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To determine the diagnostic yield of Next-generation sequencing (NGS) in suspect Primary Immunodeficiencies Diseases (PIDs). This systematic review was conducted following PRISMA criteria. Searching Pubmed and Web of Science databases, the following keywords were used in the search: ("Next-generation sequencing") OR "whole exome sequencing" OR "whole genome sequencing") AND ("primary immunodeficiency disease" OR "PIDs"). We used STARD items to assess the risk of bias in the included studies. The meta-analysis included 29 studies with 5847 patients, revealing a pooled positive detection rate of 42% (95% CI 0.29–0.54, P < 0.001) for NGS in suspected PID cases. Subgroup analyses based on family history demonstrated a higher detection rate of 58% (95% CI 0.43–0.71) in patients with a family history compared to 33% (95% CI 0.21–0.46) in those without (P < 0.001). Stratification by disease types showed varied detection rates, with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency leading at 58% (P < 0.001). Among 253 PID-related genes, RAG1, ATM, BTK, and others constituted major contributors, with 34 genes not included in the 2022 IUIS gene list. The application of NGS in suspected PID patients can provide significant diagnostic results, especially in patients with a family history. Meanwhile, NGS performs excellently in accurately diagnosing disease types, and early identification of disease types can benefit patients in treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH) is a disorder resulting from erythrocyte membrane deficiencies caused by PIG‐A gene mutations. While current treatments alleviate symptoms, they fail to address the underlying cause of the disease—the pathogenic PNH clones. In this study, we found that the expression of carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) was downregulated in PNH clones, and the level of CPS1 was negatively correlated with the proportion of PNH clones. Using PIG‐A knockout K562 (K562 KO) cells, we demonstrated that CPS1 knockdown increased cell proliferation and altered cell metabolism, suggesting that CPS1 participates in PNH clonal proliferation through metabolic reprogramming. Furthermore, we observed an increase in the expression levels of the histone demethylase JMJD1C in PNH clones, and JMJD1C expression was negatively correlated with CPS1 expression. Knocking down JMJD1C in K562 KO cells upregulated CPS1 and H3K36me3 expression, decreased cell proliferation and increased cell apoptosis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis further demonstrated that H3K36me3 regulated CPS1 expression. Finally, we demonstrated that histone demethylase inhibitor JIB‐04 can suppressed K562 KO cell proliferation and reduced the proportion of PNH clones in PNH mice. In conclusion, aberrant regulation of the JMJD1C‐H3K36me3‐CPS1 axis contributes to PNH clonal proliferation. Targeting JMJD1C with a specific inhibitor unveils a potential strategy for treating PNH patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaccination after birth provides protection against pathogen infection and immune related disorders in healthy children. The detailed effects of vaccination on neonatal immunity, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we reported that vaccination using Bacillus Calmette‐Guérin (BCG) diminished the immunosuppressive function of myeloid‐derived suppressor cells in neonatal mice, an immature myeloid population. A combination of single‐cell transcriptome, metabolite profiling, and functional analysis demonstrated that upregulation of mTOR/HIF1a signalling and the enhanced glycolysis explained the effects of BCG on neonatal myeloid cells. Pharmalogical inhibition of glycolysis or mTOR signalling efficiently rescued the effects of BCG on neonatal myeloid cells. These observations suggest that BCG facilitates the maturation of myeloid cells in early life, which may contribute to its beneficial effects against immune disorders later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

β-Glucan is the main component of the cell wall of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) including various yeast, fungi, or certain bacteria. Previous reports demonstrated that β-glucan was widely investigated as a potent immunomodulators to stimulate innate and adaptive immune responses, which indicated that it could be recommended as an effective adjuvant in immunotherapy. However, the detailed effects of β-glucan on neonatal immunity are still largely unknown. Here, we found that β-glucan did not affect the frequencies and numbers of myeloid cells in the spleen and bone marrow from neonates. Functional assay revealed that β-glucan from neonates compromised the immunosuppressive function of immature myeloid cells, which were myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). Flow cytometry or gene expression analysis revealed that β-glucan-derived polymorphonuclear (PMN)-MDSCs produced lower level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and arginase-1 (Arg1) in neonatal mice. Furthermore, β-glucan administration significantly decreased the frequency and ROS level of PMN-MDSCs in vitro. These observations suggest that β-glucan facilitates the maturation of myeloid cells in early life, which may contribute to its beneficial effects against immune disorders later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging nano-kirigami/origami technology enables the flexible transformations of 2D planar patterns into exquisite 3D structures in situ and has aroused great interest in the areas of nanophotonics and optoelectronics. This paper briefly reviews some milestone research and breakthrough progresses in nano-kirigami/origami from the aspects of stimuli approaches and application directions. Versatile stimuli for kirigami/origami, including capillary force, residual stress, mechanical force, and irradiation-induced stress, are introduced in the micro/nanoscale region. Appealing optical applications and reconfigurable schemes of nano-kirigami/origami structures are summarized, offering effective routes to realize tunable nanophotonic and optoelectronic devices. Future challenges and promising pathways are also envisioned, including design methods, innovative materials, multi-physics field driving, and reprogrammable devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2D halide perovskites are extensively studied for optoelectronic applications owing to their outstanding excitonic performance. Studies have revealed the coexistence of the high‐temperature phase and low‐temperature phase in 2D perovskite (BA)2PbI4 flakes and the correlation between the degree of phase transition with the thickness; nevertheless, structural phase transition at surface still remains elusive. Here, the use of interlayer excitons in (BA)2PbI4/WSe2 heterojunctions to characterize its structural phase transitions at surface in (BA)2PbI4 is proposed. Two types of interlayer exciton emission caused by the phase transition of (BA)2PbI4 can be observed, which can be attributed to the low‐temperature and high‐temperature phases of (BA)2PbI4, respectively. Importantly, the spatially resolved PL mapping suggests that two phases in the coexisted region distribute rather uniformly and the degree of phase transition at the surface and interior of crystal remains largely the same. The results provide a novel and non‐destructive approach to explore the phase transition of (BA)2PbI4 and offer new route to further regulate its phase transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nano-kirigami-based deformable metasurfaces offer unique advantages in the dynamic modulation of optical fields and the realization of reconfigurable micro-/nano-optoelectronic devices. Here, we theoretically propose and numerically demonstrate a magnetically actuated deformation scheme for 2D nano-kirigami structures, which can be accurately and continuously transformed from 2D to 3D. Based on the traditional pinwheel structure, an Fe/Au bilayer anti-pinwheel nanostructure is designed and dynamically transformed by employing magnetic attraction in numerical simulations, in which the ratio between deformation height and lateral period could reach up to 0.563. More importantly, it is found that the anti-pinwheel structure has superior circular dichroism (CD), whose maximum CD response could reach 7 