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Safflower yellow is an extract of the famous Chinese medicine Carthamus tinctorious L, and safflower yellow injection (SYI) is widely used clinically to treat angina pectoris. However, there are few studies on the anti-myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury effect of SYI, and its mechanisms are unclear. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the protective effect of SYI on myocardial I/R injury and explore its underlying mechanisms. Male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into a control group, sham group, model group, and SYI group (20 mg/kg, femoral vein injection 1 h before modeling). The left anterior descending coronary artery was ligated to establish a myocardial I/R model. H9c2 cells were exposed to oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) after incubation with 80 μg/mL SYI for 24 h. In vivo, TsTC, HE, and TUNEL staining were performed to evaluate myocardial injury and apoptosis. A kit was used to detect superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA) to assess oxidative stress. In vitro, flow cytometry was used to detect the reactive oxygen species (ROS) content and apoptosis rate. Protein levels were determined via Western blotting. Pretreatment with SYI significantly reduced infarct size and pathological damage in rat hearts and suppressed cardiomyocyte apoptosis in vivo and in vitro. In addition, SYI inhibited oxidative stress by increasing SOD activity and decreasing MDA content and ROS production. Myocardial I/R and OGD/R activate endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, as evidenced by increased expression of activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6), glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), cysteinyl aspartate-specific proteinase caspase-12, and C/EBP-homologous protein (CHOP), which were all inhibited by SYI. SYI ameliorated myocardial I/R injury by attenuating apoptosis, oxidative damage, and ER stress, which revealed new mechanistic insights into its application.

Background: Epidemiological evidence suggests that long-term exposure to outdoor ultrafine particles (UFPs, <0.1 μm) may have important human health impacts. However, less is known about the acute health impacts of these pollutants as few models are available to estimate daily within-city spatiotemporal variations in outdoor UFPs., Methods: Several machine learning approaches (i.e., generalized additive models, random forest models, and extreme gradient boosting) were used to predict daily spatiotemporal variations in outdoor UFPs (number concentration and size) across Montreal and Toronto, Canada using a large database of mobile monitoring measurements. Separate models were developed for each city and all models were evaluated using a 10-fold cross-validation procedure., Results: In total, our models were based on measurements from 12,705 road segments in Montreal and 10,929 road segments in Toronto. Daily median outdoor UFP number concentrations varied substantially across both cities with 1st-99th percentiles ranging from 1389 to 181,672 in Montreal and 2472 to 118,544 in Toronto. Outdoor UFP size tended to be smaller in Montreal (mean [SD]: 34 nm [15]) than in Toronto (mean [SD]: 44 nm [25]). Extreme gradient boosting models performed best and explained the majority of spatiotemporal variations in outdoor UFP number concentrations (Montreal, R 2 : 0.727; Toronto, R 2 : 0.723) and UFP size (Montreal, R 2 : 0.823; Toronto, R 2 : 0.898) with slopes close to one and intercepts close to zero for relationships between measured and predicted values., Conclusion: These new models will be applied in future epidemiological studies examining the acute health impacts of outdoor UFPs in Canada's two largest cities., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest with regard to the content of this report., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The Environmental Epidemiology. All rights reserved.)

Rationale: Outdoor fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) contributes to millions of deaths around the world each year, but much less is known about the long-term health impacts of other particulate air pollutants including ultrafine particles (a.k.a. nanoparticles) which are in the nanometer size range (<100 nm), widespread in urban environments, and not currently regulated., Objectives: Estimate the associations between long-term exposure to outdoor ultrafine particles and mortality., Methods: Outdoor air pollution levels were linked to the residential addresses of a large, population-based cohort from 2001 - 2016. Associations between long-term exposure to outdoor ultrafine particles and nonaccidental and cause-specific mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models., Measurements: An increase in long-term exposure to outdoor ultrafine particles was associated with an increased risk of nonaccidental mortality (Hazard Ratio = 1. 073, 95% Confidence Interval = 1. 061, 1. 085) and cause-specific mortality, the strongest of which was respiratory mortality (Hazard Ratio = 1.174, 95% Confidence Interval = 1.130, 1.220)., Main Results: Long-term exposure to outdoor ultrafine particles was associated with increased risk of mortality. We estimated the mortality burden for outdoor ultrafine particles in Montreal and Toronto, Canada to be approximately 1100 additional nonaccidental deaths every year. Furthermore, we observed possible confounding by particle size which suggests that previous studies may have underestimated or missed important health risks associated with ultrafine particles., Conclusions: As outdoor ultrafine particles are not currently regulated, there is great potential for future regulatory interventions to improve population health by targeting these common outdoor air pollutants.

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a common type of chronic pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. This condition imposes a considerable economic burden on society and patients. Daphnetin (DAP) is a natural product isolated from a Chinese medicinal herb with various pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. However, the underlying mechanisms of these effects are not fully understood. In the present study, we aimed to investigate DAP's anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects and explore the underlying mechanisms of action. The NP model was established as chronic constrictive injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve, and pain sensitivity was evaluated by measuring the mechanical withdrawal threshold (MWT) and thermal withdrawal threshold (TWT). The activation of microglia in the spinal dorsal horn was measured via immunofluorescence staining. Protein levels were measured using a western blot assay. Using a mass-spectrometry proteomics platform and an LC-MS/MS-based metabolomics platform, proteins and metabolites in spinal cord tissues were extracted and analyzed. DAP treatment ameliorated the MWT and TWT in CCI rats. The expression of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α was inhibited by DAP treatment in the spinal cords of CCI rats. Moreover, the activation of microglia was suppressed after DAP treatment. The elevation in the levels of P2X 4 , IRF8, IRF5, BDNF, and p-P38/P38 in the spinal cord caused by CCI was inhibited by DAP. Proteomics and metabolomics results indicated that DAP ameliorated the imbalance of glycerophospholipid metabolism in the spinal cords of CCI rats. DAP can potentially ameliorate NP by regulating microglial responses and glycerophospholipid metabolism in the CCI model. This study provides a pharmacological justification for using DAP in the management of NP.

