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With the aging of the population, sarcopenia has become more common. Studies have shown a broad association between liver disease and sarcopenia. However, this link remains unclear. Our study explored the link between NAFLD and sarcopenia and predicting the pathogenesis. To begin, we investigated the causal relationship and genetic correlation between them using MR and LDSC. Second, each GWAS was annotated by MAGMA. The annotated genes were analyzed for pleiotropy using the PLACO approach. Finally, functional analysis was conducted on the identified pleiotropic genes. We observed a significant genetic correlation between NAFLD and sarcopenia. Subsequently, we conducted gene-level pleiotropy analysis using PLACO and identified a total of 153 genes with pleiotropic effects. Functional analysis revealed enrichment of these genes in various tissues, including pancreas, liver, heart, blood, brain, and muscle, with involvement in cellular regulation, intracellular function, and antigen response. Moreover, our MR analysis provided evidence of a causal relationship between NAFLD and sarcopenia. Our study has discovered the genetic and causal relationships between NAFLD and sarcopenia, providing further insights into their pathophysiological mechanisms. The identification of pleiotropic genes also offers potential targets for future drug therapies aimed at controlling or treating NAFLD and sarcopenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A coating with pH-dependent Cu2+ release was granted on the Ti. • The coating was composed of polydopamine and silk protein, exhibiting outstanding biocompatibility in vivo and in vitro. • While simulating a large gathering of bacteria (slightly acidic conditions), the coating could set free abundant Cu2+ to strongly kill bacteria and achieve self-defense. The implantation of medical devices is frequently accompanied by the invasion of bacteria, which may lead to implant failure. Therefore, an intelligent and responsive coating seems particularly essential in hindering implant-associated infections. Herein, a self-defensive antimicrobial coating, accompanied by silk fibroin as a valve, was successfully prepared on the titanium (Ti-Cu@SF) for pH-controlled release of Cu2+. The results showed that the layer could set free massive Cu2+ to strive against E. coli and S. aureus for self-defense when exposed to a slightly acidic condition. By contrary, a little Cu2+ was released in the physiological situation, which could avoid damage to the normal cells and showed excellent in vitro pH-dependent antibiosis. Besides, in vivo experiment confirmed that Ti-Cu@SF could work as an antibacterial material to kill S. aureus keenly and display negligible toxicity in vivo. Consequently, the design provided support for endowing the layer with outstanding biocompatibility and addressing the issue of bacterial infection during the implantation of Ti substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a crucial computer vision task, multi-objective semantic segmentation has attracted widespread attention and research in the field of remote sensing image analysis. This technology has important application value in fields such as land resource surveys, global change monitoring, urban planning, and environmental monitoring. However, multi-target semantic segmentation of remote sensing images faces challenges such as complex surface features, complex spectral features, and a wide spatial range, resulting in differences in spatial and spectral dimensions among target features. To fully exploit and utilize spectral feature information, focusing on the information contained in spatial and spectral dimensions of multi-spectral images, and integrating external information, this paper constructs the CD-MQANet network structure, where C represents the Channel Creator module and D represents the Dual-Path Encoder. The Channel Creator module (CCM) mainly includes two parts: a generator block and a spectral attention module. The generator block aims to generate spectral channels that can expand different ground target types, while the spectral attention module can enhance useful spectral information. Dual-Path Encoders include channel encoders and spatial encoders, intended to fully utilize spectrally enhanced images while maintaining the spatial information of the original feature map. The decoder of CD-MQANet is a multitasking decoder composed of four types of attention, enhancing decoding capabilities. The loss function used in the CD-MQANet consists of three parts, which are generated by the intermediate results of the CCM, the intermediate results of the decoder, and the final segmentation results and label calculation. We performed experiments on the Potsdam dataset and the Vaihingen dataset. Compared to the baseline MQANet model, the CD-MQANet network improved mean F1 and OA by 2.03% and 2.49%, respectively, on the Potsdam dataset, and improved mean F1 and OA by 1.42% and 1.25%, respectively, on the Vaihingen dataset. The effectiveness of CD-MQANet was also proven by comparative experiments with other studies. We also conducted a thermographic analysis of the attention mechanism used in CD-MQANet and analyzed the intermediate results generated by CCM and LAM. Both modules generated intermediate results that had a significant positive impact on segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casein kinase 1α (CK1α) is present in multiple cellular organelles and plays various roles in regulating neuroendocrine metabolism. Herein, we investigated the underlying function and mechanisms of CK1α-regulated thyrotropin (thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)) synthesis in a murine model. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining were performed to detect CK1α expression in murine pituitary tissue and its localization to specific cell types. Tshb mRNA expression in anterior pituitary was detected using real-time and radioimmunoassay techniques after CK1α activity was promoted and inhibited in vivo and in vitro. Relationships among TRH/L-T4, CK1α, and TSH were analyzed with TRH and L-T4 treatment, as well as thyroidectomy, in vivo. In mice, CK1α was expressed at higher levels in the pituitary gland tissue than in the thyroid, adrenal gland, or liver. However, inhibiting endogenous CK1α activity in the anterior pituitary and primary pituitary cells significantly increased TSH expression and attenuated the inhibitory effect of L-T4 on TSH. In contrast, CK1α activation weakened TSH stimulation by thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) by suppressing protein kinase C (PKC)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)/cAMP response element binding (CREB) signaling. CK1α, as a negative regulator, mediates TRH and L-T4 upstream signaling by targeting PKC, thus affecting TSH expression and downregulating ERK1/2 phosphorylation and CREB transcriptional activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To effectively treat the pollutant in sewage, a new-type three-dimensional aerogel based on graphene oxide and waste paper was fabricated via simple mixing and freeze-drying processes. Therein, waste paper was activated in advance, and polyvinyl alcohol served as physical crosslinking agent. The results showed that the obtained aerogel with porous three-dimensional network structure exhibited good thermal stability. When it acted as adsorbent for treating organic dye (methylene blue) and antibiotic (ciprofloxacin), the adsorption process was explored. In single system, the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models were used to discuss the detail about the aerogel adsorbing pollutant. Moreover, the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were applied to describe the equilibrium isotherms and calculate the isotherm constants. Thermodynamic results stated that the adsorption of pollutant onto aerogel was feasible and spontaneous. In binary system, the adsorption capacity of methylene blue by aerogel increased, while the adsorption capacity of ciprofloxacin by aerogel declined. The pseudo-second-order kinetics was consistent with the adsorption of pollutant by aerogel in such binary system. This study would provide a new boulevard to develop environmental, low-cost and high-efficiency adsorbent for removing pollutant from wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with gastrointestinal cancer often suffer from malnutrition during tumor progression. Malnutrition is associated with postoperative complications and decreased quality of life. Supporting cancer patients with proper nutrition is vital for improving their prognoses. Method: Google scholar and PubMed database searches were performed. Selection criteria included gastrointestinal cancer, surgery, ω − 3 fatty acids, randomized clinical trials from 2007 to August 2022. Conclusion: Nutritional therapy includes nutritional counseling, enteral nutrition, parenteral nutrition, and oral nutritional supplements. Immune nutrients like glutamine and ω-3 fatty acid have been demonstrated with benefits in reducing inflammatory responses and postoperative complications, regulating immune function and improving prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an optical-acoustic means to excite broadband terahertz antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin wave in a metal/insulator/antiferromagnet heterostructure. The AFM spin wave is excited by an ultrafast strain wave triggered by a femtosecond pulsed laser