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This study presents an experimental investigation into the resistance of superconducting joints in high temperature superconducting (HTS) linear plasma magnets. The focus is on examining the factors that influence joint resistance and how they can affect the overall performance and reliability of the magnet system. Through a series of rigorous experiments, key parameters such as air gaps, welding angles, and overlap lengths are analyzed to explore their impacts on joint resistance. The obtained results provide valuable insights into the design and optimization of superconducting joints for large-scale magnet applications, paving the way for improved performance and reliability in future superconducting technologies.

The unstable electrode–electrolyte interface and the narrow electrochemical window of normal electrolytes hinder the potential application of high-voltage sodium metal batteries. These problems are actually related to the solvation structure of the electrolyte, which is determined by the competition between cations coordinated with anions or solvent molecules. Herein, we design an electrolyte incorporating ethyl (2,2,2-trifluoroethyl) carbonate and fluoroethylene carbonate, which facilitates a pronounced level of cation–anion coordination within the solvation sheath by enthalpy changes to reduce the overall coordination of cation–solvents and increase sensitivity to salt concentration. Such an electrolyte regulated by competitive coordination leads to highly reversible sodium plating/stripping with extended cycle life and a high Coulombic efficiency of 98.0%, which is the highest reported so far in Na||Cu cells with ester-based electrolytes. Moreover, 4.5 V high-voltage Na||Na3V2(PO4)2F3cells exhibit a high rate capability up to 20 C and an impressive cycling stability with an 87.1% capacity retention after 250 cycles with limited Na. The proposed strategy of solvation structure modification by regulating the competitive coordination of the cation provides a new direction to achieve stable sodium metal batteries with high energy density and can be further extended to other battery systems by controlling enthalpy changes of the solvation structure.

Crop residues returning meet the challenges of low fertility, poor structure, and low crop yields of dryland red soil in southern China. However, the rapid decomposition of crop residues led to a priming effect and increased soil mineralization. Biochar could effectively mitigate soil emission and combined with crop residues may further enhance soil improvement but still needs verification. A 365-day laboratory experiment was conducted to examine the impact of combining peanut shell with biochar on soil nutrient content, CO2emission flux, and bacterial community in barren red soil. Six treatments were implemented: control (CK), low-dose peanut shell addition (S1), high-dose peanut shell addition (S2), and their corresponding combined biochar applications (BC, S1BC, and S2BC). (1) The addition of peanut shells (S1, S2) increased soil organic carbon and total nitrogen. The combined application of biochar (S1BC, S2BC) further enhanced these nutrient levels. Although available nutrient content decreased with peanut shell treatments, biochar incorporation mitigated the loss of available nitrogen. (2) Peanut shell addition alone increased cumulative CO2emission flux, with S1 and S2 rising by 6.42% and 72.60%, respectively. However, the combined treatment with biochar resulted in reduced CO2emission compared to CK, S1 and S2. Specifically, the cumulative CO2emission for BC, S1BC, and S2BC decreased by 23.61%, 25.46%, and 6.50%, respectively. (3) Peanut shell addition significantly influenced soil bacterial community structure, especially at higher application rates. Combining biochar with peanut shell mitigated this impact on the community structure. Combining biochar and peanut shell mitigated the negative effects of using peanut shell alone and reduced available nitrogen loss, CO2emission, and bacterial fluctuation, thus improving barren red soil effectively.

Blockchain systems play an important role in distributed ledgers, database systems, etc. As more and more blocks are mined, the storage burden of blockchain system is significantly increased. The current blockchain system uniformly transforms all its data into key–value (KV) items and stores them to the underlying log-structure merged tree (LSM-tree) storage engine ignoring the software semantics. Consequently, it not only aggravates the write amplification effect of the storage engine but also increases the redundancy of data query steps, resulting in the performance bottleneck of blockchain system. In this article, we propose a semantic-integrated LSM-tree-based KV storage engine for blockchain systems, called Block-LSM, which significantly improves the data synchronization and data query efficiency of blockchain system. Specifically, we first design a shared prefix scheme to transform blockchain data into ordered KV pairs to alleviate the key range overlaps of different levels in the underlying LSM-tree-based storage engine. Moreover, we propose to maintain several semantic-orientated memory buffers to isolate different kinds of blockchain data and implement memory buffer space management strategy to further improve memory efficiency. To save space overhead, Block-LSM further aggregates multiple blocks into a group and assigns the same prefix to all KV items from the same block group. We also reduce step redundancy in transaction queries by modifying the body data storage format. Finally, we implement Block-LSM in a real blockchain environment and conduct a series of comparative experiments with the typical blockchain system Ethereum. The evaluation results show that Block-LSM significantly reduces up to $7.56\times $ storage write amplification and increases throughput by $8.64\times $ compared with the original Ethereum design. In terms of data lookups (i.e., transaction and account lookup), Block-LSM improves the throughput by 50% compared to the original Ethereum design.

