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Abstract The free-field switching of the perpendicular magnetization by the out-of-plane polarized spin current induced spin-orbit torque makes it a promising technology for developing high-density memory and logic devices. The materials intrinsically with low symmetry are generally utilized to generate the spin current with out-of-plane spin polarization. However, the generation of the out-of-plane polarized spin current by engineering the symmetry of materials has not yet been reported. Here, we demonstrate that paramagnetic CaRuO3 films are able to generate out-of-plane polarized spin current by engineering the crystal symmetry. The non-uniform oxygen octahedral tilt/rotation along film’s normal direction induced by oxygen octahedral coupling near interface breaks the screw-axis and glide-plane symmetries, which gives rise to a significant out-of-plane polarized spin current. This spin current can drive field-free spin-orbit torque switching of perpendicular magnetization with high efficiency. Our results offer a promising strategy based on crystal symmetry design to manipulate spin current and could have potential applications in advanced spintronic devices.

This is an article in the field of mining engineering. The Southern Xizang is one of the main distribution areas of high temperature geothermal zones in China with rich geothermal resources. The chemical analysis and test results of the geothermal water show that the lithium content in the geothermal water of the high temperature geothermal zone in Southern Xizang can reach 34.51 mg/L, and the relative abundance of geothermal lithium is obviously better than that of the world's typical plateau Salt Lake brines, such as Clayton Valley in the Western Plateau of North America and Uyuni in the Andes Plateau of South America. The lithium magnesium ratio is mostly less than 3, which is conducive to lithium extraction from brine. The areas with high lithium content in the geothermal water of the high temperature geothermal zones in Southern Xizang are all distributed in the the Yarlung Zangbo River suture zone and the areas to the south, consistent with the distribution range of lithium rich rocks. At the same time, the Yarlung Zangbo River suture zone and its south area have more Cl-Na geothermal water than the north, and the south has higher TDS and longer circulation path. Based on the stable isotopic composition of hydrogen and oxygen in geothermal water and the provenance of lithium in the surrounding lithium-rich Salt Lake brine, it is inferred that the main sources of lithium in the geothermal water are leaching of lithium-rich rocks by geothermal water and lithium-rich magmatic hydrothermal solutions formed during magmatic differentiation.

Periodontitis is associated with several systemic diseases, and advanced periodontitis is often linked to an extensive inflammatory microenvironment and irregularly shaped alveolar bone defects. However, eliminating periodontal inflammation in a minimally invasive manner while repairing irregularly shaped bone defects is clinically challenging. In comparison to traditional bone grafts, a thermo-sensitive hydrogel can be injected into deep periodontal pockets, forming and filling the alveolar bone defects in situ. In this study, porous injectable thermo-sensitive hydrogels containing magnesium ions were prepared by adding magnesium particles (MPs) to a glycerophosphate solution and combining this mixture with a chitosan solution. The incorporation of MPs created interconnected pores in the hydrogel, exhibiting high cytocompatibility and maintaining cell viability, proliferation, spreading, and osteogenesis in vitro. Evaluation on an experimental periodontitis rat model, using micro-computed tomography and histological analyses, demonstrated that this Mg2+-containing hydrogel effectively reduced periodontal inflammation, inhibited osteoclast activity, and partially repaired inflammation-induced alveolar bone loss. These results suggest that Mg2+-containing thermo-sensitive porous hydrogels might be promising candidates for treating periodontitis.

Rampant C-to-U RNA editing drives the mutation and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. While much attention has been paid to missense mutations, the C-to-U events leading to AUG and thus creating novel ORFs were uninvestigated. By utilizing the public time-course mutation data from the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 population, we systematically identified the “AUG-gain mutations” caused by C-to-U RNA editing. Synonymous mutations were of special focus. A total of 58 synonymous C-to-U sites are able to create out-of-frame AUG in coding sequence (CDS). These 58 synonymous sites showed significantly higher allele frequency (AF) and increasing rate (dAF/dt) than other C-to-U synonymous sites in the SARS-CoV-2 population, suggesting that these 58 AUG-gain events conferred additional benefits to the virus and are subjected to positive selection. The 58 predicted new ORFs created by AUG-gain events showed the following advantages compared to random expectation: they have longer lengths, higher codon adaptation index (CAI), higher Kozak scores, and higher tRNA adaptation index (tAI). The 58 putatively novel ORFs have high expressibility and are very likely to be functional, providing an explanation for the positive selection on the 58 AUG-gain mutations. Our study proposed a possible mechanism of the emergence of de novo genes in SARS-CoV-2. This idea should be helpful in studying the mutation and evolution of SARS-CoV-2.

Abstract Background Dyadic coping resources have been considered a potential explanatory mechanism of spousal interdependence in health, but the mediation of spousal collaboration for the relationship between self-rated health and depressive symptoms has yet to be examined. This study aimed to investigate the within- (actor effect) and between-partner effects of self-rated health on depressive symptoms in community-dwelling older couples facing physical functioning limitations and to examine the role of spousal collaboration in mediating the actor and cross-partner effects of self-rated health on depressive symptoms. Method Data from 185 community-dwelling older Chinese married couples were analyzed using the actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM). Couples were interviewed through trained research assistants using the 5-item common dyadic coping subscale of the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI), the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) of the QoL questionnaire EQ-5D and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ‐9). Results Husbands’ self-rated health had an actor effect on their own depressive symptoms and a partner effect on their wives’ depressive symptoms. Wives’ self-rated health had an actor effect on their own depressive symptoms. The actor effects between self-rated health and depressive symptoms were partially mediated by their own perception of spousal collaboration. Furthermore, husbands’ self-rated health not only affects wives’ depressive symptoms directly but also indirectly by influencing wives’ perceptions of spousal collaboration. Discussion The findings from this study underscored the importance of viewing couples’ coping processes from a dyadic and gender-specific perspective, since more (perceived) collaborative efforts have beneficial effects on both partners’ mental health outcomes.

Background: The relationship between genetic immune dysregulation and the occurrence of preeclampsia (PE) or PE with fetal growth restriction (PE with FGR) has yielded inconsistent findings, and the underlying mediators of this association remain elusive. We aimed to explore the causal impact of genetic immune dysregulation on the risk of PE or PE with FGR and to elucidate the role of specific transcriptomes in mediating this relationship. Methods: A two-step Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was performed to explore the link between immune dysregulation and PE or PE with FGR, as well as to identify potential inflammatory biomarkers that act as mediators. GWAS summary data for outcomes were obtained from the FinnGen dataset. The analyses encompassed five systemic immune-associated diseases, four chronic genital inflammatory diseases, and thirty-one inflammatory biomarkers. Summary-data-based MR (SMR) and HEIDI analysis were conducted to test whether the effect size of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on outcomes was mediated by the expression of immune-associated genes. Results: The primary univariable analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), type 1 diabetes (T1D), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with the risk of PE or PE with FGR. Surprisingly, a counterintuitive finding showed a significant negative association between endometriosis of pelvic peritoneum (EMoP) and the risk of PE with FGR. None of the inflammatory factors had a causal relationship with PE or PE with FGR. However, there was a significant association between lymphocyte count and the risk of PE with FGR. Within the lymphocyte subset, both the proportion of Natural Killer (NK) cells and absolute counts of naïve CD4+ T cells demonstrated significant effects on the risk of PE with FGR. Two-step MR analysis underscored the genetically predicted lymphocyte count as a significant mediator between T1D and PE with FGR. Additionally, SMR analysis indicated the potential involvement of SH2B3 in the occurrence of PE with FGR. Conclusions: Our findings provided substantial evidence of the underlying causal relationship between immune dysregulation and PE or PE with FGR and some of these diseases proved to accelerate immune cells disorders and then contribute to the risk of incident PE or PE with FGR.

