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Abstract Background The functional aspects of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents represent a complex phenomenon requiring deeper understanding. While research has identified various NSSI functions, including emotional regulation, attention-seeking, and social avoidance, the field lacks comprehensive analysis of how these functions cluster into distinct profiles. Understanding these functional profiles is crucial for developing targeted interventions. Method A cross-sectional study of 1,783 adolescents (1,464 girls, 318 boys) aged 12–18 years was conducted across 14 psychiatric or general hospitals in nine Chinese provinces. Participants completed the Functional Assessment of Self-Mutilation (FASM), which assesses 22 distinct NSSI functions across three primary dimensions: emotional regulation, attention-seeking, and social avoidance. Additional measures included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) for anxiety symptoms. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify distinct patterns in NSSI functions, with model selection based on fit indices including AIC, BIC, entropy, and LMRT. Results Latent profile analysis revealed four distinct functional profiles: low attention-seeking-high social avoidance (LA-HS, 19.7%), high attention-seeking-high social avoidance (HA-HS, 9.5%), low attention-seeking and social avoidance (LA-LS, 57.8%), and high attention-seeking-low social avoidance (HA-LS, 13.0%). The HA-HS profile demonstrated the most severe clinical presentation, showing significantly elevated scores in NSSI frequency (M = 26.160, SD = 9.771), anxiety (GAD-7: M = 16.265, SD = 4.951), and depression (PHQ-9: M = 20.612, SD = 6.003). The LA-HS profile showed the second-highest severity (NSSI: M = 25.800, SD = 10.058; GAD-7: M = 14.775, SD = 5.376; PHQ-9: M = 19.966, SD = 5.938). Both profiles also demonstrated significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation (HA-HS: 77.6%; LA-HS: 79.2%) compared to other profiles. Conclusions Our findings reveal distinct patterns in how adolescents utilize NSSI functionally, particularly regarding attention-seeking and social avoidance dimensions. These functional profiles show meaningful associations with psychological outcomes, suggesting that understanding NSSI functions, rather than just behaviors, may be crucial for assessment and intervention. The identification of these distinct functional profiles among Chinese adolescents highlights the importance of function-specific approaches in clinical assessment and treatment planning.

For enterprises, exploring the influence mechanism of consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior (CSEB) holds significant research value for the advancement and further development of social e-commerce platforms. The existing literature primarily focuses on quantitative methods in investigating the influence mechanism of CSEB within social e-commerce platforms. This study endeavors to expand the theoretical boundaries of CSEB through qualitative research. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining primary data collected through in-depth interviews with 32 participants and secondary data gathered from 1000 users via web crawlers. Utilizing grounded theory as an analytical framework, the study meticulously summarizes, concludes, and refines the influencing factors of CSEB. Based on these findings, a robust CSEB model is constructed to provide a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The study reveals that in the decision-making process of consumer evaluation, behavior is primarily driven by evaluation motivations. These motivations are intricately intertwined with product perception, social influence, and perceived behavior control. The interplay among these factors significantly shapes the manner in which consumers engage in satisfaction evaluation on social e-commerce platforms. This study complements existing quantitative research by providing nuanced insights into the complex interplay of factors, which drive consumer evaluation behavior. Furthermore, the study proposes actionable countermeasures and suggestions for businesses and platform managers to effectively promote and enhance consumer satisfaction evaluation activities, thereby contributing to the sustained growth and development of social e-commerce platforms.

An auxiliary structure can significantly improve the wind-trapping capacity of the Savonius wind turbine. In this study, a novel auxiliary structure called a wind energy gathering structure (WEGS) is proposed, and its five parameters, namely the lengths of the shrinkage and diffusion tubes, the length of the centerboard, the length of the throat, the length of the wind board, and the shrinkage and diffusion angles, are investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Taguchi’s method. Meanwhile, Taguchi’s method and ANOVA reveal that among the studied parameters, the shrinkage and diffusion angles, the length of the centerboard, and the lengths of the shrinkage and diffusion tubes have a more significant influence on the performance of the WEGS. At a tip speed ratio (TSR) value of 1 and a wind speed of 7 m/s, the optimized combination of the WEGS parameters obtained by Taguchi’s method improves the mean torque coefficient of the turbine by 42.1%. Moreover, at other TSRs (0.6–1.2), the turbine with the WEGS also outperforms an open turbine in terms of aerodynamic (increases of 20.1–53%) and lifetime performance.

