Photosensitized splitting of cis-syn 1,3-dimethyluracil dimer by tryptophan and its peptides

Photosensitized splitting of cis-syn 1,3-dimethyluracil dimer by tryptophan (Trp) and its peptides (Trp-Tyr and Trp-Phe) is studied by fluorescence quenching experiments and irradiation experiments.It reveals that 1,3-dimethyluracil dimer is mainly split by e?-?aq resulting from two-photon ionization of Trp and its peptides under irradiation with light (λ>290 nm).Moreover,the excited singlet state of Trp and its peptides can transfer an electron to the dimer,which splits and gives two pyrimidines.In addition,because of its lower oxidative potential,the excited triplet state of Trp-Tyr can also split the dimer via transfering an electron to the dimer.     

Finding finer functions for partially characterized proteins by protein-protein interaction networks

Based on high-throughput data, numerous algorithms have been designed to find functions of novel proteins. However, the effectiveness of such algorithms is currently limited by some fundamental factors, including (1) the low a-priori probability of novel proteins participating in a detailed function; (2) the huge false data present in high-throughput datasets; (3) the incomplete data coverage of functional classes; (4) the abundant but heterogeneous negative samples for training the algorithms; and (5) the lack of detailed functional knowledge for training algorithms. Here, for partially characterized proteins, we suggest an approach to finding their finer functions based on protein interaction sub-networks or gene expression patterns, defined in function-specific subspaces. The proposed approach can lessen the above-mentioned problems by properly defining the prediction range and functionally filtering the noisy data, and thus can efficiently find proteins’ novel functions. For thousands of yeast and human proteins partially characterized, it is able to reliably find their finer functions (e.g., the translational functions) with more than 90% precision. The predicted finer functions are highly valuable both for guiding the follow-up wet-lab validation and for providing the necessary data for training algorithms to learn other proteins.     

Detecting myocardial ischemia with 2-D CVIB imaging method--an in vivo animal experiment study

A 2-D cyclic variation of integrated backscatter (CVIB) imaging method was established for detecting myocardial ischemia. To demonstrate the feasibility and validity of this method, animal experiments were conducted. Acute myocardial ischemia was induced by occluding left anterior descending coronary artery in 10 anesthetized open-chest dogs. While scanning the normal hearts and the ischemic hearts with a B scanner, digital radiofrequency data were acquired by a real-time acquisition system in synchronism. The offline analysis to the radio-frequency signal with the 2-D CVIB imaging method was performed to verify the consistency between the imaging result and the design of the experiment. In addition, 4 dogs in experiment were treated with the heart pacemaker in order to investigate the influence of changing in heart rate on the detection of ischemic myocardium with the proposed method. The experimental result showed that the 2-D CVIB imaging method succeeded in detecting the ischemic myocardium and is a new non-invasive way for the cardiologists to both quantitatively and visually evaluate the contractile performance of the myocardium.     

Genetic analysis and molecular mapping of a presenescing leaf gene psll in rice （Oryza sativa L.）

A rice psl1 （presenescing leaf） mutant was obtained from a japonica variety Zhonghua 11 via radiation of ^60Co-γ in M2 generation. Every leaf of the mutant began to wither after it reached the biggest length, while the leaves of the wild variety could keep green for 25--35 d. In this study, genetic analysis and gene mapping were carried out for the mutant identified. The SSR marker analysis showed that the mutant was controlled by a single recessive gene （psl1） located on chromosome 2. Fine mapping of the psl1 locus was conducted with 34 new STS markers developed around psl1 anchored region based on the sequence diversity between Nipponbare and 93-11. The psl1 was further mapped between two STS markers, STS2-19 and STS2-26, with genetic distances of 0.43 and 0.11 cM, respectively, while cosegregated with STS2-25. A BAC contig was found to span the psl1 locus, the region being delimited to 48 kb. This result was very useful for cloning of the psl1 gene.     

A high-level synthesis based dual-module redundancy with multi-residue detection （DMR-MRD） fault-tolerant method for on-board processing satellite communication systems

On board processing （OBP） satellite systems have obtained more and more attentions in recent years because of their high efficiency and performance.However,the OBP transponders are very sensitive to the high energy particles in the space radiation environments.Single event upset （SEU） is one of the major radiation effects,which influences the satellite reliability greatly.Triple modular redundancy （TMR） is a classic and efficient method to mask SEUs.However,TMR uses three identical modules and a comparison logic,the circuit size becomes unacceptable,especially in the resource limited environments such as OBP systems.Considering that,a new SEU-tolerant method based on residue code and high-level synthesis （HLS） is proposed,and the new method is applied to FIR filters,which are typical structures in the OBP systems.The simulation results show that,for an applicable HLS scheduling scheme,area reduction can be reduced by 48.26％ compared to TMR,while fault missing rate is 0.15％.     

