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This paper aims to consider a type of inverse optimal value problem in second-order conic programming, in which the parameter in its objective function needs to be adjusted under a given class that makes the corresponding optimal objective value closest to a target value. This inverse problem can be reformulated as a minimization problem with some second-order cone complementarity constraints. To tackle these bilinear constraints, we apply a penalty-type method and show that the associated penalty term is exact, which avoids the hurdles of penalty-type methods in the update strategy of the penalty parameter. Numerical results show that our method is suitable to solve the given inverse optimal value problem under different metric distances between the optimal value of the forward problem and a target objective counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In next‐generation wireless communications, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has emerged as a cost‐effective technique for enhancing physical layer security (PLS) in millimeter‐wave (mmWave) communications, especially under challenging scenarios with adversarial entities and obstructions. However, the primary studies for RIS incorporation in mmWave communication systems utilized static deployments, lacking adaptability and efficiency in complex environments. To address this problem, a dynamic RIS deployment design framework is introduced for PLS enhancement in mmWave systems against jamming and eavesdropping attacks. For the design, it is aimed to maximize the secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the RIS selection with the beamforming design. The resulting optimization problem is challenging to solve due to the coupling of the RIS control factor, joint beamforming design, and non‐convex constraints. To tackle these issues, an efficient multi‐RIS‐aided PLS enhancement algorithm is proposed. It transforms the objective into a series of subproblems and employs the fractional programming technique and prox‐linear block coordinate descent updating method to solve them alternatively and obtain the optimal solution. The simulations demonstrate the advantage of the dynamic deployment, which exhibits enhanced security performance with reduced complexity compared with benchmarks. Further examinations also provide insight into optimal RIS activation configurations, achieving optimal balance for securing mmWave communications against emerging threats while maintaining system efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peanut shells, a major economic and oil crop in China, boast an abundant availability and remarkably high lignin content compared to other agricultural residues. Previous work indicated that the modified hierarchical zeolite (Zn-ZSM-5/MCM41) was effective in promoting the conversion of intermediate macromolecules during the lignin pyrolysis reaction and enhancing the yield and selectivity of liquid products. Thereby, this study aims to improve the quality of liquid products in the ex situ catalytic microwave co-pyrolysis of peanut shells and LDPE by utilizing Zn-ZSM-5/MCM41. Employing a compound center experimental design, we optimized reaction conditions through response surface analysis. The impact of microwave pyrolysis temperature and the catalyst-to-feedstock ratio on yield distribution and liquid product selectivity was explored. Results indicated a marginal increase in liquid product yield with rising pyrolysis temperatures. Moreover, an initial increase followed by a subsequent decrease in liquid product yield was observed with an increase in the catalyst-to-feedstock ratio. Optimal conditions of 450 °C and a catalyst-to-peanut hull ratio of 2.34% yielded the highest bio-oil yield at 34.25%. GC/MS analysis of the bio-oil revealed a peak in hydrocarbon content at 68.36% under conditions of 450 °C and a catalyst-to-feedstock ratio of 13.66%. Additionally, the quadratic model effectively predicted bio-oil yield and the selectivity for major chemical components. This study underscores the potential of Zn-ZSM-5/MCM41 in optimizing liquid product quality during catalytic co-pyrolysis, offering insights into bio-oil production and its chemical composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) has been identified as an important cause of cervical myelopathy. However, the biomechanical mechanism between the OPLL type and the clinical characteristics of myelopathy remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different types of OPLL on the dynamic biomechanical response of the spinal cord. A three-dimensional finite element model of the fluid–structure interaction of the cervical spine with spinal cord was established and validated. The spinal cord stress and strain, cervical range of motion (ROM) in different types of OPLL models were predicted during dynamic flexion and extension activity. Different types of OPLL models showed varying degrees of increase in stress and strain under the process of flexion and extension, and there was a surge toward the end of extension. Larger spinal cord stress was observed in segmental OPLL. For continuous and mixed types of OPLL, the adjacent segments of OPLL showed a dramatic increase in ROM, while the ROM of affected segments was limited. As a dynamic factor, flexion and extension of the cervical spine play an amplifying role in OPLL-related myelopathy, while appropriate spine motion is safe and permitted. Segmental OPLL patients are more concerned about the spinal cord injury induced by large stress, and patients with continuous OPLL should be noted to progressive injuries of adjacent level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accumulation of arsenic (As) in rice poses a significant threat to food safety and human health. Breeding rice varieties with low As accumulation is an effective strategy for mitigating the health risks associated with arsenic-contaminated rice. However, the genetic mechanisms underlying As accumulation in rice grains remain incompletely understood. We evaluated the As accumulation capacity of 313 diverse rice accessions grown in As-contaminated soils with varying As concentrations. Six rice lines with low As accumulation were identified. Additionally, a genome-wide association studies (GWAS) analysis identified 5 QTLs significantly associated with As accumulation, with qAs4 being detected in both of the experimental years. Expression analysis demonstrated that the expression of LOC_Os04g50680, which encodes an MYB transcription factor, was up-regulated in the low-As-accumulation accessions compared to the high-As-accumulation accessions after As treatment. Therefore, LOC_Os04g50680 was selected as a candidate gene for qAs4. These findings provide insights for exploiting new functional genes associated with As accumulation and facilitating the development of low-As-accumulation rice varieties through marker-assisted breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Axially chiral compounds are attracting more attention recently. Although hydrogen bonds are reported as a vital weak force that influences the properties of compounds, the effect of intramolecular hydrogen bonds on the atropisomerization of the Caryl−Caryl single bonds has not yet been well quantitatively investigated. Here, a series of axially chiral biaryl compounds were synthesized to study the effect of hydrogen bonds on the rotational barriers of the biaryl C−C axis. Experimental studies demonstrated that the rotational barrier of hydrogen bonding biaryl 9 was significantly lower (46.7 kJ mol−1) than biaryl 10 without hydrogen bonds. Furthermore, theoretical studies revealed that the intramolecular hydrogen bond stabilized the transition state (TS) of tri‐ortho‐substituted biaryl 9, relieving the steric repulsion in the TS. We believe that this study will provide chemists with a deeper understanding of the atropisomerization process of axially chiral biaryl compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reveals influence of the stress state of steel bars on the critical chloride content for depassivation in a simulated concrete pore solution (SCPS). The passivation behavior of steel in chloride-free SCPS and depassivation behavior in SCPS with incremental addition of chloride were studied by electrochemical techniques including electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, Mott-Shottky test, cyclic voltammetry, and others. Results demonstrated that stress enhanced the redox activity in highly alkaline SCPS, where enhancement by tension was more pronounced than compression. Additionally, stress increased the donor density and dielectric properties of the constant-phase element of the