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Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the peak performance characteristics of the world top-8 swimmers and the key factors involved in the journey toward achieving better peak performance. Methods: The results of the world top-8 swimmers from 2001 to 2022 were collected from the World Aquatics performance database. Progression to peak performance was tracked with individual quadratic trajectories (1191 cases). Utilizing k-means clustering to group competitive feature variables, this study investigated key developmental factors through a binary logistic regression model, using the odds ratio (OR) to represent whether a factor was favorable (OR > 1) or unfavorable (OR < 1). Results: Significant differences (P <.001) in the peak age between men (23.54/3.80) and women (22.31/4.60) were noticed, while no significant differences (P >.05) in the peak-performance window for both sexes appeared. Peak performance occurred at later ages for the sprint for both sexes, and women had a longer duration in peak-performance window for sprint (P <.05). Peak-performance occurred at later ages for the breaststroke and butterfly for both sexes (P <.05). Binary logistic regression revealed that high first-participation performance (OR = 1.502), high major-competition performance (OR = 4.165), early first-major-competition age (OR = 1.441), participation frequency above 4 times/year in both phase 2 (4.3–8.0 times/y, OR = 3.940; 8.1–20.0 times/y, OR = 5.122) and phase 3 (4.1–7.5 times/y: OR = 5.548; 7.7–15.0 times/y: OR = 7.526), and a career length of 10 years or more (10–15 y, OR = 2.102; 16–31 y, OR = 3.480) were favorable factors for achieving better peak performance. Conclusions: Peak performance characteristics varied across sex, swimming stroke, and race distance in the world top-8 swimmers. Meanwhile, the research indicated that certain specific developmental factors were key conditions for the world top-8 swimmers to achieve better peak performance in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early assessment and intervention are crucial for improving survival in septic shock. This study aimed to address the shortcomings of existing scoring systems in predicting the risk of early death, particularly in identifying patient populations that require more precise prognostic assessments. Methods: This retrospective study included 143 patients with septic shock admitted to the intensive care unit of a tertiary hospital between January 1, 2019, and June 30, 2024. Patients were stratified by 28-day survival status. Binary logistic regression analysis identified independent predictors of early mortality and developed a prognostic model, which was validated using receiver operating characteristic curves. Results: Among the patients, 106 survived, whereas 37 died. Multi-factor binary logistic regression analysis identified the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score and the C-reactive protein-albumin-lymphocyte (CALLY) index as significant independent predictors of 28-day mortality (p < 0.05), culminating in the formulation of the "SOFAplusCALLY" model. This model showed superior predictive accuracy compared to other Scoring systems (area under the curve: 0.90, p < 0.01) and was validated for robustness in both training and validation cohorts. Conclusions: The CALLY index and SOFA score independently forecast 28-day mortality in adults with septic shock, offering substantial clinical utility for forecasting patient prognosis. The SOFAplusCALLY model, synthesized from both indices, comprehensively assesses the clinical status of patients with septic shock and enhances prognostic accuracy, which is crucial for clinical decision-making and resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Families are faced with enormous challenges in caring for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) over a lifetime. As the main caregiver of children, mothers who have children with autism are in poor health compared to the mothers of typically developing (TD) children. Previous studies have revealed that the mental health of mothers has a direct impact on children. On the other hand, attention bias (AB) can be an important indicator of the mental status. Therefore, the characteristic of AB of mothers who have children with autism can be a window into the treatment of autism. Methods: In this study, 28 mothers who have children with autism and 31 mothers of typically developing children completed the modified dot-probe task to explore the attention bias. Results: We found that there was a significant difference of AB between mothers who have children with autism and mothers of typically developing children, which indicated that mothers who have children with autism tend to avoid negative emotional words. Conclusions: The current study illuminates the attentional characteristics of mothers who have children with autism toward emotional words, which provides a new starting point for the intervention of mothers of children with autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenotypic parameters of root systems are vital in reflecting the influence of genes and the environment on plants, and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction is an important method for obtaining phenotypic parameters. Based on the characteristics of root systems, being featureless, thin structures, this study proposed a skeleton-based 3D reconstruction and phenotypic parameter measurement method for root systems using multi-view images. An image acquisition system was designed to collect multi-view images for root system. The input images were binarized by the proposed OTSU-based adaptive threshold segmentation method. Vid2Curve was adopted to realize the 3D reconstruction of root systems and calibration objects, which was divided into four steps: skeleton curve extraction, initialization, skeleton curve estimation, and surface reconstruction. Then, to extract phenotypic parameters, a scale alignment method based on the skeleton was realized using DBSCAN and RANSAC. Furthermore, a small-sized root system point completion algorithm was proposed to achieve more complete root system 3D models. Based on the above-mentioned methods, a total of 30 root samples of three species were tested. The results showed that the proposed method achieved a skeleton projection error of 0.570 pixels and a surface projection error of 0.468 pixels. Root number measurement achieved a precision of 0.97 and a recall of 0.96, and root length measurement achieved an MAE of 1.06 cm, an MAPE of 2.37%, an RMSE of 1.35 cm, and an R2 of 0.99. The whole process of reconstruction in the experiment was very fast, taking a maximum of 4.07 min. With high accuracy and high speed, the proposed methods make it possible to obtain the root phenotypic parameters quickly and accurately and promote the study of root phenotyping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease characterized by chronic airway inflammation and abnormal airway remodeling. The RhoA/ROCK pathway and myocardin-related transcription factor A (MRTF-A) demonstrate significant associations with the proliferation of airway smooth muscle cells (ASCMs), which tightly correlates with the process of airway remodeling. MYOCD, which is homologous to MRTF-A but specifically expressed in smooth muscle cells, potentially regulates RhoA/ROCK activated cell proliferation and subsequent airway remodeling. Methods: The RhoA/ROCK overexpression and silencing cell lines were constructed in vitro, as well as MYOCD overexpression/silencing. The cytoskeleton alterations induced by RhoA/ROCK pathway were identified by the measuring of globular actin and filamentous actin. Results: The comparison between controls for overexpression/silencing and ROCK overexpression/silencing revealed that MYOCD presented consistent change trends with cytoskeleton and RhoA/ROCK pathway. The ROCK1 facilitates the proliferation and migration of ASCMs. The MYOCD enhanced the proliferation and migration of HASMCs. Conclusion: Our study indicates that Rho/ROCK/MYOCD is a key pathway involved in the migration and proliferation of airway smooth muscle cells. Inhibition of Rho/ROCK may be an effective approach to breaking the vicious cycle of asthmatic ASCMs proliferation, providing a novel strategy in treating asthma airway remodeling. Plain Language Summary: Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease characterized by chronic airway inflammation and abnormal airway remodeling. The regulation process of RhoA/ROCK signaling pathway and downstream MRTF-A gene is well studied and exhibits significant associations with cell contraction and cell proliferation, which correlates tightly with airway remodeling. While most studies focusing on the MRTF-A to clarify the mechanism of cell growth, we paid close attention to MYOCD gene, which shares homology with MRTF-A but expressed specifically in smooth muscle cells. Through the series cell experiments, molecular assays, and literature review, we firstly illustrated the potential function of MYOCD underlying the regulation of RhoA/ROCK activated cell proliferation and subsequent airway remodeling in airway smooth muscle cells. This novel sight provides therapeutic targets for asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung cancer remains a leading cause of global cancer-related mortality, and the exploration of innovative therapeutic approaches, such as PD1/PDL1 immunotherapy, is critical. This study leverages comprehensive data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to investigate the differential expression of PD1/PDL1 in lung cancer patients and explores its implications. Clinical data, RNA expression, somatic mutations, and copy number variations of 1017 lung cancer patients were obtained from TCGA. Patients were categorized into high (HE) and low (LE) PD1/PDL1 expression groups based on mRNA levels. Analyses included differential gene expression, functional enrichment, protein-protein interaction networks, and mutational landscape exploration. The study identified 391 differentially expressed genes, with CD4 and PTPRC among the upregulated genes in the HE group. Although overall survival did not significantly differ between HE and LE groups, enrichment analysis revealed a strong association with immunoregulatory signaling pathways, emphasizing the relevance of PD1/PDL1 in immune response modulation. Notably, TP53 mutations were significantly correlated with high PD1/PDL1 expression. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of PD1/PDL1 expression in lung cancer, uncovering potential biomarkers and highlighting the intricate interplay between PD1/PDL1 and the immune response. The identified upregulated genes, including CD4 and PTPRC, warrant further investigation for their roles in the context of lung cancer and immunotherapy. The study underscores the importance of considering molecular heterogeneity in shaping personalized treatment strategies for lung cancer patients. Limitations, such as the retrospective nature of TCGA data, should be acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we present the HOAc-catalyzed selective cleavage of the C=C double bond of enaminones, enabling the formation of a new C–N bond and a new C=N bond for the one-pot synthesis of 2-substituted 3,4-dihydroquinazolines directly from ynones and 2-(aminomethyl)anilines. This method operates in ethanol under transition-metal-free and oxidant-free conditions, offering a sustainable and efficient approach for the synthesis of 3,4-dihydroquinazolines with broad functional group tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize leaf area offers valuable insights into physiological processes, playing a critical role in breeding and guiding agricultural practices. The Azure Kinect DK possesses the real-time capability to capture and analyze the spatial structural features of crops. However, its further application in maize leaf area measurement is constrained by RGB–depth misalignment and limited sensitivity to detailed organ-level features. This study proposed a novel approach to address and optimize the limitations of the Azure Kinect DK through the multimodal coupling of RGB-D data for enhanced organ-level crop phenotyping. To correct RGB–depth misalignment, a unified recalibration method was developed to ensure accurate alignment between RGB and depth data. Furthermore, a semantic information-guided depth inpainting method was proposed, designed to repair void and flying pixels commonly observed in Azure Kinect DK outputs. The semantic information was extracted using a joint YOLOv11-SAM2 model, which utilizes supervised object recognition prompts and advanced visual large models to achieve precise RGB image semantic parsing with minimal manual input. An efficient pixel filter-based depth inpainting algorithm was then designed to inpaint void and flying pixels and restore consistent, high-confidence depth values within semantic regions. A validation of this approach through leaf area measurements in practical maize field applications—challenged by a limited workspace, constrained viewpoints, and environmental variability—demonstrated near-laboratory precision, achieving an MAPE of 6.549%, RMSE of 4.114 cm2, MAE of 2.980 cm2, and R2 of 0.976 across 60 maize leaf samples. By focusing processing efforts on the image level rather than directly on 3D point clouds, this approach markedly enhanced both efficiency and accuracy with the sufficient utilization of the Azure Kinect DK, making it a promising solution for high-throughput 3D crop phenotyping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Glaesserella parasuis is an early colonizer of the upper respiratory tract of pigs and causes high morbidity and mortality. Although macrolides have gained wide clinical application for the treatment of G. parasuis infections, the susceptibility profiles of different macrolide drugs have not been extensively compared. We evaluated the comparative sensitivity of 14-, 15-, and 16-membered macrolides against G. parasuis, and investigated the associated resistance mechanisms. Comprehensive data on the macrolide susceptibility of G. parasuis were obtained. In addition, the presence of integrative and conjugative element (ICE)-borne erm(T) was also a novel observation. Our results provide valuable insights into macrolide resistance in G. parasuis and may guide empirical treatment recommendations. Glaesserella parasuis is the etiological agent of Glässer's disease, which causes high morbidity and mortality in pigs worldwide. Macrolide resistance poses an urgent threat to their treatment, as macrolides are widely used for preventing and treating G. parasuis infections. Here, we determined the susceptibilities to five macrolides and characterized the genetic markers of macrolide resistance. The antimicrobial susceptibility of 117 G. parasuis isolates to erythromycin, tulathromycin, gamithromycin, tylosin, and tilmicosin was evaluated using broth microdilution method. Erythromycin-resistant isolates were sequenced using whole-genome sequencing. Further analysis of these sequences revealed the genetic basis of macrolide resistance in G. parasuis. Our results show that most G. parasuis isolates remained susceptible to the macrolide drugs. For commonly used agents (e.g., tylosin and tilmicosin), elevated minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were observed, whereas for the newer macrolides (e.g., tulathromycin and gamithromycin), the MICs remained almost unchanged. The macrolide resistance gene erm(T) and the A2059G mutation in 23S rRNA were detected in the current study. To the best of our knowledge, integrative and conjugative element (ICE)-borne erm(T) in G. parasuis is reported for the first time in this study. Taken together, these results provide insights into the susceptibility of G. parasuis to macrolides. The presence of erm(T) on ICEs may facilitate its transfer, reducing the effectiveness of macrolide treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI) is often impeded by neuroinflammation, scar formation, and limited axonal regeneration. To tackle these issues, we developed an innovative biomimetic drug delivery system using liquid nitrogen-treated M2 macrophages (LNT M2) which internalized paclitaxel (PTX) nanoparticles beforehand. These were incorporated into a gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) scaffold, creating a multifunctional, injectable treatment for single-dose administration. The LNT M2 inherited the inflammatory factor/chemokine receptors from the living M2 macrophages and thus possessing significant inflammatory neutralizing effect. In addition, the scaffold provides slow, sustained release of PTX, promoting axonal regeneration and suppressing scar formation in SCI rats. The LNT M2-based dual-functional scaffold significantly enhances motor function, reduces neuroinflammation, and accelerates axonal regeneration by modulating the inflammatory microenvironment and preventing the formation of glial and fibrotic scars. This approach combines the regenerative effects of low-dose PTX with the immunoregulatory properties of LNT M2, leading to remarkable neurological recovery in SCI rats. Moreover, the scaffold's straightforward preparation, ease of standardization, and "ready-to-use" nature make it a promising candidate for acute SCI intervention and future clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensor decompositions have been successfully applied to multidimensional data recovery. However, classical tensor decompositions are not suitable for emerging spatio-irregular multidimensional data (i.e., spatio-irregular tensor), whose spatial domain is non-rectangular, e.g., spatial transcriptomics data from bioinformatics and semantic units from computer vision. By using preprocessing (e.g., zero-padding or element-wise 0-1 weighting), the spatio-irregular tensor can be converted to a spatio-regular tensor and then classical tensor decompositions can be applied, but this strategy inevitably introduces bias information, leading to artifacts. How to design a tensor-based method suitable for emerging spatio-irregular tensors is an imperative challenge. To address this challenge, we propose a learnable transform-assisted tensor singular value decomposition (LTA-TSVD) for spatio-irregular tensor recovery, which allows us to leverage the intrinsic structure behind the spatio-irregular tensor. Specifically, we design a learnable transform to project the original spatio-irregular tensor into its latent spatio-regular tensor, and then the latent low-rank structure is captured by classical TSVD on the resulting regular tensor. Empowered by LTA-TSVD, we develop spatio-irregular low-rank tensor completion (SIR-LRTC) and spatio-irregular tensor robust principal component analysis (SIR-TRPCA) models