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A single-frequency narrow linewidth green laser at 510 nm is a vital component for the study of Cesium Rydberg atoms. Here, we demonstrate a 510 nm laser based on single-pass second-harmonic generation (SHG) and sum-frequency generation (SFG) via waveguide Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) seeded with a common C-band laser (1530 nm). The final linewidth measured using the delayed self-heterodyne method reaches a narrow linewidth of 4.8 kHz. And, the optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is up to 13.1% and reaches an output power up to 200 mW.

The DAEase gene sequence derived from Clostridium bolteae ATCCBAA-613 was synthesized by codon optimization. Using pCold TF as the expression vector, the cold-shock promoter CspA induced the expression of the DAEase gene in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) at low temperature. Then, the highly soluble recombinant Cb-DAEase was obtained and purified by Ni-chelating affinity chromatography. Results showed that, the Cb-DAEase exhibited maximum activity at pH7.0 and 55 ℃. Additionally, the Cb-DAEase showed different sensitivities to the various metal ions when Co2+ was able to significantly (P

The fruits of 12 blueberry varieties cultivated in the open field in southern Liaoning such as 'Bluegold', 'Reka', 'N5' were used as test materials. The best varieties for processing were selected through the analysis of fruit appearance, nutritional quality and processing performance indexes. The results showed that the blueberry fruit was mainly blue, flat spherical in varying degrees with bloom, and the single fruit weight was 0.95~2.63 g. The fruit contained more than 80% water, the larger the fruit the higher the water content, and the more flat. The fruit contained fructose, glucose, oxalic acid, quinic acid, malic acid, shikimic acid and citric acid. The content of fructose was equal to that of glucose, and the content of citric acid was significantly higher than that of other organic acids (P90 mg∙g−1), organic acid content (>10 mg∙g−1) and juice yield (>74.6%) of 'Sunrise', 'Bluegold' and 'Patroit' were higher, which were better processed varieties. In conclusion, the fruits of 'Sunrise', 'Bluegold' and 'Patroit' were rich in nutrition and high juice yield. They were ideal raw materials for processing.

This study presents the results of a comprehensive investigation of a wooden rice bucket made in the 1860s. Macroscopy aspects and microscopic structure were conducted to identify the wood species. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were also adopted to investigate the degradation degree of the rice bucket compared with a new wood sample from the same species. The results of the microscopic identification concluded that the rice bucket was made of Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata). The XRD pattern indicated that the crystallinity degree of cellulose in the wooden rice bucket decreased to 33.2% from 38.8% (new wood). The FTIR spectra revealed that natural ageing resulted in the degradation of cellulose and hemicellulose, and the change of lignin was not obvious.

Abstract Background Abnormal myocardial Nav1.5 expression and function cause lethal ventricular arrhythmias during myocardial ischemia–reperfusion (I/R). Protein inhibitor of activated STAT Y (PIASy)-mediated caveolin-3 (Cav-3) SUMO modification affects Cav-3 binding to the voltage-gated sodium channel 1.5 (Nav1.5). PIASy activity is increased after myocardial I/R, but it is unclear whether this is attributable to plasma membrane Nav1.5 downregulation and ventricular arrhythmias. Methods Using recombinant adeno-associated virus subtype 9 (AAV9), rat cardiac PIASy was silenced using intraventricular injection of PIASy short hairpin RNA (shRNA). After two weeks, rat hearts were subjected to I/R and electrocardiography was performed to assess malignant arrhythmias. Tissues from peri-infarct areas of the left ventricle were collected for molecular biological measurements. Results PIASy was upregulated by I/R (P

Abstract Introduction PITX3 has been reported to be associated with congenital cataracts, anterior segment mesenchymal dysgenesis, Peters’ anomaly, and microphthalmia. In this case, an infant with unilateral buphthalmos, corneal staphyloma and corneal fistula carrying a variant in PITX3 was reported. Case description We describe a 4-month-old female infant who was referred to our Eye Clinic because of gradual enlargement of the eyeball in the right eye and whitish opacity in both eyes. Buphthalmos with long axial length (22.04 mm), macrocornea with diffuse corneal oedema and opacity (14.50 mm*14.50 mm) and high intraocular pressure (23.78 mmHg) were detected in the right eye. Microphthalmia with short axial length (16.23 mm), microcornea with diffuse corneal oedema and opacity (7.50 mm*6.50 mm) were detected in the left eye. A 360° trabeculotomy was performed for the right eye. However, corneal staphyloma and corneal fistula in the right eye were detected 6 months after the surgery. A variant in exon 4 of PITX3 (c.640_656dup (p. Gly220Profs*95)) was identified in the proband but was not detected in her healthy parents. Conclusion A novel phenotype characterized by unilateral buphthalmos, corneal staphyloma and corneal fistula in an infant were reported to be associated with PITX3 in our study. Our study expands the scope of the clinical heterogeneity of PITX3 variants. It also improves our understanding and increases the attention given to patients with PITX3 variants.

Abstract Background Idiopathic membranous nephropathy (iMN) is recognized as an organ-specific autoimmune disease, mainly caused by anti-PLA2R antibody. This study aimed to study between anti-PLA2R antibody level at diagnosis and the response to tacrolimus (TAC)-based treatment in iMN patients. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study including 94 kidney biopsy-proven MN patients with positive anti-PLA2R antibody at diagnosis from May 2017 to September 2021 in our center. All iMN patients received the TAC regimen as the initial immunosuppressive therapy. All patients were divided into two groups according to anti-PLA2R antibody titer at diagnosis: high-level group (> 150 RU/ml; n = 42) and low-level group (≤ 150 RU/ml; n = 52). The association between anti-PLA2R antibody levels and clinical outcomes was assessed using the Kaplan–Meier method. Results The low density lipoprotein in the high-level group was significantly higher than low-level group at diagnosis, otherwise, serum albumin was significantly lower than low-level group; however, there was no significant difference in creatinine levels between two groups. The remission rates were significantly higher in the low-level group than high-level group after treatment with TAC for 12, 18, or 24 months (all P

Summary: Microglia shift toward an inflammatory phenotype during aging that is thought to exacerbate age-related neurodegeneration. The molecular and cellular signals that resolve neuroinflammation post-injury are largely undefined. Here, we exploit systems genetics methods based on the extended BXD murine reference family and identify IGFBPL1 as an upstream cis-regulator of microglia-specific genes to switch off inflammation. IGFBPL1 is expressed by mouse and human microglia, and higher levels of its expression resolve lipopolysaccharide-induced neuroinflammation by resetting the transcriptome signature back to a homeostatic state via IGF1R signaling. Conversely, IGFBPL1 deficiency or selective deletion of IGF1R in microglia shifts these cells to an inflammatory landscape and induces early manifestation of brain tauopathy and retinal neurodegeneration. Therapeutic administration of IGFBPL1 drives pro-homeostatic microglia and prevents glaucomatous neurodegeneration and vision loss in mice. These results identify IGFBPL1 as a master driver of the counter-inflammatory microglial modulator that presents an endogenous resolution of neuroinflammation to prevent neurodegeneration in eye and brain.

