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Phosphors with afterglow can be used as phosphor-convertors in AC-LEDs to reduce the scintillation because the phosphorescence compensates for decayed emission in milliseconds. To improve the phosphorescent intensity, Tm3+ was employed as a co-dopant in Sr2MgSi2O7: Eu2+ phosphors. Compared to the long afterglow induced by Dy3+ co-doping, a suitable concentration of Tm3+ increased the number of excited electrons of Eu2+ by an energy transfer process so that fluorescent intensity was improved. After switching off the excitation, the accumulated excited electrons accompanied by the de-trapped electrons from the oxygen vacancies led to an improved phosphorescence intensity of the Eu2+. The Sr2MgSi2O7: Eu2+, Tm3+ synthesized in this study is a promising candidate for phosphor-conversion in AC-LEDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass transport in frozen ground is typically regarded slow. However, a highly permeable path can exist in frozen saline sand if the unfrozen water is interconnected at the pore scale. We therefore should consider when the unfrozen water is connected and how permeable can frozen saline sand be, yet there are few studies. This research utilizes in‐situ X‐ray CT to evaluate unfrozen water connectivity and permeability in frozen saline sand considering effects of initial salt content, temperature, freezing rate, and temperature gradient. Results show that higher initial salt content and/or temperature, both of which results in a higher unfrozen water content, easily maintains unfrozen water connectivity. Rapid freezing minimizes the brine expulsion and permits a higher unfrozen water content hence better connectivity. Permeability in frozen saline sand can be several orders higher than the typically reported value, highlighting the potential presence of rapid mass transport through the connected unfrozen water. Plain Language Summary: Frozen aqueous sandy soils in nature often contain a lot of substances such as dissolved salts, gases, contaminants. Mass migration via unfrozen water is of vital importance to groundwater flow, greenhouse gas emission, even contaminated soil remediation. Permeability determination of unfrozen water is well‐studied in salt‐free soils. Our study shows there can be a highly conductive path in frozen saline sand when the unfrozen water is interconnected, even at a low unfrozen water saturation of 14%. The connectivity of unfrozen water remains at −20°C with an initial salt concentration similar to seawater. Rapid freezing causes better connectivity because less unfrozen water is squeezed out of the frozen sand during ice growth. Permeability in frozen saline sand can be several orders of magnitude higher than the typically reported value. These findings indicate that mass transport in frozen ground, via the connected unfrozen water, can be much more active than previously thought. Key Points: Pore‐scale unfrozen water can be interconnected, enabling fast mass transport below 0°C when soil contains saltRapid freezing enhances unfrozen water connectivity and permeability due to less and slower salt migration during freezingPermeability of frozen saline sand can be several orders of magnitude higher than that of salt‐free soil [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed a hypothetical fixed-index annuity (FIA) contract linked to a 5 percent volatility-controlled index (VCI) and compared its performance with a traditional FIA linked to the S&P 500 Index, the stock benchmark itself, and a corporate bond benchmark. The simulation results showed that the FIA linked to the 5 percent VCI outperformed the traditional FIA, the bond benchmark, and enjoyed a higher sharp ratio than the stock benchmark. Risk parity, VCI, and the other factors contributing to the outperformance were studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning-based object detection has made tremendous progress in the field of intelligent vision systems. However, one of its major complaints is the high demand for large amounts of experimental data. Few-shot object detection (FSOD) aims to identify novel objects with only a few training samples. Existing techniques don't fully explore the potential mapping relationships between support and query features due to the limitation of global matching contrast. In this work, we propose a multi-projection filtering network (MPF-Net) to exploit feature relevance and aggregate the information between multiple scales, ensuring an optimal global representation. Furthermore, we take the lead in proposing a feature contrast filtering paradigm for the classification and regression subtasks in order to fully utilize fine-grained features for contrastive match. The multi-visual contrast approach motivates our model to gracefully handle a variety of difficult detection challenges such as scale discrepancies, occlusions, and feature confusions. MPF-Net accurately perceives features at various scales and adaptively excavates category information. Extensive experiments on PASCAL VOC and MS COCO datasets have demonstrated that our detectors significantly improve upon baseline detectors, especially for extremely low-shot settings (average accuracy improvement is up to 3.5% in 1-shot scenarios and 2.5% in 2-shot scenarios). In general, we propose a novel strategy to construct the few-shot feature space and achieve remarkable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alport Syndrome (AS) is a genetic kidney disorder characterized by progressive hearing loss and atypical eye symptoms, resulting in a poor prognosis and lack of effective targeted therapy. The primary mode of inheritance is X-linked dominant (XLAS) due to variants in the COL4A5 gene. This study revealed a previously unidentified alternative form of the COL4A5 gene, namely, the c.4822-10T>C variant, which was confirmed through in vitro experiments. To investigate the impact of a splicing variant on COL4A5 mRNA production, an in vitro minigene splicing assay was utilized. Additionally, molecular dynamics was employed to predict the ability of a5(IV) to form a triple helix. Results from the experiment revealed that the wild-type (WT) plasmid produced two distinct mRNA products simultaneously. Sequence analysis using the BLAST database revealed a 173-bp deletion in the mRNA sequence of the first product, indicating a potential similarity to the XM_016942897.2 transcript of Pan troglodytes. The second mRNA product of the WT plasmid contained the full sequence of exons 51, 52, and 53, as anticipated. Conversely, the mutant (MT) plasmid generated a single mRNA product with a 173-bp deletion in exon 52, leading to the identification of the mature mRNA expression as NM_033380.2: COL4A5: c.4822_4994del. In the context of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), the deletion c.4822_ 4994 results in the production of a truncated protein, p. His1608*, that terminates prematurely. This truncated protein may disrupt the secondary structure of a5(IV) and potentially cause an abnormal conformation of a345(IV). This study examines the relationship between the variable splicing pattern in the NM_033380.2 transcript of the COL4A5 gene in XLAS patients and the presence of the COL4A5 gene splice variant c.4822-10T>C. Our findings indicate that the c.4822-10T>C splice variant leads to activation of nonsensemediated mRNA degradation (NMD) and reduced COL4A5 mRNA expression, resulting in inadequate synthesis of the corresponding proteins. This