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Abstract The orientation and shape of ceramics grains was always neglected, resulting in a lot of information during sintering has not been excavated. In this study, a modified phase-field model in order to express the anisotropy of grain boundary energy is developed. The effects of the anisotropy of grain boundary energy on the grain orientation and shape evolution are investigated in detail. The ferroelectric ceramic thick films are prepared by tape casting. The comparison of experiment and simulation results shows that the anisotropy of grain boundary energy results in uneven grain orientation and bimodal grain size distribution. The quantitative analysis of grain microstructures helps to establish a relationship with the degree of anisotropy of grain boundary energy. Our findings provide a new way to judge the degree of anisotropy by calculating the relevant parameters in the SEM images of ceramics materials.

[INLINE:1] Microglia-mediated neuroinflammation is considered a pathological feature of Parkinson’s disease. Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cell-1 (TREM-1) can amplify the inherent immune response, and crucially, regulate inflammation. In this study, we found marked elevation of serum soluble TREM-1 in patients with Parkinson’s disease that positively correlated with Parkinson’s disease severity and dyskinesia. In a mouse model of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-induced Parkinson’s disease, we found that microglial TREM-1 expression also increased in the substantia nigra. Further, TREM-1 knockout alleviated dyskinesia in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease and reduced dopaminergic neuronal injury. Meanwhile, TREM-1 knockout attenuated the neuroinflammatory response, dopaminergic neuronal injury, and neutrophil migration. Next, we established an in vitro 1-methyl-4-phenyl-pyridine-induced BV2 microglia model of Parkinson’s disease and treated the cells with the TREM-1 inhibitory peptide LP17. We found that LP17 treatment reduced apoptosis of dopaminergic neurons and neutrophil migration. Moreover, inhibition of neutrophil TREM-1 activation diminished dopaminergic neuronal apoptosis induced by lipopolysaccharide. TREM-1 can activate the downstream CARD9/NF-κB proinflammatory pathway via interaction with SYK. These findings suggest that TREM-1 may play a key role in mediating the damage to dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson’s disease by regulating the interaction between microglia and peripheral neutrophils.

Two-dimensional multiferroic van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures are promising for nanoscale and multifunctional spintronic devices. Controllable perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in vdW heterostructure often plays a central role in stabilizing ferromagnetic order and lowering energy consumption. Here, we carry out first-principles calculations for CrI3/In2Se3 vdW heterostructure and investigate how its magnetic anisotropy is interrelated to the electronic structure. We show that the semiconducting nature of CrI3 is preserved but band gap decreases in monolayer-CrI3/In2Se3 and bilayer-CrI3/In2Se3 vdW heterostructures. The magnetoelectric effect of CrI3/In2Se3 vdW heterostructure enhances the magnetic moment of CrI3, but decreases the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of CrI3. I-p orbital coupling matrix element is noteworthy in regard to the modulation of magnetic anisotropy. The MAE contribution of Cr atom slightly enhances but is still negligible by the reason of countervailing contribution of d-orbital coupling matrix elements. By reversing the ferroelectric polarization of In2Se3, the easy magnetization axis of monolayer CrI3 can be switched. These results will help to understand the magnetic anisotropy of multiferroic vdW heterostructure and may enable the development of nonvolatile memory devices.

IntroductionIn response to the increasing demand for long-term care services for older people, the Chinese government has launched a pilot program for long-term care insurance (LTCI) since 2016. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of this program in China and provide recommendations for the future development and expansion of the LTCI system.MethodsWe developed a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess these LTCI policies implemented in all 49 pilot cities in China.ResultsBased on our evaluation, the average assessment score for the LTCI program across all pilot cities was 71.8 points, with scores ranging from 57.5 to 92.5 points in these cities. Furthermore, most of the pilot cities achieved higher scores in the fact-based assessment compared to the value-based assessment.DiscussionThe results suggested that the overall pilot effect regarding LTCI was favorable, but there were significant regional disparities. Moreover, in most of pilot cities, current LTCI policies were designed to alleviate both the financial burden and the burden of caring for people with disabilities that families faced. However, some challenges still remained, such as the lack of community and home-based care services, the need to expand the coverage of insurance, and the importance of diversifying funding sources.

Abstract Introduction The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has decreased virulence and pathogenicity, yet the number of Omicron infections worldwide is unprecedentedly high, with rather high mortality and severe disease rate. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients are particularly vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant and have unique clinical outcomes. Methods We retrospectively collected data from 2140 hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant infection from March 29, 2022, to May 17, 2022. Demographic characteristics, ancillary examination results, and clinical treatments were described. Occurrence of critical COVID-19 or death and time of positive-to-negative conversion was defined as primary outcomes. The presence of COVID-19 pneumonia and the usage of respiratory or circulatory support was defined as secondary outcomes. Univariate or multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify risk factors for primary outcomes. Results 15.74% of CKD patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant ended up with critical COVID-19 or death. Pre-existing CKD was a risk factor for critical COVID-19 or death and prolonged time of positive-to-negative conversion of SARS-CoV-2. Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir facilitated viral clearance among COVID-19 patients with non-severe CKD. Conclusion We found patients with CKD and COVID-19 due to Omicron experienced worse clinical outcomes and prolonged time of positive-to-negative conversion of SARS-CoV-2 compared to patients without CKD, which helps rationalize limited medical resources and offers guidance for appropriate clinical treatments.

Electric-field control of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in multiferroic heterostructure offers promising application for energy-efficient information storage. This work presents how magnetic anisotropy can be regulated by simultaneously exploiting strain and ferroelectric polarization in CoFe3N/BaTiO3 heterostructure using first-principles calculations. The calculations reveal strain-induced enhancement of PMA depending on the direction of ferroelectric polarization. Through the analysis of spin–orbit Hamiltonian matrix elements, we elucidate that ferroelectric polarization reversal changes the energy level splitting of d orbitals in interfacial Co atom, and compressive strain induces energy level shifting of d orbitals, giving rise to the competed MAE contribution from spin-conservation and spin-flip terms. This work highlights the underlying mechanism for tuning magnetic anisotropy by the modulation of d-orbital shifting and splitting around the Fermi level, and provides valuable insights for energy-efficient spintronic applications.

AbstractBackground Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the most burdened chronic respiratory disease in the world, resulting in a reduced quality of life and limited physical activity for patients. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an effective therapy for COPD. Effective PR relies on an accurate pulmonary rehabilitation program. An adequate pre-rehabilitation assessment helps healthcare professionals to develop an accurate pulmonary rehabilitation program. However, pre-rehabilitation assessment strategies lack specific selection criteria and an assessment of the patient’s overall functioning.Methods This study explored the functional characteristics of COPD patients before pulmonary rehabilitation and collected COPD patients from October 2019 to March 2022. A cross-sectional survey of 237 patients was conducted using the ICF brief core set as the study tool. Latent profile analysis identified subgroups of patients with different rehabilitation needs based on body function and activity participation.Results Four subgroups of functional dysfunction were identified: 5.42%, 21.03%, 29.44%, and 34.11% in the high dysfunction group, the moderate dysfunction group, the lower-middle dysfunction but high mobility impairment group, and the low dysfunction group, respectively. Patients in the high dysfunction group were older, had a higher proportion of widowed spouses, and experienced more exacerbation. Most patients in the low-dysfunction group did not use inhaled medication and had a lower participation rate in oxygen therapy. Patients with a more severe disease classification and symptom burden mostly belonged to the high dysfunction group.Conclusions COPD patients require an adequate assessment before implementing a pulmonary rehabilitation program to determine their rehabilitation needs. The four subgroups were heterogeneous in terms of the degree of functional impairment in body function and activity participation. Patients in the high dysfunction group can improve basic cardiorespiratory fitness; patients in the moderate dysfunction group should focus on improving cardiorespiratory endurance and muscle fitness, patients in the lower-middle-dysfunction but high mobility impairment group should focus on improving mobility and patients in the low functional disability group should focus more on preventive measures. Healthcare providers can tailor rehabilitation programs to the functional impairments of patients with different characteristics.Trial registration This study has been registered in the Chinese Clinical Trials Registry (ChiCTR2000040723).

