Biotic and abiotic factors influence the formation of fungal-algal pairings in lichen symbiosis. It is poorly known which factors determine the specific associations, especially when distantly related fungi are considered. Here, we investigated the effect of different drivers on the association patterns of taxonomically diverse lichenized fungi and their trebouxioid symbiotic partners. In 200 samples collected across three biomes, we found 41 species of lichenized fungi, associating with 16 species of trebouxioid green algae, of which 62% were previously unreported. Species identity of the fungal and algal partner had the greatest effect on the outcome of the symbiosis compared with abiotic factors such as climatic variables and geographic distance. Partner specificity was found to be higher in tropical regions than in temperate and arctic regions. Co-phylogenetic analyses indicated congruent phylogenies of trebouxioid algae and associated fungi, rejecting their random associations. Evolutionary mechanisms contributing most to the observed phylogenetic patterns were ‘loss’ and ‘failure to diverge’ of the algal partners. This study broadens our knowledge of fungi-algae symbiotic patterns in view of Trebouxia-associated fungi.

Oncogenic fusion proteins, arising from chromosomal rearrangements, have emerged as prominent drivers of tumorigenesis and crucial therapeutic targets in cancer research. In recent years, the potential of small molecular inhibitors in selectively targeting fusion proteins has exhibited significant prospects, offering a novel approach to combat malignancies harboring these aberrant molecular entities. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of small molecular inhibitors as therapeutic agents for oncogenic fusion proteins. We discuss the rationale for targeting fusion proteins, elucidate the mechanism of action of inhibitors, assess the challenges associated with their utilization, and provide a summary of the clinical progress achieved thus far. The objective is to provide the medicinal community with current and pertinent information and to expedite the drug discovery programs in this area.

Controlling the selectivity of detonation initiation reaction of explosive is a Holy Grail, and it seems to be an “idiot's daydream”, by strengthening external electric field, to reduce the explosive sensitivity. The effects of external electric fields on the initiation reactions in NH2NO2∙∙∙NH3, a model system of the nitroamine explosive with alkaline additive, were investigated at the MP2/6-311++G(2d,p) and CCSD/6-311++G(2d,p) level. The concerted effect in the intermolecular hydrogen exchange is characterized by an index of the imaginary vibrations. Due to the weakened concerted effects by the electric field along the −x-direction opposite to the “reaction axis”, the dominant reaction changes from the hydrogen exchange to 1,3-intramolecular hydrogen transference with the increase of the field strengths. Furthermore, the stronger the field strengths, the higher the barrier heights become, indicating the lower sensitivities. Therefore, by strengthening the field strength and adjusting the orientation between the field and “reaction axis”, not only can the reaction selectivity be controlled, but also the sensitivity can be reduced, in particular under a super-strong field. Thus, a traditional concept, which the explosive is dangerous under the super-strong external electric field, is broken theoretically. Compared to the neutral medium, the low sensitivity of the explosive with alkaline can be achieved under the stronger field. Employing atoms in molecules, reduced density gradient and surface electrostatic potentials, the origin of the reaction selectivity and sensitivity change is revealed. This work provides a new idea to the technical improvement for adding the external electric field into the explosive system.

Cuticular waxes are a mixture of hydrophobic very-long-chain fatty acids and their derivatives accumulated in the plant cuticle. Most studies define the role of cuticular wax largely based on reducing non-stomatal water loss. The present study investigated the role of cuticular wax in reducing both low-temperature and dehydration stress in plants using Arabidopsis thaliana mutants and transgenic genotypes altered in the formation of cuticular wax. cer3-6, a known Arabidopsis wax-deficient mutant (with distinct reduction in aldehydes, n-alkanes, secondary n-alcohols, and ketones compared to wild type (WT)), was most sensitive to water loss; while dewax, a known wax overproducer (greater alkanes and ketones compared to WT), was more resistant to dehydration compared to WT. Furthermore, cold-acclimated cer3-6 froze at warmer temperatures, while cold-acclimated dewax displayed freezing exotherms at colder temperatures compared to WT. GC-MS analysis identified a characteristic decrease in the accumulation of certain waxes (e.g. alkanes, alcohols) in Arabidopsis cuticles under cold acclimation, which was additionally reduced in cer3-6. Conversely, the dewax mutant showed a greater ability to accumulate waxes under cold acclimation. FTIR spectroscopy also supported observations in cuticular wax deposition under cold acclimation. Our data indicate cuticular alkane waxes along with alcohols and fatty acids can facilitate avoidance of both ice formation and leaf water loss under dehydration stress, and are promising genetic targets of interest.

The development of novel porous composite materials for organic dye degradation and removal has received increasing attention due to water contamination problem. In this paper, hydrothermal synthesized nano zeolite A have been encapsulated with porous periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) through a simple modified StÖber method an organosilane-directed growth-induced etching strategy, the obtained yolk-shell structured sample was further functionalized by the impregnation of copper, realizing the composite material with hierarchical porous and catalytic properties. The morphology, porosity and metal content of the zeolite Cu/A and Cu/A@Et-PMO were fully characterized. As compared to the parent material, the composite Cu/A@Et-PMO have an efficient adsorption and catalytic degradation performance on methylene blue (MB), the removal efficiency reached as high as 95% of 60 mg/L MB with 10min. These novel structured porous composites may have great potential for adsorption and degradation application including waste effluents.

Bats are of significant interest as reservoirs for various zoonotic viruses with high diversity. During the past two decades, many herpesviruses have been identified in various bats worldwide by genetic approaches, whereas there have been few reports on the isolation of infectious herpesviruses. Herein, we report the prevalence of herpesvirus infection of bats captured in Zambia and genetic characterization of novel gammaherpesviruses isolated from Macronycteris vittatus bats. By our PCR screening, herpesvirus genomes were detected in 29.2% (7/24) of Rousettus aegyptiacus, 78.1% (82/105) of Macronycteris vittatus, and 100% (1/1) of Hipposideros caffer bats in Zambia. Phylogenetic analyses of the detected herpesvirus genomes revealed that the Zambian bat herpesviruses were divided into seven betaherpesvirus groups and five gammaherpesvirus groups. Two infectious strains of a novel gammaherpesvirus, tentatively named Macronycteris gammaherpesvirus 1 (MaGHV1), were successfully isolated from Macronycteris vittatus bats, and their complete genomes were sequenced. The genome of MaGHV1 encoded 79 open reading frames, and phylogenic analyses of the DNA polymerase and glycoprotein B demonstrated that MaGHV1 formed an independent lineage sharing a common origin with other bat-derived gammaherpesviruses. Our findings provide new information regarding the genetic diversity of herpesviruses maintained in African bats.

Polysaccharide from Ficus carica L. (FCP) exert multiple biological activities, as a biological macromolecule, the available knowledge about the specific structures and mechanisms of biological activity of purified 'Brunswick' fig polysaccharide is currently limited. In the present study, by chemical purification and characteristics identified via specific instruments, and then the impact of FCP on the immunomodulation activity in vitro and in vivo was examined. Structural char-acteristics showed that the molecular weight of the FCP was determined to be 127.5 kDa, the primary monosaccharides present in the FCP were galacturonic acid (GalA), arabinose (Ara), galactose (Gal), rhamnose (Rha), glucose (Glc), and xylose (Xyl) at a ratio of 0.321:0.287:0.269:0.091:0.013:0.011. Based on the investigation of in vitro immunomodulatory ac-tivity, FCP was found to stimulate the production of NO, TNF-α, and IL-6 and increased the pi-nocytic activity of macrophages. Further analysis revealed that FCP activated macrophages by interacting with toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Moreover, the in vivo test results indicate that FCP showed significant increase serum pro-inflammatory factors in immunosuppressed mice. Overall, this study suggests that FCP has the potential to be utilized as a novel immunomodulator in the pharmaceutical and functional food industries.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive memory loss and a decline in activities of daily life. Ventricular enlargement has been associated with worse performance on global cognitive tests and AD. Our previous studies demonstrated that brain sulfatides, myelin-enriched lipids, are dramatically reduced in subjects at the earliest clinically recognizable AD stages via an apolipoprotein E (APOE)-dependent and isoform-specific process. Herein, we provided pre-clinical evidence that sulfatide deficiency is causally associated with brain ventricular enlargement. Specifically, taking advantage of genetic mouse models of global and adult-onset sulfatide deficiency, we demonstrated that sulfatide losses cause ventricular enlargement without significantly affecting hippocampal or whole brain volumes using histological and magnetic resonance imaging approaches. Mild decreases in sulfatide content and mild increases in ventricular areas were also observed in human APOE4 compared to APOE2 knock-in mice. Finally, we provided Western blot and immunofluorescence evidence that aquaporin-4, the most prevalent aquaporin channel in the central nervous system (CNS) that provides fast water transportation and regulates cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, is significantly increased under sulfatide-deficient conditions, while other major brain aquaporins (e.g., aquaporin-1) are not altered. In short, we unraveled a novel molecular mechanism that may contribute to ventricular enlargement in AD.

