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The development of a low-cost and multifunctional sensing and monitoring device would be a meaningful endeavor. In this research, a novel spirooxazine with a two double-bonded structure, designated as (1-butyl-3,3-dimethylspiro[indoline-2,3'-naphtho[2,1-b] [1, 4]oxazine]-5,8'-diyl)bis(methylene)bis(2-methylacrylate) (SO-DB), was successfully synthesized and incorporated as a functional cross-linker into a polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate hydrogel system. Notably, this hydrogel system based on a single responsive component exhibits photo-pH dual responsiveness, which avoids the addition of multiple components that may affect other properties of the hydrogel. Particularly, in comparison to traditional surface grafting and physical blending, crosslinking with SO-DB leads to the formation of a denser and stronger three-dimensional polymer network in the stimuli-responsive hydrogel. Under UV light irradiation, spirooxazine absorbs energy and undergoes cleavage of the Cspiro-O bond, transforming the molecule from a colorless closed-ring state to an open-ringed photomerocyanine (PMC) state. Under acidic conditions, hydrophobic spirooxazine undergoes a reversible protonation open-ring reaction, forming a stable intermediate form, a protonated photomerocyanine (PMCH). Furthermore, the addition of SO-DB as a crosslinking agent to the hydrogel system increases its stability and fatigue resistance, and maintains good repeatability over 24 light cycles and 7 pH cycles without performance loss. Such approach to generate stimulus-responsive hydrogels could have great potential in both wearable biosensors and food packaging field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a frontier imaging technique for biomedical applications, photoacoustic (PA) imaging has been developed rapidly. The development of new design strategies and excellent PA imaging reagents to boost PA conversion is eagerly desirable for high quality PA imaging but complicated to realize. Herein, we develop a new strategy in which PA imaging reagents with better properties can be easily optimized by polymerization. A series of new PA imaging reagents were designed and synthesized. The polymerization strategy can effectively promote the PA signal by specifically increasing the thermal-to-acoustic conversion efficiency. As these materials shared the same building units, the optimized effectiveness of polymerization strategy in terms of near-infrared light-harvesting capacity and thermal-to-acoustic conversion efficiency are discussed, rationally. The polymers with intense intramolecular motion exhibit an amplified PA signal by elevating thermal-to-acoustic conversion and its higher light-harvesting capability at redshifted region. The simultaneously strong PA signal and photothermal conversion efficiency of p-TTmB NPs enable precise PA imaging and effective photothermal therapy. This work highlights a simple and available design guideline of polymerization for amplifying the PA effect and optimizing existing materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photochromic materials with stable properties during long-term use have a very broad application prospect. Herein, five kinds of spirooxazines (SO1-SO5) with antioxidant properties were successfully synthesized by blending and covalently bonding antioxidants. Then various photochromic polyacrylate laminating adhesives (PA1-PA7) with good fatigue resistance were prepared by incorporating spirooxazines into polyacrylate. Among them, this study used 2, 6 -di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol (BHT) as the main antioxidant, and tris (2, 4-di-tert-butylphenyl) phosphite (168) as the auxiliary antioxidant. Upon ultraviolet (UV) activation, these PA films possessed superior photochromism and light responsiveness. Importantly, unlike traditional physical blending photochromic polymers, SO2 was successfully covalently bonded into PA through reaction (PA6), effectively improving the fatigue resistance and thermal stability of the PA film. Doping with BHT, it further improved the photochromic properties of the compound film (PA7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the critical adsorption behaviors of flexible polymer chains under the action of an external driving force F parallel to an attractive flat surface. The critical adsorption temperature Tc decreases linearly with increasing F, indicating that the driving force suppresses the adsorption of polymer. The conformation of polymer is also affected by the driving force. However, the effect of F is dependent on the competition between the driving force and temperature. Under strong force or at low temperature, the polymer is stretched along the direction of the force, while under weak force or at high temperature, the polymer is not stretched. When the force is comparable to the temperature, the polymer may be stretched perpendicular to the driving force, and below Tc, we observe conformational transitions from parallel to perpendicular and again to parallel by decreasing the temperature. We found that the perpendicular stretched conformation leads the polymer chain to synchronously move along the direction of the driving force. Moreover, the conformational transitions are