Digital cameras and mobile phones enable us to conveniently record precious moments. While digital image quality is constantly being improved, taking high-quality photos of digital screens still ...remains challenging because the photos are often contaminated with moiré patterns, a result of the interference between the pixel grids of the camera sensor and the device screen. Moiré patterns can severely damage the visual quality of photos. However, few studies have aimed to solve this problem. In this paper, we introduce a novel multiresolution fully convolutional network for automatically removing moiré patterns from photos. Since a moiré pattern spans over a wide range of frequencies, our proposed network performs a nonlinear multiresolution analysis of the input image before computing how to cancel moiré artefacts within every frequency band. We also create a large-scale benchmark data set with 1 00 000 + image pairs for investigating and evaluating moiré pattern removal algorithms. Our network achieves the state-of-the-art performance on this data set in comparison to existing learning architectures for image restoration problems.
•Ectomycorrhizal fungi Suillus luteus obviously changed physicochemical traits of soil.•S. luteus increased accumulation of heavy metal in roots of massion’s pine.•S. luteus increased soil bacterial ...diversity, particularly, the specific groups.•Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria dominated in soil with S. luteus.
Pinus massoniana is one of the potential tree species of afforestation in barren mine tailing area, and ectomycorrhizal fungi contributes remarkably to its survival. However, how ectomycorrhizal fungi interacts with Pinus massoniana under heavy metals’ stress is unknown. Two systems (Pinus massoniana inoculated with and without ectomycorrhizal fungi) were designed, and each system contained rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere, while bulk soil was sampled as control. The results showed that treatment of ectomycorrhizal fungi inoculation could obviously improved the absorption of soil moisture, total carbon/total nitrogen and nutrients, while reduced the bulk density and heavy metals of soil when compared with control (p＜0.05). The heavy metals accumulating in plants’ roots with ectomycorrhizal fungi were greater than that without ectomycorrhizal fungi. Conversely, they were lower in shoots with ectomycorrhizal fungi. The bacterial community were affiliated with 23 bacterial phyla, 70 classes, 115 orders, 201 families, and 363 genera. Constrained Principal Coordinate Analysis and redundancy analysis demonstrated that bacterial communities structure in the soil inoculated with or without ectomycorrhizal fungi and bulk soil were distinguishable, but no difference between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere. The LEfSe analysis showed Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria were the dominant phyla that contributed to the difference among treatments.
Glutathione (GSH) plays an important role in the biological system and serves many cellular functions. Since all of the biothiols possess similar functional groups, it is still challenging to ...selectively detect GSH over cysteine (Cys) and homocysteine (Hcy). In this work, a novel and simple colorimetric method for discriminative detection of glutathione (GSH) over Cys and Hcy is developed. The proposed method is based on the fact that Ag I ion could oxidize 3,3′,5,5′,-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to the oxidized TMB to induce a blue color and an absorption peak centered at 652nm. However, the introduction of GSH could cause the reduction of oxidized TMB and it could also combine with Ag+, both of which result in a blue color fading and a decrease of the absorbance at 652nm. Based on this finding, we propose a method to qualitatively and quantitatively detect GSH by naked eyes and UV–vis spectroscopy, respectively. The proposed method shows a low detection limit of 0.1µM by naked eyes and 0.05µM with the help of UV–vis spectroscopy. In addition, this method has great potential in discriminatively detecting GSH over other amino acid and biothiols. More importantly, this method is simple and fast without the preparation of nanomaterials and has also been successfully applied to the detection of GSH in biological fluids.
•A new colorimetric method for GSH detection is proposed.•This method could selectively detect GSH over Cys and Hcy.•This method is simple without the preparation of nanomaterials.•The proposed method is successfully applied to the detection of GSH in real samples.
