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Data-concerning topologies, input files, and PDB files of the most representative structure ofthe wild type system and each mutant system

β-1,3-Glucanases are considered key regulators responsible for the degradation of callose in plants, yet little is known about the role and mode of action of their encoding genes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). In the present study, we identified the β-1,3-glucanase encoding gene β-1,3-GLUCANASE10 (SlBG10) and revealed its regulation in tomato pollen and fruit development, seed production, and disease resistance by modulating callose deposition. Compared with wild-type (WT) or SlBG10 overexpressing (SlBG10-OE) lines, knockout of SlBG10 caused pollen arrest and failure to set fruit with reduced male rather than female fecundity. Further analyses showed that SlBG10-knockout promoted callose deposition in anther at the tetrad-to-microspore stages, resulting in pollen abortion and male sterility. Moreover, loss-of-function SlBG10 delayed degradation of endosperm cell wall calloses during cellularization and impeded early seed development. We also uncovered that Botrytis cinerea infection induces SlBG10 expression in WT tomato, and the knockout lines showed increased callose accumulation in fruit pericarps, reduced susceptibility to B. cinerea, and enhanced antioxidant capacity to maintain tomato fruit quality. However, the expression of genes encoding cell wall hydrolases decreased in SlBG10-knockout tomatoes and thus led to an increase in pericarp epidermal thickness, enhancement in fruit firmness, reduction of fruit water loss, and extension of tomato shelf life. These findings not only expand our understanding of the involvement of β-1,3-glucanases as callose regulators in multiple developmental processes and pathogen resistance but also provide additional insight into the manipulation of multiagronomic traits for targeted tomato breeding.

Fluorine (F) in water has a negative effect on the environment and human health. Schwertmannite has potential remediation to contamination in solution. In this study, the adsorption mechanism and influencing factors of synthetic schwertmannite for low-concentration F were studied through batch experiments. The results suggested that the adsorption of F by schwertmannite reached equilibrium after about 60 min, and the adsorption efficiency exceeded 94%. The experimental data can be best-fit by the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir models well. Schwertmannite showed effective adsorption at pH 4, dosage 1.5 g L−1, low temperature, and low concentration of co-existing anion. The adsorption process was a spontaneous and exothermic reaction, which was dominated by chemical adsorption. FT-IR and XPS spectra analysis revealed that F adsorption on schwertmannite through the surface complexation and anion exchange reaction between SO42− and OH− with F−, especially the primary role of OH−. The results can provide theoretical support for the schwertmannite application in the treatment of F-containing wastewater.

Contrary to the fact that NO3--N can serve as electron acceptor to promote organics degradation, it was also found NO3--N reduction does not necessarily promote organics degradation. We speculate nitrogen (N) species may control the interaction between NO3--N reduction and organics degradation via shifting related microbial community structure. To prove the hypothesis, oxic-anoxic transition zone (OATZ) microcosms simulated by lake water and sediment were conducted with the addition of N species (NO3--N, NO2--N, and NH4+-N) and aniline as typical organics. High-throughput sequencing was used to analyze the microbial community structure and functional enzyme in the microcosms. Results show that, NO2--N inhibited NO3--N reduction while enhanced aniline degradation. For NH4+-N, it promoted NO3--N reduction when NH4+-N/NO3--N concentration ratio ≤ 2 and inhibited aniline degradation when NH4+-N/aniline concentration ratio ≥ 0.5. The presence of NO2--N or NH4+-N weakened the interaction between NO3--N reduction and aniline degradation, which might be caused by significant changes in the diversity and abundance of microbial communities controlled by N species. The microbial mechanism indicates that NO2--N weakened the interaction by affecting both denitrification enzyme activity and electron transfer capability, while NH4+-N weakened the interaction mainly by affecting electron transfer capability. These results imply that N species, as well as other electron acceptors and donors, in the contaminated OATZ should be fully considered, when performing in situ remediation technology of NO3--N reduction.

