Search

In this study, demethylated-acylated enzymatic hydrolysis lignin (DAEHL) with excellent solubility in castor oil and antioxidant activities were prepared via the tandem modification strategy. First, iodocyclohexane simultaneously achieved β-O-4 breakage and hydrogenation, which enhanced the antioxidant activity of lignin. Furthermore, the acylation reaction by palmitoyl chloride increased the alkyl content in the lignin, which can improve the solubility of lignin in castor oil. The structural evolution of lignin showed the change in the hydroxyl group content, which induced a change in the solubility and antioxidant activity of the lignin. 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH), 2,2'-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) ammonium salt (ABTS) radical scavenging, Fe 3+ reduction capacity and oxidation induction time demonstrated the excellent antioxidant activity of the modified lignin DAEHL. In addition, the balance between antioxidant activity and solubility of lignin was realized by the tandem modification strategy. DAEHL shows good solubility over 1 wt% in castor oil. The OIT value of the castor oil was significantly increased from 162 s (pure castor oil) to 218 s with 0.3 wt% DAEHL. In addition, the wear volume of DAEHL-castor oil is only 61 % of that of castor oil. This study allows for the high-value utilization of technical lignin as a sustainable lubricant addition in castor oil. SYNOPSIS: A tandem modification strategy for technical lignin dissolving in castor oil with antioxidant activity., 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 © 2025 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The intestinal epithelial barrier is the first line of defense against pathogens and noxious substances entering the body from the outside world. Through proliferation and differentiation, intestinal stem cells play vital roles in tissue regeneration, repair, and the maintenance of intestinal homeostasis. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is caused by the disruption of intestinal homeostasis through the invasion of toxic compounds and pathogenic microorganisms. Hylotelephium erythrostictum (Miq.) H. Ohba (H. erythrostictum) is a plant with diverse pharmacological properties, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and antirheumatic properties. However, the roles of H. erythrostictum and its bioactive compounds in the treatment of intestinal injury are unknown., Methods: We examined the protective effects of H. erythrostictum water extract (HEWE) and H. erythrostictum butanol extract (HEBE) on Drosophila intestinal injury caused by dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) or Erwinia carotovoracarotovora 15 (Ecc15)., Results: Our findings demonstrated that both HEWE and HEBE significantly prolonged the lifespan of flies fed toxic compounds, reduced cell mortality, and maintained intestinal integrity and gut acid‒base homeostasis. Furthermore, both HEWE and HEBE eliminated DSS-induced ROS accumulation, alleviated the increases in antimicrobial peptides(AMPs) and intestinal lipid droplets caused by Ecc15 infection, and prevented excessive ISC proliferation and differentiation by inhibiting the JNK, EGFR, and JAK/STAT pathways. In addition, they reversed the significant changes in the proportions of the gut microbiota induced by DSS. The bioactive compounds contained in H. erythrostictum extracts have sufficient potential for use as natural therapeutic agents for the treatment of IBD in humans., Conclusion: Our results suggest that HEWE and HEBE are highly effective in reducing intestinal inflammation and thus have the potential to be viable therapeutic agents for the treatment of gut inflammation., Clinical Trial Number: Not applicable., Competing Interests: Declarations Competing interest The authors declare that this work was conducted without any commercial or financial affiliations that could be perceived as possible conflicts of interest., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Cordyceps chanhua, an important cordycipitoid medical mushroom with wide use in Asia, has gained attention for its bioactive component beauvericin (BEA), which is of medicinal value as a drug lead, but also of food safety risk. Recent observations by our group revealed a significant decrease of BEA content in C. chanhua when exposed to light, but the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, a comprehensive approach combining metabolomics and transcriptomics was employed to investigate the effects of white light on the secondary metabolism of C. chanhua for elucidation of the influence of light on BEA biosynthesis in this fungus. The result showed that the genes and metabolites involved in the synthesis of D-hydroxyisovaleric acid, a precursor of BEA synthesis, were down-regulated under light exposure, while those associated with the synthesis of phenylalanine, another precursor of BEA synthesis, were up-regulated leading to elevated phenylalanine levels. It suggested that the suppressive effect of light on BEA synthesis in C. chanhua occurred primarily through the inhibition of D-hydroxyisovaleric acid synthesis, while the enhanced phenylalanine biosynthesis likely directed towards other metabolic pathway such as pigment synthesis. These results contributed to a better understanding on how light modulates the secondary metabolism of C. chanhua and provided valuable guidance for optimizing BEA production in cultivation practices., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 British Mycological Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Carbonic anhydrase-producing microorganisms can rely on their metabolism for carbon sequestration and carbonate precipitation, which is a relatively effective mode among the known microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) methods. A newly carbonic anhydrase-producing strain was isolated from soil samples. 16S rDNA gene sequencing showed this strain had 99.18% sequence identity to Chryseobacterium gambrini. Various culture parameters (temperature, pH, rotational speed, inoculum size, and metal ions) were optimized for optimal microbial growth and CA activities. Optimal culture conditions were as follows: temperature of 30 °C, pH 6-7, rotational speed 150 rpm, and inoculum size 1%. It was observed that Co 2+ and Mn 2+ can improve CA activity with optimal concentrations of 0.02 mM and 0.01 mM, respectively. Furthermore, the introduction of CO 2 for 15 min daily leads to a 36% increase in the final production of biotic CaCO 3 , reaching 2.884 g/L. Characterization of the mineralization precipitates was conducted to reveal the mechanism of the carbonic anhydrase-producing bacterium. Lastly, an analysis of the crystalline species and content of the biogenic CaCO3 was performed to lay the groundwork for future crystalline adjustments and to offer technical support for the application of the calcium method., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics Approval: This is an observational study and no ethical approval is required. Consent to Participate: The study did not involve human subjects and no consent to participate is required. Consent for Publication: The work described was an original research that has not been published previously. All authors agreed to submit manuscripts for publication. Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

In biomedical research, the fruit fly ( Drosophila melanogaster ) is among the most effective and flexible model organisms. Through the use of the Drosophila model, molecular mechanisms of human diseases can be investigated and candidate pharmaceuticals can be screened. White rot fungus Inonotus obliquus is a member of the family Hymenochaetaceae . Due to its multifaceted pharmacological effects, this fungus has been the subject of scientific investigation. Nevertheless, the precise mechanisms by which Inonotus obliquus treats diseases remain unclear. In this study, we prepared an aqueous extract derived from Inonotus obliquus and demonstrated that it effectively prevented the negative impacts of inflammatory agents on flies, including overproliferation and overdifferentiation of intestinal progenitor cells and decreased survival rate. Furthermore, elevated reactive oxygen species levels and cell death were alleviated by Inonotus obliquus aqueous extract, suggesting that this extract inhibited intestinal inflammation. Additionally, Inonotus obliquus aqueous extract had an impact on the insulin pathway, as it alleviated growth defects in flies that were fed a high-sugar diet and in chico mutants. In addition, we determined the composition of Inonotus obliquus aqueous extract and conducted a network pharmacology analysis in order to identify prospective key compounds and targets. In brief, Inonotus obliquus aqueous extract exhibited considerable potential as a therapeutic intervention for human diseases. Our research has established a foundational framework that supports the potential clinical implementation of Inonotus obliquus .

