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Recently, organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) has been extensively studied as an emerging flexible electronic due to its high transconductance, biocompatibility, and capability of ion-to-electron transformation. To further promote the application of OECTs in bioelectronics, n-type and p-type conducting polymers with comparable performance are required. However, recent studies typically focus on the p-type OECTs, while the development of n-type OECT suffers from the instability and low electrical performance of the electron-transporting polymers. Here, a strategy to improve the n-type OECT transconductance that the construction of the carbon nanotube network in the channel to enhance the carrier transport efficiency was reported. The transconductance of poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL)/single-walled carbon nanotubes hybrid film OECT was improved by ~15 times of the pristine BBL OECTs, and the operational stability in the aqueous environment was also enhanced. Furthermore, the carbon nanotube network mitigates the transconductance degradation of the flexible devices induced by crack damage, and the mechanism of the performance enhancement was clarified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oligosaccharide binding on protein plays an important role in cellular signalling and recognition. Protein mutation can alter the binding strength and thus regulate the relevant processes. In this work, we investigated the interactions between the mannose oligosaccharides and the wild type and mutant forms of yeast flocculation protein Flo1p from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The binding strength of an oligosaccharide chain was estimated using molecular dynamics simulation and MM/GBSA binding free energy calculation, via the build-up of oligosaccharide from monosaccharide to disaccharide, trisaccharide and tetrasaccharide. At the protein-disaccharide stage, several mutation positions were identified via alanine scanning mutagenesis, leading to nine mutants, from which two mutants Q117N and Q117R were selected with significantly stronger binding free energies relative to the wild type protein. Furthermore, the two mutants also show enhanced binding at the trisaccharide and tetrasaccharide stages. Conformational stability and shape change were analysed to help understand the protein-oligosaccharide interactions. This study also presented a computational example to estimate the oligosaccharide binding strength using its terminal sugar residues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are associated with gut dysbiosis. However, the relationship between the gut microbiota and latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), sharing clinical and metabolic features with classic type 1 and type 2 diabetes, remains unclear. Here, we used a multiomics approach to identify the characteristics of the gut microbiota and metabolic profiles in patients with LADA.Research Design and Methods: This age- and sex-matched case-control study included 30 patients with LADA, 31 patients with classic type 1 diabetes, 30 patients with type 2 diabetes, and 29 healthy individuals. The gut microbiota profiles were identified through the 16S rRNA gene, and fecal and serum metabolites were measured through untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.Results: Patients with LADA had a significantly different structure and composition of the gut microbiota and their metabolites as well as a severe deficiency of short-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria. The gut microbiota structure of the patients with LADA was more similar to that of patients with type 1 diabetes who were positive for GAD antibody. We identified seven serum metabolite modules and eight fecal metabolite modules that differed between the LADA group and the other groups.Conclusions: The characteristic gut microbiota and related metabolites of patients with LADA are associated with autoantibodies, glucose metabolism, islet function, and inflammatory factors, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of LADA. Future longitudinal studies should explore whether modulating the gut microbiota and related metabolites can alter the natural course of autoimmune diabetes in the quest for new therapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Systemic inflammatory factors have been implicated in symptomatic hand osteoarthritis (OA). Gut microbiome dysbiosis promotes systemic inflammation. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the gut microbiome and the presence of symptomatic hand OA in a population‐based study. Methods: Study participants were subjects of the Xiangya Osteoarthritis Study, a community‐based observational study conducted in the Hunan Province of China. Symptomatic hand OA was defined as the presence of both symptoms and radiographic OA in the same hand. The gut microbiome was analyzed using 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing in stool samples. We examined the relation of α‐diversity, β‐diversity, relative abundance of taxa, and potential bacterial functional pathways to symptomatic hand OA. Results: A total of 1,388 participants (mean age 61.3 years, 57.4% women) were included in the study, of whom 72 had symptomatic hand OA (prevalence of symptomatic hand OA 5.2%). Beta‐diversity of the gut microbiome, but not α‐diversity, was significantly associated with the presence of symptomatic hand OA (P = 