Search

Salient object detection (SOD) is a key preprocessing step in computer vision, widely used in object tracking, action recognition, and image retrieval, among other fields. However, traditional SOD algorithms often face issues such as rough object boundaries, incomplete extraction of global image features, and insufficient attention to key areas. To address these problems, an improved significance object detection network—CGDINet (Coordinate Attention-Group Consensus Aggregation Module-Depth Auxiliary Module-Inverse Saliency Pyramid Reconstruction Network)—is proposed. CGDINet introduces the Group Consensus Aggregation Module (GCAM) embedded with the Coordinate Attention (CA) mechanism, named CAGM (Coordinate Attention-Group Consensus Aggregation Module), to enhance global feature capture capabilities and improve the processing of directional features. Additionally, the Depth Auxiliary Module (DAM) is incorporated to enhance the focus on important regions. Experiments were conducted on five public datasets (DUT-OMRON, ECSSD, PASCAL-S, DUTS-TE, and HKU-IS). The results show that CGDINet outperforms other mainstream significance object detection models in evaluation metrics such as ${\mathrm {maxF}}_{\mathrm {\beta }}$ , $\mathrm {S}_{\mathrm {\alpha }}$ , and MAE, with almost no increase in computational cost (FLOPs) and parameters. The experimental results validate that CGDINet can effectively address the issues of incomplete global feature extraction and insufficient attention to key areas, thereby significantly enhancing the performance of significance object detection.

Abstract Compared to the surface defect detection of industrial products produced according to specified processes, the detection of surface defects in naturally grown red jujubes poses unique and significant challenges for researchers. The high diversity of surface defects, subtle distinctions from the background, low contrast, varying scales, and the presence of high levels of noise in images are among the factors that greatly amplify the complexity of defect detection tasks. Existing methods show some deficiencies in addressing these issues, mainly due to insufficient feature extraction capabilities and overly complex network structures, leading to limitations in model efficiency and practical application performance. To tackle the challenges associated with red jujube surface defect detection, this study proposes an optimized Tiny Vision Transformer (TinyViT) network structure, named RJ-TinyViT. This method refines the TinyViT-5 m network structure to reduce network burden and introduces an improved Multi-Kernel Block (MK Block) and an improved Mobile Inverted Bottleneck Convolution Block (MBConv Block) to enhance feature extraction capabilities. Additionally, we have integrated the Coordinate Attention (CA) module to enhance the model’s capacity for recognizing and focusing on features of surface defects on red jujubes. Experimental results show that RJ-TinyViT achieved a classification accuracy of 93.38%, marking an improvement of 1.84% over the original TinyViT network. At the same time, its Floating-point Operations (FLOPs) and Parameters (Params) were reduced to 58.97% and 39.84% of the original TinyViT network, respectively. These results not only demonstrate that RJ-TinyViT achieves model lightweighting while maintaining high accuracy but also highlight its value in practical industrial applications.

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a malignant tumor of the digestive tract with strong migratory and invasive abilities. Gas6 is closely associated with the progression of many malignant tumors; however, the role of Gas6 in the progression of esophageal cancer is unclear. Here, we report that the knockdown of Gas6 inhibited esophageal cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. In addition, Gas6 knockdown downregulated the levels of P-PI3K and P-AKT. Taken together, the findings confirm that Gas6 knockdown can inhibit esophageal cancer progression and can exert anti-tumor effects on esophageal cancer through the PI3K/AKT pathway.

Summary: The population history of the northern coastal Chinese is largely unknown due to the lack of ancient human genomes from the Neolithic to historical periods. In this study, we reported 14 newly generated ancient genomes from Linzi, one of China’s densely populated and economically prosperous cities from the Zhou to Han Dynasties. The ancient samples in this study were dated to the Warring States period to the Eastern Han Dynasty (∼2,000 BP). We found the samples derived all their ancestry from Late Bronze Age to Iron Age Middle Yellow River farmers rather than local Neolithic populations. They were genetically homogeneous with present-day Han Chinese of Shandong, suggesting 2,000 years of genetic stability. Our results highlight the role of the eastward migration of Yellow River farmers in the Central Plain to northern coastal China in forming the present-day genetic structure of Han Chinese.

Determination of the genomic copy number of Cre transgene is critical for the establishment of transgenic animal models. We demonstrate a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) based method for genomic copy number determination of improved Cre (iCre), which was tested in a transgenic mouse model of CYP19A1-iCre. The standards were derived from tandem repeats of iCre fragments which were constructed by a new application of megaprimer PCR. Two rounds of megaprimer PCR were used to obtain specific tandem repeats of iCre fragments, which were subsequently cloned into pUCm-T vectors. After the fragments of IL-2 (reference gene) were ligated into the same vectors, standards with copy number ratios (CNR) of 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 between iCre and IL-2 were completed. The R2 values of the standard curves exceeded 0.99. The calculated CNR value of the quality control sample was satisfactory. Multiple copies of iCre were detected in founder mice. After several passages, the copy number of iCre gradually decreased to a single copy, which was consistent with theoretical expectation. The established method is a universal and sensitive program for genomic copy number determination of iCre in transgenic mice.

