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The SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System is a novel technology that provides stable, optimal hypothermic control during organ transport. The objectives of this study were to describe our experience using the SherpaPak system and to compare outcomes after heart transplantation after using SherpaPak versus the conventional static cold storage method (non-SherpaPak).From 2018 to June 2021, 62 SherpaPak and 186 non-SherpaPak patients underwent primary heart transplantation at Stanford University with follow-up through May 2022. The primary end point was all-cause mortality, and secondary end points were postoperative complications. Optimal variable ratio matching, cox proportional hazards regression model, and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses were performed.Before matching, the SherpaPak versus non-SherpaPak patients were older and received organs with significantly longer total allograft ischemic time. After matching, SherpaPak patients required fewer units of blood product for perioperative transfusion compared with non-SherpaPak patients but otherwise had similar postoperative outcomes such as hospital length of stay, primary graft dysfunction, inotrope score, mechanical circulatory support use, cerebral vascular accident, myocardial infarction, respiratory failure, new renal failure requiring dialysis, postoperative bleeding or tamponade requiring reoperation, infection, and survival.In conclusion, this is one of the first retrospective comparison studies that evaluated the outcomes of heart transplantation using organs preserved and transported via the SherpaPak system. Given the excellent outcomes, despite prolonged total allograft ischemic time, it may be reasonable to adopt the SherpaPak system to accept organs from a remote location to further expand the donor pool.

The sharing economy represented by Airbnb has evolved rapidly. It is particularly important to identify and understand how consumer concerns change over time. As a result, this study employs structural topic modelling using room type and time as covariates to extract topics from 896,658 Airbnb reviews in London and to observe the variation in the prevalence of topics over time. The findings show that the topic proportion changed relatively sharply in the early years of Airbnb (2010-2013) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), but relatively smoothly in the middle period (2014-2019). This research also discovered that the proportion of topics on customers' special experiences has been decreasing while the proportion of topics on their overall experience has been increasing. This shift could be attributed to an increase in the number of professional hosts, which has accelerated the standardisation of the Airbnb service.

A new stag beetle is described from Yunnan Province, China: Lucanus jiaozishanus Qi, He, Su & Song, new species. It is the third species of the L. boileaui group which are distributed only in Southwestern China and Northeastern Myanmar. The differences of the new species with the more related taxa (L. boileaui Planet, 1897, L. ludivinae Boucher, 1998 and L. takeoi Adachi, 2020) are discussed. A new synonymy, L. bidentis Schenk, 2013 = L. boileaui, is proposed. Keys to males and females of the L. boileaui group are provided. The variation of males, the female and the host plant of L. takeoi (L. maculifemoratus group) are illustrated for the first time.

High-quality source code comments are valuable for software development and maintenance, however, code often contains low-quality comments or lacks them altogether. We name such source code comments as suboptimal comments. Such suboptimal comments create challenges in code comprehension and maintenance. Despite substantial research on low-quality source code comments, empirical knowledge about commenting practices that produce suboptimal comments and reasons that lead to suboptimal comments are lacking. We help bridge this knowledge gap by investigating (1) independent comment changes (ICCs) —comment changes committed independently of code changes—which likely address suboptimal comments, (2) commenting guidelines, and (3) comment-checking tools and comment-generating tools, which are often employed to help commenting practice—especially to prevent suboptimal comments. We collect 24M+ comment changes from 4,392 open-source GitHub Java repositories and find that ICCs widely exist. The ICC ratio —proportion of ICCs among all comment changes—is ~15.5%, with 98.7% of the repositories having ICC. Our thematic analysis of 3,533 randomly sampled ICCs provides a three-dimensional taxonomy for what is changed (four comment categories and 13 subcategories), how it changed (six commenting activity categories), and what factors are associated with the change (three factors). We investigate 600 repositories to understand the prevalence, content, impact, and violations of commenting guidelines. We find that only 15.5% of the 600 sampled repositories have any commenting guidelines. We provide the first taxonomy for elements in commenting guidelines: where and what to comment are particularly important. The repositories without such guidelines have a statistically significantly higher ICC ratio, indicating the negative impact of the lack of commenting guidelines. However, commenting guidelines are not strictly followed: 85.5% of checked repositories have violations. We also systematically study how developers use two kinds of tools, comment-checking tools and comment-generating tools, in the 4,392 repositories. We find that the use of Javadoc tool is negatively correlated with the ICC ratio, while the use of Checkstyle has no statistically significant correlation; the use of comment-generating tools leads to a higher ICC ratio. To conclude, we reveal issues and challenges in current commenting practice, which help understand how suboptimal comments are introduced. We propose potential research directions on comment location prediction, comment generation, and comment quality assessment; suggest how developers can formulate commenting guidelines and enforce rules with tools; and recommend how to enhance current comment-checking and comment-generating tools.

