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ABSTRACT With the development and reduced costs of high-throughput sequencing technology, environmental dark matter, such as novel metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) and viruses, is now being discovered easily. However, due to read length limitations, MAGs and viromes often suffer from genome discontinuity and deficiencies in key functional elements. Here, by applying long-read sequencing technology to sediment samples from a Tibetan saline lake, we comprehensively analyzed the performance of high-fidelity (HiFi) reads and the possibility of integration with short-read next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. In total, 207 full-length nonredundant 16S rRNA gene sequences and 19 full-length nonredundant 18S rRNA genes were directly obtained from HiFi reads, which greatly surpassed the retrieval performance of NGS technology. We carried out a cross-sectional comparison among multiple assembly strategies, referred to as ‘NGS’, ‘Hybrid (NGS+HiFi)’, and ‘HiFi’. Two MAGs and 29 viruses with circular genomes were reconstructed using HiFi reads alone, indicating the great power of the ‘HiFi’ approach to assemble high-quality microbial genomes. Among the 3 strategies, the ‘Hybrid’ approach produced the highest number of medium/high-quality MAGs and viral genomes, while the ratio of MAGs containing 16S rRNA genes was significantly improved in the ‘HiFi’ assembly results. Overall, our study provides a practical metagenomic resolution for analyzing complex environmental samples by taking advantage of both the short-read and HiFi long-read sequencing methods to extract the maximum amount of information, including data on prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses, via the ‘Hybrid’ approach. IMPORTANCE To expand the understanding of microbial dark matter in the environment, we did the first comparative evaluation of multiple assembly strategies based on high-throughput short-read and HiFi data from lake sediments metagenomic sequencing. The results demonstrated great improvement of the ‘Hybrid’ assembly method (short-read next-generation sequencing data plus HiFi data) in the recovery of medium/high-quality MAGs and viral genomes. Further analysis showed that HiFi data is important to retrieve the complete circular prokaryotic and viral genomes. Meanwhile, hundreds of full-length 16S/18S rRNA genes were assembled directly from HiFi data, which facilitated the species composition studies of complex environmental samples, especially for understanding micro-eukaryotes. Therefore, the application of the latest HiFi long-read sequencing could greatly improve the metagenomic assembly integrity and promote environmental microbiome research.

The coal mine underground gangue discharge and gob filling technology is an effective way to realize green mining.The control system of mechanical moving sieve jig is the core equipment of the underground coal preparation system, and the performance is critical to improve the efficiency of separation.As the features of control system are nonlinear time-varying uncertainties and pure lag, the fuzzy logic control is designed for jig control system to fuzzy controlling speed of discharging motor.Industrial test was carried out in Tangshan coal mine, and three type of inputs were tested to obtain relationship between the amount of coal gangue in movable sieve and the motor frequency.The experiment results showed that the fuzzy logic control was found to be more efficient for stabilizing the gangue layer than other control system, which could avoid the destruction of gangue layer structure and improve the efficiency of coal and gangue sorting, which can achieve the ideal effect of gangue discharge.

Because the thin coal seam working face is narrow and complicated, a compact crawler robot with four rockers is designed, which has high capability of obstacle-crossing. According to the robot centroid position, the obstacle-crossing maximum heights of the robot with rockers and the robot without rockers are both optimized. The obstacle-crossing maximum height of the robot with rockers is 232.91 mm, which can meet the design requirements. The obstacle-crossing processes are virtually simulated in ADAMS, and the change rule of the drive motor output torque is analyzed for reasonable motor selection. Finally, the experimental walking mechanism prototype is tested for obstacle-crossing. The results have shown that this structure robot has high obstacle-crossing capability and high adaptability, which can meet the special requirements of the thin coal seam working face.

Objectives: Elevated thioredoxin‐interacting protein (TXNIP)‐induced pyroptosis contributes to the pathology of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). However, the molecular mechanisms in dysregulated TXNIP in DKD remain largely unclear. Materials and methods: Transcriptomic analysis identified a novel long noncoding RNA—Prader Willi/Angelman region RNA, SNRPN neighbour (PWARSN)—which was highly expressed in a proximal tubular epithelial cell (PTEC) under high glucose conditions. We focused on revealing the functions of PWARSN in regulating TXNIP‐mediated pyroptosis in PTECs by targeting PWARSN expression via lentivirus‐mediated overexpression and CRISPR‐Cas9‐based knockout in vitro and overexpressing PWARSN in the renal cortex by AAV‐9 targeted injection in vivo. A number of molecular techniques disclosed the mechanisms of PWARSN in regulating TXNIP induced‐pyroptosis in DKD. Results: TXNIP‐NOD‐like receptor thermal protein domain associated protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome and PTEC pyroptosis were activated in the renal tubules of patients with DKD and in diabetic mice. Then we explored that PWARSN enhanced TXNIP‐driven PTECs pyroptosis in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, cytoplasmic PWARSN sponged miR‐372‐3p to promote TXNIP expression. Moreover, nuclear PWARSN interacted and facilitated RNA binding motif protein X‐linked (RBMX) degradation through ubiquitination, resulting in the initiation of TXNIP transcription by reducing H3K9me3‐enrichment at the TXNIP promoter. Further analysis indicated that PWARSN might be a potential biomarker for DKD. Conclusions: These findings illustrate distinct dual molecular mechanisms for PWARSN‐modulated TXNIP and PTECs pyroptosis in DKD, presenting PWARSN as a promising therapeutic target for DKD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Wen-Liang Yu (1), Zhu-Jin Lu (1), Ying Wang (2), Li-Ping Shi (3), Feng-Wu Kuang (4), Su-Yun Qian (5), Qi-Yi Zeng (6), Min-Hui Xie (7), Guo-Ying Zhang (8), De-Yi Zhuang (9), Xun-Mei Fan (5), Bo Sun (1) Keywords: Acute respiratory distress syndrome; Epidemiology; Intensive care; Mortality; Respiratory therapy Abstract: Objective To assess the incidence of, predisposing factors for, and the rates and relative risks of mortality from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in pediatric patients. Design A prospective study in 12 consecutive months from 2004 to 2005 in 25 pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). Patients and setting ARDS was diagnosed according to the 1994 American--European Consensus Conference definitions, applied to all severely ill admissions between 1 month and 14 years of age. The PICUs were in major municipalities and provincial cities, and half were university affiliated. Measurements and results From a total of 12,018 admissions, 7,269 were severely ill. One hundred and five (1.44%) patients developed ARDS and 64 (61.0%) died, which accounts for 13.2%, of the total ICU death (n = 485, 6.7%) or a nine times relative risk of dying. The median age at onset of ARDS was 24 months and 40% were less than 12 month old. Median time from PICU admission to the onset of ARDS was 16 h, and in 63% Conclusions ARDS has a high mortality in these Chinese PICUs, especially in those with pneumonia and sepsis, and adequate management including lung protective ventilation strategy is required. Author Affiliation: (1) Children's Hospital of Fudan University, 183 Feng Lin Road, 200032, Shanghai, People's Republic of China (2) Shanghai Children's Medical Center of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China (3) Children's Hospital of Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China (4) Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People's Republic of China (5) Beijing Children's Hospital of Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China (6) Guangzhou Children's Hospital, Guangdong, People's Republic of China (7) Children's Hospital of Suzhou University, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China (8) Chengdu Children's Hospital, Sichuan, People's Republic of China (9) Quanzhou Children's Hospital, Fujian, People's Republic of China Article History: Registration Date: 26/08/2008 Received Date: 20/07/2006 Accepted Date: 29/04/2008 Online Date: 30/09/2008 Article note: Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s00134-008-1254-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.