Understanding the relationships between ultrafine particle (UFP) exposure, socioeconomic status (SES), and sustainable transportation accessibility in Toronto, Canada is crucial for promoting public health, addressing environmental justice, and ensuring transportation equity. We conducted a large-scale mobile measurement campaign and employed a gradient boost model to generate exposure surfaces using land use, built environment, and meteorological conditions. The Ontario Marginalization Index was used to quantify various indicators of social disadvantage for Toronto's neighborhoods. Our findings reveal that people in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas experience elevated UFP exposures. We highlight significant disparities in accessing sustainable transportation, particularly in areas with higher ethnic concentrations. When factoring in daily mobility, UFP exposure disparities in disadvantaged populations are further exacerbated. Furthermore, individuals who do not generate emissions themselves are consistently exposed to higher UFPs, with active transportation users experiencing the highest UFP exposures both at home and at activity locations. Finally, we proposed a novel index, the Community Prioritization Index (CPI), incorporating three indicators, including air quality, social disadvantage, and sustainable transportation. This index identifies neighborhoods experiencing a triple burden, often situated near major infrastructure hubs with high diesel truck activity and lacking greenspace, marking them as high-priority areas for policy action and targeted interventions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Marianne Hatzopoulou reports financial support was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Engage Grant. Scott Weichenthal reports financial support was provided by Health Effects Institute (HEI). Marianne Hatzopoulou reports financial support was provided by Health Effects Institute (HEI). Marianne Hatzopoulou reports financial support was provided by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Scott Weichenthal reports financial support was provided by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Context: Daphnetin is a natural product with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective properties. Reports have found that it has a strong analgesic effect; however, its analgesic mechanism is unknown., Objective: We explored the effect and mechanism of daphnetin on neuropathic pain (NP)., Materials and Methods: The rat model of NP was established by ligation of the sciatic nerve. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into six groups: Control, Model, Sham, morphine (0.375 mg/kg), and daphnetin (0.0625 and 0.025 mg/kg). Rats were intrathecally injected with drugs or normal saline once daily for three days. Hyperalgesia was evaluated by mechanical withdrawal threshold (MWT) and thermal withdrawal threshold (TWT). Protein levels were detected using ELISA, immunofluorescence, and western blotting., Results: Compared to the Model group, daphnetin improved TWT (46.70 °C vs. 42.20 °C) and MWT (45.60 g vs. 23.60 g), reduced the expression of interleukin-1β (0.99 ng/g vs. 1.42 ng/g), interleukin-6 (0.90 ng/g vs. 1.52 ng/g), and tumor necrosis factor-α (0.93 ng/g vs. 1.52 ng/g) in the sciatic nerve. Daphnetin decreased the expression of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) (0.47-fold), phosphorylated inhibitor of NF-κB (p-IKBα) (0.29-fold), nuclear factor kappaB (NF-κB) (0.48-fold), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) (0.42-fold), CXC chemokine ligand type 1 (CXCL1) (0.84-fold), CXC chemokine receptor type 2 (CXCR2) (0.78-fold) in the spinal cord., Discussion and Conclusions: Daphnetin alleviates NP by inhibiting inflammation and astrocyte activation in the spinal cord, providing theoretical support for the extensive clinical treatment of NP.