Current research has increasingly focused on the preventive role of individual legal socialization in crime. The socialization of legal emotions is an important part of legal socialization. Building upon existing literature, this study, conducted through two sub-studies, investigated the influencing factors of legal emotions in N mainland Chinese university students and the mechanisms through which legal emotions impact aggressive behavior. In study 1, the results indicated that mother-child attachment, innovation spirit, and positive emotional expression positively predicted positive legal emotion, while mother-child attachment, dependency dimension in adult attachment, and positive emotional expression negatively predicted negative legal emotions. The anxiety dimension in adult attachment and negative emotional expression positively predicted negative legal emotions. In study 2, Positive legal emotion among university students could directly negatively predict aggressive behavior or exert influence through social alienation. Negative legal emotions could not only directly positively predict aggressive behavior but also partly affect it through social alienation. In summary, our study not only identified factors that influence legal emotions, but also found that legal emotions have an impact on aggressive behavior directly or indirectly through social alienation. Our research findings have significant implications for cultivating positive legal emotion in university students and curbing aggressive behavior. This can be achieved by promoting the legal socialization of university students and ultimately contributing to crime prevention.

Abstract Thrombocytopenia is a major and fatal complication in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which results from disrupted megakaryopoiesis by leukemic niche and blasts. Our previous research revealed that elevated interleukin-4 (IL-4) in AML bone marrow had adverse impact on multiple stages throughout megakaryopoiesis including hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), but the specific mechanism remains unknown. In the present study, we performed single-cell transcriptome analysis and discovered activated oxidative stress pathway and apoptosis pathway in IL-4Rαhigh versus IL-4Rαlow HSCs. IL-4 stimulation in vitro led to apoptosis of HSCs and down-regulation of megakaryocyte-associated transcription factors. Functional assays displayed higher susceptibility of IL-4Rαhigh HSCs to tunicamycin and irradiation-induced apoptosis, demonstrating their vulnerability to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress injury. To clarify the downstream signaling of IL-4, we analyzed the transcriptomes of HSCs from AML bone marrow and found a remarkable down-regulation of the proteasome component Psmd13, whose expression was required for megakaryocytic-erythroid development but could be inhibited by IL-4 in vitro. We knocked down Psmd13 by shRNA in HSCs, and found their repopulating capacity and megakaryocytic differentiation were severely compromised, with increased apoptosis in vivo. In summary, our study uncovered a previous unrecognized regulatory role of IL-4-Psmd13 signaling in anti-stress and megakaryocytic differentiation capability of HSCs.

Abstract Objective The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic restricts rapid implementation of in-person delivery of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) at the center for coronary artery disease (CAD) patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), thus enabling a cohort comparison of in-person vs. remote CR program. This study aims to investigate outcomes of exercise capacity, health-related quality of life (HRQL), mental health, and family burden of stable CAD patients undergoing PCI in low-to-moderate risk after different delivery models of CR program. Methods The study included a cohort of stable CAD patients undergoing PCI who had experienced two naturally occurring modes of CR program after hospital discharge at two time periods, January 2019 to December 2019 (in-person CR program) and May 2020 to May 2021 (remote CR program). The exercise capacity was assessed by means of 6-min walk test (6MWT), maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and the respiratory anaerobic threshold (VO2AT) before discharge, at the end of the 8-week and 12-week in-person or remote CR program after discharge. Results No adverse events occurred during the CR period. CAD patients had a longer distance walked in 6 min with a higher VO2max after 8-week and 12-week CR program whether in-person or remote model (p

Abstract Purpose No definite conclusion has yet to be reached for the first‐line treatment combined with chemotherapy for advanced adenocarcinoma NSCLC patients with negative driver genes. This study sought to compare the clinical outcomes of Beva+ChT and IO+ChT as first‐line treatment for this population and investigated whether the statuses of BM, PD‐L1 expression, and KRAS and TP53 mutations could influence the results. Patients and methods The clinical data of patients with adenocarcinoma NSCLC who received first‐line therapy were retrospectively collected and the patients were assigned to the IO+ChT and Beva+ChT groups. The disease control rate (DCR), progression‐free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were evaluated between the two groups. The survival effects of BM, PD‐L1 expression, and KRAS and TP53 mutations were also evaluated. Results From April 2018 to October 2020, a total of 105 patients with first‐line therapy were included in our analysis; 54 (51.4%) patients were included in the IO+ChT group and 51 (48.6%) patients were included in the Beva+ChT group. The results showed that OS (NR vs. 18.3 m, p = 0.011) and PFS (14.9 m vs. 6.3 m, p 1% subgroup but were not seen in the PD‐L1

