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ObjectivesNeuroimaging investigations into chronic low back pain (CLBP) have detected functional abnormalities across a spectrum of brain regions, yet the findings have often been inconsistent. In this meta-analysis, we integrated the existing data, delineating a pattern of coherent results from the encompassed studies.MethodsA systematic search of neuroimaging studies investigating the brain activity differences between CLBP and Healthy controls (HCs) was conducted in seven databases up to December 22, 2024. An anisotropic effect-size signed differential mapping (AES-SDM)-based meta-analysis was carried out to report the results and perform a multimodal analysis.ResultsA total of 20 publications reporting on 24 experiments in this meta-analysis. The ReHo meta-analysis showed abnormal spontaneous activity of left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), right precuneus, right fusiform gyrus and bilateral postcentral gyrus (PoCG) in CLBP patients. The ALFF meta-analysis demonstrated functional alterations in the right rolandic operculum (extending to the right insula and right IFG), left ITG, left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), left paracentral lobule, left PoCG and bilateral cuneus cortex in CLBP patients. The results of the functional group meta-analysis revealed that patients with CLBP displayed new decreased functional activity in the right thalamus, right precentral gyrus (PreCG) and right lingual gyrus.ConclusionPatients with CLBP exhibit extensive multimodal functional neuroimaging abnormalities, involving brain regions related to pain perception, emotional processing, cognitive functions, and both the visual and motor cortices. These meta-analysis findings might provide a valuable reference for the identification of potential therapeutic targets for CLBP in the brain.

The impact of calcium chloride (CaCl2) treatment and water soaking on the postharvest senescence of the ripened passion fruit was investigated. The physicochemical indexes including weight loss, color change, membrane permeability, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, total phenolics, flavonoids, ascorbic acid content, peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), and distinct forms of calcium of the fruit were determined using the established methods for analysis. The correlation and principal component analyses were also conducted on the experimental data. The results demonstrated that the calcium ions were effective in maintaining the appearance and color of the fruit peel, enhancing its antioxidant capacity, and regulating its nutrient content. This treatment significantly increased the calcium content of the passion fruit peels, extending the fruit’s freshness beyond four days. The correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between the mass loss rate of the passion fruit and the majority of the physicochemical properties examined. The findings indicated that the calcium chloride treatment could effectively maintain fruit storage quality and prolong the shelf life of postharvest passion fruit by several days. It seems reasonable to posit that calcium chloride will become the preferred method for postharvest fruit preservation in the near future.

Abstract Background Hollow heart is a kind of physiological defect that seriously affects the yield, quality, and economic value of cucumber. However, the formation of hollow hearts may relate to multiple factors in cucumber, and it is necessary to conduct analysis. Results In this study, hollow and non-hollow fruits of cucumber K07 were used for comparative transcriptome sequencing and analysis. 253 differentially expressed genes and 139 transcription factors were identified as being associated with the formation of hollow hearts. Hormone (auxin) signaling and cell wall biosynthesis were mainly enriched in GO and KEGG pathways. Expression levels of key genes involved in indole-3-acetic acid biosynthesis in carpel were lower in the hollow fruits than non-hollow fruits, while there was no difference in the flesh. The concentration of indole-3-acetic also showed lower in the carpel than flesh. The biosynthetic pathway and content analysis of the main components of the cell wall found that lignin biosynthesis had obvious regularity with hollow heart, followed by hemicellulose and cellulose. Correlation analysis showed that there may be an interaction between auxin and cell wall biosynthesis, and they collectively participate in the formation of hollow hearts in cucumber. Among the differentially expressed transcription factors, MYB members were the most abundant, followed by NAC, ERF, and bHLH. Conclusions The results and analyses showed that the low content of auxin in the carpel affected the activity of enzymes related to cell wall biosynthesis at the early stage of fruit development, resulting in incomplete development of carpel cells, thus forming a hollow heart in cucumber. Some transcription factors may play regulatory roles in this progress. The results may enrich the theory of the formation of hollow hearts and provide a basis for future research.

In this study, effects of four single factors which including slice thickness, frying temperature, frying time and deoilling time on the quality of persimmon chips under low-temperature vacuum frying were analyzed. According to the Box-Behnken test principle, the processing technology of persimmon chips under low-temperature vacuum frying was further optimized by taking crispness and chromatic aberration ΔE of persimmon chips as response values. Meanwhile, the physicochemical composition, microbiological index and microstructure of the final product were further researched. The results showed that all of frying temperature, frying time, deoiling time and slice thickness affected the crispness and chromatic aberration of persimmon chips, the optimal technology of vacuum frying persimmon chips at low temperature was determined by response surface optimization experiment and then actual correction were as follows: Deoiling time of 5 min, frying time of 50 min, frying temperature of 80 ℃ and thickness 5.5 mm. Under these conditions, the crispness, ΔE, water content, oil content, titrable acid and VC content of persimmon chips respective was 858.97 g, 17.28, 2.60%, 22.53%, 0.34 g/L and 31.20 mg/100 g. The persimmon chips were golden in color and complete in shape, and the inside of the chips presented a honeycomb-like porous and loose structure, the product had a crisp taste, and the microbial indicators met the health requirements. This research could provide technical support for the development of low-temperature vacuum frying persimmon chips.

In this study, we selected Sitona callosus, one of the primary insect pests of alfalfa, as the experimental insect and infected it with Beauveria bassiana. Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses were conducted to explore alterations in gene expression and metabolic processes in S. callosus at 48, 96, and 144 h post infection with B. bassiana. The transcriptomic analysis unveiled that B. bassiana infection boosted immune responses in tubercula, affecting carbohydrate metabolism, cytochrome P450 activity, lysosome function, apoptosis regulation, phagosome formation, glutathione metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and pathogen response pathways. Subsequent metabolomics analysis confirmed that glycerophospholipids, carboxylic acids and derivatives, organooxygen compounds, keto acids and derivatives, and azane immune metabolites were significantly upregulated in response to B. bassiana infection. Additionally, we utilized the Pearson correlation coefficient method to examine the relationships between differentially expressed immune-related genes and metabolites, revealing notably strong correlations between these two sets of variables. By leveraging the WGCNA method to analyze immune metabolite data for immune-related genes, we identified hub genes crucial at various stages of immune activation. These central genes predominantly included C-type lectin receptors for pattern recognition, cytochrome P450 enzymes linked to detoxification processes, and cathepsin proteases. By combining transcriptome and metabolome analyses, it was determined that autophagy and arachidonic acid metabolism play significant roles in the response of S. callosus to infection by B. bassiana. This research will facilitate the understanding of the immune response to B. bassiana infection in adult S. callosus, laying a theoretical groundwork for future biological control strategies targeting S. callosus.