Skeletal muscle fat accumulation, a common complication of obesity, has garnered increasing attention. For livestock animals, intramuscular fat content is a key determinant of meat quality and directly influences consumer preferences for different meat products. However, genes effectively regulating intramuscular and intermuscular fat (IIMF) deposition remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, we employed transcriptome sequencing of muscle from pigs with high and low IIMF contents, uncovering Aldolase C (ALDOC) as a novel key gene controlling IIMF. ALDOC overexpression significantly enhanced the IIMF content both in vivo and in vitro. Mechanistic investigations revealed that ALDOC activates the AKT-mTORC1 axis to promote lipid accumulation in myotubes and intramuscular adipocytes. Notably, the mTORC1 inhibitor rapamycin abrogated ALDOC's proadipogenic effect. Our findings establish ALDOC as a novel key gene regulating IIMF deposition and identify the ALDOC-AKT-mTORC1 signaling pathway as a promising therapeutic target for treating skeletal muscle fat infiltration and improving pork quality.

The widespread use of plastic mulch film (PMF) has led to significant environmental pollution, with PMF residues dispersed and mixed with straw and soil, posing challenges for recycling. Here, we proposed the mobile pyrolysis facility for the cotton straw and mulch film mixture (CMM) to mitigate the collection, storage, and transportation costs, while the application of co-pyrolysis technology for CMM conversion could improve the added value of products. Additionally, centralized combustion power generation and centralized pyrolysis systems were also established to evaluate and compare their sustainability from economic and environmental perspectives. Results showed that mobile pyrolysis has better economic performance than the centralized scenarios, due to its high internal rate of return (31 %) and significant net present value (29.21 M USD). Meanwhile, the mobile pyrolysis facility achieved a GWP of -1.298 kgCO 2 -eq/kg, reducing emissions by 70.79 % and 38.82 % compared to the two centralized scenarios. In conclusion, mobile pyrolysis technology provides a promising solution for PMF residue recycling because of its economically competitive approach with a lower carbon footprint., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: [Jiahua Zhu reports financial support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China. If there are other authors, they 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 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Stroke has been the second leading cause of death and disability worldwide. With the innovation of therapeutic schedules, its death rate has decreased significantly but still guides chronic movement disorders. Due to the lack of independent activities and minimum exercise standards, the traditional rehabilitation means of occupational therapy and constraint-induced movement therapy pose challenges in stroke patients with severe impairments. Therefore, specific and effective rehabilitation methods seek innovation. To address the overlooked limitation, we design a pneumatic rehabilitation glove system. Specially, we developed a pneumatic glove, which utilizes ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG) acquisition to gain the EEG signals. A proposed EEGTran model is inserted into the system to distinguish the specific motor imagination behavior, thus, the glove can perform specific activities according to the patient's imagination, facilitating the patients with severe movement disorders and promoting the rehabilitation technology. The experimental results show that the proposed EEGTrans reached an accuracy of 87.3% and outperformed that of competitors. It demonstrates that our pneumatic rehabilitation glove system contributes to the rehabilitation training of stroke patients., (© 2024 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.)

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Orostachys malacophylla (Pall.) Fisch (O. malacophylla) is a succulent herbaceous plant that is the Orostachys genus of Crassulaceae family. O. malacophylla has been widely used as a traditional Chinese medicine with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-febrile, antidote, anti-Toxoplasma gondii properties. However, the biological function of alleviating intestinal inflammation and key bioactive compounds were still unknown., Aim of the Study: We used a Drosophila model to study the protective effects and bioactive compounds of O. malacophylla water extract (OMWE) and butanol extract (OMBE) on intestinal inflammation., Materials and Methods: Drosophila intestinal inflammation was induced by oral invasion of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) or Erwinia carotovora carotovora 15 (Ecc15). We revealed the protective effects of two extracts by determining intestinal reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antimicrobial peptide (AMP) levels and intestinal integrity, and using network pharmacology analysis to identify bioactive compounds., Results: We demonstrated that both OMWE and OMBE could ameliorate the detrimental effects of DSS, including a decreased survival rate, elevated ROS levels, increased cell death, excessive proliferation of ISCs, acid-base imbalance, and disruption of intestinal integrity. Moreover, the overabundance of lipid droplets (LDs) and AMPs by Ecc15 infection is mitigated by these extracts, thereby enhancing the flies' resistance to adverse stimuli. In addition, we used widely targeted metabolomics and network pharmacology analysis to identify bioactive compounds associated with IBD healing that are present in OMWE and OMBE., Conclusions: In summary, our research indicates that OMWE and OMBE significantly mitigate intestinal inflammation and have the potential to be effective therapeutic agents for IBD in humans., 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 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Capacitive deionization for selective separation of ions is rarely reported since it relies on the electrostatic attraction of oppositely charged ions with no capability to distinguish ions of different valent states. Using molecular dynamic simulation, a screening process identified a hybrid material known as AC/PTh, which consists of activated carbon with a thin layer of polythiophene (PTh) coating. By utilizing AC/PTh as electrode material implementing the short-circuit cycle (SCC) mode in flow-electrode capacitive deionization (FCDI), selective separation of mono-/divalent ions can be realized via precise control of dynamic adsorption and desorption of mono-/divalent ions at a particular surface. Specifically, AC/PTh shows strong interaction with divalent ions but weak interaction with monovalent ions, the distribution of divalent ions can be enriched in the electric double layer after a couple of adsorption-desorption cycles. At Cu 2+ /Na + molar ratio of 1:40, selectivity toward divalent ions can reach up to 110.3 in FCDI SCC mode at 1.0 V. This work presents a promising strategy for separating ions of different valence states in a continuously operated FCDI device., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Intramuscular fat (IMF) contributed positively to pork quality, whereas subcutaneous fat (SCF) was often considered to be a detrimental factor impacting growth and carcass traits. Reducing SCF while maintaining optimal IMF levels requires a thorough understanding of the adipogenic differences between these two adipose depots. Our study explored the differences in adipogenesis between porcine IMF and SCF, and the results showed that subcutaneous adipocytes (SCAs) demonstrate a greater potential for adipogenic differentiation, both in vivo and in vitro. Lipidomic and transcriptomic analyses suggested that intramuscular adipocytes (IMAs) are more inclined to biosynthesize unsaturated fatty acids. Furthermore, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) was employed to dissect the intrinsic and microenvironmental discrepancies in adipogenesis between porcine IMF and SCF. Comparative analysis indicated that SCF was enriched with preadipocytes, exhibiting an enhanced adipogenic potential, while IMF was characterized by a higher abundance of stem cells. Furthermore, coculture analyses of porcine intramuscular adipogenic cells and myogenetic cells indicated that the niche of IMAs inhibited its adipogenic differentiation. Cell communication analysis identified 160 ligand-receptor pairs and channels between adipogenic and myogenetic cells in IMF. Collectively, our study elucidated two intrinsic and microenvironmental novel mechanisms underpinning the divergence in adipogenesis between porcine SCF and IMF.

