Short Branches Research Articles

Analysis of Operating Conditions for Vibration of a Self-Propelled Monorail Branch Chipper

Aimed at the problems of difficult treatment, unreasonable utilization and serious waste of fruit tree residue, combined with the terrain and planting characteristics of hilly orchards, a self-propelled monorail branch chipper was developed. It can realize long distances and large ranges of crushing operations and debris tiling in the garden. Because the monorail branch chipper adopts the half-empty suspension support method, the moving operations and discontinuous cutting of branches can lead to vibration failures or hazards. In response to this problem, modal analysis of a track system with different numbers of nodes by ANSYS software showed that an increase in the number of track sections decreases the natural frequency of each order under the condition of rigid fixation of the support rods, and weakness of vibration is especially seen in sections 1–4, but after a certain amount, the vibrational change tends to level off. The number of lateral rods should be increased for distal short rail branches of less than four sections to reduce operational and operational vibration. The vibration level test results of field multi-condition and multi-point grinding operations showed that the static vibration amplitude of the crusher is basically the same as that of the mobile state. The vibration amplitude of the chipper is significantly increased when in the states from no-load to grinding operation, and the maximum vibration occurs in the left and right direction of the transverse rail, which provides a theoretical basis and optimization direction for further optimization of the single-track branch chipper operational stability problem.

A Review of the Dinoflagellates and Their Evolution from Fossils to Modern

Molecular clock and biogeochemical evidence indicate that the dinoflagellate lineage diverged at around 650 Ma. Unequivocal dinoflagellate cysts/zygotes appeared during the Triassic. These biotas were badly affected by the end-Triassic extinction and recovery from this was relatively slow. During the early Middle Jurassic, the family Gonyaulacaceae underwent an explosive diversification event and taxonomic richness steadily increased throughout the rest of the Jurassic. The entire Cretaceous also recorded increases in diversity. This trend reversed during the Oligocene, probably caused by global cooling. Marine cyst-forming peridiniaceans declined substantially through the Oligocene and Neogene, but protoperidiniaceans continued to diversify. Modern taxa, as evidenced by the molecular tree, comprise three major clades: the first two are composed largely of parasitic forms, marine alveolates of unknown identity and the Syndiniales; free-living dinoflagellates form the third clade, which diverges rapidly and bears short branch lengths with no real support for branching order. This suggests that morphological divergence preceded molecular divergence because, as the fossil record indicates, major groups appeared at different ages. Unique features of the dinoflagellates helped the group take on a predominant role in the marine phytoplankton. Living in marine or fresh water, dinoflagellates have demonstrated innovative capacities that have enabled them to live among the phytoplankton or benthos as autotrophic, heterotrophic, mixotrophic free-living organisms or symbiotic and/or as parasitic forms.

A northward range extension of Thysanophrys papillaris (Actinopterygii: Scorpaeniformes: Platycephalidae) to Taiwan

The smallknob flathead, Thysanophrys papillaris Imamura et Knapp, 1999, is redescribed based on six specimens collected from southern Taiwan, which constitutes a northward range extension of the species [previously recorded from the Andaman, Timor, and Arafura seas (eastern Indian Ocean), and Nha Trang, Vietnam (western Pacific Ocean)]. Thysanophrys papillaris is distinguished from all congeneric species in having a combination of 11 second dorsal-fin rays, 12 anal-fin rays, 58–75 scale rows below the lateral line (slanting downward and forward), a longer snout (snout length / orbital diameter ratio 1.1–1.3), 1 or 2 small papillae on the eye, the upper iris lappet with short branches, a single preorbital spine and 3–5 suborbital spines. Previously suggested intraspecific variation in the number of eye papillae is confirmed.

Insights into the textural properties and starch digestibility on rice noodles as affected by the addition of maize starch and rice starch

The effects of maize starch (MS) and rice starch (RS) addition on rice noodle quality were investigated, aiming to develop high-quality noodles with both desirable textural properties and low starch digestibility. The results showed that the MS had more short branch chains and higher branch density when compared to RS, and the final viscosity and gel strength of rice paste decreased with its addition. The textural properties between rice noodles with less than 20% MS and without MS did not differ significantly, while the network structure of rice noodles with more MS was significantly weakened due to the steric hindrance of short branch chains. The addition of RS increased the texture quality of rice noodles. Moreover, their addition reduced the estimated glycemic index of rice noodles, because more starch promoted the arrangement of starch chains and formed ordered double helix. The MS with more short chains was conducive to the formation of double helix to reduce digestion rate, and the RS with more long chains formed stabler gel and crystal structures to reduce digestible starch content. Therefore, MS and RS addition had potential to produce rice noodles with high comprehensive quality, and MS content should be controlled below 20%.

