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The electroluminescence performance of heavy-metal-free blue quantum dot (QD) light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) is much lower than that of state-of-the-art cadmium-based counterparts. Ecofriendly ZnSeTe QDs are an ideal alternative to cadmium-based blue QDs 1,2 , but face issues with colour impurity and inferior stability caused by the aggregated tellurium (Te n≥2 ) that dominates compositional inhomogeneity 3,4 . Here we developed an isoelectronic control strategy using congeneric sulfur coordinated with triphenyl phosphite (TPP-S) to construct homogeneous ZnSeTeS QDs with pure-blue emissions and near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield. TPP with low electron-donating capability promotes the reactivity balance among anionic precursors, favouring the growth of QDs with uniform composition. The acceptor-like S with high electronegativity weakens the hole localization of the Te atoms by interfering with their surrounding carriers, thereby suppressing the formation of Te n≥2 isoelectronic centres. Furthermore, the congeneric S increases the configurational entropy of the QDs and eliminates the stacking faults and oxygen defects, leading to improved structural stability and reduced non-radiative carrier density. Consequently, the resulting pure-blue QLEDs based on core-shell ZnSeTeS/ZnSe/ZnS QDs emitting at 460 nm show a high external quantum efficiency of 24.7%, a narrow linewidth of 17 nm, and long operational half-lifetime (T 50 ) close to 30,000 hours at 100 cd cm -2 , rivalling state-of-the-art cadmium-based blue QLEDs., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Knowledge of patients with gastrointestinal leiomyosarcoma (GILMS) is lacking. In this study, we aimed to clarify the disease features and prognosis of GILMS based on the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. The clinicopathological, treatment, survival, and prognostic data of GILMS from 2000-2020 were retrieved. Appropriate statistical approaches were used to evaluate demographic characteristics and survival outcomes. A total of 479 individuals with GILMS met the screening criteria. The median age of patients was 64 (15-90) years. Only 7.9% of these cases were diagnosed with lymph node metastasis. T2 or higher primary tumor extension was diagnosed in 78.1% of the patients. The 5-year cancer-specific survival (CSS) of patients who had and had not undergone surgery was 66.5% and 0%, respectively. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis based on overall survival and CSS showed that female sex was a significant independent protective factor. Significant independent risk factors included age 65-79, age ≥ 80, poor differentiation, T2 and higher T stage, distant metastasis, and no surgery. Neither chemotherapy nor radiotherapy influenced survival or prognosis. This comprehensive analysis underscored the necessity of surgical excision for prolonging survival times and highlighted the urgent need to explore effective systematic treatments., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Informed consent: Informed consent of all subjects and/or their legal guardian(s) are waived due to this study using data from the SEER database, which is publicly available deidentified patient data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is a multifaceted process observed in patients with coronary artery disease when blood flow is restored to the heart tissue following ischemia-induced damage. Cardiomyocyte cell death, particularly through apoptosis, necroptosis, autophagy, pyroptosis, and ferroptosis, is pivotal in myocardial I/R injury. Preventing cell death during the process of I/R is vital for improving ischemic cardiomyopathy. These multiple forms of cell death can occur simultaneously, interact with each other, and contribute to the complexity of myocardial I/R injury. In this review, we aim to provide a comprehensive summary of the key molecular mechanisms and regulatory patterns involved in these five types of cell death in myocardial I/R injury. We will also discuss the crosstalk and intricate interactions among these mechanisms, highlighting the interplay between different types of cell death. Furthermore, we will explore specific molecules or targets that participate in different cell death pathways and elucidate their mechanisms of action. It is important to note that manipulating the molecules or targets involved in distinct cell death processes may have a significant impact on reducing myocardial I/R injury. By enhancing researchers' understanding of the mechanisms and interactions among different types of cell death in myocardial I/R injury, this review aims to pave the way for the development of novel interventions for cardio-protection in patients affected by myocardial I/R injury., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The emerging field of epitranscriptomics is reshaping our understanding of post-transcriptional gene regulation in inflammatory diseases. N 4 -acetylcytidine (ac 4 C), the only known acetylation modification in RNA catalyzed by N-acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10), is known to enhance mRNA stability and translation, yet its role in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) remains unclear. In this study, we discovered that Nat10 expression correlates with inflammatory and apoptotic pathways in human ulcerative colitis CD4 + T cells. Our further analysis revealed that the deficiency of NAT10 led to a disruption of T cell development at steady state, and identified a pivotal role for NAT10 in preserving the pathogenicity of naïve CD4 + T cells to induce adoptive transfer colitis. Mechanistically, the lack of NAT10 triggers the diminished stability of the anti-apoptotic gene BCL2-associated athanogene 3 (Bag3), initiating a cascade of events that includes the upregulation of apoptosis-related genes and an accelerated rate of apoptosis in T cells. Our findings reveal a previously unrecognized role of the NAT10-ac 4 C-Bag3 axis in preserving T cell balance and suggests that targeting RNA ac 4 C modification could be a promising therapeutic approach for IBD., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

In tumor radiotherapy, monitoring patient body position is crucial for improving efficacy and reducing complications. We developed a contact-based body position monitoring system using pressure sensors and artificial intelligence, enabling non-invasive, radiation-free, real-time monitoring. The system consists of two pressure-sensitive mattresses with 6400 piezoresistive pressure points each, placed under the scapulae and sacrococcygeal region to monitor resistance values for center of gravity calculation. Using data from 251 cancer patients across 1046 sessions, a random forest algorithm achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.995. Internal validation revealed a true positive rate (TPR) of 95.5% and accuracy (ACC) of 96.8%. Overall accuracy exceeded 90%, providing an effective and low-cost solution for continuous body position monitoring during radiotherapy., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

In this paper, a novel aluminum foam structure with wave attenuation and ventilation performance suitable for underground space is designed and prepared. It focuses on dynamic response of aluminum foam structure under explosion impact load and ventilation resistance at different wind speeds. Failure modes of each component are analyzed and attenuation mechanism of explosive shock wave are revealed. The results indicate that: under the synergistic action of the crushing behavior of the aluminum foam cells, the rough wall structure of the ventilation holes and the special diagonal square honeycomb-shaped structure, the wave attenuation effect of the aluminum foam structure is significantly improved. The max wave attenuation rate can reach to 99.1%. For this aluminum foam structure, the wind speeds are 4.32 m/s and 9.31 m/s while the ventilation resistances are 119.46 Pa and 641.44 Pa. It indicates its excellent ventilation performance. Therefore, the novel aluminum foam structure has a good application prospect in underground space construction., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information: Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Q.S or S.D. Reprints and permissions information: is available at www.nature.com/reprints . Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Red mud (RM), a solid waste byproduct of the alumina industry, has accumulated in significant global stockpiles. Currently, the primary application of RM involves magnetic separation to recover iron oxides, while the residual RM is predominantly landfilled. Due to its strong alkalinity, RM can serve as a substitute for strong alkalis or sodium salts in the alkali activation of concrete, thereby accelerating setting time and improving early-age strength. Building on this property, this study designs and develops an RM based rapid setting filling support material, primarily composed of RM, which features rapid setting and high early strength. This material is intended as a substitute for high-water-content materials in gob-side entry retaining for coal mining. Experimental results demonstrate that when RM content reaches 70% and cement content is 10%, the Rapid-Setting Filling Support Material (RSM) achieves satisfactory compressive strength and initial setting time, coupled with excellent economic performance. The compressive strengths at 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, and 28 days are 6.12 MPa, 8.97 MPa, 11.25 MPa, and 12.33 MPa, respectively, meeting all requirements specified in the 'Technical Requirements for Roadside Bag Filling for Gob-side Entry Retaining with High-Water Material' (GB/T 39336-2020). The RSM also exhibits good durability, with primary hydration products including C-S-H gel, ettringite, and calcium carbonate, all of which contribute to strength development. Leaching tests reveal that heavy metal ion concentrations in the RSM leachate comply with integrated emission standards for Class III groundwater and wastewater, confirming its safe application. Considering the annual increase of approximately 13,000 km in roadway length for coal mining in China, the demand for filling and support materials is substantial. Consequently, the findings of this study hold significant economic and environmental value, with the potential to promote green mining practices and the circular economy., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Prestressed bolts have been increasingly used in underground engineering as a practical solution to control the instability of surrounding rock masses. However, blindly increasing the density of prestressed bolt has limited influence on the performance improvement of tunnel surrounding rock mass. Therefore, the accurate design of the parameters of the prestressed bolt in the support system is a significant method to improve the bearing capacity of the tunnel surrounding rock. To solve this problem, we carried out large-scale physical model tests of anchored rock block with nonpersistent joints. An innovative method for prestressed bolt simulation is proposed by using the code independently developed in PFC 3D , and then a series of numerical model compression tests of anchored rock block with different prestressed bolt densities are extended based on physical model tests. The results indicate that the original failure mode of the rock block is not changed by adding bolt. And an increase in the density of the prestressed bolt leads to a change in the anchoring mechanism of the rock block. When the density of prestressed bolt is low, the upper load is mainly borne by rock block, and the increase of the density of bolt will mobilize more intact rock to participate in the load. When the density of prestressed bolt increases to a certain extent, the upper load is mainly borne by the prestressed bolt. And the performance improvement of prestressed bolt to rock block is limited. When the prestress and density of bolt reach a certain degree, the strength of rock mass is only increased by 10% when the prestress and density of bolt are doubled. The increase of the density of prestressed bolt makes the deformation of rock block more stable, and the ɛ 3 /ɛ 1 ratio of the anchored rock block is always less than 1.0. The research results have important guiding significance for tunnel surrounding rock masses support design., Competing Interests: Declaration. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease characterized by progressive fibrosis of the skin and visceral organs, to date, skin fibrosis remains a clinical therapeutic challenge. Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AMSCs) have been considered extremely promising for the treatment of SSc, and the biological effects of MSCs are partly attributed to the secretion of exosomes (exos). Our aim was to determine whether exosomes derived from AMSCs have parental biological effects to AMSCs in the therapy of SSc skin fibrosis. In vitro cellular experiments, AMSCs and SSc skin fibroblasts were cocultured in direct contact and transwell indirect contact at a ratio of 1:5 and 1:10, respectively, then exosomes were extracted from the cell culture supernatant of AMSCs and identified, and the exosomes were cocultured with fibroblasts to investigate the effects of AMSCs and exosomes on fibroblast collagen synthesis. Repeated subcutaneous injections of bleomycin (BLM) to construct a model of SSc skin fibrosis in vivo experiments, then AMSCs and exosomes were injected subcutaneously to investigate their effects on skin fibrosis in the BLM mice. The results revealed that exosomes had similar biological functions to AMSCs, by inhibiting the TGF-β1/Smad3 axis, which alleviated collagen synthesis in skin fibroblasts from SSc patients and skin fibrosis in BLM models. In conclusion, AMSCs-derived exosomes may be "rising star candidates" for the treatment of SSc skin fibrosis., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Huashan and Zhongshan Hospitals. Consent to participate: All authors agreed to the participate. Consent for publication: All authors agreed to the publication of the manuscript., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

From LSTMs (Long Short-Term Memory) to Transformers, various networks have been used for runoff forecasting, though many complex structures may be unnecessary. This study introduces RR-TiDE, a simple model based on the Time Series Dense Encoder. RR-TiDE employs fully Multilayer Perceptron architecture for modeling and is specifically designed with understanding of hydrological processes. To manage non-stationarity in hydrological data, RR-TiDE incorporates Reversible Instance Normalization. The model was trained using the Catchment Attributes and Meteorology for Large-Sample Studies (CAMELS) dataset and evaluated on two tasks: (1) multi-basin runoff simulation; (2) prediction in data-sparse basins. In the first task, RR-TiDE outperformed both Transformer and LSTM-based models across all metrics for 7-day runoff predictions, which indicates that RR-TiDE is highly suitable for rainfall-runoff simulation. In the second task, it achieved a median NSE of 0.82 in 1-day runoff forecasting in 51 watersheds. This suggests that RR-TiDE possesses robust generalization capability, enabling spatial extrapolation. Comparisons were made between models with and without the feature projection layer and RevIN to further understand their individual contributions. Results indicate that the feature projection layer can effectively enhance the performance of RR-TiDE. Although RevIN provided limited overall improvements, it helped stabilize loss fluctuations during training, aiding model convergence., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The relationship between ischemic stroke (IS) and pyroptosis centers on the inflammatory response elicited by cerebral tissue damage during an ischemic stroke event. However, an in-depth mechanistic understanding of their connection remains limited. This study aims to comprehensively analyze the gene expression patterns of pyroptosis-related differentially expressed genes (PRDEGs) by employing integrated IS datasets and machine learning techniques. The primary objective was to develop classification models to identify crucial PRDEGs integral to the ischemic stroke process. Leveraging three distinct machine learning algorithms (LASSO, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine), models were developed to differentiate between the Control and the IS patient samples. Through this approach, a core set of 10 PRDEGs consistently emerged as significant across all three machine learning models. Subsequent analysis of these genes yielded significant insights into their functional relevance and potential therapeutic approaches. In conclusion, this investigation underscores the pivotal role of pyroptosis pathways in ischemic stroke and identifies pertinent targets for therapeutic development and drug repurposing., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval: GEO is an open source public database. Users are permited to freely download relevant data for research and publication. This study is exempt from the approval of Institutional Review Board (IRB)., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Spinal cord injury causes a cascade of physiological responses, which may trigger a subsequent neurotoxic increase in intracellular sodium. This can lead to neurodegeneration, both at and beyond the site of injury, causing clinical symptoms and loss of function. However, in vivo measurements of tissue sodium remain challenging. Here we utilise sodium magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( 23 Na-MRS) at 3T to measure tissue sodium concentration (TSC) and its association with microstructural measures and macromolecular MRI metrics in the cervical spinal cord, distal to the site of injury. Twenty people with cervical myelopathy and twenty healthy controls, were