Winternitz one-time signature (WOTS) is a quantum-resistant signature mechanism that has been widely used in direct acyclic graph (DAG)-based blockchain systems. However, it needs to generate a unique private/public key pair for each transaction, which severely limits blockchain performance by performing a time-consuming unique address checking process when generating transactions. This article proposes a bloom-filter-based approach, called ABACUS, to optimize the unique address checking process in WOTS. In ABACUS, we separate the large address space into multiple small subspaces and apply bloom filters to perform uniqueness checking for all addresses in one subspace. Specifically, we propose a two-level address space mechanism to strike a balance between the checking efficiency and the memory/storage space overhead of the bloom filter design. A bucket-based scalable bloom filter (SBF) design is proposed to match the growth of used addresses with efficient I/O access by storing all sub-bloom-filters together in one bucket. To further reduce disk I/Os, ABACUS incorporates an in-memory write buffer and a read-only cache. To reclaim wasted addresses, we also propose a layered address recycling mechanism by efficiently checking and reusing unused addresses that were identified as used due to false positives of bloom filters. We have implemented a fully functional prototype of ABACUS and integrated it into IOTA, a widely used DAG-based blockchain system. A series of experiments have been conducted on a private IOTA system. Experimental results show that ABACUS can significantly reduce the transaction generation time by up to four orders of magnitude, and achieve up to $3\times $ boost on the system throughput with more than 80% space-saving. We have released the open-source code of ABACUS for public access.

Current range-free node localization method experiences low localization accuracy in sparse anchors wireless sensor networks (WSN). To this end, a novel range-free node localization model based on minimize maximum error criterion is proposed in this letter. Moreover, an iterative localization algorithm called MinMax-DV-hop is proposed to tackle the nonconvex and non-differentiable objective function of proposed model too. Specifically, auxiliary variable is introduced to recast the minimum-maximum optimization into one with a linear object function, convex constraints and nonconvex constraints. And then, nonconvex constraints are tightened to linear inequality constraints by using its first-order Taylor expansions, thus a successive convex approximation method can be designed to iteratively solve the optimization problem finally. Simulations show that the MinMax-DV-hop experiences higher localization accuracy in sparse anchors WSN than those of the comparisons algorithm.

Based on hourly rain gauge data during May–September of 2016–20, we analyze the spatiotemporal distributions of total rainfall (TR) and short-duration heavy rainfall (SDHR; hourly rainfall ⩾ 20 mm) and their diurnal variations over the middle reaches of the Yangtze River basin. For all three types of terrain (i.e., mountain, foothill, and plain), the amount of TR and SDHR both maximize in June/July, and the contribution of SDHR to TR (CST) peaks in August (amount: 23%; frequency: 1.74%). Foothill rainfall is characterized by a high TR amount and a high CST (in amount); mountain rainfall is characterized by a high TR frequency but a small CST (in amount); and plain rainfall shows a low TR amount and frequency, but a high CST (in amount). Overall, stations with high TR (amount and frequency) are mainly located over the mountains and in the foothills, while those with high SDHR (amount and frequency) are mainly concentrated in the foothills and plains close to mountainous areas. For all three types of terrain, the diurnal variations of both TR and SDHR exhibit a double peak (weak early morning and strong late afternoon) and a phase shift from the early-morning peak to the late-afternoon peak from May to August. Around the late-afternoon peak, the amount of TR and SDHR in the foothills is larger than over the mountains and plains. The TR intensity in the foothills increases significantly from midnight to afternoon, suggesting that thermal instability may play an important role in this process.

Recently, aligning users among different social networks has received significant attention. However, most of the existing studies do not consider users’ behavior information during the aligning procedure and thus still suffer from poor learning performance. In fact, we observe that social network alignment and user behavior analysis can benefit from each other. Motivated by such an observation, we propose to jointly study the social network alignment and user behavior analysis problem in this paper. We design a novel framework named BANANA-RGB. In this framework, to capture users’ multi-scale behavior information in each social network, we train a variant of the hierarchical periodic memory network with personalized memorization. To leverage behavior analysis for social network alignment, we design a tensor fusion network-based alignment component to improve the performance. To further leverage social network alignment for behavior analysis, we design a gating-based cross-network behavior fusion component to integrate users’ behavior information in different social networks based on the alignment result. We iteratively train the above two components to make the two tasks benefit from each other. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that our proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

Hybrid-field channel estimation for extremely large-scale massive MIMO (XL-MIMO) system is discussed in this letter. By exploiting the structural characteristics of far-field path components in the angle domain and the sparsity of near-field path components in the polar domain, a channel estimation algorithm combining support detection and orthogonal matching pursuit (SD-OMP) is proposed. Specifically, the supports of the far-field path components are firstly detected according to components structure characteristics of the angle domain in the XL-MIMO system and then can be used to obtain the far-field path components. Next, effect on the XL-MIMO system induced by far-field path components can be removed firstly and the OMP algorithm is employed to obtain the near-field path components by exploiting its polar domain sparsity. Finally, the hybrid-field channel is recovered by superposing the given far-field path components and near-field path components. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm can accurately recover channel with relatively low pilot overhead and computation complexity comparing with some classical channel estimation algorithms.

Polyketide synthases (PKSs) are megasynthases with multiple autonomously folding domains, which operate cooperatively in the PKS assemblies to synthesize specific polyketide scaffolds. Any nonreactive intermediates tethered to acyl carrier protein (ACP) domain in the PKS will block the elongation process of polyketide chains. In this study, we systematically elucidate the editing function of fungal type II thioesterases (TEIIs) to hydrolyze ACP domain-bounded nonreactive acyl groups, which are uploaded by substrate promiscuous fungal phosphopantetheinyl transferase. Thereof, the TEIIs encoded in gene clusters of nonreducing PKS with reductase domain exhibit universal editing function. Besides, editing function was also found for TEIIs encoded in gene clusters of highly-reducing PKS with condensation domain. Hence, the editing TEIIs with function of recovery PKS are applied to improve the yield of the fungal polyketides in vivo. Our study provides valuable insights into the editing process of fungal PKSs, highlights the crucial role of TEIIs in enhancing polyketide production and introduces a novel metabolic engineering strategy for fungal polyketide biosynthesis by leveraging the editing function of TEIIs.

