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Cancer is a disease that developed from uncontrolled cells and has become one of the most medical problems that endanger human health. Currently, immunotherapy has replaced traditional treatment acts as the major therapy for cancer patients. The immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI), which is highly specific and affinity to the immune checkpoint that suppress immune response during tumorigenesis, shows promising result during the clinical study and research. PD-1 and its ligand PD-L1 are the major targets for ICI development, there already have six FDA-approved inhibitors that target PD-1 and PD-L1 are used as a first-line treatment for many cancers. The clinical study of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitor application in patients with different cancers not only reveals their efficacy and safety but also indicates the onset of many adverse effects, which are usually called immune-related adverse events (irAE) and could be fatal in particular conditions. However, some research suggests the presence of irAE is a marker for effective of ICI therapy. Therefore, this essay will mainly focus on the application of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors and the efficacy of each inhibitor has been testified via multiple clinical research. The common PD-1 and PD-L1 blockade-associated irAEs also have been discussed and their degree of risk is assessed. This essay also discussed the method that is frequently used in the management of irAEs.

Fabrication of composite materials on 3D copper foam for electrochemical research.

In brief Transforming the endometrial luminal epithelium (LE) into a receptive state is a requisite event for successful embryo implantation. This study suggests the role of a transcription factor in regulating endometrial LE receptivity. Abstract The endometrial luminal epithelium (LE) undergoes extensive remodeling during implantation to establish receptivity of the uterus in response to the conceptus signals, such as interleukin 1β (IL1B). But the mechanisms remain to be fully understood. This study investigated the role of CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β (C/EBP-β) in regulating pig endometrial LE receptivity. Our results showed that C/EBP-β was expressed and activated only in the endometrial LE in an implantation-dependent manner. In addition, C/EBP-β was highly activated at the pre-attachment stage compared to the attachment stage, and its activation was correlated with the expression of IL1B-dependent extracellular signal-regulated kinases1/2-p90 ribosomal S6 kinase signaling axis. Subsequent chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-sequencing analysis revealed that the binding of C/EBP-β within the promoter was positively associated with the transcription of genes related to cell remodeling. One such gene is matrix metalloproteinase 8 (MMP8), which is responsible for extracellular matrix degradation. The expression of MMP8 was abundant at the pre-attachment stage but dramatically declined at the attachment stage in the endometrial LE. Consistent with C/EBP-β, the expression and activation of MMP8 were limited to the endometrial LE in an implantation-dependent manner. Using ChIP-qPCR and electrophoresis mobility shift assay approaches, we demonstrated that C/EBP-β regulated the expression of the MMP8 gene during implantation. Furthermore, we detected that MMP8 and one of its substrates, type II collagen, showed a mutually exclusive expression pattern in pig endometrial LE during implantation. Our findings indicate that C/EBP-β plays a role in pig endometrial LE receptivity by regulating cell remodeling-related genes, such as MMP8, in response to conceptus signals during implantation.

Successful attachment of conceptus to the uterine luminal epithelium (LE) is crucial for establishing a functional placenta in pigs. However, the underlying mechanisms are yet to be elucidated. The uterine LE-conceptus interface is enriched in various glycoconjugates essential to implantation. Using MALDI-MS profiling, we identified for the first time the O-glycan repertoire of pig endometrium during the conceptus attachment stage. The expression pattern of blood group A, O(H), Lewis x, y, a, b (Lex, Ley, Lea, and Leb), the sialylated and sulfated Lex antigens in the uterine LE-conceptus interface was assessed using immunofluorescence assays. Notably, the Lex-carrying O-glycans exhibited a temporal–spatial expression pattern. They were absent in the endometrium on estrous cycle days but strongly and spatially presented in the conceptus and uterine LE to which the conceptus apposes during the early conceptus attachment stage. In addition, Lex-carrying O-glycans were co-localized with secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1), a well-characterized factor that plays a role in promoting conceptus attachment through interacting with integrin αVβ3 and integrin αVβ6. Meanwhile, the immunoprecipitation assays revealed an interaction between the Lex-carrying O-glycans and SPP1, integrin αV, and integrin β6. Furthermore, we provided evidence that the β1,4-galactosyltransferase 1 (B4GALT1) gene is a potential regulator for Lex antigen expression in the uterine LE-conceptus interface during the early conceptus attachment stage. In conclusion, our findings show that Lex-carrying O-glycans, presumably dependent on B4GALT1 gene expression, might modulate conceptus attachment by interacting with the SPP1-integrin receptor complex in pigs.

