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Grazing affects plant community characteristics and the relationship between above-ground biomass and diversity, which has become a hot topic in grassland ecosystem research in recent years. The present study investigated grassland vegetation in the Two Rivers pastoral area based on 60 sampling points using sampling methods. The effects of grazing on the structural characteristics of plant communities were analysed using the α-diversity index, and the relationship between species diversity and the above-ground biomass of plant communities, as well as their changes, was explored. The results showed that grazing disturbance decreased the number of family species in the grassland plant communities and the similarity between communities; grazing activities significantly decreased the above-ground biomass of the grassland plant communities; the height and cover also showed a decreasing trend (p < 0.01), but the density of the grassland plant communities improved (p < 0.01). The Margalef index, the Shannon–Wiener index, and the Simpson index of the grassland plant communities all showed different degrees of decrease after grazing, while the Alatalo index showed an increase; biomass was positively correlated with the Margalef, Shannon–Wiener, and Alatalo indices and negatively correlated with the Simpson index (p < 0.01). Therefore, in the management and maintenance of grasslands, the impact of grazing on the structural characteristics of plant communities should be taken into account, and reasonable response policies should be implemented according to the actual local situation. This study provides a theoretical basis for grassland maintenance and management and the sustainable development of ecosystems in the pastoral areas of the two river sources of the Altay Mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was designed to investigate influencing factors of out-of-hospital anticoagulation therapy compliance among patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgeries. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted from July 2022 to February 2023 among outpatients who underwent major orthopedic surgery in our hospital. Patients (n = 200) were surveyed using the General Information Questionnaire, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Specificity of Medication-Taking Beliefs Scale, and the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale. Factors that influenced patient compliance were also determined using univariate and multivariate regression analyses. Results: One hundred eighty-three valid questionnaires were returned, the compliance with outpatient anticoagulation therapy among patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgeries was good in 56.3% (103/183) of all cases and poor in 43.7% (80/183). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that medication duration, adverse effects, self-efficacy and medication beliefs influenced adherence to out-of-hospital anticoagulation therapy in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Poor compliance with out-of-hospital anticoagulation therapy in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery is mainly associated with a long course of medication, adverse reactions, low self-efficacy and low medication beliefs. Healthcare staff should strengthen post-discharge anticoagulation management based on relevant influencing factors to enhance patient compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsupervised domain adaptation aims to transfer knowledge from labeled source domain to unlabeled target domain. Traditional methods usually achieve domain adaptation by aligning the distributions between two domains once. We propose to align the distributions twice by a disentanglement and reconstruction process, named DTR (Disentanglement Then Reconstruction). Specifically, a feature extraction network shared by both source and target domains is used to obtain the original extracted features, then the domain invariant features and domain specific features are disentangled from the original extracted features. The domain distributions are explicitly aligned when disentangling domain invariant features. Based on the disentangled features, the class prototypes and domain prototypes can be estimated. Then, a reconstructor is trained by the disentangled features. By this reconstructor, we can construct prototypes in the original feature space using the corresponding class prototype and domain prototype similarly. The extracted features are forced to close the corresponding constructed prototypes. In this process, the distribution between two domains is implicitly aligned again. Experiment results on several public datasets confirm the effectiveness of our method. • Our method can use domain invariant features and domain specific features very well. • By learning more compact features, domain distributions will be aligned again. • The experiments on public datasets are conducted and the proposed method works well. • Thorough analysis experiments also illustrates the advantages of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flow behavior of particle clusters with thermal convection in confined fluid flow has garnered considerable attention. One of the remaining challenges is to understand the role of a porous structure of particle clusters in the confined thermal fluid flow. In present work, a numerical study based on a double distribution function lattice Boltzmann model has been conducted to unveil the two-sided lid-driven cavity flow containing a hot cluster formed by an array of center-placed solids. First, we investigated the heat transfer by varying the Richardson number (R i , from 0.01 to 1.0) and the solid fraction of the cluster (ϕ , from 0.0143 to 0.6734) with fixed cavity Reynolds number (R e = 1000) and Prandtl number (P r = 0.7). The increase in R i would lead to the formation of non-centrosymmetric streamlines and isotherms and an increase in the total averaged Nusselt number N u ¯ a , in which several vortex structures being identified at high R i and ϕ. Then, we explored the influence of permeability, quantified by the Darcy number (D a), by changing the porous structure of cluster via rearranging the array of