Topological minibands and interaction driven quantum anomalous Hall state in topological insulator based moiré heterostructures.

The presence of topological flat minibands in moiré materials provides an opportunity to explore the interplay between topology and correlation. In this work, we study moiré minibands in topological insulator films with two hybridized surface states under a moiré superlattice potential created by two-dimensional insulating materials. We show the lowest conduction (highest valence) Kramers' pair of minibands can be Z 2 non-trivial when the minima (maxima) of moiré potential approximately form a hexagonal lattice with six-fold rotation symmetry. Coulomb interaction can drive the non-trivial Kramers' minibands into the quantum anomalous Hall state when they are half-filled, which is further stabilized by applying external gate voltages to break inversion. We propose the monolayer Sb2 on top of Sb2Te3 films as a candidate based on first principles calculations. Our work demonstrates the topological insulator based moiré heterostructure as a potential platform for studying interacting topological phases.

Identification of circular RNA expression profiles and potential biomarkers for intracerebral hemorrhage.

Aim: To investigate the expression profiles of circRNAs after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Materials & methods: RNA sequencing and qRT-PCR were used to investigate and validate circRNA expression levels. Bioinformatics analysis was performed to explore potential functions of the circRNAs. Results: Expression levels of 15 circRNAs were consistently altered in patients with ICH compared with their expression levels in hypertension. Three circRNAs, hsa_circ_0001240, hsa_circ_0001947 and hsa_circ_0001386, individually or combined, were confirmed as promising biomarkers for predicting and diagnosing ICH. The circRNAs were involved mainly in lysine degradation and the immune system. Conclusion: This is the first study to report expression profiles of circRNAs after ICH and to propose that three circRNAs are potential biomarkers for ICH.

An Assembled Detector Based on Geometrical Constraint for Power Component Recognition.

The intelligent inspection of power lines and other difficult-to-access structures and facilities has been greatly enhanced by the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which allow inspection in a safe, efficient, and high-quality fashion. This paper analyzes the characteristics of a scene containing power equipment and the operation mode of UAVs. A low-cost virtual scene is created, and a training sample for the power-line components is generated quickly. Taking a vibration-damper as the main object, an assembled detector based on geometrical constraint (ADGC) is proposed and is used to analyze the virtual dataset. The geometric positional relationship is used as the constraint, and the Faster R-CNN, Deformable Part Model (DPM), and Haar cascade classifiers are combined, which allows the features of different classifiers, such as contour, shape, and texture to be fully used. By combining the characteristics of virtual data and real data using UAV images, the power components are detected by the ADGC. The result produced by the detector with relatively good performance can help expand the training set and achieve a better detection model. Moreover, this method can be smoothly transferred to other power-line facilities and other power-line scenarios.

Phylogenomics reveals rapid, simultaneous diversification of three major clades of Gondwanan frogs at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

Frogs (Anura) are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates and comprise nearly 90% of living amphibian species. Their worldwide distribution and diverse biology make them well-suited for assessing fundamental questions in evolution, ecology, and conservation. However, despite their scientific importance, the evolutionary history and tempo of frog diversification remain poorly understood. By using a molecular dataset of unprecedented size, including 88-kb characters from 95 nuclear genes of 156 frog species, in conjunction with 20 fossil-based calibrations, our analyses result in the most strongly supported phylogeny of all major frog lineages and provide a timescale of frog evolution that suggests much younger divergence times than suggested by earlier studies. Unexpectedly, our divergence-time analyses show that three species-rich clades (Hyloidea, Microhylidae, and Natatanura), which together comprise ∼88% of extant anuran species, simultaneously underwent rapid diversification at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary (KPB). Moreover, anuran families and subfamilies containing arboreal species originated near or after the KPB. These results suggest that the K-Pg mass extinction may have triggered explosive radiations of frogs by creating new ecological opportunities. This phylogeny also reveals relationships such as Microhylidae being sister to all other ranoid frogs and African continental lineages of Natatanura forming a clade that is sister to a clade of Eurasian, Indian, Melanesian, and Malagasy lineages. Biogeographical analyses suggest that the ancestral area of modern frogs was Africa, and their current distribution is largely associated with the breakup of Pangaea and subsequent Gondwanan fragmentation.

