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Four halophilic archaeal strains YCN1T, YCN58T, LT38T, and LT62T were isolated from Yuncheng Salt Lake (Shanxi, China) and Tarim Basin (Xinjiang, China), respectively. Phylogenetic and phylogenomic analyses showed that these four strains tightly cluster with related species of Halobacterium, Natronomonas, Halorientalis, and Halobellus, respectively. The AAI, ANI, and dDDH values between these four strains and their related species of respective genera were lower than the proposed threshold values for species delineation. Strains YCN1T, YCN58T, LT38T, and LT62T could be differentiated from the current species of Halobacterium, Natronomonas, Halorientalis, and Halobellus, respectively, based on the comparison of diverse phenotypic characteristics. The polar lipid profiles of these four strains were closely similar to those of respective relatives within the genera Halobacterium, Natronomonas, Halorientalis, and Halobellus, respectively. The phenotypic, phylogenetic, and genome-based analyses indicated that strains YCN1T, YCN58T, LT38T, and LT62T represent respective novel species within the genera Halobacterium, Natronomonas, Halorentalis, and Halobellus, for which the names Halobacterium yunchengense sp. nov., Natronomonas amylolytica sp. nov., Halorientalis halophila sp. nov., and Halobellus salinisoli sp. nov. are proposed, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fibrinogen has been identified as a modulator of the coagulation and inflammatory process. There is uncertainty about the relationship between the dynamic profile of fibrinogen levels and its impact on clinical outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with endovascular thrombectomy. Methods: We consecutively enrolled patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent endovascular thrombectomy. Fibrinogen was measured on admission and during hospitalization. The change in fibrinogen (Δfibrinogen) was calculated as the highest follow-up fibrinogen minus admission fibrinogen, with a positive Δfibrinogen indicating an increase in fibrinogen level. Functional outcome was assessed by the modified Rankin Scale at 3 months. Poor outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale > 2. Results: A total of 346 patients were included (mean age 67.4 ± 13.6 years, 52.31% men). The median fibrinogen on admission was 2.77 g/L (interquartile range 2.30–3.39 g/L). The median Δfibrinogen was 1.38 g/L (interquartile range 0.27–2.79 g/L). Hyperfibrinogenemia (> 4.5 g/L) on admission was associated with an increased risk of poor outcome [odds ratio (OR) 5.93, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.44–24.41, p = 0.014]. There was a possible U-shaped association of Δfibrinogen with outcomes, with an inflection point of − 0.43 g/L (p = 0.04). When Δfibrinogen was < − 0.43 g/L, a higher decrease in fibrinogen (lower Δfibrinogen value) was associated with a higher risk of poor outcome (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.02–2.48, p = 0.219). When Δfibrinogen was > − 0.43 g/L, the risk of poor outcome increased with increasing fibrinogen (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.04–1.54, p = 0.016). Conclusions: In patients with endovascular thrombectomy, hyperfibrinogenemia on admission was associated with poor functional outcomes at 3 months, whereas Δfibrinogen was associated with poor 3-month outcomes in a possible U-shaped manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geochemical compositions can be used to determine the tectonic setting of sedimentary basins, while where the link of source to sink is no longer preserved, detrital zircon age patterns can aid in resolving the original basin setting. The metasedimentary Legoupil Formation, located at Cape Legoupil and the Schmidt Peninsula, could give a hint for the tectonic evolution of Antarctic Peninsula. In this contribution, we constrain the sedimentary provenance of the Legoupil Formation through geochemistry and detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology. The petrography and geochemical features indicate that the provenance of the Legoupil Formation could be felsic rocks. Detrital zircon grains record a steady supply of Permian and Ordovician material into the Legoupil Formation. The youngest concordant zircon ages of 262 Ma suggest that the depositional time of Legoupil Formation is no older than Late Permian. The detrital zircon age spectrum of Legoupil Formation suggests that the Legoupil Formation sediments should be derived from regional sources endemic to western Gondwana prior to its breakup. Together with the previous studies, geochemistry and detrital zircons reflect an active continental margin tectonic setting and the detrital zircon spectra of Legoupil Formation are similar to the ones deposited in forearc tectonic setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kindergarteners' numerical abilities are fundamental to their future academic development. The cognitive correlates of numerical abilities remain in debate. The present study examined whether non-verbal number sense and literacy could persistently predict kindergarteners' numerical abilities. A large-scale sample consisting of 930 children aged from 5.0 to 6.9 years were assessed for numerical abilities (addition and subtraction), non-verbal number sense (numerosity comparison), literacy (character reading), and general cognitive processing (word span, rapid automatized naming, mental rotation, figure matching and rhythm). The results showed that, after controlling for all other aspects of cognitive processing available, non-verbal number sense did not correlate with numerical abilities, while literacy was a stable cognitive predictor of numerical abilities in both age groups. And rapid automatized naming (RAN) was the most powerful cognitive predictor in the 6 years of age group. Further dominance analysis also showed that literacy was the most important predictor of numerical performance in the 5 years of age group and was next only to RAN in the 6 years of age group. The results suggest that literacy rather than non-verbal number sense is a unique cognitive correlate for kindergartener's numerical abilities. We argue that increased focus on natural language, especially literacy, may help to improve kindergarteners' math ability. Highlights: A large-scale sample consisting of 930 Chinese children aged from 5.0 to 6.9 years were assessed for numerical abilities, non-verbal number sense, literacy, and general cognitive processing. The link between non-verbal number sense and children's numerical abilities did not survive after controlling for other cognitive processing. Literacy rather than non-verbal number sense is a stable cognitive correlate for kindergartener's numerical abilities in 5.0–6.9 years old kindergarteners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security context, generally stored in the universal subscriber identity module card or the baseband chip, is the critical information applied by the subscriber to access the 5G network during the fast authentication procedure. Once exposed or illegally used, the security context can be exploited to derive various keys for authentication and encryption. Despite its importance, challenges and questions still remain in the previous relevant research. To fill this gap, by adopting the security protocol verification tool ProVerif, we provide a comprehensive formal model of the fast authentication procedure based on the security context to analyze whether security goals can be met. Unfortunately, we uncover two vulnerabilities, including one never reported before. Our analysis shows that these vulnerabilities stem from fundamental design flaws in the cellular network protocol and thus apply to the 4G network. These vulnerabilities could be exploited to launch several attacks, including impersonation and eavesdropping. We have validated these attacks using 5 mobile phones from 5 different baseband manufacturers through experimentation in three mobile carriers. We find an insecure implementation of one of these phones, which exposed it to replay attacks. And we further discuss the security threats posed by the impersonation attack, such as location spoofing and one-tap authentication bypass, which is verified on 10 popular apps. We finally propose several countermeasures to eliminate these security issues. Actually, we have reported the novel vulnerability to the GSM Association and received a confirmation in the form of a coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) number CVD-2022-0057. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nano-sized irradiation defects are widely observed to aggregate and decorate the dislocation lines, which is believed to induce irradiation hardening and is mainly described by the cascade-induced source hardening model. In the current work, we demonstrate that dislocation decorated by sessile irradiation defects leads to hardening, which agrees well with the theoretical model prediction. However, no hardening or even softening is observed if the decorated irradiation defects are glissile. The reason for this observation is that the glissile irradiation loops move coordinated to the moving dislocation, and keep in the region where the interaction force between the irradiation defects and dislocation is zero. This work leads to a new understanding of irradiation defect decoration effect and irradiation hardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is a classic NP-hard problem, and the quality of its scheduling solution directly affects the operational efficiency of the manufacturing system. However, the traditional scheduling algorithms suffer from poor generalization when solving FJSP; there are problems such as long computational time and dimensional disasters, especially as the scale of FJSP increases. Therefore, an effective deep actor-critic reinforcement learning (DACRL) method is proposed for solving FJSP. Firstly, the FJSP is modeled as a multi-agent Markov decision process (MMDP), the state space, action space, and reward function in the MMDP are designed. Secondly, a DACRL model is constructed to solve FJSP. The actor network is responsible for choosing the most suitable scheduling rule in different states, while the critic network is responsible for outputting the value function of the actions and providing feedback to the actor network to better adjust the scheduling strategy. Finally, the proposed DACRL method is validated on benchmark FJSP instances of different scales. The experimental results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms the heuristic scheduling rules and double deep Q-network (DDQN) in terms of solution quality. Compared with the meta-heuristic algorithms and the self-learning genetic algorithm (SLGA), the proposed method has higher solution efficiency with the same solution quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, 2n = 4x = 36), a super pseudocereal crop, has been introduced into China nearly 60 years. Many excellent varieties have been developed through massive selection; however, few are developed through mutagenesis breeding. In this study, the 'Longli-4' variety, locally cultivated in Gansu province, Northwest China, was selected for experimentation. The grains of 'Longli-4' were treated with ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) at a concentration of 0.8% for 8 h. Nine plants from independent M2 families were randomly selected to investigate the mutagenesis effect of EMS on the quinoa genome. The results indicated that the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) induced by EMS were unevenly distributed across all 18 chromosomes, with an average mutation frequency of 91.2 SNPs/Mb, ranging from 4.5 to 203.5 SNPs/Mb. A significant positive correlation between the number of SNPs and chromosome length was identified through linear model analysis. Transitions from G/C to A/T were the most predominated in all variant categories, accounting for 34.4–67.2% of the mutations, and SNPs were significantly enriched in intergenic regions, representing 69.2–75.1% of the total mutations. This study provides empirical support for the application of low concentration EMS treatment in quinoa breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MoS2 nanosheets consist of multiple S-Mo-S trilayers with large interlayer spacing, which could allow facile Li-ion insertion/extraction. However, MoS2 nanosheets are easily curled and randomly stacked due to high surface energy of 2D nanosheets, which hinders fast ion transportation. In addition, intrinsic electronic conductivity of MoS2 is limited. Therefore, enhancements of both ionic and electronic conductivity of MoS2 are greatly demanded for its application in Li-ion batteries. Here, we report a cost-effective and facile hydrothermal synthesis of 3D nanoflower-like MoS2/C anode materials, which avoids random stacking of nanosheets and improves the electronic conductivity of MoS2. The nanoflower-like MoS2/C exhibits large reversible specific capacity (724 mAh g−1) and high initial coulombic efficiency (79.82%). Moreover, excellent capacity retention (97.98%) after 500-cycle charge/discharge has been achieved at 1 A g−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a common cardiovascular complication of diabetes, which may threaten the quality of life and shorten life expectancy in the diabetic population. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the diabetes cardiomyopathy are not fully elucidated. We analyzed two datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Differentially expressed and weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) was used to screen key genes and molecules. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis, and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis were constructed to identify hub genes. The diagnostic value of the hub gene was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) was used to validate the hub genes. A total of 13 differentially co-expressed modules were selected by WGCNA and differential expression analysis. KEGG and GO analysis showed these DEGs were mainly enriched in lipid metabolism and myocardial hypertrophy pathway, cytomembrane, and mitochondrion. As a result, six genes were identified as hub genes. Finally, five genes (Pdk4, Lipe, Serpine1, Igf1r, and Bcl2l1) were found significantly changed in both the validation dataset and experimental mice with DCM. In conclusion, the present study identified five genes that may help provide novel targets for diagnosing and treating DCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of cladribine, cytarabine, and G-CSF (CLAG) has exhibited robust synergistic anti-leukemia activity as an induction therapy (IT) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, the impact of CLAG as a bridging therapy (BT) administered between IT and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) for patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) AML remains uncertain. In this retrospective study, we examined the efficacy of CLAG as a transitional strategy prior to allo-HSCT in R/R AML. We included 234 patients with R/R AML who received the modified busulfan plus cyclophosphamide conditioning regimen for allo-HSCT in our center during the past 6 years, performed a propensity-score matching analysis, partitioned them into four distinct cohorts, and further integrated them into the CLAG group and non-CLAG group based on response to IT and utilization of CLAG. Our cohorts encompassed 12 patients in Cohort A (modified composite complete remission (mCRc) after IT, CLAG), 31 in Cohort B (mCRc after IT, non-CLAG), 35 in Cohort C (non-complete remission (non-CR) after IT, CLAG), and 80 in Cohort D (non-CR after IT, non-CLAG). Intriguingly, among patients with non-CR status, the administration of CLAG correlated with a notably statistically diminished risk of relapse and improved survival at 2-year follow-up (Cohort C vs. Cohort D). Employing CLAG as a BT prior to allo-HSCT demonstrates substantial effectiveness, a relative degree of safety, and manageable toxicity in selected R/R AML cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased risks of economic policy uncertainty and overexploitation of natural resources exist in China. At the same time, the growth rate of urban residents' consumption has generally declined. The paper analyses the role of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and natural resource exploitation on the urban residents' consumption in China. Based on the data from the first quarter of 2002 to the third quarter of 2021, the paper uses a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model to verify the asymmetric effects. Then the paper constructs a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model with stochastic volatility term to analyze the nonlinear responses. Impulse response analysis was used to further explain the relationship between the three. The negative impact of rising EPU on urban residents' consumption is larger than its reduction. Negative shocks to natural resource development increase the urban residents' consumption. Positive shocks reduce the urban residents' consumption. There is a time-varying non-linear effect of EPU and natural resource development on urban residents' consumption in China. The negative impact of EPU on urban consumption has been further exacerbated by major crises such as the financial crisis, COVID-19 and the post-crisis period. The negative impact of natural resource development diminished after the government introduced industrial upgrading policies and environmental regulations. This study provides constructive suggestions for the optimization of economic policies and the improvement of urban consumption. This study also enriches consumer theory and provides new evidence for the resource curse hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of wireless communication technology and smart devices make emerging tasks tend to be computationally intensive. Unfortunately, mobile devices are often computationally resource-constrained. Mobile edge computing is proposed to offer computing power for these resource-limited devices to solve the computing requirement of their tasks. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled edge networks are flexible and low-cost, so they are considered to provide more flexible computing service for mobile devices. However, UAV-enabled edge networks are limited by the weak wireless propagation environment. To this end, we introduce intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) into the UAV-enabled edge networks in which IRS is used to construct a stronger link between the mobile devices and the UAV for task offloading. We formulate the IRS-aided offloading problem as an optimization problem to optimize the overall delay by jointly optimizing UAV movement, offloading decision, IRS configuration, and UAV's computation resource. To solve the problem more efficiently, we use the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) model to explore the intelligent action that can minimize the task processing time. Our simulation demonstrates the DRL scheme is more effective compared with the benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metaverse has influenced the development of science and technology since it was proposed. While artificial intelligence (AI) is still one of the important technologies to solve problems in metaverse. The success of AI in various fields and the development of information technology make the integration of sports industry and AI an inevitable trend. Currently, the traditional physical education is experiencing qualitative changes, and the demand of integrating AI and metaverse into physical education is becoming more and more obvious. Football teaching is an important part of physical education, and Virtual Reality (VR) has the characteristics of immersion, interaction and imagination, which can build virtual and realistic football teaching process. In this study, through 360-degree panoramic VR football teaching videos empowered by the metaverse and K-means algorithm based on machine learning under AI, we study the strategies for improving the quality of football teaching in the mobile Internet environment. Therefore, we propose K-means based optimized 360-degree panoramic VR football teaching video delivery strategy. In addition, we conduct simulation experiments under content delivery networks simulator, and the simulation results show that the proposed strategy is superior to the baselines in terms of proxy server hit ratio, byte hit ratio, mean response time and students quality of experience. Moreover, through the 360-degree panoramic VR football teaching videos learning, students can intuitively analyze the actions and improve the teaching quality. The reconstruction of football teaching environment is beneficial to promote the combination of football teaching and smart learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 5G, users can easily enjoy services by accessing the edge devices (EDs) deployed around the base stations. Generally, due to the uneven distribution and mobility of users, one ED is required to serve multiple users simultaneously, that results in the ED overload, seriously affecting the quality of experience (QoE) of the users. By responding to users' requests, service migration realizes the cross edge device migrations, that dynamically provides services for mobile users, which effectively improves the resource utilization rate of edge servers and the QoE of users. However, during the service migrations, malicious users may deploy pseudo base stations, gateways and other devices to illegally eavesdrop or tamper with user service data, that causes user information loss or disclosure. To prevent these security issues, a fountain-coding based cooperative jamming strategy is proposed in this paper. Specifically, the fountain coding technology is introduced to construct a three-node transmission model, including an original node, a target node and a malicious node, to realize the secure data transmission process in service migration. Besides, a group of relay nodes are employed to carry out cooperative jamming, that deteriorate the illegal eavesdropping quality of malicious nodes on service data. Then secrecy rate and outage probability are utilized to evaluate the security and reliability of the whole service migration. Finally, the theoretical analysis is shown by simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: MdERF023 is a transcription factor that can reduce salt tolerance by inhibiting ABA signaling and Na+/H+ homeostasis. Salt stress is one of the principal environmental stresses limiting the growth and productivity of apple (Malus × domestica). The APETALA2/ethylene response factor (AP2/ERF) family plays key roles in plant growth and various stress responses; however, the regulatory mechanism involved has not been fully elucidated. In the present study, we identified an AP2/ERF transcription factor (TF), MdERF023, which plays a negative role in apple salt tolerance. Stable overexpression of MdERF023 in apple plants and calli significantly decreased salt tolerance. Biochemical and molecular analyses revealed that MdERF023 directly binds to the promoter of MdMYB44-like, a positive modulator of ABA signaling-mediated salt tolerance, and suppresses its transcription. In addition, MdERF023 downregulated the transcription of MdSOS2 and MdAKT1, thereby reducing the Na+ expulsion, K+ absorption, and salt tolerance of apple plants. Taken together, these results suggest that MdERF023 reduces apple salt tolerance by inhibiting ABA signaling and ion transport, and that it could be used as a potential target for breeding new varieties of salt-tolerant apple plants via genetic engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infectious challenge can trigger alterations in sleep–wake behavior. Accumulating evidence has shown that the serine/threonine kinases Akt1 and Akt2 are important targets in both physiological and infectious signaling processes. However, the involvement of Akt1 and Akt2 in sleep–wake activity under basal conditions and in response to inflammatory stimulation has not been established. In the present study, we assessed the precise role of Akt1 and Akt2 in sleep–wake behavior using electroencephalography (EEG)/electromyography (EMG) data from Akt1- and Akt2-deficient mice and wild-type (WT) mice. The results showed that both Akt1 and Akt2 deficiency affect sleep–wake activity, as indicated by reduced nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and increased wakefulness in mutant mice compared to WT mice. Sleep amount and intensity (delta, theta and alpha activity) at night were also drastically attenuated in Akt1- and Akt2-deficient mice. Moreover, since Akt1 and Akt2 are involved in immune responses, we assessed their roles in the sleep response to the inflammatory stimulus lipopolysaccharide (LPS) throughout the following 24 h. We observed that the decrease in wakefulness and increase in NREM sleep induced by LPS were restored in Akt1 knockout mice but not in Akt2 knockout mice. Correspondingly, the decrease in the number of positive orexin-A neurons induced by LPS was abrogated in Akt1 knockout mice but not in Akt2 knockout mice. Our results revealed that both Akt1 and Akt2 deficiency affect the sleep response under basal conditions, but only Akt1 deficiency protects against the aberrant changes in sleep behavior induced by peripheral immune challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For any non-negative integer k and any graph G, a subset S ⊆ V (G) is said to be a K 1 , k + 1 -isolating set of G if G - N [ S ] does not contain K 1 , k + 1 as a subgraph. The K 1 , k + 1 -isolation number of G, denoted by ι k (G) , is the minimum cardinality of a K 1 , k + 1 -isolating set of G. Recently, Zhang and Wu (2021) proved that if G is a connected n-vertex graph and G ∉ { P 3 , C 3 , C 6 } , then ι 1 (G) ≤ 2 7 n . In this paper, we characterize all extremal graphs attaining this bound, which resolves a problem proposed by Zhang and Wu (Discrete Appl Math 304:365–374, 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fusarium proliferatum is the main pathogen that causes Panax notoginseng root rot. The shortcomings of strong volatility and poor water solubility of Illicium verum essential oil (EO) limit its utilization. In this study, we prepared traditional emulsion (BDT) and nanoemulsion (Bneo) of I. verum EO by ultrasonic method with Tween-80 and absolute ethanol as solvents. The chemical components of EO, BDT, and Bneo were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and the antifungal activity and mechanism were compared. The results show that Bneo has good stability and its particle size is 34.86 nm. The contents of (-) -anethole and estragole in Bneo were significantly higher than those in BDT. The antifungal activity against F. proliferatum was 5.8-fold higher than BDT. In the presence of I. verum EO, the occurrence of P. notoginseng root rot was significantly reduced. By combining transcriptome and metabolomics analysis, I. verum EO was found to be involved in the mutual transformation of pentose and glucuronic acid, galactose metabolism, streptomycin biosynthesis, carbon metabolism, and other metabolic pathways of F. proliferatum, and it interfered with the normal growth of F. proliferatum to exert antifungal effects. This study provide a theoretical basis for expanding the practical application of Bneo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bending deformation is easy to occur under the action of cutting force during machining, due to the weak stiffness of slender beam structural parts of Ti6Al4V. This will lead to the change of the theoretical cutting position relationship between the tool and the workpiece, thus affecting the machining accuracy and quality of the parts. Aiming at the structural characteristics and machining deformation of slender beam parts with weak stiffness of Ti6Al4V, the bending deformation of slender beam structural parts under the action of static force is analyzed by theory of Euler Bernoulli beam and finite element simulation of ABAQUS. The influence of support mode on the overall static stiffness and machining deformation of the beam is discussed. It is concluded that the clamping method of fulcrum assisted support