aligns with the patient's immunofluorescence results showing negative a5(IV) chain presence at the glomerular basement membrane, bursa, and tubular basement membrane, confirming the pathogenic nature of c.4822-10T>C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sandy saline soils are widely distributed and commonly experience seasonal or long‐term freezing, yet the freezing process in these soils is rarely studied. This research utilized in situ X‐ray computed tomography (CT) to visualize pore‐scale freezing processes in sandy saline soils under various initial water and salt contents. Micron‐resolution observations of pore ice and unfrozen water produced new insights into the preferential orientation and grouping of pore ice crystals, intersections between different pore ice crystal groups causing anisotropic behavior, decreasing pore ice crystal size under faster freezing rates, and the formation of interconnected networks of both pore ice and unfrozen water upon freezing. From a thermodynamic perspective, the salt content in the unfrozen liquid is dependent on the local temperature as described by water–salt phase diagram. Furthermore, the local volume ratio between unfrozen water and pore ice reflects the initial salt content and salt mass transfer occurring due to both diffusion and fluid flow processes. This work improves the understanding of complex freezing phenomena in sandy saline soils through high‐resolution evidence of crystallization patterns, transformation mechanisms, and coupled heat‐mass transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of modern molecular biology and bioinformatics, many studies have proved that transcription factors play an important role in regulating the growth and development of plants. SPATULA (SPT) belongs to the bHLH transcription family and participates in many processes of regulating plant growth and development. This review systemically summarizes the multiple roles of SPT in plant growth, development, and stress response, including seed germination, flowering, leaf size, carpel development, and root elongation, which is helpful for us to better understand the functions of SPT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) is the prevailing congenital anomaly of the kidneys and urinary tract, posing a significant risk for pyelonephritis scarring and chronic renal insufficiency in pediatric patients. Nevertheless, the precise genetic etiology of VUR remains enigmatic. In this current investigation, we conducted whole-exome sequencing on a child exhibiting single kidney, devoid of any familial VUR background, along with both biological parents. Two missense variants (NM_019105.8: exon11: c.4111G>A and NM_019105.8: exon2: c.31A>T) in the TNXB gene were identified through whole-exome sequencing of the child. These variants were found to be inherited from the child's parents, with each parent carrying one of the variants. Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to assess the impact of these variants on the tenascin XB proteins encoded by them, revealing varying degrees of impairment. Based on our findings, it is suggested that the TNXB compound heterozygous variant, consisting of c.4111G>A and c.31A>T, may be the underlying cause of right renal agenesis and left hydronephrosis in afflicted child. This discovery broadens the genetic range of the TNXB gene and establishes a genetic foundation for disease-specific preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in prospective pregnancies involving the parents of this afflicted child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isocitrate Dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) is commonly mutated in lower-grade diffuse gliomas. The IDH1R132H mutation is an important diagnostic tool for tumor diagnosis and prognosis; however, its role in glioma development, and its impact on response to therapy, is not fully understood. We developed a murine model of proneural IDH1R132H-mutated glioma that shows elevated production of 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) and increased trimethylation of lysine residue K27 on histone H3 (H3K27me3) compared to IDH1 wild-type tumors. We found that using Tazemetostat to inhibit the methyltransferase for H3K27, Enhancer of Zeste 2 (EZH2), reduced H3K27me3 levels and increased acetylation on H3K27. We also found that, although the histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) Panobinostat was less cytotoxic in IDH1R132H-mutated cells (either isolated from murine glioma or oligodendrocyte progenitor cells infected in vitro with a retrovirus expressing IDH1R132H) compared to IDH1-wild-type cells, combination treatment with Tazemetostat is synergistic in both mutant and wild-type models. These findings indicate a novel therapeutic strategy for IDH1-mutated gliomas that targets the specific epigenetic alteration in these tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a triple-layer grating beam splitter with three-port output is designed. Through the combination of rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and simulated annealing algorithms (SAA), the calculation and optimization of each parameter of the grating is carried out to make the diffraction efficiency of the grating meet the conditions. At the incident wavelength of 800 nm, the diffraction efficiencies of 0th order and ±1st order under TE polarization are 31.6% and 31.4%, respectively. The diffraction efficiencies of 0th order and ±1st order under TM polarization are 32.7% and 32.5%, respectively. It can be seen that not only the total diffraction efficiency under TE polarization and TM polarization exceeds 90%, but also the uniformity of diffraction efficiency at each order exceeds 99%. Finally, the influence of grating parameters and incident wave characteristics on diffraction efficiency is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural networks significantly enhance the accuracy of the stereo‐based disparity estimation. Some current methods suffer from inefficient use of the global context information, which will lead to the loss of structural details in ill‐posed areas. To this end, a novel stereo network GAMNet is designed, composed of three core components (GDA, MPF, DCA) for estimating the depth prediction in challenging real‐world environments. First, a lightweight attention module is presented, integrating the global semantic cues for every feature position across the channel and spatial dimensions. Next, the MPF module is constructed to fuse the diverse semantic and contextual information from different levels of the feature pyramid. Finally, cost volume is aggregated with a stacked encoder‐decoder composed of the DCA module and 3D convolutions, filtering the transmission of matching clues and capturing the rich global contexts. Substantial experiments conducted on KITTI 2012, KITTI 2015, SceneFlow, and Middlebury‐v3 datasets manifest that GAMNet surpasses preceding methods with contour‐preserving disparity predictions. In addition, the first 3D scene reconstruction linear evaluation strategy on spatial grasping points for the end‐to‐end stereo networks in an unsupervised mode is proposed, and it is deployed on the designed robot vision‐guided system. In application experiments, the method can produce densely high‐precision 3D reconstructions to implement the grasping task in complex real‐world scenes, and achieve excellent robust performance with competitive inference efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The noninvasive computed tomography angiography-derived fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) can be used to diagnose coronary ischemia. With advancements in associated software, the diagnostic capability of CT-FFR may have evolved. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a novel deep learning-based software in predicting coronary ischemia through CT-FFR. Methods: In this prospective study, 138 subjects with suspected or confirmed coronary artery disease were assessed. Following indication of 30%-90% stenosis on coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography, participants underwent invasive coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve (FFR) measurement. The diagnostic performance of the CT-FFR was determined using the FFR as the reference standard. Results: With a threshold of 0.80, the CT-FFR displayed an impressive diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 97.1%, 96.2%, 97.7%, 0.98, 96.2%, and 97.7%, respectively. At a 0.75 threshold, the CT-FFR showed a diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, AUC, PPV, and NPV of 84.1%, 78.8%, 85.7%, 0.95, 63.4%, and 92.8%, respectively. The Bland-Altman analysis revealed a direct correlation between the CT-FFR and FFR (p < 0.001), without systematic differences (p = 0.085). Conclusions: The CT-FFR, empowered by novel deep learning software, demonstrates a strong correlation with the FFR, offering high clinical diagnostic accuracy for coronary ischemia. The results underline the potential of modern computational approaches in enhancing noninvasive coronary assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the value of ultrasound combined with computed tomography (CT) in identifying early low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm and appendicitis. Methods: Patients with early low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm and appendicitis from September 2017 to September 2021, including 40 patients with low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm and 40 patients with appendicitis, were collected in this study. Clinical data as well as ultrasound and CT findings of all patients were retrospectively analyzed. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were applied to establish the ultrasound model, the CT model, and the combined model. Results: The nomogram showed that specific characteristics of CT were dilated appendiceal diameter and clear surrounding fat space in the low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm and that specific characteristics of ultrasound were thin or clear layer appendix wall and flocculent echo in the appendix cavity. These four features were used to construct a nomogram for predicting early low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm, and the area under the curve value was 0.839. Conclusion: Ultrasound combined with CT for diagnosis of early low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm has a significant value; when found significantly dilated appendix in the lower right abdomen, with thin wall, wall calcification, clear surrounding fat space, and progressive enhancement, especially nonspecific symptoms similar to appendicitis, the physician should timely consider the possibility of low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gemcitabine (GEM) is a second-line anticancer drug of choice for some colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, and GEM inability to be commonly available in the clinic due to the lack of clarity of the exact action targets. Methods: The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of GEM treatment for 42 CRC cell lines were accessed from the Genomics of Drug sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) database. High-throughput sequencing data of CRC patients were captured in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) was conducted. Pearson correlations were derived for GEM potency-related genes. Differential analysis was conducted in the TCGA cohort to obtain CRC development-related genes (CDRGs), and univariate COX model analysis was performed on CDRGs overlapping with GEM potency-related genes to obtain CDRGs affecting CRC prognosis. Hub genes affecting GEM potency were identified by Spearman correlation. Results: CALB2 and GPX3 were identified as potential targets for GEM treatment of CRC via prognostic analysis, which we also observed to be elevated with elevated clinical stage in CRC patients. The enhanced expression of CALB2 and GPX3 genes identified in the pathway analysis might inhibit the body metabolism as well as activate immune and inflammation related pathways. In addition, we found that CALB2 and GPX3 could also be considered as prognostic biomarkers in pancancer. Finally, we found that CALB2 and GPX3 were remarkably associated with the drug sensitivity of MG-132, Dasatinib, Shikonin, Midostaurin, MS-275, and ZLNle- CHO, which were expected to be the drugs of choice for GEM combination. Conclusion: CALB2 and GPX3 represent prognostic biomarkers for CRC and they might be potential action targets for GEM. Our study offered innovative ideas for GEM administration strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online detection of liquid flow rate in gas-liquid two-phase flow has become an important factor in ensuring the safe operation of gas wells. In this paper, the real-time measurement of liquid holdup in gas-liquid two-phase flow is carried out by analyzing the characteristics of vibration signals excited by gas-liquid two-phase flow impacting on the pipe wall. Firstly, an acceleration sensing detection and processing system is constructed to obtain the vibration signals excited by gas-liquid two-phase flow impacting on the pipe wall. Then, the pure airflow vibration signals at different flow velocities and the gas-liquid two-phase flow excitation vibration signals at different liquid flow rates are tested, respectively, and the time-frequency characteristics analysis based on STFT is implemented. The practice shows the following: firstly, the frequency band of 6.5−15 Hz is identified as the characteristic frequency band of liquid flow rate in gas-liquid two-phase flow. Secondly, the liquid holdup is positively correlated with the vibration energy in its characteristic frequency band. Thirdly, a mathematical model of the relationship between liquid flow rate and vibration energy is constructed. Finally, the measurement error of liquid holdup is within 10%. This research method has laid a good foundation for the subsequent detection of characteristic parameters of each phase in gas-solid-liquid complex multiphase flow fluids, and it has certain application and promotion value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present studies on ethnicity and intestinal flora show that different ethnic factors, such as diet, geography, and genetics, can make remarkable differences in the structure of intestinal microbiota. To the best of our knowledge, in this study, the differences in intestinal flora of healthy Dai and Han Chinese in the Yunnan region of China were determined for the first time by high-throughput sequencing, and the correlation between polymorphisms of FOXC2 C-512T and the structure of intestinal flora was analyzed. The study found that there were significant differences in α and β diversity in intestinal flora between healthy Dai and Han people, and the two ethnic groups had dominant microbiota, through analysis at gate and genus levels. Moreover, our