Eugenol is a widely used fishery anaesthetic. This study investigated the effects of various concentrations of eugenol on blood physiological and biochemical indexes, and muscle flavor, in crucian carp (Carassius auratus). To determine the appropriate concentration of eugenol anesthetic for use in crucian carp transportation and production operations, we evaluated seven anaesthesia groups of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 mg/L and one control group (without eugenol) to determine the effects on blood physiological and biochemical indexes, and muscle flavor. The red blood cells and platelets of crucian carp decreased significantly (P<0.05) with eugenol treatment. With increasing eugenol concentration, the white blood cells and hemoglobin did not change significantly, whereas lactate dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase increased significantly (P<0.05). The content of phosphorus, magnesium and sodium increased after anaesthesia, whereas the content of potassium decreased with increasing eugenol concentration. After anaesthesia, the content of albumin and total protein in the serum decreased with increasing eugenol concentration (P<0.05); triglyceride first increased and subsequently decreased (P<0.05); blood glucose content first increased and then decreased (P<0.05); and no significant difference was observed in total cholesterol content (P>0.05). No significant difference was observed in muscle glycogen and liver glycogen content after eugenol anaesthesia (P>0.05). The eugenol-based anaesthesia test did not indicate major liver histomorphological effects, but the very small number of gill sheet edema cases observed requires further study. Analysis of electronic nose data indicated that eugenol treatment affected the flavor of the fish. The anaesthesia concentration of 20–80 mg/L had little effect on the physiology and biochemistry of crucian carp, thus providing a reference for the application of eugenol in crucian carp transportation and experimental research.

Highly efficient, broadband and distinctively structured electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption materials exhibit huge exceptions with multi-functions in both military and civilian fields. Searching the relationship between structural and EMW performance is beneficial to develop outstanding microwave absorption materials, and has become an attractive research topic. In this study, we briefly reviewed the different EMW absorption mechanisms and key influence factors, then, present the latest developments in low-dimensional (LD) EMW absorption materials. We provide a comprehensive discussion of remarkable examples and summarize the main information related to the structure-function relationship of dimensional design and structural engineering in order to facilitate the rapid evolution of this fascinating field.

The western Sulige gas field is a new and key reserve area for the rolling development of the Sulige gas field in China. However, due to the complex gas–water relationship and the difficulty in identifying gas and water formation, the scale and benefit deployment of the gas field are seriously restricted. In particular, almost all of the wells in the area produce water and no water measurement has been carried out for any single well, which leads to an unclear understanding of the dynamic characteristics of the production wells, thus affecting the productivity calculations of the gas wells and the overall regional productivity evaluation. Based on the testing data for a gas well, the impacts of the reservoir property parameters on the gas and water production were analyzed by combining the production performance and static geological characteristics. It was determined that the physical parameters K, Kh, and φSg had good positive correlations with gas production but not with water production; thus, effective prediction cannot be obtained for water production in gas well testing. After the analysis of the liquid loading law, the gas wells were classified into three types: continuous liquid carrying production, slight liquid loading, and liquid loading wells. In general, up to 96% of the gas wells were liquid loaded. According to the different production performances exhibited in the different stages of the gas wells, five types of methods for diagnosing water production wells were proposed (gas testing, pilot production, gas–liquid two-phase measurement testing, liquid level detection, and production performance analysis), as well as the diagnostic criteria and corresponding solutions. To obtain real-time water production data for each well and investigate the change of water-gas ratio (WGR) during the whole production process, a water production splitting method for gas wells based on three-dimensional geological modeling and numerical simulation combined with the constraints of the total water production of gas gathering stations was explored and established. The splitting results can be used to evaluate the water and gas productivity of gas wells and determine the best deliquification period. The gas well productivity when water production was considered was about 10% lower than that when water production was not considered. The best deliquification period was determined to be 125 days for wells with small water production, 20 days for wells with moderate water production, and 3 days for wells with serious water production. The results of this study could provide technical support for the scientific evaluation of gas well production indicators, reduction of development costs, and improvement of oil recovery.

In this study, we propose a radiomics-clinical probability weighted model for the prediction of prognosis for NSCLC. The model combines radiomics features extracted from RT planning images with clinical factors such as age, gender, histology, and tumor stage. CT images with radiotherapy structures of 422 NSCLC patients were retrieved from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). Radiomic features were extracted from gross tumor volume (GTV). Five machine learning algorithms, namely decision trees (DT), random forests (RF), extreme boost (EB), support vector machine (SVM) and generalized linear model (GLM), were optimized by a voted ensemble machine learning (VEML) model. A probabilistic weighted approach is used to incorporate the uncertainty associated with both radiomic and clinical features and to generate a probabilistic risk score for each patient. The performance of the model is evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Radiomic model, clinical factors model and combined radiomic-clinical probability weighted model demonstrated good performance in predicting NSCLC survival with AUC of 0.941, 0.856 and 0.949 respectively. The combined radiomics-clinical probability weighted enhanced model achieved significantly better performance than radiomic model in 1-year survival prediction (chi-square test, p<0.05). The proposed model has the potential to improve NSCLC prognosis and facilitate personalized treatment decisions.

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the major cause of elders’ vision loss, early screening and treatment are the most efficient way to reduce the rate of blindness. AI-based methods based on ophthalmic images play great potential for AMD diagnosis. However, low levels of accuracy, robustness, and explainability are challenges for AI approaches applied in clinics. Thus, this study proposed a multi-type of data source fusion method and a multi-model fusion approach for AMD detection. Typical unsupervised (Hierarchical Clustering and K-Means), typical supervised (SVM, VGG-16, and ResNet) methods, and proposed methods (multi-source data fusion-based method and multi-model fusion-based approach) are compared based on Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Fundus Autofluorescence (FAF), regular color fundus photography (CFP) and Ultra-Wide field Fundus (UWF) images. Data preprocessing and enhancements of each type of data are discussed. A feature extraction based on unsupervised ML models, feature combination and normalization, and multi-layer perception (MLP) algorithm are involved in the proposed multi-source data fusion-based method. Supervised ML and DL models and a voting mechanism are involved in the multi-model fusion-based approach. Findings show that the proposed methods present a high performance of accuracy and robustness. A real-world UWF database is involved from Shenzhen Aier Hospital. Practical and theoretical contributions are delivered. A reference value for medical diagnosis based on multiple digital images is contributed.

The reduction of biodiversity loss is one of the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The protection of endangered species is critical for conserving global biodiversity. Asian elephants，as one of the last few mega-herbivores on Earth, are currently threatened by climate changes and anthropogenic modifications. The modelling of their living habitats is of top priority to the conservation of Asian elephant. In this study, we used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to identify the current and potential future habitats of Asian elephants in South and Southeast Asia. We performed analyses for future projections with 17 scenarios by using the present results as baseline. To optimise the modelling results, we delineated the core habitats by using the Core Mapper Tool and compared them with existing protected areas (PAs) through gap analysis. The results showed that the current total area of core habitats is 491,455 km2 in size and will be reduced to 332,544 km2 by 2090 under SSP585 (the shared socioeconomic pathway). The projection analysis under differential scenarios suggested that most of the core habitats in the current protected areas would remain stable and suitable for elephants in the future. However, the remaining 75.17% of the core habitats lay outside the current PAs, and finally we mapped approximately 219,545 km2 of suitable habitats as priority protected areas in the future. Although our model did not perform well in some regions, our analyses and findings still could provide useful references to the planning of protected areas and conservation of Asian elephant.

PM2.5 and PM>2.5 were separately collected in Kanazawa, Japan in every season from the spring of 2017 to the winter of 2018, and nine polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and six nitropolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs) were determined by HPLC with fluorescence and chemiluminescence detections, respectively. Atmospheric concentrations of both PAHs and NPAHs showed seasonal changes (highest in the winter and lowest in the summer), which were different from the variations of TSP and PM2.5 (highest in the spring). Contributions of major sources to combustion-derived particulate (Pc) in PM2.5 were calculated by the NP-method using pyrene and 1-nitropyrene as representative markers of PAHs and NPAHs, respectively. The annual average concentration of Pc accounted for only 2.1% of PM2.5, but showed the same seasonal variation as PAHs. The sources of Pc were automobiles (31%) and coal heating facilities/industries (69%). The source of Pyr was almost entirely coal heating facilities/industries (98%). A backward trajectory analysis showed that automobile-derived Pc was mainly from Kanazawa and its surroundings and that coal heating facilities-derived Pc was transported from city areas in central and northern China in the winter and during the Asian dust event in the spring. These results show that large amounts of PAHs were long-range transported from China in the winter. Even in spring when the coal heating season was over in China, PAHs came over to Japan after Asian dust storms passed through Chinese city areas. The main contributor of NPAHs was automobiles in Kanazawa and its surroundings. The recent Pc concentrations were much lower than those in 1999. This decrease was mostly attributed to the decrease in the contribution of automobiles. Thus, changes of atmospheric concentrations of Pc, PAHs and NPAHs in Kanazawa were strongly affected not only by the local emissions but also long-range transport from China.

Stormwater management is a key urban issue in the world, in line with the global issues of urban sprawl and climate change. It is urgent to investigate the effectiveness in managing stormwater with different strategies for maintain urban resilience. A method based on a storm water management model (SWMM) was developed for assessing the control of stormwater runoff volume and the percentage removal of suspended solids by implementing a Sponge City strategy. An interdisciplinary approach was adopted incorporating Low Impact Development (LID) with urban Green Infrastructure and Gray Infrastructure paradigms in a typical old residential community in Suzhou, China. Four types of sponge facilities for reducing stormwater runoff were bio-retention cells, permeable pavements, grassed pitches, and stormwater gardens. The simulation results indicate that the stormwater pipe system can meet the management standard for storms with a five-year recurrence interval. The volume capture ratio of annual runoff is 91% and the reduction rate of suspended solids is 56%. This study demonstrates that Sponge City strategy is an effective approach for managing stormwater, particularly in old and densely populated urban areas. Implementing spongy facilities with a LID strategy for stormwater management can significantly enhance urban water resilience and increase ecosystem services.

(1) Background: Previous systematic review suggested a beneficial effect of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. However, poor quality of eligible studies impaired the reliability and validity of findings. Moreover, additional potential studies with good quality published in Chinese language have been published recently. The aim of the present systematic review was to investigate the value of PMR training in preventing and alleviating nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients. (2) Methods: We assigned two independent investigators to search all potential studies in PubMed, Cochrane Controlled Register of Trial (CENTRAL), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), China Biomedical Literature database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang data. We used data extraction sheet extracted all essential information, and used the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool to appraise the quality of eligible studies. Finally, we qualitatively summarized the results of all included studies. (3) Results: Six studies enrolling 288 patients were considered to meet our selection criteria finally. Of these 6 studies, three were labeled as moderate quality, and the remaining studies were low quality. All included studies consistently suggested that PMR has a positive impact on nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients especially alleviating the incidence, frequency and degree of delayed nausea and vomiting. (4) Conclusions: Independent studies indicated that PMR was a beneficial approach to prevent and alleviate nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients. However, further studies considering other types of primary tumors should be designed in order to increase the generality of PMR because studies included in the present systematic review mainly enrolled lung cancer and breast cancer.

Strong-aroma Baijiu is a traditional Chinese spirit distilled from grains that undergo solid-state fermentation. At the end of each fermentation cycle, a significant quantity of Huangshui accumulates at the bottom of the fermentation pit, constituting one of the primary by-products in the brewing process of strong-flavor liquor. In this report, the chemical component analysis of Huangshui obtained from a strong-flavor liquor factory revealed a diverse array of organic acids, alcohols, esters, starch, reducing sugars, amino acids, and other compounds present in Huangshui. Additionally, two specialized solid-state fermentation models were developed to investigate the formation process of Huangshui. Our findings demonstrate a positive correlation between the yield of Huangshui and the initial moisture content of fermented grains. It is concluded that Huangshui is the percolate produced during the solid-state brewing process of strong-flavor liquor, with its water content originating from the initial moisture of fermented grains.

Conservation tillage and deep side-fertilization both hold the potential to reduce nitrogen leaching and improve grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency in fragrant rice cultivation practices. However, the combined impact of different tillage practices with deep side-fertilization on nitrogen leaching remains uncertain. Therefore, this study conducted on-site experiments for four rice growing seasons in both early and late seasons in 2018 and 2019, using the fragrant rice varieties "Meixiangzhan 2"(MX) and "Xiangyaxiangzhan"(XY). The four experimental treatments included:conventional tillage with regular fertilization (T1), conventional tillage with simultaneous deep fertilization (T2), reduced tillage with simultaneous deep fertilization (T3) , and no-tillage with simultaneous deep fertilization (T4). Our results indicate that the T4 treatment exhibited higher nitrogen leaching rates and potential nitrogen losses throughout the entire rice growth cycle, with a 4.51% increase in total nitrogen leaching and a 1.86% increase in potential nitrogen leaching compared to T1. In contrast, the T2 treatment demonstrated the lowest nitrogen leaching rate, resulting in a 6.01% reduction in total nitrogen leaching and a 9.57% decrease in potential nitrogen leaching compared to T1, demonstrating the most optimal performance. For MX, the T1 treatment resulted in lower daily grain outputs compared to the other treatments, with disparities ranging from 5.35% to 9.94%. Similarly, for the XY, the T1 treatment yielded significantly lower daily grain outputs compared to the other treatments, with discrepancies ranging from 6.26% to 10.81% during the late season of 2019. Overall, this study shows that conventional tillage with deep fertilization effectively reduces nitrogen leaching and boosts fragrant rice yields. Minimizing nitrogen leaching enhances nitrogen utilization efficiency. These insights highlight the significance of strategic fertilization and cultivation for environmental conservation and agricultural sustainability.

Mindfulness interventions have been implemented in many countries. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of English and Thai-version of the 15-item mindfulness attention awareness scale (MAAS) across five samples. A descriptive correlation research was conducted in the Philippines and Thailand, and five data sets were generated using self-reported and online questionnaires. Exploratory factor analyses were used to explore the factorial structure of the MAAS. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to test measurement invariance across samples. Concurrent validity was tested by examining relationships between the MAAS and psychological well-being (PWB). A unidimensional structure of the MAAS was documented across the five samples. The MAAS demonstrated measurement invariance across samples for both English and Thai versions. Concurrent validity was displayed through significant correlations with PWB. This study produced evidence to support the construct validity, concurrent validity, and reliability of the English and Thai versions of MAAS. This study was not registered.