A scalable model for simulating multi-round antibody evolution and benchmarking of clonal tree reconstruction methods.

Affinity maturation (AM) of B cells through somatic hypermutations (SHMs) enables the immune system to evolve to recognize diverse pathogens. The accumulation of SHMs leads to the formation of clonal lineages of antibody-secreting b cells that have evolved from a common naïve B cell. Advances in high-throughput sequencing have enabled deep scans of B cell receptor repertoires, paving the way for reconstructing clonal trees. However, it is not clear if clonal trees, which capture microevolutionary time scales, can be reconstructed using traditional phylogenetic reconstruction methods with adequate accuracy. In fact, several clonal tree reconstruction methods have been developed to fix supposed shortcomings of phylogenetic methods. Nevertheless, no consensus has been reached regarding the relative accuracy of these methods, partially because evaluation is challenging. Benchmarking the performance of existing methods and developing better methods would both benefit from realistic models of clonal lineage evolution specifically designed for emulating B cell evolution. In this paper, we propose a model for modeling B cell clonal lineage evolution and use this model to benchmark several existing clonal tree reconstruction methods. Our model, designed to be extensible, has several features: by evolving the clonal tree and sequences simultaneously, it allows modeling selective pressure due to changes in affinity binding; it enables scalable simulations of large numbers of cells; it enables several rounds of infection by an evolving pathogen; and, it models building of memory. In addition, we also suggest a set of metrics for comparing clonal trees and measuring their properties. Our results show that while maximum likelihood phylogenetic reconstruction methods can fail to capture key features of clonal tree expansion if applied naively, a simple post-processing of their results, where short branches are contracted, leads to inferences that are better than alternative methods.

Free surface in two-dimensional potential flow: singularities, invariants and virtual fluid

We study a two-dimensional (2-D) potential flow of an ideal fluid with a free surface with decaying conditions at infinity. By using the conformal variables approach, we study a particular solution of the Euler equations having a pair of square-root branch points in the conformal plane, and find that the analytic continuation of the fluid complex potential and conformal map define a flow in the entire complex plane, excluding a vertical cut between the branch points. The expanded domain is called the ‘virtual’ fluid, and it contains a vortex sheet whose dynamics is equivalent to the equations of motion posed at the free surface. The equations of fluid motion are analytically continued to both sides of the vertical branch cut (the vortex sheet), and additional time invariants associated with the topology of the conformal plane and Kelvin's theorem for a virtual fluid are explored. We called them ‘winding’ and virtual circulation. This result can be generalized to a system of many cuts connecting many branch points, resulting in a pair of invariants for each pair of branch points. We develop an asymptotic theory that shows how a solution originating from a single vertical cut forms a singularity at the free surface in infinite time, the rate of singularity approach is double exponential and supersedes the previous result of the short branch cut theory with finite time singularity formation. The present work offers a new look at fluid dynamics with a free surface by unifying the problem of motion of vortex sheets, and the problem of 2-D water waves. A particularly interesting question that arises in this context is whether instabilities of the virtual vortex sheet are related to breaking of steep ocean waves when gravity effects are included.

Molecular dynamics study of the environmental stress cracking agent assisted cavitation in linear and branched polyethylene

