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Oxygen vacancies (V O ) in metal oxide semiconductors play an important role in improving gas-sensing performance of chemiresistive gas sensors. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of clear understanding of the inherent mechanism of the influence of oxygen vacancies on gas sensing due to generally focusing on the concentration of V O . Herein, oxygen vacancies were rationally modulated in WO 3 nanoflower structures via an annealing process, resulting in a transformation of V O from neutral (V O 0 ) to a doubly ionized (V O 2+ ) state. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that V O 2+ is significantly more efficient than V O 0 for NO 2 detection in competition with atmospheric O 2 . Benefiting from a high concentration of V O 2+ , the WO 3 -450 (WO 3 annealed at 450 °C) sensor exhibits excellent sensing performance with an ultrahigh sensitivity (3674.1 to 5 ppm NO 2 ), superior selectivity, and long-term stability (one month). Furthermore, the sensor with the wide range of concentration detection not only can detect NO 2 gas with parts per million (ppm) but also can detect NO 2 with parts per billion (ppb) level concentration, with a high sensibility reaching 2.8 to 25 ppb NO 2 and over 100 to 100 ppb NO 2 . This study elucidates the oxygen vacancy mediated sensing mechanism toward NO 2 and provides an effective strategy for the rational design of gas sensors with high sensing performance.

With the wave of positive psychology in second language acquisition, more emotion factors are gaining scholarly attention. Despite extensive research on Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI), burnout and boredom in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) studies, the interplay of these variables remains unknown and the related impact on EFL learner's English Language Performance (ELP) is still underexplored. Given this, in light of Control-Value Theory (CVT), the present study used a quantitative method to examine the mediating roles of boredom and burnout in the connection between TEI and ELP among Chinese university students engaged in EFL endeavor. Data were collected from 489 second-year EFL students. Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the relationships. Results revealed that TEI significantly influences ELP among Chinese EFL university students, through its correlation with both boredom and burnout. Higher levels of TEI are associated with reduced experiences of these negative states, which in turn are linked to improved language performance. These may imply that teacher educators should integrate emotional intelligence training into curricula and professional development to improve students' effectiveness and learning outcome., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Structural and functional neurobiological abnormalities have been observed in schizophrenia. Previous studies have concentrated on specific illness stages, obscuring relationships between functional/structural changes and disorder progression. The present study aimed to quantify structural and functional abnormalities across different clinical stages using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI)., Methods: Fifty-four participants with first-episode schizophrenia (FES), 120 with clinically high risk of psychosis (CHR), and 111 healthy controls (HCs) underwent functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure oxyhemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) during the verbal fluency task. Among them, 28FES, 64CHR and 55HC also finished sMRI. Oxy-Hb and gray matter volume (GMV) were compared among the three groups while controlling for covariates, including age, sex, years of education, and task performance. Mediation analysis was utilized to determine the mediating effect of GMV on Oxy-Hb and cognition., Results: Compared with the HC group, CHR and FES groups showed significantly reduced brain activity. However, there were no significant differences between the FES and CHR. Pronounced GMV increase in the right frontal pole area (F = 4.234, p = 0.016) was identified in the CHR and FES groups. Mediation analysis showed a significant mediation effect of the right frontal pole GMV between Channel 31 Oxy-Hb and processing speed (z = 2.105, p = 0.035) and attention/vigilance (z = 1.992, p = 0.046)., Conclusions: Brain activation and anatomical deficits were observed in different brain regions, suggesting that anatomical and functional abnormalities are dissociated in the early stages of psychosis. The relationship between neural activity and anatomy may reflect a specific pathophysiology related to cognitive deterioration in schizophrenia., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) has sparked significant interest in high-efficiency photovoltaic applications due to its advantageous material and optoelectronic properties. In recent years, there has been considerable development in this area. Nonetheless, defects and suboptimal [hk0] crystal orientation expressively limit further device efficiency enhancement. This study used Zinc (Zn) to adjust the interfacial energy band and strengthen carrier transport. For the first time, it is discovered that the diffusion of Zn in the cadmium sulfide (CdS) buffer layer can affect the crystalline orientation of the Sb 2 Se 3 thin films in the superstrate structure. The effect of Zn diffusion on the morphology of Sb 2 Se 3 thin films with Cd x Zn 1-x S buffer layer has been investigated in detail. Additionally, Zn doping promotes forming Sb 2 Se 3 thin films with the desired [hk1] orientation, resulting in denser and larger grain sizes which will eventually regulate the defect density. Finally, based on the energy band structure and high-quality Sb 2 Se 3 thin films, this study achieves a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.76%, with a V OC of 458 mV, a J SC of 28.13 mA cm -2 , and an FF of 67.85%. Overall, this study explores the growth mechanism of Sb 2 Se 3 thin films, which can lead to further improvements in the efficiency of Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Background: The predictive value of the methylation of Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) and H19 promoters in peripheral blood leukocytes as a non-invasive biomarker for the chemotherapy effect and prognosis gastric cancer (GC) is unclear., Methods: The DNA methylation of H19 and MALAT1 between chemotherapy-sensitive and non-sensitive groups and between groups with better and worse survival of GC was compared using regression analyses. Several predictive nomograms were constructed. The genetic alteration of MALAT1 and H19 and the association between gene expression and immune status in GC were also investigated using bioinformatics analysis., Results: Higher genetic methylations in peripheral blood were noticed in GC groups with poorer survival. The constructed nomograms presented strong predictive values for the chemotherapy effect and 3-year survival of disease-free survival, progression-free survival, and overall survival, with the area under the curve as 0.838, 0.838, 0.912, and 0.925, respectively. Significant correlations between MALAT1 or H19 expression and marker genes of immune checkpoints and immune pathways were noticed. The high infiltration of macrophages in H19-high and low infiltration of CD8+ T cells in MALAT1-high groups were associated with worse survival of GC., Conclusions: MALAT1 and H19 have the potential to predict the chemotherapy response and clinical outcomes of GC., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Purpose: Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a type of regulated cell death that modifies the immune response by releasing DAMPs or danger signals. Herein, we aimed to develop an ICD-related predictive model for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and investigate its applicability for predicting prognostic outcomes and immunotherapeutic responses., Methods: Differentially expressed genes of ICD were identified in the HCC and normal liver samples. A prognostic risk model and a nomogram containing clinicopathological features were created. To validate the effectiveness of the model, an external dataset was used. Clinical characteristics, prognosis, tumor mutation burden, immune microenvironments, biological function and chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity were evaluated for different genetic subtypes and risk groups., Results: A total of 35 ICD-related genes (ICDRGs) were identified between HCC and normal samples, 11 of which were significantly associated with overall survival (OS) in HCC patients. Four different genetic subtypes were formed and eight ICDRGs were selected to develop a risk prognostic model. The risk scores were shown to be an independent prognostic factor for HCC and positively correlated with pathological severity. Patients in the high-risk group had a higher frequency of TP53 mutations, increased expression of immune checkpoints and human leukocyte antigen genes. The inhibitory concentrations of chemotherapeutic drugs differed in different populations., Conclusion: In this study, we developed an ICDRG risk model and demonstrated its applicability in predicting survival outcomes, immune and chemotherapeutic responses in HCC patients. ICDRGs are expected to be used as novel biomarkers in the medical decision-making of HCC., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2024 Li et al.)

Partial discharge detection is considered a crucial technique for evaluating insulation performance and identifying defect types in cable terminals of high-speed electric multiple units (EMUs). In this study, terminal samples exhibiting four typical defects were prepared from high-speed EMUs. A cable discharge testing system, utilizing high-frequency current sensing, was developed to collect discharge signals, and datasets corresponding to these defects were established. This study proposes the use of the convolutional neural network (CNN) for the classification of discharge signals associated with specific defects, comparing this method with two existing neural network (NN)-based classification models that employ the back-propagation NN and the radial basis function NN, respectively. The comparative results demonstrate that the CNN-based model excels in accurately identifying signals from various defect types in the cable terminals of high-speed EMUs, surpassing the two existing NN-based classification models.