Reduced glutathione (γ-glutamyl-cysteinyl-glycine, GSH), the primary non-protein sulfhydryl group in organisms, plays a pivotal role in the plant salt stress response. This study aimed to explore the impact of GSH on the photosynthetic apparatus, and carbon assimilation in tomato plants under salt stress, and then investigate the role of nitric oxide (NO) in this process. The investigation involved foliar application of 5 mM GSH, 0.1% (w/v) hemoglobin (Hb, a nitric oxide scavenger), and GSH+Hb on the endogenous NO levels, rapid chlorophyll fluorescence, enzyme activities, and gene expression related to the Calvin cycle in tomato seedlings (Solanum lycopersicum L. cv. ‘Zhongshu No. 4’) subjected short-term salt stress (100 mM NaCl) for 24, 48 and 72 hours. GSH treatment notably boosted nitrate reductase (NR) and NO synthase (NOS) activities, elevating endogenous NO signaling in salt-stressed tomato seedling leaves. It also mitigated chlorophyll fluorescence (OJIP) curve distortion and damage to the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) induced by salt stress. Furthermore, GSH improved photosystem II (PSII) electron transfer efficiency, reduced QA- accumulation, and countered salt stress effects on photosystem I (PSI) redox properties, enhancing the light energy absorption index (PIabs). Additionally, GSH enhanced key enzyme activities in the Calvin cycle and upregulated their genes. Exogenous GSH optimized PSII energy utilization via endogenous NO, safeguarded the photosynthetic reaction center, improved photochemical and energy efficiency, and boosted carbon assimilation, ultimately enhancing net photosynthetic efficiency (Pn) in salt-stressed tomato seedling leaves. Conversely, Hb hindered Pn reduction and NO signaling under salt stress and weakened the positive effects of GSH on NO levels, photosynthetic apparatus, and carbon assimilation in tomato plants. Thus, the positive regulation of photosynthesis in tomato seedlings under salt stress by GSH requires the involvement of NO.

Abstract Metabolic abnormalities contribute to the pathogenesis of obesity and its complications. Yet, the understanding of the interactions between critical metabolic pathways that underlie obesity remains to be improved, in part owing to the lack of comprehensive metabolomics studies that reconcile data from both hydrophilic and lipophilic metabolome analyses that can lead to the identification and characterization of key signaling networks. Here, the study conducts a comprehensive metabolomics analysis, surveying lipids and hydrophilic metabolites of the plasma and omental adipose tissue of obese individuals and the plasma and epididymal adipose tissue of mice. Through these approaches, it is found that a significant accumulation of ceramide due to inhibited sphingolipid catabolism, while a significant reduction in the levels of uridine monophosphate (UMP), is critical to pyrimidine biosynthesis. Further, it is found that UMP administration restores sphingolipid homeostasis and can reduce obesity in mice by reversing obesity‐induced inhibition of adipocyte hypoxia inducible factor 2a (Hif2α) and its target gene alkaline ceramidase 2 (Acer2), so as to promote ceramide catabolism and alleviate its accumulation within cells. Using adipose tissue Hif2α‐specific knockout mice, the study further demonstrates that the presence of UMP can alleviate obesity through a HIF2α‐ACER2‐ceramide pathway, which can be a new signaling axis for obesity improvement.

Abstract Receiving a favor from another person may induce a negative feeling of indebtedness for the beneficiary. In this study, we explore these hidden costs by developing and validating a conceptual model of indebtedness across three studies that combine a large-scale online questionnaire, an interpersonal game, computational modeling, and neuroimaging. Our model captures how individuals perceive the altruistic and strategic intentions of the benefactor. These inferences produce distinct feelings of guilt and obligation that together comprise indebtedness and motivate reciprocity. Perceived altruistic intentions convey care and communal concern and are associated with activity in insula, ventromedial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, while inferred strategic intentions convey expectations of future reciprocity and are associated with activation in temporal parietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. We further develop a neural utility model of indebtedness using multivariate patterns of brain activity that captures the tradeoff between these feelings and reliably predicts reciprocity behavior.

Tomato blight significantly threatened tomato yield and quality, making precise disease detection essential for modern agricultural practices. Traditional segmentation models often struggle with over-segmentation and missed segmentation, particularly in complex backgrounds and with diverse lesion morphologies. To address these challenges, we proposed Unet with Vision Mamba and ConvNeXt (VMC-Unet), an asymmetric segmentation model for quantitative analysis of tomato blight. Built on the Unet framework, VMC-Unet integrated a parallel feature-aware backbone combining ConvNeXt, Vision Mamba, and Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) modules to enhance spatial feature focusing and multi-scale information processing. During decoding, Vision Mamba was hierarchically embedded to accurately recover complex lesion morphologies through refined feature processing and efficient up-sampling. A joint loss function was designed to optimize the model’s performance. Extensive experiments on both tomato epidemic and public datasets demonstrated VMC-Unet superior performance, achieving 97.82% pixel accuracy, 87.94% F1 score, and 86.75% mIoU. These results surpassed those of classical segmentation models, underscoring the effectiveness of VMC-Unet in mitigating over-segmentation and under-segmentation while maintaining high segmentation accuracy in complex backgrounds. The consistent performance of the model across various datasets further validated its robustness and generalization potential, highlighting its applicability in broader agricultural settings.

Objectives This study aimed to identify long-term distinct trajectories of multimorbidity with ageing from 50 to 85 years among Chinese older adults and examine the relationship between exposure to early-life adversity (ELA; including specific types of adversity and accumulation of different adversities) and these long-term multimorbidity trajectories.Design The group-based trajectory models identified long-term multimorbidity trajectories. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between ELA and the identified multimorbidity trajectories.Setting This study used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011–2018) and the 2014 Life History Survey.Participants We used data from 9112 respondents (aged 60 and above) of the 2018 wave of CHARLS.Outcome measures Each respondent’s history of chronic conditions and experiences of ELA were collected from the 2011–2018 waves of CHARLS and the 2014 Life History Survey.Results Four heterogeneous long-term trajectories of multimorbidity development were identified: ‘maintaining-low’ (19.1%), ‘low onset-rapidly increasing’ (23.3%), ‘middle onset-moderately increasing’ (41.5%) and ‘chronically-high’ (16.2%). Our findings indicated that the heterogeneity can be explained by ELA experiences. Across various types of different ELA experiences, exposure to food insufficiency (relative risk ratios from 1.372 (95% CI 1.190 to 1.582) to 1.780 (95% CI 1.472 to 2.152)) and parental quarrel/divorce (relative risk ratios from 1.181 (95% CI 1.000 to 1.394) to 1.262 (95% CI 1.038 to 1.536)) had the most prominent associations with health deterioration. The accumulation of more different ELA experiences was associated with a higher relative risk of developing more severe multimorbidity trajectories (relative risk ratio for five to seven ELAs and chronically high trajectory: 7.555, 95% CI 4.993 to 11.431).Conclusions There are heterogeneous long-term trajectories of multimorbidity in Chinese older adults, and the risk of multimorbidity associated with ELA accumulates over the lifespan. Our findings highlight the role of a supportive early-life family environment in promoting health development across the lifespan, advocating for the integration of life-course approaches to implementing health disparity interventions.

A self-designed spherical Ti64 powder containing nanosized TiB whisker(TiBw) was developed by electrode induction melting gas atomization (EIGA), which was used as feedstock to prepare Ti64-TiBw composites by electron beam melting (EBM). Nano-scaled TiBw distributed along the grain boundaries, forming a discontinuous network structure in EBM-Ti64-TiBw composites. In order to elucidate the effect of nano-sized TiBw on microstructure and properties of EBM-Ti64-TiBw composites, heat treatment of as-fabricated EBM-Ti64-TiBw is performed from 800 to 1200 °C with interval of 100 °C, to regulate the size characteristics (diameter, aspect ratio) of TiBw, the revolution of microstructure and interface were studied in detail. The results indicate that Ti64/TiBw interface structure transforms from a semi-coherent interface to a coherent interface with increasing heat treatment temperature (HTT). Furthermore, TiBw begin to coarsen after the heat treatment above the β-transus temperature, leading to a weakening of its pinning effect on Ti64 matrix, and the discontinuous network structure disappears at 1000 °C. The growth and coarsening of TiBw are closely related to the diffusion rate of B atom in α-Ti and β-Ti phases. This work provides a theoretical foundation for size control of TiBw reinforcement and the elucidation of its evolution effect on microstructure in EBM-Ti64-TiBw composites.

