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Purpose. Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder with high rate of prevalence, persistence, and leads to negative consequences. The mainstays of insomnia treatment have limitations due to either the side effects of hypnotics or limited accessibility to cognitive behavioral therapy. This study aims to compare the efficacy and safety of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Zaoren Anshen capsule alone or as an adjunct treatment with different doses of the nonbenzodiazepine medication zolpidem tartrate in treating insomnia. Method. This randomized, double-blind, multicentre placebo control trial was conducted in 131 patients with chronic insomnia. The patients were randomly assigned to one of the following four regimen groups: Group ZA + Z5 : Zaoren Anshen capsule and 5 mg zolpidem tartrate (n = 32); Group Z5: 5 mg zolpidem tartrate and placebo capsule (n = 35); Group Z10 : 10 mg zolpidem tartrate and placebo capsule (n = 32); Group ZA : Zaoren Anshen capsule and placebo pill (n = 32). The drugs were administered for 4 weeks. All patients were evaluated by the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) at 0, 2, 4, 5, and 6 weeks, and adverse events were recorded. Result. There are significant differences in the comparison between the four groups at each treatment stage ( P < 0.05 ). Repeated measurement analysis of variance (ANOVA) of ISI scores in each treatment stage of the four groups exhibits significant differences in time effect, intergroup effect, and interaction effect ( P < 0.05 ). After four weeks of drug administration, the treatment efficacy is similar in Groups ZA + Z5 and Z10 (93%) and in Groups Z5 and ZA (62% and 65%, respectively). Groups ZA + Z5 and Z10 present significantly lower ISI scores compared with Groups Z5 and ZA ( P < 0.05 ), which indicates better treatment response of Groups ZA + Z5 and Z10. No significant difference was observed in the incidence of adverse events between the groups. Conclusion. Zaoren Anshen capsule can effectively treat insomnia disorder either alone or in combination with zolpidem tartrate. A preferred combination of TCM Zaoren Anshen capsule with zolpidem can provide a magnified therapeutic efficacy with fewer side effects than zolpidem-only management, clinical trial registration number: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR-IPR-1600969.

Orf virus (ORFV, species Orf virus) belongs to the typical species of the Parapoxvirus genus of the family Poxviridae, which infects sheep, goats, and humans with worldwide distribution. Although outbreaks of Orf have been reported sequentially in several Chinese provinces, the epidemiology of Orf and genetic diversity of ORFV strains still needs to be further characterized. To further reveal the genomic organization of the ORFV-GZ18 and ORFV-CL18 isolates, the complete genome sequences of two recently obtained ORFV isolates were sequenced using the next-generation sequencing technology and analyzed, which had been deposited in the GenBank database under accession number MN648218 and MN648219, respectively. The complete genomic sequence of ORFV-CL18 was 138,495 bp in length, including 131 potential open reading frames (ORFs) flanked by inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) of 3481 bp at both ends, which has genomic structure typical Parapoxviruses. The overall genomic organization of the fully sequenced genome of ORFV-GZ18 was consistent with ORFV-CL18 genome, with a complete genome size of 138,446 nucleotides, containing 131 ORFs flanked by ITRs of 3469 bp. Additionally, the overall G + C contents of ORFV-GZ18 and ORFV-CL18 genome sequences were about 63.9% and 63.8%, respectively. The phylogenetic analysis showed that both ORFV-GZ18 and ORFV-CL18 were genetically closely related to ORFV-SY17 derived from sheep. In summary, the complete genomic sequences of ORFV-GZ18 and ORFV-CL18 are reported, with the hope it will be useful to investigate the host range, geographic distribution, and genetic evolution of the virus in Southern West and Northern East China.