Objective: The objective of this study is to comprehensively investigate the potential value of BNIP3 and DAPK1 methylation in peripheral blood leukocytes as a non-invasive biomarker for the detection of gastric cancer (GC), prediction of chemotherapy efficacy, and prognosis assessment., Patients and Methods: Initially, multiple bioinformatic analyses were employed to explore the genetic landscape and biological effects of BNIP3 and DAPK1 in GC tissues. Subsequently, case-control and prospective follow-up studies were conducted to compare the differences in BNIP3 and DAPK1 methylation levels in peripheral blood leukocytes among GC patients and healthy controls, as well as between patients exhibiting sensitivity and resistance to platinum plus fluorouracil treatment, and between patients with varying survival outcomes of GC. Additionally, several predictive nomograms were constructed based on the identified CpG sites and relevant clinical parameters to forecast the occurrence of GC, chemotherapy efficacy, and prognosis., Results: The upregulation of BNIP3 and DAPK1 was found to be associated with the development and poorer survival outcomes of GC. Furthermore, the expression of BNIP3/DAPK1 exhibited an inverse relationship with their DNA methylation levels and demonstrated a positive correlation with immune cell infiltration, as well as the IC50 values of 5-Fluorouracil and Cisplatin in GC tissues. Increased infiltration of macrophages in the high-expression groups was observed to be linked to unfavorable GC survival. In the case-control and follow-up studies, lower methylation levels of BNIP3 and DAPK1 were identified in the peripheral leukocytes of GC patients compared to healthy controls. Hypomethylation was also associated with more aggressive subtypes, diminished chemotherapy efficacy, and poorer survival outcomes in GC., Conclusion: The DNA methylation of BNIP3 and DAPK1 in peripheral blood leukocytes holds promise as a novel non-invasive biomarker for predicting the occurrence of GC, chemotherapy efficacy, and prognosis assessment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Deep neural networks combined with superpixel segmentation have proven to be superior to high-resolution remote sensing image (HRI) classification. Currently, most HRI classification methods that combine deep learning and superpixel segmentation use stacking on multiple scales to extract contextual information from segmented objects. However, this approach does not take into account the contextual dependencies between each segmented object. To solve this problem, a joint superpixel and Transformer (JST) framework is proposed for HRI classification. In JST, HRI is first segmented into superpixel objects as input, and Transformer is used to model the long-range dependencies. The contextual relationship between each input superpixel object is obtained and the class of analyzed objects is output by designing an encoding and decoding Transformer. Additionally, we explore the effect of semantic range on classification accuracy. JST is also tested by using two HRI datasets with overall classification accuracy, average accuracy and Kappa coefficients of 0.79, 0.70, 0.78 and 0.91, 0.85, 0.89, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed method is compared qualitatively and quantitatively, and the results achieve competitive and consistently better than the benchmark comparison method., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Cuproptosis is a novel form of regulated cell death which guarantees to increase the efficacy of existing anticancer treatments that employ traditional apoptotic therapeutics. However, reducing the amount of undesirable Cu ions released in normal tissue and maximizing Cu-induced cuproptosis therapeutic effects at tumor sites are the major challenges. In this study, exploiting the chemical properties of copper ionophores and the tumor microenvironment, a novel method is developed for controlling the valence of copper ions that cause photoinduced cuproptosis in tumor cells. CJS-Cu nanoparticles (NPs) can selectively induce cuproptosis after cascade reactions through H 2 O 2 -triggered Cu 2+ release, photoirradiation-induced superoxide radical (∙O 2 - ) generation, and reduction of Cu 2+ to Cu + by ∙O 2 - . The generated reactive oxygen species can result in glutathione depletion and iron-sulfur cluster protein damage and further augmented cuproptosis. CJS-Cu NPs effectively suppressed tumor growth and downregulated the expression of metastasis-related proteins, contributing to the complete inhibition of lung metastasis. Ultimately, this study suggests novel avenues for the manipulation of cellular cuproptosis through photochemical reactions., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

The purpose of the present study is to predict and draw up non-grain cultivated land (NCL) susceptibility map based on optimized Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) metaheuristic algorithm. In order to, a total of 184 NCL areas were identified based on historical records, and a total of 16 NCL susceptibility conditioning factors (NCLSCFs) were considered, based on both a systematic literature survey and local environmental conditions. The results showed that the XGBoost model optimized by PSO performed well in comparison to other machine learning algorithms; the values of sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and AUC are 0.93, 0.89, 0.88, 0.93, and 0.96, respectively. Slope, rainfall, fault density, distance from fault and drainage density are most important variables. According to the results of this study, the use of meta-innovative algorithms such as PSO can greatly enhance the ability of machine learning models., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Jasmonic acid (JA) is a crucial phytohormone that regulates plant immunity. The endogenous JA level is determined by the rates of its biosynthesis and catabolism in plants. The activation of JA biosynthesis has been well documented; however, how plants repress JA catabolism upon pathogen infection remains elusive. In this study, we identified and characterized Botrytis cinerea-induced F-box protein 1 (BFP1) in Arabidopsis. The expression of BFP1 was induced by B. cinerea in a JA signaling-dependent manner, and BFP1 protein was critical for plant defense against B. cinerea and plant response to JA. In addition, BFP1 overexpression increased plant defenses against broad-spectrum pathogens without fitness costs. Further experiments demonstrated that BFP1 interacts with and mediates the ubiquitination and degradation of jasmonic acid oxidases (JAOs, also known as jasmonate-induced oxygenases, JOXs), the enzymes that hydroxylate JA to 12OH-JA. Consistent with this, BFP1 affects the accumulation of JA and 12OH-JA during B. cinerea infection. Moreover, mutation of JAO2 complemented the phenotypes of the bfp1 mutant. Collectively, our results unveil a new mechanism used by plants to activate immune responses upon pathogen infection: suppressing JA catabolism., (Copyright © 2023 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Rational design and exploration of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts with exceptional performance are crucial for the advancement of the hydrogen energy economy. In this study, vanadium/cobalt (V/Co) dual-doped nickel sulfide (Ni 3 S 2 ) nanowires were synthesized on a nickel foam (NF) substrate to overcome the sluggish kinetics typically associated with OER. The resulting catalyst exhibited outstanding electrocatalytic activity towards OER in a 1.0 M KOH electrolyte, with a minimal overpotential of 155 and 263 mV, the current densities of 10 and 100 mA cm -2 can be achieved effortlessly. Importantly, this catalyst demonstrated remarkable stability over extended periods, maintaining its performance for 25 h under constant current density, 55 h under continuously varying current density, and even after undergoing 2000 cycles of cyclic voltammetry (CV), which had surpassed those of most non-noble metal electrocatalysts. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory analyses confirmed that the co-doping of Co and V redistributed the electron of Ni, leading to improvements in the d-band center, structural characteristics, and free energy landscapes of adsorbed intermediates. This work presents a novel strategy, based on the connection between electronic structure and catalytic properties, in the design of double-doped catalysts for efficient OER., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In this review, microspheres for ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) were reviewed in accordance with the literature in recent years. As people's demands for chromatography are becoming more and more sophisticated, the preparation and application of UPLC stationary phases have become the focus of researchers in this field. This new analytical separation science not only maintains the practicality and principle of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), but also improves the step function of chromatographic performance. The review presents the morphology of four types of sub-2 μm silica microspheres that have been used in UPLC, including non-porous silica microspheres (NPSMs), mesoporous silica microspheres (MPSMs), hollow silica microspheres (HSMs) and core-shell silica microspheres (CSSMs). The preparation, pore control and modification methods of different microspheres are introduced in the review, and then the applications of UPLC in drug analysis and separation, environmental monitoring, and separation of macromolecular proteins was presented. Finally, a brief overview of the existing challenges in the preparation of sub-2 μm microspheres, which required further research and development, was given., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Arable land is the lifeblood of food production, it is of great significance to promote the protection of arable land and ensure national food security by accurately understanding the change law of cultivated land and its driving mechanism. This study takes the Weibei dry plateau region of China as an example, explores its spatial and temporal change characteristics through the center of gravity shift and land use shift matrix, and couples the geographic probe model to reveal the driving mechanisms affecting arable land change. The results show that in the past 25 years, the total arable land area in the Weibei Dry Plateau Region of China has decreased by 5.58%, and the stability of arable land resources in the whole region has weakened. The center of gravity of arable land shifts to the northeast, and the standard deviation ellipse of arable land mainly undergoes the change process of "increase (1995-2015)-decrease (2015-2020)", and the spatial distribution of arable land tends to be dispersed. In the LISA frequency mapping, the proportion of stable constant and low-frequency areas is as high as 89.58%, and the spatial pattern of cultivated land is relatively stable. Medium and high frequency areas. The transformation mode is mainly "low-low" aggregation, "low-high" aggregation is not significant, and the decline of cultivated land in the study area is more obvious. In the past 25 years, a total of 1017.26 km 2 of arable land was converted to construction land. The explanatory power of the influencing factors varies in each period (0.299 to 0.731), with total agricultural machinery power has the strongest explanatory power of 0.694, 0.592, and 0.731, respectively. The interaction between slope and annual average temperature and other factors being the highest, both greater than 0.8. Through the construction of LISA frequency mapping, combined with the center of gravity model and standard deviation ellipse, the spatial evolution trend of regional arable land is more comprehensively and dynamically grasped. By using the geodetector model, the driving mechanism of the changes of arable land is revealed comprehensively, which provides a theoretical basis for the scientific management and effective protection of arable land resources and a basis for decision-making., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Network pharmacology (NP) provides a new methodological perspective for understanding traditional medicine from a holistic perspective, giving rise to frontiers such as traditional Chinese medicine network pharmacology (TCM-NP). With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it is key for NP to develop network-based AI methods to reveal the treatment mechanism of complex diseases from massive omics data. In this review, focusing on the TCM-NP, we summarize involved AI methods into three categories: network relationship mining, network target positioning and network target navigating, and present the typical application of TCM-NP in uncovering biological basis and clinical value of Cold/Hot syndromes. Collectively, our review provides researchers with an innovative overview of the methodological progress of NP and its application in TCM from the AI perspective., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.)