Biomaterials play an important role in treating bone defects. The functional characteristics of scaffolds, such as their structure, mechanical strength, and antibacterial and osteogenesis activities, effectively promote bone regeneration. In this study, mineralized collagen and polycaprolactone were used to prepare loaded porous scaffolds with bilayer-structured microspheres with dual antibacterial and osteogenesis functions. The different drug release mechanisms of PLGA and chitosan in PLGA/CS microspheres caused differences in the drug release models in terms of the duration and rate of Pac-525 and BMP-2 release. The prepared PLGA(BMP-2)/CS(Pac-525)@MC/PCL scaffolds were analyzed in terms of physical characteristics, bioactivity, and antibacterial properties. The scaffolds with a dimensional porous structure showed similar porosity and pore diameter to cancellous bone. The release curve of the microspheres and scaffolds with high encapsulation rates displayed the two-stage release of Pac-525 and BMP-2 over 30 days. It was found that the scaffolds could inhibit S. aureus and E. coli and then promote ALP activity. The PLGA(BMP-2)/CS(Pac-525)@MC/PCL scaffold could be used as a dual delivery system to promote bone regeneration.

Salt stress is a critical abiotic factor that adversely affects plant growth and productivity by impairing photosynthesis. This study explores the impact of exogenous ascorbic acid (AsA) on the photosynthetic performance of tomato seedlings (Solanum lycopersicum L. cv. Ligeer 87-5) under salt stress. Hydroponic experiments were conducted in a solar greenhouse, where tomato seedlings were subjected to the following five treatments: Control, NaCl, NaCl + AsA, NaCl + lycorine (LYC), and NaCl + LYC + AsA. Our findings demonstrate that salt stress significantly reduced chlorophyll and carotenoid contents, levels of chlorophyll synthesis precursors (5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), porphobilinogen (PBG), uroporphyrinogen III (Urogen III), protoporphyrin IX (Proto IX), magnesium protoporphyrin IX (Mg-Proto IX), protochlorophyllide (Pchl)), and essential elements (Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Mo, and P) in both roots and leaves. These reductions led to a substantial decline in net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and compromised photosystem II (PSII). In contrast, exogenous AsA application significantly enhanced the content of photosynthetic pigment precursors and essential elements, improved stomatal aperture and gas exchange efficiency, and boosted the photosynthetic performance of tomato seedlings under salt stress. Furthermore, AsA treatment mitigated the negative effects of salt stress by protecting PSII, increased light energy utilization efficiency, and alleviated both stomatal and non-stomatal limitations. The application of the AsA synthesis inhibitor LYC exacerbated the detrimental effects of salt stress, further reducing chlorophyll content and photosynthetic efficiency. In conclusion, exogenous AsA plays a vital role in enhancing the photosynthetic performance and stress tolerance of tomato seedlings under salt stress by stabilizing chlorophyll biosynthesis, facilitating essential element absorption, and optimizing stomatal function. This study provides a new approach and feasible measures for improving tomato resistance and yield, which is significant for enhancing crop productivity, managing saline soils, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.

A variety of factors cause a reduction in remote sensing image resolution. Unlike super-resolution (SR) reconstruction methods with single degradation assumption, multi-degradation SR methods aim to learn the degradation kernel from low-resolution (LR) images and reconstruct high-resolution (HR) images more suitable for restoring the resolution of remote sensing images. However, existing multi-degradation SR methods only utilize the given LR images to learn the representation of the degradation kernel. The mismatches between the estimated degradation kernel and the real-world degradation kernel lead to a significant deterioration in performance of these methods. To address this issue, we design a reconstruction features-guided kernel correction SR network (RFKCNext) for multi-degradation SR reconstruction of remote sensing images. Specifically, the proposed network not only utilizes LR images to extract degradation kernel information but also employs features from SR images to correct the estimated degradation kernel, thereby enhancing the accuracy. RFKCNext utilizes the ConvNext Block (CNB) for global feature modeling. It employs CNB as fundamental units to construct the SR reconstruction subnetwork module (SRConvNext) and the reconstruction features-guided kernel correction network (RFGKCorrector). The SRConvNext reconstructs SR images based on the estimated degradation kernel. The RFGKCorrector corrects the estimated degradation kernel by reconstruction features from the generated SR images. The two networks iterate alternately, forming an end-to-end trainable network. More importantly, the SRConvNext utilizes the degradation kernel estimated by the RFGKCorrection for reconstruction, allowing the SRConvNext to perform well even if the degradation kernel deviates from the real-world scenario. In experimental terms, three levels of noise and five Gaussian blur kernels are considered on the NWPU-RESISC45 remote sensing image dataset for synthesizing degraded remote sensing images to train and test. Compared to existing super-resolution methods, the experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach achieves significant reconstruction advantages in both quantitative and qualitative evaluations. Additionally, the UCMERCED remote sensing dataset and the real-world remote sensing image dataset provided by the “Tianzhi Cup” Artificial Intelligence Challenge are utilized for further testing. Extensive experiments show that our method delivers more visually plausible results, demonstrating the potential of real-world application.

This paper investigates an L1 adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme for nonlinear systems with input constraint, external disturbances, and multiple faults, which include actuator faults and sensor faults. Faults and input constraint are important factors that affect the stability and performance of a control system. Actuators and sensors are the most vulnerable components, with the former receiving more attention in comparison. In this paper, sensor faults are first transformed into pseudo-actuator faults through the augmented matrix approach, which facilitates their handling together with actuator faults. Saturation constraints on the control signal are not conducive to the design of the controller. The conversion of an input-saturated function to a time-varying linear system is completed based on function approximation and Lagrange’s mean value theorem. Moreover, a nonlinear system with unknown input gain and uncertainties is constructed using these methods. Next, an L1 adaptive fault-tolerant controller is designed to cope with uncertainties, including system uncertainties, external disturbances, faults, and approximation errors. In the L1 adaptive controller, the online estimation of the time-varying parameters allows for updating of the system state, while the combination of the two is transmitted to the control law such that it can compensate for the effects of the uncertainties. The stability and performance boundaries are further derived using the Lyapunov theory and the L1 reference system. Finally, simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

In the field of autofocus for optical systems, although passive focusing methods are widely used due to their cost-effectiveness, fixed focusing windows and evaluation functions in certain scenarios can still lead to focusing failures. Additionally, the lack of datasets limits the extensive research of deep learning methods. In this work, we propose a neural network autofocus method with the capability of dynamically selecting the region of interest (ROI). Our main work is as follows: first, we construct a dataset for automatic focusing of grayscale images; second, we transform the autofocus issue into an ordinal regression problem and propose two focusing strategies: full-stack search and single-frame prediction; and third, we construct a MobileViT network with a linear self-attention mechanism to achieve automatic focusing on dynamic regions of interest. The effectiveness of the proposed focusing method is verified through experiments, and the results show that the focusing MAE of the full-stack search can be as low as 0.094, with a focusing time of 27.8 ms, and the focusing MAE of the single-frame prediction can be as low as 0.142, with a focusing time of 27.5 ms.