ABSTRACTMultiple clinical and epidemiological studies have shown an interconnection between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and diabetes, but experimental evidence is still lacking. Understanding the interplay between them is important because of the global health burden of COVID-19 and diabetes. We found that C57BL/6J mice were susceptible to the alpha strain of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, diabetic C57BL/6J mice with leptin receptor gene deficiency (db/db mice) showed a higher viral load in the throat and lung and slower virus clearance in the throat after infection than C57BL/6J mice. Histological and multifactor analysis revealed more advanced pulmonary injury and serum inflammation in SARS-CoV-2 infected diabetic mice. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 infected diabetic mice exhibited more severe insulin resistance and islet cell loss than uninfected diabetic mice. By RNA sequencing analysis, we found that diabetes may reduce the collagen level, suppress the immune response and aggravate inflammation in the lung after infection, which may account for the greater susceptibility of diabetic mice and their more severe lung damage after infection. In summary, we successfully established a SARS-CoV-2 infected diabetic mice model and demonstrated that diabetes and COVID-19 were risk factors for one another.

The growth of the Internet of Things makes it possible to share information on risky vehicles openly and freely. How to create dynamic knowledge graphs of continually changing risky vehicles has emerged as a crucial technology for identifying risky vehicles, as well as a research hotspot in both artificial intelligence and field knowledge graphs. The node information of the risky vehicle knowledge graph is not rich, and the graph structure plays a major role in its dynamic changes. The paper presents a fusion algorithm based on relational graph convolutional network (R-GCN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) to build the dynamic knowledge graph of risky vehicles and conducts a comparative experiment on the link prediction task. The results showed that the fusion algorithm based on R-GCN and LSTM had better performance than the other methods such as GCN, DynGEM, ROLAND, and RE-GCN, with the MAP value of 0.2746 and the MRR value of 0.1075. To further verify the proposed algorithm, classification experiments are carried out on the risky vehicle dataset. Accuracy, precision, recall, and F-values were used as heat-tolerance evaluation indexes in classification experiments, the values were 0.667, 0.034, 0.422, and 0.52 respectively.

Ischnura senegalensis, which widely spreads in paddy fields, has the potential to be used as a natural predator of insect pests. However, the application of insecticides in the field could pose a threat to the survival of I. senegalensis. Among these pesticides, indoxacarb, an oxadiazine insecticide, is renowned for its broad-spectrum efficacy against numerous insect pests. In this study, we examined the toxicity of indoxacarb towards the larvae of I. senegalensis. Behavioral experiments and transcriptome analyses were conducted under indoxacarb treatments. Results revealed that indoxacarb induced abnormal body gestures and significant locomotory impairments, which could ultimately reduce the survival rate of the larvae in their natural habitat. Moreover, transcriptome analyses indicated that genes related to muscle function were significantly affected. Interestingly, at lower concentrations of indoxacarb (0.004 mg/L), the larvae seem to detoxify the indoxacarb with the aid of the cytochrome P450 gene. However, under higher concentrations (0.4 mg/L), the sensory abilities of the larvae were significantly diminished, and they were unable to degrade the toxicity of indoxacarb. Our study underscores the importance of carefully evaluating the impact of insecticides on non-target predatory insects before their widespread application.

Abstract Impaired nitric oxide (NO) signaling contributes to the development of pulmonary hypertension (PH). The l‐arginine precursor, l‐citrulline, improves NO signaling and has therapeutic potential in PH. However, there is evidence that l‐citrulline might increase arginase activity, which in turn, has been shown to contribute to PH. Our major purpose was to determine if l‐citrulline increases arginase activity in hypoxic human pulmonary artery endothelial cells (PAECs). In addition, to avoid potential adverse effects from high dose l‐citrulline monotherapy, we evaluated whether the effect on NO signaling is greater using co‐treatment with l‐citrulline and another agent that improves NO signaling, folic acid, than either alone. Arginase activity was measured in human PAECs cultured under hypoxic conditions in the presence of l‐citrulline (0–1 mM). NO production and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) coupling, as assessed by eNOS dimer‐to‐monomer ratios, were measured in PAECs treated with l‐citrulline and/or folic acid (0.2 μM). Arginase activity increased in hypoxic PAECs treated with 1 mM but not with either 0.05 or 0.1 mM l‐citrulline. Co‐treatment with folic acid and 0.1 mM l‐citrulline increased NO production and eNOS dimer‐to‐monomer ratios more than treatment with either alone. The potential to increase arginase activity suggests that there might be plasma l‐citrulline concentrations that should not be exceeded when using l‐citrulline to treat PH. Rather than progressively increasing the dose of l‐citrulline as a monotherapy, co‐therapy with l‐citrulline and folic acid merits consideration, due to the possibility of achieving efficacy at lower doses and minimizing side effects.

Grass species have a range of strategies to tolerate soil water restriction, which are linked to the environmental conditions at their site of origin. Climate change enhances the relevance of the functional role of anatomical attributes and their contribution as water stress tolerance factors. Morpho-anatomical traits and adjustments that contribute to drought resistance in Lolium perenne L. (Lp) and Bromus valdivianus Phil. (Bv), a temperate humid grass species, were analysed. The structure of the leaves and pseudostems (stems only in Lp) grown at 20–25% field capacity (FC) (water restriction) and 80–85% FC (control) were evaluated by making paraffin sections. In both species, water restriction reduced the thickness of the leaves and pseudostems, along with the size of the vasculature. Bv had long and dense leaf hairs, small and numerous stomata, and other significant adaptive traits under water stress, including thicker pseudostems (p ≤ 0.001), a greatly thickened bundle sheath wall (p ≤ 0.001) in the pseudostem to ensure water flow, and a thickened cuticle covering on leaf surfaces (p ≤ 0.01) to avoid water loss. Lp vascular bundles developed throughout the stem, and under water restriction the xylem vessel walls were strengthened and lignified. Lp leaves had individual traits of a ribbed/corrugated-shaped upper surface, and the stomata were positioned to maintain relative humidity outside the leaf surface. Water restriction significantly changed the bulliform cell depth in Lp (p ≤ 0.05) that contributed to water loss reduction via the curling leaf blade. This study demonstrated that the two grass species, through different morphological traits, were able to adjust their individual tissues and cells in aboveground parts to reach similar physiological functions to reduce water loss with increased water restriction. These attributes explain how both species enhance persistence and resilience under soil water restriction.

