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Abstract Populus cathayana × canadansis ‘Xinlin 1’ (‘P.‘xin lin 1’) with the characteristics of rapid growth and high yield, is frequently attacked by herbivorous insects. However, little is known about how it defenses against Hyphantria cunea (H. cunea) at molecular and biochemical levels. Differences in the transcriptome and metabolome were analyzed after ‘P. ‘xin lin 1’ leaves were fed to H. cunea for 0h, 2h, 4h, 8h, 16h and 24h. In the five comparison groups including 2h vs. CK, 4h vs. CK, 8h vs. CK, 16h vs. CK, and 24h vs. CK, a total of 8925 genes and 842 metabolites were differentially expressed. A total of 825 transcription factors (TFs) were identified, which encoded 56 TF families. The results showed that the top four families with the highest number of TFs were AP2/ERF, MYB, C2C2, bHLH. Analyses of leaves which were fed to H. cunea showed that the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) were significantly enriched in plant hormone signal transduction pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, flavonoid, flavone and flavonol and anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway. Additionally, there were a number of genes significantly up-regulated in MAPK signaling pathway. Some compounds involved in plant hormone signal transduction and flavonoid/flavone and flavonol/ anthocyanin pathways such as jasmonic acid (JA), jasmonoyl-L-Isoleucine (JA-Ile), kaempferol and cyanidin-3-O-glucoside were induced in infested ‘P.‘xin lin 1’. This study provides a new understanding for exploring the dynamic response mechanism of poplar to the infestation of H. cunea.

In table tennis, there are various movements involved in hitting a ball, which are called strokes, and these are an important factor in determining the contents of a game. Therefore, research has been conducted to classify these types of strokes using video gameplay data or inertial sensor information. However, the classification of strokes from actual videos of table tennis is more difficult than general action recognition tasks because many strokes display strong similarity. Therefore, this study proposes a multi-label stroke classification method, assigning multiple classes per stroke. Specifically, multi-labeling is performed by assigning two types of labels—namely the player’s posture and the rotation and velocity of the ball—to one stroke. By changing the head of the action recognition model to adopt multiple outputs for stroke classification, the difficulty in each classification task is reduced and the accuracy is improved. As a result, when performing multi-labeling classification with a conventional action recognition model, the accuracy of the validation data was improved by up to 8.6%, and the accuracy of the test data was improved by up to 18.1%. In addition, when two types of input—namely video and 3D joint coordinates—were used, the accuracy of the validation and test data was higher by 17.1 and 5.4% for 3D joint coordinates, respectively, confirming that 3D joint coordinates are effective.

Abstract Background As the methodological quality and evidence level of the existing systematic reviews (SRs) on music as an intervention for depression have not been thoroughly evaluated, a systematic evaluation and re‐evaluation (SERE) was conducted. Methods Multiple databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, SinoMed, Wanfang, and the VIP database were searched for SRs and meta‐analyses (MAs) on the effectiveness of music as an intervention for depression. The literature screening, evaluation of methodological quality, and assessment of evidence level were carried out by a team of researchers. The methodological quality was evaluated using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR 2) scale in accordance with the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria were utilized to assess the level of evidence. Results A total of 18 SRs were included in the analysis. The 2020 PRISMA guidelines were utilized to evaluate various aspects such as search terms, funding sources, statistical methods for missing values, subgroup and sensitivity analyses, certainty assessment, excluded literature citations, assessment of publication bias, protocol information, conflicts of interest, and data availability, which were rarely reported. The evaluation of the studies using the AMSTAR 2 scale revealed that one article was rated as high quality, six were rated as low quality, and 11 were rated as very low quality. Based on the GRADE criteria evaluation, the quality of the evidence was found to be inconsistent, with reports primarily consisting of medium‐quality evidence. Conclusion The methodological quality of SRs/MAs of music as an intervention in depression is generally poor, and the level of evidence is generally low.

