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To reduce the adverse effects of the flammability of epoxy resin (EP), addition of flame-retardants in EP is a common and effective strategy. A 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene 10-oxide (DOPO) derivative, DOPI, has been synthesized by adding the double bond of itaconic acid (ITA) to DOPO, and was utilized for ligand exchange with terephthalic acid in MIL-53(Fe) to obtain the derived material of MIL-53(Fe)-DOPI. A series of blends were prepared by adding different proportions of MIL-53(Fe)-DOPI into EP. The fire resistance and mechanical properties of these blends were assessed. Among them, the 2 wt% MIL-53(Fe)-DOPI/EP blend displays a UL-94 V-1 rating and a limiting oxygen index (LOI) of 30.0% for combustion. The peak smoke production rate (p-SPR), peak CO production rate (p-COP) and peak HRR production rate (p-HRR) for combustion are respectively reduced by 26.56%, 41.2% and 39.9% compared to the same parameters for the combustion of pure EP. Based on the analysis of Py-GCMS, TG-FTIR, Raman and FE-SEM, a flame retardancy process has been proposed. Additionally, the tensile strength, flexural strength, flexural modulus and impact strength of a blend containing 3 wt% MIL-53(Fe)-DOPI in EP are respectively increased by 24.3%, 62.0%, 85.2% and 13.8% relative to those for unmodified EP. Therefore, MIL-53(Fe)-DOPI is an outstanding additive that can effectively reduce the formation of the smoke and toxic gas during combustion, at the same time, improving the mechanical properties of EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel resonance‐assisted self‐doping mechanism has been demonstrated in ladder‐type oligoaniline‐derived organic conductors. The new class of compounds has a unique structure incorporating acidic phenolic hydroxyl groups into the ladder‐type cyclohexadiene‐1,4‐diimine core, enabling efficient resonance‐assisted proton transfer and electronic doping without the need for external dopants. Mechanistic and computational studies confirm the open‐shell, zwitterionic nature of the self‐doped state and the significant role played by the dielectric environment. This new self‐doping mechanism allows for higher stability and durability in the material's electronic performance. The self‐doped form retains durability under harsh conditions and maintains its properties over extended periods of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel resonance‐assisted self‐doping mechanism has been demonstrated in ladder‐type oligoaniline‐derived organic conductors. The new class of compounds has a unique structure incorporating acidic phenolic hydroxyl groups into the ladder‐type cyclohexadiene‐1,4‐diimine core, enabling efficient resonance‐assisted proton transfer and electronic doping without the need for external dopants. Mechanistic and computational studies confirm the open‐shell, zwitterionic nature of the self‐doped state and the significant role played by the dielectric environment. This new self‐doping mechanism allows for higher stability and durability in the material's electronic performance. The self‐doped form retains durability under harsh conditions and maintains its properties over extended periods of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summarizing extensive documents involves selecting sentences, with the organizational structure of document sections playing a pivotal role. However, effectively utilizing discourse information for summary generation poses a significant challenge, especially given the inconsistency between training and evaluation in extractive summarization. In this paper, we introduce GoSum, a novel extractive summarizer that integrates a graph-based model with reinforcement learning techniques to summarize long documents. Specifically, GoSum utilizes a graph neural network to encode sentence states, constructing a heterogeneous graph that represents each document at various discourse levels. The edges of this graph capture hierarchical relationships between different document sections. Furthermore, GoSum incorporates offline reinforcement learning, enabling the model to receive ROUGE score feedback on diverse training samples, thereby enhancing the quality of summary generation. On the two scientific article datasets PubMed and arXiv, GoSum achieved the highest performance among extractive models. Particularly on the PubMed dataset, GoSum outperformed other models with ROUGE-1 and ROUGE-L scores surpassing by 0.45 and 0.26, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) plays an important role in various applications including environmental monitoring and smart farming. Mid‐infrared (MIR) fingerprint absorption spectroscopy is a powerful tool to extract chemical‐specific features for gas identification. However, the detection and recognition of trace VOC gas mixtures remain challenging due to their intrinsic weak light–matter interaction and highly overlapped absorption spectra. Here, an artificial intelligence‐enhanced "photonic nose" for MIR spectroscopic analysis of trace VOC gas mixtures is proposed. To enhance the sensing performance by increasing bandwidth and sensitivity, the "photonic nose" is designed to employ coupled multi‐resonant plasmonic nanoantennas to cover MIR molecular fingerprints, coated with metal–organic frameworks as the gas enrichment layer. Low limits of detection are achieved (IPA: 1.99 ppm, ethanol: 3.43 ppm, and acetone: 9.82 ppm). With machine learning, a high classification accuracy of 100% is realized for 125 mixing ratios (IPA, ethanol: both 5 concentrations, 0–130 ppm; acetone: 5 concentrations, 0–201 ppm), and low‐deviation component concentration predictions of root‐mean‐squared error within 10 ppm are achieved for IPA and ethanol (both 0–130 ppm) under interference from 50 ppm acetone. The work paves the way for intelligent sensing platforms for environmental monitoring and smart framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exosome small RNAs are believed to be involved in the pathogenesis of cancer, but their role in breast cancer is still unclear. This study utilized machine learning models to screen for key exosome small RNAs and analyzed and validated them. Method: Peripheral blood samples from breast cancer screening positive and negative people were used for small RNA sequencing of plasma exosomes. The differences in the expression of small RNAs between the two groups were compared. We used machine learning algorithms to analyze small RNAs with significant differences between the two groups, fit the model through training sets, and optimize the model through testing sets. We recruited new research subjects as validation samples and used PCR-based quantitative detection to validate the key small RNAs screened by the machine learning model. Finally, target gene prediction and functional enrichment analysis were performed on these key RNAs. Results: The machine learning model incorporates six small RNAs: piR-36,340, piR-33,161, miR-484, miR-548ah-5p, miR-4282, and miR-6853-3p. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the machine learning model in the training set was 0.985 (95% CI = 0.948-1), while the AUC in the test set was 0.972 (95% CI = 0.882–0.995). RT-qPCR was used to detect the expression levels of these key small RNAs in the validation samples, and the results revealed that their expression levels were significantly different between the two groups (P < 0.05). Through target gene prediction and functional enrichment analysis, it was found that the functions of the target genes were enriched mainly in the chemokine signaling pathway. Conclusion: The combination of six plasma exosome small RNAs has good prognostic value for women with positive breast cancer by imaging screening. The chemokine signaling pathway may be involved in the early stage of breast cancer. It is worth further exploring whether small RNAs mediate chemokine signaling pathways in the pathogenesis of breast cancer through the delivery of exosomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the global prevalence of myopia has reached an unprecedented level, especially‌ in East Asia. Multitude of studies has shown that the etiology of myopia is complex. Some researchers have suggested that oxidative stress (OS) may contribute to myopia, although there are limited reports on the alterations of related signaling pathways. Notably, the Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1) -nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2), which plays a significant role in regulating OS and the mechanism, has not been explored in myopia. To investigate the modulation of KEAP1-NRF2 signaling pathway and its downstream superoxide dismutase (SOD) during the development of form-deprivation myopia, three-week-old guinea pigs were randomly assigned to four groups: negative control (NC), self-control (SC), form-deprivation myopia (FDM), and FDM group treated with tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). Spherical equivalent (SE) and axial length (AL) were measured by retinoscopy and A-scan ultrasound, respectively. The results revealed that TBHQ treatment decelerated the progression in SE and AL changes. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) assessed the distribution and expression of KEAP1, NRF2, and SOD. The results shown that they located in the retinal ganglion cells (RGC). Subsequently, retinal mRNA and protein expression levels of KEAP1, NRF2, and SOD were quantified using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot (WB) analysis. The RT-PCR and WB results demonstrated that TBHQ could activate NRF2, induce KEAP1 degradation, and enhance the expression of the antioxidant SOD. In summary, the modulation of KEAP1-NRF2 and it downstream SOD expression could alter the retinal antioxidant capacity and influence the development of myopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-modal image analysis using deep learning (DL) lays the foundation for neoadjuvant treatment (NAT) response monitoring. However, existing methods prioritize extracting multi-modal features to enhance predictive performance, with limited consideration on real-world clinical applicability, particularly in longitudinal NAT scenarios with multi-modal data. Here, we propose the Multi-modal Response Prediction (MRP) system, designed to mimic real-world physician assessments of NAT responses in breast cancer. To enhance feasibility, MRP integrates cross-modal knowledge mining and temporal information embedding strategy to handle missing modalities and remain less affected by different NAT settings. We validated MRP through multi-center studies and multinational reader studies. MRP exhibited comparable robustness to breast radiologists, outperforming humans in predicting pathological complete response in the Pre-NAT phase (ΔAUROC 14% and 10% on in-house and external datasets, respectively). Furthermore, we assessed MRP's clinical utility impact on treatment decision-making. MRP may have profound implications for enrolment into NAT trials and determining surgery extensiveness. Deep learning for medical image analysis is a promising new avenue to predict treatment response, however the clinical application of these methods has been so far limited. Here, the authors propose a model to predict chemotherapy response in breast cancer in real world clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has invested substantial financial subsidies to promote the development of crop insurance; however, the insurance demand among farmers remains notably low, resulting in significant welfare loss. Based on a field survey conducted in 2021 in seven major grain-producing counties in Jiangsu Province, this study analyses the relationship between premium subsidy rates and the welfare effects of subsidies through theoretical model derivation and explores the impact of farmer heterogeneity on the results. This study innovatively introduces a power law distribution model to elucidate the distributional characteristics of farmers' crop insurance demand, demonstrates the significant limitations of the linear demand model in welfare research, and effectively analyzes the welfare effects of China's current crop insurance premium subsidy policy. The results indicate that: (1) the actual crop insurance demand of farmers aligns more closely with a power law distribution, and its long-tailed characteristics refute the assumption of linear distribution; (2) there exists an inverted "U"-shaped relationship between the subsidy ratio and the welfare effect, and an excessively high subsidy ratio produces substantial unnecessary losses; (3) variations in welfare effects exist among farmers in different regions, risk attitudes, and cultivation scales, but the range of differences between groups is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) is a common congenital viral infection. Testing for cCMV usually begins with assessing maternal CMV serology, specifically IgM and IgG antibodies. A negative maternal CMV IgM suggests a low risk of recent maternal CMV infection, thereby suggesting a low risk of cCMV in the fetus. Consequently, cCMV is often ruled out when maternal CMV IgM is negative. Methods: In our perinatal autopsy and placental pathology database, we identified 5 cases of cCMV despite negative maternal CMV IgM results in the second trimester. Results: In all 5 cases, fetal abnormalities were first detected by ultrasound in the second trimester, prompting maternal CMV testing. Since second trimester maternal CMV IgM was negative in all cases, cCMV was considered unlikely, thus precluding further prenatal CMV testing in 4 of these cases. The diagnosis of cCMV was subsequently made through placental and/or autopsy examinations. Following this diagnosis, retrospective CMV serology and IgG avidity testing was performed on stored frozen first-trimester maternal blood samples in 3 cases. Among these, the first-trimester samples in 2 cases were IgG+, IgM+, and exhibited low IgG avidity, suggesting a primary maternal CMV infection around the time of conception. In the third case, both first and second-trimester maternal blood samples were IgG+, IgM−, and showed high IgG avidity, suggesting a non-primary maternal CMV infection (i.e., reactivation or reinfection of CMV). Conclusion: A negative maternal CMV IgM in the second trimester cannot exclude cCMV infection. While CMV IgG avidity testing and analysis of stored frozen first-trimester maternal blood samples provide valuable insights, they have limitations. CMV PCR performed on amniotic fluid is a useful prenatal diagnostic tool. For cases of unexplained fetal abnormalities or death, autopsy and placental examination are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting systems are gradually gaining attention as a mechanism for users to engage in platform content governance, such as reporting problematic content in terms of misinformation or misbehaviors. However, there is little research on how a reporting system can be effectively designed to facilitate users' reports. This study presents a model that is grounded in structural empowerment theory and the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to bridge this gap and considers the embedded reporting system on social media as a mechanism to empower users to participate in reporting problematic content. Using a two-stage survey and a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the authors find that three empowerment structures of the reporting system (i.e. information transparency, tool usability, and platform reporting support) stimulate users' reporting self-efficacy through unequal pathways and then promote users' engagement in reporting platform content. The contribution of this paper is that it explores the application of structural empowerment theory in empowering user reporting on social media platforms, explains the relationship between the three empowerment structures, and then provides a reference to content governance practices for the platform owner and other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trophic niche is the result of the long‐term evolution of species and can reflect the pressures they experience in habitats. The whole‐genome sequencing of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) has indicated that populations distributed in Qinling (QIN) and non‐QIN probably diverged 300 ky ago. Although many studies regarding foraging strategy, habitat preference, and niche partition have been conducted on these populations, there is still a lack of precise quantification of trophic niches. Here, we calculated and compared isotopic trophic niche widths of giant pandas from Sichuan (SC) and QIN populations by measuring carbon and nitrogen isotopes of their hairs; combined with data from sympatric mammals, we explored the relative trophic positions of giant pandas in the ecosystem, respectively. The Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R (SIBER) model results showed the trophic niche width of QIN pandas was 3.44‰2, which was significantly bigger than those of the SC population (2.03‰2), with an overlapping about 1.45‰2; and they both occupied a unique position in the context, almost one trophic level lower than herbivores. Then, we determined the isotopic ratios of the main foods from the habitats of these pandas; the results suggested that the isotopic difference between bamboo shoots and other parts plus the various feeding selections of pandas on them accounted for pandas' trophic niche widths. We considered the higher nutrition availability and digestible food resources giving QIN pandas a wider trophic niche than pandas from SC. This conclusion provides a new insight into the resource use and trophic ecology of giant pandas and is important to