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This study was intended to investigate the macular vascular and photoreceptor changes for diabetic macular edema (DME) at the early stage. A total of 255 eyes of 134 diabetes mellitus patients were enrolled and underwent an ophthalmological and systemic evaluation in this cross-sectional study. Early DME was characterized by central subfoveal thickness (CST) value between 250 and 325 μm, intact ellipsoid zone, and an external limiting membrane. While non-DME was characterized by CST < 250 μm with normal retinal morphology and structure. Foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area ≤ 0.3 mm2 (P < 0.001, OR = 0.41, 95% CI 0.26–0.67 in the multivariate analysis) and HbA1c level ≤ 8% (P = 0.005, OR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.19–0.74 in multivariate analysis) were significantly associated with a higher risk of early DME. Meanwhile, no significant differences exist in cone parameters between non-DME and early DME eyes. Compared with non-DME eyes, vessel diameter, vessel wall thickness, wall-to-lumen ratio, the cross-sectional area of the vascular wall in the upper side were significantly decreased in the early DME eyes (P = 0.001, P < 0.001, P = 0.005, P = 0.003 respectively). This study suggested a vasospasm or vasoconstriction with limited further photoreceptor impairment at the early stage of DME formation. CST ≥ 250 μm and FAZ ≤ 0.3 mm2 may be the indicator for early DME detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the capability of aircraft manufacturing has improved, human factors still play a pivotal role in flight accidents. For example, fatigue-related accidents are a common factor in human-led accidents. Hence, pilots' precise fatigue detections could help increase the flight safety of airplanes. The article suggests a model to recognize fatigue by implementing the convolutional neural network (CNN) by implementing flight trainees' face attributions. First, the flight trainees' face attributions are derived by a method called the land-air call process when the flight simulation is run. Then, sixty-eight points of face attributions are detected by employing the Dlib package. Fatigue attribution points were derived based on the face attribution points to construct a model called EMF to detect face fatigue. Finally, the proposed PSO-CNN algorithm is implemented to learn and train the dataset, and the network algorithm achieves a recognition ratio of 93.9% on the test set, which can efficiently pinpoint the flight trainees' fatigue level. Also, the reliability of the proposed algorithm is validated by comparing two machine learning models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the potential association between life-ever gallstones and depressive symptoms is limited. This study aims to evaluate whether the presence of gallstone disease is associated with depressive symptoms. In this cross-sectional study, we analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-March 2020 cycles. The presence of depressive symptoms and gallstone disease was assessed using questionnaire responses. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) were calculated using a multivariate logistic regression model, with adjustments made for age, sex, race, body mass index, history of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, arthritis, and pulmonary disease across different models. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were conducted to ensure the stability of the results. This study included 6201 adults aged 20 years and above, with 539(8.7%) experiencing depressive symptoms. After adjusting for age, sex, race, body mass index, CVD history, hypertension, arthritis, pulmonary disease, depressive symptoms were possibly associated with life-ever gallstones (OR 1.37, 95% CI 0.91–2.08).When depressive symptoms were categorized as mild, moderate, moderately severe, and severe,life-ever gallstones was possibly associated with mild depressive symptoms (OR 1.12, 95% CI 0.81–1.56), moderate depressive symptoms (OR 1.37, 95% CI 0.89–2.12), moderately severe depressive symptoms (OR 1.93, 95% CI 0.93–3.99), and severe depressive symptoms (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.16–2.88).As a continuous variable, life-ever gallstones was associated with the PHQ-9 score (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.02–0.83). The results remained stable after multiple imputation for all missing data. This cross-sectional study demonstrates no significant association between life-ever gallstones and depressive symptoms in US adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcription factors (TFs) play crucial regulatory roles in controlling the expression of the target genes in plants. APETALA2/Ethylene-responsive factors (AP2/ERF) are part of a large superfamily of plant-specific TFs whose members are involved in the control of plant metabolism, development and responses to various biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the AP2/ERF superfamily has not been identified systematically in Masson pine (Pinus massoniana), which is one of the most important conifer in southern China. Therefore, we performed systematic identification of the AP2/ERF superfamily using transcriptome sequencing data from Masson pine. In the current study, we obtained 88 members of the AP2/ERF superfamily. All PmAP2/ERF members could be classified into 3 main families, AP2 (7 members), RAV (7 members), ERF (73 members) families, and a soloist protein. Subcellular localization assays suggested that two members of PmAP2/ERF were nuclear proteins. Based on pine wood nematode (PWN) inoculated transcriptome and qPCR analysis, we found that many members of PmAP2/ERF could respond to PWN inoculation and PWN related treatment conditions in vitro. In general, members of the AP2/ERF superfamily play an important role in the response of Masson pine responds to PWN. Furthermore, the roles of the AP2/ERF superfamily in other physiological activities of Masson pine remain to be further studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a novel soft-hard template method towards the direct fabrication of graphene films on silicon/silica substrate is developed via a tri-constituent self-assembly route. Using cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a soft template, silica (SiO2) from tetramethoxysilane as a hard template, and pyrene as a carbon source, the self-assembly process allows the formation of a sandwich-like SiO2/CTAB/pyrene composite, which can be further converted to high quantity graphene films with a thickness of ~1 nm and a size of over 5 μm by thermal treatment. The morphology and thickness of the graphene films can be effectively controlled through the adjustment of the ratio of pyrene to CTAB. Furthermore, a high nonlinear refractive index n2 of ~10−12 m2 W−1 is measured from graphene/silica hybrid film, which is six orders of magnitude larger than that of silicon and comparable to the graphene from chemical vapor deposition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]