We used molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to investigate whether an environmental stress cracking (ESC) agent would help the cavitation process in linear polyethylene (LPE) and branched polyethylene (BPE) by examining the free volume hole size and spatial distributions at the [PE]-[ESC agent] interfaces. The BPE models used contained 10 and 82 butyl/hexyl branches/1000 backbone carbons and the ESC agent used was nonyl ethoxylate (NE) at concentrations 0.001–1.4 wt%. The results show that there exist no significant changes in the packings of LPE and BPE chains, as characterized by their radial distribution functions (RDFs), in the presence of NE regardless its concentration. However, molecular packings at the [PE]-[NE] interfaces vary with NE concentration. In particular, ethylene (E) segments of NE, compared to the ethylene oxide (EO) segments, exhibit stronger association with LPE and BPE chains. We used the Voronoi tessellation method to determine the size and spatial distributions of free volume holes at the [PE]-[NE] interfaces and found that more and larger free volume holes formed around the E-segments than the EO-segments. And such effect was found to be more pronounced in the case of LPE chains than the BPE chains. We further investigated the free volume holes coalescence dynamics using the Fourier mode analysis. The number of frequency modes and the corresponding intensities of the E-segments were significantly higher than those of EO-segments, suggesting that E-segments exhibited a higher tendency to form more and larger free volume holes. This suggests that [PE]-[E-segments] interfaces have a higher chance to form larger voids (i.e., cavitation, a feature of brittle failure that is experimentally observed in ESC). The tendency intensified with increasing NE concentration but was reduced by the presence of short chain branches. The high mobility of terminal carbons in the short chain branches is believed to suppress the formation of large free volume holes at the [PE]-[E-segments] interfaces by absorbing the newly formed free volume by that of the terminal carbons.

Next-generation sequencing data show rapid radiation and several long-distance dispersal events in early Costaceae

The monocot family Costaceae Nakai consists of seven genera but their mutual relationships have not been satisfactorily resolved in previous studies employing classical molecular markers. Phylogenomic analyses of 365 nuclear genes and nearly-complete plastome data provide almost fully resolved insights into their diversification. Paracostus is identified as sister to all other taxa, followed by several very short branches leading to discrete lineages, suggesting an ancient rapid radiation of these early lineages and leaving the exact relationships among them unresolved. Relationships among Chamaecostus, Dimerocostus and Monocostus confirmed earlier findings that these genera form a monophyletic group. The Afro-American Costus is also monophyletic. By contrast, Tapeinochilos appeared as a well-supported crown lineage of Cheilocostus rendering it paraphyletic. As these two genera differ morphologically from one another owing to a shift from insect- to bird-pollination, we propose to keep both names. The divergence time within Costaceae was estimated using penalized likelihood utilizing two fossils within Zingiberales, †Spirematospermum chandlerae and †Ensete oregonense, indicated a relatively recent diversification of Costaceae, between 18 and 9 Mya. Based on these data, the current pantropical distribution of the family is hypothesized to be the result of several long-distance intercontinental dispersal events, which do not correlate with global geoclimatic changes.

Emerging biotechnology applications in natural product and synthetic pharmaceutical analyses.

Pharmaceutical analysis is a discipline based on chemical, physical, biological, and information technologies. At present, biotechnological analysis is a short branch in pharmaceutical analysis; however, bioanalysis is the basis and an important part of medicine. Biotechnological approaches can provide information on biological activity and even clinical efficacy and safety, which are important characteristics of drug quality. Because of their advantages in reflecting the overall biological effects or functions of drugs and providing visual and intuitive results, some biotechnological analysis methods have been gradually applied to pharmaceutical analysis from raw material to manufacturing and final product analysis, including DNA super-barcoding, DNA-based rapid detection, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification, hyperspectral imaging combined with artificial intelligence, 3D biologically printed organoids, omics-based artificial intelligence, microfluidic chips, organ-on-a-chip, signal transduction pathway-related reporter gene assays, and the zebrafish thrombosis model. The applications of these emerging biotechniques in pharmaceutical analysis have been discussed in this review.

Rheology modifier additive for enhanced processability of polyethylene forblown‐Filmapplications

AbstractPolyethylene is a versatile polymer suitable for a large variety of flexible and rigid packaging applications. Its mechanical and rheological properties can be tuned across a wide range by controlling its molecular architecture, such as the amount and distribution of olefinic comonomers (short chain branching), long chain branching, and molecular weight distribution. Linear low‐density polyethylene (LLDPE) is known for its high toughness which enables downgauged film structures and low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) is known for its excellent shear thinning and melt strength which enables enhanced processability and high throughput, such as on blown film lines. In order to obtain a balance of toughness and processability on films produced on blown film lines, blends of LLDPE and LDPE are commonly used. In this paper, we describe additive‐based approaches, including a new product, DOWLEX™ (TM = trademark of the Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an affiliated company of Dow) GM AX01, which enhances melt strength and other rheological properties of polyethylene, enabling fabrication of films with lower LDPE content while still maintaining excellent rheological properties and higher toughness versus conventional LLDPE/LDPE blends. The higher toughness enables downgauging without loss of mechanical properties, which in turn reduces consumption of polymer resulting in a more sustainable solution.