times that of the corresponding pinwheel structure. Further analysis of the scattering power of multipole moments reveals that such a superior CD response is found to be induced by the handedness-dependent excitation of a toroidal dipole moment. Such a straightforward magnetically actuated deformation and novel anti-pinwheel structure provides useful methodologies to explore and realize deformable metamaterials and their dynamic regulation capabilities, as well as applications in chiral spectroscopy, optical reconfiguration, optical sensing, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient ultraviolet (UV) electroluminescent materials remain a great challenge, since short peak wavelength <400 nm and narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM) <50 nm are simultaneously required. In this sense, multi‐resonance (MR) thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters featuring narrow‐band emissions hold the promise for UV applications. Herein, a novel MR‐TADF skeleton featuring carbazole‐phosphine oxide (P=O) fused aromatics is developed to construct the first two UV MR emitters named CzP2PO and tBCzP2PO. In addition to synergistic resonance effects of P=O and N atom, sp3‐hybrid P atom renders the curved polycyclic planes of CzP2PO and tBCzP2PO, giving rise to their narrowband UV emissions with peak wavelengths <390 nm and FWHM<35 nm. Besides configuration quasi‐planarization for radiation enhancement and quenching suppression, P=O moiety further enhances singlet‐triplet coupling to facilitate reverse intersystem crossing, resulting in the state‐of‐the‐art photoluminescence quantum yield of 62 % in tBCzP2PO doped films. As consequence, tBCzP2PO endowed its UV organic light‐emitting diodes with the peak at 382 nm and FWHM of 32 nm, and especially the record‐high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 15.1 % among all kinds of UV devices. Our results demonstrate great potential of P=O based MR emitters in practical applications including optoelectronics, biology and medicine science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient ultraviolet (UV) electroluminescent materials remain a great challenge, since short peak wavelength <400 nm and narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM) <50 nm are simultaneously required. In this sense, multi‐resonance (MR) thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters featuring narrow‐band emissions hold the promise for UV applications. Herein, a novel MR‐TADF skeleton featuring carbazole‐phosphine oxide (P=O) fused aromatics is developed to construct the first two UV MR emitters named CzP2PO and tBCzP2PO. In addition to synergistic resonance effects of P=O and N atom, sp3‐hybrid P atom renders the curved polycyclic planes of CzP2PO and tBCzP2PO, giving rise to their narrowband UV emissions with peak wavelengths <390 nm and FWHM<35 nm. Besides configuration quasi‐planarization for radiation enhancement and quenching suppression, P=O moiety further enhances singlet‐triplet coupling to facilitate reverse intersystem crossing, resulting in the state‐of‐the‐art photoluminescence quantum yield of 62 % in tBCzP2PO doped films. As consequence, tBCzP2PO endowed its UV organic light‐emitting diodes with the peak at 382 nm and FWHM of 32 nm, and especially the record‐high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 15.1 % among all kinds of UV devices. Our results demonstrate great potential of P=O based MR emitters in practical applications including optoelectronics, biology and medicine science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional Chinese medicine, the two commodity forms of Cassiae Semen Raw and Prepared Cassiae Semen, exert different clinical applications, in which Prepared Cassiae Semen is commonly used to treat liver and eye diseases. However, the material basis of Raw and Prepared Cassiae Semen remains unclear due to the limited studies on their overall composition and metabolism in vivo. In this study, an integrated analysis strategy based on ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole‐Orbitrap high‐resolution mass spectrometry was established to systematically screen the prototype and metabolite constituents of Raw and Prepared Cassiae Semen. Automatic matching analysis of metabolites was performed on Compound Discoverer software based on the function of predicting metabolites. Using this strategy, a total of 77 compounds in Raw Cassiae Semen and 71 compounds in Prepared Cassiae Semen were identified. Furthermore, in vivo study, 46 prototype components and 104 metabolites from the Raw Cassiae Semen group and 41 prototype components and 87 metabolites from the Prepared Cassiae Semen group were unambiguously or preliminarily identified in mice (plasma, urine, feces, eye, and liver). This is the first study of chemical component analysis and in vivo metabolite profiling of Raw and Prepared Cassiae Semen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coiled-coil alpha-helical rod protein 1 (CCHCR1) was first identified as a candidate gene in psoriasis and has lately been found to be associated with a wide range of clinical conditions including COVID-19. CCHCR1 is located within P-bodies and centrosomes, but its exact role in these two subcellular structures and its transcriptional control remain largely unknown. Here, we showed that CCHCR1 shares a bidirectional promoter with its neighboring gene, TCF19. This bidirectional promoter is activated by the G1/S-regulatory transcription factor E2F1, and both genes are co-induced during the G1/S transition of the cell cycle. A luciferase reporter assay suggests that the short intergenic sequence, only 287 bp in length, is sufficient for the G1/S induction of both genes, but the expression of CCHCR1 is further enhanced by the presence of exon 1 from both TCF19 and CCHCR1. This research uncovers the transcriptional regulation of the CCHCR1 gene, offering new perspectives on its function. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of diseases associated with CCHCR1 and may serve as a foundational benchmark for future research in these vital medical fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advantages of real-time data processing and flexible deployment, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted mobile edge computing systems are widely used in both civil and military fields. However, due to limited energy, it is usually difficult for UAVs to stay in the air for long periods and to perform computational tasks. In this paper, we propose a full-duplex air-to-air communication system (A2ACS) model combining mobile edge computing and wireless power transfer technologies, aiming to effectively reduce the computational latency and energy consumption of UAVs, while ensuring that the UAVs do not interrupt the mission or leave the work area due to insufficient energy. In this system, UAVs collect energy from external air-edge energy servers (AEESs) to power onboard batteries and offload computational tasks to AEESs to reduce latency. To optimize the system's performance and balance the four objectives, including the system throughput, the number of low-power alarms of UAVs, the total energy received by UAVs and the energy consumption of AEESs, we develop a multi-objective optimization framework. Considering that AEESs require rapid decision-making in a dynamic environment, an algorithm based on multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (MADDPG) is proposed, to optimize the AEESs' service location and to control the power of energy transfer. While training, the agents learn the optimal policy given the optimization weight conditions. Furthermore, we adopt the K-means algorithm to determine the association between AEESs and UAVs to ensure fairness. Simulated experiment results show that the proposed MODDPG (multi-objective DDPG) algorithm has better performance than the baseline algorithms, such as the genetic algorithm and other deep reinforcement learning algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concrete is vital for the development of modern buildings. However, they suffer from the high viscosity problem in their application process due to the use of a low water–cement ratio in order to maintain their high strength. Developing PCEs with the presence of ester functional groups in their molecular structure is one of the most effective measures to improve the