In this study, processing tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) ‘Ligeer 87-5’ was hydroponically cultivated under 100 mM NaCl to simulate salt stress. To investigate the impacts on ion homeostasis, osmotic regulation, and redox status in tomato seedlings, different endogenous levels of ascorbic acid (AsA) were established through the foliar application of 0.5 mM AsA (NA treatment), 0.25 mM lycorine (LYC, an inhibitor of AsA synthesis; NL treatment), and a combination of LYC and AsA (NLA treatment). The results demonstrated that exogenous AsA significantly increased the activities and gene expressions of key enzymes (L-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase (GalLDH) and L-galactose dehydrogenase (GalDH)) involved in AsA synthesis in tomato seedling leaves under NaCl stress and NL treatment, thereby increasing cellular AsA content to maintain its redox status in a reduced state. Additionally, exogenous AsA regulated multiple ion transporters via the SOS pathway and increased the selective absorption of K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ in the aerial parts, reconstructing ion homeostasis in cells, thereby alleviating ion imbalance caused by salt stress. Exogenous AsA also increased proline dehydrogenase (ProDH) activity and gene expression, while inhibiting the activity and transcription levels of Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (P5CS) and ornithine-δ-aminotransferase (OAT), thereby reducing excessive proline content in the leaves and alleviating osmotic stress. LYC exacerbated ion imbalance and osmotic stress caused by salt stress, which could be significantly reversed by AsA application. Therefore, exogenous AsA application increased endogenous AsA levels, reestablished ion homeostasis, maintained osmotic balance, effectively alleviated the inhibitory effect of salt stress on tomato seedling growth, and enhanced their salt tolerance.

Cuticular waxes are essential for protecting plants from various environmental stresses. Allium fistulosum serves as an excellent model for investigating the regulatory mechanisms underlying cuticular wax synthesis with notable epidermal wax characteristics. A combination of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) metabolite analysis and transcriptomics was used to investigate variations in metabolites and gene expression patterns between the wild type (WT) and glossy mutant type (gl2) of A. fistulosum. The WT surface had a large number of acicular and lamellar waxy crystals, whereas the leaf surface of gl2 was essentially devoid of waxy crystals. And the results revealed a significant decrease in the content of 16-hentriacontanone, the principal component of cuticular wax, in the gl2 mutant. Transcriptomic analysis revealed 3084 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between WT and gl2. Moreover, we identified 12 genes related to fatty acid or wax synthesis. Among these, 10 DEGs were associated with positive regulation of wax synthesis, whereas 2 genes exhibited negative regulatory functions. Furthermore, two of these genes were identified as key regulators through weighted gene co-expression network analysis. Notably, the promoter region of AfisC5G01838 (AfCER1-LIKE1) exhibited a 258-bp insertion upstream of the coding region in gl2 and decreased the transcription of the AfCER1-LIKE1 gene. This study provided insights into the molecular mechanisms governing cuticular wax synthesis in A. fistulosum, laying the foundation for future breeding strategies.

Allium fistulosum L. (Linnaeus, Carolus, 1753) is an aromatic vegetable with health benefits and medicinal value. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of A. fistulosum was determined. Circular mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was 382,053 bp in size, encoded 44 genes, and contained 26 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 14 tRNAs, and four rRNAs. Phylogenetic analysis of amino acid sequences of the 26 PCGs revealed that the closest relationship was between A. fistulosum and Allium cepa. The high-quality mitochondrial genomic sequences of A. fistulosum presented in this study will serve as a useful resource for a range of genetic, functional, evolutionary, and comparative genomic studies on this species of the Amaryllidaceae family.

Abstract This work proposed KidneyRegNet, a novel deep registration pipeline for 3D CT and 2D U/S kidney scans of free breathing, which comprises a feature network, and a 3D–2D CNN-based registration network. The feature network has handcrafted texture feature layers to reduce the semantic gap. The registration network is an encoder-decoder structure with loss of feature-image-motion (FIM), which enables hierarchical regression at decoder layers and avoids multiple network concatenation. It was first pretrained with a retrospective dataset cum training data generation strategy and then adapted to specific patient data under unsupervised one-cycle transfer learning in onsite applications. The experiment was performed on 132 U/S sequences, 39 multiple-phase CT and 210 public single-phase CT images, and 25 pairs of CT and U/S sequences. This resulted in a mean contour distance (MCD) of 0.94 mm between kidneys on CT and U/S images and MCD of 1.15 mm on CT and reference CT images. Datasets with small transformations resulted in MCDs of 0.82 and 1.02 mm, respectively. Large transformations resulted in MCDs of 1.10 and 1.28 mm, respectively. This work addressed difficulties in 3DCT-2DUS kidney registration during free breathing via novel network structures and training strategies.

This paper investigates an adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attitude control system in the presence of multiple faults, input saturation, and external disturbances. The attitude control system of a UAV is divided into an outer loop consisting of attitude angles and an inner loop consisting of attitude angle velocities. The nonlinear dynamic inversion (NDI) method based on sliding mode surface is used to construct the outer loop controller to ensure fast response and accurate attitude tracking. The treatment of the inner loop with multiple faults, input saturation, and external disturbances is more complex. First, input saturation and sensor faults are converted successively for ease of analysis. After the conversion and reorganization of such uncertainties including actuator faults, sensor faults, input saturation, and external disturbances, a nonlinear uncertain system model is developed. Second, a L1 neural network adaptive fault-tolerant controller is designed to deal with uncertainties, where radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs) are applied to approximate the nonlinear function in the system model. The L1 adaptive fault-tolerant controller includes three parts: state predictor, adaptive law, and control law. Adaptive laws based on the projection operator estimate and update the unknown parameters in the system and transfer them to the control law and the state predictor to compensate for the effects of uncertainties. The control law with a low-pass filter also eliminates the high-frequency oscillations caused by a high adaptive gain in conventional adaptive algorithms, which guarantee the robustness and fast self-adaptation. Finally, simulation results are given to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed controller.

Tracking and detection have brought great challenges to network security. Therefore, this paper proposes a monitoring method of stealthy complex network attacks considering security situation awareness. By constructing a tracking model of invisible complex network attacks, public monitoring nodes are selected for monitoring. The cost of a single monitoring node is calculated by the algorithm, and the monitoring node is determined by the monitoring node algorithm, so as to reduce the resource occupancy rate of the monitoring node and improve the monitoring accuracy. The simulation results show that this method is stable in the range of 1000 to 4000 nodes, and can effectively monitor the complex network attacks of stealing secrets.

BackgroundGallbladder neuroendocrine carcinoma (GB-NEC) is an extremely rare cancer with a poor prognosis in the clinic. Although surgical resection remains the primary and preferred therapeutics, many patients are in a late stage and lose the opportunity for surgery. However, due to the extremely low morbidity, the specific treatment guidelines for GB-NEC have not been established.Case presentationA 52-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with the chief complaint of “almost 1 month after palliative surgery for metastatic gallbladder carcinoma.” According to the results of pathological findings and imaging manifestations, the patient was diagnosed with GB-NEC with a clinical stage of pT3N1M1 (IVB). The patient then received tislelizumab plus EP chemotherapy (etoposide 100 mg + cisplatin 30 mg, d1–3) every 3 weeks for 8 cycles from 12 November, 2021, followed by maintenance therapy (tislelizumab alone) every 3 weeks until now. The tumor response was evaluated as complete remission since 13 February, 2023. As of the last follow-up, the patient remains alive, with no complaints of discomfort.ConclusionsGallbladder NEC has no specific symptoms, and the diagnosis is based on pathological and immunohistochemical results. The therapeutic course and efficacy of the case in this study indicates that the application of PD-1 inhibitor might be a feasible therapeutic option for GB-NEC. However, this potential strategy needs validation by further clinical studies in the future.

ABSTRACTLow temperature severely affects the growth of pomegranate in the early spring during the production process under protected cultivation. To understand the molecular responses to cold stress in Tunisian soft-seed pomegranate, this study investigated the transcriptome profiles and physiological changes of pomegranate leaves exposed to cold stress (6 °C) and freezing stress (0°C). Some potential cold response/resistance genes involved in plant hormone signal transduction, photosynthetic systems and carbon fixation in the C4 pathway, and sucrose and galactose metabolism were identified. In addition, an analysis of physiological indicators indicated that both stresses caused cell membrane damage; the accumulation of soluble sugar, soluble protein and proline; and the occurrence of photoinhibition owing to the damage in photosynthetic apparatus and the decrease in light energy conversion efficiency and electron transfer rate as shown by the decrease in net photosynthetic rate [Pn], potential maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII [Fv/Fm], actual photochemical efficiency of PSII [YII] and photochemical quenching coefficient [qP], and the effect was much moresevere in pomegranate under freezing stress. This study results offer useful information to understand the molecular mechanism of pomegranate response to cold stress and also lay a foundation for the selection of major candidate genes to conduct molecular breeding for cold tolerance in pomegranate.

