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Neuroligins (NLGNs) are one of the autism susceptibility genes, however, the mechanism that how dysfunction of NLGNs leads to Autism remains unclear. More and more studies have shown that the transcriptome alteration may be one of the important factors to generate Autism. Therefore, we are very concerned about whether Neuroligins would affect transcriptional regulation, which may at last lead to Autism. As a single-transmembrane receptor, proteolytic cleavage is one of the most important posttranslational modifications of NLGN proteins. In this study, we demonstrated the existence of DNlg3 C-terminal fragment. Studies in the S2 cells and HEK293T cells showed the evidence for nuclear access of the DNlg3 C-terminal fragment. Then we identified the possible targets of DNlg3 C-terminal fragment after its nuclear access by RNA-seq. The bioinformatics analysis indicated the transcriptome alteration between dnlg3 null flies and wild type flies focused on genes for the innate immune responses. These results were consistent with the infection hypotheses for autism. Our study revealed the nuclear access ability of DNlg3 c-terminal fragment and its possible function in transcriptional regulation of the innate immune response genes. This work provides the new links between synaptic adhesion molecule NLGNs and immune activation, which may help us to get a deeper understanding on the relationship between NLGNs and Autism. • DNlg3 C-terminal fragment could translocate into the nuclear and regulate the transcription. • Dnlg3 null flies showed an increased expression of the innate immune response genes. • A single knockout of a synaptic molecule in Drosophila would lead to the stronger activation of the entire innate immune responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was to explore whether Ginkgo biloba extract (GBE) improve memory impairment by alleviating neuroinflammation signaling in mice with status epilepticus. Methods: The status epilepticus (SE) mice model was established by pilocarpine and treated with 100 mg / kg of GBE for 14 days. Spontaneous alternation of Y‐maze and new object recognition were used to explore memory impairment. To examine glial cell activation, we performed immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining. The activation of NF‐κB signaling and the expression level of lncRNA‐COX2 were detected by Western blot and qRT‐PCR, respectively. Adeno‐associated virus lncRNA‐COX2 was injected into mice for overexpression of lncRNA‐COX2. Results: After GBE treatment, the spontaneous alternation rate and the recognition coefficient in SE mice were both increased. Moreover, activation of glial cells, NF‐κB signaling and lncRNA‐COX2 were significantly decreased in SE mice. In the GBE‐treated SE mice with lncRNA‐COX2 overexpression, NF‐κB signaling was up‐regulated again; the reduced level of inflammation factors was reversed; the GBE‐rescued spontaneous alternation rate of Y‐maze was eliminated. Conclusion: Our results suggested that GBE reduces the hippocampal inflammation by down‐regulating lncRNA‐COX2 / NF‐κB signaling in the SE mice, leading to the decrease of neuronal damage and the improvement of memory functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is pivotal in sustainable fuel production. Neutral‐pH OER reduces operational risks and enables direct coupling to electrochemical CO2 reduction, but typically is hampered by low current densities. Here, the rate limitations in neutral‐pH OER are clarified. Using cobalt‐based catalyst films and phosphate ions as essential electrolyte bases, current–potential curves are recorded and simulated. Operando X‐ray spectroscopy shows the potential‐dependent structural changes independent of the electrolyte phosphate concentration. Operando Raman spectroscopy uncovers electrolyte acidification at a micrometer distance from the catalyst surface, limiting the Tafel slope regime to low current densities. The electrolyte proton transport is facilitated by diffusion of either phosphate ions (base pathway) or H3O+ ions (water pathway). The water pathway is not associated with an absolute current limit but is energetically inefficient due to the Tafel‐slope increase by 60 mV dec−1, shown by an uncomplicated mathematical model. The base pathway is a specific requirement in neutral‐pH OER and can support high current densities, but only with accelerated buffer‐base diffusion. Catalyst internal phosphate diffusion or other internal transport mechanisms do not limit the current densities. A proof‐of‐principle experiment shows that current densities exceeding 1 A cm−2 can also be achieved in neutral‐pH OER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose two conjectural relationships between the equivariant Gromov–Witten invariants of the resolved conifold under diagonal and anti-diagonal actions and the Gromov–Witten invariants of P 1 and verify their validity in genus zero approximation. We also provide evidences to support the validity of these relationships in genus one and genus two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the makeup transfer and removal tasks simultaneously, which aim to transfer the makeup from a reference image to a source image and remove the makeup from the with-makeup image respectively. Existing methods have achieved much advancement in constrained scenarios, but it is still very challenging for them to transfer makeup between images with large pose and expression differences, or handle makeup details like blush on cheeks or highlight on the nose. In addition, they are hardly able to control the degree of makeup during transferring or to transfer a specified part in the input face. These defects limit the application of previous makeup transfer methods to real-world scenarios. In this work, we propose a Pose and expression robust Spatial-aware GAN (abbreviated as PSGAN++). PSGAN++ is capable of performing both detail-preserving makeup transfer and effective makeup removal. For makeup transfer, PSGAN++ uses a Makeup Distill Network (MDNet) to extract makeup information, which is embedded into spatial-aware makeup matrices. We also devise an Attentive Makeup Morphing (AMM) module that specifies how the makeup in the source image is morphed from the reference image, and a makeup detail loss to supervise the model within the selected makeup detail area. On the other hand, for makeup removal, PSGAN++ applies an Identity Distill Network (IDNet) to embed the identity information from with-makeup images into identity matrices. Finally, the obtained makeup/identity matrices are fed to a Style Transfer Network (STNet) that is able to edit the feature maps to achieve makeup transfer or removal. To evaluate the effectiveness of our PSGAN++, we collect a Makeup Transfer In the Wild (MT-Wild) dataset that contains images with diverse poses and expressions and a Makeup Transfer High-Resolution (MT-HR) dataset that contains high-resolution images. Experiments demonstrate that PSGAN++ not only achieves state-of-the-art results with fine makeup details even in cases of large pose/expression differences but also can perform partial or degree-controllable makeup transfer. Both the code and the newly collected datasets will be released at https://github.com/wtjiang98/PSGAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entomopathogenic fungi of Metarhizium spp., are one of the candidates for eco‐friendly pest control instead of chemical control agents. But the development involved in producing a wide range of mycoinsecticides and application of biotechnology widely is restricted, usually due to the defect of slow action and sensitivity to environmental stresses. This study evaluates the tolerance of conidia of Metarhizium flavoviride Ma130821 to high temperature exposure, humidity level, ultraviolet radiation and the pathogenicity against larvae of Potosia brevitarsis Lewis under environmental stresses. Results showed that M. flavoviride Ma130821 had the higher tolerance ability to 40°C with continuous exposure for 24 h, the conidial germination rate was 54.00%, radial growth was 1.59 mm/day and sporulation was 9.37 × 106 conidia/cm2, the ability to desiccation with humidity of 53% (85.33%, 1.94 mm/d, 2.13 × 107 conidia/cm2), the ability of uvioresistant effect with 900 s radiation (98.11%, 0.91 mm/d, 8.87 × 106 conidia/cm2). The data of bioassay at artificial adverse condition had been fitted to the time–concentration–mortality (TCM) model. The cumulative mortality of P. brevitarsis larvae was 76.67% with conidial concentrations of 3.41 × 108 conidia/mL. The low lethal concentration (LC50) in 7 days after inoculation (DAI) and short lethal time (LT50) was 6.70 × 109 conidia/mL and 8.02 days, respectively. The mortality also reached to 73.33% at natural condition, with conidial concentration of 3.75 × 108 