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Abstract The emitter-cavity strong coupling manifests crucial significance for exploiting quantum technology, especially in the scale of individual emitters. However, due to the small light-matter interaction cross-section, the single emitter-cavity strong coupling has been limited by its harsh requirement on the quality factor of the cavity and the local density of optical states. Herein, we present a strategy termed waveguide-assisted energy quantum transfer (WEQT) to improve the single emitter-cavity coupling strength by extending the interaction cross-section. Multiple ancillary emitters are optically linked by a waveguide, providing an indirect coupling channel to transfer the energy quantum between target emitter and cavity. An enhancement factor of coupling strength $$\widetilde{g}/g > 10$$ g ̃ / g > 10 can be easily achieved, which dramatically release the rigorous design of cavity. As an extension of concept, we further show that the ancillae can be used as controlling bits for a photon gate, opening up new degrees of freedom in quantum manipulation.

Sepsis progression is significantly associated with the disruption of gut eubiosis. However, the modulatory mechanisms of gut microbiota operating during sepsis are still unclear. Herein, we investigated how gut commensals impact sepsis development in a pre-clinical model. Cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) surgery was used to establish polymicrobial sepsis in mice. Mice depleted of gut microbiota by an antibiotic cocktail (ABX) exhibited a significantly higher level of mortality than controls. As determined by metabolomics analysis, ABX treatment has depleted many metabolites, and subsequent supplementation with l-rhamnose (rhamnose, Rha), a bacterial carbohydrate metabolite, exerted profound immunomodulatory properties with a significant enhancement in macrophage phagocytosis, which in turn improved organ damage and mortality. Mechanistically, rhamnose binds directly to and activates the solute carrier family 12 (potassium-chloride symporter), member 4 (SLC12A4) in macrophages and promotes phagocytosis by activating the small G-proteins, Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate1 (Rac1) and cell division control protein 42 homolog (Cdc42). Interestingly, rhamnose has enhanced the phagocytosis capacity of macrophages from sepsis patients. In conclusion, by identifying SLC12A4 as the host interacting protein, we disclosed that the gut commensal metabolite rhamnose is a functional molecular that could promote the phagocytosis capacity of macrophages and protect the host against sepsis.

This study reports the preparation of medium-thickness aluminum/steel composite plates with different diffusion layers using rheological cast-rolling technology. The thermodynamic software and first-principles were employed to determine the effects of different silicon contents on the solidification process and mechanical properties of the 6061 aluminum/steel composite plates. The research revealed that the Fe2Al5 phase on the steel side possessed a tongue-like preferential growth at a silicon content of less than 1.2 wt%. A granular Al–Fe–Si phase was formed on the aluminum side of the diffusion layer when the silicon content exceeded the saturation solubility (1.8 wt%), which completely suppressed the tongue-like preferential growth of the Fe2Al5 phase. First-principles calculations revealed that the matrixes showed superior toughness in comparison to binary intermetallic compounds (IMCs), while the toughness of binary IMCs surpassed that of ternary IMCs. The mechanical properties showed that the shear strength of the sample prepared by rheological cast-rolling was higher than that of composite casting and close to that of composite rolling, reaching a maximum value of 73.4 MPa. The shear strength initially increased and then decreased with an increase in isothermal diffusion time, and the fracture location was transferred from the loose FeAl3 to the Fe2Al5 phase. An increase in silicon content resulted in a slight increase in the microhardness of the diffusion layer, a delay of the peak value of the shear strength, and a reduction in the gradient of the shear strength. A substantial decrease in peak shear strength was observed when the silicon content reached 1.8 wt%.

Abstract Background Carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli (CREC) has been considered as WHO priority pathogens, causing a great public health concern globally. While CREC from patients has been thoroughly investigated, the prevalence and underlying risks of CREC in healthy populations have been overlooked. Systematic research on the prevalence of CREC in healthy individuals was conducted here. We aimed to characterize CREC collected from healthy populations in China between 2020 and 2022 and to compare the genomes of CREC isolates isolated from healthy individuals and clinical patients. Methods We present a nationwide investigation of CREC isolates among healthy populations in China, employing robust molecular and genomic analyses. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, whole-genome sequencing, and bioinformatics were utilized to analyze a cohort of CREC isolates (n = 113) obtained from fecal samples of 5 064 healthy individuals. Representative plasmids were extracted for third-generation nanopore sequencing. We previously collected 113 non-duplicate CREC isolates (59 in 2018, 54 in 2020) collected from ICU patients in 15 provinces and municipalities in China, and these clinical isolates were used to compare with the isolates in this study. Furthermore, we employ comparative genomics approaches to elucidate molecular variations and potential correlations between clinical and non-clinical CREC isolates. Results A total of 147 CREC isolates were identified from 5 064 samples collected across 11 provinces in China. These isolates were classified into 64 known sequence types (STs), but no dominant STs were observed. In total, seven carbapenemase genes were detected with bla NDM-5 (n = 116) being the most prevalent one. Genetic environments and plasmid backbones of bla NDM were conserved in CREC isolated from healthy individuals. Furthermore, we compared clinical and healthy human-originated CRECs, revealing noteworthy distinctions in 23 resistance genes, including bla NDM-1, bla NDM-5, and bla KPC (χ 2 test, p

ABSTRACT Clostridium perfringens has emerged as a growing public health concern due to its ability to cause various infections and its increasing resistance to antibiotics. To assess its current epidemiology in clinical settings, we conducted a survey involving 426 healthy individuals and 273 ICU inpatients at a provincial hospital in China. Our findings revealed a high prevalence of C. perfringens in healthy individuals (45.77%, 95% CI: 41.0%–50.6%) and ICU patients (12.82%, 95% CI: 9.1%–17.4%). The identified 220 C. perfringens isolates displayed substantial resistance to erythromycin (57.9%), clindamycin (50.7%), and tetracycline (32.0%), primarily attributed to the presence of erm(Q) (54.4%), lnu(P) (13.8%), tetB(P) (83.6%), and tetA(P) (66.7%). Notably, C. perfringens isolates from this particular hospital demonstrated a high degree of sequence type diversity and phylogenic variation, suggesting that the potential risk of infection primarily arises from the bacteria’s gut colonization rather than clonal transmissions within the clinical environment. This study provides an updated analysis of the current epidemiology of C. perfringens in healthy individuals and ICU patients in China and emphasizes the need to optimize intervention strategies against its public health threat.IMPORTANCEClostridium perfringens is a bacterium of growing public health concern due to its ability to cause infections and its increasing resistance to antibiotics. Understanding its epidemiology in clinical settings is essential for intervention strategies. This study surveyed healthy individuals and ICU inpatients in a provincial hospital in China. It found a high prevalence of C. perfringens, indicating infection risk. The isolates also showed significant antibiotic resistance. Importantly, the study revealed diverse sequence types and phylogenetic variation, suggesting infection risk from intestinal colonization rather than clonal transmission in hospitals. This analysis emphasizes the need to optimize intervention strategies against this public health threat.

