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Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is one of the most used plasticizers which have contaminated environment widely, and its extensive use causes female reproductive injury. Melatonin has a substantial protective effect against female reproductive toxicity. This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of melatonin on DEHP-induced damage of human granulosa cells (GCs) in vitro and explore the potential mechanisms. Here, we found that melatonin treatment alleviated DEHP-induced human GCs apoptosis and improved mitochondrial function via inhibiting dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) mediated mitochondrial fission. Melatonin inhibited the expression, activation and oligomerization of Drp1, which decreased translocation of Drp1 to mitochondria in DEHP-exposed human GCs. Inhibition of mitochondrial fission reduced intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, sustained mitochondrial membrane potential and decreased cytochrome c release. Further research showed that AMPK-PGC-1α signal pathway was involved in the inhibition of melatonin on Drp1 expression and activation. Melatonin treatment promoted AMPK activation suppressed by DEHP, and activated AMPK recovered the balance of Drp1 phosphorylation at Ser616 and Ser637 sites and enhanced PGC-1α expression. Moreover, PGC-1α could prevent mitochondrial fission by decreasing Drp1 expression directly via binding to its promoter. In contrast, blocking of AMPK or PGC-1α with specific inhibitor negated the protective effects of melatonin on mitochondrial homeostasis and GCs apoptosis. In summary, our results indicated the protective effects of melatonin on improving mitochondrial function and attenuating cells injury in DEHP-exposed human GCs. Melatonin treatment may be a promising therapeutic approach against DEHP-induced reproductive disorder.

The landslides have an important influence on the force and deformation of existing tunnels, which may adversely affect the liner structures and even endanger normal operation. Current scholars have made few efforts to investigate the reinforcement measures for existing tunnels in the landslide region, and even paid less attention to probe into the pile-anchor strengthening mechanics. A new kind of pile-anchor strengthening system for existing tunnels has been proposed in this paper considering the influences of deforming landslides, in which the anti-slide pile, the anchor cable and the tunnel lining were integrated as one force whole. In order to observe the pile-anchor strengthening mechanics, three physical model tests for comparative analyses were established in case of the tunnel axis parallel to the sliding direction of landslide, including the conditions without reinforcements, only with anti-slide pile and full with the pile-anchor strengthening system. Specially for the pile-anchor strengthening model tests, the extra experimental evaluation for the interaction mechanics between existing tunnel and landslide was added, such as, the tunnel diameter of 40 and 50 mm and the pile-anchor of three and six pairs. In addition, three-dimensional numerical models were implemented to analyze the landslide deformation and the internal force of tunnels after installing the pile-anchor strengthening system. Comparing with non-reinforcement, the bending moment of tunnel and contact stress at interface between tunnel and landslide at the position of 200 m away from tunnel entrance with six pairs pile-anchor reinforcement dropped by 97.2% and 50%. The results show that the deformation of landslide, the bending moment of existing tunnel and the contact stress at the interface between tunnel and landslide pronouncedly diminish after taking the pile-anchor strengthening measures. The new combined pile-anchor system has higher bearing capacity and stability, which can further improve the operation safety of existing tunnels in landslide region.

Luminescence ratiometric thermometry based on rare earth (RE) ions has attracted great interest for the potential applications in many fields. But the improvement of the measurement sensitivity and accuracy is significantly restricted due to the small energy gap between thermally coupled levels (TCL). Here, a strategy striving for good thermometric properties of luminescent materials was designed by using the phosphors mixture composed of NaY(WO4)2:Nd3+-Yb3+ and NaY(WO4)2:Er3+, which were prepared by secondary sintering method. Under the excitation of 980 nm laser, the near-infrared (NIR) emissions (710–920 nm) from Nd3+ ions are effectively strengthened when the temperature increases from 304 to 773 K, whereas Er3+ NIR luminescence centered at around 1536 nm is thermally quenched. The remarkably different response of NIR emissions to the thermal variation allows us to map temperature through the ratiometric method. By optimizing the dopant concentration of rare earth (RE) ions, a maximum sensitivity of 5.14%/K together with a measurement uncertainty of about 0.1 K is acquired at 304 K, which is superior to the previously reported RE luminescence-based temperature sensors, indicating that the approach developed here can pave the way for achieving optical thermometry with desired properties.

