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您选择的条件: Li, Wei
  • How do intensive restoration efforts and climate changes alter the strength of causal-feedback loops in Lake Taihu: A tug-of-war

    分类: 生物学 >> 生态学 提交时间: 2023-06-01

    摘要: Understanding how phytoplankton interacts with local and regional drivers as well as their feedbacks is a great challenge, and quantitative analyses of the regulating role of human activities and climate changes on these feedback loops are also limited. By using monthly monitoring dataset (2000-2017) from Lake Taihu and empirical dynamic modelling to construct causal networks, we quantified the strengths of causal feedbacks among phytoplankton, local environments, zooplankton, meteorology as well as global climate oscillation. Prevalent bidirectional causal linkages between phytoplankton and the tested drivers were found, providing holistic and quantitative evidence of the ubiquitous feedback loops. Phytoplankton exhibited the highest feedbacks with total inorganic nitrogen and ammonia and the lowest with nitrate. The feedbacks between phytoplankton and environmental factors from 2000 to 2017 could be classified by two groups: the local environments (e.g., nutrients, pH, transparency, zooplankton)-driven enhancement loops promoting the response of the phytoplankton, and the climate (e.g., wind speed)-driven regulatory loops suppressing it. The two counterbalance groups modified the emergent macroecological patterns. Our findings revealed that the causal feedback networks loosened significantly after 2007 following nutrient loading reduction and unsuccessful biomanipulation restoration attempts by stocking carp. The strength of enhancement loops underwent marked decreases leading to reduced phytoplankton responses to the tested drivers, while the climate (decreasing wind speed, warming winter)-driven regulatory loops increased like a tug-of-war. To counteract the self-amplifying feedback loops, the present eutrophication mitigation efforts, especially nutrient reduction, should be continued, and introduction of alternative measures to indirectly regulate the critical components (e.g., pH, Secchi depth, zooplankton biomass) of the loops would be beneficial.

  • A Creativity Survey of Fully Dynamic Maximal Independent Set in Expected Poly-log Update Time

    分类: 计算机科学 >> 计算机软件 提交时间: 2022-02-24

    摘要: This paper focus on the researches of Maximal Independent Set (MIS). Based on reading and analysis of several recent papers, we divide the MIS problems into several classifications. The first is the classification based on the research objects, including the solution and maintenance of MIS; the second is the classification based on research methods, including serial, parallel, deterministic and randomized algorithms; the third is experimental analysis, including worst time complexity and expected time complexity.

  • Crop positioning for robotic intra-row weeding based on machine vision

    分类: 机械工程 >> 机械制造自动化 提交时间: 2018-03-16

    摘要: A machine-vision-based method of locating crops is described in this research. This method was used to provide real-time positional information of crop plants for a mechanical intra-row weeding robot. Within the normalized red, green, and blue chromatic coordinates (rgb), a modified excess green feature (g-r>T & g-b>T) was used to segment plant material from back ground in color images. The threshold T was automatically selected by the maximum variance (OTSU) algorithm to cope with variable natural light. Taking into account the geometry of the camera arrangement and the crop row spacing, the target regions covering the crop rows were defined based on a pinhole camera model. According to the statistical variation in the pixel histogram in each target region, locations of the crop plants were initially estimated. To obtain the accurate locations of crops, median filtering was conducted locally in the bounding boxes of the crops close to the bottom of the images. For the lateral guidance of the robot, a novel method of calculating lateral offset was proposed based on a simplified match between a template and the detected crops. Field experiments were conducted under three different illumination conditions. The results showed that the accurate identification rates on lettuce, cauliflower and maize were all above 95%. The positional error as within ±15 mm, and the average processing time for a 640×480 image was 31 ms. The method was adequate to meet the technical requirement of the weeding robot, and laid a foundation for robotic weeding in commercial production system.

