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Background: Dementia is a progressive neurodegenerative condition, while metabolic syndrome (MetS) is characterized by a combination of metabolic abnormalities such as hypertension, high blood sugar, and obesity. There exists a connection and overlap between the two conditions in certain aspects, and both are influenced to varying degrees by the process of aging. This study presents an overview of the current research landscape regarding dementia and MetS through bibliometric analysis., Methods: A systematic search was conducted to retrieve relevant literature on dementia and MetS published between 1 January 2000, and 30 November 2023, from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Various bibliometric tools, including VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and the R software package "bibliometrix," were utilized for analysis., Results: A total of 717 articles were identified, showing an upward trend in annual publications. Leading contributors included the United States, Italy, and China, with institutions such as the University of California System at the forefront. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease emerged as the top publisher, while research published in Neurology garnered significant citations. Noteworthy authors encompassed Panza, Francesco; Frisardi, Vincenza; and Feldman, Eva L, with Kristine Yaffe being the most cited author (280 citations). Recent studies have focused on themes like "gut microbiota," "neuroinflammation," "fatty acids," and "microglia.", Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis summarizes the foundational knowledge structure in the realm of dementia and MetS from 2000 to 2023. By highlighting current research frontiers and trending topics, this analysis serves as a valuable reference for researchers in the field., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Peng, Yang, Ma, Xu, Xie, Hu and Yan.)

Surface blooms of colony-forming Microcystis are increasingly occurring in aquatic ecosystems on a global scale. Recent studies have found that the Microcystis colonial morphology is a crucial factor in the occurrence, persistence, and dominance of Microcystis blooms, yet the mechanism driving its morphological dynamics has remained unknown. This study conducted a laboratory experiment to test the effect of extracellular polymeric substances on the morphological dynamics of Microcystis . Ultrasound was used to disaggregate colonies, isolating the cells and of the Microcysti s suspension. The single cells were then re-cultured under three homologous EPS concentrations: group CK, group Low, and group High. The size, morphology, and EPS [including tightly bound EPS (TB-EPS), loosely bound EPS (LB-EPS), bound polysaccharides (B-polysaccharides), and bound proteins (B-proteins)] changes of colonies were closely monitored over a period of 2 months. It was observed that colonies were rapidly formed in group CK, with median colony size ( D 50 ) reaching 183 µm on day 12. The proportion of colonies with a size of 150-500 µm increased from 1% to more than 50%. Colony formation was also observed in both groups Low and High, but their D 50 increased at a slower rate and remained around 130 µm after day 17. Colonies with a size of 50-150 µm account for more than 50%. Groups CK and Low successively recovered the initial Microcystis morphology, which is a ring structure formed of several small colonies with a D 50 of 130 µm. During the recovery of the colony morphology, the EPS per cell increased and then decreased, with TB-EPS and B-polysaccharides constituting the primary components. The results suggest that colony formation transitioned from adhesion driven to being division driven over time. It is suggested that the homologous EPS released into the ambient environment due to the disaggregation of the colony is a chemical cue that can affect the formation of a colony. This plays an important but largely ignored role in the dynamics of Microcystis and surface blooms., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Pan, Yang, Hu, Xiao, Wang, Wu and Yang.)

Chronic stress can induce negative emotion states, including anxiety and depression, leading to sympathetic overactivation and disturbed physiological homeostasis in peripheral tissues. While anxiety-related neural circuitry integrates chronic stress information and modulates sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity, the critical nodes linking anxiety and sympathetic activity still need to be clarified. In our previous study, we demonstrated that the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) is involved in integrating chronic stress inputs and exerting influence on sympathetic activity. However, the underlying synaptic and electrophysiological mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, we combined in vitro electrophysiological recordings, behavioral tests, optogenetic manipulations, and SNS activity analyses to explore the role of VMH in linking anxiety emotion and peripheral SNS activity. Results showed that the VMH played an important role in bidirectionally regulating anxiety-like behavior and peripheral sympathetic excitation. Chronic stress enhanced excitatory inputs into VMH neurons by strengthening the connection with the paraventricular hypothalamus (PVN), hence promoting anxiety and sympathetic tone outflow, an important factor contributing to the development of metabolic imbalance in peripheral tissues and cardiovascular diseases., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Shao, Chen, Gao, Liu, Hu, Yin, Zhang and Yang.)