With the introduction of tertiary oil recovery technology, polymer oil drive technology has effectively improved the recovery rate of crude oil, but the resulting oilfield wastewater-containing polyacrylamide (PAM) is viscous and complex in composition, which brings difficulties to wastewater treatment. The treatment of this kind of wastewater has become an urgent problem to be solved, and the removal of PAM is the key. In this paper, a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) co-catalyst was used to treat PAM-containing solutions to investigate the effect of different catalytic reaction systems on the degradation of PAM. The morphological changes of the PAM solution before and after the reaction were also studied by the environmental electron microscope scanner (ESEM), and the information of the functional groups in the solution before and after the reaction was studied by infrared spectroscopy analysis of the PAM solution. The degradation rate rose by 26.3% in comparison to that without discharge when AC/Mn + TiO2 and Al2O3 were combined and catalyzed at a mass ratio of 2:1 and a discharge period of 300 min. The degradation rate rose by 19.3 and 6.8%, respectively, in comparison to AC/Mn + TiO2 and Al2O3-catalyzed alone. It demonstrates that this catalytic system has the optimum catalytic effect.

Emerging data have demonstrated that low-grade inflammation in osteoarthritis, a long-held degenerative disease. The inflamed synovium produces various cytokines that induce cartilage destruction and joint pain. A previous study showed that teriparatide, an FDA approved anti-osteoporotic drug, may enhance cartilage repair. Our study focuses on its role in OA synovitis.Primary mouse articular chondrocytes were used to determine the most potent cytokines involved in OA inflammation and cartilage destruction. A destabilization of the medial meniscus mouse model was established to investigate the effect of teriparatide in OA, particularly, on synovial inflammation and cartilage degradation.In vitro experiments showed that TNF-α was the most potent inducer of cartilage matrix-degrading enzymes, and that teriparatide antagonized the TNF-α of effect. Consistently, articular cartilage samples from TNF-α transgenic mice contained more MMP-13 positive chondrocytes than those from wild type mice. In addition, more type II collagen was cleaved in human OA cartilage than in normal cartilage samples.Teriparatide can prevent synovitis and cartilage degradation by suppressing TNF-α mediated MMP-13 overexpression. Together with its chondroregenerative capability, teriparatide may be the first effective disease modifying osteoarthritis drug.

By embedding blockchain technology into the process of standardized production of agricultural products, we use the characteristics of blockchain such as tamper-proof, decentralization, and consensus mechanism to solve the trust problem, responsibility problem, and quality problem in the process of standardized production of agricultural products. These three subjects in the process of standardized production of agricultural products are analysed, and the three-party game model among agricultural producers, government, and consumers is constructed with the help of the evolutionary game method, and the influence of each subject in different strategies is analysed, and the inference results are simulated and experimented with MATLAB 2016 software. The results show that the standardized production of agricultural products embedded in blockchain needs to meet three basic conditions: agricultural producers need to ensure that the sum of production costs and penalties for noncompliance following technological innovation using blockchain is less than the sum of production costs and penalties for noncompliance for traditional agricultural products; the difference value between strict and loose government regulation needs to be smaller than the amount of penalty for violation of standardized production of agricultural products embedded in blockchain; the cost of whistleblowing for consumers needs to be less than the number of penalties incurred for production violations when agricultural producers choose standardized production of agricultural products embedded in blockchain. It is also found that the violation ratio of agricultural producers, the social welfare of strict government regulation, and the whistleblowing benefit of consumers are the key factors affecting the standardized production of agricultural products, and the analysis of the influence of the key factors points to the direction for promoting the standardized production of agricultural products.

