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Due to the strong inhibition of drilling fluid, many polymer fluid loss additives can not play their role. Therefore, it is necessary to develop some water loss reducing materials that can withstand the strong inhibition environment. In this paper, the surface of asbestos fiber was modified and treated by indoor experiments. The physical and chemical properties of the obtained drilling fluid treatment samples were evaluated to optimize the appropriate amount of reagents used for surface treatment of asbestos. Subsequently, the drilling fluid performance of the obtained treatment agent samples were evaluated at different temperatures to analyze the effect of temperature on the drilling fluid performance. The surface of asbestos fiber was modified by adsorbed cationic surfactant CTAC which better solved the problem of entanglement of asbestos fiber in drilling fluid. The mechanism of the action of the surface of asbestos fiber was analyzed by scanning electron microscope observation experiments. Subsequently, different amounts of modified asbestos fiber was added to the drilling fluid and the performance of drilling fluid was evaluated at different temperatures. The experimental results showed that the modified asbestos fiber reduced the filtration loss of drilling fluid and still maintained good filtration loss reduction effect at 200°C.

Global trade heavily depends on shipping industry. Growth in seaborne trade causes the increase in fuel consumption and hence higher emissions which are directly related to the issues of global warming. Now, the world is also facing a drastic increase in fuel prices as a consequence of geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine. One of the most effective ways to solve these problems in the maritime industry is to use the slow steaming method which is very cost-effective to implement. Slow steaming involves purposefully lowering ship speed to reduce bunker fuel consumption and also results in lower emissions. Therefore, this method is expected to bring a win-win outcome in the face of environmental damage resulted from GHG emissions and soaring fuel prices. This paper seeks to ascertain whether slow steaming can be used to compensate for the higher expenses associated with using cleaner fuels to comply with the stricter environmental regulations set out by International Maritime Organization. The impacts of using this method were evaluated by three points of view – economic, technical and legal. The results show that slow steaming can reduce the increasing bunker cost for using MGO instead of HFO but still cannot fully compensate for it.

Yongai Xiong,1,2 Tingting Chen,1,2 Lei Chen,1,2 Rongshan Cai1,2 1Key Laboratory of Basic Pharmacology of Guizhou Province and School of Pharmacy, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou, 563000, People’s Republic of China; 2Key Laboratory of Basic Pharmacology of Ministry of Education and Joint International Research Laboratory of Ethnomedicine of Ministry of Education, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou, 563000, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yongai Xiong, Email yaxiong@zmu.edu.cnIntroduction: Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the fundamental causes of myelosuppression in cancer patients, which usually induce a serious hematopoietic system toxicity, causing the hemocytes and immunity decline of patients. Ziyuglycoside I (ZgI), an active ingredient isolated from traditional Chinese medicine Sanguisorba officinalis L, has been demonstrated to increase the leucocytes and protect hematopoietic stem cells, which is related to its promotion of autophagy in hematopoietic stem cells.Methods: In the present study, we formulated the SH-PEG-NH2-coated gold nanoparticles loading ZgI (ZgI-AuNPs) with a enhanced autophagy promotion in hematopoietic stem cells. ZgI-AuNPs were prepared by HAuCl4-sodium citrate reduction method, and the synthesis of ZgI-AuNPs was validated by XRD, FT-IR, DSC, and TEM findings. Furthermore, the drug loading rate and the release of ZgI were evaluated, and the ZgI-AuNPs’ effects on autophagy and immunofluorescence staining for LC3B were tested. Finally, the effect of ZgI-AuNPs on the autophagy and hematopoietic ability of HSCs in vivo was also carried out.Results: The prepared ZgI-AuNPs have an irregular cubic crystal structure by TEM observation, and the average particle size was 340 ± 16.5 nm determined by DLS. The XRD, FT-IR and DSC detection showed that the ZgI had been well loaded in AuNPs, and the AuNPs can load the ZgI at a content of 160.63 ± 1.35 μg·mg− 1. Meanwhile, the AuNPs can reduce the drug release rate of ZgI. Importantly, the ZgI-AuNPs enhanced autophagy of HSCs both in vitro and in vivo. At the same time, the gold nanoparticles enhance the hematopoietic effect of ZgI on mice HSCs.Conclusion: Our research suggests that SH-PEG-NH2-coated gold nanoparticles loading ZgI has potential application in myelosuppression therapy.Graphical Abstract: Keywords: myelosuppression, HSCS, autophagy, gold nanoparticles, Ziyuglycoside I

Based on the Production-oriented approach (POA) proposed by Wen Qiufang and the Paul-Elder critical thinking ternary structure (also known as The Paul-Elder Model, PEM), this paper uses a quantitative and qualitative research method to assess the critical thinking in writing skills of 49 students majoring in nursing at a university and conduct a questionnaire survey on their critical thinking and English writing. The study found that the POA-based English teaching design helped improve students' overall critical thinking and could effectively improve students' English writing skills.