Background: Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a common complication following a stroke, significantly impacting patients' quality of life and mental well-being. Currently, two primary approaches are employed to treat PSD: drug therapy and non-drug therapy. Among these, acupuncture, specifically scalp acupuncture (SA), has gained attention due to its cost-effectiveness and broad social benefits. SA is a precise and direct form of acupuncture that has been utilized in the treatment of PSD. Although several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have demonstrated the efficacy of SA in treating PSD, there is a lack of comprehensive systematic reviews. Given the limitations of existing evidence, we conducted a systematic evaluation to assess the effectiveness of SA in combination with conventional therapy (CT) for intervening in PSD. Methods: We systematically searched five databases for articles published up until May 31, 2023, pertaining to SA treatment of PSD. A team of researchers meticulously screened and assessed these articles to identify the final included studies. After extracting relevant information and outcome indicators from the selected articles, we employed RevMan5.3 software to evaluate their quality and perform statistical analysis. Throughout our research, we strictly adhered to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Results: A total of 11 articles were included, and a meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of SA combined with CT for treating PSD. The results revealed that SA combined with CT can effectively improve the treatment's success rate for PSD and reduce the severity of depressive symptoms measured by the Self-Rating Depression Scale. However, SA combined with CT did not show significant reductions in depressive symptoms assessed by the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, which may be related to the inclusion of high heterogeneity articles. Importantly, the combination treatment did not lead to an increase in adverse reactions among PSD patients. Conclusion: While the effectiveness of SA combined with CT in treating PSD still requires further validation through rigorous randomized double-blind trials, this study provides a comprehensive collection of studies that meet the criteria for SA combined with CT in PSD treatment. It objectively and systematically evaluated the impact of SA combined with CT on PSD. Consequently, the findings of this study hold certain clinical significance.

Digital microfluidic biochip (DMFB) has attracted attention in the biochemical and medical industries. In particular, a microelectrode dot array (MEDA) biochip, which is composed of a two-dimensional microelectrode array, enables to realize fine-grained manipulation such as dilution, mixing, sensing, and so on in real-time. Unlike existing DMFB biochips, a MEDA architecture allows microelectrodes to control a certain volume of droplet in a fine-grained manner and can vary droplet volume and shape in such a way that it efficiently conducts synthesis and manipulation of droplets. There have been many works in order to improve the efficiency of synthesis of MEDA biochips; however, the synthesis, especially droplet routing, has never considered the shape-dependent velocity of droplets. In this paper, we propose the droplet routing techniques for MEDA biochips with shape-dependent velocity of droplets. The proposed techniques take the advantage of variant velocities of droplets dependent on the shapes and aim to reduce the overall routing time of a droplet from a source to a destination. Simulation results confirm that the proposed techniques can shorten the routing time by 80% compared to the state-of-the-art techniques.

Digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs), which are used in various fields like DNA analysis, clinical diagnosis, and PCR testing, have made biochemical experiments more compact, efficient, and user-friendly than the previous methods. However, their reliability is often compromised by their inability to adapt to all kinds of errors. Errors in biochips can be categorized into two types: known errors, and unknown errors. Known errors are detectable before the start of the routing process using sensors or cameras. Unknown errors, in contrast, only become apparent during the routing process and remain undetected by sensors or cameras, which can unexpectedly stop the routing process and diminish the reliability of biochips. This paper introduces a deep reinforcement learning-based routing algorithm, designed to manage not only known errors but also unknown errors. Our experiments demonstrated that our algorithm outperformed the previous ones in terms of the success rate of the routing, in the scenarios including both known errors and unknown errors. Additionally, our algorithm contributed to detecting unknown errors during the routing process, identifying the most efficient routing path with a high probability.