develop refined management plans for the two populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the oncogenic mechanism of endoplasmic reticulum stress‐CAF (ERS‐CAF) subpopulation in chordoma remains unknown. Here, single‐cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler, data‐independent acquisition proteomics, bulk RNA‐seq, and multiplexed quantitative immunofluorescence are used to unveil the precise molecular mechanism of how ERS‐CAF affected chordoma progression. Results show that hypoxic microenvironment reprograms CAFs into ERS‐CAF subtype. Mechanistically, this occurrs via hypoxia‐mediated transcriptional upregulation of IER2. Overexpression of IER2 in CAFs promotes chordoma progression, which can be impeded by IER2 knockdown or use of ERS inhibitors. IER2 also induces expression of ERS‐CAF marker genes and results in production of a pro‐tumorigenic paracrine GMFG signaling, which exert its biological function via directly binding to ITGB1 on tumor cells. ITGB1 inhibition attenuates tumor malignant progression, which can be partially reversed by exogenous GMFG intervention. Further analyses reveal a positive correlation between ITGB1high tumor cell counts and SPP1+ macrophage density, as well as the spatial proximity of these two cell types. Clinically, a significant correlation of high IER2/ITGB1 expression with tumor aggressive phenotype and poor patient survival is observed. Collectively, the findings suggest that ERS‐CAF regulates SPP1+ macrophage to aggravate chordoma progression via the IER2/GMFG/ITGB1 axis, which may be targeted therapeutically in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA walker nanomachines are in fast development for biosensing, medical diagnostics, and food safety monitoring. For practical application, the issues of slow dynamics and low operational efficiency hinder its widespread application. Inspired by the high efficiency of agricultural cooperative machinery, a unique cleaving‐rolling‐assembly integrated nanodevice (CRAIN) is constructed for the high‐performance detection of various biomolecules. In the design, DNA nanotubes are introduced as building loaders to engineer polyoriented walking DNA nanorollers with blocked DNAzyme‐based walking strands and thus to increase the reaction direction and local concentration. Through target‐specific recognition, the activated nanorollers can autonomously and progressively cleave and roll along directional hairpin tracks on a gold substrate, significantly accelerating the reaction rate. Moreover, using nucleic acid‐encoded urchin‐shaped multispike gold‐silver composite nanospheres (nMGSs) as SERS‐enhanced probes, the engineered assembly of nMGSs probes induced by the cleaving‐rolling process promotes the formation of high‐density hotspot domains, further improving the detection sensitivity. With rational design, the CRAIN system can be extended to perform highly sensitive analyses of various analytes, such as microRNA‐21, butyrylcholinesterase activity and organophosphorus pesticides. This integrated assembly strategy can provide new perspectives for clinical diagnosis, biomedical engineering, and environmental science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pulmonary fibrosis is a serious interstitial lung disease with no viable treatment except for lung transplantation. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R), commonly regarded as an antidiabetic target, exerts antifibrotic effects on various types of organ fibrosis. However, whether GLP-1R modulates the development and progression of pulmonary fibrosis remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the antifibrotic effect of GLP-1R using in vitro and in vivo models of pulmonary fibrosis. Methods: A silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis mouse model was established to evaluate the protective effects of activating GLP-1R with liraglutide in vivo. Primary cultured lung fibroblasts treated with TGF-β1 combined with IL-1β (TGF-β1 + IL-1β) were used to explore the specific effects of liraglutide, MCC950, and 3PO on fibroblast activation in vitro. Cell metabolism assay was performed to determine the glycolytic rate and mitochondrial respiration. RNA sequencing was utilized to analyse the underlying molecular mechanisms by which liraglutide affects fibroblast activation. ChIP‒qPCR was used to evaluate histone lactylation at the promoters of profibrotic genes in TGF-β1 + IL-1β- or exogenous lactate-stimulated lung fibroblasts. Results: Activating GLP-1R with liraglutide attenuated pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis in mice exposed to silica. Pharmacological inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome suppressed PFKFB3-driven glycolysis and vice versa, resulting in decreased lactate production in TGF-β1 + IL-1β-stimulated lung fibroblasts. Activating GLP-1R inhibited TGF-β1 + IL-1β-induced fibroblast activation by disrupting the interaction between the NLRP3 inflammasome and PFKFB3-driven glycolysis and subsequently prevented lactate-mediated histone lactylation to reduce pro-fibrotic gene expression. In addition, activating GLP-1R protected mitochondria against the TGF-β1 + IL-1β-induced increase in oxidative phosphorylation in fibroblasts. In exogenous lactate-treated lung fibroblasts, activating GLP-1R not only repressed NLRP3 inflammasome activation but also alleviated p300-mediated histone lactylation. Finally, GLP-1R activation blocked silica-treated macrophage-conditioned media-induced lung fibroblast activation. Conclusions: The antifibrotic effects of GLP-1R activation on pulmonary fibrosis could be attributed to the inhibition of the interaction between NLRP3 inflammasome and PFKFB3-driven glycolysis, and histone lactylation in lung fibroblasts. Thus, GLP-1R is a specific therapeutic target for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expiratory CO2 concentrations can directly reflect human physiological conditions, and their detection is highly important in the treatment and rehabilitation of critically ill patients. Existing respiratory gas analyzers suffer from large sizes and high power consumption due to the limitations of the internal CO2 sensors, which prevent them from being wearable to track active people. The internal and external interference and sensitivity limitations must be overcome to realize wearable respiratory monitoring applications for CO2 sensors. In this work, an ultra-compact CO2 sensor was developed by integrating a microelectromechanical system emitter and thermopile detectors with an optical gas chamber; the power consumption of the light source and ambient temperature of the thermally sensitive devices were reduced by heat transfer control; the time to reach stabilization of the sensor was shortened; the humidity resistance of the sensor was improved by a dual-channel design; the light loss of the sensor was compensated by improving the optical coupling efficiency, which was combined with the amplitude trimming network to equivalently improve the sensitivity of the sensor. The minimum size of the developed sensor was 12 mm × 6 mm × 4 mm, and the reading error was <4% of the reading from −20 °C to 50 °C. The minimum power consumption of the sensor was ~33 mW, and the response time and recovery time were 10 s (@1 Hz), and the sensor had good humidity resistance, stability, and repeatability. These results indicate that the CO2 sensor developed using this strategy has great potential for wearable respiratory monitoring applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expiratory CO2 concentrations can directly reflect human physiological conditions, and their detection is highly important in the treatment and rehabilitation of critically ill patients. Existing respiratory gas analyzers suffer from large sizes and high power consumption due to the limitations of the internal CO2 sensors, which prevent them from being wearable to track active people. The internal and external interference and sensitivity limitations must be overcome to realize wearable respiratory monitoring applications for CO2 sensors. In this work, an ultra-compact CO2 sensor was developed by integrating a microelectromechanical system emitter and thermopile detectors with an optical gas chamber; the power consumption of the light source and ambient temperature of the thermally sensitive devices were reduced by heat transfer control; the time to reach stabilization of the sensor was shortened; the humidity resistance of the sensor was improved by a dual-channel design; the light loss of the sensor was compensated by improving the optical coupling efficiency, which was combined with the amplitude trimming network to equivalently improve the sensitivity of the sensor. The minimum size of the developed sensor was 12 mm × 6 mm × 4 mm, and the reading error was <4% of the reading from −20 °C to 50 °C. The minimum power consumption of the sensor was ~33 mW, and the response time and recovery time were 10 s (@1 Hz), and the sensor had good humidity resistance, stability, and repeatability. These results indicate that the CO2 sensor developed using this strategy has great potential for wearable respiratory monitoring applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprise portraits are reliant on the meticulous process of tag extraction, with the accuracy and efficiency of this foundational task being pivotal for the construction of high-quality portraits and their subsequent applicability in varied real-world scenarios. However, current methodologies, chiefly semantic clustering and deep neural networks, are constrained by significant shortcomings: the former struggles with intricate text feature discernment, while the latter, although high-performing, are marked by their extensive computational requirements. In response to these challenges, we present EPCEKD, a novel approach leveraging context embedding and knowledge distillation, designed to refine the tag extraction process. EPCEKD utilizes structured enterprise context data to facilitate feature expansion and impose tag constraints, enabling the efficient vectorization and integration of enterprise context data and text. Further, EPCEKD amalgamates a large-scale BERT network and a streamlined GRU network, embedding the branch network into the backbone network to forge a unified tag extraction model. To validate the efficacy of EPCEKD, comprehensive experiments were conducted on the Ente-pku dataset and benchmarked against eight prevailing models, with EPCEKD demonstrating superior performance, achieving 95.17% in precision, recall, and F1-score, significantly surpassing models like BiLSTM-CNN (94.25%) and Transformer (91.46%). Importantly, EPCEKD not only excels in precision and F1-score but also enhances the computing speed of large-scale neural networks by 4 - 11.4 times, showcasing its substantial potential for practical enterprise portrait applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The safety management of laboratories is of utmost importance in the construction and management of university laboratories. Abnormal behaviors such as smoking, incorrect wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE) like lab coats, hats, masks, and gloves pose significant safety hazards. In this paper, in order to improve the level of laboratory safety management and effectively provide an alert in the case of unsafe behaviors, video analysis technology is employed to achieve abnormal behavior recognition and monitoring through steps such as human key point detection, posture estimation, and behavior recognition. Firstly, the human pose estimation algorithm YOLO is used for human detection, followed by the extraction of human key points after segmentation. Finally, spatiotemporal graph convolution is used for feature detection and classification of abnormal behaviors. The experimental results show that the accuracy of abnormal behavior detection and recognition based on human key points reaches over 85%, which is of great significance for safety management and behavior warning in university laboratories, and thus, improves the efficiency and level of laboratory safety management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bidirectional controllable propagation of waterborne sound holds significant importance in developing multifunctional underwater acoustic and mechanical devices. However, the existing waterborne acoustic metasurfaces have rarely explored the bidirectional sound modulations. Here, a class of Janus waterborne acoustic metasurface, enabling two‐faced arbitrarily asymmetric wavefront manipulations is reported. A three‐degree‐of‐freedom mechanical system facilitated by acoustic‐structure interaction underwater is proposed to introduce bianisotropic responses of unit cells. Monolayer ultrathin Janus metasurface is inversely designed by utilizing a function‐structure integrated topology optimization framework. Distinct underwater acoustic functionalities, including axial and oblique focusing, beam splitting, and sound diffusion, are successfully demonstrated. Underwater experiments are further conducted to validate the concept of Janus metasurface. The good consistency between experimental and simulated results confirms the excellent two‐faced asymmetric acoustic focusing performance. The proposed Janus metasurface opens up a new dimension for designing advanced waterborne acoustic devices with two‐faced multifunctional wavefront manipulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To assess the effectiveness of moxibustion and fire needle acupuncture for the treatment of gouty arthritis (GA) by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: Seven electronic databases were searched from inception to August 2022 for all RCTs of moxibustion or fire needle acupuncture for GA treatment. Two investigators evaluated the quality of the included studies and extracted data independently. All statistical analyses were performed by RevMan 5.3. Results: Ten RCTs with 653 patients were included after the final screening. The meta-analysis showed that compared with Western medicine, both moxibustion and fire needle acupuncture significantly improved the total effective rate (RR = 1. 1 6 , 95% CI 1.10–1.23, P < 0. 0 0 0 0 1) and the Comprehensive Joint Swelling and Pain (CSJSP) (RR = 3. 6 2 , 95% CI 2.99–4.25, P < 0. 0 0 0 0 1) and significantly decreased the uric acid level (RR = 1 9. 3 4 , 95% CI 2.07–36.62, P = 0. 0 3). Subgroup analyses based on the intervention type showed that either moxibustion or fire needle acupuncture significantly improved the total effective rate and the CSJSP and reduced uric acid levels; however, moxibustion (MD = 2 7. 7 0 , 95% CI 19.85–35.54, P < 0. 0 0 0 0 1) was significantly better than fire-acupuncture (MD = − 1. 0 5 , 95% CI −14.39–12.29, P = 0. 8 8) in lowering uric acid levels. Conclusion: This study showed that both moxibustion and fire needle acupuncture are effective for GA patients. Considering the limitations of the included studies such as language bias and small sample size, rigorously designed and high-quality RCTs should be conducted to further evaluate the effectiveness and safety of moxibustion and fire needle acupuncture in treating GA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intestine is the principal digestive organ which is generally divided into three segments as the proximal intestine (PI), the mid intestine (MI), and the distal intestine (DI) in fish. In this study, the role of dietary vitamin D3 (VD3) in regulating the function and health of different intestinal segments was evaluated in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) fingerlings through the supplementation with the increasing levels of dietary VD3 (0, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 IU/kg). The results showed that VD3 supplementation (1000–2000 IU/kg) significantly enhanced the fish growth performance, and the correlation analysis suggested that this effect was positively correlated with intestinal somatic index (ISI) and intestinal length index (ILI) of MI and DI except PI. In support of this finding, dietary VD3 enhanced the activities of digestive and brush border enzymes in the fish mainly in MI and DI rather than PI. Furthermore, the intestinal microbiota analysis revealed that VD3 increased the abundance of intestinal flora at the genus level rather than the phylum level. Meanwhile, hematoxylin and eosin staining presented that VD3 supplementation reduced epithelial goblet cell hyperplasia and lamina propria edema compared with the VD3 deficiency group in the MI and DI. Further studies showed that feeding VD3 decreased malondialdehyde levels but increased total antioxidant capacity, glutathione levels, and total superoxidase activity in MI or DI but not PI, suggesting the antioxidant potential of VD3 in two intestinal segments. Moreover, in MI and DI but not PI, dietary VD3 suppressed pro-inflammatory cytokine (il1 β and tnf α ) but enhanced antimicrobial peptide (hepcidin and βdefensin) mRNA levels and increased the activities of immune-related enzymes (lysozyme and acid phosphatase), highlighting the ability to improve fish immunity. Corresponding to these effects, dietary VD3 was able to mediate NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and NF-κB pathways in MI and DI. Finally, quadratic regression models based on weight gain (PWG), feed efficiency (PE), ISI, and ILI suggested that the appropriate VD3 requirements for grass carp fingerlings were 1233.70–1387.11 IU/kg. Taken together, our findings strengthened the potential of dietary VD3 in managing the functions and health of particular intestinal segments and provided valuable reference data for VD3 requirements of fingerling fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foldable tail of the box-type launch vehicle