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Hyperuricemia is an essential risk factor in chronic kidney disease (CKD), while urate‐lowering therapy to prevent or delay CKD is controversial. Alternatively activated macrophages in response to local microenvironment play diverse roles in kidney diseases. Here, we aim to investigate whether and how macrophage integrin αM (ITGAM) contributes to hyperuricemia‐related CKD. In vivo, we explored dynamic characteristics of renal tissue in hyperuricemia‐related CKD mice. By incorporating transcriptomics and phosphoproteomics data, we analyzed gene expression profile, hub genes and potential pathways. In vitro, we validated bioinformatic findings under different conditions with interventions corresponding to core nodes. We found that hyperuricemia‐related CKD was characterized by elevated serum uric acid levels, impaired renal function, activation of macrophage alternative (M2) polarization, and kidney fibrosis. Integrated bioinformatic analyses revealed Itgam as the potential core gene, which was associated with focal adhesion signaling. Notably, we confirmed the upregulated expression of macrophage ITGAM, activated pathway, and macrophage M2 polarization in injured kidneys. In vitro, through silencing Itgam, inhibiting p‐FAK or p‐AKT1 phosphorylation, and concurrent inhibiting of p‐FAK while activating p‐AKT1 all contributed to the modulation of macrophage M2 polarization. Our results indicated targeting macrophage ITGAM might be a promising therapeutic approach for preventing CKD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sleep deprivation (SD) is commonplace in modern society and there are large individual differences in the vulnerability to SD. We aim to identify the structural network differences based on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) that contribute to the individual different vulnerability to SD. Methods: The number of psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) lapses was used to classify 49 healthy subjects on the basis of whether they were vulnerable or resistant to SD. DTI and graph theory approaches were used to investigate the topologic organization differences of the brain structural connectome between SD‐vulnerable and ‐resistant individuals. We measured the level of global efficiency and clustering in rich club and non‐rich club organizations. Results: We demonstrated that participants vulnerable to SD had less global efficiency, network strength, and local efficiency but longer shortest path length compared with participants resistant to SD. Lower efficiency was mainly distributed in the right insula, bilateral thalamus, bilateral frontal, temporal, and temporal lobes. Furthermore, a disrupted subnetwork was observed that consisted of widespread connections. Moreover, the vulnerable group showed significantly decreased strength of the rich club compared with the resistant group. The strength of rich club connectivity was found to be correlated negatively with PVT performance (r = −0.395, p = 0.005). We further tested the reliability of the results. Conclusion: The findings revealed that individual differences in resistance to SD are related to disrupted topologic efficiency connectome pattern, and our study may provide potential connectome‐based biomarkers for the early detection of the vulnerable degree to SD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The brain function impairment induced by sleep deprivation (SD) is temporary and can be fully reversed with sufficient sleep. However, in many cases, long‐duration recovery sleep is not feasible. Thus, this study aimed to investigate whether a short nap after SD is sufficient to restore brain function. Methods: The data of 38 subjects, including resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected at three timepoints (before SD, after 30 h of SD, and after a short nap following SD) and psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) data, were collected. Dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) analysis was used to evaluate changes in brain states among three timepoints, and four DFC states were distinguished across the three timepoints. Results: Before SD, state 2 (a resting‐like FC matrix) was dominant (48.26%). However, after 30 h SD, the proportion of state 2 dramatically decreased, and state 3 (still resting‐like, but FCs were weakened) became dominant (40.92%). The increased proportion of state 3 positively correlated with a larger PVT "lapse" time. After a nap, the proportions of states 2 and 3 significantly increased and decreased, respectively, and the change in proportion of state 2 negatively correlated with the change in PVT "lapse" time. Conclusions: Taken together, the results indicated that, after a nap, the cognitive function impairment caused by SD may be reversed to some extent. Additionally, DFC differed among timepoints, which was also associated with the extent of cognitive function impairment after SD (state 3) and the extent of recovery therefrom after a nap (state 2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient conversion of CO2 to valuable fuels is a desired approach to reduce global warming effect and remit sustained fossil fuel demand. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of crystalline porous materials with unique features, have been widely studied for potential applications in varied fields. Recently, photo/electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to two or more carbons (C2+) products has attracted extensive attention because of their higher market values than one carbon (C1). However, the major products of CO2 reduction currently are carbon monoxide, formate, or methane, which are all typical C1 products. Generally, for photocatalytic reduction of CO2 system, relatively low efficiency of electron transfer with inadequate capability results sluggish kinetics of C−C coupling. And for electrocatalysis, high current densities curtail the stability, which limits selectivity towards C2+ products. In this review, we provide very latest reports that have make some breakthroughs to overcome the above difficulties in photo/electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to C2+ products using MOF‐based materials. Special emphases are given on design strategies of synthetic MOF‐based catalysts and the mechanisms of catalytic CO2 to C2+ products. The challenges and prospects of photo/electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to C2+ products associated with MOF‐based materials are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new approach to visual geo‐localization for natural environments is proposed. The digital elevation model (DEM) data in virtual space is rendered and construct a panoramic skyline database is constructed. By combining the skyline database with real‐world image data (used as the "queries" to be localized), visual geo‐localization is treated as a cross‐modal image retrieval problem for panoramic skyline images, creating a unique new visual geo‐localization benchmark for the natural environment. Specifically, the semantic segmentation model named LineNet is proposed, for skyline extractions from query images, which has proven to be robust to a variety of complex natural environments. On the aforementioned benchmarks, the fully automatic method is elaborated for large‐scale cross‐modal localization using panoramic skyline images. Finally, the compound index is delicately designed to reduce the storage space of the positioning global descriptors and improve the retrieval efficiency. Moreover, the proposed method is proven to outperform most state‐of‐the‐art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although inhibition of neprilysin (NEP) might be a therapeutic strategy with the potential to improve the outcome of chronic kidney disease (CKD), the versatile function of NEP with its mechanism remains obscure in kidney fibrosis. In the study, we found that NEP was abnormally increased in tubular epithelial cells of CKD patients, as well as unilateral ureteral obstruction and adenine diet‐induced mice. Treatment with a United States Food and Drug Administration‐approved NEP inhibitor Sacubitrilat (LBQ657) could alleviate ferroptosis, tubular injury, and delay the progression of kidney fibrosis in experimental mice. Similarly, genetic knockdown of NEP also inhibited tubular injury and fibrosis in transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β1 ‐induced tubular cells. Mechanically, NEP overexpression aggravated the ferroptotic and fibrotic phenotype, which was restored by acyl‐CoA synthetase long‐chain family member 4 (ACSL4) knockdown. The NEP silencing attenuated TGF‐β1‐induced tubular cell ferroptosis and was exacerbated by ACSL4 overexpression. Collectively, for the first time, a novel aspect of NEP was explored in kidney fibrosis through ACSL4‐mediated tubular epithelial cell ferroptosis. Our data further confirmed that NEP inhibition exerted a promising therapeutic against fibrotic kidney diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interactions between extra‐embryonic tissues and embryonic tissues are crucial to ensure proper early embryo development. However, the understanding of the crosstalk between the embryonic tissues and extra‐embryonic tissues is lacking, mainly due to ethical restrictions, difficulties in obtaining natural human embryos, and lack of appropriate in vitro models. Here by aggregating human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with human trophoblast stem cells (hTSCs), we revealed the hESCs robustly self‐organized into a unique asymmetric structure which the primitive streak (PS) like cells exclusively distributed at the distal end to the TS‐compartment, and morphologically flattened cells, presumed to be the extra‐embryonic mesoderm cells (EXMC) like cells, were induced at the proximal end to hTSCs. Our study revealed two potential roles of extra‐embryonic trophectoderm in regulating the proper PS formation during gastrulation and EXMCs induction from the human epiblast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational engineering active sites and vantage defects of catalysts are promising but grand challenging task to enhance photoreduction CO2 to high value‐added C2 products. In this study, we designed an N,S‐codoped Fe‐based MIL‐88B catalyst with well‐defined bipyramidal hexagonal prism morphology via a facile and effective process, which was synthesized by addition of appropriate 1,2‐benzisothiazolin‐3‐one (BIT) and acetic acid to the reaction solution. Under simulated solar irradiation, the designed catalyst exhibits high C2H4 evolution yield of 17.7 μmol g−1⋅h, which has been rarely achieved in photocatalytic CO2 reduction process. The synergistic effect of Fe‐N coordinated sites and reasonable defects in the N,S‐codoped photocatalyst can accelerate the migration of photogenerated carriers, resulting in high electron density, and this in turn helps to facilitate the formation and dimerization of C−C coupling intermediates for C2H4 effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the emission of smoke and toxic gases during the combustion of epoxy resin (EP), inspired by the structure of "flowers after rain," a novel low‐cost flame retardant (FMH@ZHS) was prepared by using flower‐like magnesium hydroxide (FMH) as the flower and zinc hydroxystannate (ZHS) as the raindrop. The tensile strength of EP/3FMH@ZHS increased by 13.7% compared with EP/3FMH. Moreover, the 3 wt% FMH@ZHS hybrid material increased the limited oxygen index value of the EP composite to 27.6% while suppressing the dripping phenomenon during combustion, achieving self‐extinguishing