ABSTRACT This study aimed to characterize the composition of intestinal and nasal microbiota in septic patients and identify potential microbial biomarkers for diagnosis. A total of 157 subjects, including 89 with sepsis, were enrolled from the affiliated hospital. Nasal swabs and fecal specimens were collected from septic and non-septic patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) and Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. DNA was extracted, and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced using Illumina technology. Bioinformatics analysis, statistical processing, and machine learning techniques were employed to differentiate between septic and non-septic patients. The nasal microbiota of septic patients exhibited significantly lower community richness (P = 0.002) and distinct compositions (P = 0.001) compared to non-septic patients. Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus, Acinetobacter, and Pseudomonas were identified as enriched genera in the nasal microbiota of septic patients. The constructed machine learning model achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 89.08, indicating its efficacy in differentiating septic and non-septic patients. Importantly, model validation demonstrated the effectiveness of the nasal microecological diagnosis prediction model with an AUC of 84.79, while the gut microecological diagnosis prediction model had poor predictive performance (AUC = 49.24). The nasal microbiota of ICU patients effectively distinguishes sepsis from non-septic cases and outperforms the gut microbiota. These findings have implications for the development of diagnostic strategies and advancements in critical care medicine.IMPORTANCEThe important clinical significance of this study is that it compared the intestinal and nasal microbiota of sepsis with non-sepsis patients and determined that the nasal microbiota is more effective than the intestinal microbiota in distinguishing patients with sepsis from those without sepsis, based on the difference in the lines of nasal specimens collected.

Background: Stroke often damages the basal ganglia, leading to atypical and transient aphasia, indicating that post-stroke basal ganglia aphasia (PSBGA) may be related to different anatomical structural damage and functional remodeling rehabilitation mechanisms. The basal ganglia contain dense white matter tracts (WMTs). Hence, damage to the functional tract may be an essential anatomical structural basis for the development of PSBGA. Methods: We first analyzed the clinical characteristics of PSBGA in 28 patients and 15 healthy controls (HCs) using the Western Aphasia Battery and neuropsychological test batteries. Moreover, we investigated white matter injury during the acute stage using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scans for differential tractography. Finally, we used multiple regression models in correlation tractography to analyze the relationship between various language functions and quantitative anisotropy (QA) of WMTs. Results: Compared with HCs, patients with PSBGA showed lower scores for fluency, comprehension (auditory word recognition and sequential commands), naming (object naming and word fluency), reading comprehension of sentences, Mini-Mental State Examination, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment, along with increased scores in Hamilton Anxiety Scale-17 and Hamilton Depression Scale-17 within 7 days after stroke onset (P < 0.05). Differential tractography revealed that patients with PSBGA had damaged fibers, including in the body fibers of the corpus callosum, left cingulum bundles, left parietal aslant tracts, bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus II, bilateral thalamic radiation tracts, left fornix, corpus callosum tapetum, and forceps major, compared with HCs (FDR < 0.02). Correlation tractography highlighted that better comprehension was correlated with a higher QA of the left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), corpus callosum forceps minor, and left extreme capsule (FDR < 0.0083). Naming was positively associated with the QA of the left IFOF, forceps minor, left arcuate fasciculus, and uncinate fasciculus (UF) (FDR < 0.0083). Word fluency of naming was also positively associated with the QA of the forceps minor, left IFOF, and thalamic radiation tracts (FDR < 0.0083). Furthermore, reading was positively correlated with the QA of the forceps minor, left IFOF, and UF (FDR < 0.0083). Conclusion: PSBGA is primarily characterized by significantly impaired word fluency of naming and preserved repetition abilities, as well as emotional and cognitive dysfunction. Damaged limbic pathways, dorsally located tracts in the left hemisphere, and left basal ganglia pathways are involved in PSBGA pathogenesis. The results of connectometry analysis further refine the current functional localization model of higher-order neural networks associated with language functions.

As the deep coal mining tends to be “normal”, it is of great significance to understand the mechanical properties and damage evolution of coal under high ground stress and high ground temperature environment in deep coal mining. The coal body of the Ji16-17-31030 working face in the Pingmei 12th Coal Mine was selected as the research object. The triaxial cyclic loading and unloading tests on the coal samples were carried out under different temperature conditions to examine the impact of temperature on their fundamental mechanical parameters, including peak strength, deformation modulus, and Poisson’s ratio. The stress-strain problems associated with different loading and unloading rates were reformulated into time-stress-strain problems, and a fractional viscoelastic-plastic constitutive equation considering the coupling effect of thermal and force was proposed by introducing the fractional derivative theory and the continuum damage theory. The results show that the deformation modulus of coal decreases linearly with the increase of cycle times, while the Poisson ratio of coal shows a deceleration increase, reaches the extreme value at the peak stress, and then decreases, indicating that the cyclic loading and unloading has a deterioration effect on the basic mechanical properties of the coal. With the increase of temperature, the peak strength of coal decreases nonlinearly, the damage accumulation slows down, and the corresponding strain increases gradually, which indicates that heating could enhance the ductile deformation ability of coal and accelerate the development of coal damage. In the process of cyclic loading and unloading, the input energy density, elastic energy density and dissipated energy density decay obviously decay with the increase of temperature in the stage of coal failure and instability, indicating that high temperature intensifies the damage inside the coal, reduces the coal strength, and reduces the external input energy required for failure. The fractional viscoelastic-plastic model considering the effect of temperature can better describe the mechanical behavior of deep coal body under cyclic loading and unloading conditions. The model is suitable for the complex stress state of deep coal body under a thermal-mechanical coupling, and provides an important reference for the research on the deformation and stability of deep coal body.

In this work, we systematically investigated the effect of carbon additions on the microstructure and room temperature mechanical properties of hot-forged Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEA. The different carbon contents were introduced to Fe50-xMn30Co10Cr10Cx (x = 1, 2.5, 6 at.%, hereinafter, referred as C1, C2.5 and C6, respectively) HEAs to enhance the strength-ductility synergy by triggering the multiple strengthening mechanisms. The results showed that the grain sizes were decreased with increasing of carbon content, while a high fraction of mechanical twins ∼45% were generated in C2.5 HEA, and their fractions were ∼35% in C1 and C6 HEAs. Moreover, the discrete nano-sized M23C6 carbides in C2.5 HEA were transformed into continuous mico-sized M23C6 carbides along the grain boundaries in C6 HEA. Therefore, C2.5 HEA possessed high yield strength of 584 MPa, tensile strength of 1.03 GPa and outstanding ductility of 68%, i-e., breaking the strength-ductility paradox. A highest yield strength of∼662 MPa and tensile strength of more than 1 GPa were observed for C6HEA with refine grains, although the ductility was only ∼10%, which indicated that the massive carbon addition could effectively enhanced the strength of HEA but at the cost of ductility due to the presence of coarse M23C6 carbide precipitation. The enhanced mechanical properties of studied HEAs are mainly ascribed to the contribution of multiple strengthening mechanisms including precipitation, grain boundary, dislocation and interstitial solid solution strengthening.