Fe2+bio-oxidation influenced by toxic metal ions released from the dissolution of arsenic-bearing gold ores was investigated. Fe2+bio-oxidation by moderately thermophilic microorganisms was studied under different initial concentrations of Fe2+and As(III), and Monod equation was used to fit the Fe2+bio-oxidation under different conditions. Results showed that the Fe2+bio-oxidation rate increased as the initial Fe2+concentration increased until it reached 12 g/L. As(III) severely inhibited Fe2+bio-oxidation. When the As(III) concentration was 8 g/L, 9 g/L Fe2+was more than 200 h. The Monod equation fitted the Fe2+bio-oxidation well. In the absence of As(III), the maximum specific growth rate of the culture and the substrate affinity constant were 0.142 h-1and 0.053 g/L, respectively. As(III) inhibited Fe2+bio-oxidation via competitive inhibition, and the inhibition constant was 0.0035 g/L.

Oxidative coupling and oxidative rearrangement are two of the most common biosynthetic strategies to form diaryl ethers. In contrast, enzymatic diaryl ether generation that proceeds in a nonoxidative manner has not been characterized thus far. Here, we discovered a versatile thioesterase (TE) domain from the nonreducing polyketide synthase (nrPKS) AN7909, which catalyzes diaryl ether formation through a series of successive steps involving esterification, a Smiles rearrangement, and hydrolysis. Further mutations and biochemical analyses with synthetic mimic substrates provide insight into the proposed catalytic process of the TE domain.

Xanthomonas campestris pathovar campestris (Xcc) is the causative agent of crucifer black rot disease, which causes severe losses in agricultural yield worldwide. The complete genome of Xcc 8004, which is highly conserved relative to that of Xcc ATCC 33913, is sequenced.

A multicenter retrospective analysis of conventionally collected data. To identify the potential causes of hypoproteinemia after traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) and provide a diagnostic model for predicting an individual likelihood of developing hypoproteinemia. Hypoproteinemia is a complication of spinal cord injury (SCI), an independent risk factor for respiratory failure in elderly patients with SCI, and a predictor of outcomes in patients with cervical SCI. Few nomogram-based studies have used clinical indicators to predict the likelihood of hypoproteinemia following TSCI. This multicenter retrospective clinical analysis included patients with TSCI admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Wuzhou GongRen Hospital, and Dahua Yao Autonomous County People Hospital between 2016 and 2020. The data of patients from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University were used as the training set, and those from the other 2 hospitals were used as the validation set. All patient histories, diagnostic procedures, and imaging findings were recorded. To predict whether patients with TSCI may develop hypoproteinemia, a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analysis was conducted to create a nomogram. The model was validated by analyzing the consequences using decision curve analysis, calibration curves, the C-index, and receiver operating characteristic curves. After excluding patients with missing data, 534 patients were included in this study. Male/female sex, age ≥ 60 years, cervical SCI, pneumonia, pleural effusion, urinary tract infection (UTI), hyponatremia, fever, hypotension, and tracheostomy were identified as independent risk factors of hypoalbuminemia. A simple and easy-to-replicate clinical prediction nomogram was constructed using these factors. The area under the curve was 0.728 in the training set and 0.881 in the validation set. The predictive power of the nomogram was satisfactory. Hypoalbuminemia after TSCI may be predicted using the risk factors of male/female sex, age ≥ 60 years, cervical SCI, pneumonia, pleural effusion, UTI, hyponatremia, fever, hypotension, and tracheostomy.

Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujubaMill.) is one of the most important deciduous tree fruits in China, with substantial economic and nutritional value. Jujube was domesticated from its wild progenitor, wild jujube (Z. jujubavar. spinosa), and both have high medicinal value. Here we report the 767.81- and 759.24-Mb haplotype-resolved assemblies of a dry-eating ‘Junzao’ jujube (JZ) and a wild jujube accession (SZ), using a combination of multiple sequencing strategies. Each assembly yielded two complete haplotype-resolved genomes at the telomere-to-telomere (T2T) level, and ~81.60 and 69.07 Mb of structural variations were found between the two haplotypes within JZ and SZ, respectively. Comparative genomic analysis revealed a large inversion on each of chromosomes 3 and 4 between JZ and SZ, and numerous genes were affected by structural variations, some of which were associated with starch and sucrose metabolism. A large-scale population analysis of 672 accessions revealed that wild jujube originated from the lower reaches of the Yellow River and was initially domesticated at local sites. It spread widely and was then independently domesticated at the Shanxi–Shaanxi Gorge of the middle Yellow River. In addition, we identified some new selection signals regions on genomes, which are involved in the tissue development, pollination, and other aspects of jujube tree morphology and fertilization domestication. In conclusion, our study provides high-quality reference genomes of jujube and wild jujube and new insights into the domestication history of jujube.

