• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.23 no.12
• /
• pp.1673-1682
• /
• 2013

Citrobacter sp. is a cause of significant opportunistic nosocomial infection and is frequently found in human and animal feces, soil, and sewage water, and even in industrial waste or putrefaction. Biofilm formation is an important virulence trait of Citrobacter sp. pathogens but the process and characteristics of this formation are unclear. Therefore, we employed in vitro assays to study the nutritional and environmental parameters that might influence biofilm formation of C. werkmanii BF-6 using 96-well microtiter plates. In addition, we detected the relative transcript levels of biofilm formation genes by RT-PCR. Our results indicated that the capacity of C. werkmanii BF-6 to form biofilms was affected by culture temperature, media, time, pH, and the osmotic agents glucose, sucrose, NaCl, and KCl. Confocal laser scanning microscopy results illustrated that the structure of biofilms and extracellular polysaccharide was influenced by 100 mM NaCl or 100 mM KCl. In addition, nine biofilm formation genes (bsmA, bssR, bssS, csgD, csgE, csgF, mrkA, mrkB, and mrkE) were found to contribute to planktonic and biofilm growth. Our data suggest that biofilm formation by C. werkmanii BF-6 is affected by nutritional and environmental factors, which could pave the way to the prevention and elimination of biofilm formation using proper strategies.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.20 no.6
• /
• pp.544-549
• /
• 2012

To examine the neuroprotective effects of ginsenoside R0, we investigated the effects of ginsenoside R0 in PC12 cells under an anoxic or oxidative environment with Edaravone as a control. PC12 neuroendocrine cells were used as a model target. Anoxic damage or oxidative damage in PC12 cells were induced by adding sodium dithionite or hydrogen peroxide respectively in cultured medium. Survival ratios of different groups were detected by an AlamarBlue assay. At the same time, the apoptosis of PC12 cells were determined with flow cytometry. The putative neuroprotective effects of ginsenoside R0 is thought to be exerted through enhancing the activity of antioxidant enzymes Superoxide dismutases (SOD). The activity of SOD and the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), were measured to evaluate the protective and therapeutic effects of ginsenoside R0. Ginsenoside R0 treated cells had a higher SOD activity, lower MDA level and lower ROS, and their survival ratio was higher with a lower apoptosis rate. It is suggested that ginsenoside R0 has a protective effect in the cultured PC12 cells, and the protection efficiency is higher than Edaravone. The protective mechanisms of these two are different. The prevent ability of ginsenoside R0 is higher than its repair ability in neuroprotection in vitro.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.4923-4939
• /
• 2019

In this paper, a secure transmission scheme based on the artificial noise is proposed for D2D communications underlaying the full-duplex cellular network, and a secure power allocation scheme to maximize the overall secrecy rate of both the cellular user and D2D transmitter node is presented. Firstly, the full-duplex base station transmits the artificial noise to guarantee the secure communications when it receives signals of cellular uplinks. Under this secure framework, it is found that improving the transmission power of the cellular user or the D2D transmitter node will degrade the secrecy rate of the other, although will improve itself secrecy rate obviously. Hence, a secure power allocation scheme to maximize the overall secrecy rate is presented subject to the security requirement of the cellular user. However, the original power optimization problem is non-convex. To efficiently solve it, we recast the original problem into a convex program problem by utilizing the proper relaxation and the successive convex approximation algorithm. Simulation results evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.467-476
• /
• 2015

Finger vein recognition, which is a promising biometric method for identity authentication, has attracted significant attention. Considerable research focuses on transmission-type finger vein recognition, but this type of authentication is difficult to implement in mobile consumer devices. Therefore, reflection-type finger vein recognition should be developed. In the reflection-type vein recognition field, the majority of researchers concentrate on palm and palm dorsa patterns, and only a few pay attention to reflection-type finger vein recognition. Thus, this paper presents reflection-type finger vein recognition for biometric application that can be integrated into mobile consumer devices. A database is built to test the proposed algorithm. A novel method of region-of-interest localization for a finger vein image is introduced, and a scheme for effectively extracting finger vein features is proposed. Experiments demonstrate the feasibility of reflection-type finger vein recognition.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.304-311
• /
• 2015

Most follicles in the mammalian ovary undergo atresia. Granulosa cell apoptosis is a hallmark of follicle atresia. Our previous study using a microRNA (miRNA) microarray showed that the let-7 microRNA family was differentially expressed during follicular atresia. However, whether the let-7 miRNA family members are related to porcine (Sus scrofa) ovary follicular apoptosis is unclear. In the current study, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed that the expression levels of let-7 family members in follicles and granulosa cells were similar to our microarray data, in which miRNAs let-7a, let-7b, let-7c, and let-7i were significantly decreased in early atretic and progressively atretic porcine ovary follicles compared with healthy follicles, while let-7g was highly expressed during follicle atresia. Furthermore, flow cytometric analysis and Hoechst33342 staining demonstrated that let-7g increased the apoptotic rate of cultured granulosa cells. In addition, let-7 target genes were predicted and annotated by TargetScan, PicTar, gene ontology and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes pathways. Our data provide new insight into the association between the let-7 miRNA family in granulosa cell programmed death.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.145-151
• /
• 2006

