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Introduction Urgent, tailored and equitable action is needed to address the alarming rise in syphilis rates in Canada. In the last decade, the rates of infectious syphilis have increased by 345% in Ontario, Canada. Underserved populations—people who use drugs, un(der)housed individuals and those living in rural and remote areas—face unique social and healthcare challenges that increase their vulnerability to syphilis infections and hinder their access to timely diagnosis and treatment. This study assesses the real-world implementation and effectiveness of using a recently approved syphilis point-of-care test in conjunction with public health outreach to break barriers and bring services to the population at the highest risk.Methods and analysis The Syphilis Rapid Point-of-Care Testing and Immediate Treatment Evaluation (SPRITE) study includes eight public health units in Ontario, Canada. Implementation and evaluation of this rapid ‘test and treat’ outreach model of care will be assessed using the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM)/Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance (RE-AIM) Framework, following a community-based participatory approach. Network models will be used to estimate the population-level impact of implementing this model of care to curb transmission. Knowledge mobilisation will be assessed using the Reciprocity, Externalities, Access, and Partnership (REAP) Self-Assessment Model.Ethics and dissemination The SPRITE study was approved by the Queen’s University Research Ethics Board (REB) and is to be conducted in accordance with the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement V.2 and the latest Seoul revision of the Declaration of Helsinki. Knowledge generated from this study will be mobilised through community-based organisations and the broader public health community.

In clinical practice, some cases of chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) remain difficult to treat, with up to 40% of patients showing no response to even high (4-fold) daily doses of antihistamines. Approximately 30% of CSU patients fail to achieve complete control and relief through treatment with omalizumab and may require alternative therapies. Abrocitinib is a small-molecule oral JAK1 inhibitor that suppresses intracellular signaling of multiple key cytokines involved in inflammation cascades, and has shown beneficial effects in patients with mast cell activation disorders. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the diagnosis and treatment records of adult patients with refractory CSU who were treated with abrocitinib after inadequate response to omalizumab (defined as no response to 300 mg/4 weeks of omalizumab treatment for 6 months, followed by adjustment to 300 mg/2 weeks for a further 3 months without controlling symptoms). We also collected data on relevant treatment modalities, clinical outcomes, and adverse events. Among these patients, various treatment modalities failed to adequately control symptoms, but switching to abrocitinib significantly improved clinical outcomes. Therefore, abrocitinib may represent a new treatment option for patients with refractory CSU.

The shift of agricultural labor force to non-agricultural sectors has paralleled China's economic development, leading to a substantial rise in labor costs relative to capital. Consequently, the agricultural production has witnessed a shift towards capital-intensive practices. The capital deepening coincides with the significant increase in China's grain output while the main cause of capital deepening in China's grain production is poorly understood. This study examines the effect of increasing in various capital investments on the grain yield growth and growth convergence in China's main production areas, based on the data collected from the data set of the Compilation of Cost-Benefit Data of Agricultural Products (CCBDAP). Results show that the increases of chemical fertilizer, pesticide and machinery input have played key roles in the increase of grain yield. For early indica rice, japonica rice, wheat and maize, the average land output bears a β convergence. These findings suggest that more capital investments are supposed to accelerate the growth of grain yield per unit of land, take the opportunity of practicing the cross-provincial balance system of occupation and compensation of cultivated land. Moreover, strategic adjustments to the spatial distribution of grain cultivation are recommended to maximize the utilization of limited arable land resources while upholding national food security objectives.

Food security is a strategic priority for a country’s economic development. In China, high-standard farmland construction (HSFC) is an important initiative to stabilize grain production and increase grain production capacity. Based on panel data from 31 sample provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China from 2005–2017, this study explored the impact of HSFC on grain yield using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. The results showed that HSFC significantly increased total grain production, which is robust to various checks. HSFC increased grain yield through three potential mechanisms. First, it could increase the grain replanting index. Second, it could effectively reduce yield loss due to droughts and floods. Last, HSFC could strengthen the cultivated land by renovating the low- and medium-yielding fields. Heterogeneity analysis found that the HSFC farmland showed a significant increase in grain yield only in the main grain-producing areas and balanced areas. In addition, HSFC significantly increased the yields of rice, wheat, and maize while leading to a reduction in soybean yields. The findings suggest the government should continue to promote HSFC, improve construction standards, and strictly control the “non-agriculturalization” and “non-coordination” of farmland to increase grain production further. At the same time, market mechanisms should be used to incentivize soybean farming, improve returns and stabilize soybean yields.

Marine wave energy exhibits significant potential as a renewable resource due to its substantial energy storage capacity and high energy density. However, conventional wave power generation technologies often suffer from drawbacks such as high maintenance costs, cumbersome structures, and suboptimal conversion efficiencies, thereby limiting their potential. The wave power generation technologies based on micro-energy technology have emerged as promising new approaches in recent years, owing to their inherent advantages of cost-effectiveness, simplistic structure, and ease of manufacturing. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the current research status in wave energy harvesting through micro-energy technologies, including detailed descriptions of piezoelectric nanogenerators, electromagnetic generators, triboelectric nanogenerators, dielectric elastomer generators, hydrovoltaic generators, and hybrid nanogenerators. Finally, we provide a comprehensive overview of the prevailing issues and challenges associated with these technologies, while also offering insights into the future development trajectory of wave energy harvesting technology.