attributed to the competition and cooperation between the driving force and the temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10-hydroxy-cis-12 octadecenoic acid (10-HOE) is a type of octadecenoic acid with a hydroxyl on the C10 carbon. It is generated from linoleic acid (LA) catalyzed by linoleate hydratase in lactobacilli, which was initially named as myosin-cross-reactive antigen (MCRA). In lactobacilli, 10-HOE is the first intermediate in the production of conjugated LA (CLA). Although MCRA from bifidobacteria can generate 10-HOE, the precise role of 10-HOE in CLA production in bifidobacteria remains unknown. In the current work, 10-HOE and LA were added to the medium as the substrate both separately and synchronously to analyze their influence on CLA production. Using 10-HOE as the substrate, bifidobacteria were able to generate CLA by first converting it to LA, followed by CLA accumulation. Recombinant MCRA catalyzed the conversion of 10-HOE to LA, indicating that bifidobacterial MCRA can account for the reversible conversion between LA and 10-HOE. This is the first report to demonstrate the precise role of 10-HOE in the process of CLA production among bifidobacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) from mobile phones have been classified as potentially carcinogenic. No study has investigated use of Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA), a source of RF-EMF with wide occupational use, and cancer risks.Methods: We investigated association of monthly personal radio use and risk of cancer using Cox proportional hazards regression among 48,518 police officers and staff of the Airwave Health Monitoring Study in Great Britain.Results: During median follow-up of 5.9 years, 716 incident cancer cases were identified. Among users, the median of the average monthly duration of use in the year prior to enrolment was 30.5  min (inter-quartile range 8.1, 68.1). Overall, there was no association between personal radio use and risk of all cancers (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.98, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.93, 1.03). For head and neck cancers HR = 0.72 (95% CI: 0.30, 1.70) among personal radio users vs non-users, and among users it was 1.06 (95% CI: 0.91, 1.23) per doubling of minutes of personal radio use.Conclusions: With the limited follow-up to date, we found no evidence of association of personal radio use with cancer risk. Continued follow-up of the cohort is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing linkage heterogeneity between two loci is an important issue in genetics. Currently, there are four methods (K-test, A-test, B-test and D-test) for testing linkage heterogeneity in linkage analysis, which are based on the likelihood-ratio test. Among them, the commonly used methods are the K-test and A-test. In this paper, we present a novel test method which is different from the above four tests, called G-test. The new test statistic is based on estimating function, possessing a theoretic asymptotic distribution, and therefore demonstrates its own advantages. The proposed test is applied to analyse a real pedigree dataset. Our simulation results also indicate that the G-test performs well in terms of power of testing linkage heterogeneity and outperforms the current methods to some degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition-edge sensor (TES) as a type of low-temperature superconducting detector offers superior sensitivity due to its low thermal noise. In this work, we present a prototype TES bolometer designed for cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements. This TES is made of aluminum doped with a low concentration of manganese (2000 ppm by atomic percentage), and is deposited on the SiNx membrane which connects to the silicon substrate via narrow legs. In order to calculate its electrothermal parameters we have performed dark characterizations, which include measuring voltage-current (IV) curve at different bath temperatures, square-wave time response at various bias voltages, and noise level. This TES bolometer shows a noise equivalent power (NEP) of about 5 × 10 - 17 W/ Hz , which meets the requirement of CMB observation. However, its saturation power is smaller and time constant is larger than what are expected. We have analyzed the reasons and will make corresponding improvements in our future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) are indolent pancreatic tumors derived from neuroendocrine cells in pancreatic islets. To date, reliable predictors for identifying patients at high risk for recurrence after curative cancer resection are lacking. We aimed to determine independent predictors for high-risk PanNETs and patient outcomes after surgery. Methods: We analyzed relevant clinicopathological parameters in 319 consecutive patients of derivation cohort 1 and 106 patients of validation cohort 2 who underwent pancreatectomy and were diagnosed with PanNETs. Association of tumor characteristics with recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) was evaluated using Cox regression. Results: PanNET grade 3 (G3), pancreatic duct dilatation, and perineural invasion were independent prognostic factors for RFS and were significantly associated with early recurrence (within 1.5 years) of PanNETs after