The Nanmingshui gold deposit, located in the eastern segment of the Kalamaili gold belt (KGB), is hosted by the sub-greenschist facies rocks of the Lower Carboniferous Jiangbasitao Formation. The genesis of this deposit, however, has been debated for decades because of controversial constraints on the P-T-X conditions and origins of hydrothermal fluid and mineralization age. In this study, we present gold-bearing sulfide compositions, fluid inclusions, H-O isotopes, and the results of hydrothermal zircon U-Pb dating to provide new insights into the genesis of the gold deposit. Three gold mineralization stages are recognized: quartz–pyrite–minor native gold veins (early), quartz–tourmaline–arsenopyrite–pyrite–gold–polymetallic sulfide veins (middle), and quartz–calcite veinlets (late). Gold predominantly occurs as native gold with high fineness ranging from 941 to 944 in sulfides and quartz, and some as solid solutions (Au+) within the lattice of pyrite and arsenopyrite. Three types of primary fluid inclusions are identified in hydrothermal quartz: CO2-H2O (C-type), aqueous (W-type), and pure CO2 (PC-type) inclusions. The early-stage quartz mainly contains C-type and minor W-type inclusions, with total homogenization temperatures (Th) of 220–339 °C, salinities of 0.4–3.7 wt.% NaCl eqv., and bulk densities of 0.66–1.01 g/cm3. All three types of inclusions are observed in the middle-stage quartz, of which the C- and W-type inclusions yield Th values of 190–361 °C, with salinities of 0.4–6.0 wt.% NaCl eqv. and bulk densities of 0.69–0.99 g/cm3. The late-stage quartz contains only W-type inclusions that have lower Th values of 172–287 °C, higher salinities of 1.4–6.9 wt.% NaCl eqv., and bulk densities of 0.79–0.95 g/cm3. Trapping pressures estimated from C-type inclusions in the early and middle stages cluster at 280–340 MPa and 220–310 MPa, respectively, corresponding to metallogenic depths of 10–13 km and 8–11 km. The H-O isotopic compositions (δ18Owater = 1.8–10.9‰, δD = −99 to −62.9‰) and microthermometric data indicate that the ore-forming fluids belong to medium–high-temperature, low-salinity, medium-density, and CO2-rich-H2O-NaCl ± CH4 ± N2 systems, probably originating from metamorphic water. Fluid immiscibility is a crucial mechanism for gold precipitation. Additionally, the U-Pb dating of hydrothermal zircons, from the auriferous quartz–tourmaline vein, yield a weighted mean 206Pb/238U age of 314.6 ± 9.6 Ma. Taking all of the above, the Nanmingshui deposit can be reasonably classed as a typical mesozonal orogenic gold deposit in the KGB, which was formed in a Late Carboniferous tectonic transition from syn-collision between the Jiangjunmiao accretionary complex and Yemaquan arc to post-collision in the East Junggar Orogen. Our results serve to better understand the gold mineralization and genesis of the Late Paleozoic orogenic system in the Kalamaili area, Xinjiang.

BackgroundHepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss, namely, the functional cure, can be achieved through the pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN)-based therapy. However, it is an unignorable fact that a small proportion of patients who achieved functional cure develop HBsAg reversion (HRV) and the related factors are not well described.MethodsA total of 112 patients who achieved PEG-IFN-induced HBsAg loss were recruited. HBV biomarkers and biochemical parameters were examined dynamically. HBV RNA levels were assessed in the cross-sectional analysis. The primary endpoint was HRV, defined as the reappearance of HBsAg after PEG-IFN discontinuation.ResultsHRV occurred in 17 patients during the follow-up period. Univariable analysis indicated that hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) status, different levels of hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs), and hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) at the end of PEG-IFN treatment (EOT) were significantly associated with the incidence of HRV through using the log-rank test. Additionally, time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the anti-HBs was superior to anti-HBc in predictive power for the incidence of HRV during the follow-up period. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard analysis found that anti-HBs ≥1.3 log10IU/L (hazard ratio (HR), 0.148; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.044-0.502) and HBeAg negativity (HR, 0.183; 95% CI, 0.052-0.639) at EOT were independently associated with lower incidence of HRV. Cross-sectional analysis indicated that the HBV RNA levels were significantly correlated with the HBsAg levels in patients with HRV (r=0.86, p=0.003).ConclusionsEOT HBeAg negativity and anti-HBs ≥1.3 log10IU/L identify the low risk of HRV after PEG-IFN discontinuation.

BackgroundThe variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have emerged repeatedly, especially the Omicron strain which is extremely infectious, so early identification of patients who may develop critical illness will aid in delivering proper treatment and optimizing use of resources. We aimed to develop and validate a practical scoring model at hospital admission for predicting which patients with Omicron infection will develop critical illness.MethodsA total of 2,459 patients with Omicron infection were enrolled in this retrospective study. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to evaluate predictors associated with critical illness. Moreover, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), continuous net reclassification improvement, and integrated discrimination index were assessed.ResultsThe derivation cohort included 1721 patients and the validation cohort included 738 patients. A total of 98 patients developed critical illness. Thirteen variables were independent predictive factors and were included in the risk score: age > 65, C-reactive protein > 10 mg/L, lactate dehydrogenase > 250 U/L, lymphocyte < 0.8*10^9/L, white blood cell > 10*10^9/L, Oxygen saturation < 90%, malignancy, chronic kidney disease, chronic cardiac disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, and non-vaccination. AUROC in the derivation cohort and validation cohort were 0.926 (95% CI, 0.903–0.948) and 0.907 (95% CI, 0.860-0.955), respectively. Moreover, the critical illness risk scoring model had the highest AUROC compared with CURB-65, sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) and 4C mortality scores, and always obtained more net benefit.ConclusionThe risk scoring model based on the characteristics of patients at the time of admission to the hospital may help medical practitioners to identify critically ill patients and take prompt measures.

Aiming at the problem of low modeling efficiency and feature loss of temporal modeling in human action recognition, we propose a human action recognition method based on Motion Excitation and Temporal Aggregation module (META). The method can capture multi-state and multi-scale temporal information to achieve effective motion excitation. Firstly, temporal relational sampling is performed on video frames; Secondly, META is proposed to capture multi-state and multi-scale temporal information. META is composed of Multi-scale Motion Excitation module (MME) and Squeeze and Excitation Temporal Aggregation module (SETA). MME captures the feature level temporal difference by transforming the features into the temporal channel, which directly establishes the relationship between features and temporal channel, and solves the problem of low modeling efficiency. SETA transforms the local convolution into a set of sub-convolutions. Multiple sub-convolutions form hierarchies to extract features together and share the results of the upper convolutional layer, which increases the final temporal receptive field and solves the problem of feature loss. Moreover, the optical flow features are extracted through Cross modality pre-training to improve the utilization of temporal information. Finally, the result of human action recognition is carried out by combining spatiotemporal two stream features. Experimental results show that the accuracy of this method in UCF101 and HMDB-51 is 96.0% and 71.2% respectively, which is higher than other studies in the same period.

To solve the problem of directional arrangement of small template particles, we designed a lamination technique for the preparation of dense ceramics with high texture degree based on the phase-field simulation. Referring to the experimental data, the initial microstructures of the template and matrix layers were constructed. The effect of the average length of template on the coarsening behavior of the template layer was investigated in detail. The results suggested that there was a stable stage in the growth process of template grains, which would be conducive to the densification of textured ceramics. This phenomenon has been confirmed by corresponding experiments. In addition, we demonstrated a critical thickness of matrix layer for the preparation of highly textured ceramics by using the template with various average lengths. The grain size of highly textured ceramics could be controlled by adjusting the template size and thickness of matrix layer.

