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Background: Acting as mediators in cell-matrix and cell-cell communication, matricellular proteins play a crucial role in cancer progression. Thrombospondins (TSPs), a type of matricellular glycoproteins, are key regulators in cancer biology with multifaceted roles. Although TSPs have been implicated in anti-tumor immunity and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in several malignancies, their specific roles to colon cancer remain elusive. Addressing this knowledge gap is essential, as understanding the function of TSPs in colon cancer could identify new therapeutic targets and prognostic markers. Methods: Analyzing 1981 samples from 10 high-throughput datasets, including six bulk RNA-seq, three scRNA-seq, and one spatial transcriptome dataset, our study investigated the prognostic relevance, risk stratification value, immune heterogeneity, and cellular origin of TSPs, as well as their influence on cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Utilizing survival analysis, unsupervised clustering, and functional enrichment, along with multiple correlation analyses of the tumor-microenvironment (TME) via Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA), spatial localization, Monocle2, and CellPhoneDB, we provided insights into the clinical and cellular implications of TSPs. Results: First, we observed significant upregulation of THBS2 and COMP in colon cancer, both of which displayed significant prognostic value. Additionally, we detected a significant positive correlation between TSPs and immune cells, as well as marker genes of EMT. Second, based on TSPs expression, patients were divided into two clusters with distinct prognoses: the high TSPs expression group (TSPs-H) was characterized by pronounced immune and stromal cell infiltration, and notably elevated T-cell exhaustion scores. Subsequently, we found that THBS2 and COMP may be associated with the differentiation of CAFs into pan-iCAFs and pan-dCAFs, which are known for their heightened matrix remodeling activities. Moreover, THBS2 enhanced CAFs communication with vascular endothelial cells and monocyte-macrophages. CAFs expressing THBS2 (THBS2+ CAFs) demonstrated higher scores across multiple signaling pathways, including angiogenic, EMT, Hedgehog, Notch, Wnt, and TGF-β, when compared to THBS2- CAFs. These observations suggest that THBS2 may be associated with stronger pro-carcinogenic activity in CAFs. Conclusions: This study revealed the crucial role of TSPs and the significant correlation between THBS2 and CAFs interactions in colon cancer progression, providing valuable insights for targeting TSPs to mitigate cancer progression.

Herein, the effect of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on the corrosion resistance of high nitrogen stainless steel (HNS) is systematically investigated based on experimental characterizations and first-principle calculations. Electrochemical measurements firstly prove that the anodic dissolution rate of HNS has significantly increased due to BSA adsorption and the potential deterioration of the passive film. By subsequent morphology and composition characterizations, it is demonstrated that BSA forms a 1.9 μm porous adsorption layer on HNS surface via the peptide bond mostly in α-helix and β-turn structure. Furthermore, Mott-Schottky tests confirm that the carrier (cation vacancy) density in the passive film has dramatically risen from 6.29 × 1021 cm−3 to 1.97 × 1022 cm−3 after BSA adsorption, which could be ascribed to the detachment of Cr atom from its original lattice due to the preference interaction between BSA molecule and Cr atom. Most importantly, such an increased defects will further promote the dissolution process of both the passive film and HNS matrix according to point defect model (PDM), which will definitely undermine the protective ability of the passive film and eventually result in the declined corrosion resistance of HNS in BSA-contained solution.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have promising potential for bone tissue engineering in bone healing and regeneration. They are regarded as such due to their capacity for self-renewal, multiple differentiation, and their ability to modulate the immune response. However, changes in the molecular pathways and transcription factors of MSCs in osteogenesis can lead to bone defects and metabolic bone diseases. DNA methylation is an epigenetic process that plays an important role in the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs by regulating gene expression. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated the significance of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs), Ten-eleven translocation family proteins (TETs), and MSCs signaling pathways about osteogenic differentiation in MSCs. This review focuses on the progress of research in these areas.

Abstract Dendrite formation induced by electrochemical migration (ECM) is a common reliability problem occurring on printed circuit boards (PCBs), which significantly threatens the long-term safe operations of current implantable electronic devices (IEDs). Although several factors (i.e., contaminations, humidity, temperature) are proved to be the parameters closely related to ECM susceptibility of capacitors on a PCB under climate environments, further targeted research under other environments still needs to be conducted as ECM is highly environmental-dependent. Herein, the effects of bias potential and pitch dimension on ECM sensitivity are systematically studied using various sizes of capacitors on a test PCB under a human implantation environment. The finite element method first proves that a DC voltage pattern could be regarded as an accelerated test compared to other waveforms. Subsequent chronoamperometry tests using the DC potential further indicate that dendrite formation is closely related to pitch dimension under low bias potential, while under high bias potential electric field is also the dominating factor of dendrite formation for capacitors on a PCB. Benefiting from the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique, the capacitor reliability under different corrosion states is also evaluated in a detailed manner. This work offers great value both in electronic corrosion mechanisms and future rational design for reliable IEDs.

