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Background The tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.) cultivar ‘Er Qiao’ is appreciated for its unstable variegated flower coloration, with cyanic and acyanic flowers appearing on different branches of the same plant and occasionally in a single flower or petal. However, the variegation mechanism is still unclear. Results In this study, we found significantly higher contents and more diverse sets of anthocyanins in the cyanic petals than in the acyanic petals. Comparative transcriptome analysis between the two flower types revealed 477 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Quantitative real-time PCR results verified that the transcript levels of the flavonol synthase (FLS) gene were significantly increased in the acyanic petals. Furthermore, we found that a GCGGCG insertion at 246 bp in the flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase (F3’H) gene-coding region constitutes a duplication of the 241–245 bp section and was consistently found only in acyanic flowers. Sequence alignment of the F3’H gene from different plant species indicated that only the acyanic petals of ‘Er Qiao’ contained the GCGGCG insertion. The transformation of Arabidopsis tt7–1 lines demonstrated that the ectopic expression of F3’H-cyanic, but not F3’H-acyanic, could complement the colors in the hypocotyl and seed coat. Conclusion In summary, we found that an indel in F3’H and the upregulation of FLS drastically reduced the anthocyanin content in acyanic petals. Our results provide molecular candidates for a better understanding of the variegation mechanisms in tree peony.

This paper takes the air pollution governance performance as the research object, establishes the evaluation index system of air pollution governance performance using the pressure-state-response (PSR) model, and uses the data of 11 prefecture-level cities in Jiangxi Province from 2014–2017 to carry out empirical tests. The results show that, in terms of indicator weights, the state and pressure categories have higher weights than the response category, further highlighting the importance of reducing pollution emissions rather than post-pollution treatment. Regarding regional comparisons, only a few regions show a good balance between “stress-state-response”, while most regions show a “loss of balance”. In terms of annual changes, the performance of most regions in several categories rose and showed a wave-like upward trend, reflecting the intermittent improvement characteristics of air pollution governance performance in most regions of Jiangxi. Finally, combined with the evaluation results, this paper proposes policy suggestions, such as improving the performance evaluation index system of air pollution governance, promoting the comprehensive governance of air pollution, focusing on regions with weaker air pollution governance, and strengthening the regional collaborative governance of air pollution.

Polypyrrole (PPy) has high electrochemical activity and low cost, so it has great application prospects in wearable supercapacitors. Herein, we have successfully prepared polypyrrole/reduced graphene oxide (PPy/rGO) nanocomposite cotton fabric (NCF) by chemical polymerization, which exhibits splendid electrochemical performance compared with the individual. The addition of rGO can block the deformation of PPy caused by the expansion and contraction. The as-prepared PPy-0.5/rGO NCF electrode exhibits the brilliant specific capacitance (9300 mF cm−2 at 1 mA cm−2) and the capacitance retention with 94.47% after 10 000 cycles. At the same time, the superior capacitance stability under different bending conditions and reuse capability have been achieved. All-solid-state supercapacitor has high energy density of 167 μWh cm−2 with a power density of 1.20 mW cm−2. Therefore, the PPy-0.5/rGO NCF electrode has a broad application prospect in high-performance flexible supercapacitor fabric electrode.

Though many methods have been proposed, image completion still remains challenge; besides textured patterns completion, it often requires high-level understanding of scenes and objects being completed. More recently, deep convolutional generative adversarial networks have been turned into an efficient tool for image completion. Manually specified transformation methods are having been replaced with training neural nets. Hand-engineered loss calculations for training the generator are replaced by the loss function provided by the discriminator. With existing deep learning-based approaches, image completion results in high quality but may still lack high-level feature details or contain artificial appearance. In our completion architecture, we leverage a fully convolutional generator with two subnetworks as our basic completion approach and divide the problem into two steps: The first subnetwork generates the outline of a completed image in a new domain, and the second subnetwork translates the outline to a visually realistic output with image-to-image translation. The feedforward fully convolutional network can complete images with holes of any size at any location. We compare our method with several existing ones on representative datasets such as CelebA, ImageNet, Places2 and CMP Facade. The evaluations demonstrate that our model significantly improves the completion results.