study shows that the intestinal flora structure of FOXC2 C-512T locus CT is different from that of the other two genotypes in terms of α and β diversity and that FOXC2 C-512T polymorphism can affect the composition of human intestinal flora. This study mainly fills the gap in the field of ethnic-gut microbiome research of Dai people and reveals the effect of FOXC2 C-512T polymorphism on the structure of human intestinal flora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Babao Dan (BBD) is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been widely used as a complementary and alternative medicine to treat chronic liver diseases. In this study, we aimed to observe the effect of BBD on the incidence of diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-initiated hepatocellular carcinoma formation in rats and explored its possible mechanism. Methods: To verify this hypothesis, BBD was administrated to rats at a dose of 0.5g/kg body weight per two days from the 9th to 12th week in HCC-induced by DEN. Liver injury biomarkers and hepatic inflammatory parameters were evaluated by histopathology as well as serum and hepatic content analysis. We applied immunohistochemical analysis to investigate the expression of CK-19 and SOX-9 in liver tissues. The expression of TLR4 was determined by immunohistochemical, RT-PCR, and western blot analysis. Furthermore, we also detected the efficacy of BBD against primary HPCs neoplastic transformation induced by LPS. Results: We observed that DEN could induce hepatocarcinogenesis, and BBD could obviously decrease the incidence. The biochemical and histopathological examination results confirmed that BBD could protect against liver injury and decrease inflammatory infiltration. Immunohistochemistry staining results showed that BBD could effectively inhibit the ductal reaction and the expression of TLR4. The results showed that BBD-serumcould obviously inhibit primary HPCs neoplastic transformation induced by regulating the TLR4/Ras/ ERK signaling pathway Conclusion: In summary, our results indicate that BBD has potential applications in the prevention and treatment of HCC, which may be related to its effect on hepatic progenitor cells malignant transformation via inhibiting the TLR4/Ras/ ERK signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Plant diseases worsen the threat of food shortage with the growing global population, and disease recognition is the basis for the effective prevention and control of plant diseases. Deep learning has made significant breakthroughs in the field of plant disease recognition. Compared with traditional deep learning, meta‐learning can still maintain more than 90% accuracy in disease recognition with small samples. However, there is no comprehensive review on the application of meta‐learning in plant disease recognition. Here, we mainly summarize the functions, advantages, and limitations of meta‐learning research methods and their applications for plant disease recognition with a few data scenarios. Finally, we outline several research avenues for utilizing current and future meta‐learning in plant science. This review may help plant science researchers obtain faster, more accurate, and more credible solutions through deep learning with fewer labeled samples. Significance Statement: This paper focuses on the research related to meta‐learning based plant disease recognition with few samples. With the significant progress in deep‐learning based plant disease detection, disease diagnose is gradually intelligent. However, traditional deep‐learning has limited the existing research development because of the great demand for samples, time and effort consumption, and the lack of migration between models. Furthermore, traditional deep‐learning faces the time‐consuming and labor‐intensive nature of the available samples and the lack of transferability between models. The emergence of meta‐learning methods has solved the problem of sample annotation arising from the huge sample size, and strong feature‐extracting ability, which may be an essential tool for future crop phenotype research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The status of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) for the prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC) is controversial, and the characteristics of the somatic mutation spectrum, tumor-infiltrating leukocytes, tertiary lymphoid structures and PD-L1 protein are unknown in HER2-amplified colorectal cancer (HACC). In order to explore these characteristics along with their correlation with clinicopathological factors and prognosis in HACC. Samples of 812 CRC patients was collected. After immunohistochemistry (IHC), 59 of 812 were found to be HER2-positive, then 26 of 59 samples were further determined to be HER2 amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Somatic mutation profiling of HACC was analysed using whole exome sequencing (WES). Multiplex fluorescence immunohistochemistry (mIHC) was used for tumor-infiltrating leukocytes and tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), while PD-L1 protein was detected by IHC. Our results indicate that the detection rates of HER2 positivity by IHC and FISH were 7.3% and 3.2% respectively, and HER2 amplification is correlated with distant tumour metastasis. The somatic mutation profiling revealed no differences between HACC and HER2-negative CRC. However, TP 53 strongly correlated with poor prognosis in HACC. Furthermore, tumor-infiltrating T cells and TLSs in the tumor immune microenvironment, as well as PD-L1 expression, were higher in HACC than in HER2-negative controls. However, none of them were associated with the prognosis of HACC. In all, HER2 amplification is correlated with distant metastasis and TP53 gene mutation maybe a potential protective mechanism of HACC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: An increasing number of studies have confirmed that non-textbook outcomes (non-TO) are a risk factor for the long-term outcome of malignant tumors. It is particularly important to identify the predictive factors of non-TO to improve the quality of surgical treatment. We attempted to construct two nomograms for preoperative and postoperative prediction of non-TO after laparoscopic hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Patients who underwent curative-intent hepatectomy for HCC between 2014 and 2021 at two Chinese hospitals were analyzed. Using univariate and multivariate analyses, the independent predictors of non-TO were identified. The prediction accuracy is accurately measured by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and calibration curve. ROC curves for the preoperative and postoperative models, Child-Pugh grade, BCLC staging, and 8th TNM staging were compared relative to predictive accuracy for non-TO. Results: Among 515 patients, 286 patients (55.5%) did not achieve TO in the entire cohort. Seven and eight independent risk factors were included in the preoperative and postoperative predictive models by multivariate logistic regression analysis, respectively. The areas under the ROC curves for the postoperative and preoperative models, Child-Pugh grade, BCLC staging, and 8th TNM staging in predicting non-TO were 0.762, 0.698, 0.579, 0.569, and 0.567, respectively. Conclusion: Our proposed preoperative and postoperative nomogram models were able to identify patients at high risk of non-TO following laparoscopic resection of HCC, which may guide clinicians to make