With the progress of economic development and increase in income, there have been significant transformations in the food consumption patterns among Chinese residents. Grain consumption has declined while the consumption of livestock products such as meat, poultry, eggs, and milk has gradually risen. Moreover, noteworthy adjustments have been observed in the meat consumption structure itself, with a substantial increase in poultry consumption and a significant decrease in pork consumption as representative of red meat. This study collects data mainly from the “Brick Agricultural Database” and “China National Grain & Oils Information Center”. And then, we employ the China Agricultural Industry Model (CASM) to simulate the economic and ecological consequences of augmenting poultry consumption as a substitute for red meat intake. The research findings demonstrate that ensuring an adequate intake of livestock products for residents without any decline will stimulate the doubling of China’s poultry meat demand by 2035 compared to 2020 while replacing pork. This would reduce feed grain requirements by 50 million tons and achieve carbon emission reductions amounting to 82 million tons. If we consider the consumption of poultry consumption growth in conjunction with its substitution for other red meats such as pork, beef, and mutton, this will save approximately 20 million tons of feed grains and lead to a reduction of around 103 million tons in carbon emissions. In conclusion, promoting future increases in poultry consumption as a substitute for pork and other red meat will yield extensive economic andecological benefits contributing toward international food security goals, as well as global carbon reduction targets. Additionally, advocating for increasing poultry consumption will also reduce the risk of chronic diseases and malignant tumors; this will significantly improve the national health states.

Different countries and regions in the world are experiencing structural transformation of the agri-food system, which is represented by the increase of meat and feed consumption. Based on a detailed review of the global and China’s agri-food system transformation, this paper constructs an analytical framework of the impact of agri-food system transformation on food security and discusses the food security issues in China after 2000. The results show that the proportion of the dimension of agri-food system transformation in the food security index has a significant downward trend, and its positive effect on food security is decreasing. At the same time, due to the growth in demand for meat during the transformation of the agri-food system, China imports a large number of feed grains such as soybean and corn, leading to a decline in domestic food self-sufficiency. Furthermore, the coupling coordination degree between China’s agri-food system transformation and food quantity security decreases, and their development tends to deviate. In the future, increasing the consumption of grain-saving poultry and curbing table waste are feasible strategies for China to cope with the transformation of agri-food system and ensure food security. China’s problems and solutions in facing the transformation of its agri-food system can provide some references for other developing countries.

As a new cell-free therapy, exosomes have provided new ideas for the treatment of various diseases. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) cannot be used in clinical trials because of tumorigenicity, but the exosomes derived from hiPSCs may combine the advantages of iPSC pluripotency and the nanoscale size of exosomes while avoiding tumorigenicity. Currently, the safety and biodistribution of hiPSC-exosomes in vivo are unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of hiPSC-exosomes on hemolysis, DNA damage, and cytotoxicity through cell experiments. We also explored the safety of vein injection of hiPSC-exosomes in rabbits and rats. Differences in organ distribution after nasal administration were compared in normal and Parkinson’s disease model mice. This study may provide support for clinical therapy and research of intravenous and nasal administration of hiPSC-exosomes.

Climate change endangers food security worldwide, especially in developing countries. Livestock husbandry is one of the essential livelihoods for farmers and herders in remote arid and semiarid regions. However, it remains unclear how climate change will impact livestock husbandry in the future. This study collected sheep and goat distributions from the “gridded livestock of the world” (GLW) dataset for 1943 counties in Mainland China. Current climate data include precipitation and temperature from the National Meteorological Information Center (NMIC). We disentangled the effects of precipitation and temperature on current distributions of sheep and goats with the Bayesian Hierarchical Model by Integrated Nest Laplace Approximation (INLA). Further, we forecasted the potential sheep and goat distributions in 2030 and 2050 under Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) scenarios. Our result showed that sheep distribution is significantly correlated with elevation, slope, market density, and highway distance, with absolute correlation coefficients ranging from 0.019 to 0.411. In addition to elevation, slope, and market density, goat distribution is also affected by gain production, with a correlation coefficient of 0.055. There is a dynamic correlation of temperature and precipitation with sheep and goat density. The sheep density distribution is predicted to increase in Northwest China, while the goat density distribution might increase in farming areas under climate change. Finally, this study suggests for the sheep and goat breeding industry to respond to climate change.