The implementation of green remediation or sustainable remediation (collectively referred as green and sustainable remediation, GSR) has been promoted by multi-stakeholder collaboration. However, comprehensive analysis of GSR is understudied in previous literatures. Policy system and case experience of GSR in the USA are here been analyzed comprehensively. Results indicate that USEPA, SURF-US, and ITRC advocated GR, SR, and GSR, respectively. For the program types of GSR cases, the government-driving forces (especially USEPA) had significant positive effects than those voluntary cleanups. In situ techniques of soil remediation are more widely used than ex situ ones. All techniques of groundwater remediation are in situ, in addition to pump and treat due to its effectiveness to remedy seriously contaminated sites. The best management practices (BMPs) are preferably implemented in remedial construction stage rather than other stages. The percentages of BMPs related to "optimization," "renewable energy," and "recycling or reusing materials" are relatively high, while the other BMPs are relatively low. GSR benefits achieved by BMPs of environment-orientated may not only reduce the environmental footprint, but also gain in economic and social aspects. Moreover, practitioners should more fully understand the full benefits of a BMP implementation and strengthen the consensus among them. In brief, it is necessary for remediation practitioners to supplement the existing defects in policies and their implementations and to select optimum BMPs in specific contaminated sites. This work offers comprehensive and valuable insight into policies and practices of GSR.

The concrete shear walls of masonry structures with RC frames on the first story are low-rise shear walls with a height–width ratio of less than 1. The strength, stiffness, and ductility of these low-rise shear walls are not matched, resulting in poor seismic performance. Based on the idea of the passive control theory and multi-seismic defensive lines, the scheme of a masonry structure with RC frames on the first story with a concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) dampers is proposed in this paper. To explore the seismic mitigation effect of CFST dampers applied to a masonry structure with RC frames on the first story, the seismic performance under low-reversed cyclic loading of the frame with the CFST dampers is first compared with that of the energy-dissipated low-rise concrete shear wall proposed by previous researchers and the ordinary low-rise concrete shear wall. Furthermore, the response of the masonry structure model with RC frames on the first story with CFST dampers and two other comparative structural models under earthquake action are discussed. The results show that a masonry structure with RC frames on the first story with CFST dampers has a fuller hysteretic loop, lighter pinching, better energy dissipation ability, and better seismic performance. Compared with the other two structures, the energy dissipation capacity of the masonry structure with RC frames on the first story with CFST dampers is significantly improved, by 1.25~1.5 times. The amplification effect of the deformation angle allows the CFST dampers to play a significant role in energy dissipation, whereas the main structure still undergoes a small deformation. The CFST dampers can dissipate more seismic energy to protect the main structure from damage and improve the seismic performance of masonry structures with RC frames on the first story.

The coalescence of oil droplets in membrane filtration is practically important, however it has not been studied extensively.

