| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Beal, Jacob, et al.
(author)
-
Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density
- 2020
-
In: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 3:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data.
|
|
| 3. |
- Chang, Yachao, et al.
(author)
-
Construction and assessment of reduced oxidation mechanisms using global sensitivity analysis and uncertainty analysis
- 2019
-
In: Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. - : Elsevier BV. - 1540-7489. ; 37:1, s. 751-761
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The global sensitivity analysis is an effective method to assess the performance of a chemical reaction mechanism. In the present study, the uncertainty analysis and the global sensitivity analysis of a detailed chemical mechanism of n-heptane are first performed based on the Monte Carlo method. The source of the prediction uncertainties of the C0-C7 sub-mechanisms and the reaction classes in the fuel-specific sub-mechanism of the detailed mechanism are determined by the global sensitivity analysis. Then, based on the results, a reduced mechanism for n-heptane oxidation is developed. To assess the performance of the reduced mechanism, the nominal model prediction and the frequency distribution of the ignition delay times using the present reduced mechanism are compared with those of the detailed mechanism and two additional reduced mechanisms obtained by the directed relation graph with error propagation (DRGEP) method. The results indicate that the predictions from the present reduced mechanism and the reduced mechanism with 305 species satisfactorily agree that of the detailed mechanism. Furthermore, the discrepancy of the predictions among these mechanisms is discussed based on the Spearman Rank Correlation analysis. It is found that, for the reduced mechanism with 120 species, the optimization of the reaction rate constants significantly improves the nominal model prediction of the ignition delay time, whereas its influence on the range and profile of the frequency distribution is rather weak due to the intrinsic relationship among the reactions being broken in the reduced mechanism.
|
|
| 4. |
- Chen, Zhi-Qiang, et al.
(author)
-
Leveraging breeding programs and genomic data in Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst) for GWAS analysis
- 2021
-
In: Genome Biology. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1465-6906 .- 1474-760X. ; 22:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identify loci underlying the variation of complex traits. One of the main limitations of GWAS is the availability of reliable phenotypic data, particularly for long-lived tree species. Although an extensive amount of phenotypic data already exists in breeding programs, accounting for its high heterogeneity is a great challenge. We combine spatial and factor-analytics analyses to standardize the heterogeneous data from 120 field experiments of 483,424 progenies of Norway spruce to implement the largest reported GWAS for trees using 134 605 SNPs from exome sequencing of 5056 parental trees.Results: We identify 55 novel quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that are associated with phenotypic variation. The largest number of QTLs is associated with the budburst stage, followed by diameter at breast height, wood quality, and frost damage. Two QTLs with the largest effect have a pleiotropic effect for budburst stage, frost damage, and diameter and are associated with MAP3K genes. Genotype data called from exome capture, recently developed SNP array and gene expression data indirectly support this discovery.Conclusion: Several important QTLs associated with growth and frost damage have been verified in several southern and northern progeny plantations, indicating that these loci can be used in QTL-assisted genomic selection. Our study also demonstrates that existing heterogeneous phenotypic data from breeding programs, collected over several decades, is an important source for GWAS and that such integration into GWAS should be a major area of inquiry in the future.
|
|
| 5. |
- Dai, Y. L., et al.