Process parameters and powder spreading quality are important factors for aluminum matrix composites (AMCs) prepared using laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). In this study, a Box–Behnken Design (BBD) was used to optimize the process parameters, and near-spherical β-SiC was selected to improve the quality of powder spreading. The rationality of parameter optimization was verified by testing the density of samples prepared using different laser power levels. Al4C3 diffraction peaks were found in XRD patterns, which indicated that interface reactions occurred to form good interface bonding between the Al matrix and the SiC particles. The tensile strength and plasticity of LPBF α-SiC/AlSi10Mg were lower than that of LPBF AlSi10Mg, which was mainly due to the poor fluidity of the powder mixtures and powder spreading quality. For LPBF β-SiC/AlSi10Mg, the tensile strength increased and elongation decreased slightly compared to LPBF α-SiC/AlSi10Mg. The data in this study were compared with the data in other studies. In this study, LPBF AlSi10Mg and LPBF β-SiC/AlSi10Mg not only showed the inherent high strength of their LPBF parts, but also had relatively high plasticity. Matching between strength and plasticity was mainly dependent on the scanning strategy. Most studies use uni-directional or bi-directional scanning strategies with a certain rotation angle between layers. A chessboard scanning strategy was used in this study to form a coarse remelted connected skeleton inside the material and significantly improve plasticity. This study lays a theoretical and experimental foundation for the controllable preparation of SiC-reinforced AMCs using LPBF.

ObjectiveAlthough the effect of vitamins on the risk of mortality in diabetic patients has been reported, most studies focus on individual vitamins. However, humans are often exposed to multiple vitamins simultaneously in daily life. Therefore, it is worth exploring the effects of co-exposure to multiple vitamins on the risk of mortality in diabetic patients.MethodsThis study included diabetic patients aged ≥20WD years who participated in NHANES from 2003 to 2006. An unsupervised K-means clustering method was used to cluster eight vitamins in serum into several patterns of co-exposure to multiple vitamins, and the Cox proportional hazards model was used to evaluate the impact of different patterns of co-exposure to multiple vitamins on the risk of all-cause mortality in diabetic patients.ResultsThree patterns of co-exposure to multiple vitamins were generated based on K-means clustering, namely, low-level, moderate-level, and high-level. Among the 484 diabetic patients, with a median follow-up of 13.7 years, a total of 211 deaths occurred. After adjusting for covariates, the individual vitamins had varying effects on the risk of all-cause mortality in diabetic patients. Compared to the low-level group of co-exposure to multiple vitamins, the high-level group significantly reduced the risk of all-cause mortality in diabetic patients, with a HR of 0.42 (95% CI: 0.20, 0.87). Subgroup analysis demonstrated that high levels of co-exposure to multiple vitamins significantly reduced the risk of all-cause mortality in males, individuals aged ≥ 60 years, and non-Hispanic White people with diabetes compared to the low-level group, with HR of 0.42 (95% CI: 0.18, 0.98), 0.53 (95% CI: 0.26, 0.98), and 0.26 (95% CI: 0.12, 0.58) respectively.ConclusionWhile individual vitamins had different effects on the risk of all-cause mortality in patients with diabetes, high-level co-exposure to multiple vitamins significantly reduced the risk of all-cause mortality in patients with diabetes, with differences observed among genders, ages, and race. This suggests that when developing vitamin intervention strategies for patients with diabetes, consideration should be given not only to the dosage of individual vitamins but also to the variations between different population groups.

Abstract Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a fatal interstitial lung disease characterized by chronic, progressive, and fibrotic lung injury. Although remarkable progress has been made toward understanding the pathogenesis of PF, finding more effective treatments for this fatal disease remains a challenge. In this study, we describe an innovative macrophage‐based approach to deliver anti‐fibrotic protein to the lung and inhibit PF in a mouse model of bleomycin (BLM)‐induced lung injury. We engineered macrophages to continuously secrete three types of proteins: interleukin‐10, which prevents inflammation; TGFRcFc, a soluble truncated TGF‐βR2 that blocks TGF‐β; and CD147, which induces matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and causes collagen degradation. Infusing these engineered macrophages into the lungs of BLM‐induced PF mouse models in an optimal pattern significantly ameliorated PF in mice. Specifically, the most effective therapeutic outcome was achieved by infusing IL‐10‐secreting macrophages on day 1, followed by TGFRcFc‐secreting macrophages on day 7 and CD147‐secreting macrophages on day 14 into the same mice after BLM treatment. Our data suggest that macrophage‐based delivery of anti‐fibrotic proteins to the lungs is a promising therapy for fibrotic lung disorders.

The vast Moon surface, lower thermal environment, predictable orbit, and long distance of Earth–Moon centroid have provided long-term, large-scale, unique, stable, and many other advantages for Moon-based Earth observation, including the synthetic aperture radar interferometry. Compared with the space-borne method, the Moon-based cross-track interferometry (MB-CTI) that works in one transmitter dual-receiver mode undoubtedly not only has larger coverage at single gaze but also has stable baseline. Relatively speaking, the changeable baseline of representative Moon-based repeat-track interferometry has deteriorated its coherent pairs without full use of revisit even in month span. However, the constant baseline of MB-CTI concretizes the relatively regular, stable, and latitude difference sensitive effective vertical baseline (EVB) throughout long Earth–Moon periodic motion. The closely distributed MB-CTI make it more similar to monostatic ways, and two poles where permanent shadow area exists can provide EVB close to diameter, thus increasing coherence possibility and related height measurement accuracy. Common part between two received spectrums contains necessary interference information. The flat region of interested (e.g., Amazon Plain) at low latitude is not preferred for MB-CTI, yet exactly the opposite while in mid- and high-latitude area (e.g., Arctic land, Tibet Plateau, and Antarctic land). A larger incident angle range or ratio of band to frequency uplift valid coherence pairs where lay-over or shadow happen because of complicate topography; meanwhile, regions tilted away Moon with slope larger than incident is more likely to be in decoherence. The defined spatial geometry has provided guidance for the application of MB-CTI in the future.

BackgroundIn recent years, the prevalence of myopia has increased significantly and caused great concern. Nevertheless, an estimate of myopia in the student population in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China is still lacking. This study aims to determine the prevalence of myopia among students in Shenyang and investigate the associated factors affecting myopia development.MethodsStandard logarithmic visual acuity chart and automatic computerized optometry under non-ciliary muscle paralysis were used to test the students’ naked visual acuity of their right and left eyes. The included students were organized to fill in questionnaires on WeChat to collect the factors affecting myopia.ResultsA total of 34,644 students with a median age of 11.9 years were examined, including 17,563 males and 17,081 females. The overall prevalence of myopia was 60%, with a prevalence of 45% for mild myopia, 13% for moderate myopia, and 1.9% for high myopia. The sex, high educational stage, family history of myopia, doing homework after school or reading and writing for more than 2 h were associated with a higher risk of myopia, while doing eye exercises twice a day or more, going outdoors during recess, reading and writing with eyes more than one foot from books, and sleeping more than 8 h a day were associated factors for preventing myopia. The associated factors influencing myopia vary among different subgroups.ConclusionThe prevalence of myopia in Shenyang is at a high level. In addition to sex, high educational stage and genetic factors, environmental factors including length of eye usage, eye exercises, outdoor activities, eye working distance, and sleep duration are associated with myopia prevalence. Therefore, it is recommended that the occurrence and development of myopia can be prevented by controlling the above environmental factors.

