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Isoliquiritigenin (ISL) has excellent neuroprotective effects. However, its limitations, including poor solubility, low bioavailability, and low accumulation in the brain, restrict its clinical promotion. In this study, a novel type of ISL-loaded liposome (ISL-LP) modified with the brain-targeting polypeptide angiopep-2 was prepared to improve these properties. The zeta potential, morphology, particle size, encapsulation efficiency, drug loading, and in vitro release of ISL-LP were evaluated. The pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution of ISL and ISL-LP were also investigated. The results demonstrated that ISL-LP had an average particle size of 89.36 ± 5.04 nm, a polymer dispersity index of 0.17 ± 0.03, a zeta potential of −20.27 ± 2.18 mV, and an encapsulation efficiency of 75.04 ± 3.28%. The in vitro release experiments indicate that ISL-LP is a desirable sustained-release system. After intravenous administration, LPC-LP prolonged the circulation time of ISL in vivo and enhanced its relative brain uptake. In conclusion, ISL-LP could serve as a promising brain-targeting system for the treatment and prevention of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An automatic iterative algorithm was proposed to dynamically distinguish the car-following and free-flow states of AVs and HVs. • The heterogeneous car-following behaviors of AVs and HVs were compared. • The effects of time period and vehicle type on headway distribution were explored. • The impacts of penetration rate, platoon intensity and maximum platoon size on the mixed traffic capacity were explored. This study refined the composite headway distribution model to estimate the mixed traffic capacity by utilizing extensive empirical mixed traffic data. The enhanced model integrated an automatic iterative algorithm into the stochastic process to capture the headway distributions of autonomous and human-driven vehicles in five types of car-following pair combinations. The proposed iterative algorithm automatically fitted the free-flow headway distribution and dynamically determined the threshold for distinguishing the car-following and free-flow states of autonomous and human-driven vehicles based on extensive trajectory data. Quantitative analysis was carried out to assess the impact of time period and vehicle type on the headway distributions of following vehicles in the five car-following pairs. The mixed traffic capacity was estimated using the overall composite headway distribution model, considering the effects of penetration rate, platoon intensity, and maximum platoon size of the autonomous vehicle. The findings indicated that autonomous vehicles showed more cautious and sensitive car-following behaviors compared to human-driven vehicles. Compared to the daytime, autonomous vehicles showed more cautious car-following behaviors at night. When following heavy vehicles, autonomous vehicles typically adapt conservative and stable car-following behaviors. In addition, the results also showed that the penetration rate, platoon intensity, and maximum platoon size significantly affected the capacity of mixed traffic flow. These results of this study can assist traffic management authorities in formulating rules or policies that take into consideration the growing prevalence of autonomous vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Azimuth multi-channel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has always been an important technical means to achieve high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) SAR imaging. However, in the space-borne azimuth multi-channel SAR system, random phase noise will be produced during the operation of each channel receiver. The phase noise of each channel is superimposed on the SAR echo signal of the corresponding channel, which will cause the phase imbalance between the channels and lead to the generation of false targets. In view of the above problems, this paper proposes a random phase noise compensation method for space-borne azimuth multi-channel SAR. This method performs feature decomposition by calculating the covariance matrix of the echo signal and converts the random phase noise estimation into the optimal solution of the cost function. Considering that the phase noise in the receiver has frequency-dependent and time-varying characteristics, this method calculates the phase noise estimation value corresponding to each range-frequency point in the range direction and obtains the phase noise estimation value by expectation in the azimuth direction. The proposed random phase noise compensation method can suppress false targets well and make the radar present a well-focused SAR image. Finally, the usefulness of the suggested method is verified by simulation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alumina (Al2O3) particles, the primary combustion products of solid rockets, can accumulate in the stratosphere, changing the global radiative balance. These Al2O3 particles were usually treated as homogeneous spheres. However, they contain impurities and may form clusters during the combustion process. Models representing Al-containing and C-containing Al2O3 clusters were developed, denoted as Al2O3 shell model (ASM) and Al2O3 core model (ACM), respectively. The superposition T-matrix method (STMM) was applied to examine their optical characteristics. Subsequently, a method to obtain the top-of-atmosphere flux was proposed by integrating the models with the moderate resolution atmospheric transmission code (MODTRAN). With the addition of Al/C, the absorption cross-section enhances by several orders of magnitude at 0.55 μm and increases slightly at 10 μm. The equivalent sphere models will weaken their scattering ability. A 4Tg mass burden of Al2O3 produces radiative forcing of −0.439 Wm−2. However, the addition of Al and C reduces the forcing by up to 15% and 12%, respectively. In summary, the optical characteristics and radiative forcing of Al2O3 clusters are sensitive to Al/C and morphology models. While our findings are impacted by various uncertainties, they contribute valuable insights into the radiative forcing of Al2O3 particles, potential climatic changes by space activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Moorong Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES-C) among stroke survivors. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with 160 stroke survivors recruited from the three neurology departments in China. Reliability, concurrent validity, and construct validity of the scale were determined. The MSES-C whole scale showed good internal consistency with a Cronbach's α of 0.953. There was a moderate to a strong positive correlation between the MSES-C and Chinese version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (r = 0.695, p < 0.000), a strong positive correlation between the MSES-C and Chinese version of the stroke specific self-efficacy scale (r = 0.801, p < 0.000), positive correlations between the MSES-C and Chinese versions of the Modified Barthel Index (r = 0.695, p < 0.000), and a negative correlation between the MSES-C and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (r = –0.511, p < 0.000). Known-group validity was also supported. The MSES-C is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing self-efficacy in Chinese stroke survivors. The Chinese version of the Moorong Self-Efficacy Scale demonstrated good internal consistency and showed satisfactory concurrent and construct validity among stroke survivors. The Moorong Self-Efficacy Scale can be used to assess stroke recovery among the Chinese population in clinical and research settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the production, the fluid in the vicinity of the directional well enters the wellbore with different rates, leading to non-uniform flux distribution along the directional well. However, in all existing studies, it is oversimplified to a uniform flux distribution, which can result in inaccurate results for field applications. Therefore, this paper proposes a semi-analytical model of a directional well based on the assumption of non-uniform flux distribution. Specifically, the direction well is discretized into a carefully chosen series of linear sources, such that the complex well trajectory can be captured and the nonuniform flux distribution along the wellbore can be considered to model the three-dimensional flow behavior. By using the finite difference method, we can obtain the numerical solutions of the transient flow within the wellbore. With the aid of Green's function method, we can obtain the analytical solutions of the transient flow from the matrix to the wellbore. The complete flow behavior of a directional well is perfectly represented by coupling the above two types of transient flow. Subsequently, on the basis of the proposed model, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the pressure transient behavior of a directional well. The computation results show that the flux variation along the direction well has a significant effect on pressure responses. In addition, the directional well in an infinite reservoir may exhibit the following flow regimes: wellbore afterflow, transition