Phenotypic variation in biomass and related traits among four generations advanced lines of Cleome (Gynandropsis gynandra L. (Briq.)).

Gynandropsis gynandra (spider plant) is an African traditional leafy vegetable rich in minerals, vitamins and health-promoting compounds with potential for health promotion, micronutrients supplementation and income generation for stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies. However, information on biomass productivity is limited and consequently constrains breeders’ ability to select high-yielding genotypes and end-users to make decisions on suitable cultivation and production systems. This study aimed to assess the phenotypic variability in biomass and related traits in a collection of G. gynandra advanced lines to select elite genotypes for improved cultivar development. Seventy-one advanced lines selected from accessions originating from Asia, West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa were evaluated over two years with two replicates in a greenhouse using a 9 x 8 alpha lattice design. Significant statistical differences were observed among lines and genotype origins for all fourteen biomass and related traits. The results revealed three clusters, with each cluster dominated by lines derived from accessions from Asia (Cluster 1), West Africa (Cluster 2), and East/Southern Africa (Cluster 3). The West African and East/Southern African groups were comparable in biomass productivity and superior to the Asian group. Specifically, the West African group had a low number of long primary branches, high dry matter content and flowered early. The East/Southern African group was characterized by broad leaves, late flowering, a high number of short primary branches and medium dry matter content and was a candidate for cultivar release. The maintenance of lines’ membership to their group of origin strengthens the hypothesis of geographical signature in cleome diversity and genetic driver of the observed variation. High genetic variance, broad-sense heritability and genetic gains showed the potential to improve biomass yield and related traits. Significant and positive correlations among biomass per plant, plant height, stem diameter and leaf size showed the potential of simultaneous and direct selection for farmers’ desired traits. The present results provide insights into the diversity of spider plant genotypes for biomass productivity and represent key resources for further improvement in the species.

Curvilinear Structure Tracking Based on Dynamic Curvature-penalized Geodesics

Geodesic models are considered as a fundamental and powerful tool in the applications of curvilinear structure extraction, where the target structures are usually modeled as geodesic paths connecting prescribed points. Despite great advances in geodesic models, it still remains an unsolved problem of detecting weak curvilinear structures from complicated scenarios. In this paper, a dynamic high-order geodesic model for curvilinear structure extraction is introduced to alleviate the shortcuts or short branches combination problems suffered in the classical geodesic approaches. For that purpose, we take into account the nonlocal pattern of curvilinear structures and the local curvature of geodesic paths for the construction of geodesic metrics. Accordingly, the proposed model is able to blend the benefits from the on-the-fly nonlocal smoothness property, curvature regularization and appearance coherence penalization. The nonlocal smoothness property carried out via a local bending operator is constructed to provide a quantitative measure of geodesic advancing directions, meanwhile the coherence penalization is established to guarantee the consistency of the local appearance features extracted via a vessel detector. The experiment results on synthetic and real images illustrate that the proposed method obtains outperformance when compared to the classical geodesic-based tracing algorithms.

Role of Short Chain Branching in Crystalline Model Polyethylenes

The role of short chain branches (SCBs) (C4H9) on the melt and crystalline properties of monodisperse polyethylene systems (C400H802) is investigated, using molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained united-monomer model that represents a chemical monomer as one particle. A method is introduced, whereby SCBs are grown out of the linear backbone to minimize computational expense. Here, this concept is proven by introducing differing numbers (Nb = 0, 1, 2, 4, 10, and 20) of regularly spaced SCBs along the chain backbones and studying their influence on the melt and crystalline properties. By growing SCBs into the melt phase, it is demonstrated that they marginally perturb the original topology, justifying a relatively short equilibration time after growth. Upon crystallization, however, each system’s behavior differs considerably. Cooling and heating cycles are performed to study crystallization and melting at progressively slower rates. The crystalline morphology is observed to depend strongly on both cooling rate and number of branches along the linear backbone. In particular, the lamella thickness decreases systematically with both faster cooling and increasing SCB content. At the highest branch content, of one per 20 backbone carbons (Nb = 20), crystallization is almost entirely suppressed, whereas a small number of branches allows control over the average lamellar thickness. This observation, combined with a prudent method for equilibrating systems with SCBs, opens up opportunities to study more complex chain architectures and mimic industrial polyethylene morphologies.