Ledge formation presents a significant challenge in endodontic treatment. Yet, there is still a lack of educational tooth models for hands-on practice. This study aimed to create and evaluate a tooth model for ledge management practice. A natural tooth with curved roots was collected for scientific use under ethics committee approval. Following initial root canal preparation, the tooth was scanned using micro-computed tomography (μCT) and 3D reconstructed. A K-file, created via computer-aided design (CAD), was partly inserted into the root canal wall of the 3D-reconstructed tooth. By subtracting the K-file from the tooth, a tooth model with a root canal ledge was produced. The models were then 3D printed for a hands-on workshop. A seven-item Likert scale questionnaire was administered to 20 postgraduate students and 10 endodontists to assess the model's quality and training effectiveness. The feedback from both students and experts was positive, with no statistically significant differences found between the two groups (p &gt; 0.05). This novel tooth model is expected to address the existing gap in endodontic education and provide benefits for dental practitioners in future applications.

MultiCal is an affordable, high-precision measuring device designed for the on-site calibration of industrial robots. Its design features a long measuring rod with a spherical tip that is attached to the robot. By restricting the rod’s tip to multiple fixed points under different rod orientations, the relative positions of these points are accurately measured beforehand. A common issue with MultiCal is the gravity deformation of the long measuring rod, which introduces measurement errors into the system. This problem becomes especially serious when calibrating large robots, as the length of the measuring rod needs to be increased to enable the robot to move in a sufficient space. To address this issue, we propose two improvements in this paper. Firstly, we suggest the use of a new design of the measuring rod that is lightweight yet has high rigidity. Secondly, we propose a deformation compensation algorithm. Experimental results have shown that the new measuring rod improves calibration accuracy by 20% to 39%, while by using the deformation compensation algorithm, the accuracy increases by 6% to 16%. In the best configuration, the calibration accuracy is similar to that of a measuring arm with a laser scanner, producing an average positioning error of 0.274 mm and a maximum positioning error of 0.838 mm. The improved design is cost-affordable, robust, and has sufficient accuracy, making MultiCal a more reliable tool for industrial robot calibration.

Abstract Introduction Exercise is an effective component in rehabilitation of a range of chronic conditions. There is a growing interest in the use of exercise-based nature interacted rehabilitation (EBNIR), but an overview of current evidence is missing. To provide an informed base for future work within this field of EBNIR, the objective of this scoping review was to map existing exercise-based rehabilitation interventions conducted with incidental or intentional nature interaction focusing on its populations, types of outcomes, and theoretical rationale for people with physical and mental disabilities. Methods This scoping review identified peer-reviewed publications, registered upcoming trials and grey literature. To map all available knowledge, we performed a comprehensive search of selected databases (MEDLINE; EMBASE; CINAHL; Cochrane; Web of Science; Pedro) from inception to October 2022. Data was synthesised in a thematic presentation guided by TIDieR, supplemented by a checklist developed for this study accounting nature incidental or intentional interaction by measuring all nature elements implemented in the intervention. Results Twelve studies including 856 participants met the inclusion criteria. 11 were completed trials and 1 was registered in clinicaltrials.gov to be run in 2023. A total of 856 patients were enrolled in the 12 studies (range 18-262, median 50). The included studies were different in terms of design (observational n=4, qualitative n=1, RCT=7), intervention dosage and frequency, control intervention, diagnosis, number of patients, and outcomes included. The used exercise-based interventions consisted of outdoor walks, neck exercises and surfing interventions in patients with physical or mental health conditions. The interventions were incidental or intentional interacted with nature to a varying degree. Conclusion This scoping review presents an overview of limited and diverse evidence within the field of exercise-based rehabilitation incidental or intentional interacting with nature, in patients with physical or mental health conditions. Our review provides an overview that will be helpful in the design of future EBNIR trials.

Indoor localization is an active area of research dominated by traditional machine-learning techniques. Deep learning-based systems have shown unprecedented improvements and have accomplished exceptional results over the past decade, especially the Transformer network within natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision domains. We propose the hyper-class Transformer (HyTra), an encoder-only Transformer with multiple classification heads (one per class) and learnable embeddings, to investigate the effectiveness of Transformer-based models for received signal strength (RSS) based WiFi fingerprinting. HyTra leverages learnable embeddings and the self-attention mechanism to determine the relative position of the wireless access points (WAPs) within the high-dimensional embedding space, improving the prediction of user location. From an NLP perspective, we consider a fixed order sequence of all observed WAPs as a sentence and the captured RSS value(s) for every given WAP at a given reference point from a given user as words. We test our proposed network on public and private datasets of different sizes, proving that the quality of the learned embeddings and overall accuracy improves with increments in samples.

Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most important staple food and primary source of livestock feed in the world. As the consumption of maize grown on the selenium-enriched soils of Naore Valley is one of the apparent causes of selenosis in the area, this work collected and analyzed total Se, Se fractions, and Se species distributions in maize plant samples, including grains, leaves, stalks, roots, rhizosphere soils, and the most representative parent rock materials from Naore Valley, Ziyang County, China. The Se distribution in soils markedly correlated with the weathered Se-enriched bedrocks, but most of the Se in the analyzed soils is enclosed as recalcitrant residual Se and organic-sulfide bound Se. In contrast, Se in rocks had a comparatively higher bioavailability and is bounded mainly to organic matter and sulfides minerals, with very few of the Se enclosed in the residual fraction. Maize plants might take a large amount of Se from the organic-sulfide bound Se fraction in the Se-rich soils, the weathered products from bedrocks or plant litters. Total Se concentrations in the collected samples were observed in descending order soil>leaf>root>grain>stalk. The predominant Se species detected in maize plants was SeMet. Se inorganic forms, mainly Se(VI), decreased from root to grain and were possibly assimilated into organic forms. Se (IV) was barely present. The natural increases in Se concentration affected mainly leaf and root dry-weight biomass as they are the organs that coped with the highest Se accumulation. This paper offers an insight into the uptake, accumulation, and distribution of Se forms in natural Se-rich maize crops and an opportunity for shifting Se-rich soils from menaces to valuable resources for growing Se-rich agricultural products.

Introduction: Periodontitis is a severe oral infection that can contribute to systemic inflammation. A large body of evidence suggests a role for systemic inflammation in the initiation of neurodegenerative disease. This systematic review synthesized data from observational studies to investigate the association between periodontitis and neuroinflammation in adults. Methods and materials: A systematic literature search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) was performed for studies published from the date of inception up to September 2021. Search terms for the exposure “oral disease” and outcome “dementia”, “neuroinflammation” and “cognitive decline” were used. Study selection and data extraction were independently undertaken by two reviewers. The final eligible articles were included only if the exposure is periodontitis and the outcome is cognitive impairment or dementia or a topic related to this condition, and if the study was conducted in an adult population. The quality and risk of bias were assessed by Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS). Qualitative synthesis was used to narratively synthesize the results. Six cohort studies, three cross-sectional studies, and two case-control studies met the inclusion criteria. These eleven studies were only narratively synthesized. Meta-analysis was not performed due to the methodological heterogeneity of the studies. Results: All the included studies show evidence of an association between periodontitis and cognitive im-pairment or dementia and Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Conclusion: Nonetheless, the mechanisms responsible for the association between periodontitis and dementia are still unclear.

Background: At present, the treatments for patients with advanced lung cancer focus on chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, or a combination of multiple treatments. Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to compare the various chemotherapy-based combination therapies and find the best one for patients with advanced lung cancer. Methods: Based on database (PubMed, EMBASE and Medline) for randomized controlled trials of advanced lung cancer with combination therapy from 2008 to 2020, we searched literatures with overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), objective response rate (ORR) and adverse as outcome indicators and established a Bayesian mesh meta-analysis for multiple treatment strategies. Then, we combined the results of four outcome indicators to find out the best chemotherapy-based combination therapy strategy for patients with advanced lung cancer, further, we tried to screen out the best drugs of which were commonly used now. Results: It contained a total of 51 studies, including five combination therapies: Chemotherapy/Chemotherapy plus placebo (CT), chemotherapy plus one targeted therapy drug (CT+T), chemotherapy plus two targeted therapy drugs (CT+T+T), chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy (CT+I) or chemotherapy combined with biotherapy (CT+B). In terms of four outcome indicators, CT+I showed the best therapeutic benefits. In the comparison of immunotherapy drugs, pembrolizumab showed the best effect. Conclusion: Our results showed that, among the multiple chemotherapy-based combination therapy strategies, chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy is the best choice for patients with advanced lung cancer, and pembrolizumab combined with chemotherapy has the best effect.

Porcine sapovirus (PoSaV) is a significant pathogen causing diarrhea with high morbidity and mortality rates. Given its zoonotic characteristics, this study conducts a comprehensive genetic evolutionary analysis of PoSaV. Results confirmed PoSaV as the primary RNA virus in piglet feces (27.54%). Phylogenetic analysis identifies the prevalent PoSaV strain SHCM/Mega2023 in the GIII genogroup, involving a recombinant event with MK962338 and KT922089. The time tree revealed that the GIII genogroup exhibits the widest divergence time span, indicating a high likelihood of viral recombination. Further selective pressure calculations demonstrate that PoSaV was under purifying selection (dN/dS &lt; 1), with seven positively selected sites in VP1 protein which might be related to the antigencity. In conclusion, this study presents a novel genomic evolution of PoSaV, offering valuable insights into antigenicity and vaccine research.

The diversity of leaf characteristics, including leaf color, is a prominent subject of study in plant science. Leaf color is predominantly determined by the synthesis and functionality of chlorophyll, a key component of photosynthesis. The regulation of chlorophyll synthesis and degradation involves complex gene interactions, and disruptions in these processes can lead to abnormal chlorophyll synthesis and impact leaf color. This study focuses on Bambusa multiplex f. silverstripe, a natural variant with various leaf colors, including green, white, and green-white leaves. The variations in leaf color are attributed to genetic factors and their influence on gene expression. By employing RNA-seq, we investigate the molecular mechanisms behind chlorophyll anomalies and genetic factors in Silverstripe. Our findings shed light on the complexity of gene interactions and regulatory networks that underlie leaf color diversity and provide valuable insights for future research and plant breeding.

To investigate the variation patterns of spectral characteristics of main branches in fruit trees due to uneven distribution of growth, pruning, and fruit quality, as well as to determine the optimal fruit vi-bration harvesting, a vibration differential model of tree branches was constructed using the concen-trated mass method. A three-dimensional model of the fruit tree was built using finite element software. The spectral characteristics of each branch were obtained using the linear sweep frequency method. The method of changing the mass of each branch was employed to simulate the variation in branch mass. The frequency of occurrence, mean acceleration, and coefficient of variation of the inherent frequencies were used as evaluation indicators. The results revealed that when the vibration frequency of the fruit tree was at the peak frequency in the tree trunk spectrum, the frequency of occurrence and mean accel-eration were optimal. And the coefficient of variation of branch acceleration was less than 1, indicating a moderate dispersion. Additionally, reducing the branch mass resulted in an increase in the peak fre-quency of the tree trunk spectrum. Therefore, the growth, pruning, and uneven distribution of the branches in fruit trees can alter the spectral characteristics. When harvesting fruit by vibration, selecting the peak frequency in the trunk vibration spectrum as the excitation force frequency yields the best fruit detachment.

Irrigation and fertilization are indispensable links in the jujube planting industry in southern Xinjiang, China. However, the water and fertilizer integration effects on jujube growth and fruit quality remain unclear. A two-year water and fertilizer optimization coupling test was conducted to determine the optimal water- and nutrient-supply scheme. The three-factor randomized block experiment included water (W), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P). According to the principal component analysis of each index, each treatment’s comprehensive score was obtained. Using yield and economic regression models, the theoretical value and yield value of the optimal economic benefit are inferred. When W, N, and P were applied together, the fruit quality and yield of each treatment significantly differed, and the vitamin C, soluble sugar, and sugar–acid ratio increased significantly with an increase in nitrogen fertilizer. However, the titratable acid decreased. An increase in irrigation and nitrogen application significantly increased fruit yield. The comprehensive score was the highest in the N3P3W2 treatment, which improved fruit quality, and the lowest in the N4P3W2 treatment. When the amounts of N, P, and W were 275.56 kg·hm-2, 413.66 kg·hm-2, and 7278.19 m3·hm-2, respectively, the theoretical economic benefit was the best. The N4P3W2 treatment is the optimal treatment.

A La2FeCrO6 (LFCO) double perovskite powders were synthesized by hydrothermal method, which crystallized in an orthorhombic (Pnma) structure and exhibited a spherical morphology with average particle size of 900 nm. Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy confirmed the octahedral coordination of Fe and Cr ions in the powders. XPS spectra revealed dual oxide states of Fe (Fe2+/Fe3+) and Cr (Cr3+/Cr4+) elements, and oxygen element appeared as lattice oxygen and defect oxygen, respectively. The LFCO powders exhibit ferromagnetic behavior at 5 K with saturation magnetization of 0.31 μB/f.u., coercive field of 8.0 kOe, and Curie temperature of 200 K. Griffiths phase appeared in the powders between 200 K and 223 K. The LFCO ceramics displayed a butterfly-like magnetoresistance (MR)-magnetic field (H) curve at 5 K with MR (5 K, 6 T) value of -4.07%. Temperature dependence of resistivity of the LFCO ceramics demonstrated their semiconducting nature. Electrical transport data were fitted by different conduction models. Strong frequency dispersion dielectric behavior was observed in the LFCO ceramics. A dielectric abnormality observed around 260 K, was ascribed to the jumping of electrons trapped in shallow levels created by oxygen vacancies. The dielectric relaxation behavior exhibited by dielectric loss between 160 K and 260 K, was contributed to the singly-ionized oxygen vacancies.

An analysis of the stiffness theory reveals that coal mass compression bumps occur only when both the failure criterion and the stiffness criterion are simultaneously satisfied. Then a new structural factor called uneven stiffness coal seam structure (USCS) is proposed, which consists of an uneven stiffness coal seam along with continuous roof and floor. The USCS serves the dual functions of pressure concentration and stiffness reduction. The former facilitates stress concentration from the low stiffness zone (LSZ) to the high stiffness zone (HSZ), thus raising the risk (rF) of failure. The latter reduces the stiffness of the surrounding rock of the HSZ, allowing the system to meet the stiffness criterion even with a hard roof, thereby reconciling the contradiction between the stiffness theory and engineering experience and raising the risk (rI) of instability. The HSZ of the USCS, including thinning zones, bifurcating areas, magmatic intrusion areas, and remnant pillar affected areas, is more susceptible to coal bump incidents than a conventional coal seam. Mechanical analysis and simple numerical simulations validate the pressure concentration and stiffness reduction functions of the USCS. The results demonstrate the following: 1) The normal stress of the HSZ positively correlates with ER, HR, KH, and SL, but negatively correlates with KL and SH; The stiffness of surrounding rock of the HSZ negatively correlates with HR, KH, SL, and SH, but positively correlates with ER and KL. 2) Failures within the HSZ of the USCS enables the roof strata to release bending deformation energy without undergoing fracturing. 3) The alignment between the HSZ of an existing USCS and the HSZ of an artificial USCS advancing with the working face intensifies stress concentration and reduces stiffness, thereby significantly increases the risk (rCB) of coal bump. By applying the stiffness theory and relevant USCS findings, new explanations can be provided for engineering phenomena such as the time-delayed coal bumps, the inefficient pressure relief in ultra thick coal seams, and the “microseism deficiency” observed prior to certain coal bumps.

