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The radiance of sky brightness differs principally with wavelength passband. Atmospheric scattering of sunlight causes the radiation in the near-infrared band. The Antarctic is a singular area of the planet, marked by an unparalleled climate and geographical conditions, including the coldest temperatures and driest climate on Earth, which leads it to be the best candidate site for observing in infrared bands. At present, there are still no measurements of night-sky brightness at DOME A. We have developed the Near-Infrared Sky Brightness Monitor (NISBM) in the J, H, and Ks bands for measurements at DOME A. The instruments were installed at DOME A in 2019 and early results of NIR sky brightness from 2019 January–April have been obtained. The variation of sky background brightness with solar elevation and scanning angle is analysed. The zenith sky flux intensity for the early night at DOME A in the J band is in the 600–1100 μJy arcsec−2 range, that in the H band is between 1100 and 2600 μJy arcsec−2, and that in the Ks band is in the range ∼200–900 μJy arcsec−2. This result shows that the sky brightness in J and H bands is close to that of Ali in China and Mauna Kea in the USA. The sky brightness in the Ks band is much better than that in Ali, China and Mauna Kea, USA. This shows that, from our early results, DOME A is a good site for astronomical observation in the Ks band.

One of the pathological characteristics of obesity is fat accumulation of skeletal muscles (SKM) and the myocardium, involving mechanisms of insulin resistance and abnormal lipid metabolism. Apolipoprotein A-IV (ApoA-IV) is an essential gene in both glucose and lipid metabolisms.Using high-fat diet (HFD) induced obeseIn stable obese animal models, we find ApoA-IV-knockout mice show elevated TG content, enhanced expression of lipogenic enzymes and diminished phosphorylated AKT in SKM and the myocardium, but both stable hepatic expression of AAV-We find that ApoA-IV reduces fat accumulation by suppressing lipogenesis and improves glucose uptake in SKM and the myocardium by regulating the PI3K-AKT pathway.

Presented here are the structure, optical properties, photocurrent response and theoretical study of a non-perovskite copper iodobismuthate hybrid, namely, [(Me)2-(DABCO)]2Cu2Bi2I12 (1).

Constructing charge transfer (CT) systems and packing arrangement are common and effective methods to control the efficiency of nonlinear optical (NLO) materials. Apart from the traditional through-bond CT (TBCT) systems, through-space CT (TSCT) also leads to distinctive optical and electronic properties. Meanwhile, corresponding theoretical investigations of the aggregation effect are highly desired. In this work, some TSCT and model compounds incorporating acenaphthene as a scaffold and triphenylamine (TPA) as the donor are theoretically performed to systematically reveal the effect of both solvent and solid environments on their static first hyperpolarizabilities (β

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is a derived cortical area in primates that is involved in myriad high-cognitive functions and is associated with several neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we performed Patch-seq and single-nucleus multiomic analyses of the rhesus macaque dlPFC to identify genes governing neuronal maturation during midfetal to late-fetal development. Our multimodal analyses have identified genes and pathways important for the maturation of distinct neuronal populations as well as genes underlying the maturation of specific electrophysiological properties. Using gene knockdown in macaque and human organotypic slices, we functionally tested the role of RAPGEF4 , a gene involved in synaptic remodeling, and CHD8 , a high-confidence autism spectrum disorder risk gene, on the electrophysiological and morphological maturation of excitatory neurons in the macaque and human fetal dlPFC.

A spanning subgraph $H$ of a graph $G$ is called a $P_{\geq k}$-factor of $G$ if every component of $H$ is isomorphic to a path of order at least $k$, where $k\geq2$ is an integer. A graph $G$ is called a $(P_{\geq k},l)$-factor critical graph if $G-V'$ contains a $P_{\geq k}$-factor for any $V'\subseteq V(G)$ with $|V'|=l$. A graph $G$ is called a $(P_{\geq k},m)$-factor deleted graph if $G-E'$ has a $P_{\geq k}$-factor for any $E'\subseteq E(G)$ with $|E'|=m$. Intuitively, if a graph is dense enough, it will have a $P_{\geq 3}$-factor. In this paper, we give some sufficient conditions for a graph to be a $(P_{\geq 3},l)$-factor critical graph or a $(P_{\geq 3},m)$-factor deleted graph. In this paper, we demonstrate that (i) $G$ is a $(P_{\geq 3},l)$-factor critical graph if its sun toughness $s(G)>\frac{l+1}{3}$ and $\kappa(G)\geq l+2$. (ii) $G$ is a $(P_{\geq 3},l)$-factor critical graph if its degree sum $\sigma_3(G)\geq n+2l$ and $\kappa(G)\geq l+1$. (iii) $G$ is a $(P_{\geq 3},m)$-factor deleted graph if its sun toughness $s(G)\geq \frac{m+1}{m+2}$ and $\kappa(G)\geq 2m+1$. (iv) $G$ is a $(P_{\geq 3},m)$-factor deleted graph if its degree sum $\sigma_3(G)\geq n+2m$ and $\kappa(G)\geq 2m+1$.