BASIC PENTACYSTEINE (BPC) transcription factors are essential regulators of plant growth and development. However, BPC functions and the related molecular mechanisms during cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) responses to abiotic stresses, especially salt stress, remain unknown. We previously determined that salt stress induces CsBPC expression in cucumber. In this study, Csbpc2 transgene-free cucumber plants were created using a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated editing system to explore CsBPC functions associated with the salt stress response. The Csbpc2 mutants had a hypersensitive phenotype, with increased leaf chlorosis, decreased biomass, and increased malondialdehyde and electrolytic leakage levels under salt stress conditions. Additionally, a mutated CsBPC2 resulted in decreased proline and soluble sugar contents and antioxidant enzyme activities, which led to the accumulation of hydrogen peroxide and superoxide radicals. Furthermore, the mutation to CsBPC2 inhibited salinity-induced PM-H+-ATPase and V-H+-ATPase activities, resulting in decreased Na+ efflux and increased K+ efflux. These findings suggest that CsBPC2 may mediate plant salt stress resistance through its effects on osmoregulation, reactive oxygen species scavenging, and ion homeostasis-related regulatory pathways. However, CsBPC2 also affected ABA signaling. The mutation to CsBPC2 adversely affected salt-induced ABA biosynthesis and the expression of ABA signaling-related genes. Our results indicate that CsBPC2 may enhance the cucumber response to salt stress. It may also function as an important regulator of ABA biosynthesis and signal transduction. These findings will enrich our understanding of the biological functions of BPCs, especially their roles in abiotic stress responses, thereby providing the theoretical basis for improving crop salt tolerance.

The MgH2–LiH composites with different composition ratios were prepared by different ball milling times, and the hydrogen generation performances of the composites were investigated and compared.

It has been reported that the knowledge, attitudes and practices of nurses play a significant role in preventing incontinence-associated dermatitis (IAD), and these three factors influence and interact with each other. This study aimed to translate the English version of the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Incontinence-Associated Dermatitis Questionnaire (KAP-IAD-Q) into Chinese and assess the validity and reliability of the Chinese KAP-IAD-Q (C- KAP-IAD-Q) used with Chinese nurses.The KAP-IAD-Q was translated into Chinese strictly in accordance with the Brislin translation model, and a Chinese version of IAD was formed after discussion by experts. From October to November 2021, a total of 259 Chinese nurses were recruited through a convenience sampling method and investigated using the Chinese version of the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the incontinence-associated dermatitis questionnaire (C-KAP-IAD-Q) and the general self-efficacy scale to assess its reliability and validity.Three factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis comprised of 22 items. The Cronbach's α coefficients were 0.961, 0.929 and 0.833, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.98 totally. The scale-level content validity index (S-CVI) was 0.95, and the item-level content validity (I-CVI) was 0.83-1.00. The correlation coefficient between the general self-efficacy scale and the C-KAP-IAD-Q was 0.561 (P 0.01).The 22-item C-KAP-IAD-Q seems to be culturally well adapted and has good psychometric properties used by Chinese nurses.

In the rational allocation of the cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) platform, adopting data analysis to evaluate it objectively and accurately can provide scientific decision support for enterprises. Therefore, in this paper, the evaluation indicators of the CBEC platform are selected according to the principles of science and typicality, including four first-level indicators, such as service quality, and 16 second-level indicators, such as function of data analysis. The weight of each index is calculated by analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and four e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, are evaluated by fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The score of the CBEC platform based on this evaluation system has a high matching degree with the comprehensive assessment of enterprise executives, which can provide scientific support for decision-making in enterprises.

Herein, the influence of Ti substitution on microstructure and hydrogen absorption behavior of annealed ZrxTi7-xV5Fe (x = 0, 0.3, 0.9, 1.5 and 2.1) alloys is systematically studied. The results reveal that the Ti-substituted alloys contain only α-Zr and C15–ZrV2 phases, where the content of C15–ZrV2 phase initially increased with increasing Ti content, followed by a gradual decrease. On the other hand, the content of α-Zr phase decreased with increasing Ti content, and then increased. Hence, the cell volume of C15–ZrV2 phase is maximum and the cell volume of α-Zr phase is minimum at x = 1.5, corresponding to Zr5.5Ti1.5V5Fe alloy. Moreover, the results exhibit that the plateau pressure of α-Zr phase increased with increasing Ti content at 623 K, 673 K and 723 K, whereas the plateau pressure of C15–ZrV2 phase exhibited the reverse change. Also, the stoichiometric ratio (A/B) of A-side element to B-side element in α-Zr phase gradually decreased with increasing Ti content, whereas the C15–ZrV2 phase exhibited an opposite trend. One should note that the A/B stoichiometric ratio may play a critical role in determining the plateau pressure of both phases. The hydrogen absorption curves of ZrxTi7-xV5Fe alloys showed that the hydrogen absorption content increased with increasing Ti content. It should be noted that the hydrogen absorption kinetics decreased with increasing Ti content, which may be mainly caused by increasing of the particle size with increasing Ti content.