passive film. The critical chloride content of steels can be considerably lowered by 80% under stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and optimizes a non-orthogonal and noncoherent multi-user massive single-input multiple-output (SIMO) framework, with the objective of enabling scalable ultra-reliable low-latency communications (sURLLC) in Beyond-5G (B5G)/6G wireless communication systems. In this framework, the huge diversity gain associated with the large-scale antenna array in the massive SIMO system is leveraged to ensure ultra-high reliability. To reduce the overhead and latency induced by the channel estimation process, we advocate for the noncoherent communication technique, which does not need the knowledge of instantaneous channel state information (CSI) but only relies on large-scale fading coefficients for message decoding. To boost the scalability of noncoherent massive SIMO systems, we enable the non-orthogonal channel access of multiple users by devising a new differential modulation scheme to ensure that each transmitted signal matrix can be uniquely determined in the noise-free case and be reliably estimated in noisy cases when the antenna array size is scaled up. The key idea is to make the transmitted signals from multiple geographically separated users be superimposed properly over the air, such that when the sum signal is correctly detected, the signal sent by each individual user can be uniquely determined. To further enhance the average error performance when the array antenna number is large, we propose a max–min Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence-based design by jointly optimizing the transmitted powers of all users and the sub-constellation assignments among them. The simulation results show that the proposed design significantly outperforms the existing max–min Euclidean distance-based counterpart in terms of error performance. Moreover, our proposed approach also has a better error performance compared to the conventional coherent zero-forcing (ZF) receiver with orthogonal channel training, particularly for cell-edge users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have shown that several microRNAs (miRNAs) are specifically expressed in testis, play an essential role in regulating testicular spermatogenesis. Hainan and Mongolian cattle are two representative Chinese native cattle breeds representing Bos indicus (indicine cattle) and Bos taurus (taurine cattle), respectively, which are distributed in hot Hainan and cold Inner Mongolia province. To study the functional differences of miRNA in spermatogenesis between indicine and taurine cattle, six mature testes samples from indicine cattle (n = 3) and taurine cattle (n = 3) were collected, respectively. We detected miRNA expression using small RNA sequencing technology following bioinformatic analysis. A total of 578 known miRNAs and 132 novel miRNAs were detected in the six libraries. Among the 710 miRNAs, 564 miRNAs were expressed in both indicine and taurine cattle, 73 miRNAs were found solely in indicine cattle and 73 miRNAs were found solely in taurine cattle. After further analysis, among the miRNAs were identified in both indicine and taurine cattle, 184 miRNAs were differentially expressed (|log2 fold change| ≥ 1 and corrected p-value <0.05). Among the miRNAs that were only expressed in indicine cattle, 10 miRNAs were differentially expressed, whereas, among the miRNAs that were only expressed in taurine cattle, six miRNAs were differentially expressed. The enrichment analysis result showed that predicted target genes of a total of 200 differentially expressed miRNAs were enriched on some testicular spermatogenesis-related Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, especially mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. These findings identify miRNAs as key factors to regulate spermatogenesis in both indicine and taurine cattle, which may also be helpful for improving cattle reproductive performance in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boom-type roadheader is the foremost mining equipment in coal mines. At present, the automatic cutting technology is still immature for adjusting cutting speed automatically in accordance with rock strength, resulting in energy dissipation. In this study, we put forward a method with respect to detecting the geological strength index of coal seam profile through visual inspection, as well as characterize the geological strength index and control the cutting head for adjusting speed automatically based on inspecting fracture features on coal rock's surface, aiming at achieving energy conservation control of boom-type roadheader. The image processing algorithm is adopted for detecting joint characteristics of palisades fracture, and a quantitative model of the geological strength index is established. The fractal dimension is used to obtain the distribution of geological strength indicators of a coal seam, and the heading machine's cutting head is controlled for adjusting speed automatically. A vision control platform of boom-type roadheader is built in the laboratory to perform ground simulation experiments. According to experimental results, the difference between the geological strength index of the coal seam detected through visual inspection and the set value in the geological strength index chart is up to 3.5%, and the results are basically consistent, so the quantification of geological strength index can be performed rapidly and effectively. The average energy consumption of boom-type roadheader decreases by 5.4% after adopting self-adaptation control, realizing energy conservation and consumption reduction as well as intelligent control of coal mine machinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aberrant DNA methylation (DNAm) is an important epigenetic regulator in various cancers. Pan-cancer DNAm analyses have investigated the potential common mechanisms of DNAm in tumorigenesis. However, these pan-cancer studies focused on adult cancers rather than pediatric cancers, which may have distinct pathology and treatment responses. Here, we performed a pan-cancer analysis of genome-wide DNAm in over 2,000 samples from nine pediatric cancers to elucidate the DNAm landscape of pediatric cancers. We identified 217,586 differentially methylated CpG sites (DMCs) in pediatric cancers, with a tendency toward hypermethylation as opposed to hypomethylation (P = 0.02). Amongst them, 75.65% also presented DNAm alterations in adult cancers. In nine pediatric cancers, we defined 54 shared DMCs (SDMCs), which were also observed in at least one adult cancer type. Furthermore, methylation patterns in SDMCs influenced the transcription of several genes (MEIS1, MIA3, PCDHAC2, SH3BP4, and ATP8B1) involved in well-known cancer-related pathways and cancer hallmarks (FDR < 0.05). Moreover, SDMCs were significantly associated with patient survival, and this association was independent of sex, age, and tumor stage (P < 0.05). Interestingly, SDMCs could affect patient survival not only in the nine pediatric cancers that were used to identify SDMCs but also in other untested pediatric cancers (P < 0.05). Collectively, our data depicts a comprehensive landscape of aberrant DNA methylation in pediatric cancers, which is partly similar to that of adult cancers. We also suggest a potential clinical application of SDMCs as biomarkers for the prognosis of pediatric cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real-time coscheduling problem, where tasks may have multiple phases executing on different types of processors, is known to be hard. The (already hard) self-suspending task scheduling simplifies the coscheduling problem by assuming that the latency a task may experience on the other type of processors is naturally bounded, which is unfortunately not true in practice. In this article, we present a novel analysis technique, namely, the vertical view analysis, for analyzing the schedulability of coscheduling sporadic tasks under global earliest-deadline-first (GEDF) on a heterogeneous multiprocessor consisting of two types of processors. We derive both hard (no deadline miss) and soft (bounded response times) real-time utilization-based tests. To the best of our knowledge, these results are the first-of-its-kind for the coscheduling problem and may allow real-time schedulability analysis to be carried out on more practical scenarios under heterogeneous computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Carotid computed tomography angiography (CTA) is routinely used for evaluating the atherosclerotic process. Radiomics allows the extraction of imaging markers of lesion heterogeneity and spatial complexity. These quantitative features can be used as the input for machine learning (ML). Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of radiomics-based ML assessment of carotid CTA data to identify symptomatic patients with carotid artery atherosclerosis. Methods: In this retrospective study, participants with carotid artery atherosclerosis who underwent carotid CTA and brain magnetic resonance imaging from May 2010 to December 2017 were studied. The participants were grouped into symptomatic and asymptomatic groups according to their recent symptoms (determination of ipsilateral ischemic stroke). Eight conventional plaque features and 2,107 radiomics parameters were extracted from carotid CTA images. A radiomics-based ML model was fitted on the training set, and the radiomics-based ML model and conventional assessment were compared using the area under the curve (AUC) to identify symptomatic participants. Results: After excluding participants with other stroke sources, 120 patients with 148 carotid arteries were analyzed. Of these 148 carotid arteries, 34 (22.97%) were classified into the symptomatic group. Plaque ulceration (odds ratio [OR] = 0.257; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.094–0.698) and plaque enhancement (OR = 0.305; 95% CI, 0.094–0.988) were associated with the symptomatic status. Twenty radiomics parameters were chosen to be inputs in the radiomics-based ML model. In the identification of symptomatic participants, the discriminatory value of the radiomics-based ML model was significantly higher than that of the conventional assessment (AUC = 0.858 vs. AUC = 0.706, p = 0.021). Conclusion: Radiomics-based ML analysis improves the discriminatory power of carotid CTA in the identification of recent ischemic symptoms in patients with carotid artery atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to develop a two-yoke magnetic sensor system, measuring the mass loss of steel in concrete subjected to nonuniform corrosion. The impressed current method was employed to induce the nonuniform corrosion of steel in concrete specimens. Experiments and theoretical calculations based on the finite-element method were performed to verify the effectiveness of the two-yoke magnetic sensor. Parametric analyses were carried out to investigate the effects of distribution of rust layer, the geometry of steel bar, as well as the depth of concrete cover on the results of magnetic flux density sensed by the sensor. Results showed a good accuracy in estimating the mass loss of nonuniformly corroding steel by the change of magnetic flux density. Little influence was exhibited by varying the amount of corrosion products including the distribution of rust layer and the volume expansion ratio. It revealed the effectiveness and accuracy of the two-yoke magnetic sensor in quantitatively evaluating the corrosion degree of nonuniformly corroding steel irrespective of different distributions of rust layer. With respect to the sensitivity in structures with large concrete cover, the two-yoke magnetic sensor demonstrated a better performance than the external magnetic sensor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-stent restenosis (ISR) after carotid artery stenting (CAS) critically influences long-term CAS benefits and safety. The study was aimed at screening preoperative ISR-predictive features and developing predictive models. Thus, we retrospectively analyzed clinical and imaging data of 221 patients who underwent pre-CAS carotid computed tomography angiography (CTA) and whose digital subtraction angiography data for verifying ISR presence were available. Carotid plaque characteristics determined using CTA were used to build a traditional model. Backward elimination (likelihood ratio) was used for the radiomics model. Furthermore, a combined model was built using the traditional and radiomics features. Five-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate the accuracy of the trained classifier and stability of the selected features. Follow-up angiography showed ISR in 30 patients. Carotid plaque length and thickness were independently associated with ISR (multivariate analysis); regarding the conventional model, the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.84 and 0.82 in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. The corresponding AUC values for the radiomics-based model were 0.87 and 0.82, and those for the optimal combined model were 0.88 and 0.83. Plaque length and thickness could independently predict post-CAS ISR, and the combination of radiomics and plaque features afforded the best predictive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hybrid energy-storage system (HESS), which fully utilizes the durability of energy-oriented storage devices and the rapidity of power-oriented storage devices, is an efficient solution to managing energy and power legitimately and symmetrically. Hence, research into these systems is drawing more attention with substantial findings. A battery–supercapacitor hybrid energy-storage system (BS-HESS) is widely adopted in the fields of renewable energy integration, smart- and micro-grids, energy integration systems, etc. Focusing on the BS-HESS, in this work we present a comprehensive survey including technologies of the battery management system (BMS), power conversion system (PCS), energy management system (EMS), predictive control techniques of the underlying system, application and cost-effective feasibility aspects, etc. This work reflects strong symmetry on different aspects of designing an HESS, and provides guidelines and design references for the research and application of an HESS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of reinforcement corrosion and sustained axial load on mechanical performance of reinforced concrete (RC) columns were investigated in the present study. Three different degrees of reinforcement corrosion were achieved by controlling the durations of accelerated corrosion test (i.e., 16 days, 31 days, and 63 days). Three levels of sustained axial load (i.e., 0%, 30%, and 60% of the ultimate bearing capacity) were concentrically applied on column specimens. The impressing current and the sustained load were applied on column specimens simultaneously, mimicking the degradation of RC columns in real structures. Results indicated that transverse stirrups yielded higher corrosion degree than that of the longitudinal rebar under identical duration of accelerated corrosion test. The application of sustained axial load improved the performance of corroded RC columns in terms of the reinforcement corrosion, the ultimate axial load, as well as the stiffness. Additionally, more longitudinal cracks along the main rebar were exhibited for column specimens subjected to sustained axial load. For both loaded and unloaded column specimens, corrosion of reinforcing steels exacerbated the mechanical deterioration of RC columns, lowering the ultimate load carrying capacity and the axial deformation compared to the uncorroded columns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate post-traumatic growth induced by COVID-19 pandemic in certain Yunnan residents and to analyze its influencing factors. A total of 581 permanent residents of Yunnan province completed the electronic questionnaire from 18 April 2020 to 26 April 2020. Logistic regression analysis showed that the educational levels, self-perceived health status, family history of infectious diseases, family history of infectious diseases, personality and frequency of going through COVID-19 related news were influencing factors of PTG (P < 0.05). As a traumatic event, the threat of COVID-19 may enable some people to gain positive psychological development in adversity. This will provide reference for public psychological crisis intervention following the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Aims: Management of elderly patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has become a major concern. Some data suggest that cryoablation improves the outcomes of elderly patients with HCC, but its efficacy and safety remain unknown. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of percutaneous cryoablation with those of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for elderly HCC patients. Methods: In all, 223 patients with small HCC aged ≥70 years, treatment‐naïve, without metastasis were enrolled and randomized into a cryoablation group (n = 112) or a RFA (n = 111) group from July 2015 to October 2018. The primary endpoint was local tumour progression (LTP) at 3 years after treatment. The secondary endpoints including overall survival (OS), tumour‐free survival (TFS), LTP and safety were analysed for these two groups after both treatments. Results: LTP rates at 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year were 12%, 17% and 20% for cryoablation and 17%, 18% and 21% for RFA respectively (P =.735). For lesions >3 cm in diameter, LTP rates at 1‐ and 3‐year were 13% and 22% in cryoablation group and 22% and 42% respectively, in the RFA group (P =.039). The 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year OS rates were 90, 75% and 62% for cryoablation and 90%, 68% and 63% for RFA respectively (P =.331). The 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year TFS rates were 59%, 32% and 25% in the cryoablation and 59%, 28% and 20% in the RFA respectively (P =.309). Major complications occurred in 6 patients (5%) following cryoablation and 6 patients (6%) following RFA (P =.886). Conclusion: Cryoablation and RFA had similar LTP in elderly patients with small HCC and this study failed to meet the primary endpoint, although for a relatively large early‐stage HCC the LTP rate after cryoablation was significantly lower than that after RFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete genome sequence of peony leafroll-associated virus (PLRaV) was determined by deep sequencing of ribosomal-RNA-depleted total RNA extracted from a peony plant exhibiting leafroll symptoms. Further PCR and RACE analysis showed that the PLRaV genome consists of 15,406 nucleotides and contains 10 putative open reading frames, with an organization typical of members of the genus Ampelovirus, family Closteroviridae. Amino acid sequence comparisons showed that the viral heat shock protein 70 homolog (HSP70h) shared the highest sequence identity (41.7%) with the corresponding region of grapevine leafroll-associated virus 1, and the coat protein (CP) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) shared the highest sequence identity (32.1% and 52.3%, respectively) with grapevine leafroll-associated virus 13. Phylogenetic analysis of the HSP70h, CP, and RdRp aa sequences showed that PLRaV clustered with members of subgroup I of the genus Ampelovirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new alphaendornavirus, tentatively named "Lonicera maackii alphaendornavirus" (LmEV), was identified in a Lonicera maackii plant in Beijing, China, with leaf abnormality of interveinal chlorosis, and its complete genome sequence was determined using small-RNA deep sequencing. The RNA genome of LmEV is 16,176 nt in length and contains a large open reading frame encoding a polyprotein of 5363 aa with conserved domains including a cysteine-rich region, a viral helicase, and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Sequence comparisons showed that LmEV shared the highest nt and aa sequence identity with Vicia faba alphaendornavirus (VfEV) of the genus Alphaendornavirus. In phylogenetic analysis of the RdRp aa sequence LmEV clustered with members of the genus Alphaendornavirus, closest to VfEV. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a novel alphaendornavirus identified in Lonicera maackii. Its effect on the host plant, if any, remains to be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple DC microgrids are interconnected to form a DC microgrid cluster, which can effectively improve the renewable energy consumption capacity and power supply reliability of the microgrid cluster through sharing of energy storage among the participating DC microgrids. However, the existing methods are not able to flexibly coordinate the power flows between DC microgrids connected by a multiport converter. In this paper, a distributed cooperative control method is proposed for a DC microgrid cluster with multiple voltage levels connected by a multi-port interconnected converter. A multi-active-bridge (MAB) converter acts as a bridge for power exchange among microgrids, enabling the sharing of distributed energy storage among microgrids under a sparse communication network. The improved secondary control overcomes the drawbacks of droop control and achieves deviation-free voltage regulation and accurate load/source sharing of the energy storage converters within the cluster. The proposed secondary control can be used to retrofit the existing DC distribution grids to permit access of renewable energy. In addition, the improved voltage observer provides the voltage information of other nodes in a microgrid in addition to the energy storage information, reducing the voltage estimation error caused by the uneven distribution of energy storages. Finally, hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) experiments of the cluster with three DC microgrids verify the control performance, the flexible plug-and-play capability, and the high tolerance of communication failure. • A MAB converter acts as a bridge for power exchange among multiple microgrids. • Achieving DESs sharing in a microgrid cluster under sparse communication networks. • Both the secondary control and the MAB control are fully distributed. • An improved voltage observer enhances the accuracy of microgrid voltage control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, miniaturized optical emission spectrometry (OES) systems utilizing atmospheric pressure plasmas (APPs) as radiation sources have exhibited impressive capabilities in trace heavy metal analysis. As the core of the analytical system, APPs sources possess unique properties such as compact size, light weight, low energy requirement, ease of fabrication, and relatively low manufacturing cost. This critical review focuses on recent progress of APP-based OES systems employed for the determination of heavy metals. Influences of technical details including the sample introduction manner, the sampling volume, the sample flow rate, the pH of the solutions on the plasma stability and the intensity of analytical signals are comprehensively discussed. Furthermore, the review emphasizes the analytical challenges faced by these techniques and highlights the opportunities for further development in the field of heavy metal detection. [Display omitted] • Atmospheric pressure plasma-based OES for real-time heavy metal assessment. • Diverse excitation sources have been illustrated. • Cost-effective, portable and miniaturized analytical systems. • Influences of technical details are comprehensively and critically discussed. • Breakthroughs in the sampling technology will be the primary focus in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cisplatin-induced acute kidney injury (CP-AKI) is a common complication in cancer patients. Although ferroptosis is believed to contribute to the progression of CP-AKI, its mechanisms remain incompletely understood. In this study, after initially processed individual omics datasets, we integrated multi-omics data to construct a ferroptosis network in the kidney, resulting in the identification of the key driver TACSTD2. In vitro and in vivo results showed that TACSTD2 was notably upregulated in cisplatin-treated kidneys and BUMPT cells. Overexpression of TACSTD2 accelerated ferroptosis, while its gene disruption decelerated ferroptosis, likely mediated by its potential downstream targets HMGB1, IRF6, and LCN2. Drug prediction and molecular docking were further used to propose that drugs targeting TACSTD2 may have therapeutic potential in CP-AKI, such as parthenolide, progesterone, premarin, estradiol and rosiglitazone. Our findings suggest a significant association between ferroptosis and the development of CP-AKI, with TACSTD2 playing a crucial role in modulating ferroptosis, which provides novel perspectives on the pathogenesis and treatment of CP-AKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrocell corrosion is a frequent and detrimental problem plaguing reinforced concrete structures exposed to chloride environments. This paper investigates the rate-limiting step(s) of macrocell corrosion of reinforcing steel bars in concrete by quantifying the respective contributions of anodic polarization, cathodic polarization, and ohmic subprocesses to the overall macrocell corrosion. Experiments were carried out to study the impact of the distance between active and passive steels, the active-to-passive steel area ratio (A/P), and the microcell corrosion rate of active steel. Numerical simulations were further performed to extrapolate experimental results to large-scale concrete structures. Results demonstrated that with a decreasing A/P, the contribution of the anodic polarization subprocess was increased, while that of the cathodic polarization subprocess was decreased. The macrocell effect that aggravated the total corrosion rate of active steel was weakened as the microcell corrosion activity increased or with increasing the relative humidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the trend of increasing autonomy in cyber-physical