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Background Sepsis-induced acute kidney injury (S-AKI) is a common complication in critically ill patients. Therefore, reliable biomarkers for predicting S-AKI outcomes are necessary. Serum cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is a circulating extracellular DNA fragment used as a noninvasive screening tool for many diseases, including sepsis. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of cfDNA in S-AKI patients and its relationship with some other parameters.Methods A total of 89 S-AKI patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) from June 2021 to December 2021 were enrolled in this study. The patients were categorized into the low cfDNA group (< 855 ng/ml) and high cfDNA group (≥ 855 ng/ml) and were followed up for three months. CfDNA was extracted from serum and quantified using Quant-iT PicoGreen dsDNA Reagent.Results Overall survival was significantly lower in the high cfDNA group than in the low cfDNA group (Log-Rank p = 0.012). Univariate Cox proportional hazard model showed that cfDNA was significantly associated with all-cause mortality (HR [hazard ratio] 2.505, 95% CI [95% confidence interval] 1.184–5.298, p = 0.016). Also, serum cfDNA was a significant risk factor for all-cause mortality after adjusting for covariates (HR 2.191, 95% CI 1.017–4.721, p = 0.045). Moreover, cfDNA was positively correlated with several baseline parameters, including serum creatine, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, prothrombin time, and International Normalized Ratio.Conclusion High serum cfDNA level is associated with higher mortality among the S-AKI population, indicating that cfDNA is a valuable biomarker for S-AKI prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines the Nash–Cournot competition model and the stochastic optimization model to examine the impact of electric vehicle (EV) quantity fluctuations on microgrid operations, aiming to optimize energy usage in a competitive electricity market. Integrating distributed energy resources and bidirectional charging, microgrids offer a novel approach for energy optimization, aiding in renewable energy generation, peak demand management, and emission reduction. Empirical evidence highlights benefits in Taiwan's electricity market and net-zero emissions target by 2050, with a case study demonstrating enhanced local renewable energy generation due to EVs and microgrid integration. As the number of EVs increases, electricity sales from microgrids decline, but electricity purchases remain stable. The degree of electricity liberalization also influences the supply and demand dynamics of the electricity market. Microgrids selling electricity only to the main grid increases total power consumption by 65.55 million MWh, reducing the market share of the state-owned utility (Taipower). Conversely, allowing retailers to purchase from microgrids increases total consumption by 30.87 million MWh with a slight market share decrease for Taipower. This study contributes to providing an adaptable and flexible general model for future studies to modify and expand based on different scenarios and variables to shape energy and environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The multidimensional biological mechanisms underpinning acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) continue to be elucidated, and early biomarkers for predicting ARDS prognosis are yet to be identified. Methods: We conducted a multicenter observational study, profiling the 4D-DIA proteomics and global metabolomics of serum samples collected from patients at the initial stage of ARDS, alongside samples from both disease control and healthy control groups. We identified 28-day prognosis biomarkers of ARDS in the discovery cohort using the LASSO method, fold change analysis, and the Boruta algorithm. The candidate biomarkers were validated through parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) targeted mass spectrometry in an external validation cohort. Machine learning models were applied to explore the biomarkers of ARDS prognosis. Results: In the discovery cohort, comprising 130 adult ARDS patients (mean age 72.5, 74.6% male), 33 disease controls, and 33 healthy controls, distinct proteomic and metabolic signatures were identified to differentiate ARDS from both control groups. Pathway analysis highlighted the upregulated sphingolipid signaling pathway as a key contributor to the pathological mechanisms underlying ARDS. MAP2K1 emerged as the hub protein, facilitating interactions with various biological functions within this pathway. Additionally, the metabolite sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) was closely associated with ARDS and its prognosis. Our research further highlights essential pathways contributing to the deceased ARDS, such as the downregulation of hematopoietic cell lineage and calcium signaling pathways, contrasted with the upregulation of the unfolded protein response and glycolysis. In particular, GAPDH and ENO1, critical enzymes in glycolysis, showed the highest interaction degree in the protein–protein interaction network of ARDS. In the discovery cohort, a panel of 36 proteins was identified as candidate biomarkers, with 8 proteins (VCAM1, LDHB, MSN, FLG2, TAGLN2, LMNA, MBL2, and LBP) demonstrating significant consistency in an independent validation cohort of 183 patients (mean age 72.6 years, 73.2% male), confirmed by PRM assay. The protein-based model exhibited superior predictive accuracy compared to the clinical model in both the discovery cohort (AUC: 0.893 vs. 0.784; Delong test, P < 0.001) and the validation cohort (AUC: 0.802 vs. 0.738; Delong test, P = 0.008). Interpretation: Our multi-omics study demonstrated the potential biological mechanism and therapy targets in ARDS. This study unveiled several novel predictive biomarkers and established a validated prediction model for the poor prognosis of ARDS, offering valuable insights into the prognosis of individuals with ARDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Martin's taxonomy (2003), affiliative and aggressive humor are the two humor styles with an interpersonal focus. Many studies have demonstrated the mental health benefits of affiliative humor, whereas less consensus has been reached on aggressive humor. Focusing on the question "when and why aggressive humor would be related to mental health", the current study proposed that the association of aggressive humor and mental health could be mediated by gratitude and moderated by affiliative humor. The proposals were tested in a large multi-university student sample (N = 4775, Mage = 20.37) in China, showing that trait gratitude mediated the negative relationship between aggressive humor and subjective happiness and the positive relationship between aggressive humor and depression. More importantly, this effect was less substantial for those who endorse a greater (vs. lesser) affiliative humor style. Implications of gratitude as a potential mechanism in explaining the mental health correlates of aggressive humor and the interplay of interpersonal humor styles are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The repair construction of bridge decks typically involves the method of half-width traffic and half-width construction, where traffic