When Ips bark beetles invade and colonize the host plants, their associated pathogenic fungal partners are carried into the phloem of the host trees. Host trees are lethally attacked by the beetle-fungus complex and the collective damage severely limits forestry production worldwide. It is of great importance to verify whether bark beetles and their associated fungi show concordant performance in terms of biology, physiology, and biochemistry on host trees. In this study, the two Ips bark beetles Ips typographus and Ips subelongatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae), their respective associated pathogenic fungi Endoconidiophora polonica and Endoconidiophora fujiensis, and their respective host plants Picea jezoensis and Larix olgensis were selected as test material. Cross-inoculation experiments were conducted indoors and outdoors to investigate the differences in reproduction and development of two beetles and infectivity of two fungi on two plants, as well as the differences in physiological responses of two plants to two fungal infections. The results showed that I. typographus and E. polonica had excellent host performance on P. jezoensis; however, neither successfully colonized and infected L. olgensis. In contrast, I. subelongatus and E. fujiensis showed strong host suitability on L. olgensis and some degree of suitability on P. jezoensis, although the host suitability of P. jezoensis for E. polonica was significantly higher than that for E. fujiensis. In addition, we found that the absolute amount of ergosterol accumulated on the lesion was positively correlated with lesion area. The ergosterol amount and lesion area were both strongly correlated with the release of host monoterpenes, but had no obvious correlation with the concentration of fungi-induced phenols on the lesion area and the side-chain oxidation of lignin in the xylem of the infected sites. Based on these results, we confirmed that “I. typographus-E. polonica” and “I. subelongatus-E. fujiensis” complexes both showed the most suitable consistent performances on their own traditional hosts, establishing a stable species-specific association relationship in these two beetle-fungus complexes, with the “I. subelongatus-E. fujiensis” complex showing broader host suitability. From the perspective of physiological responses of plants to fungal infections, monoterpenes are an important indicator of host suitability.

Dendrolimus species (Lepidoptera, Lasiocampidae), are the most serious phytophagous pests of coniferous forests worldwide. Dendrolimus feed intensively on needles, leading to considerable economic loss and ecological damage. Notably, the outbreak of Dendrolimus is a somewhat periodic pattern, and those outbreaks cause rapid and large-scale destruction of pine forests, with those forests observed to look like “Fire without smoke”. Sex pheromones play an important role during insect mating and reproduction, and there has been extensive research into the pheromone of Dendrolimus. The pheromone components of several Dendrolimus have been identified, and functions of two most important pheromone recognition genes, pheromone-binding proteins (PBPs) and pheromone receptors (PRs), were clarified. The evolution of PBP gene sequences is in good agreement with the trends in structural changes of the sex pheromone components in several Dendrolimus species, and it is interesting that PRs of Dendrolimus spp. occupy a novel lineage of PRs tuned to Type I pheromones in Lepidoptera. We present the current state of research into the sex pheromone of these important forest pests and highlight the emerging topics, to clarify future urgent work into Dendrolimus.

Delivery drones have been attracting attention as a means of solving recent logistics issues, and many companies are focusing on their practical applications. Many research studies on delivery drones have been active for several decades. Among them, extended routing problems for drones have been proposed based on the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), which is used, for example, in truck vehicle routing problems. In parcel delivery by drones, additional constraints such as battery capacity, payload, and weather conditions need to be considered. This study addresses the routing problem for delivery drones. Most existing studies assume that the drone’s flight speed is constant regardless of the load. On the other hand, some studies assume that the flight speed varies with the load. This routing problem is called the Flight Speed-Aware Traveling Salesman Problem (FSTSP). The complexity of the drone flight speed function in this problem makes it difficult to solve the routing problem using general-purpose mathematical optimization solvers. In this study, the routing problem is reduced to an integer programming problem by using linear and quadratic approximations of the flight speed function. This enables us to solve the problem using general-purpose mathematical optimization solvers. In experiments, we compared the existing and proposed methods in terms of solving time and total flight time. The experimental results show that the proposed method with multiple threads has a shorter solving time than the state-of-the-art method when the number of customers is 17 or more. In terms of total flight time, the proposed methods deteriorate by an average of 0.4% for integer quadratic programming and an average of 1.9% for integer cubic programming compared to state-of-the-art methods. These experimental results show that the quadratic and cubic approximations of the problem have almost no degradation of the solution.

