Regarding the growth of crops, one of the important factors affecting crop yield is insect disasters. Since most insect species are extremely similar, insect detection on field crops, such as rice, ...soybean and other crops, is more challenging than generic object detection. Presently, distinguishing insects in crop fields mainly relies on manual classification, but this is an extremely time-consuming and expensive process. This work proposes a convolutional neural network model to solve the problem of multi-classification of crop insects. The model can make full use of the advantages of the neural network to comprehensively extract multifaceted insect features. During the regional proposal stage, the Region Proposal Network is adopted rather than a traditional selective search technique to generate a smaller number of proposal windows, which is especially important for improving prediction accuracy and accelerating computations. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves a heightened accuracy and is superior to the state-of-the-art traditional insect classification algorithms.
We propose a novel method to extend the scanning range of planar phased arrays based on a phase gradient metasurface. The phase gradient metasurface is developed by the generalized Snell's law, which ...can irregularly tailor the direction of propagation of the traversing electromagnetic waves. The proposed transmission gradient phase metasurface (TGPMS) uses bidirectional expansion of the scanning range in a phased array application. The TGPMS consists of periodic and multilayer subwavelength elements that contribute to a wide range of transmission phase shift and multiple incident angular stability. The design is verified experimentally with a compact microstrip phased array that is integrated with the proposed TGPMS. Results demonstrate that the TGPMS extends the scanning range of the integrated array symmetrically, from -36°, 38° to -56°, 60°. The proposed TGPMS has additional desirable characteristics, such as high transmission, polarization insensitivity, tunable transmission phases in a wide range, and transmission phase stability for waves incident at different angles.
The plant antioxidant system plays important roles in response to diverse abiotic and biotic stresses. However, the effects of virus infection on host redox homeostasis and how antioxidant defense ...pathway is manipulated by viruses remain poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that the Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) γb protein is recruited to the chloroplast by the viral αa replicase to enhance viral replication. Here, we show that BSMV infection induces chloroplast oxidative stress. The versatile γb protein interacts directly with NADPH‐dependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC), a core component of chloroplast antioxidant systems. Overexpression of NbNTRC significantly impairs BSMV replication in Nicotiana benthamiana plants, whereas disruption of NbNTRC expression leads to increased viral accumulation and infection severity. To counter NTRC‐mediated defenses, BSMV employs the γb protein to competitively interfere with NbNTRC binding to 2‐Cys Prx. Altogether, this study indicates that beyond acting as a helicase enhancer, γb also subverts NTRC‐mediated chloroplast antioxidant defenses to create an oxidative microenvironment conducive to viral replication.
SYNOPSIS
The Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) γb protein promotes viral infection in plants via various mechanisms. This work reveals an additional role in disrupting chloroplast antioxidant defenses to create an oxidative microenvironment conducive to viral replication.
BSMV infection disturbs chloroplast redox homeostasis and induces oxidative stress.
The BSMV γb protein directly interacts with host NADPH‐dependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC) at chloroplasts.
NTRC expression suppresses BSMV replication in Nicotiana benthamiana.
γb protein competitively interferes with NTRC binding to 2‐Cys peroxiredoxins.
Inhibition of the chloroplast‐localized NADPH‐dependent thioredoxin reductase C to create an oxidative microenvironment promotes plant infection by a chloroplast‐replicating virus.
Background
There are several studies comparing the difference between adenocarcinoma (AC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC) of lung cancer. However, seldom studies compare the different overall ...survival (OS) between AC and SqCC at same clinical or pathological stage. The aim of the study was to investigate the 5-year OS between AC and SqCC groups.
Methods
Data were obtained from the Taiwan Society of Cancer Registry. There were 48,296 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients analyzed between 2009 and 2014 in this retrospective study. We analyzed both the AC and SqCC groups by age, gender, smoking status, Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI) score, clinical TNM stage, pathological stage, tumor location, histologic grade, pleura invasion, performance status, treatment, stage-specific 5-year OS rate in each clinical stage I–IV and causes of death. We used propensity score matching to reduce the bias.
