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The construction of phase boundaries is a well-known strategy to enhance the performances of ferroelectrics. In the present work, BiFeO 3 and BiInO 3 with attractive high Curie temperature of 830 °C and 600 °C were considered to reveal an unexplored phase boundary. (100- x)BiFeO 3 - x BiInO 3 (x = 10, 20, 30, 40, 41, 50, 60, and 80) films, with thicknesses of approximately 289 nm, were obtained through industrial-scalable sol-gel method on Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrates. Complete solid solution can form between BiFeO 3 and BiInO 3 , changing from rhombohedral to orthorhombic structure with the increase of BiInO 3 content. The macroscopic dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of the thin films were systematically studied to understand the effect of the solid solution, with its phase diagram being proposed. A phase boundary near 60BiFeO 3 –40BiInO 3 is formed with much superior polarization switch and piezoelectric response, of which the Curie temperature is as high as 470 °C. The results not only deepen the understanding of BiFeO 3 -based solid solutions, but also push forward potential applications of BiFeO 3 -based films in devices particularly for potential application at elevated temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local cell therapy has recently gained attention for the treatment of joint diseases and fractures. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are not only involved in osteogenesis and angiogenesis, but they also have immunomodulatory functions, such as inducing macrophage migration during bone regeneration via macrophage crosstalk. C-C motif chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2), a known inflammatory mediator, is associated with the migration of macrophages during inflammation. This study examined the utility of CCL2 as a therapeutic target for local cell therapy. Using lentiviral vectors for rabbit MSCs, genetically modified CCL2 overexpressing MSCs were generated. Osteogenic differentiation assays were performed using MSCs with or without macrophages in co-culture, and cell migration assays were also performed. Additionally, co-cultures were performed with endothelial cells (ECs), and angiogenesis was evaluated using a tube formation assay. Overexpression of CCL2 did not affect bone formation under monoculture conditions but promoted chemotaxis and osteogenesis when co-cultured with macrophages. Furthermore, CCL2-overexpression promoted tube formation in co-culture with ECs. These results suggest that CCL2 induces macrophage chemotaxis and osteogenesis by promoting crosstalk between MSCs and macrophages; CCL2 also stimulates ECs to induce angiogenesis. These findings indicate that CCL2 may be a useful therapeutic target for local cell therapy in areas of bone loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) has been associated with increased risks of new-onset and worsening proteinuria. However, epidemiologic data for post-AKI proteinuria was still lacking. This study aimed to determine the incidence, risk factors and clinical correlations of post-AKI proteinuria among hospitalized patients. Methods This study was conducted in a multicenter cohort including patients aged 18–100 years with hospital-acquired AKI (HA-AKI) hospitalized at 19 medical centers throughout China. The primary outcome was the incidence of post-AKI proteinuria. Secondary outcomes included AKI recovery and kidney disease progression. The results of both quantitative and qualitative urinary protein tests were used to define post-AKI proteinuria. Cox proportional hazard model with stepwise regression was used to determine the risk factors for post-AKI proteinuria. Results Of 6206 HA-AKI patients without proteinuria at baseline, 2102 (33.9%) had new-onset proteinuria, whereas of 5137 HA-AKI with baseline proteinuria, 894 (17.4%) had worsening proteinuria after AKI. Higher AKI stage and preexisting CKD diagnosis were risk factors for new-onset proteinuria and worsening proteinuria, whereas treatment with renin–angiotensin system inhibitors was associated with an 11% lower risk of incident proteinuria. About 60% and 75% of patients with post-AKI new-onset and worsening proteinuria, respectively, recovered within 3 months. Worsening proteinuria was associated with a lower incidence of AKI recovery and a higher risk of kidney disease progression. Conclusions Post-AKI proteinuria is common and usually transient among hospitalized patients. The risk profiles for new-onset and worsening post-AKI proteinuria differed markedly. Worsening proteinuria after AKI was associated with adverse kidney outcomes, which emphasized the need for close monitoring of proteinuria after AKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the main causes of visual impairment and severe visual loss, and can progress to two advanced forms—neovascularization and atrophic. The field of anti-AMD drugs has undergone huge developments in recent years, from single-target intravitreal administration to current clinical studies with multi-target and non-invasive agents, offering interesting new pharmacological opportunities for the treatment of this disease. Hence, we summarize some of the approved anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs for neovascular AMD, especially their structural characteristics, clinical manifestations, dosing regimens, and safety issues of the anti-VEGF drugs highlighted. In addition, advances in atrophic AMD drug research are also briefly described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has found rapidly growing applications in ophthalmology, achieving robust recognition and classification in most kind of ocular diseases. Ophthalmic surgery is one of the most delicate microsurgery, requiring high fineness and stability of surgeons. The massive demand of the AI assist ophthalmic surgery will constitute an important factor in boosting accelerate precision medicine. In clinical practice, it is instrumental to update and review the considerable evidence of the current AI technologies utilized in the investigation of ophthalmic surgery involved in both the progression and innovation of precision medicine. Bibliographic databases including PubMed and Google Scholar were searched using keywords such as "ophthalmic surgery", "surgical selection", "candidate screening", and "robot-assisted surgery" to find articles about AI technology published from 2018 to 2023. In addition to the Editorials and letters to the editor, all types of approaches are considered. In this paper, we will provide an up-to-date review of artificial intelligence in eye surgery, with a specific focus on its application to candidate screening, surgery selection, postoperative prediction, and real-time intraoperative guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that 4,4-dichloro-3-phenyl-2-cyclobutenone reacts with a variety of nucleophiles in dimethylformamide under mild conditions to yield cyclobutenones. Ring expansion of one cyclobutenone to butenolide; Chemical shifts; Proposed mechanism.

• Hemodynamic parameters assess CWs location-specific thrombosis risk. • CWs at common carotid artery lower thrombosis risk with induced helical flow. • CWs in the carotid sinus may influence bifurcation thrombosis. • Thrombus growth model provides insightful explanations. Carotid webs (CWs), lesions in the carotid arteries, are gaining research interest due to the unclear link to ischemic stroke. Similarity to atherosclerosis in lesion location adds the complexity. The main purpose of study is to investigate the hemodynamic effects of CWs at different locations in carotid arteries. Three types of models with CWs were reconstructed from the CTA dataset of 8 healthy carotid arteries (Models A: CWs at the common carotid artery; B: at the origin of internal carotid artery; C: at the carotid sinus). Wall shear stress (WSS)-based parameters, including time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS), oscillatory shear index (OSI), relative residence time (RRT), and endothelial cell activation potential (ECAP) were analyzed. A thrombus growth model was also incorporated to assess long-term thrombus formation across different carotid webs locations. Models A exhibited helical flow, whereas models B and C showed disturbed flow in the carotid sinus. Recirculation in Models A and B was mainly downstream of CWs, while Models C had both upstream and downstream recirculation. In addition, models A had higher overall TAWSS levels, with the smallest region of TAWSS < 0.4 pa (7.78 ± 8.35%). In contrast, Models C had larger areas with TAWSS < 0.4 pa, RRT > 100, and ECAP > 1.5, accounting for 14.18 ± 5.28%, 1.51 ± 1.17%, and 10.36 ± 4.10%, respectively. Noting that thrombus volume was highest in Models C (7.20 ± 3.95%). Numerical simulations indicate that: 1) CWs have less hemodynamic impact when located in the CCA, but may increase flow resistance leading to distal branch ischemia; 2) CWs contribute to thrombus formation, primarily downstream in the common carotid artery and internal carotid artery origin, and both upstream and downstream in the sinus; 3) CWs at the origin of the ICA are more likely to result in disturbed blood flow patterns and thrombus aggregation than the other two locations, which may increase the risk of ischemic stroke in distal cerebral arteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power, one of renewable energy resources, is a fluctuating source of energy that prevents its further participation in the power market. To improve the stability of the wind power injected into the power grid, a