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Societal Impact Statement Crop wild relatives represent precious genetic resources for crop improvement. Investigating their local adaptation to marginal environments is important for the utilization of wild genetic resources. Oryza officinalis and Oryza granulata are wild relatives of cultivated rice and possess genes that convey resistance to insects, disease, and tolerance to shade and drought. The northern edge for the distribution of these two lies in China where populations are facing habitat destruction. This study found that the northern marginal populations of both species have adapted to local conditions, with specific implications for the conservation and utilization of wild rice. Summary O. officinalis and O. granulata, wild relatives of cultivated rice, represent important gene reservoirs with the potential to improve rice with respect to insect resistance and stress tolerance. However, the northern marginal populations of these two species in China are facing habitat destruction. Here, we investigated the genetic diversity and divergence of northern marginal populations of O. officinalis and O. granulata. The genomic variation of two species was examined by whole‐genome sequencing on 357 individuals. Generalized dissimilarity modeling was applied to investigate the effects of geographic and environmental isolation on population differentiation. Genetic‐environment association analysis and genome‐wide FST outlier scans were used to identify environmentally driven signals of selection. The marginal populations of both species exhibited low genetic diversity and obvious genetic differentiation stemmed from the joint effects of isolation by geographic distance and the environment. Both genomes exhibited specific signals of adaptation to cold environments in the north. Investigation of the divergence and adaptation of marginal populations of O. officinalis and O. granulata will help us to determine how wild rice can adapt to local environments, thus allowing for the development of scientific conservation policies and the identification of new genetic resources for rice with improved resistance.

"Objective To investigate the correlation between cerebral hemodynamics, serum indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI), and to explore the predictive value of IOD for PSCI. Methods A total of 50 patients with acute ischemic stroke who were diagnosed and the onset being not more than 7 days in the Department of Neurology of the 900th Hospital of PLA Joint logistics Support Force from July 2020 to June 2021 were selected as the case group. According to the presence or absence of PSCI, the patients were divided into PSCI group (n=30) and non-PSCI (PSNCI) group (n=20), and 50 healthy individuals during the same period were selected as the control group (n=50). ELISA was used to detect the serum IDO levels of the enrolled population. Transcranial color Doppler ultrasound (TCCD) breath-holding test was performed and relevant data was recorded, breath holding index (BHI) was calculated as an evaluation index of cerebral hemodynamics. ROC curve was used to analyze the predictive efficacy of IDO level on PSCI. Results There were statistically significant differences in serum levels of D-dimer and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) among the three groups (P＜0.05). The serum IDO levels in the control group, PSNCI group, and PSCI group were (0.23±0.05), (0.25±0.02), and (0.31±0.03) ng/mL, respectively, with statistically significant differences among the three groups (F=41.092, P＜0.01). Compared with the PSNCI group, the PSCI group showed an increase in IDO levels (P＜0.05), while there was no statistically significant difference in D-dimer and NT-proBNP levels (P＞0.05). There was no significant difference in BHI among the three groups (P＞0.05). No significant difference was found in lesion location between the PSCI group and the PSNCI group (χ2=15.478, P=0.113). The predictive efficacy was highest when the IDO level cutoff value was 0.277 ng/mL, with a area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.938, sensitivity of 83.3%, and specificity of 95.0%. Conclusion There is a significant correlation between serum IDO levels and PSCI, but the relationship between hemodynamic indicators and the occurrence of PSCI is still unclear. Early detection of IDO levels after acute ischemic stroke is helpful for the early identification and diagnosis of PSCI."

