Heterologous expression of ZmNF-YA12 confers tolerance to drought and salt stress in Arabidopsis

Zhang Tongtong,Zheng Dengyu,Zhang Chun,Wu Zhongyi,Yu Rong,Zhang Zhongbao 한국식물생명공학회 2022 Plant biotechnology reports Vol.16 No.4

Drought and salinity are serious environmental factors limiting the growth and productivity of plants worldwide. Therefore, it is necessary to develop ways to improve drought and salinity stress tolerance in plants. In this study, a drought-responsive nuclear factor Y subunit A gene, ZmNF-YA12, was cloned from maize. qPCR revealed ZmNF-YA12 transcript in all vegeta- tive and reproductive tissues, with higher levels in young roots. Expression analyses of maize revealed that ZmNF-YA12 was induced by abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid (JA), and abiotic stresses, including dehydration, high salinity, cold, and polyethylene glycol (PEG) treatment. The heterologous expression of ZmNF-YA12 in Arabidopsis plants resulted in increased root length and better plant growth than in wild-type (WT) plants under conditions of mannitol, salt, and JA stress on 1/2 MS medium. Transgenic Arabidopsis showed improved tolerance to drought and salt stresses in soil, and higher proline content and lower malondialdehyde (MDA) content than WT controls. The transgenic plants also maintained higher peroxidase (POD) activities than WT plants under conditions of NaCl stress. A yeast two-hybrid experiment demonstrated that ZmNF-YA12 interacted with ZmNF-YC1 and ZmNF-YC15. Moreover, the transcript levels of stress-responsive genes (RD29A, RD29B, RAB18, and RD22) were markedly increased in transgenic lines under conditions of drought and salt stress. These observa- tions suggested that the ZmNF-YA12 gene may confers drought and salt stress tolerance by regulating stress-related genes or interacting with ZmNF-YC1 and ZmNF-YC15, and has potential applications in molecular breeding with maintenance of production under conditions of stress.

Study on the local damage of SFRC with different fraction under contact blast loading

Yongliang Zhang,Kai Zhao,Yongchi Li,Jincai Gu,Zhongbao Ye,Jian Ma 사단법인 한국계산역학회 2018 Computers and Concrete, An International Journal Vol.22 No.1

The steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) shows better performance under dynamic loading than conventional concrete in virtue of its good ductility. In this paper, a series of quasi-static experiments were carried out on the SFRC with volume fractions from 0 to 6%. The compressive strength increases by 38% while the tension strength increases by 106% when the fraction is 6.0%. The contact explosion tests were also performed on the Ф40×6 cm circular SFRC slabs of different volume fractions with 20 g RDX charges placed on their surfaces. The volume of spalling pit decreases rapidly with the increase of steel fiber fraction with a decline of 80% when the fraction is 6%, which is same as the crack density. Based on the experimental results, the fitting formulae are given, which can be used to predict individually the change tendencies of the blast crater volume, the spalling pit volume and the crack density in slabs with the increase of the steel fiber fraction. The new formulae of the thickness of damage region are established, whose predictions agree well with our test results and others. This is of great practical significance for experimental investigations and engineering applications.

Energy-Aware Virtual Data Center Embedding

( Xiao Ma ),( Zhongbao Zhang ),( Sen Su ) 한국정보처리학회 2020 Journal of information processing systems Vol.16 No.2

As one of the most significant challenges in the virtual data center, the virtual data center embedding has attracted extensive attention from researchers. The existing research works mainly focus on how to design algorithms to increase operating revenue. However, they ignore the energy consumption issue of the physical data center in virtual data center embedding. In this paper, we focus on studying the energy-aware virtual data center embedding problem. Specifically, we first propose an energy consumption model. It includes the energy consumption models of the virtual machine node and the virtual switch node, aiming to quantitatively measure the energy consumption in virtual data center embedding. Based on such a model, we propose two algorithms regarding virtual data center embedding: one is heuristic, and the other is based on particle swarm optimization. The second algorithm provides a better solution to virtual data center embedding by leveraging the evolution process of particle swarm optimization. Finally, experiment results show that our proposed algorithms can effectively save energy while guaranteeing the embedding success rate.