Sugars are necessary for plant growth and fruit development. Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) transports sugars, mainly raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs), in the vascular bundle. As the dominant sugars in cucumber fruit, glucose and fructose are derived from sucrose, which is the product of RFO hydrolysis by α-galactosidase (α-Gal). Here, we characterized the cucumber alkaline α-galactosidase 2 (CsAGA2) gene and found that CsAGA2 has undergone human selection during cucumber domestication. Further experiments showed that the expression of CsAGA2 increases gradually during fruit development, especially in fruit vasculature. In CsAGA2-RNA interference (RNAi) lines, fruit growth was delayed because of lower hexose production in the peduncle and fruit main vascular bundle (MVB). In contrast, CsAGA2-overexpressing (OE) plants displayed bigger fruits. Functional enrichment analysis of transcriptional data indicated that genes related to sugar metabolism, cell wall metabolism, and hormone signaling were significantly downregulated in the peduncle and fruit MVBs of CsAGA2-RNAi plants. Moreover, downregulation of CsAGA2 also caused negative feedback regulation on source leaves, which was shown by reduced photosynthetic efficiency, fewer plasmodesmata at the surface between mesophyll cell and intermediary cell (IC) or between IC and sieve element, and downregulated gene expression and enzyme activities related to phloem loading, as well as decreased sugar production and exportation from leaves and petioles. The opposite trend was observed in CsAGA2-OE lines. Overall, we conclude that CsAGA2 is essential for cucumber fruit set and development through mediation of sugar communication between sink strength and source activity.

Orf virus (ORFV) is a highly epitheliotropic parapoxvirus with zoonotic significance that induces proliferative lesions in the skin of sheep, goats, and humans. Several viral proteins carried by ORFV, including nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) inhibitors, play important roles in hijacking host-associated proteins for viral evasion of the host innate immune response. However, the roles of proteins with unknown functions in viral replication and latent infection remain to be explored. Here, we present data demonstrating that the ORF120, an early-late ORFV-encoded protein, activates the NF-κB pathway in the early phase of infection, which implies that ORFV may regulate NF-κB through a biphasic mechanism. A DUAL membrane yeast two-hybrid system and coimmunoprecipitation experiments revealed that the ORF120 protein interacts with Ras-GTPase-activating protein (SH3 domain) binding protein 1 (G3BP1). The overexpression of the ORF120 protein can efficiently increase the expression of G3BP1 and nuclear translocation of NF-κB-p65 in primary ovine fetal turbinate (OFTu) and HeLa cells. The knockdown of G3BP1 significantly decreased ORF120-induced NF-κB activation, indicating that G3BP1 is involved in ORF120-induced NF-κB pathway activation. A dual-luciferase reporter assay revealed that ORF120 could positively regulate the NF-κB pathway through the full-length G3BP1 or the domain of G3BP1RRM+RGG. In conclusion, we demonstrate, for the first time, that the ORF120 protein is capable of positively regulating NF-κB signaling by interacting with G3BP1, providing new insights into ORFV pathogenesis and a theoretical basis for antiviral drug design. IMPORTANCE As part of the host innate response, the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway plays a partial antiviral role in nature by regulating the innate immune response. Thus, the NF-κB pathway is probably the most frequently targeted intracellular pathway for subversion by anti-immune modulators that are carried by a wide range of pathogens. Various viruses, including poxviruses, carry several proteins that prepare the host cell for viral replication by inhibiting cytoplasmic events, leading to the initiation of NF-κB transcriptional activity. However, NF-κB activity is hypothesized to facilitate viral replication to a great extent. The significance of our research is in the exploration of the activation mechanism of NF-κB induced by the Orf virus (ORFV) ORF120 protein interacting with G3BP1, which helps not only to explain the ability of ORFV to modulate the immune response through the positive regulation of NF-κB but also to show the mechanism by which the virus evades the host innate immune response.