and micro-crystalline wax filling in the machining process of slender beam structural parts of Ti6Al4V cannot only effectively suppress the machining deformation of parts but also solve the problem of machining chatter of parts. The machining accuracy and quality of slender beam structural parts are effectively improved. Slender beam parts with weak stiffness of Ti6Al4V processed according to this clamping concept. The maximum deformation of the part is 0.017 mm, the maximum dimensional deviation is − 0.015 mm, and the surface roughness Ra of the part is less than 0.5 μm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Microglia-mediated neuroinflammation is a vital hallmark in progression of depression, while calcitriol exerts anti-inflammatory effects in the brain. The activation of the P2X7 receptor has an important link to neuroinflammation. However, it is unclear whether calcitriol treatment exerts anti-inflammatory effects in association with P2X7R activation. Objective: In this study, we assessed the antidepressive and neuroprotective effects of calcitriol on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-mediated depressive-like behavior, neuroinflammation, and neuronal damage. Methods: In in vitro experiments, the BV2 cells were exposed to LPS, and the protective effects of calcitriol were assessed. For in vivo experiment, thirty-two male C57BL/6 mice were divided into four groups of control, calcitriol, LPS and LPS + calcitriol. Calcitriol was administered at 1 µg/kg for 14 days and LPS at 1 mg/kg once every other day for 14 days. The control group mice were given equal volumes of vehicles. All treatments were delivered intraperitoneally. Results: The in vitro experiments showed calcitriol inhibited the release of inflammatory mediators induced by LPS in BV2 cells. The in vivo experiments revealed that calcitriol alleviated LPS-induced behavioral abnormalities and spatial learning impairments. Moreover, calcitriol treatment reduced the mRNA levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, while increasing anti-inflammatory cytokine levels in the hippocampus. Our results further revealed that calcitriol administration attenuated LPS-induced microglia activation by suppressing P2X7R/NLRP3/caspase-1 signaling. Moreover, calcitriol inhibited apoptosis of neurons in the hippocampus as evidenced by expression of apoptosis-related proteins and TUNEL assay. Conclusions: Collectively, our findings demonstrated that calcitriol exerts antidepressive and neuroprotective effects through the suppression of the P2X7R/NLRP3/caspase-1 pathway both in LPS-induced inflammation models in vitro and in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first completely characterize the complex symmetric Toeplitz operators T φ on the Hardy spaces H 2 (D) with conjugations C p i , j and C n . Next, we give a method to determine the coefficients of φ (z) when T φ is complex symmetric on H 2 (D) with the conjugation C σ , which partially solves a problem raised by [2]. Finally, we consider the complex symmetric Toeplitz operators T φ on the weighted Bergman spaces A 2 (B n) and the pluriharmonic Bergman spaces b 2 (B n) with conjugations C V , where V is a symmetric permutation matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is unclear whether there is any postnatal abnormality in brainstem auditory function in late preterm small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants. We investigated the functional integrity of the brainstem auditory pathway at 4 months after term in late preterm SGA infants and defined differences from appropriate-for-gestational age (AGA) infants. The maximum length sequence brainstem evoked response (MLS BAER) was recorded and analyzed in 24 SGA (birthweight < 3rd centile) infants and 28 AGA infants (birthweight > 10th centile). All infants were born at 33–36-week gestation without major perinatal and postnatal problems. We found that I-V interval in SGA infants was shorter than in AGA infants at higher click rates and significantly shorter at the highest rate of 910/s. Of the two smaller intervals, I-III interval was significantly shorter in SGA infants than in AGA infants at higher click rates of 455 and 910/s clicks, whereas III-V interval was similar in the two groups. The III-V/I-III interval ratio in SGA infants tended to be greater than in AGA infants at all rates and was significantly greater at 455 and 910/s clicks. The slope of I-III interval-rate functions in SGA infants was moderately smaller than in AGA infants. Conclusions: The main and fundamental difference between late preterm SGA and AGA infants was a significant shortening in the MLS BAER I-III interval in SGA infants at higher click rates, suggesting moderately faster neural conduction in the caudal brainstem regions. Postnatal neural maturation in the caudal brainstem regions is moderately accelerated in late preterm SGA infants. What is Known: • At 40 weeks of postconceptional age, late preterm SGA infants manifested a mild delay in neural conduction in the auditory brainstem. What is New: • At 56 weeks of postconceptional age, late preterm SGA infants manifested moderately faster neural conduction in the caudal brainstem regions. • Postnatal neural maturation is moderately accelerated in the caudal brainstem regions of late preterm SGA infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lys-Asp-Glu-Leu receptor (KDELR) family genes play critical roles in a variety of biological processes in different tumors. Our study aimed to provide a comprehensive analysis of the potential roles of KDELRs in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Utilizing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, as well as clinical samples, we conducted a series of analyses and validations using R software tools and various online resources. The results showed that KDELR family genes and proteins were highly expressed and associated with a poor prognosis of LUAD. Promoter hypomethylation and the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network of PCAT6/hsa-miR-326/KDELR1 might be potential causes of aberrant KDELR1 overexpression in LUAD. Three key Transcription factors (TFs) (SPI1, EP300, and MAZ) and a TFs-miRNAs-KDELRs network (involving 11 TFs) might be involved in modulating KDELRs expression abnormalities. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) indicated enrichment of genes highly expressing KDELR1, KDELR2, and KDELR3 in MTORC1_SIGNALING, P53_PATHWAY, and ANGIOGENESIS. Negative correlations between KDELRs expression and CD8 + T cell infiltration, as well as CTLA-4 expression. Our multiple analyses suggested that the KDELRs are important signaling molecules in LUAD. These results provided novel insights for developing prognostic markers and novel therapies of LUAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed two glass eye beads discovered in an ancient tomb complex at Dongxin Furniture Square in Datong, Shanxi Province in China. The tomb complex was dated to the Northern Wei Dynasty (398–494 AD), when Datong was known as Pingcheng. We used scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) as well as a 3D microscope system with ultra-depth of field to conduct non-destructive tests on the beads. We examined the beads’ manufacturing techniques, including matrices, eye patterns, and bead holes. The composition analysis revealed that both beads belonged to the mix of v-Na-Ca and m-Na-Al glass system, which is a key indicator of local production in Java. The bases were colored using Co2+, whereas the white, red, and yellow colors of the eye patterns were achieved using SnO2, Cu2O, or Cu0, and PbSnO3, respectively. These findings indicated that both objects were Jatim beads originating in the Kingdom of Java in Southeast Asia. This study provides valuable insights into ancient trade routes between different regions and offers reliable scientific evidence of the glass trade and technical exchanges in ancient times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study systematically examined how Mn impacts the precipitates and mechanical properties of 6082 aluminum alloy during the peak state of artificial aging following various natural aging durations, elucidating the underlying mechanisms. It is found that α-Al(Mn,Fe)Si precipitated during homogenization is less in amount in the alloy with lower Mn content, resulting in the less consumption of Si and a lower real Mg/Si ratio to create a relatively Si-rich environment in matrix. The Si-rich environment promotes the nucleation of the precipitates, so that the low Mn alloy precipitates more and finer precipitates in the artificial aging process, and has higher strength than the high Mn alloy. Additionally, it is also found that with the increase of natural aging time, the precipitates of 6082 aluminum alloy are significantly coarsening, and the alloy with lower Mn content can better resist the coarsening process of the precipitates, so that the strength of the alloy decreases more slowly than that of higher Mn alloys, and the negative effects of natural aging are lighter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High temperatures are a major stress factor that limit the growth of Pinellia ternata. WRKY proteins widely distribute in plants with the important roles in plant growth and stress responses. However, WRKY genes have not been identified in P. ternata thus far. In this study, five PtWRKYs with four functional subgroups were identified in P. ternata. One