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In this study, the relationship between 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one (MHO) treatment and superficial scald in ‘Dangshansuli’ pear fruit and its impact on reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism were explored. The levels of α-farnesene, conjugated trienes, MHO, malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), superoxide anion radical and total phenols, and the activities of catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) in the pericarp of ‘Dangshansuli’ pear fruit treated by MHO during cold storage were measured. In addition, the development of superficial scald was observed and recorded. The results indicated that exogenous MHO could induce symptoms similar to superficial scald in ‘Dangshansuli’ pears, significantly increase the contents of MHO, H2O2 and superoxide anion radical, and decrease the activities of the antioxidant enzymes CAT, POD and SOD, and increase the contents of α-farnesene and conjugated trienes. The content of MHO in the pericarp was significantly related to the contents of H2O2 and superoxide anion radical, but was more closely correlated with the incidence rate of superficial scald than H2O2 levels. These results reveal that MHO can induce superficial scald by increasing the accumulation of ROS.

Previous studies show that infants store functional morphemes for inferring syntactic categories of adjacent words, and they generally perform better with nouns than with verbs. In this study, we tested whether toddlers can exploit phrasal groupings for syntactic categorization in the face of noisy co-occurrence patterns. Using a visual fixation procedure, we examined whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds can categorize word X to the left of functional morpheme a in a prosody-neutral 3-word sequence X-"a"-Y, where a structurally selects X (X and Y being unfamiliar words). Infants at 19 months were familiarized either with X-"ye"-Y ('even X[subscript N] Y[subscript V]') or with X-"le"-Y ('have X[subscript V]-ed Y[subscript N]'). While le features a more mixed distribution than "ye," 19-month-olds succeeded with both "ye" and "le" by preferring grammatical new contexts of X over ungrammatical ones, consistent with the hypothesis that phrasal groupings ([Xa. . .]) support syntactic categorization. Our findings provide initial evidence for infants' ability to capture functional morphemes for backward syntactic categorization.

Global climate change has precipitated a surge in urban flooding challenges, prompting the imperative role of green infrastructure (GI) as the linchpin of sponge city construction to enhance urban sustainability and resilience. But the evaluation of urban stormwater resilience faces challenges due to the lack of a comprehensive evaluation framework taking the intrinsic features of the resilience system into account and the insufficient coverage of alternative scenarios' performance under multiple rainfall return periods. This study, focusing on Fengxi New City, China, evaluates the suitability of GI (i.e., green roofs, rain gardens, and permeable pavements) and constructs a stormwater management model (SWMM) for urban stormwater hydrological simulation. This study also establishes a comprehensive urban stormwater resilience evaluation system and uses quantitative methods to unify the performances of scenarios under different rainfall return periods. Our analytical findings elucidate that the suitability of GI is predominantly concentrated in the northern and western areas of the study area, with the smallest suitable area observed for permeable pavements. Divergent GIs exhibit disparate performances, with rain gardens emerging as particularly efficacious. Importantly, the combination of multiple GIs yields a synergistic enhancement in resilience, underscoring the strategic advantage of adopting a diverse and integrated approach to GI implementation. This study facilitates a deeper understanding of urban stormwater resilience and assists in informed planning decisions for GI and sponge cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Plasma cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragmentomics has demonstrated significant differentiation power between cancer patients and healthy individuals, but little is known in pancreatic and biliary tract cancers. The aim of this study is to characterize the cfDNA fragmentomics in biliopancreatic cancers and develop an accurate method for cancer detection. Methods: One hundred forty-seven patients with biliopancreatic cancers and 71 non-cancer volunteers were enrolled, including 55 patients with cholangiocarcinoma, 30 with gallbladder cancer, and 62 with pancreatic cancer. Low-coverage whole-genome sequencing (median coverage: 2.9 ×) was performed on plasma cfDNA. Three cfDNA fragmentomic features, including fragment size, end motif and nucleosome footprint, were subjected to construct a stacked machine learning model for cancer detection. Integration of carbohydrate antigen 19–9 (CA19-9) was explored to improve model performance. Results: The stacked model presented robust performance for cancer detection (area under curve (AUC) of 0.978 in the training cohort, and AUC of 0.941 in the validation cohort), and remained consistent even when using extremely low-coverage sequencing depth of 0.5 × (AUC: 0.905). Besides, our method could also help differentiate biliopancreatic cancer subtypes. By integrating the stacked model and CA19-9 to generate the final detection model, a high accuracy in distinguishing biliopancreatic cancers from non-cancer samples with an AUC of 0.995 was achieved. Conclusions: Our model demonstrated ultrasensitivity of plasma cfDNA fragementomics in detecting biliopancreatic cancers, fulfilling the unmet accuracy of widely-used serum biomarker CA19-9, and provided an affordable way for accurate noninvasive biliopancreatic cancer screening in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study assessed 30-month-old Mandarin-speaking children's awareness of aspectual distinctions involving the perfective marker "le" and the imperfective marker "zhe" in a preferential looking experiment. In the experiment, we presented our child subjects with a choice between two video clips (one depicting a closed event and the other depicting an on-going event), in the presence of an auditory stimulus (either the "le" sentence, the "zhe" sentence or the control sentence without any aspect marker). Children's looking behavior in the task was recorded and analyzed. The results revealed 30-month-old children's emerging sensitivity to the aspectual contrast between "le" and "zhe." This was manifest by an increase in looking to the closed event when hearing the "le" sentence and an increase in looking to the on-going event when hearing the "zhe" sentence. The absence of "le" or "zhe" in the control sentence did not result in any increase or decrease in looking to either event. We also found that the effect of "le" on children's looking behavior was immediate whereas the effect of "zhe" was late. We attributed this difference to the facilitative role of "le" in children's sentence processing as well as their preference for the event boundary. The results lend support to the continuity view that functional morphemes like aspect markers are available to children early in language development.

