Life history responses of the cabbage beetle Colaphellus bowringi to temperature change

Jian‐Jun Tang,Hai-Min HE,Ting GENG,Shu FU,Fang-Sen XUE 한국곤충학회 2016 Entomological Research Vol.46 No.6

Temperature is considered one of the most important mediators of phenotypic plasticity in ectotherms. Here, we investigated life history traits of the cabbage beetle, Colaphellus bowringi Baly (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), at a wide range of temperatures (16, 19, 22, 24, 26 and 28°C). The larval and pupal times were significantly decreased with increasing rearing temperature and growth rate was positively correlated with temperature. However, the relationship between body size and rearing temperature in C. bowringi did not follow the temperature–size rule; both males and females reached the highest body weight at 19°C. Females were significantly larger than males at all temperatures. Male pupae lost significantly more weight at metamorphosis compared to females. However, diapausing males gained significantly higher weight after feeding compared to diapausing females at higher temperatures of 22, 24, 26 and 28°C. Body weight tended to decrease with increasing rearing temperature, whereas sexual size dimorphism (SSD) tended to increase with increasing rearing temperature; thus, Rensch's rule is upheld. The degree to which SSD changed with temperature varied with different development stages. SSD was lowest in pupae, highest in newly emerged adults and intermediate in diapausing adults.

A Method for Tree Image Segmentation Combined Adaptive Mean Shifting with Image Abstraction

( Ting-ting Yang ),( Su-yin Zhou ),( Ai-jun Xu ),( Jian-xin Yin ) 한국정보처리학회 2020 Journal of information processing systems Vol.16 No.6

Although huge progress has been made in current image segmentation work, there are still no efficient segmentation strategies for tree image which is taken from natural environment and contains complex background. To improve those problems, we propose a method for tree image segmentation combining adaptive mean shifting with image abstraction. Our approach perform better than others because it focuses mainly on the background of image and characteristics of the tree itself. First, we abstract the original tree image using bilateral filtering and image pyramid from multiple perspectives, which can reduce the influence of the background and tree canopy gaps on clustering. Spatial location and gray scale features are obtained by step detection and the insertion rule method, respectively. Bandwidths calculated by spatial location and gray scale features are then used to determine the size of the Gaussian kernel function and in the mean shift clustering. Furthermore, the flood fill method is employed to fill the results of clustering and highlight the region of interest. To prove the effectiveness of tree image abstractions on image clustering, we compared different abstraction levels and achieved the optimal clustering results. For our algorithm, the average segmentation accuracy (SA), over-segmentation rate (OR), and under-segmentation rate (UR) of the crown are 91.21%, 3.54%, and 9.85%, respectively. The average values of the trunk are 92.78%, 8.16%, and 7.93%, respectively. Comparing the results of our method experimentally with other popular tree image segmentation methods, our segmentation method get rid of human interaction and shows higher SA. Meanwhile, this work shows a promising application prospect on visual reconstruction and factors measurement of tree.

Fatty Acid Profile of Muscles from Crossbred Angus-Simmental, Wagyu-Simmental, and Chinese Simmental Cattles

Ting Liu,Jian-Ping Wu,Zhao-Min Lei,Ming Zhang,Xu-Yin Gong,Shu-Ru Cheng,Yu Liang,Jian-Fu Wang 한국축산식품학회 2020 한국축산식품학회지 Vol.40 No.4

