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Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a lethal cardiac arrhythmia that poses a serious threat to human life and health. However, clinical records of sudden cardiac death (SCD) electrocardiogram (ECG) data are extremely limited. This paper proposes an early prediction and classification algorithm for SCA based on deep transfer learning. With limited ECG data, it extracts heart rate variability features before the onset of SCA and utilizes a lightweight convolutional neural network model for pre-training and fine-tuning in two stages of deep transfer learning. This achieves early classification, recognition and prediction of high-risk ECG signals for SCA by neural network models. Based on 16 788 30-second heart rate feature segments from 20 SCA patients and 18 sinus rhythm patients in the international publicly available ECG database, the algorithm performance evaluation through ten-fold cross-validation shows that the average accuracy (Acc), sensitivity (Sen), and specificity (Spe) for predicting the onset of SCA in the 30 minutes prior to the event are 91.79%, 87.00%, and 96.63%, respectively. The average estimation accuracy for different patients reaches 96.58%. Compared to traditional machine learning algorithms reported in existing literatures, the method proposed in this paper helps address the requirement of large training datasets for deep learning models and enables early and accurate detection and identification of high-risk ECG signs before the onset of SCA.

Introduction: Mixed findings have been reported about the computation of scalar or/and ad-hoc implicatures in primarily school-age autistic verbal children and adolescents: while some studies reported their struggles with both implicatures, others observed their strengths in computing scalar implicatures. This study extends the previous investigation by testing the derivation of scalar (including both number and quantifier) and ad-hoc implicatures of a younger group of Mandarin-speaking autistic 4-8-year-olds; moreover, we assess the biological, linguistic, and cognitive factors affecting children's implicature acquisition., Methods: The participants included 22 4-8-year-old autistic verbal children (mean age = 67.64 months) and 19 typically developing (TD) children who did not significantly differ in age, receptive vocabulary, and non-verbal IQ. Both groups completed a computer-based Truth Value Judgment task, assessing their knowledge of scalar (involving the number 'three' and the quantifier 'some') and ad-hoc implicatures. We also examined whether their implicature computation was linked to age, receptive vocabulary, non-verbal IQ, and Theory of Mind (ToM)., Results: Compared with the TD controls, autistic children derived significantly fewer scalar and ad-hoc implicatures. Specifically, TD children successfully computed number and ad-hoc implicatures, contrasting to the bimodal distribution of their pragmatic vs. logical responses to quantifier implicatures. Though autistic children performed better with number implicatures slightly above the chance level, they had difficulties in computing quantifier and ad-hoc implicatures. Further, autistic children's knowledge of the number and ad-hoc implicatures was linked to their ToM skills., Conclusions: These findings underscore the overall delayed implicature knowledge of young autistic children, and their low sensitivity to the implicatures is related to the core ToM deficits. Furthermore, our data confirm the coherent pattern of the earlier acquisition of number over quantifier implicatures and illuminate the distinct mechanisms underlying the computation of scalar vs. ad-hoc implicatures., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest We declared that our research is original, and there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) in patients who experience migraine and compare findings between adult male and female patients. Specific symptoms and comorbidities also were analyzed to determine whether they were associated with WMH prevalence or the sex of patients with migraine. We hypothesized that females would have a higher prevalence of WMHs, experience more frequent and more severe migraine headaches, and be more likely to have certain comorbidities associated with migraine than males., Background: An increased prevalence of WMHs in patients with migraine has been proposed, although this relation is not well-supported by data from population-based MRI studies. The difference in brain morphology between males and females is of research interest, and females in the general population appear to have a higher prevalence of WMHs. Sex differences and various comorbidities in patients with migraine relative to the number of WMHs on brain imaging have not been fully investigated., Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 177 patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of migraine who were seen in the Lehigh Valley Fleming Neuroscience Institute's Headache Center between January 1, 2000, and January 1, 2017. Patients' baseline characteristics were extracted from electronic medical records, including demographics, review of systems documentation, and brain imaging from MRI. Variables including headache severity, frequency of head pain, insomnia, and comorbidities (anxiety, depression, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and neck pain) also were analyzed for associations with the presence of WMHs., Results: Females were found to have a significantly higher number of WMHs than males (median 3 [IQR: 0-7] vs. 0 [IQR: 0-3], p = 0.023). Patients with WMHs were significantly more likely than those without WMHs to have hypertension (39.8% of patients with WMHs vs. 20.3% without WMHs, p = 0.011), constipation (20.9% vs. 8.3%, p = 0.034), and sleep disorder (55.7% vs. 37.3%, p = 0.022). Females with migraine were significantly more likely to experience constipation than males (20.0% vs. 2.9%, p = 0.015). None of the migraine characteristics studied (frequency, severity, presence of aura) were different between sexes, nor were they significantly associated with the presence of WMHs., Conclusion: This study suggests that females with migraine may be more likely to have WMHs and experience constipation than males with migraine. Migraine frequency and severity were not different between sexes, nor were they significantly associated with the presence of WMHs. The findings of this study do not support a specific etiology of WMH development in individuals with migraine that differs from findings in the general population. Further studies are warranted., (© 2024 American Headache Society.)

The National surveillance data showed that homosexual transmission played a considerable role in new HIV infections in China. The emphasis on antiretroviral therapy and prevention of mother-to-child transmission provided chances for reproduction among people living with HIV/AIDS. Issues of fertility desire have a paucity of data among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM). This cross-sectional study has assessed fertility attitudes and associated factors, as well as the reproductive knowledge among HIV-positive MSM. Analysis was mainly based on the multinomial regression model. The study included 129 participants, and almost all of the participants (96.1%) were between 18 and 30 years old and 82.2% of them were single. About 35.6% expressed a fertility desire. MSM without siblings tended to have fertility desire (OR = 0.236, 95%CI: 0.078∼0.712, p  = 0.010). Surrogacy (36.4%) was the most desired method among the 86 respondents who had the desire or did not make a decision. While the accuracy of the reproductive knowledge was only 69.6%. In summary, we recommend that providers offer much more professional information and develop assisted reproductive technology to meet the reproductive aspirations of HIV-positive MSM.

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aimed to depict expressive language profiles and clarify lexical-grammatical interrelationships in Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during the administration of the simplified Chinese Psychoeducational Profile-Third Edition screening., Method: We collected naturalistic language samples from 81 (74 boys, seven girls) 2- to 7-year-old ( M age = 55.6 months, SD = 15.17) Mandarin-speaking children with ASD in clinician-child interactions. The child participants were divided into five age subgroups with 12-month intervals according to their chronological age. Computer-assisted part-of-speech tagging, constituency analysis, and dependency analysis addressed the developmental trajectories of early lexical and grammatical growth in each age subgroup., Results: Significant within-ASD differences were observed in content words, function words, and lexical categories. Nouns and verbs were the predominant lexical categories, while noun types overwhelmed verb types in children over 3 years old. The grammatical development of 5- to 6-year-old Mandarin-speaking children with ASD was better than that of 3- to 4-year-old children. The trends of syntactic structures, grammatical relations, and grammatical complexity in each age group were similar., Conclusions: Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with ASD produce more lexicons with increasing age. They preserve the noun bias as a universal mechanism in early lexical learning. Moreover, their developmental trajectories of grammatical growth were comparable in each age subgroup. In addition, their lexicons and grammar were synchronically developed during early language acquisition.

