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Detecting genes that affect specific traits (such as human diseases and crop yields) is important for treating complex diseases and improving crop quality. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) provides new insights and directions for understanding complex traits by identifying important single nucleotide polymorphisms. Many GWAS summary statistics data related to various complex traits have been gathered recently. Studies have shown that GWAS risk loci and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) often have a lot of overlaps, which makes gene expression gradually become an important intermediary to reveal the regulatory role of GWAS. In this review, we review three types of gene-trait association detection methods of integrating GWAS summary statistics and eQTLs data, namely colocalization methods, transcriptome-wide association study-oriented approaches, and Mendelian randomization-related methods. At the theoretical level, we discussed the differences, relationships, advantages, and disadvantages of various algorithms in the three kinds of gene-trait association detection methods. To further discuss the performance of various methods, we summarize the significant gene sets that influence high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, total cholesterol, and triglyceride reported in 16 studies. We discuss the performance of various algorithms using the datasets of the four lipid traits. The advantages and limitations of various algorithms are analyzed based on experimental results, and we suggest directions for follow-up studies on detecting gene-trait associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrocatalytic conversion of waste nitrogen oxide (NOx) into value-added nitrogenous chemicals, especially amino acid, is an emerging strategy to alleviate NOx pollution. However, this process suffers from the coexistence of multiple competitive reactions leading to complex product distribution and low efficiency, and thus the rational design and modulation of efficient catalysts remains a formidable challenge. Herein, well-designed Co nanoparticles encapsulated in hollow carbon nanofiber (Co-HCNF) were constructed to promote the amino acid electrosynthesis via dealing waste NOx coupling with biomass-derived keto acids. Ascribed to the rapid reactant diffusion, electron transport and efficient contact with abundant accessible Co catalytic sites stemmed from the unique hollow nanotubular structure, Co-HCNF manifested impressive glycine synthesis performance in one-pot adopting NO as the nitrogen source with Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 41.7% and a corresponding yield rate of 222.3 µmol h−1 as well as 120 h robust stability. Interestingly, it also demonstrates an excellent performance with the FE of 42.8% for NO3− solution as the nitrogen source. Specially, this strategy displays a broad universality for the synthesis of other amino acids. This work not only highlights the importance of hollow-structuring electrocatalyst towards upgrading wasted NOx species into amino acids, but also promotes the further development of electrosynthetic systems for high-valued N-containing organic chemicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's digital age, the effort of medical enterprises towards green innovation has gained traction in academic and business circles. However, the current research system for medical equipment suppliers lacks a systematic study on how digital transformation can enhance the outcomes of green innovation. This research aims to develop a theoretical framework for digital transformation, environmental resource integration capability, managerial environmental concern and green innovation performance with respect to the resource-based view and conducting empirical analysis using survey data from medical equipment supply enterprises. Our findings reveal that digital transformation has a significant effect on the promotion of green innovation performance through environmental resource integration capability. Moreover, the managerial environmental concern moderates above mediation effect. These findings not only provide compelling insights into the impact of digital transformation on green innovation performance but also have important implications for sustainable development and cleaner production relevant academic research and policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, which leads to acute kidney injury (AKI), is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in a variety of clinical situations. This study aimed to investigate the protective role of Mfn2 during renal I/R injury. Overexpression of Mfn2 in NRK-52E rat renal tubular epithelial cells and rats, then we constructed hypoxia reoxygenation (H/R) cells and I/R rat model. Apoptosis, ROS, ATP, Ca2+ levels in cells and rats, as well as renal tissue and functional injury in rats were detected respectively. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress was further examined in cells and rats. The morphological changes of mitochondria-associated ER membranes (MAMs) were also detected. Mfn2 expression is reduced in H/R-treated NRK-52E cells and renal tissue of I/R rats. At the cellular level, overexpression of Mfn2 promoted cell proliferation, inhibited cell apoptosis, attenuated mitochondrial damage and Ca2+ overload, and ER stress. In addition, Mfn2 also restored the MAMs structure. In vivo experiments found that overexpression of Mfn2 could improve renal function and alleviate tissue injury. Concomitant with elevated Mfn2 expression in the kidney, reduced renal cell apoptosis, restored mitochondrial function, and reduced calcium overload. Finally, ER stress in rat kidney tissue was alleviated after overexpression of Mfn2. These results reveal that Mfn2 contributes to ER stress, mitochondrial function, and cell death in I/R injury, which provides a novel therapeutic target for AKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Earth's electrical environment is influenced by both external and internal driving factors. Internal driving factors include the global charging current produced by lightning storms, global aerosol concentrations and cloud coverage. External factors are caused by various space weather phenomena, including changes in the Sun's magnetic field, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and ionization changes from high-energy particles from the Sun and galactic cosmic rays. This study focuses on the cosmic ray intensity changes observed at the OULU Station and the vertical atmospheric electric field changes observed at the Azores and Studenec stations during a solar activity event in September 2017. The