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Our present knowledge about the efficacy of tea consumption in improving age-related cognitive disorders is incomplete since previous epidemiological studies provide inconsistent evidence. This unified systematic review and meta-analysis based on updated epidemiological cohort studies and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evidence aimed to overcome the limitations of previous reviews by examining the efficacy of distinct types of tea consumption. PubMed, Embase, and MEDLINE were searched up to May 20, 2022, and 23 cohorts and 12 cross-sectional studies were included. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to obtain pooled RRs or mean differences with 95% CIs. The pooled RRs of the highest versus lowest tea consumption categories were 0.81 (95% CIs: 0.75–0.88) and 0.69 (95% CIs: 0.61–0.77), respectively. The pooled mean difference of four included RCTs revealed a beneficial effect of tea on cognitive dysfunction (MMSE ES: 1.03; 95% CI, 0.14–1.92). Subgroup analyses further demonstrated that green and black tea intake was associated with a lower risk of cognitive disorders in eastern countries, especially in women. The evidence quality was generally low to moderate. The present review provides insight into whether habitual tea consumption can be an effective approach against age-related neurodegenerative cognitive disorders and summarizes potential mechanisms based on currently published literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a Siamese motion-aware Spatio-temporal network (SiamMAST) for video action recognition. The SiamMAST is designed based on the fusion of four features via processing video frames: spatial features, temporal features, spatial dynamic features, and temporal dynamic features of a moving target. The SiamMAST comprises AlexNets as the backbone, LSTMs, and the spatial motion-awareness and temporal motion-awareness sub-modules. RGB images are fed into the network, where AlexNets extract spatial features. Further, they are fed into LSTMs to generate temporal features. Additionally, spatial motion-awareness and temporal motion-awareness sub-modules are proposed to capture spatial and temporal dynamic features. Finally, all features are fused and fed into the classification layer. The final recognition result is produced by averaging the test label probabilities across a fixed number of RGB frames and selecting the label of the highest probability. The whole network is trained offline using an end-to-end approach with large-scale image datasets using the standard SGD algorithm with back-propagation. The proposed network is evaluated on two challenging datasets UCF101 (93.53%) and HMDB51 (69.36%). The experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed SiamMAST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies have observed elevated myeloid cells in the peripheral blood of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but the causal relationship between them remains to be elucidated. We investigated whether there is a causal relationship between different subtypes of peripheral blood myeloid cells and PD using Mendelian randomization (MR) combined with bioinformatics analysis. Exploring the etiology of PD from the perspective of genetics can remove confounding factors and provide a more reliable theoretical basis for elucidating the pathogenesis of PD. Methods: Comprehensive two-sample MR analysis and sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the causal associations between 64 myeloid cell signatures and PD risk. The Venn diagram and protein-protein interaction network analysis of instrumental variables (IV) corresponding genes were used to further investigate the potential mechanism of myeloid cells influencing the pathogenesis of PD. Results: We investigated the impact of four immunophenotypes on the risk of PD, including Im MDSC% CD33dim HLA DR− CD66b− (relative count), CD33dim HLA DR+ CD11b+% CD33dim HLA DR+ (relative count), and CD11b on Mo MDSC (MFI) and CD11b on CD33br HLA DR+ CD14dim (MFI), while an immunophenotype's protective effect on PD was observed CD45 on Im MDSC (MFI). The results of bioinformatics analysis showed that CD33, NTRK2, PLD2, GRIK2 and RELN had protein interactions with the risk genes of PD. Conclusions: Our study has demonstrated a close genetic correlation between different subtypes of myeloid cells and PD, providing guidance for early identification and immunotherapeutic development in patients with PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hotspot detection from geo‐referenced urban data is critical for smart city research, such as traffic management and policy making. However, the classical clustering or classification approach for hotspot detection mainly aims at identifying "hotspot areas" rather than specific points, and the setting of global parameters such as search bandwidth can lead to inaccurate results when processing multi‐density urban data. In this article, a data‐driven adaptive hotspot detection (AHD) approach based on kernel density analysis is proposed and applied to various spatial objects. The adaptive search bandwidth is automatically calculated depending on the local density. Window detection is used to extract the specific hotspots in AHD, thus realizing a small‐scale characterization of urban hotspots. Through the trajectory data of Harbin City taxis and New York City crime data, Geo‐information Tupu is used to analyze the obtained specific hotspots and verify the effectiveness of AHD, providing new ideas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By introducing the auxiliary variable with respect to the reduced latitude, a new closed-form method for transforming Cartesian to geodetic coordinates has been proposed based on the solution of a special constructed unary quartic equation. The algorithm comes with rigorous and concise procedure of root-finding. Moreover, through theoretical analysis, different approaches with respective pros and cons to determine the geodetic latitude and height have been explored. Besides fast computation, numerical experiments covering the magnitude of the geodetic height from - 6.33 × 10 6 m to 10 10 m have also shown that the new method can be operational with high precision at almost any point including the region near or at the pole, the equator and the center of the reference ellipsoid. Considering the accuracy, efficiency and adaptability simultaneously, it is prospective to be applied into computation and inspection on critical occasions in comparison to existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the realm of Parkinson's disease (PD) research, NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated pyroptosis has recently garnered significant attention as a potential novel form of dopaminergic neuronal death. Our previous research revealed the activation of innate immune-related genes, such as the TLR4 signaling pathway and interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF7), although the specific mechanism remains unclear. Our current study shed light on whether the TLR4 signaling pathway and IRF7 can affect the pyroptosis of dopaminergic nerve cells and thus participate in the pathogenesis of PD. The PD model was constructed by MPP+ treatment of PC12 cells or stereotactic injection of the striatum of SD rats, and the expression of genes were detected by RT-qPCR and Western Blotting. Lentivirus, siRNA and (5Z)-7-Oxozeaenol were used to validate the regulation of this pathway on pyroptosis. The expression of TLR4, TAK1, IRF7 and pyroptosis molecular markers was upregulated after MPP+ treatment. IRF7 could affect dopaminergic neural cells pyroptosis by targeted regulation of NLRP3. Furthermore, inhibition of the TLR4/TAK1 signaling pathway led to a decrease in the expression of both IRF7 and NLRP3, while overexpression of IRF7 reversed the reduction in pyroptosis and increase in TH expression. TLR4/TAK1/IRF7 axis can promote PD by influencing pyroptosis through NLRP3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of central bank digital currency (CBDC) is an emerging issue in the tourism industry. We uncovered travelers' intention with respect to CBDC adoption by broadening and intensifying the technology acceptance model (TAM). A total of 598 valid samples were examined and showed that TAM variables, confidence, competence, and consumer innovativeness sufficiently contribute to explicating the intention generation process of travelers for CBDC adoption. The cross-national influence of China and the US on the intention to adopt CBDC was also explored by adding nationality as a moderator. This research is one of few studies unearthing travelers' behaviors for CBDC use, which enriches the extant tourism literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salvia miltiorrhizae Bunge (Lamiaceae) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the treatment of 'thoracic obstruction'. Transient receptor potential canonical channel 1 (TRPC1) is a important target for myocardial injury treatment. This work screens the active component acting on TRPC1 from Salvia miltiorrhizae. TCM Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP) was used to retrieve Salvia miltiorrhiza compounds for preliminary screening by referring to Lipinski's rule of five. Then, the compound group was comprehensively scored by AutoDock Vina based on TRPC1 protein. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was used to determine the affinity of the optimal compound to TRPC1 protein. Western blot assay was carried out to observe the effect of the optimal compound on TRPC1 protein expression in HL-1 cells, and Fura-2/AM detection was carried out to observe the effect of the optimal compound on calcium influx in HEK293 cells. Twenty compounds with relatively good characteristic parameters were determined from 202 compounds of Salvia miltiorrhiza. Rosmarinic acid (RosA) was obtained based on the molecular docking scoring function. RosA had a high binding affinity to TRPC1 protein (KD value = 1.27 µM). RosA (50 μM) could reduce the protein levels (417.1%) of TRPC1 after oxygen-glucose deprivation/reperfusion (OGD/R) in HL-1 cells and it could inhibit TRPC1-mediated Ca2+ influx injury (0.07 ΔRatio340/380) in HEK293 cells. We obtained the potential active component RosA acting on TRPC1 from Salvia miltiorrhizae, and we speculate that RosA may be a promising clinical candidate for myocardial injury therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study assessed and demonstrated the impact of perceived knowledge and perceived susceptibility about COVID-19 on travelers' intentions for safe destination choice in case when the COVID-19 pandemic is being controlled by crowdedness (i.e., human crowdedness and spatial crowdedness) and monetary promotions. The reliability and validity of the proposed research model were tested by using regression analysis and covariance structural equation modeling. The results revealed a significant effect of perceived knowledge and perceived susceptibility on behavioral intention. It was evidenced that increasing knowledge and susceptibility of COVID-19 is necessary. The moderating effects of human crowdedness, spatial crowdedness, and monetary promotions were also examined through SPSS Process Macro v3.5 and invariance test. In addition, differences in demographic variables (gender, age, annual income, marital status, and ethnic background) on the research model were unveiled. Lastly, both theoretical values and practical implications of this study were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As x-ray probe pulses approach the subfemtosecond range, conventional x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is expected to experience a reduction in spectral resolution due to the effects of the pulse broadening. However, in the case of resonant x-ray photoemission, also known as resonant Auger scattering (RAS), the spectroscopic technique maintains spectral resolution when an x-ray pulse is precisely tuned to a core-excited state. We present theoretical simulations of XPS and RAS spectra on a showcased CO molecule using ultrashort x-ray pulses, revealing significantly enhanced resolution in the RAS spectra compared to XPS, even in the sub-femtosecond regime. These findings provide a novel perspective on potential utilization of attosecond x-ray pulses, capitalizing on the well-established advantages of detecting electron signals for tracking electronic and molecular dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through transformation from geocentric to topocentric space rectangular coordinate system and taking advantage of the plain geometrical relationships from the chord between two points on the ellipsoidal surface, the problems of the distances and azimuths on the reference ellipsoid can be converted to several elementary equations and corresponding corrective terms. Based on this, an improved chord method has been proposed in the article. Numeric experiments have validated that the new algorithm can be effective for arbitrary distances. Moreover, the solution can also be operational without singularity in the polar or equatorial regions, in the situations where the difference in longitude is 180°, and in other special cases. And with suitable corrections, the improved method can be prospectively applied to other problems of distances and azimuths with corresponding precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated pet owners' assessments of the physical environments of tourism attractions relating to pet tourism, and their consequences, which influence experiential satisfaction, pet attachment, well-being, and life satisfaction. A mixed method approach was used. The physical and green environments of pet-accompanying tourism, experiential satisfaction, pet attachment, and hedonic well-being sufficiently explained owners' life satisfaction generation process. Life stress played a moderating role. Our findings help pet-industry practitioners understand the services that address the physical and psychological needs of pet owners who vacation with their pets and will be seminal in the development of theories of future pet tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To study the effect of Epimedin C on glucocorticoid (GC)-induced osteoporosis in a rodent model as well as its mechanism of action via balancing EphB4/EphrinB2 axis. Methods: Forty-eight C57BL/6 male mice were divided randomly into control, dexamethasone injection (DI), Epimedin C gavage (EG), and DI + EG groups. Micro-computed and hematoxylin-eosin staining was used to examine bone structure. The relationship between EphB4/EphrinB2 and osteoporosis was preliminarily verified by immunohistochemistry. Evidence of Epimedin C preventing the formation of GCinduced osteoclasts was determined by trap staining. Western blot analysis was conducted to determine the levels of EphrinB2, EphB4, Runx2, and LGR4 in mouse bone tissues. Results: In the DI group, morphological examination showed bone loss. The use of immunohistochemistry and Western blot studies showed that EphB4 levels decreased and EphrinB2 levels increased in DI group mice (p < 0.05). The morphological parameters of osteoporosis improved in mice of DI + EG group compared to that in DI group mice, while EphB4 levels were elevated and EphrinB2 levels decreased in comparison with the values in the DI group mice (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Epimedin C prevents bone loss by balancing the process of bone formation and remodeling bidirectionally. It affects bone metabolism by regulating protein levels of Runx2 and LGR4. However, the specific regulatory processes and targets of the anti-osteoporotic effect of Epimedin C regarding the EphB4/EphrinB2 signaling pathway still need to be confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observational studies have shown abnormal changes in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) levels in the peripheral circulatory system of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. TMAO is a gut microbiota metabolite that can cross the blood–brain barrier and is strongly related to neuroinflammation. Neuroinflammation is one of the pathological drivers of PD. Herein, we investigated the effect of TMAO on 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced PD model mice. TMAO pretreatment was given by adding 1.5% (w/v) TMAO to the drinking water of the mice for 21 days; then, the mice were administered MPTP (20 mg/kg, i.p.) four times a day to construct an acute PD model. Their serum TMAO concentrations, motor function, dopaminergic network integrity, and neuroinflammation were then assayed. The results showed that TMAO partly aggravated the motor dysfunction of the PD mice. Although TMAO had no effect on the dopaminergic neurons, TH protein content, and striatal DA level in the PD mice, it significantly reduced the striatal 5-HT levels and aggravated the metabolism of DA and 5-HT. Meanwhile, TMAO significantly activated glial cells in the striatum and the hippocampi of the PD mice and promoted the release of inflammatory cytokines in the hippocampus. In summary, higher-circulating TMAO had adverse effects on the motor capacity, striatum neurotransmitters, and striatal and hippocampal neuroinflammation in PD mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The