Background: Ciliary body tumor is extremely rare and treatment is challenging. The aim of this study is to present our experience in treating this rare entity, especially large tumors with more than 5 clock hours of involvement, and to evaluate the surgical outcomes and complications of local resection via partial lamellar sclerouvectomy in four cases of ciliary body tumors in China. Methods: Four patients with ciliary body tumors underwent partial lamellar sclerouvectomy between October 2019 and April 2023 in Shanghai General Hospital, China. Tumor features, histopathologic findings, complications, visual acuity, and surgical outcomes were reviewed at a mean follow-up of 20.8 months. Results: Four patients with a mean age of 31.8 years were included in this study. The histopathological diagnosis was adenoma of non-pigmented ciliary epithelium (ANPCE), schwannoma, and multiple ciliary body pigment epithelial cysts. The mean largest tumor base diameter was 6.00 mm (range: 2.00–10.00) and the mean tumor thickness was 3.50 mm (range: 2.00–5.00). Preoperative complications included cataract in 3 (75%) eyes, lens dislocation in 2 (50%), and secondary glaucoma in 1 (25%). Temporary ocular hypotonia was observed in one case and no other postoperative complications were observed. At a mean follow-up of 20.8 months, the best corrected visual acuity increased in 3 eyes and was stable in 1 eye. Tumor recurrence was absent in all eyes. All patients were alive at the end of follow-up. Conclusions: Local tumor resection via PLSU is useful in the treatment of ciliary body tumors, including large tumors occupying more than five clock hours of pars plicata. Surgery-related complications were manageable with adequate preoperative assessment and careful operation during surgery. Key messages: What is known 1. Ciliary body tumor is a rare intraocular tumor that is difficult to detect and determine the malignancy, sometimes leading to overdiagnosis and overtreatment such as eyeball enucleation. 2. Partial lamellar sclerouvectomy (PLSU) is used as a local resection method for iridociliary tumors but surgical procedure is challenging and limited by tumor size. What this paper adds 1. PLSU can also be used in the treatment of large iridociliary tumors occupying more than five clock hours of pars plicata. 2. Surgery-related complications were manageable with adequate preoperative assessment and careful operation during surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Languages employ different means to manifest the unaccusative-unergative distinction. In Mandarin Chinese, unaccusative verbs are allowed in the inversion construction "V- le NP", while unergative verbs are not. This grammaticality contrast brings a presence/absence contrast between the two verb classes in the inversion construction in the input. Using an eye fixation task, we investigated whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds were sensitive to this specific input frequency contrast. We found that infants distinguished the grammatical versus ungrammatical uses of the two verb classes in the inversion construction "V- le NP" (Experiment 1). When the verb classes were in the "NP V- le " order (Experiment 2) (i.e., the same level of grammaticality), infants showed no evidence of a looking difference. These responses indicate toddlers' sensitivity to the distribution of the two verb classes in the inversion construction. This distributional information is likely to be one of the potential cues that facilitate their acquisition of the unaccusative-unergative distinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy saving and emissions reduction of the construction industry are crucial for China to achieve the "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" goals. In order to promote the green development of the life cycle of the construction industry and improve the efficiency of emissions reduction. This paper examines the spatial-temporal distribution of life cycle carbon emissions in China's construction industry (LCCECI) from 2004 to 2018. It uses the SBM-Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index to measure technological progress and establishes the spatial econometric model based on the STIRPAT model. The study investigates the driving factors of the LCCECI at the provincial and regional levels, aiming to provide suggestions for low-carbon development in the construction industry. The research results are as follows. © The growth in the SBM-Malmquist TFP index of the construction industry distinctly curbs the LCCECI. © Total population and urbanization level are not the primary driving factors for the LCCECI. The growth of per capita GDP significantly induces the LCCECI, while concurrently exhibiting a notable inhibitory effect on the LCCECI of neighboring regions. © The improvement of the SBM-Malmquist TFP index is conducive to the reduction of the LCCECI in the three major regions. The per capita GDP has the largest positive driving effect of the LCCECI in the eastern region, and the urbanization level the urbanization rate only significantly inhibits the growth of the LCCECI in the central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tumorigenesis entails circumventing cell‐intrinsic regulatory mechanisms while avoiding extrinsic immune surveillance and other host defence systems. Nevertheless, how tumour cells' ability to eliminate misfolded proteins affects immune surveillance remains poorly