The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been commonly used to identify epileptic seizures, but identification of seizures from EEG remains a challenging task that requires qualified neurophysiologists. It is important to detect seizures in real time, which can be achieved in an internet of things (IoT)-based cloud platform to alert patients of impending seizures. Therefore, in this study, we propose a new model to recognize seizure states (e.g., ictal, preictal, interictal) from EEG in the IoT framework to monitor patients remotely. The proposed model uses an efficient hybrid genetic whale optimization algorithm (GWOA) based on naive Bayes (NB-GWOA) for feature selection, and an adaptive extreme learning machine (ELM) based on a differential evolutionary (DE) algorithm (DEELM) for classification. In the NB-GWOA method, the genetic algorithm serves to enhance the exploitation of the whale optimization algorithm in the search of the optimal solutions, while the naive Bayes method is used to determine a fitness function to assess every agent in the search space. GWOA has strong robustness and is capable of finding the best solutions in less than five iterations, so it is suitable for selecting discriminative features from a huge number of neurofeatures obtained from EEG. Further, the classification model is constructed based on ELM, which uses the DE algorithm for a fast and efficient learning solution. Results show that the proposed NB-GWOA-DEELM model can avoid over- and under-fitting and can provide better and more accurate performance in classifying seizure states from EEG than its competitors.

Inhomogeneous Pb/Sn elemental distribution and the resulted phase segregation in mixed Pb-Sn halide perovskites would result in energy disorder (band structure and phase distribution disorder), which greatly limits their photovoltaic performance. Here, PbS quantum dot has been synthesized and demonstrated as seeds for modulation crystallization dynamics of the mixed Pb-Sn inorganic perovskites, allowing an enhanced film quality and significantly suppressing phase segregation. With this additive power conversion efficiency of 8% and 6% is obtained under irradiation of full sunlight in planar and mesoporous structured solar cells in combination with CsPb0.5Sn0.5I2Br inorganic perovskite, respectively. Our finding reveals exploring the actual Pb/Sn atoms location in perovskite structure and its influence on developing efficient and stable low-bandgap perovskite solar cells.

The study of Carboniferous magmatism in northern West Junggar plays an important role in understanding the tectonic evolution of that part of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt. In this study, we present petrology, zircon U–Pb geochronology, mineral and whole-rock geochemistry, and the Sr–Nd–Hf–Pb isotope compositions of volcanic rocks from the Hamutusi area of northern West Junggar. LA–ICP–MS zircon U–Pb analysis of a representative andesite yielded an early to late Carboniferous age of 324.4 ± 6.9 Ma. The volcanic rocks are calc-alkaline, with high SiO2 (54.2–57.8 wt%), MgO (5.97–8.33 wt%), Mg# (60–69), Cr (147–448 ppm), and Ni (29.1–120 ppm) contents, and are enriched in large ion lithophile elements (LILE) and light rare earth elements (LREE), but depleted in high field strength elements (HFSE), these characteristics are similar to those of typical sanukitoids within the Setouchi volcanic belt in Japan. All samples have radiogenic initial Sr and Pb isotopic compositions, and low eNd(t) and eHf(t) values, indicating the sanukitoids were generated by partial melting of subducting sediments in which the melts interacted with the mantle. Geochemical modeling calculations indicate a proportion of 3–10% sediment melt and slab-derived fluids were mixed with the depleted mantle to produce the bulk of the Hamutusi rocks. We conclude that the studied rocks from north West Junggar record the initiation of ridge subduction related to a transition from normal subduction to subduction of young and hot oceanic lithosphere between the early and late Carboniferous.

We propose a method to quantitatively characterize the fine phase transition processes of Li+/Er3+:BaTiO3 (BLET) ferroelectric materials by observing fluorescence wavelength shift. A lithium and erbium co-doped barium titanate ferroelectric ceramic was fabricated and the down-conversion infrared fluorescence spectra of the transition 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 were measured as a function of temperature. The three structural phase transition processes, namely rhombohedral–orthorhombic, orthorhombic–tetragonal, and tetragonal–cubic transformations, determined by X-ray diffraction results are accompanied by corresponding changes in the position of the fluorescence peaks, yielding an exact consistency. This contactless, non-destructive and spatially-resolved fluorescence method provides a localized quantitative analysis for the phase transition processes of BLET ceramics. As this method is based on the fluorescence peak wavelength dependence on the crystal environment, it may potentially be used to characterize the phase transitions in other ferroelectric materials.

