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BackgroundPostoperative non-union of femoral neck fracture often needs secondary operation. We report a case of a postoperative non-union of femoral neck fracture treated with teriparatide.Case presentationA young male patient with Garden IV femoral neck fracture who showed no obvious signs of healing 3 months after percutaneous hollow nail fixation in which the fracture line was enlarged and the hollow nail was withdrawn. Bone non-union healed after 6 months of continuous subcutaneous injection of teriparatide at a dosage of 20 mg/day after the patient refused a secondary surgery. As far as we know, there have been no relevant reports on this type of fracture yet.ConclusionsTeriparatide is expected to be beneficial in treating young patients with a displaced femoral neck fracture who have difficulty in healing from non-union and who are keen on avoiding secondary surgery.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning has experienced increasing utilization and poses new challenges for schoolteachers to engage students. Project-based Learning (PBL) is widely acknowledged as an effective pedagogy for motivating and involving students. However, few studies have examined scaffolds that facilitate student engagement in the context of distance PBL. This mixed-method study was conducted with grade 7 teachers and students in a junior middle school in East China from March 2020 to April 2020. Qualitative analysis was employed in interviews with 2 teachers and 21 students. Quantitative analysis was used to visualize the self-reflection reports of 39 students. The findings suggest that the scaffolds of teacher direction, technology support, peer collaboration, and parental assistance play a significant role. In addition, specific scaffolding within the above categories was revealed. The results highlight the problem-oriented, methodological, and synthesized application of various scaffold(ing)s in engaging students and emphasize that scaffolding students emotionally is the core issue to support engagement for remote learning.

With the rapid development of electronic equipment and wireless communication in recent years, problems of electromagnetic interference are also becoming more and more serious. It is urgent to develop high performance electromagnetic interference(EMI) shielding materials to alleviate the damage of electromagnetic interference. MXene(Ti3C2Tx) is a novel kind of 2D material with ultrahigh electrical conductivity and unique chemically active surface, and therefore exhibits extremely excellent electromagnetic shielding performance. The preparation, structural feature and EMI shielding mechanism of Ti3C2Tx were focused and introduced in this paper,the latest research progress on EMI shielding applications of Ti3C2Tx-based films and 3D porous materials was objectively reviewed and evaluated, and the main problem at the present was analyzed. In addition, the future development direction and tendency of Ti3C2Tx-based EMI shielding materials from the aspects of preparation, microstructure control and structure design and so on were also prospected in this poper,based on current development needs including developing low-cost, green and efficient Ti3C2Tx preparation methods, solving the long-standing oxidation problem of Ti3C2Tx, designing new structure of Ti3C2Tx-based EMI shielding materials and finding out other MXenes EMI shielding materials other than Ti3C2Tx, which can provide new ideas and guidance for the further development of the next generation of high-performance EMI shielding materials.

As a measuring tool of industrial sustainable development, industrial eco-efficiency works as a link between economic benefit and environmental pressure. Industrial agglomeration and energy have always been considered an important influence factor on industrial eco-efficiency. The Chinese government is facing the challenge of reaching a Carbon Peak by the 2060s, within this context, it is critically important to explore the relationship between industrial agglomeration and industrial eco-efficiency, moreover, energy intensity may play a key role between them, which should not be ignored. Therefore, based on the STIRPAT model, this paper constructs a spatial autocorrelation model (SAC model) to analyze the provincial panel dataset from 2009 to 2018, and it is found that: First, the industrial agglomeration has an inverted N-shaped relationship with industrial eco-efficiency, and industrial eco-efficiency indeed have a positive spatial spillover effect. Second, energy intensity plays a mediating role, industrial agglomeration would affect industrial eco-efficiency through energy intensity. Therefore, it is suggested that the government should introduce differentiated industrial agglomeration policies as well as energy-saving policies. In addition, this paper suggests that policymakers should adhere to consistent industrial sustainable development policies.

Obesity is often regarded as a factor that promotes tumorigenesis, but the role of obesity in promoting hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still controversial. We compared the trend change of 14 obesity-related genes in the formation and development of HCC in normal, adjacent, and HCC tissues. Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was used to verify the relationship between obesity and HCC occurrence. Metabolism of cobalamin-associated A (MMAA) was discovered as an obesity- and metabolism-differential gene, and its function in HCC was tested in vitro and in vivo. Finally, we explored how obese female patients with an originally high expression of female estrogen receptor (ESR1) directly upregulated MMAA to interfere with the progression of HCC. Fourteen obesity-related genes were downregulated in adjacent and tumoral tissues compared with normal liver tissues, which indicated that obesity may be inversely related to the occurrence of HCC and was consistent with the results of MR analysis. We also discovered that MMAA is a metabolic gene closely related to the occurrence and development of HCC by mining the TCGA database, and it functioned an anti-tumor-promoting role in HCC by damaging the mitochondrial function and preserving the redox balance. We further verified that obese females with a high expression of ESR1 can regulate MMAA to protect HCC from progression. This study elucidates that obesity might be a protective factor for female HCC patients, as they originally highly expressed ESR1, which could upregulate MMAA to suppress tumor growth and participate in metabolic reprogramming.