0.003). Higher relative abundance of the genera Bilophila and Desulfovibrio as well as lower relative abundance of the genus Roseburia was associated with symptomatic hand OA. Most functional pathways (i.e., those annotated in the KEGG Ortholog hierarchy) that were observed to be altered in participants with symptomatic hand OA belonged to the amino acid, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolic pathways. Conclusion: This large, population‐based study provides the first evidence that alterations in the composition of the gut microbiome were observed among study participants who had symptomatic hand OA, and a low relative abundance of Roseburia but high relative abundance of Bilophila and Desulfovibrio at the genus level were associated with prevalent symptomatic hand OA. These findings may help investigators understand the role of the microbiome in the development of symptomatic hand OA and could contribute to potential translational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a kind of renewable energy, wind energy is getting more and more attention with its advantage of rich, clean and environmentally sustainable. Stochastic volatility is the inherent property of wind energy and the essential factor hindering the development of wind power prediction research. In this paper, by considering the actual movement rule of wind energy described by Lorenz system, the Lorenz system and the wavelet decomposition were combined to improve the wind speed prediction models of BP, RBF, and Elman neural network for the first time, and a wind speed prediction model with the Lorenz system based on wavelet decomposition was established. The model has been compared with three traditional numerical prediction methods, proving that Lorenz disturbance model can get better prediction accuracy and can grasp the actual movement of wind more accurately. The research of this paper can make up for the neglect of the atmospheric system in the field of wind speed prediction, which is helpful to the large-scale development and utilization of wind energy resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is reported as a common and often fatal type of stroke accompanied with high morbidity and mortality, and it frequently results in long-lasting neurological dysfunctions. However, the pathogenesis that contributes to ICH has not been fully understood. Rnf112, also known as Znf179, is a member of the RING finger protein family. The expression of Rnf112 is abundant in the brain and is modulated during brain progression and development. The study aimed to explore the role of Rnf112 in brain injury after ICH, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms. The results indicated that ICH led to a significant decrease in Rnf112, which was confirmed in oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb)-incubated astrocytes and microglial cells. Moreover, the Rnf112 knockout (Rnf112−/−) mice and wild type (WT) mice induced by ICH were further employed. Compared to the WT/ICH group, Rnf112−/− mice exhibited accelerated brain injury, as evidenced by the increased brain water contents and neurological deficit scores (NDS). In comparison to WT/ICH group, a remarkable up-regulation in the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrotic factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and IL-1β, was observed in perihematoma tissues of Rnf112−/− mice on day 3 post-ICH. The process was along with promoted glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and Iba1 expression and reduced NeuN levels. Furthermore, ICH-induced increases in toll-like receptor (TLR)-4 and myeloid differentiation primary response protein (MyD88) expression were exacerbated by the loss of Rnf112. The phosphorylated expression of IKKα, inhibitor of NF-κB (IκBα) and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) induced by ICH in perihematoma tissues of mice was markedly enhanced in Rnf112−/− mice. Rnf112 repression-induced inflammatory response was verified in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-incubated glial cells. In contrast, over-expressing Rnf112 markedly attenuated ICH-induced brain injury by restraining inflammation via inactivating TLR-4/NF-κB pathway. In summary, our findings suggested that Rnf112 expression was highly involved in the progression of ICH, and targeting Rnf112 signaling might be a promising therapeutic strategy against ICH development. Highlights • Rnf112−/− mice exhibits accelerated brain injury and neuroinflammation. • Rnf112−/− promotes inflammation by enhancing TLR-4/NF-κB pathway. • Over-expressing Rnf112 attenuates brain injury after intracerebral hemorrhage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction for the article "Characteristics of the Gut Microbiota and Metabolism in Patients With Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults: A Case-Control Study" is presented, which is published in the previous issue of the periodical.

