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Multistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a special mode of SAR system. The radar transmitter and receiver are located on different satellites, which brings many advantages, such as flexible baseline configuration, diverse receiving modes, and more detailed ground object classification information. The multistatic SAR has been widely used in interferometry, moving target detection, three-dimensional imaging, and other fields. The frequency offset between different oscillators will cause a modulation phase error in the signal. Therefore, phase synchronization is one of the most critical problems to be addressed in distributed SAR systems. This article reviews phase synchronization techniques, which are mainly divided into two methods: synchronization by direct microwave link and synchronization by a data-based estimation algorithm. Furthermore, the future development of synchronization technology is anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the global well-posedness of two-dimensional Klein–Gordon equations with exponential nonlinearity. By employing the potential well method, we conduct a comprehensive study on the global existence and finite time blowup of solutions by the requirement of the initial energy at three different initial energy levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Agelas genus sponges are widely distributed and provide shelter for organisms that inhabit reefs. However, there is a lack of research on the genetic diversity of the Agelas sponges. Additionally, only one Agelas mitochondrial genome has been documented, leaving the characteristics of the Agelas genus's mitogenome in need of further clarification. To address this research gap, we utilized Illumina HiSeq4000 sequencing and de novo assembly to ascertain the complete mitochondrial genome of Agelas sp. specimens, sourced from the South China Sea. Our analysis of the cox1 barcoding similarity and phylogenetic relationship reveals that taxonomically, the Agelas sp. corresponds to Agelas nakamurai. The mitogenome of Agelas nakamurai is 20,885 bp in length, encoding 14 protein-coding genes, 24 transfer RNA genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Through a comparison of the mitochondrial genes, we discovered that both Agelas nakamurai and Agelas schmidti have an identical gene arrangement. Furthermore, we observed a deletion in the trnD gene and duplication and remodeling of the trnL gene in the Agelas nakamurai's mitogenome. Our evolutionary analysis also identified lineage-specific positive selection sites in the nad3 and nad5 genes of the Agelas sponges' mitogenome. These findings shed light on the gene rearrangement events and positive selection sites in the mitogenome of Agelas nakamurai, providing valuable molecular insights into the evolutionary processes of this genus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, firstly, the effects of graphene oxide on the mechanical properties of concrete were investigated. Secondly, the degradation and mechanism of the mechanical properties of graphene oxide concrete (GOC) under sulfate attack and a freeze–thaw environment were investigated. In addition, the dynamic modulus of elasticity (MOEdy) and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the GOC were measured under different environmental conditions. According to the test results, the incorporation of graphene oxide in appropriate admixtures could improve the mechanical properties of concrete in these two working environments. It is worth noting that this effect is most pronounced when 0.05 wt% graphene oxide is incorporated. In the sulfate attack environment, the MOEdy and UTS of the GOC0.05% specimen at 120 cycles decreased by 22.28% and 24.23%, respectively, compared with the normal concrete specimens. In the freeze–thaw environment, the MOEdy and UTS of the GOC0.05% specimen at 90 cycles decreased by 13.96% and 7.58%, respectively, compared with the normal concrete specimens. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis showed that graphene oxide could adjust the aggregation state of cement hydration products and its own reaction with some cement hydration crystals to form strong covalent bonds, thereby improving and enhancing the microstructure density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human-specific duplicated genes contributed to phenotypic innovations during the origin of our own species, such as an enlarged brain and highly developed cognitive abilities. While prior studies on transgenic mice carrying the human-specific SRGAP2C gene have shown enhanced brain connectivity, the relevance to humans remains unclear due to the significant evolutionary gap between humans and rodents. In this study, to investigate the phenotypic outcome and underlying genetic mechanism of SRGAP2C , we generated transgenic cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) carrying the human-specific SRGAP2C gene. Longitudinal MRI imaging revealed delayed brain development with region-specific volume changes, accompanied by altered myelination levels in the temporal and occipital regions. On a cellular level, the transgenic monkeys exhibited increased deep-layer neurons during fetal neurogenesis and delayed synaptic maturation in adolescence. Moreover, transcriptome analysis detected neotenic expression in molecular pathways related to neuron ensheathment, synaptic connections, extracellular matrix and energy metabolism. Cognitively, the transgenic monkeys demonstrated improved motor planning and execution skills. Together, our findings provide new insights into the mechanisms by which the newly evolved gene shapes the unique development and circuitry of the human brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic active Epstein–Barr virus infection (CAEBV) and Epstein–Barr virus-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (EBV-HLH) are rare but life-threatening progressive diseases triggered by EBV infection. Glucocorticoid/immunosuppressants treatment is temporarily effective; however, most patients relapse and/or progress. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a potentially curative therapy; however, there are risks of transplantation-associated complications. Currently there is no standard treatment for CAEBV and EBV-HLH. Programmed death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitors have achieved a high response in many EBV-related diseases. Sintilimab (a recombinant human IgG4 monoclonal antibody against PD-1) disrupts the interaction between PD-1 and its ligand, leading to T cell reinvigoration. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on three children with CAEBV or EBV-HLH in the Children's Hospital of Soochow University between 12 December 2020 and 28 November 2022. The efficacy of sintilimab was evaluated. Results: Three patients, including two males and one female, were analyzed. Among them, two children were diagnosed with CAEBV with intermittent fever for more than four years, and one child was diagnosed with EBV-HLH. After sintilimab treatment and a mean follow-up of 17.1 months (range 10.0–23.3 months), patients 1 and 3 achieved a complete clinical response and patient 2 achieved a partial clinical response. All three children showed a > 50% decrease in EBV-DNA load in both blood and plasma. EBV-DNA copies in sorted T, B, and NK cells were also markedly decreased after sintilimab treatment. Conclusion: Our data supported the efficacy of PD-1 targeted therapy in certain patients with CAEBV and EBV-HLH, and suggested that sintilimab could provide a cure for these diseases, without HSCT. More prospective studies and longer follow-up are needed to confirm these conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, a metal-free diastereoselective formal 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of N-2,2,2-trifluoroethylisatin ketimines and cyclopentene-1,3-diones which can efficiently lead to the desymmetrization of cyclopentene-1,3-diones is developed. With the developed protocol, a series of tetracyclic spirooxindoles containing pyrrolidine and cyclopentane subunits can be smoothly obtained with good results (up to 99% yield and 91:9 dr). Furthermore, the methodology can be extended to trifluoromethyl-substituted iminomalonate, and the corresponding formal [3+2] cycloaddition reaction affords bicyclic heterocycles containing fused pyrrolidine and cyclopentane moieties in moderate yields with >20:1 dr. The synthetic potential of the methodology is demonstrated by the scale-up experiment and by versatile transformations of the products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) is a widely distributed ungulate in northeast China. Due to a series of human disturbance activities such as large‐scale forest cutting, deforestation and reclamation, road construction in the past, the appearance and internal structure of forest vegetation in the habitat of Siberian roe have changed significantly. At the same time, Siberian roe population had a series of ecological adaptation responses in the face of such habitat changes. Therefore, two typical vegetation types with differences were selected in the Muling Forest, China. We used nutritional