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Abstract Two-dimensional layered K4Nb6O17 (KN) was easily formed as a secondary phase caused by the volatilization of alkali metal ions, when preparing ferroelectric K x Na1−x NbO3 based ceramics and films. In this work, it was believed that KN film is with weak ferroelectricity and has a little effect on the ferroelectric properties of K x Na1−x NbO3 based films. Moreover, temperature dependent (77–500 K) dielectric functions of KN film have been firstly extracted by fitting ellipsometric spectra with the Adachi dielectric function model and a four-phase layered model. The high-frequency dielectric constant linearly increases and optical band gap slightly decreases with increasing the temperature. We also research its photoelectrochemical properties and its application in high-efficient light-induced H2 evolution. In addition, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman scattering, temperature dependent transmittance and infrared reflectance spectra, and first-principles calculation were conjointly performed to further reveal the intrinsic optoelectronic features and relevant mechanisms of KN.

Abstract Background To evaluate the predictive value of serum albumin (ALB) for persistent organ failure (POF) in acute pancreatitis (AP). Methods We selected 158 patients with AP in this retrospective study from Jan.1st, 2015 to Dec.31st, 2015. Forty-six patients were diagnosed with POF. All the values of laboratory parameters were measured upon admission to hospital. And 48 h after admission, we examined serum albumin of each patient again, called ‘ALB2’. Uni-and multi-variate logistic regression were used to evaluate the impact of ALB to predict POF. Results The median age of the whole population was 48 years and 53.8% were male. The admission-time albumin of AP patients with POF was distinctly lower than patients without POF (28.9 (25.3–33.1) g/L vs. 38.5 (34.0–40.1) g/L, p

Prior research has emphasized the importance of the motivational system in risky decision-making, yet the mechanisms through which individual differences in motivation may influence adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors remain to be determined. Based on developmental neuroscience literature illustrating the importance of risk processing in explaining individual differences in value-based decision making, we examined risk processing as a potential mediator of the association between trait motivations and adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors. The sample consisted of 167 adolescents (47% females) annually assessed for three years (13–14 years of age at Time 1). Approach and avoidance motivations were measured using adolescent self-report. Risk preference was estimated based on adolescents’ decisions during a modified economic lottery choice task with neural risk processing being measured by blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses in the bilateral insular cortex for chosen options. Adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors were assessed by laboratory-based risky decision making using the Stoplight task. Longitudinal mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of approach motivation, such that higher motivation was correlated with increases in risk-taking behaviors via decreases in neural activation in the bilateral insular cortex during risk processing. The findings illustrate a neural pathway through which approach motivation is translated into the vulnerability to risk taking development. Keywords: Approach, Avoidance, Insula, Risk processing, Risk-taking behaviors, fMRI

Past research has demonstrated negative associations between exposure to stressors and quality of interpersonal relationships among children and adolescents. Nevertheless, underlying mechanisms of this association remain unclear. Chronic stress has been shown to disrupt prefrontal functioning in the brain, including inhibitory control abilities, and evidence is accumulating that inhibitory control may play an important role in secure interpersonal relationship quality, including peer problems and social competence. In this prospective longitudinal study, we examine whether changes in inhibitory control, measured at both behavioral and neural levels, mediate the association between stress and changes in secure relationship quality with parents and peers. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males) who were first recruited at age 13 or 14 years and assessed annually three times. Adolescents’ inhibitory control was measured by their behavioral performance and brain activities, and adolescents self-reported perceived stress levels and relationship quality with mothers, fathers, and peers. Results suggest that behavioral inhibitory control mediates the association between perceived stress and adolescent’s secure relationship quality with their mothers and fathers, but not their peers. In contrast, given that stress was not significantly correlated with neural inhibitory control, we did not further test the mediation path. Our results highlight the role of inhibitory control as a process through which stressful life experiences are related to impaired secure relationship quality between adolescents and their mothers and fathers.

