Grain shape and chalkiness are important appearance quality traits of rice, which also affect the yield and milling quality. In this study, 190 F2 families derived from the cross between Hua 5178S and Hua 611 were sequenced to construct a genetic linkage map. Combined with F2 and F2:3 generations grain shape and chalkiness phenotype, a total of 15 QTL were detected. There are 8 grain shape QTL distributed on chromosomes 2, 5, 6, 8, and 10; 7 chalkiness QTL distributed on chromosomes 2, 3, and 6. A QTL cluster affecting multiple chalkiness traits was found on chromosome 6, qWBR6.1, qWCR6 and qCR6 were selected for genetic effect verification. It was found that qWBR6.1, qWCR6 and qCR6 explained 13% and 24%, and 29% of the phenotypic variations respectively, and qWCR6 and qCR6 were co-mapped. This study laid a foundation for further cloning of rice appearance quality genes.

In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted significant attention due to their distinctive properties, including exceptional mechanical flexibility and tunable electronic properties. Via the first-principles calculation, we investigate the effect of strain on the electronic properties of monolayer SnP2S6 and GeP2S6. We find that monolayer SnP2S6 is an indirect band gap semiconductor, while monolayer GeP2S6 is a direct band gap semiconductor. Notably, under uniform biaxial strains, SnP2S6 undergoes an indirect-to-direct band gap transition at 4.0% biaxial compressive strains, while GeP2S6 exhibits a direct-to-indirect transition at 2.0% biaxial tensile strain. The changes of the conduction band edge can be attributed to the high-symmetry point Γ being more sensitive to strain than K. Thus, the relocation of the conduction-band and valence-band edges in monolayer SnP2S6 and GeP2S6 induces a direct-to-indirect and indirect-to-direct band-gap transition respectively. Consequently, the strain is an effective band engineering scheme which is crucial for the design and development of next-generation nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices.

Ningxiang pig is renowned breed for its exceptional meat quality, but it possesses suboptimal carcass traits. To elucidate the genetic architecture of meat quality and carcass traits in Ningxiang pigs, we assessed heritability and executed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) concerning carcass length, backfat thickness, meat color parameters (L.LD, a.LD, b.LD), and pH at two postmortem intervals (45 minutes and 24 hours) within a Ningxiang pig population. Heritability estimates ranged from moderate to high (0.30 ~ 0.80) for carcass traits and from low to high (0.11 ~ 0.48) for meat quality traits. We identified 21 significant SNPs, the majority of which were situated within previously documented QTL regions. Furthermore, the HMGA1 gene emerged as a pleiotropic gene correlated with carcass length and backfat thickness. The ADGRF1, FKBP5, and PRIM2 genes were associated with carcass length, while the NIPBL gene was linked to backfat thickness. These genes hold potential for use in selective breeding programs targeting carcass traits in Ningxiang pigs.

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are shape morphing materials whose large and reversible shape transformation results from the coupling between the mobile anisotropic properties of liquid crystal (LC) units and the rubber elastic of polymer networks. Their shape changing behaviors under the stimuli are largely directed by LC orientations, and therefore various strategies have been developed to spatially modulate the LC alignments. But most of the methods suffer from complex fabrication technologies or intrinsic limitations in applicability. To address this issue, programmable complex shape changes in some types of LCEs, such as polysiloxane side-chain LCEs or thiol-acrylate main-chain LCEs, etc, have been achieved by using a mechanical alignment programming process coupled with two-step crosslinking. Here, we report a polysiloxane main-chain LCE with programmable 2D and 3D shape changing performances achieved by mechanically programming the polydomain LCE between the two crosslinking steps. The resulting LCEs exhibited reversible thermal induced shape transformation between the initial and programmed shapes due to the two-way memory between the first network structure and the second network structure. Our work would be potential for expanding the applications of LCE materials in actuators, soft robotics and smart structures where arbitrary and easily programmed shape morphings are needed.

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.

Periodontitis is a progressive and inflammatory oral disease and results in the damage of the supporting tissues of teeth. Peroxiredoxin6 (PRDX6) is an antioxidant enzyme and has been identified as a regulator in redox balance. This study aimed to investigate whether PRDX6 could protect human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) from lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced inflammation and its mechanisms. Here, both inflamed and non-inflamed human gingival tissues were collected to assess the expression of PRDX6 and NRF2 by Immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. Furthermore, HGFs were stimulated with LPS, MJ33 (PRDX6 phospholipase A2 inhibitor), or ML385 (NRF2 inhibitor). The expression levels of inflammatory cytokines were measured by RT-qPCR and ELISA, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) was detected using DCFH-DA. PRDX6 was downregulated in inflamed gingival tissues. In HGFs, LPS induced inflammatory cytokines and ROS was upregulated in PRDX6 knockdown cells. Furthermore, co-treatment with MJ33 alleviated LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines and ROS, while inhibiting NRF2 upregulated those in HGFs. Therefore, this study provided a new mechanistic insight that PRDX6, regulated by the NRF2 signaling, alleviates LPS- induced periodontitis in human gingival fibroblasts.

Smart air filters are beneficial to provide highly efficient particle removal, treat multiple contaminants simultaneously and conserve energy during air filtration processes. Herein, a type of self-supporting smart air filter (SSSAF) was fabricated by sandwiching the VOC-responsive PZT/PVDF electrospun membrane with two metal mesh electrodes. Besides the high filtration efficiency for sub-micron particles, the SSSAF showed good responses to pressure drop in the range of 0 to 500 Pa via the electroactivity of PZT/PVDF membrane. In addition, the SSSAF achieved VOC sensing function via the swelling properties of PZT/PVDF membrane in organic vapors, demonstrated by its signal to 50 to 200 ppm ethanol gases. The SSSAF based nanogenerator was employed to harvest wind energy, which was further applied to inhibit bacterial growth without the need of additional power input. The results provide new insight into development of all-in-one smart air filters.

Hypoxia is the main survival challenge that human beings encounter in high altitudes, it is also the leading cause of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). Studies have shown that hypoxia induces a large number of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in AMS patients, and the surge of ROS leads to the reduction of oxygen delivery capacity of erythrocyte, senescence and inflammatory impairment of erythrocyte and vascular endothelial cells to a certain extent. Through depicting a target-pathway network, our study indicates that Compound Danshen Dropping Pills (CDDP), which is one of the best-known traditional Chinese medicine used for the treatment of myocardial ischemic diseases, can improve red blood cell oxygen delivery capacity in AMS patients, alleviate tissue and organ damage, relieve a series of clinical symptoms caused by hypoxia through ROS clearance and related mechanisms. We further elucidate the active ingredients of CDDP targeting ROS related pathway by target-ingredient correspondence analysis. Tanshinone IIA, catechol and some other compounds of CDDP were identified to have certain targeting effect on ROS and ROS dependent pathways. This study provides new understandings of CDDP in clinical application on AMS.

By combing continuum topology optimization (TO) method and lattice structure technique, a sandwich aircraft spoiler with a high stiffness-to-weight is designed. TO method is served to produce the shell of the aircraft spoiler and the lattice structure, used as cores, is employed to support the shell. TO problem is established as maximizing the stiffness of the structure with limited material volume. Density-based method is utilized to achieve a 0/1 solution. We then empirically replace the core of the aircraft spoiler by using 3D kagome lattice structure. Two different materials, i.e., aluminum alloy and titanium alloy, are synthetically applied to further reduce the weight and simultaneously improve the strength of the aircraft spoiler. Numerical simulations are conducted to show that the designed aircraft spoiler can meet the service environment with a reduction of its weight by approximately 80% when compared with that of the initial design model. Finally, we have fabricated the designed model with photosensitive resin by using 3D printing technique.

Pasmo (Septoria linicola) is a fungal disease causing major losses in seed yield and quality, and stem fibre quality in flax. Pasmo resistance (PR) is quantitative and has low heritability. To improve PR breeding efficiency, the accuracy of genomic prediction (GP) was evaluated using a diverse worldwide core collection of 370 accessions. Four marker sets, including three defined by 500, 134, and 67 previously identified quantitative trait loci (QTL) and one of 52,347 PR-correlated genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms, were used to build ridge regression best linear unbiased prediction (RR-BLUP) models using pasmo severity (PS) data collected from field experiments performed during five consecutive years. With five-fold random cross-validation, GP accuracy as high as 0.92 was obtained from the models using the 500 QTL when the average PS was used as the training dataset. GP accuracy increased with training population size, reaching values >0.9 with training population size greater than 185. Linear regression of the observed PS with the number of positive-effect QTL in accessions provided an alternative GP approach with an accuracy of 0.86. The results demonstrate the GP models based on marker information from all identified QTL and the 5-year PS average is highly effective for PR prediction.

The event camera generates an event stream based on changes in brightness, retaining only the characteristics of moving objects, addresses the high power consumption associated with using high-frame-rate cameras for high-speed eye tracking tasks. However, the asynchronous incremental nature of event camera output has not been fully utilized, and there are also issues related to missing event datasets. Combining the temporal information encoding and state-preserving properties of spiking neural network (SNN) with event camera, a near-range eye tracking algorithm is proposed as well as a novel event-based dataset for validation and evaluation. According to experimental results, the proposed solution outperforms artificial neural network (ANN) algorithms, while computational time remains only 12.5\% of that of traditional SNN algorithms. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm allows for self-adjustment of time resolution, with a maximum achievable resolution of 0.081ms, enhancing tracking stability while maintaining accuracy.

While the underwater submersible encounters internal solitary wave (ISW), its loadings and motions would be seriously disturbed. To investigate the interaction effect between the suspended submersible and ISW, a three dimensional ISW-submersible interaction numerical model was established based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. The generation and propagation of ISW was simulated in a two-layer fluid numerical wave tank according to the eKdV theory. The standard operation equation of submersible was introduced to simulate the six degree of freedom (6DoF) motions of submersible combined with the overset dynamic mesh method. The motion simulation method of submersible was effectively validated by comparing with published experimental results on the motion responses of the slender body under the ISW. Based on the constructed numerical model, the dynamic mechanism between the suspended submersible and ISW were studied, and the effects of the initial submerged depths and the ISW amplitudes on the dynamic responses of the submersible were revealed. According to the numerical results, the motions of the submersible have been significantly determined by its initial submerged depths. The submersible located above the ISW interface has a significant motion along the propagation direction of ISW and its motion trajectory resembles a counterclockwise semi ellipse. The motions of the submersible located below the ISW interface follows with the trace of the lower layer fluid which presented as an unclosed clockwise ellipse. The corresponding motions of the submersible would be increased as the increase of the ISW amplitudes.

The low and unstable performance is still one of the major obstacles for anaerobic digestion, which provokes researchers to develop some strategies to improve it. In addition to traditional approaches such as co-digestion, pretreatment, and recirculation, some emerging strategies, namely additive and microaeration have also been recognized and developed in recent years due to the update of knowledge. Many studies have evaluated the effect of those strategies on digestion performance. However, it lacks a unified analysis and induction, especially the mechanism for different strategies. Therefore, this review presents a comprehensive view of research progress on the strategies based on latest researches considering five main strategies. Critical think and summary of their mechanism, reactor performance, and availability of those strategies were executed. The results demonstrated that the contribution of microaeration is mainly to balance the composition and activity of hydrolysis, acidogenesis, and methanogenic archaea. Recirculation and co-digestion balance mass and reaction environments. Pretreatment makes the structure of the substrate (such as removing lignin, reducing cellulose crystallinity, and increasing the substrate-specific surface area) more conducive to microbial utilization. The mechanism of the additive strategy varies greatly depending on the type of additive, such as enhancing interspecies electrons transfer through conductive materials, resisting adverse digestion conditions through functional microbial additives, and accelerating nutrient absorption by regulating the bioavailability of trace elements. Although these strategies have different mechanisms for promoting digestion performance, their ultimate goal is to make the parameters of the reactor to an ideal status, and then to achieve a balance among substance, microorganisms and water in anaerobic reactor.

Watermelon fruits of different ploidy exhibit significant variations in texture. In order to investigate the primary factors influencing texture differences, this study was conducted to investigate the differences in fruit texture development using homozygous autogamous diploid (2X)lines and their autotriploid (3X) and autotetraploid (4X) lines 'Yixuan'. The research encompassed fruit development, flesh texture profile analysis (TPA), flesh cell wall polysaccharide content, and flesh cell microstructure analysis, specifically in 2X, 3X, and 4X watermelon fruits.The results showed that as watermelon fruits matured, several characteristics exhibited an ascending trend, including fruit weight, TSS (total soluble solids) content, rind hardness, flesh cell size, and cell wall polysaccharide contents such as crude fiber, cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and protopectin. Conversely, the flesh texture parameters and soluble pectin content of the flesh cell wall gradually declined. Notably, significant differences in fruit flesh texture and flesh cell structure were observed among fruits of different ploidy at the 32d. Specifically, 2X fruits displayed considerably lower rind hardness, reduced flesh texture (Hardness, Fracturability, Chewiness, Gumminess), and cell density compared to 3X and 4X fruits. Additionally, 2X fruits exhibited larger cell sizes than 3X and 4X fruits. However, no significant differences were observed in the content of flesh cell wall polysaccharide contents across various ploidy levels.These findings suggested that the variation in texture among watermelon fruits of different ploidy can be attributed to the size and arrangement of flesh cells. Importantly, this research provided a foundation for further exploration of the intrinsic regulatory factors and molecular mechanisms contributing to texture variation in polyploid watermelon fruits.

In China, 65 types of venomous snakes exist, with the Chinese Cobra Naja atra being prominent and a major cause of snakebites in humans. Furthermore, N. atra is a protected animal in some areas, as it has been listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Recently, due to the medical value of snake venoms, venomics has experienced growing research interest. In particular, genomic resources are crucial for understanding the molecular mechanisms of venom production. Here, we report a highly continuous genome assembly of N. atra, based on a snake sample from Huangshan, Anhui, China. The size of this genome is 1.67 Gb, while its repeat content constitutes 37.8% of the genome. A total of 26,432 functional genes were annotated. This data provides an essential resource for studying venom production in N. atra. It may also provide guidance for the protection of this species.

