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Purpose: This study conducts a systematic review of policy reforms for the evaluation of scientific and technological research (E-STR) in China's colleges. In doing so, it identifies changes to past policies, as well as the objectives and realizability of the most recent policy reform. Design/Approach/Methods: This study systematically reviews the contexts of E-STR policy reforms in China's colleges post 2000 using three important related policy documents from 2003, 2013, and 2020 as samples. Research findings were obtained via content analysis. Findings: Unlike previous attempts, the most recent policy reform has incorporated the lessons learned while introducing highly targeted measures and a monitoring mechanism. Such reform should accelerate the promotion of major original scientific research in China's colleges, enhance the contribution of scientific research to socioeconomic development, and strengthen support for the cultivation of undergraduate talents. Originality/Value: Initiated in the early part of 2000, China's latest E-STR policy reform constitutes an important turning point in the initiative to burst the research bubble and return to the essence of innovation. It will drive China's colleges to embark on a research path that places value on original innovation and contribution to socioeconomic development.

Purpose: This article provides an overview of the composition and evolution of China's high-level talent programs in higher education. Design/Approach/Methods: This article reviews key talent policies adopted by the Chinese government since the 1990s, using content analysis methods to identify policy characteristics and reform trends. Findings: Talent programs in China operate at four levels: the national level, provincial level, city level, and institutional level. The main objectives of China's high-level talent programs are to support and promote the development of young talent and to encourage overseas scholars to return to China. China's high-level talent programs have undergone various changes since 1993. The evolution is characterized by the following five major aspects: individual program optimization; replacement, integration, and separation; preventing overlapping funding; mitigating the unbalanced impact the programs have on higher education institutions across regions; and strengthening risk assessment for programs focused on attracting overseas talent. Originality/Value: This article offers a comprehensive assessment of the talent programs implemented by Chinese universities and explores the key trends and content of recent policy changes.

Curcumin (CUR) is a lipophilic natural polyphenol that can be isolated from the rhizome of turmeric. Studies have proposed that CUR possesses a variety of biological activities. Due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, CUR shows promise in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, while its anti-obesity effects make it a potential therapeutic agent in the management of obesity. In addition, curcumin's ability to prevent atherosclerosis and its cardiovascular benefits further expand its potential application in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Nevertheless, owing to the limited bioavailability of CUR, it is difficult to validate its specific mechanism of action in the treatment of diseases. However, the restricted bioavailability of CUR makes it challenging to confirm its precise mode of action in disease treatment. Recent research indicates that the oral intake of curcumin may lead to elevated levels of residual curcumin in the gastrointestinal system, hinting at curcumin's potential to directly influence gut microbiota. Furthermore, the ecological dysregulation of the gut microbiota has been shown to be critical in the pathogenesis of human diseases. This review summarizes the impact of gut dysbiosis on host health and the various ways in which curcumin modulates dysbiosis and ameliorates various diseases caused by it through the administration of curcumin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible paper-based force sensors have garnered significant attention for their important potential applications in healthcare wearables, portable electronics, etc. However, most studies have only used paper as the flexible substrate for sensors, not fully exploiting the potential of paper's micro-nanostructure for sensing. This article proposes a novel approach where paper serves both as the sensitive element and the flexible substrate of force sensors. Under external mechanical forces, the micro-nanostructure of the conductive-treated paper will change, leading to significant changes in the related electrical output and thus enabling sensing. To demonstrate the feasibility and universality of this new method, the article takes paper-based capacitive pressure sensors and paper-based resistive strain sensors as examples, detailing their fabrication processes, constructing sensing principle models based on the micro-nanostructure of paper materials, and testing their main sensing performance. For the capacitive paper-based pressure sensor, it achieves a high sensitivity of 1.623 kPa−1, a fast response time of 240 ms, and a minimum pressure resolution of 4.1 Pa. As for the resistive paper-based strain sensor, it achieves a high sensitivity of 72 and a fast response time of 300 ms. The proposed new method offers advantages such as high sensitivity, simplicity in the fabrication process, environmental friendliness, and cost-effectiveness, providing new insights into the research of flexible force sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the common means of field emergency communication, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relay plays an important role in both civil and military fields. With the diversification of requirements and the limitations of single operation, multi-UAV cooperative work has attracted extensive attention. However, due to the UAV signal’s universality of broadcast and the limitation of power, information transmission is more likely to be interrupted. Therefore, in the presence of interference, this paper adopts forward amplification protocol under UAV relay transmission model. And two beamforming methods are proposed based on minimizing transmission power and maximizing communication rate of UAV relays. Then, we establish the power-constrained maximum security rate optimization problem with UAV relays, and deduce the corresponding beamforming weight vector and the optimal rate of safety. Finally, the simulation results show the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed beamforming method.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a flight device with power and energy based on computer program control, which has the characteristics of small size, light weight, high maneuverability and low cost. With its characteristics, UAV can play an important role in military and civil fields. However, due to the broadcast nature of wireless communication and inherent air-to-ground line-of-sight channel, UAV wireless communication system is more vulnerable to security threats. On the basis of traditional encryption technology, the secrecy capacity of the UAV communication system can be improved by introducing physical layer security. This article aims to study the security of the physical layer in the UAV communication system, and summarizes the latest research results on the safety communication involving UAVs on the physical layer, such as trajectory optimization, power allocation, user scheduling and cooperative UAVs. Further, some potential research directions and challenges in physical layer security of UAV system are discussed.

