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Electrical triggering of a metal-insulator transition (MIT) often results in the formation of characteristic spatial patterns such as a metallic filament percolating through an insulating matrix or an insulating barrier splitting a conducting matrix. When MIT triggering is driven by electrothermal effects, the temperature of the filament or barrier can be substantially higher than the rest of the material. Using X-ray microdiffraction and dark-field X-ray microscopy, we show that electrothermal MIT triggering leads to the development of an inhomogeneous strain profile across the switching device, even when the material does not undergo a pronounced, discontinuous structural transition coinciding with the MIT. Diffraction measurements further reveal evidence of unique features associated with MIT triggering including lattice distortions, tilting, and twinning, which indicate structural nonuniformity of both low-and high-resistance regions inside the switching device. Such lattice deformations do not occur under equilibrium, zero-voltage conditions, highlighting the qualitative difference between states achieved through increasing temperature and applying voltage in nonlinear electrothermal materials. Electrically induced strain, lattice distortions, and twinning could have important contributions in the MIT triggering process and drive the material into nonequilibrium states, providing an unconventional pathway to explore the phase space in strongly correlated electronic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water-soluble nido-carborane was prepared by alkali treatment of o-carborane. A polymer PInd containing a polyindole structure was synthesized and employed to label the modified o-carborane. Subsequently, four polymeric nanomaterials were synthesized with the objective of encapsulating them in order to enhance its bioavailability. The experimental results showed that the fluorescent complex encapsulated by the pH-sensitive polymer A had the best UV absorption and fluorescence intensity, and thus A-PInd-C was chosen for subsequent experiments. The Transmission electron microscopy images revealed that the compounds exhibited a rounded internal morphology, with the layers exhibiting a tightly stacked arrangement. The AFM imaging revealed that the surface of the sample exhibited a relatively uniform and smooth appearance. In vitro release experiments conducted under acidic conditions demonstrated that A-PInd-C was released in a predominantly linear manner, with a maximum release rate of 80% observed within 48 h. Cellular imaging experiments showed that the compound could enter HeLa and HCT-116 cells and was mainly distributed around the nucleus, especially in the acidic environment. The results of the cell proliferation toxicity experiments demonstrated that A-PInd-C exhibited inhibitory effects on HeLa, PC-3 and L02 cells. Among these, the inhibitory effect on PC-3 cells was the most pronounced, reaching up to 70%. In conclusion, this paper solves the problem of poor bioavailability of carborane by improving the boron containing compounds and also makes the system have potential for Boron neutron capture therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Tetrandrine (Tet) is the main pharmacological component of Stephania tetrandra S. Moore, which is a well-documented traditional Chinese medicine known for its diuretic and antihypertensive properties. Unraveling the specific targets and mechanisms of Tet involved in inducing diuresis and mitigating hypertension can provide valuable insights into its therapeutic effects. This study aimed to explore the diuretic and antihypertensive targets and mechanisms of Tet using chemical biology coupled with activity analyses in vivo and in vitro. Methods: The diuretic effects of Tet were evaluated using a water-loaded mouse model. The direct target proteins for the diuretic and antihypertensive effects of Tet were determined using chemical biology. Furthermore, the molecular mechanism of Tet binding to target proteins was analyzed using a multidisciplinary approach based on the structure and function of the proteins. Finally, the effects of the Tet-targeted protein on downstream signaling pathways and blood pressure were evaluated in hypertensive model rats. Results: Tet exhibited significant antihypertensive and potassium-preserving diuretic effects. The mechanism underlying these effects involves the modulation of the enzyme activity by covalent binding of Tet to Cys423 of CYP11A1. This interaction alters the stability of heme within CYP11A1, subsequently impeding electron transfer and inhibiting aldosterone biosynthesis. Discussion: This study not only revealed the mechanism of the diuretic and antihypertensive effects of Tet but also discovered a novel covalent inhibitor of CYP11A1. These findings contribute significantly to our understanding of the therapeutic potential of Tet and provide a foundation for future research in the development of targeted treatments for hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The helium cryo-plant is an indispensable subsystem for the application of low temperature superconductors in large-scale scientific facilities. However, it is important to note that the cryo-plant requires stable operation and consumes a substantial amount of electrical power for its operation. Additionally, the construction of the cryo-plant incurs significant economic costs. To achieve the necessary cooling capacity while reducing power consumption and ensuring stability and economic feasibility, constrained multi-objective optimization is performed using the interior point method in this work. The Collins cycle, which uses liquid nitrogen precooling, is selected as the representative helium liquefaction cycle for optimization. The discharge pressure of the compressor, flow ratio of turbines, and effectiveness of heat exchangers are taken as decision parameters. Two objective parameters, cycle exergy efficiency, ηex,cycle, and liquefaction rate, ṁL, are chosen, and the wheel tip speed of turbines and UA of heat exchangers are