flowability of concrete. Here, three PCEs with different alkyl densities of acrylic acid ester: PCE-M, PCE-E, and PCE-B were designed to explore their viscosity-reducing effect on the performance of cement and concrete. The structures of the three PCEs were characterized via Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Their properties were also determined via zeta potential, surface tension, and rheological experiments. It was found that PCE-M had the best performance, with the lowest surface tension, highest zeta potential, and therefore highest charge density on the cement particles, lowest viscosity, and highest flowability of cement paste, and exhibited the best performance of concrete in terms of workability. The best performance of PCE-M in reducing the viscosity of cement and concrete can be ascribed to the smallest amount of water-repellent alkyl groups, enhancing the electrostatic repulsion and reducing the viscosity, thereby boosting the dispersion and stabilization of cement pastes and concrete. This study shed lights on designing other PCEs with high viscosity-reducing effects via an ester group control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clay minerals have great potentials in pinpointing sediment provenance for large depositional systems. However, source identification using clay minerals for small floodplain lakes is not well known. Situated in the North China Plain, the Dongping Lake receives sediments from both the Yellow River and the Dawen River, thereby representing an ideal site for testing the utility of this method. Here we use clay minerals in conjunction with the Bayesian end-member modeling analysis (BEMMA) to quantify the riverine contribution to modern sediments in the Dongping Lake. Results showed that modern sediments of the Dongping Lake are characterized by four primary clay minerals: illite, smectite, kaolinite, and chlorite, with average contents of 60.53%, 11.37%, 12.70%, and 15.40%, respectively. Clay minerals in modern sediments of the Dongping Lake are mainly delivered by the Yellow River, accounting for approximately 58.99–72.33%; whereas those originating from the Dawen River only account for 27.67–41.01%. It is also found that clay mineral from these rivers have a marked spatial variability. For example, source materials from the Yellow River are widely distributed across the lake, while those from the Dawen River only occur at the estuary of the river and slightly spread out in all directions under the action of water flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter discusses the implications for the pathogenesis and treatment of thrombosis in patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) based on multiomics analysis. The authors conducted whole exome sequencing, single-cell RNA sequencing, and proteomics on two PNH patients with acute thrombotic events. They identified gene mutations associated with thrombosis and found that platelet activation, coagulation cascades, and leukocyte cell adhesion play important roles in PNH thrombosis. The authors recommend screening PNH patients for mutations and treating high-risk patients with prophylactic anticoagulant therapy. They also suggest monitoring antithrombin III levels and adjusting heparin dose during anticoagulant therapy to improve efficacy and safety. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines how newsworkers make sense of the impact of social media on journalism. We draw on the concept of metajournalistic discourse as a lens through which to analyze the web of positive and negative meanings evoked by journalists when assessing the industry impact of social media. We analyze data from a national survey of U.S. journalists (N = 1272), combining a computational analysis of responses to open-ended questions with qualitative analysis. Findings illustrate the rich complexity of negative discourse about social media in journalism, comprising an array of articulations linking social media to the delegitimization of news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Whether iliac vein stents affect pregnancy or whether they will be affected by pregnancy was rarely reported in the literature. The aim of this study was to report our experience of pregnancy in women who received thrombolysis and stenting for a previous deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Methods: 16 patients with previous stenting for treatment of acute left iliofemoral DVT who had subsequent pregnancies were identified. Patient demographic information and outcomes were recorded. Duplex scanning and venography were performed as scheduled to evaluate the patency of stents in perinatal period and at 12 months after delivery. Results: None of the patients had a hemorrhagic complication and recurrent venous thromboembolism during their pregnancies and postpartum. No stent compression/occlusion and structural damage occurrence in all patients during follow-up. Conclusion: Pregnancy managed with prophylactic dalteparin resulted in no re-thrombotic events or structural damage to the iliac stents and did not appear to negatively affect pregnancy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Combination therapy of glucocorticoids (GCs) plus leflunomide (LEF) and GCs plus mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) was reported to have good efficacy and safety in the management of IgG4-RD. However, studies comparing the efficacy and safety of these two combination therapies were unavailable. Herein, this study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of GCs plus LEF and GCs plus MMF in treating IgG4-RD. Methods: This study included 130 newly diagnosed IgG4-RD patients who received the therapy of GCs plus LEF (group I) and GCs plus MMF (group II). Clinical data at baseline and after treatment, treatment response, relapse rate, and adverse effects were recorded and analyzed. Results: Patients in both groups responded well to the treatment in the 1st-month follow-up, and 100% of patients achieved treatment response. However, at the 6th and 12th-month follow-up, the total response rate of group II was higher than that in group I (75.6 vs. 53.7%, p = 0.038 and 85.4% vs. 61.0%, p = 0.013, respectively). In addition, the duration of disease remission in group II was longer than that in group I (9 (6–9) vs. 6 (6–6) months, p = 0.014). Moreover, more patients in group I had adverse effects compared with group II (36.6 vs. 7.3%, p < 0.01); and the most common adverse events of LEF were rash (12.2%) and elevation of liver enzymes (9.8%). Conclusion: The combination therapy of GCs plus low-dose MMF had better efficacy and safety in the management of IgG4-RD compared with the therapy of GCs plus LEF. Key points • This is the first study comparing the efficacy and safety of GCs plus LEF/MMF against IgG4-RD. • GCs plus MMF had better efficacy and safety in the management of IgG4-RD. • This study provides physicians with decision-making advice in choosing a treatment strategy for IgG4-RD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic perovskite nanocrystals exhibit tremendous prospects in optoelectronics. Although the stability of perovskite nanocrystals is considerably improved after being embedded in a glass matrix, subtle difference in the glass composition is still an important factor affecting the glass matrix and perovskite precipitation behavior. In this study, a series of CsPbCl 2 Br 1 nanocrystal glasses with excellent optical properties were prepared by optimizing the composition. Further, we introduced Sm3+ into CsPbCl 2 Br 1 perovskite nanocrystal glass (PNG) to enhance photoluminescence (PL) emissions and improve the ultraviolet response and device stability of silicon photodetectors (Si PDs). After integrating the as-prepared Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG with Si PDs, the UV response of the Si PDs at 200–400 nm was significantly enhanced. In particular, the responsivity of Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG-coated Si PDs at 320 nm reaches 7.5 times that of bare Si PDs. Furthermore, Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG-coated Si PDs displayed good photocurrent stability, with a decrease of only 1.5% after 60 days of operation. Additionally, after integrating 10% Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG with InGaAs PDs, a broadband response in the ultraviolet to the infrared