To reveal the relationship between agricultural water resource consumption and grain production in the Yellow River Basin, the irrigation water productivity (WPI), crop water productivity (WPC), total inflow water productivity (WPT), and eleven influencing factors were selected. The spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and driving factors of water productivity of the main crops in the Yellow River Basin were analyzed with the spatial autocorrelation analysis, grey correlation analysis, sensitivity analysis, and relative contribution rate. The results showed that the minimum mean values of WPI, WPC, and WPT were 0.22, 0.35, and 0.18 kg/m3 in Qinghai, respectively, the maximum mean value of WPI was 2.11 kg/m3 in Henan, and the maximum mean values of WPC and WPT were 0.71 and 0.61 kg/m3 in Shandong, respectively. The changing trends in WPI and WPT in Qinghai and in WPC in Shandong were insignificant, whereas the WPI, WPC, and WPT in other provinces showed a significant increasing trend. Water productivity displayed a certain spatial clustering feature in the Yellow River Basin in different years, such as a high-high (H-H) aggregation in Henan in 2005, and an H-H aggregation in Shanxi in 2015 for WPI. The water productivity had a significant positive correlation with the consumption of chemical fertilizer with a 100% effective component (CFCEC), effective irrigated area (EIA), plastic film used for agriculture (PFUA), and total power of agricultural machinery (AMTP), while it had a significant negative correlation with the persons engaged in rural areas (PERA). There was a large grey correlation degree between the water productivity and the average annual precipitation (AAP), CFCEC, PFUA, consumption of chemical pesticides (CFC), and AMTP in the Yellow River Basin, but their sensitivity was relatively small. The main driving factors were EIA (8.98%), agricultural water (AW, 15.55%), AMTP (12.64%), CFCEC (12.06%), and CPC (9.77%) for WPI; AMTP (16.46%), CFCEC (13.25%), average annual evaporation (AAE, 12.94%), EIA (10.49%), and PERA (10.19%) for WPC; and EIA (14.26%), AMTP (13.38%), AAP (12.30%), CFCEC (10.49%), and PFUA (9.69%) for WPT in the Yellow River Basin. The results can provide support for improving the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources, optimizing the allocation of water resources, and implementing high-quality agricultural developments in the Yellow River Basin.

The sediments in two stacked megafans in the Owambo Basin of northern Namibia and southern Angola were made accessible by a c. 400 m long, continuously cored borehole. Previous studies have indicated that the lower buried Paleocene–Eocene Olukonda Megafan was deposited by a palaeo-Kunene River transporting material from the NW (i.e. from the Kunene Intrusive Complex and the adjacent Angola Shield). The morphology of the overlying Eocene–Pliocene Cubango Megafan suggests the input of sediments from the north via the Cubango River. Mineralogical and geochemical data from the upper fan indicate felsic metamorphic and granitoid sources. Previous studies, however, did not provide a unique provenance identifier. Combining detrital zircon U–Pb data from both megafans with previously published and newly obtained mineralogical and geochemical data confirms two distinct provenances. The Olukonda Megafan can now be uniquely attributed by means of its detrital zircon ages to the Kunene Intrusive Complex and the surrounding Epupa Metamorphic Complex. In good agreement with the geochronologically more varied geology of the source region in the north, the Cubango Megafan detrital zircon record shows a wide distribution of Paleoproterozoic to Archean ages, but also a younger age range, probably related to a later Damaran/Pan-African source, which is absent in the Olukonda detrital zircon record. Supplementary material: Data obtained for this study, e.g. geochemical data, heavy mineral composition, heavy mineral morphology, zircon morphology, U-Th-Pb isotopes and ages on zircon, instrument settings, and U-Th-Pb isotope data of analysed reference zircon are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6280517

Warmer temperatures significantly influence crop yields, which are a critical determinant of food supply and human well-being. In this study, a probabilistic approach based on bivariate copula models was used to investigate the dependence (described by joint distribution) between crop yield and growing season temperature (TGS) in the major producing provinces of China for three staple crops (i.e., rice, wheat, and maize). Based on the outputs of 12 models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) under Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5–8.5, the probability of yield reduction under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming was estimated, which has great implications for agricultural risk management. Results showed that yield response to TGS varied with crop and region, with the most vulnerable being rice in Sichuan, wheat in Sichuan and Gansu, and maize in Shandong, Liaoning, Jilin, Nei Mongol, Shanxi, and Hebei. Among the selected five copulas, Archimedean/elliptical copulas were more suitable to describe the joint distribution between TGS and yield in most rice-/maize-producing provinces. The probability of yield reduction was greater in vulnerable provinces than in non-vulnerable provinces, with maize facing a higher risk of warming-driven yield loss than rice and wheat. Compared to the 1.5 °C global warming, an additional 0.5 °C warming would increase the yield loss risk in vulnerable provinces by 2–17%, 1–16%, and 3–17% for rice, wheat, and maize, respectively. The copula-based model proved to be an effective tool to provide probabilistic estimates of yield reduction due to warming and can be applied to other crops and regions. The results of this study demonstrated the importance of keeping global warming within 1.5 °C to mitigate the yield loss risk and optimize agricultural decision-making in vulnerable regions.