Biodegradable and renewable plastic films have been regarded as promising alternative green materials to achieve the substitution polythene (PE)films to reduce plastic pollution. Poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) is a kind of biodegradable polyester, which is widely used in the production of biodegradable mulching films. However, the high cost of PBAT limited it applications. Thus, lignin, one of the most abundant biomass resources was incorporated into PBAT matrix in the present work. A series of Lignin/PBAT biodegradable plastics films with different Lignin/PBAT weight ratios (0.00 %-5.00 %) were successfully fabricated using twin screw and twin roll extruders. The chemical compositions, morphologies, thermal stabilities, mechanical properties, and barrier properties of samples were characterized by XRD, FTIR, TG/DSC, mechanical testing machine, and WVTR, respectively. Results show that the corporation of lignin into PBAT matrix could lead to improved thermal stabilities, mechanical properties and barrier properties of films even after Xenon lamp aging process, especially when Lignin/PBAT weight ratio is 1.00 % in the present work. This work provides a very promising approach for fabrication of biodegradable plastics films with low cost, enhanced mechanical properties and barrier properties, the as-prepared samples may have potential applications in agricultural or food packaging materials.

The Fengcheng Formation in the Mahu Sag of the Junggar Basin was generally composed of detritus, pyroclastic material, carbonates, and evaporites. During the process of sedimentation, the climate was arid or semi-arid. Due to the effect of high concentration and sodium-rich source, an alkaline lake was formed, and alkaline minerals were also preserved in the stratum. After the sediments were buried, three mineral assemblages were formed in the Fengcheng Formation, which are carbonate mineral assemblages (i.e., calcite + ferreous dolomite), reedmergnerite and carbonate mineral assemblages (i.e., reedmergnerite + calcite + ferreous dolomite), and reedmergnerite and alkaline mineral assemblages (i.e., reedmergnerite + shortite + trona), respectively. According to the homogenization temperature of reedmergnerite primary fluid inclusions, alkaline diagenesis of Fengcheng Formation is divided into early stage（≤100℃） and middle stage（＞100℃）, respectively. The former is characterized by the generation of ferreous saddle dolomite, quartz dissolution, and agglutination of the laumontite, which occurred under normal burial conditions. The latter is marked by the reedmergnerite’s appearance, which is correlated to deep hydrothermal activity controlled by faults. Finally, based on sedimentary and diagenetic factors, including climate, provenance, diagenetic surroundings, and the action of subsurface fluid, the alkaline deposition-diagenesis model for shale series in four stages of the Fengcheng Formation was established.

Freshwater lakes represent a potential source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. However, the CH4 emission contribution to the total emission in the littoral zones of lakes, especially emergent macrophytes (e.g., lotus), are poorly known. Lotus, has been cultivated in almost all provinces in China, is not only an aquatic plant but also a kind of vegetables. Two sampling zones (lotus plant and open water) were established in the lake of the middle reaches of Yangtze River. The CH4 emission was measured using a floating opaque chamber and gas chromatography between April to December of the years 2021 and 2022. The results indicated that the flux of CH4 emissions ranged from 0.10 to 59.75 mg m-2 h-1, with an average value of 5.61 mg m-2 h-1 in the open water, while ranged from 0.19 to 57.32 mg m-2 h-1, with an average value of 17.14 mg m-2 h-1 in the lotus plant zone. The maximal CH4 emissions occurred in July and August for the open water, which was highly related to the air and water temperature; whereas it happened in September for the lotus plant zone, due to the fresh organic matter inputting to sediments, CH4 transportation by lotus plant, high soil organic carbon content, and the lower dissolved oxygen concentration. Considering the carbon emissions (both CH4 and CO2) and plant productivity, although the greater CH4 emission occurring in lotus plant zone, it could still represent a potential carbon sink (213 g m-2 yr-1), compared to the open water.

The development of photocatalysts with a wide spectral response and effective carrier separation capability is essential for the green degradation of tetracycline. In this work, a magnetic recyclable Z-scheme ZnO/ZnFe2O4 heterojunction (ZZF) was successfully constructed by the solid phase method using MIL-88A(Fe)@Zn as the precursor. Appropriate band gap width and Z-scheme charge transfer mechanism make ZZF have excellent visible light absorption performance, efficient charge separation and strong redox ability. Under visible light irradiation, the degradation efficiency of TCH for optimal sample ZZF2 can reach 86.3 % within 75 min in deionized water, and achieve 92.9 % within 60 min in tap water, which exhibits superior stability and reusability after five cycles. Moreover, the catalyst in the water can be conveniently recovered by magnetic force. After visible light irradiation for 70 minutes, the temperature of the reaction system increased by 21.9 °C. Its degradation constant (35.53×10-3 min-1) increases 5.1 times that at room temperature (6.95×10-3 min-1). Thermal energy perfects the kinetic driving force of the reactants and promotes carrier migration to produce more •O2- and •OH. This work provides a potential candidate and inspires the design of photocatalyst for tetracycline hydrochloride degradation.

In order to enhance understanding of RNA-binding proteins in rice, a comprehensive investigation was conducted on the RRM1 gene family of rice, encompassing genome-wide identification and exploration of its role in rice blast resistance. Physical and chemical properties of the OsRRM1 gene family in rice was analyzed, including conserved domain, motif, location information, gene structure, phylogenetic tree, collinearity analysis, cis-acting elements, GO, and KEGG. Furthermore, the expression patterns of the OsRRM1 gene were examined at different time intervals following rice blast treatment. Furthermore, the alterations in expression patterns of selected OsRRM1 genes were assessed using quantitative real-time PCR(qRT-PCR). A total of 212 members of the OsRRM1 gene family were identified, which were dispersed across 12 chromosomes. Many of these genes exhibit multiple exons and introns, all of which encompass the conserved RRM1 domain and share analogous motifs. This observation suggests a high degree of conservation within the encoded sequence domain of these genes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the existence of five subfamilies within the OsRRM1 gene family. Furthermore, the investigation of the promoter region identified homeopathic elements that are involved in nucleic acid binding and interaction with multiple transcription factors. By employing GO and KEGG analysis, four RRM1 genes were tentatively identified as crucial contributors to plant immunity, while the RRM1 gene family was also found to have a significant involvement in the complex of alternative splicing. Additionally, gene expression analysis indicated that the majority of OsRRM1 genes exhibited constitutive expression. The results of the qRT-PCR analysis revealed distinct temporal changes in the expression pattern of the OsRRM1 gene following rice blast treatment. These findings contribute to the existing knowledge of the OsRRM1 gene family, establish a foundation for further investigation into the role of the OsRRM1 gene in response to rice blast infection, and hold theoretical significance for future studies on the functionality of the OsRRM1 gene.

The Pingbei area is the main accumulation area of oil and gas in the Xihu Sag. The phase characteristics of oil and gas in this area are complex, and the understanding of their genesis is still unclear. In this paper, based upon discussions of crude oil and natural gas geochemical data, integrated with local geological features, we discuss the sources, migration, and phase state characteristics of oil and gas in the Pingbei area of the Xihu Sag. The study results showed that the crude oil and natural gas in the Pingbei area are coal-derived and the oil and gas produced by the humic organic matter during the maturity stage. The oil and gas source correlation showed that crude oil and natural gas have good affinity with the Eocene Pinghu Formation (PF) coal-bearing source rocks. Crude oil has the characteristics of near-source accumulation and short-distance migration while natural gas is supplied from a dual source: the coal-derived hydrocarbon rocks of PH in the deep part of the study area, supplemented by the coal-derived hydrocarbon rocks of PH on the bottom of the slope, and adjacent hydrocarbon-bearing sub sag. The distribution characteristics and geochemical migration indices of hydrocarbon showed that the oil generated from the hydrocarbon source rocks of PH in the deep Pingbei area mainly migrates vertically along the fault connecting the reservoir and the source rocks to the trap, where it accumulates, while the natural gas exhibits deep and large faults that mainly migrate vertically, supplemented by its lateral migration along the composite transport system composed of faults and sandstone layers in the slope zone. The mechanisms of produced, exhausted, and geochromatographic effects (PGE), as well as evaporative fractionation (EF) and phase-controlled migration fractionation (PMF), result in the obvious discrepancy of hydrocarbon’s properties on the vertical profiles.

Low-sodium salt substitute (LSSS) has the potential in regulating sodium and potassium intake and has been available in China market for years. However, its real-world use and impact to sodium\potassium intake is unclear. Baseline data of 4000 adult participants who participated in three similar-designed randomized controlled trails were pooled together for this study. Self-reported awareness and use of LSSS were collected using the uniform questionnaire, and the 24-h urinary sodium and potassium excretion was used to estimate their dietary intake. Mixed-effects models were developed to assess the relationship between LSSS and 24-h urinary sodium and potassium excretion. 32.0% of the participants reported awareness of LSSS and 11.7% reported its current use. After adjusting location, sex, age, and education, compared with the group of participants unaware of LSSS, participants who were aware but not using LSSS and those who were using LSSS had a lower 24-h urinary sodium excretion by –356.1(95% CI: –503.9, –205.9) mg/d and –490.6(95% CI: –679.2, –293.7), respectively (p<0.001). No significant difference was found for 24-h urinary potassium excretion and sodium-to-potassium ratio among the three groups (p>0.05). In conclusion, although associated with lower sodium intake, the awareness and real-world use of LSSS are still very low in China.

Non-natural mineralization of CaCO3 with special structures or morphology is generated during the crude oil migration, which is the main scale of alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) flooding in oilfields, adversely affecting the oil recovery and causing environmental pollution. Up to now, the mineralization of superstructural symbiotic aragonites and the role of heavy alkyl-benzene sulfonate (HABS) in directing mineralization are still unclear. In this work, rosette-like, bouquet-like and dumbbell-like aragonite-based superstructure of symbiotic CaCO3 crystals were obtained in a simulated O/W emulsion with HABS, which can help understanding the diversified growth of CaCO3 scaling in oilfield. As a result, HABS stabilized micelles acted as a framework for mineralization, and promoted the accumulation of Ca2+ and CO32-, generating pre-nucleation clusters and partial ion pairs by electrostatic attraction. Following, the sequential nucleation of amorphous CaCO3 interconnected with HABS molecules. Finally, these nanoparticles transformed into micro-meter crystals via dissolution-reprecipitation, forming the superstructures that controlled by a synergistic effect between HABS and kerosene phase. This work may enrich the understanding of CaCO3 mineralization in oilfield, provide theoretical support for the prevention of hard carbonate scaling, and also provide a novel strategy for organic-inorganic composites manufacturing.

Low-grade glioma (LGG) is a highly aggressive disease in the skull. On the other hand, anoikis, a specific form of cell death induced by the loss of cell contact with the extracellular matrix, plays a key role in cancer metastasis. In this study，anoikis-related genes (ANRGs) were used to identify LGG subtypes and to construct a prognostic model for LGG patients. In addition, we explored the immune microenvironment and enrichment pathways between different subtypes. We constructed an anoikis-related gene signature using the TCGA cohort and investigated the differences in clinical features, mutational landscape, immune cell infiltration, etc. between different risk groups. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the characteristics of ANRGs in the high-risk group were associated with poor prognosis in LGG patients. The risk score was identified as an independent prognostic factor. The high-risk group had higher immune cell infiltration, tumor mutation load, immune checkpoint gene expression, and ICB treatment response. Functional analysis showed that these high- and low-risk groups had different immune statuses and drug sensitivity. Risk scores were used together with LGG clinicopathological features to construct a nomogram, and DCA analysis showed that the model could enable patients to benefit from clinical treatment strategies.

Due to the extremely inert surface of the polyester (PET) fabric, a toxic and traditional resorcinol-formaldehyde-latex (RFL) dipping solution is always needs to be used in in rubber composite industry. Unfortunately, other effective methods for fabric surface treatment are in urgent needed to improve the poor bonding interface between the fabric and the rubber matrix. In our study, a facile way to modify PET fabric was developed. Specifically, the fabric is treated by an alkaline solution and a coupling agent with magnetic agitation. Afterwards, the treated fabric/rubber composites are prepared through a co-vulcanization process. Attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize the surface chemical compositions of the modified fabrics. The adhesion behavior is analyzed by the peel test. The results show that the fabric surface is successfully grafted with a coupling agent, and the peel strength reaches 9.8 N/mm after KH550 treatment, which is increased 32% compared with that of the original fabric/rubber composites. In addition, the vulcanization rate and interfacial fracture mechanism are also researched.

Photothrombotic stroke (PTS) stimulates the level of N- and C-terminal fragments of Amyloid precursor protein (APP) growth in the cytoplasm of ischemic penumbra cells not earlier but at 24 hours. Here we have shown that APP fragments are visualized in thin unmyelinated fibers of neurons, in containing mitochondria large fibers and in synapses but absent in the nuclei. At 24 hours after PTS, some elements of the destroyed tissue accumulated a significant amount of APP protein. The level of ADAM10 α-secretase decreased on the first day after PTS in the rat brain cortex and ADAM-10 co-localized with the lipid raft marker caveolin-1. PTS caused no changes in the level of β-secretase BACE1 either on the first day after PTS or in the early recovery period. The expression of proteins of the γ-secretase complex: presenilin-1 and nicastrin increased in astrocytes, but not in penumbra neurons after PTS. The β-secretase inhibitor LY2886721 did not affect the infarct size of the mouse cerebral cortex and the level of apoptosis of cells in the perifocal region after PTS. Whereas the inhibitor of γ-secretase DAPT reduced the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in astrocytes, prevented the growth of apoptosis of mouse cerebral cortex cells reducing the infarct volume on the 7th and 14th days after PTS. DAPT may be considered as a drug for stroke therapy.