results indicate that the atmospheric electric field at the two stations (Azores and Studenec) simultaneously decreased by 80% and 120% of the mean atmospheric electric field value, respectively, during the same time as the significant decrease in cosmic ray intensity. The linear correlation coefficient between the decreased atmospheric electric field measured at these two stations was 0.60, indicating a global effect from the shocks and magnetic clouds associated with coronal mass ejections on atmospheric electricity. Finally, this study describes shock waves and magnetic clouds that impede the propagation of galactic cosmic rays, resulting in a decrease in ionospheric potential and atmospheric electric field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen evolution production via electrolysis of water in alkaline solution is a promising mean of industrial hydrogen production. However, inefficiency and high cost restrict its industrialization development. Based on extensive studies of experimental and theoretical investigations, two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising substitute of noble metals for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with low cost and high-efficiency. Herein, recent progress in 2D metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for HER in alkaline electrolyte is systematically discussed and summarized. This review describes the strategies about how to design and optimize the structure of 2D MOF-based materials as HER electrocatalysts with well performance and aims to provide potential avenues for industrial hydrogen production. Additionally, the challenges and future directions ahead in this field are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The variability in the atmospheric electric field needs to be understood before considering the properties of the atmospheric electrostatic distribution on the Tibetan Plateau. The relationship between each meteorological parameter and the atmospheric electric field should be carefully considered. In this article, atmospheric electric field observations and their effects from weather conditions at Gar Station (80.13°E, 32.52°N, altitude 4259 m) for the period from November 2021 to October 2022 are presented. After defining strict and reliable criteria for fair weather, the authors show the diurnal variation curve of the average fair weather atmospheric electric field, which has “double peaks and double valleys”. How various meteorological conditions affect variability in the atmospheric electric field and comparisons between the Gar curve and “Carnegie curves” are also revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microwave heating is one of the major treatment approaches for remediating contaminated soil, and the underlying thermal effects are worth studying. This study established a microwave reaction chamber model to simulate this heating process. The results show that the microwave power and frequency significantly influenced the electric field strength in the reaction chamber and the temperature distribution in the soil sample. The temperature distribution through numerical simulation was generally consistent with the experimental results of color-changing silica gel and infrared thermography, thereby verifying the reliability of the model simulation. In a microwave thermal effect experiment using diatomaceous soil, increasing the water content to 10% was found to increase the maximum temperature by 30 °C. The effective power and temperatures for microwave remediation differed according to the type of contaminated soil. The optimum removal rate for xylene-contaminated soil was achieved at a microwave power of 500 W, whereas that for nitrobenzene-contaminated soil required power of 750 W. Based on the contaminated soil degradation experiment, equipment for the continuous microwave treatment of contaminated soil was designed in simulation to verify the temperature at which the contaminated soil could be degraded. The research results provide a theoretical basis for the microwave remediation of contaminated soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile health (mHealth) intervention systems can employ adaptive strategies to interact with users. Instead of designing such complex strategies manually, reinforcement learning (RL) can be used to adaptively optimize intervention strategies concerning the user's context. In this paper, we focus on the issue of overwhelming interactions when learning a good adaptive strategy for the user in RL-based mHealth intervention agents. We present a data-driven approach integrating psychological insights and knowledge of historical data. It allows RL agents to optimize the strategy of delivering context-aware notifications from empirical data when counterfactual information (user responses when receiving notifications) is missing. Our approach also considers a constraint on the frequency of notifications, which reduces the interaction burden for users. We evaluated our approach in several simulation scenarios using real large-scale running data. The results indicate that our RL agent can deliver notifications in a manner that realizes a higher behavioral impact than context-blind strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With continued urbanization, public transport infrastructure, e.g., subways, is expected to be built in historically industrial areas. To minimize the transfer of volatile organic compounds and metalloids like arsenic from industrial areas into subway environments and reduce their impact on public health, the transport of pollutants in soil was simulated in this study. During numerical simulations of a contaminated site, the pollutant (arsenic) was transported from layers of higher to lower concentration, and concentration changes were particularly evident in the early simulation stages. The pollutant was transported in soil along the direction of groundwater flow and spread from the center to the periphery of the contaminated zone without inputs from pollution sources. After approximately 400 days, the concentration of all layers became uniform, with slow decreases occurring over time. The pollutant supply rate had a major influence on the pollutant diffusion distance. When other conditions were kept constant, higher supply rates resulted in longer diffusion distances. The simulation results show that a diaphragm wall of a certain depth can effectively control the diffusion of pollutants in soil. These results can be used to improve environmental assessments and remediation efforts and inform engineering decisions during the construction of urban infrastructure at sites affected by historical pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]