Results
The AC and SqCC groups are significantly different in age, gender, smoking status, CCI score, clinical TNM stage, pathological stage, tumor location, histologic grade, pleura invasion, performance status, treatment, stage-specific 5-year OS rate in each clinical stage and causes of death (
p
< 0.0001). The stage-specific 5-year OS rates between AC and SqCC were 79% vs. 47% in stage I; 50% vs. 32% in stage II; 27% vs. 13% in stage III; 6% vs. 2% in stage IV, respectively (all
p
values < 0.0001).
Conclusions
AC and SqCC have significantly different outcomes in lung cancer. We suggest that these two different cancers should be analyzed separately to provide more precise outcomes in the future.
Analyzing high-dimensional data and finding hidden patterns is a difficult problem and has attracted numerous research efforts. Automated methods can be useful to some extent but bringing the data ...analyst into the loop via interactive visual tools can help the discovery process tremendously. An inherent problem in this effort is that humans lack the mental capacity to truly understand spaces exceeding three spatial dimensions. To keep within this limitation, we describe a framework that decomposes a high-dimensional data space into a continuum of generalized 3D subspaces. Analysts can then explore these 3D subspaces individually via the familiar trackball interface while using additional facilities to smoothly transition to adjacent subspaces for expanded space comprehension. Since the number of such subspaces suffers from combinatorial explosion, we provide a set of data-driven subspace selection and navigation tools which can guide users to interesting subspaces and views. A subspace trail map allows users to manage the explored subspaces, keep their bearings, and return to interesting subspaces and views. Both trackball and trail map are each embedded into a word cloud of attribute labels which aid in navigation. We demonstrate our system via several use cases in a diverse set of application areas-cluster analysis and refinement, information discovery, and supervised training of classifiers. We also report on a user study that evaluates the usability of the various interactions our system provides.
A series of bis‐pentamethylcyclopentadienyl‐supported Dy complexes containing different ancillary ligands were synthesized and characterized. Magnetic studies showed that 1 Dy Cp*2DyCl(THF), 1 Dy’ ...Cp*2DyCl2K(THF)n, 2 Dy Cp*2DyBr(THF), 3 Dy Cp*2DyI(THF) and 4 Dy Cp*2DyTp (Tp=hydrotris(1‐pyrazolyl)borate) were single‐ion magnets (SIMs). The 1D dysprosium chain 1 Dy’ exhibited a hysteresis at up to 5 K. Furthermore, 3 Dy featured the highest energy barrier (419 cm−1) among the complexes. The effects of ancillary ligands on single‐ion magnetic properties were studied by experimental, ab initio calculations and electrostatic analysis methods in detail. These results demonstrated that the QTM rate was strongly dependent on the ancillary ligands and that a weak equatorial ligand field could be beneficial for constructing Dy‐SIMs.
Boosting performance: A series of bis‐pentamethylcyclopentadienyl‐supported Dy complexes containing different ancillary ligands demonstrated that a weak equatorial ligand field is beneficial for constructing dysprosium single‐ion magnets.
Plant viruses have been used as rapid and cost-effective expression vectors for heterologous protein expression in genomic studies. However, delivering large or multiple foreign proteins in monocots ...and insect pests is challenging.
Here, we recovered a recombinant plant cytorhabdovirus, Barley yellow striate mosaic virus (BYSMV), for use as a versatile expression platform in cereals and the small brown plan-thopper (SBPH, Laodelphax striatellus) insect vector.
We engineered BYSMV vectors to provide versatile expression platforms for simultaneous expression of three foreign proteins in barley plants and SBPHs. Moreover, BYSMV vectors could express the c. 600-amino-acid β-glucuronidase (GUS) protein and a red fluorescent protein stably in systemically infected leaves and roots of cereals, including wheat, barley, foxtail millet, and maize plants. Moreover, we have demonstrated that BYSMV vectors can be used in barley to analyze biological functions of gibberellic acid (GA) biosynthesis genes. In a major technical advance, BYSMV vectors were developed for simultaneous delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 nuclease and single guide RNAs for genomic editing in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves.
Taken together, our results provide considerable potential for rapid screening of functional proteins in cereals and planthoppers, and an efficient approach for developing other insect-transmitted negative-strand RNA viruses.