In order to solve the labor-intensive and time-consuming problem in the process of measuring yak body ruler and weight in yak breeding industry in Qinghai Province, a non-contact method for measuring yak body ruler and weight was proposed in this experiment, and key technologies based on semantic segmentation, binocular ranging and neural network algorithm were studied to boost the development of yak breeding industry in Qinghai Province. Main conclusions: (1) Study yak foreground image extraction, and implement yak foreground image extraction model based on U-net algorithm; select 2263 yak images for experiment, and verify that the accuracy of the model in yak image extraction is over 97%. (2) Develop an algorithm for estimating yak body ruler based on binocular vision, and use the extraction algorithm of yak body ruler related measurement points combined with depth image to estimate yak body ruler. The final test shows that the average estimation error of body height and body oblique length is 2.6%, and the average estimation error of chest depth is 5.94%. (3) Study the yak weight prediction model; select the body height, body oblique length and chest depth obtained by binocular vision to estimate the yak weight; use two algorithms to establish the yak weight prediction model, and verify that the average estimation error of the model for yak weight is 10.7% and 13.01% respectively.

Hyperactivation of Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling is an attractive therapeutic target for tumor therapy. Herein, forty-eight novel meridianin derivatives were designed and synthesized, and their anti-tumor activity were evaluated in vitro both for activity optimization and structure-activity relationship (SAR) study. The results indicated that most derivatives exhibited significantly improved anti-tumor activity, especially for compound 6e. The compound 6e contains an isothiouronium linked by an alkyl chain consisting of 6 carbon atoms with IC50 ranging from 1.11 to 2.80 μM on various cancer cell lines. Consistently, 6e dose dependently induced the apoptosis of A549 and DU145 cells, in which STAT3 are constitutively active. Western blotting assays indicated that the phosphorylation levels of JAK1, JAK2 and STAT3 were inhibited by 6e at 5 μM without significant change in total STAT3 level. Moreover, 6e also suppressed the expressions of STAT3 downstream genes, including c-Myc, Cyclin D1 and Bcl-XL at 10 μM. An additional in vivo study revealed that 6e at the dose of 10 mg/kg could potently inhibit the DU145 xenograft tumor without obvious body-weight loss. These results clearly indicate that 6e could be a potential anti-tumor agent by targeting JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway.

In this work, we designed and fabricated a multifunctional nanocomposite system which consists of chitosan, raspberry-like silver nanoparticles and graphene oxide. Room temperature atmospheric pressure microplasma (RT-APM) process provides a rapid, facile, and environment-friendly method for introducing silver nanoparticles into the composite system. By loading different drugs onto the polymer matrix and/or graphene oxide, our composite can achieve a pH controlled dual drug release with release profile specific to the drugs used. In addition to its strong antibacterial ability against E. coli and S. aureus, our composite also demonstrates excellent photothermal conversion effect under irradiation of near infrared lasers. These unique functionalities point to it’s the potential of nanocomposite system in multiple applications areas such as multimodal therapeutics in healthcare, water treatment, and anti-microbial, etc.

The ergosterol pathway is a prime antifungal target. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay is a simple research tool that determines the lowest concentration at which a novel antimicrobial with limited scope to determine the mechanism of action for a drug. In this study, we show that by adding hydrogen peroxide, an oxidative stressor, or glutathione (GSH), an antioxidant, to modify a commonly performed MIC assay allowed us to screen selectively for new antifungal drugs that target ergosterol biosynthesis in fungi. A human pathogen, Microsporum gypseum, was used as a test organism. When exposed to ergosterol targeting drugs, the hydrogen peroxide treatment significantly decreased fungal survival by reducing ergosterol in the cell wall, whereas GSH increased survival of M. gypseum. Further, by performing a series of experiments with M. gypseum, it was determined that the oxidative stress from hydrogen peroxide causes cell death at different developmental stages. These findings allow us to describe a simple, high-throughput method for simultaneously screening new antifungal drugs for activity and effects on the ergosterol pathway. By using this tool, two isoquinoline alkaloids were discovered to be potent inhibitors of ergosterol biosynthesis by reducing the amount of ergosterol without affecting the expression of 1,3-β-glucan.

The newly emerged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions of people and caused tremendous morbidity and mortality worldwide. Effective treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to SARS-CoV-2 infection is lacking and different therapeutic strategies are under testing. Host humoral and cellular immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection is a critical determinant for patients’ outcome. SARS-CoV-2 infection results in seroconversion and production of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The antibodies may suppress viral replication through neutralization but also might also participate in COVID-19 pathogenesis through a process termed antibody-dependent enhancement. Rapid progress has been made in the research of antibody response and therapy in COVID-19 patients including characterization of the clinical features of antibody responses in different populations infected by SARS-CoV-2, treatment of COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma and intravenous immunoglobin products, isolation and characterization of a large panel of monoclonal neutralizing antibodies, as well as preliminary clinical results from several COVID-19 vaccine candidates. In this review, we summarize the recent progress and discuss the implications of these findings in vaccine development.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has resulted in tremendous morbidity and mortality worldwide. A major underlying cause of COVID-19 mortality is a hyperinflammatory cytokine storm in severe/critically ill patients. Although many clinical trials are testing the efficacy of targeting inflammatory cytokines/chemokines in COVID-19 patients, the critical inflammatory mediator initiating COVID-19 patient death is undefined. Here we suggest that the immunopathological pathway leading to COVID-19 mortality can be divided into three stages with distinct clinical features that can be used to guide therapeutic strategies. Our interpretation of the recently published clinical trials from COVID-19 patients suggests that the clinical efficacy in preventing COVID-19 mortality using IL-1 blockade is subjected to notable caveats, while that for IL-6 blockade is suboptimal. We discuss critical factors in determining appropriate inflammatory cytokine/chemokine targets, timing, and combination of treatments to prevent COVID-19 mortality.

Mycophenolate mofetil was reported to have broad in vitro activity against different viruses and had been tried in combination with IFN-β in treating MERS infection. We tested the pharmacological activity of mycophenolate mofetil using SARS-CoV-2 infected Vero cells. The half-maximal effective concentration (EC₅₀) of mycophenolate mofetil against SARS-CoV-2 was 0.47 μM while that of remdesivir was 0.77 μM. Molecular docking results of mycophenolate mofetil to potential target proteins of COVID-19 suggested that mycophenolate mofetil might inhibit SARS-CoV-2 mainly by interacting with DHODH and IMPDH2. Furthermore, mycophenolate mofetil as an immunosuppressant may be a good therapeutic option for the management of hyperinflammation in patients with severe COVID-19. Based on its high potency against SARS-CoV-2 in Vero E6 cells, its good pharmacokinetics and clinical safety profile, mycophenolate mofetil deserves further exploration as potential treatment for COVID-19.

This work mainly discusses an innovative teaching platform on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle digital mapping for Remote Sensing (RS) education at Wuhan University, underlining the fast development of RS technology. Firstly, we introduce and discuss the future development of the Virtual Simulation Experiment Teaching Platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VSETP-UAV). It includes specific topics such as the Systems and function Design, teaching and learning strategies, and experimental methods. This study shows that VSETP-UAV expands the usual content and training methods related to RS education, and creates a good synergy between teaching and research. The results also show that the VSETP-UAV platform is of high teaching quality producing excellent engineers, with high international standards and innovative skills in the RS field. In particular, it develops students' practical skills with technical manipulations of dedicated hardware and software equipment (e.g., UAV) in order to assimilate quickly this particular topic. Therefore, students report that this platform is more accessible from an educational point-of-view than theoretical programs, with a quick way of learning basic concepts of RS. Finally, the proposed VSETP-UAV platform achieves a high social influence, expanding the practical content and training methods of UAV based experiments, and providing a platform for producing high-quality national talents with internationally recognized topics related to emerging engineering education.

The harmful nature of high concentrations of antibiotics to humans and animals requires urgent development of novel materials and techniques for their absorption. In this work, CTAB (Cetyltrimethyl Ammonium Bromide)-assisted synthesis of ZIF-8 (zeolitic imidazolate framework) derived hollow carbon (ZHC) was designed, prepared and used as a high-performance adsorbent, further evaluated by Langmuir and Freundlich isothermal adsorption experiments, dynamic analysis as well as theoretical calculation. The maximum capacities of ZHC on adsorbing tetracycline (TC), norfloxacin (NFO) and levofloxacin (OFO) are 267.3, 125.6 and 227.8 mg g^-1, respectively, which delivers superior adsorptive performance when compared to widely studied inorganic adsorbates. The design concept of ZIFs-derived hollow carbon material provides guidance and insights for the efficient adsorbent of environmental antibiotics.

The iridoids of H. diffusa play an important role in the anti-inflammatory process, but the specific iridoid with anti-inflammatory effect and its mechanism is lack of study. An iridoid compound named scandoside (SCA) was isolated from H. diffusa and its anti-inflammatory effect was investigated in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 cells. Its anti-inflammatory mechanism was confirmed by in intro experiment and molecular docking analysis. As results, SCA significantly decreased the productions of nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and inhibited the levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), TNF-α and IL-6 mRNA expression in LPS-induced RAW 264.7 cells. SCA treatment suppressed the phosphorylation of inhibitor of nuclear transcription factor kappa-B alpaha (IκB-α), p38, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). The docking data suggested that SCA had great binding abilities to COX-2, iNOS and IκB. Taken together, the results indicated that the anti-inflammatory effect of SCA is due to inhibition of pro-inflammatory cytokines and mediators via suppressing the nuclear transcription factor kappa-B (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways, which provided useful information for its application and development.

The insufficient of fish meal has been become a prominent problem with the development of the aquaculture industry. Therefore, it is great significance that replacement fish meal using other protein sources for the sustainable development of aquaculture industry. In this study, fermented cottonseed meal (FCM) and fermented rapeseed meal (FRM) were used to replace fish meal in Chinese mitten crab. The ratio of FCM and FRM were set according to 1:2, 1:1, and 2:1, and were supplemented into 25% fish meal (FM-25) and 15% fish meal (FM-15) diets, respectively, to formulated 6 kinds of experimental diets. The feeding duration was 8 weeks. The results showed that the weight gain (WG) and specific growth rate (SGR) of crabs fed the diets containing 25% fish meal were significantly higher than crabs fed 15% fish meal diets. At 25% fish meal level, the WG and SGR of crabs fed the diet with 1FCM:1FRM were significantly higher than those fed the 1FCM:2FRM and 2FCM:1FRM diets. At 25% fish meal level, the crude lipid (CL) content of crabs fed the diet with 1FCM:2FRM were significantly higher than those fed the 2FCM:1FRM and 1FCM:1FRM. At 25% fish meal level, the activities of glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and peroxidase (POD) of crabs fed the diet with 1FCM:2FRM were significantly higher than those fed the 2FCM:1FRM and 1FCM:1FRM. At 25% fish meal level, the relative expression of peroxiredoxin (PRX) of crabs fed the diet with 1FCM:1FRM were significantly higher than those fed the 2FCM:1FRM and 1FCM:2FRM. In summary, diets supplemented with a mixture of fermented cotton meal and fermented rapeseed meal (1:1) can significantly improve the growth and antioxidant capacity of Chinese mitten crab.

The development requirements for reusable liquid rocket engines have set higher standards for the reliability design of turbopump structures. To address the issue of bearing failure in turbopumps under harsh conditions such as low temperature, high speed, heavy load, and repeated start-stop cycles, this paper proposes replacing ball bearings with thrust foil bearings. We used liquid nitrogen instead of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to simulate the ultralow temperature and low viscosity operating environment of turbopumps, evaluating the potential feasibility of using thrust foil bearings in this context. The numerical calculations primarily include the formulation of the foil deformation equations based on the link-spring model for the wavy foil and the thin plate finite element model for the top foil. These equations are solved by coupling the Reynolds lubrication equation, the fluid film thickness equation, and the foil deformation equations using the finite difference method, Newton-Raphson method, and finite element method. A detailed analysis is conducted on the effects of rotational speed, fluid film thickness, thrust disk inclination angle, and wavy foil interface friction coefficient on the static and dynamic characteristics of thrust foil bearings. The research findings provide guidance for the application of thrust foil bearings in liquid rocket turbopumps.

This review article delves into the multifaceted nature of primary ovarian insufficiency (POI), a condition marked by diminished ovarian function before age 40, underscoring the complexity of its aetiology encompassing genetic, autoimmune, infectious, and environmental factors. A significant focus is placed on the potential role of single-gene mutations, such as those in FMR1, BMP15, and GDF9, in the pathogenesis of POI, highlighting the intricate interplay between genetics and ovarian health. The article also explores innovative therapeutic avenues, including the activation of dormant follicles in vitro, offering hope for fertility restoration in affected individuals. Despite the prevalence of traditional treatments, such as Chinese medicine and hormone therapy, in China, these approaches often need to meet therapeutic needs, underscoring the urgency for advanced research and tailored treatment strategies. The discovery of a pituitary tumour-associated POI case further complicates the diagnostic landscape, suggesting a broader diagnostic lens and more in-depth research to unravel the complex underpinnings of POI and enhance patient care.

The substitution of chemical fertilizers by organic manure plays a critical role in sustainable crop production. Nevertheless, organic amendments promote the global warming potential (GWP) in rice paddies due to increased methane (CH4) emissions. Increasing evidence shows that lime application can reduce CH4 emissions from acidic paddy soils, while it is still not clear whether liming can reduce the GWP in rice fields under organic manure substitution. A two-year field experiment was conducted to investigate the impacts of pig manure substitution and lime application on grain yield, CH4 and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in a subtropical double-cropped rice field in China. The experiment consisted of three treatments: chemical fertilization (CF, 100% N from urea), 50% of chemical N substituted by pig manure (1/2N + M), and the 1/2N + M treatment plus lime amendment (1/2N + M + L). On average, 1/2N + M reduced rice yield by 5.65% compared to CF, while lime application had no effect on rice yield. Mean cumulative CH4 emissions were 218.8% higher in 1/2N + M than in CF, whereas 1/2N + M + L reduced CH4 emissions by 36.6% compared to 1/2N + M. Neither pig manure substitution nor lime application affected N2O emissions. Consequently, 1/2N + M increased the GWP and greenhouse gas intensity (GHGI) by 214.6% and 228.3%, respectively, compared to CF. In contrast, 1/2N + M + L reduced the GWP and GHGI by 36.4% and 36.5% compared to 1/2N + M. Lime application can mitigate CH4 emissions and GWP induced by pig manure amendment in double-cropped rice fields.

