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A self-sustained burner was built for diesel oil without an atomizer using metal fiber felt as an evaporator. The effects of firing rate, excess air coefficient, and altitude on the temperature distribution, NOx emission, and CO emission were studied. The results indicated that fuel evaporation and combustion inside the burner are significantly influenced by the altitude. The overall temperature distribution inside the burner first decreased and then increased with the increase in altitude. The main reasons for the formation of NOx are the local high temperature during start-up and the high temperature after flame stabilization. The NOx emission initially decreased and then increased with the increase in altitude. The NOx emission is the lowest at an altitude of 1700 m and reaches its maximum value at an altitude of 4780 m. The main cause of CO generation is incomplete combustion during the start-up process. The CO emission decreased with the increase in the excess air coefficient at the same altitude. Less CO is produced with the increase in altitude at the same firing rate and excess air coefficient.

Abstract Objectives To compare the efficacy and safety of thulium fiber laser (TFL) to holmium: YAG (Ho: YAG) laser in ureteroscopic lithotripsy for urolithiasis. Methods PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CENTRAL, SinoMed, CNKI database, VIP and Wanfang Database were systematically searched for all relevant clinical trials until September 2023. References were explored to identify the relevant articles. Meta-analysis was carried out for the retrieved studies using RevMan5.4.1 software, and the risk ratio, mean difference and 95% confidence interval were expressed. Statistical significance was set at p

G0 arrest (G0A) is widely recognized as a crucial factor contributing to tumor relapse. The role of genes related to G0A in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) was unclear. This study aimed to develop a gene signature based on for LUAD patients and investigate its relationship with prognosis, tumor immune microenvironment, and therapeutic response in LUAD. We use the TCGA-LUAD database as the discovery cohort, focusing specifically on genes associated with the G0A pathway. We used various statistical methods, including Cox and lasso regression, to develop the model. We validated the model using bulk transcriptome and single-cell transcriptome datasets (GSE50081, GSE72094, GSE127465, GSE131907 and EMTAB6149). We used GSEA enrichment and the CIBERSORT algorithm to gain insight into the annotation of the signaling pathway and the characterization of the tumor microenvironment. We evaluated the response to immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy in these patients. The expression of six genes was validated in cell lines by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Our study successfully established a six-gene signature (CHCHD4, DUT, LARP1, PTTG1IP, RBM14, and WBP11) that demonstrated significant predictive power for overall survival in patients with LUAD. It demonstrated independent prognostic value in LUAD. To enhance clinical applicability, we developed a nomogram based on this gene signature, which showed high reliability in predicting patient outcomes. Furthermore, we observed a significant association between G0A-related risk and tumor microenvironment as well as drug susceptibility, highlighting the potential of the gene signature to guide personalized treatment strategies. The expression of six genes were significantly upregulated in the LUAD cell lines. This signature holds the potential to contribute to improved prognostic prediction and new personalized therapies specifically for LUAD patients.

Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) was used in the prefabricated shell of a precast composite beam, and the validity of the ECC in the precast monolithic composite beam’s flexural performance was studied. Flexural performance tests were conducted on six specimens to analyze their failure state, failure mechanism, bearing capacity, and deformation capacity. Compared with the Reinforced Concrete (RC) prefabricated shell composite beam, the ECC prefabricated shell composite beam showed a higher bearing capacity and lower damage degree. The yielding load of specimen PSMCB−1 increased by 5.6%. The maximum load of specimen PSMCB−1 reached 256.6 kN, having increased by 8.1%. When the tests stopped, the maximum crack width of specimen PSMCB−1 was 4.1mm, while the maximum crack width of specimen PSMCB−6 reached 9.0 mm. The ECC material in the prefabricated shell also delayed the yielding of the steel bars in the shell.

