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For olfactory sensors, clear differentiation of complex odour samples requires diverse information. To obtain such information, hardware modifications, such as introducing additional channels with different physical/chemical properties, are usually needed. In this study, we present a new approach to augmenting the sensing signals of an olfactory sensor by modulating the flow rate of the carrier gas. The headspace vapour of complex odours is measured using a sensing system of nanomechanical sensor (Membrane-type Surface stress Sensor, MSS). The resulting data set is quantitatively evaluated using the Davies-Bouldin index (DBI) of principal component analysis (PCA). The increasing number of sensing signals obtained at different gas flow rates leads to a decrease in the DBI, achieving better cluster separation between different odours. Such gas flow effects can be attributed to several factors, including the sample evaporation and the equilibrium of the gas-liquid and gas-solid interfaces. Proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS) experiments reveal that the compositions of odour samples vary with the different gas flow rates. It is demonstrated that a simple technique for modulating gas flow rates can significantly improve the differentiation performance of complex odours, providing an additional degree of freedom in olfactory sensing.

The adhesion of microorganisms and the subsequent formation of mineralized layers in biofilms are of great significance in inhibiting the corrosion of metal materials. In this work, we found that the adhesion and subsequent mineralization of Bacillus subtilis on the surface of low-alloy steel are influenced by the molybdenum in the material. The addition of molybdenum will lead to increased adhesion of B. subtilis on the material surface, and the subsequent biomineralization ability has also been improved. Through transcriptome and physiological and biochemical tests, we found that molybdenum can affect the chemotaxis, mobility and carbonic anhydrase secretion related genes of B. subtilis, and then affect the formation and mineralization of the biofilm of B. subtilis.

Abstract Background Ovarian cancer (OC) is a malignant neoplasm that displays increased vascularization. Angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) is a secreted glycoprotein that functions as a regulator of cell metabolism and angiogenesis and plays a critical role in tumorigenesis. However, the precise role of ANGPTL4 in the OC microenvironment, particularly its involvement in angiogenesis, has not been fully elucidated. Methods The expression of ANGPTL4 was confirmed by bioinformatics and IHC in OC. The potential molecular mechanism of ANGPTL4 was measured by RNA-sequence. We used a series of molecular biological experiments to measure the ANGPTL4-JAK2-STAT3 and ANGPTL4-ESM1 axis in OC progression, including MTT, EdU, wound healing, transwell, xenograft model, oil red O staining, chick chorioallantoic membrane assay and zebrafish model. Moreover, the molecular mechanisms were confirmed by Western blot, Co-IP and molecular docking. Results Our study demonstrates a significant upregulation of ANGPTL4 in OC specimens and its strong association with unfavorable prognosis. RNA-seq analysis affirms that ANGPTL4 facilitates OC development by driving JAK2-STAT3 signaling pathway activation. The interaction between ANGPTL4 and ESM1 promotes ANGPTL4 binding to lipoprotein lipase (LPL), thereby resulting in reprogrammed lipid metabolism and the promotion of OC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. In the OC microenvironment, ESM1 may interfere with the binding of ANGPTL4 to integrin and vascular-endothelial cadherin (VE-Cad), which leads to stabilization of vascular integrity and ultimately promotes angiogenesis. Conclusion Our findings underscore that ANGPTL4 promotes OC development via JAK signaling and induces angiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment through its interaction with ESM1.

As a potential drug candidate for the treatment of hypertension and complications, it is speculated that the component-based Chinese medicine of Ginkgo biloba leaves (GBCCM) which mainly composed of flavonoid aglycones (FAs) and terpene lactones (TLs) may have different pharmacological effects at different doses or ratios. Taking the normal mice as the study object, metabonomics was conducted by giving different doses of GBCCM. Based on the components of GBCCM absorbed into the blood, the network pharmacological prediction was carried out. By integrating the results of metabonomics and network pharmacology, predict the possible pharmacological effects of GBCCM and conduct experimental verification. It was found that eight of the 19 compounds in GBCCM could be absorbed into the blood. GBCCM mainly affected the signal pathways of unsaturated fatty acid, pyruvate, bile acid, melanin and stem cells. It was speculated that GBCCM might have activities such as lowering blood pressure, regulating stem cell proliferation and melanogenesis. By establishing the models of mushroom tyrosinase, rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs), we found that FAs and TLs showed synergistic effect in hypertension and tyrosinase models, and the optimal ratio was 3:2 (4.4 mg/kg) and 1:1 (0.4 mg/ml), respectively. As effective substances, FAs significantly promoted the proliferation of rat BMSCs on the third and fifth days at the concentration of 0.2 μg/ml (p < 0.05). GBCCM showed a variety of pharmacological effects at different doses and ratios, which provided an important reference for the druggability of GBCCM.