The efficiency of antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) solar cells is still limited by significant interface and deep-level defects, in addition to carrier recombination at the back contact surface. This paper investigates the use of lithium (Li) ions as dopant for Sb 2 Se 3 films, using lithium hydroxide (LiOH) as a dopant medium. Surprisingly, the LiOH solution not only reacts at the back surface of the Sb 2 Se 3 film but also penetrate inside the film along the (Sb 4 Se 6 ) n molecular chain. First, the Li ions modify the grain boundary's carrier type and create an electric field between p-type grain interiors and n-type grain boundary. Second, a gradient band structure is formed along the vertical direction with the diffusion of Li ions. Third, carrier collection and transport are improved at the surface between Sb 2 Se 3 and the Au layer due to the reaction between the film and alkaline solution. Additionally, the diffusion of Li ions increases the crystallinity, orientation, surface evenness, and optical electricity. Ultimately, the efficiency of Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells is improved to 7.57% due to the enhanced carrier extraction, transport, and collection, as well as the reduction of carrier recombination and deep defect density. This efficiency is also a record for CdS/Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells fabricated by rapid thermal evaporation., (© 2023 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Aims: Pulmonary fibrosis seriously affects the health and life quality of patients. Exercise has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, but its effect on pulmonary fibrosis is unclear. In this study, the effect and mechanism of exercise on pulmonary fibrosis induced by paraquat were detected., Main Methods: Three data sets were retrieved from GEO data. The biological significance of DEGs generation was determined by GO, KEGG, GSEA, and PPI. Thirty male BALB/C mice were randomly divided into control group, model group and exercise group. H&E staining, Masson staining, Immunohistochemistry and Western blot were used to explore the results. The levels of SOD, CAT, MDA, and GSH in lung tissue were analyzed with detection kits. The levels of inflammatory factors in serum and BALF were measured by ELISA., Key Findings: Compared with the control group, the infiltration of inflammatory cells and fibrotic lesions were increased in the model group. Compared with the model group, voluntary wheel-running reducing the EMT of alveolar epithelial cells, the activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and the level of oxidative distress. Moreover, compared to model group, the serum IL-4, IL-10 and IFN-γ were increased, while the serum CXCL1 were decreased, while the levels of CXCL1, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α and IFN-γ in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were decreased in exercise group., Significance: Voluntary wheel-running reduced inflammatory infiltration and upregulated the expression of antioxidative distress proteins, further to improve the degree of EMT, and ultimately alleviated paraquat induced pulmonary fibrosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

High sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a controllable risk factor for chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), but their effect on the global disease burden is uncertain. The study aims to assess the global burden of high SSBs from 1990 to 2019. Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 provides data on deaths, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years of life with disabilities (YLDs) and years of life lost (YLLs) ascribe to high SSBs by ages, genders, regions and countries. For the past 30 years, overall exposure to high SSBs decreased for males and increased for females. The number of deaths from chronic NCDs ascribed to high SSBs increased from 149,988 (110,278-182,947) to 242,218 (172,045-302,250), DALYs increased from 3,698,578 (2,693,476-4,559,740) to 6,307,562 (4,300,765-8,079,556), especially the males. Age-standardized YLDs rate (ASYLDs) increased from 11.58 to 17.03. The number of ischemic heart disease (IHD) and diabetes mellitus (DM) deaths and DALYs ascribed to high SSBs has been increasing. Age-standardized death rate (ASDR) for DM risen from 0.56 to 0.62, age-standardized DALYs rate (ASDALYs) risen from 21.41 to 28.21. The burden of disease ascribed to high SSBs was in the elderly significantly higher than in the young and middle-aged, mainly concentrated in Central Asia and Oceania. The disease burden was highest in regions with moderate sociodemographic index (SDI). More extraordinary efforts should be made to raise awareness among the general public about interventions aimed at limiting the use of high SSBs, to reduce disease burden ascribed to high SSBs., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The global burden of digestive diseases has been rising in the last 30 years. The rates and trends of incidence, deaths, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for digestive diseases need to be investigated., Methods: We extracted the data on overall digestive diseases and by cause between 1990-2019 from the Global Burden of Diseases 2019 website, including the absolute number and the corresponding age-standardized rates of incidence (ASIR), deaths (ASDR), and DALYs (ASDALYs)., Results: Globally, the incident cases, deaths, and DALYs of digestive diseases in 2019 increased by 74.44, 37.85, and 23.46%, respectively, compared with that in 1990, with an increasing ASIR of 0.09%, as well as decreasing ASDR and ASDALYs of 1.38 and 1.32% annually. The sociodemographic index (SDI) of overall digestive diseases showed a slight increase in ASIR from low to middle-low regions. The downtrend in ASDR and ASDALYs was found in all SDI regions. The burden of incidence was higher in females, while the burden of deaths and DALYs was higher in males for the overall digestive diseases and most causes. The estimated annual percentage changes were significantly associated with the baseline ASIR, ASDR, and ASDALYs for the overall digestive diseases, and the negative correlations between ASDR, ASDALYs, and human development index both in 1990 ( R  = -0.68, R  = -0.69) and 2019 ( R  = -0.71, R  = -0.73) were noticed., Conclusion: The findings indicate that digestive diseases remain a significant public health burden, with substantial variation across countries, sexes, and age groups. Therefore, implementing age, gender, and country-specific policies for early screening and targeted interventions could significantly reduce the global burden of digestive diseases., 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 Wang, Hu, Sun, Yan, Wang, Wang, Zhang, Meng, Zhai, Zong, Hu, Yu and Zou.)