buried depth of vertical shaft is large, most of them pass through water rich rock stratum and bear high head internal water pressure. The influence of seepage field on its surrounding stress field and displacement field can't be ignored. Based on the plane stress model, the mechanical model of multi-layer cylinder under steady seepage is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the seepage field of single-layer cylinder and multi-layer cylinder is resolved. Secondly, based on the plane stress model, the general solution and definite solution formula of stress and displacement of single layer cylinder under seepage force are derived. Finally, analytical solutions of stress and displacement of the cylinder under penetrability, internal pressure and external pressure are derived. A general solution for the interlayer radial forces is provided. An example is analyzed with considering fluid flow field. The research shows that the elastic modulus ratio is the most important factor affecting the interlayer force transfer, and the Poisson's ratio has little effect on the change of stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pantograph-catenary arcing reflects the health of pantograph-catenary and current collection quality of high-speed railway, so the arc detection is of great significance. However, due to the scene complexity, intra-class polymorphism and inter-class similarity of arcing and the fast running speed of high-speed railway, it is still a huge challenge to achieve fine and robust arcing detection. To overcome these issues, a robust and fast image-based instance segmentation method called ArcMask is proposed to detect pantograph-catenary arcing, which designs a new attention-based multi-scale feature fusion module that combines both top-down and down-up modules to realize arcing pixel-level instance segmentation. The effective combination of instance-level information and bottom-level semantic information balances features representation ability of top-level and bottom-level features. Compared with other instance segmentation methods (e.g., BlendMask), it can effectively learn feature representation with tiny, irregular and complex arc features and speeds up the calculation. In addition, both deformable convolution and depth-wise separable convolution are introduced in ArcMask, which aims to improve the segmentation performance of irregular arcing and efficiency. The ArcMask can distinguish different arcing instances at pixel-level with fine granularity and distinguish inter-class and intra-class features of arcing, instead of just focusing on rectangular bounding box. Experiments on self-collected dataset IVAIS-PCA2021 verify the effectiveness and efficiencies of the ArcMask. Its AP, AP50 and AP75 are 56.61, 94.14 and 64.56, respectively, and the fastest reasoning speed based on MobileNet is 56 FPS. Compared with other state-of-the-art segmentation methods, the proposed ArcMask has better integrity in arcing edge detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc) is a specific factor in red meat that induces intestinal disease. Our aim was to investigate the effect of Neu5Gc on the intestinal barrier as well as its mechanism of endocytosis and exocytosis. Ten specific inhibitors were used to explore the mechanism of Neu5Gc endocytosis and exocytosis by Caco-2 cells. Amiloride hydrochloride and cytochalasin D had the strongest inhibitory effect on the endocytosis of Neu5Gc. Sodium azide, dynasore, chlorpromazine hydrochloride, and nystatin also inhibited Neu5Gc endocytosis. Dynasore exhibited a stronger inhibitory effect than that of chlorpromazine hydrochloride or nystatin alone. Exocytosis inhibitors, including nocodazole, brefeldin A, monensin, and bafilomycin A, inhibited the transmembrane transport of Neu5Gc. Monensin promoted the exocytosis of Neu5Gc from Caco-2 cells. In another experiment, we observed no significant inhibitory effects of monensin and brefeldin A. Dietary concentrations of Neu5Gc induced prominent damage to intestinal tight junction proteins zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), occludin, and claudin-1 and promoted the phosphorylation of IκB-α and P65 to activate the canonical Nuclear Factor kappa-B (NF-κB) pathway. Neu5Gc increased the RNA levels of pro-inflammatory factors IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α and inhibited those of anti-inflammatory factors TGF-β and IL-10. BAY, an NF-κB signaling pathway inhibitor, attenuated these changes. Reductions in the levels of ZO-1, occludin, and claudin-1 were recovered in response to BAY. Our data reveal the endocytosis and exocytosis mechanism of Neu5Gc and prove that Neu5Gc can activate the canonical NF-κB signaling pathway, regulate the transcription of inflammatory factors, thereby damaging intestinal barrier function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A validated method based on Haidinger fringes has been proposed to measure the optical constants for thin-walled glass cells. The method can significantly enhance measurement accuracy by utilizing the reflected spectrum to determine the optical constants of the sample. The reflected light off the inner and the outer surfaces of the cell combined together and formed the interferential pattern (Haidinger fringes) detected by the photodiodes. Taking into account that the sample in our experiment is a sealed cell, we deliberately set the incident angle to a non-zero value. First, the measurement principle has been analyzed, and subsequently, the relevant experimental platform has been established. To reduce random errors, we recalibrated the relationship between the frequency of the laser and the operating temperature. Furthermore, the incident angle has been accurately estimated using the method of non-linear least squares. Finally, the weighted average, considering correlated uncertainties for all measurements, is 1.873 ± 0.005 016 mm, which showcases clear advantages over conventional mechanical methods that risk potential damages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nomogram for assessing the risk of IgA vasculitis nephritis (originally termed Henoch–Schönlein purpura nephritis, HSPN) in IgA vasculitis (originally termed Henoch–Schönlein purpura, HSP) pediatric patients can effectively improve early diagnosis and prognosis of IgA vasculitis nephritis. However, currently, no nomogram is available. 246 IgA vasculitis and 142 IgA vasculitis nephritis Asian pediatric patients confirmed by renal biopsy were enrolled. Univariate and multivariate logistic regressions were performed to identify the independent risk factors and construct a series of predictive models. The receiver operating characteristic curve, calibration plot, decision curve analysis, net reclassification index and integrated discrimination index were used to screen the best model. Stratification analysis was applied to optimize model's clinical utility. An external validation set was introduced to verify the predictive efficiency. The final predictive model was converted to nomogram for visual use. We identified age, duration of rash (Dor), D-dimer and IgG as independent risk factors and constructed four models as follows: AIDD (Age + IgG + Dor + D-dimer), AIDi (Age + IgG + D-dimer), AIDo (Age + IgG + Dor) and ADD (Age + Dor + D-dimer), which achieved the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.931, 0.920, 0.856 and 0.907, respectively. Finally, AIDi model with an AUROC of 0.956 and 0.897 in internal and external validating sets was proposed as a novel predictive model. In stratification analysis by gender and histological grade, the AUROC of AIDi was 0.949 in female, 0.926 in male, 0.933 in mild histological grades and 0.939 in severe histological grades, respectively. AIDi nomogram is an effective and visual tool for assessing the risk of nephritis in IgA vasculitis Asian pediatric patients, regardless of IgA vasculitis nephritis histological grades and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Torreya grandis is an important economic forestry product in China, whose seeds are often consumed as edible nuts, or used as raw materials for oil processing. To date, as an important by-product of Torreya grandis, comprehensive studies regarding the Torreya grandis seed coat phenolic composition are lacking, which greatly limits its in-depth use. Therefore, in the present study, the Torreya grandis seed coat was extracted by acid aqueous ethanol (TE), and NMR and UHPLC-MS were used to identify the major phenolics. Together with the already known phenolics including protocatechuic acid, catechin, epigallocatechin gallate, and epicatechin gallate, the unreported new