Gibberella ear rot (GER) caused by Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph Gibberella zeae) is one of the most destructive diseases in maize, which severely reduces yield and contaminates several potential mycotoxins in the grain. However, few efforts had been devoted to dissecting the genetic basis of maize GER resistance. In the present study, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted in a maize association panel consisting of 303 diverse inbred lines. The phenotypes of GER severity were evaluated using kernel bioassay across multiple time points in the laboratory. Then, three models, including the fixed and random model circulating probability unification model (FarmCPU), general linear model (GLM), and mixed linear model (MLM), were conducted simultaneously in GWAS to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with GER resistance. A total of four individual significant association SNPs with the phenotypic variation explained (PVE) ranging from 3.51 to 6.42% were obtained. Interestingly, the peak SNP (PUT-163a-71443302-3341) with the greatest PVE value, was co-localized in all models. Subsequently, 12 putative genes were captured from the peak SNP, and several of these genes were directly or indirectly involved in disease resistance. Overall, these findings contribute to understanding the complex plant–pathogen interactions in maize GER resistance. The regions and genes identified herein provide a list of candidate targets for further investigation, in addition to the kernel bioassay that can be used for evaluating and selecting elite germplasm resources with GER resistance in maize.

Recently, light use efficiency (LUE) models driven by remote sensing data have been widely employed to estimate the gross primary productivity (GPP) of different terrestrial ecosystems at global or regional scales. Furthermore, the two-leaf light use efficiency (TL-LUE) model has been reported to improve the accuracy of GPP estimation, relative to the big-leaf MOD17 model, by separating the entire canopy into sunlit and shaded leaves through the use of constant clumping index estimation (Ω). However, ignoring obvious seasonal changes in the vegetation clumping index (CI) most likely results in GPP estimation errors since the CI tends to present seasonal changes, especially with respect to the obvious presence or absence of leaves within the canopy of deciduous vegetation. Here, we propose a TL-CLUE model that considers the seasonal difference in the CI based on the TL-LUE model to characterize general changes in canopy seasonality. This method composites monthly CI values into two or three Ω values to capture the general seasonal changes in CI while attempting to reduce the potential uncertainty caused during CI inversion. In theory, CI seasonality plays an essential role in the distribution of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the canopy (APAR). Specifically, the seasonal difference in CI values mainly considers the state of leaf growth, which is determined by the MODIS land surface phenology (LSP) product (MCD12Q2). Therefore, the one-year cycle (OYC) of leaf life is divided into two (leaf-off and leaf-on) or three seasons (leaf-off, leaf-scattering, and leaf-gathering) according to this MODIS LSP product, and the mean CI of each corresponding season for each vegetation class is computed to smoothen the uncertainties within each seasonal section. With these two or three seasonal Ω values as inputs, the TL-CLUE model by which the seasonal differences in CI are incorporated into the TL-LUE model is run and evaluated based on observations from 84 eddy covariance (EC) tower sites across North America. The results of the analysis reveal that the TL-LUE model widely overestimates GPP for most vegetation types during the leaf-on season, particularly during the growth peak. Although the TL-LUE model shows that the temporal characteristics of GPP agree with the EC observations in terms of general trends, the TL-CLUE model further improves the accuracy of GPP estimation by considering the seasonal changes in the CI. The result of GPP estimation from the TL-CLUE model shows a lower error (RMSE = 2.46 g C m−2 d−1) than the TL-LUE model (RMSE = 2.75 g C m−2 d−1) and somewhat decreases the eight-day GPP overestimation in the TL-LUE model with a constant Ω by approximately 9.76 and 8.970% when adapting three and two Ωs from different seasons, respectively. The study demonstrates that the uncertainty of seasonal disturbance in the CI, quantified by a standard deviation of approximately 0.071 relative to the mean CI of 0.746, is diminished through simple averaging. The seasonal difference in CI should be considered in GPP estimation of terrestrial ecosystems, particularly for vegetation with obvious canopy changes, where leaves go through the complete physiological processes of germination, stretching, maturity, and falling within a year. This study demonstrates the potential of the MODIS CI application in developing ecosystem and hydrological models.