systems, parallel embedded architectures have enabled devices to better handle the large streams of data and intensive computation required by such autonomous systems. However, while the explosion of highly-parallel platforms has seen a proportional growth in the number of applications/devices that utilize these platforms, the embedded systems community’s understanding of how to build time-predictable, safety-critical systems with parallel platforms has not kept pace. As a well-motivated but challenging parallel scheduling model, gang scheduling requires all parallel threads of each parallel task to simultaneously execute in unison, which is in contrast to traditional, multi-threaded parallel scheduling, where a parallel task may spawn multiple threads, and each thread will be scheduled independently of other threads of the same task. While increasing research efforts on hard real-time (HRT) gang scheduling have recently been seen, the problem of gang scheduling in the context of soft real-time (SRT) systems, where provably bounded deadline tardiness can be tolerated, has hardly been studied yet. In this article, we derive and prove the first tardiness bounds for sporadic gang task systems under preemptive GEDF scheduling. A total utilization bound for SRT-schedulability is required for ensuring such tardiness bounds but it is shown to be tight with respect to the platform capacity and maximum parallelism-induced idleness. Furthermore, we also empirically evaluate the effects of different degrees of task parallelism upon the SRT-schedulability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To inquire into the influence of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the diagnostic efficacy and satisfaction of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods. This study included 42 healthy people (control group) and 66 patients with AD (AD group). The hippocampus volume, temporal sulcus spacing, left-right brain diameter, brain lobe volume, hippocampal height, temporal horn width, lateral fissure width, and degree of leukoaraiosis were all measured using an MRI scan. After diagnosis, the satisfaction of patients in both arms was investigated and the satisfaction degree was recorded. Results. Compared with the control group, the left and right hippocampal volumes and hippocampal height of AD patients were smaller, while the temporal sulcus spacing, temporal horn width, lateral fissure width, and left-right brain diameter were remarkably higher. A statistical difference was present in the degree of leukoaraiosis between the two arms. The frontal and temporal lobe volumes of AD patients were notably lower while the volumes of parietal and occipital lobes were similar, versus the control group. The total satisfaction was 83.33% in the control group and 86.36% in the AD group, with no statistical difference between the two arms. Conclusions. MRI can effectively mine the brain information of AD patients with a high patient satisfaction, which has potential value in clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pyroptosis is a kind of programmed cell death that is characterized by inflammation. However, the expression of pyroptosis-related genes and their connection with prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remain unknown. The aim of this study is to create and validate a LUAD prediction signature based on genes associated with pyroptosis. The TCGA and GEO were used to collect gene sequencing data and clinical information for LUAD samples. To identify patients with LUAD from the TCGA cohort, consensus clustering by pyroptosis-related genes was employed. Our prognostic model was constructed using LASSO-Cox analysis after Cox regression using differentially expressed genes. To predict patient survival, we created a seven-mRNA signature. Additionally, reliability and validity were established in the GEO cohort. To assess its diagnostic and prognostic usefulness, an integrated bioinformatics method was used. Using a risk score with varying overall survival (OS) in two cohorts (all p < 0.001), a seven-gene signature was developed to categorize patients into two risk categories. The signature was shown to be an independent predictor of LUAD using multivariate regression analysis. The signature was linked to a variety of immune cell subtypes according to a study of immune cell infiltration. We constructed a signature consisting of seven genes as a robust biomarker with potential for clinical use in risk stratification and OS prediction in LUAD patients, as well as a potential indicator of immunotherapy in LUAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Axillary osmidrosis (AO) is a common disease. There are no safely effective therapies for AO. The objective of our study was to establish whether increased BMI and lipid profiles affects the prevalence of AO. Our research was a retrospective case-control study. According to our criteria, 203 patients with AO were included in our study and 94 subjects with no bromhidrosis were matched as the control group. Age, ethnicity, living area, level of total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides (TGs), and body mass index (BMI) were obtained from the clinical data. Logistic regression analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to investigate the association of BMI and lipid profiles with AO. BMI, TC, and TG LDL were significantly higher in patients with AO compared with control subjects (p<.05). A high BMI (≥24 kg/m2) or overweight, compared with a low BMI (<24 kg/m2) or normal, was associated with an increased risk of AO (OR: 6.1; 95% CI: 2.7, 13.4; p<.0001). Adjustment of the lipid profiles' group has a higher risk of disease than unadjusted (OR: 56.4 compared with 6.1, respectively), while adjusting lipid profiles shows a lower risk than unadjusted (OR: 1.3 compared with 6.1, respectively). The results of our study revealed that increased BMI is significantly associated with the prevalence of AO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Recent studies have shown that the polytopic enzyme membrane associated ring-CH-type finger 6 (MARCH6) participates in tumorigenesis, but its function in HCC development needs to be investigated. This study aimed to explore the role of MARCH6 in HCC.Methods: Expression of MARCH6 in human HCC samples was checked by immunohistochemical staining assay. Clinical relevance of MARCH6 and activating transcription factor 2 (ATF2) was analyzed from TCGA database. CCK-8, EdU staining, colony formation and transwell were performed to assess cell proliferation, growth and migration. Xenografted tumorigenesis was used to examine in vivo role MARCH6. Immunoblotting was applied to detect protein abundance.Results: We found that MARCH6 expression was elevated in human HCC samples. Over-expression of MARCH6 was associated with poor prognosis of HCC patients. Up-expression of MARCH6 promoted cell growth and migration of HCC cells. In contrast, the HCC cell growth and migration were suppressed by MARCH6 knockdown. Furthermore, the DNA synthesis was enhanced by MARCH6. The expression of ATF2 was potentiated by MARCH6 over-expression, while it was suppressed by MARCH6 silencing. TCGA database showed positive correlation between the expression of MARCH6 and ATF2. Importantly, ATF2 expression contributed to the oncogenic function of HCC cells.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that MARCH6-mediated ATF2 up-regulation contributes to HCC development. MARCH6 may be a promising target for the diagnosis and treatment of HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we concern the uplink of a massive single-input multiple-output enabled ultra-reliable low-latency communication system, in which a single-antenna transmitter aims to timely and reliably send data to a receiver equipped with a large number of antennas over Rayleigh fading channels. For such a scenario, to eliminate the considerable overhead caused by channel estimation, we adopt a noncoherent maximum-likelihood (ML) receiver, which is known to be optimal in terms of average symbol-error rate for equiprobable discrete input signals. We propose a two-dimensional noncoherent constellation design framework to enhance the reliability of the considered system. Specifically, our design principle is to maximize the minimum Kullback-Leibler divergence between the conditional distributions induced by different transmitted signals under average power constraint for any given transmission rate. The resulting optimization problem is shown to be a challenging mixed discrete-continuous problem. We manage to solve the problem by deliberately designing optimal bit allocation and optimal constellation structure as a function of signal-to-noise