studied. Associations with motor and sensory impairments were explored using ASIA and jOAMEQ scores. No significant difference in TSC in the cervical myelopathy group (39 ± 10 mM) relative to healthy controls (35 ± 13 mM) was found. However, patients had a significantly lower cord-cross-sectional area than controls (70 ± 9 mm 2 vs. 82 ± 9 mm 2 , p < 0.001). Lower-extremity function positively correlated with intracellular volume fraction (p = 0.031). In conclusion, using 23 Na-MRS, TSC in cervical myelopathy patients was successfully measured. Differences in TSC relative to healthy controls did not reach significance, despite a significant reduction in cord-cross-sectional area. However, lower intracellular volume fraction, indicating reduced neurite density distal to the site of injury, was associated with physical impairment., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Additional Information: CT received honoraria from Roche, Novartis, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb, and is a steering committee member of the O’HAND trial and of the Consensus group on Follow-on DMTs. CGWK is a shareholder in Queen Square Analytics Ltd., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are pivotal in biomedical and evolutionary research 1-3 . However, their genomic complexity and interspecies genetic differences remain unclear 4 . Here, we present a complete genome assembly of a crab-eating macaque, revealing 46% fewer segmental duplications and 3.83 times longer centromeres than those of humans 5,6 . We also characterize 93 large-scale genomic differences between macaques and humans at a single-base-pair resolution, highlighting their impact on gene regulation in primate evolution. Using ten long-read macaque genomes, hundreds of short-read macaque genomes and full-length transcriptome data, we identified roughly 2 Mbp of fixed-genetic variants, roughly 240 Mbp of complex loci, 16.76 Mbp genetic differentiation regions and 110 alternative splice events, potentially associated with various phenotypic differences between the two macaque species. In summary, the integrated genetic analysis enhances understanding of lineage-specific phenotypes, adaptation and primate evolution, thereby improving their biomedical applications in human disease research., Competing Interests: Competing interests: E.E.E. is a scientific advisory board member of Variant Bio. The other authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Human accelerated regions (HARs) are conserved genomic loci that have experienced rapid nucleotide substitutions following the divergence from chimpanzees 1,2 . HARs are enriched in candidate regulatory regions near neurodevelopmental genes, suggesting their roles in gene regulation 3 . However, their target genes and functional contributions to human brain development remain largely uncharacterized. Here we elucidate the cis-regulatory functions of HARs in human and chimpanzee induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-induced excitatory neurons. Using genomic 4 and chromatin looping information, we prioritized 20 HARs and their chimpanzee orthologues for functional characterization via single-cell CRISPR interference, and demonstrated their species-specific gene regulatory functions. Our findings reveal diverse functional outcomes of HAR-mediated cis-regulation in human neurons, including attenuated NPAS3 expression by altering the binding affinities of multiple transcription factors in HAR202 and maintaining iPS cell pluripotency and neuronal differentiation capacities through the upregulation of PUM2 by 2xHAR.319. Finally, we used prime editing to demonstrate differential enhancer activity caused by several HAR26;2xHAR.178 variants. In particular, we link one variant in HAR26;2xHAR.178 to elevated SOCS2 expression and increased neurite outgrowth in human neurons. Thus, our study sheds new light on the endogenous gene regulatory functions of HARs and their potential contribution to human brain evolution., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Buzz pollination is essential for plants which have poricidal anther dehiscence, such as tomato. Due to the lack of microscopic level observations and precise analyses of the buzz pollination process, the mechanism of tomato pollen ejection during buzz pollination is unclear. In this study, Micro-CT imaging was used to measure the internal structure and size of tomato flowers. Then, a discrete element simulation 3D model of a standardized tomato flower was constructed. Finally, the process of collision and adhesion between pollen grains during buzz pollination was directly solved by numerical calculations. By comparing and analyzing with existing research results, a discrete element simulation of buzz pollination was developed. This study provides an intuitive, feasible, simple yet efficient research method for buzz pollination, which is helpful to understand and explore the mechanism of pollen ejection from pored anthers during mechanical or natural bee-induced vibrations., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Sarcopenia, which leads to reduced quality of life and increased medical burden, is challenging to diagnose in a timely manner. Lipid metabolism plays a role in sarcopenia, and this study explored the associations between blood lipid profile parameters and sarcopenia. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2018, we conducted weighted multivariate logistic regression to investigate the associations between lipid ratios and sarcopenia, including non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) to HDL-C, triglyceride (TG) to HDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) to HDL-C, and remnant cholesterol (RC) to HDL-C ratios. We performed subgroup analyses to assess interactions with other covariates and used mediation models to evaluate the mediating roles of inflammatory biomarkers. We included a total of 9500 non-sarcopenic and 849 sarcopenic participants aged 18-59 years. While we observed modest correlations between individual lipid components and sarcopenia, we obtained significant positive associations for lipid ratios. Specifically, non-HDL/HDL-C (OR = 1.09; 95% CI 1.03-1.15; P = 0.003), TG/HDL-C (OR = 1.02; 95% CI 1.02-1.04; P = 0.014), LDL/HDL-C (OR = 1.27; 95% CI 1.11-1.45; P < 0.001), and RC/HDL-C ratios (OR = 1.55; 95% CI 1.16-2.07; P = 0.004) showed strong associations with sarcopenia. These associations were more pronounced in younger participants, those with lower family economic status, and those without self-reported diabetes. Furthermore, there were significant mediation effects of inflammatory biomarkers on the association between non-HDL/HDL-C, LDL/HDL-C, and RC/HDL-C and sarcopenia risk, with proportions ranging from 2.90 to 6.36%. In conclusion, our study demonstrated the positive associations between lipid ratios and sarcopenia in middle-aged adults, suggesting the potential of these lipid ratios for improving sarcopenia case identification. Further research is required to explore the underlying mechanisms., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics declarations: The NHANES protocol underwent rigorous approval by the National Center for Health Statistics Ethics Review Board to ensure ethical compliance, and all participants in the project provided written informed consent before their involvement., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a predominant cardiac arrhythmia with unclear etiology. This study used bioinformatics and machine learning to explore the relationship between mitochondrial energy metabolism-related genes (MEMRGs) and immune infiltration in AF. The datasets GSE31821, GSE41177, and GSE79768 were retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and differential expression analysis identified 59 mitochondrial energy metabolism-related differentially expressed genes (MEMRDEGs) associated with AF. Key MEMRDEGs were selected using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and support vector machine (SVM) methods, and a diagnostic model was developed. Immune infiltration was assessed using single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and the microenvironment cell population counter (MCPcounter). The diagnostic model, based on the key genes ACAT1, ALDH1L2, HTT, OGDH, and SLC25A3, achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.903. Significant differences in immune cell composition were observed between the AF and control groups. ALDH1L2 was positively correlated with most immune cells, while SLC25A3 showed a negatively correlated with the monocytic lineage. The findings indicate that MEMRGs interact with immune responses in AF, offering insights into the potential molecular mechanisms and therapeutic targets for AF., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: GEO belong to public databases. The patients involved in the database have obtained ethical approval. Users can download relevant data for free for research and publish relevant articles. Our study is based on open source data, so there are no ethical issues and other conflicts of interest. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