The liver can fully regenerate after partial resection, and its underlying mechanisms have been extensively studied. The liver can also rapidly regenerate after injury, with most studies focusing on hepatocyte proliferation; however, how hepatic necrotic lesions during acute or chronic liver diseases are eliminated and repaired remains obscure. Here, we demonstrate that monocyte-derived macrophages (MoMFs) were rapidly recruited to and encapsulated necrotic areas during immune-mediated liver injury and that this feature was essential in repairing necrotic lesions. At the early stage of injury, infiltrating MoMFs activated the Jagged1/notch homolog protein 2 (JAG1/NOTCH2) axis to induce cell death–resistant SRY-box transcription factor 9+ (SOX9+) hepatocytes near the necrotic lesions, which acted as a barrier from further injury. Subsequently, necrotic environment (hypoxia and dead cells) induced a cluster of complement 1q–positive (C1q+) MoMFs that promoted necrotic removal and liver repair, while Pdgfb+ MoMFs activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) to express α–smooth muscle actin and induce a strong contraction signal (YAP, pMLC) to squeeze and finally eliminate the necrotic lesions. In conclusion, MoMFs play a key role in repairing the necrotic lesions, not only by removing necrotic tissues, but also by inducing cell death–resistant hepatocytes to form a perinecrotic capsule and by activating α-smooth muscle actin–expressing HSCs to facilitate necrotic lesion resolution.

Purpose: We evaluated the association between ambient particulate matter (PM) exposure and eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), and predicted the CRSwNP recurrence risk using machine learning algorithms. Methods: In total, 1,086 patients with CRSwNP were recruited from nine hospitals in China during 2014–2019. The average annual concentrations of ambient PMs before surgery were assessed using satellite-based daily concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 for a 1 × 1-km2 area. Linear regression and logistic regression models were used to evaluate the associations of PM exposure with eosinophilia and risks of eosinophilic CRSwNPs. In addition, mediation effect analysis was used to validate the interrelationships of the aforementioned factors. Finally, machine learning algorithms were used to predict the recurrence risks of CRSwNPs. Results: There was a significantly increased risk of eosinophilic CRSwNPs with each 10 μg/m3 increase in PMs, with odds ratios (ORs) of 1.039 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.007–1.073) for PM10 and 1.058 (95% CI = 1.007– 1.112) for PM2.5. Eosinophils had a significant mediation effect, which accounted for 52% and 35% of the relationships of CRSwNP recurrence with PM10 and PM2.5, respectively. Finally, we developed a naïve Bayesian model to predict the risk of CRSwNP recurrence based on PM exposure, inflammatory data, and patients’ demographic factors. Conclusions: Increased PM exposure is associated with an increased risk of eosinophilic CRSwNP in China. Therefore, patients with eosinophilic CRSwNP should reduce PM exposure to mitigate its harmful impacts.

Exosomes are membrane-bound tiny particles that are released by all live cells that contain multiple signal molecules and extensively participate in numerous normal physical activities and pathologies. In glaucoma, the crucial role of exosome-based crosstalk has been primarily revealed in animal models and ex vivo cell studies in the recent decade. In the aqueous drainage system, exosomes derived from non-pigment ciliary epithelium act in an endocrine manner and specifically regulate the function of the trabecular meshwork to cope with persistent oxidative stress challenges. In the retina, a more complicated regulatory network among microglia, retinal neurons, retinal ganglial cells, retinal pigment epithelium, and other immune effector cells by exosomes are responsible for the elaborate modulation of tissue homeostasis under physical state and the widespread propagation of neuroinflammation and its consequent neurodegeneration in glaucoma pathogenesis. Accumulating evidence indicates that exosome-based crosstalk depends on numerous factors, including the specific cargos they carried (particularly micro RNA), concentration, size, and ionization potentials, which largely remain elusive. In this narrative review, we summarize the latest research focus of exosome-based crosstalk in glaucoma pathogenesis, the current research progress of exosome-based therapy for glaucoma and provide in-depth perspectives on its current research gap.

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is one of the most fatal diseases in premature infants. Damage to the intestinal epithelial barrier (IEB) is an important event in the development of intestinal inflammation and the evolution of NEC. The intestinal epithelial monolayer formed by the tight arrangement of intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) constitutes the functional IEB between the organism and the extra-intestinal environment. Programmed death and regenerative repair of IECs are important physiological processes to maintain the integrity of IEB function in response to microbial invasion. However, excessive programmed death of IECs leads to increased intestinal permeability and IEB dysfunction. Therefore, one of the most fundamental questions in the field of NEC research is to reveal the pathological death process of IECs, which is essential to clarify the pathogenesis of NEC. This review focuses on the currently known death modes of IECs in NEC mainly including apoptosis, necroptosis, pyroptosis, ferroptosis, and abnormal autophagy. Furthermore, we elaborate on the prospect of targeting IECs death as a treatment for NEC based on exciting animal and clinical studies.

Background: Extraocular sebaceous carcinoma (SC) arising in the vulva is extremely rare that no treatment consensus has been well-defined.Case presentation: We here presented two cases of vulval SC in a 31-year-old and a 62-year-old woman, respectively. Radical wide local excision was performed with free margin and they received no postoperative adjuvant therapy. No evidence of disease was detected after follow-ups for 12 months and 49 months, respectively. A comprehensive literature review of vulval SC was further conducted and other ten cases were included. The mean age was 55.9 years, nine patients were diagnosed with FIGO stage I diseases while the remaining three patients had metastatic lesions at initial diagnosis. Surgery was the mainstay treatment option that 11 (91.7%) underwent surgical resection, of which 5 patients received inguinal lymphadenectomy and 2 patients showed lymph nodes involved. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy were given in 2 and 1 patient, respectively. Two patients experienced recurrence within 1 year after initial therapy. At the final follow-up, ten patients had no evidence of disease, one patient was alive with the disease, and only one died of the disease.Conclusion: Radical wide local excision may be preferred in early-stage vulval SC and utilization of sentinel lymph node sampling should be recommended. Postoperative adjuvant therapy may be spared in patients with negative surgical margin and absence of lymph node involvement. Treatment of vulval SC referring to the guidelines of vulvar cancer should be administered in case of positive margins or metastatic disease.

Objective: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have achieved remarkable results in cancer treatments. However, there is no effective predictive biomarker for gastrointestinal (GI) cancer. Methods: We conducted integrative analyses of the genomic and survival data of ICI-treated GI cancer patients from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center cohort (MSK-GI, n = 227), the Janjigian cohort (n = 40), and the Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute cohort (PUCH, n = 80) to determine the possible associations between DNA damage response and repair (DDR) gene mutations and clinical outcomes. Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas database were analyzed to determine the possible correlations between DDR gene mutations and the tumor microenvironment. Results: In the MSK cohort, the presence of ≥ 2 DDR gene mutations was correlated with prolonged overall survival (OS). The Janjigian and PUCH cohorts further confirmed that subgroups with ≥ 2 DDR gene mutations displayed a prolonged OS and a higher durable clinical benefit. Furthermore, the DDR gene mutation load could be considered as an independent prognostic factor, and exhibited a potential predictive value for survival in GI cancer patients treated with ICIs. Mechanistically, we showed that the presence of ≥ 2 DDR gene mutations was correlated with higher levels of tumor mutation burden, neoantigen, and T cell infiltration. Conclusions: The DDR gene mutation status was correlated with favorable clinical outcomes in GI cancer patients receiving ICIs, which could serve as a potential biomarker to guide patient selection for immunotherapy.