ecology and microbial metagenomic analysis techniques to compare the nutritional selection strategy and the structure and functional characteristics of faecal microbiota of Siberian roe groups in two vegetation types. The results showed that the α diversity of dietary and gut microbes of deer in Natural Forest was higher than that in Plantation Forest. However, the gut microbes of the Plantation Forest group contained more unique enzymes in the functional pathways of carbon metabolism and biosynthesis of amino acids. This study suggests that habitat type is associated with plant community composition, and contributes to changes in the intake proportions of major macronutrients by altering the availability, quality, and composition of certain edible plants. Feeding behaviour may be an important regulatory factor of gut microbiota structure and function of deer. The metabolic function of gut microbiota to different nutrients may affect the microbial community structure. Therefore, our results suggest that the gut microbes of Siberian roe may have coevolved with their diets, and reflect the adaptability of deer populations to environmental changes (e.g., vegetation type). Our study provides new insights into how spatial heterogeneity affects nutrition and microecosystems by describing the interactions among the environment, diet, and symbiotic gut microbes in wild ungulates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical graphene sheets (VGs), covalently bonded to diamond substrate, can exhibit ultra-high mechanical robustness against scratching, friction, and compression. In this study, AFM tests with a diamond probe were preformed to investigate the interfacial mechanical properties of VGs film fabricated on diamond substrate. The unique bonding structure between VGs and diamond, featured with an ultra-strong C–C covalent bonds, effectively inhibited VGs being uprooted from diamond substrate even under a contact pressure as high as 53.7 GPa. Despite the inevitable breakage of graphene sheets under a contact pressure exceeds 25 GPa, the fractured graphene sheets residuals, which retain their covalent bonds to diamond substrate, could still act as a mechanically robust VGs film. Furthermore, in a long-duration AFM friction test, the VGs exhibited a highly stabilized coefficient of friction around 0.03 and a nearly ignorable specific wear rate as low as 2.0 × 10−4 mm3/Nm. Due to the relative slipping between adjacent graphene sheets was inhibited by the interfacial covalent C–C bonds between VGs and diamond substrate, the compressed VGs film transformed into a scale-like structure that consist of compactly stacked graphene sheets with a certain concentration of sp 3 bonds (up to 8%) forming inside. This structure, characterized with extremely high elastic modulus and compressive strength, substantially attributed to the ultrahigh stability and sustainability exhibited by VGs upon friction and compression. The findings presented here is expected to boost utilizations of VGs and diamond combined in electronics, optical, mechanical, and tribological fields. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies on dynamic impingement of nerve root in cervical spondylotic radiculopathy (CSR) have focused on effect of cervical spine motion (CSM) on dimensional changes of intervertebral foramen. However, there are few studies to investigate effect of CSM on displacement of posterolateral intervertebral disc until now. The present study aimed to investigate effect of CSM on displacement of posterolateral annulus fibrosus (AF) in CSR with contained posterolateral disc herniation. Methods: A C5–C6 CSR finite element model with unilateral contained posterolateral disc herniation was generated based on validated C5–C6 normal finite element model. Forward and backward displacement distributions of posterolateral AFs in CSR model and normal model were compared. Changes in forward and backward displacement magnitudes of posterolateral AFs of the herniated side and the healthy side in CSR model, with respect to those of the ipsilateral posterolateral AFs in normal model, were compared. The comparisons were performed under flexion, extension, lateral bendings and axial rotations. Results: There was no difference in deformation trend of posterolateral AF between CSR model and normal model. Bilateral posterolateral AFs mainly moved forward during flexion and backward during extension. Left posterolateral AF mainly moved backward and right posterolateral AF forward during left lateral bending and left axial rotation. Left posterolateral AF mainly moved forward and right posterolateral AF backward during right lateral bending and right axial rotation. However, with respect to forward and backward displacement magnitudes of the ipsilateral posterolateral AFs in normal model, those of the herniated side increased relatively significantly compared with those of the healthy side in CSR model. Conclusions: Flexion, lateral bending to the healthy side and axial rotation to the healthy side make posterolateral AF of the herniated side mainly move forward, whereas extension, lateral bending to the herniated side and axial rotation to the herniated side make it mainly move backward. These data may help select CSM or positions to diagnose and treat CSR with contained posterolateral disc herniation. Increase in deformation amplitude of posterolateral AF of the herniated side may also be the reason for dynamic impingement of nerve root in CSR with contained posterolateral disc herniation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the myriad pathways by which antimicrobial-resistance genes (ARGs) spread across biomes is necessary to counteract the global menace of antimicrobial resistance. We screened 17939 assembled metagenomic samples covering 21 biomes, differing in sequencing quality and depth, unevenly across 46 countries, 6 continents, and 14 years (2005-2019) for clinically crucial ARGs, mobile colistin resistance (mcr), carbapenem resistance (CR), and (extended-spectrum) beta-lactamase (ESBL and BL) genes. These ARGs were most frequent in human gut, oral and skin biomes, followed by anthropogenic (wastewater, bioreactor, compost, food), and natural biomes (freshwater, marine, sediment). Mcr-9 was the most prevalent mcr gene, spatially and temporally; blaOXA-233 and blaTEM-1 were the most prevalent CR and BL/ESBL genes, but blaGES-2 and blaTEM-116 showed the widest distribution. Redundancy analysis and Bayesian analysis showed ARG distribution was non-random and best-explained by potential host genera and biomes, followed by collection year, anthropogenic factors and collection countries. Preferential ARG occurrence, and potential transmission, between characteristically similar biomes indicate strong ecological boundaries. Our results provide a high-resolution global map of ARG distribution and importantly, identify checkpoint biomes wherein interventions aimed at disrupting ARGs dissemination are likely to be most effective in reducing dissemination and in the long term, the ARG global burden. An extensive metagenomic analysis investigates the global distribution of antimicrobial resistance genes over different biomes, which are primarily influenced by host genera and environment rather than geographic or anthropogenic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The mechanisms underlying microbial community dynamics and co‐occurrence patterns along ecological succession are crucial for understanding ecosystem recovery but remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated community dynamics and taxa co‐occurrence patterns in bacterial and fungal communities across a well‐established chronosequence of post‐mining lands spanning 54 years of recovery. Bacterial community structures became increasingly phylogenetically clustered with soil age at early successional stages and varied less at later successional stages. The dynamics of bacterial community phylogenetic structures were determined by the changes in the soil vegetation cover along succession. The dynamics of fungal community phylogenetic structures did not significantly correlate with soil age, soil properties or vegetation cover, and were mainly attributed to stochastic processes. Along succession, the common decrease in the bacterial co‐occurrence complexity and in the average pairwise phylogenetic distances between co‐occurring bacteria implied a decrease in potential bacterial cooperation. The increased complexity of fungal co‐occurrence along succession was independent of phylogenetic relatedness between co‐occurring fungi. This study provides new sights into ecological mechanisms underlying bacterial and fungal community succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damage to podocytes is an important determinant of renal pathology. The puromycin aminonucleoside (PAN) mice nephropathy model is commonly used in the study of renal disease with podocyte injury. Hirudin has a broad nephroprotective effect and has been shown to treat renal interstitial fibrosis in previous studies. Mice were given PAN by gavage to prepare animal models, and MPC5 cells were incubated with PAN in vitro. Twenty‐four hours urine was collected for analysis of urinary protein