An improved long-short-term memory neural network (FS-LSTM) fault diagnosis method is proposed based on the problems of damage false alarm, data of health monitoring system incorrect caused by sensor fault in bridge structure health monitoring system. The method is verified by simulating three-span continuous beams to install several sensors and considering the five failures of one sensor, the faults such as: constant, gain, bias, gain linearity bias, and noise. At first, several pieces of white noise data are randomly generated, and each piece of white noise data is applied as a ground pulsation excitation to the structure support, and the acceleration response of the structure at the sensor location is calculated. Simultaneously, each structural response record of each sensor adds white noise with the same signal-to-noise ratio to obtain the test value of each sensor; Secondly, in order to study the generality, except for the five types of faulty sensors in sequence, one sensor is randomly selected from each of the remaining spans, to verify whether there will be a situation where an intact sensor is misdiagnosed as a faulty sensor; Finally, the FS-LSTM network is constructed through the training set to predict the acceleration data, determine the sensor fault threshold, and compare the residual sequence with the fault threshold to diagnose whether the sensor is faulty. The case research of a three-span continuous beam shows that when the above-mentioned five types of faults occur in the sensor, the proposed method can correctly determine whether the sensor is faulty, and it will not be misdiagnosed, which can be used for daily bridge health monitoring. Furthermore, it provides a new method for the maintenance of the bridge health monitoring system.

Deep learning, neural networks and other data-driven processing techniques are increasingly used in the analysis of LiDAR point cloud data in forest environments due to the benefits offered in accuracy and adaptability to new environments. One of the downsides of these techniques in practical applications is the requirement for manually annotated data necessary for training neural networks, which can be time consuming and costly to attain. We develop an approach to training neural networks for forest tree stem segmentation from point clouds that uses synthetic data from a custom tree simulator, which can generate large quantities of training examples without manual human effort. Our tree simulator captures the geometric characteristics of tree stems and foliage, from which automatically-labelled synthetic point clouds can be generated for training a semantic segmentation algorithm based on the PointNet++ architecture. Using evaluations on real aerial and terrestrial LiDAR point clouds from a range of different forest sites, we demonstrate our synthetic data-trained models can out-perform, or provide comparable performance with models trained on real data from other sites or when available real training data is limited (increases in IoU from 1–7%). Our simulation code is open-source and made available to the research community.

Enzymatic antibacterial finishing is an eco-friendly alternative to develop functional silk-based materials. However, the low accessibility of tyrosine residues distributed in fibroin chains restricts the laccase-mediated functionalization of silk fibers (SF). To address this issue, a highly reactive p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid-modified polyethyleneimine (mPEI) was enzymatically grafted onto fibroin using laccase, aiming at constructing an antibacterial matrix of mPEI on the fiber surface. Subsequently, in situ deposition of silver nanoparticles (i.e., AgNPs) into the newly built mPEI network was performed to form a rapid antibacterial layer. The results indicated that laccase efficiently catalyzes the mPEI coupling, the zeta potential of SF-g-mPEI increases from -32 to 21.70 mV, and the silver content reaches 1.81% after AgNP embedment. Based on the combined two-step treatments, the obtained silk fabric exhibited excellent antibacterial abilities against two bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). The antibacterial rates of both bacteria reached 99.9% within 30 min of contact, remaining over 99.9% within 18 h of contact even after washing 10 times. The present work provides an enzyme-mediated method for construction of silk fabric with durable and rapid antibacterial activity.

The Es4 source rock is the primary source of hydrocarbon in deep reservoirs in the Baxian Sag, Jizhong Depression of Bohai Bay Basin, China, and its quantitative description is useful for understanding hydrocarbon generation and accumulation in the deep basin. The Es4 source rock contains organofacies C, D/E and F, with organofacies C having a thin thickness of less than 40 m and organofacies D/E having a thickness of 50 m and 250 m. The drilled Es4 source rock has a maximum RO of 1.27%, indicating that it is in the late oil window. The kinetic parameters for three organofacies source rock have been obtained from the simulation of gold tube pyrolysis. The result showed that organofacies C, D/E and F source rock entered into the mature level in sequence, but that at 150 °C, the organofacies C will be transformed to around 90% of their original state. For organofacies D/E and F, the hydrocarbon generation potential is still high, with condensate and wet gas dominating.