This study assessed the efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), and immunogenicity profiles of a denosumab biosimilar (LY06006) in Chinese postmenopausal osteoporotic women with a high risk of fracture.In this multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial, 448 postmenopausal women aged 50-85 years with osteoporosis were enrolled at 49 centers in China and were randomly assigned (3:1) to receive 60 ​mg of the denosumab biosimilar (LY06006) or placebo subcutaneously every 6 months for 1 year. Lumbar spine bone mineral density (BMD) change was the primary endpoint.Of the 448 randomized patients, 409 (LY06006, n ​= ​311; placebo, n ​= ​98) completed the study. All 448 (100.0%) subjects were included in the intent-to-treat (ITT) trial, 427 (95.3%) were included in the full analysis set (FAS), 408 (91.1%) were included in the per protocol set (PPS), 446 (99.6%) were included in the safety set (SS), and 336 (75.0%) were included in the pharmacokinetics concentration set (PKCs). For the primary endpoint, a 4.71% (95% CI, 3.81%, 5.60%) treatment difference in percent change in lumbar spine BMD from baseline to month 12 was observed in the LY06006 group compared with the placebo group (P ​ ​0.0001). For the secondary endpoints, LY06006 was associated with increased lumbar spine BMD levels measured at month 6, BMD levels at the femoral neck, total hip, and trochanter measured at months 6 and 12 and reduced serum C-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen (CTX) and procollagen type 1 ​N-peptide (P1NP) levels at months 1, 6, and 12. Safety analysis was based on the safety analysis set (SS), and 264 (78.6%) subjects in the LY06006 group and 83 (75.5%) in the placebo group experienced adverse events (AEs). Most events were mild or moderate and not related to the study drugs.In postmenopausal women with a high risk of fracture, LY06006 increased the BMD and decreased bone resorption; thus, LY06006 might be an effective treatment for osteoporosis. LY06006 was generally safe and well tolerated without unexpected adverse reactions, similar to the reference drug Prolia®. The characteristics of effectiveness and safety were similar to those reported in previous studies.In this multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study, LY06006 showed substantially efficacy to increase BMD and well tolerance without unexpected adverse reactions, which is comparable to the reference drug Prolia ®. The presented results are encouraging and can offer some valuable evidence for the clinical practice.

An important mechanism promoting species coexistence is conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD), which inhibits conspecific neighbors by accumulating host-specific enemies near adult trees. Natural enemies may be genotype-specific and regulate offspring dynamics more strongly than non-offspring, which is often neglected due to the difficulty in ascertaining genetic relatedness. Here, we investigated whether offspring and non-offspring of a dominant species, Castanopsis eyrei, suffered from different strength of CNDD based on parentage assignment in a subtropical forest. We found decreased recruitment efficiency (proxy of survival probability) of offspring compared with non-offspring near adult trees during the seedling-sapling transition, suggesting genotype-dependent interactions drive tree demographic dynamics. Furthermore, the genetic similarity between individuals of same cohort decreased in late life history stages, indicating genetic-relatedness-dependent tree mortality throughout ontogeny. Our results demonstrate that within-species genetic relatedness significantly affects the strength of CNDD, implying genotype-specific natural enemies may contribute to population dynamics in natural forests.

