bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Resistance Mechanisms and Molecular Docking Studies of Four Novel QoI Fungicides in Peronophythora litchii
Authors: Zhou Yuxin , Chen Lei , Hu Jian , Duan Hongxia , Lin Dong , Liu Pengfei , Meng Qingxiao , Li Bin , Si Naiguo , Liu Changling , Liu Xili 
Published: December 2015

AbstractPeronophythora litchii is the causal agent of litchi downy blight. Enestroburin, SYP-1620, SYP-2815 and ZJ0712 are four novel QoI fungicides developed by China. Eight mutants of P. litchii resistant to these QoI fungicides and azoxystrobin (as a known QoI fungicide) were obtained in our preliminary work. In this study, the full length of the cytochrome b gene in P. litchii, which has a full length of 382 amino acids, was cloned from both sensitive isolates and resistant mutants and single-site mutations G142A, G142S, Y131C, or F128S were found in resistant mutants. Molecular docking was used to predict how the mutations alter the binding of the five QoI fungicides to the Qo-binding pockets. The results have increased our understanding of QoI fungicide-resistance mechanisms and may help in the development of more potent inhibitors against plant diseases in the fields.
Gene silencing of TACE enhances plaque stability and improves vascular remodeling in a rabbit model of atherosclerosis
Authors: Zhao Xueqiang , Kong Jing , Zhao Yuxia , Wang Xuping , Bu Peili , Zhang Cheng , Zhang Yun 
Published: December 2015

AbstractWe aimed to test the hypothesis that gene silencing of tumor necrosis factor alpha converting enzyme (TACE) may attenuate lesion inflammation and positive vascular remodeling and enhance plaque stability in a rabbit model of atherosclerosis. Lentivirus-mediated TACE shRNA was injected into the abdominal aortic plaques of rabbits which effectively down-regulated TACE expression and activities from week 8 to week 16. TACE gene silencing reduced remodeling index and plaque burden and diminished the content of macrophages and lipids while increased that of smooth muscle cells and collagen in the aortic plaques. In addition, TACE gene silencing attenuated the local expression of P65, iNOS, ICAM-1, VEGF and Flt-1 and activities of MMP9 and MMP2 while increased the local expression of TGF-β1 together with reduced number of neovessels in the aorta. TACE shRNA treatment resulted in down-regulated expression of TACE in macrophages and blunted ERK-P38 phosphorylation and tube formation of co-cultured mouse vascular smooth muscle cells or human umbilical vein endothelial cells. In conclusion, gene silencing of TACE enhanced plaque stability and improved vascular positive remodeling. The mechanisms may involve attenuated local inflammation, neovascularization and MMP activation, as well as enhanced collagen production probably via down-regulated ERK-NF-κB and up-regulated TGF-β1 signaling pathways.
Stochasticity in economic losses increases the value of reputation in indirect reciprocity
Authors: dos Santos Miguel , Placì Sarah , Wedekind Claus 
Published: December 2015

AbstractRecent theory predicts harsh and stochastic conditions to generally promote the evolution of cooperation. Here, we test experimentally whether stochasticity in economic losses also affects the value of reputation in indirect reciprocity, a type of cooperation that is very typical for humans. We used a repeated helping game with observers. One subject (the “Unlucky”) lost some money, another one (the “Passer-by”) could reduce this loss by accepting a cost to herself, thereby building up a reputation that could be used by others in later interactions. The losses were either stable or stochastic, but the average loss over time and the average efficiency gains of helping were kept constant in both treatments. We found that players with a reputation of being generous were generally more likely to receive help by others, such that investing into a good reputation generated long-term benefits that compensated for the immediate costs of helping. Helping frequencies were similar in both treatments, but players with a reputation to be selfish lost more resources under stochastic conditions. Hence, returns on investment were steeper when losses varied than when they did not. We conclude that this type of stochasticity increases the value of reputation in indirect reciprocity.
Graphene Based Surface Plasmon Polariton Modulator Controlled by Ferroelectric Domains in Lithium Niobate
Authors: Wang Hao , Zhao Hua , Hu Guangwei , Li Siren , Su Hang , Zhang Jingwen 
Published: December 2015

AbstractWe proposed a ferroelectric domain controlled graphene based surface plasmon polariton modulator. Ferroelectricity-induced electronic and optical property tuning of graphene by domain in lithium niobate was theoretically investigated considering both interband and intraband contributions of surface conductivity. With the corrected Sellmeier equation of lithium niobate, the propagation of transverse magnetic mode surface plasmon polaritons in an air/graphene/lithium niobate structure was studied when monolayer graphene was tuned by down polarization direction ferroelectric domain with different polarization levels. The length of the ferroelectric domain was optimized to be 90 nm for a wavelength of 5.0 μm with signal extinction per unit 14.7 dB/μm, modulation depth 474.1 dB/μm and figure of merit 32.5. This work may promote the study of highly efficient modulators and other ultra-compact nonvolatile electronic and photonic devices in which two-dimensional materials and ferroelectric materials are combined.
Reversible strain-induced magnetization switching in FeGa nanomagnets: Pathway to a rewritable, non-volatile, non-toggle, extremely low energy straintronic memory
Authors: Ahmad Hasnain , Atulasimha Jayasimha , Bandyopadhyay Supriyo 
Published: December 2015