Genetic diversity is associated with invasion dynamics during establishment and expansion stages by affecting the viability and adaptive potential of exotics. There have been many reports on the comparison between the genetic diversity of invasive alien species (IAS) in and out of their native habitats, but the conclusions were usually inconsistent. In this work, a standard meta-analysis of the genetic diversity of 19 invasive plants based on 26 previous studies was carried out to investigate the general trend for the change of IASs’ genetic diversity during their invasion process and its real correlation with the invasion fate. Those 26 studies were screened from a total of 3557 peer-reviewed publications from the ISI Web of Science database during the period of January 2000 to May 2022. Based on the selected studies in this work, a general reduction of IASs’ genetic diversity was found in non-native populations compared to that in native ones, while the difference was not significant. This finding suggested that regardless of the change in genetic diversity, it had no substantial effect on the outcome of the invasion process. Therefore, genetic diversity might not serve as a reliable indicator for risk assessment and prediction of invasion dynamic prediction in the case of IASs.

Agriocnemis femina (Brauer, 1868) and Ischnura senegalensis (Rambur, 1842) are two damselflies inhabiting paddy lands. As an intermediate predator, they play an important role in controlling certain crop pest and mosquitoes. In this study, we sequenced complete mitogenomes of these two species. The total length of mitogenomes is 15,936 bp in A. femina and 15,762 bp in I. senegalensis. Both of mitogenomes consist of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and one control region. The close relationship between I. senegalensis and I. elegans was further proved by phylogenetic analysis. Our phylogenetic analysis indicated a clear two lineages in Coenagrionidae (Core and ridge-faced Coenagrionidae). Ridge-faced Coenagrionidae consisted of Megaloprepus caerulatus and Ceriagrion fallax. In core Coenagrionidae, Ischnura and Enallagma are most closely related; they formed one clade with Agriocnemis and then grouped together with Paracerion. Our study provides new genetic information for further study in phylogenetic analysis of Coenagrionidae.

Improving the recognition of paleo-fluid circulation history is of great significance to reconstruct pore evolution during carbonate diagenesis. Integrated petrography, fluid inclusion, isotopic and elemental geochemistry (laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) studies, calcites generated in paleocaves, and fractures were investigated. This study aims to reveal the paleo-fluid origin and karstification event within the nonexposed limestone of the Lower–Middle Ordovician Yingshan Formation in the Tarim Basin. The only generation of blocky calcite growing along the karst paleocave and fracture walls [cave-filling calcite (CFC)] crosscuts burial stylolites. The secondary fluid inclusions obtained from CFC are characterized by the coexistence of liquid-only and liquid-dominated aqueous inclusions with low salinities values (0–2.4 wt%), suggesting that the CFC has experienced a low-temperature environment (

We develop a new no-reference (NR) stereoscopic video quality assessment model that adopts oriented local gravitational force (OLGF) statistics in the space-time domain. The OLGF is a novel extension of an existing local gravitational force descriptor and includes two new components: relative local gravitational force magnitude and relative local gravitational force orientation. The resulting algorithm, called Stereoscopic Video Integrity Predictor using OLGF Statistics (SVIPOS), first uses our previous work to generate a cyclopean image and a product image in spatial domain from a stereoscopic video sequence pair, and calculates a frame difference image in temporal domain from a left video sequence. Then the OLGF model is deployed to compute various local gravitational force responses on the cyclopean image, the product image and the frame difference image. Finally, a support vector regression is used to map statistical features extracted from the computed gravitational force responses to stereoscopic video quality predications. SVIPOS is thoroughly tested on three publicly stereoscopic video quality databases. The experimental results show that SVIPOS outperforms state-of-the-art stereoscopic video quality methods.

Nigella glandulifera is a traditional medicinal plant used to treat seizures, insomnia, and mental disorders among the Tibetan and Xinjiang people of China. Recent pharmacological research indicates that the seeds of this plant have a neuroprotective effect; however, the chemical components responsible for this effect are unknown. Monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) has been recognized as a target for developing anti-Parkinson’s disease drugs. In this work, MAO-B functionalized magnetic nanoparticles were used to enrich the enzyme’s ligands in extracts of N. glandulifera seeds for rapid screening of MAO-B inhibitors coupled with HPLC-MS. Tauroside E and thymoquinone were found to inhibit the enzyme with IC50 values of 35.85 μM and 25.54 μM, respectively. Both compounds exhibited neuroprotective effects on 6-OHDA-induced PC-12 cells by increasing the cell viability to 52% and 58%, respectively, compared to 50% of the injured cells. Finally, molecular docking indicated strong interactions of both inhibitors with the enzyme. This work shows that MAO-B functionalized magnetic nanoparticles are effective for rapid screening of anti-PD inhibitors from complex herbal mixtures and, at the same time, shows the promising potential of this plant’s seeds in developing anti-PD drugs.

Abstract Concomitant with developing pulmonary hypertension (PH), newborn piglets exposed to chronic hypoxia develop pulmonary vascular NO signaling impairments. PH is reduced and NO signaling is improved in chronically hypoxic piglets treated with the NO‐arginine precursor, L‐citrulline. Folic acid positively impacts NO signaling. We evaluated whether the effect on NO signaling and PH is greater using co‐treatment with folic acid and L‐citrulline than either alone. From day 3 to day 10 of hypoxia, piglets were treated solely with folic acid, solely with L‐citrulline, or co‐treated with both. Catheters were placed to measure in vivo hemodynamics. NO production was measured in vitro in dissected pulmonary arteries. Compared to normoxic piglets, pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) was elevated and NO production was reduced in untreated hypoxic piglets. Regardless of treatment strategy, PVR was less in all three treated groups of hypoxic piglets when compared to the untreated hypoxic group. In addition, for all three groups of treated hypoxic piglets, NO production was higher than the untreated group. Improvements in PVR and NO production did not differ between piglets co‐treated with folic acid and L‐citrulline and those treated solely with either. Thus, the impact on NO production and PVR was not augmented by combining folic acid and L‐citrulline treatments. Nonetheless, treatment with folic acid, either singly or when combined with L‐citrulline, increases NO production and inhibits PH in chronically hypoxic newborn piglets. Folic acid merits consideration as a therapy for PH in human infants with chronic heart and lung conditions that are associated with chronic hypoxia.

The distribution dynamics of invasive alien plants is the fundamental information for early detection and rapid response (EDRR) to these species in a new habitat. Based on the field survey data and online databases, the present research work utilized Maximum Entropy model (Maxent) to simulate the distribution dynamics of four invasive plants Ageratina adenophora (Spreng.) R. M. King et H. Rob., Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb., Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. and Mikania micrantha Kunth in China, under current and future climate (2041–2060, 2061–2080, 2081–2100) in two shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs: SSP 245 and 585) of the newly released coupled model intercomparison project phase6 (CMIP6). All the suitable habitat areas of these plants will significantly expand in the future, but at different expansion levels. M. micrantha will have the largest distribution area (increase by 61–120%), while A. adenophora will expand by 7–33%, A. philoxeroides by 12–74%, and A. artemisiifolia by 8–27%, respectively. Additionally, the habitat centers of the four species will shift to north, i.e., A. philoxeroides, A. artemisiifolia and M. micrantha to northwest, and A. adenophora to northeast, except that the core distributions of A. adenophora and A. artemisiifolia will move to southwest under one certain environment scenario (SSP 245 in the period of 2061–2080). Compared to aspect index and slope topographical variables, the population density, temperature, and precipitation are found to be more important variables in describing the distribution of these plants. The dynamics of habitats of these four species and the correlating driver factors proposed in this work provide essential insights into future spatial management of invasive plants and biodiversity conservation in China, which is, not only human activities should be regulated and the migration of invasive species be reduced, but also the monitoring of high-risk areas should be strengthened in order to ensure effective EDRR.

