Inactivation of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase1 (ADG1) causes a starchless phenotype in Arabidopsis. Mutants defective in ADG1 show severe growth retardation in day/night conditions but exhibit similar growth to wild type under continuous light, implying that starch plays an important role in supporting respiration, metabolism and growth at night. In addition to carbohydrates, lipids and proteins can serve as alternative respiratory substrates for the energy production in mature plants. To test the role of lipids in plant growth, we generated transgenic plants overexpressing phospholipid:diacylglycerol acyltransferase1 (PDAT1) in adg1. We found that PDAT1 overexpression caused an increase in both fatty acid synthesis and turnover and increased the accumulation of triacylglycerol (TAG) at the expense of sugars, and enhanced the growth of adg1. We demonstrated that unlike sugars, which were metabolized within a few hours of darkness, TAG breakdown was slow, occurring throughout the entire dark period. The slow pace of TAG hydrolysis provided a sustained supply of fatty acids for energy production, thereby alleviating energy deficiency at night and thereby improving the growth of the starchless mutants. We conclude that lipids can contribute to plant growth by providing a constant supply of fatty acids as an alternative energy source in mature starchless mutant plants. Full article

The Midwestern US is dominated by corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) production, and the carbon dynamics of this region are dominated by these production systems. An accurate regional estimate of gross primary production (GPP) is imperative and requires upscaling approaches. The aim of this study was to upscale corn and soybean GPP (referred to as GPP_calc) in four counties in Central Iowa in the 2016 growing season (DOY 145–269). Eight eddy-covariance (EC) stations recorded carbon dioxide fluxes of corn (n = 4) and soybean (n = 4), and net ecosystem production (NEP) was partitioned into GPP and ecosystem respiration (RE). Additional field-measured NDVI was used to calculate radiation use efficiency (RUE_max). GPP_calc was calculated using 16 MODIS satellite images, ground-based RUE_max and meteorological data, and improved land use maps. Seasonal NEP, GPP, and RE ($\overline{x}$ ± SE) were 678 ± 63, 1483 ± 100, and −805 ± 40 g C m⁻² for corn, and 263 ± 40, 811 ± 53, and −548 ± 14 g C m⁻² for soybean, respectively. Field-measured NDVI aligned well with MODIS fPAR (R² = 0.99), and the calculated RUE_max was 3.24 and 1.90 g C MJ⁻¹ for corn and soybean, respectively. The GPP_calc vs. EC-derived GPP had a RMSE of 2.24 and 2.81 g C m⁻² d⁻¹, for corn and soybean, respectively, which is an improvement to the GPP_MODIS product (2.44 and 3.30 g C m⁻² d⁻¹, respectively). Corn yield, calculated from GPP_calc (12.82 ± 0.65 Mg ha⁻¹), corresponded well to official yield data (13.09 ± 0.09 Mg ha⁻¹), while soybean yield was overestimated (6.73 ± 0.27 vs. 4.03 ± 0.04 Mg ha⁻¹). The approach presented has the potential to increase the accuracy of regional corn and soybean GPP and grain yield estimates by integrating field-based flux estimates with remote sensing reflectance observations and high-resolution land use maps. Full article

Dynamic vehicle detection is of great significance for the safety of autonomous vehicles and the formulation of subsequent driving strategies. A pose-estimation algorithm, namely, the pose estimation with convex-hull model (PE-CHM), is proposed in this paper, and introduced in the dynamic vehicle detection system. In PE-CHM, the convex hull of the object’s point-clouds is first extracted and the most fitted bounding box is determined by a multifactor objective function. Next, the center position of the target is inferred according to the location and direction of the target. With the obtained bounding box and the position inference, the pose of the target is determined, which reduces the interference of the missing contour on pose estimation. Finally, three experiments were performed to validate the performance of the proposed PE-CHM method. Compared with several typical model-based methods, PE-CHM can implement dynamic vehicle detection faster, which reduces the amount of calculation on the basis of ensuring detection efficiency. Full article

