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As part of safety monitoring, checking the quality of peanuts is indispensable. Peanuts contain oils and proteins that are denatured at elevated moisture levels and undergo vigorous metabolism, resulting in mass decay during storage. In this study, the e-nose signals of peanut kernel were classified into three categories of high quality, medium quality and low quality for each storage period by principal component analysis (PCA), which was consistent with the physical and chemical quality clustering results. Using the classification results as learning labels, support vector machine (SVM), decision tree, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and k-nearest neighbor learning (KNN) were used to develop quality discrimination models for peanut kernels, and the prediction accuracy of each model could reach more than 90%. The results show that the e-nose has an excellent ability to discriminate the quality changes of peanut kernels during storage, in agreement with its classification of physical and chemical quality changes.

In pot culture, we evaluated the effects of green manure of wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC.) on cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) rhizosphere fungal community composition. Cucumber rhizosphere fungal composition was analyzed by high-throughput amplicon sequencing of fungal ITS regions. Results showed that cucumber seedling rhizosphere fungal community composition was different between the fallow treatment and green manure treatment. However, green manure treatment did not affect the cucumber seedlings fungal community alpha diversity. Compared with the fallow treatment, cucumber grown in green manure of wild rocket had higher relative abundance of phylum Ascomycota but lower relative abundance of phylum Zygomycota. Moreover, green manure of wild rocket decreased operational taxonomic units (OTUs) classified as Pseudallescheria and Kernia spp. but increased OTUs classified as Humicola and Fusarium spp. in cucumber rhizosphere.

Photomultiplier tube (PMT) voltage waveforms are the raw data of many neutrino and dark matter experiments. Waveform analysis is the cornerstone of data processing. We evaluate the performance of all the waveform analysis algorithms known to us and find fast stochastic matching pursuit the best in accuracy. Significant time (up to 2 times) and energy (up to 1.07 times) resolution boosts are attainable with fast stochastic matching pursuit, approaching theoretical limits. Other methods also outperform the traditional threshold crossing approach in time resolution., Source code is hosted at https://github.com/heroxbd/waveform-analysis

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is involved in regulating cell apoptosis and proliferation. However, The effects and mechanism of H2S on the apoptosis of mammary epithelial cells that suffer from an inflammatory response remain unknown. An inflammatory cell model was used to explore whether exogenous H2S regulates lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-induced cell proliferation and apoptosis. We found that H2S affected cell viability, the inflammatory response and apoptosis in LPS-treated cells in a concentration-dependent manner. Moreover, exogenous H2S rescued LPS-induced cystathionine γ-lyase (CSE) inhibition and cystathionine β-synthase (CBS) synthesis. Interestingly, in cells undergoing inflammation-induced apoptosis, H2S activated the PI3K/Akt and NFκB signal pathways both tested concentrations. Akt appeared to be a key crosstalk molecule that played a “bridge” role. H2S regulates LPS-induced inflammation and apoptosis by activating the PI3K/Akt/NFκB signaling pathway. Hence, NaHS may be clinically useful for preventing or treating mastitis.

Water and fertilizer application are the yield improvement approaches in cotton production, especially in arid regions. We hypothesized that irrigation and phosphorus fertilization regimes would enhance cotton leaf photosynthesis capacity. We examined two irrigation levels, i.e., normal irrigation (W1: 3,750 m3 hm-2) and limited irrigation (W2: 2,500 m3 hm-2), combined with no phosphorus (P0) and P application (P1: applying P2O5 with the ratio of the fertilizer to dry soil being 0.15 g kg-1). Leaf area (LA), net photosynthetic rate (PN), transpiration rate (E), and quantum efficiency of PSII (YII) of cotton under P1 were higher than that under P0. Under P1 conditions, the increasing rate of fruiting branches LA with W2 was 12.6% higher than that of W1 after 69 d (DAE). PN and E were 9.8 and 6.3% higher, respectively; YII was 38.0% higher at 69 DAE. The total and reproductive organs dry mass (DM) were in the following pattern: W1P1 > W1P0 > W2P1 > W2P0. After 69 DAE, there was a highly significant correlation between the fruit-branch LA and YII, between the fruit-branch LA and PN, and between PN and reproductive organs DM and total DM. Therefore, application of P can enlarge leaf area and slow down chlorophyll degradation, thus promoting accumulation of photosynthetic products in reproductive organs, especially under drought conditions.