Introduction: Metastasis is an important cause of high mortality and lethality of oral cancer. Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn) can promote tumour metastasis. Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are secreted by Fn. However, the effects of Fn-derived extracellular vesicles on oral cancer metastasis and the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Objectives: We aimed to determine whether and how Fn OMVs mediate oral cancer metastasis. Methods: OMVs were isolated from brain heart infusion (BHI) broth supernatant of Fn by ultracentrifugation. Tumour-bearing mice were treated with Fn OMVs to evaluate the effect of OMVs on cancer metastasis. Transwell assays were performed to determine how Fn OMVs affect cancer cell migration and invasion. The differentially expressed genes in Fn OMV-treated/untreated cancer cells were identified by RNA-seq. Transmission electron microscopy, laser confocal microscopy, and lentiviral transduction were used to detect changes in autophagic flux in cancer cells stimulated with Fn OMVs. Western blotting assay was performed to determine changes in EMT-related marker protein levels in cancer cells. Fn OMVs’ effects on migration after blocking autophagic flux by autophagy inhibitors were determined by in vitro and in vivo experiments. Results: Fn OMVs were structurally similar to vesicles. In the in vivo experiment, Fn OMVs promoted lung metastasis in tumour-bearing mice, while chloroquine (CHQ, an autophagy inhibitor) treatment reduced the number of pulmonary metastases resulting from the intratumoral Fn OMV injection. Fn OMVs promoted the migration and invasion of cancer cells in vivo, leading to altered expression levels of EMT-related proteins (E-cadherin downregulation; Vimentin/N-cadherin upregulation). RNA-seq showed that Fn OMVs activate intracellular autophagy pathways. Blocking autophagic flux with CHQ reduced in vitro and in vivo migration of cancer cells induced by Fn OMVs as well as reversed changes in EMT-related protein expression. Conclusion: Fn OMVs not only induced cancer metastasis but also activated autophagic flux. Blocking autophagic flux weakened Fn OMV-stimulated cancer metastasis.

Engineers used TCAD tools for semiconductor devices modeling. However, it is computationally expensive and time-consuming for advanced devices with smaller dimensions. Therefore, this work proposes a machine learning-based device modeling algorithm to capture the complex nonlinear relationship between parameters and electrical characteristics of gate-all-around (GAA) nanowire field-effect transistors (NWFETs) from technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation results. This method utilizes a densely connected deep neural networks (DenseDNN), which establishes direct connections between layers in the neural networks, provides stronger feature extraction and information transmission capabilities. By incorporating cost-sensitive learning methods, the proposed model focus more on the critical data that determines device characteristics, leading to accurate prediction of key device characteristics under various parameters. Experimental results on a test dataset of 116 NWFETs demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. The DenseDNN model with cost-sensitive learning exhibits better performance than traditional deep neural networks (DNN) with various widths and depths, with a prediction error below 1.62%. Moreover, compared to TCAD simulation results, the model can speedup $10^{6}\times$ .

Understanding the variations in microscopic pore-fracture structures (MPFS) during coal creep under pore pressure and stress coupling is crucial for coal mining and effective gas treatment. In this manuscript, a triaxial creep test on deep coal at various pore pressures using a test system that combines in-situ mechanical loading with real-time nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) detection was conducted. Full-scale quantitative characterization, online real-time detection, and visualization of MPFS during coal creep influenced by pore pressure and stress coupling were performed using NMR and NMR imaging (NMRI) techniques. The results revealed that seepage pores and microfractures (SPM) undergo the most significant changes during coal creep, with creep failure gradually expanding from dense primary pore fractures. Pore pressure presence promotes MPFS development primarily by inhibiting SPM compression and encouraging adsorption pores (AP) to evolve into SPM. Coal enters the accelerated creep stage earlier at lower stress levels, resulting in more pronounced creep deformation. The connection between the micro and macro values was established, demonstrating that increased porosity at different pore pressures leads to a negative exponential decay of the viscosity coefficient. The Newton dashpot in the ideal viscoplastic body and the Burgers model was improved using NMR experimental results, and a creep model that considers pore pressure and stress coupling using variable-order fractional operators was developed. The model’s reasonableness was confirmed using creep experimental data. The damage-state adjustment factors ω and β were identified through a parameter sensitivity analysis to characterize the effect of pore pressure and stress coupling on the creep damage characteristics (size and degree of difficulty) of coal.

Abstract The widespread occurrence of carbapenem-resistant organisms has garnered significant public attention. Arthropods, including flies, are important vectors of multidrug-resistant bacteria. In this study, we reported the simultaneous carriage of four carbapenem-resistant isolates from different species, namely, Escherichia coli (E. coli), Providencia manganoxydans (P. manganoxydan), Myroides odoratimimus (M. odoratimimus) and Proteus mirabilis (P. mirabilis), from a single fly in China. These isolates were characterized through antimicrobial susceptibility testing, conjugation assays, whole-genome sequencing, and bioinformatics analysis. M. odoratimimus showed intrinsic resistance to carbapenems. The mechanisms of carbapenem resistance in E. coli, P. manganoxydans, and P. mirabilis were due to the production of NDM-5, NDM-1 and NDM-1, respectively. Genetic context of the bla NDM genes in these three isolates varied. The bla NDM-5 gene in E. coli was located on an IncHI2/HI2A multidrug-resistant plasmid, which was conjugatively transferable. The bla NDM-1 gene in P. mirabilis resided on the pPM14-NDM_123k-like nonconjugative plasmid. The bla NDM-1 gene in P. manganoxydans was found in a nonconjugatively transferable, multidrug-resistant region. The results of this study enhance our understanding of the dissemination of carbapenem-resistant organisms and suggest the need for a more comprehensive approach to antibiotic resistance research encompassing humans, animals, and the environment.

Background Oral microbes mediate the production of nitric oxide (NO) through the denitrification pathway. This study aimed to investigate the association between oral microbial nitrate metabolism and prognosis in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients.Methods This prospective, observational, single-center cohort study included 124 AIS patients admitted within 24 hours of symptom onset, with 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure data. Oral swabs were collected within 24 hours. Hypertensive AIS patients were stratified by the coefficient of variation (CV) of 24-hour systolic blood pressure. Microbial composition was analyzed using LEfSe and PICRUSt2 for bacterial and functional pathway identification.Results Significant differences in oral microbiota composition were observed between hypertensive AIS patients with varying CVs. Lower CV groups showed enrichment of nitrate-reducing bacteria and “Denitrification, nitrate => nitrogen” pathways. The TAX score of oral nitrate-reducing bacteria, derived from LASSO modeling, independently correlated with 90-day modified Rankin Scale scores, serving as an independent risk factor for poor prognosis. Mediation analyses suggested indirect that the TAX score not only directly influences outcomes but also indirectly affects them by modulating 24-hour systolic blood pressure CV.Conclusions AIS patients with comorbid hypertension and higher systolic blood pressure CV exhibited reduced oral nitrate-reducing bacteria, potentially worsening outcomes.

In recent decades, the tree killing pine wilt disease (PWD) has been spreading globally and has caused substantial damage, particularly in China, resulting in annual losses of nearly $15 billion. This disease is caused by the pine wood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus) and is transmitted by its vector insect (Monochamus spp.). However, there remains limited understanding of the factors influencing PWD transmission, especially anthropogenic factors. For the first time, we employed a dataset of propagation factors that based on the transportation of pine wood transmission and used an enhanced infectious disease dynamics method to quantitatively predict the likelihood of future PWD infections across the entire distribution range of pine trees in China. The validation results show that the risk of infection in potential areas of PWD will further increase in China, with the average risk surpassing 30% in 2023 and reaching 50% by 2025 in the study areas. Meanwhile, we observe that human factors, such as transportation of timber, are becoming the main cause of the rapid spread of PWD and require extra vigilance. By incorporating spatial connections between samples as features for PWD prediction, the Area Under the Curve (AUC) score of the model reached 0.90. This signifies a highly accurate prediction of the pivotal areas for PWD dissemination, providing valuable guidance for the precise development of prevention and control measures, and presenting innovative approaches for analogous studies.

