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As a biological macromolecule, silk fibroin (SF) has great application potential in anticoagulant. However, its complex molecular structure leads to its poor solubility, which limits the application of SF. In this study, a novel SF film with strong anticoagulant properties was fabricated through the synergistic effect of LiBr deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and UV-light irradiation. Under the optimum conditions, the plasma recalcification time of SF film was 182 s, the hemolysis rate was 3.93%, and the dynamic coagulation time remained at a high level up to 60 min. The synergistic effect of UV-light and DES can promote the enhancement of hydrophilicity and the decrease of surface roughness of SF films, and thus the anticoagulant properties of the films were enhanced. The structure change, wettability, and roughness of SF films were characterized by XRD, FTIR, contact angle, and AFM. In the meantime, the wavelength of the UV-light and the irradiation time have an effect on the anticoagulant properties of the SF films. Furthermore, the improvement of the anticoagulant properties of SF films exhibits good universality for different LiBr DESs. The study provides a new direction for the preparation of strong anticoagulation SF films, as well as its application in life sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcystis blooms have a marked effect on microbial taxonomical diversity in eutrophic lakes, but their influence on the composition of microbial functional genes is still unclear. In this study, the free-living microbial functional genes (FMFG) composition was investigated in the period before Microcystis blooms (March) and during Microcystis blooms (July) using a comprehensive functional gene array (GeoChip 5.0). The composition and richness of FMFG in the water column was significantly different between these two periods. The FMFG in March was enriched in the functional categories of nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus cycling, whereas the FMFG in July was enriched in carbon cycling, organic remediation, and metal homeostasis. Molecular ecological network analysis further demonstrated fewer functional gene interactions and reduced complexity in July than in March. Module hubs of the March network were mediated by functional genes associated with carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus, whereas those in July by a metal homeostasis functional gene. We also observed stronger deterministic processes in the FMFG assembly in July than in March. Collectively, this study demonstrated that Microcystis blooms induced significant changes in FMFG composition and metabolic potential, and abundance—information, which can support the understanding and management of biogeochemical cycling in eutrophic lake ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impacts of Northeast Alliance (NEA) between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways on market concentration and airfares on routes to and from the four pertinent airports in Boston and New York regions. Using panel data covering quarterly domestic flight schedules and airfares for 11 U.S. airlines during the 2019–2021 period, we apply difference-in-difference method and find evidence for positive and significant NEA effect on market concentration on routes out of BOS, and negative and significant effect on routes out of EWR, but no significant effect for routes out of JFK and LGA. The overall NEA effects, including all four airports, are not significant. Furthermore, our airfare estimation results indicate that NEA has led to higher airfares on routes out of BOS, JFK and LGA, but not on routes out of EWR. These findings are valuable to supplement the recent antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice of this alliance. • Investigate the impacts of Northeast Alliance on market concentration and airfares. • Mixed effects on market concentration at different airports concerned. • Mixed effects on airfare at different airports concerned. • Different airfare increasing effects between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ustilago maydis is a pathogenic fungus that causes corn smut. Because of its easy cultivation and genetic transformation, U. maydis has become an important model organism for plant‐pathogenic basidiomycetes. U. maydis is able to infect maize by producing effectors and secreted proteins as well as surfactant‐like metabolites. In addition, the production of melanin and iron carriers is also associated with its pathogenicity. Here, advances in our understanding of the pathogenicity of U. maydis, the metabolites involved in the pathogenic process, and the biosynthesis of these metabolites, are reviewed and discussed. This summary will provide new insights into the pathogenicity of U. maydis and the functions of associated metabolites, as well as new clues for deciphering the biosynthesis of metabolites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Orsellinic acid (2,4-dihydroxy-6-methylbenzoic acid, OA) and its structural analog o-Orsellinaldehyde, have become widely used intermediates in clinical drugs synthesis. Although the research on the biosynthesis of such compounds has made significant progress, due to the lack of suitable hosts, there is still far from the industrial production of such compounds based on synthetic biology. Results: With the help of genome mining, we found a polyketide synthase (PKS, HerA) in the genome of the Hericium erinaceus, which shares 60% amino acid sequence homology with ArmB from Armillaria mellea, an identified PKS capable of synthesizing OA. To characterize the function of HerA, we cloned herA and heterologously expressed it in Aspergillus oryzae, and successfully detected the production of OA. Subsequently, the introduction of an incomplete PKS (Pks5) from Ustilago maydis containing only three domains (AMP-ACP-R), which was into herA-containing A. oryzae, the resulted in the production of o-Orsellinaldehyde. Considering the economic value of OA and o-Orsellinaldehyde, we then optimized the yield of these compounds in A. oryzae. The screening showed that when maltose was used as carbon source, the yields of OA and o-Orsellinaldehyde were 57.68 mg/L and 15.71 mg/L respectively, while the yields were 340.41 mg/Kg and 84.79 mg/Kg respectively in rice medium for 10 days. Conclusions: Herein, we successfully expressed the genes of basidiomycetes using A. oryzae heterologous host. As a fungus of ascomycetes, which not only correctly splices genes of basidiomycetes containing multiple introns, but also efficiently produces their metabolites. This study highlights that A. oryzae is an excellent host for the heterologous production of fungal natural products, and has the potential to become an efficient chassis for the production of basidiomycete secondary metabolites in synthetic biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correction to: IL-17A promotes fatty acid uptake through the IL-17A/IL-17RA/ p-STAT3/FABP4 axis to fuel ovarian cancer growth in an adipocyte-rich microenvironment 3rhIL-17A increased the uptake of PA in OvCa cells via the IL-17A/IL-17RA/p-STAT3/FABP4 axis. ** p < 0.01. g The sections were prepared from the tumor tissues of WT and IL-17A -/- mice, and IHC staining was performed to determine FABP4 expression was performed. [Extracted from the article]

Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) play an essential role in plant cell detoxification and secondary metabolism. However, their accurate functions in the growth and response to abiotic stress in woody plants are still largely unknown. In this work, a Phi class Glutathione S-transferase encoding gene PtGSTF1 was isolated from poplar (P. trichocarpa), and its biological functions in the regulation of biomass production and salt tolerance were investigated in transgenic poplar. PtGSTF1 was ubiquitously expressed in various tissues and organs, with a predominant expression in leaves and inducible expression by salt stress. Transgenic poplar overexpressing PtGSTF1 showed improved shoot growth, wood formation and improved salt tolerance, consistent with the increased xylem cell number and size under normal condition, and the optimized Na+ and K+ homeostasis and strengthened reactive oxygen species scavenging during salt stress. Further transcriptome analyses demonstrated that the expressions of genes related to hydrolase, cell wall modification, ion homeostasis and ROS scavenging were up- or down-regulated in transgenic plants. Our findings imply that PtGSTF1 improves both biomass production and salt tolerance through regulating hydrolase activity, cell wall modification, ion homeostasis and ROS scavenging in transgenic poplar, and that it can be considered as a useful gene candidate for the genetic breeding of new tree varieties with improved growth under salt stress conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current hyperspectral image classification (HSIC) model based on the convolutional neural network for feature extraction and softmax classifier has been prone to the barrier of label prediction with limited samples. Substituting for the enormously complicated work of terrain labeling, few-shot learning provides a popular option for HSIC with very few annotated samples. In this article, we proposed a novel edge-inferring framework with the metalearning paradigm for hyperspectral few-shot classification (HSFSC), in which a graph neural network for similarity measurement is first presented to iteratively infer edge labels with the exploitation of instance-level similarity and the distribution-level similarity. Besides, in the metatraining stage, the