This study proposes a large-scale group decision-making (LSGDM) consensus model considering the experts’ adjustment willingness based on the interactive weights’ determination, which can be applied to an LSGDM problem through a case of earthquake shelters. The main contributions of our research are of three aspects as follows. First, the determination method of the interactive weight, which obtains the DMs’ attitude towards the decision-making results, is presented. The subgroups’ weights are calculated, and the unit adjustment cost for each DM is defined. Second, we introduce an objective consensus threshold by the mean and variance of the consensus level for each subgroup. Subsequently, an identification rule is performed to determine the DM to be adjusted with the large difference and the low adjustment cost. And we developed a novel consensus adjustment method that takes the DMs’ adjustment willingness into account to retain as much original information as possible. Thirdly, in order to reduce the subjectivity of the preset consensus threshold and the maximum number of iterations, an objective consensus termination condition that combines the current group consensus level and the consensus adjustment rate is put forward. Finally, the proposed model has demonstrated its effectiveness and superiority based on the comparative and sensitive analysis through a practical example.

The Mouse Phenome Database (MPD; https://phenome.jax.org; RRID:SCR_003212), supported by the US National Institutes of Health, is a Biomedical Data Repository listed in the Trans-NIH Biomedical Informatics Coordinating Committee registry. As an increasingly FAIR-compliant and TRUST-worthy data repository, MPD accepts phenotype and genotype data from mouse experiments and curates, organizes, integrates, archives, and distributes those data using community standards. Data are accompanied by rich metadata, including widely used ontologies and detailed protocols. Data are from all over the world and represent genetic, behavioral, morphological, and physiological disease-related characteristics in mice at baseline or those exposed to drugs or other treatments. MPD houses data from over 6000 strains and populations, representing many reproducible strain types and heterogenous populations such as the Diversity Outbred where each mouse is unique but can be genotyped throughout the genome. A suite of analysis tools is available to aggregate, visualize, and analyze these data within and across studies and populations in an increasingly traceable and reproducible manner. We have refined existing resources and developed new tools to continue to provide users with access to consistent, high-quality data that has translational relevance in a modernized infrastructure that enables interaction with a suite of bioinformatics analytic and data services.

Increasing evidence suggested that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) use might affect the development of cancers, but previous conclusions remain controversial. Therefore, an umbrella review was performed to clarify the associations between PPIs and various types of cancer by summarizing the existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews.We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP database up to June 2022 for eligible meta-analyses or systematic reviews. The summary effect size, 95% CI, heterogeneity, small study effect, and 95% prediction interval were considered in the present study. A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Review 2 and grading of recommendation, assessment, development, and evaluation were used to assess methodological quality and evidence.The umbrella review included 21 meta-analyses containing 65 studies and 10 cancer types with 6.8 million subjects. The results showed that PPI use was significantly associated with increased risks of certain types of cancer, including gastric cancer (odds ratio [OR]: 2.07; 95% CI, 1.30 to 3.29), pancreatic cancer (OR: 1.73; 95% CI, 1.23 to 2.44), colorectal cancer (OR: 1.84; 95% CI, 1.26 to 2.67), and liver cancer (OR: 1.80; 95% CI, 1.27 to 2.54), but was not associated with esophageal cancer. In addition, PPI use was associated with decreased risk of breast cancer (OR: 0.69; 95% CI, 0.50 to 0.96).These findings suggested that clinicians should pay more attention to the occurrence of gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, and liver cancer in patients who used PPIs, and PPI prescription should be written only when an accurate specific diagnosis has been made. Furthermore, additional PPIs to the treatment regimen may be benefit for women with a higher-than-average risk of breast cancer.

The concentrations of chlorophyll and carotenoids were analyzed in two organs (leaves and bolting stems) of 19 varieties of Chinese kale (including four maturity periods and two flower colors). Two chlorophylls and four carotenoids were identified in Chinese kale. The concentrations of chlorophyll and carotenoids varied widely in different organs and varieties. JL-03 was a good candidate for the future breeding programs, since it contained the highest concentrations of chlorophyll and carotenoids (except violaxanthin) in leaves. Lutein was the main component of carotenoids and accounted for approximately 50% of total carotenoids. The concentrations of chlorophyll and carotenoids in leaves significantly exceeded those in bolting stems. Principal component analysis showed that organ was the main source of differences of chlorophyll and carotenoid concentrations in different varieties of Chinese kale, while the maturity and flower color have little effect. Correlation analysis identified a significantly positive correlation between chlorophyll and carotenoids in Chinese kale. These results provided evidence for improving human dietary nutrition and breeding of Chinese kale.