  • Impaired maturation of large dense-core vesicles in muted-deficient adrenal chromaffin cells

    分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 细胞生物学 提交时间: 2016-05-12

    摘要: The large dense-core vesicle (LDCV), a type of lysosome-related organelle, is involved in the secretion of hormones and neuropeptides in specialized secretory cells. The granin family is a driving force in LDCV biogenesis, but the machinery for granin sorting to this biogenesis pathway is largely unknown. The mu mutant mouse, which carries a spontaneous null mutation on the Muted gene (also known as Bloc1s5), which encodes a subunit of the biogenesis of lysosome-related organelles complex-1 (BLOC-1), is a mouse model of Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome. Here, we found that LDCVs were enlarged in mu adrenal chromaffin cells. Chromogranin A (CgA, also known as CHGA) was increased in mu adrenals and muted-knockdown cells. The increased CgA in mu mice was likely due a failure to export this molecule out of immature LDCVs, which impairs LDCV maturation and docking. In mu chromaffin cells, the size of readily releasable pool and the vesicle release frequency were reduced. Our studies suggest that the muted protein is involved in the selective export of CgA during the biogenesis of LDCVs.

  • Characterization of a novel mouse model with genetic deletion of CD177

    分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 细胞生物学 提交时间: 2016-05-12

    摘要: Neutrophils play an essential role in the innate immune response to infection. Neutrophils migrate from the vasculature into the tissue in response to infection. Recently, a neutrophil cell surface receptor, CD177, was shown to help mediate neutrophil migration across the endothelium through interactions with PECAM1. We examined a publicly available gene array dataset of CD177 expression from human neutrophils following pulmonary endotoxin instillation. Among all 22,214 genes examined, CD177 mRNA was the most upregulated following endotoxin exposure. The high level of CD177 expression is also maintained in airspace neutrophils, suggesting a potential involvement of CD177 in neutrophil infiltration under infectious diseases. To determine the role of CD177 in neutrophils in vivo, we constructed a CD177-genetic knockout mouse model. The mice with homozygous deletion of CD177 have no discernible phenotype and no significant change in immune cells, other than decreased neutrophil counts in peripheral blood. We examined the role of CD177 in neutrophil accumulation using a skin infection model with Staphylococcus aureus. CD177 deletion reduced neutrophil counts in inflammatory skin caused by S. aureus. Mechanistically we found that CD177 deletion in mouse neutrophils has no significant impact in CXCL1/KC- or fMLP-induced migration, but led to significant cell death. Herein we established a novel genetic mouse model to study the role of CD177 and found that CD177 plays an important role in neutrophils.

  • Novel near-infrared BiFC systems from a bacterial phytochrome for imaging protein interactions and drug evaluation under physiological conditions

    分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 影像医学与生物医学工程 提交时间: 2016-05-12

    摘要: Monitoring protein protein interactions (PPIs) in live subjects is critical for understanding these fundamental biological processes. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) provides a good technique for imaging PPIs; however, a BiFC system with a long wavelength remains to be pursued for in vivo imaging. Here, we conducted systematic screening of split reporters from a bacterial phytochrome-based, near-infrared fluorescent protein (iRFP). Several new near-infrared phytochrome BiFC systems were built based on selected split sites including the amino acids residues 97/98, 99/100,122/123, and 123/124. These new near-infrared BiFC systems from a bacterial phytochrome were verified as powerful tools for imaging PPIs under physiological conditions in live cells and in live mice. The interaction between HIV-1 integrase (IN) and cellular cofactor protein Lens epithelium-derived growth factor (LEDGF/p75) was visualized in live cells using the newly constructed iRFP BiFC system because of its important roles in HIV-1 integration and replication. Because the HIV IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction is an attractive anti-HIV target, drug evaluation assays to inhibit the HIV IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction were also performed using the newly constructed BiFC system. The results showed that compound 6 and carbidopa inhibit the HIV IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction in a dose-dependent manner under physiological conditions in the BiFC assays. This study provides novel near-infrared BiFC systems for imaging protein interactions under physiological conditions and provides guidance for splitting other bacterial phytochrome-like proteins to construct BiFC systems. The study also provides a new method for drug evaluation in live cells based on iRFP BiFC systems and supplies some new information regarding candidate drugs for anti-HIV therapies. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.