Search

SPL transcription factors regulate important processes such as plant growth and development, metabolic regulation, and abiotic stress. They play crucial roles in the development of flower organs. However, little is known about the characteristics and functions of the SPLs in the Orchidaceae. In this study, Cymbidium goeringii Rchb. f., Dendrobium chrysotoxum Lindl., and Gastrodia elata BI. were used as research objects. The SPL gene family of these orchids was analyzed on a genome-wide scale, and their physicochemical properties, phylogenetic relationships, gene structures, and expression patterns were studied. Transcriptome and qRT-PCR methods were combined to investigate the regulatory effect of SPLs on the development of flower organs during the flowering process (bud, initial bloom, and full bloom). This study identifies a total of 43 SPLs from C. goeringii (16), D. chrysotoxum (17), and G. elata (10) and divides them into eight subfamilies according to the phylogenetic tree. Most SPL proteins contained conserved SBP domains and complex gene structures; half of the genes had introns longer than 10 kb. The largest number and variety of cis-acting elements associated with light reactions were enriched, accounting for about 45% of the total (444/985); 13/43 SPLs contain response elements of miRNA156. GO enrichment analysis showed that the functions of most SPLs were mainly enriched in the development of plant flower organs and stems. In addition, expression patterns and qRT-PCR analysis suggested the involvement of SPL genes in the regulation of flower organ development in orchids. There was little change in the expression of the CgoSPL in C. goeringii, but DchSPL9 and GelSPL2 showed significant expression during the flowering process of D. chrysotoxum and G. elata, respectively. In summary, this paper provides a reference for exploring the regulation of the SPL gene family in orchids.

Objective: Motion-onset visual evoked potentials (mVEPs)-based spellers, also known as N200 spellers, have been successfully implemented, avoiding flashing stimuli that are common in visual brain-computer interface (BCI). However, their information transfer rates (ITRs), typically below 50 bits/min, are lower than other visual BCI spellers. In this study, we sought to improve the speed of N200 speller to a level above the well-known P300 spellers. Approach: Based on our finding of the spatio-temporal asymmetry of N200 response elicited by leftward and rightward visual motion, a novel dual-directional N200 speller was implemented. By presenting visual stimuli moving in two different directions simultaneously, the new paradigm reduced the stimuli presentation time by half, while ensuring separable N200 features between two visual motion directions. Furthermore, a probability-based dynamic stopping algorithm was also proposed to shorten the decision time for each output further. Both offline and online tests were conducted to evaluate the performance in ten participants. Main results: Offline results revealed contralateral dominant temporal and spatial patterns in N200 responses when subjects attended to stimuli moving leftward or rightward. In online experiments, the dual-directional paradigm achieved an average ITR of 79.8 bits/min, with the highest ITR of 124.8 bits/min. Compared with the traditional uni-directional N200 speller, the median gain on the ITR was 202%. Significance: The proposed dual-directional paradigm managed to double the speed of the N200 speller. Together with its non-flashing characteristics, this dual-directional N200 speller is promising to be a competent candidate for fast and reliable BCI applications.

Background Ginsenosides are pharmacologically active compounds that are often extracted from the Panax plant for their medicinal properties. Ginsenosides have multiple effects, including antitumor effects which have been widely studied. In recent years, studies have found that ginsenosides promote proliferation and osteogenesis of osteoblast-related cells, as well as inhibit the activity of osteoclasts. Main body We briefly introduces the molecules and BMP, WNT, and RANKL signalling pathways involved in bone formation and bone resorption. Next, recent studies on the mechanism of action of ginsenosides in bone remodelling are reviewed from three perspectives: the effects on proliferation of osteoblast-related cells, effects on osteogenesis and effects on osteoclasts. To expedite the development of drugs containing ginsenosides, we summarize the multiple beneficial roles of various types of ginsenosides in bone remodelling; including the promotion of bone formation, inhibition of bone resorption, and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Conclusion Many ginsenosides can promote bone formation and inhibit bone resorption, such as Rb1, Rb2 and Re. Ginsenosides have the potential to be new drugs for the treatment of osteoporosis, promote fracture healing and are strong candidates for cytokines in the tissue-engineered bone. This review provides a theoretical basis for clinical drug applications and proposes several future directions for exploring the beneficial role of ginseng compounds in bone remodelling.