During a parasitological survey of goldfish Carassius auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) in China, two myxosporeans were collected in the present study including a Thelohanellus species and a Myxobolus species. To identified the two myxosporeans, a morphological, histological and molecular study was performed. The Thelohanellus species was characterized by round, white plasmodia in fins of goldfish. Compared with all described Thelohanellus species, spore morphology of the Thelohanellus species in the present study was distinct from them. BLAST search showed that SSU rDNA sequence of this Thelohanellus species did not match any sequence in GenBank database. Phylogenetically, the Thelohanellus species obtained in the present study was sister to Thelohanellus nikolskii Achmerov, 1955. So, the present Thelohanellus species was identified as a novel species and named Thelohanellus pseudonikolskii n. sp. The Myxobolus species was characterized by a number of round or irregularly shaped, white plasmodia in gills of goldfish. When compared with all reported Myxobolus species, spore morphology of the present Myxobolus species was most similar to Myxobolus koi Kudo, 1920. Histological analysis showed that plasmodia of this Myxobolus species simultaneously developed in stratified epithelium of filament and in lamellae, which was same to M. koi. Moreover, BLAST search showed that SSU rDNA sequence of the present Myxobolus species was identical to M. koi. Thus, the morphological, histological and molecular analysis demonstrated that the present Myxobolus species was conspecific with M. koi. Due to M. koi consistently described from gills of common carp Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus, 1758 and koi carp C. carpio in the previous researches, M. koi was first found to infect gills of goldfish in the present study. Considering koi carp and goldfish both as ornamental fish frequently cultured together in China, the possible host shift of M. koi from koi carp to goldfish is of interest for further investigation.

Abstract Background Immune cell infiltration and neuroinflammation are heavily associated with spinal cord injury (SCI). C-C motif chemokine ligand 2/C-C chemokine receptor type 2 (CCL2/CCR2) axis has been identified as a critical role player during the invasion of immune cells to lesions in many diseases. γδ T cells, a subgroup of T cells, manage the course of inflammation response in various diseases; however, it remains unknown whether γδ T cells are recruited to injury site through CCL2/CCR2 signaling and exert the regulation effect on neuroinflammation after SCI. Methods Basso Mouse Scale (BMS), regularity index, cadence, max contact area, and motor-evoked potential testing (MEP) were measured to determine the neurological function recovery after spinal cord injury. Nissl staining was performed to identify the number of surviving motor neurons at lesion epicenter. Immunofluorescence, Western blot, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (QRT-PCR) also were employed to evaluate the expression of associated proteins and genes. Results In this study, we demonstrated that TCRδ−/− mice present improved neurological recovery after SCI. γδ T cell recruitment to the SCI site was significantly reduced and motor functional improvement enhanced in CCL2−/− and CCR2−/− mouse strains. Furthermore, reconstitution of TCRδ−/− mice with γδ T cells extracted from CCR2−/− mice also showed similar results to CCL2 and CCR2 deficient mice. Conclusions In conclusion, γδ T cell recruitment to SCI site promotes inflammatory response and exacerbates neurological impairment. CCL2/CCR2 signaling is a vital recruitment mechanism of γδ T cells to the SCI site, and it may be taken as a novel therapeutic target for future SCI.

Lipids are involved in both energy metabolism and signaling transduction. Abnormal lipid metabolism in T cells is associated with the differentiation, longevity and activity of T cells, which has received increasing concern since its firstly reported in 1985. To evaluate the trends of lipid metabolism in T cells and map knowledge structure, we employed bibliometric analysis. A total of 286 related publications obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection published between 1985 and 2022 were analyzed using indicators of publication and citation metrics, countries, institutes, authors, cited references and key words. The present research status, the global trends and the future development directions in lipid metabolism and T cells were visualized and discussed. In summary, this study provides a comprehensive display on the field of lipid metabolism in T cells, which will help researchers explore lipid metabolism in T cells more effectively and intuitively.

Temporal lobe epilepsy, a chronic disease of the brain characterized by degeneration of the hippocampus, has impaired risk assessment. Risk assessment is vital for survival in complex environments with potential threats. However, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. The intricate balance of gene regulation and expression across different brain regions is related to the structure and function of specific neuron subtypes. In particular, excitation/inhibition imbalance caused by hyperexcitability of glutamatergic neurons and/or dysfunction of GABAergic neurons, have been implicated in epilepsy. First, we estimated the risk assessment (RA) by evaluating the behavior of mice in the center of the elevated plus maze, and found that the kainic acid-induced temporal lobe epilepsy mice were specifically impaired their RA. This experiment evaluated approach-RA, with a forthcoming approach to the open arm, and avoid-RA, with forthcoming avoidance of the open arm. Next, results from free-moving electrophysiological recordings showed that in the hippocampus, ∼7% of putative glutamatergic neurons and ∼15% of putative GABAergic neurons were preferentially responsive to either approach-risk assessment or avoid-risk assessment, respectively. In addition, ∼12% and ∼8% of dorsal lateral septum GABAergic neurons were preferentially responsive to approach-risk assessment and avoid-risk assessment, respectively. Notably, during the impaired approach-risk assessment, the favorably activated dorsal dentate gyrus and CA3 glutamatergic neurons increased (∼9%) and dorsal dentate gyrus and CA3 GABAergic neurons decreased (∼7%) in the temporal lobe epilepsy mice. Then, we used RNA sequencing and immunohistochemical staining to investigate which subtype of GABAergic neuron loss may contribute to excitation/inhibition imbalance. The results show that temporal lobe epilepsy mice exhibit significant neuronal loss and reorganization of neural networks. In particular, the dorsal dentate gyrus and CA3 somatostatin-positive neurons and dorsal lateral septum cholecystokinin-positive neurons are selectively vulnerable to damage after temporal lobe epilepsy. Optogenetic activation of the hippocampal glutamatergic neurons or chemogenetic inhibition of the hippocampal somatostatin neurons directly disrupts RA, suggesting that an excitation/inhibition imbalance in the dHPC dorsal lateral septum circuit results in the impairment of RA behavior. Taken together, this study provides insight into epilepsy and its comorbidity at different levels, including molecular, cell, neural circuit, and behavior, which are expected to decrease injury and premature mortality in patients with epilepsy.