characteristic. Meanwhile, compared with pure EP, peak heat release rate, peak smoke production rate, total smoke production, and peak carbon monoxide production rate of EP/3FMH@ZHS decreased by 34.6%, 55.6%, 41.8%, and 50.0%, respectively. The flame retardant mechanism showed that during the combustion process, the catalytic char formation of magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, and stannic oxide generated from FMH@ZSH can promote the formation of a denser and continuous char layer, inhibiting the transport of flammable gases, toxic gases and heat and improving the fire safety of EP composites. In conclusion, this biomimetic material provided a good approach for the industrial application of EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anti‐migration ethylene propylene diene terpolymer (EPDM) inhibitor coating was prepared by using EPDM as a composite matrix and silicon‐functionalized graphene oxide (GO‐SiO2) as modifiers to prevent the migration of energetic plasticizers in propellants. The anti‐migration performance at different temperatures was analyzed by investigating the diffusion of dioctyl sebacate (DOS) using thermal analysis and immersion tests. After adding 1.0 wt% GO‐SiO2, the overall performance of the inhibitor coating was the best, and the concentration of DOS that migrated into the inhibitor coating at 30°C was reduced from 45.1% to 38.8% (13.9% decrease). The results confirmed that the introduction of GO‐SiO2 prevented the migration of dioctyl sebacate to the EPDM inhibitor coating. The scanning electron microscopy results showed that GO‐SiO2 was well‐dispersed in the inhibitor coating, and the tensile strength increased from 1.80 to 2.11 MPa. Migration kinetics analysis showed that the anti‐migration performance was closely related to the crosslink density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To determine the diagnostic value of fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for congenital spine/spinal cord malformations.Methods: This single-center retrospective study included 120 cases of fetal spine/spinal cord abnormalities detected using fetal ultrasonography (US) and further examined by fetal MRI between 2016 and 2020. Cases were divided into three groups (congenital spine, spinal cord, and spine + spinal cord malformations) based on US assessment. We analyzed the accuracy of fetal US and MRI relative to postnatal imaging.Results: The diagnostic accuracy of fetal MRI for fetal spinal cord, spine, and spine + spinal cord malformations was 86.2% (25/29), 89.4% (42/47), and 86.3% (38/44), respectively, and the corresponding rates for fetal US were 51.7% (15/29), 87.2% (41/47), and 68.2% (30/44). The diagnostic accuracy did not differ between fetal MRI and US for congenital spine malformations (p > 0.05); for congenital spinal cord malformations and congenital spine + spinal cord malformations, the diagnostic accuracy was significantly higher for fetal MRI than for fetal US (p < 0.05).Conclusions: Fetal MRI is effective in the assessment of congenital spine/spinal cord malformations. It can yield information that supplements US findings, especially for congenital spinal cord malformations, and can improve the accuracy of fetal diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) was used as a composite matrix and octadecylamine‐functionalized graphene oxide (GA) was applied as insulation nanofiller to prevent plasticizer migration. To study the anti‐migration behavior of EPDM under plasticizer environment and different temperatures, we investigated the diffusion of dioctyl phthalate (DOP) in EPDM and its composites. The migration kinetics of DOP into EPDM composites with respect to filler and temperature were observed by the immersion absorption method. The process is dynamic and conforms to Fick's law. The composite show a 90% increase in tensile strength and 151% improvement in elongation at break by the addition of 5 phr filler of GA. Meanwhile, the EPDM/GA composite show an obviously improved anti‐migration performance, compared to pure EPDM at different temperatures, the composite show a 22.68%, 17.35%, 14.95%, 7.63% increase. Well layer‐structure of graphene offers a chance to improve the anti‐migration performance of insulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The histological grading plays an essential role in the treatment decision of lung cancer. Detected tumors are usually biopsied to confirm histologic grade. How to use MRI extracted radiomics features for accurately grading lung cancer is still challenging. Purpose: To examine the diagnostic utility of multiparametric MRI radiomics and clinical factors for grading non‐small‐cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Study type: Retrospective. Population: A total of 148 patients (25.7% female) with postoperative pathologically confirmed NSCLC and divided into the training cohort (N = 110) and the validation cohort (N = 38). Field Strength/Sequence: A 1.5 T; single‐shot turbo spin‐echo (TSE), T2‐weighted imaging (T2WI), and integrated shimming‐echo planar imaging (ISHIM‐EPI) diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI). Assessment: A total of 2775 radiomics features were extracted from carcinomatous regions of interest on T2WI, DWI, and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps. The five optimal features were selected by using the Student' s t‐test, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and stepwise regression. The Radscore combined with clinical factors, which selected by univariate and multivariate analyses, to develop a radiomics‐clinical nomogram. Its performance was evaluated in the training cohort and the validation cohort. The potential clinical usefulness was analyzed by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), area under the curve (AUC), and the Hosmer–Lemeshow test. Statistical