This study assessed breed differences in fatty acid composition and meat quality of Longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) and semitendinosus (SE) of Angus× Chinese Simmental (AS), Wagyu×Chinese Simmental (WS), and Chinese Simmental (CS). CS (n=9), AS (n=9) and WS (n=9) were randomly selected from a herd of 80 bulls which were fed and managed under similar conditions. Fatty acid profile and meat quality parameters were analyzed in duplicate. Significant breed difference was observed in fatty acid and meat quality profiles. AS exhibited significantly (p<0.05) lower C16:0 and higher C18:1n9c compared with CS. AS breed also had a tendency (p<0.10) to lower total saturated fatty acid (SFA), improve C18:3n3 and total unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) compared with CS. Crossbreed of AS and WS had significantly (p<0.05) improved the lightness, redness, and yellowness of muscles, and lowered cooking loss, pressing loss, and shear force compared with CS. These results indicated that fatty acid composition and meat quality generally differed among breeds, although the differences were not always similar in different tissues. Fatty acid composition, meat color, water holding capacity, and tenderness favored AS over CS. Thus, Angus cattle might be used to improve fatty acid and meat quality profiles of CS, and AS might contain better nutritive value, organoleptic properties, and flavor, and could be potentially developed as an ideal commercial crossbreed.

Dispersal and Control of Anammox Granular Sludge at High Substrate Concentrations

Ting-Ting Chen,Ping Zheng,Li-Dong Shen,Chong-Jian Tang,Shuang Ding 한국생물공학회 2012 Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering Vol.17 No.5

This paper reports about the dispersal and control of anammox granular sludge at high substrate concentrations. The results demonstrate that anammox granular sludge would turn into flocculent sludge when the substrate concentrations exceed the inhibitory threshold concentrations, with an apparent drop in the settling velocity of anammox sludge from 73.73 to 16.49 m/h. Moreover, the sludge was washed out of the reactor and a decrease in the nitrogen removal rate from 23.82 to 16.97kg N/(m3/day) was observed. The dominant anammox bacteria in the granular and flocculent sludge were Candidatus Kuenenia stuttgartiensis; however, the contents of heme c and extracellular polymeric substances in the flocculent sludge were much lower than in the granular sludge. Furthermore, the chemical composition of extracellular polymeric substances was different. The high nitrite concentrations more than the inhibitory threshold concentrations were regarded as the reason for the observed granular sludge dispersal and deterioration in reactor performance. The apparent dispersed granular sludge and malfunction of reactor performance could be recovered by means of washing out the residual substrate from the reactor and then re-running the reactor from low substrate concentrations.

Inhibition of microRNA-214 promotes epithelial mesenchymal transition process and induces interstitial cystitis in postmenopausal women by upregulating Mfn2

Jian-Wei Lv,Wei Wen,Chen Jiang,Qi-Bo Fu,Yin-Jun Gu,Ting-Ting Lv,Zhen-Dong Li,Wei Xue 생화학분자생물학회 2017 Experimental and molecular medicine Vol.49 No.-

Our study aims to investigate the roles that microRNA-214 (miR-214) plays in the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) process and the development of interstitial cystitis (IC) in postmenopausal women by targeting Mitofusin 2 (Mfn2). IC bladder tissues and adjacent normal bladder tissues were collected from postmenopausal women. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining was conducted. The target relationship between miR-214 and Mfn2 was determined by a dual luciferase reporter gene assay. Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) were extracted from postmenopausal rats and assigned to the blank, mimics, miR-214 inhibitors, mimics negative control (NC), inhibitors NC, Mfn2 siRNA, miR-214 inhibitors and Mfn2 siRNA groups. Exosomes secreted by transfected ADMSCs were instilled into the bladders of postmenopausal rats. The expression of miR-214 and Mfn2 mRNA and EMT markers was assessed by qRT-PCR and western blotting. It was confirmed that Mfn2 was the target gene of miR-214 in IC. Compared with the normal bladder tissues, miR-214 decreased, but Mfn2 increased in IC bladder tissues. Compared with the blank group, the expression of miR-214 and the expression levels of N-cadherin, Fibronectin, Twist1, Snail and Vimentin mRNA and protein increased, whereas the expression levels of Mfn2, E-cadherin and ZO-1 mRNA and protein decreased in the miR-214 mimics and Mfn2 groups. The expression of MiR-214 and the expression levels of N-cadherin, Fibronectin, Twist1, Snail and Vimentin mRNA and protein decreased, whereas the expression levels of Mfn2, E-cadherin and ZO-1 mRNA and protein increased in the miR-214 inhibitors group. Our findings indicate that the inhibition of miR-214 promotes the EMT process and contributes to bladder wall fibrosis by up-regulating Mfn2, thus leading to the occurrence of IC in postmenopausal women.