At 300 K, S1 excitons could emit fluorescence or undergo ISC to T1, where rISC exceeds the phosphorescence emission enabling TADF.

Recent studies have found compared with insulin glargine (IGlar), insulin degludec/aspart (IDeg/Asp) may provide adequate glycemic control and prevent hypoglycemia events in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Consequently, we performed a meta-analysis to appraise and compare the efficiency and safety of IDeg/Asp and IGlar in the treatment of T2DM. We sought the databases including PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane library to confirm related articles which inspected the effect of IDeg/Asp versus IGlar for the treatment of T2DM until May 2021. Finally, six randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of 1,346 patients were included. The results showed that IDeg/Asp significantly decreased the mean hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level but was prone to serious adverse events, and IGlar increased the nocturnal confirmed hypoglycemia events. Besides, there were no significant changes in other indicators, including mean fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level, nine-point self-measured plasma glucose (SMPG) level, and adverse events. What's more, we found that there was no significant difference in the occurrence of hypoglycemia overall, but our subgroup analysis of confirmed hypoglycemia revealed the population in this subgroup (duration of diabetes ≤11 years) might has its particularity effecting the hypoglycemia outcome. Concerning efficiency, IDeg/Asp may have advantages in controlling the mean HbA1c level. Regarding safety, IGlar might increase the risk of nocturnal confirmed hypoglycemia. Further evidence is needed to compare better the efficiency and safety of IDeg/Asp versus IGlar therapy.

Tianyu-Py pyrite is investigated as the natural reference material for in situ iron isotopic ratios microanalysis.

We measured barium attachment and detachment fluxes from and to barite crystal surfaces in solutions with [Ba]/[SO4] ratios from 0.06 to 52. The doping of 137Ba in the initial experimental solutions enabled us to measure unidirectional fluxes near solubility equilibrium (Q/K ≈1.0) in batch reactors. Both attachment and detachment fluxes increase with [Ba]/[SO4] ratios. As expected, since the solutions were near solubility equilibrium ( S I ≈ 0.0 n ), the attachment and detachment fluxes were nearly equal. The experimental data can be fit accurately using the Zhang and Nancollas (1998) (ZN98) process-based AB crystal growth model, which describes crystal growth and dissolution through nucleation and propagation of kink sites. Simultaneous fitting step velocity data of Kowacz et al. (2007) significantly reduced the number of non-uniqueness solutions. The remarkable fit implies that barite recrystallization at room temperature near equilibrium and moderate supersaturation occurs via ion-by-ion addition and removal, rather than the formation of amorphous precursors or aggregation of particles. The model is best fit using different detachment frequencies for Ba and SO4, suggesting the ZN98 assumption that detachment frequencies should be the same for the constituent ions does not apply to barite. Based on experimental data and model fitting, Ba attachment and detachment fluxes at a fixed saturation state increase with [Ba]/[SO4] ratios monotonically. This has potentially significant implications for interpreting isotope and trace element cycling in natural environments.

Uncertain fractional differential equation (UFDE) is a kind of differential equation about uncertain process. As an significant mathematical tool to describe the evolution process of dynamic system, UFDE is better than the ordinary differential equation with integer derivatives because of its hereditability and memorability characteristics. However, in most instances, the precise analytical solutions of UFDE is difficult to obtain due to the complex form of the UFDE itself. Up to now, there is not plenty of researches about the numerical method of UFDE, as for the existing numerical algorithms, their accuracy is also not high. In this research, derive from the interval weighting method, a class of fractional adams method is innovatively proposed to solve UFDE. Meanwhile, such fractional adams method extends the traditional predictor-corrector method to higher order cases. The stability and truncation error limit of the improved algorithm are analyzed and deduced. As the application, several numerical simulations (including $\alpha$-path, extreme value and the first hitting time of the UFDE) are provided to manifest the higher accuracy and efficiency of the proposed numerical method.