This paper presents a novel approach to addressing the fusion of multi-focus images in either registered or mis-registered cases. The conventional approaches often produce blurred edges of objects in the fused images due to inaccurate decision maps. On the other hand, these decision maps are sensitive to mis-registration that causes artifact in the fused images. Therefore, we propose a robust multi-focus image fusion approach with clear object edges for the registered or mis-registered source images. In this approach, a fractional order differential mask is creatively adopted to pre-process the source images, ensuring the initial decision maps both with the boundaries and fine structures of the objects and with the internal holes closed. Then, the closed matting technique, in lieu of the robust matting, is adopted to refine the initial decision maps. This significantly reduces the interaction information from the users, but still preserves the complete boundaries of the objects. Finally, the global threshold processing is skillfully adopted to form the decision maps. This not only yields the final decision maps with smooth boundaries, but also guarantees the rich gradient information from the mis-registered source images. The experimental results show that the designed algorithm provides better visual perception and higher objective evaluation than some existing representative algorithms.

The current world witnesses a greatly increased prevalence and incidence of hyperuricemia and gout with unfortunately the comparative efficacy and safety of present available uricosuric agents remaining uncertain. We herein aimed to investigate the most appropriate uricosuric agent for gout or hyperuricemia patients.PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library databases, and ClinicalTrials.gov from inception to 2 July 2022 were searched to retrieve eligible studies assessing efficacy and safety of uricosuric drugs in hyperuricemia or gout patients. Network meta-analysis was carried out using the Stata 16.0 software.Twelve randomized controlled trials comprising 1851 patients were eventually included. Network meta-analysis showed that dotinurad 4 mg once daily, verinurad, dotinurad 2 mg once daily, dotinurad 1 mg once daily, and benzbromarone were the top 5 effective treatments to achieve target serum uric acid. Furthermore, dotinurad 4 mg once daily was more effective at achieving urate-lowering targets (RR of dotinurad 4 mg once daily vs. probenecid: 1.68, 95% CI [1.13; 2.50]) and safer (RR of probenecid vs. dotinurad 4 mg once daily: 1.77, 95% CI [0.69; 4.56]) than probenecid.This network meta-analysis demonstrated an important absolute benefit of dotinurad 4 mg once daily to achieve target serum uric acid and low risk of adverse events for drug treatment of gout or hyperuricemia patients. Additionally, verinurad might be used as an alternative uricosuric therapeutic option to dotinurad. These findings provided further comprehensive insight into the treatment value of current uricosuric agents for gout or hyperuricemia. Key Points 1. This is the first systematic review and network meta-analysis examining the efficacy and safety of currently available uricosuric agents in gout or hyperuricemia patients. 2. Recommended doses of dotinurad 4mg once daily used for the treatment of gout or hyperuricemia patients can significantly decrease serum uric acid levels. 3. The present findings will provide further comprehensive insight into the treatment value of certain uricosuric agents for gout or hyperuricemia.

Appropriate alignment parameters may maintain stability of driving and handiness of operation, and automatic returnability of the steering system when the vehicle goes on straight. The alignment parameters of wheel and the steering mechanism are very important factors on tire wear. Among these parameters, the caster angle of the car is one of the most important factors to maintain the stability of the car. Choosing a suitable caster angle will reduce the wear degree of the car and improve the safety factor. Decades of research into the relationship between vehicle stability and caster angle have been exhaustive. From a large number of experiments in the past to the development of modeling software in recent years, people can use modeling software to simulate and obtain more accurate results. It will focus on the analysis methods using several typical modeling software on the market, and finally obtain the quantitative and qualitative relationship between the vehicle directional stability and caster angle.