Background: Concentrations of outdoor ultrafine particles (UFP; <0.1 µm) and black carbon (BC) can vary greatly within cities and long-term exposures to these pollutants have been associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes., Objective: This study integrated multiple approaches to develop new models to estimate within-city spatial variations in annual median (i.e. average) outdoor UFP and BC concentrations as well as mean UFP size in Canada's two largest cities, Montreal and Toronto., Methods: We conducted year-long mobile monitoring campaigns in each city that included evenings and weekends. We developed generalized additive models trained on land use parameters and deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models trained on satellite-view images. Using predictions from these models, we developed final combined models., Results: In Toronto, the median observed UFP concentration, UFP size, and BC concentration values were 16,172pt/cm 3 , 33.7 nm, and 1225 ng/m 3 , respectively. In Montreal, the median observed UFP concentration, UFP size, and BC concentration values were 14,702pt/cm 3 , 29.7 nm, and 1060 ng/m 3 , respectively. For all pollutants in both cities, the proportion of spatial variation explained (i.e., R 2 ) was slightly greater (1-2 percentage points) for the combined models than the generalized additive models and a greater (approximately 10 percentage points) than the deep CNN models. The Toronto combined model R 2 values in the test set were 0.73, 0.55, and 0.61 for UFP concentrations, UFP size, and BC concentration, respectively. The Montreal combined model R 2 values were 0.60, 0.49, and 0.60 for UFP concentration, UFP size, and BC concentration models respectively. For each pollutant, predictions from the combined, deep CNN, and generalized additive models were highly correlated with each other and differences between models were explored in sensitivity analyses., Conclusion: Predictions from these models are available to support future epidemiological research examining long-term health impacts of outdoor UFPs and BC., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Scott Weichenthal reports financial support was provided by Health Effects Institute., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The 16S rRNA gene works as a rapid and effective marker for the identification of microorganisms in complex communities; hence, a huge number of microbiomes have been surveyed by 16S amplicon-based sequencing. The resolution of the 16S rRNA gene is always considered only at the genus level; however, it has not been verified on a wide range of microbes yet. To fully explore the ability and potential of the 16S rRNA gene in microbial profiling, here, we propose Qscore, a comprehensive method to evaluate the performance of amplicons by integrating the amplification rate, multitier taxonomic annotation, sequence type, and length. Our in silico assessment by a "global view" of 35,889 microbe species across multiple reference databases summarizes the optimal sequencing strategy for 16S short reads. On the other hand, since microbes are unevenly distributed according to their habitats, we also provide the recommended configuration for 16 typical ecosystems based on the Qscores of 157,390 microbiomes in the Microbiome Search Engine (MSE). Detailed data simulation further proves that the 16S amplicons produced with Qscore-suggested parameters exhibit high precision in microbiome profiling, which is close to that of shotgun metagenomes under CAMI metrics. Therefore, by reconsidering the precision of 16S-based microbiome profiling, our work not only enables the high-quality reusability of massive sequence legacy that has already been produced but is also significant for guiding microbiome studies in the future. We have implemented the Qscore as an online service at http://qscore.single-cell.cn to parse the recommended sequencing strategy for specific habitats or expected microbial structures. IMPORTANCE 16S rRNA has long been used as a biomarker to identify distinct microbes from complex communities. However, due to the influence of the amplification region, sequencing type, sequence processing, and reference database, the accuracy of 16S rRNA has not been fully verified on a global range. More importantly, the microbial composition of different habitats varies greatly, and it is necessary to adopt different strategies according to the corresponding target microbes to achieve optimal analytical performance. Here, we developed Qscore, which evaluates the comprehensive performance of 16S amplicons from multiple perspectives, thus providing the best sequencing strategies for common ecological environments by using big data., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Motivation: Beta-diversity quantitatively measures the difference among microbial communities thus enlightening the association between microbiome composition and environment properties or host phenotypes. The beta-diversity analysis mainly relies on distances among microbiomes that are calculated by all microbial features. However, in some cases, only a small fraction of members in a community plays crucial roles. Such a tiny proportion is insufficient to alter the overall distance, which is always missed by end-to-end comparison. On the other hand, beta-diversity pattern can also be interfered due to the data sparsity when only focusing on nonabundant microbes., Results: Here, we develop Flex Meta-Storms (FMS) distance algorithm that implements the "local alignment" of microbiomes for the first time. Using a flexible extraction that considers the weighted phylogenetic and functional relations of microbes, FMS produces a normalized phylogenetic distance among members of interest for microbiome pairs. We demonstrated the advantage of FMS in detecting the subtle variations of microbiomes among different states using artificial and real datasets, which were neglected by regular distance metrics. Therefore, FMS effectively discriminates microbiomes with higher sensitivity and flexibility, thus contributing to in-depth comprehension of microbe-host interactions, as well as promoting the utilization of microbiome data such as disease screening and prediction., Availability and Implementation: FMS is implemented in C++, and the source code is released at https://github.com/qdu-bioinfo/flex-meta-storms., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a common pain disease that seriously affects the quality of life and physical and mental health of patients. Daphnetin is extracted from the Daphne giraldii Nitsche and has the structure of 7,8-dihydroxy coumarin. As a natural product, daphnetin displays a wide range of pharmacological activities, such as analgesia and anti-inflammatory activities, but whether it is able to improve NP through anti-inflammatory effects is unknown. Therefore, this paper intends to investigate the mechanism of daphnetin in improving NP rats affected by the intrathecal injection of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) from the perspective of anti-inflammation. Our results showed that daphnetin significantly improved hyperalgesia in NP rats. Daphnetin inhibited the activation and polarization of glial cells and neurons in the spinal cord of NP rats and reduced the expression of mRNA and protein of inflammatory factors and chemokine pairs in the spinal cord. Daphnetin inhibited the polarization of human microglia cell 3 (HMC3) cells and human glioma cells (U251) cells toward M1 microglia and A1 astrocytes, respectively, and induced the conversion of M1 microglia and A1 astrocytes to M2 microglia and A2 astrocytes, respectively. In conclusion, daphnetin ameliorates NP by inhibiting the expression of inflammatory factors and chemokines and the polarization of glial cells in the spinal cord of NP rats. This study provides a theoretical basis for the treatment of NP with daphnetin to expand the clinical application of daphnetin.