This study aimed to investigate the different regulatory mechanisms of euryhaline fish under regular hyperosmotic and extreme hyperosmotic stress. The OmB (Oreochromis mossambicus brain) cells were exposed to three treatments: control, regular hyperosmotic stress and extreme hyperosmotic stress. After 12 h exposure, proteomics, metabolomics analyses and integrative analyses were explored. Both kinds of stress lead to lowering cell growth and morphology changes, while under regular hyperosmotic stress, the up-regulated processes related with compatible organic osmolytes synthesis are crucial strategy for the euryhaline fish cell line to survive; On the other hand, under extreme hyperosmotic stress, the processes related with cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest are dominant. Furthermore, down-regulated pyrimidine metabolism and several ribosomal proteins partially participated in the lowered cell metabolism and increased cell death under both kinds of hyperosmotic stress. The PI3K-Akt and p53 signaling pathways were involved in the stagnant stage of cell cycles and induction of cell apoptosis under both kinds of hyperosmotic stress. However, HIF-1, FoxO, JAK-STAT and Hippo signaling pathways mainly contribute to disrupting the cell cycle, metabolism and induction of cell apoptosis under extreme hyperosmotic stress. SIGNIFICANCE: In the past, the research on fish osmoregulation mainly focused on the transcription factors and ion transporters of osmoregulation, the processes between osmotic sensing and signal transduction, and the associations between signaling pathways and regulation processes have been poorly understood. Investigating fish cell osmoregulation and potential signal transduction pathways is necessary. With the advancements in omics research, it is now feasible to investigate the relationship between environmental stress and molecular responses. In this study, we aimed to explore the signaling pathways and substance metabolism mode during hyper-osmoregulation in OmB cell line, to reveal the key factors that are critical to cell osmoregulation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Equisetin, a bioactive compound of marine origin, offers compelling inhibitory properties against HIV-1 transcriptase. To gain comprehensive insights into the interaction of Equisetin with human serum albumin (HSA), we utilized a multipronged approach involving spectroscopy, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and molecular docking. Our fluorescence analyses confirmed that the interaction between Equisetin and HSA results in a significant quenching of HSA's fluorescence, primarily achieved through a dynamic mechanism aided by hydrogen bonding and van der Waals forces. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements revealed an impressive binding affinity of Equisetin for HSA, quantified to be 4.3 × 10 7 mol L -1 . Molecular docking studies illustrated that Equisetin binds at site III of HSA, with specific amino acid residues, GLN-104 and LYS-106, playing a pivotal role. Further, our study discovered that the interaction induces slight unfolding of HSA's polypeptide chain and significant alterations in its secondary structure, thereby triggering the exposure of previously concealed hydrophobic regions. This comprehensive study enhances our understanding of Equisetin's interaction with serum proteins, potentially influencing its pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and opening avenues for future research and therapeutic applications., 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.)

Bioadhesive hydrogels have attracted considerable attention as innovative materials in medical interventions and human-machine interface engineering. Despite significant advances in their application, it remains critical to develop adhesive hydrogels that meet the requirements for biocompatibility, biodegradability, long-term strong adhesion, and efficient drug delivery vehicles in moist conditions. A biocompatible, biodegradable, soft, and stretchable hydrogel made from a combination of a biopolymer (unmodified natural gelatin) and stretchable biodegradable poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate is proposed to achieve durable and tough adhesion and explore its use for convenient and effective intranasal hemostasis and drug administration. Desirable hemostasis efficacy and enhanced therapeutic outcomes for allergic rhinitis are accomplished. Biodegradation enables the spontaneous removal of materials without causing secondary damage and minimizes medical waste. Preliminary trials on human subjects provide an essential foundation for practical applications. This work elucidates material strategies for biodegradable adhesive hydrogels, which are critical to achieving robust material interfaces and advanced drug delivery platforms for novel clinical treatments., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Image-guided surgery has been proven to enhance the accuracy and safety of minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Nonrigid deformation tracking of soft tissue is one of the main challenges in image-guided MIS owing to the existence of tissue deformation, homogeneous texture, smoke and instrument occlusion, etc. In this paper, we proposed a piecewise affine deformation model-based nonrigid deformation tracking method. A Markov random field based mask generation method is developed to eliminate tracking anomalies. The deformation information vanishes when the regular constraint is invalid, which further deteriorates the tracking accuracy. Atime-series deformation solidification mechanism is introduced to reduce the degradation of the deformation field of the model. For the quantitative evaluation of the proposed method, we synthesized nine laparoscopic videos mimicking instrument occlusion and tissue deformation. Quantitative tracking robustness was evaluated on the synthetic videos. Three real videos of MIS containing challenges of large-scale deformation, large-range smoke, instrument occlusion, and permanent changes in soft tissue texture were also used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Experimental results indicate the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and robustness, which shows good performance in image-guided MIS., 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.)

Metal/nitrogen-doped carbon single-atom catalysts (M-N-C SACs) show excellent catalytic performance with a maximum atom utilization and customizable tunable electronic structure. However, precisely modulating the M-N x coordination in M-N-C SACs remains a grand challenge. Here, we used a N-rich nucleobase coordination self-assembly strategy to precisely regulate the dispersion of metal atoms by controlling the metal ratio. Meanwhile, the elimination of Zn during pyrolysis produced porous carbon microspheres with a specific surface area of up to 1151 m 2 g -1 , allowing maximum exposure of Co-N 4 sites and facilitating charge transport in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) process. Thereby, the monodispersed cobalt sites (Co-N 4 ) in N-rich (18.49 at%) porous carbon microspheres (CoSA/N-PCMS) displayed excellent ORR activity under alkaline conditions. Simultaneously, the Zn-air battery (ZAB) assembled with CoSA/N-PCMS outperformed Pt/C+RuO 2 -based ZABs in terms of power density and capacity, proving that they have good prospects for practical application.

The Chinese sea bass ( Lateolabrax maculatus ) is an important aquaculture fish, but diseases caused by Aeromonas hydrophila have led to severe economic losses to the aquaculture industry in recent years. To date, only a few studies have focused on the relationship between the intestinal immune response and changes in intestinal microbes by A. hydrophila infection. Here, we report the transcriptome and intestinal changes in infected sea bass. Histopathological results showed that severe steatosis and vacuolation occurred in the liver and that the intestinal villi and mesentery were seriously affected after infection. By extracting total RNA from intestinal tissue and studying the transcriptome profile, 1,678 genes (1,013 upregulated and 665 downregulated) were identified as significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs). These genes are involved in many immune-related signalling pathways, such as the NOD-like receptor, C-type lectin receptor, and Toll-like receptor signalling pathways. Moreover, the intestinal microbes of sea bass changed significantly after infection. Interestingly, at the genus level, there was an increase in Serratia , Candida arthromitus and Faecalibacterium as well as a decrease in Akkermansia and Parabacteroides after infection. The results also indicated that some of the DEGs involved in the immune response were related to the genus level of intestinal microbiota. Finally, there was a relationship between gene expression patterns and the bacterial structure in the host intestine. Our study provides a reference for the study of the immune response and particular functions of intestinal microbes of sea bass after pathogen infection., 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 Pan, Zhu, Cao, Li, Wang, Zhu, Zeng, Zhang and Qin.)