Performance of the R-way Colposcopic Evaluation System in Cervical Cancer Screening

Zhao, Jian,Zhang, Xi,Chen, Rui,Zhao, Yu-Qian,Wang, Ting-Ting,He, Shan,Qiao, You-Lin Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.10

Objective: To investigate the diagnostic value of the R-way colposcopic evaluation system (R-way system) in cervical cancer screening. Materials and Methods: Between August 2013 and August 2014, a total of 1,059 cases referred to colposcopy in Peking University First Hospital were studied using both the R-way system and conventional colposcopy. Our study evaluated and compared the diagnostic ability of the two methods in detecting high-grade lesions and cervical cancer (hereinafter called CIN2+). Evaluation indicators including sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), Youden index and the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) were calculated. Results: The R-way system had a slightly lower specificity (94.5%) than conventional colposcopy (96.0%) for CIN2+ detection (P=0.181). However, the sensitivity (77.8%) was significantly higher than with the conventional colposcopic method (46.6%) (${\chi}^2=64.351$, P<0.001). In addition, the AUC of the ROC for CIN2+ detection using the R-way system (0.839) was larger than that with conventional colposcopy (0.731) (Z=4.348, P<0.001). If preliminary result had been drawn from cervical exfoliated cytology before colposcopy referral, combination of the R-way system with cytology could increase the sensitivity to 93.9% for CIN2+ detection (excluding ASCUS\LSIL), confirmed by multipoint biopsy or ECC. Conclusions: The diagnostic value of the R-way evaluation system is higher than that of conventional colposcopic evaluation in cervical cancer screening. Moreover, taking the ease of use and standardized quality control management into account, the R-way system is highly preferable.

Intravenous Flurbiprofen Axetil Enhances Analgesic Effect of Opioids in Patients with Refractory Cancer Pain by Increasing Plasma β-Endorphin

Wu, Ting-Ting,Wang, Zhi-Gang,Ou, Wu-Ling,Wang, Jun,Yao, Guo-Qing,Yang, Bo,Rao, Zhi-Guo,Gao, Jian-Fei,Zhang, Bi-Cheng Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.24

Background: The study aimed to investigate the analgesic effect of a combination of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids, and evaluate the relationship between refractory pain relief and plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin levels in cancer patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 120 cancer patients was randomly divided into two groups, 60 patients took orally morphine sulfate sustained-release tablets in group A, and another 60 patients receiving the combination treatment of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioid drugs in group B. After 7 days, pain relief, quality of life improvement and side effects were evaluated. Furthermore, plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin levels were measured by radioimmunoassay. Results: With the combination treatment of intravenous intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids, the total effective rate of pain relief rose to 91.4%, as compared to 82.1% when morphine sulfate sustained-release tablet was used alone. Compared with that of group A, the analgesic effect increased in group B (p=0.031). Moreover, satisfactory pain relief was associated with a significant increase in plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin levels. After the treatment, plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin level in group B was $62.4{\pm}13.5pg/ml$, which was higher than that in group A ($45.8{\pm}11.2pg/ml$) (p<0.05). Conclusions: Our results suggest the combination of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids can enhance the analgesic effect of opioid drugs by increasing plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin levels, which would offer a selected and reliable strategy for refractory cancer pain treatment.