solids. It is found that a higher permeability could enhance heat transfer of particle cluster due to the increase in convection, but the smaller surface area of solid particles would limit heat transfer. A correlation of N u ¯ a with respect to R i and D a could be developed based on our two-dimensional simulation results, allowing the evaluation of involved interplay between the porous structure of particle cluster and thermal convection in confined flow via a simple yet effective way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muscle regeneration, representing an essential homeostatic process, relies mainly on the myogenic progress of resident satellite cells, and it is modulated by multiple physical and nutritional factors. Here, we investigated how myogenic differentiation-related factors and pathways respond to the first limiting amino acid lysine (Lys) in the fast and slow muscles, and their satellite cells (SCs), of swine. Thirty 28-day-old weaned piglets with similar body weights were subjected to three diet regimens: control group (d 0–28: 1.31% Lys, n = 12), Lys-deficient group (d 0–28: 0.83% Lys, n = 12), and Lys rescue group (d 0–14: 0.83% Lys; d 15–28: 1.31% Lys, n = 6). Pigs on d 15 and 29 were selectively slaughtered for muscular parameters evaluation. Satellite cells isolated from fast (semimembranosus) and slow (semitendinosus) muscles were also selected to investigate differentiation ability variations. We found Lys deficiency significantly hindered muscle development in both fast and slow muscles via the distinct manipulation of myogenic regulatory factors and the Wnt/Ca2+ pathway. In the SC model, Lys deficiency suppressed the Wnt/Ca2+ pathways and myosin heavy chain, myogenin, and myogenic regulatory factor 4 in slow muscle SCs but stimulated them in fast muscle SCs. When sufficient Lys was attained, the fast muscle-derived SCs Wnt/Ca2+ pathway (protein kinase C, calcineurin, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II, and nuclear factor of activated T cells 1) was repressed, while the Wnt/Ca2+ pathway of its counterpart was stimulated to further the myogenic differentiation. Lys potentially manipulates the differentiation of porcine slow and fast muscle myofibers via the Wnt/Ca2+ pathway in opposite trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire spalling prediction of fibre-reinforced concrete containing polypropylene (PP) or steel fibre at elevated temperatures is challenging. It is difficult to use conventional methods, such as finite-element modelling and discrete-element modelling, to solve the problem, because of the complicate coupling mechanism of PP and steel fibres in concrete. To this end, two artificial neural network (ANN) models, one (ANN1) based on a concrete mix study and the other (ANN2) based on a compressive strength study, were introduced to assess the resistance of concrete to explosive spalling. Test data (321 and 318 items, respectively) gathered from the literature were utilised to train the proposed models. Twenty-four concrete mixes (96 groups), that is, seven plain concrete mixes, four high performance concrete mixes reinforced with PP fibre, three ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) mixes with reinforced PP fibre and ten UHPC mixes reinforced with PP and steel hybrid fibres were designed and tested to validate the accuracy of the models. The study demonstrates that ANN1 and ANN2 can achieve a predictive accuracy of 89.6% and 84.4% for the explosive spalling, respectively, indicating the feasibility of the proposed models for predicting explosive spalling threat of the hybrid fibre-reinforced concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lunar orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA) onboard the lunar reconnaissance orbiter has performed high-precision, full-coverage, and high-density laser ranging observations for the entire lunar surface since its launch. Statistics have shown that LOLA has collected 6.94 billion effective altimeter data up to June 2022. Most of the typical orbits in the LOLA dataset have a high quality and exhibit horizontal offsets of almost 7 m and radial offsets of almost 0.5 m. However, there is still a category of orbits in the dataset that will cause apparent noise in the constructed DEM, which is attributed to the orbits with large or anomalous errors. We call such orbits as flawed orbits in this paper. The flawed orbits can be identified and screened by the elevation discrepancy at the crossovers of the orbits. The results show that the flawed orbits are caused by significant along-track errors, which also result in the radial error of up to several kilometers. Moreover, most of the flawed orbits are concentrated in several consecutive time intervals. A correction method is then proposed to correct the flawed orbits in the local region. The position of the flawed orbits is reconstructed using the feature points matching of the DEMs before and after they are removed. Some experimental analyzes show that the apparent terrain artifacts have been eliminated and more identifiable terrain details are reappeared. Identifying and correcting these flawed orbits with significant along-track offsets paves the way for improving the quality of the LOLA data and reconstructing the topography of the Moon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated the role of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation in various biological processes, our research is the first to elucidate its specific impact on LCAT mRNA stability and adipogenesis in poultry. Results: The 6 100-day-old female chickens were categorized into high (n = 3) and low-fat chickens (n = 3) based on their abdominal fat ratios, and their abdominal fat tissues were processed for MeRIP-seq and RNA-seq. An integrated analysis of MeRIP-seq and RNA-seq omics data revealed 16 differentially expressed genes associated with to differential m6A modifications. Among them, ELOVL fatty acid elongase 2 (ELOVL2), pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (PDK4), fatty acid binding protein 9 (PMP2), fatty acid binding protein 1 (FABP1), lysosomal associated membrane protein 3 (LAMP3), lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) and solute carrier family 2 member 1 (SLC2A1) have