The new flexible sensing technology integrates electronic information, material chemistry, biomedical engineering and nano-processing, to provide intelligent sensing terminals for the internet of things, which will be widely used in health monitoring, smart home, smart manufacturing and other fields.For the development of new materials and research on novel mechanisms, flexible sensors have gained much progress in basic parameters, such as sensitivity, response range, response time, linearity, hysteresis, and stability.The flexible sensing technology is not only limited to materials and devices, but also expands from a single device to system-level integrations.Aimed at the hot research issues in recent years, the development of new flexible sensors was introduced from four aspects: multimode integrated sensors, bionic electronic sensors, wireless signal transmission and energy supply, and intelligent information processing.

In order to discuss the accuracy of iterative cone-beam computed tomography (iCBCT) image used for pelvic tumor dose calculation, thirty cases were selected from a hospital that use a Halcyon accelerator for radiotherapy. The volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plan was redesigned using Eclipse 15.6 planning system, and the setup iCBCT image acquired for the first time was registered with the planning CT image (pCT). The VMAT plan (pCT plan) of each case was transplanted to the iCBCT image, and the dose was calculated again based on the CT-relative electron density curve calibrated using the iCBCT image to generate a new treatment plan (iCBCT plan). The dosimetric parameters of the two plans were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 software to perform t-tests. The results of D2, D98, Dmean, conformity index (CI), and homogeneity index (HI) in the planning target volume dosimetry parameters of the iCBCT plan were similar to those of the pCT plan. The average differences were 0.71%, 0.53%, 0.97%, 0.25%, and 0.95%, respectively, with no statistical significance (p>0.05). Among the organs at risk, the average difference of Dmean, D5, V20, V30, and V40 between the left and right femoral head, rectum, and bladder was small, with no statistical significance (p>0.05). The parameter with the largest average difference (1.71%) was Dmean of the bladder. Compared with that of the pCT plan, the gamma pass rate of the iCBCT plan was 1%/1 mm standard (88.1±1.1)% and 2%/2 mm standard (97.8±1.2)%. Compared with the measured values, the mean difference between the isocenter dose of the two plans was 0.98% and 0.81%, respectively, with no statistical significance (p>0.05). The results show that in most pelvic cases, the results of the iCBCT images used for radiotherapy planning dose calculation are accurate and reliable, and the accuracy meets the requirements of clinical application.

This article focuses on the mapping and rate of spread (ROS) measurement of grass fires using near infrared (NIR) images acquired by a small fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operating at low altitudes. A new method is proposed for spatiotemporal representation of grass fire evolution using time labeled UAS NIR orthomosaics stitched from aerial images collected at varying time stamps over different regions of fire. Furthermore, a novel NIR intensity variance thresholding method is proposed for accurate identification and delineation of grass fire fronts based on the obtained NIR mosaics in digital numbers. The proposed methods are demonstrated and validated using UAS NIR imagery acquired over a prescribed tallgrass fire in Kansas (around 13 ha.). Three NIR short time-series orthomosaics are generated at a time interval of about 2 min with a spatial registration accuracy of 1.45 m (RMSE). The mean ROS for head, flank, and back tallgrass fires are measured to be 0.28, 0.1, and 0.025 m/s.

Context Polyphyllin II (PPII) is a steroidal saponin isolated from Rhizoma Paridis. It exhibits significant antitumor activity such as anti-proliferation and pro-apoptosis in lung cancer.Objective To explore whether PPII induce autophagy and the relationship between autophagy and apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells.Materials and methods The effects of PPII (0, 1, 5, and 10 μM) were elucidated by CCK8 assay, colony formation test, TUNEL staining, MDC method, and mRFP-GFP-LC3 lentivirus transfection in A549 and H1299 cells for 24 h. DMSO-treated cells were selected as control. The protein expression of autophagy (LC3-II, p62), apoptosis (Bcl-2, Bax, caspase-3) and p-mTOR was detected by Western blotting. We explored the relationship between autophagy and apoptosis by autophagy inhibitor CQ (10 μM) and 3-MA (5 mM).Results PPII (0, 1, 5, and 10 μM) inhibited the proliferation and induced apoptosis. The IC50 values of A549 and H1299 cells were 8.26 ± 0.03 and 2.86 ± 0.83 μM. We found that PPII could induce autophagy. PPII promoted the formation of autophagosome, increased the expression of LC3-II/LC3-I (p

In order to evaluate the antioxidant capacity of the new variety GC30 processed bananas, develop their functional products and broaden the banana industry chain, five representative banana varieties including GC02 Tianbaogao bananas, GC07 chicken bananas, GC09 powder bananas, GC25 big bananas and GC30 processed bananas were used to study. Specifically, this paper was to analyze the total phenol content and antioxidant capacities of banana peel, pulp and fruit with different varieties and maturity, as well as to statistically analyze antioxidant capacities of different banana varieties and maturity using principal component analysis. The results showed that banana peel had the highest phenol content (P0.05). The scavenging activities on DPPH, superoxide anion and hydroxyl free radicals of banana peel, pulp and fruit at grade-7 maturity was significantly higher than that at grade-1 maturity (P0.05). Moreover, the antioxidant activities of banana fruit, pulp and peel with different varieties at grade-7 maturity were better than those of fruit, pulp and peel at grade-1 maturity. The GC30 banana peel at grade-7 maturity had the strongest antioxidant properties in the comprehensive evaluation of antioxidants. The findings of this research could provide a theoretical basis for the breeding, processing and application of banana varieties, and promote the commercial value of banana.

Designing efficient on-skin devices with minimal sensory interference remains challenging. Here, Zhang et al. develop versatile electrospun micropyramid array-based on-skin devices, achieving both imperceptibility and high performances in pressure sensing, radiative cooling, and bioenergy harvesting.

Abstract Evaluation of the oxygen‐mediated effects of clinical and daily activities demands an on‐skin device that can track multi‐vital regional tissue hemodynamics simultaneously. For example, peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is the third most prevalent cardiovascular disease, but the means of diagnosing and monitoring this disease are limited because the affected area is usually in the non‐pulsatile area away from the heart. Herein, we report on an ultrathin and ultralight multi‐vital near‐infrared optoelectronic biosensor for the diagnosis and rehabilitation monitoring of regional tissue hemodynamics, which is suitable for mounting on the skin for long‐term measurement. The device can simultaneously detect tissue oxygen saturation, heart rate, arterial blood oxygen, and tissue perfusion and shows potential for various hypoxia monitoring applications. Moreover, the tissue hemodynamics detected by this device showed a highly accordance with the ankle‐brachial index and CT angiography obtained by traditional clinical methods. Therefore, our design was able to accurately diagnose and effectively evaluate PAD patients before and after surgery. The on‐skin optoelectronic biosensor shows potential in biological oxygen‐mediated behavior evaluation, injury‐state monitoring, PAD clinical diagnosis optimization, and after surgery care.