Deep learning has recently shown great potentials in learning powerful features for visual tracking. However, most deep learning-based trackers neglect localization accuracy in the evaluation process of candidates. What's more, they usually over-rely on the discriminative features in a single frame in the training process. Consequently, they may fail when the discriminative features are occluded or changed in the tracking phase. In this paper, we propose a novel localization-aware meta tracker (LMT) guided with adversarial features to address the above issues. First of all, we design a novel intersection over union guided method to effectively balance the problem of classification and localization accuracy. To further improve the robustness of our classifier, we creatively use adversarial features during offline training phase. Those adversarial features can effectively guide the classifier in learning how to better deal with the situation where the discriminative features are occluded or changed. Finally, benefiting from meta learning, our algorithm only needs to perform one iterative update on the first frame and it can perform well on the tracking sceneries. The extensive experiments demonstrate the outstanding performance of our LMT compared with the state-of-the-art trackers on three benchmarks: OTB-2015, VOT-2016, and VOT-2018.

Recently, to adapt to the various quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of emerging applications, application-driven network slicing has attracted intensive interests. In this paper, we apply the idea of software-defined wireless network virtualization (WiNV) to WiFi networks and design and demonstrate a novel network system, namely, ADE2WiNFV. The proposed system can orchestrate software-defined WiNV with network-function-virtualization-based mobile edge computing (MEC) to realize application-driven end-to-end (E2E) slicing over heterogeneous wireline/wireless networks. Our experimental demonstrations verify that ADE2WiNFV can realize application-aware E2E slices on demand, each of which contains not only guaranteed E2E bandwidth resources (i.e., in the forms of virtual links, virtual switches, and virtual access points) but also isolated IT resources (i.e., in the form of virtual network functions) to carry specific applications with QoS guarantees.

In this paper, we design and implement a distributed network virtualization hypervisor (NVH) system, namely, DPVisor, which can provide superior network programmability based on protocol-oblivious forwarding to realize highly-available, scalable, and protocol-independent virtual software-defined network slicing. The experimental comparisons indicate that DPVisor achieves comparable performance as ONVisor (i.e., an OpenFlow-based ONOS benchmark), in terms of the message processing latency, message processing throughput, and failure recovery time. Moreover, to optimize the performance of the distributed NVH systems, we carefully adjust the consistency model used in the state synchronization of NVH instances and propose a local cache-based scheme to balance the tradeoff between the consistency and availability of network status. Our experimental results confirm that the message processing throughput of the distributed NVH systems can be greatly improved (i.e., for both DPVisor and ONVisor), while the data consistency among NVH instances is still maintained well.

We design and implement a novel network virtualization hypervisor (NVH), which leverages source routing (SR) and provides network programmability based on the protocol-oblivious forwarding flow instruction set (POF-FIS), to realize protocol-independent virtual software-defined networks (vSDNs). The NVH, namely SR-PVX, uses a novel SR-based mechanism to ensure that the substrate switches can process packets from vSDNs with very small flow-table consumption. We design the network architecture, packet format, and packet processing procedure, and implement them to experimentally demonstrate that SR-PVX can control substrate POF switches to accomplish the SR-based vSDN slicing. We also perform an experiment to show that the POF-enabled vSDN created by SR-PVX can easily realize a stateful firewall with its POF-FIS programmability.

In this study, the authors propose a collaborative composition model for automatically recommending suitable positions and poses in the scene of photography taken by amateurs. By analysing aesthetic‐aware features, the authors' strategy jointly takes attention and geometry composition into account to learn the aesthetic manifestation knowledge of professional photographers. Firstly, aesthetic composition representation exploits the strength of visual saliency to explicitly encode the spatial correlation of the professional photos. Secondly, ℓ2 regularised least square is adopted to constrain the representation coefficients, which provides a fast solution in selecting aesthetic candidates collaboratively. In addition, a novel confidence measure scheme is further designed based on reconstruction errors and the reference photos are updated adaptively according to the composition rules. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluations show that the model performs well for the portrait photographing recommendation.

Objective: Gastric cancer is a harmful disease, the comorbidity mechanism and causality relationship between this disease and other diseases are worth studying. Methods: Using a two-sample Mendelian Randomization method, this study revealed the potential causal effect of atrial fibrillation (AF) on gastric cancer (GC) risk by constructing a genetic instrument containing 136 AF associated SNPs. Subsequently, analysis identifies 62 AF-GC co-associated genes and constructs a protein-protein interaction network of key genes. High-throughput sequencing data were further used to analyze the association between the two and their impact on the survival outcome of gastric cancer. Results: The results showed that AF was negatively associated with gastric cancer, and further analysis revealed that this relationship was independent of GC risk factors such as chronic gastritis, Helicobacter pylori infection, and alcohol consumption. Enrichment analysis reveals associations of key genes with pathways related to cardiovascular disease, inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases, and tumorigenesis. Through single-cell sequencing data analysis, fibroblast subpopulations associated with the key gene set are identified in GC, showing significant correlations with cancer progression and inflammation regulation pathways. Transcription factor analysis and developmental trajectory analysis reveal the potential role of fibroblasts in GC development. Finally, prognosis analysis and gene mutation analysis using TCGA-STAD data indicate an adverse prognosis associated with the key gene set in GC. Conclusion: This study provides new insights into the association between AF and GC and offers novel clues for understanding its impact on the pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies of GC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]