Molecular dynamics computer simulations are performed to study the structure and dynamic relaxation of the metallic alloys Cu50Ag50 and Cu50Zr50 with and without miscibility gap, respectively. The interactions between the particles are modeled by an effective potential of the modified embedded atom method (MEAM). Cu50Zr50 undercooled liquid shows negative mixing enthalpy; the stronger interaction of heterogeneous atom pairs than that of homogeneous atom pairs, the longer the α-relaxation time and the lower the diffusion coefficient than that of the Cu50Ag50 liquid. Dynamic relaxation is related to the structural heterogeneity: the amount of five-fold symmetry (icosahedron-like) clusters is predominant in Cu50Zr50 melts, which hinders the movement of atoms and increases the dynamic relaxation time. The amount of non-five-fold symmetry (crystal-like) clusters is more pronounced in Cu50Ag50 melts, which leads to shorter dynamic relaxation time and enhanced crystallization of the Cu50Ag50 melt. The quantitative relationship between the five-fold symmetry parameter W and the diffusion coefficient D, as well as the α-relaxation time τ α , is obtained in the two distinct undercooled liquids. The present work provides an understanding of the atomic-scale structure and the dynamic properties in the miscible and immiscible liquid mixtures.

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the evolutions of strain localizations, short-range orders as well as the stability of the interpenetrating connection of icosahedra in (CuZr)100-xAgx (x = 0,10,20,33) glasses during compressive deformation based on the embedded atom method (EAM). Our finding indicates that (CuZr)100-xAgx (x≠0) undercooled liquid exhibits faster dynamics than Cu50Zr50, but stronger chemical heterogeneity. The addition of Ag atoms to the CuZr glass shows better plastic deformation, and the local shear strains distribute more homogeneously with increasing Ag content. Further research indicates that the Ag-centered full icosahedra (FI) are structurally less stable, although the total number of FI and connectivity of FI in multicomponent glasses become larger with increasing Ag content, the network formed by Ag-centered FI are also prone to be destroyed during deformation. These findings may suggest a link between the deformation and structural heterogeneity in ternary glasses.

As an insulating material, polyimide (PI) has low intrinsic thermal conductivity and high dielectric constant under high temperature conditions, which causes surface charge accumulation and severely limits the performance of insulation. In this paper, by adapting two-dimensional boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs), a new type of material model with a PI-BNNS composite structure was established based on a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation method. Meanwhile, the thermal parameter, mechanical parameters, and electrical parameters of models with different doping concentrations at different temperatures were calculated. The results showed that the filling of BNNSs significantly improved the comprehensive performance by changing dielectric constant, breakdown field strength, thermal conductivity and so on. Furthermore, to reveal the microcosmic mechanism of the doping effect, the interfacial interaction intensity was analyzed by calculating the surface binding energy between PI/BNNS. With increasing doping ratio, the van der Waals interaction significantly increased, thus improving the phonon transfer capacity from electron movement to lattice vibration, leading to the mechanical properties and thermal conductivity of the materials significantly improved with increasing doping ratio. The increase in surface binding energy also leads to a deeper trap to capture the charge and produces charge shielding layers to improve the breakdown strength of the system.