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This paper proposes a robot model with multiple spines and investigates its effects on the bounding gait of quadruped robot. Contrastive tests, carried out by adding an active driving joint (ADJ) and changing the number of passive driving joints, were divided between simulation and physical. The results reveal that the spinal structure (one ADJ and several passive driving joints) is closely related to the performance parameters. Increasing the number of passive driving joints can improve the velocity and energy efficiency. This structure may have significant guidance for designing a quadruped robot.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to explore the potential mechanism of Qishen Yiqi dropping pills (QYDPs) in the treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) by regulating the expression of lncRNAs during CHF. METHODS: Differences in the expression of the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), X-inactive specific transcript (XIST), in an isoproterenol (ISO)-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy model treated with QYDPs was analyzed by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). A cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) assay, flow cytometry (FCM), and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to analyze the protective effects of QYDPs on the proliferation rate, apoptosis, myocardial enzyme, oxidative stress, and inflammation of cardiomyocytes, as well as the molecular mechanism of XIST. RESULTS: Our results showed that in the ISO-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy model, XIST expression and apoptosis were increased, the cell proliferation rate was decreased, and myocardial enzyme levels increased [i.e., increased lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase (CK) levels]. Furthermore, cellular oxidative stress [i.e., increased malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and decreased superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels] and inflammatory response [i.e., increased interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α protein secretion] were also promoted. QYDP treatment effectively mitigated the effects of ISO induction. Subsequently, we found that suppressing XIST expression reversed the effect of ISO induction, whereas overexpression (ov) of XIST enhanced the effect of ISO induction. Finally, this study confirmed that QYDP treatment improved the ISO-induced decrease in proliferation, apoptosis, and promotion of oxidative stress and inflammatory response in cardiomyocytes, whereas ov of XIST partially negated the effect of QYDPs. CONCLUSIONS: QYDPs protected H9c2 cells from ISO-induced damage by downregulating XIST expression.

In this paper, a bidirectional single-phase ac/dc converter with active power decoupling (APD) and smooth mode switching is proposed. Power decoupling techniques have been proved efficient in the reduction of bulky dc-bus electrolytic capacitors (E-caps) for single-phase low-power level conversion systems. However, it is found that when dealing with transient conditions such as sudden bidirectional switching or steep load changes, the whole system may be vulnerable and unstable under greatly reduced E-caps situation. None of the existing researches carefully examine such dc-bus transient characteristics with bidirectionality under decoupling situation. By multiusing the APD cell, the proposed dc-bus voltage suppression strategy is capable of both dc-bus voltage ripple elimination and load disturbance rejection under transient conditions. Moreover, the proposed controller involves a dead time compensation to achieve symmetrical power decoupling voltage without additional sensors for decoupling circuit, which ensures the maximum ripple power suppression ability as well as achieves minimum capacitance requirements. Finally, a 1-kW, 110-Vrms, 50-Hz single-phase ac/dc prototype has been built and evaluated. Theoretical predictions are compared favorably with experimental results.

Renal fibrosis is a common characteristic and the final pathological mechanism of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Although CKD remains incurable, inhibition of renal fibrosis is beneficial to inhibit the CKD process. Relaxin alleviates renal fibrosis in some experimental models, but its mechanism remains unclear. In the following, we studied the regulatory effect of relaxin on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) after unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). Our results demonstrate that relaxin could downregulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling and decrease EMT, thus protecting against loss of transporters in tubular epithelial cells (TECs) and abrogate renal interstitial fibrosis following UUO. We confirmed that relaxin can downregulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling and decrease EMT in NRK52E, thus abrogating G2 cell cycle arrest

Background: To design a vascular pedicled fascia-prosthesis compound model that can be used for ear reconstruction surgery.Methods: A vascularized tissue engineering chamber model was constructed in New Zealand rabbits, and fresh tissues were obtained after 4 weeks. The histomorphology and vascularization of the newly born tissue compound were analyzed and evaluated by tissue staining and Micro-CT scanning.Results: The neoplastic fibrous tissue formed in the vascularized tissue engineering chamber with the introduction of abdominal superficial vessels, similar to normal fascia, was superior to the control group in terms of vascularization, vascular density, total vascular volume, and total vascular volume/total tissue volume.Conclusion:In vivo, introducing abdominal superficial vessels in the tissue engineering chamber prepped for ear prosthesis may form a well-vascularized pedicled fascia-prosthesis compound that can be used for ear reconstruction.