Neutrophil cytosolic factor 4 (NCF4) is component of the nicotinamide dinucleotide phosphate oxidase complex, a key factor in biochemical pathways and innate immune responses. In this study, splice variants and functional single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of NCF4 were identified to determine the variability and association of the gene with susceptibility to bovine mastitis characterized by inflammation. A novel splice variant, designated as NCF4-TV and characterized by the retention of a 48 bp sequence in intron 9, was detected in the mammary gland tissues of infected cows. The expression of the NCF4-reference main transcript in the mastitic mammary tissues was higher than that in normal tissues. A novel SNP, g.18174 A>G, was also found in the retained 48 bp region of intron 9. To determine whether NCF4-TV could be due to the g.18174 A>G mutation, we constructed two mini-gene expression vectors with the wild-type or mutant NCF4 g.18174 A>G fragment. The vectors were then transiently transfected into 293T cells, and alternative splicing of NCF4 was analyzed by reverse transcription-PCR and sequencing. Mini-gene splicing assay demonstrated that the aberrantly spliced NCF4-TV with 48 bp retained fragment in intron 9 could be due to g.18174 A>G, which was associated with milk somatic count score and increased risk of mastitis infection in cows. NCF4 expression was also regulated by alternative splicing. This study proposes that NCF4 splice variants generated by functional SNP are important risk factors for mastitis susceptibility in dairy cows.

Ganoderma lucidum is one of the most important medicinal mushrooms; however, molecular genetics research on this species has been limited due to a lack of reliable reverse genetic tools. In this study, the endogenous orotidine 5'-monophosphate decarboxylase gene (URA3) was cloned as a silencing reporter, and four gene-silencing methods using hairpin, sense, antisense, and dual promoter constructs, were introduced into G. lucidum through a simple electroporation procedure. A comparison and evaluation of silencing efficiency demonstrated that all of the four methods differentially suppressed the expression of URA3. Our data unequivocally indicate that the dual promoter silencing vector yields the highest rate of URA3 silencing compared with other vectors (up to 81.9%). To highlight the advantages of the dual promoter system, we constructed a co-silencing system based on the dual promoter method and succeeded in co-silencing URA3 and laccase in G. lucidum. The reduction of the mRNA levels of the two genes were correlated. Thus, the screening efficiency for RNAi knockdown of multiple genes may be improved by the co-silencing of an endogenous reporter gene. The molecular tools developed in this study should facilitate the isolation of genes and the characterization of the functions of multiple genes in this pharmaceutically important species, and these tools should be highly useful for the study of other basidiomycetes.

Objective • To investigate the effect of preoperative anxiety status on postoperative intestinal microbiota and gastrointestinal function recovery in colorectal cancer patients with the aim of understanding the potential impact of psychological factors on surgical outcomes and improving patient care. Method • A total of 72 patients who underwent radical resection of colorectal cancer in our hospital from January 2017 to May 2020 were selected. According to the results of Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) on the day before surgery, the patients were divided into non-anxiety group (HAMA < 7 points) and an anxiety group (HAMA ≥ 7 points). The relationship between preoperative anxiety status and postoperative intestinal microecology and gastrointestinal function recovery in patients with colorectal cancer was analyzed. Results •The first exhaust time and the first defecation time in the non-anxiety group were shorter than those in the anxiety group (P < .05). The first complete eating time and postoperative hospitalization time of patients in the nonanxiety group were shorter than those in the anxiety group, and the total incidence of postoperative complications in the anxiety group was higher than that in the non-anxiety group (P < .05). There was no significant difference in the number of intestinal flora between the two groups before the operation (P > .05). The number of intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium in the non-anxiety group was higher than that in the anxiety group at the first defecation and the 15th day after operation. The number of Escherichia coli and cocci was less than that of the anxiety group (P < .05). There was no significant difference in preoperative fecal sIgA levels between the two groups (P > .05). The level of fecal sIgA in the non-anxiety group was higher than that in the anxiety group at the first defecation and the 15th day after operation (P < .05). There was no significant difference in preoperative serum D-lactic acid between the two groups (P > .05). The serum D-lactic acid level and urinary L / M ratio in the non-anxiety group were lower than those in the anxiety group at the first defecation and the 15th day after operation (P < .05). Conclusion • Our study indicates that preoperative anxiety is associated with postoperative intestinal microbiota imbalance and delayed recovery of gastrointestinal function in colorectal cancer patients. These findings underscore the importance of addressing psychological factors in the care of these patients and suggest that interventions targeting anxiety may improve surgical outcomes and enhance patient recovery. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms underlying these associations and to develop effective interventions to mitigate the negative impact of preoperative anxiety on postoperative recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heterogeneity of cancer stem cells (CSCs) within tumors presents a challenge in therapeutic targeting. To decipher the cellular plasticity that fuels phenotypic heterogeneity, we undertook single-cell transcriptomics analysis in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) to identify subpopulations in CSCs. We found a subpopulation of CSCs with ancestral features that is marked by FXYD domain-containing ion transport regulator 3 (FXYD3), a component of the Na+/K+ pump. Accordingly, FXYD3+ CSCs evolve and proliferate, while displaying traits of alveolar progenitors that are normally induced during pregnancy. Clinically, FXYD3+ CSCs were persistent during neoadjuvant chemotherapy, hence linking them to drug-tolerant persisters (DTPs) and identifying them as crucial therapeutic targets. Importantly, FXYD3+ CSCs were sensitive to senolytic Na+/K+ pump inhibitors, such as cardiac glycosides. Together, our data indicate that FXYD3+ CSCs with ancestral features are drivers of plasticity and chemoresistance in TNBC. Targeting the Na+/K+ pump could be an effective strategy to eliminate CSCs with ancestral and DTP features that could improve TNBC prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete mitochondrial genome of Mylabris sibirica Fischer von Waldheim, 1823 was sequenced and characterized. The mitogenome is 15,794 bp long with 37 annotated genes, comprising 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and two ribosomal RNA genes. The phylogenetic analysis based on the mitochondrial genome sequences revealed that M. sibirica clustered with M. quadripunctata. This study presents the complete mitochondrial genome of M. sibirica for the first time, which could be beneficial for systematic studies on Mylabrini.