RNA interference (RNAi) is a widely used technique for gene function researches and recently pest controls. It had been applied in emerald ash borer (EAB Agrilus planipennis) larvae and adults, and achieved significant interference effects, whether by ingesting or microinjecting. Feeding in the phloem and cambial regions, the larvae of A. planipennis are difficult to be controlled by conventional insecticides, so adult stage is the critical stage for EAB control. However, the target genes of adult stage of A. planipennis need to be further screened. Here, we preliminarily screened five potential target genes of vision and olfaction for RNAi in A. planipennis. Three odorant binding proteins (OBPs) and three opsins, which expressed significantly different between newly emerged and sexually mature EABs (OBP5, OBP7, OBP10, LW opsin 1 and UV opsin 2) or highly in sexually mature male EAB (UV opsin 3), were selected as targets to design primers for gene silencing. After dsRNA injection, the gene expression levels were determined by real-time quantitative PCR. We found that the expression levels of five genes were significantly down-regulated, during the 4 days after dsRNA injection. Among these genes, the expression of LW opsin 1 was down-regulated the most, causing a reduction of 99.1% compared with the control treated with EGFP dsRNA, followed by UV opsin 3 (97.4%), UV opsin 2 (97.0%), OBP7 (96.2%), and OBP10 (88.7%). This study provides a basis for further RNAi-based new controlling method development of A. planipennis at adult stage.

Recent years, autonomous drones have attracted attention in many fields due to their convenience. Autonomous drones require precise depth information so as to avoid collision to fly fast and both of RGB image and LiDAR point cloud are often employed in applications based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to estimate the distance to obstacles. Such applications are implemented onboard embedded systems. In order to precisely estimate the depth, such CNN models are in general so complex to extract many features that the computational complexity increases, requiring long inference time. In order to solve the issue, we employ optical flow to aid in-depth estimation. In addition, we propose a new attention structure that makes maximum use of optical flow without complicating the network. Furthermore, we achieve improved performance without modifying the depth estimator by adding a perceptual discriminator in training. The proposed model is evaluated through accuracy, error, and inference time on the KITTI dataset. In the experiments, we have demonstrated the proposed method achieves better performance by up to 34% accuracy, 55% error reduction and 66% faster inference time on Jetson nano compared to previous methods. The proposed method is also evaluated through a collision avoidance in simulated drone flight and achieves the lowest collision rate of all estimation methods. These experimental results show the potential of proposed method to be used in real-world autonomous drone flight applications.

Abstract Background Immune-related genes (IRGs) were linked to the prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). This study aimed to identify the effects of an immune-related gene signature (IRGS) that can predict the of HNSCC prognosis. Methods The expression data of 770 HNSCC patients from the TCGA database and the GEO database were used. To explore a predictive model, the Cox proportional hazards model was applied. The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, as well as univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the independent predictive value of IRGS. To explore biological functions of IRGS, enrichment analyses and pathway annotation for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in different immune groups were applied, as well as the immune infiltration. Results A prognostic signature comprising 27 IRGs was generated. IRGS significantly stratified HNSCC patients into high and low immune risk groups in regard to overall survival in the training cohort (HR = 3.69, 95% CI 2.73–4.98, P

Approximate computing is a promising approach to the design of area–power-performance-efficient circuits for computation error-tolerant applications such as image processing and machine learning. Approximate functional units, such as approximate adders and approximate multipliers, have been actively studied for the past decade, and some of these approximate functional units can dynamically change the degree of computation accuracy. The greater their computational inaccuracy, the faster they are. This study examined the high-level synthesis of approximate circuits that take advantage of such accuracy-controllable functional units. Scheduling methods based on integer linear programming (ILP) and list scheduling were proposed. Under resource and time constraints, the proposed method tries to minimize the computation error of the output value by selectively multi-cycling operations. Operations that have a large impact on the output accuracy are multi-cycled to perform exact computing, whereas operations with a small impact on the accuracy are assigned a single cycle for approximate computing. In the experiments, we explored the trade-off between performance, hardware cost, and accuracy to demonstrate the effectiveness of this work.

The emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, is a highly destructive quarantine pest. The olfactory and visual systems of A. planipennis play different but critical roles at newly emerged and sexually mature stages; however, the molecular basis underlying these differences remain unclear. Consequently, based on deep transcriptome sequencing, we evaluated the expression levels of chemosensory-related proteins and opsins at the two developmental stages of A. planipennis. We found 15 new chemosensory-related genes in our transcriptome assembly compared with the previous genome assembly, including 6 that code for odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) and 9 for chemosensory proteins (CSPs). The expression of several chemosensory-related genes (OBP7, OBP10, CSP1, and CSP12) differed markedly between newly emerged and sexually mature A. planipennis. We also found that the expression of UV opsin 2 and LW opsin 1 was higher in sexually mature male A. planipennis, which may be associated with their strong visual mate detection ability. This study forms the basis for further investigation of the chemosensory and visual system of A. planipennis, and these differentially expressed genes between newly emerged and sexually mature stages may serve as targets for the management of this destructive forest pest after sexual maturity.