Abstract For patients with platinum-resistant lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), the exploration of new effective drug candidates is urgently needed. Fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) have been identified as promising targets for LUAD therapy. The purpose of this study was to determine the exact role of the irreversible FGFR1-4 inhibitor FIIN-2 in LUAD and to clarify its underlying molecular mechanisms. Our results demonstrated that FIIN-2 significantly inhibited the proliferation, colony formation, and migration of A549 and A549/DDP cells but induced the mitochondria-mediated apoptosis of these cells. Meanwhile, FIIN-2 increased the autophagy flux of A549 and A549/DDP cells by inhibiting the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and further activating the class III PI3K complex pathway. More importantly, in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that autophagy inhibitors could enhance the cytotoxicity of FIIN-2 on A549 and A549/DDP cells, confirming that FIIN-2 induced protective autophagy. These findings indicated that FIIN-2 is a potential drug candidate for LUAD treatment, and its use in combination with autophagy inhibitors might be an efficient treatment strategy, especially for patients with cisplatin resistance.

Abstract Background Plants suffer from various abiotic stresses during their lifetime, of which drought and salt stresses are two main factors limiting crop yield and quality. Previous studies have shown that abscisic acid (ABA) responsive element binding protein (AREB)/ ABRE binding factors (ABFs) in bZIP transcription factors are involved in plant stress response in an ABA-dependent manner. However, little is known about the properties and functions of AREB/ABFs, especially ABF3, in cotton. Results Here, we reported the cloning and characterization of GhABF3. Expression of GhABF3 was induced by drought,salt and ABA treatments. Silencing of GhABF3 sensitized cotton to drought and salt stress, which was manifested in decreased cellular antioxidant capacity and chlorophyll content. Overexpression of GhABF3 significantly improved the drought and salinity tolerance of Arabidopsis and cotton. Exogenous expression of GhABF3 resulted in longer root length and less leaf wilting under stress conditions in Arabidopsis thaliana. Overexpressing GhABF3 significantly improved salt tolerance of upland cotton by reducing the degree of cellular oxidation, and enhanced drought tolerance by decreasing leaf water loss rate. The increased expression of GhABF3 up-regulated the transcriptional abundance of downstream ABA-inducible genes under salt stress in Arabidopsis. Conclusion In conclusion, our results demonstrated that GhABF3 plays an important role in plant drought and salt tolerance. Manipulation of GhABF3 by biotechnology might be an important strategy to alter the stress resistance of cotton.

This paper will start from the concept of smart grid and green energy, analyze the advantages and applications of distributed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) power generation in the energy system, study the significance of PV power generation, as well as the principle of PV power generation, the material and main structure of solar cells, and introduce the basic types of grid-connected photovoltaic systems, system structure, and working principle. It explores how to promote the development of green energy through photovoltaic power generation, and looks forward to its future development trends and challenges.

There are great differences in the types, development levels, and technological costs of renewable energy technologies, and they need to be classified and guided at the same time as comprehensive development. Organizations should formulate development roadmaps and action plans for various renewable energy technologies. At present, there is a game of interest among the selection subjects, and the technology evaluation system has yet to be perfected. The technology selection plan needs to be optimized. The renewable energy industry's technology selection should consider the combination of national responsibility and national obligations, government promotion and market guidance, and actual needs in relation to long-term development. Combined coordination of the impact of dynamic mechanisms, grasp the resource conditions and innovation capabilities of various regions, avoid research and development risks, learn from international trends, and serve development planning.

Large scale wind turbine connected to the power grid is easy to induce subsynchronous oscillation. “Curse of dimensionality” will be encountered when the subsynchronous oscillation mode is analysed and evaluated based on the full-order model of the wind farm. It is urgent to research the fast and effective analysis method of subsynchronous oscillation mode when the wind farm is connected to the power grid. Therefore, a reduced order calculation method of the subsynchronous oscillation mode of PMSG based wind farm connected with a power grid based on the Arnoldi method is proposed. This method can quickly obtain the eigenvalues corresponding to the subsynchronous oscillation mode through iterative approximation when PMSG-based wind farm connected to the power system. This can be used to analyze the subsynchronous oscillation of large-scale wind farms connected to the power grid and provide an effective means for the evaluation of it. By changing system stability, collector network structure, and wind farm interconnection scale, the accuracy of the eigenvalues distribution between the full-order system and the reduced order system are compared. Moreover, the reduced order and computation time are considered. The results present that the proposed method can quickly and accurately obtain the subsynchronous oscillation mode in the system.

ObjectiveAlthough neuroimaging investigations have revealed significant changes in brain structure in fibromyalgia (FM) patients, these findings are inconsistent. The current study conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometric studies in order to comprehend those alterations in brain structure in FM patients.MethodsVoxel-based morphometric (VBM) studies published up to January 17, 2023 were searched in the Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chongqing VIP, Wanfang Database. Two independent researchers carried out study screening, quality assessment, clinical data and neuroimaging data extraction. The whole-brain voxel-based gray matter (GM) data of FM patients were collected from eligible studies, and meta-analyzed using anisotropic effect size-signed differential mapping (AES-SDM).ResultsTwelve researches were included in this study, including 289 FM patients (mean age: 47.36 years) and 272 HS (mean age: 47.34 years). According to the meta-analysis, FM patients had increased GM in the right postcentral gyrus and left angular gyrus, and decreased GM in the right cingulate gyrus, right paracingulate gyrus, left cerebellum, and left gyrus rectus.ConclusionOur study suggests that fibromyalgia patients have altered gray matter in several brain regions that are involved in affective, cognitive functions, and in motor adaptations to pain processing.

Using historical data, long-term variations in pollutant sources and water quality in China’s coastal waters over the last three decades are reviewed. The results show that the total area of non-clean water, which reflects state of total water quality, increased rapidly before 2000, but then underwent two stages of decline, with a modest decline by one-quarter between 2001 and 2015, followed by a sharp decline of more than half of that in 2015 since then. Consequently, water quality at present is better than it was at the beginning of the 1990s. The total area of polluted water fluctuated without any trend from the end of the 1990s until 2015, but has declined sharply by nearly two-thirds since 2015, indicating that the water quality in China’s coastal seas has improved substantially. Geographically, the Bohai Sea was the first to see a turning point in water quality, followed by the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, while the South China Sea was the last. The main pollutants that govern the water quality grade and area are dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate as well as petroleum hydrocarbons. As a response to variations in water quality, changes in both the frequency and total area affected by harmful algal blooms were similar to those of water quality over the last three decades, albeit with a slight lag. Analysis showed that variations in water quality were closely related to the land- and sea-sourced pollutant inputs. The combination of shift in the mode of economic growth from high-speed growth to high-quality development and the enforcement of the new, strictest ever Environmental Protection Law resulted in a significant decline of pollutant emissions, inducing a turning point in the water quality in the coastal seas of China in the mid-2010s.