Few-shot point cloud semantic segmentation learns to segment novel classes with scarce labeled samples. Within an episode, a novel target class is defined by a few support samples with corresponding binary masks, where only the points of this class are labeled as foreground and others are regarded as background. In the tasks involving multiple target classes, since the meanings of background are diverse for different target classes, background ambiguities appear: Some points labeled as background in one support sample may be of other target classes. It will result in incorrect guidance and damage model's segmentation performance. However, previous methods in the literature do not consider this problem. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective approach to tackle background ambiguities, which adopts the entropy of predictions on query samples to the training objective function as an additional regularization. Besides, we design a feature transformation operation to reduce the feature differences between support and query samples. With our proposed approach, fine-tuning, a weak baseline method for few-shot segmentation, gains significant performance improvement (e.g., 7.48% and 7.04% in 2-way-1-shot and 3-way-1-shot tasks of S3DIS, respectively) and outperforms current state-of-the-art methods in all the task settings of S3DIS and ScanNet benchmark datasets. Ministry of Education (MOE) National Research Foundation (NRF) This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 61876208, Tip-top Scientific and Technical Innovative Youth Talents of Guangdong Special Support Program (2019TQ05X200), 2022 Tencent Wechat Rhino-Bird Focused Research Program Research (Tencent WeChat RBFR2022008) and the National Research Foundation, Singapore under its AI Singapore Programme (AISG Award No: AISG-RP-2018-003), the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP20220-0007) and Tier 1 (RG95/20).

Rivers in urbanised cities are often polluted, black, and odorous, with poor water quality and deteriorated ecology. Despite many river restoration studies, assessments of ecological responses to river restoration practices remain scant. Benthic animals are useful biological indicators showing the change and succession of river ecosystems; however, previous studies have mainly focussed on a few target species without considering overall ecosystem integrity. Here, we used a multi-index biological assessment method, benthic index of biological integrity (B-IBI) to assess ecological responses to river restoration of the Shahe River in subtropical region of China. Spatiotemporal changes in the macrobenthos community structure after restoration were monitored to explore species succession. We found that the number of macrobenthos species increased from 16 to 42, with the emergence of some pollution-sensitive species during the restoration period. Molluscs showed widespread recovery, and their relative proportions almost doubled from 12.5% to 24.4%. Oligochaetes and chironomids were the pioneer species in the recovering communities, while gastropod molluscs and pollution-sensitive aquatic insects were transitional species that first settled during the initial recovery period. Based on our survey data, 25 candidate metrics were selected, and five core metrics (total taxa, Simpson diversity index, percentage of crustaceans and molluscs, percentage of predators, and percentage of collector-gatherers) were identified after screening to establish the B-IBI. Our analysis revealed a distinct improvement in the overall health of the river, with the proportions of "excellent" and "good" sites increasing from zero to 28.6% and from 14.3% to 42.9%, respectively. A correlation analysis indicated that water flow, molluscs, and total phosphorus content were the three drivers of ecological recovery in the Shahe River. Overall, our study demonstrates the importance of governance and restoration of rivers in tropical and subtropical cities, and provides valuable evidence that can guide the design and evaluation of river restoration works.

High blood glucose level (hyperglycemia) is a leading indicator of diabetes mellitus (DM). Erythrocytes are the most abundant cells in the circulation and the first to perceive changes in plasma composition. Long-lasting hyperglycemia affects the structure and function of erythrocytes. The detection of erythrocyte-related indicators can provide a valuable reference for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of DM and its complications. This paper reviews the normal structure and function of erythrocytes, the changes in erythrocytes in patients with diabetes, and the role of erythrocytes in the development of diabetic complications to provide more indicators for the early prevention of DM complications and to monitor the therapeutic effect of DM.

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Purpose To face profound changes from decreasing funding, growing patient expectations and increasing competition in the health-care market, public hospitals began to implement effective quality management (QM) practices following manufacturing and other service industries. However, there was little knowledge relevant to the impact of QM practices on the performance of public hospitals. The study aims to shed some further light on this issue. Design/methodology/approach The paper extends the previous empirical research to the health-care sectors and suggests the research framework of QM practice-performance relationships in public hospitals. For validation purposes, a cross-sectional survey involving 204 quality managers and directors of large public hospitals was carried out between April and October 2013 in Zhejiang Province, China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationship between QM practices and hospital performance. Findings Empirical results support that the implementation of QM practices can bring many benefits to sample hospitals. The dimensions of employee relations and process management are directly related to the health-care and non-health-care performance of public hospitals. Originality/value It explores the relationship between QM practices and hospital performance based on empirical results from Chinese public hospitals, whereas few studies have been conducted within the context of public health-care sectors in developing countries. The empirical results could enhance hospital managers’ understanding of the nature of QM practice-performance relationship and help mangers re-allocate more resources to those elements of the QM systems that have the most significant impact on hospital performance.