Objective: The purpose of this study is to reveal the mechanism of action of Yi Qi Tong Qiao Pill (YQTQP) in the treatment of allergic rhinitis (AR), as well as establish a paradigm for the researches on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) from systematic perspective., Methods: Based on the data collected from TCM-related and disease-related databases, target profiles of compounds in YQTQP were calculated through network-based algorithms and holistic targets of TQTQP was constructed. Network target analysis was performed to explore the potential mechanisms of YQTQP in the treatment of AR and the mechanisms were classified into different modules according to their biological functions. Besides, animal and clinical experiments were conducted to validate our findings inferred from Network target analysis., Results: Network target analysis showed that YQTQP targeted 12 main pathways or biological processes related to AR, represented by those related to IL-4, IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-13. These results could be classified into 3 biological modules, including regulation of immune and inflammation, epithelial barrier disorder and cell adhesion. Finally, a series of experiments composed of animal and clinical experiments, proved our findings and confirmed that YQTQP could improve related symptoms of AR, like permeability of nasal mucosa epithelium., Conclusion: A combination of Network target analysis and the experimental validation indicated that YQTQP was effective in the treatment of AR and might provide a new insight on revealing the mechanism of TCM against diseases. Trial registration Name of the registry: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry: Trial registration number: ChiCTR-TRC-13,003,137: Date of registration: Registered 29 March 2013 - Retrospectively registered: URL of trial registry record: https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=6422 ., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Biochar in powder could lead to the separation difficulties after using and easy dispersion by wind with non-necessary consumption during the practical application. The current method for preparing molded biochar is multi-step, tedious, and required exogenous reagents. Moreover, the dehydration of sewage sludge with high water content (>85%) causes expensive production cost, limiting its secondary utilization. Therefore, an "all-in-one" strategy was developed to prepare molded biochar with magnetism by using sewage sludge as endogenetic binder, water source, carbon source, as well as magnetic source, and biomass wastes as water moderator and pore-forming agent. The molded biochar showed high removal capacity towards Cd(Ⅱ) of 456.2 mg/g, which was 6 times higher than the commercial activated carbon in powder (69.1 mg/g). The excellent removal performance of the molded biochar was in linear correlation the O/C ratio (R 2 =0.855), resulting in the complexation with Cd(Ⅱ). DFT calculations indicated the amounts and species of oxygen changed the electron distribution and electron-donation properties of biochar for Cd(Ⅱ). Moreover, the Na + exchanges with Cd(Ⅱ) were also an important removal mechanism. This study provided a novel synthesis strategy for the molded biochar with both high particle density and high adsorption capability., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The global burden of heart disease is severe and increasing in the coming years. This study aims to analyze the global burden of heart disease., Study Design: Rheumatic heart disease (RHD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), hypertensive heart disease (HHD), and non-rheumatic valvular heart disease (NRVHD) were selected and analyzed from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019., Methods: The prevalence, deaths, disability-adjusted life years and their corresponding age-standardized rates were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. In addition, estimated annual percentage change was calculated to better assess epidemiological trends. In addition, we performed an age-period-cohort analysis using the Nordpred package in R program to predict death trends over the next 20 years., Results: Globally, the prevalence of four heart diseases (RHD, IHD, HHD, and NRVHD) increased by 70.5%, 103.5%, 137.9%, and 110.0% compared with 1990, respectively. The deaths cases of RHD decreased by 15.6%, whereas IHD, HHD, and NRVHD increased by 60.4%, 76.6%, and 110.6%. Compared with absolute values, their corresponding age-standardized rates only showed a slight increase trend or even decreased in some areas with high sociodemographic index. In the next 20 years, the absolute values of deaths will continue to increase, whereas their age-standardized rates of deaths will flatten out., Conclusions: Globally, the absolute values of heart disease have increased over the past 30 years and will continue to increase over the next 20 years. Targeted prevention and control strategies and measures need to be developed and improved to reduce this burden., (Copyright © 2023 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Glucocorticoids (GCs) were the essential drugs for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, different patients differ substantially in their response to GCs treatment. Our current study aims at investigating whether climate variability and climate-gene interaction influence SLE patients' response to the therapy of GCs., Methods: In total, 778 SLE patients received therapy of GCs for a study of 12-week follow-up. The efficacy of GCs treatment was evaluated using the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index. The climatic data were provided by China Meteorological Data Service Center. Additive and multiplicative interactions were examined., Results: Compared with patients with autumn onset, the efficacy of GCs in patients with winter onset is relatively poor (OR adj  = 1.805, 95%CI adj : 1.181-3.014, p adj  = 0.020). High mean relative humidity during treatment decreased the efficacy of GCs (OR adj  = 1.033, 95%CI adj : 1.008-1.058, p adj  = 0.011), especially in female (OR adj  = 1.039, 95%CI adj : 1.012-1.067, p adj  = 0.004). There was a significant interaction between sunshine during treatment and TRAP1 gene rs12597773 on GCs efficacy (Recessive model: AP = 0.770). No evidence of significant interaction was found between climate factors and the GR gene polymorphism on the improved GCs efficacy in the additive model. Multiplicative interaction was found between humidity in the month prior to treatment and GR gene rs4912905 on GCs efficacy (Dominant model: OR = 0.470, 95%CI: 0.244-0.905, p = 0.024)., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that climate variability influences SLE patients' response to the therapy of GCs. Interactions between climate and TRAP1/GR gene polymorphisms were related to GCs efficacy. The results guide the individualized treatment of SLE patients., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

In recent years, point cloud-based 3D object detection has seen tremendous success. Previous point-based methods use Set Abstraction (SA) to sample the key points and abstract their features, which did not fully take density variation into consideration in point sampling and feature extraction. The SA module can be split into three parts: point sampling, grouping and feature extraction. Previous sampling methods focus more on distances among points in Euclidean space or feature space, ignoring the point density, thus making it more likely to sample points in Ground Truth (GT) containing dense points. Furthermore, the feature extraction module takes the relative coordinates and point features as input, while raw point coordinates can represent more informative attributes, i.e., point density and direction angle. So, this paper proposes Density-aware Semantics-Augmented Set Abstraction (DSASA) for solving the above two issues, which takes a deep look at the point density in the sampling process and enhances point features using onefold raw point coordinates. We conduct the experiments on the KITTI dataset and verify the superiority of DSASA.

A true-color light-field display system with a large depth-of-field (DOF) is demonstrated. Reducing crosstalk between viewpoints and increasing viewpoint density are the key points to realize light-field display system with large DOF. The aliasing and crosstalk of light beams in the light control unit (LCU) are reduced by adopting collimated backlight and reversely placing the aspheric cylindrical lens array (ACLA). The one-dimensional (1D) light-field encoding of halftone images increases the number of controllable beams within the LCU and improves viewpoint density. The use of 1D light-field encoding leads to a decrease in the color-depth of the light-field display system. The joint modulation for size and arrangement of halftone dots (JMSAHD) is used to increase color-depth. In the experiment, a three-dimensional (3D) model was constructed using halftone images generated by JMSAHD, and a light-field display system with a viewpoint density of 1.45 (i.e. 1.45 viewpoints per degree of view) and a DOF of 50 cm was achieved at a 100 ° viewing angle.

