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The earliest silicon-based aerogels attracted attention due to their nanoscale porous structure and high transparency. Still, they need to be more balanced with the poor mechanical properties. Their brittle structure limits the development of this promising new material. Therefore, the goal of this work is to optimize the mechanical properties of aerogels while maintaining transparency. The good mechanical properties of polymers have made them the material of choice for this work. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which can undergo self-crosslinking through side-chain hydroxyl groups forming hydrogen bonds, was chosen as the raw material to simplify and expedite the production process. The production process was experimented with, analyzed, and refined. Considering the time efficiency of the experimental process, a one-step gelling method was invented to facilitate the sol-gel transition. The one-step gelling method maintained the high transparency of PVA aerogels and reduced the time required for the gelation process compared to the freeze-thawing method. This work employs carbon dioxide supercritical drying to ensure minimal structural collapse and maximize the porous structure's retention. The transmittance of PVA aerogels can reach up to 93.67% at a wavelength of 1333 nm. The internal structure of aerogels with different PVA concentrations was observed using a Scanning electron microscope. Applying Beer-Lambert's Law eliminated the effect of sample thickness on transparency. The relationship between the transparency of PVA aerogels, their microstructure, and macroscopic concentration was studied and analyzed for the first time. While ensuring light transmittance, the modulus of the PVA aerogel reached as high as 6.18 ± 0.56 MPa at 13 wt%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we construct and analyze new first- and second-order implicit-explicit (IMEX) schemes for the unsteady Navier–Stokes-Darcy model to describe the coupled free flow-porous media system, which is based on the scalar auxiliary variable (SAV) approach in time and finite element method in space. The constructed schemes are linear, only require solving a sequence of linear differential equations with constant coefficients at each time step, and can decouple the Navier–Stokes and Darcy systems. The unconditional stability of both the first- and second-order IMEX schemes can be derived for the coupled system equipped with the Lions interface condition, where the key point is that we should construct a new trilinear form to balance the fully explicit discretizations of the nonlinear terms in the complex system. We can also establish rigorous error estimates for the velocity and hydraulic head of the first-order scheme without any time step restriction. Numerical examples are presented to validate the proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the scalar auxiliary variable based (SAV-based) approach has become very popular and hot in the design of linear, high-order and unconditional energy stable schemes of dissipative systems. However, the nature of SAV-based numerical schemes preserving modified energy dissipation limits its wider application. A relaxation technique to correct the modified energy for the baseline SAV method (RSAV) was proposed by Jiang et al. (J. Comput. Phys. 456:110954, 2022) and general SAV method (R-GSAV) by Zhang and Shen et al. (J. Comput. Phys. 464:111311, 2022). The RSAV/R-GSAV approaches are unconditionally energy stable with respect to a modified energy that is closer to the original free energy when compared with the SAV/GSAV approaches. In this paper, inspired by the RSAV/R-GSAV approaches, we propose a novel technique to correct the modified energy of the SAV/GSAV approaches, which can be proved to be an optimal energy approximation. We construct new high-order implicit-explicit schemes based on the proposed energy-optimized SAV-based (EOP-SAV) approaches. The constructed EOP-SAV schemes not only provide an improved accuracy but also simplify calculation, and can be viewed as the optimal relaxation. We also prove that the numerical schemes based on the EOP-SAV approaches are unconditionally energy stable. Compared with the RSAV approach, the proposed EOP-SAV approaches do not need introduce any relaxed factors and can share the similar procedure for error estimates. Several interesting numerical examples have been presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formaldehyde (FA) is a chemical that facilitates crosslinking between DNA and proteins. It is widely used in various biochemical assays, such as chromosome conformation capture (3C) and Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP). While the concentration and temperature of FA treatment are recognized as crucial factors in crosslinking, their quantitative effects have largely remained unexplored. In this study, we employed 3C as a model system to systematically assess the impacts of these two factors on crosslinking. Our findings indicate that the strength of crosslinking significantly influences chromatin conformation detection at nearly all known structural levels. Specifically, a delicate balance between sensitivity and reliability is required when detecting higher-level structures, such as chromosome compartments. Conversely, intense crosslinking is preferred when targeting lower-level structures, such as topologically associated domains (TADs) or chromatin loops. Based on our data, we propose a conceptual molecular thermal motion model to elucidate the roles of these two factors in restricting FA crosslinking. Our results not only shed light on the previously overlooked confounding factor in FA crosslinking but also highlight the need for caution in new technology developments that rely on FA crosslinking. This methodological study examines the effects of temperature and formaldehyde concentration on the analysis of genome organization by chromosome conformation capture approaches and reveals that changes in these two key parameters can greatly affect the outcome and reproducibility of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eltrombopag combined with immunosuppressive therapy (IST) was superior to IST alone for severe aplastic anemia (SAA) in the previous studies. But in China, horse antithymocyte globulin (hATG) is not available, instead, we use rabbit ATG (rATG). Here, we compared the efficacy and safety of IST (rATG combined with cyclosporine) combined with or without eltrombopag for the first-line treatment of SAA and very severe aplastic anemia (VSAA). A total of 371 patients in ten institutions in China from April 1, 2017 to December 1, 2022 were enrolled. The overall response (OR) rate at 3 months (54.2% vs. 41%; P = 0.046), the complete response (CR) (31.3% vs. 19.4%; P = 0.041) and OR (78.3% vs. 51.1%; P < 0.0001) rates at 6 months were significantly higher with IST combined with eltrombopag than with IST alone in SAA patients. While in VSAA patients, the addition of eltrombopag to IST only increased the CR rate at 6 months (29.8% vs. 9.43%; P = 0.010). Liver injury increased significantly in groups treated with IST combined with eltrombopag (P < 0.05). Serious treatment-related toxicities were similar (P > 0.05). In patients with SAA, 3-year failure-free survival (FFS) of eltrombopag combined with IST group was significantly higher than that of IST group (70.7 ± 5.3% vs. 50.3 ± 3.9%; P = 0.007). In patients with VSAA, the addition of eltrombopag significantly improved 3-year overall survival (OS) (82.2 ± 5.7% vs. 57.3 ± 7.2%; P = 0.020). Our findings suggested that IST combined with eltrombopag could improve the hematological recovery of newly diagnosed SAA without increasing severe toxicities. But in VSAA, the addition of eltrombopag seemed to show no other improvement to efficacy except the CR rate at 6 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the task of video salient object detection, how to effectively fuse spatiotemporal cues is the key to successfully detecting salient objects. Existing methods suffer from inadequate fusion as well as focusing too much on a single piece of information, which makes them perform poorly in complex scenes. To address these issues, we propose a new spatiotemporal full-stage interaction enhancement network (FIE-Net) for video salient object detection. FIE-Net applies spatiotemporal information interaction deeply to the encoder–decoder stage, fully exploring the complementarity of spatiotemporal modalities. Specifically, we introduce a progressive attention guidance unit in the encoder part, which can adaptively fuse spatiotemporal features under a progressive structure for efficient interaction of spatiotemporal information. In the decoder part, we incorporate a cross-modal global refinement unit, which utilizes spatiotemporal global features to refine and complement the encoder features to obtain more complete salient information. In addition, we employ a multilevel information correction unit to further filter the input features using spatial low-level features and optical flow prediction maps to obtain more accurate salient information. We conducted experiments on four dataset benchmarks. The experimental results show that our method is highly competitive with current state-of-the-art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the advancements in treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), highlighting how targeted therapy and immunotherapy have improved prognosis, particularly in achieving minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity. Topics include the effectiveness of Blinatumomab in reducing MRD and improving outcomes before allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT).