vibrations (TV) can disrupt newly laid cementitious materials on the bridge deck. Engineered cementitious composites (ECC), owing to their high ductility, are widely applied in the repair of bridge deck surfaces. While there have been studies on the fundamental performance of ECC in road surface repair projects, the impact of TV on ECC's tensile properties (TP) and pore structure (PS) remains unclear, and the mechanisms through which TV affects ECC are not well defined. To analyze the effects of TV on ECC's TP and PS, a custom-built vibration platform was utilized to simulate bridge deck TV. Experimental investigations were conducted on ECC specimens using uniaxial tensile (UT) tests and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). Results indicate a significant impact of TV on the TP of freshly mixed ECC, particularly during the initial setting (IS) to final setting (FS) stages. TV-induced structural damage, resulting in identifiable cracking, increased porosity and reduced uniaxial tensile strength (UTS) by approximately 2–23%. However, TV did not substantially affect ECC strain hardening and ultra-high toughness; the tensile strain remained above 3% under different vibration parameters. Applying pulses before the IS improved the PS of ECC to some extent and enhanced UTS. Post-FS, ECC exhibited enhanced resistance to external disturbances, with minimal impact from TV. A strong correlation was observed between UTS and PS characteristics, indicating that the evolution of PS reflects the UTS of ECC. Utilizing the gray relational theory, this study investigated the influence of different vehicular vibration conditions on ECC's tensile performance and pore structure. The findings reveal a significant impact of age at which the specimens were vibrated (AV) and vibration frequencies (VF) on ECC's pore structure and tensile performance. Furthermore, gray target theory was applied to rank the effects of different TV conditions on ECC performance, revealing minimal impact post-FS. The ECC specimen subjected to vibrations at 4 Hz frequency, initiated after 36 h, and sustained for 5 h exhibited the optimal comprehensive performance. This research contributes to the design and application of ECC in practical construction scenarios, mitigating material damage during construction processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ovarian neuroendocrine carcinoma (O-NEC) is a relatively uncommon neoplasm, and the current knowledge regarding its diagnosis and management is limited. In this series, our objective was to provide an overview of the clinicopathological characteristics of the disease by analyzing clinical case data to establish a theoretical foundation for the diagnosis and management of O-NEC. Case presentation: We included three patients in the present case series, all of whom were diagnosed with primary O-NEC based on pathomorphological observation and immunohistochemistry. Patient 1 was a 62-year-old patient diagnosed with small cell carcinoma (SCC) of the pulmonary type. Post-surgery, the patient was diagnosed with stage II SCC of the ovary and underwent standardized chemotherapy; however, imaging examinations conducted at the 16-month follow-up revealed the existence of lymph node metastasis. Unfortunately, she passed away 21 months after the surgery. The other two patients were diagnosed with carcinoid tumors, one at age 39 and the other at age 71. Post-surgery, patient 2 was diagnosed with a carcinoid in the left ovary, whereas patient 3 was diagnosed with a carcinoid in her right ovary based on clinical evaluation. Neither of the cases received adjuvant therapy following surgery; however, they have both survived for 9 and 10 years, respectively, as of date. Conclusion: Primary O-NECs are rare and of diverse histological types, each of which has its own unique biological features and prognosis. SCC is a neoplasm characterized by high malignancy and a poor prognosis, whereas carcinoid tumors are of lesser malignancy and have a more favorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the precipitation, runoff and sediment data from the hydrological station, cluster analysis and sediment content-flow (SSC-Q) hysteresis curve are used to study the runoff and sand transport characteristics of different types of flood events in the Mihe River Basin of the northern earth and rock mountainous areas from the event scale, and reveal the relationship between various floods and sediments, the contribution of sand transport and the influence mechanism of soil and water conservation measures. The results show that 1 The 261 flood events in the Mihe River Basin from 1951 to 2021 could be divided into four categories: small, medium, large and extra-large, and the flood hysteresis curve type was mainly figure-8. With the increase in flood magnitude, the flood duration and runoff sand transport of flood events showed an increasing trend, the runoff, and sediment variability increased, and the proportion of the composite hysteresis curve gradually increased. 2 The frequency of large-scale and extra-large flood events was the lowest, but the contribution rate of sand transport was as high as 86.9%, which was the main type of flood in the northern earth-rock mountainous area, and dominated the soil erosion disaster in the Mihe River Basin, which needs to be paid attention to in the governance of the river basin. 3 Water and soil conservation measures and human activities have a greater impact on medium and small flood events, and the variability of the water-sediment relationship exceeds 10%. However, the impact on large-scale flood events is relatively small, and the variability of water-sediment relationship is only 1.2%. Through the rational allocation of water and soil conservation measures in the river basin, the relationship between water and sediment in local small and medium-sized flood events can be adjusted, so as to achieve the purpose of flood storage and sediment control. At the same time, it is urgent to continue to strengthen soil erosion and flood prevention and control measures for exceptionally heavy rainfall to avoid serious damage to the ecological environment of the northern earthy mountainous areas. The research findings serve as a theoretical and practical basis for the development of soil and water conservation in the region and the response to exceptionally heavy rainstorms and flood events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streamflow forecasts are critical for water and environmental management, especially in the water-short Western U.S.. Land Surface Models (LSMs), such as the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model and the Noah-Multiparameterization (Noah-MP) play an essential role in providing comprehensive runoff forecasts across the region. Virtually all LSMs require parameter estimation to optimize their predictive capabilities. We describe a systematic calibration of parameters for VIC and Noah-MP over 263 river basins in the Western U.S., and distribution of the calibrated parameters over the entire region. Post-calibration results showed a notable improvement in model accuracy in the calibration basins: the median daily streamflow Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE) for VIC rose from 0.37 to 0.70, and for Noah-MP, from 0.22 to 0.54. Employing the donor-basin