Ethylene‐octene copolymer (EOC, three EOCs with different octene content used in this study) and propene‐ethylene copolymer (EPC, three EPCs with different ethylene content used in this study) can have effects on the crystallization dynamics, crystal structure, and foaming properties of ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA). For unfoamed EVA/EOC and unfoamed EVA/EPC blends, both EVA/EOC and EVA/EPC blends show phase separation structure. The foam cells in EVA/EOC blends have better uniformity compared to those in EVA/EPC blends, which result from the better compatibility of EVA and EOC than EVA and EPC obtained from the morphology analysis. For the blends with different crystallization ability of EOC or EPC, the blends with lower crystallinity has more uniform cell distribution than blends with higher crystallinity, due to the crystallization zone cause heterogeneous crosslinking and foaming of the blend. Both EOC and EPC can impart higher elasticity to EVA foamed materials. EOC was found to be more suitable for blending with EVA for foamed materials, offering the potential to obtain EVA/EOC foamed materials with excellent performance. Highlights: Ethylene‐octene copolymer with higher octene content has better effect on foaming property of ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer than ethylene‐propylene copolymer.Ethylene‐propylene copolymer can decrease the foaming temperature of ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer.A mechanism of foaming for ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer/semi‐crystallized polymer blends is proposed.Achieved in‐depth understanding of structure–property relationship about ethylene‐vinyl Acetate copolymer/polyolefin elastomer foamed material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous improvement of people’s income level and consumption level, the demand for fresh products is driven by the strong demand, and at the same time, low-carbon and green development puts forward new requirements for the cold chain logistics industry. Starting from the perspective of considering the green cost, by constructing a distribution path optimization model of fresh cold chain products considering green cost with the optimal total distribution cost as the research objective, energy saving and emission reduction are integrated into the path optimization problem so that we can explore how to protect the environment while realizing the benefits of the enterprise, and the model is solved by using the ant colony algorithm. By observing the cold chain logistics distribution path arrangement before and after optimization, it is found that the fresh cold chain product distribution path optimization considering green cost can effectively reduce the transportation cost, refrigeration cost, carbon emission cost, and cargo damage cost in the distribution process. Under the optimal distribution strategy, the total cost is reduced by about 16.6% compared to the original route, and the environmental cost is reduced while reducing the distribution cost. It shows that this strategy can improve transportation efficiency and customer satisfaction while saving resources and protecting the environment. And this study comprehensively considers the actual operation of logistics enterprises, so this study has a certain significance of reference value for the green transformation of enterprises. It further promotes the sustainable development of the cold chain industry and reduces the distribution costs of cold chain logistics companies. It also provides a certain degree of inspiration and reference for other cold chain logistics companies to realize the unification of economic and environmental benefits in actual operation.

Trisomy harbouring an extra copy of the chromosome generally causes a variety of physical and intellectual disabilities in mammals but is an extremely rare and important genetic stock in plants. In this study, a spontaneous trisomy plant in a Chinese kale accession (Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra, CC, 2n = 18) that showed significantly smaller plant architecture when compared to other normal plants was found and subsequently confirmed by cytological analysis in which the chromosome set of 2n = 19 and abnormal chromosome behaviour were observed. Then, based on the gene expression deviation determined by RNA-seq, the extra chromosome copy in this trisomy was identified as chromosome C2 (TC2). Compared to normal plants, TC2 not only showed generally upregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) on chromosome C2 (97.21% of 573 DEGs in chromosome C2) but also exhibited a whole-genome expression perturbation, in which 1329 DEGs (69.87% of total DEGs) were observed along two-copy chromosomes (trans-effect). The genes in the high (gene expression value > 100) and medium (100 > gene expression value > 10) groups were more prone to decreased gene expression, but the genes in the low group (10 > gene expression value > 0.1) showed upregulated expression deviation. In addition, GO (Gene ontology) annotation analysis revealed that the upregulated DEGs in the trans-effect group were overrepresented by the genes involved in the response to stress category, while the downregulated DEGs in the trans-effect group were mostly enriched in pathways related to DNA synthesis. In conclusion, we think our results can provide important resources for genetic analysis in B. oleracea and show some novel insights for understanding trisomy plant biology.