Abstract Background Recently, a new metabolic health (MH) definition was developed from NHANES-III. In the origin study, the definition may stratify mortality risks in people who are overweight or normal weight. We aimed to investigate the association between the new MH definition and all-cause mortality in a nonobese Chinese population. Methods The data were collected in 1992 and then again in 2007 from the same group of 1157 participants. The association between the new MH definition and all-cause mortality were analyzed by Cox regression models with overlap weighting according to propensity score (PS) as primary analysis. Results At baseline in 1992, 920 (79.5%) participants were categorized as MH, and 237 (20.5%) participants were categorized as metabolically unhealthy (MUH) based on this new definition. During a median follow-up of 15 years, all-cause mortality occurred in 17 (1.85%) participants in MH group and 13 (5.49%) in MUH group, respectively. In the crude sample, Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated a significantly higher all-cause mortality in MUH group when compared to MH group (log-rank p = 0.002), and MUH was significantly associated with increased all-cause mortality when compared to MH with HR at 3.04 (95% CI: 1.47–6.25, p = 0.003). However, Kaplan–Meier analysis with overlap weighting showed that the cumulative incidence of all-cause mortality was not significantly different between MH and MUH groups (adjusted p = 0.589). Furthermore, in the primary multivariable Cox analysis with overlap weighting, adjusted HR for all-cause mortality was 1.42 (95% CI: 0.49—4.17, p = 0.519) in MUH group in reference to MH group. Other additional PS analyses also showed the incidence of all-cause mortality was not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusion The new MH definition may be not appropriate for mortality risk stratification in non-obese Chinese people. Further investigations are needed.

Objectives:It is well known that multimodal services containing audio,video and haptics such as mixed reality,digital twin and metaverse are bound to become killer applications in the 6G era,however,the large amount of multimodal data generated by such services is highly likely to burden the signal processing, transmission and storage of existing communication systems. Therefore, a cross-modal signal reconstruction scheme is urgently needed to reduce the amount of transmitted data to support 6G immersive multimodal services in order to meet the user's immersive experience requirements and guarantee low latency,high reliability and high capacity communication quality. Methods:Firstly,by controlling the robot to touch various materials,a dataset containing audio, visual and touch signals, VisTouch, is constructed to lay the foundation for subsequent research on various cross-modal problems; secondly, by exploiting the semantic correlation between multimodal signals, a universal and robust end-to-end cross-modal signal reconstruction architecture is designed, comprising three parts: a feature extraction module, a reconstruction module and an evaluation module. The feature extraction module maps the source modal signals into a semantic feature vector in the common semantic space, and the reconstruction module inverse transforms this semantic feature vector into the target modal signal.The evaluation module evaluates the reconstruction quality in semantic and spatio-temporal dimensions, and feeds the optimization information to the feature extraction module and the reconstruction module during the training process of the framework, forming a closed-loop loop to achieve accurate signal reconstruction through continuous iteration. Further, a teleoperated platform is designed to deploy the constructed haptic reconstruction model into the codec to actually verify the operational efficiency of the model; finally, the reliability of the cross-modal signal reconstruction architecture and the accuracy of the haptic reconstruction model are verified by experimental results. Results: The constructed VisTouch dataset involves three modalities: audio, video and haptics, and contains 47 common slices of life samples. The average absolute error and accuracy of the constructed video-assisted haptic reconstruction model on the VisTouch dataset reached 0.0135 and 0.78 respectively. In order to implement the proposed cross-modal signal reconstruction framework into practical application scenarios, a teleoperation platform was further built using the robot and Nvidia development board for the industrial scenario of The results of running on this platform show that the actual mean absolute error is 0.0126,the total end-to-end delay is 127ms and the reconstruction model delay is 98ms.A questionnaire was also used to assess user satisfaction,where the mean value of haptic realism satisfaction is 4.43 with a variance of 0.72 and the mean value of time delay satisfaction is 3.87 with a variance of 1.07. Conclusions: The results of the dataset runs fully demonstrate the practicality of the constructed VisTouch dataset and the accuracy of the video-assisted haptic reconstruction model, while the actual test results of the teleoperated platform indicate that users consider the haptic signals generated by the model to be closer to the actual signals,but are generally satisfied with the running time of the algorithm, i.e. the complexity of this modality needs further optimization.

Kandelia obovata (Rhizophoraceae) is the most cold-tolerant mangrove species and has been widely used in coastal wetland ecological restoration due to its specific viviparous phenomenon, beautiful shape, and unique floral pattern. Due to long-term adaptation to their local environment, the phenotypic characteristics and stress resistance of widely distributed plants of the same species often differentiate across different locations. The capacity for cold resistance is closely linked to the physiological and structural characteristics of plants. Herein, we explored the temporal variations in the leaf structure and physiological status of K. obovata under −5.5 °C from different areas such as Jiulongjiang Estuary (JLJ, 24°25′ N), Fujian Province, and Longgang City (LG, 27°34′ N) and Jiaojiang District (JJ, 28°67′ N), Zhejiang Province. The morphological variations implied that the cold resistance of K. obovata obviously strengthened after the northward migration and acclimatization, in the following order: LG > JJ > JLJ. More specifically, after exposure to a sustained low temperature, the relative conductivity (REC), an index widely used to evaluate the degree of plant damage, remarkably increased from 33.62 ± 2.39 to 63.73 ± 3.81, 31.20 ± 1.63 to 49.48 ± 1.12, and 23.75 ± 0.13 to 54.24 ± 1.45 for JLJ, LG, and JJ, respectively (p < 0.05). Additionally, the palisade-to-spongy tissue ratio (P/I) of JLJ and JJ decreased from 0.78 ± 0.05 and 0.75 ± 0.03 to 0.5 ± 0.04 and 0.64 ± 0.02 (p < 0.05), whereas no significant changes were found in LG (p > 0.05). The SOD activity of LG significantly kept increasing, with values increased from 352.49 ± 10.38 to 477.65 ± 1.78 U·g−1, whereas no apparent changes in JLJ and JJ were observed with the sustained low temperature. The results of this study improved our understanding of the response of K. obovata to freezing stress, which could provide a sound theoretical foundation for cultivating cold-resistant varieties, as well as expanding mangrove plantations in higher latitudes.