region is successfully achieved. This study attempts to fabricate perovskite nanocrystal glasses and provides a new perspective for next-generation high-performance UV PDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central and western Tibetan Plateau (CWTP) is characterized by harsh environment and strong interactions among the spheres of earth as well as significant changes in climate and water cycles over the past four decades. The lack of precipitation observations is a bottleneck for the study of land surface processes in this region. Over the past six years, we have designed and established two observation transects across the south-north and the west-east in this region to obtain hourly rainfall data during the warm season (May–September). The south-north transect extends from Yadong Valley on the southern slope of the Himalayas to Shuanghu County in the hinterland of the plateau, with a total of 31 stations; the west-east transect extends from Shiquanhe in the west to Naqu in the central TP, with a total of 22 stations. The observation dataset has been applied to clarify the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitation in the CWTP, to evaluate the quality of typical gridded precipitation products, to support the development of regional climate models, and to reveal the processes of summertime lake-air interactions. The observation dataset has been released in the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microvascular invasion (MVI) is a risk factor for early recurrence and poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Preoperative assessment of MVI status is beneficial for clinical therapy and prognosis evaluation. A total of 305 surgically resected patients were included retrospectively. All recruited patients underwent plain and contrast-enhanced abdominal CT. They were then randomly divided into training and validation sets in a ratio of 8:2. Self-attention-based ViT-B/16 and ResNet-50 analyzed CT images to predict MVI status preoperatively. Then, Grad-CAM was used to generate an attention map showing the high-risk MVI patches. Using five-fold cross validation, the performance of each model was evaluated. Among 305 HCC patients, 99 patients were pathologically MVI-positive and 206 were MVI-negative. ViT-B/16 with fusion phase predicted the MVI status with an AUC of 0.882 and an accuracy of 86.8% in the validation set, which is similar to ResNet-50 with an AUC of 0.875 and an accuracy of 87.2%. The fusion phase improved performance a bit as compared to the single phase used for MVI prediction. The influence of peritumoral tissue on predictive ability was limited. A color visualization of the suspicious patches where microvascular has invaded was presented by attention maps. ViT-B/16 model can predict preoperative MVI status in CT images of HCC patients. Assisted by attention maps, it can assist patients in making tailored treatment decisions. Lay Summary: Vision Transformer (ViT) based pure self-attention can predict preoperative microvascular invasion status inputting CT images of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with an AUC of 0.882 and an accuracy of 86.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using iron nitrate and copper nitrate as raw materials, mesoporous material SBA-15 as template agent and n-hexane as solvent, CuFe2O4 samples of mesoporous loaded composite metal oxide catalysts were successfully prepared by calcination at 600 °C. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric-differential scanning analysis (TG-DSC), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol by CuFe2O4 under different catalytic conditions was investigated using benzyl alcohol as a model compound, and the oxidation products were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that the CuFe2O4 catalyst prepared by calcination at 600°Cwas the best. The best selective oxidation conditions were achieved at a reaction system temperature of 90 °C, a catalyst dosage of 4 g/L, a molar ratio 1:1 of H2O2 dosage to benzyl alcohol, and a reaction time of 4 h. The conversion of benzyl alcohol under this condition was 66.95%, and the selective conversion of benzaldehyde was 96.07%. This indicates that CuFe2O4 is a composite metal oxide with high selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol and has wide application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ti3SiC2/Al2O3 multilayered composites were prepared by the combination of tape casting and hot pressing sintering. The slurry was produced by adjusting the amounts of each organic material, including triethyl phosphate (TEP) as a dispersion, polyvinyl butyrate (PVB) as a binder, dioctyl phthalate (DOP) as a plasticizer, and anhydrous ethanol as an organic solvent. When TEP content was 3 wt.%, PVB content was 4.5 wt.%, R‐value (DOP/PVB) was 1.4, and solid content was 38 wt.%; the cast film with a smooth surface, good flexibility, and uniform thickness was obtained after defoaming, tape casting, and drying. Three samples were prepared, namely, S1–S3. The S1 was monolithic Ti3SiC2/Al2O3 (mass ratio is 1:1) composites. S2 and S3 were Ti3SiC2/Al2O3 multilayered composites, which matrix layers were Ti3SiC2/Al2O3 composites (mass ratio is 1:1) and Al2O3, respectively, and their interface layer was Ti3SiC2. S1–S3 were also sintered at 1550°C. The bending strength of multilayered materials were lower than that of monolithic material, but the fracture toughness of multilayered materials significantly increased. Due to the introduction of Ti3SiC2 interface layer, the friction coefficient and wear rate of Ti3SiC2/Al2O3 multilayered composites were reduced by 30.7% and 33.8%, respectively, compared with monolithic material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aplastic anaemia, cytokine-induced memory-like NK cell, natural killer cells, single-cell RNA sequencing We didn't detect NCAM (CD56) in the dataset and used CD7/KLRD1/KLRF1/NGK7/GNLY as specific NK cell markers.[3] As expected, all these eight clusters expressed high levels of NK cell-specific markers (Figure 1B). Keywords: aplastic anaemia; cytokine-induced memory-like NK cell; natural killer cells; single-cell RNA sequencing EN aplastic anaemia cytokine-induced memory-like NK cell natural killer cells single-cell RNA sequencing 1 6 6 12/29/22 20221201 NES 221201 Dear Editor, In recently, we reported the important contribution of nature killer (NK) cells in the pathogenesis of severe aplastic anaemia (SAA). (B) LogFC bar graph of DEGs identified in NK cells by comparing HC-BM cells with HC-PB cells. [Extracted from the article]

Preventing the sintering of nano‐catalyst is crucial to maintain their performance especially for high‐temperature reactions such as CO2 reforming of methane (DRM) reaction. In this paper, we design CeO2 nanorod@Ni phyllosilicate (CeO2@NiPhy) catalysts with different NiPhy shell thickness to simultaneously preserve the morphology of CeO2 nanorod and prevent the sintering of Ni. Compared with Ni/CeO2 supported catalyst, CeO2@NiPhy core‐shell catalyst with a shell thickness of 9 nm exhibits much better performance for DRM with stable CH4 and CO2 conversions of 75 % and 80 % respectively and lower carbon deposition due to high Ni sintering resistance and higher thermal stability of CeO2 during calcination and DRM reaction thereby higher oxygen vacancies concentration. In‐situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectra result demonstrates that DRM reaction takes place with a bi‐functional mechanism on CeO2@NiPhy. This design strategy can be applied to prepare other nano‐catalysts with high sintering resistance of both active metal and catalyst support for high‐temperature applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laryngeal disease classification is a relatively hard task in medical image processing resulting from its complex structures and varying viewpoints in data collection. Some existing methods try to tackle this task via the convolutional neural network, but they more or less ignore the intrinsic difficulty differences among different input samples and suffer from high training complexity. In order to better resolve these problems, an end-to-end Hierarchical Dynamic Convolutional Network (HDCNet) is proposed, which can dynamically process the input samples based on their difficulty. For the easy-classified samples, the HDCNet processes them with a smaller resolution and a relatively small network, while the difficult samples are passed to a large network with a larger resolution for more accurate classification results. Furthermore, a Feature Reuse Module (FRM) is designed to transfer the features learned by the small network to the corresponding block in the deep network to enhance the overall performance of some rather complicated samples. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed HDCNet, comprehensive experiments are conducted on the public available laryngeal disease classification dataset and HDCNet provides superior performances compared with other current state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and its incidence is on the rise. Although cancer diagnosis and therapy have advanced significantly in recent decades, it is still a challenge to achieve the accurate identification and localization of cancer and to complete tumor elimination with a maximum preservation of normal tissue. Recently, second near-infrared region (NIR-II, 1000–1700 nm) fluorescence has shown great application potential in cancer theranostics due to its inherent advantages, such as great penetration capacity, minimal tissue absorption and scattering, and low autofluorescence. With the development of fluorescence imaging systems and fluorescent probes, tumor detection, margin definition, and individualized therapy can be achieved quickly, enabling an increasingly accurate diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Herein, this review introduces the role of NIR-II fluorescence imaging in cancer diagnosis and summarizes the representative applications of NIR-II image-guided treatment in cancer therapy. Ultimately, we discuss the present challenges and future perspectives on fluorescence imaging in the field of cancer theranostics and put forward our opinions on how to improve the accuracy and efficiency of cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The MAP kinase cascades are the most important oncogenic drivers of human cancers, including gastric cancer, and blocking this pathway with targeted inhibitors is an important antitumor strategy. Tegaserod maleate binds to MEK1 and MEK2, inhibiting kinase activity and thus suppressing the MEK1/2-ERK1/2 signaling pathway. Thus, tegaserod maleate may have potential as a MEK1/2 inhibitor for gastric cancer. Gastric cancer (GC) ranks fifth in global incidence and fourth in mortality. The current treatments for GC include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Although treatment strategies for GC have been improved over the last decade, the overall five-year survival rate remains less than 30%. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find novel therapeutic or preventive strategies to increase GC patient survival rates. In the current study, we found that tegaserod maleate, an FDA-approved drug, inhibited the proliferation of gastric cancer cells, bound to MEK1/2 and suppressed MEK1/2 kinase activity. Moreover, tegaserod maleate inhibited the progress of gastric cancer by depending on MEK1/2. Notably, we found that tegaserod maleate suppressed tumor growth in the patient-derived gastric xenograft (PDX) model. We further compared the effect between tegaserod maleate and trametinib, which is a clinical MEK1/2 inhibitor, and confirmed that tegaserod maleate has the same effect as trametinib in inhibiting the growth of GC. Our findings suggest that tegaserod maleate inhibited GC proliferation by targeting MEK1/2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potentials of pulse peptides as cryoprotectants remain less exploited than other well-known applications, e.g., nutrient supplements, stabilizers, antioxidants etc. Thus, for the first time, this study screened a number of widely-used pulse peptides (pea, chickpea, lentil, mung bean, and white kidney bean) by evaluating their ice recrystallization inhibition (IRI) and thermal hysteresis (TH) activities. Then, chickpea peptide (CP) with the most prominent anti-freezing performance was selected for systematical evaluation of its cryoprotective effects on frozen dough in terms of water state, gluten structure, and storage stability. CP reduced the content of freezable water to 60% and unified the water distributions of frozen dough in a dose-dependent manner (0–6 g peptide per 100 g wheat flour). Freezing-induced changes on gluten disulfide bonds, secondary structures, and dough microstructures were also restrained. Accordingly, dumpling wrappers prepared from CP-added frozen dough manifested the reduced cracking rates (31%–5%), increased toughness (68%–79%), extensibility (82%–92%), and cooking stabilities. CP was rich in basic amino acids (arginine, lysine, and histidine), accounting for 27% of total amino acids, which were responsible for its outstanding cryoprotective activity. Chickpea peptide might therefore be a good candidate for development of high-performance dough cryoprotectants. [Display omitted] • Chickpea peptide (CP) exhibited superior ice-inhibition ability. • CP stabilized the water state of frozen dough. • Gluten denaturation was alleviated during frozen storage. • CP improved both storage stabilities and cooking performance of frozen dumpling wrappers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photo-induced degradation of dimethylmercury (DMHg) is considered to be an important source for the generation of methylmercury (MMHg). However, studies on DMHg photodegradation are scarce, and it is even debatable about whether DMHg can be degraded in natural waters. Herein, we found that both DMHg and MMHg could be photodegraded in three natural waters collected from the Yellow River Delta, while in pure water only DMHg photodegradation occurred under visible light irradiation. The effects of different environmental factors on DMHg photodegradation were investigated, and the underlying mechanisms were elucidated by density functional theory calculations and a series of control experiments. Our findings revealed that the DMHg degradation rate was higher in the tidal creek water compared to Yellow River, Yan Lake, and purified water. NO 3 -, NO 2 -, and DOM could promote the photodegradation with DOM and NO 3 - showing particularly strong positive effects. Different light sources were employed, and UV light was found to be more effective in DMHg photodegradation. Moreover, MMHg was detected during the photodegradation of DMHg, confirming that the photochemical demethylation of DMHg is a source of MMHg in sunlit water. This work may provide a novel mechanistic insight into the DMHg photodegradation in natural waters and enrich the study of the global biogeochemical cycle of Hg. [Display omitted] • DMHg was photodegradable in natural waters from Yellow River Delta and pure water. • DFT calculations revealed why only DMHg could be photodegraded in pure water. • DOM and NO 3 - led to the higher DMHg degradation rate in the tidal creek water. • MMHg production and degradation occurred simultaneously in DMHg photodegradation. • Plausible reaction pathways for DMHg photodegradation were explored and proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic basis of congenital hydrocephalus is only partially understood. A new study in PLOS Biology reports a potential gain-of-function pathological mechanism of congenital hydrocephalus in mouse embryonic stem cells that involves Wnt–β-catenin signaling pathway regulation. Mutations in the RNA-binding domain of Trim71 can cause congenital hydrocephalus (CH). This Primer explores a recent study in PLOS Biology which shows that two known CH-associated Trim71 mutations lead to distinct ectopic RNA binding; these gain-of-function mechanisms influence neurogenesis in vitro and may contribute to CH pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient hydrogen production via water splitting is significant because of the zero-carbon emission property. Developing low-cost and highly efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a key half-reaction of water splitting, is critical. Herein, we designed Cu(OH) 2 @NiCo layered double hydroxide core-shell nanoarray supported on copper foam (CF) with different La doping amount (abbreviated as Cu(OH) 2 @NiCoLa LDH/CF) via the facile electrodeposition method. Owing to the synergistic effect between La and NiCo LDH by electronic structure tuning, Cu(OH) 2 @NiCoLa LDH/CF shows excellent OER