Tests: Student's t‐test, univariate analyses, multivariate analyses, LASSO, ROC, AUC, and the Hosmer–Lemeshow test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Favorable discrimination performance was obtained for five optimal features (out of the 2775 features), using the training cohorts (AUC 0.761) and validation cohorts (AUC 0.753). In addition, the radiomics‐clinical nomogram significantly improved the ability to identify histological grades in the training cohort (AUC 0.814) and the validation cohort (AUC 0.767). Data Conclusions: The radiomics‐clinical nomogram based on multiparametric MRI might have the potential to distinguish the histological grade of NSCLC. Evidence Level: 3 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information unavailability of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for geo‐localization in many military and tourism applications implies the need to employ other applicable types of information, such as automatic image‐based location recognition. Unlike most existing localization methods that use GNSS information to locate an initial position, this paper proposes an automatic geo‐localization framework that does not require GNSS data. The proposed framework is a two‐stage pipeline that uses a query image and digital elevation model (DEM) data as input. The authors frame automatic geo‐localization without GNSS recordings as a skyline matching problem. By extracting the skyline from the DEM data and query images, the query image can be localized by matching the query skyline feature to the DEM skyline database. It has been demonstrated that this low‐cost approach can perform efficiently in mountainous or hilly areas to produce reliable localization results. The system was tested on 50 testing site points within a large‐scale area (China, 202.6 km2), and an average position error of 43.13 m was detected within 4.5 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new image dehazing algorithm based on adaptive sky region is proposed in this paper, which shows good fidelity in sky region and satisfying visual effect in non‐sky region. For robust sky segmentation, we propose a rough‐to‐fine method that can make a balance between efficiency and accuracy. Considering distribution of haze is inconsistent, we divide the input image into three parts and calculate their atmospheric lights respectively. To solve the problem of invalid dark channel prior, we make an improvement for the transmission estimation. Finally, image fusion is taken as a post processing that can solve the problem of partial darkness and ensure a visual pleasing result. The experimental results for both synthetic and natural hazy images demonstrate that our algorithm performs comparable or even better results than the state‐of‐the‐art methods in terms of various measurement indexes, such as the PSNR, SSIM, and so forth. Besides, the proposed algorithm can be also applied in FPGA platform due to the optimized performance. © 2021 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coupling between a rapidly expanding cloud of ionized debris and an ambient magnetized plasma is revisited with a hybrid (kinetic ion/fluid electron) simulation code that allows a study over a wide range of plasma parameters. Over a specified range of hypothetical conditions, simple scaling laws in terms of the total debris mass and explosion speed are derived and verified for the maximal size of the debris cloud and the fraction of debris that free‐streams from the burst along the magnetic field. The amount of debris that escapes from the burst with minimal coupling to the background magnetic field increases with the debris gyroradius. Test cases with two different debris species—including a heavy minority species with a relatively large gyroradius—highlight how the collisionless coupling of the debris depends on the single particle trajectories as well as the overall conservation of energy and momentum. Plain Language Summary: An astrophysical explosion is the rapid expansion of a cloud of ionized debris into a surrounding magnetized plasma. Examples include supernova remnants, targets hit by lasers in laboratory experiments, and active experiments in space where barium or other material is rapidly released. We systematically study the dependence of the distance the debris travels on its initial speed and on the total quantity of exploded mass. We also formulate simple estimates for the fraction of the debris that escapes along the magnetic field without losing much energy. Key Points: With hybrid particle‐in‐cell simulations, we formulate scalings for the size of an astrophysical explosion over a range of parametersTransport across the magnetic field by flute modes is quantifiedEstimates are developed for the fraction of the total debris that exits the explosion in free‐streaming beams along the magnetic field [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is caused by MERS‐CoV that infects both human and camel. Camel is supposed to be the natural reservoir for human infection while the sources for most of the primary human infection cases are still not known. We identified two conserved pyrimidine nucleotides that flank UAAU element in MERS‐CoV 5'‐UTR. These conserved pyrimidine nucleotides distinguish MERS‐CoVs into 3 types, that is, UUAAUU, CUAAUU and CUAAUC (referred to as U‐‐‐‐U, C‐‐‐‐U, and C‐‐‐‐C types, respectively). Human MERS‐CoV displays a genetic drift from U‐‐‐‐U, C‐‐‐‐U, to C‐‐‐‐C from 2012 to 2019. Camel virus displays a genetic drift from U‐‐‐‐U to C‐‐‐‐U with a time lag when compared with human virus. The discrepancy in genetic drift seems not to support the notion that camel serves as the only natural reservoir for human infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a multifactorial disease of various aetiologies. Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand‐activated transcription factor that responds to ligands to induce or repress gene expressions, thereby regulating a diverse spectrum of biological or pathophysiologic effects. However, the effect of AhR on AKI remains unknown. A single intraperitoneal injection of 50% glycerol was performed to induce rhabdomyolysis in C57BL/6J mice. The bilateral renal pedicles were occluded for 30 minutes and then removed to stimulate renal I/R injury. 6‐formylindolo[3,2‐b]carbazole (FICZ), a photo‐oxidation product of tryptophan with a high affinity for AhR, was used. The in vitro study was performed on HK‐2 cells. Ferrous myoglobin and FICZ was dissolved in the medium in different cell groups. Treatment with AhR agonist FICZ significantly alleviated the elevation of serum creatinine and urea in AKI. AKI modelling‐induced renal damage was attenuated by FICZ. AhR mainly expressed in proximal tubular cells and could be activated by FICZ administration. Meanwhile, AKI triggered the production of pro‐inflammatory cytokines in injured kidneys, while FICZ inhibited their expressions. Furthermore, FICZ effectively reversed cell apoptosis in AKI models. Mechanistically, AKI stimulated the activation of NF‐κB and JNK pathways in the kidneys, while FICZ significantly suppressed these corresponding protein expressions. For the in vitro study, FICZ also inhibited inflammation and apoptosis in myoglobin or H/R‐stimulated HK‐2 cells. In summary, agonism of AhR by FICZ alleviated rhabdomyolysis and I/R‐induced AKI. FICZ inhibited inflammation and apoptosis via suppressing NF‐κB and JNK pathways in proximal tubular cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial micro‐expression recognition is a natural mechanism of facial behavior with subtle muscle movements and short duration, which is widely considered to be hard to recognize. In this paper, we propose the temporal sampling deformation (TSD) to normalize the temporal lengths and conserve time domain information for micro‐expression sequences. A three‐stream combining 2D and 3D convolutional neural network (TSNN) is also proposed to capture the features of micro‐expressions and classify the expressions as well. The proposed network has two variants TSNN‐IF and TSNN‐LF, which can automatically learn spatial and temporal features at the same time. Single domain experiments and cross‐domain experiments are also performed in the three benchmark datasets (chinese academy of sciences micro‐expression II (CASME II), spontaneous micro‐expression database (SMIC), and spontaneous micro‐facial movement dataset (SAMM)) to verify the effectiveness and validity of the proposed framework. Comprehensive results and ablation studies show that the proposed method can achieve comparable or even better results compared with other state‐of‐the‐art methods for micro‐expression recognition. © 2020 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Cardiac complications are common and associated with mortality in critically ill patients with COVID‐19; however, the diagnostic and prognostic implications of critical care echocardiography (CCE) have not been studied. Methods and results: A cohort of 43 patients with COVID‐19 who were in the intensive care unit (ICU) underwent bedside CCE during their disease course. Demographic, clinical, and survival data were collected. The echocardiographic analyses revealed high frequencies of pericardial effusion (90.7%), increased left ventricular mass index (60.5%), elevated relative wall thickness (76.7%), and reduced left ventricular stroke volume index (LVSVi; 53.5%) and cardiac index (51.2%). Twenty‐two (51.2%) patients died in the ICU. In multivariate Cox regression, the strongest predictor of in‐ICU death was decreased cardiac index [hazard ratio (HR), 0.67, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.45–0.98; P = 0.041], after adjusting for male sex, shock status, high‐sensitivity cardiac troponin I, and N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide. Negative associations with mortality were observed for LVSVi (HR, 0.91, 95% CI 0.85–0.96; P = 0.002), tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (HR, 0.74, 95% CI 0.64–0.84; P < 0.001), and S′ (HR, 0.78, 95% CI 0.69–0.88; P < 0.001). Kaplan–Meier analyses indicated that reductions in LVSVi, cardiac index, TAPSE, and S′ were associated with a shorter survival time. Conclusions: Pericardial effusion and increased ventricular mass in COVID‐19 might indicate a swollen heart. Both left and right heart dysfunction and a reduced cardiac index may lead to an increased risk of mortality. Clinicians should pay special attention to cardiac haemodynamic disorders in critical patients with COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This article studies the parameter identification problem for bilinear state space models with time‐varying time delays. Considering the correlation of time delays, the Markov chain switching mechanism is adopted to model the delay sequence. Based on the observer canonical form, the bilinear state space model is transformed into a regressive form. A bilinear state observer is designed to estimate the state variables. Under the variational Bayesian scheme, the system parameters, discrete delays, and the Markov transition probabilities are identified by using the measurement data. A numerical example and a continuous stirred tank reactor simulation are employed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 has drawn much attention as a promising way that can effectively alleviate the issue of global warming and energy crisis. In this work, we fabricated a series of CdS/NH2‐UiO‐66 composites with varied CdS amounts and tested their capacity for photocatalytic reduction of CO2. The reactions were performed in a solvent‐free system and displayed excellent selectivity for CO production without liquid