Identifying Influential People Based on Interaction Strength

( Muhammad Azam Zia ),( Zhongbao Zhang ),( Liutong Chen ),( Haseeb Ahmad ),( Sen Su ) 한국정보처리학회 2017 Journal of information processing systems Vol.13 No.4

Extraction of influential people from their respective domains has attained the attention of scholastic community during current epoch. This study introduces an innovative interaction strength metric for retrieval of the most influential users in the online social network. The interactive strength is measured by three factors, namely re-tweet strength, commencing intensity and mentioning density. In this article, we design a novel algorithm called IPRank that considers the communications from perspectives of followers and followees in order to mine and rank the most influential people based on proposed interaction strength metric. We conducted extensive experiments to evaluate the strength and rank of each user in the micro-blog network. The comparative analysis validates that IPRank discovered high ranked people in terms of interaction strength. While the prior algorithm placed some low influenced people at high rank. The proposed model uncovers influential people due to inclusion of a novel interaction strength metric that improves results significantly in contrast with prior algorithm.

Identifying Influential People Based on Interaction Strength

Zia, Muhammad Azam,Zhang, Zhongbao,Chen, Liutong,Ahmad, Haseeb,Su, Sen Korea Information Processing Society 2017 Journal of information processing systems Vol.13 No.4

Extraction of influential people from their respective domains has attained the attention of scholastic community during current epoch. This study introduces an innovative interaction strength metric for retrieval of the most influential users in the online social network. The interactive strength is measured by three factors, namely re-tweet strength, commencing intensity and mentioning density. In this article, we design a novel algorithm called IPRank that considers the communications from perspectives of followers and followees in order to mine and rank the most influential people based on proposed interaction strength metric. We conducted extensive experiments to evaluate the strength and rank of each user in the micro-blog network. The comparative analysis validates that IPRank discovered high ranked people in terms of interaction strength. While the prior algorithm placed some low influenced people at high rank. The proposed model uncovers influential people due to inclusion of a novel interaction strength metric that improves results significantly in contrast with prior algorithm.

Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy and Safety of Imidafenacin for Overactive Bladder Induced by Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia in Men Receiving Alpha-Blocker Therapy

Tong Cai,Ning Wang,Liye Liang,Zhongbao Zhou,Yong Zhang,Yuanshan Cui 대한배뇨장애요실금학회 2020 International Neurourology Journal Vol.24 No.4

Purpose: The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of imidafenacin for overactive bladder (OAB) induced by benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in men receiving alpha-blocker monotherapy.Methods: We performed a systematic research of the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases, and searched for studies about alpha-blocker with or without imidafenacin treatment for OAB in patients with BPH. We also investigated the original references of the included texts.Results: Four randomized controlled trials including 779 participants with BPH (389 in the alpha-blocker+imidafenacin group and 390 in the alpha-blocker only group) were studied. The main efficacy endpoint was the Overactive Bladder Symptom Score, which showed a mean difference of -1.88 (95% confidence interval, -2.32 to -1.44; P<0.00001), suggesting that alpha-blocker and imidafenacin treatment was effective in treating men with OAB. As other primary efficacy end points, the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) total score (P=0.47), the IPSS storage symptom score (P=0.07), the IPSS voiding symptom score (P=0.60), and the IPSS quality of life score (P=0.18) indicated that 2 methods had no significant differences in treating men with OAB. In terms of safety, which was assessed using postvoid residual volume (P=0.05) and maximum flow rate (P=0.53), the analysis suggested that combination treatment was very well tolerated.Conclusions: This study suggested that imidafenacin plus alpha-blocker was an efficacious and safe treatment for OAB symptoms in BPH patients.