Combined radiation-wound injury (CRWI) is characterized by blood vessel damage and pro-inflammatory cytokine deficiency. Studies have identified that the direct application of leptin plays a significant role in angiogenesis and inflammation. We established a sustained and stable leptin expression system to study the mechanism. A lentivirus method was employed to explore the angiogenic potential and peripheral inflammation of irradiated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Leptin was transfected into human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HPMSCs) with lentiviral vectors. HUVECs were irradiated by X-ray at a single dose of 20 Gy. Transwell migration assay was performed to assess the migration of irradiated HUVECs. Based on the Transwell systems, co-culture systems of HPMSCs and irradiated HUVECs were established. Cell proliferation was measured by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. The secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines (human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-6, and IL-8) was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression of pro-angiogenic factors (vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF)) mRNA was detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay. Relevant molecules of the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) signaling pathways were detected by western blot assay. Results showed that leptin-modified HPMSCs (HPMSCs/ leptin) exhibited better cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenic potential (expressed more VEGF and bFGF). In both the single HPMSCs/leptin and the co-culture systems of HPMSCs/leptin and irradiated HUVECs, the increased secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines (human GM-CSF, IL-1α, and IL-6) was associated with the interaction of the NF-κB and JAK/STAT signaling pathways. We conclude that HPMSCs/leptin could promote angiogenic potential and peripheral inflammation of HUVECs after X-ray radiation.

Climate change will exacerbate water scarcity, as warmer temperatures will increase evaporation from soil and water surfaces, raising crop water requirements, and consumers’ demand for energy will increase at higher temperatures, with a concomitant increase in demand for cooling water. Therefore, water scarcity has evolved into a global issue, most notably in the Colorado Basin. As the climate changes, the future of the Colorado River becomes even more tragic. The river’s water levels are dropping year after year, while the water needs of the surrounding urban development are increasing, in what seems to be an endless cycle. At the same time, the entire southwestern United States may be in an unprecedented resource crisis as a result. Therefore, we have modeled water supply, demand, and allocation scenarios and constructed a water allocation model using the Colorado Basin water allocation as an example, combining Lake Mead, Lake Powell, and the agricultural, industrial, and residential demand for water and electricity in five states. To better achieve the optimal balance between the economy and the environment, we set three objectives: economic efficiency, regional surplus water, and total regional electricity generation, and solved the problem using a particle swarm algorithm. By solving the Colorado Basin water allocation problem, we explore a feasible solution with high generalization capability that can be applied in the future to scenarios of rational water allocation in multiple regions around the world.

Noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI) has been extensively studied from many aspects in the past decade. In order to broaden the practical applications of BCI technique, it is essential to develop electrodes for electroencephalogram (EEG) collection with advanced characteristics such as high conductivity, long-term effectiveness, and biocompatibility. In this study, we developed a silver-nanowire/PVA hydrogel/melamine sponge (AgPHMS) semidry EEG electrode for long-lasting monitoring of EEG signal. Benefiting from the water storage capacity of PVA hydrogel, the electrolyte solution can be continuously released to the scalp-electrode interface during used. The electrolyte solution can infiltrate the stratum corneum and reduce the scalp-electrode impedance to 10 k Ω -15 k Ω . The flexible structure enables the electrode with mechanical stability, increases the wearing comfort, and reduces the scalp-electrode gap to reduce contact impedance. As a result, a long-term BCI application based on measurements of motion-onset visual evoked potentials (mVEPs) shows that the 3-hour BCI accuracy of the new electrode (77% to 100%) is approximately the same as that of conventional electrodes supported by a conductive gel during the first hour. Furthermore, the BCI system based on the new electrode can retain low contact impedance for 10 hours on scalp, which greatly improved the ability of BCI technique.

Purpose Respiration causes the deformation and sliding motion of the soft tissues, and affects the accuracy of the assessment of minimally invasive abdominal surgery. Nonrigid registration is used to eliminate the effects of respiration for the assessment. Because the soft tissues with high water content are volume preserving during deformation, incompressibility has to be considered when tracking soft tissues for nonrigid registration. The purpose of the study was to develop an incompressible nonrigid registration for tracking deformable soft tissues with sliding motion. Methods The nonrigid registration framework proposed in the present study includes two main steps: (a) The solution in the subspace of diffeomorphisms is searched and encoded to stationary velocity field in the log domain. (b) The divergence-free component and harmonic remainder are extracted by Fourier-based Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition (FHHD) and further integrated by an adaptive weight to simultaneously retain the incompressibility of deformation and compensate the sliding motion. The method was evaluated on 11 groups of synthetic datasets and five groups of clinical images. Registration accuracy is evaluated by using four quantitative measures, including mean surface distance (MSD), Hausdorff distance (HD), mean corresponding distance (MCD), and Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Incompressibility is evaluated by using two quantitative measures, including relative volume change (RVC) and Jacobian determinant (J). Results Compared with three state-of-the-art nonrigid registration methods, the proposed method shows an advantage in handling the incompressible deformation of images with large sliding motion. The lowest (MSD, 0.631 mm), (HD, 6.000 mm), and (MCD, 3.555 mm) and the highest (DSC, 0.970) are obtained proving the high registration accuracy with sliding motion compensation of the proposed method. The (RVC, 0.006) and Jacobian determinant (J, 1.008 ± 0.070) are nearly close to 0 and 1, respectively, showing the strong incompressibility of the proposed method. The proposed method improves registration accuracy in nearly all cases, which maintains the incompressibility of tissue transformation while simultaneously compensating the sliding motion on clinical datasets. Conclusions The proposed method improves the registration accuracy of incompressible tissues when dealing with large sliding motion, and thus has the potential to improve current minimally invasive abdominal surgery.

Memristor array provides a scalable and power-efficient platform for parallel processing of multichannel neural signals., Fully implantable neural interfaces with massive recording channels bring the gospel to patients with motor or speech function loss. As the number of recording channels rapidly increases, conventional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chips for neural signal processing face severe challenges on parallelism scalability, computational cost, and power consumption. In this work, we propose a previously unexplored approach for parallel processing of multichannel neural signals in memristor arrays, taking advantage of their rich dynamic characteristics. The critical information of neural signal waveform is extracted and encoded in the memristor conductance modulation. A signal segmentation scheme is developed to adapt to device variations. To verify the fidelity of the processed results, seizure prediction is further demonstrated, with high accuracy above 95% and also more than 1000× improvement in power efficiency compared with CMOS counterparts. This work suggests that memristor arrays could be a promising multichannel signal processing module for future implantable neural interfaces.

Liver is an incompressible organ that maintains its volume during the respiration-induced deformation. Quantifying this deformation with the incompressible constraint is significant for liver tracking. The constraint can be accomplished with retaining the divergence-free field obtained by the deformation decomposition. However, the decomposition process is time-consuming, and the removal of non-divergence-free field weakens the deformation. In this study, a divergence-free fitting-based registration method is proposed to quantify the incompressible deformation rapidly and accurately. First, the deformation to be estimated is mapped to the velocity in a diffeomorphic space. Then, this velocity is decomposed by a fast Fourier-based Hodge-Helmholtz decomposition to obtain the divergence-free, curl-free, and harmonic fields. The curl-free field is replaced and fitted by the obtained harmonic field with a translation field to generate a new divergence-free velocity. By optimizing this velocity, the final incompressible deformation is obtained. Moreover, a deep learning framework (DLF) is constructed to accelerate the incompressible deformation quantification. An incompressible respiratory motion model is built for the DLF by using the proposed registration method and is then used to augment the training data. An encoder-decoder network is introduced to learn appearance-velocity correlation at patch scale. In the experiment, we compare the proposed registration with three state-of-the-art methods. The results show that the proposed method can accurately achieve the incompressible registration of liver with a mean liver overlap ratio of 95.33%. Moreover, the time consumed by DLF is nearly 15 times shorter than that by other methods.

Brain-machine interfaces are promising tools to restore lost motor functions and probe brain functional mechanisms. As the number of recording electrodes has been exponentially rising, the signal processing capability of brain–machine interfaces is falling behind. One of the key bottlenecks is that they adopt conventional von Neumann architecture with digital computation that is fundamentally different from the working principle of human brain. In this work, we present a memristor-based neural signal analysis system, where the bio-plausible characteristics of memristors are utilized to analyze signals in the analog domain with high efficiency. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, memristor arrays are used to implement the filtering and identification of epilepsy-related neural signals, achieving a high accuracy of 93.46%. Remarkably, our memristor-based system shows nearly 400× improvements in the power efficiency compared to state-of-the-art complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor systems. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using memristors for high-performance neural signal analysis in next-generation brain–machine interfaces., Designing energy efficient and high performance brain-machine interfaces with millions of recording electrodes for in-situ analysis remains a challenge. Here, the authors develop a memristor-based neural signal analysis system capable of filtering and identifying epilepsy-related brain activities with an accuracy of 93.46%.

Purpose. To examine the expression of RAD51 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and analyze its connection with pathological grade, clinical stage, and lymphatic metastasis potential. Methods. For this study, 74 OSCC samples, 15 normal mucosa tissues, and 11 normal skin tissue samples were collected. RAD51 expression was investigated using immunohistochemistry. A follow-up visit was used to assess the prognosis of each patient. We compared RAD51 expression in oral mucosa epithelial cells (OMECs), keratinocytes, and tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells (TSCCs) by Western blot analysis. Results. RAD51 expression was higher in tumor cells than in normal mucosal tissues. In addition, RAD51 expression was associated with higher tumor differentiation (P<0.05). Also, RAD51 expression was higher (P<0.05) in patients with lymphatic metastases, and relapse rates were also higher in patients with elevated RAD51 levels (P=0.052). In addition, RAD51 expression levels were highest in the skin keratinocytes, followed by the TSCCs and OMECs. Conclusion. A strong positive correlation was found between RAD51 expression and the degree of malignancy in OSCC patients, suggesting that RAD51 could be an excellent prognostic indicator for OSCC patients.

We successfully synthesized AuAg-alloyed nanoprisms (AuAgNPrisms) through the seed mediated and galvanic replacement approaches. By introducing the synthesized AuAgNPrisms at the buffer/active interface with an optimal concentration, we increased the power conversion efficiency of PTB7:PC70BM-based organic photovoltaic cells from 6.58% to 7.11%, the current density from 13.36 to 15.01 mA/cm2, corresponding to enhancement factors of 8.1% and 12.4%, respectively. According to our systematical study, we concluded that the incorporation of AuAgNPrisms not only increases light absorption in the active layer over a broad wavelength range but improves the exciton dissociation rate at the interface between PTB7 and PC70BM. With the incorporation of AuAgNPrisms, although the increase in the leakage current is observed, the carrier mobility is also improved apparently, yielding that the reduction in the fill factor is negligible. This work could contribute to the development of high efficiency and low cost organic solar cells.

Motion-onset visual evoked potential (mVEP) has been successfully used for spelling in both EEG and intracranial EEG based brain-computer interface (BCI). However, its speed is relatively slow compared to P300 and SSVEP paradigms. In order to improve the speed, we proposed a novel bi-directional (leftward and rightward) visual motion BCI paradigm, which decreased the stimulus presentation time of single trial by 50%. Offline experiments were conducted on 5 subjects, which revealed a unique symmetrical spatial and temporal mVEP pattern. The N200 peak of mVEP first appeared on the hemisphere contralateral to the visual motion onset position of stimuli, which reflected the hemisphere transmission delay caused by the optic chiasm. Based on this observation, we developed a BCI system capable of discriminating not only target mVEP responses from non-target ones, but also response to leftward motion from rightward ones. Our new system achieved an averaged AUC 0.93 ± 0.044 in BCI classification, and an information transfer rate (ITR) boost of 43 ± 16% over original uni-directional mVEP BCI in offline evaluation. The results demonstrated the capacity of bi-directional visual motion paradigm in doubling the BCI spelling speed, and laid the foundation for a high speed online visual motion BCI.

Identification of the primary constituents of small shelly fossil (SSF) shells is important for explaining the evolution of SSF faunas. The characteristics and constituents of Terreneuvian tubular SSFs found in north-east Sichuan, China, are revealed using light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Petrographic thin sections indicate that the chemical composition of the shells is mainly calcium carbonate with smaller amounts of phosphorus, silica and pyrite. Most of the tubular shells composed of calcium carbonate have a distinct layered structure. Evidence of replacement of the original shell by phosphatization, pyritization and silicification, and recrystallization of calcium carbonate have been found, all of which destroyed the shell's original layered structure. Most fossils treated with acetic acid are phosphatic casts or steinkerns, with some preserving organic textures of the shell as phosphatic casts. We conclude that the Terreneuvian tubular SSFs from north-east Sichuan were originally composed mainly of calcium carbonate; indeed, most Terreneuvian small skeletal fossils appear to have had an originally calcareous composition. The fossil casts or internal core fossils are composed of phosphate, which is related to local taphonomic processes.

Purpose In liver microwave ablation (MWA) surgery, the ablation area covers the tumor to generate tissue necrosis and treat the cancer. As the liver deforms during the operation, deviation between the target area determined during pre-operative planning and the resultant ablation area is inevitable. Therefore, an accurate assessment of tumor coverage is crucial for treatment. Through registration between the pre- and post-operative livers, the ablation area is warped on the pre-operative liver for the computation of tumor coverage. However, large deformations between the pre- and post-operative livers are caused by multiple factors, and these diverse deformations make registration a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to develop an automatic method that can accurately register post- to pre-operative livers. Methods In the proposed method, non-rigid deformations caused by respiratory movement and edema are separately considered and estimated by the local incompressible model in the registration of livers. The pre- and post-operative livers are first aligned by a rigid registration based on a convex hull. In the non-rigid registrations, local incompressible constraints are then set on the liver and the ablation area to estimate the deformations caused by respiratory movement and edema, respectively. The concatenation of the rigid and non-rigid deformations is used to warp the ablation area on the pre-operative liver. Results The proposed method was evaluated using clinical CT datasets from 20 patients. The Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) between the pre-operative and warped post-operative livers is 94.35%, the mean surface distance (MSD) between the livers is 1.65 mm, the mean hausdorff distance (HDD) between the livers is 3.36 mm, and the mean corresponding distance (MCD) between the corresponding landmarks is 1.70 mm. Compared with five other state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method achieves automatic ablation assessment with highly accurate registration. Conclusions The proposed method achieves a high accuracy for registering the livers. The sizes and positions of the ablation area and tumor are accurately compared for the assessment of ablation surgery. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

In this paper, a novel seamless transfer method for a microgrid based on droop characteristic adjustment is proposed, the parallel operation of distributed generations is based on droop control to avoid critical communications. Linear integration method, which uses less communication and is more reliable, is proposed to adjust the microgrid voltage to synchronize it with the utility grid. Fault islanding is detected and the microgrid transfer to stand-alone mode. A flexible microgrid is obtained. The proposed method is verified by simulation and by the experiment in the laboratory