Epitaxial growth is one of the most commonly used strategies to precisely tailor heterostructures with well-defined compositions, morphologies, crystal phases, and interfaces for various applications. However, as epitaxial growth requires a small interfacial lattice mismatch between the components, it remains a challenge for the epitaxial synthesis of heterostructures constructed by materials with large lattice mismatch and/or different chemical bonding, especially the noble metal-semiconductor heterostructures. Here, we develop a noble metal-seeded epitaxial growth strategy to prepare highly symmetrical noble metal-semiconductor branched heterostructures with desired spatial configurations, i.e., twenty CdS (or CdSe) nanorods epitaxially grown on twenty exposed (111) facets of Ag icosahedral nanocrystal, albeit a large lattice mismatch (more than 40%). Importantly, a high quantum yield (QY) of plasmon-induced hot-electron transferred from Ag to CdS was observed in epitaxial Ag-CdS icosapods (18.1%). This work demonstrates that epitaxial growth can be achieved in heterostructures composed of materials with large lattice mismatches. The constructed epitaxial noble metal-semiconductor interfaces could be an ideal platform for investigating the role of interfaces in various physicochemical processes.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly refractory cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Despite the development of a detailed treatment strategy for HCC, the survival rate remains unsatisfactory. Oncolytic virus has been extensively researched as a new cancer therapeutic agent in the treatment of HCC. Researchers have designed a variety of recombinant viruses based on natural oncolytic diseases, which can increase the targeting of oncolytic viruses to HCC and their survival in tumors, as well as kill tumor cells and inhibit the growth of HCC through a variety of mechanisms. The overall efficacy of oncolytic virus therapy is known to be influenced by anti-tumor immunity, toxic killing effect and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis, etc. Therefore, a comprehensive review of the multiple oncolytic mechanisms of oncolytic viruses in HCC has been conducted. So far, a large number of relevant clinical trials are under way or have been completed, and some encouraging results have been obtained. Studies have shown that oncolytic virus combined with other HCC therapies may be a feasible method, including local therapy, chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy. In addition, different delivery routes for oncolytic viruses have been studied so far. These studies make oncolytic virus a new and attractive drug for the treatment of HCC.

BackgroundObservational studies suggest a robust association between blood pressure (BP) and functional outcomes in ischemic stroke patients. We sought to identify novel associations of the genetic basis of 3-month functional outcome after ischemic stroke based on a Mendelian randomization (MR) framework.MethodsWe selected genetic variants associated with systolic and diastolic BP and BP-lowering variants in genes encoding antihypertensive drugs from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on 757,601 individuals. The primary outcome was 3- month favorable functional outcome defined as modified Rankin Scale (mRS) of 0-2. The secondary outcome was excellent 90-day outcome defined as mRS 0-1. The Cochran’s Q statistic in Inverse variance weighted (IVW) model, the weighted median, MR-Egger regression, leave-one-SNP-out analysis, MR-Pleiotropy Residual Sum and Outlier methods were adopted as sensitivity analyses. To validate our primary results, we performed independent repeat analyses and Bi-directional MR analyses.ResultsGenetic predisposition to higher systolic and diastolic BP was associated with a lower probability of 3-month excellent functional outcome after ischemic stroke in univariable IVW MR analysis (OR=1.29, 95%CI 1.05-1.59,p=0.014; OR=1.27, 95%CI 1.07-1.51,p=0.006, respectively). Pulse pressure was associated with both excellent and favorable functional outcome (OR=1.05, 95%CI 1.02-1.08,p=0.002; OR=1.04, 95%CI 1.01-1.07,p=0.009, respectively). Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) and calcium channel blocker (CCB), were significantly associated with improved favorable functional outcome (OR=0.76, 95%CI 0.62-0.94,p=0.009; OR=0.89, 95%CI 0.83-0.97,p=0.005). Proxies for β-blockers, angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) and thiazides failed to show associations with functional outcome (p>0.05).ConclusionWe provide evidence for a potential association of genetic predisposition to higher BP with higher risk of 3-month functional dependence after ischemic stroke. Our findings support ACEI and CCB as promising antihypertensive drugs for improving functional outcome in ischemic stroke.

