PRESENT SITUATION OF WATER RESOURCES IN YIYUAN COUNTY AND COUNTERMEASURES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

HONGXIA TANG,ZHIFANG ZHOU 한국수자원학회 2005 한국수자원학회 학술대회 Vol.2005 No.1

Geometrically Invariant Image Watermarking Using Connected Objects and Gravity Centers

( Hongxia Wang ),( Bangxu Yin ),( Linna Zhou ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2013 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.7 No.11

The design of geometrically invariant watermarking is one of the most challenging work in digital image watermarking research area. To achieve the robustness to geometrical attacks, the inherent characteristic of an image is usually used. In this paper, a geometrically invariant image watermarking scheme using connected objects and gravity center is proposed. First, the gray-scale image is converted into the binary one, and the connected objects according to the connectedness of binary image are obtained, then the coordinates of these connected objects are mapped to the gray-scale image, and the gravity centers of those bigger objects are chosen as the feature points for watermark embedding. After that, the line between each gravity center and the center of the whole image is rotated an angle to form a sector, and finally the same version of watermark is embedded into these sectors. Because the image connectedness is topologically invariant to geometrical attacks such as scaling and rotation, and the gravity center of the connected object as feature points is very stable, the watermark synchronization is realized successfully under the geometrical distortion. The proposed scheme can extract the watermark information without using the original image or template. The simulation results show the proposed scheme has a good invisibility for watermarking application, and stronger robustness than previous feature-based watermarking schemes against geometrical attacks such as rotation, scaling and cropping, and can also resist common image processing operations including JPEG compression, adding noise, median filtering, and histogram equalization, etc.

Ameliorative effects of Lycium chinensis on male sexual dysfunction and testicular oxidative damage in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

Yifeng Zhou,Opeyemi Joshua Olatunji,Hongxia Chen 한국식품과학회 2019 Food Science and Biotechnology Vol.28 No.4

The root bark of Lycium chinense (LC) has beenreported to have potent antioxidant and antidiabetic properties. In the present study, we investigated the attenuativeeffect of LC against diabetes induced sexual dysfunctionand testicular damages in animal models. Diabetic animalswere treated with LC (100 and 400 mg/kg) once daily for6 weeks. At the end of the treatment, mating behavior testswere performed and the animals were sacrificed for thedetermination of hormonal profile, oxidative stress indicesand sperm analysis. LC administration significantlydecreased blood glucose level, enhancement of theantioxidant enzyme activities, restored altered spermcharacteristics and markedly improved levels of luteinizinghormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and testosterone ascompared to the untreated diabetic animals. Furthermore,LC also improved sperm count, viability, motility,increased the reproductive organs weight. The resultsobtained indicated that L. chinense has beneficial effects indiabetes sexual dysfunction.

Thermal behavior of surface plasmon resonance in dynamic suprastructure multilayer

TRANVANTAN,Hongjian Zhou,Seongcheol Hong,Jung Youn Park,Hongxia Chen,고광락,이재범 한국물리학회 2013 Current Applied Physics Vol.13 No.5

Delicate thermodynamic control at confined space has been of importance in recent nano/microplasmonic sensing to be more accurate and to use lower quantity of specimens than conventional devices. In our study, experimental and computational study on thermal behavior of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was carried out using various sizes of Au nanoparticles (NPs; 4, 18, and 57 nm) and thermo-reversible polymer, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) on SPR chip. It was interesting that SPR angle shift on temperature was dependent on NP sizes, where the smaller size the better sensitive. It is probable that both plasmonic interaction and polymer dynamicity were collaboratively affected and presumably the latter dominated in the thermal monitoring of SPR signals. The simulations clearly indicated that the interaction between the Au NPs and polymers was strengthened by increasing temperature and NP sizes, resulting in decreasing sensitivity. These results are supportive to develop further accurate devices using plasmonics and polymer dynamics, such as plasmonic sensing devices, thermoactuators,hybrid organic solar cell, and flexible display.

