Polymorphisms in Epigenetic and Meat Quality Related Genes in Fourteen Cattle Breeds and Association with Beef Quality and Carcass Traits

Liu, Xuan,Usman, Tahir,Wang, Yachun,Wang, Zezhao,Xu, Xianzhou,Wu, Meng,Zhang, Yi,Zhang, Xu,Li, Qiang,Liu, Lin,Shi, Wanhai,Qin, Chunhua,Geng, Fanjun,Wang, Congyong,Tan, Rui,Huang, Xixia,Liu, Airong,Wu, Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2015 Animal Bioscience Vol.28 No.4

Improvement for carcass traits related to beef quality is the key concern in beef production. Recent reports found that epigenetics mediates the interaction of individuals with environment and nutrition. The present study was designed to analyze the genetic effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in seven epigenetic-related genes (DNMT1, DNMT3a, DNMT3b, DNMT3L, Ago1, Ago2, and HDAC5) and two meat quality candidate genes (CAPN1 and PRKAG3) on fourteen carcass traits related to beef quality in a Snow Dragon beef population, and also to identify SNPs in a total of fourteen cattle populations. Sixteen SNPs were identified and genotyped in 383 individuals sampled from the 14 cattle breeds, which included 147 samples from the Snow Dragon beef population. Data analysis showed significant association of 8 SNPs within 4 genes related to carcass and/or meat quality traits in the beef populations. SNP1 (13154420A>G) in exon 17 of DNMT1 was significantly associated with rib-eye width and lean meat color score (p<0.05). A novel SNP (SNP4, 76198537A>G) of DNMT3a was significantly associated with six beef quality traits. Those individuals with the wild-type genotype AA of DNMT3a showed an increase in carcass weight, chilled carcass weight, flank thicknesses, chuck short rib thickness, chuck short rib score and in chuck flap weight in contrast to the GG genotype. Five out of six SNPs in DNMT3b gene were significantly associated with three beef quality traits. SNP15 (45219258C>T) in CAPN1 was significantly associated with chuck short rib thickness and lean meat color score (p<0.05). The significant effect of SNP15 on lean meat color score individually and in combination with each of other 14 SNPs qualify this SNP to be used as potential marker for improving the trait. In addition, the frequencies of most wild-type alleles were higher than those of the mutant alleles in the native and foreign cattle breeds. Seven SNPs were identified in the epigenetic-related genes. The SNP15 in CAPN1 could be used as a powerful genetic marker in selection programs for beef quality improvement in the Snow Dragon Beef population.

Study on sensitivity of modal parameters for suspension bridges

Liu, Chunhua,Wang, Ton-Lo,Qin, Quan Techno-Press 1999 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.8 No.5

Safety monitoring systems of structures generally resort to detecting possible changes of dynamic system parameters. Sensitivity analysis of these dynamic system parameters may implement these techniques. Conventional structural eigenvalue problems are discussed in the scope of those systems with deterministic parameters. Large and flexible structures, such as suspension bridges, actually possess stochastic material properties and these random properties unavoidably affect the dynamic system parameters. The sensitivity matrix of structural modal parameters to basic design variables has been established in this paper. Moreover, second order statistics of natural frequencies due to the randomness of material properties have been discussed. It is concluded from numerical analysis of a modem suspension bridge that although the second order statistics of frequencies are small relatively to the change of basic design variables, such as density of mass and modulus of elasticity, the sensitivities of modal parameters to these variables at different locations change in magnitude.

Impact study for multi-girder bridge based on correlated road roughness

Liu, Chunhua,Wang, Ton-Lo,Huang, Dongzhou Techno-Press 2001 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.11 No.3

The impact behavior of a multigirder concrete bridge under single and multiple moving vehicles is studied based on correlated road surface characteristics. The bridge structure is modeled as grillage beam system. A 3D nonlinear vehicle model with eleven degrees of freedom is utilized according to the HS20-44 truck design loading in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) specifications. A triangle correlation model is introduced to generate four classes of longitudinal road surface roughness as multi-correlated random processes along deck transverse direction. On the basis of a correlation length of approximately half the bridge width, the upper limits of impact factors obtained under confidence level of 95 percent and side-by-side three-truck loading provide probability-based evidence for the evaluation of AASHTO specifications. The analytical results indicate that a better transverse correlation among road surface roughness generally leads to slightly higher impact factors. Suggestions are made for the routine maintenance of this type of highway bridges.