Prediction of prognosis after radical resection of gastric cancer has not been well established. Therefore, we aimed to establish a prognostic model based on a new score system of patients with gastric cancer. A total of 1235 patients who underwent curative gastrectomy at our hospital from October 2015 to April 2017 were included in this study. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to screen for prognostic risk factors. Construction of the nomogram was based on Cox proportional hazard regression models. The construction of the new score models was analyzed by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve), calibration curve, and decision curve. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor size, T, N, carcinoembryonic antigen, CA125, and CA19-9 were independent prognostic factors. The new score model had a greater AUC (The area under the ROC curve) than other systems, and the C-index of the nomogram was highly reliable for evaluating the survival of patients with gastric cancer. Based on the tumor markers and other clinical indicators, we developed a precise model to predict the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer after radical surgery. This score system can be helpful to both surgeons and patients., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Resource complementarity can contribute to enhanced ecosystem functioning in diverse plant communities, but the role of facilitation in the enhanced complementarity is poorly understood. Here, we use leaf manganese concentration ([Mn]) as a proxy for rhizosheath carboxylate concentration to explore novel mechanisms of complementarity mediated by phosphorus (P) facilitation. In pot experiments, we showed that mixtures involving Carex korshinskyi, an efficient P-mobilizing species, exhibited greater biomass and relative complementarity effect than combinations without C. korshinskyi on P-deficient soils. Compared with monocultures, leaf [Mn] and [P] of species that are inefficient at P mobilization increased by 27% and 21% when grown with C. korshinskyi (i.e. interspecific P facilitation via carboxylates) rather than next to another inefficient P-mobilizing species. This experimental result was supported by a meta-analysis including a range of efficient P-mobilizing species. Phosphorus facilitation enhanced the relative complementarity effect in low-P environments, related to a greater change in several facilitated species of their root morphological traits relative to those in monoculture. Using leaf [Mn] as a proxy, we highlight a vital mechanism of interspecific P facilitation via belowground processes and provide evidence for the pivotal role of P facilitation mediated by the plasticity of root traits in biodiversity research., (© 2023 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2023 New Phytologist Foundation.)

Motivation: Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) has enabled the molecular profiling of thousands to millions of cells simultaneously in biologically heterogenous samples. Currently, the common practice in scRNA-seq is to determine cell type labels through unsupervised clustering and the examination of cluster-specific genes. However, even small differences in analysis and parameter choosing can greatly alter clustering results and thus impose great influence on which cell types are identified. Existing methods largely focus on determining the optimal number of robust clusters, which can be problematic for identifying cells of extremely low abundance due to their subtle contributions toward overall patterns of gene expression., Results: Here, we present a carefully designed framework, SCISSORS, which accurately profiles subclusters within broad cluster(s) for the identification of rare cell types in scRNA-seq data. SCISSORS employs silhouette scoring for the estimation of heterogeneity of clusters and reveals rare cells in heterogenous clusters by a multi-step semi-supervised reclustering process. Additionally, SCISSORS provides a method for the identification of marker genes of high specificity to the cell type. SCISSORS is wrapped around the popular Seurat R package and can be easily integrated into existing Seurat pipelines., Availability and Implementation: SCISSORS, including source code and vignettes, are freely available at https://github.com/jr-leary7/SCISSORS., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges with respect to HIV care services. Remote online services might provide an effective method for health service delivery to people living with HIV (PLHIV). Few studies have focused on the efficacy of telemedical services for PLHIV and the effect of antiretroviral treatment via online services in China., Methods: We developed a platform called the "No. 8 Health" for online antiretroviral drug collection and delivery services in Beijing from January 21 to June 30, 2022. We evaluated the online treatment service according to viral load suppression rates and compared differences in social characteristics between PLHIV who received antiretroviral drugs through online or offline treatment services., Results: By June 2022, 9528 PLHIV had received outpatient treatment services, among which 44.6% (4031/9528) used the online treatment and drug delivery services for a total of 5590 person-times. The satisfaction rate was 100%. Rates of viral load suppression among PLHIV who initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2020 and 2021 were 96.4% and 93.1%, respectively. Results showed that the viral load suppression rate was 97.9%. Regarding HIV rapid self-testing, 4513 men who have sex with men used the online HIV rapid testing service. The number of users was approximately the same as in 2021, but both were slightly lower than those in 2020., Conclusion: This study was the first to evaluate the effect of online drug collection and delivery services and virologic outcomes among PLHIV in China. The online service helped with maintenance of ART services, but the COVID-19 pandemic still had some impacts on viral load suppression., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Health Care Science published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. on behalf of Tsinghua University Press.)

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reservoir, conduit, and contraction function of the left atrium and to evaluate the predictive value of left atrial strain (LAS) on exercise tolerance in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients with an E/e' between 8 and 14 by two-dimensional speckle tracking using treadmill stress echocardiography., Methods: This was a retrospective study in which we analyzed a total of 70 patients with HCM between 2016 and 2017. According to the resting state E/e', patients were either assigned to an HCM-1 group (E/e' > 14) or an HCM-2 group (E/e' of 8 to 14). Thirty age-matched healthy controls were included in the normal group. Analysis involved the left atrial reservoir, conduit, contraction strain and reserve function., Results: The normal group had a higher left atrial reservoir and conduit strain than the HCM-2 group; the lowest values were in the HCM-1 group. The LAS reserve capacity of the HCM-1 and HCM-2 groups was lower than those of the normal group. The left atrial contraction strain reserve ( Δ LASct%) and global longitudinal strain reserve ( Δ GLS%) were lower in the HCM-2 and HCM-1 groups than in the normal group. We also found that the Δ LASct% and Δ GLS% in the HCM-2 group were higher than in the HCM-1 group. Furthermore, the metabolic equivalents (METS) in the HCM-2 group was greater than that in the HCM-1 group. Finally, the Rest-LASr indicated the highest differential diagnostic performance for METS < 6.0 (area under curve [AUC]: 0.759); the AUC of the composite model Rest-LASr+E/e'-rest was 0.8., Conclusions: Analysis showed that when the E/e' was between 8 and 14, the LAS and reserve capacity of HCM patients were significantly reduced. Our findings suggest that the routine assessment of LAS +E/e' can be a strategy with which to supplement current predictive models and facilitate clinical management strategies., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.)

Background: Inhibition of Rho/ROCK signalling pathway related proteins can alleviate left ventricular hypertrophy. Berberine hydrochloride (BBR) can effectively inhibit left ventricular hypertrophy. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between BBR and Rho/ROCK signalling pathway., Methods: Isoproterenol (ISO) was used to induce left ventricular hypertrophy in rats. Two-dimensional speckle tracking technique (2D-STE) was used to evaluate rats in each group (group A: normal control group; Group B: isoproterenol model group; Group C: ISO + 5mg/kg BBR group; Group D: ISO + 10mg/kg BBR group) Heart structure and systolic function. HE staining and Masson staining were used to observe the pathological changes in four groups of rats. The expression levels of RhoA, ROCK-1, TGF-β1 and PTEN protein in myocardial tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry., Result: The interventricular septum (IVS) of rats in groups C and D was thinner than that in group B (4.05 ± 0.16 mm vs. 3.50 ± 0.29 mm vs. 4.41 ± 0.23 mm, respectively, p  < 0.05), and the global radial strain (GRS) of rats in groups C and D was higher than that in group B, especially in group D (26.05 ± 1.41 vs. 30.64 ± 1.63 vs. 19.40 ± 1.05, respectively, p  < 0.05). Compared with group B, the expression levels of RhoA, ROCK-1 and TGF-β1 in groups C and D decreased, while the expression level of PTEN increased, especially in group D (all p  < 0.05)., Conclusion: BBR can improve the cardiac structure and systolic function of rats with left ventricular hypertrophy, and the improvement mechanism may be related to Rho/ROCK signalling pathway.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the left atrial strain (LAS) in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) by treadmill exercise stress echocardiography, combined with three-dimensional speckle tracking technology, for predicting exercise tolerance., Methods: A total of 97 patients with HCM who underwent treadmill exercise stress echocardiography were recruited in Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital between January 2018 and January 2021, and 30 control subjects were selected to be included in the normal group. HCM patients with their metabolic equivalents (METS) ≤ 6.0 were included in the HCM-1 group, while those with METS > 6.0 were included in the HCM-2 group. The LAS and exercise tolerance were analyzed. The ultrasound parameters that could predict a decrease in exercise tolerance were screened, and a predictive model was constructed., Results: It was found that METS, Rest-LASr, Rest-LAScd, and Rest-LASct were significantly lower in HCM patients than those in normal controls. There was a significant difference in age, Target&#95;HR, LVMI, LAVI, E / e '-Rest, E / e '-Peak, Rest-LASr, Rest-LAScd, and Rest-LASct between the HCM-1 and the HCM-2 groups. LASr is an independent resting echocardiographic predictor of METS ≤ 6.0. LASr remained significant for predicting different subtypes (AHCM, asymmetric HCM, and obstructive HCM). Rest-LASr (AUC 0.990) was better at predicting METS ≤ 6.0 than Peak- E / e ' (AUC 0.753). A multivariate model (LASr + Age + Target&#95;HR) was established for METS prediction., Conclusion: Left atrial reservoir strain (LASr) has the strongest association with METS ≤ 6.0. The LASr is an independent resting predictor of METS ≤ 6.0 and has a good performance record in predicting different subtypes of HCM. Compared with the traditional parameters, Peak- E / e ' and Rest- E / e ', Rest-LASr is the best predictor. Rest-LASr can serve as a reliable method for HCM patients who are unable to undergo exercise testing but require an urgent evaluation of their METS, which provides a basis for clinical treatment decision-making and treatment effect evaluation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (© 2023 Su, Li and Yin.)