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge is a medicinal plant (Chinese name “Danshen”) widely used for the treatment of hyperglycemia in traditional Chinese medicine. Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) has been recognized as a potential target for insulin sensitizing for the treatment of diabetes. In this work, PTP1B was displayed at the surface of E. coli cells (EC-PTP1B) to be used as a bait for fishing of the enzyme’s inhibitors present in the aqueous extract of S. miltiorrhiza. Salvianolic acid B, a polyphenolic compound, was fished out by EC-PTP1B, which was found to inhibit PTP1B with an IC50 value of 23.35 µM. The inhibitory mechanism of salvianolic acid B was further investigated by enzyme kinetic experiments and molecular docking, indicating salvianolic acid B was a non-competitive inhibitor for PTP1B (with Ki and Kis values of 31.71 µM and 20.08 µM, respectively) and its binding energy was −7.89 kcal/mol. It is interesting that in the comparative work using a traditional ligand fishing bait of PTP1B-immobilized magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs-PTP1B), no ligands were extracted at all. This study not only discovered a new PTP1B inhibitor from S. miltiorrhiza which is significant to understand the chemical basis for the hypoglycemic activity of this plant, but also indicated the effectiveness of cell display-based ligand fishing in screening of active compounds from complex herbal extracts.

Ageratina adenophora (Spreng.) R.M.King & H.Rob. is one of the most threatening invasive alien plants in China. Since its initial invasion into Yunnan in the 1940s, it spread rapidly northward to southern Mount Nyba in Sichuan, which lies on the eastern edge of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. During fieldwork, we found an interesting phenomenon: A. adenophora failed to expand northward across Mount Nyba, even after the opening of the 10 km tunnel, which could have served as a potential corridor for its spread. In this work, to explore the key factors influencing its distribution and spread patterns, we used a combination of ensemble species distribution models with the MigClim model. We found that the temperature annual range (TAR), precipitation of driest month (PDM), highway density (HW), and wind speed (WS) were the most predominant factors affecting its distribution. The north of Mount Nyba is not suitable for A. adenophora survival due to higher TAR. The spatial–temporal dynamic invasion simulation using MigClim further illustrated that the northward invasion of A. adenophora was stopped by Mount Nyba. Overall, Mount Nyba may act as a topographic barrier that causes environmental differences between its south and north sides, preventing the northward invasion of A. adenophora. However, other suitable habitats on the northern side of the mountain still face challenges because A. adenophora is likely to invade via other routes. Therefore, long-term monitoring is needed to prevent human-induced long-distance spread events.

The application of Internet of Things in smart buildings is becoming more and more extensive. The energy supply problem of end nodes has always been a concern of the field of research and industry areas, and an adaptive radio frequency energy conversion system is proposed for the low power node of the Internet of Things. By using the unipolar transistor control, the threshold voltage of the rectifier changes dynamically, through RF matching, and double voltage rectification measures the supply for the low power nodes. The proposed circuit is aimed at reducing the threshold voltage of the transistor forward bias to increase power and output voltage of the harvester and increasing the reverse bias of the threshold voltage for reducing the leakage current. It prevents the loss of stored energy. This paper presents a 12 stages adaptive threshold-compensated rectifier circuit has reached the maximum power conversion efficiency 35.3% at -14 dBm. Meanwhile, when the input power is -12dBm, the output voltage is 3.2 V at the output load 1 MΩ. The low power characteristics of the nodes at the end of the Internet of Things make it possible to convert the RF energy into electric energy.

Finite mixture models based on the symmetric Gaussian distribution have been applied broadly in data analysis. However, not all the data in real-world applications can be safely supposed to have a symmetric Gaussian form. This paper presents a new mixture model that includes the inverted Beta mixture model (IBMM) as a special case to analyze the positive non-Gaussian data. The advantage of the proposed model is that the number of the model parameters is variable and infinite. Consequently, the proposed model is adaptable to the size of the data. On the basis of the recently proposed extended variational inference (EVI) framework, we develop a closed-form solution to approximate the posterior distributions. The performance and the effectiveness of the proposed model are demonstrated with the real data generated from two challenging applications, namely, image classification and object detection.

Objective: We aimed to explore the dynamic changes in coagulation function and the effect of age on coagulation function in patients with pneumonia under admission and non-admission treatment.Methods: We included 178 confirmed adult inpatients with COVID-19 from Wuhan Union Hospital Affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan, China). Patients were classified into common types, and all were cured and discharged after hospitalization. We recorded the time of the first clinical symptoms of the patients and performed blood coagulation tests at the time of admission and after admission. In total, eight factors (TT, FIB, INR, APTT, PT, DD, ATIII, and FDP) were analyzed. Patients were classified into four groups according to the time from the first symptom onset to hospital admission for comparative analysis. The patients who were admitted within 2 weeks of disease onset were analyzed for the dynamic changes in their blood coagulation tests. Further division into two groups, one group comprising patients admitted to the hospital within 2 weeks after the onset of disease and the other comprising patients admitted to the hospital 2 weeks after disease onset, was performed to form two groups based on whether the patient ages were over or under 55 years. Chi-square tests and T tests were used to explore the dynamic changes in coagulation function and the influence of age on the results of coagulation function tests.Results: A total of 178 inpatients, 34 of whom underwent dynamic detection, were included in this analysis. We divided these patients into four groups according to the interval between the onset of COVID-19 pneumonia and the time to admission in the hospital: the 1–7 days (group 1), 8–14 days (group 2), 15–21 days (group 3), and >21-days (group 4). Eight factors all increased within 2 weeks after onset and gradually decreased to normal 2 weeks before the patient was admitted. The changes in coagulation function of patients admitted to the hospital were similar. After being admitted to the hospital, the most significant decreases among the eight factors were between week 2 and 3. There were distinct differences among the eight factors between people older than 55 years and those younger than 55 years. In the first 2 weeks after being admitted, the levels of the eight factors in patients >55 years were significantly higher than those in patients

The L-arginine precursor, L-citrulline, re-couples endothelial nitric oxide synthase, increases nitric oxide production, and ameliorates chronic hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension in newborn pigs. L-arginine can induce arginase, which, in turn, may diminish nitric oxide production. Our major purpose was to determine if L-citrulline increases arginase activity in hypoxic piglet pulmonary arterial endothelial cells, and if so, concomitantly impacts the ability to increase endothelial nitric oxide synthase re-coupling and nitric oxide production. Piglet pulmonary arterial endothelial cells were cultured in hypoxic conditions with L-citrulline (0–3 mM) and/or the arginase inhibitor S-(2-boronoethyl)-L-cysteine. We measured arginase activity and nitric oxide production. We assessed endothelial nitric oxide synthase coupling by measuring endothelial nitric oxide synthase dimers and monomers. L-citrulline concentrations ≥0.5 mM increased arginase activity in hypoxic pulmonary arterial endothelial cells. L-citrulline concentrations ≥0.1 mM increased nitric oxide production and concentrations ≥0.5 mM elevated endothelial nitric oxide synthase dimer-to-monomer ratios. Co-treatment with L-citrulline and S-(2-boronoethyl)-L-cysteine elevated endothelial nitric oxide synthase dimer-to-monomer ratios more than sole treatment. Despite inducing arginase, L-citrulline increased nitric oxide production and endothelial nitric oxide synthase coupling in hypoxic piglet pulmonary arterial endothelial cells. However, these dose-dependent findings raise the possibility that there could be L-citrulline concentrations that elevate arginase to levels that negate improvements in endothelial nitric oxide synthase dysfunction. Moreover, our findings suggest that combining an arginase inhibitor with L-citrulline merits evaluation as a treatment for chronic hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension.