Disruption of the gut microbiota by high-fat diet (HFD) has been implicated in the development of obesity. It remains to be elucidated whether the HFD-induced shifts occur at the phylum level or whether they can be attributed to specific phylotypes; additionally, it is unclear to what extent the changes are reversible under normal chow (NC) feeding. One group (diet-induced obesity, DIO) of adult C57BL/6J mice was fed a HFD for 12 weeks until significant obesity and insulin resistance were observed, and then these mice were switched to NC feeding for 10 weeks. Upon switching to NC feeding, the metabolic deteriorations observed during HFD consumption were significantly alleviated. The second group (control, CHO) remained healthy under continuous NC feeding. UniFrac analysis of bar-coded pyrosequencing data showed continued structural segregation of DIO from CHO on HFD. At 4 weeks after switching back to NC, the gut microbiota in the DIO group had already moved back to the CHO space, and continued to progress along the same age trajectory and completely converged with CHO after 10 weeks. Redundancy analysis identified 77 key phylotypes responding to the dietary perturbations. HFD-induced shifts of these phylotypes all reverted to CHO levels over time. Some of these phylotypes exhibited robust age-related changes despite the dramatic abundance variations in response to dietary alternations. These findings suggest that HFD-induced structural changes of the gut microbiota can be attributed to reversible elevation or diminution of specific phylotypes, indicating the significant structural resilience of the gut microbiota of adult mice to dietary perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an environment-friendly technique, the water-based solution process has attracted numerous attention. Due to the ability to fabricate oxide semiconductor films for transistors with acceptable electric properties at relatively low temperatures (~200 °C lower compared with organic solvent), it has great potential in future display technology, and various correlation technologies are keeping emerging. Here, an efficient and facile water route thermal-assisted brush printing is demonstrated, which can be applied to fabricate the semiconductor layer of indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) by the solution process. The synergistic effects of thermal-annealing and brush printing on the film formation process were comprehensively investigated, implying the synergistic effects induce the acceleration of the evaporation of the precursor solvent and promotes the lower surface roughness of as-prepared thin-film, resulting in improved transistor properties. Mechanically, the proposed film-forming model of thermal-assisted brush printing is also elaborated, which is expected to be a general guideline for the solution processing of metal-oxide semiconductor thin-films. • Thermal-assisted brush printed In-Ga-Zn oxide thin-film transistors are achieved. • Electrical properties of short-time annealing transistors are improved. • Synergistic effect of thermal-annealing and brush-printing was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial summary: We provide a conceptual framework to establish a causal link between diet, gut microbiota, and health. Identifying the key strains that mediate microbe–host interactions and understanding the mechanisms involved and the ecology of these strains are critical to translating gut microbiome research into clinical applications and to advancing a new concept of "microbiome nutrition". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To demonstrate the causative role of gut microbiome in human health and diseases, we first need to identify, via next-generation sequencing, potentially important functional members associated with specific health outcomes and disease phenotypes. However, due to the strain-level genetic complexity of the gut microbiota, microbiome datasets are highly dimensional and highly sparse in nature, making it challenging to identify putative causative agents of a particular disease phenotype. Members of an ecosystem seldomly live independently from each other. Instead, they develop local interactions and form inter-member organizations to influence the ecosystem's higher-level patterns and functions. In the ecological study of macro-organisms, members are defined as belonging to the same "guild" if they exploit the same class of resources in a similar way or work together as a coherent functional group. Translating the concept of "guild" to the study of gut microbiota, we redefine guild as a group of bacteria that show consistent co-abundant behavior and likely to work together to contribute to the same ecological function. In this opinion article, we discuss how to use guilds as the aggregation unit to reduce dimensionality and sparsity in microbiome-wide association studies for identifying candidate gut bacteria that may causatively contribute to human health and diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power, as a new energy generation technology, has been applying widely and growing rapidly, which make it become the main force of renewable energy. However, wind speed sequence has its own character of the intermittent and uncertainty, which brings a great challenge to the safety and stability of the power grid, one of the valid ways solving the problem is improving the wind speed predicting accuracy. Therefore, given atmospheric disturbances, we firstly used empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to deal with the non-linear wind speed sequence, and combined with strong adaptive and self-learning ability of BP neural network, then, a wind speed prediction model, EMD-BP neural network based on Lorenz disturbance, was proposed. Finally, it was to made use of actual wind speed data to take a simulation experiment and explored the improvement effect of the preliminary forecasting sequence of wind speed influenced by Lorenz equation in the transient chaos and chaos. The results show that, the improved model weakened the random fluctuation of wind speed