conidia/mL, but the LT50 delayed to 14.08 days. Our results demonstrate that entomopathogenic fungi M. flavoviride Ma130821, with significantly and superior antistress capacity and high virulence, could be considered a promising biocontrol agent against white grubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Targeted therapy has stepped into the perioperative treatment setting for oncogenic NSCLC. • The role of adjuvant chemotherapy, surrogate endpoints, and recurrence mechanisms need deeper investigation. • The routine evaluation of genetic alteration, and standardizing the pathological assessment and application of ctDNA/MRD, represent a potential development orientation. Targeted therapy has stepped into the perioperative treatment arena and launched a radical revolution in the treatment of early-stage oncogene-driven non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A series of practice-changing clinical trials has enriched the therapeutic perspectives of potentially curable NSCLC. While the CTONG1104 trial took the first step in investigating the adjuvant gefitinib – a first-generation epidermal growth factor receptor–tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI), for the treatment of resected EGFR -mutated NSCLC – the subsequent ADAURA study marked adjuvant osimertinib as the standard of care for resected EGFR -mutant NSCLC. Other targeted agents matched for ALK, ROS1, NTRK, BRAF V600, and RET molecular alterations are also currently being evaluated in the adjuvant and neoadjuvant settings, and there is an urgent need to study biomarker selection, optimal duration, and paradigm making. All these efforts are intended to hit the same target, which is to treat patients on a more personalized level. We review herein the recent major breakthroughs in perioperative targeted therapy for oncogene-driven NSCLC, focusing especially on data from published clinical trials. We discuss challenges from surgical, pathological, and oncological perspectives, and provide recommended strategies for the clinical management of early-stage NSCLC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quercetin and kaempferol are flavonoids widely present in fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants. They have attracted much attention due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, and neuroprotective properties. As the guarantee cells in direct contact with germ cells, Sertoli cells exert the role of support, nutrition, and protection in spermatogenesis. In the current study, network pharmacology was used to explore the targets and signaling pathways of quercetin and kaempferol in treating spermatogenic disorders. In vitro experiments were integrated to verify the results of quercetin and kaempferol against heat stress-induced Sertoli cell injury. The online platform was used to analyze the GO biological pathway and KEGG pathway. The results of the network pharmacology showed that quercetin and kaempferol intervention in spermatogenesis disorders were mostly targeting the oxidative response to oxidative stress, the ROS metabolic process and the NFκB pathway. The results of the cell experiment showed that Quercetin and kaempferol can prevent the decline of cell viability induced by heat stress, reduce the expression levels of HSP70 and ROS in Sertoli cells, reduce p-NF-κB-p65 and p-IκB levels, up-regulate the expression of occludin, vimentin and F-actin in Sertoli cells, and protect cell structure. Our research is the first to demonstrate that quercetin and kaempferol may exert effects in resisting the injury of cell viability and structure under heat stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove that for any tau-symmetric bihamiltonian deformation of the tau-cover of the Principal Hierarchy associated with a semisimple Frobenius manifold, the deformed tau-cover admits an infinite set of Virasoro symmetries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Camouflaged object detection (COD) aims to identify the objects that conceal themselves in natural scenes. Accurate COD suffers from a number of challenges associated with low boundary contrast and the large variation of object appearances, e.g., object size and shape. To address these challenges, we propose a novel Context-aware Cross-level Fusion Network ($\text{C}^{2}\text{F}$ -Net), which fuses context-aware cross-level features for accurately identifying camouflaged objects. Specifically, we compute informative attention coefficients from multi-level features with our Attention-induced Cross-level Fusion Module (ACFM), which further integrates the features under the guidance of attention coefficients. We then propose a Dual-branch Global Context Module (DGCM) to refine the fused features for informative feature representations by exploiting rich global context information. Multiple ACFMs and DGCMs are integrated in a cascaded manner for generating a coarse prediction from high-level features. The coarse prediction acts as an attention map to refine the low-level features before passing them to our Camouflage Inference Module (CIM) to generate the final prediction. We perform extensive experiments on three widely used benchmark datasets and compare $\text{C}^{2}\text{F}$ -Net with state-of-the-art (SOTA) models. The results show that $\text{C}^{2}\text{F}$ -Net is an effective COD model and outperforms SOTA models remarkably. Further, an evaluation on polyp segmentation datasets demonstrates the promising potentials of our $\text{C}^{2}\text{F}$ -Net in COD downstream applications. Our code is publicly available at: https://github.com/Ben57882/C2FNet-TSCVT [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this article, an adaptive multi‐dimensional Taylor network (MTN) control approach is developed for nonlinear systems subject to input saturation and full state time‐varying constraints. Using the function approximation property of MTN, an adaptive tracking control method is developed by incorporating the concept of time‐varying state constraints into the construct of barrier Lyapunov functions. The proposed approach not only ensures all closed‐loop system signals are bounded but also that all states of the system never violate the given time‐varying constraints. The most important advantage of the proposed control strategy is that it can obtain satisfactory control effects with low computational cost. Finally, two examples are given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a natural language expression and an image/video, the goal of referring segmentation is to produce the pixel-level masks of the entities described by the subject of the expression. Previous approaches tackle this problem by implicit feature interaction and fusion between visual and linguistic modalities in a one-stage manner. However, human tends to solve the referring problem in a progressive manner based on informative words in the expression, i.e., first roughly locating candidate entities and then distinguishing the target one. In this paper, we propose a cross-modal progressive comprehension (CMPC) scheme to effectively mimic human behaviors and implement it as a CMPC-I (Image) module and a CMPC-V (Video) module to improve referring image and video segmentation models. For image data, our CMPC-I module first employs entity and attribute words to perceive all the related entities that might be considered by the expression. Then, the relational words are adopted to highlight the target entity as well as suppress other irrelevant ones by spatial graph reasoning. For video data, our CMPC-V module further exploits action words based on CMPC-I to highlight the correct entity matched with the action cues by temporal graph reasoning. In addition to the CMPC, we also introduce a simple yet effective Text-Guided Feature Exchange (TGFE) module to integrate the reasoned multimodal features corresponding to different levels in the visual backbone under the guidance of textual information. In this way, multi-level features can communicate with each other and be mutually refined based on the textual context. Combining CMPC-I or CMPC-V with TGFE can form our image or video version referring segmentation frameworks and our frameworks achieve new state-of-the-art performances on four referring image segmentation benchmarks and three referring video segmentation benchmarks respectively. Our code is available at https://github.com/spyflying/CMPC-Refseg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision and language understanding techniques have achieved remarkable progress, but currently it is still difficult to well handle problems involving very fine-grained details. For example, when the robot is told to “bring me the book in the girl’s left hand”, most existing methods would fail if the girl holds one book respectively in her left and right hand. In this work, we introduce