Atractylodes lancea suffers from continuous cropping obstacles that have become a major constraint in its cultivation, but there is still little information on the autotoxic allelochemicals and their interaction with soil microorganisms. In this study, we firstly identified the autotoxic allelochemicals from rhizosphere of A. lancea and determined their autotoxicity. Third-year continuous A. lancea cropping soils, i.e., rhizospheric soil and bulk soil, compared with control soil and one-year natural fallow soil were used to determine soil biochemical properties and microbial community. Eight allelochemicals from A. lancea roots were detected and exhibited significant autotoxicity effects on seed germination and seedling growth of A. lancea with the highest content of dibutyl phthalate in rhizospheric soil and lowest IC50 value of 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol inhibiting seed germination. The contents of soil nutrients and organic matter, pH value, and enzyme activity were altered between different soils, and the parameters of fallow soil were close to those of the unplanted soil. The PCoA analysis indicated that the community composition of both bacteria and fungi were differed significantly among the soil samples. Continuous cropping decreased OTUs numbers of bacterial and fungal communities, and natural fallow restored them. The relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Actinobacteria decreased, and that of Acidobacteria and Ascomycota increased after three years cultivation. The LEfSe analysis identified 115 and 49 biomarkers for bacterial and fungal communities, respectively. The results suggested that natural fallow restored the structure of soil microbial community. Overall, our results revealed that autotoxic allelochemicals caused the variations of soil microenvironments and resulted in replantation problem of A. lancea, and natural fallow alleviated the soil deterioration by remodeling the rhizospheric microbial community and restoring soil biochemical properties. These findings provide important insights and clues for solving the continuous cropping problems and guiding the management of sustainable farmland.

Solid state (ss-) 27Al NMR is one of the most valuable tools for experimental characterization of zeolites, owing to its high sensitivity and the detailed structural information which can be extracted from the spectra. Unfortunately, the interpretation of ss-NMR is complex, and the determination of aluminum distributions remains generally unfeasible. As a result, computational modelling of 27Al ss-NMR spectra has grown increasingly popular as a means to support experimental characterization. However, a number of simplifying assumptions are commonly made in NMR modelling, several of which are not fully justified. In this work, we systematically evaluate the effects of various common models on the prediction of 27Al NMR chemical shifts in zeolites CHA and MOR. We demonstrate the necessity of operando modelling; in particular, taking into account the effects of water loading, temperature and the character of the charge-compensating cation. We observe that conclusions drawn from simple, high symmetry model systems such as CHA do not transfer well to more complex zeolites and can lead to qualitatively wrong interpretations of peak positions, Al assignment and even the number of signals. We use machine learning regression to develop a simple yet robust relationship between chemical shift and local structural parameters in Al-zeolites. This work highlights the need for sophisticated models and high-quality sampling in the field of NMR modelling and provides correlations which allow for the accurate prediction of chemical shifts from dynamical simulations.

In order to better analyze the characteristics of particle distribution and its influencing factors in the ionized space during the process of coaxial dielectric barrier discharge, the self-designed two-dimensional axisymmetric structure exciter was used to carry out optical diagnosis, with the electron temperature calculated through Gaussian fitting. Also, the plasma model was applied to conduct research on the discharge process through numerical simulation, with the electron density and electron temperature changes analyzed by using different discharge parameters. The research results show that with the increase of discharge voltage, pressure inside reactor and relative permittivity, the discharge process is promoted. In addition, the rise of current density leads to an increase in the number of charged particles on the surface of the medium during the discharge process, while the rise of discharge intensity causes an increase of the electron density. Electron temperature decreases due to the increased loss of collision energy between particles. These results are confirmed by the comparison of experimental data with simulation results.

[Purpose] The shoulder joint has a very unstable structure yet a significantly wide range of motion. Weakness of the muscles around the shoulder joint may cause shoulder joint subluxation. This study aimed to determine changes in supraspinatus muscle thickness between different shoulder abduction angles using ultrasonography and to compare differences in supraspinatus muscle thickness changes between the affected and unaffected sides depending on shoulder joint subluxation. [Participants and Methods] Forty hemiplegic patients with stroke were recruited (20 patients with and 20 without shoulder subluxation). Using ultrasonography, we measured supraspinatus muscle thickness at three shoulder joint abduction angles and calculated the differences in supraspinatus muscle thickness. Depending on subluxation, we separately analyzed the thickness and variations in the supraspinatus muscle on both the affected and unaffected sides. [Results] In stroke patients with shoulder subluxation, the difference in supraspinatus muscle thickness was significantly less in the affected side than in the unaffected side. [Conclusion] The thickness and rate of supraspinatus muscle thickness change was significantly less in the affected side than in the unaffected side in stroke patients with shoulder subluxation.