short-term wind speed predicting model is proposed in this work, named VMD-P-(ARIMA, BP)-PSOLSSVM. In this model, variational mode decomposition (VMD) is combined with phase space reconstruction (P) as data processing method to determine intrinsic mode function (IMF) and its input–output matrix in the prediction model. Then, the linear model autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) and typical nonlinear model back propagation neural network (BP) are adopted to forecast each IMF separately and get the prediction of short-term wind speed by adding up the IMFs. In the final stage, particle swarm optimization least squares support vector machine (PSOLSSVM) uses the prediction results of the two separate models from previous step for the secondary prediction. For the proposed method, the PSOLSSVM employs different mathematical principles from ARIMA and BP separately, which overcome the shortcoming of using just single models. The proposed combined optimization model has been applied to two datasets with large fluctuations from a northern China wind farm to evaluate the performance. A performance comparison is conducted by comparing the error from the proposed method to six other models using single prediction techniques. The comparison result indicates the proposed combined optimization model can deliver more accurate and robust prediction than the other models; meanwhile, it means the power grid dispatching work can benefit from implementing the proposed predicting model in the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite altimeters have been used to monitor river and reservoir water levels, from which water storage estimates can be derived. Inland water altimetry can, therefore, play an important role in continental water resource management. Traditionally, satellite altimeters were designed to monitor homogeneous surfaces such as oceans or ice sheets, resulting in poor performance over small inland water bodies due to the contribution from land contamination in the returned waveforms. The advent of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimetry (with its improved along-track spatial resolution) has enabled the measurement of inland water levels with a better accuracy and an increased spatial resolution. This study aimed to retrieve water levels from Level-1B Sentinel-3 data with focus on the minimization of the land contamination over small- to middle-sized water bodies (130 m to 4.5 km), where continuous clean waveforms rarely exist. Three specialized algorithms or retrackers, together with a new waveform portion selection method, were evaluated to minimize land contamination in the waveforms and to select the nadir return associated with the water body being overflown. The waveform portion selection method, with consideration of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), was used to fit the multipeak waveforms that arise when overflying the continental water bodies, exploiting a subwaveform-based approach to pick up the one corresponding to the nadir. The performances of the proposed waveform portion selection method with three retrackers, namely, the threshold retracker, Offset Center of Gravity (OCOG) retracker and two-step SAR physical-based retracker, were compared. No significant difference was found in the results of the three retrackers. However, waveform portion selection using DEM information great improved the results. Time series of water levels were retrieved for water bodies in the Ebro River basin (Spain). The results show good agreement with in situ measurements from the Ebro Reservoir (approximately 1.8 km wide) and Ribarroja Reservoir (approximately 400 m wide), with unbiased root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) down to 0.28 m and 0.16 m, respectively, depending on the retracker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triboelectric nanogenerators are devices that effectively convert ambient mechanical energy into electricity, which can be used as a power source or a sensor signal. Since first proposed by Dr. Zhong Lin Wang in 2012, the development of triboelectric nanogenerators has grown rapidly. Herein, the development of the triboelectric nanogenerator and its global impact is investigated by analyzing the statistical publication numbers and the geographic distribution of the publications. In addition, this article also features the main applications of triboelectric nanogenerators such as blue energy, self‐powered sensor/systems, and micro‐/nanoenergy, and points out its future outlook. Several challenges and fundamental physical questions are also discussed to provide a more comprehensive view of this revolutionary technology. The article investigates the development of the triboelectric nanogenerator and its global impact by analyzing the statistical publication numbers and the geographic distribution of the publications. In addition, the article also features the main applications of triboelectric nanogenerator such as blue energy, self‐powered sensor/systems, and micro‐/nano‐energy, and points out its future outlook. Several challenges and fundamental physical questions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ovarian cancer is diagnosed clinically by detecting ovarian cancer-related factors and markers. Here, we report a case of giant panda ovarian tumor metastasis with a combination of clinical and histopathological diagnosis. Case presentation: Histopathological studies revealed severe lesions and tumor cells in the ovaries, lungs, spleen, kidneys and perianal tissue. Immunohistochemistry staining showed that the ovarian cancer markers B7-H4, CA125, and HE4 were highly expressed in the lungs, kidneys, spleen, ovaries and perianal tissue. Tumor marker tests detected significantly high levels of AFP in serum. Conclusion: Clinical biomarkers combined with histopathology can provide a more accurate diagnosis of ovarian cancer metastasis and identification of ovarian cancer types than either method alone. The giant panda's death may be due to granulosa cell tumor and theca cell tumor metastasis causing multiple organ dysfunction or even failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-processing of the measured velocity in particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a critical step in reducing error and predicting missing information of the flow field. In this work, time-resolved PIV data are incorporated with the incompressible Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations to reduce the measurement error and improve the accuracy. A pressure correction scheme (PCS) based on the projection method is adopted to solve the N-S equations, and an optimization algorithm is introduced to balance the fidelity between the PIV data and the numerical solutions. The PCS for PIV data, called PIV-PCS, cannot only reduce the errors in the velocity divergence and the curl of the pressure gradient but also ensure that the flow field satisfies the dynamic constraints imposed by the momentum equation. An important weight coefficient s that balances the level of the velocity modification with the residual of the governing equation is defined and numerically assessed. A method for optimizing the value of s is provided. The new approach is evaluated by two time-resolved PIV experiments: one on the 2D wake flow of a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number and one on tomographic PIV for the 3D wake flow of a hemisphere at high Reynolds number. All the numerical assessments and experimental applications are compared with the divergence-free smoothing (DFS) method. The results indicate that the presented PIV-PCS method is superior to the DFS method in terms of reducing the measurement error and recovering the real physical flow structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently launched Sentinel-1 satellite with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor onboard offers a powerful tool for irrigation monitoring under various weather conditions, with high spatial and temporal resolution. This research discusses the potential of different metrics calculated from the Sentinel-1 time series for mapping irrigated fields. A methodology for irrigation mapping using SAR data is proposed. The study is performed using VV (vertical–vertical) and VH (vertical–horizontal) polarizations over an agricultural site in Urgell, Catalunya (Spain). With field segmentation information from SIGPAC (the Geographic Information System for Agricultural Parcels), the backscatter intensities are averaged within each field. From the Sentinel-1 time series for each field, the statistics and metrics, including the mean value, the variance of the signal, the correlation length, and the fractal dimension, are analyzed. With the Support Vector Machine (SVM), the classification of irrigated crops, irrigated trees, and non-irrigated fields is performed with the metrics vector. The results derived from the SVM are validated with ground truthing from SIGPAC over the whole study area, with a good overall accuracy of 81.08%. Random Forest (RF) machine classification is also tested in this study, which gives an accuracy of around 82.2% when setting the tree depth at three. The methodology is based only on SAR data, which makes it applicable to all areas, even with frequent cloud cover, but this method may be less robust when irrigation is less dominated to soil moisture change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we discuss the role of formal advocacy education with high-effort advocacy activities among pediatricians. We discuss the historical role of advocacy in the field of pediatrics and