Aerial images have distinct characteristics, such as varying target scales, complex backgrounds, severe occlusion, small targets, and dense distribution. As a result, object detection in aerial images faces challenges like difficulty in extracting small target information and poor integration of spatial and semantic data. Moreover, existing object detection algorithms have a large number of parameters, posing a challenge for deployment on drones with limited hardware resources. We propose an efficient small-object YOLO detection model (ESOD-YOLO) based on YOLOv8n for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) object detection. Firstly, we propose that the Reparameterized Multi-scale Inverted Blocks (RepNIBMS) module is implemented to replace the C2f module of the Yolov8n backbone extraction network to enhance the information extraction capability of small objects. Secondly, a cross-level multi-scale feature fusion structure, wave feature pyramid network (WFPN), is designed to enhance the model’s capacity to integrate spatial and semantic information. Meanwhile, a small-object detection head is incorporated to augment the model’s ability to identify small objects. Finally, a tri-focal loss function is proposed to address the issue of imbalanced samples in aerial images in a straightforward and effective manner. In the VisDrone2019 test set, when the input size is uniformly 640 × 640 pixels, the parameters of ESOD-YOLO are 4.46 M, and the average mean accuracy of detection reaches 29.3%, which is 3.6% higher than the baseline method YOLOv8n. Compared with other detection methods, it also achieves higher detection accuracy with lower parameters.

The available information regarding the impact of antimony (Sb), a novel environmental pollutant, on the intestinal microbiota and host health is limited. In this study, we conducted physiological characterizations to investigate the response of adult zebrafish to different environmental concentrations (0, 30, 300, and 3000 µg/L) of Sb over a period of 14 days. Biochemical and pathological changes demonstrated that Sb effectively compromised the integrity of the intestinal physical barrier and induced inflammatory responses as well as oxidative stress. Analysis of both intestinal microbial community and metabolome revealed that exposure to 0 and 30 µg/L of Sb resulted in similar microbiota structures; however, exposure to 300 µg/L altered microbial communities’ composition (e.g., a decline in genus Cetobacterium and an increase in Vibrio). Furthermore, exposure to 300 µg/L significantly decreased levels of bile acids and glycerophospholipids while triggering intestinal inflammation but activating self-protective mechanisms such as antibiotic presence. Notably, even exposure to 30 µg/L of Sb can trigger dysbiosis of intestinal microbiota and metabolites, potentially impacting fish health through the ''microbiota-intestine-brain axis'' and contributing to disease initiation. This study provides valuable insights into toxicity-related information concerning environmental impacts of Sb on aquatic organisms with significant implications for developing management strategies.

Tillage practices are of critical importance in maintaining soil quality on cropland and for food production, with rice cultivation representing a significant portion of the world’s food production and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While numerous studies have examined the effects of reduced and no-tillage on soil GHG emissions and rice yields, the impact of adopting a rotational approach to tillage practices on the rice cultivation cycle remains uncertain. In this study, we conducted a four-year (2017–2020) field experiment in a single rice-growing area in Northeast China with the aim of investigating the effects of different tillage practices on GHG emissions from paddy fields and rice yields under full straw return conditions. We set up three experimental treatments: rotary tillage, plowing, and rotational tillage (i.e., a combination of one year of plowing and one year of rotary tillage). The results showed that averaged across all treatments, average methane (CH4, 302.6 ± 51.1 kg ha−1) and nitrous oxide (N2O, 0.86 ± 0.361 kg ha−1) emissions and rice yield (9.0 ± 0.9 t ha−1) did not exhibit significant inter-annual variability during the entire experimental period and were comparable to the average for the region. The ranking of GHG emissions during the rice-growing season was as follows: rotary tillage > plowing > rotational tillage. Across the experimental period, CH4 and N2O emissions were 9.1% and 8.5% lower in the plowing treatment and 21.2% and 13.1% lower in the rotational tillage treatment compared to the rotary tillage treatment. During the experimental period, there was no significant effect of tillage treatments on rice yield. This reduction in emissions may be attributed to changes in soil penetration resistance. In the rotational and plowing treatments, soil penetration resistance was in a range more adapted to rice growth and GHG emissions reduction compared to the rotary tillage treatment. The yield-scale GHG emission intensity was reduced by 12.7% and 26.1% in the plowing and rotational tillage treatments, respectively, in comparison to the rotary tillage treatment. This suggests that rotational tillage is a management practice that can achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions in paddy fields and stabilize or possibly increase rice yields. Consequently, the results demonstrated that a rotational alternation of multiple tillage practices is a synergistic strategy for achieving low carbon and high yield in rice in the cold rice-growing region of Northeast China.