Three nearly degenerate pairs of doublet bands are identified in $^{131}$Ba. Two of them, with positive-parity, are interpreted as pseudospin-chiral quartet bands. This is the first time that a complete set of chiral doublet bands built on the pseudospin partners π(d5/2,g7/2) is observed. The chiral bands with opposite parity built on 3-quasiparticle configurations are directly connected by many E1 transitions, without involving an intermediary non-chiral configuration. The observed band structures in $^{131}$Ba have been investigated by using the reflection-asymmetric particle rotor model. The energies and the electromagnetic transition ratios of the three pairs of doublet bands observed in $^{131}$Ba are reproduced and they are interpreted as chiral doublet bands with three-quasiparticle configurations. It is the first time that multiple chiral bands are observed in the presence of enhanced octupole correlations and pseudospin symmetry.

Diagnosis of subclinical mastitis is very important in management of the dairy industry and improvement of dairy cow productivity. S100A12, that is found in related tissues of mammals, is considered as an index for diagnosing inflammatory reaction. To evaluate whether S100A12 is involved in subclinical mastitis, milk somatic cell mRNA from 276 dairy cows was used to detect the transcriptional level of S100A12 by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. A predictive analysis for mastitis was performed, and the correlation between S100A12 and other subclinical mastitis indicators was also assessed. The transcriptional levels of S100A12 in the milk of cows with mastitis were significantly higher than those in the milk of healthy cows (p < 0.05). The correlation analysis showed that S100A12 was positively associated with the somatic cell count and the sodium and chloride concentrations of milk. In contrast, a negative correlation was found between S100A12 and the potassium concentration and pH of milk. However, no significant correlation was detected between S100A12 and the other parameters, such as protein, lactose, ash, fat, density, Ca2+ and SNF. These results suggested that the S100A12 level in milk may serve as a diagnostic tool for subclinical mastitis in cows without obvious clinical signs.

Although phase-separated metallic glass has been reported in the literature, its plastic deformation mechanism is still open to debate. In this paper, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to explore the plastic deformation mechanism of phase-separated Cu50Ag50 metallic glass during compression deformation. Our findings indicate that homogeneous atom pairs show stronger interaction than heterogeneous atom pairs in the Cu50Ag50 glass, which also shows higher plastic deformation ability demonstrated by stress–strain curves. The degree of phase separation increases with increasing deformation. Ag atoms show higher Voronoi volume and potential energies than Cu atoms. The Ag-rich regions, which yield preferentially, also exhibit larger local shear strain than the Cu-rich regions. Voronoi volume and potential energy of Ag atoms remain nearly unchanged during plastic deformation because of the atom arrangement and release of elastic energy; on the other hand, the same parameters of Cu atoms increase because of their resistance to shear transformation.

Subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA) can cause rapid lipopolysaccharide (LPS) elevation and milk yield decline in lactating ruminants. LPS has been shown to promote apoptosis and reduce the proliferation of mammary epithelial cells. Previous studies have shown that γ- amino butyric acid (GABA) can enhance production performance, regulating β-cell apoptosis and proliferation. Whether GABA can regulate apoptosis and proliferation induced by LPS in mammary epithelial cells is unknown. In this paper, we detected the role of GABA on proliferation and apoptosis as well as inflammation induced by LPS in bovine mammary epithelial cells (MAC-T cell line). In addition, we explored the role mechanism of GABA in LPS-induced MAC-T cells response through detecting the NFκB signaling pathway key molecules. The results suggested that GABA reduced the effects of cell apoptosis induced by LPS. Furthermore, GABA inhibited the expression of inflammatory cytokines activated by LPS. More importantly, blocking GABA receptors with its antagonist, GABA could not reduce the expression of inflammatory and pro-apoptotic factors activated by LPS. Notably, GABA significantly decreased the TLR4, NFκB p65, and MyD88 mRNA expression levels that were elevated by LPS. Our data indicated that GABA can improve cell viability and decrease apoptosis induced by LPS, while exerting an anti-inflammatory effect through the NFκB signaling pathway.