Background: Neuropathic pain (NP) caused by the injury or dysfunction of the nervous system is a chronic pain state accompanied by hyperalgesia, and the available clinical treatment is relatively scarce. Hyperalgesia mediated by pro-inflammatory factors and chemokines plays an important role in the occurrence and maintenance of NP., Data Treatment: Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review of experimental NP (PubMed Medline), in order to find the mechanism of inducing central sensitization and explore the intervention methods of hyperalgesia caused by real or simulated injury., Result: In this review, we sorted out the activation pathways of microglia, astrocytes and neurons, and the process of crosstalk among them. It was found that in NP, the microglia P2X4 receptor is the key target, which can activate the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway inward and then activate astrocytes and outwardly activate neuronal tropomyosin receptor kinase B receptor to activate neurons. At the same time, activated neurons continue to maintain the activation of astrocytes and microglia through chemokines on CXCL13/CXCR5 and CX3CL1/CX3CR1. This crosstalk process is the key to maintaining NP., Conclusion: We summarize the further research on crosstalk among neurons, microglia, and astrocytes in the central nervous system, elaborate the ways and connections of relevant crosstalk, and find potential crosstalk targets, which provides a reference for drug development and preclinical research., (© 2022 The Authors. Brain and Behavior published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

To investigate the delayed release characteristics of CO gas in the initial stage of the low-temperature oxidation of coal, closed oxygen consumption experiments were conducted on coal samples taken from the Hongqingliang coal mine, and the corresponding relationship between the CO concentration and time in the initial stage of the experimental reaction was analyzed. A physical adsorption model of the macromolecules in coal for O 2 and CO was established, and the difference in the competitive adsorption between the CO and O 2 gas molecules on the coal surface was analyzed from a microscopic perspective using the grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo simulation. The results showed a delayed CO release phenomenon in the initial stage of the reaction in all the experiments, and the delayed time of CO release was negatively correlated with the temperature; the relationship between the adsorption amounts of CO and O 2 in the molecular structure model of coal was CO > O 2 . With increasing temperature, the adsorption capacity of the two gases decreased. Under the same conditions, there was competitive adsorption of the mixture of CO and O 2 by coal, with the adsorption capacity of CO being much greater than that of O 2 . The adsorption of CO gas molecules by coal played an inhibitory role in the release of CO gas in the initial oxidation stage. The study results are expected to help understand the CO generation characteristics in the goaf of coal seam working faces and thus prevent coal mine disasters., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Within-city ultrafine particle (UFP) concentrations vary sharply since they are influenced by various factors. We developed prediction models for short-term UFP exposures using street-level images collected by a camera installed on a vehicle rooftop, paired with air quality measurements conducted during a large-scale mobile monitoring campaign in Toronto, Canada. Convolutional neural network models were trained to extract traffic and built environment features from images. These features, along with regional air quality and meteorology data were used to predict short-term UFP concentration as a continuous and categorical variable. A gradient boost model for UFP as a continuous variable achieved R 2 = 0.66 and RMSE = 9391.8#/cm 3 (mean values for 10-fold cross-validation). The model predicting categorical UFP achieved accuracies for "Low" and "High" UFP of 77 and 70%, respectively. The presence of trucks and other traffic parameters were associated with higher UFPs, and the spatial distribution of elevated short-term UFP followed the distribution of single-unit trucks. This study demonstrates that pictures captured on urban streets, associated with regional air quality and meteorology, can adequately predict short-term UFP exposure. Capturing the spatial distribution of high-frequency short-term UFP spikes in urban areas provides crucial information for the management of near-road air pollution hot spots.

Investigating the division of coal spontaneous combustion stages and the selection of indicator gases is significant to the safe production of coal mines. In this study, the characteristic temperature of coal spontaneous combustion, the generation law of indicator gases, the combustion process, and the division of the combustion stages of coal samples taken from Hongqingliang (HQL) and Dayan (DY) mines were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis experiment, indicator gas detection experiment, and coal oxidation spontaneous combustion experiment. The results of the thermogravimetric analysis experiment showed that the pyrolysis temperatures of the HQL and DY coals were 115.76°C and 131.80°C, and the ignition temperatures were 337.74°C and 360.18°C, respectively. The indicator gas detection results showed that the first-appearance temperature of C2H4 was 85°C for the HQL and DY coals, whereas the first-appearance temperature of C2H6 varied: 115°C for the HQL coal and 130°C for the DY coal. The first-appearance temperatures of C2H2 were 180°C and 195°C for the HQL and DY coals, respectively. The experiments on coal oxidation spontaneous combustion showed that the spontaneous combustion period of the HQL and DY coals were 35.45 and 42.3 days, respectively. The heating process during combustion could be divided into four stages: a latent period of spontaneous combustion, a slow spontaneous heating period, an accelerated spontaneous heating period, and a period of combustion. The critical temperature of each stage showed a good correlation with the incipient temperature of the indicator gases, namely C2H2, C2H4, and C2H6, and the appearance of the above gases can be used to characterize the degree of spontaneous combustion of coal., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Massive microbiome sequencing data has been generated, which elucidates associations between microbes and their environmental phenotypes such as host health or ecosystem status. Outstanding bioinformatic tools are the basis to decipher the biological information hidden under microbiome data. However, most approaches placed difficulties on the accessibility to nonprofessional users. On the other side, the computing throughput has become a significant bottleneck of many analytical pipelines in processing large-scale datasets. In this study, we introduce Parallel-Meta Suite (PMS), an interactive software package for fast and comprehensive microbiome data analysis, visualization, and interpretation. It covers a wide array of functions for data preprocessing, statistics, visualization by state-of-the-art algorithms in a user-friendly graphical interface, which is accessible to diverse users. To meet the rapidly increasing computational demands, the entire procedure of PMS has been optimized by a parallel computing scheme, enabling the rapid processing of thousands of samples. PMS is compatible with multiple platforms, and an installer has been integrated for full-automatic installation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests., (© 2022 The Authors. iMeta published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of iMeta Science.)