Two-dimensional (2D) of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are potential candidates for thermoelectric (TE) applications due to their unique structural properties. In this paper, we constructed an 2D monolayer TMDCs semiconductor γ-PbSn2(X=S, Se, Te) and first-principles calculations and Boltzmann transport theory are used to study the thermoelectric performance. We found that γ-PbSnX2 had an ultra-high carrier mobility up to 4.04×103 cm2V−1s−1 leading to a metal-like electrical conductivity. Meanwhile, γ-PbSnX2 both have high Seebeck coefficients, resulting in high power-factors, and also shows intrinsic low lattice thermal conductivity of 6-8 W/mK at room temperature. The lower lattice thermal conductivity and high power-factors resulted in excellent thermoelectric performance. The high ZT values of γ-PbSnS2 and γ-PbSnSe2 were as high as 2.65 and 2.96 at 900 K, respectively. The result suggests that the monolayer γ-PbSnX2 are better candidates for excellent thermoelectric performance.

Ganoderic Acid (GA), a major bioactive compound isolated from an oriental medicinal mushroom, i.e. Ganoderma tsugae, has traditionally been found to have significant medicinal properties. As a result of GA's poor solubility in water, formulation poses several challenges. Additionally, the traditional method of administering it via alcohol always results in unfavorable patient side effects. In order to overcome these problems, Ganoderma Tsugae extracts obtained by ethanol extraction were encapsulated in nanodispersions by ultrasonic cavitation and solvent evaporation to maximise bioavailability. Resultant nanodispersions contained Ganoderic acid in a hydrophobic core with a mean particle size of no more than 200 nm and a very narrow particle distribution. An analysis of the interactions between the control variables and the process optimisation was conducted using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Based on the results of the experiment, it was found that the particle size of nanodispersions was influenced by the Hydrophilic-Lipophilic Balance (HLB) number and the evaporation temperature. Moreover, the physical stability of micellar systems is generally determined by the organic phase within them. Regarding formulation stability, the zeta average of the nanodispersions remained virtually unchanged in solutions with different pH levels and short-term storage (14 days) at room temperature. Overall, it has been demonstrated that Ganoderic acid nanodispersions can be efficiently generated by combining ultrasound cavitation and solvent evaporation.

As the first pilot ecological civilization zone in China, Fujian Province has an excellent ecological environment quality, and its ecological environment-related indices continue to be among the highest in the country. In order to investigate the causes of the excellent ecological quality in Fujian Province in the past 15 years, this paper selects MODIS images, land use data and provincial and municipal statistical yearbook data of Fujian province from 2005 to 2020 as data sources, evaluates the ecological system health of Fujian Province by remote-sensing ecological index (i.e. RSEI), constructs the land use intensity system of Fujian Province at the same time, and uses a coupled coordination model to analyze the coupling between RSEI and The coupled coordination model was used to analyze the coupling relationship between RSEI and land use intensity, and finally the spatial and temporal evolution of ecological health in Fujian Province from 2005 to 2020 was analyzed. The results show that the coupled coordination between land use intensity and ecosystem health in Fujian province showed a continuous increase between 2005 and 2020, especially in Ningde, where the increase was most significant, from 0.0993 to 0.963, this pattern of spatial distribution is lower in the south-eastern coastal region than in the north-western interior, higher in the south-western region than in the north-western region, and higher in the north-eastern region than in the south-eastern region. In terms of the type of role, the land use intensity of most cities in Fujian Province in 2005 played an obvious role in blocking the degree of ecosystem health, but as time changed, urban land use continued to be optimized and reached moderate or even high quality coordination with the quality of the ecological environment, but Xiamen City developed relatively slowly and its 2020 coupling degree value was 0.315, which was still in mild disorder. This study fills a gap in the research mechanism of the interaction between the degree of ecosystem health and land use intensity, and also provides a new perspective for the construction of ecological civilization and the assessment of the degree of ecosystem health in Fujian Province and the whole country.

Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumoniae) is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes nosocomial infections in the lung, bloodstream, and urinary tract. Therefore, detecting K. pneumoniae in early time is important in preventing severe infections. However, clinical detection of K. pneumoniae requires a long time of agar plate culture. Nucleic acid detection like qPCR is precise but requires expensive equipment. Recent research reveals that collateral cleavage activity of CRISPR-LbCas12a has been applied in nucleic acid detection. In this study, PCR combined with CRISPR-LbCas12a targeting the K. pneumoniae system was established. This system showed excellent detection specificity and sensitivity in both bench work and clinical samples. Due to its advantages, its application can meet different detection requirements in health centers where qPCR is not accessible.

Traditional ways of validating satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS) products, using comparisons with buoy measurements, do not allow for evaluating the impact of mesoscale to submesoscale variability. Here we present the validation of remotely-sensed SST and SSS data against the unmanned surface vehicle (USV) – Saildrone – measurements from the Spring 2018 Baja deployment. More specifically, biases and root mean square differences (RMSD) were calculated between USV-derived SST and SSS values, and six satellite-derived SST (MUR, OSTIA, CMC, K10, REMSS, and DMI) and three SSS (JPLSMAP, RSS40, RSS70) products. Biases between the USV SST and OSTIA/CMC/DMI were approximately zero while MUR showed a bias of 0.2C. OSTIA showed the smallest RMSD of 0.36C while DMI had the largest RMSD of 0.5C. An RMSD of 0.4C between Saildrone SST and the satellite-derived products could be explained by the daily variability in USV SST which currently cannot be resolved by remote sensing measurements. For SSS, values from the JPLSMAP product showed saltier biases of 0.2 PSU, while RSS40 and RSS70 showed fresh biases of 0.3 PSU. An RMSD of 0.4 PSU could not be explained solely by the daily variability of the USV-derived SSS. Coherences were significant at the longer wavelengths, with a local maximum at 100 km that is most likely associated with the mesoscale turbulence in the California Current System.

As the world attempts to decarbonise the food industry and limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, plant-based meat analogues (PBMAs) have emerged as a sustainable alternative to traditional meat. This study implemented a life cycle assessment (LCA) to rigorously compare the environmental impacts of a beef burger (BB), produced with British beef, against a meat analogue (MA) equivalent with a publicly available recipe. For the LCA, a cradle-to-fork system boundary was utilised, alongside a functional unit of a single 100 g burger patty. Results from the LCA revealed that the BB patty had more than double the total environmental impact than the MA equivalent, as well as possessing a global warming impact that was 62% higher. A simple extrapolation illustrated that if the UK population switched from beef to meat analogue patties, 3 million tonnes of CO2e could be saved annually, corresponding to 0.74% of the country’s yearly territorial GHG emissions. Scenario analyses displayed how the environmental impact of the MA patty remained stable regardless of changes in exportation, ingredient origin or soy protein sourcing. Moreover, sensitivity analysis conducted with an alternative characterisation method corroborated initial findings, whilst uncertainty analysis ensured that nearly all conclusions generated from the original comparison were robust. Future studies should conduct peer-reviewed LCAs on PBMA patties with commercial recipes based on other plant-based proteins, as well as fully understanding any potential health implications of long-term PBMA consumption.

In this paper, the effects on the rheological properties, particle size distribution, and fluorescence properties of red wine were investigated under microwave irradiation, and the mechanism of the effects of microwave irradiation on the sensory properties of red wine was discussed. The results showed that the effect of microwave on the rheological properties in red wine could be fitted by the Power-law model and Carson model, through the analysis of the rheological constants, yield stress, and viscosity coefficient of wine, it was found that microwave treatment could improve leg phenomenon and thickening effect by the change of rheological properties; the particle size distribution in wine indicated that microwave irradiation did change the particle size distribution through friction effect and oxidative polymerization, resulting in the wine’s visual effect and mouthfeel; the wine quality could be improved by enhancing the fluorescence intensity under different microwave conditions, which meant that microwave technology could speed up the formation of fluorescent substances, such as the polymerization of flavan-3-ols. In conclusion, microwave treatment could modify the sensory characteristics of wine, and further provide the theoretical basis for the application of microwave in winemaking.

Cycas (family Cycadaceae), spread throughout tropical and subtropical regions, is crucial in con-servation biology. Due to the subtle morphological variations between species, a solid spe-cies-level phylogeny for Cycas is lacking. Because of the rapid progress in high-throughput se-quencing technology, it has become feasible to acquire complete chloroplast (cp) genome se-quences, which provide a molecular foundation for phylogenetic research. In the present study, we employed next-generation sequencing technology to assemble and analyze the chloroplast genomes of six Cycas plants, including their genome structure, GC content, and nucleotide di-versity. The Cycas chloroplast genome spans 162,038 to 162,159 bp and contains 131 genes, in-cluding 86 protein-coding genes, 37 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and 8 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Through a comparative analysis, we found that the chloroplast genome of Cycas was highly conserved, as indicated by the contraction and expansion of the inverted repeat (IR) re-gions and sequence polymorphisms. In addition, several non-coding sites (psbK-psbI, petN-psbM, trnE-UUC-psbD, ndhC-trnM-CAU, and rpl32-trnP-GGG) showed significant varia-tion. The utilization of phylogenetic analysis relying on protein-coding genes has substantiated the division of Cycas primarily into four groups. The application of these findings will prove valuable in evaluating genetic diversity and the phylogenetic connections among closely related species. Moreover, it will provide essential support for the advancement of wild germplasm re-sources.

In this paper, COMSOL Multiphysics software was used to simulate and analyze the process of cleaning oily sludge by high-speed stirring rotor. The physical phenomena such as velocity field, pressure field, heat dissipation and cavitation generated by the rotor during the process of the oily sludge cleaning were analyzed. The results showed that in the process of cleaning the oily sludge by high-speed stirring rotor, the shear force, heat dissipation and pressure increased with the enhance in the rotor speed. Cavitation occurs in the impeller area of the rotor because of the change of pressure, so the cavitation bubbles were formed. Shear force, heat dissipation and cavitation contributed to the separation of oil phase in oily sludge. Meanwhile, the simulation results were verified by experiments.

Vitamin E, a potent antioxidant, is a necessary and complex micronutrient for cows. During the transition period, vitamin E deficiency (VED) is among the highest prevalent micronutrient deficits in dairy cows. It may eventually result in oxidative stress and immunological malfunction, and it increases the risk of peripartum disorders. At present, detailed data on blood metabolites in VED cows are limited. Consequently, the purpose of this research was to examine the alterations in the serum metabolic profile of VED cows throughout the early postpartum period. Using comprehensive 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), the alterations in serum metabolic activities of VED cows were analyzed. In total, 28 multiparous Holstein cows were assigned according to serum α-tocopherol (α-Toc) concentrations into a normal (α-Toc ≥ 4 μg/mL, n = 14) and VED (α-Toc &lt; 3 μg/mL, n = 14) groups at 21 days postpartum, and their blood samples were collected for biochemical and 1H NMR analyses. A t-test on independent samples as well as multivariate statistics were used to assess the findings. In comparison with normal cows, VED cows showed significantly worse body condition scores, milk yield, and dry matter intake (p &lt; 0.05). Significantly higher levels of serum non-esterified fatty acids, aspartate aminotransferase, low-density lipoprotein, and malonaldehyde were found in VED-affected cows, as well as lesser concentrations of serum albumin, high-density lipoprotein, and total antioxidant capacity in comparison with normal cows (p &lt; 0.01), while other vitamins and minerals concentrations showed no distinction between the groups (p &gt; 0.05). Furthermore, 24 upregulated serum metabolites were identified under VED conditions. The metabolomics pathway analysis of these metabolites demonstrated that a global metabolic response to VED in cows was represented by changes in 11 metabolic pathways, comprising energy, carbohydrate, and amino acid metabolism. These outcomes suggest that VED cows were more likely to experience a negative energy balance characterized by alterations of common systemic metabolic processes and develop oxidative stress, inflammation, and ultimately liver injury. This study provides the first evidence of metabolic changes in cows with VED.

As a radiant light source within the dynamic range of most spacecraft payloads, the moon pro-vides an excellent reference for on-orbit radiometric calibration. This research hinges on the pre-cise simulation of lunar spectral irradiances and the Earth-based Moon observation geometry. The paper leverages the Hapke model to simulate the temporal changes in lunar spectral irradi-ances, utilizing datasets obtained from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). The re-search also details the transformation process from the lunar geographic coordinate system to the instantaneous projection coordinate system, thereby delineating the necessary observational geometry. The insights offered by this study have the potential to enhance future in-orbit space-craft calibration procedures, thereby boosting the fidelity of data gathered from satellite obser-vations.

(1) Background: This retrospective study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of one-stage computed tomography (OSCT)- to that of two-stage computed tomography (TSCT)-guided localization for the surgical removal of small lung nodules. (2) Methods: We collected data from patients with ipsilateral pulmonary nodules who underwent localization before surgical removal at Veteran General Hospital Kaohsiung between October 2017 and January 2022. The patients were divided into the OSCT and TSCT groups. (3) Results: We found that OSCT significantly reduced the localization time and risky time compared to TSCT, and the success rate of localization and incidence of pneumothorax were similar in both groups. However, the time spent under general anesthesia was longer in the OSCT group than in the TSCT group. (4) Conclusions: The OSCT-guided approach to localize pulmonary nodules in hybrid operation room is a safe and effective technique for the surgical removal of small lung nodules.

Mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM), aiming to outline and prioritize mineral exploration targets, has been spurred by data-driven machine learning algorithms. Supervised data-driven MPM is a typical few-shot task, suffering from the scarcity of labeled data, over-fitting of models and uncertainty of predictions. The main objective of this contribution is to propose a robust framework of few-shot learning (FSL) combining data augmentation and transfer learning, which enables generation of prospectivity models with excellent predictive efficiency and low uncertainty. The mineral systems approach was used to transfer a conceptual mineral system into mappable exploration criteria. Synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) was employed to augment and balance the labeled dataset, allowing for model pre-training with a large synthetic training dataset of source domain. The knowledge derived from pre-trained models was then transferred to the target domain by fine-tuning, and the prospectivity model was generated in light of over-fitting and uncertainty assessment. The proposed FSL framework was applied to tungsten prospectivity mapping in southern Jiangxi Province. The results indicate that the SMOTE-ed balanced dataset boosts the classification accuracy in the training process. The FSL models yield an arch-shaped prediction point pattern favorable for focusing potential targets with high probability and low uncertainty. The FSL models achieve a high predictive performance (test AUC=0.9172) and the lowest quantitative over-fitting value, compared to the models derived from the benchmark algorithms of random forest and support vector machine. Four levels of potential targeting zones, considering both predictive efficiency and uncertainty, are extracted from the resulting FSL prospectivity map. The final high-potential and low-risk exploration targets only cover 4.27% of the area, but capture 41.53% known tungsten deposits, achieving superior predictive performance. This study highlights the capability of FSL framework for controlling over-fitting and generating high-confidence exploration targets with low uncertainty.