UAV penetration mission path planning based on improved holonic particle swarm optimization

To meet the requirements of safety, concealment, and timeliness of trajectory planning during the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) penetration process, a three-dimensional path planning algorithm is proposed based on improved holonic particle swarm optimization(IHPSO). Firstly, the requirements of terrain threat, radar detection, and penetration time in the process of UAV penetration are quantified. Regarding radar threats, a radar echo analysis method based on radar cross section(RCS)and the spatia...     

Effects of AlN on the densification and mechanical properties of pressureless-sintered SiC ceramics

In the present work, Si C ceramics was fabricated with Al N using B_4 C and C as sintering aids by a solid-state pressureless-sintered method. The effects of Al N contents on the densification, mechanical properties, phase compositions, and microstructure evolutions of as-obtained Si C ceramics were thoroughly investigated. Al N was found to promote further densification of the Si C ceramics due to its evaporation over 1800 °C,transportation, and solidification in the pores resulted from Si C grain coarsening. The highest relative density of 99.65% was achieved for Si C sample with 15.0 wt% Al N by the pressureless-sintered method at 2130 °C for 1 h in Ar atmosphere. Furthermore, the fracture mechanism for Si C ceramics containing Al N tended to transfer from single transgranular fracture mode to both transgranular fracture and intergranular fracture modes when the sample with 30.0 wt% Al N sintered at 1900 °C for 1 h in Ar. Also, Si C ceramics with 30.0 wt% Al N exhibited the highest fracture toughness of 5.23 MPa m~(1/2) when sintered at 1900 °C.     

SAR image de-noising via grouping-based PCA and guided filter

A novel synthetic aperture radar(SAR)image de-noising method based on the local pixel grouping(LPG)principal component analysis(PCA)and guided filter is proposed.This method contains two steps.In the first step,we process the noisy image by coarse filters,which can suppress the speckle effectively.The original SAR image is transformed into the additive noise model by logarithmic transform with deviation correction.Then,we use the pixel and its nearest neighbors as a vector to select training samples from the local window by LPG based on the block similar matching.The LPG method ensures that only the similar sample patches are used in the local statistical calculation of PCA transform estimation,so that the local features of the image can be well preserved after coefficients shrinkage in the PCA domain.In the second step,we do the guided filtering which can effectively eliminate small artifacts left over from the coarse filtering.Experimental results of simulated and real SAR images show that the proposed method outstrips the state-of-the-art image de-noising methods in the peak signalto-noise ratio(PSNR),the structural similarity(SSIM)index and the equivalent number of looks(ENLs),and is of perceived image quality.     

Genome-wide association studies of 14 agronomic traits in rice landraces

Uncovering the genetic basis of agronomic traits in crop landraces that have adapted to various agro-climatic conditions is important to world food security. Here we have identified ～ 3.6 million SNPs by sequencing 517 rice landraces and constructed a high-density haplotype map of the rice genome using a novel data-imputation method. We performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 14 agronomic traits in the population of Oryza sativa indica subspecies. The loci identified through GWAS explained ～ 36% of the phenotypic variance, on average. The peak signals at six loci were tied closely to previously identified genes. This study provides a fundamental resource for rice genetics research and breeding, and demonstrates that an approach integrating second-generation genome sequencing and GWAS can be used as a powerful complementary strategy to classical biparental cross-mapping for dissecting complex traits in rice.     

Genome-wide association study of flowering time and grain yield traits in a worldwide collection of rice germplasm

A high-density haplotype map recently enabled a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in a population of indica subspecies of Chinese rice landraces. Here we extend this methodology to a larger and more diverse sample of 950 worldwide rice varieties, including the Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica subspecies, to perform an additional GWAS. We identified a total of 32 new loci associated with flowering time and with ten grain-related traits, indicating that the larger sample increased the power to detect trait-associated variants using GWAS. To characterize various alleles and complex genetic variation, we developed an analytical framework for haplotype-based de novo assembly of the low-coverage sequencing data in rice. We identified candidate genes for 18 associated loci through detailed annotation. This study shows that the integrated approach of sequence-based GWAS and functional genome annotation has the potential to match complex traits to their causal polymorphisms in rice.