Cadmium is known as an environmental pollutant that contributes to pancreatic damage and the pathogenesis of diabetes. However, less attention has been devoted to elucidating the mechanisms underlying Cd-induced pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and the role of Cd toxicity in the development of diabetes. In this study, we demonstrated that exposure to Cd caused remarkable pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and death, both in vitro and in vivo. Lipidomic analysis of Cd-exposed pancreatic β-cells using high-resolution mass spectrometry revealed that Cd exposure altered the profile and abundance of lipids. Cd exposure induced intracellular lipid accumulation, promoted lipid biogenesis, elevated pro-inflammatory lipid contents and inhibited lipid degradation. Furthermore, Cd exposure upregulated the expression levels of TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 in pancreatic β-cells and elevated the TNF-α, IL1-β and IL-6 levels in the serum and pancreas. Taken together, the results of our study demonstrated that environmental relevant Cd exposure causes pro-inflammatory lipids elevation and insulin secretion dysfunction in β-cells and hence exaggerates diabetes development. Combined exposure to environmental hazardous chemicals might markedly increase the probability of developing diabetes in humans. This study provides new metabolic and pharmacological targets for antagonizing Cd toxicity.

Tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.) is a well-known ornamental flower in China with diverse colors. Flower color is one of the most important economic characteristics of tree peony and is mainly determined by anthocyanins. In this study, we cloned a PsMYB58 gene, which contained a 654 bp open reading frame (ORF), encoding a polypeptide of 218 amino acids. Sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicated that PsMYB58 is an anthocyanin regulatory R2R3-MYB gene. The transcription levels of PsMYB58 in different developmental stages of tree peony flowers were similar to those of the anthocyanin biosynthetic genes PsCHS, PsCHI, PsDFR, and PsANS. A bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay showed that PsMYB58 interacted with PsbHLH1 and PsbHLH3 in vivo. The overexpression of PsMYB58 in tobacco enhanced anthocyanin accumulation in various organs. Comparative transcriptome analysis showed that 943 genes were upregulated and 1203 downregulated in PsMYB58 transgenic tobacco, among which genes involved in the anthocyanin pathway were positively activated. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis verified that anthocyanin biosynthetic genes, including NtCHS, NtCHI, NtF3H, NtF3′H, NtDFR, and NtANS, and an anthocyanin regulatory bHLH gene, NtAN1b, were significantly upregulated in PsMYB58 transgenic tobacco. Our results indicated that PsMYB58 is a positive anthocyanin regulator in tree peony flowers. In summary, the functional identification of PsMYB58 furthers our understanding of the mechanism of peony flower color formation, thus providing a foundation for flower color improvement and molecular breeding.

It is a novel technique of laparoscopic-assisted natural orifice specimen extraction (LA-NOSE) colectomy whereby laparoscopic colonic mobilization, transection, and anastomosis are performed intracorporeally. The specimen is then delivered through the rectum using the Cai Tube (Homemade Invention: CN201420203735.X, Fig. 41.1), precluding the need for mini-laparotomy. Left-sided colonic carcinomas are defined as carcinomas located in the middle rectum, upper rectum, sigmoid colon, descending colon, and the splenic flexure of the colon.

Background R2R3 myeloblastosis (MYB) genes are widely distributed in plants and comprise one of the largest transcription factor gene families. They play important roles in the regulatory networks controlling development, metabolism, and stress responses. Researches on functional genes in tree peony are still in its infancy. To date, few MYB genes have thus far been reported. Results In this study, we constructed a comprehensive reference gene set by transcriptome sequencing to obtain R2R3 MYB genes. The transcriptomes of eight different tissues were sequenced, and 92,837 unigenes were obtained with an N50 of 1662 nt. A total of 48,435 unigenes (77.98%) were functionally annotated in public databases. Based on the assembly, we identified 57 R2R3 MYB genes containing full-length open reading frames, which clustered into 35 clades by phylogenetic analysis. PsMYB57 clustered with anthocyanin regulation genes in Arabidopsis and was mainly transcribed in the buds and young leaves. The overexpression of PsMYB57 induced anthocyanin accumulation in tobacco, and four detected anthocyanin structural genes, including NtCHS, NtF3’H, NtDFR, and NtANS, were upregulated. The two endogenous bHLH genes NtAn1a and NtAn1b were also upregulated and may work in combination with PsMYB57 in regulating anthocyanin structural genes. Conclusions Our study offers a useful reference to the selection of candidate MYB genes for further functional studies in tree peony. Function analysis of PsMYB57 is helpful to understand the color accumulation in vegetative organs of tree peony. PsMYB57 is also a promising resource to improve plant color in molecular breeding.