Genome Sequencing Highlights the Plant Cell Wall Degrading Capacity of Edible Mushroom Stropharia rugosoannulata

Guo Mengpei,Ma Xiaolong,Zhou Yan,Bian Yinbing,Liu Gaolei,Cai Yingli,Huang Tianji,Dong Hongxia,Cai Dingjun,Wan Xueji,Wang Zhihong,Xiao Yang,Kang Heng 한국미생물학회 2023 The journal of microbiology Vol.61 No.1

The basidiomycetous edible mushroom Stropharia rugosoannulata has excellent nutrition, medicine, bioremediation, and biocontrol properties. S. rugosoannulata has been widely and easily cultivated using agricultural by-products showing strong lignocellulose degradation capacity. However, the unavailable high-quality genome information has hindered the research on gene function and molecular breeding of S. rugosoannulata. This study provided a high-quality genome assembly and annotation from S. rugosoannulata monokaryotic strain QGU27 based on combined Illumina-Nanopore data. The genome size was about 47.97 Mb and consisted of 20 scaffolds, with an N50 of 3.73 Mb and a GC content of 47.9%. The repetitive sequences accounted for 17.41% of the genome, mostly long terminal repeats (LTRs). A total of 15,726 coding gene sequences were putatively identified with the BUSCO score of 98.7%. There are 142 genes encoding plant cell wall degrading enzymes (PCWDEs) in the genome, and 52, 39, 30, 11, 8, and 2 genes related to lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, chitin, and cutin degradation, respectively. Comparative genomic analysis revealed that S. rugosoannulata is superior in utilizing aldehyde-containing lignins and is possible to utilize algae during the cultivation.

A serine/threonine phosphatase 1 of Streptococcus suis type 2 is an important virulence factor

Lihua Fang,Jingjing Zhou,Pengcheng Fan,Yunkai Yang,Hongxia Shen,Weihuan Fang 대한수의학회 2017 Journal of Veterinary Science Vol.18 No.4

Streptococcus suis is regarded as one of the major pathogens of pigs, and Streptococcus suis type 2 (SS2) is considered a zoonotic bacterium based on its ability to cause meningitis and streptococcal toxic shock-like syndrome in humans. Many bacterial species contain genes encoding serine/threonine protein phosphatases (STPs) responsible for dephosphorylation of their substrates in a single reaction step. This study investigated the role of stp1 in the pathogenesis of SS2. An isogenic stp1 mutant (stp1) was constructed from SS2 strain ZJ081101. The stp1 mutant exhibited a significant increase in adhesion to HEp-2 and bEnd.3 cells as well as increased survival in RAW264.7 cells, as compared to the parent strain. Increased survival in macrophage cells might be related to resistance to reactive oxygen species since the stp1 mutant was more resistant than its parent strain to paraquat-induced oxidative stress. However, compared to parent strain virulence, deletion of stp1 significantly attenuated virulence of SS2 in mice, as shown by the nearly double lethal dose 50 value and the lower bacterial load in organs and blood in the murine model. We conclude that Stp1 has an essential role in SS2 virulence.

Association of MMP-9 C-1562T polymorphism with risk of Henoch-Schönlein purpura nephritis in children of southeast China

Jinwen Xu,Liping Zhao,Hongxia Zhou,Tingting Ge,Lin Zhang 한국유전학회 2017 Genes & Genomics Vol.39 No.4