Introduction: N-terminal-pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-pro BNP) is secreted by cardiomyocytes in cases of cardiac structure disorder and volume overload. However, the relationship between NT-pro BNP level and body fluid status in dialysis patients with reduced cardiac ejection function (EF) is uncertain. Therefore, we aimed to investigate this relationship.Methods: We enrolled patients who had been receiving hemodialysis for >3 months. Blood sample, transthoracic echocardiographic, and bioimpedance spectroscopy measurements were performed during a midweek non-dialysis day. The predictive value of NT-pro BNP in hemodialysis patients with volume overload was analyzed.Results: A total of 129 hemodialysis patients (74 men and 55 women; mean age: 59.4 ± 13.0 years) were recruited. The average hemodialysis duration was 55.5 (23.9–93.4) months, the NT-pro BNP level was 4992 (2,033–15,807) pg/mL, and the value of overhydration was 2.68 ± 0.19 (−1.9 to 12.2) L. The NT-pro BNP level was independently correlated with overhydration in both the LVEF ≥ 60% (β = 0.236, P = 0.044) and LVEF

An exploration of dislocation microstructure evolution with different misorientation angles was performed using phase field crystal method (PFC). The microcosmic evolution process of grain boundaries under external stress, as well as the corresponding energy curve and stress–strain curve, are analyzed. The relationship between the misorientation angle and the dislocations emission frequency is discussed. Three forms of dislocations reaction on the evolution process of 6° and 10° are analyzed in detail, which are respectively type I semi-annihilation, type II semi-annihilationand full-annihilation. Among them, the nature of type I semi-annihilation is a combination of dislocation and a single edge dislocation reaction with a single edge dislocation left. The essence of type II semi-annihilation is a pair of dislocation and the other pair of dislocation reaction leaving two edge dislocations. The essence of full-annihilation is that two pairs of dislocations or single edge dislocations with opposite Burger vectors react with each other and the distortion area disappears. When the misorientation angle is 10°, the dislocation reaction and the dislocation motion ability of the system are stronger than 6°. The peak of the energy curve is related to the number of dislocation proliferations in the evolution process. An emission frequency and average density of dislocations of 10° is greater than 6°. The causes of plastic deformation are revealed to a certain extent by stress–strain curves.

The Gaosongshan epithermal gold deposit in Heilongjiang, Northeast China, is hosted by the Lower Cretaceous intermediate-basic volcanic rocks. Three auriferous quartz veins including eleven gold orebodies were all discovered in tectonoclastic zones. Genetic mineralogy study including the thermoelectricity, rare earth elements and trace elements of pyrite and rare earth elements of quartz were carried out. Thermoelectric conductive type of pyrite is mainly N-P type. Calculating the thermoelectric parameters XNP and denudation percentage γ of pyrites from orebodies 1-I, 2-II and 2-IV, suggests that gold orebodies are all eroded to their middle-lower parts. The variable range of Co concentrations (51.3-264.0ppm) and Ni concentrations (68.9-258.0ppm) and Co: Ni ratio (0.31-1.90), together with relatively small Sr/Ba ratio in ore-bearing pyrites (0.11-0.50), supports a hydrothermal origin of mineralization at Gaosongshan gold deposit. Compared with volcanic rocks, the chondrite-normalized REE patterns of ore-bearing pyrites and quartz are all LREE enriched with similar ΣLREE/ΣHREE ratio ranging from 7.37-13.68 in ore-bearing pyrites, 4.74-15.37 in ore-bearing quartz and no Ce anomalies. δEu values in ore-bearing pyrites and quartz are 0.65-1.66 (average=0.93) and 0.66-1.62 (average=1.03), respectively. δEu values of volcanic rocks are 0.86­1.07 (average 0.94), suggesting no obvious negative Eu anomalies. Similar REE characteristics of ore-bearing pyrites and quartz and volcanic rocks, together with previous oxygen and hydrogen isotope studies of quartz, suggest that the ore-forming fluids of the Gaosongshan gold deposit were mainly magmatic origin which was associated with andesitic magma and was partly mixed with atmospheric water. Comparing trace elements characteristics of ore-bearing pyrites with volcanic rocks, together with previous S isotopic studies, it is concluded that the ore-forming materials were derived from the surrounding rocks. Slight changes of Y/Ho (23.80­27.28), Zr/Hf (35.41­47.83), Nb/Ta (10.96­18.52) in ore-bearing pyrites indicate that the ore-forming fluid system is relatively stable during the ore-forming process.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) belongs to the Hepadnaviridae family of enveloped DNA viruses. Recent studies have found that host factors can suppress HBV replication. HBV envelope proteins are reported to be degraded by the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) pathway. As a component of the ERAD pathway, suppressor of lin-12-like 1 (SEL1L) was earlier found to be upregulated in the inactive carrier phase of chronic HBV infection relative to that in the immune tolerant phase. However, the role of SEL1L in regulating HBV replication remains largely unknown. In this study, we found the levels of HBV RNA, DNA, and core and envelope proteins to be significantly downregulated by SEL1L overexpression and upregulated by SEL1L silencing in Huh7 cells transiently transfected with an overlength HBV genome. Similar upregulation was observed in HepG2.2.15 cells as well. SEL1L co-localized with HBV surface antigen (HBsAg), which changed its staining pattern. Treatment with an inhibitor of ERAD pathway remarkably increased intracellular S protein. Surprisingly, silencing SEL1L to block the ERAD pathway activated an alternative ER quality control (ERQC)-autophagy pathway, which might account for the increased HBV RNAs and core protein. Together, our results demonstrate that SEL1L is a host restriction factor that exerts anti-HBV effect through ERAD and alternative ERQC-autophagy pathway.

Ti-Al alloys have excellent high-temperature performance and are often used in the manufacture of high-pressure compressors and low-pressure turbine blades for military aircraft engines. However, solute segregation is easy to occur in the solidification process of Ti-Al alloys, which will affect their properties. In this study, we used the quantitative phase-field model developed by Karma to study the equiaxed dendrite growth of Ti-4.5% Al alloy. The effects of supersaturation, undercooling and thermal disturbance on the dendrite morphology and solute segregation were studied. The results showed that the increase of supersaturation and undercooling will promote the growth of secondary dendrite arms and aggravate the solute segregation. When the undercooling is large, the solute in the root of the primary dendrite arms is seriously enriched, and when the supersaturation is large, the time for the dendrite tips to reach a steady-state will be shortened. The thermal disturbance mainly affects the morphology and distribution of the secondary dendrite arms but has almost no effect on the steady-state of the primary dendrite tips. This is helpful to understand the cause of solute segregation in Ti-Al alloy theoretically.