Objective: As the frontoparietal network underlies recovery from coma, a limited frontoparietal montage was used, and the prognostic values of EEG features for comatose patients were assessed., Methods: Collected with a limited frontoparietal EEG montage, continuous EEG recordings of 81 comatose patients in ICU were used retrospectively. By the 60-day Glasgow outcome scale (GOS), the patients were dichotomized into favorable and unfavorable outcome groups. Temporal-, frequency-, and spatial-domain features were automatically extracted for comparison. Partial correlation analysis was applied to eliminate redundant factors, and multiple correspondence analysis was used to explore discrimination between groups. Prognostic characteristics were calculated to assess the performance of EEG feature-based predictors established by logistic regression. Analyses were performed on all-patients group, strokes subgroup, and traumatic brain injury (TBI) subgroup., Results: By analysis of all patients, raised burst suppression ratio (BSR), suppressed root mean square (RMS), raised power ratio of β to α rhythm (β/α), and suppressed phase-lag index between F3 and P4 (PLI [F3, P4]) were associated with unfavorable outcome, and yielded AUC of 0.790, 0.811, 0.722, and 0.844, respectively. For the strokes subgroup, the significant variables were BSR, RMS, θ/total, θ/δ, and PLI (F3, P4), while for the TBI subgroup, only PLI (F3, P4) was significant. BSR combined with PLI (F3, P4) gave the best predictor by cross-validation analysis in the all-patients group (AUC = 0.889, 95% CI: 0.819-0.960)., Conclusion: Features extracted from limited frontoparietal montage EEG served as valuable coma prognostic tools, where PLI (F3, P4) was always significant. Combining PLI (F3, P4) with features in other domains may achieve better performance., Significance: A limited-montage EEG coupled with an automated algorithm is valuable for coma prognosis., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Tao, Lu, Hu, Xu, Xu, Li, Wang and Peng.)

Competing Interests: ML was employed by the company Beijing Zhong Nong LV Tong Agriculture Development LTD. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Aims: To observe the effects of intrathecal administration of motilin on pain behavior and expression of motilin (MTL)/motilin receptor (MTLR) in the spinal cord of a rat model of acute incisional pain., Methods: An incisional pain model was established in rats using a unilateral plantar incision. The rats were also injected intrathecally with 1, 5, or 25 μg of motilin. The mechanical withdrawal threshold (MWT) and thermal withdrawal latency (TWL) were determined. MTL/MTLR expression in the spinal cord was detected by western blotting and immunofluorescence. The expression of MTL in the spinal cord, stomach, duodenum, and plasma was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)., Results: Motilin/motilin receptor were detected in the spinal cord. Spinal cord MTL/MTLR expression peaks at 2 h after modeling ( P < 0.05) and start to decrease at 24 h ( P < 0.05) to almost reach baseline levels at 72 h. The changes in gastric, duodenal, plasma, and spinal cord motilin levels correlated with MWT and TWL (all R 2 > 0.82). The intrathecal injection of 1, 5, or 25 μg of motilin could increase the pain threshold of rats with incisional pain within 72 h in a dose-dependent manner., Conclusion: This study showed for the first time that MTL/MTLR are expressed in rats' spinal dorsal horn. Acute pain increased MTL/MTLR expression in the spinal dorsal horn. Also, for the first time, this study showed that motilin intrathecal injection alleviates pain in rat models of acute incisional pain. These results suggest that MTL/MTLR could be a novel target for the management of acute pain., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Zhao, Hu, Wang, Chen, Wang and Yin.)

