ALBERT

Description: The discovery of novel antiviral materials is important because many infectious diseases are caused by viruses. Silver nanoparticles have demonstrated strong antiviral activity, and graphene is a potential antimicrobial material due to its large surface area, high carrier mobility, and biocompatibility. No studies on the antiviral activity of nanomaterials on non-enveloped viruses have been reported. To investigate the antiviral activity of graphene oxide (GO) sheets and GO sheets with silver particles (GO-Ag) against enveloped and non-enveloped viruses, feline coronavirus (FCoV) with an envelope and infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) without an envelope were chosen. The morphology and sizes of GO and GO-Ag were characterized by transmission, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. A virus inhibition assay was used to identify the antiviral activity of GO and GO-Ag. Go-Ag inhibited 25% of infection by FCoV and 23% by IBDV, whereas GO only inhibited 16% of infection by FCoV but showed no antiviral activity against the infection by IBDV. Further application of GO and GO-Ag can be considered for personal protection equipment to decrease the transmission of viruses.

Description: Water, Vol. 10, Pages 616: A Non-Equilibrium Sediment Transport Model for Dam Break Flow over Moveable Bed Based on Non-Uniform Rectangular Mesh Water doi: 10.3390/w10050616 Authors: Gangfeng Wu Zhehao Yang Kefeng Zhang Ping Dong Ying-Tien Lin The use of multiple-level non-uniform rectangular mesh in coupled flow and sediment transport modeling is preferred to achieve high accuracy in important region without increasing computational cost greatly. Here, a robust coupled hydrodynamic and non-equilibrium sediment transport model is developed on non-uniform rectangular mesh to simulate dam break flow over movable beds. The enhanced shallow water and sediment transport equations are adopted to consider the mass and momentum exchange between the flow phase and sediment phase. The flux at the interface is calculated by the positivity preserving central upwind scheme, which belongs to Godunov-type Riemann-problem-solver-free central schemes and is less expensive than other popular Riemann solvers while still capable of tracking wet/dry fronts accurately. The nonnegative water depth reconstruction method is used to achieve second-order accuracy in space. The model was first verified against two laboratory experiments of dam break flow over irregular fixed bed. Then the quantitative performance of the model was further investigated by comparing the computational results with measurement data of dam break flow over movable bed. The good agreements between the measurements and the numerical simulations are found for the flow depth, velocity and bed changes.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 87: Transcriptome Analysis of the Biosynthesis of Anthocyanins in Begonia semperflorens under Low-Temperature and High-Light Conditions Forests doi: 10.3390/f9020087 Authors: Yanpeng Dong Ying Qu Rui Qi Xue Bai Geng Tian Yang Wang Jiawan Wang Kaiming Zhang Anthocyanins are considered a stress indicator due to their involvement in the response to many stresses including high light (HL) and low temperature (LT). With the development of transcriptomics, it is necessary to find the different and common points in the mechanisms of LT-induced and HL-induced anthocyanin biosynthesis. In the present study, we determined the transcriptomes of Begonia semperflorens leaves under three different conditions (normal growing conditions (CK), HL, and LT). To validate the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), we selected four core genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis to perform real-time reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), and then determined anthocyanin content. In total, 94,880 unigenes with a mean length of 635 bp were assembled. The N50 values of the transcripts and unigenes were 2286 bp and 1064 bp, respectively. The functional annotations of the unigenes were analysed against five protein databases. DEGs related to anthocyanin biosynthesis, transportation, and regulation were identified. We also analysed the enrichment pathway, and the differences in mechanisms of anthocyanin induced under low-temperature and high-light conditions are discussed in this paper. This study is the first to examine broad-scale gene expression in Begonia semperflorens. By identifying DEGs regulated by both LT and HL conditions, we found that anthocyanin accumulation was employed as a common strategy by Begonia seedlings in resisting LT and HL stress. By identifying DEGs regulated differently by LT and HL conditions, we found that Begonia seedlings also had some different strategies for resisting LT and HL stresses: anthocyanins were biosynthesized under HL condition, while lignin, proanthocyanidins, and anthocyanins were biosynthesized under LT condition.