Background: C5orf46 has been found to have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects via sequencing and microarray technologies, but its effects on cancer are unclear. Methods: C5orf46 expression in renal cancer patients and cell lines was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). RNA sequencing data and clinicopathological information from renal cancer patients extracted from The Tumor Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed to evaluate the prognostic value of C5orf46. The role of C5orf46 in vitro was verified by migration, proliferation and apoptosis experiments in renal cancer cell lines. Furthermore, the transcriptome of renal cancer cell lines with C5orf46 knocked down was sequenced to analyze potential signaling network pathways. Finally, the possible mechanisms of C5orf46 involvement in renal cancer development were analyzed by evaluating the immune microenvironment, mutation status and methylation levels. Results: C5orf46 was highly expressed in renal cancer and was an independent prognostic factor. In vitro cell experiments showed that inhibition of C5orf46 expression could reduce renal cancer cell proliferation and migration and increase apoptosis. Transcriptomic sequencing after knockdown of C5orf46 in renal cancer cells revealed that it is involved in the malignant phenotype and immune microenvironment regulation of renal cancer. Finally, public databases suggest that C5orf46-related immune cell infiltration, mutational potential, and low methylation levels may contribute to poor prognosis in renal cancer. Conclusion: These findings suggest that C5orf46 is associated with renal cancer progression and could be a potential target for improving renal cancer prognosis.

Changes in the climate and weather conditions, as well as rising earth’s average temperature are likely to escalate deterioration of global drought occurrence. Drought is considered an interwoven natural disaster composed by a number of different factors, as for example agricultural, meteorological or hydrological. Hydrological drought estimation with regional accuracy is the most problematic and challenging issue. In order to monitor and characterize drought conditions, using Standardized Drought Indices (SDI) is recently the most frequently used practice. In this research article, we suggest an improved hydrological drought index that incorporates upgraded monthly rainfall estimation records, which play an important role in defining regional drought conditions, with regard to the global temperature rise. Rainfall is highly changeable even at a low distance and therefore should be also considered in precipitation estimation records because temporal rainfall records play a significant role in determining long-term rainfall shortages. Thus, the integration of regional aspect to the amount of rainfall is essential for accurate regional drought assessment. This research article proposes adding auxiliary data such as regional weights in order to make monthly rainfall records more accurate in relation to the dependency characteristics of temperature and rainfall records under regression and product estimation settings. Subsequently, we propose an innovative method of hydrological drought evaluation, a so-called Regionally Improved Weighted Standardized Drought Index (RIWSDI). We evaluated hydrological drought with the usage of RIWSDI at seven various meteorological regions situated in climatologically different areas in Pakistan. We assessed and compared the results using RIWSDI, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) on 3 and 12-month interval period on the basis of Pearson correlation. Under both parametric and non-parametric standardization, we discovered that there is a high positive correlation between RIWSDI and current methodology (SPI). To sum up, we proved that the upgraded estimations of rainfall are able to improve systems for monitoring droughts.

When terahertz imaging technology is used for the nondestructive testing of composite materials, the signal is often affected by the experimental environment and internal noise of the system, as well as the absorption and scattering effect of the tested materials. The obtained image has degradation phenomena such as low contrast, poor resolution of small targets and blurred details. In order to improve the image quality, this paper proposes a novel method for the enhancement of composite materials’ terahertz image by using unsharp masking and guided filtering technology. The method includes the processing steps of hard threshold shrinkage denoising based on discrete wavelet transform, amplitude imaging, unsharp masking, guided filtering, contrast stretching, and pseudo-color mapping. In this paper, these steps are reasonably combined and optimized to obtain the final resulting image. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a 150–220 GHz high frequency terahertz frequency modulated radar imaging system was used to image three commonly used sandwich structure composites, and the enhancement processing were carried out. The resulting images with significantly enhanced contrast, detail resolution and edge information were obtained, and the prefabricated defects were all detected; Five objective evaluation indexes including standard deviation, mean gradient, information entropy, energy gradient and local contrast were used to compare and analyze the processing results of different image enhancement methods. The subjective and objective evaluation results showed that the proposed method can effectively suppress the noise in terahertz detection signals, enhance the ability of defect detection and positioning, and improve the accuracy of detection. The proposed method in this paper is expected to play a positive role in improving the practicability of terahertz imaging detection technology and expanding its application fields.