Background: To evaluate the effect of berberine (BBR) intervention on left ventricular hypertrophy and systolic function in rats by ultrasound layered strain imaging and cardiac hypertrophy model., Methods: Eighty healthy male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into four groups: group A (normal saline control group), group B [isoproterenol (ISO) induced model group], group C (BBR hydrochloride 5 mg/kg + ISO group) and group D (BBR hydrochloride 10 mg/kg + ISO group). Echocardiography was performed on days 1, 7 and 14, respectively. The myocardial tissue was taken for pathological examination. The key proteins of Rho/ROCK signaling pathway were quantified by immunohistochemical staining., Results: On day 7, compared with group A, peripheral strain values of the subendocardium and middle myocardium of rats in groups B, C and D were significantly decreased. The absolute value of circumferential strain (CS) in subendocardium and middle myocardium in group B was significantly lower than that in groups C and D (-24.21 vs. -26.68 vs. -27.69; -14.90 vs. -16.48 vs. -17.69). Pathological results showed that compared with the myocardial cells in control group A, the myocardial cells in group B had significantly increased cross-sectional area, and obvious myocardial interstitial fibrosis. Compared with group B, BBR intervention reduced the deposition of fibrosis in groups C and D, group D was more obvious. Immunohistochemical results showed that compared with group A, the protein expression levels of ROCK, RhoA and Bax in groups B, C and D were significantly increased, while the protein expression levels of Bcl-2 were significantly decreased., Conclusions: Ultrasound layered strain imaging could evaluate the early left ventricular systolic function in isoprenaline-induced hypertrophy rat model. BBR might inhibit oxidative stress through the Rho/ROCK signaling pathway and slow down the progression of myocardial fibrosis after the formation of cardiac hypertrophy. This provides reference and direction for clinical decision-making and further research., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://cdt.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/cdt-22-464/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2023 Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy. All rights reserved.)

Background: For the prognosis of patients with early gastric cancer (EGC), lymph node metastasis (LNM) plays a crucial role. A thorough and precise evaluation of the patient for LNM is now required., Aim: To determine the factors influencing LNM and to construct a prediction model of LNM for EGC patients., Methods: Clinical information and pathology data of 2217 EGC patients downloaded from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database were collected and analyzed. Based on a 7:3 ratio, 1550 people were categorized into training sets and 667 people were assigned to testing sets, randomly. Based on the factors influencing LNM determined by the training sets, the nomogram was drawn and verified., Results: Based on multivariate analysis, age at diagnosis, histology type, grade, T-stage, and size were risk factors of LNM for EGC. Besides, nomogram was drawn to predict the risk of LNM for EGC patients. Among the categorical variables, the effect of grade (well, moderate, and poor) was the most significant prognosis factor. For training sets and testing sets, respectively, area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve of nomograms were 0.751 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.721-0.782] and 0.786 (95%CI: 0.742-0.830). In addition, the calibration curves showed that the prediction model of LNM had good consistency., Conclusion: Age at diagnosis, histology type, grade, T-stage, and tumor size were independent variables for LNM in EGC. Based on the above risk factors, prediction model may offer some guiding implications for the choice of subsequent therapeutic approaches for EGC., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: People living with HIV (PLHIV) relied on community-based organizations (CBOs) in accessing HIV care and support during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. However, little is known about the impact of, and challenges faced by Chinese CBOs supporting PLHIV during lockdowns., Methods: A survey and interview study was conducted among 29 CBOs serving PLHIV in China between November 10 and November 23, 2020. Participants were asked to complete a 20-minute online survey on their routine operations, organizational capacity building, service provided, and challenges during the pandemic. A focus group interview was conducted with CBOs after the survey to gather CBOs' policy recommendations. Survey data analysis was conducted using STATA 17.0 while qualitative data was examined using thematic analysis., Results: HIV-focused CBOs in China serve diverse clients including PLHIV, HIV high-risk groups, and the public. The scope of services provided is broad, ranging from HIV testing to peer support. All CBOs surveyed maintained their services during the pandemic, many by switching to online or hybrid mode. Many CBOs reported adding new clients and services, such as mailing medications. The top challenges faced by CBOs included service reduction due to staff shortage, lack of PPE for staff, and lack of operational funding during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. CBOs considered the ability to better network with other CBOs and other sectors (e.g., clinics, governments), a standard emergency response guideline, and ready strategies to help PLHIV build resilience to be critical for future emergency preparation., Conclusion: Chinese CBOs serving vulnerable populations affected by HIV/AIDS are instrumental in building resilience in their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they can play significant roles in providing uninterrupted services during emergencies by mobilizing resources, creating new services and operation methods, and utilizing existing networks. Chinese CBOs' experiences, challenges, and their policy recommendations can inform policy makers on how to support future CBO capacity building to bridge service gaps during crises and reduce health inequalities in China and globally., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Introduction: The decomposition of plant litter mass is responsible for substantial carbon fluxes and remains a key process regulating nutrient cycling in natural and managed ecosystems. Litter decomposition has been addressed in agricultural monoculture systems, but not in intercropping systems, which produce species-diverse litter mass mixtures. The aim here is to quantify how straw type, the soil environment and their combined effects may influence straw decomposition in widely practiced maize/legume intercropping systems., Methods: Three decomposition experiments were conducted over 341 days within a long-term intercropping field experiment which included two nitrogen (N) addition levels (i.e. no-N and N-addition) and five cropping systems (maize, soybean and peanut monocultures and maize/soybean and maize/peanut intercropping). Experiment I was used to quantify litter quality effects on decomposition; five types of straw (maize, soybean, peanut, maize-soybean and maize-peanut) from two N treatments decomposed in the same maize plot. Experiment II addressed soil environment effects on root decomposition; soybean straw decomposed in different plots (five cropping systems and two N levels). Experiment III addressed 'home' decomposition effects whereby litter mass (straw) was remained to decompose in the plot of origin. The contribution of litter and soil effects to the home-field advantages was compared between experiment III ('home' plot) and I-II ('away' plot)., Results and Discussions: Straw type affected litter mass loss in the same soil environment (experiment I) and the mass loss values of maize, soybean, peanut, maize-soybean, and maize-peanut straw were 59, 77, 87, 76, and 78%, respectively. Straw type also affected decomposition in the 'home' plot environment (experiment III), with mass loss values of maize, soybean, peanut, maize-soybean and maize-peanut straw of 66, 74, 80, 72, and 76%, respectively. Cropping system did not affect the mass loss of soybean straw (experiment II). Nitrogen-addition significantly increased straw mass loss in experiment III. Decomposition of maize-peanut straw mixtures was enhanced more by 'home-field advantage' effects than that of maize-soybean straw mixtures. There was a synergistic mixing effect of maize-peanut and maize-soybean straw mixture decomposition in both 'home' (experiment III) and 'away' plots (experiment I). Maize-peanut showed greater synergistic effects than maize-soybean in straw mixture decomposition in their 'home' plot (experiment III). These findings are discussed in terms of their important implications for the management of species-diverse straw in food-production intercropping systems., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Surigaoge, Yang, Su, Du, Ren, Fornara, Christie, Zhang and Li.)

