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Vinegar is one of the most widely used acidic condiments. Recently, rapid advances have been made in the area of vinegar research. Different types of traditional vinegar are available around the globe and have many applications. Vinegar can be made either naturally, through alcoholic and then acetic acid fermentation, or artificially, in laboratories. Vinegar is the product of acetic acid fermentation of dilute alcoholic solutions, manufactured by a two-step process. The first step is the production of ethanol from a carbohydrate source such as glucose, which is carried out by yeasts. The second step is the oxidation of ethanol to acetic acid, which is carried out by acetic acid bacteria. Acetic acid bacteria are not only producers of certain foods and drinks, such as vinegar, but they can also spoil other products such as wine, beer, soft drinks, and fruits. Various renewable substrates are used for the efficient biological production of acetic acid, including agro and food, dairy, and kitchen wastes. Numerous reports on the health advantages associated with vinegar ingredients have been presented. Fresh sugarcane juice was fermented with wine yeast and LB acetate bacteria to develop a high-quality original sugarcane vinegar beverage. To facilitate the current study, the bibliometric analysis method was adopted to visualize the knowledge map of vinegar research based on literature data. The present review article will help scientists discern the dynamic era of vinegar research and highlight areas for future research.

Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen that shows a unique ability to quickly respond to a variety of antibiotics. The Crp/Fnr family transcriptional regulator ArcR controls expression of arginine deiminase pathway genes arcABDC, which enable the utilization of arginine as an energy source for cell growth under anaerobic conditions. However, ArcR shares low overall similarity with other Crp/Fnr family proteins, suggesting that they differ in the response to environmental stress. In this study, MIC and survival assays were performed to determine the role of ArcR in antibiotic resistance and tolerance. The results showed that deletion of arcR reduced tolerance of S.aureus to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, mainly through a defect in the response to oxidative stress. In ΔarcR mutant, the expression of the major catalase gene katA was downregulated, and katA overexpression restored bacterial resistance to oxidative stress and antibiotics. We showed that ArcR directly regulated katA transcription by binding to the promoter region of katA. Therefore, our results revealed the contribution of ArcR in bacterial tolerance to oxidative stress and subsequently to fluoroquinolones antibiotics. This study added our understanding on the role of Crp/Fnr family in bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics.

Simple and accurate dispersion measurement of GaN microresonators with a fiber ring: supplemental document

We report new Gaussian boson sampling experiments with pseudo-photon-number-resolving detection, which register up to 255 photon-click events. We consider partial photon distinguishability and develop a more complete model for characterization of the noisy Gaussian boson sampling. In the quantum computational advantage regime, we use Bayesian tests and correlation function analysis to validate the samples against all current classical mockups. Estimating with the best classical algorithms to date, generating a single ideal sample from the same distribution on the supercomputer Frontier would take ~ 600 years using exact methods, whereas our quantum computer, Jiuzhang 3.0, takes only 1.27 us to produce a sample. Generating the hardest sample from the experiment using an exact algorithm would take Frontier ~ 3.1*10^10 years., submitted on 10 April

Supplementary Material 15

Soil spatial information has traditionally been presented as polygon maps at coarse scales. Solving global and local issues, including food security, water regulation, land degradation, and climate change requires higher quality, more consistent and detailed soil information. Accurate prediction of soil variation over large and complex areas with limited samples remains a challenge, which is especially significant for China due to its vast land area which contains the most diverse soil landscapes in the world. Here, we integrated predictive soil mapping paradigm with adaptive depth function fitting, state-of-the-art ensemble machine learning and high-resolution soil-forming environment characterization in a high-performance parallel computing environment to generate 90-m resolution national gridded maps of nine soil properties (pH, organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, cation exchange capacity, bulk density, coarse fragments, and thickness) at multiple depths across China. This was based on approximately 5000 representative soil profiles collected in a recent national soil survey and a suite of detailed covariates to characterize soil-forming environments. The predictive accuracy ranged from very good to moderate (Model Efficiency Coefficients from 0.71 to 0.36) at 0–5 cm. The predictive accuracy for most soil properties declined with depth. Compared with previous soil maps, we achieved significantly more detailed and accurate predictions which could well represent soil variations across the territory and are a significant contribution to the GlobalSoilMap.net project. The relative importance of soil-forming factors in the predictions varied by specific soil property and depth, suggesting the complexity and non-stationarity of comprehensive multi-factor interactions in the process of soil development.

A universal strategy for green and in situ synthesis of carbon dot-based pickling solution with high inhibition efficiency.

To surmount the critical issues of indocyanine green (ICG), and thus achieving a precise surgical navigation of primary liver cancer after long-term transcatheter arterial embolization.In this study, a facile and green pure-nanomedicine formulation technology is developed to construct carrier-free indocyanine green nanoparticles (nanoICG), and which subsequently dispersed into lipiodol via a super-stable homogeneous lipiodol formulation technology (SHIFT nanoICG) for transcatheter arterial embolization combined near-infrared fluorescence-guided precise hepatectomy.SHIFT nanoICG integrates excellent anti-photobleaching capacity, great optical imaging property, and specific tumoral deposition to recognize tumor regions, featuring entire-process enduring fluorescent-guided precise hepatectomy, especially in resection of the indiscoverable satellite lesions (0.6 mm × 0.4 mm) in rabbit bearing VX2 orthotopic hepatocellular carcinoma models.Such a simple and effective strategy provides a promising avenue to address the clinical issue of clinical hepatectomy and has excellent potential for a translational pipeline.