regionalization method, we developed transfer relationships to hydrologically similar basins and extended the calibrated parameters to ungauged basins and the entire region. We assessed factors that influence calibration efficiency and model performance using regional parameter estimates. We evaluated high and low flow simulation capabilities of the two models and observed marked improvements after calibration and regionalization. We also generated gridded parameter sets for both models across all 4816 HUC-10 basins in the Western U.S., a data set that is intended to support regional hydrologic studies and hydrologic climate change assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have assumed that Westerners exercise higher job autonomy than Easterners. However, recent studies have reported mixed and even contradictory findings. The authors distinguish between two types of job autonomy, namely goal and execution autonomy, to examine the relevant cultural differences. The former denotes participation in setting work goals and making plans for meeting those goals, while the latter denotes the ability to complete tasks flexibly. Four studies with a total sample of 1192 participants working in financial or insurance companies were conducted. Study 1a generated items for a new measure of the two types of job autonomy and explored its factor structure. Studies 1b and 1c verified its construct validity and predictive capacity. Study 2 confirmed the structural and metric equivalence of the measure between samples from the United Kingdom and China. The results of Study 2 suggested that the Chinese workers were likely to have high execution autonomy but low goal autonomy, whereas the British workers tended to have high goal autonomy but low execution autonomy. The theoretical and practical implications of job autonomy in cross‐cultural contexts are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic performance of volume mismatch sign on discriminating paramedial bithalamic tumors from non-tumors. Methods: In this study, we recruited patients with tumors or non-tumors of the paramedial bithalamus. We confirmed the diagnosis by pathology, laboratory tests documented in medical records, medical imaging at the baseline, or through at least 1 year of follow-up. Cases with paramedial thalamic lesions on only one side or purely midbrain illnesses were excluded. Additionally, any case without involvement of the medial thalami (i.e., those with one or both-sided anterior, lateral, or posterior thalamic lesions) was excluded. Two neuroradiologists were trained independently to evaluate volume mismatch sign on magnetic resonance T2-weighted images or T2 fluid-attenuated inversion recovery images. A positive volume mismatch sign means that the ratio of the larger-sided lesion volume to the smaller-sided lesion volume is >150%. The volume of each lesion was calculated by multiplying the anteroposterior diameter by the left-right diameter and by the height of the lesion and then dividing by 2. The kappa value was calculated to show the consistency between the two observers. The chi-square test was used to evaluate differences in volume mismatch sign between the bilthalamicmidline tumor and non-tumor groups. The positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values, sensitivity, and specificity were calculated to evaluate the ability of volume mismatch sign to differentiate paramedial bilateral thalamus tumors from non-tumors. A two-tailed P = 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. The analyses were performed using the statistical software SPSS version 26. Results: A total of 96 patients were enrolled in this study between March 2012 and October 2022. A high agreement between the two observers on the volume mismatch sign of bilateral paramedian thalamic diseases was found, and the Kappa value was 0.828. A statistically significant difference was observed for the volume mismatch sign between the paramedial bithalamic tumor and the non-tumorous groups (χ² = 35.465, P < 0.001). The presence of volume mismatch sign in paramedial bithalamic illnesses predicted the presence of tumors with a sensitivity and specificity of 69.2% and 90.9%, respectively, and PPV and NPV were 90.0% and 71.4%. Conclusion: Volume mismatch sign may indicate tumors in paramedian bithalamic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictions of drought onset and termination at subseasonal (from 2 weeks to 1 month) lead times could provide a foundation for more effective and proactive drought management. We used reforecasts archived in NOAA’s Subseasonal Experiment (SubX) to force the Noah Multiparameterization (Noah-MP), which produced forecasts of soil moisture from which we identified drought levels D0–D4. We evaluated forecast skill of major and more modest droughts, with leads from 1 to 4 weeks, and with particular attention to drought termination and onset. We find usable drought termination and onset forecast skill at leads 1 and 2 weeks for major D0–D2 droughts and limited skill at week 3 for major D0–D1 droughts, with essentially no skill at week 4 regardless of drought severity. Furthermore, for both major and more modest droughts, we find limited skill or no skill for D3–D4 droughts. We find that skill is generally higher for drought termination than for onset for all drought events. We also find that drought prediction skill generally decreases from north to south for all drought events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aim: Eating Disorders (ED) result in impaired well-being, but there exist an insufficient number of studies that have focused on the influence of sex and sexual orientation disparities within ED behaviors. Thus, we aimed to investigate ED behaviors among male and female adolescents with different sexual orientations in a school sample to understand prevalence and correlates of different ED behaviors. Method: Data was analysed from 11,440 Chinese school adolescents with a mean age of 14.74 years (SD = 1.46). Reported data was gathered on sociodemographic information including sexual orientation, ED behaviors, health factors (reported health, cognitive function), mental health factors (depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, non-suicidal self-injurious behavior), and social functioning (school bully victimization, and school bully perpetration). Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations with ED behaviors, using the heterosexual orientation as the reference group as they are the majority. Results: Compared to female adolescents, male adolescents reported lower anxiety symptoms (t = − 12.39, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = − 0.233), were more likely to be the perpetrator of school bullying (χ2 = 190.61, p < 0.001, φ = 0.129), and reported a lower likelihood of taking dietary restriction (χ2 = 290.08, p < 0.001, φ = 0.160). Overall, the prevalence of dietary restriction presented sex disparities. Adolescents who reported no sexual attraction were less likely to engage in ED behaviors. Using heterosexual orientation as the reference group, the group who reported no sexual attraction was associated with lower risk in dietary restriction and purging in both male and female adolescents. Using the heterosexual orientation as the reference group, female sexual minority groups were at high risk of ED behaviors, with bisexual orientation and gay/lesbian orientation having a higher likelihood of engaging in objective binge eating. Conclusions: The results revealed significant sex and sexual orientation differences of ED behaviors. The study suggests that adolescents is a period of sexuality development and could be critical for understanding adolescents' eating behaviors. It is important to guide adolescents to healthy eating during their development and considerations should be made by clinicians when creating interventions for ED behaviors among the different sex and sexual orientation groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change threatens mental health via increasing exposure to the social and economic disruptions created by extreme weather and large-scale climatic events, as well as through the anxiety associated with recognising the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. Considering the growing levels of climate change awareness across the world, negative emotions like anxiety and worry about climate-related risks are a potentially pervasive conduit for the adverse impacts of climate change on mental health. In this study, we examined how negative climate-related emotions relate to sleep and mental health among a diverse non-representative sample of individuals recruited from 25 countries, as well as a Norwegian nationally-representative sample. Overall, we found that negative climate-related emotions are positively associated with insomnia symptoms and negatively related to self-rated mental health in most countries. Our findings suggest that climate-related psychological stressors are significantly linked with mental health in many countries and draw attention to the need for cross-disciplinary research aimed at achieving rigorous empirical assessments of the unique challenge posed to mental health by negative emotional responses to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to DNA damage, bacterial RecA protein forms filaments with the assistance of DinI protein. The RecA filaments stimulate the autocleavage of LexA, the repressor of more than 50 SOS genes, and activate the SOS response. During the late phase of SOS response, the RecA filaments stimulate the autocleavage of UmuD and λ repressor CI, leading to mutagenic repair and lytic cycle, respectively. Here, we determined the cryo-electron microscopy structures of Escherichia coli RecA filaments in complex with DinI, LexA, UmuD, and λCI by helical reconstruction. The structures reveal that LexA and UmuD dimers bind in the filament groove and cleave in an intramolecular and an intermolecular manner, respectively, while λCI binds deeply in the filament groove as a monomer. Despite their distinct folds and oligomeric states, all RecA filament binders recognize the same conserved protein features in the filament groove. The SOS response in bacteria can lead to mutagenesis and antimicrobial resistance, and our study paves the way for rational drug design targeting the bacterial SOS response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), a known risk factor for atherosclerosis, is readily regulated by exercise, and it can inhibit NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3)-mediated pyroptosis. However, it is not clear whether aerobic exercise inhibits atherosclerosis via these pathways. Eight-week-old apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE-/-) mice on a high-fat diet were randomly divided into 1-h post-exercise (EX-1h), 24-h post-exercise (EX-24h), and sedentary (SED) groups. C57BL/6J wild-type mice fed normal chow served as controls (WT group). Mice in the EX-1h and EX-24h groups were subjected to treadmill exercise training for 12 weeks. Aerobic exercise reduced body weight; blood glucose, lipid, and inflammation levels; and aortic plaque area proportion. Aerobic exercise increased the sensitivity of FGF21 by upregulating the expression of the downstream receptor adiponectin (ApN); the serum FGF21 level after exercise increased initially, and then decreased. Aerobic exercise downregulated the expression of NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated pyroptosis-related markers in the aorta, and FGF21 may participate in the above process. Meanwhile, the liver may be the tissue source of serum FGF21 during aerobic exercise. In conclusion, aerobic exercise may inhibit atherogenesis by regulating FGF21 and NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated pyroptosis. Our study provides new information on the atherosclerosis-preventing mechanism of aerobic exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been challenging for city school pupils to learn about insects, given the lack of live insects. To overcome this challenge, the objective of this study is to propose the use of emerging digital media, namely three-dimensional printing (3DP) technologies, to create reusable, fake, "live" insects. In this study, we designed two 3D-printed pedagogical aids to support elementary entomology. The first aid was a set of cards showing photos of the 3D-printed insect prototype, which could help the learners in close observation of the insect body's regions and parts, and the second 3D-printed aid was a construction kit mimicking physical insects, which were made of an enlarged 3D-printed insect prototype. The two aids were used in our field experiment to examine the effectiveness in learning and motivation. A total of 153 pupils were grouped into three groups (one using the existing multimedia e-book, one using the first 3DP aid, and one using the second aid). The results confirm that the digital media application—in this case, 3DP technologies—were able to compensate for the lack of the live insects. These results raised our confidence in using a customized size 3D-printed insect prototype to enhance rudimentary entomology inside the classroom. If the 3DP technologies are used properly, they could offer an innovative and sustainable solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NPM1 plays an important role in the occurrence and development of leukemia and various solid tumors. This study aimed to investigate the expression of NPM1 in gastric cancer (GC) and adjacent normal tissues, study the relationship between NPM1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics in GC patients, and explore the impact of NPM1 expression on the diagnosis and prognosis of GC. We used tissue microarray immunohistochemical analysis to examine the expression level of NPM1 in GC and adjacent tissues and analyzed the relationship between NPM1 expression, clinicopathological factors, and GC prognosis. Prognostic values of NPM1 mRNA were also investigated using an online database. qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression of NPM1 mRNA in cancer and adjacent tissues. According to microarray immunohistochemical analysis and qRT-PCR results, NPM1 had a high expression in all adjacent normal tissues. Microarray immunohistochemical analyses demonstrated that the NPM1 was lowly expressed in 75.5% of GC tissues but highly expressed in 24.5% of GC tissues. qRT-PCR results showed NPM1 mRNA low expression in most GC tissues. NPM1 high expression group was associated with a better overall survival rate and disease-free survival rate than the NPM1 low expression group (p<0.01). This result is consistent with that of the online database. The receiver operating characteristics curve showed that NPM1 was valuable in the diagnosis of GC. The assessment of NPM1 expression in GC samples may represent a useful tool for GC diagnosis and prognosis assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A regular left-order on a finitely generated group GG is a total, left-multiplication invariant order on GG whose corresponding positive cone is the image of a regular language over the generating set of the group under the evaluation map. We show that admitting regular left-orders is stable under extensions and wreath products and we give a classification of the groups whose left-orders are all regular left-orders. In addition, we prove that a solvable Baumslag–Solitar group B(1,n) admits a regular left-order if and only if n ≥ −1. Finally, Hermiller and Šunić showed that no free product admits a regular left-order. We show that if A and B are groups with regular left-orders, then (A ∗ B) × Z admits a regular left-order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Immune-related long noncoding RNAs (IrlncRNAs) are recognized as important prognostic factors in a variety of cancers, but thus far, their prognostic value in pediatric rhabdoid tumor of the kidney (pRTK) has not been reported. Here, we clarified the associations between IrlncRNAs and overall survival (OS) of pRTK patients and constructed a model to predict their prognosis. Methods. We accessed RNA sequencing data and corresponding clinical data of pRTK from the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) database. An expression profile of immune-related genes (Irgenes) and lncRNAs of pRTK was extracted from the RNA sequencing data. IrlncRNAs were defined by co-expression analysis of lncRNAs and Irgenes. The limma R package was used to identify differential expression IrlncRNAs. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were conducted to build a prognostic IrlncRNAs model. The performance of this prognostic model was validated by multimethods, like ROC curve analysis. Results. A total of 1097 IrlncRNAs were defined. Univariate Cox regression analysis identified 7 IrlncRNAs (AC004791.2, AP003068.23, RP11-54O7.14, RP11-680F8.1, TBC1D3P1-DHX40P1, TUNAR, and XXbac-BPG308K3.5) and were significantly associated with OS. Multivariate regression analysis constructed the best prognostic model based on the expression of AC004791.2, AP003068.23, RP11-54O7.14, TBC1D3P1-DHX40P1, and TUNAR. According to the prognostic model, a risk score of each patient was calculated, and patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups accordingly. The survival time of low-risk patients was significantly better than high-risk patients (p < 0.001). Univariate (hazard ratio 1.098, 95% confidence interval 1.048–1.149, p value <0.001) and multivariate (hazard ratio 1.095, 95% confidence interval 1.043–1.150, p value <0.001) analyses confirmed that the prognostic model was reliable and independent in prediction of OS. Time-dependent ROC analysis showed that 1-year survival AUC of prognostic model, stage, age, and sex was 0.824, 0.673, 0.531, and 0.495, respectively, which suggested that the prognostic model was the best predictor of survival in pRTK patients. Conclusions. The prognostic model based on 5 IrlncRNAs was robust and could better predict the survival of pRTK than other clinical factors. Additionally, the mechanism of regulation and action of prognosis-associated lncRNAs could provide new avenues for basic research to explore the mechanism of tumor initiation and development in order to prevent and treat pRTK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents an aggressive subtype of breast cancer characteristic of high recurrence rate and poor prognosis. According to previous studies and bioinformatics prediction, PGM5P3-AS1 has been found to be significantly down-regulated in TNBC cells. In addition, cell ferroptosis has become a hotspot in breast cancer research and TNBC has been reported to be more sensitive to ferroptosis than receptor positive breast cancer. Hence, we aim at exploring the molecular mechanism of PGM5P3-AS1 in TNBC cells and further explore whether PGM5P3-AS1 can inhibit TNBC progression via promoting cell ferroptosis. Methods: The expression of genes in TNBC cells was verified by RT-qPCR assay. Functional assays were taken to evaluate the impact PGM5P3-AS1 may exert on TNBC progression. The regulatory pattern of PGM5P3-AS1 on cell ferroptosis in TNBC was validated through mechanism assays. Results: PGM5P3-AS1 was proved to be down-regulated in TNBC cells and suppressed TNBC cell proliferation as well as migration. PGM5P3-AS1 promoted cell ferroptosis in TNBC by recruiting RNA-binding protein (RBP) NOP58 to stabilize MAP1LC3C mRNA, and thus inhibiting TNBC progression. Conclusion: PGM5P3-AS1 regulated MAP1LC3C to promote cell ferroptosis and thus inhibiting the malignant progression of TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hantaviruses (HVs) are major zoonotic pathogens in China that cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) posing a major threat to people's health. Hainan Province, an island located in Southeast China, is an ideal region for sea ports. The unique tropical monsoon climate in Hainan provides sufficient living conditions for rodents, which help spread HVs and other rodent-borne diseases. In the routine monitoring of hantavirus, there was no evidence that rodents in Hainan carried hantavirus. No patients infected with hantavirus were found in the past. However, the surveillance of HVs-carrying rodents covering the whole territory of Hainan has not stopped. Methodology/principal findings: For the monitoring of the prevalence of HVs in rodents and the search for theoretical reference for rodent control and HFRS prevention, a total of 60 rodents from 6 monitoring spots were trapped around main ports in Hainan between 2016 and 2019. HV positive samples were identified by a specific kit and sequenced. The data indicated that seven rodents (Rattus norvegicus) were positive for hantavirus with a positivity rate of 11.67%. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that the two complete sequence strains HN1 and HN4 in this research were highly similar to the sequence strains GZRn36 and GZRn148 isolated in Guangdong Province, and they located in the same phylogenetic tree branch which belongs to S2 subtype. Although the two partial sequences HT1 and HT2 isolated in Xisha Islands belong to S2 subtype according to the phylogenetic tree of L segment, they showed a great nucleotide difference with HN1 and HN4. We also found 13 amino acid variations compared with SEOV 80–39 and 6 amino acid mutations related to epitope, and the variations may reduce the effectiveness of the current HFRS vaccines used in humans. Conclusions/significance: The study indicated HVs carried by rodents found in Hainan Province may be transmitted from Guangdong Province through trading ports and carriage of goods by sea. So it is of great significance to strengthen the surveillance of rodents in port areas especially capture and eliminate rodents on ship. Timely elimination of host animals of hantavirus in port areas is necessary to prevent an outbreak of HVs disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of a