the changing role of advocacy education in pediatric training programs. We describe our survey of pediatricians in New York, in which we asked about a history of formal child health advocacy education, current high- and low-effort advocacy activities, perceived barriers to advocacy work, and child health advocacy issues of interest. Our findings demonstrate an association between a history of formal child health advocacy education and recent participation in high-effort advocacy activities on behalf of children's health. We also found that practicing pediatricians were more likely to participate in high-effort advocacy work than individuals still in pediatric residency training. Our findings imply that education in child health advocacy should be considered an important part of pediatric training. Advocacy education should not only be included in residency and fellowship training programs but also made available as part of continuing medical education for pediatricians. Time for professional advocacy work should be allotted and encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Healthcare providers use a life expectancy of at least 5 to 10 years in shared clinical decision-making with older adults about cancer screening, major surgeries, and disease prevention interventions. At present, few prognostic indexes predict long-term mortality beyond 10 years or are suited for use in primary care settings. Objective: We developed and validated an 8-item multidimensional index predicting 11-year mortality for use in primary care. Design, Setting, and Participants: Using data from the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Studies (SLAS), we developed a Primary Care Prognostic (PCP) Index for predicting 11-year mortality risk in a development cohort (n = 1550) and validated it in a geographically different cohort (n = 928). Main Measures: The PCP Index was derived from eight indicators (body mass loss, weakness, slow gait, comorbidity, polypharmacy, IADL/BADL dependency, low albumin, low total cholesterol, out of 25 candidate indicators) using stepwise Cox proportional hazard models. Key Results: In the developmental cohort, the mortality hazard ratio increased by 53% per PCP point score increase, independent of age and sex. Across risk categories, absolute risks of mortality increased from 5% (score 0) to 67.9% (scores 7–9), with area under curve (AUC = 0.77 (95% CI 0.73–0.80)). The PCP Index also predicted mortality in the validation cohort, with AUC = 0.70 (95% CI 0.64–0.75). Conclusions: The PCP Index using simple clinical assessments and point scoring is a potentially useful prognostic tool for predicting long-term mortality and is well suited for risk stratification and shared clinical decision-making with older adults in primary care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The identification of modifiable health span-promoting factors is a public health priority.Objective: To explore the socio-environmental, lifestyle, behavioural, and psychological determinants of a clinical phenotypic measure of biological ageing in the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study (SLAS) cohort.Methods: Using cross-sectional data on 2,844 SLAS-2 adults with a chronological age (CA) ≥55 years, we estimated biological age (BA) using a validated panel of clinical, biochemical, physiological, and functional indicators (8 in men and 10 in women) and calculated the difference between BA and CA (BA - CA in years). Potential determinants included education, housing status, loss of a spouse, living alone, lifestyle and health activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, nutritional risks, consumption of milk, soy, fruit, vegetables, coffee and tea, sleep parameters, and life satisfaction.Results: The mean CA was 67.0 (standard deviation [SD] 7.9; range 55-94) years. The estimated BA varied more widely (SD 8.9 years; range 47.5-119.9 years), and BA - CA ranged from -11.3 to 30.0 years. In stepwise selection regression analyses, multiple significant independent determinants in a final model were larger for private housing, being single/divorced/widowed, productivity, cognitive and leisure time activity scores, 10 h/week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, unintended loss of weight, life satisfaction, and daily consumption of fruits 1-2 or ≥3 servings and Chinese tea 1-2 or ≥3 cups daily, together explaining 16% of BA - CA variance in men and 14% in women. Associated BA - CA estimates were highest in men with high-end housing status (-1.8 years, effect size 0.015) and unintended weight loss (1.5 years, effect size 0.017).Conclusion: We identified determinants of biological ageing which can promote health span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociopolitical events impact population health; parents' perspective of such events crosses demographics, geography, and generations. We elicited changes in U.S. parents' hopes and worries for their children 1 year after the 2016 election via an online survey of school climate, discrimination against child, family health care and security, and macrolevel/future concerns (e.g., environment, postsecondary options). Among n = 1189 respondents, national security (39%), the environment (30.5%), and "continued place in America" (25.7%) were most worrisome. In general linear mixed models, employment buffered against social and material stressors such as discrimination (odds ratio [OR] = 0.67; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.49–0.92), and family health care/security (OR = 0.62; 95% CI = 0.45–0.86) while being of a dominant religion and ethnicity buffered future macrolevel (Christianity, OR = 70; 95% CI = 0.54–0.92/non‐Hispanic, OR = 59; 95% CI = 0.39–0.90) and existential "continued place in America" (Christianity, OR = 69; 95% CI = 0.51–0.94/non‐Hispanic, OR = 56; 95% CI = 0.36–0.88) worries. Qualitative comments underscored macrolevel worries. Parents represent a unique vantage for gauging how sociopolitical events impact health and well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second language learning has been shown to impact and reshape the central nervous system, anatomically and functionally. Most of the studies on second language learning and neuroplasticity have been focused on cortical areas, whereas the subcortical neural encoding mechanism and its relationship with L2 learning have not been examined extensively. The purpose of this study was to utilize frequency-following response (FFR) to examine if and how learning a tonal language in adulthood changes the subcortical neural encoding in hearing adults. Three groups of subjects were recruited: native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (native speakers (NS)), learners of the language (L2 learners), and those with no experience (native speakers of foreign languages (NSFL)). It is hypothesized that differences would exist in FFRs obtained from the three language experience groups. Results revealed that FFRs obtained from L2 learners were found to be more robust than the NSFL group, yet not on a par with the NS group. Such results may suggest that in human adulthood, subcortical neural encoding ability may be trainable with the acquisition of a new language and that neuroplasticity at the brainstem level can indeed be influenced by L2 learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biological age (BA) is a more accurate measure of the rate of human aging than chronological age (CA). However, there is limited consensus regarding measures of BA in life span and healthspan.Methods: This study investigated measurement sets of 68 physiological biomarkers using data from 2,844 Chinese Singaporeans in two age subgroups (55-70 and 71-94 years) in the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study (SLAS-2) with 8-year follow-up frailty and mortality data. We computed BA estimate using three commonly used algorithms: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), and Klemera and Doubal (KD) method, and additionally, explored the use of machine learning methods for prediction of mortality and frailty. The most optimal algorithmic estimate of BA compared to CA was evaluated for their associations with risk factors and health outcome.Results: Stepwise selection procedures resulted in the final selection of 8 biomarkers in males and 10 biomarkers in females. The highest-ranking biomarkers were estimated glomerular filtration rate for both genders, and the forced expiratory volume in 1 second in males and females. The BA estimates robustly predicted frailty and mortality and outperformed CA. The best performing KD measure of BA was notably predictive in the younger group (aged 55-70 years). BA estimates obtained using a machine learning train-test method were not more accurate than conventional BA estimates in predicting mortality and frailty in most situations. Biologically older people with the same CA as biologically younger individuals had higher prevalence of frailty and 8-year mortality, and worse health, behavioral, and functional characteristics.Conclusions: BA is better than CA for measuring life span (mortality) and healthspan (frailty). This measurement set of physiological markers of biological aging among Chinese robustly differentiate biologically old from younger individuals with the same CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which enable both high flexibility and low cost, have been widely used in both military and civilian application scenarios. In this paper, we investigate a fixed-wing UAV relay system, where the fixed-wing UAV acts as a mobile relay with an elliptical trajectory between