Here, we investigated the clinicopathological and prognostic potential of the long noncoding RNA Colon Cancer-Associated Transcript 2 (CCAT2) in human colorectal cancer (CRC). We used qPCR to quantify CCAT2 levels in 44 pairs of CRC tissues and adjacent nontumor and healthy colon mucosa tissues, and in several CRC cell lines (SW620, SW480, HT-29, LOVO, HCT116 and DLD-1) and normal human colorectal epithelial cells (HFC). We assessed the effects of CCAT2 overexpression or knockdown on the proliferation, migration and invasion by SW620 and LOVO cells using CCK-8, transwell, and wound−healing assays, respectively. We also investigated the potential interaction between CCAT2 and TAF15 through RNA pull down and rescue experiments. Lastly, we evaluated the expression of the cell cycle progression markers and GSK3β signaling pathway proteins using Western blotting. Our results showed that CCAT2 was upregulated in CRC tissues and cell lines as com-pared to controls. Ectopic expression of CCAT2 promoted CRC cell proliferation, migration and invasion, likely through direct interaction with TAF15, transcriptional activation of RAB14, and activation of the AKT/GSK3β signaling pathway. In vivo, CCAT2 promoted CRC cell growth and metastasis in nude mice. Taken together, these results highlight the actions of CCAT2 as a CRC oncogene.

SNHG10 is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) found to be overexpressed in multiple human cancers including prostate cancer (PC). However, the underlying mechanisms of SNHG10 driving the progression of PC remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of SNHG10 in PC and found that SNHG10 expression was significantly increased in datasets extracted from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Increased expression of SNHG10 was related to advanced clinical parameters. Receiver operating curve analysis revealed the significant diagnostic ability of SNHG10 (AUC = 0.805). In addition, immune infiltration analysis, and GSEA showed that SNHG10 expression was correlated with oxidative phosphorylation and immune infiltrated cells. Finally, we determined that SNHG10 regulated cell proliferation, migration, and invasion of PC in vitro. In conclusion, our data demonstrated that SNHG10 was correlated with progression and immune infiltration, and could serve as a prognostic biomarker for PC.

BackgroundLong noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are closely related to the occurrence and development of cancer. Gastric adenocarcinoma-associated, positive CD44 regulator, long intergenic noncoding RNA (GAPLINC) is a recently identified lncRNA that can actively participate in the tumorigenesis of various cancers. Here, we investigated the functional roles and mechanism of GAPLINC in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) development.MethodsDifferentially expressed lncRNAs between RCC tissues and normal kidney tissues were detected by using a microarray technique. RNA sequencing was applied to explore the mRNA expression profile changes after GAPLINC silencing. After gain- and loss-of-function approaches were implemented, the effect of GAPLINC on RCC in vitro and in vivo was assessed by cell proliferation and migration assays. Moreover, rescue experiments and luciferase reporter assays were used to study the interactions between GAPLINC, miR-135b-5p and CSF1.ResultsGAPLINC was significantly upregulated in RCC tissues and cell lines and was associated with a poor prognosis in RCC patients. Knockdown of GAPLINC repressed RCC growth in vitro and in vivo, while overexpression of GAPLINC exhibited the opposite effect. Mechanistically, we found that GAPLINC upregulates oncogene CSF1 expression by acting as a sponge of miR-135b-5p.ConclusionTaken together, our results suggest that GAPLINC is a novel prognostic marker and molecular therapeutic target for RCC.

The memristor-based neural network configuration is a promising approach to realizing artificial neural networks (ANNs) at the hardware level. The memristors can effectively simulate the strength of synaptic connections between neurons in neural networks due to their diverse significant characteristics such as nonvolatility, nanoscale dimensions, and variable conductance. This work presents a new synaptic circuit based on memristors and Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor(CMOS), which can realize the adjustment of positive, negative, and zero synaptic weights using only one control signal. The relationship between synaptic weights and the duration of control signals is also explained in detail. Accordingly, Widrow–Hoff algorithm-based memristive neural network (MNN) circuits are proposed to solve the recognition of three types of character pictures. The functionality of the proposed configurations is verified using SPICE simulation.

