Early selection of \u3cem\u3ebZIP73\u3c/em\u3e facilitated adaptation of \u3cem\u3ejaponica\u3c/em\u3e rice to cold climates

Cold stress is a major factor limiting production and geographic distribution of rice (Oryza sativa). Although the growth range of japonica subspecies has expanded northward compared to modern wild rice (O. rufipogon), the molecular basis of the adaptation remains unclear. Here we report bZIP73, a bZIP transcription factor-coding gene with only one functional polymorphism (+511 G\u3eA) between the two subspecies japonica and indica, may have facilitated japonica adaptation to cold climates. We show the japonica version of bZIP73 (bZIP73Jap) interacts with bZIP71 and modulates ABA levels and ROS homeostasis. Evolutionary and population genetic analyses suggest bZIP73 has undergone balancing selection; the bZIP73Jap allele has firstly selected from standing variations in wild rice and likely facilitated cold climate adaptation during initial japonica domestication, while the indica allele bZIP73Ind was subsequently selected for reasons that remain unclear. Our findings reveal early selection of bZIP73Jap may have facilitated climate adaptation of primitive rice germplasms

AUTO EMBEDDING A VISIBLE WATERMARK INTO CONTENT AND VIDEO FOR AN ONLINE VIDEO CONFERENCE

Online video conferences are often used to facilitate interaction among multiple participants for an online meeting, discussion, etc. In some instances, it can be useful to protect video and/or content (video/content) shared during an online video conference such that use/reproduction of such video/content may be allowed only with permission. Presented herein are techniques that provide for recognizing participants of an online video conference using biometric recognition techniques (e.g., face, voiceprint, gait, etc.) and embedding identifying information (e.g., email addresses, usernames, etc.) for one or more of the participants into the video and/or content (video/content) of the online video conference via one or more embedded watermarks, which may help to protect video/content generated for an online video conference. In some instances, an embedded watermark may be provided only when a video endpoint/desktop client detects that a participant is taking a photo or video using a handheld device (e.g., cell phone, camera, etc.)

HIGT: Hierarchical Interaction Graph-Transformer for Whole Slide Image Analysis

In computation pathology, the pyramid structure of gigapixel Whole Slide Images (WSIs) has recently been studied for capturing various information from individual cell interactions to tissue microenvironments. This hierarchical structure is believed to be beneficial for cancer diagnosis and prognosis tasks. However, most previous hierarchical WSI analysis works (1) only characterize local or global correlations within the WSI pyramids and (2) use only unidirectional interaction between different resolutions, leading to an incomplete picture of WSI pyramids. To this end, this paper presents a novel Hierarchical Interaction Graph-Transformer (i.e., HIGT) for WSI analysis. With Graph Neural Network and Transformer as the building commons, HIGT can learn both short-range local information and long-range global representation of the WSI pyramids. Considering that the information from different resolutions is complementary and can benefit each other during the learning process, we further design a novel Bidirectional Interaction block to establish communication between different levels within the WSI pyramids. Finally, we aggregate both coarse-grained and fine-grained features learned from different levels together for slide-level prediction. We evaluate our methods on two public WSI datasets from TCGA projects, i.e., kidney carcinoma (KICA) and esophageal carcinoma (ESCA). Experimental results show that our HIGT outperforms both hierarchical and non-hierarchical state-of-the-art methods on both tumor subtyping and staging tasks.Comment: Accepted by MICCAI2023; Code is available in https://github.com/HKU-MedAI/HIG

Collective flow and the fluid behavior in p/d/3^3He+Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV

By varying the intrinsic initial geometry, the p/d/$^3$He+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provide a unique opportunity to understand the collective behavior in the small systems. In this paper, we employ the hybrid model iEBE-VISHNU with TRENTO initial conditions to study the collective flow and the fluid behavior in p/d/$^3$He+Au collisions. With fine-tuned parameters, iEBE-VISHNU can describe the $v_2(p_T)$ and $v_3(p_T)$ data from the PHENIX and STAR collaborations. However, for these parameter sets tuned to fit the STAR data, the hydrodynamic simulations have already beyond their limits with the average Knudsen number $\langle K_n \rangle$ obviously larger than one. Our calculations demonstrate that, for a meaningful evaluation of the fluid behavior in the small systems, model simulations should also pay attention to the validity range of hydrodynamics

Probing the nuclear deformation with three-particle asymmetric cumulant in RHIC isobar runs

$^{96}_{44}$Ru+$^{96}_{44}$Ru and $^{96}_{40}$Zr+$^{96}_{40}$Zr collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=200$ GeV provide unique opportunities to study the geometry and fluctuations raised from the deformation of the colliding nuclei. Using iEBE-VISHNU hybrid model, we predict ${\rm ac}_{2}\{3\}$ ratios between these two collision systems and demonstrate that the ratios of ${\rm ac}_{2}\{3\}$, as well as the ratios of the involving flow harmonics and event-plane correlations, are sensitive to $\beta_{2}$ quadrupole and $\beta_{3}$ octupole deformations, which provides strong constrain on the shape differences between $^{96}$Ru and $^{96}$Zr.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Exploring the compactness of α\alpha cluster in 16^{16}O nuclei with relativistic 16^{16}O+16^{16}O collisions