compound 2-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyphenylethyl) malonic acid was discovered. The results of the antioxidant properties showed that both TE and 2-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyphenylethyl) malonic acid exhibited strong ABTS, DPPH, and hydroxyl radical-scavenging activity, and significantly improved the O/W emulsion's oxidation stability. These results indicate that the TE and 2-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyphenylethyl) malonic acid could possibly be used in the future to manufacture functional foods or bioactive ingredients. Moreover, further studies are also needed to evaluate the biological activity of TE and 2-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyphenylethyl) malonic acid to increase the added value of Torreya grandis by-products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two newly developed non-contact dielectric measurement techniques were applied to characterize the complex permittivity spectra of a ceramic state polymer electrolyte. The Capacitance Bridge was employed to measure the electrolyte sample in a frequency range from 50 Hz to 20 KHz with a novel air gap method. The newly designed in-waveguide measurement by VNA (vector network analyzer) was applied to measure the electrolyte in the frequency range from 8.2 GHz to 40 GHz. Both methods are newly developed non-contact techniques and there was no physical contact on the polymer sample film surface during the measurement. The weak contact error in traditional measurement could be completely avoided in these non-contact methods. The ionic conductivity and complex electrical conductivity can be derived from the accurate complex dielectric spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the problem that the ideological and political work mechanism in colleges and universities is relatively backward, which has no significant effect on ensuring the healthy and vigorous development of socialist universities with Chinese characteristics and promoting the all-round growth of students, this research focuses on the innovative countermeasures of ideological and political work in colleges and universities under the network environment from the perspective of ideological and political education. Therefore, the current situation and problems of ideological and political education management in colleges and universities are understood through questionnaire survey and interview. It is learned that 24.09% of students believe that the level of ideological and political education activities in colleges and universities is declining, 32.12% of students do not like the traditional way of ideological and political education, 33.94% of students have a general evaluation of the current ideological and political education management, and 58.03% of students believe that the way of ideological and political education is relatively single. Network psychological education for college students is a kind of educational behavior aimed at the psychological change process of college students in the Internet environment, and it conducts psychological education for college students in terms of cognition, emotion, will, ethics, personality shaping, interpersonal communication, and so on. Based on the above problems, combined with the requirements of ideological and political management and the needs of students, this article puts forward countermeasures from three aspects: management mechanism innovation, team improvement, and adaptation ways. Therefore, the management of ideological and political education in the network era is not a thing overnight, and must be adhered to for a long time. Only by constantly exploring, strengthening research, absorbing the strengths of others, innovating and developing, the ideological and political education management in the network era will increasingly show its strong effectiveness and play a more and more important role in practical work. The lack of network morality and network norms not only affects the ideological and political education but also affects the ideological and moral elements of higher vocational students' quality and physical and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a highly efficient strategy that allows the diverse synthesis of a library of structural bispiro[butyrolactone–pyrrolidine–indanedione] hybrids is achieved effectively for the first time by means of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions of α,β-unsaturated butyrolactones/valerolactones as dipolarophiles with azomethine ylides (thermally generated in situ from ninhydrin and proline or thioproline) via an exo′-transition state. Potentially bioactive target compounds have been obtained in good yields and diastereoselectivities (up to 89% yield and all cases >20 : 1 dr). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oxygen evolution reaction is of great significance to the production of hydrogen from high efficiency electrolytic water, hydrogen oxygen fuel cell and other energy conversion devices, but there are many challenges such as high cost, low efficiency and poor stability of catalysts. Among non‐precious metal catalysts, oxide has its unique advantages. We used overdoping strategy to prepare two‐phase oxide electrocatalyst SrCo0.9Fe0.05Mo0.35Ox (SCFM0.35) containing double perovskite and Co3O4 with excellent OER electrocatalytic activity and stability in alkaline solution. It required an overpotential of 361.7 mV to reach a 10 mA cm−2 current density and its performance only degrades by 3.48% after 1000 CV cycles accelerated stability tests, whose electrochemical performance is superior to that of single‐phase double perovskites and undoped perovskites. SrCo0.9Fe0.1O3 (SCF) ordinary perovskite is doped with slightly molybdenum (Mo), and then the ordinary perovskite turns into double perovskite because of the polyvalence characteristics of Mo. When Mo is overdoped, Co3O4 phase was precipitated while Mo entered perovskite phase. This process causes lattice distortion and makes the surface electronic structure benign changes. Furthermore, the microscopic morphology of the material surface and the valence state of cobalt element are changed, thereby improving the microenvironment of the electrochemical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent transportation infrastructure has gained significant research attention recently. In this paper, an innovative sensor network of smart road stud (SRS) is developed to enhance traffic detection infrastructure characterized by its functionality in traffic data collection, long/short range wireless data transmission, self-sustained power supply, and remote custom controlled lighting-based traffic guidance. Compared to the traditional traffic detectors and road studs, SRS nodes are installed on lane lines instead of lane center to enable the additional applications besides the detection function, such as traffic monitoring, congestion warning, routing guidance, and so on. SRS detects vehicles based on three-axis geomagnetic sensors. A vehicle detection algorithm is proposed correspondingly under different operation scenarios to count vehicles in two adjacent lanes. Its detecting accuracy can be further improved by a sensor network of multiple SRSs working cooperatively. Field test results show that the vehicle detection accuracy based on the SRS network is about 98% per lane, which is the same level as the commercial detector installed in center of lane, even under the non-standard driving behaviors such as crossing lane line. The high performance, value-added service, and low cost enable wide-range applications of SRS networks as part of intelligent traffic detection infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiment was conducted to study the effect of low protein diets supplemented with threonine on growth performance and feed digestibility of Hainan pigs. 64 Hainan pigs with the body weight of (55.31±3.09) kg were randomly divided into four groups, with four replicates in each group and four pigs in each replicate. The pigs in control group were fed with 16% crude protein level and 0.6% threonine level. The crude protein level of trial groups I, group II and group III was 14%, and the supplemental level of threonine was 0.6%, 0.8% and 1.0%, respectively. The experimental group was balanced with lysine, tryptophan, valine and arginine. The experiment lasted for 35 d. The results showed that adding threonine to low protein diet to 0.8% could restore the production performance of Hainan pigs to normal diet level (P>0.05). Low protein diet supplemented with threonine significantly increased the apparent digestibility of CP and P of Hainan pigs (P<0.05), and the apparent digestibility of CP of pigs in group III and group II were 13.46% and 12.03% higher than that in control group. Compared with control group, the apparent digestibility of phosphorus of pigs in group II was increased by 9.02%, and that in group III was increased by 8.00% (P<0.05). The experiment indicates that dietary crude protein reduced to 14% and threonine supplemented to 0.8% can improve feed utilization rate without reducing growth rate of Hainan pigs, and it was suggested to be used in production of Hainan pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient transmission control is a challenging issue in vehicular networks due to the highly dynamic and unpredictable link status. In this paper, we propose a cybertwin-driven learning-based transmission scheduling mechanism for software-defined vehicular networks, which can adaptively select/adjust transmission control methods, i.e., loss-based, delay-based and hybrid ones, to suit to the time-varying network environment. In particular, we first analyze the dynamic network characteristics of three realistic vehicular network scenarios in terms of network throughput, round-trip time (RTT) and RTT jitter. Furthermore, we propose a novel transmission scheduling model and formulate the SDVN transmission scheduling issue as a linear programming problem. To obtain the optimized scheduling policies and guarantee the effectiveness of transmission control, we further propose a Cybertwin-driven and Deep Reinforcement Learning based transmission control solution (TcpCDRL). Specifically, TcpCDRL is featured with: (i) using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to adaptively adjust transmission control policy, (ii) using cybertwin-driven transmission controlling to improve the policy-making effectiveness and timeliness. Simulation results show that the proposed TcpCDRL approach outperforms the single well-known transmission control approach (i.e., TcpWestwood, TcpBic, TcpVeno and TcpVegas) in terms of network throughput and RTT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: While many studies have investigated the associations between fibroblast growth factor 20 (FGF20) rs1721100 (C/G) and rs12720208 (C/T) polymorphisms and susceptibility to Parkinson's disease (PD), their results are controversial. Our present meta-analysis estimated the overall association between FGF20 rs1721100 and rs12720208 polymorphisms and the risk of sporadic PD.Methods: We performed a comprehensive literature search of the PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Medicine electronic databases, which was updated in April 2021. Based on strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, the analysis included a total of 10 papers involving 14 studies with 5262 cases of PD and 6075 controls. Review Manager 5.4 software was used to assess the available data from each study. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the association between the FGF20 rs1721100 and rs12720208 polymorphisms and sporadic PD risk.Results: Our results showed that the FGF20 rs1721100 G allele frequency and genotype distribution did not differ between PD patients and controls. Similarly, the FGF20 rs12720208 T allele frequency and genotype distribution did not differ significantly between the two groups. A subgroup analysis of Asian and Caucasian populations also showed the same results.Conclusions: The results of this meta-analysis indicated that neither the rs1721100 C/G nor the rs12720208 C/T variants were associated with sporadic PD susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We disclose a method to obtain the transverse light-shift along the probe light of a single-axis alkali metal-noble gas co-magnetometer. The relationship between transverse compensating field and light-shift is deduced through the steady-state solution of Bloch equations. The variety of probe light intensity is used to obtain the residual magnetic field, and step modulation tests are applied to acquire the total spin-relaxation rate of electron spins and self-compensation point. The transverse light-shift can be calculated by these parameters, and it is reduced from − 0.115 to − 0.039 nT by optimizing the probe light wavelength. Finally, long-term static test for a K-Rb-21Ne co-magnetometer has been performed. The bias instability of about 0.009 deg/h and rate ramp coefficient of 0.096 (deg/h)/h have been achieved to prove the improvement of stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current cohort study shows the inconsistent association between potato consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of published prospective cohort studies to quantitatively estimate this association. We searched PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Knowledge, and the Cochrane Library up to September 2019 for all published articles. Seven of the articles reported nine cohort studies with 383,211 participants, with 23,189 T2DM cases that met the inclusion criteria and were included for our analysis. The results of random effects model pooled relative risk (RR) showed an association between potato intake and the risk of T2DM (pooled RR = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.02–1.26, p > 0.01). In the subgroup analysis, French fries, long-term follow-up, large sample size, and high-quality studies were associated with an increased T2DM risk. Further, a linear dose-response analysis indicated that 100 g/day increment of total potato (RR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.02–1.08) and French fries (RR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.07–1.14) consumption may increase the risk of T2DM by 5% and 10%, respectively. Our meta-analysis showed that potato consumption, especially French fries consumption, was associated with increased T2DM risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a digital asset backed to fiat currencies issued and regulated by reputable national financial institutions. Bearing in mind accelerating developments in financial technology and CBDC, this study explored tourists' adoption of CBDC as a payment method by focusing on the relationship between attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, mass media coverage, fear of missing out relative advantages, and perceived risk. A socio-psychological theory was utilized as a theoretical framework. The survey data were collected from China, Korea, and the US. The proposed framework strongly supported Digital Korean Won and Digital Yuen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrafast reconfigurable devices with high‐speed responses, high‐resolution capabilities, and ultracompact sizes will be essential for future real‐time terahertz imaging, chemical detection, nondestructive biosensing, and communication systems. Multifunctional terahertz metasurfaces with active, programmable controls have enabled conspicuous functionalities of subwavelength planar devices and components for manipulating electromagnetic (EM) waves such as beam focusing, polarization modification, generation of exotic EM modes, or multibeam scanning applications. However, active metasurface technologies for EM beam manipulation, capable of dynamical topology change, or induced‐phase reconfiguration are usually requiring various semiconductor‐based controlling elements (e.g., PN diodes and transistors), which are difficult to implement in the high‐frequency spectrum of terahertz waves. In this work, a coding metasurface is introduced integrating patterned GeTe phase‐change materials as command elements, which allows the optical control of terahertz wave propagation. The suggested metasurface design brings plentiful of remarkable functionalities through different coding patterns and is highly effective to control beam tilting, directivity, and splitting of terahertz beams. The proposed concepts of coding metasurfaces integrating optically active phase‐change materials are successfully confirmed by experimental demonstration and can be extended to more complex terahertz systems for imaging, tomography, sensing, and 6G communication applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification genes involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) through data analysis of the two data sets GSE120306 and GSE22491 in the GEO database and further explore its influence on cell phenotype in PD. We analyzed the differentially expressed genes and function enrichment analysis of the two sets of data and found that the expression of the m6A-modification gene HNRNPC was significantly downregulated in the PD group, and it played an important role in DNA metabolism, RNA metabolism, and RNA processing and may be