base station and ground users with broken communication links because of obstructions. Different time and power allocations are utilized to compute the outage probability among the Rician fading channel model. Due to the complexity of the formulated issue, we approximate the asymptotic solution using the first-order Maclaurin series convex optimization. Finally, we contrast the elliptical trajectory relay's outage probability performance with that of the circular trajectory relay and the fixed relay. In the meanwhile, we examine the impact of the elliptical trajectory's various long and short axis ratios on the outage probability of a relay system. The efficiency of the suggested elliptical trajectory relay method has been demonstrated in simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)'s use is constrained by their surface charge density and alternating current output. This study therefore proposes a coupling output method combining charge excitation and phase shift to realize an almost constant high‐performance direct‐current (DC) and DC‐TENG is designed to harvest the energy of flowing water. The output characteristic of the DC‐TENG with or without charge excitation is thoroughly investigated in the experiment. The impact on the effectiveness of phases (P) and groups (G) is further proven by comparing and quantifying the current wave. The operation capability in a water environment is further demonstrated by the transmitted charge's attenuation of roughly 10.84% after the environment's humidity is increased to 90% RH. According to the findings of the investigation, DC‐TENG with 3P4G can reach almost constant DC with the root mean square value of 29.1 μA and the crest factor of 1.23. And the 220 μF capacitor can be charged to 5 V within 63 s and the peak output power of 9.18 mW is obtained. Finally, an experimental platform is established to simulate the water environment and the thermography is steadily powered. This scheme has reference significance to realize high‐performance DC output in the water environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caring for people with dementia is considered one of the most stressful and difficult forms of care. Informal caregivers constantly face high physical and emotional burdens. Therefore, it is essential to provide them with effective and practical support. Web‐based decision aids can provide convenient and effective decision support for informal caregivers. The aim of this study was to assess and synthesize the influence of web‐based decision aids on informal caregivers of people with dementia. Searches of electronic databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, Embase, PsycINFO, CNKI, Open Grey and Baidu Wenku) and reference lists of relevant studies were conducted in July 2022. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed‐methods studies published in Chinese and English on the use of web‐based decision aids by informal caregivers of people with dementia were included. The studies were selected by screening titles, abstracts and full texts, and the quality of each study was assessed by two researchers independently. Fourteen studies were published between 2010 and 2022, including five qualitative studies, four quantitative studies and five mixed‐methods studies. Web‐based decision aids have a positive influence on informal caregivers of people with dementia by providing decision support, satisfying needs, promoting psychological health, improving communication ability and reducing caregiver burden. Informal caregivers of people with dementia are receptive to web‐based decision aids and expect their functionality to be optimized further. Web‐based decision aids offer potential benefits to informal caregivers by providing effective decision‐making support and improving their psychological health and ability to communicate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is an essential part of supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton cycle in the 3rd generation of concentrating solar power plant. Molten salt and sCO2 as the heat transfer fluid in PCHE, it is of great significance to improve its thermal and hydraulic performance. To reach this goal, two new discontinuous fin channels of PCHE were designed and their thermal-hydraulic performance was studied by numerical simulation. The results show that the second discontinuous fins channel with the best comprehensive thermal-hydraulic performance for sCO2, which has the Colburn j factor improvement by 2.1-4.6% and the Fanning friction factor f reduction by 3.8-6.4% compared with that of the airfoil fins; While the third discontinuous fins channel has the best hydraulic performance for both the heat transfer medium of molten salt and sCO2, among which the pressure drop per unit length and f have the largest reduction by 0.05-24.7% and 5.91-19.1% for sCO2, and by 25.62-29.39% and 1.35-2.4% for molten salt. As a result, the second and third discontinuous fins channel of PCHE are proposed to sCO2 and molten salt, respectively, which can contribute to design the PCHE for the 3rd generation of solar thermal power generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: The DNA fragments transferred among cotton cytoplasmic genomes are highly differentiated. The wild D group cotton species have undergone much greater evolution compared with cultivated AD group. Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is one of the most economically important fiber crops worldwide. Gene transfer, nucleotide evolution, and the codon usage preferences in cytoplasmic genomes are important evolutionary characteristics of high plants. In this study, we analyzed the nucleotide sequence evolution, codon usage, and transfer of cytoplasmic DNA fragments in Gossypium chloroplast (cp) and mitochondrial (mt) genomes, including the A genome group, wild D group, and cultivated AD group of cotton species. Our analyses indicated that the differences in the length of transferred cytoplasmic DNA fragments were not significant in mitochondrial and chloroplast sequences. Analysis of the transfer of tRNAs found that trnQ and nine other tRNA genes were commonly transferred between two different cytoplasmic genomes. The Codon Adaptation Index values showed that Gossypium cp genomes prefer A/T-ending codons. Codon preference selection was higher in the D group than the other two groups. Nucleotide sequence evolution analysis showed that intergenic spacer sequences were more variable than coding regions and nonsynonymous mutations were clearly more common in cp genomes than mt genomes. Evolutionary analysis showed that the substitution rate was much higher in cp genomes than mt genomes. Interestingly, the D group cotton species have undergone much faster evolution compared with cultivated AD groups, possibly due to the selection and domestication of diverse cotton species. Our results demonstrate that gene transfer and differential nucleotide sequence evolution have occurred frequently in cotton cytoplasmic genomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particle image velocimetry (PIV), as a common technology for analyzing the global flow motion from images, plays a significant role in experimental fluid mechanics. In this article, we investigate the deep learning-based techniques for such a fluid motion estimation problem. The aim of this novel technique is to extract 2-D velocity fields from fluid images efficiently and accurately. First, we introduce the convolutional neural network (CNN) called LiteFlowNet, which is proposed for end-to-end optical flow estimation. Enhanced configurations of LiteFlowNet are adopted for PIV estimation in order to refine the small-scale vortex structures. Furthermore, as the supervised learning strategy is considered, a data set including particle images and the ground-truth fluid motions is generated to train the parameters of the networks. A number of fluidic images, from synthetic turbulent flow to laboratory boundary layer flow, are investigated in this article. Experimental results indicate that the proposed estimator can provide accuracy approaching that of state-of-the-art methods and high efficiency toward real-time estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conceptual Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) with triplet horizontal well layout is proposed, in which the injection well is flanked by two production wells. The injection well is completed with perforated casing, followed by multistage fracturing with casing packers. Two production wells are drilled through the stimulation zone induced by multistage fracturing and completed openhole to maximize contact with the reservoir. Based on a fully coupled hydrothermal (HT) model accounting for local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE), sensitivity analysis and optimization for EGS design parameters are conducted. Simulation results show that increasing circulation rate only facilitates the heat extraction rate before thermal breakthrough, but cannot improve the heat extraction performance at the end of EGS operation. Compared with the fracture aperture, the increase in the stimulation zone permeability is more conducive to reducing the injection pressure and increasing the cumulative output thermal power. Insufficient or excessive fracturing stages are detrimental to economic heat extraction. It is found that more uniform flow into each perforation can achieve better thermal sweep efficiency and prevent local thermal breakthrough. The stimulation zone has an optimal reservoir permeability to match the fracture aperture. The optimum number of fracturing segments