It is desirable to improve spatiotemporal control of light generated by synchrotron user facilities or table-top X-ray sources. Here the authors demonstrate manipulation of hard X-rays using microelectro mechanical systems (MEMS) oscillators on timescales of 300 ps, approaching the synchrotron pulse width.

In recent years, jellyfish outbreaks have frequently occurred in offshore areas worldwide, posing a significant threat to the marine fishery, tourism, coastal industry, and personal safety. Effective monitoring of jellyfish is a vital method to solve the above problems. However, the optical detection method for jellyfish is still in the primary stage. Therefore, this paper studies a jellyfish detection method based on convolution neural network theory and digital image processing technology. This paper studies the underwater image preprocessing algorithm because the quality of underwater images directly affects the detection results. The results show that the image quality is better after applying the three algorithms namely prior defogging, adaptive histogram equalization, and multi-scale retinal enhancement, which is more conducive to detection. We establish a data set containing seven species of jellyfishes and fish. A total of 2141 images are included in the data set. The YOLOv3 algorithm is used to detect jellyfish, and its feature extraction network Darknet53 is optimized to ensure it is conducted in real-time. In addition, we introduce label smoothing and cosine annealing learning rate methods during the training process. The experimental results show that the improved algorithms improve the detection accuracy of jellyfish on the premise of ensuring the detection speed. This paper lays a foundation for the construction of an underwater jellyfish optical imaging real-time monitoring system.

Amino sugars are key microbial biomarkers for determining the contribution of microbial residues in soil organic matter (SOM). However, it remains largely unclear as to what extent inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilization can lead to the significant degradation of SOM in alkaline agricultural soils. A six-year field experiment was conducted from 2013 to 2018 to evaluate the effects of chronic N enrichment on microbial residues, amino sugars, and soil biochemical properties under four nitrogen (urea, 46% N) fertilization scenarios: 0 (no-N, control), 75 (low-N), 225 (medium-N), and 375 (high-N) kg N ha−1. The results showed that chronic N enrichment stimulated microbial residues and amino sugar accumulation over time. The medium-N treatment increased the concentration of muramic acid (15.77%), glucosamine (13.55%), galactosamine (18.84%), bacterial residues (16.88%), fungal residues (11.31%), and total microbial residues (12.57%) compared to the control in 2018; however, these concentrations were comparable to the high-N treatment concentrations. The ratio of glucosamine to galactosamine and of glucosamine to muramic acid decreased over time due to a larger increase in bacterial residues as compared to fungal residues. Microbial biomass, soil organic carbon, and aboveground plant biomass positively correlated with microbial residues and amino sugar components. Chronic N enrichment improved the soil biochemical properties and aboveground plant biomass, which stimulated microbial residues and amino sugar accumulation over time.

This article aims to analyze the dynamic tilting characteristics of a four-wheel-legged harvester chassis. In order to achieve the pose and position of the chassis, kinematic model of a four-wheel-legged harvester chassis was established by the screw theory method. After analyzing the actual motion of the chassis during tilting process, dynamic tilting model of the wheel-legged articulated steering chassis was achieved based on the Lagrange’s equation. To prove the accuracy of the dynamic model, simulations of the chassis was conducted under ADAMS environment. Three series of comparisons showed that results between simulations and calculations were highly consistent. Both results showed that lifting the tilting side wheel-legs, shortening the other side legs, and steering to the tilting side could help prevent tilting of the chassis. Lifting the tilting side wheel-legs was proved to be more efficient than shortening that of the other sides. Average error of the change rates between simulations and calculations were 2.4%, 0.67%, and 2.75%.