involved in PD. Then, we constructed the HNRNPC differential expression cell line to study the role of this gene in the pathogenesis of PD. The results showed that overexpression of HNRNPC can promote the proliferation of PC12 cells, inhibit their apoptosis, and inhibit the expression of inflammatory factors IFN-β, IL-6, and TNF-α, suggesting that HNRNPC may cause PD by inhibiting the proliferation of dopaminergic nerve cells, promoting their apoptosis, and causing immune inflammation. Our study also has certain limitations. For example, the data of the experimental group and the validation group come from different cell types, and the data of the experimental group involve individuals with G2019S LRRK2 mutations. In addition, due to the low expression of HNRNPC in PC12 cells, we used the method of overexpressing this gene to study its function. All these factors may cause our conclusions to be biased. Therefore, more research is still needed to corroborate it in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rosmarinic acid (RosA), a natural poly-phenolic compound isolated from a variety of Labiatae herbs, has been reported to have a range of biological effects. To investigate the cardioprotective effects of RosA against myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Male C57BL/6J mice were given RosA (100 mg/kg) via intragastric administration. After 1 week of administration, the mice were subjected to 30 min/24 h myocardial I/R injury. The mice were randomly subdivided into 4 groups: Vehicle, RosA, Vehicle + I/R, and RosA + I/R. Infarct size (IS), cardiac function (including EF, FS), histopathology, serum enzyme activities, ROS changes, cis aconitase (ACO) activity, and specific mRNA and protein levels were assessed in vivo. HL-1 cells were pre-treated with or without RosA (50 μM), followed by stimulation with 9 h/6 h of oxygen and glucose deprivation/re-oxygenation (OGD/R). The cells were randomly subdivided into 4 groups: Vehicle, RosA, Vehicle + OGD/R, and RosA + OGD/R. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels, ACO activity, ROS changes and protein levels were measured in vitro. Treatment with RosA reduced the following indicators in vivo (p < 0.05): (1) IS (14.5%); (2) EF (-23.4%) and FS (-18.4%); (3) the myocardial injury enzymes CK-MB (20.8 ng/mL) and cTnI (7.7 ng/mL); (4) DHE-ROS: (94.1%); (5) ACO activity (-2.1 mU/mg protein); (6) ogdh mRNA level (122.9%); and (7) OGDH protein level (69.9%). Moreover, treatment with RosA attenuated the following indicators in vitro (p < 0.05): (1) LDH level (191 U/L); (2) DHE-ROS: (165.2%); (3) ACO activity (-3.2 mU/mg protein); (4) ogdh mRNA level (70.0%); and (5) OGDH (110.1%), p-IκB-a (56.8%), and p-NF-κB (57.7%) protein levels. RosA has the potential to treat myocardial I/R injury with potential application in the clinic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. This study aimed to explore new core genes related to the occurrence of Parkinson's disease (PD) and core genes that can lead to the progression of PD. Methods. The expression profile data of GSE42966, which contained six substantia nigra tissues isolated from normal individuals and nine substantia nigra tissues isolated from patients with PD, were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, followed by functional enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction. We then identified 10 hub genes and analyzed their expression in different Braak stages. Results. A total of 773 DEGs were identified that were significantly enriched in metabolic pathways. Ten hub genes were identified through the PPI network, namely, GNG3, MAPK1, FPR1, ATP5B, GNG2, PRKACA, HRAS, HSPA8, PSAP, and GABBR2. The expression of HRAS was different in patients with PD with Braak stages 3 and 4. Conclusion. These 10 hub genes and the metabolic pathways they are enriched in may be involved in the pathogenesis of PD. HRAS may have potential value in predicting the progression of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: DNA sequence alignment is a common first step in most applications of high-throughput sequencing technologies. The accuracy of sequence alignments directly affects the accuracy of downstream analyses, such as variant calling and quantitative analysis of transcriptome; therefore, rapidly and accurately mapping reads to a reference genome is a significant topic in bioinformatics. Conventional DNA read aligners map reads to a linear reference genome (such as the GRCh38 primary assembly). However, such a linear reference genome represents the genome of only one or a few individuals and thus lacks information on variations in the population. This limitation can introduce bias and impact the sensitivity and accuracy of mapping. Recently, a number of aligners have begun to map reads to populations of genomes, which can be represented by a reference genome and a large number of genetic variants. However, compared to linear reference aligners, an aligner that can store and index all genetic variants has a high cost in memory (RAM) space and leads to extremely long run time. Aligning reads to a graph-model-based index that includes all types of variants is ultimately an NP-hard problem in theory. By contrast, considering only single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) information will reduce the complexity of the index and improve the speed of sequence alignment. Results: The SNP-aware alignment tool (SALT) is a fast, memory-efficient, and SNP-aware short read alignment tool. SALT uses 5.8 GB of RAM to index a human reference genome (GRCh38) and incorporates 12.8M UCSC common SNPs. Compared with a state-of-the-art aligner, SALT has a similar speed but higher accuracy. Conclusions: Herein, we present an SNP-aware alignment tool (SALT) that aligns reads to a reference genome that incorporates an SNP database. We benchmarked SALT using simulated and real datasets. The results demonstrate that SALT can efficiently map reads to the reference genome with significantly improved accuracy. Incorporating SNP information can improve the accuracy of read alignment and can reveal novel variants. The source code is freely available at https://github.com/weiquan/SALT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Y-shaped piles are a new type of pile whose cross-section is like the letter Y: they are often used in ground improvement for road or train subgrades in the eastern coastal region of China. To investigate the bearing behaviour of Y-shaped piles in saturated sand, a series of model tests under compressive and horizontal load for Y-shaped piles, C 1 circular pile (the same cross-sectional area of Y-shaped pile), and C 2 circular pile (the same perimeter of Y-shaped pile) were carried out. Comparative analysis was conducted on bearing capacity, axial force and side resistance distribution, load sharing ratio, bending moment, and lateral soil pressure distribution along the embedded length. The results show that the bearing capacity of a Y-shaped pile does not increase in proportion, and the shaft resistance is weakened to some extent in saturated sand; Y-shaped pile can effectively improve the compressive bearing capacity for the same amount of concrete. The lateral bearing capacity of a Y-shaped pile has directionality, and hanging a circular section into a Y-shaped section may improve the horizontal bearing capacity for the same amount concrete, but cannot give full play to the advantage of the larger side area for horizontal bearing capacity in saturated sand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human life expectancy is at present the maximum in recorded history. However, a disadvantage is that the elderly are increasingly displaying cognitive disabilities. Studies have shown that physical exercises such as calisthenics can potentially prevent disabilities. Meanwhile, existing systems for evaluating human pose focus mainly on accuracy and omit convenience and efficiency. To solve this issue, in this paper, we propose a framework for rapidly estimating three-dimensional human pose from two camera views. It is based on an evolutionary algorithm. This system can be applied straightforwardly to inexpensive smart devices and used to evaluate multiple individuals' calisthenics with two or more smart devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study performs a series of mechanical tests, quasi-static and dynamic, on CuCoCrFeNi high-entropy alloys (HEAs) using an experimental setup to explore the performance of Cu-based HEAs in shaped charges. It derives the parameters for the Johnson–Cook constitutive model through fitting. A static penetration test is conducted with a small cone angle and a thin-walled liner. The