sequence, effectively corrected the wind speed sequences initial prediction values, and made a great improvement for the short-term wind speed prediction precision. This research work will help the power system dispatching department adjust the dispatching plan in time, formulate the wind farm control strategy reasonably, reduce the impact brought by wind power grid connection, increase the wind power penetration rate, and then promote the global energy power market innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective and design: An accumulating body of evidence has shown that gut microbiota is involved in regulating inflammation; however, it remains undetermined if and how gut microbiota plays an important role in modulating deep venous thrombosis (DVT), which is an inflammation-involved thrombotic event. Subjects: Mice under different treatments were used in this study. Methods and treatment: We induced stenosis DVT in mice by partially ligating the inferior vena cava. Mice were treated with antibiotics, prebiotics, probiotics, or inflammatory reagents to modulate inflammatory states, and their effects on the levels of circulating LPS and DVT were examined. Results: Antibiotic-treated mice or germ-free mice exhibited compromised DVT. Treatment of mice with either prebiotics or probiotics effectively suppressed DVT, which was accompanied with the downregulation of circulating LPS. Restoration of circulating LPS in these mice with a low dose of LPS was able to restore DVT. LPS-induced DVT was blocked by a TLR4 antagonist. By performing proteomic analysis, we identified TSP1 as one of the downstream effectors of circulating LPS in DVT. Conclusion: These results suggest that gut microbiota may play a nonnegligible role in modulating DVT by leveraging the levels of LPS in circulation, thus shedding light on the development of gut microbiota-based strategies for preventing and treating DVT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backgrounds: The respiratory microbiota and radiomics correlate with the disease severity and prognosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We aim to characterize the respiratory microbiota and radiomics features of COPD patients and explore the relationship between them. Methods: Sputa from stable COPD patients were collected for bacterial 16 S rRNA gene sequencing and fungal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) sequencing. Chest computed tomography (CT) and 3D-CT analysis were conducted for radiomics information, including the percentages of low attenuation area below − 950 Hounsfield Units (LAA%), wall thickness (WT), and intraluminal area (Ai). WT and Ai were adjusted by body surface area (BSA) to WT/ and Ai/BSA, respectively. Some key pulmonary function indicators were collected, which included forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), diffusion lung carbon monoxide (DLco). Differences and correlations of microbiomics with radiomics and clinical indicators between different patient subgroups were assessed. Results: Two bacterial clusters dominated by Streptococcus and Rothia were identified. Chao and Shannon indices were higher in the Streptococcus cluster than that in the Rothia cluster. Principal Co-ordinates Analysis (PCoA) indicated significant differences between their community structures. Higher relative abundance of Actinobacteria was detected in the Rothia cluster. Some genera were more common in the Streptococcus cluster, mainly including Leptotrichia, Oribacterium, Peptostreptococcus. Peptostreptococcus was positively correlated with DLco per unit of alveolar volume as a percentage of predicted value (DLco/VA%pred). The patients with past-year exacerbations were more in the Streptococcus cluster. Fungal analysis revealed two clusters dominated by Aspergillus and Candida. Chao and Shannon indices of the Aspergillus cluster were higher than that in the Candida cluster. PCoA showed distinct community compositions between the two clusters. Greater abundance of Cladosporium and Penicillium was found in the Aspergillus cluster. The patients of the Candida cluster had upper FEV1 and FEV1/FVC levels. In radiomics, the patients of the Rothia cluster had higher LAA% and WT/ than those of the Streptococcus cluster. Haemophilus, Neisseria and Cutaneotrichosporon positively correlated with Ai/BSA, but Cladosporium negatively correlated with Ai/BSA. Conclusions: Among respiratory microbiota in stable COPD patients, Streptococcus dominance was associated with an increased risk of exacerbation, and Rothia dominance was relevant to worse emphysema and airway lesions. Peptostreptococcus, Haemophilus, Neisseria and Cutaneotrichosporon probably affected COPD progression and potentially could be disease prediction biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Fecal DNA and occult blood testing have been gradually developed for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Comparison of different testing strategies for these methods in CRC screening is in urgent need. This study aims to examine the efficacy of different testing strategies including multi-target fecal DNA testing, qualitative and quantitative fecal immunoassay tests (FITs). Methods Fecal samples were collected from patients diagnosed by colonoscopy. Tests using fecal DNA, quantitative FIT or qualitative FIT were performed on same fecal samples. Efficiency of different testing strategies within different populations was investigated. Results For high-risk populations (CRC and advanced adenoma), the