An Underwater Human-Robot Interaction Using a Visual-Textual Model for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

The marine environment presents a unique set of challenges for human-robot interaction. Communicating with gestures is a common way for interacting between the diver and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). However, underwater gesture recognition is a challenging visual task for AUVs due to light refraction and wavelength color attenuation issues. Current gesture recognition methods classify the whole image directly or locate the hand position first and then classify the hand features. Among these purely visual approaches, textual information is largely ignored. This paper proposes a visual-textual model for underwater hand gesture recognition (VT-UHGR). The VT-UHGR model encodes the underwater diver's image as visual features, the category text as textual features, and generates visual-textual features through multimodal interactions. We guide AUVs to use image-text matching for learning and inference. The proposed method achieves better performance than most existing purely visual methods on the dataset CADDY, demonstrating the effectiveness of using textual patterns for underwater gesture recognition.

Effect and mechanism of reduced membrane bioreactor fouling by powdered activated carbon.

Powered Activated Carbon - Membrane Bioreactors (PAC-MBRs) have been used with good results for slightly polluted water treatment. Our batch experiments showed that the transmembrane pressure of a PAC-MBR was 25% less than that of a MBR in one period of test, which indicated that PAC did help control the fouling in MBRs. Based on this observation, several mechanisms of membrane fouling of MBRs and PAC-MBRs were investigated to have some insight into how PAC brought a positive impact. The total resistances decreased by 60% and different resistances were redistributed after adding PAC. The dominant one changed from filtration resistance to cake resistance. These smaller cake resistances resulted from the PAC because, showing in the scanning electron microscopy pictures, it made the cake layer looser and rougher than that on a normal membrane. Meanwhile, the analysis of the membrane eluent showed that the addition of PAC changed the microbial species and its metabolites on the membrane and effectively reduced the adsorption of hydrophilic organic molecules on the membrane surface. Additionally, PAC prevented polypeptide compounds from being trapped inside the pores of membranes, so the cake on the PAC-MBR contaminated membrane surface was easier to scrape off. In the test of cleaning methods, alkaline cleaning removed the most organics from contaminated membranes to restore membrane performance.

Escherichia coli inactivation by pressurized CO2 treatment methods at room temperature: Critical issues.

This study aims to increase the inactivation efficiency of CO2 against Escherichia coli under mild conditions to facilitate the application of pressurized CO2 technology in water disinfection. Based on an aerating-cycling apparatus, three different treatment methods (continuous aeration, continuous reflux, and simultaneous aeration and reflux) were compared for the same temperature, pressure (0.3-0.7MPa), initial concentration, and exposure time (25min). The simultaneous aeration and reflux treatment (combined method) was shown to be the best method under optimum conditions, which were determined to be 0.7MPa, room temperature, and an exposure time of 10min. This treatment achieved 5.1-log reduction after 25min of treatment at the pressure of 0.3MPa and 5.73-log reduction after 10min at 0.7MPa. Log reductions of 4.4 and 5.0 occurred at the end of continuous aeration and continuous reflux treatments at 0.7MPa, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images suggested that cells were ruptured after the simultaneous aeration and reflux treatment and the continuous reflux treatment. The increase of the solubilization rate of CO2 due to intense hydraulic conditions led to a rapid inactivation effect. It was found that the reduction of intracellular pH caused by CO2 led to a more lethal bactericidal effect.

Investigation of UV-TiO2 photocatalysis and its mechanism in Bacillus subtilis spore inactivation.

The inactivation levels of Bacillus subtilis spores for various disinfection processes (ultraviolet (UV), TiO2 and UV-TiO2) were compared. The results showed that the inactivation effect of B. subtilis spores by UV treatment alone was far below that for bacteria without endospores. TiO2 alone in the dark, as a control experiment, exhibited almost no inactivation effect. Compared with UV treatment alone, the inactivation effect increased significantly with the addition of TiO2. Increases of the UV irradiance and TiO2 concentration both contributed to the increase of the inactivation effect. Lipid peroxidation was found to be the underlying mechanism of inactivation. Malondialdehyde (MDA), the degradation product of lipid peroxidation, was used as an index to determine the extent of the reaction. The MDA concentration surged surprisingly to 3.24nmol/mg dry cell with the combination disinfection for 600sec (0.10mW/cm(2) irradiance and 10mg/L TiO2). In contrast, for UV alone or TiO2 in the dark, the MDA concentration was 0.38 and 0.25nmol/mg dry cell, respectively, under the same conditions. This indicated that both UV and TiO2 were essential for lipid peroxidation. Changes in cell ultrastructure were observed by transmission electron microscopy. The cell membrane was heavily damaged and cellular contents were completely lysed with the UV-TiO2 process, suggesting that lipid peroxidation was the root of the enhancement in inactivation efficiency.