levels. Renal pathological changes were observed by hematoxylin and eosin staining. Immunofluorescence detection of nephrin in kidney tissues and cells. Apoptosis was analyzed with over TUNEL. Cytoskeleton, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), p38 MAPK signaling, and apoptosis‐related proteins were assessed by western blot analysis. The data suggested that hirudin attenuated reduced renal injury and increased urine protein in PAN mice. Hirudin also attenuated cytoskeletal protein (synaptopodin, nephrin, and podocin) disruption, ERS activation, and apoptosis in PAN mice and PAN‐induced podocytes. In addition, hirudin inhibited the expression of p38 MAPK signaling key proteins upregulated by PAN, thereby suppressing ERS. The p38 MAPK agonist was able to partially antagonize the inhibition of p38 MAPK signaling by hirudin in PAN‐induced podocytes, thereby reactivating the ERS inhibited by hirudin, promoting cytoskeletal protein degradation and increasing the level of apoptosis. In conclusion, hirudin could decrease podocyte injury by inhibiting p38 MAPK signaling‐mediated ERS, resulting in the protection of the kidney from PAN damage. These findings may provide an experimental basis for hirudin treatment of podocyte injury diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A previous study demonstrated that intracranial tumor volume had some correlation with gastrointestinal cancer patients' outcome. The aim of this study was to analyze patients with esophageal carcinoma (EC) and brain metastases to investigate if intracranial tumor volume would be a predictor of these patients' survival. Methods: A total of 52 patients with brain metastases from esophageal squamous cell carcinoma or esophageal adenocarcinoma were retrospectively reviewed. Patients without images of brain metastases in the hospital information system were eliminated. Results: The median follow‐up time duration was 8.4 months (interquartile range 4.0–15.2). The median overall survival (OS) from time of brain metastases diagnosis was 8.0 months for all cases. Median OS of patients with small and large cumulative intracranial tumor volume (CITV) (<6.65 cm3, ≥6.65 cm3) was 11.23 and 7.4 months, respectively. Median OS of patients with large and small largest intracranial tumor volume (LITV) (≥7.75 cm3, <7.75 cm3) was 6.4 and 10.6 months, respectively. Univariate analysis demonstrated that CITV (hazard ratio [HR] 1.255, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.673–2.342, p = 0.475) or LITV (HR 1.037, 95% CI 0.570–1.887, p = 0.904) was not significantly associated with improved OS. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that CITV and LITV were not significantly associated with improved OS. Conclusion: EC patients with small intracranial tumor volume may have longer OS than those with large intracranial tumor volume, but this difference did not reach statistical difference. Future studies with a larger sample size may validate the correlation of intracranial tumor volume and patient survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Multiple urinary biomarkers have been identified to be associated with the prediction of AKI and outcomes. However, the accuracy of these urinary biomarkers for AKI and associated outcomes has not been clearly defined, especially in heterogeneous populations. The aims of the study were to compare the ability of 10 existing or potential urinary biomarkers to predict AKI and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) mortality and validate urinary tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (uTIMP-1) as a better biomarker for early prediction in heterogeneous critically ill children.Methods: A derivation-validation approach with separate critically ill cohorts was designed. We first conducted a prospective cohort study to determine the ability of 10 urinary biomarkers serially measured in 123 children during the first 7 days of PICU stay to predict AKI and PICU mortality (derivation study) and further validated the better biomarker of uTIMP-1 in a separate cohort of 357 critically ill children (validation study). AKI diagnosis was based on KDIGO classification with serum creatinine and urine output. PICU mortality was defined as all-cause mortality.Results: In the derivation cohort, 17 of 123 (13.8%) children developed AKI stage 3 or died during the PICU stay, and both the initial and peak uTIMP-1 displayed the highest AUCs of 0.87 (0.79-0.94) and 0.90 (0.84-0.96), respectively, for predicting AKI stage 3 or death. In the validation cohort, 78 of 357 (21.8%) developed AKI during the first week after admission, and 38 (10.6%) died during the PICU stay. The initial uTIMP-1 level was validated to be independently associated with AKI (AOR = 2.88, 95% CI 1.97-4.21), severe AKI (AOR = 2.62, 95% CI 1.78-3.88), AKI stage 3 (AOR = 2.94, 95% CI 1.84-4.68) and PICU mortality (AOR = 1.92, 95% CI 1.11-3.30) after adjustment for potential confounders. The predictive values of uTIMP-1 for AKI, severe AKI, AKI stage 3 and PICU mortality were 0.80 (0.74-0.86), 0.83 (0.77-0.89), 0.84 (0.77-0.92) and 0.83 (0.76-0.89), respectively.Conclusions: Urinary TIMP-1 levels have been identified and validated to be independently associated with AKI and PICU mortality in independent prospective cohorts and may be an early potential indicator of AKI and PICU mortality in critically ill children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Whole-body bone scan is the widely used tool for surveying bone metastases caused by various primary solid tumors including lung cancer. Scintigraphic images are characterized by low specificity, bringing a significant challenge to manual analysis of images by nuclear medicine physicians. Convolutional neural network can be used to develop automated classification of images by automatically extracting hierarchal features and classifying high-level features into classes. Results: Using convolutional neural network, a multi-class classification model has been developed to detect skeletal metastasis caused by lung cancer using clinical whole-body scintigraphic images. The proposed method consisted of image aggregation, hierarchal feature extraction, and high-level feature classification. Experimental evaluations on a set of clinical scintigraphic images have shown that the proposed multi-class classification network is workable for automated detection of lung cancer-caused metastasis, with achieving average scores of 0.7782, 0.7799, 0.7823, 0.7764, and 0.8364 for accuracy, precision, recall, F-1 score, and AUC value, respectively. Conclusions: The proposed multi-class classification model can not only predict whether an image contains lung cancer-caused metastasis, but also differentiate between subclasses of lung cancer (i.e., adenocarcinoma and non-adenocarcinoma). On the context of two-class (i.e., the metastatic and non-metastatic) classification, the proposed model obtained a higher score of 0.8310 for accuracy metric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foliar application of zinc (Zn) or silicon nanoparticles (Si-NPs) may exert regulatory effects on cadmium (Cd) accumulation in rice grains, however, their impact on Cd bioavailability during human rice consumption remains elusive. This study comprehensively investigated the application of Zn with or without Si-NPs in reducing Cd accumulation in rice grains as well to exactly evaluate the potential risk of Cd exposure resulting from the rice consumption by employing field experiment as well laboratory bioaccessibility and bioavailability assay. Sole Zn (ZnSO 4) or in combination with Si (ZnSO 4 +Si and ZnO+Si) efficiently lowered the Cd concentration in rice grains. However, the impact of bioaccessible (0.1215–0.1623 mg kg−1) and bioavailable Cd (0.0245–0.0393 mg kg−1) during simulated human rice consumption depicted inconsistent trend. The straw HCl-extractable fraction of Cd (F HCl-Cd) exhibited a significant correlation with total, bioaccessible, and bioavailable Cd in grains, indicating the critical role of F HCl-Cd in Cd accumulation and translocation from grains to human. Additionally, foliar spraying of Zn+Si raised the nutritional value of rice grains, leading to increased protein content and reduced phytic acid concentration. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of foliar application of ZnSO 4 +Si in mitigating the Cd levels in rice grains and associated health risks upon consumption. [Display omitted] • Foliar application of ZnSO 4 +Si effectively achieved the safe rice production. • Bioaccessible and bioavailable Cd was inconsistent with total Cd in rice grains. • Straw HCl-extractable fraction of Cd significantly impacted the bioavailable Cd in grains. • Combination of Zn and Si efficiently improved the grain nutritional and yield value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microparticle-enhanced cultivation was used to enhance the production of exopolysaccharides (EPSs) from Antrodia cinnamomea. The structure and antibacterial activity of two EPSs produced by A. cinnamomea treated with Al 2 O 3 [EPS-Al (crude) and EPS-Al-p (purified)] and without Al 2 O 3 [EPS-C (crude) and EPS-C-p (purified)] were compared. It was observed that the addition of 4 g/L Al 2 O 3 at 0 h resulted in the highest EPS yield of 1.46 g/L, possible attributed to the enhanced permeability of the cell membrane. The structural analysis revealed that EPS-C-p and EPS-Al-p had different structures. EPS-C-p was hyperbranched and spherical with a Mw of 10.8 kDa, while EPS-Al-p was irregular and linear with a Mw of 12.5 kDa. The proportion of Man in EPS-Al-p decreased, while those of Gal and Glc increased when compared to EPS-C-p. The total molar ratios of 6-Glc p and 4-Glc p in EPS-Al-p are 1.45 times that of EPS-C-p. Moreover, EPSs could alter bacterial cell morphology, causing intracellular substance leakage and growth inhibition, with EPS-Al having a stronger antibacterial activity than EPS-C. In conclusion, A. cinnamomea treated with Al 2 O 3 could produce more EPSs, changing monosaccharide composition and glycosidic linkage profile, which could exert stronger antibacterial activity than that produced by untreated A. cinnamomea. • A. cinnamomea treated with the microparticle Al 2 O 3 could produce more EPSs. • The structure of purified EPS was affected by the addition of microparticles Al 2 O 3. • The antibacterial activity of EPS was stronger after Al 2 O 3 treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bone scan is widely used for surveying bone metastases caused by various solid tumors. Scintigraphic images are characterized by inferior spatial resolution, bringing a significant challenge to manual analysis of images by nuclear medicine physicians. We present in this work a new framework for automatically classifying scintigraphic images collected from patients clinically diagnosed with lung cancer. The framework consists of data preparation and image classification. In the data preparation stage, data augmentation is used to enlarge the dataset, followed by image fusion and thoracic region extraction. In the image classification stage, we use a self-defined convolutional neural network consisting of feature extraction, feature aggregation, and feature classification sub-networks. The developed multi-class classification network can not only predict whether a bone scan image contains bone metastasis but also tell which subcategory of lung cancer that a bone metastasis metastasized from is present in the image. Experimental evaluations on a set of clinical bone scan images have shown that the proposed multi-class classification network is workable for automated classification of metastatic images, with achieving average scores of 0.7392, 0.7592, 0.7242, and 0.7292 for accuracy, precision, recall, and F-1 score, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic sewage in rural regions is mainly treated by small-scale treatment terminals in China. The large quantities and high dispersion of these terminals render the chemical measurement of effluent to be a time and energy intensive work and further hinder the efficient surveillance of terminals' performance. After a thorough investigation of 136 operating terminals, this study successfully employs two artificial neural network (ANN) models to predict effluent total nitrogen (TN) and COD (R2 both higher than 0.8) by setting some easily detectable parameters, e.g., pH and conductivity, as inputs. To prevent ANN models getting stuck on local optima and enhance the model performance, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are introduced into ANN, respectively. By comparison, ANN-PSO excels in modelling both TN and COD. The root mean square error (RMSE) and R2 of ANN-PSO in modelling TN are 9.14 and 0.90, respectively, in the training stage, and 11.54 and 0.90, respectively, in the validation stage. The RMSE and R2 of ANN-PSO in modelling COD are 22.10 and 0.90, respectively, in the training stage, and 26.57 and 0.85, respectively, in the validation stage. This is the first study to provide performance prediction models that are available for different terminals. Two established ANN-PSO models show great practical significance in monitoring huge amounts of terminals despite the slight sacrifice of models' accuracy caused by the great heterogeneity of different terminals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we demonstrated a novel process of in-situ fabrication of graphene sheets by adopting the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. Fabricating such a layer of vertical graphene sheets (VGs) on the surface of microcrystalline diamond (MCD) films could decrease the stable coefficient of friction (COF) by 20–30%. Besides, such lubricity showed excellent load capacity and durability. With normal loads ranging from 3 N to 9 N (Hertz contact pressure of 2.1–3.1 GPa), the MCD-VGs films exhibited COFs stabilized at 0.105 and wear rates less than 5 × 10−6 mm3 N−1 m−1. Additionally, the produced VGs displayed an excellent service lifetime with 72,000 sliding cycles. During the friction tests, an equilibrium graphene self-mated contact formed on the sliding interface as graphene fragments adhered onto the counterpart ball and resulted in the reduction of friction and low wear rates. Additionally, the mixtures of Si 3 N 4 /SiO 2 particles and graphene sheets residual within the wear tracks would promote the transformation of the sliding regime to three-body abrasion, beneficial for friction reduction. The findings presented in this study provide a novel and effective approach to enhance the lubricity of any engineering diamond surface. [Display omitted] • In-situ fabricating vertical graphene sheets (VGs) on the diamond surface. • The top-layered VGs reduce the stable COF of MCD films by 20%–30%. • The lubricity of the top-layered VGs exhibits excellent load capacity up to 3.1 GPa. • The wear rates of VGs-coated MCD film are less than 5 × 10−6 mm3N−1m−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A self‐defined convolutional neural network is developed to automatically classify whole‐body scintigraphic images of concern (i.e., the normal, metastasis, arthritis, and thyroid carcinoma), automatically detecting diseases with whole‐body bone scintigraphy. Methods: A set of parameter transformation operations are first used to augment the original dataset of whole‐body bone scintigraphic images. A hybrid attention mechanism including the spatial and channel attention module is then introduced to develop a deep classification network, Dscint, which consists of eight weight layers, one hybrid attention module, two normalization modules, two fully connected layers, and one softmax layer. Results: Experimental evaluations conducted on a set of whole‐body scintigraphic images show that the proposed deep classification network, Dscint, performs well for automated detection of diseases by classifying the images of concerns, achieving the accuracy, precision, recall, specificity, and F‐1 score of 0.9801, 0.9795, 0.9791, 0.9933, and 0.9792, respectively, on the test data in the augmented dataset. A comparative analysis of Dscint and several classical deep classification networks (i.e., AlexNet, ResNet, VGGNet, DenseNet, and Inception‐v4) reveals that our self‐defined network, Dscint, performs best on classifying whole‐body scintigraphic images on the same dataset. Conclusions: The self‐defined deep classification network, Dscint, can be utilized to automatically determine whether a whole‐body scintigraphic image is either normal or contains diseases of concern. Specifically, better performance of Dscint is obtained on images with lesions that are present in relatively fixed locations like thyroid carcinoma than those with lesions occurring in nonfixed locations of bone tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To investigate the association between triglyceride glucose index (TyG) combined with waist circumference (WC) and the risk of new-onset coronary heart disease (CHD) in the middle-aged and elderly people in 10 years of non-interventional follow-up in Luzhou area. Methods A total of 8 647 eligible individuals participated in epidemiological survey in Luzhou area were selected. The subjects were divided into different groups according to the quartiles of the TyG-WC and followed for ten years. The correlation between different TyG-WC quartile group and 10-year new CHD in middle-aged and elderly population was analyzed by using univariate analysis and Cox regression analysis. Results Of the 8 647 participants in the study, 484 had new CHD, accounting for 5.5%. The comparison of the number of newly diagnosed CHD subjects grouped by TyG-WC quartiles indicated the 4th quartile group > the 3rd quartile group > the 2nd quartile group > the 1st quartile group, showing statistical significance (P < 0.001). Cox regression analysis showed that without adjusting for any variables, the risk of new CHD in 10 years increased with the increase of TyG-WC quartile group, and the differences between the second, third and fourth quartile array and the first quartile array were statistically significant (P < 0.05). After adjusting for age and sex and further adjusting for the influence of various influencing factors, the risk of new CHD in 10 years increased with the increase of TyG-WC quartile group. The difference between the third and fourth quartile array and the first quartile array was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion TyG-WC is a risk factor for new-onset CHD in the middle-aged and elderly population in Luzhou area in 10 years of non-interventional follow-up, and TyG-WC may be a predictor of the risk of CHD in the middle-aged and elderly population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work explored the influences of the drying and calcination temperatures on a Ce-Cu-Al trimetallic composite catalyst for the simultaneous removal of H 2 S and PH 3. The effects of both temperatures on the structural features and activity were examined. The density functional theory method was used to calculate adsorption energies and further analyze their adsorption behavior on different slabs. Experiments revealed suitable drying and calcination temperatures to be 60 and 500°C, respectively. The capacity reached 323.8 and 288.1 mg/g. Adjusting drying temperature to 60°C is more inclined to form larger and structured grains of CuO. Rising calcinating temperature to 500°C could increase the grain size and redox capacity of CuO to promote performance. Higher temperatures would destroy the surface structure and lead to a crystal phase transformation, which was that the CuO and Al 2 O 3 were gradually recombined into CuAl 2 O 4 with a spinel structure. The exposed crystal planes of surficial CuO and CuAl 2 O 4 were determined according to characterization results. Calculation results showed that, compared with CuO (111), H 2 S and PH 3 have weaker adsorption strength on CuAl 2 O 4 (100) which is not conducive to their adsorption and removal. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A joint model is proposed to simultaneously learn the graph embedding and dynamic community detection in temporal networks. • Edges are classified into common and specific groups, which are incorporated into the objective function, thereby improving the accuracy of the algorithm. • jLDEC can effectively and efficiently identify the optimal local solution by parallel processing. • jLDE outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in terms of accuracy without increasing the running time. The accumulated temporal networks provide an opportunity to explore the dynamics of complex systems, and detecting the dynamic communities is of considerable significance because they shed light on revealing the mechanisms of the underlying systems. In comparison to static communities, identifying dynamic community must simultaneously take into account the clustering accuracy and drift, which are challenging to balance. Furthermore, the available algorithms cannot fully characterize the dynamics of networks, thereby resulting in undesirable performance. To attack these issues, we propose a novel j oint L earning of D ynamic E mbedding and C lustering (jLDEC) algorithm for dynamic community detection, where network embedding, dynamics of edges, and clustering are integrated into an overall objective function. Specifically, the graph representation and dynamics at the edge level are fused, which provide a better way to characterize the dynamics of communities. The joint learning framework extracts the graph representation under the guidance of clustering, which promotes the accuracy of clustering in return. The experimental results on the artificial and real-world networks demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches for dynamic community detection in temporal networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbial interconnections in soil are pivotal to ecosystem services and restoration. However, little is known about how soil microbial interconnections respond to slash-and-burn agriculture and to the subsequent ecosystem restoration after the practice. Here, we used amplicon sequencing and co-occurrence network analyses to explore the interconnections within soil bacterial and fungal communities in response to slash-and-burn practice and a spontaneous restoration (spanning ca. 60 years) of tropical forests after the practice, in Papua New Guinea. We found significantly higher complexity and greater variations in fungal networks than in those of bacteria, despite no significant changes observed in bacterial or fungal networks across successional stages. Within most successional stages, bacterial core co-occurrences (co-occurrences consistently present across all sub-networks in a stage) were more frequent than those of fungi, indicating higher stability of interconnections between bacteria along succession. The stable interconnections occurred frequently between bacterial taxa (i.e. Sporosarcina , Acidimicrobiale and Bacillaceae) and between ectomycorrhizal fungi (Boletaceae and Russula ochroleuca), implying important ecological roles of these taxa in the ecosystem restoration. Collectively, our results provide new insight into microbial interconnections in response to slash-and-burn agriculture and the subsequent ecosystem restoration, thus promoting a better understanding of microbial roles in ecosystem services and restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

H2S and PH3, which are ore-thermal furnace gases, are harmful to humans and the environment. Here, the performance of a catalyst, Ce–Cu–Al trimetallic composite catalyst, is further explored by examining the influence of the used acid. The effects of acids on the structural features, surface functional groups, and activity of the catalysts were examined. Test results showed that the catalyst fabricated using 71.7 mmol nitric acid performed the best, and its capacity reached 229.8 mg g−1 (H2S) and 201.9 mg g−1 (PH3). Besides, SEM and TEM showed that the whole structure of catalysts was sharply changed by the species of the acid used, which was caused by the different combinations of components in the catalyst system. Because of the change in the catalyst structure, their physical and chemical properties are also adjusted. Using nitric acid could endow the catalyst with better properties, such as the best specific surface area, higher total pore volume, the strongest acid center, and the best reducing power. Combining the analysis results of FTIR spectroscopy, it was found that the detailed functional groups of NH2− and νON played a role in the reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SPECT nuclear medicine imaging is widely used for treating, diagnosing, evaluating and preventing various serious diseases. The automated classification of medical images is becoming increasingly important in developing computer-aided diagnosis systems. Deep learning, particularly for the convolutional neural networks, has been widely applied to the classification of medical images. In order to reliably classify SPECT bone images for the automated diagnosis of metastasis on which the SPECT imaging solely focuses, in this paper, we present several deep classifiers based on the deep networks. Specifically, original SPECT images are cropped to extract the thoracic region, followed by a geometric transformation that contributes to augment the original data. We then construct deep classifiers based on the widely used deep networks including VGG, ResNet and DenseNet by fine-tuning their parameters and structures or self-defining new network structures. Experiments on a set of real-world SPECT bone images show that the proposed classifiers perform well in identifying bone metastasis with SPECT imaging. It achieves 0.9807, 0.9900, 0.9830, 0.9890, 0.9802 and 0.9933 for accuracy, precision, recall, specificity, F-1 score and AUC, respectively, on the test samples from the augmented dataset without normalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene possesses extraordinary mechanical strength while it is difficult to integrate graphene layers on macroscale mechanical components due to the weak adhesion strength. In this work, we integrated a top layer of graphene sheets on the diamond-coated tool through in-situ growth of graphene on the diamond grains. With the aid of liquid metal catalyst, ultrastrong C–C covalent bonds are formed in the graphene-diamond interface, which can radically eliminate the peeling off of graphene sheets due to the insufficient adhesion strength. Cutting tests revealed that this top-layer graphene can substantially reduce cutting force and tool flank wear when cutting high-silicon aluminum alloy, with the reduction respectively reaching 40 % and 20 %. During the machining process, the graphene sheets are flattened and they gradually form a compact layer covering on the diamond surface, which can not only lubricate the tool surface but also protect the diamond from wear with the ultrahigh intrinsic strength. Further cutting experiments demonstrated that the effectiveness of the graphene sheets can sustain over 3600 m of cutting distance. The achievement in this work provides a novel insight into the integration of covalent graphene-diamond heterostructures in mechanical systems/devices with outstanding macroscale lubricity and anti-wear performance. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a notable increase of 136.9% in the production of exopolysaccharides (EPS) was observed during the submerged fermentation of Antrodia cinnamomea when microparticle (4 g/L of Al 2 O 3) was applied. By evaluating the activities of key enzymes involved in EPS synthesis in A. cinnamomea , it was found that the addition of Al 2 O 3 enhanced the activities of phosphoglycerate mutase (PGM), UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP), and GDP-mannose pyrophosphorylase (GMPPB). To further elucidate the mechanism through which Al 2 O 3 enhances the production of EPS in A. cinnamomea , a transcriptomic analysis was conducted to compare the gene expression levels. The results showed that there was a significant up-regulation of genes associated with the synthesis and assembly of polysaccharide repeating units, as well as genes responsible for the regulation of ABC transporter complex enzymes. To verify the above hypothesis, the ABC transporter inhibitor MK-571 sodium salt was added to the fermentation broth of A. cinnamomea. The study demonstrated that when the ABC transporter was inhibited, the yield of EPS was significantly reduced, which further confirmed that the addition of Al 2 O 3 could improve the activity of ABC transporter and promote the production of EPS in submerged fermentation of A. cinnamomea. • Microparticle Al 2 O 3 promote the yield of exopolysaccharides in Antrodia cinnamomea. • Al 2 O 3 can enhance the activities of key enzymes involved in polysaccharide synthesis. • Al 2 O 3 can up-regulate genes related to polysaccharide synthesis in A. cinnamomea. • Al 2 O 3 enhances the activity of ABC transporters, promoting the secretion of EPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Continuing Education Unit (CEU) related to hypercalcemia, hyperuricemia, and kidney dysfunction is presented.

SPECT imaging has been identified as an effective medical modality for diagnosis, treatment, evaluation and prevention of a range of serious diseases and medical conditions. Bone SPECT scan has the potential to provide more accurate assessment of disease stage and severity. Segmenting hotspot in bone SPECT images plays a crucial role to calculate metrics like tumor uptake and metabolic tumor burden. Deep learning techniques especially the convolutional neural networks have been widely exploited for reliable segmentation of hotspots or lesions, organs and tissues in the traditional structural medical images (i.e., CT and MRI) due to their ability of automatically learning the features from images in an optimal way. In order to segment hotspots in bone SPECT images for automatic assessment of metastasis, in this work, we develop several deep learning based segmentation models. Specifically, each original whole-body bone SPECT image is processed to extract the thorax area, followed by image mirror, translation and rotation operations, which augments the original dataset. We then build segmentation models based on two commonly-used famous deep networks including U-Net and Mask R-CNN by fine-tuning their structures. Experimental evaluation conducted on a group of real-world bone SEPCT images reveals that the built segmentation models are workable on identifying and segmenting hotspots of metastasis in bone SEPCT images, achieving a value of 0.9920, 0.7721, 0.6788 and 0.6103 for PA (accuracy), CPA (precision), Rec (recall) and IoU, respectively. Finally, we conclude that the deep learning technology have the huge potential to identify and segment hotspots in bone SPECT images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional imaging has successfully been applied to capture functional changes in the pathological tissues of a body in recent years. Nuclear medicine functional imaging has been used to acquire information about areas of concerns (e.g. lesions and organs) in a non‐invasive manner, enabling semi‐automated or automated decision‐making for disease diagnosis, treatment, evaluation, and prediction. Focusing on functional nuclear medicine images, in this study, the authors review existing work on the classification of single‐photon emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and their hybrid modalities with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging images by using convolutional neural network (CNN) techniques. Specifically, they first present an overview of nuclear imaging and the CNN technique, such as nuclear imaging modalities, nuclear image data format, CNN architecture, and the main CNN classification models. According to the diseases of concern, they then classify the existing CNN‐based work on the classification of functional nuclear images into three different categories. For the typical work in each of these categories, they present details about their research objectives, adopted CNN models, and achieved main results. Finally, they discuss research challenges and directions for developing technological solutions to classify nuclear medicine images based on the CNN technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simultaneous determination of monosaccharides present in the activated sludge would be crucial to understand the water treatment mechanism. Herein, an ion chromatography–mass spectrometry (IC-MS) with online pretreatment of column switching technique was proposed to analyze monosaccharides hydrolyzed from extracellular polysaccharides in the activated sludge. When the matrix was eliminated in the first dimension, monosaccharides were immediately identified by IC-MS. The improved ionization efficiency was achieved with the addition of T-joint prior to MS. During the performance test, our established method showed excellent detection limits ranging from 0.34 to 2.15 μg/L for all sugar targets. Great linearity (R ≥ 0.9955) was also achieved using this method in the range from 0.01 to 5 mg/L. Furthermore, the average recoveries were obtained between 84.82 and 113.46%. RSDs for peak areas and retention times were determined as 3.76% and 0.27%, respectively. Finally, this approach provided a rapid, convenient, and practical determination of monosaccharides in the activated sludge, which would be helpful for the analysis of monosaccharides derived from other biological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) frequency comb is a powerful tool in precision measurement. It also brings many new opportunities to the field of strong field physics since high harmonic generation related phenomena can be studied with high repetition rate. We demonstrate the generation of an XUV frequency comb with the aid of intra-cavity high harmonic generation process. The setup is driven by a high power infrared frequency comb, and an average power of 4.5 kW is reached in the femtosecond enhancement cavity. With Xe gas as the working media, harmonics up to the 19th order are observed. Power measurement indicates that as much as 115.9 μW (1.3 mW) are generated at ∼94 nm (∼148 nm). The shortest wavelength we can reach is ∼55 nm. The coherence of the generated light is tested with an optical-heterodyne-based measurement of the third harmonic. The resulted line width is ∼3 Hz. In addition, with this system, we also observe a strong suppression of below threshold harmonics from O2 compared to that from Xe. These results suggest that the current system is ready for precision spectroscopic measurements with few-electron atomic and molecular systems in XUV region as well as the study of strong field physics with an unprecedented 100MHz repetition rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cadmium (Cd) contamination has resulted in serious environmental pollution and threatens human health and ecosystems. Our recent studies have demonstrated that Pseudomonas chenduensis strain MBR can decrease Cd bio-availability and reduce Cd accumulation in rice; however, the transcriptional mechanisms underlying the bacterial response during and particularly after Cd bioremediation are still unclear. In this study, we used RNA-Seq to investigate the transcriptional profiles of strain MBR during and after Cd bioremediation. During Cd bioremediation, MBR removed all Cd2+ ions in solution within 24 h, accompanied by 564 upregulated and 363 downregulated expressed genes compared with that of the control (without Cd supplementation). Specifically, under Cd stress, the upregulation of czc (czcA, czcB, and czcC) and mer (merA, merT, merC, and merP) genes enabled Cd efflux from the cytoplasm and conferred resistance of MBR to Cd toxicity. The upregulation of genes (algK, algX, and alg44) related to biofilm formation enabled Cd absorption and contributed to Cd bioremediation. After Cd bioremediation, MBR was transferred to non-Cd medium, and the genes related to histidine metabolism and flagellar assembly still showed similar expression patterns as those during bioremediation (defined as Cd legacy effects). However, the genes involved in Cd resistance and bioremediation were not influenced by Cd legacy effects. This study provides new and thorough insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying Cd bioremediation by a functional microbe. Key points: • The upregulation of czc and mer genes is responsible for MBR resistance to Cd. • The upregulation of genes related to biofilm formation contributes to Cd bioremediation. • Cd effects on genes involved in histidine metabolism and flagellar assembly are long-lasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitamin D3 has been demonstrated to suppress the development and progression