ratios. We then unveil that the proposed constellation can facilitate efficient ML detection with low computational complexity. Finally, simulation results illustrate that the proposed scheme has a superior error performance than conventional training-based schemes and existing energy detection designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, we compared data on the spatiotemporal distribution of lightning activity obtained from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) with that from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS). The WWLLN and LIS both suggest intense lightning activity over the central and southeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) during May-September. Meanwhile, the WWLLNindicates relatively weak lightning activity over the northeastern TP, where the LIS suggests very intense lightning activity, and it also indicates a high-density lightning center over the southwestern TP that is not suggested by the LIS. Furthermore, the WWLLN lightning peaks in August in terms of monthly variation and in late August in terms of 10-day variation, unlike the corresponding LIS lightning peaks of July and late June, respectively. Other observation data were also introduced into the comparison. The blackbody temperature (TBB) data from the Fengyun-2E geostationary satellite (as a proxy of deep convection) and thunderstorm-day data support the spatial distribution of the WWLLN lightning more. Meanwhile, for seasonal variation, the TBB data are more analogous to the LIS data, whereas the cloud-toground (CG) lightning data from a local CG lightning location system are closer to the WWLLN data. It is speculated that the different WWLLN and LIS observation modes may cause their data to represent different dominant types of lightning, thereby leading to differences in the spatiotemporal distributions of their data. The results may further imply that there exist regional differences and seasonal variations in the electrical properties of thunderstorms over the TP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anomaly detection using multivariate time series plays a crucial role in system security. Conventional deep learning detection techniques mainly depend on temporal dependency and employ reconstruction or prediction-based methods. However, as feature variables grow more intricate, there is a risk of neglecting essential spatio-temporal structural information, potentially leading to insufficient model training in unsupervised settings. Hence, we propose an end-to-end anomaly detection model with multiple pre-training tasks designed for the spatio-temporal dimension to enhance our constraints. Specifically, in the temporal dimension, we employ an autoregressive task to train timestamp associations using data's concealed autocorrelation and periodicity. In the spatio dimension, we acquire knowledge of a diverse feature-related heterogeneous graph. Subsequently, we design three different graph contrastive learning tasks to tap into the effective information arising from the inherent heterogeneity and hierarchy in spatio structures. Through joint spatio-temporal modeling, we can effectively capture inter and intra-feature associations from series and graph structural features, enhancing model robustness to cope with the complex chain reactions between features. Finally, we assess our model on three real-world datasets: SWaT, WADI(2017, 2019), our F1 scores demonstrate enhancements of 6.17%, 18.3% and 5.35% over the top-tier baseline performance. Our model is applicable for both temporal and graph, is self-supervised learning for sparse data which is suitable for data sparsity and complex scenarios that need to capture spatio-temporal characteristics at the same time, for example, traffic flow detection and anomaly detection of intelligent systems. Further visualization experiments and case studies will provide a better interpretation of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing (mNGS) has been validated to have an important role in the diagnosis of mycobacterium infection. The study aimed to further explore the mycobacteria identification ability of mNGS on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded（FFPE）tissues from postoperative specimens. Patients who underwent surgical biopsy or resection for clarifying the diagnosis and whose initial postoperative pathology indicated granulomatous lesions were included. Fresh tissues were sent for mycobacterium culture and Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) to establish the diagnosis. FFPE specimens were sent for mNGS and molecular pathology，the diagnostic values were compared between the two methods. A total of 65 cases with definite diagnoses were finally included in the study. 31 cases were confirmed as mycobacterium granuloma using the fresh specimen etiology as diagnostic criteria. The overall sensitivity and specificity of mNGS on FFPE specimens in the diagnosis of mycobacterium granuloma were 100% and 88.24%, respectively. In 19 cases diagnosed as tuberculous granulomas, the sensitivity (100% vs 47.37%) and negative predictive value (NPV, 100% vs 82.14%) of mNGS were both significantly higher than that of molecular pathology on the FFPE section（both p 0.00）while the positive predictive value (PPV) and specificity were not significantly different. In 12 cases diagnosed as Non-tuberculous mycobacterium (NTM）granuloma, the sensitivity of mNGS was also significantly higher than that of molecular pathology on FFPE section (100% vs 66.67%, p 0.00) while the specificity, PPV and NPV were all not significantly different. The mNGS could be used for one-time detection of pathogens on FFPE sections with high sensitivity. It could be recommended as a supplementary method for the identification of pathogenic bacteria in the diagnosis of postoperative granuloma lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer is a malignant tumor with the highest incidence in women of the world. CXCR4 and Skp2 are highly expressed in breast cancer cells and CXCR4 was positively correlated with Skp2 by interference or overexpression. The microRNA array was used to detect the differentially expressed spectrum of micro RNAs in breast cancer cells the changes of miR‐7‐5p after CXCR4 inhibitor (NT21MP) treatment to block the CXCR4/SDF‐1 pathway was founded. MiR‐7‐5p has been found to be correlated with Skp2 in various tumors in the literature, and Skp2 expression can be regulated by transfection with miR‐7‐5p mimics or inhibitors. The expression level of miR‐7‐5p was upregulated or downregulated after CXCR4 interference or overexpression. Combined with the correlation between CXCR4 and miR‐7‐5p in the chip results, CXCR4 may regulate Skp2 through miR‐7‐5p. Epithelial cells have the morphological characteristics of mesenchymal cells for some reason called epithelial–mesenchymal transformation (EMT). Transfection of miR‐7‐5p mimics into drug‐resistant cells reduced Skp2 levels, decreased the expression of Vimentin, Snail, and slug, and increased the expression of E‐cadherin. CXCR4 inhibitor (NT21MP) can reverse the EMT changes caused by miR‐7‐5p inhibitor. Similarly, in vivo results suggesting that CXCR4 inhibitors can reverse the EMT phenotype of drug‐resistant breast cancer cells through the CXCR4/miR‐7‐5p/Skp2 pathway. In summary, the CXCR4/miR‐7‐5p/Skp2 signaling pathway plays an important role in the progression of breast cancer. This study provides a theoretical basis for the treatment of breast cancer by targeting the CXCR4 pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) dc–dc converters can integrate multiple input sources and output loads simultaneously. This article proposes a new single-inductor MIMO dc–dc converter with a wide conversion ratio. The proposed converter allows input sources to be added or removed seamlessly with no cross-regulation problem. Meanwhile, the outputs are independently controlled, i.e., the load change at one output cell will not affect the other interconnected output cells. Constant current control is the main control requirement. When constant current control is applied to all input cells, the power provided by each input source is proportional to the voltage magnitude of the source. When the constant current control is applied to some of the input cells, the input sources with direct duty-cycle controlled input cells can provide specific power through controlling the duty cycles of the switches of the corresponding input cells. Moreover, the switching time of switches is irrelevant. Therefore, it is easy to realize the high extension capability for arbitrary inputs/outputs. A dual-input dual-output prototype is constructed to illustrate the performance of the proposed converter. The