positive rate of the three methods alone was 74.3–80%; the positive predictive values (PPVs) ranged from 37.3% to 77.8%, and the negative predictive values (NPVs) ranged from 86.3% to 92.2%. For combined testing strategies, the positive rate was 71.4–88.6%, PPVs ranged from 38.3% to 86.2%, and NPVs ranged from 89.6% to 92.9%. Parallel fecal multi-target DNA test and quantitative FIT appears to be superior when using a combined testing strategy. For the normal population, no significant difference was identified in efficacy between these methods when used alone and in combination. Conclusions Single testing strategy among the three methods is more suitable for the general population screening, and the combined testing strategy is more suitable for high-risk populations screening. The use of different combination strategies may have superiority in CRC high-risk population screening, but cannot conclude significant differences which may be attributed to the small sample size, large samples controlled trials are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural disruption of gut microbiota and associated inflammation are considered important etiological factors in high fat diet (HFD)-induced metabolic syndrome (MS). Three candidate probiotic strains, Lactobacillus paracasei CNCM I-4270 (LC), L. rhamnosus I-3690 (LR) and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis I-2494 (BA), were individually administered to HFD-fed mice (108 cells day−1) for 12 weeks. Each strain attenuated weight gain and macrophage infiltration into epididymal adipose tissue and markedly improved glucose-insulin homeostasis and hepatic steatosis. Weighted UniFrac principal coordinate analysis based on 454 pyrosequencing of fecal bacterial 16S rRNA genes showed that the probiotic strains shifted the overall structure of the HFD-disrupted gut microbiota toward that of lean mice fed a normal (chow) diet. Redundancy analysis revealed that abundances of 83 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were altered by probiotics. Forty-nine altered OTUs were significantly correlated with one or more host MS parameters and were designated 'functionally relevant phylotypes'. Thirteen of the 15 functionally relevant OTUs that were negatively correlated with MS phenotypes were promoted, and 26 of the 34 functionally relevant OTUs that were positively correlated with MS were reduced by at least one of the probiotics, but each strain changed a distinct set of functionally relevant OTUs. LC and LR increased cecal acetate but did not affect circulating lipopolysaccharide-binding protein; in contrast, BA did not increase acetate but significantly decreased adipose and hepatic tumor necrosis factor-α gene expression. These results suggest that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium differentially attenuate obesity comorbidities in part through strain-specific impacts on MS-associated phylotypes of gut microbiota in mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) play a key role in intercellular communication. Cargo molecules carried by sEVs may affect the phenotype and function of recipient cells. Epithelial cancer cell‐derived sEVs, particularly those enriched in CD151 or tetraspanin8 (TSPAN8) and associated integrins, promote tumour progression. The mechanism of binding and modulation of sEVs to recipient cells remains elusive. Here, we used genetically engineered breast cancer cells to derive TSPAN8‐enriched sEVs and evaluated the impact of TSPAN8 on target cell membrane's diffusion and transport properties. The single‐particle tracking technique showed that TSPAN8 significantly promoted sEV binding via confined diffusion. Functional assays indicated that the transgenic TSPAN8‐sEV cargo increased cancer cell motility and epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). In vivo, transgenic TSPAN8‐sEV promoted uptake of sEVs in the liver, lung, and spleen. We concluded that TSPAN8 encourages the sEV‐target cell interaction via forced confined diffusion and significantly increases cell motility. Therefore, TSPAN8‐sEV may serve as an important direct or indirect therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fermentation of food components by microbes occurs both during certain food production processes and in the gastro-intestinal tract. In these processes specific compounds are produced that originate from either biotransformation reactions or biosynthesis, and that can affect the health of the consumer. In this review, we summarize recent advances highlighting the potential to improve the nutritional status of a fermented food by rational choice of food-fermenting microbes. The vast numbers of microbes residing in the human gut, the gut microbiota, also give rise to a broad array of health-active molecules. Diet and functional foods are important modulators of the gut microbiota activity that can be applied to improve host health. A truly multidisciplinary approach is required to increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying health beneficial effects that arise from the interaction of diet, microbes and the human body. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Calorie restriction (CR) and intermittent fasting (IF) can promote metabolic health through a process that is partially mediated by gut microbiota modulation. To compare the effects of CR and IF with different dietary structures on metabolic health and the gut microbiota, we performed an experiment in which mice were subjected to a CR or IF regimen and an additional IF control (IFCtrl) group whose total energy intake was not different from that of the CR group was included. Each regimen was included for normal chow and high-fat diet. Results: We showed that in normal-chow mice, the IFCtrl regimen had similar positive effects on glucose and lipid metabolism as the CR regimen, but the IF regimen showed almost no influence compared to the outcomes observed in the ad libitum group. IF also resulted in improvements, but the effects were less marked than those associate with CR and IFCtrl when the mice were fed a high-fat diet. Moreover, CR created a stable and unique gut microbial community, while the gut microbiota shaped by IF exhibited dynamic changes in fasting-refeeding cycles. At the end of each cycle, the gut microbiota of the IFCtrl mice was similar to that of the CR mice, and the gut microbiota of the IF mice was similar to that of the ad libitum group. When the abundance of Lactobacillus murinus OTU2 was high, the corresponding metabolic phenotype was improved regardless of eating pattern and dietary structure, which might be one of the key bacterial groups in the gut microbiota that is positively correlated with metabolic amelioration. Conclusion: There are interactions among the amount of food intake, the diet structure, and the fasting time on metabolic health. The structure and composition of gut microbiota modified by dietary regimens might contribute to the beneficial effects on the host metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power, as a potential new energy generation technology, is gradually developing towards to the mainstream energy in the world. However, the inherent random volatility of wind brings severe challenges to the safe operation of the grid and the reliability of power supply, one of the effective ways to solve the problem is to improve the accuracy of wind speed prediction. However, most of wind speed prediction model cannot well mine the inherent regularity of wind speed data. Therefore, this paper introduces variational mode decomposition (VMD) algorithm. And the Short-term Wind Speed Prediction Model based on GA-ANN improved by VMD is proposed, which can effectively improve the accuracy of wind speed prediction. Firstly, hierarchical cluster method in this paper is employed to extract the historical data with high similarity to the predicted day. And then the appropriate number of decompositions K is selected by judging the value of sample entropy, so that the extracted historical data is decomposed into K subsequences by the variational mode decomposition. Next, with the global optimization ability of genetic algorithm, the artificial neural network is optimized to improve the forecasting performance. Finally, the short-term wind speed forecasting model based on GA-ANN improved by VMD is employed to predict the wind speed of each subsequence and superimposed them to obtain the final wind speed prediction sequence. The results in this paper show that (1) the model can find the periodic fluctuation of wind speed through historical data by hierarchical cluster method, so that significantly improving the accuracy of short-term wind speed prediction; (2) for the wind speed prediction, the error value of GA-ANN model is smaller than that of BP neural network; (3) in view of the inherent nature of the wind, the model proposed in this paper can use VMD to decompose the wind speed signal to obtain different scale fluctuations or trends, so as to fully exploit the potential information of wind speed, and obtain more accurate prediction results. The research work can help the relevant departments of the power system to accurately assess the risk of power grid operation, make a reasonable generation plan, effectively reduce the cost of power operation, and then greatly promote the development of green energy. • Proposing a new windspeedprediction model named HC-VMD-GA-BPmodel. • Using hierarchical cluster methodtoselect the historical wind speed data. • VMD is introduced to decomposethe original wind speed sequence. • Artificial neural networkisoptimized by GA to improve the prediction performance. • The HC-VMD-GA-BP model is comparedwith other models to verify itseffectiveness and high prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gut microbiota is hypothesized to have a critical role in metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D). A traditional Chinese herbal formula, Gegen Qinlian Decoction (GQD), can alleviate T2D. To find out whether GQD modulates the composition of the gut microbiota during T2D treatment, 187 T2D patients were randomly allocated to receive high (HD, n=44), moderate (MD, n=52), low dose GQD (LD, n=50) or the placebo (n=41) for 12 weeks in a double-blinded trial. Patients who received the HD or MD demonstrated significant reductions in adjusted mean changes from baseline of fasting blood glucose (FBG) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) compared with the placebo and LD groups. Pyrosequencing of the V3 regions of 16S rRNA genes revealed a dose-dependent deviation of gut microbiota in response to GQD treatment. This deviation occurred before significant improvement of T2D symptoms was observed. Redundancy analysis identified 47 GQD-enriched species level phylotypes, 17 of which were negatively correlated with FBG and 9 with HbA1c. Real-time quantitative PCR confirmed that GQD significantly enriched Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, which was negatively correlated with FBG, HbA1c and 2-h postprandial blood glucose