Search

【Objective】 Soil organic carbon (SOC) is not only an indicator of soil health but also plays a crucial role in feedback interaction between global warming and carbon stock in terrestrial ecosystems. Its dynamics is modulated by a multitude of interactive abiotic and biotic factors. In this paper, we analyze the spatial distribution of SOC in the plough layer and its correlation with soil texture and other geochemical properties in the region of Zhengzhou in Henan province. 【Method】 Soil samples were taken from a grid network in the region. SOC, bulk density, soil texture and other geochemical properties in each soil sample were measured. The correlation between SOC and soil nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients in the soil, was analyzed using the GeoChemStudio software. 【Result】 The calcareous skeletol soil in the region has the highest SOC, reaching 2.307%. The SOC content varied from 0.1%-11.6% across the region, and was normally distributed with a mean of 1.134%. The SOC was positively correlated with N, P2O5, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Mo and B, and their associated correlation coefficients were 0.804 5, 0.223 0, 0.156 3, 0.119 1, 0.223 8, 0.263 4, 0.162 8 and 0.191 1, respectively. Negative correlations were found between SOC and K2O and pH, and their associated correlation coefficients were -0.088 8 and -0.195 7, respectively. The average SOC content in the plough layer in the region was 1.09%. Spatially, SOC was rich in Xinmi, Dengfeng and Gongyi in the southwest of the region. In terms of soil texture, SOC is higher in skeletol soil and calcareous cinnamon soil than in other soils. SOC stored in the topsoil in the whole region was 1 012.87×104 t, with 523.13×104 t stored in the cinnamon soils and calcareous cinnamon soils, accounting for 51.64% of the total topsoil SOC in the region.

Selenium (Se) is a beneficial element for plant growth and development. In this study, three-year-old potted 'Qingcui' plums were treated with Na2SeO4 (Se6+) or selenomethionine (SeMet Se2-) to explore the effect of Se on the plant growth, fruit quality, and 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) metabolism. Flower and fruit numbers, fruit quality and yield, Se content, and 5-HTP metabolites and enzymes were detected. The results showed that the flower and fruit numbers, and yield were significantly increased by the Se application. There were no significant differences in the fruit diameters, fruit mass, edible part ratio, titratable acids, water content, and solid acid ratio among the treatments. The total soluble solids, soluble protein, and malondialdehyde contents under the Se6+ treatment showed no significant difference compared to the Se2- treatment, but they were significantly higher than these under control by 16.71%, 39.13%, and 36.27%, respectively. The Se application markedly increased plant the Se content, and Se contents in the roots and leaves, or the fruits were significantly larger by the Se6+ treatments than the Se2- treatment. The leaves' pigment contents under the Se2- treatments were significantly larger than those under the control or Se6+ treatment. Tryptophan was not significantly influenced, the 5-HTP and 5-methoxytryptophan contents were reduced in the roots, and increased in the leaves, and the serotonin content was only significantly increased in the roots by the Se treatments. The tryptophan hydroxylase and hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase levels were slightly influenced, and the tryptophan decarboxylase level in the roots or fruits was significantly increased by the Se treatments. The Se application had beneficial effects on the plant growth, fruit quality, and Se content, especially in the Se6+ treatment, and influenced the 5-HTP metabolism.

Infectious diseases seriously threaten the lives of children. Timely and accurate detection of pathogenic microorganisms and targeted medication are the keys to the diagnosing and treatment of infectious diseases in children. The next-generation metagenomic sequencing technology has attracted great attention in infectious diseases because of its characteristics such as no culture, high throughput, short detection cycle, wide coverage, and a good application prospect. In this paper, we review the studies of metagenomic next-generation sequencing in pediatric infectious diseases and analyze the challenges of its application in pediatric diseases.

In order to explore a scientific and effective fault complexity evaluation method, through analyzing the basic characteristic indicators of the fault, based on the fractal theory, selecting the fractal dimension value of the fault, the fault density value, the number of fault interchange points and the fault intensity index as the evaluation indicators, we use the idea of game theory to construct a combined weighting method of order relation analysis method and entropy weight method, and evaluate the complexity of faults in the north No.10 mining area of Jiangzhuang Coal Mine. The results are as follows: the simple and medium tectonic areas of the fault are mainly located in the west, south and north of the study area, and are distributed in a ring shape; the lower complex structural areas are mainly located in the south and north of the study area, distributed in strips and blocks; the complex structural areas are mainly located in the middle of the study area, and some are scattered in the south and north; the extremely complex structural areas are mainly distributed in the central part of the study area in large blocks.