Air conditioners are indispensable necessities in daily life and industrial production. However, the heat generation of their internal core power components can limit their performance release. In this work, we explore the application of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) in the field of power device heat dissipation through finite element simulation. First, we geometrically modeled the structure and typical operating conditions of core power devices in air conditioners. We compared the temperature fields in air cooling and TEC active cooling modes for high power consumption power devices in a 319 K operating environment. The simulation results show that in the single air cooling mode, the maximum temperature of the 173.8 W power device reaches 394.4 K and the average temperature reaches 373.9 K, which exceeds its rated operating temperature of 368.1 K. However, after adding TEC, the maximum temperature of the power device drops to 331.8 K at an operating current of 7.5 A and the average temperature of the device is 326.5 K. It indicates that TEC active cooling has a significant effect on the temperature control of the power device. At the same time, we also studied the effect of TEC working current on the temperature control effect of power devices. For TEC, there is a minimum working current of 5 A; when it is less than 5 A, TEC has no cooling effect; the cooling effect of TEC increases with an increase in working current. When the TEC working current is 10 A, the average temperature of the power device can be reduced to 292.9 K. This study has made a meaningful exploration of the application of TEC in chip temperature control and heat dissipation, providing a new solution for chip thermal management and accurate temperature control.

Genomics involving tens of thousands of genes is a complex system determining phenotype. An interesting and vital issue is that how to integrate highly sparse genetic genomics data with a mass of minor effects into prediction model for improving prediction power. We find that deep learning method can work well to extract features by transforming highly sparse dichotomous data to lower dimensional continuous data in a non-linear way. This idea may provide benefits in risk prediction based on genome-wide data associated e.g. integrating most of the information in the genotype data. Hence, we developed a multi-stage strategy to extract information from highly sparse binary genotype data and applied it for risk prediction. Specifically, we first reduced the number of biomarkers via a univariable regression model to a moderate size. Then a trainable auto-encoder was used to extract compact representations from the reduced data. Next, we performed a LASSO problem process over a grid of tuning parameter values to select the optimal combination of extracted features. Finally, we applied such feature combination to two prognostic models, and evaluated predictive effect of the models. The results of simulation studies and real data applying indicated that these highly compressed transformation features could better improve predictive performance and did not easily lead to over-fitting.

Two modal decomposition techniques, including proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), are used to identify the wake patterns past single and two crossing cylinders in 60° and 90° arrangements with gap ratio G = 4. The flow is simulated using direct numerical simulations (DNS) for Reynolds numbers Re = 100. The spatial scale of flow decreases with increasing modal frequency from the modal analysis. Two main modes are identified in the wake of the cylinders, namely spatially antisymmetric and symmetric modes. Antisymmetric and symmetric modes are related to cylinders’ vortex shedding and shedding vortices’ shift motion, respectively, whose frequencies are odd and even multiples of cylinders’ lift force frequency. In addition, a low-frequency mode concerning the shadowing effect of the downstream cylinder (DC) in 90° arrangement is found in the wake of the DC centre.

Electromagnetic sensors have been used for inspecting small surface defects of metals. Based on the eddy-current thin-skin regime, a revised algorithm is proposed for a triple-coil drive-pickup eddy-current sensor scanning over long surface crack slots (10 mm) with different rotary angles. The method is validated by the voltage measurement of the designed EC sensor scanning over a benchmark (ferromagnetic) steel with surface defects of different depths and rotary angles. With an additional sensing coil for the designed EC sensor, the defect angle (or orientation) can be measured without spatially and coaxially rotating the excitation coil. By referring to the voltage change (due to the defect) diagram (voltage sum versus voltage different) of two sensing pairs, the rotary angle of the surface crack is retrieved with a maximum residual deviation of 3.5 %.

In the surgical treatment of lung cancer, systemic mediastinal lymph node dissection, as one important routine procedure, has been accepted by most peers in the world. However, due to the special location of some mediastinal lymph nodes, the difficulty of dissection, and the negative preoperative CT results, the specific scope of lymph node dissection is still controversial. Especially the second group, which is located at the top of thorax, is likely to be overlooked for the above reasons. Here, we report a case of lung adenocarcinoma in which the preoperative CT showed no abnormal lymph nodes in the second group and also no enlarged lymph nodes of the second group were found during the surgery, yet lymphadenectomy was still performed according the routine with the lymph node of station 2 being sampled. In the postoperative pathological report, cancer cells were found in the second group, instead of lung adenocarcinoma, these cells come from thyroid and were proved to be papillary thyroid carcinoma, which is unusual because no obvious indication of thyroid carcinoma was found in preoperative color doppler ultrasound of superficial lymph nodes.

A series of penta-1,4-dien-3-one containing a H-phosphonate scaffold were designed and synthesized. The structures of all title compounds were determined by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, 31P-NMR, and HRMS. Bioassay results showed that several of the title compounds exhibited remarkable antibacterial and antiviral activities. Among these, compounds 3c and 3o exhibited substantial antibacterial activities against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae (Xoo) and Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri (Xac). In addition, compounds 3c, 3f, and 3r showed remarkable curative activities against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), with 50% effective concentration (EC50) values of 290.0, 234.0, and 373.6 μg/mL, respectively. These were superior to that of ningnanmycin (386.2 μg/mL). Compound 3r exhibited comparative protective activity against TMV, with an EC50 value of 291.1 μg/mL, which was better than that of ningnanmycin (297.1 μg/mL). Notably, the solubility of all title compounds improved relative to the lead compound curcumin. These results suggest that penta-1,4-dien-3-one containing a H-phosphonate scaffold may be considered as an activator for antibacterial and antiviral agents.

Bufadienolides-like chemicals, which mostly composed the active ingredient of Chansu, had been widely discovered to possess anti-inflammatory, tumor-suppressing and antipain activity, but the mechanisms of action were not clearly illuminated. In this research, in order to explore the potential mechanism of bufadienolides-like chemicals on breast cancer, a serious of bioinformatics analysis, included (1) differentially expressed genes identification combined with gene set variation analysis, (2) tissue specific co-expression network construction, (3) differentially regulated sub-networks detection with disease phenome, (4) hub gene selection and it’s relation to survival probability, and (5) similar small molecule detection were performed with gene expression profiles of bufadienolides-like chemicals. Results indicated bufadienolides-like chemicals had the most same target with valproic, estradiol and etc, could disturbed the pathways in RNA splicing, apoptotic process, cell migration, extracellular matrix organization, adherens junction organization, synaptic transmission, Wnt signaling, AK-STAT signaling, BMP signaling pathway and unfolded protein response, and had the potential ability to be used as anticancer, hormones and vasoprotectives agents.

Imperatorin is a chemical compound belong to Linear furan coumarins. Imperatorin is attracting considerable attention because of its anti-tumor, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant and inhibition of myocardial hypetrophy and other pharmacological efficacy. However, imperatorin has limited water solubility and preferable lipid solubility, we decided to design and synthesize imperatorin lipid microsphere, to optimize preparation conditions. The aim was to develop and formulate imperatorin lipid microsphere through nano emulsion technology and apply the response surface-central composite design to optimize the imperatorin lipid microsphere formulation. Influence of content of amount of egg lecithin(A), amount of poloxamer188(B), soybean oil for injection accounted for the total percentage of oil phase(C) were investigated. Integrated effect of dependent variables including particle size(Y₁), polydispersity index(Y₂), Zeta potentials(Y₃), drug loading(Y₄), encapsulation efficiency(Y₅). Data of overall desirabiities were fitted to a second-order polynomial equation, through which three dimensional response surface graphs were described. Optimum experimental conditions were calculated by Design-Expert 8.06. Results indicated that the optimum preparation conditions were as follows: egg lecithin amount 1.39 g, poloxamer188 amount 0.21 g, soybean oil for injection amount 10.57%. Preparation of imperatorin lipid microsphere according to the optimum experimental conditions resulted in an overall desirability of 0.7286, while the particele size (168±0.54) nm, polydispersity index (PDI) (0.138±0.02), Zeta potentials (−43.5±0.5) mV, drug loading (0.833±0.27) mg·mL⁻¹, encapsulation efficiency (90±1.27)%. The difference between observed and predicted values of the overall desirability of the optimum formulation was in range from 2.4% to 4.3%. Subsequently, using the Scanning electron microscopy to observe the micromorphology of imperatorin lipid microsphere, the result shows that round globular of relatively uniform and sizes within 200nm.The proliferation study of imperatorin lipid microsphere on MDA-MB-231 was investigated by MTT method. Furthermore, pharmacokinetics in Sprague Dawley rats were evaluated using orbital bleeding. A sensitive and reliable liquid chromatography with High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) method was established and validated for the quantification of imperatorin in rat plasma samples. The data were calculated by DAS (Drug and statistics) pharmacokinetic software version3.2.6 (China). Results demonstrated that imperatorin lipid microsphere can significantly enhance the bioavailability of imperatorin and can significantly inhibit MDA-MB-231 cell proliferating. In conclusion, our results suggersted that the response surface-central composite design is suitable for the optimized lipid microspere formulation. Imperatorin Lipid microsphere can improve the bioavailability of imperatorin and inhibit the proliferation of MDA-MB-231 than that of imperatorin.

The effects of acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) on the microbiological and physicochemical properties of fresh-cut red cabbages were studied. The fresh-cut red cabbages and artificially inoculated red cabbages with Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 were washed with distilled water (DW) and different available chlorine concentration (ACC) of AEW for different times. AEW treatments significantly reduced the populations of native aerobic bacteria, molds and yeasts, and artificially inoculated S. Typhimurium DT104 compared to the DW treated and untreated red cabbage samples. The effectiveness of AEW treatments was greatly enhanced with increasing ACC and treatment times. S. Typhimurium DT104 were not detected in the washing water after the red cabbages treated by AEW. The surface color, pH, and total phenolic contents were did not significantly change when the red cabbages were washed with DW and 100 ppm AEW for 3 min. The anthocyanin contents and antioxidant activities of red cabbage were significantly reduced by 18.5% for cyanidin, 22.1% for pelargonidin, and 11.2% for DPPH radical scavenging activity, the impacts on the nutritional benefits of red cabbage were considered as limited and acceptable. The optimal process condition of AEW for washing red cabbage was 100 ppm for 3 min. In these conditions, most of the native microflora were inactivated, and artificial inoculated S. Typhimurium DT104 on the red cabbage were reduced by 40.2% (3.67 log CFU/g) and with minimal losses of nutrients and antioxidant activity, as well as no requirement of discontinuation treatment on the washing water.

As the interface between human and machine becomes blurred, hydrogel incorporated electronics and devices have emerged to be a new class of flexible/stretchable electronic and ionic devices due to their extraordinary properties, such as soft, mechanically robust and biocompatible. However, heat dissipation in these devices could be a critical issue and remains unexplored. Here, we report the experimental measurements and equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of thermal conduction in polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels. The thermal conductivity of PAAm hydrogels can be modulated by both the crosslinking density and water content in hydrogels. The crosslinking density dependent thermal conductivity in hydrogels varies from 0.33 to 0.51 Wm^-1K^-1, giving a 54% enhancement. We attribute the crosslinking effect to the competition between the increased conduction pathways and the enhanced phonon scattering effect. Moreover，water content can act as filler in polymers which lead to nearly 40% enhancement in thermal conductivity in PAAm hydrogels with water content vary from 23 to 88 wt%. Furthermore，we find the thermal conductivity of PAAm hydrogel is insensitive to temperature in the range of 25 ^oC – 40 ^oC. Our study offers fundamental understanding of thermal transport in soft materials and provides design guidance for hydrogel-based devices.

A comprehensive evaluation system of rural building energy consumption from the innovative composite perspective was established, which was suitable for southwest of China. The index system was established by Brainstorming method and Delphi method, the weights of the comprehensive evaluation model were calculated by Network Process (ANP) method, the scoring criteria of all evaluation indexes were leveld based on fuzzy evaluation theory. The system model was verified by case analysis, at the countryside around Chengdu Second Circle. With the highest weight, lowest comprehensive score, and broadest range of comprehensive scores taken into consideration, three key factors affecting the target layer, namely "Percentage of Clean Energy Use", "Thermal Performance of Exterior Walls", and "Implementation Rate of Energy saving Measures". The distribution of comprehensive indicators and evaluation factors has certain spatial distribution characteristics, and the overall spatial distribution shows a characteristic of "high in the southeast and low in the northwest". Finally, Based on key factors and regional distribution characteristics, energy-saving measures have been proposed from three aspects: increasing sunrooms, adding wall insulation layers, and standardizing air conditioning temperature settings.

Based on the composite perspective of environment-building-resource(EBR), influencing factors of the greenness of rural buildings were sorted out by brainstorming and expert consultation, an innovative comprehensive evaluation system was constructed and the weight ofthe impact factors were calculated by fuzzy analytic network process(FANP). The EBR greenness comprehensive scoring standards of each influence factor were established by means of questionnaire, field measurement and numerical simulation. As a typical representative of human populated areas in southwest China, 13 villages in the second circle of Chengdu were selected as case study areas by means of the regional average distribution theory and minimum sampling criteria. Innovative combination of obstacle degree model and spatial interpolation analysis, the key factors affecting the greening of rural buildings were diagnosed. The results showed that, indoor thermal environment(E21), indoor light environment(E22), popularity of biogas facilities (R12), green building material usage(R13) have a significant impact on the EBR greenness score. The EBR score of study area shows a spatial distribution pattern of high in the west and low in the east, with extremely uneven scores in various dimensions. According to the key factors obtained from the systematic evaluation, the refined exploration of promotion strategies and measures was carried out, the greenness improvement suggestion was put forward.