This is a brief critique of the functions—particularly olfactory functions—specified for the “Chemosensory Protein” (CSPs) molecule family. On the basis of these proteins’ presence in the sensory antennal lymph of locusts, odor chemosensory ligand binding functions have been hypothesized. According to this hypothesis, the entire protein molecule superfamily is referred to as “CSPs”. However, new information and developments in the field of CSP molecular research, such as the expression of CSP genes in the gut, brain, fat body, wings, epidermis, and pheromone gland, as well as gene expression profiling from most early developmental stages—that is, CSP expression well in advance of the appearance of chemical sense nerve cells—strongly suggest that the protein molecule has other roles that are unrelated to chemosensing. Moreover, CSPs are found in bacterial microbial prokaryote organisms in addition to insects and all other arthropods. Thus, we examine the molecule’s name, definition, RNA editing, protein structure, lipid binding properties, DNA interaction, and evolutionary characteristics in brief before referring to this protein family as “Chemosensory Proteins”. As a means of renaming this protein family, this review article discusses the latest findings (“CSP” is attached to the tail of bigger intracellular proteins) and attempts to compel all the data. Because of its highly conserved molecular distinctive feature (four adjacent cysteines), we propose renaming “CSPs” as “4CSPs” (4 Cysteines Soluble Proteins) and use at least for abbreviations for distinctive animal proteins the common peptide 5-letter code, such as “Bommo-4CSPs”.

We investigate and discuss in detail the structure of the restricted singular value decomposition for a tensor triplet under t-product (T-RSVD). The algorithm is provided with a numerical example illustrating the main result. For applications, we consider color image watermarking processing with T-RSVD.

Fiber-based flexible sensors have promising applications potential in human motion and healthcare monitoring, owing to their merits of lightweight, flexibility, and easy processing. Now, high-performance elastic fiber-based strain sensors with high sensitivity, large working range and excellent durability are in great demand. Herein, we have easily and quickly prepared a highly-sensitive, durable fiber-based strain sensor by dip-coating of highly-stretchable polyurethane (PU) elastic fiber in MXene/ waterborne polyurethane (WPU) dispersion solution. Benefiting from the electrostatic repulsion force between the negatively charged WPU and MXene sheets in the mixed solution, very homogeneous and stable MXene/WPU dispersion was successfully obtained and the interconnected conducting networks were correspondingly formed in coated MXene/WPU shell layer, which makes as-prepared strain sensor exhibit a gauge factor of over 960, a large sensing range of over 90% and detection limit as low as 0.5% strain. As elastic fiber and mixed solution have the same polymer constitute, tight bonding of MXene/WPU conductive composite on PU fibers was achieved, enabling the as-prepared strain sensor endure over 2500 stretching-releasing cycles and thus show good durability. Full-scale human motion detection was also performed by the strain sensor, and a body posture monitoring, analysis, and correction prototype system was developed via embedding the fiber-based strain sensors into sweater, strongly indicating the great application prospect in exercise, sports and healthcare.

Abstract Background: Small Cajal body-specific RNAs (scaRNAs) are a specific subset of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) that have recently been emerged as pivotal contributors in diverse physiological and pathological processes. However, their defined roles in carcinogenesis remain largely elusive. This study aims to explore the potential function and mechanism of SCARNA12 in bladder cancer (BLCA) and to provide a theoretical basis for further investigations into the biological functionalities of scaRNAs. Materials and Methods: TCGA, GEO and GTEx data sets were used to analyze the expression of SCARNA12 and its clinicopathological significance in BLCA. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and in situ hybridization were applied to validate the expression of SCARNA12 in both BLCA cell lines and tissues. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) combined with bioinformatics analyses were conducted to reveal the changes of gene expression patterns and functional pathways in BLCA patients with different expression of SCARNA12 and T24 cell lines upon SCARNA12 knockdown. Single-cell mass cytometry (CyTOF) was then used to evaluate the tumor-related cell cluster affected by SCARNA12. Moreover, SCARNA12 was stably knocked down in T24 and UMUC3 cell lines by lentivirus-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 approach. The biological effects of SCARNA12 on the proliferation, clonogenic, migration, invasion, cell apoptosis, cell cycle and tumor growth were assessed by in vitro MTT, colony formation, wound healing, transwell, flow cytometry assays and in vivo nude mice xenograft models, respectively. Finally, chromatin isolation by RNA purification (ChIRP) experiment were further conducted to delineate the potential mechanisms of SCARNA12 in BLCA. Results: The expression of SCARNA12 was significantly up-regulated in both BLCA tissues and cell lines. RNA-seq data elucidated that SCARAN12 may play a potential role in cell adhesion and extracellular matrix (ECM) related signaling pathways. CyTOF results further showed that an ECM-related cell cluster with vimentin+, CD13+, CD44+, CD47+ was enriched in BLCA patients with high SCARNA12 expression. Additionally, SCARNA12 knockdown significantly inhibited the proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion abilities in T24 and UMUC3 cell lines. SCARNA12 knockdown prompted cell arrest in the G0/G1 and G2/M phase, and promoted the apoptosis in T24 and UMUC3 cell lines. Furthermore, SCARNA12 knockdown could suppress the in vivo tumor growth in nude mice. ChIRP experiment further suggested that SCARNA12 may combine transcription factors H2AFZ to modulate transcription program and then affect BLCA progression. Conclusion: Our study is the first to propose aberrant alteration of SCARNA12 and elucidate its potential oncogenic roles in BLCA via the modulation of ECM signaling. The interaction of SCARNA12 with the transcriptional factor H2AFZ emerges as a key contributor to the carcinogenesis and progression of BLCA. These findings suggest SCARNA12 may serve as a diagnostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target for the treatment of BLCA.

Primulina serrulata is a valuable ornamental herb with rosette leaves and vibrant flowers. Some leaves exhibit a bright and distinct white color along the upper veins, enhancing their ornamental value, while others are less white or entirely green. This variation is observed among adult leaves in natural habitats and among young leaves from seedlings grown in the laboratory. TMT-labeled proteomic technology was employed to study the protein-level biogenesis of white-veined (WV) leaves of P. serrulata. The chlorophyll (Chl) content was significantly lower in the WV group than in the control group. A total of 6,261 proteins were identified, revealing 69 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), with 44 down-regulated and 25 up-regulated in WV plants. Some DEPs associated with chloroplasts and Chl biosynthesis were down-regulated, leading to the absence of green coloration. Concurrently, gene ontology enrichment analysis further underscored an insufficiency of magnesium , the key element in Chl biosynthesis. Many DEPs associated with abiotic or biotic stresses were down-regulated, suggesting an overall weakening of stress resistance with certain compensatory mechanisms in place. Similarly, many DEPs related to biomacromolecule modification were down-regulated, possibly influenced by the decrease in proteins involved in photosynthesis and stress resistance. Some DEPs containing iron were up-regulated, indicating that iron was mainly used to synthesize heme and ferritin instead of Chl. Additionally, several DEPs related to sulfur or sulfate were up-regulated, implying strengthened respiration. Expansin-A4 and pectinesterase displayed up-regulation, coinciding with the emergence of a rough and bright surface in the white area, indicative of the elongation and gelation processes in cell walls. These findings provide new insights that could be utilized by future studies to explore the mechanism of color formation in WV leaves.

Polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) plays an important role in mediating mucosal defenses, but the association between its single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and traits (such as growth and disease-resistant) in birds is scarcely known. In this research, we aimed to detect the single nucleotide polymorphisms of the pIgR gene in the chicken F2 resource population and discern the possible associations between pIgR SNPs and chicken growth, disease-resistant, respectively. Six-SNPs (3, 9, 15, 16, 19, and 21) in chicken (Gallus gallus) were significantly associated with disease-resistant in the pIgR gene (P < 0.05). The major allele genotype with SNP 9 and SNP 19 occurred more frequently with high Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) antibody rates; the major allele genotype with the SNP 3 was predominant in those with significantly lower NDV antibody rates (P < 0.05); heterozygous with the SNP 15 and SNP 21 occurred more frequently with high avian leukemia virus (ALV) antibody rates; the TT genotypes with the SNP 16 was predominant in those with low infectious bursal disease (IBD) antibody rates (P < 0.05). Besides, SNP 12 showed significant associations with body weights (BW) and shank lengths (SL) (P < 0.05). Genotyping revealed that the C allele occurred more frequently in breeds with high growth rates and the T allele was predominant in those with low growth rates at 8, 10, and 12w of age (P < 0.05). This polymorphic site may serve as a useful target for the marker assisted selection of growth and disease-resistant traits in chicken.

Cadmium (Cd) is a major heavy metal pollutant and a significant cause of abiotic stress in the environment. Organisms have developed various pathways to protect themselves against Cd stress. MYB protein is a large transcription factor family in plants. Many members of the family have been found to regulate developmental processes and stress responses. However, the function and mechanism of MYB116 are far from clear. In a recent study, we found that MYB116 of Chinese cabbage enhances Cd tolerance in yeast. BrMYB116 is transiently inducible by Cd treatment in Chinese cabbage. When expressed in yeast cells, it enhances tolerance against Cd stress and reduces Cd accumulation in the cells. Further analysis shows that BrMYB116 protein enhances Cd tolerance in yeast cells by activating one target gene that encodes the facilitator of iron transport 3 (FIT3). ScFIT3 is activated through specific binding with its promoter. More importantly, the expression of ScFIT3, leads to a substantial reduction of Cd accumulation in both yeast and Chinese cabbage. This finding implies that a similar network may exist in other biological systems, which presents a promising avenue for enhancing Cd tolerance in plants and developing Cd-resistant crops.

Animal viruses are a significant threat to animal health and are easily spread across the globe with the rise of globalization. The limitations in diagnosing and treating animal virus infections have made the transmission of diseases and animal deaths unpredictable. Therefore, early diagnosis of animal virus infections is crucial to prevent the spread of diseases and reduce economic losses. To address the need for rapid diagnosis, electrochemical sensors have emerged as a promising tool. Electrochemical methods present numerous benefits, including heightened sensitivity and selectivity, affordability, ease of use, portability, and rapid analysis, making them suitable for real-time virus detection. This paper focuses on the construction of electrochemical biosensor, as well as promising biosensor models, and expounds its advantages in virus detection, which is a promising research direction.

Enzalutamide is a drug used to treat PC. Docetaxel is a drug for chemotherapy for different cancers including prostate cancer (PC). The effectiveness of these drugs in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is not consistent and thus, CRPC is still an incurable disease. Recent evidence showed that the bio-inhibitor of FABP5, dmrFABP5, suppressed the tumorigenicity and metastasis of the CRPC cells. In this work, we studied the possible synergic effect of dmrFABP5 combined with either Enzalutamide or Docetaxel on suppressing tumorigenicity of the PC cells. A highly significant synergic effect was observed when dmrFABP5 was used in combination with Enzalutamide on the androgen-responsive PC cells 22RV1. A highly significant synergic effect was also observed when dmrFABP5 was combined with Docetaxel on 22RV1 cells and on the highly malignant, androgen-receptor (AR)-negative DU145 cells. These combined applications exhibited a highly significant inhibitory action on the viability, migration, invasion and colony formation abilities of both 22RV1and DU145 cells. However, dmrFABP5 did not produce any suppression effect when used on FABP5-negative cell line LNCaP, although Enzalutamide can significantly suppress LNCaP cells as a single agent. Further investigations suggested that these synergistic effects were produced by interrupting the FABP5-related signal transduction pathway in PC cells.

Background A limited lymphadenectomy may make patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) at risk for missing occult nodal disease. This study aimed to determine an effective threshold of lymph nodes (LNs) for evaluation of the quality of lymphadenectomy and discuss the impact of adjuvant chemotherapy on pN0 patients. Methods Patients treated surgically for ESCC between 2010 and 2018 in Sichuan Cancer Hospital were included. NPV (Negative Predictive Value) based on a beta-binomial distribution was developed to assess the confidence of node-negative disease. Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted to compare survival differences among groups. Results When patients had >21 LNs examined, the probability of false-negative findings was estimated at <10%, and NPV was estimated at a high level (>86.5%). For patients with LNs removed ≤21, 5-year OS (or DFS) in postoperative chemotherapy group vs that in surgery group was 65.3% vs 54.6%, p = 0.041 (or 59.2% vs 46.6%, p = 0.033). But for patients with >21 LNs, there were no statistical differences (p = 0.683 for OS or p = 0.942 for DFS). Conclusion Only pN0 patients who were at high risk of occult lymph node metastasis (examined LNs ≤21) could benefit from postoperative chemotherapy.

Subchondral bone loss is an important pathological feature of early-stage temporomandibular joint (TMJ) osteoarthritis (OA). Previous studies focused mainly on the bone resorption by osteoclasts in early-stage OA, but the bone formation feature has not drawn enough attention. Sema4D/Plexin-B1 is a pair of molecules expressed by osteoclast/osteoblast, which is capable of inhibiting bone formation by osteoblasts. The present study found that subchondral bone loss in early-stage TMJ OA was accompanied by up-regulated expression of Sema4D in cartilage and subchondral bone and Plexin-B1 in subchondral bone. Reducing Sema4D level could inhibit the subchondral bone loss and cartilage degeneration of early-stage TMJ OA. In vitro, results revealed that Sema4D could reduce the expression of osteocalcin (OCN) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and increase the migrating capability of Plexin-B1-positive osteoblasts. Our results revealed that elevated Sema4D expression in early-stage TMJ OA might decrease the bone formation activity of osteoblasts in the subchondral bone by binding to Plexin-B1 expressed by osteoblasts. Inhibiting Sema4D/Plexin-B1 signaling in the early-stage OA holds promise as a strategy for new therapeutic approaches to osteoarthritis.