Cren7 and Sis7d, two chromatin proteins from Sulfolobus islandicus, undergo extensive methylations at multiple lysine residues to various extents. Whether this highly conserved protein serves an epigenetic role in the regulation of the structure and function of the chromosome remains unclear. In the present study, we show that methylation significantly affects Cren7, but not Sis7d, in the ability to bind DNA and to constrain negative DNA supercoils. Strikingly, methylated Cren7 was significantly less efficient in forming oligomers or mediating intermolecular DNA bridging. Single-site substitution mutation with glutamine reveals that methylation of the four lysine residues (K24, K31, K42, and K48) of Cren7 at the protein-DNA interface, which are variably conserved among Cren7 homologues from different branches of the Crenarchaeota, influenced Cren7-DNA interactions in different manners. We suggest that dynamic methylation of Cren7 may represent a potential epigenetic mechanism involved in the chromosomal regulation in crenarchaea.

Background:PAX2 is a nuclear transcription factor gene that is highly conserved among species. Variants within PAX2 could result in optic nerve colobomas and kidney hypoplasia. However, little clinical and genetic information is currently available about PAX2 variants in Chinese children.Objective: This study aims to further understand the clinical manifestations and genetic characteristics of PAX2 variants in Chinese population.Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, we analyzed the clinical data of 10 children identified as carriers of PAX2 variants by gene sequencing. All the variants found in this study were analyzed using in silico prediction and American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) standards and guidelines.Results: The mean age for developing the first symptom in 10 unrelated children was 7.2 years old. Proteinuria and bilateral kidney dysplasia were found in every patient. Two children underwent kidney histological examination; one child showed high-intensity C1q deposition in the kidney, and the other child showed focal segmental glomerular sclerosis (FSGS). Three children had PAX2-related ocular abnormalities, including nystagmus, retinal exudation, amblyopia, microphthalmia, microcornea, and total blindness. In addition, one patient had the comorbidity of oculocutaneous albinism (OCA). Eight different PAX2 variants were found in ten patients, three of which were reported for the first time.Conclusion: We reported some patients with unique manifestations and comorbidities, and we reported three variants that have not been previously identified. The PAX2 gene is prone to spontaneous variants, and the outcome of patients is unfavorable. Because of the lack of specific therapy, genetic testing should be recommended for individuals with obvious evidence of kidney dysplasia and eye abnormalities, and kidney protective treatment should be initiated early.

Augmented reality (AR) technology can enhance picture book reading experience. The present study aimed to explore the influence of reading AR picture books on primary school students' reading comprehension, story retelling, and reading motivation. Eighty second graders, who were from two classes at a rural primary school in a coastal city in East China, were recruited through convenience sampling to participate in this quasi-experimental study. The two classes were randomly assigned to be either the experimental group (AR picture book reading) or control group (print picture book reading), and both groups read three traditional Chinese picture books during reading classes throughout three weeks. T-test analyses revealed that, before the study began, the two groups did not have significant differences in reading comprehension, story retelling, or reading motivation. However, after the three weeks of instructional intervention, the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in all three aspects. Furthermore, MANCOVA analysis showed that reading AR picture books was more effective in boosting participants' performance on implicit questions during the reading comprehension tests. They also performed significantly higher on story retelling tests, especially when it came to story structures regarding settings and plots. In addition, AR picture book reading was more conducive to improving participants' level of attention and confidence in reading. This work adds to the ongoing endeavors in incorporating AR picture books into classroom settings, and will inform future development of original Chinese picture books with AR technology.

Abstract Aqueous zinc-based batteries (AZBs) attract tremendous attention due to the abundant and rechargeable zinc anode. Nonetheless, the requirement of high energy and power densities raises great challenge for the cathode development. Herein we construct an aqueous zinc ion capacitor possessing an unrivaled combination of high energy and power characteristics by employing a unique dual-ion adsorption mechanism in the cathode side. Through a templating/activating co-assisted carbonization procedure, a routine protein-rich biomass transforms into defect-rich carbon with immense surface area of 3657.5 m2 g−1 and electrochemically active heteroatom content of 8.0 at%. Comprehensive characterization and DFT calculations reveal that the obtained carbon cathode exhibits capacitive charge adsorptions toward both the cations and anions, which regularly occur at the specific sites of heteroatom moieties and lattice defects upon different depths of discharge/charge. The dual-ion adsorption mechanism endows the assembled cells with maximum capacity of 257 mAh g−1 and retention of 72 mAh g−1 at ultrahigh current density of 100 A g−1 (400 C), corresponding to the outstanding energy and power of 168 Wh kg−1 and 61,700 W kg−1. Furthermore, practical battery configurations of solid-state pouch and cable-type cells display excellent reliability in electrochemistry as flexible and knittable power sources.

Under the global health crisis of COVID-19, timely, and accurate epidemic data are important for observation, monitoring, analyzing, modeling, predicting, and mitigating impacts. Viral case data can be jointly analyzed with relevant factors for various applications in the context of the pandemic. Current COVID-19 case data are scattered across a variety of data sources which may consist of low data quality accompanied by inconsistent data structures. To address this shortcoming, a multi-scale spatiotemporal data product is proposed as a public repository platform, based on a spatiotemporal cube, and allows the integration of different data sources by adopting various data standards. Within the spatiotemporal cube, a comprehensive data processing workflow gathers disparate COVID-19 epidemic datasets at the global, national, provincial/state, county, and city levels. This proposed framework is supported by an automatic update with a 2-h frequency and the crowdsourcing validation team to produce and update data on a daily time step. This rapid-response dataset allows the integration of other relevant socio-economic and environmental factors for spatiotemporal analysis. The data is available in Harvard Dataverse platform (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/8HGECN) and GitHub open source repository (https://github.com/stccenter/COVID-19-Data).