Borehole log is important data for urban geological 3D modeling. Most of the current borehole logs are stored in a papery form. The construction of a smart city puts forward requirements for the automatic and intelligent 3D modeling of urban geology. However, it is difficult to extract the information from the papery borehole log quickly. What is more, it is unreliable to rely entirely on automated algorithms for modeling without artificial participation, but there is no effective way to integrate geological knowledge into 3D geological modeling currently. Therefore, it is necessary to research how to use existing papery borehole logs efficiently. To overcome the above obstacles, we designed a method that combines structural analysis and layout understanding to extract information from the borehole log. Then, the knowledge-driven three-dimensional geological modeling is proposed based on dynamic profiles. With these methods, the papery borehole log can be converted into structured data which can be used for data analysis directly, and geological knowledge can be integrated into the process of 3D geological modeling. The 3D geological modeling of Xinyang City based on a papery borehole log has been taken as an example to verify the feasibility of the method.

We prove some common fixed point theorems of contractions restricted with variable positive linear bounded mappings in θ-complete partial cone metric spaces over nonnormal cones and present some examples to support the usability of our results.

In this work, several fixed point theorems of set-valued monotone mappings and set-valued Caristi-type mappings are proved in partially ordered Hausdorff topological spaces, which indeed extend and improve many recent results in the setting of metric spaces.

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered as ideal cells for the treatment of a variety of diseases. However, aging and spontaneous differentiation of MSCs during culture expansion dampen their effectiveness. Previous studies suggest that ex vivo aging of MSCs is largely caused by epigenetic changes particularly a decline of histone H3 acetylation levels in promoter regions of pluripotent genes due to inappropriate growth environment. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this study, we examined whether histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin A (TSA) could suppress the histone H3 deacetylation thus maintaining the primitive property of MSCs. We found that in regular adherent culture, human MSCs became flatter and larger upon successive passaging, while the expression of pluripotent genes such as Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, Rex-1, CD133 and TERT decreased markedly. Administration of low concentrations of TSA in culture significantly suppressed the morphological changes in MSCs otherwise occurred during culture expansion, increased their proliferation while retaining their cell contact growth inhibition property and multipotent differentiation ability. Moreover, TSA stabilized the expression of the above pluripotent genes and histone H3 acetylation levels in K9 and K14 in promoter regions of Oct4, Sox2 and TERT. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results suggest that TSA may serve as an effective culture additive to maintain the primitive feature of MSCs during culture expansion.

We presented some maximal and minimal fixed point theorems of set-valued monotone mappings with respect to a partial order introduced by a vector functional in cone metric spaces. In addition, we proved not only the existence of maximal and minimal fixed points but also the existence of the largest and the least fixed points of single-valued increasing mappings. It is worth mentioning that the results on single-valued mappings in this paper are still new even in the case of metric spaces and hence they indeed improve the recent results.

Without the continuity and nondecreasing property of the comparison function, we in this paper prove some fixed point theorems of generalized contractions of rational type in ordered partial metric spaces, which generalize and improve the corresponding results of Luong and Thuan. An example is given to support the usability of our results.

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) hold great promise for the treatment of difficult diseases. As MSCs represent a rare cell population, ex vivo expansion of MSCs is indispensable to obtain sufficient amounts of cells for therapies and tissue engineering. However, spontaneous differentiation and aging of MSCs occur during expansion and the molecular mechanisms involved have been poorly understood. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Human MSCs in early and late passages were examined for their expression of genes involved in osteogenesis to determine their spontaneous differentiation towards osteoblasts in vitro, and of genes involved in self-renewal and proliferation for multipotent differentiation potential. In parallel, promoter DNA methylation and hostone H3 acetylation levels were determined. We found that MSCs underwent aging and spontaneous osteogenic differentiation upon regular culture expansion, with progressive downregulation of TERT and upregulation of osteogenic genes such as Runx2 and ALP. Meanwhile, the expression of genes associated with stem cell self-renewal such as Oct4 and Sox2 declined markedly. Notably, the altered expression of these genes were closely associated with epigenetic dysregulation of histone H3 acetylation in K9 and K14, but not with methylation of CpG islands in the promoter regions of most of these genes. bFGF promoted MSC proliferation and suppressed its spontaneous osteogenic differentiation, with corresponding changes in histone H3 acetylation in TERT, Oct4, Sox2, Runx2 and ALP genes. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results indicate that histone H3 acetylation, which can be modulated by extrinsic signals, plays a key role in regulating MSC aging and differentiation.