Biopolymer silk fibroin (SF) is a great candidate for drug carriers characterized by its tunable biodegradability, and excellent biocompatibility properties. Recently, we have constructed SF-based nano-enabled drug delivery carriers, in which doxorubicin (Dox) and atovaquone (Ato) were encapsulated with Arg-Gly-Asp-SF-Polylactic Acid (RSA) to form micellar-like nanoparticles (RSA-Dox-Ato NPs). The RGD peptide was decorated on micellar-like nanoparticles, promoting tumor accumulation of the drug. Meanwhile, Ato, as a mitochondrial complex III inhibitor inhibiting mitochondrial respiration, would reverse the hypoxia microenvironment and enhance chemotherapy in the tumor. In vitro, the biopolymer alone showed extremely low cytotoxicity to 4T1 cell lines, while the RSA-Dox-Ato demonstrated a higher inhibition rate than other groups. Most significantly, the ROS levels in cells were obviously improved after being treated with RSA-Dox-Ato, indicating that the hypoxic microenvironment was alleviated. Eventually, SF-based targeted drug carrier provides biocompatibility to reverse hypoxia microenvironment in vivo for enhancing chemotherapy, strikingly suppressing tumor development, and thereby suggesting a promising candidate for drug delivery system.

Despite the fact that gross primary productivity (GPP) and water use efficiency (WUE) have been widely used as indicators to evaluate the water-carbon cycle, uncertainties exist in the patterns of GPP and WUE responses to climate variability along different aridity gradients. In this study, the aridity index was used to divide China into four arid-humid zones. The spatiotemporal variability of multiple vegetation types GPP and WUE in response to climate change under different arid-humid zones were investigated based on remote sensing data. The results indicated that the increasing trend of WUE in the four arid-humid zones of China was less pronounced than GPP from 2001 to 2021. The GPP value decreased gradually from the humid to the arid zone, and the WUE value in the arid zone was slightly higher than in the semi-arid zone. The GPP of all vegetation types in China showed a tendency to increase, while shrubland and wetland WUE tended to decrease. The major vegetation types (e.g., forest, cropland and grassland) in each aridity gradient contributed to the changes in local GPP and WUE. However, in individual arid-humid zones, wetland and shrubland also exhibited high GPP and WUE values that were not inferior to forest and cropland. Temperature and precipitation were the main climatic factors responsible for the increase in vegetation GPP in different aridity gradients, with a higher positive correlation for temperature than precipitation. WUE showed a distinct positive and negative correlation with the thermal factors (temperature and net radiation) and the moisture factors (precipitation and relative humidity); this pattern was more pronounced in the humid and semi-humid zones. Net radiation and precipitation may be the main climatic factors causing a slight upward trend in WUE across the arid-humid zones, while the decrease in shrubland and wetland WUE may be related to relative humidity and precipitation.

Zinc sulfide, as an excellent catalyst, has attracted a lot of attention from scholars owing to its photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water splitting in the ultraviolet (UV) region. In this work, polytype wurtzite-nH ZnS (n = 2 and 8) was synthesized successfully using thiourea (SCN2H4) as the sulfur source by hydrothermal and solvothermal methods. Compared with ZnS nanosheets and ZnS nanowires (2H), the ZnS hollow nanosphere (8H) photocatalysts exhibited the best light capturing ability, longest electric charge lifespan and highest electron (e−) and hole (h+) separation efficiency, which contributed to the superior photocatalytic hydrogen production activity. The photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate (10.35 mmol h−1 g−1) of ZnS hollow nanospheres (8H) with good photostability was measured under the support of solar-light irradiation, and the highest apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 6.4% was recorded. This work not only presents the effects of the morphology and stacking order of crystal forms on the hydrogen production performance of photocatalysts, but also provides new insights into the construction of solar-light-driven catalysts for H2 production from H2O splitting.