for a specified wellbore length is obtained. The preferable zone for the production well is between the fracture front and the outermost periphery of the stimulation zone. Image 1 • A novel EGS model for horizontal wells with multistage fractures is designed. • An EGS hydrothermal simulation method considering local thermal non-equilibrium is developed. • Sensitivity analysis of potential factors to heat extraction performance is performed. • Optimization results for key design parameters are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aim: Studies of the associations of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) with cognitive function and decline are inconclusive. We investigated the associations of the MetS with cognitive functions in 823 Chinese >55-year-olds followed up over 4.5 years. Methods: The relationships between the MetS and baseline and follow-up z-scores of cognitive domain functions were examined using mixed model analysis. Results: There were specific inverse cross-sectional associations of single cardiometabolic risk factors with cognition, such as hyperglycemia with processing speed (p = 0.045). The MetS was negatively associated with 3 out of 4 cognitive domains (p = 0.018 to p = 0.003), and the count of cardiometabolic risk factors with all cognitive domains (p = 0.025 to p = 0.002). Longitudinally, dyslipidemia was associated with worse decline in memory and learning (p = 0.022). The count of cardiometabolic risk factors was associated with worse declines in cognition (p = 0.032 for global cognition). Conclusion: Among middle-aged and older Asians, an increased number of component cardiometabolic risk factors of the MetS was associated with a worse decline in cognitive function over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viral spread is considered a promising target for antiviral therapeutics, but the associated mechanisms remain unclear for gallid alpha herpesvirus 1 (ILTV). We previously identified proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase Src (Src) as a crucial host determinant of ILTV infection. The present study revealed accelerated spread of ILTV upon Src inhibition. This phenomenon was independent of either viral replication or the proliferation of infected cells and could not be compromised by neutralizing antibody. Neither extracellular vesicles nor the direct cytosol-to-cytosol connections between adjacent cells contributed to the enhanced spread of ILTV upon Src inhibition. Further genome-wide transcriptional profile analyses in combination with functional validation identified fatty acid metabolism as an essential molecular event during modulation of the intercellular spread and subsequent cytopathic effect of ILTV by Src. Overall, these data suggest that Src controls the cell-to-cell spread of ILTV in a cellular fatty acid metabolism-dependent manner, which determines the virus's cytopathic effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this study is the structure and composition of buried Phoebe zhennan wood. Through comparative studies of the anatomy and composition with modern undegraded wood, the objective was to understand any changes that have taken place in the P. zhennan buried wood samples. The P. zhennan buried wood can be identified by wood structure characteristics and volatile components analysis. It is required that the microstructural features are identical to those of modern P. zhennan wood; simultaneously, the volatile components of the wood must contain six characteristic compounds with the same peak retention time. The P. zhennan buried wood sample which was used in the experiment was dated 8035–7945 BP (95. 4% probability). Further research showed that the cell wall of P. zhennan buried wood had been damaged, the hemicellulose was heavily degraded but there was no obvious degradation of crystalline cellulose. Moisture was present mainly as free water and large amounts of mineral elements such as Fe, and Ni were detected in the ash of P. zhennan buried wood. Both the buried and modern wood of P. zhennan were acidic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a new method that is capable of manufacturing microfluidic chips of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) rapidly and cheaply. This technique, which we call Tape adhering-Laser Cutting and Sealing Integration (TLCSI), only utilizes a CO2 laser and a piece of double-sided tape to produce a microfluidic chip in several minutes. It only has three main steps. First, the double-sided tape sticks to the surface of a PMMA substrate. Second, the microchannel should be cut on the surface of the double-sided tape. At last, a PMMA cover plate with liquid pools is pressed onto the surface of the double-sided tape and a CO2 laser is used to cut edges of the chip for sealing the chip. We present a qualified microfluidic chip with regular microchannels and sealing strength of 1.2 Mpa. Compared with most current fabrication methods, TLCSI is a quick and cost-effective way to produce microfluidic chips of PMMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fully coupled thermal‐hydraulic‐mechanical (THM) model was developed to investigate the underlying response mechanisms during heat extraction in fractured geothermal reservoirs. The random fracture network in the stimulated zone was reproduced based on the fractal theory. The coupled model accounts for the dominant physical phenomena including (a) fluid flow, heat transport, and solid deformation in porous media and fractures; (b) local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) between rock matrix and flowing fluid; and (c) temperature‐dependent fluid thermodynamic properties and stress‐dependent pore and fracture permeability. The proposed model was validated by several analytic solutions. Sequentially, the evolution of pore pressure, equivalent temperature, effective stress, and reservoir permeability was analyzed. The sensitivity of the heat extraction performance to fracture network morphology was discussed. Results show that interconnected large‐scale fractures dominate mass and heat transport. Widely distributed small‐scale fractures contribute to the cooling of the heat rock mass along many flow paths in parallel. The change in effective stress associated with fully coupled thermo‐poroelastic effects may induce fracture shear dilation and pore expansion, resulting in an enhancement of the overall reservoir permeability. There is a significant temperature difference between the solid phase and the fluid phase in fractures, but not in porous media. It is more reasonable to use the LTNE theory to analyze the heat extraction of fractured geothermal reservoirs. The fracture network morphology has a profound effect on heat extraction efficiency and injectivity. Undeveloped fracture networks will result in a higher injection pressure, earlier thermal breakthrough, and shorter lifetime, but higher heat extraction ratio. Properly increasing the fracture density can delay the thermal breakthrough time, prolong the service life, and improve the injectivity. Fully connected fracture networks may result in thermal short‐circuiting and earlier thermal breakthrough. Generating a complex and scattered fracture network but without preferential channels is conducive to extracting more heat from geothermal reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The widespread use of opioid analgesics to treat chronic nonmalignant pain has contributed to the ongoing epidemic of opioid-related morbidity and mortality. Previous studies have also demonstrated a relationship between opioid analgesic use and unemployment due to disability. These studies have been limited to mainly white European and North American populations. The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between opioid analgesic use for chronic nonmalignant pain in an urban, mainly black and Hispanic, low-income population. Design This is a cross-sectional observational study. Setting Subjects were recruited from six urban primary care health centers. Subjects Adults with chronic neck, back, or osteoarthritis pain participating in an acupuncture trial were included. Methods Survey data were collected as a part of the Acupuncture Approaches to Decrease Disparities in Pain Treatment two-arm (AADDOPT-2) comparative effectiveness trial. Participants completed a baseline survey including employment status, opioid analgesic use, the Brief Pain Inventory, the global Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information Systems quality of life measure, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and demographic information. A multivariable logistic regression model was built to examine the association between opioid analgesic use and unemployment. Results Opioid analgesic use was associated with three times the odds of unemployment due to disability while controlling for potential confounders, including depression, pain severity, pain interference, global physical and mental functioning, and demographic characteristics. Conclusions This study adds to the growing body of evidence that opioid analgesics should be used with caution in chronic nonmalignant pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irisin is found closely associated with promoting the browning of beige fat cells in white adipose tissue. The crystal structure reveals that irisin forms a continuous inter-subunit β-sheet dimer. Here, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulation were performed to investigate the dissociation process and the intricate interactions between the two irisin monomers. In the process of MD, the interactions between the monomers were roughly analyzed through the average numbers of both hydrophobic contacts and H-bonds. Then, SMD was performed to investigate the accurate interaction energy between the monomers. By the analysis of dissociation energy, the van der Waals (vdW) force was identified as the major energy to maintain the dimer structure, which also verified the results of MD simulation. Meanwhile, 11 essential residues were discovered by the magnitude of rupture force during dissociation. Among them, residues Arg75, Glu79, Ile77, Ala88, and Trp90 were reported in a previous study using the method of mutagenesis and size exclusion chromatography, and several new important residues (Arg72, Leu74, Phe76, Gln78, Val80, and Asp91) were also identified. Interestingly, the new important residues that we discovered and the important residues that were reported are located in the opposite side of the β-sheet of the dimer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that can infect almost all warm-blooded animals. T. gondii profilin (TgPF) plays a crucial role in parasite motility and host cell invasion, and has shown promise against toxoplasmosis. DNA vaccine was considered to elicit effective humoral and cell-mediated immunity against T. gondii infection. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the immunogenicity of TgPF in mice using a DNA vaccination strategy.Methods: A DNA vaccine (pVAX-PF) encoding TgPF gene was constructed and then was intramuscularly injected into mice with and without a plasmid encoding IL-15 (pVAX-IL-15). The immune responses in immunized Kunming mice including lymphocyte proliferation, levels of cytokines, antibody titers and T lymphocyte subclasses were analyzed. The protective efficacy against chronic T. gondii infection was observed at 4 weeks post-infection with the cyst-forming PRU strain of T. gondii (Genotype II).Results: EitherpVAX-PF with or without pVAX-IL-15 could elicit higher level of IgG and IgG2a antibodies and produce strong cellular immune responses in the immunized mice. The brain cyst numbers in mice immunized with pVAX-PF + pVAX-IL-15 (1843 ± 215.7) and pVAX-PF (1897 ± 337.8) were reduced 40.82% and 39.08%, respectively, compared to that in mice received nothing (3114 ± 168.8), and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.0001). However, the T. gondii cyst numbers in mice immunized with pVAX-PF + pVAX-IL-15 were not statistically significantly different compared to that in mice immunized with pVAX-PF alone [t(10) = 0.33, P > 0.05].Conclusions: The present study indicated that TgPF could be a promising vaccine candidate against chronic toxoplasmosis, which can be further used to develop multi-epitope vaccine formulations in food-producing animals against T. gondii infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For further understanding of the various configurations of intermediate compounds in LiBH 4 dehydrogenation, we used a crystal structure search to propose a novel stable orthorhombic LiBH compound at ambient pressure. Imma -LiBH can be synthesized though α -LiB and H 2 and shows metallicity. The adsorption behavior investigation of H 2 on the LiBH (100) surface reveals two chemical adsorption and five physical adsorption sites. The most stable mode of H 2 adsorption occurs on the vertical hollow site. The partial density of state and electronic localization function of the mode indicate that the adsorbed H atom combine with Li and B atoms on the surface to form stable H–B covalent bond and H–Li ionic bond, respectively. Thus, Imma -LiBH can be used as a good hydrogen adsorption material for the application of electrode materials of hydrogen fuel cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A PV/wind power prediction model based on Time2Vec, WDCNN and BiLSTM is proposed. • WDCNN model is adopted to expand receptive field and improve feature extraction. • Case study validates the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. • The proposed model shows significance in processing data with strong volatility. Accurate prediction of photovoltaic (PV)/wind power is an effective solution for the grid stability, reasonable dispatching and power supply reliability. Nowadays, various deep learning prediction methods are developed, most of which are recurrent neural network (RNN)-based and convolutional neural network (CNN)-based. To further improve the prediction performance, a novel hybrid method based on deep CNN with wide first-layer kernels (WDCNN) and bidirection long short-term (BiLSTM) is presented in this paper, in which WDCNN is introduced for large receptive field and useful information extraction, and stacked BiLSTM layers is incorporated to extract temporal correlations of past and future datasets. Besides, Time2Vec is adopted for better feature extraction through decomposing the time series data into non-periodic and periodic components. Several ablation and comparison experiments are carried out with a case study in Yongxing Island, China, and the performance metrics including normalized mean absolute error (NMAE), normalized mean square error (NMSE), normalized root mean square error (NRMSE), and mean absolute scaled error (MASE) confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed model. Compared with individual WDCNN and BiLSTM, the performance of the combined WDCNN-BiLSTM are improved by 5.79%, 6.61%, 3.36%, 5.79% and 2.03%, 3.54%, 1.78%, 2.03% for PV prediction, and 20.38%, 29.37%, 15.96%, 20.38% and 39.12%, 59.68%, 36.50%, 39.12% for wind prediction, respectively. The adoption of Time2Vec further improves the prediction performance by 5.96%, 8.10%, 4.14%, 5.96% for PV prediction, and 4.86%, 9.19%, 4.70%, 4.86% for wind prediction, respectively. The proposed model yields most accurate prediction compared with other competing models. The replacement of CNN with WDCNN improves the prediction accuracy by 6.64%, 8.47%, 4.33%, 6.64% for PV prediction, and 30.59%, 42.78%, 24.35%, 30.59% for wind prediction, respectively. Moreover, the proposed model significantly outperforms compared models in prediction with more random fluctuations, which demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model in mining complex relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objective To examine the association between the social frailty (SF) phenotype and functional disability, independently of the physical frailty (PF) phenotype, and compare the abilities of the PF, SF, and combined social and physical (PSF) indexes for predicting functional disability. Method Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of a population-based cohort (Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study, SLAS-1) of 2406 community-dwelling older adults with 3 years of follow-up (N = 1254 and N = 1557 for instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) disability and severe disability (≥3 basic ADL) respectively). Measurements Seven-item social frailty index (living arrangements, education, socioeconomic status, and social network and support, 0 = nil SF, 1 = low, 2–7 = high), PF phenotype (Fried criteria), and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) disability and severe disability (≥3 basic ADLs). Results Compared to nil SF, low and high SF were significantly associated with 1.3 to 2.4 fold increased prevalence and incidence of IADL disability, and 6.3 fold increase in severe disability. Frail individuals with and without SF stood out with 5-11 fold increased prevalence and incidence of IADL disability and 21-25 fold increased prevalence and incidence of severe disability, compared to robust individuals without SF. A combined PSF index more accurately identified individuals with increased risk of functional disability (ROC = 64%) and severe disability (ROC = 81%) than either the SF or the PF indexes alone (55% to 68%). Conclusion The SF index alone or in combination with the PF index has clinical relevance and utility for identifying and stratifying older people at risk of disability. The mental frailty construct is closely related to SF and should be further investigated in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Indicators of social isolation or support such as living alone, loneliness, being married, and life satisfaction are possible psychosocial risk and protective factors for dementia.Objective: We investigate the associations of these overlapping psychosocial factors with incident MCI-dementia (neurocognitive disorder) in a population cohort.Methods: Using data from 1601 participants of the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study (SLAS) who were free of MCI or dementia at baseline and followed up to 8 years, we estimated hazards ratio (HR) of association of living alone, loneliness, being married, and high life satisfaction with incident MCI-dementia.Results: In univariate analyses, individual HRs of association with incident MCI-dementia for living alone was 1.86 [1.18 - 2.95], (p = 0.008), loneliness was 1.26 [0.86 - 1.84], (p = 0.23), being married was 0.54 [0.39 - 0.75] (p < 0.0001), and being very satisfied with life was 0.59 [0.38-0.91]), (p = 0.017). Adjusted mutually for other psychosocial variables, and for age, sex, education, ethnicity, smoking, alcohol, dyslipidemia, hypertension, diabetes, central obesity, history of stroke or heart disease, APOE-ɛ4, depression, physical, social, and productive activities, only being married (0.68 [0.47-0.99], p = 0.044), and being very satisfied with life (0.61 [0.39 - 0.96], p = 0.034) remained significant variables associated with lower risks of developing MCI-dementia.Conclusion: Individuals who were married and those who were