corresponding component design is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of power converter circuits is highly dependent on the types of the input and output terminations. Conventional dc–dc converters assume the input termination being a voltage source, and the converter circuits so developed are voltage-source-mode (VSM) converters which generally consist in switching an inductor between the input and the output with two complementary switches. However, when dealing with an input current source, the counterpart current-source-mode (CSM) converters are much less known. This article derives all single-input dual-output (SIDO) converters that inherently achieves no cross regulation using both VSM and CSM buck and boost converters, and provides a detailed comparison of the different SIDO configurations in terms of step-up and step-down functions, connection type, number of ground-referenced drivers, number of inductors, number of capacitors, voltage stress, and current stress. The control requirements for independent regulation of the two outputs are discussed. For illustration purposes, one specific CSM SIDO converter is presented and its detailed operation and design considerations are discussed. Finally, experimental results are presented to verify the analytical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a malignant cancer type and has developed into the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Small nucleolar RNA host gene 6 (SNHG6) has been identified as an oncogene in multiple cancers. However, the functions of SNHG6 in tumorigenesis and progression of NSCLC are still poorly understood. Materials and Methods: The expression of SNHG6, miR-490-3p, and remodeling and spacing factor 1 (RSF1) in NSCLC tumors and cells was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The correlation between miR-490-3p and SNHG6 or RSF1 was analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficient. Luciferase reporter assay was employed for verifying the interaction between miR-490-3p and SNHG6 or RSF1. Cell viability was examined by 3-(4, 5)-dimethylthiazole-2-y1)-2, 5-biphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry and Western blot, respectively. Protein expression of RSF1, Bcl-2, Bax, and cleaved caspase-3 (cleaved casp-3) was detected by Western blot assay. Xenograft mice models were established by subcutaneously injecting H460 cells stably transfected with sh-SNHG6 and sh-NC. Results: SNHG6 and RSF1 expression were upregulated, whereas miR-490-3p was downregulated in NSCLC tumors and cell lines compared with normal tissues and cells. Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis indicated that miR-490-3p was correlated with SNHG6 and RSF1 inversely. Then, luciferase reporter assay confirmed the interaction between miR-490-3p and SNHG6 or RSF1. More importantly, the rescue experiments clarified that miR-490-3p inhibitor could relieve SNHG6 silencing-mediated inhibition on proliferation and promotion on apoptosis in NSCLC. In addition, the authors discovered that SNHG6 promoted cell progression by regulating miR-490-3p/RSF1 axis. However, SNHG6 knockdown hindered tumor growth in vivo by regulating RSF1 by targeting miR-490-3p. Conclusion: The authors demonstrated that SNHG6 promoted proliferation and inhibits apoptosis in NSCLC by regulating miR-490-3p/RSF1 axis, representing promising targeted therapeutic strategies against NSCLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic (As) is a widespread metalloid contaminant, and its internal exposure is demonstrated to cause serious detrimental health problems. Albeit considerable studies are performed to interrogate the molecular mechanisms responsible for As‐induced toxicities, the exact mechanisms are not fully understood yet, especially at the epigenetic regulation level. In the present study, it is identified that long non‐coding RNA (lncRNA) urothelial cancer associated 1 (UCA1) alleviates As‐induced G2/M phase arrest in human liver cells. Intensive mechanistic investigations illustrate that UCA1 interacts with enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) and accelerates the latter's protein turnover rate under normal and As‐exposure conditions. The phosphorylation of EZH2 at the Thr‐487 site by cyclin dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) is responsible for As‐induced EZH2 protein degradation, and UCA1 enhances this process through increasing the interaction between CDK1 and EZH2. As a consequence, the cell cycle regulator nuclear factor of activated T cells 2 (NFATc2), a downstream target of EZH2, is upregulated to resist As‐blocked cell cycle progress and cytotoxicity. In conclusion, the findings decipher a novel prosurvival signaling pathway underlying As toxicity from the perspective of epigenetic regulation: UCA1 facilitates the ubiquitination of EZH2 to upregulate NFATc2 and further antagonizes As‐induced cell cycle arrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-input multioutput converters, constructed by interconnecting dc–dc converters, are used in various applications with advantages of high scalability, low component stress, and power distribution flexibility. This article presents a complete family of two-stage configurations of interconnected dc–dc converters that include conventional voltage-source-mode (VSM) converters and the less known current-source-mode (CSM) converters, covering all possible termination types and connection styles. Derivation of 16 possible configurations is presented. These configurations are then compared in terms of power-sharing capability, extended flexibility, mutual effects among interconnected modules, basic control requirements, and load characteristics. On this basis, advantages and disadvantages of different configurations are given. Suitable applications and existing (known) configurations are reviewed, aiming to provide essential information for the design of interconnected converters for different application scenarios. As an illustrative example, a two-stage configuration consisting of a VSM converter as the prestage and two series-connected CSM converters as the poststage is proposed to drive light-emitting diodes under high-input-voltage conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crystal of a new tetrachlorocobalt(II) anion salt, [BzPy]2[CoCl4] (1) ([BzPy]+ = benzyl pyridinium), was grown by the slow evaporation solution growth method at room temperature. The salt 1 crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P2(1)/c and consists of two [BzPy]+ cations and one [CoCl4]2− anion in which the Co(II) ion is coordinated by four Cl atoms in a close to tetrahedral geometry. The crystal packing is stabilized by electrostatic interactions and C − H···Cl hydrogen bonds between [BzPy]+ cations and [CoCl4]2− anions. Powder XRD diffraction study confirms the crystalline nature and purity of the title compound. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrum was recorded and analyzed with the aid of DFT calculations in order to make a suitable assignment of the observed bands. The thermal stability of the hybrid crystal was analyzed by TG-DTA techniques revealing that the title crystal was stable up to 195 °C. The title salt exhibits violet and cyan fluorescence emissions upon excitation at 345 nm and weak antiferromagnetic interactions in the temperature range 2-300 K. The nonlinear optical (NLO) effect of this compound was predicted using DFT, suggesting that the title crystal is a good material for NLO applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circadian rhythm and dairy zinc levels linked tightly to the lipid metabolism in animals. The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the cross effects of zinc status and daily rhythm on lipid metabolism in male mice. A total of 40 male C57BL/6J mice (9 week-old, weight) were randomly into Zn+(30ug/g) and Zn-(0.3ug/g) groups for 30 days. The results showed that zinc-deficient diet significantly reduced the epididymis/body weight (BW) ratio, but increased the epididymal white adipose tissue/BW ratio and tend to increase the abdominal WAT/BW ratio relative weight. Zn status could shift the circadian rhythm by regulate the Bmal1 and Per2 expressions. Moreover, zinc-deficient diet significantly decreased the serum adiponectin at Clo18. Significant circadian variations on serum CHOL and triglyceride were observed in mice that fed zinc-deficient diet. Further, the FASD1 and FASD2 genes that related to de novo synthesis of long-chained fatty acids were up-regulated, and adipose triglyceride lipase gene expression of lipolysis was decreased compared to the control. Taken together, dairy zinc levels would change the daily rhythm and its lipid metabolism