An Uncommon Cause of Recurrent Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Question: A 28-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department with sudden hematemesis and melena. He reported 2 episodes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in the last 2 years. In the first one, an erosive bulbitis was diagnosed and, 2 years later, a Dieulafoy lesion was identified adjacent to the cardia in the gastric lesser curvature that was treated with epinephrine injection, polidocanol, and application of 1 through-the-scope clip. On admission he was hypotensive and tachycardic with a hemoglobin level of 11 g/dL. Upper digestive endoscopy showed a vascular stump with a small adherent clot at the fundus/body transition of the gastric greater curvature, without active bleeding (Figure A), and endoscopic therapy with epinephrine injection and through-the-scope clip application was performed. Concomitantly, involving the described lesion and throughout the gastric fundus, exuberant protrusions suspicious of vascular origin were observed (Figures B and C). What might be the diagnosis and how should it be managed? See the Gastroenterology website (www.gastrojournal.org) for more information on submitting to Gastro Curbside Consult. Due to the exuberant vascular protrusions in the gastric fundus, an abdominal computed tomography angiography was performed that identified numerous intraparietal vascular structures in the gastric fundus, with opacification in the arterial phase, suggestive of arteriovenous malformation (AVM) emerging from the splenic and left gastric arteries (Figure D). On the second day after the procedure, he presented recurrent bleeding, with hematemesis, hemodynamic instability, and a decrease of 2 g of hemoglobin. An upper digestive endoscopy was performed, identifying previously placed clips with a vascular stump visible in the middle and endoscopic therapy was repeated with over-the-scope clip application (Figure E). After the procedure the patient remained under therapy with proton pump inhibitors, without recurrence of bleeding. After multidisciplinary decision, angiography was performed with selective catheterization of the splenic artery and embolization of 2 short engorged branches vascularizing the AVM with multiple microcoils (Figure F). It was not possible to selectively catheterize one of the branches of the splenic artery as well as one of the branches of the left gastric artery. A second procedure was scheduled, but the patient refused another intervention and was lost to follow-up. AVMs are congenital lesions with persistent connections between their arterial and venous components, which result from a failure of the embryonic vascular plexus to fully differentiate and develop a mature capillary bed.1Schimmel K. Ali M.K. Tan S.Y. et al.Arteriovenous malformations-current understanding of the pathogenesis with implications for treatment.Int J Mol Sci. 2021; 22: 9037Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar Gastric AVMs are a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, with few cases described in the literature, and the best therapeutic strategy remains to be defined.2Hirayama Y. Takai C. Korekawa K. et al.Gastric arteriovenous malformation with characteristic endoscopic findings.Intern Med. 2018; 57: 2341-2345Crossref PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar,3Latar N.H. Phang K.S. Yaakub J.A. Muhammad R. Arteriovenous malformation of the stomach: a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.Med J Malaysia. 2011; 66: 142-143PubMed Google Scholar This case demonstrates the complexity of its diagnosis and treatment and illustrates the potential complementary role of endoscopy and selective angiography in the management of this pathology.

P186 Disseminated Histoplasmosis in an immunocompetent patient in a tertiary care center in North India