An on-site, ultra-sensitive, and quantitative sensing method was developed based on quantum dot nanobeads (QDNBs) and test strip for the determination of total aflatoxins (AFTs) in rice and peanut. The monoclonal antibody against AFT (mAbAFT) was home-made and labeled with QDNB. After the pre-coating of the AFT antigen on the test line (T line), the competitive immunoreactions were conducted between AFT and AFT antigen on the T line with QDNBs-mAbAFT. Under optimal conditions, this approach allowed a rapid response towards AFT with a considerable sensitivity of 1.4 pg/mL and 2.9 pg/mL in rice and peanut matrices, respectively. The put-in and put-out duration were within 10 min. The recoveries for AFT in rice and peanut samples matrices were recorded from 86.25–118.0% with the relative deviations (RSD) below 12%. The assay was further validated via the comparison between this QDNB strip and the conventional HPLC method using spiked samples. Thus, the design provided a potential alternative for on-site, ultra-sensitive, and quantitative sensing of AFT that could also be expanded to other chemical contaminants for food safety.

This mini-review explores the comparative efficacy, safety, and clinical outcomes of high-dose proton pump inhibitor (PPI) intravenous infusion versus oral acid pump inhibitor therapy following endoscopic treatment for bleeding peptic ulcers. Recent evidence suggests that intravenous PPIs can significantly reduce the rebleeding rates within the critical first 72 hours post-intervention, with a noted rebleeding rate of 6% compared to 14% in patients receiving oral Vonoprazan (VPZ) therapy. Additionally, the rapid onset of action associated with intravenous administration leads to faster stabilization of vital signs and a reduced need for subsequent blood transfusions. Safety profiles for both intravenous and oral VPZ were favourable, with minimal adverse effects, the most common being transient headaches.However, the findings from our single-centre study with a moderate sample size prompt consideration of more extensive, multicentre trials to enhance the generalizability of the results. Current limitations include potential biases, short-term focus, missing data issues, and a need for long-term outcome data, necessitating further research. Future studies should also explore the cost-effectiveness of intravenous versus oral VPZ and the impact on patient quality of life and long-term mortality rates.This review underscores the importance of tailored PPI therapy in managing bleeding peptic ulcers post-endoscopy. It suggests a potentially pivotal role for intravenous PPIs in high-risk patient groups, advocating for a shift towards more aggressive and immediate care protocols in specific clinical settings.

Elastic yarns are the key component of high-performance compression garments. However, it remains a challenge to fabricate anti-fatigue yarns with high mechanical force and long elongation for generating compression garments with prolonged wear. In this paper, we report the development of anti-fatigue double-wrapped yarns with excellent mechanical properties by wrapping high-denier Spandex with nylon filaments in opposite twists. In particular, 560D high-denier Spandex as the core was untwisted which can maximumly reduce the interaction between the core and wrapping filaments, enabling high elongation of the double-wrapped yarns. In addition, we chose 70D nylon filaments with a tensile force of 387.40 ± 8.82 cN as the wrapping materials to provide sufficient force for double-wrapped yarns. Notably, opposite twists were induced for the inner and outer wrapping filaments to achieve a balanced stable yarn structure. By systematically optimizing manufacturing parameters including inner wrapping density, outer wrapping density, taking-up ratio, and drafting ratio, we obtained double-wrapped yarn with excellent tensile force (952.00 ± 24.03 cN) and elongation (357.28% ± 9.10%). Notably, the stress decay rate of optimized yarns was only 12.0% ± 2.2%. In addition, the optimized yarn was used as the weft-lining yarn for generating weft-lined fabrics, the elastic recovery rate of the obtained fabric was only 2.6% after cyclic stretching, much lower than the control fabric. Our design of anti-fatigue double-wrapped yarns could be widely used for fabricating high-performance compression garments.

In this paper, low circumferential reciprocating load foot-scale tests were performed on two truncated PHC B 600 130 tubular piles with bearing nodes to characterize the damage process and morphology of the specimens and to investigate the load-carrying performance of the members. The test results reveal that under the action of tensile-bending-shear loading, the bearing concrete in the node area buckles and is damaged, the anchored reinforcement in the node area yields, the constraint is weakened, an articulation point is formed, and the node rotational capacity increases. When the embedment depth increases from 200 mm to 300 mm, the ultimate bearing capacities of the positive and negative nodes increase by 57.60% and 54.60%, respectively. A numerical simulation is used to verify the test results. Considering the three types of piles with truncated nodes, the numerical simulation is used to analyze the node-bearing capacity at different embedment depths. Finally, two preferred node types are proposed as follows: pipe pile core-filled longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node and pipe pile body longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node + pipe pile core-filled longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node, with preferred embedment depths of 350 mm and 200 mm, respectively.

Aiming at the problem of low pollutant concentration in the sewage treatment plant due to external water intrusion into the sewage collection system, which in turn leads to low pollutant reduction efficiency. A sewage system in Zhenjiang City is taken as an example. Analyze the situation of external water intrusion in the sewage pipe network, and determine the external water intrusion proportion based on the water quality and quantity method. First, the dry season flow rate of the sewage pipe is obtained according to the monitoring data of the flowmeter. Then, the key research areas are screened out based on the changes in the concentration of water quality characteristic factors. Furthermore, chemical oxygen demand and electrical conductivity are used as the water quality characteristic indicators to characterize shallow groundwater and river water. In addition, the proportions of groundwater and river water intrusion in the sewage pipe network are quantitatively analyzed based on the chemical mass balance equation. At the same time, the dredging detection method is used to assist in the investigation, and finally the engineering rectification of the problems found in the drainage is carried out. The results show that the water quality and quantity method can effectively identify the types of external water and analyze the proportion of external water intrusion, which is of exemplary significance for the evaluation of sewage collection systems.

Mitochondrial alternative oxidase 1a (AOX1a) plays an extremely important role in critical node of seed viability. However, the regulatory mechanism is still poorly understood. The study aims to identify regulatory mechanisms by comparing between OsAOX1a-RNAi and wild type (WT) rice seed during artificial aging treatment. Gain weight and P50 significantly decreased in OsAOX1a-RNAi rice seed, indicating that there might be impaired in seed development and storability. Compared to WT seeds in the 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% germination, respectively, NADH and succinate-dependent O2 consumption, the activity mitochondrial malate dehydro-genase and ATP contents were decreased in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds in the 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% germination, respectively, indicating that mitochondrial status in the OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds after imbibition was weaken than the WT. In addition to, the reduced abundance of complex I N and P module subunits might showed that the capacity of mitochondrial electron transfer chain was significantly inhibited in the OsAOX1a-RNAi seed at critical node of seed viability. Above results might indicated that the ATP production was impaired in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds during ageing. Therefore, we conclude that the activities of mitochondrial metabolism and alternative pathways were severely inhibited in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds at critical node of viability, which was leading to accelerate the collapse of seed viability. The precise regulatory mechanism of the alternative pathway at the critical node of viability still needs to be further analyzed.

There are many theories of carcinogenesis arguing against the orthodox mutation theory, debating on such as “epigenetic alteration” that is inheritable and yet, theoretically, reversible. Our integrated theory describes that any extracellular, intracellular, or intranuclear stressors, mutagenic or not, can initiate a lengthy tumorigenesis to engender a benign or malignant tumor, but the aberrations directly establishing cellular immortality and autonomy may be epigenetic or genetic alterations in the genomic DNA. A neoplasm is considered a semi-new organism with autonomy; it therefore should have genetic mutations to be “new”. We may be able to direct cancer cells towards differentiation as a remedy, because the extracellular milieu may control the phenotype of a cell and the tissue or organ made of the cell’s progenies, and the cytoplasm of a cell may override the nucleus in the phenotypic control. However, the nucleus retains the capacity to manifest itself if allowed by the microenvironment, which then allows the already reversed cells to revert back to tumor cells again. Neoplasms are malignant if they bear epigenetic or genetic anomalies in mutator genes defined as those whose alterations allow or accelerate alterations to occur in other genes, whereas neoplasms are benign if they bear epigenetic or genetic aberrations only in non-mutator genes. It is imperative to identify the immediate tumor-causing cellular alterations defined as those directly responsible for immortality and autonomy, and for treatment purposes to identify the extracellular and intracellular factors that control the phenotype of cancer cells.

Abstract Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the potential of multimodal ultrasound techniques in improving the visibility of liver lesions that are indistinct under conventional ultrasound. Specifically, we will explore the application of fusion imaging, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), and high-frequency ultrasound in enhancing the visibility of liver masses. These techniques will be utilized to assist in visualizing liver lesions and to accurately localize them for the purpose of performing percutaneous tissue biopsy. Lastly, we will compare the biopsy results with the final diagnosis to assess whether multimodal techniques can enhance the success rate of percutaneous biopsy for liver masses that are not clearly visible under conventional ultrasound. Furthermore, the potential impact of these techniques on the development of personalized treatment strategies for patients was also discussed. Materials and Results: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 144 patients with liver masses who underwent conventional ultrasound examinations at our hospital from October 2018 to January 2024. These patients had poor visibility on conventional ultrasound, but the tumor location was visible on abdominal computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. We excluded 71 patients who did not undergo percutaneous liver tumor biopsy and 8 patients who remained non-visualized under multimodal ultrasound. Finally, 95 patients met the inclusion criteria and their clinical and radiological data were selected for analysis. Computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging-ultrasound (CT/MR-US) fusion imaging was performed in 55 patients, CEUS was conducted in 95 patients, and high-frequency ultrasound examination was performed in 21 patients. The visibility of the lesions using these three techniques was evaluated, and the consistency between the biopsy pathology and the final diagnosis was analyzed. Results: In the study, a total of 39 cases were identified as solitary liver lesions, 34 cases as multiple lesions, and an additional 23 cases as diffuse hepatocellular carcinoma. Among them, there were 13 cases (13.7%) of lesions located in the left lobe, 73 cases (76.8%) in the right lobe, and 9 cases (9.4%) at the junction of the left and right lobes. The average maximum diameter of the lesions was 2.7 cm (ranging from 0.7 cm to 10.0 cm). The detection rates of lesions using CT/MR-US fusion imaging, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), and high-frequency ultrasound examination were 49.1%, 96.8%, and 76.2%, respectively. All patients in the entire cohort underwent percutaneous ultrasound-guided biopsy after confirming the target location of the lesions, including 9 patients underwent percutaneous microwave ablation. No severe complications were observed. The accuracy rate of the biopsies was 91.6%, and the positive concordance rate was 91.1%. The biopsy pathology included 39 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 16 cases of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), 22 cases of metastatic adenocarcinoma, 3 cases of hepatic adenoma (HA), 1 case of vascular sarcoma, and 1 case of mixed HCC-ICC. Among the 13 patients with negative pathology findings after biopsy, 8 cases were considered false negatives (based on follow-up laboratory tests and imaging results consistent with malignant tumor characteristics), resulting in a false negative rate of 8.9%. Conclusions: The application of multimodal ultrasound technology can significantly improve the success rate of liver lesion biopsies that are difficult to visualize using conventional ultrasound. Furthermore, it will facilitate the guidance of microwave ablation therapy for lesions using multimodal ultrasound imaging, enabling collaborative precision treatment planning for patients with clinical physicians.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increasingly become integral to multi-access edge computing (MEC) due to their flexibility and cost-effectiveness, especially in the B5G and 6G eras. This paper aims to enhance the Quality of Experience (QoE) in large-scale UAV-MEC networks by minimizing the shrinkage ratio through optimal decision-making in computation mode selection for each user device (UD), UAV flight trajectory, bandwidth allocation, and computing resource allocation at edge servers. However, the interdependencies among UAV trajectory, binary task offloading mode, and computing/network resource allocation across numerous IoT nodes pose significant challenges. To address these challenges, we formulate the shrinkage ratio minimization problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem and propose a two-tier optimization strategy. To reduce the scale of the optimization problem, we first design a low-complexity UAV partition coverage algorithm based on the Welzl method and determine the UAV flight trajectory by solving a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Subsequently, we develop a coordinate descent (CD) based method and an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) based method for network bandwidth and computing resource allocation in the MEC system. The CD-based method is simple to implement and has a low computational complexity, while the ADMM-based method can further enhance the optimization result through joint optimization. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our proposed algorithms perform well in large-scale edge networks and outperform other representative benchmark methods.

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large enveloped DNA virus that causes a highly pathogenic hemorrhagic disease in both domestic pigs and wild boars. The ASFV genome contains a double-stranded DNA encoding more than 150 proteins. The ASFV possesses only one protease pS273R, which is important for virion assembly and host immune evasion. Therefore, the specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) against pS273R is useful for ASFV research. Here, we generated two specific anti-pS273R mAbs named as 2F3 and 3C2, both of which were successfully applied for ELISA, Western blotting and Immunofluorescence assays. Further, we showed that both 2F3 and 3C2 mAbs recognize a new epitope of N terminal 1-25 amino acids of pS273R protein, which is highly conserved across different ASFV strains including all genotypes I and II strains. Based on the recognized epitope, an indirect ELISA was established and was effective in detecting antibody during ASFV infection. To conclude, the specific pS273R mAbs and corresponding epitope identified will strongly promote ASFV serological diagnosis and vaccine research.

Climate-induced changes contribute to the thawing of ice-rich permafrost in the Arctic, which leads to the release of large volumes of organic carbon into the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane. Ground ice constitutes a considerable volume of the cryogenically sequestered labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) subjected to fast mineralization upon thawing. In this work we collected an unique geochemical database of the ground and glacier ice comprising the samples from various geographic locations characterized by a variety of key parameters, including ion composition, carbon-bearing gases (methane and carbon dioxide) bulk biogeochemical indicators and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (DOM) fractions. Our results show that interaction with solid material—such as sediments, detritus, and vegetation—is likely the overriding process in enrichment of the ground ice in all the dissolved compounds. Terrigenous humic-like dissolved organic matter was predominant in all the analyzed ice samples except for glacier ice and pure tabular ground ice from Mare Sale (Western Yamal). The labile protein-like DOM, indicating an autochthonous source, showed no correlation to humic components and probably associated with microbial abundance in the ground ice. The sum of the fluorescent DOM components satisfactory correlates to DOC, indicating the adequacy of the estimation. The pure tabular ground ice samples exhibit the highest biogeochemical quality which may be responsible for the amplification of permafrost organic matter decomposition upon thawing. Yamal impure tabular ground ice and ice wedges are extremely enriched in methane compared to the samples from other locations which should cause a portion of direct methane emission upon the putative thawing.