Probing the $\alpha$ cluster of $^{16}$O with the relativistic $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions has raised great interest in the heavy ion community. However, the effects of the $\alpha$ cluster on the soft hadron observables vary largely among different studies. In this paper, we explain the differences by the compactness of the $\alpha$ cluster in oxygen, using iEBE-VISHNU hydrodynamic simulations with different initial state $\alpha$ cluster configurations. We also find several observables, such as the intensive skewness of the $[p_{\rm T}]$ correlator $\Gamma_{p_{\rm T}}$, the harmonic flows $v_2\{2\}$, $v_2\{4\}$, $v_3\{2\}$, and the $v_n^2-\delta[p_{\rm T}]$ correlations $\rho(v_{2}^{2}, [p_{\rm T}])$, $\rho(v_{3}^{2}, [p_{\rm T}])$ in $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions are sensitive to the compactness of the $\alpha$ cluster in the colliding nuclei, which can be used to constrain the configurations of $^{16}$O in the future. Our study serves as an important step toward the quantitative exploration of the $\alpha$ cluster configuration in the light nuclei with relativistic heavy ion collisions.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, published version + appendix (initial state calculations

Exploring the Nuclear Shape Phase Transition in Ultra-Relativistic 129^{129}Xe+129^{129}Xe Collisions at the LHC

The shape phase transition for certain isotope or isotone chains, associated with the quantum phase transition of finite nuclei, is an intriguing phenomenon in nuclear physics. A notable case is the Xe isotope chain, where the structure transits from a $\gamma$-soft rotor to a spherical vibrator, with the second-order shape phase transition occurring in the vicinity of $^{128-130}$Xe. In this letter, we focus on investigating the $\gamma$-soft deformation of $^{129}$Xe associated with the second-order shape phase transition by constructing novel correlators for ultra-relativistic $^{129}$Xe+$^{129}$Xe collisions. In particular, our iEBE-VISHNU model calculations show that the $v_2^2-[p_T]$ correlation $\rho_{2}$ and the mean transverse momentum fluctuation $\Gamma_{p_T}$, which were previously interpreted as the evidence for the rigid triaxial deformation of $^{129}$Xe, can also be well explained by the $\gamma$-soft deformation of $^{129}$Xe. We also propose two novel correlators $\rho_{4,2}$ and $\rho_{2,4}$, which carry non-trivial higher-order correlations and show unique capabilities to distinguish between the $\gamma$-soft and the rigid triaxial deformation of $^{129}$Xe in $^{129}$Xe+$^{129}$Xe collisions at the LHC. The present study also provides a novel way to explore the second-order shape phase transition of finite nuclei with ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions

Hydrogenation catalysis by hydrogen spillover on platinum-functionalized heterogeneous boronic acid-polyoxometalates

The activation of molecular hydrogen is a key process in catalysis. Here, we demonstrate how polyoxometalate (POM)-based heterogeneous compounds functionalized with Platinum particles activate H2 by synergism between a hydrogen spillover mechanism and electron-proton transfer by the POM. This interplay facilitates the selective catalytic reduction of olefins and nitroarenes with high functional group tolerance. A family of polyoxotungstates covalently functionalized with boronic acids is reported. In the solid-state, the compounds are held together by non-covalent interactions (π–π stacking and hydrogen bonding). The resulting heterogeneous nanoscale particles form stable colloidal dispersions in acetonitrile and can be surface-functionalized with platinum nanoparticles by in situ photoreduction. The resulting materials show excellent catalytic activity in hydrogenation of olefins and nitrobenzene derivatives under mild conditions (1 bar H2 and room temperature)

Meta-analysis on the efficacy and safety of Guanxin Shutong capsule in the treatment of angina pectoris of coronary heart disease

ObjectiveThis study aims to summarize all single clinical studies of Guanxin Shutong (GXST) capsule combined with Western medicine in the treatment of coronary heart disease angina pectoris and to systematically evaluate its efficacy and safety.MethodsThis study adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Chinese and English databases were searched to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of GXST capsule combined with conventional Western medicine in the treatment of patients with angina pectoris of coronary heart disease and to extract the data. Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool was used to evaluate literature quality, and RevMan5.3 software was used to evaluate the outcome indicators, such as total effective rate of angina pectoris, frequency of angina pectoris, duration of angina pectoris, total effective rate of electrocardiogram (ECG), lipid level, inflammatory factor level, hemorheology, cardiac function, and adverse reactions, and to assess publication bias.ResultsA total of 27 RCTs with 3440 cases were identified. The results showed that the combined use of GXST capsule was more effective in terms of total effective rate of angina pectoris, frequency of angina pectoris, duration of angina pectoris, and total effective rate of ECG. In addition, the combined use of GXST capsule had more advantages in reducing total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor–α, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and whole-blood viscosity and increasing left ventricular ejection fraction and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. However, for triglyceride and interleukin-1, there were two different results before and after the sensitivity analysis, which were attributed to the quality of the included literature. In terms of plasma viscosity and adverse reactions, after excluding the literature with large heterogeneity, sensitivity analysis indicated that the combined use of GXST capsule was helpful to reduce plasma viscosity and adverse reactions.ConclusionsGXST capsule combined with conventional Western medicine has better efficacy and safety in the treatment of angina pectoris of coronary heart disease compared with Western medicine alone. However, our study still has some limitations. Thus, more standardized RCTs are needed in future studies to verify the conclusions, and longer follow-up periods need to be designed to explore the long-term efficacy