Additional file 2: Table S2. Primers used for PCR amplification of MYB genes.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Primers used for qRT-PCR analysis of tree peony and transgenic tobacco samples.

Additional file 5: Table S1. Statistics of assembly quality. Table S2. KEGG enrichment of the DEGs between cyanic and acyanic flowers. Table S3. Primers used for qRT-PCR.

Additional file 4: Table S4. Unigene annotation in public databases.

Rhubarb is a famous herb medicine commonly used for the treatment of purgation, anticancer, anti-inflammation, and promoting blood circulation in clinical. Recently, the situation that unofficial rhubarb is confused with official one on the market is becoming a serious threat to the efficacy of the crude drug. In this study, a comprehensive approach using principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) based on liquid chromarography coupled with electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry and diode-array detection was established to explore novel markers for rhubarb authenticity which is important for quality assurance, pharmaceutical activity, and market protection. The method was validated based on pooled quality control samples and was found reliable and repeatable. In the procedure, metabolic fingerpringing of official and unofficial samples from different geographic regions was analyzed, and a total of 35 phenolic compounds were screened out and were tentatively characterized as authenticity markers of rhubarb based on their mass spectra and UV spectra. The content and pharmacological activity difference of these ingredients belonging to different compound classes (such as anthraquinone glycosides, catechins, stilbenes, naphthalenes, and butyrophenones) were compared by compound types on the base of extracted ion chromatograms. And anthraquinone glycosides, which have been considered as the major purgative components of rhubarb, were relatively contained more in official rhubarb. This research proved that a chemometric method based on liquid chromatography with diode-array detection and time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry can comprehensively analyze chemical variation and provide evidence for quality control of herbal medicine.

As a computer vision problem, image inpainting aiming at restoring the missing portions within an image has been widely studied. Motivated by inpainting, we begin to research outpainting, which extrapolates beyond image boundaries. Then an image can be expanded arbitrarily by recursive outpainting. Image outpainting based on deep learning can be regarded as an information generation problem from the input image to the corresponding output image. With deep convolutional network and conditional generative adversarial structure, our trained model generates the plausible outpainting contents of a specific image. We adopt two subnetworks based on residual net and U-net to replace the single encoder-decoder structure in the most existing image inpainting networks. The first half of the generator network is used to generate rough outline images, while the second half is used to enhance outline images to clear outpainted images with pixel to pixel mapping. Experimental results show that the generated contents are smoothly integrated with the pixels around the boundaries and express real semantics together with the input image.

Trimethyltin chloride (TMT) is a potent neurotoxin that causes neuroinflammation and neuronal cell death. Melatonin is a well-known anti-inflammatory agent with significant neuroprotective activity. Male C57BL/6J mice were intraperitoneally injected with a single dose of melatonin (10 mg/kg) before exposure to TMT (2.8 mg/kg, ip). Thereafter, the mice received melatonin (10 mg/kg, ip) once a day for another three consecutive days. Melatonin dramatically alleviated TMT-induced neurotoxicity in mice by attenuating hippocampal neuron loss, inhibiting epilepsy-like seizures, and ameliorating memory deficits. Moreover, melatonin markedly suppressed TMT-induced neuroinflammatory responses and astrocyte activation, as shown by a decrease in inflammatory cytokine production as well as the downregulation of neurotoxic reactive astrocyte phenotype markers. Mechanistically, serine peptidase inhibitor clade A member 3N (SERPINA3N) was identified as playing a central role in the protective effects of melatonin based on quantitative proteome and bioinformatics analysis. Most importantly, melatonin significantly suppressed TMT-induced SERPINA3N upregulation at both the mRNA and protein levels. The overexpression of Serpina3n in the mouse hippocampus abolished the protective effects of melatonin on TMT-induced neuroinflammation and neurotoxicity. Melatonin protected cells against TMT-induced neurotoxicity by inhibiting SERPINA3N-mediated neuroinflammation. Melatonin may be a promising and practical agent for reducing TMT-induced neurotoxicity in clinical practice.