flow, inclined radial flow, elliptical flow, horizontal linear flow, and horizontal radial flow. The horizontal linear flow can be observed only if the formation thickness is much smaller than the well length. Furthermore, a dip region that appears on the pressure derivative curve indicates the three-dimensional flow behavior near the wellbore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circulating cfRNA in plasma has emerged as a fascinating area of research with potential applications in disease diagnosis, monitoring, and personalized medicine. Circulating RNA sequencing technology allows for the non-invasive collection of important information about the expression of target genes, eliminating the need for biopsies. This comprehensive review aims to provide a detailed overview of the current knowledge and advancements in the study of plasma cfRNA, focusing on its diverse landscape and biological functions, detection methods, its diagnostic and prognostic potential in various diseases, challenges, and future perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Data from 200 children with high‐risk acute myeloid leukaemia who underwent their first haploidentical haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo‐HSCT) between 2015 and 2021 at our institution were analysed. The 4‐year overall survival (OS), event‐free survival (EFS) and cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) were 71.9%, 62.3% and 32.4% respectively. The 100‐day cumulative incidences of grade II–IV and III–IV acute graft‐versus‐host disease (aGVHD) were 41.1% and 9.5% respectively. The 4‐year cumulative incidence of chronic GVHD (cGVHD) was 56.1%, and that of moderate‐to‐severe cGVHD was 27.3%. Minimal residual disease (MRD)‐positive (MRD+) status pre‐HSCT was significantly associated with lower survival and a higher risk of relapse. The 4‐year OS, EFS and CIR differed significantly between patients with MRD+ pre‐HSCT (n = 97; 63.4%, 51.4% and 41.0% respectively) and those with MRD‐negative (MRD‐) pre‐HSCT (n = 103; 80.5%, 73.3% and 23.8% respectively). Multivariate analysis also revealed that acute megakaryoblastic leukaemia without Down syndrome (non‐DS‐AMKL) was associated with extremely poor outcomes (hazard ratios and 95% CIs for OS, EFS and CIR: 3.110 (1.430–6.763), 3.145 (1.628–6.074) and 3.250 (1.529–6.910) respectively; p‐values were 0.004, 0.001 and 0.002 respectively). Thus, haplo‐HSCT can be a therapy option for these patients, and MRD status pre‐HSCT significantly affects the outcomes. As patients with non‐DS‐AMKL have extremely poor outcomes, even with haplo‐HSCT, a combination of novel therapies is urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-heme mononuclear iron complexes, especially when supported by tripodal tetradentate ligands, show promising C–H bond activation efficiency in catalytic reactions. Nevertheless, they intrinsically decay readily to their dinuclear form, and the dimerization process is inevitable in homogenous solution, which dramatically hinders their further application. Hence, we demonstrate that the mononuclear iron complex [(TPA)FeII-2L]2+ (L = labile ligands, mainly solvent molecules) was successfully encapsulated in a highly robust metal–organic framework UiO-66 via a two-step "ship-in-a-bottle" strategy. The nearly perfect size matching of the octahedral cages of the host UiO-66 provides ideal space confinement for the guest complex to protect from dimerization and dramatically increases the mono-nuclear complex stability compared to its un-confined state. The successful encapsulation of [(TPA)FeII-2L]2+ in UiO-66 was verified thoroughly by spectroscopy, microscopy, N2 adsorption, and electrochemistry characterization techniques. This work shows that encapsulating an unstable molecular complex in MOFs via a two-step "ship-in-a-bottle" strategy highlights opportunities for extending the heterogenization of homogeneous complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil wells play an important role in the extraction of oil and gas, and their future potential extends beyond oil and gas exploitation to include the development of geothermal resources for sustainable power generation. Identifying and detecting oil wells are of paramount importance given the crucial role of oil well distribution in energy planning. In recent years, significant progress has been made in detecting single oil well objects, with recognition accuracy exceeding 90%. However, there are still remaining challenges, particularly with regard to small-scale objects, varying viewing angles, and complex occlusions within the domain of oil well detection. In this work, we created our own dataset, which included 722 images containing 3749 oil well objects in Daqing, Huatugou, Changqing oil field areas in China, and California in the USA. Within this dataset, 2165 objects were unoccluded, 617 were moderately occluded, and 967 objects were severely occluded. To address the challenges in detecting oil wells in complex occlusion scenarios, we propose the YOLOv5s-seg CAM NWD network for object detection and instance segmentation. The experimental results show that our proposed model outperforms YOLOv5 with F1 improvements of 5.4%, 11.6%, and 23.1% observed for unoccluded, moderately occluded, and severely occluded scenarios, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the oil and gas industry is crucial to the global energy market, policymakers need accurate information about local oil reserves and the harmful environmental effects of drilling, such as damage to public land and wildlife. Therefore, accurate automatic detection of the location, distribution and quantity of oil wells is essential. Recent advancements in remote sensing and deep learning technologies provide potential solutions for automatic oil wells detection using high-resolution remote sensing images. This study proposes an optimized Faster R-CNN-based model that incorporates three key modifications to improve the accuracy of oil wells detection. The modifications include replacing the VGG16 network with the ResNet50 network to improve the model's feature extraction capabilities, substituting the ordinary convolution of ResNet with a dilated convolution to improve the model's receptive field, and constructing a feature pyramid to improve the model's ability to detect small targets and objects at different scales. Also, an edge detection module is added to further improve the detection accuracy. Furthermore, a new framework based on Faster R-CNN and leveraging Soft-NMS (Non-Maximum Suppression) and the proposed ClusterRPN sub-network is combined to address the problem of clustered oil wells detection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed optimized model outperforms existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infrared spectral radiance of O2 is of great significance for space-based infrared detection. In this work, based on the demand for near-infrared spectral radiance of O2 limb detection, a method of spectral radiance calculation coupled with an atmospheric remote sensing model of limb detection is proposed. According to the selection criteria of fine spectral lines, the most suitable spectral lines of the O2 1.27 μm band for detection are given. Specifically, the limb infrared radiances of the O2 1.27 μm band were simulated by using the spectral line data from the spectral database, and the effects of molecular self-absorption were also considered. Furthermore, the infrared spectral radiance distribution of the O2 1.27 μm band was simulated under the influence of altitude, and finally, the detectability of the 1.27 μm band of O2 molecules was analyzed using the criteria of spectral line selection, radiance intensity, spectral separation range and temperature sensitivity. The calculation results show that the spectral radiance of the 1.27 μm band of O2 molecules first increases and then decreases with the decrease of the limb height, and the radiance reaches the peak value in the range of 40–50 km. In terms of the selection of spectral lines, the two groups of spectral lines R7R7, R7Q8 and R11R11, R11Q12 are most suitable for the limb detection and measurement of the O2 1.27 μm band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Traditional rice blast resistance breeding largely depends on utilizing typical resistance (R) genes. However, the lack of durable R genes has prompted rice breeders to find new resistance resources. Susceptibility (S) genes are potential new targets for resistance genetic engineering using genome‐editing technologies, but identifying them is still challenging. Here, through the integration of genome‐wide association study (GWAS) and transcriptional analysis, we identified two genes, RNG1 and RNG3, whose polymorphisms in 3′‐untranslated regions (3′‐UTR) affected their expression variations. These polymorphisms could serve as molecular markers to identify rice blast‐resistant accessions. Editing the 3′‐UTRs using CRISPR/Cas9 technology affected the expression levels of two genes, which were positively associated with rice blast susceptibility. Knocking out either RNG1 or RNG3 in rice enhanced the rice blast and bacterial blight resistance, without impacting critical agronomic traits. RNG1 and RNG3 have two major