The behavior of room temperature phosphorescence quenching and fluorescence enhancing of gadolinium labeled sinoporphyrin sodium (Gd-DVDMS) in the aqueous solution were studied. Gd-DVDMS was characterized by various techniques including mass spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectra and transmission electron microscopy. The optical behavior was monitored through UV–vis absorption spectra and photoluminescence spectra. The result shows that the phosphorescence intensity gradually quenches, almost disappears after dissolved 120 min, meanwhile the fluorescence intensity enhances 5 times. The above behavior is attributed to the decreased population of Gd-DVDMS as first excited triplet state (T1). Based on the time-invariant of both absorption spectra and phosphorescence decay curves at 710 nm of Gd-DVDMS in different dissolution time, the reason for the decreased population of Gd-DVDMS in T1 state is that the intersystem crossing from first excited state (S1) to T1 is prevented. In addition, the fluorescent decay curves of Gd-DVDMS initially dissolved in the aqueous solution and dissolved for 120 min were also measured for comparison. The big change in fluorescent lifetime further proves the conclusion that intersystem crossing is prevented, meanwhile, the increase in fluorescence intensity is demonstrated. In this work, the possibility of decomposition of Gd-DVDMS is excluded because the phosphorescence decay curve in Gd-DVDMS aqueous solution is sensible to DVDMS.

The long-term leakage of lining under train loading has a significant impact on the consolidation settlements around shield tunnel and the rheological behaviour of viscoelastic porous soils will further exacerbate this consequence, which adversely affect the adjacent geo-environments and the subsidence of existing structures. At present, the assumptions of tunnel impermeable lining and liner-elastic clays are usually received to conduct on the consolidation settlements. Moreover, little attention is paid on the coupled influence of lining leakage and train loading. For better engineering serviceability in viscous porous clays, this paper presents a closed-form analytical solution for predicting the ground consolidation settlements under train loading considering the lining leakage and the rheological medium, with the scope of Terzaghi-Rendulic theory. By introducing semi-permeable boundary condition, the triangular cyclic loading is equivalently applied to the tunnel lining and the Boltzmann viscoelastic model is employed to simulate the rheological characteristic of the actual geology. The dissipation solution of excess pore water pressure and the ground responses in viscoelastic porous clays are derived using the conformal mapping. In addition, the accuracy of the analytical solutions is verified by comparisons with in-situ observed data and existing numerical simulation results from the engineering cases, showing reasonable alignments. The differences between the Kelvin and Boltzmann model are further analyzed to estimate the influences of rheological geology. Furthermore, a detailed sensitivity analysis is also implemented to investigate the performance of concerned parameters on the surface consolidation settlements, including the lining-soil permeability, the parameters of Boltzmann model (elasticity module Eh in the Hoek body, elasticity module Ek and viscosity coefficient ηk in the Kelvin body), and the train loading. The interesting point and ingenious approach in this study are tracing the corresponding analytical solutions on the consideration for not only the coupled influence of lining leakage and train loading but also the rheological behaviour in the viscoelastic porous soils.

Mn doping is deemed as a promising strategy to improve the electrochemical performance of the α-Ni(OH)2 battery-type supercapacitor electrode. However, the internal structure evolution, the pathways and the dynamics of the proton/intercalated anion migration, as well as the functioning mechanism of Mn dopant to stabilize the layered structure during cycles remain unclear. Here, we unveil that irreversible oxidization of Mn3+ at the initial CV cycles, which will remain as Mn4+ in the NiO2 slabs after the first oxidization to effectively suppress the phase transformation from α-Ni(OH)2/γ-NiOOH to β-Ni(OH)2/β-NiOOH and further maintain the structural integrity of electrode. With a synergistic combination of theoretical calculations and various structural probes including XRD and 2H MAS solid state NMR, we decode the structure evolution and dynamics in the initial CV (cyclic voltammetry) cycles, including the absorption/desorption of hydrogen containing species, migration of intercalated anions/water molecules and the change of interlayer space. This present work elucidates a close relationship between doping chemistry and structural reliability, paving a novel way of reengineering supercapacitor electrode materials.