Unfortunately, the corresponding author of this paper was incorrectly published as Shuzhen Xu in the original publication. The correct corresponding author should be Jin Wang.

To investigate the feasibility and safety of membrane-based right-sided approach of laparoscopic suprapancreatic lymph node dissection for advanced distal gastric cancer.The clinical data of 41 patients with advanced distal gastric cancer who underwent laparoscopic gastrectomy using membrane-based right-sided approach for laparoscopic suprapancreatic lymph node dissection at the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital of Xiamen University from January 2016 to January 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 24 males and 17 females with a mean age of 56.8 years and a mean body mass index of 22.6 kg/m². Membrane-based right-sided approach of laparoscopic suprapancreatic lymph node dissection contained 4 steps briefly: (1) dissection of mesenteria above the head of pancreas: the tri-junction of pancreas-duodenum was cut to expose and identify the logo of Benz;clearance of the membrane of No.5a was performed towards the left, and then expanded to the posterior layer of No.12a. (2) dissection of the V shape dorsal mesogastrium: membrane bridge at splenic artery trunk root was cut; in suprapancreatic space, clearance was performed towards to the left to the middle of the splenic artery trunk and expanded to the posterior Tolds plane upwards to the posterior phrenic angle and retroperitoneal esophagus, then the surrounding tissue of anterior abdominal aorta. (3) dissection of the U shape mesenteria:membrane bridge at common hepatic artery root was cut; mesentery was separated; the left gastric vein was freed and ligated at its root; in posterior pancreatic space, the mesentery of No.7, No.9 and No.8 was dissected in turns; the left gastric artery was high ligated and cut; the portal vein and posterior dorsal mesogastrium Toldt plane was routinely exposed; clearance was performed to right for No.8a and upward to the hepatic portal meeting at posterior mesentery No.12 plane. (4) dissection of the upper triangular area of pylorus: the trigone mesentery was cut along the upper edge of the pylorus; No.12a was swept upward along the gastric ventral mesentery; the upper boundary(No.8a) on the right side of the U-shaped membrane was joined. Intraoperative and postoperative presentations were analyzed.Laparoscopic gastrectomy for advanced distal gastric cancer with membrane-based right-sided approach of laparoscopic suprapancreatic lymph node dissection was successfully carried out in all the 41 patients. Distal gastric mesenteria en bloc resection was successfully performed. The operation time was (145.2±25.4) minutes and intraoperative blood loss was (53.3±18.3) ml without massive bleeding and severe complication. Number of lymph nodes dissected was 41.1±6.4, and number of suprapancreatic lymph node dissected was 23.3±3.7 without residual cancer at cut margin by pathology. Postoperative drainage volume was (65.8±21.7) ml; time to withdraw of catheter was (7.0±1.7) days; time to fluid intake was (3.5±1.8) days; postoperative hospital stay was (10.4±2.8) days; time to postoperative anal exhaust was (3.3±1.1) days. No complications, such as chyle leakage, postoperative massive bleeding, anastomotic leakage, abdominal cavity infection or gastroplegia occurred within 30 days after surgery.Membrane-based right-sided approach of laparoscopic suprapancreatic lymph node dissection for advanced distal gastric cancer can achieve en bloc resection and conform to the radical principle of oncology, and is safe and feasible.