AbstractWe report reversible strain-induced magnetization switching between two stable/metastable states in ~300 nm sized FeGa nanomagnets delineated on a piezoelectric PMN-PT substrate. Voltage of one polarity applied across the substrate generates compressive strain in a nanomagnet and switches its magnetization to one state, while voltage of the opposite polarity generates tensile strain and switches the magnetization back to the original state. The two states can encode the two binary bits, and, using the right voltage polarity, one can write either bit deterministically. This portends an ultra-energy-efficient non-volatile “non-toggle” memory.
Manipulation of magnetization switching and tunnel magnetoresistance via temperature and voltage control
Authors: Liu Houfang , Wang Ran , Guo Peng , Wen Zhenchao , Feng Jiafeng , Wei Hongxiang , Han Xiufeng , Ji Yang , Zhang Shufeng 
Published: December 2015

AbstractMagnetization switching between parallel and antiparallel alignments of two magnetic layers in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) is conventionally controlled either by an external magnetic field or by an electric current. Here, we report that the manipulation of magnetization switching and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) in perpendicularly magnetized CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB MTJs can be achieved by both temperature and voltage. At a certain range of temperature, coercivity crossover between top and bottom magnetic layers is observed in which the TMR ratio of the MTJs is almost unmeasurable. Furthermore, the temperature range can be tuned reversibly by an electric voltage. Magnetization switching driven by the voltage reveals an unconventional phenomenon such that the voltage driven coercivity changes with temperature are quite different for top and bottom CoFeB layers. A model based on thermally-assisted domain nucleation and propagation is developed to explain the frequency and temperature dependence of coercivity. The present results of controlling the magnetization switching by temperature and voltage may provide an alternative route for novel applications of MTJs based spintronic devices.
Protective effects of madecassoside against Doxorubicin induced nephrotoxicity in vivo and in vitro
Authors: Su Zhonghao , Ye Jin , Qin Zhenxia , Ding Xianting 
Published: December 2015

AbstractMadecassoside (MA), a triterpenoid saponin isolated from C. asitica, exerts various pharmacological activity including antioxidative and antinflammatory. Doxorubicin (DOX), a common chemotherapeutic drug, has been reported to induce numerous toxic side effects including renal-toxicity. We hypothesized that MA administration may decrease renal-toxicity caused by DOX. In this study, we investigated this hypothesis by introducing MA and DOX into the culture of Human Proximal Tubule Cells HK-2 and mice model. Our in vivo study demonstrated that MA (12 mg/kg), treatment for two weeks attenuated DOX-induced renal injury via protecting renal function, recovering antioxidant enzyme activity, inhibiting Bax, p-ERK1/2, NF-κB p65, iNOS expression and increasing Bcl-2 expression. Similar findings were obtained in our in vitro studies with treatment of DOX and/or MA. Further studies with application of iNOS inhibitor and ERK1/2 kinase inhibitor indicated that the inhibitory effects of MA on DOX-induced apoptosis and inflammation might be mediated by the suppression of the activation of cleaved caspase-3, ERK1/2 pathways, NF-κB p65 and NO production. These results suggest that MA is a promising protective agent for DOX-induced renal toxicity and can be a potential candidate to protect against renal toxicity in DOX-treated cancer patients.
Protective immune barrier against hepatitis B is needed in individuals born before infant HBV vaccination program in China
Authors: Yang Shigui , Yu Chengbo , Chen Ping , Deng Min , Cao Qing , Li Yiping , Ren Jingjing , Xu Kaijin , Yao Jun , Xie Tiansheng , Wang Chencheng , Cui Yuanxia , Ding Cheng , Tian Guo , Wang Bing , Zhang Xiaoyan , Ruan Bing , Li Lanjuan 
Published: December 2015