individualized surgical decisions, improve postoperative survival, and plan adjuvant therapy against recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object detection has become a crucial technology in intelligent vision systems, enabling automatic detection of target objects. While most detectors perform well on open datasets, they often struggle with small-scale objects. This is due to the traditional top-down feature fusion methods that weaken the semantic and location information of small objects, leading to poor classification performance. To address this issue, we propose a novel feature pyramid network, the adaptive learnable feature pyramid network (ALFPN). Our approach features an adaptive feature inspection that incorporates learnable fusion coefficients in the fusion of different levels of feature layers, aiding the network in learning features with less noise. In addition, we construct a context-aligned supervisor that adjusts the feature maps fused at different levels to avoid scaling-related offset effects. Our experiments demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art results and is highly robust for the small object detection on the TT-100K, PASCAL VOC, and COCO datasets. These findings indicate that a model's ability to extract discriminant features is positively correlated with its performance in detecting small objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared the performance of indexed universal life (IUL) insurance policies with 529 college saving plans in college education planning by Monte-Carlo simulations and sensitivity analysis. The IUL policies showed lower return and risk than the allstock 529 portfolios but higher return and risk than the typical age-based 529 portfolios. The expected family contribution (EFC) impact should be considered in the decision-making process. All key market variables were modeled as correlated stochastic processes in the simulation. Important actuarial assumptions and tax-related issues driving the performance of the IUL and 529 investments were thoroughly analyzed. The study reported how these factors affected the performance of two alternative funding solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Alport syndrome (AS; OMIM#308940) is a progressive hereditary kidney disease characterized by hearing loss and ocular abnormalities. According to the mode of inheritance, AS has three subtypes: X-linked (XL; OMIM#301050), autosomal recessive (AR; OMIM#203780), and autosomal dominant (AD; OMIM#104200). XLAS is caused by a pathogenic variant in COL4A5 (OMIM*303630) gene encoding type IV collagen (Col-IV) α5 chain, while ADAS and ARAS are consequences of a variant in COL4A3 (OMIM*120070) and COL4A4 (OMIM*120131) genes that encode Col-IV α3 and α4 chains, respectively. Usually, diagnosis of AS requires hereditary or pathological examinations. Splicing variants are hard to be determined as pathogenic or non-pathogenic based on the results of gene sequencing. Methods: This study focused on a splicing variant in COL4A5 gene, termed NM_ 000495.5: c.4298-20T>A, and to analyzed its authenticity and damaged α5 chain. In vitro minigene splicing assay was applied to investigate the effect of splicing variant, c.4298-20T>A, on COL4A5 mRNA synthesis. Molecular dynamics method was used to predict the capability of the responsible α5(IV) to form a triple helix. Results: The intron 46 of COL4A5 mRNA retained 18 bp, resulting in insertion of six amino acids behind the amino acid at position 1,433 of α5(IV). The predicted protein effect of this variant: p. (Pro1432_Gly1433insAspTyrPheValGluIle). As a consequence, the stability of α5(IV) secondary structure was impaired, probably leading to the unusual configuration of α345(IV). Discussion: Normally, splicing variant in COL4A5 gene can lead to phenotypes of XLAS, and the effect is associated with the extent of splicing. The patient reported here carried a c.4298-20T>A splicing variant in COL4A5 gene, and AS was highly suspected based on the pathology results. However, the patient did not manifest any ocular or ear abnormalities. We therefore present the c.4298-20T>A splicing variant in COL4A5 gene as likely-pathogenic splicing variant that leads to XLAS with mild phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polypropylene (PP)/sepiolite nanocomposites were prepared using the melt blending technique. The effects of nano-sepiolite content on the mechanical property, thermal property, crystallinity, morphology and rheological property of PP/sepiolite nanocomposites were investigated. The organic modified sepiolites (OSep) were dispersed evenly in PP matrix after surface treatment. The addition of OSep improved the storage modulus and thermal stability, showing a strong interaction between OSep and PP matrix. With the increase of OSep content, the fluidity of PP/OSep composites first increased due to the lubrication of surface modifiers and then decreased due to the interaction between OSep and PP. The size of the toughening agent elastomer first increased and then decreased, and the impact notched strength of PP/Osep composites first decreased and then increased. The loading of OSep also reduced the crystallinity and shrinkage rate of PP. PP/OSep nanocomposites have potential applications in high-performance automotive lightweight materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluid–particle systems are highly sensitive to particle morphologies. While many attempts have been made on shape descriptors and coupling schemes, how to simulate particle–particle and particle–fluid interactions with a balance between accuracy and efficiency is still a challenge, especially when complex-shaped particles are considered. This study presents a Metaball-Imaging (MI) based Discrete Element Lattice Boltzmann Method (DELBM) for fluid simulations with irregular shaped particles. The major innovation is the MI algorithm to capture the real grain shape for DELBM simulations, where the Metaball function is utilized as the mathematical representation due to its versatile and efficient expressiveness of complex shapes. The contact detection is tackled robustly by gradient calculation of the closest point with a Newton–Raphson based scheme. The coupling with LBM is accomplished by a classic sharp-interface scheme. As for refiling, a local refiling algorithm based on the bounce back rule is implemented. Validations on the Jeffery orbit of ellipsoidal particles and three settling experiments of irregular-shaped natural cobblestones indicate the proposed model to be effective and powerful in probing micromechanics of irregular-shaped granular media immersed in fluid systems. The potential of this model on studies of shape-induced physical processes is further investigated with numerical examples that consider the drag and lift forces experienced by realistic particles, as well as the "drafting, kissing and tumbling" process of pairs of non-spherical particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The long-term prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after surgery remains far from satisfactory, especially in patients with microvascular invasion (MVI). This study aimed to evaluate the potential survival benefit from adjuvant lenvatinib for patients with HCC and MVI. METHODS: Patients with HCC after curative hepatectomy were reviewed. All patients were divided into 2 groups according to adjuvant lenvatinib. Propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was used to reduce selection bias and make the results more robust. Survival curves are shown by the Kaplan-Meier (K-M) analysis and compared by the Log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to determine the independent risk factors. RESULTS: Of 179 patients enrolled in this study, 43 (24%) patients received adjuvant lenvatinib. After PSM analysis, 31 pairs of patients were enrolled for further analysis. Survival analysis before and after PSM analysis showed a better prognosis in the adjuvant lenvatinib group (all P < .05). The adverse events associated with oral lenvatinib were acceptable. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that adjuvant lenvatinib was an independent protective factor for improving overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.455, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.249-0.831, P = .001) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR = 0.523, 95% CI = 0.308-0.886, P = .016). CONCLUSIONS: Postoperative adjuvant targeted therapy can improve the long-term prognosis of patients with HCC and MVI. Therefore, in clinical practice, oral lenvatinib should be recommended for patients with HCC and MVI to decrease tumor recurrence and improve long-term survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have indicated that miR-128 was downregulated in a variety of cancers including colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the role and the underlying molecular mechanisms of miR-128 in CRC still remain largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the level of miR-128-1-5p in CRC patients and to explore both the effects and regulatory mechanisms of miR-128-1-5p in the malignancy of CRC. Real-time PCR and western blot were used to analyze the expression levels of miR- 128-1-5p and the direct downstream target protein tyrosine kinase C theta isoform (PRKCQ). Cell Counting Kit-8, clone formation, TUNEL apoptosis assays, and subcutaneous tumor model were performed to investigate the malignant ability of colon cancer cells. A luciferase assay was performed to explore whether miR-128-1-5p could directly bind to 3'-UTR region of PRKCQ. In the present study, we detected the decreased expression and clinical significances of miR-128-1-5p in colorectal cancer tissues and cell lines. Functional experiments revealed that miR-128-1-5p inhibited cell proliferation and induced cell apoptosis and that PRKCQ was identified as a target of miR-128-1-5p and involved in miR-128-1-5p-mediated proliferation and apoptosis. In conclusion, our results showed that miR-128-1-5p reduced CRC growth by modulating PRKCQ expression and is a possible new therapeutic target for patients with CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The classic electrocardiogram (ECG) criteria have been applied to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) screening but have low sensitivity. Recently, the newly proposed Peguero-Lo Presti criterion has been proven to be more sensitive in detecting LVH in patients with hypertension than several current ECG criteria. The diagnostic value of the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients has not been fully evaluated. This study aims to test whether the new Peguero-Lo Presti criterion can improve the diagnostic performance in patients with HCM. Methods: This study included HCM patients and sex-and age-matched healthy control subjects. The diagnostic performance of the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion was evaluated along with the Sokolow-Lyon criterion, Cornell criterion, and total 12-lead voltage criterion. Results: Overall, 63 HCM patients and 63 controls were enrolled. The diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of Peguero-Lo Presti criterion were 74.6%, 73.0% and 76.2%, respectively. The Peguero-Lo Presti criterion had the highest sensitivity, while the Cornell criterion and Sokolow-Lyon criterion had the highest specificity (96.8%). The area under the curve (AUC) showed that the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion was 0.809 (95% CI, 0.730–0.874; p < 0.0001), Sokolow-Lyon criterion was 0.841 (95% CI, 0.766–0.900) and total 12-lead voltage criterion was 0.814 (95% CI, 0.735–0.878). There was no significant difference in AUC between Peguero-Lo Presti criterion and Sokolow-Lyon criterion (p = 0.533), or Peguero-Lo Presti criterion and total 12-lead voltage criterion (p = 0.908). Receiver operator characteristic curve analysis of the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion showed an optimal cutoff of >3.15 mV for men (sensitivity: 63.9%; specificity: 80.0%) and >2.29 mV for women (sensitivity: 78.6%; specificity: 85.7%). Conclusions: The Peguero-Lo Presti criterion provides high sensitivity for ECG diagnosis of HCM patients and can be considered when applicable but this needs to be verified in a larger population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient dense reconstruction of objects or scenes has substantial practical implications, which can be applied to different 3D tasks (for example, robotics and autonomous driving). However, because of the expensive hardware required and the overall complexity of the all-around scenarios, efficient dense reconstruction using lightweight multi-view stereo methods has received much attention from researchers. The technological challenge of efficient dense reconstruction is maintaining low memory usage while rapidly and reliably acquiring depth maps. Most of the current efficient multi-view stereo (MVS) methods perform poorly in efficient dense reconstruction, this poor performance is mainly due to weak generalization performance and unrefined object edges in the depth maps. To this end, we propose EMO-MVS, which aims to accomplish multi-view stereo tasks with high efficiency, which means low-memory consumption, high accuracy, and excellent generalization performance. In detail, we first propose an iterative variable optimizer to accurately estimate depth changes. Then, we design a multi-level absorption unit that expands the receptive field, which efficiently generates an initial depth map. In addition, we propose an error-aware enhancement module, enhancing the initial depth map by optimizing the projection error between multiple views. We have conducted extensive experiments on challenging datasets Tanks and Temples and DTU, and also performed a complete visualization comparison on the BlenedMVS validation set (which contains many aerial scene images), achieving promising performance on all datasets. Among the lightweight MVS methods with low-memory consumption and fast inference speed, our F-score on the online Tanks and Temples intermediate benchmark is the highest, which shows that we have the best competitiveness in terms of balancing the performance and computational cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & aims: The long-term prognosis of patients with metabolic syndrome (MS) and hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HBVHCC) after radical hepatectomy remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the effect of MS on long-term survival for patients with HBVrelated HCC after hepatectomy. Methods: Patients with HBV-HCC after hepatectomy were included. Patients were stratified into MS-HBV-HCC and HBV-HCC groups. Clinical features and surgical outcomes were compared between the two groups, and COX regression analysis was used to determine independent risk factors associated with overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). Result: 