recent spike in natural and man-made disasters, there has been an increase in interest in disaster prevention education and training. The effectiveness of both publicly-funded and voluntarily organized disaster education (DE) has attracted wide attention. More studies are needed to understand the innovative pedagogical practice and the impact of technological advances on disaster learning content development, effectiveness and motivation. This study investigates the application of augmented reality (AR) in DE and training. An AR-enhanced tool named 'disaster-proof warrior' was developed and tested to evaluate its enhancement effect on learning under two collaborative learning modes. A series of quasi-experiments involving 85 elementary school subjects was carried out to assess the learning effectiveness and the subjective reaction in learning motivation. The results showed the AR embedded learning tool is effective in engaging and motivating collaborative team knowledge building. This study adds to the existing literature of AR applications in education and training as well as providing a useful reference for future development and improvement of national DE and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Color is shown to affect decision making and judgment. However, no prior research has examined both between‐ and within‐culture variations in color associations. To this end, we test the red (vs. green) effects on risk preferences in the United States and China while assessing individual differences in color associations. Across three studies, we find cultural reactance effects, that is, in the domain of risk aversion, the color associated with gain (American: green/Chinese: red) leads participants to become more risk averse when they personally associate green (in America) and red (in China) with loss. In the domain of risk seeking, the color associated with loss (American: red/Chinese: green) leads participants to become more risk seeking when they personally associate green (in China) and red (in America) with gain. By providing a novel perspective that integrates between‐ and within‐culture variations, our findings have implications for understanding the generalizability of the color effects across individuals and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spot-level parking availability information (the availability of each spot in a parking lot) is in great demand, as it can help reduce time and energy waste while searching for a parking spot. In this article, we propose a crowdsensing system called SpotE that can provide spot-level availability in a parking lot using drivers' smartphone sensors. SpotE only requires the sensor data from drivers' smartphones, which avoids the high cost of installing additional sensors and enables large-scale outdoor deployment. We propose a new model that can use the parking search trajectory and final destination (e.g., an exit of the parking lot) of a single driver in a parking lot to generate the probability profile that contains the probability of each spot being occupied in a parking lot. To deal with conflicting estimation results generated from different drivers, due to the variance in different drivers' parking behaviors, a novel aggregation approach SpotE-TD is proposed. The proposed aggregation method is based on truth discovery techniques and can handle the variety in Quality of Information of different vehicles. We evaluate our proposed method through a real-life deployment study. Results show that SpotE-TD can efficiently provide spot-level parking availability information with a 20% higher accuracy than thestate-of-the-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has predominantly focused on the effects of cognitive and emotional reactions on the relation between interpersonal conflict and job performance. The effects of behavioral reactions, however, have been largely ignored. To fill this gap, this study aims to investigate how behavioral reactions indexed by Wechat use affects the above relation. Specifically, demand‐control‐support theory and demand‐control‐person theory form the basis for a stressor–strain model and a joint investigation of 1) Wechat use as mediating the link between interpersonal conflict with job performance and 2) relatedness need satisfaction and emotional social support as moderating the mediation. A moderated mediation model is tested with matched data collected thrice from 300 subordinates and their supervisors. Results highlight the importance of behavioral mechanisms and state‐like individual differences when examining the relationships between interpersonal conflict and job performance. Key points: Wechat use is found to mediate the relationship between interpersonal conflict and job performance.A stronger mediational path occurs for employees who fail to find relatedness need satisfaction.Emotional social support exacerbates the negative association between interpersonal conflict and job performance.A significant overall mediational path occurs regardless of the degree of emotional social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: circHIPK3 has carcinogenic or anti-tumor effects on different cancers. However, there is no relevant research showing whether circHIPK3 was involved in breast cancer (BCa). In this research, the aim was to analyze the function and possible molecular mechanism of circHIPK3 in BCa. Methods: The expression of circHIPK3 in human BCa tissues and cells was detected by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). CircInteractome and dual-luciferase assays were performed to detect circRNA–miRNA targeting relationship. Ribonuclease R treatment, RT-qPCR, Western blot and immunohistochemistry were performed to determine the stability, expressions, abundance of target genes. Loss-of-function or gain-of-function experiments were used to analyze the effects of circHIPK3 and miR-326 on BCa in vivo and in vitro. In vitro, MCF7 and BT20 cells were transfected with circHIPK3 or sicircHIPK3 or miR-326 mimic; in vivo, female BALB/c mice were subcutaneously injected with MCF7 cells (transfected with CirchipK3 or miR-326 mimic) to establish xenograft models. Results: The circular structure of circHIPK3 was abundantly expressed in the cytoplasm and was up-regulated in BCa. Silenced circHIPK3 suppressed malignant phenotype of BCa cells. MiR-326 interacted with circHIPK3 and the two were negatively correlated. Overexpressed circHIPK3 promoted cell viability, proliferation, migration and invasion, but inhibited apoptosis. Moreover, overexpressed circHIPK3 promoted the expressions of EMT-related genes and antiapoptotic genes, but inhibited proapoptotic gene expressions. Overexpressed circHIPK3 promoted tumor growth and Ki-67 levels, inhibited apoptosis in vivo. The above mentioned effects of circHIPK3 were reversed by miR-326 in vitro or in vivo. Conclusion: circHIPK3 promoted proliferation, migration and invasion of BCa cells through regulating miR-326. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the drought variability over the conterminousUnited States (CONUS) for 1915-2018 using theNoah-MP land surfacemodel. We examine different model options on drought reconstruction, including optional representation of groundwater and dynamic vegetation phenology. Over our 104-yr reconstruction period, we identify 12 great droughts that each covered at least36% of CONUS and lasted for at least 5 months. The great droughts tend to have smaller areas when groundwater and/or dynamic vegetation are included in the model configuration. We detect a small decreasing trend in dry area coverage over CONUS in all configurations. We identify 45 major droughts in the baseline (with a dry area coverage greater than 23.6% of CONUS) that are, on average, somewhat less severe than great droughts. We find that representation of groundwater tends to increase drought duration for both great andmajor droughts, primarily by leading to earlier drought onset (some due to short-lived recovery froma previous drought) or later demise (groundwater anomalies lag precipitation anomalies). In contrast, representation of dynamic vegetation tends to shortenmajor droughts duration, primarily due to earlier drought demise (closed stoma or dead vegetation reducesET loss during droughts). On a regional basis, the U.S. Southwest (Southeast) has the longest (shortest)major drought durations. Consistent with earlier work, dry area coverage in all subregions except the Southwest has decreased. The effects of groundwater and dynamic vegetation vary regionally due to differences in groundwater depths (hence connectivity with the surface) and vegetation types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The number of young patients diagnosed with breast cancer is on the rise. We studied the rate trend of local recurrence (LR) and regional recurrence (RR) in young breast cancer (YBC) patients and outcomes among these patients based on molecular subtypes. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted based on data from Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital for patients ≤ 35 years of age with pathologically confirmed primary invasive breast cancer surgically treated between 2006 and 2014. Patients were categorized according to molecular subtypes on the basis of hormone receptor (HR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status. The 5-year rates for LR, RR, and distant metastases (DM) were estimated by Kaplan-Meir statistics. Nelson-Aalen cumulative-hazard plots were used to describe local recurrence- and distant metastasis-free intervals. Results: We identified 25,284 patients with a median follow-up of 82 months, of whom 1099 (4.3%) were YBC patients ≤ 35 years of age. The overall 5-year LR, RR, and DM rates in YBC patients were 6.7%, 5.1%, and 16.6%, respectively. The LR and RR rates demonstrated a decreasing trend over time (P = 0.028 and P = 0.015, respectively). We found that early-stage breast cancer and less lymph node metastases increased over time (P = 0.004 and P = 0.007, respectively). Patients with HR−/HER2+ status had a significantly higher LR (HR 20.4; 95% CI, 11.8–35.4) and DM (HR 37.2; 95% CI, 24.6–56.3) at 10 years. Breast-conserving surgery (BCS) or mastectomy did not influence rates of LR and RR. In the overall population, the 5-year survival of YBC patients exceeded 90%. Conclusions: The rates of LR and RR with YBC patients demonstrated a downward trend and the proportion of early-stage breast cancer increased between 2006 and 2014. We report the highest LR rates in this young population were associated with HR−/HER2+ tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been demonstrated to play significant roles in regulating gene expression in tumorigenesis, including breast cancer (BC). This study was designed to explore the role and underlying molecular mechanisms of circMMP11 in BC. Methods: The real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay was used for examining expression of circMMP11, microRNA-625-5p (miR-625-5p), and Zinc finger E-box binding homeobox-2 (ZEB2). The protein expression of ZEB2, Vimentin, and E-cadherin was assessed by western blot assay. The proliferation ability of BC cells was determined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazol-3-ium bromide (MTT) and colony-forming assays. The transwell assay was used to measure migration and invasion of BC cells. The apoptotic cells were examined by flow cytometry assay. The interaction association among circMMP11, miR-625-5p, and ZEB2 was confirmed by RNA pull-down and dual-luciferase report assays. A xenograft experiment was established to clarify the role of circMMP11 silencing in vivo. Results: We found that circMMP11 and ZEB2 were overexpressed in BC tissues and cells compared with controls. The suppression of circMMP11 or ZEB2 repressed proliferation, migration, and invasion while induced apoptosis of BC cells. Additionally, miR-625-5p, interacted with ZEB2, was a target of circMMP11 in BC cells. CircMMP11 regulated the expression of ZEB2 by targeting miR-625-5p. Knockdown of circMMP11-mediated effects on BC cells could be abolished by overexpression of ZEB2. Consistently, silencing of circMMP11 impeded the tumor growth in vivo. Conclusions: CircMMP11/miR-625-5p/ZEB2 axis affected proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of BC cells through the mechanism of competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNA), indicating that circMMP11 was an oncogenic circRNA in BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates how daily fluctuations in leader self-rated empowering behaviour are related to employees' daily level job crafting behaviour. From an interactionist perspective, the authors propose and test two competing theoretical models investigating how supervisors' daily empowering behaviour and subordinates' proactive personality jointly affect subordinates' daily work engagement and daily job crafting. One hundred and six leader-follower dyads working in several companies completed a questionnaire and a diary booklet over five consecutive workdays. The results of multi-level analyses revealed a cross-level-moderated mediation model, of which the indirect effect of empowering behaviour on job crafting via work engagement was stronger for less proactive employees than for higher proactive employees. The findings reveal a compensatory relation between leader empowering behaviour and employee proactive personality, suggesting that empowering behaviour would be more effective for increasing the work engagement of less proactive workers. Future directions and human resource management implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We aimed to examine the effect of pregnancy on prognosis in young breast cancer (YBC) patients with hormone receptor (HR) positive after surgery and the safety of interrupting endocrine therapy (ET). Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed in patients who became pregnant after BC surgery under the age of 35 and were matched (1:4) to nonpregnant patients from 2006 to 2014. The primary endpoints were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in HR-positive BC patients, and the secondary endpoints were DFS and OS in HR-negative BC patients and the whole population. Subgroup analyses included the DFS of patients who became pregnant within 5 years after surgery and DFS according to the ET interval time (≤ 30 months v > 30 months) in the pregnant group. Results: A total of 1323 YBC patients were collected in our study, which included 68 pregnant patients and 264 matched nonpregnant patients. There were no statistically significant differences in DFS and OS among HR-positive patients (P=0.657, P=0.250, respectively) and the whole population (P=0.058, P=0.152, respectively). A BC pregnancy interval ≤ 5 years showed a better DFS (P=0.042), and an ET interval ≤ 30 months had a worse DFS (P = 0.01). Conclusion: This study did not observe a worse prognosis in patients with HR-positive disease who became pregnant after BC surgery, and an ET interval less than 30 months in pregnant patients led to a worse outcome. Patients were able to become pregnant within 5 years after surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 665 (LINC00665) has been revealed to contribute cancer progression in many cancer types including liver and gastric cancer. However, the roles of LINC00665 in breast cancer (BC) remain to be explored. Methods: We explored LINC00665 expression in BC tissues and normal tissues at GEPIA. Then, its expression in BC cells (HCC-1937, MDA-MB-231, and MCF-7) and normal cells (MCF10A) was analyzed with qRT-PCR. In addition, the mechanisms of LINC00665 in BC were explored using bioinformatic analyses, luciferase activity reporter assay, RNA pull-down assay, and rescue experiments. Results: We showed LINC00665 expression was significantly increased in both BC tissues and cells. The knockdown of LINC00625 significantly inhibits BC cell growth and promotes cell apoptosis in vitro, while the overexpression of LINC00625 has the opposite effects on BC progression. LINC00665 could affect BC progression via regulating miR-551b-5p. Discussion: Taken together, our study showed that the LINC00665/miR-551b-5p axis was involved in the progression of BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Adomian decomposition method (ADM) is applied to solve the fractional-order system with line equilibrium. The dynamics of the system is analyzed by means of the Lyapunov exponent spectrum, bifurcations, chaotic attractor, and largest Lyapunov exponent diagram. At the same time, through the Lyapunov exponent spectrum and bifurcation graph of the system under the change of the initial value, the influence of fractional order q on the system state can be observed. That is, integer-order systems do not have the phenomenon of attractors coexistence, while fractional-order systems have it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An earlier review (Schneider et al., 2018) examined the connection between humor styles and mental health. The present article supplements and extends Schneider et al.'s review by surveying a broader concept, subjective well-being (SWB), and investigating the moderating effects of culture and age. To this end, we collected data from 85 studies, with 27,562 participants of varying ages and cultures. Meta-analysis results indicate that affiliative and self-enhancing humor enhances SWB, whereas aggressive and self-defeating humor damages SWB. Culture and age do not moderate the relation between humor styles and SWB. We discuss implications for better understanding of the relationships among culture, age, humor, and SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of metric learning is to learn a good distance metric that can capture the relationships among instances, and its importance has long been recognized in many fields. An implicit assumption in the traditional settings of metric learning is that the associated labels of the instances are deterministic. However, in many real-world applications, the associated labels come naturally with probabilities instead of deterministic values, which makes it difficult for the existing metric-learning methods to work well in these applications. To address this challenge, in this article, we study how to effectively learn the distance metric from datasets that contain probabilistic information, and then propose several novel metric-learning mechanisms for two types of probabilistic labels, i.e., the instance-wise probabilistic label and the group-wise probabilistic label. Compared with the existing metric-learning methods, our proposed mechanisms are capable of learning distance metrics directly from the probabilistic labels with high accuracy. We also theoretically analyze the proposed mechanisms and conduct extensive experiments on real-world datasets to verify the desirable properties of these mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging technologies have been widely used in applications designed to increase potential for learning enhancement. This study develops a mobile application to integrate augmented reality (AR) functionality into physical puzzle-type games. In the application, learners see visualizations of three-dimensional (3D) dinosaurs and interact with relevant multimedia learning content. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed platform, experiments were conducted to evaluate impact on learner achievement and motivation. Experimental (AR-based) and control (paper-based) groups included a total of 53 fifth-grade students. Pre- and post-activity questionnaires (adapted from the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS) Model of Motivational Design), and pre- and post-learning quizzes were used for assessment. Results showed that the AR-based group scored significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the Paper-based group, raising implications for a new approach to teaching natural science at the elementary school level. However, the AR-based group also showed a relative drop in confidence, suggesting that further investigation is needed to understand the impact of AR technology on learner motivation. This study provides a case for the integration of AR technology into typical physical games. The results raise important concerns for further research in technology enhancement in education. Future research should include a wider range of content topics and target groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sleep is a complex and dynamic biological process characterized by different sleep patterns. Comprehensive sleep monitoring and analysis using multivariate polysomnography (PSG) records has achieved significant efforts to prevent sleep-related disorders. To alleviate the time consumption caused by manual visual inspection of PSG, automatic multivariate sleep stage classification has become an important research topic in medical and bioinformatics. Results: We present a unified hybrid self-attention deep learning framework, namely HybridAtt, to automatically classify sleep stages by capturing channel and temporal correlations from multivariate PSG records. We construct a new multi-view convolutional representation module to learn channel-specific and global view features from the heterogeneous PSG inputs. The hybrid attention mechanism is designed to further fuse the multi-view features by inferring their dependencies without any additional supervision. The learned attentional representation is subsequently fed through a softmax layer to train an end-to-end deep learning model. Conclusions: We empirically evaluate our proposed HybridAtt model on a benchmark PSG dataset in two feature domains, referred to as the time and frequency domains. Experimental results show that HybridAtt consistently outperforms ten baseline methods in both feature spaces, demonstrating the effectiveness of HybridAtt in the task of sleep stage classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]