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Anxiety disorders are frequently comorbid with insomnia, and sleep disturbance in patients with anxiety disorders is the most common complaint. Antidepressants can affect sleep quality; however, their effect in patients with comorbid insomnia and anxiety disorders is unclear. The aim of the present study was to comprehensively evaluate the dose, treatment duration, treatment efficacy and safety of clinical citalopram and doxepin application in patients with comorbid insomnia and anxiety disorders. It was found that both citalopram (20 mg/day) and low-dose doxepin (12.5 mg/day) significantly improved sleep latency, duration and disturbances, as well as daytime dysfunction and the global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index during the 12-week treatment period. Notably, low-dose doxepin significantly improved sleep latency in patients after treatment for 8 and 12 weeks as compared with citalopram. It was further observed that both citalopram and low-dose doxepin improved anxiety. A significant and positive correlation was found between the improvement in the sleep quality and anxiety in the two treatment groups. Citalopram and low-dose doxepin both showed good efficacy and a low adverse reaction rate in the treated patients. These data support a potential application of citalopram and low-dose doxepin in the treatment of patients with comorbid insomnia and anxiety disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various research papers within the issue on topics including consensus problem for Multi-Agent Systems; distributed estimation over a sensor network; and distributed containment problem of Euler-Lagrange systems.

A two-wheeled self-balancing robot with a fuzzy PD control method is described and analyzed as an example of a high-order, multiple-variable, nonlinear, strong-coupling, and unstable system. Based on a system structure model, a kinetic equation is constructed using Newtonian dynamics and mechanics. After a number of simulation experiments, we get the best Q, R, and state-feedback matrices. Then a fuzzy PD controller is designed for which the position and speed of the robot are inputs and for which the angle and angle rate of the robot are controlled by a PD controller. Finally, this paper describes a real-time control platform for the two-wheeled self-balancing robot that controls the robot effectively, after some parameter debugging. The result indicates that the fuzzy PD control algorithm can successfully achieve self-balanced control of the two-wheeled robot and prevent the robot from falling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retinoblastoma protein (Rb) plays a pivotal role in regulating cell proliferation and apoptosis. Nutlin-3, a small molecule MDM2 antagonist blocking interaction between MDM2 and p53, activates p53 resulting in cell growth arrest or apoptosis in various cancer cells. However, the molecular basis for the different cellular responses upon nutlin-3 treatment is not fully understood. In this study, we show that nutlin-3 activates p53 resulting in a dramatic increase in MDM2 expression and a marked reduction in total Rb protein levels. Interestingly, nutlin-3 reduces the levels of hypophosphorylated Rb and induces massive apoptosis in SJSA-1 cells, which can be largely rescued by knockdown of MDM2 or by expression of constitutively active Rb. By contrast, nutlin-3 treatment of several human cancer cells, including A549, U2-OS, and HCT116, results in an accumulation of hypophosphorylated Rb and cell cycle arrest but not apoptosis. Furthermore, we show that down-regulation of Rb by nutlin-3 does not lead to E2F1 activation nor does E2F1 play a critical role for nutlin-3-induced apoptosis in SJSA-1 cells. Taken together, these results suggest that Rb plays a critical role in influencing cellular response to activation of p53 pathway by nutlin-3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The artificial breeding of carp existed in China 8000 years ago. The breeding of carp played an important role in ancient Chinese history, and it still played a crucial role in modern aquaculture. The output of carp in China is very high, accounting for 8.42 % of the total output of freshwater products in 2023, ranking fifth in the total output of freshwater aquaculture fish. At the same time, carp is also the fish species with the highest number of new varieties bred in China. With the advent of the genomics era, breeding technologies have also made progress. This paper reviews the history and current status of carp farming, the germplasm resources of carp, and the application of fish genetic breeding technology in the germplasm innovation of carp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the production quality management of filter rods in the manufacturing and execution process of cigarette enterprises, this paper analyzes the necessity of implementing the manufacturing execution system (MES) in the production process of filter rods. In this paper, the filter rod quality system of cigarette enterprise based on MES is fully studied, and the constructive information management system demand analysis, cigarette quality control process, system function module design, implementation and test effect are given. This paper utilizes the Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to find the optimal system for processing the manufacturing of cigarette. The implementation of MSE based filter rod quality information management