Promoting the growth of the lithium battery sector has been a critical aspect of China’s energy policy in terms of achieving carbon neutrality. However, despite significant support on research and development (R&D) investments that have resulted in increasing size, the sector seems to be falling behind in technological areas. To guide future policies and understand proper ways of promoting R&D efficiency, we looked into the lithium battery industry of China. Specifically, data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used as the primary approach based on evidence from 22 listed lithium battery enterprises. The performance of the five leading players was compared with that of the industry as a whole. Results revealed little indication of a meaningful improvement in R&D efficiency throughout our sample from 2010 to 2019. However, during this period, a significant increase in R&D expenditure was witnessed. This finding was supported, as the results showed that the average technical efficiency of the 22 enterprises was 0.442, whereas the average pure technical efficiency was at 0.503, thus suggesting that they were suffering from decreasing returns to scale (DRS). In contrast, the performance of the five leading players seemed superior because their average efficiency scores were higher than the industry’s average. Moreover, they were experiencing increasing scale efficiency (IRS). We draw on these findings to suggest to policymakers that supporting technologically intensive sectors should be more than simply increasing investment scale; rather, it should also encompass assisting businesses in developing efficient managerial processes for R&D.

Flow characteristics and phase distribution of concentrated brine storage in mining area have been core factors linking to the leakage risk assessment and ecological evaluation. Notably, saturation plays a crucial role in impacting the flow characteristics and distribution of brine, while the existence of oil left by mining machines and original reservoir and gas produced from coal bed gas and air has complicated the issue. In this work, we conducted the microfluidic visualization experiments to reveal the saturation distribution during brine storage in mining area. We applied machine learning model to extract saturation data from experimental images with over 95% accuracy. Eventually, we found that the existence of gas significantly impacts on the saturation distribution in micropores accounting for more than 80% contribution. We clarified that the gas production rate of median 200 μL/min impacts the least on saturation variation. Results in this research are of significance for deeper comprehension on three-phase saturation characteristics of concentrated brine storage in mining area.

White Spot Disease (WSD), caused by white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), is an acute and highly lethal viral disease of shrimp. Currently, there are no commercially available drugs to control WSD. It is urgent and necessary to find anti-WSSV drugs. Natural compounds are an important source of antiviral drug discovery. In this study, the anti-WSSV activity of natural compound geniposide (GP) was investigated in crayfish Procambarus clarkii. Results showed that GP had a concentration-dependent inhibitory effect on WSSV replication in crayfish at 24 h, and highest inhibition was more than 98%. In addition, GP significantly inhibited the expression of WSSV immediate-early gene ie1, early gene DNApol, late gene VP28. The mortality of WSSV-infected crayfish in control groups was 100%, while it reduced by 70.0% when treated with 50 mg/kg GP. Co-incubation, pre-treatment and post-treatment experiments showed that GP could prevent and treat WSSV infection in crayfish by significantly inhibiting WSSV multiplication. Mechanistically, the syntheses of WSSV structural proteins VP19, VP24, VP26 and VP28 were significantly inhibited by GP in S2 cells. Furthermore, GP could also suppress WSSV replication by blocking the expression of antiviral immunity-related factor STAT to reduce ie1 transcription. Moreover, GP possessed anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative activity in crayfish. Overall, GP has the potential to be developed as a preventive or therapeutic agent against WSSV infection.

Neointimal hyperplasia is a complex process after vascular interventions, acute platelet deposition and smooth muscle cell proliferation both contributed to this process. There are still no perfect solutions to solve this problem. Rivaroxaban is a novel anticoagulant that has been widely used in clinic, it has a good pharmacological effects both in vivo and in vitro. Chitosan microparticle rapamycin (MP-rapa) was fabricated, interspaces of polyglycolic acid (PGA) scaffold were used as a reservoir of MP-rapa, and the scaffold was coated with hyaluronic acid rivaroxaban (MP-rapa-riva). Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) photographs were taken and water contact angles were measured, rat inferior vena cava (IVC) patch venoplasty model was used; patches were harvested at day 14 and examined by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence. SEM photographs showed the microparticles rapamycin were inside the interspace of the scaffold, hyaluronic acid rivaroxaban was also successfully coated onto the surface of the scaffold. There was a thinner neointima, fewer proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) positive cells, fewer macrophages in the MP-rapa and MP-rapa-riva grafts compared to the control PGA graft. The result showed that this scaffold with dual anticoagulation and antiproliferation functions can effectively inhibit venous neointimal hyperplasia, although this is an animal experiment, it showed promising potential clinical application in the future.