To improve the segmentation accuracy and timeliness of raw cotton mixed impurity images, a new improved UNet model of raw cotton impurity segmentation algorithm was proposed. A new coding module was designed based on the ResNet50 structure, and one convolutional layer was used to replace the last three residual modules and the fully connected layer to implement optimization of the model parametric quantities and improve the extraction of image feature information. The loss function of CEloss and Dice loss was designed to optimize the imbalance between positive and negative samples and improve the segmentation ability of the model for fine impurities. Finally, the migration learning method was applied to pre-train the encoder for the initialization of the backbone network weights based on the VOC dataset to further optimize the slow convergence of the model due to the small amount of image data. The experimental validation shows that the MPA value of the method is improved by 24.52%, the accuracy rate reaches 88.24%, and the processing time of a single image is shortened to 21.9 ms, which is 49.42% higher than that of the traditional method. The improved method described is effective in improving the accuracy and timeliness of image segmentation of raw cotton impurities.

Fast and accurate prediction for mechanical parameters of rock mass is an important prerequisite for guiding the safe construction of rock engineering. At present, the rock strength parameters test requires well-prepared samples; sample preparation is time consuming, costly, and difficult as well as destructive, in particular the polishing and rectification of the sample ends. In this paper, the mathematical model of the drilling process is established based on the force characteristics of the drill bit and the principle of mechanical limit equilibrium. The digital drilling tests are carried out on four types of rocks to drilling characteristics using the digital drilling system. The concept of cutting strength ratio is proposed to analyze the correlation between cutting strength ratio and rock internal friction angle and cohesion. A new method is proposed for determining the compressive and tensile strength of rock. The results show that the cutting strength ratio increases with the increasing of internal friction angle and cohesion. The uniaxial compressive strength and tensile strength of rock increase linearly with the cutting strength ratio. The average error of rock tensile strength is 12.29%, and the average error of uniaxial compressive strength is 20.44%. The internal friction angle of rock obtained based on the digital drilling technology is consistent with the value measured by the laboratory standard test. This method can provide a new way to determine rock strength parameters in real time.

Pyroptosis is a type of inflammatory cell death that is triggered by the formation of pores on the cell membrane by gasdermin (GSDM) family proteins. This process activates inflammasomes and leads to the maturation and release of proinflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-18 (IL-18). Pyroptosis, a form of programmed cell death, has been found to be associated with various biomolecules such as caspases, granzymes, non-coding RNA (lncRNA), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3). These biomolecules have been shown to play a dual role in cancer by affecting cell proliferation, metastasis, and the tumor microenvironment (TME), resulting in both tumor promotion and anti-tumor effects. Recent studies have found that Oridonin (Ori) has anti-tumor effects by regulating pyroptosis through various pathways. Ori can inhibit pyroptosis by inhibiting caspase-1, which is responsible for activating pyroptosis of the canonical pathway. Additionally, Ori can inhibit pyroptosis by inhibiting NLRP3, which is responsible for activating pyroptosis of the noncanonical pathway. Interestingly, Ori can also activate pyroptosis by activating caspase-3 and caspase-8, which are responsible for activating pyroptosis of the emerging pathway; Ori has been found to be effective in inhibiting pyroptosis by blocking the action of perforin, which is responsible for facilitating the entry of granzyme into cells and activating pyroptosis. Additionally, Ori plays a crucial role in regulating pyroptosis by promoting the accumulation of ROS while inhibiting the ncRNA and NLRP3 pathways. It is worth noting that all of these pathways ultimately regulate pyroptosis by influencing the cleavage of GSDM, which is a key factor in the process. These studies concludes that Ori has extensive anti-cancer effects that are related to its potential regulatory function on pyroptosis. The paper summarizes several potential ways in which Ori participates in the regulation of pyroptosis, providing a reference for further study on the relationship between Ori, pyroptosis, and cancer.