Seismic method is a major approach for detecting the seismic geological features ahead of the tunnel, understanding the distribution of unfavorable geology, and ensuring the safety of tunnel construction. Observation system is the key for seismic detection, many studies have been conducted to optimize the observation system; however, most of them focused on the surface seismic investigation and numerical simulation rather than in tunnel field environment (limited aperture and full space environment). How to obtain better wavefield information with limited observation aperture is a great challenge. In this study numerical simulation and instrumental techniques (GPR, DC, etc.) were implemented to further check the result of seismic detection at the 1# tailrace tunnel at the Wudongde hydropower station. In the field case, observation detectors were arranged spatially in the tunnel and source points were placed in four ways: linearly along a single side, on the tunnel face, in front of the detectors, and behind the detectors. Then, after data acquisition, the data processing is conducted to carry out the migration results. The imaging results indicate that the observation system with sources and detectors in liner arrangement (with equal interval) helps to suppress artifacts, further supporting the advantages of spatial observation system with liner observation line (detectors). Moreover, the study provides suggestions for geological prospecting in similar tunnel projects.

Background: Asymmetric intracellular and extracellular ionic gradients are critical to the survivability of mammalian cells. Given the importance of manganese (Mn2+), calcium (Ca2+), and bicarbonate (HCO3-) ions, any alteration of the ion-content balance could induce a series of cellular responses. HCO3- plays an indispensable role for Mn-mediated Fenton-like reaction, but this is difficult to achieve because bicarbonates are tightly regulated by live cells, and are limited in anticancer efficacy. Methods: A responsive and biodegradable biomineral, Mn-doped calcium carbonate integrated with dexamethasone phosphate (DEX) (Mn:CaCO3-DEX), was reported to enable synergistic amplification of tumor oxidative stress, reduce inflammation, and induce Ca-overload cell apoptosis by elevating the intracellular and extracellular ionic gradients. Results: Under the acidic environment in tumor region, the ions (Mn2+, CO32-, Ca2+) were released by the degradation of Mn:CaCO3-DEX and then escalated oxidative stresses by triggering a HCO3--indispensable Mn-based Fenton-like reaction and breaking Ca2+ ion homeostasis to cause oxidative stress in cells and calcification. The released anti-inflammatory and antitumor drug, DEX, could alleviate the inflammatory environment. The investigations in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that the synergistic oncotherapy could effectively inhibit the growth of subcutaneous tumors and orthotopic liver tumors. Notably, normal cells showed greater tolerance of the synergistic influences. Conclusion: As an ion drug, Mn:CaCO3-DEX is an excellent potential diagnostic agent for precise orthotopic tumor management by the generation in situ of toxic ion and drug pools in the environment of tumor region, with synergistic effects of enhanced chemodynamic therapy, calcification, and anti-inflammation effects.

Salt stress is one of the essential abiotic stresses for the survival of cyanobacteria. However, the realization of large-scale cultivation of cyanobacteria is inseparable from the utilization of abundant seawater resources. Therefore, research on the regulatory mechanism, as well as the improvement of salt tolerance of cyanobacteria is fundamental. Ectoine, a compatible solute which was found in halophilic microorganisms, has potentiality to confer salt tolerance. Here in this article, the salt tolerance of Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 (Syn7942) was significantly improved via expressing the ectoine biosynthetic pathway, reaching an increased final OD750 by 20% under 300 mM NaCl and 80% under 400 mM NaCl than that of wild-type (WT), respectively. Encouragingly, the engineered strain could even survive under 500 mM NaCl which was lethal to WT. In addition, by introducing the ectoine synthetic pathway into the sucrose-deficient strain, the salt tolerance of the obtained strain Syn7942/Δsps-ect was restored to the level of WT under 300 mM NaCl stress, demonstrating that ectoine could substitute for sucrose to combat against salt stress in Syn7942. In order to study the difference in the regulation of mechanism on the salt adaptation process after replacing sucrose with ectoine, transcriptomic analysis was performed for Syn7942/Δsps-ect and WT. The differentially expressed gene analysis successfully identified 19 up-regulated genes and 39 down-regulated genes in Syn7942/Δsps-ect compared with WT under salt stress condition. The results also showed that the global regulation of Syn7942/Δsps-ect and WT had certain differences in the process of salt adaptation, in which Syn7942/Δsps-ect reduced the demand for the intensity of sulfur metabolism in this process. This study provides a valuable reference for further salt tolerance engineering in cyanobacteria.