In this study, a facile method to sensitively detect melamine and highly improve the peroxidase-like activity of bare gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) at the same time is proposed for the first time. It ...is interesting to find that the addition of melamine could improve the peroxidase-like activity of Au NPs. By coupling with 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethlybenzidine (TMB)–H2O2 chormogenic reaction, a novel method for colorimetic detection of melamine is developed. The detection limit of this method is as low as 0.2nM with the help of UV–vis spectroscopy and 0.5µM by naked-eye observation, both which are far below the US food and Drug Administration estimated melamine safety limit of 20µM. In addition, the present method is successfully applied for the detection of melamine in raw milk and milk powder. More importantly, the proposed method could also improve the peroxidase-like activity of Au NPs, which may not only provide a new approach to develop effective nanomaterials-based mimetic enzyme, but also irradiative to develop new applications for Au NPs in varieties of cost-effective and simple sensors in medicine, biotechnology and environmental chemistry.
•We report a facile method to sensitively detect melamine.•The method could also improve the peroxidase-like activity of Au NPs.•0.5µM of melamine can be clearly distinguished by naked-eye observation.•The method is successfully applied to detect melamine in real samples.
Activation of innate immunity by membrane-localized receptors is conserved across eukaryotes. Plant genomes contain hundreds of such receptor-like genes and those encoding proteins with an ...extracellular leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain represent the largest family. Here, we develop a high-throughput approach to study LRR receptor-like genes on a genome-wide scale. In total, 257 tobacco rattle virus-based constructs are generated to target 386 of the 403 identified LRR receptor-like genes in Nicotiana benthamiana for silencing. Using this toolkit, we identify the LRR receptor-like protein Response to XEG1 (RXEG1) that specifically recognizes the glycoside hydrolase 12 protein XEG1. RXEG1 associates with XEG1 via the LRR domain in the apoplast and forms a complex with the LRR receptor-like kinases BAK1 and SOBIR1 to transduce the XEG1-induced defense signal. Thus, this genome-wide silencing assay is demonstrated to be an efficient toolkit to pinpoint new immune receptors, which will contribute to developing durable disease resistance.
•A new evaluation assay combined in vitro digestion with CAA was built.•Digesta had higher FPA but lower TPC and TAC than extracts.•Digesta had higher CAA but lower ABTS, FRAP, DPPH, ORAC than ...extracts.•TPC had higher correlation than TAC with CAA in digesta.•Digestion improved the correlation between CAA values and total phenolic contents.
The traditional method of chemical extraction (i.e., extracts), combined with chemical antioxidant activity assays cannot assess the real antioxidant activity. In vitro digestion (i.e., digesta) with a cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) assay was developed for the determination of antioxidant activity in Chinese bayberry fruits. In this study, pretreatment methods were studied and the results showed that digesta had more free phenolic acids (FPA) but less total phenolic content (TPC) and total anthocyanin content (TAC) than extracts. Antioxidant activity assays, including ABTS, FRAP, DPPH, ORAC and CAA, were compared. Digesta had lower ABTS, FRAP and DPPH values but higher CAA values than extracts. FPA were better correlated with the chemical antioxidant assays in digesta. The correlations were high between TPC and CAA values in digesta (R2=0.96) but not extracts (R2=0.58). Higher correlations were also obtained between CAA and chemical assays in digesta.
A novel colorimetric biosensor for the determination of tetracyclines based on the Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles is presented.
Display omitted
A novel colorimetric biosensor for the determination of ...tetracyclines (TCs) based on the Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4 MNPs) is presented in this paper. TCs are known to have a strong tendency to complex with metal ions such as Fe(II) and Fe(III) on the surface of Fe3O4 MNPs. Experiments results show that the complexation of Fe3O4 MNPs and TCs could lead to the accelerated catalysing H2O2-mediated oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) by Fenton chemistry. The reaction starts with oxidation of Fe3O4 MNPs-TCs complex by dissolved oxygen to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), primarily ·OH, leading to deepen the color of the solution. Analysis results can be seen with the naked eye and monitored by UV–vis spectra. Under the optimal conditions, the detection limits are 26nM for oxytetracycline (OTC), 45nM for tetracycline (TC) and 48nM for doxycycline (DOX). Moreover, this method has been applied for the determination of OTC content in drugs with satisfactory results. The proposed colorimetric biosensor is advantageous over other conventional methods in terms of convenient operation without any complicated chemical synthesis, modification, or tedious experimental procedures and its simple signal generation and detection by the naked eye. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the enhancement effect of TCs on Fe3O4 MNPs-TMB-H2O2 reaction and its application in colorimetric TCs analysis. The designed colorimetric strategy may provide a promising alternative detection for TCs in clinical samples.
Reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/nickel cobaltite (NiCo2O4) nanoflake composites were prepared by combining in situ assembling and subsequent thermal treatment. RGO/NiCo2O4 nanoflake composites exhibited ...high pseudocapactive performance, good rate capability and long-term cyclability, indicating potential applications as high-performance supercapacitor electrode materials.
•Reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/nickel cobaltite (NiCo2O4) nanoflake were prepared.•NiCo2O4 nanoflakes interconnect with each other to afford porous nanostructure.•RGO/NiCo2O4 nanoflake was used as supercapacitor electrode materials.•RGO/NiCo2O4 exhibited high pseudocapactive performance and long-term cyclability.
Reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/nickel cobaltite (NiCo2O4) nanoflake composites were prepared by combining in situ assembling and subsequent thermal treatment. The RGO/NiCo2O4 composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms and thermogravimetric analysis. Cyclic voltammetry and chronopotentiometry measurements were performed to investigate the electrochemical properties of the composites. Superior performances were achieved with high specific capacitance of 1693Fg−1 at 1Ag−1, good rate capability (67.6% capacity retention at 16Ag−1) and long-term cyclability (only 9.2% loss after 2000 cycles). The binary redox couples of Ni2+/Ni3+ and Co2+/Co3+, ultrathin nanoflake structure, together with the high electrical conductivity of RGO to the outside current collectors are responsible for the excellent electrochemical performances of the RGO/NiCo2O4 composite, thus suggesting its potential application as an effective electrode material for supercapacitors.
A sensitive hydrogen peroxide (H
2O
2) sensor was fabricated based on graphene–Pt (GN–Pt) nanocomposite. The GN–Pt was synthesized by photochemical reduction of K
2PtCl
4 on GNs, and characterized by ...atomic force microscope (AFM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Electrochemical investigations indicated that the GN–Pt exhibited a high peak current and low overpotential towards the reduction of H
2O
2. The GN–Pt modified glass carbon electrode displayed a wide linear range (2–710
μM), low limit of detection (0.5
μM) and good selectivity for detection of H
2O
2 with a much higher sensitivity than that of Pt nanoparticles or graphene modified electrode.
► Graphene-Pt composite with high coverage of Pt nanoparticles is synthesized by a photochemical approach for the first time. ► Graphene-Pt exhibits larger peak current and lower overpotential for H
2O
2 reduction than Pt nanoparticles. ► Graphene-Pt displays much higher sensitivity and lower detection limit for H
2O
2 sensing than Pt nanoparticles or graphene.
Cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of mortality in developed countries, is mainly caused by atherosclerosis, a chronic inflammatory disease. Macrophages, which differentiate from monocytes that ...are recruited from the blood, account for the majority of leukocytes in atherosclerotic plaques. Apoptosis and the suppressed clearance of apoptotic macrophages (efferocytosis) are associated with vulnerable plaques that are prone to rupture, leading to thrombosis. Based on the central functions of macrophages in atherogenesis, cytokines, chemokines, enzymes, or microRNAs related to or produced by macrophages have become important clinical prognostic or diagnostic biomarkers. This paper discusses the impact of monocyte-derived macrophages in early atherogenesis and advanced disease. The role and possible future development of macrophage inflammatory biomarkers are also described.
PDF