Chloroplasts are the center of plant life activities including photosynthesis, growth and development, and abiotic stress response. Chloroplast development and biogenesis in rice have been studied in detail, but how does abiotic stress affect chloroplasts is less studied. We obtained an albino mutant, alm1, whose chlorophyll content was greatly decreased. Transmission electron microscopy showed that chloroplast development in alm1 was blocked, especially in thylakoid-like structures, which could not form normally. The ALM1 gene encodes a chloroplast-localized superoxide dismutase. Full-length ALM1 successfully restored the non-albino phenotype, and in knockout lines, the albino phenotype reappeared. The ALM1 gene is expressed mainly in young leaves. alm1 plants died as a consequence of excessive reactive oxygen accumulation after the third-leaf stage. A series of biochemical assays verified that ALM1 interacted with the OsTrxz protein, which is one of the components of plastid-encoded RNA polymerase (PEP) complexes. A western blot experiment indicated that ALM1 played an important role in stabilizing OsTrxz in rice. An overexpression test of ALM1 revealed that ALM1 can increase drought resistance by removing excess reactive oxygen in rice seedlings. This study suggests that ALM1 not only participates in rice chloroplast biogenesis, but also increases rice stress resistance by scavenging excess reactive oxygen.

In this paper, the physicochemical properties, antioxidant and anti-aging abilities of three new Tremella hydrocolloids were studied. The physicochemical properties were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimeter, X-ray diffractometry etc. The antioxidant activities of Tremella hydrocolloids were determined by ABTS radical, DPPH radical scavenging activity. The anti-aging ability of Tremella hydrocolloids was also investigated by using the organism model of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). The results showed that the ES-THD displayed the highest radical scavenging capacity and the best anti-aging abilities. The ability of ES-THD to scavenge ABTS radicals reached 100 % at 2 mg/mL, the ability of ES-THD to scavenge DPPH radicals reached 45.55 %. Compared with the control group, the average lifespan was 29.17 % longer fed with ES-THD. These results provide the evidence basis for the use of Tremella hydrocolloids as food texture modifiers, antioxidants, and anti-aging agents in the food industries.

Inferring dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is crucial to understand the time-variant functional inter-relationships among brain regions. Because of the sparse property of functional connectivity networks, sparsity-promoting dFC estimation methods, which are mainly based on l 1 -norm regularization, are gaining popularity. However, l 1 -norm regularization cannot provide the maximum sparsity solution as the most natural sparsity promoting norm, the l 0 -norm. But l 0 -norm is seldom used to infer sparse dFC because an efficient algorithm to address the non-convexity problem of l 0 -norm is lacking. In this work, we develop a new l 0 -norm regularization-based inverse covariance estimation method for estimating dFC from fMRI. This novel method employs l 0 -norm regularizations on both spatial and temporal scales to enhance the spatial sparsity and temporal smoothness of dFC estimates. To overcome the non-convexity of l 0 -norm, we further propose an effective optimization algorithm based on the coordinate descent (CD). The performance of the proposed l 0 -norm-based sparse-smooth regularization (L0-SSR) method is examined using a series of synthetic datasets concerning various types of network topology. We further apply the proposed L0-SSR method to real fMRI data recorded in block-design motor tasks from 45 participants for the exploration of task induced dFC. Results on synthetic and real-world fMRI data show that, the L0-SSR method can achieve more accurate and interpretable dFC estimates than conventional l 1 -norm-based dFC estimation methods. Hence, the proposed L0-SSR method could serve as a powerful analytical tool to infer highly complex, variable, and sparse dFC patterns.

Background Dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) based on resting-state fMRI has attracted interest in the field of bipolar disorder (BD), because dFC can better capture the evolving processes of emotion and cognition, which are typically impaired in BD. However, previous dFC studies of BD have typically focused on specific seed brain regions or specific functional brain networks, and they have ignored global dynamic information interaction in the whole brain. This study is aimed to reveal aberrant and interpretable whole-brain dFC patterns of BD. Methods The resting-state fMRI data collected from 35 euthymic BD patients and 30 healthy people. We developed a new dFC inference pipeline, including the sliding-window method, k-means clustering, a new permutation with zero-inflated Poisson regression method, and a similarity analysis for interpretable states, to examine the different patterns of dFC states between BD patients and healthy participants. Results BD patients had significantly more frequent transitions between two specific dFC states, which were respectively close to high-level cognitive networks and low-level sensory networks, than healthy controls (p Limitations The size of samples and other BD types need to be expanded to validate the results of this study. Possible confounding effect of medication. Conclusions This study detected aberrant dFC pattern of BD, which indicated the increased lability of the processes of cognition and emotion in BD, and this finding could improve our understanding of the neuropathological mechanism of BD.