ever been reported to be associated with adipogenesis. Interestingly, LCAT was down-regulated and expressed along with decreased levels of mRNA methylation methylation in the low-fat group. Mechanistically, the highly expressed ALKBH5 gene regulates LCAT RNA demethylation and affects LCAT mRNA stability. In addition, LCAT inhibits preadipocyte proliferation and promotes preadipocyte differentiation, and plays a key role in adipogenesis. Conclusions: In conclusion, ALKBH5 mediates RNA stability of LCAT through demethylation and affects chicken adipogenesis. This study provides a theoretical basis for further understanding of RNA methylation regulation in chicken adipogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic zeolites have excellent molecular sieving properties, but they are difficult to process into macroscopic structures. In this work, we use metal–organic framework (MOF) glass as substrates to engineer the interface with inorganic zeolites, and then assemble the discrete crystalline zeolite powders into monolithic structures. The zeolites are well dispersed and stabilized within the MOF glass matrix, and the monolith has satisfactory mechanical stabilities for membrane applications. We demonstrate the effective separation performance of the membrane for 1,3‐butadiene (C4H6) from other C4 hydrocarbons, which is a crucial and challenging separation in the chemical industry. The membrane achieves a high permeance of C4H6 (693.00±21.83 GPU) and a high selectivity over n‐butene, n‐butane, isobutene, and isobutane (9.72, 9.94, 10.31, and 11.94, respectively). This strategy opens up new possibilities for developing advanced membrane materials for difficult hydrocarbon separations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic zeolites have excellent molecular sieving properties, but they are difficult to process into macroscopic structures. In this work, we use metal–organic framework (MOF) glass as substrates to engineer the interface with inorganic zeolites, and then assemble the discrete crystalline zeolite powders into monolithic structures. The zeolites are well dispersed and stabilized within the MOF glass matrix, and the monolith has satisfactory mechanical stabilities for membrane applications. We demonstrate the effective separation performance of the membrane for 1,3‐butadiene (C4H6) from other C4 hydrocarbons, which is a crucial and challenging separation in the chemical industry. The membrane achieves a high permeance of C4H6 (693.00±21.83 GPU) and a high selectivity over n‐butene, n‐butane, isobutene, and isobutane (9.72, 9.94, 10.31, and 11.94, respectively). This strategy opens up new possibilities for developing advanced membrane materials for difficult hydrocarbon separations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Activated sludge contains large amounts of novel and diverse phages. • Phages infect dominant prokaryotes in lysogenic mode as adaptive strategies. • Generalist prokaryotes and polyvalent phages enhance microbiome connectivity. • Antiviral systems can tolerate lysogenic phage infection but not lytic infection. • Symbiotic phage communities harbor AMGs that could improve floc stability. Despite the importance of phages for the dynamics and functions of microbial communities, it remains largely unexplored how symbiotic phages adapt in activated sludge systems and influence microbial aggregate stability, which is critical for clarification and reliable performance. Based on 12,127 phage contigs recovered from 12 activated sludge microbiomes, the symbiotic phages exhibited broad host ranges and infected dominant prokaryotes in activated sludge. Moreover, these phage communities exhibited high lysogenicity (49% to 66% lysogenic phages) and harbored diverse auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) that could enhance microbial aggregate stability, such as genes coding for lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, and extracellular polysaccharide biosynthesis. Additionally, prokaryotic antiviral systems were widely distributed in dominant prokaryotes, particularly the Restriction-Modification (RM) and CRISPR-Cas systems, which could mitigate potential harmful phage infections. Overall, this study reveals the contemporary beneficial relationship between phages and prokaryotic hosts in activated sludge microbiomes and the potential benefits of symbiotic phages on floc stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) devices in diverse fields such as agriculture, surveillance, and aerial photography has led to a significant demand for intelligent object detection. The key is in dealing with unconstrained shooting condition variations (e.g., weather, view, altitude). Previous data augmentation or adversarial learning based methods try to extract shooting condition invariant features, but they are constrained by the large number of combinations of different shooting conditions. To address this limitation, in this work we introduce a novel Language Guided UAV Detection Network Training Method (LGNet), capable of leveraging pre-trained multi-modal representations (e.g., CLIP) as learning structure reference , and as a model-agnostic strategy that can be applied in various detection models. The key idea is to remove language-described domain-specific features from the visual-language feature space, enhancing tolerance to variations in shooting conditions. Concretely, we fine-tune text prompt embedding about shooting condition and feed the fine-tuned text prompt embedding into CLIP-text encoder to obtain more accurate domain-specific features. By aligning the features from the detector backbone with those of the CLIP image encoder, we situate features within a visual-language space, while staying away from language-encoded domain-specific features to be domain-invariant. Extensive experiments demonstrate that LGNet, as a generic training plug-in, boosts the state-of-the-art performance on various base detectors. Specifically, it achieves an increase in the range of 0.9–1.7% in Average Precision (AP) on the UAVDT dataset and 1.0–2.4% on the VisDrone dataset, respectively. • Method for eliminating the influence of shooting conditions in UAV object detection. • Eliminate the influence of shooting conditions through language