New field observation on distribution, turnover, and sea–air flux of three dimethylated sulfur compounds (dimethylsulfide (DMS), dimethylsulfoniopropionate, and dimethylsulfoxide) in the western tropical Indian Ocean (WTIO; 4°N–10°S, 61°–65°E) were conducted under the major Global Change and Air–Sea Interaction Program during the 2021/2022 Northeast Monsoon (December 21, 2021 to January 11, 2022). Significantly high surface concentrations of DMS were identified in the region of the Seychelles–Chagos Thermocline Ridge (SCTR; 5°–10°S). This occurred because the shallow thermocline/nitracline and associated upwelling fueled biological production of DMS in the subsurface, which was brought to the surface through vertical mixing. The calculated sea–air DMS flux was also significantly strong in the SCTR region during the Northeast Monsoon owing to combination of high wind speed and high surface concentration of DMS. This finding is similar to results obtained previously during the Southwest Monsoon, suggesting that the SCTR region is an area of active DMS emission during both the Northeast Monsoon and the Southwest Monsoon. Microbial consumption was the dominant pathway of DMS removal, accounting for 74.4% of the total, whereas the processes of photolysis (17.7%) and ventilation (7.9%) were less important. Future work should be undertaken in the WTIO to establish how DMS emission is linked to aerosol properties and climate change.

The HVA22 family of genes, induced by abscisic acid and stress, encodes a class of stress response proteins with a conserved TB2/DP1/HVA22 domain that are unique among eukaryotes. Previous studies have shown that HVA22s play an important role in plant responses to abiotic stresses. In the present study, 34, 32, 16, and 17 HVA22s were identified in G. barbadense, G. hirsutum, G. arboreum, and G. raimondii, respectively. These HVA22 genes were classified into nine subgroups, randomly distributed on the chromosomes. Synteny analysis showed that the amplification of the HVA22s were mainly due to segmental duplication or whole genome replication (WGD). Most HVA22s promoter sequences contain a large number of drought response elements (MYB), defense and stress response elements (TC-rich repeats), and hormone response elements (ABRE, ERE, SARE, etc.), suggesting that HVA22s may respond to adversity stresses. Expression profiling demonstrated that most GhHVA22s showed a constitutive expression pattern in G. hirsutum and could respond to abiotic stresses such as salt, drought, and low temperature. Overexpression of GhHVA22E1D (GH_D07G0564) in Arabidopsis thaliana enhances salt and drought tolerance in Arabidopsis. Virus-induced gene silencing of GhHVA22E1D reduced salt and drought tolerance in cotton. This indicates that GhHVA22E1D plays an active role in the plant response to salt stress and drought stress. GhHVA22E1D may act in plant response to adversity by altering the antioxidant capacity of plants. This study provides valuable information for the functional genomic study of the HVA22 gene family in cotton. It also provides a reference for further elucidation of the functional studies of HVA22 in plant resistance to abiotic stress response.

Coating the perovskite layer via a two-step method is an adaptable solution for industries compared to the anti-solvent process. But what about the impact of unreacted PbI2? Usually, it is generated during perovskite conversion in a two-step method and considered beneficial within the grain boundaries, while also being accused of enhancing the interface defects and nonradiative recombination. Several additives are mixed in PbI2 precursors for the purpose of improving the perovskite crystallinity and hindering the Pb2+ defects. Herein, in lieu of adding additives to the PbI2, the effects of the PbI2 residue via the electron transport layer/perovskite interface modification are explored. Consequently, by introducing artemisinin decorated with hydrophobic alkyl units and a ketone group, it reduces the residual PbI2 and improves the perovskites’ crystallinity by coordinating with Pb2+. In addition, artemisinin-deposited perovskite enhances both the stability and efficiency of perovskite solar cells by suppressing nonradiative recombination

Chlorpyrifos, a broadly utilized insecticide, inhibits many cellular and physiological processes in plants. Here, the phyto-toxicity of chlorpyrifos on cucumber plants, as well as the dissipation kinetics of chlorpyrifos in leaves, were investigated. Those results showed that chlorpyrifos accumulated primarily in the leaves under normal agrochemical spraying conditions with the half-lives among 2.48–4.59 days. Residues of the primary metabolite, 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCP), rapidly accumulated in plant tissues and soil with chlorpyrifos degradation. The application amount of chlorpyrifos had a significant effect on the persistence of chlorpyrifos and TCP in both plant and soil environments. Chlorpyrifos generated excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA), which led to oxidative damage. High chlorpyrifos stress even inhibited antioxidant enzymes. The photosynthetic system and gas exchange were suppressed, which ultimately lead to inefficient light use under chlorpyrifos stress. Morphological results revealed that chlorpyrifos induced membrane damage and harmed organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplast. Noninvasive micro-test technology (NMT) showed that chlorpyrifos promoted intracellular Ca2+ influx and efflux of H+ and K+. The Ca2+ influx was significantly stimulated after both high and low chlorpyrifos treatment with the minimum value of − 336.33 pmol·cm−2·s−1 at 258 s and − 155.68 pmol·cm−2·s−1 at 288 s, respectively. Chlorpyrifos stress reversed the H+ influx to an efflux in cucumber mesophyll with the mean value of 0.45 ± 0.03 pmol·cm−2·s−1 and 0.19 ± 0.03 pmol·cm−2·s−1 in cucumber plants under low and high chlorpyrifos stress. High chlorpyrifos stress dramatically increase K+ efflux in cucumber leaves by 13.68 times higher than the control. We suggest that ion homeostasis destruction, accompanied by ROS, resulted in oxidative damage to the mesophyll cell of cucumber seedlings.

Glutamine synthetase (GS) plays an important role in nitrogen (N) metabolism in cucumber. In this study, we cloned and sequenced the CsGS1 gene, and analyzed the expression patterns and subcellular localization of the GS1 protein in response to different N conditions in order to determine its role in low-nitrogen (LN) tolerance. CsGS1 was abundantly expressed in the leaves of the low N-requiring cultivar D0328, while the high N-requiring cultivar D0422 showed similar expression levels across different tissues including leaves, shoots and roots. Furthermore, the GS1 protein was primarily localized in the cytoplasm of plant cells. Both cultivars were then transformed with the CsGS1 coding sequence or antisense sequence via Agrobacterium tumefaciens in order to overexpress and silence GS1 expression, respectively. Overexpression of CsGS1 significantly improved LN tolerance and photosynthetic parameters, and increased chlorophyll b content, biomass, plant height, root length, N accumulation and GS activity under LN condition compared to the control. CsGS1 silencing on the other hand significantly reduced the above indices. Taken together, CsGS1 is crucial for maintaining N metabolism in cucumber plants during N deprivation, and is a promising target for generating novel transgenic breeds with increasing nitrogen utilization efficiency.

This paper proposes an automatic ship detection approach in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Images using phase spectrum. The proposed method mainly contains two stages: Firstly, sea-land segmentation of SAR Images is one of the key stages for SAR image application such as sea-targets detection and recognition, which are easily detected only in sea regions. In order to eliminate the influence of land regions in SAR images, a novel land removing method is explored. The removing method employs a Harris corner detector to obtain some image patches belonging to land, and the probability density function (PDF) of land area can be estimated by these patches. Thus, an appropriate land segmentation threshold is accordingly obtained. Secondly, an automatic ship detector based on phase spectrum is proposed. The proposed detector is free from various idealized assumptions and can accurately detect ships in SAR images. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed ship detection algorithm in diversified SAR images.