Current oxidative stress amplifying strategies for immunogenic cell death (ICD) promotion are mainly restricted to immune tolerance induced by adaptive cellular antioxidation, limited tumor-selectivity, and tumoral immunosuppression. Herein, a facile and efficient scenario of genetically engineering transferrin-expressing cell membrane nanovesicle encapsulated IR820-dihydroartemisinin nanomedicine (Tf@IR820-DHA) was developed to boost a-PD-L1-mediated immune checkpoint blocking (ICB)ivia/isynergetic triple stimuli-activated oxidative stress-associated ICD. We demonstrate that the engineered transferrin of Tf@IR820-DHA has excellent tumor targeting and Fe(III)-loading properties and thus delivered Fe(III) and IR820-DHA nanoparticles (NPs) to the lesion location effectively. We found that the self-carrying Fe(III)-mediated programmable catalysis of DHA and glutathione (GSH) depletion generated plenty of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Moreover, DHA also acted as an immunomodulator to decrease the number of T regulatory cells, thereby remodeling the tumor immune microenvironment and achieving double T cell activation. Furthermore, the IR820 molecule served as a competent sonosensitizer to produce ROS under ultrasound activation and guide precise immunotherapyivia/ifluorescent/photoacoustic (FL/PA) imaging. Through its three-pronged delivery of stimuli-activated oxidative stress (DHA-induced chemodynamic therapy, catalysis-conferred GSH depletion, and IR820-mediated sonodynamic therapy), Tf@IR820-DHA caused high levels of targeted ICD. This significantly increased the proportions of IFN-γ-secreting T cells (CD4sup+/supT and CD8sup+/supT) and enhanced a-PD-L1-mediated ICB against primary and distant tumors, which represents a promising approach for cancer nanoimmunotherapy.

Background Autophagy is a conserved catabolic process, which plays an important role in regulating tumor cell motility and degrading protein aggregates. Chemotherapy-induced autophagy may lead to tumor distant metastasis and even chemo-insensitivity in the therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, a vast majority of HCC cases do not produce a significant response to monotherapy with autophagy inhibitors. Results In this work, we developed a biomimetic nanoformulation (TH-NP) co-encapsulating Oxaliplatin (OXA)/hydroxychloroquine (HCQ, an autophagy inhibitor) to execute targeted autophagy inhibition, reduce tumor cell migration and invasion in vitro and attenuate metastasis in vivo. The tumor cell-specific ligand TRAIL was bioengineered to be stably expressed on HUVECs and the resultant membrane vesicles were wrapped on OXA/HCQ-loaded PLGA nanocores. Especially, TH-NPs could significantly improve OXA and HCQ effective concentration by approximately 21 and 13 times in tumor tissues compared to the free mixture of HCQ/OXA. Moreover, the tumor-targeting TH-NPs released HCQ alkalized the acidic lysosomes and inhibited the fusion of autophagosomes and lysosomes, leading to effective blockade of autophagic flux. In short, the system largely improved chemotherapeutic performance of OXA on subcutaneous and orthotopic HCC mice models. Importantly, TH-NPs also exhibited the most effective inhibition of tumor metastasis in orthotopic HCCLM3 models, and in the HepG2, Huh-7 or HCCLM3 metastatic mice models. Finally, we illustrated the enhanced metastasis inhibition was attributed to the blockade or reverse of the autophagy-mediated degradation of focal adhesions (FAs) including E-cadherin and paxillin. Conclusions TH-NPs can perform an enhanced chemotherapy and antimetastatic effect, and may represent a promising strategy for HCC therapy in clinics. Graphical Abstract

Evolutionary algorithm is an important method for solving large-scale optimization problems, which is widely applied to machine learning, process control, engineering optimization, management science, and social sciences. However, when the traditional evolutionary algorithms are used to high-dimensional and computing-density task, the performance of corresponding applications is difficult to be satisfactory. Parallelization on supercomputer is a popular solution to solve this problem. This paper proposes a two-level parallel self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm with neighborhood search (SaNSDE) on the Sunway TaihuLight, which implements process-level and thread-level parallelism. In the process-level parallelism, the cooperative co-evolution model and pool model are implemented, which divide large-scale problems into multiple low-dimensional problems and distribute them in different processes. In the thread-level parallelism, fitness calculation is accelerated. Experimental results show that the algorithm using the cooperative co-evolution model and the pool model, compared with the traditional parallel algorithm, improves the convergence effect more obviously after multi-core expansion. Compared with the serial algorithm, the two-level parallel SaNSDE algorithm achieves the maximum speedup of 134.29, 186.05, 239.01 and 189.80 in the four benchmark functions, respectively.