AbstractThe hepatitis B prevalence rate in adults is still at a high to intermediate level in China. Our purpose was to explore the incidence rate and protective immune barrier against hepatitis B in adults in China. A sample of 317961 participants was multi-screened for hepatitis B surface antigens (HBsAg) in a large-scale cohort of the National Hepatitis B Demonstration Project. A total of 5401 persons were newly-infected, representing an incidence rate of 0.81 (95% CI: 0.77–0.85) per 100 person-years after adjusted by gender and age. History of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, birth prior to 1992, coastal residence, family history of HBV and migrant worker status were significantly associated with higher incidence, while HBV vaccination and greater exercise with lower incidence. The hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) positive rate was negatively correlated with the incidence rate of hepatitis B (r = −0.826). Linear fitting yielded an incidence rate of 1.23 plus 0.02 multiplied by HBsAb positive rate. The study firstly identified the HBsAg incidence rate, which was reduced to 0.1 per 100 person-years after vaccination coverage of about 64%. The protective immune barrier against hepatitis B needs to be established in individuals born prior to the advent of infant HBV vaccination.
Interaction of Multiple Surface Cues in Motion Grouping
Authors: Weiss Y , Adelson E H 
Published: December 2015

A rotating ellipse and a translating ogive may appear rigid or nonrigid depending on their shapes. By placing moving dots (‘satellites’) in the space surrounding the contour one can cause the percept to switch between rigid and nonrigid, depending on how the dots move. We have studied how multiple surface cues can influence this grouping effect. One set of displays consisted of the ambiguous contour and a group of consistently moving satellites. We found that under this condition the grouping was extremely robust. The influence of the satellites on the perceived rigidity of the contour remained powerful when they were moved far away from the contour and even when they were placed at a different stereoscopic depth plane. A second set of displays consisted of the ambiguous contour and two groups of satellites: one group moving rigidly and the other nonrigidly. In these displays we found a strong effect of stereo and distance. One could cause the percept to switch from rigid to nonrigid by manipulating the relative distances of the display elements or the relative disparities. We discuss how these results can be accounted for in a computational model that combines form and motion information in a robust estimation framework.
Increasing the Number of Context Elements in Early Vision: More is Better
Authors: Meinecke C 
Published: December 2015

Studies in visual search have shown that in feature search conditions in which the target differs from the context in a single feature (like orientation), search time increases only slightly (or sometimes not at all) as a function of increasing number of context elements. This is a typical result for early vision conditions, and is taken as an indicator of parallel processing of the whole stimulus. In visual search experiments the manipulation of increasing the number of context elements is confounded with the fact of increasing their spatial density. And as is known from other typical early vision parameters, eg texture segmentation, increasing density improves performance. So, parallel visual search may be a byproduct of the (implicit) density manipulation. In two texture-segmentation experiments, the number of context elements was increased while their spatial density was kept constant. This manipulation leads to an enlargement of the whole stimulus. The results show that under these conditions increasing the number of context elements even improved performance. This improvement was observed particularly at a retinal eccentricity of more than 3 deg. The results are explained within a framework of a spatial pooling mechanism.
The Interaction of Stereopsis and Perspective in the Perception of Depth
Authors: Gillam B , Sedgwick H A 
Published: December 2015

When only stereoscopic information is available, the slant of a single isolated surface around a vertical axis is often greatly underestimated. If two small objects (probes), separated horizontally by several degrees, are displayed in front of such a surface, the depth of the probes is perceived relative to the perceived slant of the background surface, leading to systematic misperception of the point of subjective equality (PSE) of the distances of the probes from the observer (Mitchison and Westheimer, 1984 Vision Research24 1063 – 1073; Gillam et al, 1993 Perception22 Supplement, 35). In the present study we found that when we added global perspective information to the background surface, thus increasing its perceived slant, this substantially improved the PSE of the probes. Alternatively, when we added frontal stereoscopic surfaces above and below the background surface, thus providing gradients of disparity discontinuities across the surface boundaries, this also produced an improvement in the perceived slant of the background surface, but produced an even greater improvement in the PSE of the probes. These results imply that the local stereoscopic information specifying the depth of each probe relative to the background surface is integrated with the perceived slant of the background surface, whether specified by global stereoscopic information or by global perspective information, to determine the relative depth of the probes. This integration of local stereoscopic information with global slant information appears to be more complete, however, when the global information is provided by stereopsis rather than by perspective.
Functional Organisation of Human Visual Cortex Revealed by fMRI
Authors: Tootell R B H , Dale A M , Hadjikhani N , Liu A K , Marrett S , Mendola J D 
Published: December 2015

Until recently, comparatively little was known about the functional organisation of human visual cortex. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in conjunction with cortical flattening techniques and psychophysically relevant visual stimulation, has greatly clarified human visual-information processing. To date, we have completed cortical surface reconstructions (flattening), coupled with a wide range of visual stimulus testing, on 28 normal human subjects. Visual activation was acquired on a 1.5 T GE MR scanner with ANMR echo-planar imaging, with the use of a custom, bilateral, quadrature surface coil covering posterior cortex. Approximately ten visual cortical areas can now be functionally localised each with unique functional and topographical properties. The most well-defined areas are: V1, V2, V3, VP, V3A, V4v, MT, SPO, and perhaps MSTd. Most of the properties in these human areas are similar to those reported in presumably homologous areas of macaque, but distinctive species differences also appear to exist, notably in V3/VP, V4v, and V3A. Human areas showing prominant motion-selectivity include V3A, MT/MSTd, SPO, and a small area near the superior sylvian fissure. Retinotopic areas include V1, V2, V3, VP, V4v, and V3A. The human cortical magnification factor appears higher towards the fovea than in macaque, but, like macaque, preferred spatial frequency tuning varies inversely with eccentricity in all retinotopic areas in which sinusoidal gratings are effective stimuli.
Which Eye Sees the Most?
Authors: Nilsson D-E , Warrant J 
Published: December 2015