A novel gold nanoparticle (Do-AuNP) was successfully synthesized from water extracts of traditional Chinese medicine Dendrobium officinale (DO) without using any extra chemicals regents. The physicochemical properties of Do-AuNPs were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The amount of DO extract on the AuNPs was about 13%. In order to evaluate the anti-tumor efficiency and biosafety, the inhibitory rate of HepG2 cells and survival rate of L02 cells were performed in vitro, and the immunohistochemical analysis of H&E, Ki-67, and TUNEL staining were conducted in vivo. Our results demonstrated that Do-AuNP had better anti-tumor efficiency compared with DO extraction alone without increasing toxicity in vivo and in vitro. The present study provides useful information for Do-AuNP as a new nanomedicine for liver cancer.

The national carbon emission trading mechanism is an important policy tool for the Chinese government to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using the market mechanism. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market is the focus of energy conservation and consumption reduction in China. Problems have already existed in the synergic development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market and carbon trading market. In this article, the development status of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market is analyzed and the coupling mechanism between the carbon market and power market is combed out to build a synergism model of the carbon market and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market based on the system dynamics. From the research results, firstly, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market comes with a high energy consumption intensity and a high proportion of carbon emissions. The coupling of carbon market and power market forces the power industry to reduce carbon emissions through the effective transmission of carbon costs to power prices. Secondly, carbon price shows an upward trend in the context of the current policy scenario, which can give play to the role of price signal in the future. The revenue of thermal power plants, which are the carbon emission right sellers, with new technologies, has increased significantly, while the revenue of carbon emission right buyers, which are the manufacturers of undeveloped units, has increased less. Finally, the technical progress of thermal power plants, the introduction of auction mechanism, the increase in initial carbon price settings and the direct transmission of carbon costs are all factors that promote the effectiveness of carbon trading policy tools in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei power market. This study provides theoretical guidance for the synergic development of the “power-carbon” market.

The sudden outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) swept across the world in early 2020, triggering the lockdowns of several billion people across many countries, including China, Spain, India, the U.K., Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, Russia, and the U.S. The transmission of the virus accelerated rapidly with the most confirmed cases in the U.S., India, Russia, and Brazil. In response to this national and global emergency, the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center brought together a taskforce of international researchers and assembled implementation strategies to rapidly respond to this crisis, for supporting research, saving lives, and protecting the health of global citizens. This perspective paper presents our collective view on the global health emergency and our effort in collecting, analyzing, and sharing relevant data on global policy and government responses, human mobility, environmental impact, socioeconomical impact; in developing research capabilities and mitigation measures with global scientists, promoting collaborative research on outbreak dynamics, and reflecting on the dynamic responses from human societies.

Abstract Rechargeable zinc‐air batteries (ZABs) have attracted much attention as the next‐generation energy conversion and storage devices due to the abundance and environmental friendliness of zinc (Zn) for anode materials, as well as the safety and low cost of aqueous electrolytes. However, rational design of nonprecious and low‐cost integrated air cathode materials with a desirable bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic performance remains a great challenge for the commercialization of rechargeable ZABs. In previous research studies, various cost‐effective carbon‐supported electrocatalysts and light‐weight carbon‐based current collectors for air cathodes have been developed, showing vast potential in the application of carbon‐based materials. To improve the bifunctional performance and integration of air cathodes, efforts with respect to the design of morphology, defects, and synergistic effects of carbon‐based materials have been made. In this perspective, the general understanding of the air cathode construction and the battery working mechanism is discussed. The recent progress in the design of carbon‐based materials for air cathodes in rechargeable ZABs is summarized. Several possible future research directions and the expected development trends are also discussed, aiming to facilitate the commercialization of advanced rechargeable ZABs in our life.

The clinical management of patients with COVID-19 and cancer is a Gordian knot that has been discussed widely but has not reached a consensus. We introduced two-sample Mendelian randomization to investigate the causal association between a genetic predisposition to cancers and COVID-19 susceptibility and severity. Moreover, we also explored the mutation landscape, expression pattern, and prognostic implications of genes involved with COVID-19 in distinct cancers. Among all of the cancer types we analyzed, only the genetic predisposition to lung adenocarcinoma was causally associated with increased COVID-19 severity (OR = 2.93, β = 1.074, se = 0.411, p = 0.009) with no obvious heterogeneity (Q = 17.29, p = 0.24) or symmetry of the funnel plot. In addition, the results of the pleiotropy test demonstrated that instrument SNPs were less likely to affect COVID-19 severity via approaches other than lung adenocarcinoma cancer susceptibility (p = 0.96). Leave-one-out analysis showed no outliers in instrument SNPs, whose elimination rendered alterations in statistical significance, which further supported the reliability of the MR results. Broad mutation and differential expression of these genes were also found in cancers, which may provide valuable information for developing new treatment modalities for patients with both cancer and COVID-19. For example, ERAP2, a risk factor for COVID-19-associated death, is upregulated in lung squamous cancer and negatively associated with patient prognosis. Hence, ERAP2-targeted treatment may simultaneously reduce COVID-19 disease severity and restrain cancer progression. Our results highlighted the importance of strengthening medical surveillance for COVID-19 deterioration in patients with lung adenocarcinoma by showing their causal genetic association. For these patients, a delay in anticancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and surgery, should be considered.

Abstract Background Drugs achieve pharmacological functions by acting on target proteins. Identifying interactions between drugs and target proteins is an essential task in old drug repositioning and new drug discovery. To recommend new drug candidates and reposition existing drugs, computational approaches are commonly adopted. Compared with the wet-lab experiments, the computational approaches have lower cost for drug discovery and provides effective guidance in the subsequent experimental verification. How to integrate different types of biological data and handle the sparsity of drug-target interaction data are still great challenges. Results In this paper, we propose a novel drug-target interactions (DTIs) prediction method incorporating marginalized denoising model on heterogeneous networks with association index kernel matrix and latent global association. The experimental results on benchmark datasets and new compiled datasets indicate that compared to other existing methods, our method achieves higher scores of AUC (area under curve of receiver operating characteristic) and larger values of AUPR (area under precision-recall curve). Conclusions The performance improvement in our method depends on the association index kernel matrix and the latent global association. The association index kernel matrix calculates the sharing relationship between drugs and targets. The latent global associations address the false positive issue caused by network link sparsity. Our method can provide a useful approach to recommend new drug candidates and reposition existing drugs.