389 patients (MS-HBV-HCC group: n=50, HBV-HCC group: n=339) were enrolled for further analysis. Baseline characteristics showed that patients with MS-HBV-HCC were associated with a high rate of elderly patients, ASA score, and co-morbid illness, but a lower rate of anatomy hepatectomy. There were no significant differences in perioperative complications. After excluding patients who relapsed or died within 90 days after surgery, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed MS was an independent risk factor of OS (HR 1.68, 95% CI 1.05-2.70, P = 0.032) and RFS (HR 1.78, 95% CI 1.24-2.57, P = 0.002). Conclusion: MS is an independent risk factor for poor OS and RFS in HBVinfected HCC patients after radical hepatectomy. This suggests that we need to strengthen postoperative follow-up of the relevant population and encourage patients to develop a healthy lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The GALAD and ASAP scores are two well-recognized algorithms to estimate the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) based on gender, age, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), protein induced by vitamin K absence or Antagonist-II (PIVKA-II) and AFP-L3 (included in the GALAD score but not in the ASAP score). The current study sought to compare the diagnostic performance of each score to detect HCC among patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Methods: A multicenter case-control study was undertaken in which blood samples were collected from HCV infected patients with and without HCC. Using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), ASAP and GALAD scores were compared relative to diagnostic performance to detect any stage HCV-HCC and early-stage HCV-HCC. Results: The analytic cohort included 168 HCV-HCC patients and a control group of 193 HCV-infected patients. The ASAP score had a higher AUROC to detect any stage HCV-HCC versus the GALAD score, both in the overall group (0.917 vs. 0.894, P=0.057) and in the cirrhosis subgroup (0.909 vs. 0.889, P=0.132). Similar results were noted relative to the detection of early-stage HCV-HCC, whether defined by BCLC staging (stage 0-A: 0.898 vs. 0.860, P=0.026) or 8th TNM staging (stage I: 0.899 vs. 0.870, P=0.070). In subgroup analysis to detect AFP-negative HCV-HCC, the ASAP score also demonstrated a higher AUROC than the GALAD score to detect any stage HCV-HCC in the AFP-negative subgroup (0.815 vs. 0.764, P=0.063). Conclusions: The ASAP score had better diagnostic performance for early detection of HCV-HCC compared with the GALAD score. The ASAP score may be preferrable to the GALAD score for HCC screening and surveillance among HCV-infected patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), based on a polymer air cavity, is presented. The polymer reflective layer on the polymer air cavity can serve both as the reflective layer and the function layer for inducing the high-order mode resonance. With the aluminum nitride as the piezoelectric layer, the resonance frequency of the FBAR can reach 6.360 GHz, based on the finite element method. The product of the corresponding frequency and the quality factor, f × Q is more than 2 × 1013. This design model provides a good solution for the high-frequency filters and high-sensitivity sensor designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator, based on sandwiched interdigital transducer (IDT), is presented. The resonator has the structure of diamond/AlN/IDT/AlN/diamond, with Si as the substrate. The results show that its phase velocity and electromechanical coupling coefficient are both significantly improved, compared with that of the traditional interdigital transduce-free surface structure. The M2 mode of the sandwiched structure can excite an operation frequency up to 6.15 GHz, with an electromechanical coupling coefficient of 5.53%, phase velocity of 12,470 m/s, and temperature coefficient of frequency of −6.3 ppm/°C. This structure provides a new ideal for the design of high-performance and high-frequency SAW devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) is a network-based and service-oriented resource-sharing manufacturing paradigm, where resources from different factories are encapsulated as services that can be jointly employed to complete manufacturing tasks. To provide an efficient collaboration strategy among the factories in CMfg, in this work, a universal framework was proposed to describe manufacturing resources under the cloud environment, in which both equipment and factory levels were considered. Moreover, a collaboration model among cloud factories was presented from the perspective of the bipartite graph. Specifically, the surplus and demands of resources were mapped to vertex vectors of the bipartite graph, respectively. Collaboration expectations of each factory, QoS (quality of service) and supply-demand balance of manufacturing capacity were evaluated as the matching degree. Furthermore, the Kuhn–Munkras(KM) algorithm, which is good at bipartite graph matching, was adopted to solve the proposed model. Finally, results from simulation confirmed that the proposed method is feasible and advanced, in comparison with the current related methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pseudopotential multicomponent lattice Boltzmann (LB) model that can account for the real buoyancy effect is proposed to simulate the mass transfer process around a rising bubble. The density profiles at the equilibrium state are determined based on the hydrostatic condition and the zero diffusion flux condition (the balance of chemical potential). Compared with the LB models using effective buoyancy force, the proposed model has three advantages: (1) avoiding the unrealistic distribution of gas components within the bubble due to the upward effective buoyancy force, (2) removing the undesirable diffusion process due to the application of effective buoyancy force, and (3) considering the effect of the pressure gradient on the change of bubble size. In addition, Henry's law, which can be automatically recovered from the multicomponent LB equation, is re-interpreted from the perspective of the balance of chemical potential. Simulation results showed that the diffusion flux non-uniformly distributes over the surface of a rising bubble. The diffusion zone primarily occurs at the top and the lateral side of a rising bubble, whereas the diffusion transport just below the rising bubble is much less significant than its counterpart above the rising bubble. Various bubble shapes and their corresponding diffusion zones have been obtained. Moreover, the correlation between the Sherwood number and the Peclet number derived from the simulation results is consistent with those from previous numerical results. Thus, the proposed LB model is capable of conducting a quantitative analysis of the mass transfer around a rising bubble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: Recently, the effectiveness of "textbook outcomes (TO)" in the evaluation of surgical quality has been recognized by more and more scholars. This study tended to examine the association between preoperative albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) grades and the incidence of achieving or not achieving TO (non-TO) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing laparoscopic hepatectomy. Methods: The patients were stratified into two groups: ALBI grade 1 (ALBI = -2.60) and ALBI grade 2/3 (ALBI > -2.60). The characteristics of patients and the incidence