The Cosmonaut Sea is an under-studied area and a “blank canvas” for macrobenthos research. Here, we report on the species diversity and community structure of macrobenthos collected using the tringle trawl on the 38th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE) in the Cosmonaut Sea, East Antarctica. A total of 11 tringle trawls were deployed at different depths across the shelf, slope and seamount of the Cosmonaut Sea. A total of 275 macrobenthic species were found from 207-1994 m. The species richness per station varied from 23 to 89. Echinoderms (100 species), arthropods (48 species) and mollusks (36 species) were the most dominant groups. Echinoderms and arthropods dominated in abundance at seamount stations, and echinoderms, arthropods and polychaetes dominated in abundance at slope stations, while bryozoans, corals, ascidians and sponges were abundant on the Cosmonaut Sea Shelf. Depth was the major driving force influencing the distribution of macrobenthos. The main components were two core communities. One was dominated by sessile suspension feeders and associated fauna. Variants of this community include sponges and bryozoans. The other core community was dominated by mobile deposit feeders, infauna and grazers–epifauna, which included arthropods and echinoderms. The results showed that the slope (40-50° E, 65-67° S) of the Cosmonaut Sea may be an important area with complex ecological processes. The results of this study contribute to the knowledge of species diversity and communities of macrobenthos in the Cosmonaut Sea and provide monitoring data for future ecosystem health assessments and better protection.

(1) Background: Most patients with mycosis fungoides (MF), a form of cutaneous T-cell lym-phoma (CTCL), develop relapsed/refractory (R/R) disease following front-line systemic therapy. This report describes treatment patterns and outcomes from the subpopulation with R/R MF. (2) Methods: This observational, retrospective, cohort study analysed patient records (1984–2016) from 27 clinical sites in Eurpe. Outcomes included treatments received, response to first-, second- and third-line treatment, overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS). (3) Results: Of 104 patients with MF, 100 received second-line and 61 received third-line therapy. Median (range) times from start of first-line therapy to first R/R MF and from first to second R/R MF were 11.2 (0.3–166.5) and 13.5 (0.0–174.6) months, respectively. Second-and third-line treatment options varied and comprised systemic therapies (85% and 79% of patients, respectively), radio-therapy (32% and 34%, respectively) and topical therapies (48% and 36%, respectively). Median (95% confidence interval [CI]) OS from the diagnosis of first R/R MF was 11.5 (6.5–not reached [NR]) years and was higher with non-chemotherapy (NR) versus chemotherapy (6.5 years); es-timated median PFS (95% CI) from the time of first R/R MF was 1.3 (1.0–2.1) years. (4) Conclu-sion: High rates of R/R disease were observed after second- and third-line treatments in this re-al-world cohort, with longer median OS in patients receiving non-chemotherapy versus chemo-therapy. Following the standard management of MF and using recently approved targeted therapies can help improve patient outcomes in advanced-stage MF.

The efficient extraction of phthalate acid esters (PAEs) is challenging due to their extremely low concentration, complicated matrices and hydrophilicity. Herein, hol-low microspheres, as an ideal coating, possesses significant potential for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) due to their fascinating properties. In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes hollow microspheres (MWCNTs-HMs) were utilized as a fiber coating for the SPME of PAEs from tea beverages. MWCNTs-HMs were ob-tained by dissolving the polystyrene (PS) cores with organic solvents. Interestingly, MWCNTs-HMs well maintain the morphology of the precursors MWCNTs@PS. The layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly of MWCNTs on PS microsphere templates was ac-quired through electrostatic interactions. Six PAEs, di-ethyl phthalate (DEP), di-iso-butyl phthalate (DIBP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and di-n-octyl phthalate (DOP), were se-lected as target analytes for assessing the efficiency of the coating for SPME. The stirring rate, sample solution pH and extraction time were optimized by using the Box-Behnken design. Under optimal working conditions, the proposed MWCNTs-HMs/SPME was coupled with gas chromatography-tandem mass spec-trometry (GC-MS/MS) to achieve high enrichment factors (118–2137), wide linearity (0.0004-10 μg L-1), low limits of detection (0.00011-0.0026 μg L-1) and acceptable recovery (80.2%-108.5%) for the detection of PAEs. Therefore, the MWCNTs-HMs coated fibers are promising alternatives in the SPME method for the sensitive detec-tion of PAEs at trace levels in tea beverages.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) being a staple food crop is an important nutritional source providing protein and minerals. It is important to fortify staple cereals like wheat with essential minerals to overcome the problems associated with malnutrition. The experiment was designed to evaluate the status of 11 micronutrients including grain iron (GFe) and zinc (GZn) in 62 wheat cultivars released between 1911 and 2016 in Pakistan. Field trials were conducted over two years and GFe and GZn were quantified by both inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrophotometer (EDXRF). The GZn ranged from 18.4 to 40.8 mg/kg by ED-XRF and 23.7 to 38.8 mg/kg by ICP-OES. Similarly, GFe ranged from 24.8 to 44.1 mg/kg by ICP-OES and 26.8 to 36.6 mg/kg by EDEXR. The coefficient of correlation was higher for GZn (r=0.90), compared to GFe (r=0.68). Modern cultivars like Zincol-16 and AAS-2011 showed higher GFe and GZn along with improved yield components. Old wheat cultivars WL-711, C-518 and Pothowar-70 released before 1970 also exhibited higher value of GFe and GZn, however their agronomic performance was poor. Multivariate analysis using ten micronutrients (Al, Ca, Cu, K, Mg, Mn, Na and P) along with agronomic traits, and genome-wide SNP markers identified the potential cultivar with improved yield, biofortification trait and wider genetic diversity. Genetic gain analysis identified significant increase in grain yield (0.4% year-1), while there was negative gain for GFe (-0.11% year-1) and GZn (-0.15% year-1) over the span of 100 years. The Green Revolution Rht-B1 and Rht-D1 genes had strong association with plant height, and grain yield (GY), while semi-dwarfing alleles had negative effect on GFe and GZn contents. This study provided a valuable insight into biofortification status of wheat cultivars deployed historically in Pakistan and is a valuable source to initiate a breeding strategy for simultaneous improvement in wheat phenology and biofortification.

The humpback puffer, Tetraodon palembangensis, also known as Pao palembangensis, is a species of poisonous freshwater pufferfish mainly distributed in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia). Despite interesting biological features, such as its very inactive nature, tetrodotoxin production and body expansion mechanisms, molecular research on the humpback puffer is still rare because of the lack of a high-quality reference genome. Here, we reported a first chromosome-level genome assembly of an adult humpback puffer, of which the genome size is 362 Mb with ~1.78 Mb contig N50 and ~15.8 Mb scaffold N50s. Based on the genome, ~61.5Mb (18.11%) repeat sequences were also identified, and totally 19,925 genes were annotated, 99.20% of which could be predicted with function using protein-coding function databases. Finally, a phylogenetic tree was constructed with single-copy gene families from ten teleost fishes. The humpback puffer genome will be a valuable genomic resource to illustrate possible mechanisms of tetrodotoxin synthesis and tolerance, providing clues for future detailed studies of biological toxins.

The outbreak of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has rapidly spread from Wuhan, China to multiple countries, causing staggering number of infections and deaths. A systematic profiling of the immune vulnerability landscape of 2019-nCoV is lacking, which can bring critical insights into the immune clearance mechanism, peptide vaccine development, and antiviral antibody development. In this study, we predicted the potential of all the 2019-nCoV viral proteins to induce class I and II MHC presentation and form linear antibody epitopes. We showed that the enrichment for T cell and B cell epitopes is not uniform on the viral genome, with several focused regions that generate abundant epitopes and may be more targetable. We showed that genetic variations in 2019-nCoV, though fewer for the moment, already follow the pattern of mutations in related coronaviruses, and could alter the immune vulnerability landscape of this virus, which should be considered in the development of therapies. We create an online database to broadly share our research outcome. Overall, we present an immunological resource for 2019-nCoV that could significantly promote both therapeutic development and mechanistic research.

Inflammation has been reported as a facilitator in cervical oncogenesis, but the correlation between inflammation and cytology abnormality including Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) remains uncertain. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between them with ThinPrep cytological test (TCT) as a screening tool for cervical cancer and CIN, which can identify abnormal morphology of cervical mucosa epithelium and inflammation degrees. A retrospective analysis of clinical data from 48101 women undergoing TCT in the affiliated hospitals of Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) revealed that among the 8.87% (4102 cases) total positive rate of ASC, LSIL and HSIL, 67.7% (2777/4102) of TCT positive samples had inflammatory infection. The rate of severe inflammation was significantly higher in cytological abnormality group than the control group (15.1% vs. 2%, P=0.000). Our results showed that severe inflammation significantly increased incidence of cytological abnormality by 12.59 times and elevated the risk of HSIL by 756.47 times. In conclusion, severe inflammation increased the risk of cytological abnormality, and should be viewed as an important risk of HISL. These results of our study remind clinicians to be more watchful for women with severe cervical inflammation in TCT reports for earlier prevention of the HSIL.

The details of antigen-antibody interactions and the identification of epitopes are critical for the development of monoclonal antibody drugs. Ab42 is a native human-derived anti-CFH monoclonal antibody. In this study, the interaction between antigen pCFH and antibody (Ab42) was theoretically demonstrated by molecular docking and MD simulation, combined with free energy calculation and computational alanine scanning (CAS), and key amino acids and epitopes were identified. Experimental alanine scanning (EAS) was then carried out to verify the results of the calculation, and our results indicated that Ab42 antibody forms hydrogen bonds and interacts hydrophobically with pCFH through the Tyr315, Ser100, Gly33, and Tyr53 residues on its CDR, while the main pCFH epitopes are located at the six sites of Pro441, Ile442, Asp443, Asn444, Ile447, and Thr448. In conclusion, this study has explored the mechanism of antigen-antibody interaction from both theoretical and experimental aspects, and our results have important theoretical significance for the design and development of relevant antibody drugs.

Theaflavins, the characteristic and bioactive polyphenols in black tea, possess the potential improvement effects on insulin resistance-associated metabolic abnormalities including obesity and type 2 diebetes. However, the molecular mechanisms of theaflavins improving insulin sensitivity are still not clear. In this study, we investigated the protective effects and mechanisms of theaflavins on palmitic acid-induced insulin resistance in HepG2 cells. Theaflavins could significantly increase glucose uptake of insulin-resistant cells at noncytotoxic doses. This activity was mediated by upregulating the glucose transporter 4 protein expression, increasing the phosphorylation of IRS-1 at Ser307, and reduced the phosphor-Akt (Ser473) level. Moreover, theaflavins were found to enhance mitochondrial DNA copy number through down-regulate the PGC-1β mRNA level and up-regulate PRC mRNA expression in insulin-resistant HepG2 cells. These results indicated that theaflavins could improve free fatty acid-induced hepatic insulin resistance by promoting mitochondrial biogenesis, and were promising functional food and medicines for insulin resistance-related disorders.

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed on a set of 260 lines which belong to three different bi-parental flax mapping populations. These lines were sequenced to an averaged genome coverage of 19× using the Illumina Hi-Seq platform. Phenotypic data for 11 seed yield and oil quality traits were collected in eight year/location environments. A total of 17,288 single nucleotide polymorphisms were identified, which explained more than 80% of the phenotypic variation for days to maturity (DTM), iodine value (IOD), palmitic (PAL), stearic, linoleic (LIO) and linolenic (LIN) acid contents. Twenty-three unique genomic regions associated with 33 QTL for the studied traits were detected, thereby validating four genomic regions previously identified. The 33 QTL explained 48-73% of the phenotypic variation for oil content, IOD, PAL, LIO and LIN but only 8-14% for plant height, DTM and seed yield. A genome-wide selective sweep scan for selection signatures detected 114 genomic regions that accounted for 7.82% of the flax pseudomolecule and overlapped with the 11 GWAS-detected genomic regions associated with 18 QTL for 11 traits. The results demonstrate the utility of GWAS combined with selection signatures for dissection of the genetic structure of traits and for pinpointing genomic regions for breeding improvement.

Thyroid nodules (TNs) are common thyroid lesions in older population. Few studies focused on the prevalence of TNs and its relationship to lifestyle characteristics and dietary habits in centenarians. The current study aimed to determine the prevalence of TNs in Chinese centenarians using high-resolution ultrasound equipment and investigate its relationship to lifestyles and dietary habits. The current study was part of China Hainan Centenarian Cohort Study (CHCCS) which conducted in Hainan, an iodine sufficient region in China. A total of 874 permanent residents aged 100 years or older (mean age, 102.8 ± 2.8 years) without any missing data were included in the analysis. Among the participants, 649 of them were detected at least one thyroid nodule under the ultrasound examinations. The overall prevalence rate of TNs was 74.3%. The prevalence of TNs was higher in participants who were females, hypertension, diabetes, and underweight than their counterparts. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that being female, hypertension, diabetes, betel quid consumption, red meat consumption were independent risk factors, while being underweight, and nut consumption were independent protective factors for TNs. Our findings indicate that the presence of thyroid nodules was highly prevalent in Chinese centenarians, particularly in females. In addition to gender, hypertension, diabetes, and underweight, the presence of TNs was independently associated with betel quid, red meat, and nut consumptions. Further prospective studies are warranted to verify these associations in population from different age strata, races, cultures, and iodine backgrounds.

Hydrogels evolved as an outstanding carrier material for local and controlled drug delivery that tend to the shortcomings of old conventional dosage forms for small drugs (NSAIDS) and large peptides and proteins. Aqueous swellable and crosslinked polymeric network structure of hydrogels is composed of various natural, synthetic and semisynthetic biodegradable polymers. Hydrogels have remarkable properties of functionality, reversibility, sterilizability, and biocompatibility. All these dynamic properties of hydrogels have increased the interest in their use as a carrier for peptides and proteins to be released slowly in a sustained manner. The therapeutical peptide and proteins are remarkable therapeutic agents in today’s world that allows the treatment of severe, chronic and life‐threatening diseases, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis in an easy manner. Despite few limitations, hydrogels provide fine tuning of proteins and peptides delivery with enormous impact in clinical medicine. The primary objective of this article is to review current issues concerned with the therapeutics peptides and proteins and impact of remarkable properties of hydrogels on these therapeutic agents. Different routes for pharmaceutical peptides and proteins and superiority over other drugs candidates are presented. The article will also review literature concerning classification of hydrogels on different basis, polymers used, release mechanisms their physical and chemical characteristics and diverse applications.