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have opened up unprecedented possibilities for expediting oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics owing to their ultrahigh intrinsic activities. However, precisely controlling over the atomically dispersed metal-N x sites on carbon support while fulfilling the utmost utilization of metal atoms remain the key obstacles. Here, atomically distributed Co-N 4 sites anchored on N-doped carbon nanofibers aerogel (Co SAs/NCNA) is controllably attained through a direct pyrolysis of metal-chelated cellulose nanofibers (TOCNFs-Cd 2+ /Co 2+ ) hydrogel precursor. The usage of Cd salt assists the assembly of cross-linked aerogel, creates a large number of interior micropores and defects, and favors the physical isolation of Co atoms. The hierarchically porous biomass carbon aerogel (2265.1 m 2 /g) offers an advantageous platform to facilitate accessibility of the catalytic centers, also renders rapid mass diffusion and electron-transfer paths throughout its 3D architecture. Notably, Co SAs/NCNA affords a paramount ORR activity and respectable durability when integrated into zinc-air battery devices., 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: Accurate and real-time biomechanical modelling of the liver is a major challenge in computer-assisted surgery. Finite element method is often used to predict the deformation of organs for its high modelling accuracy. However, its high computation cost hinders its application in real time, such as virtual surgery simulations., Method: A liver model with biomechanical properties similar to real one is created using finite element method and a data set of the liver deformation with different forces (whose magnitude ranges from 0.1 to 0.5 N in omni-direction) acting on different surface points is generated. The mechanical behaviour of liver is simulated in real time by a tree-based LightGBM regression model trained with the generated data set., Results: In comparison with the Random Forest and XGBoost, the LightGBM model achieves the best accuracy with 0.0774 mm, 0.0786 mm, 0.0801 mm in the mean absolute error (MAE) and 0.0591 mm, 0.0609 and 0.0622 mm in the root mean square error (RMSE) along x, y and z axis, respectively. In addition, it only takes 33 ms for the LightGBM model to estimate the deformation of the liver, which is much faster than finite element model (29.91 s)., Conclusion: These results lay a foundation for the future development of real-time virtual surgery systems of simulating liver deformation during minimally invasive surgeries using our method., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Methane (CH 4 ) is a potent greenhouse gas and the second highest contributor to global warming. CH 4 emissions are still growing at an alarmingly high pace. To limit global warming to 1.5 °C, one of the most effective strategies is to reduce rapidly the CH 4 emissions by developing large-scale methane removal methods. The purpose of this perspective paper is threefold. (1) To highlight the technology gap dealing with low concentration CH 4 (at many emission sources and in the atmosphere). (2) To analyze the challenges and prospects of solar-driven gas phase advanced oxidation processes for CH 4 removal. And (3) to propose some ideas, which may help to develop solar-driven gas phase advanced oxidation processes and make them deployable at a climate significant scale., (© 2022 The Authors. Chemistry - A European Journal published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Both electrical conductivity and surface wettability are required for the selection of active carbon materials in flow-electrode capacitive deionization, while a trade-off exists between these two properties. In this work, a hybrid material with a thin layer of polyaniline (PANI) coating on activated carbon (AC/PANI) was successfully developed to retain excellent electrical conductivity and acquire good surface wettability. By adjusting the dosage of initiator, AC/PANI composites with different loading fractions of PANI were obtained. The electrochemical testing demonstrated that the AC/PANI composites have higher specific capacitance and lower ion diffusion resistance compared to pure AC, resulting in better desalinization performance. Specifically, with a feed concentration of 1600 mg/L, excellent adsorption capacity and high charge efficiency can be simultaneously achieved at 13.51 mg/g and 92.21%, respectively. Benefiting from the formation of a continuous electrical percolation network and reduced solid/liquid interfacial transport resistance, a 39% enhancement of average salt adsorption rate (from 0.54 to 0.75 μmol/min/cm 2 ) was obtained.

The reduced stress resistance and increased disease risk associated with high-fat diet (HFD) in animals have attracted increasing attention. However, the effects of HFD on adaptive immunity in early vertebrates, especially non-tetrapods, remain unknown. In this study, using Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) as a model, we investigated the effects of HFD on the primordial T-cell response in fish. Tilapia fed with an HFD for 8 weeks showed impaired lymphocyte homeostasis in the spleen, as indicated by the decreased number of both T and B lymphocytes and increased transcription of proinflammatory cytokines interferon-γ and interleukin-6. Moreover, lymphocytes isolated from HFD-fed fish or cultured in lipid-supplemented medium exhibited diminished T-cell activation in response to CD3ε monoclonal antibody stimulation. Moreover, HFD-fed tilapia infected by Aeromonas hydrophila showed decreased T-cell expansion, increased T-cell apoptosis, reduced granzyme B expression, and impaired infection elimination. Additionally, HFD attenuated adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity in tilapia lymphocytes, which in turn upregulated fatty acid synthesis but downregulated fatty acid β-oxidation. Altogether, our results suggest that HFD impairs lymphocyte homeostasis and T cell-mediated adaptive immune response in tilapia, which may be associated with the abnormal lipid metabolism in lymphocytes. These findings thus provide a novel perspective for understanding the impact of HFD on the adaptive immune response of early vertebrates., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Dexmedetomidine (Dex) is neuroprotective in ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) by suppressing inflammation but the underlying molecular mechanisms are not known. SNW domain-containing protein 1 (SNW1) is a coactivator of the pro-inflammatory transcription factor NF-κB p65. Because SNW1 is regulated by O-GlcNAcylation, we aimed to determine whether this modification influences NF-κB transcriptional activity in neurons undergoing I/R and how Dex may affect the O-GlcNAcylation of SNW1. SH-SY5Y and PC12 cells under hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) conditions were treated with Dex and with inhibitors of O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT). O-GlcNAc levels in SNW1 and effects of SNW1 on NF-κB p65 were determined by immunoprecipitation. H/R increased SNW1 protein levels but inhibited O-GlcNAcylation of SNW1. A Luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that increased SNW1 levels led to increased NF-κB p65 activity and increased secretion of neuron-derived inflammatory factors demonstrated by ELISA. Dex reversed the H/R-induced increase of SNW1 protein by upregulating OGT and enhancing O-GlcNAcylation of SNW1. Dex suppression of the SNW1/NF-κB complex resulted in neuroprotection in vitro and in a middle cerebral artery occlusion model in vivo. PKA and ERK1/2 inhibitors abolished the effect of Dex on OGT protein. Taken together, these data indicate that Dex inhibits NF-κB-transcriptional activity in neurons undergoing I/R by regulating O-GlcNAcylation of SNW1., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Association of Neuropathologists, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Our previous work showed that a podophyllum derivative (D-3F), named 4-N-(2-Amino-3-fluoropyridine) -4-deoxidation-4'-demethylepipofophyllotoxin, inhibits the activity of topoisomerase II (TOPO II) and then results in DNA damage. Also, D-3F increases the expression of p53 to induce cervical cancer HeLa cell apoptosis by enhancing its stability, due to the translocation of RPL11 to interact with Mdm2 and then consequently causing the blockage of the Mdm2-p53 feedback loop. In present study, we further explored the detailed mechanism of the antitumor activity of D-3F against cervical cancer cell line. Firstly, the decreased level of protein interacting with carboxyl terminus 1 (PICT1) in cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa and SiHa) treated with D-3F, exerted its potent inhibitory effect on cellular proliferation, which was dependent on the inhibition of TOPO IIα activity induced by D-3F in vitro. In addition, the downregulation of PICT1 was required to enhancement of p53 stability, resulted from its promoting the nucleoplasmic translocation of RPL11 to bind to Mdm2 following D-3F treatment. Altogether, it demonstrated that the reduction of PICT1 level in HeLa cell line, as well as SiHa exposed to D-3F, a TOPO IIα inhibitor, may play an essential role in the regulation of RPL11/Mdm2/p53 pathway to induce cell apoptosis. Besides, it suggested the potential of this podophyllum derivative (D-3F) as an alternative agent for therapy in cervical cancer., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Manufacturing of porous carbon with biomass resources is intensively investigated in recent decades. The diversity of biomass species and great variety of processing methods enable the structural richness of porous carbon as well as their wide applications. This review specifically focuses on the structure of biomass-derived porous carbon either inherited from natural biomass or created by post-treatment. The intrinsic structure of plant biomass is briefly introduced and the utilization of the unique structures at different length-scales is discussed. In term of post-treatment, the structural features of activated carbon by traditional physical and chemical activation are summarized and compared in a wide spectrum of biomass species, statistical analysis is performed to evaluate the effectiveness of different activation methods in creating specific pore structures. The similar pore structure of biomass-derived carbon and coal-derived carbon suggests a promising replacement with more sustainable biomass resources in producing porous carbon. In summary, using biomass as porous carbon precursor endows the flexibility of using its naturally patterned microstructure and the tunability of controlled pore-creation by post-treatment., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Cordyceps chanhua is an important cordycipitoid mushroom widely used in Asia and beyond. Beauvericin (BEA), one of the bioactive compounds of C. chanhua , has attracted much attention because of its medicinal value and food safety risk. In order to clear up the relationship between oxidative stress and BEA synthesis, we investigated the impact of H 2 O 2 -induced oxidative stress on the secondary metabolism of C. chanhua using untargeted metabolomics and a transcript profiling approach. Metabolic profiling of C. chanhua mycelia found that in total, 73 differential metabolites were identified, including organic acids, phospholipids, and non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs), especially the content of BEA, increasing 13-fold under oxidative stress treatment. Combining transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses, we found that the genes and metabolites associated with the NRP metabolism, especially the BEA biosynthesis, were highly significantly enriched under H 2 O 2 -induced stress, which indicated that the BEA metabolism might be positive in the resistance of C. chanhua to oxidative stress. These results not only aid in better understanding of the resistance mechanisms of C. chanhua against oxidative stress but also might be helpful for molecular breeding of C. chanhua with low BEA content.