Insect population dynamics are closely related to ‘human’ ecological and economic environments, and a central focus of research is outbreaks. However, the lack of molecular-based investigations restricts our understanding of the intrinsic mechanisms responsible for insect outbreaks. In this context, the moth Dendrolimus punctatus Walker can serve as an ideal model species for insect population dynamics research because it undergoes periodic outbreaks. Here, high-throughput whole-transcriptome sequencing was performed using D. punctatus, sampled during latent and outbreak periods, to systemically explore the molecular basis of insect outbreaks and to identify the involved non-coding RNA (ncRNA) regulators, namely microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, and circular RNAs. Differentially expressed mRNAs of D. punctatus from different outbreak periods were involved in developmental, reproductive, immune, and chemosensory processes; results that were consistent with the physiological differences in D. punctatus during differing outbreak periods. Targets analysis of the non-coding RNAs indicated that long non-coding RNAs could be the primary ncRNA regulators of D. punctatus outbreaks, while circular RNAs mainly regulated synapses and cell junctions. The target genes of differentially expressed microRNAs mainly regulated the metabolic and reproductive pathways during the D. punctatus outbreaks. Developmental, multi-organismal, and reproductive processes, as well as biological adhesion, characterized the competing endogenous RNA network. Chemosensory and immune genes closely related to the outbreak of D. punctatus were further analyzed in detail: from their ncRNA regulators’ analysis, we deduce that both lncRNA and miRNA may play significant roles. This is the first report to examine the molecular basis of coding and non-coding RNAs’ roles in insect outbreaks. The results provide potential biomarkers for control targets in forest insect management, as well as fresh insights into underlying outbreak-related mechanisms, which could be used for improving insect control strategies in the future.

With the increasing demand for fast, accurate, and reliable biological sensor systems, miniaturized systems have been aimed at droplet-based sensor systems and have been promising. A micro-electrode dot array (MEDA) biochip, which is one kind of the miniaturized systems for biochemical protocols such as dispensing, dilutions, mixing, and so on, has become widespread due to enabling dynamical control of the droplets in microfluidic manipulations. In MEDA biochips, the electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) technique stands out since it can actuate droplets with nano/picoliter volumes. Microelectrode cells on MEDA actuate multiple droplets simultaneously to route locations for the purpose of the biochemical operations. Taking advantage of the feature, droplets are often routed in parallel to achieve high-throughput outcomes. Regarding parallel manipulation of multiple droplets, however, the droplets are known to be initially placed at a distant position to avoid undesirable mixing. The droplets thus result in traveling a long way for a manipulation, and the required biochip size for routing is also enlarged. This paper proposes a routing method for droplets to reduce the biochip size on a MEDA biochip with the allowance of splitting during routing operations. We mathematically derive the routing problem, and the experiments demonstrate that our proposal can significantly reduce the biochip size by 70.8% on average, compared to the state-of-the-art method.

In this work, we propose a method for estimating depth for an image of a monocular camera in order to avoid a collision for the autonomous flight of a drone. The highest flight speed of a drone is generally approximate 22.2 m/s, and long-distant depth information is crucial for autonomous flights since if the long-distance information is not available, the drone flying at high speeds is prone to collisions. However, long-range, measurable depth cameras are too heavy to be equipped on a drone. This work applies Pix2Pix, which is a kind of Conditional Generative Adversarial Nets (CGAN). Pix2Pix generates depth images from a monocular camera. Additionally, this work applies optical flow to enhance the accuracy of depth estimation. In this work, we propose a highly accurate depth estimation method that effectively embeds an optical flow map into a monocular image. The models are trained with taking advantage of AirSim, which is one of the flight simulators. AirSim can take both monocular and depth images over a hundred meter in the virtual environment, and our model generates a depth image that provides the long-distance information than images captured by a common depth camera. We evaluate accuracy and error of our proposed method using test images in AirSim. In addition, the proposed method is utilized for flight simulation to evaluate the effectiveness to collision avoidance. As a result, our proposed method is higher accuracy and lower error than a state of work. Moreover, our proposed method is lower collision than a state of work.