Sulfurized polyacrylonitrile (SPAN) is proposed as a promising cathode material for lithium sulfur batteries. However, the continuous side reactions at the electrolyte-electrode interfaces as well as the slow redox kinetics of SPAN cathode deteriorate the electrochemical performance. In this study, an electrolyte with dual-additives comprising 2-fluoropyridine (2-FP) and lithium difluorobis (oxalato) phosphate (LiDFBOP) was used to improve the performance of Li||SPAN cells. 2-FP has a lower lowest occupied molecular orbital energy than that of the solvents in the electrolyte, leading to its prior reduction. A LiF-rich film can be formed on the electrode, effectively improving the stability of the electrolyte-electrode interfaces and prolonging the life. Simultaneously, LiDFBOP could form an electrolyte-electrode interface film containing a large amount of LixPOyFzspecies, compensating for the kinetic deterioration caused by the lower ionic conductive of LiF formed at the electrolyte-electrode interface. Hence, an electrode-interface film with good chemical stability and high Li+transport was established by LiF and LixPOyFz-rich species. The Li||SPAN cell with the electrolyte containing dual-additives demonstrates an excellent capacity retention of 97.5% after 200 cycles at 1.0 C, 25 °C, comparing to 56.2% capacity retention without additives. Moreover, the rate capacities of cells with dual-additives can reach 1128.1 mAh/g at 5 C, comparing to only 813.5 mAh/g using electrolyte without additives. Our results shown that the dual-additives in electrolyte provide a promising strategy for practical application of lithium sulfur batteries with SPAN cathodes.

Lime (CaO) and sodium humate (NaHA) were used as the combined depressant for arsenopyrite pre-treated by CuSO4and butyl xanthate. Micro-flotation tests show that the combined depressant CaO and NaHA achieved the selective depression of arsenopyrite. Closed-circuit lab-scale test results indicate that the synergistic effect of CaO+NaHA achieved a satisfactory flotation separation of sphalerite and arsenopyrite, for which the Zn grade and recovery of Zn concentrate were 51.21% and 92.21%, respectively. Contact angle measurements, adsorption amount measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicate that the dissolved calcium species (mainly as Ca2+) were adsorbed on the mineral surfaces, thereby promoting NaHA adsorption. Moreover, the surface of the arsenopyrite absorbed more amount of calcium species and NaHA than that of the sphalerite, thereby accounting for the strong hydrophilic surface of arsenopyrite. The adsorption of NaHA on arsenopyrite was mainly chemical adsorption through its carboxyl groups and Ca atoms, whereas that on sphalerite surface was relatively weak.

Background: The association between frailty and cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) remains controversial due to the use of different methods to assess frailty, including physical frailty phenotype and frailty scores containing measures of cognition. A frailty index based on laboratory tests (FI-Lab), which assesses frailty by the combination of routine laboratory measures and several vital signs, is independent of cognition and function status. We aimed to evaluate the association of FI-Lab with CSVD. Methods: An observational study was carried out in a hospitalized cohort of older patients with minor ischemic stroke or TIA. The FI-Lab was constructed by 20 routine laboratory tests, plus systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and pulse pressure. Manifestations of CSVD including white matter hyperintensity (WMH), silent lacunar infarcts, microbleed, enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS), as well as deep brain atrophy, were measured on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). An ordinal score system constructed by WMH, EPVS, silent lacunar infarcts, and microbleed was used to reflect the total burden of CSVD. The associations between FI-lab and CSVD were examined by logistic regression analysis and ordinal regression. Results: A total of 398 patients were recruited from January 2016 to December 2018. The mean FI-Lab value was 0.26 ± 0.11. The prevalence of extensive periventricular WMH, extensive deep WMH, extensive basal ganglia EPVS, extensive centrum semiovale EPVS, silent lacunar infarcts, and deep microbleed was 26.1, 66.6, 68.6, 80.7, 32.9, and 6.5%, respectively. A higher FI-Lab value was associated with increased risks of extensive deep WMH (OR = 1.622; 95% CI, 1.253 ~ 2.100), extensive basal ganglia EPVS (OR = 1.535; 95% CI, 1.187 ~ 1.985), extensive centrum semiovale EPVS (OR = 1.584; 95% CI, 1.167 ~ 2.151), silent lacunar infarcts (OR = 1.273; 95% CI, 1.007 ~ 1.608), and higher total burden of CSVD. These associations remained after the adjustment of potential confounding factors. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that a higher FI-Lab score might be associated with the presence of WMH, EPVS, silent lacunar infarcts, as well as severe total CSVD burden in older patients with minor stroke or TIA. The FI-Lab provides a basis for the prediction of CSVD.

BackgroundA large number of new causative and risk genes for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have been identified mostly in patients of European ancestry. In contrast, we know relatively little regarding the genetics of ALS in other ethnic populations. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the genetics of ALS in an unprecedented large cohort of Chinese mainland population and correlate with the clinical features of rare variants carriers.MethodsA total of 1587 patients, including 64 familial ALS (FALS) and 1523 sporadic ALS (SALS), and 1866 in-house controls were analysed by whole-exome sequencing and/or testing for G4C2 repeats in C9orf72. Forty-one ALS-associated genes were analysed.Findings155 patients, including 26 (40.6%) FALS and 129 (8.5%) SALS, carrying rare pathogenic/likely pathogenic (P/LP) variants of ALS causative genes were identified. SOD1was the most common mutated gene, followed by C9orf72, FUS, NEK1, TARDBPand TBK1. By burden analysis, rare variants in SOD1, FUSand TARDBPcontributed to the collective risk for ALS (p<2.5e-6) at the gene level, but at the allelic level TARDBPp.Gly294Val and FUSp.Arg521Cys and p.Arg521His were the most important single variants causing ALS. Clinically, P/LP variants in TARDBPand C9orf72were associated with poor prognosis, in FUSlinked with younger age of onset, and C9orf72repeats tended to affect cognition.ConclusionsOur data provide essential information for understanding the genetic and clinical features of ALS in China and for optimal design of genetic testing and evaluation of disease prognosis.

