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The Chinese urban regeneration movement underscores a "people-oriented" paradigm, aimed at addressing urban challenges stemming from rapid prior urbanization, while striving for high-quality and sustainable urban development. At the community level, fostering quality through a socially sustainable perspective (SSP) is a pivotal strategy for people-oriented urban regeneration. Nonetheless, explorations of community quality assessments grounded in an SSP have been notably scarce in recent scholarly discourse. This study pioneers a multidimensional quantitative model (MQM) for gauging community quality, leveraging diverse geospatial data sources from the SSP framework. The MQM introduces an evaluative framework with "Patency, Convenience, Comfort, and Safety" as primary indicators, integrating multi-sourced data encompassing the area of interest (AOI), Point of Interest (POI), Weibo check-ins, and Dianping data. The model's efficacy is demonstrated through a case study in the Gusu district, Suzhou. Furthermore, semantic analysis of the Gusu district's street view photos validates the MQM results. Our findings reveal the following: (1) AI-based semantic analysis accurately verifies the validity of MQM-generated community quality measurements, establishing its robust applicability with multi-sourced geospatial data; (2) the community quality distribution in Gusu district is notably correlated with the urban fabric, exhibiting lower quality within the ancient town area and higher quality outside it; and (3) communities of varying quality coexist spatially, with high- and low-quality communities overlapping in the same regions. This research pioneers a systematic, holistic methodology for quantitatively measuring community quality, laying the groundwork for informed urban regeneration policies, planning, and place making. The MQM, fortified by multi-sourced geospatial data and AI-based semantic analysis, offers a rigorous foundation for assessing community quality, thereby guiding socially sustainable regeneration initiatives and decision making at the community scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Muscle growth is essential for the economic sustainability of the swine industry. Gaining a deeper understanding of pig muscle development is crucial for improving both the quantity and quality of pork production. This study employed RNA-seq technology to conduct a transcriptomic analysis of the longissimus dorsi muscle (LD) in three different pig breeds with varying body sizes and growth rates: Tibetan pigs (TP), Wujin pigs (WJ), and large white pigs (LW). Significant differences in gene expression were observed among the different breeds. We identified that myosin light chain 4 (MYL4) plays a role in influencing muscle growth. Experimental validation confirmed that MYL4 promotes skeletal muscle cell proliferation and inhibits degradation. These findings reveal the molecular mechanisms that control muscle growth and provide valuable insights for improving pig breeding practices, ultimately enhancing the efficiency and quality of meat production. Muscle growth stands as a pivotal economic trait within pig production, governed by a complex interplay of multiple genes, each playing a role in its quantitative manifestation. Understanding the intricate regulatory mechanisms of porcine muscle development is crucial for enhancing both pork yield and quality. This study used the GSE99749 dataset downloaded from the GEO database, conducting a detailed analysis of the RNA-seq results from the longissimus dorsi muscle (LD) of Tibetan pigs (TP), Wujin pigs (WJ) and large white pigs (LW) at 60 days of gestation, representing diverse body sizes and growth rates. Comparative analyses between TPvsWJ and TPvsLW, along with differential gene expression (DEG) analysis, functional enrichment analysis, and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis, revealed 1048 and 1157 significantly differentially expressed genes (p < 0.001) in TPvsWJ and TPvsLW, respectively. With stricter screening criteria, 37 DEGs were found to overlap between the 2 groups. PPI analysis identified MYL5, MYL4, and ACTC1 as the three core genes. This article focuses on exploring the MYL4 gene. Molecular-level experimental validation, through overexpression and interference of the MYL4 gene combined with EDU staining experiments, demonstrated that overexpression of MYL4 significantly promoted the proliferation of porcine skeletal muscle satellite cells (PSMSC), while interference with MYL4 inhibited their proliferation. Furthermore, by examining the effects of overexpressing and interfering with the MYL4 gene on the muscle hypertrophy marker Fst gene and the muscle degradation marker FOXO3 gene, the pivotal role of the MYL4 gene in promoting muscle growth and preventing muscle degradation was further confirmed. These findings offer a new perspective on the molecular mechanisms behind porcine muscle growth and development, furnishing valuable data and insights for muscle biology research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerated urbanization has led to regional disruptions and exacerbated imbalances in spatial quality, social cohesion, and inequalities. Urban regeneration, as a mitigating strategy for these disruptions, faces significant social challenges, particularly at the community scale. This study addresses the existing research gap by comprehensively reviewing community regeneration (CR) from a socially sustainable perspective (SSP). Utilizing VOSviewer software, we synthesize and categorize relevant research trends and methods spanning from 2006 to 2023, retrieving 213 coded articles among 5002 relevant documents from Web of Science bibliometric datasets. The study explores the implementation trajectory of CR, considering novel scenario demands, emerging technologies, and new development paradigms and approaches. It delves into human-centric approaches to enhance the quality of life, precision, and