Accurate tide level prediction is crucial to human activities in coastal areas. Many practical applications show that compared with traditional harmonic analysis, long short-term memory (LSTM), gated recurrent units (GRUs) and other neural networks, along with ensemble learning models, such as light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) and eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), can achieve extremely high prediction accuracy in relatively stationary time series. Therefore, this paper proposes a variable weight combination model based on LightGBM and CNN-BiGRU with relevant research. It uses the variable weight combination method to weight and synthesize the prediction results of the two base models so that the combination model has a stronger ability to capture time series features and fits the data well. The experimental results show that in contrast to the base model LightGBM, the RMSE value and MAE value of the combination model are reduced by 43.2% and 44.7%, respectively; in contrast to the base model CNN-BiGRU, the RMSE value and MAE value of the combination model are reduced by 35.3% and 39.1%, respectively. This means that the variable weight combination model can greatly improve the accuracy of tide level prediction. In addition, we use tidal data from different geographical environments to further verify the good universality of the model. This study provides a new idea and method for tide prediction., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Inorganic halide perovskites have attracted interest due to their high efficiency and low cost. Considering the uncertainty of experimental measurements, it was important to predict the upper limit of carrier mobility. In this study, the ab initio Boltzmann transport equation, including all electron-phonon interactions, was used to accurately predict the mobilities of CsPbI 3 , CsSnI 3 , CsPbBr 3 , and CsSnBr 3 . Using the iterative Boltzmann transport equation (IBTE), the calculated mobility for CsPbI 3 is µ e = 512/ µ h = 379 cm 2  V -1  s -1 , and Sn-based perovskite exhibited high hole mobility. The longitudinal optical phonons associated with the stretching between halogen anions and divalent metal cations were revealed to be the dominant scattering source for the carriers. Furthermore, the effect of biaxial strain on mobility was investigated. We observed that biaxial compressive strain could improve the mobility of CsPbI 3 and CsPbBr 3 . Surprisingly, under a compressive strain of-2%, the mobilities of CsPbI 3 using IBTE approach were improved to µ e = 1176/ µ h = 936 cm 2  V -1  s -1 . It was revealed that the compressive strain could decrease the effective mass of CsPbI 3 and CsPbBr 3 ., (© 2022 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

Summary: The comprehensive analysis of the proteome and its modulation by post-translational modification (PTM) is increasingly used in biological and biomedical studies. As a result, proteomics data analysis is ever more carried out by scientists with limited expertise in this type of data. While excellent software solutions for comprehensive and rigorous analysis of quantitative proteomic data exist, most are complex and not well suited for non-proteomics scientists. Integrative analysis of multi-level proteomics data on protein and diverse PTMs, like phosphorylation or proteolytic processing, remains particularly challenging and inaccessible to most biologists. To fill this void, we developed SQuAPP, an R-Shiny web-based analysis pipeline for the quantitative analysis of proteomic data. SQuAPP uses a streamlined workflow model to guide expert and novice users through quality control, data pre-processing, statistical analysis and visualization steps. Processing the protein, peptide and PTM datasets in parallel and their quantitative integration enable rapid identification of protein-level-independent modulation of protein modifications and intuitive interpretation of dynamic dependencies between different protein modifications., Availability and Implementation: SQuAPP is available at http://squapp.langelab.org/. The source code and local setup instructions can be accessed from https://github.com/LangeLab/SQuAPP., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

This paper presents an integrated and scalable precision health service for health promotion and chronic disease prevention. Continuous real-time monitoring of lifestyle and environmental factors is implemented by integrating wearable devices, open environmental data, indoor air quality sensing devices, a location-based smartphone app, and an AI-assisted telecare platform. The AI-assisted telecare platform provided comprehensive insight into patients' clinical, lifestyle, and environmental data, and generated reliable predictions of future acute exacerbation events. All data from 1,667 patients were collected prospectively during a 24-month follow-up period, resulting in the detection of 386 abnormal episodes. Machine learning algorithms and deep learning algorithms were used to train modular chronic disease models. The modular chronic disease prediction models that have passed external validation include obesity, panic disorder, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, with an average accuracy of 88.46%, a sensitivity of 75.6%, a specificity of 93.0%, and an F1 score of 79.8%. Compared with previous studies, we establish an effective way to collect lifestyle, life trajectory, and symptom records, as well as environmental factors, and improve the performance of the prediction model by adding objective comprehensive data and feature selection. Our results also demonstrate that lifestyle and environmental factors are highly correlated with patient health and have the potential to predict future abnormal events better than using only questionnaire data. Furthermore, we have constructed a cost-effective model that needs only a few features to support the prediction task, which is helpful for deploying real-world modular prediction models.

Background: In recent years, the incidence of types II and III adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) has shown an obvious upward trend worldwide. The prognostic prediction after radical resection of AEG has not been well established., Aim: To establish a prognostic model for AEG (types II and III) based on routine markers., Methods: A total of 355 patients who underwent curative AEG at The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University from January 2014 to June 2015 were retrospectively included in this study. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the independent risk factors. A nomogram was constructed based on Cox proportional hazards models. The new score models was analyzed by C index and calibration curves. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the predictive accuracy of the scoring system and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage. Overall survival was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier curve amongst different risk AEG patients., Results: Multivariate analysis showed that TNM stage (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.286, P = 0.008), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (HR = 2.979, P = 0.001), and body mass index (HR = 0.626, P = 0.026) were independent prognostic factors. The new scoring system had a higher concordance index (0.697), and the calibration curves of the nomogram were reliable. The area under the ROC curve of the new score model (3-year: 0.725, 95% confidence interval [CI] : 0.676-0.777; 5-year: 0.758, 95%CI : 0.708-0.807) was larger than that of TNM staging (3-year: 0.630, 95%CI : 0.585-0.684; 5-year: 0.665 , 95%CI : 0.616-0.715)., Conclusion: Based on the serum markers and other clinical indicators, we have developed a precise model to predict the prognosis of patients with AEG (types II and III). The new prognostic nomogram could effectively enhance the predictive value of the TNM staging system. This scoring system can be advantageous and helpful for surgeons and patients., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent. Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose., (©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate exercise tolerance in non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) by investigating the value of myocardial work (MW) combined with strain peak dispersion., Methods: A total of 65 patients with non-obstructive HCM and normal left ventricular ejection fraction were enrolled and 60 healthy subjects were selected as controls. The automated function imaging (AFI)-two-dimensional ultrasonic speckle-tracking technology was used to obtain the values for peak global longitudinal strain (GLS), longitudinal strain peak time dispersion (PSD), 18-segment systolic longitudinal peak strain (LPS), 18-segment longitudinal strain peak time (TTPLS), global waste work (GWW), global constructive work (GCW), global work index (GWI), global work efficiency (GWE), and exercise metabolic equivalents (METS)., Results: (1) Values for LV-GLS (-17.77 ± 0.20 vs. -21.66 ± 0.42%) were lower and PSD (95.10 ± 8.15 vs. 28.97 ± 1.50 ms) was prolonged in patients with HCM ( p < 0.01). (2) An increasing trend was shown in the basal segment < intermediate segment < apical segment for both patients with HCM and controls, although each segment had lower values in the HCM group. (3) TTPLS was prolonged in the HCM group ( p < 0.01). (4) GWE, GWI, and GCW were all lower ( p < 0.01) and GWW was higher in patients with HCM ( p < 0.01). (5) Values of GWE were less than 92.5%, GWI less than 1,200 mmHg, GCW less than 1,399 mmHg, these abnormal values are helpful for the diagnosis of impaired exercise tolerance and poor prognosis (6) The METS and LV-GLS of HCM in the asymmetric group were significantly lower than that in AHCM group, but the PSD was significantly greater than that in the AHCM group. Values of LPS-BL (-13.13% ± 2.51% vs -10.17% ± 2.20%) in the apical HCM group were better than in the asymmetric HCM group ( p < 0.05)., Conclusion: GCW, GWI, and GWE can be safely measured by resting echocardiography to evaluate exercise tolerance in patients with HCM who cannot perform an exercise-based examination. Such measurements provide a basis for clinical decisions regarding exercise and drug prescription., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflictof interest., (Copyright © 2022 Su, Peng, Yin and Li.)

The diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is of great significance for the early risk classification of sudden cardiac death and the screening of family genetic diseases. This research proposed a HCM automatic detection method based on convolution neural network (CNN) model, using single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) signal as the research object. Firstly, the R-wave peak locations of single-lead ECG signal were determined, followed by the ECG signal segmentation and resample in units of heart beats, then a CNN model was built to automatically extract the deep features in the ECG signal and perform automatic classification and HCM detection. The experimental data is derived from 108 ECG records extracted from three public databases provided by PhysioNet, the database established in this research consists of 14,459 heartbeats, and each heartbeat contains 128 sampling points. The results revealed that the optimized CNN model could effectively detect HCM, the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were 95.98%, 98.03% and 95.79% respectively. In this research, the deep learning method was introduced for the analysis of single-lead ECG of HCM patients, which could not only overcome the technical limitations of conventional detection methods based on multi-lead ECG, but also has important application value for assisting doctor in fast and convenient large-scale HCM preliminary screening.

Osmotic stress caused by drought and high salinity is a significant environmental threat that limits plant growth and agricultural yield. Redox regulation plays an important role in plant stress responses, but the mechanisms by which plants perceive and transduce redox signals are still underexplored. Here, we report a critical function for the thiol peroxidase GPX1 in osmotic stress response in rice, where it serves as a redox sensor and transducer. GPX1 is quickly oxidized upon exposure to osmotic stress and forms an intramolecular disulfide bond, which is required for the activation of bZIP68, a VRE-like basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factor involved in the ABA-independent osmotic stress response pathway. The disulfide exchange between GPX1 and bZIP68 induces homo-tetramerization of bZIP68 and thus positively regulates osmotic stress response by regulating osmotic-responsive gene expression. Furthermore, we discovered that the nuclear translocation of GPX1 is regulated by its acetylation under osmotic stress. Taken together, our findings not only uncover the redox regulation of the GPX1-bZIP68 module during osmotic stress but also highlight the coordination of protein acetylation and redox signaling in plant osmotic stress responses., (Copyright © 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In order to investigate the pollution characteristics and sources of water-soluble ions in atmospheric PM 2.5 in different regions of central China during summer, Wuhan, Suizhou, and Pingdingshan were selected as urban, suburban, and rural monitoring stations, respectively, to collect PM 2.5 samples, and the mass concentration of PM 2.5 in the atmosphere and the contents of eight water-soluble ions were analyzed. The results showed that ρ (water-soluble ions) at the three sites showed obvious spatial distribution characteristics, with Pingdingshan[(36.29±9.82) μg·m -3 ] > Wuhan[(32.55±10.05) μg·m -3 ] > Suizhou[(26.10±6.23) μg·m -3 ], accounting for 52.47%, 51.32%, and 48.61% of the PM 2.5 mass concentration, respectively. In the Pingdingshan station, the proportion of water-soluble ions was the largest due to biomass combustion in the rural area. Additionally, SNA (SO 4 2- , NO 3 - , and NH 4 + ) were the main ionic components, accounting for 95.65%, 96.12%, and 97.33% of the total water-soluble ions, respectively. The mean values of SOR of the Wuhan (0.64) and Suizhou (0.63) stations were higher than that of the Pingdingshan station (0.50), whereas the NOR values of the Wuhan (0.18) and Pingdingshan (0.19) stations were higher than that of the Suizhou station (0.15). The difference in SOR and NOR among stations was affected by the secondary conversion mechanism, the ammonia-rich environment, and the surrounding traffic sources, respectively. The PM 2.5 at the Wuhan and Pingdingshan stations was in general alkaline, whereas at the Suizhou station it was neutral or weakly acidic, which was mainly caused by differences in NH 4 + . NH 4 + mainly existed in the form of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 and NH 4 NO 3 at the Wuhan and Pingdingshan stations, whereas at the Suizhou station it mainly existed in the form of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 or (NH 4 )HSO 4 . PCA-MLR analysis revealed that the Wuhan (89.27%) and Suizhou (67.38%) stations were the most affected by secondary conversion sources, whereas the Wuhan station was also affected by industrial sources (8.54%) and coal sources (2.27%). The pollution sources of the Suizhou station also included biomass combustion (24.42%) and dust sources (8.25%). The Pingdingshan station was most affected by biomass combustion (58.37%), followed by dust and combustion sources (38.05%) and traffic sources (3.58%). The analysis of potential sources of SNA (PSCF) showed that the main potential source areas of Wuhan were the boundary of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui and the southwest area of Anhui. Suizhou and Pingdingshan were affected by long-distance transport, and the main potential source regions were distributed in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Anhui provinces from the east coast to the west.

In order to understand the pollution characteristics, spatial distribution, potential sources, and ecological risk of heavy metals in the sediments of Tangxun Lake, the contents of heavy metals (As, Hg, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Zn, and Ni) in the surface sediments of Tangxun Lake were analyzed, and the pollution status and potential ecological risk degree of heavy metals in the sediments were evaluated using the geo-accumulation index and potential ecological risk index. The potential sources of heavy metal pollutants were analyzed by correlation and principal component analysis. The results showed that except for Cr, the contents of other heavy metals were higher than their background values. The contents of Hg, Cd, Zn, and Cu were higher in the southwest and northeast corners of the lake, which may come from the combined pollution of sewage discharge, fisheries, and surrounding industrial and agricultural activities. The geo-accumulation index and potential ecological risk showed that Hg and Cd were in moderate pollution; Cu, Pb, and Zn were in non-light pollution; and As, Cr, and Ni were in non-pollution. Except for Hg and Cd, there were serious and serious potential ecological risks, and the other elements were at a low risk level. The heavy metals in the surface sediments of Tangxun Lake showed a high ecological risk level.

Motivated by the recent successful synthesis of Janus monolayer of transition metal (TM) dichalcogenides, MXenes with Janus structures are worthy of further study, concerning its electronic structure and magnetic properties. Here, we study the effect of different transition metal atoms on the structure stability and magnetic and electronic properties of M'MCO 2 (M' and M = V, Cr and Mn). The result shows the output magnetic moment is contributed mainly by the d orbitals of the V, Cr, and Mn atoms. The total magnetic moments of ferromagnetic (FM) configuration and antiferromagnetic (AFM) configuration are affected by coupling types. FM has a large magnetic moment output, while the total magnetic moments of AFM2's (intralayer AFM/interlayer FM) configuration and AFM3's (interlayer AFM/intralayer AFM) configuration are close to 0. The band gap widths of VCrCO 2 , VMnCO 2 , CrMnCO 2 , V 2 CO 2 , and Cr 2 CO 2 are no more than 0.02 eV, showing metallic properties, while Mn 2 CO 2 is a semiconductor with a 0.7071 eV band gap width. Janus MXenes can regulate the size of band gap, magnetic ground state, and output net magnetic moment. This work achieves the control of the magnetic properties of the available 2D materials, and provides theoretical guidance for the extensive design of novel Janus MXene materials.

This study explores the emergence and productivity of word order usage in Mandarin-speaking typically-developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and examines how this emergence relates to frequency of use in caregiver input. Forty-two caregiver-child dyads participated in video-recorded 30-min semi-structured play sessions. Eleven children with ASD were matched with 10 20-month-old TD children and another 11 children with ASD were matched with 10 26-month-old TD children, on expressive language. We report four major findings: (1) Preschool Mandarin-speaking children with ASD produced word order structures with pervasive ellipsis at similar rates to language-matched TD children, but also displayed differences from TD children in their usage of SVt and VtO frames; (2) Grammatical productivity was observed in both TD children and children with ASD; moreover, children with ASD with higher expressive language produced less stereotyped language; (3) Both TD children and children with ASD heard a range of word orders in their caregivers' input, with TD children's input greater in amount and complexity; however, caregivers of both groups also showed no age/language-related changes in word order usage; (4) Few word-order-specific correlations emerged between caregivers and their children; however, strong correlations were observed for mean length of utterances (MLU) for both groups: Caregivers who produced longer/more complex utterances had children who did the same. Taken together, it seems that despite their pragmatic deficits, the early grammatical knowledge of word order in Mandarin-exposed children with ASD is well preserved and in general follows the typical developmental pattern. Moreover, caregiver input is broadly rather than finely tuned to the linguistic development of TD children and children with ASD, and plays a more important role in children's general syntactic development than in specific word order acquisition. Thus, early word order usage in preschool Mandarin-speaking TD children and children with ASD may be influenced by both caregiver input and child abilities., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Xu, Naigles and Su.)