performance with the lowest overpotential of 254 mV to drive the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and outstanding long-term durability for 24 h. The idea of doping rare-earth metal into non-noble NiCo-based LDHs core-shell nanoarray structure in this work can inspire the design of other efficient electrocatalysts. • Efficient catalyst design is imperative to improve the kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction. • Cu(OH) 2 @NiCoLa LDH core-shell structures are designed via the electrodeposition method. • The core-shell unique structure promotes the accessibility of active sites. • La doping facilitates the electronic structure tuning. • The design idea is applicable to prepare other efficient electrocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine-derived fungi are emerging as attractive producers of structurally novel secondary metabolites with diverse bioactivities. However, the lack of efficient genetic tools limits the discovery of novel compounds and the elucidation of biosynthesis mechanisms. Here, we firstly established an effective PEG-mediated chemical transformation system for protoplasts in two marine-derived fungi, Spiromastix sp. SCSIO F190 and Aspergillus sp. SCSIO SX7S7. Next, we developed a simple and versatile CRISPR-Cas9-based gene disruption strategy by transforming a target fungus with a single plasmid. We found that the transformation with a circular plasmid encoding cas9, a single-guide RNA (sgRNA), and a selectable marker resulted in a high frequency of targeted and insertional gene mutations in both marine-derived fungal strains. In addition, the histone deacetylase gene rpd3 was mutated using the established CRISPR-Cas9 system, thereby activating novel secondary metabolites that were not produced in the wild-type strain. Taken together, a versatile CRISPR-Cas9-based gene disruption method was established, which will promote the discovery of novel natural products and further biological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing methods of human parsing still face a challenge: how to extract the accurate foreground from similar or cluttered scenes effectively. In this paper, we propose a Grammar-induced Wavelet Network (GWNet), to deal with the challenge. GWNet mainly consists of two modules, including a blended grammar-induced module and a wavelet prediction module. We design the blended grammar-induced module to exploit the relationship of different human parts and the inherent hierarchical structure of a human body by means of grammar rules in both cascaded and paralleled manner. In this way, conspicuous parts, which are easily distinguished from the background, can amend the segmentation of inconspicuous ones, improving the foreground extraction. We also design a Part-aware Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network (PCRNN) to pass messages which are generated by grammar rules. To further improve the performance, we propose a wavelet prediction module to capture the basic structure and the edge details of a person by decomposing the low-frequency and high-frequency components of features. The low-frequency component can represent the smooth structures and the high-frequency components can describe the fine details. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate GWNet on PASCAL-Person-Part, LIP, and PPSS datasets. GWNet obtains state-of-the-art performance on these human parsing datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common component of chronic liver disease. Total bile acid (TBA) may influence the NAFLD progression through its signaling pathways. We attempted to find out if there is a correlation between TBA and NAFLD. Methods: 427,507 subjects were enrolled in health examinations conducted by The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. Among them, only 67616 met the inclusion criteria. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were gathered from all subjects. We used multivariate logistic regression model to find the correlation between serum TBA and NAFLD after adjusting for acknowledged risk factors for NAFLD. Results: A negative correlation was found between the TBA and NAFLD after adjusting for confounders in the multivariate logistic regression model (OR: 0.80; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.88, P < 0.001). After subgroup analysis, we found the interaction between NAFLD and diabetes was significant (P = 0.043). In patients with NAFLD without diabetes, TBA showed a protective effect in NAFLD (OR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.67, 0.85). Conclusion: TBA is protective for NAFLD, but not in patients with NAFLD and diabetes. Further studies are urgently required to completely explore the underlying mechanisms of TBA in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we employed a satellite-enabled Internet of Remote Things (IoRT) network as a promising solution to retrieve data in the most remote areas of interest, where public networks are absent. This article presents a system network based on the satellite-enabled IoRT, a new paradigm that defines a network where each environmental monitoring device can autonomously establish a network with a remote data center. The Xingyun satellite constellation was employed for data retrieval on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The monitoring system was mainly composed of a ground Internet of Things (IoT) terminal that was built with satellite transceivers, environmental monitoring devices, and system software. We deployed five of these newly developed terminals in harsh areas to monitor environmental variables, and accordingly, air temperature and relative humidity, precipitation, snow depth, land surface temperature, tree stemflow rate, and photosynthetically active radiation were retrieved with the satellite-enabled IoRT network. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed system network, and the results indicated that the average time delay with and without the packet creation mode reached 32 and 32.7 s, respectively, and the average packet loss rate with and without the packet creation mode reached 5.63% and 4.48%, respectively. The successful implementation of the satellite-enabled IoRT network for the rapid retrieval of monitoring data in remote glacier, forestland, and canyon areas at very high altitudes on the TP provides an entirely new and revolutionary data retrieval means for backhauling data from remote areas of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using citric acid (C6H8O7·H2O), samarium nitrate (Sm(NO3)3·6H2O) and cobalt nitrate (Co(NO3)3·6H2O) as main raw materials, the SmCoO3 samples were successfully prepared by sol-gel method. The prepared samples were characterized by thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Using azo dye methyl orange solution as the simulated sewage, the photocatalytic activity of SmCoO3 samples was explored at different synthesis temperatures and illumination times. The experimental results show that pure SmCoO3 samples can be prepared at a calcination temperature of 600 °C to 1000 °C. Under ultraviolet light conditions, the sample of SmCoO3 calcined at 800 °C has the best photocatalytic activity. When illumination times is 120 min, the degradation rate of methyl orange of 10 mg/L can reach more than 97%, and SmCoO3 shows good photocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large‐scale autostereoscopic three‐dimensional (3D) displays can give audiences a truly immersive feeling with strong visual impact. However, the traditional autostereoscopic 3D display systems are limited by the display hardware, making it difficult to directly achieve large‐scale 3D displays with high resolution. Multiscreen splicing with laser backlights can be used for large‐scale and ultrahigh‐resolution 3D display, but it normally results in subscreen image asynchronization, view zone error, or obvious edge overlapping. To solve the problems mentioned above, a distributed real‐time rendering system for ultrahigh‐resolution multiscreen 3D display is proposed. Fifteen 3D LCD display devices are driven through a host, cooperating with laser backlights, a lenticular lens array (LLA), and a directional diffuser to display high resolution, high frame rate, large size, and wide‐viewing angle 3D images. The resolution of the whole display system can reach 23,040 × 21,600. The rendering system