in mice, which might affect the serum lipids thereby change lipids accumulation in body. Abbreviations: ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; ATGL, adipose triglyceride lipase; aWATs, abdominal WAT; β-actin, beta-actin; Bmal1, brain and muscle arnt-like protein-1; BW, body weight; CHOL, cholesterol; Cyp21a1, 21-hydroxylase; eWAT, epididymal white adipose tissue; FASD1, delta 5-desaturase; FASD2, delta 6-desaturase; ingWAT, inguinal WAT; mWAT, mesenteric WAT; Per2, period2; TG, triglyceride; WAT, white adipose tissue; SHP small heterodimer partner, Zn, Zinc; [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Genetic background affects serum urate concentration and gout risk, especially regarding these variants in the urate-transporter gene ABCG2. However, the role of epistasis between PKD2 and ABCG2 on the pathogenesis of gout is poorly understood. Here we assess this epistatic interaction in the progression from elevated serum urate to gout. Results: We identified two epistatic interaction pairs (rs2728121: rs1481012 and rs2728121: rs2231137) were associated with urate levels in 4914 Chinese individuals (Pint = 0.018 and 0.004, respectively). Using subgroup analysis for gender and BMI, we found the degree of associations was varied by gender and BMI. The SNP pair rs2728121:rs1481012 influenced urate levels in females and overweight subjects (Pint = 0.006 and 0.022, respectively), but rs2728121:rs2231137 did in males, overweight and normal-weight subjects (Pint = 0.017, 0.047 and 0.013, respectively). Consistent results were also observed in associations between these epistatic interactions with hyperuricemia. Next, the SNP pair rs2728121:rs2231137 was identified to influence the development of gout from both hyperuricemia and healthy (Pint = 0.035 and 0.001, respectively), especially in males (Pint = 0.030 and 0.001, respectively). Furthermore, we demonstrated that interacting regions were enriched by regulatory elements. Finally, we observed a strong gene co-expression pattern between PKD2 and ABCG2 (r = 0.743, P = 5.83E-06). Conclusion: Our findings indicate epistasis between PKD2 and ABCG2 influence serum urate concentrations, hyperuricemia and gout risk, thus providing insight into the pathogenesis of gout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic (As) is an omnipresent metalloid toxicant, which has elicited serious environmental pollution and health risky problems. Previous studies have uncovered that the As exposure could also cause markedly reduction of serum triglycerides in mice. However, the regulation mechanisms are still largely unknown. The present study is aimed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of lncRNAs in As-induced lipid metabolic disequilibrium. We demonstrated that lncRNA PU.1 AS was significantly induced in the liver of As-feed mice companied with lower serum triglycerides contents; further in vitro experiment confirmed that PU.1 AS regulated liver cells lipid accumulation by nile red fluorescence staining. Intensive mechanistic investigations illustrated that PU.1 AS could interact with EZH2 protein to regulate its downstream target gene expression, and As-induced PU.1 AS attenuated EZH2-supppressed Sirt6 expression, thereafter leading to a decreased SREBP-1c protein expression, as well as the diminished synthesis of triglycerides in hepatocytes. In conclusion, this study provided a new lncRNA-related regulatory signaling pathway participating in As-induced abnormal lipid metabolism. Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a two-stage transformerless multiple-output converter is proposed for applications requiring a high voltage step-down ratio. The proposed circuit transfers power via a current interface and the use of current-source-mode (CSM) converters, resulting in low voltage stress and drastically simplified control. The first stage of this configuration is regulated to provide a constant current to the second stage. The second stage consists of series-connected CSM boost converters. The high step-down ratio of the proposed configuration reduces the voltage stress in the switches of the second stage. The series-connected CSM converters are inherently independent of each other, leading to a very simple control scheme without the need for decoupling of the input voltage of the interconnected converters. Input voltage variation to the system will not affect the input voltage of the second stage. Load variation in one output will not affect the other outputs. If one or more CSM converters are shorted, there is no impact on other converters. These advantages enable a high scalability. Besides, the first stage of the proposed configuration can operate both in continuous conduction mode (CCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) with the same control strategy. This feature leads to a low control complexity and elimination of inductors. The performance of the proposed converter is illustrated with a laboratory prototype driving light emitting diodes (LEDs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallic double-ring metamaterial without splits in both of the rings was recently studied to show its negative refraction with magnetic resonance [Z.-G. Dong et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 064101 (2008)]. As a consequent work, systematic numerical results are presented in this paper to investigate the dependence of the magnetically resonant transmission on the structural parameters. The origin of the transmission band with magnetic resonance is shown rather explicitly with these numerical results. In addition, the optimized structure of the double-ring metamaterial is used to explore its terahertz response with all the sizes scaled down simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Tourmaline enhanced stover dark fermentation hydrogen production by 34.2%. • The optimal tourmaline process under Box-Behnken design is 407 °C, 910-mesh, 6.2 g. • Firmicutes and Bacteroidota became the dominant colonies in two stages. • The addition of tourmaline enhances the activity of Firmicutes. • Tourmaline enhanced mainly Sugar-production stage to enhance hydrogen production. This study investigated the influence of thermally modified tourmaline (Tur) on hydrogen production during the dark fermentation of corn stover. Single-factor experimental results revealed influencing factors of particle size, mass, and temperature. Optimization of the experimental process was achieved using the Box-Behnken design, reaching optimum at conditions of 407 °C, 910-mesh, and 6.2 g. The principle analysis experiment showed that the Tur-enhanced group (Tur_En) amplified cumulative hydrogen production by elevating hydrogen production during the sugar-production stage. The Tur_En group's cumulative hydrogen production was measured at 396.2 ± 40.3 (mL/g VS), marking a 34.2% increase compared to the control group. Analysis of microbial diversity indicated that Firmicutes and Bacteroidota emerged as dominant colonies in both stages. Tur facilitated hydrogen production by stimulating the activity of Firmicutes. This study suggests a highly effective Tur-enhanced technology for hydrogen production from corn stover and elucidates the principles underpinning this method from two stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a laser surface pre-treatment strategy was applied to aluminium 7075-T6 alloy, in which the laser power, speed and frequency were varied to determine the best modified surface property in terms of surface wettability. Surface texture, topography, roughness, contact angle and adhesive bonding strength of the treated surface were measured and characterised. Results showed that the laser-treated surface at a laser power of 30 W, speed of 1.2 m/s and frequency of 8 kHz provided the highest surface wettability by showing the lowest contact angle of 17°, which was attributed to the deeper surface cavities and higher surface roughness. The laser treatment increased the adhesion strength up to 8.5 MPa which was 45% higher than that of the untreated surface (of 5.9 MPa). Its adhesion strength nearly matched with that of the oxalic acid treatment. The laser-treated failed specimen shows predominantly adhesion–cohesion failure mode with a strong interfacial bonding. FTIR spectra confirmed the presence of required functional chemical groups of the adhesive after curing, demonstrating a strong bonding force and affinity between the adhesive and the modified surface. The findings clearly indicate that the laser surface pre-treatment would be a viable surface modification strategy without environmental and health hazard to provide adequate strength in the adhesively bonded joints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]