Abstract Gut microbiota plays a crucial role in gastrointestinal tumors. Additionally, gut microbes influence the progression of esophageal cancer. However, the major bacterial genera that affect the invasion and metastasis of esophageal cancer remain unknown, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we investigated the gut flora and metabolites of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and found abundant Bacteroides and increased secretion and entry of the surface antigen lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the blood, causing inflammatory changes in the body. We confirmed these results in a mouse model of 4NQO-induced esophageal carcinoma in situ and further identified epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) occurrence and TLR4/Myd88/NF-κB pathway activation in mouse esophageal tumors. Additionally, in vitro experiments revealed that LPS from Bacteroides fragile promoted esophageal cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, and induced EMT by activating the TLR4/Myd88/NF-κB pathway. These results reveal that Bacteroides are closely associated with esophageal cancer progression through a higher inflammatory response level and signaling pathway activation that are both common to inflammation and tumors induced by LPS, providing a new biological target for esophageal cancer prevention or treatment.

Abstract In this paper, an absorptive coding metasurface (ACM) is proposed for ultra-wideband radar cross section (RCS) reduction, the design process is presented in detail, in which a lossy polarization conversion metasurface (PCM) is proposed at first. The lossy PCM is an anisotropic resistive structure with both polarization conversion and absorption performances, so that its co-polarization reflection coefficients under u- and v-polarized incidences can be kept at less than − 10 dB in magnitude in the frequency range from 7.5 to 45.2 GHz. Though the magnitude of the cross-polarization reflection coefficient cannot be very small only due to the absorption, its phase will be changed by nearly 180° when the unit-cell structure of the lossy PCM is rotated by 90°. Thus, the lossy PCM can be used as one of the two types of lossy coding elements for an ACM when its unit-cell structure is rotated by 90° or not. Based on the lossy PCM, an ACM is proposed. The simulation and experimental results show that the ACM has an excellent RCS reduction performance under arbitrary polarized incidence, it can achieve effective RCS reduction under normal incidence in the ultra-wide frequency band from 7.4 to 45.5 GHz with a ratio bandwidth (f H/f L) of 6.15:1; moreover, an ultra-wideband RCS reduction can still be achieved when the incident angle is increased to 45°, which indicates that the ACM has good stealth performance under the detection of various radars working in X, Ku, K and Ka bands, it is very practical.

ABSTRACT Background In recent decades, natural compounds have been considered a significant source of new antitumor medicines due to their unique advantages. Several in vitro and in vivo studies have focused on the effect of terpenoids on apoptosis mediated by mitochondria in malignant cells. Recent findings In this review article, we focused on six extensively studied terpenoids, including sesquiterpenes (dihydroartemisinin and parthenolide), diterpenes (oridonin and triptolide), and triterpenes (betulinic acid and oleanolic acid), and their efficacy in targeting mitochondria to induce cell death. Terpenoid‐induced mitochondria‐related cell death includes apoptosis, pyroptosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, autophagy, and necrosis caused by mitochondrial permeability transition. Apoptosis and autophagy interact in meaningful ways. In addition, in view of several disadvantages of terpenoids, such as low stability and bioavailability, advances in research on combination chemotherapy and chemical modification were surveyed. Conclusion This article deepens our understanding of the association between terpenoids and mitochondrial cell death, presenting a hypothetical basis for the use of terpenoids in anticancer management.

Abstract Perovskite oxides and organic–inorganic halide perovskite materials, with numerous fascinating features, have been subjected to extensive studies. Most of the properties of perovskite materials are dependence on their ferroelectricity that denoted by remanent polarization (Pr). Thus, the increase of Pr in perovskite films is mainly an effort in material physics. At present, commonplace improvement schemes, i.e., controlling material crystallinity, and post‐annealing by using a high‐temperature process, are normally used. However, a simpler and temporal strategy for Pr improvement is always unavailable to perovskite material researchers. In this study, an organic coating layer, low‐temperature, and vacuum‐free strategy is proposed to improve the Pr, directly increasing the Pr from 36 to 56 µC cm−2. Further study finds that the increased Pr originates from the suppression of the oxygen defects and Ti defects. This organic coating layer strategy for passivating the defects may open a new way for the preparation of higher‐performance and cost‐effective perovskite products, further improving its prospective for application in the electron devices field.