Flexibly and actively updating expectations based on feedback is crucial for navigating daily life. Previous research has shown that people with schizophrenia (PSZ) have difficulty adjusting their expectations. However, there are studies suggesting otherwise. To explore this further, we used a novel trial-based expectation updating paradigm called attribute amnesia. In the task, the participants needed to report the location of a target stimulus among distractors in pre-surprise trials. In the surprise trial, they were unexpectedly asked to report the identity of the target before reporting its location. Afterward, control trials were conducted whereby the participants were asked the same questions as in the surprise trial. Notably, the surprise trial and control trials were nearly identical, except that the participants expected to be asked about identity information in the control trials but not in the surprise trial. Thus, an improvement in identity reporting accuracy in the control trials in comparison with the surprise trial indicated active updating of expectations. In the current study, a total of 63 PSZ and 60 healthy control subjects (HCS) were enrolled. We found that both the PSZ and the HCS were unable to report information that they had fully attended to (i.e., identity) in the surprise trial. However, both groups showed a significant improvement in reporting identity information even in the first control trial. Critically, there was no significant difference in the magnitude of improvement between the two groups. The current findings indicate that PSZ have the ability to update their expectations as quickly and flexibly as HCS, at least in the context of the current task. The possible factors that might contribute to the discrepancy regarding expectation updating are discussed.

Abstract Background Although the experience sampling method offers advantages for gerontological research, it has seldom been applied to examine well-being and meaning-making tendencies among adult children working caregivers of parents with dementia and thus lacks empirical support for such applications. In response, we aimed to validate the proposed protocol’s participation status, feasibility, usability, and ecological validity. Methods For 15 consecutive days, 100 adult child working dementia caregivers participated in our study via web-based assessments on their digital devices. The protocol was first adjusted based on a series of pilot interviews with eight volunteer dementia caregivers. Participants’ compliance and preferred times for activities along with the protocol’s feasibility, usability, and ecological validity were evaluated in a follow-up session with all participants. Results The protocol was adjusted in light of recruitment details, user interfaces, the reminder mechanism, and reference time for assessments. The general compliance rate was 93.3%. Preference times for assessments of work (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.), care (6–8 p.m.), and personal activities (7–10 p.m.) were identified. The protocol was generally considered to be feasible and easy to use, and ecological validity analysis indicated that the collected data adequately represented real-world data. Conclusions Our study provides empirical evidence to support an innovative protocol and evaluate its implementation so that future studies using it can better investigate the relationship between meaning-making tendencies and well-being among adult child working caregivers for parents with dementia.

Abstract Background Ultrasound-guided intertruncal approach (IA) has been proposed to be an alternative and promising approach to the supraclavicular block (SCB), in which double injection (DI) of local anesthetics (LA) is sequentially administered between intertruncal planes. We would like to apply a refined injection technique, named triple injection (TI) technique, based on the 3 separate compartments visualized by ultrasound. The aim of this study is to compare the percentage of patients with complete sensory blockade at 20 min of DI vs TI technique, when they are applied in patients undergoing upper limb arteriovenous access surgery. Methods This study is a prospective parallel-group randomized controlled trial. A total of 86 end-stage renal disease patients will be randomly allocated to receive IA-SCB using either DI or TI technique with identical LA (0.5% ropivacaine 24 mL). The primary outcome is the percentage of patients with complete sensory blockade of all 4 terminal nerves (median, ulnar, radial, and musculocutaneous nerves) of the brachial plexus measured at 20 min after injection. The secondary outcomes will consist of the sensory or motor blockade of all individual nerves, onset times, performance time, diaphragmatic paralysis, surgical anesthesia, and adverse events. Discussion It is expected that ultrasound-guided IA-SCB with the TI technique results in better block dynamic in patients undergoing upper limb arteriovenous access surgery. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2100045075 .

Atherosclerosis is a chronic multifactorial cardiovascular disease. Western diets have been reported to affect atherosclerosis through regulating adipose function. In high cholesterol diet-fed ApoE–/– mice, adipocyte HIF-1α deficiency or direct inhibition of HIF-1α by the selective pharmacological HIF-1α inhibitor PX-478 alleviates high cholesterol diet-induced atherosclerosis by reducing adipose ceramide generation, which lowers cholesterol levels and reduces inflammatory responses, resulting in improved dyslipidemia and atherogenesis. Smpd3, the gene encoding neutral sphingomyelinase, is identified as a new target gene directly regulated by HIF-1α that is involved in ceramide generation. Injection of lentivirus-SMPD3 in epididymal adipose tissue reverses the decrease in ceramides in adipocytes and eliminates the improvements on atherosclerosis in the adipocyte HIF-1α-deficient mice. Therefore, HIF-1α inhibition may constitute a novel approach to slow atherosclerotic progression.

The point cloud is disordered and unstructured, and it is difficult to extract detailed features. The detailed part of the target shape is difficult to complete in the point cloud completion task. It proposes a point cloud completion network (BCA-Net) focusing on detail reconstruction, which can reduce noise and refine shapes. Specifically, it utilizes residual deformation architecture to avoid error points. The break and recombine refinement method is used to recover complete point cloud details. In addition, it proposes a bilateral confidence aggregation unit based on recurrent path aggregation to refine the coarse point cloud shape using multiple gating. Our experiments on the ShapeNet and Complete3D datasets demonstrate that our network performs better than other point cloud completion networks.

Aims To screen abnormal lncRNAs and diagnostic biomarkers in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through high-throughput sequencing and explore the underlying mechanisms of abnormal lncRNAs in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods The transcriptome sequencing was used to analyze the RNA expression profile and identify differentially expressed RNAs. Hub lncRNAs were screened by combining (WGCNA, ceRNA regulatory network, PPI, GO and KEGG analyses, Kaplan-Meier curve analysis, Cox analysis, risk model construction and qPCR). Thereafter, the correlation between the expression of hub lncRNAs and tumor clinicopathological parameters was analyzed, and the hub lncRNAs were analyzed by GSEA. Finally, the effects of hub RNAs on the proliferation, migration and invasion of HepG2 cells were investigated in vitro. Results Compared with the control group, a total of 610 lncRNAs, 2,593 mRNAs and 26 miRNAs were screened in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Through miRNA target prediction and WGCNA, a ceRNA was constructed, comprising 324 nodes and 621 edges. Enrichment analysis showed that mRNAs in ceRNA were involved mainly in cancer development progression. Then, the ZFAS1/miR-150-5p interaction pair was screened out by Kaplan Meier curve analysis, Cox analysis and qPCR analysis. Its expression was related to tumor stage, TNM stage and patient age. ROC curve analysis showed that it has a good predictive value for the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma. GSEA showed that ZFAS1 was also enriched in the regulation of immune response, cell differentiation and proliferation. Loss-of-function experiments revealed that ZFAS1 inhibition could remarkably suppress HepG2 cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. Bioinformatic analysis and luciferase reporter assays revealed that ZFAS1 directly interacted with miR-150-5p. Rescue experiments showed that a miR-150-5p inhibitor reversed the cell proliferation, migration and invasion functions of ZFAS1 knockdown in vitro. Conclusion ZFAS1 is associated with the malignant status and prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, and the ZFAS1/miR-150-5p axis is involved in hepatocellular carcinoma progression.

Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative joint disease that exerts significant impacts on personal life quality, and cartilage tissue engineering is a practical treatment in clinical. Various growth factors are involved in cartilage regeneration and play important roles therein, which is the focus of current cartilage repair strategy. To compensate for the purification difficulty, high cost, poor metabolic stability, and circulating dilution of natural growth factors, the concept of functional motifs (also known as mimetic peptides) from original growth factor was introduced in recent studies. Here, we reviewed the selection mechanisms, biological functions, carrier scaffolds, and modification methods of growth factor-related functional motifs, and evaluated the repair performance in cartilage tissue engineering. Finally, the prospects of functional motifs in researches and clinical application were discussed.