very satisfied with life are protected against the risk of developing MCI and dementia. Controlling for the adverse effects of being without spousal support and low life satisfaction, living alone or a feeling of loneliness were not associated with increased risk of MCI-dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, FeSiAl–Fe3O4-GR/PLA composite printed wires were prepared by a two-step process of ball-mill mixing and melt extrusion using polylactic acid (PLA) as the base material, graphene (GR), FeSiAl and Fe3O4 as microwave absorbing enhancers. The results show that when the mass percentages of FeSiAl and Fe3O4 are 15 wt% and 15 wt% and the thickness is 5.3 mm, the composite material obtains the largest finite absorption bandwidth, at which time, the minimum reflection loss is − 48.08 dB and the absorption bandwidth is 3.52 GHz. When the mass percentages of FeSiAl and Fe3O4 are 20 wt% and 10 wt% and the thickness is 5.7 mm, the composite material has the strongest reflection loss, and the minimum reflection loss is − 50.62 dB and the absorption bandwidth is 3.28 GHz. Effective absorption of S, C, X and Ku band microwaves can be achieved by adjusting the thickness of the composite material. The excellent microwave absorption performance of the composites is mainly attributed to the effective synergy of the dual magnetic media, which enhances the absorption effects of interfacial polarization, dipole polarization, natural resonance, eddy current loss, and multiple reflections. Our research provides an effective way to prepare lightweight and efficient microwave absorbing materials in a green and simple process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African swine fever (ASF) is an acute infectious haemorrhagic fever of pigs caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV). Aloe-emodin (Ae) is an active ingredient of Chinese herbs with antiviral, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory effects. We investigated the antiviral activity and mechanism of action of Ae against ASFV using Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR), western blotting, and indirect immunofluorescence assays. Ae significantly inhibited ASFV replication. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis revealed that ASFV infection activated the NF-κB signaling pathway in the early stage and the apoptosis pathway in the late stage. Ae significantly downregulated the expression levels of MyD88, phosphor-NF-κB p65, and pIκB proteins as well as the mRNA levels of IL-1β and IL-8 in porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) infected with ASFV, thereby inhibiting the activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway induced by ASFV. Flow cytometry and western blot analysis revealed that Ae significantly increased the percentage of ASFV-induced apoptotic cells. Additionally, Ae promoted apoptosis by upregulating the expression levels of cleaved-caspase3 and Bax proteins and downregulating the expression levels of Bcl-2 proteins. This suggests that Ae promotes apoptosis by inhibiting the NF-κB pathway, resulting in inhibition of ASFV replication. These findings have further improved therapeutic reserves for the prevention and treatment of ASF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional neural networks used gradient descent methods to train the network structure, which cannot handle complex optimization problems. We proposed an improved grey wolf optimizer (SGWO) to explore a better network structure. GWO was improved by using circle population initialization, information interaction mechanism and adaptive position update to enhance the search performance of the algorithm. SGWO was applied to optimize Elman network structure, and a new prediction method (SGWO-Elman) was proposed. The convergence of SGWO was analyzed by mathematical theory, and the optimization ability of SGWO and the prediction performance of SGWO-Elman were examined using comparative experiments. The results show: (1) the global convergence probability of SGWO was 1, and its process was a finite homogeneous Markov chain with an absorption state; (2) SGWO not only has better optimization performance when solving complex functions of different dimensions, but also when applied to Elman for parameter optimization, SGWO can significantly optimize the network structure and SGWO-Elman has accurate prediction performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D velocity field estimation is the key to high spatial resolution and high-accuracy measurements in tomographic particle image velocimetry (Tomo-PIV), especially when characterizing flow fields with delicate vortex structures. However, the cross-correlation velocity estimation method has limited spatial resolution due to the limitation of the interrogation sub-volume size. The 3D optical flow method can improve the spatial resolution of the velocity field, but its accuracy needs to be improved because it does not take into account the physical properties of the fluids. In this study, we propose a novel velocity decomposition-based 3D variational optical flow (VD-3DVOF) method to achieve high spatial resolution and high-accuracy measurement of 3D fluids. First, we present a novel regularization term based on the velocity decomposition theorem to constrain the different physical quantities, which can prevent the physical quantities from being over-smoothed. Second, we present a novel data term based on particle volume reconstruction feature weighting to reduce the influence of reconstruction errors on the velocity field estimation accuracy. Third, we present a multiscale technique and a volume warping operation to prevent the solution from falling into local optimal solutions. The newly proposed method considers both the physical properties of the fluid and the errors of reconstructed particle volumes. Velocity fields are estimated over synthetic and experimental particle volumes, and the results and comparisons show that the newly proposed VD-3DVOF method successfully achieves better performance and greater measurement accuracy than existing 3D motion estimation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood flow and pressure calculated using the currently available methods have shown the potential to predict the progression of pathology, guide treatment strategies and help with postoperative recovery. However, the conspicuous disadvantage of these methods might be the time-consuming nature due to the simulation of virtual interventional treatment. The purpose of this study is to propose a fast novel physics-based model, called FAST, for the prediction of blood flow and pressure. More specifically, blood flow in a vessel is discretized into a number of micro-flow elements along the centerline of the artery, so that when using the equation of viscous fluid motion, the complex blood flow in the artery is simplified into a one-dimensional (1D) steady-state flow. We demonstrate that this method can compute the fractional flow reserve (FFR) derived from coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). 345 patients with 402 lesions are used to evaluate the feasibility of the FAST simulation through a comparison with three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. Invasive FFR is also introduced to validate the diagnostic performance of the FAST method as a reference standard. The performance of the FAST method is comparable with the 3D CFD method. Compared with invasive FFR, the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of FAST is 88.6%, 83.2% and 91.3%, respectively. The AUC of FFRFAST is 0.906. This demonstrates that the FAST algorithm and 3D CFD method show high consistency in predicting steady-state blood flow and pressure. Meanwhile, the FAST method also shows the potential in detecting lesion-specific ischemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The role of statin therapy in the development of kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) remains uncertain. We aimed to determine the relationships between statin initiation and kidney outcomes in patients with type 2 DM. Methods: Through a new-user design, we conducted a multicentre retrospective cohort study using the China Renal Data System database (which includes inpatient and outpatient data from 19 urban academic centres across China). We included patients with type 2 DM who were aged 40 years or older and admitted to hospital between Jan. 1, 2000, and May 26, 2021, and excluded those with pre-existing chronic kidney disease and those who were already on statins or without follow-up at an affiliated outpatient clinic within 90 days after discharge. The primary exposure was initiation of a statin. The primary outcome was the development of diabetic kidney disease (DKD), defined as a composite of the occurrence of kidney dysfunction (estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 and > 25% decline from baseline) and proteinuria (a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio ≥ 30 mg/g and > 50% increase from baseline), sustained for at least 90 days; secondary outcomes included development of kidney function decline (a sustained > 40% decline in eGFR). We used Cox proportional hazards regression to evaluate the relationships between statin initiation and kidney outcomes, as well as to conduct subgroup analyses according to patient characteristics, presence or absence of dyslipidemia, and pattern of dyslipidemia. For statin initiators, we explored the association between different levels of lipid control and outcomes. We conducted analyses using propensity overlap weighting to balance the participant characteristics. Results: Among 7272 statin initiators and 12 586 noninitiators in the weighted cohort, statin initiation was associated with lower risks of incident DKD (hazard ratio [HR] 0.72, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.62–0.83) and kidney function decline (HR 0.60, 95% CI 0.44–0.81). We obtained similar results to the primary analyses for participants with differing patterns of dyslipidemia, those prescribed different statins, and after stratification according to participant characteristics. Among statin initiators, those with intensive control of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (< 1.8 mmol/L) had a lower risk of incident DKD (HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.32–0.81) than those with inadequate lipid control (LDL-C ≥ 3.4 mmol/L). Interpretation: For patients with type 2 DM admitted to and followed up in academic centres, statin initiation was associated with a lower risk of kidney disease development, particularly in those with intensive control of LDL-C. These findings suggest that statin initiation may be an effective and reasonable approach for preventing kidney disease in patients with type 2 DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease mostly affecting the exocrine glands. This debilitating condition is complex and specific treatments remain unavailable. There is a need for the development of novel diagnostic models for early screening. Four gene profiling datasets were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The 'limma' software package was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A random forest-supervised classification algorithm was used to screen disease-specific genes, and three machine learning algorithms, including artificial neural networks (ANN), random forest (RF), and support vector machines (SVM), were used to build a pSS diagnostic model. The performance of the model was measured using its area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Immune cell infiltration was investigated using the CIBERSORT algorithm. A total of 96 DEGs were identified. By utilizing a RF classifier, a set of 14 signature genes that are pivotal in transcription regulation and disease progression in pSS were identified. Through the utilization of training and testing datasets, diagnostic models for pSS were successfully designed using ANN, RF, and SVM, resulting in AUCs of 0.972, 1.00, and 0.9742, respectively. The validation set yielded AUCs of 0.766, 0.8321, and 0.8223. It was the RF model that produced the best prediction performance out of the three models tested. As a result, an early predictive model for pSS was successfully developed with high diagnostic performance, providing a valuable resource for the screening and early diagnosis of pSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Observational studies have suggested a relationship between type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In both autoimmunities, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) deficiency is common. However, the causality between T1DM, 25-OHD level and SLE remains largely unknown. Methods: Independent genetic variants associated with T1DM, 25-OHD level, and SLE from the largest genome-wide association studies were used to conduct two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (BIMR) and two-step Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to estimate causal relationship between T1DM, 25-OHD level and SLE, and further multivariable Mendelian randomization (MVMR) was used to verify direct causality of T1DM and 25-OHD level on SLE. A series of sensitivity analysis as validation of primary MR results were performed. Results: Consistent with the results of BIMR, there was strong evidence for a direct causal effect of T1DM on the risk of SLE (ORMVMR-IVW = 1.249, 95% CI = 1.148–1.360, PMVMR-IVW = 1.25×10−5), and 25-OHD level was negatively associated with the risk of SLE (ORMVMR-IVW = 0.305, 95% CI = 0.109–0.857, PMVMR-IVW = 0.031). We also observed a negative causal effect of T1DM on 25-OHD level (ORBIMR-IVW = 0.995, 95% CI = 0.991–0.999, PBIMR-IVW = 0.030) while the causal effect of 25-OHD level on the risk of T1DM did not exist (PBIMR-IVW = 0.106). In BIMR analysis, there was no evidence for causal effects of SLE on the risk of T1DM and 25-OHD level (PBIMR-IVW > 0.05, respectively). Conclusion: Our MR analysis suggested that there was a network causal relationship between T1DM, 25-OHD level and SLE. T1DM and 25-OHD level both have causal associations with the risk of SLE, and 25-OHD level could be a mediator in the causality of T1DM and SLE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of total joint replacements is increasing, especially in elderly patients, and so too are implant‐related complications such as prosthesis loosening. Wear particles from the prosthesis induce a chronic inflammatory reaction and subsequent osteolysis, leading to the need for revision surgery. This study investigated the therapeutic effect of NF‐ĸB decoy oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN), mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and genetically‐modified NF‐ĸB sensing interleukin‐4 over‐secreting MSCs (IL4‐MSCs) on chronic inflammation in aged mice. The model was generated by continuous infusion of contaminated polyethylene particles into the intramedullary space of the distal femur of aged mice (15−17 months old) for 6 weeks. Local delivery of ODN showed increased bone mineral density (BMD), decreased osteoclast‐like cells, increased alkaline phosphatase (ALP)‐positive area, and increased M2/M1 macrophage ratio. Local injection of MSCs and IL4‐MSCs significantly decreased osteoclast‐like cells and increased the M2/M1 ratio, with a greater trend for IL4‐MSCs than MSCs. MSCs significantly increased ALP‐positive area and BMD values compared with the control. The IL4‐MSCs demonstrated higher values for both ALP‐positive area and BMD. These findings demonstrated the therapeutic effects of ODN, MSCs, and IL4‐MSCs on chronic inflammatory osteolysis in aged mice. The two MSC‐based therapies were more effective than ODN in increasing the M2/M1 macrophage ratio, reducing bone resorption, and increasing bone formation. Specifically, MSCs were more effective in increasing bone formation, and IL4‐MSCs were more effective in mitigating inflammation. This study suggests potential therapeutic strategies for treating wear particle‐associated inflammatory osteolysis after arthroplasty in the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ForceGen is a template-free, non-stochastic approach for 2D to 3D structure generation and conformational elaboration for small molecules, including both non-macrocycles and macrocycles. For conformational search of non-macrocycles, ForceGen is both faster and more accurate than the best of all tested methods on a very large, independently curated benchmark of 2859 PDB ligands. In this study, the primary results are on macrocycles, including results for 431 unique examples from four separate benchmarks. These include complex peptide and peptide-like cases that can form networks of internal hydrogen bonds. By making use of new physical movements ("flips" of near-linear sub-cycles and explicit formation of hydrogen bonds), ForceGen exhibited statistically significantly better performance for overall RMS deviation from experimental coordinates than all other approaches. The algorithmic approach offers natural parallelization across multiple computing-cores. On a modest multi-core workstation, for all but the most complex macrocycles, median wall-clock times were generally under a minute in fast search mode and under 2 min using thorough search. On the most complex cases (roughly cyclic decapeptides and larger) explicit exploration of likely hydrogen bonding networks yielded marked improvements, but with calculation times increasing to several minutes and in some cases to roughly an hour for fast search. In complex cases, utilization of NMR data to constrain conformational search produces accurate conformational ensembles representative of solution state macrocycle behavior. On macrocycles of typical complexity (up to 21 rotatable macrocyclic and exocyclic bonds), design-focused macrocycle optimization can be practically supported by computational chemistry at interactive time-scales, with conformational ensemble accuracy equaling what is seen with non-macrocyclic ligands. For more complex macrocycles, inclusion of sparse biophysical data is a helpful adjunct to computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A wide field-of-view (FoV) is one of the most important goals for future ground-based γ -ray astronomy, and it is especially crucial for detailed studies of temporal and spectral characteristics of solitary events, such as γ -ray bursts (GRBs), highly variable sources like blazars, or potential very high energy (VHE) electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves (GWs). Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (ACT) based on refractive optics and operated at a very high altitude observatory may be an appropriate solution. In the present study, we report the characteristics and performance of a large FoV ACT prototype based on a refractive convex water lens. A reconstruction method for estimating the arrival direction of the air shower was developed by combining the water-lens telescope and the Extensive Air Shower (EAS) array. The Cherenkov images of the air showers were obtained by a water-lens prototype with 48 pixels, an FoV of 15 ° × 13 ° , and a median angular resolution of ∼ 0. 9 °. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]