State-of-the-art treatment of such orthopedic diseases as fracture and femoral head necrosis implies the installation of prosthesis or fixed equipment into patients’ injured parts using bone drilling. This study proposes an ultrasonic longitudinal torsion-assisted drilling (ULTAD) technique for biotic bone drilling. A comparative experiment was carried out between conventional drilling and ULTAD drilling in biotic bone, namely porcine femur. These tests proved that under the same drilling parameters, the ultrasonic component in bone drilling could reduce the drilling temperature and forces, improve the material removal by chip breaking, shorten the length of bone debris, and facilitate their discharge. Moreover, the proposed ULTAD technique reduced the number, length, and width of microcracks in the borehole wall, thus protecting the drilled biotic bone from internal damage.

In this article, the laser-assisted ultrasonic vibration dressing technique was applied to the cubic boron nitride (CBN) grinding wheel to study the effect of various process parameters (namely, laser power, dressing depth, feed rate, and grinding wheel speed) on the grinding force, surface quality, and morphological evolution of CBN abrasive particles. The results showed that abrasive particles’ morphology mainly undergoes micro-crushing, local crushing, large-area crushing, macro-crushing, and other morphological changes. The dressing force can be effectively reduced by controlling the dressing process parameters. Besides, grinding tests are performed on the grinding wheel after dressing to reveal specimens’ surface quality. Excellent grinding characteristics and grinding quality of the grinding wheel were obtained by the proposed technique with the optimized process parameters.

Abstract Recently, the gradient‐based neural architecture search has made remarkable progress with the characteristics of high efficiency and fast convergence. However, two common problems in the gradient‐based NAS algorithms are found. First, with the increase in the raining time, the NAS algorithm tends to skip‐connect operation, leading to performance degradation and instability results. Second, another problem is no reasonable allocation of computing resources on valuable candidate network models. The above two points lead to the difficulty in searching the optimal sub‐network and poor stability. To address them, the trick of pre‐training the super‐net is applied, so that each operation has an equal opportunity to develop its strength, which provides a fair competition condition for the convergence of the architecture parameters. In addition, a skip‐controller is proposed to ensure each sampled sub‐network with an appropriate number of skip‐connects. The experiments were performed on three mainstream datasets CIFAR‐10, CIFAR‐100 and ImageNet, in which the improved method achieves comparable results with higher accuracy and stronger robustness.

Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is different from classical tumor angiogenesis and does not depend on endothelial cells. VM is closely related to the prognosis of various cancers. Canstatin was first identified as an endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor. In the present study, the inhibitory effect of canstatin on VM formation was evaluated. Human glioblastoma cell lines U87 and U251 were letivirally transduced to overexpress canstatin gene or GFP as control. In vitro assays showed that canstatin overexpression reduced the tube formation of U87 and U251 cells in Matrigel. A xenograft glioma model was created by subcutaneous injection of lentivirally modified U87 cells into nude mice. The results of in vivo experiments showed that canstatin gene introduction inhibited the growth of glioma xenografts. In tumor xenografts overexpressing canstatin, U87-mediated formation of VM-like structures and VM-related VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) expression were remarkably reduced. Canstatin overexpression also decreased the phosphorylation of Akt and reduced the expression of Survivin in vitro. In addition, HIF-1α production and MMP-2 secretion were decreased by canstatin overexpression. Therefore, these results suggested a protective role of canstatin during VM-like structure formation of glioma probably via inhibiting signaling pathways inducing vasculogenic mimicry.

Humanity has experienced four major pandemics since the twentieth century, with the 1918 Spanish flu, the 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the 2009 swine flu, and the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemics having the most important impact in human health. The 1918 Spanish flu caused unprecedented catastrophes in the recorded human history, with an estimated death toll between 50 – 100 million. While the 2002 SARS and 2009 swine flu pandemics caused approximately 780 and 280,000 deaths, respectively, the current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in > 6 million deaths globally at the time of writing. COVID-19, instigated by the SARS – coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causes unprecedented challenges in all facets of our lives, and never before brought scientists of all fields together to focus on this singular topic. While for the past 50 years research have been heavily focused on viruses themselves, we now understand that the host immune responses are just as important in determining the pathogenesis and outcomes of infection. Research in innate immune mechanisms is crucial in understanding all aspects of host antiviral programmes and the mechanisms underpinning virus-host interactions, which can be translated to the development of effective therapeutic avenues. This review summarizes what is known and what remains to be explored in the innate immune responses to influenza viruses and SARS-CoVs, and virus-host interactions in driving disease pathogenesis. This hopefully will encourage discussions and research on the unanswered questions, new paradigms, and antiviral strategies against these emerging infectious pathogens before the next pandemic occurs.