system for a cigarette enterprise ensures the quality control in the cigarette production process. Through visualization, real-time and dynamic way, the information management of cigarette production is completed, which greatly improves the quality of cigarette enterprise manufacturing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming has led to a high incidence of extreme heat events, and the frequent occurrence of extreme heat events has had extensive and far-reaching impacts on wetland ecosystems. The widespread distribution of plastics in the environment, including polyethylene (PE), polylactic acid (PLA), and tire particles (TPs), has caused various environmental problems. Here, high-throughput sequencing techniques and metabolomics were used for the first time to investigate the effects of three popular microplastic types: PE, PLA, and TP, on the sediment microbiome and the metabolome at both temperatures. The microplastics were incorporated into the sediment at a concentration of 3% by weight of the dry sediment (wt/wt), to reflect environmentally relevant conditions. Sediment enzymatic activity and physicochemical properties were co-regulated by both temperatures and microplastics producing significant difference s compared to controls. PE and PLA particles inhibited bacterial diversity at low temperatures and promoted bacterial diversity at high temperatures, and TP particles promoted both at both temperatures. For bacterial richness, only PLA showed inhibition at low temperature; all other treatments showed promotion. PE, PLA, and TP microplastics changed the community structure of sediment bacteria, forming two clusters at low and high temperatures. Furthermore, PE, PLA, and TP changed the sediment metabolic profiles, producing differential metabolites such as lipids and molecules, organic heterocyclic compounds, and organic acids and their derivatives, especially TP had the most significant effect. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the potential impact of microplastic contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of classifying a remote-sensing image by specifically labelling each pixel in the image is addressed. A novel method, named composite kernels conditional random field (CKCRF), which embeds multiple kernels into a classical CRFs model is proposed. Rather than manually selecting kernel-like KCRF, CKCRFs chooses the appropriate kernel by training. Moreover, a genetic programming-based decision-level fusion framework is proposed to tackle the problem of feature selection. It can select the appropriate features suitable to each category. Evaluations show that CKCRFs outperform CRFs and KCRFs, and CKCRFs with the fusion scheme is better than that without the fusion step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herbig–Haro (HH) objects associated with newly born stars are typically characterized by two high Mach number jets ejected in opposite directions. However, HH 110 appears to only have a single jet instead of two. Recently, Kajdi et al. measured the proper motions of knots in the whole system and noted that HH 110 is a continuation of the nearby HH 270. It has been proved that the HH 270 collides with the surrounding mediums and is deflected by 58°, reshaping itself as HH 110. Although the scales of the astrophysical objects are very different from the plasmas created in the laboratory, similarity criteria of physical processes allow us to simulate the jet deflection in the HH 110/270 system in the laboratory with high power lasers. A controllable and repeatable laboratory experiment could give us insight into the deflection behavior. Here we show a well downscaled experiment in which a laser-produced supersonic-jet is deflected by 55° when colliding with a nearby orthogonal side-flow. We also present a two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation with the Euler program, LARED-S, to reproduce the deflection. Both are in good agreement. Our results show that the large deflection angle formed in the HH 110/270 system is probably due to the ram pressure from a flow–flow collision model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An algorithm is proposed to directly reconstruct a CT gradient image in a region of interest(ROI). First, the central slice theorem is generalized and a differential constraint condition (DCC) is introduced in parallel-beam geometry. Then, an algorithm is developed to reconstruct the gradient images in both Cartesian and polar coordinate systems based on a two-step Hilbert transform method. Finally, the reconstruction algorithm is extended into the equi-distant fan-beam geometry. Meanwhile, a conditional truncation for projection data acquisition is permitted by using a one-dimensional(1-D) finite Hilbert transform in image domain. Because the reconstructed gradient image is in terms of local operator, it have a better performance in CT image analysis and other CT applications compared to the global Calderon operator in Lambda Tomography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Serotypes of the Foot-and-Mouth disease viruses (FMDVs) were generally determined by biological experiments. The computational genotyping is not well studied even with the availability of whole viral genomes, due to uneven evolution among genes as well as frequent genetic recombination. Naively using sequence comparison for genotyping is only able to achieve a limited extent of success. Results: We used 129 FMDV strains with known serotype as training strains to