based on photoacoustic conversion. This spin wave comprises an AFM exchange spin wave and a magnetoelastic spin wave. Their dispersion curves are overlapped in a wide frequency range by manipulating the Dzyaloshinskiiâ€"Moriya interaction, which is accompanied by lifting the degeneration of the spin-wave modes with opposite chirality. This optical-acoustic excitation of spin waves exploits the laser-induced ultrafast strain waves and avoids the thermal effect from the laser. It paves a way to develop novel AFM devices that can apply for ultrafast information processing and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MicroRNA-7a2 (miR-7a2) plays fundamental roles in the female reproductive axis, and estrogen is indispensable for maintaining ovary function. However, the interaction between miR-7a2 and ovarian function is unclear. The present study aimed to determine whether and how miR-7a2 functions in estrogen synthesis. Firstly, the results verified that miR-7a was highly expressed in ovarian granulosa cells. The knockout (KO) of miR-7a2 caused infertility and abnormal ovarian function in mice. Concomitantly, the Cyp19a1 expression and estrogen synthesis were significantly inhibited, which was validated in primary granulosa cells. The mice transplanted with miR-7a2 KO ovaries showed similar results; however, estrogen supplementation reversed infertility. In the in vitro experiment, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) significantly improved the expression of miR-7a and Cyp19a1 and the synthesis of estrogen. However, the miR-7a2 KO markedly reversed the function of FSH. Also, FSH upregulated miR-7a by activating the (c-Jun N-terminal kinase) JNK signaling pathway. In addition, Golgi apparatus protein 1 (Glg1) was shown to be the target gene of miR-7a2. These findings indicated that miR-7a2 is essential for ovarian functions with respect to estrogen synthesis through the targeted inhibition of the expression of Glg1 and then promoting Cyp19a1 expression; the physiological process was positively regulated by FSH via the JNK signaling pathway in granulosa cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pituitary gland is inhabited by a subpopulation of SOX2+ stem cells. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying pituitary stem cell development remain poorly understood. In this study, we demonstrate that microRNA-7a (miR-7a) is enriched in the developing pituitary and is spatiotemporally expressed in the pituitary stem cells. Constitutive deletion of mir-7a2 in mice results in pituitary dysplasia emerging during birth, which is primarily manifested as malformed anterior lobes. Using immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, or in situ hybridization, we observe that the specification of hormone-expressing cells is not impeded post mir-7a2 deletion at birth, although the terminal differentiation of gonadotropes is inhibited. Further investigation of neonatal and adult pituitaries in mir-7a2 knockout mice reveals an expansion of the SOX2+ pituitary stem cell compartment. The inhibition of epithelial–mesenchymal like transition seems to be responsible for this phenotype, rather than abnormal proliferation or apoptosis. Furthermore, our data suggest that Gli3 and Ckap4 are potential targets of miR-7a in pituitary stem cells. In summary, our results identify miR-7a2 as a crucial factor involved in pituitary stem cell development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid activation of phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) occurs early after the stimulation of biotic and abiotic stress in plants, which directly associated with the calcium channel-induced calcium ion (Ca2+) influx. Exogenous calcium chloride (CaCl 2) mediates the calcium signaling transduction to promote the γ-aminobutyric acid accumulation and nutritional quality in shredded carrots whereas the generation mechanism remains uncertain. Therefore, the involvement of PI-PLC-associated phospholipid metabolism was investigated in present study. Our result revealed that CaCl 2 treatment promoted the expression and activity of PI-PLC and increased the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate and hexakisphosphate content in shredded carrots. The transcripts of multi-glutamate receptor-like channels (DcGLRs), the glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) content, and Ca2+ influx were induced by CaCl 2 treatment in shredded carrots during storage. However, PI-PLC inhibitor (U73122) treatment inhibited the activation of PI-PLC, the increase of many DcGLRs family genes expression levels, and Ca2+ influx. Moreover, the identification of DcPI-PLC4/6 and DcGLRs proteins, along with the analysis of characteristic domains such as PLCXc, PLCYc, C2 domain, transmembranous regions, and ligand binding domain, suggests their involvement in phospholipid catalysis and calcium transport in carrots. Furthermore, DcPI-PLC4/6 overexpression in tobacco leaves induced the Ca2+ influx by activating the expressions of NtGLRs and the accumulation of glutamate and GABA. These findings collectively indicate that CaCl 2 treatment-induced PI-PLC activation influences DcGLRs expression levels to mediate cytosolic Ca2+ influx, thus, highlighting the "PI-PLC-GLRs-Ca2+" pathway in calcium signaling generation and GABA biosynthesis in shredded carrots. • CaCl 2 activated the PI-PLC activity and gene expression in shredded carrots. • CaCl 2 treatment induced the IP3 and IP6 accumulation in shredded carrots. • CaCl 2 promoted the DcGLRs expressions and calcium influx in shredded carrots. • DcPI-PLC4/6 overexpression increased the NtGLRs transcripts and glutamate content. • DcPI-PLC4/6 overexpression promoted the Ca2+ and GABA content in tobacco leaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Glutamate treatment alleviated whitening development in fresh-cut carrots. • Glutamate maintained total carotenoid content in fresh-cut carrots. • Glutamate stimulated a rapid accumulation of GABA in fresh-cut carrots. • Glutamate treatment increased phenolics content of fresh-cut carrots. • ROS scavenging system was activated by glutamate treatment in fresh-cut carrots. The effects of exogenous glutamate treatment on the quality attributes, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) shunt, phenylpropanoid pathway, and antioxidant capacity of fresh-cut carrots were investigated. Results showed that glutamate treatment suppressed the increases in lightness and whiteness values, inhibited the degradation of total carotenoids and maintained better flavor and taste in fresh-cut carrots. Moreover, glutamate treatment rapidly promoted the activities of glutamate decarboxylase and GABA transaminase, thus improving the GABA content. It also significantly enhanced the activities of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, cinnamate-4-hydroxylase, and 4-coumarate coenzyme A ligase and promoted the accumulation of total phenolics as well as the main individual phenolic compounds, including chlorogenic and caffeic acid. In addition, glutamate application activated the reactive oxygen system-related enzyme including peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, and catalase activities to maintain higher antioxidant capacity in fresh-cut carrots. These results demonstrated that exogenous glutamate treatment maintained better nutritional quality and alleviated color deterioration by accelerating the accumulation of GABA and phenolics and enhancing the antioxidant capacity in fresh-cut carrots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge graph embedding is a widely used technique that represents entities and relations in a low-dimensional space to predict missing links in knowledge graphs. However, most existing knowledge graph embedding methods focus solely on modeling multiple relation patterns, such as symmetry/antisymmetric, inversion, and composition, while ignoring semantic hierarchies consisting in real-world scenes. This limitation leads to inaccurate embeddings of entities and relations, which, in turn, negatively affects downstream tasks. To address this issue, we present a novel model, named Dual Hierarchical scaling Knowledge graph Embedding (DHKE), which maps entities and relations into complex space to model semantic hierarchies and relation patterns simultaneously. DHKE treats the embeddings of entities as their semantic hierarchies, and allocates two scaling vectors to each relation to enable transformations between hierarchies. Furthermore, DHKE assigns a rotation vector to each relation to distinguish between entities at the same semantic hierarchy and to model multiple relation patterns. Our experimental results and analysis indicate that DHKE outperforms existing methods and that DHKE is capable of modeling both semantic hierarchies and multiple relation patterns simultaneously. Notably, DHKE can capture semantic hierarchies of entities without extra information about entities, which are more suitable for real-world data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-grade roads have complex features such as geometry, reflection spectrum, and spatial topology in remotely sensing optical images due to the different materials of those roads and also because they are easily obscured by vegetation or buildings, which leads to the low accuracy of low-grade road extraction from remote sensing images. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel deep learning network referred to as SDG-DenseNet as well as a fusion method of optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data on decision level to extract low-grade roads. On one hand, in order to enlarge the receptive field and ensemble multi-scale features in commonly used deep learning networks, we develop SDG-DenseNet in terms of three modules: stem block, D-Dense block, and GIRM module, in which the Stem block applies two consecutive small-sized convolution kernels instead of the large-sized convolution kernel, the D-Dense block applies three consecutive dilated convolutions after the initial Dense block, and Global Information Recovery Module (GIRM) combines the ideas of dilated convolution and attention mechanism. On the other hand, considering the penetrating capacity and oblique observation of SAR, which can obtain information from those low-grade roads obscured by vegetation or buildings in optical images, we integrate the extracted road result from SAR images into that from optical images at decision level to enhance the extraction accuracy. The experimental result shows that the proposed SDG-DenseNet attains higher IoU and F1 scores than other network models applied to low-grade road extraction from optical images. Furthermore, it verifies that the decision-level fusion of road binary maps from SAR and optical images can further significantly improve the F1, COR, and COM scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine whether BMS‐202 can disrupt the pituitary gland and reproductive system. BMS‐202 (2.5 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally into adult female mice every 96 h for four times. Real‐time polymerase chain reaction, western blotting, double immunofluorescence staining and radioimmunoassays (RIA) were used to study the expressions of programmed death receptor 1 (PD‐1) and programmed death ligand 1 (PD‐L1), and detect changes after BMS‐202 treatment in the mouse pituitary gland. PD‐1 and PD‐L1 were expressed in the mouse pituitary gland. Further functional studies demonstrated that BMS‐202 inhibited the synthesis and secretion of gonadotropins and prolonged the estrous cycle in mice. Moreover, the increases of cleaved caspase3 (c‐caspase3) protein level both in vivo and in vitro indicated that BMS‐202 induced apoptosis. Additionally, the effects of BMS‐202 on follicle‐stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone mRNA levels were blocked by a p38 MAPK inhibitor. Of note, the inhibition of p38 MAPK pathway decreased the apoptosis induced by BMS‐202. BMS‐202, as a drug which inhibits the formation of the PD‐1/PD‐L1 complex, disrupts the normal function of the pituitary gland. Importantly, the results confirmed the potential insecurity of BMS‐202 in the pituitary gland and provided data to support the evaluation of its clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carotenoid oxidative cleavage is a significant factor contributing to the color changes of shredded carrots and treatment with calcium chloride (CaCl 2 , 1% w/v) has been observed to alleviate the whitening symptom and color loss. However, the specific mechanism by which CaCl 2 treatment suppresses carotenoid degradation remains unclear. In this study, the effect of CaCl 2 and EGTA (calcium ion chelating agent) treatment on carotenoid biosynthesis and degradation in shredded carrots and the mechanism involved was investigated. CaCl 2 treatment promoted the expression and activity of carotenoid biosynthetic enzyme (phytoene synthase, PSY), but inhibited the increases of the degradative enzyme activity of carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase (CCD) and down-regulated the corresponding transcripts, thus delayed the degradation of total carotenoid and maintaining higher levels of major carotenoid compounds including β-carotene, α-carotene, lycopene, and lutein in shredded carrots during storage. However, EGTA treatment promoted the gene expression and enzyme activity of CCD and increased the degradation of carotenoid compounds in shredded carrots during storage. Furthermore, the CaCl 2 treatment induced DcCAMTA4, identified as a calcium decoder in shredded carrots, which, in turn, suppressed the expressions of DcCCD1 and DcCCD4 by interacting with their promoters. The transient overexpression of DcCAMTA4 in tobacco leaves led to reduced expression of NtCCD1 and NtCCD4 , maintaining a higher content of carotenoids. Thus, CaCl 2 alleviated the oxidative cleavage of carotenoids in shredded carrots through the DcCAMTA4-mediated carotenoid degradation pathway. [Display omitted] • CaCl 2 application alleviated the degradation of carotenoids in shredded carrots. • α-Carotene and β-carotene are two main carotenoid compounds in orange carrots. • Exogenous CaCl 2 induced a significant expression of DcCAMTA4 in shredded carrots. • DcCAMTA4 inhibited the transcription of DcCCD1 and DcCCD4. • DcCAMTA4 decreased the total carotenoids content by down-regulating NtCCDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flesh softening is closely related to the quality of postharvest produces. Although the use of calcium chloride (CaCl 2) has been shown to inhibit fruit softening, the underlying molecular mechanisms have remained unclear. In our present investigation, CaCl 2 treatment resulted in an enhancement of cytosolic free Ca2+ and polysaccharide contents, firmness, and the integrity of the cell wall structure, particularly evident in the denser middle lamella of fresh-cut cantaloupe. CaCl 2 treatment also inhibited the cell wall degrading enzyme activities and gene expressions. Moreover, CmCAMTA2 could identify and bind to the CG-box structure of CmCellulase , Cmα-Gal3 , and Cmβ-Glu12 , thereby suppressing their transcription. In conclusion, current findings illustrated that CaCl 2 treatment triggered CmCAMTA2-mediated transcriptional suppression on cell wall degrading genes, inhibited the polysaccharide component degradation, and maintained better structure integrity of the cell wall, thereby delaying the flesh softening of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 application delayed flesh softening of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 maintained the structure integrity of cell wall in fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 lessened the polysaccharide component degradation of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 treatment stimulated Ca2+ accumulation and the expression of CmCAMTA2. • Cell wall degradation was negatively modulated by Ca2+-CAMTA2 signal pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whitening and microbial infection are two major reasons to induce quality deterioration in fresh-cut carrots. Calcium chloride (CaCl 2) could enhance the quality attributes in fresh-cut carrots, but the molecular mechanism is still not illuminated. In this study, CaCl 2 treatment suppressed the increases of whiteness index and total bacterial count as well as enhanced the antioxidant capacity of fresh-cut carrots. In addition, CaCl 2 treatment promoted phenolics accumulation by upregulating the transcripts and enzyme activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), cinnamate-4-hydroxylase (C4H) and 4-coumarate coenzyme A ligase (4CL) in phenylpropanoid pathway. However, this treatment inhibited the increase of enzyme activity and gene expression of cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD), thus suppressing lignin synthesis and whitening process in fresh-cut carrots. Moreover, a calmodulin-binding transcription activator (CAMTA) transcription factor DcCAMTA3, was induced in response to CaCl 2 treatment. DcCAMTA3 activated the transcription of DcPAL1 , DcC4H and Dc4CL1 genes and repressed the expression of DcCAD1 gene by directly targeting the CG-box. DcCML3/11, a calmodulin-like protein, interacted with DcCAMTA3, and this interaction enhanced DcCAMTA3-mediated transcriptional activation of DcPAL1 , DcC4H and Dc4CL1 and repression of DcCAD1. Therefore, CaCl 2 treatment is effective in maintaining quality and enhancing antioxidant capacity of fresh-cut carrots by the cooperative action of DcCMLs and DcCAMTA3 in positively regulating phenylpropanoid pathway. [Display omitted] ● Exogenous CaCl 2 enhanced the antioxidant capacity of fresh-cut carrots. ● CaCl 2 treated-fresh-cut carrots showed higher phenolic compounds content. ● CaCl 2 application delayed the whitening process in fresh-cut carrots. ● DcCML3 and DcCML11 protein physically interacted with DcCAMTA3. ● Phenylpropanoid metabolism modulated by CMLs-CAMTA3 signal transduction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate prediction of fatigue life of asphalt mixture is the key to the design of long-lasting durable pavement. Currently, a critical aspect influencing the accuracy of life prediction methods for asphalt mixtures, based on Viscoelastic Continuum Damage Mechanics (VECD), is the precision of the damage characteristic (C-S) curve. Within the VECD framework, the C-S curve of asphalt mixture is regarded as an intrinsic material property. However, it has been observed in engineering applications that the C-S curve of the material exhibits notable sensitivity to varying loading conditions. The nonlinear fitting method based on a small number of experiments is difficult to fully characterize the fatigue performance of the material, while a large number of complete material fatigue tests are expensive in time and money. Based on the above problems, a physics-informed neural network embedded in VECD, PINN-AFP, is proposed. It can accurately predict the complete material C-S curve based on a small amount of pre-fatigue