outcomes are then compared to simulation data generated by AUTODYN software. They indicated that the CuCoCrFeNi HEA liner can produce a shaped-charge jet that achieves both penetration and reaming effects when driven by explosives. In a C45 steel target, the diameter of the penetration hole is 46.43% of the charge diameter. The experimental findings align closely with the simulations, indicating discrepancies of less than 12.13% in the diameters of the penetration holes and ∼2.56% in penetration depths. Hence, the numerical simulation approach and its parameters can be utilized to investigate the penetration characteristics of Cu-based HEA jets, providing a groundwork for future optimization of HEA-shaped charge designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication introduces a new structure of polarizer for generating millimeter-wave (MMW) circular polarization (CP) in a Fabry–Pérot cavity (FPC) antenna. It is the first of its kind, which integrates a 3D-printed polarizer with an inserted partially reflective surface (PRS), which contributes to a wideband CP operation with high antenna gain. The realization of CP and gain enhancement can be controlled independently by optimizing the structures of the dielectric part and the PRS of the polarizer, respectively. The proposed antenna consists of a feeding source, a substrate-integrated quasi-curve reflector, and the proposed polarizer. The feeding source and the reflector are able to be fabricated by the conventional PCB technology which is low-cost and convenient in circuitry integration. For validation, a prototype of the FPC antenna with the proposed polarizer operating at 60 GHz has been designed, fabricated, and measured. The peak gain of the antenna reaches to 20 dBic. The antenna achieves an impedance bandwidth of 20% from 54.5 to 66.7 GHz for the reflection coefficient of less than −10 dB. The axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is 12.7% from 56.5 to 64 GHz for AR ≤3 dB. The experimental results confirm a good agreement between simulation and measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy harvesting from streets, squares, and other areas to supply power to equipment and systems in these environments is environmentally friendly and more convenient for functions requiring low power consumption. To harvest more pulsed mechanical energy and improve the quality of electrical output for immediate utilization, we propose a bidirectional energy harvesting floor with a sustained-release regulation mechanism (BEHF-SRM). The pulse and irregular excitation on the road can be converted into continuous unidirectional rotation of the working wheel and the reset motion of the system can also drive the work wheel unidirectional rotation, and the rotational kinetic energy is slowly converted into electrical energy. A dynamic model is established and validated experimentally. One person can easily light up 20 LED bulbs (rated power 1 W) by stepping on the prototype of BEHF-SRM. The prototype can continue to provide electricity for about 7 s after stepping on it. Self-powered automated pedestrian crosswalk warnings that can improve pedestrian safety was demonstrated based on BEHF-SRM. The results show that the proposed harvester has the potential to provide a sustainable, convenient, green, and zero carbon energy supply to smart transport and smart cities. • Energy harvesting floor with sustained-release regulation mechanism is proposed. • The dynamic model of the system is established and validated experimentally. • A person can light up 20 LED bulbs (rated power 1 W) by stepping on the prototype. • Self-powered automatic light warning for pedestrian crosswalks is realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances and perspectives in fluorescent probes for imaging hepatopathy-related biomarkers. [Display omitted] • Focusing on the connection between hepatopathy and biomarkers or cellular microenvironment. • Reviewing fluorescent probes in the detection of hepatopathy-related biomarkers over the last three years for the first time. • Discussing the advantages and limitations of existing fluorescent probes in disease diagnosis. • Putting forward the future development directions of fluorescent probes for disease-related biomarkers detection. As the metabolic and detoxification center of the body, the liver is closely involved in many critical physiological processes, such as metabolism, immunity, digestion, storage of liver glycogen and synthesis of proteins. Normal liver function is essential for maintaining the health and stability of the body, and abnormal liver function can lead to a variety of liver diseases, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver, liver cancer, hepatitis, and liver fibrosis. Early diagnosis can buy valuable time for the treatment of liver disease. In the process of disease onset and progression, the fluctuation of biomarkers can directly reflect the health status of the liver, providing valuable opportunities and avenues for the diagnosis of liver disease and assessment of treatment efficacy. In recent years, a large number of fluorescent probes have been reported for the detection of biomarkers of liver diseases, which provides rich and valuable information for the study of pathological processes, drug development, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The review systematically summarizes the recent progress of fluorescence probes in the detection of hepatopathy-related biomarkers in the past three years, including the design and recognition mechanism of fluorescence probes, the main types of liver diseases and typical biomarkers. Also, we deeply discussed the problems and shortcomings of the current fluorescent probes and furnished the direction and path for future development. In the future, long wavelength probes, multi-detection probes, quantitative analysis probes, and multi-modal probes will be popular trends. We expect that this review may facilitate the blossom of novel fluorescent probes for disease detection research and further provide meaningful guidance for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Clematis tangutica Korsh. (Ranunculaceae) is used as a Tibetan herb for treating indigestion and blood stasis in China. Recently, a flavonoid glycoside, apigenin-7-O-β-d-(6″-p-coumaroyl)-glucopyranoside (APG), was isolated from the whole plant of C. tangutica. To investigate the cardioprotective effects of APG against myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion injury (MI/RI) and the possible mechanism. Animals were subjected to 30 min/3 h MI/RI model. At the end of reperfusion, infarct size (IS), histopathology, serum levels CK-MB, LDH, TNF-α, IL-6 and MPO activities were detected. Phospho-IκB-α, ICAM-1 and NF-κB were assessed in vivo. Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were pre-treated with or without APG, followed by stimulation with 8 h/2 h oxygen and glucose deprived/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model. Cell viability, LDH and cardiomyocyte apoptosis were assessed. The expression levels of phospho-IκB-α and NF-κB were measured in vitro. Treatment with APG significantly reduced the following indicators in vivo (p < 0.05): (1) the IS (16.2%); (2) morphology score (1.67); (3) myocardial injury enzymes: CK-MB (26.2 ng/mL) and LDH (688 U/L); (4) pro-inflammatory cytokines: TNF-α (31.5 pg/mL) and IL-6 (163.8 pg/mL); (5) MPO activity (2.75 U/mg); (6) expression levels of phospho-IκB-α (0.47), NF-κB (2.87) and ICAM-1 (10.2). Moreover, treatment with APG also remarkably (p < 0.05) attenuated the following indicators in vitro: (1) LDH level (206 U/L); (2) cardiomyocyte apoptosis; (3) phospho-IκB-α (1.37) and NF-κB (2.50). APG possesses protective effects against MI/RI injury in rats and OGD/R-induced injury in cardiomyocytes by suppressing translocation of NF-κB and reducing inflammatory response; consequently, APG is helpful for treatment of ischaemic heart disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the two-lane traffic surveillance function of a smart road stud (SRS), which has the capabilities of high-resolution traffic data collection and transmission, and a light-based traffic guidance. The SRS addresses the limitations of the current systems with the potential for high performance and usage for a variety of applications. SRS nodes are mounted on the road surface along the lane separation lines instead of the intrusive middle of the lane detection sensors. The key innovation in SRS design is its ability to detect vehicles in two adjacent lanes in real time by employing a three-axis geomagnetic sensor mounting on the lane line, which is the basis of advanced