AIM: To study the clinical features, microbial spectrum, associated factors and prognosis of endogenous endophthalmitis (EE) in a group of Chinese patients. METHODS: The medical records from 32 eyes of 29 patients diagnosed with EE in Peking Union Medical College Hospital from January 2009 to October 2019 were reviewed. RESULTS: The initial visual acuity (VA) of 30 eyes in this study was worse than 20/400. Twenty-three eyes were diagnosed with fungal endophthalmitis and nine with bacterial endophthalmitis. The most common fungal and bacterial isolates were Candida and Klebsiella pneumoniae, respectively. Several rare fungi and bacteria species were also isolated from our patients, including Cryptococcus, Paecilomyces, Brucella, and Bacillus licheniformis. The leading risk factor for EE was diabetes. The most common extraocular infection locus was genitourinary tract. Vitrectomy was performed on twenty-nine eyes. Eight eyes achieved final VA of 20/400 or better. EE caused by Candida had a better prognosis. CONCLUSION: The visual outcome of EE is based on pathogens and prompt intervention. Early vitrectomy and antimicrobial treatment are beneficial for EE.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to constitute an international public health emergency. Vaccination is a prospective approach to control this pandemic. However, apprehension about the safety of vaccines is a major obstacle to vaccination. Amongst health professionals, one evident concern is the risk of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), which may increase the severity of COVID-19. To explore whether ADE occurs in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections and increase confidence in the safety of vaccination, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between post-immune infection and disease severity from a population perspective. Databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, SinoMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Cochrane Library, were searched for articles on SARS-CoV-2 reinfection published until 25 October 2021. The papers were reviewed for methodological quality, and a random effects model was used to analyse the results. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 statistic. Publication bias was evaluated using a funnel plot and Egger’s test. Eleven studies were included in the final meta-analysis. The pooled results indicated that initial infection and vaccination were protective factors against severe COVID-19 during post-immune infection (OR = 0.55, 95%CI = 0.31–0.98). A subgroup (post-immune infection after natural infection or vaccination) analysis showed similar results. Primary SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination provide adequate protection against severe clinical symptoms after post-immune infection. This finding demonstrates that SARS-CoV-2 may not trigger ADE at the population level.

Background. The hypercoagulable status, which forms a vicious cycle with hematogenous metastasis, is a common systemic alteration in cancers. As modeling is a key approach in research, a model which is suitable for studying how the hypercoagulable status promotes hematogenous metastasis in breast cancer is urgently needed. Methods. Based on the tumor-bearing period (TBP) and postoperative incubation period (PIP), 4T1-breast cancer models were constructed to evaluate coagulation and tumor burden to generate multiple linear regression-based lung metastasis prediction formula. Platelets and 4T1 cells were cocultured for 30 min or 24 h in vitro to evaluate the early and late phases of their crosstalk, and then the physical characteristics (concentration and size) and procoagulant activity of the coculture supernatants were assayed. Results. The multiple linear regression model was constructed as log 10 photon number = 0.147 TBP + 0.14 PIP + 3.303 ( TBP ≤ 25 and PIP ≤ 17 ) to predict lung metastasis. Coculture of platelets and 4T1 cells contributed to the release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and the development of the hypercoagulable status. Conclusions. In vivo and in vitro hypercoagulable status models were developed to explore the mechanism of hypercoagulable status which is characterized by platelet activation and promotes hematogenous metastasis in breast cancer.

As the thin layer at the Earth’s terrestrial surface, the critical zone (CZ) ranges from the vegetation canopy to the aquifer or the interface between saprolite and bedrock and varies greatly in space. In the last decade, much attention has been paid to the establishment of Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) that focus on various aspects of CZ science over different time scales. However, to the best of our knowledge, few studies have explicitly contributed to CZ classification or regionalization; thus, the spatial patterns of similar CZs have not been clearly identified. This study proposed a three-category CZ classification scheme by integrating environmental factors that greatly affect the transfer of energy and mass in the Earth’s near-surface environment and thus dominate CZ formation and evolution, i.e., climate, parent material, soil type, groundwater table depth, geomorphology and land use. The main goal was to highlight the zonality of these driving forces, of which the high-category classification units were overlaid to delineate the CZ boundaries. The CZ regionalization of China was performed as a case study, resulting in 44 major regions (1st category), 100 submajor regions (2nd category) and 1448 regions (3rd category). The spatial distributions and driving factors of the ten largest regions were identified, followed by a simple comparison of the CZO network. Then, the proposed CZ regionalization was compared with recent studies on regionalization in China to evaluate its successes and weaknesses. By linking together CZ studies from the last decade, we advocate that a theoretical framework integrating the CZ evolution processes with ecological functions acts as one of the frontiers of CZ science. Our study demonstrates that the proposed three-category CZ classification scheme effectively identifies the spatial variations in CZs and could thus be further applied in other areas to advance terrestrial environmental research and provide decision support for the sustainable management of natural resources.