Limited data about the effects of various factors on forage quality and β-carotene content of rye produced in Korea are available, so this study investigated the effects of two preservation methods. Samples were collected from rye harvested every 5 days between April 25 and May 31, and comparisons were done among rye silage wilted for different periods of time and hay of three growth stages of rye. For the silage, dry matter (DM), acid detergent fiber (ADF), and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) contents increased with advanced maturity of rye, whereas crude protein, in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), total digestible nutrients (TDN), relative feed value (RFV), and DM loss decreased (p < 0.0001). Wilting increased the DM content and pH value significantly (p < 0.0001). Silage harvested at the heading stage had the lowest pH value (4.45), propionic acid (0.83 g/kg DM), butyric acid (0 g/kg DM), and fungi and yeast populations (3.70 Log CFU/g of fresh matter [FM]); conversely, it had the highest lactic acid (9.7 g/kg DM), lactic acid bacteria (LAB) (6.87 Log CFU/g of FM), total microorganisms (TM) (7.33 Log CFU/g of FM), and Flieg’s score (70) (p < 0.0001). Wilting elevated LAB and TM populations, but it had no consistent effect on other fermentation products. Both delayed harvest and prolonged wilting decreased β-carotene content. Rye silage harvested around May 9 (heading stage) with 24 h of wilting was preferred for highland, Pyeongchang. For rye hay, advanced maturity decreased DM loss, IVDMD, TDN, and RFV, but it increased DM, ADF, and NDF significantly (p < 0.05). β-carotene was decreased by delay of hay-making. Consequently, to attain lower DM loss and higher hay quality, the harvest date of May 9 (heading stage) is recommended.

Objective This study was conducted to investigate the effects of wilting and microbial inoculant treatment on the fermentation pattern and quality of Italian ryegrass silage. Methods Italian ryegrass was harvested at heading stage and ensiled into vinyl bags (20 cm×30 cm) for 60d. Italian ryegrass was ensiled with 4 treatments (NWNA, no-wilting no-additive; NWA, no-wilting with additive; WNA, wilting no-additive; WA, wilting with additive) in 3 replications, wilting time was 5 hours and additives were treated with 106 cfu/g of Lactobacillus plantarum. The silages samples were collected at 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, and 60 days after ensiling and analyzed for the ensiling quality and characteristics of fermentation patterns. Results Wilting treatment resulted in lower crude protein and in vitro dry matter digestibility and there were no significant differences in acid detergent fiber (ADF), total digestible nutrient (TDN), water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC), ammonia content, and pH (p>0.05). However, wilting treatment resulted in higher ADF and neutral detergent fiber content of Italian ryegrass silage (p

The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is the sole mediator of nucleocytoplasmic transport. Despite great advances in understanding its conserved core architecture, the peripheral regions can exhibit considerable variation within and between species. One such structure is the cage-like nuclear basket. Despite its crucial roles in mRNA surveillance and chromatin organization, an architectural understanding has remained elusive. Using in-cell cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram analysis, we explored the NPC's structural variations and the nuclear basket across fungi (yeast; S. cerevisiae), mammals (mouse; M. musculus), and protozoa (T. gondii). Using integrative structural modeling, we computed a model of the basket in yeast and mammals that revealed how a hub of nucleoporins (Nups) in the nuclear ring binds to basket-forming Mlp/Tpr proteins: the coiled-coil domains of Mlp/Tpr form the struts of the basket, while their unstructured termini constitute the basket distal densities, which potentially serve as a docking site for mRNA preprocessing before nucleocytoplasmic transport.

The main reservoir in Huizhou sub-basin is Zhujiang Formation of early Miocene age. The petrophysical analysis shows that the Zhujiang Formation contains thin carbonate intervals, which have good hydrocarbon potential. However, the accurate interpretation of thin carbonate intervals is always challenging as conventional seismic interpretation techniques do not provide much success in such cases. In this study, well logs, three-layer forward amplitude versus offset (AVO) model and the wedge model are integrated to analyze the effect of tuning thickness on AVO responses. It is observed that zones having a thickness greater than or equal to 15 m can be delineated with seismic data having a dominant frequency of more than 45 Hz. The results are also successfully verified by analyzing AVO attributes, i.e., intercept and gradient. The study will be helpful to enhance the characterization of thin reservoir intervals and minimize the risk of exploration in the Huizhou sub-basin, China.