Delivery drones have been attracting attention as one of the promising technologies to deliver packages. Several research studies on routing problems specifically for drone delivery scenarios have extended Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs). Most existing VRPs are based on Traveling Salesman Problems (TSPs) for minimizing the overall distance. On the other hand, VRPs for drone delivery have been aware of energy consumption due to the consideration of battery capacity. Despite hovering motions with loading packages accounting for a large portion of energy consumption since delivery drones need to hover with several packages, little research has been conducted on drone routing problems that aim at the minimization of overall flight times. In addition, flight time is strongly influenced by windy conditions such as headwinds and tailwinds. In this paper, we propose a VRP for drone delivery in which flight time is dependent on the weight of packages in a windy environment, called Flight Speed-aware Vehicle Routing Problem with Load and Wind (FSVRPLW). In this paper, flight speed changes depending on the load and wind. Specifically, a heavier package slows down flight speeds and a lighter package speeds up flight speeds. In addition, a headwind slows down flight speeds and a tailwind speed up flight speeds. We mathematically derived the problem and developed a dynamic programming algorithm to solve the problem. In the experiments, we investigate how much impact both the weight of packages and the wind have on the flight time. The experimental results indicate that taking loads and wind into account is very effective in reducing flight times. Moreover, the results of comparing the effects of load and wind indicate that flight time largely depends on the weight of packages.

Many bark beetles of the genus Ips are economically important insect pests that cause severe damage to conifer forests worldwide. In this study, sequencing the mitochondrial genome and restriction site-associated DNA of Ips bark beetles helps us understand their phylogenetic relationships, biogeographic history, and evolution of ecological traits (e.g., pheromones and host plants). Our results show that the same topology in phylogenetic trees constructed in different ways (ML/MP/BI) and with different data (mtDNA/SNP) helps us to clarify the phylogenetic relationships between Chinese Ips bark beetle populations and Euramerican species and their higher order clades; Ips bark beetles are polyphyletic. The structure of the mitochondrial genome of Ips bark beetles is similar and conserved to some extent, especially in the sibling species Ips typographus and Ips nitidus. Genetic differences among Ips species are mainly related to their geographic distribution and different hosts. The evolutionary pattern of aggregation pheromones of Ips species reflects their adaptations to the environment and differences among hosts in their evolutionary process. The evolution of Ips species is closely related to the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and host switching. Our study addresses the evolutionary trend and phylogenetic relationships of Ips bark beetles in China, and also provides a new perspective on the evolution of bark beetles and their relationships with host plants and pheromones.

Many bark beetles of the subfamily Scolytinae are the most economically important insect pests of coniferous forests worldwide. In this study, we sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of eight bark beetle species, including Dendroctonus micans, Orthotomicus erosus, Polygraphus poligraphus, Dryocoetes hectographus, Ips nitidus, Ips typographus, Ips subelongatus, and Ips hauseri, to examine their structural characteristics and determine their phylogenetic relationships. We also used previously published mitochondrial genome sequence data from other Scolytinae species to identify and localize the eight species studied within the bark beetle phylogeny. Their gene arrangement matched the presumed ancestral pattern of these bark beetles. Start and stop codon usage, amino acid abundance, and the relative codon usage frequencies were conserved among bark beetles. Genetic distances between species ranged from 0.037 to 0.418, and evolutionary rates of protein-coding genes ranged from 0.07 for COI to 0.69 for ND2. Our results shed light on the phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic status of several bark beetles in the subfamily Scolytinae and highlight the need for further sequencing analyses and taxonomic revisions in additional bark beetle species.