selected as stability and economic cost constraints, respectively. The technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) is utilized to select the final optimal solution from the Pareto frontier of constrained multi-objective optimization. Compared to the constrained optimization of ηex,cycle, the TOPSIS result increases the ṁL by 23.674%, but there is an 8.162% reduction in ηex,cycle. Similarly, compared to the constrained optimization of ṁL, the TOPSIS result increases the ηex,cycle by 57.333%, but a 10.821% reduction in ṁL is observed. This approach enables the design of helium cryo-plants with considerations for cooling capacity, exergy efficiency, economic cost, and stability. Furthermore, the wheel tip speed and UA of heat exchangers of the solutions in the Pareto frontier are also studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underwater image super-resolution is vital for enhancing the clarity and detail of underwater imagery, enabling improved analysis, navigation, and exploration in underwater environments where visual quality is typically degraded due to factors like water turbidity and light attenuation. In this paper, we propose an effective hybrid dynamic Transformer (called HDT-Net) for underwater image super-resolution, leveraging a collaborative exploration of both local and global information aggregation to help image restoration. Firstly, we introduce a dynamic local self-attention to adaptively capture important spatial details in degraded underwater images by employing dynamic weighting. Secondly, considering that visual transformers tend to introduce irrelevant information when modeling the global context, thereby interfering with the reconstruction of high-resolution images, we design a sparse non-local self-attention to more accurately compute self-similarity by setting a top-k threshold. Finally, we integrate these two self-attention mechanisms into the hybrid dynamic transformer module, constituting the primary feature extraction unit of our proposed method. Quantitative and qualitative analyses on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves superior performance compared to previous CNN and Transformer models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar has demonstrated potential for stabilising high yields and sequestering carbon in dryland farmland, but it is unclear whether biochar affects the carbon sequestration capacity and carbon balance of annual farmland ecosystems. For this purpose, we conducted a plot control trial in salinised farmland in 2019-2021, where we set three treatments, control, and two biochar rates, 0 (CK), 15 (B15), and 30 t/ha (B30). The results showed that biochar application decreased soil organic carbon stocks in the early part of the experiment (first freeze and freeze period); these increased in the later part, and overall, the biochar treatments increased soil organic carbon storage by 3-6% compared with the control. Compared with the control (CK), biochar inhibited the total soil respiration rate and microbial respiration rate significantly (P < 0.05) during the crop growing period compared with the freeze-thaw period. After two years of freeze-thaw cycling, biochar application increased sunflower plant carbon sequestration and net primary productivity and suppressed total soil microbial respiration, thereby increasing net ecosystem productivity. Therefore, the application of biochar is conducive to carbon sequestration in farmland ecosystems and presents a carbon sink effect, thus being a good choice for improving the soil carbon pool and reducing emissions in the northern dry zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploration of high-performance mid- and far-infrared (IR) nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals is an urgent need. Herein, a new Hg-based selenide Hg7P2Se12 (HPSe) is designed and synthesized by a rigid and flexible units coupled strategy. It is interesting that in the compound, three types of NLO-active units, including linear [HgSe2], triangular [HgSe3], and tetrahedral (MSe4) (M= Hg/P) groups, simultaneously exist. It shows a wide transparency range (0.84-22.8 µm), large SHG response (1 x AGS), high laser-induced damage threshold (≈ 2 x AGS), and a large birefringence (0.102 @2090 nm). Moreover, the compound melts congruently along with good crystal growth habits, and single crystals with a maximum size of ≈ 7 x 5 x 2 mm³ are obtained. Theoretical analyses confirm that the large NLO response originates from the synergistic effects of Hg-Se units, (PSe4) and nonbonding electrons. The results indicate that HPSe is a promising mid- and far-IR NLO material, and inspire a path to finding new classes of IR NLO materials that are different from traditional chalcopyrite materials by grouping the linear, planar, and tetrahedral units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adverse weather conditions such as rain and haze often lead to a degradation in the quality of maritime images, which is crucial for activities like navigation, fishing, and search and rescue. Therefore, it is of great interest to develop an effective algorithm to recover high-quality maritime images under adverse weather conditions. This paper proposes a prompt-based learning method with degradation perception for maritime image restoration, which contains two key components: a restoration module and a prompting module. The former is employed for image restoration, whereas the latter encodes weather-related degradation-specific information to modulate the restoration module, enhancing the recovery process for improved results. Inspired by the recent trend of prompt learning in artificial intelligence, this paper adopts soft-prompt technology to generate learnable visual prompt parameters for better perceiving the degradation-conditioned cues. Extensive experimental results on several benchmarks show that our approach achieves superior restoration performance in maritime image dehazing and deraining tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estrogen receptor (ER) is a classical receptor protein that plays a crucial role in mediating multiple signaling pathways in various target organs. It has been shown that ER-targeting therapies inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation, enhance neuronal protection, and promote osteoclast formation. Several drugs have been designed to specifically target ER in ER-positive (ER+) breast cancer, including selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM) such as Tamoxifen. However, the emergence of drug resistance in ER+ breast cancer and the potential side effects on the endometrium which has high ER expression has posed significant challenges in clinical practice. Recently, novel ER-targeted drugs, namely, selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) and selective estrogen receptor covalent antagonist (SERCA) have shown promise in addressing these concerns. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the structural functions of ER and highlights recent advancements in SERD and SERCA-related small molecule drugs, especially focusing on their structural optimization strategies and future optimization directions. Additionally, the therapeutic potential and challenges of novel SERDs and SERCAs in breast cancer and other ER-related diseases have been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To investigate the distribution, drug resistance and risk factors of multi-drug resistant bacterias (MDROs) in patients with Type 2 diabetic foot ulcers (DFU). Method. The clinical data, foot secretions, pathogenic microorganisms and drug sensitivity tests of 147 patients with type 2 diabetes admitted to our department from January 2018 to December 2021 were analyzed. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether they had been infected with MDROs or not. Seventy-one cases were infected with MDROs as the case group, and the remaining 76 cases were the control group. Chi-square test and t-test were used to analyze the results of MDROs infection and DFU, and logistic multivariate regression was used to evaluate the risk factors of MDROs infection. Results. A total of 71 strains were isolated from the MDROs-positive group, with the top three being Staphylococcus aureus (46.48%), Escherichia coli (22.53%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (18.31%), respectively. Logistic multifactorial regression analysis showed that history of previous antimicrobial exposure, neuroischemic wound, Wagner grade 3-5, and combined osteomyelitis were associated with Type 2 diabetic foot infection MDROs (P <0:05). Conclusion. Previous history of antimicrobial exposure, neuroischemic wounds, Wagner grade 3-5, and combined osteomyelitis are independent risk factors for MDROs, which can identify the risk factors for MDROs at an early stage and help to identify people at high risk of MDROs infection and take relevant comprehensive treatment in time to slow down the development of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strict and high-standard requirements for the safety and stability of major engineering systems make it a tough challenge for large-scale finite element modal analysis. At the same time, realizing the systematic analysis of the entire large structure of these engineering systems is extremely meaningful in practice. This article proposes a multilevel hierarchical parallel algorithm for large-scale finite element modal analysis to reduce the parallel computational efficiency loss when using heterogeneous multicore distributed storage computers in solving large-scale finite element modal analysis. Based on two-level partitioning and four-transformation strategies, the proposed algorithm not only improves the memory access rate through the sparsely distributed storage of a large amount of data but also reduces the solution time by reducing the scale of the generalized characteristic equation (GCEs). Moreover, a multilevel hierarchical parallelization approach is introduced during the computational procedure to enable the separation of the communication of inter-nodes, intra-nodes, heterogeneous core groups (HCGs), and inside HCGs through mapping computing tasks to various hardware layers. This method can efficiently achieve load balancing at different layers and significantly improve the communication rate through hierarchical communication. Therefore, it can enhance the efficiency of parallel computing of large-scale finite element modal analysis by fully exploiting the architecture characteristics of heterogeneous multicore clusters. Finally, typical numerical experiments were used to validate the correctness and efficiency of the proposed method. Then a parallel modal analysis example of the cross-river tunnel with over ten million degrees of freedom (DOFs) was performed, and ten-thousand core processors were applied to verify the feasibility of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To investigate the indicators affecting the early outcome of patients with sepsis and to explore its prognostic efficacy for sepsis. Methods: We collected clinical data from 201 patients with sepsis admitted to the emergency department of Xijing Hospital between June 2019 and June 2022. The patients were categorized into groups (survival or fatality) based on their 28-day prognosis. The clinical characteristics, biochemical indexes, organ function-related indicators, and disease scores of the patients were analyzed for both groups. Risk factor analysis was conducted for the indicators with significant differences. Results: Among the indicators with significant differences between the deceased and survival groups, D-dimer (D-DI), Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, platelet (PLT), international normalized ratio (INR), and D-DI/PLT were identified as independent risk factors affecting the prognosis of sepsis patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed that D-DI/PLT (area under the curve (AUC) = 93.9), D-DI (AUC = 89.6), PLT (AUC = 81.3), and SOFA (AUC = 78.4) had good judgment efficacy. Further, Kaplan Meier (K-M) survival analysis indicated that the 28-day survival rates of sepsis patients were significantly decreased when they had high levels of D-DI/PLT, D-DI, and SOFA as well as low PLTs. The hazard ratio (HR) of D-DI/PLT between the two groups was the largest (HR = 16.19). Conclusions: D-DI/PLT may be an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in sepsis as well as a clinical predictor of patient prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With advancements in medical technology and the growth of an aging society, the number of immunocompromised patients has increased progressively. Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is one of the most common opportunistic pathogens, causing a severe disease burden. We aimed to further clarify the differences in respiratory tract K. pneumoniae infections between immunocompromised and immunocompetent populations. Methods: We retrospectively compared cases of respiratory tract K. pneumoniae infection in immunocompromised and immunocompetent patients admitted to Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai between January 2019 and August 2020 to clarify the differences between the two groups. Results: We enrolled 400 immunocompromised patients and 386 immunocompetent patients. Compared to the immunocompetent group, immunocompromised patients were more likely to develop bacteremia and shock and to require mechanical ventilation support during hospitalization. Immunocompromised patients also had a greater probability of polymicrobial infection and a higher rate of antibacterial resistance to carbapenem, which resulted in a higher intensive care unit admission rate, 30-day case fatality rate (CFR), and 6-month CFR. Multivariate analysis indicated that immunocompromised patients with respiratory diseases (odds ratio [OR], 2.189; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.103-4.344; P = 0.025) and cardiovascular diseases (OR, 2.008; 95% CI, 1.055-3.822; P = 0.034), usingmechanical ventilation (OR, 3.982; 95% CI, 2.053-7.722; P = 0.000), or infected withmultidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae (OR, 3.870; 95%, 1.577-9.498; P = 0.003) were more likely to have a higher 30-day CFR. Conclusion: The disease burden of K. pneumoniae infection in immunocompromised patients is high. Immunocompromised patients who presented with respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases, used mechanical ventilation, or were infected with multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae experienced a higher 30-day mortality rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneous multicore clusters are becoming more popular for high-performance computing due to their great computing power and cost-to-performance effectiveness nowadays. Nevertheless, parallel efficiency degradation is still a problem in large-scale structural analysis based on heterogeneousmulticore clusters. To solve it, a hybrid hierarchical parallel algorithm (HHPA) is proposed on the basis of the conventional domain decomposition algorithm (CDDA) and the parallel sparse solver. In this new algorithm, a three-layer parallelization of the computational procedure is introduced to enable the separation of the communication of inter-nodes, heterogeneous-core-groups (HCGs) and inside-heterogeneous-core-groups through mapping computing tasks to various hardware layers. This approach can not only achieve load balancing at different layers efficiently but can also improve the communication rate significantly through hierarchical communication. Additionally, the proposed hybrid parallel approach in this article can reduce the interface equation size and further reduce the solution time, which can make up for the shortcoming of growing communication overheads with the increase of interface equation size when employing CDDA.Moreover, the distributed sparse storage of a large amount of data is introduced to improve memory access. By solving benchmark instances on the Shenwei-Taihuzhiguang supercomputer, the results show that the proposed method can obtain higher speedup and parallel efficiency compared with CDDA and more superior extensibility of parallel partition compared with the two-level parallel computing algorithm (TPCA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative experiments were conducted on five conventional indica rice varieties, including Yongxian 15, Zhongzao 39, Shunda 135, Zhong-zu 143, and Zhongzu 18. Under direct seeding conditions, their growth period and yield performance were investigated. The results showed that the yield of Zhonggang 143 and Shunda 135 was higher than that of Yongxian 15 (CK), and Zhonggang 143 had the highest yield of 7.494 t/hm", followed by Shunda 135 (7.467 t/hm2); Yongxian 18 (CK) has a yield of 7. 326 t/hm2. Taking into account factors such as field growth, yield, and growth period, Zhongzu 143 and Shunda 135 can be further promoted to optimize the early rice variety structure in Jiangbei District. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imbalance between neuronal excitation and inhibition (E/I) in neural circuit has been considered to be at the root of numerous brain disorders. We recently reported a novel feedback crosstalk between the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate and inhibitory ?-aminobutyric acid type A receptor (GABAAR)-glutamate allosteric potentiation of GABAAR functions through a direct binding of glutamate to the GABAAR itself. Here, we investigated the physiological significance and pathological implications of this cross-talk by generating the ß3E182G knock-in (KI) mice. We found that ß3E182G KI, while had little effect on basal GABAAR-mediated synaptic transmission, significantly reduced glutamate potentiation of GABAAR-mediated responses. These KImice displayed lower thresholds for noxious stimuli, higher susceptibility to seizures and enhanced hippocampus-related learning and memory. Additionally, the KI mice exhibited impaired social interactions and decreased anxiety-like behaviors. Importantly, hippocampal overexpression of wild-type β³-containing GABAARs was sufficient to rescue the deficits of glutamate potentiation of GABAARmediated responses, hippocampus-related behavioral abnormalities of increased epileptic susceptibility, and