Background: Nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-PTX) has exhibited clinical efficacy in breast cancer treatment, but toxicities can be yielded more at the same time. We did this meta-analysis aiming to unambiguously compare nab-PTX with conventional solvent-based paclitaxel (sb-PTX) in breast cancer patients of all stages. Method: Pubmed, Embase and Cochrane Library were searched for head-to-head randomized controlled trials of nab-PTX and sb-PTX in breast cancer. Risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval was used for dichotomous variables while Hazard ratio (HR) was used for time-to-event outcomes. Results: Our review finally included 9 studies with 3508 patients. Nab-PTX showed a benefit on objective response rate (ORR) (RR=1.22 [1.04-1.43], P=0.01) as well as non-inferiority compared with sb-PTX in disease control rate (DCR) (RR=1.01 [0.98-1.04], P=0.44), overall survival (OS) (HR=0.99 [0.93-1.05], P=0.81) and disease free survival/progression free survival (DFS/PFS) (HR=0.92 [0.81-1.05], P=0.21). However, when it comes to toxicities (fatigue, nausea or vomiting, peripheral sensory neuropathy and adverse event related discontinuation), results favored sb-PTX (RR=2.89 [1.07-7.8], 3.15 [1.78-5.59], 2.11 [1.32-3.37], 2.02 [1.61-2.53]; P

Intelligent robots, as an important type of Cyber–Physical systems, have promising potential to take the central stage in the development of the next-generation of efficient smart systems. Robotic calligraphy is such an attempt, and the current research focuses on the control algorithms of the robotic arms, which usually suffers from significant human inputs and limited writing styles. This paper presents an autonomous robotic writing system for Chinese calligraphy empowered by the proposed automatic stroke matching and generation mechanisms. Thanks to these mechanisms, the robot is able to effectively learn to write any Chinese characters in a style that is sampled by a small amount of handwritten Chinese characters with a certain target writing style. This is achieved by firstly disassembling each given Chinese character into individual strokes using the proposed character disassemble method; then, the writing style of the dissembled strokes is learned by a stroke generation module, which is built upon a generative adversarial learning model. From this, the robot can apply the learned writing style to any Chinese character from a given database, by dissembling the character and then generating the stroke trajectories based on the learned writing style. The experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system in learning writing a certain style of characters based on a small style dataset, as evidenced by the high similarity between the robotic writing results and the handwritten ones according to the Frechet Inception Distance.

This healthcare improvement initiative was designed to increase inpatient osteoporosis treatment after hip fracture.A new protocol was developed by Geriatric Medicine and Endocrinology departments at a tertiary care hospital in Sydney. Its aim was to standardize assessment and treatment of osteoporosis in patients admitted with hip fracture. Eligible inpatients would receive intravenous zoledronic acid during their admission. A 6-month sample of hip fracture patients admitted after the protocol's implementation was compared to a group admitted before. Data collected included demographics, biochemistry, treatment rates, adverse effects, and admission survival.There was a considerable increase in osteoporosis treatment after introducing the protocol. Before the protocol's introduction, none of 36 eligible patients received treatment. After the intervention 79% (23 out of 29) of eligible patients were treated.All treated patients had renal function and serum calcium levels checked post-infusion with no adverse outcomes. Eight patients developed flu-like symptoms within 24 h of the infusion. There were no instances of arrhythmias, ocular inflammation, or death. The cost per patient treated was AUD $87.Adopting a standardized protocol for osteoporosis treatment in patients admitted for hip fracture was effective in improving treatment rates whilst being relatively safe and inexpensive.

Offshore wind turbines are a leading renewable energy technology with significant potential to support the drive for a low-carbon economy. As the availability of shallow water sites declines, floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) technologies can play a leading role in accessing deep water sites. This paper investigates design and global performance of a semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine system. Existing design concepts of floating support structures and station keeping systems for FOWT’s are mostly developed based on experience from the offshore oil and gas industry, which has witnessed almost 70 years of designing and operating numerous floating offshore structures. This paper first introduces a new semi-submersible FOWT system developed by the authors for the application in South China Sea. The system consists of 8MW wind turbine, supporting tower, semi-submersible platform structure, station keeping mooring lines, and dynamic cable. The principal dimensions of the platform and ballast setting are iteratively designed for the better global performance in terms of response amplitude operator. The FOWT system also covers the layout of mooring lines and the configuration of dynamic cable. The semi-submersible FOWT system is designed to meet the requirement for natural periods recommended by the guidance notes from ABS. The time domain fully coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic response of the floating wind turbine is investigated by using the FEA program of OrcaFlex. The turbine takes the form of a conventional three-bladed rotor, with variable-speed and variable blade-pitch control capabilities. The turbine object in OrcaFlex is used to model the generator, gearbox, hub, blades and associated control systems. The environmental conditions in South China Sea are used in the dynamic analysis. The load case matrix covers 1-yr operating, 10-yr, and 100-yr extreme conditions. The time history of generator power is presented for the illustration of the regulation facilitated by the blade controller. The results include generator power, vessel offset, heave motion, heel angle, and maximum tension of mooring lines. For the 100-yr tropical environmental condition, the wind turbine is parked. The air gap especially at the tip of blades is examined for the extreme parked condition. This paper finally summarizes the findings from the design and global performance of the semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine system.