guidance. • Pretrain vision-language model to provide a latent space for vision and language. • Method can be used as a plug-in at training stage for various algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a novel dynamical model, building upon the existing dynamical model for Deimos in the current numerical ephemerides, which only encompasses the simple libration effects of Deimos. The study comprehensively incorporates the rotational dynamics of Deimos influenced by the torque exerted by the major celestial bodies (Mars, the Sun) in the solar system within the inertial space. Consequently, a full dynamical model is formulated to account for the complete coupling between the rotation and orbit of Deimos. Simultaneously, employing precision orbit determination methods used for artificial satellites, we develop an adjustment model for fitting data to the complete model. The 12-order Adams–Bashforth–Moulton (ABM) integration algorithm is employed to synchronously integrate the 12 state variables of the full model to obtain the orbit of Deimos.The difference in the orbits obtained by integrating the full model over a period of 10 years and those obtained by the simplified model is at the order of 10 km. After precise orbit determination, this difference decreases to below 100 m, so numerical simulation results indicate that the full dynamical model and adjustment model are stable and reliable. Simultaneously, the integration of the Deimos third-order gravity field in the full model over a 10-year period induces only meter-level positional changes. This suggests that when constructing the complete model, the utilization of a second-order gravity field alone is sufficient. Compared to the simple model, the polar axis of Deimos in the inertial space exhibits a more complex oscillation in the full model. Additionally, the full model calculates that the minimum moment of inertia principal axis of Phobos has an amplitude of approximately 0.5 degrees in the longitude direction and does not exceed 2 degrees in the latitude direction. This work further advances the current dynamical model for Deimos and establishes the foundational model for the generation of a new set of precise numerical ephemerides for Deimos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell fate is precisely modulated by complex but well-tuned molecular signaling networks, whose spatial and temporal dysregulation commonly leads to hazardous diseases. Biomolecular condensates (BCs), as a newly emerging type of biophysical assemblies, decipher the molecular codes bridging molecular behaviors, signaling axes, and clinical prognosis. Particularly, physical traits of BCs play an important role; however, a panoramic view from this perspective toward clinical practices remains lacking. In this review, we describe the most typical five physical traits of BCs, and comprehensively summarize their roles in molecular signaling axes and corresponding major determinants. Moreover, establishing the recent observed contribution of condensate physics on clinical therapeutics, we illustrate next-generation medical strategies by targeting condensate physics. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for future medical development along with the rapid scientific and technological advances are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergent phenomena such as two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and interfacial superconductivity and ferromagnetism are generally built on the interface between insulating oxide thin films and substrates, e.g., LaAlO3/SrTiO3, where the 2D profiles of these electronic states are precisely confined at the interface of two insulators. Herein we report a high-mobility electron gas state with unusual symmetry at the interface of the Sr2CrMoO6/SrTiO3 (110) heterostructures, the fermiology of which follows the cubic crystallographic symmetry rather than the two-dimensional interface itself, resulting in the identical Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations with applied magnetic field along all the twelve equivalent [110] crystallographic directions of SrTiO3, distinctly different from the 2D nature of the electron gas reported previously. Neutron diffraction verifies the predicted ferrimagnetic ordering between Cr and Mo moments. This, together with the magnetic hysteresis loops and negative magnetoresistance in low-field region, suggests possible spin polarization of itinerant electrons. Therefore, a quasi-3D profile, high mobility (up to 104 cm2 V−1 s−1) and possibly spin polarized electronic state is observed in the double-perovskite-based oxide heterostructures. This finding of the electronic properties in Sr2CrMoO6/SrTiO3 (110) heterostructure expands the knowledge of interfacial physics, as well as shines light on oxide-based electronics and spintronics research. The existence of electron gas at the interfaces of oxide-based heterostructures with broken spatial inversion symmetry gives rise to various interesting physical phenomena. Here, the authors report a new type quasi-three-dimensional electron gas state at the interface of ferrimagnetic semiconductor-strontium titanate heterostructures, which show high mobility, high valley degeneracy and possible spin polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing Source-Free Domain Adaptation (SFDA) methods typically adopt the feature distribution alignment paradigm via mining auxiliary information (eg., pseudo-labelling, source domain data generation). However, they are largely limited due to that the auxiliary information is usually error-prone whilst lacking effective error-mitigation mechanisms. To overcome this fundamental limitation, in this paper we propose a novel Target Prediction Distribution Searching (TPDS) paradigm. Theoretically, we prove that in case of sufficient small distribution shift, the domain transfer error could be well bounded. To satisfy this condition, we introduce a flow of proxy distributions that facilitates the bridging of typically large distribution shift from the source domain to the target domain. This results in a progressive searching on the geodesic path where adjacent proxy distributions are regularized to have small shift so that the overall errors can be minimized. To