AIE-YOLO: Effective object detection method in extreme driving scenarios via adaptive image enhancement.

The widespread research and implementation of visual object detection technology have significantly transformed the autonomous driving industry. Autonomous driving relies heavily on visual sensors to perceive and analyze the environment. However, under extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rain, fog, or low light, these sensors may encounter disruptions, resulting in decreased image quality and reduced detection accuracy, thereby increasing the risk for autonomous driving. To address these challenges, we propose adaptive image enhancement (AIE)-YOLO, a novel object detection method to enhance road object detection accuracy under extreme weather conditions. To tackle the issue of image quality degradation in extreme weather, we designed an improved adaptive image enhancement module. This module dynamically adjusts the pixel features of road images based on different scene conditions, thereby enhancing object visibility and suppressing irrelevant background interference. Additionally, we introduce a spatial feature extraction module to adaptively enhance the model's spatial modeling capability under complex backgrounds. Furthermore, a channel feature extraction module is designed to adaptively enhance the model's representation and generalization abilities. Due to the difficulty in acquiring real-world data for various extreme weather conditions, we constructed a novel benchmark dataset named extreme weather simulation-rare object dataset. This dataset comprises ten types of simulated extreme weather scenarios and is built upon a publicly available rare object detection dataset. Extensive experiments conducted on the extreme weather simulation-rare object dataset demonstrate that AIE-YOLO outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving excellent detection performance under extreme weather conditions.

Characterization of the dual regulation by a c-di-GMP riboswitch Bc1 with a long expression platform from Bacillus thuringiensis.

A riboswitch generally regulates the expression of its downstream genes through conformational change in its expression platform (EP) upon ligand binding. The cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) class I riboswitch Bc1 is widespread and conserved among Bacillus cereus group species. In this study, we revealed that Bc1 has a long EP with two typical ρ-independent terminator sequences 28 bp apart. The upstream terminator T1 is dominant in vitro, while downstream terminator T2 is more efficient in vivo. Through mutation analysis, we elucidated that Bc1 exerts a rare and incoherent "transcription-translation" dual regulation with T2 playing a crucial role. However, we found that Bc1 did not respond to c-di-GMP under in vitro transcription conditions, and the expressions of downstream genes did not change with fluctuation in intracellular c-di-GMP concentration. To explore this puzzle, we conducted SHAPE-MaP and confirmed the interaction of Bc1 with c-di-GMP. This shows that as c-di-GMP concentration increases, T1 unfolds but T2 remains almost intact and functional. The presence of T2 masks the effect of T1 unwinding, resulting in no response of Bc1 to c-di-GMP. The high Shannon entropy values of EP region imply the potential alternative structures of Bc1. We also found that zinc uptake regulator can specifically bind to the dual terminator coding sequence and slightly trigger the response of Bc1 to c-di-GMP. This work will shed light on the dual-regulation riboswitch and enrich our understanding of the RNA world.IMPORTANCEIn nature, riboswitches are involved in a variety of metabolic regulation, most of which preferentially regulate transcription termination or translation initiation of downstream genes in specific ways. Alternatively, the same or different riboswitches can exist in tandem to enhance regulatory effects or respond to multiple ligands. However, many putative conserved riboswitches have not yet been experimentally validated. Here, we found that the c-di-GMP riboswitch Bc1 with a long EP could form a dual terminator and exhibit non-canonical and incoherent "transcription-translation" dual regulation. Besides, zinc uptake regulator specifically bound to the coding sequence of the Bc1 EP and slightly mediated the action of Bc1. The application of SHAPE-MaP to the dual regulation mechanism of Bc1 may establish the foundation for future studies of such complex untranslated regions in other bacterial genomes.

Influence of chlorine-to-nitrogen ratio on the inactivation of heterotrophic bacteria in bulk water during chloramination.

Comparative experiments were conducted to determine the inactivation efficiency of chloramines on heterotrophic bacteria in bulk water. The impact of pH, concentrations of organic compounds, turbidity, and chlorine-to-nitrogen (Cl/N) ratio on inactivation efficiency was studied. Experimental results showed that inactivation efficiency was best at a 4:1 Cl/N ratio, while the lowest efficiency occurred at a 3:1 ratio. The inactivation rate increased with decreasing pH in the range of 6.0-9.0. Higher levels of organic matter and turbidity seemed to weaken the inactivation ability of chloramines. In comparison with results obtained for two other Cl/N ratios studied, a maximum chloramine residual was maintained at a 4:1 Cl/N ratio. A positive correlation was found between the inactivation rate of heterotrophic bacteria and chloramine residual. These observations support the hypothesis that the differences observed in inactivation rates can be attributed to the chemical species distribution of chloramine at various Cl/N ratios.