The escalation of global nitrogen deposition levels has heightened the inhibitory impact of phosphorus limitation on plant growth in subtropical forests. Plant roots area particularly sensitive tissue to nitrogen and phosphorus elements. Changes in the morphological characteristics of plant roots signify alterations in adaptive strategies. However, our understanding of resource-use strategies of roots in this environment remains limited. In this study, we conducted a 10-month experiment at the Castanopsis kawakamii Nature Reserve to evaluate the response of traits of seedling roots (such as specific root length, average diameter, nitrogen content, and phosphorus content) to nitrogen and phosphorus addition. The aim was to reveal the adaptation strategies of roots in different nitrogen and phosphorus addition concentrations. The results showed that: (1) The single phosphorus and nitrogen–phosphorus interaction addition increased the specific root length, surface area, and root phosphorus content. In addition, single nitrogen addition promotes an increase in the average root diameter. (2) Non-nitrogen phosphorus addition and single nitrogen addition tended to adopt a conservative resource-use strategy to maintain growth under low phosphorus conditions. (3) Under the single phosphorus addition and interactive addition of phosphorus and nitrogen, the roots adopted an acquisitive resource-use strategy to obtain more available phosphorus resources. Accordingly, the adaptation strategy of seedling roots can be regulated by adding appropriate concentrations of nitrogen or phosphorus, thereby promoting the natural regeneration of subtropical forests.

Recycling economy and the re-utilization of solid waste have become important parts of sustainable development strategy. To improve the utilization rate of waste glass, glass powder high-strength cementitious material (GHSC) was prepared by replacing part of the cement in the cementitious material with ground waste glass powder. Firstly, the effect of glass powder particle size on the flexural and compressive strength of GHSC was investigated by the gray correlation method, and the optimal grinding time was obtained. Additionally, the effect of the magnitude of steam curing temperature and the length of steam curing time on the compressive strength and flexural strength of GHSC was investigated, and the mechanism of the effect of the curing regime on the strength was explored by examination of the microstructure. Finally, to simplify the curing process of GHSC, the effects of Ca(OH)2 and Na2SO4 as excitation agents on the compressive strength and flexural strength of GHSC at different dosing levels were compared. The results showed that glass powder with a particle size of less than 20 μm would improve the compressive strength and flexural strength of the specimen. Steam curing can significantly improve the flexural strength and compressive strength of GHSC specimens. At a steam curing temperature of 90 °C for a duration of three days, the compressive strength and flexural strength of GHSC increased by 76.7% and 98.2%, respectively, compared with the standard curing specimens. Ca(OH)2 and Na2SO4 as excitation agents significantly enhanced the compressive and flexural strengths of GHSC under standard curing conditions.

A highly strained InGaAs quantum well (QW) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with low threshold current density, high efficiency and output power emissions around 1130 nm was grown by MOCVD. Its static characteristics at room temperature and high operation temperature were studied in detail. The 7 μm oxide aperture device exhibits a threshold current of 0.68 mA, corresponding to a threshold current density of 1.7 kA/cm2. The slope efficiency is 0.43 W/A and the maximum output power is 3.3 mW. Continuous-wave (CW) operation in the 10–80 °C temperature range is observed. The slope efficiency is almost constant at 10–80 °C. The threshold current becomes lower at high temperatures thanks to the alignment between gain peak and cavity mode. The 3 μm oxide aperture device’s lasing in single mode with the RMS spectral width of 0.163 nm and orthogonal polarization suppression ratio (OPSR) is ~15 dB at 25 °C. The small-signal response analysis indicates that reducing the parasitics of the device and refining the fabrication process will improve the dynamics response characteristics. These results indicate that the 1130 nm GaAs-based VCSEL with highly strained InGaAs QWs is expected to be used as source for silicon photonics.

A novel asymmetric all-dielectric metasurface supporting multiple Fano resonances with high quality-factor through the excitation of quasi-bound states in the continuum is theoretically investigated. It is demonstrated that two resonances in the near-infrared wavelength are excited by the symmetry-protected bound state in the continuum, which can be transformed into the electric dipole and the toroidal dipole quasi-BIC resonance with high quality-factor by breaking the symmetry of metasurface. Moreover, the sensing properties based on different liquid refractive indexes are researched theoretically. The results show that the maximum quality-factor of the Fano resonance peak is 8422, and the sensitivity can reach 402 nm/RIU, with a maximum figure of merit of 2400 RIU−1. This research is believed to further promote the development of optical sensing and nonlinear optics.

In recent years, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have gained widespread adoption in remote sensing image processing. Deploying CNN-based algorithms on satellite edge devices can alleviate the strain on data downlinks. However, CNN algorithms present challenges due to their large parameter count and high computational requirements, which conflict with the satellite platforms’ low power consumption and high real-time requirements. Moreover, remote sensing image processing tasks are diverse, requiring the platform to accommodate various network structures. To address these issues, this paper proposes an algorithm–hardware co-optimization and deployment method for FPGA-based CNN remote sensing image processing. Firstly, a series of hardware-centric model optimization techniques are proposed, including operator fusion and depth-first mapping technology, to minimize the resource overhead of CNN models. Furthermore, a versatile hardware accelerator is proposed to accelerate a wide range of commonly used CNN models after optimization. The accelerator architecture mainly consists of a parallel configurable network processing unit and a multi-level storage structure, enabling the processing of optimized networks with high throughput and low power consumption. To verify the superiority of our method, the introduced accelerator was deployed on an AMD-Xilinx VC709 evaluation board, on which the improved YOLOv2, VGG-16, and ResNet-34 networks were deployed. Experiments show that the power consumption of the accelerator is 14.97 W, and the throughput of the three networks reaches 386.74 giga operations per second (GOPS), 344.44 GOPS, and 182.34 GOPS, respectively. Comparison with related work demonstrates that the co-optimization and deployment method can accelerate remote sensing image processing CNN models and is suitable for applications in satellite edge devices.

(1) Background: Vaccine safety is an important topic with public health implications on a global scale. The purpose of this study was to systematically review available literature assessing sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) incidence and severity following both coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and non-COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as prognosis and outcomes. (2) Methods: This systematic review was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Relevant publications evaluating post-vaccination SNHL were selected from PubMed and Embase, searching from inception to July 2023. (3) Results: From 11 observational studies, the incidence of post-vaccination SNHL was low for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 vaccines, ranging from 0.6 to 60.77 per 100,000 person-years, comparable to all-cause SNHL. (4) Conclusions: The incidence rates of SNHL following COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 vaccinations remained reassuringly low. Most patients experienced improved hearing function in the weeks to months following vaccination. This study underscores the importance and safety of vaccinations and encourages ongoing surveillance and detailed reporting of hearing loss cases post-vaccination.