Objective: To systematically review the effects of extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) for shoulder pain after stroke., Data Sources: A systematic review of Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, SinoMed, WanFang Data, VIP, and ClinicalTrials.gov from the establishment of the database to 20 December 2022 was carried out., Review Methods: The bibliography was screened to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that applied extracorporeal shock waves to shoulder pain after stroke. Two researchers independently searched, screened, and extracted data from each database according to the search strategy and resolved any disagreements through negotiation., Results: A total of 18 RCTs were included (1248 individuals). Meta-analysis showed that the ESWT group had better visual analogue scale (VAS) scores (mean difference (MD) =  - 1.19, 95% confidence interval (CI) [ - 1.43, - 0.95], p < 0.00001), Fugl-Meyer assessment upper extremity scale (FMA-UE) scores (MD = 6.25, 95% CI [4.64, 7.87], p < 0.00001), active range of motion (AROM) assessment (MD = 11.28, 95% CI [5.26, 17.30], p  = 0.0002), and functional comprehensive assessment (FCA) scores (MD = 5.47, 95% CI [4.45, 6.49], p < 0.00001) comparative to the control group; no statistical significance in Constant-Murley score (CMS) (MD = 0.98, 95% CI [ - 11.05, 13.02], p  = 0.87) and descriptive analysis of modified Barthel Index (MBI) only., Conclusion: The ESWT improves pain levels, motor function, active mobility, comprehensive function of shoulder, and activities of daily living (ADL) better than conventional treatment in patients with shoulder pain after stroke.

Background: Aphasia is one of the most devastating cognitive disorders caused by brain injury and seriously hinders patients' rehabilitation and quality of life. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation involves the repeated application of extracranial pulsed magnetic fields to the local central nervous system to alter the membrane potential of cortical nerve cells, generating induced currents that affect brain metabolism and electrical activity. As one of the most popular noninvasive brain stimulation techniques, it has been used to treat aphasia. However, only a few bibliometric studies have examined the research direction and main findings in the field., Methods: To obtain an in-depth understanding of the research status and trend in this area, a bibliometric analysis based on the Web of Science database was conducted. VOSviewer (Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands) and Microsoft Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, USA) were used to extract bibliometric information. Analysis of global distribution was conducted using the webpage mapping implement GunnMap2 (http://lert.co.nz/map/)., Results: Publications in this field were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database, and 189 articles met the final inclusion criteria. The most influential authors, institutions, journals, and countries were Ralph MA from the University of Manchester, Harvard University, Neuropsychologia, and the USA, respectively., Conclusion: This study revealed publication patterns and emerging trends in the literature, providing a detailed and objective overview of the current state of research on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for the treatment of aphasia. This information will be of great benefit to anyone seeking information about this field and can serve as a reference guide for researchers aiming to conduct further research., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Our study aimed to quantify the exposure-lag-response effects of the diurnal temperature range (DTR) on other infectious diarrhea (OID) in Tongcheng city and examine the vulnerable populations. Distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) and generalized additive model (GAM) were applied jointly to quantify the association between DTR and the daily number of OID cases compared with the median DTR. Stratified analysis was performed by gender, age, and seasons of onset. There are a total of 8231 cases during this decade. We observed a j-shaped relationship between DTR and OID, with a peak point at the maximum DTR (RR: 2.651, 95% CI: 1.320-5.323) compared to the median DTR. As DTR increased from 8.2 to 10.9 °C, we found the RRs started to decrease and then rise from day 0, and the minimum value occurred on day 7 (RR:1.003, 95% CI: 0.996-1.010). From stratified analysis, we observed that females and adults are more likely to be affected by high DTR significantly. In addition, the influence of DTR was different in cold and warm seasons. High DTR in warm seasons affects the number of OID daily cases, but no statistical significance was identified in cold seasons. This study suggests a significant relationship between high DTR and the incidence risk of OID., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) exert regulatory roles in cerebrovascular disease. Human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMECs) participated in brain vascular dysfunction in ischemic stroke. Herein, the functions of circ&#95;0000566 in oxygen-glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGD/R)-induced HBMECs were investigated. The expression of circ&#95;0000566, miR-18a-5p, and Activin receptor type 2B (ACVR2B) was measured via quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and flow cytometry assays were utilized to detect cell viability and cell apoptosis. Western blot assay was employed to measure the levels of apoptotic-related proteins and ACVR2B. The secretion of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α was detected via corresponding kits. The relationship between miR-18a-5p and circ&#95;0000566 or ACVR2B was examined via dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay. Circ&#95;0000566 and ACVR2B were highly expressed, while miR-18a-5p was down-regulated in OGD/R-treated HBMECs. OGD/R treatment promoted HBMECs apoptosis and inflammation and suppressed cell viability, which could be attenuated by silencing of circ&#95;0000566. Circ&#95;0000566 acted as a miR-18a-5p sponge to contribute to OGD/R-induced HBMECs injury. ACVR2B served as a direct target of miR-18a-5p, and ACVR2B overexpression might abolish the inhibitory role of miR-18a-5p on OGD/R-treated HBMEC injury. Circ&#95;0000566 sponged miR-18a-5p to regulate OGD/R-induced HBMECs injury via regulating ACVR2B expression., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a liver disease associated with obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and metabolic syndrome. The risk factors for NAFLD have not been identified. Metabolic dysfunction has been found to be an important factor in the pathogenesis and progression of NAFLD. However, the causal impact of blood metabolites on NAFLD is unclear. Methods: We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) with 7824 participants provided data on 486 human blood metabolites. Outcome information was obtained from a large-scale GWAS meta-analysis of NAFLD, which contained 8,434 cases and 770,180 controls of Europeans. The inverse variance weighted (IVW) model was chosen as the primary two-sample MR analysis approach, followed by sensitivity analyses such as the heterogeneity test, horizontal pleiotropy test, and leave-one-out analysis. In addition, we performed replication, meta-analysis, and metabolic pathway analysis. We further conducted colocalization analysis to deeply reflect the causality. Results: After rigorous genetic variant selection, IVW, sensitivity analysis, replication, and meta-analysis, two known metabolites were identified as being associated with the development of NAFLD [biliverdin: OR = 1.45; 95% CI 1.20-1.75; p = 0.0001; myristoleate: OR = 0.57; 95% CI 0.39-0.83; p = 0.0030]. Conclusion: By combining genomics with metabolomics, our findings provide a new perspective on the underlying mechanisms of NAFLD and have important implications for the screening and prevention of NAFLD., 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 Guo, Zhang, Yun, Jin, Cao, Kong, Yao, Li, Zhang and Ye.)

Background: Executive dysfunction in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is thought to be closely related to the prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, there is controversy over the activation of the PFC in children with ADHD. Differences could be related to the subtype. Meanwhile, no study to date has used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore the differences between subtypes. Thus, this study aimed to explore the activation of the PFC in children with different subtypes of ADHD during executive function task., Methods: Participants in this study include typically developing (TD) children ( n = 28), ADHD-predominantly inattentive (ADHD-PI) ( n = 39) and ADHD-combined (ADHD-C) ( n = 24). To examine the executive function of ADHD, the Go/No-go task is chosen to assess the response inhibition function. The activation of PFC in all participants during the Go/No-go task was recorded by fNIRS. Meanwhile, behavioral data were also recorded., Results: Both TD and ADHD children activated the right PFC [middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)] during response inhibition. However, the range and degree of activation differed among these groups. Compared with TD children, those with ADHD-PI had a smaller extent of activation in the right PFC, and those with ADHD-C only had a tendency to enhance activation. In addition, children with ADHD-PI and ADHD-C had impaired activation of the temporal gyrus. Besides, compared with ADHD-C and TD, those with ADHD-PI also had impaired activation of the right precentral gyrus (PG), and the supplementary motor area (SMA). Compared with ADHD-PI, ADHD-C showed decreased activation of the right MFG. The activation of Ch34 (BA44, rPFC) in children with ADHD-PI and ADHD-C was negatively correlated with their clinical symptoms., Conclusion: The activation of the PFC in children with different subtypes of ADHD has both commonalities and differences. The degree of activation of the right PFC Ch34 in children with ADHD is negatively correlated with clinical symptoms. fNIRS could be served as a candidate hemodynamic biomarker for the diagnosis of ADHD., 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 Zhu, Liu, Zhang, Ren, Zhang, Sun, Wang, Wang and Yang.)