account for the sequential correlation between proxy distributions, we develop a new pairwise alignment with category consistency algorithm for minimizing the adaptation errors. Specifically, a manifold geometry guided cross-distribution neighbour search is designed to detect the data pairs supporting the Wasserstein distance based shift measurement. Mutual information maximization is then adopted over these pairs for shift regularization. Extensive experiments on five challenging SFDA benchmarks show that our TPDS achieves new state-of-the-art performance. The code and datasets are available at https://github.com/tntek/TPDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defect engineering constitutes a widely-employed method of adjusting the electronic structure and properties of oxide materials. However, controlling defects at room temperature remains a significant challenge due to the considerable thermal stability of oxide materials. In this work, a facile room-temperature lithium reduction strategy is utilized to implant oxide defects into perovskite BaTiO3 (BTO) nanoparticles to enhance piezocatalytic properties. As a potential application, the piezocatalytic performance of defective BTO is examined. The reaction rate constant increases up to 0.1721 min−1, representing an approximate fourfold enhancement over pristine BTO. The effect of oxygen vacancies on piezocatalytic performance is discussed in detail. This work gives us a deeper understanding of vibration catalysis and provides a promising strategy for designing efficient multi-field catalytic systems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A new strategy to automatically identifies the reaction rules directly from the reaction equation. • A new method named Reaction Rules Topological Matrix Representation (RTMR) to extraction and use of reaction rules. • RTMR can be used to automatically generate reaction networks. • RTMR demonstrates new reactions prediction ability after training with the literature information. In recent years, automatic generation of reaction networks for chemical processes has attracted considerable attention. However, most of the automatic generators focused on the construction of reaction networks by computer and are essentially dependent upon the predefined reaction rules or categories. The reaction rules for constructing reaction networks are derived manually based on the individual's understanding of reaction mechanism equation as well as the corresponding experiences, which hinders the automatic generation of reaction network directly from the complex reaction mechanisms or equations. In this article, we proposed a strategy to automatically identifies the reaction rules directly from the reaction equation using a Reaction Rules Topological Matrix Representation (RTMR) method. Taking the induction period of methanol to olefins (MTO) process as an example, we showed how to use RTMR to extract the information of reaction mechanism equation in the literatures, and then establish the reaction networks of the multiphase catalytic process. The results suggest that RTMR not only provides an effective approach for automatic reaction mechanisms equation extraction, but also demonstrates new reactions prediction ability after training with the literature information. It is expected RTMR can be promisingly implemented in knowledge-driven reaction network generation in multiphase catalytic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the agronomic interventions that ensure higher crop yields and minimize their chances of failure is critical for meeting global nutritional demands. Rice is a staple food crop that is prone to lodging risk, particularly when higher yields are desired. The potential role of a combined application of Zinc (Zn) and Silicon (Si) in determining the grain yield and lodging resistance has been rarely investigated under field conditions. Thus, field trials were carried out to evaluate the grain yield and lodging resistance of rice at two different locations i.e., Qionghai and Wuzhishan, under three levels of Zn (0, 40, and 80 kg ha−1) and Si (0, 120, and 240 kg ha−1). The results showed that Zn application at the rates of 40 and 80 kg ha−1 increased rice yield by 9% and 5% at Qionghai, and by 5% and 6% at Wuzhishan, respectively. The improved grain yield due to Zn application could be attributed to the increased panicles m−2, splikelets m−2, and aboveground biomass. Meanwhile, Zn failed to show any remarkable impact on stem and root lodging susceptibility. Conversely, no significant influence of applying Si on grain yield was observed, while its application at the rates of 120 and 240 kg Si ha−1 enhanced the stem and root lodging resistance (denoted by their respective safety factors, for stem (SFs) and for root (SFr) by 32% and 22% at Qionghai, and by 11% and 34% at Wuzhishan, respectively, compared to zero Si application. The improved lodging resistance in terms of SFs and SFr could be ascribed to the increased stem bending strength and anchorage strength, while self-weight moment of whole plant decreased. In summary, a beneficial role of Si in lodging resistance and Zn in yield enhancement were evidenced in the present study across the two sites. It can be concluded that by combining 40 kg Zn ha−1 with 120 kg Si ha−1, both grain yield and lodging resistance could be simultaneously improved in rice crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Source-free domain adaptation requires no access to the source domain training data during unsupervised domain adaption. This is critical for meeting particular data sharing, privacy, and license constraints, whilst raising novel algorithmic challenges. Existing source-free domain adaptation methods rely on either generating pseudo samples/prototypes of source or target domain style, or simply leveraging pseudo-labels (self-training). They suffer from low-quality generated samples/prototypes or noisy pseudo-label target samples. In this work, we address both limitations by introducing a novel Class Prototype Discovery (CPD) method. In contrast to all alternatives, our CPD is established on a set of semantic class prototypes each constructed for representing a specific class. By designing a classification score based prototype