of liver cancer, but the mechanism is unclear. The effects of vitamin D3 and microRNA (miR)-15a-5p on liver cancer cells were investigated in the present study using MTT and colony formation assays, flow cytometry, western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR. A dual-luciferase reporter assay was performed to determine whether E2F transcription factor 3 (E2F3) was a target of miR-15a-5p. The effects of silencing the E2F3 gene expression in liver cancer cells were investigated using a small interfering RNA. Vitamin D3 suppressed liver cancer cell proliferation, induced apoptosis and increased miR-15a-5p expression. Treatment with the miR-15a-5p mimics significantly suppressed liver cancer cell proliferation compared with that of the controls. Bioinformatics analysis and a dual-luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that E2F3 was a target of miR-15a-5p and that silencing E2F3 inhibited liver cancer cell proliferation. Therefore, Vitamin D3 suppressed cell proliferation by miR-15a-5p-mediated silencing of E2F3 gene expression. These findings suggested a role for vitamin D3 and E2F3 targeting as potential novel liver cancer therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatitis is uncommon in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and is rarely reported in children, possibly being related to macrophage activation syndrome (MAS). The incidence of MAS in children with lupus pancreatitis is unknown, as is their prognosis. In this case-based review, we report a pediatric patient with SLE complicated with pancreatitis and MAS, and performed a literature review. We report an 11-year-old girl with SLE and MAS who developed pancreatitis on the second day of methylprednisolone pulse therapy (500 mg/day). We continued methylprednisolone pulse therapy, and performed three rounds of DNA-immunoadsorption and three rounds of hemoperfusion. A second course of methylprednisolone pulse therapy was initiated 9 days later. The patient received a monthly cyclophosphamide pulse therapy (10 mg/kg/day, 2 consecutive days every month) for 6 months, after which she was treated with mycophenolate mofetil 20 mg/kg/day. The condition of the patient gradually improved, her blood amylase and lipase decreased. She was in a stable condition during 13-month follow-up period. Review of the literature of pediatric patients with SLE and pancreatitis showed that there are 127 cases that have been reported in the past 30 years, 40 cases were excluded in our study because of inadequate information. Of the 87 patients included in our literature review, the mortality rate was 33.33%, and 52.86% of the patients with pancreatitis had MAS at the same time. Pancreatitis is uncommon in SLE, but must be suspected if a patient with SLE develops digestive symptoms. Patients with SLE with pancreatitis have a high incidence of MAS and high mortality rate; however, early recognition and effective treatment can relieve the disease symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late Paleolithic sites are widely distributed in southern China (the Lingnan region), which mainly includes Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan Provinces. Although the pebble-tool industry continued to exist in this region during the late Pleistocene and Holocene, small flake-tool assemblages also occurred and coexisted with the pebble-tool industry. The pebble-tool industries are characterized by unifacially flaked cobble tools, dominated by choppers, with a lack of handaxes. The small flake-tool industries have the characteristics of retouched tools made on small fakes, a striking platform of cores without preparation, and scrapers dominating the assemblage. Technologically and typologically, pebble tools of the Late Palaeolithic are similar to those of the Early Palaeolithic in this region and belong to the same cultural tradition. The small flake tools, however, are very different from the cobble tools. They belong to a new technology which originated from northern China during the period of the Last Glacial Maximum. The Late Palaeolithic industries in Southern China are similar to those in mainland Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the application of industrial cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT), the displaced detector scanning mode can significantly enlarge the field of view (FOV) of the CT system. However, when this mode is applied to inspect a large object, the connecting line between the X-ray focus and the center-of-rotation projection may not be perpendicular to the real flat-panel detector, which makes most of the existing reconstruction methods impractical. The purpose of this article is to explain the work done in developing an image reconstruction method under the displaced detector scanning mode. We first establish a virtual detector to make the connecting line be perpendicular to the virtual detector, and the real projection data are then converted into the virtual detector. The geometrical parameters of the real CT system are converted into the CT system with the virtual detector, in which the virtual detector and the twist angles of the reconstructed images are effectively corrected by adjusting angles of the projection sequence. Based on the corrected projection data and the converted geometry parameters, the cross sections of the object are accurately reconstructed through the FDK reconstruction algorithm combined with the Wang weighting function. Computer simulation results and CBCT experiment results demonstrate that the image artifacts and the twist angles of the reconstructed images are well corrected. Through this method, the FOV of the CT system is enlarged by 78% without changing the original geometric layout of the system, which is significant for engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

β-CD grafted cellulose bead had been successfully prepared via dropping method, following by cross-linking reaction under mild conditions. The efficient grafting of β-CD on the cellulose bead made it promising adsorbent toward BPA, which combined the inclusion complexation property of β-CD and advantages of cellulose bead. The structure of the grafted cellulose bead was characterized by FTIR, XRD and 13C NMR, which confirmed the covalent bonding between cellulose bead and β-CD. The SEM and BET analysis revealed that the grafting of β-CD on the cellulose bead maintained the highly porous morphology of cellulose bead, meanwhile enhanced its specific surface area. Thus, the resulting modified cellulose bead presented much higher adsorption capacity toward BPA than pristine cellulose bead, since the presence of β-CD facilitated the formation of inclusion complexes via host-guest interactions. It was found that the maximum BPA adsorption capacity of grafted cellulose bead was 30.77 mg/g. The adsorption process fitted well with the Langmuir isotherm model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Further studies of ad/desorption experiments revealed that the β-CD grafted cellulose bead could be regenerated easily in methanol. Based on these results, the adsorbents prepared here can be potentially used in the treatment of micropollutants in water. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbial bioremediation of heavy metal–contaminated soil is a potential technique to reduce heavy metals in crop plants. However, the dynamics and roles of the local microbiota in bioremediation of heavy metal–contaminated soil following microbial application are rarely reported. In this study, we used Pseudomonas chenduensis strain MBR for bioremediation of Cd-contaminated paddy soil and investigated its effects on the dynamics of the local soil bacterial community and Cd accumulation in rice. Cd accumulation in rice grains and roots were significantly reduced by the addition of the strain MBR. The addition of the strain MBR caused greater changes in bacterial communities in rhizosphere soil than in bulk soil. MBR enhanced the roles of microbial communities in transformation of Cd fractions, especially in rhizosphere soil. The strain MBR likely regulated abundant subcommunities more than rare subcommunities to improve Cd bioremediation, especially in rhizosphere soil. Consequently, the dynamics and functional roles of the local microbial communities differed significantly during bioremediation between abundant and rare subcommunities and between rhizosphere soil and bulk soil. This study provides new insight into the microbiota-related mechanisms underlying bioremediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rail rolling contact fatigue (RCF) crack and other rail damage have great impact on the normal operation of the railway system. The detection and evaluation of RCF crack can effectively ensure the running safety of the train. Compared with the traditional non-destructive testing methods, the characteristics of Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN) detection technology such as easier implementation, higher efficiency and faster inspection process etc., make it an ideal choice for non-destructive detection technology of rail RCF crack. Therefore, this paper studied the influence of plastic deformation layer and crack of rail roller on MBN