data of the material, thus achieving accurate prediction of the fatigue life of asphalt mixture. The case study uses the fatigue test data of AC-25 as an example, and the results demonstrate that the proposed PINN-AFP has strong generalization ability and prediction accuracy, achieving the state-of-the-art in the mainstream machine learning and deep learning methods with an average 5.2% fatigue life prediction error. • A mechanics-data dual driven paradigm for asphalt mixture fatigue prediction is proposed. • A new model PINN-AFP is proposed which combines ANN and VECD. • A dual-path multi-attention network structure has been proposed. • Random-step time series and its related post-processing module are introduced in PINN-AFP. • PINN-AFP achieved the best performance with a 3.6% prediction error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of calcium chloride (CaCl 2) treatment on γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) accumulation in fresh-cut cantaloupe and the involved mechanisms were investigated. The result showed that 1% (w/v) CaCl 2 treatment increased GABA content and activities of glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) and succinate semialdehyde dehydrogenase (SSADH), while decreased glutamate (Glu) content and GABA transaminase (GABA-T) activities in fresh-cut cantaloupe. CmCML11 and CmCAMTA5 expressions of CaCl 2 -treated fruit increased by 187.4% and 165.6% than control fruit in the initial 6 h. Besides, expressions of GABA shunt genes, including CmGAD1 , CmGAD2 , CmGABA-T and CmSSADH were also up-regulated by CaCl 2 treatment during early storage. Moreover, acting as a transcriptional activator, CmCAMTA5 could bind to the CG-box in promoters of CmGAD1 , CmGABA-T and CmSSADH and activate their transcription. Furthermore, the interaction between CmCML11 and CmCAMTA5 could enhance the transcriptional activation on GABA shunt genes which were regulated by CmCAMTA5. Collectively, our findings revealed that CaCl 2 treatment promoted GABA accumulation in fresh-cut cantaloupe via the combined effect of CmCML11 and CmCAMTA5 in the regulation of expressions of CmGAD1 , CmGABA-T , and CmSSADH in GABA shunt. [Display omitted] • CaCl 2 treatment could activate GABA shunt and enhance GABA content of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 treatment up-regulated the expressions of CmCML11 and CmCAMTA5. • CmCML11 protein physically interacted with CmCAMTA5. • GABA shunt was positively regulated by Ca2+-CML11-CAMTA5 signal transduction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenolics are secondary metabolites in plants. Calcium chloride (CaCl 2) application could promote phenolics accumulation whereas the molecular mechanism remains uncertain. In this study, CaCl 2 treatment reinforced the increase of individual phenolic acid content, PAL, C4H and 4CL activities and activated related expressions of CmPAL1 , CmPAL2 , CmPAL3 , CmC4H1 , CmC4H2 , CmC4H3 , Cm4CL1 and Cm4CL2 in fresh-cut cantaloupe. The total phenolics, total flavonoids content and antioxidant capacity in CaCl 2 -treated fresh-cut cantaloupe were 39.53%, 33.33% and 23.08% higher than those in control fruit after 24 h of storage, respectively. In the meantime, CaCl 2 application elevated of H+-ATPase, Ca2+-ATPase, SDH, CCO activities and elicited the transcription of CmH + -ATPase4 , CmCa 2+ -ATPase2 , CmSDH5 and CmCCO6 genes in fresh-cut cantaloupe. Moreover, CmCAMTA4, an up-regulated calmodulin-binding transcription activator (CAMTA) induced by CaCl 2 was identified in fresh-cut cantaloupe. Further study suggested that CmCAMTA4 could bind the CG-box in the promoter region of CmPAL3 , Cm4CL1 and CmCCO6 to activate their transcription. In summary, these findings indicated that CaCl 2 treatment could activate the transcription of CmPAL3 , Cm4CL1 and CmCCO6 mediated by CmCAMTA4, which stimulated the phenylpropane pathway and maintained higher energy status, thus facilitating the biosynthesis of phenolics in fresh-cut cantaloupe during storage. • CaCl 2 treatment could enhance antioxidant capacity, phenolics and flavonoids contents of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 treatment activated phenylpropane pathway and energy metabolism of fresh-cut cantaloupe. • CaCl 2 treatment up-regulated the expression of CmCAMTA4. • Phenolics accumulation was positively modulated by Ca2+-CAMTA4 signal transduction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite cloud images play an important role in weather analysis and forecast. High‐resolution satellite images play a significant role in the study of mesoscale weather systems such as typhoons. With the increasing demands of locating and tracking techniques, the resolution of satellite images is no longer satisfactory. Enhancing their resolution with superresolution (SR) methods can help in identifying and locating weather systems. In this paper, we propose a multipath network model, called SRCloudNet, that involves joint training of a back‐projection network and a local residual network. SRCloudNet integrates features extracted from back‐projection units and residual dense blocks to achieve more accurate image reconstruction. We also developed a novel natural‐color cloud and contrail image data set, constituting the first‐ever satellite cloud image data set established for SR research. Because of the special features, contrail images were first used to test the performance of SRCloudNet. Extensive experiments demonstrated that SRCloudNet achieves superior performance. Plain Language Summary: Resolution is a crucial indicator for assessing the quality of satellite cloud images. Enhancing the image resolution by improving satellite sensors is straightforward but expensive and difficult to promote. The investigation of satellite cloud image superresolution (SR) is performed using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Reconstructing images using a traditional SR method causes blurring and loss of high‐frequency details. By contrast, ice clouds and water clouds that differ in texture because of their different properties can be effectively distinguished in a natural‐color RGB composite image. In this research, a natural‐color RGB composite satellite cloud image data set was created to train and test CNNs. Moreover, with consideration of the special features of contrails, a contrail satellite cloud image data set was developed for further testing CNNs. Enhancing the resolution of a contrail image is crucial for calculating contrail coverage and studying the contrail radiation effect. The proposed method, SRCloudNet, can outperform conventional satellite cloud image SR methods. Key Points: SRCloudNet is a multipath network with joint training of back‐projection and local residual networks for satellite image superresolutionWe build one natural‐color cloud image data set based on Himawari‐8 satellite high‐resolution albedo dataContrail images are first introduced to validate the performance of the proposed superresolution method [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many culture methods have been developed for Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica), scientific examination of the effects of culture methods upon the quality of the Eastern oysters is scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of oysters cultured by two different bio‐fouling control methods through characterizing the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the oysters. VOCs were extracted from oysters by headspace solid‐phase microextraction, coupled with GC/MS analysis. A total of 32 VOCs were detected in the oysters, among which nine compounds were related to the fresh aroma of oysters, while 7 compounds indicated the spoilage of oysters. By comparing the differences of VOCs between two different culture methods before and after a 25‐day cold storage, selected volatile compounds showed clear differences between oysters from the two culture methods. Moreover, the principle component analysis of the VOCs was capable to distinguish oysters from different culture methods and evaluate the freshness of oysters. It could be concluded that the bio‐fouling control treatment could improve the quality of oyster by extending the shelf life, while at the same time ensure the product's nutritional value of high contents of polysaccharide unsaturated fatty acids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jasminum sambac is a flower and usually used in food, cosmetics or other chemical industries for its unique flavour characteristics in China. However, molecular sensory technologies have not applied to identify aroma‐active compounds in J sambac concrete. In this study, gas chromatography‐olfactometry (GC‐O), gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry and solvent‐assisted flavour evaporation were applied to isolate the odorants in three Chinese J sambac concrete (E1, E2 and E3) obtained from different companies. A total of forty‐nine, forty‐eight, thirty‐nine odorants were screened by GC‐O with aroma extract dilution analysis in E1, E2 and E3, respectively. The higher flavour dilution (FD) factors were linalool (19 683‐59 049, floral), methyl anthranilate (6561‐19 683, grape‐like) and benzyl acetate (2187‐19 683, floral). Twenty‐two aroma compounds were quantitated by gas chromatography‐flame ionization detection with internal standard, and then their odour activity values were obtained. Linalool, cis‐3‐hexenyl acetate, linalyl acetate, eugenol and methyl salicylate contributed greatly to the aroma of J sambac