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been widely used in various medical imaging tasks. However, due to the intrinsic locality of convolution operation, CNNs generally cannot model long-range dependencies well, which are important for accurately identifying breast cancer from unregistered multi-view mammograms. This motivates us to leverage the architecture of Vision Transformers to capture long-range relationships of multiple mammograms from the same patient. For this purpose, we employ local Transformer blocks to separately learn patch relationships within a specific view (CC/MLO) of one side (right/left) of mammogram. The outputs from different views and sides are concatenated and fed into global Transformer blocks, to jointly learn patch relationships between two different views of the left and right breasts. To evaluate the proposed model, we retrospectively assembled a dataset involving 949 sets of CC and MLO view mammograms, which include 470 malignant cases and 479 normal or benign cases. We trained and evaluated the model using a five-fold cross-validation method. Without any arduous preprocessing steps (e.g., optimal window cropping, chest wall or pectoral muscle removal, two-view image registration, etc.), our two-view Transformer-based model achieves lesion classification accuracy of 77.0% and area under ROC curve (AUC = 0.814), outperforming state-of-the-art multi-view CNNs by 3.1% and 3%, respectively. Meanwhile, the new two-view model improves mammographic case classification accuracies of two single-view models by 7.4% (CC) and 4.5% (MLO), respectively. The promising results unveil the great potential of using Transformers to develop high-performing computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) schemes of mammography.

Resistive patch array incorporating with metallic backplane provided an effective way to the achievement of broadband metamaterial absorbers(MAs). When loading metallic metamaterial to resistive MA, the outstanding construction helps realize more flexible and diversified forms of broadband absorption. In this paper, we attempted to load metallic resonators(MRs) to resistive MA in the three-dimensional construction, which benefits further enhancement of lower-frequency absorption. Simulation showed that the partial absorption band was separated to lower frequency, while the rest of broadband absorption was unaffected. Meanwhile, after combining multi-unit of the proposed MAs, the stair-stepping broadband absorption was also achieved. At last, three samples were fabricated. The agreements between simulations and experimental results demonstrated that resistive MA loaded with MRs provided an effective way for further enhancement of lower-frequency absorption with almost no change of the absorbing structure and areal density. Thus, it is worthy to expect a wide range of applications to emerge inspired from the proposed attempt.

The exceptional performance of graphene has driven the advancement of its preparation technique and application. Laser-induced graphene (LIG), as a novel graphene preparation technique, has been applied in various fields. Graphene periodic structures created by LIG technique exhibit superhydrophobic characteristics and can be used for deicing and anti-icing applications, which are significantly influenced by the laser parameters. The laser surface treatment process was simulated by a finite element software analysis (COMSOL Multiphysics) to optimize the scanning parameter range, and the linear array surface structure were subsequently fabricated by the LIG technique. The generation of graphene was confirmed by Raman spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The periodic linear array structure were observed by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal laser imaging (CLSM). In addition, CLSM testings, contact angle measurements, and delayed icing experiments were systematically performed to investigate the effect of scanning speed on surface hydrophobicity. The results show that the high quality and uniform graphene can be achieved using the laser scanning speed of 125 mm/s. The periodic linear array structures can obviously increase the contact angle and suppress delayed icing. Furthermore, these structures have the enhanced ability of the electric heating deicing, which can reach 100°C and 240°C within 15 s and within 60 s under the DC voltage power supply ranging from 3 to 7 V, respectively. These results indicate that the LIG technique can be developed to provide an efficient, economical, and convenient approach for preparing graphene and the hydrophobic surface array structure based on LIG has considerable potential for deicing and anti-icing applications.

Significant changes to the new National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) and the implementation of the “Double First-Class” (DFC) initiative in China are coincidentally in the national spotlight and fall within the same policy window. However, few studies have investigated the effects of the new NCEE on the quality of students in DFC universities. By leveraging the 2018-2022 college admission data from Shandong Province, these effects are examined via the interrupted time-series technique. Weighted rankings for liberal arts and science disciplines and the admission ranking coefficient are adopted to ensure comparability before and after the reform. The findings reveal that after the reform, the quality of students in both world-class universities and first-class discipline universities improved, with greater improvements seen in world-class universities. Focusing on urban differences, the quality of students in DFC universities located in second-tier cities is found to have experienced a higher increase as compared with students in the first-tier and new first-tier cities. In addition, the reform has had different impacts on the quality of students in different majors. Furthermore, when selecting postsecondary institutions, high-scoring students prioritize the quality of universities and majors over urban factors. Finally, the implications of the new NCEE in relation to a sustainable development of DFC universities for research, policy, and practice are further discussed.

Soft materials bearing rigid, lightweight, and vibration-dampening properties offer distinct advantages over traditional wooden and metal-based fillings for spent fuel transport casks, due to their low density, tunable structure, excellent mechanical properties, and ease of processing. In this study, a novel type of rigid polyurethane foams is prepared using a conventional polycondensation reaction between isocyanate and hydroxy groups. Moreover, the density and size of the pore in these foams are precisely controlled through simultaneous gas generation. The as-prepared polyurethane exhibits high thermal stability exceeding 185 °C. Lifetime predictions based on thermal testing indicate that these polyurethane foams could last up to over 60 years, which is double lifetime of conventional materials of about 30 years. Due to their occlusive structure, the mechanical properties of these polymeric materials meet the design standards for spent fuel transport casks, with maximum compression and tensile stresses of 6.89 and 1.37 MPa, respectively, at a testing temperature of -40 °C. In addition, these polymers exhibit effective flame retardancy; combustion ceased within 2 s after removal of the ignition source. All in all, this study provides a simple strategy for preparing rigid polymeric foams, presenting them as promising prospects for application in spent fuel transport casks.

Food-grinding occurs in rodents and is influenced by multiple-factors. However, the factors affecting this behavior remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of food restriction on food grinding by Brandt’s voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii), as well as the potential role of the gut microbiota in this process, through a comparison of the variations between voles with different food supplies. Food restriction reduced the relative amount of ground food to a greater extent than it lowered the relative food consumption, and altered the abundance of Staphylococcus, Aerococcus, Jeotgalicoccus, and Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1. Strong correlations between the ground-to-consumed food ratio and the abundance of fecal microbiota were found for Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1 and Aerococcus. The content of fecal acetate and propionate for the 7.5 g-food supply group was lower than that for the 15 g-food supply group. Further, the relative amount of ground food and ground-to-consumed food ratio were both positively correlated with the acetate content. Our study indicated that food restriction can effectively inhibit food grinding. Further, Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1 abundance, Aerococcus abundance, and acetate content were strongly related to food grinding. Variations in gut microbial abundance and metabolite short-chain fatty acid content induced by food restriction likely promote the inhibition of food grinding. These results could potentially provide guidance for reducing food waste during laboratory rodent maintenance.

A superior variant of dried jujube in China is ‘Huizao’ (HZ) jujube. Nonetheless, detailed evaluations of the texture quality of HZ fruits have been the subject of few studies. Texture is a significant indicator of the sensory and processed quality of a fruit. Here, we differentiate and characterize the texture quality of HZ fruits from the four primary producing regions in southern Xinjiang, as well as develop a system for assessing the texture quality of HZ fruits. Furthermore, five texture indices of HZ fruits from 109 plantations were exhaustively evaluated utilizing principal component analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical clustering analysis. Consequently, by the 10th, 30th, 70th, and 90th percentiles, each index was classified into five grades—lower, medium, high, and higher. Correlation investigation indicated strong relationships between the springiness, chewiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and hardness of HZ fruits. Springiness, hardness, and adhesiveness are essential indicators that influence the texture of HZ fruits. We used clustering analysis to separate the six texture indices into three major categories (hard factor, stick-elastic factor, and adhesive factor), with indices representing hardness, springiness, and adhesiveness, respectively. Furthermore, according to the factor molecules, the texture quality of HZ fruits in the four production areas was evaluated as Bazhou (1.24) > Hotan (0.773) > Kashi (-0.577) > Aksu (-0.852). RDA analysis of six texture quality parameters and 24 climate conditions identified higher mean temperature (TEM) and lower relative humidity (RHU) as the primary factors contributing to the improved texture quality of HZ fruits in Xinjiang. This study identified the texture quality characteristics of HZ fruits in four major producing areas of Southern Xinjiang, and it offered a theoretical foundation for optimizing the dominant producing areas and regional production of HZ varieties in Xinjiang.