Background: Smoke-free policies have led to a decline in smoking prevalence. Nevertheless, as the global population grows, more non-smokers are exposed to second-hand smoke (SHS) hazards. Mitigating SHS hazards requires a systematic analysis of the global disease burden attributable to SHS., Methods: Data on SHS was extracted from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. First, we measured the disease burden of SHS by the number of cases and age-standardized rates of deaths, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and years of life lost (YLLs) from 1990 to 2019. Second, trends in the disease burden of SHS in different periods were estimated based on the annual percentage change (APC) by joinpoint regression analysis. Finally, using histogram plots, world maps, Pearson correlation analysis, and population attributable fraction (PAF), we conducted a stratified analysis of SHS exposure by sex, age, geographic location, sociodemographic index (SDI) level, and disease., Results: The number of deaths caused by SHS remained stable between 1990 and 2019, and the number of YLDs more than doubled in three decades. In contrast, the number of DALYs and YLLs caused by SHS decreased. The declining trend in deaths (APC = -1.42 % [95 % UI -1.79 %, -1.05 %]), DALYs (APC = -1.91 % [95 % UI -2.15 %, -1.67 %]), and YLLs (APC = -1.28 % [95 % UI -1.93 %, -0.64 %]) had slowed down in recent years, while SHS-related YLDs were still increasing (APC = 1.84 % [95 % UI 0.74 %, 2.96 %]). From 2010 to 2019, we found that SHS exposure increased the risk of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer (PAF increased by 11.75 %), breast cancer (PAF increased by 5.36 %), diabetes mellitus (PAF increased by 8.24 %), and ischemic heart disease (PAF increased by 4.46 %). In addition, the disease burden caused by SHS was highest in middle SDI and low-middle SDI countries., Conclusion: The global disease burden attributable to SHS is still severe, and policymakers need to implement more effective measures to reduce the harm of SHS., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have declared no conflict of interests., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Clinical high risk (CHR) of psychosis is characterized by cognitive impairment in social interaction. However, research investigating the neurobiological underpinnings of social interactions and interpersonal relationships in CHR participants is sparse., Methods: 21 CHR and 54 healthy controls (HCs) participated in the study. Dyads were formed between one CHR, one sex-matched HC, and two sex-matched HCs comprising 19 CHR-HC dyads and 19 HC-HC dyads. The concentration changes of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin were examined during a two-block button-press "cooperation" and "competition" task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS) hyperscanning technology. CHR diagnosis and psychopathological assessments were performed by Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS) and Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS). Neural synchronizations were compared between CHR-HC dyads and HC-HC dyads. Correlation analyses were performed to identify the relationship between neural synchronization, clinical syndrome and cognition., Results: During the cooperation, but not the competition task, the CHR-HC dyads showed reduced inter-brain neural synchronization (INS) in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) compared to the HC-HC dyads. INS also showed a positive correlation with the average cooperation rate. Moreover, the reduced INS in the CHR-HC group was significantly correlated with symptoms score of suspiciousness/persecutory ideas and movement disorders., Conclusions: The decreased INS in right IFG during cooperation could account for CHR's cognitive impairment of social interaction. Our findings provide evidence that inter-brain neural synchronization potentially represents a biomarker of social interaction deficits of CHR., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: DNA integration is a key factor limiting the marketing of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene edited crops. Several strategies have been established to obtain transgene-free gene edited plants; however, these strategies are usually time-consuming, technically difficult, providing low mutagenesis efficiency, and/or including a narrow host range., Method: To overcome such issues, we established a paraquat resistant 1 (PAR1)-based positive screening (PARS) strategy, which achieved efficient screening of transgene-free gene edited plants., Results: With PARS, the screening efficiency of mutant increased by 2.81-fold on average, and approximately 10% of T1 plants selected via PARS were transgenefree. Moreover, heritable transgene-free mutations at target loci were identified in the T1 generation., Discussion: Based on the previous reports and our data, we know that paraquat is toxic to all green plants, PAR1 is conserved among all plant species tested, and the transient expression of Cas9 editor can produce transgene-free gene edited plants. Thus, we assume that the PARS strategy established here has the potential to be widely used to screen transgene-free mutants in various crops using diverse CRISPR/Cas9 delivery approaches., 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 Kong, Pan, Zhang, Liu and Zhang.)

Electrocatalyzed urea-assisted wastewater splitting is a promising approach for sustainable hydrogen production. However, the lack of cost-efficient electrocatalysts hinders its practical application. Herein, bimetal phosphide (NiCoP x ) nanowire arrays decorated with ultrathin NiFeCo metal-organic framework (NiFeCo-MOF) nanosheets on porous nickel foam (NF) were designed for urea-assisted wastewater splitting. The core-shell NiCoP x @NiFeCo-MOF hybrids were prepared via successive hydrothermal, gas-phase phosphorization and hydrothermal strategies. Encouragingly, the novel NiCoP x @NiFeCo-MOF/NF electrode served as an excellent bifunctional electrocatalyst for both the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the anodic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) in urea-assisted water splitting, which merely required an overpotential of 44 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm -2 for HER and a voltage of 1.37 V to deliver a current density of 100 mA cm -2 for UOR in 1.0 M KOH + 0.5 M urea. Benefiting from the highly exposed electroactive sites in exquisite three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical structure, multicomponent synergistic effect, accelerated electron transfer, easy electrolyte access and diffusion of released gas bubbles, the as-fabricated NiCoP x @NiFeCo-MOF/NF exhibited outstanding electrocatalytic performance. The mechanism of water splitting was elucidated by density functional theory calculations. Interestingly, NiFeCo-MOF possessed optimized COO* adsorption ability on Ni sites that were beneficial to UOR intermediates. More significantly, this work paves the way for the design and fabrication of bifunctional electrocatalysts for urea-containing wastewater treatment and sustainable hydrogen production., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Previous studies have shown that cognitive impairment is common after stroke. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a promising tool for rehabilitating cognitive impairment. This study aimed to investigate the effects of tDCS on the rehabilitation of cognitive impairment in patients with stroke., Methods: Twenty-two mild-moderate post-stroke patients with cognitive impairments were treated with 14 tDCS sessions. A total of 14 healthy individuals were included in the control group. Cognitive function was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Cortical activation was assessed using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during the verbal fluency task (VFT)., Results: The cognitive function of patients with stroke, as assessed by the MMSE and MoCA scores, was lower than that of healthy individuals but improved after tDCS. The cortical activation of patients with stroke was lower than that of healthy individuals in the left superior temporal cortex (lSTC), right superior temporal cortex (rSTC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC), and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (lVLPFC) cortical regions. Cortical activation increased in the lSTC cortex after tDCS. The functional connectivity (FC) between the cerebral hemispheres of patients with stroke was lower than that of healthy individuals but increased after tDCS., Conclusion: The cognitive and brain functions of patients with mild-to-moderate stroke were damaged but recovered to a degree after tDCS. Increased cortical activation and increased FC between the bilateral cerebral hemispheres measured by fNIRS are promising biomarkers to assess the effectiveness of tDCS in stroke., 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 Yang, Zhang, Huang, Xiong, Liu, Wang and Zhang.)

Plant defense responses under unfavorable conditions are often associated with reduced growth. However, the mechanisms underlying the growth-defense tradeoff remain to be fully elucidated, especially at the transcriptional level. Here, we revealed a Cys2/His2-type zinc finger transcription factor, namely, ZAT18, which played dual roles in plant immunity and growth by oppositely regulating the signaling of defense- and growth-related hormones. ZAT18 was first identified as a salicylic acid (SA)-inducible gene and was required for plant responses to SA in this study. In addition, we observed that ZAT18 enhanced the plant immunity with growth penalties that may have been achieved by activating SA signaling and repressing auxin signaling. Further transcriptome analysis of the zat18 mutant showed that the biological pathways of defense-related hormones, including SA, ethylene and abscisic acid, were repressed and that the biological pathways of auxin and cytokinin, which are growth-related hormones, were activated by abolishing the function of ZAT18 . The ZAT18-mediated regulation of hormone signaling was further confirmed using qRT-PCR. Our results explored a mechanism by which plants handle defense and growth at the transcriptional level under stress conditions.