Despite the recent success of end-to-end deep neural networks, there are growing concerns about their lack of logical reasoning abilities, especially on cognitive tasks with perception and reasoning processes. A solution is the neural symbolic learning (NeSyL) method that can effectively utilize pre-defined logic rules to constrain the neural architecture making it perform better on cognitive tasks. However, it is challenging to apply NeSyL to these cognitive tasks because of the lack of supervision, the non-differentiable manner of the symbolic system, and the difficulty to probabilistically constrain the neural network. In this paper, we propose WS-NeSyL, a weakly supervised neural symbolic learning model for cognitive tasks with logical reasoning. First, WS-NeSyL employs a novel back search algorithm to sample the possible reasoning process through logic rules. This sampled process can supervise the neural network as the pseudo label. Based on this algorithm, we can backpropagate gradients to the neural network of WS-NeSyL in a weakly supervised manner. Second, we introduce a probabilistic logic regularization into WS-NeSyL to help the neural network learn probabilistic logic. To evaluate WS-NeSyL, we have conducted experiments on three cognitive datasets, including temporal reasoning, handwritten formula recognition, and relational reasoning datasets. Experimental results show that WS-NeSyL not only outperforms the end-to-end neural model but also beats the state-of-the-art neural symbolic learning models.

Aims Previous studies reported that histamine H2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) had cardioprotective effects. However, the effect of H2RAs on mortality of critical ill patients with heart failure (HF) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to clarify the association between H2RAs and all-cause mortality of critical ill patients with HF based on Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III database (MIMIC-III). Methods and results Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to account for the baseline differences between two groups that were exposed to H2RAs or not. The study primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Kaplan–Meier curves and multivariable Cox regression models were employed to estimate the effects of H2RAs on mortality of critical ill patients with HF. A total of 10 387 patients were included, involving 4440 H2RAs users and 5947 non-H2RAs users. After matching, 3130 pairs of patients were matched between H2RAs users and non-H2RAs users. The results showed significant association between H2RAs exposure and decreased 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year mortality in both univariate analyses and multivariate analyses [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.73, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.65–0.83 for 30-day; HR = 0.80, 95%CI: 0.72–0.89 for 90-day; and HR = 0.83, 95%CI: 0.76–0.90 for 1-year mortality, respectively] by Cox regression after PSM. Furthermore, stratified analyses revealed that the 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year mortality of ranitidine users were significantly lower than those of famotidine users, respectively. Conclusion Histamine H2 receptor antagonists exposure was associated with lower mortality in critical ill patients with HF. Furthermore, ranitidine might be superior to famotidine in reducing mortality of critical ill patients with HF.

China hosts rich shale gas resources. The Longmaxi Formation (LF) in the Sichuan Basin is one of the important regions for shale gas exploration and extraction. Here, we investigate the pore structure and factors influencing the gas-bearing characteristics of the pores in the shale reservoirs in the LF. We employed scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), gas content testing, gas saturation testing based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), overburden porosity and permeability analysis, distribution of pore size, specific surface area (SSA) analysis, and geochemical analysis. Our results show that the organic matter of the shale in the LF in the study area is highly favorable to shale gas conditions; the brittleness of the regional shale generally increases with an increase in depth. The pores in the LF mainly include organic matter-hosted pores, intergranular pores, intragranular pores, and microfissures, with mesopores dominating. Meanwhile, the gas content also increases with an increase in depth. The pore structure in the study area is affected by organic matter content and mineral components, with the development of organic matter-hosted pores. The porosity and the SSA are positively correlated with the total organic carbon (TOC), whereas clay minerals have an adverse effect on the SSA of pores in the study area. Higher TOC and vitrinite reflectance (Ro) indicate higher gas content. It can be inferred that as the content of brittle minerals increases, particles break to form storage spaces as the depth increases, causing the gas content to increase. Higher SSA and total pore volume indicate higher volume of adsorbed gas. The bound water in rocks tends to reduce the content of desorbed gas. Our results suggest high potential for shale gas extraction in this region.