The aim of this study was to build a prediction model for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in lung adenocarcinoma. A retrospective analysis was performed on 88 patients with lung adenocarcinoma. All patients underwent an 18F-FDG PET/CT scan and genetic testing of EGFR before the treatment. In the training set, the radiomic features and clinical factors were screened out, and model-1 based on CT radiomic features, model-2 based on PET radiomic features, model-3 based on clinical factors, and model-4 based on radiomic features combined with clinical factors were established, respectively. The performance of the prediction model was assessed by area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC). The DeLong test was used to compare the performance of the models to screen out the optimal model, and then built the nomogram of the optimal model. The effect and clinical utility of the nomogram was verified in the validation cohort. In our analysis, model-4 was superior to the other prediction models in identifying EGFR mutations. The AUC was 0.864 (95% CI: 0.777-0.950), with a sensitivity of 0.714 and a specificity of 0.784. The nomogram of model-4 was established. In the validation cohort, the concordance index (C-index) value of the calibration curve of the nomogram model was 0.778 (95%CI: 0.585-0.970), and the nomogram had a good clinical utility. We demonstrated that the model based on 18F-FDG PET/CT radiomic features combined with clinical factors could predict EGFR mutations in lung adenocarcinoma, which was expected to be an important supplement to molecular diagnosis.

Abstract: This study aimed to assess the impact of the pharmacist-led intervention on perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis by standardizing the cephalosporin intradermal skin test in the orthopedic department.A pre-and postintervention study was conducted among patients in the Orthopedics Department at the Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital in China. Use of intradermal skin test, perioperative antibacterial prophylaxis, and cost of care were compared between the preintervention population (admitted from 6/1/2018 to 8/31/2018) and postintervention population (admitted from 1/1/2019 to 3/31/2019). Logistic regression and generalized linear regression were used to assess the intervention impact.425 patients from the preintervention period and 448 patients from the postintervention period were included in the study. After the implementation of the pharmacist intervention program, there was a decrease in the utilization of intradermal skin tests, from 95.8% to 16.5% (P < .001). Patients were more likely to have cephalosporin as prophylactic antimicrobials (OR = 5.28, P < .001) after the implementation. The cost of antimicrobials was significantly reduced by $150.21 (P < .001) for each patient.Pharmacist-involved intervention can reduce the utilization of cephalosporins skin tests and decrease the prescription of unnecessary high-cost antimicrobials., Competing Interests: The authors have no funding and conflicts of interests to disclose., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Background: The objective of this study was to carry out a retrospective analysis of the progression of electrocardiographic (ECG) findings over time, based on biomarkers for myocardial injuries in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Also, the ECG observations were assessed for possible prognostic use., Methods: Diagnostic criteria provided by the Coronavirus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Program of the Chinese National Health Commission were used. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 31 COVID-19 cases diagnosed as positive by high-throughput sequencing of nasopharyngeal nucleic acid test and admitted to Sichuan Province Public Health Clinical Medical Center, Sichuan Province, China. Based on changes in biomarkers, the 31 participants were divided into a non-myocardial injury group (A) and a myocardial injury group (B). Our study observed the dynamic changes and new abnormal changes of the ECG during the hospitalization of patients., Results: The results summarized in the 4 following points: (I) the time sequence changes for ST and T indicated that the absolute ST-segment depression and T-wave inversion values in group B were larger. (II) The heart rate (HR) and RV5 values in group B were higher, the QTC value for group B was lower. (III) The sensitivity of ST-segment depression for the diagnosis of myocardial injury was 32.60% and the specificity was 90.50%. The sensitivity of T-wave inversion was 41.30% and the specificity was 85.10%. (IV) Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is a major factor affecting patient's death., Conclusions: If abnormal ST-T, increased heart rate, shortened QTC interval, and high ventricular voltage are observed in a COVID-19 patient, it may infer that myocardial damage has occurred. Using ECG as a point of reference for change can compensate for the time limitation of myocardial enzyme index. Regardless of the stage of disease development, ECG can reflect myocardial damage. Particularly in the 8-12 days after hospitalization, almost all myocardial enzymes cannot be applied. The ST-depression and T-wave inversion had diagnostic significance with relatively high sensitivity and specificity for myocardial injury. Assessment of LDH and biomarkers in combination with ECG can more accurately reflect myocardial injury, and facilitate prompt clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Optical network-on-chip (ONoC) is based on optical interconnects and optical routers (ORs), which have obvious advantages in bandwidth and power consumption. Transmission capacity is a significant performance in ONoC architecture, which has to be fully considered during the design process. Relying on mode-division multiplexing (MDM) technology, the system capacity of optical interconnection is greatly improved compared to the traditional multiplexing technology. With the explosion in MDM technology, the optical router supporting MDM came into being. In this paper, we design a multimode optical router (MDM-OR) model and analyze its indicators. Above all, we propose a novel multimode switching element and design an N -port universal multimode optical router (MDM-OR) model. Secondly, we analyze the insertion loss model of different optical devices and the crosstalk noise model of N -port MDM-OR. On this basis, a multimode router structure of a single-mode five-port optical router is proposed. At the same time, we analyze the transmission loss, crosstalk noise, signal-to-noise radio (OSNR), and bit error rate (BER) of different input-output pairs by inputting the 1550 nm TE0, TE1, and TE2 modes to the router.

Hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) is an important signaling molecule that regulates diverse cellular signaling pathways through persulfidation. Our previous study revealed that H 2 S is involved in the improvement of rice drought tolerance. However, the corresponding enzymatic sources of H 2 S and its regulatory mechanism in response to drought stress are not clear. Here, we cloned and characterized a putative l-cysteine desulfhydrase ( LCD ) gene in rice, which encodes a protein possessing H 2 S-producing activity and was named OsLCD1 . Overexpression of OsLCD1 results in enhanced H 2 S production, persulfidation of total soluble protein, and confers rice drought tolerance. Further, we found that nitrate reductase (NR) activity was decreased under drought stress, and the inhibition of NR activity was controlled by endogenous H 2 S production. Persulfidation of NIA2, an NR isoform responsible for the main NR activity, led to a decrease in total NR activity in rice. Furthermore, drought stress-triggered inhibition of NR activity and persulfidation of NIA2 was intensified in the OsLCD1 overexpression line. Phenotypical and molecular analysis revealed that mutation of NIA2 enhanced rice drought tolerance by activating the expression of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes and ABA-responsive genes. Taken together, our results showed the role of OsLCD1 in modulating H 2 S production and provided insight into H 2 S-regulated persulfidation of NIA2 in the control of rice drought stress.

In recent years, frequent haze episodes have resulted in the deterioration of air quality of the Fenwei Plain during winter and holidays. Besides coal combustion and industrial emissions, the topography and climate of the Fenwei Plain were also the main causes of the haze. The samples were collected in Linfen of Fenwei Plain during the Spring Festival from February 2 to February 13, 2019. The 13 elements(Li, Be, Ti, Rb, Sc, Y, La, Ce, Zr, V, Tl, U, and Sn) in PM 2.5 were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS). Combined with the meteorological data, the spatial and temporal distribution of pollutants and potential source analysis were evaluated by cluster analysis and backward trajectory. The average concentration of SO 2 was 58.39 μg·m -3 during the sampling period, which exceeded the 24 h average mass concentration limit(50.00 μg·m -3 ) of national ambient air quality standard(GB 3095-2012). The average concentrations of O 3 , NO 2 , and CO was 52.15 μg·m -3 , 29.02 μg·m -3 , and 2.29 mg·m -3 , respectively. The results showed that SO 2 was the dominated pollutant. NO 2 and CO were mainly affected by diffusion from urban areas. The backward trajectory analysis indicated that the basin topography of the Fenwei Plain may be the main cause of the haze. The analysis of potential source contribution function(PSCF) of soil sources showed that the potential dominated areas included Northern Shaanxi, southern Gansu and Southern Ningxia., which were mainly affected by the monsoon climate.