Stalk strength increases resistance to stalk lodging, which causes maize (Zea mays L.) production losses worldwide. The genetic mechanisms regulating stalk strength remain unclear. In this study, three stalk strength-related traits (rind penetrometer resistance, stalk crushing strength, and stalk bending strength) and four plant architecture traits (plant height, ear height, stem diameter, stem length) were measured in three field trials. Substantial phenotypic variation was detected for these traits. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted using general and mixed linear models and 372,331 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A total of 94 quantitative trait loci including 241 SNPs were detected. By combining the GWAS data with public gene expression data, 56 candidate genes within 50 kb of the significant SNPs were identified, including genes encoding flavonol synthase (GRMZM2G069298, ZmFLS2), nitrate reductase (GRMZM5G878558, ZmNR2), glucose-1-phosphate adenylyltransferase (GRMZM2G027955), and laccase (GRMZM2G447271). Resequencing GRMZM2G069298 and GRMZM5G878558 in all tested lines revealed respectively 47 and 2 variants associated with RPR. Comparison of the RPR of the zmnr2 EMS mutant and the wild-type plant under high- and low-nitrogen conditions verified the GRMZM5G878558 function. These findings may be useful for clarifying the genetic basis of stalk strength. The identified candidate genes and variants may be useful for the genetic improvement of maize lodging resistance.

In this work, a modified stochastic fractal search algorithm is proposed for effectively estimate the unknown model parameters of the single diode model and the double diode model of solar cells and photovoltaic modules. This algorithm modifies the diffusion process and the update processes of the original stochastic fractal search algorithm and employs a population size reduction mechanism and thus simplifies the implementation of the original algorithm and achieves better performance for the parameter estimation of solar cells and PV modules. Firstly, the algorithm is tested on three widely used estimation benchmark cases and compared with other seven state-of-the-art algorithms. The proposed algorithm shows its advantages in the aspects of accuracy, convergence speed, and stability over the other studied algorithms. In 100 independent runs with the maximum number of fitness function evaluations equal to 50000, the proposed algorithm achieved the best known solutions with 100% probability and the standard deviation of the 100 RMSE values is of the order of 10−17. Then, the proposed algorithm is used to estimate the unknown single diode model parameters and double diode model parameters of three different types of PV modules, i.e. Multi-crystalline S75, Mono-crystalline SM55, and Thin-film ST40 under different irradiance and temperature conditions, and the algorithm also achieves sufficiently accurate models. The root mean square of the error (RMSE) values between the obtained models and the actual current data are of the order of 10−2 or 10−3. In view of its effectiveness and practicability, the proposed algorithm can be used as a new tool for the parameter estimation of solar cells and PV modules.

In order to overcome the problems of low efficiency and poor results of classical optimization methods, an efficient, intelligent, and reliable method for optimizing the shape of the blades of the Savonius wind turbine is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the shape of the blade is parameterized by the third-order Bezier curve, and then a certain number of design schemes in the design space are obtained by the Latin hypercube sampling method and the torque coefficient of each design scheme is evaluated based on CFD simulation, and next a radial basis function surrogate model is constructed based on these design schemes and their torque coefficients, and finally the optimal design scheme is obtained by solving the surrogate model using the marine predator algorithm, and is verified using the CFD simulation. The results show that when the tip speed ratio is 1, the average torque coefficient of the optimized blade obtained by the above method is about 7% higher than that of the classical semicircular blade, and under other tip speed ratios, the average torque coefficients of the optimized blade is also significantly higher than that of the classical blade. Furthermore, compared with the classical semicircular blade, about 11% materials can be saved in the manufacturing of the optimized blade.

Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis is a heterogenous disease with variation in the endotypes of nasal polyps, with type 2 inflammation being more prevalent in Caucasian populations whereas Chinese populations are more heterogenous. We aim to describe the variation in endotypes for patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis in our unique multiracial population. Methodology: Demographic, clinical and structured histopathological data of 66 patients who underwent sinus surgery for nasal polyposis were evaluated retrospectively. Results: 54.6% had eosinophilic disease, and 45.4% had non-eosinophilic disease with no significant demographic differences between the 2 populations. There were significantly higher peripheral eosinophil levels in patients with eosinophil-predominant inflammation on tissue histology (mean absolute eosinophil count 0.59 ± 0.18 x 109) compared with non-eosinophilic disease (mean absolute eosinophil count 0.24 ± 0.11 x 109). Structured histopathological reporting revealed that patients with eosinophilic disease had higher degree of inflammation and eosinophil aggregates. Conclusions: Our population is shown to have a slight preponderance toward eosinophilic disease, however the Chinese majority tended to have non-eosinophilic disease. Serum eosinophilia and the presence of asthma seems to correlate well with tissue eosinophilia, which can potentially be utilised as markers of type 2 inflammatory disease.

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have examined the mechanisms underlying nonverbal emotional information processing in people with high social anxiety (HSA). However, most of these studies have focused on the processing of facial expressions, and there has been scarce research on gesture or even face-gesture combined processing in HSA individuals. The present study explored the processing characteristics and mechanism of the interaction between gestures and facial expressions in people with HSA and low social anxiety (LSA). The present study recruited university students as participants and used the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale scores to distinguish the HSA and LSA groups. We used a 2 (group: HSA and LSA) × 2 (emotion valence: positive, negative) × 2 (task: face, gesture) multifactor mixed design, and videos of a single face or gesture and combined face-gesture cues were used as stimuli. We found that (1) there is a distinction in the processing of faces and gestures, with individuals recognizing gestures faster than faces; (2) there is an attentional enhancement in the processing of gestures, particularly for negative gestures; and (3) when the emotional valence of faces and gestures align, it facilitates the recognition of both. However, incongruent gestures have a stronger impact on the processing of facial expressions compared to facial expressions themselves, suggesting that the processing of facial emotions is more influenced by environmental cues provided by gestures. These findings indicated that gestures played an important role in emotional processing, and facial emotional processing was more dependent on the environmental cues derived from gestures, which helps to clarify the reasons for biases in the interpretation of emotional information in people with HSA.

Exploring the formation mechanism of juvenile delinquency is of great significance to prevent juvenile delinquency. The present study examined relations and interactions among juvenile delinquents’ self-consciousness, family factors, social relationships, belief in a just world, and legal consciousness, and then developed a predictive model to distinguish between juvenile delinquents and non-delinquents. The results showed that family factors have a significant influence on the formation of juvenile delinquents’ self-consciousness and there are notable differences in family environment and self-consciousness between delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents. Due to the complex interactions among juvenile delinquency’s self-consciousness, family factors, social relationships, belief in a just world and legal consciousness, adolescents’ self- consciousness and social relationships can be utilized to predict and classify the groups of delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents effectively. Therefore, the key to preventing juvenile delinquency is to improve their self-consciousness and develop their prosocial relationships.

BackgroundThe use of immunotherapy for the treatment of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is gradually increasing. In this retrospective study, we evaluated the efficacy and explored potential factors of prognosis in multi-line sintilimab for unresectable advanced ESCC.MethodsAll pathological specimens were available from our Department of Pathology. We performed PD-L1 immunohistochemical staining of surgical or puncture specimens from 133 patients. We evaluated the efficacy of multi-line sintilimab and found potential factors according to multivariate analysis. We assessed the relationship between radiotherapy and immunotherapy, and according to whether patients had received radiotherapy within 3 months prior to immunotherapy, we attempted to analyze differences in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).ResultsA total of 133 patients were enrolled in this retrospective study between January 2019 and December 2021. The median follow-up was 16.1 months. All patients were treated with at least two cycles of sintilimab. Of all patients, a total of 74 experienced disease progression, with a median progression-free survival of 9.0 months (95% CI 7.701–10.299). We found that pre-immunotherapy radiotherapy was a possible predictor that affected the prognosis of multi-line sintilimab and that 3 months was a significant cutoff. A total of 128 patients (96.2%) had received radiotherapy prior to immunotherapy. Of those patients, 89 (66.9%) had received radiation therapy within 3 months prior to immunotherapy. PFS was considerably longer in patients who were treated within 3 months of radiotherapy than in patients who did not receive radiation therapy within 3 months of radiation therapy prior to immunotherapy (median progression-free survival 10.0 months [95% CI 8.030–11.970] vs. 5.0 months [95% CI 2.755–7.245]). Among all patients, the median overall survival was 14.9 months (95% CI 12.558–17.242). Overall survival was significantly longer in patients who had previously received radiotherapy within 3 months prior to immunotherapy than in those who had not (median overall survival 15.3 months [95% CI 13.724–16.876] vs. 12.2 months [10.001–14.399].ConclusionBased on this retrospective study, sintilimab is a significant option for patients with unresectable advanced ESCC who have been previously treated, and pre-immunotherapy radiotherapy within 3 months enhanced the efficacy.