The use of rotations is an effective strategy to control crop diseases and improve plant health. The soil bacterial communities in the rhizosphere are highly important for maintaining soil productivity. However, the composition and structure of soil bacterial communities in the rotations of vegetable crops remain unclear. In this study, we explored the bacterial diversity and community structure of the tomato rhizosphere, including enzyme activities, yield, and fruit quality, under three different cropping systems: tomato-tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) continuous cropping (TY1), eggplant (Solanum melongena)-tomato rotation (TY2) and arrowhead (Sagittaria trifolia)-tomato rotation (TY3). The composition and diversity of the rhizosphere bacterial communities differed significantly. The diversity was more in the TY2 and TY3 treatments than those in the TY1 treatment. Chujaibacter and Rhodanobacter were two predominant and unique strains detected only in TY1, while the relative abundances of Curvibacter and Luteimonas were the highest in TY2 and TY3, respectively. Moreover, Lysobacter was a relatively abundant type of biocontrol bacterium found only in the TY3 treatment, which could contribute to alleviating the obstacle of tomato continuous cropping. Compared with the TY1 treatment, the activities of catalase were significantly higher in the TY2 and TY3 treatments. In addition, compared with TY1, the TY2 and TY3 plots increased the following parameters: tomato yields by 24-46%, total soluble solids by 37-93%, total organic acid by 10-15.7% and soluble protein by 10-21%, while the content of nitrate was significantly reduced by 23%. Altogether, compared with the tomato monoculture, the rotations of tomato with eggplant and arrowhead shifted the rhizosphere bacterial communities and improved the yield and quality of the tomato. Moreover, a tomato rotation, particularly with arrowhead, was an effective way to alleviate the obstacles of continuous cropping.

IntroductionNanopore sequencing has been widely used in clinical metagenomic sequencing for pathogen detection with high portability and real-time sequencing. Oxford Nanopore Technologies has recently launched an adaptive sequencing function, which can enrich on-target reads through real-time alignment and eject uninteresting reads by reversing the voltage across the nanopore. Here we evaluated the utility of adaptive sequencing in clinical pathogen detection.MethodsNanopore adaptive sequencing and standard sequencing was performed on a same flow cell with a bronchoalveolar lavage fluid sample from a patient with Chlamydia psittacosis infection, and was compared with the previous mNGS results.ResultsNanopore adaptive sequencing identified 648 on-target stop receiving reads with the longest median read length(688bp), which account for 72.4% of all Chlamydia psittaci reads and 0.03% of total reads in enriched group. The read proportion matched to C. psittaci in the stop receiving group was 99.85%, which was much higher than that of the unblock (

Aridity, soil nutrient stoichiometry and bulk carbon content are reliable predictors of microbial residue accumulation in soil carbon pools, according to a meta-analysis of amino sugar concentrations in grasslands, woodlands and forests.

In this study, the differences in chlorophyll fluorescence transient (OJIP) and modulated 820 nm reflection (MR820) of cucumber leaves were probed to demonstrate an insight into the precise influence of melatonin (MT) on cucumber photosystems under low temperature stress. We pre-treated cucumber seedlings with different levels of MT (0, 25, 50, 100, 200, and 400 μmol · L-1) before imposing low temperature stress (10 °C/6 °C). The results indicated that moderate concentrations of MT had a positive effect on the growth of low temperature-stressed cucumber seedlings. Under low temperature stress conditions, 100 μmol · L-1 (MT 100) improved the performance of the active photosystem II (PSII) reaction centers (PIabs), the oxygen evolving complex activity (OEC centers) and electron transport between PSII and PSI, mainly by decreasing the L-band, K-band, and G-band, but showed differences with different duration of low temperature stress. In addition, these indicators related to quantum yield and energy flux of PSII regulated by MT indicated that MT (MT 100) effectively protected the electron transport and energy distribution in the photosystem. According to the results of WO-I ≥ 1 and MR820 signals, MT also affected PSI activity. MT 100 decreased the minimal value of MR/MRO and the oxidation rate of plastocyanin (PC) and PSI reaction center (P700) (Vox), while increased △MRslow/MRO and deoxidation rates of PC+ and P700+ (Vred). The loss of the slow phase of MT 200 and MT 400-treated plants in the MR820 kinetics was due to the complete prevention of electron movement from PSII to re-reduce the PC+ and P700 +. These results suggest that appropriate MT concentration (100 μmol · L-1) can improve the photosynthetic performance of PS II and electron transport from primary quinone electron acceptor (QA) to secondary quinone electron acceptor (QB), promote the balance of energy distribution, strengthen the connectivity of PSI and PSII, improve the electron flow of PSII via QA to PC+ and P700+ from reaching PSI by regulating multiple sites of electron transport chain in photosynthesis, and increase the pool size and reduction rates of PSI in low temperature-stressed cucumber plants, All these modifications by MT 100 treatment promoted the photosynthetic electron transfer smoothly, and further restored the cucumber plant growth under low temperature stress. Therefore, we conclude that spraying MT at an appropriate concentration is beneficial for protecting the photosynthetic electron transport chain, while spraying high concentrations of MT has a negative effect on regulating the low temperature tolerance in cucumber.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of female cancer-related deaths worldwide. New technologies with enhanced sensitivity and specificity for early diagnosis and monitoring of postoperative recurrence are in critical demand. Automatic breast full volume scanning system (ABVS) is an emerging technology used as an alternative imaging method for breast cancer screening. Despite its improved detection rate of malignant tumors, ABVS cannot accurately stage breast cancer preoperatively in 30–40% of cases. As a major hallmark of breast cancer, the characteristic metabolic reprogramming may provide potential biomarkers as an auxiliary method for ABVS.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to identify differential metabolomic signatures between benign and malignant breast tumors and among different subtypes of breast cancer patients based on untargeted metabolomics and improve breast cancer detection rate by combining key metabolites and ABVS.MethodsUntargeted metabolomics approach was used to profile serum samples from 70 patients with different subtypes of breast cancer and benign breast tumor to determine specific metabolomic profiles through univariate and multivariate statistical data analysis.ResultsMetabolic profiles correctly distinguished benign and malignant breast tumors patients, and a total of 791 metabolites were identified. There were 54 different metabolites between benign and malignant breast tumors and 17 different metabolites between invasive and non-invasive breast cancer. Notably, the missed diagnosis rate of ABVS could be reduced by differential metabolite analysis. Moreover, the diagnostic performance analyses of combined metabolites (pelargonic acid, N-acetylasparagine, and cysteine-S-sulfate) with ABVS performance gave a ROC area under the curve of 0.967 (95% CI: 0.926, 0.993).ConclusionsOur study identified metabolic features both in benign and malignant breast tumors and in invasive and non-invasive breast cancer. Combined ultrasound ABVS and a panel of differential serum metabolites could further improve the accuracy of preoperative diagnosis of breast cancer and guide surgical therapy.