The acoustic signal of low-altitude aircraft shows regular distribution in frequency and has obvious harmonic crest of both fundamental frequency and double frequency.Therefore, this paper presents a low complexity algorithm of acoustic location based on feature sub-band extraction for low-altitude aircraft. The algorithm firstly searches the eigenfrequency points which occupy the main energy in the sound signal. Then the cost function is constructed based on the MUSIC method by the sub-band corresponding to the eigenfrequency point. Finally, the amplitude is weighted by the maximum ratio combination principle to obtain the spectral function of array space, by which DOA estimation is realized for the spatial spectrum. Simulation results show that the algorithm is less complex than traditional wide-band DOA algorithm, and its main lobe is easier to recognize and has better spatial resolution.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the common malignant tumors in the head and neck, characterized by high malignancy, rapid growth and metastasis, high invasive ability, and high mortality. In recent years, surgery combined with chemotherapy or radiotherapy remains the preferred clinical treatment for OSCC, despite considerable advances in diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. Hence, new targeted therapy is urgently needed. Histone modification affects the function of massive cells through histone acetyltransferase and histone deacetylase. Accompanied by the progress of some diseases, especially tumors, these proteins often show abnormal functions, and by reversing these abnormalities with drugs or gene therapy, the cancer phenotype can even be restored to normal. As a result, they are potential drug targets. This article reviewed the role of the histone dynamic process of acetylation modifications and their associated active modifying enzymes in the pathogenesis and progress of OSCC. Moreover, we explored the value of histone acetylation modification as a potential therapeutic target and the new progress of related drugs in clinical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a vibration was applied in the preparation of the Mg/Al bimetal by a novel compound casting in order to improve the mechanical properties of the Mg/Al bimetal, and the effect of the vibration on the interfacial microstructure and mechanical properties of the Mg/Al bimetal was investigated. The results indicated that the vibration had a significant effect on the interfacial microstructure and mechanical properties of the Mg/Al bimetal, but it did not change the phase compositions of the interface, which was composed of layer I (Al 3 Mg 2 +Mg 2 Si), layer II (Al 12 Mg 17 +Mg 2 Si) and layer III (Al 12 Mg 17 /δ-Mg). Without vibration, the Mg 2 Si phase with a needle-like morphology mainly aggregated in the layer II of the interface. After the application of the vibration, the SEM and EBSD analysis results showed that the Mg 2 Si and Al 3 Mg 2 phases in the interface were obviously refined, and the distribution of the Mg 2 Si became more uniform, due to the strong forced convection of the molten metal resulting from the vibration. The TEM analysis indicated that the interface between the Al 3 Mg 2 and Mg 2 Si phases was non-coherent, suggesting the Mg 2 Si particles cannot act as a heterogeneous nucleation base during the solidification process of the interface. Compared to the Mg/Al bimetal without vibration, the shear strength of the Mg/Al bimetal with vibration increased by about 50% from 31.7 MPa on average to 47.5 MPa, and the hardness of the layer I of the interface increased, and the hardness of the layer III decreased. The fracture surface transformed from a flat fracture morphology without vibration to an irregular zigzag fracture morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meiosis is essential for evolution and genetic diversity in almost all sexual eukaryotic organisms. The mechanisms of meiotic recombination, such as synapsis, have been extensively investigated. However, it is still unclear whether signals from the cytoplasm or even from outside of the cell can regulate the meiosis process. Cilia are microtubule-based structures that protrude from the cell surface and function as signaling hubs to sense extracellular signals. Here, we reported an unexpected and critical role of cilia during meiotic recombination. During gametogenesis of zebrafish, cilia were specifically present in the prophase stages of both primary spermatocytes and primary oocytes. By developing a germ cell-specific CRISPR/Cas9 system, we demonstrated that germ cell-specific depletion of ciliary genes resulted in compromised double-strand break repair, reduced crossover formation, and increased germ cell apoptosis. Our study reveals a previously undiscovered role for cilia during meiosis and suggests that extracellular signals may regulate