Testing the dependency between two random variables is an important inference problem in statistics since many statistical procedures rely on the assumption that the two samples are independent. To test whether two samples are independent, a so-called HSIC (Hilbert--Schmidt Independence Criterion)-based test has been proposed. Its null distribution is approximated either by permutation or a Gamma approximation. In this paper, a new HSIC-based test is proposed. Its asymptotic null and alternative distributions are established. It is shown that the proposed test is root-n consistent. A three-cumulant matched chi-squared-approximation is adopted to approximate the null distribution of the test statistic. By choosing a proper reproducing kernel, the proposed test can be applied to many different types of data including multivariate, high-dimensional, and functional data. Three simulation studies and two real data applications show that in terms of level accuracy, power, and computational cost, the proposed test outperforms several existing tests for multivariate, high-dimensional, and functional data.

The Formosan pangolin (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) is an endangered species in Taiwan. The polymorphisms at major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene regions could provide an indicator for immunological fitness and genetic diversity of a population. In this study, seven different novel markers for MHC genotyping of Formosan pangolin were developed and used to evaluate the genetic diversity of 92 Formosan pangolins. In the MHC markers, six loci showed monomorphism or only two haplotypes. Only one marker, a DLA class II DR-1 beta chain-like locus, showed more diversity: four haplotypes were detected and their relative frequencies were 62.0, 37.0, 0.5 and 0.5%, with nine polymorphic sites in the nucleotide sequence and six variable sites in the amino acid sequence. The non-synonymous substitution rate (dN) and synonymous substitution rate (dS) were 0.026 and 0.017, and showed that this locus appears to be under positive selection (dN /dS >1). Observed heterozygosity (HO) and expected heterozygosity (HE) were 0.413 and 0.482, respectively. FIS was 0.144, indicating that the population might have an inbreeding tendency (FIS > 0). Haplotype diversity (h) was 0.482 and nucleotide diversity (π) was 0.010. Overall, the results indicated that the genetic diversity of MHC genes among Formosan pangolins in Taiwan was insufficient.

D-limonene (LIM) is a common monoterpene compound, principally found in citrus essential oils. This study investigated the anti-obesity effect of LIM on the 5′-adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and high-calorie diet-induced obese rats and confirmed the optimally effective dose of LIM. The 3T3-L1 adipocytes were treated with 0.05–0.4 mg/mL LIM for 10 days and oil red O and triglyceride (TG) content were used to determine the levels of lipid accumulation. The results showed that more than 0.05 mg/mL LIM inhibited lipid accumulation by reducing oil red O in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Masses of 0.2 and 0.4 mg/mL LIM also decreased the TG contents in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. On the other hand, Wistar rats were given high-calorie diets, combined with LLIM (154 mg/kg) and HLIM (1000 mg/kg) treatments, for 16 weeks. The result shows that LLIM and HLIM decreased body weight, total fat tissue weight, and serum low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDLc) levels. HLIM reduced serum TG and increased serum lipase and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDLc) levels. Moreover, the anti-obesity metabolic pathway showed that LIM (>0.05 mg/mL) in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and LIM (>154 mg/kg) in high-calorie diet-induced obese rats could activate the AMPK signaling pathway. The activated AMPK regulated the mRNA expression related to adipogenesis (PPARγ, C/EBPα, FABP4), lipogenesis (SREBP-1c, ACC, FAS), and lipolysis (ATGL, HSL) to inhibit obesity. This finding demonstrates that LIM has anti-obesity properties. Namely, it is seen that LIM acts by regulating the AMPK signaling pathway in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and high-calorie diet-induced obese rats. In terms of dose–response, LIM (154 mg/kg) would be an optimal effective dose for anti-obesity induced by a high-calorie diet.