With ongoing development of ground transportation system, competing regional airports need to collaborate in order to improve their efficiency and passenger turnover. However, finding the most advantageous dynamic connection between airports' rivalry and collaboration, passenger market alterations, and influencing factors is quite challenging. To this end, our study proposed a three-stage method combining analytical methodologies and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze the changing trend and correlation of passenger market concentration as well as operational efficiency in ten airports of China's Yangtze River Delta (YRD) airport group during period from 2011 to 2019, China. As the first step, the current study applied state-of-the-art evaluative methods, including the Hirschmann-Hefenthal index, Gini index, and net-shift effects analysis, to examine passenger concentration. Subsequently, the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was utilized to explore the correlation of net shift with airport performance. Finally, the OLS model was combined to make a comprehensive analysis. The proposed approach was discussed in detail and yielded the following findings. The YRD airport group was moderately concentrated and had a decentralized trend from 2010 to 2019. Half of the airports in the airport group had an efficiency score lower than one but managed to gain significant market shares in the competition. The analysis shows that in the Yangtze River Delta Airport Group, there is a significant positive correlation between market share and airport efficiency, while Net shift is only negatively correlated with airports that gain market share. The super-efficiency score curve of three airports changed dramatically, presenting a "U" shape, while that of the other seven airports changed steadily, related to their urban economic scale, urban development stage, and government investment pattern., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Faults represent significant geological structures. Conventional fault identification methods pri-marily rely on the linear features of faults, achieved through the interpretation of remote sensing imagery (RSI). To more accurately enhance the morphological features of faults and achieve their rapid, precise, and intelligent identification, this paper employs a multi-source information fusion method. By analyzing and processing RSI, digital elevation model, and geological map data, the spectral, topographic, geomorphic, and structural features of faults are extracted. By training samples and applying fusion algorithms, the spectral, topographic, geomorphic, and structural features are integrated to enhance the morphological features information of faults. Ultimately, intelligent fault identification is realized through deep learning-based image recognition technology. First, 16 influencing factors are selected from the perspectives of spectral, topographic, geomorphic, and structural features. Second, the importance of each influencing factor is predicted using 4 machine learning methods. Finally, fault identification is carried out on the fault identification map, which is fused with multi-source feature information, using the Convolutional Neural Network Model. The study applies the method to the southern part of Jinzhai County, Lu'an City. The results indicate that among the machine learning methods, the classification and regression Trees model achieved an accuracy of 0.993, true positive rate of 0.988, F1-score of 0.994. Topographic position index(TPI), Valley line (VL), Surface cutting depth (SCD), and RSI all show high importance across the four machine learning models, indicating their crucial role in fault identification. For the Convolutional Neural Network model-based method, the Validation Accuracy(Val&#95;Accuracy) was 0.990, F1-score was 0.736, and Validation Loss(Val&#95;Loss) was 0.025, suggesting that this method can accurately identify faults in the study area., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The high rate of postencephalitic epilepsy (PE) contributes to the unfavorable clinical outcome of herpes simplex virus-1 encephalitis (HSE). We aimed to identify the risk factors and explore possible mechanisms of PE in childhood following HSE. We conducted a retrospective review of children diagnosed with HSE and patients were categorized into two groups based on the presence or absence of PE. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyze factors associated with PE. Furthermore, cytokine and albumin levels in paired cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood samples during acute HSE were also retrospectively reviewed. 97 HSE patients were included in the study and PE was diagnosed in 46. On multivariate analysis, the features predictive of PE (presented as odds ratio [OR] with confidence intervals [CIs]) were status epilepticus (OR 9.38, CI 1.71-10.37), focal seizures (7.41, 1.42-16.97), and restricted diffusion on MRI (6.15, 1.16-20.31). The median QAlb value (CSF to serum albumin ratio, a marker of blood-brain-barrier [BBB] integrity), levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-6:IL-10 ratio in CSF were higher in children with PE during acute HSE. However, CSF levels of IL-10 were higher in non-PE patients. Furthermore, greater CSF IL-6 levels were associated with higher QAlb. These results demonstrated that enhanced BBB impairment and exaggerated proinflammatory response may play a role in the pathogenesis of PE following HSE., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: The study has been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. We obtained written informed consent from all participants’s parents or guardians., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Urbanization induces significant land use changes that profoundly impact carbon stocks by altering terrestrial ecosystems' carbon storage capacity. This study employs integrated FLUS model and InVEST model alongside land use data to analyze the spatial and temporal dynamics of car-bon stocks in Shanghai from 2010 to 2020. We predict future land use change and carbon stock distribution patterns under various scenarios for Shanghai in 2030. Despite cultivated land representing the largest land use type in terms of area, rapid urbanization has drastically reduced it, largely converting it into construction land. Construction land expands most rapidly under the HUS scenario, prioritizing economic development, and least under the EPS scenario, emphasizing eco-logical protection. Annual carbon stocks declined by 165.06 × 10 4 Mg from 2010 to 2020, driven by construction land expansion diminishing carbon stocks in cultivated land, woodland, and grassland. Projections for 2030 anticipate carbon stock increases solely under the EPS scenario, contrasting with significant decreases under the NTS and HUS scenarios. This underscores ecological conservation policies' potential to mitigate carbon stock decline, constrain built-up land expansion, and enhance carbon sequestration capacity. Urbanization profoundly influences land use change and carbon stocks, highlighting the critical role of ecological policies in optimizing urban development space and fostering carbon stock growth., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

This study aims to investigate the association between visit-to-visit blood pressure variability (VVV) in early stage of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) and long-term clinical outcomes, utilizing machine learning algorithms. Patients who initiated CAPD therapy between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2009 were enrolled. VVV parameters were collected during the first six months of CAPD therapy. Patient follow-up extended to December 31, 2021, for up to 15.8 years. The primary outcome was the occurrence of a three-point major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE). Four machine learning algorithms and competing risk regression analysis were applied to construct predictive models. A total of 666 participants were included in the analysis with a mean age of 47.9 years. One of the six VVV parameters, standard deviation of diastolic blood pressure (SDDBP), was finally enrolled into the MACE predicting model and mortality predicting model. In the MACE predicting model, higher SDDBP was associated with 99% higher MACE risk. The association between SDDBP and MACE risk was attenuated by better residual renal function (p for interaction <0.001). In the mortality predicting model, higher SDDBP was associated with 46% higher mortality risk. This cohort study discerned that high SDDBP in early stage of CAPD indicated increased long-term MACE and mortality risks., Competing Interests: Compliance with ethical standards. Conflict of interest: The authors declared no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Japanese Society of Hypertension.)