pixel prediction model and the patch prediction model based on edge-inferring architecture are concretized jointly to improve the classification accuracy of the test samples. Expressly, at the metatesting phase, the dynamic task-guided self-diagnosis strategy is developed for the first time to diagnose the samples separability of the current classification task, which is responsible for dynamically assigning the most reliable results based on the generated reliability grade of the sample. The extensive experimental results and analysis of three hyperspectral image datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed HSFSC architecture compared with other advanced methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral image (HSI) provided with a substantial number of correlated bands causes calculation consumption and an undesirable “dimension disaster” problem for the classification. Band selection (BS) is an effective measure to reduce the information redundancy with the physics spectrum preserved for HSI. Although the existing BS methods have achieved noticeable progress, the correlation between neighbor bands still needs to be mined deeply for an effective selection criterion. This article proposes a BS approach to collecting the discriminative band subset for HSI classification (HSIC), which adopts the self-supervised learning paradigm to implement the BS by the auxiliary spectrum rebuilding (SR) task. In specific, we utilized a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a graph convolutional network (GCN) for the spectral–spatial feature extraction. Next, GCN and CNN are developed for the refinement of the band correlation sequentially. Afterward, the selected bands in terms of the acquired correlation are fed into the presented self-supervised SR network for spectral reconstruction. Simultaneously, the proposed architecture completed the selection with the optimization of the band reconstruction by a defined loss function. In this way, we supply substitution for selection criterion and path searching through the end-to-end framework. The extensive experimental results and analysis demonstrated that the proposed hybrid architecture provided a competitive band subset for the classification, and the accuracies with different types of classifiers are more effective than the compared BS methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The morphology of basilar artery (BA) may affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. We aimed to investigate whether different degrees of BA tortuosity could lead to the alterations of posterior circulation perfusion.We collected 138 subjects with different BA tortuosity scores, including 32 cases of score 0, 45 cases of score 1, 43 cases of score 2, and 18 cases of score 3. A higher score represented a higher degree of BA tortuosity. Ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the risk factors for BA tortuosity. We quantitatively measured the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in eight posterior circulation brain regions using arterial spin labeling. SPSS 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. The correlation between the CBF and BA tortuosity was corrected by the Bonferroni method. The significance level was set at 0.006 (0.05/8).Hypertension (HR: 2.39; 95%CI: 1.23–4.71; P = 0.01) and vertebral artery dominance (HR: 2.38; 95%CI: 1.10–4.67; P = 0.03) were risk factors for BA tortuosity. CBF in occipital gray matter (R = -0.383, P < 0.001), occipital white matter (R = -0.377, P < 0.001), temporal gray matter (R = -0.292, P = 0.001), temporal white matter (R = -0.297, P < 0.001), and cerebellum (R = -0.328, P < 0.001) were negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. No significant correlation was found between the BA tortuosity degree and CBF in hippocampus (R = -0.208, P = 0.014), thalamus (R = -0.001, P = 0.988) and brainstem (R = -0.204, P = 0.016).BA tortuosity could affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. CBF was negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. The morphology of BA may serve as a biomarker for posterior circulation and the severity of posterior circulation ischemia.Methods: The morphology of basilar artery (BA) may affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. We aimed to investigate whether different degrees of BA tortuosity could lead to the alterations of posterior circulation perfusion.We collected 138 subjects with different BA tortuosity scores, including 32 cases of score 0, 45 cases of score 1, 43 cases of score 2, and 18 cases of score 3. A higher score represented a higher degree of BA tortuosity. Ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the risk factors for BA tortuosity. We quantitatively measured the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in eight posterior circulation brain regions using arterial spin labeling. SPSS 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. The correlation between the CBF and BA tortuosity was corrected by the Bonferroni method. The significance level was set at 0.006 (0.05/8).Hypertension (HR: 2.39; 95%CI: 1.23–4.71; P = 0.01) and vertebral artery dominance (HR: 2.38; 95%CI: 1.10–4.67; P = 0.03) were risk factors for BA tortuosity. CBF in occipital gray matter (R = -0.383, P < 0.001), occipital white matter (R = -0.377, P < 0.001), temporal gray matter (R = -0.292, P = 0.001), temporal white matter (R = -0.297, P < 0.001), and cerebellum (R = -0.328, P < 0.001) were negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. No significant correlation was found between the BA tortuosity degree and CBF in hippocampus (R = -0.208, P = 0.014), thalamus (R = -0.001, P = 0.988) and brainstem (R = -0.204, P = 0.016).BA tortuosity could affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. CBF was negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. The morphology of BA may serve as a biomarker for posterior circulation and the severity of posterior circulation ischemia.Results: The morphology of basilar artery (BA) may affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. We aimed to investigate whether different degrees of BA tortuosity could lead to the alterations of posterior circulation perfusion.We collected 138 subjects with different BA tortuosity scores, including 32 cases of score 0, 45 cases of score 1, 43 cases of score 2, and 18 cases of score 3. A higher score represented a higher degree of BA tortuosity. Ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the risk factors for BA tortuosity. We quantitatively measured the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in eight posterior circulation brain regions using arterial spin labeling. SPSS 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. The correlation between the CBF and BA tortuosity was corrected by the Bonferroni method. The significance level was set at 0.006 (0.05/8).Hypertension (HR: 2.39; 95%CI: 1.23–4.71; P = 0.01) and vertebral artery dominance (HR: 2.38; 95%CI: 1.10–4.67; P = 0.03) were risk factors for BA tortuosity. CBF in occipital gray matter (R = -0.383, P < 0.001), occipital white matter (R = -0.377, P < 0.001), temporal gray matter (R = -0.292, P = 0.001), temporal white matter (R = -0.297, P < 0.001), and cerebellum (R = -0.328, P < 0.001) were negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. No significant correlation was found between the BA tortuosity degree and CBF in hippocampus (R = -0.208, P = 0.014), thalamus (R = -0.001, P = 0.988) and brainstem (R = -0.204, P = 0.016).BA tortuosity could affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. CBF was negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. The morphology of BA may serve as a biomarker for posterior circulation and the severity of posterior circulation ischemia.Conclusions: The morphology of basilar artery (BA) may affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. We aimed to investigate whether different degrees of BA tortuosity could lead to the alterations of posterior circulation perfusion.We collected 138 subjects with different BA tortuosity scores, including 32 cases of score 0, 45 cases of score 1, 43 cases of score 2, and 18 cases of score 3. A higher score represented a higher degree of BA tortuosity. Ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the risk factors for BA tortuosity. We quantitatively measured the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in eight posterior circulation brain regions using arterial spin labeling. SPSS 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. The correlation between the CBF and BA tortuosity was corrected by the Bonferroni method. The significance level was set at 0.006 (0.05/8).Hypertension (HR: 2.39; 95%CI: 1.23–4.71; P = 0.01) and vertebral artery dominance (HR: 2.38; 95%CI: 1.10–4.67; P = 0.03) were risk factors for BA tortuosity. CBF in occipital gray matter (R = -0.383, P < 0.001), occipital white matter (R = -0.377, P < 0.001), temporal gray matter (R = -0.292, P = 0.001), temporal white matter (R = -0.297, P < 0.001), and cerebellum (R = -0.328, P < 0.001) were negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. No significant correlation was found between the BA tortuosity degree and CBF in hippocampus (R = -0.208, P = 0.014), thalamus (R = -0.001, P = 0.988) and brainstem (R = -0.204, P = 0.016).BA tortuosity could affect posterior circulation blood perfusion. CBF was negatively correlated with BA tortuosity degree. The morphology of BA may serve as a biomarker for posterior circulation and the severity of posterior circulation ischemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Grade repetition is practiced worldwide and varies considerably across the