learning mechanism, we reformulate the source-free domain adaptation problem to class prototype optimization using all the target domain training data, and without the need for data generation. Then, class prototypes are used to cluster target features to assign them pseudo-labels, which highly complements the conventional self-training strategy. Besides, a prototype regularization is introduced for exploiting well-established distribution alignment based on pseudo-labeled target samples and class prototypes. Along with theoretical analysis, we conduct extensive experiments on three standard benchmarks to validate the performance advantages of our CPD over the state-of-the-art models. • We propose a novel Class Prototype Discovery method for solving the SFDA problem. • A prototype regularization is introduced based on distribution alignment strategy. • CPD outperforms a wide variety of state-of-the-art methods, often by a large margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residual heavy metals in soils will destroy microbial community stability and influence its aggregation. However, exploring microbial ecology under heavy-metal stress still requires a conjoint analysis of bacterial interspecies communication and the community diversity maintenance mechanism. In this study, soil samples were collected from a heavy-metal-contaminated site in China to investigate the ecological response of indigenous microbial communities through high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that bacterial taxa and functions generated unusual decoupling phenomena. There were no significant differences in the diversity of species with the increase in concentration of heavy metals (Hg, Se, and Cr), but the functional diversity was lost. Also, the average niche breadth of bacterial species increased from 1.70 to 2.28, but community stability declined and the species assembly was always a deterministic process (NST <0.5). After the bacterial functional assembly changed from a stochastic process to a deterministic process (NST <0.5), it was transformed into a stochastic process (NST >0.5) again under the stress of high-concentration heavy metals, indicating that the collective stress resistance of bacterial communities changed from positive mutation into passive functional propagation. The research results can provide new insight into understanding the adaptive evolution of communities and ecosystem restoration under the stress of soil heavy metals. [Display omitted] • There is an unusual decoupling relation between taxa and functional diversity. • Microbial community stability decreased due to compound heavy metals exposure. • Deterministic process dominated the assemblies of bacterial taxa. • Bacterial resistance shifted from active to passive with increasing heavy metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positively charged, negatively charged, and uncharged graphene sheets are integrated into a 3D material to form the novel filter material capable of efficiently separating multiple oil-in-water emulsions in one-step. [Display omitted] • The filter materials are integrated with three different charged graphene sheets. • The filter materials can separate varieties of type and content of oil-in-water emulsions. • The type and proportion of functional groups in filter materials can be adjusted. • One-step separation of complex oily wastewater is realized under gravity. Global daily oil consumption reaches nearly 100 million barrels, a figure which consequently leads to the generation of substantial volumes of oily wastewater during the processes of oil production and transportation. Existing advanced materials exhibit remarkable properties for emulsions stabilized by specific surfactants. However, these materials face limitations in practical application due to the intricate composition of surfactants present in real-world oily wastewater. In this paper, we aim to tackle this issue by presenting a solution that involves the utilization of surface-engineered graphene-based multi-level filter materials (GMFMs). These specially prepared GMFMs incorporate positively charged, negatively charged, and uncharged graphene sheets, which synergistically combine to form a porous structure with unique wettability. This innovative design allows the filter material to exhibit exceptional separation capabilities for complex emulsions. The surface-engineered GMFMs exhibited exceptional efficiency in the separation of mixed surfactant-stabilized emulsions and industrial wastewater. Operating at a high throughput of approximately 5000 L m−2 h−1, these GMFMs achieved an impressive oil removal efficiency of 99.8 % or higher after just one-step separation. The combined efficiency, reusability, and broad applicability of GMFMs facilitate efficient separation of oil-in-water emulsions on a large scale, promising a sustainable solution to the pressing issue of oily wastewater treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen rapid development of chip-scale atomic devices due to their great potential in the field of high-resolution biomedical imaging. However, devices of this kind rely heavily on non-magnetic heating approaches for the temperature control of alkali vapor cell. Conventional methods namely flexible printed circuits (FPC) films present significant drawbacks including large alignment errors and integration difficulties, thereby diminishing their performance in miniaturized atomic devices. In this study, a CMOS-compatible non-magnetic heating chip is developed with double layer heating circuit directly fabricated on glass wafer, and 400 nm gap (between layers) is achieved to ensure maximized magnetic field cancellation. The devices is designed through genetic algorithm (GA) and is finally lay out on 4 × 4 mm 2 sized glass wafer, which enabled further integration as the wall of micro fabricated alkali vapor cell. Experimental results show that our design is advantageous in magnetic field suppression with residual magnetic flux density of only 1.299 nT/mA and 4.469 nT/mA at the aligned errors of 2 μ m and 30 μ m , respectively. The magnetic flux density introduced by the current in the z-direction is minimized to 5.528 nT/mA. In addition, due to high alignment precision of CMOS-compatible