To reconstruct the high resolution image makes sense from single image with low resolution. Most conventional methods assume that the blur kernel is known, however the blur kernel within single blurring image is always unknown, then it is necessary to generate the kernel dynamically during deblurring. The paper proposes single image high-fidelity blind deblurring method based on GAN. The degradation of super resolution networks is first used to synthesize high resolution images. A blur kernel discriminator is then trained to analyze the generated high-resolution images and errors that occur when the prediction generator provides incorrect blur kernel. Thus, the blur kernel provided by the generator is closer to the actual image. Finally, through the redefinition and optimization of loss function, the perception loss is replaced by the per-pixel loss to obtain better visual effects. Experiments show that the proposed method can achieve high fidelity deblurring results 1.2% higher than those of traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we construct a fully discrete scheme with finite difference method based on the staggered grids for the viscous Cahn–Hilliard equation. The constructed scheme can satisfy the unconditional dissipation law with original energy. We carry out a rigorous error analysis with superconvergence by introducing an auxiliary function depending on the chemical potential. We obtain second order accuracy in both space and time with l ∞ (0 , T ; H 1 (Ω)) norm for the phase function and l 2 (0 , T ; l 2 (Ω)) for the chemical potential on non-uniform grids. Numerical experiments are presented to verify the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intestinal fibrosis is a common complication of inflammatory bowel disease and is characterized by tissue stiffening and luminal narrowing. Dihydromyricetin (DHM) can alleviate liver fibrosis and renal interstitial fibrosis by inducing autophagy. However, whether DHM can alleviate intestinal fibrosis remains unclear. This study is aimed at evaluating the role and mechanism of action of DHM in inflammatory bowel disease-associated intestinal fibrosis. Mice were administered dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in drinking water to induce inflammatory bowel disease-associated intestinal fibrosis. HE staining, qPCR, and Western blotting were used to analyze colon inflammation. Masson's trichrome staining, qPCR, Western blotting, and immunofluorescence staining were used to evaluate the severity of fibrosis. Transmission electron microscopy and Western blotting were used to assess the activation of autophagosomes. The human colonic fibroblast line CCD-18Co was cultured in the presence of TGF-β1 to develop a fibrotic phenotype. Immunofluorescence staining, Western blotting, and qPCR were used to assess the alteration of fibrosis markers and used to investigate whether DHM-induced autophagy was involved in the inactivation of CCD-18Co cells. Additionally, the role of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway was investigated. DHM alleviated intestinal inflammation and inhibited the progression of intestinal fibrosis. Additionally, DHM induced the activation of autophagy, thereby alleviating intestinal fibrosis, and downregulated the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway in vitro. Overall, this study demonstrated that DHM can inhibit the progression of intestinal fibrosis and activation of colonic fibroblasts by inducing autophagy through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, thereby playing a preventive and therapeutic role in intestinal fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhetoric is abundant and universal across different human languages. In this paper, we propose a novel curriculum learning integrated with meta-learning (CLML) model to address the task of general rhetorical identification. Specifically, we first leverage inter-category similarities to construct a dataset with curriculum characteristics for facilitating more natural easy-to-difficult learning process. Then we imitate human cognitive thinking that uses the query set in meta-learning to guide inductive network for inducing accurate class-level representations which are further improved by leveraging external class label knowledge into TapNet to construct a mapping function. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our proposed model outperforms existing state-of-the-art models across four datasets consistently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the trajectories and potential categories of changes in the sense of coherence (SOC) in patients after colorectal cancer surgery and to analyze predictive factors. Methods: From January to July 2023, 175 patients with colorectal cancer treated at a tertiary Grade A oncology hospital in Jiangsu Province were selected as the study subjects. Prior to surgery, SOC-13 scale, Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) were used to survey the patients. SOC levels were measured multiple times at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months post-surgery. Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM) was applied to fit the trajectory changes of SOC in patients after colorectal cancer surgery. Multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the predictive factors of SOC trajectory changes. Results: The SOC scores of patients at points T1–T4 were (65.27 ± 9.20), (63.65 ± 10.41), (63.85 ± 11.84), and (61.56 ± 12.65), respectively. Multinomial logistic regression results indicated that gender, employment status, disease stage, household monthly income, intestinal stoma, nutritional status, illness perception, and social support were predictors of SOC trajectory changes (P < 0.05). Conclusion: There is heterogeneity in the trajectory changes of SOC in patients after colorectal cancer surgery. Healthcare professionals should implement early precision interventions based on the patterns of changes and predictive factors in each trajectory category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baijiu is a unique distilled spirit in China. The bulk Baijiu market has been experiencing issues related to counterfeit and substandard products, raising concerns about food safety. Detecting liquor adulteration is crucial for eliminating fraud in the bulk Baijiu market. In this study, we proposed using fluorescence hyperspectral Technology (FH) combined with machine learning (ML) to detect Baijiu adulteration quickly and non-destructive. Due to the similarity of fluorescence spectral features between adulterated Baijiu and real Baijiu, it was difficult to distinguish them based on the fluorescence feature parameters alone. The data preprocessing methods were used and then principal component analysis (PCA) was adapted. The principal components were used as inputs to ML models to establish the qualitative and quantitative detection models. In the qualitative detection models, the Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost) model demonstrated the best performance with 98.08% precision, 100% recall and 99.03% F1-score. In the quantitative detection models of adulterations concentration, the AdaBoost model after Wavelet denoising(WDS) processing yielded the best results with R2 of 0.9740 and RMSEP of 0.0247. The results demonstrated that the combination of FH