curative resection (P = 0.019, P < 0.001, and P < 0.001, respectively). Using these factors, we established a novel risk factor panel (R-panel), which predicted early recurrence (P < 0.001, HR = 15.02, 95% CI 5.76–39.19). Predictive accuracy of this R-panel was favorable, with a C-index of 0.853, higher than AJCC TNM staging (0.713). We further built an integrated staging system combining R-panel scoring and TNM staging, which improved predictive probability of TNM staging. Finally, we showed that adjuvant therapy with long-acting somatostatin analogs (SSAs) significantly reduced postoperative recurrence (P < 0.001) and prolonged long-term survival (P = 0.021) in patients with the above risk factors. Conclusion: We identified a novel risk factor panel, which includes PanNET G3, pancreatic duct dilatation, and perineural invasion; this panel predicted early recurrence of PanNETs after curative resection. Patients with these risk factors can benefit from adjuvant therapy with SSAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological agents known as anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) drugs are frequently utilized in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this study, we analyzed the shared processes of pyroptosis in Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), as well as explored the correlation between the burden of pyroptosis and the results of anti-TNF treatment based on bioinformatics analyses. We identified CAPS1, CASP5, GSDMD, AIM2, and NLRP3 as the hub genes, with AIM2 being the most effective indicator for predicting the response to anti-TNF therapy. We also noticed that non-responders received anti-TNF therapy exhibited elevated AIM2 protein expression. Subsequently, we conducted a cluster analysis based on AIM2-inflammasome-related genes and discovered that patients with a higher burden of AIM2 inflammasome displayed stronger immune function and a poor response to anti-TNF therapy. Overall, our study elucidates the pathway of pyroptosis in IBD and reveals AIM2 expression level as a potential biomarker for predicting the effectiveness of anti-TNF therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-blind invisibility cloaks allowing the concealed object to sense the outside world have great application potentials such as in high-precision sensing or underwater camouflage. However the existing designs based on coordinate transformation techniques need complicated spatially-varying negative index or intricate multi-layered configurations, substantially increasing the difficulty in practical realization. Here we report on the non-blind acoustic invisibility for a circular object in free space with simple distribution of cloak parameters. The mechanism is that, instead of utilizing the transformation acoustics technique, we develop the analytical formulae for fast prediction of the scattering from the object and then use an evolutionary optimization to retrieve the desired cloak parameters for minimizing the scattered field. In this way, it is proven possible to break through the fundamental limit of complementary condition that must be satisfied by the effective parameters of the components in transformation acoustics-based cloaks. Numerical results show that the resulting cloak produces a non-bflind invisibility as perfect as in previous designs, but only needs two layers with homogenous single-negative parameters. With full simplification in parameter distribution and broken symmetry in complementary relationship, our scheme opens new route to free-space non-blind invisibility, taking a significant step towards real-world application of cloaking devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underlying mechanisms linking physical activity to better health are not fully understood. Here we examined the associations between physical activity and small circulatory molecules, the metabolome, to highlight relevant biological pathways. We examined plasma metabolites associated with self-reported physical activity among 2217 participants from the Airwave Health Monitoring Study. Metabolic profiling was conducted using the mass spectrometry-based Metabolon platform (LC/GC–MS), measuring 828 known metabolites. We replicated our findings in an independent subset of the study (n = 2971) using untargeted LC–MS. Mendelian randomisation was carried out to investigate potential causal associations between physical activity, body mass index, and metabolites. Higher vigorous physical activity was associated (P < 0.05/828 = 6.03 × 10–5) with circulatory levels of 28 metabolites adjusted for age, sex and body mass index. The association was inverse for glutamate and diacylglycerol lipids, and direct for 3–4-hydroxyphenyllactate, phenyl lactate (PLA), alpha-hydroxy isovalerate, tiglylcarnitine, alpha-hydroxyisocaproate, 2-hydroxy-3-methylvalerate, isobutyrylcarnitine, imidazole lactate, methionine sulfone, indole lactate, plasmalogen lipids, pristanate and fumarate. In the replication panel, we found 23 untargeted LC–MS features annotated to the identified metabolites, for which we found nominal associations with the same direction of effect for three features annotated to 1-(1-enyl-palmitoyl)-2-oleoyl-GPC (P-16:0/18:1), 1-(1-enyl-palmitoyl)-2-linoleoyl-GPC (P-16:0/18:2), 1-stearoyl-2-dihomo-linolenoyl-GPC (18:0/20:3n3 or 6). Using Mendelian randomisation, we showed a potential causal relationship between body mass index and three identified metabolites. Circulatory metabolites are associated with physical activity and may play a role in mediating its health effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mosquito transmit numbers of parasites and pathogens resulting in fatal diseases. Species identification is a prerequisite for effective mosquito control. Existing morphological and molecular classification methods have evitable disadvantages. Here we introduced Deep learning techniques for mosquito species identification. A balanced, high-definition mosquito dataset with 9900 original images covering 17 species was constructed. After three rounds of screening and adjustment-testing (first round among 3 convolutional neural networks and 3 Transformer models, second round among 3 Swin Transformer variants, and third round between 2 images sizes), we proposed the first Swin Transformer-based mosquito species identification model (Swin MSI) with 99.04% accuracy and 99.16% F1-score. By visualizing the identification process, the morphological keys used in Swin MSI were similar but not the same as those used by humans. Swin MSI realized 100% subspecies-level identification in Culex pipiens Complex and 96.26% accuracy for novel species categorization. It presents a promising approach for mosquito identification and mosquito borne diseases control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cerebellum, a hindbrain motor center, also participates in regulating nonsomatic visceral activities such as feeding control. However, the underlying neural mechanism is largely unknown. Here, we investigate whether the cerebellar medial nucleus (MN), one of the final outputs of the cerebellum, could directly project to and modulate the feeding-related neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMN), which has been traditionally implicated in feeding behavior, energy balance, and body weight regulation. The retrograde tracing results show that both GABAergic and glutamatergic projection neurons in the cerebellar MN send direct projections to the VMN. Electrical stimulation of cerebellar MN elicits an inhibitory, excitatory or biphasic response of VMN neurons. Interestingly, the VMN neurons modulated by cerebellar MN afferents not only receive phasic and tonic inputs from the gastric vagal nerves, but also are sensitive to peripheral glycemia and ghrelin signals. Moreover, a summation of inputs from the cerebellar MN and gastric vagal afferents occurs on single glycemia/ghrelin-sensitive neurons in the VMN, and the immunostaining result show that the axons from the cerebellar MN and the projections from the nucleus tractus solitarius, which conveys the gastric vagal inputs to hypothalamus, converge on single VMN glycemia/ghrelin-sensitive neurons. These results demonstrate that the somatic information forwarded by the cerebellar MN, together with the feeding signals from periphery, converge onto single VMN neurons, suggesting that a somatic-visceral integration related to feeding may occur in the VMN and the cerebellum may actively participate in the feeding regulation through the direct cerebellar MN-VMN projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At-home sampling is key to large scale seroprevalence studies. Dried blood spot (DBS) self-sampling removes the need for medical personnel for specimen collection but facilitates specimen referral to an appropriately accredited laboratory for accurate sample analysis. To establish a highly sensitive and specific antibody assay that would facilitate self-sampling for prevalence and vaccine-response studies. Paired sera and DBS eluates collected from 439 sero-positive, 382 sero-negative individuals and DBS from 34 vaccine recipients were assayed by capture ELISAs for IgG and IgM antibody to SARS-CoV-2. IgG and IgM combined on DBS eluates achieved a diagnostic sensitivity of 97.9% (95%CI 96.6 to 99.3) and a specificity of 99.2% (95% CI 98.4 to 100) compared to serum, displaying limits of detection equivalent to 23 and 10 WHO IU/ml, respectively. A strong correlation (r = 0.81) was observed between serum and DBS reactivities. Reactivity remained stable with samples deliberately rendered inadequate, (p = 0.234) and when samples were accidentally damaged or 'invalid'. All vaccine recipients were sero-positive. This assay provides a secure method for self-sampling by DBS with a sensitivity comparable to serum. The feasibility of DBS testing in sero-prevalence studies and in monitoring post-vaccine responses was confirmed, offering a robust and reliable tool for serological monitoring at a population level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the critical behavior is important for classifying different configuration states. Recently, machine learning is capable of discriminating polymer states in the presence of human supervision. Here, we introduce an unsupervised approach based on the self-organizing map (SOM) and the autoencoder network to locate critical phase transitions from raw configuration without the necessity for manual feature engineering. High-dimensional configuration data can be encoded to low-dimensional codes by employing neural network of multilayer restrictive