Polymorphisms in Epigenetic and Meat Quality Related Genes in Fourteen Cattle Breeds and Association with Beef Quality and Carcass Traits

Xuan Liu,Tahir Usman,Yachun Wang,Zezhao Wang,Xianzhou Xu,Meng Wu,Yi Zhang,Xu Zhang,Qiang Li,Lin Liu,Wanhai Shi,Chunhua Qin,Fanjun Geng,Congyong Wang,Rui Tan,Xixia Huang,Airong Liu,Hongjun Wu,Shixin Ta 아세아·태평양축산학회 2015 Animal Bioscience Vol.28 No.4

Improvement for carcass traits related to beef quality is the key concern in beef production. Recent reports found that epigenetics mediates the interaction of individuals with environment and nutrition. The present study was designed to analyze the genetic effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in seven epigenetic-related genes (DNMT1, DNMT3a, DNMT3b, DNMT3L, Ago1, Ago2, and HDAC5) and two meat quality candidate genes (CAPN1 and PRKAG3) on fourteen carcass traits related to beef quality in a Snow Dragon beef population, and also to identify SNPs in a total of fourteen cattle populations. Sixteen SNPs were identified and genotyped in 383 individuals sampled from the 14 cattle breeds, which included 147 samples from the Snow Dragon beef population. Data analysis showed significant association of 8 SNPs within 4 genes related to carcass and/or meat quality traits in the beef populations. SNP1 (13154420A>G) in exon 17 of DNMT1 was significantly associated with rib-eye width and lean meat color score (p<0.05). A novel SNP (SNP4, 76198537A>G) of DNMT3a was significantly associated with six beef quality traits. Those individuals with the wild-type genotype AA of DNMT3a showed an increase in carcass weight, chilled carcass weight, flank thicknesses, chuck short rib thickness, chuck short rib score and in chuck flap weight in contrast to the GG genotype. Five out of six SNPs in DNMT3b gene were significantly associated with three beef quality traits. SNP15 (45219258C>T) in CAPN1 was significantly associated with chuck short rib thickness and lean meat color score (p<0.05). The significant effect of SNP15 on lean meat color score individually and in combination with each of other 14 SNPs qualify this SNP to be used as potential marker for improving the trait. In addition, the frequencies of most wild-type alleles were higher than those of the mutant alleles in the native and foreign cattle breeds. Seven SNPs were identified in the epigenetic-related genes. The SNP15 in CAPN1 could be used as a powerful genetic marker in selection programs for beef quality improvement in the Snow Dragon Beef population.

Fuzzy Cube Granule Structure for Image Segmentation

Hongbing Liu,Chunhua Liu,Chang-an Wu,Jun Huang 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Vol.10 No.6

Fuzzy Cube Granule Structure (FCGS) for image segmentation is proposed in the paper. Firstly, the atomic cube granule is represented as the vector including the YCbCr values of pixel of color image and radii 0. Secondly, the join operation between two cube granules is designed to obtain the larger cube granule. Thirdly, the FCGS is formed by the fuzzy inclusion measure defined by join operation and the user-defined granularity threshold . Global Consistency Error (GCE), Variation of Information (VI), Rand Index (RI) are used to evaluate the segmentations. Images selected from BSD300 are used to verify the feasibility of FCGS.

New Analysis of Reduced-Version of Piccolo in the Single-Key Scenario

( Ya Liu ),( Liang Cheng ),( Fengyu Zhao ),( Chunhua Su ),( Zhiqiang Liu ),( Wei Li ),( Dawu Gu ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2019 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.13 No.9

The lightweight block cipher Piccolo adopts Generalized Feistel Network structure with 64 bits of block size. Its key supports 80 bits or 128 bits, expressed by Piccolo-80 or Piccolo-128, respectively. In this paper, we exploit the security of reduced version of Piccolo from the first round with the pre-whitening layer, which shows the vulnerability of original Piccolo. As a matter of fact, we first study some linear relations among the round subkeys and the properties of linear layer. Based on them, we evaluate the security of Piccolo-80/128 against the meet-in-the-middle attack. Finally, we attack 13 rounds of Piccolo-80 by applying a 5-round distinguisher, which requires 2⁴⁴ chosen plaintexts, 2^67.39 encryptions and 2^64.91 blocks, respectively. Moreover, we also attack 17 rounds of Piccolo-128 by using a 7-round distinguisher, which requires 2⁴⁴ chosen plaintexts, 2¹²⁶ encryptions and 2^125.49 blocks, respectively. Compared with the previous cryptanalytic results, our results are the currently best ones if considering Piccolo from the first round with the pre-whitening layer.

A Framework of Granular Computing Clustering Algorithms

Hongbing Liu,Chunhua Liu,Chang-an Wu 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Hybrid Information Techno Vol.8 No.12

A framework of granular computing clustering algorithms is proposed in the paper. Firstly, granules are represented as the normal forms, such the diamond granule in 2-domensional space and hyperdiamond granule in N-dimensional space, sphere granule in 2-dimensional space and hypersphere granule in N-dimensional space. Secondly, operations between two granules are designed to realize the transformation between two spaces with different granularities. Thirdly, the threshold of granularity is used to control the join process between two granules. The performance of granular computing algorithms is evaluated by the experimental results on the data sets selected from machine learning repository.