Abstract Semiconducting conjugated polymer nanoparticles (SPNs) represent an emerging class of phototheranostic materials with great promise for cancer treatment. In this report, low-bandgap electron donor–acceptor (D–A)-conjugated SPNs with surface cloaked by red blood cell membrane (RBCM) are developed for highly effective photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. The resulting RBCM-coated SPN (SPN@RBCM) displays remarkable near-infrared light absorption and good photostability, as well as high photothermal conversion efficiency for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. Particularly, due to the small size (

The challenges of modern power systems with a high level of renewable generation penetration will impose increased ancillary service on Photovoltaic (PV) systems, including frequency regulation. In this paper, a frequency regulation strategy for PV systems without energy storage is proposed. The proposed strategy is divided into two layers: the frequency regulation layer and the power reserve control layer. In the power reserve control layer, a novel power reserve control is proposed as the core element and novel feature. The existing power reserve control for PV systems must estimate the maximum available power, which is difficult because of the variation in environmental conditions and complex modeling of PV systems. Instead, a power tracking control method based on a curtailment power-current curve is proposed. It can automatically track a given reserve ratio under any environmental condition without an irradiance sensor. In the frequency regulation layer, the combination of droop control and virtual inertia control is used to adjust the given power reserve ratio. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy offers good accuracy and tracking speed and can significantly improve the frequency response of the power system.

Coordinated droop control strategies can provide frequency support for AC area grids from wind farms integrated through multi-terminal high-voltage DC (MTDC) transmission. However, such a strategy inevitably causes DC voltage deviation for transmitting AC area frequency information, thereby deteriorating the stability and security of the MTDC system operation. This paper reports an improved adaptive virtual capacitor control strategy that can provide inertial support for the system. Instead of increasing the capacitance of the physical capacitor, a virtual capacitor is generated by utilizing the rest energy of the deloaded wind farm. Furthermore, an S-shape function is designed to adaptively adjust the capacitance of the virtual capacitor based on the operating points of the system, in order to provide a better inertial support than with the fixed virtual capacitor control strategy. The proposed strategy not only enhances the DC voltage nadir but also improves the frequency nadir of the AC area by releasing additional power from the deloaded wind farm., a MTDC system of a four-terminal voltage source converter with two wind farms is simulated using PSCAD/EMTDC. Case studies are conducted to compare and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy under sudden load variations.

A composite learning dynamic surface control is proposed for a class of multi-machine power systems with uncertainties and external disturbances by using fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) and disturbance observer (DOB). The main characteristics of the proposed strategy are as follows: (1) The approximation ability of FLSs for nonlinear model of multi-machine power systems is enhanced considerably by using the composite learning method and providing additional correction information for the FLSs. These findings differ considerably from previous designs that focus directly on the system's tracking performance. (2) The filtering errors caused by the utilizations of the first-order low-pass filters in dynamic surface control (DSC) are compensated effectively by designing the compensating signals in the control law design process. (3) The compound disturbances including the FLSs' approximation error and external disturbances are estimated and mitigated by constructing DOB. Finally, the proposed control algorithm is verified on the StarSim Hardware-in-loop experimental platform, and the experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy in suppressing disturbances and enhancing the robustness of the controller.

The authors here report a sunlight-promoted rechargeable zinc–air battery in which photoelectrode is used as the air electrode to substantially lower the charge potential under illumination. Notably, the battery can be initially charged with an extremely low voltage of ~1.20 V.

Background: Deep learning has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy and efficiency in medical image recognition. In the current study, we developed a deep learning algorithm and assessed its performance in discriminating melanoma from nevus using whole-slide pathological images (WSIs). Methods: The deep learning algorithm was trained and validated using a set of 781 WSIs (86 melanomas, 695 nevi) from PLA General Hospital. The diagnostic performance of the algorithm was tested on an independent test set of 104 WSIs (29 melanomas, 75 nevi) from Tianjin Chang Zheng Hospital. The same test set was also diagnostically classified by 7 expert dermatopathologists. Results: The deep learning algorithm receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve achieved a sensitivity 100% at the specificity of 94.7% in the classification of melanoma and nevus on the test set. The area under ROC curve was 0.99. Dermatopathologists achieved a mean sensitivity and specificity of 95.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 92.0%-98.2%) and 96.0% (95% CI: 94.2%-97.8%), respectively. At the operating point of sensitivity of 95.1%, the algorithm revealed a comparable specificity with 7 dermatopathologists (97.3% vs. 96.0%, P = 0.11). At the operating point of specificity of 96.0%, the algorithm also achieved a comparable sensitivity with 7 dermatopathologists (96.5% vs. 95.1%, P = 0.30). A more transparent and interpretable diagnosis could be generated by highlighting the regions of interest recognized by the algorithm in WSIs. Conclusion: The performance of the deep learning algorithm was on par with that of 7 expert dermatopathologists in interpreting WSIs with melanocytic lesions. By pre-screening the suspicious melanoma regions, it might serve as a supplemental diagnostic tool to improve working efficiency of pathologists.