genotypes in diverse rice germplasms. The frequency of the resistance genotype of these two genes significantly increased from landrace rice to modern cultivars. The obvious selective sweep flanking RNG3 suggested it has been artificially selected in modern rice breeding. These results provide new targets for S gene identification and open avenues for developing novel rice blast‐resistant materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tectonic evolution of the Altyn Tagh Fault (ATF) remains controversial during the Tertiary. Qaidam Basin is the largest and highest plateau inland basin inside the Tibet Plateau. Sediments in the basin provide sedimentary records of the evolution history of its surrounding orogens, such as the ATF, located on the northwest margin of the Qaidam Basin. Comprehensive analyses of sandstone petrography, heavy mineral assemblages, and mineral geochemistry were adopted to effectively indicate the tectonic evolution history of ATF. The result indicates that the sediments in a wide range of the northwestern Qaidam Basin (e.g., the Xichagou section, the Yueyashan section) were derived from the Altyn Mountains. The increasing immaturity of sediments, increased denudation, and sedimentation processes from the early-middle Miocene to the Pliocene can be explained by the active tectonic setting of the ATF. During the early Miocene (ca. 22 Ma), there was an abrupt change in the heavy mineral composition of sediments in the northwestern Qaidam Basin. This change may be attributed to the large-scale slip motion along the ATF. Therefore, ~22 Ma is the key transforming period of the ATF system. On the foundation of the above, we suggest a two-stage evolution model of the ATF during the Tertiary: (1) From the late Eocene to the Oligocene, the tectonic setting of the ATF was relatively calm; (2) During the early Miocene period, the ATF underwent large-scale tectonic activation. It is likely to be a strike-slip tectonic activity, accompanied by an uplift of the Altyn Mountains. The active tectonic setting of the ATF was sustained after the Miocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic bonds are usually used to endow thermoset materials with excellent reprocessability. Nevertheless, this strategy sacrifices the thermal stability in most instances. In recent years, the dynamic silyl ether (SiOR) has attracted great attention due to its excellent thermal stability. However, the reprocessability of thermoset materials based on it is far from satisfactory because of the inactive dynamic exchange reaction. Herein, a species of activated silyl ether with neighboring groups is identified via small‐molecule model reaction and the corresponding activation energy is calculated by reaction kinetics for the first time. Based on the activated silyl ether linkages, the poly(dimethylsiloxane) elastomers with high mechanical strength, effective reprocessability, and thermal stability are further designed and prepared. In a word, this work fills a research gap about the effect of neighboring groups on the dynamic characteristic of silyl ether and provides a theoretical basis for the construction of activated silyl ether linkages, endowing the materials with thermal stability and efficient reprocessability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a quasi-steady-state thermal model to analyze transient thermal effects in a Nd :YAG laser rod under quasi-continuous laser-diode (LD) end pumping. Included is a quasi-adiabatic model for pump durations and a quasi-steady-state heat dissipation model for pump-free durations. We give an approximate expression of the transient temperature-difference distribution function of the crystal under quasi-continuous pumping. The method for calculating the transient thermal focal length is also presented. On this basis, the temperature distribution variation in the crystal with time and the variation range of the transient thermal focal length are quantitatively analyzed. For 50 W, 200 μs pulse-width, and 50 Hz pumping, the temperature at the center of the Nd:YAG rod has a range of 304.52 – 306.28 K, and the thermal focal length varied over 1612.8 – 310.43 mm. Both have saw-tooth periodic distributions. This study provides a theoretical reference for the design of laser-diode-pumped thermal Q-switched Nd :YAG lasers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore the benefit of the pneumoconiosis rehabilitation station for pneumoconiosis patients in both their rehabilitation and reducing the economic burden. Methods The retrospective epidemiological surveys were carried out in October 2018 and October 2019, respectively. The general conditions of pneumoconiosis patients in the pneumoconiosis rehabilitation stations, the number of outpatient visits and hospitalizations, and the costs for these treatments in the past year were investigated, and the direct economic loss of pneumoconiosis patients was analyzed. The subjects included in the 2018 survey were those who had just entered the rehabilitation station and had not yet undergone rehabilitation training, while the subjects included in the 2019 survey were those who had entered the rehabilitation station after October 2018 to carry out rehabilitation training and had completed more than two courses of rehabilitation training. Results A total of 82 male pneumoconiosis patients were investigated in 2018, and 142 male cases were investigated in 2019. In 2019, the median (P25, P75) of the average number of outpatient visits and outpatient expenses, hospitalization times, and hospitalization expenses of pneumoconiosis patients who had received pneumoconiosis rehabilitation training were 4 (2, 6) times and 10 000 (3 000, 13 500) yuan, 4.5 (2, 6) times and 20 000 (9 450,30 000) yuan, respectively. All these were lower than those of the pneumoconiosis patients who did not undergo rehabilitation training in 2018, with the average number of outpatient visits [2 (1, 5) times], outpatient expenses [400 (120, 1 136) yuan], hospitalization expenses [2 (1, 3) times], and hospitalization expenses [3 000 (285, 8 250) yuan], and the difference was significant (P < 0.05). Conclusions The direct economic loss of pneumoconiosis patients is relatively high. The systemic intervention therapy in the pneumoconiosis rehabilitation station can reduce the economic loss of pneumoconiosis patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convolution neural networks have been widely used in the field of computer vision, which effectively solve practical problems. However, the loss function with fixed parameters will affect the training efficiency and even lead to poor prediction accuracy. In particular, when there is a class imbalance in the data, the final result tends to favor the large‐class. In detection and recognition problems, the large‐class will dominate due to its quantitative advantage, and the features of few‐class can be not fully learned. In order to learn few‐class, batch nuclear‐norm maximization is introduced to the deep neural networks, and the mechanism of the adaptive composite loss function is established to increase the diversity of the network and thus improve the accuracy of prediction. The proposed loss function is added to the crowd counting, and verified on ShanghaiTech and UCF_CC_50 datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed loss function improves the prediction accuracy and convergence speed of deep neural networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an advanced and powerful analysis tool. Due to the advantages of high sensitivity, high resolution, and nondestructive testing, it has been widely used in physics, chemistry, material science and other fields. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in developing flexible platforms for the design and fabrication of SERS substrates. One important kind of the flexible platforms is based on electrospun nanofibers. Electrospun nanofibers not only have unique advantages such as easy preparation, high porosity and large specific surface area, but also can increase the number of hotspots when combined with precious metal nanomaterials, thereby enhancing the SERS signal and expanding the application scope. In this review, we firstly focus on two strategies for the fabrication of metal nanostructure decorated in/on the electrospun nanofibers, namely in-situ and ex-situ. Then the applications of these SERS substrates in the fields of quantitative analysis, monitoring chemical reactions and recyclable detection are introduced in detail. Finally, the challenges as well as perspectives are presented to offer a guideline for the future exploration of these SERS substrates. We expect that it will provide new inspiration for the development of electrospun nanofiber-based SERS substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legionella pneumonia is a relatively rare but extremely progressive pulmonary infection with high mortality. Traditional cultural isolation remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of Legionella pneumonia. However, its harsh culture conditions, long turnaround time, and suboptimal sensitivity do not meet the clinical need for rapid and accurate diagnosis, especially for critically ill patients. So far, pathogenic detection techniques