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Kiwifruit bacterial canker, caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa), is a destructive disease of kiwifruit worldwide. Functional genes in response to Psa infection are needed, as they could be utilized to control disease. TGACG-binding transcription factor (TGA), as an essential regulator, involved in the process of plant against pathogens. However, the function of TGA regulators has not been reported in kiwifruit. It is unclear that whether TGA genes play a role in response to Psa infection. Here, we performed genome-wide screening and identified 13 TGA genes in kiwifruit. Phylogenetic analysis showed that 13 members of the AcTGA gene family could be divided into five groups. AcTGA proteins were mainly located in the nucleus, and significant differences were identified in their 3D structures. Segmental duplications promoted the expansion of the AcTGA family. Additionally, RNA-Seq and qRT-PCR revealed that four genes (AcTGA01/06/07/09) were tissue-specific and responsive to hormones at different levels. Subcellular localization showed that four proteins located in the nucleus, and among them, three (AcTGA01/06/07) had transcriptional activation activity. Lastly, transient overexpression proved that these three genes (AcTGA01/06/07) potentially played a role in the resistance to kiwifruit canker. These results provided a theoretical basis for revealing TGA involved in kiwifruit regulation against Psa.

Clinical follow-up data of pediatric patients with cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are limited. This study investigated the characteristics of AVMs in children and analyzed the clinical outcomes of multimodality therapy in pediatric patients with AVMs at a single center.This retrospective study included consecutive patients diagnosed with AVMs at our institution between August 2008 and June 2018. Data on demographic characteristics, AVM features, and clinical outcomes were collected. Patients aged18 years at admission were defined as children.Overall, 1009 patients with AVMs were included, with 304 (30.1%) patients aged18 years. AVMs in pediatric patients were more likely to present with intracranial hemorrhage, mostly located in deep areas of the brain. A small nidus, exclusively deep drainage, and deep AVM location were associated with hemorrhage in children; Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with ruptured AVMs had a higher risk of developing a follow-up hemorrhage than those with unruptured AVMs. Among 290 children who were followed up, the multivariate regression analysis showed that a higher pretreatment modified Rankin Scale score, deep AVM location, and conservative treatment were significantly associated with unfavorable outcomes.In pediatric patients, AVMs were more likely to present with intracranial hemorrhage than that in adults. Hemorrhagic presentation in children was associated with a small nidus, exclusively deep drainage, and deep AVM location. Pediatric patients with ruptured AVMs had significantly higher risks of follow-up hemorrhage than those with unruptured AVMs. Our clinical results suggest that nonconservative treatment is better for pediatric patients with AVMs.

This paper discusses the applicability of Extended State Observer (ESO)-based control when systems are subjected to different types of parametric disturbances. The applicability is analyzed by establishing the characteristic polynomial of the closed-loop system. It is found that High-Bandwidth ESO-based control is beneficial to the elimination of state-parameter disturbances, but it has a negative impact on the elimination of input-parameter disturbances. In spite of this, the ESO-based control with suitable bandwidth can still be applied to systems which are subject to input-parameter disturbances. A Full-Order ESO-based control scheme is proposed so that disturbance rejection-based control is realized for a class of non-minimum phase systems. Numerical simulations are carried out to verify the correctness of the conclusions and the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

In practice, the prediction of the remaining useful life (RUL) of the product is a very important issue. This paper considers the prediction intervals of the RUL of the product at the normal operating stress level based on the exponential or Weibull constant stress accelerated life test (CSALT) data. For the exponential CSALT with type II censoring, we derive the exact and approximate prediction intervals for the RUL of the product. Using the asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimation and the bootstrap method, we provide the two prediction intervals for the RUL of the product based on the exponential CSALT type I censored data. Under the Weibull CSALT with type II censoring, we use the generalized inferential procedure to obtain the generalized prediction interval of the RUL of the product. We also get the bootstrap prediction interval of the RUL of the product based on the Weibull CSALT type I censored data. The performance of the proposed prediction intervals is assessed by Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation results show that the coverage probabilities of the proposed prediction intervals are very close to the nominal confidence level. Finally, two examples are used to illustrate the proposed methods.