This paper investigates the complex dynamics of a ratio-dependent predator–prey model incorporating the Allee effect in prey and predator harvesting. To explore the joint effect of the harvesting effort and diffusion on the dynamics of the system, we perform the following analyses: (a) The stability of non-negative constant steady states; (b) The sufficient conditions for the occurrence of a Hopf bifurcation, Turing bifurcation, and Turing–Hopf bifurcation; (c) The derivation of the normal form near the Turing–Hopf singularity. Moreover, we provide numerical simulations to illustrate the theoretical results. The results demonstrate that the small change in harvesting effort and the ratio of the diffusion coefficients will destabilize the constant steady states and lead to the complex spatiotemporal behaviors, including homogeneous and inhomogeneous periodic solutions and nonconstant steady states. Moreover, the numerical simulations coincide with our theoretical results.

For a Jordan curve Γ in the complex plane, its constant distance boundary Γλ is an inflated version of Γ. A flatness condition, (1/2,r0)-chordal property, guarantees that Γλ is a Jordan curve when λ is not too large. We prove that Γλ converges to Γ, as λ approaching to 0, in the sense of Hausdorff distance if Γ has the (1/2,r0)-chordal property.

The seismic research of underground structures is one of the important research directions in the field of earthquake engineering today. Domestic and foreign scholars have adopted methods such as prototype observation, experimental research, and theoretical analysis in the study of subway station seismic response so far. With the rapid development of computer technology, numerical simulation methods in experimental research are adopted by more and more scholars. In order to shorten the calculation time and simplify the calculation model, the plane model is usually used for calculation. There have been lots of studies on the difference between the plane model and the space model, but few scholars have systematically compared the difference between the results. This article provides a brief and comprehensive review of existing research on plane models. In order to deepen people’s understanding of seismic research methods of underground structures, the characteristics and shortcomings of equivalent area method, equal frame method, equivalent stiffness method and equivalent stiffness reduction elastic modulus method are compared and analyzed.

Abstract Background Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, also called the nondiarrheal form of hemolytic uremic syndrome, is a rare disease characterized by the triad of thrombocytopenia, Coomb’s test-negative microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, and acute renal failure. Approximately 60% of cases of atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome are associated with deficiencies of the complement regulatory protein, including mutations in complement factor H, complement factor I, or the membrane co-factor protein. Case presentation We report the case of a 26-year-old Asian man who presented with pulmonary infection, elevated blood pressure, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and acute renal failure. Renal biopsy revealed diffuse capillary fibrin deposition, endothelial swelling, and arteriole narrowing like “onion skinning” consistent with thrombotic microangiopathy. Bidirectional sequencing of CFH, CFHR5, CFHR1, CFI, DGKE, CFB, and MCP confirmed that the patient was heterozygous for a novel missense mutation, p.Cys67Phe, in CFI. This patient had rapid evolution to end-stage renal disease and needed renal replacement therapy. Plasma exchange seemed inefficacious in this patient. Conclusions This report confirms the importance of screening patients with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome for mutations in genes involved in complement system to clarify the diagnosis and demonstrates the challenges in the management of these patients.

Abstract Land subsidence is a global problem in urban areas. The main cause of land subsidence is the pumping of subsurface water. It is of great significance to study the subsurface settlement and water flow of the lands due to pumping. In this study, the probabilistic analysis of land subsidence due to pumping is performed by Biot’s poroelasticity and random field theory based on a case study. The results show that the change of deformation of the aquifer is far less significant than the hydraulic head over the years. When considering the spatial variability of soil strength, the land subsidence suffers from great uncertainty when the correlation length is large. Nevertheless, the spatial variability of soil strength on the uncertainty of hydraulic head can be ignored. When considering the spatial variability of soil hydraulic conductivity, the uncertainty of the hydraulic head is mainly located near the bedrock and increases markedly along with the rise of the correlation length. Time is another important factor to increase the uncertainty of the hydraulic head. However, its contribution to the uncertainty of displacement is insignificant.

Chitosan, a natural and safe polymer, has antibacterial, metal chelating, clarifying and antioxidant effects in the fruit wine making industries. However, the activity strength and action mechanism of chitosan in the brewing process is still unclear. In this review, the action mode of chitosan and its derivatives as antibacterial, antioxidant and clarifying agent, their application status in fruit wine brewing are summarized, the development bottleneck problems are analyzed, as well as their potential application value is discussed, attempting to promote the further research, development and utilization of chitosan and its derivatives in fruit wine and boost the development of fruit wine industry.

BackgroundThe causal effect of obesity on diabetic retinopathy (DR) remains controversial. The aim of this study was to assess the causal association of generalized obesity evaluated by body mass index (BMI) and abdominal obesity evaluated by waist or hip circumference with DR, background DR, and proliferative DR using a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.MethodsGenetic variants associated with obesity at the genome-wide significance (P

Emerging bisphenol S analogues (BPSs) have gained their application perspectives to replace bisphenol A (BPA) and BPA analogues (BPAs). However, the extent of human exposure and potential health risk from BPSs is rarely known yet. We hypothesized that children living in Shantou, China, a well-known e-waste recycling city, may expose to emerging BPSs together with BPA and BPAs. In this study, BPA, six commonly used BPAs and 11 emerging BPSs were determined simultaneously in 240 urine samples collected from children residing in Shantou. BPA, BPS, bisphenol F, bisphenol AF and three BPSs of 2,4′-bis(hydroxyphenyl)sulfone, 4-((4-(allyloxy)phenyl)sulfonyl)phenol and diphenylsulfone (DPS) were the urinary predominant bisphenols with detection frequencies of 67–100% in the children. BPA was found at the highest median concentration (3.36 µg/g creatinine) followed by BPS (0.313) and DPS (0.187). It is interesting to find that the girls and children in the younger group (2 ≤ age

Enhancers play a crucial role in controlling gene transcription and expression. Therefore, bioinformatics puts many emphases on predicting enhancers and their strength. It is vital to create quick and accurate calculating techniques because conventional biomedical tests take too long time and are too expensive. This paper proposed a new predictor called iEnhancer-DCSV built on a modified densely connected convolutional network (DenseNet) and an improved convolutional block attention module (CBAM). Coding was performed using one-hot and nucleotide chemical property (NCP). DenseNet was used to extract advanced features from raw coding. The channel attention and spatial attention modules were used to evaluate the significance of the advanced features and then input into a fully connected neural network to yield the prediction probabilities. Finally, ensemble learning was employed on the final categorization findings via voting. According to the experimental results on the test set, the first layer of enhancer recognition achieved an accuracy of 78.95%, and the Matthews correlation coefficient value was 0.5809. The second layer of enhancer strength prediction achieved an accuracy of 80.70%, and the Matthews correlation coefficient value was 0.6609. The iEnhancer-DCSV method can be found at https://github.com/leirufeng/iEnhancer-DCSV. It is easy to obtain the desired results without using the complex mathematical formulas involved.