impaired social interactions. Our data indicate that the novel crosstalk among excitatory glutamate and inhibitory GABAAR functions as a homeostatic mechanism in fine-tuning neuronal E/I balance, thereby playing an essential role in ensuring normal brain functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a serious life threatening clinical critical illness. ARDS-related pulmonary fibrosis is a common complication of ARDS. The occurrence of early pulmonary fibrosis indicates a higher incidence and mortality of multiple organ failure. LPS-induced ARDS-related pulmonary fibrosis model in mice was established in this study. And we have explored the anti-pulmonary fibrosis effects and molecular mechanisms of the Citrus Alkaline Extracts (CAE) in vivo and in vitro. Methods: Pulmonary fibrosis mouse model and lung epithelial cell injury model were established in this study. H&E, Masson and Sirius Red staining were used to estimate lung tissue damage. Immunohistochemistry and western blotting were used to analyze proteins expression. Protein-protein interaction was observed by Co-Immunoprecipitation. Systemic impact of CAE on signaling pathway was examined by RNA-seq. Results: Through H&E, Masson and Sirius Red staining, it was convincingly indicated that therapeutic administration of CAE alleviated lung injury and fibrosis, while pretreated administration of CAE showed weak improvement. In vitro experiments showed that CAE had dual regulation to E-cadherin and N-cadherin, the important indicators of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). And it was further demonstrated that CAE reversed TGF-β1-induced EMT mainly through Wnt/β-catenin, Stat3/6 and COX2/PGE2 signals. Through RNA-Seq, we discovered important mechanisms by which CAE exerts its therapeutic effect. And network pharmacology analysis demonstrated core potential targets of CAE in EMT. Conclusion: Thus, this study provides new therapeutic effects of CAE in anti-fibrosis, and offers potential mechanisms for CAE in LPS-induced pulmonary fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance is closely related to sustainable energy development. Using the NVivo12plus software, a governance model of China's green finance policy was constructed using 22 green finance policy texts at the central level as research objects. Furthermore, based on the csQCA method, Tosmana software was used to develop and verify a theoretical model of 19 policy text cases. The research results demonstrate that policy belief, policy objectives, policy tools, policy feedback, and policy cycle are the main components of China's green finance policy governance. Furthermore, policy instruments are the fundamental factors affecting the governance effectiveness of China's green finance policy. Policy goals and policy feedback dominate the influence pattern of green finance policy in China. There are three modes driving the influence of green finance policies: regulation-oriented, collaborative-driven, and tool-guided. Finally, for the optimization and improvement of green finance policies, three forces must be improved: stimulus force, driving force, and promotion force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-label facial expression recognition (FER), which aims to classify single expression for facial images, usually suffers from the label noisy and incomplete problem, where manual annotations for partial training images exist wrong or incomplete labels, resulting in performance decline. Although prior work has attempted to leverage external sources or manual annotations to handle this problem, it usually requires extra costs. This article explores a simple yet effective three-phase paradigm (“warm-up,” “selection,” and “relabeling”) for FER task. First, the warm-up phase attempts to build an initial recognition network based on noisy samples for discriminative feature extractions and facial expression predictions. Then, the second selection phase defines several rules to choose high confident samples according to prediction scores, and the third relabeling phase assigns two potential labels to those samples for network updating according to a composite two-label loss. Compared with the previous studies, the three-phase learning could effectively correct noisy labels in the ground truth without extra information and automatically assign two potential labels to single-label samples without manual annotations. As a result, the label information is purified and supplemented with few cost, yielding significant performance improvement. Extensive experiments are conducted on three datasets, and the experimental results demonstrate that our approach is robust to noisy training samples and outperforms several state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilization of female livestock can be optimized by application of Fixed-Time Artificial Insemination (FTAI), which plays an important role in large-scale livestock production. However, molecular mechanism of FTAI affecting reproductive performance remains unclear. To investigate the effects of FTAI on corpus luteum in 16 and 25 days of pregnancy gilts, 12 pregnancy gilts were selected from Altrenogest + PMSG + GnRH (APG) group and control group. The number of left and right CL in APG group were significantly higher than control (p < 0.05). Furthermore, result showed the number of differentially expressed genes between 16APG group and 16 C group was obviously larger than that between 25APG and 25 C group (2394 vs. 1476). Up regulated genes in APG were mainly associated with cytokine production and secretion, cell communication and transport (day 16) and angiogenesis, cell cycle and cell-cell signaling (day 25). The expression of differentially expressed genes (RPL10, CYP17A1, DCN, IL18, LDLR and PRLR) in luteal tissue were verified by real-time PCR. In summary, APG program significantly improve reproductive efficiency of gilts through up regulation of cytokine production/secretion, cell communication and transport in Day 16 pregnancy and angiogenesis, cell cycle and cell-cell signaling at Day 25 pregnancy in porcine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Repeated