The association of alcohol intake with kidney stone disease (KSD) is not clear. We examined the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2018 and used logistic regression analyses to determine the independent association between alcohol intake and prevalent KSD. 29,684 participants were eligible for the final analysis including 2,840 prevalent stone formers (SF). Mean alcohol intake was 37.0±2.4 g/day among SF compared to 42.7±0.9 among non-SF (p=0.04). Beer [Odds ratio (OR)=0.76, 95% CI: 0.61-0.94, p=0.01] and wine (OR=0.75, 95% CI: 0.59-0.96, p=0.03) intakes were strongly associated with lower odds of prevalent KSD while liquor intake had no association. The effect from beer was dose dependent with an OR of 0.34 (95% CI: 0.20–0.57, p56g/day of beer to non-drinkers. Interestingly, the effect from wine was only significant among participants drinking moderate amount, with an OR of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.36–0.81, p=0.003) compared to non-drinkers. These effects were consistent in spline models. This study suggests that both moderate to heavy beer intake and moderate wine intake are associated with a reduced risk of KSD. Future prospective studies are needed to clarify the causal relationship.

The Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis (EHS), featured by an exceptionally intense compression orogeny and an extremely rapid surface erosion rate, stands out as a prime area for investigating surface processes and landscape evolution. Understanding the formation of the EHS holds significant importance in advancing our comprehension of the evolutionary dynamics within the Tibetan Plateau and the complex interplay between endogenic and exogenic geological processes. Currently, two models, namely the tectonic aneurysm and the syntaxis expansion model, have been proposed to explain the formation and evolution of this syntaxis. In this study, we employ a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating geomorphic indices such as slope, relief, Hypsometric Integral (HI), Normalized Channel Steepness (Ksn), River Slope-Basin Area Integration (χ), combined with erosion rates on long-medium-short term timescales obtained from thermochronology, cosmogenic nuclides 10Be and landslide disaster probability data. Our findings suggest a relatively high tectonic activity in the confluence of the Yigong and Parlung Rivers in the northern end of the syntaxis. Moreover, our data reveals that spatial variability of tectonic activity is the primary driver of regional geomorphologic features and the spatial-temporal characteristics of erosion observed in the EHS, with lithology and climatic precipitation playing a lesser role. Furthermore, the northwards migration of the EHS appears to elucidate the shift of tectonic activity and rapid erosion from the core of the syntaxis near the Namche Barwa towards the confluence of the Yigong and Parlung Rivers. This northwards migration of the EHS underscores the need for increased attention to the high geological hazard risk in the northern part of the EHS.

Alternative splicing (AS) plays a crucial role in regulating gene expression, function and diversity. However, limited reports exist on identification and comparation of AS in Eastern and Western pigs. Here, we analyzed 243 transcriptome data from eight tissues, integrating information on transcription factors (TFs), selection signals, splicing factors (SFs), and QTLs to comprehensively study alternative splicing events (ASEs) in pigs. Five ASE types were identified, with Mutually Exclusive Exon (MXE) and Skipped Exon (SE) ASEs being the most prevalent. A significant portion of genes with ASEs (ASGs) showed conservation across all eight tissues (63.21% - 76.13% per tissue). Differentially alternative splicing genes (DASGs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) exhibited tissue specificity, with blood and adipose tissues having more DASGs. Functional enrichment analysis revealed coDASG_DEGs in adipose were enriched in pathways associated with adipose deposition and immune inflammation, while coDASG_DEGs in blood were enriched in pathways related to immune inflammation and metabolism. Adipose deposition in Eastern pigs might be linked to down-regulation of immune-inflammation-related pathways and reduced insulin resistance. The TFs, selection signals, and SFs appeared to regulate ASEs. Notably, ARID4A (TF), NSRP1 (SF), ANKRD12, IFT74, KIAA2026, CCDC18, NEXN, PPIG, and ROCK1 genes in adipose tissue showed potential regulatory effects on adipose-deposition traits. And NSRP1 could promote adipogenesis by regulating alternative splicing and expression of CCDC18. Conducting an in-depth investigation into AS, this study has successfully identified key marker genes essential for pig genetic breeding and the enhancement of meat quality, which will play important roles in promoting the diversity of pork quality and meeting market demand.

Fine-tuning is an important technique in transfer learning that has achieved significant success in tasks that lack training data. However, as it is difficult to extract effective features for single-source domain fine-tuning when the data distribution difference between the source and the target domain is large, we propose a transfer learning framework based on multi-source domain called adaptive multi-source domain collaborative fine-tuning to address this issue. This approach utilizes multiple source domain models for collaborative fine-tuning, thereby improving the model's feature extraction capability in the target task. Specifically, this approach employs an adaptive multi-source domain layer selection strategy to customize appropriate layer fine-tuning schemes for the target task among multiple source domain models. The objective is to extract more efficient features. Furthermore, a novel multi-source domain collaborative loss function is designed to facilitate the precise extraction of target data features by each source domain model. Simultaneously, it works towards minimizing the output difference among various source domain models, thereby enhancing the adaptability of the source domain model to the target data. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed the adaptive multi-source domain collaborative fine-tuning framework, it is analyzed and compared with the most widely used fine-tuning methods by applying them to seven publicly available visual categorization datasets commonly employed in transfer learning. Experimental results demonstrate that, in comparison with the existing fine-tuning approaches, our method not only enhances the accuracy of feature extraction in the model but also provides precise layer fine-tuning schemes for the target task, resulting in state-of-the-art performance.

A new power receiving unit (PRU) is proposed in this paper for the resonant wireless power transfer (WPT), which is characterized by the capability of attracting high power from the power transmitting unit (PTU). The resonant WPT is designed for delivering the electrical power to the PRU attached on an electrical vehicle (EV) chassis 50cm away from a PTU installed on the ground. The proposed PRU uses only the passive elements such as inductors, diodes and the capacitors, which needs no initial power from the EV. It is then applicable for charging a battery to several hundred volts for even a first-time charging battery. At a switching frequency of the resonant WPT in the experiment being 4MHz, the proposed PRU behaves itself as a negative impedance converter (NIC) in the subharmonics of 4MHz. The NIC effect plus the subharmonic oscillation causes an instability current charging the battery connected to the PRU. In this paper, we simulated the PRU and performed the experiment. The experiment demonstrates a battery charging of 150W from 50cm away using three D-mode GaN HEMT transistors via the instability current ramp. The power transfer efficiency (PTE) improved as the power delivered to load (PDL) goes higher. The best power transfer efficiency (PTE) is 65% in the present findings. The simulation analysis shows that the circuit allows itself be used to much higher power transfer when it is implemented with more GaN HEMT transistors connected in parallel. The theoretical derivation of the PRU circuit is also used to support both the experimental and simulation results.

Due to the special terrain of Urumqi (in the valley area), which often triggers strong foehn weather, and causes huge losses to local people's lives and social economy. This study uses in-situ surface meteorological variables (including the hourly temperature, pressure, humidity, wind, etc.) from the Urumqi Meteorological Station (downstream station, DS) and the Dabancheng Meteorological Station (upstream station, US) in the Middle Tianshan Valley and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data from 2008 to 2022. A dataset of the foehn weather process at DS in the past 15 years is established and the variation patterns of each meteorological variable during the process of foehn is analyzed. Based on the physical mechanism of the occurrence of foehn, a three-element identification standard for foehn in Urumqi is established by comparing and analyzing the variation of wind direction (WD), wind speed (WS), and the difference of potential temperature (Δθ) between DS and US during the period of foehn and non-foehn from 2013 to 2022, namely: 94°≤ 2-minute average WD ≤168°, 2-minute average WS ≥2.0 m/s, and Δθ between DS and US ≥ 0.29 K. According to the test and evaluation, the three-element identification standard has an accuracy of 82.96%, and a hit rate of 89.50% for the occurrence of foehn in Urumqi from 2008 to 2012. Moreover, the hit rate of foehn identification is 100% for strong wind or above (i.e., 2-minute average WS ≥10.8 m/s) WS. In addition, combined with two predictors of sea-level pressure difference (ΔP) and Δθ between DS and US, forecasting foehn can be more accurately predicted than a single forecasting factor. When ΔP ≤ -12 hPa and Δθ≥5 K, the probability of the occurrence of foehn is more than 90%. This study provides certain reference and application value for the weather forecasting operation of foehn.

Nonconventional luminescent materials (NLMs) that do not contain traditional aromatic chromophores are of great interest due to their unique chemical structures, optical properties and their potential applications in various areas such as cellular imaging and chemical sensing. However, most reported NLMs show weak or no emission in dilute solutions, severely limiting their applications. In this work, the dynamic hydrogen bonds were utilized to design NLMs with efficient emission in dilute solutions. To further validate the results, polymers P1 and P2 were successfully prepared and investigated. It was found that luminescence quantum efficiency of P1 and P2 at concentration of 0.1 mg/mL in water solution is 8.9 and 0.6%, respectively. The high efficiency can be attributed to the fact that polymer P1 has more intra- or intermolecular dynamic hydrogen bonds and other short interactions than P2 in dilute solutions, allowing P1 to achieve the through-space conjugation effect to increase the degree of system conjugation, restrict molecular motion, and decrease non-radiative transitions, which can effectively improve luminescence. In addition, polymer P2 exhibits the characteristics of clustering-triggered emission, excitation wavelength-dependent and concentration-dependent fluorescence properties, excellent photobleaching resistance, low cytotoxicity and selective recognition of Fe3+. This work is a preliminary study of the luminescence properties of NLMs in dilute solutions via modulating dynamic hydrogen bonds, which can be used as a semi-empirical method to design and construct novel NLMs in future.

The achievement of reproductive competence in male mammals is dependent on the testis. Goat testis’ development and spermatogenesis involve physiological events with high complexity. In the current work, 6 testes were respectively collected from immature, sexually mature and physically mature Qianbei Ma goats (1, 6 and 12 months old, respectively). RNA-Seq was carried out to reveal changes in testis mRNA expression levels in Qianbei Ma goats at various developmental stages, and gene expression profiling at different ages was established. Totally 18 libraries were established for screening genes and pathways associated with testis development and spermatogenic processes. Totally 9,724 upregulated and 4,153 downregulated genes were identified between immature (I) and sexually mature (S) testes; 7 upregulated and 3 downregulated genes were detected between sexually mature (S) and physically mature (P) testes, and approximately 4% of genes were alternately spliced between the I and S groups. Selected genes were verified by qRT-PCR, in agreement with sequencing data indicating their reliability. Those genes have critical functions in various developmental stages of goat testicular development and spermatogenesis. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses were carried out to evaluate differentially expressed genes (DEGs). GO analysis suggested DEGs were involved in “reproduction process”, “channel activity” and “cell periphery part” between I and S, and in “ion transport process”, “channel activity” and “transporter complex part” between S and P. KEGG analysis indicated that pathways such as “glycerolipid metabolism”, “steroid hormone biosynthesis” and “MAPK signaling pathway” may be involved in testis development and spermatogenesis. Genes including IGF1, TGFB1, TGFBR1 and EGFR may regulate the development of the testis from immature to sexually mature, which may be key candidate genes for the development of goat testis. These findings provide novel insights into goat testicular development and spermatogenesis.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus and causes an infection that is associated with neurological manifestations, including microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome. The mechanism of ZIKV-mediated neuropathogenesis is not well understood. In this study, we discovered that ZIKV induces the degradation of the Numb protein, which plays a crucial role in neurogenesis by allowing asymmetric cell division during embryonic development. Our data show that ZIKV reduced the Numb protein level in a time- and dose-dependent manner. However, ZIKV infection appears to have minimal effect on the Numb transcript. Treatment of ZIKV-infected cells with a proteasome inhibitor restores the Numb protein level, which suggests the involvement of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. In addition, ZIKV infection shortens the half-life of the Numb protein. Among the ZIKV proteins, the capsid protein significantly reduces the Numb protein level. Immunoprecipitation of the Numb protein co-precipitates the capsid protein, indicating the interaction between these two proteins. These results provide insights into the ZIKV-cell interaction that might contribute to its impact on neurogenesis.

Our primary objectives were a) to determine the need for, and the availability of point-of-care testing (POCT) for infectious diseases and b) to recommend point-of-care testing strategies and spatial care paths (SCPs) that enhance public health preparedness in regional districts of Thua Thien Hue Province (TTHP), Central Vietnam, where we conducted field surveys. Medical professionals in 7 community health centers (CHCs), 7 district hospitals (DHs) and 1 provincial hospital (PH) participated. Survey questions (English and Vietnamese) determined the status of diagnostic testing capabilities for infectious diseases and other acute medical challenges in TTHP. Infectious disease testing was limited: 6 of 7 CHCs (86%) lacked infectious disease tests. One CHC (14%, 1/7) had two forms of diagnostic tests available for the detection of Malaria. All CHCs lacked adequate microbiology laboratories. District hospitals had few diagnostic tests for infectious diseases (Tuberculosis, Syphilis), blood culture (29%, 2/7), and pathogen culture (57%, 4/7) available. The PH had broader diagnostic testing capabilities but lacked preparedness for highly infectious disease threats (e.g., Ebola, MERS-CoV, SARS, Zika, and Monkeypox). All sites reported having COVID-19 rapid antigen tests; COVID-19 RT-PCR tests were limited to higher tier hospitals. We conclude that infectious disease diagnostic testing should be improved and POC tests must be supplied near patients’ homes and in primary care settings for the early detection of infected individuals and mitigation of the spread of new COVID-19 variants and other highly infectious diseases.

Background: Recent researches have investigated the biological importance of RNA N1-methyladenosine (m1A) modifications in oncogenesis and progression of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, whether m1A modifications also have latent effect in tumor microenvironment (TME) generation and immune regulation in HNSCC is unknown. Methods: We evaluated the m1A modification patterns and related to these modification patterns with TME cell infiltration features in 1041 HNSCC samples by bioinformatics approach. Results: The m1A score is an independent prognostic indicator. HNSCC patients with low m1A score group with poor overall survival (OS) was mainly characterized by stroma activation, lack of sufficient immune infiltration, and exhibited an immune- desert TME phenotype. Low m1A scores were also correlated with increased tumor mutation burden (TMB), and HNSCC patients with high TMB and low m1A scores had the worst OS. In addition, anti-CTLA-4 combined with anti-PD1 treatment was more effective in the high m1A score subgroup than in the low m1A score subgroup. Conclusions: This study revealed that m1A modifications play a non-negligible role in developing the TME versatility and complexity of HNSCC. Assessing m1A modification patterns in HNSCC helps improve our comprehension of its TME infiltration profile and guides more effective immunotherapeutic approaches.

The effect of stress on task performance is complex, too much or too little negatively affects performance; and there exists an optimal level of stress to drive optimal performance. Task difficulty and external affective factors are distinct stressors that impact cognitive performance. Neuroimaging studies showed that mood affects working memory performance and the correlates are changes in haemodynamic activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We investigate the interactive effects of affective states and working memory load (WML) on working memory task performance and haemodynamic activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging on the PFC of healthy participants. We seek to understand if haemodynamic responses could tell apart workload related stress from situational stress arising from external affective distraction. We found that the haemodynamic changes towards affective stressor and workload related stress were more dominant in the medial and lateral PFC respectively. Our study reveals distinct affective state-dependent modulations of haemodynamic activity with increasing WML in n-back tasks, which correlate with decreasing performance. The influence of negative affect on performance is greater at higher WML, and haemodynamic activity showed evident changes in temporal, and both spatial and strength of activation differently with WML.