We have collected 10025 foreground-background quasar pairs with projected distances $d_p0.15$ Å around foreground quasars, including both the LOS (line-of-sights of foreground quasars) and transverse (TRA, perpendicular to the LOS) absorptions. Both the equivalent width (the correlation coefficient $ρ=-0.915$ and the probability $P < 10^{-4}$ of no correlation) and incident rate ($ρ=-0.964$ and $P < 10^{-6}$) of TRA \Mgii\ absorption lines are obviously anti-correlated with projected distance. The incident rate of TRA \Mgii\ absorption lines is obviously ($>4σ$) greater than that of LOS \Mgii\ absorption lines at projected distances $d_p200$ kpc. The anisotropic radiation from quasars would be the most possible interpretation for the anisotropic absorption around quasars. This could also indicate that the quasar radiation is not obviously impacting the gas halos of quasars at scales $d_p>200$ kpc., 15 pages, Accepted in ApJS

Recent experiments have revealed multiple borophene phases of distinct lattice structures, suggesting that the unit cells of the $\nu_{1/6}$ and $\nu_{1/5}$ boron sheets, namely $\alpha$ and $\beta$ chains, serve as...

While there exists several inferential methods for analyzing functional data in factorial designs, there is a lack of statistical tests that are valid (i) in general designs, (ii) under non-restrictive assumptions on the data generating process and (iii) allow for coherent post-hoc analyses. In particular, most existing methods assume Gaussianity or equal covariance functions across groups (homoscedasticity) and are only applicable for specific study designs that do not allow for evaluation of interactions. Moreover, all available strategies are only designed for testing global hypotheses and do not directly allow a more in-depth analysis of multiple local hypotheses. To address the first two problems (i)-(ii), we propose flexible integral-type test statistics that are applicable in general factorial designs under minimal assumptions on the data generating process. In particular, we neither postulate homoscedasticity nor Gaussianity. To approximate the statistics' null distribution, we adopt a resampling approach and validate it methodologically. Finally, we use our flexible testing framework to (iii) infer several local null hypotheses simultaneously. To allow for powerful data analysis, we thereby take the complex dependencies of the different local test statistics into account. In extensive simulations we confirm that the new methods are flexibly applicable. Two illustrate data analyses complete our study. The new testing procedures are implemented in the R package multiFANOVA, which will be available on CRAN soon.

Testing the equality of the covariance matrices of two high-dimensional samples is a fundamental inference problem in statistics. Several tests have been proposed but they are either too liberal or too conservative when the required assumptions are not satisfied which attests that they are not always applicable in real data analysis. To overcome this difficulty, a normal-reference test is proposed and studied in this paper. It is shown that under some regularity conditions and the null hypothesis, the proposed test statistic and a chi-square-type mixture have the same limiting distribution. It is then justified to approximate the null distribution of the proposed test statistic using that of the chi-square-type mixture. The distribution of the chi-square-type mixture can be well approximated using a three-cumulant matched chi-square-approximation with its approximation parameters consistently estimated from the data. The asymptotic power of the proposed test under a local alternative is also established. Simulation studies and a real data example demonstrate that in terms of size control, the proposed test outperforms the existing competitors substantially.

To observe the effect of acupuncture therapy based on "gut-brain axis" on clinical manifestations and gastrointestinal symptoms of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).A total of 66 children with ASD were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 33 cases in each group. The control group was treated by routine rehabilitation training. On the basis of the control group, the observation group was treated with acupuncture based on "gut-brain axis", and the acupoints were Touwei (ST 8), Shenting (GV 24), Sishencong (EX-HN 1), Tianshu (ST 25), Zhongwan (CV 12), Zusanli (ST 36), etc. Both treatments were given once every other day, 3 times a week, 4 weeks as a course of treatment, consecutively for 3 courses. The scores of autism behavior checklist (ABC), TCM symptoms of gastrointestinal disease and childhood autism rating scale (CARS) were compared between the two groups before and after treatment, and the clinical efficacy was evaluated.After treatment, the scores of ABC, CARS and TCM symptoms of gastrointestinal disease in the two groups were lower than before treatment (On the basis of routine rehabilitation training, acupuncture therapy based on "gut-brain axis" is effective in treating ASD, which can relieve the clinical manifestations and gastrointestinal symptoms.

A centered $$L^2$$ -norm based test statistic is used for testing if a high-dimensional mean vector equals zero where the data dimension may be much larger than the sample size. Inspired by the fact that under some regularity conditions the asymptotic null distributions of the proposed test are the same as the limiting distributions of a chi-square-mixture, a three-cumulant matched chi-square-approximation is suggested to approximate this null distribution. The asymptotic power of the proposed test under a local alternative is established and the effect of data non-normality is discussed. A simulation study under various settings demonstrates that in terms of size control, the proposed test performs significantly better than some existing competitors. Several real data examples are presented to illustrate the wide applicability of the proposed test to a variety of high-dimensional data analysis problems, including the one-sample problem, paired two-sample problem, and MANOVA for correlated samples or independent samples.