Allergic Identification for Ginkgo Kernel Protein in Guinea Pigs

Cai-e Wu,Jian-Ting Yang,Gong-Jian Fan,Ting-Ting Li,Zhen-Xing Tang,Fu-Liang Cao 한국식품과학회 2016 Food Science and Biotechnology Vol.25 No.3

Ginkgo biloba L. can cause allergic reactions when consumed. In this paper, an allergy test to guinea pig was investigated. Guinea pigs were sensitized with 50 mg/mL of ginkgo kernel protein orally on days 1, 3, and 5, and intraperitoneally challenged with 100mg/mL of the protein on day 7 after the last sensitization. The volume of sensitization and challenge was 0.20mL/100 g weight. The results showed the average allergy grade for guinea pigs reached four and the allergy rate was 100%. The immunoglobulin G and E levels in sera were significantly higher than those in the controls. Footpads swelled distinctly, and the passive cutaneous allergy test manifested a positive response. There were inflammatory changes in the lungs and intestines. In conclusion, the present results may indicate that gingko kernel protein has an allergenic capacity.

Prognostic Value of PLCE1 Expression in Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Cui, Xiao-Bin,Peng, Hao,Li, Su,Li, Ting-Ting,Liu, Chun-Xia,Zhang, Shu-Mao,Jin, Ting-Ting,Hu, Jian-Ming,Jiang, Jin-Fang,Liang, Wei-Hua,Li, Na,Li, Li,Chen, Yun-Zhao,Li, Feng Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.22

Background: A number of studies have identified a shared susceptibility locus in phospholipase C epsilon 1 (PLCE1) for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and gastric cardia adenocarcinomas (GCA). However, the results of PLCE1 expression in esophageal and gastric cancer remain inconsistent and controversial. Moreover, the effects on clinicopathological features remain undetermined. This study aimed to provide a precise quantification of the association between PLCE1 expression and the risk of ESCC and GCA through meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: Eligible studies were identified from PubMed, Wanfang Data, ISI Web of Science, and the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. Using RevMan5.2 software, pooled odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were employed to assess the association of PLCE1 expression with clinicopathological features relative to ESCC or GCA. Results: Seven articles were identified, including 761 esophageal and gastric cancer cases and 457 controls. Overall, we determined that PLCE1 expression was associated with tumor progression in both esophageal cancers (pooled OR=5.93; 95%CI=3.86 to 9.11) and gastric cancers (pooled OR=9.73; 95%CI=6.46 to 14.7). Moreover, invasion depth (pooled OR=3.62; 95%CI=2.30 to 5.70) and lymph node metastasis (pooled OR=4.21; 95%CI=2.69 to 6.59) were linked with PLCE1 expression in gastric cancer. However, no significant associations were determined between PLCE1 overexpression and the histologic grade, invasion depth, and lymph node metastasis in esophageal cancer. Conclusions: Our metaanalysis results indicated that upregulated PLCE1 is significantly associated with an increased risk of tumor progression in ESCC and GCA. Therefore, PLCE1 expression can be appropriately regarded as a promising biomarker for ESCC and GCA patients.

Damage detection for decks of concrete girder bridges using the frequency obtained from an actively excited vehicle

Jian Zhang,Chun-Xu Qu,Ting-Hua Yi,Hong-Nan Li 국제구조공학회 2021 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.27 No.1

Concrete bridge decks may suffer local damage such as delamination, cracking, reinforcement corrosion and spalling during service. Visual inspection and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technologies are extensively used for monitoring damage in bridge decks. This paper presents a damage detection method for decks of concrete girder bridges using the frequency obtained from an actively excited vehicle. First, the solution for the frequency of the deck with a concentrated mass is derived with Rayleigh's method, where the bridge deck is regarded as a slab supported on four sides, and the test vehicle is simplified as a concentrated mass. The validity of the proposed method that uses the frequency change to detect the local damage is verified. Then, the damage detection procedure for bridge decks is proposed, and the numerical analysis is performed on a typical concrete girder bridge to prove the validity of the method. Finally, the damage detection experiment for the plywood plate verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results of this study provide an effective method for detecting damage in the decks of concrete girder bridges, which is time-saving and easier to implement.