The abnormal expression of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 4 (TIMP4) is associated with multiple human cancers. However, the role of TIMP4 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains elusive. Therefore, this study explored the expression profile and prognosis of TIMP4 in OSCC. Tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissues were collected from OSCC patients, and protein expression of TIMP4 was detected through immunohistochemistry (IHC) and positive cell counting. Additionally, The Cancer Genome Atlas-Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (TCGA-HNSCC) dataset was used to analyze TIMP4 expression further to determine its relationship with HNSCC clinical characteristics. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to evaluate survival and prognosis. Meanwhile, the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) database was employed to assess the correlation between TIMP4 expression and tumor immune infiltration. Computational tools were also applied to investigate the involvement of TIMP4 in cancer pathways. Results showed that TIMP4 was decreased in OSCC and HNSCC compared with normal tissues. The decrease in TIMP4 was associated with cancer metastasis, immune suppression and HPV positive, clinical staging. Overall, these findings demonstrate that TIMP4 is significantly reduced in OSCC and HNSCC, and associated with a poor prognosis. Additional investigations are warranted to fully understand the therapeutic potential of TIMP4 in OSCC., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The origin of breast cancer (BC) is widely considered to be a result of multiple factors, including both genetic and dietary influences. Dietary patterns shaped by calorie restriction-defined as reduced energy intake without inducing malnutrition, and varying ratios of the three major nutrients are thought to influence tumorigenesis. However, the complex interplay between caloric restriction, carbohydrate intake ratios, and genetic predisposition in influencing BC risk remains inadequately understood. This study aimed to explore these relationships in greater depth. A prospective cohort study which included 139,829 participants aged 40-72 years was conducted. We evaluated the association between dietary carbohydrate ratio under caloric restriction and the BC risk in a genetic risk group by using Cox proportional hazards regression models. The analysis also included a calculation of polygenic risk score (PRS) based on 304 breast cancer-associated genetic loci. A high dietary carbohydrate ratio pattern under caloric restriction was significantly associated with a 21% reduction in BC risk, respectively (HR G4 VS G1  = 0.80, 95% CI 0.66-0.97, P = 0.021), whereas a low PRS (lowest tertile) was associated with 0.84-fold decrease in risk (HR low VS high  = 0.84, 95%CI 0.72-0.98, P = 0.032). Compared with other participants, those at intermediate genetic risk with low carbohydrate ratio above caloric restriction showed a higher risk of BC (HR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.01-1.90, P = 0.041). In this cohort study, a diet pattern characterized by a high ratio of carbohydrates under conditions of caloric restriction may attenuate the impact of genetic factors on BC risk in individuals of European ancestry., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Sex disparity is a hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) hallmark, demonstrating aggressiveness and mortality more frequently in men than in women. However, the components of its basis remain largely unknown. It was identified in HCC frequent loss of heterozygosity of general transcript factor IIH subunit 2 (GTF2H2), a potential estrogen pathway gene. GTF2H2 functions in nucleotide excision repair (NER) and basal transcription, but the function of GTF2H2 in cancer has not been described in depth. Here, it was identified that GTF2H2 inhibited growth and invasive mobility and induced apoptosis of HCC cells, which was up-regulated by estrogen-dependent estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) signaling. Mechanistically, in vitro estrogen-treated HCC models with GTF2H2 knockdown and over-expression showed estrogen-regulated GTF2H2 promoted NER of HCC genomic DNA and inhibited cell cycle progression, and down-regulated PAM/NF-κB pathway. Xenografted HCC mice models showed higher tumor progression of HCC with low GTF2H2 expression in ovariectomized female mice or male mice, but could be rescued by GTF2H2 over-expression, which was also observed in spontaneous tumor mice models. Clinical association analysis of HCC cases showed GTF2H2 expression was higher in female HCC, with correlation positively with ERα expression. Taken together, the estrogen-regulated GTF2H2 may be involved in the development and sex disparity of HCC by maintaining NER-related genomic stability and affecting PAM/NF-κB signaling pathway., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval and content to participate: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocols were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations, and approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University (Number 2015-P2-019-01), and Beijing You-an Hospital, Capital Medical University (Number ChiCTR-ONRC-10001064), and the Animal Experiments and Experimental Animal Welfare Committee of Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University (Number 20-2034)., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

The detection of wind turbine blades (WTBs) damage is crucial for improving power generation efficiency and extending the lifespan of turbines. However, traditional detection methods often suffer from false positives and missed detections, and they do not adequately account for complex weather conditions such as fog and snow. Therefore, this study proposes a WTBs damage detection model based on an improved YOLOv8, named AUD-YOLO. Firstly, the ADown module is integrated into the YOLOv8 backbone to replace some conventional convolutional down-sampling operations, decreasing the parameter count while boosting the model's capability to extract image features. Secondly, the model incorporates the UniRepLKNet large convolution kernel with the C2f module, enabling it to learn complex image features more comprehensively. Thirdly, a lightweight DySample dynamic up-sampler substitutes the nearest-neighbor interpolation up-sampling method in the original model, thereby obtaining richer semantic information. Experimental results show that the AUD-YOLO model demonstrates outstanding performance in detecting WTBs damage under complex and adverse weather conditions, achieving a 3% improvement in the mAP@0.5 metric and a 6.2% improvement in the mAP@0.5-0.95 metric compared to YOLOv8. Moreover, the model has only 2.5M parameters and 7.2 GFLOPs of computational complexity, this adaptation renders it appropriate for implementation in environments with constrained computational capacity, where precise detection is critical. Lastly, a mobile application named WTBs Damage Detection system is designed and developed, enabling mobile-based detection of WTBs damage., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Observational studies have indicated an association between cancer and the occurrence of sepsis, with an increased risk of mortality in cancer-related sepsis. However, whether a causal relationship exists between the two remains unknown. Summary statistics of thirteen cancers from the largest available genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of GWAS catalog and FinnGen biobank were extracted for the MR analysis. GWAS data for sepsis and its 28-day mortality were obtained from MRC-IEU. Univariable, multivariable, and reverse MR analyses were employed to explore potential associations between cancers and sepsis and its 28-day mortality. Moreover, a two-step mediation MR analysis was performed to investigate independent positive causal relationships between cancers and sepsis and its 28-day mortality. In univariable Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis, significant causal relationships were found between genetically predicted lung cancer (OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.08-1.26, adjusted p = 0.001), squamous cell lung carcinoma (OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.02-1.18, adjusted p = 0.042), lung adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 1.03-1.21, adjusted p = 0.032), small cell lung carcinoma (OR = 1.07, 95% CI = 1.02-1.12, adjusted p = 0.031), and sepsis. Subsequent multivariable MR analysis revealed that these three types of lung cancer were independently associated with the risk of sepsis. Additionally, a causal relationship was found between lung cancer and 28-day mortality from sepsis, while no causal link was observed between non-solid tumors and the onset or death of sepsis. Reverse MR analysis did not indicate a potential for sepsis to trigger the onset of cancers. Furthermore, TRAIL was found to have promotive effects on the occurrence and mortality of sepsis. Lung cancer causally