Abstract With the low redox potential of −3.04 V (vs SHE) and ultrahigh theoretical capacity of 3862 mAh g−1, lithium metal has been considered as promising anode material. However, lithium metal battery has ever suffered a trough in the past few decades due to its safety issues. Over the years, the limited energy density of the lithium‐ion battery cannot meet the growing demands of the advanced energy storage devices. Therefore, lithium metal anodes receive renewed attention, which have the potential to achieve high‐energy batteries. In this review, the history of the lithium anode is reviewed first. Then the failure mechanism of the lithium anode is analyzed, including dendrite, dead lithium, corrosion, and volume expansion of the lithium anode. Further, the strategies to alleviate the lithium anode issues in recent years are discussed emphatically. Eventually, remaining challenges of these strategies and possible research directions of lithium‐anode modification are presented to inspire innovation of lithium anode.

Recently, the local climate zone (LCZ) system has been presented to establish the connection between urban landscape and local thermal environment. However, LCZ entities are very difficult to be identified by pixel-based classifiers or object-oriented image analysis, as they are often a complicated combination of multiple ground objects (e.g., buildings, roads, grassland, etc.). Scene classifiers, especially deep learning methods can exploit the structure or contextual information of image scenes and then improve the performance of LCZ classification. However, the square and uniform-sized image patches often bring about extra challenges, as they cannot exactly match LCZ entities of diverse sizes and shapes in most cases. In this study, a sequential virtual scene method is presented to identify LCZ entities of diverse shapes and sizes, which consists of a small “core patch” for scanning diverse entities and sequential virtual scenes for providing abundant context. Specifically, the Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) were used to learn the spatial relationship among virtual scenes, respectively. Importantly, a “self-attention” mechanism is designed to weigh the contribution of every virtual scene for alleviating the influences of mixed patches, according to the similarity between its hidden state and the final hidden state. Experiments prove SVS achieves better accuracies than random forest and ResNet and has the outstanding capacity of identifying irregular LCZ entities. It is a promising way to carry out LCZ mapping in cities of different types due to its flexibility and adaptability.

In this study, ultra-high-speed laser cladding (UHSLC) and traditional low-speed laser cladding (LSLC) were employed to prepare high-quality Inconel625 coatings on 27SiMn substrates. UHSLC has cladding speeds of 30 m/min, which are 15 times faster than those of LSLC, and it produces a much greater cladding efficiency, which is 13.9 times greater than LSLC. The microstructure of the Inconel625 coatings was investigated in detail utilizing field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA). According to the FESEM results, UHSLC Inconel625 coatings have more refined crystals than LSLC Inconel625 coatings. Nevertheless, the EPMA results indicate that the UHSLC Inconel625 coatings exhibit much more severe elemental segregation. Moreover, the hardness, wear and corrosion resistance of Inconel625 coatings are significantly enhanced by increasing the laser cladding speed. Furthermore, the reasons for the differences in microstructure and properties of Inconel625 coatings prepared by UHSLC and LSLC were clarified by finite element simulation. UHSLC technique is, therefore, more suitable for preparing Inconel625 coatings on 27SiMn steel surfaces than LSLC.

Frequency regulation is a critical issue in the islanded microgrids, especially the integration of high penetration of the wind power generator. In order to provide inertial and primary frequency support to the wind power system, this article proposes an equivalent rotor speed compensation control scheme of PMSG for frequency support in the islanded microgrids. A new variable combining pitch angle and rotor speed is defined as the equivalent rotor speed. The equivalent rotor speed versus de-loaded power curve is designed to preserve a part of active power among the whole wind speed area. And the inertia control scheme is optimized by adding a virtual compensation variable to the equivalent rotor speed to obtain the reference of the machine-side converter control loop. Adopting the proposed scheme, the PMSG-based wind turbine can achieve a similar frequency regulation performance to synchronous generators. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Background: Infection is the most common complication of Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome (INS) and the main cause of INS recurrence, severe infection and even leading to mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the risk factors of severe infection in INS children and the clinical parameters influencing prognosis.Methods: Totally 147 children with INS and concomitant infections were enrolled and classified into the severe infection group (SIG) and Non-severe infection group (Non-SIG). The clinical characteristics and auxiliary examination results were compared between the two groups, and the early-warning parameters for severe infection and risk factors for poor prognosis were evaluated.Results: There were 49 patients in the SIG, 98 patients in the Non-SIG. In the SIG, the most common severe infections disease included severe pneumonia (63.6%), severe sepsis (30.6%), septic shock (4.1%). In SIG, Gram-positive bacteria (GPB) were more common, as was respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and the three most common strains were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and Staphylococcus epidermidis. There were more steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome and combination of steroids and immunosuppressants in SIG, compared with the Non-SIG (P = 0.000). Patients in the SIG has lower complement 3 (C3, ≤ 0.55 g/L,) and absolute lymphocyte count (ALC, ≤ 1.5 × 109/L) (P = 0.004). Logistic regression analysis revealed that the independent risk factors for severe infections were the combined use of immunosuppressants [95% confidence interval (CI):1.569–463.541, P = 0.023], steroid resistance (95% CI: 4.845–2,071.880, P = 0.003), C-reactive protein (CRP) ≥8 mg/L (95% CI: 43.581–959, 935.668, P = 0.001), and infections caused by GPB (95% CI: 27.126–2,118, 452.938, P = 0.002), influenza (95% CI: 2.494–1, 932.221, P = 0.012) and RSV (95% CI: 5.011–24 963.819, P = 0.007). The patients in the SIG were classified into the survival group (N = 39) and the mortality group (N = 5). Logistic regression analysis showed that white blood cell count (WBC) >15 × 109/L (95% CI: 1.046–2.844, P = 0.033) was an independent risk factor of poor prognosis for these patients.Conclusions: Resistance to steroids, combined with steroids and IS agents, and GPB infections (especially SA) are high-risk factors for severe infection in children with INS. We should monitor CRP ≥ 8 mg/L, C3 ≤ 0.55 g/L and ALC ≤ 1.5 × 109/L to avoid developing severe infection. Accompanied by an increase in ANC, WBC significantly increased, suggesting a fatal infection.