Ewes receive hay or graze on fresh pastures supplemented with concentrates to fulfil their lactation requirements. Quebracho (Schinopsis balansae) can be added to change the ruminal fermentation. Fermentation parameters of forages alone and 70:30 forage:concentrate diets with control and quebracho concentrate were compared after 24 h of in vitro incubation. Fresh forage diets produced less gas (p < 0.05) and had greater IVOMD (p < 0.001), ammonia (NH₃-N) content, valeric acid, branched-chain volatile fatty acid proportions, and lower propionic acid proportion than the hay diets (p < 0.01). In the hay diets, methane production increased with control concentrate (p < 0.01) and tended to decrease with quebacho concentrate (p < 0.10). The inclusion of both concentrates increased the acetic:propionic ratio (p < 0.01), and only the inclusion of quebracho concentrate increased the IVOMD (p < 0.01). In the fresh forage diets, gas and methane production increased with the inclusion of the control concentrate (p < 0.05), but methane production decreased with quebracho concentrate (p < 0.01). The inclusion of quebracho concentrate reduced the NH₃-N content and valeric acid proportion (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the inclusion of quebracho concentrate would be advisable to reduce the CH₄ production and NH₃-N content in fresh forage diets and to increase the IVOMD in hay diets in comparison with the forages alone. Full article

Electro-mobility is increasing significantly in the urban public transport and continues to face important challenges. Electric bus fleets require high performance and extended longevity of lithium-ion battery at highly variable temperature and in different operating conditions. On the other hand, bus operators are more concerned about reducing operation and maintenance costs, which affects the battery aging cost and represents a significant economic parameter for the deployment of electric bus fleets. This paper introduces a methodological approach to manage overnight charging of an electric bus fleet. This approach identifies an optimal charging strategy that minimizes the battery aging cost (the cost of replacing the battery spread over the battery lifetime). The optimization constraints are related to the bus operating conditions, the electric vehicle supply equipment, and the power grid. The optimization evaluates the fitness function through the coupled modeling of electro-thermal and aging properties of lithium-ion batteries. Simulation results indicate a significant reduction in the battery capacity loss over 10 years of operation for the optimal charging strategy compared to three typical charging strategies. Full article

An approach for security enhancement of a class of encryption schemes is pointed out and its security is analyzed. The approach is based on certain results of coding and information theory regarding communication channels with erasures and deletion errors. In the security enhanced encryption scheme, the wiretapper faces a problem of cryptanalysis after a communication channel with bits deletion and a legitimate party faces a problem of decryption after a channel with bit erasures. This paper proposes the encryption-decryption paradigm for the security enhancement of lightweight block ciphers based on dedicated error-correction coding and a simulator of the deletion channel controlled by the secret key. The security enhancement is analyzed in terms of the related probabilities, equivocation, mutual information and channel capacity. The cryptographic evaluation of the enhanced encryption includes employment of certain recent results regarding the upper-bounds on the capacity of channels with deletion errors. It is shown that the probability of correct classification which determines the cryptographic security depends on the deletion channel capacity, i.e., the equivocation after this channel, and number of codewords in employed error-correction coding scheme. Consequently, assuming that the basic encryption scheme has certain security level, it is shown that the security enhancement factor is a function of the deletion rate and dimension of the vectors subject to error-correction encoding, i.e., dimension of the encryption block. Full article

The large-scale diffusion of low-emission vehicles is required to increase the sustainability of the transport system. Statistics show strong and continued growth in the sales of electric and other low-emission vehicles in the passenger car market. The commercial market, however, has thus far been a different story, despite the fact that vans and other utility vehicles constitute an increasing share of total road traffic and emissions. The present study investigates the potential for increasing the adoption of electric vans (e-vans) among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Data gathered in a web survey of 264 SME managers show that 25% of the managers expressed intentions to adopt e-vans within the next two years and another 27% within the next five years. Results from logistic regressions show that a combination of attributes related to the vehicle, the firm and the firm-environment relationships drives adoption intentions. Costs and vehicle reliability are typically important drivers of commercial vehicle purchases. E-vans, however, bring symbolic features into the decision process since they are seen as a measure to improve the green legitimacy of the enterprise. Various measures relevant to manufacturers/dealers and policy makers to stimulate the adoption of e-vans are discussed. Full article

Moloney leukemia virus 10 (MOV10) is an RNA helicase that has been shown to affect the replication of several viruses. The effect of MOV10 on Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is not known and its role on the replication of this virus is poorly understood. We investigated the effect of MOV10 down-regulation and MOV10 over-expression on HBV in a variety of cell lines, as well as in an infection system using a replication competent virus. We report that MOV10 down-regulation, using siRNA, shRNA, and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology, resulted in increased levels of HBV DNA, HBV pre-genomic RNA, and HBV core protein. In contrast, MOV10 over-expression reduced HBV DNA, HBV pre-genomic RNA, and HBV core protein. These effects were consistent in all tested cell lines, providing strong evidence for the involvement of MOV10 in the HBV life cycle. We demonstrated that MOV10 does not interact with HBV-core. However, MOV10 binds HBV pgRNA and this interaction does not affect HBV pgRNA decay rate. We conclude that the restriction of HBV by MOV10 is mediated through effects at the level of viral RNA. Full article