including serological assays, urinary antigen tests, and mass spectrometry, as well as nucleic acid amplification technique, have been developed, and each has its own advantages and limitations. This review summarizes the clinical characteristics and imaging findings of Legionella pneumonia, then discusses the advances, advantages, and limitations of the various pathogenetic detection techniques used for Legionella pneumonia diagnosis. The aim is to provide rapid and accurate guiding options for early identification and diagnosis of Legionella pneumonia in clinical practice, further easing healthcare burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, d-camphoryl chloride, terephthaloyl chloride, hydroquinone and 2,3-dibromosuccinyl chloride were used as raw materials to synthesise the main-chain liquid crystalline polymers by condensation polymerisation. A series of main-chain ionic liquid crystalline polymers with triphenylphosphine as the cationic group were successfully prepared by grafting triphenylphosphine onto the liquid crystalline polymer. By characterisation, we found that the main chain ionic liquid crystal polymer containing quaternary phosphonium ions had low glass transition temperature, high ionic conductivity and strong antibacterial properties. The quaternary phosphonium ions-containing main-chain ionic liquid-crystalline polymers show Smectic A phase, and the main-chain liquid crystalline polymers show nematic phase. The antibacterial experiments showed that the quaternary phosphonium ions-containing main-chain ionic liquid-crystalline polymers had good antibacterial properties, and the antibacterial ability of the polymer was also enhanced with the increase of phosphorus content. In addition, the orientation structure of liquid crystal also had a significant influence on its antibacterial properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inertial sensors are widely used in human motion monitoring. Orientation and position are the two most widely used measurements for motion monitoring. Tracking with the use of multiple inertial sensors is based on kinematic modelling which achieves a good level of accuracy when biomechanical constraints are applied. More recently, there is growing interest in tracking motion with a single inertial sensor to simplify the measurement system. The dead reckoning method is commonly used for estimating position from inertial sensors. However, significant errors are generated after applying the dead reckoning method because of the presence of sensor offsets and drift. These errors limit the feasibility of monitoring upper limb motion via a single inertial sensing system. In this paper, error correction methods are evaluated to investigate the feasibility of using a single sensor to track the movement of one upper limb segment. These include zero velocity update, wavelet analysis and high-pass filtering. The experiments were carried out using the nine-hole peg test. The results show that zero velocity update is the most effective method to correct the drift from the dead reckoning-based position tracking. If this method is used, then the use of a single inertial sensor to track the movement of a single limb segment is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical conversion method of self-balanced test of foundation pile bearing capacity is proposed. First, the load transfer matrices for the elastic-plastic state of the upper and lower segment piles in a multi-layer foundation were derived under the assumption of the load transfer function of the pile side associated with the ideal elastic-plastic model. Then the internal forces and vertical displacements at each micro-element of the upper and lower segment of the pile were calculated by programming, and the results of the self-balanced test pile were converted into the load-displacement curve of the conventional static load test by substituting the accurate conversion formula, and the ultimate bearing capacity was obtained. Finally, by combining with an engineering test pile example, two groups of loading results of anchor pile method and self-balanced method were used to verify the theoretical analysis of conversion method in this work. It can be concluded that the load-displacement curves obtained by this conversion method are more consistent with the results of the conventional static pressure tests compared with the simplified conversion method. Moreover, the proposed model can be widely used in the self-balanced test engineering of pile bearing strength with sufficient accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • We developed two novel peptide PET probes [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p. • Both [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p have high molar activities and good stability in vivo and in vitro. • [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p showed long tumor retention of up to 6 or 12 h with low liver accumulation. PD-L1 is expressed in many tumors but rarely in normal tissues, therefore, it can be a target of PET imaging. In this work, we developed new peptide-based PET probes [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p with yields of 20–25 % and 40–55 %, respectively. [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p were synthesized within 30 min with high molar activities. [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p showed good stability in vivo and in vitro. In vitro cell studies showed [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p target PD-L1 specifically, with high uptake of 61.52 ± 4.39 and 19.29 ± 2.17 %ID/1 million cells in B16F10 cells at 60 min, respectively. Biodistribution results showed that both [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p had lower liver accumulation. In vivo PET imaging results showed that [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p had a high tumor uptake of 4.23 ± 0.81 %ID/g at 2 h and increased uptake of 6.60 ± 1.01 %ID/g at 12 h. [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1p also showed high tumor uptake of 2.30 ± 0.20 %ID/g at 2 h and slightly increased uptake of 3.80 ± 0.26 %ID/g at 6 h. In conclusion, [18F]AlF-PAI-PDL1p and [68Ga]Ga-PAI-PDL1 seemed to be potential tracers for PET imaging of PD-L1 expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A systematic distortion of data points caused by the averaging process was uncovered. • An average absolute bias was proposed to objectively quantify the embedded bias. • A practical optimal dataset determination procedure was proposed. • The proposed method was demonstrated using real-world traffic data. Estimating traffic flow models, such as speed-density relationships, using data from multiple sources with different temporal resolutions is a prevalent challenge encountered in real-world scenarios. The resolution incompatibility is often intuitively addressed by averaging the high-resolution (HR) data to synchronize with the low-resolution (LR) data. This paper shows that ignoring the variability of HR data within the LR interval during the averaging process could lead to systematic data point distortions, resulting in biased model estimations. The average absolute biases of models estimated from the average data increase with the lost variability of HR data within the LR intervals. Subsequently, it proves that for any given complete average data dataset, there must exist an optimal dataset that minimizes the average absolute bias in model estimations introduced by the averaging process. A novel procedure for determining the practical optimal dataset is proposed. To test the proposed method, real-world HR data from four sites in Hong Kong and Nanjing, China were collected to mimic situations with multi-resolution data. Results demonstrated that the proposed method can significantly reduce the average absolute biases of models estimated from the determined practical optimal dataset, as compared to models estimated from the complete average dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the protein-RNA interaction mechanism can help us to further explore various biological processes. The experimental techniques still have some limitations, such as the high cost of economy and time. Predicting protein-RNA-binding sites by using computational methods is an excellent research tool. Here, we developed a universal method for predicting protein-specific RNA-binding sites, so one general model for a given protein was constructed on a fixed dataset by fusing the data of different experimental techniques. At the same time, information theory was employed to characterize the sequence conservation of RNA-binding segments. Conversation difference profiles between binding and nonbinding segments were constructed by information entropy (IE), which indicates a significant difference. Finally, the 19 proteins-specific models based on random forest (RF) were built based on IE encoding. The performance on the independent datasets demonstrates that our method can obtain competitive results when compared with the current best prediction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monitoring of the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere is of great significance for reducing chemical