poses a risk of mechanical jamming during the launch process, which is not conducive to the smooth completion of the flight mission. The integrated nonfolding ducted tail proposed in this article can solve the problem of storing the tail in the launch box. Moreover, traditional mechanical control surfaces have been eliminated, and active jet control has been adopted to control the pitch direction of the flight attitude, which can improve the structural reliability of the tail wing. By studying the effects of parameters such as momentum coefficient, jet hole position, jet hole height, and jet angle on improving the aerodynamic performance of ducted tail wing, relatively good jet parameters are selected. Research has found that compared with jet hole height and jet angle, momentum coefficient and jet hole position are more effective in improving the aerodynamic performance of ducted tail wings. Under a trailing edge jet, a relatively good jet condition occurs when the jet hole height is equal to0.25% of the aerodynamic chord length, and the jet angle is equal to 0°. At this time, with the increase of the jet momentum coefficient, the effect of increasing the lift of the ducted tail wing is the best. Finally, a comparative analysis is conducted on the lift and drag characteristics between the ducted tail wing and traditional tail wing, and it is found that the ducted tail wing can generate lift at a 0° attack angle and will not stall in the high attack angle range of 12°~22°, with broad application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive heat generated by electronic components during continuous operation will affect the operation of the equipment, so it is of significance to face up to the heat dissipation problem of electronic packaging materials. Epoxy resin (EP) is widely applied to electronic components for its excellent electrical insulation and processability. To improve the thermal conductivity of composites, this study prepared BN-Al2O3/EP composites by adding a hybrid of modified boron nitride (mBN) and modified alumina (Al2O3) into EP. Profiting from the high thermal conductivity and low dielectric constant of BN and Al2O3, the thermal and dielectric properties of EP composites were improved. Specifically, the composite of 4 wt.% BN-3 wt.% Al2O3 not only occupied the high thermal conductivity 0.25 W/(m K) at 50°C, but also kept the relatively inferior dielectric constant (4.27) and the low dielectric loss (0.0037) at 102 Hz. The composite could be applied in electronic packaging materials as it has excellent dielectric properties and high thermal conductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soybean is an indispensable crop producing the majority of vegetative oils and proteins. China has been importing millions of ton of soy beans in recent years. Developing new varieties with favorable traits in both yield and resilience has great potential to meet the market needs in China. In this study, we bred a new variety (Xiangchun 37) which has been licensed by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China in 2024. In the field tests, Xiangchun 37 showed medium maturity period (107.4 days from sowing to harvest), high yield (187.3 kg/667m2), and high seed oil content (22.19%). Overall assessment showed Xiangchun 37 had other favorable traits including the plant architecture and disease resistance. In conclusion, Xiangchun 37 is a new variety suitable for Hunan Province, China and has promising future for further genetic improvement as a germplasm with multiple favorable traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epikarst plays a critical role in karst water circulation, however, its studies have often been limited to small springs or basins, ignoring its importance in larger, highly karstified subterranean streams. This study focused on the Longlingong (LLG) subterranean stream system, where the discharge and electrical conductivity (EC) of the subterranean stream outlet for 2.5 years, and found that 85% of all rainstorm events monitored during this period showed a pattern of increasing and then decreasing EC. High‐resolution hydrochemistry monitoring was conducted at the outlet during a rainstorm event when this response pattern occurred. Simultaneously, epikarst water (EW), saturated zone fissure karst water (FW), and surface water (PW) from this system were collected as three recharge sources for hydrochemical analyses based on the results of the field investigations, and end‐member mixing analyses were performed using the EMMA‐MIX model. These combined methods can accurately characterise the response of the subterranean stream system to rainstorm events, assess the contribution and response of individual recharge sources throughout the rainstorm, and reveal the mechanisms involved. The results indicate that the increase in EC is primarily driven by changes in HCO3− concentration resulting from the rapid discharge of EW through sinkholes and shafts. EW contributes 28.7% of the rain‐induced subterranean stream runoff, exceeding FW. The epikarst exhibits a rapid response to rainstorms, as evidenced by a remarkable 681% increase in EW discharge following a rainstorm event. Flood peaks in the subterranean stream are mainly composed of PW (44%) and EW (43.6%). This study highlights the key role of the epikarst as a karst groundwater reservoir. The sensitivity of the epikarst to rainstorms, particularly its role in facilitating rapid piston‐like migration of EW during initial runoff, highlights its significant influence on discharge and hydrochemistry. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the function of epikarst within highly karstified subterranean streams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroblastoma is a devastating disease accounting for ~15% of all childhood cancer deaths. Collagen content and fiber association within the tumor stroma influence tumor progression and metastasis. High expression levels of collagen receptor kinase, Discoidin domain receptor II (DDR2), are associated with the poor survival of neuroblastoma patients. Additionally, cancer cells generate and sustain mechanical forces within their environment as a part of their normal physiology. Despite this, evidence regarding whether collagen-activated DDR2 signaling dysregulates these migration forces is still elusive. To address these questions, a novel shRNA DDR2 knockdown neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) was engineered to evaluate the consequence of DDR2 on cellular mechanics. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and traction force microscopy (TFM) were utilized to unveil the biophysical altercations. DDR2 downregulation was found to significantly reduce proliferation, cell stiffness, and cellular elongation. Additionally, DDR2-downregulated cells had decreased traction forces when plated on collagen-coated elastic substrates. Together, these results highlight the important role that DDR2 has in reducing migration mechanics in neuroblastoma and suggest DDR2 may be a promising novel target for future therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Predation relationships and competition relationships shape interspecies coexistence in wild animal communities. Studying the temporal and spatial activity patterns of wild animals is crucial for understanding their behavior, species interactions, and resource requirements. We evaluated the spatiotemporal overlap between 15 different dominant species in the southwestern mountains of China, including Carnivora (such as Panthera pardus and Lynx lynx), Artiodactyla (such as Moschus spp. and Rusa unicolor), Primate (Macaca mulatta), and Galliformes (Crossoptilon crossoptilon, Ithaginis cruentus). We found that different species exhibit different activity patterns to reduce intense resource competition, with competition being more intense in cold seasons than warm seasons. This may be due to abundant resources in summer but scarce food in winter, as well as increased energy demands during cold seasons, as expected using physiology theory. Temporal and spatial factors regulate the interactions between apex predators, mesocarnivores, and herbivores. Prey adjust their activity patterns and spatial utilization based on predator activities; in turn, predators also adapt to the activities of their prey. To elucidate the factors influencing the daily activity rhythms of animals, 115 camera traps were established from September 2019 to June 2023 to assess the influences of interspecific relationships and seasons on the daily activity rhythms of animals in the southwest mountains of China. The species captured by the cameras included six Carnivora (such as Panthera pardus and Lynx lynx), six Artiodactyla (such as Moschus spp. and Rusa unicolor), one Primate (Macaca mulatta), and two Galliformes (Crossoptilon crossoptilon, Ithaginis cruentus). The results demonstrated