Abstract Background The study aimed to compare the efficacy of osimertinib plus cranial radiotherapy (RT) with osimertinib alone in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients harboring epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations and brain metastases (BMs). Methods The clinical data of advanced NSCLC patients with BMs who received osimertinib were retrospectively collected. The patients were assigned to one of the two groups according to the therapeutic modality used: the osimertinib monotherapy group or the osimertinib plus RT group. Results This was a retrospective study and 61 patients were included from December 2015 to August 2020. Forty patients received osimertinib monotherapy, and twenty-one patients received osimertinib plus RT. Radiotherapy included whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT, n = 14), WBRT with simultaneous integrated boost (WBRT-SIB, n = 5) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS, n = 2). The median number of prior systemic therapies in the two groups was one. Intracranial and systemic ORR and DCR were not significantly different between the two groups. No difference in iPFS was observed between the two groups (median iPFS: 16.67 vs. 13.50 months, P = 0.836). The median OS was 29.20 months in the osimertinib plus RT group compared with 26.13 months in the osimertinib group (HR = 0.895, P = 0.826). In the L858R mutational subgroup of 31 patients, the osimertinib plus RT group had a longer OS (P = 0.046). In the exon 19 deletion mutational subgroup of 30 patients, OS in the osimertinib alone group was longer than that in the osimertinib plus RT group (P = 0.011). The incidence of any-grade adverse events was not significantly different between the osimertinib plus RT group and the osimertinib alone group (47.6% vs. 32.5%, P = 0.762). However, six patients (28.5%) experienced leukoencephalopathy in the osimertinib plus RT group, and 50% (3/6) of the leukoencephalopathy was greater than or equal to grade 3. Conclusion The therapeutic effect of osimertinib with RT was similar to that of osimertinib alone in EGFR-positive NSCLC patients with BM. However, for patients with the L858R mutation, osimertinib plus RT could provide more benefit than osimertinib alone.

Legal consciousness is the individual consciousness which reflects legal phenomena. Well-developed legal consciousness plays a crucial role in informing citizens of his legal right and ability to exercise these rights, therefore forms certain connections of individuals and society, and its development is a key part of individual’s socialization process. Here, we investigated the emotion aspect of legal consciousness (henceforth legal emotion) and tried to identify several factors affecting the development of legal emotion and several factors affected by legal emotion. A large sample of Chinese junior middle school students (N = 967) completed a battery of self-reported questionnaires regarding legal emotion, peer attachment, self-esteem, prosocial tendencies, and interpersonal trust. The results indicated that for early adolescents, peer attachment predicts both positive and negative legal emotion. Importantly, peer attachment affects legal emotion partially through self-esteem. We also showed that negative legal emotion acted as a mediator on the relationship between interpersonal trust and prosocial tendencies. The results provided important insights into the role of legal emotion, the emotion aspect of legal consciousness, in the social interactions and its potential psychological mechanism.

Seed moisture at harvest is a critical trait affecting maize quality and mechanized production, and is directly determined by the dehydration process after physiological maturity. However, the dynamic nature of seed dehydration leads to inaccurate evaluation of the dehydration process by conventional determination methods. Seed dry weight and fresh weight were recorded at 14 time points after pollination in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from two inbred lines with contrasting seed dehydration dynamics. The dehydration curves of RILs were determined by fitting trajectories of dry weight accumulation and dry weight/fresh weight ratio change based on a logistic model, allowing the estimation of eight characteristic parameters that can be used to describe dehydration features. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping, taking these parameters as traits, was performed using multiple methods. Single-trait QTL mapping revealed 76 QTL associated with dehydration characteristic parameters, of which the phenotypic variation explained (PVE) was 1.03% to 15.24%. Multiple-environment QTL analysis revealed 21 related QTL with PVE ranging from 4.23% to 11.83%. Multiple-trait QTL analysis revealed 58 QTL, including 51 pleiotropic QTL. Combining these mapping results revealed 12 co-located QTL and the dehydration process of RILs was divided into three patterns with clear differences in dehydration features. These results not only deepen general understanding of the genetic characteristics of seed dehydration but also suggest that this approach can efficiently identify associated genetic loci in maize. Keywords: Maize, Dehydration, Logistic model, Characteristic parameter, QTL