concretes. The aroma recombination model was established by mixing twenty‐two key odorants based on their measured concentrations, and the result revealed that the overall aroma profile was similar to that of the original sample. These results proved basic data for improvement of the national standard of jasmine concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the existing stereo matching methods may fail in the regions of non-textures, boundaries and tiny details, a simplified independent component correlation algorithm (ICA)-based local similarity stereo matching algorithm is proposed. In order to improve the DispNetC, the proposed algorithm first offers the simplified independent component correlation algorithm (SICA) cost aggregation. Then, the algorithm introduces the matching cost volume pyramid, which simplifies the pre-processing process for the ICA. Also, the SICA loss function is defined. Next, the region-wise loss function combined with the pixel-wise loss function is defined as a local similarity loss function to improve the spatial structure of the disparity map. Finally, the SICA loss function is combined with the local similarity loss function, which is defined to estimate the disparity map and to compensate the edge information of the disparity map. Experimental results on KITTI dataset show that the average absolute error of the proposed algorithm is about 37% lower than that of the DispNetC, and its runtime consuming is about 0.6 s lower than that of GC-Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Encapsulating resveratrol in NPs improves its bioaccessibility. • Antioxidant activity of resveratrol in NPs is sustained after digestion. • Cytotoxicity of different NPs changes after digestion. • Bioactivities correlate with physicochemical properties under environmental stresses. Resveratrol loaded nanoparticles (nano-resveratrol) containing a zein core surrounded by surfactant (Tween-NPs) or carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS-NPs) shell were fabricated with different particle sizes, surface charges and colloidal stabilities. Changes of physicochemical properties for the two nano-resveratrols, as well as their antioxidant potentials and cytotoxicity were investigated during a static in vitro gastrointestinal tract (GIT) digestion. Results showed that the Tween-NPs had a much higher bioaccessibility (84.1 ± 19.2%) than that of CMCS-NPs (36.6 ± 4.2%) after the GIT digestion, which was expected due to the steric barrier of the CMCS coating. Both nano-resveratrols could sustained their antioxidant activities after digestion. However, the Tween-NPs had a significantly higher cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cells than CMCS-NPs and free resveratrol, while a reduction in cytotoxicity of Tween-NPs was observed after the digestion. The bioactivities results were well correlated with the physicochemical properties and dissolution of resveratrol under environmental stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential regulatory mechanisms of 1 % calcium chloride (CaCl 2) treatment on the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) accumulation of fresh-cut carrots were investigated. The results indicated that CaCl 2 application enhanced the contents of GABA shunt-related substances and activated the GABA shunt via enhancing the activities and genes expression of glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) and GABA transaminase (GABA-T). Moreover, CaCl 2 treatment enhanced the levels of [Ca2+] cyt , as well as up-regulated the expression of DcCaM7 and DcCAMTA6. However, the EGTA, a Ca2+ chelating agent treatment had the opposite effect on both GABA shunt and calcium signal-related components. Importantly, DcCaM7 interacted with DcCAMTA6 through an IQ motif, forming a heterodimer that facilitated the enhanced transcriptional regulation of DcCAMTA6 in the expression of DcGAD and DcGABA-T genes. Therefore, our results indicated that DcCaM7-DcCAMTA6 complex positively regulate GABA accumulation by activating GABA shunt in fresh-cut carrots. • CaCl2 treated-shredded carrots maintained higher GABA and glutamate content. • CaCl2 treatment activated GABA shunt and calcium signal of fresh-cut carrots. • CaCl2 promoted the expression of DcCaM7 and DcCAMTA6. • DcCaM7 protein physically interacted with DcGAD/DcCAMTA6. • GABA shunt modulated by Ca2 + -CaM7-CAMTA6 signal transduction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We fabricated a novel chitosan-carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) layer-by-layer assembly system to facilitate the postharvest quality of the fresh produce. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), TA-XT2 texture analyzer, water vapor permeability (WVP) analyzer, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were applied to compare the properties of chitosan and layer-by-layer assembly. The strategy involved the optimization of water vapor permeability, puncture strength, and elasticity properties of multiplayer polymer coating. Results showed that the lemon (Citrus limon (L.) Burm. f.), coated by chitosan-CMC layer-by-layer assembly, displayed significantly higher lemon firmness and vitamin C content with excellent morphology, as well as inhibited weight loss and flesh browning. This study could provide support for quality maintenance in the fruit and vegetable industry and make a significant contribution to the utilization of the natural polysaccharide as a viable resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of conversational machine reading comprehension (CMRC) is an extension of single-turn machine reading comprehension to multi-turn settings, to relflect the conversational way in which people seek information. The correlations between multiple rounds of questions mean that the conversation history is critical to solving the CMRC task. However, existing CMRC models ignore the interference that arises from using excessive historical information to answer the current question when incorporating the dialogue history into the current question. In this paper, an effective Question Selection Module (QSM) is designed to select most relevant historical dialogues when answering the current question through question coupling and coarse-to-fine matching. In addition, most existing approaches perform memory inference by stacked RNNs at context word level, without considering semantic information flowing in the direction of conversation flow. In view of this problem, we implement sequential recurrent reasoning at the turn level of the dialogue, where the turn information contains all the filtered historical semantics for the current step. We conduct experiments on two benchmark datasets, QuAC and CoQA, released by Stanford University. The results confirm that our model satisfactorily captures the valid history and performs recurrent reasoning, and our model achieves an F1-score of 83.0% on CoQA dataset and 67.8% on QuAC dataset, outperforming the best alternative model by 4.6% on CoQA and 2.7% on QuAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tensile and compressive differences of cement-stabilized aggregates (CSA) is assessed. • A fatigue criterion inspired by the yield and failure criteria was proposed. • A fatigue equation of CSA to unify different stress states was proposed. Stress state is one of the factors leading to the fatigue life prediction discrepancy of cement-stabilized aggregates (CSA) in laboratory and field pavement structures, therefore, a new fatigue criterion and fatigue life prediction method characterizing this effect is needed which was proposed in this study. Experimental fatigue tests with four loading modes, including uniaxial compression (UC), uniaxial tension (UT), indirect tension (IDT), and four-point bending (FPB) were conducted in several stress levels. The results suggest that the semi-log-linear equation is suitable for all four loading modes, however, the fatigue life of CSA in tension and compression at the same stress level or stress ratio greatly differs. Inspired by the yield and failure criteria theories, bulk stress, shear stress, and principal stress were introduced to establish the fatigue criterion, and accordingly to propose a novel fatigue equation based on the semi-log-linear form, which can unify fatigue life prediction at different stress states. Since the new prediction approach is in terms of stress rather than stress ratio, the process of measuring strength at hard-to-get complex stress states is avoided. Through verification, the proposed method exhibits high agreement with the experimental results of CSA from either this study or literature, and it is capable to characterize the fatigue life difference in tensile and compressive states. Besides, the new fatigue equation was demonstrated to apply to the interpolated data from traditional fatigue curves. In accordance with the loading cycles in experimental tests with addition of considering the applicability of the semi-log-linear equation, the proposed fatigue equation of CSA was justifiably effective at the fatigue cycles of 102 to 107. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antagonistic yeast induces postharvest disease resistance and delays fruit decay. Salicylic acid (SA), a signal molecule, is required for activating induced disease resistance in various harvested fruit. However, there is limited information about the transcriptional regulatory mechanism of SA biosynthesis in response to Rhizopus stolonifer in peaches. Our results showed that Pichia guilliermondii application promoted SA accumulation accompanied by increasing SA biosynthetic enzyme activity of PAL and ICS and upregulating transcripts of SA synthesis-related genes and defense genes, including PpPAL1 , PpPAL2 , PpICS1 , PpICS2 , PpCM1 , PpCM2 , PpCM3 , PpBA2H, PpSARD1 , PpCBP60g , PpPR1 , PpPR2 , and PpPR5. In addition, an R2R3 MYB transcription factor, PpMYB44, was induced in P. guilliermondii -peach fruit in response to fungal disease, and PpMYB44 was identified to mediate SA synthesis by binding to the promoters of PpPAL1 and PpSARD1. Furthermore, the transient overexpression of PpMYB44 in peach fruit reduced disease incidence and severity, upregulated the expression of SA synthesis-related genes (PpPAL1 and PpSARD1) and enhanced SA accumulation. Silencing of PpMYB44 in peach fruit increased disease incidence and severity, downregulated the transcript levels of PpPAL1 and PpSARD1 , and decreased SA accumulation. Thus, the study indicates that PpMYB44 regulates yeast-induced disease resistance by increasing the SA content in peaches. • P. guilliermondii promoted SA accumulation in peach for host defence. • PpMYB44 activated PpPAL1 and PpSARD1 expression. • P. guilliermondii up-regulated the expression of PpMYB44 gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate identification and quantification of coronary artery calcification play an import role in early diagnosis of coronary heart disease and atherosclerosis. In this paper, we have proposed an end-to-end joint learning framework (CAC-Net) for artery-specific coronary calcification identification in non-contrast cardiac CT. Unlike the previous methods, the framework establish direct mapping relationship between input CT and calcification, consequently, it can directly yield accurate results based on the given CT scans in testing process. In this framework, the intra-slice calcification features are collected by an U-DenseNet module, which is the combination of Dense Convolutional Network (DenseNet) and U-Net. Subsequently, 3D U-Net is performed to extract the inter-slice calcification feature. Joint learning of 2D and 3D module brings rich semantic features, which are beneficial to artery-specific calcification identification. In our experiment, 169 non-contrast CT exams collected from two centers are used to validate the performance of our framework. By the cross validation, we have achieved a sensitivity of 0.905, a PPV of 0.966 for calcification number and a sensitivity of 0.933, a PPV of 0.960 and a F1 score of 0.946 for calcification volume, respectively. The intra-class correlation coefficient are 0.986 for Agatston score and 0.982 for volume score. The quantitative results indicate that our method can be used as a reliable clinical diagnostic tool for coronary calcification identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Chemically binding water exists as terminal hydroxyls attached to Si-Al skeleton. • Hydrolysis weakens aluminate skeleton increasing the mobility of aluminum. • Na becomes stable due to the hydrolysis of aluminate skeleton and Na-OH formation. • Water attacks Si-Al skeleton weakening tensile property of NASH during tensile test. Abstract Sodium aluminosilicate hydrate (NASH) gel is the primary adhesive constituent in geopolymer. In the nanostructure of NASH gel, structural water has a great impact on the structure and mechanical properties of NASH. In this study, molecular dynamics simulation is utilized to investigate the effect of water on the structure, dynamics, and mechanical properties of NASH gel. The result shows that water molecules in NASH gel are physically and chemically bound to Si-Al framework by the formation of H-bond as well as Si-OH, Al-OH and Na-OH. These hydrolytic reactions result in the elongation of Al-O bond and the structural transformation from tetrahedral aluminum to pentahedral aluminum. The structural weakening caused by hydrolysis for aluminate skeleton leads to an increase in the mobility of aluminum and a decrease in the stability of Al-O bond. However, the sodium in NASH structure becomes stabilized as a result of the hydrolysis of aluminate skeleton and the formation of Na-OH. In contrast, silicate skeleton exhibits hydrophobic nature and not sensitive to water. Mechanically, hydrolytic reaction weakens the tensile performance of NASH gel by two mechanisms, which is promoting the de-polymerization of Si-Al framework during the tensile process, and preventing the re-polymerization of broken framework. Meanwhile, the de-polymerization of Si-Al framework can further promote hydrolytic reaction during the tensile testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A self-designed hot-air convective dryer coupled with contacting ultrasound system was used for the dehydration of garlic slices. Contacting ultrasound significantly accelerated the drying process. Compared with non-ultrasound treated samples, the drying time of garlic samples sonicated at 1513.5 W/m 2 was shortened by 35.0% at 50 °C, 48.5% at 60 °C and 50.0% at 70 °C. According to water transport simulation using a diffusion model considering sample shrinkage, both water effective diffusivity and external mass transfer coefficient were enhanced when garlic samples contacted ultrasound directly during drying. In the meantime, internal water diffusion was more affected by contacting ultrasound. Furthermore, contacting ultrasound had a positive effect on the preservation of organosulfur compounds in garlic slices during drying. The browning problem of garlic products during hot-air drying was also alleviated if contacting ultrasound treatment was performed properly. Besides, no over-heating problem was observed during contacting ultrasound enhanced drying within the studied experimental range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Clouds have an enormous influence on the Earth's energy balance, climate, and weather. Cloud types have different cloud radiative effects, which is an essential indicator of the cloud effect on radiation. Therefore, identifying the cloud type is important in meteorology. In this letter, we propose a new convolutional neural network model, called CloudNet, for accurate ground‐based meteorological cloud classification. We build a ground‐based cloud data set, called Cirrus Cumulus Stratus Nimbus, which consists of 11 categories under meteorological standards. The total number of cloud images is three times that of the previous database. In particular, it is the first time that contrails, a type of cloud generated by human activity, have been taken into account in the ground‐based cloud classification, making the Cirrus Cumulus Stratus Nimbus data set more discriminative and comprehensive than existing ground‐based cloud databases. The evaluation of a large number of experiments demonstrates that the proposed CloudNet model could achieve good performance in meteorological cloud classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Melatonin is a key hormone that regulates circadian rhythms, metabolism, and reproduction. However, the mechanisms of melatonin synthesis and secretion have not been fully defined. The purpose of this study was to investigate the functions of the LIM homeobox transcription factor Isl1 in regulating melatonin synthesis and secretion in porcine pineal gland. We found that Isl1 is highly expressed in the melatonin‐producing cells in the porcine pineal gland. Further functional studies demonstrate that Isl1 knockdown in cultured primary porcine pinealocytes results in the decline of melatonin and arylalkylamine N‐acetyltransferase (AANAT) mRNA levels by 29.2% and 72.2%, respectively, whereas Isl1 overexpression raised by 1.3‐fold and 2.7‐fold. In addition, the enhancing effect of norepinephrine (NE) on melatonin synthesis was abolished by Isl1 knockdown. The in vivo intracerebroventricular NE injections upregulate Isl1 mRNA and protein levels by about threefold and 4.5‐fold in the porcine pineal gland. We then examined the changes in Isl1 expression in the pineal gland and global melatonin levels throughout the day. The results show that Isl1 protein level at 24:00 is 2.5‐fold higher than that at 12:00, which is parallel to melatonin levels. We further found that Isl1 increases the activity of AANAT promoter, and the effect of NE on Isl1 expression was blocked by an ERK inhibitor. Collectively, the results presented here demonstrate that Isl1 positively modulates melatonin synthesis by targeting AANAT, via the ERK signaling pathway of NE. These suggest that Isl1 plays important roles in maintaining the daily circadian rhythm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviation induced cloud termed contrail plays a more and more important role in the climate change, which makes a significant contribution to anthropogenic climate forcing through impacting the coverage of cirrus in the intersection of troposphere and stratosphere. In this paper, we propose one novel automatic contrail detecting method based on Himawari-8 stationary satellite imagery and two kinds of potential contrail coverage (PCC1 and PCC2) from contrail parameterization in ECHAM4 and HadGEM2. In addition, we propose one new climatological index called contrail occurrence and persistence (COP). According to the algorithm identification (AI) and artificial visual inspection (AVI), COP measured from Himawari-8 stationary satellite imagery is related to upper tropospheric relative humidity over ice (RHI) computed with the ECMWF reanalysis data by simple linear regression. Similarly, we