Background and purposeEarly blood–brain barrier (BBB) disruption in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) can be detected on perfusion computed tomography (PCT) images before undergoing reperfusion therapy. In this study, we aimed to determine whether early disruption of the BBB predicts intracranial hemorrhage transformation (HT) in patients with AIS undergoing endovascular therapy and further identify factors influencing BBB disruption.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed general clinical and imaging data derived from 159 consecutive patients with acute anterior circulation stroke who were admitted to the Department of Neurology of the First Hospital of Jilin University, and who underwent endovascular treatment between January 1, 2021, and March 31, 2023. We evaluated the relationship between BBB destruction and intracranial HT before endovascular reperfusion therapy and examined the risk factors for early BBB destruction.ResultsA total of 159 patients with assessable BBB leakage were included. The median (interquartile range, IQR) age was 63 (54–70) years, 108 (67.9%) patients were male, and the median baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NHISS) score was 12 (10–15). Follow-up non-contrast computed tomography (NCCT) detected HT in 63 patients. After logistic regression modeling adjustment, we found that BBB leakage in the true leakage area was slightly more than 2-fold risk of HT (odds ratio [OR], 2.01; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02–3.92). Heart rate was also associated with HT (OR, 1.03, 95% CI, 1.00–1.05). High Blood–brain barrier permeability (BBBP) in the true leakage area was positively correlated with infarct core volume (OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01–1.05).ConclusionEarly BBB destruction before endovascular reperfusion therapy was associated with HT, whereas high BBBP correlated positively with infarct core volume.

Environmental exposures during pregnancy have been associated with adverse obstetric outcomes. However, limited and inconsistent evidence exists regarding the association between air temperature exposure and the risk of preeclampsia (PE). This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between ambient temperature exposure during pregnancy and PE risk, as well as identify the specific time window of temperature exposure that increases PE risk. A population-based cohort study was conducted from January 2012 to April 2022 in Guangzhou, China. Pregnant women were recruited in early pregnancy and followed until delivery. A total of 3,314 PE patients and 114,201 normal pregnancies were included. Ambient temperature exposures at different gestational weeks were recorded for each participant. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate the correlation between ambient temperature exposure and PE risk. Stratified analyses were conducted based on maternal age and pre-pregnancy BMI. Distributed lag models were employed to identify the time window of temperature exposure related to PE. Exposure to extreme high temperature (aOR = 1.24, 95 % CI 1.12–1.38) and moderate high temperature (aOR = 1.22, 95 % CI 1.10–1.35) during early pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of PE. Furthermore, women with higher pre-pregnancy BMI had a higher risk of developing PE when exposed to high temperature during early pregnancy compared to normal-weight women. The time window of temperature exposure related to PE was identified as pregnancy weeks 1 to 8. This study provides evidence for the association of high temperature exposure during early pregnancy with the risk of PE, as well as identifies the specific time window of temperature exposure related to PE. These findings have implications for developing potential strategies to protect pregnant women, particularly those with higher pre-pregnancy BMI, from the adverse effects of extreme temperatures during early pregnancy.

Abstract Background The early life stage is critical for the gut microbiota establishment and development. We aimed to investigate the lifelong impact of famine exposure during early life on the adult gut microbial ecosystem and examine the association of famine-induced disturbance in gut microbiota with type 2 diabetes. Methods We profiled the gut microbial composition among 11,513 adults (18–97 years) from three independent cohorts and examined the association of famine exposure during early life with alterations of adult gut microbial diversity and composition. We performed co-abundance network analyses to identify keystone taxa in the three cohorts and constructed an index with the shared keystone taxa across the three cohorts. Among each cohort, we used linear regression to examine the association of famine exposure during early life with the keystone taxa index and assessed the correlation between the keystone taxa index and type 2 diabetes using logistic regression adjusted for potential confounders. We combined the effect estimates from the three cohorts using random-effects meta-analysis. Results Compared with the no-exposed control group (born during 1962–1964), participants who were exposed to the famine during the first 1000 days of life (born in 1959) had consistently lower gut microbial alpha diversity and alterations in the gut microbial community during adulthood across the three cohorts. Compared with the no-exposed control group, participants who were exposed to famine during the first 1000 days of life were associated with consistently lower levels of keystone taxa index in the three cohorts (pooled beta − 0.29, 95% CI − 0.43, − 0.15). Per 1-standard deviation increment in the keystone taxa index was associated with a 13% lower risk of type 2 diabetes (pooled odds ratio 0.87, 95% CI 0.80, 0.93), with consistent results across three individual cohorts. Conclusions These findings reveal a potential role of the gut microbiota in the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis, deepening our understanding about the etiology of type 2 diabetes.

With the depletion of shallow resources, the exploration of deep earth resources has become a global strategy. The study of the different patterns in the physical mechanical properties of rocks at different occurrence depths is the basis for exploring deep into the earth, with the core and premise being the acquisition and testing of deep in-situ core specimens. Based on the original idea of deep in-situ condition preserved coring (ICP-Coring) and testing, combined with theoretical modeling, numerical analysis, test platform development, indoor testing and engineering application, the principles and technologies of deep ICP-Coring are developed. This principle and technology consists of five parts: in-situ pressure-preserved coring (IPP-Coring), in-situ substance-preserved coring (ISP-Coring), in-situ temperature-preserved coring (ITP-Coring), in-situ light-preserved coring (ILP-Coring), and in-situ moisture-preserved coring (IMP-Coring). The theory and technology of temperature and pressure reconstruction at different occurrence depths and in different environments are proposed, and prototype trial production was completed by following the principle of displacement and tests based on the in-situ reconstructed environment. The notable advances are as follows: (1) Deep in-situ coring system: A pressure-preserved controller with an ultimate bearing capacity greater than 140 MPa, high-performance (temperature-resistant, pressure-resistant, and low thermally conductive) temperature-preserved materials, an active temperature control system, and high-barrier quality-preserved membrane materials were developed; a deep ICP-Coring capacity calibration platform was independently developed, a deep in-situ coring technology system was developed, and the acquisition of deep in-situ cores was realized. (2) In-situ storage displacement system: Following the dual-circuit hydraulic design idea, a single-drive source push-pull composite grabbing mechanism was designed; the design of the overall structure for the deep in-situ displacement storage system and ultrahigh pressure cabin structure was completed, which could realize docking the coring device and core displacement in the in-situ reconstructed environment. (3) Test analysis system: A noncontact acoustic-electric-magnetic test system was developed under the in-situ reconstructed environment, and the errors between the test results and traditional contact test results were mostly less than 10%; a detachable deep in-situ core true triaxial test system was developed, which could perform loading tests for deep in-situ cores. The relevant technological achievements were successfully applied to the exploration and development of deep resources, such as deep mines, deep-sea natural gas hydrates, and deep oil and gas. The research results provide technical and equipment support for the construction of a theoretical system for deep in-situ rock mechanics, the development of deep earth resources and energy, and the scientific exploration of different layers and occurrence depths (deep and ultradeep) of the Earth.