A friction loss model for brake testing platform is constructed to revise the braking force test results, which can largely improve the accuracy of automotive brake performance testing. Specifically, the influence of tire pressure, vehicle axle load, placement angle and vehicle speed on the friction loss is tested and analyzed on a wheelbase adjustable automotive anti-force brake testing platform. The friction loss model for the platform is constructed based on the defined relative slip and placement angle, which is validated through actual tests on four types of vehicles. The results showed that the maximum relative error between the values of the model calculated simulation and the measured was 2.2%, indicating the friction loss model is valid and can provide a basis for revising the braking force of automotive brake. Meanwhile, the maximum braking force increases from 3982 N to 4772 N, increased by 19.8%, when the placement angle increased from 36.9° to 47.0°. Accordingly, in order to improve the accuracy of detection results of the automotive anti-force rolling brake testing platform, the friction loss caused by the change in the placement angle should be revised, and then braking rate of the vehicle should be judged according to GB 7258-2017 and GB 38900-2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic situation has created even more difficulties in the quick identification and screening of the COVID-19 patients for the medical specialists. Therefore, a significant study is necessary for detecting COVID-19 cases using an automated diagnosis method, which can aid in controlling the spreading of the virus. In this paper, the study suggests a Deep Convolutional Neural Network-based multi-classification approach (COV-MCNet) using eight different pre-trained architectures such as VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50V2, DenseNet201, InceptionV3, MobileNet, InceptionResNetV2, Xception which are trained and tested on the X-ray images of COVID-19, Normal, Viral Pneumonia, and Bacterial Pneumonia. The results from 3-class (Normal vs. COVID-19 vs. Viral Pneumonia) showed that only the ResNet50V2 model provides the highest classification performance (accuracy: 95.83%, precision: 96.12%, recall: 96.11%, F1-score: 96.11%, specificity: 97.84%) compared to rest of the models. The results from 4-class (Normal vs. COVID-19 vs. Viral Pneumonia vs. Bacterial Pneumonia) demonstrated that the pre-trained model DenseNet201 provides the highest classification performance (accuracy: 92.54%, precision: 93.05%, recall: 92.81%, F1-score: 92.83%, specificity: 97.47%). Notably, the ResNet50V2 (3-class) and DenseNet201 (4-class) models in the proposed COV-MCNet framework showed higher accuracy compared to the rest six models. This indicates that the designed system can produce promising results to detect the COVID-19 cases on the availability of more data. The proposed multi-classification network (COV-MCNet) significantly speeds up the existing radiology-based method, which will be helpful to the medical community and clinical specialists for early diagnosis of the COVID-19 cases during this pandemic.

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a devastating fungal pathogen that causes severe crop losses worldwide. It is of vital importance to understand its pathogenic mechanism for disease control. Through a forward genetic screen combined with next-generation sequencing, a putative protein kinase, SsCak1, was found to be involved in growth and pathogenicity of S. sclerotiorum. Knockout and complementation experiments confirmed that deletions in SsCAK1 caused defects in mycelium and sclerotia development, as well as appressoria formation and host penetration, leading to complete loss of virulence. These findings suggest that SsCak1 is essential for growth, development and pathogenicity of S. sclerotiorum. Therefore, SsCak1 could serve as a potential target for the control of S. sclerotiorum infection through host-induced gene silencing (HIGS), which could increase crop resistance to the pathogen.

This study evaluates the R3THA™ technology-supported assessment protocol for home-based rehabilitation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). It focuses on the reliability and validity of R3THA™ in assessing hand and arm function, comparing kinematic assessments with standard clinical assessments. Conducted during a 4-week summer camp, the study involved children with CP aged 3-18, assessing their functional and impairment levels. The findings suggest that R3THA™ is more reliable for children aged 8 and older, indicating that age significantly influences the protocol's effectiveness. Results also showed that R3THA-AP's kinematic measurements of hand and wrist movements were positively correlated with the Box and Blocks Test Index (BBTI), reflecting hand function and dexterity. Additionally, R3THA-AP's accuracy metrics for hand and wrist activities aligned with the Melbourne Assessment 2's Range of Motion (MA2-ROM) scores, suggesting a meaningful relationship between R3THA-AP data and clinical assessments of motor skills. However, no significant correlations were observed between R3THA-AP and MA2's accuracy and dexterity measures, indicating areas for further research. These findings validate R3THA-AP's utility in assessing motor abilities in CP, supporting its integration into clinical practice.

This study investigates the expression and prognostic value of TRIM6 in gliomas, the most prevalent primary brain and spinal cord tumors. Our results show that TRIM6 is predominantly overexpressed in glioma tissues and is associated with reduced overall survival, disease-specific survival, and progression-free interval. Furthermore, TRIM6 expression is correlated with WHO grade and primary treatment outcomes. Functional analysis indicates that interactions between cytokines and their receptors play a critical role in the prognosis of glioma patients. A protein-protein interaction network reveals 10 hub genes closely linked to cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. In vitro experiments demonstrate that silencing TRIM6 impairs the proliferation, invasion, and migration of glioma cells, while overexpressing TRIM6 enhances these abilities. Additionally, TRIM6 expression is positively associated with the abundance of innate immune cells and negatively associated with the abundance of adaptive immune cells. In summary, TRIM6 is significantly upregulated in gliomas and linked to poor prognosis, making it a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker. TRIM6 plays a crucial role in promoting cell viability, clonogenic potential, migration, and invasion in glioma cells. It may regulate glioma progression by modulating cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, leading to an inflammatory response and an imbalance in immunomodulation, thereby representing a potential therapeutic target.

Z-ligustilide is a main active ingredient in the volatile oil of Angelica sinensis, a traditional Chinese medicine. Cisplatin is a commonly used chemotherapy drug for the treatment of lung cancer. Efficacy is often limited by the development of drug resistance after long-term treatment. Here, we investigated the effect of the combination of Z-ligustilide and cisplatin (Z-ligustilide+cisplatin) on resistance of cisplatin-resistant lung cancer cells and its action mechanism. Cell viability was analyzed by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. Cell cycle and cell apoptosis were examined by flow cytometry assay. mRNA and protein levels of factors related to cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by real-time PCR and western blot. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis and RNA sequencing in A549, A549/DDP and A549/DDP cells treated with the Z-ligustilide+cisplatin were performed. The expression of PLPP1 was analyzed by the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The correlation between PLPP1 and prognosis was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and Kaplan-Meier (KM) plotter analysis. We found that Z-ligustilide+cisplatin could decrease the cell viability of cisplatin-resistant lung cancer cells. Z-ligustilide+cisplatin induced cell cycle arrest, and promoted cell apoptosis of cisplatin-resistant lung cancer cells. Metabolomics combined with transcriptomics revealed that Z-ligustilide+cisplatin inhibited phospholipid synthesis by upregulating the expression of PLPP1. Furthermore, PLPP1 expression was positively correlated with good prognosis. Knockdown of PLPP1 abolished the effects of Z-ligustilide+cisplatin on cell cycle and apoptosis. Z-ligustilide+cisplatin inhibited the activation of AKT by reducing the levels of PIP3 levels. Z-ligustilide+cisplatin induced cell cycle arrest and promoted cell apoptosis of cisplatin-resistant lung cancer cells by inhibiting PLPP1-mediated phospholipid synthesis.