Rationale and objectives: To investigate the relationship between the pericoronary adipose tissue CT mean attenuation (PCATMA) measurement and image reconstruction parameters (adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction-veo (ASIR-V) percentage, kernel, and slice thickness). Materials and methods: One hundred and ninety-eight consecutive patients underwent CT coronary angiography at 100 kilovoltage peak (kVp) (n = 102) and 120 kVp (n = 96) were included. All scans were reconstructed by three means: 1. with 11 different ASIR-V percentages, standard kernel and 0.625 mm; 2. with soft, standard, detail, and bone kernels, 60 % ASIR-V, and 0.625 mm; 3. at 0.625 mm and 1.25 mm slice thickness, standard kernel and 60 % ASIR-V. PCATMA of the three main coronary arteries was calculated using a dedicated software. Linear regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Friedman test, and paired t-test were used for statistical analysis. Results: Linear regression of pooled average data showed that the PCATMA was positively and linearly correlated with the ASIR-V percentage (all R squared >0.99). Regression analysis of individual data showed that most R squared were greater than 0.8 or 0.9, but their slope consisted of a relatively wide range. The difference of PCATMA among different kernels for each coronary artery reached statistically significant levels (P

Summary: Ancient genomics has revolutionized our understanding of human evolution and migration history in recent years. Here, we present a protocol to prepare samples for ancient genomics research. We describe steps for releasing DNA from human remains, DNA library construction, hybridization capture, quantification, and sequencing. We then detail procedures for mapping sequence reads and population genetics analysis. This protocol also outlines challenges in extracting ancient DNA samples and authenticating ancient DNA to uncover the genetic history and diversity of ancient populations.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Tao et al.1 : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics.

Abstract Sino-Tibetan is the most prominent language family in East Asia. Previous genetic studies mainly focused on the Tibetan and Han Chinese populations. However, due to the sparse sampling, the genetic structure and admixture history of Tibeto-Burman-speaking populations in the low-altitude region of Southwest China still need to be clarified. We collected DNA from 157 individuals from four Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups from the Guizhou province in Southwest China. We genotyped the samples at about 700,000 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. Our results indicate that the genetic variation of the four Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups in Guizhou is at the intermediate position in the modern Tibetan-Tai-Kadai/Austronesian genetic cline. This suggests that the formation of Tibetan-Burman groups involved a large-scale gene flow from lowland southern Chinese. The southern ancestry could be further modelled as deriving from Vietnam’s Late Neolithic-related inland Southeast Asia agricultural populations and Taiwan’s Iron Age-related coastal rice-farming populations. Compared to the Tibeto-Burman speakers in the Tibetan-Yi Corridor reported previously, the Tibeto-Burman groups in the Guizhou region received additional gene flow from the southeast coastal area of China. We show a difference between the genetic profiles of the Tibeto-Burman speakers of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor and the Guizhou province. Vast mountain ranges and rivers in Southwest China may have decelerated the westward expansion of the southeast coastal East Asians. Our results demonstrate the complex genetic profile in the Guizhou region in Southwest China and support the multiple waves of human migration in the southern area of East Asia.

The quality of pork determines consumers' purchase intention, which directly affects the economic value of pork. Minimizing the proportion of inferior pork and producing high quality pork are the ultimate goals of the pig industry. Muscle energy metabolism, serving as a regulative hub in organism energy expenditure and storage as a fat deposit, is compatible with myofiber type composition, affecting meat color, intramuscular fat content, tenderness, pH values and drip loss. Increasing data illustrate that dietary nutrients and bioactive ingredients affect muscle energy metabolism, white adipose browning and fat distribution, and myofiber type composition in humans, and rodents. Recently, some studies have shown that modulating muscle energy metabolism and lipid accumulation through nutritional approaches could effectively improve meat quality. This article reviews the progress and development in this field, and specifically discusses the impacts of dietary supply of amino acids, lipids, and gut microbiota as well as maternal nutrition on skeletal muscle energy metabolism, lipid accumulation and meat quality of pigs, so as to provide comprehensive overview with respect to effective avenues for improving meat quality.

Abstract Background Maternal nutrition is essential in keeping a highly efficient production system in the pig industry. Laminarin has been shown to improve antioxidant capacity, reduce the inflammatory response, and favor the homeostasis of intestinal microbiota. However, the effect of dietary supplementation of laminarin on the reproductive performance of sows and the growth of suckling offspring remains unknown. Methods A total of 40 Landrace × Yorkshire multiparous sows on d 85 of gestation, similar in age, body weight (BW), parity and reproductive performance, were randomly divided into four dietary treatments with 10 sows per treatment, receiving a control diet (basal pregnancy or lactating diets) and a basal diet supplemented with 0.025%, 0.05% and 0.10% laminarin, respectively. The experiment lasted from d 85 of gestation to d 21 of lactation. Results Laminarin supplementation linearly increased number born alive per litter (P = 0.03), average daily feed intake (ADFI, P