Facile synthesis of FeCo/Fe3O4 nanocomposite with high wave-absorbing properties.

The FeCo/Fe3O4 nanocomposite was synthesized using the hydrothermal approach, in which the FeCo alloy and Fe3O4 are formed by one step. The structure of the FeCo/Fe3O4 nanocomposite was characterized by means of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray energy-dispersive spectrometer spectroscopy (EDX). They show that the mass ratio of FeCo/Fe3O4 strongly depends on the reaction temperature. Such various architectures follow a stepwise growth mechanism of the composites prepared in various reaction temperatures were also discussed. It indicates that this strategy is facile, effective and controllable for the synthesis of FeCo/Fe3O4 by the one-step method. Furthermore, the magnetic and wave-absorbing properties of the nanocomposites with various structures were investigated in detail. The results show that the FeCo/Fe3O4 with higher mass ratio has higher magnetic properties. Moreover, the FeCo/Fe3O4 nanocomposite shows high wave-absorbing properties (e.g., -37.9 dB), which are expected to apply in microwave absorbing materials.

Clinical and pathological characteristics in elderly patients with IgA nephropathy.

Background: Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common cause of primary glomerulonephritis, with highly variable manifestations. Although the peak incidence of IgAN is in young adults, the diagnosis among elderly people is increasing. Here we explored the effect of aging on IgAN features, as well as cellular senescence in the kidney of IgAN. Methods: A total of 910 patients with IgAN were enrolled, which contained 182 individuals in each age stage (aged ≥60, 50-59, 40-49, 30-39 and 20-29 years). Clinical and pathological manifestations at the time of renal biopsy were compared. Additionally, 38 patients with IgAN (19 aged over or equal to 60 years and 19 aged below 60 years) were randomly selected for p16INK4a staining by immunohistochemistry. The percentage of p16INK4a-positive cells in glomeruli, renal tubule and interstitium were separately quantified. Results: Compared with young IgAN patients, elderly patients presented with higher levels of circulating IgA, uric acid and proteinuria, but lower estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR), as well as lower red blood cell counts, platelet counts and lymphocyte counts. Moreover, elderly IgAN patients showed higher incidence of hypertension, and lower incidence of prodromic infection. Regarding histological lesions in the kidney, young IgAN patients had higher degree of IgA and C3 deposits, while elderly IgAN patients had more severe Oxford-E lesions, but less severe Oxford-S lesions. The percentage of glomerular and tubular p16INK4a-positive cells in elderly patients showed an increasing trend, but statistical significance was not reached. The percentage of p16INK4a-positive nuclei in renal interstitium was positively associated with T score, while increased percentage of p16INK4a-positive nuclei in renal tubule was associated with eGFR and 24-h urinary protein level. Conclusion: In our IgAN cohort, elderly IgAN patients presented with some aging-related features, and both aging- and IgAN-induced pathological injury contributed to the kidney lesions in patients with IgAN.

[Genetic polymorphisms of six Y chromosome short tandem repeat loci in Chinese Korean ethnic group].

OBJECTIVE: To determine the allelic sequences and genetic polymorphism of six short tandem repeats (STRs) loci on Y chromosome, including DYS441, DYS442, DYS443, DYS444, DYS445 and DYS446 in Chinese Korean ethnic males from Yanbian region of Jilin province, China, and to construct a preliminary database. METHODS: Allele frequencies of the six STR loci in 205 Chinese Korean ethnic individuals were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). RESULTS: Respectively, 8, 7, 7, 5, 6 and 9 alleles were detected for each of the locus. Together they have formed 151 haplotypes, with a diversity of 0.9937. CONCLUSION: The six STR loci included in this study were found to be highly polymorphic, and may provide useful markers for genetic analysis.

EASplex: A panel of 308 AISNPs for East Asian ancestry inference using next generation sequencing.