Accumulation of soluble organic nitrogen (SON) in soil poses a significant threat to groundwater quality and plays an important role in regulating the global nitrogen cycle; however, most related studies have focused only on the upper 100-cm soil layers. Surface land-use management and soil properties may affect the vertical distribution of SON; however, their influence is poorly understood in deep soil layers. Therefore, this study assessed the response of SON concentration, pattern, and storage in deep regoliths to land-use conversion from woodlands to orchards in a subtropical hilly region. Our results showed that the SON stocks of the entire soil profile (up to 19.5 m) ranged from 254.5 kg N ha

Asparagus [Asparagus cochinchinensis (Lour.) Merr.] is a traditional herbal medicine plant commonly used to nourish yin, moisten dryness, and clear fire cough symptoms. Drying is an excellent option to conserve food materials, i.e., grains, fruits, vegetables, and herbs, reducing the raw materials volume and weight. This study aims to evaluate different drying approaches that could increase the value of asparagus, particularly as an ingredient in fast foods or as nutraceutical byproducts. The volatile components of asparagus roots were analyzed by using headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectroscopy under different drying conditions, i.e., natural drying (ND) at ambient air temperature in the dark, well-ventilated room, temperature range 28–32°C, blast or oven drying at 50°C, heat pump or hot-air drying at temperature 50°C and air velocity at 1.5 ms–1 and vacuum freeze-drying at the temperature of −45°C and vacuum pressure of 10–30 Pa for 24 h. The findings revealed that the various drying processes had multiple effects on the color, odor index, and volatile compounds of the asparagus roots. As a result of the investigations, multiple characteristics of components, therefore, exploitation and comparison of various flavors; a total of 22 compounds were identified, such as alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, acids, esters, heterocyclic, and terpene. The present findings may help understand the flavor of the processed asparagus roots and find a better option for drying and processing.

Aiming at the problems of low accuracy and low detection efficiency of high-resolution oil palm detection in deep learning, an effective and reliable solution is proposed from two aspects of algorithm optimization and heterogeneous hardware platform acceleration. Taking YOLOv3 object detection algorithm as an example, the optimization strategy of expanding feature selection and increasing multi-scale feature fusion is adopted to improve the detection accuracy of the algorithm for high-resolution oil palm. In addition, in the process of inference, plenty of applications require high performance models with strict power consumption limits. In order to solve this problem, taking the strategy of integer 8-bits quantitative weights and computational units reuse, this paper designs a high efficiency convolution computational engine based on SIMD. At the same time, through the strategy of the dimension change of the input image, vectorization, transmission to the input module in the form of written queue, this paper increases the efficiency of bus bandwidth greatly and accelerates the input module well. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the improved algorithm model is 97.84%, and a performance of 1.4 TOPS is obtained on the FPGA platform of Intel Arria 10. Compared with the i9-9980XE CPU, 7.51 times of the perform-ance and 33.02 times of energy efficiency are obtained. It is 1.2 times more efficient than Nvidia??s dedicated P40 accelerator.

Clay CEC is one of identification indexes of the LAC-ferric horizon which is the diagnostic horizon of ferrosols in Chinese Soil Taxonomy, and it is defined as soil CEC × 1000/clay content, rather than the measured CEC of the extracted clays; however, such a calculation method would definitely lead to an overestimation of clay CEC because it doesn’t remove the contribution to soil CEC from other soil parameters. In this study, the physiochemical data of the subhorizons from 82 soil series in the tropical and subtropical regions in south China were used, clay CEC was calculated according to the current formula and measured after clays being extracted, the measured and calculated clay CEC were compared, the influencing factors were analyzed for their difference, and the new algorithms were established for clay CEC. The results showed that the measured clay CEC was 21.86% - 99.53% with a mean of 66.88% of the calculated one (significantly lower at p 2O3 (the contribution was 52.51% and 25.36%, respectively). By comparison of established regression models of clay CEC with other soil parameters, two new algorithms were recommended for clay CEC as follows: 1) Clay CEC = 10.32 − 0.14pH − 0.05OM − 0.11Fe2O3 + 0.01Silt − 0.01Clay + 1.17CECsoil, R2 = 0.705, P −3.40 + 0.01Sand + 0.02Silt + 1.05CECsoil, R2 = 0.589, P < 0.01).

Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is one of the most important properties of soils. The NH4OAc (pH = 7.0) exchange method is usually recommended to determine CEC (CEC1) of all soils with different pH values, particularly for studies on soil taxonomy. But comparatively the BaCl2-MgSO4 forced-exchange method is more authentic in determining CEC (CEC2) of tropical and subtropical highly-weathered acid soils. But so far little is known about the difference between CEC1 and CEC2. In this study, the physiochemical data of 114 acid B horizon soils from 112 soil series of tropical and subtropical China were used, CEC1 and CEC2 were determined and compared, the influencing factors were analyzed for the difference between CEC1 and CEC2, and then a regression model was established between CEC1 and CEC2. The results showed that CEC2 was significantly lower than CEC1 (p 2 was 14.76% - 63.31% with a mean of 36.32% of CEC1. In view of the contribution to CEC from other properties, CEC2 was mainly determined by pH (45.92%), followed by silt (21.05%), free Fe2O3 (17.35%) and clay contents (12.76%), CEC1 was mainly decided by free Fe2O3 content (40.38%), followed by pH (28.39%) and silt content (27.29%; and the difference between CEC1 and CEC2 was mainly affected by free Fe2O3 (50.92%), followed by silt content (26.46%) and pH (21.80%). The acceptable optimal regression model between CEC2 and CEC1 was established as CEC2 = 2.3114 × CEC11.1496 (R2 = 0.410, P 2-MgSO4 forced-exchange method is recommended in determining CEC of the highly-weathered acid soils in the tropical and subtropical regions.