Background: Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is easily caused by a variety of factors, resulting in dyspnea, exertion and movement intolerance. This systematic review aims to synthesize evidence on exercise training during rehabilitation for PF in order to improve patients' exercise capacity, quality of life, and lung function., Methods: Retrieved from the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and Embase from inception until April 2022. Participants: patients with PF; Intervention measures: exercise training; Results: exercise ability, quality of life, lung function and cardiopulmonary endurance. Two reviewers independently screen the title, abstract and full text. Finally, quality evaluation and meta-analysis were conducted., Results: In this study, 13 randomized controlled studies from 1468 articles were selected. A total of 456 patients with PF were enrolled. Compared with usual care in the control group, the 6-minute walking distance, predicted forced vital capacity, predicted forced expiratory volume at 1 second and maximal rate of oxygen consumption were increased significantly after exercise training, while there was no significant change in quality of life and predicted diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide., Conclusion: Exercise training can significantly improve the exercise capacity, lung function and cardiopulmonary endurance of patients with PF, but has no effect on the quality of life. Exercise training is an effective rehabilitation strategy for PF., Competing Interests: The authors have no funding and conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Failure of the normal process of cell death pathways contributes to the defection of immune systems and the occurrence of cancers. The key genes, the multimolecular mechanisms, and the immune functions of these genes in pan-cancers remain unclear. Using online databases of The Cancer Genome Atlas, GEPIA2, TISIDB, HPA, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, PrognoScan, cBioPortal, GSCALite, TIMER, and Sangerbox, we identified the key genes from the six primary cell death-related pathways and performed a comprehensive analysis to investigate the multimolecular characteristics and immunological functions of the hub genes in 33 human cancers. We identified five hub genes in the six primary cell death-related pathways (JUN, NFKB1, CASP3, PARP1, and TP53). We found that CASP3, PARP1, and TP53 were overexpressed in 28, 23, and 27 cancers. The expression of the five genes was associated with the development and prognosis of many cancers. Particularly, JUN, NFKB1, CASP3, and TP53 have prognostic values in Brain Lower Grade Glioma (LGG), while PARP1 and CASP3 could predict the survival outcomes in Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). In addition, an extensive association between five genes' expression, DNA methylation, and tumor-immune system interactions was noticed. The five cell death-related hub genes could function as potential biomarkers for various cancers, particularly LGG and ACC. The immunological function analysis of the five genes also proposes new targets for developing immunosuppressants and improving the immunotherapy efficacy of cancers. However, further extensive clinical and experimental research are required to validate their clinical values.

Though largely ignored by educators and researchers, boredom, an aversive emotion, is the hurdle for many translation learners to be professional. It is all the more important to unpack the boredom factors of Chinese foreign language major students in translation classes, which will serve in promoting students' engagement in L2 classes and translator cultivation. By using a sequential mixed approach, this study conducted a thematic analysis and built a structural equation model. Quantitative data were gleaned from 483 foreign major college students in China and qualitative data were selected from students ( N = 15) of 7 universities through snowball sampling. Initially, the first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) verified the adapted questionnaire and the second-order CFA finds each factor's contribution. Then, the thematic analysis gives support to the empirical findings. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that task-based boredom is the most routinely experienced boredom. Moreover, two major sources of boredom in translation classes are found, including task-based boredom and teacher-related boredom. It is suggested that teachers should improve their classes and use more interesting and engaging materials and tasks with the proper level of difficulty. The finding can help educators to identify the major boredom in the translation class and help potential professional translators to grow. Future studies will also be facilitated by the present study to find approaches to tackle these boredom sources., Competing Interests: The author declares 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 Zhang.)

To address the problem of serious soil erosion on the Loess Plateau, under the conditions of limited vegetation measures, the runoff erosion characteristics and erosion sediment sorting characteristics of vegetation at different positions on the upper slope of convex hillslopes are investigated, and the optimal vegetation spatial pattern is proposed according to the benefits of water storage and sediment reduction at different vegetation positions. The fluctuation degree of flow discharge per unit area of different vegetation spatial patterns is small, and the variation process of sediment discharge per unit area of each vegetation spatial pattern fluctuated sharply with the increase of runoff time. After planting vegetation on the slope, the total runoff yield and sediment yield were reduced. The runoff yield reduction benefit was 19.65% when the grass belt was 6 m away from the slope top; and the sediment yield reduction benefit was more than 70% when the grass belt was 2 m away from the slope top. Under the condition of hydraulic erosion on the slope covered with vegetation, the erosion particles are mainly fine particles, with high silt content and relatively small sand content. The farther the vegetation is arranged from the slope top, the more easily silt of size 0.002-0.05 mm is eroded. The higher effectiveness in terms of reductions of both runoff and sediment yields were obtained when the vegetation is planted in the proximity of the end of the length of the slope., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The electronic modulation and morphology control of electrocatalysts are effective strategies to improve their catalytic performance. Herein, MoO 2 -MoO 3 /Ni 2 P nanoflowers were fabricated on the skeleton of conductive nickel foam as an electrocatalyst with enhanced performance via a universal hydrothermal and phosphating method. The introduction of P and Mo into the nickel-based catalyst through the co-doping strategy effectively adjusted the electronic structure of the Ni active sites, thereby significantly improving the performance of the catalyst. Particularly, the introduction of Mo allowed adjusting the morphology of the material, thereby increasing the electrochemical active area and promoting the exposure of more active sites. This strategy for improving the electrocatalyst's performance in urea-assisted water splitting will provide a new concept for the simultaneous mitigation of the energy crisis and environmental contamination., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Clinical high risk (CHR) of psychosis is a state in which positive symptoms cause the subjects distress but do not approach a severity level that fulfils the criteria for a psychotic episode. CHR exhibits cognitive deficits; however, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether brain activation measured by the levels of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) in CHR subjects could be correlated with cognitive deficits., Methods: Fifty-eight CHR individuals who fulfilled the criteria for attenuated positive syndrome as specified in the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndrome (SIPS) and the Scale of Prodromal Syndrome (SOPS) and 58 age- and sex-matched healthy participants were included in the study. All subjects completed the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) that includes tests measuring attention, verbal memory, verbal fluency, executive function, and general intelligence. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure the level of oxy-Hb in the dorsolateral prefrontal and frontotemporal cortices., Results: We observed significantly decreased oxy-Hb levels in channel 32 (located in the right superior temporal gyrus, rSTG)) within the CHR individuals compared with that in the healthy controls (HCs) (t=-3.44, Bonferroni-corrected p=0.002), indicating lower brain activity. A significant positive correlation was observed between task-related β values and working memory in the CHR group (r=0.35, p=0.008)., Conclusions: The brain activation of rSTG is abnormal among subjects at clinicial high risk for psychosis. This abnormality is probably associated with the neural mechanisms of deficits in the working memory during the early stage of psychosis., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Little is known about the effects of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, we carried out a 4 week randomized clinical trial in which patients aged 6-12 years old with an ADHD diagnosis received TEAS or sham TEAS. The primary outcome measure was the investigator-rated Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I) score at week 4. Secondary outcomes included changes from baseline to week 4 in the investigator-rated Clinical Global Impression-Severity of Illness (CGI-S) score, the Conners' Parent/Teacher Rating Scales-Revised: Short Form (CPRS-R: S/CTRS-R: S) score, go/no-go task performance, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based oxygenated hemoglobin level within the prefrontal cortex. At week 4, the CGI-I score indicated improvement in 33.3% of the TEAS group compared with 7.7% of the sham group (P = 0.005). The TEAS group had a greater decrease in the mean CGI-S score (-0.87) than the sham TEAS group (-0.28) (P = 0.003). A greater enhancement in the mean cerebral oxygenated hemoglobin within the prefrontal cortex was found in the TEAS group (0.099 mM mm) compared with the sham TEAS group (0.005 mM mm) (P < 0.001). CPRS-R: S score, CTRS-R: S score, and go/no-go performance exhibited no significant improvement after TEAS treatment. The manipulation-associated adverse events were uncommon in both groups, and events were very mild. Our results show that noninvasive TEAS significantly improved general symptoms and increased prefrontal cortex blood flow within 4 weeks for children with ADHD. Further clinical trials are required to understand the long-term efficacy in a larger clinical sample. This trial was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03917953)., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Background: Previous studies have shown the clinical effect of 2 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for depression; however, its underlying neural mechanisms are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of rTMS on the activity of the prefrontal cortex in patients with depression, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)., Methods: Forty patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 40 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Patients underwent 4 weeks of 2 Hz TMS delivered to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). fNIRS was used to measure the changes in the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin ([oxy-Hb]) in the prefrontal cortex during a verbal fluency task (VFT) in depressed patients before and after rTMS treatment. The severity of depression was assessed using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression-24 item (HAMD-24)., Results: Prior to rTMS, depressed patients exhibited significantly smaller [oxy-Hb] values in the bilateral prefrontal cortex during the VFT compared with the healthy controls. After 4 weeks of 2 Hz right DLPFC rTMS treatment, increased [oxy-Hb] values in the bilateral frontopolar prefrontal cortex (FPPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and left DLPFC during the VFT were observed in depressed patients. The increased [oxy-Hb] values from baseline to post-treatment in the right VLPFC in depressed patients were positively related to the reduction of HAMD score following rTMS., Conclusion: These findings suggest that the function of the prefrontal cortex in depressed patients was impaired and could be recovered by 2 Hz rTMS. The fNIRS-measured prefrontal activation during a cognitive task is a potential biomarker for monitoring depressed patients' treatment response to rTMS., 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 Huang, Zhang, Zhang, Wang and Zheng.)