a new task named human-centric relation segmentation (HRS), as a fine-grained case of HOI-det. HRS aims to predict the relations between the human and surrounding entities and identify the relation-correlated human parts, which are represented as pixel-level masks. For the above exemplar case, our HRS task produces results in the form of relation triplets $\langle$ 〈 girl [left hand], hold, book $\rangle$ 〉 and exacts segmentation masks of the book, with which the robot can easily accomplish the grabbing task. Correspondingly, we collect a new Person In Context (PIC) dataset for this new task, which contains 17,122 high-resolution images and densely annotated entity segmentation and relations, including 141 object categories, 23 relation categories and 25 semantic human parts. We also propose a Simultaneous Matching and Segmentation (SMS) framework as a solution to the HRS task. It contains three parallel branches for entity segmentation, subject object matching and human parsing respectively. Specifically, the entity segmentation branch obtains entity masks by dynamically-generated conditional convolutions; the subject object matching branch detects the existence of any relations, links the corresponding subjects and objects by displacement estimation and classifies the interacted human parts; and the human parsing branch generates the pixelwise human part labels. Outputs of the three branches are fused to produce the final HRS results. Extensive experiments on PIC and V-COCO datasets show that the proposed SMS method outperforms baselines with the 36 FPS inference speed. Notably, SMS outperforms the best performing baseline $m$ m -KERN with only 17.6 percent time cost. The dataset and code will be released at http://picdataset.com/challenge/index/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a tau cover of the generalized Drinfeld–Sokolov hierarchy associated with an arbitrary affine Kac–Moody algebra with gradations s⩽1$\mathrm{s}\leqslant \mathbb {1}$ and derive its Virasoro symmetries. By imposing the Virasoro constraints we obtain solutions of the Drinfeld–Sokolov hierarchy of Witten–Kontsevich and of Brezin–Gross–Witten types, and of those characterized by certain ordinary differential equations of Painlevé type. We also show the existence of affine Weyl group actions on the space of solutions of such ordinary differential equations, which generalizes the theory of Noumi and Yamada on affine Weyl group symmetries of the Painlevé‐type equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bimetallic metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) possess two different metal ions as nodes in their molecular frameworks. They are prepared by either one-pot syntheses, wherein different metals are mixed with suitable ligands and linkers, or by adopting post-synthetic modifications by soaking a monometallic MOF in a concentrated solution of a different (but compatible) metal ion. These bimetallic MOFs exhibit synergistic effects and enhanced properties compared to their monometallic counterparts, such as improved adsorption selectivity, selective catalysis and structural stability. Certainly, there are still many open challenges, given that bimetallic MOFs suffer from the typical drawbacks of MOFs, including high moisture sensitivity, easy oxidation due to their varying oxidation states, and possible metal leaching in liquids. In the present perspective, progress in the research on the synthesis and properties of bimetallic MOFs has been reviewed systematically, describing the synthetic strategies adopted to prepare targeted bimetallic MOFs and their applications in gas adsorption, catalysis, energy storage and conversion, and luminescence sensing. Additionally, the challenges facing the synthesis of stable and robust bimetallic MOFs have been discussed with a final outlook on their further development prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To develop photovoltaics embracing the both features of high performance and low cost has drawn attentions of researchers, yet representing the significant challenges. In this work, two non-fused ring acceptors (NFRAs), namely p-PTIC4Cl and t-PTIC4Cl, were developed via a short synthetic route. By tethering unaxisymmetric aromatic chains to thienyl bridge of NFRAs, we revealed that the tuning of aromatic chains allows modulating the self-assembly and stacking of NFRAs in solid, hence influencing their optoelectronic and photovoltaic properties. As results, p-PTIC4Cl, consisting of 3-hexylbenzene with large axial angle to backbone, can achieve superior PCE of 11.30% than that of t-PTIC4Cl with 2-hexylthiophene chains (PCE of 6.49%), when pairing with polymer donor PBDB-TF. Despite of the only subtle structural difference, the p-PTIC4Cl based blend films possess better exciton dissociation and charge transfer rates, as well as photostability, to those of t-PTIC4Cl based blends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural practice of straw incorporation is often employed to enhance soil fertility, improve soil properties and reduce nitrate leaching via deep burying. Nevertheless, the tradeoff between nitrate leaching and N 2 O emissions caused by deep straw incorporation in various soil types remains uncertain. To address this knowledge gap, a mesocosm column experiment was established to evaluate the impact of straw amendment (NS) and of straw plus application of denitrifying bacterial agents (NSS) at column depths of 20–60 cm on NO 3 --N leaching and N 2 O emission across four soil types (brown, cinnamon, fluvo-aquic and mortar black soil) in the North China plain. The results showed that the NS and NSS treatments significantly reduced NO 3 --N leaching by 47%–73% and 37%–81%, respectively, across four soil types, in comparison to the control without straw and bacterial agents (N), with the greatest reduction recorded in the mortar black soil (by 73% for NS and 81% for NSS). Meanwhile, the NS and NSS treatments resulted in a significant increase in cumulative N 2 O emissions (by 289% for NS and 598% for NSS) in the acidic brown soil with a soil pH ranging between 4.8 and 6.5, but showed no significant effect in the remaining three soil types in which soil pH is above 7.5. When compared to the NS treatment, NSS treatment reduced the cumulative N 2 O emissions in the fluvo-aquic soil by 42%. We further showed that soil type is the primary driver of bacterial community composition (R 2 = 62.3%; P < 0.001), followed by soil depth (R 2 = 5.2%; P < 0.001). The incorporation of straw and denitrifying bacterial agents induced significant change in the bacterial community in the middle depth layers, and increases in nosZ gene abundance and the relative abundance of inoculant-similar OTUs significantly by 0.5–37 folds and 2.8–6900 folds, respectively, in all soil types, suggesting the colonization of denitrifying bacterial agents. Our results further suggested that the Streptomycetales were the most important predictors for N 2 O emissions, and the relative abundance of Streptomycetales was highly positively correlated with N 2 O emissions across the four soil types. Overall, the study suggests that deep straw incorporation as soil amendment is effective in mitigating nitrate leaching in all four soil types, especially in the fluvo-aquic soil, due to its dual effects on controlling nitrate leaching and N 2 O emissions. However, it is not recommended for the acidic brown soils as it may cause increased N 2 O emissions. [Display omitted] • Straw and bacterial agents incorporation markedly reduced soil nitrate leaching in 4 soil types. • Straw and bacterial agents incorporation increased N 2 O emissions in the acidic brown soil only. • The application of nosZ -harboring denitrifier increased nosZ gene abundance in all soil types. • Streptomycetales showed highly positive correlation with N 2 O emission across the 4 soil types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coexistence of microplastics (MPs) and heavy metals in sediments has caused a potential threat to sediment biota. However, differences in the effects of MPs and heavy metals on microbes and plants in sediments under different sediment conditions remain unclear. Hence, we investigated the influence of polyethylene (PE) and polylactic acid (PLA) MPs on microbial community structure, Pb bioavailability, and wheatgrass traits under sequential incubation of sediments (i.e., flood, drainage, and planting stages). Results showed that the sediment enzyme activities presented a dose-dependent effect of MPs. Besides, 10 % PLA MPs significantly increased the F1 fractions in three stages by 11.13 %, 30.10 %, and 17.26 %, respectively, thus resulting in higher Pb mobility and biotoxicity. MPs altered sediment bacterial composition and structures, and bacterial community differences were evident in different incubation