nano fabrication (10 nm compared with 30 um of FPC fabrication), our method further enables high-spatial-resolution magnetic field cancellation or generation for chip-scale atomic devices. Our work demonstrates the effectiveness of GA calculation combined with nano fabrication technology in pushing the limit of non-magnetic heating and chip-scale integration for future miniaturized atomic devices, which holds great importance in Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and Magnetocardiogram (MCG). • The utilized GA exhibits significant efficacy in coil structure optimization, resulting in effective mitigation of magnetic fields. • The proposed configuration presents significant advantages in terms of integration and temperature stability. • With the manufactured precision less than 2 μ m, the discrepancy between the inter-layer (upper and lower) coils demonstrates a notable advantage over conventional FPC. • Non-magnetic heaters find extensive application in the domain of medical imaging, particularly in Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and Magnetocardiogram (MCG). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an interaction experiment of an air bubble and a cavitation bubble, the influence of the air bubble on the morphology of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave and the shielding effect of the air bubble on the peak pressure of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave are studied via the schlieren technique and a high-precision hydrophone. The results show that the stratification phenomenon of multilayer shock waves becomes evident with increasing the dimensionless distance γ between the cavitation bubble and the air bubble, and the image contrast of the shock wave decreases with increasing dimensionless radius ε between the cavitation bubble and the air bubble. In addition, the air bubble has an evident shielding effect on the peak pressure of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave. The shielding effect initially increases and then decreases with increasing γ and increases with increasing ε. When the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave transitions from multiple layers to a single layer, the shielding effect of the air bubble is the strongest. In addition, through a quantitative analysis of the relationship between γ and ε , the variation trend of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave is summarized. • Effect of air bubble on morphology of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave. • Effect of air bubble on peak pressure of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave. • Shielding effect of air bubble on the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave. • The variation trend of the cavitation bubble collapse shock wave shape is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the crop production systems have strived for improving crop productivity by increasing various resource inputs; especially water and synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer, without considering their environmental consequences. Yet, only few studies have evaluated the sustainability of cropping systems simultaneously using life cycle assessment (LCA) and emergy accounting (EMA) techniques. The former highlights pollutant emissions and environmental impacts, while the latter emphasizes resource consumption and system efficiency. In this three-year field study, the environmental impacts and sustainability of farming systems were estimated under rainfed and irrigated patterns at four N application rates in the Northwest China. Our result indicated that the irrigated pattern enhanced grain yield by 9%, while simultaneously increasing 8% of environmental impact and 12% of emergy input based on per hectare of wheat production. Almost similar results of environmental impact per kg basis of grain production and emergy sustainability index revealed that irrigation practice did not decrease the overall sustainability of a cropping system. Conversely, the higher N levels of 240 and 360 kg N ha−1 did not provide a proportionate yield return and were accompanied by increased environmental impacts of 20% and 69%, respectively on per kg grain production basis, when compared to an N dose of 120 kg N ha−1. Meanwhile, the gross unit emergy value revealed that the production efficiency under 120 kg N ha−1 was enhanced, in comparison with other N levels. Therefore, a moderate N dose of 120 kg N ha−1 under both irrigated and rainfed patterns is highly recommended for adoption due to its overall advantage in terms of yield returns, environmental impact and production efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tumor micronecrosis is a pathological feature that reflects malignant biological behavior in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, whether micronecrosis can optimize HCC staging systems remains unilluminated. A total of 1632 HCC patients who underwent curative hepatectomy in four institutions from January 2014 to December 2021 were enrolled in this study. Independent prognostic factors were identified, and optimized staging models were established using a training cohort (n = 934). The performance of optimized staging models was validated using an external cohort consisting of cases from three other institutions (n = 232). In addition, patients from our prospectively collected database (n = 379) tested the application effectiveness of the models. Harrel's c-statistics and the corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc) were used to assess the performance of staging models. In most of Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) and tumor (T) stages, HCC patients with tumor micronecrosis showed poorer prognosis than those without. Tumor micronecrosis, microvascular invasion, multiple tumors and tumor size >2 cm were independent prognostic-related factors. The BCLC and T staging models incorporating tumor micronecrosis showed better performance than the original systems (c-statistic, 0.712 and 0.711 vs. 0.664 and 0.679; AICc, 2314.8 and 2322.3 vs. 2338.2 and 2338.1; respectively). Furthermore, the external validation cohort confirmed that the optimized staging models had improved efficiency compared with the