diversification of community engagement and cultivate a sense of community equity and belonging. Moreover, the findings highlight densification as a synergistic and adaptive strategy for current regeneration actions. This scientometric review leverages new tools and innovative approaches for regeneration policy and planning decision-making, ultimately contributing to the improvement of livability. The study provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with socially sustainable CR, offering a foundation for future research, and guiding practical urban planning and design interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accordance with the actual production circumstances of enterprises, a scheduling problem model is designed for open-shop environments, considering AGV transport time. A Q-learning-based method is proposed for the resolution of such problems. Based on the characteristics of the problem, a hybrid encoding approach combining process encoding and AGV encoding is applied. Three pairs of actions are constituted to form the action space. Decay factors and a greedy strategy are utilized to perturb the decision-making of the intelligent agent, preventing it from falling into local optima while simultaneously facilitating extensive exploration of the solution space. Finally, the proposed method proved to be effective in solving the open-shop scheduling problem considering AGV transport time through multiple comparative experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fungal diseases, including downy mildew (caused by Plasmopara viticola) and gray mold (caused by Botrytis cinerea), significantly impact the marketable yield of grapes produced worldwide. Cytochrome b of the mitochondrial respiratory chain of these two fungi is a key target for Quinone outside inhibitor (QoI)-based fungicide development. Since the mode of action (MOA) of QoI fungicides is restricted to a single site, the extensive usage of these fungicides has resulted in fungicide resistance. The use of fungicide combinations with multiple targets is an effective way to counter and slow down the development of fungicide resistance. Due to the high cost of in planta trials, in silico techniques can be used for the rapid screening of potential fungicides. In this study, a combination of in silico simulations that include Schrödinger Glide docking, molecular dynamics, and Molecular Mechanism-Generalized Born Surface Area calculation were used to screen the most potent QoI and non-QoI-based fungicide combinations to wild-type, G143A-mutated, F129L-mutated, and double-mutated versions that had both G143A and F129L mutations of fungal cytochrome b. In silico docking studies indicated that mandestrobin, famoxadone, captan, and thiram have a high affinity toward WT cytochrome b of Botrytis cinerea. Although the QoIs mandestrobin and famoxadone were effective for WT based on in vitro results, they were not broadly effective against G143A-mutated isolates. Famoxadone was only effective against one isolate with G143A-mutated cytochrome b. The non-QoI fungicides thiram and captan were effective against both WT and isolates with G143A-mutated cytochrome b. Follow-up in silico docking and molecular dynamics studies suggested that fungicide combinations consisting of famoxadone, mandestrobin, fenamidone, and thiram should be considered in field testing targeting Plasmopara viticola and Botrytis cinerea fungicide resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imbalance between normal and attack samples in the industrial control systems (ICSs) network environment leads to the low recognition rate of the intrusion detection model for a few abnormal samples when classifying. Since traditional machine learning methods can no longer meet the needs of increasingly complex networks, many researchers use deep learning to replace traditional machine learning methods. However, when a large amount of unbalanced data is used for training, the detection performance of deep learning decreases significantly. This paper proposes an intrusion detection method for industrial control systems based on a 1D CWGAN. The 1D CWGAN is a network attack sample generation method that combines 1D CNN and WGAN. Firstly, the problem of low ICS intrusion detection accuracy caused by a few types of attack samples is analyzed. This method balances the number of various attack samples in the data set from the aspect of data enhancement to improve detection accuracy. According to the temporal characteristics of network traffic, the algorithm uses 1D convolution and 1D transposed convolution to construct the modeling framework of network traffic data of two competing networks and uses gradient penalty instead of weight cutting in the Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network (WGAN) to generate virtual samples similar to real samples. After a large number of data sets are used for verification, the experimental results show that the method improves the classification performance of the CNN and BiSRU. For the CNN, after data balancing, the accuracy rate is increased by 0.75%, and the accuracy, recall rate and F1 are improved. Compared with the BiSRU without data processing, the accuracy of the s1D CWGAN-BiSRU is increased by 1.34%, and the accuracy, recall and F1 are increased by 7.2%, 3.46% and 5.29%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imbalanced data cause low recognition of wind turbine blade cracking. Existing data-level augmentation methods, including sampling and generative strategies, may yield lots of high-confidence but low-value samples, which fail to improve the detection of blade cracking. Therefore, this paper designs a novel RTAE (roundtrip auto-encoder) method. Based on the idea of the roundtrip approach, we design two generator networks and two discriminator networks to ensure the cycle mapping between cracking samples and latent variables. Further, by leveraging cycle consistency loss, generated samples fit the distribution of historical