select as many as 140 most serotype-specific nucleotide strings. We then constructed a linear-kernel Support Vector Machine classifier using these 140 strings. Under the leave-one-out cross validation scheme, this classifier was able to assign correct serotype to 127 of these 129 strains, achieving 98.45% accuracy. It also assigned serotype correctly to an independent test set of 83 other FMDV strains downloaded separately from NCBI GenBank. Conclusion: Computational genotyping is much faster and much cheaper than the wet-lab based biological experiments, upon the availability of the detailed molecular sequences. The high accuracy of our proposed method suggests the potential of utilizing a few signature nucleotide strings instead of whole genomes to determine the serotypes of novel FMDV strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the Rayleigh–Taylor instability with double interfaces as the research object, the interface coupling effects in the weakly nonlinear regime are studied numerically. The variation of Atwood numbers on the two interfaces and the variation of the thickness between them are taken into consideration. It is shown that, when the Atwood number on the lower interface is small, the amplitude of perturbation growth on the lower interface is positively related with the Atwood number on the upper interface. However, it is negatively related when the Atwood number on the lower interface is large. The above phenomenon is quantitatively studied using an analytical formula and the underlying physical mechanism is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antibiotics stimulate the growth of animals but result in drug residues and bacterial resistance. In this study, the negative effect of antibiotics on abdominal fat deposition was evaluated in broilers. The results showed that adding both chlortetracycline (50 g/1,000 kg) and tylosin (50 g/1,000 kg) significantly increased abdominal fat weight, abdominal fat percentage (p < .05), and triglyceride and cholesterol levels (p < .05) in blood. Also, both products synchronously stimulated intestinal absorption and synthesis of liver fat. The expression levels of the peroxisome proliferatoractivated receptor ? (PPAR?), diacylgycerol acyltransferase 2 (DGAT2), lipoprotein lipase (LPL), and fatty acid-binding protein (FABP4) genes in abdominal fat tissue significantly increased (p < .05 or 0.01) when antibiotics were added to the feed. However, no significant difference was found in expression of the fatty acid synthesis (FAS) or acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACC) genes. Further in vitro study results revealed that antibiotics had no effect on fat content or the related gene expression levels in preadipocytes. In summary, the antibiotics induced fat deposition in adipose tissues by activating extracellular absorption of fatty acids from intestinal absorption and synthesis of liver fat. However, it shows no direct regulation by adipose tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activation of phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K), Ras, and Her2 signaling plays a critical role in cancer development. Hotspot constitutive activating mutations in oncogenes, such as PIK3CA encoding the p110α catalytic subunit or RAS, as well as over-expression of Her2, are frequently found in human tumors and cancers. It has been well established that activation of these oncogenes profoundly promotes tumor metastasis, whereas decreased expression of ΔNp63α, the major protein isoform of the p53-related p63 expressed in epithelial cells, has been associated with cancer metastasis. In this study, we demonstrate that hotspot oncogenic mutations on PIK3CA and RAS, including p110αH1047R, K-RasG12V, and H-RasG12V, as well as activation of Her2, all led to suppression of ΔNp63α expression via Akt-fork-head transcription factor 3a (Akt-FOXO3a) signaling, resulting in increased cell motility and tumor metastasis. Expression of ΔNp63α effectively reversed p110αH1047R-, K-RasG12V-, H-RasG12V-, or Her2-induced cell motility in vitro and tumor metastasis in mouse models. We show that ΔNp63α was a direct FOXO3a transcriptional target and that expression of FOXO3a and ΔNp63α was correlated in human cancer biopsy samples. Together, these results demonstrate that ΔNp63α is a common inhibitory target of oncogenic PI3K, Ras, and Her2, and that ΔNp63α may function as a critical integrator of oncogenic signaling in cancer metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASp) is a hematopoietic-specific regulator of actin nucleation. Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) patients show immunodeficiencies, most of which have been attributed to defective T-cell functions. T follicular helper (Tfh) cells are the major CD4+ T-cell subset with specialized B-cell helper capabilities. Aberrant Tfh cells activities are involved in immunopathologies such as autoimmunity, immunodeficiencies, and lymphomas. We found that in WAS patients, the number of circulating Tfh cells was significantly reduced due to reduced proliferation and increased apoptosis, and Tfh cells were Th2 and Th17 polarized. The expression of inducible costimulator (ICOS) in circulating Tfh cells was higher in WAS patients than in controls. BCL6 expression was decreased in total CD4+ T and Tfh cells of WAS patients. Mirroring the results in patients, the frequency of Tfh cells in WAS knockout (KO) mice was decreased, as was the frequency of BCL6+ Tfh cells, but the frequency of ICOS+ Tfh cells was