and ML can efficiently detect adulterated bulk Baijiu, showing promising applications and feasibility in the nondestructive detection of adulterated substances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While action recognition (AR) has gained large improvements with the introduction of large-scale video datasets and the development of deep neural networks, AR models robust to challenging environments in real-world scenarios are still under-explored. We focus on the task of action recognition in dark environments, which can be applied to fields such as surveillance and autonomous driving at night. Intuitively, current deep networks along with visual enhancement techniques should be able to handle AR in dark environments, however, it is observed that this is not always the case in practice. To dive deeper into exploring solutions for AR in dark environments, we launched the UG 2 + Challenge Track 2 (UG2-2) in IEEE CVPR 2021, with a goal of evaluating and advancing the robustness of AR models in dark environments. The challenge builds and expands on top of a novel ARID dataset, the first dataset for the task of dark video AR, and guides models to tackle such a task in both fully and semi-supervised manners. Baseline results utilizing current AR models and enhancement methods are reported, justifying the challenging nature of this task with substantial room for improvements. Thanks to the active participation from the research community, notable advances have been made in participants' solutions, while analysis of these solutions helped better identify possible directions to tackle the challenge of AR in dark environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors establish the stability and the explicit decay estimates of the 2D incompressible magneto-micropolar fluid equations without magnetic diffusion and zero spin viscosity on a flat strip Ω : = T × [ 0 , 1 ] under the assumption that Navier type condition being imposed. The results are obtained heavily based on some time-weight energy estimates and a bootstrap argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) is the most frequent global cause of nephrotic syndrome in non-diabetic people. In clinical practice, An effective and mild treatment for IMN patients with subnephrotic proteinuria has been adopted. Colquhounia root tablet (CRT) is a traditional Chinese medicine that is widely used in China to treat glomerulopathies. In this study, the effectiveness and safety of CRT in the treatment of IMN with subnephrotic proteinuria have been determined by reviewing the clinical records of 44 patients with IMN. Methods: Retrospective analysis of IMN patients with subnephrotic proteinuria treated with CRT in combination with ACEI/ARB or ACEI/ARB alone. The remission rate (complete or partial remission) was the main outcome observed, and proteinuria, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), serum albumin levels, and adverse effects were the secondary outcomes. Results: This clinical trial included 44 patients, and the overall remission rates at months 6, 9, and 12 after treatment were 68.2% versus 27.3% (p = 0.016), 72.7% versus 36.4% (p = 0.015), and 77.3% versus 36.4% (p = 0.006) in the treatment and control groups, respectively. The application of CRT treatment was an independent predictor of proteinuria remission (p = 0.024). In addition, in patients who were positive for phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) antibodies, the overall remission rate was higher in the treatment group than in the control group after 9 months of treatment (75% versus 23.08%, p = 0.017). Conclusion: This retrospective study illustrates that, based on supportive therapy, CRT could be effective in the treatment of IMN with subnephrotic proteinuria with a good safety profile at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of the CT-based intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined radiomics signatures in predicting progression-free survival (PFS) of patients with chondrosarcoma (CS). Methods: In this study, patients diagnosed with CS between January 2009 and January 2022 were retrospectively screened, and 214 patients with CS from two centers were respectively enrolled into the training cohorts (institution 1, n = 113) and test cohorts (institution 2, n = 101). The intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics features were extracted from CT images. The intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined radiomics signatures were constructed respectively, and their radiomics scores (Rad-score) were calculated. The performance of intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined radiomics signatures in PFS prediction in patients with CS was evaluated by C-index, time-dependent area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (time-AUC), and time-dependent C-index (time C-index). Results: Eleven, 7, and 16 features were used to construct the intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined radiomics signatures, respectively. The combined radiomics signature showed the best prediction ability in the training cohort (C-index, 0.835; 95%; confidence interval [CI], 0.764–0.905) and the test cohort (C-index, 0.800; 95% CI, 0.681–0.920). Time-AUC and time C-index showed that the combined signature outperformed the intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics signatures in the prediction of PFS. Conclusion: The CT-based combined signature incorporating intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics features can predict PFS in patients with CS, which might assist clinicians in selecting individualized surveillance and treatment plans for CS patients. Critical relevance statement: Develop and validate CT-based intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined radiomics signatures to evaluate the efficacy in predicting prognosis of patients with CS. Key points: • Reliable prognostic models for preoperative chondrosarcoma are lacking. • Combined radiomics signature incorporating intratumoral and peritumoral features can predict progression-free survival in patients with chondrosarcoma. • Combined radiomics signature may facilitate individualized stratification and management of patients with chondrosarcoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MgAl2O4 nanoparticles with high photocatalytic activity simulated by sunlight were synthesized by polyacrylamide gel method using maltose and sucrose as anti-gel collapsing agents. Spinel type MgAl2O4 nanoparticles without impurities such as MgO, Al2O3, Mg(OH)2, and Al(OH)3 can be synthesized by two different methods. Fourier infrared spectroscopy shows that the characteristic peaks of 698 and 506 cm–1 can be attributed to the O–Mg and Al–O bonds in MgAl2O4. The surface morphology, optical absorption coefficient, optical band gap value and photocatalytic activity of MgAl2O4 nanoparticles can be effectively adjusted by anti-gel collapsing agent. The results show that the MgAl2O4 nanoparticles prepared by maltose are obviously agglomerated, but the MgAl2O4 nanoparticles prepared by sucrose are uniformly dispersed, and the average particle size is about 45 nm. The photocatalytic activity of MgAl2O4 nanoparticles was positively correlated with the optical absorption coefficient during the degradation of petroleum waste on water surface. The optical properties of MgAl2O4 nanoparticles synthesized with maltose and sucrose as anti-gel collapsing agents showed that the optical band gap values were 3.47 and 3.11 eV, respectively. Meanwhile, the phase structure, functional group information, microstructure and optical properties of MgAl2O4 nanoparticles loaded on the drift beads were also compared and explored. The MgAl2O4 nanoparticles prepared with sucrose as gel collapsing agent and loaded on the drift bead have high visible photocatalytic activity and cycling stability when degrading oil waste on water surface, and the optimal catalyst content is 2 g/L. Combined with the experimental results and energy band theory, hydroxyl radical and superoxide radical play important roles in the degradation of oil waste on water surface by MgAl2O4 nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate description of the water retention properties of expansive clays is of crucial importance in evaluating their sealing performance. Its water retention properties are influenced by the multi-physics effects of different scale structures. Based on this characterization, a model for describing the water retention properties of compacted clays is proposed, taking into