that the 15 species exhibited different activity rhythms and peak activities to reduce intense resource competition. There were differences in the species' activity rhythms in different seasons, with competition among different species being more intense in the cold season than in the warm season. In predation relationships, the overlap coefficient in the cold season exceeded that of the warm season, possibly due to the abundant resources in summer and food scarcity in winter. In competitive relationships, 15 pairs of species exhibited significantly higher overlap coefficients in the cold season compared to the warm season, possibly due to increased demands for energy during the cold period or seasonal changes in predatory behavior. By analyzing the daily and seasonal activity patterns of dominant species in the study area, temporal niche overlaps were established to compare the competition levels between species. These findings indicate that the activity rhythms of the animals in this area not only result from evolutionary adaptation but are also influenced by season, food resources, and interspecific relationships (predation and competition). Thus, efforts should be made to reduce human interference, protect food resources in the winter, and monitor animals' interspecific relationships to protect animal diversity and maintain the stability of the ecosystem in this biodiversity hotspot in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Plants have numerous defensive secondary metabolites to withstand insect attacks. Scoparone, which is extracted from the medicinal plant Artemisia capillaris, has potent acaricidal effects on Tetranychus cinnabarinus. Spirodiclofen, derived from a tetronic acid derivative, is a potent commercial acaricide that is extensively used globally. However, whether scoparone has synergistic effects when used in conjunction with spirodiclofen and the underlying synergistic mechanism remains unclear. RESULTS: Scoparone exhibited a potent synergistic effect when it was combined with spirodiclofen at a 1:9 ratio. Subsequently, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (P450) activity, RNA‐Seq and qPCR assays indicated that the enzyme activity of P450 and the expression of one P450 gene from T. cinnabarinus, TcCYP388A1, were significantly inhibited by scoparone and spirodiclofen + scoparone; conversely, P450 was activated in spirodiclofen‐exposed mites. Importantly, RNAi‐mediated silencing of the TcCYP388A1 gene markedly increased the susceptibility of spider mites to spirodiclofen, scoparone and spirodiclofen + scoparone, and in vitro, the recombinant TcCYP388A1 protein could metabolize spirodiclofen. Molecular docking and functional analyses further indicated that R117, which is highly conserved in Arachnoidea species, may be a vital specific binding site for scoparone in the mite TcCYP388A1 protein. This binding site was subsequently confirmed using mutagenesis data, which revealed that this binding site was the sole site selected by scoparone in spider mites over mammalian or fly CYP388A1. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that the synergistic effects of scoparone and spirodiclofen on mites occurs through the inhibition of P450 activity, thus reducing spirodiclofen metabolism. The synergistic effect of this potent natural product on the detoxification enzyme‐targeted activity of commercial acaricides may offer a sustainable strategy for pest mite resistance management. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: There is a growing infectious syphilis outbreak in Western Canada. Although blood donors are screened for syphilis risks, some blood donors will still be confirmed test‐positive for syphilis. This study compares the characteristics of confirmed test‐positive syphilis donations in both Western Canada and Eastern Canada, November 2022–August 2023. Materials and Methods: Donors were defined as Western or Eastern Canadian. Blood donations were tested for syphilis using the PK‐TP assay (Beckman Coulter PK7300 Automated Microplate System). Confirmatory Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) and rapid plasma reagin (RPR) assays were performed by one of two reference laboratories. An RPR titre ≥1:8 was used as a proxy for possible infectious syphilis. Results: Rates of laboratory‐confirmed syphilis were higher in Western (n = 43, 13.4/100,000 donations) versus Eastern donors (n = 19, 4.7/100,000 donations; Fisher's exact test, two‐sided, p ≤ 0.0001). Most syphilis confirmations were in first‐time donors (Western Canada n = 31/43, 72.1%, Eastern Canada 12/19, 63.2%). Conclusion: Although rates of laboratory‐confirmed syphilis were higher in Western versus Eastern donors, Western donors did not have higher rates of infectious syphilis. Further studies might assess whether donors with laboratory‐confirmed syphilis understood pre‐donation screening questions or were completely unaware of a past infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathogenic germline mutations in the P-type copper-transporting ATPase (ATP7B) gene cause Wilson's disease (WD), a hereditary disorder characterized by disrupted copper metabolism. The Arg778Leu (R778L) mutation in exon 8 is prevalent among individuals with WD in East Asia and is associated with more severe phenotypes. In this study, we generated a WD mouse model harboring R778L mutation (R778L mice) using CRISPR/Cas9. R778L mice exhibit a range of pathological characteristics resembling those of patients with WD and the same point mutations, including aberrant copper metabolism, pathological cellular injury, inflammation, and severe hepatic fibrosis. At 3–5 months of age, these mice started to display neurological deficits in motor coordination and cognitive dysfunction, accompanied by increased expression of inflammatory cytokines in the central nervous system. Microglia in the striatum and cortex exhibit significant activation, shorter processes, and decreased branch points. However, the Cu2+ levels in the brain tissue of R778L mice did not differ significantly from those of wild-type mice. Notably, inhibition of hepatic inflammation with PJ34 or siNfkb markedly alleviated the deficiencies in cognitive performance and improved locomotor activity in R778L mice. Thus, this study establishes a novel murine model to investigate the pathophysiology of WD, highlights the liver-brain crosstalk responsible for neurological manifestations in individuals with WD caused by the R778L point mutation, and demonstrates the potential of modulating liver inflammation as a therapeutic strategy for alleviating the neurological manifestations of WD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there is a increase in researchers' interest on social evidence, particularly for fake news detection (FND). However, news posts on social media often include diverse modalities, e.g., text, image, etc., and diverse events related to politics, economics, etc., resulting in significant modality and event differences. How to jointly learn modal-invariant and event-invariant discriminative features effectively of news posts remains a challenge. This paper proposes a novel FND approach, called Cycle Mapping and Adversarial Event Classification Network (CMAECN). It consists of two parts: a multi-modal cycle feature mapping module (CMM) and an adversarial event classification module (AECM). In order to fully reduce modality difference, the CMM module is designed, which performs cross-modal generation between image and text modalities by using the generative model, conducts feature source identification between initial and generated features for each modality with the discriminative model, and reconstructs text or image features with the cross-modal fused features to avoid information loss with the reconstructor. In order to fully reduce event difference, the AECM module is designed to perform event adversarial classification between the event classification task and the event-independent classification task with a multi-task event classifier, where each dimension of the classifier output corresponds to a certain event category, and an additional dimension of the output represents the event-independent category. The network training of CMAECN is conducted by adopting an adversarial scheme. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on two public datasets, and CMAECN shows superior performance compared to the state-of-the-art multi-modal FND methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoxylon vinosopulvinatum DYR-1-7 is a endophytic fungus isolated from the Cinnamomum cassia Presl and has an inhibitory effect on Lasiodiplodia pseudotheobromae. Three new furanones, hypoxylonone A-C (1-3), as well as three known compounds (4-6), were isolated from an EtOAc extract of H. vinosopulvinatum DYR-1-7. The structures were determined by spectroscopic data analysis using UV, IR, 1D-, 2D-NMR and HR-ESI-MS. The absolute configurations of 1-3 were elucidated by electronic circular dichroism (ECD) analyses. In the antifungal bioassay, Hypoxylonone B and C exhibited strong inhibitory effects on L. pseudotheobromae with IC50 value at the concentration of 1.01 and 2.40 μg/mL, respectively. Compound 6 showed medium antifungal activity with IC50 value at the concentration of 10.67 μg/mL on Fusarium oxysporum. Compounds 3 and 4 displayed medium antifungul effects on Candida albicans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) often causes disease through coinfection with other bacterial pathogens, including Glaesserella parasuis (G. parasuis), which causes high morbidity and mortality, but the role played by PCV2 and bacterial and host factors contributing to this process have not been defined. Bacterial attachment is assumed to occur via specific receptor-ligand interactions between adhesins on the bacterial cell and host proteins adsorbed to the implant surface. Mass spectrometry (MS) analysis of PCV2-infected swine tracheal epithelial cells (STEC) revealed that the expression of Extracellular matrix protein (ECM) Fibronectin (Fn) increased significantly on the infected cells surface. Importantly, efficient G. parasuis serotype 4 (GPS4) adherence to STECs was imparted by interactions with Fn. Furthermore, abrogation of adherence was gained by genetic knockout of Fn, Fn and Integrin β1 antibody blocking. Fn is frequently exploited as a receptor for bacterial pathogens. To explore the GPS4 adhesin that interacts with Fn, recombinant Fn N-terminal type I and type II domains were incubated with GPS4, and the interacting proteins were pulled down for MS analysis. Here, we show that rare lipoprotein A (RlpA) directly interacts with host Fibronectin mediating GPS4 adhesion. Finally, we found that PCV2-induced Fibronectin expression and adherence of GPS4 were prevented significantly by TGF-β signaling pathway inhibitor SB431542. Our data suggest the RlpA-Fn interaction to be a potentially promising novel therapeutic target to combat PCV2 and GPS4 coinfection. Author summary: Porcine circovirus type 2 and Glaesserella parasuis (G. parasuis) are common upper respiratory tract pathogens in pigs, which co-infection causes high morbidity and mortality. However, the underlying mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions during PCV2 and GPS4 co-infection remain unclear. Here, we focused on the interaction of PCV2-infected cells and GPS4, which revealed that swine tracheal epithelial cells (STEC) infected with PCV2 exhibit the increased expression of Fn. Notably, PCV2 infection-induced Fn interacting with RlpA was shown to impart efficient adherence to GPS4. Fn and Integrin β1 antibody blocking and SB431542 counteracted PCV2 infection-induced GPS4 colonization. These studies reveal a novel receptor-ligand interaction that enhances colonization of the tracheal by GPS4 following PCV2 infection and highlights the importance of Fn-RlpA in host-pathogen interactions. In addition, RlpA was discovered for the first time as an adhesin of GPS4, which provided a new idea for the development of G. parasuis vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exceptional point (EP), a special degeneracy in non‐Hermitian systems, has exhibited various distinctive wave characteristics. However, the conventional synthesis of scattering EPs in acoustics is confined to rather limited methods for breaking Hermiticity, typically requiring intrinsic losses or open interfaces. Here, the concept of synthesizing scattering EPs is theoretically and experimentally demonstrated by leveraging a metasurface with fluid‐solid interaction (FSI) in water. The incorporation of FSI offers a novel mechanism to customize natural radiation losses. Simulations and experiments consistently confirm that synthesized EPs result in extremely asymmetric scattering patterns, even in the case of spatially impenetrable metasurfaces. This enhanced spatial symmetry breaking benefits from the FSI on the interface and the nonlocal interaction between unit cells. The proposed non‐Hermitian framework, involving the interplay of sound in fluids and solids, is expected to open up new possibilities for exploring unique non‐Hermitian physics and underwater acoustic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the expression of androgen receptor (AR) and clinical characteristics in breast cancer. Patients and methods: The clinical records of all 432 patients tested for AR in our institution between January 2020 and May 2023 were reviewed. Clinical characteristics, age, menopausal status, tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage, distant metastasis, pathological complete response (pCR), histopathological features histological grade, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor, Her-2, Ki-67, and molecular subtype were registered for all patients. Results: About 377 (87.27%) of the 432 patients had AR expression. No significant difference in AR expression was found with age, menopausal status, TNM stage of primary tumor, or pCR. AR was positively and significantly associated with the histological grade, and recurrence. The AR expression was significantly related with molecular subtypes, including ER, PR Her-2, Ki67 and molecular subtype. ER (OR = 10.489, 95%CI: 5.470–21.569), PR (OR = 7.690, 95%CI: 3.974–16.129, Her-2 (OR = 10.489, 95%CI: 2.779–23.490 and tumor recurrence (OR = 0.110, 95%CI: 0.031–0.377 were significant independent risk factors affecting AR expression. Conclusions: AR expression can serve as a reliable basis for judging the clinical molecular types and poor prognosis for breast cancer. AR may be a novel biomarker and target in AR-positive breast cancer depending on significant difference in AR expression among different molecular types of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, multi-modal vision-language foundation models have gained significant attention in the medical field. While these models offer great opportunities, they still face crucial challenges, such as the requirement for fine-grained knowledge understanding in computer-aided diagnosis and the capability of utilizing very limited or even no task-specific labeled data in real-world clinical applications. In this study, we present MaCo, a masked contrastive chest X-ray foundation model that tackles these challenges. MaCo explores masked contrastive learning to simultaneously achieve fine-grained image understanding and zero-shot learning for a variety of medical imaging tasks. It designs a correlation weighting mechanism to adjust the correlation between masked chest X-ray image patches and their corresponding reports, thereby enhancing the model's representation learning capabilities. To evaluate the performance of MaCo, we conducted extensive experiments using 6 well-known open-source X-ray datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of MaCo over 10 state-of-the-art approaches across tasks such as classification, segmentation, detection, and phrase grounding. These findings highlight the significant potential of MaCo in advancing a wide range of medical image analysis tasks. Multi-modal foundation models are increasingly important in medical applications. Here, authors show a masked contrastive chest X-ray model that achieves fine-grained image understanding and zero-shot capabilities, outperforming existing methods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Whether antibodies against leucine-rich glioma-inactivated 1 (LGI1-Abs) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are partially transferred from serum and the impact of CSF-LGI1-Ab positivity on clinical features and prognosis are unclear. Therefore, we aim to investigate the differences in serum titers, clinical features, and outcomes between LGI1-Ab CSF-positive and LGI1-Ab CSF-negative patients. Methods: Retrospective analysis of serum titers and clinical features according to CSF LGI1-Ab status. In addition, univariate and multivariate logistic regression were performed to identify predictors of worse outcomes. Results: A total of 60 patients with anti-LGI1 encephalitis and positive serum LGI1-Abs were identified, of whom 8 (13.3%) patients were excluded due to the absence of CSF LGI1-Ab testing. Among the remaining 52 patients, 33 (63.5%) were positive for LGI1-Abs in CSF. CSF-positive patients were more likely to have high serum titers (≥ 1:100) than CSF-negative patients (p = 0.003), and Spearman's correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between CSF and serum titers in CSF-positive patients (r2 = 0.405, p = 0.019). Psychiatric symptoms and hyponatremia were more frequent in CSF-positive patients (p < 0.05). Both univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that CSF LGI1-Ab positivity and delayed immunotherapy are independent risk factors for incomplete recovery (modified Rankin Scale (mRS) > 0 at last