A Single-Arm Phase II Study of Nab-Paclitaxel Plus Gemcitabine and Cisplatin for Locally Advanced or Metastatic Biliary Tract Cancer

Ting Liu,Qing Li,Zhen Lin,Chunhua Liu,Wei Pu,Shasha Zeng,Jun Lai,Xuebin Cai,Lisha Zhang,Shuyang Wang,Miao Chen,Wei Cao,Hongfeng Gou,Qing Zhu 대한암학회 2024 Cancer Research and Treatment Vol.56 No.2

Purpose Patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) have a poor survival. We aim to evaluate the efficacy and safety of nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine and cisplatin regimen in Chinese advanced BTC patients.Materials and Methods Eligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic BTC administrated intravenous 100 mg/m² nab-paclitaxel, 800 mg/m² gemcitabine, and 25 mg/m² cisplatin every 3 weeks. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS). The secondary endpoints included overall survival (OS) and adverse events, while exploratory endpoint was the association of biomarkers with efficacy.Results After the median follow-up of 25.0 months, the median PFS and OS of 34 enrolled patients were 7.1 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.4 to 13.7) and 16.4 months (95% CI, 10.9 to 23.6), respectively. The most common treatment-related adverse events at ≥ 3 grade were neutropenia (26.5%) and leukopenia (26.5%). Survival analyses demonstrated that carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels could monitor patients’ survival outcomes. A significant increase in the number of infiltrating CD4+ cells (p=0.008) and a decrease in programmed death-1–positive (PD-1+) cells (p=0.032) were observed in the response patients.Conclusion In advanced BTC patients, nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine and cisplatin regimen showed therapeutic potential. Potential prognostic factors of CEA levels, number of CD4+ cells and PD-1+ cells may help us maximize the efficacy benefit.

A Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Energy Management Strategy for Fuel Cell Hybrid Buses

Chunhua Zheng,Wei Li,Wei-Min Liu,Kun Xu,Lei Peng,차석원 한국정밀공학회 2022 International Journal of Precision Engineering and Vol.9 No.3

An energy management strategy (EMS) plays an important role for hybrid vehicles, as it is directly related to the power distribution between power sources and further the energy saving of the vehicles. Currently, rule-based EMSs and optimizationbased EMSs are faced with the challenge when considering the optimality and the real-time performance of the control at the same time. Along with the rapid development of the artificial intelligence, learning-based EMSs have gained more and more attention recently, which are able to overcome the above challenge. A deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based EMS is proposed for fuel cell hybrid buses (FCHBs) in this research, in which the fuel cell durability is considered and evaluated based on a fuel cell degradation model. The action space of the DRL algorithm is limited according to the efficiency characteristic of the fuel cell in order to improve the fuel economy and the Prioritized Experience Replay (PER) is adopted for improving the convergence performance of the DRL algorithm. Simulation results of the proposed DRL-based EMS for an FCHB are compared to those of a dynamic programming (DP)-based EMS and a reinforcement learning (RL)-based EMS. Comparison results show that the fuel economy of the proposed DRL-based EMS is improved by an average of 3.63% compared to the RL-based EMS, while the difference to the DP-based EMS is within an average of 5.69%. In addition, the fuel cell degradation rate is decreased by an average of 63.49% using the proposed DRL-based EMS compared to the one without considering the fuel cell durability. Furthermore, the convergence rate of the proposed DRL-based EMS is improved by an average of 30.54% compared to the one without using the PER. Finally, the adaptability of the proposed DRL-based EMS is validated on a new driving cycle, whereas the training of the DRL algorithm is completed on the other three driving cycles.

Growth Performance and Meat Quality of Broiler Chickens Supplemented with Bacillus licheniformis in Drinking Water

Liu, Xiaolu,Yan, Hai,Lv, Le,Xu, Qianqian,Yin, Chunhua,Zhang, Keyi,Wang, Pei,Hu, Jiye Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2012 Animal Bioscience Vol.25 No.5

A feeding trial was conducted to investigate effects of Bacillus licheniformis on growth performance and meat quality of broilers. Nine hundred one-d-old broiler chicks were randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups with three replicate pens of 100 broiler chicks. Three treatments were i) control, ii) basal diets supplemented with 1 ml of B. licheniformis for each in feed water per day iii) basal diets supplemented with 2 ml of B. licheniformis per chick in feed water per day. The supplementation of B. licheniformis significantly increased body weight in grower chickens (p<0.05), and significantly improved the feed conversion in 3 to 6 and 0 to 6 wk feeding period compared with the control group (p<0.05). Additionally, the supplement also resulted in increased protein and free amino acid contents, and decreased fat content in chicken breast fillet (p<0.05). Furthermore, improvement in sensory attributes was observed in broilers fed with the probiotic. In conclusion, B. licheniformis treatments resulted in a significant increase (p<0.05) in broiler productivity based on an index taking into account daily weight gain and feed conversion rate. Meanwhile, the probiotic contributed towards an improvement of the chemical, nutritional and sensorial characteristics of breast fillet. Overall, the study indicates that B. licheniformis can be used as a growth promoter and meat quality enhancer in broiler poultry.