In this work, we propose a new two-view domain adaptation network named Deep-Shallow Domain Adaptation Network (DSDAN) for 3D point cloud recognition. Different from the traditional 2D image recognition task, the valuable texture information is often absent in point cloud data, making point cloud recognition a challenging task, especially in the cross-dataset scenario where the training and testing data exhibit a considerable distribution mismatch. In our DSDAN method, we tackle the challenging cross-dataset 3D point cloud recognition task from two aspects. On one hand, we propose a two-view learning framework, such that we can effectively leverage multiple feature representations to improve the recognition performance. To this end, we propose a simple and efficient Bag-of-Points feature method, as a complementary view to the deep representation. Moreover, we also propose a cross view consistency loss to boost the two-view learning framework. On the other hand, we further propose a two-level adaptation strategy to effectively address the domain distribution mismatch issue. Specifically, we apply a feature-level distribution alignment module for each view, and also propose an instance-level adaptation approach to select highly confident pseudo-labeled target samples for adapting the model to the target domain, based on which a co-training scheme is used to integrate the learning and adaptation process on the two views. Extensive experiments on the benchmark dataset show that our newly proposed DSDAN method outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods for the cross-dataset point cloud recognition task.

Thermal desorption (TD) is generally considered to be an effective but unsustainable technology. Decontamination performance, charring behaviors and physicochemical properties during TD of dibenzofuran-contaminated soil (DCS) are explored. After treatment at 300 °C for 20 min, the dibenzofuran concentration decreases from 3969.37 mg/kg to 17.29 mg/kg, lower than Chinese risk screening value. More than 99% of dibenzofuran in soil are removed at low temperature of 300 °C, meanwhile the organic carbon is partially retained in soil. Removal mechanism of DCS at 300 °C is proposed, including desorption, cracking, and charring. Char material of low H:C ratio is produced by the generation, polymerization and dehydrogenation of aromatic intermediates, and then increases carbon stocks and reduces the carbon footprint of contaminated soil. Meanwhile, due to the char generated, pH, cation exchange capacity and specific surface area of DCS heated at 300 °C are higher than those of raw DCS, promoting ecological restoration and enhancing carbon sink in soil ecosystems. The aforesaid saving energy, reducing carbon footprint and enhancing carbon sink are exactly the main innovative technologies for achieving carbon neutrality. Hence, it may be a contribution to climate change mitigation, in addition to a robust and sustainable remediation of organic contaminated soil.

Pore structure in shale is an important factor influencing the storage capacity of a shale gas reservoir and the effect of shale gas development. Taking the core and outcrop shale samples from the Lower Cambrian Niutitang Formation and Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation as the object of the research, combined with the scanning electron microscope, high pressure mercury injection, CO2 and N2 gas adsorption experiments, we investigated the porosity, pore types, pore structure, and pore size distribution of the Lower Paleozoic shale gas reservoirs in northern Guizhou, South China. The results indicated that there are developed various genetic types of micro-nano pores in the Lower Paleozoic marine shale in northern Guizhou, which provide the main reservoir spaces for shale gas. The porosity of the Lower Paleozoic shale in northern Guizhou is 1.30%–13.37% in range, and the average is 4.56%. The inter-granular pore, organic matter pore and intra-granular pore are most common. Micropore (

The imbalanced number and the high similarity of samples in expression database can lead to overfitting in facial recognition neural networks. To address this problem, based on edge computing, a facial expression recognition method using deep convolutional neural networks is proposed. In order to overcome the shortcoming that circular consensus adversarial network model can only be mapped one-to-one, we construct a constrained circular consensus generative adversarial network by adding class constraint information. Discriminators and classifiers in this network can share network parameters. In addition, for the problems of unstable training and easy to encounter model collapse in original GAN networks, this paper introduces gradient penalty rule into discriminator’s loss function to achieve the normative constraint on gradient changes. Using this network not only generates sample data for a few classes in the training set of expression database, but also performs effective expression classification. Compared with other methods, the improved discriminative classifier network structure can enhance the diversity of samples and get a higher expression recognition rate. Even if other expression feature extraction methods are used, the higher recognition rate can still be obtained after using proposed data augmentation framework.