Remote sensing image change detection (CD) is an important task in remote sensing image analysis and is essential for an accurate understanding of changes in the Earth’s surface. The technology of deep learning (DL) is becoming increasingly popular in solving CD tasks for remote sensing images. Most existing CD methods based on DL tend to use ordinary convolutional blocks to extract and compare remote sensing image features, which cannot fully extract the rich features of high-resolution (HR) remote sensing images. In addition, most of the existing methods lack robustness to pseudochange information processing. To overcome the above problems, in this article, we propose a new method, namely MRA-SNet, for CD in remote sensing images. Utilizing the UNet network as the basic network, the method uses the Siamese network to extract the features of bitemporal images in the encoder separately and perform the difference connection to better generate difference maps. Meanwhile, we replace the ordinary convolution blocks with Multi-Res blocks to extract spatial and spectral features of different scales in remote sensing images. Residual connections are used to extract additional detailed features. To better highlight the change region features and suppress the irrelevant region features, we introduced the Attention Gates module before the skip connection between the encoder and the decoder. Experimental results on a public dataset of remote sensing image CD show that our proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art (SOTA) CD methods in terms of evaluation metrics and performance.

The increase in drought events due to climate change have enhanced the relevance of species with greater tolerance or avoidance traits to water restriction periods, such as Bromus valdivianus Phil. (B. valdivianus). In southern Chile, B. valdivianus and Lolium perenne L. (L. perenne) coexist; however, the pasture defoliation criterion is based on the physiological growth and development of L. perenne. It is hypothesised that B. valdivianus needs a lower defoliation frequency than L. perenne to enhance its regrowth and energy reserves. Defoliation frequencies tested were based on B. valdivianus leaf stage 2 (LS-2), leaf stage 3 (LS-3), leaf stage 4 (LS-4) and leaf stage 5 (LS-5). The leaf stage development of Lolium perenne was monitored and contrasted with that of B. valdivianus. The study was conducted in a glasshouse and used a randomised complete block design. For Bromus valdivianus, the lamina length, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, tiller number per plant, leaf area, leaf weights, root growth rate, water-soluble carbohydrates (WSCs) and starch were evaluated. Bromus valdivianus maintained six live leaves with three leaves growing simultaneously. When an individual tiller started developing its seventh leaf, senescence began for the second leaf (the first relevant leaf for photosynthesis). Plant herbage mass, the root growth rate and tiller growth were maximised at LS-4 onwards. The highest leaf elongation rate, evaluated through the slope of the lamina elongation curve of a fully expanded leaf, was verified at LS-4. The water-soluble carbohydrates (WSCs) increased at LS-5; however, no statistical differences were found in LS-4. The LS-3 and LS-2 treatments showed a detrimental effect on WSCs and regrowth. The leaf photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance diminished while the leaf age increased. In conclusion, B. valdivianus is a ‘six-leaf’ species with leaf senescence beginning at LS-4.25. Defoliation at LS-4 and LS-5 was optimum for plant regrowth, maximising the aboveground plant parameters and total WSC accumulation. The LS-4 for B. valdivianus was equivalent to LS-3.5 for L. perenne. No differences related to tiller population in B. valdivianus were found in the different defoliation frequencies.

The CT image is an important reference for clinical diagnosis. However, due to the external influence and equipment limitation in the imaging, the CT image often has problems such as blurring, a lack of detail and unclear edges, which affect the subsequent diagnosis. In order to obtain high-quality medical CT images, we propose an information distillation and multi-scale attention network (IDMAN) for medical CT image super-resolution reconstruction. In a deep residual network, instead of only adding the convolution layer repeatedly, we introduce information distillation to make full use of the feature information. In addition, in order to better capture information and focus on more important features, we use a multi-scale attention block with multiple branches, which can automatically generate weights to adjust the network. Through these improvements, our model effectively solves the problems of insufficient feature utilization and single attention source, improves the learning ability and expression ability, and thus can reconstruct the higher quality medical CT image. We conduct a series of experiments; the results show that our method outperforms the previous algorithms and has a better performance of medical CT image reconstruction in the objective evaluation and visual effect.

Bromus valdivianus Phil. (Bv) is a water stress-tolerant species, but its competitiveness in a diverse pasture may depend on defoliation management and soil moisture levels. This glasshouse study examined the effect of three defoliation frequencies, based on accumulated growing degree days (AGDD) (250, 500, and 1000 AGDD), and two soil water levels (80–85% of field capacity (FC) and 20–25% FC) on Bv growth as monoculture and as a mixture with Lolium perenne L. (Lp). The treatments were applied in a completely randomised block design with four blocks. The above-ground biomass of Bv was lower in the mixture than in the monoculture (p ≤ 0.001). The Bv plants in the mixture defoliated more infrequently (1000 AGDD) showed an increase in root biomass under 20–25% FC compared to 80–85% FC, with no differences measured between soil water levels in the monoculture. Total root length was highest in the mixture with the combination of infrequent defoliation and 20–25% FC. Conversely, frequent defoliation treatments resulted in reduced water-soluble carbohydrate reserves in the tiller bases of plants (p ≤ 0.001), as they allocated assimilates mainly to foliage growth. These results provide evidence that B. valdivianus can increase its competitiveness relative to Lp through the enhancement of the root growth and the energy reserve in the tiller base under drought conditions and infrequent defoliation in a mixture.

Syringa oblata Lindl. is a popular ornamental shrub with aroma compounds. Here, we sequenced and assembled the complete chloroplast genome of S. oblata. The complete chloroplast genome of S. oblata is 155,648 bp in length, containing a pair of inverted repeated (IRa and IRb) region of 25,732 bp that are separated by a large single copy (LSC) region of 86,247 bp, and a small single copy (SSC) region of 17,937 bp. A total of 132 functional genes were annotated, including 88 protein-coding genes, 36 tRNA genes, and eight rRNA genes. The Neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on complete chloroplast genomes suggested that S. oblata is most closely related to S. vulgaris.

Although commercial gas flow was produced in several wells with recent years' exploration of Longfengshan area in Changling fault sag, the formation mechanism and controlling factors for high-quality reservoirs still remained undefined. Here, the Yingcheng tight gas reservoirs of Longfengshan area are used as an example to characterize high-quality reservoir formation mechanism and distribution rules. Based on the thin section, SEM, X-ray diffraction, computed tomography (CT) scanning, burial history, constant-rate mercury penetration and physical properties testing, formation mechanism and controlling factors for high-quality reservoirs were analyzed. Results show the following characteristics. First, the reservoir is dominated by chlorite and laumontite cements, and compaction is the most important factor to control reservoir physical properties. According to this, the reservoir can be divided into compacted tight sandstones, chlorite-cemented sandstones and laumontite-cemented sandstones. Second, the high-quality reservoirs are formed due to early extensive laumontite precipitation and the later dissolution of laumontite by organic acid. Meanwhile, it is found that the distribution of cementation and dissolution exhibits some regulations in sedimentary facies, and the distribution is mainly effected and controlled by the lake water and charging of fresh water. Besides, the distribution model of various types of sandstones was established. Studies over diagenesis and sedimentary facies reveal that the high-quality laumontite-cemented sandstones exist in the outside subaqueous fan-delta of the deep sag in Longfengshan area. These findings have been validated by recent exploration wells which obtained high industrial gas flow.

