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Aerogels are essential and effective materials for oily pollution adsorption and recovery. This work described a hydrophobic modified cellulose aerogel using waste palm leaf and its oil adsorption mechanism. By chemical vapor deposition, Methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) was employed as a hydrophobic modifier for aerogel of waste palm leaf cellulose at 80 °C for 5 h, and the modified aerogel demonstrated exceptional and stable hydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 132.4° that can still be maintained above 120° after two months of air exposure. After 10 adsorption and extrusion cycles, kerosene adsorption capacity can still reach over 18 times its weight with good regeneration and reuse performance. The kinetic analysis found that the pseudo-second order model was more appropriate for the aerogel’s oil absorption process, including mainly physical adsorption at the beginning and the following chemical adsorption. Owing to its low cost, hydrophobicity, high absorption capacity, and favorable reusability, this aerogel is expected to be used in oils, organic solvent spill cleanup, and oil/water separation fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ZrB 2 -based composite coatings with addition of Al 2 TiO 5 were prepared via very low-pressure plasma spraying using mechanically mixed powder of ZrB 2 and Al 2 O 3 -40 wt%TiO 2 (AT40). The ablation behavior of the composite coating was investigated using a high temperature plasma jet at a temperature of ∼2500oC. Results demonstrate the addition of AT40 improved the ablation resistance of the ZrB 2 coatings at high temperatures. The coating with 17 vol%AT40 addition exhibited the lowest ablation rate, approximately 1.33 μm/s, which is only one-third of that of the pure ZrB 2 coating. The added AT40 filled the pores between ZrO 2 crystals during ablation, reducing oxygen penetration and lowering the ablation rate. However, excessive addition of AT40 hindered gaseous B 2 O 3 release and thus led to large pore formation, impairing the protective effect. The ZrB 2 -AT40 coating is a promising candidate for high-temperature applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the input‐to‐state stability of an uncertain switched linear system with external disturbances, whose feedback loop is closed over a digital communication network. In the network, only a finite bit rate can be provided to transmit the feedback signal and unknown network delay always exists. By using reachable set approximation and propagation methods, it can well handle with the effects of model uncertainty, external disturbances and network delay on the stability of the system. To save network resources, event‐triggered sampling is taken here. Under the event‐triggered sampling strategies, a new encoder is proposed, which consumes less feedback bits than the conventional time‐triggered encoders. It is proven that even in the existence of model uncertainty, external disturbances and network delay, the proposed event‐triggered sampling strategies require a lower feedback bit rate to stabilize the switched system than conventional periodic sampling methods. To save network resources, event‐triggered sampling is taken here. Under the event‐triggered sampling strategies, a new encoder is proposed, which consumes less feedback bits than the conventional time‐triggered encoders. It is proven that even in the existence of model uncertainty, external disturbances and network delay, the proposed event‐triggered sampling strategies require a lower feedback bit rate to stabilize the switched system than conventional periodic sampling methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • CircRNA hsa_circ_0001402 inhibits VSMC proliferation and migration, while activating VSMC autophagy, thereby alleviating neointimal hyperplasia. • MiR-183-5p decreases FKBPL levels by targeting the coding sequence of FKBPL , promoting VSMC proliferation and migration, thereby exacerbating neointimal hyperplasia. • MiR-183-5p reduces BECN1 levels by targeting the 3′-untranslated region of BECN1 , inhibiting VSMC autophagy, thus exacerbating neointimal hyperplasia. • Hsa_circ_0001402 acts as a sponge for miR-183-5p. Vascular neointimal hyperplasia, a pathological process observed in cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and pulmonary hypertension, involves the abundant presence of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). The proliferation, migration, and autophagy of VSMCs are associated with the development of neointimal lesions. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play critical roles in regulating VSMC proliferation and migration, thereby participating in neointimal hyperplasia. However, the regulatory roles of circRNAs in VSMC autophagy remain unclear. We aimed to identify circRNAs that are involved in VSMC autophagy-mediated neointimal hyperplasia, as well as elucidate the underlying mechanisms. Dual-luciferase reporter gene assay was performed to validate two competing endogenous RNA axes, hsa_circ_0001402 /miR-183-5p/FKBP prolyl isomerase like (FKBPL) and hsa_circ_0001402 /miR-183-5p/beclin 1 (BECN1). Cell proliferation and migration analyses were employed to investigate the effects of hsa_circ_0001402 , miR-183-5p, or FKBPL on VSMC proliferation and migration. Cell autophagy analysis was conducted to reveal the role of hsa_circ_0001402 or miR-183-5p on VSMC autophagy. The role of hsa_circ_0001402 or miR-183-5p on neointimal hyperplasia was evaluated using a mouse model of common carotid artery ligation. Hsa_circ_0001402 acted as a sponge for miR-183-5p, leading to the suppression of miR-183-5p expression. Through direct interaction with the coding sequence (CDS) of FKBPL , miR-183-5p promoted VSMC proliferation and migration by decreasing FKBPL levels. Besides, miR-183-5p reduced BECN1 levels by targeting the 3′-untranslated region (UTR) of BECN1 , thus inhibiting VSMC autophagy. By acting as a miR-183-5p sponge, overexpression of hsa_circ_0001402 increased FKBPL levels to inhibit VSMC proliferation and migration, while simultaneously elevating BECN1 levels to activate VSMC autophagy, thereby alleviating neointimal hyperplasia. Hsa_circ_0001402 , acting as a miR-183-5p sponge, increases FKBPL levels to inhibit VSMC proliferation and migration, while enhancing BECN1 levels to activate VSMC autophagy, thus alleviating neointimal hyperplasia. The hsa_circ_0001402 /miR-183-5p/ FKBPL axis and hsa_circ_0001402 /miR-183-5p/ BECN1 axis may offer potential therapeutic targets for neointimal hyperplasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilising User Generated Content (UGC) on social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook can establish genuine connections between content creators and their audience. However, managing and maintaining long-term brand development remains a significant challenge. Research on the mechanisms behind sustainable brand support attitudes towards UGC is limited. This paper explores whether a self-deprecating style of humour affects audiences’ sustained brand support attitudes towards social media content creators. Theoretically, this study combines Affective Events Theory (AET) and Intergroup Emotion Theory (IET) to explore how individual attitudes extend to group reactions and the sustainability of personal brands. It aims to thoroughly investigate, in the context of social media, the cognitive and emotional changes in individuals towards themselves and their groups under the stimulus of UGC self-deprecating humour, as well as the process of forming sustainable brand support attitudes. Methodologically, this study employs a covariance-based structural equation model to establish the path mechanism of self-deprecating humour expression on sustainable brand support attitudes at both individual psychology and group attitude levels. Additionally, it analyzes the limitations of self-deprecating humour in UGC, considering users with varying levels of need for cognition. Lastly, the paper discusses the theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrical and magnetic properties of strongly correlated manganese oxides originate from and depend on the coupling of spin, orbital, lattice and other degrees of freedom, and can also be controlled by external stimuli (such as a magnetic field). Here, the films have been prepared using spin-coating method to determine the role of Jahn–Teller (JT) distortion and double exchange (DE) interaction in electronic transport and magnetoresistance (MR) by magnetic field in La0.7−xSmxCa0.3MnO3/SrTiO3(001). The Sm-induced lattice distortion suppresses the metal-insulator transition temperature and increases the films’ resistivity, which is due to the weakening of the DE interaction between Mn3+–O2−–Mn4+ ions and the enhancement of the single electron bandwidth. Moreover, the MR can be increased