Poster session 2, September 22, 2022, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM ObjectivesHistoplasmosis is a geographically restricted dimorphic fungi that causes disseminated infection in immune-competent as well as immunocompromised patients. Adrenal involvement is seen in disseminated disease but sometimes it may be the only site where then infection can be demonstrated. Early diagnosis and treatment are needed to save the patient from fatal adrenal insufficiency. We present a case of bilateral adrenal histoplasmosis in immunocompetent patient.MethodsA 63-year-old male presented to our hospital with a history of insidious onset of decreased appetite and unintentional weight loss for the last 6 months associated with generalized weakness. Patient had a history of mild to moderate intensity epigastric pain and discomfort which was intermittent in nature. Patient originally belongs to Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, but he was residing in Kolkata for the last 8 months.Patient had no history of fever, cough, hemoptysis, jaundice, chronic diarrhea, and steatorrhea. No history of orthostatic hypotension, salt craving, hyperpigmentation, headache, visual field disturbances, polyuria, behavioral changes, episodic headache, palpitation, diaphoresis, systemic hypertension with episodic all four-limb weakness. There was no history of abdominal striae, easy bruisability, difficulty in standing from squatting position. There was no history of tuberculosis among family members. On detailed history, it was revealed that he fed pigeons every day in the slum house where he lived in Kolkata.On the CECT abdomen it was found that there is an ill-defined hypodense enhancing lesion (72 × 52 × 77 mm) in right suprarenal region and bulky, necrosed 25 × 26 × 19 mm lesion in left suprarenal gland associated with multiple nonnecrotic paraaortic and aortic caval lymphadenopathy. He also received empirical anti-tubercular therapy for 15 days in the form of ethambutol and levofloxacin.ResultsIn all, 10% KOH wet mount of crushed smear of adrenal biopsy samples showed tissue debris and small narrow neck budding yeasts. Giemsa stain shows few small budding yeasts. Culture was put in SDA at 25°C and 37°C and incubated. On day 12, growth of colony in 25°C appears as white cottony growth with yellowish white reverse. On day 24, colony appears as buff brown with yellowish brown reverse. LPCB was done from the colony showing presence of characteristic tuberculate macroconidia (8–14) μm in diameter formed on short, hyaline, undifferentiated conidiophores and production of plenty round to pyriform microconidia (2–4 μm) in diameter, occurring on short branches and directly on the sides of the hyphae. Based on the direct microscopy and culture characteristics a diagnosis of Histoplasma capsulatum was given.ConclusionSystemic histoplasmosis is typically acquired through inhalation of microconidia or small hyphal elements in soil contaminated with bird and bat droppings leading to primary infection. This patient only manifested bilateral adrenal involvement with nonspecific symptoms.

Comb and Branch‐on‐Branch Model Polystyrenes with Exceptionally High Strain Hardening Factor SHF > 1000 and Their Impact on Physical Foaming

AbstractThe influence of topology on the strain hardening in uniaxial elongation is investigated using monodisperse comb and dendrigraft model polystyrenes (PS) synthesized via living anionic polymerization. A backbone with a molecular weight of Mw,bb = 310 kg mol−1 is used for all materials, while a number of 100 short (SCB, Mw,scb = 15 kg mol−1) or long chain branches (LCB, Mw,lcb = 40 kg mol−1) are grafted onto the backbone. The synthesized LCB comb serves as precursor for the dendrigraft‐type branch‐on‐branch (bob) structures to add a second generation of branches (SCB, Mw,scb ≈ 14 kg mol−1) that is varied in number from 120 to 460. The SCB and LCB combs achieve remarkable strain hardening factors (SHF) of around 200 at strain rates greater than 0.1 s−1. In contrast, the bob PS reach exceptionally high SHF of 1750 at very low strain rates of 0.005 s−1 using a tilted sample placement to extend the maximum Hencky strain from 4 to 6. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, SHF this high have never been reported for polymer melts. Furthermore, the batch foaming with CO2 is investigated and the volume expansions of the resulting polymer foams are correlated to the uniaxial elongational properties.

Determination of Short Chain Branching in LLDPE by Rheology

AbstractThe relationship between the structure and the final properties of materials is an important issue in polymer science. In particular, the properties of polyolefins are impacted by their branching contents. A simple rheological method is presented to estimate the degree of short chain branching (SCB) in linear low‐density polyethylene (LLDPE). A range of ethylene‐1‐hexene copolymers is synthetized using a metallocene catalyst to obtain homogenous LLDPE models with various comonomer contents. The polymers are analyzed by size exclusion chromatography, 13C NMR, and crystallization elution fractionation to determine both their molar masses and their chemical composition distributions. Subsequently, they are measured by rheology to assess the impact of SCB. This work provides calibration curves for rheology and proves that it is possible to predict the SCB content in LLDPE from the melt viscosity analysis.

Target capture data resolve recalcitrant relationships in the coffee family (Rubioideae, Rubiaceae).