Objectives Implantation failure is a major cause of prenatal mortality. The uterine lumen closure contributes to embryo adhesion to the uterus, but its underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. Our previous study has reported that endometrial fold extension can lead to uterine lumen closure in pigs. The objective of this study was to reveal molecular mechanisms of the uterine lumen closure by characterizing the molecular basis of the endometrial fold extension during implantation in pigs. Materials and methods Uterine and endometrium tissues during implantation were collected in pigs. MALDI‐TOF MS was used to characterize the N‐glycomic profiles. Histochemistry, siRNA transfection, Western blotting, lectin immumoprecipitation, mass spectrometry and assays of wounding healing and cell aggregation were performed to investigate the molecular basis. Results We observed that uterine luminal epithelium (LE) migrated collectively during endometrial fold extension. For the first time, we identified a large number of N‐glycan compositions from endometrium during implantation using MALDI‐TOF MS. Notably, the α2,6‐linked sialic acid and ST6GAL1 were highly expressed in uterine LE when the endometrial folds extended greatly. Subsequently, the role of ST6GAL1‐mediated 2,6‐sialylation in collective epithelial migration was demonstrated. Finally, we found that ST6GAL1‐mediated α2,6‐sialylation of E‐cadherin may participate in collective migration of uterine LE. Conclusions The study reveals a mechanism of uterine lumen closure by identifying that ST6GAL1‐mediated α2,6‐sialylation of cell adhesion molecules contributes to endometrial fold extension through regulating collective migration of uterine LE., Effect of α2,6‐sialylation mediated by ST6GAL1 on regulation of pig endometrial folds extending during implantation. The ST6GAL1 mediated α2,6‐sialylation of cell adhesion molecular, such as E‐cadherin, alters the stability of the cell‐cell adherens junction, participates in activation of Rac1/WAVE1 signal pathway to regulate the collective migration of uterine LE and leads to the extending of endometrial folds during implantation.

Reuse of sewage sludge is a general trend and land application is an essential way to reuse sludge. The outbreak of coronavirus disease has raised concerns about human pathogens and their serious threat to public health. The risk of pathogenic bacterial contamination from land application of municipal sludge has not been well assessed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of pathogenic bacteria in municipal sewage sludge and to examine the survival potential of certain multidrug-resistant enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAEC) strain isolated from sewage sludge during heat treatment. The sewage sludge produced in the two wastewater treatment plants contained pathogenic bacteria such as pathogenic E. coli, Shigella flexneri, and Citrobacter freundii. The environmental strain of EAEC isolated from the sludge was resistant to eight types of antibiotics. It could also enter the dormant state after 4.5 h of treatment at 55 °C and regrow at 37 °C, while maintaining its antibiotic resistance. Our results indicate that the dormancy of EAEC might be why it is heat-resistant and could not be killed completely during the sludge heat treatment process. Owing to the regrowth of the dormant pathogenic bacteria, it is risky to apply the sludge to land even if the sludge is heat-treated, and there is also a risk of spreading antibiotic resistance.

The myometrium is the outer layer of the uterus. Its contraction and steroidogenic activities are required for embryo implantation. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying its functions remain unknown in pigs. The myometrium includes the inner circular muscle (CM) and the outer longitudinal muscle (LM) layers. In this study, we collected the CM and LM samples from the mesometrial side (named M) of the uterus on days 12 (pre-implantation stage) and 15 (implantation stage) of pregnancy and day 15 of the estrous cycle. The transcriptomic results revealed distinct differences between the uterine CM and LM layers in early pregnancy: the genes expressed in the LM layer were mainly related to contraction pathways, whereas the transcriptional signatures in the CM layer on day 15 of pregnancy were primarily involved in the immune response processes. Subsequent comparisons in the CM layer between pregnant and cyclic gilts show that the transcriptional signatures of the CM layer are implantation-dependent. Next, we investigated the genome-wide profiling of histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac) and histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) in pig uterine CM and LM layers. The genomic regions that had transcriptional activity and were associated with the expression of genes in the two layers were characterized. Taken together, the regulatory regions identified in the study may contribute to modulating the gene expression in pig uterine CM and LM layers during implantation.