ObjectivesThe aim of this retrospective study was to explore the diagnostic potential of various cardiac parameters in differentiating between heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and heart failure with mid-ranged and reduced ejection fraction (HFm + rEF), and to discern their relationship with normal cardiac function.MethodsThis research encompassed a comparative analysis of heart failure subtypes based on multiple indicators. Participants were categorized into HFm + rEF, HFpEF, and control groups. For each participant, we investigated indicators of left ventricular function (LVEDVi, LVESVi, and LVEF) and myocardial strain parameters (GLS, GCS, GRS). Additionally, quantitative tissue evaluation parameters including native T1, enhanced T1, and extracellular volume (ECV) were examined.For comprehensive diagnostic performance analysis, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve evaluations for each parameters were conducted.ResultsHFm + rEF patients exhibited elevated LVEDVi and LVESVi and decreased LVEF compared to both HFpEF and control groups. Myocardial strain revealed significant reductions in GLS, GCS, and GRS for HFm + rEF patients compared to the other groups. HFpEF patients showed strain reductions relative to the control group. In cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) evaluations, HFm + rEF patients demonstrated heightened native T1 times and ECV fractions. Native T1 was particularly effective in distinguishing HFpEF from healthy subjects.ConclusionNative T1, ECV, and myocardial strain parameters have substantial diagnostic value in identifying HFpEF. Among them, native T1 displayed superior diagnostic efficiency relative to ECV, offering critical insights into early-stage HFpEF. These findings can play a pivotal role in refining clinical management and treatment strategies for heart failure patients.

Maternal diets during pregnancy and lactation are key determinants that regulate the development of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in offspring. l-malic acid (MA) was previously reported to improve antioxidant capacity and aerobic metabolism. However, the effects of maternal MA consumption on the metabolic features of offspring remain largely unexplored. Herein, through pig models consuming MA-enriched diets during late pregnancy and lactation, we found that maternal MA consumption potentiated the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant capacity of sows, thereby improving their reproductive performance and the growth performance of piglets. Maternal MA consumption also induced a transition of slow-twitch to fast-twitch fibers in the early life of offspring. Along with muscle growth and fiber-type transition, insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism, including aerobic metabolism and glycolysis, were improved in the skeletal muscle of offspring. An untargeted metabolomic analysis further revealed the contribution of modified amino acid metabolism to the improved aerobic metabolism. Mechanistically, maternal MA consumption remodeled colonic microbiota of their offspring. Briefly, the abundance of Colidextribacter, Romboutsia, and Family_XIII_AD3011_group increased, which were positively associated with the antioxidant capacity and glucose metabolism of skeletal muscles. A decreased abundance of Prevotella, Blautia, Prevotellaceae_NK3B31_group, and Collinsella was also detected, which were involved in less insulin sensitivity. Notably, milk metabolites, such as ascorbic acid (AA) and granisetron (GS), were found as key effectors regulating the gut microbiota composition of piglets. The properties of AA and GS in alleviating insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress were further verified through mice treated with high-fat diets. Overall, this study revealed that maternal MA consumption could modulate the inflammatory response, antioxidant capacity, and glucose metabolism by regulating the gut microbiota of offspring through the vertical transmission of milk metabolites. These findings suggest the potential of MA in the prevention and treatment of MetS in early life.

Abstract The normal function of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue ensures whole-body glucose homeostasis. Ca2+ release channel inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor 1 (IP3R1) plays a vital role in regulating diet-induced obesity and disorders, but its functions in peripheral tissue regulating glucose homeostasis remain unexplored. In this study, mice with Ip3r1 specific knockout in skeletal muscle or adipocytes were used for investigating the mediatory role of IP3R1 on whole-body glucose homeostasis under normal or high-fat diet. We reported that IP3R1 expression levels were increased in the white adipose tissue and skeletal muscle of diet-induced obese mice. Ip3r1 knockout in skeletal muscle improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity of mice on a normal chow diet, but worsened insulin resistance in diet-induced obese mice. These changes were associated with the reduced muscle weight and compromised Akt signaling activation. Importantly, Ip3r1 deletion in adipocytes protected mice from diet-induced obesity and glucose intolerance, mainly due to the enhanced lipolysis and AMPK signaling pathway in the visceral fat. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that IP3R1 in skeletal muscle and adipocytes exerts divergent effects on systemic glucose homeostasis, and characterizes adipocyte IP3R1 as a promising target for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Abstract Background Hypoxic microenvironment is immunosuppressive and protumorigenic, and elevated lactate is an intermediary in the modulation of immune responses. However, as critical lactate transporters, the role of SLC16A1 and SLC16A3 in immune infiltration and evasion of glioma is not fully elucidated. Methods Gene expression in low‐ and high‐grade glioma (LGG and GBM) was evaluated with TCGA database. The TISIDB, TIMER and CIBERSORT databases were utilized for the analysis of the correlation between SLC16A1 or SLC16A3 and immunocyte infiltration as well as immune checkpoints. Results Compared with normal tissues, a significant increase of both SLC16A1 and SLC16A3 was found in LGG and GBM, and closely related to the poor prognosis only in LGG. Cancer SEA indicated that SLC16A1 was involved in hypoxia while SLC16A3 contributed to metastasis and inflammation in glioma. The SLC16A3 expression was significantly correlated with neutrophil activation by GO analysis. TISCH showed the distribution of SLC16A1 on glioma cells and SLC16A3 on immune cells, which was correlated to tumor‐associated macrophages and neutrophils that are immunosuppressive. SLC16A1 and SLC16A3 were identified to tightly interacted with diverse immune checkpoints (especially PD1, PD‐L1, PD‐L2, Tim‐3) and immunosuppressive factors (TGF‐β and IL‐10) in glioma. Furthermore, SLC16A3 had a positive correlation to activation markers of tumor‐associated neutrophils and chemokines such as CCL2, CCL22, CXCR2, CXCR4 in LGG and CCL7, CCL20 CXCL8 in GBM, which could enhance infiltration of immunosuppressive cells to the tumor microenvironment. Conclusion In general, our results suggest that SLC16A1 and SLC16A3 act as a bridge between tumor metabolism and immunity by promoting immunosuppressive cell infiltration, which contributes to immune evasion and a worse prognosis in glioma. Targeting SLC16A1 and SLC16A3 may provide novel therapeutic strategy for immunotherapy in glioma.