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the distribution laws and research frontiers of international literature, so as to present a holistic bibliometric evaluation of the studies on breast cancer liver metastasis(BCLM). Data were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database, including publications, year, country, journal, author and keywords. The software VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used for bibliometric coupling, co-authorship, co-citation and co-occurrence analysis. In total, 1,031 publications were analyzed from 2004 to 2020 on BCLM. The year with the highest number of publications was 2006, with 103 papers. The United States, followed by China and Germany were the leading countries on BCLM, accounting for 59% of the whole. The journals that published about BCLM were mainly located in Q1/Q2. Keywords co-occurrence analysis divides BCLM into five clusters:‘basic research’, ‘auxiliary diagnosis and therapy’, ‘liver resection’, ‘clinical trial’ and ‘prognosis’. Main treatment therapies were the latest focus. Burst detection indicated that the trends in BCLM concentrated on subtype and SEER. There is apparently brighter perspective for BCLM research in the coming years, especially in liver resection, subtype and bioinformatics. The consequence of our study as the exclusive scientific evaluation offered an integral overview of BCLM, particularly for research focus and future directions, which can further accurately guide scholars on diagnosis, treatment, and personalized prevention.

Great advances have been made in mass spectrometric data interpretation for intact glycopeptide analysis. However, accurate identification of intact glycopeptides and modified saccharide units at the site-specific level and with fast speed remains challenging. Here, we present a glycan-first glycopeptide search engine, pGlyco3, to comprehensively analyze intact N- and O-glycopeptides, including glycopeptides with modified saccharide units. A glycan ion-indexing algorithm developed for glycan-first search makes pGlyco3 5–40 times faster than other glycoproteomic search engines without decreasing accuracy or sensitivity. By combining electron-based dissociation spectra, pGlyco3 integrates a dynamic programming-based algorithm termed pGlycoSite for site-specific glycan localization. Our evaluation shows that the site-specific glycan localization probabilities estimated by pGlycoSite are suitable to localize site-specific glycans. With pGlyco3, we confidently identified N-glycopeptides and O-mannose glycopeptides that were extensively modified by ammonia adducts in yeast samples. The freely available pGlyco3 is an accurate and flexible tool that can be used to identify glycopeptides and modified saccharide units.

Genetic studies have indicated that variants in several lysosomal genes are risk factors for idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the role of lysosomal genes in PD in Asian populations is largely unknown. This study aimed to analyze rare variants in lysosomal related genes in Chinese population with early-onset and familial PD. In total, 1,136 participants, including 536 and 600 patients with sporadic early-onset PD (SEOPD) and familial PD, respectively, underwent whole-exome sequencing to assess the genetic etiology. Rare variants in PD were investigated in 67 candidate lysosomal related genes (LRGs), including 15 lysosomal function-related genes and 52 lysosomal storage disorder genes. Compared with the autosomal dominant PD (ADPD) or SEOPD cohorts, a much higher proportion of patients with multiple rare damaging variants of LRGs were found in the autosomal recessive PD (ARPD) cohort. At a gene level, rare damaging variants in GBAand MAN2B1were enriched in PD, but in SCARB2, MCOLN1, LYST, VPS16, and VPS13Cwere much less in patients. At an allele level, GBAp. Leu483Pro was found to increase the risk of PD. Genotype-phenotype correlation showed no significance in the clinical features among patients carrying a discrepant number of rare variants in LRGs. Our study suggests rare variants in LRGs might be more important in the pathogenicity of ARPD cases compared with ADPD or SEOPD. We further confirm rare variants in GBAare involve in PD pathogenecity and other genes associated with PD identified in this study should be supported with more evidence.

Environmentally friendly flotation reagent, polyaspartic acid (PAPA), was tested as a potential selective depressant in the flotation separation of chalcopyrite and Cu-activated sphalerite. The depression mechanism of PAPA was revealed by contact angle measurements, Zeta potential measurements, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) measurement. The micro-flotation tests with single minerals showed that PAPA selectively depressed Cu-activated sphalerite, while chalcopyrite remained floatable. Moreover, a concentrate containing 31.40% Cu with a recovery of 92.43% was obtained in flotation tests of artificially mixed minerals. Results of contact angle measurements, Zeta potential measurements and FT-IR spectrum revealed that PAPA exerted a much stronger adsorption on Cu-activated sphalerite surface than on chalcopyrite surface, preventing the further adsorption of sodium diethyl dithiocarbamate (DDTC) on its surface. ICP measurements indicated that PAPA had an excellent complexing ability with Cu2+in flotation pulp, weakening the activation of Cu species on sphalerite surface and producing selective depression.