Translation and paraphrasing, as typical forms in second language (L2) communication, have been considered effective learning methods in second language acquisition (SLA). While many studies have investigated their similarities and differences in a process-oriented approach, little attention has been paid to the correlation in product quality between them, probably due to difficulties in assessing the quality of translation and paraphrasing. Current quality evaluation methods tend to be either subjective and one-sided or lack consistency and standardization. To address these limitations, we proposed preliminary evaluation frameworks for translation and paraphrasing by incorporating indices from natural language processing (NLP) tools into teachers' rating rubrics and further compared the product quality of the two activities. Twenty-nine translators were recruited to perform a translation task (translating from Chinese to English) and a paraphrasing task (paraphrasing in English). Their output products were recorded by key-logging technique and graded by three professional translation teachers by using a 10-point Likert Scale. This rating process adopted rubrics consisting of both holistic and analytical assessments. Besides, indices containing textual features from lexical and syntactic levels were extracted from TAASSC and TAALES. We identified indices that effectively predicted product quality using Pearson's correlation analysis and combined them with expert evaluation rubrics to establish NLP-assisted evaluation frameworks for translation and paraphrasing. With the help of these frameworks, we found a closely related performance between the two tasks, evidenced by several shared predictive indices in lexical sophistication and strong positive correlations between translated and paraphrased text quality according to all the rating metrics. These similarities suggest a shared language competence and mental strategies in different types of translation activities and perhaps in other forms of language tasks. Meanwhile, we also observed differences in the most salient textual features between translations and paraphrases, mainly due to the different processing costs required by the two tasks. These findings enrich our understanding of the shared ground and divergences in product quality between translation and paraphrasing and shed light on the pedagogical application of translation activities in classroom teaching. Moreover, the proposed evaluation framework can also bring insights into the development of standardized evaluation frameworks in translation and paraphrasing in the future., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Han, Li, Ma and Hu.)

Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The precision spray of liquid fertilizer and pesticide to plants is an important task for agricultural robots in precision agriculture. By reducing the amount of chemicals being sprayed, it brings in a more economic and eco-friendly solution compared to conventional non-discriminated spray. The prerequisite of precision spray is to detect and track each plant. Conventional detection or segmentation methods detect all plants in the image captured under the robotic platform, without knowing the ID of the plant. To spray pesticides to each plant exactly once, tracking of every plant is needed in addition to detection. In this paper, we present LettuceTrack, a novel Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) method to simultaneously detect and track lettuces. When the ID of each plant is obtained from the tracking method, the robot knows whether a plant has been sprayed before therefore it will only spray the plant that has not been sprayed. The proposed method adopts YOLO-V5 for detection of the lettuces, and a novel plant feature extraction and data association algorithms are introduced to effectively track all plants. The proposed method can recover the ID of a plant even if the plant moves out of the field of view of camera before, for which existing Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) methods usually fail and assign a new plant ID. Experiments are conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed method, and a comparison with four state-of-the-art Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) methods is shown to prove the superior performance of the proposed method in the lettuce tracking application and its limitations. Though the proposed method is tested with lettuce, it can be potentially applied to other vegetables such as broccoli or sugar beat., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Hu, Su, Wang, Nyamsuren, Qiao, Jiang and Cai.)

Background: Tumor cells outcompete T cells for methionine via overexpressing SLC43A2, causing T cells exhaustion. We explored the influence of SLC43A2 on tumor immune microenvironment (TIME), immune-related genes (IRGs) and the prognosis of liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) patients. Methods: The TCGA-LIHC dataset ( n = 374) and the ICGC-LIRI-JP-LIHC ( n = 231) datasets were used as training and validation cohort, respectively. IRGs were obtained from ImmPort. Statistical analyses were performed using R (V 4.0.5). Online databases such as GEPIA, GSCALite, the Kaplan-Meier plotter, KEGG, TIMER2, and CMap were used for differential expression, immune infiltration, functional enrichment, survival, and drug-induced gene perturbation analysis. Results: SLC43A2 expression was higher in LIHC, correlated with worse survival, but could not predict prognosis of LIHC separately (AUC = 0.467). SLC43A2 positively correlated with immune exhaustion markers (all p < 0.001) and with increased infiltration of Tregs, macrophages and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) (all p < 0.05). SLC43A2 may regulate 120 IRGs. A prognostic risk score model was developed using the TCGA-LIHC cohort and validated by the ICGC-LIRI-JP cohort. Arachidonic acid, SB-202190 and guanethidine were identified as possible immunomodulators pharmacologically targeting SLC43A2 in LIHC. Conclusion: SLC43A2 may create suppressive tumor microenvironment and regulate related IRGs, thus affecting the prognosis of LIHC. Arachidonic acid, SB-202190, and guanethidine may be worthy of further study as immunomodulators on SLC43A2., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Liao, Weng, Chen, Hu, Yuan, Wang, He, Cai, Huang, Wang and Huang.)