IntroductionBladder cancer (BLCA) is one of the most lethal diseases. COL10A1 is secreted small-chain collagen in the extracellular matrix associated with various tumors, including gastric, colon, breast, and lung cancer. However, the role of COL10A1 in BLCA remains unclear. This is the first research focusing on the prognostic value of COL10A1 in BLCA. In this research, we aimed to uncover the association between COL10A1 and the prognosis, as well as other clinicopathological parameters in BLCA.MethodsWe obtained gene expression profiles of BLCA and normal tissues from the TCGA, GEO, and ArrayExpress databases. Immunohistochemistry staining was performed to investigate the protein expression and prognostic value of COL10A1 in BLCA patients. GO and KEGG enrichment along with GSEA analyses were performed to reveal the biological functions and potential regulatory mechanisms of COL10A1 based on the gene co-expression network. We used the “maftools” R package to display the mutation profiles between the high and low COL10A1 groups. GIPIA2, TIMER, and CIBERSORT algorithms were utilized to explore the effect of COL10A1 on the tumor immune microenvironment.ResultsWe found that COL10A1 was upregulated in the BLCA samples, and increased COL10A1 expression was related to poor overall survival. Functional annotation of 200 co-expressed genes positively correlated with COL10A1 expression, including GO, KEGG, and GSEA enrichment analyses, indicated that COL10A1 was basically involved in the extracellular matrix, protein modification, molecular binding, ECM-receptor interaction, protein digestion and absorption, focal adhesion, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. The most commonly mutated genes of BLCA were different between high and low COL10A1 groups. Tumor immune infiltrating analyses showed that COL10A1 might have an essential role in recruiting infiltrating immune cells and regulating immunity in BLCA, thus affecting prognosis. Finally, external datasets and biospecimens were used, and the results further validated the aberrant expression of COL10A1 in BLCA samples.ConclusionsIn conclusion, our study demonstrates that COL10A1 is an underlying prognostic and predictive biomarker in BLCA.

Cytokinin is a major phytohormone that has been used in agriculture as a plant-growth stimulating compound since its initial discovery in the 1960s. Isopentenyl transferase (IPT) is a rate-limiting enzyme for cytokinin biosynthesis, which is produced by plants as well as bacteria including both plant pathogenic species and plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB). It has been hypothesized that there may be differences in IPT function between plant pathogens and PGPB. However, a comprehensive comparison of IPT genes between plant pathogenic and PGPB species has not been performed. Here, we performed a global comparison of IPT genes across bacteria, analyzing their DNA sequences, codon usage, phyletic distribution, promoter structure and genomic context. We found that adenylate type IPT genes are highly specific to plant-associated bacteria and subdivide into two major clades: clade A, largely composed of proteobacterial plant pathogens; and clade B, largely composed of actinomycete PGPB species. Besides these phylogenetic differences, we identified several genomic features that suggest differences in IPT regulation between pathogens and PGPB. Pathogen-associated IPTs tended to occur in predicted virulence loci, whereas PGPB-associated IPTs tended to co-occur with other genes involved in cytokinin metabolism and degradation. Pathogen-associated IPTs also showed elevated gene copy numbers, significant deviation in codon usage patterns, and extended promoters, suggesting differences in regulation and activity levels. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that differences in IPT regulation and activity exist between plant pathogens and PGPB, which determine their effect on plant host phenotypes through the control of cytokinin levels.

Abstract Background Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a kind of acquired brain injury, which is caused by external mechanical forces. Moreover, the neuroprotective role of sevoflurane (Sevo) has been identified in TBI. Therefore, this research was conducted to figure out the mechanism of Sevo in TBI via FGF2. Methods The key factors of neuroprotective effects of Sevo in TBI rats were predicted by bioinformatics analysis. A TBI model was induced on rats that then inhaled Sevo for 1 h and grouped via lentivirus injection. Modified Neurological Severity Score was adopted to evaluate neuronal damage in rats, followed by motor function and brain water content measurement. FGF2, EZH2, and HES1 expression in brain tissues was evaluated by immunofluorescence staining, and expression of related genes and autophagy factors by RT-qPCR and Western blot analysis. Methylation-specific PCR was performed to assess HES1 promoter methylation level, and ChIP assay to detect the enrichment of EZH2 in the HES1 promoter. Neuronal damage was assessed by cell immunofluorescence staining, and neuronal apoptosis by Nissl staining, TUNEL staining, and flow cytometry. Results Sevo diminished brain edema, improved neurological scores, and decreased neuronal apoptosis and autophagy in TBI rats. Sevo preconditioning could upregulate FGF2 that elevated EZH2 expression, and EZH2 bound to the HES1 promoter to downregulate HES1 in TBI rats. Also, FGF2 or EZH2 overexpression or HES silencing decreased brain edema, neurological deficits, and neuronal autophagy and apoptosis in Sevo-treated TBI rats. Conclusions Our results provided a novel insight to the neuroprotective mechanism of Sevo in TBI rats by downregulating HES1 via FGF2/EZH2 axis activation.

Abstract Background The synthetic chemical 1,4-dioxane is used as industrial solvent, food, and care product additive. 1,4-Dioxane has been noted to influence the nervous system in long-term animal experiments and in humans, but the molecular mechanisms underlying its effects on animals were not previously known. Results Here, we report that 1,4-dioxane potentiates the capsaicin-sensitive transient receptor potential (TRP) channel TRPV1, thereby causing hyperalgesia in mouse model. This effect was abolished by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genetic deletion of TRPV1 in sensory neurons, but enhanced under inflammatory conditions. 1,4-Dioxane lowered the temperature threshold for TRPV1 thermal activation and potentiated the channel sensitivity to agonistic stimuli. 1,3-dioxane and tetrahydrofuran which are structurally related to 1,4-dioxane also potentiated TRPV1 activation. The residue M572 in the S4-S5 linker region of TRPV1 was found to be crucial for direct activation of the channel by 1,4-dioxane and its analogs. A single residue mutation M572V abrogated the 1,4-dioxane-evoked currents while largely preserving the capsaicin responses. Our results further demonstrate that this residue exerts a gating effect through hydrophobic interactions and support the existence of discrete domains for multimodal gating of TRPV1 channel. Conclusions Our results suggest TRPV1 is a co-receptor for 1,4-dioxane and that this accounts for its ability to dysregulate body nociceptive sensation.

Bamboo is a unidirectional fiber-reinforced material with excellent flexibility and flexural toughness arising from its unique cellular hierarchical structure, which creates an urgent demand in the bamboo industry to understand potential mechanisms of those two performances. In this study, a proposed original method was used to quantitatively evaluate the gradient distribution and aggregate structure of fibers on the flexibility and flexural toughness of natural moso (Phyllostachys edulis) bamboo, with a comparison to two other natural wood. Results showed that gradient distribution of fibers across the bamboo culm is the key to bamboo's varying flexibility along the diameter at the tissue level, whereas the asymmetric aggregate structure (vascular bundles) of fibers causes a difference in the flexibility when under different bending directions. Bamboo had possessed high strength and high toughness, but a conflict between the flexibility and flexural toughness existed. Compared to natural wood species of similar density, the flexibility and flexural toughness of bamboo was ∼1.8 and 1.42–4.96 times greater that of wood, respectively. At the cell level, the combination of high-performance hard fibers and soft foamy parenchyma cells act upon the bamboo's flexibility, while the excellent flexural toughness stemmed from the fiber bridging and pull-out caused by high performance and aspect ratio, low microfibrils angle of fibers, and crack deflection along the longitudinal/radial direction. These findings helped contribute critical knowledge surrounding the flexibility and flexural toughness of bamboo, especially for optimizing the process of bamboo-based winding composites pipes (BWCPs).