Background/purpose: Improved communication can optimize treatment outcomes and patient satisfaction. Findings emphasize the need for tailored communication strategies based on patient characteristics. Implementing communication courses can enhance patient-centered care and reduce conflicts. Therefore, this study examined the feasibility of integrating doctor-patient communication education in Taiwan's dental education system. Materials and methods: Using interviews and questionnaires, we conducted descriptive statistics and generalized linear mixed-effects model analysis on the importance of doctor-patient communication from the dentist and patient perspectives. Results: More than 600 patient surveys and four interviewed dentists with 20+ years of experience stressed doctor-patient communication in dentistry. Patients' age and income were positively related to the emphasis on physician-patient communication but negatively associated with dental assistants' communication. Dentists valued communication education but differed in its execution and importance. Conclusion: It is recommended to initiate dentist-patient communication education during university studies and continue its practice to adapt to the changing societal dynamics. Individuals with higher socioeconomic status and older age show a greater appreciation for dentist-patient communication, potentially driven by self-promotion, thereby highlighting the diverse nature of doctor-patient relationships. Based on our findings, we suggest to implement the doctor-patient communication courses in Taiwan.

Flow field design is critical to improving the overall performance of high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Adding baffles in the flow channel has been proven to be effective in enhancing mass transfer. In this study, fuel cells with different baffle numbers, heights, and arrangements are numerically simulated to investigate the effects of reactant velocity, concentration distribution, and pressure drop on mass transfer and output performance. The results show that baffles are beneficial in improving cell performance, especially under high current density. With the increase in baffle number and height, the concentration of the reactant at the outlet decreases and the output power increases with the increase in pressure drop. The net power density growth rate is defined to characterize the cell performance. A lower pressure drop reduces the pumping power loss generated during reactant transfer, resulting in a staggered baffle structure with the highest net power density of 4329.65 W/m2. Compared with the traditional and parallel baffle channels, this value is improved by about 11.74% and 4.83%, respectively. Therefore, the optimized baffle channel can enhance the mass transfer, reduce the pumping power, and further improve the cell performance, providing an effective guide for the optimal design and development direction of the orientated flow channel.

Scientific communication holds a pivotal role within research institutions. This study establishes three distinct categories of indicators, tailored to the unique attributes of these institutions, aiming to assess their performance in scientific communication. Employing a rigorous two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, we meticulously calculate output efficiency, feedback efficiency, and overall efficiency. Subsequently, we cluster the efficiency outcomes and delve into the factors that influence them. Drawing from the clustering insights and identified influencing factors, we formulate targeted scientific communication strategies tailored to the needs of these research institutions.

In this paper, we consider a multiperiod, two-location inventory system with unknown demand distributions and perishable products. Products can be transshipped from the location with excess inventory to the other with excess demand to better fulfill customer demand. The demand distributions are assumed to follow a family of parametric distributions and can only be learned on the fly. To address the challenge, we propose a data-driven inventory management algorithm called DD2LI that achieves a good performance in terms of regret. This algorithm, DD2LI, employs maximum likelihood estimation to approximate the unknown parameter and determines the order quantity based on these estimations. In addition, we emphasize a key assumption that tightens regret bound. Finally, we test the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm by conducting numerical experiments for two scenarios.

Self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) to form structural colors offers promising opportunities for developing electronic, optoelectronic, and magnetic devices. In this regard, we reported co-assembly of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) and graphene to produce colored thin films. We demonstrated that biomimetic iridescent "peacock feather"-like full-color thin films can be generated by simple evaporation of aqueous suspensions on a surface tension confined, optically symmetric indium tin oxide-coated polyethylene terephthalate substrate. Amphiphilic CNFs serve dual functions to attract hydrophobic graphene via van der Waals interactions and to disperse hydrophilically and anionically CNF-tethered graphene while regulating surface tension to induce capillary and Marangoni flows in the force fields and construct thickness variation during dewetting. These CNF-graphene thin films exhibit full-color patterns and function as tunable light and moisture actuators. This approach has high potential to be applied to assemble other metal or metal oxide NPs for fast, simple, and robust fabrication without involving any complex lithography and external fields.