This research empirically analyzes the psychological impact of smog pollution on investors. Results indicate that smog pollution has negative impact on investor sentiment which is weakened by the positive tone in media reporting. Empirical evidence for the impact of smog pollution on investor sentiment and the related moderating role of media tone is presented in this study., 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 Li, Liu, Zhang and Wang.)

Background: Triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index has been proposed as a reliable indicator for insulin resistance and proved to be closely associated with the severity and mortality risk of infectious diseases. It remains indistinct whether TyG index performs an important role in predicting in-hospital mortality in patients with severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS). Methods: The current study retrospectively recruited patients who were admitted for SFTS from January to December 2019 at five medical centers. TyG index was calculated in accordance with the description of previous study: Ln [fasting triglyceride (TG) (mg/dl) × fasting blood glucose (FBG) (mg/dl)/2]. The observational endpoint of the present study was defined as the in-hospital death. Results: In total, 79 patients (64.9 ± 10.5 years, 39.2% female) who met the enrollment criteria were enrolled in the current study. During the hospitalization period, 17 (21.5%) patients died in the hospital. TyG index remained a significant and independent predictor for in-hospital death despite being fully adjusted for confounders, either being taken as a nominal [hazard ratio ( HR ) 5.923, 95% CI 1.208-29.036, P = 0.028] or continuous ( HR 7.309, 95% CI 1.854-28.818, P = 0.004) variate. TyG index exhibited a moderate-to-high strength in predicting in-hospital death, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.821 (95% CI 0.712-0.929, P < 0.001). The addition of TyG index displayed significant enhancement on the predictive value for in-hospital death beyond a baseline model, manifested as increased AUC (baseline model: 0.788, 95% CI 0.676-0.901 vs. + TyG index 0.866, 95% CI 0.783-0.950, P for comparison = 0.041), increased Harrell's C-index (baseline model: 0.762, 95% CI 0.645-0.880 vs. + TyG index 0.813, 95% CI 0.724-0.903, P for comparison = 0.035), significant continuous net reclassification improvement (NRI) (0.310, 95% CI 0.092-0.714, P = 0.013), and significant integrated discrimination improvement (0.111, 95% CI 0.008-0.254, P = 0.040). Conclusion: Triglyceride-glucose index, a novel indicator simply calculated from fasting TG and FBG, is strongly and independently associated with the risk of in-hospital death in patients with SFTS., 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 Zhang, Liu, Ge, Tian, Lin, Zhao, Shen, Yu, Feng, Qiang, Duan, Ma, Fan, Zhao and Chen.)

Purpose: To investigate haemoglobin oxygenation in the visual cortex of myopic patients using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)., Methods: The experiment consisted of two parts. Part 1 examined functional changes in the visual cortex before and after refractive correction in myopic patients. Subjects were divided into normal controls, uncorrected and corrected myopes. Part 2 examined functional changes in the visual cortex caused by lens-induced myopia in normal subjects, and whether this activity recovered after a period of rest. Here, subjects were divided into three groups: emmetropes, lens-induced myopia and a rest group. The rest group completed a test with the uncorrected eye following lens removal and 5 min of rest. The visual stimulus was a black and white checkerboard. fNIRS was used to detect changes in oxyhaemoglobin content within the visual cortex. The original fNIRS data were analysed using MATLAB to obtain the β values (the visual cortical activity response caused by the task); these were used to calculate Δβ, which represents the degree of change in oxygenated haemoglobin caused by visual stimulation., Results: The Δβ value measured in each single channel or only in the region of interest (ROI) was significantly higher in the emmetropic control group than the uncorrected myopic group. After optical correction, the responses of myopic subjects approached those of the emmetropes and were not significantly different. If myopia was induced in emmetropic subjects by imposing defocus with positive lenses, a decline in functional activity was observed similar that observed in uncorrected myopes. Activity recovered after the lenses were removed., Conclusions: Myopic defocus reduced the level of haemoglobin oxygenation in the visual cortex, but activity could be restored by optical correction., (© 2021 The Authors Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics © 2021 The College of Optometrists.)

Background and Objective: Acupuncture is used as an alternative treatment for patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The associated therapeutic effect of acupuncture is often attributed to its modulatory effect on the activity of the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), although the mechanism is not well-studied. We employed a repeated measures design to investigate the brain modulatory effect of acupuncture on the PFC in a group of patients with MDD and investigated whether the modulatory effect is influenced by the severity of the disease. Methods: A total of 47 patients diagnosed with MDD were enrolled in this functional near-infrared spectroscopy experiment. The severity of depressive symptoms was measured at baseline using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-24 (HAMD). The cortical activation in the bilateral PFC areas during a verbal fluency task (VFT) was measured before and after a single session of acupuncture in the Baihui acupoint. We further explored the potential correlation between the severity of MDD and task-related activation before and after acupuncture. Results: A single session of acupuncture significantly tended to enhance the activation level of the left frontopolar cortex in patients with severe depression during VFT, but a null effect was found in those with mild to moderate depression. Among patients with severe depression, a strong correlation was observed between HAMD scores and the change in VFT-related activation after acupuncture in the left dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC). Conclusion: A single session of acupuncture did not significantly modulate the activation of the left PFC in patients with mild to moderate depression; however, it demonstrated a tendency to enhance the activation of the frontopolar area in patients with severe depression. Among patients with severe depression, there is a correlation between the activation by acupuncture of left DLPFC during executive functioning and the severity of depressive symptoms, suggesting that the brain activity induced by acupuncture is likely to be influenced by the baseline disease severity in patients with MDD., 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 © 2021 Zhang, Zhang, Huang, Zheng and Wang.)