increased. Using WAS chimera mice, we found that the number of ICOS+ Tfh cells was decreased in WAS chimera mice, indicating that the increase in ICOS+ Tfh cells in WAS KO mice was cell extrinsic. The data from in vivo CD4+ naive T-cell adoptive transfer mice as well as in vitro coculture of naive B and Tfh cells showed that the defective function of WASp-deficient Tfh cells was T-cell intrinsic. Consistent findings in both WAS patients and WAS KO mice suggested an essential role for WASp in the development and memory response of Tfh cells and that WASp deficiency causes a deficient differentiation defect in Tfh cells by downregulating the transcription level of BCL6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typical face-on experiments for Rayleigh-Taylor instability study involve the timeresolved radiography of an accelerated foil with line-of-sight of the radiography along the direction of motion. The usual method which derives perturbation amplitudes from the face-on images reverses the actual image transmission procedure, so the obtained results will have a large error in the case of large optical depth. In order to improve the accuracy of data processing, a new data processing technique has been developed to process the face-on images. This technique based on convolution theorem, refined solutions of optical depth can be achieved by solving equations. Furthermore, we discuss both techniques for image processing, including the influence of modulation transfer function of imaging system and the backlighter spatial profile. Besides, we use the two methods to the process the experimental results in Shenguang-II laser facility and the comparison shows that the new method effectively improve the accuracy of data processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present letter, we propose the design of a wedged-peak pulse at the late stage of indirect drive. Our simulations of one- and two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics show that the wedged-peakpulse design can raise the drive pressure and capsule implosion velocity without significantly raising the fuel adiabat. It can thus balance the energy requirement and hydrodynamic instability control at both ablator/fuel interface and hot-spot/fuel interface. This investigation has implication in the fusion ignition at current mega-joule laser facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Euler force induced by the acceleration of compact disk (CD)-like microfluidic chip, this paper presents a novel actuation mechanism for siphon valving. At the preliminary stage of acceleration, the Euler force in the tangential direction of CD-like chip takes the primary place compared with the centrifugal force to function as the actuation of the flow, which fills the siphon and actuates the siphon valving. The Euler force actuation mechanism is demonstrated by the numerical solution of the phase-field based mathematical model for the flow in siphon valve. In addition, experimental validation is implemented in the polymethylmethacrylate-based CD-like microfluidic chip manufactured using CO2 laser engraving technique. To prove the application of the proposed Euler force actuation mechanism, whole blood separation and plasma extraction has been conducted using the Euler force actuated siphon valving. The newly introduced actuation mechanism overcomes the dependence on hydrophilic capillary filling of siphon by avoiding external manipulation or surface treatments of polymeric material. The sacrifice for highly integrated processing in pneumatic pumping technique is also prevented by excluding the volume-occupied compressed air chamber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Whilst the Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture is considered to be the primary seismic fracture of the Wenchuan earthquake, surface ruptures, geohazards, abnormal hydrological phenomena and aftershocks occurred not only along this central fracture but also along the so-called “secondary seismic fractures” parallel to it. The paper reports some of the geohazards associated with these secondary seismic fractures and concludes that the contribution of these is important in the overall scale of the effect of the Wenchuan earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phononic crystal cavities with high quality (Q) factors are attractive in both signal processing and sensing applications. In this paper, 2D phononic crystal point defect cavities are fabricated on silicon slabs by micro electromechanical system (MEMS) technologies. An electrode design method is proposed to enhance displacements of the point defect modes. Then the method is applied to design MEMS resonators with different port numbers, among which Q factor as high as 21 300 is obtained in air. Multiport resonators with transmission measurements are proved to be advantageous over one-port resonators with impedance measurements in frequency resolution. A temperature insensitive resonant mass sensor is designed based on a two-port resonator. Two defect modes with strong responses in the two-port resonator are combined to compensate environmental temperature interference. The temperature compensation experiment reveals that temperature interference is effectively compensated from mass measurement and the mass sensitivity of the sensor is 5.4 Hz ng−1. The conclusion of mode selection or sensing mechanism will help to design resonators or sensors with high performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]