Red leaf lettuce (Lactuca sativaL.) is popular due to its high anthocyanin content, but poor leaf coloring often occurs under low light intensity. In order to reveal the mechanisms of anthocyanins affected by light intensity, we compared the transcriptome ofL. sativaL. var.capitataunder light intensities of 40 and 100 μmol m−2s−1. A total of 62,111 unigenes were de novo assembled with an N50 of 1,681 bp, and 48,435 unigenes were functionally annotated in public databases. A total of 3,899 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected, of which 1,377 unigenes were up-regulated and 2,552 unigenes were down-regulated in the high light samples. By Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis, the DEGs were significantly enriched in 14 pathways. Using gene annotation and phylogenetic analysis, we identified seven anthocyanin structural genes, includingCHS,CHI,F3H,F3′H,DFR,ANS, and3GT, and two anthocyanin transport genes,GSTandMATE. In terms of anthocyanin regulatory genes, five MYBs and one bHLH gene were identified. AnHY5gene was discovered, which may respond to light-signaling and regulate anthocyanin structural genes. These genes showed a log2FC of 2.7–9.0 under high irradiance, and were validated using quantitative real-time-PCR. In conclusion, our results indicated transcriptome variance in red leaf lettuce under low and high light intensity, and observed a anthocyanin biosynthesis and regulation pattern. The data should further help to unravel the molecular mechanisms of anthocyanins influenced by light intensity.

With the development of Internet of Things (IoT), the massive data generated by it forms big data, and the complexity of dealing with big data brings challenges to resource scheduling in edge computing. In order to solve the problem of resource scheduling and improve the satisfaction of users in edge computing environment, we propose a user-oriented improved spectral clustering scheduling algorithm (ISCM) in this paper. Based on the improved k-means algorithm, the ISCM algorithm solves the problem that the clustering result is sensitive to the initial value and realizes the reclustering, which makes the obtained clustering results more stable. Finally, the edge computing resource scheduling scheme is obtained based on the clustering results. The experimental results show that the resource scheduling scheme based on improved spectral clustering algorithm is superior to traditional spectral clustering algorithm in edge computing environment.

Subgroup J avian leukosis virus (ALV-J), a typical retrovirus, is characterized of existence of a cloud of diverse variants and considerable genetic diversity. Previous studies describing the evolutionary dynamics of ALV-J genetic variants mainly focused on the early infection period or few randomly selected clones. Here, we inoculated 30 specific-pathogen-free chickens with the same founder ALV-J stock of known genetic background. Six (three antibody positive and three antibody negative) chickens were selected among 15 chickens with viremia. Viruses were serially isolated in 36 weeks and then sequenced using MiSeq high-throughput sequencing platform. This produced the largest ALV-J dataset to date, composed of more than three million clean reads. Our results showed that host humoral immunity could greatly enhance the genetic diversity of ALV-J genetic variants. In particular, selection pressures promoted a dynamic proportional changes in ALV-J genetic variants frequency. Cross-neutralization experiment showed that along with the change of the dominant variant, the antibody titers specific to infectious clones corresponding to the most dominant variants in weeks 12 and 28 have also changed significantly in sera collected in weeks 16 and 32. In contrast, no shift of dominant variant was observed in antibody-negative chickens. Moreover, we identified a novel hypervariable region in the gp85 gene. Our study reveals the interaction between ALV-J and the host, which could facilitate the development of vaccines and antiviral drugs.

To release the delayed cost caused by irregular flight, this paper puts forward a new model and optimization algorithm on the basis of the extenics. A part of the delayed cost is indirect cost, but few authors considered it and all of models rarely solved it. In this paper, based on membership function and fuzzy language operator, a evaluation model for indirect cost has been proposed to solve how to reduce indirect cost and improve the service after irregular flight. The feasibility of the model is verified by the simulation results.