Brain metastases are more and more common among patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). TKI therapy could provide ideal outcomes for patients harboring epidermal growth factor receptor or ALK mutations. For wild-type patients, however, survival is poor because there are few effective treatments other than radiotherapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have changed the management of advanced NSCLC. However, the exclusion of patients with active brain metastasis (BM) from most ICI trials precludes the generalization of results. Accordingly, a variety of appropriate real-world studies and clinical trials are being developed to evaluate tumor response. Increasingly encouraging results have suggested that ICIs could be active in the central nervous system (CNS) in select patients with high PD-L1 expression and low CNS disease burden. With the extensive use of ICIs in NSCLC patients with BM, many important questions have emerged concerning issues such as the clinical response to a single ICI, use of ICIs combined with chemotherapy or radiation, the biological mechanism and appropriate sequencing of local and systemic therapy combinations, and safety and toxicity. The present review summarizes the advances in systemic ICIs for the treatment of NSCLC patients with BM, discusses factors associated with efficacy and toxicity, and explores future directions.

Radiation recall pneumonitis (RRP) is described as an unpredictable acute inflammatory reaction within the previously irradiated lung site during the administration of systematic therapy after radiotherapy. Here, we reported a case of a 54-year-old woman with non-small lung cancer (NSCLC), who had pneumonitis at 3 and 10 months after radiotherapy regarded as radiation pneumonitis (RP) and RRP induced by anti-PD-1 sintilimab, respectively. This unique patient with double pneumonitis (RP and RRP) has drawn attention to the identification of immune or radiation pneumonitis, its potential mechanism, and further treatment strategy after the emergence of RRP.

New generation employees have become the main force of the organization, and their proactive behavior directly affects the organization’s future development. How to effectively stimulate the proactive behavior of new generation employees has become a hot topic in the field of organizational management. Based on the integrated perspective of social exchange and self-enhancement, we constructed a multistep mediation model to explore the influence mechanism of distributed leadership on the proactive behavior of new generation employees. We designed a three-stage research method of supervisor-employee pairing to collect data from 26 supervisors and 304 new generation employees in a new energy vehicle company in East China. Results indicated that (a) distributed leadership is positively related to proactive behavior of new generation employees; (b) idiosyncratic deals and meaningfulness of work mediated the linkage between distributed leadership and new generation employees’ proactive behavior; (c) idiosyncratic deals and meaningfulness of work play a multistep mediation role between distributed leadership and new generation employees’ proactive behavior. These findings have theoretical implications for the proactive behavior literature and managerial implications for practitioners.

Recently, the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of patients with advanced cancer has been significantly improved due to the application of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Low response rate and high occurrence of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) make urgently need for ideal predictive biomarkers to identity efficient population and guide treatment strategies. Cytokines are small soluble proteins with a wide range of biological activity that are secreted by activated immune cells or tumor cells and act as a bridge between innate immunity, infection, inflammation and cancer. Cytokines can be detected in peripheral blood and suitable for dynamic detection. During the era of ICIs, many studies investigated the role of cytokines in prediction of the efficiency and toxicity of ICIs. Herein, we review the relevant studies on TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-8, TGF-β and other cytokines as biomarkers for predicting ICI-related reactions and adverse events, and explore the immunomodulatory mechanisms. Finally, the most important purpose of this review is to help identify predictors of ICI to screen patients who are most likely to benefit from immunotherapy.