signal. The detection equipment based on MBN signal was built and used to detect and characterize the rail PDL and cracks. The wheel-rail rolling-sliding tests were conducted on a twin-disc tribometer to prefabricate the rail RCF crack and PDL. Experimental results proved that MBN signal decreased with the increase in plastic deformation layer (PDL) thickness. Crack initiation would release the residual compressive stress (RCS) of material surface, resulting in the abnormal increase in MBN signal under the general trend of gradually weakening. The influence mechanism of cracks on MBN signals was analyzed and discussed. • With the increase in the PDL thickness, the MBN eigenvalues decrease. • A linear relationship between PDL thickness and MBN signal is established. • Crack initiation releases the residual compressive stress of the roller surface, causing the increase in MBN signal. • The propagation behavior of the crack attenuates the MBN signal intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tributyltin (TBT), an antifouling biocide frequently detected in aquatic systems, is generally considered to be an environmental obesogen. However, alterations in lipid metabolism in aquatic animals that are exposed to TBT are scarcely known. This study examined the effects of in vitro exposure to TBT on hepatic lipid homeostasis in the lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus). Primary seahorse hepatocyte cultures were established for the first time. TBT exposure (100 and 500 nM for 24 h) significantly promoted lipid accumulation in seahorse hepatocytes and drastically reduced the number of active intracellular lysosomes. Furthermore, exposure to TBT significantly upregulated the gene expression of lipogenic enzymes and transcription factors but downregulated that of genes involved in the catabolism of lipid droplets in seahorse hepatocytes. These results indicate that TBT disrupts hepatic lipid homeostasis by simultaneously promoting lipid synthesis and inhibiting lipid droplet breakdown in seahorses. The present study extends our understanding of the utilization of primary hepatocytes from marine animals for toxicological research, and the molecular evidence of the effects of TBT on hepatic lipid homeostasis in teleost fishes. [Display omitted] • Seahorse primary hepatocyte cultures were established for the first time. • TBT-induced hepatic lipid accumulation was related to exposure concentrations. • Lipid droplets increased while lysosomes decreased in TBT-exposed hepatocytes. • TBT altered the expression of lipid metabolism genes in seahorse hepatocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a customized pressure-loaded blister test device capable of achieving sinusoidal control of pressure was developed to investigate the biaxial fatigue durability of proton exchange membrane (PEM) for fuel cells. The effect of temperature, relative humidity and stress state on biaxial fatigue life was investigated, and the biaxial stress-strain curves under different temperature and relative humidity conditions were also compared. It is found that increasing pressure induces higher biaxial stress and exacerbates the accumulation of plastic strain in the membrane, which adversely affects biaxial fatigue lifetime of PEM. Increasing temperature and decreasing humidity reduces the biaxial yield strength, thereby reducing the fatigue life of membrane. In addition, lowering temperature can lead to a transition in the failure mode from complete rupture to leakage failure. The increase in air pressure ratio, R p , (minimum to maximum pressure ratio) also leads to premature membrane failure. • A blister test device is developed for cyclic sinusoidal pressure loading. • Higher pressure causes larger biaxial stress and strain in the membrane. • High temperature and low humidity reduce the biaxial fatigue life of PEMs. • Lowering temperature shifts biaxial fatigue failure mode from rupture to leakage. • Fatigue life is dominated by both creep and fatigue at lower biaxial stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early recognition of septic patients with poor prognosis is important for clinicians to prescribe personalized therapies which include timely fluid resuscitation therapy and appropriate antimicrobial therapy. We aimed to evaluate the effect of the presepsin level on predicting the prognosis of patients with sepsis under the sepsis-3 criteria. Methods: Patients who were diagnosed as sepsis under the sepsis-3 criteria were recruited and assigned to the survivor group and the non-survivor group according to their in-hospital mortality. The two groups' baseline characteristics were analyzed with Pearson's chi-square (χ2) test or Kruskal-Wallis test. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the independent predictors of in-hospital mortality from sepsis. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of presepsin in predicting patients' in-hospital mortality from sepsis. The correlation between presepsin and the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score was measured with Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. P-values of less than 0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance. Results: Overall, 138 patients were included in this study. The presepsin level of the non-survivor group was significantly higher than that of the other group (P=0.000). Binary logistic regression showed that the presepsin level was an independent risk factor of patients' in-hospital mortality from sepsis (OR =1.221 P=0.026). The presepsin level was positively associated with the SOFA score (ρ=0.396, P=0.000). ROC curve analysis revealed the presepsin level was highly accurate in predicting patients' in-hospital mortality from sepsis (AUC =0.703, P=0.000). The AUC value of a combination of presepsin and the SOFA score was significantly larger than that of the SOFA score alone (AUC: 0.817 vs 0.793, P=0.041). Conclusions: Presepsin is a prognostic biomarker with high accuracy in predicting the prognosis of sepsis under the sepsis-3 criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the design idea of the portable vertical pendulum tiltmeter, based on in-depth understanding of the application situation of existing VP vertical pendulum tiltmeter in the field of precursory observation, in order to further broaden the scope of application and tap its market potential. A high precision capacitance micrometer was redesigned, at the same time, it also has an improved high reliability lock pendulum mechanism, automatic zeroing devices and Integrated low power circuit system, these designs make the vertical pendulum tiltmeter portable, but also has high reliability and stability. The portable vertical pendulum tiltmeter can be used for in situ observation with VP vertical pendulum tiltmeter in existing stations. It can be used for regular checking and troubleshooting of existing tiltmeters, and also can solve the problem of data loss during the maintenance of the tiltmeters. Through the experiments, the test results show that the portable vertical pendulum tiltmeter can record earth tide curve, the various performance index have reached or close to the expected design goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract To distinguish between three types of Siniperca chuatsi rhabdovirus (SCRV) viral RNA (vRNA, cRNA, and mRNA) and investigate SCRV transcription and replication dynamics in Chinese perch brain CPB cells, a novel, strand-specific, reverse transcriptase quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) assay was established. The method is based on strand-specific reverse transcription, using tagged primers to add a 'tag' sequence at the 5′ end. We used the 'tag' sequence as the forward primer and a strand-specific reverse primer to quantify the three types of RNA. Three types of synthetic viral RNA were used as reference standards for validation and quantification. These assays were optimized to produce a standard curve from 102 to 107 copies/μL, with an efficiency of 91–101% and an R2 value of 0.9949–0.9999. The coefficients of variation for repeatability and reproducibility were less than 2.85% and 5.52%, respectively. Using this method, specific target RNA was detected at a 3500–70,000 fold higher level than other types of RNA. This method was also used to evaluate the dynamics of vRNA, cRNA and mRNA synthesis in CPB cells infected with SCRV. The results indicate that the intracellular dynamics of vRNA, cRNA and mRNA are different. In the earliest phase of SCRV infection, all three types of viral RNA increased very slowly. The copy number of vRNA and mRNA increased exponentially from 4 h post infection, while cRNA increased from 6 h post infection. The amount of cRNA was lower than vRNA and mRNA throughout the infection. The novel, strand-specific RT-qPCR method developed in this study provides critical data to aid the understanding of transcription and replication during SCRV infection. Highlights • A RT-qPCR for distinguish between three types of SCRV viral RNA was developed. • The intracellular dynamics of vRNA, cRNA and mRNA are different. • The amount of cRNA was lower than vRNA and mRNA throughout the SCRV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]