In recent years, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has become increasingly popular. Many acoustic indices (AIs) have been proposed for rapid biodiversity assessment (RBA), however, most acoustic indices have been reported to be susceptible to abiotic sounds such as wind or rain noise when biotic sound is masked, which greatly limits the application of these acoustic indices. In this work, in order to take an insight into the influence mechanism of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on acoustic indices, four most commonly used acoustic indices, i.e., the bioacoustic index (BIO), the acoustic diversity index (ADI), the acoustic evenness index (AEI), and the acoustic complexity index (ACI), were investigated using controlled computational experiments with field recordings collected in a suburban park in Xuzhou, China, in which bird vocalizations were employed as typical biotic sounds. In the experiments, different signal-to-noise ratio conditions were obtained by varying biotic sound intensities while keeping the background noise fixed. Experimental results showed that three indices (acoustic diversity index, acoustic complexity index, and bioacoustic index) decreased while the trend of acoustic evenness index was in the opposite direction as signal-to-noise ratio declined, which was owing to several factors summarized as follows. Firstly, as for acoustic diversity index and acoustic evenness index, the peak value in the spectrogram will no longer correspond to the biotic sounds of interest when signal-to-noise ratio decreases to a certain extent, leading to erroneous results of the proportion of sound occurring in each frequency band. Secondly, in bioacoustic index calculation, the accumulation of the difference between the sound level within each frequency band and the minimum sound level will drop dramatically with reduced biotic sound intensities. Finally, the acoustic complexity index calculation result relies on the ratio between total differences among all adjacent frames and the total sum of all frames within each temporal step and frequency bin in the spectrogram. With signal-to-noise ratio decreasing, the biotic components contribution in both the total differences and the total sum presents a complex impact on the final acoustic complexity index value. This work is helpful to more comprehensively interpret the values of the above acoustic indices in a real-world environment and promote the applications of passive acoustic monitoring in rapid biodiversity assessment.

ispartof: Advances in Public Health status: published

Additional file 1: Supplementary Table 1. Physical activity types, codes and MET values. Supplementary Table 2. The correlation between LTPA status and different dimensions of cognitive function. Supplementary Figure 1a. Characteristics of total amount and duration of LTPA among MCI and non-MCI participants. Supplementary Figure 1b. Association between total amount of LTPA and risk of MCI. Supplementary Figure 1c. Association between duration of LTPA and risk of MCI. Supplementary Figure 2a. Characteristics of MMSE score for participants with different total amount of LTPA. Supplementary Figure 2b. Mean score of MMSE for participants with different total amount of LTPA. Supplementary Figure 2c. Characteristics of MMSE score for participants with different duration of LTPA. Supplementary Figure 2d. Mean score of MMSE for participants with different duration of LTPA.

Supplementary Material 9

Prompt tuning has achieved great success in transferring the knowledge from large pretrained vision-language models into downstream tasks, and has dominated the performance on visual grounding (VG). However, almost all existing prompt tuning paradigms suffer from poor interpretability. In this paper, we argue that their poor interpretability is attributed to the holistic prompt generation and inference process. By "holistic", we mean that they usually directly learn a set of vectors as the prompt (i.e., prompt generation), and use the learned global prompt to augment the textual input for the VG model (i.e., prompt inference). To this end, we propose a new prompt construction paradigm with explicit explainable ability, named TreePrompt. Specifically, we first deconstruct a complex sentence into a tree, that is consistent with human reasoning. Then, following the syntax tree, we compose a structured prompt in a bottom-up manner. Thanks to this step-by-step prompt construction process, each intermediate prompt (i.e., tree node) permits us to understand the reasoning process. Extensive ablations on various backbones and benchmarks consistently demonstrate the effectiveness and interpretability of our TreePrompt.

We assembled a high-quality genome of T. piercei using PacBio, Illumina and Hi-C sequencing. Three pseudochromosomes spans 86.02 Mb with scaffold N50 of 29.25 Mb and 11,895 protein-coding genes were annotated.

