Melatonin, a pleiotropic signal molecule, has been shown to play important roles in the regulation of plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stresses. Since a few species have been investigated to unveil the effect of exogenous melatonin on salt stress, the underlying mechanism of melatonin-mediated salt stress tolerance in other plant species still remains largely unknown. In this study, the effects of melatonin on leaf photosynthesis and redox homeostasis in watermelon were examined under salt stress (300 mM NaCl) along with different doses of melatonin (50, 150, and 500 μM) pretreatment. NaCl stress inhibited photosynthesis and increased accumulation of reactive oxygen species and membrane damage in leaves of watermelon seedlings. However, pretreatment with melatonin on roots alleviated NaCl-induced decrease in photosynthetic rate and oxidative stress in a dose-dependent manner. The protection of photosynthesis by melatonin was closely associated with the inhibition of stomatal closure and improved light energy absorption and electron transport in photosystem II, while the reduction of oxidative stress by melatonin was attributed to the improved redox homeostasis coupled with the enhanced activities of antioxidant enzymes. This study unraveled crucial role of melatonin in salt stress mitigation and thus can be implicated in the management of salinity in watermelon cultivation.

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The calcium-dependent protein kinase (CDPK) is a ser/thr protein kinase that plays vital roles in plant growth, development, and responses to multiple stresses. Despite an important member of the stress responsive gene family, little is known about the evolutionary history and expression patterns of CDPK genes in melon. Herein, a total of 18 CDPK genes and 7 CDPK-related protein kinases (CRK) genes were identified in the melon genome via bioinformatic analysis, which were unevenly distributed across eleven chromosomes with an apparent exception for chromosome 3. Comparative syntenic analysis between Cucumis melo L. and Arabidopsis thaliana revealed that 13 CmCDPKs and 19 AtCPKs existed in 20 corresponding syntenic blocks. In addition, based on gene structure and phylogenetic analyses, all CmCDPKs were divided into four groups (CDPK I-IV) and CmCRKs clustered into one group (CRK I). Interestingly, group CDPK IV was clearly distinct from the other three CDPK groups, but clustered with CRK I on the phylogenetic tree, implying their origination from a common ancestor. Furthermore, CmCDPKand CmCRK genes were differentially expressed in response to various stimuli, such as biotic stress (Podosphaera xanthii), abiotic stress (salt and cold), and hormone (abscisic acid) treatment. To our knowledge, this is the first report on CDPK and CRK gene families in melon, which provides a basic foundation for functional characterizations of CmCDPK and CmCRK genes in the future.

Transcriptional regulation of cold-responsive genes is crucial for exogenous melatonin-mediated cold tolerance in plants. Nonetheless, how melatonin regulates cold-responsive genes is largely unknown. In this study, we found that exogenous melatonin improved cold tolerance in watermelon by regulating expression of microRNAs (miRNAs). We identified a set of miRNAs that were regulated by melatonin under unstressed or cold conditions. Importantly, mRNA-seq analysis revealed that melatonin-induced downregulation of some miRNAs, such as miR159-5p, miR858, miR8029-3p, and novel-m0048-3p correlated with the upregulation of target genes involved in signal transduction (CDPK, BHLH, WRKY, MYB, and DREB) and protection/detoxification (LEA and MDAR) under cold stress. These results suggest that miRNAs may be involved in melatonin-mediated cold tolerance in watermelon by negatively regulating the expression of target mRNAs.

(S)-3,5-Bistrifluoromethylphenyl ethanol((S)-BTPE) is a key pharmaceutical intermediate of the NK-1 receptor antagonist. The asymmetric bioreduction of 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl) acetophenone (BTAP) to (S)-BTPE using Rhodococcus erythropolis XS1012 has been established in a phosphate buffer system. To overcome the problem of unsatisfactory yields at high substrate concentration, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been introduced to the buffer system. After screening 13 kinds of choline chloride-based DESs, [choline chloride][urea] ([ChCl][U]) showed great influence on the cell activity and significantly increased the cell membrane permeability. Subsequently, some major parameters for this reaction were determined. A remarkable (S)-BTPE yield of 91.9% was gained at 150 mM substrate concentration under optimized reaction conditions with >99.9% product enantioselectivity. Compared to reduction in a buffer system, the developed [ChCl][U]-containing system increased the yield from 82.6% to 91.9%. It maintains a yield of 80.7% with the substrate concentration up to 300 mM, compared to only 63.0% in buffer system. This study demonstrated that [ChCl][U] is a feasible co-solvent to improve the bioreduction process.

Personalized recommendation has important implications in raising online shopping efficiency and increasing product sales. There has been wide interest in finding ways to provide more efficient personalized recommendations. Most existing studies focus on how to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the recommendation algorithms or are more concerned on ways to reduce perceived risks and thus increase consumer satisfaction. Unlike these studies, our study begins from the decision‐making process of consumers, using consumers' two‐stage decision‐making system and preference inconsistency theory as a basis, to reveal the mechanisms involved in consumers' acceptance of recommendations. This paper analyzes the effect of personalized recommendations from two angles, recommendation timing and product portfolio, tries to point out differences in consumer preferences between similar products and related products, and verifies that consumers demand diversity in the recommended content. The study analyzes differences in the acceptance of personalized recommendations between practical products and hedonic products and discovers that recommendations of hedonic products are more effective than that of practical products. Based on the research earlier, the study provides suggestions on how to better plan and operate a personalized recommendation system. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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In the industrial Internet of Things, water and electricity is the most important hidden project. Its requirements are very high, especially the intelligent control of water and electricity. Therefore, a design and application of system with dualcontrol of water and electricity is proposed and convolutional neural networks-based video recognition technology is used to identify the security issues that occur in the field. Some sensors are used to control the use of water and electricity, while others are used to collect scalar data which include user's data and video multimedia data in the wireless sensor network. The scalar data are used to update the user's database, and the video multimedia data are used to monitor and prevent anomalies from occurring in the field of dual-control of water and electricity. In order to solve the security problem of the user in wireless sensor network, this article proposes a radio frequency identification mutual security authentication protocol based on shared secret hash function. Finally, experiments show that the proposed secure authentication protocol can guarantee the secure transmission of data between the sensor node and the server, and the video recognition technology can recognize some abnormalities well.