correlates with increased sepsis occurrence and 28-day mortality, as evidenced by Mendelian Randomization analysis. Genetic predispositions enhance this risk, underscoring the potential of genetic profiling to guide early, precise sepsis interventions in these patients., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Consent for publication: All authors critically revised the manuscript and approved it for publication., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Melatonin is known to delay postharvest nutrient loss. However, its specific roles in regulating cell wall and sugar metabolism to maintain postharvest quality in flowering Chinese cabbage remain unclear. In this study, postharvest flowering Chinese cabbage was treated with melatonin (100 µmol L - 1 ) to investigate the cell wall and sugar metabolisms. Our research found that melatonin supplementation increased levels of important nutrients like ascorbic acid, sugars, soluble protein, carotenoid, and glucosinolates. It also enhanced various cell wall components (cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and protopectin) while reducing water-soluble pectin accumulation. Melatonin helped stabilize cell wall by reducing the expression of genes related to cell wall degradation (BrBGAL4, BrPG, BrCEL3, and BrPME3), inhibiting activities of cell wall-degrading enzymes like pectin methylesterase and cellulase, and improving expressions of cellulose biosynthesis-related genes (BrCesA1, BrCesA3.1, and BrCesA3.2). Additionally, it boosted sugar accumulation by increasing activities of sucrose synthetase and sucrose phosphate synthetase, upregulating expressions of BrSUS1, BrSUS5, BrSPS1F, BrSPS3F, BrSPS4F, and suppressing activities of neutral invertase and acidic invertase and expressions of genes involved in sugar metabolism (BrSUS3, BrINV, BrSWEET2, BrSWEET4, and BrSWEET17). This study highlights melatonin's vital roles in maintaining postharvest quality and offers practical insights for improving market performance of flowering Chinese cabbage., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of miR-193b-5p and miR-511-5p in sepsis and septic shock from the perspective of immune regulation. Initially, serum exosomal miRNA sequencing was conducted on patients with sepsis (n = 6), septic shock (n = 6), and healthy controls (n = 3). Using bioinformatics analysis, miR-193b-5p and miR-511-5p were identified as immune-related miRNAs differentiating sepsis from septic shock. Subsequently, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was performed to validate the identified miRNAs in a cohort of 90 participants, including 30 patients with sepsis, 30 with septic shock, and 30 general surgery patients serving as controls. The results indicated that miR-193b-5p expression level was significantly reduced in septic patients and septic shock patients compared with healthy controls. Both miR-193b-5p and miR-511-5p exhibited diagnostic potential, distinguishing sepsis from the control group, with area under the curve values of 0.797 and 0.795, respectively (P < 0.05). Furthermore, miR-193b-5p expression level was inversely correlated with C-reactive protein level (r = -0.40, P < 0.001), procalcitonin level (r = -0.31, P = 0.003), and interleukin-6 level (r = -0.39, P < 0.001). A positive correlation was identified between miR-193b-5p and lymphocyte count (r = 0.26, P = 0.014). In conclusion, serum miR-193b-5p demonstrated potential as a diagnostic biomarker for sepsis and was associated with inflammation and immune regulation in sepsis., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, China (Ethics Approval Number: 2020 − 722). All patients’ legal representatives and healthy volunteers have been informed and provided written informed consent forms in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not applicable., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

With the increase of the construction depth for ultra-deep shaft development blasting, it is prone to occur problems such as reduced driving efficiency, frequent dynamic disasters, wellbore instability and fracture under the coupling effect of deep high stress and strong blasting disturbance. In this paper, the dynamic evolution process of surrounding rock stress field and the propagation law of explosion stress wave in the process of ultra-deep shaft development blasting were studied by combining theoretical analysis with physical model test. The theoretical analysis model of ultra-deep shaft blasting excavation was established based on elastic mechanics, and the stress distribution and failure mechanism of surrounding rock under the coupling effect of deep high stress and blasting load were explored. Based on the self-developed dynamic response test system of surrounding rock in ultra-deep shaft development blasting, the propagation and attenuation law of blasting stress wave in surrounding rock under the influence of different ground stress characteristics were tested and analyzed. The results show that the stress distribution law of surrounding rock in ultra-deep shaft development blasting is affected by the superposition effect of the static stress field under the action of in-situ ground stress and the dynamic stress field under the action of blasting load, there is an increasing effect for the radial stress and a weakening effect for the hoop stress in the surrounding rock. There are tensile phase and compressive phase in the blasting strain waves measured in the shaft model test, and the radial direction is dominated by compressive strain, and the hoop direction is dominated by tensile strain. The blasting stress wave in the surrounding rock attenuated in the form of power exponential function with the increase of the measuring point proportional distance in the horizontal and vertical directions. The attenuation rate of the radial explosion strain wave was greater than that of the hoop strain wave. In addition, due to the influence of the propagation direction for the stress wave, the attenuation index of the radial peak strain and the hoop peak strain in the vertical direction were greater than those in the horizontal direction. The dynamic evolution process of the surrounding rock stress field and the propagation law of the explosion stress wave were further studied by experimental results compared with the theoretical analysis and the field test results in the literature. The conclusion of this study can provide a theoretical basis for the stability analysis of surrounding rock and the parameters design of development blasting in ultra-deep shaft., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Effective classification and identification algorithms of small fishing vessels are the key to strengthen ship management. This paper proposes a classification and recognition method for small fishing boats based on GASF sequence diagram coding, addressing the complex and challenging recognition environment. The method focuses on four typical small fishing vessels, utilizing Gramian Summation Angular Field (GASF) time series images and the Efficiency MPViT (EMPViT) model. Unlike traditional approaches, this study initially employs a high-precision laser sensor to gather one-dimensional contour data of fishing boats. Subsequently, the polynomial fitting method is used to delineate the shape of the fishing boat contour, which is then encoded into a two-dimensional time series image using the GASF encoding method. The enhanced EMPViT model is then applied to classify and identify small fishing vessels, with the results verified through ablation experiments. These experiments demonstrate that the EMPViT model surpasses traditional neural network models such as CNN and ViT in both accuracy and performance, achieving a peak accuracy of 99.98%., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