To explore the pollution characteristics and potential health risks of heavy metals in PM 2.5 on haze days in Central China, PM 2.5 samples were collected from the Huanggang monitoring station, a regional observation point in Central China, between January 13 and 24, 2018. The contents of Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Sn, and Pb in PM 2.5 were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS), and the enrichment factor method was used to determine the potential risk based on the exposure model recommended by the Environmental Protection Administration(EPA). The results showed that during the observation period, the concentrations of Zn in PM 2.5 were highest, and the concentrations of the carcinogens As and Cd were higher than the secondary standard limits of China's ambient air quality standard(GB 3095-2012), with 70% of these elemental concentrations accounting for the largest proportion in the middle haze period. The enrichment factor analysis showed that Cd, Sn, Co, Pb, and Zn were the most abundant elements, especially during the middle haze period, and were mostly derived from transportation and coal combustion. The results of the human health risk assessment showed that exposure via hand-mouth feeding was the main non-carcinogenic risk, and the exposure and non-carcinogenic risks of children were significantly higher than those of adults. Pb poses a non-carcinogenic risk to children, while heavy metals in PM 2.5 pose no non-carcinogenic risks to adults and carcinogenic heavy metals pose no carcinogenic risks.

2D MXenes have been found to be one of the most promising catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) due to their excellent electronic conductivity, hydrophilic nature, porosity and stability. Nonmetallic (NM) element doping is an effective approach to enhance the HER catalytic performance. By using the density functional theory (DFT) method, we researched the effect of nonmetallic doping (different element types, variable doping concentrations) and optimal hydrogen absorption concentration on the surface of NM-Ti 3 C 2 O 2 for HER catalytic activity and stability. The calculation results show that doping nonmetallic elements can improve their HER catalytic properties; the P element dopants catalyst especially exhibits remarkable HER performance (∆GH = 0.008 eV when the P element doping concentration is 100% and the hydrogen absorption is 75%). The origin mechanism of the regulation of doping on stability and catalytic activity was analyzed by electronic structures. The results of this work proved that by controlling the doping elements and their concentrations we can tune the catalytic activity, which will accelerate the further research of HER catalysts.

Objective: To improve the accuracy of acupuncture manipulation modeling and inheritance, this article explores the feasibility of automatically classifying "twirling" and "lifting and thrusting", two basic acupuncture manipulations in science of acupuncture and moxibustion, with the computer vision technology., Methods: A hybrid deep learning network model was designed based on 3D convolutional neural network and long-short term memory neural network to extract the spatial-temporal features of video frame sequences, which were then input into the classifier for classification., Results: The model discriminated between "twirling" and "lifting and thrusting" manipulations in 200 videos, with the training and verification accuracy reaching up to 95.4% and 95.3%, respectively., Conclusion: This computer vision-based acupuncture manipulation classification system provides an effective way for the data extraction and inheritance of acupuncture manipulations.

Chemoresistance is a major cause for high mortality and poor survival in patients with ovarian cancer. Changes of cellular autophagy is associated with tumor cell chemoresistance. MAP kinase interacting serine/threonine kinase 2 (MKNK2) belongs to the protein kinase superfamily mediating cell cycle, apoptosis and angiogenesis. However, its effects on chemoresistance during ovarian cancer development remain unclear. In this study, we found that MKNK2 expression levels were markedly up-regulated in chemoresistant ovarian cancer cells compared with the sensitive cells. In addition, significantly increased expression of MKNK2 was detected in clinical ovarian cancer tissues, particularly in tumor samples from patients with drug resistance, and high MKNK2 expression is closely associated with poor prognosis. Our in vitro experiments subsequently showed that MKNK2 knockdown markedly reduced the proliferation of chemoresistant ovarian cancer cells, which was confirmed in SKOV3/DDP xenograft mouse models. Importantly, MKNK2 knockdown considerably induced autophagy in ovarian cancer cells with drug resistance, which was involved in the suppression of cell proliferation. Of note, we showed that miR-125b directly targeted MKNK2, and a negative correlation was observed between the expression of them in clinical tumor tissues. MKNK2 silence also increased miR-125b expression levels in drug-resistant ovarian cancer cells. Intriguingly, MKNK2 knockdown-suppressed cell proliferation and -induced autophagy were almost abrogated by miR-125b inhibition in chemoresistant ovarian cancer cells. Together, these findings demonstrated that MNKN2 is responsible for chemoresistance in ovarian cancer through modulating autophagy by targeting miR-125b, which may be a promising therapeutic target to develop strategies against ovarian cancer with drug resistance., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

To investigate the persistence time and the effectiveness of exercise preconditioning (EP) on myocardial protection in exhausted rats from myocardial enzymes, electrocardiogram (ECG), cardiac function, and mitochondrial respiratory function after cessation of exercise training. One hundred and twelve healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into seven groups (n = 16): control group (CON), exhaustive exercise (EE) group, EP group, and EE after EP (EP + EE); furthermore, EP + EE group was randomly divided into 1D, 3D, 9D, and 18D groups (1D, 3D, 9D, and 18D) and performed exhaustive treadmill exercise at a speed of 30 m/min on the 1 st , 3 rd , 9 th , and 18 th days separately after EP exercise stopped. We detected the serum contents of N-terminal pro B type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays method, recorded ECG, detected heart function by pressure volume catheter, measured the respiratory rates of rat myocardial mitochondria state 3 and 4 of complex I, complex II, and IV by high-resolution breathing apparatus. EP could decrease the serum content of NT-proBNP and cTnI, improved the electrical derangement and the left ventricular function in exhausted rats. Moreover, the protective effect was more obvious in the 9 th day after EP stopped, whereas it would disappear when EP stopped for more than 18 days. Compared with EE group, the respiratory rate value of myocardial mitochondrial complex increased in 1D, 3D, and 9D groups. Therefore, the protective effect of EP on the heart of exhausted rats decreased with the prolongation of stopping training time, and the effect was significant within 3 days of discontinuing training, then decreased gradually, and completely disappeared in the 18 th day. EP enhanced the cardiac function in exhausted rats through raising the nicotinamide adenine diphosphate hydride (NADH) electron transport chain and increased the respiration rates of mitochondrial respiratory complex I and IV state 3, thereby improved myocardial mitochondrial respiratory function and energy metabolism., Competing Interests: None

Two dimensional (2D) organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites have attracted great interest due to their tunable band gap and structural stability. In this study, biaxial strain behavior and carrier mobility of monolayers (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 GeI 4 and (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 SnI 4 are investigated by first principles calculations. (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 GeI 4 and (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 SnI 4 still retain their structural stability at ε = 13% and ε = 15%, respectively. Ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulation has confirmed that the system at 300 K is still thermodynamically stable at a biaxial strain of ε = 8%. The band gaps of (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 GeI 4 and (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 SnI 4 calculated from the HSE06 functional are increased from 2.427 and 1.953 eV at zero strain to 3.002 and 2.626 eV at ε = 8%. Deformation potential (DP) models based on longitudinal acoustic phonon (LAP) and optical phonon (OP) scattering are used to investigate mobility. The mobility of (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 GeI 4 is lower than that of (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 SnI 4 . It is mainly determined by the scattering from OP with lower energy and decreases sharply with an increase in biaxial strain. Compared with Pb based perovskites, (C 4 H 9 NH 3 ) 2 SnI 4 exhibits high carrier mobility and thermodynamic stability.