Lithium metal batteries (LMBs) are well recognized as promising next-generation high energy density batteries, but the uncontrollable Li dendrites growth and the volatilization/gas production of electrolytes, which become extremely worse at low and high temperatures, restrict their practical utilizations. In this work, a hierarchically structured polymerized gel electrolyte (HGE), which was composed of an inorganic (LixGa86In14 alloy and LiCl salt)/organic (polymerized tetrahydrofuran (THF)) hybrid layer and the bulk polymerized THF electrolyte, was proposed to achieve a steady performance of LMBs over a wide temperature range of -20-55 °C. The HGE fabrication can be completed within assembled cells with a simultaneously occurring replacement-polymerization-alloying reaction, which helps decrease the interfacial resistance and enhance the stability and ion diffusion under both low and high temperatures. The use of THF with low polarity also ensures high ion conductivity under low temperatures. With such HGE, the Li symmetric cells showed low overpotential under 10 mA/cm2 with a capacity of 10 mAh/cm2 over a 1200 h cycling, and the full cell coupled with Li4Ti5O12 demonstrated high capacity retention over 5000 cycles at room temperature. Besides, the symmetric cells showed low overpotentials of 12 mV at 55 °C and 80 mV at -20 °C at 2 mA/cm2 after a 1000 h cycling, and the full cell revealed the high capacity retention of 93.5% at 55 °C and 88.8% at -20 °C after 1500 cycles under a high current density of 1000 mA/g. This work shows a hierarchically structured polymerized electrolyte design for advanced Li batteries workable under broad temperatures.

As a soybean oil extractive byproduct, high temperature defatted soy meal (HSM) presents great potential as a raw material for vegetable protein adhesives to replace aldehyde-based adhesives in the wood-based panel production. However, the application has been hindered by its poor cold-pressing adhesive performance. Herein, a novel HSM-based adhesive with excellent cold-pressing adhesion performance was developed based on mussel-inspired cation-π interactions. Highly reactive polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin (PAE) and folic acid (FA) were added into an HSM-based adhesive to construct a dual-network system stabilized by strong cation-π interactions. The coacervate formed by PAE and FA served as an "internal adhesive" to bond HSM particles together, yielding high initial viscosity but easy sizing. As expected, the prepared adhesive exhibited an excellent cold-pressing bonding strength of 423 kPa, showing a 295% improvement compared to the soy protein (SP) adhesive. To improve the hot-pressing bonding strength of the adhesives, inorganic calcium carbonate (CaCO

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the interaction of comorbidities and age on survival outcomes in colorectal ancer (mCRC), nor how comorbidities impact treatment tolerance. METHODS: We utilized a cohort of 1,345 mCRC patients enrolled in CALGB/SWOG 80405, a multicenter phase III trial of fluorouracil/leucovorin + oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) or irinotecan (FOLFIRI) plus bevacizumab, cetuximab or both. Endpoints were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and grade ≥3 toxicities assessed using NCI CTCAE v.3.0. Participants completed a questionnaire, including a modified Charlson Comorbidity Index. Adjusted Cox and logistic regression models tested associations of comorbidities and age on the endpoints. RESULTS: In CALGB/SWOG 80405, 1,095 (81%) subjects were

Objectives We aimed to develop and validate a multimodality radiomics model for the preoperative prediction of nonfunctional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (NF-pNET) grade (G). Methods This retrospective study assessed 123 patients with surgically resected, pathologically confirmed NF-pNETs who underwent multidetector computed tomography and MRI scans between December 2012 and May 2020. Radiomic features were extracted from multidetector computed tomography and MRI. Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Max-Relevance and Min-Redundancy tests were used to select the features. The linear discriminative analysis (LDA) was used to construct the four models including a clinical model, MRI radiomics model, computed tomography radiomics model, and mixed radiomics model. The performance of the models was assessed using a training cohort (82 patients) and a validation cohort (41 patients), and decision curve analysis was applied for clinical use. Results We successfully constructed 4 models to predict the tumor grade of NF- pNETs. Model 4 combined 6 features of T2-weighted imaging radiomics features and 1 arterial-phase computed tomography radiomics feature, and showed better discrimination in the training cohort (AUC = 0.92) and validation cohort (AUC = 0.85) relative to the other models. In the decision curves, if the threshold probability was 0.07–0.87, the use of the radiomics score to distinguish NF-pNET G1 and G2/3 offered more benefit than did the use of a “treat all patients” or a “treat none” scheme in the training cohort of the MRI radiomics model. Conclusion The LDA classifier combining multimodality images may be a valuable noninvasive tool for distinguishing NF-pNET grades and avoid unnecessary surgery.

This paper deals with fault detection problem of delayed semi-Markov jump systems with disturbances. More specifically, the asynchronous phenomenon is taken into account between modes of linear and nonlinear dynamics. Accordingly, an efficient solution of fault detection is developed based on asynchronous mode-dependent fault filter with conditional probability. On the basis of constructing appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functions, sufficient criteria are established such that H ∞ performance can be satisfied for filter error with residual signal. Furthermore, the devised filter gains are computed in terms of convex optimization. Eventually, the applicability of our proposed design is verified by an illustrative example.