pollution, warning of fires, and improving air quality. Among the VOCs, 1,3-butadiene is essential to monitor as a carcinogenic environmental pollutant. The space-based detection of 1,3-butadiene was made possible by recently development of infrared detection satellites and advances in spectroscopic techniques. In this work, based on the demand for space-based infrared detection of 1,3-butadiene, a modeling method of Earth background radiance characteristics coupled with remote sensing data and physical model is proposed, which can effectively simulate the Earth background radiance field distribution under any atmospheric conditions. Specifically, infrared spectral radiance of 1,3-butadiene was simulated from absorption cross-section data. Further, combined with the radiative transfer model and atmospheric profiles of satellite sensor data, such as temperature, pressure, and H2O and O3 mixing ratio, the atmospheric transmittance and atmospheric background radiance are simulated. Finally, infrared space-based detection of 1,3-butadiene is simulated by coupling Earth background radiance and the detectability is analyzed and discussed by using signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR). The results show that 1,3-butadiene has an absorption effect in space-based infrared detection. The detectability of the narrow band 9.8–10.0 μm and 10.9–11.1 μm is better than that of the wide band 9.0–12.0 μm, and 10.9–11.1 μm is a better detection band for 1,3-butadiene than other bands. This paper provides a method for the space-based infrared detection of 1,3-butadiene. It also provides a reference for selecting the appropriate band for the detector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fe–N–C catalysts may be promising candidates for replacing platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts to solve sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics in the proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, the activity of Fe–N–C catalysts still has a certain gap compared with commercial Pt/C. Here, we provide a way to increase the intrinsic activity of Fe–N–C catalysts by designing active sites like ketone functional groups. A self-supporting interpenetrating network catalyst, composed of carbon nanotube (CNT) and carbon nanoparticle (CNP), is synthesized via multiple carbon sources (zinc-zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, polyaniline). The interpenetrating network features abundant ketone functional groups. The density functional theory (DFT) results prove that ketone groups can promote the ORR activity of FeN 4 active sites. This offers a new idea for improving the activity of Fe–N–C catalysts co-doped by oxygen and nitrogen in acidic systems. • Carbon interpenetrating networks are constructed by multiple carbon sources. • Special active sites such as oxygen- and nitrogen-based species are explored. • Ketone functional groups can promote the ORR activity of FeN 4 sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polysiloxane elastomers have drawn considerable attention especially benefitting from their excellent thermal stability. Nevertheless, as commercial polysiloxane elastomers possess permanently crosslinked networks, they are generally unrecyclable and thus detrimental to environment at the end of service life. Although introducing reversible covalent bonds into polysiloxane networks can achieve reprocessability, the thermal stability is declined as many reversible bonds are thermally unstable. Herein, in order to combine the desirable attributes of reprocessability and thermal stability, polydimethylsiloxane elastomers are prepared by incorporating thermally stable silyl ether linkages into networks as dynamic crosslinks for the first time. The elastomer exhibits outstanding mechanical properties, excellent solvent resistance, and even largely enhanced thermal stability (the initial degradation temperature is increased by 33 °C). Moreover, the elastomer is able to reshuffle the network topology through trans‐oxyalkylation reactions of silyl ethers, thus capable of distinguished reprocessability at high temperatures. In a word, this work provides a facile strategy for integrating reprocessability into thermosetting materials without sacrificing their thermal stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a bona fide epigenetic marker, DNA methylation has been linked to the differentiation and function of regulatory T (Treg) cells, a subset of CD4 T cells that play an essential role in maintaining immune homeostasis and suppressing autoimmunity and antitumor immune response. DNA methylation undergoes dynamic regulation involving maintenance of preexisting patterns, passive and active demethylation, and de novo methylation. Scattered evidence suggests that these processes control different stages of Treg cell lifespan ranging from lineage induction to cell fate maintenance, suppression of effector T cells and innate immune cells, and transdifferentiation. Despite significant progress, it remains to be fully explored how differential DNA methylation regulates Treg cell fate and immunological function. Here, we review recent progress and discuss the questions and challenges for further understanding the immunological roles and mechanisms of dynamic DNA methylation in controlling Treg cell differentiation and function. We also explore the opportunities that these processes offer to manipulate Treg cell suppressive function for therapeutic purposes by targeting DNA methylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of cancer-associated mortalities. The clinical outcome of HCC patients remains poor due to distant metastasis and recurrence. In recent years, growing evidences have confirmed that the coiled-coil domain-containing (CCDC) family proteins are involved in the progression of several diseases. However, the expression and clinical significance of the coiled-coil domain-containing 137 (CCDC137) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been investigated. Level 3 mRNA expression profiles and clinicopathological data were obtained in TCGA-LIHC. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened between 371 HCC and 50 nontumor specimens. The prognostic value of CCDC137 was analyzed in HCC patients. The correlations between CCDC137 and cancer immune infiltrates were investigated. In this study, a total of 2897 DEGs were obtained: 2451 genes were significantly upregulated and 446 genes were significantly downregulated. KEGG assays revealed that these DEGs were involved in tumor progression. Among 2897 DEGs, we found that CCDC137 expression was distinctly increased in HCC specimens compared with nontumor specimens. A high level of CCDC137 expression was related to an advanced tumor stage and grade. Moreover, patients with higher levels of CCDC137 expression had a shorter overall survival and disease-free survival than patients with lower CCDC137 levels. CCDC137 expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels of several immune cells, such as CD8 T cells and Th2 cells. Finally, in vitro experiments confirmed that CCDC137 expression was highly expressed in HCC cells, and its knockdown suppressed the proliferation of HCC cells. Taken together, our findings revealed that CCDC137 might be used as a biomarker for immune infiltration and poor prognosis in HCC, which offered fresh insight on potential therapies for HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The presence of mixed-lineage leukaemia rearrangement (MLL-r) in paediatric patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a poor prognostic predictor. Whether allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) is beneficial in such cases remains unclear.Methods: We evaluated the outcomes and prognostic factors of allo-HSCT in 44 paediatric patients with MLL-r AML in the first complete remission (CR1) between 2014 and 2019 at our institution.Results: For all the 44 patients, the 3-year overall survival (OS), event-free survival (EFS), and cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) were 74.5%, 64.1%, and 29.1%, respectively. Among them, 37 (84.1%) patients received haploidentical (haplo)-HSCT, and the 3-year OS, EFS, and CIR were 73.0%, 65.6%, and 26.4%, respectively. The 100-day cumulative incidence of grade II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) post-transplantation was 27.3%, and that of grade III-IV aGVHD was 15.9%. The overall 3-year cumulative incidence of chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) post-transplantation was 40.8%, and that of extensive cGVHD was 16.7%. Minimal residual disease (MRD)-positive (MRD +) status pre-HSCT was significantly associated with lower survival and higher risk of relapse. The 3-year OS, EFS, and CIR differed significantly between patients with MRD + pre-HSCT (n = 15; 48.5%, 34.3% and 59%) and those with MRD-pre-HSCT (n = 29; 89.7%, 81.4% and 11.7%). Pre-HSCT MRD + status was an independent risk factor in multivariate analysis.Conclusions: Allo-HSCT (especially haplo-HSCT) can be a viable strategy in these patients, and pre-HSCT MRD status significantly affected the outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a novel atmospheric data-driven Q-band satellite channel model using two artificial