Role-based network embedding aims to embed role-similar nodes into a similar embedding space, which is widely used in graph mining tasks such as role classification and detection. Roles are sets of nodes in graph networks with similar structural patterns and functions. However, the rolesimilar nodes may be far away or even disconnected from each other. Meanwhile, the neighborhood node features and noise also affect the result of the role-based network embedding, which are also challenges of current network embedding work. In this paper, we propose a Role-based network Embedding via Quantum walk with weighted Features fusion (REQF), which simultaneously considers the influence of global and local role information, node features, and noise. Firstly, we capture the global role information of nodes via quantum walk based on its superposition property which emphasizes the local role information via biased quantum walk. Secondly, we utilize the quantum walk weighted characteristic function to extract and fuse features of nodes and their neighborhood by different distributions which contain role information implicitly. Finally, we leverage the Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) to reduce the effect of noise. We conduct extensive experiments on seven real-world datasets, and the results show that REQF is more effective at capturing role information in the network, which outperforms the best baseline by up to 14.6% in role classification, and 23% in role detection on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, for the first time, carbon solid spheres decorated with tin dioxide particles (denoted as SnO2-CSS) were prepared through a hydrothermal process assisted calcination method, and then, the prepared SnO2-CSS reacted with PdO·H2O hydrothermally producing the final palladium (Pd) based composite electrocatalysts (abbreviated as Pd/SnO2-CSS). In the whole preparation process, besides glucose and tin oxides (SnO2 and/or SnO) and PdO·H2O, no other substances were involved. The Pd/SnO2-CSS catalysts prepared in the presence of SnO2, SnO and SnO+SnO2 were, respectively, classified as catalyst a, b and c. The surface morphologies of all obtained samples were mainly characterized by SEM, revealing that the surface of SnO2-CSS were decorated by some irregular particles and a large number of nanoparticles were uniformly anchored on the surfaces of Pd/SnO2-CSS catalysts. The chemical compositions of all prepared catalysts were analyzed by XRD and XPS, indicating that SnO2, PdO, metallic Pd and carbon material were the main substances of all prepared catalysts. Most importantly, all prepared catalysts, as demonstrated by the CV (cyclic voltammetry) and CA (chronoamperometry) results, delivered an obvious electrocatalytic activity towards EOR. Particularly, in the CV test, the peak current density of the forward peak of EOR on catalyst b was, respectively, about 2.9 and 4.5 times higher than that on catalyst c and a. It was worth mentioning that in the CA test the polarized current density of EOR on catalyst b was still kept to be as high as 7.9 mA cm-2 even after 7200 s, substantially indicating that catalyst b was a promising electrocatalyst for the EOR based fuel cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]