Frequency diverse array (FDA) radar applies a tiny frequency offset across its adjacent transmitting array elements to generate a range-angle-dependent beampattern. The increased degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) in range domain can help improve the performance of radar in target detection, localization, and clutter suppression. Passive radar utilizes uncontrollable external signal as illuminator, which makes it difficult to apply traditional frequency diverse process method. However, the third-party illuminator such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal usually consists of several closely spaced modulated carriers, and it has been widely selected as the illuminator for passive radar in recent years. Considering the orthogonality between even separated subcarriers, we propose a new frequency diverse process method by extracting and processing each subcarrier of received data independently and attempt to provide a range-angle dependent beampattern for OFDM passive radar. Numerical results and real data analyses verify the superiority of frequency diversity process on the received data of OFDM passive radar.

Background: Arteriogenesis plays a critical role in maintaining adequate tissue blood supply and is related to a favorable prognosis in arterial occlusive diseases. Strategies aimed at promoting arteriogenesis have thus far not been successful because the factors involved in arteriogenesis remain incompletely understood. Previous studies suggest that evolutionarily conserved KANK4 (KN motif and ankyrin repeat domain-containing proteins 4) might involve in vertebrate vessel development. However, how the KANK4 regulates vessel function remains unknown. We aim to determine the role of endothelial cell-specifically expressed KANK4 in arteriogenesis. Methods: The role of KANK4 in regulating arteriogenesis was evaluated using Kank4 −/− and KANK4 iECOE mice. Molecular mechanisms underlying KANK4-potentiated arteriogenesis were investigated by employing RNA transcriptomic profiling and mass spectrometry analysis. Results: By analyzing Kank4-EGFP reporter mice, we showed that KANK4 was specifically expressed in endothelial cells. In particular, KANK4 displayed a dynamic expression pattern from being ubiquitously expressed in all endothelial cells of the developing vasculature to being explicitly expressed in the endothelial cells of arterioles and arteries in matured vessels. In vitro microfluidic chip-based vascular morphology analysis and in vivo hindlimb ischemia assays using Kank4 −/− and KANK4 iECOE mice demonstrated that deletion of KANK4 impaired collateral artery growth and the recovery of blood perfusion, whereas KANK4 overexpression leads to increased vessel caliber and blood perfusion. Bulk RNA sequencing and Co-immunoprecipitation/mass spectrometry (Co-IP/MS) analysis identified that KANK4 promoted EC proliferation and collateral artery remodeling through coupling VEGFR2 (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2) to TALIN-1, which augmented the activation of the VEGFR2 signaling cascade. Conclusions: This study reveals a novel role for KANK4 in arteriogenesis in response to ischemia. KANK4 links VEGFR2 to TALIN-1, resulting in enhanced VEGFR2 activation and increased EC proliferation, highlighting that KANK4 is a potential therapeutic target for promoting arteriogenesis for arterial occlusive diseases.

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a common inflammatory disease affecting the peripheral and axial skeleton. History of psoriasis (PSO), either personal or family history, is an important factor in the diagnosis of PsA. We investigated the association between history of PSO and clinical characteristics of PsA.PsA patients were consecutive recruited from 2019 to 2020. These patients were subjected to clinical, biochemical, and radiographic examinations, and disease activity was evaluated. Continuous and categorical variables analyses were presented.All registered patients (296 cases) met the classification criteria of PsA. They were divided into three groups based on the history of psoriasis (PSO), as: (1) 145 patients with PSO themselves (pPsA); (2) 96 patients with family history of PSO (fPsA); (3) 55 patients with family history and coexisting PSO themselves (fPsA/PSO). Compared to fPsA/PSO, the levels of CRP, ESR, uric acid, DAPSA, BASDAI, ASDAS, and BASFI were lower in fPsA, but similar to pPsA. The severity of sacroiliitis tended to be more severe in fPsA/PSO than fPsA (OROur study demonstrates that currently existing cutaneous lesions in patients themselves are correlated with disease activity and severity of axial joint damage, whereas family history does not have an evident impact on the disease activity of PsA.