Poxviruses have evolved multiple strategies to modulate host-derived factors to create an optimal environment for viral efficient replication. Our previous study indicated that cyclophilin B (CypB) is a critical factor for ORFV replication in MDBK cells. However, the precise molecular mechanism by which CypB facilitates ORFV replication remains less understood. In the present study, the function of CypB in ORFV replication is further evaluated. The overexpression of CypB was observed to facilitate ORFV replication in OFTu cells and HeLa cells, however, RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated reduction of endogenous CypB decreased the levels of ORFV replication. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments revealed that the CypB interacted with ORFV ORF058 protein, a late protein involved in virus entry. The interaction of host factor CypB and ORF058 protein was further confirmed by confocal microscopy analysis and GST-pull down. In addition, the 52-55 aa was identified as the critical binding sites for CypB on ORF058 protein by GST-pull down with OFTu cells overexpressing CypB and purified GST-tagged truncated ORF058. In conclusion, we demonstrate that CypB is a critical host factor for ORFV replication in vitro by interacting with ORF058 protein, providing new insights into ORFV pathogenesis.

Growth conditions can significantly affect the removal efficiency of heavy metals by microorganisms. The goal of this study was enhancing the removal efficiency of Cr(VI) and improving the application of Acinetobacter sp. Cr1 (GenBank accession number of 16S rDNA sequence, MN900681). This study focused on pH, Cr(VI) concentration and culture time, which were the major influence factors for removal efficiency of Cr(VI). A central composite design was employed to optimize the removal efficiency by optimizing three variables. The optimum growth conditions were as: pH of 9.52, Cr(VI) concentration of 128.55 mg l-1, culture time of 43.30 h, and the predicted and actual maxima were 65.13% and 67.26%, respectively. Therefore, it is suggested that the strain Acinetobacter sp. Cr1 had a promising potential to be used for bioremediation of Cr(VI).

This work has reported a simple, environmental-friendly, low-cost and relatively high efficient method of L-cys @ Fe 2 O 3 NTs photoanode preparation. The designed specimen was composed of hematite nanotubes obtained by electrochemical anodization on mild steel, which surface was covered by l -cysteine thin layer. With the overlayer, the water oxidation photocurrent of hematite increased approximately sixfold (1.23 V vs RHE (reversible hydrogen electrode) under 1 sun illumination). To reveal the enhanced PEC performance, multiple analyses including the sample surface morphological and chemical properties, optical and electronic properties, and photoelectrochemical properties were explored. The combined results suggested that L-cys @ Fe 2 O 3 NTs photoanode presented more efficient hole migration pathway, lower interfacial resistance, and superior surface stability than pure nanostructured hematite.

In recent years, the magnesium phosphate cement (MPC)-based polymer is a potential type of material to quickly repair existing structures due to some distinguished advantages. In this paper, a series of experimental studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of the nano-Al2O3 (NA) substitution rate, water glass (WG) substitution rate and immersion time on the bond behavior between the magnesium phosphate cement mortar (MPCM) and steel fiber (SF). The main properties of the pull-out specimens were examined, including the bond strength, energy consumption of steel fiber pull-out, and water stability of the MPCM-SF interface evaluated by the bond strength retention rate and relative bond strength retention rate. In addition, the micro analysis of the fiber-matrix interface transition zone (ITZ) were conducted by using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and the compositions analysis of the MPC paste with NA and WG were conducted by using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The experimental results indicated that regardless of the immersion time, the NA substitution rate of 4% and 6% had a clearer improvement on the bond behavior between MPCM and SF than those of other types of the specimens; the WG substitution rate of 1% and 2% had a more significant improvement on the bond behavior between MPCM and SF than those of other types of the specimens; the distance between the larger width crack and the steel fiber for the specimen with a NA substitution rate of 6% was larger than than those of other types of the specimens, which showed that the ITZ between MPCM and SF with NA substitution rate of 6% exhibited a denser micro-structure and better micro-mechanical properties; the micro-structure of the ITZ between MPCM and SF gradually deteriorated as the immersion time increased, which showed that the water stability of the MPCM-SF interface gradually decreased.

Long-term operation of Ring Main Unit (RMU) in humid condensation environment will shorten the life of the equipment, and the insulation strength will decrease, resulting in discharging, breakdown and other faults. This paper is devoted to the design of automatic dehumidification system in RMU. A kind of automatic dehumidification system is developed by using solar energy to drives dehumidifier. In this paper, a kind of system with optimal performance is designed through theoretical calculation, simulation and experiments. The experimental results show that the dehumidification system can effectively control the humidity in the RMU and prevent condensation.