meiotic recombination via this particular organelle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a Ni coating was deposited on the surface of the A356 aluminum alloy by high velocity oxygen fuel spraying to improve the performance of the AZ91D magnesium/A356 aluminum bimetal prepared by a compound casting. The effects of the Ni coating as well as its thickness on microstructure and mechanical properties of the AZ91D/A356 bimetal were systematically researched for the first time. Results demonstrated that the Ni coating and its thickness had a significant effect on the interfacial phase compositions and mechanical properties of the AZ91D/A356 bimetal. The 10µm's Ni coating cannot prevent the generation of the Al-Mg intermetallic compounds (IMCs) at the interface zone of the AZ91D/A356 bimetal, while the Ni coating with the thickness of 45 µm and 190 µm can avoid the formation of the Al-Mg IMCs. When the Ni coating was 45 µm, the Ni coating disappeared and transformed into Mg-Mg 2 Ni eutectic structures+Ni 2 Mg 3 Al particles at the interface zone. With a thickness of 190µm's Ni coating, part of the Ni coating remained and the interface layer was composed of the Mg-Mg 2 Ni eutectic structures+ Ni 2 Mg 3 Al particles, Mg 2 Ni layer, Ni solid solution (SS) layer, Al 3 Ni 2 layer, Al 3 Ni layer and sporadic Al 3 Ni+Al-Al 3 Ni eutectic structures from AZ91D side to A356 side in sequence. The interface layer consisting of the Mg-Ni and Al-Ni IMCs obtained with the Ni coating had an obvious lower hardness than the Al-Mg IMCs. The shear strength of the AZ91D/A356 bimetal with a Ni coating of 45 µm thickness enhanced 41.4% in comparison with that of the bimetal without Ni coating, and the fracture of the bimetal with 45µm's Ni coating occurred between the Mg matrix and the interface layer with a mixture of brittle fracture and ductile fracture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cytochrome P45011A1, encoded by Cyp11a1 , converts cholesterol to pregnenolone (P5), the first and rate-limiting step in steroidogenesis. In zebrafish, cyp11a1 is maternally expressed and cyp11a2 is considered the ortholog of Cyp11a1 in mammals. A recent study has shown that depletion of cyp11a2 resulted in steroidogenic deficiencies and the mutants developed into males with feminized secondary sexual characteristics. Here, we independently generated cyp11a2 mutants in zebrafish and showed that the mutants can develop into males and females in the juvenile stage, but finally into infertile males with defective mating behavior in the adult stage. In the developing ovaries, the cyp11a2 mutation led to stage I oocyte apoptosis and final sex reversal, which could be partially rescued by treatment with P5 but not estradiol. In the developing testes, depletion of cyp11a2 resulted in dysfunction of Sertoli cells and lack of functional Leydig cells. Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) in the mutant testes underwent active self-renewal but no differentiation, resulting in a high abundance of SSCs in the testis, as revealed by immunofluorescence staining with Nanos2 antibody. The high abundance and differentiation competence of SSCs in the mutant testes were verified by a novel testicular cell transplantation method developed in this study, by transplanting mutant testicular cells into germline-depleted wild-type (WT) fish. The transplanted mutant SSCs efficiently differentiated into functional spermatids in WT hosts. Overall, our study demonstrates the functional importance of cyp11a2 in early oogenesis and differentiation of SSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key points A more general and continuous form of ‘A short history of SHELX’ phenomenon has been found. The Review of Particle Physics (RPP) series, which is called the bible in the particle physics field, is highly cited by other research papers. The RPP phenomenon is found in different journals and is affected by the host journal's impact factor and publication size. The RPP phenomenon provides a big or small, but temporary, boost to its host journal's impact factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As an important part of economical society, colleges and universities have been shouldering the important task of education, science research and social service. In this paper, a detailed investigation in the form of questionnaire was carried out for the energy consumption of colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, including electricity, water, gas and cooling energy consumption from 2006 to 2010. The energy meter reading modes, energy conversation investment amount and energy-efficiency retrofit work were also reported and analyzed. Furthermore, as can be concluded from the survey, there exists great difference in per unit energy consumption between different types of universities classified by schools’ discipline, nature and