provides a large‐scale and real‐time 3D scene image with an ultrahigh‐definition resolution at a speed of 40 frames per second and high quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to impact a broad range of outcomes including enhanced attention, memory, and self-regulation. Previously, mindfulness training has been negatively correlated with brain activity across the default mode network nodes following mindfulness-based practice. Currently, little research has been done to understand the neural basis of differences in mindfulness levels in untrained individuals. In this study, we explored the relationship between the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) during the resting state and the level of dispositional mindfulness, which was measured by using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). The results showed that the total scores on the FFMQ were negatively correlated with the spontaneous activation of left premotor cortex. This indicates that individuals with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness might require less effort to control their irrelevant motor responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Host-featured blue TADF emitter CZ-MPSPO is developed for high-performance WOLED. • The steric hindrance and inductive effect of DPPO enhance the host characteristic. • CZ-MPSPO and 4CzTPNBu are complementary in exciton utilization. • EQE up to 20% is achieved for the single-EML pure-TADF WOLEDs. Significant efforts have been recently devoted to develop simply structured white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) based on purely thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) with a single-emissive-layer and heavy-doping configuration. Herein, through introducing a diphenylphosphine oxide group on thiaxanthene S , S -dioxide acceptor, we integrate host characteristics to blue TADF emitter CZ-MPSPO , which is beneficial to balanced exciton allocation and quenching suppression in single emissive layers of TADF WOLEDs for high performance. After co-doping with a conventional yellow TADF emitter, TADF performance of CZ-MPSPO is preserved, but external quantum efficiencies (EQE) of WOLEDs are remarkably improved through the synergistic singlet and triplet exciton harvesting by CZ-MPSPO and 4CzTPNBu. The steric hindrance of CZ-MPSPO also mitigates emission quenching by 4CzTPNBu, leading to the favourable EQE up to ∼20 % of single-EML pure TADF WOLEDs with the doping concentration of CZ-MPSPO as high as 70 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Alhagi honey polysaccharide (AHP) exhibits notable anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory properties, positioning it as a promising candidate in traditional Chinese medicine. In this investigation, we successfully isolated and purified a neutral AHP, designated AHPN50-1a, subsequently elucidating its structural attributes. AHPN50-1a was found to have a molecular weight of 1.756 × 106 Da, featuring a structural motif characterized by a recurring (1→6)-α-GlcP linker. To comprehensively evaluate its therapeutic potential, we explored the protective effects of AHPN50-1 in a murine model of dextran sodium sulfate-induced colitis. Administration of AHPN50-1 at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg/day resulted in improved food intake, increased body weight, and increased colon length in mice with acute colitis. Simultaneously, a reduction in the disease activity index and histological scores was observed. AHPN50-1 effectively mitigated colon tissue damage, down-regulated the expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α) in colon tissue, restored intestinal microbiota diversity, and concentrations of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) of gut microbiota metabolites, thus alleviating intestinal inflammation in mice. In summary, our findings underscore the promise of AHPN50-1 as a valuable nutritional or dietary supplement for the treatment and prevention of inflammatory bowel disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is a clonal disease caused by PIG-A mutation of hematopoietic stem cells. At present, there is no suitable PNH animal model for basic research, therefore, it is urgent to establish a stable animal model. We constructed a Pig-a conditional knock-out mice model by ES targeting technique and Vav-iCre. The expressions of GPI and GPI-AP were almost completely absent in CKO homozygote mice, and the proportion of the deficiency remained stable from birth. In CKO heterozygote mice, the proportion of the deficiency of GPI and GPI-AP was partially absent and decreased gradually from birth until it reached a stable level at 3 months after birth and remained there for life. Compared with normal C57BL/6N mice and Flox mice, pancytopenia was found in CKO homozygous mice, and leukopenia and anemia were found in CKO heterozygotes mice. Meanwhile, in CKO mice, the serum LDH, TBIL, IBIL, complement C5b-9 levels were increased, and the concentration of plasma FHb was increased. Hemosiderin granulosa cells can be seen more easily in the spleens of CKO mice. What's more, CKO mice had stable transcription characteristics. In conclusion, our mouse model has stable GPI-deficient and mild hemolysis, which may be an ideal in vivo experimental model for PNH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perovskite material has received much attention due to its excellent photoelectric properties. However, the toxicity of Pb has always affected the wide application of perovskite materials. Herein, we proposed to replace Pb ions with the same divalent ions Ba and dope them into the CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals' (PNCs) lattice to reduce the content of Pb elements. In this work, we have successfully prepared a series of CsPb1−xBaxBr3 PNCs (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) and CsPbBr3 PNCs (Ba-doped concentration = x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20); the best among them were CsPb0.7Ba0.3Br3 PNCs and CsPbBr3 (Ba = 0.1) PNCs, respectively. Compared with CsPbBr3 PNCs, the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of CsPb0.7Ba0.3Br3 PNCs and CsPbBr3 (Ba = 0.1) PNCs has been improved to different degrees. It was worth mentioning that after the addition of a Ba element, the photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY) of CsPb0.7Ba0.3Br3 PNCs and CsPbBr3 (Ba = 0.1) PNCs was increased to 81% and 65%, respectively. It was due to the high PLQY of CsPb0.7Ba0.3Br3 PNCs that the selected CIE color coordinate monochromatic light encompassed 119.0% of NTSC color gamut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) is a disease caused by a phosphatidylinositol glycan anchor biosynthesis class A (PIG-A) mutation in hematopoietic stem cells. There are three theories about the possible mechanism of the pathogenesis of PNH: immune escape, anti-apoptotic mechanism, and secondary gene mutation. There has been little gain in the knowledge regarding its pathogenesis during the last decade owing to the lack of representative cell lines and animal models. There have been recent reports about the successful creation of PNH mouse and PNH rhesus macaque models. The detection of glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchor protein (GPI-AP)-deficient cells and/or fluorescently labeled variant of aerolysin (FLAER) test, estimation of erythrocyte life span, and hemolysis-related experiments demonstrated that these animal models of PNH had GPI-AP-deficient blood cells with shortened lifespans and increased sensitivity to complement-activated hemolysis. However, there were no clinical manifestations such as hemolysis and thrombosis in these animal models. This suggested that the PIG-A mutation is one of the several conditions required for PNH, but it alone is not enough to cause PNH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legionella pneumophila is an intracellular pathogen that can cause Legionnaire's disease by invading alveolar epithelial cells and macrophages. The major outer membrane protein (MOMP) plays an important role in the interaction between bacteria and host cells. However, the role of MOMP in the process of L. pneumophila invasion of macrophages and its working mechanism remain unknown. We aimed to explore the effects of MOMP on phagocytosis and chemotaxis of RAW 264.7 macrophages. The