In this study, driving trajectory data from private vehicles were collected in Toronto, Canada to construct representative local drive cycles. In addition, real-driving emission testing for four conventional gasoline vehicles (ICEV) and one hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) was conducted in the same region using a Portable Emissions Measurement System. Instantaneous fuel consumption and emissions of Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Oxides (NO x ), and Particle Number (PN) were measured. The results for all vehicles indicate that the acceleration state tends to generate the highest emissions and fuel consumption with the largest variation due to higher power demand. When accelerating, the HEV was observed to generate four times more CO emissions than some ICEVs. Instantaneous fuel consumption and emissions were analyzed as a function of operating modes to estimate the fuel efficiency (FE) and emission factors (EF) associated with six representative local drive cycles and four regulatory drive cycles. With most regulatory drive cycles, vehicles can reach the labeled FE and EPA emission limits, except under the New York City Cycle with frequent stop-and-go conditions. In contrast, except for highway cycles, the FE of Toronto-specific drive cycles can hardly meet the labeled values. CO EFs of the HEV can be higher than ICEVs, while it is lower than the emission limit by 42% on average. ICEVs may exceed the CO limit by 131% under local highway cycles, while they can violate NO x and PN limits under local arterial cycles. The result of this study emphasizes the importance of local drive cycles and real driving emission tests., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Dispersion modelling is an effective tool to estimate traffic-related fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations in near-road environments. However, many sources of uncertainty and variability are associated with the process of near-road dispersion modelling, which renders a single-number estimate of concentration a poor indicator of near-road air quality. In this study, we propose an integrated traffic-emission-dispersion modelling chain that incorporates several major sources of uncertainty. Our approach generates PM 2.5 probability distributions capturing the uncertainty in emissions and meteorological conditions. Traffic PM 2.5 emissions from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. were estimated at 3400 ± 117 g. Modelled PM 2.5 levels were validated against measurements along a major arterial road in Toronto, Canada. We observe large overlapping areas between modelled and measured PM 2.5 distributions at all locations along the road, indicating a high likelihood that the model can reproduce measured concentrations. A policy scenario expressing the impact of reductions in truck emissions revealed that a 30% reduction in near-road PM 2.5 concentrations can be achieved by upgrading close to 55% of the current trucks circulating along the corridor. A speed limit reduction of 10 km/h could lead to statistically significant increases in PM 2.5 concentrations at twelve out of the eighteen locations., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Nonlinear nanophotonics, as an emerging field in nanophotonics, eagerly calls for experimental techniques for probing and analyzing near-field nonlinear optical signals with subwavelength resolution. Here, we report an aperture-type scanning near-field optical microscopic method for probing near-field nonlinear optical processes. As a demonstration, near-field third-harmonic generation from an anapole dark-mode state generated by a silicon nanodisk is probed and imaged. The measured results agree well with the simulations, with a spatial resolution down to $0.14{\lambda &#95;0}$ and a sensitivity of 0.1 nW. This method provides a powerful tool for characterizing nonlinear light-matter interactions at the nanoscale, which can help, for example, to unveil crystal properties involving subwavelength defects or dislocations.

Fe(III) oxides have been investigated to accelerate anaerobic methanogenic degradation of complex organic compounds. However, the critical role linked to the characteristics of different types of Fe(III) oxides is still unclear. Study presented here performed a side-by-side comparison of four types of Fe(III) oxides including Fe(III)-citrate, ferrihydrite, hematite and magnetite to evaluate their effectiveness in methanogenic degradation of phenol. Results showed that, amorphous Fe(III)-citrate group showed the fastest phenol degradation and Fe 2+ release among all the groups, followed by poorly crystalline ferrihydrite. Although Fe(III)-citrate group also showed the fastest methane production rate, the efficiency of electron recovery in methane production was only 58-78%, which was evidently lower than that in both crystalline hematite (86-89%) and magnetite (93-97%) groups. Methane production rate with non-conductive ferrihydrite was nearly same as that with conductive magnetite, both of which were significantly higher than that with semi-conductive hematite. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis showed that sludge collected from hematite and magnetite group still respectively presented a relatively intact characteristic spectra involved in hematite and magnetite. Differently, the characteristic spectra involved in ferrihydrite was not evident in sludge collected from ferrihydrite group, whereas the characteristic spectra involved in magnetite was detected. Microbial community analysis showed that, both Fe(III)-citrate and ferrihydrite specially enriched Fe(III)-reducing bacteria capable of degrading phenol into fatty acids (Trichococcus and Caloramator) via dissimilatory Fe(III) reduction. Fe(III)-citrate also stimulated the growth of Syntrophus capable of degrading phenol/benzoate into acetate and proceeding direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET). In magnetite and hematite group, the abundance of Enterococcus species evidently increased, and they might proceed DIET with Methanothrix species in syntrophic conversion of fatty acids into methane., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Here, we report a simple but effective nose/tongue-mimic sensor array based on HAuCl 4 /3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) for colorimetric discrimination and determination of antioxidants. Two concentrations of HAuCl 4 were employed as receptor units to construct the colorimetric sensor array. The sensing strategy is based on the fact that HAuCl 4 with different concentrations (0.08 and 0.03 mM) could oxidize TMB to oxidized TMB (oxTMB), resulting in a blue and green color solution, respectively, corresponding to an absorption peak centered at 440 nm and 657 nm. However, the presence of different antioxidants could cause the reduction in HAuCl 4 , leading to the fading of the blue and green color and the decrease in the absorbance at 440 nm and 657 nm to varying degrees. Based on the above phenomena, by taking advantage of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), five antioxidants (i.e. ascorbic acid (AA), melatonin (MT), uric acid (UA), tannic acid (TCA), and glycine (Gly)) at five concentrations (200, 120, 60, 20, and 1 nM) were successfully discriminated both in buffer and serum. More importantly, this approach is simple, fast, and without the use of any nanomaterials.

