Bovine serum albumin in saliva mediates grazing response in Leymus chinensis revealed by RNA sequencing

BACKGROUND: Sheepgrass (Leymus chinensis) is an important perennial forage grass across the Eurasian Steppe and is adaptable to various environmental conditions, but little is known about its molecular mechanism responding to grazing and BSA deposition. Because it has a large genome, RNA sequencing is expensive and impractical except for the next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. RESULTS: In this study, NGS technology was employed to characterize de novo the transcriptome of sheepgrass after defoliation and grazing treatments and to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) responding to grazing and BSA deposition. We assembled more than 47 M high-quality reads into 120,426 contigs from seven sequenced libraries. Based on the assembled transcriptome, we detected 2,002 DEGs responding to BSA deposition during grazing. Enrichment analysis of Gene ontology (GO), EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways revealed that the effects of grazing and BSA deposition involved more apoptosis and cell oxidative changes compared to defoliation. Analysis of DNA fragments, cell oxidative factors and the lengths of leaf scars after grazing provided physiological and morphological evidence that BSA deposition during grazing alters the oxidative and apoptotic status of cells. CONCLUSIONS: This research greatly enriches sheepgrass transcriptome resources and grazing-stress-related genes, helping us to better understand the molecular mechanism of grazing in sheepgrass. The grazing-stress-related genes and pathways will be a valuable resource for further gene-phenotype studies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-1126) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

International Communication of the Belt and Road Initiative and Possible Improvements: From Discourse Analysis Perspective

This study is grounded in the fundamental concepts of discourse analysis and draws on the theoretical and methodological frameworks outlined in An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, which explores how language reflects social activities and viewpoints. By collecting and analyzing news reports related to the Belt and Road Initiative, this research examines the attitudes and discursive patterns present in Anglo-American (including America, Britain, Australia, Canada) mainstream media. The analysis reveals how these media outlets construct and convey specific narratives about the initiative, reflecting broader geopolitical and economic concerns. The study also investigates the reasons behind the formation of these attitudes from a discourse analysis perspective. Based on these findings, the paper offers insights and recommendations for improving the initiative’s communication style to better address international concerns and enhance global perceptions

Synthetic Oversampling: Theory and A Practical Approach Using LLMs to Address Data Imbalance

Imbalanced data and spurious correlations are common challenges in machine learning and data science. Oversampling, which artificially increases the number of instances in the underrepresented classes, has been widely adopted to tackle these challenges. In this article, we introduce OPAL (\textbf{O}versam\textbf{P}ling with \textbf{A}rtificial \textbf{L}LM-generated data), a systematic oversampling approach that leverages the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to generate high-quality synthetic data for minority groups. Recent studies on synthetic data generation using deep generative models mostly target prediction tasks. Our proposal differs in that we focus on handling imbalanced data and spurious correlations. More importantly, we develop a novel theory that rigorously characterizes the benefits of using the synthetic data, and shows the capacity of transformers in generating high-quality synthetic data for both labels and covariates. We further conduct intensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed approach compared to some representative alternative solutions.Comment: 59 pages, 7 figure

Advances in Design and Self-Assembly of Functionalized LB Films and Supramolecular Gels

The recent progress in functionalized LB films and supramolecular gels varies and occupies various fields. Self-assembly technique is playing an important role in preparing well-defined multilevel nanostructures and the functionalized nanomaterials with the designed and controlled properties. In this chapter, various kinds of functionalized LB films and supramolecular gels, including gold nanoparticles, inorganic-organic hybrid composites, and graphene oxide nanocomposites, have been demonstrated and analyzed. We show main research contributions in recent years in two sections: preparation and self-assembly of some functionalized LB films and preparation and self-assembly of some functionalized supramolecular gels. The above research work may give the potential perspective for the design and preparation of new self-assembly nanomaterials. Future research on preparation of LB films and supramolecular gels will depend on the novel applications and special nanostructures in order to produce novel functional nanomaterials and devices