Deep in-situ rock mechanics considers the influence of the in-situ environment on mechanical properties, differentiating it from traditional rock mechanics. To investigate the effect of in-situ stress, pore pressure preserved environment on the mechanical difference of sandstone, four tests are numerically modeled by COMSOL: conventional triaxial test, conventional pore pressure test, in-situ stress restoration and reconstruction test, and in-situ pore pressure-preserved test (not yet realized in the laboratory). The in-situ stress restoration parameter is introduced to characterize the recovery effect of in-situ stress on elastic modulus and heterogeneous distribution of sandstone at different depths. A random function and non-uniform pore pressure coefficient are employed to describe the non-uniform distribution of pore pressure in the in-situ environment. Numerical results are compared with existing experimental data to validate the models and calibrate the numerical parameters. By extracting mechanical parameters from numerical cores, the stress-strain curves of the four tests under different depths, in-situ stress and pore pressure are compared. The influence of non-uniform pore pressure coefficient and depth on the peak strength of sandstone is analyzed. The results show a strong linear relationship between the in-situ stress restoration parameter and depth, effectively characterizing the enhanced effect of stress restoration and reconstruction methods on the elastic modulus of conventional cores at different depths. The in-situ pore pressure-preserved test exhibits lower peak stress and peak strain compared to the other three tests, and sandstone subjected to non-uniform pore pressure is more prone to plastic damage and failure. Moreover, the influence of non-uniform pore pressure on peak strength gradually diminished with increasing depth.

Texture evolution, microstructure and mechanical properties of an extruded Mg-10Gd-1Zn-0.4Zr alloy during annealing were investigated. A bimodal microstructure containing coarse deformed grains and fine dynamically recrystallized grains is observed when the annealing temperature is lower than 200 °C. Many Mg5(Gd, Zn) phases are formed in the alloy annealed at 200 °C. Further upon increasing the annealing temperature, static recrystallization occurs and lamellar LPSO phase forms within the matrix. When the annealing temperature reaches 500 °C, an obvious grain growth is observed, and Zn2Zr3 phases form. Meanwhile, the dominant texture component transforms from the basal texture ( parallel to extrusion direction) to an abnormal texture ( parallel to extrusion direction), which is attributed to the growth preference of the grains with abnormal texture. The alloy annealed at 200 °C possesses the optimal mechanical properties with the yield strength of 320 MPa, the ultimate strength of 368 MPa and elongation of 18.4 %. The contribution of each strengthening mechanism to the yield strength in annealed alloys is calculated quantitatively. Compared to the as-extruded alloy, the increment of the yield strength in the alloy annealed at 200 °C is mainly due to the increase in secondary phase strengthening, while the decrement of the yield strength in the alloy annealed at 500 °C is attributed to the reduction of grain boundary strengthening. This work sheds light on adjusting the texture and mechanical properties of the extruded Mg alloys via annealing treatment.

Abstract Background Despite advances in our understanding of the critical role of the microbiota in stroke patients, the oral microbiome has rarely been reported to be associated with stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP). We sought to profile the oral microbial composition of SAP patients and to determine whether microbiome temporal instability and special taxa are associated with pneumonia progression and functional outcomes. Methods This is a prospective, observational, single-center cohort study that examined patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) who were admitted within 24 h of experiencing a stroke event. The patients were divided into three groups based on the occurrence of pneumonia and the use of mechanical ventilation: nonpneumonia group, SAP group, and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) group. We collected oral swabs at different time points post-admission and analyzed the microbiota using 16 S rRNA high-throughput sequencing. The microbiota was then compared among the three groups. Results In total, 104 nonpneumonia, 50 SAP and 10 VAP patients were included in the analysis. We found that SAP and VAP patients exhibited significant dynamic differences in the diversity and composition of the oral microbiota and that the magnitude of this dysbiosis and instability increased during hospitalization. Then, by controlling the potential effect of all latent confounding variables, we assessed the changes associated with pneumonia after stroke and explored patients with a lower abundance of Streptococcus were more likely to suffer from SAP. The logistic regression analysis revealed that an increase in specific taxa in the phylum Actinobacteriota was linked to a higher risk of poor outcomes. A model for SAP patients based on oral microbiota could accurately predict 30-day clinical outcomes after stroke onset. Conclusions We concluded that specific oral microbiota signatures could be used to predict illness development and clinical outcomes in SAP patients. We proposed the potential of the oral microbiota as a non-invasive diagnostic biomarker in the clinical management of SAP patients. Clinical Trial registration NCT04688138. Registered 29/12/2020, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04688138 .

As challenges in gas extraction from coal mines increase, precise measurement of permeability becomes crucial. This study proposes a novel pulse transient method based on a fractional derivative model derived on physical fractal space, incorporating operator algebra and the mechanics–electricity analogy to derive a new control equation that more accurately delineates the permeability evolution in coal. To validate the approach, permeability experiments were conducted on coal samples under mining stress conditions. The results showed that the adoption of a physically meaningful fractional-order relaxation equation provides a more accurate description of non-Darcy flow behaviour in rocks than traditional integer-order control equations. Additionally, the method proved effective across different rock types, verifying its broad applicability. By establishing a new theoretical foundation, this approach illustrates how the microscale fractal structure of rocks is fundamentally linked to their macroscale fractional responses, thereby enhancing the understanding of fractional modelling methods in rock mechanics and related domains.

Flexible electrothermal heaters have attracted abundant attention in recent years due to their wide applications, but their preparation with high efficiency remains a challenge. Here in this work, a highly stable and bending-tolerant flexible heater was fabricated with graphite nanosheets and cellulose fibers through a scalable papermaking procedure. Its electrothermal property can be enhanced by a hot-pressing treatment and introduction of cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) during the papermaking protocol. The flexible heater may quickly reach its maximum temperature of 239.8 °C in around 1 min at a voltage of 9 V. The power density was up to 375.3 °C cm2 w−1. It appeared to have a high tolerance for bending deformation with various curvatures, and the temperature remained stable even under 100 bending with frequency of around 0.17 Hz. Over 100 alternatively heating and cooling cycles, it worked stably as well. It was proved to be used as wearable heating equipment, soft heaters, and aircraft deicing devices, suggesting its great prospect in the field of heat management.

Understanding the factors that shape the diversity, distribution, and function of denitrifying microbes is vital for managing nitrogen cycling in these ecosystems. This study explores the diversity, biogeographic distribution, assembly processes, interaction, and denitrification potential of the nirS-encoding microbial community (nirS denitrifier) in the Pearl River Estuary based on high-throughput and metagenomics sequencing dataset. The results of this study show that salinity is a crucial regulatory environmental factor that determines the spatial distribution, phylogenetic turnover, and co-occurrence patterns of nirS denitrifiers. Additionally, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC), suspended sediment concentration (SSC), and dissolved oxygen (DO) in water also significantly impact the biodiversity and abundance of nirS denitrifiers. Furthermore, our findings demonstrate that, in comparison to environmental factors, the ecological and evolutionary characteristics of nirS denitrifiers play a more prominent role in regulating their denitrification potential, suggesting that alterations in the microbial community within dynamic changes in estuarine water can profoundly affect its denitrification function. Our results indicate the significant roles of denitrification microbial structure and phylogenetic characteristics in maintaining their ecological functions. Future studies should continue to explore the interactions between microbial communities and environmental factors to further elucidate the denitrification process in estuaries and its implications for ecosystem health and water quality.