Spontaneous bursts in neuronal networks with propagation involving a large number of synchronously firing neurons are considered to be a crucial feature of these networks both in vivo and in vitro . Recently, learning has been shown to improve the association and synchronization of spontaneous events in neuronal networks by promoting the firing of spontaneous bursts. However, little is known about the relationship between the learning phase and spontaneous bursts. By combining high-resolution measurement with a 4,096-channel complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) microelectrode array (MEA) and graph theory, we studied how the learning phase influenced the initiation of spontaneous bursts in cultured networks of rat cortical neurons in vitro . We found that a small number of selected populations carried most of the stimulus information and contributed to learning. Moreover, several new burst propagation patterns appeared in spontaneous firing after learning. Importantly, these "learning populations" had more hubs in the functional network that governed the initiation of spontaneous burst activity. These results suggest that changes in the functional structure of learning populations may be the key mechanism underlying increased bursts after learning. Our findings could increase understanding of the important role that synaptic plasticity plays in the regulation of spontaneous activity., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Jia, Shao, Hu, Shi, Fan, Chen, Wang, Chen, Qiao and Li.)

As English plays a significant role in most professions, improving the English for Specific Purpose (ESP) writing competence allows individuals to participate in the global professional community, which makes ESP writing important for research. However, research on ESP writing is reported to be insufficient, and how factors such as emotions affect ESP writing is rarely and marginally studied. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating how induced emotions influence the learning outcome in ESP writing classes with an emphasis on a particular rhetorical choice among medical university undergraduates. A total of 63 medical university undergraduates were recruited. After the emotional inducement, they were taught with materials selected and adopted from the BioCauses corpus and with an explicitly inductive teaching approach. Results revealed that positive emotions positively correlated with better learning outcomes, while negative emotions hindered participants in their learning. The results shed light on the impact of emotional states on ESP/medical research article (MRA) writing, learning, and teaching. Further study implications were provided accordingly., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Hu and Chen.)

This study aimed to explore an immune response-related gene signature to predict the clinical prognosis and tumor immunity of stomach adenocarcinomas (STAD). Based on the expression and clinical data of STAD in the TCGA database, the immune cell infiltration status was evaluated using CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE methods. Samples were grouped into "hot" and "cold" tumors based on immune cell infiltration status and consensus clustering. The infiltration abundance of activated memory CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells had a significant effect on the overall survival of STAD patients. Among the three clusters, cluster 2 had a higher immune score and a significantly higher abundance of CD8 T cells and activated memory CD4 T cells were assigned as a hot tumor, while cluster 1 and 3 were assigned as a cold tumor. DEGs between hot and cold tumors were mainly enriched in immune-related biological processes and pathways. Total of 13 DEGs were related to the overall survival (OS). After the univariate and multivariable Cox regression analysis, three signature genes (PEG10, DKK1, and RGS1) was identified to establish a prognostic model. Patients with the high-risk score were associated with worse survival, and the risk score had an independent prognostic value. Based on TIMER online tool, the infiltration levels of six immune cell types showed significant differences among different copy number statuses of PEG10, DKK1, and RGS1. In this study, an immune-related prognostic model containing three genes was established to predict survival for STAD patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Zhou, Hu, Hong, Wu, Zhang, Lai, Zhang and Wu.)