Ti and its alloys are the most commonly used materials for biomedical applications. However, bacterial infection after implant placement is still one of the significant rising complications. Therefore, the application of the antimicrobial agents into implant surfaces to prevent implant-associated infection has attracted lots of attention. Scientific papers have shown that inorganic antibacterial metal element (e.g. Ag, Cu, Zn) can be introduced to implant surfaces with the addition of metal nanoparticles or metallic compounds into electrolyte via micro-arc oxidation (MAO) technology. In this review, the effects of the composition and concentration of electrolyte and process parameters (e.g. voltage, current density, oxidation time) on morphological characteristics (e.g. surface morphology, bonding strength), antibacterial ability and biocompatibility of MAO antimicrobial coating were discussed in detail. Anti-infection and osseo-integration can be simultaneously accomplished with the selection of the proper antibacterial elements and operating parameters. Besides, MAO assisted by magnetron sputtering (MS) to endow Ti-based implant materials with superior antibacterial ability and biocompatibility was also discussed. Finally, the development trend of MAO technology in the future was forecasted.

The paper introduces a control hybrid model that is designed on the basis of OOSEM (Object-Oriented Systems Engineering Method), MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) concepts, RealTime UML/SysML (Unified Modeling Language/Systems Modeling Language), and an algorithm based on UKF (Unscented Kalman Filter). This hybrid model enables the implementation of control elements for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and can be adapted to reuse for most standard AUV platforms. To obtain this goal, the dynamic model of AUV is integrated with the following specializations of OOSEM/MDA, in which the analysis model is clarified via the use-case model definition and then combines with HA (hybrid automata) to precisely define the requirements for control. Next, the designed model is specialized via real-time UML/SysML to get the core control blocks, which describe the behaviors and structures of control parts in detail. This design model is then transformed into the model of implementation with the assistance of round-trip engineering to conveniently realize the controller of AUVs. Based on this new model, an AUV controller for low-cost turtle-shaped AUVs is implemented that performs tracking for a planar trajectory with accepted feasibility.

Pea shoots is a popular vegetable in certain regions of the world due to their unique taste and abundance of health-promoting phytochemicals. The perishable nature and susceptibility of root rot of pea shoots necessitate a new soilless production system located close to the market. This study compared the growth of pea shoots using various cultivation methods in LED plant factory. The results showed that early topping (4 days after transplanting, ET) promoted early harvest compared to later topping (20 days after transplanting, LT) and increased the number of harvested shoots by extending the harvest time to 2.8 times, ultimately resulting in a substantial yield improvement. Moreover, the yield of ET with lower planting density (72 plants m-2, ET-LD) was 8.7% higher than ET with higher planting density (126 plants m-2, ET-HD). Particularly, the average fresh weight of individual pea shoots under ET-LD exceeded that of ET-HD by 48.9%. It is advisable to consider adopting ET-LD for the cultivation of pea shoots in LED plant factory. Based on ET-LD, the yield, nutritional quality, and light use efficiency of pea shoots were further explored at different stages under three levels of light intensity (50, 100, 150 μmol m-2 s-1). Contrasted against the light intensity of 50 μmol m-2 s-1, the average fresh weight per pea shoots, number of harvested, and total fresh yield under light intensity of 150 μmol m-2 s-1 treatment increased by 60.2%, 62.8%, and 165.1%, respectively. Meanwhile, the fresh weight per pea shoots, photosynthetic capacity, soluble sugar and vitamin C levels in leaves, as well as light use efficiency and photon yield, initially increased and then decreased with the extension of the planting period. Among these, soluble sugar, LUE, and PY started to decrease after reaching the maximum value at 60-70 days after transplanting. In conclusion, light intensity of 150 μmol m-2 s-1 with a photoperiod of 16 h d-1 using LEDs, combined with early topping within a planting period of 60-70 days, proves to be suitable for the hydroponic production of pea shoots in LED plant factory.

The magnetic properties of 0.10 mm ultra-thin grain-oriented (UTGO) silicon steel and Fe-based amorphous (FBA) alloy under sinusoidal excitation were measured experimentally, and the magnetic field strength and iron loss of the two materials under different frequencies and magnetic densities were obtained. Based on the measured data, the magnetization and loss characteristics of the two materials were analyzed and compared. Furthermore, two Epstein square ring models of the same specification and different materials were designed, and the reliability of the models was verified. Then, the electromagnetic characteristics of the two Epstein square ring models at higher and lower frequencies were calculated by using the finite element method, and the iron loss was obtained and compared. The results show that the FBA alloy has good application characteristics at low frequency and low power, and the 0.10 mm UTGO silicon steel has good application characteristics at high frequency and high power. This research can provide important data basis to promote the application of these two materials in new energy equipment.

Semantic segmentation of high-resolution remote sensing images provides detailed and precise feature information, playing a pivotal role in decision-making and analysis in sectors such as water management, agriculture, military, and environmental protection. However, most methods merely combine features from various branches directly, without a mechanism for spatial location feature screening, and treat all extracted features as equally important. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a novel spatially adaptive interaction network (SAINet) for dynamic interaction across different features in remote sensing semantic segmentation task. Specifically, we propose a spatial refined module that leverages local context information to filter spatial locations and extract salient regions. Following this, we introduce an innovative spatial interaction module that uses a spatial adaptive modulation mechanism to dynamically select and allocate spatial position weights. This facilitates interaction between local salient areas and global information, allowing the network to focus more on relevant regions. This flexible approach enables the network to capture more informative features, thereby enhancing segmentation accuracy. Experiments conducted on the DeepGlobe, Vaihingen, and Potsdam public datasets confirm the effectiveness and capability of SAINet. Our code and models will be publicly available

Rice production in the Anhui province is threatened by fungal diseases. We obtained twenty-five fungal isolates from rice and wild-rice leaves showing leaf spot disease collected along the Yangtze River. A phylogenetic analysis based on internal transcribed spacer (ITS), translation elongation factor 1 alpha (TEF1-α), and beta tubulin (TUB2) sequences revealed that one isolate (SS-2-JB-1B) grouped with Nigrospora shaerica, one (QY) with Nigrospora chinensis, twenty-two with Ngrospora oryzae, and one strain (QY-2) grouped in its own clade, related to but clearly different from N. oryzae. Nineteen tested isolates including sixteen strains from the N. oryzae clade and the three isolates of the other three clades, caused disease on detached rice leaves. The three isolates that did not belong to N. oryzae were also able to cause disease on rice seedlings, suggesting that they were rice pathogens. Isolate QY-2 differed from the other isolates in terms of colony mor-phology, cell-size, and susceptibility to fungicides, indicating that this isolate represents a new species that we named Nigrospora anhuiensis. Our analysis showed that N. sphaerica, N. chinensis, and the new species N. anhuiensis can cause rice leaf spot disease in the field. This research pro-vides new knowledge for understanding rice leaf spot disease.

Universal Stress Protein (USP) plays an important regulatory role in the response to abiotic stress. Most of the research related to USP so far has been conducted on plant models such as Arabidopsis, rice, and cotton. The potato is one of the four major food crops in the world. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the expression pattern of the potato StUSP gene family under abiotic stress conditions. In this study, a total of 108 USP genes were identified from the genome of the Atlantic potato, divided into four subgroups. And based on the genetic structure, the physical and chemical properties of proteins and other aspects of their biological characteristics are comprehensively analyzed. Collinear analysis showed that the homologous genes of StUSPs and four other representative species (Arabidopsis, rice, coyote tobacco, and tomato) were highly conserved. The cis-regulatory elements of the StUSPs promoter are involved in plant hormones, environmental stress, mechanical damage, and light response. RNA-seq analysis showed that under different abiotic stresses, there are differences in the expression patterns of members of each subgroup. WGCNA co-expression analysis of the central gene showed that the differential co-expression gene is mainly involved in the plant-pathogen response process, plant hormone signal transduction, and the biosynthesis process of secondary metabolites. Through qRT-PCR analysis, it was confirmed that StUSP13, StUSP14, StUSP15, and StUSP41 may be important candidate genes involved in the response to adversity stress in potatoes. The results of this study provide the basis for further research on the functional analysis of StUSPs in the potato response to adversity stress.

Bromodomain (BRD)-containing proteins are involved in many biological processes, most notably epigenetic regulation of transcription, and BRD protein dysfunction has been linked to many diseases, including tumorigenesis. However, the role of BRD proteins in the pathogenesis of uterine fibroids (UFs) is entirely unknown. The present study aimed to determine the expression pattern of BRD9 protein in UFs and matching myometrium and further assess the impact of BRD9 inhibitors on UF phenotype and epigenetic/epitranscriptomic changes. Our studies demonstrated that the levels of BRD9 were significantly upregulated in UFs compared to matched myometrium, suggesting that the aberrant BRD protein expression may contribute to the pathogenesis of UFs. We then evaluated the potential roles of BRD9 using its specific inhibitor I-BRD9. Targeted inhibition of BRD9 suppressed the UF tumorigenesis with increased apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, decreased cell proliferation, and extracellular matrix deposition in UF cells. The latter is the key hallmark of UFs. Unbiased transcriptomic profiling coupled with downstream bioinformatics analysis further and extensively demonstrated that targeted inhibition of BRD9 impacted the cell cycle- and ECM-related biological pathways, reprogrammed the UF cell epigenome and epitranscriptome, and altered miRNA-mediated gene regulation in UFs. Taken together, our data support the critical role of BRD9 in UF cells and the strong interconnection between BRD9 and other pathways controlling the UF progression. Targeted inhibition of BRD proteins might provide a non-hormonal treatment option for this most common benign tumor in women of reproductive age.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic, abnormal inflammatory immune response. It is characterized by the involvement of the synovium and multiple organs and the destruction of joints and articular cartilage. Over the past 30 years, several promising novel compounds and antibodies have been developed for the treatment of RA. The introduction of new drugs and precision medicine for all forms of RA raises several issues related to access to novel treatments by patients, optimal regimen selection, cost-effectiveness, prognosis monitoring and outcome surveillance, particularly with regarding to the development of low drug response rates, drug resistance and adverse side effects. Tremendous attention has been given to the identification of optimized drug combinations for the treatment of RA, particularly in early high-risk vulnerable and early individuals. Addressing these issues requires novel therapeutic approaches with new mechanisms and the establishment of accurate guidelines for drug selection, drug recombination, and non-chemical therapeutic efforts. In this study, we reviewed the most exciting recently established or ongoing novel drugs and methods according to the clinical trial database maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine and discussed the trends in RA drug development and challenges in the treatment, providing a reference significant for the accurate treatment of RA and the research direction in the future.

Under the pressure of fluoroquinolones, Pasteurella multocida (PM) can easily develop resistance to fluoroquinolones mediated by QRDR target mutation. It is imperative to find new drug resistance inhibitor targets to combat the rapid development of drug resistance. In order to overcome these problems, we sequenced the transcriptome of PM with different levels of resistance to ENR(0.03 μg/mL; 8 μg/mL; 32μg/Ml, Enrofloxacin). The results showed that with the increase of resistance to fluoroquinolones, the expression of satP gene was significantly up-regulated. The satP gene deletion strain and replenishment strain were constructed, and their drug resistance and tolerance were determined. The results showed that the deletion of satP gene did not affect the resistance of PM to fluoroquinolones, rather affected the time when PM developed resistance to fluoroquinolones. After 10 generations of drug induction, the MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) of fluoroquinolones for wild strain was 64 μg/mL, while the MIC for satP gene deletion strain was only 8 μg/mL. The MDK99 test (time to kill 99% bacteria),agar diffusion test and mutation frequency test showed that the tolerance of satP gene deletion strain was significantly lower than that of wild strain. At the same time, the virulence of gene deletion strain and wild strain was tested, and about 400 times decreased virulence was observed for satP gene deletion strain. The mouse infection model confirmed that mice infected with satP gene deletion strains were more likely to be treated with ENR than mice infected with wild-type bovine PM strains. The results show that satP has potential to be a target of fluoroquinolone resistance inhibitors.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have been widely used in melanoma, but to identify melanoma patients with survival benefit from ICI is still a big challenge. There is an urgent need for prognostic signatures improving the prediction of immunotherapy responses of cancer patients. We used data from EMBL-EBI database and analyzed RNA-seq information and clinical profiles in melanoma. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to identify the key module, then nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) was conducted to cluster patients into two different cluster and compared them regarding overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Subsequently, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between different clusters were identified, and their function and pathway annotation were performed. 91 melanoma biopsies with complete survival information were included in our analyses and we first identified the key module (magenta) by WGCNA, then identified nine prognostic lncRNAs (ENSG00000258869, ENSG00000179840, ENSG00000206344, ENSG00000226777, ENSG00000205018, ENSG00000204261, ENSG00000163597, ENSG00000197536, and ENSG00000263069) signature that predicted for OS and PFS in patients treated with ICI by NMF. Finally, enrichment analysis showed that the functions of DEGs between two consensus clusters were mainly related to the immune process and treatment. In summary, the nine lncRNAs signature is a novel effective predictor for OS and PFS in melanoma patients treated with ICI.

This investigation explores the potential of enhancing aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) through the introduction of a novel cathode material, NH4V4O10 (NVO), combined with reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Utilizing Density Functional Theory (DFT), it was hypothesized that the incorpora-tion of rGO would increase the interlayer spacing of NVO and diminish the charge transfer in-teractions, thus promoting enhanced diffusion of Zn2+ ions. These theoretical predictions were substantiated by experimental data acquired from hydrothermal synthesis, which indicated a marked increase in interlayer spacing. Significantly, the NVO-rGO composite exhibits remarkable cyclic durability, maintaining 95% of its initial specific capacity of 507 mAh g−1 after 600 cycles at a current density of 5 A g−1. The electrochemical performance of NVO-rGO not only surpasses that of pristine NVO but also outperforms the majority of existing vanadium oxide cathode materials reported in the literature. This study underscores the effective integration of theoretical insights and experimental validation, contributing to the advancement of high-performance energy storage technologies.