Much attention has been devoted to the synthesis and antimicrobial studies of nanopatterned surfaces. However, factors contributing to their potential and eventual application, such as large-scale synthesis, material durability, and biocompatibility, are often neglected in such studies. In this paper, the ZnO nanopillar surface is found to be amenable to synthesis in large forms and stable upon exposure to highly accelerated lifetime tests (HALT) without any detrimental effect on its antimicrobial activity. Additionally, the material is effective against clinically isolated pathogens and biocompatible

The toroidal tuned liquid column damper (TTLCD) is a recently developed device, which extends the application scenarios of liquid column dampers to multidirectional vibration control. Based on the single-TTLCD, this article creatively designs a multilayer-TTLCD, composed of several cylinder shells and baffles, to improve the damping performance in multidirection. The real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) technique is employed to experimentally investigate the control efficiency of the multilayer-TTLCD. It is confirmed that the multilayer configuration makes it possible to incorporate more oscillating liquid into the columns of the container without extra occupied floor area, and thus the liquid mass can be raised. Due to the increase of the liquid mass, the multilayer-TTLCD shows certain improvements on peak and root-mean-square (RMS) displacement mitigation over the single-TTLCD when suppressing one specific structural vibration mode. More importantly, it is found that the multilayer-TTLCD is beneficial in multimodal vibration damping and has potential to control multi-order modal responses of structures simultaneously with a wide frequency range.

For the general linear hypothesis testing problem for high-dimensional data, several interesting tests have been proposed in the literature. Most of them have imposed strong assumptions on the underlying covariance matrix so that their test statistics under the null hypothesis are asymptotically normally distributed. In practice, however, these strong assumptions may not be satisfied or hardly be checked so that these tests are often applied blindly in real data analysis. Their empirical sizes may then be much larger or smaller than the nominal size. For these tests, this is a size control problem which cannot be overcome via purely increasing the sample size to infinity. To overcome this difficulty, in this paper, a new normal-reference test using the centralized $$L^2$$ -norm based test statistic with three cumulant matched chi-square approximation is proposed and studied. Some theoretical discussion and two simulation studies demonstrate that in terms of size control, the new normal-reference test performs very well regardless of if the high-dimensional data are nearly uncorrelated, moderately correlated, or highly correlated and it outperforms two existing competitors substantially. Two real high-dimensional data examples motivate and illustrate the new normal-reference test.

Toroidal tuned liquid column dampers (TLCDs) are recently designed devices that extend the application of TLCDs to multidirectional vibration control. Toroidal TLCDs are promising in suppressing the horizontal vibration response of structures. This study further explores the potential and optimization scheme of toroidal TLCDs for multidirectional pitching vibration mitigation. Firstly, equations of motion for a toroidal TLCD-structure system in pitching motion are presented. A non-iterative analytical closed-form solution for calculating the dynamic response of the system under harmonic loading is developed. Subsequently, optimized frequency tuning ratio and flow resistance coefficient can be obtained. The optimization results theoretically confirm the direction-independent control performance of toroidal TLCDs. A design example of toroidal TLCDs is presented in detail as a reference. Finally, a pendulum rotational structure for TLCDs testing in pitching motion is constructed. The multidirectionality, effectiveness and robustness of toroidal TLCDs in mitigating pitching vibration are verified by free vibration tests.

The liver immune microenvironment is a key element in the development of hepatic inflammation in NAFLD. ApoA4 deficiency increases the hepatic lipid burden, insulin resistance, and metabolic inflammation. However, the effect of ApoA4 on liver immune cells and the precise immune cell subsets that exacerbate fatty liver remain elusive. The aim of this study was to profile the hepatic immune cells affected by ApoA4 in NAFL. We performed scRNA-seq on liver immune cells from WT and ApoA4-deficient mice administered a high-fat diet. Immunostaining and qRT–PCR analysis were used to validate the results of scRNA-seq. We identified 10 discrete immune cell populations comprising macrophages, DCs, granulocytes, B, T and NK&NKT cells and characterized their subsets, gene expression profiles, and functional modules. ApoA4 deficiency led to significant increases in the abundance of specific subsets, including inflammatory macrophages (2-Mφ-Cxcl9 and 4-Mφ-Cxcl2) and activated granulocytes (0-Gran-Wfdc17). Moreover, ApoA4 deficiency resulted in higher Lgals3, Ctss, Fcgr2b, Spp1, Cxcl2, and Elane levels and lower Nr4a1 levels in hepatic immune cells. These genes were consistent with human NAFLD-associated marker genes linked to disease severity. The expression of NE and IL-1β in granulocytes and macrophages as key ApoA4 targets were validate in the presence or absence of ApoA4 by immunostaining. The scRNA-seq data analyses revealed reprogramming of liver immune cells resulted from ApoA4 deficiency. We uncovered that the emergence of ApoA4-associated immune subsets (namely Cxcl9+ macrophage, Cxcl2+ macrophage and Wfdc17+ granulocyte), pathways, and NAFLD-related marker genes may promote the development of NAFL. These findings may provide novel therapeutic targets for NAFL and the foundations for further studying the effects of ApoA4 on immune cells in various diseases.

