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Effective visual information representation is significant for the feature extractability of deep neural networks. The transformation from images to feature maps realized by the stem, referring to the initial part of the neural network that processes input images, causes the loss of information owing to the heterogeneity of the color and structure information: the most prominent features. To solve this problem, we propose a powerful and effective image-embedding stem (IES) model with a color-embedding module (CEM), structure embedding module (SEM), and feature mixing module (FMM). Specifically, the red-green-blue (RGB) ternary color information is embedded into a high-dimensional vector space containing rich feature information through the CEM. Simultaneously, the SEM is used to explicitly encode multiscale structural information to enrich the detailed information in the feature maps. Finally, they are fused by the FMM to preserve more details. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the efficacy of the IES in different visual tasks. It achieved +1.2 and +0.5 top-1 accuracy ratings on the ImageNet-100 dataset for the VanillaNet-5 and TinyViT-5m backbones, respectively, and obtained +2.36 and +1.7 mean intersection-over-union scores on the UTFPR-SBD3 dataset for PoolFormer and ConvNeXtV2 backbones, respectively. The code and models will be released soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secondary urban agglomerations in a large city cluster can play the role of bridging the central city and the county or township, to enhance the industrial competitiveness and realize the sustainable development of the regional economy. In the context of a low carbon economy, based on the case study of a typical secondary urban agglomeration, this paper proposes that the industry chain, innovation chain, and service chain in a secondary urban agglomeration are relatively weak, which needs a complex industry collaboration system integrating industry chain, innovation chain, and service chain (IIS) to achieve low-carbon collaborative industrial development. This system can be developed by taking the real economy (industry chain) as the core and integrating innovation elements including science, technology, and knowledge (innovation chain), as well as service elements such as the material base, government policy, and financial services (service chain). The article constructs a theoretical framework for the IIS system, analyzes its operation mechanism, and finally discusses the specific construction strategy of the IIS system based on a low-carbon economy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low carbon economy emphasizes innovative, green, and high-quality economic growth mode. The deep integration and coordinated development of the industry chain, innovation chain and service chain are an effective measure and inevitable requirement to transform the pattern of economic growth and boost the low-carbon economy. Taking the data of Wuhan, Nanchang and Changsha, the central cities of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River city cluster, from 2013 to 2020 as samples, this paper discusses the mechanism of the three-chain coordinated development to promote high-quality economic development, uses the coupling coordination model to measure the three-chain coordination degree, and the grey relational degree model to predict the future development of the three chains in this region. The research results show that: since the establishment of the case city cluster, the three chains of the central cities have experienced a change from disharmony to gradual coordinated development, and the trend is good. However, the coordination degree is still low at present, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of regional economy. According to the research results, policy suggestions are put forward to promote intra-city three-chain coordination and inter-city three-chain integration coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of economy, China has gradually begun to pay attention to the protection of the natural environment. Under the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", importance has been attached to the development of forestry economy. The protection of forest resources and the prevention and control of disasters are important contents and necessary' components in the construction of China's forestry ecological environment. Through the analysis and research on the types of forest disasters (forest fires, biological disasters, meteorological disasters, geological disasters, deforestation) and disaster-causing factors, some basic countermeasures were put forward with the aim to enhance the production capacity of forest resources, improve the ecological environment of forest resources and prevent forest resource disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Attitude toward participation in the research plays an important role in the quality of any research. Therefore, researchers aimed at construction and piloting of scale to measure attitude toward research participation for university students. Method and Results: In Study I, an initial pool of items was generated on the basis of literature review, semi-structured interviews and expert opinions. After ensuring content validity and finalizing items with the help of experts, the scale was applied on a sample of 426 university students including both men (n = 114) and women (n = 312) with age range of 17– 30. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the two factor structure was with 60.33% cumulative variance. The factors revealed were positive attitude and negative attitude toward research with alpha reliability of 0.84 for positive attitude while 0.76 for negative attitude. In Study II, confirmatory factor analysis revealed excellent model fit indices with two factor structure. Study III was meant to provide evidence of construct validity. Positive correlation showed exploration and curiosity with positive attitude toward research and negative correlation of exploration and curiosity with negative attitude toward research participation provided strong evidence for convergent validity. While non-significant correlation of attitude toward research with religiosity confirmed the divergent validity of the scale. Conclusion: Findings of the study revealed that Attitude Toward Research Participation Scale is a valid and reliable measure. It can be used for university students to measure their attitude toward research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are transcribed prevalently in the genome; however, their potential roles in multiple cardiovascular diseases, particularly preeclampsia (PE), are not yet well understood. This study investigated the expression profiles of circRNAs and explored circRNA-mediated pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A) expression as a potential biomarker for PE