We designed and demonstrated a temperature-stable, wide-tuned, high-power Vertical External Cavity Surface-emitting Laser (VECSEL) with a simple linear cavity. The quantum well is optimized by using the commercial PICS3D software to obtain wide gain and good thermal performance. The curve of BF has also been optimized, and a birefringent filter (BF) with a thickness of 1mm is selected as the tuning element. Then, we obtained a continuously adjustable range cover from 1044.5 nm to 1092.1 nm, 8 W of output power, and temperature-stable VECSEL, which verifies the feasibility of the design. Based on the experimental results, we concluded that the gain intensity corresponding to the tuning range should be at least greater than 163 e26/cm−3s−1eV−1 before the growth process ensures a wide tuning range. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we designed and obtained the tuning result of VECSEL in the linear cavity, and this is of great significance to the design of VECSEL with wide-tuning, high-power, and good temperature stability.

Purpose: To examine the incidence, clinical findings and management of pellet gun–related ocular injuries that occurred during protests in Kashmir region. Methods: This retrospective study included records from 777 patients diagnosed with pellet gun–related ocular injuries admitted to a tertiary hospital in Srinagar, India, between July and November 2016. By reviewing the clinical records, the following data were collected: demographics, clinical information pertaining to the injury, imaging reports including computer tomography and ultrasonography B-scan, management in the emergency setting, and follow-up treatment. Results: Mean age was 22.3 ± 7.2 years and majority patients were male (97.7%). In terms of laterality, 94.3% and 5.7% of the patients sustained monocular and binocular injuries, respectively. In terms of the nature of injury, 76.3% of the eyes had open globe injury while 23.7% of the eyes had closed eye injury. Emergency surgical exploration was performed in 67.7% of closed globe injuries while emergency primary repair was done in 91.1% of open globe injuries. The vast majority of patients (98.7%) who required surgery underwent surgical intervention on the day of admission or the next day. Final best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) after treatment was counting fingers or worse in 82.4% of the eyes. Conclusion: Pellet gun–related ocular injuries resulted in significant ocular morbidity, mostly manifesting as open globe injuries. Treatment often required surgical interventions, but despite expeditious management, visual prognosis remained poor for most of the patients.

Abstract Rice is one of the most important food crops in Asia. Genetic analyses of complex traits and molecular breeding studies in rice greatly rely on the construction of various genetic populations. Chromosome segment substitution lines (CSSLs) serve as a powerful genetic population for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping in rice. Moreover, CSSLs containing target genomic regions can be used as improved varieties in rice breeding. In this study, we developed a set of CSSLs consisting of 117 lines derived from the recipient ‘Huanghuazhan’ (HHZ) and the donor ‘Basmati Surkb 89–15’ (BAS). The 117 lines were extensively genotyped by whole-genome resequencing, and a high-density genotype map was constructed for the CSSL population. The 117 CSSLs covered 99.78% of the BAS genome. Each line contained a single segment, and the average segment length was 6.02 Mb. Using the CSSL population, we investigated three agronomic traits in Shanghai and Hangzhou, China, and a total of 25 QTLs were detected in both environments. Among those QTLs, we found that RFT1 was the causal gene for heading date variance between HHZ and BAS. RFT1 from BAS was found to contain a loss-of-function allele based on yeast two-hybrid assay, and its causal variation was a P to S change in the 94th amino acid of the RFT1 protein. The combination of high-throughput genotyping and marker-assisted selection (MAS) is a highly efficient way to construct CSSLs in rice, and extensively genotyped CSSLs will be a powerful tool for the genetic mapping of agronomic traits and molecular breeding for target QTLs/genes.

Research background. Sparassis latifolia polysaccharides can regulate lipids and cholesterol in serum and liver. However, little is known about the regulation mechanism of the polysaccharides on cholesterol metabolism and especially the causal relationship with gut microbiota regulation. This study will provide a theoretical basis for the cholesterol-lowering mechanism of S. latifolia polysaccharides and further development of functional foods. Experimental approach. In this study, we investigated how the regulation mechanism of Sparassis latifolia polysaccharides affects intestinal cholesterol metabolism in high-fat and high-cholesterol diet-fed rats. Briefly, enzymatic colorimetric microplate assay was used to determine the concentration of faecal bile acid. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to detect the content of cholesterol and alcohol in faeces. Haematoxylin and eosin staining method was applied to observe the changes in the structure of the small intestine tissue. The related gene expressions in jejunum and ileum were detected by real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The related protein expressions in jejunum were studied by using Western blot. High-throughput sequencing was used to detect the intestinal flora changes of the caecal contents. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was applied to detect the concentration of short-chain fatty acids in the caecal content. Results and conclusions. The results showed that Sparassis latifolia polysaccharides could improve the intestinal morphological structure and physiological indices in rats fed high-fat and high-cholesterol diet. Moreover, it could improve intestinal cholesterol metabolism disorder induced by high-fat and high-cholesterol diets via the reduction of the expression of HMGCR, NPC1L1, ACAT2, MTP, ASBT and IBABP mRNA or protein, increasing ABCG8 mRNA expression. In addition, it could also increase the relative abundance of Bacteroides, Butyricicoccus, Parabacteroides, Parasutteerella and Alloprevotella and the short-chain fatty acid concentration, to comprehensively regulate the intestinal cholesterol metabolism. The metabolomics analysis found that Sparassis latifolia polysaccharides could affect lipid, carbohydrate and other related metabolites. Some biomarkers associated with cholesterol metabolism correlated significantly with the abundance of specific intestinal microbiota. Novelty and scientific contribution. These findings indicate that Sparassis latifolia polysaccharides could attenuate intestinal cholesterol metabolism disorder, correlating with modulating gut microbiota and improving host metabolism. They provide theoretical support for the development of Sparassis latifolia as a new food resource.