Several long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported regulate the expression of neighbor protein-coding genes at post-transcriptional, transcriptional and epigenetic levels. Dmp1 (Dentin matrix protein 1), encoding a non-collagenous extracellular matrix protein, plays an important role in dentin and bone mineralization. However, the transcriptional regulation of lncRNA on Dmp1 has not been reported. In this study, we identified a novel lncRNA named lnc-DMP1, which is near the Dmp1 gene region and undergoes remarkable changes during mandible development. lnc-DMP1 is co-localized and significantly expressed correlation with Dmp1 in embryonic and postnatal mouse mandibles. In MC3T3-E1 cells, lnc-DMP1 positively regulates DMP1 expression and skeletal mineralization. Furthermore, lnc-DMP1 induces the promoter activity of Dmp1 by modulating H3K27Ac enrichment in the Dmp1 promoter. In conclusion, our results indicate that lnc-DMP1 is a novel lncRNA near the Dmp1 gene region and regulates Dmp1 expression by modulating the H3K27 acetylation level of Dmp1 promoter.

In southern China, the masson pine caterpillar, Dendrolimus punctatus, has caused serious damage to the Pinus massoniana (Lamb.) pine forests. Here, the whole mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was employed to analyze the population evolution of D. punctatus and to understand the process underlying its current phylogenetic pattern. D. punctatus populations within its distribution range in China were categorized into five subgroups: central and eastern China (CEC), southwestern China (SWC), Yibin in Sichuan (SC), Baise in Guangxi (GX), and Luoding in Guangdong (GD), with a high level of haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity among them. The genetic distances between subgroups are relatively large; however, the genetic distances between populations within the CEC subgroup were relatively small, suggesting that many populations were closely related in this subgroup. The mantel test showed that geographic distance had an important impact on the genetic distance of different geographic populations (r = 0.3633, P < 0.001). The neutrality tests, Bayesian skyline plot, and haplotype network showed that D. punctatus experienced a population expansion around 100,000 years ago. The divergence times of GX/SC, SWC, GD, and CEC were 0.347, 0.236, 0.200, and 0.110 million years ago, respectively. The SWC, CEC, and GD subgroups might have evolved from GX or SC subgroups. The population genetic structure of D. punctatus was closely related to its host tree species, geographic distance among populations, the weak flight capacity, and many eco-environment conditions.

Chitinases, which are crucial enzymes required for chitin degradation and reconstruction, are often selectively considered to be effective molecular targets for pest control due to their critical roles in insect development. Although the Hyphantria cunea chitinase gene has been reported previously, its sequence characteristics, gene function, and feasibility as a potential target for pest management were absent. In the present study, we characterized the H. cunea chitinase gene and designated it HcCht5. Phylogenic and domain structure analysis suggested that HcCht5 contained the typical chitinase features and was clustered into chitinase group I. Tissue-specific and developmental expression pattern analysis with Real-Time Quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) showed that HcCht5 was mainly expressed in the integument tissues and that the transcript levels peaked during molting. RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated silencing of HcCht5 caused 33.3% (2 ug) and 66.7% (4 ug) mortality rates after double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) injection. Importantly, the interference efficiency of HcCht5 depended on the injection time of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), as the pre-molting treatment achieved molt arrest more effectively. In addition, transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis of RNAi samples demonstrated silencing of the down-regulated HcCht5 genes related to chitin metabolism and molting hormone signaling, as well as genes related to detoxification metabolism. Our results indicate the essential role of HcCht5 in H. cunea development and detail the involvement of its gene function in the larval molting process.

Many species of nematodes use pheromones called ascarosides to coordinate their behaviour and development. Here, Zhao et al. demonstrate that the beetle vector of the pinewood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus) also uses and responds to ascarosides in its interactions with the nematodes.

The urea transporter UT-B is widely expressed and has been studied in erythrocyte, kidney, brain and intestines. Interestingly, UT-B gene has been found more abundant in bladder than any other tissue. Recently, gene analyses demonstrate that SLC14A1 (UT-B) gene mutations are associated with bladder cancer, suggesting that urea transporter UT-B may play an important role in bladder carcinogenesis. In this study, we examined UT-B expression in bladder cancer with human primary bladder cancer tissues and cancer derived cell lines. Human UT-B has two isoforms. We found that normal bladder expresses long form of UT-B2 but was lost in 8 of 24 (33%) or significantly downregulated in 16 of 24 (67%) of primary bladder cancer patients. In contrast, the short form of UT-B1 lacking exon 3 was detected in 20 bladder cancer samples. Surprisingly, a 24-nt in-frame deletion in exon 4 in UT-B1 (UT-B1Δ24) was identified in 11 of 20 (55%) bladder tumors. This deletion caused a functional defect of UT-B1. Immunohistochemistry revealed that UT-B protein levels were significantly decreased in bladder cancers. Western blot analysis showed a weak UT-B band of 40 kDa in some tumors, consistent with UT-B1 gene expression detected by RT-PCR. Interestingly, bladder cancer associate UT-B1Δ24 was barely sialylated, reflecting impaired glycosylation of UT-B1 in bladder tumors. In conclusion, SLC14A1 gene and UT-B protein expression are significantly changed in bladder cancers. The aberrant UT-B expression may promote bladder cancer development or facilitate carcinogenesis induced by other carcinogens.