for the spatio-irregular tensor imputation and denoising respectively, and we design corresponding solving algorithms with theoretical convergence. Extensive experiments including the spatial transcriptomics data imputation and hyperspectral image denoising show SIR-LRTC and SIR-TRPCA are superior performance to competing approaches and benefit downstream applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Honey robbing refers to a situation where, during times of food scarcity, worker bees are forced to adopt more aggressive and risky foraging strategies to ensure the survival and reproduction of their own colony. This involves invading other colonies to pillage their food resources. Such behavior poses a serious threat to both bee populations and beekeepers. This review focuses on the morphological and behavioral characteristics of honey robbers and elaborates on the timing, distribution, and causes of honey robbing. The article outlines the various harms caused by honey robbing and proposes effective prevention and control measures accordingly. Furthermore, we summarize the potential obstacles currently facing honey robbing research and lay out feasible paths for future exploration. The aim of this paper is to assist beekeepers in managing their colonies more effectively and thereby promote the sustainable development of the beekeeping industry. Honey robbing, which typically occurs during times of food scarcity, is a perilous foraging strategy for bee colonies and presents a formidable challenge in the realm of beekeeping. This article provides a comprehensive and multifaceted exploration of honey robbing, including the morphology, behavioral traits, timing, and scope of this phenomenon. This exploration elucidates the specific manifestations of honey robbing, offering readers a deeper understanding of its various facets. Next, this article investigates the root causes of honey robbing by examining both abiotic and biotic factors. The resulting harms are outlined, and corresponding preventive and control measures are suggested. Finally, the article succinctly summarizes the current obstacles in research related to honey robbing and outlines promising avenues for future exploration. The objective of this study was to elucidate the occurrence mechanism of honey robbing, ultimately aiming to contribute to the sustainable growth of the beekeeping industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: SCTV01E is a tetravalent recombinant COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use in China for adults 18 years and older but not for those under 18. Objective: This Phase 2 trial assessed the safety and immunogenicity of SCTV01E in healthy children and adolescents aged 3 to 17 years, to establish immunobridging with that observed in adults from the efficacy pivotal trial (NCT05308576). Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to receive either 30 µg of SCTV01E or a placebo. Primary endpoints were safety and immunogenicity focused on the geometric mean titer (GMT) and seroresponse rate (SRR) of neutralizing antibodies (nAb) against Omicron BA.5. Results: In total, 268 participants (214 SCTV01E vs. 54 placebo) were included in the safety analysis, with 241 participants (191 vs. 50) in the immunogenicity analysis. Overall, 127 (59.3%) participants receiving SCTV01E and 9 (16.7%) receiving a placebo reported adverse events (AEs), most of which were Grade 1 or 2. No serious adverse events (SAEs) or adverse events of special interest (AESIs) were reported. In the immunogenicity bridging analysis, data from 95 youths were compared with data from 188 adults; the geometric mean ratio (GMR) of the titers was 8.78 (95% CI: 6.05–12.74, p < 0.001), with the lower bound of the 95% CI exceeding 0.67. The difference in the SRR was 6.34% (95% CI: 0.93–11.22%) (p = 0.029), and the lower bound of the 95%CI was >−5%, indicating superiority. Conclusions: SCTV01E was found to be safe and well tolerated in children and adolescents, generating a robust immune response against Omicron BA.5. This supports its potential use in younger populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research investigates the effect of festival attributes such as music quality, atmosphere and place on music festival visitors' behavioural intentions, particularly focusing on how visitors' satisfaction and their subjective well-being mediate these relationships. Design/methodology/approach: This research was designed as quantitative research to reveal the relationships between music quality, place and atmosphere with visitors' behavioural intentions. Structural equation modelling was used to test the relationships between the constructs using data from 256 festival attendees in Edirne. Findings: The results reveal that perceived music quality and atmosphere significantly enhance visitors' satisfaction, which in turn positively impacts word-of-mouth intention and subjective well-being. Moreover, subjective well-being positively and significantly affects visitors' revisit intentions. Finally, visitors' satisfaction mediates the relationship between perceived music quality and word-of-mouth intention. Originality/value: It is one of the first studies to investigate the mediating effects of visitor satisfaction and subjective well-being on the relationships between perceived music quality, atmosphere, place and the behavioural intentions of music festival attendees. Furthermore, the present study provides not only empirical support for the theoretical frameworks but also offers practical insights for festival organizers on enhancing visitor experiences to improve behavioural outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To monitor the condition of cupping spots in real-time during the operation of the automatic cupping machine, reduce the influence of the surrounding environment on the image, and improve the segmentation accuracy of the cupping spots, this paper proposes a network called MCA-Deeplabv3+. Firstly, backbone network replaced by Mobilenetv2 to reduce the model size and improve feature extraction speed; Secondly, to further enhance the network’s feature extraction capabilities, we added dilated convolution channels and integrated the CA attention mechanism into the ASPP module; Finally, data augmentation and brightness adjustment are performed on the dataset to improve the generalization of the model in different environments. The experimental results show that, in comparison with other segmentation models, MCA-Deeplabv3+performs the best in cupping spot segmentation, with mIoU and mPA reaching 93.90% and 96.73%, respectively. The practicality and effectiveness of the cupping spot segmentation model presented in this paper are thoroughly demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the following logarithmic fractional Kirchhoff equation: $$\begin{align*} &\left(a+b \int_{\mathbb{R}^{3}}|(-\Delta)^{s/2} u|^{2} \,{\rm d} x\right)(-\Delta)^{s} u+V(x) u\notag \\ &\quad =|u|^{p-2} u \log u^{2}+\lambda|u|^{q-2} u, \quad{\rm in} \ \mathbb{R}^{3}, \end{align*}$$ (a + b ∫ R 3 | (− Δ) s / 2 u | 2 d x) (− Δ) s u + V (x) u = | u | p − 2 ulog ⁡ u 2 + λ | u | q − 2 u , in R 3 , where a, b>0, $ (-\Delta)^{s} $ (− Δ) s is the fractional Laplace operator with $ q \geq ~2_{s}^{*}=\frac {6}{3-2 s} $ q ≥ 2 s ∗ = 6 3 − 2 s and V satisfies suitable conditions. Since the presence of supercritical exponents leads to a lack of compactness, we introduce a truncation function to reduce the exponents, allowing compactness to be recovered. We show that the above equation has a ground state solution and a sign-changing solution via the constraint variation method, the quantitative deformation lemma and Moser's iterative method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glucose deprivation, a hallmark of the tumor microenvironment, compels tumor cells to seek alternative energy sources for survival and growth. Here, we show that glucose deprivation upregulates the expression of mitochondrial-cytochrome c oxidase II (MT-CO2), a subunit essential for the respiratory chain complex IV, in facilitating glutaminolysis and sustaining tumor cell survival. Mechanistically, glucose deprivation activates Ras signaling to enhance MT-CO2 transcription and inhibits IGF2BP3, an RNA-binding protein, to stabilize MT-CO2 mRNA. Elevated MT-CO2 increases flavin adenosine dinucleotide (FAD) levels in activating lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) to epigenetically upregulate JUN transcription, consequently promoting glutaminase-1 (GLS1) and glutaminolysis for tumor cell survival. Furthermore, MT-CO2 is indispensable for oncogenic Ras-induced glutaminolysis and tumor growth, and elevated expression of MT-CO2 is associated with poor prognosis in lung cancer patients. Together, these findings reveal a role for MT-CO2 in adapting to metabolic stress and highlight MT-CO2 as a putative therapeutic target for Ras-driven cancers. Metabolic rewiring supports cancer progression and therapy resistance. Here, the authors show that upregulation of the mitochondrial genome-encoded complex IV protein MT-CO2 is induced upon glucose deprivation to promote glutaminolysis through epigeneticmediated mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The spread of COVID-19 has a huge impact on the medical system, affecting the normal order of routine patients, especially obvious effect on the Shenzhen Third People's Hospital as the designated