Landslides have been frequently occurring in the high mountainous areas in China and poses serious threats to peoples’ lives and property, economic development, and national security. Detecting and monitoring quiescent or active landslides is important for predicting risks and mitigating losses. However, traditional ground survey methods, such as field investigation, GNSS, and total stations, are only suitable for field investigation at a specific site rather than identifying landslides over a large area, as they are expensive, time-consuming, and laborious. In this study, the feasibility of using SBAS-InSAR to detect landslides in the high mountainous areas along the Yunnan Myanmar border was tested first, with fifty-four IW mode Sentinel-1A ascending scenes from 12 January 2019 to 8 December 2020. Next, the Yolo deep-learning model with Gaofen-2 images captured on 5 December 2020 was tested. Finally, the two techniques were combined to achieve better performance, given each of them has intrinsic limitations on landslide detection. The experiment indicated that the combination could improve the match rate between detection results and references, which implied that the performance of landslide detection can be improved with the fusion of time series SAR images and optical images.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor worldwide. Chromosome 8 open reading frame 76 (C8orf76), a novel gene located in the nucleus, is highly expressed in many tumor types. However, the specific mechanisms and functions of C8orf76 in HCC remain unclear. Here, we reported for the first time that C8orf76 gene expression levels were frequently upregulated in liver cancer and significantly correlated with HCC development. C8orf76 downregulation induced G1-S arrest and inhibited cell proliferation. Intriguingly, C8orf76 deficiency could accelerate erastin or sorafenib-induced ferroptosis through increasing lipid reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Moreover, although C8orf76 overexpression did not affect tumorigenesis under normal conditions, it increased resistance to lipid disturbance and ferroptosis triggered by erastin or sorafenib, which further facilitated HCC cell growth and tumor progression. Mechanistically, C8orf76 bound to the promoter region of the solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11) gene and upregulated SLC7A11 transcriptionally. SLC7A11-dependent cystine import led to sufficient GSH synthesis and lipid peroxidation inhibition, thus accelerating tumor growth. Our study indicated that C8orf76 could be a novel marker for HCC diagnosis. In addition, a better comprehensive understanding of the potential role of C8orf76 in HCC helped us develop novel therapeutic strategies for this intractable cancer.

Abstract Background Hyperuricemia, pulmonary hypertension, renal failure, and alkaline intoxication syndrome (HUPRA syndrome) is a rare autosomal recessive mitochondrial disease. SARS2 gene encoding seryl‐tRNA synthetase is the only pathogenic gene of HUPRA syndrome. All the previously reported cases with HUPRA syndrome were detected for homozygous mutation. Methods We identified compound heterozygous mutations causing HUPRA syndrome using whole‐exome sequencing, and verifed pathogenicity with ACMG standards. All the previously published cases with SARS2 mutations were reviewed. Results SARS2 gene compound heterozygotes variants were detected in this Chinese patient (c.667G>A/c.1205G>A). Bioinformatics studies and protein models predict that a new variant (c.667G>A) is likely to be pathogenic. A total of six patients, five of whom were previously reported with HUPRA syndrome, were analyzed. All of the six had typical clinical manifestations of HUPRA syndrome, except the Chinese girl who had no pulmonary hypertension or alkaline intoxication. The shrunken kidney was more prominent in our proband. The average survival time for previously reported patients was 17 months, and the Chinese girl was 70 months. Three mutation variants were found, including five homozygous mutants, three of which were Palestinian (c.1169A > G), two of which were from a Spanish family (c.1205G> A), and one was a new variant (c.667G>A/c.1205G>A). Conclusion We found a new pathogenic form (compound heterozygous mutation) causing HUPRA syndrome, and identified a novel pathogenic site (c.667G>A) of the SARS2 gene, expanding the spectrum of SARS2 pathogenic variants. The mild phenotype in complex heterozygous mutations is described.

Although many approaches have been used to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the clinical benefits remain limited, particularly for late stage HCC. In recent years, studies have focused on immunotherapy for HCC. Immunotherapies have shown promising clinical outcomes in several types of cancers and potential therapeutic effects for advanced HCC. In this review, we summarize the immune tolerance and immunotherapeutic strategies for HCC as well as the main challenges of current therapeutic approaches. We also present alternative strategies for overcoming these limitations.

Abstract The Internet of Everything (IoE), which aims to realize information exchange and communications for anything with the Internet, has revolutionized our modern world. Serving as the driving force for devices in the IoE network, power supply systems play a fundamental role in the development of the IoE. However, due to the complexity, multifunctionality and wide‐scale deployment of diverse applications, power supply systems face great challenges, including distribution, connection, charging technologies, and management. In this review, some challenges and advances in the development of both power supply systems and their units are presented. In the overall system‐level field, establishing sustainable and maintenance‐free power supply systems through wireless connections, efficient power management and integrated energy harvesting and storage systems is highlighted. Additionally, the main performance metrics of power supply units are discussed, including energy density, service life, and self‐power ability. In addition, some directions of power quality assessment for both the system and unit levels of power supply systems are presented, aiming to provide insight into the future development of high‐performance power supply systems for the IoE.