phase products. When the content of CdS in the composite is up to 40 %, the hybrid catalyst produces 105.41 μmol/g within 6 h, exhibiting remarkable photocatalytic performance, which is much higher than that catalyzed by mechanically mixed CdS and NH2‐UiO‐66. The brilliant catalytic performance of the composite catalyst is attributed to the formation of heterostructure between the well‐dispersed CdS and NH2‐UiO‐66, which promotes the enhancement of electron transfer during photocatalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glaucoma refers to a chronic disease of the eye that leads to vision loss that is irreversible, which is called 'silent theft of sight'. Thus, an automatic glaucoma screening pipeline from optic disc (OD) localisation to glaucoma risk prediction is proposed in this study. The proposed pipeline consists of three main phases. Firstly, the OD is localised by morphological processing and sliding window methods. Secondly, a novel neural network which is in U‐shape and convolutional introduces concatenating path and fusion loss function is developed to split OD and optic cup (OC) at the same time. Thirdly, both clinical measurements including optic cup‐to‐disc ratio (CDR), neuroretinal rim related features, and hidden features including statistical moments, entropy and energy are combined to train glaucoma classifiers. According to the results of the experiment, the proposed segmentation network achieves the best performance on both OD and OC segmentation and the proposed CDR calculation method is capable of achieving the performance similar to that of ophthalmologist on CDR measurement. Besides, the authors' glaucoma classification model can obtain the best performance on sensitivity and area under the curve score in comparison with the existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fatty acid‐binding protein 4 (FABP4) has been confirmed to be involved in the pathogenesis of ischaemia/reperfusion‐ and rhabdomyolysis‐induced acute kidney injury (AKI), and targeting inhibition of FABP4 might be a potential strategy for AKI. Cisplatin as a commonly used cancer chemotherapeutic drug possessed a dose‐limited side effect of nephrotoxicity. However, whether FABP4 inhibition exerted a favourable renoprotection against cisplatin‐induced AKI and the involved mechanisms remained unknown. In the study, cisplatin‐injected mice developed severe AKI symptom as indicated by renal dysfunction and pathological changes, companied by the high expression of FABP4 in tubular epithelial cells. Selective inhibition of FABP4 by BMS309403 at 40 mg/kg/d for 3 days and genetic knockout of FABP4 significantly attenuated the serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen level and renal tubular damage. Mechanistically, cisplatin injection induced the increased apoptosis and regulated the corresponding protein expression of BCL‐2, BCL‐XL, BAX, cleaved caspase 3 and caspase 12 in the injured kidney tissues. Cisplatin also triggered multiple signal mediators of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress including double‐stranded RNA‐activated protein kinase‐like ER kinase, activating transcription factor‐6 and inositol‐requiring enzyme‐1 pathway, as well as CHOP, GRP78 and p‐JNK proteins in the kidneys. Oral administration of BMS309403 significantly reduced the number of renal TUNEL‐positive apoptotic cells. Knockout of FABP4 and BMS309403 notably improved ER stress‐related apoptotic responses. In summary, pharmacological and genetic inhibition of FABP4 modulated apoptosis via the inactivation of ER stress in the tubular epithelial cells of cisplatin‐induced AKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total sleep deprivation (TSD) is common in modern society leading to deterioration of multiple aspects of cognition. Dynamic interaction effect of circadian rhythmicity and homeostatic sleep pressure on sustained attention have been intensively investigated, while how this effect was represented on performance and cerebral responses to working memory, another important element of many neurobehavioral tasks, was not well elucidated. Thirty‐six healthy subjects with intermediate chronotype performed the Sternberg working‐memory task (SWMT) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging every 2 hr from 10:00 p.m. on the first day to 6:00 a.m. on the second day. Using data from three imaging sessions (10:00 p.m., 04:00 a.m., and 06:00 a.m.), we found that the slowest SWMT reaction time and weakest cerebral responses were not at the end of TSD (06:00 a.m.) but during the early morning (04:00 a.m.) hours of the TSD. In addition, during this worst period of TSD, reaction time for the SWMT were found to be negatively correlated with task‐related activation in the angular gyrus and positively correlated with the degree of negative correlation between the control and default networks. Our results revealed a rebound of SWMT reaction time and cerebral responses after the mid‐time point of regular biological sleep night and provided more evidence that different cognitive tasks are differentially affected by sleep loss and circadian rhythmicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In glioblastoma (GBM), promoter methylation of the DNA repair gene O-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) is associated with beneficial chemotherapy.Purpose/hypothesis: To analyze radiomics features for utilizing the full potential of medical imaging as biomarkers of MGMT promoter methylation.Study Type: Retrospective.Population/subjects: In all, 98 GBM patients with known MGMT (48 methylated and 50 unmethylated tumors).Field Strength/sequence: 3.0T magnetic resonance (MR) images, containing T1 -weighted image (T1 WI), T2 -weighted image (T2 WI), and enhanced T1 WI.Assessment: A region of interest (ROI) of the tumor was delineated. A total of 