Supplementary Material 1

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-wso-10.1177_17474930231185695 for Association between blood pressure and different antihypertensive drugs with outcome after ischemic stroke: A Mendelian randomization study by Hanchen Liu, Xiaoxi Zhang, Yu Zhou, Thanh N Nguyen, Lei Zhang, Pengfei Xing, Zifu Li, Hongjian Shen, Yongxin Zhang, Weilong Hua, Hongye Xu, Xuan Zhu, Lei Chen, Qiao Zuo, Rui Zhao, Qiang Li, Dongwei Dai, Yongwei Zhang, Yi Xu, Qinghai Huang, Jianmin Liu and Pengfei Yang in International Journal of Stroke

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-wso-10.1177_17474930231185695 for Association between blood pressure and different antihypertensive drugs with outcome after ischemic stroke: A Mendelian randomization study by Hanchen Liu, Xiaoxi Zhang, Yu Zhou, Thanh N Nguyen, Lei Zhang, Pengfei Xing, Zifu Li, Hongjian Shen, Yongxin Zhang, Weilong Hua, Hongye Xu, Xuan Zhu, Lei Chen, Qiao Zuo, Rui Zhao, Qiang Li, Dongwei Dai, Yongwei Zhang, Yi Xu, Qinghai Huang, Jianmin Liu and Pengfei Yang in International Journal of Stroke

Additional file 1: Table S1. Primer sequences for qRT-PCR. Table S2. Primary antibodies for western blotting and immunofluorescence.

Additional file 2: Fig. S1. The intraoral picture of the experimental OTM model. Fig. S2. Representative images of HE staining of the PDL on the tension side of M1 mesiobuccal roots. Ab, alveolar bone; P, periodontal tissue; R, root. Scale bar, 50 μm. Fig. S3. The protein expression of LRP5 in PDLSCs during CSS loading. Fig. S4. Fluorescence imaging showing the efficiency of lentiviral transfection. Fig. S5. The protein expression of β-Actin in the DMSO and Cyto D + DMSO groups after stretching for 24 h. Fig. S6. LRP6 inactivation suppressed β-Catenin expression in force-induced PDLSCs. a The protein expression of β-Catenin and active β-Catenin in the control, sh-NC, and sh-LRP6 group after stretching for 24 h. b The mRNA expression of β-Catenin in the control, sh-NC, and sh-LRP6 group after stretching for 24 h. *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001. N.S., no significance. Results are presented as mean ± SD of triplicated experiments. Fig. S7 Culture and identification of PDLSCs. a Cell shape of the first (P0) and the third passage (P3) of PDLSCs. Scale bar, 200 μm. b Monoclonal formation after cultured cells were incubated for 14 days. Scale bar, 100 μm. c Expression of mesenchymal stem cell markers (CD90, STRO-1, and CD146) and leukocytic and hematopoietic cell markers (CD45 and CD34) detected by flow cytometry. d Alizarin Red staining of cultured cells in the control group and osteogenic induction group. Scale bar, 100 μm. e Oil Red O staining of cultured cells in the control group and adipogenic induction group. Scale bar, 50 μm.

Current video-based scene graph generation (VidSGG) methods have been found to perform poorly on predicting predicates that are less represented due to the inherent biased distribution in the training data. In this paper, we take a closer look at the predicates and identify that most visual relations (e.g. sit_above) involve both actional pattern (sit) and spatial pattern (above), while the distribution bias is much less severe at the pattern level. Based on this insight, we propose a decoupled label learning (DLL) paradigm to address the intractable visual relation prediction from the pattern-level perspective. Specifically, DLL decouples the predicate labels and adopts separate classifiers to learn actional and spatial patterns respectively. The patterns are then combined and mapped back to the predicate. Moreover, we propose a knowledge-level label decoupling method to transfer non-target knowledge from head predicates to tail predicates within the same pattern to calibrate the distribution of tail classes. We validate the effectiveness of DLL on the commonly used VidSGG benchmark, i.e. VidVRD. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the DLL offers a remarkably simple but highly effective solution to the long-tailed problem, achieving the state-of-the-art VidSGG performance.

Contrastive learning has emerged as an essential approach for self-supervised learning in visual representation learning. The central objective of contrastive learning is to maximize the similarities between two augmented versions of an image (positive pairs), while minimizing the similarities between different images (negative pairs). Recent studies have demonstrated that harder negative samples, i.e., those that are more difficult to differentiate from the anchor sample, perform a more crucial function in contrastive learning. This paper proposes a novel feature-level method, namely sampling synthetic hard negative samples for contrastive learning (SSCL), to exploit harder negative samples more effectively. Specifically, 1) we generate more and harder negative samples by mixing negative samples, and then sample them by controlling the contrast of anchor sample with the other negative samples; 2) considering the possibility of false negative samples, we further debias the negative samples. Our proposed method improves the classification performance on different image datasets and can be readily integrated into existing methods.

Supplementary Material 1