In this study, a novel NbC reinforced Fe40.5(CoCr)25Mn17.5Ni10Si5 high entropy alloy (HEA) was designed, which exhibits high strength and ductility at room temperature. This alloy was prepared through hot forging and annealing treatments, which exhibited the FCC microstructure with NbC and discrete nano-sized M23C6 carbides precipitation. The studied HEA retained a tensile strength of 863 MPa, and an outstanding ductility of 58 %. The microstructure evolution and deformation mechanisms were further investigated. The deformation mechanism was mainly governed by nano-scale defect heterogeneity of stacking faults (SFs), deformation twins and dislocations. The improved strength-ductility synergy is attributed to the formation of multiple SFs, deformation twining, dislocation cells, and nano-sized NbC precipitation. Moreover, the TEM observation elucidates the presence of chemical short-range order (SRO) domain in the studied HEA, which also has a major contribution in strength and ductility increment. The present findings shed light on developing the HEAs through proper compositional design and heat treatments, resulting in the combine effect of precipitation strengthening, SFs mediated plasticity, twinning induced plasticity (TWIP), and SRO effect.

ABSTRACTSpecific bacterial species have been found to play important roles in human vagina. Achieving high species-level resolution is vital for analyzing vaginal microbiota data. However, contradictory conclusions were yielded from different methodological studies. More comprehensive evaluation is needed for determining an optimal pipeline for vaginal microbiota. Based on the sequences of vaginal bacterial species downloaded from NCBI, we conducted simulated amplification with various primer sets targeting different 16S regions as well as taxonomic classification on the amplicons applying different combinations of algorithms (BLAST+, VSEARCH, and Sklearn) and reference databases (Greengenes2, SILVA, and RDP). Vaginal swabs were collected from participants with different vaginal microecology to construct 16S full-length sequenced mock communities. Both computational and experimental amplifications were performed on the mock samples. Classification accuracy of each pipeline was determined. Microbial profiles were compared between the full-length and partial 16S sequencing samples. The optimal pipeline was further validated in a multicenter cohort against the PCR results of common STI pathogens. Pipeline V1–V3_Sklearn_Combined had the highest accuracy for classifying the amplicons generated from both the NCBI downloaded data (84.20% ± 2.39%) and the full-length sequencing data (95.65% ± 3.04%). Vaginal samples amplified and sequenced targeting the V1–V3 region but merely employing the forward reads (223 bp) and classified using the optimal pipeline, resembled the mock communities the most. The pipeline demonstrated high F1-scores for detecting STI pathogens within the validation cohort. We have determined an optimal pipeline to achieve high species-level resolution for vaginal microbiota with short amplicons, which will facilitate future studies.IMPORTANCEFor vaginal microbiota studies, diverse 16S rRNA gene regions were applied for amplification and sequencing, which affect the comparability between different studies as well as the species-level resolution of taxonomic classification. We conducted comprehensive evaluation on the methods which influence the accuracy for the taxonomic classification and established an optimal pipeline to achieve high species-level resolution for vaginal microbiota with short amplicons, which will facilitate future studies.

Detecting and localizing standing dead trees (SDTs) is crucial for effective forest management and conservation. Due to challenges posed by mountainous terrain and road conditions, conducting a swift and comprehensive survey of SDTs through traditional manual inventory methods is considerably difficult. In recent years, advancements in deep learning and remote sensing technology have facilitated real-time and efficient detection of dead trees. Nevertheless, challenges persist in identifying individual dead trees in airborne remote sensing images, attributed to factors such as small target size, mutual occlusion and complex backgrounds. These aspects collectively contribute to the increased difficulty of detecting dead trees at a single-tree scale. To address this issue, the paper introduces an improved You Only Look Once version 7 (YOLOv7) model that incorporates the Simple Parameter-Free Attention Module (SimAM), an unparameterized attention mechanism. This improvement aims to enhance the network’s feature extraction capabilities and increase the model’s sensitivity to small target dead trees. To validate the superiority of SimAM_YOLOv7, we compared it with four widely adopted attention mechanisms. Additionally, a method to enhance model robustness is presented, involving the replacement of the Complete Intersection over Union (CIoU) loss in the original YOLOv7 model with the Wise-IoU (WIoU) loss function. Following these, we evaluated detection accuracy using a self-developed dataset of SDTs in forests. The results indicate that the improved YOLOv7 model can effectively identify dead trees in airborne remote sensing images, achieving precision, recall and mAP@0.5 values of 94.31%, 93.13% and 98.03%, respectively. These values are 3.67%, 2.28% and 1.56% higher than those of the original YOLOv7 model. This improvement model provides a convenient solution for forest management.

Abstract Background Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a cerebral small vessel disease that carries mutations in NOTCH3. The clinical manifestations are influenced by genetic and environmental factors that may include gut microbiome. Results We investigated the fecal metagenome, fecal metabolome, serum metabolome, neurotransmitters, and cytokines in a cohort of 24 CADASIL patients with 28 healthy household controls. The integrated-omics study showed CADASIL patients harbored an altered microbiota composition and functions. The abundance of bacterial coenzyme A, thiamin, and flavin-synthesizing pathways was depleted in patients. Neurotransmitter balance, represented by the glutamate/GABA (4-aminobutanoate) ratio, was disrupted in patients, which was consistent with the increased abundance of two major GABA-consuming bacteria, Megasphaera elsdenii and Eubacterium siraeum. Essential inflammatory cytokines were significantly elevated in patients, accompanied by an increased abundance of bacterial virulence gene homologs. The abundance of patient-enriched Fusobacterium varium positively correlated with the levels of IL-1β and IL-6. Random forest classification based on gut microbial species, serum cytokines, and neurotransmitters showed high predictivity for CADASIL with AUC = 0.89. Targeted culturomics and mechanisms study further showed that patient-derived F. varium infection caused systemic inflammation and behavior disorder in Notch3 R170C/+ mice potentially via induction of caspase-8-dependent noncanonical inflammasome activation in macrophages. Conclusion These findings suggested the potential linkage among the brain-gut-microbe axis in CADASIL. Video Abstract

Abstract Chemotherapy is one of the main treatment options for cancer, but it is usually accompanied with negative side effects. The classical drugs combination with synergistic adjuvants can be the solution to this problem, allowing reducing therapeutic dose. Elucidating the mechanism of adjuvant action is of key importance for the selection of the optimal agent. Here we examine the system drug-adjuvant to explain the observed effect in practice. We used the first line drug cisplatin. Morpholinium and 4-methylpiperazinium 4,5-dichloro isothiazol-3-carboxylates were selected as adjuvants. The study of the cisplatin-adjuvant system was carried out by quantum chemical modeling using DFT. It turned out that adjuvants form conjugates with cisplatin that lead to the relocation of frontier molecular orbitals as well as increase of conjugate’s dipole moment. It resulted in change of the interaction character with DNA and increase of the bioactivity of the system. The data obtained are the basis for expanding the studies to include other drugs and adjuvants. Oncologists will have opportunity to use “classical” chemotherapy drugs in combination with synergists for those patients who have not been previously recommended to such a treatment because of pronounced toxic side effects.