stages. Moreover, the co-exposure of PLA MPs and Pb significantly decreased the shoot length and total biomass of wheatgrass and correspondingly activated the antioxidant enzyme activity. Further correlation analysis demonstrated that community structure induced by MPs was mainly driven by sediment enzyme activity. This study contributes to elucidating the combined effects of MPs and heavy metals on sediment ecosystems under different sediment conditions. [Display omitted] • Effects on enzyme activities varied with MPs types and sediment conditions. • 10 % PLA MPs significantly increased the bioavailability of Pb in sediment. • MPs reduced the complexity and stability of bacterial co-occurrence networks. • Co-exposure PLA MPs and Pb exhibited stronger negative impact on wheatgrass growth. • The bacterial structures were mainly driven by sediment enzyme activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective capture of iodine with high volatility and poisonousness is significant for reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel. In this article, we report a hierarchically porous poly(ionic liquid)‐organic cage composite membrane (PIL@CC3) possessing a gradient content distribution of CC3 cage crystals throughout the membrane to capture iodine vapor. The introduction of microporous CC3 can significantly enhance the uptake capacity of iodine up to 980 mg g−1, which is superior to that of a pristine PIL membrane carrying large meso‐ and macropores (99 mg g−1), and CC3 crystalline powder (662 mg g−1). Such enhanced performance benefits from the micro‐meso‐macroporous structure of the PIL@CC3 membrane in which the large meso‐ and macropores facilitate the mass transfer of iodine molecules from the external environment into the surface of the CC3 crystal, followed by diffusion of iodine molecules from the CC3 surface into the interior and exterior pores of the CC3 crystal. In addition, the asymmetric distribution of CC3 crystals across the PIL@CC3 membrane also displays its advantage in intercepting trace iodine, revealing its great potential for practical application. This study provides an idea for constructing hierarchically porous membrane composites for the removal of toxic vapors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocyte nuclear factor alpha (HNF1α), endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and hepatocyte apoptosis contribute to severe acute exacerbation (SAE) of liver injury. Here, we explore HNF1α–ER stress-hepatocyte apoptosis interaction in liver injury. LO2, HepG2 and SK-Hep1 cells were treated with thapsigargin (TG) or tunicamycin (TM) to induce ER stress. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) was used to induce acute liver injury in mice. Low-dose lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exacerbated liver injury in CCl4-induced mice. Significant apoptosis, HNF1α upregulation, and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) activation were observed in human-derived hepatocytes during ER stress. Knockdown of Rela, NF-κB p65, inhibited the HNF1α upregulation. Following CCl4 treatment ER stress, apoptosis, HNF1α expression and RelA phosphorylation were significantly increased in mice. HNF1α knockdown reduced activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) expression, and aggravated ER stress as well as hepatocyte apoptosis in vivo and in vitro. The double fluorescent reporter gene assay confirmed that HNF1α regulated the transcription of ATF4 promoter. LPS aggravated CCl4-induced liver injury and reduced HNF1α, and ATF4 expression. Therefore, in combination, HNF1α and ER stress could be mutually regulated forming a feedback loop, which helps in protecting the injured liver by down-regulating hepatocyte apoptosis. Low-dose LPS aggravates hepatocyte apoptosis and promotes the SAE of liver injury by interfering with the feedback regulation of HNF1α and ER stress in acute liver injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) provides a novel degree of freedom for light, deeply inspiring versatile light‐matter interactions and large‐density multiplexing computing. Recently, multimode and multichannel control of OAM beams have aroused extensive curiosity, whereas their flexible engineering in 3D space still remains challenging. Here, a new type of liquid‐crystal geometric phase optical elements is demonstrated to achieve on‐demand 3D tailoring of OAM beams. Via integrating binary and continuous phase patterns into photo‐aligned liquid crystals, customized 3D lattices of identical or propagation‐variant OAM beams are generated in an electrically tunable broadband manner. By altering the incident spin, these volumetric OAM beams can be switched among different states on the higher‐order Poincaré sphere. This work demonstrates a practical approach toward efficient OAM harnessing with large channel capacity and high spatial mode diversity, holding great potential for 3D optical manipulation, recording, and microscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This study aimed to compare the differences in the bacterial community structure of Lycium barbarum rhizosphere and elucidate the contribution of rhizosphere bacteria to the active ingredients of L. barbarum fruit. Methods and Results: This study investigated the soil and meteorological characteristics of L. barbarum rhizosphere during three growth stages across three production regions of China. High‐throughput sequencing showed significant differences in the bacterial community diversity of L. barbarum rhizosphere across the three production regions, and norank_o_Gaiellales, norank_f_Anaerolineaceae and norank_f_AKYG1722 were the highest in Ningxia. In addition, regression and path analysis revealed that pH, norank_o_Gaiellales and norank_f_AKYG1722 significantly promoted the accumulation of total sugar and flavonoids in L. barbarum fruit directly or indirectly. Soil organic matter (SOM), norank_f_Anaerolineaceae and humidity significantly promoted the accumulation of betaine. The average temperature during the growth stages, norank_f_AKYG1722, and norank_o_Gaiellales promoted the accumulation of polysaccharides. Conclusions: The interaction between rhizosphere bacteria and environmental factors promoted the accumulation of active ingredients in L. barbarum fruits. Significance and Impact of the Study: Our results provided insights to improve the quality of L. barbarum fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind speed is an important meteorological parameter, whose simulation is influenced by various physical process parameterizations. However, the impact of cumulus parameterization schemes (CPSs) on wind speed simulation at the climate scale has not been sufficiently investigated in previous studies. Using the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (ARWv3) and hydrostatic wind speed change equation, we assessed the effects of four CPSs on a 10 m wind speed simulation over mainland China in the summer of 2003. In general, different CPSs can reproduce the wind speed distribution. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of wind speed simulation to CPSs was found to be the highest in East and southern China, followed by the Tibetan Plateau, and then Northwest China. We found that the main physical processes influencing wind speed (i.e., the pressure gradient (PRE), diffusion (DFN), and convection (CON) terms) vary greatly with sub-regions. CPSs mainly affect the secondary CON that regulates the balance between the dominant terms PRE and DFN, and also has a significant effect on PRE. For example, for CON, the difference index (DIF) between the Kain–Fritsch (KF) and previous KF (pKF) CPSs is larger than 20%, corresponding to a PRE DIF of about 14%. The term of local wind speed change (Vt) is significantly more sensitive to the CPSs than the other terms with a DIF of 283% over the Tibetan Plateau, suggesting high CPS sensitivity of the simulated wind speed. In addition, we explained the causes of the CPS-induced sensitivities. This work helps understand the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) performance and emphasizes the importance of the CPS choice in simulating/forecasting wind speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to search for high activity acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors, novel 2H‐thiazole[3,2‐b][1,2,4]triazine‐3,7‐diones were synthesized by substituted benzaldehyde, bromoacetonitrile and 6‐benzyl‐3‐thio‐3,4‐dihydro‐1,2,4‐triazine‐5(2H)‐one in one pot under the assistance of ultrasound. The synthesis possible reaction mechanism were proposed. The structures of the target compounds were confirmed by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and HRMS. All the target compounds had inhibitory activity against AChE, and the compound 6‐benzyl‐2‐(4‐methoxybenzylidene)‐2H‐thiazolo[3,2‐b]‐1,2,4‐triazine‐3,7‐dione had the best activity (0.37±0.02 μM) according to the activity experimental results. The binding mode of the compound and AChE was studied by molecular docking. 