Kitchen wastes (KW) have been widely investigated for bio-ethanol production, while no study utilizes KW as ethanol source to stimulate the methanogenic communities to perform direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET), since the excess acidity contained after the biological ethanol-type fermentation pretreatment (BEFP) can seriously inhibit the DIET-based syntrophic metabolism. In this study, a strategy that utilized waste activated sludge (WAS) as co-substrate to relieve the excess acidity after BEFP during anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD) was proposed. The results showed that, under the mixed ratio of 1:2 and 1:5 (KW:WAS, volume ratio), both methane production and organic compound removal evidently increased, compared with that treating the sole WAS. Conversely, under the other mixed ratios (sole KW, 5:1, 2:1 and 1:1), no methane but the evident hydrogen production was detected, and syntrophic metabolism of organic acids and alcohols was prevented. Three-dimensional excitation emission matrix (3D-EEM) analysis showed that the protein-like organic compounds contained in both KW and WAS were effectively degraded. Furthermore, the maximum methane production potential from WAS during AcoD (260.5 ± 4.1 and 264.3 ± 2.7 mL/g-COD) was higher than that treating sole WAS (250.8 ± 0.1 mL/g-COD). Microbial community analysis showed that, some genera capable of metabolizing the complex organic compounds with the reduction of the elemental sulfur or equipped with the electrically conductive pili were specially enriched during AcoD under the mixed ratio of 1:2 and 1:5. They might proceed DIET with methanogens, such as Methanosarcina and Methanospirillum species, to maintain the syntrophic metabolism effective and stable, since the abundance of both Methanosarcina and Methanospirillum species evidently increased., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this paper, we propose a design of coherent fiber-optics-array collimator (CFAC) that is mainly composed of a single unitary collimating lens and a prism. The CFAC system is presented conceptually, and corresponding parameters are theoretically analyzed using a geometrical optics method. Then, we set up a proof-of-concept experiment to verify the validity of the CFAC system with three coherent fiber lasers distributed along the symmetry axis through the center of the single unitary lens. After that, we realize the synchronous aberrationless collimating of the three beams with only one collimating lens system and their parallel propagation by utilizing a specific prism array. Finally, we successfully achieve a coherent beam combination of the laterally distributed three beams using a single-frequency dithering algorithm. Through an active piston phase control, the residual phase errors among the laser beams are suppressed below λ/26. By comparing the experimental results with the simulation results, we can see that the distribution of the closed-loop far-field intensity pattern detected by the charge-coupled infrared camera basically matches the ideal intensity distribution.

The photovoltaic performance of axial and radial pin junction GaAs nanocone array solar cells is investigated. Compared with the cylinder nanowire arrays, the nanocone arrays not only improve the whole optical absorption but more importantly enhance the effective absorption (absorption in the depletion region). The enhanced effective absorption is attributed to the downward shift and extension of the absorption region induced by the shrinking top, which dramatically suppresses the absorption loss in the high-doped top region and enhances the absorption in the depletion region. The highest conversion efficiencies for axial and radial GaAs nanocone solar cells are 20.1% and 17.4%, obtained at a slope angle of 5° and 6°, respectively, both of which are much higher than their cylinder nanowire counterparts. The nanocone structures are promising candidates for high-efficiency solar cells.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of androgens on chronic heart failure (CHF) in a rat model. A total of 120 Sprague Dawley male rats were randomly divided into the following groups: (A) sham operation group, (B) castrated group, (C) heart failure (HF) group, (D) castrated + HF group, and (E) castrated + HF + testosterone (T) replacement therapy group. There were 20 rats in group A, and 25 rats in the other groups. Surgical castration was performed on groups B, D and E, and T replacement therapy was administered to group E. Groups C, D and E were treated with doxorubicin hydrochloride to prepare the CHF animal model. The insulin sensitivity index (ISI) was calculated from fasting blood glucose and fasting insulin levels. Echocardiography was performed. Venous blood was collected for plasma T level test. Myocardial tissue was used for apoptosis index analysis. The expression levels of myocardial insulin receptor (IR) and insulin receptor substrate‑1 (IRS‑1) were measured by reverse transcription semi‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Compared with group A, the T level and ISI decreased, whereas the expression level of IR and IRS‑1 were increased in the CHF group (P<0.05). Following castration, the T level and ISI were significantly decreased, and the expression of IR and IRS‑1 were increased compared with the uncastrated CHF rats (P<0.01). Following androgen administration, the ISI increased, expression of IR and IRS‑1 decreased, and the myocardial apoptosis index decreased (P<0.05). Taken together, these results demonstrated that androgen supplementation could improve insulin resistance and affect the expression of IR and IRS‑1 in CHF, thereby reducing myocardial apoptosis and improving cardiac function.