ObjectiveTo explore the association of genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with the prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) for identifying new prognostic biomarkers and developing personalized treatment strategies for GC. MethodsA follow-up study was conducted among 251 first diagnosed GC patients recruited in a county hospital of Fujian province from April 2013 to December 2017. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate 5-year survival rate of the patients and genome-wide SNPs loci of the patients were detected with whole-genome chip. Cox proportional hazards regression model was applied to analyze the association of SNPs loci with GC prognosis. Results Of all the patients, 218 (86.85%) completed the follow-up and were included in the analysis. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rate of the patients were 61.5%, 40.8%, and 37.5%, respectively, and the median survival time was 22.0 months. Univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that aged \begin{document}$\geqslant $\end{document} 65 years and at intermediate and advanced tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage were risk factors for poor prognosis of GC; while, undergoing surgery and chemotherapy were protective factors against poor prognosis. The genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified 165 genetic loci significantly associated with GC prognosis, which involved 33 functional regions corresponding to 55 functional genes. The function genes were mainly involved in growth factor response pathway, immune escape, and inflammation-related pathways and the expression of 7 of functional genes correlated significantly with GC prognosis based on the information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. ConclusionThe SNPs are closely related to the prognosis of GC and the GC prognosis-related functional genes are widely involved in biological processes of cancer cell proliferation, immunity and inflammation.

In this paper, we formulate Subcarrier Assignment and Discrete Power Allocation for multi-UAV millimeter-wave cooperative Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) networks as a joint optimization problem considering the heterogeneous user data rate quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. The formulated joint optimization problem, named Discrete Power and Subcarrier Allocation (DPSA), is a nonconvex and mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINP) problem, making it NP-hard to solve. We then transform the DPSA into the Subcarrier and Power Resource Efficient Cooperative Potential Game (SRECPG) based on game theory which facilitates distributed execution. We analyze the conditions under which a Nash Equilibrium (NE) exists in the SRECPG and provide rigorous proof of its existence. Furthermore, to enhance computational efficiency, we propose a BR-SSO algorithm based on better response dynamics. BR-SSO dramatically reduces the computational burden compared to the best response dynamics based on local exhaustive search (BRLES) while still ensuring convergence to a NE. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed SRECPG and BR-SSO algorithms. The results show significant improvements in throughput, fairness, and QoS guarantees compared to the baseline schemes. Our approach offers valuable insights into the design of efficient resource allocation schemes for multi-UAV millimeter-wave networks with varying QoS demands.

Abstract Background Drug repositioning is a very important task that provides critical information for exploring the potential efficacy of drugs. Yet developing computational models that can effectively predict drug–disease associations (DDAs) is still a challenging task. Previous studies suggest that the accuracy of DDA prediction can be improved by integrating different types of biological features. But how to conduct an effective integration remains a challenging problem for accurately discovering new indications for approved drugs. Methods In this paper, we propose a novel meta-path based graph representation learning model, namely RLFDDA, to predict potential DDAs on heterogeneous biological networks. RLFDDA first calculates drug–drug similarities and disease–disease similarities as the intrinsic biological features of drugs and diseases. A heterogeneous network is then constructed by integrating DDAs, disease–protein associations and drug–protein associations. With such a network, RLFDDA adopts a meta-path random walk model to learn the latent representations of drugs and diseases, which are concatenated to construct joint representations of drug–disease associations. As the last step, we employ the random forest classifier to predict potential DDAs with their joint representations. Results To demonstrate the effectiveness of RLFDDA, we have conducted a series of experiments on two benchmark datasets by following a ten-fold cross-validation scheme. The results show that RLFDDA yields the best performance in terms of AUC and F1-score when compared with several state-of-the-art DDAs prediction models. We have also conducted a case study on two common diseases, i.e., paclitaxel and lung tumors, and found that 7 out of top-10 diseases and 8 out of top-10 drugs have already been validated for paclitaxel and lung tumors respectively with literature evidence. Hence, the promising performance of RLFDDA may provide a new perspective for novel DDAs discovery over heterogeneous networks.