Abstract Background Dendritic cells (DCs) alter their role from being immunostimulatory to immunosuppressive at advanced stages of tumor progression, but the influence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) and their secreted factors on generation and phenotypic change of DCs is unknown. Retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) plays a role in regulation of other cellular processes including leukemic stemness besides its antiviral function. Methods Short hairpin RNA-mediated gene silencing was employed to generate stable RIG-I-knocked-down human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines. Expression levels of genes and proteins in spheres of those HCC cells were determined by quantitative real-time PCR and Western bot, respectively. Levels of secreted cytokines were measured by ELISA. The surface molecule expression levels of DCs were analyzed using flow cytometry. The ability of DCs to induce proliferation of T cells was assessed by a mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) assay. Results RIG-I-knocked-down HCC cells showed upregulated expression of stem cell marker genes, enhanced secretion of factors suppressing in vitro generation of DCs into the conditioned medium (CM), and induction of a phenotype of tumor-infiltrating DCs (TIDCs) with low levels of DC markers in their tumors in nude mice. Those DCs and TIDCs showed reduced MLR, indicating RIG-I deficiency-induced immunotolerance. The RIG-I-deficient HCC cells secreted more TGF-β1 than did reference cells. The tumors formed after injection of RIG-I-deficient HCC cells had higher TGF-β1 contents than did tumors derived from control cells. DC generation and MLR suppressed by the CM of RIG-I-deficient HCC cells were restored by an anti-TGF-β1 antibody. TGF-β1-induced phosphorylation of Smad2 and Akt was enhanced in RIG-I-deficient HCC spheres, knockdown of AKT gene expression abolishing the augmentation of TGF-β1-induced Smad2 phosphorylation. Akt and p-Akt were co-immunoprecipitated with Smad2 in cytoplasmic proteins of RIG-I-deficient spheres but not in those of control spheres, the amounts of co-immunoprecipitated Akt and p-Akt being increased by TGF-β stimulation. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that RIG-I deficiency in HCC cells induced their stemness, enhanced secretion and signaling of TGF-β1, tolerogenic TIDCs and less generation of DCs, and the results suggest involvement of TGF-β1 in those RIG-I deficiency-induced tolerogenic changes and involvement of CSCs in DC-mediated immunotolerance.

Integral imaging has been considered as the most applicable technology of true 3D display in the near future. In this paper, we propose the method to achieve full parallax and large-screen integral imaging display based on mini LED. Compared to the existing integral imaging systems based on the LED, the proposed method can present both horizontal and vertical parallaxes. We explore the optical parameter matching method between mini LED display unit and lenslet unit and design three different shapes of lenslet arrays. The imaging performance of lenslet arrays of circular-shape, square-shape, and hexagonal-shape is analyzed. The method of window interception is proposed to generate elemental images for the lenslet arrays with different apertures and arranging structures. The experimental results show that the true 3D display with full parallax and screen scalability has been realized using the proposed method and the display effect of lenslet array with hexagonal-shape is the best according to the evaluation of both subjective and objective merits.

Cf/C-SiC composites have become the preferred material for high-temperature load-bearing applications because of their low density, high strength, and excellent thermal-physical properties. Due to the composite’s poor sintering performance, the sintering temperature and pressure required for the preparation of Cf/C-SiC by traditional methods are also relatively high, which limits its engineering application. Herein, based on the precursor-derived ceramic route and C/C composites material preparation process, a binary binder (coal pitch and polysilylacetylene) is developed, which combines a carbon source, SiC precursor, and semi-ceramic SiC filler organically. Then, the SiC phase was successfully introduced into C/C composites by the slurry impregnation-hot pressing sintering method. The prepared Cf/C-SiC composites showed good mechanical properties, with a density of 1.53 g/cm3 and a bending strength of 339 ± 21 MPa. Moreover, the effects of the binary binder on the microstructure, density, and mechanical properties of Cf/C-SiC composites were investigated. This work provides a novel and effective approach to fabricating Cf/C-SiC composites with low density and high strength.

Finding non-standard or new metabolic pathways has important applications in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology and the analysis and reconstruction of metabolic networks. Branched metabolic pathways dominate in metabolic networks and depict a more comprehensive picture of metabolism compared to linear pathways. Although progress has been developed to find branched metabolic pathways, few efforts have been made in identifying branched metabolic pathways via atom group tracking. In this paper, we present a pathfinding method called BPFinder for finding branched metabolic pathways by atom group tracking, which aims to guide the synthetic design of metabolic pathways. BPFinder enumerates linear metabolic pathways by tracking the movements of atom groups in metabolic network and merges the linear atom group conserving pathways into branched pathways. Two merging rules based on the structure of conserved atom groups are proposed to accurately merge the branched compounds of linear pathways to identify branched pathways. Furthermore, the integrated information of compound similarity, thermodynamic feasibility and conserved atom groups is also used to rank the pathfinding results for feasible branched pathways. Experimental results show that BPFinder is more capable of recovering known branched metabolic pathways as compared to other existing methods, and is able to return biologically relevant branched pathways and discover alternative branched pathways of biochemical interest. The online server of BPFinder is available at http://114.215.129.245:8080/atomic/. The program, source code and data can be downloaded from https://github.com/hyr0771/BPFinder.

Surface oxidation of bacterial cellulose (BC) was done with the TEMPO-mediated oxidation mechanism system. After that, TEMPO-oxidized bacterial cellulose (TOBC) was impregnated with silver sulfadiazine (AgSD) to prepare nanocomposite membranes. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was carried out to determine the existence of aldehyde groups on BC nanofibers and X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrated the degree of crystallinity. FESEM analysis revealed the impregnation of AgSD nanoparticles at TOBC nanocomposites with the average diameter size ranging from 11 nm to 17.5 nm. The sample OBCS3 showed higher antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli by the disc diffusion method. The results showed AgSD content, dependent antibacterial activity against all tested bacteria, and degree of crystallinity increases with TOBC and AgSD. The main advantage of the applications of TEMPO-mediated oxidation to BC nanofibers is that the crystallinity of BC nanofibers is unchanged and increased after the oxidation. Also enhanced the reactivity of BC as it is one of the most promising method for cellulose fabrication and functionalization. We believe that the novel composite membrane could be a potential candidate for biomedical applications like wound dressing, BC scaffold, and tissue engineering.