BackgroundGermline variants in PTPN11are the primary cause of Noonan syndrome with multiple lentigines (NSML) and Noonan syndrome (NS), which share common skin and facial symptoms, cardiac anomalies and retardation of growth. Hearing loss is considered an infrequent feature in patients with NSML/NS. However, in our cohort, we identified a group of patients with PTPN11pathogenic variants that were primarily manifested in congenital sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). This study evaluated the incidence of PTPN11-related NSML or NS in patients with congenital SNHL and explored the expression of PTPN11and the underlying mechanisms in the auditory system.MethodsA total of 1502 patients with congenital SNHL were enrolled. Detailed phenotype-genotype correlations were analysed in patients with PTPN11variants. Immunolabelling of Ptpn11 was performed in P35 mice. Zebrafish with Ptpn11knockdown/mutant overexpression were constructed to further explore mechanism underlying the phenotypes.ResultsTen NSML/NS probands were diagnosed via the identification of pathogenic variants of PTPN11, which accounted for ~0.67% of the congenital SNHL cases. In mice cochlea, Shp2, which is encoded by Ptpn11, is distributed in the spiral ganglion neurons, hair cells and supporting cells of the inner ear. In zebrafish, knockdown of ptpn11aand overexpression of mutant PTPN11were associated with a significant decrease in hair cells and supporting cells. We concluded that congenital SNHL could be a major symptom in PTPN11-associated NSML or NS. Other features may be mild, especially in children.ConclusionScreening for PTPN11in patients with congenital hearing loss and variant-based diagnoses are recommended.

Traditional photonic integrated devices are designed to predict their optical response by transforming the structure and parameters, and it is often difficult to obtain devices with excellent performance in all aspects. The nanophotonic computing design method based on the optimization algorithm has revolutionized the traditional photonic integrated device design technology. Here, we report a discrete differential evolution algorithm that simulates a natural selection process to achieve an ultracompact arbitrary power ratio splitter. The footprint of the designed splitter is only ${2.5}\;\unicode{x00B5} {\rm m} \times {2}.{5}\;\unicode{x00B5} {\rm m}$2.5µm×2.5µm, the simulated total transmission efficiency is above 90%, the power ratio error is less than 3%, and it can work normally over the C-band. Our algorithm can provide new ideas for the application of genetic algorithms to the automatic optimization of photonic integrated devices.

A reconfigurable multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser based on an all-fiber multimode interferometer (MMI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The interferometer is constructed by sandwiching a section of highly germanium-doped fiber (HGDF) between two sections of single-mode fiber. The insertion loss of the interferometer is as low as 2 dB. Due to the polarization-dependent spectral filtering effect formed by the MMI, by rotating the intracavity polarization controller, the laser output can be switched among single-, dual-, and triple-wavelength lasing states with optical signal-to-noise ratio up to 50 dB. In particular, the obtained dual-wavelength state shows high stability with wavelength shift within $ \pm {0.04}\;{\rm nm}$±0.04nm, wavelength spacing variation within $ \pm {0.03}\;{\rm nm}$±0.03nm, and power fluctuation within $ \pm {0.04}\;{\rm dB}$±0.04dB by monitoring the output spectra over 8 h at room temperature. By changing the length of the HGDF, the wavelength spacing can also be flexibly manipulated. Taking the advantages of reconfiguration, low cost, and easy fabrication, this fiber laser may have great potential in various optical applications.

Considering the important applications of wireless sensor networks in target monitoring, it has received attention in the civil and military fields. For the problem that the working nodes die early, the network energy consumption is large, and the node energy distribution is uneven, especially the impact of the monitored target on the network performance, this study is based on the traditional low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) and target location constraint, an improved LEACH target location constraint (LEACH-TLC) algorithm is proposed. First, under the premise of monitoring accuracy, this study constructs a network monitoring performance parameter model. Second, the wake-up/dormant threshold of the network node is obtained based on the network performance parameter model, and the network node dormant strategy is constructed utilising the threshold, and then the working node set is constructed. Finally, based on the proposed network energy uniform mechanism, combined with the distance factor between the node and target/base station, a new cluster head selection rule is proposed. The simulation results show that the LEACH-TLC algorithm can decrease the number of working nodes, reduce network energy consumption, uniform node energy consumption distribution, and prolong network lifetime.

Vitamins and flavonoids are two kinds of essential trace bioactives which are prone to photodegradation during food processing and storage. In this study, a particle-stabilized water-in-water (W/W) emulsion system composed of soy protein isolate (SPI) and guar gum (GG) was applied in loading riboflavin. Based on the significant binding affinity differences of SPI (Ka= 1.11 × 105L mol–1) and GG (Ka= 9.00 × 103L mol–1) to riboflavin, this hydrophilic and light-sensitive bioactive compound was loaded in SPI-rich droplets. Confocal images indicated that a stable microstructure of SPI-rich droplets suspended in GG-rich continuous phase was successfully constructed by manipulating the proportion of the two polymeric components and using zein-based particles (ZPs) as stabilizers. These negatively charged particles modified by pectin with a hydrodynamic diameter of 533 ± 5.7 nm were able to adsorb at the SPI/GG interface and subsequently stabilized the SPI-in-GG emulsion. Fluorescence spectra of riboflavin suggested that the formation of such W/W emulsion could effectively delay the photodegradation of riboflavin during an 8 h ultraviolet irradiation, and its color was maintained to a maximum extent. Therefore, this structured W/W emulsion could be a desired architecture for delivering light-sensitive cargo.