An oceanic radar altimeter such as TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) is typically for observing elevation changes over the open oceans or large inland lakes/rivers, with limited applications over solid earth due to its large footprint and susceptibility to waveform contamination and slope effect. Here we demonstrate that it is possible to construct a long-term time series of glacier elevation change from T/P-series radar altimeters over two flat surfaces near a glacier terminus and an icefield (Sites A and B, with slopes of 2° and 0.8°) in Mt. Tanggula, Tibet, at elevations over 5400 m. We retracked radar waveforms using the subwaveform threshold algorithm, selected quality altimeter data (1/4 of the original) with nearly the same slope and adjusted the original elevations by fitting with a time-varying, 2nd order surface. The glacier elevation changes at the two sites from T/P (1993–2002) show seasonal elevation oscillations with linear rates at about −3 m/year and abnormal seasonal changes around the 1997–98 El Niño. Site A is over a deep valley in southern Tanggula. Its elevation dropped about 30 m over 1993–2002 (from T/P) and the glacier almost disappeared by 2016 (from altimeters and satellite images). Despite the sporadic Jason-2 and Jason-3 altimeter data, we also derived long-term rates of glacier elevation change over 1993–2017. Landsat-derived glacier area and elevation changes near the two sites confirm the rapid glacier thinning from the altimeters. The glacier meltwater near Site A supplied increasing source water to Chibuzhang Co west of Mt. Tanggula, contributing partially to its accelerated rising lake level. The glacier thinning at Site B (icefield) was correlated with the increased discharge of the Tuotuo River in eastern Mt. Tanggula, a source region of the Yangtze River. The successful detection of glacier thinning at the two sites shows that T/P-series altimeters can serve as a virtual station at a flat glacier spot to monitor long-term glacier elevation changes in connection to climate change. This virtual station concept is particularly useful for inaccessible glaciers, but its implementation faces two challenging issues: increasing the volume of quality altimeter data and improving the ranging accuracy over a targeted mountain glacier spot.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ship target detection has been extensively researched. However, most methods use the same dataset division for both training and validation. In practical applications, it is often necessary to quickly adapt to new loads, new modes, and new data to detect targets effectively. This presents a cross-domain detection problem that requires further study. This paper proposes a method for detecting SAR ships in complex backgrounds using fusion tensor and cross-domain adversarial learning. The method is designed to address the cross-domain detection problem of SAR ships with large differences between the training and test sets. Specifically, it can be used for the cross-domain detection task from the fully-polarised medium-resolution ship dataset (source domain) to the high-resolution single-polarised dataset (target domain). This method proposes a Channel Fusion Module (CFM) based on the YOLOV5s model. The CFM utilises the correlation between polarised channel images during training to enrich the feature information of single-polarised images extracted by the model during inference. The article proposes a module called Cross-Domain Adversarial Learning Module (CALM) to reduce overfitting and achieve adaptation between domains. Additionally, the paper introduces the Anti-Interference Head (AIH) which decouples the detection head to reduce the conflict of classification and localization problems. This improves the anti-interference and generalization ability in complex backgrounds. This paper conducts cross-domain experiments using the constructed medium-resolution SAR full polarization dataset (SFPD) as the source domain and the high-resolution single-polarised ship detection dataset (HRSID) as the target domain. Compared to the best-performing YOLOV8s model among typical mainstream models, this model improves Precision by 4.9%, Recall by 3.3%, AP by 2.4%, and F1 by 3.9%. This verifies the effectiveness of the method and provides a useful reference for improving cross-domain learning and model generalization capability in the field of target detection.

Pulmonary sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous interstitial lung disease (ILD) with a variable presentation and prognosis. Early accurate detection of pulmonary sarcoidosis may prevent progression to pulmonary fibrosis, a serious and potentially life-threatening form of the disease. However, the lack of a gold-standard diagnostic test and specific radiographic findings pose challenges in diagnosing pulmonary sarcoidosis. Chest computed tomography (CT) imaging is commonly used but requires expert, chest-trained radiologists to differentiate pulmonary sarcoidosis from lung malignancies, infections, and other ILDs. In this work, we developed a multichannel, CT and radiomics-guided ensemble network (RadCT-CNNViT) with visual explainability for pulmonary sarcoidosis vs. lung cancer (LCa) classification using chest CT images. We leverage CT and hand-crafted radiomics features as input channels, and a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) and vision transformer (ViT) ensemble network for feature extraction and fusion before a classification head. The 3D CNN sub-network captures localized spatial information of lesions, while the ViT sub-network captures long-range, global dependencies between features. Through multichannel input and feature fusion, our model achieved the highest performance with accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and combined AUC of 0.93±0.04, 0.94±0.04, 0.93±0.08 and 0.97 respectively in a 5-fold cross-validation study with pulmonary sarcoidosis (n=126) and LCa (n=93) cases. The model offers promising potential for improving the diagnosis of pulmonary sarcoidosis. A detailed ablation study showing the impact of CNN+ViT compared to CNN or ViT alone, and CT+radiomics input, compared to CT or radiomics alone, is also presented in this work.

Background: The proportion of dietary protein may play a key role in the development of obesity in children and adolescents. Methods: Cross-sectional data of 4,336 children and adolescents from the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) during 2011 to March 2020 were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals, and restriction cubic spline was uesd to explore nonlinear relationships of dietary protein energy supply ratio and obesity in children and adolescents. Results:In the adjusted logistic regression model, for every 1% increase in dietary protein energy ratio in children and adolescents, the increased risk of obesity was 4% (OR=1.04,95%CI:1.01-1.08). The restrictive cubic spline showed a nonlinear relationship between dietary protein energy ratio and obesity in children aged 6-11 years (P <0.05). The dietary protein energy supply ratio was included in the logistic regression model after converting to quartiles into categorical variables. The adjusted OR of children aged 6-11 years was 2.08 (95%CI:1.34, 3.23,P <0.01) for the highest quartile of dietary protein energy supply ratio compared with the lowest quartile. Conclusion: In American children, dietary protein energy supply ratios was positively correlated with obesity, independent of individual characteristics and energy.

Vine growth habit (VGH) is a notable property of wild soybean plants that also holds a high degree of importance in the context of domestication as it can preclude the use of these wild cultivars for the breeding and improvement of domesticated soybean. Here, a bulked segregant analysis (BSA) approach was employed to study the genetic etiology of VGH in soybean plants by integrating linkage mapping and population sequencing approaches. To develop a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, the cultivated Zhongdou41 (ZD41) soybean cultivar was bred with ZYD02787, a wild soybean accession. The VGH status of each line in the resultant population was assessed, ultimately leading to the identification of 6 and 9 QTLs from the BSA sequencing of the F4 population and F6- F8 population sequence mapping, respectively. One QTL shared across these analyzed generations was detected on chromosome 19. Three other QTLs detected by BSA-seq were validated and localized to 90.93 kb, 2.9 Mb, and 602.08 kb regions of chromosomes 6 and 13, respectively harboring 14, 53, and 4 genes. Four consistent VGH-related QTLs located on chromosomes 10, 13, and 19 were detected by both analytical approaches in a minimum of two environments, while an additional five loci on chromosomes 2, 10, and 18 were detected in at least two environments only via ICIM mapping. Of the detected loci, five had been reported previously whereas six represent novel QTLs. Together, these data offer new insight into the genetic basis for VGH in soybean plates, providing a rational basis to inform the use of wild accessions in future breeding efforts.

Early weaning of piglets caused excessive concentration of free radicals, which would oxidize and damage the intestinal tract of piglets, resulting in dyspepsia, low growth, diarrhea, microbiota disorders and intestinal infections. This research studied on effect of different levels of taurine in diets on intestinal oxidative damage in early weaned piglets. A total of 48 weaned piglets (6.71 ± 0.73 kg) of 28-day-old crossbred "Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire" were assigned to 4 groups with 12 replicates per group and 1 pig per replicate: piglets were fed a basal diet with 0.0% (CON), 0.2% taurine (L-Tau), 0.3% taurine (M-Tau), or 0.4% taurine (H-Tau). The animal experiment lasted for 30 days. With the increase of dietary taurine dosage, the activity of antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase（SOD）,glutathione peroxidase（GPX）,catalase（CAT） and peroxidase（POD） were up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), the mRNA abundance of antioxidant enzymes including SOD1, SOD2, GPX1 and heme oxygenase-1（HO-1）were up-regulated (P &lt; 0.05), glutathione (GSH) concentrations was up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05) , nitric oxide (NO), malondialdehyde (MDA) and oxidized glutathione (GSSG) concentrations were down-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05);The villus height (VH) and villus height/ crypt depth (VH/CD) of jejunum and ileum were increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); The expression of tight junction proteins including zonula occludens protein 1(ZO-1), occludin (OCLN) and closure protein 1(CLDN-1) in the jejunum mucosa were up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), the mRNA abundance of ZO-1, OCLN and CLDN-1 were up-regulated (P &lt; 0.05),and the D-lactose (D-LA) content in blood was down-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); the colonization abundance of Firmicutes was increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), while Proteobacteria and Spirochaetota was decreased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); The diarrhea index decreased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), while the feed conversion rate increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05). Collectively, supplementation of 0.3% and 0.4% taurine in feed can significantly alleviate intestinal oxidative damage by enhancing antioxidant capacity of piglets, and improve feed utilization of piglets after repairing intestinal damage.