The main hurdle to the upgradation of photovoltaic industry is the large performance losses that the tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) and silicon heterojunction (SHJ) cells have during the cutting and separating process for the assembly of shingle solar panels. Here, an organic solution with the passivation effect is prepared in situ by a non‐vacuum spraying process, which effectively compensates the cutting loss caused by laser slicing technology. Both the open‐circuit voltage (Voc) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) are improved. For example, after edge passivation, the Voc and PCE of the 3 × 3 cm2 SHJ (K = 1.186%) cell increase by up to 8 mV and a 1–2% in absolute efficiency, respectively. This passivation‐solution based method can be easily integrated into the current production line and thus solve the issue of cutting loss in separated silicon solar cells. This study provides a new passivation technology to compensate the recombination loss on the edge surface caused by the cutting process in shingle solar panels.

Abstract Background Various fusion strategies (feature-level fusion, matrix-level fusion, and image-level fusion) were used to fuse PET and MR images, which might lead to different feature values and classification performance. The purpose of this study was to measure the classification capability of features extracted using various PET/MR fusion methods in a dataset of soft-tissue sarcoma (STS). Methods The retrospective dataset included 51 patients with histologically proven STS. All patients had pre-treatment PET and MR images. The image-level fusion was conducted using discrete wavelet transformation (DWT). During the DWT process, the MR weight was set as 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, …, 0.9. And the corresponding PET weight was set as 1- (MR weight). The fused PET/MR images was generated using the inverse DWT. The matrix-level fusion was conducted by fusing the feature calculation matrix during the feature extracting process. The feature-level fusion was conducted by concatenating and averaging the features. We measured the predictive performance of features using univariate analysis and multivariable analysis. The univariate analysis included the Mann-Whitney U test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The multivariable analysis was used to develop the signatures by jointing the maximum relevance minimum redundancy method and multivariable logistic regression. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value was calculated to evaluate the classification performance. Results By using the univariate analysis, the features extracted using image-level fusion method showed the optimal classification performance. For the multivariable analysis, the signatures developed using the image-level fusion-based features showed the best performance. For the T1/PET image-level fusion, the signature developed using the MR weight of 0.1 showed the optimal performance (0.9524(95% confidence interval (CI), 0.8413–0.9999)). For the T2/PET image-level fusion, the signature developed using the MR weight of 0.3 showed the optimal performance (0.9048(95%CI, 0.7356–0.9999)). Conclusions For the fusion of PET/MR images in patients with STS, the signatures developed using the image-level fusion-based features showed the optimal classification performance than the signatures developed using the feature-level fusion and matrix-level fusion-based features, as well as the single modality features. The image-level fusion method was more recommended to fuse PET/MR images in future radiomics studies.

In this paper, to achieve circular-to-linear polarization conversion, a novel polarization converter based on an anisotropic metasurface is proposed. Because the polarization converter is an orthotropic anisotropic structure with a pair of mutually perpendicular symmetric axes u and v, theoretical analysis shows that the polarization converter can achieve circular-to-linear polarization conversion if its reflection phase difference Δφuv under u-polarized and v-polarized incidences is close to ±90°. Numerical simulations show that the reflection phase difference Δφuv of the polarization converter is very close to +90° in two separated frequency ranges, so the polarization converter can achieve high-efficiency and dual-band CP-to-LP polarization conversion, it can convert right-handed circular-polarized (RHCP) and left-handed circular-polarized (LHCP) waves into y-polarized and x-polarized waves respectively in the two separated frequency bands of 8.08-9.27 GHz and 13.80-27.11 GHz; moreover, its polarization conversion rate (PCR) is kept larger than 99.7% in the two frequency bands. Finally, to validate the design, a prototype is manufactured and measured, the measured results are in good agreement with the simulated ones.