2H‐thiazole[3,2‐b][1,2,4]triazine‐3,7‐diones could provide reference for the development of new AChE inhibitors with independent intellectual property rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heterogeneity and the complex cellular architecture have a crucial effect on breast cancer progression and response to treatment. However, deciphering the neoplastic subtypes and their spatial organization is still challenging. Here, we combine single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) with a microarray-based spatial transcriptomics (ST) to identify cell populations and their spatial distribution in breast cancer tissues. Malignant cells are clustered into distinct subpopulations. These cell clusters not only have diverse features, origins and functions, but also emerge to the crosstalk within subtypes. Furthermore, we find that these subclusters are mapped in distinct tissue regions, where discrepant enrichment of stromal cell types are observed. We also inferred the abundance of these tumorous subpopulations by deconvolution of large breast cancer RNA-seq cohorts, revealing differential association with patient survival and therapeutic response. Our study provides a novel insight for the cellular architecture of breast cancer and potential therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of axially chiral styrene‐based thiourea tertiary amine catalysts, which have unique characteristics such as an efficient synthetic route, multiple chiral elements, and multiple activating groups, has been rationally designed. These new chiral catalysts have proven to be efficient organocatalysts, enabling the chemo‐, diastereo‐, and enantioselective (2+4) cyclization of 2‐benzothiazolimines with homophthalic anhydrides in good yields (up to 96 %) with excellent stereoselectivities (all >95:5 dr, up to 98 % ee). More importantly, theoretical calculations elucidated the important role of an axially chiral styrene moiety in controlling both the reactivity and enantioselectivity. This work not only represents the first design of styrene‐based chiral thiourea tertiary amine catalysts and the first catalytic asymmetric (2+4) cyclization of 2‐benzothiazolimines, but also gives an in‐depth understanding of axially chiral styrene‐based organocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of axially chiral styrene‐based thiourea tertiary amine catalysts, which have unique characteristics such as an efficient synthetic route, multiple chiral elements, and multiple activating groups, has been rationally designed. These new chiral catalysts have proven to be efficient organocatalysts, enabling the chemo‐, diastereo‐, and enantioselective (2+4) cyclization of 2‐benzothiazolimines with homophthalic anhydrides in good yields (up to 96 %) with excellent stereoselectivities (all >95:5 dr, up to 98 % ee). More importantly, theoretical calculations elucidated the important role of an axially chiral styrene moiety in controlling both the reactivity and enantioselectivity. This work not only represents the first design of styrene‐based chiral thiourea tertiary amine catalysts and the first catalytic asymmetric (2+4) cyclization of 2‐benzothiazolimines, but also gives an in‐depth understanding of axially chiral styrene‐based organocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we target at the Fine-grAined human-Centric Tracklet Segmentation (FACTS) problem, where 12 human parts, e.g., face, pants, left-leg, are segmented. To reduce the heavy and tedious labeling efforts, FACTS requires only one labeled frame per video during training. The small size of human parts and the labeling scarcity makes FACTS very challenging. Considering adjacent frames of videos are continuous and human usually do not change clothes in a short time, we explicitly consider the pixel-level and frame-level context in the proposed Temporal Context segmentation Network (TCNet). On the one hand, optical flow is on-line calculated to propagate the pixel-level segmentation results to neighboring frames. On the other hand, frame-level classification likelihood vectors are also propagated to nearby frames. By fully exploiting the pixel-level and frame-level context, TCNet indirectly uses the large amount of unlabeled frames during training and produces smooth segmentation results during inference. Experimental results on four video datasets show the superiority of TCNet over the state-of-the-arts. The newly annotated datasets can be downloaded via http://liusi-group.com/projects/FACTS for the further studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background Methods Results Conclusions To examine the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risks associated with metabolic dysfunction‐associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and different numbers of cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) based on a long‐term prospective cohort.Prevalent IBD patients at baseline who were free of CVD, cancer, alcoholic liver disease, cancer and hepatitis B/C virus seropositive were included (N = 4204). MASLD, MASLD subtypes [pure MASLD, MASLD with increased alcohol intake (MetALD)], lean/non‐lean MASLD and CMRFs at baseline were defined according to the latest criteria proposed by AASLD and EASL. The primary outcome was incident CVD, including ischaemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF) and stroke. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the relationship.Overall, 1528 (36.4%) were diagnosed with MASLD at baseline. During a median of 13.1‐year follow‐up, 503 incident CVDs were identified. Compared with IBD‐only, IBD‐MASLD patients had an increased risk of CVD (HR = 1.77, 95%CI: 1.26–2.49), especially in those with MetALD (HR = 2.34, 1.34–4.11) and lean MASLD (HR = 2.30, 1.13–4.66). As the number of CMRFs increased, the risks of CVD were significantly increased (ptrend <0.001), with a 116% and 92% excess risk in MASLD with 3 CMRFs (HR = 2.16, 1.48–3.15) and ≥4 CMRFs (HR = 1.92, 1.27–2.91). Similar excess risk of incident IHD and HF was observed in IBD‐MASLD, either pure MASLD or MetALD, as well as lean/non‐lean MASLD.MASLD is associated with increased CVD risk in IBD patients, with greater risk as number of CMRFs increased and evidently higher risk in MetALD and lean MASLD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Enhanced by contemporary computational advances, the prediction of drug–target interactions (DTIs) has become crucial in developing de novo and effective drugs. Existing deep learning approaches to DTI prediction are frequently beleaguered by a tendency to overfit specific molecular representations, which significantly impedes their predictive reliability and utility in novel drug discovery contexts. Furthermore, existing DTI networks often disregard the molecular size variance between macro molecules (targets) and micro molecules (drugs) by treating them at an equivalent scale that undermines the accurate elucidation of their interaction. Results We propose a novel DTI network with a differential-scale scheme to model the binding site for enhancing DTI prediction, which is named as BindingSiteDTI. It explicitly extracts multiscale substructures from targets with different scales of molecular size and fixed-scale substructures from drugs, facilitating the identification of structurally similar substructural tokens, and models the concealed relationships at the substructural level to construct interaction feature. Experiments conducted on popular benchmarks, including DUD-E, human, and BindingDB, shown that BindingSiteDTI contains significant improvements compared with recent DTI prediction methods. Availability and implementation The source code of BindingSiteDTI can be accessed at https://github.com/MagicPF/BindingSiteDTI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treating the high water-content sludge with vacuum-assisted prefabricated horizontal drains (PHDs) placed inside, geotextile tubes have the advantage of multiple drainage paths, and geomembrane tubes have the superiority of high vacuum maintenance. Therefore, converting the geotextile tube into a geomembrane tube during slurry dewatering is an effective measure for greater dewatering efficiency and better dehydration effect. In this study, a profound plane-strain consolidation model considering two-dimensional seepage is developed for explaining the dewatering mechanism of sludge in the geo-tubes. Analytical solutions are given and validated by the experiment. The impact of major variables on tube efficiency is further discussed to reference the practice design. Parametric analyses reveal the critical time corresponding to the optimal efficiency of