This study aims to explore the causal relationships between serum uric acid level and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) using the Mendelian randomization (MR) approach, and to assess the therapeutic impacts of urate-lowering drugs on PAH. Utilizing published genome-wide association study (GWAS) data, we applied MR and colocalization analysis to assess the link between serum uric acid levesl and PAH across four GWAS datasets from two distinct European populations. The validity and reliability of these findings were confirmed through multiple statistical methods, along with an MR analysis of urate-lowering drug targets to investigate their potential effects on PAH treatment. MR analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between serum uric acid levels and PAH (odds ratio (OR) 1.106, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.021-1.200, P = 0.014), corroborated by a replication MR analysis (OR 1.859, 95% CI 1.130-3.057, P = 0.015). No significant heterogeneity or horizontal pleiotropy was found in the sensitivity analyses. However, urate-lowering drugs did not demonstrate a significant direct therapeutic effect on PAH. This study establishes a genetic basis for a causal link between serum uric acid levels and PAH. However, urate-lowering drugs do not appear to have a direct causal effect on improving PAH. These findings provide a novel reference point for developing future therapeutic strategies for PAH., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval and consent to participate: The research involving humans has been approved by the GWAS database data (free access to the data is available upon approval by the administrator). These studies were carried out in accordance with local legislation and institutional requirements. Participants provided written informed consent for their participation in this study., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Faced with challenging cases, doctors are increasingly seeking diagnostic advice from large language models (LLMs). This study aims to compare the ability of LLMs and human physicians to diagnose challenging cases. An offline dataset of 67 challenging cases with primary gastrointestinal symptoms was used to solicit possible diagnoses from seven LLMs and 22 gastroenterologists. The diagnoses by Claude 3.5 Sonnet covered the highest proportion (95% confidence interval [CI]) of instructive diagnoses (76.1%, [70.6%-80.9%]), significantly surpassing all the gastroenterologists (p < 0.05 for all). Claude 3.5 Sonnet achieved a significantly higher coverage rate (95% CI) than that of the gastroenterologists using search engines or other traditional resource (76.1% [70.6%-80.9%] vs. 45.5% [40.7%-50.4%], p < 0.001). The study highlights that advanced LLMs may assist gastroenterologists with instructive, time-saving, and cost-effective diagnostic scopes in challenging cases., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum could cause significant yield losses of up to 70% in rapeseed cultivation. Nevertheless, the availability of immune or highly resistant germplasm and mechanisms to combat S. sclerotiorum, particularly in B. juncea, remains insufficient. Transcription factors (TFs) are recognized for their critical role in plant defense against S. sclerotiorum. In the present study, a total of 4807 TFs from 48 families were expressed and identified at 12, 24, and 36 h after inoculation (HAI) in two B. juncea lines: G21-912, exhibiting higher S. sclerotiorum resistance (HR), and G21-853, displaying lower S. sclerotiorum resistance (LR). The number of differentially expressed TFs (DETs) between the HR and the LR lines peaked at 24 HAI, with 202 upregulated and 105 downregulated TFs. Through expression and subcellular localization analyses, three candidate DETs, namely BjuA037408 (ETHYLENE RESPONSIVE FACTOR 59, ERF59), BjuB028842 (RELATED TO ABI3/VP1 1, RAV1), and BjuA016484 (WRKY25), were identified as the primary TFs in defense against S. sclerotiorum inoculation. The expression of these three genes was validated in the double haploid lines of BC 3 (the third backcrossing generation) derived from the HR×LR cross. This study serves as a valuable case study for the characterization of TFs associated with defense mechanisms against S. sclerotiorum in B. juncea. The confirmed resistant B. juncea line of HR, along with the three key DETs, is expected to significantly contribute to future breeding efforts aimed at developing Sclerotinia-resistant varieties., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: The experiments were performed in compliance with the current laws of China., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Lysosomes regulate cellular metabolism to maintain cell survival, but the mechanisms whereby they determine neuronal cell fate after acute metabolic stress are unknown. Neuron-enriched lysosomal membrane protein LAMP2A is involved in selective chaperone-mediated autophagy and exosome loading. This study demonstrates that abnormalities in the neuronal LAMP2A-lysosomal pathway cause neurological deficits following ischemic stroke and that this is an early inducer of the PANoptosis-like molecular pathway and neuroinflammation, simultaneously inducing upregulation of FADD, RIPK3, and MLKL after ischemia. Quantitative proteomic and pharmacological analysis showed that after acute metabolic stress, the neuronal LAMP2A pathway induced acute synaptic degeneration and PANoptosis-like responses involving downregulation of protein kinase A (PKA) signaling. LAMP2A directed post-stroke lysosomal degradation of adenylyl cyclases (ADCY), including ADCY1 and ADCY3 in cortical neurons. Post-stroke treatment with cAMP mimetic or ADCY activator salvaged cortical neurons from PANoptosis-like responses and neuroinflammation, suggesting that the neuronal ADCY-cAMP-PKA axis is an upstream arrester of the pathophysiological process following an ischemic stroke. This study demonstrates that the neuronal LAMP2A-lysosmal pathway drives intricate acute neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory responses after brain metabolic stress by downregulating the ADCY-PKA signaling cascade, and highlights the therapeutic potential of PKA signal inducers for improving stroke outcomes., Competing Interests: Ethics: All experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of China Pharmaceutical University and were conducted in accordance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to ADMC Associazione Differenziamento e Morte Cellulare.)

With increasing demand of electric vehicles (EVs), problems such as insufficient EV charging piles and unreasonable layout of EV charging stations are also becoming prominent. New challenges are introduced to the planning of urban EV charging infrastructures. To effectively plan the charging facilities, accurately predicting EV charging loads is essential. The present study proposes a spatio-temporal distribution prediction model for EV charging loads in transportation-power coupled network (TPCN). First, path planning is performed separately using the Dijkstra algorithm and refined origin-destination (OD) probability matrix based on the travel characteristics of various vehicle types. The charging selection model is then formulated considering multiple compelling factors, such as transportation conditions, ambient temperature, rest days and so on. Furthermore, the transportation-power coupled network is established based on the graph-theoretic analysis approach, and the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of charging loads are predicted by Monte Carlo simulation. Finally, a case study is conducted in an actual urban region. The results show that EV charging load presents significant differences in different functional areas, different time periods and scenarios, and the proposed method can accurately predict the spatial-temporal distribution of charging load. This study represents a reliable approach for predicting charging demand in a certain region, and also provides powerful support for the rational planning of EV charging stations., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Background: To evaluate contrast sensitivity function (CSF) in convalescent Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease and investigate the relationship between CSF and chorioretinal thickness in VKH patients with and without sunset glow fundus (SGF)., Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Seventy-six eyes of VKH patients and 56 eyes of normal controls were evaluated. Patients were divided into SGF and non-SGF groups. The best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of all the participants was ≤0.0 logMAR. Their CSF and macular chorioretinal thickness were measured with quantitative CSF (qCSF) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and compared using repeated measures analysis of variance at the group level. Relationships between CSF and macular chorioretinal thickness were evaluated using generalized estimating equations., Results: The CSF was significantly impaired in the SGF group compared to that in the control group (p = 0.001), especially at medium and high spatial frequencies. No significant CSF difference was found between the non-SGF group and control group, nor between the SGF and non-SGF groups. Compared to the controls, outer retinal thickness (ORT) in both VKH subgroups was significantly reduced (P < 0.001 or 0.005, respectively), although their outer nuclear layer thickness (ONLT) and choroidal thickness (CT) were not significantly different (both P = 1.000, P = 0.829 or 0.112, respectively). We found no significant correlation between CSF metrics and outer retinal thickness., Conclusions: Despite good recovery of visual acuity, reduced CSF and outer retina thickness were found in convalescent VKH patients. CSF may be an important and sensitive metric to evaluate functional vision in VKH disease., Competing Interests: Competing interests: LL and ZLL own intellectual property interests on qCSF technology and financial interests in Adaptive Sensory Technology, Inc. LL holds employment at Adaptive Sensory Technology, Inc. The rest of the authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Affiliated Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China (No. 2020-037-K-32-01) and adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki, (© 2024. The Author(s).)