Blending octene random copolymer (ORC) with other polymers is a promising approach to improving ORC mechanical properties, such as tensile strength and elongation. In this study, octene block copolymer (OBC) with lower density than ORC and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) were used to blend with ORC. The effect of both OBC and HDPE on ORC was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). For ORC/OBC blends, a small amount of OBC can improve the crystallization ability of ORC. Meanwhile, for ORC/HDPE blends, the crystallization ability of ORC was significantly suppressed, attributed to good compatibility between ORC and HDPE as indicated by the homogeneous morphology and the disappearance of the α transition peak of ORC in ORC/HDPE blends. Therefore, the tensile strength and elongation of ORC/HDPE blends are significantly higher than those of ORC/OBC blends. For ORC/OBC/HDPE ternary blends, we found that when ORC:OBC:HDPE are at a ratio of 70:15:15, cocrystallization is achieved. Although HDPE improves the compatibility of ORC and OBC, the three-phase structure of the ternary blends can be observed through SAXS when HDPE and OBC exceed 30 wt%. Blending HDPE and OBC (≤30 wt%) could improve the mechanical property of ORC.

Abstract Background Identifying practical and distinguished indicators and influencing factors of male aging may be useful in predicting subsequent aging trends, designing personalized prevention, and improving lifestyle and health. Methods A cross-sectional, population-based study was performed in Jiashan County, China in 2016. A total of 690 local male residents, aged 40 to 80 years, were eligible for recruitment. Demographic and lifestyle information was collected through structured interviews. A self-designed head scale, the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short Form (SF-36), International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF5), Aging Males’ Symptoms (AMS), and International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) were used. Analysis of variance, local polynomial regression smoothing curves, multiple linear regression, and partial correlation analyses were performed. Results All the scales deteriorated with increasing age (P

Construction accidents occur frequently in China because the supervision of safety standards mandated by the government has not had its intended effect. In this paper, the authors propose a model to incentivize the management of safety during construction that involves the government as well as the owners and contractors in the industry. This study analyzes the principal–agent relationship involving each participant to determine their utility function and the minimum constraints on their participation, and uses this to obtain the optimal parameters to incentivize the management of safety during construction by solving for the ones related to the contractor’s effort and reward for their performance in the proposed model of incentives. Through the design of contractor incentive parameters and owner incentive parameters to further influence the government contractor and owner tripartite safety incentive model to make the model more perfect and in line with the development status of China. This study tested the proposed model using simulations. The results indicated that increasing the cost coefficient and level of the contractor’s effort increases their expected safety-related benefits, and increasing the coefficients of reward and punishment by the government reduces the contractor’s expected safety-related benefits. Moreover, the government can motivate the management of safety during construction by offering appropriate rewards and punishments. In particular, if the government increases incentives for safety, the safety-related benefits for owners and contractors decrease in the short term but increase significantly in the long term.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)-derived vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) causes damage to various organelles, including mitochondria, and induces autophagy and cell death. However, it is unknown whether VacA-induced mitochondrial damage can develop into mitophagy. In this study, we found that H. pylori, H. pylori culture filtrate (HPCF), and VacA could activate autophagy in a gastric epithelial cell line (GES-1). VacA-caused mitochondrial depolarization retards the import of PINK1 into the damaged mitochondria and evokes mitophagy. And, among mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) identified 25 mitochondrial proteins bound with VacA, Tom20, Tom40, and Tom70, TOM complexes responsible for PINK1 import, were further identified as having the ability to bind VacA in vitro using pull-down assay, co-immunoprecipitation, and protein–protein docking. Additionally, we found that the cell membrane protein STOM and the mitochondrial inner membrane protein PGAM5 also interacted with VacA. These findings suggest that VacA captured by STOM forms endosomes to enter cells and target mitochondria. Then, VacA is transported into the mitochondrial membrane space through the TOM complexes, and PGAM5 aids in inserting VacA into the inner mitochondrial membrane to destroy the membrane potential, which promotes PINK1 accumulation and Parkin recruitment to induce mitophagy. This study helps us understand VacA entering mitochondria to induce the mitophagy process.