(author)
-
Asynchronous embryonic germ cell development leads to a heterogeneity of postnatal ovarian follicle activation and may influence the timing of puberty onset in mice
- 2022
-
In: BMC Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1741-7007. ; 20:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Ovarian follicles, which are the basic units of female reproduction, are composed of oocytes and surrounding somatic (pre) granulosa cells (GCs). A recent study revealed that signaling in somatic preGCs controlled the activation (initial recruitment) of follicles in the adult ovaries, but it is also known that there are two waves of follicle with age-related heterogeneity in their developmental dynamics in mammals. Although this heterogeneity was proposed to be crucial for female reproduction, our understanding of how it arises and its significance is still elusive. Results In the current study, by deleting the key secreted factor KIT ligand from preGCs and analyzing the follicle cell developmental dynamics, we revealed distinct patterns of activation and growth associated with the two waves of follicles in mouse ovary. Our results confirmed that activation of adult wave follicles is initiated by somatic preGCs and dependent on the KIT ligand. By contrast, activation of first wave follicles, which are awakened from germ cells before follicle formation, can occur in the absence of preGC-secreted KIT ligand in postnatal ovaries and appears to be oocyte-initiated. We also found that the asynchronous activity of phosphatidylinositol 3 kinases (PI3K) signaling and meiotic process in embryonic germ cells lead to the follicle heterogeneity in postnatal ovaries. In addition, we supplied evidence that the time sequence of embryonic germ cell development and its related first wave follicle growth are correlated to the time of puberty onset in females. Conclusion Taken together, our study provides evidence that asynchronous development of embryonic oocytes leads to the heterogeneity of postnatal ovarian follicle activation and development, and affects the timing of onset of puberty in females.
|
|
| 6. |
- Kristan, Matej, et al.
(author)
-
The Ninth Visual Object Tracking VOT2021 Challenge Results
- 2021
-
In: 2021 IEEE/CVF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER VISION WORKSHOPS (ICCVW 2021). - : IEEE COMPUTER SOC. - 9781665401913 ; , s. 2711-2738
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Visual Object Tracking challenge VOT2021 is the ninth annual tracker benchmarking activity organized by the VOT initiative. Results of 71 trackers are presented; many are state-of-the-art trackers published at major computer vision conferences or in journals in recent years. The VOT2021 challenge was composed of four sub-challenges focusing on different tracking domains: (i) VOT-ST2021 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB, (ii) VOT-RT2021 challenge focused on "real-time" short-term tracking in RGB, (iii) VOT-LT2021 focused on long-term tracking, namely coping with target disappearance and reappearance and (iv) VOT-RGBD2021 challenge focused on long-term tracking in RGB and depth imagery. The VOT-ST2021 dataset was refreshed, while VOT-RGBD2021 introduces a training dataset and sequestered dataset for winner identification. The source code for most of the trackers, the datasets, the evaluation kit and the results along with the source code for most trackers are publicly available at the challenge website(1).
|
|
| 7. |
- Kristan, Matej, et al.
(author)
-
The Visual Object Tracking VOT2013 challenge results
- 2013
-
In: 2013 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER VISION WORKSHOPS (ICCVW). - : IEEE. - 9781479930227 ; , s. 98-111
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Visual tracking has attracted a significant attention in the last few decades. The recent surge in the number of publications on tracking-related problems have made it almost impossible to follow the developments in the field. One of the reasons is that there is a lack of commonly accepted annotated data-sets and standardized evaluation protocols that would allow objective comparison of different tracking methods. To address this issue, the Visual Object Tracking (VOT) workshop was organized in conjunction with ICCV2013. Researchers from academia as well as industry were invited to participate in the first VOT2013 challenge which aimed at single-object visual trackers that do not apply pre-learned models of object appearance (model-free). Presented here is the VOT2013 benchmark dataset for evaluation of single-object visual trackers as well as the results obtained by the trackers competing in the challenge. In contrast to related attempts in tracker benchmarking, the dataset is labeled per-frame by visual attributes that indicate occlusion, illumination change, motion change, size change and camera motion, offering a more systematic comparison of the trackers. Furthermore, we have designed an automated system for performing and evaluating the experiments. We present the evaluation protocol of the VOT2013 challenge and the results of a comparison of 27 trackers on the benchmark dataset. The dataset, the evaluation tools and the tracker rankings are publicly available from the challenge website(1).
|
|
| 8. |
- Kristan, Matej, et al.