hepatic arterial delivery of therapeutic agents to the liver by percutaneously implanted port-catheter systems has been widely used to treat unresectable liver cancer. This approach is applied to assess the therapeutic efficacy of repeated low-density lipoprotein-docosahexaenoic acid (LDL-DHA) nanoparticle treatments in a rat model of hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: N1S1 hepatoma bearing rats underwent placement of a percutaneously implanted hepatic artery port-catheter system and were allocated to untreated, control LDL-triolein (LDL-TO) or LDL-DHA nanoparticle infusions groups. Treatments were performed every three days over a nine day study period. MRI was performed at baseline and throughout the study. At the end of the study tissue samples were collected for analyses. Results and Discussion: Implantation of the port catheters was successful in all rats. MRI showed that repeated infusions of LDL-DHA nanoparticles significantly impaired the growth of the rat hepatomas eventually leading to tumor regression. The tumors in the LDL-TO treated group showed delayed growth, while the untreated tumors grew steadily throughout the study. Histopathology and MRI support these findings demonstrating extensive tumor necrosis in LDL-DHA treated groups while the control groups displayed minor necrosis. Molecular and biochemical analyses also revealed that LDL-DHA treated tumors had increased levels of nuclear factor-kappa B and lipid peroxidation and depletion of glutathione peroxidase 4 relative to the control groups. Evidence of both ferroptosis and apoptosis tumor cell death was observed following LDL-DHA treatments. In conclusion repeated transarterial infusions of LDL-DHA nanoparticles provides sustained repression of tumor growth in a rat hepatoma model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iron accumulation is an independent risk factor for postmenopausal osteoporosis, but mechanistic studies of this phenomenon are still focusing on molecular and genetic researches in model animal. Osteoporosis with iron accumulation is a distinct endocrine disease with complicated pathogenesis regulated by several proteins. However, the comprehensive proteome-wide analysis of human bone is lacking. Using multiplex quantitative tandem mass tag-based proteomics, we detected 2900 and quantified 1150 proteins from bone of 10 postmenopausal patients undergoing hip replacement. Comparing with non-osteoporosis patients, a total of 75 differentially expressed proteins were identified, comprising 53 downregulated proteins and 22 upregulated proteins. These proteins primarily affect oxidoreductase activity, GTPase activity, GTP binding, and neural nucleus development, were mainly enriched in neural, angiogenesis and energy-related pathways, and formed complex regulatory networks with strong interconnections. We ultimately identified 4 core proteins (GSTP1, LAMP2, COPB1, RAB5B) that were significantly differentially expressed in the bone of osteoporosis patients with iron accumulation, and validated the changed protein level in the serum of the medical examination population. Our systemic analysis uncovers molecular insights for revealing underlying mechanism and clinical therapeutics in osteoporosis with iron accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The objective of this study was to determine the value of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in assessing postoperative changes in intracranial gliomas. Method. A total of fifty-one patients who had new enhanced lesions after surgical resection followed by standard radiotherapy and chemotherapy were collected retrospectively from October 2014 to June 2021. The patients were divided into a pseudoprogression group (15 cases) and a recurrence group (36 cases) according to the pathological results of the second operation or a follow-up of more than six months. The follow-up data of all patients were complete, and DCE-MRI was performed. The images were processed to obtain the quantitative parameters Ktrans, Ve, and Kep and the semiquantitative parameter iAUC, which were analysed with relevant statistical software. Results. First, the difference in Ktrans and iAUC values between the two groups was statistically significant (P < 0.05), and the difference in Ve and Kep values was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Second, by comparing the area under the curve, threshold, sensitivity and specificity of Ktrans, and iAUC, it was found that the iAUC threshold value was slightly higher than that of Ktrans, and the specificity of Ktrans was equal to that of iAUC, while the area under the curve and sensitivity of Ktrans were higher than those of iAUC. Third, Ktrans and iAUC had high accuracy in diagnosing recurrence and pseudoprogression, and Ktrans had higher accuracy than iAUC. Conclusion. In this study, DCE-MRI has a certain diagnostic value in the early differentiation of recurrence and pseudoprogression, offering a new method for the diagnosis and assessment of gliomas after surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is currently the standard of care in clinically node negative (cN0) breast cancer. The present study aimed to evaluate the negative predictive value (NPV) of 18F-FDG dedicated lymph node positron emission tomography (LymphPET) in cN0 patients. Methods: This was a prospective phase II trial divided into 2 stages (NCT04072653). In the first stage, cN0 patients underwent axillary LymphPET followed by SLNB. In the second stage, SLNB was omitted in patients with a negative preoperative axillary assessment after integration of LymphPET. Here, we report the results of the first stage. The primary outcome was the NPV of LymphPET to detect macrometastasis of lymph nodes (LN-macro). Results: A total of 189 patients with invasive breast cancer underwent LymphPET followed by surgery with definitive pathological reports. Forty patients had LN-macro, and 16 patients had only lymph node micrometastasis. Of the 131 patients with a negative LymphPET result, 16 patients had LN-macro, and the NPV was 87.8%. After combined axillary