Taking a 2T3R 5-DOF 4-SPRR-SPR parallel mechanism with rotating axis as the moving platform as the research object, the degree of freedom of the 4-SPRR-SPR parallel mechanism is analyzed by the screw theory, the inverse kinematics equation of the parallel mechanism is established by the vector method, the constraint of the pair of motion is analyzed in detail, and the workspace of the mechanism is obtained by the three-dimensional boundary search method. The results show that the workspace of the mechanism has the advantages of symmetry, no holes in the interior, regular cross-section shape, etc. At the same time, taking the workspace volume as the optimization objective, the influence curves of the constraints of the motion pair and the workspace volume are obtained, and the maximum factors affecting the workspace are obtained, it is the movement range of branch chain moving pair. The mechanism has good application prospects in cutting and grinding parts of complex space surface.

Human cystic echinococcosis is a zoonosis caused by the larval cestode Echinococcus granulosus. Clear cell renal carcinoma is the most common pathological type of renal cell carcinoma. Echinococcosis complicated with carcinoma is rarely reported. Here, we reported a female patient with echinococcal cyst of the liver accompanied with clear cell renal carcinoma. This 27-year-old woman was admitted for abdominal pain. The serological testing of hydatid cyst was positive and levels of tumor markers were within the normal range. The computed tomography and histological findings confirmed hepatic echinococcal cyst complicated with renal carcinoma of kidney. Preoperative liver function was grade A. The patient underwent pericystectomy of liver hydatid cyst and partial nephrectomy. No recurrence was found at 1 year of follow-up. Liver hydatid complicated with renal cell carcinoma is rare, which should be differentiated from liver metastasis of renal cancer. Surgical resection is the optimal treatment. This case may provide insight for the diagnosis and research on the co-occurrence of tumor and hydatid cyst.

Subject and purpose. Recently, there has been an interest in the use of non-equidistant active phased antenna arrays (AA) in airborne radars to facilitate the aerodynamics of the thermal regimes of their operation. Non-equidistant linear AAs reduce the number of antenna elements without noticeable loss of resolution (accuracy) and at the same time maintain a low level of side lobes. Almost all large antennas of radio telescopes and long-range radars are grids with non-equidistant arrangement of elements and with an unfilled aperture. The aim of this work is to develop new and non-traditional methods for constructing nonequidistant antenna arrays using Latin squares and cyclic difference sets. Results. The possibility of synthesizing large AAs based on the composition of squares using cyclic difference sets (CDS) for the formation of elements of Latin squares is shown. A method for their construction and a synthesis algorithm are proposed. The properties of this type of antenna arrays, which provide a sufficiently low side radiation at a high degree of rarefaction, are studied. The features and main characteristics of such antennas are investigated. Methods and methodology. The algorithm for calculating the coordinates of the antenna arrays using the values of the elements of Latin squares in this case is the same as in the construction of a lattice based on magic squares. It is based on the use of the value of the element of the generating matrix (the formed square) as the basis of the interferometer formed by the neighboring elements. The directivity patterns of the AAs were studied and the side lobe levels of the resulting non-equidistant antennas were estimated. Conclusions are made about the novelty of the proposed concept of constructing non-equidistant antenna arrays on the basis of Latin squares accepting the CDS as elements and its advantages in comparison with known methods. The possibility of synthesizing large antenna arrays on the basis of the composition of squares using the CDS for forming elements of Latin squares with small filling and redundancy coefficients and permissible values of lateral radiation is shown. In terms of characteristics, they are better than non-equidistant two-dimensional lattices, used up to the present time, constructed only on the basis of cyclic difference sets. The characteristics of the obtained lattices are studied. It is shown that the use of the Latin square, using the CDS as elements in the synthesized matrix, significantly improves its characteristics, and also provides a more flexible variation of the design parameters(v, k, l).

The timely and accurate diagnosis of ascites is of great significance for early treatment and prognostication. This study explored the value of soluble myeloid triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cell 1 (sTREM-1) and C-reactive protein (CRP) for assessing ascites. A total of 133 patients with ascites who received treatment at the Affiliated Hospital of Taishan Medical University between September 2015 and September 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. The ascites in 22, 45, 33 and 33 patients were tuberculous, bacterial, tumorous, and transudative, respectively. Healthy volunteers (n=30) who received a health examination at the same hospital during the same period constituted the control group. Before treatment, both ascitic sTREM-1 and CRP showed significant differences among the ascites subgroups (P