Despite the ubiquity of the Boston naming test (BNT) in clinical practice and research, concerns have been expressed about its poor quality pictures, insufficient psychometric properties, and cultural bias in non-English language backgrounds. We modified the black-and-white BNT with a set of color pictures since color effects have been suggested to improve naming accuracy in the visual naming test. This study aimed to examine and compare the reliability and validity of the color-picture version of BNT (CP-BNT) and the black-and-white version of BNT (BW-BNT) to differentiate amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) from the cognitive normals. This study included two subgroups, and each subgroup had 101 normal controls, 51 aMCI, and 52 mild AD. One subgroup undertook BW-BNT and the other conducted CP-BNT. The reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and the diagnostic accuracy of two versions of BNT were evaluated. The CP-BNT showed a greater area under the curve (AUC) than the BW-BNT for aMCI (80.3 vs.s 69.4%) and mild AD (93.5 vs. 77.6%). The CP-BNT also demonstrated better convergent validity with CDR global scores and better reliability (Cronbach's coefficient 0.66 for the CP-BNT vs. 0.55 for the BW-BNT). At the optimal cutoff value of spontaneous naming, the CP-BNT demonstrated improved sensitivity and specificity for differentiating mild AD from NC with a higher positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and lower false-positive rate. Compared with BW-BNT, CP-BNT is a more reliable and valid test to assess cognitive and naming impairment., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Li, Yu, Hu, Zhang, Liu, Fan, Ruan and Wang.)

In children's learning subjects, English courses has its relative particularity compared with Chinese courses and the mathematics. Children's English teaching is often inefficient because of the lack of students' timely consolidation after class. Given this, the present work starts with the analysis of the current situation of children's learning, and introduces the film-assisted English teaching. In the specific teaching links, English teaching is carried out in a three-dimensional teaching mode. Before that, topics of the films are selected for the English teaching, and the films are edited and processed. Initially, the present work expounds the English children's films and their educational functions. Then, children can obtain teaching effect from the films. An English questionnaire is designed to analyze the application effect of English films in children's English teaching. The results show that the film teaching mode improves children's learning interest and motivation, and English film teaching can stimulate students' learning interest. Students are also more active to participate in teaching activities, thus improving their language skills. Under the teaching in the scenes of films, students can perceive the functions of language in certain contexts. Comprehensible language input promotes students' English listening ability and oral expression ability. The films can intuitively show the humanistic style, historical geography, cultures, and customs of English countries, and then cultivate students' western cultural literacy. Practice has proved that the method proposed here can achieve good teaching effect, and it provides certain references for children's English education., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Hu, Li, Li and Xu.)

Background: The abnormal expression of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) in various malignant tumors is closely related to the occurrence and development of tumors. However, the role of RBPs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is unclear. Methods: We downloaded harmonized RNA-seq count data and clinical data for AML from UCSC Xena, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx), and Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) cohorts. R package edgeR was used for differential expression analysis of 337 whole-blood data and 173 AML data. The prognostic value of these RBPs was systematically investigated by using univariate Cox regression analysis, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO)-Cox regression analysis, and multivariate Cox regression analysis. C-index and calibration diagram were used to judge the accuracy of the model, and decision curve analysis (DCA) was used to judge the net benefit. The biological pathways involved were revealed by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). The Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis and the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network performed lateral verification on the selected gene set and LASSO results. Results: A prognostic model of 12-RBP signature was established. In addition, the net benefit and prediction accuracy of the prognostic model and the mixed model based on it were significantly higher than that of cytogenetics. It is verified in the TARGET cohort and shows good prediction effect. Both the selection of our gene set and the LASSO results have high credibility. Most of these pathways are involved in the development of the disease, and they also accumulate in leukemia and RNA-related pathways. Conclusion: The prognosis model of the 12-RBP signature found in this study is an optimized biomarker that can effectively stratify the risk of AML patients. Nomogram based on this prognostic model is a reliable method to predict the median survival time of patients. This study expands our current understanding of the role of RBPs in the occurrence of AML and may lay the foundation for future treatment of the disease., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Luo, Zhang, Hu, He and He.)

Grain filling is a crucial process for crop yield and quality. Certain studies already gained insight into the molecular mechanism of grain filling. However, it is unclear whether epigenetic modifications are associated with grain filling in foxtail millet. Global DNA methylation and transcriptome analysis were conducted in foxtail millet spikelets during different stages to interpret the epigenetic effects of the grain filling process. The study employed the whole-genome bisulfite deep sequencing and advanced bioinformatics to sequence and identify all DNA methylation during foxtail millet grain filling; the DNA methylation-mediated gene expression profiles and their involved gene network and biological pathway were systematically studied. One context of DNA methylation, namely, CHH methylation, was accounted for the largest percentage, and it was gradually increased during grain filling. Among all developmental stages, the methylation levels were lowest at T2, followed by T4, which mainly occurred in CHG. The distribution of differentially methylated regions (DMR) was varied in the different genetic regions for three contexts. In addition, gene expression was negatively associated with DNA methylation. Evaluation of the interconnection of the DNA methylome and transcriptome identified some stage-specific differentially expressed genes associated with the DMR at different stages compared with the T1 developmental stage, indicating the potential function of epigenetics on the expression regulation of genes related to the specific pathway at different stages of grain development. The results demonstrated that the dynamic change of DNA methylation plays a crucial function in gene regulation, revealing the potential function of epigenetics in grain development in foxtail millet., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Wang, Lu, Song, Hu, Wei, Li, Liu, Zhao, Liu, Zhang and Peng.)

