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Background: Black rice is rich in various nutrients, such as anthocyanins, which may undergo some changes during cooking. However, previous studies have been mainly focused on a single substance and paid less attention to the changes in overall nutrient components. Here, we performed widely targeted metabolomics analysis on the chemical compositional changes in a new black rice variety ('Huamoxiang No.3') under three cooking modes, including bottom heating (BH), induction heating (IH), and IH + pressure. Results: Among the detected 1458 metabolites, 276 and 108 metabolites were differential metabolites after cooking and in three cooking modes, respectively. Cooking increased the contents of most peptides, phenolic acids, and organic acid compounds but significantly decreased those of lipids and flavonoids, particularly anthocyanins. However, phenolic acids such as chlorogenic acid, erucic acid, and p‐coumaric acid increased significantly, possibly due to the release of bound phenols and degradation of flavonoids to phenolic acids, such as thermal degradation of C3G to protocatechuic acid and among the three heating modes, the IH + pressure mode resulted in the most significant changes. Conclusion: Although cooking reduced the content of flavonoids and anthocyanins, the increase in phenolic acids and other substances contributed to the healthy effect of cooked black rice, and the content of these active substances increased more significantly in the IH + pressure mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing piezoelectric materials with the built-in electric field caused by mechanical force has been confirmed as an effective strategy to boost the separation efficiency of photoexcited charge carriers that determines the photocatalytic performance. In this study, we introduced Bi4Ti3O12 with superior piezoelectric properties into BiVO4–Bi4V2O10 materials to synthesize a 2D Bi4Ti3O12–BiVO4–Bi4V2O10 photocatalyst via a facile hydrothermal method. Compared with bare BiVO4, the Bi4Ti3O12–BiVO4–Bi4V2O10 piezo-photocatalytic activity towards Cr(VI) removal and oxygen evolution is boosted remarkably under both illumination and ultrasound treatments. The promoted photocatalytic activity can be ascribed to the accelerated photoexcited carrier separation efficiency driven by the polarization electric field and the synergy effect in the heterostructure. This work provides a simple and sustainable strategy for the design and development of piezo-photocatalysts with high photoredox activity capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So far, there have been a large number of diaphragm walls in the Yangtze River Delta as engineering examples of deep foundation pit maintenance structures in subway stations, but there is a lack of systematic research and summary on the deformation characteristics of ground connecting walls. This study aimed to clarify the deformation law of the diaphragm wall during the excavation of a deep foundation pit in a soft soil region. Based on the monitoring data of the diaphragm wall of the deep foundation pit of the Hangzhou metro station, the monitoring data of the deep foundation pits of 15 subway stations in Shanghai and Ningbo cities around Hangzhou were considered. Grouping and classification methods were used to analyze the similarities and differences in the deformation characteristics of the diaphragm wall in the three regions. The results indicate the following: the maximum lateral deformation of the diaphragm wall in Hangzhou increases linearly with the relative depth of the maximum lateral deformation. The maximum lateral deformation of the foundation pit in Hangzhou is 0.072% H∼0.459% H, with a mean of 0.173% H. The wall deformation in Hangzhou varies significantly with the depth of the foundation pit, but the influence of the depth of the foundation pit on the wall deformation is considerably less than that in Shanghai and Ningbo. The corresponding position of the maximum lateral deformation in the excavation depth increases linearly with the excavation depth of the foundation pit, and the corresponding position of the lateral deformation of the diaphragm wall in Shanghai is more affected by the excavation depth of the foundation pit. The lateral deformation of the diaphragm wall increases rapidly in the range of 0 H–0.5 H, and the maximum lateral deformation occurs at 0.5 H–1.1 H. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The buffer generation algorithm is a fundamental function in GIS, identifying areas of a given distance surrounding geographic features. Past research largely focused on buffer generation algorithms generated in a stand-alone environment. Moreover, dissolved buffer generation is dataand computing-intensive. In this scenario, the improvement in the stand-alone environment is limited when considering large-scale mass vector data. Nevertheless, recent parallel dissolved vector buffer algorithms suffer from scalability problems, leaving room for further optimization. At present, the prevailing in-memory cluster-computing framework--Spark--provides promising efficiency for computing-intensive analysis; however, it has seldom been researched for buffer analysis. On this basis, we propose a cluster-computing-oriented parallel dissolved vector buffer generating algorithm, called the HPBM, that contains a Hilbert-space-filling-curve-based data partition method, a data skew and cross-boundary objects processing strategy, and a depth-given tree-like merging method. Experiments are conducted in both stand-alone and cluster environments using real-world vector data that include points and roads. Compared with some existing parallel buffer algorithms, as well as various popular GIS software, the HPBM achieves a performance gain of more than 50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with common pathophysiological processes, such as inflammation and fibrosis, in both the heart and the kidney. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms that drive these processes are not yet fully understood. Therefore, this study focused on the molecular mechanism of heart and kidney injury in CKD., Methods: We generated a microRNA (miR)-26a knockout (KO) mouse model to investigate the role of miR-26a in angiotensin (Ang)-II-induced cardiac and renal injury. We performed Ang-II modeling in wild type (WT) mice and miR-26a KO mice, with six mice in each group. In addition, Ang-II-treated AC16 cells and HK2 cells were used as in vitro models of cardiac and renal injury in the context of CKD. Histological staining, immunohistochemistry, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and Western blotting were applied to study the regulation of miR-26a on Ang-II-induced cardiac and renal injury. Immunofluorescence reporter assays were used to detect downstream genes of miR-26a, and immunoprecipitation was employed to identify the interacting protein of LIM and senescent cell antigen-like domain 1 (LIMS1). We also used an adeno-associated virus (AAV) to supplement LIMS1 and explored the specific regulatory mechanism of miR-26a on Ang-II-induced cardiac and renal injury. Dunnett's multiple comparison and t-test were used to analyze the data., Results: Compared with the control mice, miR-26a expression was significantly downregulated in both the kidney and the heart after Ang-II infusion. Our study identified LIMS1 as a novel target gene of miR-26a in both heart and kidney tissues. Downregulation of miR-26a activated the LIMS1/integrin-linked kinase (ILK) signaling pathway in the heart and kidney, which represents a common molecular mechanism underlying inflammation and fibrosis in heart and kidney tissues during CKD. Furthermore, knockout of miR-26a worsened inflammation and fibrosis in the heart and kidney by inhibiting the LIMS1/ILK signaling pathway; on the contrary, supplementation with exogenous miR-26a reversed all these changes., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that miR-26a could be a promising therapeutic target for the treatment of cardiorenal injury in CKD. This is attributed to its ability to regulate the LIMS1/ILK signaling pathway, which represents a common molecular mechanism in both heart and kidney tissues., (Copyright © 2024 The Chinese Medical Association, produced by Wolters Kluwer, Inc. under the CC-BY-NC-ND license.)

Introducing piezoelectric materials with the built-in electric field caused by mechanical force has been confirmed as an effective strategy to boost the separation efficiency of photoexcited charge carriers that determines the photocatalytic performance. In this study, we introduced Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 with superior piezoelectric properties into BiVO 4 -Bi 4 V 2 O 10 materials to synthesize a 2D Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 -BiVO 4 -Bi 4 V 2 O 10 photocatalyst via a facile hydrothermal method. Compared with bare BiVO 4 , the Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 -BiVO 4 -Bi 4 V 2 O 10 piezo-photocatalytic activity towards Cr(VI) removal and oxygen evolution is boosted remarkably under both illumination and ultrasound treatments. The promoted photocatalytic activity can be ascribed to the accelerated photoexcited carrier separation efficiency driven by the polarization electric field and the synergy effect in the heterostructure. This work provides a simple and sustainable strategy for the design and development of piezo-photocatalysts with high photoredox activity capacity.