IFITM3 is involved in cell adhesion, apoptosis, immune, and antivirus activity. Furthermore, IFITM3 gene has been considered as a preferential marker for inflammatory diseases, and positive correlation to pathological grades. Therefore, we assumed that IFITM3 was regulated by different signal pathways. To better understand IFITM3 function in inflammatory response, we cloned swine IFITM3 gene, and detected IFITM3 distribution in tissues, as well as characterized this gene. Results indicated that the length of swine IFITM3 gene was 438 bp, encoding 145 amino acids. IFITM3 gene expression abundance was higher in spleen and lungs. Moreover, we next constructed the eukaryotic expression vector PBIFM3 and transfected into PK15 cells, finally obtained swine IFITM3 gene stable expression cell line. Meanwhile, we explored the effects of LPS on swine IFITM3 expression. Results showed that LPS increased IFITM3 mRNA abundance and exhibited time-dependent effect for LPS treatment. To further demonstrate the mechanism that IFITM3 regulated type I IFNs production, we also detected the important molecules expression of TLR4 signaling pathway. In transfected and non-transfected IFITM3 PK15 cells, LPS exacerbated the relative expression of TLR4-NFκB signaling molecules. However, the IFITM3 overexpression suppressed the inflammatory development of PK15 cells. In conclusion, these data indicated that the overexpression of swine IFITM3 could decrease the inflammatory response through TLR4 signaling pathway, and participate in type I interferon production. These findings may lead to an improved understanding of the biological function of IFITM3 in inflammation.

Influences of transformation behavior and precipitates on the deformation behavior of Ni-rich NiTi alloys were thermodynamically and experimentally investigated in present work. According to the thermodynamic analysis, the critical stress presents the same linear relationship with martensitic transformation temperature for all Ni-rich NiTi alloys. The thermodynamic results were demonstrated by the experimental results after aging treatment of Ni-rich NiTi alloys with compositions of 51.5, 51 and 50.5 at% Ni, even for the aged alloys with R phase transformation. Meanwhile, evolution of precipitate size and volume fraction was clearly discussed for Ni-rich NiTi alloys with different aging conditions. Different from the critical stress, transformation behavior presents no obvious influence on the yield stress of the Ni-rich NiTi alloys. The yield stress is mainly determined by Ni 4 Ti 3 precipitates, which increases with increasing the precipitate volume fraction and decreases with increasing the precipitate size.

// Pei-Ge Chen 1, * , Yan-Jing Guan 1, * , Guang-Ming Zha 1, * , Xian-Qin Jiao 1 , He-Shui Zhu 1 , Cheng-Yu Zhang 1 , Yue-Ying Wang 1 and He-Ping Li 1 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Biochemistry and Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: He-Ping Li, email: liheping1972@126.com Yue-Ying Wang, email: wangyueying2008@126.com Keywords: IRF3/IRF7, inflammatory response, overexpression, TLR4 signaling pathway, lipopolysaccharide Received: April 27, 2017 Accepted: May 22, 2017 Published: June 28, 2017 ABSTRACT To explore the role of IRF3/IRF7 during inflammatory responses, we investigated the effects of swine IRF3/IRF7 on TLR4 signaling pathway and inflammatory factors expression in porcine kidney epithelial PK15 cell lines. We successfully constructed eukaryotic vectors PB-IRF3 and PB-IRF7, transfected these vectors into PK15 cells and observed GFP under a fluorescence microscope. In addition, RT-PCR was also used to detect transfection efficiency. We found that IRF3/IRF7 was efficiently overexpressed in PK15 cells. Moreover, we evaluated the effects of IRF3/IRF7 on the TLR4 signaling pathway and inflammatory factors by RT-PCR. Transfected cells were treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) alone, or in combination with a TBK1 inhibitor (LiCl). We revealed that IRF3/IRF7 enhanced IFNα production, and decreased IL-6 mRNA expression. Blocking the TBK1 pathway, inhibited the changes in IFNα, but not IL-6 mRNA. This illustrated that IRF3/IRF7 enhanced IFNα production through TLR4/TBK1 signaling pathway and played an anti-inflammatory role, while IRF3/IRF7 decreased IL-6 expression independent of the TBK1 pathway. Trends in MyD88, TRAF6, TBK1 and NFκB mRNA variation were similar in all treatments. LPS increased MyD88, TRAF6, TBK1 and NFκB mRNA abundance in PBR3/PBR7 and PBv cells, while LiCl blocked the LPS-mediated effects. The levels of these four factors in PBR3/PBR7 cells were higher than those in PBv. These results demonstrated that IRF3/IRF7 regulated the inflammatory response through the TLR4 signaling pathway. Overexpression of swine IRF3/IRF7 in PK15 cells induced type I interferons production, and attenuated inflammatory responses through TLR4 signaling pathway.