Henoch-Schönlein purpura nephritis (HSPN) is the most prevalent vasculitis in childhood worldwide. Although the etiology of HSPN is not yet fully elucidated, it is believed to be closely related with infections and genetic predispositions. In this study, a cohort of children from southeast China, including 108 healthy controls and 184 patients were involved in. We scanned the promoter region and the whole gene for genetic variations. A C/T transition located in the promoter region of MMP-9 gene, C-1562T was identified. Subjects were genotyped by using SNaPshot sequencing and the frequencies of CC, CT and TT genotypes were 43, 33 and 24% in patients and 53, 37 and 10% in healthy controls. Allele distribution was found to be in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (P = 0.17). Association analysis revealed that the polymorphism was significantly related with HSPN risk (P < 0.05) and T allele was shown to be a risk factor (P = 0.003, odds ratio (OR) 1.63, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13–2.34). Additionally, we measured the serum MMP-9 concentration and quantified the mRNA expression. Results showed that an elevated protein level was observed in patients compared with controls in both ELISA (P = 0.0029, 136.5 μg/L vs. 103.9 μg/L) and Western blot assays. Furthermore, we also detected 1.93-fold increase in the mRNA transcription in patients carrying homozygous TT genotype, indicating enhanced promoter activity caused by the polymorphism. Based on the incidence risk, a cut-off value of serum MMP-9 served as HSPN diagnosis was suggested at 155 μg/L. Conclusively, our findings suggested that MMP-9 polymorphism was significantly associated with HSPN susceptibility, and C-1562T T allele contributed to HSPN development.

Output Feedback Adaptive Control for Stochastic Non-strict-feedback System with Dead-zone

Yumei Sun,Bingwei Mao,Hongxia Liu,Shaowei Zhou 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2020 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.18 No.10

This paper focuses on the problem of adaptive neural network (NN) control for a class of nonlinear stochastic non-strict feedback system with dead-zone input. A novel adaptive NN output feedback control approach is first proposed for stochastic non-strict feedback nonlinear systems. In order to solve the problem of dead-zone input, a linear decomposition method is proposed. On the basis of the state observer, an output feedback adaptive NN controller is designed by a backstepping approach. It is shown that the proposed controller guarantees that all the signals of the closed-loop systems are semi-globally uniformly bounded in probability. Simulation results further illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Suppression of Aurora-A oncogenic potential by c-Myc downregulation

Yang, Shangbin,He, Shun,Zhou, Xiaobo,Liu, Mei,Zhu, Hongxia,Wang, Yihua,Zhang, Wei,Yan, Shuang,Quan, Lanping,Bai, Jingfeng,Xu, Ningzhi Korean Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Bion 2010 Experimental and molecular medicine Vol.42 No.11

The abnormality of serine/threonine kinase Aurora-A is seen in many types of cancers. Although in physiological context it has been shown to play a vital role in cellular mitosis, how this oncogene contributes to tumorigenesis remains unclear. Here we demonstrate that Aurora-A overexpression enhances both the expression level and transcriptional activity of c-Myc. The inhibition of c-Myc expression by RNA interference significantly impaired the oncogenic potential of Aurora-A, resulting in attenuated cellular proliferation and transformation rates as well as fewer centrosomal aberrations. Furthermore, downregulation of c-Myc effectively overcame Aurora-A-induced resistance to cisplatin in esophageal cancer cells. Taken together, our results suggest an important role for c-Myc in mediating the oncogenic activity of Aurora-A, which may in turn allow for future targeting of c-Myc as a potential therapeutic strategy for tumors with Aurora-A overexpression.

Evaluation of 관-Amyloid Peptides Fibrillation Induced by Nanomaterials Based on Molecular Dynamics and Surface Plasmon Resonance.

Hou, Yafei,Li, Pengfei,Zhou, Hongjian,Zhu, Xiaoli,Chen, Haifeng,Lee, Jaebeom,Koh, Kwangnak,Shen, Zhongming,Chen, Hongxia American Scientific Publishers 2015 Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Vol.15 No.2

<P>This report investigated the effect of carbon nanomaterials, single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and graphene oxide, on fibrillation of 관-amyloid 40 (A관40) based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and molecular dynamics (MD). MD simulations are carried out in order to reveal the molecular mechanisms of the interaction between nanomaterials and A관40. The strong interaction between A관40 and nanomaterials is related to Van der Waals forces and the Coulomb force, inducing delicate manipulation of the main bonding energy for fibrillation of A관40. The interaction energy between the A관 peptide and graphene is higher than that of SWCNT. Experimental results show both carbon nanomaterials enhance the appearance of a critical nucleus for nucleation of peptide fibrils. Graphene is more beneficial to assist the nucleation process than SWCNT. Combination of SPR and molecular dynamics could be a high-throughput method to screen protein fibrillation.</P>