neural networks, i.e., multilayer perceptron and long short-term memory (LSTM), to estimate real-time channel attenuation at Q-band via a set of atmospheric parameters. Seven atmospheric parameters for modeling satellite channel attenuation are selected by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm from 14 commonly used atmospheric parameters. Simulation results demonstrate that the multilayer perceptron-based atmospheric data-driven Q-band satellite channel model via those seven atmospheric parameters is more accurate and less complex than that via the 14 atmospheric parameters. Meanwhile, the accuracy performance of multilayer perceptron- and LSTM-based atmospheric data-driven Q-band satellite channel models, such as absolute errors and mean-squared errors (MSEs), is discussed and analyzed. The complexity of multilayer perceptron and LSTM in this model, such as training time, loading time, and estimation time, is also investigated. It can be seen that the estimated channel attenuation can well align with the measured channel attenuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel hybrid system is proposed with deterministic prediction and interval prediction. • Outlier detection and correction method are used to reduce the complexity of the series. • Data decomposition strategy is applied to decompose the original series to improve the prediction accuracy. • A multi-objective optimization algorithm is selected to determine the original weights and biases of the forecasting model. • Applied interval prediction to quantify the range of concentration change of air pollutants caused by uncertainties. A novel system regarding deterministic and interval predictions of pollutant concentration is constructed in this study, which can not only obtain higher prediction accuracy in deterministic prediction and also provide effective interval prediction of air pollutant concentration. In the deterministic prediction stage, the improved extreme learning machine combines outlier detection and correction algorithm, data decomposition strategy, and a multi-objective optimization algorithm to form a hybrid model for predicting pollutant concentration. Moreover, the applicability of the optimization algorithm was verified from theoretical and experimental analysis. In the interval prediction stage, three distributions are compared to mine, the traits of deterministic prediction errors are analyzed, and interval prediction is designed to quantify the uncertainties associated with pollutant concentration. To investigate the prediction performance of the proposed system, comparison experiments have been executed using the PM 2.5 concentration series from three cities. The results indicate that the system proposed in this paper outperforms comparison models in forecasting accuracy and has advantages for pollution prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By utilizing the 1m and 2.4m telescopes of Yunnan Observatories, we obtained 13 new photometric transit light curves of WASP-12 exoplanetary system from 2009 to 2016. The data were analysed by using the Transit Analysis Package with the aid of Markov chain Monte Carlo technique. Based on the physical parameters from previous work, we have obtained the variation of radius with wavelength and mid-transit times of WASP-12b. Compared with a set of theoretical transmission spectra, its radius variation is almost consistent with a flatten and featureless model along with a slope in the bluer band, except the weak Na signal. The flatten and featureless transmission spectrum implies a possible evidence for the absence of TiO and VO in the upper atmosphere of WASP-12b. The slope in the bluer band may result from the Rayleigh scattering caused by H2/He and there would be hazes or hydride in the upper atmosphere. Combined new mid-transit times with all of the available timing data in literature, we have found that there is a significant change in the planetary orbit, the residuals of the timing prefer the orbital decay model to the apsidal precession model and the planetary interaction-induced TTV model. We updated the decay rate as −37.14 ± 1.31 ms yr−1 and derived a slightly lower modified quality factor |$Q^{^{\prime }}_{*}$| for the constant-phase lag model. Furthermore, the current observations cannot rule out the planetary interaction-induced TTV model conclusively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. A more accurate prediction of liver metastasis (LM) in pancreatic cancer (PC) would help improve clinical therapeutic effects and follow-up strategies for the management of this disease. This study was to assess various prediction models to evaluate the risk of LM based on machine learning algorithms. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed clinicopathological characteristics of PC patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database from 2010 to 2018. The logistic regression, extreme gradient boosting, support vector, random forest (RF), and deep neural network machine algorithms were used to establish models to predict the risk of LM in PC patients. Specificity, sensitivity, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine the discriminatory capacity of the prediction models. Results. A total of 47,919 PC patients were identified; 15,909 (33.2%) of which developed LM. After iterative filtering, a total of nine features were included to establish the risk model for LM based on machine learning. The RF showed the most promising results in the prediction of complications among the models (ROC 0.871 for training and 0.832 for test sets). In risk stratification analysis, the LM rate and 5-year cancer-specific survival (CSS) in the high-risk group were worse than those in the intermediate- and low-risk groups. Surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy were found to significantly improve the CSS in the high- and intermediate-risk groups. Conclusion. In this study, the RF model constructed could accurately predict the risk of LM in PC patients, which has the potential to provide clinicians with more personalized clinical decision-making recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and application of organophosphate esters (OPEs) have dramatically increased in recent years due to their use as a replacement for brominated flame retardants. In this study, 13 OPEs (Σ 13 OPEs) were analyzed in indoor air samples from kitchens and living rooms in 14 residential homes in Beijing, China. The concentrations of Σ 13 OPEs in kitchen air samples (mean: 13 ng/m3) were significantly (p < 0.05) higher than in living room air samples (5.0 ng/m3). In addition, paired window surface organic film samples were collected and analyzed to investigate film-air partitioning, exhibiting a mean concentration of Σ 13 OPEs of 4100 ng/m2. The congener profiles showed that tris(2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCPP) was the predominant compound in both window film samples (48%) and the corresponding indoor air sample (56%). The estimated daily intakes (EDI) of OPEs via indoor air inhalation were 2.8 and 1.4 ng/kg/day for infants and adults, respectively, both of which are below the reference dose values (RfDs). Overall, these findings indicate that OPEs in the indoor air environment of residential homes in Beijing are not likely to pose a health risk to the general population. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• E-MPBs shows sustained cellular uptake by microglia. • E-MPBs exhibits anti-ROS and anti-inflammation properties against M1 microglia. • E-MPBs develops a novel nanoplatform for SCI. Developing biomimetic nanoparticles without off-target side-effects remains a major challenge in spinal cord injury (SCI) immunotherapy. In this paper, we have conducted a drug carrier which is biocompatible macrophages-exocytosed exosome-biomimetic manganese (Mn)-iron prussian blue analogues (MPBs) for SCI immunotherapy. Exosome-sheathed MPBs (E-MPBs) exhibit promoted microglia accumulation, alleviation from H 2 O 2 -induced microenvironment and inhibition of apoptosis and inflammation in vitro. In addition, E-MPBs possessed significant tissue repair and neuroprotection in vivo. These properties endowed E-MPBs with great improvement in vivo in function recovery, resulting in anti-neuroinflammation activity and excellent biocompatibility in mice SCI model. As a promising treatment for efficient SCI immunotherapy, these results demonstrate the use of exosome-sheathed biomimetic nanoparticles exocytosed by anti-inflammation cells is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A radiation model is proposed for the ultraviolet radiation properties of a gas-solid two-phase plume containing ablation particles. • The in-scattering source function of the aircraft plume is calculated statistically averaging the scattering properties of the particle swarm. • The effect of the phase change of the ablation particles on the radiation characteristics of the plume is considered. We propose a radiation model for a coupled gas-solid two-phase flow that includes ablation particles. This model is designed to compute the UV radiation characteristics of a plume containing ablation particles, employing the SHDOM method. The model considers the distribution