We investigated the effects of Ginsenoside $R_e$ on human sperm motility in fertile and asthenozoospermic infertile individuals in vitro and the mechanism by which the Ginsenosides play their roles. The semen samples were obtained from 10 fertile volunteers and 10 asthenozoospermic infertile patients. Spermatozoa were separated by Percoll and incubated with 0, 1, 10 or $100\;{\mu}M$ of Ginsenoside $R_e$. Total sperm motility and progressive motility were measured by computer-aided sperm analyzer (CASA). Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity was determined by the $^{3}H$-arginine to $^{3}H$-citrulline conversion assay, and the NOS protein was examined by the Western blot analysis. The production of sperm nitric oxide (NO) was detected using the Griess reaction. The results showed that Ginsenoside $R_e$ significantly enhanced both fertile and infertile sperm motility, NOS activity and NO production in a concentration-dependent manner. Sodium nitroprusside (SNP, 100 nM), a NO donor, mimicked the effects of Ginsenoside $R_e$. And pretreatment with a NOS inhibitor $N^{w}$-Nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, $100\;{\mu}M$) or a NO scavenger N-Acetyl-L-cysteine (LNAC, 1 mM) completely blocked the effects of Ginsenoside $R_e$. Data suggested that Ginsenoside $R_e$ is beneficial to sperm motility, and that induction of NOS to increase NO production may be involved in this benefit.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.505-522
• /
• 2015

Variation of temperature is a primary environmental factor that affects the behavior of structures. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms of normal temperature-induced variations of structural behavior would help in distinguishing them from anomalies. In this study, we used the structural health monitoring data of the Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge, a steel girder cable-stayed bridge, to investigate the mechanisms of thermally induced vertical deflection ($D_T$) at mid-span of such bridges. The $D_T$ results from a multisource combination of thermal expansion effects of the cable temperature ($T_{Cab}$), girder temperature ($T_{Gir}$), girder differential temperature ($T_{Dif}$), and tower temperature ($T_{Tow}$). It could be approximated by multiple linear superpositions under operational conditions. The sensitivities of $D_T$ of the Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge to the above temperatures were in the following order: $T_{Cab}$ > $T_{Gir}$ > $T_{Tow}$ > $T_{Dif}$. However, the direction of the effect of $T_{Cab}$ was observed to be opposite to that of the other three temperatures, and the magnitudes of the effects of $T_{Cab}$ and $T_{Gir}$ were found to be almost one order greater than those of $T_{Dif}$ and $T_{Tow}$. The mechanisms of the thermally induced vertical deflection variation at mid-span of a cable-stayed bridge as well as the analytical methodology adopted in this study could be applicable for other long-span cable-stayed bridges.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.17 no.12
• /
• pp.147-157
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency of urbanization in 31 provinces and cities in China, including both desirable and non-expected outputs produced during the urbanization process. Efficiency was analyzed by applying the SBM-DEA model using the urbanization calculation data of 2017 in 31 provinces and cities in China. The results show that the urbanization efficiency of eastern region is the highest, followed by central region and northeast region, and the urbanization efficiency of western region is the lowest. This study is meaningful in that it analyzes the efficiency of urbanization in 31 provinces and cities in China and suggests the direction of continuous urbanization policy. This study is limited in that it does not reflect the past trend only by conducting cross-sectional analysis for one year in 2017, and it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate urbanization efficiency by conducting additional longitudinal area analysis in the future.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.387-396
• /
• 2016

Multiuser communication has been an important research area of underwater acoustic communications and networking. This paper studies the use of adaptive orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in a downlink scenario, where a central node sends data to multiple distributed nodes simultaneously. In practical implementations, the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) cannot be perfectly known by the central node in time-varying underwater acoustic (UWA) channels, due to the long propagation delays resulting from the low sound speed. In this paper, we explore the CSI feedback for resource allocation. An adaptive power-bit loading algorithm is presented, which assigns subcarriers to different users and allocates power and bits to each subcarrier, aiming to minimize the bit error rate (BER) under power and throughput constraints. Simulation results show considerable performance gains due to adaptive subcarrier allocation and further improvement through power and bit loading, as compared to the non-adaptive interleave subcarrier allocation scheme. In a lake experiment, channel feedback reduction is implemented through subcarrier clustering and uniform quantization. Although the performance gains are not as large as expected, experiment results confirm that adaptive subcarrier allocation schemes based on delayed channel feedback or long term statistics outperform the interleave subcarrier allocation scheme.

• Mycobiology
• /
• v.48 no.5
• /
• pp.427-430
• /
• 2020

Ganoderma lingzhi is a well-known source of natural fungal medicines which has been given for the treatment of several diseases. China is one of the major commercial producers of Ganoderma mushroom worldwide. However, with the expansion of the commercial cultivation, the occurrence of the fungal diseases on G. lingzhi has also been increased. The green mold disease symptoms were observed in the cultivation base of G. lingzhi in Zuojia Town, Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, causing the basidiomes to be rotten and withered, and the green mycelium layer generated gradually. The pathogenicity tests showed the same symptoms as appeared naturally in Zuojia mushroom base. Morphology characters revealed conidia green, ellipsoid, globose, 2.56-4.83 × 2.09-4.22 ㎛, length-width ratio was 1.1-1.2 (n = 10). Conidiophores trichoderma-like, often asymmetry, branches solitary, paired or in whorls of 3 phialides formed solitary, paired or in whorl, variable in shape, lageniform, sometimes ampulliform or subulate. While using molecular methodology, comparing with the sequences of Trichoderma hengshanicum from GenBank, the analyzed sequence showed 97.32% homology with the RPB2 sequences, 100% with the TEF1-a sequences. A fungus isolated from the diseased tissues was identified based on morphology and molecular studies as T. hengshanicum. This is the first report of T. hengshanicum causing the green mold disease of G. lingzhi in China.