The removal of organic matter and iron oxides could increase and decrease soil CEC in tropical and subtropical regions, but the quantitative information is insufficient so far about the change of soil CEC, the influence factors and their contribution. In this study, the subhorizon soils of 24 soil series in the tropical and subtropical China were used, pH, particle size composition, organic matter, iron oxides of these samples were measured, and also CECs were measured and compared for the original soils and after the removal of organic matter and iron oxides. The results showed that, compared with CEC of the original soil, the eliminating organic matter increased soil CEC significantly by 2.28% - 56.50% with a mean of 24.02%, but the further obliterating iron oxides decreased soil CEC significantly by 0.75% - 20.30% with a mean of 7.73%. CEC after the removal of organic matter and iron oxides had positive correlation with iron oxides (p − 0.546pH − 0.024OM + 0.053FexOy − 0.001Silt + 0.007Clay + 0.972CECoriginal (R2 was 0.923, RSME was 1.55 cmol(+)∙kg−1, p − 0.546pH − 0.024OM + 0.053FexOy − 0.001Silt + 0.007Clay + 0.972CECoriginal (R2 was 0.923, RMSE was 1.55 cmol(+)∙kg−1, p < 0.01). Further research is needed in the future as for exploring internal functional mechanism in view of soil electrochemistry and mineralogy.

Sufficient water and fertilizer inputs in agriculture play a major role in crop growth, production, and quality. In this study, the response of sugarcane to limited water irrigation and foliar application of potassium salt of active phosphorus (PSAP) for photosynthetic responses were examined, and PSAP's role in limited water irrigation management was assessed. Sugarcane plants were subjected to limited irrigation (95-90 and 45-40% FC) after three months of germination, followed by a foliar spray (0, 2, 4, 6, and 10 M) of PSAP. The obtained results indicated that limited water irrigation negatively affected sugarcane growth and reduced leaf gas exchange activities. However, the application of PSAP increased the photosynthetic activities by protecting the photosynthetic machinery during unfavorable conditions. Mathematical modeling, a Skewed model, was developed and compared with the existing Gaussian model to describe the photosynthetic responses of sugarcane leaves under the limited irrigation with and without PSAP application. The models fitted well with the observed values, and the predicted photosynthetic parameters were in close relationship with the obtained results. The Skewed model was found to be better than the Gaussian model in describing the photosynthetic parameters of plant leaves positioned over a stem of limited water irrigation and applied PSAP application and is recommended for further application.

Targeting EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKIs), brings lights to the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although T790M mutation responded as one of the main reasons of acquired resistance, still 15% of the resistance patients can't be explained by the known mechanisms. The purpose of this research was to identify some new mechanisms of gefitinib acquired resistance, and to predict small molecules drugs which may reverse drug resistance by integrated bioinformatics analysis. The GSE34228 data package containing the microarray data of acquired gefitinib-resistant cell line (PC9GR) and gefitinib-sensitive cell line (PC9) from the GEO database were downloaded, and gene co-expression networks by weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) were constructed to identified key modules and key genes related to gefitinib resistance. Furthermore, the significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the two cell types were screened out, and a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network to obtain the key genes of DEGs was accordingly constructed. Through the above two methods, 4 hub genes, PI3, S100A8, AXL and PNPLA4 were mined as the most relevant to gefitinib resistance. Among them, PI3, S100A8 were down-regulated in PC9GR cell samples, while AXL, PNPLA4 were up-regulated. The gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) for single gene showed that the four hub genes were mainly correlated with cell proliferation and cycle. Besides, small molecule drugs with the potential to overcome resistance, such as Emetine and cephaeline, were screened by CMap database. Consistent with this, in vitro experiments results have shown that emetine and cephaeline can increase the sensitivity of drug-resistant cells to gefitinib, and the mechanism may be related to the regulation of PI3 and S100A8. In conclusion, 4 hub genes were found to be related to the occurrence of gefitinib resistance in non-small cell lung cancer, and several small molecule drugs were screened out as potential therapeutic agents to overcome gefitinib resistance, which may lead a new way for the treatment of NSCLC of acquired resistance to gefitinib.

The anti-angiogenic drug Bevacizumab (Bev) is engaged in neoadjuvant therapy for non-metastatic breast cancer (NMBC). However, whether neoadjuvant Bev providing a greater benefit to patients is debatable. Our study aimed to review Bev's role in Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) in NMBC and identify predictive markers associated with its efficacy by systemic review and meta-analysis. Eligible trials were retrieved from the Pubmed, Embase, and Cochrane Library, and random or fixed effects models were applied to synthesize data. Power of pCR to predict DFS or OS was evaluated by nonlinear mixed effect model. In NMBC, Bev significantly improved the rate of patients achieving pCR, but this benefit discontinued in DFS or OS. Biomarkers such as PAM50 intrinsic subtype, VEGF overexpression, regulation of VEGF signaling pathway, hypoxia-related genes, BRCA1/2 mutation, P53 mutation and immune phenotype can be used to predict Bev-inducing pCR and/or DFS/OS. Unfortunately, although patients with pCR survived longer than those without pCR when ignoring the use of Bev, but patients achieving pCR with Bev might survive shorter than those achieving pCR without Bev. Subgroup analyses found Bev prolonged patients' OS when given pre- and post-surgery. Lastly, adding Bev increased adverse effects. Overall, Bev offered limited effect for patients with NMBC in an unscreened population. However, in biomarkers - identified subgroup, Bev could be promising to ameliorate the prognosis of specific patients with NMBC.