(author)
-
The Visual Object Tracking VOT2014 Challenge Results
- 2015
-
In: COMPUTER VISION - ECCV 2014 WORKSHOPS, PT II. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319161808 - 9783319161815 ; , s. 191-217
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Visual Object Tracking challenge 2014, VOT2014, aims at comparing short-term single-object visual trackers that do not apply pre-learned models of object appearance. Results of 38 trackers are presented. The number of tested trackers makes VOT 2014 the largest benchmark on short-term tracking to date. For each participating tracker, a short description is provided in the appendix. Features of the VOT2014 challenge that go beyond its VOT2013 predecessor are introduced: (i) a new VOT2014 dataset with full annotation of targets by rotated bounding boxes and per-frame attribute, (ii) extensions of the VOT2013 evaluation methodology, (iii) a new unit for tracking speed assessment less dependent on the hardware and (iv) the VOT2014 evaluation toolkit that significantly speeds up execution of experiments. The dataset, the evaluation kit as well as the results are publicly available at the challenge website (http://votchallenge.net).
|
|
| 9. |
- Luo, Ziteng, et al.
(author)
-
Linking roots, preferential flow, and soil moisture redistribution in deciduous and coniferous forest soils
- 2022
-
In: Journal of Soils and Sediments. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1614-7480 .- 1439-0108.
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Soil moisture (i.e., the changes in the gravimetric soil water content) redistribution is closely linked with root distribution and preferential flow in soils. This study aimed at exploring the soil water content distribution in the presence of root-enhanced preferential flow in deciduous (Quercus variabilis BI.) and coniferous forests (Platycladus orientalis (L.)).
|
|
| 10. |
- Niu, Qinwang, et al.
(author)
-
Toward the Internet of Medical Things : Architecture, trends and challenges
- 2024
-
In: Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering. - : American Institute of Mathematical Sciences. - 1547-1063 .- 1551-0018. ; 21:1, s. 650-678
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In recent years, the growing pervasiveness of wearable technology has created new opportunities for medical and emergency rescue operations to protect users' health and safety, such as cost-effective medical solutions, more convenient healthcare and quick hospital treatments, which make it easier for the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) to evolve. The study first presents an overview of the IoMT before introducing the IoMT architecture. Later, it portrays an overview of the core technologies of the IoMT, including cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, and it elucidates their utilization within the healthcare system. Further, several emerging challenges, such as cost-effectiveness, security, privacy, accuracy and power consumption, are discussed, and potential solutions for these challenges are also suggested.
|
|
| 11. |
- Qian, Li-Bing, et al.
(author)
-
Transmission of electrons through the conical glass capillary with the grounded conducting outer surface
- 2017
-
In: Wuli xuebao. - : Acta Physica Sinica, Chinese Physical Society and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. - 1000-3290. ; 66:12
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The transmission of 1.5 keV-electrons through a conical glass capillary is reported. This study aims to understand the so-called guiding effect for the negatively charged particles (e.g. electrons). The guiding mechanism is understood quite well with positively charged particles in particular highly charged ions, but not clear with electrons, i. e., even the basic scheme mediated by the existence of negative charge patches to guide the electrons is still somewhat controversial.. The study of the charging-up dynamics causing the electrons transport inside the capillary will shed light on this issue. In order to perform this, a data acquisition system has been setup to follow the time evolution of the two-dimensional angular distribution of the transmitted electrons. The electrons are detected by the multi-channel plate (MCP) detector with a phosphor screen. The image from the phosphor screen is recorded by a charge-coupled device camera. The timing signals for the detected events are extracted from the back stack of the MCP detector and recorded by the data acquisition system, synchronized with the acquired images. The electron beam has a size of 0.5 mm x 0.5 mm and a divergence of less than 0.35.. The inner diameter of the straight part of the capillary is 1.2 mm and the exit diameter is 225 mu m. A small conducting aperture of 0.3 mm in diameter is placed at the entrance of the capillary. Two-dimensional angular distribution of the transmitted electrons through conical glass capillary and its time evolution are measured. The results show that the transmission rate decreases and reaches to a constant value for the completely discharged glass capillary with time going by. The centroid of the angular distribution moves to an asymptotic value while the width remains unchanged. These transmission characteristics are different from those indicated in our previous work (2016 Acta Phys: Si n: 65 204103). The difference originates from the different manipulations of the capillary outer surface. A conducting layer is coated on the outer surface of the capillary and grounded in this work. This isolates various discharge/charge channels and forms a new stable discharge channel. The transmission rate as a function of the tilt angle shows that the allowed transmission occurs at the tilt angle limited by the geometrical factors, i. e., the geometrical opening angle given by the aspect ratio as well as the beam divergence. The transmission characteristics suggest that most likely there are formed no negative patches to facilitate the electron transmission through the glass capillary at this selected beam energy. It is different from that of highly charged ions, where the formation of the charge patches prohibits the close collisions between the following ions and guides them out of the capillary.