Oceanic oxygen levels are decreasing significantly in response to global climate change; however, the microbial diversity and ecological functional responses to dissolved oxygen (DO) in the open ocean are largely unknown. Here, we present prokaryotic distribution coupled with physical and biogeochemical variables and DO gradients from the surface to near the bottom of a water column along an approximately 12,000-km transect from 13° N to 18° S in the Tropical Pacific Ocean. Nitrate (11.42%), temperature (10.90%), pH (10.91%), silicate (9.34%), phosphate (4.25%), chlorophyll a (3.66%), DO (3.50%), and salinity (3.48%) significantly explained the microbial community variations in the studied area. A distinct microbial community composition broadly corresponding to the water masses formed vertically. Additionally, distinct ecotypes of Thaumarchaeota and Nitrospinae belonging to diverse phylogenetic clades that coincided with specific vertical niches were observed. Moreover, the correlation analysis revealed large-scale natural feedback in which chlorophyll a (organic matter) promoted Thaumarchaeotal biomass at depths that subsequently coupled with Nitrospina, produced and replenished nitrate for phytoplankton productivity at the surface. Low DO also favored Thaumarchaeota growth and fueled nitrate production.

Plant height (PH) is a key plant architecture trait for improving the biological productivity of cotton. Ideal PH of cotton is conducive to lodging resistance and mechanized harvesting. To detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) and candidate genes of PH in cotton, a genetic map was constructed with a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population of upland cotton. PH phenotype data under nine environments and three best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) were used for QTL analyses. Based on restriction-site-associated DNA sequence (RAD-seq), the genetic map contained 5,850 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, covering 2,747.12 cM with an average genetic distance of 0.47 cM. Thirty-seven unconditional QTL explaining 1.03–12.50% of phenotypic variance, including four major QTL and seven stable QTL, were identified. Twenty-eight conditional QTL explaining 3.27–28.87% of phenotypic variance, including 1 major QTL, were identified. Importantly, five QTL, including 4 stable QTL, were both unconditional and conditional QTL. Among the 60 PH QTL (including 39 newly identified), none of them were involved in the whole period of PH growth, indicating that QTL related to cotton PH development have dynamic expression characteristics. Based on the functional annotation of Arabidopsis homologous genes and transcriptome data of upland cotton TM-1, 14 candidate genes were predicted within 10 QTL. Our research provides valuable information for understanding the genetic mechanism of PH development, which also increases the economic production of cotton.

Objective To analyze the relationship between air pollutants and spontaneous abortion in Chongqing. Methods Time trend bias was controlled by time-stratified case-crossover design. The distribution lag nonlinear model was employed to study the relationship between air pollution and the number of spontaneous abortion in the main urban area of Chongqing and to control the influence of confounding factors such as meteorological factors. Based on the single pollutant model, the two-pollutant model was used to control the influence of other pollutants on correlation. Results During the study period, the average daily concentration of PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and SO2 in the air was 39.32, 63.31, 41.04 and 8.86μg/m3, respectively. All pollutants except NO2 were associated with the risk of spontaneous abortion, and all the associations reached the peak value at the lag of 3 d. For the increase of every 10μg/m3, the relative risk value was 1.069 (95%CI: 1.010~1.132), 1.046 (95%CI: 1.007~1.086) and 1.511 (95%CI: 1.148~1.989), respectively. These associations still existed in the two-pollutants model. Conclusion Short-term exposure of PM2.5, PM10 and SO2 in the ambient air may increase the risk of spontaneous abortion in Chongqing.

Cisplatin (DDP)-based chemotherapy remains one of the standard treatment options for patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), and cisplatin resistance is the biggest challenge to this therapy. Autophagy is also closely associated with chemoresistance in LUAD. Desperately need to find a way to improve the treatment efficiency of cisplatin-resistant LUAD in clinical practice. Previous studies reported that methylseleninic acid (MSA) has good anti-proliferation and pro-apoptotic activities in tumor cells. However, the effectiveness of MSA on cisplatin-resistant LUAD and its effect on the induction of autophagy is still unclear. In the current study, we found that MSA effectively inhibited the proliferation of LUAD cell lines and triggered mitochondrial pathway-mediated apoptosis. This effect was more pronounced in cisplatin-resistant LUAD cells with high MDR1 expression. In contrast, the mitochondrial damage caused by MSA treatment can be degraded by inducing selective autophagy in LUAD cells, thereby exerting a self-protective effect on tumor cells. Mechanistically, MSA inhibits proliferation, promotes apoptosis, and induces autophagy in LUAD cells by inhibiting of the Akt/mTOR pathway. Combination with autophagy inhibitors reduces the effect of this selective autophagy-induced resistance, and thus enhancing even more the anti-tumor effect of MSA on cisplatin-resistant LUAD cells. Finally, We speculate that MSA in combination with autophagy inhibitors may be a promising new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cisplatin-resistant LUAD.

Object detection in aerial images is vital for autonomous guidance, navigation and control, and situational awareness. However, there are still many challenges facing researchers in this filed, including the target scales, the perspectives in taking pictures, and the highly complex background. The present paper introduces a robust object detector which is optimized for handling with multi-scale objects and the overhead capturing perspective object instances in aerial images. Firstly, in the feature extraction stage, an effective multi-scale detector (MSD) is designed to search for objects with different scales in feature maps. After that, when detecting a small target from a cluttered background, both the shallow and deep layer features are densely connected by the deconvolution after tackling the issues of low dimensionality in deep layers and inadequate representation of small objects. In the experiments part, we analyze the impacts of the above mentioned components on the model and make a comparison between the method at issue and other state-of-the-art approaches on two publicly-available datasets captured by satellites and high-altitude UAVs. The results show that the proposed method, which is applicable to a wider range of aerial images, is more effective and robust.

Polymeric materials are emerging as an important component for organic electronics due to their combined features of soft materials and organic semiconductor/conductor. Different from solid-state bulk materials, polymers are synthesized and modulated with a facile method, with their controllable properties. Therefore, polymers have been recently used in Schottky junction devices that demonstrate features of enhanced performances, flexibility, and easy processing. Polymer-based Schottky junctions have drawn a lot of interest in several prototype applications like photodetectors, energy harvesters, and gas sensors. With this review, we summarize recent progress in synthesis and modulation of polymers and fabrication of polymer-based Schottky junction devices. Designs of applications of sensory devices like photodetectors, energy harvesters, and gas sensors are also presented.

With the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aerial targets detection has attracted extensive attention from researchers. The difficulty of aerial image detection lies in the small proportion of ground targets in aerial images and the wide variety of target sizes. After multiple down-sampling, the features of small targets are almost not available on the feature maps. To address these drawbacks, a densely connected Inception ResNet (RIDNet) is proposed. RIDNet is a lightweight multi-scale fusion detection network constructed with two residual inception units (RI): the RI-Dense model and the RI-Deconv model. The RI-Dense model consists of densely connected layers and shortcut connections. Each convolutional layer in RI-Dense has access to all the subsequent layers and passes on the information that needs to be preserved. The RI-Deconv fuses the global feature in a residual and hierarchical way, which continuously deconvolutes the output of RI-Dense and concatenates the result with the original output to get fusion layers. The fused layers absorb semantic information and detailed information from deep layers and shallow layers, respectively. Extensive experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed RIDNet. Ablation experiments also demonstrate that the RI-Dense model and RI-Deconv model can improve the mAP by 7.8% and 6.8%, respectively.