BackgroundThis study aimed to establish and validate an accurate prognostic model, based on demographic and clinical parameters, for predicting the cancer-specific survival (CSS) of patients with poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma (PDTC).Materials and methodsPatients diagnosed with PDTC between 2004 to 2015 were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Randomly split the data into training and validation sets. Kaplan–Meier analysis with the log-rank test was performed to compare the survival distribution among cases. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were used to identify independent prognostic factors, which were subsequently utilized to construct a nomogram for predicting the 5- and 10-year cancer-specific survival of patients with PDTC. The discriminative ability and calibration of the nomogram model were assessed using the concordance index and calibration plots, respectively. In addition, we performed a decision curve analysis to assess the clinical value of the nomogram. Simultaneously, we compared the predictive performance of the nomogram model against that of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) T-, N-, M-stage.ResultsA total of 970 eligible patients were randomly assigned to either a training cohort (n = 679) or a validation cohort (n = 291). The Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that there were no significant differences in cumulative survival based on the race, radiation, and marital status of patients. The stepwise Cox regression model showed that the model was optimal when the following five variables were included: age, tumor size, T-, N-, and M-stage. A nomogram was developed as a graphical representation of the model and exhibited good calibration and discriminative ability in the study. Compared to the T-, N-, and M-stage, the C-index of nomogram (training group: 0.807, validation group: 0.802), the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the training set (5-year AUC: 0.843, 10-year AUC:0.834) and the validation set (5-year AUC:0.878, 10-year AUC:0.811), and the calibration plots of this model all exhibited better performance. At last, compared with T-, N-, and M-stage, the decision curve analysis indicated that the nomogram had excellent clinical net benefit.ConclusionsThe nomogram developed by us can accurately predict the CSS of PDTC patients. It can help clinicians determine appropriate treatment strategies for poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma patients.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is burdened with a low 5-year survival rate and high mortality due to a severe lack of early diagnosis methods and slow progress in treatment options. To improve clinical diagnosis and enhance the treatment effects, we applied metabolomics using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with a high-resolution mass spectrometer (UHPLC-HRMS) to identify and validate metabolite biomarkers from paired tissue samples of PC patients. Results showed that the metabolic reprogramming of PC mainly featured enhanced amino acid metabolism and inhibited sphingolipid metabolism, which satisfied the energy and biomass requirements for tumorigenesis and progression. The altered metabolism results were confirmed by the significantly changed gene expressions in PC tissues from an online database. A metabolites biomarker panel (six metabolites) was identified for the differential diagnosis between PC tumors and normal pancreatic tissues. The panel biomarker distinguished tumors from normal pancreatic tissues in the discovery group with an area under the curve (AUC) of 1.0 (95%CI, 1.000−1.000). The biomarker panel cutoff was 0.776. In the validation group, an AUC of 0.9000 (95%CI = 0.782–1.000) using the same cutoff, successfully validated the biomarker signature. Moreover, this metabolites panel biomarker had a great capability to predict the overall survival (OS) of PC. Taken together, this metabolomics method identifies and validates metabolite biomarkers that can diagnose the onsite progression and prognosis of PC precisely and sensitively in a clinical setting. It may also help clinicians choose proper therapeutic interventions for different PC patients and improve the survival of PC patients.

Abstract Background Chlamydia psittaci is an avian pathogen that can cause lethal human infections. Diagnosis of C. psittaci pneumonia is often delayed due to nonspecific clinical presentations and limited laboratory diagnostic techniques. Results The MinION platform established the diagnosis in the shortest time, while BGISEQ-500 generated additional in-depth sequence data that included the rapid characterization of antibiotic susceptibility. Cytopathy appeared only in cell cultures of BALF. BALF yielded a higher bacterial load than sputum or blood, and may be the most suitable clinical specimen for the genomic diagnosis of severe pneumonia. Conclusions This study indicated that the benefits of metagenomic sequencing include rapid etiologic diagnosis of unknown infections and the provision of additional relevant information regarding antibiotic susceptibility. The continued optimization and standardization of sampling and metagenomic analysis promise to enhance the clinical utility of genomic diagnosis.

Abstract Rab proteins play crucial roles in membrane trafficking. Some Rab proteins are implicated in cancer development through regulating protein sorting or degradation. In this study, we found that the expression of Rab26 is suppressed in the aggressive breast cancer cells as compared to the levels in non-invasive breast cancer cells. Over-expression of Rab26 inhibits cell migration and invasion, while Rab26 knockdown significantly promotes the migration and invasion of breast cancer cells. Rab26 reduces focal adhesion association of Src kinase and induces endosomal translocation of Src. Further experiments revealed that Rab26 mediates the autophagic degradation of phosphorylated Src through interacting with ATG16L1, consequently, resulting in the suppression of the migration and invasion ability of breast cancer cells.

Leaf color mutants are ideal materials for studying the regulatory mechanism of chloroplast development and photosynthesis. We isolated a cucumis melo spontaneous mutant (MT), which showed yellow-green leaf phenotype in the whole growing period and could be inherited stably. We compared its leaves with the wild type (WT) in terms of cytology, physiology, transcriptome and metabolism. The results showed that the thylakoid grana lamellae of MT were loosely arranged and fewer in number than WT. Physiological experiments also showed that MT had less chlorophyll content and more accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) than WT. Furthermore, the activity of several key enzymes in C4 photosynthetic carbon assimilation pathway was more enhanced in MT than WT. Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses showed that differential expression genes and differentially accumulated metabolites in MT were mainly co-enriched in the pathways related to photosystem-antenna proteins, central carbon metabolism, glutathione metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and flavonoid metabolism. We also analyzed several key proteins in photosynthesis and chloroplast transport by Western blot. In summary, the results may provide a new insight into the understanding of how plants respond to the impaired photosynthesis by regulating chloroplast development and photosynthetic carbon assimilation pathways.

This study investigated the protective effects of exogenous ascorbic acid (AsA, 0.5 mmol·L−1) treatment on salt-induced photosystem inhibition in tomato seedlings under salt stress (NaCl, 100 mmol·L−1) conditions with and without the AsA inhibitor lycorine. Salt stress reduced the activities of photosystem II (PSII) and PSI. AsA treatment mitigated inhibition of the maximal photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm), maximal P700 changes (Pm), the effective quantum yields of PSII and I [Y(II) and Y(I)], and non-photochemical quenching coefficient (NPQ) values under salt stress conditions both with and without lycorine. Moreover, AsA restored the balance of excitation energy between two photosystems (β/α-1) after disruption by salt stress, with or without lycorine. Treatment of the leaves of salt-stressed plants with AsA with or without lycorine increased the proportion of electron flux for photosynthetic carbon reduction [Je(PCR)] while decreasing the O2-dependent alternative electron flux [Ja(O2-dependent)]. AsA with or without lycorine further resulted in increases in the quantum yield of cyclic electron flow (CEF) around PSI [Y(CEF)] while increasing the expression of antioxidant and AsA–GSH cycle-related genes and elevating the ratio of reduced glutathione/oxidized glutathione (GSH/GSSG). Similarly, AsA treatment significantly decreased the levels of reactive oxygen species [superoxide anion (O2−) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)] in these plants. Together, these data indicate that AsA can alleviate salt-stress-induced inhibition of PSII and PSI in tomato seedlings by restoring the excitation energy balance between the photosystems, regulating the dissipation of excess light energy by CEF and NPQ, increasing photosynthetic electron flux, and enhancing the scavenging of reactive oxygen species, thereby enabling plants to better tolerate salt stress.

In this paper, a quaternion-based adaptive dynamic surface control method is proposed for attitude tracking control for small-scale unmanned helicopters with external disturbance and uncertain dynamics. The quaternion formalism is introduced and a quaternion-based multi-input-multi-output nonlinear model is derived from the attitude dynamics of a small-scale helicopter. The low-complexity controllers are designed by the dynamic surface control method as it eliminates the problem of the explosion of items. The singularity problem is avoided by substituting Euler kinematic equations in the nonlinear model with quaternion expressions and integrating the quaternion expressions into the design process of the dynamic surface control. For improving the robustness of the control system, the radial basis function networks are applied to approximate the uncertain dynamics. The external disturbance is also compensated in the controllers' design. This paper proves that the proposed method can guarantee the uniformly ultimate boundness of this attitude system. Simulation results are presented finally and show the effectiveness of this control approach.

Sea ice classification using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in the wide-swath mode is one method for ice type retrieval. The conventional method of sea ice classification involves single-scale classification, wherein the backscatter and gray-level co-occurrence matrix features in a specific resolution are used as classification bases. The classification is implemented only once. In this way, however, the scalloping and interscan banding (ISB) artifacts in some TerraSAR-X ScanSAR data affect the classification result. In this article, a two-scale method of sea ice classification is proposed. The two-scale process includes both the coarse- and fine-resolution classifications. First, the coarse-resolution classification utilizes downscale images to generate the ice zone. Subsequently, the fine-scale classification utilizes the full-resolution SAR image and the ice zone to generate the final classification result. The support vector machine is used as the classifier. This two-scale method provides a better classification result compared to the single-scale method in two aspects. First, it effectively avoids the appearance of scalloping and ISB artifacts in the results. Second, it is less time-consuming and provides satisfactory results for discriminating multiyear ice, first-year ice, and water. The validation is accomplished using independent images, with an overall average accuracy of 86.38%. This article shows that this method may provide an alternative for sea ice classification using TerraSAR-X ScanSAR data.