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is well known to endow nanoparticles (NPs) with low-fouling and stealth-like properties that can reduce immune system clearance in vivo, making PEG-based NPs (particularly sub-100 nm) of interest for diverse biomedical applications. However, the preparation of sub-100 nm PEG NPs with controllable size and morphology is challenging. Herein, we report a strategy based on the noncovalent coordination between PEG-polyphenolic ligands (PEG-gallol) and transition metal ions using a water-in-oil microemulsion phase to synthesize sub-100 nm PEG NPs with tunable size and morphology. The metal-phenolic coordination drives the self-assembly of the PEG-gallol/metal NPs: complexation between MnII and PEG-gallol within the microemulsions yields a series of metal-stabilized PEG NPs, including 30-50 nm solid and hollow NPs, depending on the MnII/gallol feed ratio. Variations in size and morphology are attributed to the changes in hydrophobicity of the PEG-gallol/MnII complexes at varying MnII/gallol ratios based on contact angle measurements. Small-angle X-ray scattering analysis, which is used to monitor the particle size and intermolecular interactions during NP evolution, reveals that ionic interactions are the dominant driving force in the formation of the PEG-gallol/MnII NPs. pH and cytotoxicity studies, and the low-fouling properties of the PEG-gallol/MnII NPs confirm their high biocompatibility and functionality, suggesting that PEG polyphenol-metal NPs are promising systems for biomedical applications.

Background and Objectives. The prognostic role of adjacent nontumor tissue in patients with breast cancer (BC) is still unclear. The activity changes in immunologic and hallmark gene sets in normal tissues adjacent to BC may play a crucial role in predicting the prognosis of BC patients. The aim of this study was to identify BC subtypes and ribosome-associated prognostic genes based on activity changes of immunologic and hallmark gene sets in tumor and adjacent nontumor tissues to improve patient prognosis. Materials and Methods. Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) was applied to assess immunoreactivity changes in the overall sample and three immune-related BC subtypes were identified by non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) and GO (Gene Ontology) analyses were after determining the prognostic gene set using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method. Ribosome-related genes were identified by PPI (protein-protein interaction) analysis, and finally a prognostic risk model was constructed based on the expression of five ribosomal genes (RPS18, RPL11, PRLP1, RPL27A, and RPL38). Results. A comprehensive analysis of immune and marker genomic activity changes in normal breast tissue and BC tissue identified three immune-related BC subtypes. BC subtype 1 has the best prognosis, and subtype 3 has the worst overall survival rate. We identified a prognostic gene set in nontumor tissue by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method. We found that the results of both KEGG and GO analyses were indistinguishable from those of ribosome-associated genes. Finally, we determined that genes associated with ribosomes exhibit potential as a reliable predictor of overall survival in breast cancer patients. Conclusions. Our research provides an important guidance for the treatment of BC. After a mastectomy, the changes in gene set activity of both BC tissues and the nontumor tissues adjacent to it should be thoroughly evaluated, with special attention to changes in ribosome-related genes in the nontumor tissues.

Increased soil organic carbon (OC) in China has been reported in the past two decades, suggesting the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide into soil, mitigating climate change and improving soil health. On the other hand, soil pH decrease had also been reported nationwide. If the two are related, the strategy of increasing soil OC could negatively affect soil quality for food production and the environment. We investigate this thread based on large-scale soil survey data from two provinces with typical soil and cropping patterns in the east and south of China, Jiangsu (102,600 km

The substitution of petroleum-based self-healing elastomers with biobased counterparts is crucial to the global sustainable development of the rubber industry, which highly depends on the ease of t...

With increasing urban area and population, global cities are playing a more important role in the alteration of the global biogeochemical cycles. The aims of this study are to understand the concentrations and stoichiometric relations of biogenic elements (C, N, and P) in urban soils, further to reveal the effects of C, N, and P accumulation on the urban environment. We collected 317 surface (0–10 cm) soil samples taken from Nanjing, China, a typical city with more than 2000 years of history. These soil samples were located in different urban zones of Nanjing with different land use histories. The soil C, N, and P concentrations were determined. The stoichiometric relations of soil C, N, and P were investigated in urban soils. Meanwhile, some studies on sources of C, N, and P in diverse urban settings from literature were combined to explore the universal rule of C, N, and P cycling and their ecological and environmental effects in urban area. Compared to rural soils, more C, N, and P are accumulated in the urban soils, which also change their stoichiometric relations. The concentrations of OC, TN, and TP in urban top soils are 17.0 ± 9.69 g kg−1, 1.53 ± 0.92 g kg−1, and 1.31 ± 0.67 g kg−1, respectively. The mean atomic ratio of C:N:P is 37:3:1 in the surface of urban soils that strictly differs from natural soils in China and the whole world. The mean of C:N ratio in urban soils is similar to that of agriculture, grassland, and forest soils. However, the ratios of C:P and N:P in urban soils are much lower than that in agricultural, forest, and grassland soils. This implies that P is extremely enriched in the urban soils. The high C in urban soils are considered coming from natural and anthropogenic sources. The high N and P mainly come from anthropogenic sources. The well-constrained C:N:P ratio in rural soils does not apply for urban soils. The abnormal C:N:P ratio of urban soils is the result of unbalanced accumulation of C, N, and P from human activities. Urban soils are already an important storage of carbon. High N and P in urban soils may bring threat of surface water eutrophication and ground water contamination. These effects are expected to increase with the city development time.