hospital for COVID-19 patients. After the epidemic was loosened in early December 2022, the normal medical order gradually restored in China. How much was the impact on the admission and treatment of emergency trauma patients during and after the epidemic? This study aims to compare the differences between trauma patients admitted to the emergency department during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods and findings: The study included all trauma patients admitted through the emergency department from January 2020 to March 2024. Clinical data were collected, and a retrospective comparative analysis was performed on the characteristics of the two groups of trauma patients during and after the pandemic, including gender, age, average length of hospital stay, proportions of admissions to various departments, proportions of severe cases, proportions of surgical patients, and mortality rates, using statistical methods for analysis. The proportion of male patients during the pandemic (69.98%) was higher than after the pandemic (67.01%). The proportion of patients under 60 years of age during the pandemic was higher than that after the pandemic. There was no significant difference in the average hospital stay between patients during and after the pandemic (P>0.05). Comparisons between the two groups in terms of admissions to departments such as otolaryngology, hepatobiliary surgery, hepatic surgery, orthopedics, urology, neurosurgery, gastroenterology surgery, thoracic surgery, ophthalmology and intensive care unit showed no significant differences (P>0.05). The proportion of surgical patients during the pandemic (75.09%) was higher than after the pandemic (69.53%). The mortality rate during the pandemic (0.13%) was lower than after the pandemic (2.45%). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted trauma patients admitted through the emergency department, with increases in the proportion of male and younger patients, surgical cases, and a decrease in mortality rates during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid advancements in nano‐exfoliation and dissolution strategies have effectively disassembled hierarchical biomass materials into nanosheets, nanofibers, and even atomic‐scale molecular chains, making them highly applicable in osmotic energy harvesting. However, sub‐nanosheets, situated between molecular chains and nanofibers, remain unexplored due to the demanding nature of their preparation methods. Herein, a pseudosolvent‐driven programmable ion intercalation‐exfoliation strategy is developed that triggers exfoliation along the lowest energy crystal plane (010), as simulations confirm. This method allows for the controlled exfoliation of chitin assemblies ranging from nanofibers to sub‐nanometer sheets and molecular chains. Specifically, compared to nanofibrils, sub‐nanometer sheet interfacial assembly exhibits higher surface charge density and interplanar spacing, leading to a 2.3‐fold increase in ion transport flux while maintaining high‐performance selective ion behavior, as confirmed by both experiments and molecular scale simulations, respectively. These enhancements result in superior ionic conductivity and power conversion performance (8.45 W m−2) under a 50‐fold salinity gradient, surpassing commercial standards (5.0 W m−2) and other all‐biomass membrane systems (Max. 2.87 W m−2). This work provides insights into the controlled exfoliation of biomass at the sub‐nanometer scale and enhancing osmotic energy harvesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The frailty index is widely used in clinical and community settings to assess health status. This study aimed to identify the potential phenotypes of frail older adults and examine their relationship with health consequences compared with existing frailty measures. Methods: The 11-year follow-up data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging, covering 5,334 individuals aged ≥ 50 years, were analyzed using random-effects panel logit models. We identified three frailty phenotypes: energy-based frailty (EBF), sarcopenia-based frailty (SBF), and hybrid-based frailty (HBF). Existing frailty measures such as the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF), Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illness, and Loss of weight (FRAIL), and Fried scales were applied. We examined their correlation with health outcomes, such as falls and fractures, depression, comorbidities, hospitalization, emergency department visits, and mortality, adjusting for individual-level characteristics. Results: Individuals with only EBF were found to be at a lower risk of falls and fractures than their counterparts with only SBF (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.13, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.03–0.46). Depression was less likely in the SBF group than in the EBF group (AOR = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.01–0.05). Hybrid-based frail older adults were more likely to be hospitalized (AOR = 1.84, 95% CI = 1.08–3.14) and have emergency department visits (AOR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.15–3.58). Frailty assessed using existing measures was associated with adverse health outcomes. Conclusion: The proposed frailty phenotype classification differs from the existing frailty measures in its ability to distinguish the corresponding phenotypes underlying various health consequences. Governments may develop strategies based on frailty phenotypes to mitigate adverse health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] Yuncheng Salt Lake, located within the core area of the Fenwei Graben System in the south-central part of the North China Craton, is the earliest known salt lake in China and worldwide. The formation and evolution of the Yuncheng Salt Lake are closely related to the Cenozoic tectonic domains of the coastal Pacific in eastern China and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in western China. However, there are many debates regarding the spatiotemporal processes and key timing associated with these two domains in the Yuncheng Salt Lake. Additionally, the salt lake is rich in sodium, magnesium, chloride, and sulfate ions; however the sources of these saline ions remain unclear. [Methods] This study investigated the major changes in the Cenozoic tectonic geomorphology of the Yuncheng Basin and its surrounding areas, focusing on the evolution of the Cenozoic river-lake system to establish the formation and evolution stages of the Yuncheng Salt Lake. This study combined the tectonic background and geochemical element analysis of typical strata in the adjacent Zhongtiao Mountains to identify the main sources of saline ions in the Yuncheng Salt Lake. [Results] At the boundary between the Paleogene and Neogene, there was a widespread angular unconformity across the central and eastern parts of the North China Craton. This unconformity affected the Weihe Basin in the Fenwei Graben System to the west, and not the northeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which connects to the western North China Craton. This indicates that the tectonic forces during this period originated mainly from the coastal Pacific tectonic domain of the eastern North China Craton. In the mid-Miocene, a widespread unconformity along the northeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau connect to the western North China Craton. The northeastward uplift and expansion of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau affected caused the Ordos Basin to rotate counterclockwise, initiating the formation of the Shanxi Graben System within the Fenwei Graben System. The Cenozoic evolution of the Yuncheng Salt Lake is the result of the interaction between the two major tectonic domains of eastern and western China. Before the mid-Miocene, the coastal Pacific tectonic domain predominantly controlled the region. Subsequently, the long-distance effects of northeastward uplift and expansion of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau began to influence the Yuncheng Salt Lake. The Jixian System Longjiayuan Formation in the Zhongtiao Mountain area is composed of marine carbonate deposits that is the primary source of magnesium ions for the salt lake, with an average magnesium oxide content of 20.92%. The Paleogene Pinglu Group, an arid lake basin deposit rich in gypsum layers, provids sodium, chloride, and sulfate ions to the salt lake, with an average sodium oxide content of up to 2.6%. [Conclusion] This study suggested that approximatedly 700000 years ago, during the transition between the early and middle Pleistocene, the Yellow River flowed eastward into the sea through the Sanmenxia Gorge, leading to the disappearance of the Sanmen paleolake and the initial formation of the Yuncheng Salt Lake. Approximately 70000 years ago, during the mid-late Pleistocene, the Fen River changed its course and left the Yuncheng Basin, transforming the salt lake from an open to a closed system, ultimately forming the Yuncheng Salt Lake. Subsequently, under the continuous influence of the fault at the northern edge of the Zhongtiao Mountains, a large sedimentary depression formed, accumulating a large amount of saline minerals. Natural salt lake is formed over long periods of precipitation and evaporation. Currently, the saline ions of the Yuncheng Salt Lake mainly originate from adjacent sedimentary strata in the Zhongtiao Mountains and deep mineralization layers. The major fault controlling the salt lake provides the upward migration and injection of saline substances from deep mineralization layers into the salt lake. The marine high-magnesium dolomite of the Longjiayuan Formation of the Mesoproterozoic Jixian System in the Zhongtiao Mountains is a major source of magnesium ions for the salt lake. [Significance] The research findings provide fundamental geological evidence for the implementation of an ecological protection strategy to restore the lake by reducing salt levels in Yuncheng Salt Lake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, minimizing the tensor tubal rank based on the tensor singular value decomposition (t-SVD) has attracted significant attention in the tensor completion task. The widely-used solutions of tensor-tubal-rank minimization rely upon various convex and nonconvex surrogates of the tensor rank. However, these tensor rank surrogates usually lead to inaccurate descriptions of the tensor rank. To mitigate the limitation, we propose an innovative $ \ell_0 $ minimization framework with guaranteed convergence to provide a novel paradigm for minimization of the tensor rank. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework, we develop a new tensor completion model employing a tensor adaptive sparsity-deduced rank (TASR). Subsequently, we formulate an algorithm rooted in the proposed $ \ell_0 $ minimization framework to address this model effectively. Experimental results on multi-dimensional image data demonstrate that our method is superior to several state-of-the-art approaches. The code is accessible at https://github.com/Jin-liangXiao/L0-TC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Ciprofol is a novel propofol analogue with a characteristic of hemodynamic stability. At present, there is a lack of research comparing the hemodynamic stability of ciprofol and propofol during painless colonoscopy. In this study, we aim to test the hypothesis that ciprofol is superior to propofol in terms of hemodynamic stability for sedation anesthesia in patients undergoing colonoscopy. Methods: A total of 222 patients were randomized into two groups. Patients in group P (n = 112) and group C (n = 110) received propofol and ciprofol sedation, respectively. Noninvasive blood pressure were monitored starting from induction (T0) to the end of the procedure, at 2-min intervals (T1 to T10). Heart rate variability (HRV), pain injection, Modified Observer's Assessment of Alertness and Sedation (MOAA/S) score, body movement, doses of norepinephrine, modified Aldrete score, drug-related adverse reactions, and patient satisfaction and endoscopist satisfaction were recorded. Results: In group C, fewer patients experienced a decrease in blood pressure with a higher HRV after induction sedation, the incidence of pain injection was reduced, the amount of norepinephrine dose was decreased, patient satisfaction was increased compared with group P (all P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in induction time, modified Aldrete score, alertness time, drug-related adverse reactions, and endoscopist satisfaction. Conclusions: Our study indicated intravenous induction with ciprofol was superior, with regard to hemodynamic stability and reduced injection pain, than induction with propofol for anesthesia in patients undergoing painless colonoscopy. Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2200061814). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the remediation of paddy soils briefly contaminated by acid mine drainage (AMD) using lime (LM) and steel slag (SS) amendments. The treatment not only boosted rice yields but also significantly lowered Cd and Cu levels in the rice. Additionally, it decreased net acid generation and increased acid neutralization capacity, reducing soil acidification risk, though reacidification potential remains high. Soil amendments improved pH, raising it to neutral, and enhanced cation exchange capacity from 4.35 to 9.23 cmol/kg. Enzymatic activities were also affected: dehydrogenase activity increased, urease decreased after LM and SS application, and sucrose activity varied with the type of amendment. The findings suggest that AMD-polluted paddy soils can be effectively remediated through soil amendments and rice cultivation, but continuous monitoring and further interventions are needed for sustained soil health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low-velocity non-Darcy effect within the shale matrix significantly influences the well production performance of shale reservoirs, primarily caused by the threshold pressure gradient identified by various researchers. Moreover, in inter-salt shale reservoirs, salt minerals dissolve and diffuse when they encounter water-based working fluids, resulting in substantial alterations in pore structure. This paper introduces a transient pressure model for inter-salt shale oil reservoirs that accounts for oil flow from formation to the wellbore, considering all of the aforementioned mechanisms. The partial differential equations of this dual-porosity model, which incorporate salt dissolution and the low-velocity non-Darcy effect in the shale matrix, are derived. An accurate solution is achieved through the application of Laplace transformation and Green's functions. We derive the analytical solutions for transient pressure and production in real space by employing the Stehfest numerical inversion method and obtain the bi-logarithmic type curves. Six distinct flow regimes are identified, and the impacts of salt dissolution, the threshold pressure gradient, the cross-flow coefficient, and the storativity ratio are discussed. This analysis holds significant importance for evaluating fluid flow and transport in inter-salt shale oil reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive methodology of ordering solution-processed semiconducting polymers is presented, correlating solvent, solute, and substrate interactions in an intermolecular framework. Utilizing temperature-dependent UV–VIS absorption, we reveal a reversible phase transition between unguidable 2D aggregates and guidable quasi-3D bundles, enabling directional molecular assembly along nano-templated self-assembled monolayers (nSAMs). Within an optimized dynamic length scale 2.5 Å between weakly bonded polymer bundles and nSAMs, random polymer fibers can be transformed into unidirectional fibers with increased molecular anisotropy from 1.0 to 9.2, verified by atomic force microscopy and polarized Raman scattering. Intermolecular dynamics are quantitatively manipulated with angstrom-level precision to achieve macroscopic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corrosion problem resulting from alternating ambient salt spray and high temperature oxidation poses a great threat to the safe service of aircraft engine during frequent start-stop in marine environment. In the present study, Ni25Cr5AlY coating is prepared on top of GH4169 superalloy substrate by direct-current (DC) magnetron sputtering. Corrosion behavior of the Ni25Cr5AlY coating is systematically studied by designing three different test conditions: high temperature oxidation at 1000 °C, ambient salt spray, and alternating ambient salt spray and high temperature oxidation. The phase constitution and morphology of the corrosion products are analyzed by X-ray diffraction(XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicate that after 168 h oxidation at 1000 °C, the coating forms a dense and continuous Al2O3 scale which resists well against the oxidizing environment, while the coating suffers from pitting locally after 168 h salt spray test. After 168 h exposure to alternating ambient salt spray and high temperature oxidation test, the Al2O3 scale formed on the coating is damaged owing to the chlorine induced active oxidation mechanism, eventually resulting in Cr2O3 scale formation. In addition, the Cr2O3 scale is porous and cracks locally, which causes accelerated corrosion of the coating and internal oxidation of the coating and substrate. The corrosion degradation of the coating is accelerated under the synergistic effect of salt spray and high temperature oxidation. The GH4169 superalloy without the coating experiences severe scale spallation after 168 h exposure to the alternating test, featured by forming a poorly protective NiO scale with prevalent internal oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore the association between television viewing time (TV-hours) and dietary oxidative balance score (DOBS) with the kidney stone risk in males. Methods: We analyzed age, poverty to income ratio, race, education, hypertension, diabetes, smoke, alcohol use, triglycerides, TV-hours, and DOBS data in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2011 to 2018. Multivariable logistic regression was uesd to evaluate the associations between TV-hours, lifestyle OBS (LOBS), DOBS, Total OBS (TOBS), and the risk of kidney stones. Interaction terms between subgroup measures were used to test for effect modification across subgroups. Mediation analysis was performed to explore the mediating effect of DOBS on the association between TV-hours and kidney stones. The restricted cubic spline (RCS) was applied to describe dose–response relationships between TV-hours and risk of kidney stones as well. Results: The study included 4167 males aged 20 and older, including 417 patients with kidney