cracking samples well. Thus, these generated samples effectively realize data augmentation and improve recognition of blade cracking. Additionally, we apply an auto-encoder method to reduce the dimension of historical samples and thus the complexity of the generator network and discriminator network. Through the analysis of real wind turbine blade cracking data, the recognition of cracking samples is improved by 19.8%, 23.8% and 22.7% for precision, recall and F1-score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of human society and the acceleration of urbanization, the impact of construction projects on the ecological environment is increasingly attracting attention. Conducting an ecological environmental impact assessment of construction projects is crucial to protect the ecological environment and achieve sustainable development. To estimate how construction projects would affect the value of ecosystem services, this paper develops the China Land Use Feature Data Sets (CLUFS) and uses the Beijing "One Line Four Mines" project as an example. Research found that the project's conservation and restoration zone and the landscape construction zone will significantly enhance the ecosystem regulation services value. The conservation and restoration zone will increase by 30% from the current 1.413 billion yuan per year to 1.836 billion yuan per year, and the landscape construction zone will increase by 69% from the current 400 million yuan per year to 676 million yuan per year. The tourism development zone, dominated by urban construction, will result in a decrease in ecosystem regulation services, from 19.26 million yuan per year to 17.60 million yuan per year by 9%. Overall, the "One Line Four Mines" project achieved a balance of ecological value and surplus. The method proposed in this paper for predicting the impact of ecosystem regulation services value on construction projects can be used to quickly evaluate the effects of different planning schemes on the ecosystem services value of land parcels to help urban planning decision-makers control the condition of land use. It can provide new indicators for the ecological environment department to incorporate ecological benefits into the evaluation system of planning schemes and new methods for evaluating the ecological protection effectiveness of projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heat and moisture transfer process in deformable porous media commonly exists in material drying, solid waste treatment, bioengineering, and so on. The transfer process is accompanied by deformation of the solid skeleton and pore interface structure, which limits the transfer rate and affects quality. Microwave and ultrasound are the main representatives of reinforcement technology. However, as the moisture decreases, the energy utilization efficiency of microwaves decreases significantly. Based on the experimental and theoretical methods, the enhancement mechanism of ultrasound on the process is studied, which provides guidance for the wide application of ultrasonic enhancement. With the increase in ultrasound power, the pore area and the moisture effective diffusion coefficient gradually increase. A macroscope mathematical model for ultrasonic-coupled thermal-hydro-mechanical modeling is developed, and the results show that ultrasound increases the temperature gradient within material, resulting in higher moisture transmission rates with an ordered direction, and the alternating expansion and compression process results in smaller macroscopic deformations. Subsequently, the drying kinetic characteristics of typical deformable porous media such as municipal sludge, porous fibers, and activated alumina particles are investigated. The process parameters of the ultrasonic assisted drying system are optimized using the response surface method and artificial neural network model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) is important for modern manufacturing companies to achieve manufacturing efficiency and improve resource utilization. Meanwhile, multiple objectives need to be considered in the realistic decision-making process for manufacturing systems. Based on the above realistic manufacturing system requirements, it becomes increasingly important to develop effective methods to deal with multi-objective IPPS problems. Therefore, an improved NSGA-II (INSGA-II) algorithm is proposed in this research, which uses the fast non-dominated ranking method for multiple optimization objectives as an assignment scheme for fitness. A multi-layer integrated coding method is adopted to address the characteristics of the integrated optimization model, which involves many optimization parameters and interactions. Elite and mutation strategies are employed during the evolutionary process to enhance population diversity and the quality of solutions. An external archive is also used to store and update the Pareto solution. The experimental results on the Kim test set demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed INSGA-II algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the well-known Millennium bridge accident happened at the beginning of this century, both researchers and engineers realized that the human-induced vibration may lead to unaffordable consequences. Although such vibrations hardly threaten the safety of the structure, the large vibration may affect the functionalities of the structure, causing the serviceability problem. The first study on the human-induced vibration serviceability problem started from the measurement of human-induced load, with many mathematical models proposed. The strong randomness of the measured data led to the investigation on the randomness feature of the load. With the research going deeper, the phenomenon of human–structure interaction was found, which attracted the researchers to study the randomness of the human body dynamic properties that may affect the structural response. Once the interaction mechanism and the system parameters