globe. Globally, around 32.2 million students repeated a grade at the primary education level in 2010. Although a large body of research has documented grade repetition's academic and non-academic effects, the limited evidence on associations between grade repetition and school bullying is inconsistent and ambiguous. This study aimed to investigate the global association of grade repetition with bullying victimization in a large-scale school-based cross-sectional study. Methods and findings: We used the latest global data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. PISA 2018 was conducted between March and August 2018 in 80 countries and economies among students aged 15–16 years attending secondary education. The students reported their experiences of repeating a grade at any time point before the survey and of being bullied in the past 12 months. The outcome measures were 6 types of bullying victimization. We accounted for the complex survey design and used multivariate logistic regression models to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of grade repetition with bullying victimization after adjusting for potential confounders (sex; age group; migrant status; school type; economic, social, and cultural status; and parental emotional support). This study included 465,146 students (234,218 girls and 230,928 boys) with complete data on grade repetition and bullying victimization in 74 countries and economies. The lifetime prevalence of grade repetition was 12.26%, and 30.32% of students experienced bullying at least a few times a month during the past 12 months. Grade repetition was statistically significantly associated with each type of bullying victimization. The OR (95% CI) of overall bullying victimization for grade repeaters compared with their promoted peers was 1.42 (95% CI 1.32–1.52, p < 0.001). The sex-specific analysis produced similar results in both boys and girls. Furthermore, girls who repeated a grade had higher risks of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around than boys. The major limitation is that this study only included students attending schools and therefore may be subject to possible selection bias. In addition, the cross-sectional design hinders us from establishing causality between grade repetition and bullying victimization. Conclusions: In this study, we observed that, globally, both boys and girls who repeat a grade are at increased risk of being bullied compared with promoted peers, but girls may experience higher risks than boys of specific types of bullying associated with repeating a grade. These findings provide evidence for the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization. Sex differences in risk of experiencing some types of bullying suggest that tailored interventions for girls who repeat a grade may be warranted. In a cross-sectional study, Qiguo Lian and colleagues investigate associations between repeating a grade and experiencing bullying victimization among adolescents enrolled in schools in 74 countries and economies. Author summary: Why was this study done?: Preventing school violence is a specific target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Few empirical studies involving large samples have examined the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization. What did the researchers do and find?: We examined the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization among 465,146 15-year-old students in 74 countries and economies. The prevalence of grade repetition and bullying victimization varied widely across countries and economies. Grade repetition was associated with bullying victimization in both boys and girls. Girls who repeated a grade experienced higher risks than boys of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around. What do these findings mean?: The experience of repeating a grade may suggest a need for bullying interventions among both boys and girls. Tailored interventions for girls who repeat a grade may be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MADS‐box transcription factors (TFs) play indispensable roles in various aspects of plant growth, development as well as in response to environmental stresses. Several MADS‐box genes have been reported to be involved in the salt tolerance in different plant species. However, the role of the transcription factor OsMADS57 under salinity stress is still unknown. Here, the results of this study showed that OsMADS57 was mainly expressed in roots and leaves of rice plants (Oryza sativa). Gene expression pattern analysis revealed that OsMADS57 was induced by NaCl. Overexpression of OsMADS57 in both Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana) and rice could improve their salt tolerance, which was demonstrated by higher germination rates, longer root length and better growth status of overexpression plants than wild type (WT) under salinity conditions. In contrast, RNA interference (RNAi) lines of rice showed more sensitivity towards salinity. Moreover, less reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulated in OsMADS57 overexpressing lines when exposed to salt stress, as measured by 3, 3′‐diaminobenzidine (DAB) or nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) staining. Further experiments exhibited that overexpression of OsMADS57 in rice significantly increased the tolerance ability of plants to oxidative damage under salt stress, mainly by increasing the activities of antioxidative enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD), reducing malonaldehyde (MDA) content and improving the expression of stress‐related genes. Taken together, these results demonstrated that OsMADS57 plays a positive role in enhancing salt tolerance by activating the antioxidant system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies on very young adolescents' romantic and sexual experiences would help inform the context in which early sex arises. However, such studies are scant in China due to sparse data and cultural issues. Method: This study used the GEAS baseline data conducted among1776 adolescents in Shanghai. Multi-group latent class analysis was used to explore adolescents' romantic and sexual experiences patterns and subgroups. Multi-nominal logistic regression was performed to identify the factors distinguishing different subgroups subsequently. Results: There were gender differences in the lifetime prevalence for very young adolescents' romantic and sexual-related behaviors. The Multi-group latent class analysis indicated that the participants could be classified into three classes: general group, early romance group, and sex exploratory group. Multi-nominal logistic regression showed youth in the early romance group were more likely to had friends of both gender, ever had a romantic relationship, and had more autonomy in deciding where to go than the general group; while male respondents in the sex exploratory group were older, ever had a romantic relationship, believed that boys should be more sexually active and more proactive than girls, had more autonomy on deciding where to go, and perceived less school connection and neighborhood cohesion. Female respondents in the sex exploratory group were older and less empowered in decision-making than the general group. Conclusions: The result provides a picture of romantic and sexual behavior patterns among both gender of very young adolescents in China. Current sex education needs not only to be culturally appropriate but also to address the harm of gender inequality and stereotypes, as well as to provide accessible and supportive services to help young adolescents personalize their received information and strengthen their skills in communication, decision making, and critical thinking. Plain language summary: Studies on teenagers' romantic and sexual experiences would help to prevent early sex arises before it really takes place. However, such studies are limited, especially in China. The traditional culture thought that youth should not start romance before college. This study used the Global Early Adolescent Study Shanghai site baseline data collected among1776 teenagers to explore their romantic and sexual experiences patterns and identify the influencing factors. There were significant gender differences in teenagers' romantic and sexual-related behaviors. According to the multi-group latent class analysis, we classified the teenagers into three classes: the general group, the early romance group, and the sex exploratory group. The multi-nominal logistic regression showed youth in the early romance group were more likely to had friends of both boys and girls, ever had boyfriend/girlfriend and were freer to go out than the general group; while boys in the sex exploratorygroup were older, ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend, believed it was normal for boys to be sexually active than girls, had more freedom to go out, and had less perception of care from school adults and neighborhood. Girls in the sex exploratory group were older and less likely to make decisions on their own. Given the result we found, we call for health researchers and educators to conduct sex education programs promoting more equal gender norms and provide services to help young adolescents get right information and strengthen their skills in communication, decision making and critical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug-delivery technology is an effective way to promote drug absorption and efficacy. Mesoporous hollow silica material and small-molecule drug ibuprofen were used as a carrier model and as model drug, respectively. By quantum chemical calculation (density functional theory and frontier orbital theory), it was