follow-up). Conclusions: LGI1-Ab CSF-positive patients have higher serum titers, and their CSF titers are positively correlated with serum titers, indicating a possible peripheral origin of CSF LGI1-Abs. CSF-positive patients more often present with psychiatric symptoms, hyponatremia, and worse outcomes, suggesting more severe neuronal damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theory of firm behavior, we explain the voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure behavior of firms from the perspective of trust repair and regard the process of firms' response to the CSR institution as an important way to trust repair for firms' management. We adopt an event history approach with a sample of Chinese firms listed on the A‐share market from 2008 to 2020 and find that faster engagement in CSR disclosure is one of the important trust repair methods for management when firms face performance gaps, and performance gaps positively incentivize firms to voluntarily engage in CSR disclosure. In addition, managers consider the total costs, risks, and benefits of different trust repair methods, there is a substitution effect between different trust repair methods, and the disclosure of internal audit reports and philanthropic donations negatively moderates the relationship between performance gap and CSR disclosure. Our study has important implications for understanding how firm performance affects CSR strategic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We aimed to compare glycemic variability (GV) parameters using both a flash glucose monitoring (FGM) system and cardiometabolic risk parameters in hospitalized patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) between cohorts receiving short-term intensive insulin infusion (STII) plus empagliflozin (EMPA) combination therapy vs. STII therapy alone. Methods: In a 2-week, open-label, randomized, parallel-group clinical trial, newly diagnosed patients with T2DM [fasting plasma glucose (FPG) > 11.1 mmol/L or hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) > 9.0%] or patients with poor glycemic control (HbA1c > 7.0%) on oral antidiabetic drugs (OAD) received either STII+EMPA therapy (n = 30) or STII therapy alone (n = 30). FGM was carried over 14 days, and the data were used to calculate time in range (TIR [3.9–10 mmol/L]) and compare GV parameters. 1,5-Anhydroglucitol (1,5-AG) and cardiometabolic indicators of oxidative stress, inflammation, and vascular endothelial function were also compared. Results: After treatment, the TIR percentage was significantly higher (p < 0.05), and the time below range (TBR; < 3.9 mmol/L) was significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the STII+EMPA group than that in the STII group. The various measured glycemic parameters were significantly lower, and the average daily dose of insulin was also significantly lower in patients with STII+EMPA treatment (all p < 0.05). Plasma 1,5-AG levels were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the STII+EMPA group than that in the control group. Conclusions: Newly diagnosed patients with T2DM or with poor glycemic control on OAD attained greater benefit and lower GV from STII+EMPA treatment than that for STII treatment alone. The 1,5-AG marker is a good indicator of the effects of short-term glycemic control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent video text spotting methods usually require the three-staged pipeline, i.e., detecting text in individual images, recognizing localized text, tracking text streams with post-processing to generate final results. The previous methods typically follow the tracking-by-match paradigm and develop sophisticated pipelines, which is an not effective solution. In this paper, rooted in Transformer sequence modeling, we propose a simple, yet effective end-to-end trainable video text DEtection, Tracking, and Recognition framework (TransDeTR), which views the VTS task as a direct long-range temporal modeling problem. TransDeTR mainly includes two advantages: (1) Different from the explicit match paradigm in the adjacent frame, the proposed TransDeTR tracks and recognizes each text implicitly by the different query termed 'text query' over long-range temporal sequence (more than 7 frames). (2) TransDeTR is the first end-to-end trainable video text spotting framework, which simultaneously addresses the three sub-tasks (e.g., text detection, tracking, recognition). Extensive experiments on four video text datasets (e.g., ICDAR2013 Video, ICDAR2015 Video) are conducted to demonstrate that TransDeTR achieves state-of-the-art performance with up to 11.0 % improvements on detection, tracking, and spotting tasks. Code can be found at: https://github.com/weijiawu/TransDETR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether maternal depression is related to Early Childhood Developmental (ECD) delay among children by quantifying the mediating contribution of responsive caregiving. We used data from 1235 children (Children's mean age = 50.4 months; 582 girls, 653 boys, 93.9% were Han), selected through convenience sampling, in 2021. 4.7% of children had ECD delay, 34.3% of mothers had depression. Children with depressed mothers were less likely to receive responsive caregiving (OR 4.35, 95% CI 2.60–7.27), and those who did not receive responsive caregiving were more likely to experience ECD delay (OR 3.89, 95% CI 1.89–8.02). Responsive caregiving partly mediated the relationship between maternal depression and ECD. Early intervention for children with depressed mothers is worthy of further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethylene dimerization is an efficient industrial chemical process to produce 1‐butene, with demanding selectivity and activity requirements on new catalytic systems. Herein, a series of monodentate phosphinoamine‐nickel complexes immobilized on UiO‐66 are described for ethylene dimerization. These catalysts display extensive molecular tunability of the ligand similar to organometallic catalysis, while maintaining the high stability attributed to the metal–organic framework (MOF) scaffold. The highly flexible postsynthetic modification method enables this study to prepare MOFs functionalized with five different substituted phosphines and 3 N‐containing ligands and identify the optimal catalyst UiO‐66‐L5‐NiCl2 with isopropyl substituted nickel mono‐phosphinoamine complex. This catalyst shows a remarkable activity and selectivity with a TOF of 29 000 (molethyl/molNi/h) and 99% selectivity for 1‐butene under ethylene pressure of 15 bar. The catalyst is also applicable for continuous production in the packed column micro‐reactor with a TON of 72 000 (molethyl/molNi). The mechanistic insight for the ethylene oligomerization has been examined by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The calculated energy profiles for homogeneous complexes and truncated MOF models reveal varying rate‐determining step as β‐hydrogen elimination and migratory insertion, respectively. The activation barrier of UiO‐66‐L5‐NiCl2 is lower than other systems, possibly due to the restriction effect caused by clusters and ligands. A comprehensive analysis of the structural parameters of catalysts shows that the cone angle as steric descriptor and butene desorption energy as thermodynamic descriptor can be applied to estimate the reactivity turnover frequency (TOF) with the optimum for UiO‐66‐L5‐NiCl2. This work represents the systematic optimization of ligand effect through combination of experimental and theoretical data and presents a proof‐of‐concept for ethylene dimerization catalyst through simple heterogenization of organometallic catalyst on MOF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the temperature evolution in the three-dimensional skin tissue exposed to an electromagnetic beam of millimeter wavelength. The skin absorption coefficient of the beam frequency determines how deep the electromagnetic energy penetrates into the skin tissue, which gives a sub-millimeter penetration depth for a 94 GHz wave. In contrast, in the lateral directions perpendicular to the depth, the beam size is usually much larger than the penetration depth. Based on this separation of length scales, we establish an asymptotic formulation in which each term has separable dependences on the depth coordinate and on the lateral coordinates. We solve it analytically to obtain a two-term asymptotic solution of the temperature distribution in the three-dimensional skin tissue. This closed-form analytical solution provides a practical and accurate way of predicting the temperature. When the beam size is moderately larger than the penetration depth (a ratio of 20), the effect of lateral heat conduction is well captured in the asymptotic solution with maximum error less than 0.0017 in the normalized temperature of magnitude well above 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]