to 96.5% and the AMR can be increased to 66.6% under 1 T magnetic field. These findings indicate the importance of JT distortion in multi-field control of hole-doped perovskite manganites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph clustering aims to divide nodes into different clusters without labels and has attracted great attention due to the success of graph neural networks (GNNs). Traditional GNN-based clustering methods are based on the homophilic assumption, i.e., connected nodes belong to the same clusters. However, this assumption is not always true, as heterophilic graphs are also ubiquitous in the real world, which limits the application of GNNs. Furthermore, these methods overlook global positions, which can result in erroneous clustering. To solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a novel model called Preserving Global Information for Graph Clustering with Masked Autoencoders (GCMA). We first propose a low–high-pass filter to capture meaningful low- and high-frequency information. Then, we propose a graph diffusion method to obtain the global position. Specifically, a parameterized Laplacian matrix is proposed to better control the global direction. To further enhance the learning ability of the autoencoders, we design a model with a masking strategy that enhances the learning ability. Extensive experiments on both homophilic and heterophilic graphs demonstrate GCMA's advantages over state-of-the-art baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study delved into the concept of “time investment” by examining negative comments from players. It conducted a comprehensive analysis of how time investment and external motivation influence players’ emotional experiences, drawing from self-determination theory (SDT). Nonetheless, there has been limited exploration of the origins and significance of players’ negative emotions. The study employed a mixed-methods approach. Initially, it constructed a radar chart representing time investment by analyzing textual reviews from Chinese players across six distinct mobile game types and creating thematic models with BERTopic. Subsequently, the initial machine learning results were confirmed through a questionnaire survey (n = 1028), resulting in the identification of five primary time investment dimensions: in-game experience time investment, learning time investment, social time investment, emotional time investment, and economic time investment. The study unveils the impact of external motivation on players’ emotions and assessments, all from the viewpoint of players. It also offers an expanded perspective within SDT for the exploration of external motivation. The findings present a fresh theoretical outlook and research framework for game designers and the human–computer interaction (HCI) field. Additionally, they offer new insights into the concept of time as perceived by players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer immunotherapy has seen significant success in the last decade for cancer management by enhancing endogenous cancer immunity. However, immunotherapies developed thus far have seen limited success in the majority of high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) ovarian cancer patients. This is largely due to the highly immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment of HGSC and late-stage identification. Thus, novel treatment interventions are needed to overcome this immunosuppression and complement existing immunotherapies. Here, we have identified through analysis of > 600 human HGSC tumours a critical role for Let-7i in modulating the tumoural immune network. Tumoural expression of Let-7i had high positive correlation with anti-cancer immune signatures in HGSC patients. Confirming this role, enforced Let-7i expression in murine HGSC tumours resulted in a significant decrease in tumour burden with a significant increase in tumour T cell numbers in tumours. In concert with the improved tumoural immunity, Let-7i treatment also significantly increased CD86 expression in antigen presenting cells (APCs) in the draining lymph nodes, indicating enhanced APC activity. Collectively, our findings highlight an important role of Let-7i in anti-tumour immunity and its potential use for inducing an anti-tumour effect in HGSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) security, using federated learning (FL) to deploy intrusion detection models in VANET has attracted considerable attention. Compared to conventional centralized learning, FL retains local training private data, thus protecting privacy. However, sensitive information about the training data can still be inferred from the shared model parameters in FL. Differential privacy (DP) is sophisticated technique to mitigate such attacks. A key challenge of implementing DP in FL is that non-selectively adding DP noise can adversely affect model accuracy, while having many perturbed parameters also increases privacy budget consumption and communication costs for detection models. To address this challenge, we propose FFIDS, a FL algorithm integrating model parameter pruning with differential privacy. It employs a parameter pruning technique based on the Fisher Information Matrix to reduce the privacy budget consumption per iteration while ensuring no accuracy loss. Specifically, FFIDS evaluates parameter importance and prunes unimportant parameters to generate compact sub-models, while recording the positions of parameters in each sub-model. This not only reduces model size to lower communication costs, but also maintains accuracy stability. DP noise is then added to the sub-models. By not perturbing unimportant parameters, more budget can be reserved to retain important parameters for more iterations. Finally, the server can promptly recover the sub-models using the parameter position information and complete aggregation. Extensive experiments on two public datasets and two F2MD simulation datasets have validated the utility and superior performance of the FFIDS algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sunk cost bias is a pervasive issue in the real world, manifesting in various domains, such as consumption and investment, influencing consumer well‐being. This bias often leads to a misallocation of resources towards less meaningful activities. In the current study, we explored a novel factor, specifically disease cues, that influences the sunk cost bias. Through a survey and four systematic experiments, using both lab and natural manipulations of disease cues, we demonstrate that disease cues encourage individuals to overvalue their prior investments, leading to an increased propensity for sunk cost bias in imagined decision scenarios and real choices. We have also ruled out alternative explanations for our findings. Significantly, we added a survey to directly explore the sunk cost bias and consumer subjective well‐being, showing a significant positive relationship between them. Our research contributes to understanding consumer irrational behavior and aims to improve consumer well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of synthetic organic compounds that are widely distributed in the environment and have significant adverse effects on humans as well as the ecosystem. Many microorganisms that can degrade PCBs have been reported, including monocultures of bacteria and fungi, as well as natural and artificial microbial consortia. Generally, anaerobic dechlorination can degrade highly chlorinated PCBs to reduce their toxicity, while aerobic oxidation degrades lowly chlorinated PCBs (four or fewer chlorine atoms) and realizes their complete mineralization into CO2 by disrupting the benzene ring structure. Due to the need for the metabolism of a wide range of PCB congeners in the environment, microbial consortia have become a research hotspot, and their species diversity facilitates metabolic cooperation, enabling them to undertake more complex tasks. In this review, we will discuss the metabolic mechanisms of PCB degradation by monocultures as well as microbial consortia, and focus on the recent progress in the development and optimization of PCB-degrading microbial consortia, the community composition analysis methods, the prevailing optimization strategies such as biostimulation, bioaugmentation, metagenomics, and the combination of other methods for a better remediation effect, which will provide theoretical and practical bases for the rational design, construction and further optimization of efficient microbial consortia for the high-efficiency degradation of PCBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass-derived carbon materials are certified to be excellent catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and their ORR activity is severely affected by activators. For this reason, three zinc halides (ZnF 2 , ZnBr 2 , and ZnI 2) and ZnCl 2 used as activators for the formation