imaging evaluation with ultrasound and LymphPET, 100 patients were found to be both LymphPET and ultrasound negative, 9 patients had LN-macro, and the NPV was 91%. Conclusions: LymphPET can be used to screen patients to potentially avoid SLNB, with an NPV > 90%. The second stage of the SOAPET trial is ongoing to confirm the safety of omission of SLNB according to preoperational axillary evaluation integrating LymphPET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the effect of copper content in a copper-doped hydroxyapatite coating (CuHAp) on its antibacterial activity and biocompatibility, a layer of CuHAp was deposited on the surface of pure Ti using an electrochemical deposition method. An orthogonal experiment was used to determine the Cu content in the coating by varying the concentration of Cu2+ in the electrolyte. The antibacterial properties and biocompatibility of the CuHAp coatings were also evaluated. The antibacterial effect increased with increasing Cu content in the sample. When the content of Cu in the coating was 1.57%, the deposited CuHAp coating exhibited excellent biocompatibility, and the number of living cells after culturing was significantly higher than that for the HAp coating. When the content of Cu increased to 6.85%, the coating exhibited cytotoxicity. Thus, the CuHAp sample with a Cu content of 1.57% exhibited good antibacterial and biocompatibility, and thus could be a suitable material for use in biomedical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchanges of products and services in bilateral industries may be accompanied by environmental and economic inequalities which lead to imbalanced situations in relation to environmental protection and economic development. In a close trade relationship between two countries such as Australia and China, their industries inevitably affect each other. This study maps the embodied CO2 emissions and value added in bilateral trade under the input--output model and measures the unequal exchanges in such trade using an originally established industrial environ-economic balance index. The bilateral trade between Australia and China is taken as an example to validate the outcomes of the research method. The results indicate that in 2014, Australia transferred 580.90 billion tons of CO2 and 105.85 billion USD of value added to China, while approximately 375.65 billion tons of CO2 and 25.15 billion USD of value added flowed from China to Australia. China's manufacturing, construction, and services and other industries, and China's and Australia's real estate activities industries had net inflows of embodied CO2 emissions and value added, indicating these industries paid economic costs in return for reducing environmental pressure. In inter-industrial trade between Australia and China, 49 pairs of bilateral industrial trades were relatively fairly balanced, while the remaining 15 pairs of inter-industrial trades were imbalanced. The established environ-economic balance analysis method and quantitative findings are valuable for better understanding the environment impacts of the economic development of national economies and developing national policies in corresponding to the rising environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of various neoadjuvant regimens for patients diagnosed with early-stage or locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Methods: Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched in May 2020 to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) was performed (Registration: PROSPERO CRD42020223012). Results: A total of 35 RCTs involving 8,424 participants were reviewed, of which 22 RCTs with 5,203 patients were included in this NMA focusing on pathologic complete response (pCR). An anthracycline-taxane-based (AT) regimen combined with a platinum (ATPt) [odds ratio (OR) = 2.04, 95% credible interval (CrI): 1.69, 2.48] regimen, and a docetaxel regimen combined with a carboplatin (TCb; OR = 2.16, 95% CrI: 1.20, 3.91) regimen improved pCR beyond that with AT only. AT and ATPt combined with targeted therapy [including bevacizumab (Bev), veliparib, atezolizumab, or pembrolizumab] also improved pCR. Five RCTs included in this NMA reported serious adverse events (SAEs) or grade ≥ 3 AEs. TCb was associated with fewer grade ≥ 3 AEs than was AT (OR = 0.66, 95% CrI: 0.23, 1.72) alone. In contrast, ATPt, AT + Bev, ATPt + Bev, ATPt + veliparib, and ATPt + pembrolizumab were associated with more SAEs than was AT alone. Conclusions: In patients with TNBC, platinum-based neoadjuvant regimens ATPt and TCb increase pCR beyond that with AT alone, but TCb appears to be better tolerated than either AT or ATPt. Platinum-based regimens combined with targeted therapies (Bev, PARPi, and PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor) also improve the pCR rate beyond that with AT alone, but this benefit is accompanied by greater toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Elucidate the core clinical and genetic characteristics and identify the phenotypic variation between different regions and genotypes of fatal familial insomnia (FFI).Methods: A worldwide large sample of FFI patients from our case series and literature review diagnosed by genetic testing were collected. The prevalence of clinical symptoms and genetic profile were obtained, and then the phenotypic comparison between Asians versus non-Asians and 129Met/Met versus 129Met/Val were conducted.Results: In total, 131 cases were identified. The age of onset was 47.51±12.53 (range 17-76) years, 106 patients died and disease duration was 13.20±9.04 (range 2-48) months. Insomnia (87.0%) and rapidly progressive dementia (RPD; 83.2%) occurred with the highest frequency. Hypertension (33.6%) was considered to be an objective indicator of autonomic dysfunction. Genotype frequency at codon 129 was Met/Met (84.7%) and Met/Val (15.3%), and allele frequency was Met (92.4%) and Val (7.6%).129 Met was a risk factor (OR: 3.728, 95% CI: 2.194 to 6.333, p=0.000) for FFI in the non-Asian population. Comparison of Asians and non-Asians revealed clinical symptoms and genetic background to