The bioactivity of ferromagnetic glass ceramics is one key factor affecting the success of hyperthermia treatments. In order to investigate the effect of the addition of a nucleating agent on the bioactivity of the resulting glass ceramics, two different nucleating agents were used for the fabrication of Fe 2 O 3 -CaO-SiO 2 glass ceramics, and their short-term and long-term effects on the cytotoxicity of human fetal normal colonic mucosa cells were evaluated. The results show that P 2 O 5 promotes the formation of an apatite-like phase on the surface of Fe 2 O 3 -CaO-SiO 2 glass ceramics immersed in simulated body fluid. While TiO 2 had some adverse effect on the cell viability, P 2 O 5 had little effect on the cell viability over a certain concentration range. In this paper, the prepared Fe 2 O 3 -CaO-SiO 2 glass ceramics with P 2 O 5 added as nucleating agent are demonstrated to exhibit a good bioactivity and low cytotoxicity, which suggests good application prospects in the field of hyperthermia.

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is a single-stranded RNA flavivirus that can cause serious diseases in porcine species, including symptoms of infarction, systemic hemorrhage, high fever, or depression. Viperin is an important interferon-inducible antiviral gene that has been shown to inhibit CSFV, but the exact mechanisms by which it is able to do so remain poorly characterized. In the present study, we determined that CSFV infection led to viperin upregulation in PK-15 cells (porcine kidney cell). When viperin was overexpressed in these cells, this markedly attenuated CSFV replication, with clear reductions in viral copy number after 12 to 48 hours postinfection. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that the viral NS5A protein colocalized with viperin in infected cells, and this was confirmed via confocal laser scanning microscopy using labeled versions of these proteins, and by co-immunoprecipitation which confirmed that NS5A directly interacts with viperin. When NS5A was overexpressed, this inhibited the replication of CSFV, and we determined that the radical SAM domain and N-terminal domain of viperin was critical for its ability to bind to NS5A, with the latter being most important for this interaction. Together, our in vitro results highlight a potential mechanism whereby viperin is able to inhibit CSFV replication. These results have the potential to assist future efforts to prevent or treat systemic CSFV-induced disease, and may also offer more general insights into the antiviral role of viperin in innate immunity.

To determine the effects of the Sus scrofa matrix attachment region (SusMAR) on transgene expression in HEK293T cells. Three expression vectors with the MAR at different sites in the PiggyBac (PB) transposon vector backbone were compared: two MARs flanking the β-galactosidase (β-gal) expression cassette, and one at the upstream or downstream site. Bos taurus MAR (BosMAR) and a β-gal expression cassette without MARs were the positive and negative controls, respectively. Compared to the control, β-gal activity of all SusMAR and BosMAR vectors was significantly improved in the presence of PB transposase (PBase). However, only the downstream SusMAR and upstream BosMAR vectors showed increased expression in the absence of PBase. Expression was significantly increased in all vectors with the PBase group compared to those without the PBase group. Gene copy numbers were not increased compared to the negative control. SusMAR enhanced recombinant gene expression levels and stability in HEK293T cells, was not increase transgene copy number. These results could facilitate the development of vectors for stable production of therapeutic proteins.