of pea pod-derived carbon materials are systematically investigated for the first time. The presence of ZnX 2 significantly changes the morphology of biomass-derived carbon materials and effectively increases the specific surface area, surface defect and doping content of N. These factors effectively promote the ORR activity of the product, especially PPBrNC. The four resulted carbons show high onset potential, half-wave potential and limiting current density that is comparable with Pt/C, and the obvious 4-electron reduction pathway is displayed in ORR process. Meanwhile, the ultra-high stability and methanol tolerance make it a potential non-precious metal catalyst. Therefore, ZnX 2 is a class of low-cost and excellent chemical activators for the preparation of biomass-derived carbon materials and can provide a new idea for exploring low-cost, efficient and stable ORR catalysts. • Three new activators were proposed for the preparation of biochar for the first time. • The presence of activators can improved the composition and structure of biochars. • The resulting biochcars showed outstanding ORR activity and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the theta correspondence over a non-Archimedean local field. Using the homological method and the theory of derivatives, we show that under a mild condition the big theta lift is irreducible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning individualized treatment rules is an important topic in precision medicine. Current literature mainly focuses on deriving individualized treatment rules from a single source population. We consider the observational data setting when the source population differs from a target population of interest. Compared with causal generalization for the average treatment effect that is a scalar quantity, individualized treatment rule generalization poses new challenges due to the need to model and generalize the rules based on a prespecified class of functions that may not contain the unrestricted true optimal individualized treatment rule. The aim of this paper is to develop a weighting framework to mitigate the impact of such misspecification, and thus facilitate the generalizability of optimal individualized treatment rules from a source population to a target population. Our method seeks covariate balance over a nonparametric function class characterized by a reproducing kernel Hilbert space and can improve many individualized treatment rule learning methods that rely on weights. We show that the proposed method encompasses importance weights and overlap weights as two extreme cases, allowing for a better bias-variance trade-off in between. Numerical examples demonstrate that the use of our weighting method can greatly improve individualized treatment rule estimation for the target population compared with other weighting methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-view clustering has attracted growing attention owing to its powerful capacity of multi-source information integration. Although numerous advanced methods have been proposed in past decades, most of them generally fail to distinguish the unequal importance of multiple views to the clustering task and overlook the scale uniformity of learned latent representation among different views, resulting in blurry physical meaning and suboptimal model performance. To address these issues, in this paper, we propose a joint learning framework, termed Adaptive-weighted deep Multi-view Clustering with Uniform scale representation (AMCU). Specifically, to achieve more reasonable multi-view fusion, we introduce an adaptive weighting strategy, which imposes simplex constraints on heterogeneous views for measuring their varying degrees of contribution to consensus prediction. Such a simple yet effective strategy shows its clear physical meaning for the multi-view clustering task. Furthermore, a novel regularizer is incorporated to learn multiple latent representations sharing approximately the same scale, so that the objective for calculating clustering loss cannot be sensitive to the views and thus the entire model training process can be guaranteed to be more stable as well. Through comprehensive experiments on eight popular real-world datasets, we demonstrate that our proposal performs better than several state-of-the-art single-view and multi-view competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) can be used in landfill and slope cover systems, where its unsaturated hydraulic properties play an important role. The hydraulic behavior of RCAs can be potentially controlled through mixing coarse and fine aggregates by a pre-determined proportion, which lacks experimental validation. In this study, water retention curve (WRC) and permeability function (PF) of RCAs with different fine aggregate contents (fc) were investigated. Experiments on 9 RCAs with different gradations reveal that when fc is between 20% and 30%, a second air entry value appears, and the shape of both WRC and PF becomes bimodal, which is probably resulted from an uneven dual-peak pore size distribution. With an increasing fc, the first air entry value and the residual water content increases. The unsaturated coefficient of permeability decreases with the increasing fc for a low suction level (<0.1 kPa), but increases with the raise of fc for high suction (>10 kPa). Overall, adopting a properly mixed RCA with fc value of less than 10% or over 40%, instead of a narrowly graded RCA, is recommended for coarse- and fine-grained layers in a capillary barrier, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to their exceptional properties, high‐entropy alloys (HEAs) have received considerable attention in the field of electrocatalysis. However, few studies focus on the origin of their outstanding performance. Here, carbon‐supported PtFeCoNiMn (with an atomic ratio of 21:20:20:20:19) HEA nanoparticles via shock‐heating and shock‐cooling strategy are rationally designed and successfully prepared. The above five metal elements are rationally selected from the perspective of thermodynamics and geometric effects. Subsequently, the alloying process of the PtFeCoNiMn HEA is investigated via operando X‐ray diffraction characterizations. The electronic structures of each metal atom on the PtFeCoNiMn HEA and monometallic nanoparticles surface are revealed by density function theory calculations for illustrating the performance enhancement mechanism. It is found that Pt atoms on the PtFeCoNiMn HEA surface exhibit a wider range of d‐band center distribution range than the corresponding monometallic nanoparticles, which contributes to the enhanced selective adsorption of O2 reactants/intermediates. Importantly, some Fe, Co, Ni, and Mn atoms on the HEA surface manifest less positive d‐band center values than the corresponding monometallic nanoparticles, with similar d‐band center positions to some Pt atoms. This indicates that the inactive atoms in monometallic nanoparticles can be transformed into ORR active sites in the HEA matrix owing to the electronic interaction between adjacent atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Objectives Methods Results Conclusions The pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) characteristics of nirmatrelvir (NMV) are unknown in Chinese patients with COVID‐19.To understand the PK, as well as PK–PD characteristics of NMV for optimizing the dose in Chinese patients with COVID‐19.We enrolled 141 participants who received NMV 300 mg/ritonavir (RTV) 100 mg b.i.d. for 5 days. The NMV concentrations were analyzed using 251 blood samples. PK/PD of NMV was investigated in these COVID‐19 patients using a nonlinear mixed‐effects model.The patients had a mean age of 82 years (range, 34–97). The absorption rate constant and apparent clearance of NMV in this Chinese cohort were 0.253 h−1 and 6.83 L/h, respectively, similar to Caucasian patients. No covariates affected NMV clearance. Predicted peak (Cmax) and trough concentration (Cmin) under 300 mg NMV/100 mg RTV b.i.d. were 4004 and 1498 ng/mL, respectively. Although higher AUC and Cmin were weakly associated with a slight increase in the number of cycle threshold (CT) of viral genes, no significant correlation was found, indicating a weak relationship between drug exposure and efficacy (CT).In all, our findings suggest no ethnic PK differences, a weak and clinically insignificant relationship between drug exposure and efficacy, suitable dosage for Chinese patients (including the elderly) based on PK parameters, and the need for further studies to determine optimal regimens for high‐risk patients due to inter‐individual variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aeolian sand (AS) is locally available in desert area that can be used as road construction material. However, AS is a loose granular material with low bearing capacity which needs to be stabilized. This paper presents a novel study