Rice direct seeding has the significant potential to save labor and water, conserve environmental resources, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions tremendously. Therefore, rice direct seeding is becoming the major cultivation technology applied to rice production in many countries. Identifying and utilizing genes controlling mesocotyl elongation is an effective approach to accelerate breeding procedures and meet the requirements for direct-seeded rice (DSR) production. This study used a permanent mapping population with 144 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) and 2 828 bin-markers to detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with mesocotyl length in 2019 and 2020. The mesocotyl lengths of the rice RILs and their parents, Lijiangxintuanheigu (LTH) and Shennong 265 (SN265), were measured in a growth chamber at 30°C in a dark environment. A total of 16 QTLs for mesocotyl length were identified on chromosomes 1(2), 2(4), 3(2), 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11(2), and 12. Seven of these QTLs, including qML1a, qML1b, qML2d, qML3a, qML3b, qML5, and qML11b, were reproducibly detected in both years via the interval mapping method. The major QTL, qML3a, was reidentified in two years via the composite interval mapping method. A total of 10 to 413 annotated genes for each QTL were identified in their smallest genetic intervals of 37.69 kb to 2.78 Mb, respectively. Thirteen predicted genes within a relatively small genetic interval (88.18 kb) of the major mesocotyl elongation QTL, qML3a, were more thoroughly analyzed. Finally, the coding DNA sequence variations among SN265, LTH, and Nipponbare indicated that the LOC_Os03g50550 gene was the strongest candidate gene for the qML3a QTL controlling the mesocotyl elongation. This LOC_Os03g50550 gene encodes a mitogen-activated protein kinase. Relative gene expression analysis using qRT-RCR further revealed that the expression levels of the LOC_Os03g50550 gene in the mesocotyl of LTH were significantly lower than in the mesocotyl of SN265. In conclusion, these results further strengthen our knowledge about rice's genetic mechanisms of mesocotyl elongation. This investigation's discoveries will help to accelerate breeding programs for new DSR variety development.

Summary: Tubulointerstitial abnormalities contribute to the progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). However, the underlying mechanism of the pathobiology of tubulointerstitial disease is largely unknown. Here, we showed that MYCT1 expression was downregulated in in vitro and in vivo DKD models. Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-Myct1 significantly attenuated renal dysfunction and tubulointerstitial fibrosis in diabetic db/db mice and downregulated Sp1 transcription and TGF-β1/SMAD3 pathway activation. In human proximal tubular epithelial cells, high glucose-induced high expression of SP1 and TGF-β1/SMAD3 pathway activation as well as overaccumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) were abrogated by MYCT1 overexpression. Mechanistically, the binding of VDR to the MYCT1 promoter was predicted and confirmed using dual-luciferase reporter and ChIP analysis. VDR transcriptionally upregulates MYCT1. Our data reveal MYCT1 as a new and potential therapeutic target in treating DKD.

The Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) and Hermite-Gaussian (HG) modes can be interconverted with an astigmatism phase. In this paper, based on the single beam, the interconversion of LG and HG beams array with the astigmatism phase is analyzed theoretically and the spatial mapping relationship is derived. In the experiment, 1 × 3, 2 × 2, 3 × 3 LG beams arrays are generated and converted into HG beams array via employing a spatial light modulator loaded with 0°, 90°, 45°, −45° astigmatism phases. The experimental results are in great agreement with the theoretical analyses. Moreover, from the number and direction of the dark fringe of converted HG beams array, the orbital angular momentum information of LG beams array can be obtained. This work theoretically perfects the theoretical model of the interconversion between LG and HG beams based on an astigmatism phase, and also provides a theoretical support for measuring the LG beams array.