before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Methods: A nested case-control two-phase screening/validation study was performed in pregnant women before 20 weeks of gestation (before clinical diagnosis) at Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center from 2012 to 2015. In the screening phase, circRNA expression profiles of blood cells were assessed using a human circRNA microarray, which was designed to detect simultaneously 5396 circRNAs, in 5 patients with PE and 5 age- and gestational week-matched controls. In the validation phase, 18 circRNAs in blood cells predicted by bioinformatics tools were validated by quantitative reverse transcription PCR in a cohort of 60 patients (PE and age-, gestational week-, and sample storage time-matched controls). Then, we examined the involvement of circRNAs in PE-related pathways via interactions with miRNAs by multiple bioinformatics approaches. Bioinformatics analysis predicted that hsa_circ_0004904 and hsa_circ_0001855 miRNA sponges directly target PAPP-A. PAPP-A was verified in the serum of the same cohort of patients using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Finally, we combined PAPP-A with circRNAs to create a novel preclinical diagnostic model for PE with logistic regression and evaluated the efficiency of this model with receiver operating curve analysis. Results: Volcano plot analysis using various parameters showed that circRNAs were differentially expressed among both groups (P < 0.01, fold change > 2). In the screening phase, we found that 2178 circRNAs were differentially expressed between the control and PE groups, in which 884 circRNAs were downregulated and 1294 circRNAs were upregulated in the PE group compared with thecontrol group. In the validation phase, two circRNAs, hsa_circ_0004904 and hsa_circ_0001855, were significantly upregulated in PE patients compared with healthy pregnant women (P < 0.05). PAPP-A expression levels, related to the two circRNAs based on bioinformatics prediction, were increased in the PE group compared with the control group. The area under the curve of the combined model was 0.94 in the predicted PE subjects. Conclusions: This is the first study to report circRNA profiling in patients with PE prior to the onset of symptoms. Our data suggested that hsa_circ_0004904 and hsa_circ_0001855 combined with PAPP-A might be promising biomarkers for the detection of PE. Moreover, circRNAs may provide new insights into the potential mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of the bile acid metabolism is limited by the fact that previous analyses have primarily focused on a selected few circulating bile acids; the bile acid profiles of the liver and gastrointestinal tract pools are rarely investigated. Here, we determined how chronic ethanol consumption altered the bile acids in multiple body compartments (liver, gastrointestinal tract, and serum) of rats. Rats were fed a modified Lieber-DeCarli liquid diet with 38% of calories as ethanol (the amount equivalent of 4-5 drinks in humans). While conjugated bile acids predominated in the liver (98.3%), duodenum (97.8%), and ileum (89.7%), unconjugated bile acids comprised the largest proportion of measured bile acids in serum (81.2%), the cecum (97.7%), and the rectum (97.5%). In particular, taurine-conjugated bile acids were significantly decreased in the liver and gastrointestinal tract of ethanol-treated rats, while unconjugated and glycine-conjugated species increased. Ethanol consumption caused increased expression of genes involved in bile acid biosynthesis, efflux transport, and reduced expression of genes regulating bile acid influx transport in the liver. These results provide an improved understanding of the systemic modulations of bile acid metabolism in mammals through the gut-liver axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequent outbreaks and widespread transmission of rice black-streaked dwarf virus by Sogatella furcifera (Horváth) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) have aggravated yield losses of rice in eastern China. The use of insecticides for suppression of the vector has been a fundamental approach to prevent epidemics of the virus disease. However, the status of insecticide resistance in S. furcifera has not been examined recently in China. In this study, dose responses of S. furcifera to buprofezin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, chlorpyrifos and pymetrozine were evaluated. Most populations in eastern China have developed moderate resistance to buprofezin (up to 25-fold). Approximately 32% of field populations exhibited moderate resistance to imidacloprid, while other field populations showed minor changes (7.6-fold) in their susceptibility to this insecticide. Low variation of susceptibility to thiamethoxam (<6-fold) was observed among field populations, and no obvious resistance to this product was observed. Obvious variation (10.2-fold) of susceptibility to chlorpyrifos existed in field populations of which 8% displayed moderate resistance, and 32% exhibited low level resistance. Most populations (72%) were susceptible to pymetrozine, and relatively low variation of susceptibility to it was detected among the field populations of S. furcifera. Frequent and extensive use of buprofezin had driven the rapid development of resistance, and buprofezin resistance is widespread in the field populations of S. furcifera in China. To prevent further development of the resistance, use of buprofezin should be limited and rotated with alternative insecticides with different modes of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer accounts for the largest number of newly diagnosed cases in female cancer patients. Although mammography is a powerful screening tool, about 20% of breast cancer cases cannot be detected by this method. New diagnostic biomarkers for breast cancer are necessary. Here, we used a mass spectrometry-based quantitative metabolomics method to analyze plasma samples from 55 breast cancer patients and 25 healthy controls. A number of 30 patients and 20 age-matched healthy controls were used as a training dataset to establish a diagnostic model and to identify potential biomarkers. The remaining samples were used as a validation dataset to evaluate the predictive accuracy for the established model. Distinct separation was obtained from an orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) model with good prediction accuracy. Based on this analysis, 39 differentiating metabolites were identified, including significantly lower levels of lysophosphatidylcholines and higher levels of sphingomyelins in the plasma samples obtained from breast cancer patients compared with healthy controls. Using logical regression, a diagnostic equation based on three metabolites (lysoPC a C16:0, PC ae C42:5 and PC aa C34:2) successfully differentiated breast cancer patients from healthy controls, with a sensitivity of 98.1% and a specificity of 96.0%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]