The great variety of biomass species offers unique features for synergistic optimization of process outcomes. In this work, spent mushroom substrate and bagasse with optimize ratio were processed to produce value-added products of activated carbon and biofuel yet achieve negative CO 2 emission. By integrating experimental characterization, this work uses process simulation, techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessment to evaluate the techno-economic viability and CO 2 footprint of processes with single or dual-/mixed-biomass feedstocks. The combination of biomass species provides unique match of the production of flue gas and primary carbon that is critical for the optimization of mass and energy flow. Such combination has been demonstrated effective to improve product yield and energy efficiency. Results show that mixed biomass feedstock offers favourable figures such as high carbon efficiency of 66.74%, short payback period of 3.16 years, considerable net present value of 80.48 million dollars, and low GWP of -2.37 kg CO 2 -eq., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A two-factor (2 × 3) orthogonal test was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary myo -inositol (MI) on the osmoregulation and carbohydrate metabolism of euryhaline fish tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) under sustained hypertonic stress (20 practical salinity units [psu]). 6 diets containing either normal carbohydrate (NC, 30%) or high carbohydrate (HC, 45%) levels, with 3 levels (0, 400 and 1,200 mg/kg diet) of MI, respectively, were fed to 540 fish under 20 psu for 8 weeks. Dietary MI supplementation significantly improved growth performance and crude protein content of whole fish, and decreased the content of crude lipid of whole fish ( P  < 0.05). Curled, disordered gill lamella and cracked gill filament cartilage were observed in the gill of fish fed diets without MI supplementation. The ion transport capacity in gill was significantly improved in the 1,200 mg/kg MI supplementation groups compared with the 0 mg/kg MI groups ( P  < 0.05). Moreover, the contents of Na + , K + , Cl - in serum were markedly reduced with the dietary MI supplementation ( P  < 0.05). The fish fed 1,200 mg/kg MI supplementation had the highest MI content in the gills and the lowest MI content in the serum ( P  < 0.05). Additionally, the fish fed with 1,200 mg/kg MI supplementation had the highest MI synthesis capacity in gills and brain ( P  < 0.05). Dietary MI markedly promoted the ability of carbohydrate metabolism in liver ( P  < 0.05). Moreover, fish in the 1,200 mg/kg MI groups had the highest antioxidant capacity ( P  < 0.05). This study indicated that high dietary carbohydrate would intensify stress, and impair the ability of osmoregulation in tilapia under a long-term hypersaline exposure. The supplementation of MI at 1,200 mg/kg in the high carbohydrate diet could promote carbohydrate utilization and improve the osmoregulation capacity of tilapia under long-term hypertonic stress., Competing Interests: We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, and there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the content of this paper., (© 2022 Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.)

Purpose: In radiotherapy, high radiation exposure to optic nerve (ON) can cause optic neuropathy or vision loss. In this study, we evaluated the pattern and extent of the ON movement using MRI, and investigated the potential dosimetric effect of this movement on radiotherapy., Methods: MRI was performed in multiple planes in 5 human subjects without optic pathway abnormalities to determine optic nerve motion in different scenarios. The subjects were requested to gaze toward five directions during MRI acquisitions, including neutral (straight forward), left/right (horizontal movement), and up/down (vertical movement). Subsequently, the measured displacement was applied to patients with peri-optic tumors to evaluate the potential dosimetric effect of this motion., Results: The motion of ON followed a nearly conical shape. By average, the anterior end of ONs moved with 10.8 ± 2.2 mm horizontally and 9.3 ± 0.8 mm vertically, while posterior end has negligible displacement. For patients who underwent stereotactic radiotherapy to a peri-optic tumors, the movement of ON in this measured range introduced non-negligible dosimetric effect., Conclusion: The range of motion of the anterior portions of the optic nerves is on the order of centimeters, which may need to be considered with extra attention during radiation therapy in treating peri-optic lesions., 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 Qing, Nie, Liu, Feng, Stone, Cui, Zhang, Zhu, Chen, Wang, Zhao, Parikh, Mugler, Kim, Weiner, Yue and Chundury.)

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to independently compare the performance of the inverse planning algorithm utilized in Gamma Knife (GK) Lightning Treatment Planning System (TPS) to manual forward planning, between experienced and inexperienced users, for different types of targets., Materials and Methods: Forty patients treated with GK stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for pituitary adenoma (PA), vestibular schwannoma (VS), post-operative brain metastases (pBM), and intact brain metastases (iBM) were randomly selected, ten for each site. Three inversely optimized plans were generated for each case by two experienced planners (OptExp1 and OptExp2) and a novice planner (OptNov) using GK Lightning TPS. For each treatment site, the Gradient Index (GI), the Paddick Conformity Index (PCI), the prescription percentage, the scaled beam-on time (sBOT), the number of shots used, and dosimetric metrics to OARs were compared first between the inversely optimized plans and the manually generated clinical plans, and then among the inversely optimized plans. Statistical analyses were performed using the Student's t-test and the ANOVA followed by the post-hoc Tukey tests., Results: The GI for the inversely optimized plans significantly outperformed the clinical plans for all sites. PCIs were similar between the inversely optimized and clinical plans for PA and VS, but were significantly improved in the inversely optimized plans for iBM and pBM. There were no significant differences in the sBOT between the inversely optimized and clinical plans, except for the PA cases. No significant differences were observed in dosimetric metrics, except for lower brain V 12Gy and PTV D 98% in the inversely optimized plans for iBM. There were no noticeable differences in plan qualities among the inversely optimized plans created by the novice and experienced planners., Conclusion: Inverse planning in GK Lightning TPS produces GK SRS plans at least equivalent in plan quality and similar in sBOT compared to manual forward planning in this independent validation study. The automatic workflow of inversed planning ensures a consistent plan quality regardless of a planner's experience., 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 Cui, Nie, Zhu, Danish, Weiner, Chundury, Ohri, Zhang, Vergalasova, Yue and Wang.)