group III WRKY transcription factor, PtWRKY2, was strongly induced by high temperatures, whereas the other four PtWRKYs were suppressed. Analysis of transcription factor characteristics revealed that PtWRKY2 localized to the nucleus and specifically bound to W-box elements without transcriptional activation activity. Overexpression of PtWRKY2 increased the heat tolerance of Arabidopsis, as shown by the higher percentage of seed germination and survival rate, and the longer root length of transgenic lines under high temperatures compared to the wild-type. Moreover, PtWRKY2 overexpression significantly decreased reactive oxygen species accumulation by increasing the catalase, superoxide dismutase, and peroxidase activities. Furthermore, the selected heat shock-associated genes, including five transcription factors (HSFA1A, HSFA7A, bZIP28, DREB2A, and DREB2B), two heat shock proteins (HSP70 and HSP17.4), and three antioxidant enzymes (POD34, CAT1, and SOD1), were all upregulated in transgenic Arabidopsis. The study identifies that PtWRKY2 functions as a key transcriptional regulator in the heat tolerance of P. ternata, which might provide new insights into the genetic improvement of P. ternata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sunspots play a crucial role in both weather forecasting and the monitoring of solar storms. In this work, we propose a novel combined model for sunspot prediction using improved gated recurrent units (GRU) guided by pinball loss for probabilistic forecasts. Specifically, we optimize the GRU parameters using the slime mould algorithm and employ a seasonal-trend decomposition procedure based on loess to tackle challenges related to sequence prediction, such as self-correlations and non-stationarity. To address prediction uncertainty, we replace the traditional l 2 -norm loss with pinball loss. This modification extends the conventional GRU-based point forecasting to a probabilistic framework expressed as quantiles. We apply our proposed model to analyze a well-established historical sunspot dataset for both single- and multi-step ahead forecasting. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our combined model in predicting sunspot values, surpassing the performance of other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncaria rhynchophylla is an important traditional herbal medicine in China, and the yield and quality of Uncaria rhynchophylla can be improved by suitable soil conditioners because of changing the soil properties. In this paper, Uncaria rhynchophylla associated alkaloids and soil microbial communities were investigated. The field experiment was set up with the following control group: (M1, no soil conditioner) and different soil conditioner treatment groups (M2, biomass ash; M3, water retention agent; M4, biochar; M5, lime powder and M6, malic acid). The results showed that M2 significantly increased the fresh and dry weight and the contents of isorhynchophylline, corynoxeine, isocorynoxeine, and total alkaloids. Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi were major bacterial phyla. Correlation analysis showed that fresh and dry weight was significantly positively correlated with Acidobacteria, while alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, phosphatase activity, fresh and dry weight, corynoxeine, and isocorynoxeine were significantly negatively correlated with Chloroflexi. The application of soil conditioner M2 increased the abundance of Acidobacteria and decreased the abundance of Chloroflexi, which contributed to improving the soil nutrient content, yield, and quality of Uncaria rhynchophylla. In summary, biomass ash may be a better choice of soil conditioner in Uncaria rhynchophylla growing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this investigation, pulsed current electro-deposition (PCE) was used to prefabricate Ni–Co/SiC + TiN composite coatings (NCSTCCs) on mild steel surfaces. The research focused on the influence of two electrodeposition parameters, pulse frequency (PF) and duty cycle (DC), on NCSTCF features including microscopic surface morphology, crystal orientation, grain size, microhardness, SiC and TiN nanoparticles (NPs), deposition quantity, and corrosion resistance properties. The results indicated that NCSTCCs produced under a 10% DC showed minimal SiC and TiN contents with a percent volume of just 5.6 v/v% and 5.4 v/v% respectively under the fixed condition of 60 Hz PF. However, the three-dimensional surface diagram indicated that the Ni–Co/SiC + TiN composite film deposited at 50% DC and 10 Hz PF displayed the highest SiC and TiN contents (11.6 v/v% and 11.7 v/v%) among all the films. Furthermore, NCSTCCs deposited under 50% DC and 10 Hz PF had peak microhardness at 667.4 kg/mm2, while the composite film achieved a microhardness of 514.1 kg/mm2 when prepared using 10% DC and 60 Hz PF. Moreover, when the DC and PF were at 50% and 10 Hz respectively, the Ni–Co/SiC + TiN composite film presented the maximum charge transfer resistance (4915.7–4927.2 Ω·cm2), indicating an excellent corrosion resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood flow infections (BSIs) is common occurrences in intensive care units (ICUs) and are associated with poor prognosis. The study aims to identify risk factors and assess mortality among BSI patients admitted to the ICU at Shanghai Ruijin hospital north from January 2022 to June 2023. Additionally, it seeks to present the latest microbiological isolates and their antimicrobial susceptibility. Independent risk factors for BSI and mortality were determined using the multivariable logistic regression model. The study found that the latest incidence rate of BSI was 10.11%, the mortality rate was 35.21% and the mean age of patients with BSI was 74 years old. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the predominant bacterial isolate. Logistic multiple regression revealed that tracheotomy, tigecycline, gastrointestinal bleeding, shock, length of hospital stay, age and laboratory indicators (such as procalcitonine and hemoglobin) were independent risk factors for BSI. Given the elevated risk associated with use of tracheotomy and tigecycline, it underscores the importance of the importance of cautious application of tracheostomy and empirical antibiotic management strategies. Meanwhile, the independent risk factors of mortality included cardiovascular disease, length of hospital stay, mean platelet volume (MPV), uric acid levels and ventilator. BSI patients exhibited a significant decrease in platelet count, and MPV emerged as an independent factor of mortality among them. Therefore, continuous monitoring of platelet-related parameters may aid in promptly identifying high-risk patients and assessing prognosis. Moreover, monitoring changes in uric acid levels may serve as an additional tool for prognostic evaluation in BSI patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently proposed DETR successfully applied the Transformer to object detection and achieved impressive results. However, the learned object queries often explore the entire image to match the corresponding regions, resulting in slow convergence of DETR. Additionally, DETR only uses single-scale features from the final stage of the backbone network, leading to poor performance in small object detection. To address these issues, we propose an effective training strategy for improving the DETR framework, named PMG-DETR. We achieve this by using Position-sensitive Multi-scale attention and Grouped queries. First, to better fuse the multi-scale features, we propose a Position-sensitive Multi-scale attention. By incorporating a spatial sampling strategy into deformable attention, we can further improve the performance of small object detection. Second, we extend the attention mechanism by introducing a novel positional encoding scheme. Finally, we propose a grouping strategy for object queries, where queries are grouped at the decoder side for a more precise inclusion of regions of interest and to accelerate DETR convergence. Extensive experiments on the COCO dataset show that PMG-DETR can achieve better performance compared to DETR, e.g., AP 47.8 % using ResNet50 as backbone trained in 50 epochs. We perform ablation studies on the COCO dataset to validate the effectiveness of the proposed PMG-DETR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Target detection, as a core issue in the field of computer vision, is widely applied in many key areas such as face recognition, license plate recognition, security protection, and driverless driving. Although its detection speed and accuracy continue to break records, there are still many challenges and difficulties in target detection of remote sensing images, which require further in-depth research and exploration. Remote sensing images can be regarded as a "three-dimensional data cube", with more complex background information, dense and small object targets, and more severe weather interference factors. These factors lead to large positioning errors and low detection accuracy in the target detection process of remote sensing images. An improved YOLOv7 object detection model is proposed to address the problem of high false negative rate for dense and small objects in remote sensing images. Firstly, the GAM attention mechanism is introduced, and a global scheduling mechanism is proposed to improve the performance of deep neural networks by reducing information reduction and expanding global interaction representations, thus enhancing the network's sensitivity to targets. Secondly, the loss function CIoU in the original Yolov7 network model is replaced by SIoU, aiming to optimize the loss function, reduce losses, and improve the generalization of the network. Finally, the model is tested on the public available RSOD remote sensing dataset, and its generalization is verified on the Okahublot FloW-Img sub-dataset. The results showed that the accuracy (MAP@0.5) of detecting objects improved by 1.