Diverse defects in copper indium gallium diselenide solar cells cause nonradiative recombination losses and impair device performance. Here, an organic passivation scheme for surface and grain boundary defects is reported, which employs an organic passivation agent to infiltrate the copper indium gallium diselenide thin films. A transparent conductive passivating (TCP) film is then developed by incorporating metal nanowires into the organic polymer and used in solar cells. The TCP films have a transmittance of more than 90% in the visible and nearinfrared spectra and a sheet resistance of ~10.5 Ω/sq. This leads to improvements in the open-circuit voltage and the efficiency of the organic passivated solar cells compared with control cells and paves the way for novel approaches to copper indium gallium diselenide defect passivation and possibly other compound solar cells.

The outstanding performance of deep neural networks (DNNs) in multiple computer vision in recent years has promoted its widespread use in aerial image semantic segmentation. Nonetheless, prior research has demonstrated the high susceptibility of DNNs to adversarial attacks. This poses significant security risks when applying DNNs to safety-critical earth observation missions. As an essential means of attacking DNNs, data poisoning attacks destroy model performance by contaminating model training data, allowing attackers to control prediction results by carefully crafting poisoning samples. Toward building a more robust DNNs-based aerial image semantic segmentation model, in this study, we proposed a robust invariant feature enhancement network (RIFENet) that can resist data poisoning attacks and has superior semantic segmentation performance. The constructed RIFENet improves the resistance to poisoning attacks by extracting and enhancing robust invariant features. Specifically, RIFENet uses a texture feature enhancement module (T-FEM), structural feature enhancement module (S-FEM), global feature enhancement module (G-FEM), and multi-resolution feature fusion module (MR-FFM) to enhance the representation of different robust features in the feature extraction process to suppress the interference of poisoning samples. Experiments on several benchmark aerial image datasets demonstrate that the proposed method is more robust and exhibits better generalization than other state-of-the-art methods.

Profiting from the powerful feature extraction and representation capabilities of deep learning (DL), aerial image semantic segmentation based on deep neural networks (DNNs) has achieved remarkable success in recent years. Nevertheless, the security and robustness of DNNs deserve attention when dealing with safety-critical earth observation tasks. As a typical attack pattern in adversarial machine learning (AML), backdoor attacks intend to embed hidden triggers in DNNs by poisoning training data. The attacked DNNs behave normally on benign samples, but when the hidden trigger is activated, its prediction is modified to a specified target label. In this article, we systematically assess the threat of backdoor attacks to aerial image semantic segmentation tasks. To defend against backdoor attacks and maintain better semantic segmentation accuracy, we construct a novel robust generative adversarial network (RFGAN). Motivated by the sensitivity of human visual systems to global and edge information in images, RFGAN designs the robust global feature extractor (RobGF) and the robust edge feature extractor (RobEF) that force DNNs to learn global and edge features. Then, RFGAN uses robust global and edge features as guidance to obtain benign samples by the constructed generator, and the discriminator to obtain semantic segmentation results. Our method is the first attempt to address the backdoor threat to aerial image semantic segmentation by constructing the robust DNNs model architecture. Extensive experiments on real-world scenes aerial image benchmark datasets demonstrate that the constructed RFGAN can effectively defend against backdoor attacks and achieve better semantic segmentation results compared with the existing state-of-the-art methods.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to compare the survival outcomes among stage IB3 cervical cancer patients who undergo abdominal radical hysterectomy (ARH)+pelvic lymphadenectomy ± para-aortic lymph node dissection versus radiochemotherapy (R-CT).MethodsBased on the large number of diagnoses and treatments for cervical cancer in the Chinese database, propensity score matching (PSM) was used to compare the 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates of the ARH group and R-CT group.ResultsThere were 590 patients with stage IB3 cervical cancer according to the FIGO 2018 staging system, with 470 patients in the ARH group and 120 patients in the R-CT group. The ARH and R-CT groups showed different 5-year OS and DFS rates in the total study population, and the 5-year OS and DFS rates in the R-CT group (n = 120) were lower than those in the ARH group (n = 470) (OS: 78.1% vs. 92.1%, p < 0.001; DFS: 71.6% vs. 90.3%, p < 0.001). R-CT was associated with a worse 5-year OS rate (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.401; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.875–6.167; p < 0.001) and DFS rate (HR = 3.440; 95% CI = 2.075–5.703; p < 0.001) by Cox multivariate analysis. After 1:3 PSM, the 5-year OS and DFS rates in the R-CT group (n = 108) were lower than those in the RH group (n = 280) (OS: 76.4% vs. 94.0%, p < 0.001; DFS: 69.3% vs. 92.6%, p < 0.001, respectively). R-CT was associated with a worse 5-year OS rate (HR = 4.071; 95% CI = 2.042–8.117; p < 0.001) and DFS rate (HR = 4.450; 95% CI = 2.441–8.113; p < 0.001) by Cox multivariate analysis.ConclusionOur study found that for FIGO 2018 stage IB3 cervical cancer patients, ARH resulted in better OS and DFS than R-CT.

