CCN1 is a matricellular protein involved in normal vascular development and tissue repair. CCN1 exhibits cell- and context-dependent activities that are reflective of its tetramodular structure phylogenetically linked to four domains found in various matrix proteins. Here, we show that vitreal fluids from patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) were enriched with a two-module for...

This paper reports on part of a larger sociolinguistic study based on a written survey conducted on 116 Cantonese-Mandarin bilingual speakers in Guangzhou who are biliterates in Standard Written Chinese (SWC) and Vernacular Written Cantonese (VWC). This paper examines how VWC converges towards, or diverges from, the standard, SWC, across different social groups. A series of VWC variables at dif...

Drought alert systems for forest fire prevention often rely on vegetation water content (VWC) monitoring which is a key parameter in forest fire hazard. In southern France, VWC is up to now monitored through regular field surveys. Thanks to the theoretical sensitivity of shortwave infrared reflectance to VWC, MODIS satellite data are potentially able to monitor VWC depending on plant species VW...

Research has shown that remote sensing in both the optical and microwave domain has the capability of estimating vegetation water content (VWC). Though lower in spatial resolution than MODIS optical bands, AMSR-E microwave measurements are typically less affected by clouds, water vapor, aerosol or solar illumination, making them complementary to MODIS real time measurements over regions of clou...

Vegetation water content (VWC) is one of the most important parameters for the successful retrieval of soil moisture content from microwave data. Normalized Difference Infrared Index (NDII) is a widely-used index to remotely sense Equivalent Water Thickness (EWT) of leaves and canopies; however, the amount of water in the foliage is a small part of total VWC. Sites of corn (Zea mays), soybean (...

In the present study, we re-annotated von Willebrand factor (VWF), assigned its entire sequence to specific modules, and related these modules to structure using electron microscopy (EM). The D domains are assemblies of smaller modules visible as lobes in EM. Modules in the D-domain assemblies include von Willebrand D, 8-cysteine, trypsin inhibitor-like, E or fibronectin type 1-like domains, an...

Trunks of large trees play an important role in whole-plant water balance but technical difficulties have limited most hydraulic research to small stems, leaves, and roots. To investigate the dynamics of water-related processes in tree trunks, such as winter embolism refilling, xylem hydraulic vulnerability, and water storage, volumetric water content (VWC) in the main stem was monitored contin...

Estimation of vegetation water content (VWC) by optical remote sensing improves soil moisture retrievals from passive microwave radiometry. For a variety of vegetation types, the largest unknown for predicting VWC is stem water content, which is assumed to be allometrically related to the water content of the plant canopy. For maize and soybean, measured stem water contents were highly correlat...

Harmful cyanobacteria and their metabolites often contaminate drinking water resources, and effective control remains challenging. Here, we developed a physical algal pre-treatment method, the vertical weir curtain (VWC), to mitigate cyanobacteria and some of their metabolites (geosmin, 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB), and microcystins) in situ and evaluated its performance in a raw water reservoir ...

This work deals with the fabrication, prototyping, and experimental validation of a fiber optic thermo-hygrometer-based soil moisture sensor, useful for rainfall-induced landslide prevention applications. In particular, we recently proposed a new generation of fiber Bragg grating (FBGs)-based soil moisture sensors for irrigation purposes. This device was realized by integrating, inside a custom...