Trichosporon asahii is the causative agent of both superficial and deep-seated infections of increasing morbidity and mortality. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) due to T. asahii, frequently associated with indwelling medical devices, have been reported over the years. However, few studies have specifically focused on the genotypic diversity of T. asahii isolates from urine specimens from intensive care units (ICUs), let alone potential virulence factors and antifungal susceptibility testing. In the present study, 23 T. asahii isolates were collected from UTI patients in ICUs between January 2008 and January 2012. Three genotypes (I, III, IV) were determined based on the combination of internal transcribed spacer and intergenic spacer locus PCR. Protease, phospholipase and haemolysin production was assessed by halo formation on corresponding agar plates. Only haemolytic activity was observed to varying degrees. Neither protease nor phospholipase was detectable. Biofilm formation on polystyrene surfaces was detected through a formazan salt reduction assay. All clinical isolates had the ability to form biofilm. In contrast to the susceptibility of planktonic T. asahii cells to clinically used amphotericin B, 5-flucytosine, fluconazole, itraconazole and voriconazole, a remarkable rise in the MICs of these for biofilm T. asahii cells was observed. Our results suggested that genotype IV was the most prevalent genotype among T. asahii isolates from ICUs in China. Haemolysin and biofilm might contribute to the pathogenicity and recurrence of T. asahii-related UTIs. Although triazoles, especially voriconazole, were effective against planktonic T. asahii cells, they failed to treat preformed biofilms.

This article attempts to capture and summarize the known technical information and recommendations for analysis of furan test results. It will also provide the technical basis for continued gathering and evaluation of furan data for liquid power transformers, and provide a recommended structure for collecting that data.

To study the antiviral effects of lamivudine on avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J) and its inhibitory effect on the growth of fibrosarcomas caused by acute transforming avian leukosis virus, a series of experiments were performed in chicken embryo fibroblast cultures and 1-day-old chickens inoculated with an acutely transforming viral stock Fu-J (SDAU1005). This stock was prepared from an acutely fibrosarcoma of field cases in chicken farms and contained both the replication-defective virus Fu-J carrying v-fps oncogene and its helper virus ALV-J strain SDAU1005. The results from three different assays in cell cultures demonstrated the significant inhibitory effect of lamivudine on the replication of both SDAU1005 and Fu-J viruses. Furthermore, the effect was dose dependent in the concentration range of 1–4 μg/ml. In chicken experiments, lamivudine could decrease the viral loads of SDAU1005 and Fu-J in the plasma of inoculated chickens, delay the appearance of acute sarcomas, and decrease chicken mortality in the early stage. This model may be used to directly evaluate the inhibitory effects of lamivudine on such tumors and to understand the relationship between the replication-defective virus and its helper virus while also assessing tumor processes.

The pigmented cells in defined region of a petal constitute the petal spots. Petal spots attract pollinators and are found in many angiosperm families. Several cultivars of tree peony contain a single red or purple spot at the base of petal that makes the flower more attractive for the ornamental market. So far, the understanding of the molecular mechanism of spot formation is inadequate. In this study, we sequenced the transcriptome of the purple spot and the white non-spot of tree peony flower. We assembled and annotated 67,892 unigenes. Comparative analyses of the two transcriptomes showed 1,573 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), among which 933 were up-regulated, and 640 were down-regulated in the purple spot. Subsequently, we examined four anthocyanin structural genes, including PsCHS, PsF3’H, PsDFR and PsANS, which expressed at a significantly higher level in the purple spot than in the white non-spot. We further validated the digital expression data using quantitative real-time PCR. Our result uncovered transcriptome variance between the spot and non-spot of tree peony flower, and revealed that the co-expression of four anthocyanin structural genes was responsible for spot pigment in tree peony. The data will further help to unravel the genetic mechanism of peony flower spot formation.

We used a meq-deleted attenuated MDV-I strain GX0101Δmeq as a vector to construct a recombinant virus expressing the exogenous gene NDV-F. The ORF of exogenous gene NDV-F was inserted into the eukaryotic expression vector pcDNA3.1(-). Then, the expression cassette of NDV-F which contains the CMV promoter was amplified. Simultaneously, we amplified the selected gene Kan+ expression cassette and inserted them into the PMD18-T vector. Tandem expression cassettes were amplified using primers containing the 50-bp homologous arm of MDV-US2. The PCR product was electroporated into EL250 host bacteria containing GX0101Δmeq. Then, the Kan+ expression cassette was deleted from the recombinant virus genome using 1% arabinose. The plasmid of the positive clone which the Kan+ expression cassette was deleted was extracted and transfected into CEFs to rescue the recombinant virus. The recombinant virus was injected into chickens to observe its growth and replication. The recombinant virus rMDV-F containing the exogenous gene NDV-F was rescued successfully. The recombinant virus could duplicate and express well in CEFs, and grow and replicate well in chickens. Using GX0101Δmeq as a vector, combined with a recombinant system of Red E/T and FLP/FRT, we constructed a recombinant virus that expressed the exogenous gene NDV-F. This study could lay the foundation for further study of recombinant viruses.