Appetitive traits have been associated with eating behaviors and weight in youth. However, the relationships among adults have received less attention. In this study, we measured appetitive traits among 520 female college students from a University in eastern Chinese using the Chinese translated Adults Eating Behavior Questionnaire (C-AEBQ) and found that two food approach traits (food enjoyment and emotional over-eating) were positively while two food avoidance traits (slowness in eating and satiety responsiveness) were negatively associated with BMI. Individual trait was differentially associated with eating behaviors. Specifically, a positive correlation was found between food responsiveness and higher frequency of selecting delivery food, spicy food, and sugared beverage; conversely, satiety responsiveness was associated with higher frequency of skipping meals. Using latent profile analysis, participants were classified into four appetitive patterns: food approacher, food approacher with emotional under-eating, food avoider, and food avoider with emotional over-eating. Food avoiders had significant lower BMI and higher proportion of underweight than other three patterns. Compared to food approacher, food avoiders had higher frequency of skipping breakfast, and food avoiders with emotional over-eating had higher frequency of skipping both breakfast and lunch. No significant differences were observed in food choice and dieting behavior among four appetitive patterns. The findings suggested a correlation between an individual’s appetitive pattern and eating behaviors among female college students, those with food avoidance patterns are more likely to have irregular meals, which may contribute to their low BMI. The findings provide valuable insights for female college students to cultivate a healthy eating behavior and sustain a healthy body weight.

Photovoltaic(PV) power generation is highly nonlinear and stochastic. Accurate prediction of PV power generation plays a crucial role in grid connection as well as the operation and scheduling of power plants. To predict the PV power combination model, this paper suggests a method based on Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD), Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN), Nonlinear Auto-Regressive Neural Networks with Exogenous Input (NARXNN), Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) Neural Network, and Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) algorithms. To attempt to reduce the non-smoothness of PV power, the weather variable features with the greatest effect on PV power are first identified by correlation analysis. Following this, the PV power modal decomposition is split and reorganized into a new feature matrix. Finally， a NARX is used to obtain preliminary PV power components and residual vector features， and the PV power is predicted by combining three models of LightGBM， LSTM, and NARX and then the final prediction results are obtained by combining the PV power prediction results using error inverse method weighted optimization. The prediction results demonstrate that the model put forth in this paper outperforms those of other models and validate the model's validity by utilizing real measurement data from Andre Agassi College in the United States.

This study investigated the phenolic compounds of 15 Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat cv. ‘Hangbaiju’, including 6 ‘Duoju’ and 9 ‘Taiju’ using high performance liquid chromatography. The antioxidant activities of these ‘Hangbaiju’ were estimated by DPPH, ABTS and FPAR assays. Results showed that a total of 14 phenolic compounds were detected in these flowers, including 3 mono-caffeoylquinic acids, 3 di-caffeoylquinic acids, 1 phenolic acid and 7 flavonoids. ‘Duoju’ and ‘Taiju’ possessed different concentration of phenolic compounds, and ‘Taiju’ exhibited higher caffeoylquinic acids and stronger antioxidant activities than ‘Duoju’. Caffeoylquinic acids showed a strong correlation with the antioxidant activities of the samples. Principal component analysis revealed an obvious separation between ‘Duoju’ and ‘Taiju’ using phenolic compounds as variables. Apigenin-7-O-glucoside, 3,5-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid, luteolin and acacetin were found to be the key phenolic compounds to differentiate ‘Duoju’ from ‘Taiju’.

In GNSS/IMU integrated navigation systems, factors such as satellite occlusion and non-line-of-sight conditions can lead to degradation of satellite positioning results, Subsequently affecting the overall accuracy of the integrated navigation system. To address this issue and ef-fectively utilize historical pseudorange information from satellites, this paper proposes a graph optimization-based GNSS/IMU model with virtual constraints. These virtual constraints are con-structed using satellite ‘s position from previous time step, the rate of change of pseudoranges, and ephemeris data. This virtual constraint can serve as an alternative solution for individual satellites in case of signal anomalies, ensuring the integrity and continuity of the graph optimi-zation model. Additionally, this paper conducts an analysis of the graph optimization model constructed using these virtual constraints, comparing it with traditional integrated navigation graph optimization model, and analyzes and reconstructs the marginalization process based on these virtual constraints. The experimental results, compared with tightly coupled Kalman fil-tering and the original graph optimization method on a set of real-world data, demonstrate that the introduction of virtual pseudoranges maintains high positioning accuracy. The RMSE error between it and the original graph optimization remains within 5%, affirming the high feasibility of this approach.

Conventional fertilization practices can lead to many ecological problems, such as nutrient imbalance, soil acidity, and reduced soil fertility in natural rubber plantations. To address these challenges, a field investigation was strategically carried out to substitute inorganic fertilizer with organic fertilizers consisted of six treatments, i.e., no fertilization (CK), inorganic fertilizer (NPK), 25 % replacement of inorganic through organic (25%M), 50 % replacement of inorganic through organic (50%M), 75 % replacement of inorganic through organic (75%M), and 100% organic fertilizer (100%M). The soil physicochemical properties (SOC, TN, AN, C:N, pH, NH4+-N, and NO3--N) and carbon and nitrogen converting enzymes (BG, NAG, and LAP) were all determined. The partial substitution of inorganic fertilizers with organic fertilizers (i.e., 75%M at surface soil layer) showed higher SOC (14.52 g.kg-1), TN (1.06 g.kg-1), AN (20.07 mg.kg-1), C:N (14.63), NH4+-N (10.63 mgkg-1), and NO3--N(11.06 mg.kg-1) than NPK and CK. Such increase in physicochemical properties in partial replacement of inorganic with organic fertilizers plots resulted from higher carbon and nitrogen enzymes activities (BG (143.17 nmol.g-1.h-1), NAG (153.96 nmol.g-1.h-1), and LAP (153.48 nmol.g-1.h-1)) compared to NPK and CK, and further the person correlation and RDA analysis confirmed a significant positive correlation between SOC, AN, and soil enzymes. This study presents a new strategy for assessing the impact of partially replacing inorganic fertilizers with organic fertilizers in rubber plantations, mainly by modifying the soil nutrient composition in tropical regions.

Biomimetic delivery systems (BDSs), inspired by the intricate designs of biological systems, have emerged as a groundbreaking paradigm in nanomedicine, offering unparalleled advantages in therapeutic delivery. These systems, encompassing platforms such as liposomes, protein-based nanoparticles, extracellular vesicles, and polysaccharides, are lauded for their targeted delivery, minimized side effects, and enhanced therapeutic outcomes. However, the translation of BDSs from research settings to clinical applications is fraught with challenges, including reproducibility concerns, physiological stability, and rigorous efficacy and safety evaluations. Furthermore, the innovative nature of BDSs demands a reevaluation and evolution of existing regulatory and ethical frameworks. This review provides an overview of BDSs, delve into the multifaceted translational challenges and present emerging solutions, underscored by real-world case studies. Emphasizing the potential of BDSs to redefine healthcare, we advocate for sustained interdisciplinary collaboration and research. As our understanding of biological systems deepens, the future of BDSs in clinical translation appears promising, with a focus on personalized medicine and refined patient-specific delivery systems.

The innate immune system is the first line of host defense sensing viral infection. Manganese (Mn) has recently been found to be involved in the activation of innate immune DNA sensing cGAS-STING pathway and subsequent anti-DNA virus function. However, whether Mn2+ mediates host defense against RNA viruses is still unclear. In the current study, we demonstrated that Mn2+ exhibited antiviral effects against various animal and human viruses including RNA viruses such as PRRSVs and the VSV as well as a DNA virus such as the HSV1 in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, cGAS and STING were both investigated in the Mn2+ mediated antiviral roles using the knockout cells made by CRISPR-Cas9 approach. Unexpectedly, the results revealed that neither cGAS knockout nor STING knockout had any effect on Mn2+ mediated antiviral functions. Nevertheless, we verified that Mn2+ promoted the activation of cGAS-STING signaling pathway. These findings suggest that Mn2+ has broad spectrum antiviral activities in a cGAS-STING pathway independent manner. This study also provides significant insights into redundant mechanisms participating in the Mn2+ antiviral functions and also indicates new target for Mn2+ antiviral therapeutics.