of using geopolymer (GP) and fines to stabilize AS. A series of cyclic triaxial tests was conducted to study the effect of GP and fines contents on cyclic response of stabilized AS. The experimental results show that adding fines into AS can effectively increase the cyclic loading capacity but increase the accumulated axial strain of the mixture; inclusion of GP into the AS-fines mixture greatly enhances the cyclic loading capacity and reduces the accumulated axial strain of the mixture. The shakedown response of the untreated AS changes from plastic shakedown to incremental collapse with increase in cyclic stress ratio (CSR); however, the GP-fines-AS mixture with higher fines and GP contents mainly experiences plastic shakedown. The modulus index of untreated AS or fines-containing AS shows an increase-stable trend with loading cycles, indicating strengthening in the soil matrix, but that of the GP-fines-AS mixture shows increase-stable, stable or decrease-stable trend with loading cycles, depending on the CSR and fines and GP contents. Microcharacterization using scanning electron microscope (SEM) shows that the added fines greatly alter the microstructure of AS by filling the voids and acting as lubricant, which facilitates the movement of AS particles and thus induces larger axial strain. The added GP increases the cyclic loading capacity of the treated soil by inducing a chemical fabric in the treated soils. Increase in fines and GP content results in larger contact area and stronger fabric leading to enhanced stabilizing effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The layer Hall effect describes electrons spontaneously deflected to opposite sides at different layers, which has been experimentally reported in the MnBi2Te4 thin films under perpendicular electric fields. Here, we reveal a universal origin of the layer Hall effect in terms of the so-called hidden Berry curvature, as well as material design principles. Hence, it gives rise to zero Berry curvature in momentum space but non-zero layer-locked hidden Berry curvature in real space. We show that, compared to that of a trivial insulator, the layer Hall effect is significantly enhanced in antiferromagnetic topological insulators. Our universal picture provides a paradigm for revealing the hidden physics as a result of the interplay between the global and local symmetries, and can be generalized in various scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haiyang-1D (HY-1D) is the second operational satellite in China's Haiyang-1 series of satellites, carrying the Chinese Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner (COCTS) to provide ocean color and temperature observations. The radiometric calibration is a prerequisite to guarantee the quality of the satellite observations and the derived products, and the radiometric calibration of the thermal emissive bands of HY-1D/COCTS can effectively improve the accuracy of sea surface temperature (SST) derived from the thermal infrared data. In this paper, a study on the regional cross-calibration of the COCTS thermal emissive bands is conducted for high-accuracy SST observations in the South China Sea. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the NOAA-20 satellite launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is selected as the calibration reference sensor, and a double-difference cross-calibration method is used for HY-1D/COCTS thermal infrared brightness temperature (BT) evaluation. The results show that the bias of the 11 µm and 12 µm thermal emissive bands of COCTS and VIIRS in the South China Sea are 0.101 K and 0.892 K, respectively, and the differences in BTs between the two sensors show temperature dependence. The cross-calibration coefficients are obtained and used to correct the BT of the COCTS thermal emissive bands. The bias of the BT of the 11 µm and 12 µm bands of COCTS are about 0.01 K after cross-calibration. To further validate the results, COCTS post-calibration data were examined using the NOAA-20 Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) data as a third-party source. The BT is calculated with the spectral response functions of the COCTS thermal emissive bands using the convolution calculation of the CrIS hyperspectral region observations. The comparison shows a small bias between the post-calibration COCTS thermal emissive band observations and CrIS, which is consistent with the comparison between VIIRS and CrIS. The accuracy of the post-calibration COCTS thermal emissive band BT data in the South China Sea has been significantly improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the issue of integrity monitoring for a multi-source information fusion navigation system, a theoretical framework of two-level integrity monitoring is proposed. Firstly, at the system level, a system-integrity-monitoring method based on the Kalman filter weighted least-squares form is established to detect and isolate faulty navigation sources. Secondly, at the sensor level, considering the redundancy of the faulty navigation sources, this paper presents the design of a multi-mode comprehensive fault-detection method for non-redundant navigation sources. Additionally, an extended-dimension matrix optimized sensor-fault detection and verification method for redundant navigation sources is proposed. Finally, integrity risk allocation criteria are established based on the effectiveness of navigation sources to calculate the system protection level and trigger integrity alarms. The two-level integrity-monitoring method was tested on a multi-source information fusion navigation system integrated with an inertial navigation system (INS), global positioning system (GPS), BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS), Doppler velocity log (DVL), barometric altimeter (BA), and terrain-aided navigation (TAN). Test results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively isolate the faulty navigation source within 10 s. Furthermore, it can detect the faulty sensors within the faulty navigation sources, thereby enhancing the reliability and robustness of the multi-source information fusion navigation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staphylococcus aureus is a major human pathogen associated with high mortality rates. The extensive use of antibiotics is associated with the rise of drug resistance, and exotoxins are not targeted by antibiotics. Therefore, monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy has emerged as a promising solution to solve the clinical problems caused by refractory S aureus. Recent research suggests that the synergistic effects of several cytotoxins, including bicomponent toxins, are critical to the pathogenesis of S aureus. By comparing the amino acid sequences, researchers found that α-toxin and bicomponent toxins have high homology. Therefore, we aimed to screen an antibody, designated an all-in-one mAb, that could neutralize α-toxin and bicomponent toxins through hybridoma fusion. We found that this mAb has a significant pharmacodynamic effect within in vivo mouse models and in vitro experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From childhood to adolescence, the spatiotemporal development pattern of the human brain white matter connectome and its underlying transcriptomic and cellular mechanisms remain largely unknown. With a longitudinal diffusion MRI cohort of 604 participants, we map the developmental trajectory of the white matter connectome from global to regional levels and identify that most brain network properties followed a linear developmental trajectory. Importantly, connectome-transcriptomic analysis reveals that the spatial development pattern of white matter connectome is potentially regulated by the transcriptomic architecture, with positively correlated genes involve in ion transport- and development-related pathways expressed in excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and negatively correlated genes enriches in synapse- and development-related pathways expressed in astrocytes, inhibitory neurons and microglia. Additionally, the macroscale developmental pattern is also associated with myelin content and thicknesses of specific laminas. These findings offer insights into the underlying genetics and neural mechanisms of macroscale white matter connectome development from childhood to adolescence. Joint connectomic and transcriptomic analyses of longitudinal dMRI data reveal the multiscale developmental pattern of the human white matter connectome from childhood to adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a total of 1140 Liaoning Cashmere Goats (LCG) were genotyped for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of NFKBIA gene. There are 15 SNPs and 7 genotypes have been found, and G1547A (GG) genotype has been associated with cashmere fineness and cashmere yield. An integrated ceRNA regulatory network of NFKBIA gene was made. To prove NFKBIA and these non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) may be related to cashmere fineness, we performed qPCR on these ncRNA in LCG coarse type skin (CT-LCG) and LCG fine type skin (FT-LCG). The result of qPCR showed lncRNA XLOC_011060 and ciRNA452 are at high expression level in CT-LCG, all miRNAs appear high expressed in FT-LCG, and mir-93 was the most significant difference between CT-LCG and FT-LCG. In addition, five miRNAs were selected for qPCR in different genotypes. The qPCR results showed that mir-93 might negatively regulate cashmere fineness and mir-17-5p may play a positive role in regulating cashmere fineness of individuals with G1355A (AG) genotype. These results demonstrated that NFKBIA gene is associated with cashmere fineness of LCG and G1547A (GG) genotype is the preferred marker genotype for cashmere fineness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive traits have a high economic value in goat breeding, and increasing the number of lambs produced by ewes is of great importance to improve the production efficiency of goat farming. Lambing traits in goats are low heritability traits, but their genetic basis is ultimately determined by genes. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between INHA, RARG, and PGR gene polymorphisms and production performance, such as lambing, cashmere production, milk production, and body size in Liaoning cashmere goats. A total of six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) loci were identified in these three genes, G144A and T504C on the INHA gene, A56G, G144A, G490C on the RARG gene, and G109519T on the PGR gene. For lambing and cashmere production traits, the AA genotype of G144A on the INHA gene, TT on the T504C genotype, GG genotype of G144A on the INHA gene, A56G, G144A, and T504C on RARG and G109519T on PGR gene are dominant genotypes. AATT is a dominant haplotype combination. Allele G can be used as a molecular marker for lambing, cashmere, and milk production traits in Liaoning cashmere goats. Marker-assisted selection can be used for early selection to achieve improvement of genetic traits in Liaoning cashmere goats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on estimating the average treatment effect (ATE) of a target population when individual‐level data from a source population and summary‐level data (e.g., first or second moments of certain covariates) from the target population are available. In the presence of the heterogeneous treatment effect, the ATE of the target population can be different from that of the source population when distributions of treatment effect modifiers are dissimilar in these two populations, a phenomenon also known as covariate shift. Many methods have been developed to adjust for covariate shift, but most require individual covariates from a representative target sample. We develop a weighting approach based on the summary‐level information from the target sample to adjust for possible covariate shift in effect modifiers. In particular, weights of the treated and control groups within a source sample are calibrated by the summary‐level information of the target sample. Our approach also seeks additional covariate balance between the treated and control groups in the source sample. We study the asymptotic behavior of the corresponding weighted estimator for the target population ATE under a wide range of conditions. The theoretical implications are confirmed in simulation studies and a real‐data application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) who undergo longitudinal follow-up contrast-enhanced MRI are at risk of developing gadolinium deposition in their neural tissue, which may potentially harm them. Therefore, for these patients, a non-contrast-enhanced method is potentially beneficial as an alternative approach to predict enhancement in T1-weighted imaging (CE-T1WI). The traditional intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) is one of the non-contrast-enhanced methods; however, the severe distortion and signal loss limit its application in patients with NPC. The present study aimed to investigate whether non-distortion IVIM could reduce the need of CE-T1WI in the follow-up of patients with NPC. The patients with NPC underwent Turbo Spin-echo MVXD diffusion-weighted imaging-based IVIM (non-distortion IVIM) from November 2021 to May 2022. Firstly, thirty patients with NPC were underwent both non-distortion IVIM and traditional IVIM. The distortion rate (DR) of the non-distortion IVIM was compared with the traditional IVIM. Then, twenty-one NPC patients with tumors (areas >50mm2) were included and correlation coefficient analysis was used to assess the relationship between their non-distortion IVIM and CE-T1WI. Linear regression analysis was performed to determine whether non-distortion IVIM predictors could predict CE-T1WI. The correlation was observed between the parameter f of the non-distortion IVIM and the enhancement ratio of CE-T1WI (r = 0.543, P = 0.011). Moreover, the linear regression analysis revealed that f was an independent IVIM predictor of CE-T1WI in patients with NPC (P = 0.011). The DR of the non-distortion IVIM was significantly smaller than that of the traditional IVIM (0.12 ± 0.05 vs 0.48 ± 0.16, P < 0.001). In patients with NPC, non-distortion IVIM showed potential clinical benefits to reduce the need for contrast agents, and it can independently predict the enhancement ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inhibition of PI3K pathway has become a desirable strategy for cancer treatment. In this work, a series of 2, 6, 8-substituted Imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine derivatives were designed and screened for their activities against PI3Kα and a panel of PI3Kα-addicted cancer cells. Among them, compound 35 was identified as a PI3Kα inhibitor with nanomolar potency as well as acceptable antiproliferative activity. Flow cytometry analysis confirmed 35 induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in T47D cells. In addition, it also showed desirable in vitro ADME properties. The design, synthesis, and SAR exploration of 35 are described within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell therapy is a promising treatment method that uses living cells to address a variety of diseases and conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, neurologic disorders and certain cancers. As interest in cell therapy grows, there is a need to shift to a more efficient, scalable and automated manufacturing process that can produce high-quality products at a lower cost. One way to achieve this is using non-invasive imaging and real-time image analysis techniques to monitor and control the manufacturing process. This work presents a machine learning-based image analysis pipeline that includes semantic segmentation and anomaly detection capabilities. This method can be easily implemented even when given a limited dataset of annotated images, is able to segment cells and debris and can identify anomalies such as contamination or hardware failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine the value of combining conventional plaque parameters and radiomics features derived from coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) for predicting coronary plaque progression. Materials and methods: Clinical data and CCTA images of 400 patients who underwent at least two CCTA examinations between January 2009 and August 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. Diameter stenosis, total plaque volume and burden, calcified plaque volume and burden, noncalcified plaque volume and burden (NCPB), pericoronary fat attenuation index (FAI), and other conventional plaque parameters were recorded. The patients were assigned to a training cohort (n = 280) and a validation cohort (n = 120) in a 7:3 ratio using a stratified random splitting method. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the predictive abilities of conventional parameters (model 1), radiomics features (model 2), and their combination (model 3). Results: FAI and NCPB were identified as independent risk factors for coronary plaque progression in the training cohort. Both model 2 (training cohort AUC: 0.814, p < 0.001; validation cohort AUC: 0.729, p = 0.288) and model 3 (training cohort AUC: 0.824, p < 0.001; validation cohort AUC: 0.758, p = 0.042) had better diagnostic performances in predicting plaque progression than model 1 (training cohort AUC: 0.646; validation cohort AUC: 0.654). Moreover, model 3 was slightly higher than model 2, although not statistically significant. Conclusions: The combination of conventional coronary plaque parameters and CCTA-derived radiomics features had a better ability to predict plaque progression than conventional parameters alone. Clinical relevance statement: The conventional coronary plaque characteristics such as noncalcified plaque burden, pericoronary fat attenuation index, and radiomics features derived from CCTA can identify plaques prone to progression, which is helpful for further clinical decision-making of coronary artery disease. Key Points: • FAI and NCPB were identified as independent risk factors for predicting plaque progression. • Coronary plaque radiomics features were more advantageous than conventional parameters in predicting plaque progression. • The combination of conventional coronary plaque parameters and radiomics features could significantly improve the predictive ability of plaque progression over conventional parameters alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are dangerous weather events; accurate monitoring and forecasting can provide significant early warning to reduce loss of life and property. However, the study of tropical cyclone intensity remains challenging, both in terms of theory and forecasting. ERA5 reanalysis is a benchmark data set for tropical cyclone studies, yet the maximum wind speed error is very large (68 kts) and is still 19 kts after simple linear correction, even in the better sampled North Atlantic. Here, we develop an adaptive learning approach to correct the intensity in the ERA5 reanalysis, by optimising the inputs to overcome the problems caused by the poor data quality and updating the features to improve the generalisability of the deep learning-based model. Specifically, we use understanding of TC properties to increase the representativeness of the inputs so that the general features can be learned with deep neural networks in the sample space, and then use domain adaptation to update the general features from the known domain with historical storms to the specific features for the unknown domain of new storms. This approach can reduce the error to only 6 kts which is within the uncertainty of the best track data in the international best track archive for climate stewardship (IBTrACS) in the North Atlantic. The method may have wide applicability, such as when extending it to the correction of intensity estimation from satellite imagery and intensity prediction from dynamical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equilibrium geometries and properties of self-assembled (InN)12n (n = 1–9) nanoclusters (nanowires and nanosheets) are studied using the GGA-PBE (general gradient approximation with Perdew–Burke–Ernzerh) method. The relative stabilities and growth patterns of semiconductor (InN)12n nanoclusters are investigated. The odd-numbered nano-size (InN)12n (n is odd) have weaker stabilities compared with the neighboring even-numbered (InN)12n (n is even) ones. The most stable (InN)48 nanosheet is selected as a building unit for self-assembled nano-size film materials. In particular, the energy gaps of InN nanoclusters show an even–odd oscillation and reflect that (InN)12n (n = 1–9) nanoclusters are good optoelectronic materials and nanodevices due to their energy gaps in the visible region. Interestingly, the calculated energy gaps for (InN)12n nanowires varies slightly compared with that of individual (InN)12 units. Additionally, the predicted natural atomic populations of In atoms in (InN)12n nanoclusters show that the stabilities of (InN)12n nanoclusters is enhanced through the ionic bonding and covalent bonding of (InN)12n (n = 1–9) nanoclusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the Lüroth problem for partial differential fields. The main result is the following partial differential analog of generalized Lüroth's theorem: Let F be a differential field of characteristic 0 with m commuting derivation operators, u = u 1 , ... , u n a set of differential indeterminates over F. We prove that an intermediate differential field G between F and F 〈 u 〉 is a simple differential extension of F if and only if the differential dimension polynomial of u over G is of the form ω u / G (t) = n ( t + m m ) − ( t + m − s m ) for some s ∈ N. This result generalizes the classical differential Lüroth's theorem proved by Ritt and Kolchin in the case m = n = 1. We then present an algorithm to decide whether a given finitely generated differential extension field of F contained in F 〈 u 〉 is a simple extension, and in the affirmative case, to compute a Lüroth generator. As an application, we solve the proper re-parameterization problem for unirational differential curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endophytes play essential roles in plant growth under metal(loid)s stress. An endophytic fungus strain MR1 was isolated from the roots of Miscanthus floridulus collected from a lead–zinc mining area (Huayuan, China), which could produce indole-3-acetic acid and have Cadmium (Cd) tolerance. Further 18S rRNA sequencing analysis showed that it was highly similar (99.83%) to Talaromyces pinophilus. In pot experiments, we explored the effects of strain MR1 on the growth and Cd uptake of a wide-type Arabidopsis thaliana under low (LC) and high (HC) Cd concentrations. The results showed that MR1 effectively increased the dry weight of aboveground and underground tissues by 25.95–107.21% in both LC and HC groups. Due to MR1 inoculation, the Cd content in the underground tissues was significantly (p < 0.05) decreased by 39.28% under low Cd concentration, while it was significantly (p < 0.05) increased by 28.28% under high Cd concentration. Besides, MR1 inoculations significantly (p < 0.05) increased the total content of removed Cd (17.080 μg) and BCF (0.064) by 129.77% and 153.95% under high Cd concentration. Therefore, we speculated that MR1 might be selected as the effective microbial agent to increase crop yield and control Cd content in the crop in light Cd-contaminated soil. Besides, MR1 could potentially enhance the phytoremediation efficiency of extremely Cd-contaminated soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prognosis of fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) versus conventional hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains controversial. Thus, this study aimed to compare the prognosis of FLC and HCC. Patients with FLC and HCC in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database between 2000 and 2015 were included. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to balance the clinical characteristics between FLC and HCC. Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analysis were applied to identify the effect of pathology in prognosis before and after match in the whole cohort, as well as in subgroups of fibrosis score, AJCC stage and therapy. A total of 213 patients with FLC and 33365 patients with HCC between 2000 and 2015 were identified. Before matching, the overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were significantly better in FLC than HCC. After matching, FLC patients had better OS than HCC patients, but the CSS was similar between groups. Further analyses found that in patients at early stage (AJCC I-III) and/or accepted curative therapy, the prognosis was comparable between HCC and FLC. In patients without cirrhosis (F0), the HCC patients had similar prognosis with FLC patients. Prognosis benefit of FLC was observed in subgroups of AJCC stage IV and non-curative therapy, however, the concomitant diseases may affect the results. The prognosis of FLC was significantly better than HCC before matching. However, after matching for clinical characteristics, the CSS was comparable between FLC and HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs) are part of the three elements of general anaesthesia (sedation, analgesia, and muscle relaxation), which can relax muscles and facilitate intubation and surgery. It has been reported that cancer cells are prone to invasion or metastasis during surgery, but various anaesthetics are currently used in cancer resection, particularly NMBA, and the effects on cancer cell behavior are poorly understood. Guidelines for the correct application of NMBA in cancer surgery have not been reported; therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between NMBA and cancer. Methods. Two investigators independently searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and CBM for articles of NMBA and cancer. Results. The available evidence suggests that cisatracurium may be more appropriate for use in anaesthesia for cancer surgery, while rocuronium deserves further attention, particularly for breast and gastric cancer surgery, and vecuronium is suitable for breast cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer, while it is used with caution in gastric cancer. Also, the relationship between NMBA (mivacurium, succinylcholine, gantacurium, and decamethonium bromide) and cancer is unclear and deserves further study. Conclusion. The effect of different NMBAs on cancer cells varies, and the effect of some NMBAs on cancer cells is unclear, and most of the current findings are only from in vitro studies, which