account the deformation properties of both macro and microstructures. With a limited number of parameters, a unified framework for describing the hydraulic properties was provided. The proposed model was validated based on free swelling and shrinking test data of different bentonite-based compacted clays. The results show that the model provides good results and can effectively reflect the hydraulic properties of bentonite-based clays under different suctions. The model can be used to model the hydraulic properties of bentonite-based compacted clay used as a buffer backfill material during long-term hydration in deep geological disposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiscale information interaction between the cortex and the corresponding muscles is of great significance for understanding the functional corticomuscular coupling (FCMC) in the sensory-motor systems. Though the multiscale transfer entropy (MSTE) method can effectively detect the multiscale characteristics between two signals, it lacks in describing the local frequency-band characteristics. Therefore, to quantify the multiscale interaction at local-frequency bands between the cortex and the muscles, we proposed a novel method, named bivariate empirical mode decomposition—MSTE (BMSTE), by combining the bivariate empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) with MSTE. To verify this, we introduced two simulation models and then applied it to explore the FCMC by analyzing the EEG over brain scalp and surface EMG signals from the effector muscles during steady-state force output. The simulation results showed that the BMSTE method could describe the multiscale time–frequency characteristics compared with the MSTE method, and was sensitive to the coupling strength but not to the data length. The experiment results showed that the coupling at beta1 (15–25 Hz), beta2 (25–35 Hz) and gamma (35–60 Hz) bands in the descending direction was higher than that in the opposition, and at beta2 band was higher than that at beta1 band. Furthermore, there were significant differences at the low scales in beta1 band, almost all scales in beta2 band, and high scales in gamma band. These results suggest the effectiveness of the BMSTE method in describing the interaction between two signals at different time–frequency scales, and further provide a novel approach to understand the motor control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formononetin is a flavonoid compound with anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory properties. However, its low solubility limits its clinical use. We employed microfluidic technology to prepare formononetin-loaded PLGA-PEGDA microspheres (Degradable polymer PLGA, Crosslinking agent PEGDA), which can encapsulate and release drugs in a controlled manner. We optimized and characterized the microspheres, and evaluated their antitumor effects. The microspheres had uniform size, high drug loading efficiency, high encapsulation efficiency, and stable release for 35 days. They also inhibited the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis. The antitumor mechanism involved the induction of reactive oxygen species and modulation of Bcl-2 family proteins. These findings suggested that formononetin-loaded PLGA-PEGDA microspheres, created using microfluidic technology, could be a novel drug delivery system that can overcome the limitations of formononetin and enhance its antitumor activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let G be a finite group. A subgroup H of G is called a P -subnormal subgroup whenever H = G or there exists a chain of subgroups H = H 0 ≤ H 1 ≤ ⋯ ≤ H t = G such that | H i : H i - 1 | is a prime for every i ∈ { 1 , 2 , ... t } . In the present paper, we study finite groups in which some 2-maximal subgroups or cyclic subgroups are P -subnormal subgroups. Several conditions for G to possess an ordered Sylow tower of supersolvable type are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit emotional expressions, without using explicit emotion words, usually depend on rhetorics to vividly show the user's emotions. Sentences carved with specific rhetorics tend to express certain types of emotions. Moreover, a hierarchical structure between emotional pleasure valences and categories exists in psychological sciences from coarse to fine, which helps human understand textual emotions. However, existing implicit emotion identification models ignore the hierarchy structure and the correlations between emotions and rhetorics. In this paper, we propose an implicit emotion identification model via hierarchical structure and rhetorical correlation, which consists of two major layers. Specifically, a hierarchical layer is designed to leverage hierarchical structure and provide coarse-grained emotional valences for identifying emotions, and a correlation layer to learn the latent correlation between emotions and rhetorics. Finally, supported by two layers, a novel multi-task learning model is proposed to train three related identification tasks of pleasure valences, emotions and rhetorics simultaneously, thus improving the overall performance of the emotion identification problem. Experimental results on the implicit emotion dataset demonstrate that the proposed model achieves 89.78% and 88.74% in terms of micro-F1 and weight-F1 metric respectively, outperforming the state-of-the-art methods consistently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mazdutide is a once-weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucagon receptor dual agonist. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of 24-week treatment of mazdutide up to 6 mg in Chinese overweight adults or adults with obesity, as an interim analysis of a randomised, two-part (low doses up to 6 mg and high dose of 9 mg), double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04904913). Overweight adults (body-mass index [BMI] ≥24 kg/m2) accompanied by hyperphagia and/or at least one obesity-related comorbidity or adults with obesity (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m2) were randomly assigned (3:1:3:1:3:1) to once-weekly mazdutide 3 mg, 4.5 mg, 6 mg or matching placebo at 20 hospitals in China. The primary endpoint was the percentage change from baseline to week 24 in body weight. A total of 248 participants were randomised to mazdutide 3 mg (n = 62), 4.5 mg (n = 63), 6 mg (n = 61) or placebo (n = 62). The mean percentage changes from baseline to week 24 in body weight were −6.7% (SE 0.7) with mazdutide 3 mg, −10.4% (0.7) with 4.5 mg, −11.3% (0.7) with 6 mg and 1.0% (0.7) with placebo, with treatment difference versus placebo ranging from −7.7% to −12.3% (all p < 0.0001). All mazdutide doses were well tolerated and the most common adverse events included diarrhoea, nausea and upper respiratory tract infection. In summary, in Chinese overweight adults or adults with obesity, 24-week treatment with mazdutide up to 6 mg was safe and led to robust and clinically meaningful body weight reduction.Mazdutide is a once-weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucagon receptor dual agonist. Here, the authors show mazdutide was well tolerated over 24 weeks and demonstrated significant and clinically meaningful body weight loss, compared with placebo, in Chinese overweight adults or adults with obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion recognition based on electroencephalogram (EEG) is an important part of human–machine interaction. This paper used deep learning methods to extract EEG data features to achieve the classification of human emotional states. We proposed a emotion recognition method based on two-dimensional convolution neural networks and three-dimensional convolution neural networks, called ResNeXt Attention 2D–3D Convolutional Neural Networks (RA2–3DCNN). The split-convert-merge techniques, residual and attention mechanism are introduced into the shallow network to improve the accuracy of the model. Then, 3D CNN was used to integrate the frequency, spatial and temporal information from EEG signal. Herein, the pre-processed EEG time series data was reconstructed into two-dimensional EEG frames as the input of the model according to the original electrode position. The accuracy of the emotional classification of the RA2–3DCNN was demonstrated by extensive experiments on the DEAP dataset. The results showed that the recognition accuracy of the method on arousal and valence classification task was 97.19% and 97.58%, respectively. Our results proved the spatio-temporal effectiveness of the method