Introduction A physiological hypoxia environment exists at maternal-fetal interface during early pregnancy. In addition, there is a pathological hypoxic microenvironment in patients with preeclampsia. Therefore, investigating the hypoxic adaptation and the effects of hypoxia on trophoblasts transcriptome is helpful to better understand the function and regulatory mechanism of trophoblasts at the maternal-fetal interface. Methods Trophoblast cell line HTR-8/SVneo was cultured under normoxia and hypoxia for 24 h, the full transcriptome was analyzed via RNA-Seq. GO and KEGG enrichment were performed on differentially expressed mRNA, adjacent genes of differentially expressed lncRNA, host genes of differentially expressed circRNA and target genes of differential expressed miRNA. Results The results showed that hypoxia differentially regulated 373 mRNAs, 334 lncRNAs, 71 circRNAs and 33 miRNAs. GO and KEGG enrichment showed that hypoxia negatively regulated TLR3 and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways. Consistently, we found hypoxia significantly inhibited TLR3 agonist-induced cytokines expression and the phosphorylation of Akt and mTOR. Discussion Our study obtained the full transcriptome data and potential regulatory network of trophoblasts under hypoxia, providing supportive data for revealing the function of trophoblasts.

Background The symptoms that patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) experience are the dominant contributing factors to its heavy disease burden. This study sought to identify key symptoms leading to disability in patients with MDD. Methods Subjects consisted of patients who had a 12-month MDD diagnosis based on the China Mental Health Survey (CMHS). World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) was used to assess the degree of disability. The associations between depressive symptoms and disability were analyzed using a linear regression and logistic regression with a complex sampling design. Results Of the 32,552 community residents, 655 patients were diagnosed with 12-month MDD. The disability rate due to MDD was 1.06% (95% CI: 0.85%–1.28%) among adults in Chinese community and 50.7% (95% CI: 44.3%–57.1%) among MDD patients. Depression was associated with all functional losses measured by the WHODAS. Feelings of worthlessness in life or inappropriate guilt, and psychomotor agitation or retardation were the key symptoms related to disability. Economic status, co-morbidity of physical diseases or anxiety disorders were correlates of disability scores. Limitations The disability rate might be underestimated due to the exclusion of MDD patients living in hospitals. The effect of treatments on disability was excluded. Conclusions Psychological symptoms, not somatic symptoms, contribute to disability in MDD patients. Disability worsens when physical diseases or anxiety disorders are present. More attention could be paid to psychological symptoms, physical diseases, and anxiety disorders in MDD patients with disabilities.

Ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) as the artificial synaptic devices have been considered promising for constructing brain-inspired neuromorphic computing systems. However, the memristive synapses based on the flexible FTJs have been rarely studied. Here, we report a flexible FTJ memristor grown on a mica substrate, which consists of an ultrathin ferroelectric barrier of BiFeO3, a semiconducting layer of ZnO, and an electrode of SrRuO3. The obtained flexible FTJ memristor exhibits stable voltage-tuned multi-states, and the resistive switchings are robust after 103 bending cycles. The capability of the FTJ as a flexible synaptic device is demonstrated by the functionality of the spike-timing-dependent plasticity with bending, and the accurate conductance manipulation with small nonlinearity (−0.24) and low cycle-to-cycle variation (1.77%) is also realized. Especially, artificial neural network simulations based on experimental device behaviors reveal that the high recognition accuracies up to 92.8% and 86.2% are obtained for handwritten digits and images, respectively, which are close to the performances for ideal memristors. This work highlights the potential applications of FTJ as flexible electronics for data storage and processing.

Magnolia sinica is one of the most endangered Magnoliaceae species in China. Seed biology information concerning its long-term ex situ conservation and utilization is insufficient. This study investigated dormancy status, germination requirements and storage behavior of M. sinica. Freshly matured seeds germinated to ca. 86.5% at 25/15 °C but poorly at 30 °C; GA3 and moist chilling promoted germination significantly at 20 °C. Embryos grew at temperatures (alternating or constant) between 20 °C and 25 °C, but not at 5 °C or 30 °C. Our results indicate that M. sinica seeds possibly have non-deep simple morphophysiological dormancy (MPD). Seeds survived desiccation to 9.27% and 4.85% moisture content (MC) as well as a further 6-month storage at −20 °C and in liquid nitrogen, including recovery in vitro as excised embryos. The established protocol ensured that at least 58% of seedlings were obtained after both cold storage and cryopreservation. These results indicate that both conventional seed banking and cryopreservation have potential as long-term ex situ conservation methods, although further optimized approaches are recommended for this critically endangered magnolia species.