need to be validated by further clinical studies in the future to better guide the clinical application of NMBAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence on the combined effect of sleep duration and grip strength on depressive symptoms is scarce. This study aimed to explore the moderating effect of grip strength on the association between sleep duration and depressive symptoms in a large cohort of middle-aged and older adults. Data were extracted from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011–2018 wave. Grip strength and sleep duration were assessed by dynamometer and self-report, respectively. Depressive symptoms were determined by the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CESD-10). Multivariable cox regression model was used to explore the associations between sleep duration, and depressive symptoms, and assess moderation by grip strength. A total of 4337 participants aged 57.0 ± 8.1 years (45.1 % females) were included in this study. During the 7-year follow up period, 1508 participants developed depressive symptoms. Short sleep duration (<6 h/d) was significantly associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms [Hazard ratio (HR):1.24, 95 % confidence interval (CI):1.09, 1.40)]. This association remained in individuals with the low (HR:1.22, 95%CI:1.00, 1.49) and middle grip strength (HR:1.32, 95%CI: 1.07, 1.63), but attenuated in individuals with high grip strength (HR:1.11, 95%CI: 0.86, 1.43). High grip strength mitigated the association between short sleep duration and higher risk of depressive symptoms. Thus, improving sleep duration and strengthening muscle strength are recommended to prevent depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older adults. • Short sleep duration significantly increases the risk of depressive symptoms. • High grip strength eliminated the negative effect of short sleep duration on depressive symptoms. • Short sleep duration increased the risk of depressive symptoms only in females or individuals aged 45–60 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high effective P/N-containing flame retardant additive CDD was triumphantly synthesized with nitrogen-rich 3,5-Diamino-1,2,4-triazole, DOPO and cinnamaldehyde. With the help of 4 wt% CDD, Epoxy resin (EP) sample succeeded in UL-94 V-0 test, and improved its LOI value to 33.5%. EP/4 wt%CDD sample also performed very well in cone calorimeter (CC) test. For example, the peak of heat release rate of EP/4 wt%CDD decreased to 603 kW/m2, which was 56.8% of EP sample without flame retardants. All these details showed that CDD was highly effective in fire resistance. Besides, the addition of CDD also drastically improved mechanical strength of EP. Tensile strength, flexural strength and izod iMPact strength of EP/4 wt%CDD sample was increased to 102 MPa, 124 MPa and 38 kJ m−2, which was 118.6%, 129.2% and 126.7% of control group. At last, the flame-retardant mechanism of CDD was studied by FTIR, XPS, Raman spectra, and SEM. The results showed that CDD's perfect performance in fire resistance was ascribed to the generation of phosphorus-rich char layer in condensed phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corynebacterium glutamicum, an important industrial producer, is a model microorganism. However, the limited gene editing methods and their defects limit the efficient genome editing of C. glutamicum. To improve the screening efficiency of second-cross-over strains of traditional SacB editing system, a universal pCS plasmid which harbors CRISPR-Cpf1 system targeting kan gene of SacB system was designed and established to kill the false positive single-cross-over strains remained abundantly after the second-cross-over events. The lethality of pCS plasmid to C. glutamicum carrying kan gene on its genome was as high as 98.6%. In the example of PodhA::PilvBNC replacement, pCS plasmid improved the screening efficiency of second-cross-over bacteria from 5% to over 95%. Then this pCS-assisted gene editing system was applied to improve the supply of precursors and reduce the generation of by-products in the production of 4-hydroxyisoleucine (4-HIL). The 4-HIL titer of one edited strain SC01-TD5IM reached 137.0 ± 33.9 mM, while the weakening of lysE by promoter engineering reduced Lys content by 19.0–47.7% and 4-HIL titer by 16.4–64.5%. These editing demonstrates again the efficiency of this novel CRISPR-Cpf1-assisted gene editing tool, suggesting it as a useful tool for improving the genome editing and metabolic engineering in C. glutamicum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cancer cells, short for sirtuin (SIRT7) stabilizes the transformed state via its nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)‐dependent deacetylase activity. Epigenetic factor SIRT7 plays important roles in cancer biology, reversing cancer phenotypes and suppressing tumor growth when inactive. In the present study, we got the SIRT7 protein structure from Alpha Fold2 Database and performed structure‐based virtual screening to develop specific SIRT7 inhibitors using the SIRT7 inhibitor 97,491 interaction mechanism. As candidates for specific SIRT7 inhibitors, compounds with high affinities to SIRT7 were chosen. ZINC000001910616 and ZINC000014708529, two of our leading compounds, showed strong interactions with SIRT7. Our MD simulation results also revealed that the 5‐hydroxy‐4H‐thioxen‐4‐one group and terminal carboxyl group were critical groups responsible for interaction of small molecules with SIRT7. In our study, we demonstrated that targeting SIRT7 may offer novel therapeutic options for cancer treatment. Compounds ZINC000001910616 and ZINC000014708529 can serve as chemical probes to investigate SIRT7 biological functions and provide starting points for the development of novel therapeutics against cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ω-transaminase has attracted growing attention for chiral amine synthesis, although it commonly suffers from severe by-product inhibition. ω-transaminase CrmG is critical for the biosynthesis of Caerulomycin A, a natural product that possesses broad bioactivity, including immunosuppressive and anti-cancer. Compared to L-Arg, amino donor L-Glu, L-Gln or L-Ala is more preferred by CrmG. In this study, we determined the crystal structure of CrmG in complex with amino donor L-Arg, unveiling the detailed binding mode. Specifically, L-Arg exhibits an extensive contact with aromatic residues F207 and W223 on the roof of CrmG active site via cation-π network. This interaction may render the deamination by-product of L-Arg to be an inhibitor against PMP-bound CrmG by stabilizing its flexible roof, thus reducing the reactivity of L-Arg as an amino donor for CrmG. These data provide further evidence to support our previous proposal that CrmG can overcome inhibition from those by-products that are not able to stabilize the flexible roof of active site in PMP-bound CrmG. Thus, our result can not only facilitate the biosynthesis of CRM A but also be beneficial for the rational design of ω-transaminase to bypass by-product inhibition. • Crystal structure of CrmG in complex with amino donor L-Arg is reported. • L-Arg interacts with the roof of CrmG active site via unique cation-π network. • The interaction with the roof impairs reactive efficiency of L-Arg as CrmG amino donor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In interpreting a scene for numerous applications, including autonomous driving and robotic navigation, semantic segmentation is crucial. Compared to single-modal data, multi-modal data allow us to extract a richer set of features, which is the benefit of improving segmentation accuracy and effect. We propose a point cloud semantic segmentation method, and a fusion graph convolutional network (FGCN) which extracts the semantic information of each point involved in the two-modal data of images and point clouds. The two-channel k-nearest neighbors (KNN) module of the FGCN was created to address the issue of the feature extraction's poor efficiency by utilizing picture data. Notably, the FGCN utilizes the spatial attention mechanism to better distinguish more important features and fuses multi-scale features to enhance the generalization capability of the network and increase the accuracy of the semantic segmentation. In the experiment, a self-made semantic segmentation KITTI (SSKIT) dataset was made for the fusion effect. The mean intersection over union (MIoU) of the SSKIT can reach 88.06%. As well as the public datasets, the S3DIS showed that our method can enhance data features and outperform other methods: the MIoU of the S3DIS can reach up to 78.55%. The segmentation accuracy is significantly improved compared with the existing methods, which verifies the effectiveness of the improved algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Share repurchase is not only an important financial policy of the