Abstract Cadmium (Cd) contamination of rice is a serious food safety issue that has recently been gaining significant public attention. Therefore, reduction of Cd accumulation in rice grains is an important objective of rice breeding. The use of favourable alleles of Cd accumulating genes using marker-assisted selection (MAS) is theoretically feasible. In this study, we validated a segment covering OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1 on chromosome 7 of japonica for establishing low-cadmium accumulating indica rice variety. The OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1 jap haplotype significantly decreased grain Cd concentration in middle-season indica genetic background. The improved 9311 carrying the OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1 jap haplotype with recurrent parent genome recovery of up to 91.6% resulted in approximately 31.8% decrease in Cd accumulation in the grain and with no penalty on yield. There is a genetic linkage-drag between OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1 jap and the gene conditioning heading to days (HTD) in the early-season indica genetic background. Because the OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1-Ghd7 jap haplotype significantly increases grain Cd concentration and prolongs growth duration, the linkage-drag between OsHMA3-OsNramp5-OsNramp1 and Ghd7 should be broken down by large segregating populations or gene editing. A novel allele of OsHMA3 was identified from a wide-compatibility japonica cultivar, the expression differences of OsNramp1 and OsNramp5 in roots might contribute the Cd accumulating variation between japonica and indica variety.

To mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, flue gas “whitening” is conducted to promote energy conservation and emission reduction. Based on a large channel plate heat exchanger with different heat exchange plates, this paper establishes a rotary wind tunnel condensation heat exchange experimental platform to measure the physical parameters of inlet and outlet wet flue gas and obtain the average heat transfer coefficient of different plate structures. By changing the operating parameters of wet flue gas, the influencing factors of the condensation heat exchange process of the wet flue gas are studied and analyzed. The results show that within the range of 366 K–418 K, the heat transfer coefficient of wet flue gas decreases with the increase of inlet temperature. At the same inlet temperature, the lower the moisture contents of wet flue gas, the less Re affects the condensation heat transfer coefficient. At the same Re number, the condensation heat transfer coefficient of the corrugated plate is the highest. At an inlet temperature of 364 K, the heat transfer coefficient of the corrugated plate is 4% higher than that of the serrated plate and 45% higher than that of the horizontal plate. Therefore, for saturated water vapor in condensed recovery flue gas, the corrugated plate heat exchanger has the best performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of silent cerebral embolisms (SCEs) has been documented after pulmonary vein isolation using different ablation technologies; however, it is unreported in patients undergoing with atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation using Robotic Magnetic Navigation (RMN). The purpose of this prospective study was to investigate the incidence, risk predictors and probable mechanisms of SCEs in patients with AF ablation and the potential impact of RMN on SCE rates.Methods and Results: We performed a prospective study of 166 patients with paroxysmal or persistent AF who underwent pulmonary vein isolation. Patients were divided into RMN group (n = 104) and manual control (MC) group (n = 62), and analyzed for their demographic, medical, echocardiographic, and risk predictors of SCEs. All patients underwent cerebral magnetic resonance imaging within 48 h before and after the ablation procedure to assess cerebral embolism. The incidence and potential risk factors of SCEs were compared between the two groups. There were 26 total cases of SCEs in this study, including 6 cases in the RMN group and 20 cases in the MC group. The incidences of SCEs in the RMN group and the MC group were 5.77 and 32.26%, respectively (X2 = 20.63 P < 0.05). Univariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that ablation technology, CHA2DS2-VASc score, history of cerebrovascular accident/transient ischemic attack, and low ejection fraction were significantly associated with SCEs, and multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that MC ablation was the only independent risk factor of SCEs after an AF ablation procedure.Conclusions: Ablation technology, CHA2DS2-VASc score, history of cerebrovascular accident/transient ischemic attack, and low ejection fraction are associated with SCEs. However, ablation technology is the only independent risk factor of SCEs and RMN can significantly reduce the incidence of SCEs resulting from AF ablation.Clinical Trial Registration: ChiCTR2100046505.