became available, random vibration analysis methods could be proposed to calculate human-induced random vibration, providing the foundation of the reliability analysis from the perspective of vibration serviceability. Such reliability is highly related to subjective feelings of the human body, which has also been deeply studied in the literature. Furthermore, the purpose of studying the dynamic reliability is to conduct the reliability-based structural design. This paper provides a review of the research on human-induced vibration serviceability following the above logic, from the first attempt on load measurement towards the modern techniques for performance-based vibration serviceability design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arc-welding robots are widely used in the production of automotive bracket parts. The large amounts of fumes and toxic gases generated during arc welding can affect the inspection results, as well as causing health problems, and the product needs to be sent to an additional checkpoint for manual inspection. In this work, the framework of a robotic-vision-based defect inspection system was proposed and developed in a cloud–edge computing environment, which can drastically reduce the manual labor required for visual inspection, minimizing the risks associated with human error and accidents. Firstly, a passive vision sensor was installed on the end joint of the arc-welding robot, the imaging module was designed to capture bracket weldments images after the arc-welding process, and datasets with qualified images were created in the production line for deep-learning-based research on steel surface defects. To enhance the detection precision, a redesigned lightweight inspection network was then employed, while a fast computation speed was ensured through the utilization of a cloud–edge-computing computational framework. Finally, virtual simulation and Internet of Things technologies were adopted to develop the inspection and control software in order to monitor the whole process remotely. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can realize the faster identification of quality issues, achieving higher steel production efficiency and economic profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier studies with montelukast (M) and telmisartan (T) have revealed their potential antiviral properties against SARS-CoV-2 wild-type (WT) but have not assessed their efficacy against emerging Variants of Concern (VOCs) such as Omicron. Our research fills this gap by investigating these drugs' impact on VOCs, a topic that current scientific literature has largely overlooked. We employed computational methodologies, including molecular mechanics and machine learning tools, to identify drugs that could potentially disrupt the SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD-ACE2 protein interaction. This led to the identification of two FDA-approved small molecule drugs, M and T, conventionally used for treating asthma and hypertension, respectively. Our study presents an additional potential use for these drugs as antivirals. Our results show that both M and T can inhibit not only the WT SARS-CoV-2 but also, in the case of M, the Omicron variant, without reaching cytotoxic concentrations. This novel finding fills an existing gap in the literature and introduces the possibility of repurposing these drugs for SARS-CoV-2 VOCs, an essential step in responding to the evolving global pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifying the pattern of the urban greenhouse gas (GHG) budget and its influencing factors is the basis of promoting urban low-carbon development. This paper takes Beijing and Shenzhen—the capital city and the most rapidly developing city in China, respectively—as case studies, comprehensively accounts their GHG budgets from 2005 to 2020, and investigates and compares the factors affecting their GHG budgets. The total GHG emissions in Beijing were lowest in 2005 (160.3 TgCO2 equivalents) and peaked at 227.7 TgCO2 equivalents in 2019, and then decreased to 209.1 TgCO2 equivalents in 2020. Meanwhile, the total GHG emissions in Shenzhen gradually increased from 36.0 TgCO2 equivalents in 2005 to 121.4 TgCO2 equivalents in 2019, and then decreased to 119.1 TgCO2 equivalents in 2020. The energy activity sector was the greatest contributor to GHG emissions in this period, accounting for 82.5% and 76.0% of the total GHG emissions in Beijing and Shenzhen, respectively. The carbon sink of the ecosystems of these two cities could absorb only small parts of their emissions, and the neutralization rates of sinks ranged from 1.7% to 2.3% in Beijing and from 0.3% to 1.5% in Shenzhen. The enhancement of population, economic product, and consumption increased the greenhouse gas emissions in both cities. A 1% increase in population size, per capita GD (gross domestic product), and residential consumption level would increase total GHG emissions by 0.181%, 0.019%, and 0.030% in Beijing, respectively. The corresponding increases in Shenzhen would be 0.180%, 0.243%, and 0.172%, respectively. The household size had opposite effects on the two cities, i.e., a 1% increase in household size would increase GHG emissions by 0.487% in Shenzhen but reduce them by 2.083% in Beijing. Each 1% increase in secondary industry and energy intensity would reduce GHG emissions by 0.553% and 0.110% in Shenzhen, respectively, which are more significant reductions than those in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable urban forms (SUF) guide spatial creation, significantly revitalise the development of traditional settlements, and are an essential theoretical support for urban design. At the same time, the emergence of quantitative spatial analysis technology further promotes the visualised evaluation of the performance of spatial vitality in urban design. However, current research rarely studies the spatial vitality of traditional settlements with quantitative spatial analysis from the SUF