Nylon610 nanocomposites containing functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were prepared using wet melt blending method, which is a novel preparation technique. In comparison with the pure nylon610, the elastic modulus, tensile strength, bending modulus, and bending strength of the composites increase significantly with the increase of MWCNTs content, and the mechanical properties of the composites are also improved significantly by adding a small amount of MWCNTs (0.1 wt %). The crystallization peak of the composites shifts to higher temperature with the addition of MWCNTs, and among the two melting peaks, the intensity of melting peak at low temperature decreases with increasing MWCNTs content. The composites are more stable than pure PA610 and decompose at higher temperature, suggesting that the accession of MWCNTs can improve the composites' thermal stability. The storage modulus of the composites decreases with the temperature increasing, but under lower temperature it increases significantly with the addition of MWCNTs–COOH except for PANT-0.1 sample. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of composites exhibit that the wet melt blending technique can avoid the excess agglomeration of MWCNTs under vacuum dryness, which benefits MWCNTs to disperse uniformly in matrix. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009

This paper develops an approach for optimal selection of signal-adapted wavelet in de-noising. The new method employs Wu's elimination algorithm to construct compacted orthogonal wavelets. The threshold cost function is used as the objective function during choosing of the wavelet. The approach is validated by its application to de-noising for on-line partial discharge (PD) measurement. The physical experiments and field tests show that the method improves the suppression of noise for on-line PD measurement with stronger robustness. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Opportunistic networks utilize the communication opportunities arising from node movement to forward messages. So the reliability of message transmission between nodes is non-guaranteed and depends on the intermediate nodes. However, in most cases, the intermediate nodes of a network are resource-constrained or capability-restricted, so these nodes are selfish and do not want to supply storing and forwarding service for other nodes. In this paper, we propose a scheme to discourage the selfish behavior based on the reputation. Moreover, we build a game theory model to analyze the effectiveness of our scheme. The experiment results show that the proposed scheme indeed stimulates the cooperation of nodes.

This paper presents the methodology adopted for developing an expert system tool to assist in evaluating the condition of a turbine generator. Fuzzy logic is used to represent the reasoning process of an experienced engineer as well as the incomplete information inherent in this type of evaluation. The results of the evaluation inform engineers of: (a) whether the inspected unit is in good condition, (b) if not, the damage mechanisms or failure modes present, and (c) the non statistical but weighted confidence level of the evaluation.Copyright © 2011 by ASME

This paper presents the development of an expert system to help engineers assess the condition of turbine generators. The expert system is designed to minimize the search and input of data in order to address the issue of the limited time available to engineers compared to the large amount of information to be investigated. To imitate the imprecise reasoning process as well as the vague information and qualitative variables inherent in this type of evaluation, fuzzy logic is used. An example of application to one failure mode, i.e., loose stator bar, is also presented.Copyright © 2008 by ASME

This paper presents some preliminary results from a reliability study of water mist systems conducted at FM Global. The study includes a detailed Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to identify all the major potential failure modes, which include demand, quiescent and operational failures. Various fault trees are thus constructed for the typical water mist system configurations to evaluate the failure probabilities. However, due to the short history of industrial application of water mist systems, no specific reliability data are available. Therefore, in the calculation of system failure probability, the component failure data are obtained from other applications. The failure probabilities and the confidence bounds of the typical water mist systems listed in the Standard 750 of the National Fire Protection Association are compared in the paper. The major failure modes identified through an importance analysis are also presented.