Subfamily Rubioideae is the largest of the main lineages in the coffee family (Rubiaceae), with over 8,000 species and 29 tribes. Phylogenetic relationships among tribes and other major clades within this group of plants are still only partly resolved despite considerable efforts. While previous studies have mainly utilized data from the organellar genomes and nuclear ribosomal DNA, we here use a large number of low-copy nuclear genes obtained via a target capture approach to infer phylogenetic relationships within Rubioideae. We included 101 Rubioideae species representing all but two (the monogeneric tribes Foonchewieae and Aitchinsonieae) of the currently recognized tribes, and all but one non-monogeneric tribe were represented by more than one genus. Using data from the 353 genes targeted with the universal Angiosperms353 probe set we investigated the impact of data type, analytical approach, and potential paralogs on phylogenetic reconstruction. We inferred a robust phylogenetic hypothesis of Rubioideae with the vast majority (or all) nodes being highly supported across all analyses and datasets and few incongruences between the inferred topologies. The results were similar to those of previous studies but novel relationships were also identified. We found that supercontigs [coding sequence (CDS) + non-coding sequence] clearly outperformed CDS data in levels of support and gene tree congruence. The full datasets (353 genes) outperformed the datasets with potentially paralogous genes removed (186 genes) in levels of support but increased gene tree incongruence slightly. The pattern of gene tree conflict at short internal branches were often consistent with high levels of incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) due to rapid speciation in the group. While concatenation- and coalescence-based trees mainly agreed, the observed phylogenetic discordance between the two approaches may be best explained by their differences in accounting for ILS. The use of target capture data greatly improved our confidence and understanding of the Rubioideae phylogeny, highlighted by the increased support for previously uncertain relationships and the increased possibility to explore sources of underlying phylogenetic discordance.

Plastome sequences fail to resolve shallow level relationships within the rapidly radiated genus Isodon (Lamiaceae).

As one of the largest genera of Lamiaceae and of great medicinal importance, Isodon is also phylogenetically and taxonomically recalcitrant largely ascribed to its recent rapid radiation in the Hengduan Mountains. Previous molecular phylogenetic studies using limited loci have only successfully resolved the backbone topology of the genus, but the interspecific relationships suffered from low resolution, especially within the largest clade (Clade IV) which comprises over 80% species. In this study, we attempted to further elucidate the phylogenetic relationships within Isodon especially Clade IV using plastome sequences with a broad taxon sampling of ca. 80% species of the genus. To reduce systematic errors, twelve different plastome data sets (coding and non-coding regions with ambiguously aligned regions and saturated loci removed or not) were employed to reconstruct phylogeny using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. Our results revealed largely congruent topologies of the 12 data sets and recovered major lineages of Isodon consistent with previous studies, but several incongruences are also found among these data sets and among single plastid loci. Most of the shallow nodes within Clade IV were resolved with high support but extremely short branch lengths in plastid trees, and showed tremendous conflicts with the nrDNA tree, morphology and geographic distribution. These incongruences may largely result from stochasticity (due to insufficient phylogenetic signal) and hybridization and plastid capture. Therefore, the uniparental-inherited plastome sequences are insufficient to disentangle relationships within a genus which has undergone recent rapid diversification. Our findings highlight a need for additional data from nuclear genome to resolve the relationships within Clade IV and more focused studies to assess the influences of multiple processes in the evolutionary history of Isodon. Nevertheless, the morphology of the shape and surface sculpture/indumentum of nutlets is of systematic importance that they can distinguish the four major clades of Isodon.

Dynamic-II Pipeline: Compiling Loops With Irregular Branches on Static-Scheduling CGRA

Coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) is a promising programmable hardware with high power-efficiency and high performance. However, compiling and optimizing loops with irregular branches on CGRAs is a challenge to fulfill the performance potential. Existing predication techniques, such as partial predication (PP) and full predication (FP), conservatively implement software pipeline with a static initiation interval (II) obtained from the maximum graph, and thus only parts of the graph in each loop iteration will be actually executed, resulting in underexploited performance. To exploit more loop-level parallelism for irregular branches, this article proposes a novel dynamic-II pipeline (DIP) scheme, which realizes a pipeline with variable II by accommodating multiple iterations of short path in one static configuration. Since the DIP scheme is effective to only certain types of branches, this article designs a hybrid compilation framework integrating other complementary methods, which selects the appropriate method for source programs according to a proposed performance evaluation model. Experimental results show that: 1) the hybrid compilation framework can effectively extract branch features, correctly choose and implement corresponding branch processing methods within acceptable compile time and 2) as compared to PP and FP, DIP brings a significant total execution time (TET) reduction by 27.21% and 22.04% on average when the execution probability of a short branch is 50%.