level, which would be taken into account when the energy consumption evaluation indexes system is established. Although energy-saving measures at Guangdong's colleges and universities bear fruit, Guangdong's colleges and universities still have great potential of energy conservation and emission reduction by Conservation-oriented campus construction, and the government should increase funding and improve economic policy to encourage and support energy saving for colleges and universities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Thousands of microorganisms reside in the human gut, and extensive research has demonstrated the crucial role of the gut microbiota in overall health and maintaining homeostasis. The disruption of microbial populations, known as dysbiosis, can impair the host's metabolism and contribute to the development of various diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, a growing body of evidence indicates that metabolites produced by the gut microbiota play a significant role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. These bioactive metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), trimethylamine (TMA), trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), bile acids (BAs), and lipopolysaccharides (LPS), are implicated in conditions such as hypertension and atherosclerosis. These metabolites impact cardiovascular function through various pathways, such as altering the composition of the gut microbiota and activating specific signaling pathways. Targeting the gut microbiota and their metabolic pathways represents a promising approach for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Intervention strategies, such as probiotic drug delivery and fecal transplantation, can selectively modify the composition of the gut microbiota and enhance its beneficial metabolic functions, ultimately leading to improved cardiovascular outcomes. These interventions hold the potential to reshape the gut microbial community and restore its balance, thereby promoting cardiovascular health. Harnessing the potential of these microbial metabolites through targeted interventions offers a novel avenue for tackling cardiovascular health issues. This manuscript provides an in-depth review of the recent advances in gut microbiota research and its impact on cardiovascular health and offers a promising avenue for tackling cardiovascular health issues through gut microbiome-targeted therapies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhu, Lyu, Zhao, Liu and Wang.)

Background: Gastric diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (gDLBCL) related to Helicobacter pylori infection exhibits a wide spectrum of prognosis, and the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) affects tumor progression. However, there are few studies on the correlation between prognosis and changes of TIME induced by H. pylori infection in de novo gDLBCL., Methods: A retrospective study was performed to determine the prognostic value of TIME related to H. pylori infection in de novo gDLBCL. A total of 252 patients were included and have been treated with standard rituximab to cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone chemotherapy or other similar regimens in addition to H. pylori eradication (HPE). All patients were stratified by H. pylori infection, HPE efficacy, and preliminary TIME evaluation using conventional criteria. Statistical analyses were conducted. To assess the mechanism, 30 subjects were assessed for H. pylori infection. The components and spatial distributions of TIME were analyzed., Results: The median follow-up of the 252 patients was 66.6 months (range 0.7-119.2), and the 5-year overall survival (OS) was 78.0%. A total of 109 H . pylori- positive cases with pathological complete remission and high tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes (cohort 1) had significantly higher 5-year progression-free survival (88.1% vs 70.5%, p<0.001) and OS (89.2% vs 76.6%, p<0.001) than the other 143 patients (cohort 2). Among 30 patients, 19 were cytotoxin-associated gene A-marked as the cohort 1 subset. Compared with cohort 2, cohort 1 exhibited increased inflammatory factors (tumor necrosis factor-α, interferon γ, etc) and decreased immunosuppressive components (PD-L1, PD-1, IL-10, etc). There was reduced NF-kB activation. Cancer-promoting immune cells (PD-1hiTim-3+ CTL, Tregs, M2-like macrophages, etc) occupied a minor spatial distribution, while the antitumor subtypes increased, corresponding to favorable survival., Conclusion: H. pylori- evoked inflammatory responses disturb the TIME, causing a differential prognosis in de novo gDLBCL, which can be used to identify patients who could benefit from HPE and immunochemotherapy., Competing Interests: Competing interests: No, there are no competing interests., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)