Microplastics (MPs) coexist with other pollutants (such as heavy metals) in water, adversely impacting aquatic organisms, which might cause unpredictable ecological risks. This study aims to evaluate the effect of copper (Cu 2+ ) and polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs) on antioxidant capacity, immune response and intestinal microbiota of Nile tilapia. Cu 2+ and PS-MPs co-exposure enhanced Cu 2+ bioaccumulation in the liver of fish compared with Cu 2+ -alone exposure. Fish exposed to PS-MPs and Cu 2+ displayed histopathologic alterations in the liver, intestine and gill. Exposure at low concentrations of Cu 2+ in the C0 and CP0 groups can improve antioxidant capacity and immune response, while oxidative damage and inflammation existed in the high concentration of Cu 2+ groups. Intestinal microbiota results showed that the diversity and structure were changed by Cu 2+ and PS-MPs exposure, and harmful bacterium even increased at high concentration of Cu 2+ and PS-MPs exposure groups. All in all, PS-MPs aggravate the accumulation of Cu 2+ and lead to perturbations in biological systems of Nile tilapia., 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 © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Water-soluble Cu-In-Zn-S quantum dots (CIZS QDs) with orange fluorescence have been synthesized with a glutathione (GSH) as stabilizer via facile a one-step hydrothermal method. The optimal reaction conditions of CIZS QDs including temperature, time, pH, and the molar ratios of precursors were studied. TEM results indicate that the aqueous-dispersible CIZS QDs are quasi-spherical, and the average diameters are 3.76 nm with excellent fluorescent stability. Furthermore, the cytotoxicity of CIZS QDs was investigated by the microcalorimetry combining with TEM and the IC 50 was 10.2 μM . CIZS QDs showed a promising perspective in applications such as a fluorescent probe for bioimaging and biolabeling due to the low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility. Moreover, the CIZS QDs can distinguish Pb 2 + ion from other ions, offering great potentials in lead ion determination in drinking water. According to the results of UV, XRD, FL, PL, and ITC methods, the mechanism of CIZS QDs-Pb 2+ assay is due to hydrogen bonding or van der Waals forces in the formation of Pb 2+ and CIZS QDs., 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 Han, Yu, Lei, Zhu, Fu, Hu and Yang.)

Objectives: The beam output of a double scattering proton system varies for each combination of beam option, range, and modulation and therefore is difficult to be accurately modeled by the treatment planning system (TPS). This study aims to design an empirical method using the analytical and machine learning (ML) models to estimate proton output in a double scattering proton system., Materials and Methods: Three analytical models using polynomial, linear, and logarithm-polynomial equations were generated on a training dataset consisting of 1,544 clinical measurements to estimate proton output for each option. Meanwhile, three ML models using Gaussian process regression (GPR) with exponential kernel, squared exponential kernel, and rational quadratic kernel were also created for all options combined. The accuracy of each model was validated against 241 additional clinical measurements as the testing dataset. Two most robust models were selected, and the minimum number of samples needed for either model to achieve sufficient accuracy ( ± 3%) was determined by evaluating the mean average percentage error (MAPE) with increasing sample number. The differences between the estimated outputs using the two models were also compared for 1,000 proton beams with a randomly generated range, and modulation for each option., Results: The polynomial model and the ML GPR model with exponential kernel yielded the most accurate estimations with less than 3% deviation from the measured outputs. At least 20 samples of each option were needed to build the polynomial model with less than 1% MAPE, whereas at least a total of 400 samples were needed for all beam options to build the ML GPR model with exponential kernel to achieve comparable accuracy. The two independent models agreed with less than 2% deviation using the testing dataset., Conclusion: The polynomial model and the ML GPR model with exponential kernel were built for proton output estimation with less than 3% deviations from the measurements. They can be used as an independent output prediction tool for a double scattering proton beam and a secondary output check tool for a cross check between themselves., 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 Zhu, Cui, Zhang, Zhang, Ma, Liu, Nie, Yue and Wang.)

Purpose: Single-isocenter linear accelerator (LINAC)-based stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has become a promising treatment technique for the management of multiple brain metastases. Because of the high prescription dose and steep dose gradient, SRS plans are sensitive to geometric errors, resulting in loss of target coverage and suboptimal local tumor control. Current planning techniques rely on adding a uniform and isotropic setup margin to all gross tumor volumes (GTVs) to account for rotational uncertainties. However, this setup margin may be insufficient, since the magnitude of rotational uncertainties varies and is dependent upon the distance between a GTV and the isocenter. In this study, we designed a framework to determine the optimal isocenter of a single-isocenter SRS plan for multiple brain metastases using stochastic optimization to mitigate potential errors resulting from rotational uncertainties., Methods: Planning target volumes (PTVs), defined as GTVs plus a 1-mm margin following common SRS planning convention, were assumed to be originally treated with a prescription dose and therefore covered by the prescription isodose cloud. The dose distribution, including the prescription isodose, was considered invariant assuming small rotations throughout the study. A stochastic optimization scheme was developed to determine the location of the optimal isocenter, so that the prescription dose coverage of rotated GTVs, equivalent to the intersecting volumes between the rotated GTVs and original PTVs, was maximized for any random small rotations about the isocenter. To evaluate the coverage of GTVs, the expected V 100 % undergoing random rotations was approximated as the sample average V 100 % undergoing a predetermined number of rotations. The expected V 100 % of each individual GTV and total GTVs was then compared between the plans using the optimal isocenter and the center-of-mass (CoM), respectively., Results: Twenty-two patients previously treated for multiple brain metastases in a single institute were included in this retrospective study. Each patient was initially treated for more than three brain metastases (mean: 7.6; range: 3-15) with the average GTV volume of 0.89 cc (range: 0.03-11.78 cc). The optimal isocenter found for each patient was significantly different from the CoM, with the average Euclidean distance between the optimal isocenter and the CoM being 4.36 ± 2.59 cm. The dose coverage to GTVs was also significantly improved (paired t-test; p < 0.001) when the optimal isocenter was used, with the average V 100 % of total GTVs increasing from 87.1% (standard deviation as std: 11.7%; range: 39.9-98.2%) to 94.2% (std: 5.4%; range: 77.7-99.4%). The volume of a GTV was positively correlated with the expected V 100 % regardless of the isocenter used (Spearman coefficient: ρ = 0.66 ; p < 0.001). The distance between a GTV and the isocenter was negatively correlated with the expected V 100 % when the CoM was used ( ρ = - 0.21 ; p = 0.004), however no significant correlation was found when the optimal isocenter was used ( ρ = - 0.11 ; p = 0.137)., Conclusion: The proposed framework provides an effective approach to determine the optimal isocenter of single-isocenter LINAC-based SRS plans for multiple brain metastases. The implementation of the optimal isocenter results in SRS plans with consistently higher target coverage despite potential rotational uncertainties, and therefore significantly improves SRS plan robustness against random rotational uncertainties., (© 2021 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

The increase in network applications diversity and different service quality requirements lead to service differentiation, making it more important than ever. In Wide Area Network (WAN), the non-responsive Long-Term Fast (LTF) flows are the main contributors to network congestion. Therefore, detecting and suppressing non-responsive LTF flows represent one of the key points for providing data transmission with controllable delay and service differentiation. However, the existing single-queue management algorithms are designed to serve only a small number of applications with similar requirements (low latency, high throughput, etc.). The lack of mechanisms to distinguish different traffic makes it difficult to implement differentiated services. This paper proposes an active queue management scheme, namely, SQM-LRU, which realizes service differentiation based on Shadow Queue (SQ) and improved Least-Recently-Used (LRU) strategy. The algorithm consists of three essential components: First, the flow detection module is based on the SQ and improved LRU. This module is used to detect non-responsive LTF flows. Second, different flows will be put into corresponding high or low priority sub-queues depending on the flow detection results. Third, the dual-queue adopts CoDel and RED, respectively, to manage packets. SQM-LRU intends to satisfy the stringent delay requirements of responsive flow while maximizing the throughput of non-responsive LTF flow. Our simulation results show that SQM-LRU outperforms traditional solutions with significant improvement in flow detection and reduces the delay, jitter, and Flow Completion Time (FCT) of responsive flow. As a result, it reduced the FCT by up to 50% and attained 95% of the link utilization. Additionally, the low overhead and the operations incur O(1) cost per packet, making it practical for the real network.