The performance of the eyes is ultimately limited by the physical nature of light. The diameter of the aperture that admits light to the eye sets an upper limit to the spatial frequencies that can be imaged behind the aperture. Diffraction, which is responsible for this limitation, is caused by the wave nature of light. The array of sampling stations the eye uses to detect the image is instead limited by the quantum nature of light. Each sampling station can only sample a finite number of quanta, and any such count is associated with a standard deviation being the square root of the true mean. Effectively, this limits the ability to detect differences in luminance (contrasts) across the image. Diffraction and quantum noise together sets an upper physical limit to the performance of an eye. If the eye's quantum efficiency, integration time, and thermal noise are constants, it is possible to find the optimum sampling frequency that maximises spatial resolution of a stationary image. This optimum depends on eye size and luminance, and differs from the ‘camera type eye’, the ‘pinhole eye’, and the various optical types of compound eye. We have calculated the maximum detectable spatial frequency for a number of simple and compound types of eye, and plotted the results against luminance and eye size to produce a unique ‘performance surface’ for each type of eye. These performance surfaces allow a comprehensive graphical comparison of the efficiency of the various optical types of eye.
Effects of Saccades on Perceived Time
Authors: Ross J , Diamond M R 
Published: December 2015

Saccades produce errors in locating objects in space. The question here examined is whether they also produce errors of location in time. Observers judged whether flashed bars appeared before, during, or after saccades, the order of appearance of two bars flashed in sequence, and the apparent interval between two points of light flashed at a SOA of 100 ms. We found that (1) bars displayed up to 150 ms before saccades were often judged as during saccades, later bars veridically; (2) the accuracy of judgements of order dropped just before saccades; (3) apparent intervals were shorter before saccades, reaching control levels at onset. We conclude that perceived time is foreshortened immediately before saccades. This could be due to selective suppression of magnocellular activity and may function to hide saccades and their effects.
From Elements to Perceptions
Authors: Spillmann L 
Published: December 2015

Gestalt psychologists in the early part of the century challenged psychophysical notions that perceptual phenomena can be understood from a punctate (‘atomistic’) analysis of the elements present in the stimulus. Their ideas also inhibited later attempts to explain vision in terms of single-unit recordings from individual neurons. A rapprochement between Gestalt phenomenology and physiology seemed unlikely when the first ECVP was held in Marburg, Germany, in 1978. Since that time, response properties of neurons have been discovered that invite an interpretation of visual phenomena (including ‘illusions’) in terms of neuronal processing. Indeed, it is now possible to understand some Gestalt phenomena on the basis of known neurophysiological mechanisms. I begin by outlining the great strides that have been made since the advent of microelectrode recording from single neurons. Initially, cells (‘detectors’) selectively responding to the contrast, spatial frequency, wavelength, orientation, movement, and disparity of a stimulus placed in their receptive fields were used to interpret simple perceptual phenomena (eg, Mach bands, Hermann grids, tilt aftereffect, MAE). In recent years, cells at higher levels of the visual system have been discovered that might explain a number of more complex phenomena: the perception of illusory (occluded) contours by end-stopped cells in area V2, the filling-in of artificial scotomata by neurons in V3, colour constancy by ‘perceptive’ neurons in V4, and the perception of coherent motion in dynamic noise patterns by cells in MT. Studies of flow fields and biological motion in area MST have recently been added to account for our perceptions as we move through our environment. Prompted by these findings, a shift from local to global interactions ‘beyond the classical receptive field’ has taken place in our search for the neural substrates of perception. Current research has focused on three kinds of mechanisms: (i) converging feed-forward projections as the basis for new response properties emerging at higher levels, (ii) recruitment of lateral connections to explain filling-in, and (iii) backward propagation from higher to lower levels to account for binding and figure - ground segregation. How such mechanisms compute large-scale surface properties such as brightness, colour, and depth from local features—indeed how they construct the surfaces themselves from complex natural scenes—is only one of the many questions that are under scrutiny today. Future research will have to tackle the all-important question: How does the analysed information come together again? Furthermore, the contributions of eye movements, attention, learning, other sense modalities, and motor actions will have to be taken into consideration before we arrive at a more complete understanding of visual perception.