chemotactic activity, toxicity, and phagocytosis of RAW 264.7 cocultured with different concentrations of MOMP were determined by Transwell, CCK-8, and neutral red uptake assays, respectively. Target genes were detected by double-luciferase and pull down assays. qRT-PCR and Western blot were performed to analyze the expression of several important proteins involved in the immune response pathway, including coronin-1, interleukins (IL-10), forkhead transcription factor 1 (FOXO1), nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain protein (NOD) 1, NOD2, and receptor-interacting protein (RIP) 2. After coculturing with MOMP, cytological observation indicated a decrease of phagocytosis and a marked increase of chemotaxis in RAW 264.7 macrophages. The phagocytosis degree of RAW 264.7 macrophage varied with the concentration gradient of MOMP in a time-dependent manner. MOMP could increase the expression levels of MCP-1, IL-10, NOD2, and RIP2 and decrease the expression levels of FOXO1 and coronin-1 in cell culture supernatants. In addition, we found that FOXO1 could promote its transcription by binding to the promoter of coronin-1. The results of the present study suggested that MOMP could inhibit phagocytosis and facilitate chemotaxis of RAW 264.7 macrophage, which might be associated with the FOXO1/coronin-1 axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) there is abundant organic matter in topsoils, which plays a crucial role in determining soil hydraulic properties that need to be properly described in land surface models. Limited soil parameterizations consider the impacts of soil organic matter (SOM), but they still show poor performance in the TP. A dedicated field campaign is therefore conducted by taking undisturbed soil samples in the central TP to obtain in situ soil hydraulic parameters and to advance SOM parameterizations. The observed findings are twofold: 1) The SOM pore-size distribution parameter, derived from measured soil water retention curves, has been demonstrated to be much underestimated in previous studies. 2) SOM saturated hydraulic conductivity is overestimated. Accordingly, a new soil hydraulic parameterization is established by modifying a commonly used one based on observations, which is then evaluated by incorporating it into Noah-MP. Compared with the original ones, the new parameterization significantly improves surface soil liquid water simulations at stations with high surface SOM content, especially in the warm season. A further application with the revised Noah-MP indicates that SOM can enhance sensible heat flux but decrease evaporation and subsurface soil temperature in the warm season and tends to have a much weak effect in the cold season. This study provides insights into the role of SOM in modulating soil state and surface energy budget. Note that, however, there are many other factors at play and the new parameterization is not necessarily applicable beyond the TP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an STN (Spatial Transformer Network)-enhanced message passing module guided by adversarial learning is proposed for human pose estimation. Transformations performed on the predicted heatmaps mean to modify the raw predictions and conduct the message passing among human joints in an elegant way. Firstly, we employ STN submodule to transform the predicted heatmap of one human joint to heatmap of its neighboring joint to remove ambiguity of its neighboring predictions. STN submodule automatically learns the geometric information between adjacent joints and thus builds related neighboring associations among them. Nevertheless, it seems difficult for STN submodule to learn inherent geometric information from a single RGB image alone. Secondly, limb guidance is introduced to assist STN in predicting corresponding correlations. Since quality of limb predictions poses great significance for the guidance, we propose to exploit adversarial learning to improve the quality of limb heatmaps which are easier to learn than precise keypoint location. Hence, the precision of STN transformation improves owing to more precise prior instructions. However, STN submodule might be confused when performing the transformation due to massive noises of the heatmaps. To circumvent this dilemma, at last, we propose to utilize Weighted Mean Square Error (WMSE) loss and convolutional random walk (CRW) which improve the performance further. Our method achieves competitive results on both MPII and LSP benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The improved prognosis of classic Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) has been accompanied by elevated risks of non-cancer-specific death (non-CSD). The aim of this study was to verify the occurrence of non-CSD and its effect on rates of overall survival among adult patients with cHL.Methods: To ensure sufficient follow-up time, we analyzed retrospective data from patients aged ≥20 years with cHL that was diagnosed between 1983 and 2005 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Logistic regression was applied to analyze the non-CSD occurrence in relation to all factors. Using Fine-Gray's method, we calculated the cumulative incidences of CSD and non-CSD. Stacked cumulative incidence plots and ratio of non-CSD to all causes of death were applied to evaluate the effect of non-CSD on rates of overall survival. Finally, we analyzed long-term mortality through Cox proportional hazard regression analysis and competing risk regression analysis to emphasize a more appropriate model of survival for patients with cHL.Results: Among the 18,518 patients included, there were 3768 cases of CSD (20.3%) and 3217 of non-CSD (17.4%). Older age, earlier period, male sex, unmarried status, mixed cellularity (MC) and lymphocyte-depletion (LD) histological subtype, and patients received radiotherapy (RT) only were associated with more non-CSD according to binary logistic analysis. The cumulative incidence of non-CSD exceeded CSD after approximately 280 months follow-up. The most common causes of non-CSDs were cardiovascular disease, subsequent primary neoplasms, infectious diseases, accidents, and suicide. In a Cox proportional hazards model, patients who were black, unmarried, at an advanced stage or underwent chemotherapy (CT) alone were at greater risk of mortality than were white patients, who were married, at an early stage, and underwent combined modality; these populations were also found to be at greater risk for CSD in a competing risk model, but the risk of non-CSD did not differ significantly according to race and marital status, patients with early-stage disease and who underwent RT only were found to be at higher risk of non-CSD instead.Conclusions: Lymphoma was the cause of death in most patients who died, but non-CSD was not unusual. Patients with cHL should be monitored closely for signs of cardiovascular disease and malignant tumors. Rates of overall survival of patients were diminished by non-CSD, and a competing risk model was more suitable for establishing the prognosis than was the Cox proportional hazards model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose to perform mutual learning inside the compositional model for human pose estimation. We conduct inference of the human pose in a compositional model which is composed of parts and subparts networks to better capture intrinsic prior knowledge. A macro–micro mutual learning mechanism is put forward to promote the information interaction between human limbs (parts) and joints (subparts). At first, a macro mutual learning module is proposed to conduct the information interaction macroscopically. Features representing the whole human body are leveraged in this case. Secondly, a micro mutual learning module is proposed to promote the information interaction within each limb triplet group to refine corresponding features microcosmically. Combining the macro and micro mutual learning modules promotes the information interaction across different levels. Besides, a novel Balanced Masked Mean Square Error (BMMSE) loss is put forward to solve the positive–negative samples imbalance problem which is more apparent in compositional model. Effectiveness of the method is evaluated on MPII, LSP and COCO benchmarks. Our algorithm achieves leading positions on the leader board of these three datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]