To develop and validate non-contrast computed tomography (NCCT)-based radiomics method combines machine learning (ML) to investigate invisible microscopic acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) lesions. We retrospectively analyzed 1122 patients from August 2015 to July 2022, whose were later confirmed AIS by diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). However, receiving a negative result was reported by radiologists according to the NCCT images. Patients in five institutions (n = 592) were combined to generate training and internal validation sets, remaining in three institutions as external validation sets (n = 204, 53 and 273). Through a series of procedures: head alignment, co-registration of NCCT and DWI, the volume of interest delineation and feature extraction. Multiple ML models (random forest, RF; support vector machine, SVM; logistic regression, LR; multilayer perceptron, MLP) were used to discriminate microscopic AIS and non-AIS. Among 1122 patients included (760 men [67.7%]; median [range] age, 64 [21-96] years). After least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm, 44 optimal features were remained. The radiomics combined ML models were yielded similar mean areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.808 (95% CI 0.754 to 0.861) for RF, 0.802 (95% CI 0.748 to 0.856) for radial basis kernel function-based SVM, 0.792 (95% CI 0.737 to 0.847) for MLP, 0.792 (95% CI 0.736 to 0.848) for Linear-SVM and 0.787 (95% CI 0.730 to 0.844) for LR, respectively. Combining radiomics with ML models can be an efficient, noninvasive, economical, and reliable technique for evaluating invisible microscopic AIS on NCCT and assisting radiologists to make clinical decisions., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Ethical approval: The study was approved and the requirement for informed patient consent was waived by the ethical committee of Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University. The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Rare diseases, affecting ~350 million people worldwide, pose significant challenges in clinical diagnosis due to the lack of experienced physicians and the complexity of differentiating between numerous rare diseases. To address these challenges, we introduce PhenoBrain, a fully automated artificial intelligence pipeline. PhenoBrain utilizes a BERT-based natural language processing model to extract phenotypes from clinical texts in EHRs and employs five new diagnostic models for differential diagnoses of rare diseases. The AI system was developed and evaluated on diverse, multi-country rare disease datasets, comprising 2271 cases with 431 rare diseases. In 1936 test cases, PhenoBrain achieved an average predicted top-3 recall of 0.513 and a top-10 recall of 0.654, surpassing 13 leading prediction methods. In a human-computer study with 75 cases, PhenoBrain exhibited exceptional performance with a top-3 recall of 0.613 and a top-10 recall of 0.813, surpassing the performance of 50 specialist physicians and large language models like ChatGPT and GPT-4. Combining PhenoBrain's predictions with specialists increased the top-3 recall to 0.768, demonstrating its potential to enhance diagnostic accuracy in clinical workflows., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 have been detected at the materno-embryonic interface in both human and murine pregnancy models. However, research regarding the PD-1/PD-L1 signal in preeclampsia (PE) is limited. In the present investigation, 30 normal pregnant females and 30 PE patients were enrolled. Cellular functional experiments were performed in two trophoblast cell lines by transfection with lentiviral vectors for overexpression and down-regulation of PD-L1. The placental expressions of PD-1, PD-L1, and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) exhibited a notable reduction in PE cases compared with healthy pregnancies. Cellular functional experiments indicated that excessive PD-L1 expression significantly enhanced trophoblast migratory, invasive, and proliferative capabilities while inhibiting cell apoptosis. Additionally, the administration of lentivirus-mediated PD-L1 overexpression could alleviate clinical symptoms (hypertension, proteinuria) of PE-like rats. Therefore, decreased PD-L1 may contribute to PE by inhibiting GM-CSF via activating the JAK2/STAT5 pathway. Our study provides a novel pathway that can be targeted for the therapy of this disease., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Different angles and central axis length combinations of the reading man flap were studied to determine the optimal angles and central axis length combinations for reducing the stress on the flap tip. First, different models and corresponding finite element models of flaps with different angles and central axial lengths were established by ANSYS software. Then, skin flap transfer was achieved through forced displacement, and the stress distributions of the flap with different angles and central axial lengths under different materials were obtained. Finally, the stress distributions of the flaps of each case were compared and analysed. The results shows: (1) The optimal angle and central axis for reducing the stress of the flap tip are 60° for the quadrangular flap, 45° for the triangular flap, with a 2 fold increase in length of the central axial relative to the diameter of the circular defects. (2) The quadrangular flap tip tends to have a greater possibility of complications than does the triangular flap tip. (3) The stress of the triangular flap tip is more sensitive to the angle and central axis length. (4) The stress of the flap tip in elderly people is greater than that in young people with the same design and position, which leads to greater possibility of complications at the flap tip in elderly patients than in young patients., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (No. M2024104) of Peking University Third Hospital with a wavier of informed consent., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Dry eye disease (DED) is a prevalent inflammatory condition significantly impacting quality of life, yet lacks effective pharmacological therapies. Herein, we proposed a novel approach to modulate the inflammation through metabolic remodeling, thus promoting dry eye recovery. Our study demonstrated that co-treatment with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and thymosin beta-4 (Tβ4) yielded the best therapeutic outcome against dry eye, surpassing monotherapy outcomes. In situ metabolomics through matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) revealed increased glutamine levels in cornea following MSC + Tβ4 combined therapy. Inhibition of glutamine reversed the anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, and homeostasis-preserving effects observed with combined therapy, highlighting the critical role of glutamine in dry eye therapy. Clinical cases and rodent model showed elevated expression of glutaminase (GLS1), an upstream enzyme in glutamine metabolism, following dry eye injury. Mechanistic studies indicated that overexpression and inhibition of GLS1 counteracted and enhanced, respectively, the anti-inflammatory effects of combined therapy, underscoring GLS1's pivotal role in regulating glutamine metabolism. Furthermore, single-cell sequencing revealed a distinct subset of pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic corneal epithelial cells in the dry eye model, while glutamine treatment downregulated those subclusters, thereby reducing their inflammatory cytokine secretion. In summary, glutamine effectively ameliorated inflammation and the occurrence of apoptosis by downregulating the pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic corneal epithelial cells subclusters and the related IκBα/NF-κB signaling. The present study suggests that glutamine metabolism plays a critical, previously unrecognized role in DED and proposes an attractive strategy to enhance glutamine metabolism by inhibiting the enzyme GLS1 and thus alleviating inflammation-driven DED progression., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)