Government contaminated site regulators, as policy executors and makers, have a profound impact on the development of green and sustainable remediation (GSR), but their cognitive level of GSR has not been well-studied. China has some experience in the management of contaminated sites and has the foundation to promote GSR. This study was conducted in the form of a questionnaire to investigate the understanding of GSR among Chinese site regulators at different levels. The study found that there was still a lot of resistance to promoting GSR in China. Firstly, even though the regulators thought GSR was necessary in China, most of them did not know GSR very well or lacked practical experience. Secondly, existing national and provincial policy standards did not have a good balance between the environmental, social and economic aspects, but gave priority to the environmental factors. Thirdly, the lack of standard and regulatory requirements was the most significant barrier to the implementation of GSR. The results of the survey can provide a reference for China or other developing countries to implement GSR. Practitioners should provide more knowledge and cases for regulators, supplement national policies or improve the provincial and municipal policy system.

Textiles with heat management function have good effects on improving human comfort during sport. However, it is still a great challenge to endow textiles with responsiveness to external environmental changes. Herein, we developed an intelligent temperature-regulating cotton textile with multiple heat transfer capability by a two-step method. Firstly, hydroxylated boron nitride (BN-OH) nanosheet dispersion liquid was prepared using a two-step ultrasonic-alkali treatment. Subsequently, enzymatic graft polymerization of N-isopropyl acrylamide (NIPAM) onto cotton fibers were performed using horseradish peroxidase (HRP). The composite cotton fabric, containing entrapped BN-OH exhibits unique temperature-regulating ability, and the thermal diffusivities in vertical and parallel directions reach 1.2 and 1.7 times of the untreated, respectively. This can be attributed to the temperature responsiveness of poly-NIPAM (PNIPAM) and the increase in the packing density of the thermal conductive nanosheets at high temperatures. Meanwhile, the PNIPAM covering the fiber surfaces slowly expands at low temperatures, accordingly minishes the gap sizes between fabric yarns and endows the fabric with improved heat preservation effects. The present work provides a facile and green strategy for developing the intelligent textiles with ambient temperature self-response ability.

Estuarine wetlands play important roles in the regional and global carbon cycle as well as greenhouse gas emissions; however, the driving factors and potential carbon emissions mechanisms are unclear. Here, the carbon emission fluxes were investigated in situ from different vegetated areas in the Chongming wetlands. The results showed that the highest methane (CH

The weak interactions between anions and common functional groups make it difficult for the development of anion photoluminescence sensors. In this work, we report an ultra-sensitive anion photoluminescence (PL) sensor for F− based on triethylene glycol monomethyl ether modified poly(p-phenylenediamine) dots (TPPDs). Due to the PET process in excited TPPDs, no obvious PL behavior can be observed in TPPDs. Due to the fast photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process in excited TPPDs, no obvious photoluminescence behavior can be observed: however, the PET process can be cut off in the presence of F− and TPPDs show bright red PL. The detection limit of this system is 2 × 10−10 M, which is much lower than most other reported detection methods. Compared with traditional “ON-OFF” PL sensors, such an “OFF-ON” PL detection system shows higher value in practical applications. The detection system exhibits superior photostability and high selectivity for F−. We also demonstrate the successful F− detection in vitro based on TPPDs.

Pore structure and fractal characteristics are the discussion hotspots in the theoretic field of shale gas reservoir, however, less attention has been paid to the quantitatively characterization of...

Reliable attribution of changes in streamflow is fundamental to our understanding of the hydrological cycle and is needed to enable decision makers to manage water resources in a sustainable way. Here, we used a new attribution method based on the Budyko framework (complementary method) to quantify the contributions of climate change and human activities to the changes in annual streamflow in 22 catchments on China's Loess Plateau during the past three decades. Our results showed that after the Grain-for-Green (GFG) project, the annual streamflow decreased by 36% on average (3–72%), with reductions being more intense in northern catchments. The sensitivity of streamflow to precipitation and potential evapotranspiration also decreased, with a mean rate of −0.7 mm yr−1/mm yr−1 and −0.2 mm yr−1/mm yr−1, respectively. Using the upper and lower bounds of the human effects on streamflow from the complementary method as a reference, we found that these effects at half of the stations were under- or over-estimated by the total differential method. The contribution analysis from the complementary method showed that although human activities decreased streamflow by 26% (or 54% as a relative value) on average, the contribution of potential evapotranspiration alone to the decrease in streamflow was 9% (42%), highlighting the important role of increasing atmospheric moisture demand in the water cycle. In addition, the 5-year incremental analysis showed that the impacts of climate and human activities on streamflow had strong spatiotemporal variability.