Air filtration mechanisms in the composite filter media used in practical applications are important and challenging to understand because the component fibers could have various size scales and morphologies. In this work, a three-dimensional digital model of nanofiber-based filter media was reconstructed for the first time based on the X-ray tomography data for the cellulose substrate and the Focused Ion Beam-Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB-SEM) image analysis for the several microns thick (3.82-7.90 μm) electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofiber membrane. Besides the high-resolution model where the details of the fibrous structures were fully resolved, another low-resolution model with approximated unresolved structures was also established. Filtration simulations utilizing these models were conducted considering the drag force, Brownian diffusion and aerodynamic slip. The simulated filtration efficiencies agreed well with the experiments for particles of 70-400 nm, including the most penetrating particle size (MPPS, 100-200 nm). Moreover, the structure-resolved models had higher accuracy but higher computational costs, while the unresolved simulations saved much running time but over-predicted the filtration efficiency, especially for smaller particles (<100 nm). Our study presents a comprehensive strategy for investigating the composite filter media with multiscale complex structures using a combination of advanced characterization technologies and modular simulation models.

Teaching, learning, research, and development are all supported in a favorable atmosphere at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). The wetland systems made up of freshwater that are extremely biodiverse makeup about 10% of the total land area. Flooding, deforestation, excessive sedimentation, blockages to streams, abuse, overuse, and invasion of wetlands are some of the recent environmental challenges that the university faced. Urban heat island impacts, contaminants in the air, wetland degradation, social issues including stress, and a detachment from nature are all major concerns. With the green corridor behind the faculties of law and management science serving as a model supported by sustainability as a true foundation for UNILAG's campus landscapes, this article investigates the sustainable restoration of wetlands within the boundaries of the university. The use of qualitative techniques was employed, utilizing the Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis. Additionally, a geospatial mapping of the wetlands and tributaries that connect the Lagos Lagoon was conducted to evaluate the intrinsic ecological goods and services through a series of analytical steps, beginning with an analysis of the land area, current biodiversity, hydrology, and its potential through landscape mapping and analysis. The biophysical setup, landscape features, climatic data analysis, the ecological goods and services derived from the wetlands, and the records of flooding and rainfall are all included in the geospatial evaluation and analysis. The educational institution's site planning for the remediation of its wetlands takes into account the actual evolution of the area's drainage network. Throughout the wetlands, low carbon emissions are generated by off-road bike lanes, trails for walking, and raised hardwood platforms. Combining native plant species and park furniture, the academic landscape atmosphere will be improved in each of the wetlands and aesthetic values. the country's "University of First Choice" and its biophysically restored wetlands will help illuminate the landscape while the green corridors have an innate ability to attract human affinity within the academic community. All of these elements are implemented following an environmentally friendly landscape planning, management, design model, and enforcement process.

The rapid and accurate detection of parasites is crucial for timely curative intervention in parasitosis and for epidemiological surveillance. To meet the needs of clinical diagnosis, it is imperative to develop a diagnostic tool based on nucleic acid that combines the sensitivity and specificity of established nucleic acid amplifica-tion tests with the speed, cost-effectiveness, and convenience of isothermal amplification methods. A new nu-cleic acid detection method, utilizing the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated (Cas) nuclease, holds promise for point-of-care testing. Specifically, the CRISPR-Cas12a system has demonstrated numerous advantages for detecting parasites, with hopeful outcomes for identify-ing malaria, toxoplasmosis, and other parasitic ailments. This review provides an overview of how CRISPR-Cas12a can be utilized for parasite detection, evaluates its advantages and disadvantages, and sug-gests ways to improve the efficiency and sensitivity of CRISPR-Cas12a-based assays.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) with unique structures from marine animals show intriguing pharmacological activities and negligible biological risks, providing more options for us to explore safer agents. Swim bladder is a tonic food and folk medicine, and its GAGs show good anticoag-ulant activity. In this study, two GAGs SJG-1.0 and GMG-1.0 have been extracted and isolated from the swim bladder of Sphyraena jello and Gadus morhua. The physicochemical properties, pre-cise structural characteristics, and anticoagulant activities of these GAGs were determined. The analysis results of the SJG-1.0 and GMG-1.0 showed that they were chondroitin sulfate (CS)/dermatan sulfate (DS) hybrid chains with molecular weights of 109.32 kDa and 123.13 kDa, respectively. They were mainly composed of the repeating disaccharide unit of -{IdoA-α1,3-GalNAc4S-β1,4-}- (DS-A). The DS-B disaccharide unit of -{IdoA2S-α1,3-GalNAc4S-β1,4-}- also existed in both SJG-1.0 and GMG-1.0. SJG-1.0 had a higher proportion of CS-O disaccharide unit -{-GlcA-β1,3-GalNAc-β1,4-}-, while GMG-1.0 contained higher proportion of CS-E disaccha-ride unit -{-GlcA-β1,3-GalNAc4S6S-β1,4-}-. The disaccharide compositions of the GAGs varied in a species-specific manner. Anticoagulant activity assay revealed that both SJG-1.0 and GMG-1.0 had potent anticoagulant activity, which can significantly prolong activated partial thrombosis time. GMG-1.0 also can prolong the thrombin time. SJG-1.0 showed no intrinsic tenase inhibition ac-tivity, while GMG-1.0 can obviously inhibit intrinsic tenase with EC50 of 58 nM. Their significantly different anticoagulant activities may be due to their different disaccharide structural units and proportions. These findings suggested that the swim bladder CS/DS hybrid chains with well-defined structure may be safer anticoagulants with low bleeding risk.

The exploitation of bio-based foams implies an increase in the use of renewable biological resources to reduce the rapid consumption of petroleum-derived resources. Both tannins and furfuryl alcohol are derived from forestry resources and are therefore considered as attractive precursors for the preparation of tannin-furanic foams. In addition, toughening modification of tannin-furanic foams using polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) resulted in a more flexible network-like structure, which imparts excellent flexibility to the foams with acquirement of relative properties that are even close to those of polyurethane foams, which are the most used polymers for fabrication of insoles for athletes. In addition, the addition of PVOH did not affect the thermal insulation of the foams, resilience and elongation at break, while reducing the brittleness of the samples and improving the mechanical properties. Also the observation of the morphology of the foam indicated that the compatibility between PVOH and tannin-furanic resin is good, and the cured foam does not show fragmentation or collapse, while the bubble pore structure is uniform. The developed flexible foam derived from biomass resources endowed the foam good thermal insulation properties and high mechanical properties, and the samples exhibited suitable physical parameters to be used as flexible insoles for athletes.

In order to explore the genetic diversity of the extremely small population wild plant Habenaria dentata and protect and optimize its wild resources. The genetic diversity of 133 samples from 6 wild populations of H.dentata was analyzed by ISSR molecular marker technique to provide a scientific basis for the screening of improved germplasm resources. The results show that the average number of alleles (Na) was 1.765, the average number of effective alleles (Ne) was 1.424, the average Nei 's gene diversity index (He) was 0.252, the average Shannon information diversity index (I) was 0.381, and the average percentage of polymorphic loci (PPL) was 76.499%. The variation within populations was 77.34%, and the variation between populations was 22.66%. Gene flow (Nm) was 1.705 8, greater than 1. The results of cluster analysis showed that the six populations were mainly divided into four branches and not classified according to geographical location. There was no significant correlation between geographical location and genetic distance between populations (r=0.557, P>0.05). The genetic diversity of H.dentata is high. Among the six wild populations, the genetic diversity of Mulun population is the highest and this population can be used as a key protection unit.

To provide carbon steel a long corrosion protection effect in NaCl solution with various pH, a pH-controlled intelligent inhibitor based on poly-acrylamide (PAM) and oleate imidazoline (OIM) was synthesized. SEM, FT-IR and TGA results indicating the OIM inhibitor was successfully loaded into PAM hydrogel with a very high content (39.64 wt%). The OIM release behavior from hydrogel structure have two stages, quickly release and sustained release. The pH of solution could affect the initial release kinetics of OIM inhibitor and the diffusion path in hydrogel structure. Weight loss measurement of L80 steel in different pH solution with OIM@PAM proved the inhibitor responsive release mechanism and an-ti-corrosion performance. The inhibition efficiency of OIM@PAM can maintain over 80% after long term immersion in harsh corrosive environment (pH 3), which is much higher than the inhibition efficiency of inhibitor in moderate corrosive solution.

An effective behavior changes program is the first-line of prevention for youth obesity. However, effectiveness in prevention of adolescent obesity requires several approaches, with special attention paid to disordered eating behaviors and psychological support among other environmental factors. The aim of this systematic review was to compare the impact of two types of obesity prevention programs, inclusive of behavior change components on weight outcomes. Energy-balance studies were aimed at reducing calories from high-energy sources and increasing PA levels, while “shared risk factors for obesity and eating disorders” focused on reducing disordered eating behaviors to promote a positive relationship with food and eating. A systematic search of ProQuest, PubMed, PsycInfo, SciELO, and Web of Science identified 8825 articles. Twenty were considered “energy-balance” and fifteen “shared-risk factors for obesity and eating disorders”. Overall, energy-balance studies were unable to support a maintenance weight status, diet, and PA over time. Shared risk factors programs also did not result in significant differences in weight status over time. However, the majority of shared risk factors studies demonstrated reduced body dissatisfaction, dieting, and weight-control behaviors. More research is needed to examine how a shared risk factor approach can address both obesity and eating disorder.

Although sources of seston are much more complicated in lakes compared to marines, the influences of different source on the spatiotemporal variations in seston stoichiometry are still underexplored, especially in large eutrophic floodplain lakes. Here, we investigated the seston stoichiometry across a typical large eutrophic floodplain lake (Lake Taihu) over one year. In addition, we used the n-alkanes proxies for source estimation which are more robust than other elemental indicators (e.g. C: N ratios). Throughout the study, the average value of C: N: P ratio of 143: 19: 1 across Lake Taihu was higher than the classical Redfield ratio, but closed to the synthesized data from other lakes. Generally, seston C: N ratios varied the least across all environments, but C: P and N: P ratios varied widely and shown a significant seasonal pattern with lower ratios of N: P and C: P during senescence seasons and higher ratios in the growing seasons. This seasonal change was mainly associated with the shift from terrestrial-derived seston to algal-derived seston as, the significant lower ratios of terrestrial-derived seston from surrounding agricultural watershed. Spatially, the mean ratios of each site were similar, except relative high values of C: P and N: P ratios in the algal dominated area. Statistically, the predictive power of environmental variables was strongly improved by adding n-alkanes proxies. However, apart from sources indicators, particulate phosphorus (PP) contents also partly explained the spatiotemporal variations in stoichiometric ratios. Nevertheless, the mechanisms behind the dynamics of PP could be totally different and source-specific. This study highlights the priority of using n-alkanes proxies as tools to identify the source of seston which is essential to interpret the spatiotemporal variations in seston stoichiometric ratios among eutrophic floodplain lakes.

There is a high iron content in the nickel slag that mainly exists in fayalite phase. Basic Oxide can destroy the stable structure of fayalite which is beneficial to the treatment and comprehensive utilization of nickel slag. The reseach was based on the composition of the raw nickel slag, taking CaO-SiO₂-FeO-MgO system as the object and CaO as a modifier. The effect of basicity on the melting characteristics, viscosity and structure of CaO-SiO₂-FeO-MgO system was studied. The relationship between the viscosity and structure of CaO-SiO₂-FeO-MgO system was also explored. The results show as follows. (1) When the basicity is 0.38~0.90, the phase of primary crystal is olivine at argon atmosphere, while it is monoxide at the basicity of 0.90~1.50. The liquidus temperature, softening temperature, hemispherical temperature, and flow temperature all reach the lowest value at the basicity of 0.90. (2) With the increase of basicity, critical viscosity temperature of CaO-SiO₂-FeO-MgO system decreases first and then increases. Critical viscosity temperature is the lowest at the basicity of 0.90, which is 1263 ℃. (3) When the slag system is heterogeneous, the viscosity of the molten slag increase rapidity because of the type and quantity of solid phase precipitated from CaO-SiO₂-FeO-MgO system. And critical viscosity temperature of the slag system is also significantly affected. (4) When the slag system is in a homogeneous liquid phase, the molar fraction of O0 decreases with the increase of basicity and the mole fraction of O^- and O^2- increases continuously at the basicity of 0.38~1.50. The silicate network structure is gradually depolymerized into simple monomers, resulting in the degree of polymerization is reduced and the viscosity is reduced, too.

The science around the use of masks by the general public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. Policymakers need guidance on how masks should be used by the general population to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, considering and synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact; transmission characteristics; source control; PPE; sociological considerations; and implementation considerations. A primary route of transmission of COVID-19 is via respiratory droplets, and is known to be transmissible from presymptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Reducing disease spread requires two things: first, limit contacts of infected individuals via physical distancing and other measures, and second, reduce the transmission probability per contact. The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces the transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected droplets in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high. The decreased transmissibility could substantially reduce the death toll and economic impact while the cost of the intervention is low. Given the current shortages of medical masks we recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies. Because many respiratory droplets become smaller due to evaporation, we recommend increasing focus on a previously overlooked aspect of mask usage: mask-wearing by infectious people ("source control") with benefits at the population-level, rather than mask-wearing by susceptible people, such as health-care workers, with focus on individual outcomes. We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public, including the use of appropriate regulation.

This study investigated the prevalence of embryonic and connective tissue elements in the filum terminale (FT) of patients with tethered cord syndrome (TCS), examining both typical and pathological histology. FT specimens from 288 patients who underwent spinal cord detethering from 2013-2021 were analyzed. Histopathological examination involved routine hematoxylin and eosin staining and specific immunohistochemistry when needed. Patient details were extracted from electronic medical records. The study found that 97.6% of FT specimens had peripheral nerves, and 70.8% had regular ependymal cell linings. Other findings included ependymal cysts and canals, ganglion cells, neuropil, and prominent vascular features. Notably, 41% showed fatty infiltration, and 7.6% had dystrophic calcification. Inflammatory infiltrates, an underreported finding, were observed in 3.8% of the specimens. The research highlights peripheral nerves and ganglion cells as natural components of the FT, with ependymal cell overgrowth and other tissues potentially linked to TCS. Enlarged vessels may suggest venous congestion due to altered FT mechanics. The presence of lymphocytic infiltrations and calcifications provides new insights into structural changes and mechanical stress in the FT, contributing to our understanding of TCS pathology.