Southern China was the original center of multiple ancestral populations related to modern Hmong-Mien, Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, and Austronesian people. More recent genetic surveys have focused on the fine-scale genetic structure and admixture history of southern Chinese populations, but the genetic formation and diversification of Hmong-Mien speakers are far from clear due to the sparse genetic sampling. Here, we reported nearly 700,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) data from 130 Guizhou Miao and Yao individuals. We used principal component analysis, ADMIXTURE, f-statistics, qpAdm, phylogenetic tree, fineSTRUCTURE, and ALDER to explore the fine-scale population genetic structure and admixture pattern of Hmong-Mien people. The sharing allele patterns showed that our studied populations had a strong genetic affinity with ancient and modern groups from southern and southeastern East Asia. We identified one unique ancestry component maximized in Yao people, which widely existed in other Hmong-Mien-speaking populations in southern China and Southeast Asia and ancient samples of Guangxi. Guizhou Hmong-Mien speakers harbored the dominant proportions of ancestry related to southern indigenous East Asians and minor proportions of northern ancestry related to Yellow River farmers, suggesting the possibility of genetic admixture between Hmong-Mien people and recent southward Sino-Tibetan-related populations. Furthermore, we found a genetic substructure among geographically different Miao and Yao people in Leishan and Songtao. The Yao and Miao people in Leishan harbored more southern East Asian ancestry, but Miao in Songtao received more northern East Asian genetic influence. We observed high mtDNA but low Y-chromosome diversity in studied Hmong-Mien groups, supporting the role of sex-specific residence in influencing human genetic variation. Our data provide valuable clues for further exploring population dynamics in southern China.

Southern China is the birthplace of rice-cultivating agriculture and different language families and has also witnessed various human migrations that facilitated cultural diffusions. The fine-scale demographic history in situ that forms present-day local populations, however, remains unclear. To comprehensively cover the genetic diversity in East and Southeast Asia, we generated genome-wide SNP data from 211 present-day Southern Chinese and co-analyzed them with ∼1,200 ancient and modern genomes. In Southern China, language classification is significantly associated with genetic variation but with a different extent of predictability, and there is strong evidence for recent shared genetic history particularly in Hmong–Mien and Austronesian speakers. A geography-related genetic sub-structure that represents the major genetic variation in Southern East Asians is established pre-Holocene and its extremes are represented by Neolithic Fujianese and First Farmers in Mainland Southeast Asia. This sub-structure is largely reduced by admixture in ancient Southern Chinese since > ∼2,000 BP, which forms a “Southern Chinese Cluster” with a high level of genetic homogeneity. Further admixture characterizes the demographic history of the majority of Hmong–Mien speakers and some Kra-Dai speakers in Southwest China happened ∼1,500–1,000 BP, coeval to the reigns of local chiefdoms. In Yellow River Basin, we identify a connection of local populations to genetic sub-structure in Southern China with geographical correspondence appearing > ∼9,000 BP, while the gene flow likely closely related to “Southern Chinese Cluster” since the Longshan period (∼5,000–4,000 BP) forms ancestry profile of Han Chinese Cline.

Insertion-deletion (Indel) serves as one of the important markers in forensic personal identification and parentage testing, especially for cases with degraded samples. However, the genetic diversity and forensic features in ethnolinguistically diverse southwestern Chinese populations remain to be explored. Sui, one Tai-Kadai-speaking population residing in Guizhou, has a complex genetic history based on linguistic, historic, and anthropological evidence. In this study, we genotyped 30 Indels from 511 Guizhou Sui individuals and obtained approximately 700,000 genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 15 representative Sui individuals to comprehensively characterize the genetic diversity, forensic characteristics, and genomic landscape of Guizhou Sui people. The estimated forensic statistically allele frequency spectrum and parameters demonstrated that this Indels panel was polymorphic and informative in Tai-Kadai populations in southern China. Results of principal component analysis (PCA), STRUCTURE, and phylogenetic trees showed that Guizhou Sui had a close genetic relationship with geographically close Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien people. Furthermore, genomic analysis based on the Fst and f4-statistics further suggested the genetic affinity within southern Chinese Tai-Kadai-speaking populations and a close relationship with geographically adjoining Guizhou populations. Admixture models based on the ADMIXTURE, f4, three-way qpAdm, and ALDER results demonstrated the interaction between the common ancestor for Tai-Kadai/Austronesian, Hmong-Mien, and Austroasiatic speaking populations played a significant role in the formation of modern Tai-Kadai people. We observed a sex-biased influence in Sui people by finding that the dominant Y chromosomal type was a Hmong-Mien specific lineage O2a2a1a2a1a2-N5 but the mtDNA lineages were commonly found in Tai-Kadai populations. The additional southward expansion of millet farmers in the Yellow River Basin has impacted the gene pool of southern populations including Tai-Kadai. The whole-genome sequencing in the future will shed more light on the finer genetic profile of Guizhou populations.