Using a clustering algorithm based on cloud‐to‐ground (CG) lighting data, 72,974 thunderstorms were identified and tracked in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin from May to September of 2016–2020. Thunderstorms predominantly occur in the southeast region and move to the northeast at a speed of 16–64 km/hr. Most thunderstorms have short durations (98.3%, ≤3 hr) and low CG flash frequencies (90.0%, ≤64). Thunderstorms with longer durations are mainly triggered near the mountains and tend to occur (end) earlier (later) in the afternoon (evening). The peak composite reflectivity (CR) corresponding to CG flashes from all thunderstorms is 50 dBZ. Approximately 70% (20%) of CG flashes occur in convective (stratiform) areas. The first CG flash of a thunderstorm tends to occur in convective areas with a higher CR than that of the last CG flash. The average and maximum CRs of CG flashes increase significantly with thunderstorm duration. Thunderstorms are known as a type of weather system that is typically accompanied by the presence of lighting and other hazardous weather (high winds, heavy rain, hail and tornadoes). Cloud‐to‐ground (CG) lighting produced by thunderstorms is a highly dangerous weather phenomenon that occurs between a thundercloud and the ground and often causes wildfires, explosions and severe damage to buildings. The middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin in China are a transition zone between plateaus and plains, with dense urban agglomerations, rivers and lakes. However, thunderstorm activity in such complex underlying surfaces is poorly understood. Based on ground‐based radar and lightning observations, the statistical characteristics of thunderstorm activity in this region during the warm seasons (May to September) of 2016–2020 are analyzed using a lightning clustering method. The CG lighting number, area and displacement of thunderstorms increase with thunderstorm duration. Thunderstorms that last longer are mostly triggered near the mountains and often start earlier in the afternoon and end later in the evening. In addition, CG lighting produced by thunderstorms is associated with high radar echo intensity. These findings are useful for improving the nowcasting of lightning and other hazardous weather caused by thunderstorms. The cloud‐to‐ground (CG) flash number, area, displacement, etc., of thunderstorms based on lightning data change with increasing thunderstorm durationThunderstorms with longer durations, mostly triggered near the mountains, occur earlier in the afternoon and end later in the eveningRadar echo characteristics of CG flashes from thunderstorms with different durations show certain regularities The cloud‐to‐ground (CG) flash number, area, displacement, etc., of thunderstorms based on lightning data change with increasing thunderstorm duration Thunderstorms with longer durations, mostly triggered near the mountains, occur earlier in the afternoon and end later in the evening Radar echo characteristics of CG flashes from thunderstorms with different durations show certain regularities

Efficient detection of aberrant glycoproteins in serum is particularly important for biomarker discovery. However, direct quantitation of glycoproteins in serum remains technically challenging because of the extraordinary complexity of the serum proteome. In the current work, we proposed a straightforward and highly efficient strategy by using the nonglycopeptides releasing from the specifically enriched glycoproteins for targeted glycoprotein quantification. With this so-called nonglycopeptide-based mass spectrometry (NGP-MS) strategy, a powerful and nondiscriminatory pipeline for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) glycoprotein biomarker discovery, verification, and validation has been developed. First, a data set of 234 NGPs was strictly established for multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) quantification in serum. Second, the NGPs enriched from 20 HCC serum mixtures and 20 normal serum mixtures were labeled with mTRAQ reagents (Δ0 and Δ8, respectively) to find the differentially expressed glycoproteins in HCC. A total of 97 glycoprotein candidates were preliminarily screened and submitted for absolute quantitation with NGP-based stable-isotope-labeled (SID)-MRM in the individual samples of 38 HCC serum and 24 normal controls. Finally, 21 glycoproteins were absolutely quantified with high quality. The diagnostic sensitivity results showed that three glycoproteins, β-2-glycoprotein 1 (APOH), α-1-acid glycoprotein 2 (ORM2), and complement C3 (C3), could be used for the discrimination between HCC patients and healthy people. A novel glycoprotein biomarker panel [APOH, ORM2, C3, and α-fetoprotein (AFP)] has proven to outperform AFP, the known HCC serum biomarker, alone, in this study. We believe that this strategy and the panel of glycoproteins might hold great clinical value for HCC detection in the future.

A new and concise biosynthetic pathway of fungal diphenyl ethers (DPEs) has been elucidated and efficiently reconstructed in yeast. The pathway includes an unusual nonreducing polyketide synthase (NRPKS) responsible for the formation of a polyketide dimer with an ether bond linkage as well as two cofactor-independent enzymes that catalyze tandem regioselective decarboxylation reactions. Our discovery here opens a new window for utilizing fungal DPEs as a platform to design and synthesize analogues for the development of highly useful drug leads.

Turbine blades, produced by the directional solidification (DS) process, often require high dimensional accuracy and excellent mechanical properties. A critical step in their production is the fabrication of wax patterns. However, the traditional manufacturing process has many disadvantages, such as long-term production, low material utilization rate, and the high cost of producing a complex-shaped wax pattern. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is one of the most extensively used additive manufacturing techniques that substantially shortens the production cycle. In this study, SLS was adopted to fabricate the wax pattern instead of the traditional manufacturing process. The orthogonal experiment method was carried out to investigate the effects of laser power, scanning speed, scanning space, and layer thickness on the dimensional precision and morphologies of the SLS parts. The SLS parts showed a minimum dimensional deviation when laser power, scanning speed, scanning space, and layer thickness were 10 W, 3000 mm•s-1, 0.18 mm, and 0.25 mm, respectively. In addition, the tensile strength and fracture morphologies were closely associated with the laser volumetric energy density (VED). The tensile strength reached a maximum when the VED was 0.0762 J•mm-3, with an evident brittle fracture morphology. The wax pattern manufactured in this way meets the accuracy and strength requirements for investment casting. This research offers a novel path for the production of wax patterns for complex-shaped turbine blades by SLS.