perspective. Therefore, this research takes Anren Ancient Town in Chengdu, Western China, as an example to propose a design based on sustainable urban form theory to raise local spatial vitality. Then, it introduces the vitality evaluation system based on the urban form index (UFI) with three measurement methods: Space Syntax, Spacemate, and MXI, and conducts a comparative spatial vitality evaluation of Anren Ancient Town's status quo to explain the process of how the design scheme came about. The results found that urban design proposals based on the principles of compactness, mixed land use and diversity in SUF design guidelines can effectively improve the vitality of traditional settlements. The high vitality of an urban settlement could be achieved by combining SUF-based design guidelines and UFI-based evaluation systems. The spatial vitality evaluation system based on the SUF could assist and optimise decision-making in design and act as a paradigm for urban design or urban regeneration in traditional towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is gradually shifting towards more sustainable urban development, and the local governments are increasingly promoting social and environmentally sustainable spatial planning practices. This article debates the potential contradiction between the goal of a constantly growing urban population and the limits to the consumption of land planned by this new direction of urban development. The analysis focuses on the wealthy city of Suzhou in the Yangtse River Delta region and explores the opportunities for densification of the residential areas as a possible solution for this contradiction, as already tested by some Chinese cases for land use efficiency. The research applies GIS-based spatial analysis and identifies some of the sites that can be efficiently redeveloped in the resettlement communities for their low floor area ratio (FAR) and obsolescent conditions, which do not correspond to the increasingly middle-class status of the residents in the urban region. The article investigates the different options of a densification strategy in the frame of the policies of urban renewal promoted in China in recent years for improving the quality of the built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of increasing urbanization and worsening environmental pollution, nonpoint source pollution during high-frequency rainfall has become a major ecological problem that endangers residents in cities. This study takes Shenzhen as an example. On the basis of a large number of soil sample test data, and combined with relevant environmental variables, it has drawn the high-resolution, high-precision spatial distribution maps of soil attributes within the city. In addition, this paper combines the revised universal soil loss equation and the GeoDetector model to evaluate the supply capacity of nonpoint source reduction services in the city's ecological space and the main driving factors of spatial distribution characteristics for different types of land. The study found that increasing soil point density and combining environmental variables can help improve the accuracy of spatial mapping for soil attributes. The ME, MSE, ASE, RMSE, and RMSSE of spatial mapping all meet the accuracy evaluation criteria and are better than many existing studies; the spatial distribution characteristics of soil attributes and nonpoint source reduction services show significant differences among the whole city, secondary administrative regions, and different types of land; the GeoDetector results show that among the three main types of land use (forested land, industrial land, and street town residential land), topographic factors, habitat-quality factors, and ecosystem types have the greatest impact on the spatial differentiation characteristics of nonpoint source reduction services. Among climate factors, only precipitation factors have the greatest impact on the spatial differentiation characteristics of services. Facing the above factors, the q-values calculated by the GeoDetector are all higher than 10%. The results of this study can provide information for making better decisions on regional ecological system management and soil protection and on restoration work aimed at improving nonpoint source reduction services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the perinatal period, the bovine mammary epithelial cells of dairy cows exhibit vigorous metabolism and produce large amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The resulting redox balance disruption leads to oxidative stress, one of the main causes of mastitis. Puerarin (PUE) is a natural flavonoid in the root of PUE that has attracted extensive attention as a potential antioxidant. This study first investigated whether PUE could reduce oxidative damage and mastitis induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in bovine mammary epithelial cells in vitro and elucidated the molecular mechanism. In vitro, BMECs (Bovine mammary epithelial cells) were divided into four treatment groups: Control group (no treatment), H2O2 group (H2O2 stimulation), PUE + H2O2 group (H2O2 stimulation before PUE rescue) and PUE group (positive control). The growth of BMECs in each group was observed, and oxidative stress-related indices were detected. Fluorescence quantitative PCR (qRT–PCR) was used to detect the expression of tightly linked genes, antioxidant genes, and inflammatory factors. The expression of p65 protein was detected by Western blot. In vivo, twenty cows with an average age of 5 years having given birth three times were divided into the normal dairy cow group, normal dairy cow group fed PUE, mastitis dairy cow group fed PUE, and mastitis dairy cow group fed PUE (n = 5). The contents of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β in milk and serum were detected. In BMECs, the results showed that the PUE treatment increased the activities of glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC); ROS