Semi-supervised deep learning for the biomedical graph and advanced manufacturing graph is rapidly becoming an important topic in both academia and industry. Many existing types of research focus on semi-supervised link prediction and node classification, as well as the application of these methods in sustainable development and advanced manufacturing. To date, most manufacturing graph neural networks are mainly evaluated on social and information networks, which improve the quality of network representation y integrating neighbor node descriptions. However, previous methods have not yet been comprehensively studied on biomedical networks. Traditional techniques fail to achieve satisfying results, especially when labeled nodes are deficient in number. In this paper, a new semi-supervised deep learning method for the biomedical graph via sustainable knowledge transfer called SeBioGraph is proposed. In SeBioGraph, both node embedding and graph-specific prototype embedding are utilized as transferable metric space characterized. By incorporating prior knowledge learned from auxiliary graphs, SeBioGraph further promotes the performance of the target graph. Experimental results on the two-class node classification tasks and three-class link prediction tasks demonstrate that the SeBioGraph realizes state-of-the-art results. Finally, the method is thoroughly evaluated., Competing Interests: LL was employed by company China Construction Science & Technology Group Co., Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Ma, Li, Hu and Li.)

Epilepsy is among the most common serious neurological disorders and affects around 50 million people worldwide, 80% of which live in developing countries. Despite the introduction of several new Anti-Epileptic Drugs (AEDs) in the last two decades, one third of treated patients have seizures refractory to pharmacotherapy. This highlights the need to develop new treatments with drugs targeting alternative seizure-induction mechanisms. Traditional medicine (TM) is used for the treatment of epilepsy in many developing countries and could constitute an affordable and accessible alternative to AEDs, but a lack of pre-clinical and clinical testing has so far prevented its wider acceptance worldwide. In this study we used Drosophila melanogaster paralytic bangsensitive (para bss ) mutants as a model for epileptic seizure screening and tested, for the first time, the anti-seizure effect of a non-commercial AED. We evaluated the effect of the African custard-apple, Annona senegalensis , which is commonly used as a TM for the treatment of epilepsy in rural Africa, and compared it with the classical AED phenytoin. Our results showed that a stem bark extract from A. senegalensis was significantly more effective than a leaf extract and similar to phenytoin in the prevention and control of seizure-like behavior. These results support that Drosophila constitutes a robust animal model for the screening of TM with potential value for the treatment of intractable epilepsy., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Dare, Merlo, Rodriguez Curt, Ekanem, Hu and Berni.)

Abiotic stresses are major environmental factors that inhibit plant growth and development impacting crop productivity. GRAS transcription factors play critical and diverse roles in plant development and abiotic stress. In this study, SlGRAS40 , a member of the tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ) GRAS family, was functionally characterized. In wild-type (WT) tomato, SlGRAS40 was upregulated by abiotic stress induced by treatment with D-mannitol, NaCl, or H 2 O 2 . Transgenic tomato plants overexpressing SlGRAS40 ( SlGRAS40 -OE) were more tolerant of drought and salt stress than WT. SlGRAS40 -OE plants displayed pleiotropic phenotypes reminiscent of those resulting from altered auxin and/or gibberellin signaling. A comparison of WT and SlGRAS40 -OE transcriptomes showed that the expression of a large number of genes involved in hormone signaling and stress responses were modified. Our study of SlGRAS40 protein provides evidence of how another GRAS plays roles in resisting abiotic stress and regulating auxin and gibberellin signaling during vegetative and reproductive growth in tomato.