Summary:. Post-nasopharyngectomy reconstruction for recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinomas has been used for defect coverage and protection of vital structures. With the increasing use of endoscopic transnasal nasopharyngeal extirpation to offset complications faced with open techniques, there is a need for corresponding reconstructive support through a similar approach. We describe a novel endoscopic transnasal anterolateral thigh flap inset technique, combined with a transverse neck incision, in two patients who underwent transnasal nasopharyngectomy. We also include a video presentation of our operative technique. A vastus lateralis fascia free flap was used for one patient, and a vastus lateralis muscle free flap for the other. Both patients were aged 51 years. Mean nasopharyngeal defect size was 20 cm2 (range 12–28 cm2). Average surgical stay was 13.5 days (11–16 days) and flap mucosalization was complete for both patients. No recipient site complications were observed in either patient, although donor site seroma formation was seen in one patient. Average time to speech recovery was 1.5 months (range 1–2 months) for both patients. Time to diet recovery was 2 months for one patient, whereas the other was on long-term percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy feeding. There were no flap failures or peri-operative mortalities. Endoscopic transnasal anterolateral thigh flap inset to reconstruct the nasopharyngeal space is an effective technique that confers reduced morbidity and potentially better outcomes compared with open techniques.

BackgroundProgrammed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor monotherapy has been approved as second-line or later therapy in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor monotherapy as second-line or later therapy in advanced NSCLC.MethodsThe clinical data of patients with advanced NSCLC who received PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors as second-line or later line therapy was retrospectively collected. Patients were assigned to one of the two groups according to the therapeutic modality used: PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor monotherapy group or PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy combination therapy group. Disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were evaluated between the two groups. The prognostic effect of the derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (dNLR) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) on the outcomes was also evaluated.ResultsFrom April 2017 to October 2019, a total of 84 patients were enrolled in the current study. Twenty-six patients (PD-1 inhibitor, n = 25; PD-L1 inhibitor, n = 1) received PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor monotherapy, and fifty-eight patients received PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy. The chemotherapy regimens used were as follows: liposome paclitaxel (n = 15); nab-paclitaxel (n = 12); docetaxel (n = 9); pemetrexed (n = 6); and others (n = 16). The DCR and OS were not significantly different between the two groups. The PFS of the monotherapy group was longer than that of the combination therapy group (mPFS: 9.6 vs. 4.6 months, P = 0.01). Univariate and multivariate analyses suggested that LDH and sex were independent prognostic factors of PFS. In the second-line therapy subgroup of 38 patients, OS and PFS were not significantly different between the two groups. In the subgroup of 46 patients treated beyond the 2nd line, the monotherapy group had a longer PFS (mPFS: 9.6 vs. 4.2 months, P = 0.01). The incidence of any-grade adverse events was not significantly different between the monotherapy group and the combination therapy group (19.2 vs. 18.9%, P = 1.000). One patient in the PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy group died of immune-related pneumonitis.ConclusionThe clinical outcomes of PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy as second-line or later therapy were similar to those of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor alone in advanced NSCLC.

Maize starch plays a critical role in food processing and industrial application. The pasting properties, the most important starch characteristics, have enormous influence on fabrication property, flavor characteristics, storage, cooking, and baking. Understanding the genetic basis of starch pasting properties will be beneficial for manipulation of starch properties for a given purpose. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are becoming a powerful tool for dissecting the complex traits. Here, we carried out GWAS for seven pasting properties of maize starch with a panel of 230 inbred lines and 145,232 SNPs using one single-locus method, genome-wide efficient mixed model association (GEMMA), and three multi-locus methods, FASTmrEMMA, FarmCPU, and LASSO. We totally identified 60 quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) for starch pasting properties with these four GWAS methods. FASTmrEMMA detected the most QTNs (29), followed by FarmCPU (19) and LASSO (12), GEMMA detected the least QTNs (7). Of these QTNs, seven QTNs were identified by more than one method simultaneously. We further investigated locations of these significantly associated QTNs for possible candidate genes. These candidate genes and significant QTNs provide the guidance for further understanding of molecular mechanisms of starch pasting properties. We also compared the statistical powers and Type I errors of the four GWAS methods using Monte Carlo simulations. The results suggest that the multi-locus method is more powerful than the single-locus method and a combination of these multi-locus methods could help improve the detection power of GWAS.

The imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is a new heuristic algorithm proposed for continuous optimization problems. The research about its application on solving the traveling salesman problem (TSP) is still very limited. Aiming to explore its ability on solving TSP, we present a discrete imperialist competitive algorithm in this paper. The proposed algorithm modifies the original rules of the assimilation and introduces the 2-opt algorithm into the revolution process. To examine its performance, we tested the proposed algorithm on 10 small-scale and 2 large-scale standard benchmark instances from the TSPLIB and compared the experimental results with that obtained by two other ICA-based algorithms and six other existing algorithms. The proposed algorithm shows excellent performance in the experiments and comparisons.