and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were reduced. Thus, PUE alleviated H2O2-induced oxidative stress in vitro. In addition, the PUE treatment eliminated the inhibition of H2O2 on the expression of oxidation genes and tight junction genes, and the enrichment degree of NRF-2, HO-1, xCT, and tight junctions (claudin4, occludin, ZO-1 and symplekin) increased. The PUE treatment also inhibited the expression of NF-κB-associated inflammatory factors (IL-6 and IL-8) and the chemokine CCL5 in H2O2-induced BMECs. In vivo experiments also confirmed that feeding PUE can reduce the expression of inflammatory factors in the milk and serum of lactating dairy cows. In conclusion, PUE can effectively reduce the oxidative stress of bovine mammary epithelial cells, enhance the tight junctions between cells, and play an anti-inflammatory role. This study provides a theoretical basis for PUE prevention and treatment of mastitis and oxidative stress. The use of PUE should be considered as a feed additive in future dairy farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pituitary gland is a key participant in the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis, as it secretes a variety of hormones and plays an important role in mammalian reproduction. Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone(GnRH) signaling molecules can bind to GnRH receptors on the surfaces of adenohypophysis gonadotropin cells and regulate the expression of follicle-stimulating hormone(FSH) and luteinizing hormone(LH) through various pathways. An increasing number of studies have shown that noncoding RNAs mediate the regulation of GnRH signaling molecules in the adenohypophysis. However, the expression changes and underlying mechanisms of genes and noncoding RNAs in the adenohypophysis under the action of GnRH remain unclear. In the present study, we performed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) of the rat adenohypophysis before and after GnRH treatment to identify differentially expressed mRNAs, lncRNAs, and miRNAs. We found 385 mRNAs, 704 lncRNAs, and 20 miRNAs that were significantly differentially expressed in the rat adenohypophysis. Then, we used a software to predict the regulatory roles of lncRNAs as molecular sponges that compete with mRNAs to bind miRNAs, and construct a GnRH-mediated ceRNA regulatory network. Finally, we enriched the differentially expressed mRNAs, lncRNA target genes, and ceRNA regulatory networks to analyze their potential roles. Based on the sequencing results, we verified that GnRH could affect FSH synthesis and secretion by promoting the competitive binding of lncRNA-m23b to miR-23b-3p to regulate the expression of Calcium/Calmodulin Dependent Protein Kinase II Delta(CAMK2D). Our findings provide strong data to support exploration of the physiological processes in the rat adenohypophysis under the action of GnRH. Furthermore, our profile of lncRNA expression in the rat adenohypophysis provides a theoretical basis for research on the roles of lncRNAs in the adenohypophysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As energy plays a fundamental role in our modern life and most of a building's energy is used for air conditioning, understanding the sustainable regulation theory of central air conditioning remains a significant scientific issue. In view of three shortcomings of existing energy-saving regulation methods of central air conditioning: (1) few studies on low-latency, high-reliability, and safer energy-saving control operation modes, (2) lack of consideration for human comfort, and (3) insufficient analysis of the comprehensive impact of the human–machine–environment, this paper proposes an energy-saving control framework of central air conditioning based on cloud–edge–device architecture. The framework establishes a prediction model of human comfort based on recurrent neural network. An intelligent energy-saving control strategy is proposed to ensure indoor personnel's thermal comfort, considering the human–machine–environment factors. This study provides a basis for better understanding the sustainable control theory of building central air conditioning. Finally, the experiment proves that the proposed method can effectively reduce the energy consumption of central air conditioning. Compared with traditional regulation approaches, the proposed real-time control strategy can save up to 91% of energy consumption, depending on the environment, and advance control strategies can save an average of 4%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citrus greening, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB), is caused by the unculturable bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter spp. (e.g., CLas), and has caused a devastating decline in citrus production in many areas of the world. As of yet, there are no definitive treatments for controlling the disease. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that have the potential to block secretion-dependent effector proteins at the outer-membrane domains were screened in silico. Predictions of drug-receptor interactions were built using multiple in silico techniques, including molecular docking analysis, molecular dynamics, molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area analysis, and principal component analysis. The efflux pump TolC of the Type 1 secretion system interacted with natural bacteriocin plantaricin JLA-9, blocking the β barrel. The trajectory-based principal component analysis revealed the possible binding mechanism of the peptides. Furthermore, in vitro assays using two closely related culturable surrogates of CLas (Liberibacter crescens and Rhizobium spp.) showed that Plantaricin JLA-9 and two other screened AMPs inhibited bacterial growth and caused mortality. The findings contribute to designing effective therapies to manage plant diseases associated with Candidatus Liberibacter spp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA originating from organellar genomes are regularly discovered in nuclear sequences during genome assembly. Nevertheless, such insertions are sometimes omitted during the process of nuclear genome assembly because the inserted DNA is assigned to organellar genomes, leading to a systematic underestimation of their frequency. With the rapid development of high-throughput sequencing technology, more inserted fragments from organelle genomes can now be detected. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of the insertion events from organellar genomes during nuclear genome assembly to properly attribute the impact and rate of such insertions in the evolution of nuclear genomes. Here, we investigated the impact of intracellular gene transfer (IGT) from the plastome to the nuclear genome using genome assemblies that were refined through time with technological improvements from two model species, Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa. We found that IGT from the plastome to the nuclear genome is a dynamic and ongoing process in both A. thaliana and O. sativa, and mostly occurred recently, as the majority of transferred sequences showed over 95% sequence similarity with plastome sequences of origin. Differences in the plastome-to-nuclear genome IGT between A. thaliana and O. sativa varied among the different assembly versions and were associated with the quality of the nuclear genome assembly. IGTs from the plastome to nuclear genome occurred more frequently in intergenic regions, which were often associated with transposable elements (TEs). This study provides new insights into intracellular genome evolution and nuclear genome assembly by characterizing and comparing IGT from the plastome into the nuclear genome for two model plant species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the 14th Five-Year Plan for Development, China is promoting people-oriented urban regeneration for residential communities built before 2000. Evaluations of quality of life (QoL) and considerations of social sustainability must play an important role in defining people-oriented regeneration projects. Residents' satisfaction is an important indicator of QoL and is essential for achieving socially sustainable development. To contribute to the ongoing discussion about people-oriented urban regeneration, this paper studies the correlation between QoL and social sustainability, investigating residents' perception in high-density communities through a satisfaction evaluation approach based on the QoL index. Two high-density communities in Suzhou were analyzed: Nanhuan, a high-rise, gated community in one of the first expansions of the city in the 80s; and Daoqian, a multi-story, non-gated community in the old town. Both communities have a typical urban morphology and were selected for their exemplary characteristics. The study used a mixed research method: field investigation, on-site interviews, and a survey with over 670 questionnaires conducted and analyzed. It also applied the Structural Equation Model (SEM) to explore and define the satisfaction evaluation factors. The two communities expressed concerns about different factors: in the case of the Nanhuan community, property management and spatial scenario creation were emphasized, whereas in the case of the Daoqian community, unrestricted space mobility, poor existing conditions, and the demand for various facilities and recreation spaces were most prominent. The research found that improving community environmental quality and facilities would, as one would expect, improve residents' satisfaction in both communities. Still, our research also clearly indicated that diversified spatial activities, currently missing in both cases, and more opportunities for social interaction would enhance residents' satisfaction. The findings of this study offer some insights regarding socially sustainable community regeneration, as well as decision-making processes and design strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Although artificial antiviral drugs can effectively inhibit the proliferation of viruses, these drugs not only have serious side effects, but also create drug-resistant virus strains and produce harmful drug residues. In comparison, natural antiviral compounds have many distinctive advantages. For example, natural compounds, in general, have a lower toxicity, lower price, and better antiviral effects. Nowadays, wide applications of natural antiviral compounds not only provide us with safe meat products, but also reduce the abuse of antibiotics, thus reducing the number of drug-resilient microbes and viruses. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the antiviral activity of Ren's oligopeptides-1 against the pseudorabies virus (PRV). Ren's oligopeptides-1 is a plant-derived drug with an antiviral activity against herpesvirus. Ren's oligopeptides-1 contains ginger, garlic, onion, banana peel, and bitter melon. We discovered that the CC50 value of Ren's oligopeptides-1 was 15 mg/mL, while the EC50 value was 6 mg/mL. This indicated that the concentration of 6 mg/mL was optimal for inhibiting the replication of PRV. In this study, PRV was used to conduct in vitro experiments on PK15 cells to explore the antiviral effect of Ren's oligopeptides-1, which could become a promising feed additive. Newly synthesized Ren's oligopeptides-1 was found to have an antiviral effect in clinical trials, and the purpose of this study was to further demonstrate the antiviral activity of Ren's oligopeptides-1 against the PRV 152-GFP strain. We used the real-time cell analysis system (RTCA) to detect the cytotoxicity of different concentrations of Ren's oligopeptides-1. We then applied high content screening (HCS) to detect the antiviral activity of Ren's oligopeptides-1 against PRV. Meanwhile, the fluorescence signal of the virus was collected in real time and the expression levels of the related genes in the PK15 cells infected with PRV were detected using real-time PCR. At the mRNA level, we discovered that, at a concentration of 6 mg/mL, Ren's