Shaping the intensity distribution of radiated electromagnetic (EM) fields in a given bounded target area is a challenging problem in EMs. Although some approaches have been explored for this ...purpose, most are limited to the synthesis of plane-wave fields or point-focused fields. In this communication, a field-shaping method based on angular spectrum projection and the linear superposition principle is presented. The proposed method allows radiated electric fields to be shaped with different desired intensity patterns in a given limited target area with the use of the same antenna array. Via this method, all element excitations of the antenna array can be analytically calculated, and not only is the element excitation computational time reduced, but the real-time control of shaped fields is also made possible. Full-wave simulations were carried out to illustrate the 1-D and 2-D electric field shaping within a small given target area. In the 1-D case, three types of shaped fields with different desired distributions are demonstrated. In the 2-D case, three kinds of origin-symmetric shaped fields with different intensity distributions are illustrated. Finally, shaped fields with more complicated 2-D intensity distributions, like "I"- and "X"-shaped patterns, are demonstrated, and are achieved directly by applying the linear superposition principle to multiple point-focused fields with spatially overlapping focal spots.
A nanosheet structure of Fe3O4/g-C3N4 magnetic composite has been prepared and utilized as adsorbent for the ultrasound-assisted dispersive magnetic micro-solid-phase extraction of the ultra-trace ...inorganic mercury Hg(II). Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Fouries transform infrared spectroscopy images manifested that the hydrothermal systhesis promoted the binding of Fe3O4 particles with g-C3N4. The enrichment performance of composites depended on their compositions, and the recovery of Hg(II) on C-m30 (with Fe3O4/g-C3N4 mass ratio 2:3) was higher than that on other ratios. Recorded data showed that ultrasound wave was an effective method for reducing the agglomeration of magnetic materials and enhancing their adsorption properties. The Hg signal obtained by 80% power input is 3.2 times stronger than the signal by strring mode. X-ray diffraction characterization of the recovered adsorbent showed that g-C3N4 needed to be updated after repeated use for four times. In addition, competitive adsorption may be main factor affecting the inhibitory effect of high concentration methylmercury on inorganic mercury. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limit of the proposed method was 1.4 ng L−1 and relative standard deviation of 4.6% for 0.05 μg L−1 Hg(II) was obtained. The linear calibration range was 0.005–0.4 μg L−1. The accuracy of the method was verified through analysis of the certificated reference materials. The proposed method has been applied in the determination of inorganic Hg in natural water samples.
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•Fe3O4/g-C3N4 magnetic composite has been synthesized for the preconcentration of mercury at the ng L−1 level.•The adsorption of mercury on magnetic materials changed more than 300% after the application of ultrasound.•More than 90% of the adsorbability can be regenerated by slurring reaction with sodium borohydride.
•Direct numerical simulation of turbulent dispersion of passive concentration released from a line source in a turbulent boundary-layer flow over a rib-roughened surface;•Combined wall shear and rib ...effects on the plume transition from a turbulent convective stage to a turbulent diffusive stage;•Self-similarity in the non-dimensionalized profiles of the mean concentration and RMS of concentration fluctuations.
Turbulent dispersion of a concentration plume emitting from a horizontal line source over a rib-roughened surface has been studied using direct numerical simulations (DNS). Four test cases have been compared to investigate the effects of the source elevation and location on the plume dispersion in a turbulent boundary layer. The transport process of the concentration is investigated in both physical and spectral spaces which includes analyses of statistical moments of the concentration field, decay rate, plume width, pre-multiplied spectra of the velocity and concentration fields, and the probability density function (PDF) of concentration fluctuations. It is observed that as the mean plume development enters the long-range dispersion stage, the decay rate of the mean concentration field begins to feature a constant slope of −3/2, while the vertical spread of the mean plume exhibits a constant slope of 1/3 in all four line source release cases in a ribbed wall flow. It is also observed that the profiles of both the mean concentration field and the RMS of concentration fluctuations exhibit a self-similarity pattern downstream of the line source in all four test cases. By comparing the characteristic length scales of the spanwise velocity and scalar fields, two distinct stages of the instantaneous plume development are observed, dominated by the turbulent convective and diffusive mechanisms. It is discovered that the transition from the turbulent convective stage to the turbulent diffusive stage occurs more rapidly for line sources placed near the wall and inside the cavities.
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