original ones. Moreover, the prospective cohort demonstrated the applicability of the optimized staging systems. Tumor micronecrosis plays a stage-ascending role in HCC patients. The BCLC and T staging systems incorporating tumor micronecrosis can improve the prognosis stratification efficiency of patients. • In most BCLC and T staging stages, patients with tumor micronecrosis had worse prognosis than those without micronecrosis. • The optimized staging systems incorporating tumor micronecrosis can improve the prognosis stratification efficiency. • Tumor micronecrosis can provided more precise treatment guidance and survival prediction for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal-organic framework (MOF) glass is a promising candidate material for gas separation. However, MOF glasses have low porosity, which is not conducive to prepare high permeance membranes. Herein, we incorporated porous ZIF-7 into ZIF-62 glass membrane to prepare self-supported flux melted glass membranes for gas separation. The introduction of ZIF-7 not only improved pore continuity but also enhanced the porosity of the resulting glass membranes. In addition, the melting nature of ZIF-62 promotes the co-melting of ZIF-7 and thus effectively improves the interfacial compatibility. In such cases, the typical a g [(ZIF-62) 0.7 (ZIF-7) 0.3 ] membrane exhibits the ideal selectivity of 98.6 for H 2 /CH 4 and 35.3 for CO 2 /CH 4 , with H 2 permeance and CO 2 permeance of 120.3 and 43.1 GPU, respectively, exceeding the corresponding Robenson upper bounds. Besides, the a g [(ZIF-62) 0.7 (ZIF-7) 0.3 ] membrane displays good long-term test stability for 48 h under variable pressure conditions. This work may provide a new design concept and experimental support for the construction of new MOF membranes for gas separation. The novel self-supported flux melted glass membranes were successfully prepared by flux melting strategy, which exhibit good H 2 /CH 4 and CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance. [Display omitted] • We have successfully prepared self-supported flux melted glass membranes. • ZIF-7 improves the pore continuity and porosity of the glass membrane. • a g [(ZIF-62) 0.7 (ZIF-7) 0.3 ] membrane has good interfacial compatibility. • a g [(ZIF-62) 0.7 (ZIF-7) 0.3 ] membrane has good selectivity (α H2/CH4 = 99, α CO2/CH4 = 35). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise-to-image synthesis continues to be challenging, despite the application of the advanced loss functions in Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). The main issue lies in the fact that discriminators employ hard margin classification, which is susceptible to misclassification. Moreover, the features of real image distribution learned by the generator are limited during adversarial training, thus the generated images are visually inferior to the real images. To tackle these challenges, a GAN method based on Siamese projection network (abbreviated as SPGAN) is proposed to learn a similarity measurement of features for image synthesis. Then, the similarity measurement is incorporated into the loss functions of the generator and discriminator, forming a similar feature adversarial learning. Through similar feature adversarial learning, SPGAN encourages the discriminator to maximize the dissimilarity between the features of real and generated images during recognition process. Simultaneously, it encourages the generator to synthesize images that contain more features resembling those of real images. Furthermore, we extend the SPGAN method by rewriting five representative loss functions, showcasing its compatibility with different loss functions. Experimental results demonstrate that the performance of SPGAN outperforms the advanced loss functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Targeting immune checkpoint PD-1 or its ligand PD-L1 blockade has achieved a great therapeutic effect in a variety of cancer types. However, the overall response rate and duration are still limited for intrinsic and acquired resistance. There is an urgent need to understand the underlying mechanism. Studies showed that PD-L1 regulation is related to the response to PD-1 monoclonal antibodies (PD-1 mAB). Interestingly, emerging studies found that the different distribution of PD-L1 has distinct functions in tumor through the specific signaling pathways. Thus, controlling the distribution of PD-L1 provides an attractive therapeutic strategy for enhancing PD-1 mAB efficiency and rewiring the resistance. Here, we review the recent studies about the role and regulation of PD-L1 distribution from synthesis to surface delivery, internalization, recycling, or lysosome degradation and translocated into the nucleus or secreted into the extracellular space. We place this knowledge in the context of observations in the clinic and discuss the potential therapeutic strategies to enhance the efficacy of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epitaxial growth of Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 thin films in the Ruddlesden-Popper type remains a challenge as the growth temperature required for a typical pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process can be as high as 1100 °C. In this study, high quality Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 epitaxial thin films were obtained using PLD with a single SrRuO 3 target. By adjusting the oxygen partial pressure, the structure underwent a phase transition from SrRuO 3 to Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 facilitated by the formation and development of oxygen and ruthenium vacancies. Remarkably, for the first time, high-quality Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 thin films with good crystalline quality were successfully grown at a low temperature of 680 °C on SrTiO 3 substrates. High quality Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 epitaxial thin films were obtained on SrTiO 3 substrates using PLD from a single SrRuO 3 target at low temperature of T = 680 °C. By adjusting the oxygen partial pressure, the structure underwent a phase transition from SrRuO 3 to Sr 3 Ru 2 O 7 due to the creation and development of oxygen and ruthenium vacancies. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]