levels and positively correlated with homeostasis model assessment of β-cell function. Therefore, these data indicate that structural changes of gut microbiota are induced by Chinese herbal formula GQD. Specifically, GQD treatment may enrich the amounts of beneficial bacteria, such as Faecalibacterium spp. In conclusion, changes in the gut microbiota are associated with the anti-diabetic effects of GQD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic inflammation induced by endotoxin from a dysbiotic gut microbiota contributes to the development of obesity-related metabolic disorders. Modification of gut microbiota by a diet to balance its composition becomes a promising strategy to help manage obesity. A dietary scheme based on whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods, and prebiotics ( WTP diet) was designed to meet human nutritional needs as well as balance the gut microbiota. Ninety-three of 123 central obese volunteers ( BMI ≥ 28 kg m−2) completed a self-controlled clinical trial consisting of 9-week intervention on WTP diet followed by a 14-week maintenance period. The average weight loss reached 5.79 ± 4.64 kg (6.62 ± 4.94%), in addition to improvement in insulin sensitivity, lipid profiles, and blood pressure. Pyrosequencing of fecal samples showed that phylotypes related to endotoxin-producing opportunistic pathogens of Enterobacteriaceae and Desulfovibrionaceae were reduced significantly, while those related to gut barrier-protecting bacteria of Bifidobacteriaceae increased. Gut permeability, measured as lactulose/mannitol ratio, was decreased compared with the baseline. Plasma endotoxin load as lipopolysaccharide-binding protein was also significantly reduced, with concomitant decrease in tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and an increase in adiponectin. These results suggest that modulation of the gut microbiota via dietary intervention may enhance the intestinal barrier integrity, reduce circulating antigen load, and ultimately ameliorate the inflammation and metabolic phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fungal and bacterial microbiota play an important role in development of asthma. We aim to characterize airway microbiome (mycobiome, bacteriome) and functional genes in asthmatics and controls. Methods: Sputum microbiome of controls, untreated asthma patients and inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) receiving patients was detected using high throughput sequencing. Metagenomic sequencing was used to examine the functional genes of microbiome. Results: 1. Mycobiome: α diversity was lower in untreated asthma group than that in controls. Mycobiome compositions differed among the three groups. Compared with controls, untreated asthma group has higher abundance of Wallemia, Mortierella and Fusarium. Compared with untreated asthma patients, ICS receiving patients has higher abundance of Fusarium and Mortierella, lower frequency of Wallemia, Alternaria and Aspergillus. 2. Bacteriome: α diversity was lower in untreated asthma group than that in controls. There are some overlaps of bacteriome compositions between controls and untreated asthma patients which were distinct from ICS receiving patients. Untreated asthma group has higher Streptococcus than controls. 3. Potential fungal and bacterial biomarkers of asthma: Trametes, Aspergillus, Streptococcus, Gemella, Neisseria, etc. 4. Correlation network: There are dense and homogenous correlations in controls but a dramatically unbalanced network in untreated asthma and ICS receiving patients, which suggested the existence of disease-specific inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom alterations. 5. Metagenomic analysis: functional pathways were associated with the status of asthma, microbiome and functional genes showed different correlations in different environment. Conclusion: We showed mycobiome and bacteriome dysbiosis in asthma featured by alterations in biodiversity, community composition, inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom network. We also observed several functional genes associated with asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The DNA phosphorothioate (PT) modification existing in many prokaryotes, including bacterial pathogens and commensals, confers multiple characteristics, including restricting gene transfer, influencing the global transcriptional response, and reducing fitness during exposure to chemical mediators of inflammation. While PT-containing bacteria have been investigated in a variety of environments, they have not been studied in the human microbiome. Here, we investigated the distribution of PT-harboring strains and verified their existence in the human microbiome. We found over 2000 PT gene-containing strains distributed in different body sites, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. PT-modifying genes are preferentially distributed within several genera, including Pseudomonas, Clostridioides, and Escherichia, with phylogenic diversities. We also assessed the PT modification patterns and found six new PT-linked dinucleotides (CpsG, CpsT, ApsG, TpsG, GpsC, ApsT) in human fecal DNA. To further investigate the PT in the human gut microbiome, we analyzed the abundance of PT-modifying genes and quantified the PT-linked dinucleotides in the fecal DNA. These results confirmed that human microbiome is a rich reservoir for PT-containing microbes and contains a wide variety of PT modification patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]