The ridge-furrow plastic mulching (RFPM) system and nitrogen application have been effective strategies for improving crop productivity in the Loess Plateau of China. However, it is not clear how the ridge-furrow ratio and nitrogen fertilizer type (NT) affect the utilization of water, nitrogen, heat and radiation resources for increased rain-fed wheat production. Two nitrogen fertilizer types [Traditional urea (TU) and controlled-release urea (CRU)] and four planting patterns [conventional flat planting (F) and the RFPM system of 20 cm ridge with 40 cm furrow (R2F4), 40 cm ridge with 40 cm furrow (R4F4), and 60 cm ridge with 40 cm furrow (R6F4)] were tested from September, 2018 to June, 2021 during winter wheat growing season. The results showed that the RFPM system can increase the soil thermal time (TTsoil) by 41.0–152.1°C d compared to F. The thermal effect of the RFPM system shortens the vegetative growth period and extends the reproductive growth period by 2–7 days, promoting the increase of the leaf area index (LAI) and final dry matter (DM) accumulation. These significantly increased the grain yield (GY) in the RFPM system by 51.6–115.2% and enhanced the thermal time use efficiency (TUE) by 48–99.5%, water productivity (WP) by 37.4–76.3%, radiation use efficiency (RUE) by 16.3–34.4%, and partial factor productivity of nitrogen (PFPN) by 51.6–115.2% compared to F. Although a high ridge-furrow ratio combined with CRU increased GY and resources use efficiency, it also exacerbated the soil water depletion, especially in the 40–140 cm soil layer. Overall, applying CRU in combination with the RFPM system of 40 cm ridge with 40 cm furrow maximized resources use efficiency and increased wheat production in the Loess Plateau of China.

Taking Korla fragrant pear as the research object, single factor testing and water and fertilizer coupling testing were conducted. Under the premise of the drip irrigation mode, the effects of water, nitrogen, and phosphorus on the growth, fruit quality, and yield of Korla Fragrant Pear were studied to provide a theoretical basis for efficient water and fertilizer management. Among them, the single factor test set water, nitrogen and phosphorus as the three factors, and each factor was set at five levels, namely, water (W1, 5460 m3·hm−2;W2, 5880 m3·hm−2;W3,6300 m3·hm−2; W4, 6720 m3·hm−2; W5, 7140 m3·hm−2), nitrogen (N1, 150 kg N·hm−2;N2, 225 kg N·hm−2; N3, 300 kg N·hm−2; N4, 375 kg N·hm−2; N5, 450 kg N·hm−2), phosphorus (P1,75 kg P2O5·hm−2; P2, 150 kg P2O5·hm−2; P3, 225 kg P2O5·hm−2; P4, 300 kg P2O5·hm−2; P5, 375 kg P2O5·hm−2). The results showed that the total nitrogen and total phosphorus contents in leaves under the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were significantly higher than those under other treatments, and the fruit quality was better. Therefore, the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were selected as the water and fertilizer inputs for the water–fertilizer coupling test for Korla fragrant pear. Eight treatments were set up in the water and fertilizer coupling test: Treatment 1 (T1, W3N3P3), Treatment 2 (T2, W3N3P4), Treatment 3 (T3, W3N4P3), Treatment 4 (T4,W3N4P4), Treatment 5 (T5, W4N3P3), Treatment 6 (T6, W4N3P4), Treatment 7 (T7, W4N4) P3), and Treatment 8 (T8, W4N4P4). The results showed that the leaf area index of the T1, T2, T3, and T4 treatments was significantly higher than that of the other treatments at maturity. The T3 treatment resulted in the highest fruit yield, single fruit weight, and primary fruit rate. The results of the grey correlation degree analysis of fruit quality showed that T3 treatment had the highest degree of correlation and ranking of each fruit quality index, indicating that T3 treatment had the highest fruit quality. Detailed investigation of pear tree growth and fruit quality showed that the T3 treatment (375 kg·hm−2 nitrogen application, 225 kg·hm−2 phosphorus application and 6300 m3·hm−2 irrigation) had the best fruit growth and development performance, and the sweet pear fruit quality was the best.

Taking Korla fragrant pear as the research object, single factor testing and water and fertilizer coupling testing were conducted. Under the premise of the drip irrigation mode, the effects of water, nitrogen, and phosphorus on the growth, fruit quality, and yield of Korla Fragrant Pear were studied to provide a theoretical basis for efficient water and fertilizer management. Among them, the single factor test set water, nitrogen and phosphorus as the three factors, and each factor was set at five levels, namely, water (W1, 5460 m3·hm−2;W2, 5880 m3·hm−2;W3,6300 m3·hm−2; W4, 6720 m3·hm−2; W5, 7140 m3·hm−2), nitrogen (N1, 150 kg N·hm−2;N2, 225 kg N·hm−2; N3, 300 kg N·hm−2; N4, 375 kg N·hm−2; N5, 450 kg N·hm−2), phosphorus (P1,75 kg P2O5·hm−2; P2, 150 kg P2O5·hm−2; P3, 225 kg P2O5·hm−2; P4, 300 kg P2O5·hm−2; P5, 375 kg P2O5·hm−2). The results showed that the total nitrogen and total phosphorus contents in leaves under the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were significantly higher than those under other treatments, and the fruit quality was better. Therefore, the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were selected as the water and fertilizer inputs for the water–fertilizer coupling test for Korla fragrant pear. Eight treatments were set up in the water and fertilizer coupling test: Treatment 1 (T1, W3N3P3), Treatment 2 (T2, W3N3P4), Treatment 3 (T3, W3N4P3), Treatment 4 (T4,W3N4P4), Treatment 5 (T5, W4N3P3), Treatment 6 (T6, W4N3P4), Treatment 7 (T7, W4N4) P3), and Treatment 8 (T8, W4N4P4). The results showed that the leaf area index of the T1, T2, T3, and T4 treatments was significantly higher than that of the other treatments at maturity. The T3 treatment resulted in the highest fruit yield, single fruit weight, and primary fruit rate. The results of the grey correlation degree analysis of fruit quality showed that T3 treatment had the highest degree of correlation and ranking of each fruit quality index, indicating that T3 treatment had the highest fruit quality. Detailed investigation of pear tree growth and fruit quality showed that the T3 treatment (375 kg·hm−2 nitrogen application, 225 kg·hm−2 phosphorus application and 6300 m3·hm−2 irrigation) had the best fruit growth and development performance, and the sweet pear fruit quality was the best.

(1) Background: The typical transporter protein, P-glycoprotein (P-gp), has been proven to be associated with multidrug resistance (MDR). Pyxinol and 24S-Pyxinol amino acid ester derivatives had been demonstrated to be promising P-gp inhibitors for reversal of tumor MDR in KBV cells, however, their roles in MDR reversal in other tumor-resistant cells are still unclear. (2) Methods: In the present study, we synthesized 40 amino acid ester derivatives of Pyxinol and 24S-Pyxinol. The MDR reversal effects of these derivatives were evaluated in A549/Tax, MCF-7/ADR, and HCT-8/VCR cells using the CCK-8 assay. Subsequently, western blot assay, intracellular Rhodamine123 (Rh123) accumulation assay and P-gp ATPase activity assay were utilized to investigate the effects of active compound on P-gp. Molecular docking was used to predict the possible binding patterns of active compound to P-gp. Moreover, based on UPLC-Q/TOF-MS cellular metabolomics technology to identify endogenous differential metabolites and metabolic pathways associated with tumor MDR effects of the active compound. (3) Results: The results of the CCK-8 assay showed that compounds 8, 14, 16, 17, 18, 23, 25, 34, 36, 37 exhibited strong MDR reversal effect in A549/Tax, MCF-7/ADR and HCT-8/VCR cells, which were screened by reversal fold (RF) greater than 5. Among them, 10 μM of derivative 37 (new compound) showed the outstanding activity (RF: 15.31) in reversing MDR in A549/Tax cells. Compound 37 could act as a substrate for P-gp and inhibit the efflux function of P-gp by competitively binding to the binding site of antitumor drugs. Meanwhile, the molecular docking results confirmed that compound 37 was identified to under-go high-affinity binding to the drug binding site of P-gp. In addition, 14 endogenous differential metabolites and 6 metabolic pathways involved closely associated with the reversal of tumor MDR effects of compound 37 were identified. (4) Conclusions: Overall, a new candidate compound 37 (24S-3-L-threonyl-Pyxinol) could be provided for reversing tumor MDR by this study.

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.

Ionic gel electrolyte retains the characteristics of non-volatilization, non-flammability and outstanding electrochemical stability of ionic liquid, and shows good electrochemical performance combined with the excellent characteristics of different matrix materials, which is considered to be the best choice to achieve the high energy density and safety at the same time. In this paper, a flexible and self-healing ionic gel electrolyte is prepared by solvent-assisted method based on a zteric ion (ZI) copolymer. Abundant hydrogen bonds and synergistic interaction of ions in the electrolyte system endowed it with wonderful self-healing ability. The ionic conductivity of 9.06×10-4 S cm-1 at room temperature was achieved. Besides, the tLi+ was also increased to 0.312. The self-healing function of the ionic gel electrolyte ensured the long-term tolerance of the SHIGE. The capacity retention rate of the Li//LiFePO4 battery is 96% after 155 cycles at 0.1 C at 60 oC. This polymer electrolyte is expected to solve the problem of increasing polarization，which is caused by the low lithium ions migration number in ionic liquid electrolyte. And ultimately, it gives rise to a good rate performance.

Chronic heat stress (CHS) has been exerting great pressure on the poultry industry due to the global warming. CHS-induced negative impacts deeply change the physiology, metabolism, egg production and meat quality of ducks. To reduce the increasing economic loss, different environmental strategies have been adopted. Here, we comprehensively compared three rearing modes for Cherry-Valley ducks (CVds) mainly by changing the environmental temperature. Plus, the transcriptome analysis and physiological anatomy were implied to investigate the underlying molecular biology and pneumonocyte dynamics. It turns out that the CVds affected by CHS have poor growth performance and bad carcass traits. In addition, the irreversible damage caused by CHS in the lung tissue of CVds was observed. Furthermore, several potential genes related to CHS have been found, such as HSPA8, IGF1, FGFR1, ACSL3, ACSL6, NR1H3 and GAPDH. This study strongly indicates the severe injury of CHS from the high-temperature environment and points out one of the adopting directions for duck rearing.

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) nanosheets have shown extensive applications due to their excellent physical and chemical properties. However, the low light absorption efficiency limits their application in optoelectronics. By rolling up 2D TMDCs nanosheets, the one-dimensional (1D) TMDCs nanoscrolls are formed with spiral tubular structure, tunable interlayer spacing and opening ends. Due to their increased thickness of scroll structure, the light absorption is enhanced. Meanwhile, the rapid electron transportation is confined along the 1D structure. Therefore, the TMDCs nanoscrolls show improved optoelectronic performance compared to 2D nanosheets. In addition, the high specific surface area and active edge site from bending strain of basal plane make them promising materials for catalytic reaction. Thus, the TMDCs nanoscrolls have attracted intensive attention in recent years. In this review, the structure of TMDCs nanoscrolls is firstly demonstrated and followed by various preparation methods of the TMDCs nanoscrolls. Afterwards, the applications of TMDCs nanoscrolls in the fields of photodetection, hydrogen evolution reaction, and gas sensing are discussed.

Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world. Annual coffee consumption continues to increase, but at the same time, it generates a large amount of spent coffee grounds from the brewing process, that arises environmental problems. An appropriate solution to manage these spent coffee grounds becomes crucial. Our project aims to discuss the feasibility of utilizing the spent coffee ground to synthesize polylactic acid as a recycling application for spent coffee ground. This paper will discuss the properties and potential recycling applications of spent coffee grounds, the brief production process of polylactic acid, and the potential process for converting spent coffee ground to lactic acid. From our review, it is feasible to utilize spend coffee ground as the primary sources for lactic acid production by bacteria fermentation, and further produce bioplastics, polylactic acids by ring-opening polymerization. Possible ways to improve the yield and corresponding cost analysis are also discussed.

In order to enhance the gain of antenna suitable for the airplane mounted platform, a conformal tightly coupled antenna array is investigated in this paper. Especially, three-dimensional (3-D) inkjet printing technique is used to implement the conformal property. The printing of antenna substrate and radiation layer is implemented by combining the fused deposition modelling and microdroplet injection molding technologies based on the existing 3-D printer. Here, through a unique combination of 3-D and 2-D inkjet printing of dielectric material and metallic ink, respectively, we demonstrate a monolithically integrated to a nonplanar antenna for the first time. Antenna measurements show that the complete characterization of this new process in terms of minimum feature sizes and achievable conductivities. This antenna configuration offers a high-gain performance with low-cost and rapid fabrication technique by using 3-D printing. The voltage standing wave ratio and radiation patterns are tested after adding the newly designed feed structure. Results shown the design process much efficient. Both antenna element and the array with good properties, which are in very good agreement with the specially mounted platform.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) places a heavy burden on older patients and the global healthcare system. A large body of evidence suggests that exercise training is essential in preventing and treating cardiovascular disease, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we used the Drosophila melanogaster animal model to study the effects of early-life exercise training (ELET) on the aging heart and lifespan. We found in flies that age-induced arrhythmias are conserved across different genetic backgrounds. The fat body is the primary source of circulating lipoproteins in flies. Inhibition of fat body apoLpp (the flies apoB homolog) demonstrated that low expression of apoLpp reduced the development of arrhythmias in aged flies but did not affect average lifespan. At the same time, ELET can also reduce the expression of apoLpp mRNA in aged flies and have a protective effect on the heart, which is similar to the inhibition of apoLpp mRNA. Although treatment of apoLppRNAi and ELET alone had no significant effect on lifespan, the combination of apoLppRNAi and ELET extended the average lifespan of flies. Therefore, we conclude that apoLppRNAi and ELET are sufficient to resist age-induced arrhythmias, which may be related to the decreased expression of apoLpp mRNA, and that apoLppRNAi and ELET have a combined effect on prolonging the average lifespan.

The absolute absorption cross section of the ethyl peroxy radical, C2H5O2, in the Ã←X ̃ electronic transition with the peak wavelength at 7596 cm-1, has been determined by the method of dual wavelengths time resolved continuous wave cavity ring down spectroscopy. C2H5O2 radicals were generated from pulsed 351 nm photolysis of C2H6/Cl2 mixture in presence of O2 and detected on one of the CRDS paths. Two methods have been applied for the determination of the C2H5O2 absorption cross section: (i) based on Cl-atoms being converted alternatively to either C2H5O2 by adding C2H6 or to hydro peroxy radicals, HO2, by adding CH3OH to the mixture, whereby HO2 was reliably quantified on the second CRDS path in the 21 vibrational overtone at 6638.2 cm-1 (ii) based on the reaction of C2H5O2 with HO2, measured under either excess HO2 or under excess C2H5O2 concentration. Both methods lead to the same peak absorption cross section of C2H5O2,7596 cm-1 = (1.0±0.2) × 10-20 cm2. The rate constant for the cross reaction between of C2H5O2 and HO2 has been measured to be (6.5±1.6) × 10-12 cm3 molecule-1 s-1.