the geotextile tube, after which its consolidation efficiency decreases significantly. However, the consolidation efficiency of a geomembrane tube increases throughout the duration. Consequently, a switching point corresponding to the iso-efficiency state of the geotextile tube and geomembrane tube can be determined for the tube conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics (MPs) accumulation in sediments has posed a huge threat to freshwater ecosystems. However, it is still unclear the effect of MPs on riparian sediment structures and contaminant adsorption under different hydrological processes. In this study, three concentrations of polyamide (PA) MPs-treated sediments (0.1%, 1%, and 10%, w/w) were subjected to natural (NA) exposure, dry-wet (DW) cycles, and freeze-thaw (FT) cycles. The results indicated that PA MPs-added sediment increased the micro-aggregates by 10.1%−18.6% after FT cycles, leading to a decrease in aggregate stability. The pH, OM, and DOC of sediments were significantly increased in DW and FT treatments. In addition, the increasing concentration of PA MPs showed an obvious decrease in aromaticity, humification, and molecular weight of sediment DOM in FT treatments. Also, high level of MPs was more likely to inhibit the formation of humic-like substances and tryptophan-like proteins. For DW and FT cycles, 0.1% and 1% PA MPs-treated sediments slightly increased the adsorption capacity of Cd(II), which may be ascribed to the aging of MPs. Further correlation analysis found that DW and FT altered the link between DOM indicators, and aggregate stability was directly related to the changes in sediment organic carbon. Our findings revealed the ecological risk of MPs accumulating in riparian sediments under typical hydrological processes. [Display omitted] • Macro-aggregate and aggregate stability significantly reduced by combined FT cycles and MPs. • DW and FT cycles showed an obvious increase in sediment properties. • The aromaticity and humification degree of DOM were significantly decreased in 10% MPs-treated sediment. • DW and FT cycles slightly increased the Cd(II) adsorption onto 0.1% and 1% MPs-treated sediments. • There was a relationship between aggregate stability and sediment organic carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this experiment, we investigated the effects of adding chlorogenic acid (CGA) to the diet on growth performance, immune function, inflammation response, antioxidant capacity and its related mechanisms of common carp (Cyprinus carpio). A total of 600 fish were selected and randomly divided into five treatment groups and fed with CGA containing 0 mg/kg (CK), 100 mg/kg (L100), 200 mg/kg (L200), 400 mg/kg (L400) and 800 mg/kg (L800) for 56 days. The results of the experiment were as follows: addition of CGA significantly increased the WGR, SGR, FER, and PER of common carp (P < 0.05). The addition of 400–800 mg/kg of CGA significantly increased the serum levels of LZM, AKP activity, C3 and C4 concentration, and increased immune function of common carp (P < 0.05). Regarding antioxidant enzyme activities, adding CGA significantly increased SOD, CAT, and GsH-Px activities, while decreasing MDA content (P < 0.05). Compared with the CK group, the mRNA expression levels of NF-κB , TNF-α , and IL-1β were decreased. The IL-10 and TGF-β were increased in the liver and intestines of the CGA supplemented group. Meanwhile, the addition of CGA also significantly up-regulated the mRNA expression levels of Nrf2 , HO-1 , SOD , CAT , and GPX (P < 0.05). CGA also positively contributed to the development of the carp intestinal tract, as demonstrated by decreased serum levels of DAO, D-LA, and ET-1. And the mucosal fold height was increased significantly with increasing levels of CGA. In conclusion, the addition of CGA in the feed can enhance the growth performance, immune function and antioxidant capacity of common carp, and improve the health of the intestine and liver. According to the results of this experiment, the optimal addition amount in common carp diets was 400 mg/kg. • Addition of 400 mg/kg chlorogenic acid can improve the growth performance of common carp. • Chlorogenic acid could improve the health of the liver and intestines of common carp. • Chlorogenic acid could enhance antioxidant capacity and immunity by modulating Nrf2 / NFκB signalling pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Increased paramylon productivity was achieved using hydrolysate-based medium. • Cell immobilisation was assessed for efficient paramylon production by E. gracilis. • Waste sponge was demonstrated to be promising for efficient paramylon production. • Productivity of 1.77 g/L/day was achieved using waste-based cell immobilisation. Microalga represents a promising platform for numerous valuable bioproducts, but the production cost and efficiency remain major challenges for the industrial implementation. In this study, the production of paramylon (polysaccharides) from microalga Euglena gracilis using food waste hydrolysate and cell immobilisation cultivation was assessed. Synthetic medium supplemented with food waste hydrolysate proved to be a feasible option and achieved the paramylon productivity of 1.46 g/L/day in the heterotrophic (HT) cultivation. In addition, waste-based supporting materials were investigated for cell immobilisation cultivation, and waste sponge demonstrating good cell viability and paramylon productivity with maximum of 2.22 g/L/day was achieved using the synthetic medium in HT condition. However, sugarcane bagasse was not suitable for E. gracilis immobilisation as it induced serious cell lysis and oxidative stress under heterotrophic cultivation. The subsequent utilisation of the hydrolysate-based medium coupled with waste-based cell immobilisation cultivation resulted in the paramylon productivity of 1.77 g/L/day, demonstrating a promising fermentation strategy for sustainable and efficient paramylon production. This study serves as a noteworthy example of producing microalgal metabolites from the food waste hydrolysate using waste-based cell immobilisation technique. Overall, our findings provide valuable insights into green and sustainable production of microalgal biorefineries, and contributes to the advancement of the circular bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of dermal white adipose tissue (dWAT) is vital to the formation of dermal fibrosis (DF), but the specific mechanism is not well understood. A few studies are reviewed to explore the role of dWAT in the formation of DF. Recent findings indicated that the adipocytes‐to‐myofibroblasts transition in dWAT reflects the direct contribution to the DF formation. While adipose‐derived stem cells (ADSCs) contained in dWAT express antifibrotic cytokines, the loss of ADSCs leads to skin protection decreased, which indirectly exacerbates DF and tissue damage. Therefore, blocking or reversing the adipocytes‐to‐myofibroblasts transition or improving the survival of ADSCs in dWAT and the expression of antifibrotic cytokines may be an effective strategy for the treatment of DF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetosonic (MS) waves are generally considered as electromagnetic harmonic fluctuations below the lower hybrid frequency. Here we present a correlated observation of proton ring‐like distribution and low harmonic magnetosonic waves with undetectable magnetic components (called QEMS). We conduct fully thermal simulations (WHAMP) to investigate the wave properties. The calculated growth rates can reproduce the observed spectral characteristics and demonstrate that the QEMS waves are excited as ion Bernstein modes by proton ring‐like distribution. The ratios between the wave electric and magnetic amplitudes E/B given by WHAMP indicate that the magnetic spectral densities are below the instrument noise level, and the ratios are ∼7–80 times larger than the wave phase speeds Vph, suggesting that the QEMS waves are essentially quasi‐electrostatic, not just visually quasi‐electrostatic due to the measurement limit. This study provides further insights into the QEMS natures. Plain Language Summary: Magnetosonic waves play a significant role in the magnetospheric dynamics. They usually manifest as harmonically structured electromagnetic emissions with frequencies lower than the lower hybrid frequency. Here we present a representative event of seldom reported low harmonic quasi‐electrostatic magnetosonic (QEMS) waves, which are invisible in the measured magnetic field spectra and occur together with proton ring‐like distribution. We conduct fully thermal simulations of ion Bernstein instability to investigate these waves. The calculated growth rates can well address the wave spectral characteristics and suggest that the proton ring‐like distribution is the energies source for the wave excitation. The