Abstract Background Propamocarb (PM) is one of the main pesticides used for controlling cucumber downy mildew. However, due to its volatility and internal absorption, PM can easily form pesticide residues on cucumber fruits that seriously endanger human health and pollute the environment. The breeding of new cucumber varieties with a low abundance of PM residues via genetic methods constitutes an effective strategy for reducing pesticide residues and improving cucumber safety and quality. To help elucidate the molecular mechanism resulting in a low PM residue abundance in cucumber, we used the cucumber cultivar ‘D0351’ (which has the lowest PM residue content) as the test material and identified genes related to low PM residue abundance through high-throughput tag-sequencing (Tag-Seq). Results CsMAPEG was constitutively expressed and showed both varietal and organizational differences. This gene was strongly expressed in ‘D0351’. The expression levels of CsMAPEG in different cucumber tissues under PM stress were as follows: fruit>leaf>stem>root. CsMAPEG can respond to salicylic acid (SA), gibberellin (GA) and Corynespora cassiicola Wei (Cor) stress and thus plays an important regulatory role in plant responses to abiotic and biological stresses. The PM residue abundance in the fruits of CsMAPEG-overexpressing plants was lower than those found in antisense CsMAPEG plants and wild-type plants at all tested time points. The results revealed that CsMAPEG played a positive role in reducing the PM residue abundance. A CsMAPEG sense construct increased the contents of SOD, POD and GST in cucumber fruits, enhanced the degradation and metabolism of PM in cucumber, and thus effectively reduced the pesticide residue abundance in cucumber fruits. Conclusions The expression patterns of CsMAPEG in cucumber cultivars with high and low pesticide residue abundances and a transgenic verification analysis showed that CsMAPEG can actively respond to PM stress and effectively reduce the PM residue abundance in cucumber fruits. The results of this study will help researchers further elucidate the mechanism responsible for a low PM residue abundance in cucumber and lay a foundation for the breeding of new agricultural cucumber varieties with low pesticide residue abundances.

Jackknifing refers to the serious situation where a vehicle-trailer system enters a jackknife state and the vehicle and trailer eventually collide if trailer operation is not corrected. This paper considers low speed trailer maneuvering typical of trailer backing. Jackknife state limits can vary due to sideslip caused by physical interaction between the vehicle, trailer, and environment. Analysis of a kinematic model considers sideslip at the vehicle and trailer wheels. Results indicate that vehicle-trailer systems should be divided into three categories based on the ratio of hitch length and trailer tongue length, each with distinct behaviors. The Long Trailer category may have no jackknifing state while the other two categories always have states leading to jackknifing. It is found that jackknife limits, which are the boundaries between the jackknifing state and the recoverable regions, can be divided into safe and unsafe limits. The latter of which must be avoided. Simulations and physical experiments support these results and provide insight about the implications of vehicle and trailer states with slip that lead to jackknifing. Simulations also demonstrate the benefit of considering these new slip-based jackknife limits in trailer backing control.

Banana fruit is a widely cultivated and economically important crop, and it is susceptible to mechanical damage. The effects of three different phospholipase D inhibitors (0.1% n-butanol, 0.05% 2-butanol, and 0.1% hexanal) on the cell membrane integrity and membrane lipid metabolism in wounding banana fruits during storage were investigated. The results indicated that wounded banana treated with phospholipase D inhibitors showed significant (p < 0.05) delay in the ripening and senescence process than the control group after a 9-day storage. Of the three PLD inhibitors, hexanal showed the best effect in maintaining firmness, suppressing the increase of total soluble solids (TSS) and respiration rate, and reducing malondialdehyde (MDA) content and cell membrane permeability of wounded banana fruits. Furthermore, hexanal more efficiently decreased the phospholipase D (PLD) and lipoxygenase (LOX) activities, lowered the contents of phosphatidic acid (PA) and diacylglycerol (DAG), and inhibited the reduction of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylinositol (PI) after 6 days of storage, compared to n-butanol or 2-butanol. These results demonstrate that application of hexanal treatment may be a reliable method to delay the senescence of harvested bananas subjected to mechanical wounding.

This study aimed to evaluate the changes in aromatic components and other chemical properties of Tainong mango during fruit development, ripening, and storage. As the volatiles of Tainong mango and their related molecular mechanisms remain unclear, volatile profile, metabonomics, and transcriptome analyses were applied to investigate the molecular determinants of the synthesis of aroma components in mango during fruit development and storage. Total acids, total sugar, total carotenoids, enzyme activities of the mango pulp samples were also determined. Volatile components of the mango pulp samples were identified using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometric method. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequences of the samples were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that 181 volatiles were isolated and identified in the fruit at seven stages. Compared to the other stages, mango collected on day 8 and day 12 had higher concentrations of 17 volatile components, especially (E,Z)-2,6-nonadienal, 53384 transcripts were also detected through RNA sequencing. The differentially expressed genes analyses included catalytic activity, transferase activity, adenosine diphosphate binding, transcription factor activity, and oxidoreductase activity. α-Pinene content and expression of the differentially expressed genes involved in terpenoid metabolism and enzyme activities in the terpenoid metabolic pathways gradually increased during the maturity of the fruit, and had maximum values at day 8 of storage. Moreover, the integrative analyses revealed potential molecular insights of mango development and aroma formation in the fruit.

In this study, graphene oxide (GO) was prepared by an improved Hummers’ method, and the graphene oxide–carbon fiber (GO-CF) hybrid fibers were prepared by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) with the above GO. The microstructure and mechanical properties of GO, CF and GO-CF cement matrix composites were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), SEM and mechanical tests. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM results showed that the surface modification of CF with GO could effectively improve the dispersion of CF in the cement matrix, the template action of GO providing nucleation sites for cement hydration, which significantly enhanced the interface bond between CF and the cement matrix. The mechanical properties test results showed that the early compressive strength and flexural strength of cement matrix composites were significantly improved by GO. Adding CF into the cement matrix significantly improved the flexural strength, although the compressive strength was not improved, even exhibiting a downward trend when the CF content exceeded 0.5%. The flexural and compressive strength of GO-CF cement matrix composites were clearly improved, its 7 d flexural strength and compressive strength increased by 30.89% and 17.56%, respectively, and its 28 d flexural strength and compressive strength increased by 38.37% and 14.32%, respectively. The research results indicate that a new method was provided which used GO as a dispersant and surface modifier to improve the dispersion of chopped CF in a cement matrix, and the interaction between CF and the cement matrix interface could also be applied to the functional aspects of cement matrix composites.