Subject classification of power customer service work orders is an important part of power system customer service. However, at present, the power industry is still at the stage of relying on manual classification. Therefore, it is particularly important to propose a method for fast and accurate automatic classification of power customer service orders. In this paper, a Hierarchical Attention-based Fuzzy Neural Network (HABFNN) model based on is proposed for the subject classification of power customer service work orders. The model consists of two parts: the word-sentence layer, which uses the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) trained by Dense-Fuzzy-Dense (DFD) to model sentences on the basis of word vector representation; the sentence-document layer, which uses CNN and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) network with attention mechanism to model documents on the basis of the sentence representations. The model can extract important information from the text of power customer service work orders, mine the semantics of the text and classify it. The model is compared with existing text classification methods through experiments. The experimental results show that this model has higher classification accuracy and F1 score, can better classify power customer service work orders and can effectively improve the efficiency and quality of power industry customer service.

The semi-active laser /millimetre wave (MMW) beam combiner design methods including the MMW transmission structure design method and laser diffuse surface design method were proposed. The transmission line theory was adopted to design the MMW transmission structure. The Lambert's law assumption was adopted when the diffuse reflection surface of the beam combiner was designed. In the aim of illustrating the design methods, a thin plate beam combiner design case was given to meet the performance requirements which were proposed according to the test requirements of the unit under test. In order to validate the MMW transmission structure design method, a prototype made of polytetrafluoroethylene was fabricated and it was tested in a Ka band compact range anechoic chamber. In order to evaluate the laser reflection performance, the laser reflection performance at a wavelength of 1.064 μm was also tested and analysed by an empirical bidirectional reflectance distribution function model.

The sag of power transmission line is of great significance to the safe operation of the whole transmission systems, and is also an important indicator of the line design. A new method to measure the sag of the transmission line was presented in this paper, which was based on the laser ranging and the image processing technology. Firstly, the contrast enhancement and threshold segmentation were used to obtain the binary image with clear contour. Secondly, the connection points between the line and the tower were selected as the interested points, and the improved Harris detection algorithm was used to extract the corner points as well as measure their pixel coordinates. Then the contour fitting of the transmission line was carried out by using the random circle, the hyperbola, and the parabola fitting algorithm respectively. The root mean square error was used to judge the fitting effect, and then the best fitting equation was obtained. Finally, with the Global Positioning System technology to test and verify, the conversion ratio of the image distance and the actual spatial distance was obtained by using the laser ranging technology, and the actual sag of the transmission line was calculated. Compared with the actual measurement results, the measurement error of the new method can be as low as 0.38%, which was within the error tolerance range. This method is simple in operation, low in shooting requirement and fast in coordinate conversion. It can accurately measure the sag of the transmission line, and is suitable for processing complex background environment.

We investigated the design method of an infrared (IR)/microwave (MW) micromirror array type of beam combiner. The size of micromirror is in microscopic levels and comparable to MW wavelengths, so that the MW will not react in these dimensions, whereas the much shorter optical wavelengths will be reflected by them. Hence, the MW multilayered substrate was simplified and designed using transmission line theory. The beam combiner used an IR wavefront-division imaging technique to reflect the IR radiation image to the unit under test (UUT)’s pupil in a parallel light path. In addition, the boresight error detected by phase monopulse radar was analyzed using a moment-of method (MoM) and multilevel fast multipole method (MLFMM) acceleration technique. The boresight error introduced by the finite size of the beam combiner was less than 1°. Finally, in order to verify the wavefront-division imaging technique, a prototype of a micromirror array was fabricated, and IR images were tested. The IR images obtained by the thermal imager verified the correctness of the wavefront-division imaging technique.

An infrared (IR, 3–5 and 8–12 μm)/microwave (MW, 2.7 GHz) micromirror array type of beam combiner was fabricated for test and analysis. A model based on transmission line theory, Snell’s law, and phase monopulse radar theory was built to analyze the boresight angle errors. Three types of boresight angle errors—inherent error, refraction-induced error and combiner inserting error—were calculated. The results indicated that combiner inserting error was the most important error. Using this theoretical model, a beam combiner was optimized, fabricated, and investigated experimentally. Measured by a phase monopulse radar, the boresight angle error introduced by the beam combiner was