found that the content of geminal silanols on the material surface played a decisive role in the release of the different drugs. The rough hollow materials are easily adsorbed and have a large loading capacity, and so we fabricated a mesoporous hollow silica material (R-nCHMSNs) with a rough surface and rich geminal silanols by using hydroxyl-rich nanocellulose as a template. The content and types of hydroxyl groups on the material surface were studied by 29Si NMR. The loading and delivery of ibuprofen and lysozyme were studied in detail. Materials with rich geminal silanols exhibited excellent delivery properties for different drugs, which shows great potential and research value for drug delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the market entry patterns and evolving strategies adopted by Southwest and JetBlue. Based on the quarterly data from US T100 Domestic Segment database, we trace Southwest's successful market entries from 1993 to 2016, and those of JetBlue from 2000 to 2016, and estimate a set of discrete choice models to investigate the factors that may attract or deter route entries by Southwest and JetBlue. These factors reflect route distance, traffic demand, market power of the carriers, route competition, and connectivity and traffic concentration at endpoint airports, etc. The paper also examines the similarity and dissimilarity between Southwest and JetBlue with respect to the effects of these factors on their entry decisions, and how their route entry decisions have evolved over time. Our results indicate that both Southwest and JetBlue are more likely to enter routes where they have higher market share in terms of traffic and connectivity at endpoint airports, but they are less likely to enter routes involving endpoint airports with higher concentration in either traffic or connectivity. While Southwest appears to prefer routes with short to medium distance in the 1990s, it has started to target longer distance routes since 2000. JetBlue has consistently preferred longer distance routes. While the number of legacy rivals on a given route may deter market entry by Southwest, it does not appear to have any significant effect on the entry decisions by JetBlue. Moreover, the presence of other LCCs may have deterred the market entry by Southwest during the 1993–1999 period, and by JetBlue during the 2000–2006 period, its entry-deterrence effects has been becoming less important as the two airlines continue their growth and market expansion. The results further suggest that Southwest has continued to be hesitant to enter routes that have asymmetric traffic volume at endpoint airports, but it has become more drawn to routes with broader connections and higher traffic at endpoint airports as it moves into the business passenger segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pro-inflammatory cytokines are crucial mediators of cancer development, representing potential targets for cancer therapy. The molecular mechanism of a vital pro-inflammatory cytokine, IL-17A, in cancer progression and its potential use in therapy through influencing fatty acid (FA) metabolism, especially FA uptake of cancer cells, remains unknown. In the present study, we used IL-17A and ovarian cancer (OvCa), a representative of both obesity-related and inflammation-related cancers, to explore the interactions among IL-17A, cancer cells and adipocytes (which can provide FAs). We found that in the presence of palmitic acid (PA), IL-17A could directly increase the cellular uptake of PA, leading to the proliferation of OvCa cells via the IL-17A/IL-17RA/p-STAT3/FABP4 axis rather than via CD36. Moreover, in vivo experiments using an orthotopic implantation model in IL-17A-deficient mice demonstrated that endogenous IL-17A could fuel OvCa growth and metastasis with increased expression of FABP4 and p-STAT3. Furthermore, analysis of clinical specimens supported the above findings. Our data not only provide useful insights into the clinical intervention of the growth and metastasis of the tumors (such as OvCa) that are prone to growth and metastasis in an adipocyte-rich microenvironment (ARM) but also provides new insights into the roles of IL-17A in tumor progression and immunomodulatory therapy of OvCa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary K-Means (EKM), which combines K-Means and genetic algorithm, solves K-Means' initiation problem by selecting parameters automatically through the evolution of partitions. Currently, EKM algorithms usually choose silhouette index as cluster validity index, and they are effective in clustering well-separated clusters. However, their performance of clustering noisy data is often disappointing. On the other hand, clustering stability-based approaches are more robust to noise; yet, they should start intelligently to find some challenging clusters. It is necessary to join EKM with clustering stability-based analysis. In this paper, we present a novel EKM algorithm that uses clustering stability to evaluate partitions. We firstly introduce two weighted aggregated consensus matrices, positive aggregated consensus matrix (PA) and negative aggregated consensus matrix (NA), to store clustering tendency for each pair of instances. Specifically, PA stores the tendency of sharing the same label and NA stores that of having different labels. Based upon the matrices, clusters and partitions can be evaluated from the view of clustering stability. Then, we propose a clustering stability-based EKM algorithm CSEKM that evolves partitions and the aggregated matrices simultaneously. To evaluate the algorithm's performance, we compare it with an EKM algorithm, two consensus clustering algorithms, a clustering stability-based algorithm and a multi-index-based clustering approach. Experimental results on a series of artificial datasets, two simulated datasets and eight UCI datasets suggest CSEKM is more robust to noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Fluorescent sensors that can simultaneously detect multiple targets are described. • The applications of these sensors in pathological processes are summarized. • Both molecular sensors and nanosensors are outlined. • Sequential sensors are separately described. The visualization of diseases is a crucial goal for clinicians as it aids in accurate diagnosis and clinical surgery. In recent years, fluorescence sensors that exhibit optical changes in response to biological events have been considered as an alternative or complementary tool for disease diagnosis and surgery. Particularly, sensors that can differentiate between two or more targets in different emission channels are preferred as they provide more information about the interplay of relevant targets in a specific pathological process. This enables a deeper understanding of pathogenesis investigation and superior accuracy in disease diagnosis. This review provides an informative summary of the development of fluorescent sensors for multiple targets in different emission channels. The review introduces sensors based on molecular and nano platforms, emphasizing their optical changes and bioimaging applications. Importantly, the achievements, challenges, and perspectives in this field will be highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A highly selective synthesis of conjugated polyene sulfonyl derivatives is described via the elimination of disulfonyl chloride with readily accessible raw material dihaloalkane. The protocol offers a convenient way to form sulfonamides, sulfonates and even sulfones. Furthermore, this method was manipulated under mild condition with simple operation in high yield to afford only trans products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indium doped ZnO nanorods had been synthesized on p-GaN films by hydrothermal method at low temperature. The microstructure and morphology would be significantly affected by In doping. With increasing In doping concentration, the average diameter increased and the number of nanorods per area decreased. At the same time, the incorporation of In also affected the optical properties of ZnO nanorods. There was a slight red-shift of UV emission peak related to the combined effect of energy shift and Band-Gap-Renormalization effect. And the intensity of visible emission peak increased due to the increasing oxygen vacancies by In doping. What's more, In doping could shorten the band gap of ZnO. Finally, n-ZnO/p-GaN heterojunction Light-emitting diodes had better conductivity with the increase of In doping concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new Neyman–Pearson detection approach, to be called band-specified virtual dimensionality (BSVD), to estimating the number of bands required by band selection (BS), $n_{\mathrm {BS}}$ , as well as finding desired bands at the same time. Its idea is derived from target-specified virtual dimensionality (TSVD) where targets under hypotheses as signal sources in TSVD are replaced with bands as signal sources and the test statistics derived for a Neyman–Pearson detector (NPD) is signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is used to derive orthogonal subspace projection (OSP) approach for hyperspectral image classification and dimensionality reduction. Accordingly, the resulting virtual dimensionality is referred to as OSP-based BSVD. Several benefits resulting from BSVD cannot be offered by the traditional BS methods. One is its direct approach to dealing with $n_{\mathrm {BS}}$. Another is no-search strategy needed for finding optimal bands. Instead, it uses NPD to determine and rank desired bands for band prioritization. Most importantly, it determines $n_{\mathrm {BS}}$ and finds desired bands simultaneously and