company, but also a financial policy with a very wide range of influence. A scientific and reasonable share repurchase policy has a significant financial effect in terms of an equity structure optimization, capital structure adjustment, cash holding control, and even management compensation system design. The long-standing share repurchase in the U.K. and U.S. companies and the recent practice of share repurchase by Chinese listed companies imply an important financial proposition: share repurchase is a high-quality financial policy that, when properly applied, will help reduce the cost of capital. The data in this study show that share repurchases can reduce the level of firms' cost of capital and play an important role in enhancing their competitiveness. This study also finds that Chinese listed companies, when formulating and implementing share repurchase programs, do not subjectively view share repurchases as a policy tool to adjust cash holdings and capital structure. In addition, they do not view share repurchases as an alternative to cash dividends but use equity incentives for management as the main intention for share repurchases. This decision-making concept is not conducive to the rational use of share repurchase policies in the long run and should be a cause for concern in the business community. Finally, the leverage and the cash holding path are the main motives affecting share repurchases and are the important fundamental mechanisms in this study, while the mediating mechanism test finds that share repurchases mainly reduce the cost of capital through two information perspectives of analyst following and stock liquidity. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the role of share repurchases in reducing the cost of capital is more obvious in enterprises with fierce product market competition, high institutional investor shareholding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, diatomite has been successfully adopted in asphalt modification to overcome the problems of polymer modified asphalt, because of the advantages in wide sources, low price, and worthy technical characteristics. Although the improvement of the high-temperature performance of the modified diatomite asphalt has been verified in previous studies, the diatomite will bring negative impact on the low-temperature resistance. Hence, the objective of this study is to seek a new channel to improve the comprehensive performance of the diatomite modified asphalt binder. Considering the advantage of the SBR in improving the low-temperature performance of asphalt binder, the diatomite/SBR composite modified asphalt binder (DSA) and the corresponding preparation technology are developed to obtain an improved comprehensive performance via the orthogonal experiment method in this study. Moreover, the modification mechanisms of the DSA are revealed using fluorescence microscopy (FM) tests, Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) tests, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the association between weekend warrior physical activity (PA) pattern and depression risk in American adults. Data of adults (n = 21,125) from NHANES 2007–2018 were used. Adults were categorized into 4 PA patterns (inactive, insufficiently active, weekend warrior, and regularly active) by self-reported PA levels. Participant characteristics in different groups were tested using the Rao & Scott adjusted χ2 test. Multivariate logistic regression models with adjustment for demographics data, behavioral factors and health condition were used to explore the association between PA patterns and depression risk. Finally, interaction analyses were conducted to test if the associations differ by gender, age, race, education level, income level and marital status. Multivariate logistic regression models showed that insufficiently active, weekend warrior and regularly active adults had 31% (OR: 0.69, 95%CI:0.54–0.88), 57% (OR: 0.43, 95%CI:0.25–0.74) and 54% (OR: 0.46, 95%CI:0.39–0.54) reduced depression risk when compared with inactive adults, respectively. When compared with regularly active adults, inactive (OR: 2.188, 95%CI:1.842–2.600) and insufficiently active (OR: 1.505, 95%CI:1.159–1.955) adults had elevated depression risk, but no significant difference was found between weekend warrior (OR: 0.949, 95%CI:0.538–1.675) and regularly active adults. Moreover, the associations did not differ by demographic variables. This study showed that adults who engaged in either regularly active pattern or weekend warrior pattern, experienced lower risk of depression compared to inactive adults. Weekend warrior and regularly active patterns showed similar benefits for lowering depression risk in adults, encouraging adults to take up PA in limited sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Pd was successfully doped to the Mn3+ position in the pyramid unit of SmMn 2 O 5. • New and highly active Mn4+-O-PdO x centers were formed by acid etching process. • SMPO-OA exhibited superior catalytic performance and stability in CH 4 combustion. • CH 4 oxidation on the SMPO-OA surface followed MvK mechanism. • The high reducibility of the new centers improved the C H activation. Pd-based catalysts have been widely investigated for CH 4 combustion yet they still suffer from inefficiency at low temperatures. Herein, a novel strategy was implemented to create a new type of highly active and stable Mn4+-O-PdO x center by doping Pd into SmMn 2 O 5 lattice and modifying it with acid etching. Compared with the impregnation-method, T 50 of the catalyst (SMPO-OA) synthesized by this strategy was reduced by 210 °C, and TOF value increased more than 6 times at 260 °C. Importantly, it showed the superior thermal stability and water resistance. Various characterization results indicate that Pd successfully occupied the Mn3+ position in the pyramid unit and formed abundant Mn-O-Pd linkage. Acid treatment introduced the unsaturated-coordination Mn4+-O-PdO x center, which showed high-activity for the methane activation. In-situ DRIFTS and Quasi-in-situ XPS indicate that methane oxidation on the SMPO-OA surface followed MvK mechanism, and activation ability of C H bond at low temperature was markedly improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) and interferon-inducible protein 16 (IFI16) are intracellular innate immune receptors that recognize double-stranded DNA released during pathogenic infection, leading to the assembly of the inflammasome. The assembly of the inflammasome results in the secretion of bioactive interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-18 and induces cell death through an inflammatory process called pyroptosis. Although the AIM2 inflammasome is generally harmful in the context of some aseptic inflammatory illnesses, it plays a protective role in infectious diseases. During inflammatory processes, there is competition between IFI16 and AIM2. In this review, we explore the impacts of IFI16 and AIM2 in infectious disease and aseptic inflammation, respectively, and how they compete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inverse probability weighting (IPW) is frequently used to reduce or minimize the observed confounding in observational studies. IPW creates a pseudo-sample by weighting each individual by the inverse of the conditional probability of receiving the treatment level that he/she has actually received. In the pseudo-sample there is no variation among the multiple individuals generated by weighting the same individual in the original sample. This would reduce the variability of the data and therefore bias the variance estimate in the target population. Conventional variance estimation methods for IPW estimators generally ignore this underestimation and tend to produce biased estimates of variance. We here propose a more reasonable method that incorporates this source of variability by using parametric bootstrapping based on intra-stratum variability estimates. This approach firstly uses propensity score stratification and intra-stratum standard deviation to approximate the variability among multiple individuals generated based on a single individual whose propensity score falls within the corresponding stratum. The parametric bootstrapping is then used to incorporate the target variability by re-generating outcomes after adding a random error term to the original data. The performance of the proposed method is compared with three existing methods including the naïve model-based variance estimator, the nonparametric bootstrap variance estimator, and the robust variance estimator in the simulation section. An example of patients with sarcopenia is used to illustrate the implementation of the proposed approach. According to the results, the proposed approach has desirable statistical properties and can be easily implemented using the provided R code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]