characteristics of the ablation particles. Subsequently, we calculates the scattering phase function of these particles, along with a cumulative probability distribution, using the principles of Mie theory. The impact of ablation particle presence or absence on plume radiation characteristics is assessed, and the influence of ablation particle phase transition on plume radiation characteristics is also examined. The results suggest that adding ablation particles significantly boosts the UV radiation emitted by the plume, resulting in an average increase in radiance of approximately 65 % after the ablation process. In addition, the effects of changes in the phase state of the particles were studied in detail, with changes in particle phase increasing the average radiance within the plume by about 43 %. The results of this research have potential to advance aircraft stealth capabilities, characterize operating conditions of combustion chambers and aid in studying thermal protection materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solute carrier family 25 member 20 (SLC25A51) is a newly identified mammalian mitochondrial NAD+ transporter. However, the clinicopathological and biological significance of SLC25A51 in human cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), remains unclear. The aim of this study was to define the role of SLC25A51 in HCC progression. Here we demonstrate that SLC25A51 is significantly overexpressed in human HCC specimens and cell lines, caused by, at least in partial, the decrease of miR-212–3p. SLC25A51 overexpression is positively correlated with the clinicopathological characteristics of vascular invasion and tumor diameter, as well as poor survival in patients with HCC. Knockdown of SLC25A51 attenuated, while overexpression of SLC25A51 enhanced the growth and metastasis of HCC cells both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, glucose metabolism reprogramming from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis by activation of mitochondrial sirtuin 5 (SIRT5) was found to contribute to the promotion of growth and metastasis by SLC25A51 in HCC cells. Together, these findings reveal important roles of SLC25A51 in HCC tumorigenesis and suggest SLC25A51 as a promising prognostic marker and therapeutic target for treating HCC. [Display omitted] • SLC25A51 is up-regulated in HCC and negatively associated with clinical outcomes. • SLC25A51 enhances HCC growth and metastasis. • SLC25A51 promotes aerobic glycolysis in HCC cells mainly by activating SIRT5. • Enhanced aerobic glycolysis is essential for SLC25A51-promoted HCC progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the variation in the high-temperature stability of asphalt mixtures under extreme high temperature and heavy load, rut tests and analyses were carried out with both the APA (asphalt pavement analyzer) test and CLWT (Chinese wheel load test). In this paper, the relationship model between the dynamic stability of asphalt mixtures and the temperature, load, and binder viscosity is established; this model provides a method for evaluating the temperature stability of asphalt mixtures under nonstandard temperature conditions. The results revealed that the dynamic viscosity of an SBS-modified asphalt binder showed an exponential relationship with temperatures varying from 55°C to 70°C. Under a temperature condition from 55°C to 70°C and a pressure of 0.7 MPa, the dynamic stability of the asphalt mixture increased linearly with increasing temperature. The dynamic stability of the asphalt mixture exhibited a temperature inflection point at 65°C, and the decay rate was increased. The APA test results, which were used to evaluate the anti-rutting performance of the asphalt mixture on the basis of the ratio of the rutting depth difference to action times from 6000 to 8000, showed a good correlation with the CLWT test results. With a high temperature of 65°C and the pressure increasing from 0.7 MPa to 1.3 MPa, the dynamic stability of the asphalt mixture exhibited exponential decay. The variation laws of dynamic stability with temperature, load, and asphalt binder viscosity were revealed by complex logarithmic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insufficient skid resistance of pavement is one of the main causes of traffic accidents. In this study, the influence of the friction coefficient on the internal effect of the pavement structure is studied deeply by establishing the asymmetric finite element numerical model. The model analyzes the inner stress, strain, and displacement variations of the pavement, with friction coefficients under the conditions of 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0 and the action of the nonlinear superposition between the single-point static vertical load and horizontal load. In addition, against the limitations of the scatter calculation results, this paper analyzes the distribution of the internal stress field and displacement field. The results show that, with the attenuation of the friction coefficient, the distribution law of stress, strain, and displacement on the road surface (Z = 0) remains unchanged, and the maximum principal strain and the third principal strain on the Z-axis decrease monotonically with increasing depth. With the attenuation of the friction coefficient, the horizontal displacement inside the pavement structure gradually decreases, the vertical displacement changes insignificantly, and the principal stress gradually decreases. The principal strain and maximum shear stress inside the pavement structure show different changing rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reported the reactivity and mechanisms of superoxide radical (O2˙−)-mediated transformation of pentachlorophenate. Our results indicated that O2˙− alone exhibits limited effects on its degradation, and bimolecular nucleophilic substitution is the dominant reaction pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pituitary tumor-transforming gene-1 (PTTG1), one type of DNA repair-related gene, has been reported to be dysregulated in several tumors and serve as a tumor promotor. Previously, the oncogenic roles of PTTG1 were also reported in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). However, the prognostic values of PTTG1 in LUAD and the possible mechanism of its dysregulation have not been clarified. We analyzed TCGA datasets and reported that PTTG1 expression showed a distinct increase within LUAD specimens in comparison with nontumor specimens. Further survival study revealed that patients containing a great PTTG1 level had noticeably less overall survival and progression-free survival as compared with patients containing a low PTTG1 level. Multivariate analyses confirmed that PTTG1 expression was a factor of prognosis that is independent in terms of LUAD patients. Besides, PTTG1 methylation had a negative regulation on PTTG1, so PTTG1 had a high expressing level in LUAD tissues. However, the relation between hypermethylation and overall survival was not demonstrated using TCGA datasets. In addition, we observed that LUAD specimens with advanced stages exhibited a higher level of PTTG1. Finally, the dysregulated genes related to PTTG1 expression were screened, and KEGG assays revealed that the above genes were involved in the p53 signaling pathway, indicating the possible regulatory function of PTTG1 in the p53 signaling pathway. Overall, our findings suggest that PTTG1 may serve as an efficient clinical biomarker and a therapeutic target for patients suffering from LUAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. With the development of social economy, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is becoming a severe health problem globally. Methods. To systematically understand the lipid metabolism in T2DM, we applied untargeted lipidomics to the serum of T2DM patients and control group using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS). Results. Over two thousand molecular features were detected by our approach, of which 222 lipid species in positive ion mode and 145 species in negative were reliably identified based on precise molecular weights and MS/MS patterns. Multivariate analysis was adopted to differentiate T2DM patients and the control group using principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discrimination analysis (OPLS-DA). The dysregulated lipid species were found and their significance in pathophysiology was discussed. Correlation analysis of selected lipids and important clinical variables was performed and addressed. Conclusions. This study unveils several new lipids and pathways considerably involved in T2DM and provides novel insights into understanding the pathogenesis underlying T2DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a novel backtrackless aligned-spatial graph convolutional network (BASGCN) model to learn effective features for graph classification. Our idea is to transform arbitrary-sized graphs into fixed-sized backtrackless aligned grid structures and define a new spatial graph convolution operation associated with the grid structures. We show that the proposed BASGCN model not only reduces the problems of information loss and imprecise information representation arising in existing