Dendrolimus punctatus walker (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) is the most serious coniferous forest defoliator in China. This species has long life history, and shows different activity rhythms and light response behaviors at larval and adult stages. Insect vision system play important roles for survival and reproduction, and disturbance of photoreception may help us to control this pest. However, we know little about the visual system of D. punctatus. As opsins are the most important genes determining photoreceptor sensitivity of insects, we identified opsins of D. punctatus and analyzed their expression patterns at different development stages in this study. Four opsin genes were identified based on our transcriptome data. Phylogenetic analysis showed that there are three classical ultraviolet (UV), blue, and long-wavelength (LW) light sensitive opsin genes, and another UV-like opsin as homolog of a circadian photoreceptor, Rh7, in Drosophila melanogaster and other insects. Expression analysis indicated that the UV and UV-like opsins expression levels only fluctuated slightly during whole life stages of D. punctatus, while Blue and LW opsins were up-regulated many times at adult stage. Interestingly, the ratio of UV-opsin was much higher in eggs and larvae stages, and lower in pupa and adult stages; reversely, LW-opsin showed extremely high relative ratio in pupa and adult stages. High expression level of LW opsin in the adult stage may correlate to the nocturnal lifestyles of this species at adult stage, and different ratios of UV and LW opsins in larval and adult stages may help to explain the different visual ecologies of these two development stages of D. punctatus. This work is the foundation for further research of opsin functions and vision mechanisms of D. punctatus.

Vision-based fall-detection methods have been previously studied but many have limitations in terms of practicality. Due to differences in rooms, users do not set the camera or sensors at the same height. However, few studies have taken this into consideration. Moreover, some fall-detection methods are lacking in terms of practicality because only standing, sitting and falling are taken into account. Hence, this study constructs a data set consisting of various daily activities and fall events and studies the effect of camera/sensor height on fall-detection accuracy. Each activity in the data set is carried out by eight participants in eight directions and taken with the depth camera at five different heights. Many related studies heavily depended on human segmentation by using Kinect SDK but this is not reliable enough. To address this issue, this study proposes Enhanced Tracking and Denoising Alex-Net (ETDA-Net) to improve tracking and denoising performance and classify fall and non-fall events. Experimental results indicate that fall-detection accuracy is affected by camera height, against which ETDA-Net is robust, outperforming traditional deep learning based fall-detection methods.

Syntheses of (11Z,13Z)-hexadecadienal (1), (11Z,13Z)-hexadecadienol (2), (11Z,13Z)-hexadecadien-1-yl acetate (3), and (Z)-13-hexadecen-11-ynal (4) from commercially available starting material 10-bromo-1-decanol are reported. These (Z,Z)-dienes and conjugated en-yne moieties are common in sex pheromone and attractant components for many Notodontide insect pests. The synthetic scheme, using the C10 + C3 + C3 strategy, was mainly based on three key steps: alkylation of lithium alkyne under a low temperature, cis-Wittig olefination of the aldehyde with propylidentriphenylphosphorane, and hydroboration-protonolysis of alkyne. This synthetic route provided (11Z,13Z)-hexadecadienal (1) in a 23.0% total yield via an eight-step sequence, alcohol (2) in a 21.9% total yield, acetate (3) in a 21.4% total yield, and (Z)-13-hexadecen-11-ynal (4) in a 34.7% total yield. This simple strategy provides a new way to achieve syntheses of the key sex pheromones of Notodontide insect pests.