogen invasion. Microbial patterns and pathogen effectors can be recognized by surface-localized pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) and intracellularly localized nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs) to trigger PTI and ETI responses, respectively. At present, the metabolites activated by PTI and ETI and their roles and signalling pathways in plant immunity are not well understood. In this study, metabolomic analysis showed that ETI and PTI induced various flavonoids and amino acids and their derivatives in plants. Interestingly, both glutathione and neodiosmin content were specifically up-regulated by ETI and PTI, respectively, which significantly enhanced plant immunity. Further studies showed that glutathione and neodiosmin failed to induce a plant immune response in which PRRs/co-receptors were mutated. In addition, glutathione-reduced mutant gsh1 analysis showed that GSH1 is also required for PTI and ETI. Finally, we propose a model in which glutathione and neodiosmin are considered signature metabolites induced in the process of ETI and PTI activation in plants and further continuous enhancement of plant immunity in which PRRs/co-receptors are needed. This model is beneficial for an in-depth understanding of the closed-loop mode of the positive feedback regulation of PTI and ETI signals at the metabolic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]