Abstract The advent of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has provided insight into the tumour immune microenvironment (TIME). This review focuses on the application of scRNA-seq in investigation of the TIME. Over time, scRNA-seq methods have evolved, and components of the TIME have been deciphered with high resolution. In this review, we first introduced the principle of scRNA-seq and compared different sequencing approaches. Novel cell types in the TIME, a continuous transitional state, and mutual intercommunication among TIME components present potential targets for prognosis prediction and treatment in cancer. Thus, we concluded novel cell clusters of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), T cells, tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs) and dendritic cells (DCs) discovered after the application of scRNA-seq in TIME. We also proposed the development of TAMs and exhausted T cells, as well as the possible targets to interrupt the process. In addition, the therapeutic interventions based on cellular interactions in TIME were also summarized. For decades, quantification of the TIME components has been adopted in clinical practice to predict patient survival and response to therapy and is expected to play an important role in the precise treatment of cancer. Summarizing the current findings, we believe that advances in technology and wide application of single-cell analysis can lead to the discovery of novel perspectives on cancer therapy, which can subsequently be implemented in the clinic. Finally, we propose some future directions in the field of TIME studies that can be aided by scRNA-seq technology.

Acrylic powder coating has excellent anti-aging function and often used as an environmentally friendly topcoat coating. In order to understand its anti-corrosion performance and anti-corrosion mechanism for the purpose of expanding its application, the corrosion behavior and mechanism of intact acrylic powder coatings in marine environment and the defect of acrylic powder coating had been investigated using CASS test, immersion test and AC impedance method. Results showed that the transparent acrylic powder coatings with a thickness of 80 μm and 120 μm respectively had a few blisters on the edge of the scratch after treated by a 240 h CASS test. For the powder coating with a thickness of 120 μm, the maximum and minimum widths of corrosion products around the scratch were about 3.5 mm and 0.5 mm respectively, and the adhesion to the surface was level 0, indicating that the coating had good CASS resistance. After an immersion of 30 d, the amount of corrosion products generated around the scratch of 120 μm coating was smaller than that of 80 μm coating, revealing that 120 μm coating had better immersion resistance. Furthermore, the EIS of scratch specimens in 0.6 mol/L NaCl solution showed that the electric double layer capacitance decreased rapidly firstly and then tended to be stable, and the corrosion rate increased with the prolonging of immersion time. The impedance of the intact acrylic powder coating decreased from about 1010～1011Ω·cm2 to 106 Ω·cm2 after an immersion in 0.6 mol/L NaCl solution for 720 h. The barrier effect of these two kinds of coatings was basically the same after a 360 h immersion. Besides, as the aluminum alloy material covered with acrylic powder coating had poor corrosion resistance, the acrylic powder coating was not suitable to be used alone as the coating system for the automobile aluminum wheel hub or the alumimum alloy material. Hence, it is recommended to use composite coating system as the coating scheme for automobile aluminum alloy wheel hub.

BackgroundWomen with atypical hyperplasia (AH) is associated with a higher risk of future breast cancer. However, whether AH found at margins in patients with breast-conserving surgery (BCS) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) needs re-excision is not well-defined. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of AH at the surgical margins on the local recurrence and survival outcomes in breast cancer patients treated with NAC and BCS.MethodsA retrospective analysis comparing patients who treated with NAC and BCS with AH at the margins to those without AH was performed.Results598 patients were included in this study. The 5-year rates of ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence (IBTR) were 4.6% and 6.2% in patients with and without AH, respectively. No significant differences were observed among the two groups in terms of IBTR, DMFS, or OS. HER2 overexpressing breast cancer patients with severe AH at margins have a significantly higher risk of IBTR compared to those without severe AH.ConclusionOur study suggests that the presence of AH at the surgical margins of BCS in patients who received NAC does not appear to increase the risk of ipsilateral breast cancer. Therefore, there is no need for surgeons to routinely perform additional re-excision of AH found at the margins of BCS in these patients. However, selective re-excision should be considered in certain cases, particularly in patients with HER2 overexpression.