compared the linear correlation between COP and PCCs fractions and found that PCC1 has better correspondence with COP than PCC2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to evaluate the quality of oysters and whether a production method affects quality or not, a set of objective quantitative quality measures was developed. Eastern oysters ( Crassostrea virginica) were cultured using two different treatments (never desiccated or desiccated daily with tidal exposure) and the meats were tested by textural, physico-chemical and chemical analyses over a 25-day cold storage period. Texture analyses parameters (cutting force and chewiness on oyster adductor muscles) were strongly correlated with storage time before the death of oysters and could be used as a quality indicator for oyster. Total volatile basic nitrogen ( TVBN) could be used as freshness indicator for raw Eastern oysters, with the acceptability of 11 mg/100 g. Models for evaluating the quality of oysters were established that reflect the impact of a biofouling treatment on oyster's shelf life and texture attributes. The methods and quality indicators developed in this study were effective in evaluating the quality and freshness of Eastern oysters objectively, and could serve as routine quality check of oyster meat for the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A composite anion exchange membrane of crosslinked quaternized polyepichlorohydrin/polytetrafluoroethylene (CQPECH/PTFE) had been prepared via a green and facile method, where diethylamine, 1-methylimidazole and PTFE, respectively, served as crosslinking agent, quaternization reagent and supporting material. The structure and morphology of CQPECH/PTFE membrane were investigated. Water uptake, swelling ratio, ionic exchange capacity, hydroxide conductivity, chemical stability, and thermal and mechanical properties were measured to evaluate its performance in a direct methanol alkaline fuel cell. The results indicated that CQPECH had penetrated into the pores of PTFE membrane, showing a dense and uniform structure without any pore and phase separation. Besides, CQPECH/PTFE membrane exhibited high ionic conductivity, considerable ionic exchange capacity, moderate water uptake and low swelling ratio. More importantly, the obtained composite membrane displayed high tensile strength and good chemical and thermal stability, suggesting the great potential application of CQPECH/PTFE membrane as anion exchange membrane. Graphical abstract: Crosslinked quaternized polyepichlorohydrin/polytetrafluoroethylene composite anion exchange membrane had been prepared via a green and facile method, where diethylamine served as crosslinking agent. With a dense and uniform structure without any pore and phase separation, the obtained composite membrane exhibited high tensile strength and good chemical stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, three-dimensional (3D) flower-like nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH) 2 ) is decorated on one-dimensional fiber-like polyaniline (PANI) to obtain PANI/Ni(OH) 2 composite. Two-step hydrothermal method is used where PANI serves as crystal growth modifier of Ni(OH) 2 . By reducing the initial concentration of PANI, the polymorph of Ni(OH) 2 converts from β -to α -phase and the morphology of Ni(OH) 2 correspondingly changes from nanoplate to 3D flower-like, which significantly impacts the electrochemical activity of PANI/Ni(OH) 2 composite. Results show that fibrous PANI with high available surface area is expected to have many active sites for the deposition of nanoparticles. Besides, 3D flower-like Ni(OH) 2 , which can facilitate the transition for charge, contacts closely with PANI. Due to the good electrical conductivity and electrochemical activity of PANI with high proton doping level, the introduction of PANI can enhance the electrical conductivity and electrochemical performance of composite. Consequently, the PANI/Ni(OH) 2 electrode exhibits good electrochemical property, including high capacity, good rate capability and long cycle life. In addition, this work will provide a new concept for using polymer in dominating the structure, morphology and electrochemical property of electrode material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Titanium (Ti) was an excellent medical metal material, but the lack of good antibacterial activity confined its further practical application. To solve this dilemma, a coating containing graphene oxide (GO) and copper (Cu) was prepared on the surface of Ti sheet (Ti/APS/GO/Cu). First, physical sterilization could be carried out through the sharp-edged sheet structure of GO. Second, the oxygen-containing functional group on the surface of GO and the released Cu2+ would generate reactive oxygen species for chemical sterilization. The synergistic effect of GO and Cu substantially enhanced the in vitro and in vivo antibacterial property of Ti sheet, thereby reducing bacterial-related inflammation. Quantitatively, the antibacterial rate of Ti/APS/GO/Cu against E. coli or S. aureus reached over 99%. Besides, Ti/APS/GO/Cu showed excellent biocompatibility and no toxicity to cell. Such work developed multiple sterilization avenues to design non-antibiotic, safe and efficient antibacterial implant material for the biomedical domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of deep learning and remote sensing technologies in recent years, many semantic segmentation methods based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been applied to road extraction. However, previous deep learning-based road extraction methods primarily used RGB imagery as an input and did not take advantage of the spectral information contained in hyperspectral imagery. These methods can produce discontinuous outputs caused by objects with similar spectral signatures to roads. In addition, the images obtained from different Earth remote sensing sensors may have different spatial resolutions, enhancing the difficulty of the joint analysis. This work proposes the Multiscale Fusion Attention Network (MSFANet) to overcome these problems. Compared to traditional road extraction frameworks, the proposed MSFANet fuses information from different spectra at multiple scales. In MSFANet, multispectral remote sensing data is used as an additional input to the network, in addition to RGB remote sensing data, to obtain richer spectral information. The Cross-source Feature Fusion Module (CFFM) is used to calibrate and fuse spectral features at different scales, reducing the impact of noise and redundant features from different inputs. The Multiscale Semantic Aggregation Decoder (MSAD) fuses multiscale features and global context information from the upsampling process layer by layer, reducing information loss during the multiscale feature fusion. The proposed MSFANet network was applied to the SpaceNet dataset and self-annotated images from Chongzhou, a representative city in China. Our MSFANet performs better over the baseline HRNet by a large margin of +6.38 IoU and +5.11 F1-score on the SpaceNet dataset, +3.61 IoU and +2.32 F1-score on the self-annotated dataset (Chongzhou dataset). Moreover, the effectiveness of MSFANet was also proven by comparative experiments with other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) play important roles in many aspects of embryonic development. During eye development, the lens and corneal epithelium are derived from the same surface ectodermal tissue. FGF receptor (FGFR)-signaling is essential for lens cell differentiation and survival, but its role in corneal development has not been fully investigated. In this study, we examined the corneal defects in Fgfr2 conditional knockout mice in which Cre expression is activated at lens induction stage by Pax6 P0 promoter. The cornea in LeCre, Fgfr2loxP/loxP mice (referred as Fgfr2CKO) was analyzed to assess changes in cell proliferation, differentiation and survival. We found that Fgfr2CKO cornea was much thinner in epithelial and stromal layer when compared to WT cornea. At embryonic day 12.5–13.5 (E12.5–13.5) shortly after the lens vesicle detaches from the overlying surface ectoderm, cell proliferation (judged by labeling indices of Ki-67, BrdU and phospho-histone H3) was significantly reduced in corneal epithelium in Fgfr2CKO mice. At later stage, cell differentiation markers for corneal epithelium and underlying stromal mesenchyme, keratin-12 and keratocan respectively, were not expressed in Fgfr2CKO cornea. Furthermore, Pax6, a transcription factor essential for eye development, was not present in the Fgfr2CKO mutant corneal epithelial at E16.5 but was expressed normally at E12.5, suggesting that FGFR2-signaling is required for maintaining Pax6 expression in this tissue. Interestingly, the role of FGFR2 in corneal epithelial development is independent of ERK1/2-signaling. In contrast to the lens, FGFR2 is not required for cell survival in cornea. This study demonstrates for the first time that FGFR2 plays an essential role in controlling cell proliferation and differentiation, and maintaining Pax6 levels in corneal epithelium via ERK-independent pathways during embryonic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hexagonal nickel hydroxide/nickel decorated on reduced graphene oxide (rGO&Ni(OH) 2 –Ni) has been prepared via easy one-step chemical precipitation method and subsequent annealing treatment. The results show that the thermal stability of Ni(OH) 2 is enhanced by the incorporation of Ni. Besides, hexagonal Ni(OH) 2 –Ni