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is one of the most economically important fruits of the Cucurbitaceae family, therefore consideration of potential pesticide residues in the fruit in the context of cucumber breeding and production programs is important. Propamocarb (a pesticide commonly used to prevent downy mildew) is widely used in cucumber cultivation, but the molecular mechanism underlying the degradation and metabolism of propamocarb in cucumber is not well understood. We screened a candidate CsHMGB gene (CsaV3-5G28190) for response to propamocarb exposure using transcriptome data. The coding region of CsHMGB was 624 bp in length and encoded the conserved HMB-box region. CsHMGB expression differed significantly between the “D0351” genotype, which accumulated low levels of propamocarb, and the “D9320” genotype, which accumulated high levels of propamocarb. CsHMGB expression was positively correlated with propamocarb levels in the cucumber peel. CsHMGB expression was upregulated in the fruit peels of the “D0351” genotype following exposure to propamocarb stress for 3–120 h, but no difference was observed in expression between propamocarb treatment and control for the “D9320” genotype. For the “D0351” genotype, CsHMGB expression was higher in the fruit peels and leaves than that in female flowers; expression was moderate in the stems and fruit pulps, and weak in male flowers and roots. The CsHMGB protein was targeted to the nucleus in Arabidopsis protoplasts and in the epidermis of Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. We measured MDA, O2–, and H2O2 levels in cucumber plants and found that they were likely to accumulate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in response to propamocarb stress. Analysis of antioxidant enzyme activity (SOD, POD, CAT, APX, GPX, GST, and GR) and the ascorbate-glutathione (AsA-GSH) system showed that the resistance of the plants was reduced and the levels of propamocarb residue was increased in CsHMGB-silenced plants in response to propamocarb stress. Conversely, overexpression of CsHMGB promoted glutathione-dependent detoxification by AsA-GSH system and improved the antioxidant potential, reduced the accumulation of ROS. Ultimately, the metabolism of propamocarb in cucumber was increased via increase in the wax levels and the stomatal conductance.

Person re-identification has become a challenging task due to various factors. One key to effective person re-identification is the extraction of the discriminative features of a person's appearance. Most previous works based on deep learning extract pedestrian characteristics from neural networks but only from the top feature layer. However, the low-layer feature could be more discriminative in certain circumstances. Hence, we propose a method, named the multi-level feature network with multiple losses (MFML), which has a multi-branch network architecture that consists of multiple middle layers and one top layer for feature representations. To extract the discriminative middle-layer features and have a good effect on deeper layers, we utilize the triplet loss function to train the middle-layer features. For the top layer, we focus on learning more discriminative feature representations, so we utilize the hybrid loss (HL) function to train the top-layer feature. Instead of concatenating multilayer features directly, we concatenate the weighted middle-layer features and the weighted top-layer feature as the discriminative features in the testing phase. The extensive evaluations conducted on three datasets show that our method achieves a competitive accuracy level compared with the state-of-the-art methods.

MXenes, a kind of two-dimensional material of early transition metal carbides and carbonitrides, have emerged as a unique class of layered-structured metallic materials with attractive features, as good conductivity comparable to metals, enhanced ionic conductivity, hydrophilic property derived from their hydroxyl or oxygen-terminated surfaces, and mechanical flexibility. With tunable etching methods, the morphology of MXenes can be effectively controlled to form nanoparticles, single layer, or multi-layer nanosheets, which exhibit large specific surface areas and is favorable for enhancing the sensing performance of MXenes based sensors. Moreover, MXenes are available to form composites with other materials facilely. With structure design, MXenes or its composite show enhanced mechanical flexibility and stretchability, which enabled its wide application in the fields of wearable sensors, energy storage, and electromagnetic shielding. In this review, recent progress in MXenes is summarized, focusing on its application in wearable sensors including pressure/strain sensing, biochemical sensing, temperature, and gas sensing. Furthermore, the main challenges and future research are also discussed.

Phospholipase D (PLD) in plants plays an important role in growth, development, and stress response. The effect of hexanal on PLD in banana fruit responding to Colletotrichum musae infection remains poorly understood. In this study, four putative PLD genes, named as MaPLD1, MaPLD2, MaPLD3, and MaPLD4 were identified from banana fruit. The four MaPLDs can be classified into three of the seven known PLD families according to sequence characterization. Their deduced amino acid sequences displayed homology of PLDs from other plant species. Furthermore, the specific expression analysis of PLD genes in banana fruit in response to infection in C. musae was studied and the response relationship between PLD family members and banana fruit under anthracnose stress was clarified. Changes in both the activity of PLD and PLC, and the connection between hexanal and phospholipases in the banana fruit C. musae infection were compared. The results showed that the incidence of disease in banana inoculated with C. musae was dramatically increased after 6 days of storage, the activation of PLD and PLC in infected anthracnose fruit before disease development, and that this activation was inhibited by hexanal treatment, which suggested that both enzymes play a protective role in banana fruit to cope with C. musae infection and the participation of hexanal in their regulation. Of the four MaPLD genes, the anthracnose had a stronger effect on MaPLD1 and MaPLD4. These data demonstrated that hexanal treatment could enhance fruit disease resistance to C. musae, and that PLD could take part in the disease defensive system of harvested banana fruit to C. musae by modulating the metabolism of cell membrane lipids, and thus suppress disease development in C. musae -inoculated banana during storage.

Abstract Background Cucumber downy mildew is among the most important diseases that can disrupt cucumber production. Propamocarb, also known as propyl-[3-(dimethylamino)propyl]carbamate (PM), is a systemic carbamate fungicide pesticide that is widely applied in agricultural production because of its high efficiency of pathogens control, especially cucumber downy mildew. However, residual PM can remain in cucumbers after the disease has been controlled. To explore the molecular mechanisms of PM retention, cucumber cultivars ‘D9320’ (with the highest residual PM content) and ‘D0351’ (lowest residual PM content) were studied. High-throughput tag-sequencing (Tag-Seq) results showed that the CsDIR16 gene was related to PM residue, which was verified using transgenic technology. Results We investigated the activity of a dirigent cucumber protein encoded by the CsDIR16 in gene response to stress induced by PM treatment. Gene-expression levels of CsDIR16 were up-regulated in the fruits, leaves, and stems of ‘D0351’ plants in response to PM treatment. However, in cultivar ‘D9320’, CsDIR16 levels were down-regulated in the leaves and stems after PM treatment, with no statistically significant differences observed in the fruits. Induction by jasmonic acid, abscisic acid, polyethylene glycol 4000, NaCl, and Corynespora cassiicola Wei (Cor) resulted in CsDIR16 up-regulation in ‘D0351’ and ‘D9320’. Expression after salicylic acid treatment was up-regulated in ‘D0351’, but was down-regulated in ‘D9320’. CsDIR16 overexpression lowered PM residues, and these were more rapidly reduced in CsDIR16(+) transgenic ‘D9320’ plants than in wild-type ‘D9320’ and CsDIR16(−) transgenic plants. Conclusions Analyses of the CsDIR16-expression patterns in the cucumber cultivars with the highest and lowest levels of PM residue, and transgenic validation indicated that CsDIR16 plays a positive role in reducing PM residues. The findings of this study help understand the regulatory mechanisms occurring in response to PM stress in cucumbers and in establishing the genetic basis for developing low-pesticide residue cucumber cultivars.