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points respectively for the improved Yolov7 network model compared to the original model, effectively improves the accuracy of detecting small targets in remote sensing images and solves the problem of leakage detection of small targets in remote sensing images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of dairy manure digestate (DMD) was explored in this study. Response surface methodology was used to investigate the influence of temperature, time, and DMD pH on hydrochar properties. Hydrochar obtained in the study exhibited higher heating value (HHV) in the range of 17.5–20.6 MJ kg−1, with energy and hydrochar yields 45.8–72.4% and 57.6–80.1%, respectively. It was demonstrated that temperature was the most significant factor. At higher temperature, the HHV of hydrochar was higher while both energy and hydrochar yields were lower. In particular, hydrochar obtained at temperature ≥ 260 °C had HHV ≥ 20.0 MJ kg−1, which was close to that of lignite and implied its potential as fuel. To gain insights about the fate of various elements during HTC and facilitate overall evaluation of hydrochar, a wide range of elements (30 in total, including macro- and micro-nutrients, as well as heavy metals) was analyzed. Hydrochar had carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio between 10 and 12, which was in the suitable range for nutrient availability as soil amendment. Half of the elements remained in the hydrochar, while most of Na, K, and half of S leached into process water, especially at temperature ≥ 260 °C, thus combusting hydrochar can potentially alleviate the slagging and fouling problems associated with direct combustion of dried DMD. The study provided insights for further rational utilization of DMD hydrochar, and integration of HTC into existing on-farm anaerobic digestion was a promising option for reduction disposal of DMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MOCA1 encodes the last key glucuronosyltransferase for ionic stress sensor glycosyl inositol phosphoryl-ceramide (GIPCs) biosynthesis in Arabidopsis, which indicates that the MOCA gene family play important role in plant tolerance to salt stress. However, the isolation and function of MOCAs in staple crops have not been reported and the downstream targets of MOCAs in salt stress tolerance signalling pathway are not clear. In this study, we identified 110 MOCA genes in wheat which were classified into five clades and they differed in gene structure, protein length, conserved motifs and expression profiles in different tissues and under salt stress. TaMOCA1 was selected for further functional study in response to salt stress. TaMOCA1 was rapidly induced by NaCl treatment. The 35S::TaMOCA1-GFP construction showed the cell nucleus and cytoplasm location in wheat protoplast. TaMOCA1 over-expressing Arabidopsis seedlings formed longer primary roots and more lateral roots than the wild type ones under 50 mM NaCl treatment. The over-expressing Arabidopsis had higher expression levels of HKT1, but lower expression levels of NHX1 and SOS genes than the wild type. Also, the transgenic plants had higher SOD activity and lower MDA content than the wild Arabidopsis seedling under salt stress. These results may indicate that TaMOCA1 increases salt stress tolerance through decreasing Na+ loading from the xylem parenchyma cells to the xylem via SOS1 and HKT1, hence lowering root-to-shoot delivery of Na+ and superior antioxidant ability. All these results lay a foundation for further functional study of MOCAs in wheat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitamin D was well-known to be associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) has been linked to vitamin D and GDM, respectively. We hypothesize that changes in IGF-I metabolism induced by 25(OH)D3 might contribute to GDM. Therefore, we investigated the independent and combined relationships of serum 25(OH)D3 and IGF-I concentrations with GDM risk, and the mediation effect of IGF-I on 25(OH)D3. A total of 278 pregnant women (including 125 cases and 153 controls) were recruited in our current study. Maternal serum 25(OH)D3 and IGF-I were measured in the second trimester. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations of 25(OH)D3 and IGF-I concentrations with the risk of GDM. Mediation analyses were used to explore the mediation effect of IGF-I on the association between 25(OH)D3 and the risk of GDM. After adjusted for the confounded factors, both the third and fourth quartile of 25(OH)D3 decreased the risk of GDM (OR = 0.226; 95% CI, 0.103–0.494; OR = 0.109; 95% CI, 0.045–0.265, respectively) compared to the first quartile of 25(OH)D3. However, the third and fourth quartile of serum IGF-I (OR = 5.174; 95% CI, 2.287–11.705; OR = 12.784; 95% CI, 5.292–30.879, respectively) increased the risk of GDM compared to the first quartile of serum IGF-I. Mediation analyses suggested that 19.62% of the associations between 25(OH)D3 and GDM might be mediated by IGF-I. The lower concentration of serum 25(OH)D3 or higher IGF-I in the second trimester was associated with an increased risk of GDM. The serum IGF-I level might be a potential mediator between 25(OH)D3 and GDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clay-type Li deposits are poised to play a pivotal role in addressing the surging global demand for Li. The McDermitt clay-type Li deposit, located in Nevada, is the largest Li deposit in the United States, with Li hosted by a clay-rich sequence of smectite-dominated intervals and illite-dominated intervals, respectively. However, the occurrence of Li and the genesis of Li-bearing minerals within smectite-dominated intervals have not been thoroughly investigated in previous research. Here, we studied the mineralogy, the in-situ Li distribution, and the bonding environments of Li within the smectite intervals using a combination of instrumental techniques including scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance. Our results indicate that the smectite exhibits low crystallinity characteristics of lacustrine clay authigenesis and is commonly found to fill the interstices among volcanic minerals or envelop them; Li is mainly hosted by Mg-smectite rather than the volcanic minerals. Within the tuffaceous sediment samples, the volcanic glass has undergone a transformation, resulting in its complete disappearance and alteration into clay minerals. Owing to the octahedral sites of Mg-smectite bounded in Li, it is referred to be hectorite. We interpret that the hectorite's precipitation occurs in a high saline-alkaline water environment, a result of McDermitt tuff dissolution. This conclusion can be supported by the coexistence of spherulitic calcite and hectorite. Overall, this study confirms hectorite as the main Li-bearing mineral and increases the understanding of the genetic model of hectorite formation in intracontinental caldera basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aluminum honeycomb sandwich structure with panels made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) are widely used in aerospace and other fields. Simulation of the eddy current (EC) testing of the sandwich structure using the finite element (FE) method is challenging as the traditional FE method has difficulties in mesh division and the solution of the algebraic equations. This paper proposes to use the domain decomposition FE method to solve such problems. The top CFRP panel, the aluminum honeycomb core, and the bottom CFRP panel of the sandwich structure and the ferrite core of the coil are placed in different subdomains and the subdomains are meshed independently. This method simplifies the mesh generation and does not require regenerating the meshes when simulating the scanning testing with the ferrite-core coil. In this way, the efficiency of simulation is greatly improved. The EC distributions in the sandwich structure are computed and the influence of defect on EC distribution is analyzed. The C scans of the sandwich structures are simulated. The images of the EC responses to the defects, such as wall fracture, node disconnection, and core wrinkle, are obtained. The simulation results are validated by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing learning-based image deblurring algorithms tend to focus on single source of image information, and the network structure and dynamic scene blur characteristics make it difficult to recover the missing details of the image. Therefore, a novel dynamic scene deblurring framework is proposed based on hybrid activation and edge-assisted dual-branch residuals. Specifically, the network's ability to learn nonlinear features is enhanced by different activation functions, and the feature utilization at different semantic levels is improved by improving the traditional residual structure. In particular, the fixed-parameter training method is adopted to reduce ringing artifacts. And a new dual-source edge extraction algorithm is designed that organically combines edge information from different sources as network inputs. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm not only shows advantages in objective evaluation metrics PSNR, SSIM and VIF, but also achieves satisfactory results in subjective visual effects. Source code is publicly available at: https://github.com/Mangolzh/HN.git. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential flow is usually characterized by rapid and concentrated fluid flow in fractured geological media, and preferential flow paths (PFP) dominate the fluid flux and velocity. Therefore, the identification of PFP is significant for quantitatively characterizing fluid flow in fractured media, especially in discrete fracture networks (DFN). The traditional methods of identifying PFP need to solve groundwater flow models; however, such models are limited by complex groundwater-related problems, the need for detailed hydrogeological survey data, and a high computational workload. In this study, a graph-theory-based flow resistance method is proposed for identifying the PFP in DFN. The method uses the flow resistance of fracture trace lines to identify the corresponding minimum resistance path. The flow resistance is defined as the weighted factor between the adjacent nodes in the fracture network based on the formula of the modified cubic law, and then the Dijkstra algorithm is used to determine the minimum resistance path. The flow resistance method is verified through case analysis by numerical simulation with COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show that the fluid tends to flow along the path with less flow resistance, and the minimum resistance path is essentially consistent with the preferential flow path. The method only needs to extract flow resistance values from the geometric parameters of the fractures, and then quickly analyze the fracture-network pathways to identify the preferential flow path. The method provides an effective and efficient way of identifying the preferential flow path without resorting to complex groundwater flow models to find the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Repeat transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) demonstrates beneficial effects for stroke patients, though its efficacy varies due to the complexity of patient conditions and disease progression. Unsupervised machine learning could be the optimal solution for identifying target patients for transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment. Methods: We collected data from ischaemic stroke patients treated with rTMS. Unsupervised machine learning methods, including K-means and Hierarchical Clustering, were used to explore the clinical characteristics of patients suitable for rTMS. We then utilized a prospective observational cohort to validate the effect of selected characteristics. For the validated cohort, outcomes included the presence of motor evoked potentials (MEP), favorable functional outcomes (FFO), and changes in the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) at 3 and 6 months. Results: Hierarchical clustering methods revealed that patients in the better prognosis group were more likely to take statins. The validated cohort was grouped based on statin intake. Patients taking statins exhibited a higher rate of MEP (p = 0.006), a higher rate of FFO at 3 months (p = 0.003) and 6 months (p = 0.021), and a more significant change in FMA (p < 0.001) at both 3 and 6 months. Statin intake was associated with FFO and changes in FMA at 3 and 6 months. This relationship persisted across all subgroups for FMA changes and some FFO subgroups. Conclusion: Stroke patients undergoing rTMS treatment taking statins exhibited greater MEP, FFO, and changes in FMA. Statin intake was associated with a better prognosis in these patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the efficacy of video games in improving cognitive function in chronic patients with schizophrenia and to evaluate the biomarker of video games for cognitive function. The patients in the game group were requested to play single-player video games on their smartphones for 1 h per day, five times a week for 6 weeks. Those in the control group watched television for 1 h per day, five times a week for 6 weeks. Cognitive function was assessed using the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) and Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT). Clinical symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Problematic Mobile Gaming Questionnaire (PMGQ), and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). The game group demonstrated improved RBANS total score during the trial. There were no significant group effects among all SCWT scores. The game group demonstrated greater improvement on the PANSS Negative Scale, and global function (GAF score). The PMGQ scores were lower than the cutoff score at all time points in both groups. There were no significant group differences in the PHQ-9 and GSE scores. The serum BDNF levels were significantly higher in the game group following 6 weeks of video game intervention. The BDNF serum levels of all participants were positively associated with the RBANS total scores. This preliminary study suggested that video games can improve cognitive function in schizophrenia patients. Serum BDNF levels may be a suitable biomarker for predicting an improvement in cognitive function in schizophrenia patients. Trial registration: This study was registered on March 11, 2021 (ChiCTR2100044113). Clinical trials: Smartphone video games improve cognitive function in patients with chronic schizophrenia; https://www.chictr.org.cn/hvshowproject.aspx?id=95623; ChiCTR2100044113. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has resolved its overall regional poverty in 2020 by attaining moderate societal prosperity. The country has entered a new development stage designed to achieve its second centenary goal. However, ecological fragility and risk susceptibility have increased the risk of returning to ecological poverty. In this paper, the Liupan Mountain Region of China was used as a case study, and the counties were used as the scale to reveal the spatiotempora differentiation and influcing factors of the risk of returning to poverty in study area. The indicator data for returning to ecological poverty from 2011–2020 were collected and summarized in three dimensions: ecological, economic and social. The autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) time series and exponential smoothing method (ES) were used to predict the multidimensional indicators of returning to ecological poverty for 61 counties (districts) in the Liupan Mountain Region for 2021–2030. The back propagation neural network (BPNN) and geographic information system (GIS) were used to generate the spatial distribution and time variation for the index of the risk of returning to ecological poverty (RREP index). The results show that 1) ecological factors were the main factors in the risk of returning to ecological poverty in Liupan Mountain Region. 2) The RREP index for the 61 counties (districts) exhibited a downward trend from 2021–2030. The RREP index declined more in medium- and high-risk areas than in low-risk areas. From 2021 to 2025, the RREP index exhibited a slight downward trend. From 2026 to 2030, the RREP index was expected to decline faster, especially from 2029–2030. 3) Based on the RREP index, it can be roughly divided into three types, namely, the high-risk areas, the medium-risk areas, and the low-risk areas. The natural resource conditions in low-risk areas of returning to ecological poverty, were better than those in medium- and high-risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy plays a vital role in highly sensitive fingerprint detections and non-invasive point-of-care diagnostics. However, elaborate fabrication of a compact nanostructure-based plasmon hybridization to realize high-sensitivity SERS-active substrate remains a challenge. In this work, an Au hybrid hollow nanocone SERS substrate is successfully fabricated by ion-track technology. The overall electromagnetic enhancement is developed due to the synergistic effect of merging individual nanostructures onto one three-dimensional Au hybrid hollow nanocone SERS substrate. The near-field optical characterizations and the electromagnetic numerical simulations exhibit highly near-field nanofocusing. The reflectivity of the SERS substrate is less than 32%. The SERS spectra of rhodamine 6G molecules with a concentration detection limit of 10−8 M are analyzed, and the enhancement factor is ~ 0.75 × 105. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: No tillage (No-till, NT), a form of conservation agricultural management, can improve food security and alleviate world climate change by influencing crop yield and soil organic carbon (SOC), but the effects of NT on crop yields and SOC and the major factors which influence these effects remain poorly understood. Methods: We conducted a global meta-analysis using 5230 paired observations from 446 studies to evaluate the effects of NT on upland crop yield and SOC and to explore the associated influencing factors. Results: Generally, NT decreased upland crop yields by 5% (P < 0.05) and increased SOC sequestration by 9.9% (P < 0.05). Specifically, wheat and maize yields decreased by 7.7% and 2.3%, respectively. Our analyses indicate that NT combined with crop residue return and crop rotation reduced the negative effect of NT on crop yield from 5% to 2.44% and increased SOC up to 12.77%. The effects of NT on yield and SOC varied depending on the regulating factors. No-till increased yields in relatively arid areas, but reduced yields in more humid areas, whereas SOC is more likely to increase in humid regions. Soil organic carbon sequestration increased with temperature, but yield losses also increased in warmer regions. Conclusions: Our study suggests that NT combined with crop residue return and crop rotation could enhance SOC sequestration under moist and warm conditions without compromising crop yield. It may also improve soil quality and help alleviate global food security and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The susceptibility mapping of rainfall-induced landslides is an effective tool for predicting and locating disaster-prone zones at the regional scale. One of the most important parts of landslide susceptibility models is the hydrological model. In this context, the present study considers three pore water pressure (PWP) profiles with surface runoff to estimate the spatiotemporal variation of wetting front depth (WFD) during rainfall episodes. To reasonably simulate the inherent uncertainty and variability involved in the hydrogeomechanical properties of the surficial soil layers at the regional scale, probabilistic analysis based on the recursive first-order reliability method (FORM) is employed to calculate the probability of slope failure. The regional time-dependent landslide susceptibility mapping is realised using a newly developed model called Physically-based probabilistic modelling of Rainfall Landslides using Simplified Transient Infiltration Model (PRL-STIM). The proposed model is applied in a representative area that suffered extensive rainfall-induced landslides in July 2013 (Niangniangba Town, Gansu Province, China). The results indicate that the PRL-STIM model achieved a satisfactory prediction accuracy of 75% AUC compared to existing models like transient rainfall infiltration and grid-based regional slope-stability model (72%) and the probabilistic analysis results based on the first-order second moment method (74%). It also performed well in predicting the spatial distribution of shallow landslides, with a success rate of 81.6%. Regarding the model efficiency, the completion of a raster file for calculating the landslide probabilities of the study area (including 711,051 cells) requires only 17.1 s. It is thus hoped that the proposed calculation framework of PRL-STIM that considers various uncertainties (e.g., nonlinearity of the physical model, non-normal probability distributions, random variable cross correlations, etc.) in geotechnical parameters is better suited for landslide susceptibility mapping at the regional scale, where only limited historical event data is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anchor and fissure grouting are used to repair earthen sites. However, the common method to obtain the compressive strength of grouting slurry would cause material, labor, and time losses. In addition the material properties, environmental and economic benefits have gained increasing attention. This study proposes a design framework for multi-objective proportioning optimization based on machine learning and metaheuristics. The results indicated that the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model, whose hyper-parameters were optimized by a genetic algorithm, can accurately predicted the compressive strength of the slurries. The impact of the variables on development of compressive strength can explain the internal reaction mechanisms. The analytical framework based on meta-heuristic and technique for order of preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) provided Pareto-optimal solutions in design scenario of each sub-dataset. The framework proposed in this study can efficiently achieve mechanical, environmental, and economic design objectives of anchor grouting and fissure grouting slurries for repairing earthen sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A research model combining a disease and syndrome can provide new ideas for the treatment of ischemic stroke. In the field of traditional Chinese medicine, blood stasis and toxin (BST) syndrome is considered an important syndrome seen in patients with ischemic stroke (IS). However, the biological basis of IS-BST syndrome is currently not well understood. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the biological mechanism of IS-BST syndrome. This study is divided into two parts: (1) establishment of an animal model of ischemic stroke disease and an animal model of BST syndrome in ischemic stroke; (2) use of omics methods to identify differentially expressed genes and metabolites in the models. We used middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) surgery to establish the disease model, and utilized carrageenan combined with active dry yeast and MCAO surgery to construct the IS-BST syndrome model. Next, we used transcriptomics and metabolomics methods to explore the differential genes and metabolites in the disease model and IS-BST syndrome model. It is found that the IS-BST syndrome model exhibited more prominent characteristics of IS disease and syndrome features. Both the disease model and the IS-BST syndrome model share some common biological processes, such as thrombus formation, inflammatory response, purine metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, and so on. Results of the "gene–metabolite" network revealed that the IS-BST syndrome model exhibited more pronounced features of complement-coagulation cascade reactions and amino acid metabolism disorders. Additionally, the "F2 (thrombin)–NMDAR/glutamate" pathway was coupled with the formation process of the blood stasis and toxin syndrome. This study reveals the intricate mechanism of IS-BST syndrome, offering a successful model for investigating the combination of disease and syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion shaped film cooling holes can improve cooling performance on turbine blades of aeroengines. The diffusion structures are difficult to machine due to the complicated shape, especially for the special materials such as single crystal superalloys. In our previous work, a novel process of block divided electrical discharge machining (EDM) based on a slender rod electrode was proposed to efficiently machine the diffuser structure of diffusion shaped film cooling holes. Although the rod electrode wear can be quickly repaired in the block divided EDM process, the shape accuracy of diffuser structures still needs to improvement. In this research, the novel process is firstly analyzed to find that the error of servo feed trajectory in 3D space is a key to the shape accuracy. Furthermore, a correction method of servo-feed tool trajectory is proposed by applying a correction velocity perpendicular to a target trajectory for correcting tool position. The specific implementation algorithm of the correction method is described in detail. The repeated experiments of diffusion structures verify the feasibility of the block divided EDM with trajectory correction method. The experimental results show that the proposed method and algorithm can effectively reduce the trajectory error by ~20 μm and the shape error of diffusion structure by ~10 μm. The typical film cooling holes with diffusion structures were machined successfully on Inconel 718 and nickel-based single crystal superalloys, based on the self-developed experimental setup by integrating the high speed EDM drilling on cylindrical-hole part and the block divided EDM with the trajectory correction method on diffusion-structure part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early stages of antibody drug development, it is imperative to conduct a comprehensive assessment and enhancement of the druggability attributes of potential molecules by considering their fundamental physicochemical properties. This study specifically concentrates on the surface-exposed hydrophobic region of the candidate antibody aPDL1-WT and explores the effectiveness of the L309K mutation strategy. The resulting aPDL1-LK variant demonstrates a notable enhancement over the original antibody in addressing the issue of aggregation and formation of large molecular impurities under accelerated high-temperature conditions. The mutated molecule, aPDL1-LK, exhibits excellent physicochemical properties such as hydrophilicity, conformational stability, charge variant stability, post-translational modifications, and serum stability. In terms of biological function, aPDL1-LK maintains the same glycosylation pattern as the original antibody and shows no significant difference in affinity for antigen hPDL1 protein, CD16a-F158, CD64, CD32a-H131, and complement C1q, compared to aPDL1-WT. The L309K mutation results in an approximately twofold reduction in its affinity for CD16a-V158 and CD32a-R131. In vitro biological assays, including antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP), and complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC), reveal that the L309K mutation may decrease CD16a-V158-mediated ADCC activity due to the mutation-induced decrease in ligand affinity, while not affect CD32a-R131-mediated ADCP activity. In conclusion, the L309K mutation offers a promising strategy to enhance the druggability properties of candidate antibodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]