progressively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new approach to band subset selection (BSS) for hyperspectral image classification (HSIC) which selects multiple bands simultaneously as a band subset, referred to as simultaneous multiple band selection (SMMBS), rather than one band at a time sequentially, referred to as sequential multiple band selection (SQMBS), as most traditional band selection methods do. In doing so, a criterion is particularly developed for BSS that can be used for HSIC. It is a linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) derived from adaptive beamforming in array signal processing which can be used to model misclassification errors as the minimum variance. To avoid an exhaustive search for all possible band subsets, two numerical algorithms, referred to as sequential (SQ) and successive (SC) algorithms are also developed for LCMV-based SMMBS, called SQ LCMV-BSS and SC LCMV-BSS. Experimental results demonstrate that LCMV-based BSS has advantages over SQMBS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual network embedding is an NP-hard online problem, partially due to diversity effects during mapping. Mapping diversity is critical not only for single virtual network but also for a set of online virtual networks. Two common ways, using heuristic information or using extra constraints, are employed to reduce the problem of hardness. Both restrict diversity during mapping. A preferable technique is executing parallel scatter mapping in the solution space, which can promote mapping quality while maintaining diversity. This technique is challenging due to a nested paralleling. Using membrane computing, we designed a P system with active non-elementary membranes (PAME). With a specific membrane structure, PAME achieves nested paralleling via a dual-parallel mapping stage. The stage couples an inter-increment parallel with an intra-increment one, relying on non-elementary membrane self-division and elementary membrane bootstrap. Simulation experiments showed that PAME outperformed existing algorithms in long-term average revenue, acceptance ratio, and long-term revenue-to-cost ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral image classification faces various levels of difficulty due to the use of different types of hyperspectral image data. Recently, spectral–spatial approaches have been developed by jointly taking care of spectral and spatial information. This paper presents a completely different approach from a subpixel target detection view point. It implements four stage processes, a preprocessing stage, which uses band selection (BS) and nonlinear band expansion, referred to as BS-then-nonlinear expansion (BSNE), a detection stage, which implements constrained energy minimization (CEM) to produce subpixel target maps, and an iterative stage, which develops an iterative CEM (ICEM) by applying Gaussian filters to capture spatial information, and then feeding the Gaussian-filtered CEM-detection maps back to BSNE band images to reprocess CEM in an iterative manner. Finally, in the last stage Otsu’s method is applied to converting ICEM-detected real-valued maps to discrete values for classification. The entire process is called BSNE-ICEM. Experimental results demonstrate BSNE-ICEM, which has advantages over support vector machine-based approaches in many aspects, such as easy implementation, fewer parameters to be used, and better false classification and precision rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aimed to explore the desirable characteristics of casein hydrolysates with simultaneously enhanced emulsion forming and antioxidative ability in oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion. Effects of physicochemical properties of casein hydrolysates prepared by trypsin, alcalase, and neutrase on physical and oxidative stability of O/W emulsion were studied, and potential antioxidant peptides were characterized by UPLC-MS/MS and bioinformatics analysis. Results showed that casein hydrolysates at a lower degree of hydrolysis (DH) produced by trypsin displayed higher zeta potential absolute values (−31.7 mV), smaller particle size (170.75 nm) and improved antioxidant properties compared to alcalase and neutrase, and could form more stable emulsion with d 4,3 of 0.39–0.41 μm at a broader range of DH. Additionally, compared with sodium caseinate (NaCas), the oxidation of emulsion was significantly retarded during the storage progress prepared by the trypsin hydrolysates at DH of 4.49% alone or with Tween 20. Peptidomics indicated that the trypsin hydrolysates contained more peptides with basic amino acids at C-terminal and aromatic amino acids at N-terminus, which exhibited cationic amphiphilic properties with grand average of hydrophilicity values (GRAVY) of −0.5 ∼ +0.5 and pI > pH 7.0. This could contribute to their better emulsion formation and inhibition of lipid oxidation ability by producing dense interfacial layers with peptides interactions or excluding metal ions in O/W emulsions. These results suggested that casein hydrolysates at lower DH prepared by trypsin owned potential amphiphilic antioxidant peptides, which were desired to enhance the stability and functional activity of O/W emulsion. [Display omitted] • Trypsin hydrolysates featured specificity in zeta value and particle size at low DH. • Casein hydrolysates exhibited better emulsion formation ability at low DH. • Trypsin hydrolysates at low DH effectively retarded lipid oxidation. • More cationic amphiphilic peptides were observed in trypsin hydrolysates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenylcoumaran benzylic ether reductase (PCBER) in the phenylpropane metabolic pathway plays a crucial role in controlling plant growth and development. However, its biological function in response to abiotic stress in perennial trees is still largely obscure. In this work, a phenylcoumaran benzylic ether reductase gene, PtPCBER , isolated from poplar was overexpressed in poplar. The growth and salt resistance of transgenic plants were investigated, and the possible regulatory mechanism of PtPCBER in response to abiotic stresses was verified. PtPCBER was constitutively expressed in various tissues and organs with a predominant expression in xylems. Overexpression of PtPCBER augmented the salt and oxidative stress tolerance of transgenic poplar plants. The increased salt tolerance was associated with a relatively lower chlorphyll loss and Na+ accumulation, and a higher antioxidant enzyme activity and stress gene expression, in the leaves of transgenic plants. Further metabolomic analyses revealed that overexpression of PtPCBER cut down the accumulation of coniferyl alcohols and lignans which function in the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging pathway to alleviate the damage caused by oxidative stress in the leaves of transgenic plants. Taken together, our results suggest that PtPCBER has an important function in plant response to salt stress, and it could be used as an ideal candidate gene for the genetic engineering of woody plants with enhance resistance to multiple abiotic stresses through improving the scavenging capacity of ROS. • Overexpression of PtPCBER promoted salt tolerance in transgenic poplar. • The salt tolerance of transgenic plants was associated with ion homeostasis changes. • The reactive oxygen species scavenging capacity was increased in transgenic poplar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MADS-box transcription factors are vital regulators participating in plant growth and development process and the functions of most of them are still unknown. ANR1 was reported to play a key role in controlling lateral root development through nitrate signal in Arabidopsis. OsMADS25 is one of five ANR1-like genes in Oryza Sativa and belongs to the ANR1 clade. Here we have investigated the role of OsMADS25 in the plant’s responses to external nitrate in Oryza Sativa. Our results showed that OsMADS25 protein was found in the nucleus as well as in the cytoplasm. Over-expression of OsMADS25 significantly promoted lateral and primary root growth as well as shoot growth in a nitrate-dependent manner in Arabidopsis. OsMADS25 overexpression in transgenic rice resulted in significantly increased primary root length, lateral root number, lateral root length and shoot fresh weight in the presence of nitrate. Down-regulation of OsMADS25 in transgenic rice exhibited significantly reduced shoot and root growth in the presence of nitrate. Furthermore, over-expression of OsMADS25 in transgenic rice promoted nitrate accumulation and significantly increased the expressions of nitrate transporter genes at high rates of nitrate supply while down-regulation of OsMADS25 produced the opposite effect. Taken together, our findings suggest that OsMADS25 is a positive regulator control lateral and primary root development in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ANR1 MADS-box gene in Arabidopsis is a key gene involved in regulating lateral root development in response to the external nitrate supply. There are five ANR1-like genes in Oryza sativa, OsMADS23, OsMADS25, OsMADS27, OsMADS57 and OsMADS61, all of which belong to the AGL17 clade. Here we have investigated the responsiveness of these genes to fluctuations in nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S) mineral nutrient supply. The MADS-box genes have been shown to have a range of responses to the nutrient supply. The expression of OsMADS61 was transiently induced by N deprivation but was not affected by re-supply with various N sources. The expression of OsMADS25 and OsMADS27 was induced by re-supplying with NO3− and NH4NO3, but downregulated by NH4+. The expression