Abstract Background and Aim Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, long‐term alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and obesity are the major risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States, but the disease risk varies substantially among individuals with these factors, suggesting host susceptibility to and gene–environment interactions in HCC. To address genetic susceptibility to HCC, we conducted a genome‐wide association study (GWAS). Methods Two case‐control studies on HCC were conducted in the United States. DNA samples were genotyped using the Illumian microarray chip with over 710 000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We compared these SNPs between 705 HCC cases and 1455 population controls for their associations with HCC and verified our findings in additional studies. Results In this GWAS, we found that two SNPs were associated with HCC at P

Abstract Background Previous studies have shown that women achieve a better quality of postoperative recovery from total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) than from inhalation anesthesia, but the effect of anesthesia type on recovery in male patients is unclear. This study therefore compared patient recovery between males undergoing lumbar surgery who received TIVA and those who received sevoflurane anesthesia. Methods Eighty male patients undergoing elective one- or two-level primary transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) were randomly divided into two groups: the TIVA group (maintenance was achieved with propofol and remifentanil) or sevoflurane group (SEVO group: maintenance was achieved with sevoflurane and remifentanil). The quality of recovery-40 questionnaire (QoR-40) was administered before surgery and on postoperative days 1 and 2 (POD1 and POD2). Pain scores, postoperative nausea and vomiting, postoperative hospital stay, anesthesia consumption, and adverse effects were recorded. Results The QoR-40 scores were similar on the three points (Preoperative, POD1 and POD2). Pain scores were significantly lower in the SEVO group than in the TIVA group on POD1 (30.6 vs 31.4; P = 0.01) and POD2 (32 vs 33; P = 0.002). There was no significant difference in the postoperative hospital stay or complications in the postanesthesia care unit between the TIVA group and the SEVO group. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the quality of recovery is not significantly different between male TLIF surgery patients who receive TIVA and those who receive sevoflurane anesthesia. Patients in the TIVA group had better postoperative analgesic effect on POD2. Trial registration This was registered at http://www.chictr.org.cn (registration number ChiCTR-IOR-16007987, registration date: 24/02/2016).

Abstract Crowd counting aims to count the number of people in crowded scenes, which is important to the security systems, traffic control and so on. The existing methods typically using local features cannot properly handle the perspective distortion and the varying scales in congested scene images, and henceforth perform wrong people counting. To alleviate this issue, this study proposes a multi‐scale residual feature‐aware network (MSR‐FAN) that combines multi‐scale features using multiple receptive field sizes and learns the feature‐aware information on each image. The MSR‐FAN is trained end‐to‐end to generate high‐quality density map and evaluate the crowd number. The method consists of three parts. To handle the perspective changes problem, the first part, the direction‐based feature‐enhanced network, is designed to encode the perspective information in four directions based on the initial image feature. The second part, the proposed multi‐scale residual block module, gets the global information to handle the represent the regional feature better. This module explores features of different scales as well as reinforce the global feature. The third part, the feature‐aware block, is designed to extract the feature hidden in the different channels. Experiment results based on benchmark datasets show that the proposed approach outperforms the existing state‐of‐the‐art methods.

Background: This study investigates the predictive value of the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), which was calculated as platelet × neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, for all-cause mortality in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Methods: A total of 360 HCM patients were enrolled. They were divided into three groups based on the tertiles of baseline SII. The association between SII and all-cause mortality was analyzed. Results: There were 53 HCM patients who died during a mean follow-up time of 4.8 years (min: 6 days and max: 10.8 years), and the mortality rate was 3.0 per 100 person years. The cumulative mortality rate was significantly different among the three tertiles of SII (P = 0.004), and the mortality rate in tertile 3 was much higher than that in the first two tertiles. In reference to tertile 1, the fully adjusted hazard ratios of all-cause mortality were 1.02 for the tertile 2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.45–2.31, P = 0.966) and 2.31 for tertile 3 (95% CI: 1.10–4.87, P = 0.027). No significant interactions between SII and other variables were observed during subgroup analysis. The discriminative power was better for mid-term outcome than that for short-term or long-term outcomes. Sensitivity analyses including patients with normal platelet and white blood cell count have revealed similar results. Conclusion: SII was a significant risk factor for all-cause mortality in HCM patients. However, the discriminative power was poor to moderate. It could be used in combination with other risk factors in mortality risk stratification in HCM.

Bisphenol S (BPS) and its 11 emerging analogues were investigated in 325 urine samples from five occupational populations in South China. Besides BPS, ten emerging BPS analogues were newly identified and detected in the urine. It should be noted that urinary concentrations of dominant BPS analogues of 2,4′-bis(hydroxyphenyl)sulfone (2,4-BPS), bis(3-allyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)sulfone (TGSA) and diphenylsulfone (DPS) were 1.1–2.3 times higher than that of BPS, with overall detection frequencies at 74–91 %. The median sum concentrations of the target 12 bisphenols (ng/mL) were found highest in urine from cashiers (1.12), followed by water plant staffs (0.994), teachers (0.552), doctors (0.408) and power plant staffs (0.333). The composition profile of the urinary dominant bisphenols was occupational-dependent, with 2,4-BPS accounting for 45–73 % in cashiers and power plant staffs, and with DPS and TGSA for 74–82 % among doctors, teachers and water plant staffs. Significant correlations were found among the most frequently detected bisphenols in cashiers, indicating their common application and emission pathways. The median exposures based on estimated daily intakes (EDIs, ng/kg bw/day) for the 12 bisphenols in cashiers and water plant staffs (31.6–35.6) were 1.8–3.4 times higher than those of teachers, doctors and power plant staffs (10.6–17.5). This is the first study to identify multiple emerging BPS analogues in urine from occupational populations, especially cashiers and water plant staffs.

AimsWe aim to compare the efficiency of erector spinae plane block (ESPB) with transversus abdominis plane block (TAPB) in patients undergoing laparotomic radical hysterectomy because only a few studies are reported exploring this matter.MethodsIn this randomized controlled trail, 154 eligible patients were randomly allocated into ESPB group [ESPB + patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA)] and TAPB group (TAPB + PCIA) at 1:1 ratio. The primary outcome was visual analog scale (VAS) score at rest state at 12 h.ResultsWe found that ESPB group was associated with the lower VAS scores at rest and cough state than TAPB group at 2, 4, 6, 12, and 24 h postoperatively (P

We have designed and analyzed the high quality-factor (Q-factor), multiple Fano resonances device on the basis of the all-dielectric metastructure. The unit structure consists of two rectangular air holes etched within a silicon cube and periodically aligns on the substrate of silicon dioxide. The results demonstrate that four Fano resonances are achieved by integrating the theory of bound states in the continuum (BIC)and breaking the symmetry (width symmetry or depth symmetry) of two rectangle air holes, and the resonant wavelength can be modified by altering structural parameters. The sensing characteristics of the presented structure are studied. The sensitivity(S) of 304 nm/RIU, the maximal Q-factor of 2142 and the figure of merit (FOM) of 515.3 are achieved while width symmetry is broken. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of 280 nm/RIU, the maximal Q-factor of 2517 and the FOM of 560 are gotted through breaking depth symmetry. The proposed metastructures can be used for the lasers, biosensing and nonlinear optics.

With the development of high-volume manufacturing for very-large-scale integrated circuits, the purity of the light source in the extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) system needs to fulfil extreme requirements in order to avoid thermal effect, optical distortion and critical dimension errors caused by out-of-band radiations. This paper reviews the key technologies and developments of the spectral purity systems for both a free-standing system and a built-in system integrated with the collector. The main challenges and developing trends are also discussed, with a view towards practical applications for further improvement. Designing and manufacturing spectral purity systems for EUVL is not a single task; rather, it requires systematic considerations for all relevant modules. Moreover, the requirement of spectral purity filters drives the innovation in filtering technologies, optical micromachining and advanced metrology.