stones. The results showed that five or more TV-hours a day was associated with a higher risk of kidney stones [odds ratio (OR) = 1.16, (95% CI: 1.04–1.29), p = 0.01], and higher DOBS level was associated with a lower risk of kidney stones [OR = 0.97, (95% CI: 0.95–0.99), p = 0.004]. This association was remarkably consistent across TV-hours subgroups by age, race, alcohol use, hypertension and diabetes. According to the mediation analysis results, prolonged TV-hours is associated with an increased risk of kidney stones, this association is not mediated by DOBS. In other words, the impact of TV-hours on kidney stones risk is mainly a direct effect. When TV-hours is more than 2 hours, the odds ratio began to be greater than 1. Conclusions: Overall, TV-hours was positively associated with kidney stones in males, whereas low DOBS was associated with kidney stones in males. This study suggests that an antioxidant diet and reduced television viewing time may be effective measures to prevent kidney stones in males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hip fractures significantly affect patients' health and quality of life. Despite therapeutic treatments, many patients continue to experience poor prognoses that include recurrent fractures and mortality, especially the older ones. Therefore, understanding important factors associated with post-fracture prognoses is critical. This study focuses on patients' multimorbidity trajectories and examines how the trajectory's time span, number of coexisting chronic diseases, and sequential disease patterns relate to distinct prognostic outcomes. From the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan, we obtain a sample of 128,822 patients who suffered an initial hip fracture between 1996 and 2011. We use this sample to analyze the relationships between multimorbidity trajectories and prognostic outcomes after an initial hip fracture. The results reveal that a patient's multimorbidity trajectory's time span and number of chronic diseases significantly associate with his or her post-fracture prognosis. In addition, essential sequential patterns of chronic diseases relate to post-fracture prognoses too. We then leverage the discovered relationships to develop a cross-attention neural network method for estimating patients' post-fracture prognoses and demonstrate its predictive utilities relative to several prevalent machine leaning methods. This study underscores the importance of leveraging the time span, number of chronic diseases, and sequential disease patterns in patients' multimorbidity trajectory profile to estimate their prognoses within three years of an initial hip fracture, which can support physicians' clinical decisions and patient management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To promote the energy accommodation of both electrical and heating power while considering the source–load uncertainties, a peer‐to‐peer (P2P) energy trading model among prosumers in the integrated electric–thermal system is proposed here, considering the energy trading agent (ETA) with self‐build energy system. The solar heat‐pump hybrid thermal water system (SPTS) and the transferring loss of heating power is considered and modelled based on the principle of steady‐state thermal transfer. Since the variations of load and PV cannot be described by any single common distribution, the chance‐constraints programming based on the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is proposed to handle the uncertainty of the net load. As the proposed power trading problem is a non‐convex problem with binary variables, an improved alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) based on the predictor‐corrector and two‐stage cycle iterations is proposed to enhance the convergence performance of standard ADMM. Finally, an example simulation verifies the effectiveness; this results show that the proposed model can decrease the total cost by 26.7% and enhance local energy balance by 61.8% compared to other cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Influenza vaccine uptake among healthcare workers is crucial for preventing influenza infections, yet its effectiveness needs further investigation. Objectives: This prospective observational study aimed to assess the protective effect of influenza vaccination among healthcare workers in Shenzhen. Methods: We enrolled 100 participants, with 50 receiving the 2023–2024 quadrivalent influenza vaccine (QIV) and 50 serving as unvaccinated controls. Epidemiological data were collected when the participants presented influenza-like illness. Serum samples were collected at three time points (pre-vaccination and 28 and 180 days after vaccination). Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay was performed against the strains included in the 2023–2024 QIV (H1N1, H3N2, BV and BY strains) to assess antibody protection levels. Demographics comparisons revealed no significant differences between the vaccinated and control groups (p > 0.05), ensuring group comparability. Results: The incidence of influenza-like illness was significantly lower in the vaccinated (18%) compared to the control group (36%; p = 0.046; OR = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.15 to 0.98). The vaccinated group also exhibited a higher rate of consecutive two-year vaccinations (48% vs. 24% in the control group, p < 0.05). Additionally, the vaccinated healthcare workers were more inclined to recommend vaccination to their families (80% vs. 48%, p < 0.05). HI titers against H1N1 (p < 0.01), H3N2 (p < 0.01), BV (p < 0.001) and BY (p < 0.01) significantly increased in the vaccinated group at 28 days post-vaccination. Moreover, a marked and sustained increase in HI titers against the H3N2 strain (p < 0.001) was observed at 180 days post-vaccination, highlighting the vaccine's enduring impact on the immune response. The fold change in the HI titers, indicative of the magnitude of the immune response, was significantly higher for H1N1 (p < 0.01), H3N2 (p < 0.001), BV (p < 0.01) and BY (p < 0.05) among the vaccinated individuals compared to the control group, underscoring the vaccine's efficacy in eliciting a robust and sustained antibody response. Conclusion: Influenza vaccination significantly reduces the incidence of influenza-like illness among healthcare workers and promotes a sustained immune response. The study supports the importance of annual vaccination for this group to enhance personal and public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During marine oil–gas extraction, significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas are often produced. Effectively separating these associated CO2 gases during extraction has become a critical technical challenge. Therefore, this paper aims to enhance the efficiency of CO2 hydrate-based capture technology and conduct relevant research. The goal is to increase the driving force for hydrate formation by combining the traditional thermodynamic additive TBAB with pressure modulation and to improve the hydrate formation rate through the use of multiple kinetic promoters. This paper presents the initial investigation into the effect of the thermodynamic accelerator tetrabutylammonium bromide (TBAB) on the characteristics of CO2 hydrate formation. The promotion effects of TBAB solutions with varying mass concentrations (3%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%) and reaction pressures (3 MPa, 4 MPa) were subjected to a systematic analysis, and the optimal conditions were identified as 4 MPa and a 5 wt% TBAB concentration. Subsequently, the impact of combining TBAB with kinetic promoters (SDS, nano Al2O3, L-methionine, L-leucine) on CO2 hydrate generation characteristics was further investigated. In this paper, the effect of a single promoter on the generation characteristics of CO2 hydrate was investigated, and the efficient carbon trapping ability of the complex promoter was verified, which provides theoretical support for the application of CO2 trapping technology using the hydrate method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Newborn screening (NBS) for isovaleric acidemia (IVA) is implemented via tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), but false‐positive results are still common. In addition, NBS for IVA is limited by a lack of suitable biomarkers, especially after the use of pivaloylester‐containing antibiotics. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study to explore the clinical correlation between antibiotic administration and false‐positive results for isovalerylcarnitine (C5). Results: A total of 509,313 newborns were recruited from the initial NBS study, only one of whom underwent genetic confirmation, conducted between 2015 and 2020. Significant associations between false‐positive C5‐carnitine screening results and treatment with pivalate‐generating antibiotics were identified with retrospective analysis. Conclusions: The current results highlight the detrimental effects of false‐positive C5‐carnitine screening results. Unless the licensing of pivalate‐generating antibiotics for use during the neonatal period is reconsidered, a second‐tier test for C5 determination will be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Recently, tensor ring (TR) approximation has received increasing attention in multi-dimensional image processing. In TR approximation, the key backbone is the shallow matrix factorizations, which approximate the circular unfolding of the multi-dimensional image. However, the shallow matrix factorization limits the standard TR approximation’s ability to represent images with complex details and textures. To address this limitation, we propose a nonlinear hierarchical matrix factorization-based tensor ring (NHTR) approximation. Specifically, instead of the shallow matrix factorization, we introduce the nonlinear hierarchical matrix factorization in NHTR approximation to approximate circularly ⌈ N 2 ⌉ -modes unfoldings of an N-th order tensor. Benefiting from the powerful expressive capability of the nonlinear hierarchical matrix factorization, the proposed NHTR approximation can faithfully capture fine details of the clean image compared to classical tensor ring approximation. Empowered with the proposed NHTR, we build a multi-dimensional image recovery model and establish a theoretical error bound between the recovered image and the clean image based on the proposed model. To solve the highly nonlinear and hierarchical optimization problem, we develop an efficient alternating minimization-based algorithm. Experiments on multispectral images and color videos conclusively demonstrate the superior performance of our method over the compared state-of-the-art methods in multi-dimensional image recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hemoglobin disorders are highly prevalent inherited hematological defects in Southern China. The identification of novel variants in globin genes and accurate assessment of hematological parameters play a crucial role in precise genetic counseling and clinical practice. Peripheral blood samples were collected for hematological analysis, including red blood cell and hemoglobin assessment, while serum ferritin levels were measured to detect iron depletion. Thalassemia carrier identification was conducted in four subjects admitted to Jiangxi Maternal and Child Health Hospital using next-generation sequencing and Gap-PCR due to the high prevalence of thalassemia in Jiangxi Province. The identified rare or novel small nucleotide variants were subsequently validated through Sanger sequencing. A total of four novel variants were identified incidentally in four unrelated subjects, including HBA1: c.300G > C (p.Lys100Asn), HBA2: c.212T > A (p.Val71Glu), HBB: c.28T > A (p.Ser10Thr) and c.167T > C (p.Met56Thr). The proband carrying the c.212T > A and c.300G > C variants exhibited normal hematological findings, while capillary electrophoresis revealed the presence of abnormal hemoglobin fractions at 22.4% and 10.9%. The subjects with variant HBB: c.28T > A and c.167T > C all demonstrated normal hematological findings and normal hemoglobin fraction as determined by capillary electrophoresis or ion exchange high-resolution liquid chromatography (HPLC). The two variants exhibiting abnormal fractions of hemoglobin were designated as Hb Jiangxi (HBA2: c.212T > A) and Hb Fulton (HBA1: c.300G > C). Meanwhile, HBB: c.28T > A and HBB: c.167T > C were referred to as Hb Yichun and Hb Jinxian, respectively. We here reported four novel variants in globin genes and their hematological findings in for unrelated Chinese individuals in Southern China. Our research has expanded the existing genetic spectrum of globin genes and enhanced our understanding of the hematological profiles associated with variant hemoglobin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autophagy is a complex cellular process that can either promote or inhibit cancer progression and development, depending on the context and molecular regulation involved. This study investigates how LSD1 regulates autophagy in ovarian cancer by interacting with the autophagy protein LC3B. Utilizing the bioinformatic analysis of TCGA, CPTAC, and GEO datasets, as well as immunohistochemistry in ovarian cancer patients, we explored the expression association between LSD1 and LC3B. Molecular mechanisms were further analyzed using Western blotting, immunoprecipitation, and GST pull-down assays. Our findings reveal that LSD1 binds to LC3B via its SWIRM domain, and high levels of LSD1 are closely associated with aggressive ovarian cancer and poor patient outcomes. Mechanistically, LSD1 demethylates LC3B, leading to decreased LC3B stability. The observed inverse correlation between LSD1 expression and LC3B protein levels in clinical samples underscores the need for further investigation to elucidate how reduced LC3B protein levels induced by LSD1 demethylation may contribute to ovarian cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species delimitation remains a challenge worldwide, especially in highly diverse tropical and subtropical regions. Here, we use an integrative approach that combines morphology, phylogenomics, and species distribution modeling (SDM) to clarify the cryptic differentiation within the enigmatic hemiparasitic love vine Cassytha filiformis (Lauraceae) in China and adjacent regions. We generated complete plastid genomes and nuclear ribosomal sequences for diverse samples from across the species range and compared results with previously published plastid data, recovering two well‐supported monophyletic clades. Further, the analysis revealed significant differences in two morphological characters and SDM, indicating distinct environmental factors influencing their distributions. Fossil‐calibrated analyses to estimate the origins and diversification patterns for the cryptic species gave divergence age estimates corresponding to the Oligo‐Miocene; a period of new ecological opportunities associated with the prevailing East Asian monsoon. Multivariate analyses support the conclusion that southern China and adjacent regions have a different, previously unknown, cryptic lineage of C. filiformis. Our study highlights the importance of using multivariate approach to characterize plant species, as well as the significant role that past climatic changes have played in driving speciation in parasitic plants in tropical and subtropical zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faculty of color are constantly experiencing trauma and racial inequities in inherently Eurocentric educational spaces where their histories, knowledge, and experiences are delegitimized and marginalized. Employing critical race feminism (CRF) and White racial identity development model, this article details ways in which two Chinese international women instructors grappled with tensions and trauma and celebrated (small) joys and successes within Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) in the United States. We drew on duoethnography, a dialogic methodological approach grounded in social justice, to make meaning of, (re)construct, and advance racial equity in pedagogy. We examined and analyzed four sources of data: our personal narratives, transcripts of eight Zoom meetings, reflection journals, and informal conversational exchanges. We identified three strategies for navigating dissonance and conflicts: 1) being vulnerable, 2) recognizing shared and differing marginalization or privileges, and 3) building allies intentionally and strategically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to screen 6 lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) in neonates using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), and establish cutoff values for these LSDs with 3000 dried blood spots (DBS) samples. Cutoff values for α-L-iduronidase (IDUA), α-galactosidase (GLA), acid beta glucosidase (ABG), β-galactocerebrosidase (GALC), acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), and acid alpha glucosidase (GAA) were as follows: GLA, > 2.06 μmol/L·h; ABG, > 1.78 μmol/L·h; ASM, > 0.99 μmol/L·h; IDUA, > 1.33 μmol/L·h; GALC, > 0.84 μmol/L·h; and GAA, > 2.06 μmol/L·h. There were 30 positives in initial MS/MS screening test, and 15 samples were still positive with repeat testing. Their parents/guardians were recontacted and DBS samples were collected again for test. Only 1 child showed abnormal GAA enzyme activity after recontacting process, and was diagnosed with Pompe disease after genetic screening. Eventually, cutoff values of 6 specific enzyme activities were established and MS/MS is effective for early LSDs screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A delayed diffusive predator-prey system with nonmonotonic functional response subject to Neumann boundary conditions is introduced in this paper. First, we analyze the associated characteristic equation to research the conditions for local stability of the positive equilibrium point and the occurrence of Turing instability induced by diffusion in the absence of delay. Second, we provide conditions for the existence of Hopf bifurcation driven by time delay. By utilizing the normal theory and center manifold theorem, we derive explicit formulas for Hopf bifurcation properties such as direction and stability from the positive equilibrium. Third, a hybrid controller is added to the system. By judiciously adjusting the control parameters, we effectively enhance the stability domain of the system, resulting in a modification of the position of the Hopf bifurcation periodic solutions. Numerical simulations demonstrate the presence of rich dynamical phenomena within the system. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was conducted using Latin hypercube sampling (LHS)/partial rank correlation coefficient (PRCC) to explore the impact of parameter variations on the output of prey and predator populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel La/O co‐doped SnS oxysulfide catalyst (labeled SnLaOS) with heterovalent tin states and sulfur vacancy defects is successfully synthesized for effective catalytic reduction of toxic organics heavy metal ions with NaBH4 in the dark. La/O co‐doped and hydrogen peroxide‐driven SnLaOS catalyst with suitable heterovalent Sn2+/Sn4+ states and sulfur vacancy defects exhibited excellent catalytic reduction capability. The 100 mL 20 ppm of 4‐nitrophenol (4‐NP) and 50 ppm of rhodamine‐B (RhB), methylene blue (MB), methyl orange (MO), and Cr(VI) solution are entirely reduced by 5 mg SnLaOS‐3 within 10, 12, 12, 16, and 14 min, respectively, with durable stability. Synergistic transition metal La3+‐cation and O2−‐anion co‐doped SnS adjusted the energy bandgap and introduced sulfur vacancy defects, and the hydrogen peroxide‐driven regulated the SnLaOS with suitable Sn4+/Sn2+ states ratio. The sulfur vacancies in SnLaOS provide active sites for adsorbed proton for pollutants reduction, and heterovalent Sn2+/Sn4+ states in SnLaOS facilitates electrons efficient transfer through electron hopping between Sn2+ and Sn4+ for pollutants reduction. This study provides a novel efficient catalyst for the water pollutants treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recurrences are frequent in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) despite high remission rates with treatment, leading to considerable morbidity. This study aimed to develop a prediction model for NPC survival by harnessing both pre- and post-treatment magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiomics in conjunction with clinical data, focusing on 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) as the primary outcome. Our comprehensive approach involved retrospective clinical and MRI data collection of 276 eligible NPC patients from three independent hospitals (180 in the training cohort, 46 in the validation cohort, and 50 in the external cohort) who underwent MRI scans twice, once within 2 months prior to treatment and once within 10 months after treatment. From the contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images before and after treatment, 3404 radiomics features were extracted. These features were not only derived from the primary lesion but also from the adjacent lymph nodes surrounding the tumor. We conducted appropriate feature selection pipelines, followed by Cox proportional hazards models for survival analysis. Model evaluation was performed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, the Kaplan–Meier method, and nomogram construction. Our study unveiled several crucial predictors of NPC survival, notably highlighting the synergistic combination of pre- and post-treatment data in both clinical and radiomics assessments. Our prediction model demonstrated robust performance, with an accuracy of AUCs of 0.66 (95% CI: 0.536–0.779) in the training cohort, 0.717 (95% CI: 0.536–0.883) in the testing cohort, and 0.827 (95% CI: 0.684–0.948) in validation cohort in prognosticating patient outcomes. Our study presented a novel and effective prediction model for NPC survival, leveraging both pre- and post-treatment clinical data in conjunction with MRI features. Its constructed nomogram provides potentially significant implications for NPC research, offering clinicians a valuable tool for individualized treatment planning and patient counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attribute to its powerful representation ability, block term decomposition (BTD) has recently attracted many views of multi-dimensional data processing, e.g., hyperspectral image unmixing and blind source separation. However, the popular alternating least squares algorithm for rank-(L, M, N) BTD (BTD-ALS) suffers expensive time and space costs from Kronecker products and solving low-rank approximation subproblems, hindering the deployment of BTD for real applications, especially for large-scale data. In this paper, we propose a fast sketching-based Kronecker product-free algorithm for rank-(L, M, N) BTD (termed as KPF-BTD), which is suitable for real-world multi-dimensional data. Specifically, we first decompose the original optimization problem into several rank-(L, M, N) approximation subproblems, and then we design the bilateral sketching to obtain the approximate solutions of these subproblems instead of the exact solutions, which allows us to avoid Kronecker products and rapidly solve rank-(L, M, N) approximation subproblems. As compared with BTD-ALS, the time and space complexities O (2 (p + 1) (I 3 L R + I 2 L 2 R + I L 3 R) + I 3 L R) and O (I 3) of KPF-BTD are significantly cheaper than O (I 3 L 6 R 2 + I 3 L 3 R + I 3 L R + I 2 L 3 R 2 + I 2 L 2 R) and O (I 3 L 3 R) of BTD-ALS, where p ≪ I . Moreover, we establish the theoretical error bound for KPF-BTD. Extensive synthetic and real experiments show KPF-BTD achieves substantial speedup and memory saving while maintaining accuracy (e.g., for a 150 × 150 × 150 synthetic tensor, the running time 0.2 seconds per iteration of KPF-BTD is significantly faster than 96.2 seconds per iteration of BTD-ALS while their accuracies are comparable). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the glass cliff phenomenon has primarily explored the impact of performance decline on women in leadership based on single objectives, overlooking the complexity of managing performance in the public sector. This study adopts a multigoal perspective to explore how performance feedback in a dual-goal scenario affects gender composition in top management teams (TMTs) in Chinese local governments. Drawing on behavioral theory, it differentiates between unambiguous and ambiguous feedback as two distinct types of organizational performance feedback, to test their influence on women's proportion in TMTs. A unique data set covering 276 Chinese municipal governments from 2010 to 2018 was used to investigate how performance feedback on two conflicting objectives, economic growth and environmental protection pursued by Chinese local governments, affects women's proportion in mayoral teams. Results from fractional logit regression suggest that unambiguous failure is positively associated with the proportion of women in TMTs. However, ambiguous performance feedback is negatively related to the proportion of women in TMTs. Implications for research on gender composition in the upper echelons and performance feedback on multiple objectives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to screen 6 lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) in neonates using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), and establish cutoff values for these LSDs with 3000 dried blood spots (DBS) samples. Cutoff values for α-L-iduronidase (IDUA), α-galactosidase (GLA), acid beta glucosidase (ABG), β-galactocerebrosidase (GALC), acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), and acid alpha glucosidase (GAA) were as follows: GLA, > 2.06 μmol/L·h; ABG, > 1.78 μmol/L·h; ASM, > 0.99 μmol/L·h; IDUA, > 1.33 μmol/L·h; GALC, > 0.84 μmol/L·h; and GAA, > 2.06 μmol/L·h. There were 30 positives in initial MS/MS screening test, and 15 samples were still positive with repeat testing. Their parents/guardians were recontacted and DBS samples were collected again for test. Only 1 child showed abnormal GAA enzyme activity after recontacting process, and was diagnosed with Pompe disease after genetic screening. Eventually, cutoff values of 6 specific enzyme activities were established and MS/MS is effective for early LSDs screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nano-plugging agents have become the key to efficiently extracting shale gas, which is a clean energy source. Poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) was synthesized by emulsion polymerization of 1-octene, styrene (St), and ethylene dimethacrylate (EGDMA). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, laser scattering, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), pressure transfer experiment, and artificial mud cake plugging experiments were used to characterize poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA). The results indicate that poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) has a particle size of 38.8 nm. After 16 h at 180 °C, the particle size is 49 nm. Based on thermogravimetric analysis, poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) can tolerate temperatures up to 394 °C, demonstrating excellent high-temperature stability. The rheology of the drilling fluid remains unaltered by poly-(St-(1-octene)-EGDMA). With the addition of 2% poly-(St-(1-octene)-EGDMA) water-based drilling fluid, the permeability decreased to 2.4 × 10–3 mD and the blocking rate increased to 50%. Simulations are performed with Ansys Fluent 19.2 to verify the experimental results. The potential plugging mechanism of poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) as a plugging agent was explored. Shale nanopores and nanofractures are invaded by poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) under pressure. Shale nanopores and nanofractures are plugged by poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA). In water-based drilling fluids, poly-(St-(1-Octene)-EGDMA) has a broad range of applications as a possible nano-plugging agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]