Urban regeneration has to be based on rigorous methodological frameworks able to find a balance among preservation instances, economic development, urban quality and the well-being of the population. Considering these premises, this research is focused on the definition of the decision-aiding process for the reuse of an abandoned health care facility with several historic buildings. Both public and private interests have been taken into consideration, since they play an important role for the urban regeneration project and for the definition of urban regeneration policies. Given the complexity of this issue, the evaluation process has been structured by combining different methodologies to support the policy cycle: Stakeholder Analysis, to identify the actors engaged (Social sustainability); Nara Grid for the values elicitation of the Built Cultural Heritage (Cultural and environmental sustainability); and the subsequent definition of different sustainable scenarios evaluated by the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (Economic sustainability). Four alternatives have been assessed with the support of a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) aimed at defining the most balanced one considering heritage significance retention and urban regeneration. This work contributes to the literature on soft OR by exploring interactions among different stakeholders and addresses policy instances by providing a transparent methodology based on value elicitation. Full article

Polylactide (PLA), poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) and blends thereof have been researched in the last two decades due to their commercial availability and the upcoming requirements for using bio-based chemical building blocks. Blends consisting of PLA and PBS offer specific material properties. However, their thermodynamically favored biphasic composition often restricts their applications. Many approaches have been taken to achieve better compatibility for tailored and improved material properties. This review focuses on the modification of PLA/PBS blends in the timeframe from 2007 to early 2019. Firstly, neat polymers of PLA and PBS are introduced in respect of their origin, their chemical structure, thermal and mechanical properties. Secondly, recent studies for improving blend properties are reviewed mainly under the focus of the toughness modification using methods including simple blending, plasticization, reactive compatibilization, and copolymerization. Thirdly, we follow up by reviewing the effect of PBS addition, stereocomplexation, nucleation, and processing parameters on the crystallization of PLA. Next, the biodegradation and disintegration of PLA/PBS blends are summarized regarding the European and International Standards, influencing factors, and degradation mechanisms. Furthermore, the recycling and application potential of the blends are outlined. Full article

In this study we present the design and functionality of a pneumatic drop-on-demand droplet generator that produces metallic micro particles with a size range of 300 µm to 1350 µm at high temperatures of up to 1600 °C. Molten metal droplets were generated from an EN 1.3505 (AISI 52100) steel which solidified during a falling distance of 6.5 m. We analyzed the resulting particle size and morphology using static image analysis. Furthermore, the droplet formation mode was analyzed using high-speed recordings and the pressure oscillation was measured in the crucible. The system is meant to be reproducible in all aspects and therefore the in-situ measurements are set to control the droplet size and trajectory during the run. Additionally, the ex-situ measurements are done on the particles in order to characterize them in size and morphology aspects. Full article

High spatial resolution remote sensing (HSRRS) images contain complex geometrical structures and spatial patterns, and thus HSRRS scene classification has become a significant challenge in the remote sensing community. In recent years, convolutional neural network (CNN)-based methods have attracted tremendous attention and obtained excellent performance in scene classification. However, traditional CNN-based methods focus on processing original red-green-blue (RGB) image-based features or CNN-based single-layer features to achieve the scene representation, and ignore that texture images or each layer of CNNs contain discriminating information. To address the above-mentioned drawbacks, a CaffeNet-based method termed CTFCNN is proposed to effectively explore the discriminating ability of a pre-trained CNN in this paper. At first, the pretrained CNN model is employed as a feature extractor to obtain convolutional features from multiple layers, fully connected (FC) features, and local binary pattern (LBP)-based FC features. Then, a new improved bag-of-view-word (iBoVW) coding method is developed to represent the discriminating information from each convolutional layer. Finally, weighted concatenation is employed to combine different features for classification. Experiments on the UC-Merced dataset and Aerial Image Dataset (AID) demonstrate that the proposed CTFCNN method performs significantly better than some state-of-the-art methods, and the overall accuracy can reach 98.44% and 94.91%, respectively. This indicates that the proposed framework can provide a discriminating description for HSRRS images. Full article