oligopeptides-1 reduced the expression of pseudorabies virus (PRV) genes such as IE180, UL18, UL54, and UL21 at a concentration of 6 mg/mL. We then determined that Ren's oligopeptides-1 has an EC50 value of 6 mg/mL, and at this level, no cytotoxicity was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decades have witnessed surging demand for wearable electronics, for which thermoelectrics (TEs) are considered a promising self-charging technology, as they are capable of converting skin heat into electricity directly. Bi2Te3 is the most-used TE material at room temperature, due to a high zT of ~1. However, it is different to integrate Bi2Te3 for wearable TEs owing to its intrinsic rigidity. Bi2Te3 could be flexible when made thin enough, but this implies a small electrical and thermal load, thus severely restricting the power output. Herein, we developed a Bi2Te3/nickel foam (NiFoam) composite film through solvothermal deposition of Bi2Te3 nanoplates into porous NiFoam. Due to the mesh structure and ductility of Ni Foam, the film, with a thickness of 160 μm, exhibited a high figure of merit for flexibility, 0.016, connoting higher output. Moreover, the film also revealed a high tensile strength of 12.7 ± 0.04 MPa and a maximum elongation rate of 28.8%. In addition, due to the film's high electrical conductivity and enhanced Seebeck coefficient, an outstanding power factor of 850 μW m−1 K−2 was achieved, which is among the highest ever reported. A module fabricated with five such n-type legs integrated electrically in series and thermally in parallel showed an output power of 22.8 nW at a temperature gap of 30 K. This work offered a cost-effective avenue for making highly flexible TE films for power supply of wearable electronics by intercalating TE nanoplates into porous and meshed-structure materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bouncing is one of the most common human crowd activities on civil infrastructures such as sports stadiums and concert halls, where the audience tends to make their bodies jump up and down to celebrate or participate in sport and musical events. Dynamic loads are thus generated and exerted on the structures, giving unpleasant structural vibration, which may affect the functionality of the structure or even lead to a panic of the crowd. Although researchers have studied human-induced vibration from many perspectives including load models, calculation methods, criteria for serviceability evaluation, etc., there has been minimal work regarding crowd-induced reliability analysis, mainly because the stochastic feature of the crowd load as well as the mechanism describing the crowd–structure interaction is still not clear. In this paper, a framework to calculate crowd-induced structural vibration that considers the crowd–structure interaction effect is proposed and is validated through an experimental test. The dynamic parameters of the bouncing person in the crowd are adopted from a previous statistical study. The feasibility of a probability density evolution method (PDEM) is proved to be effective to calculate structural stochastic vibration under the bouncing crowd. The dynamic reliability of the structure is thus analyzed based on the stochastic responses. Results show that the consideration of the crowd–structure interaction effect significantly affects the dynamic reliability, which is also dependent on various factors including bouncing frequency, failure criteria, limit threshold, human model parameter distribution, etc. This paper provides a foundation for the performance-based vibration serviceability design of large-span structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Circular RNAs(circRNAs) and microRNAs(miRNAs) are a type of endogenous non-coding RNA that are widely expressed in tissues and play an important role in growth and development. Growth hormone (GH) regulates the growth and apoptosis of cells. However, there are still few reports on the mechanisms involving circRNA and GH. Therefore, this study aimed to explore how circRNAs regulate the secretion of GH. We studied a circRNA named circAgtpbp1 from our previous RNA sequencing, which can target miR-543-5p binding to the 3'UTR of Gh1 messager RNA (mRNA). Our results demonstrate that circAgtpbp1 is a stable, truly circular molecule, which is located on chromosome 17. Moreover, we found that circAgtpbp1 can promote the secretion of GH by attenuating the effect of miR-543-5p. These findings expand our existing knowledge of the mechanisms of hormone regulation and enrich the research involving the regulation of hormones by non-coding RNA. CircRNAs have been identified to be expressed differently and stably in numerous species and tissues, but their functions in growth hormone (GH) secretion are still largely unknown. In summary, we have revealed a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network that may play a biological role in the rat pituitary gland. First, we verified the chromosome location information of circAgtpbp1 according to sequencing analysis. The circAgtpbp1 characteristics were authenticated through PCR, qRT–PCR, treating with RNase and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). Second, we detected the expression pattern of circAgtpbp1 in the rat anterior pituitary by qRT–PCR. We also designed circAgtpbp1 siRNA and constructed overexpression plasmid to evaluate the effect of circAgtpbp1 function on GH secretion by qRT–PCR, ELISA and Western blot. CircAgtpbp1 is a stable, truly circular molecule. We found that circAgtpbp1 interacted with miR-543-5p and can regulate GH secretion in pituitary cells through a circAgtpbp1-miR-543-5p-GH axis. Overall, the evidence generated by our study suggests that circAgtpbp1 can act as a sponge of miR-543-5p to reduce the inhibitory effect of miR-543-5p on Gh1 and further promote GH secretion. These findings expand our existing knowledge on the mechanisms of hormone regulation in the pituitary gland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]