understood. In this study, we find that overexpression of murine tripartite motif‐containing protein 30a (TRIM30a) sensitises tumour cells to natural killer (NK) cells‐mediated cytolysis. TRIM30a has no effect on tumour cell proliferation or apoptosis in vitro. However, TRIM30a‐overexpressing tumour cells grow substantially slower than control tumour cells in immune‐competent mice but not in NK cell‐depleted mice. [Correction added on 04 October 2023, after first online publication: 'NK‐depleted' has been changed to 'NK cell‐depleted' in the preceding sentence.] Mechanistically, TRIM30a overexpression impedes the clearance of misfolded proteins and increases the production of reactive oxygen species induced by proteotoxic stress, implying that TRIM30a impairs protein quality control (PQC) systems in tumour cells. Furthermore, TRIM30a reduces expression of genes encoding proteasome subunits and antioxidant proteins. Our study demonstrates that TRIM30a is a potential tumour suppressor and immune modulator that promotes tumour cytolysis by NK cells, and suggests that an enhanced PQC and antioxidant capacity is an integral part of the immune escape mechanism during tumorigenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle East holds a critical strategic position in global politics, economy, and military affairs, serving as a pivotal hub for the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through both land and sea routes. Since the proposal of BRI, China's cooperation with Middle Eastern countries has steadily deepened. Consequently, examining the evolution of China's interaction with Middle Eastern nations over the past decade is of paramount significance for future development. This study utilizes the GDELT database to construct formulas for measuring event impact and bilateral relationship intensity. It analyzes the temporal development and spatial patterns of China's interaction with Middle Eastern countries while also examining the types of interactive relationships between China and individual countries in the Middle East under the principle of reciprocity. The findings indicate that the overall interaction between China and Middle Eastern countries remains stable. Cooperative relationships have transitioned from a "single cooperation" approach to a "dual cooperation" model involving Iran and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the development trajectory has shifted from an imbalanced "north-high, south-low" pattern towards equilibrium, resulting in a general decline in conflict relations and a decrease in inter-country disparities. The prevalent type of interaction between countries is characterized by balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic toll collection (ETC) has been widely spread in China, providing efficient, comfortable, and convenient toll services. However, the nature of centralization of those ETC systems has incurred serious security threatens. Given blockchain's features of self-trust, decentralized architecture, and traceability, we propose a decentralized ETC architecture based on blockchain technology. After implementing our architecture in a test network, we verify its feasibility. A thorough discussion indicates that our architecture can effectively operate normal ETC services while avoiding most attacks that threaten traditional ETC systems. The proposed architecture provides a brand new way of conventional ETC system optimization., Author(s): Shize Huang [1]; Lingyu Yang [2]; Xiaolu Yang (corresponding author) [3]; Xinghua Li [2]; Fei Gao [4] 1. Introduction Electronic toll collection (ETC) has been widely used for its [...]

Uveitis is a major cause of vision impairment worldwide. Current treatments have limited effectiveness but severe complications. Mannose binding lectin (MBL) is an important protein of the innate immune system that binds to TLR4 and suppresses LPS‐induced inflammatory cytokine secretion. MBL‐mediated inhibition of inflammation via the TLR4 pathway and MBL‐derived peptides might be a potential therapeutics. In this study, we designed a novel MBL‐derived peptide, WP‐17, targeting TLR4. Bioinformatics analysis was conducted for the sequence, structure and biological properties of WP‐17. The binding of WP‐17 to THP‐1 cells was analyzed using flow cytometry. Signaling molecules were analyzed by western blotting, and activation of NF‐κB was measured by immunofluorescence‐histochemical analysis. Effects of WP‐17 were studied in vitro using LPS‐stimulated THP‐1 cells and in vivo in endotoxin‐induced uveitis (EIU). Our results showed that WP‐17 could bind to TLR4 expressed on macrophages, thus downregulating the expression levels of MyD88, IRAK‐4, and TRAF‐6, and inhibiting the downstream NF‐kB signaling pathway and LPS‐induced expression of TNF‐α and IL‐6 in THP‐1 cells. Moreover, in EIU rats, intravitreal pretreatment with WP‐17 demonstrated significant inhibitory effects on ocular inflammation, attenuating the clinical and histopathological manifestations of uveitis, reducing protein leakage and cell infiltration into the aqueous humor, and suppressing TNF‐α and IL‐6 production in ocular tissues. In summary, our study provides the first evidence of a novel MBL‐derived peptide that suppressed activation of the NF‐кB pathway by targeting TLR4. The peptide effectively inhibited rat uveitis and may be a promising candidate for the management of ocular inflammatory diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]