spatially-based graph convolutional network (GCN) models, but also bridges the theoretical gap between traditional convolutional neural network (CNN) models and spatially-based GCN models. Furthermore, the proposed BASGCN model can both adaptively discriminate the importance between specified vertices during the convolution process and reduce the notorious tottering problem of existing spatially-based GCNs related to the Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm, explaining the effectiveness of the proposed model. Experiments on standard graph datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the outcomes of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy secondary to bony foraminal stenosis treated with anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) combined with anterior cervical foraminotomy (ACF) assisted by High‐Definition 3‐Dimensional Exoscope. Methods: In this retrospective study, a total of 19 consecutive patients (12 males and seven females, with an average of 49.2 years, range from 40 to 59 years) with spondylotic radiculopathy caused by bony foraminal stenosis underwent ACDF combined with ACF assisted by High‐Definition 3‐Dimensional Exoscope in our hospital between January 2019 and December 2019 were included in this study. All patients signed the consent form before the surgery. The patient baseline information such as gender, age, body mass index (BMI), surgery time, blood loss, hospital stay, lesion segment, side, follow‐up time and postoperative complications were recorded. The Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were measured and compared before surgery, 1 months and final follow‐up after surgery. The radiographic outcomes were evaluated using the C2‐C7 angel, disc height, foraminal height, superior diagonal distance, inferior diagonal distance, and foraminal area. Results: The involved levels included C4‐C5 (six cases), C5‐C6 (10 cases), C6‐C7 (three cases). The mean duration of the surgery, mean blood loss, mean hospital stay, and mean follow‐up were 100 ± 11.10 min, 19.4 ± 7.05 mL, 7.1 ± 0.99 days, and 12.1 ± 2.25 months, respectively. The average preoperative JOA score was 11.9 ± 1.31, then improved to 15.7 ± 0.73 (t = −13.45, P < 0.001) and 16.2 ± 0.74 (t = −14.39, P < 0.001) at 1 month after operation and at last follow‐up, respectively. The average preoperative NDI score was 27.3 ± 3.36, then decreased to 5.1 ± 1.79 (t = 20.63, P < 0.001) and 4.5 ± 1.21 (t = 25.53, P < 0.001) 1 month after operation and at last follow‐up, respectively. The average preoperative VAS score was 6.7 ± 0.93, then decreased to 2.4 ± 0.69 (t = 15.05, P < 0.001) and 1.9 ± 0.78 (t = 16.40, P < 0.001) 1 month after operation and at last follow‐up, respectively. As compared with the condition before surgery, there was a significant improvement in the C2‐C7 angel, disc height, foraminal height, and foraminal area (P < 0.05). None of the patients developed postoperative vascular injury, nerve injury, loosening and rupture of the internal fixation, displacement of interbody fusion cage, and pseudarthrosis. Conclusion: ACDF combined with ACF assisted by High‐Definition 3‐Dimensional Exoscope is effective and safe for the treatment of CSR caused by secondary to bony foraminal stenosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common healthcare-associated infection and the leading cause of gastroenteritis-related deaths worldwide. To investigate the effects of peptide composition of different protein products on CDI, we analyzed and compared the peptide sequences and compositions from Engraulis japonicus and Glycine max using Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). An animal model of CDI was also established to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of these peptides in vivo. The peptide compositions of E. japonicus and G. max differed, with only 11% of the peptide sequences being identical. Oral administration of the tested peptides could reduce intestinal inflammation, repair the intestinal barrier, increase the proportion of beneficial bacteria, and reduce the proportion of harmful bacteria, providing a therapeutic effect against CDI. However, the peptides may differ considerably in some aspects. E. japonicus peptides were superior to G. max peptides in promoting colon epithelial cell proliferation and repairing tight intestinal cell junctions. Interestingly, the two sources of peptides have different effects on the cecal microbiome. E. japonicus peptides can effectively restore the diversity and richness of intestinal microbiota, while G. max peptides have poor regulatory effects on the intestinal microbiota structure. Overall, E. japonicus peptides showed better results than G. max peptides in treating CDI. This study supports the potential treatment of CDI with natural peptides and promotes the development of specialty foods for CDI enteritis. Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common healthcare-associated infection and the leading cause of gastroenteritis-related deaths worldwide. To investigate the effects of peptide composition of different protein products on CDI, we analyzed and compared the peptide sequences and compositions from Engraulis japonicus and Glycine max using Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). An animal model of CDI was also established to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of these peptides in vivo. The peptide compositions of E. japonicus and G. max differed, with only 11% of the peptide sequences being identical. Oral administration of the tested peptides could reduce intestinal inflammation, repair the intestinal barrier, increase the proportion of beneficial bacteria, and reduce the proportion of harmful bacteria, providing a therapeutic effect against CDI. However, the peptides may differ considerably in some aspects. E. japonicus peptides were superior to G. max peptides in promoting colon epithelial cell proliferation and repairing tight intestinal cell junctions. Interestingly, the two sources of peptides have different effects on the cecal microbiome. E. japonicus peptides can effectively restore the diversity and richness of intestinal microbiota, while G. max peptides have poor regulatory effects on the intestinal microbiota structure.CDI is the leading cause of gastroenteritisrelated deaths worldwide. we compared the peptide sequences and compositions from using UPLC-MS/MS. An animal model of CDI was established to investigate the potential therapeutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Vascularized pedicled bone-grafting from the cuboid to the talus provides low donor site morbidity and satisfactory outcomes in patients with early-stage talar avascular necrosis. We investigated the anatomy of the rotational vascularized pedicled bone graft from the cuboid. Methods: 15 embalmed cadaver specimens were perfused with red latex via the popliteal artery. The lateral malleolus was dissected. The course of the lateral tarsal artery and the vascular territory in the cuboid supplied by the lateral tarsal artery were observed. Vessel diameters were measured. Results: The course of the lateral tarsal artery to the cuboid was consistent, and a vascularized pedicle of the lateral tarsal artery was present in all specimens. Mean diameter of the lateral tarsal artery was 1.40 ± 0.12 mm (range 1.67–1.25). Mean length of the vascularized pedicle was 67.15 ± 3.18 mm (range 62.43–74.36). The pedicle bone graft was long enough to reach the bony border of both the lateral and medial malleolus. Conclusion: A vascularized pedicled cuboid bone graft based on the lateral tarsal artery has clinical utility for early-stage talar avascular necrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a three-dimensional (3D) cluster-based model for the fifth generation (5G)/beyond 5G (B5G) vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wideband channels. It is the first cluster-based irregular shaped geometry-based stochastic model (IS-GBSM) to distinguish the dynamic clusters and static clusters in vehicular massive MIMO communication scenarios. This model not only considers the high time-variance, the time non-stationarity, and the vehicular traffic density (VTD) of V2V channels, but also models the massive MIMO channel characteristics, such as spherical wavefronts by 3D vector calculation and space non-stationarity. Meanwhile, this model for the first time integrates the VTD into birth-death process to model the channel characteristics of V2V and massive MIMO jointly and deeply, where a novel VTD-combined time-array cluster evolution algorithm for 5G/B5G V2V massive MIMO channel model is developed. Based on the proposed model, we derive some expressions of channel statistical properties, including time-space-frequency correlation function (STF-CF) and Doppler power spectral density (DPSD). The influence of several parameters, e.g., VTDs, vehicle moving directions, and antenna spacings, on the channel characteristics are sufficiently explored, which can provide assistance for the design of vehicular massive MIMO communication systems. Finally, the utility of the proposed model is verified by the close agreement between simulation results and measurement data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]