QEMS waves may still have electromagnetic nature because the wave magnetic field may still exist but is below the instrument noise, which is true by a theoretical estimation using the measured electric field and theoretical E/B ratio. Thus, to justify the electrostatic nature, we compare E/B ratios with wave phase speed and find that E/B ratios are indeed much greater than the wave phase speed. This testifies the electrostatic nature of the QEMS waves. Our study can improve our understanding of QEMS waves. Key Points: Correlated observations of low harmonic quasi‐electrostatic magnetosonic (QEMS) waves and proton ring‐like distribution are reportedFully thermal simulations indicate that the QEMS waves are excited by the proton ring‐like distribution as ion Bernstein modesTheoretical analysis shows QEMS waves have QE nature instead of appearing as QE waves due to instrument limit [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), consisting of ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), is a chronic relapsing and life-threatening inflammatory disorder that mainly affect the intestinal tract. The mainstream therapies for moderate to severe IBD lie in the use of immunosuppressive agents. However, it encountered the problem of drug tolerance and significant adverse events. Therefore, identifying novel signal pathways involved in IBD is necessary to satisfy the unmet treatment needs of IBD patients. There existed some hints between iron and IBD, and was reported that ferroptosis induced in UC. However, as another important subtype of IBD, whether ferroptosis also occurred in CD remains unclear. In this study, we found that the dysregulation of iron, lipid peroxidation and redox homeostasis were involved in CD; the administration of ferroptosis inhibitor Ferrostatin-1 could alleviate pathological phenotypes of TNBS induced CD-like colitis in mice. Our results provide a new hopeful therapeutic strategy in treating CD, especially for those who suffered from the tolerance of existing immunosuppressive agent drugs. • Ferroptosis indicators were differentially expressed in biopsies from CD patients. • Ferroptosis occurred in TNBS induced colitis mice. • Ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 ameliorated TNBS induced colitis in mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development has increasingly become a primary concern of governments in the stage of high-quality economic development. Taking as an example Guangdong Province, China, where development and polarization coexist, this study uses a Vector Autoregressive(VAR) model to examine the relationship between higher education, technological innovation, and economic growth, and then uses the Coupling Coordination (CC) model to evaluate the developing coordination of subsystems where the above three elements are located; furthermore, it summarizes the mechanisms and corresponding paths of higher education on the quantity and quality of economic growth and illustrates the interactive relationships, the dynamic mechanisms, and the influencing factors. The results show that there is a dynamic interaction mechanism between higher education, technological innovation, and regional economy. The effect of this mechanism is enhanced in developed areas and with an obvious circle cumulative effect, while partly inhibited in undeveloped areas and with less or no circle cumulative effect. Therefore, on the path towards high-quality development, endogenous development models should be formulated and strengthened by developing higher education and constructing an innovation system, especially in the undeveloped areas. Higher education should be more in the regional development framework and targeted at the interaction and synergy in the regional socioeconomic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cervical spine injury is a complicated procedure in the combination of different injury loads and postures. The aim of this study is to investigate the injury mechanism considering different types of cervical curvatures subjected to contusion loads. A finite element model of a cervical spinal cord was constructed. Gray matter, white matter and pia matter were modeled and hyperelastic material properties were assigned. Convergence analysis and validation analysis were carried out. The model was simulated in 3 different spinal curvatures and loaded by 2 directions with 4 compression degrees. The maximum von Mises stress in the whole model was concentrated in the pia matter in all loading cases. When investigating spinal cord injury, the pia matter must be considered. For all three curvatures, the stress in the gray matter and white matter was higher in front-to-back loading condition than that in back-to-front loading condition. The front-to-back impact may cause a larger damage. A back-to-front load damaged the structure around the central canal and a front-to-back contusion load damaged the anterior horn of the spinal cord at most time. From the view of the maximum stress, the lordotic curvature did not show significant buffering effect. However, the pathological curvature had large areas affected and the lordotic curvature showed some benefits to some degree from the view of stress distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piles are sometimes unavoidably embedded in slopes for supporting buildings on hills. In contrast to a pile on a horizontal ground, a pile in slope is acted on by additional sliding force from the slope, impairing its load-bearing capacity and buckling resistance. Nevertheless, proper assessment for the buckling of piles in slopes is difficult because of the simulation of distributed sliding forces and nonlinear pile–soil interactions. This paper refines the newly developed Euler–Bernoulli pile element formulation for the nonlinear buckling analysis of single piles in slopes by including the sliding force in element formulation, enabling a rigorous consideration of soil–pile interactions. Detailed mathematical derivations are provided. The numerical implementation is illustrated with a flowchart. Four examples for verification are demonstrated to reveal the robustness of the proposed method and the importance of considering the sliding force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition metal oxides are promising electrocatalysts for water oxidation, i.e., the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is critical in electrochemical production of non-fossil fuels. The involvement of oxidation state changes of the metal in OER electrocatalysis is increasingly recognized in the literature. Tracing these oxidation states under operation conditions could provide relevant information for performance optimization and development of durable catalysts, but further methodical developments are needed. Here, we propose a strategy to use single-energy X-ray absorption spectroscopy for monitoring metal oxidation-state changes during OER operation with millisecond time resolution. The procedure to obtain time-resolved oxidation state values, using two calibration curves, is explained in detail. We demonstrate the significance of this approach as well as possible sources of data misinterpretation. We conclude that the combination of X-ray absorption spectroscopy with electrochemical techniques allows us to investigate the kinetics of redox transitions and to distinguish the catalytic current from the redox current. Tracking of the oxidation state changes of Co ions in electrodeposited oxide films during cyclic voltammetry in neutral pH electrolyte serves as a proof of principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high voltage responsivity detector in G‐band is designed in this paper. Different grounding models for the terahertz detector are analyzed and designed. Gold wire grounding design is superior to traditional grounding designs, which reduce the influence caused by the doping concentration, position and thickness error of conductive adhesive. Detectors are based on the Virginia Diodes Inc G‐band zero‐bias Schottky diode with low zero‐bias junction capacitance. The voltage responsivity test result of the gold wire grounding detector is about 1800 mV/mW in 210–220 GHz. The development of the detector provides the device basis for the realization of a terahertz focal plane imaging system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigated the expression and clinical value of hsa-miR-504 in cervical cancer and its possible mechanism of regulating the progress of cervical cancer. Methods: The expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) in cervical cancer was analyzed on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The correlation between differentially expressed miRNAs and overall survival (OS) of cervical cancer patients was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method. The target genes regulated downstream by hsa-miR-504 were predicted by miRWalk 2.0 and analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) after differential screening. Univariate and multivariate Cox regressions were performed to screen the prognosis-related target genes. Results: There were 82 differentially expressed miRNAs between cervical cancer and noncancerous tissues in TCGA database (fold change >2, p < 0.05). Among them, nine miRNAs, including hsa-miR-504, were significantly correlated with OS in cervical cancer patients. Hsa-miR-504 was downregulated in cervical cancer, and low hsa-miR-504 expression was associated with poor prognosis. There were 2670 target genes of hsa-miR-504, and 240 target genes were further confirmed to be upregulated by TCGA database (fold change >2, p < 0.05). GO and KEGG showed that the upregulated target genes were mainly enriched in cell cycle, DNA replication, p53 signaling pathway, and so on. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that 21 target genes were associated with OS in cervical cancer patients (p < 0.05). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that five genes were independent prognostic factors in cervical cancer. Conclusion: The low expression of hsa-miR-504 was closely related to the occurrence and development of cervical cancer, and hsa-miR-504 might be a potential molecular marker for favorable prognosis in cervical cancer. Cell cycle, DNA replication, and p53 signaling pathway were important mechanisms of downregulated hsa-miR-504 involved in the occurrence and development of cervical cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

l -theanine, the most represented non-proteinogenic amino acid in tea plants (Camellia sinensis), is extensively utilized as a food supplement and a pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and cosmetic ingredient. Tea plants are major sources of l -theanine, however, successfully extracting l -theanine from plants is limited by environmental conditions. Furthermore, the chemical synthesis of l -theanine is inefficient owing to the coproduction of undesirable stereoisomers that affect downstream applications. To overcome these problems, microbial engineering processes based on enzymatic catalysis and fermentation have emerged as sustainable manufacturing approaches for l -theanine biosynthesis. Advantages of these processes include the availability of well-established microbial engineering tools and strategies and high production rates. In this review, we first introduced the natural biosynthetic pathway of l -theanine production and discussed the detailed microbial or enzymatic processes involved in l -theanine production. We then summarized the information from recently published studies on the production of l -theanine using microbial platforms, emphasizing the latest advances and most relevant process parameters in l -theanine biosynthesis. As an alternative approach to the non-environmentally friendly and largely energy-consuming traditional methods, the microbial production of l -theanine is expected to be successfully utilized in various industrial applications. • Recent advances of the l -theanine biosynthesis pathway in nature were introduced. • Several microbial enzymes with l -theanine biocatalysis ability were characterized. • The main three host strains for the production of l -theanine were discussed. • Fermentation plays an important role for improving the production of l -theanine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group consensus decision-making refers to achieving a consensus result accepted by more decision makers with a certain stability. The consensus stability is mainly affected by game conflicts among decision makers. Therefore, considering super conflict analysis as the ideological basis and the minimum cost consensus model as the method basis, this paper establishes a grey target negotiation consensus model. The model can achieve game negotiation in the grey target region and determine a super continuous stable consensus bull's-eye. Firstly, this paper proposes a generalized super conflict analysis framework in group decision-making and defines several concepts of conflict stability. Then, we integrate minimum cost consensus and grey target decision to set up a condition that meets the super conflict equilibrium and propose a grey target negotiation consensus model. Finally, an emission reduction consensus from Chinese manufacturing enterprises is applied to verify the rationality of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine the potential risk factors for intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures in patients with developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA). Methods: This was a retrospective study. Patients who were diagnosed with DDH and undergoing THA (by artificial joint replacement) at our hospital from January 1999 to December 2019 were included in this study. Clinical and radiological factors were obtained from their medical records, such as age, sex, Crowe classification, morphological features of proximal femur, and features of surgical procedure. The outcome of interest was the occurrence of intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fracture, which was recorded and classified according to the Vancouver classification system. According to the fracture status, the patients were divided into two groups: the fracture group and the non‐fracture group. Multivariate logistic regression model was built to identify the risk factors for these fractures. Results: A total of 1252 hips were finally included. Intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures were identified in 62 hips. The incidence of intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures in patients with DDH undergoing THA was 4.95%. There were 22 patients (proportion = 35.48%, incidence = 1.76%) with Type A fractures, 38 (proportion = 61.29%, incidence = 3.04%) with Type B fractures, and two (proportion = 3.23%, incidence = 0.16%) with Type C fractures. Six independent risk factors for intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures were identified: osteoporosis (OR = 3.434; 95% CI, 1.963–6.007), previous surgical history (OR = 4.797; 95% CI, 2.446–9.410), Dorr Type A canal (OR = 3.025; 95% CI, 1.594–5.738), retained femoral neck length (OR = 1.121; 95% CI, 1.043–1.204), implanted metaphyseal‐diaphyseal fixation stems (OR = 3.208; 95% CI, 1.562–6.591), and implanted stem with anteversion design (OR = 2.916; 95% CI, 1.473–5.770). Conclusions: The overall incidence of intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures in patients with DDH undergoing THA was 4.95%, which was at a moderate level compared to patients with other diseases undergoing THA. Six independent risk factors were identified: osteoporosis, previous surgical history, Dorr Type A canal, insufficient neck osteotomy level, implantation of metaphyseal‐diaphyseal fixation stem, and implantation of a stem with an anteversion design. Comprehending these risk factors might help surgeons prevent the occurrence of these intraoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures in patients with DDH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Corydalis saxicola Bunting, affiliated with the Papaveraceae Juss., has been proven to work well in anti-inflammation, hemostasis, and analgesia. This study was designed to observe the effect and potential mechanism of Corydalis saxicola Bunting total alkaloids (CSBTA) on paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy (PIPN). Materials and methods: Rats were injected 2 mg/kg paclitaxel 4 times and administrated with 30 or 120 mg/kg CSBTA. Mechanical and thermal allodynia and hyperalgesia were tested. After 40 days, serum was collected to detect PGE2, TNF-α, and IL-1β by ELISA. The L4-L6 segment spinal cord, DRG, and plantar skin were harvested, and Western-blot or RT-qPCR analyzed protein and gene levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, p38 MAPK, PKCε, and TRPV1. The PIPN cell model was established with paclitaxel (300 nM, 5 d) in primary DRG neurons. We examined the effect of CSBTA (25 μg/ml or 50 μg/ml) by measuring the mRNA levels in PGE2, TNF-α and CGRP, and the protein expression on the PKCε/p38 MAPK/TRPV1 signaling pathway in the PIPN cell model. Results: The results showed that CSBTA effectively ameliorated allodynia and hyperalgesia, and regulated cytokines' contents (PGE2, TNF-α, and IL-1β) and neuropeptides (CGRP and SP) in different tissues in vivo. In addition, CSBTA significantly decreased cytokine gene levels of DRG neurons (PGE2, TNF-α, and CGRP) and the protein expressions of PKCε/p38 MAPK/TRPV1 signaling pathway in vivo and in vitro. Conclusion: Therefore, CSBTA has a perspective therapeutic effect on the treatment of paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]