Purpose: To develop a method combining CT scout images with axial images to improve the localization accuracy of catheter tips in high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy treatments., Materials and Methods: CT scout images were utilized along with conventionally reconstructed axial images to aid the localization of catheter tips used during HDR treatment planning. A method was developed to take advantage of the finer image resolution of the scout images to more precisely identify the tip coordinates. The accuracies of this method were compared with the conventional method based on the axial CT images alone, for various slice thicknesses, in a computed tomography dose index (CTDI) head phantom. A clinical case which involved multiple interstitial catheters was also selected for the evaluation of this method. Locations of the catheter tips were reconstructed with the conventional CT-based method and this newly developed method, respectively. Location coordinates obtained via both methods were quantitatively compared., Results: Combination of the scout and axial CT images improved the accuracy of identification and reconstruction of catheter tips along the longitudinal direction (i.e., head-to-foot direction, more or less parallel to the catheter tracks), compared to relying on the axial CT images alone. The degree of improvement was dependent on CT slice thickness. For the clinical patient case, the coordinate differences of the reconstructed catheter tips were 2.6 mm ± 0.9 mm in the head-to-foot direction, 0.4 mm ± 0.2 mm in the left-to-right direction, and 0.6 mm ± 0.2 mm in the anterior-to-posterior direction, respectively., Conclusion: Combining CT scout and axial images demonstrates the ability to provide a more accurate identification and reconstruction of the interstitial catheter tips for HDR brachytherapy treatment, especially in the longitudinal direction. The method developed in this work has the potential to be implemented clinically together with automatic segmentation in modern brachytherapy treatment planning systems, in order to improve the reconstruction accuracy of HDR catheters., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

Biomass utilization is facing great challenge mainly due to the low profit margin of biomass products. Bio-energy plants using gasification and liquefaction technologies are barely surviving, while biomass to activated carbon (AC) route has been demonstrated economically successful. In this work, spent mushroom substrate was used to produce AC and fuel gas with two different processes using internal flue gas and external air as activation agents, respectively. Experimental work was conducted to produce input data for Aspen Plus simulation including processing temperature, flue gas composition, AC yield, etc. Techno-economic analysis was performed, which reveals a great economic potential of integrating AC production in biomass processing. Air activation has obvious advantage in economic benefits, while the risk of precise temperature control and operation stability needs to be carefully evaluated in large-scale production. Flue gas activation is more reliable and it also generates less CO 2 that is beneficial for the long-term operation., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study investigated the effect of dietary myo -inositol (MI) on alleviating the adverse effect of the high carbohydrate diet in Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ). Six diets contained either low carbohydrate (LC 30%) or high carbohydrate (HC 45%) with three levels of MI supplementation (0, 400 and 1200 mg/kg diet) to each level of the carbohydrate diet. After an 8-week trial, the fish fed 400 mg/kg MI under HC levels had the highest weight gain and fatness, but the fish fed 1200 mg/kg MI had the lowest hepatosomatic index, visceral index and crude lipid in the HC group. The diet of 1200 mg/kg MI significantly decreased triglyceride content in the serum and liver compared with those fed the MI supplemented diets regardless of carbohydrate levels. Dietary MI decreased triglyceride accumulation in the liver irrespective of carbohydrate levels. The content of malondialdehyde decreased with increasing dietary MI at both carbohydrate levels. Fish fed 1200 mg/kg MI had the highest glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, aspartate aminotransferase and glutamic-pyruvic transaminase activities. The HC diet increased the mRNA expression of key genes involved in lipid synthesis ( DGAT, SREBP, FAS ) in the fish fed the diet without MI supplementation. Dietary MI significantly under expressed fatty acid synthetase in fish fed the HC diets. Moreover, the mRNA expression of genes related to lipid catabolism ( CPT, ATGL, PPAR-α ) was significantly up-regulated with the increase of dietary MI levels despite dietary carbohydrate levels. The gene expressions of gluconeogenesis, glycolysis and MI biosynthesis were significantly down-regulated, while the expression of the pentose phosphate pathway was up-regulated with the increase of MI levels. This study indicates that HC diets can interrupt normal lipid metabolism and tend to form a fatty liver in fish. Dietary MI supplement can alleviate lipid accumulation in the liver by diverging some glucose metabolism into the pentose phosphate pathway and enhance the antioxidant capacity in O. niloticus .

The capability of sensor systems to efficiently scavenge their operational power from stray, weak environmental energies through sustainable pathways could enable viable schemes for self-powered health diagnostics and therapeutics. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) can effectively transform the otherwise wasted environmental, mechanical energy into electrical power. Recent advances in TENGs have resulted in a significant boost in output performance. However, obstacles hindering the development of efficient triboelectric devices based on biocompatible materials continue to prevail. Being one of the most widely used polymers for biomedical applications, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) presents exciting opportunities for biocompatible, wearable TENGs. Here, the holistic engineering and systematic characterization of the impact of molecular and ionic fillers on PVA blends' triboelectric performance is presented for the first time. Triboelectric devices built with optimized PVA-gelatin composite films exhibit stable and robust triboelectricity outputs. Such wearable devices can detect the imperceptible skin deformation induced by the human pulse and capture the cardiovascular information encoded in the pulse signals with high fidelity. The gained fundamental understanding and demonstrated capabilities enable the rational design and holistic engineering of novel materials for more capable biocompatible triboelectric devices that can continuously monitor vital physiological signals for self-powered health diagnostics and therapeutics., (© 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Cobalt-salen-based porous ionic polymers, which are composed of cobalt and halogen anions decorated on the framework, effectively catalyze the CO 2 cycloaddition reaction of epoxides to cyclic carbonates under ambient conditions. The cooperative effect of bifunctional active sites of cobalt as the Lewis acidic site and the halogen anion as the nucleophile responds to the high catalytic performance. Moreover, density functional theory results indicate that the cobalt valence state and the corresponding coordination group influence the rate-determining step of the CO 2 cycloaddition reaction and the nucleophilicity of halogen anions.