BackgroundRecent studies indicate that cell mechanics are associated with malignancy through its impact on cell migration and adhesion. Gliomas are the most common primary malignant brain tumors. Low-grade gliomas (LGGs) include diffuse LGGs (WHO grade II) and intermediate-grade gliomas (WHO grade III). Few studies have focused on membrane tension in LGGs. Herein, we assessed the prognostic value of plasma membrane tension-related genes (MTRGs) in LGGs.MethodsWe selected plasma MTRGs identified in previous studies for analysis. Based on LGG RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data in The Cancer Genome Atlas, a prognostic signature containing four genes was constructed via log-rank testing, LASSO regression and stepwise multivariate Cox regression and was validated with other datasets. Additionally, functional annotation, pathway enrichment and immune and molecular characteristics of the prognostic model defined subgroups were analyzed. Thereafter, a predictive nomogram that integrated baseline characteristics was constructed to determine the 3, 5, and 10-year overall survival (OS) of patients with LGG. Differentially expressed genes were confirmed via quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC).ResultsOur MTRG prognostic signature was based on ARFIP2, PICK1, SH3GL2, and SRGAP3 expression levels. The high-risk group was more positively associated with apoptosis and cell adhesion pathways and exhibited a low IDH1 mutation rate, high TP53 mutation rate and a low 1p19q co-deletion rate. The high-risk group also exhibited incremental infiltration of immune cells, more forceful immune activities and high expression of immune checkpoints as well as benefited less from immune therapy compared with the low-risk group. Our prognostic model had better forecasting ability than other scoring systems. We found that the nomogram was a better tool for predicting outcomes for patients with LGG. Finally, qRT-PCR confirmed that SH3GL2 and SRGAP3 expression levels in glioma tissues were significantly lower than those in normal brain tissues. The results of IHC analysis confirmed that SH3GL2 protein expression was higher in patients with longer survival.ConclusionOur plasma membrane tension-related gene prognostic signature is a prospective tool that can differentiate between prognosis, gene mutation landscape, immune microenvironment, immune infiltration and immunotherapeutic efficacy in LGG.

Apolipoprotein A-IV (ApoA-IV) plays a role in satiation and serum lipid transport. In diet-induced obesity (DIO) C57BL/6J mice, ApoA-IV deficiency induced in ApoA-IV-/-knock-out (KO mice) resulted in increased bodyweight, insulin resistance (IR) and plasma free fatty acid (FFA), which was partially reversed by stable ApoA-IV-green fluorescent protein (KO-A4-GFP) transfection in KO mice. DIO KO mice exhibited increased M1 macrophages in epididymal white adipose tissue (eWAT) as well as in the blood. Based on RNA-sequencing analyses, cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions, T cell and B cell receptors, and especially IL-17 and TNF-α, were up-regulated in eWAT of DIO ApoA-IV KO compared with WT mice. Supplemented ApoA-IV suppressed lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced IKK and JNK phosphorylation in Raw264.7 macrophage cell culture assays. When the culture medium was supplemented to 3T3-L1 adipocytes they exhibited an increased sensitivity to insulin. ApoA-IV protects against obesity-associated metabolic inflammation mainly through suppression in M1 macrophages of eWAT, IL17-IKK and IL17-JNK activity.