Abstract Background Cucumber downy mildew, caused by P. cubensis, is an important leaf disease that can severely affect cucumber production. In recent years, cucumber target spot, caused by C. cassiicola, has been reported in both Asia and Europe and is now considered as a major disease disrupting cucumber production. Single-disease-resistant cucumber varieties have been unable to satisfy production needs. To explore the molecular mechanisms of cucumber resistance to these two diseases, cucumber cultivars D9320 (resistant to downy mildew and target spot) and D0401 (susceptible to downy mildew and target spot) were used as experimental materials in this study. We used transcriptome sequencing technology to identify genes related to disease resistance and verified using transgenic technology. Results We screened out the cucumber resistance-related gene CsERF004 using transcriptome sequencing technology. Induction by pathogens, salicylic acid (SA), and ethylene (ET) resulted in the up-regulation of CsERF004. Three treatments, namely, inoculation with C. cassiicola alone, inoculation with P. cubensis alone, and simultaneous inoculation with both pathogens, all resulted in the significant and sustained up-regulation of CsERF004 in the resistant cultivar D9320, during the early stage of infection. In the susceptible cultivar D0401, CsERF004 expression was also significantly up-regulated at the later stage of infection but to a lesser extent and for a shorter duration than in the resistant cultivar D9320. The CsERF004 gene encodes a protein localizes to the nucleus. The over-expression of CsERF004 in the susceptible cultivar D0401 resulted in the significant up-regulation of the CsPR1 and CsPR4 genes and increased the levels of SA and ET, which enhanced the resistance of cucumber to downy mildew and target spot. Conclusions Analyses of the CsERF004 expression pattern in disease-resistant and susceptible cucumber cultivars and transgenic validation indicate that CsERF004 confers resistance to P. cubensis and C. cassiicola. The findings of this study can help to better understanding of mechanisms of response to pathogens and in establishment the genetic basis for the development of cucumber broad-spectrum resistant cultivars.

Passion fruit (Passiflora edulia Sims), an important tropical and subtropical species, is classified as a respiration climacteric fruit, and its quality deteriorates rapidly after harvest. To elucidate the mechanisms involved in ripening and rapid fruit senescence, phytochemical characteristic analysis and RNA sequencing were performed in purple passion fruit with different treatments, that is, 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) and preservative film (PF). Comprehensive functional annotation and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that starch and sucrose metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, flavonoid biosynthesis, and carotenoid biosynthesis were involved in fruit ripening. Treatment with PF and 1-MCP significantly affected the transcription levels of passion fruit during postharvest storage. A large number of differentially expressed unigenes (DEGs) were identified as significantly enriched in starch and sucrose metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis at the postharvest stage. The PF and 1-MCP treatments increased superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) gene expression levels and enzyme activities, accelerated lignin accumulation, and decreased β-galactosidase (β-Gal), polygalacturonase (PG) and cellulose activities and gene expression levels to delay cell wall degradation during fruit senescence. The RNA sequencing data for cell wall metabolism and hormone signal transduction pathway-related unigenes were verified by RT-qPCR. The results of this study indicate that the cell wall metabolism and hormone signaling pathways are closely related to passion fruit ripening. PF and 1-MCP treatment might inhibit ethylene signaling and regulate cell wall metabolism pathways to inhibit cell wall degradation. Our results demonstrate the involvement of ripening- and senescence-related networks in passion fruit ripening and may establish a foundation for future research investigating the effects of PF and 1-MCP treatment on fruit ripening.

The function of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) in the regulation of quality and antioxidative system of mango fruit was investigated during storage at ambient temperature. Changes in fruit quality, colour, ethylene production, respiration rate, fruit softening enzyme activities, and antioxidative enzyme activities were studied in this study. The results demonstrated that 1-MCP was beneficial for maintaining quality. 1-MCP treatment retarded the decline of firmness, weight, total soluble solid, and titratable acidity, which served as significant parameters for assessing fruit quality in the process of storage. Compared with the fruit of the control group, the treatment with 1-MCP dramatically delayed the colour change of both the pulp and peel and suppressed climacteric peaks of ethylene generation and respiration speed. The significant inducement of peroxidase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase activities were followed by 1-MCP treatment. The fruit treated with 1-MCP displayed significantly inhibited activation of enzymes on the cell wall, i.e., pectin esterase (PE), endo-1,4-β-d-glucanase (EGase), exopolygalacturonase (exo-PG), and endopolygalacturonase (endo-PG), during storage. The results suggested that 1-MCP imposed underlying impact on the maintenance of the softening and extension of postharvest life of mango fruit.

In several watersheds, agricultural activities are the cause of pollution, mainly due to the discharge of herbicides. Often, these herbicide plumes are transported to the surrounding bays. Samples of water, suspended particulate sediments (SPSs), and sediments from 37 sites in the Jiaozhou Bay in the western Pacific Ocean were collected in April 2018. The total concentrations of atrazine and acetochlor in these samples were analyzed, that showed different patterns in each sampled area. Atrazine had 2–3 times higher concentrations in coastal areas and bays compared to the estuary, indicating that it had a higher residence time in the marine environment. In contrast, acetochlor concentration decreased with an increase in the depth of seawater. Both the spatial distributions and the vertical concentrations in water, SPS, and sediment proved that these two herbicides had different responses during transportation from the estuary to the bay. Despite the significant difference in concentration of the two herbicides in the water and sediment, their spatially averaged value in SPS was very close, indicating that the particles had saturated sorption capability. The organic carbon normalized partition coefficient (LogKoc) was used to explain the partitioning of the herbicides between water and sediment. The LogKoc difference between herbicides demonstrated that acetochlor was strongly phase partitioned in the coastal and the bay areas, thereby causing similar distributions of acetochlor in the three matrices. Atrazine had a higher LogKoc value in the estuary, which explained its higher concentration in the estuary SPS. The correlation and redundancy analyses both demonstrated that the concentrations of the herbicides in water were sensitive to dissolved organic carbon and dissolved oxygen. The current tides and bathymetry were the critical factors in determining the spatial distribution of herbicides in the water and sediment, resulting in a low herbicide load in the river mouth area. Keywords: Atrazine, Acetochlor, Phase partition, Diffuse pollution, Suspended particulate sediment, Semienclosed bay

Lymph node tuberculosis is a common clinical bacterial infectious disease. Regional lymph node tuberculosis is often difficult to cure by surgically radical resection. In addition, its recurrence rate is higher, and it can easily cause lymphatic leakage. This case was considered to have left axillary lymph node tuberculosis. A combination of clinical examination, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging examinations were performed before surgery. The surgical procedure performed was left axillary lymph node excision. Postoperative pathology confirmed the lymph node tuberculosis. The patient was given anti-tuberculosis drug treatment with no recurrence after 6 months follow-up. This provides new ideas and methods for the clinical treatment of regional lymph node tuberculosis.