The general circuit topology and principles of low-noise high-voltage power supply are investigated to meet the requirements of the high-voltage bias application in air kerma meters. Two topologies, flyback converter and Royer converter are simulated using SPICE simulation program. The simulation results indicate that the circuit structure of the Royer converter is more complex, but it obtains lower output high voltage noise. While we develop an adjustable high-voltage power supply according to the circuit structure of the Royer converter, and tested it to ensure the design requirements for continuously adjustable output high-voltage linearity. The test results show that the linear adjustment rate is not more than ±0.0025%, the load regulation rate is less than ±0.1%, and the output ripple noise voltage percentage is less than 0.01%. These tested performance make it more suitable for accurate nuclear measurements.

Mulberry is an economically significant crop for the sericulture industry worldwide. Stresses such as drought exposure have a significant influence on plant survival. Metabolome directly reflects plant physiological status; thus, a way to assess this impact is to perform a global metabolomic analysis. This study investigated the effect of drought stress on mulberry Yu-711 metabolic balance using a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based on an untargeted metabolomic approach. For this objective, Yu-711 leaves were subjected to two weeks of drought stress treatment and control without drought stress. Multivariate and univariate statistical analyses highlighted numerous differentially-accumulated metabolic elements as a function of time and treatment. Drought stress led to a more differentiated metabolites response than the control. We found that the levels of total lipids and galactolipids, and phospholipids (PC, PA, PE) were significantly altered, producing 48% of the total differentially expressed metabolites. Fatty acyls were the most abundant lipids expressed and decreased considerably by 73.6%. Prenol lipids class of lipids increased in drought leaves. Other classes of metabolites, including polyphenols( flavonoids and cinnamic acid), organic acid (amino acids), carbohydrates, benzenoids, and organoheterocyclic, all had a dynamic trend in response to the drought stress. However, their levels under drought stress generally decreased significantly compared to the control. These results provide an overview of the metabolic profile of the mulberry plant through differentially-accumulated compounds and provide a better understanding of global plant metabolic changes in defense mechanisms.

In this study, we evaluated the effects of Cyclosporine A (CsA) on Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cytokine production in the genital tract of female rabbits. Twelve sexually mature and healthy female rabbits were randomly divided into four groups (n = 3 each). The rabbits in the LPS group were given an intrauterine infusion of Escherichia coli LPS (4 mg/kg body weight (BW)). Rabbits in the CsA group were given CsA (20 mg/kg BW). Rabbits in the LPS + CsA group were given LPS (4 mg/kg BW) and CsA (20 mg/kg BW). The control group received only LPS and CsA carrier. The gene expression and protein levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were observed using qRT-PCR and immuno-histochemical (IHC) assay, respectively. Our study showed that IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-10, IL-13, and TGF-β were expressed in female genital organs. The LPS challenge increased the mRNA expression of IL-6 and TNF-α in the uterine body and IL-1β in the uterotubal junction compared to the control group. CsA increased the basal mRNA expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines (i.e., IL-4 in the uterine body, uterotubal junction, and oviductal ampulla; IL-10 in the cervix, oviductal isthmus, and ampulla; and TGF-β in the uterotubal junction and oviductal ampulla) and pro-inflammatory cytokines (i.e., IL-6 and IL-8 in the cervix; IL-1β in the oviductal isthmus; TNF-α in the oviductal ampulla; and IFN-γ in the uterine body compared to the control group). In addition, CsA inhibited the mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6 in the uterine body, uterotubal junction, and oviductal isthmus; TNF-α in the uterine body; and IFN-γ in the uterotubal junction and oviductal isthmus induced by the LPS challenge. The IHC assay showed the LPS-induced increase in protein production of IL-6 in the uterine body and oviductal isthmus. CsA increased the protein production of IL-10 in the cervix, uterine body, oviductal ampulla, and isthmus. Moreover, CsA decreased the protein production of IL-6 in the uterine body and oviductal isthmus induced by LPS.

Nucleoside analogs are commonly used drugs for the treatment of cancer and viral infections. Nucleoside deoxyribosyltransferase (NDT) is one of the key enzymes required for the biosynthesis of deoxynucleotides. The feasibility of biochemical transformation processes is usually greatly dependent on the cost of biocatalysts. Therefore, immobilizing and reusing biocatalysts is an approach to be considered to bring biotransformations closer to industrial feasibility, since it not only allows enzymes to be reused but can also improve their stability under several reaction conditions. In this work, histidine tags have been successfully fused to a Nucleoside deoxyribosyltransferase from Lactobacillus reuteri (LrDNT), which has been produced in a bench-scale reactor using a facile araBAD promoter-based protein expression system in an industrial microorganism, the E. coli BL21(DE3) strain. The overexpressed LrNDT was bound to a nickel-chelating agarose affinity chromatography medium via a one-step purification and immobilization process with a 99% yield, retaining about 97% of its initial activity. The optimal conditions for the immobilized LrNDT maintain high enzyme activity within the range of 20-45°C and pH 6.0-7.5. Finally, the immobilized enzyme reactor (IMER) of LrNDT was applied for the continuous-flow biosynthesis of 2'-deoxyadenosine and retained 90% of its activity after 16 hours, providing a theoretical basis for the industrial production of nucleoside analogs.

Background: Accurate estimation of dietary intake is challenging. But whilst some progress has been made in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remain behind, contributing to critical nutritional data gaps. This study aimed to validate an objective, passive image-based dietary intake assessment method against weighed food records in London, UK for onward deployment to LMICs. Methods: Wearable camera devices were used to capture food intake of eating occasions in 18 adults and 17 children of Ghanaian and Kenyan origin living in London. Participants were provided pre-weighed meals of Ghanaian and Kenyan cuisine and camera devices to automatically capture images of the eating occasions. Food images were assessed for portion size, energy, and nutrient intake, and relative validity of the method compared to the weighed food records. Results: Pearson and Intra-class correlation coefficient of estimates of intakes of food, energy and 19 nutrients ranged from 0.60 to 0.95 and 0.67 to 0.90, respectively. Bland-Altman analysis showed good agreement between the image-based method and weighed food record. Under-estimation of dietary intake by the image-based method ranged from 4 to 23%. Conclusions: Passive food image capture and analysis provides an objective assessment of dietary intake comparable to weighed food records.

Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most prevalent type of sustained cardiac dysrhythmia globally, confers strikingly enhanced risks for cognitive dysfunction, stroke, chronic cardiac failure, and sudden cardiovascular demise. Aggregating studies underscore the crucial roles of inherited determinants in the occurrence and perpetuation of AF. However, due to conspicuous genetic heterogeneity, the inherited defects accounting for AF remain largely indefinite. Here, via the whole-genome genotyping with genetic markers and linkage assay in a family suffering AF, a new AF-causative locus was located at human chromosome 7p14.2-p14.3, a ~4.89-cM (~4.43-Mb) interval between the markers D7S526 and D7S2250. Exome-wide sequencing assay unveiled that at the defined locus, solely the mutation in the TBX20 gene, NM_001077653.2: c.695A&gt;G; p.(His232Arg), co-segregated with AF in the family. Additionally, Sanger sequencing assay of TBX20 in another family suffering AF uncovered a novel mutation, NM_001077653.2: c.862G&gt;C; p.(Asp288His). Neither of the two mutations was observed in 600 unrelated control individuals. Functional investigations demonstrated that the two mutations both significantly reduced the transactivation of the target gene KCNH2 (a well-established AF-causing gene) and the ability to bind the promoter of KCNH2, while without effect on the nuclear distribution of TBX20. Conclusively, these findings reveal a new AF-causative locus at human chromosome 7p14.2-p14.3 and strongly indicate TBX20 as a novel AF-causative gene, shedding light on the mechanism underlying AF and suggesting clinical significance for allele-specific treatment of AF patients.

Self-enhancement (SE) is often overlooked as a fundamental cognitive ability mediated via the Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC). Here we present research that establishes the relationship between the PFC, SE, and the potential evolved beneficial mechanisms. Specifically, we believe there is now enough evidence to speculate that SE exists to provide significant benefits and should be considered a normal aspect of the self. Whatever the metabolic or social cost, the upside of SE is great enough that it is a core and fundamental psychological construct. Furthermore, though entirely theoretical, we suggest that a critical reason the PFC has evolved so significantly in Homo sapien is to, in part, sustain SE. We therefore elaborate as to its proximate and ultimate mechanisms.