Ancestry inference is useful in many scientific fields, such as forensic genetics, medical genetics, and molecular archaeology. Various ancestry inferring methods have been released for major continental populations. However, few reports refer to sub-populations within the East Asian population using hundreds of ancestry informative SNPs (AISNPs). In this study, we developed a 308-AISNP panel (EASplex NGS DNA panel) using multiplex PCR and next generation sequencing (NGS). This panel included 56 SNPs relevant for the continent-level ancestry inference and 252 Japanese-, Korean-, and/or Han Chinese-specific AISNPs to address the ancestry inference of global populations and regional populations among Japanese (JPT), Korean minority (CHK), and Han Chinese (CHH). A total of 87 CHK and 59 CHH samples were used to check the performance of the EASplex NGS DNA panel. By analyzing 146 profiles of samples with JPT and CHH data from Beijing and South China in 1000 genomes project, the following results were obtained: (1) the 146 tested samples were correctly assigned to the East Asian group; (2) the paired population assignment rate was 99.73% for JPT and CHH, 95% for JPT and CHK, and 90.11% for CHK and CHH; and (3) the whole population assignment was 92.14% for the JPT, CHK, and CHH data. Overall, the EASplex NGS DNA panel displayed informativeness for continental ancestry inference and regional ancestry inference among JPT, CHH, and CHK and has the potential for use in forensic and genetic population studies.

Identification of diagnostic markers and immune cell infiltration characteristics in antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis by weighted gene co-expression network analysis.

BACKGROUND: Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV) is a group of life-threatening systemic autoimmune diseases. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the AAV hub gene and immune cell infiltration, and its value for clinical disease treatment. METHODS: We downloaded the microarray information of 37 AAV patients and 27 controls from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Genes were classified into totally different modules exploitation weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). AAV diagnostic indicators were screened and then assessed immune cell infiltration by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and CIBERSORT. Finally, Connectivity Map analysis was applied to predict possible AAV glomerulus injury improvement therapies. RESULTS: WGCNA was developed and differentially expressed genes were classified into 6 modules, the black module was most tightly correlated to AAV. Among them, TIMP1 and FCER1G were most closely related to clinical features. Resting mast cells and monocytes emerged as having the foremost distinguished variations in AAV. C3AR1 and FCER1G were involved in AAV development by immune regulation. Connectivity Map analysis indicated the most significant compound was fisetin. CONCLUSIONS: The present study is that the initial to spot immune cell infiltration with microarray data of glomeruli in AAV, which provides novel proof and clues for additional analysis of the molecular mechanisms.

Impacts of antibiotics on biofilm bacterial community and disinfection performance on simulated drinking water supply pipe wall.

Overuse of antibiotics is accelerating the spread of resistance risk in the environment. In drinking water supply systems, the effect of antibiotics on the resistance of biofilm is unclear, and there have been few studies in disinfectant-containing systems. Here, we designed a series of drinking water supply reactors to investigate the effects of antibiotics on biofilm and bacteria in the water. At low concentrations, antibiotics could promote the growth of bacteria in biofilm; among the tested antibiotics (tetracycline, sulfadiazine and chloramphenicol), tetracycline had the strongest ability to promote this. And the antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) could inhibit the growth of bacteria in drinking water. Results have shown that antibiotics enhanced the bacterial chlorine resistance in the effluent, but reduced that in the biofilm. Furthermore, metagenomic analysis showed that antibiotics reduced the richness of biofilm communities. The dominant phyla in the biofilm were Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Firmicutes. In tetracycline-treated biofilm, the dominant phylum was Planctomycetes. In sulfadiazine- and chloramphenicol-treated groups, bacteria with complex cell structures preferentially accumulated. The dominant class in biofilm in the ARB-added group was Gammaproteobacteria. The abundance of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) was correlated with biofilm community structure. This study shows that antibiotics make the biofilm community structure of drinking water more resistant to chlorine. ARGs may be selective for certain bacteria in the process, and there may ultimately be enhanced chlorine and antibiotic resistance of effluent bacteria in drinking water.

[Five coding region polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA in Chinese Han population of Yanbian area].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) five coding region sequence polymorphisms encompassing positions nt3954-4506, nt5218-5974, nt7942-8711, nt10296-10653, and nt14496-14867 in Chinese Han population of Yanbian area, Jilin province. METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct sequencing method were used to detect the haplotype distribution of mtDNA coding region in 200 unrelated Chinese Han individuals. RESULTS: One hundred and ten haplotypes were observed in the 200 individuals. The gene diversity was 0.9879 and the random match probability was 0.0171. Compared with the Anderson's sequence,81 nucleotide variants were obtained,of which 66 were previously registered in MITOMAP,and 15 were novel. CONCLUSION: The obtained data suggest that these sequence polymorphisms are valuable genetic markers for personal identification when added to mtDAN control region investigation, and thus could be used as basic data for the forensic application in Chinese Han population.