|
|
| 12. |
- Ruilope, LM, et al.
(author)
-
Design and Baseline Characteristics of the Finerenone in Reducing Cardiovascular Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease Trial
- 2019
-
In: American journal of nephrology. - : S. Karger AG. - 1421-9670 .- 0250-8095. ; 50:5, s. 345-356
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- <b><i>Background:</i></b> Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. <b><i>Patients and</i></b> <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate ≥25 mL/min/1.73 m<sup>2</sup> and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio ≥30 to ≤5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level α = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049.
|
|
| 13. |
- Xin, Yan-Bo, et al.
(author)
-
Research progress of hydrogen tunneling in two-dimensional materials
- 2017
-
In: Wuli xuebao. - : CHINESE PHYSICAL SOC. - 1000-3290. ; 66:5
-
Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- One-atom-thick material such as graphene, graphene derivatives and graphene-like materials, usually has a dense network lattice structure and therefore dense distribution of electronic clouds in the atomic plane. This unique structure makes it have great significance in both basic research and practical applications. Studies have shown that molecules, atoms and ions are very difficult to permeate through these above-mentioned two-dimensional materials. Theoretical investigations demonstrate that even hydrogen, the smallest in atoms, is expected to take billions of years to penetrate through the dense electronic cloud of graphene. Therefore, it is generally considered that one-atom-thin materialis impermeable for hydrogen. However, recent experimental results have shown that the hydrogen atoms can tunnel through graphene and monolayer hexagonal boron nitride at room temperature. The existence of defects in one-atomthin material can also effectively reduce the barrier height of the hydrogen tunneling through graphene. Controversy exists about whether hydrogen particles such as atoms, ions or hydrogen molecules can tunnel through two-dimensional materials, and it has been one of the popular topics in the fields of two-dimensional materials. In this paper, the recent research progressof hydrogen tunneling through two-dimensional materials is reviewed. The characteristics of hydrogen isotopes tunneling through different two-dimensional materials are introduced. Barrier heights of hydrogen tunneling through different graphene and graphene-like materials are discussed and the difficulties in its transition are compared. Hydrogen cannot tunnel through the monolayer molybdenum disulfide, only a little small number of hydrogen atoms can tunnel hrough graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, while hydrogen is relatively easy to tunnel through silicene and phosphorene. The introduction of atomic defects or some oxygen-containing functional groups into the two-dimensional material is discussed, which can effectively reduce the barrier height of the hydrogen tunneling barrier. By adding the catalyst and adjusting the temperature and humidity of the tunneling environment, the hydrogen tunneling ability can be enhanced and the hydrogen particles tunneling through the two-dimensional material can be realized. Finally, the applications of hydrogen tunneling through two-dimensional materials in ion-separation membranes, fuel cells and hydrogen storage materials are summarized. The potential applications of hydrogen permeable functional thin film materials, lithium ion battery electrode materials and nano-channel ions in low energy transmission are prospected. The exact mechanism of hydrogen tunneling through two-dimensional material is yet to be unravelled. In order to promote these applications and to realize large-scale production and precision machining of these two-dimensional materials, an in-depth understanding of the fundamental questions of the hydrogen tunneling mechanism is needed. Further studies are needed to predict the tunneling process quantitatively and to understand the effects of catalyst and the influences of chemical environments.
|
|