of OsMADS57 was significantly downregulated by N starvation and upregulated by 3 h NO3− re-supply. OsMADS23 was the only gene that showed no response to either N starvation nor NO3− re-supply. OsMADS57 was the only gene not regulated by P fluctuation whereas the expression of OsMADS23, OsMADS25 and OsMADS27 was downregulated by P starvation and P re-supply. In contrast, all five ANR1-related genes were significantly upregulated by S starvation. Our results also indicated that there were interactions among nitrate, sulphate and phosphate transporters in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To elucidate the effect of nitrite ion (NO 2 − ) on the photodegradation of organic pollutants, a 300 W mercury lamp and Pyrex tubes restricting the transmission of wavelengths below 290 nm were used to simulate sunlight, and the photodegradation processes of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) with different concentrations of NO 2 − in freshwater and seawater were studied. The effect of reactive oxygen species (ROS) on the photolysis of 2,4-D was also demonstrated using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). The results indicated that the 2,4-D photolysis reaction followed the first-order kinetics in freshwater and seawater under different concentrations of NO 2 − . Meanwhile, the photochemical reaction rate of 2,4-D increased with increasing concentration of NO 2 − . When the concentration of NO 2 − was lower than 23 mg/L, the photodegradation rate of 2,4-D in seawater was higher than that in freshwater. However, when the concentration of NO 2 − was reached 230 mg/L, 2,4-D degradation slowed down in seawater. It was important to note that EPR spectra showed NO 2 radical was generated in the NO 2 − solution under simulated sunlight irradiation, indicating that 2,4-D photodegradation could be induced by NO 2 . These results show the key role of NO 2 − in photochemistry and are helpful for better understanding of the phototransformation of environmental contaminants in natural aquatic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper applies an inventory transshipment modeling approach to investigate the air cargo revenue management problem for an airline operating in a two-segment network. Building upon an extension of the classic two-location inventory transshipment model, we develop a framework to optimize an airline’s cargo overbooking decisions in a two-segment network setting. We find consistent evidence indicating that network-based global optimization always leads to greater expected profits than does local (i.e., market by market) optimization. Further, the magnitude of profit improvement is found to be most significant when local shipments have a relatively higher freight yield compared to flow-through shipments. Finally, our results indicate that global optimization contributes to greater profit improvement as offloading penalty costs become higher. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper evaluates the relationship between corruption and operational efficiency of airports in Asia, by analyzing a panel dataset of 26 Asian airports over the 2003–2019 period. Our estimation results for Asia confirm the findings for other regions that there exists a negative association between the operational efficiencies of airports and the corruption level in the country. Airports owned, operated and/or managed by government corporations (100% government) are the most affected, in that they experience significant loss of efficiency when located in a high corruption country. The residual variable factor productivity (RVFP) from the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) airport benchmarking reports is used as measure of airport operational efficiency. Regression analyses are applied to evaluate the relationship between airport efficiency and corruption. The results are robust to alternative corruption indexes. The findings of this paper have important policy implications for the management of large public infrastructure projects and airport governance reforms in Asia. • We assess the impact of corruption on airport efficiency in Asia. • The dataset covers 26 airports located in 10 Asian countries over the 2003–2019 period. • Residual Variable Factor Productivity is used as measure of airport efficiency. • Analyses show a negative association between airport efficiency and corruption in Asia. • Corruption impacts are stronger for airports under public corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper tests the mutual forbearance view in the context of airline alliances in the international air travel market. Using passenger booking and airfare data on transpacific routes, we find consistent evidence for the positive association between multimarket contact and airfares. Our results also suggest that multimarket contact between non-aligned airlines is associated with higher airfares, whereas multimarket contact between airlines in the same alliance has no additional upward impact on airfares. Moreover, it is shown that higher airfares tend to exist when airlines have greater multimarket contact on open-skies routes. In restrictive (non-liberal) international markets, however, multimarket contact may not affect airfare. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

CrAlN coatings were deposited on silicon and AISI H13 steel substrates using a modified ion beam enhanced magnetron sputtering system. At the modified ion beam bombardment, the effects of bias voltage and Al/(Cr + Al) ratio on microstructure and mechanical properties of the coatings were studied. The X-ray diffraction data showed that all CrAlN coatings were crystallized in the cubic NaCl B1 structure, showing the (111), (200), and (220) preferential orientation. It is noted that the (111) diffraction peak intensity decreased and the peaks broadened as the bias voltage increased at the same ratio of Al/Cr targets power, which is attributed to the variation in the grain size and microstrain. The microstructure observation of the coatings by field emission scanning electron microscopy cross-section morphology shows that the columnar grain became more compact and dense with increasing substrate bias voltage and Al concentration. At a substrate bias voltage of −120 V and a Al/(Cr + Al) ratio of 40%, the coating had the highest hardness (33.8 GPa) and excellent adhesion to the substrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Grade repetition is practiced worldwide and varies considerably across the globe. Globally, around 32.2 million students repeated a grade at the primary education level in 2010. Although a large body of research has documented grade repetition's academic and non-academic effects, the limited evidence on associations between grade repetition and school bullying is inconsistent and ambiguous. This study aimed to investigate the global association of grade repetition with bullying victimization in a large-scale school-based cross-sectional study.Methods and Findings: We used the latest global data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. PISA 2018 was conducted between March and August 2018 in 80 countries and economies among students aged 15-16 years attending secondary education. The students reported their experiences of repeating a grade at any time point before the survey and of being bullied in the past 12 months. The outcome measures were 6 types of bullying victimization. We accounted for the complex survey design and used multivariate logistic regression models to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of grade repetition with bullying victimization after adjusting for potential confounders (sex; age group; migrant status; school type; economic, social, and cultural status; and parental emotional support). This study included 465,146 students (234,218 girls and 230,928 boys) with complete data on grade repetition and bullying victimization in 74 countries and economies. The lifetime prevalence of grade repetition was 12.26%, and 30.32% of students experienced bullying at least a few times a month during the past 12 months. Grade repetition was statistically significantly associated with each type of bullying victimization. The OR (95% CI) of overall bullying victimization for grade repeaters compared with their promoted peers was 1.42 (95% CI 1.32-1.52, p < 0.001). The sex-specific analysis produced similar results in both boys and girls. Furthermore, girls who repeated a grade had higher risks of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around than boys. The major limitation is that this study only included students attending schools and therefore may be subject to possible selection bias. In addition, the cross-sectional design hinders us from establishing causality between grade repetition and bullying victimization.Conclusions: In this study, we observed that, globally, both boys and girls who repeat a grade are at increased risk of being bullied compared with promoted peers, but girls may experience higher risks than boys of specific types of bullying associated with repeating a grade. These findings provide evidence for the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization. Sex differences in risk of experiencing some types of bullying suggest that tailored interventions for girls who repeat a grade may be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a partial summary of the 2003 ATRS (Air Transport Research Society) Global Airport Benchmarking Report which uses the annual data for 2000–2001. The objective of the ATRS benchmarking report is to measure and compare the performance of several important aspects of airport management and operation: productivity and efficiency, unit costs