Polymorphisms in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have been linked to a range of diseases. Here we investigate the relationship between mtDNA D-loop region polymorphisms, mtDNA haplotype and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), as well as the correlation of D-loop variants and clinical characteristics of PCOS, in a Chinese population. The mtDNA D-loop of whole blood samples from 421 PCOS patients and 409 controls underwent next generation sequencing. The variants G207A (PBH＜0.05), 16036GGins (PBH＜0.05) and 16049Gins (PBH＜0.001) were associated with decreased risk of PCOS. No variants were associated with PCOS, and within the PCOS group, no statistical significance was found between D-loop polymorphisms and clinical characteristics. Patient haplotype was identified from D-loop single nucleotide polymorphisms and analysis suggested that haplotype A15 (P adjusted ＜0.01) was significantly associated with decreased risk of PCOS. In conclusion, mtDNA D-loop alterations and haplotype appear to confer resistance to PCOS in Chinese women.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are one of the most promising rechargeable storage devices due to the high theoretical energy density. However, the low areal sulfur loading impedes their commercial development. Herein, a 3D free-standing sulfur cathode scaffold is rationally designed and fabricated by coaxially coating polar Ti3C2Tx flakes on sulfur-impregnated carbon cloth (Ti3C2Tx@S/CC) to achieve high loading and high energy density Li-S batteries, in which, the flexible CC substrate with highly porous structure can accommodate large amounts of sulfur and ensure fast electron transfer, while the outer-coated Ti3C2Tx can serve as a polar and conductive protective layer to further promote the conductivity of the whole electrode, achieve physical blocking and chemical anchoring of lithium-polysulfides as well as catalyze their conversion. Due to these advantages, at a sulfur loading of 4 mg cm−2, Li-S cells with Ti3C2Tx@S/CC cathodes can deliver outstanding cycling stability (746.1 mAh g−1 after 200 cycles at 1 C), superb rate performance (866.8 mAh g−1 up to 2 C) and a high specific energy density (564.2 Wh kg−1 after 100 cycles at 0.5 C). More significantly, they also show the commercial potential that can compete with current lithium-ion batteries due to the high areal capacity of 6.7 mAh cm−2 at the increased loading of 8 mg cm−2.

MXenes are well known for their potential application in supercapacitors due to their high-rate intercalation pseudocapacitance and long cyclability. However, the reported low capacity of pristine MXenes hinders their practical application in lithium-ion batteries. In this work, a robust strategy is developed to control the functional groups of Nb2CTx MXene. The capacity of pristine Nb2CTx MXene can be significantly increased by Li+ intercalation and surface modification. The specific capacity of the treated Nb2CTx is up to 448 mAh g−1 at 0.05 A g−1, and at a large current density of 2 A g−1 remains a high reversible capacity retention rate of 75% after an ultra-long cycle of 2000 cycles. These values exceed most of the reported pristine MXenes (including the most studied Ti3C2Tx) and carbon-based materials. It demonstrates that this strategy has great help to improve the electrochemical performance of pristine MXene, and the results enhance the promise of MXenes in the application of lithium-ion batteries.

Inflammation is actively involved in the clinical manifestation of peripheral artery disease (PAD). Sonodynamic therapy (SDT), a novel non-invasive, plaque-based, macrophage-targeted anti-inflammatory regimen for atherosclerosis has the potential to improve walking performance by reducing plaque inflammation.This phase-2, randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind clinical trial enrolled 32 participants with symptomatic femoropopliteal PAD. The primary outcome was the 30-day change in the target-to-background ratio (TBR) within the most diseased segment (MDS) of the femoropopliteal artery assessed through positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT). The secondary outcomes were changes in walking performance, limb perfusion, lesional morphology and quality of life measurements.The mean age was 64.7 years and 63% were male. Thirty-one completed follow-up. SDT significantly decreased the MDS TBR by 0.53 (95% CI, -0.70 to -0.36, P 0.001) compared with control. Furthermore, SDT increased peak walking time by 118.6 s (95% CI, 74.3 to 163.0, P 0.001), increased ankle-brachial index by 0.11 (95% CI, 0.07 to 0.14, P 0.001), decreased lesional diameter and area stenosis by 7.2% (95% CI, -8.6 to -4.5, P 0.001) and 9.6% (95% CI, -24.5 to -5.3, P = 0.005), respectively, and increased the walking speed score of the Walking Impairment Questionnaire by 16.1 (95% CI, 2.6 to 29.5, P = 0.021) and the physical functioning score of the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey by 10.0 (95% CI, 5.0 to 20.0, P = 0.003) compared with control. These improvements were maintained in the SDT group up to 6-month.SDT rapidly reduced plaque inflammation and improved walking performance among patients with symptomatic PAD.Clinical Trials NCT03457662.