applications such as traffic surveillance, driving guidance, and congestion monitoring. Multiple vehicles are recognized based on the superposition of the disturbance of the geomagnetic fields. Magnetic field changes along the axes are simulated and analyzed with vehicles modeled as magnet dipoles to determine the criteria for the detection of vehicles in adjacent lanes, which are verified by actual waveforms. Extended dual-window and two-lane vehicle detection algorithms are developed, enabling to distinguish five detection scenarios and count vehicles in two lanes. Field test results show that one SRS can detect traffic in adjacent lanes with a correct vehicle detection rate of over 98%, the same level achievable by intrusive middle of the lane detectors. Based on the enhanced features, high performance, cost-effectiveness, and value-added services, the SRS is a significant improvement on the conventional studs for intelligent transport system applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A switchable access to ethenylphosphorylamides and chloroethenylphosphorylamides from phosphorylamides and alkenes has been disclosed herein. With the assistance of Pd(OAc)2, a catalytic loading of CuCl2 or CuBr (20 mol‐%) led to the occurrence of dehydrogenative cross coupling reactions with high efficiency and broad substrate scope, while 1.0 equivalent of CuCl2 rendered the dehydrogenative amidochlorination reactions to take place with high stereoselectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex dielectric and magnetic properties of micro- and nano-size hexagonal ferrites have been studied. Two different measurement techniques have been applied to characterize the samples in the broad frequency range from 1.7 to 120 GHz. It was observed that the constitutive material properties, namely permittivity and permeability, as well as the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of the samples vary with the change in particle dimensions. Based on the results of these measurements, a model for calculating the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of ferrite powders has been derived, which takes into account the size and shape of the particles in the sample. It can be concluded from the size-dependent absorption properties observed in this study that these materials are considered to be tunable millimeter-wave absorbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of how long it takes for an electron to tunnel from one side of a barrier to the other has been debated for decades and the attoclock is a promising experimental procedure to address this problem. In the attoclock experiment, many physical effects will contribute to the experimental results and it is difficult to extract the tunneling time accurately. We numerically investigate a method of measuring the residual equivalent temporal offset (RETO) induced by the physical effects except for tunneling delay. The Coulomb potential effect, the nonadiabatic effect, the multielectron effect, and the Stark effect are considered in the theoretical model. It is shown that the ratio of the RETO of the target atoms to that of H is insensitive to the wavelength and is linearly proportional to. This work can help to improve the accuracy of the attoclock technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning (DL) has been widely adopted in various domains of artificial intelligence (AI), achieving dramatic developments in industry and academia. Besides giant AI companies, numerous small and medium-sized enterprises, institutes, and universities (EIUs) have focused on the research and development (R&D) of DL. Considering the high cost of datacenters and high performance computing (HPC) systems, EIUs prefer adopting off-the-shelf GPU clusters as a DL R&D platform for multiple users and developers to process diverse DL workloads. In such scenarios, the scheduling of multiple DL tasks on a shared GPU cluster is both significant and challenging in terms of efficiently utilizing limited resources. Existing schedulers cannot predict the resource requirements of diverse DL workloads, leading to the under-utilization of computing resources and a decline in user satisfaction. This paper proposes GENIE, a QoS-aware dynamic scheduling framework for a shared GPU cluster, which achieves users’ QoS guarantee and high system utilization. In accordance with an exhaustive characterization, GENIE analyzes the key factors that affect the performance of DL tasks and proposes a prediction model derived from lightweight profiling to estimate the processing rate and response latency for diverse DL workloads. Based on the prediction models, we propose a QoS-aware scheduling algorithm to identify the best placements for DL tasks and schedule them on the shared cluster. Experiments on a GPU cluster and large-scale simulations demonstrate that GENIE achieves a QoS-guarantee percentage improvement of up to 67.4 percent and a makespan reduction of up to 28.2 percent, compared to other baseline schedulers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A natural colourant derived from purple‐fleshed sweet potato (PFSP) by ultrasound‐assisted solvent extraction was examined in terms of its anthocyanins and 6‐month storage stability under different conditions: avoid from light at 25 (AL25) and 37 °C (AL37) and under fluorescent light at 25 °C (FL25). This PFSP colourant mainly contained the following peonidin anthocyanins: peonidin 3‐p‐hydroxybenzoyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside, peonidin 3‐feruloyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside, peonidin 3‐caffeoyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside, peonidin dicaffeoyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside, peonidin 3‐caffeoyl‐p‐hydroxybenzoyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside and peonidin caffeoyl‐feruloyl sophoroside‐5‐glucoside. The degradation ratios of PFSP anthocyanins (PFSPAs) under AL25, AL37 and FL25 were around 50.7%, 89.0% and 87.0% respectively. The FL25 and AL37 conditions had similar effects on the colourant's total colour change (ΔEab). The degradation kinetics followed the zero‐order reaction models. The PFSPAs were more stable during storage than other anthocyanins because they mainly consist of di‐acylated and double glycosylated forms of peonidin derivatives. These results may promote the application of PFSPAs as a novel natural colourant in food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Activated microglia induced early A2 conversion and late, sustained A1 conversion. • Telmisartan promoted early A2 conversion and inhibited late A1 conversion. • The activity of telmisartan resulted from PPARγ-mediated p65 degradation. Astrocytes are crucially involved in neuroinflammation. Activated astrocytes exhibit at least two phenotypes, A1 (neurotoxic) and A2 (neuroprotective). The A1 phenotype is the major reactive astrocyte phenotype involved in aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Telmisartan, which is an antihypertensive agent, is a promising neuroprotective agent. This study aimed to investigate the effects of telmisartan on the phenotype of reactive astrocytes. Astrocytes were activated by culturing with the conditioned medium derived from lipopolysaccharide-stimulated microglia. This conditioned medium induced early, transient A2 astrocyte conversion (within 24 h) and late, sustained A1 conversion (beginning at 24 h and lasting up to 7 days), with a concomitant increase in the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin [IL]-1β, tumor necrosis factor [TNF]α, and IL-6) and phosphorylation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)/p65. Telmisartan treatment promoted and inhibited A2 and A1 conversion, respectively. Telmisartan reduced total and phosphorylated p65 protein levels. Losartan, a specific angiotensin II type-1 receptor (AT1R) blocker, did not influence the reactive state of astrocytes. Additionally, AT1R activation by angiotensin II did not induce the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and A1/A2 markers, indicating that the AT1R signaling pathway is not involved in the astrocyte-mediated inflammatory response. A peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) antagonist reversed the effects of telmisartan. Moreover, telmisartan-induced p65 downregulation was reversed by the proteasome inhibitor MG132. These results indicate that telmisartan suppresses activated microglia-induced neurotoxic A1 astrocyte conversion through p65 degradation. Our findings contribute towards the elucidation of the anti-inflammatory activity of telmisartan in brain disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]