Guizhou Province harbors extensive ethnolinguistic and cultural diversity with Sino-Tibetan-, Hmong–Mien-, and Tai–Kadai-speaking populations. However, previous genetic analyses mainly focused on the genetic admixture history of the former two linguistic groups. The admixture history of Tai–Kadai-speaking populations in Guizhou needed to be characterized further. Thus, we genotyped genome-wide SNP data from 41 Tai–Kadai-speaking Maonan people and made a comprehensive population genetic analysis to explore their genetic origin and admixture history based on the pattern of the sharing alleles and haplotypes. We found a genetic affinity among geographically different Tai–Kadai-speaking populations, especially for Guizhou Maonan people and reference Maonan from Guangxi. Furthermore, formal tests based on the f3/f4-statistics further identified an adjacent connection between Maonan and geographically adjacent Hmong–Mien and Sino-Tibetan people, which was consistent with their historically documented shared material culture (Zhang et al., iScience, 2020, 23, 101032). Fitted qpAdm-based two-way admixture models with ancestral sources from northern and southern East Asians demonstrated that Maonan people were an admixed population with primary ancestry related to Guangxi historical people and a minor proportion of ancestry from Northeast Asians, consistent with their linguistically supported southern China origin. Here, we presented the landscape of genetic structure and diversity of Maonan people and a simple demographic model for their evolutionary process. Further whole-genome-sequence–based projects can be presented with more detailed information about the population history and adaptative history of the Guizhou Maonan people.

Aerial Image Semantic segmentation based on convolution neural networks (CNNs) has made significant process in recent years. Nevertheless, their vulnerability to adversarial example attacks could not be neglected. Existing studies typically focus on adversarial attacks for image classification, ignoring the negative effect of adversarial examples on semantic segmentation. In this article, we systematically assess and verify the influence of adversarial attacks on aerial image semantic segmentation. Meanwhile, based on the robust characteristics of global features, we construct a novel global feature attention network (GFANet) for aerial image semantic segmentation to solve the threat of adversarial attacks. GFANet uses the global context encoder (GCE) to obtain the context dependencies of global features, introduces the global coordinate attention mechanism (GCAM) to enhance the global feature representation to suppress adversarial noise, and the feature consistency alignment (FCA) is used for feature calibration. In addition, we construct a universal adversarial training strategy to improve the robustness of the semantic segmentation model against adversarial example attacks. Extensive experiments on three aerial image datasets demonstrate that GFANet is more robust against adversarial attacks than existing state-of-the-art semantic segmentation models.

As the emerging member of zero-dimension transition metal dichalcogenide, WSe2 quantum dots (QDs) have been applied to memristors and exhibited better resistance switching characteristics and miniaturization size. However, low power consumption and high reliability are still challenges for WSe2 QDs-based memristors as synaptic devices. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance, superlow power consumption memristor device with the structure of Ag/WSe2 QDs/La0.3Sr0.7MnO3/SrTiO3. The device displays excellent resistive switching memory behavior with a ROFF/RON ratio of ~5 × 103, power consumption per switching as low as 0.16 nW, very low set, and reset voltage of ~0.52 V and~ -0.19 V with excellent cycling stability, good reproducibility, and decent data retention capability. The superlow power consumption characteristic of the device is further proved by the method of density functional theory calculation. In addition, the influence of pulse amplitude, duration, and interval was studied to gradually modulating the conductance of the device. The memristor has also been demonstrated to simulate different functions of artificial synapses, such as excitatory postsynaptic current, spike timing-dependent plasticity, long-term potentiation, long-term depression, and paired-pulse facilitation. Importantly, digit recognition ability based on the WSe2 QDs device is evaluated through a three-layer artificial neural network, and the digit recognition accuracy after 40 times of training can reach up to 94.05%. This study paves a new way for the development of memristor devices with advanced significance for future low power neuromorphic computing.

L-malic acid is a vital intermediate in the citric acid cycle and has been reported to improve the antioxidant capacity and aerobic oxidation of weaned piglets; however, its application in finishing pigs is limited at present. This study explored the effects of dietary L-malic acid supplementation on the carcass traits and meat quality of finishing pigs. In a 45-day experiment, 192 Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire pigs (75.01 ± 0.51 kg) were divided into four treatments, i.e., a basal diet supplemented with 0, 0.5%, 1%, and 2% L-malic acid complex. The results showed that L-malic acid supplementation had no effects on the growth performance of finishing pigs. Importantly, L-malic acid significantly increased redness (a*) value at 24-h postmortem (quadratic, p < 0.05) and tended to increase the proportion of oxymyoglobin (OMb) (quadratic, p = 0.10), as well as the total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) activity (quadratic, p = 0.08) in the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle. Further, dietary supplementation of 1% L-malic acid markedly increased the protein expression level of slow skeletal myosin heavy chain (MyHC) in the LD muscle (p < 0.05). Moreover, 0.5% and 2% L-malic acid supplementation significantly increased carcass length and loin eye area (p < 0.05). In conclusion, dietary L-malic acid could effectively improve the meat color and carcass traits of finishing pigs.