Parallel tagged amplicon sequencing of relatively long PCR products using the Illumina HiSeq platform and transcriptome assembly.

In phylogenetics and population genetics, a large number of loci are often needed to accurately resolve species relationships. Normally, loci are enriched by PCR and sequenced by Sanger sequencing, which is expensive when the number of amplicons is large. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques are increasingly used for parallel amplicon sequencing, which reduces sequencing costs tremendously, but has not reduced preparation costs very much. Moreover, for most current NGS methods, amplicons need to be purified and quantified before sequencing and their lengths are also restricted (normally <700 bp). Here, we describe an approach to sequence pooled amplicons of any length using the Illumina platform. Using this method, amplicons are pooled at equal volume rather than at equal concentration, thus eliminating the laborious purification and quantification steps. We then shear the pooled amplicons, repair the ends, add sample identifying linkers and pool multiple samples prior to Illumina library preparation. Data are then assembled using the transcriptome assembly program trinity, which is optimized to deal with templates of highly varying quantities. We demonstrated the utility of our approach by recovering 93.5% of the target amplicons (size up to 1650 bp) in full length for a 16 taxa × 101 loci project, using ~2.0 GB of Illumina HiSeq paired-end 90-bp data. Overall, we validate a rapid, cost-effective and scalable approach to sequence a large number of targeted loci from a large number of samples that is particularly suitable for both phylogenetics and population genetics studies that require a modest scale of data.

The cultivation of Bt corn producing Cry1Ac toxins does not adversely affect non-target arthropods.

Transgenic corn producing Cry1Ac toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) provides effective control of Asian corn borer, Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée), and thus reduces insecticide applications. However, whether Bt corn exerts undesirable effects on non-target arthropods (NTAs) is still controversial. We conducted a 2-yr study in Shangzhuang Agricultural Experiment Station to assess the potential impact of Bt corn on field population density, biodiversity, community composition and structure of NTAs. On each sampling date, the total abundance, Shannon's diversity index, Pielou's evenness index and Simpson's diversity index were not significantly affected by Bt corn as compared to non-Bt corn. The "sampling dates" had a significant effect on these indices, but no clear tendencies related to "Bt corn" or "sampling dates X corn variety" interaction were recorded. Principal response curve analysis of variance indicated that Bt corn did not alter the distribution of NTAs communities. Bray-Curtis dissimilarity and distance analysis showed that Cry1Ac toxin exposure did not increase community dissimilarities between Bt and non-Bt corn plots and that the evolution of non-target arthropod community was similar on the two corn varieties. The cultivation of Bt corn failed to show any detrimental evidence on the density of non-target herbivores, predators and parasitoids. The composition of herbivores, predators and parasitoids was identical in Bt and non-Bt corn plots. Taken together, results from the present work support that Bt corn producing Cry1Ac toxins does not adversely affect NTAs.

Unveiling the mechanism by which microsporidian parasites prevent locust swarm behavior.

Locusts are infamous for their ability to aggregate into gregarious migratory swarms that pose a major threat to food security. Aggregation is elicited by an interplay of visual, tactile, and chemical stimuli, but the aggregation pheromone in feces is particularly important. Infection by the microsporidian parasite Paranosema (Nosema) locustae is known to inhibit aggregation of solitary Locusta migratoria manilensis and to induce gregarious locusts to shift back to solitary behavior. Here we suggest that P. locustae achieves this effect by acidifying the hindgut and modulating the locust immune response, which suppresses the growth of the hindgut bacteria that produce aggregation pheromones. This in turn reduces production of the neurotransmitter serotonin that initiates gregarious behavior. Healthy L. migratoria manilensis exposed to olfactory stimuli from parasite-infected locusts also produced significantly less serotonin, reducing gregarization. P. locustae also suppresses biosynthesis of the neurotransmitter dopamine that maintains gregarization. Our findings reveal the mechanisms by which P. locustae reduces production of aggregation pheromone and blocks the initiation and maintainence of gregarious behavior.