Natural products (NPs) have historically played a primary role in the discovery of small-molecule drugs. However, due to the advent of other methodologies and the drawbacks of NPs, the pharmaceutical industry has largely declined in interest regarding the screening of new drugs from NPs since 2000. There are many technical bottlenecks to quickly obtaining new bioactive NPs on a large scale, which has made NP-based drug discovery very time-consuming, and the first thorny problem faced by researchers is how to dereplicate NPs from crude extracts. Remarkably, with the rapid development of omics, analytical instrumentation, and artificial intelligence technology, in 2012, an efficient approach, known as tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based molecular networking (MN) analysis, was developed to avoid the rediscovery of known compounds from the complex natural mixtures. Then, in the past decade, based on the classical MN (CLMN), feature-based MN (FBMN), ion identity MN (IIMN), building blocks-based molecular network (BBMN), substructure-based MN (MS2LDA), and bioactivity-based MN (BMN) methods have been presented. In this paper, we review the basic principles, general workflow, and application examples of the methods mentioned above, to further the research and applications of these methods.

To explore the possible single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) sites in the promoter region of fibrinogen B β (FGB), and construct logistic regression model and haplotype model, so as to reveal the influence of FGB promoter SNPs on susceptibility, hemodynamics and coagulation function of lower extremity deep venous thrombosis (LEDVT) in the genetic background. LEDVT patients (120) and healthy people (120) were taken as case and control objects, respectively. SNPs and their genotypes of FGB promoter were detected by promoter sequencing and PCR-RFLP. The parameters of coagulation system were evaluated. There were 6 SNPs in FGB promoter, which were β-148C/T, β-249C/T, β-455G/A, β-854G/A, β-993C/T and β-1420G/A. The genotype and allele frequency of β-1420 G/A, β-455G/A, β-249c/T and β-148C/T were significantly different between the LEDVT group and the control group, but not β-993C/T and β-854G/A. In addition, we found that the higher the content of Fibrinogen (FG), the higher the risk of LEDVT. The risk of LEDVT increased by 4.579 times for every unit increase of fibrinogen. We also found that FG, PT and APTT in LEDVT group were higher than those in control group, while TT was lower than those in control group; Furthermore, there was no significant difference in all coagulation indexes among 6 SNP genotypes in LEDVT group, while a significant difference was found between the 2 genotypes of β-993C/T in the control group. β-993C/T may indirectly affect the susceptibility of LEDVT by improving the basic level of plasma FG.

The objective of the current study was to explore the relationship between longitudinal change in body mass index (BMI) and reproductive hormones in middle-aged and elderly Chinese men. A cohort study was conducted in a rural area of China. Local male residents aged 40–80 years were recruited at baseline in 2012 and were followed up in 2016. Information about weight, height, waist circumference, sex hormones, smoking status, and medical history were obtained. The change in BMI reported no significant relationship with the change in total testosterone (TT), calculated free testosterone (cFT), and bioavailable testosterone (BioT) in Pearson correlation analyses. When the change in BMI was divided into three groups—“great loss,” “normal fluctuation,” and “great gain”—TT, cFT and BioT had the highest increase (or the lowest decrease) in men with “normal fluctuation” in BMI compared with the other two groups. The advantage of maintaining a stable BMI was more evident for those who were overweight, non-smoking, and disease-free. There was a tendency of a continuous increase in cFT and BioT with BMI increase in smoking and diseased populations. Maintaining a stable BMI is associated with maintaining normal levels of reproductive hormones, especially in overweight, non-smoking, and healthy men aged over 40 years.

Soluble inorganic pyrophosphatases (PPases) are essential for facilitating the growth and development of organisms, making them attractive functional proteins. To provide insight into the molecular basis of PPases in Schistosoma japonicum (SjPPase), we expressed the recombinant SjPPase, analyzed the hydrolysis mechanism of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi), and measured its activity. Moreover, we solved the crystal structure of SjPPase in complex with orthophosphate (Pi) and performed PPi and methylene diphosphonic acid (MDP) docking into the active site. Our results suggest that the SjPPase possesses PPi hydrolysis activity, and the activity declines with increased MDP or NaF concentration. However, the enzyme shows unexpected substrate inhibition properties. Through PPi metabolic pathway analysis, the physiological action of substrate inhibition might be energy saving, adaptably cytoprotective, and biosynthetic rate regulating. Furthermore, the structure of apo-SjPPase and SjPPase with Pi has been solved at 2.6 and 2.3 Å, respectively. The docking of PPi into the active site of the SjPPase-Pi complex revealed that substrate inhibition might result from blocking Pi exit due to excess PPi in the SjPPase-Pi complex of the catalytic cycle. Our results revealed the structural features of apo-SjPPase and the SjPPase-Pi complex by X-ray crystallography, providing novel insights into the physiological functions of PPase in S. japonicum without the PPi transporter and the mechanism of its substrate inhibition.