Calcium (Ca) is a fluid-mobile element and plays a pivotal role in regulating carbon cycling through the precipitation of calcium carbonate. Calcium isotopes have been proposed as a promising tracer for deep carbon recycling because of the higher Ca content and distinctive Ca isotope composition in carbonate relative to the mantle. To test the effect of carbonate recycling on Ca isotope composition in arc magma and determine the fate of carbonate in subduction zones, we analyzed a suite of magmatic rocks from Central America, Southern Lesser Antilles, and Central-eastern Aleutian arcs. These three island arcs have variable thermal regimes from intermediate to cool and sediment types from carbonate-rich to carbonate-poor. Thirty-six arc magmas display δ44/40Ca values from 0.70‰ to 1.00‰ which are similar to the range of fresh mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORBs). Their average δ44/40Ca (0.82 ± 0.12‰, 2SD, n = 36) is lower than the estimates of Bulk Silicate Earth (~0.94‰, BSE) and can be ascribed to the effect of mantle partial melting. Despite strong evidence of C and Sr isotopes that various degrees of carbonate metasomatism occurred in the source of these rocks, they do not show Ca isotope variation. Based on the flux model, the buffering effect of the mantle wedge can homogenize the different carbonate Ca isotope signals at subduction zones where carbonate recycling efficiency is lower than 30% or the carbonates are mainly brought by carbonate-bearing altered oceanic crust. For subduction zones with carbonate recycling efficiency higher than 30%, the MORB-like δ44/40Ca in arc magmas may also reflect the storage of Ca in the mantle wedge and the retention of Ca in the descending slab beyond sub-arc depth. Combined with the fact that carbonate Ca isotope signals have been observed in OIBs and intra-plate igneous rocks, our new data indicates that most subducted Ca may finally enter the deep mantle via corner flow or within the descending slab.

High-dimensional data are frequently encountered with the development of modern data collection techniques. Testing the equality of the mean vectors of two high-dimensional samples with possibly different covariance matrices is usually referred to as a high-dimensional two-sample Behrens–Fisher (BF) problem. In the high-dimensional setting, the classical BF solutions are expected to perform poorly or become inapplicable due to the singularity of the sample covariance matrices. Several approaches have been proposed in the literature to address this challenging issue but they all require strong regularity conditions on the underlying covariance matrices to guarantee that their test statistics are asymptotically normally distributed. To overcome this difficulty, an L 2 -norm-based test is proposed and studied in this article. It is shown that under some regularity conditions and the null hypothesis, the test statistic and a chi-square-type mixture have the same normal or non-normal limiting distribution. It is then natural to approximate the null distribution of the proposed test using that of the chi-square-type mixture, which is actually obtained from the proposed test statistic when the two high-dimensional samples are normally distributed. The resulting test is then referred to as a normal reference test. The distribution of the chi-square-type mixture can then be well approximated by the Welch–Satterthwaite χ 2 -approximation with the approximation parameters consistently estimated from the data. The asymptotic power of the proposed test is established. Good performance of the proposed test against several existing competitors is demonstrated via several simulation studies and illustrated by a real data example.

To investigate the influence of age on the function and morphology of patients with myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV) and to evaluate the effect and prognostic factors of recurrence of Conbercept treatment on mCNV patients over 50 years. A total of 64 patients (64 eyes) with mCNV were enrolled in this retrospective study. The differences in baseline best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and morphological features on imaging between the younger group (˂ 50 years) and the older group (≥ 50 years) were analyzed. Of all, 21 eyes of 21 mCNV patients aged over 50 years who received Conbercept injection were further analyzed. Between the younger and the older group, significant differences were shown in mean BCVA (0.58 ± 0.28 vs 0.77 ± 0.31), subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT) (108.17 ± 78.32 μm vs 54.68 ± 39.03 μm) and frequency of vitreoretinal interface abnormalities (VIA) (2 vs 13), respectively (P

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder and negative lifestyle factors may contribute to its etiopathogenesis. Substantial evidence from humans and murine models reveals that Insulin Resistance (IR) associated with a high fat diet (HFD) increases the risk of developing AD and age-related amyloidogenesis. Objective: The aim of the study was to corroborate and clarify the influence of HFD on amyloidogenesis and cognitive deficits in AD model mice. Methods: We here show that a four months HFD-feeding increases IR in both the periphery and brain of APP/PS1 mice, which are used as AD models. Meanwhile, long-term HFD exacerbates cognitive defects and impairs dendritic integrity and expressions of synaptic proteins in APP/PS1 mice. Furthermore, HFD induces an increase in β-secretase (BACE1) expression and a decrease in insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) expression, resulting in β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation. Conclusion: Our data suggest that long-term HFD, with the accompanying IR, promotes Aβ toxicity and cognitive deficits, indicating that modifiable lifestyle hazards such as HFD-induced IR might contribute to AD pathogenesis.

