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Delaying kidney senescence process will benefit renal physiologic conditions, and prompt the kidney recovering from different pathological states. The renal anti‐senescence effects of sodium‐glucose cotransporter‐2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) and metformin have been proven in diabetic settings, but the roles of each one and combination of two drugs in natural kidney aging process remain undefined and deserve further research. Senescence‐accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) were orally administered dapagliflozin, metformin, and a combination of them for 16 weeks. Dapagliflozin exhibits better effects than metformin in lowering senescence related markers, and the combination therapy shows the best results. In vitro experiments demonstrate the same results that the combination of dapagliflozin and metformin can exert a better anti‐senescence effect. Blood metabolites detection in vivo shows dapagliflozin mainly leads to the change of blood metabolites enriched in choline metabolism, and metformin tends to induce change of blood metabolites enriched in purine metabolism. In conclusion, the results suggest dapagliflozin may have a better renal anti‐senescence effect than metformin in non‐diabetes environment, and the combination of the two drugs can strengthen the effect. The two drugs can lead to different blood metabolites alteration, which may lead to different systemic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to study the effects of mycorrhizal and extraradical hyphae on soil physical and chemical properties and enzyme activity characteristics in a subtropical plantation and to explore its indicative effect on the effectiveness of soil nutrients. In this study, three native afforestation tree species, Cunninghamia lanceolata, Schima superba, and Liquidambar formosana, with different biological characteristics, root functional traits, and nutrient acquisition strategies in subtropical regions were selected as the research objects. Based on the method of in-growth soil cores, the nylon mesh with different pore sizes was used to limited the root system and hypha into the soil column. The soil physical and chemical properties of five kinds of hydrolase related to the carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) cycles were determined in this study. The correlation of different tree species, roots, and mycelia with soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activity, and stoichiometric ratios was analyzed. The results revealed that mycorrhizal treatment significantly affected the soil total carbon (TC) and pH but had no significant effect on hydrolase activity and its stoichiometric ratio. Tree species significantly affected soil physical and chemical properties, soil β-1,4-N-acetylglucosaminidase (NAG), β-1,4-glucosidase (βG), and cellobiohydrolase (CB) activities and soil enzyme stoichiometric ratios. The soil enzyme activity and stoichiometric ratio of the Chinese fir forest had higher values than in monoculture broad-leaved stands of both Schima superba and Liquidambar formosana. There was no significant interaction effect of mycorrhizal treatments and tree species on all soil properties, enzyme activities, and stoichiometric ratios. In addition, the soil enzyme activity and stoichiometric characteristics were mainly affected by the pH. In this study, the soil enzyme activity ratios In(BG + CB):In(AP) and In(NAG + LAP):In(AP) were lower values than the global scale, while the ratios of In(βG + CB):In(NAG + LAP) were higher than the average, indicating that the soil microorganisms in this area were limited by C and P. Moreover, the soil enzyme activity and chemical metrology characteristics were mainly affected by the pH change. In conclusion, differences in litter quality and root functional traits of tree species affected the soil enzyme activity and its stoichiometric characteristics through the shaping of the forest environment by organic matter input, and the influence of pH was the main regulating factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image-to-image steganography refers to the practice of hiding secret image within a cover image, serving as a crucial technique for secure communication and data protection. Existing image-to-image generative adversarial network-based steganographic methods for image hiding demonstrate a high embedding capacity. However, there is still significant room for improvement in terms of the quality of the stego images and the extracted secret images. In this study, we propose an architecture for inconspicuously hiding an image within the Y channel of another image, leveraging a U-Net network and a multi-scale fusion ExtractionBlock. The network is jointly trained using a loss function combining Perceptual Path Length (PPL) and Mean Square Error (MSE). The proposed network is trained and tested on two datasets, Labeled Faces in the Wild and Pascal visual object classes. Experimental results demonstrate that the model not only achieves high invisibility and significant hiding capacity (8 bits per pixel) without altering the color information of the cover image but also exhibits strong generalization ability. Additionally, we introduce the Modified Multi-Image Similarity Metric (MMISM), which integrates the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Structural Similarity Index Metric (SSIM) values of images, to comprehensively evaluate the network's hiding and extraction capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotoneaster schantungensis is an endangered vulnerable species restricted to Shandong Province. In this study, we report the sequencing of the C. schantungensis chloroplast (cp) genome using the Illumina Novaseq platform for the first time. The complete C. schantungensis cp genome is 159,883 bp in length and contains two inverted repeats (IRs), separated by a large single-copy region (LSC) and a small single-copy region (SSC). A total of 132 unique coding genes, including 85 protein-coding genes, 39 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes were identified. The maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis revealed that C. schantungensis is closely related to Eriobotrya japonica.

Hemiptelea davidii (Hance) Planch is a potential valuable forest tree in China. Here, the complete chloroplast genome of H. davidii was reported using high-throughput sequencing technique. The chloroplast genome is 160,195 bp in length, contains a pair of inverted repeat regions (IR, 26,599 bp), which were separated by a large single copy region (LSC, 88,231 bp) and a small single copy region (SSC, 18,766 bp). The GC content of the whole chloroplast genome is 35.28%. The chloroplast genome comprises 111 unique genes, including 77 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA genes, and four rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analyses of 17 chloroplast genomes indicated that H. davidii is close with Zelkova and Ulmus species in Ulmaceae but little far from the species in Cannabaceae, Moraceae and Urticaceae.

The scientific aspects of hydrogen storage in a single Mg atom have been investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations on gas-phase MgHn (n = 1–20) clusters. It is found, at least theoretically, that MgH7 and MgH12 gas-phase clusters have saturation sizes for the attraction of one Mg atom to odd and even numbered H atoms. Their hydrogen storage capacities reach an impressive 22.69 wt% and 33.47 wt%, respectively, which is a significant breakthrough from the insight into the hydrogen storage capacity of MgH2 (7.65 wt%). It is shown that there are two modes of cluster structure growth, alternating between odd and even H-atoms. Stability studies reveal that Mg stores even H atoms which are always more stable than odd H atoms. Electronic structure property studies indicate that Mg and H atoms contribute regularly to molecular orbitals. Finally, a clear and interesting odd-even mode mechanism for Mg-stored H atoms is established by atomic charge distribution, topological property studies of bond critical points, including bonding paths of bond critical points, electron density, Laplacian of electron density, electron localization function and interaction region indicator analysis. The specificity of such a mechanism is that the van der Waals interaction of Mg–H enhances the hydrogen storage capacity of the Mg atom. We believe that this research points to an extremely promising future for the assembly of potential hydrogen storage materials based on magnesium-based clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]