of non-TO were compared. Multivariate analyses were performed to determine whether ALBI grade was independently associated with TO. Results: In total, 378 patients were enrolled, including 194 patients (51.3%) in the ALBI grade 1 group and 184 patients (48.7%) in the ALBI grade 2/3 group. In the whole cohort, 198 patients (52.4%) did not achieve TO, and the incidence of non-TO in the ALBI grade 2/3 group was obviously higher than that in the ALBI grade 1 group (n = 112, 60.9% vs. n = 86, 44.3%, P = 0.001). The multivariate analyses showed that ALBI grade 2/3 was an independent risk factor for non-TO (OR: 1.95, 95%CI: 1.30-2.94, P = 0.023). Conclusions: More than half (52.4%) of the patients with hepatocellular carcinoma did not achieve TO after laparoscopic hepatectomy, and preoperative ALBI grade 2/3 was significantly associated with non-TO. Improving the liver function reserve of patients before operation, thereby reducing the ALBI grade, may increase the probability for patients to reach TO and enable patients to benefit more from surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The friction and wear properties of self-lubricating fabric composites were closely related to fiber properties. In this paper, polyimide (PI), polyetheretherketone (PEEK), polyisophthalamide (PMIA) and cyclic aramid (Aramid III) fibers were selected as reinforcing fibers to compare and investigate the friction and wear properties of self-lubricating fabric composites at high temperature. The tribological behavior of self-lubricating fabric composites was evaluated by ball-on-disk friction test. The wear mechanism was investigated by scanning electron microscope and mechanical test. As a result, the composite with PI as warp and weft reinforcing fiber has outstanding wear resistance because of the higher modulus of PI fiber. Its wear rate is 1.29 × 10-8 mm³ /(Nmm). It shows that the stronger the rigidity of the reinforcing fiber at high temperature, the better the wear resistance of the composite. However, the friction coefficient of composites with PI as weft reinforcing fibers is about 0.8, which is much higher than that of composites with PMIA, PEEK and Aramid III as weft reinforcing fibers. Their friction coefficients are about 0.1. In addition, the self-lubricating fabric composites with different warp and weft reinforcing fibers were prepared as self-lubricating joint bearing liners to evaluate bearing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiO2 was prepared via a solvothermal method, and a Bi2WO6/TiO2 heterojunction was constructed via a hydrothermal method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to analyze the crystal structure and morphology of composite photocatalysts with different molar ratios. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to analyze the elemental composition and chemical state of the photocatalysts. We explored the degradation performance of the photocatalysts toward rhodamine B (RhB) and tetracycline (TC). When the molar ratio of TiO2 to Bi2WO6 is 6, the composite photocatalyst has the best degradation performance. Under visible light irradiation for 20 min and 25 min, the degradation rates of RhB and TC were 96% and 78%, respectively. The PL and photocurrent results show that the combination of TiO2 and Bi2WO6 can significantly improve the photogenerated carrier separation efficiency of the composite photocatalyst. The main active species in the photocatalytic degradation process is h+, as h+ can not only directly degrade pollutants, but also undergo redox reactions with OH- to generate -OH, which participates in the degradation of organic pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas hydrate is critical for its tremendous potential to impact the energy supply field, accelerate global warming if methane reaches the atmosphere, and affect the safety of deep-sea oil and gas production. The estimated gas hydrate resource density in this area is typical, and the total gas hydrate stored is expected to be equivalent to around 74.4 billion tons of oil. Gas production is the third step after the assessment of gas hydrate resource potential and hydrate saturation detection with geophysical methods. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: Upper gastrointestinal (G.I.) cancer screening has been conducted in China for decades. However, the economic burden for treatment "intensively" occurred in advance due to screening in resource-limited communities remain unclear. Methods: We compared the treatment costs for upper G.I. cancers from the screening and control arms of a population-based randomized trial in a high-risk area for esophageal cancer (EC) in China based on claims data from the health insurance system in the local area which included whole population coverage. Results: The average out-of-pocket cost per treatment of EC in the screening arm was lower than that in the control arm ($5,972 vs. $7,557). This difference was a consequence of down-staging from screening which resulted in lower cost therapy for earlier stage cancers. Moreover, this result is similar for cardial and non-cardial gastric cancer in the two study arms ($7,933 vs. $10,605). However, three times as many (103 vs. 36) families in the screening arm suffered catastrophic health expenditure for all cancer types. The overall treatment cost for all EC patients in the screening arm ($1,045,119) was 2.44 times that in the control arm ($428,292), and the ratio for cardial and non-cardial gastric cancer was 1.12 ($393,261 vs. $351,557). Conclusion: Cancer treatment secondary to screening may triple the likelihood of catastrophic patient medical expenditure, and sharply increase the economic pressure on the local community, particularly for cancer types which are of high prevalence. Financial support for patients and the health insurance system should be taken into consideration when planning budgets for cancer screening programs in communities which are resource-limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both intra-pore hydrate morphology and inter-pore hydrate distribution influence the physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments, yet there has been no pore-scale observations of hydrate habit under pressure in preserved pressure core samples so far. We present for the first time a pore-scale micro-CT study of natural hydrate-bearing cores that were acquired from Green Canyon Block 955 in UT-GOM2-1 Expedition and preserved within hydrate pressure–temperature stability conditions throughout sub-sampling and imaging processes. Measured hydrate saturation in the sub-samples, taken from units expected to have in-situ saturation of 80% or more, ranges from 3 ± 1% to 56 ± 11% as interpreted from micro-CT images. Pore-scale observations of gas hydrate in the sub-samples suggest that hydrate in silty sediments at the Gulf of Mexico is pore-invasive rather than particle displacive, and hydrate particles in these natural water-saturated samples are pore-filling with no evidence of grain-coating. Hydrate can form a connected 3D network and provide mechanical support for the sediments even without cementation. The technical breakthrough to directly visualize particle-level hydrate pore habits in natural sediments reported here sheds light on future investigations of pressure- and temperature-sensitive processes including hydrate-bearing sediments, dissolved gases, and other biochemical processes in the deep-sea environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]