Background: School physical activity (PA) policy, physical education curriculum, teacher training, knowledge of physical fitness, and parental support are among the key issues underlying the declining trend of physical fitness in children and adolescents. The Chinese CHAMPS was a multi-faceted intervention program to maximize the opportunities for moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and increase physical fitness in middle school students. The purpose of the study was to test whether the levels of modification in school physical education policy and curriculum incrementally influenced the changes in cardiorespiratory fitness and other physical fitness outcomes., Methods: This 8-month study was a clustered randomized controlled trial using a 2 × 2 factorial design. The participants were 680 7th grade students (mean age = 12.66 years) enrolled in 12 middle schools that were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: school physical education intervention (SPE), afterschool program intervention (ASP), SPE+ASP, and control. Targeted behaviors of the Chinese CHAMPS were the student's sedentary behavior and MVPA. The study outcomes were assessed by a test battery of physical fitness at the baseline and posttest. Sedentary behavior and MVPA were measured in randomly selected students using observations and accelerometry., Results: The terms contrasting the pooled effect of SPE, ASP, and SPE+ASP vs. Control, the pooled effect of SPE and SPE+ASP vs. ASP only, and the effect of SPE+ASP vs. ASP on CRF and other physical fitness outcomes were all significant after adjusting for covariates, supporting the study hypothesis. Process evaluation demonstrated high fidelity of the intervention in the targeted students' behaviors., Conclusions: Chinese CHAMPS demonstrated the impact of varying the amount of MVPA and vigorous physical activity (VPA) on the physical fitness in middle school students in support of the need to increase the opportunity for PA in schools and to introduce high-intensity exercises in school-based PA programs. Modification of school policy, quality of physical education curriculum, and teacher training were important moderators of the improvement in physical fitness. (Trial registration: ChiCTR-IOR-14005388, the Childhood Health; Activity and Motor Performance Study.)., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Stereoscopic display based on Virtual Reality (VR) can facilitate clinicians observing 3 D anatomical models with the depth cue which lets them understand the spatial relationship between different anatomical structures intuitively. However, there are few input devices available in the sterile field of the operating room for controlling 3 D anatomical models. This paper presents a cost-effective VR application for stereo display of 3 D anatomical models with non-contact interaction. The system is integrated with hand gesture interaction and voice interaction to achieve non-contact interaction. Hand gesture interaction is based on Leap Motion. Voice interaction is implemented based on Bing Speech for English language and Aitalk for Chinese language. A local database is designed to record the anatomical terminologies organized in a tree structure, and provided to the speech recognition engine for querying these uncommon words. Ten participants were asked to practice the proposed system and compare it with the common interactive manners. The results show that our system is more efficient than the common interactive manner and prove the feasibility and practicability of the proposed system used in the sterile field.

Three-dimensional (3D) object detection is an important research in 3D computer vision with significant applications in many fields, such as automatic driving, robotics, and human-computer interaction. However, the low precision is an urgent problem in the field of 3D object detection. To solve it, we present a framework for 3D object detection in point cloud. To be specific, a designed Backbone Network is used to make fusion of low-level features and high-level features, which makes full use of various information advantages. Moreover, the two-dimensional (2D) Generalized Intersection over Union is extended to 3D use as part of the loss function in our framework. Empirical experiments of Car, Cyclist, and Pedestrian detection have been conducted respectively on the KITTI benchmark. Experimental results with average precision (AP) have shown the effectiveness of the proposed network.

A gas-liquid cross-flow array (GLCA) system is proposed for fine particles (diameter between 0.1 μm and 2.5 μm, simplified as PM2.5) removal in exhaust gas, where the continuous and smooth wastewater films, providing huge specific surface area, each act as independent traps to remove PM2.5. The removal efficiency of PM2.5 is important for evaluating the performance of a GLCA, and the trajectory across the films determines the migration and ultimate fate of PM2.5. An analytical model based on a single film is developed to analyze the critical removal trajectory with diffusiophoresis (DP) and thermophoresis (TP) in the thermal boundary layer to calculate the efficiency, where the role of each force is examined. And experiments with a lab-scale GLCA are carried out with different vapor concentration and temperature gradients to verify the model. They both reveal that the removal efficiency can be increase sharply by increasing the humidity gradient between the bulk gas and film surface, while it increases slowly as temperature gradient increasing. Thus DP and TP have important effects on PM2.5 removal in the GLCA, and DP has a much more important effect than TP. A GLCA with appropriate humidity and temperature gradient can remove PM2.5 in a costly and efficient manner., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Lignin, one of the most abundant natural polymers, has been successfully used as an effective lubricant additive with high value. The chemical structure of lignin is very diverse and strongly affected by both the source of lignin (i.e. plant species) and the lignin extraction process. In this work, a series of lignin from different biomass sources (hard or soft wood) and extraction process (organosolv with or without acid catalyst) has been successfully incorporated into poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and fortified lubricating properties were achieved. The effects of different lignin on the rheological, thermal and tribological properties of the lignin/EG lubricants were systematically investigated by different characterization techniques. Lignin in PEG significantly improves the lubricating property, where a wear reduction of 93.8% was observed. The thermal and lubrication properties of the PEG lubricants filled with different kinds of lignin are tightly related to the synergistic state of hydrogen bonding and molecular weight distribution. Lignin with broader molecular weight distribution and higher hydroxyl content shows better adhesion on metal surfaces and strengthened lubricating film, which could be used as the efficient lubricating additives. This work provides a criterion for selecting appropriate lignin as the efficient lubricant additive and accelerates the application of lignin., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Quantitative assessment of thermal properties by scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) is a demanded technology, but still not yet available due to the presence of unpredictable thermal contact resistance (TCR) at the tip/substrate interface. The TCR is mainly affected by three major interfacial characteristics including surface roughness, hardness and contacting force. In this work, the TCR is mathematically derived into linear and non-linear models based on the interfacial micro-characteristics. The models have the capability to predict the TCR for both rough and smooth surfaces with satisfactory accuracy. With a predictable TCR, the heat transport across the tip/substrate nanointerface can be precisely described and thus quantitative thermal properties can be predicted from SThM measurements. The models are tested in three polymeric material systems, PDMS, epoxy and PVA. The thermal conductivity from the model prediction matches very well (<10% error) with the measured values from bulk polymer samples. Such models use general surface features as inputs, so they have wide applicability to other similar materials, especially polymers. Moreover, the models have been shown to be valid in doped PVA samples when extrapolated to predict thermal conductivity beyond the range of model development. This work extends the capability of SThM in quantitative measurement and enables a unique platform for thermal conductivity measurement at nanometer spatial resolution.

Covalent bonding is widely adopted in graphene oxide (GO) membrane to improve structural integrity and restrict swelling, while it comes with a price of enlarged d-spacing and sacrifices membrane selectivity. This work offers a facile strategy to break the trade-off between membrane stability and selectivity. Specifically, graphene oxide (GO)/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid membranes were fabricated by a controlled pre-cross-linking method. With this method, restricted swelling by cross-linking and reduced d-spacing by GO reduction can be achieved simultaneously by controlling reaction time. Membranes were prepared on porous alumina support by vacuum filtration method. Two different d-spacing values (∼12.0 and ∼7.5 Å) were found in the hybrid membrane, representing the layer structures of expanded GO interspacing with inserted cross-linker and reduced layer spacing after GO reduction. The presence of such mixed layer structures enables restricted swelling, excellent mechanical strength, and unique separation property. The hybrid membrane shows excellent permselective H 2 /CO 2 separation with a separation factor of 22.93 ± 1.57 and H 2 permeance of 2.46 ± 0.01× 10 -8 mol m -2 s -1 Pa -1 . In desalination test with 3.5 wt % sea salt solution, the hybrid membrane shows high ion (Na + , K + , Mg 2+ , Cl - , and SO 4 2- ) rejection rate of above 99%, as well as excellent durability.

Ethylene glycol (EG)-based lubricant was prepared with dissolved organosolv lignin from birch wood (BL) and softwood (SL) biomass. The effects of different lignin types on the rheological, thermal, and tribological properties of the lignin/EG lubricants were comprehensively investigated by various characterization techniques. Dissolving organosolv lignin in EG results in outstanding lubricating properties. Specifically, the wear volume of the disc by EG-44BL is only 8.9% of that lubricated by pure EG. The enhanced anti-wear property of the EG/lignin system could be attributed to the formation of a robust lubrication film and the strong adhesion of the lubricant on the contacting metal surface due to the presence of a dense hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) network. The lubricating performance of EG-BL outperforms EG-SL, which could be attributed to the denser H-bonding sites in BL and its broader molecular weight distribution. The disc wear loss of EG-44BL is only 45.7% of that lubricated by EG-44SL. Overall, H-bonding is the major contributor to the different tribological properties of BL and SL in EG-based lubricants., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest.