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Abstract Implicit poisoning in federated learning is a significant threat, with malicious nodes subtly altering gradient parameters each round, making detection difficult. This study investigates this problem, revealing that temporal analysis alone struggles to identify such covert attacks, which can bypass online methods like cosine similarity and clustering. Common detection methods rely on offline analysis, resulting in delayed responses. However, recalculating gradient updates reveals distinct characteristics of malicious clients. Based on this finding, we designed a privacy-preserving detection algorithm using trajectory anomaly detection. Singular values of matrices are used as features, and an improved Isolation Forest algorithm processes these to detect malicious behavior. Experiments on MNIST, FashionMNIST, and CIFAR-10 datasets show our method achieves 94.3% detection accuracy and a false positive rate below 1.2%, indicating its high accuracy and effectiveness in detecting implicit model poisoning attacks.

IntroductionType 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a disease that involves autoimmunity. However, how immune cells function in the peripheral blood remains unclear. Exploring T2DM biomarkers via single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) could provide new insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms.MethodsThe clinical trial registration number is ChiCTR2100049613. In this study, we included three healthy participants and three T2DM patients. The observed clinical indicators included weight and fasting blood glucose (FBG), glycosylated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and fasting insulin levels. Direct separation and purification of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were performed via the Ficoll density gradient centrifugation method. Immune cell types were identified via scRNA-seq. The differentially expressed genes, biological functions, cell cycle dynamics, and correlations between blood glucose indicators and genes in different cell types were analysed.ResultsThere were differences between the healthy and T2DM groups in terms of FBG and HbA1c (p

Abstract Background Floating bamboo (Hygroryza aristata) is an endangered species with a narrow native distribution and is renowned for its unique aesthetic qualities, which holds significant ecological and ornamental value. However, the lack of genetic information research, with only one complete plastome available, significantly hampers conservation efforts and further research for this species. Results In this research, we sequenced and assembled the organelle genomes of floating bamboo, including the mitogenome (587,847 bp) and plastome (135,675 bp). The mitogenome can recombine into various configurations, which are mediated by 25 repeat pairs (13 SRs, 6 MRs, 1 LR, and 5 CRs). LR1 and SR5 are particularly notable as they have the ability to combine with other contigs, forming complex repeat units that facilitate further homologous recombination. The rate of homologous recombination varies significantly among species, yet there is still a pronounced positive correlation observed between the length of these repeat pairs and the rate of recombination they mediate. The mitogenome integrates seven intact protein-coding genes from the chloroplast. The codon usage patterns in both organelles are similar, with a noticeable bias towards C and T on the third codon. The gene map of Poales shows the entire loss of rpl6, succinate dehydrogenase subunits (sdh3 and sdh4). Additionally, the BOP clade retained more variable genes compared to the PACMAD clade. Conclusions We provided a high-quality and well-annotated mitogenome for floating bamboo and demonstrated the presence of diverse configurations. Our study has revealed the correlation between repeat length and their corresponding recombination rate despite variations among species. Although the mitogenome can potentially exist in the form of a unicircular in vivo, this occurrence is rare and may not be stable.

The maturity of 5G technology has enabled crowd-sensing services to collect multimedia data over wireless network, so it has promoted the applications of crowd-sensing services in different fields, but also brings more privacy security challenges, the most commom which is privacy leakage. As a privacy protection technology combining data integrity check and identity anonymity, ring signature is widely used in the field of privacy protection. However, introducing signature technology leads to additional signature verification overhead. In the scenario of crowd-sensing, the existing signature schemes have low efficiency in multi-signature verification. Therefore, it is necessary to design an efficient multi-signature verification scheme while ensuring security. In this paper, a batch-verifiable signature scheme is proposed based on the crowd-sensing background, which supports the sensing platform to verify the uploaded multiple signature data efficiently, so as to overcoming the defects of the traditional signature scheme in multi-signature verification. In our proposal, a method for linking homologous data was presented, which was valuable for incentive mechanism and data analysis. Simulation results showed that the proposed scheme has good performance in terms of security and efficiency in crowd-sensing applications with a large number of users and data.

ShenZhu TiaoPi granule (STG) is a compound prescription that is used in Chinese medicine for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Previous studies have indicated a hypoglycaemic effect, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats were used to establish an in vivo T2DM model (Mod). The metformin (Met) and STG treatment time was 12 weeks. Fasting blood glucose (FBG) and insulin levels and the area under the glucose curve (GAUC) were measured. Intestinal pathology and permeability were observed. Microbial diversity analysis and metabolomics were used to investigate the underlying mechanisms. Compared with the Con group, the T2DM Mod group presented significant differences in weight, FBG, GAUC, and homeostasis model assessment–insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) indices (p

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychological distress pre-operatively, at 3, 6, and 12 months in patients who underwent lumbar spine fusion surgery. Methods A total of 440 patients received instrumented lumbar spine fusion were enrolled. Psychological distress was evaluated using the Modified Somatic Perception Questionnaire (MSPQ) and the Modified Zung Depressive Index (ZDI). The results of lumbar fusion surgery were evaluated using the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), the Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA-29), and the visual analog scale (VAS). Results Psychological distress was reported among 23% of patients and 7, 5.5, and 4.0% of the patients preoperatively, at 3, 6, and 12 months after lumbar surgery, respectively. The mean MSPQ score decreased from 8.78 (before surgery) to 4.30, 3.52, and 3.43 at 3, 6 and 12 months in after surgery, respectively, in patients with psychological distress patients (p

Abstract Background Teriparatide (TPTD) is a widely used anabolic agent for the treatment of osteoporosis. Several factors have been identified to be related to bone mineral density (BMD) increase in anti-osteoporosis treatment with other agents; however, there has been no systematic analysis to summarize the associated determinants of BMD reaction to daily teriparatide treatment. Methods In this retrospective study, we performed a comprehensive investigation involving not only clinical data but also several relevant lifestyle factors to be examined for their potential contribution to BMD response. This post-hoc analysis included 258 post-menopaused patients with osteoporosis who received TPTD at 20 µg/day for 12 months. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to distinguish the response variables of lumbar spine (LS) BMD transformation, the principal outcome measure of efficacy, from the baseline at 12 months. Results Twelve months of TPTD treatment resulted in an absolute 0.39 ± 0.37 increase in T-score of LS BMD. Gastrointestinal disease, prior bisphosphonate or glucocorticoid treatment, no vitamin K2 supplementation, low levels of serum 25(OH)D and PINP, weak increment of PINP and β-CTX at 3 months, unhealthy lifestyle (excessive smoking, tea, coffee, and drinking), vegetarian diet pattern, low ALT level, and high BMD at baseline were determined by univariate analyses to be related to the weak reaction of TPTD treatment (P

Summary: Alpine lakes play pivotal roles in plateau hydrological processes but are highly sensitive to climate change, yet we lack comprehensive knowledge of their multitrophic biodiversity patterns. Here, we compared the biodiversity characteristics of diverse taxonomic groups across water depths and in surface sediments from a freshwater lake and a hypersaline lake on the northwestern Tibetan Plateau. Using multi-marker environmental DNA metabarcoding, we detected 134 cyanobacteria, 443 diatom, 1,519 invertebrate, and 28 vertebrate taxa. Each group had a substantially different community composition in the two lakes, and differences were also found between water and sediments within each lake. Cooccurrence network analysis revealed higher network complexity, lower modularity, and fewer negative cohesions in the hypersaline lake, suggesting that high salinity may destabilize ecological networks. Our results provide the first holistic view of Tibetan lake biodiversity under contrasting salinity levels and reveal structural differences in the ecological networks that may impact ecosystem resilience.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) technology has revolutionized biomonitoring, but challenges remain regarding water sample processing. The passive eDNA sampler (PEDS) represents a viable alternative to active, water filtration-based eDNA enrichment methods, but the effectiveness of PEDS for surveying biodiverse and complex natural water bodies is unknown. Here, we collected eDNA using filtration and glass fiber filter-based PEDS (submerged in water for 1 d) from 27 sites along the final reach of the Yangtze River and the coast of the Yellow Sea, followed by eDNA metabarcoding analysis of fish biodiversity and quantitative PCR (qPCR) for a critically endangered aquatic mammal, the Yangtze finless porpoise. We ultimately detected 98 fish species via eDNA metabarcoding. Both eDNA sampling methods captured comparable local species richness and revealed largely similar spatial variation in fish assemblages and community partitions between the river and sea sites. Notably, the Yangtze finless porpoise was detected only in the metabarcoding of eDNA collected by PEDS at five sites. Also, species-specific qPCR revealed that the PEDS captured porpoise eDNA at more sites (7 vs. 2), in greater quantities, and with a higher detection probability (0.803 vs. 0.407) than did filtration. Our results demonstrate the capacity of PEDS for surveying fish biodiversity, and support that continuous eDNA collection by PEDS can be more effective than instantaneous water sampling at capturing low abundance and ephemeral species in natural waters. Thus, the PEDS approach can facilitate more efficient and convenient eDNA-based biodiversity surveillance and rare species detection.

Abstract Pedestrian re-identification (re-ID) has gained considerable attention as a challenging research area in smart cities. Its applications span diverse domains, including intelligent transportation, public security, new retail, and the integration of face re-ID technology. The rapid progress in deep learning techniques, coupled with the availability of large-scale pedestrian datasets, has led to remarkable advancements in pedestrian re-ID. In this paper, we begin the study by summarising the key datasets and standard evaluation methodologies for pedestrian re-ID. Second, we look into pedestrian re-ID methods that are based on object re-ID, loss functions, research directions, weakly supervised classification, and various application scenarios. Moreover, we assess and display different re-ID approaches from deep learning perspectives. Finally, several challenges and future directions for pedestrian re-ID development are discussed. By providing a holistic perspective on this topic, this research serves as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners, enabling further advancements in pedestrian re-ID within smart city environments.

Summary: Glacier-fed waters create strong environmental filtering for biota, whereby different organisms may assume distinct distribution patterns. By using environmental DNA-based metabarcoding, we investigated the multi-group biodiversity distribution patterns of the Parlung No. 4 Glacier, on the Tibetan Plateau. Altogether, 642 taxa were identified from the meltwater stream and the downstream Ranwu Lake, including 125 cyanobacteria, 316 diatom, 183 invertebrate, and 18 vertebrate taxa. As the distance increased from the glacier terminus, community complexity increased via sequential occurrences of cyanobacteria, diatoms, invertebrates, and vertebrates, as well as increasing taxa numbers. The stream and lake showed different community compositions and distinct taxa. Furthermore, the correlations with environmental factors and community assembly mechanisms showed group- and habitat-specific patterns. Our results reveal the rapid spatial succession and increasing community complexity along glacial flowpaths and highlight the varying adaptivity of different organisms, while also providing insight into the ecosystem responses to global change.

Abstract Phycobilisomes (PBS) are the major light harvesting complexes of photosynthesis in the cyanobacteria and red algae. CpcL-PBS is a type of small PBS in cyanobacteria that transfers energy directly to photosystem I without the core structure. Here we report the cryo-EM structure of the CpcL-PBS from the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 at 2.6-Å resolution. The structure shows the CpcD domain of ferredoxin: NADP+ oxidoreductase is located at the distal end of CpcL-PBS, responsible for its attachment to PBS. With the evidence of ultrafast transient absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, the roles of individual bilins in energy transfer are revealed. The bilin 1Iβ82 2 located near photosystem I has an enhanced planarity and is the red-bilin responsible for the direct energy transfer to photosystem I.

AbstractObjective To observe the effect of Danzhi Jiangtang capsule (DJC) on the clinical indexes and vascular endothelial function indexes in patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT).Methods A total of 106 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to the treatment group and control group following a four-week washout period. The patients in the control group received a general lifestyle intervention, while those in the treatment group received DJC (2.0 g 3× a day) in conjunction with the intervention given to the control group patients. The physiological and biochemical levels, vascular endothelial function indices, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome ratings of the patients in the two groups were compared after 12 weeks of therapy.Results In the control group, the diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was significantly improved compared with those before treatment (83.31 ± 6.47 vs. 79.21 ± 6.17, p

Abstract Nowadays, smart medical cloud platforms have become a new direction in the industry. However, because the medical system involves personal physiological data, user privacy in data transmission and processing is also easy to leak in the smart medical cloud platform. This paper proposed a medical data privacy preserving framework named PMHE based on blockchain and fully homomorphic encryption technology. The framework receives personal physiological data from wearable devices on the client side, and uses blockchain as data storage to ensure that the data cannot be tampered with or forged; Besides, it uses fully homomorphic encryption method to design disease prediction models implemented by smart contracts. In PMHE, data is encoded and encrypted on the client side, and encrypted data is uploaded to the cloud platform via the public Internet, preventing privacy leakage caused by channel eavesdropping; smart contracts run on the blockchain platform for disease prediction, and the operators participating in computing are encrypted user data too. So, privacy and security issues caused by platform data leakage are avoided. The client-to-cloud interaction protocol is also designed to overcome the defect that fully homomorphic encryption only supports addition and multiplication by submitting tuples on the client side, to ensure that the prediction model can perform complex computing. In addition, the design of the smart contract is introduced in detail, and the performance of the system is analyzed. Finally, experiments are conducted to verify the operating effect of the system, ensuring that user privacy is not leaked without affecting the accuracy of the model, and realizing a smart medical cloud platform in which data can be used but cannot be borrowed.

Abstract Background The successful establishment of a species population following a single introduction of a few individuals to a non-native area has been limited. Nevertheless, the oriental fire-bellied toad (Bombina orientalis) population in Beijing is purportedly descended from a single introduction of about 200 individuals translocated from Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1927. Results To resolve the introduction process and to understand the genetic consequences since that introduction approximately 90 years ago, we investigated the population’s genetic diversity and structure using 261 toads from Beijing and two native Shandong populations and inferred the species’ introduction history using simulation-based approaches. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences showed the two haplotypes found in Beijing nested within Yantai haplotypes, thus corroborating the historical record of the translocation source. The mtDNA and 11 nuclear microsatellite markers revealed both considerably lower genetic diversity in Beijing than in the source population and strong genetic differentiation between them. Although the current census population in Beijing may be in the range of a few thousand, the effective population size was estimated at only 20–57. Simulations also suggest that this population may have descended from 40–60 founders. Conclusions The Beijing population’s genetic patterns were consistent with the consequences of a severe bottleneck during introduction followed by genetic drift. The introduction trajectory constructed for this B. orientalis population reveals the genetic footprints of a small population sustained in isolation for nearly a century. Our results provide an intriguing example of establishment success from limited founders and may inform ex situ conservation efforts as well as the management of biological invasions.

Calcium and iron are essential elements that regulate many important processes of eukaryotic cells. Failure to maintain homeostasis of calcium and iron causes cell dysfunction or even death. PD (Parkinson’s disease) is the second most common neurological disorder in humans, for which there are currently no viable treatment options or effective strategies to cure and delay progression. Pathological hallmarks of PD, such as dopaminergic neuronal death and intracellular α-synuclein deposition, are closely involved in perturbations of iron and calcium homeostasis and accumulation. Here, we summarize the mechanisms by which Ca2+ signaling influences or promotes PD progression and the main mechanisms involved in ferroptosis in Parkinson’s disease. Understanding the mechanisms by which calcium and iron imbalances contribute to the progression of this disease is critical to developing effective treatments to combat this devastating neurological disorder.

As the most important component of ecosystems, microbial communities play a significant role in global biogeochemical cycles. Geographical barriers created by topographic differences are proposed as one of the main factors to shape microbial diversity, functional composition and their evolution across aquatic ecosystem. There are few studies that compare the microbial community structure and functional potential of lakes with different terrain ladders (terrains of contrasting elevation levels), especially those involving Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. This study compared microbial 16S rRNA data from 51 lakes with different terrain ladders, showing that the composition of the dominant microbial community was similar, but the microbial abundance was quite different in different terrain ladders. Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Planctomycete, Verrucomicrobia and Bacteroidetes were the dominant taxa. Through the correlation analysis between environmental factors and the microbial community structure, it was found that two environmental factors (elevation and salinity) had significant contributions to the microbial composition. Metagenomics of six representative lakes revealed the relationship between microbial composition and metabolic processes related to carbon, nitrogen and sulfur cycles. The comparative analysis of genes related to metabolism cycles showed that functional processes such as aerobic respiration, nitrogen assimilation, the mineralization of nitrogen and sulfur had highest metabolic potential in the ecosystems. The analysis of indicator species based on the metabolic process in the carbon, nitrogen and sulfur cycles showed that the microbial community structure is related to the dominant metabolic functions within biogeochemical cycles. Different dominant species play an important and distinct role in lakes with different gradients. Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria were the most important indicator species on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain, respectively. In general, this study explored the functional distribution patterns of the dominant microbial communities in the lakes in biogeocycles.

Background: China has become the country with the largest number of people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and Chinese medicine (CM) has unique advantages in preventing and treating T2DM, while accurate pattern differentiation is the guarantee for proper treatment. Objective: The establishment of the CM pattern differentiation model of T2DM is helpful to the pattern diagnosis of the disease. At present, there are few studies on dampness-heat pattern differentiation models of T2DM. Therefore, we establish a machine learning model, hoping to provide an efficient tool for the pattern diagnosis of CM for T2DM in the future. Methods: A total of 1021 effective samples of T2DM patients from ten CM hospitals or clinics were collected by a questionnaire including patients' demographic and dampness-heat-related symptoms and signs. All information and the diagnosis of the dampness-heat pattern of patients were completed by experienced CM physicians at each visit. We applied six machine learning algorithms (Artificial Neural Network [ANN], K-Nearest Neighbor [KNN], Naïve Bayes [NB], Support Vector Machine [SVM], Extreme Gradient Boosting [XGBoost] and Random Forest [RF]) and compared their performance. And then we also utilized Shapley additive explanation (SHAP) method to explain the best performance model. Results: The XGBoost model had the highest AUC (0.951, 95% CI 0.925–0.978) among the six models, with the best sensitivity, accuracy, F1 score, negative predictive value, and excellent specificity, precision, and positive predictive value. The SHAP method based on XGBoost showed that slimy yellow tongue fur was the most important sign in dampness-heat pattern diagnosis. The slippery pulse or rapid-slippery pulse, sticky stool with ungratifying defecation also performed an important role in this diagnostic model. Furthermore, the red tongue acted as an important tongue sign for the dampness-heat pattern. Conclusion: This study constructed a dampness-heat pattern differentiation model of T2DM based on machine learning. The XGBoost model is a tool with the potential to help CM practitioners make quick diagnosis decisions and contribute to the standardization and international application of CM patterns.

Pentagalloylglucose (PGG), a gallotannin polyphenolic compound, has been found to possess a host of beneficial pharmacologic activities, such as anti-inflammatory and antioxidative activities. We previously demonstrated that PGG is capable of binding to the cell membrane of renal mesangial cells, but the pharmacological effect of PGG on diabetic renal injury and the underlying mechanisms are still not yet clear. In this study, the effects of PGG on Nrf2/HO-1 and JAK2/STAT3 signaling were explored in AGE-stimulated mesangial cells. Furthermore, the Nrf2 transcriptional inhibitor ML385 was used to verify the involvement of Nrf2 in the PGG-mediated inhibition of the JAK2/STAT3 cascade. Our results showed that PGG significantly inhibited AGE-induced ROS generation and activated AGE-inhibited Nrf2/HO-1 signaling. Moreover, AGE-induced inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and TNF-α) and their signaling through JAK2/STAT3 were blocked by PGG. Furthermore, ML385 suppressed Nrf2/HO-1 signaling, elevated ROS and cytokine production, and activated JAK2/STAT3 cascade were reversed by PGG. These findings indicate that PGG inhibits the JAK2/STAT3 cascade by activating Nrf2/HO-1 signaling.

Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) is a class of HSPs involved in plant growth and development, stress response and regulation. The Hsp70 proteins exist widely in the plant world, but the detail information about Hsp70s is still unclear in cucumber. Based on the available cucumber genome, a total of 12 Hsp70 genes (CsHsp70-1 to CsHsp70-12) were identified in this study, and they were distributed among five out of seven chromosomes. The CsHsp70s were divided into four groups based on a phylogenetic analysis by using protein sequences from cucumber and other plants, and their conserved motifs were relatively conserved. Gene duplication analysis showed that segmental duplication is the main driving force of expansion in cucumber CsHsp70 genes. Promoter analysis of CsHsp70 genes showed that they contained many cis-acting elements involved in hormone and stress responses. Expression analysis by RNA-seq and qRT-PCR indicated that the expression of most CsHsp70 genes was associated with multiple biotic and abiotic stresses in cucumber. This study introduces the characteristics of cucumber CsHsp70 genes and the regulation of their expression levels in various abiotic and biotic stresses, which provided a basis for functional exploration and utilization of CsHsp70 genes in the future.

The major light-harvesting systems for photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and red algae are phycobilisomes (PBS). Here, the authors present the cryo-EM structures of two cyanobacterial PBS from Anabaena 7120 and Synechococcus 7002 and discuss their energy transfer pathways.

Clonal reproduction is one of the most distinctive characteristics of plants and is common and diverse in aquatic macrophytes. The balance between sexual and asexual reproduction is affected by various conditions, especially adverse environments. However, we know little about clonal diversity of aquatic plants under suboptimal conditions, such as at high altitudes, and having this information would help us understand how environmental gradients influence patterns of clonal and genetic variation in freshwater species. The microsatellite data of four aquatic taxa in our previous studies were revisited to estimate clonal and genetic diversity on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Clonal diversity among different genetic groups was compared. Local environmental features were surveyed. Beta regressions were used to identify the environmental factors that significantly explained clonal diversity for relative taxon. The level of clonal diversity from high to low was Stuckenia filiformis > Hippuris vulgaris > Myriophyllum species > Ranunculus section Batrachium species. A positive correlation between clonal and genetic diversity was identified for all taxa, except H. vulgaris. Clonal diversity was affected by climate in S. filiformis and by the local environment in H. vulgaris. For Myriophyllum spp., low elevation and high sediment nutrition were significant for sexual recruitment. The environmental effects on clonal diversity were not significant in R. sect. Batrachium spp. Clonal diversity of aquatic plants is moderate to high and varies greatly in highlands. The effects of breeding systems and environmental factors on the patterns of clonal variation were identified. Elevational gradients, climates and local conditions play different roles in clonal diversity among relative taxon. Our results highlight the importance of sexual recruitment in alpine aquatic plant populations and the influence of environmental factors on the genetic patterns in freshwater species at local and regional scales.

Hybridization has fascinated biologists in recent centuries for its evolutionary importance, especially in plants. Hybrid zones are commonly located in regions across environmental gradients due to more opportunities to contact and ecological heterogeneity. For aquatic taxa, intrazonal character makes broad overlapping regions in intermediate environments between related species. However, we have limited information on the hybridization pattern of aquatic taxa in alpines, especially submerged macrophytes. In this study, we aimed to test the hypotheses that niche overlap and hybridization might be extensive in related aquatic plants across an altitudinal gradient. We evaluated the niche overlap in three related species pairs on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and assessed the spatial pattern of hybrid populations. Obvious niche overlap and common hybridization were revealed in all three pairs of related aquatic plants. The plateau edge and river basins were broad areas for the sympatry of divergent taxa, where a large proportion of hybrid populations occurred. Hybrids are also discretely distributed in diverse habitats on the plateau. Differences in the extent of niche overlap, genetic incompatibility and phylogeographic history might lead to variation differences in hybridization patterns among the three species pairs. Our results suggested that plateau areas are a hotspot for ecologically divergent aquatic species to contact and mate and implied that hybridization may be important for the freshwater biodiversity of highlands.

With the increasing use of wireless sensor networks in water quality monitoring, an enormous amount of streaming data is generated by widely deployed sensors. However, the current batch mode used for data analysis can no longer meet the diverse combination of monitoring indicators and the requirement for timely analysis results on an all-weather basis. To overcome these challenges and analyze a large amount of water quality data quickly and accurately, we propose a stream-DBSCAN distributed stream processing clustering model. First, real-time data streams are processed using the distributed stream computing framework Flink. Then, the DBSCAN clustering algorithm is applied to cluster each dataset as a different dimension of the cluster. Finally, the time distribution characteristics of the data in the same cluster are analyzed to identify the water quality variation rules. The system can extract data noise points and identify sudden deterioration of water quality. We tested the model using datasets on three water quality indices, pH, ammonia nitrogen (NH4N), and turbidity, in the Yantai Menlou Reservoir from May to August 2019. The results demonstrate that the system can efficiently and quickly perform cluster analysis on streaming data. By analyzing the clustering results, we found that the daily variation of water quality and sudden pollution events in the Menlou Reservoir are consistent with the actual situation.

Lane line detection is a fundamental and critical task for geographic information perception of driverless and advanced assisted driving. However, the traditional lane line detection method relies on manual adjustment of parameters, and has poor universality, a heavy workload, and poor robustness. Most deep learning-based methods make it difficult to effectively balance accuracy and efficiency. To improve the comprehensive perception ability of lane line geographic information in a natural traffic environment, a lane line detection algorithm based on a mixed-attention mechanism residual network (ResNet) and row anchor classification is proposed. A mixed-attention mechanism is added after the backbone network convolution, normalization and activation layers, respectively, so that the model can focus more on important lane line features to improve the pertinence and efficiency of feature extraction. In addition, to achieve faster detection speed and solve the problem of no vision, the method of lane line location selection and classification based on the row direction is used to detect whether there are lane lines in each candidate point according to the row anchor, reducing the high computational complexity caused by segmentation on a pixel-by-pixel basis of traditional semantic segmentation. Based on TuSimple and CurveLane datasets, multi-scene, multi-environment, multi-linear road image datasets and video sequences are integrated and self-built, and several experiments are designed and tested to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The test accuracy of the mixed-attention mechanism network model reached 95.96%, and the average time efficiency is nearly 180 FPS, which can achieve a high level of accuracy and real-time detection process. Therefore, the proposed method can meet the safety perception effect of lane line geographic information in natural traffic environments, and achieve an effective balance between the accuracy and efficiency of actual road application scenarios.

Accurate assessments of the patterns and drivers of livestock depredation by wild carnivores are vital for designing effective mitigation strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Snow leopard’s (Panthera uncia) range extensively overlaps pastoralist land-use and livestock predation there is widely reported, but the ecological determinants of livestock consumption by snow leopards remain obscure. We investigated snow leopard dietary habits at seven sites across the Sanjiangyuan region of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP), an area central to the species’ global range. Snow leopard abundance, wild prey composition, and livestock density varied among those sites, thus allowing us to test the effects of various factors on snow leopard diet and livestock predation. Using DNA metabarcoding, we obtained highly resolved dietary data from 351 genetically verified snow leopard fecal samples. We then analyzed the prey preferences of snow leopards and examined ecological factors related to their livestock consumption. Across the sites, snow leopard prey was composed mainly of wild ungulates (mean = 81.5% of dietary sequences), particularly bharal (Pseudois nayaur), and supplemented with livestock (7.62%) and smaller mammals (marmots, pikas, mice; 10.7%). Snow leopards showed a strong preference for bharal, relative to livestock, based on their densities. Interestingly, both proportional and total livestock consumption by snow leopards increased linearly with local livestock biomass, but not with livestock density. That, together with a slight negative relationship with bharal density, supports apparent facilitation between wild and domestic prey. We also found a significant positive correlation between population densities of snow leopard and bharal, yet those densities showed slight negative relationships with livestock density. Our results highlight the importance of sufficient wild ungulate abundance to the conservation of viable snow leopard populations. Additionally, livestock protection is critically needed to reduce losses to snow leopard depredation, especially where local livestock abundances are high.

Surveillance video has been widely used in business, security, search, and other fields. Identifying and locating specific pedestrians in surveillance video has an important application value in criminal investigation, search and rescue, etc. However, the requirements for real-time capturing and accuracy are high for these applications. It is essential to build a complete and smooth system to combine pedestrian detection, tracking and re-identification to achieve the goal of maximizing efficiency by balancing real-time capture and accuracy. This paper combined the detector and Re-ID models into a single end-to-end network by introducing a new track branch to YOLOv5 architecture for tracking. For pedestrian detection, we employed the weighted bi-directional feature pyramid network (BiFPN) to enhance the network structure based on the YOLOv5-Lite, which is able to further improve the ability of feature extraction. For tracking, based on Deepsort, this paper enhanced the tracker, which uses the Noise Scale Adaptive (NSA) Kalman filter to track, and adds adaptive noise to strengthen the anti-interference of the tracking model. In addition, the matching strategy is further updated. For pedestrian re-identification, the network structure of Fastreid was modified, which can increase the feature extraction speed of the improved algorithm by leaps and bounds. Using the proposed unified network, the parameters of the entire model can be trained in an end-to-end method with the multi-loss function, which has been demonstrated to be quite valuable in some other recent works. Experimental results demonstrate that pedestrians detection can obtain a 97% mean Average Precision (mAP) and that it can track the pedestrians well with a 98.3% MOTA and a 99.8% MOTP on the MOT16 dataset; furthermore, high pedestrian re-identification performance can be achieved on the VERI-Wild dataset with a 77.3% mAP. The overall framework proposed in this paper has remarkable performance in terms of the precise localization and real-time detection of specific pedestrians across time, regions, and cameras.

There is an increasing awareness on importance of Environmental Flow (E-flow) in hydrology and watershed management, and environmental attitudes and socio-economic status of locals usually impact E-flow allocation levels. This study develops a system index to analyze these impacts based on a questionnaire survey on households in the Weihe River Basin, China, and four different E-flow allocation levels are considered in the analysis. The main results suggest that: 1) education is important to raise people's environmental awareness, 2) majority people accept to slightly increase water price and pollution fee to save water for E-flow, 3) potential water saving ability of locals is around 5 L/day per person, and 4) impacts of the situation and attitudes of local households are very limited on pollution dilution E-flow and sediment transportation E-flow. These analysis method and results are very supportive for water policy making concerning water saving, water pricing, subsidy and water allocation.

Abstract Background Current patterns of population genetic variation may have been shaped by long-term evolutionary history and contemporary demographic processes. Understanding the underlying mechanisms that yield those patterns is crucial for informed conservation of endangered species. The critically endangered white-headed langur, Trachypithecus leucocephalus, is endemic to a narrow range in southwest China. This species shows very low genetic diversity in its 2 main relict populations, Fusui and Chongzuo. Whether this has been caused by a short evolutionary history or recent population declines is unknown. Therefore, we investigated the contributions of historical and recent population demographic changes to population genetic diversity by using 15 nuclear microsatellite markers and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region sequences. Results Using genetic data from 214 individuals we found a total of 9 mtDNA haplotypes in the Fusui population but only 1 haplotype in the Chongzuo population, and we found an overall low genetic diversity (haplotype and nucleotide diversities: h = 0.486 ± 0.036; π = 0.0028 ± 0.0003). The demographic history inferred from mtDNA and microsatellite markers revealed no evidence for historical population size fluctuations or recent population bottlenecks. Simulations of possible population divergence histories inferred by DIYABC analysis supported a recent divergence of the Chongzuo population from the Fusui population and no population bottlenecks. Conclusions Despite severe population declines caused by anthropogenic activities in the last century, the low genetic diversity of the extant white-headed langur populations is most likely primarily due to the species’ shallow evolutionary history and to a recent, local population founder event.

At present, with the advance of satellite image processing technology, remote sensing images are becoming more widely used in real scenes. However, due to the limitations of current remote sensing imaging technology and the influence of the external environment, the resolution of remote sensing images often struggles to meet application requirements. In order to obtain high-resolution remote sensing images, image super-resolution methods are gradually being applied to the recovery and reconstruction of remote sensing images. The use of image super-resolution methods can overcome the current limitations of remote sensing image acquisition systems and acquisition environments, solving the problems of poor-quality remote sensing images, blurred regions of interest, and the requirement for high-efficiency image reconstruction, a research topic that is of significant relevance to image processing. In recent years, there has been tremendous progress made in image super-resolution methods, driven by the continuous development of deep learning algorithms. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of deep-learning-based image super-resolution methods. Specifically, we first introduce the research background and details of image super-resolution techniques. Second, we present some important works on remote sensing image super-resolution, such as training and testing datasets, image quality and model performance evaluation methods, model design principles, related applications, etc. Finally, we point out some existing problems and future directions in the field of remote sensing image super-resolution.

Currently, blockchain is facing a serious storage explosion problem. While most storage scaling schemes are focused on permissionless blockchain, we propose the ring-overlap mechanism for consortium blockchain and use it to scale Hyperledger Fabric. In our scheme, all accounting nodes are divided into clusters, and each cluster contains several nodes; then, a portion of the entire block data is stored in a cluster. Block data is stored overlappingly on some cluster nodes, and each block is guaranteed to have some copies in a cluster. Theoretical analysis and simulation show that the storage occupied by nodes is significantly reduced in blockchain applications with frequent transactions, and the mechanism can still guarantee data integrity in the case of partial node failures in a single cluster. Furthermore, for transaction-frequent applications, storage space consumption can be significantly reduced without increasing excessive query time overhead.

The expansion of blockchain storage has become a major problem limiting the application of blockchain. From the perspective of improving the scalability of blockchain storage, a DHT (distributed hash table)-based blockchain dual-sharding storage extension mechanism (DBDSM) is proposed. The nodes in the network are divided into m DHT clusters. Each cluster includes n nodes, and stores 1/m of the transaction data, and the nodes within each cluster store part of data allocated to that cluster. In this way, node storage pressure is alleviated. Furthermore, a hybrid query mechanism has been designed to achieve efficient querying of transaction data, without changing the original state data query. Simulation results showed without changing the original state data query, that the storage space consumed by the nodes is only s/(m × n) of that used in the traditional method; when the number of faulty nodes in the cluster does not exceed s − 1, the integrity of blockchain data can still be ensured. For transaction data queries, the average number of hops was 1.99, greatly improving query efficiency in the sharded state.

Calcium ions are important second messengers, playing an important role in the signal transduction pathways. Hyperosmolality gated calcium-permeable channels (OSCA) gene family members play critical modulating roles in response to osmotic-related abiotic stress as well as other abiotic and biotic stresses, which has been reported in many plant species such as Arabidopsis, rice, maize, and wheat. However, there has been no report about the identification and expression profile of the OSCA genes in cucumber. In this study, a total of nine OSCA genes were identified, which are unevenly distributed on the six chromosomes of cucumber. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the OSCAs of cucumber, Arabidopsis, rice and maize were clustered into four clades. The motif arrangement of CsOSCAs was strongly conserved, and the CsOSCA genes in each group had similar genetic structure. A total of 11 and 10 types of cis-elements related to hormone and stress, respectively, were identified in the promoter regions of CsOSCA genes. Gene expression analysis indicated that the CsOSCA genes have different expression patterns in various tissues, and some of them were regulated by three osmotic-related abiotic stresses (salt, drought and ABA) and three biotic stresses (powdery mildew, downy mildew, and root-knot nematode). As the first genome-wide identification and characterization of the OSCA gene family in cucumber, this study lays a foundation for research on the biological function and evolutionary process of this gene family, which is of great significance for exploiting stress resistant cucumber varieties.

SIMILAR TO RCD-ONE (SRO) is a plant-specific small protein family that controls many biological processes including physiological development and stress responses. The SRO gene family has been studied in several plant species, but no detailed characterization and expression profiles of this important gene family were performed in cucumber. In this study, we characterize the SRO genes in cucumber, and determined their transcript levels in various tissues and under exposure to diverse biotic and abiotic stressors. Four SRO genes (named as CsSRO1–CsSRO4) were identified and isolated, which were distributed on three different chromosomes. Gene duplication analysis showed that only one pair of segmental duplication event was identified, but no tandem duplication events were detected. All CsSROs consist of the PARP domain and a C-terminal RST domain, while the N-terminal WWE domain was only present in CsSRO2 and CsSRO4. SROs from 15 plant species are divided into two groups (I and II), and group I can be further divided into four subgroups (Ia to Id) according to the phylogenetic tree. The conserved motif and gene structure analyses showed that SROs within the same branch of the phylogenetic tree have analogous conserved motifs configuration and gene structures. However, SRO genes possessed variable numbers of introns in different subgroups, which may affect the evolution of new family members. RNA-Seq data and qRT-PCR results showed that the four CsSRO genes have distinct expression pattern in various tissues and under diverse stresses, suggesting their multiple functions in plant growth and stress responses. The findings provide a basis for further research aiming at functional characterization of the regulatory mechanism to reveal the roles of CsSRO genes in developmental and stress-related processes of cucumber.

Two types of cyanobacterial phycobilisomes (PBS) are present: the hemidiscoidal PBS (CpcG-PBS) and the membrane-bound PBS (CpcL-PBS). Both types of PBS have ferredoxin:NADP+ oxidoreductase (FNR) attached to the termini of their rods through a CpcD domain. To date, the physiological significance of the attachment remains unknown. We constructed a mutant (dF338) which contains an FNR lacking the N-terminal CpcD domain in Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002. Isolated CpcG-PBS from dF338 did not contain FNR and the cell extracts of the mutant had a 35 kDa protein cross-reacting to anti-FNR antibodies. dF338 grows normally under photoautotrophic conditions, but little growth was observed under photoheterotrophic conditions. A cpcL (cpcG2) mutant grows extremely slowly under photoheterotrophic conditions while a cpcG (cpcG1) mutant, in which PBS rods could not attach to the cores of the CpcG-PBS, can grow photoheterotrophically, strongly suggesting that the attachment of FNR to CpcL-PBS is critical to photoheterotrophic growth. We show that electron transfer to the plastoquinone pool in dF338 and the cpcL mutant was impaired. We also provide evidence that trimeric photosystem I (PSI) and intact CpcL-PBS with a full-length FNR is critical to plastoquinone reduction. The presence of a NADPH-dehydrogenase (NDH)-CpcL-PBS-PSI trimer supercomplex and its roles are discussed.

Abstract Disentangling the interactions between cyanobacteria and associated bacterial community is important for understanding the mechanisms that mediate the formation of cyanobacterial blooms in freshwater ecosystems. Despite the fact that a metagenomic approach enables researchers to profile the structure of microbial communities associated with cyanobacteria, reconstructing genome sequences for all members remains inefficient, due to the inherent enormous microbial diversity. Here, we have established a stable coculture system under high salinity, originally from a mixture of an axenic cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 and a non-axenic bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis colony. Metagenomic analysis showed that the coculture consists of S. sp. PCC 7002 and two heterotrophic bacteria, designated as Pseudomonas stutzeri TAIHU and Mesorhizobium sp. TAIHU, respectively. And near-complete genome sequences of both bacteria were reconstructed from the metagenomic dataset with an average completeness of 99.8%. Genome-wide pathway analysis revealed that M. sp. TAIHU carried all the genes involved in the de novo biosynthesis of cobalamin, which is required by S. sp. PCC 7002 for growth. To cope with the high salinity in the coculture, experimental evidence demonstrated that S. sp. PCC 7002 would synthesize the compatible solutes including sucrose and glucosylglycerol, which are supposed to be exploited by both heterotrophic bacteria as potential carbon and/or nitrogen sources. Furthermore, the genes encoding for the biosynthesis of the ectoine, another common osmolyte are found exclusively in P. stutzeri TAIHU, while the genes responsible for the catabolism of ectoine and its derives are present only in M. sp. TAIHU. These genomic evidence indicates beneficial interaction between three members in the coculture. Establishment of the coculture system with relative simplicity provides a useful model system for investigating the interspecies interactions, and genome sequences of both bacteria associated with Microcystis bloom described here will facilitate the researcher to elucidate the role of these heterotrophic bacteria in the formation and maintenance of cyanobacterial bloom in freshwater ecosystem.