The Formosan pangolin (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) is an endangered species in Taiwan. Usually, a decline in population size leads to a decrease in genetic diversity and increases the risk of extinction. Thus, measuring genetic diversity of Formosan pangolins in Taiwan is important in conservation programs. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes play a crucial role in the immune response in many animals. Therefore, polymorphisms at these gene regions could provide an indicator for the immunological fitness of a population. In this study, seven different novel markers for MHC genotyping of Formosan pangolin were developed. In total, 92 Formosan pangolins from throughout Taiwan were collected and used to evaluate their genetic diversity. In the MHC markers, six loci showed monomorphism or only two haplotypes. Only one marker, a DLA class II DR-1 beta chain-like locus, showed more diversity: four haplotypes were detected and their relative frequencies were 62.0, 37.0, 0.5 and 0.5%, with nine polymorphic sites in the nucleotide sequence and six variable sites in the amino acid sequence. Moreover, the non-synonymous substitution rate (dN) and synonymous substitution rate (dS) were 0.026 and 0.017, and showed that this locus appears to be under positive selection (dN /dS >1). In the DLA class II DR-1 beta chain-like locus, the observed heterozygosity (HO) and expected heterozygosity (HE) were 0.413 and 0.482, respectively. FIS was 0.144, indicating that the population might have an inbreeding tendency (FIS > 0). Haplotype diversity (h) was 0.482 and nucleotide diversity (π) was 0.010. Overall, the present results indicate that the genetic diversity of MHC genes among Formosan pangolins in our sample population may be insufficient.

Hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance (IR) are risk factors for many metabolic syndromes such as NAFLD and T2DM. ApoA4 improves glucose hemostasis by increasing glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and glucose uptake via PI3K-Akt activation in adipocytes. However, whether ApoA4 has an effect on hepatic steatosis or IR remains unclear.ApoA4-knockout (KO) aggravates diet-induced obesity, hepatic steatosis, and IR in mice promoted by increased hepatic lipogenesis gene expression based on RNA-seq data. Conversely, liver-specific overexpression of ApoA4 via AAV-ApoA4 transduction reverses the effect in ApoA4-KO mice, accompanied by suppressed hepatic lipogenesis, increased lipolysis, and fatty acid oxidation. Short-term treatment with recombinant ApoA4 protein improves glucose clearance and liver insulin sensitivity, and reduces hepatic lipogenesis gene expression in the absence of insulin. Moreover, in primary hepatocytes and a hepatic cell line, ApoA4 improves hepatic glucose uptake via IRS-PI3K-Akt signaling and decreases fat deposition and hepatic lipogenesis gene expression by inhibiting SREBF1 activity.ApoA4 restricts hepatic steatosis by inhibiting SREBF1-mediated lipogenesis and improves insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake via IRS-PI3K-Akt signaling in the liver. These findings indicate that ApoA4 may serve as a therapeutic target for obesity-associated NAFLD.

BACKGROUND In general, atlantoaxial dislocation is rare due to the stability of the C1-C2 complex. Traumatic atlantoaxial dislocations are usually anterior and accompanied by odontoid fractures. Posterior atlantoaxial dislocations are rare, and complete posterior dislocation without associated fracture is even more rare. A case of early recurrence of posterior atlantoaxial dislocation without fracture being in therapy of first closed reduction and then open reduction has not been previously reported. CASE SUMMARY A 45-year-old female presented with traumatic posterior atlantoaxial dislocation (TPAD) of C1-C2 without associated fractures, and Frankel Grade B spinal cord function. She was successfully managed by immediate closed reduction under skull traction. Unexpectedly, 17 d later, re-dislocation was discovered. On day 28, closed reduction was performed as before but failed. Then, open reduction and posterior internal fixation with autologous iliac bone grafts was performed. By 6 mo after surgery, atlantoaxial joint fusion was achieved, and neurological function had recovered to Frankel Grade E. At 12 mo follow-up, she had lost only 15° of cervical rotation, and atlantoaxial complex instability in joint flexing and extending were no longer observed under fluoroscopy. CONCLUSION Early assessment of transverse ligament is critical for TPAD without fracture avoiding re-dislocation after closed reduction.