Boltzmann machines and the intermediate code can also be reconstructed to high-dimensional input vector. And then the codes are used to cluster different configuration states for polymers adsorbed on the homogeneous and the stripe-patterned surface by the SOM network and K-Means method. This work presents an unusual tool to identify polymer configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vibrio parahaemolyticus expresses one major virulence determinant T6SS2, which is constituted into three putative operons, i.e., VPA1027-1024, VPA1043-1028, and VPA1044-1046. CalR, a LysR-type transcriptional regulator, was originally identified as a repressor of the swarming motility and T3SS1 gene expression. As shown in this study, CalR binds to the promoter-proximal region of each of the three operons to activate their transcription, and moreover, CalR activates the adhesion of V. parahaemolyticus to HeLa cells. In addition, competitive EMSAs demonstrated that CalR acts as an antagonist of H-NS in V. parahaemolyticus. Collectively, these studies confirmed a new physiological role for CalR in V. parahaemolyticus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AphA and OpaR are the master regulators of quorum sensing in Vibrio parahaemolyticus and there is reciprocal negative regulation between AphA and OpaR. The histone-like nucleoid structure (H-NS) protein is a global transcriptional repressor of horizontally transferred genes, but a few prokaryotic genes, for example flagella genes, are stimulated by H-NS. The regulation of opaR by H-NS was investigated using the following methods: primer extension, LacZ fusion, quantitative RT-PCR, and electrophoretic mobility shift assay. One transcription start site located at 74 bp upstream of opaR was detected and its activity was induced by H-NS. Therefore, a single H-NS-dependent promoter was transcribed for opaR in V. parahaemolyticus. Because the H-NS protein could not bind to the upstream region of opaR and H-NS does not regulate aphA, indirect activation of the transcription of opaR by H-NS cannot be mediated by the AphA repressor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heading date is a key determinant of regional and seasonal adaptation in rice ( Oryza sativa L.). A minor-effect quantitative trait locus (QTL), QTL for D ays t o h eading 12a ( qDTH- 12a), with unknown genetic action was previously coarsely detected in a recombinant inbred line population. The study reported here was designed to better define the qDTH- 12a locus (designated as DTH12) in advanced segregating populations. DTH12 was initially verified in chromosome segment substitution line CSSL84. A CSSL84/Asominori//Asominori BCF population was then developed, and a near-isogenic line (NIL), NIL( DTH12), was subsequently selected from this population using marker-assisted tracking that headed 8 days later than Asominori under long-day (LD) conditions but which was not significantly different in heading date in short-day environments. Using 358 Asominori/NIL( DTH12) F families grown under LD conditions, we were able to initially map DTH12 to a 26-cM interval between markers InDel12-1 and RM6296. F individuals heterozygous for the DTH12 regions were then chosen, and 2,388 F families were used for fine mapping. DTH12 was finally dissected as a single gene and delimited to a 153-kb genomic region with 32 open reading frames. Compared with Asominori, NIL( DTH12) showed reduced transcription of the florigen genes Heading date 3a and RICE FLOWERING LOCUS T 1, suggesting that DTH12 functions as an up-regulator of florigen genes during floral induction under LD conditions. DTH12 was also found to have an important role in rice adaptation and breeding for precise control of seed maturity. These findings provide a firm basis for cloning this minor-effect QTL involved in rice flowering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strigolactones (SLs), a newly discovered class of carotenoid-derived phytohormones, are essential for developmental processes that shape plant architecture and interactions with parasitic weeds and symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Despite the rapid progress in elucidating the SL biosynthetic pathway, the perception and signalling mechanisms of SL remain poorly understood. Here we show that DWARF 53 (D53) acts as a repressor of SL signalling and that SLs induce its degradation. We find that the rice (Oryza sativa) d53 mutant, which produces an exaggerated number of tillers compared to wild-type plants, is caused by a gain-of-function mutation and is insensitive to exogenous SL treatment. The D53 gene product shares predicted features with the class I Clp ATPase proteins and can form a complex with the α/β hydrolase protein DWARF 14 (D14) and the F-box protein DWARF 3 (D3), two previously identified signalling components potentially responsible for SL perception. We demonstrate that, in a D14- and D3-dependent manner, SLs induce D53 degradation by the proteasome and abrogate its activity in promoting axillary bud outgrowth. Our combined genetic and biochemical data reveal that D53 acts as a repressor of the SL signalling pathway, whose hormone-induced degradation represents a key molecular link between SL perception and responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]