show some differences (p<0.05). In the comparison of 129 polymorphisms, a longer disease duration was found in the 129 MV group, with alleviation of some clinical symptoms (p<0.05). After considering survival probability, significant differences in survival time between genotypes remained (p<0.0001).Conclusions: Insomnia, RPD and hypertension are representative key clinical presentations of FFI. Phenotypic variations in genotypes and geographic regions were documented. Prion protein gene 129 Met was considered to be a risk factor for FFI in the non-Asian population, and 129 polymorphisms could modify survival duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In educational measurement, exploring the method of generating multiple high-quality parallel tests has become a research hotspot. One purpose of this research is to construct parallel forms item by item according to a seed test, using two proposed item selection heuristic methods [minimum parameters–information–distance method (MPID) and minimum information–parameters–distance method (MIPD)]. Moreover, previous research addressing test assembly issues has been limited mainly to situations in which the information curve of the item pool or seed test has a normal or skewed distribution. However, in practice, the distributions of information curves for tests are diverse. These include multimodal distributions, the most common type of which is the bimodal distribution. Therefore, another main aim of this article is to extend the information curves of unimodal distributions to bimodal distributions. Thus, this study adopts simulation research to compare the results of two item, response, theory (IRT)-based item matching methods (MPID and MIPD) using different information curve distributions for item pools or seed tests. The results show that the MPID and MIPD methods yield rather good performance in terms of both two statistical targets when the information curve has a unimodal distribution, and two new methods yield better performance than two existing methods in terms of test information functions target when the information curve has a bimodal distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market sentiment has become more easily spread between cities through social media. This study investigates the spatial effect of market sentiment on housing price in a social media environment. In order to extract home-buyer sentiment from social media, we use text sentiment analysis techniques and build a novel housing market sentiment index. A spatial econometric model of housing price volatility is subsequently constructed and the housing market sentiment index is included as an independent variable in the model. Using panel data from 30 large and medium-sized cities in China for 20 quarters from 2016 to 2020, the spatial effect of market sentiment on housing price is empirically analyzed by calculating direct and indirect effects. The results show that market sentiment had a significant positive effect on housing prices in the local and neighboring cities over the research period. However, the impact of market sentiment on housing price was heterogeneous in terms of geographical region; the direct effect was stronger in the eastern region than in the central and western regions, and the indirect effect was significant only in the eastern region. These findings can provide references for government to formulate housing market regulation policies and measures based on market sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cu-doped amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) coatings were fabricated on the surface of pure titanium (Ti) by electrochemical deposition at initial electrolyte temperatures of 35, 45, and 55°C. The antibacterial activities of the coatings were then evaluated by the plate counting method using Escherichia coli as the indicator. The Cu concentrations on the surfaces of samples are increased from 6.90 to 15.05 mass% as initial electrolyte temperature is increased from 35 to 55°C. The Cu-doped ACP coatings show that they can fully inhibit the growth of E. coli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unravelling three-dimensional structures and dynamical fluctuation of metal nanoclusters is critical to understanding reaction process and the origin of catalytic activity in many heterogeneous catalytic systems. We obtain three-dimensional structures of ultra-small Au clusters by combining aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, density functional theory calculations, and imaging simulations. The configurations of unique Au clusters are revealed at the atomic scale and the corresponding electronic states are given. The sequential observations reveal a transition of ultra-small Au clusters with about 25 atoms from a near-square to an elongated structure. We also find a transition from two dimensions to three dimensions for the Au clusters. The obtained three-dimensional geometry and associated electronic states help to clarify atomistic mechanism of shape- and number-dependent catalytic activities of Au clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Type specimens are valuable resources for investigating and exploring biodiversity on Earth, which has high academic and conservation value. Hemipteran insects are one of the most important and diverse groups in Insecta and their type specimens have important reference value for many research fields. So far, the data on the type specimens of the Hemiptera in China have not been fully collated. New information: Through extensive literature review, we have constructed a dataset of type specimens for the new species of hemipteran insects in China published from 1950 to 2017, which includes the data such as collection date, specimen gender, preservation institution and geographical distribution. A total of 6,583 type specimen records were collected, covering 3,783 new species belonging to 1,299 genera and 88 families. This dataset can support the international community in conducting research on taxonomy, biodiversity, evolution and pest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]