Cereal Brittle1 protein has been demonstrated to be involved in the ADP-Glc transport into endosperm plastids, and plays vital roles in the biosynthesis of starch. In this study, the genomic sequences of the ZmBT1 gene in 80 elite maize inbred lines were obtained, and the nucleotide polymorphisms and haplotype diversity were detected. A total of 30 variants, including 22 SNPs and 8 indels, were detected from the full sequences of this gene. Among these polymorphic sites, 9 SNPs and 2 indels were found to be located in the coding region. The polymorphisms of CDS sequences classified the maize ZmBT1 gene into 6 haplotypes, which encode 6 different ZmBT1 proteins. Neutrality tests revealed a decrease in population size and/or balancing selection on the maize ZmBT1 locus. To detect the association between sequence variations of this gene and the starch physicochemical properties, 7 pasting and 4 gelatinization traits of starch were measured for the tested inbred lines using rapid visco analyzer (RVA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), respectively. The result of association analysis revealed that an indel in the coding region was significantly associated with the phenotypic variation of starch gelatinization enthalpy.

Soluble starch synthases (SSs) are major enzymes involved in starch biosynthesis in plants. Cassava starch has many remarkable characteristics, which should be influenced by the evolution of SS genes in this starchy root crop. In this work, we performed a comprehensive phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis of the soluble starch synthases in cassava. Genome-wide identification showed that there are 9 genes encoding soluble starch synthases in cassava. All of the soluble starch synthases encoded by these genes contain both Glyco_transf_5 and Glycos_transf_1 domains, and a correlation analysis showed evidence of coevolution between these 2 domains in cassava SS genes. The SS genes in land plants can be divided into 6 subfamilies that were formed before the origin of seed plants, and species-specific expansion has contributed to the evolution of this family in cassava. A functional divergence analysis for this family provided statistical evidence for shifted evolutionary rates between the subfamilies of land plant soluble starch synthases. Although the main selective pressure acting on land plant SS genes was purifying selection, our results also revealed that point mutation with positive selection contributed to the evolution of 2 SS genes in cassava. The remarkable cassava starch characteristics might be the result of both the duplication and adaptive selection of SS genes.

The capability of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) is influenced by its input parameters. In this paper, for the three-bladed VAWT with the NACA0018 airfoil, three important input parameters, i.e. tip speed ratio (TSR), airfoil chord length (C), and pitch angle (β), are selected to explore their impact on the capability of the VAWT, and then to find the best combination of them. Firstly, 16 sets of experiments are determined according to the Taguchi method and are evaluated using the 2D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation, and further studied with the Analysis of Variance. The consequence shows that the TSR and pitch angle are more critical to the performance of the VAWT. In order to obtain the optimal configuration of these parameters, an intelligent method is further proposed. Firstly, a certain number of design schemes are extracted in the selected space through Latin hypercube sampling (LHS), and then the torque coefficient (Cm) of each design scheme was obtained by 2D CFD simulation, the Kriging model is used to establish the correlation among the input parameters and their corresponding torque coefficient. Finally, the improved differential evolution algorithm (JADE) is used to tackle the Kriging model to get the optimal input parameter values. The results show that when the rotor diameter (D) is 2.5 m, the optimal parameters are TSR is 2.6, C is 0.227 m and β is −2.47°, the performance of the VAWT is further improved by about 4.5% compared with the optimal values obtained by the Taguchi method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the mass block system under Piecewise nonlinear constraint, the vibration dynamic model of the system is established according to the generalized dissipative Lagrange principle, and the average method is used to solve the amplitude-frequency response of the vibration system. The influence of system parameters on vibration characteristics is analyzed with amplitude-frequency characteristics, phase plane characteristics, frequency characteristics, bifurcation characteristics, and so on. The results show that: 1) the reverse of the rate of change of Piecewise nonlinear elastic force will destroy the stability of the system and obtain the relationship of the constraint parameters that need to be satisfied when the system is stable at the piecewise critical point; 2) With the increase in the number of nonlinear constraints, the vibration displacement of the system tends to be chaotic, and the frequency composition becomes more complex and variable, prone to resonance behavior; 3) As the static gap decreases and the dynamic gap amplitude and frequency increase, the unstable frequency range of the system will increase, and the vibration behavior will become chaotic and difficult to predict; 4) The design of a differential sliding mode controller can effectively control the bifurcation behavior of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]