Although it is known that wetting–drying (W–D) cycles can enhance the release and transport of soil colloidal particles (SCPs), the effects of cycle times and soil layer thickness on the enhancement are open questions. Artificial loess column laboratory tests were conducted for these questions. The results showed that the concentration of SCPs has one initial peak and several secondary peak concentrations in leachate, and all the peak concentrations decreased with increasing loess layer thickness. The concentrations of 30-, 20- or 10-cm-thick loess layer finally changes into stable levels at about 10, 16 and 23 mg L−1 within 48 h, respectively. Via ten W–D cycles, the initial peak concentrations of 30-, 20- or 10-cm-thick loess layer increased by 37.02%, 40.21% and 53.76%, respectively. After the same number of W–D cycles, the initial peak concentration from 10-cm-thick loess layer was about double that from 30 cm. In short, the release and transport of SCPs would increase with the increase of the times of W–D cycle and the decrease of loess layer thickness, which demonstrates a “memory effect” and a “leapfrogging mode” in time and space, respectively. The mobile SCPs have the potential to enhance the co-transport with contaminants in vadose zone, and even to groundwater. These findings can help to better understand the release and transport of SCPs and contaminants under seasonal rainfall climate conditions, and are helpful in evaluating the risk of soil and groundwater pollution.

A dual-mode second-order reconfigurable quadrature bandpass continuous-time delta–sigma modulator is presented for a low-IF global navigation satellite system receiver to simplify the entire architecture. The proposed modulator is capable of supporting both narrowband of 5-MHz bandwidth (BW) and wideband of 20-MHz BW. An amplifier topology with active feed-forward and antipole-splitting compensation schemes is proposed. The flexible amplifiers in active- RC integrators and preamplifiers in comparators are implemented with power scaling technique to effectively adjust the power consumption for both BWs. A 1-bit digitally switched current digital-to-analog converter structure with gate-leakage compensation and low-latency dynamic element matching is proposed to cover large current variations and mitigate the gate-leakage issue. Digital $I$ / $Q$ self-calibration algorithm is realized to improve the image-rejection ratio (IRR). Implemented in 65-nm CMOS, the $\Delta \Sigma $ modulator achieves 67.8-/61.4-dB dynamic range, 65.9-/53.7-dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio, and >60-dB IRR after calibration across 5-/20-MHz BW with center frequencies of 4/12 MHz, respectively. Powered by a 1.2 V supply, the modulator only consumes 4.2/8.1 mW, resulting in measured figure-of-merits of 0.26/0.51 pJ/conversion step.

Based on the master meter principle and negative pressure method, a multifunctional facility is developed for gas meter testing. A high accuracy roots flowmeter and two wet gas meters are selected as master meters. A thermostat is applied to control gas temperature. This facility is suitable for type evaluation and verification of gas meters, such as testing their measurement performance, temperature adaptability, pressure loss, and overload flow rate. The expanded uncertainty of the facility is better than 0.3% (k = 2). Its applicable temperature range and flowrate range are (-40~60)°C and (0.016~16)m3/h respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed facility is effective in testing ultrasonic gas meter under different temperatures.

A multi-mode reconfigurable lowpass/complex bandpass continuous-time sigma-delta (LP/CBP CT ΣΔ) modulator for short range wireless receiver is presented. The proposed modulator could be configured as either 3rd-order lowpass or 2nd-order complex bandpass mode. The flexible amplifiers in the integrators and the comparator preamplifiers are implemented with power optimizing technique to acquire scalable power consumption among different modes. And an automatic tuning circuit is utilized to guarantee the accuracy of intermediate frequency and bandwidth. The modulator has been implemented in 65nm CMOS and achieves 82.7dB peak SNR at 4MHz LP mode, and 80.7/82.2dB peak SNR at 1MHz/2MHz complex bandpass mode. Powered by a 1.2-V supply, the modulator consumes 2.96 to 3.48mW, resulting in FOMs of 0.038–0.167pJ/conversion.