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer. We previously identified LHX3 as a new preferentially expressed gene in NSCLC. In the present study, we sought to determine its expression, the clinical relevance and the functional roles in NSCLC. LHX3 expression is sharply increased in carcinoma tissues compared to non-carcinoma tissues. Relational analysis reveals a significant association between LHX3 expression and clinical stage (n=172, p=0.032) or radiotherapy (n=167, p=0.022) of patients. LHX3 expression is much higher in the patients at advanced stages (stage III-IV) than in the patients at early stages (stage I-II, p=0.0304), and LHX3 expression is remarkably increased in the patients with radiotherapy treatment (p=0.0002). Survival analyses indicate that LHX3 is associated with unfavorable survival (n=180, p=0.002) and represents an independent prognostic factor [hazard ratio (HR)=1.834, p=0.004] of the NSCLC patients. Furthermore, LHX3 is associated with unfavorable overall survival (n=866, p=0.004) and represents an independent prognostic factor (HR=2.36, p=0.000) in lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) patients, but is not associated with overall survival of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients (n=524, p=0.27). Further analyses found that LHX3 is an early-stage (n=94, p=0.003) and radiosensitivity (n=45, p=0.002) prognostic factor in ADC patients. The patients without radiotherapy have a significantly prolonged survival compared to those with radiotherapy (p=0.0069). Further functional studies show that forced expression of LHX3 in lung cancer cells obviously promotes cell proliferation and invasion, whereas inhibits cell apoptosis. In summary, LHX3 is an early-stage and radiosensitivity prognostic biomarker, and a novel potential oncogene in ADC.

Introduction: Our previous study identified LIM homeobox domain 6 (LHX6) as a frequently epigenetically silenced tumor-suppressor gene in lung cancer. However, its clinical value has never been evaluated, and the in-depth anti-tumor mechanism remains unclear. Methods: Public database was used for lung cancer, lung adenocarcinoma and lung squamous carcinoma patients and tissue microarray data was used for lung adenocarcinoma patients to study prognostic outcome of LHX6 expression by Kaplan-Meier and Cox-regression analysis. In vitro proliferation, metastasis and in vivo nude mice model were used to evaluate the anti-tumor effect of LHX6 on lung adenocarcinoma cell lines. The mechanisms were explored using western blot, TOP/FOP flash assays and luciferase reporter assays. LHX6 expression and clinical stages data were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA). Results: Expression of LHX6 was found to be a favorable independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) of total lung adenocarcinoma patients (P=0.014) and patients with negative lymph nodes status (P=0.014) but not related the prognostic outcome of lung squamous cell carcinoma patients. The expression status of LHX6 significantly correlated to histological grade (P<0.01), tumor size (P=0.026), lymph node status (P=0.039) and clinical stages (P<0.01) of lung adenocarcinoma patients. Functionally, LHX6 inhibited the proliferation and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo . Furthermore, LHX6 suppressed the Wnt/β-catenin pathway through transcriptionally silencing the expression of β-catenin, and the promoter region (-1161 bp to +27 bp) was crucial for its inhibitory activity. Conclusions: Our data indicate that the expression of LHX6 may serve as a favorable prognostic biomarker for lung adenocarcinoma patients and provide a novel mechanism of LHX6 involving in the tumorigenesis of lung adenocarcinoma., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.

In this work, a metallic probe with a sharp tip and two half-circular nanostructures on its base is introduced and investigated. The proposed design aims at improving the detection performance of a probe for scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy in terms of enhanced signal-to-noise ratio. Under the premise of processing feasibility, the structure of the probe is designed and optimized with three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. And then the performance and optical property of the probe are theoretically investigated and experimentally demonstrated using a scanning near-field optical microscope with aperture probe. It is indicated that a tightly confined optical field with significantly reduced far-field background can be achieved at the tip apex of the probe.

A novel tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy setup with longitudinal field excitation generated by a plasmonic lens is investigated. A symmetry-breaking structure plasmonic lens that is expected to realize a strong longitudinal electric field focus has been designed to generate suitable excitation for enhancement in a tip antenna. The focusing performance of the plasmonic lens is theoretically simulated by the finite-difference time-domain method and experimentally verified by the detection of optical near-field distribution. A plasmonic lens assisted tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy setup has been constructed and used to investigate specimens of carbon nanotubes. Tip-enhanced Raman spectra with distinct excitation wavelengths show similar Raman shifts but different intensities. Experimental results presented in this paper demonstrate that the Raman signal is considerably enhanced. It indicates that the novel tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy configuration is feasible and is a promising technique for tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy measurements and characterizations.

Elevated CO2 can stimulate wetland carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) exports through gaseous and dissolved pathways, however, the consequent influences on the C and N pools are still not fully known. Therefore, we set up a free-air CO2 enrichment experiment in a paddy field in Eastern China. After five year fumigation, we studied C and N in the plant-water-soil system. The results showed: (1) elevated CO2 stimulated rice aboveground biomass and N accumulations by 19.1% and 12.5%, respectively. (2) Elevated CO2 significantly increased paddy soil TOC and TN contents by 12.5% and 15.5%, respectively in the 0-15 cm layer, and 22.7% and 26.0% in the 15-30 cm soil layer. (3) Averaged across the rice growing period, elevated CO2 greatly increased TOC and TN contents in the surface water by 7.6% and 11.4%, respectively. (4) The TOC/TN ratio and natural δ15N value in the surface soil showed a decreasing trend under elevated CO2. The above results indicate that elevated CO2 can benefit C and N accumulation in paddy fields. Given the similarity between the paddies and natural wetlands, our results also suggest a great potential for long-term C and N accumulation in natural wetlands under future climate patterns., (Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Plasmonic nanostructures separated by nanogaps enable strong electromagnetic-field confinement on the nanoscale for enhancing light-matter interactions, which are in great demand in many applications such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). A simple M-shaped nanograting with narrow V-shaped grooves is proposed. Both theoretical and experimental studies reveal that the electromagnetic field on the surface of the M grating can be pronouncedly enhanced over that of a grating without such grooves, due to field localization in the nanogaps formed by the narrow V grooves. A technique based on room-temperature nanoimprinting lithography and anisotropic reactive-ion etching is developed to fabricate this device, which is cost-effective, reliable, and suitable for fabricating large-area nanostructures. As a demonstration of the potential application of this device, the M grating is used as a SERS substrate for probing Rhodamine 6G molecules. Experimentally, an average SERS enhancement factor as high as 5×10⁸ has been achieved, which verifies the greatly enhanced light-matter interaction on the surface of the M grating over that of traditional SERS surfaces., (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