•Therapeutic potential of urothelin A in attenuating atherosclerotic lesion.•Role of Scavenger receptor-class B type I (SR-BI).•Activation of Nrf-2 singling pathway.•Upregulation of SR-BI expression and inhibition of p-ERK1/2 levels.

BackgroundHereditary sensorineural hearing loss is a genetically heterogeneous disorder.ObjectivesThis study was designed to explore the genetic etiology of deafness in a large Chinese family with autosomal dominant, nonsyndromic, progressive sensorineural hearing loss (ADNSHL).MethodsWhole exome sequencing and linkage analysis were performed to identify pathogenic mutation. Inner ear expression of Ifnlr1 was investigated by immunostaining in mice. ifnlr1Morpholino knockdown Zebrafish were constructed to explore the deafness mechanism.ResultsWe identified a cosegregating heterozygous missense mutation, c.296G>A (p.Arg99His) in the gene encoding interferon lambda receptor 1 (IFNLR1) – a protein that functions in the Jak/ STAT pathway– are associated with ADNSHL. Morpholino knockdown of ifnlr1 leads to a significant decrease in hair cells and non-inflation of the swim bladder in late-stage zebrafish, which can be reversed by injection with normal Zebrafish ifnlr1mRNA. Knockdown of ifnlr1in zebrafish causes significant upregulation of cytokine receptor family member b4 (interleukin-10r2), jak1, tyrosine kinase 2, stat3, and stat5b in the Jak1/STAT3 pathway at the mRNA level.ConclusionIFNLR1function is required in the auditory system and that IFNLR1mutations are associated with ADNSHL. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study implicating an interferon lambda receptor in auditory function.

Nowadays, there is a high demand for supersensitive contrast agents for the early diagnostics of hepatocarcinoma. It has been recognized that accurate imaging information is able to be achieved by constructing hepatic tumor specific targeting probes, though it still faces challenges. Here, a AGKGTPSLETTP peptide (A54)-functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)-loaded nanostructured lipid carrier (A54-SNLC), which can be specifically uptaken by hepatoma carcinoma cell (Bel-7402) and exhibited ultralow imaging signal intensity with varied Fe concentration on T2-weighted imaging (T2WI), was first prepared as an effective gene carrier. Then, an endogenous ferritin reporter gene for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with tumor-specific promoter (AFP-promoter) was designed, which can also exhibit a decrease in signal intensity on T2WI. At last, using protamine as a cationic mediator, novel ternary nanoparticle of A54-SNLC/protamine/DNA (A54-SNPD) as an active dual-target T2-weighted MRI contrast agent for imaging hepatic tumor was achieved. Owing to the synergistic effect of A54-SNLC and AFP-promoted DNA targeting with Bel-7402 cells, T2 imaging intensity values of hepatic tumors were successfully decreased via the T2 contrast enhancement of ternary nanoparticles. It is emphasized that the novel A54-SNPD ternary nanoparticle as active dual-target T2-weighted MRI contrast agent were able to greatly increase the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of hepatic cancer.

The photophysical properties of the excited states of the water-soluble gallium corrole (Ga(tpfc) (SO3Na)2) and fluorescence lifetime imaging in three kinds of living cell lines have been investigated using the steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic techniques. In comparison with gallium corrole (Ga(tpfc) (py)) in six selected solvents, Ga(tpfc) (SO3Na)2shows the much weaker emission and B-band absorption, and the Q-band absorption exhibits red-shift of about 15 nm, the fluorescence lifetime decreases, while the triplet lifetime increases. The internal transition time from the B-band to the Q-band of Ga(tpfc) (SO3Na)2is similar to that of Ga(tpfc) (py) in toluene. The high polarity of the water has an important impact on the dynamics of the singlet and triplet states, which may result in efficient electron transfer to the oxygen. This observation has been confirmed by the EPR experiment. Without the aid of carrier proteins, Ga(tpfc) (SO3Na)2can penetrate into three kinds of living cell lines: mouse fibroblast (L-929), human breast cancer (MCF-7), and human prostate carcinoma (PC-3M). Efficient energy transfer and intracellular high accumulation has been observed in the PC-3M cell line, which results in the fluorescence quench and shorter lifetime.

In this paper, an ascheme is proposed for multiuser underwater acoustic communication by using the multi-chirp rate signals. It differs from the well known TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) or CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), by assigning each users with different chirp-rate carriers instead of the time, frequency or PN code. Multi-chirp rate signals can be separated from each other by FrFT (Fractional Fourier Transform), which can be regarded as the chirp-based decomposing, and superior to the match filter in the underwater acoustic channel. VTRM (Virtual Time Reverse Mirror) is applied into the system to alleviate the ISI caused by the multipatch and make the equalization more simple. Results of computer simulations and pool experiments prove that the proposed multiuser underwater acoustic communication based on the multi-chirp rate exhibit well performance. Outfield experments carrie out in Xiamen Port show that using about 10 kHz bandwidth, four users could communicate at the same time with 425 bps with low BER and can match the UAC application.