and cost competitiveness, financial results. The report also examines the relationships between various performance measures and airport characteristics in order to better understand the observed differences in airport performance. This particular paper extracted from the benchmarking report focuses on measuring and comparing operating efficiency performance of the world’s major airports. In particular, the paper presents the results on the airports’ Variable Factor Productivities (VFP) after removing the effects of the variables beyond managerial control. In the process, it identifies the effects of various factors influencing airport’s VFP, and computes a ’residual’ VFP index as an indicator for airports’ operations efficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has emerged as a promising, advanced technology in remote sensing and has demonstrated great potential in the exploitation of a wide variety of data. In particular, its capability has expanded from unmixing data samples and detecting targets at the subpixel scale to finding endmembers, which generally cannot be resolved by multispectral imaging. Accordingly, a wealth of new HSI research has been conducted and reported in the literature in recent years. The aim of this Special Issue "Advances in Hyperspectral Data Exploitation" is to provide a forum for scholars and researchers to publish and share their research ideas and findings to facilitate the utility of hyperspectral imaging in data exploitation and other applications. With this in mind, this Special Issue accepted and published 19 papers in various areas, which can be organized into 9 categories, including I: Hyperspectral Image Classification, II: Hyperspectral Target Detection, III: Hyperspectral and Multispectral Fusion, IV: Mid-wave Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging, V: Hyperspectral Unmixing, VI: Hyperspectral Sensor Hardware Design, VII: Hyperspectral Reconstruction, VIII: Hyperspectral Visualization, and IX: Applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The drug resistance of cancer cells has become one of the biggest obstacles of effective anticancer treatments. Adipocytes produce plenty of cytokines (also known as adipokines), which remarkably affect the drug resistance exhibited by cancer cells. Different adipokines (leptin, visfatin, resistin, adiponectin, Interleukin 6, and tumor necrosis factor α) can induce drug resistance in different cancer cells by various functional mechanisms. This phenomenon is of great interest in pharmacological anti-cancer studies since it indicates that in the cancers with adipocyte-rich microenvironment, all adipokines join together to assist cancer cells to survive by facilitating drug resistance. Studies on adipokines contribute to the development of novel pharmacological strategies for cancer therapy if their roles and molecular targets are better understood. The review will elucidate the roles and the underlying mechanisms of adipokines in drug resistance, which may be of great significance for revealing new strategies for cancer treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inflammatory milieu in tumor modulates the resistance to the conventional antitumoral therapies. Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a pleiotropic pro-inflammatory cytokine and a crucial mediator of tumor development, has been targeted as a therapeutic strategy to overcome chemoresistance in the treatment of tumors. The protein levels and nuclear translocation of HIFs (hypoxia-inducible factors), such as HIF-1α, are linked to the drug resistance of tumor cells. However, whether IL-6 promotes the nuclear translocation of HIF-1α and the related mechanism remain to be investigated. We applied two ovarian cancer (OvCa) cell lines, A2780 cells and SKOV3 cells for the in vivo and in vitro studies. We found that IL-6 up-regulates the HIF-1α expression via the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling under hypoxia in either endogenous or exogenous way, and then we proved that IL-6 enhances the transcriptional activity of HIF-1α via the STAT3 signaling. Further mechanism research revealed that IL-6 promotes the nuclear translocation of HIF-1α through the STAT3 signaling under hypoxia. Proliferation assay and apoptosis assay were applied and proved that IL-6 enhances the chemoresistance of OvCa cells against cisplatin through the upregulation of HIF-1α via the STAT3 signaling in vitro. The In vivo studies confirmed the effect of IL-6 in increasing the chemoresistance of OvCa cells against cisplatin through the IL-6/STAT3/HIF-1α loop in the animal models. Our data elucidates the explicit mechanism of IL-6/STAT3/HIF-1α loop in OvCa and also provides new insights into the development of different approaches for the inflammation-induced and hypoxia-induced resistance in tumor therapies. • IL-6 up-regulates the HIF-1α expression via the STAT3 signaling under hypoxia in ovarian cancer cells. • IL-6 promotes the nuclear translocation of HIF-1α via STAT phosphorylation either endogenously or exogenously in ovarian cancer cells. • IL-6 enhances the chemoresistance of ovarian cancer cells against cisplatin through IL-6/STAT3/HIF-1α loop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new approach, called progressive band subset fusion (PBSF) for hyperspectral anomaly detection. Unlike band selection (BS) which selects bands according to band prioritization or band search strategies, PBSF fuses band subsets progressively during data collection processing. It is completely opposite to BS that must be done after data are acquired and then select bands by removing spectral redundancy as post-data processing. To accomplish PBSF, two versions of PBSF are derived: PBSF of the multiple-band subset (PBSF-MBS) and PBSF of uniform BS (PBSF-UBS). In particular, the fusion process takes place in an anomaly detector from a real-time processing perspective. Three approaches are developed to realize PBSF of two-band subsets simultaneously: PBSF-band sequential (PBSF-BSQ), PBSF-RT, and PBSF-zigzag. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PBSF has advantages over BS in many ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Longan fruit has attracted much attention by consumers over the world due to the unique sweet–sour taste. However, the fruit brown rapidly at ambient temperature during storage, due to enzyme-catalyzed reaction of phenolics. Experiments were conducted to understand the variations in the levels of total phenolics and (−)-epicatechin as a major substrate for polyphenol oxidase (PPO) in pericarp tissue of longan fruit during development. The activities of phenylalanine ammonialyase (PAL) and PPO, involved in the synthesis and oxidation of (−)-epicatechin, respectively, during longan fruit development were also measured. During fruit development, the content of total phenolics decreased rapidly and then increased while the content of (−)-epicatechin tended to decrease. Both PAL and PPO activities decreased rapidly at the early fruit development and increased later but the increase of the former appeared was 10days earlier than the latter. Thus, the level of (−)-epicatechin depended largely on PAL activity but it could involve the conversion of (−)-epicatechin into other flavonoids. This study could help develop appropriate preharvest treatments to control pericarp browning of harvested longan fruit by understanding the variation in the level of the major browning substrate during development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Peptide therapeutic plays an important role in the high selectivity of biological agents and the manageability of small drugs. Hepcidin has been proven to be a major regulator of iron homeostasis in vertebrates. Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to investigate the effects of different disulfide connectivity patterns on the structure of hepcidin. The potential energies of 105 isomers were calculated, which can provide a reference for future work. In addition to validate the known disulfide connectivity pattern of hepcidin (Cys1-Cys8, Cys3-Cys6, Cys2-Cys4 and Cys5-Cys7, P95), two other possible patterns are being proposed: Cys1-Cys7, Cys2-Cys4, Cys3-Cys6, Cys5-Cys8 (P80); and Cys1-Cys6, Cys2-Cys5, Cys3-Cys4, with a disulfide bond between two adjacent cysteine moieties Cys7-Cys8 (P67). The present research provides a basis on understanding the structure/activity relationship of the protein complex interaction in other study. This will have important values in application of hepcidin and its homologues in medical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a heterogeneous subtype of breast cancer. Anti -PD-1/PD-L1 treatment for advanced TNBC is still limited to PD-L1-positive patients. Ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) is a switch molecule for homologous recombination and repair. In this study, we found a significant negative correlation between ATM and PD-L1 in 4 TNBC clinical specimens by single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), which was confirmed by immunochemical staining in 86 TNBC specimens. We then established ATM knockdown TNBC stable cell lines to perform in vitro studies and animal experiments, proving the negative regulation of PD-L1 by ATM via suppression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), which was confirmed by cytokine array analysis of TNBC cell line and analysis of clinical specimens. We further found that ATM inhibits TNF-α via inactivating JNK/c-Jun by scRNA-seq, Western blot and luciferase reporter assays. Finally, we identified a negative correlation between changes in phospho-ATMS1981 and PD-L1 levels in TNBC post- and pre-neoadjuvant therapy. This study reveals a novel mechanism by which ATM negatively regulates PD-L1 by downregulating JNK/c-Jun/TNF-α in TNBC, shedding light on the wide application of immune checkpoint blockade therapy for treating multi-line-resistant TNBC. • A negative correlation between PD-L1and ATM expression in TNBC. • ATM negatively regulated PD-L1 expression through TNF-α. • ATM inhibits TNF-α by inactivating JNK/c-Jun signaling pathway. • ATM as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prediction of immunotherapy. • The combination of ATM inhibitors and immunotherapy may benefit more patients with TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a new approach to hyperspectral band processing for anomaly detection, to be called sequential band fusion (SBF), derived from the band sequential (BSQ) data acquisition format used by a hyperspectral imaging sensor which fuses one single band at a time with previously fused band subset sequentially. In order to realize SBF, four versions, SBF-BSQ, initial band driven SBF (IBD-SBF), band prioritization SBF (BP-SBF), and band selection SBF (BS-SBF), are developed. Furthermore, to validate the sequentially fused results by SBF identical to that produced by combining all joint bands together, its mathematical theory and derivations are also presented. Finally, the full utility of SBF in anomaly detection is demonstrated through extensive experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fast prediction model of flexural strength based on the online measured temperature of fusion deposition composites (FSBT model) was proposed to overcome the drawbacks of traditional destructive flexural experiments. The experimental results show that the FSBT model can effectively, quickly, and accurately predict the flexural strength of FDM parts, without being limited by composites, FDM conditions, and temperature measurement locations. The average relative error of prediction accuracy is 2.9%, and the maximum relative error is controlled within 8.3% for carbon fiber reinforced polyether ether ketone parts. It was found that the prediction accuracy of flexural strength with varying nozzle temperatures is the highest. The parts with a 100% filling rate have excellent prediction accuracy, while due to the high porosity of FDM parts under other filling rates, it is necessary to add correction a porosity factor to the model to improve the prediction accuracy for flexural strength. The proposed FSBT model can be extended to predict the flexural strength of FDM parts of other fiber reinforced composite materials. Moreover, the accommodation mechanism of strength based on the FSBT model is fully discussed. This work provides a new choice for quickly predicting the strength of FDM fiber composite parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescent alcohol use was a major social and public health concern given its negative impacts. Previous studies indicated gender role attitudes (GRA) were associated with alcohol use; however, few studies focused on early adolescents (10 to 14 years) and similar researches were not found in China. Objective: This study sought to explore the association between GRA and alcohol use among early adolescents. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among students in grades six to eight across three public secondary schools in Shanghai, China. Data were collected by Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (CASI) questionnaire on mobile tablets. Alcohol use was measured by self-report, and six items with 5-point Likert-type options assessed the attitude toward traditional gender roles. The logistic regression model was adopted to examine the associations between GAR and alcohol use. Results: Totally 1,631 adolescents aged 10 to 14 years with 50.33% of boys included in this study. The mean score of GRA in drinkers was significantly higher than nondrinkers among boys (3.03 vs. 2.78, p < 0.001) but not girls (2.15 vs. 2.18, p = 0.499). After controlling the covariates of age, depression, peers' substance use, social cohesion, etc., we found that more traditional GRA was associated with a higher risk of alcohol use among boys (OR = 1.39, 95%CI: 1.11–1.75), whereas the association was not significant among girls (OR = 0.96, 95%CI: 0.74–1.24). Conclusions: Traditional GRA may increase the risk of alcohol use among early adolescent boys, suggesting that altering traditional GRA among this population group may help to prevent alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: China is experiencing a sizeable rural-urban flow, which may influence the health of internal migrant youth deeply. Disadvantages in the city are highly likely to contribute to health issues among the young internal migrant population. The current qualitative study is to explore how internal migrant young people view the health issues they face, and the services and opportunities they could seek in their host community.Methods: Data were collected from 90 internal migrant youth aged between 15 and 19 years old and 20 adult service providers who worked with them in a community of Shanghai, where the population of internal migrants was relatively large. Four types of qualitative research methods were used, including key informant interviews with adults, in-depth interviews with adolescents, a photovoice activity with adolescents and community mapping & focus group discussions with adolescents. Guided by the ecological systems framework and the acculturation theory, thematic analysis was conducted using ATLAS.Ti 7.0 software.Results: While younger migrants had a limited understanding of health, elder migrant youths were more sensitive to societal and political factors related to their health. Mental health and health risk behaviors such as smoking, violence and premarital unsafe sex were thought as major health issues. Internal migrant youths rarely seek health information and services initiatively from formal sources. They believed their health concerns weren't as pressing as the pressure coming from the high cost of living, the experience of being unfairly treated and the lack of opportunities. Participants also cited lack of family and social support, lack of awareness and supportive policies to get access to community and public services as impacting health factors.Conclusions: The study's findings provide the insight to the social contexts which influence the health experience, health seeking behaviors, and city adaptation of young internal migrants in their host community. This research stresses the importance of understanding social networks and structural barriers faced by migrant youth in vulnerable environments. A multidimensional social support is essential for internal migrant youth facing present and potential health risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: Sucrose invertase activity is positively related to osmotic and salt stress resistance in peanut. Sucrose invertases (INVs) have important functions in plant growth and response to environmental stresses. However, their biological roles in peanut are still not fully revealed. In this research, we identified 42 AhINV genes in the peanut genome. They were highly conserved and clustered into three groups with 24 segmental duplication events occurred under purifying selection. Transcriptional expression analysis exhibited that they were all ubiquitously expressed, and most of them were up-regulated by osmotic and salt stresses, with AhINV09, AhINV23 and AhINV19 showed the most significant up-regulation. Further physiochemical analysis showed that the resistance of peanut to osmotic and salt stress was positively related to the high sugar content and sucrose invertase activity. Our results provided fundamental information on the structure and evolutionary relationship of INV gene family in peanut and gave theoretical guideline for further functional study of AhINV genes in response to abiotic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important techniques for hyperspectral image dimensionality reduction, band selection has received considerable attention, whereas self-representation subspace clustering-based band selection algorithms have received quite a lot of attention with good effect. However, many of them lack the self-supervision of representations and ignore the multi-level spectral–spatial information of HSI and the connectivity of subspaces. To this end, this paper proposes a novel self-supervised multi-level representation learning fusion-based maximum entropy subspace clustering (MLRLFMESC) method for hyperspectral band selection. Firstly, to learn multi-level spectral–spatial information, self-representation subspace clustering is embedded between the encoder layers of the deep-stacked convolutional autoencoder and its corresponding decoder layers, respectively, as multiple fully connected layers to achieve multi-level representation learning (MLRL). A new auxiliary task is constructed for multi-level representation learning and multi-level self-supervised training to improve its capability of representation. Then, a fusion model is designed to fuse the multi-level spectral–spatial information to obtain a more distinctive coefficient matrix for self-expression, where the maximum entropy regularization (MER) method is employed to promote connectivity and the uniform dense distribution of band elements in each subspace. Finally, subspace clustering is conducted to obtain the final band subset. Experiments have been conducted on three hyperspectral datasets, and the corresponding results show that the proposed MLRLFMESC algorithm significantly outperforms several other band selection methods in classification performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]