Three typhoons (Rammasun, Kalmaegi, and Sarika) travelled through the deployed stations in the northern South China Sea from 2014–2016. During the passage of typhoons, strong winds and vigorous currents resulted in horizontal displacement of buoy over 2000 m, vertical displacement of ropes on buoys as much as 200 m. The rectification can correct the warm anomaly to cool anomaly of temperature. These movements lead to biases of raw data, with temperature bias as much as 4°C, salinity as much as 0.05 psu, velocity bias as much as 0.4 m/s. The crosscheck of current velocity from different instruments shows that the bias of overlapping velocity and correlation coefficient after depth rectification obviously enhances. The observation shows that temperature cools 1.5 °C, and 0.1 psu saltier in maximum, the near-inertial current increases to 0.4 m/s in the upper layer. The inertial kinetic energy propagates downward with the upward phase, and the maximum depth can reach over 2000 m.

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. As of April 17, 2020, more than 2 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide. Northern Italy is one of the world’s centers of active coronavirus cases. In this study, we predicted the spread of COVID-19 and its burden on hospital care under different conditions of social distancing in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, the two regions of Italy most affected by the epidemic. To do this, we used a Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) deterministic model, which encompasses compartments relevant to public health interventions such as quarantine. A new compartment L was added to the model for isolated infected population, i.e., individuals tested positives that do not need hospital care. We found that in Lombardy restrictive containment measures should be prolonged at least until early July to avoid a resurgence of hospitalizations; on the other hand, in Emilia-Romagna the number of hospitalized cases could be kept under a reasonable amount with a higher contact rate. Our results suggest that territory-specific forecasts under different scenarios are crucial to enhance or take new containment measures during the epidemic.

The corrosion inhibition performance of pyridine derivatives (4-methylpyridine and its quaternary ammonium salts) and sulfur-containing compounds (thiourea and mercaptoethanol) with different molar ratios on carbon steel in CO2-saturated 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution was investigated by weight loss, potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The synergistic corrosion inhibition mechanism of mixed inhibitors was elucidated by the theoretical calculation and simulation. The molecule of pyridine derivatives compound with larger volume has the priority to adsorb on the metal surface, while the molecules of sulfur-containing compounds with smaller volume fill in vacancies. A dense adsorption film would be formed when 4-PQ and sulfur-containing compounds are added at a proper mole ratio.

Sracocystis cruzi in cattle (Bos taurus) and Sarcocystis poephagicanis in yaks (Bos grunniens) are morphologically indistinguishable. However, the relationship of the two parasites is still un-clear. Here, muscular tissues of the two domestic animals collected from abattoirs in China were examined for sarcocysts of S. cruzi and S. poephagicanis. The sarcocysts isolated from the samples were processed for light microscopy (LM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and DNA analysis. Sarcocysts of S. cruzi and S. poephagicanis were found in 405 of 950 (42.6%) cattle and 304 of 320 (95.0%) yaks, respectively. By LM and TEM, the sarcocysts of the two parasites showed similar morphologically characteristics. The thin-walled sarcocysts had hair-like protrusions on the surface. Ultrastructures exhibited the primary cyst wall contained irregularly folded, hirsute or bone-like protrusions. Four genetic markers, 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, mitochondrial cox1, and apicoplast rpl6 of the two parasites were sequenced and analyzed. The sequences of the four loci presented an interspecific identity of 97.9−98.6%, 97.2−98.1%, 89.5−90.4%, and 96.9−97.2%, respec-tively. Phylogenetic analysis using 28S rDNA and cox1 sequences indicated that both species were placed into a group encompassing Sarcocystis spp. in ruminants with canid as known or putative definitive hosts. Sarcocystis cruzi and S. poephagicanis should represent separated species, and cox1 and rpl6 was suitable for distinguishing between them.

in order to enhance the separation performance and to reduce the heat loss of the transmembrane for membrane distillation, the thermal efficiency and hydrophobicity of the membrane distillation should be simultaneously enhanced. In this work, a PVDF/PET hydrophobic/hydrophilic membrane is prepared by non-solvent phase inducing method. Nanosized silica aerogel (SiAG) with high porosity is added to the composite membranes. The modifying effects and operating conditions on permeate flux and thermal efficiency in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) are investigated. Furthermore, the latent heat of vaporization and the heat transfer across the membranes are compared for SiAG addition, which indicates that the composite PVDF@SiAG/PET membranes display a great potential for distillation-separation application with high heat efficiency.

Diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) has been employed in the sulfide ore flotation process, due to its excellent collection performance. Herein, we investigated the interfacial adsorption behavior of DDTC on four mineral phases of high-sulfur residue — sulfur, pyrite, sphalerite and lead sulfate. The adsorption behavior — adsorption structure and energy and electron localization function cross section — of DDTC and H2O were explored using density function theory calculation. The result was helpful to construct a co-adsorption model of DDTC and H2O, which was validated by the pure minerals flotation operation and the characterization of fourier transform infrared spectra. The co-adsorption model indicated that the DDTC adsorption on the sulfur, sphalerite and lead sulfate was weak with physical bonding, while its adsorption on the pyrite was strong with chemical bonding. Practical bench-scale operation of high-sulfur residue flotation was performed, whose result was different from that obtained from the pure mineral flotation. To explain the difference, our developed model predictions and the mineral fugacity pattern analysis on the high-sulfur residue flotation were synergistically used. Overall, this work first proposed the co-adsorption model of DDTC and H2O and provided important insights into the interfacial adsorption in the high-sulfur residue flotation.

Ion-complementary self-assembling peptides have been studied in many fields for their distinct advantages mainly due to their self-assembly properties. However, their shortcomings, such as insufficient specific activity and poor mechanical properties, also limited their application. For better and wider application of this kind of promising biomaterials, ion-complementary self-assembling peptides can be modified with their self-assembly properties not being destroyed to the greatest extent. The modification strategies were reviewed by taking RADA16-Ⅰ as an example. For the insufficient specific activity, RADA16-Ⅰ can be structurally modified with active motifs derived from the active domain of the extracellular matrix or other related active factors. For weak mechanical properties, materials with strong mechanical properties or materials that can undergo chemical crosslinking were used to mix with RADA16-Ⅰto enhance the mechanical properties of RADA16-Ⅰ. To improve the performance of RADA16-Ⅰ as drug carriers, appropriate adjustment of the RADA16-Ⅰ sequence and/ or modification of the RADA16-Ⅰ-related delivery system with polymer materials or specific molecules can be considered to achieve sustained and controlled release of specific drugs or active factors. The modification strategies reviewed in this paper may provide some references for the further basic research and clinical application of ion-complementary self-assembling peptides and their derivatives.

Key genes needed for maintenance and growth for the two pathogens, Fusarium graminearum and Magnaporthe oryzae, were identified. These are genes that are induced in response to maintenance requirements (stress) and growth requirements. The processes involved are synthesizing arginine, synthesis of DNA-bases, nitric oxide synthesis needing arginine, autophagy, DNA synthesis, and DNA repair. A simplified regulatory network for these key genes for both organisms was constructed as a hypothesis for the work, and procedures previously developed to use sets of downloaded transcriptomic data were used to test hypotheses concerning what time under the course of infection of plants the key genes are expressed. The analysis shows that the transcription efforts (costs) to maintain the fungal cells (maintenance) are high before infection and during early infection. During the following biotrophic stage, maintenance activities drop, followed by a dramatic increase in the necrotrophic stage transition. Finally, in the necrotrophic stage, maintenance is again lower despite the high growth rate that can also cause stress. All identified genes' expressions behaved almost similar with an increased expression in the biotrophy-necrotrophy transition for both fungi except the DNA repair genes PARP/PARG that was not responding or absent (PARG) in the mainly clonal M. oryzae. This PARG expression pattern might indicate that M. oryzae is more subject to evolution by point mutations than F. graminearum, where sexual reproduction is frequent. The potential consequences of this in the development and the accelerated breakage of host species resistance in a Red Queen dynamics scenario are discussed. The analysis demonstrates the possibility of using large transcriptome datasets and co-regulations between key genes to test hypotheses. This technique's advantages complement molecular techniques that employ knockouts and over-expression of target genes to suggest that genes' roles are discussed.

Little is known about the association between equol and bioavailable testosterone (BT) in adults. We examined the associations of urinary equol concentrations with serum total, bioavailable and free testosterone (FT), dehydroepiandrosterone sulfide (DHEAS), free androgen index (FAI) and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) concentrations. This cross-sectional study included 1904 women aged 59.7 years. Urinary equol and serum sex hormone concentrations were measured. Overall, urinary equol tended to be inversely associated with bioactive forms of androgenic indices (BT, FT or FAI) but not with total testosterone (TT) or DHEAS. Urinary equol was also positively associated with SHBG. In multi-covariate-adjusted analyses stratified by menopausal status, graded and inverse associations between urinary equol and bioactive forms of androgenic indices (BT, FT and FAI) were observed in postmenopausal women (all p-trends <0.05), but not in premenopausal women. A significant positive association between urinary equol and SHBG was observed only in postmenopausal women. No significant associations were observed between urinary equol and TT or DHEAS in either group. A path analysis indicated that these associations of equol with androgens in postmenopausal women might be mediated by SHBG. Our findings indicated urinary equol exhibited graded and inverse associations with BT or FT but not TT in women.

Widely consumed forest fruits in Gabon, were analyzed for nutrient and bioactive compositions and their potential contributions to meeting the nutrient requirements of consumers. Edible pulps of Panda oleosa, Gambeya lacourtiana and Poga oleosa contained substantial amounts of bioactive compounds; flavonoids (13.5–22.8 mg/100g), proanthocyanins (2.4–7.6 mg/100g), polyphenols (49.6-77.3 mg/100g) and vitamin C (6.7–97.7 mg/100g). The highest content of β-carotene (76.6 µg/100g) was registered in fruits of Pseudospondias longifolia. The fruits of P. oleosa had the highest essential minerals Fe, Zn and Se. If a child aged 1 to 3 years consumed about 200g or if a non-lactating and non-pregnant woman consumed 300g of P. oleosa, A. lepidophyllus, G. lacourtiana, P. longifolia and P. oleosa, they could obtain substantial RDI ranging between 20-100% for energy, vitamins C and E, iron, magnesium, iron and zinc. Forest fruits can considerably contribute towards the human nutrient requirements. Based on the results of this study, forest foods should be considered in formulating policies governing food and nutrition security in Gabon.

The productivity of forests is often considered to be limited by the availability of phosphorus (P). Knowledge of the role of organic and inorganic P in humid subtropical forest soils is lacking. In this study, we used chemical fractionation and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to characterize the form of P and its distribution in undisturbed perhumid Chamaecyparis forest soils. The toposequence of transects was investigated for the humic layer from summit to footslope and lakeshore. The clay layer combined with a placic-like horizon in the subsoil may affect the distribution of soil P because both total P and organic P (Po) contents in all studied soils decreased with soil depth. In addition, Po content was negatively correlated with soil crystalline Fe oxide content, whereas inorganic P (Pi) content was positively correlated with soil crystalline Fe oxide content and slightly increased with soil depth. Thus, Pi may be mostly adsorbed by soil crystalline Fe oxides in the soils. Among all extractable P fractions, the NaOH-Po fraction appeared to be the major component, followed by NaHCO3-Po; the resin-P and HCl-Pi fractions were lowest. In addition, we found no typical trend for Pi and Po contents in soils with topographical change among the three sites. From the 31P-NMR spectra, the dominant Po form in soils from all study sites was monoesters with similar spectra. The 31P-NMR findings were basically consistent with those from chemical extraction. Soil formation processes may be the critical factor affecting the distribution of soil P. High precipitation and year-round high humidity may be important in the differentiation of the P species in this landscape.

As the world’s second largest economy, China ranks amount the world’s top nations when it comes to carbon emission, and therefore its attitude towards climate change is closely followed by all parties concerned. There have been few researches on the role of environmental governance in low-carbon city transformation process, especially the Chinese one. This paper analyses the role of government environmental regulation played in the low-carbon city transformation process by taking Shenzhen as the research object. One of the world's youngest super cities, it also happens to be the lowest carbon emission intensity city in China. Striving to explore green low-carbon development path for the whole country, Shenzhen provides practical experience for countries to cope with global climate change. However, its efforts to reduce the total carbon emissions failed, but it emphasized the carbon emission intensity, which is consistent with the international commitments made by the central government. China’s policy towards handling climate change relies on hierarchical governance arrangement. The strength of the NGOs in the country is weak and incomparable with the government’s, which has mastered most of the resources and is just a reality in China.

Many complex behaviours in biological systems emerge from large populations of interacting molecules or cells, generating functions that go beyond the capabilities of the individual parts. Such collective phenomena are of great interest to bioengineers due to their robustness and scalability. However, engineering emergent collective functions is difficult because they arise as a consequence of complex multi-level feedback, which often spans multiple length-scales. Here, we present a perspective on how some of these challenges could be overcome by using multi-agent modelling as a design framework within synthetic biology. Using case studies covering the construction of synthetic ecologies to biological computation and synthetic cellularity, we show how multi-agent modelling can capture the core features of complex multi-scale systems and provide novel insights into the underlying mechanisms which guide emergent functionalities across scales. The ability to unravel design rules underpinning these behaviours offers a means to take synthetic biology beyond single molecules or cells and towards the creation of systems with functions that can only emerge from collectives at multiple scales.

A comprehensive evaluation system of rural building energy consumption from a innovative composite perspective is established, which is suitable for southwest China. the brainstorming method and Delphi method were used to establish the indicator system, the ANP method was applied to calculate the weights of the comprehensive evaluation model, the scoring criteria of all evaluation indexes are constructed based on fuzzy evaluation theory, the applicability of the model is verified by an example of the countryside around Chengdu. The results showed that the score of some factors is low, whole or part area, just like the percentage of clean energy use(C24), the thermal performance of external walls(E21), the implementation of energy-saving measures(S22), were key factors affecting the target level, which has greater potential for improvement. The distribution of comprehensive indicators and evaluation factors have certain spatial distribution characteristics, the overall spatial distribution shows the characterwastic of "high in the southeast and low in the northwest". The key factors and spatial distribution characteristics found can be used as an important basis for the improvement of green energy-saving promotion measures, energy-saving retrofit programmes were proposed in terms of additional solar room, energy-saving of external walls and air-conditioning temperature setting guidance.