A composite micro/nanostrucutred (MN) surface was designed using poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) polymer in combination with ZnO materials via heat-pattern-transfer and crystal-growth techniques. The surface, composed of ZnO nanohairs over PVDF microratchets (i.e., ZP-MN), displays excellent antifogging and icing-delay properties. Condensed water droplets can be easily shed from the ZP-MN surface at -5 °C for ∼1600 s via a slight wind or tilting. The droplets do not completely freeze on the ZP-MN surface at -10 °C until ∼7360 s. This investigation offers a way to design a structured surface that possesses anti-icing ability, which is significant because it can be extended to fields such as microdevices, engineering systems, and engines that operate in a cold or humid environment.

We present a direct-method solution toward the general problem of plasmonic wavefront manipulation and shaping to realize pre-designated functionalities based on the surface-wave holography (SWH) method. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the design and fabrication of holographic plasmonic lenses over surface plasmons with complex wavefront profiles. We show that visible light at 632.8 nm transmitting through a high-aspect-ratio slit or a micro-rectangle hole in a silver film can be focused to a preset three-dimensional point spot in free space via appropriately manipulating the interaction of excited surface plasmons with the nanoscale groove pattern of the holographic lens. The experiment results of scanning near-field optical microscopy for measuring the three-dimensional optical field distribution agree well both with designs and with numerical simulations, and this strongly supports the effectiveness and efficiency of the SWH method in the design of plasmonic devices that can fulfill manipulation and transformation of complicated-profile surface plasmons.

A tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) based on plasmonic lens (PL) excitation is proposed in this work. A PL expected to realize a strong longitudinal electric field focus is designed. The focusing performance of the PL is calculated via finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation and experimentally detected by a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope. The PL is introduced to a TERS system as a focusing device. Experimental results with carbon nanotube samples indicate that the Raman scatting signal is significantly enhanced. It proves experimentally that the combination of a PL focused excitation field with a metallic tip in a TERS system is a promising method.

In order to explore the detailed structure-activity relationship (SAR) around xanthone scaffold bearing hydroxyl and prenyl moieties, twenty-nine natural and non-natural hydroxylated and prenylated xanthones have been synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro anti-proliferative activities against five human cancer cell lines, including HepG2 (hepatocelluar carcinoma), HCT-116 (colon carcinoma), A549 (lung carcinoma), BGC823 (gastric carcinoma) and MDAMB- 231 (breast carcinoma). The SAR analysis revealed that the anti-proliferative activity of the xanthones is substantially influenced by the position and number of attached hydroxyl and prenyl groups, and the presence of hydroxyl group ortho to the carbonyl function of xanthone scaffold contributes significantly to their cytotoxicity. The new prenylated xanthone 20 with a relatively simple structure, namely 1,3,8-trihydroxy-2-prenylxanthone, was found to exhibit potent antitumor activities comparable to α-mangostin against all the five cancer cell lines. Further mechanistic studies suggested that compound 20 induces apoptosis and causes cell cycle arrest at S phase in HepG2 cells. These results have highlighted compound 20 as a new potential lead candidate for future development of novel potent broad-spectrum antitumor agents.

A high-density dielectric rectangular grating is designed for color separation in a Fresnel diffraction field. The Fresnel field distribution is analyzed and the optimization conditions for color separation are given. The process of the modes propagating and energy exchanging with the diffraction orders are expressed by modal method. The color separation for different polarizations can be realized. The energy efficiency is 96.3% at the 633 nm wavelength and 86.9% at the 488 mm wavelength for both TE polarizations, while the energy efficiency is theoretically 96.3% at the 633 nm wavelength for TE polarization and 90.6% at the 488 nm wavelength for TM polarization. The field distributions are scanned by the near-field scanning optical microscopy, and the efficiency is 71.2% for the 633 nm wavelength and 67.3% for the 488 nm wavelength for both TE polarizations experimentally.

We developed a tip-enhanced Raman spectrometer (TERS) with reflection mode. The instrument, with a scanning shear-force microscope (ShFM) and a side-illumination Raman spectroscope, can overcome the diffraction limit and has high sensitivity. A chemical method to fabricate optical fiber probes with Ag coating is proposed. The local electromagnetic responses of the silver-coated optical fiber probe are numerically analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain method, and the excitation wavelength is optimized to resonate with the localized surface plasmons (LSP) of the probe tip. The instrument is applied to investigate a single multiwall carbon nanotube. The experiment results indicate that our TERS instrument has a spatial resolution better than 70 nm, and the enhancement factor is about 5 x 10(3).