To understand the molecular mechanism underlying yellowing in pineapples during ripening, coupled with alterations in fruit quality, comprehensive metabolome and transcriptome investigations were carried out. These investigations were conducted using the pulp samples collected at three distinct stages of maturity: young fruit (YF), mature fruit (MF), and fully mature fruit (FMF). This study revealed a noteworthy increase in the levels of total phenols and flavones, coupled with a concurrent decline in lignin and total acid content, as the fruit transitioned from YF to FMF. Furthermore, the analysis yielded 167 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) and 2194 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis based on DAMs and DEGs revealed that the biosynthesis of plant secondary metabolites, particularly the flavonol, flavonoid, and phenypropanoid pathways, plays a pivotal role in fruit yellowing. Additionally, a comprehensive regulatory network encompassing genes that contribute to metabolisms of flavones, flavonols, lignin, and organic acids was proposed. This network sheds light on the intricate processes that underlies fruit yellowing and quality alterations. These findings enhance our understanding of the regulatory pathways governing pineapple ripening and offer valuable scientific insight into the molecular breeding of pineapples.

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) causes a highly contagious and devastating disease in poultry, Newcastle disease (ND). ND causes heavy economic losses to the global poultry industry by decreasing the growth rate, decrease egg productions, mortality, and morbidity. Although, significant advances have been made in the vaccine development, but outbreaks are reported in vaccinated birds leading to overall decreased growth rate. In this study, we report the damage caused by the NDV infection in the pancreatic tissues of vaccinated as well as specific pathogen free chickens. The histopathological examination of the pancreas showed sever damage in the form of partial depletion of zymogen granules, acinar cell vacuolization, necrosis, and apoptosis, congestion in the large and small vessels, sloughing of epithelial cells of pancreatic duct, and mild perivascular edema. Increased plasma levels of corticosterone, somatostatin, were observed in NDV infected chicks at 3 and 5-day post infection (DPI). Slight decrease in the plasma concentrations of the insulin were noticed at 5 DPI. Significant changes were not observed in the plasma levels of glucagon. Furthermore, NDV infection has decreases the activity and mRNA expression of amylase, lipase, and trypsin from the pancreas. Taken together, our findings highlight that NDV induces extensive tissue damage in pancreas, decrease the activity and expression of pancreatic enzymes and increase plasma corticosterone and somatostatin.

This letter presents a dual-frequency terahertz amplitude modulator based on a cross-shaped structure and U-shaped metal patches. Its structural unit is a typical metal-substrate structure. The top metal consists of a cross-shaped structure and U-shaped metal patches, and the bottom substrate layer is made of quartz. Amplitude modulation is achieved by adjusting the temperature of the vanadium dioxide (VO2) patches. The modulation depth can be approximately 75%. The mechanism of the resonance frequency is explained by the equivalent circuit model. The proposed structure shows good amplitude modulation capability at different incidence and azimuth angles by changing the location of the VO2 patches. The dual-frequency terahertz amplitude modulator can be used in terahertz communication, imaging, etc.

Assessment of the percentage of disease infected lung volume using computed tomography (CT) images can play an important role to detect lung diseases and predict disease severity. However, manual segmentation of disease infected regions from many CT image slices is tedious and not feasible in clinical practice. To help solve this clinical challenge, this study aims to investigate a new strategy to automatically segment disease infected regions and predict disease severity. We employed a public dataset acquired from 20 COVID-19 patients, which includes manually annotated lung and infections masks, to train a new ensembled deep learning (DL) model that combines the five customized residual attention UNet models to segment disease infected regions followed by a Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) model to classify severity stage of COVID-19 infection. To test potentially clinical utility of new model, we first gathered and processed another set of CT images acquired from 80 Covid-19 patients. Next, we asked two chest radiologists to read CT images of each patient and report the estimated percentage of infected lung volume and disease severity level. Additionally, we asked radiologists to rate acceptance of DL model-generated segmentation results using a 5-scale rating method. Data analysis results show that agreement between disease severity classification is &gt;90% in 45 testing cases. Furthermore, &gt;73% of cases received the high rating score from two radiologists (scored more than 4). This study demonstrates feasibility of developing a new DL-model to efficiently provide quantitative assessment of disease severity based on the automated segmentation of the disease infected regions to support improving efficacy of radiologists in disease diagnosis.

Mulberry leaves, when infected by pathogens, can suffer significant yield loss or even death if early disease detection and timely spraying are not performed. To enhance the detection performance of mulberry leaf diseases in natural environments and to precisely locate early small lesions, we propose a high-precision, high-efficiency disease detection algorithm named YOLOv8-RFMD. Based on improvements to You Only Look Once version 8 (YOLOv8), we first proposed the Multi Dimension Feature Attention (MDFA) module, which integrates important features at the pixel-level, spatial and channel dimensions. Building on this, we designed the RFMD Module, which consists of the Conv-BatchNomalization-SiLU (CBS) module, Receptive-Field Coordinated Attention (RFCA) Conv, and MDFA, replacing the Bottleneck in the model’s Residual block. We then employed Adown down sampling structure to reduce the model size and computational complexity. Finally, to improve the detection precision of small lesion features, we replaced the complete intersection over union (CIOU) loss function with the Normalized Wasserstein Distance (NWD) loss function. Results show that the YOLOv8-RFMD model achieves an mAP50 of 94.3% and an mAP50:95 of 67.8% on experimental data, representing increases of 2.9% and 4.3% respectively compared to the original model. The model size is reduced by 0.53 MB to just 5.45 MB, and the number of floating-point operations is reduced by 0.3 G to only 7.8 G. The improved model meets the deployment requirements of mobile embedded devices and can provide a theoretical reference for the automated spraying operations of mulberry leaves.

With the growing demand for positioning services, angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation or direction-finding (DF) has been widely investigated for applications in fifth-generation (5G) technologies. Many existing AoA estimation algorithms only require the measurement of the direction of the incident wave at the transmitter to obtain correct results. However, for most of the cellular systems such as Bluetooth indoor positioning system due to multipath and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, the indoor positioning accuracy is severely affected. In this paper a comprehensive algorithm is investigated that combines radio measurements from Bluetooth AoA local navigation systems with indoor position estimates obtained using particle filtering, which allows us to explore new optimised methods to reduce estimation errors in indoor positioning. First, particle filtering is used to predict the rough position of a moving target. Then, an algorithm with robust beam weighting is used to estimate the AoA of the multipath components. Based on this, a system of pseudo-linear equations for target positioning based on the probabilistic framework of PF and AoA measurement is derived. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the algorithm can improve the positioning accuracy by about 25.7% on average.

Chondrocytes maintain the normal morphological structure and physiological function of articular cartilage. However, the increased expression of inflammatory mediators and matrix-degrading enzymes in chondrocytes can promote ECM degradation, consequently disrupting the physiological function of articular cartilage and ultimately leading to the onset of osteoarthritis (OA). Usnic acid (UA), an extract derived from plants, possesses multiple bioactive properties including anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Hence, this study aims to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying its protective effects in an in vitro simulated model of OA in rat chondrocytes. In vivo experiments encompassed three groups: Control, Model, and Usnic acid (50 mg/kg), with sample extraction following 12 weeks of administration. Pathological alterations in articular cartilage were evaluated using Safranin O-fast green staining. Immunohistochemistry (ICH) analysis was employed to assess the expression of matrix degradation-related markers. The levels of serum cytokines were quantified via ELISA assays. In this study, primary rat chondrocytes were employed as the experimental subject. After a 24-hour treatment period, culture supernatants, total RNA, total protein, and nuclear protein were extracted from the different chondrocyte groups. ELISA and qPCR methods were used to measure levels of IL-6, TNF-α, and PGE2. WB and qPCR were employed to assess levels of p65, p-p65, IκBα, p-IκBα, Nrf2, HO-1, NQO1 ADAMTS-4, MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-13, INOS, COX-2, and COL2A1. IF analysis was performed to examine Nrf2, p-p65 and COL2A1. Results: (1) In vivo, intraperitoneal injection of usnic acid (50mg/kg) can alleviate pathological changes in articular cartilage and the levels of inflammatory and oxidative-related matrix in the serum. (2) UA reduced the level of inflammatory cytokines in IL-1β-induced chondrocytes supernatant. (3) UA can produce anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects and inhibit chondrocytes matrix degradation through the Nrf2 and NF-κB pathways. (3) The mechanism by which UA exerts a protective role in chondrocytes is mediated by Nrf2 Conclusion: UA inhibits the expression of chondrocyte matrix degradation-related components through Nrf2 mediated Nrf2 pathway and NF-κB pathway, promotes the production of protective substances, and ultimately exerts a protective effect on chondrocytes.

Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) Score is useful for the nutritional screening. We aimed to explore whether the CONUT score may predict a 3-month functional outcome in hemorrhagic stroke (AHS). Totally, 349 patients with incident AHS were consecutively recruited, and their malnutrition risks were determined using a high CONUT score of ≥ 2. Poor functional outcomes were defined as the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of ≥ 3 at 3 months. A total of 328 patients (mean age, 60.4 ± 12.83 years; 66.8% male) were included, 172 (52.40%) patients at malnutrition risk and 104 (31.7%) patients with a poor prognosis. High-CONUT patients had lower total lymphocyte counts and total cholesterol levels than low-CONUT patients (p &lt; 0.001 and p = 0.012). At 3-month post discharge, patients with malnutrition risk had higher hospitalization costs (p = 0.021), lower Barthel Index (p = 0.001), and more infectious complications (p = 0.002) than those without, and there was a greater risk for poor functional outcomes in the high-CONUT compared with the low-CONUT patients at admission (adjusted odds ratio: 2.32, 95% confidence interval: 1.28-4.17). High-CONUT scores predict a 3-month poor prognosis in AHS, which may help identify the AHS patients who need additional nutritional managements.

To enhance the performance of visual SLAM in underwater environments, this paper presents an enhanced front-end method based on visual feature enhancement. The method comprises three modules aimed at optimizing and improving the matching capability of visual features from different perspectives. Firstly, to address issues related to insufficient underwater illumination and uneven distribution of artificial light sources, a brightness consistency recovery method is pro-posed. This method employs an adaptive histogram equalization algorithm to balance the brightness of images. Secondly, a method for denoising underwater suspended particulates is introduced to filter out noise from the images. After image-level processing, a combined underwater acousto-optic feature association method is proposed, which associates acoustic features from sonar with visual features, thereby providing distance information for the visual features. Finally, utilizing the AFRL dataset, the improved system incorporating the proposed enhancement methods is evaluated for performance against the OKVIS framework. The system achieves better trajectory estimation accuracy compared to OKVIS and demonstrates robustness in underwater environments.

Macadamia nut plantings in China are expanding year by year. In order to further promote the superior varieties, this study analyzed the effects of different varieties of rootstock and scion on the survival rate as well as the effects of 18 different ratios of substrate composition on seedling growth were analyzed. The results showed that: The survival rate of HAES788 varieties as rootstock and Guire No.1 as scion was the highest, reaching 96%. The optimal grafting time in December was better than that in March. Substrate formulations 12, 13, 15 and 16 had agglomerated soil and well-developed root systems compared to the controls. Plant height, stem diameter, leaf length, leaf width, and dry weight of aboveground and underground parts were significantly higher than those of the control. In addition, the substrate formulations 12, 13, 15 and 16 significantly improved the organic matter, total nitrogen, and total potassium content of the substrate soils, but little on total phosphorus content. All in all, macadamia grafting times are best in December, with HAES788 and Guire No.1 being the best rootstock and scion. Substrate formulations 12, 13, 15 and 16 are the optimal formula. This study provides a solid foundation to produce high-quality macadamia seedlings.

Considering characteristics of high river density, special underlying surface in plain river network region, and municipal drainage system function, river network drainage unit model is proposed, which is defined as a region surrounded by main river or embankment. Flood storage variety and control projects regulation of small rivers in each unit is simulated. With drainage catchment as an object, according to its drainage capacity, simplified municipal drainage model was developed. Coupling river network drainage unit model, simplified municipal drainage model and 2D flood routing model, urban flood analysis model for plain tidal river network region was developed, which could be applied to analyzing flood from upstream river, storm surge and local rainfall. Demonstration research was carried out in Puxi flood protected area in Shanghai.

Assessing carbon stocks in tropical forests is crucial for understanding their role in mitigating climate change. (1) Background: However, existing assessments have underestimated certain factors that can substantially influence carbon dynamics. (2) Methods: This study focuses on one such factor - buttress roots from a tropical forest. (3) Results: Our findings reveal that a significant proportion of trees (69.57%) had 3 to 5 buttress roots per tree. The total biomass of the buttress roots and the aboveground portion of the trees with buttress roots were calculated to be 8.5 tonnes/ha and 10.7 tonnes/ha respectively. The buttress root biomass accounted for 16.18% of the total tree biomass. It was observed that the presence of buttress roots during both the rainy and dry seasons increased the soil organic carbon content by an average of 20.8% in the upslope areas with buttress roots. During the rainy season, the presence of buttress roots did not affect the heavy fraction organic carbon in the soil layers in a statistically significant way. Regardless of the season, the soil respiration rate in the areas without buttress roots was higher than that in the areas with buttress roots. The presence of buttress roots had a positive effect on soil nutrient concentration in all seasons, creating a healthier environment for trees. Tree species with buttress roots had on average 20% higher organic carbon content during both the wet and dry seasons. (4) Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of considering buttress roots in carbon stock assessments and forest management strategies. By integrating buttress roots into carbon accounting models, we can obtain more accurate estimates of carbon stock potential and develop more effective conservation and restoration strategies for tropical forests.

Tea (Camellia sinenesis) is a health beneficial beverage and is also a source for extracting bioactive components such as theanine, tea polyphenols (TPP) and tea polysaccharides (TPS). TPS is a group of hetero-polysaccharides bounded with proteins. There were tests showing that TPS had various bioactivities, such as antioxidant, antitumors, antihyperglycemia, anti-inflammation and improving immunity. However, inconsistent results concerning chemical composition and bioactivity of TPS were published in recent years. The advances in chemical composition and bioactivities of TPS were reviewed in the present paper. The inconsistent and controversial results regarding composition and bioactivities of TPS were also discussed.

The digital model of airborne frequency selective surface radomes (AFSSRs) is the basis of design, simulation analysis, manufacturing, and other related research of AFSSRs. This paper proposes a rapid modeling method of AFSSRs based on dynamic customizable primitives. Firstly, a layered digital model construction scheme of AFSSR is presented based on the typical radome wall structure. Then, according to the characteristics of various surface configurations and complex wireframe information of AFSSRs, the dynamic primitives are raised to express the boundary and contour information of all kinds of radomes. Focusing on the undevelopable characteristics of the aero-dynamic shape surface of the AFSSR, the arrangement solution and mapping method for frequency selective elements on undevelopable surfaces are proposed. Furthermore, the imple-mentation logic of this method on the creation of each layer model and the assembly of the whole machine model is introduced. Finally, according to this method, a rapid modeling system (RMS) is established, and the modeling effect and efficiency of the RMS are demonstrated and compared, which verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of this method.

The B169L protein (pB169L) of African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a structural protein with an unidentified function during the virus replication. The sequences of the B169L gene and the downstream B438L gene are separated by short intergenic regions. However, the regulatory mode of the gene transcription remains unknown. Here, we identified two distinct promoter regions and two transcription start sites (TSS) located upstream of the open reading frame (ORF) of B438L. Using the promoter reporter system, we demonstrated that the cis activity of the ORF proximal promoter exhibited significantly higher levels compared with that of the distal promoter located in the B169L gene. Furthermore, transfection with the plasmids with two different promoters for B438L could initiate the transcription and expression of the B438L gene in HEK293T cells, and the cis activity of the ORF proximal promoter also displayed the higher activities compared with the distal promoter. Interestingly, the B438L distal promoter also initiated the transcription of the alternatively spliced B169L mRNA (B169L mRNA2) encoding a truncated pB169L (tpB169L) (amino acids 92–169), and the gene transcription efficiency was increased upon mutation of the initiation codon located upstream of the alternatively spliced B169L gene. Taken together, we demonstrated that the distal promoter of B438L gene initiates the transcription of both the B438L mRNA and B169L mRNA2. Comprehensive analysis of the transcriptional regulatory mode of the B438L gene is beneficial for the understanding of the association of B438L protein and pB169L and the construction of the gene-deleted ASFV.