This paper presents a wideband dual-polarized dipole antenna structure operating at 1.7-3.8 GHz (76.4%). For a traditional 4G dipole antenna which covers the band 1.71 GHz- 2.69 GHz, it’s difficult to maintain the satisfactory impedance matching and normal stable radiation patterns within the 5G sub-6 GHz band 3.3-3.8 GHz, which mainly due to the fixed antenna height is no longer a quarter-wavelength. To solve this, a connected-ring-shaped metasurface structure is proposed and deployed to operate as an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC). As a result, stable antenna radiation patterns are obtained within the whole band 1.7-3.8 GHz. For verification, this wideband dipole antenna using AMC is implemented and tested. The measured results show that the proposed antenna has an impedance bandwidth of 80.7% (1.7-4.0 GHz). It has an average measured in-band realized gain of 7.0±1.0 dBi and a stable 70∘±5∘ half power beam width (HPBW) within the 4G/5G-sub 6GHz bands 1710-2690 MHz and 3300-3800 MHz.

To elucidate the function of the cold resistance regulatory gene FmNAC1 from Fraxinus mandshurica, this study identified the role that the overexpression of the FmNAC1 gene plays in tobacco growth and cold stress regulation. The cloned FmNAC1 gene from F. mandshurica is 891 bp in length and encodes 296 amino acids. Our subcellular localization analysis confirmed that FmNAC1 is primarily located in the nucleus and functions as a transcription factor. FmNAC1 is responsive to cold and NaCl stress, as well as to the induction of IAA, GA, and ABA hormone signals. To further elucidate its function in cold resistance, four transgenic tobacco lines of FmNAC1 overexpression（FmNAC1-OE）were generated through tissue culture after the agrobacterium-mediated transformation of wild-type (WT) tobacco. These FmNAC1-OE plants exhibited accelerated growth after transplantation. When exposed to low-temperature conditions at -5°C for 24 hours, the rates of wilting and yellowing of the FmNAC1-OE plants were significantly lower than those of the WT tobacco plants. Additionally, the membrane integrity, osmotic regulation, and reactive oxygen species (ROS)-scavenging abilities of the FmNAC1-OE tobacco lines were better than those of the WT plants, indicating the potential of the FmNAC1 gene to improve plant cold resistance. The gene expression results further revealed that the FmNAC1 transcription factor exhibits regulatory interactions with growth-related genes such as IAA and AUX1; cold resistance-related genes such as ICE, DREB, and CBF1; and genes involved in the clearance of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as CAT and SOD. All of this evidence shows that the FmNAC1 transcription factor from F. mandshurica plays a key role in contributing to the enhancement of growth, cold resistance, and ROS clearance in transgenic tobacco plants.

This study explores the enhancement of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) using ammonium-enhanced vanadium oxide cathodes. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations reveal that NH₄⁺ incorporation into V₆O₁₆ lattices significantly facilitates Zn²⁺ ion diffusion by reducing electrostatic interactions, acting as a structural lubricant. Subsequent experimental validation using (NH₄)₂V₆O₁₆ cathodes synthesized via a hydrothermal method corroborates the DFT findings, demonstrating remarkable electrochemical stability with a capacity retention of 90% after 2000 cycles at 5 A g⁻¹. These results underscore the potential of NH₄⁺ in improving the performance and longevity of AZIBs, providing a pathway for sustainable energy storage solutions.

The insufficient flexibility of the hybrid renewable integrated energy system (HRIES) makes it difficult to accommodate renewable energy with a high proportion. It is thus necessary to excavate its potential flexibility to improve its operational performance and consume renewable energy. This paper unlocks the adjustment potential of flexible buildings and builds a flexible thermal load regulation model according to the dynamic thermal characteristics and thermal comfort elastic interval of the buildings and a regulation model of the flexible electrical load based on its transferability, resectability, and rigidity. An operation optimization model, which incorporates multiple flexible load regulations and the variable load of devices, is then developed. A case study is presented to analyze the regulation and synergy mechanism in different types of flexible loads. Its results show a saturation effect between the flexible thermal and electrical loads in increasing renewable energy consumption and a synergy effect in decreasing the total cost. This synergy can reduce the total cost by 0.73%. Besides, the total cost can be reduced by 15.13%, and the renewable energy curtailment rate can decrease by 12.08% if the flexible electric and thermal loads are integrated into the operation optimization of HRIES.

In order to investigate both the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the impacts of organic selenium and nano-selenium on drought stress of Pak Choi (Brassica chinensis var. pekinensis. cv. ‘Suzhouqing’), we measured photosynthetic pigment, antioxidant, nutritional quality, and performed transcriptome sequencing of leaves using RNA-seq technology. Under drought conditions, the beneficial effects of organic selenium and nano-selenium on weight and quality of ‘Suzhouqing’ were primarily manifested in the following aspects. Firstly, there was an enhancement in photosynthetic capacity through upregulation of light-trapping pigment proteins: Lhca1, Lhca2, Lhca3, Lhca4, Lhcb1, Lhcb2, Lhcb3, Lhcb4 and Lhcb5. Secondly, effective regulation of reactive oxygen species homeostasis was achieved by activating the antioxidant system via up-regulation of glutathione S-transferase. Thirdly, water homeostasis was maintained through glutathione oxidase activity. Lastly, increased expression levels of ABC transporter, adenylate kinase and cysteine desulphurase contributed to elevated total selenium content. In addition, we screened hub core genes related to the above key metabolic pathways through Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis. Since the results were consistent with the up-regulated genes identified in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway of differentially expressed genes by transcriptome sequencing analysis, this confirms the accuracy and reliability of the transcriptome sequencing data.

porous silicon-based photodetectors have attracted more researches due to their high luminous efficiency, good stability and low cost. In this paper, a PbS quantum dots/porous silicon hybrid structure has been fabricated. The PbS quantum dots (QDs) partly infiltrated into the porous silicon (PSi) layer and partly deposited on its surface, which could increase the absorption of near-infrared wavelength range and extend the light absorption in silicon for wavelengths longer than 1100 nm. After that, A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) device is fabricated and its response spectrum could extend to the 1200 nm at -3 V. As a silicon-based photodetector (PD), one can envision its role for operation from visible light to short-wavelength infrared range.

Keywords: Marine sulfated glycans; SARS-CoV-2; Omicron XBB.1.5, Spike protein; Heparin

Avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is the causative agent of infectious bronchitis, which causes considerable economic losses to the poultry industry worldwide. It is imperative to develop safe and efficient candidate vaccines to control IBV infection. In the current study, recombinant baculoviruses co-expressing S1 and N proteins, mono-expressing S1 or N proteins alone of IBV were constructed and prepared into subunit vaccines rHBM-S1-N, rHBM-S1 and rHBM-N. The levels of immune protection of these subunit vaccines were evaluated by inoculating specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens at 14 days of age, boosting with the same dose 14 days later, and following challenge with a virulent GX-YL5 strain of IBV 14 days post-booster (dpb). The commercial vaccine strain H120 was used as a control. The IBV-specific antibody levels as well as the percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes were detected within 28 days post-vaccination (dpv). The morbidity, mortality, and re-isolation of virus from the tracheas and kidneys of challenged birds were evaluated at 5 days post-challenge (dpc). The results showed that the IBV-specific antibody levels and the percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocyte in rHBM-S1-N group were higher than those of rHBM-S1 and rHBM-N groups, especially the cellular immunity response. At 5 dpc, the mortality, morbidity and virus re-isolation rate of rHBM-S1-N were slightly higher than those of H120 group, but were lower than those of rHBM-S1 group and rHBM-N group. The present study demonstrated that the protection of recombinant baculovirus co-expressing S1 and N proteins was better than that of recombinant baculoviruses mono-expressing S1 or N protein alone. Thus, the recombinant baculovirus co-expressing S1 and N proteins could serve as a potential IBV vaccine and this demonstrates that the bivalent subunit vaccine including the S1 and N proteins might be a strategy for the development of an IBV subunit vaccine.

In order to overcome the limitation of the traditional adaptive Unscented Kalman Filtering (UKF) algorithm in noise covariance estimation for statement and measurement, we propose a hybrid adaptive UKF algorithm based on combining Maximum a posteriori (MAP) criterion and Maximum likelihood (ML) criterion, in this paper. First, to prevent the actual noise covariance deviating from the true value which can lead to the state estimation error and arouse the filtering divergence, a real-time covariance matrices estimation algorithm based on hybrid MAP and ML is proposed for obtaining the statement and measurement noises covariance, respectively; and then, a balance equation the two kinds of covariance matrix is structured in this proposed to minimize the statement estimation error. Compared with the UFK based MAP and based ML, the proposed algorithm provides better convergence and stability.

Arsenic trioxide (ATO) has been shown to inhibit pancreatic cell growth in vitro and to promote the inhibitory effects of gemcitabine on pancreatic cancer in vivo. However, the high toxicity of ATO associated with the required high doses and indiscriminate targeting has limited its clinical application. This study aimed to determine whether coupling arsenic to a tumor homing peptide would increase the inhibitory potency against pancreatic cancer cells. The effects of this peptide-linked arsenic compound and ATO on pancreatic cancer growth were tested in vitro and in a mouse model. The data demonstrated that the peptide-linked arsenic compound inhibited pancreatic cancer cell growth more potently with IC50 values 10 times lower than ATO. Like ATO, the peptide-linked compound induced cell death and cell cycle arrest. More importantly, the peptide-linked arsenic compound inhibited pancreatic cancer growth in mice and enhanced the inhibitory effect of gemcitabine on pancreatic cancer growth at 2 times lower molar concentration than ATO. These results indicate that the peptide-linked arsenic compound inhibited pancreatic cancer more potently than ATO and suggest a potential clinical use for the combination of gemcitabine with the peptide-linked arsenic compound for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

In order to shorten the detection time and improve the average precision on embedded devices, A lightweight and high accuracy model is proposed for passion fruit in complex environments (backlight, occlusion, overlap, sunny, cloudy, rainy). Firstly, replacing the backbone network of YOLOv5 with a lightweight GhostNet model reduces the number of parameters and computation while improving detection speed. Secondly, a new feature branch is added to the GhostNet network, and the feature fusion layer in the neck network is reconstructed to effectively combine the lower-level and higher-level features, which not only improves the accuracy of the model but also maintains its lightweight. Finally, the knowledge distillation methods are used to transfer the knowledge from the more capable teacher model to the less capable student model, which significantly improving the detection accuracy. The improved model is denoted as G-YOLO-NK. The average accuracy of the G-YOLO-NK network is 96.00%, which is 1.00% higher than the original YOLOv5s model. Furthermore, the improved model size is 7.14MB, reduced to half of the original model, and the real-time detection frame rate is 11.25 FPS on the Jetson Nano. Compared to the state-of-the-art model, the proposed model outperforms them in terms of average precision and detection performance. The present work provides an effective model for real-time detection of passion fruits in complex orchard scenes, which can provide valuable technical support for the development of orchard picking robots and greatly improve the intelligence level of orchards.

It is challenging to precisely measure the slow interseismic crustal deformation rate from SAR data. The long-wavelength orbital errors, owing to the uncertainties in satellite orbit vectors, commonly exist in SAR interferograms, which degrade the precision of the InSAR products and become the main barrier of extracting interseismic tectonic deformation. In this study, we propose a novel temporal network orbital correction method that is able to isolate the far-fault tectonic deformation from the mixed long-wavelength signals based on its spatio-temporal characteristic. The proposed approach is straightforward in methodology but could effectively separate the subtle tectonic deformation from glaring orbital errors without ancillary data. Both synthetic data and real Sentinel-1 SAR images are used to validate the reliability and effectiveness of this method. The derived InSAR velocity fields clearly present the predominant left-lateral strike-slip motions of the Tuosuo Lake segment of the Kunlun fault in western China. The fault-parallel velocity differences of 5-6 mm/yr across the fault between areas ~50 km away from the fault trace are addressed. The proposed method presents significantly different performance from traditional quadratic approximate method in the far-field. Through the implementation of the proposed method, the RMSE between the LOSGPS and our derived descending InSAR LOS is reduced to less than one-third of the previous study, suggesting its potential to enhance the availability of InSAR technology for interseismic crustal deformation measurement.

In order to explore the effects of glutamate on the growth performance, antioxidant capacity and protein metabolism of juvenile Chinese mitten crab. 0%, 1% and 2% glutamate were supplemented to low protein (30%) and normal protein (35%) diets respectively. There were 5 parallel tanks in each treatment, and the feeding duration was 8 weeks. The results showed that dietary glutamate did not significantly affect the weight gain of Chinese mitten crab. Diets supplemented with 2% glutamate significantly decreased the crude protein of crabs. The T-AOC of crabs fed the 30% protein diets was significantly lower than crabs fed the 35% protein diets. At 30% protein level, the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity significantly increased with the increase of glutamate content. Dietary glutamate significantly down-regulated the relative expressions of mTOR, PI3K, S6K1 and 4EBP at 35% protein level. In conclusion, dietary glutamate cannot significantly increase the growth of Chinese mitten crab, but it can improve the antioxidant capacity in Chinese mitten crab under low protein condition.

Music cultural heritage, as an important component of cultural heritage, possesses significant cultural value and inheritance significance. With the development of society and the passage of time, these precious traditional music cultural heritages inevitably face the dilemma of gradual depletion or even disappearance. In the digital age, effectively protecting and inheriting these music cultural heritages has become an urgent problem to be addressed. Therefore, this paper proposes an application method based on digital twin technology, exploring how to protect and inherit music cultural heritages through digital twin technology. By leveraging digital twin technology, a virtual museum dedicated to showcasing the richness and historical connotations of music cultures is created, preserving and simulating the soundscapes of historical music eras. Through the integration of audio archives, 3D modeling, and interactive displays, users can immerse themselves in the experience of historical music in the digital space. This paper evaluates the feasibility and cultural preservation value of this digital music history museum through the creation of music digital twin technology instances and user survey feedback, and discusses the prospects of digital twins in the field of music cultural heritage.