Heparanase, the sole heparan sulfate degrading endoglycosidase, regulates multiple biological activities that enhance tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis. Much of the impact of heparanase on tumor progression is related to its function in mediating tumor-host crosstalk, priming the tumor microenvironment to better support tumor growth and metastasis. We have utilized mice over-expressing (Hpa-tg) heparanase to reveal the role of host heparanase in tumor initiation, growth and metastasis. While in wild type mice tumor development in response to DMBA carcinogenesis was restricted to the mammary gland, Hpa-tg mice developed tumors also in their lungs and liver, associating with reduced survival of the tumor-bearing mice. Consistently, xenograft tumors (lymphoma, melanoma, lung carcinoma, pancreatic carcinoma) transplanted in Hpa-tg mice exhibited accelerated tumor growth and shorter survival of the tumor-bearing mice compared with wild type mice. Hpa-tg mice were also more prone to the development of metastases following intravenous or subcutaneous injection of tumor cells. In some models, the growth advantage was associated with infiltration of heparanase-high host cells into the tumors. However, in other models, heparanase-high host cells were not detected in the primary tumor, implying that the growth advantage in Hpa-tg mice is due to systemic factors. Indeed, we found that plasma from Hpa-tg mice enhanced tumor cell migration and invasion attributed to increased levels of pro-tumorigenic factors (i.e., RANKL, SPARC, MIP-2) in the plasma of Hpa-Tg vs. wild type mice. Furthermore, tumor aggressiveness and short survival time were demonstrated in wild type mice transplanted with bone marrow derived from Hpa-tg but not wild type mice. These results were attributed, among other factors, to upregulation of pro-tumorigenic (i.e., IL35(+)) and downregulation of anti-tumorigenic (i.e., IFN-γ(+)) T-cell subpopulations in the spleen, lymph nodes and blood of Hpa-tg vs. wild type mice and their increased infiltration into the primary tumor. Collectively, our results emphasize the significance of host heparanase in mediating the pro-tumorigenic and pro-metastatic interactions between the tumor cells and the host tumor microenvironment, immune cells and systemic factors.

The finite difference algorithm is often applied to Sunway TaihuLight to complete atmospheric simula-tion, oil exploration, and other tasks. However, due to the high communication cost and calculation density of the algorithm, the complex structure of Sunway system and large scale of application data, it is difficult to obtain reason-able parameters for data distribution during application construction and execution, and the performance of corres-ponding applications is difficult to be satisfactory. According to the hardware characteristics of Sunway 26010 processor, a parallel parameter automatic optimization method based on genetic algorithm is proposed. The data size parameter of message passing interface and the kernel are automatically optimized, and the two-dimensional finite difference algorithm is tested for high performance. The method finds the better solution in the 1 billion addressing space and achieves an acceleration ratio of 10.79 times compared with the automatic allocation of compiler system. In addition, compared with the automatic allocation of compiler system, this paper achieves 6.31 times acceleration for optimizing reverse time migration. This method realizes the automatic optimization of the application data scale parameters and provides useful guidance for the high-performance parallel optimization of domestic heterogeneous many-core processors.

This study aimed to explore the dynamic variations in the phenolic and volatile organic compounds of sugarcane vinegar subjected to different production processes. The determination of phenolic and volatile organic compounds was performed by UPLC-MS and solid phase micro extraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The complete fermentation process of sugarcane lasted nine days, and production of vinegar of up to 3.04% (w/v), total acids, and 4.1° alcoholicity was accomplished. Various phenolic compounds of sugarcane juice (non-sterilized) and those of alcoholic and acetic acid fermentation were obtained after nine days of fermentation. These were benzoic acid (2.024, 1.002, and 1.027 mg L-1), ferulic acid (0.060, 0.205, and 1.124 mg L-1), quinic acid (0.019, 0.074, and 0.031 mg L-1), chlorogenic acid (0.349, 1.635, and 1.217 mg L-1), apigenin (0.002, 0.099, and 0.004 mg L-1), kaempferol (0.003, 0.336, and 0.003 mg L-1), caffeic acid (-, 0.005, and 0.005 mg L-1), luteolin (0.003, 0.323, and 0.005 mg L-1), and p-coumaric acid (0.018, 0.015, and 0.027 mg L-1). Forty-five volatile organic compounds were also identified. The sugarcane juice can be commercialized as an alternative to wine as it presents characteristics of an alcoholic fermented beverage.