[Genetic polymorphisms of six X-short tandem repeats loci in Chinese Korean].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the genetic polymorphisms of DXS7132, DXS6854, DXS6797, DXS9898, DXS8378 and GATA31E08 short tandem repeats (STRs) loci in Chinese Korean ethnic group of Yanbian, Jilin, and to construct a preliminary database. METHODS: The allele frequencies of the six STRs loci in Chinese Korean ethnic individuals were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). RESULTS: Total of 8, 6, 8, 8, 5 and 10 alleles were observed in each locus respectively. All loci (in female) met Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P > 0.05). The statistical analysis of the 6 STR loci showed the heterozygosities were more than 0.4660, the polymorphic information contents (PIC) were more than 0.5293, the haplotype diversity were more than 0.9993, power of discrimination (PD) in females and males were more than 0.7737 and 0.6107, respectively. CONCLUSION: The results showed that, all the 6 STR loci in this study were found to have high heterozygosity and polymorphic information content, so they could provide useful markers for genetic purposes. These results could serve as valuable data to enrich the Chinese Korean ethnic group genetic database and play an important role in genetic study of Chinese population.

[Mitochondrial DNA coding region 3954-4506 polymorphism in Korean Chinese population].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the sequence polymorphism of mtDNA coding region encompassing nt3954-4506 in the Korean Chinese population of Yanbian area. METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct sequencing method were used to detect the haplotype distribution of mtDNA coding region in 198 Korean Chinese individuals. RESULTS: Twenty-one haplotypes were observed in the 198 unrelated individuals. The genetic diversity was 0.5906 and the random match probability was 0.4124. Compared with the Andersonos sequence, 19 nucleotide variants were found, of which 14 were previously registered in MITOMAP, and 5 were novel. CONCLUSION: The obtained data suggest that these sequence polymorphisms are valuable genetic markers for personal identification when combined with mtDAN control region investigation, thus could be used as basic data for the forensic application in Korean Chinese population.

Genetic diversity and haplotype structure of 27 Y-STR loci in a Yanbian Korean population from Jilin Province, Northeast China.

In this study, 27 Y-STRs were analyzed in 347 male individuals from the Yanbian Korean population. Haplotype diversity (HD) and discrimination capacity (DC) values were calculated. Pairwise Rst values were evaluated in AMOVA analysis and visualized through multidimensional scaling (MDS). Yflier Plus system indicated higher Discrimination Power (DP), HD and DC which is 0.9969, 0.9998 and 0.9769. There is no significant genetic distance between Yanbian Koreans and South Koreans, however, there is a great distance from Chinese Han population. The present results may provide useful information for paternal lineages in forensic cases and increase our understanding of the genetic relationships between Yanbian Korean and other groups.

[Genetic polymorphisms of short tandem repeat loci D4S2368, D6S1043, D9S925 from Korean ethnic group of JiLin].

OBJECTIVE: To understand the allele structure and genetic polymorphism at D4S2368, D6S1043, D9S925 short tandem repeat (STR) loci in Korean ethnic group of Jilin, and to construct a preliminary database. METHODS: The allele frequencies of the three STRs loci in 310 unrelated individuals from Korean ethnic individuals were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). RESULTS: Seven, thirteen, and nine alleles were observed at D4S2368, D6S1043, and D9S925 loci, respectively, and all loci met Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (except D6S1043). The statistical analysis of 3 STR loci showed the heterozygosities were more than 0.717, the polymorphic information contents (PIC) were more than 0.670; the combined power of discrimination (PD) and the power of exclusion (PE) were more than 0.9995 and 0.952 respectively. CONCLUSION: The three loci in this study are found to have high heterozygosity and polymorphic information content, so they can provide useful markers for genetic purposes. These results could serve as valuable data to enrich the Korean ethnic group genetic database and play an important role in Chinese population genetic application.

Y chromosomal STR haplotypes in the northeastern China Han population.

Haplotype frequencies of 20 Y chromosome STR loci, DYS19, DYS385 (a/b), DYS389 (I, II), DYS390, DYS391, DYS393, DYS434, DYS435, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS441, DYS442, DYS444, DYS445, DYS446, DYS452 and DYS456 were determined from a sample of 122 unrelated males in the northeastern China Han populations.

[Genetic polymorphisms of Penta D and E loci in Korean racial Chinese of Yanbian area in China].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze genetic polymorphisms of Penta D and E loci in Korean racial Chinese of Yanbian area. METHODS: One hundred unrelated individuals of Korean racial Chinese were analyzed by methods of PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism. RESULTS: Eight alleles and 22 genotypes were observed from Penata D locus, and 16 alleles and 35 genotypes were observed from Penta E locus. CONCLUSION: The distribution of two locus genotypes in Korean racial Chinese of Yanbian area met Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. And the obtained data can be used to individual identity, paternity testing and the study of Korean ethnic group of Chinese population.