Anisotropies in the elasticity, sound velocity, and minimum thermal conductivity of low borides VB, V5B6, V3B4, and V2B3 are discussed using the first-principles calculations. The various elastic anisotropic indexes (AU, Acomp, and Ashear), three-dimensional (3D) surface contours, and their planar projections among different crystallographic planes of bulk modulus, shear modulus, and Young’s modulus are used to characterize elastic anisotropy. The bulk, shear, and Young’s moduli all show relatively strong degrees of anisotropy. With increased B content, the degree of anisotropy of the bulk modulus increases while those of the shear modulus and Young’s modulus decrease. The anisotropies of the sound velocity in the different planes show obvious differences. Meanwhile, the minimum thermal conductivity shows little dependence on crystallographic direction.

Human interaction recognition technology is a hot topic in the field of computer vision, and its application prospects are very extensive. At present, there are many difficulties in human interaction recognition such as the spatial complexity of human interaction, the differences in action characteristics at different time periods, and the complexity of interactive action features. The existence of these problems restricts the improvement of recognition accuracy. To investigate the differences in the action characteristics at different time periods, we propose an improved fusion time-phase feature of the Gaussian model to obtain video keyframes and remove the influence of a large amount of redundant information. Regarding the complexity of interactive action features, we propose a multi-feature fusion network algorithm based on parallel Inception and ResNet. This multi-feature fusion network not only reduces the network parameter quantity, but also improves the network performance; it alleviates the network degradation caused by the increase in network depth and obtains higher classification accuracy. For the spatial complexity of human interaction, we combined the whole video features with the individual video features, making full use of the feature information of the interactive video. A human interaction recognition algorithm based on whole–individual detection is proposed, where the whole video contains the global features of both sides of action, and the individual video contains the individual detail features of a single person. Making full use of the feature information of the whole video and individual videos is the main contribution of this paper to the field of human interaction recognition and the experimental results in the UT dataset (UT–interaction dataset) showed that the accuracy of this method was 91.7%.

Aimed at the application problem of timing synchronization algorithm in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system, an improved algorithm for TD-LTE downlink time synchronization was proposed. It utilizes statistical energy difference and correlation of cyclic prefix to improve the system performance, which reduces the computational complexity, and can detect the cyclic prefix types. The simulation results demonstrate that the performance of the new method is excellent in multi-path fading channels, especially in the case of small SNR. And it is robust against the normalized frequency offset and Doppler shift.

Objective: To explore the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in combination with systemic family therapy (SFT) on mild to moderate postpartum depression and sleep quality. Methods: 249 primiparous women with mild to moderate postpartum depression were recruited and randomly assigned to a control group (n=128), which received conventional postpartum care, or to a psychological intervention group (n=121), which received conventional postpartum care combined with psychological intervention. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were employed to evaluate depression and sleep quality, respectively. Results: 104 patients in the intervention group and 109 in the control group completed the study. After intervention, the EPDS score, PSQI score, sleep quality score, sleep latency score, sleep duration score, habitual sleep efficiency score, sleep disturbance score, and daytime dysfunction score were significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group. The EPDS and PSQI scores of each group at different time points after intervention were markedly decreased compared with those before intervention, and the reduction in the intervention group was more evident than that in the control group. Conclusion: CBT in combination with SFT can improve depression and sleep quality in patients with mild to moderate postpartum depression.

The fast increase of users in existing mobile networks requires more base stations (BSs) to bear more communication traffic. Future heterogeneous network is considered to be a promising candidate architecture to meet the demands of wireless networks under scarcity of radio frequency (RF) resources. In this paper, we present a multi-mode relay (MMR) model based on two-way relay technology, which is applied to heterogeneous hierarchical wireless networks (HHWN), and set up a system model of HHWN with 3 tiers, 2 users between the macrocell, and the picocell as the multi-mode relay (MMR). Specifically, we consider the new system with unequal relay emission power situation, which is usually researched in the traditional literature with equal relay emission powers. Based on this idea, we define the two-way SINR ratio, derive the mathematical formulas of outage error probability with channel estimation errors, and verify theoretical expressions by data simulations. For further comparison, several experiments are implemented to illuminate the effect on outage probability among different levels of relay emission power, noise power, and signal power. Furthermore, several conclusions are obtained, which have some meanings for implementing MMR in future heterogeneous networks.

The emerging engineering education conforms to the emergence of social and technological development,and presents new challenges to talent training.From the point of view of construction the training of computer majors,the construction of theoretical and practical teaching systems were discussed,and a reference for the training of information professionals under the new subject environment was provided,from the expansion of curriculum content to the practice and training link,and then to the platform of joint training of talents between universities and enterprises.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and its sequelae remain a major public health burden, but both HBV basic research and the development of antiviral therapeutics have been hindered by the lack of an efficient in vitro infection system. Recently, sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP) has been identified as the HBV receptor. We herein report that we established a NTCP-complemented HepG2 cell line (HepG2-NTCP12) that supports HBV infection, albeit at a low infectivity level following the reported infection procedures. In our attempts to optimize the infection conditions, we found that the centrifugation of HepG2-NTCP12 cells during HBV inoculation (termed "spinoculation") significantly enhanced the virus infectivity. Moreover, the infection level gradually increased with accelerated speed of spinoculation up to 1,000g tested. However, the enhancement of HBV infection was not significantly dependent upon the duration of centrifugation. Furthermore, covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA was detected in infected cells under optimized infection condition by conventional Southern blot, suggesting a successful establishment of HBV infection after spinoculation. Finally, the parental HepG2 cells remained uninfected under HBV spinoculation, and HBV entry inhibitors targeting NTCP blocked HBV infection when cells were spinoculated, suggesting the authentic virus entry mechanism is unaltered under centrifugal inoculation. Our data suggest that spinoculation could serve as a standard protocol for enhancing the efficiency of HBV infection in vitro.

The persistence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is maintained by the nuclear viral covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA), which serves as transcription template for viral mRNAs. Previous studies suggested that cccDNA contains methylation-prone CpG islands, and that the minichromosome structure of cccDNA is epigenetically regulated by DNA methylation. However, the regulatory effect of each CpG island methylation on cccDNA activity remains elusive. In the present study, we analyzed the distribution of CpG methylation within cccDNA in patient samples and investigated the impact of CpG island methylation on cccDNA-driven virus replication. Our study revealed the following observations: 1) Bisulfite sequencing of cccDNA from chronic hepatitis B patients indicated that CpG island I was seldom methylated, 2) CpG island II methylation was correlated to the low level of serum HBV DNA in patients, and in vitro methylation studies confirmed that CpG island II methylation markedly reduced cccDNA transcription and subsequent viral core DNA replication, 3) CpG island III methylation was associated with low serum HBsAg titers, and 4) Furthermore, we found that HBV genotype, HBeAg positivity, and patient age and liver fibrosis stage were also relevant to cccDNA CpG methylation status. Therefore, we clearly demonstrated that the status of cccDNA methylation is connected to the biological behavior of HBV. Taken together, our study provides a complete profile of CpG island methylation within HBV cccDNA and new insights for the function of CpG methylation in regulating HBV cccDNA transcription.