Abstract: As a key marketing tool, online sales promotion has been widely used by online retailers to increase sales of products and brands. Most previous researches on online sales promotion have ignored the effect of consumers’ psychological factors and the heterogeneity of product and consumers. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of psychological distance and involvement on consumers’ buying behavior in large online promotion activities. The research model was examined using empirical analysis of data obtained from consumer surveys after the Double 11 promotion. Our results indicate that temporal distance has positive impact on purchase decision of high involvement products, while having negative impact on purchase decision of low involvement products. Social distance has negative impact on consumers’ purchase decision. Temporal distance is positively associated with consumers’ purchase-decision involvement, and then purchase-decision involvement positively impacts consumers’ total consumption. Social distance has no impact on consumers’ purchase decision involvement. These findings not only advance the understanding of the role of psychological distance and involvement in online sales promotion but also offer implications regarding strategies that online retailers can employ to publish their promotions at different times and encourage consumers more to share promotional information among their friends.

Abstract SPLs are plant-specific transcription factors that play important regulatory roles in plant growth and development. Systematic analysis of the SPL family has been performed in numerous plants, such as Arabidopsis, rice, and Populus. However, no comparative analysis has been performed across different species to examine evolutionary features. In this study, we present a comparative analysis of SPLs in different species. The results showed that 84 SPLs of the four species can be divided into six groups according to phylogeny. We found that most of the SPL-containing regions in maize showed extensive conservation with duplicated regions of rice and sorghum. A gene duplication analysis in maize indicated that ZmSPLs showed a significant excess of segmental duplication. The Ka/Ks analysis indicated that 9 out of 18 duplicated pairs in maize experienced positive selection, while SPL gene pairs of rice and sorghum mainly evolved under purifying selection, suggesting novel evolutionary features for ZmSPLs. The 31 ZmSPLs were further analyzed by describing their gene structure, phylogenetic relationships, chromosomal location, and expression, Among the ZmSPLs, 13 were predicated to be targeted by miR156s and involved in drought stress response. These results provide the foundation for future functional analyses of ZmSPLs.

Abstract Background: Resveratrol was reported to trigger the apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes In adjuvant arthritis rats but the subcellular mechanism remains unclear. Since ER stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress were involved in the effects of resveratrol with imbalance of calcium bio-transmission, store operated calcium entry (SOCE), a novel intracellular calcium regulatory pathway, may also participate in this process. Results: In the present study, Resveratrol was found to suppress ORAI1 expression of a dose dependent manner while have no evident effects on STIM1 expressive level. Besides, resveratrol had no effects on ATP or TG induced calcium depletion but present partly dose-dependent suppression of SOCE. On the one hand, microinjection of ORAI1 overexpressed vector in sick toe partly counteracted the therapeutic effects of resveratrol on adjuvant arthritis and serum inflammatory cytokine including IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α. On the other hand, ORAI1 SiRNA injection provided slight relief to adjuvant arthritis in rats. In addition, ORAI1 overexpression partly diminished the alleviation of hemogram abnormality induced by adjuvant arthritis after resveratrol treatment while ORAI1 knockdown presented mild resveratrol-like effect on hemogram in rats model. Conclusion: These results indicated that resveratrol reduced store-operated Ca2+ entry and enhanced the apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in adjuvant arthritis rats model via targeting ORAI1-STIM1 complex, providing a theoretical basis for ORAI1 targeted therapy in future treatment with resveratrol on rheumatoid arthritis.

Lignin is a major cell wall component of vascular plants that provides mechanical strength and hydrophobicity to vascular vessels. However, the presence of lignin limits the effective use of crop straw in many agroindustrial processes. Here, we generated transgenic maize plants in which the expression of a lignin biosynthetic gene encoding CCoAOMT , a key enzyme involved in the lignin biosynthesis pathway was downregulated by RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi of CCoAOMT led to significantly downregulated expression of this gene in transgenic maize compared with WT plants. These transgenic plants exhibited a 22.4% decrease in Klason lignin content and a 23.3% increase in cellulose content compared with WT plants, which may reflect compensatory regulation of lignin and cellulose deposition. We also measured the lignin monomer composition of the RNAi plants by GC-MS and determined that transgenic plants had a 57.08% higher S/G ratio than WT plants. In addition, histological staining of lignin with Wiesner reagent produced slightly more coloration in the xylem and sclerenchyma than WT plants. These results provide a foundation for breeding maize with low-lignin content and reveal novel insights about lignin regulation via genetic manipulation of CCoAOMT expression.

The effects of three nitrate levels - 14(CK), 56(T-1), and 140 mmol L-1 (T-2) - on growth and photosynthetic capacity of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv. Xintaimici) seedlings grown in hydroponic culture were investigated. The results showed that at 12 d after treatment plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, and leaf number of cucumber seedlings were stimulated by 56 mmol L-1 nitrate, whereas were inhibited significantly by 140 mmol L-1 nitrate compared with CK. Short-term stimulation in photosynthetic rate occurred under T-1 treatment, and then recovered to the level of CK. Photosynthetic rate of T-2 seedlings significantly decreased over treatment course with respect to CK. Photosynthetic pigment content of T-1 and T-2 increased during the first 2 d, and gradually recovered to the level of CK thereafter. Chlorophyll a/b and carotenoids/chlorophyll of T-1 had no significant difference from CK during treatment period. During the first 4 d, there was no significant difference in chlorophyll a/b and carotenoids/chlorophyll between T-2 and CK. After 4 d, chlorophyll a/b of T-2 increased gradually, whereas carotenoids/chlorophyll decreased. Actual PSII efficiency (ΦPSII) and photochemical quenching (qP) of T-1 had no significant difference from CK, and non-photochemical quenching (qN) was a little higher than CK after 2 d. During the first 2 d, there was little difference in ΦPSII and qP between T-2 and CK. After 2 d, both ΦPSII and qP of T-2 decreased to a great extend. A significant increase in qN of T-2 occurred over treatment course. With respect to CK, Hill reaction activity of T-1 slightly decreased, and T-2 treatment resulted in a significant decrease of Hill reaction activity. This evidence indicates that high-level nitrate stress may reduce photosynthesis through its effects not only on stomatal conductance but on the photosynthetic apparatus.