A 0.1–5GHz flexible software-defined radio (SDR) receiver is presented with three RF front-end paths (Main/Sub/HR paths). Main path and sub path can reject out-of-band blockers and harmonic interferences, and feature low NF and high linearity, respectively. Harmonic rejection (HR) path can effectively reject the harmonic interferences with simple calibration mechanism. Dual feedback LNA, class-AB Op-Amp with miller feed-forward compensation and quasi-floating gate (QFG) techniques, reconfigurable continuous-time (CT) low pass (LP) and complex band pass (CBP) sigma-delta ADC are proposed. This chip has been implemented in 65nm CMOS with 9.6–47.4mA current consumption from 1.2V voltage supply and a core chip area of 5.4mm2. The receiver main path achieves 3.8dB NF, +5dBm/+5dBm IB-IIP3/OB-IIP3 as well as +58dBm IIP2. The sub path achieves +10dBm/+18dBm IB-IIP3/OB-IIP3 as well as +61dBm IIP2. And it offers RF filtering with 10dB rejection at 10MHz offset. The HR path achieves +13dBm/+14dBm IB-IIP3/OB-IIP3 and >54/56dB 3rd/5th-order harmonic rejection with 30–40dB rejection improvement by calibration.

A dual-mode wideband reconfigurable lowpass /complex bandpass continuous-time sigma-delta (LP/CBP CT ΣΔ) modulator with digitally-assisting integrated in a zero/ low-IF SDR receiver is presented. The proposed modulator is capable of switching in either 3 rd -order LP or 2 nd -order CBP with 10MHz bandwidth (BW) in each mode. The power-efficient amplifiers in active-RC integrators are implemented with active feedforward and anti-pole-splitting compensation schemes. The 2-bit digitally-switched current-steering DAC with gate-leakage compensation is proposed to cover the current variation in LP/CBP mode and solve the unavoidable gate-leakage issue in deep submicron CMOS. Fabricated in 65nm CMOS, the modulator achieves 65.8dB DR, 62.2dB peak SNDR in LP 10MHz BW mode and 74.2dB DR, 63.9dB SNDR across 10MHz signal-band with center frequency of 6MHz in CBP mode, occupying a core area of 0.39mm 2 . Powered by a 1.2-V supply, the effective power consumption is only 4.8 and 6.3mW in LP and CBP mode respectively, resulting in measured FoMs of 0.23 and 0.25pJ/conversion.

This paper introduces application of XC164 which is a 16 bit microcontroller produced by Infineon company in the detection of active motor power. To get the active power, the current, voltage and power factor should be measured. In the system design, the input voltage and current are measured by the method called Synchronous sampling with the A/D Converter. And power factor can be obtained by collecting the phase difference of voltage and current with the Multi-Functional General Purpose Timer Unit of XC164. This system makes full use of the strong DSP performance of XC164 with high precision, high speed of real-time processing and cost-effective features. Taking advantage of the excellent control performance of XC164, this system can also expand its function, such as motor torque detection, energy saving control etc. So it has a great application prospect.

A fully-integrated multi-mode SAW-less GNSS receiver in 65nm CMOS is presented, which supports both ordinary and high precision GNSS signals with their bandwidth covering from 4MHz to 20MHz. The receiver employs a voltage sampling RF front-end and a 2nd-order continuous-time (CT) sigma-delta ADC to provide large dynamic range, as well as simplifying the analog baseband circuits. Besides, an on-chip I/Q calibration is integrated to improve the image rejection ratio (IRR), which can be realized manually or automatically with a FPGA. Op-amp arrays are used in the analog baseband, whose power consumption is scalable for different operation modes. The receiver achieves 3dB noise figure, -31dBm in-band 1dB compression point, -15dBm out-of-band (OOB) 1dB desensitization point, 43dB IRR and a maxim 62dB SNDR ADC outputs, while consuming 40mW DC power in the narrow-band and 52.5mW in the wide-band mode respectively.