nanoplate which can supply a short diffusion and migration pathway for electron and electrolyte ion contacts closely with the surface of rGO, resulting that the agglomeration of rGO is effectively prevented. Due to the good electrical conductivity of Ni, the incorporation of Ni can also improve the electrical conductivity of Ni(OH) 2 . More importantly, the Ni (111) plane is grown after annealing treatment, which plays a key role in Ni for further improving the electrochemical activity of composite. Consequently, the rGO&Ni(OH) 2 –Ni electrode exhibits high capacitance, high energy density, excellent rate capability, good cycle stability, etc. The advantages of easy preparation and excellent electrochemical performance imply the great potential application of rGO&Ni(OH) 2 –Ni in supercapacitors. Moreover, it is worthy noting that this work will offer a new approach for using metal nanoparticle in improving the electrochemical property of supercapacitor electrode material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new hybrid material consisting of nickel hydroxide and nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO/Ni(OH) 2 ) for supercapacitor electrode material is prepared via an easy one-step hydrothermal method, where the reduction and nitrogen doping of graphene oxide (GO) and the in situ formation of Ni(OH) 2 are achieved simultaneously. The results show the improved electrochemical activity of N-rGO/Ni(OH) 2 upon nitrogen doping. Moreover, thanks to the positive synergetic effect between N-rGO and Ni(OH) 2 , the synthesized N-rGO/Ni(OH) 2 composite shows superior electrochemical performance, including high capacitance, excellent rate capability and good cycle life. Hence, the facile preparation approach in this work will be considered as a new way to obtain metal oxide or hydroxide/N-rGO material which can be used as advanced electrode material in high-performance supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitation with high spatial and temporal resolution can improve the defense capability of meteorological disasters and provide indispensable instruction and early warning for social public services, such as agriculture, forestry, and transportation. Therefore, a deep learning-based algorithm entitled precipitation retrieval from satellite observations based on Transformer (PRSOT) is proposed to fill the observation gap of ground rain gauges and weather radars in deserts, oceans, and other regions. In this algorithm, the multispectral infrared brightness temperatures from Himawari-8, the new-generation geostationary satellite, have been used as predictor variables and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) precipitation product has been employed to train the retrieval model. We utilized two data normalization schemes, area-based and pixel-based normalization, and conducted comparative experiments. Comparing the estimated results with the GPM product on the test set, PRSOT_Pixel_based model achieved a Probability Of Detection (POD) of 0.74, a False Alarm Ratio (FAR) of 0.44 and a Critical Success Index (CSI) of 0.47 for two-class metrics, and an Accuracy (ACC) of 0.75 for multi-class metrics. Pixel-based normalization is more suitable for meteorological data, highlighting the precipitation characteristics and obtaining better comprehensive retrieval performance in visualization and evaluation metrics. In conclusion, the proposed PRSOT model has made a remarkable and essential contribution to precipitation retrieval and outperforms the benchmark machine learning model Random Forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The iterative Multilevel Averaging Weight (MAW) algorithm presented in paper [1] is modified to solve the dynamic load imbalance problems arising from the two-dimensional short-range parallel molecular dynamics simulations in this paper. Firstly, five types of load balancing models are given which allows detailed studies of the algorithm. In particular, it shows that for strip decomposition, the number of iteration needs for the system to converge from an initially unbalanced state to a well balanced state is bounded by 2 log P , where P is the number of processors. This result can permit the algorithm to efficiently track fluctuations in the molecular density as the simulation progresses, and is much better than that of the Cellular Automaton Diffusion (CAD) scheme presented in paper [2] . Secondly, we apply MAW algorithm to solve the load imbalance problem in the parallel molecular dynamics simulation for higher speed wall collisions. At last, the numerical experimental results and parallel computing performance with MPI-1.2 under a PC-Cluster consists of 64 Pentium-III 500 MHz nodes connected by 100 Mbps Switches are given in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of this study was to explore the optimal training interval and times of microperimetric biofeedback training (MBFT) in maculopathies. Twenty-nine patients with maculopathies were divided into two groups: daily training (Group A) or alternate daily training (Group B). Both groups underwent 15 MBFT sessions. We compared the BCVA, reading speed, and fixation stability at baseline, after 5, 10, 15 sessions. After 15 sessions of MBFT, all visual parameters in both groups improved. There was a significant increase in BCVA after 5 sessions in both groups (P=0.016, and P<0.001 respectively), but Group A showed further improvement after 10 sessions (P<0.001). Regarding reading speed, Group A showed significant improvement from baseline after 15 sessions(P=0.020), Group B improved significantly after 5 sessions (P=0.047) and continued to improve after 10 sessions (P=0.030). Additionally, P1 and LgBCEA of Group A significantly improved after 10 sessions (P=0.001, and P=0.001 respectively), while Group B significantly improved after 5 sessions (P=0.002, and P<0.001 respectively). There was no significant difference in visual outcomes between the two groups (P>0.05) except LgBCEA (P=0.046) after 15 sessions. We concluded that the both MBFT frequencies are effective at improving vision and quality of life in patients with maculopathies. The alternate daily training group showed less time-dependent of improvement in all parameters and a greater benefit in fixation stability. Ten sessions are the optimal number of treatment sessions for alternate daily training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This review focuses on the roles of microRNAs expressed within the gonadotrope cells. • Animal and cell models help to establish the role of microRNAs in gonadotropes. • MicroRNAs regulate gonadotrope cell development, function, and dynamics. The gonadotrope cells within the pituitary control vital processes of reproduction by producing follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). Both external stimuli and internal regulatory factors contribute to the regulation of gonadotrope development and function. In recent years, growing evidences indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs), which regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally, play critical roles in multiple processes of gonadotrope development and function, including the syntheses of α or β subunits of FSH and LH, the secretion of LH, the regulation of GnRH signaling, and the maintenance of gonadotrope cell kinetics. Here, we review recent advances of miRNAs' expression, functions and mechanisms approached by using miRNA knockout mouse models, in silico analysis and the in vitro cultures of primary pituitary cells and gonadotrope-derived cell lines. By summarizing and discussing different roles of miRNAs in gonadotropes, this minireview helps to gain insights into the complex molecular network in gonadotropes and reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CGA treatment inhibited surface browning of fresh-cut potatoes. • CGA treatment mitigated the loss of starch and ascorbic acid in fresh-cut potatoes. • ROS scavenging system was activated by CGA treatment in fresh-cut potatoes. • CGA treatment enhanced energy level and phenolics accumulation in potato slices. Fresh-cut potatoes are prone to surface browning and physiological degradation. Chlorogenic acid (CGA), a natural phenolic antioxidant, has demonstrated preservative properties in various postharvest products. However, the underlying mechanisms of its application on maintaining quality remain unclear. Therefore, the effect of exogenous CGA treatment on quality deterioration of potato slices and the mechanisms involved were investigated. Results revealed CGA treatment retarded the browning coloration, suppressed microbial growth and inhibited the declines in starch, and ascorbic acid contents in potato slices. Meanwhile, the treatment activated the phenylpropanoid pathway but decreased the activities of phenolic decomposition-related enzymes such as polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and tyrosinase and downregulated StPPO expression. Moreover, the treated slices exhibited reduced accumulation of reactive oxygen species and increased activity of antioxidant enzymes. Additionally, they displayed enhanced 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radicals scavenging capacity and higher ATP levels. Therefore, these findings indicated that CGA treatment was effective for quality maintenance and antioxidant capacity enhancement in fresh-cut potatoes, thereby providing potential strategies for the preservation and processing of fresh-cut produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]