Abstract Secreted proteins are one of the direct molecular mechanisms by which microbiota influence the host, thus constituting a promising field for drug discovery. Here, through bioinformatics-guided screening of the secretome of clinically established probiotics from Lactobacillus, we identify an uncharacterized secreted protein (named LPH here) that is shared by most of these probiotic strains (8/10) and demonstrate that it protects female mice from colitis in multiple models. Functional studies show that LPH is a bi-functional peptidoglycan hydrolase with both N-Acetyl-β-D-muramidase and DL-endopeptidase activities that can generate muramyl dipeptide (MDP), a NOD2 ligand. Different active site mutants of LPH in combination with Nod2 knockout female mice confirm that LPH exerts anti-colitis effects through MDP-NOD2 signaling. Furthermore, we validate that LPH can also exert protective effects on inflammation-associated colorectal cancer in female mice. Our study reports a probiotic enzyme that enhances NOD2 signaling in vivo in female mice and describes a molecular mechanism that may contribute to the effects of traditional Lactobacillus probiotics.

Abstract Next generation amplicon sequencing has created a plethora of data from human microbiomes. The accessibility to this scientific data and its corresponding metadata is important for its reuse, to allow for new discoveries, verification of published results, and serving as path for reproducibility. Dietary fiber consumption has been associated with a variety of health benefits that are thought to be mediated by gut microbiota. To enable direct comparisons of the response of the gut microbiome to fiber, we obtained 16S rRNA sequencing data and its corresponding metadata from 11 fiber intervention studies for a total of 2,368 samples. We provide curated and pre-processed genetic data and common metadata for comparison across the different studies.

Austenitic stainless steels are prone to mixed grain structure (MGS) defect during solution treatment or hot work. We demonstrate that strain–induced continuous M23C6 precipitates at grain boundaries (GBs) enable obtaining uniform deformed structures through hot–rolling at 1000 °C and 1100 °C. After solution treatment of the hot–rolled specimens at 1200 °C for 10–60 min, static recrystallization occurs. After the solution time exceeds 10 min, the M23C6 precipitates at GBs dissolve completely. The recrystallized grains grow normally as the solution time increase, and there is no abnormal grain growth. Strain–reduced the M23C6 precipitation can pin GBs during the dissolution process, thereby eliminating MGS defect.

In this study, a high-molecular-weight Pueraria lobata polysaccharide (PLP) with a molecular weight of 273.54 kDa was degraded by ultrasound, and the ultrasonic degradation kinetics, structural characteristics and hepatoprotective activity of ultrasonic degraded PLP fractions (PLPs) were evaluated. The results showed that the ultrasonic treatment significantly reduced the Mw and particle size of PLP, and the kinetic equation of ultrasonic degradation of PLP followed to the midpoint fracture model (the fist-order model). The monosaccharide composition analysis, FT-IR, triple helix structure and XRD analysis all indicated that the ultrasound degradation did not destroy the primary structure of PLP, but the thermal stability of degraded fractions improved. Additionally, the scanning electron microscopy analysis demonstrated that the surface morphology of PLP was altered from smooth, flat, compact large flaky structure to a sparse rod-like structure with sparse crosslinking (PLP-7). The degraded PLP fractions (0.5 mg/mL) with lower Mw exhibited better antioxidant activities and protective effects against palmitic acid-induced hepatic lipotoxicity, which may be due to the increased exposure of active groups such as hydroxyl groups of PLP after ultrasound. Further investigation showed that PLPs not only increased Nrf2 phosphorylation and its nuclear translocation, thereby activating Nrf2/Keap1 signaling pathway, but also enhanced HO-1, NQO-1, γ-GCL gene expressions and promoted superoxide dismutase and catalase activities, which protected hepatocytes against PA-induced oxidative stress and lipotoxicity. Overall, our research might provide an in-depth insight into P. Lobata polysaccharide in ameliorating lipid metabolic disorders, and the results revealed that ultrasonic irradiation could be a promising degradation method to produce value-added polysaccharide for use in functional food.

AbstractAcute kidney injury (AKI) is a syndrome characterized by an accelerating decrease in renal function in a short time. Thymol is one of the main components of thyme species and has a variety of pharmacological effects. Here, we investigated whether thymol could ameliorate rhabdomyolysis (RM)-induced AKI and its related mechanism. Glycerol was used to induce RM-associated AKI in rats. Rats received thymol (20 mg/kg/day or 40 mg/kg/day) gavage 24 h before glycerol injection until 72 h after injection daily. Kidney injury was identified by measuring serum creatinine (Scr) and urea levels and by H&E and PAS staining and immunohistochemistry (the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)). Renal superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and oxidative stress-related Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathways were measured. The expression of the inflammatory markers TNF-α, IL-6, MCP-1, and NF-κB was assessed by ELISA and western blotting. Finally, the expression of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway was detected by western blotting. Glycerol administration induced obvious renal histologic damage and increased Scr, urea, and PCNA expression. Notably, thymol treatment attenuated these structural and functional changes and prevented renal oxidative stress, inflammatory damage and PI3K/Akt pathway downregulation associated with glycerol-induced AKI. In conclusion, thymol might have potential applications in the amelioration of AKI via its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and upregulation of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.

Pest and disease damage to forests cannot be underestimated, so it is essential to detect diseased trees in time and take measures to stop their spread. The detection of discoloration standing trees is one of the important means to effectively control the spread of pests and diseases. In the visible wavelength range, early infected trees do not show significant color changes, which poses a challenge for early detection and is only suitable for monitoring middle and late discolor trees. The spectral resolution of hyperspectral restricts the improvement of its spatial resolution, and there are phenomena of different spectral of the same and foreign objects in the same spectrum, which affect the detection results. In this paper, the method of hyperspectral and CCD image fusion is used to achieve high-precision detection of discoloration standing trees. This paper proposes an improved algorithm MSGF-GLP, which uses multi-scale detail boosting and MTF filter to refine high-resolution data. By combining guided filtering with hyperspectral images, the spatial detail difference is enhanced, and the injection gain is interpolated into the difference of each band, so as to obtain high-resolution and high-quality hyperspectral images. This research is based on hyperspectral and CCD data obtained from LiCHy, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Maoershan Experimental Forest Farm, Shangzhi City, Heilongjiang Province. The evaluation framework is used to compare with the other five fusion algorithms to verify the good effect of the proposed method, which can effectively preserve the canopy spectrum and improve the spatial details. The fusion results of forestry remote sensing data were analyzed using the vegetation Normalized Difference Water Index and Plant Senescence Reflectance Index. The fused results can be used to distinguish the difference between discoloration trees and healthy trees by the multispectral vegetation index. The research results can provide good technical support for the practical application of forest remote sensing data fusion, and lay the foundation for promoting the scientific, automatic and intelligent forestry control.

ABSTRACT Obesity is a risk factor for the development of hyperuricemia, both of which were related to gut microbiota. However, whether alterations in the gut microbiota lie in the pathways mediating obesity’s effects on hyperuricemia is less clear. Body mass index (BMI) and serum uric acid (SUA) were separately important indicators of obesity and hyperuricemia. Our study aims to investigate whether BMI-related gut microbiota characteristics would mediate the association between BMI and SUA levels. A total of 6,280 participants from Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project were included in this study. Stool samples were collected for 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The results revealed that BMI was significantly and positively associated with SUA. Meanwhile, BMI was significantly associated with the abundance of 102 gut microbial genera, 16 of which were also significantly associated with SUA. The mediation analysis revealed that the association between BMI and SUA was partially mediated by the abundance of Proteobacteria (proportion mediated: 0.94%, P < 0.05). At the genus level, 25 bacterial genera, including Ralstonia, Oscillospira, Faecalibacterium, etc., could also partially mediate the association of BMI with SUA (the highest proportion is mediated by Ralstonia, proportion mediated: 2.76%, P < 0.05). This study provided evidence for the associations among BMI, gut microbiota, and SUA, and the mediation analysis suggested that the association of BMI with SUA was partially mediated by the gut microbiota. IMPORTANCE Using 16S rRNA sequencing analysis, local interpretable machine learning technique analysis and mediation analysis were used to explore the association between BMI with SUA, and the mediating effects of gut microbial dysbiosis in the association were investigated.