Rotavirus (RV) causes 200,000 deaths per year and imposes a serious burden to public health and livestock farming worldwide. Currently, rehydration (oral and intravenous) remains the main strategy for the treatment of rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE), and no specific drugs are available. This review discusses the viral replication cycle in detail and outlines possible therapeutic approaches including immunotherapy, probiotic-assisted therapy, anti-enteric secretory drugs, Chinese medicine, and natural compounds. We present the latest advances in the field of rotavirus antivirals and highlights the potential use of Chinese medicine and natural compounds as therapeutic agents. This review provides an important reference for rotavirus prevention and treatment.

Coherent beam combining (CBC) with closely arranged centrosymmetric arrays is a promising way to obtain a high-brightness laser. An essential task in CBC is to actively control the piston phases of the input beams, maintaining the correct phasing to maximize the combination efficiency. By applying the neural network, the nonlinear mapping relationship between the far-field image and the piston phase could be established, so that the piston phase can be corrected quickly with one step, which caused widespread concern. However, there exists a piston-type phase ambiguity problem in the CBC system with centrosymmetric arrays, which means that multiple different piston phases may generate the same far-field image. This will prevent the far-field image from correctly reflecting the phase information, which will result in a performance degradation of the image-based intelligent algorithms. In this paper, we make a theoretical analysis of phase ambiguity. A method to solve phase ambiguity is proposed, which requires no additional optical devices. We designed simulations to verify our conclusions and methods. We believe that our work solves the phase ambiguity problem in theory and is conducive to improving the performance of image-based algorithms.

4-Amino- N ′-(4-aminobenzoyl)benzohydrazide (AAPDA), a diamine monomer that contains two amide groups, was synthesised by amidation and reduction, after which it was polymerised with pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) to prepare AAPPI, a novel polyimide. AAPPI exhibited excellent barrier performance, with oxygen- and water-vapor-transmission rates (OTR and WVTR, respectively) of only 1.7 cm ^3 m ^−2 d ^−1 and 1.0 g m ^−2 d ^−1 , respectively. This polyimide (PI) also exhibits outstanding thermal properties, with a glass transition temperature (T _g ) of 423 °C, a 5% weight-loss temperature (T _d5% ) of 509 °C, and a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of 2.58 ppm K ^−1 under nitrogen. The barrier performance of AAPPI was also compared to that of DABPI, a structurally similar PI. Molecular simulations, wide-angle x-ray diffractometry (WAXD), and positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) revealed that AAPPI forms many more interchain hydrogen bonds than DABPI due to its additional amide groups. Consequently, AAPPI has very tightly packed polymer chains, a high degree of crystallinity, a small free volume, and poor chain mobility. These factors generally inhibit the permeation of small molecules, which explains why AAPPI has better barrier properties than DABPI. This novel PI has broad applications for the packaging of flexible electronics.

Using the most recent data on the connectivity of the C. elegans neural network, we find optimal two-dimensional positions of interneurons that minimize the total wiring length provided that the positions of motor and sensory neurons are fixed. The rationale behind fixing motor and sensory neurons is the following: while positions of motor and sensory neurons can be influenced by the locations of muscles and sensory organs they are attached to, the main function of interneurons is to connect other neurons, and their placement could try to minimize the wiring length. Solutions for l1, l2 and squared l2-norm were obtained. For the Euclidean norm l2, the relative and absolute difference between the real and optimal total wiring lengths is minimal among these functions of distance. Additional network constraints were discussed such as assignment of different weights to electrical or chemical connections, fixation of "tail" interneurons, minimal interneural distance limitation, and others. These constraints were compared by their influence on the optimal positions of interneurons.

The inevitable diffusion of vanadium ions across the membrane can cause considerable capacity loss and temperature increase in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) over long term operation. Reliable experimental data of the permeability rates of vanadium ions are needed for membrane selection and for use in mathematical models to predict long-term behavior. In this paper a number of ion exchange membranes were selected for detailed evaluation using a modified approach to obtain more accurate permeation rates of V2+, V3+, VO2+ and VO2+ ions. Three commercial ion exchange membranes—FAP450, VB2 and F930—are investigated. The obtained diffusion coefficients are then employed in dynamic models to predict the thermal behavior under specific operating conditions. The simulation results prove that smaller and more balanced permeability rates of V2+ and VO2+ ions are more important to avoid large temperature increases in the cell stack during stand-by periods at high states-of-charge with pumps off.