1665 radiomics features were extracted and quantized, and were reduced using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regularization.Statistical Testing: After the support vector machine construction, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were computed for different sequences. An independent validation cohort containing 20 GBM patients was utilized to further evaluate the radiomics model performance.Results: Radiomics features of T1 WI reached an accuracy of 67.54%. Enhanced T1 WI features reached an accuracy of 82.01%, while T2 WI reached an accuracy of 69.25%. The best classification system for predicting MGMT promoter methylation status originated from the combination of 36 T1 WI, T2 WI, and enhanced T1 WI images features, with an accuracy of 86.59%. Further validation on the independent cohort of 20 patients produced similar results, with an accuracy of 80%.Data Conclusion: Our results provide further evidence that radiomics MR features could predict MGMT methylation status in preoperative GBM. Multiple imaging modalities together can yield putative noninvasive biomarkers for the identification of MGMT.Level Of Evidence: 4 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018;47:1380-1387. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Graphene aerogel microlattices (GAMs) hold great prospects for many multifunctional applications due to their low density, high porosity, designed lattice structures, good elasticity, and tunable electrical conductivity. Previous 3D printing approaches to fabricate GAMs require either high content of additives or complex processes, limiting their wide applications. Here, a facile ion‐induced gelation method is demonstrated to directly print GAMs from graphene oxide (GO) based ink. With trace addition of Ca2+ ions as gelators, aqueous GO sol converts to printable gel ink. Self‐standing 3D structures with programmable microlattices are directly printed just in air at room temperature. The rich hierarchical pores and high electrical conductivity of GAMs bring admirable capacitive performance for supercapacitors. The gravimetric capacitance (Cs) of GAMs is 213 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and 183 F g−1 at 100 A g−1, and retains over 90% after 50 000 cycles. The facile, direct 3D printing of neat graphene oxide can promote wide applications of GAMs from energy storage to tissue engineering scaffolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Premature ejaculation (PE) is one of the most common sexual dysfunctions in men. However, there has been little research evaluating alterations in brain structure related to PE. We aimed to investigate the characteristics of nonmedicated PE patients in terms of brain morphometry.Materials and Methods: The sample consisted with 32 medication-naïve adult men with clinical diagnosed PE and matched 31 healthy controls. All participants received diagnostic interviews and 3.0 Tesla MRI scans. Automatic segmentation processing of MRI structure images was performed using FreeSurfer software and cerebral cortical thickness between groups was compared.Results: The PE group had thicker cortex in widespread regions, including the frontal, parietal and occipital lobe, and limbic system, compared with the healthy control group (P < 0.05). Moreover, the duration is negatively correlated with the mean cortical thickness of the right medial orbitofrontal cortex, right precentral gyrus and left superior frontal cortex (R2 = 0.29, P < 0.003; R2 = 0.163, P < 0.04; R2 = 0.2, P < 0.02), while the Premature Ejaculation Diagnostic Tool score is negatively correlated with the mean cortical thickness of the left caudal middle frontal cortex (R2 = 0.33, P < 0.005).Conclusion: The result highlights the structural features of PE and suggests the relationship with the severity of impairment is related to the severity of anatomic abnormality with the relevant brain region. These results support the value of imaging measures as markers for understanding the physiopathology of PE.Level Of Evidence: 1 Technical Efficacy: Stage 3 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018;47:656-662. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese ink painting is a traditional art form that is highly regarded throughout the world for its theory, expression, technicality, and artistry. In this paper, we present a method to convert a photograph into a Chinese ink painting. First, the structure description map (SDM) for a photo is estimated to build the object appearance depiction. To make the converted Chinese painting's color be consistent with traditional color requirement of Chinese ink painting, a color transform algorithm is proposed to put color on the SDM. A qualitative evaluation approach is also proposed to carry out a comparative study with other simulation methods. Conversion results demonstrate that, using the proposed method, one can produce very beautiful Chinese ink painting from a photo with less user interaction and much faster conversion speed compared to other approaches. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A series of novel cyclic olefin copolymers (COCs), including ethylene/tricyclo[4.3.0.12,5]deca-3-ene (TDE), ethylene/tricyclo[4.4.0.12,5]undec-3-ene (TUE), and ethylene/tricyclo[6.4.0.19,12]tridec-10-ene (TTE) copolymers, have been synthesized via effective copolymerizations of ethylene with bulk cyclic olefin comonomers using bis(β-enaminoketonato) titanium catalysts ( 1a [PhNC(CH3)CHC(CF3)O]2TiCl2; 1b: [PhNC(CF3)CHC(Ph)O]2TiCl2). With modified methylaluminoxane as a cocatalyst, both catalysts exhibit high catalytic activities, producing high molecular weight copolymers with high comonomer incorporations and unimodal molecular weight distributions. The microstructures of obtained ethylene/COCs are established by combination of 1H, 13C NMR, 13C DEPT, HSQC 1H13C, and 1H1H COSY NMR spectra. DSC analyses indicate that the glass transition temperature ( Tg) increases with the enhancement of comonomer volume (TDE < TUE < TTE). High Tg value up to 180 °C is easily attained in ethylene/TTE copolymer with the low content of 35.8 mol %. TGA analyses reveal that these copolymers all possess high thermal stability with degradation temperatures ( Td) higher than 370 °C in N2 and air. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2013, 51, 3144-3152 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims In acute stroke, neurological damage is due to oxidative stress and neuronal apoptotic death. This study investigated whether Nogo-A 290-562 residues region (M9), fused to the transduction domain of the HIV trans-activator ( TAT) protein, is neuroprotective against cerebral ischemia and the mechanisms. Methods Transient focal cerebral ischemia was induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion in male C57 BL/6J mice. TAT-M9, its mutation or vehicle was applied via intraperitoneal injection at the onset of reperfusion. The neurobehavioral scores, infarction volumes, neuronal apoptosis, and the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 were evaluated. Malondialdehyde ( MDA), reactive oxygen species ( ROS) levels, and NADPH oxidase activation were measured in the presence or absence of the NADPH oxidase inhibitor apocynin or activator tetrabromocinnamic acid ( TBCA). Results Immunofluorescence results confirmed that TAT-M9 was transduced into brain parenchyma, and it significantly improved neurological behavior, reduced infarct volumes, protected neuronal cells from apoptosis, inhibited activation of NADPH oxidase, and decreased MDA and ROS contents. Furthermore, apocynin imitated the beneficial effects of TAT-M9, while TBCA abolished them. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that TAT-M9 administration attenuates cerebral ischemia by inhibiting NADPH oxidase-mediated oxidative damage and neuronal apoptosis in mice. TAT-M9 may be a potential treatment for cerebrovascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NodD is the major regulator of nod genes expression in rhizobia. Previously, a HU-like protein in Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae has been identified to bind specifically with nod promoters and be involved in in vitro nodD transcription, but its in vivo function remained unknown. In this work we have cloned and sequenced the R. leguminosarum bv. viciae gene, named hurL, for this HU-like protein. Using the E. coli-expressed HurL proteins, we proved that HurL had high affinity to several nod promoters and showed a stimulation effect on in vitro nodD transcription at appropriate concentration. The R. leguminosarum bv. viciae hurL gene was mutated by insertion of a kanamycin resistance cassette. The obtained hurL mutant strain M704 exhibited poor growth under free-living conditions and failed to induce nodules on Pisum sativum cv. Frisson and Vicia hirsuta. Further studies of NodD production and nod genes- lacZ fusions expression in the hurL mutant revealed that inactivation of hurL led to severe impairment in the nodD expression, repression in the inducible expression of nodA and nodF, and slight enhancement in the expression of px2, a gene identified earlier in this lab. These results suggested that hurL might be required for maintaining the normal expression of nod genes in R. leguminosarum bv. viciae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here for the first time 12 polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a commercially important gastropod, Pacific abalone ( Haliotis discus hannai) that were identified by searching expressed sequence tag database. These SNP loci (seven nuclear and five mitochondrial SNPs) were polymorphic among 37 wild abalone individuals, based on a four-primer allele-specific polymerase chain reaction analysis. All loci had two alleles and the minor allele frequency ranged from 0.027 to 0.473. For the seven nuclear SNPs, the expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.053 to 0.499 and from 0.054 to 0.811, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Membrane separation plays a crucial role in the current increasingly complex energy environment. Membranes prepared by metal–organic framework (MOF) materials usually possess unique advantages in common, such as uniform pore size, ultra‐high porosity, enhanced selectivity and throughput, and excellent adsorption property, which have been contributed to the separation fields. In this comprehensive review, we summarize various designs and synthesized strategies of free‐standing MOF and composite MOF‐based membranes for water treatment. Special emphases are given not only on the effects of MOF on membrane performance, removal efficiencies, and elimination mechanisms, but also on the importance of MOF‐based membranes for the applications of oily and micro‐pollutant removal, adsorption, separation, and catalysis. The challenges and opportunities in the future for the industrial implementation of MOF‐based membranes are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activation of thioglycosides upon UV irradiation followed by cupric triflate oxidation leads to the in situ formation of an oxacarbenium ion which is able to undergo glycosylation reactions with a wide variety of substrates such as sugars, amino acids, terpenes, and sterols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The title compound, C(28)H(38)Br(2)N(2), is centrosymmetric with the mid-point of the central C-C bond of the butyl group located on an inversion center. The terminal benzene ring is approximately perpendicular to the central 1,4-diaza-butadiene mean plane [dihedral angle = 78.23 (3)°]. No hydrogen bonding or aromatic stacking is observed in the crystal structure.