The article aims to determine the role of critical thinking skills in learning Russian at Chinese universities and to consider this aspect when organizing an online learning environment for students. The research involved 600 students and 50 teachers from the Russian language and math faculties. The analysis of Chinese students' Russian language learning allowed the conclusion that there is a possible relationship between language competence and critical thinking skills. At the same time, the study did not identify any educational standards that included critical thinking as a skill in the educational process. The study showed that the Chinese education system needs to align educational standards with fundamental concepts of critical thinking and move away from a random use of individual theories tools. Future research might concentrate on testing the hypothesis about the close relationship between critical thinking and success in learning Russian as an L2 using various statistical methods (for instance, Student's t test or Kruskal-Wallis test).

Abstract Purpose The clinical characteristics of Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) pneumonia and KP bloodstream infection (KP-BSI) are often reported, while the risk factors for KP pneumonia developing into secondary KP-BSI (KP-pneumonia/KP-BSI) are largely unknown. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the clinical characteristics, risk factors and outcomes of KP-pneumonia/KP-BSI. Methods A retrospective observational study was conducted at a tertiary hospital between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2020. The patients were divided into groups of KP pneumonia alone and KP pneumonia/KP-BSI, and the clinical information were collected from medical records electronic system. Results A total of 409 patients were finally recruited. According to the multivariate logistic regression analysis, male sex (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 3.7; 95% CI, 1.44–9.5), immunosuppression (aOR, 13.52; 95% CI, 2.53,72.22), APACHE II score higher than 21 (aOR, 3.39; 95% CI, 1.41–8.12), serum procalcitonin (PCT) levels above 1.8 ng/ml (aOR, 6.37; 95% CI, 2.67–15.27), ICU stay of more than 2.5 days before pneumonia onset (aOR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.02,1.17), mechanical ventilation (aOR, 4.96; 95% CI, 1.2,20.5), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates producing extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL-positive KP) (aOR, 12.93; 95% CI, 5.26–31.76), and inappropriate antibacterial therapy (aOR, 12.38; 95% CI, 5.36–28.58) were independent factors of KP pneumonia/KP BSI. In comparison with the patients with KP pneumonia alone, the patients with KP pneumonia/KP BSI showed an almost 3 times higher incidence of septic shock (64.4% vs. 20.1%, p

The characterisation of the pore-fracture structure (PFS) and its evolution in coal during mining are essential for preventing gas outbursts and improving gas extraction efficiency. In this study, the evolution of the PFS in coal samples under the condition of mining stress was directly captured in situ by combination of the mechanical testing system with high-precision visualisation nuclear magnetic resonance equipment. A fractional derivative model was established to describe the relationship between stress and porosity based on experimental results of the PFS under different stress states. The results showed that with an increase in the deviatoric stress, the adsorption pore content increases rapidly initially and then increases slowly or remains unchanged; the seepage pore and fracture (SPF) content decreases initially and then increases. The SPF compressibility coefficient decreases with an increase in the deviatoric stress. The fractional derivative model can accurately describe the stress sensitivity of the SPFs at the pre-peak stage, thus providing a new approach for accurately characterising the seepage characteristics of coal reservoirs.

Abstract Background OXA-232-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae was first identified in China in 2016, and its clonal transmission was reported in 2019. However, there are no prevalence and genotypic surveillance data available for OXA-232 in China. Therefore, we investigated the trends and characteristics of OXA-232 type carbapenemase in Zhejiang Province, China from 2018 to 2021. Methods A total of 3278 samples from 1666 patients in the intensive care units were collected from hospitals in Zhejiang Province from 2018 to 2021. Carbapenem-resistant isolates were initially selected by China Blue agar plates supplemented with 0.3 μg/ml meropenem, and further analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry identification, immune colloidal gold technique, conjugation experiment, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and whole genome sequencing. Results A total of 79 OXA-producing strains were recovered, with the prevalence increased from 1.8% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.7–3.7%] in 2018 to 6.0% (95% CI: 4.4–7.9%) in 2021. Seventy-eight strains produced OXA-232 and one produced OXA-181. The bla OXA-232 gene in all strains was located in a 6141-bp ColKP3-type non-conjugative plasmid and the bla OXA-181 gene was located in a 51,391-bp ColKP3/IncX3-type non-conjugative plasmid. The bla OXA-232-producing K. pneumoniae was dominated (75/76) by isolates of sequence type 15 (ST15) that differed by less than 80 SNPs. All OXA-producing strains (100%, 95% CI: 95.4–100.0%) were multidrug-resistant. Conclusions From 2018 to 2021, OXA-232 is the most prevalent OXA-48-like derivative in Zhejiang Province, and ST15 K. pneumoniae isolates belonging to the same clone are the major carriers. The transmission of ColKP3-type plasmid to E. coli highlighted that understanding the transmission mechanism is of great importance to delay or arrest the propagation of OXA-232 to other species.

The effect of manganese content, aluminium content, top slag and stirring on manganese-containing inclusions characteristics was investigated by laboratory thermal experiments and precipitation thermodynamics calculation. The results indicated that the types of manganese-containing inclusions in manganese steel were mainly single MnS, MnS–Al2O3, MnS–TiN and MnS–Al2O3–TiN complex inclusions. The morphology of manganese-containing inclusions was transformed from spherical and ellipsoidal to polyhedral as result of manganese content increased, which is attributed to large solidus-liquidus phase difference of high manganese steel, promoting the formation of type III MnS. It is also found that the manganese-containing inclusions shows irregular morphology with clear angularities after addition of aluminium, which was determined by both formation of flaky AlN and type III MnS with polygonal caused by increased of activity coefficient of S and the surface tension of molten steel. Furthermore, the manganese-containing inclusions in manganese steel is considered MnS–MnO type with top salg, in which patchy or multipoint shape MnS is embedded on the surface of oxide. The force field analysis in induction stirring demonstrated that the inclusion particles are removed by top slag and refractory adsorption under the action of strong electromagnetic force and buoyancy. This work provides an improved understanding for the controlling and removing of manganese-containing inclusions in high quality medium/high manganese steel.

Tuning the lattice spacing or stop bands holds great significance in the design and application of materials with colloidal crystals. Typically, particle surface modifications or the application of external physical fields are needed. In this study, we demonstrated the ability to expand or compress the lattice of colloidal crystals simply by utilizing a salt solution, without the need for any special treatments to the colloidal particles. We found that by only considering the diffusiophoresis effect we cannot explain the reversion of lattice expansion to lattice compression with the increase in the salt concentration and that the diffusioosmotic flow originating from the container wall must be taken into account. Further analysis revealed that variations in the salt concentration altered the relative amplitudes between diffusiophoresis and diffusioosmosis through changing the zeta potentials of the particles and the wall, and the competition between the particle diffusiophoresis and wall diffusioosmosis lay at the center of the underlying mechanism.