This study was to assess the feasibility of using non-standardized single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring to automatically detect atrial fibrillation (AF) with special emphasis on the combination of deep learning based algorithm and modified patch-based ECG lead. Fifty-five consecutive patients were monitored for AF in around 24 hours by patch-based ECG devices along with a standard 12-lead Holter. Catering to potential positional variability of patch lead, four typical positions on the upper-left chest were proposed. For each patch lead, the performance of automated algorithms with four different convolutional neural networks (CNN) was evaluated for AF detection against blinded annotations of two clinicians. A total of 349,388 10-second segments of AF and 161,084 segments of sinus rhythm were detected successfully. Good agreement between patch-based single-lead and standard 12-lead recordings was obtained at the position MP1 that corresponds to modified lead II, and a promising performance of the automated algorithm with an R-R intervals based CNN model was achieved on this lead in terms of accuracy (93.1%), sensitivity (93.1%), and specificity (93.4%). The present results suggest that the optimized patch-based ECG lead along by deep learning based algorithms may offer the possibility of providing an accurate, easy, and inexpensive clinical tool for mass screening of AF.

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between diabetes self-care behavior and cognitive function of hospitalized young and middle-aged Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)., Patients and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, young and middle-aged T2DM patients (age range, 35-65 years) were recruited at 4 tertiary hospitals between July 2016 and January 2017. Data pertaining to self-care behavior and cognitive function were collected using two questionnaires (the Summary of Diabetes Self-care Activities [SDSCA] and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment [MoCA], respectively). Multivariate linear regression analysis was performed to assess the correlation between cognitive function and self-care activities., Results: A total of 140 patients with diabetes were enrolled (mean age, 53.79±7.96 years). The mean duration of T2DM was 10.83±6.76 years. Regarding SDSCA performance, the mean scores for foot care and blood glucose monitoring were 2.20±2.57 and 1.98±2.45, respectively, which were the worst; scores for exercise (4.01±2.58) and diet (3.16±1.89) were better, while scores for medication administration (5.26±2.79) were the best. The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 37.9% (53 patients). After variables adjustment, delayed recall showed a significant correlation with blood sugar monitoring behavior ( B =0.224, P=0.019); visual space and executive function ( B =0.255, P =0.009) and abstraction ( B =-0.337, P =0.001) showed a correlation with foot care behavior., Conclusion: Cognitive ability affects the self-care behavior of patients with T2DM. Assessment of cognitive function may help inform patient education interventions to improve the self-care behavior of these patients., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2020 Yang et al.)

Grammatical comprehension remains a strength in English-exposed young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet limited research has investigated how preschool children with ASD process grammatical structures in real time, in any language. Using the eye-movement measures of Intermodal Preferential Looking, we assessed online processing of subject-verb-object (SVO) order in seventy 2- to 5-year-old children with ASD exposed to Mandarin Chinese across the spectrum, whose vocabulary production scores were dramatically delayed compared with the typical controls. With this Mandarin-exposed sample, we tested the extent to which children with ASD require (a) highly consistent input and/or (b) good discourse/pragmatics for acquiring grammatical structures. Children viewed side-by-side videos depicting reversible actions (e.g., a bird pushing a horse vs. a horse pushing a bird), and heard an audio matching only one of those actions; their eyegaze to each video was coded and analyzed. Both typically developing children and children with ASD demonstrated comprehension of SVO word order, suggesting that core grammatical structures such as basic word order may be preserved in children with ASD across languages despite radical differences in language environment, social/pragmatic abilities, and neurological organization. However, children with ASD were less efficient in online sentence processing than typical children, and the efficiency of their online sentence processing was related to their standardized language assessment scores. Of note is that across both Mandarin Chinese and English, some proportion of minimally verbal children with ASD exhibited SVO comprehension despite their profoundly impaired expressive language skills. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1829-1844. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Grammar is a strength in the language comprehension of young English learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Eye-movement data from a diverse sample of Chinese preschoolers with ASD indicated similar grammatical strength of basic word order in Chinese (e.g., to understand sentences like "The bird is pushing the horse"). Moreover, children's proficiency of sentence processing was related to their language assessment scores. Across languages, such knowledge is even spared in some minimally verbal children with ASD., (© 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Both caloric restriction (CR) and mitochondrial proteostasis are linked to longevity, but how CR maintains mitochondrial proteostasis in mammals remains elusive. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are well known for gene silencing in cytoplasm and have recently been identified in mitochondria, but knowledge regarding their influence on mitochondrial function is limited. Here, we report that CR increases miRNAs, which are required for the CR-induced activation of mitochondrial translation, in mouse liver. The ablation of miR-122, the most abundant miRNA induced by CR, or the retardation of miRNA biogenesis via Drosha knockdown significantly reduces the CR-induced activation of mitochondrial translation. Importantly, CR-induced miRNAs cause the overproduction of mtDNA-encoded proteins, which induces the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR mt ), and consequently improves mitochondrial proteostasis and function. These findings establish a physiological role of miRNA-enhanced mitochondrial function during CR and reveal miRNAs as critical mediators of CR in inducing UPR mt to improve mitochondrial proteostasis., (Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Ischaemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is associated with programmed cell death that promotes inflammation and organ dysfunction. Necroptosis is mediated by members of receptor interacting protein kinases (RIPK1/3). Inhibition of RIPK1/3 provides a pro-survival benefit in kidney IRI. Caspase-8 initiates apoptosis and contributes to IRI. We studied whether inhibiting both RIPK3 and caspase-8 would provide an additional benefit in kidney IRI., Methods: A clamp was applied to the left kidney pedicle for 45 min followed by right kidney nephrectomy. Kidney and serum from wild type, RIPK3 -/- , and RIPK3 -/- caspase-8 -/- double knockout (DKO) mice were collected post-IRI for assessment of injury. Tubular epithelial cells (TEC) isolated from wild type, RIPK3 -/- , and DKO mice were treated with interferons-γ and interleukin-1β to induce apoptotic death., Results: Kidney IRI of DKO mice did not show improvement over RIPK3 -/- mice. We have found that DKO triggered 'intrinsic' apoptosis in TEC in response to interleukin-1β and interferons-γ. Up-regulation of the B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)-associated death promoter, the Bcl-2-homologous antagonist killer and Bcl-2-associated X protein and enhanced activation of caspase-3 and 9 were found in DKO TEC. TEC infected with Murine cytomegalovirus that encodes multiple cell death inhibitors resist to death., Conclusion: We show that the deletion of both RIPK3 and caspase-8 does not provide additive benefit in IRI or TEC death and may enhance injury by up-regulation of intrinsic apoptosis. This suggests blocking multiple death pathways may be required for the prevention of kidney IRI clinically., (© 2018 Asian Pacific Society of Nephrology.)

Purpose: Sperm cryopreservation before cancer treatment is the most effective method to preserve the fertility of male patients. We present our 21 years experience with sperm cryopreservation for cancer patients, including an examination of semen quality, the current status of cryopreserved sperm, and the rate of sperm use for assisted reproductive technology (ART)., Materials and Methods: A total of 721 cancer patients at Fertility Center of CHA Gangnam Medical Center successfully performed sperm cryopreservation for fertility preservation from January 1996 to December 2016. Medical chart review was used to analyze patient age, marital status, cancer type, semen volume, sperm counts and motility, length of storage, and current banking status., Results: The major cancers of the 721 patients were leukemia (28.4%), lymphoma (18.3%), testis cancer (10.0%). The mean age at cryopreservation was 27.0 years, and 111 patients (15.4%) performed sperm cryopreservation during or after cancer treatment. The mean sperm concentration was 66.7±66.3 ×10⁶/mL and the mean sperm motility was 33.8%±16.3%. During median follow-up duration of 75 months (range, 1-226 months), 44 patients (6.1%) used their banked sperm at our fertility center for ART and 9 patients (1.2%) transferred their banked sperm to another center. The median duration from cryopreservation to use was 51 months (range, 1-158 months)., Conclusions: Sperm cryopreservation before gonadotoxic treatment is the most reliable method to preserve the fertility of male cancer patients. Sperm cryopreservation should be offered as a standard of care for all men planning cancer therapy., Competing Interests: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2019 Korean Society for Sexual Medicine and Andrology.)