for emotion classification. In addition, we experimentally verified the optimal cardinality of split-convert-merge techniques in emotion recognition task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Candida albicans, as the most prevalent opportunistic pathogenic fungus, has caused great difficulty in its clinical management. At the same time, azole resistance is emerging as their extensive usage in clinical practice. In this case, the adoption of combination therapy has become a promising therapeutic strategy. In this study, a series of deguelin (Deg) derivative were prepared and identified with in vitro antifungal activity against drug-resistant C. albicans combined with fluconazole (FLC). The combination of Deg derivative 17c and FLC exhibited the best activity, with a fractional inhibitory combination index (FICI) of 0.02. The sensitization effect of 17c + FLC was further validated by the temporal fungicidal curve analysis. In addition, 17c + FLC also demonstrated inhibitory effects on the mycelial transformation and biofilm formation of resistant C. albicans, and significantly reduced the expression of key genes related to the RAS1/cAMP/PKA cell-transduction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the future prediction of predicted mean vote (PMV) index of indoor environment is studied. PMV is the evaluation index used in this paper to represent the thermal comfort of human body. According to the literature, the main environmental factors affecting PMV index are temperature, humidity, black globe temperature, wind speed, average radiation temperature, and clothing surface temperature, and there is a complex nonlinear relationship between the six variables. Due to the coupling relationship between the six parameters, the PMV formula can be simplified under specific conditions, reducing the monitoring of variables that are difficult to observe. Then, the improved grey system prediction model GM(1,1) with optimized selection dimension is used to predict the future time of PMV. Due to the irregularity, uncertainty and fluctuation of PMV values in time series, based on the original GM(1,1) time series prediction, an adaptive GM(1,1) improved model is proposed, which can continuously change with time series and enhance its prediction accuracy. By contrast, the improved GM(1,1) model can be derived from the sliding window of the adaptive model through changes in the dataset and get better model grades. It lays a foundation for the future research on the predicted index of PMV, so as to set and control the air conditioning system in advance, to meet the intelligence of modern intelligent home and humanized function of sensing human comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SH-1028 is an irreversible third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Considering the possibility of combination therapy in patients with NSCLC, we investigated the drug-drug interaction (DDI) potential of SH-1028 both in vitro and in clinical trials. The in vitro studies were conducted to determine the potential of SH-1028 as a substrate, inducer, or inhibitor of cytochrome P450 (CYP) subtypes. A phase I drug-drug interaction study in healthy volunteers was performed to evaluate the impact of co-administering rifampicin (a strong CYP3A4 inducer) and itraconazole (a strong CYP3A4 inhibitor) on the pharmacokinetics of SH-1028. The in vitro experiments showed that SH-1028 was mainly metabolized by CYP3A4. The activities of CYP1A2, 2B6, 2C19, 2D6 and 3A4 enzymes were slightly inhibited in vitro with SH-1028. SH-1028 has no obvious induction effect on CYP1A2 and CYP2B6 activities, but has potential induction effect on CYP3A4 mRNA expression. However, SH-1028 may not induce or inhibit human CYPs significantly at the clinically expected dose (200 mg). The geometric mean ratios of pharmacokinetic parameters and their corresponding 90% confidence intervals for SH-1028 in combination and alone did not fall within the range of 80–125%. It is speculated that itraconazole and rifampicin affect the metabolism of SH-1028. In the clinical application of SH-1028, special attention should be paid to the interaction between SH-1028 and drugs or foods that affect the activity of CYP3A4. (Clinical trial registration number: CTR20210558) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Automatic bone lesions detection and classifications present a critical challenge and are essential to support radiologists in making an accurate diagnosis of bone lesions. In this paper, we aimed to develop a novel deep learning model called You Only Look Once (YOLO) to handle detecting and classifying bone lesions on full-field radiographs with limited manual intervention. Methods: In this retrospective study, we used 1085 bone tumor radiographs and 345 normal bone radiographs from two centers between January 2009 and December 2020 to train and test our YOLO deep learning (DL) model. The trained model detected bone lesions and then classified these radiographs into normal, benign, intermediate, or malignant types. The intersection over union (IoU) was used to assess the model's performance in the detection task. Confusion matrices and Cohen's kappa scores were used for evaluating classification performance. Two radiologists compared diagnostic performance with the trained model using the external validation set. Results: In the detection task, the model achieved accuracies of 86.36% and 85.37% in the internal and external validation sets, respectively. In the DL model, radiologist 1 and radiologist 2 achieved Cohen's kappa scores of 0.8187, 0.7927, and 0.9077 for four-way classification in the external validation set, respectively. The YOLO DL model illustrated a significantly higher accuracy for intermediate bone tumor classification than radiologist 1 (95.73% vs 88.08%, p = 0.004). Conclusions: The developed YOLO DL model could be used to assist radiologists at all stages of bone lesion detection and classification in full-field bone radiographs. Key Points: • YOLO DL model can automatically detect bone neoplasms from full-field radiographs in one shot and then simultaneously classify radiographs into normal, benign, intermediate, or malignant. • The dataset used in this retrospective study includes normal bone radiographs. • YOLO can detect even some challenging cases with small volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequent occurrence of nuclear NIMBY events seriously affects social stability and the development of the nuclear power industry. Exploring the evolutionary development of nuclear NIMBY events and their control strategies is an important proposition. Different from recent studies on the influence of static government intervention into public participation in the collective action of NIMBY events, this paper aims to analyze how dynamic government interventions affect the decisions of the public from the perspective of complex networks. To better understand the dynamic rewards and punishments, the motivation of the public in nuclear NIMBY events is treated as a cost–benefit decision-making process. Then, a network evolutionary game model (NEGM) is built to analyze the strategy selection of all participants who are connected by an interaction network of the public. In addition, the drivers of the evolution of public participation in nuclear NIMBY events are analyzed with computational experiments. The results indicate the following: (a) Under dynamic punishment conditions, the probability of public participation in protests decreases with the increase in the upper bound of punishment. (b) Static reward measures can better control the development of nuclear NIMBY events. However, under dynamic reward conditions, there is no obvious effect with the increase in the reward ceiling. (c) The effect of the combination of government reward and punishment strategies is different in different network sizes. At the same time, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the network, the effect of government intervention worsens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zircon as a multi-objective typomorphic mineral commonly contains diverse trace elements with specific petrogenetic significances. The Hf abundance in zircon is sensitively indicative of melt fractionation during zircon growth on one hand, and on another, the Ti content is a robust temperature sensor of zircon crystallization and has been effectively utilized in thermometric estimation. A Hf-Ti negative correlation was previously reported in igneous zircons, and thus a potential Hf thermometry was then speculated. In this work, we performed reliable electron microprobe (EMP) measurements of Hf and Ti in ultrahigh temperature (UHT) zircons from the North China Craton, in optimizing point, line and grid analysis. The EMP contents of Hf and Ti both show a wide range of fluctuation owing to the smaller probe spot, and some of them are higher than the LA-ICPMS data. The Hf-Ti correlation in UHT zircons displays dual and thus complicated patterns in contrast with the previous consideration, which implicates some other factors controlling the geochemical behaviors of Hf and Ti in zircons. Generally, the estimated Ti temperatures based on the EMP analyses are obviously higher than the LA-ICPMS outcomes, but are well consistent with the actual peak condition of the parent rock. It explains the common underestimation of Ti temperatures in high-temperature metamorphic rocks, by using LA-ICPMS analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep disorders frequently result in poor memory, attention deficits, as well as a worse prognosis for neurodegenerative changes, such as Alzheimer's disease. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of sleep disorders on cognition. We screened four databases for all meta-analyses and systematic reviews from the establishment through March 2022. We have carried out quality evaluation and review the eligible systematic reviews. Evidence grading and quality assessment were performed on 22 eligible articles. Sleep deprivation primarily affects simple attention, complex attention, and working memory in cognition and alertness. The moderate-to-high-quality evidence proves optimal sleep time as 7–8 h. Sleep time outside this range increases the risk of impaired executive function, non-verbal memory, and working memory. Sleep-related breathing disorders is more likely to cause mild cognitive impairment and affects several cognitive domains. In older adults, insomnia primarily affects working memory, episodic memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, problem-solving, operational ability, perceptual function, alertness, and complex attention, and maintaining sensitivity. Sleep disturbances significantly impair cognitive function, and early detection and intervention may be critical steps in reducing poor prognosis. A simple neuropsychological memory test could be used to screen people with sleep disorders for cognitive impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitiligo is the most common depigmenting disorder to which both genetic and environmental factors contribute. The aim of the current work was to evaluate the relationship between polymorphisms of the gene nuclear receptor subfamily 1 Group H member 3 (NR1H3) and the risk of vitiligo and phototherapy effects in the Chinese Han population. Two independent samples were enrolled to form the discovery set (comprised of 1668 nonsegmental vitiligo [NSV] patients and 2542 controls) and the validation set (comprised of 745 NSV patients and 1492 controls). A total of 13 tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in the samples from the discovery stage. SNPs that achieved nominal significance were validated in another independent sample set. The serum level of NR1H3 protein was assayed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits in the validation set. Genetic association analysis was carried out at allelic and genotypic levels. The therapeutic effects of significant SNPs were examined in the validation set. The SNP rs3758672 was significantly associated with NSV. The A allele was correlated with NSV risk and poorer therapeutic effects. The A allele was strongly correlated with the increased level of serum NR1H3 in both controls and patients. In summary, SNP rs3758672 in NR1H3 was significantly associated with both disease susceptibility and individualized therapeutic effects of NSV in study participants with Han Chinese ancestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revealing planktonic fungal ecology under coastal eutrophication is crucial to our understanding of microbial community shift in marine pollution background. We investigated the diversity, putative interspecies interactions, assembly processes and environmental responses of abundant and rare planktonic fungal communities along a eutrophication gradient present in the Beibu Gulf. The results showed that Dothideomycetes and Agaricomycetes were the predominant classes of abundant and rare fungi, respectively. We found that eutrophication significantly altered the planktonic fungal communities and affected the abundant taxa more than the rare taxa. The abundant and rare taxa were keystone members in the co-occurrence networks, and their interaction was enhanced with increasing nutrient concentrations. Stochastic processes dominated the community assembly of both abundant and rare planktonic fungi across the eutrophication gradient. Heterogeneous selection affected abundant taxa more than rare taxa, whereas homogenizing dispersal had a greater influence on rare taxa. Influences of environmental factors involving selection processes were detected, we found that abundant fungi were mainly influenced by carbon compounds, whereas rare taxa were simultaneously affected by carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus compounds in the Beibu Gulf. Overall, these findings highlight the distinct ecological adaptations of abundant and rare fungal communities to marine eutrophication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: SHC014748M is a potent, novel selective PI3Kδ isoform inhibitor and is proposed for the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma. This study investigated the pharmacokinetics, mass balance, metabolism and excretion of SHC014748M in Chinese male subjects following a single oral dose of 150 mg (100 μCi) [14C] SHC014748M. Methods: Six healthy Chinese male subjects administrated an oral suspension of 150 mg (100 μCi) [14C] SHC014748M and the samples of blood, urine and feces were collected for measuring. Liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry and liquid scintillation counter were utilized to obtain mass balance and the pharmacokinetic data. Results: The median Tmax for [14C]-radioactivity was 1.6 ± 0.5 h after the oral administration of [14C] SHC014748M and the mean Cmax was 3863 ± 354 ng Eq./mL in plasma, while the mean Cmax, t1/2 values and AUC0–∞ values for total radioactivity in whole blood were 2466 ± 518 ng Eq./mL, 32.2 ± 30.5 h and 66,236 ± 44,232 h * ng Eq./mL, respectively. Fecal excretion was proposed as the predominant elimination route, accounting for a mean of 90.68 ± 11.38% of the administered dose, whereas the mean urine excretion was 6.00 ± 1.48% within 336 h post-dose. The proposed major metabolic pathway of [14C] SHC014748M in the human body were as follows: (I) monooxidation, (II) glucuronide acid conjugation, and (III) monoxide–hydrogenation. Conclusions: SHC014748M was absorbed, metabolized and excreted with unchanged SHC014748M as its main circulating component in plasma following oral administration. In addition, it was speculated that fecal excretion was the principal excretion pathway; meanwhile, monohydroxy, glucuronide conjugation, oxygen, and hydrogenation were the major clearance pathways of SHC014748M through urine and/or feces. Trial registration: The trial registration number: CTR20202505. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a loose rock formation with low lithogenic property, low structural strength, and poor intersand cementation, Pisha sandstone is susceptible to chemical weathering and extreme soil erosion and has become an important source of sediment for the Yellow River. There is limited information available on the conditions of microbial distribution homogeneity under grain-mediated conditions in Pisha sandstones, as well as on the influence of dissolved minerals on calcium carbonate morphological mechanisms. In this paper, microbially induced calcium carbonate deposition was used to reinforce and improve the loose Pisha sandstone. First, the influence laws of the single-phase/self-absorption two-phase injection method and added solvent on the curing indexes such as curing volume, curing depth, calcium carbonate yield, and unconfined compressive strength of the specimens were discussed. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy were used to analyze the microstructure of the cemented sand columns, as well as the mineral phases and distribution of the biomineralization products mechanistically. The results demonstrated that the single-phase injection treatment could only achieve local solidification of the Pisha sandstone sand column, whereas the self-absorption two-phase injection method could result in a more uniform spatial distribution of bacteria and a monolithic specimen, in which the calcium carbonate yield increased with increasing low concentration CaCl2 injection. The compressive strength appeared to increase significantly, and the effect of the applied liquid CO(NH2)2 was not obvious. Montmorillonite underwent dissolution during the mineralization process, eliminating the characteristics of Pisha sandstone swelling in water. Under the effect of biomineralization, calcium carbonate crystals are formed to wrap around the Pisha sandstone particles, changing their particle size and increasing the interparticle roughness. Meanwhile, the interstices between particles are filled via calcium carbonate precipitation, effectively forming cementation points that can significantly improve the strength of the Pisha sandstone. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for the application of biomineralization technology in the ecological restoration of Pisha sandstone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To compare the differences in directed connectivity between typically developing (TD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children and identify the potential effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on brain connectivity and behavior of children with ASD; 26 TD children (18 males/8 females; the average age was 6.34 ± 0.45) and 30 ASD children (21 males/9 females; the average age was 6.42 ± 0.17) participated in the experiment. ASD children were divided randomly into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received 18 rTMS sessions (twice a week for nine weeks), whereas the control group received the same procedures with sham stimulation. Directed transfer function (DTF) was used to calculate the effective connectivity as a way of investigating differences between ASD and TD children while simultaneously evaluating the effectiveness of rTMS for ASD. The results illustrate that the DTF of TD children in the frontal lobe (Fp1, Fp2, F7, F8) and temporal lobe (T7, T8) is higher than that of ASD children in all frequency bands; however, the DTF of ASD children is higher than TD in the midline (Fz, Cz), central lobe (C3, C4), and parietal lobe (P3, P4). In the experimental group of ASD children, the effective connectivity decreased from O1 to T7 and from P7 to Fp1 in the alpha band and from Pz to T8 in the gamma band after stimulation. Significant changes in Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) scores were also found in social behaviors. Effective connectivity derived from DTF distinguishes ASD from TD children. rTMS provides changes in connectivity and behavior, suggesting its potential use as a viable treatment option for ASD individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seismic performance of Chuan-dou timber structures was investigated. A 1:2 scale model of a Chuan-dou timber structure was constructed, with the bottom part filled with masonry and the remaining portions filled with gypsum board. Through quasistatic tests, we compared and studied the impact of whether the column foot is constrained on the seismic performance of Chuan-dou timber structures. The results indicate that when the horizontal displacement of the column foot is restricted, the force distribution pattern of the timber frame changes, and the lateral resistance capacity increases by approximately two times. The lateral force‒displacement relationship of the timber frame exhibits two stages, where the load in the second stage does not decrease as the displacement increases. Additionally, a simplified finite element model incorporating mortise−tenon (M−T) joints and column foot connections reflects the hysteresis performance of the bare timber frame. A simplified wall model that considers the rocking effect can be used to simulate the lateral force‒displacement relationship of the timber frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D building plays the essential role in digital city construction, city augmented reality and smart urban planning & design. Conventional building construction is accomplished by modeling software which requires significant human intervention. In this paper, a method of 3D building fabrication via Hybrid generative adversarial network (GAN) is proposed, in which a loss function with the introduction of cycle consistency loss and perceptual loss is given, a multi-properties GAN chain is built to create the building with complex architectures. Additionally, a mixed GAN network to generate the geometry and texture coordination is put forward. The discussed method can refine rough architectural models for outputting realistic buildings. Experiments show that generated 3D buildings utilizing the presented method are realistic, with geometry and textural consistency, which improves performance by 20% over traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution is a major environmental issue worldwide. To investigate the changes of the atmospheric environment under the national policy, we analyzed 6 air pollutants (including PM2.5, PM10, SO2, 8h-O3, NO2 and CO) of 13 prefecture-level cities from 2014 to 2021. A great difference was observed among the 13 cities, and the concentrations of air pollutants decreased from 2014 to 2021 in Jiangsu. To further assess the effect of air pollutants on human health, we estimated all-cause annual mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular mortality due to atmospheric PM by AirQ+. The effect of PM on total mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular mortality decreased during 2014–2019. It was suggested that the air pollution will cause detrimental effect on human health and more deaths, which must be further prevented and controlled by any effective actions taken by the government.Article Highlights: Air pollution in Jiangsu Province during 2014–2021. Spatial and temporal variations in Jiangsu Province during 2014–2021. The impact of exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 in Jiangsu was estimated by AirQ+ software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To represent model uncertainties at the physical process level in the China Meteorological Administration global ensemble prediction system (CMA-GEPS), a stochastically perturbed parameterization (SPP) scheme is developed by perturbing 16 parameters or variables selected from three physical parameterization schemes for the planetary boundary layer, cumulus convection, and cloud microphysics. Each chosen quantity is perturbed independently with temporally and spatially correlated perturbations sampled from log-normal distributions. Impacts of the SPP scheme on CMA-GEPS are investigated comprehensively by using the stochastically perturbed parametrization tendencies (SPPT) scheme as a benchmark. In the absence of initial-condition perturbations, perturbation structures introduced by the two schemes are investigated by analyzing the ensemble spread of three forecast variables' physical tendencies and perturbation energy in ensembles generated by the separate use of SPP and SPPT. It is revealed that both schemes yield different perturbation structures and can simulate different sources of model uncertainty. When initial-condition perturbations are activated, the influences of the two schemes on the performance of CMA-GEPS are assessed by calculating verification scores for both upper-air and surface variables. The improvements in ensemble reliability and probabilistic skill introduced by SPP and SPPT are mainly located in the tropics. Besides, the vast majority of the reliability improvements (including increases in ensemble spread and reductions in outliers) are statistically significant, and a smaller proportion of the improvements in probabilistic skill (i.e., decreases in continuously ranked probability score) reach statistical significance. Compared with SPPT, SPP generally has more beneficial impacts on 200-hPa and 2-m temperature, along with 925-hPa and 2-m specific humidity, during the whole 15-day forecast range. For other examined variables, such as 850-hPa zonal wind, 850-hPa temperature, and 700-hPa humidity, SPP tends to yield more reliable ensembles at lead times beyond day 7, and to display comparable probabilistic skills with SPPT. Both SPP and SPPT have small impacts in the extratropics, primarily due to the dominant role of the singular vectors-based initial perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we construct efficient schemes based on the scalar auxiliary variable block-centered finite difference method for the modified phase field crystal equation, which is a sixth-order nonlinear damped wave equation. The schemes are linear, conserve mass and unconditionally dissipate a pseudo energy. We prove rigorously second-order error estimates in both time and space for the phase field variable in discrete norms. We also present some numerical experiments to verify our theoretical results and demonstrate the robustness and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solidification of soil mass by geopolymer is a novel technology that can be used to prevent soil and water loss in the Pisha sandstone area of the middle reaches of the Yellow River. In this paper, to realize the effective utilization of a large number of loose Pisha sandstone and circulating fluidized bed combustion fly ash by adding combustion fly ash into Pisha sandstone cement-soil by alkali excitation, we prepared CFBCA-based geopolymer–Pisha sandstone cement composite soil, which is often used in agricultural engineering. The results show that the content of (C, N)-A-S–H gel in composite soil is affected by alkali equivalent and alkali excitation temperature, while the content is the main factor affecting the strength of composite soil. However, (C, N)-A-S–H gel will gradually transform into chabazite (gmelinite) crystal in a high-alkali environment, which will eventually lead to expansion and cracking occurring in the samples. When the alkali excitation temperature is 20 °C, and the alkali equivalent is 5%, the CFBCA-based geopolymer–Pisha sandstone cement composite soil is the optimal physicochemical reaction condition. At this time, the strength of the composite soil is 6.85 MPa; the porosity is 23.88%; and the proportion of internal micro-pores is 16.32%. The results of this study can provide a theoretical basis for the practical application of CFBCA-based geopolymer–Pisha sandstone cement composite soil, and also provide a scientific basis for the local resource utilization of Pisha sandstone and bed combustion fly ash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under normal conditions, the human body employs the synergistic action of osteoblasts and osteoclasts to maintain a dynamic balance between bone formation and resorption. Bone homeostasis plays a very important role in the process of bone formation. Various bone diseases can occur if bone homeostasis is disrupted. In this study, the serum estrogen levels were significantly increased in the granulin (GRN)–deficient mice and PGRN regulates the binding of estrogen and estrogen receptor α (ERα) and then affects estrogen's ability to regulate bone formation and resorption. In addition, this study also explored the role that PGRN plays in regulating bone homeostasis by affecting the binding of estrogen and estrogen receptors through the protein kinase R-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase/phosphorylation of the eukaryotic initiation factor 2 signaling pathway. In summary, we confirmed the important role of PGRN in regulating the estrogen (E2)/ERα signal in maintaining bone homeostasis. Our findings may provide a new strategy for the treatment of osteoporosis and maintaining bone homeostasis. Key messages: PGRN is a molecular regulator of the binding of E2 and ERα signal in maintaining bone homeostasis. PGRN plays in regulating bone homeostasis through the PERK/p-eIF2α signaling pathway. The best therapeutic effect of PGRN in osteoporosis is associated with different concentration of E2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural products (NPs) are a valuable source for anti-inflammatory drug discovery. However, they are limited by the unpredictability of the structures and functions. Therefore, computational and data-driven pre-evaluation could enable more efficient NP-inspired drug development. Since NPs possess structural features that differ from synthetic compounds, models trained with synthetic compounds may not perform well with NPs. There is also an urgent demand for well-curated databases and user-friendly predictive tools. We presented a comprehensive online web platform (InflamNat, http://www.inflamnat.com/ or http://39.104.56.4/) for anti-inflammatory natural product research. InflamNat is a database containing the physicochemical properties, cellular anti-inflammatory bioactivities, and molecular targets of 1351 NPs that tested on their anti-inflammatory activities. InflamNat provides two machine learning-based predictive tools specifically designed for NPs that (a) predict the anti-inflammatory activity of NPs, and (b) predict the compound-target relationship for compounds and targets collected in the database but lacking existing relationship data. A novel multi-tokenization transformer model (MTT) was proposed as the sequential encoder for both predictive tools to obtain a high-quality representation of sequential data. The experimental results showed that the proposed predictive tools achieved an AUC value of 0.842 and 0.872 in the prediction of anti-inflammatory activity and compound-target interactions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-doped magnetic Mn3O4 was synthesized by the solvothermal method and adopted as an effective catalyst for the degradation of oxytetracycline (OTC) in water. Synergistic interactions between Co-Mn3O4 and Fe3O4 not only resulted in the enhanced catalytic activity through the activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to degrade OTC but also made Fe3O4/Co-Mn3O4 easy to be separated and recovered from aqueous solution. 94.2% of OTC could be degraded within 60 min at an initial OTC concentration of 10 mg L−1, catalyst dosage of 0.2 g L−1, and PMS concentration of 10 mM. The high efficiency of OTC removal was achieved in a wider pH range of 3.0–10.0. Co (II), Co (III), Fe (II), Fe (III), Mn (II), Mn (III), and Mn (IV) on Fe3O4/Co-Mn3O4 were identified as catalytic sites based on XPS analysis. The free radical quenching experiments showed that O2•− radicals and 1O2 played the main role in the degradation process and the catalytic degradation of OTC involved both free radical and non-free radical reactions. Eventually, the intermediates of OTC degradation were examined, and the possible decomposition pathways were proposed. The excellent catalytic performances of Fe3O4/Co-Mn3O4 came from the fact that the large specific surface area could provide abundant active sites for the activation of PMS and the redistribution of inter-atomic charges accelerated the redox reactions of metal ions. The high degradation efficiency and rate constant of OTC in actual water samples indicated that Fe3O4/Co-Mn3O4 had a good practical application potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Clinical response to glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP1RAs) varies considerably among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The aim of the current study was to examine the potential association between the genetic variants in GLP1R gene polymorphism with the therapeutic efficacy as well as gastrointestinal adverse drug reactions (ADRs) of GLP1RAs in Chinese T2DM patients. Methods: Adult T2DM patients were eligible to participate in this prospective cohort study. Subjects received 12-week treatment with either exenatide (20 μg/day) or liraglutide (1.2 mg/day). GLP1R rs10305420 and rs3765467 genotyping was performed using the Sanger sequencing method. Clinical response to GLP1RAs was assessed in the patients who completed the 12-week treatment and defined by the change of fasting plasma glucose (FPG), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and body mass index (BMI) from the baseline. Results: A total of 176 subjects (mean age 50.9 ± 12.7 years, 111 men) were enrolled. The planned 12-week treatment was completed by 156 patients. HbA1c reduction was significantly larger in subjects carrying the rs3765467 GG genotype vs. GA + AA genotypes (1.7% ± 2.4% vs. 0.8% ± 1.8%; P = 0.002). Similarly, the 7.0% target HbA1c attainment rate was significantly higher in subjects carrying the rs3765467 GG genotype vs. GA + AA genotypes (50.9% vs. 23.8%; P = 0.002). Gastrointestinal ADRs did not differ significantly among different genotypes. Conclusion: GLP1R rs3765467 polymorphism is associated with therapeutic response to GLP1RAs in Chinese T2DM patients. HbA1c reduction is more pronounced in subjects with the GG genotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]