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This paper describes the study of the acoustic field of a fluid-filled pipe subjected to axial stress based on the acoustoelastic theory. The pipe with applied axial stresses can be approximated as a transversely isotropic pipe, and hence, its acoustic fields can be expressed using potential functions. The velocity changes of longitudinal wave modes with applied stresses are analyzed for the pipe filled with oil by an analytical method. It was found that the longitudinal mode velocity changes almost uniformly with the applied stresses. The high speed and low frequency plateaus of longitudinal wave modes are sensitive to stress. The relationship between stress and the velocity change of the guided wave is given. The results indicate that non-destructive testing techniques using longitudinal wave modes have strong potential to identify and monitor the stress levels in pipe structures.

CRISPR-Cas modules serve as the adaptive nucleic-acid immune systems for prokaryotes, and provide versatile tools for nucleic-acid manipulation in various organisms. Here, we discovered a new miniature type V system, CRISPR-Casπ (Cas12l) (∼860 aa), from the environmental metagenome. Complexed with a large guide-RNA (∼170 nt) comprising the tracrRNA and crRNA, Casπ (Cas12l) recognizes a unique 5’ C-rich PAM for DNA cleavage under a broad range of biochemical conditions, and generates gene editing in mammalian cells. Cryo-EM study reveals a ‘bracelet’ architecture of Casπ effector encircling the DNA target at 3.4-Å resolution, substantially different from the canonical ‘two-lobe’ architectures of Cas12 and Cas9 nucleases. And the large guide-RNA serves as a ‘two-arm’ scaffold for effector assembly. Our study expands the knowledge of DNA targeting mechanisms by CRISPR effectors, and offers an efficient but compact platform for DNA manipulations.

In this paper, we construct a borehole model with an impermeable/permeable wall and study the seismoelectric responses. First, we define the boundary conditions at the borehole wall, then the acoustic field and electric field are simulated by the real axis integral method. In order to have a comprehensive analysis of the body wave components, we use the secant integral method to simulate the body waves and give the excitation intensity spectrum in the frequency domain. The results show that the impermeability of the borehole wall significantly increases the amplitude of the acoustic field generated by Stoneley waves. This is because the closed pores at the boundary make Stoneley waves energy leak more slowly and hence attenuating less. The impermeable borehole wall weakens the electromagnetic interface response. Besides, both P wave and S wave and their accompanying electric field properties are affected by boundary connectivity. This investigation provides a theoretical basis for qualitatively judging borehole wall permeability by the seismoelectric signals.

Understanding acoustic field characteristics in the cased hole accompanied by stress is important for acoustical logging. This study investigates the behavior of multipole wavefields of a cased hole with a perfect combination of casing, cement, and formation under the formation borehole-axial stress. The formation can be equivalent to a transversely isotropic medium when uniaxial stress acts on isotropic formation based on nonlinear elasticity theory. The effect of axial stress in the formation on multipole wavefields in cased hole is investigated. Numerical results show that the phase slowness of Stoneley, flexural, and screw waves decreases with an increase in axial compressive stress. With the increase of uniaxial stresses, the arrival times of the full waveforms decrease, and the amplitudes of the full waveforms increase. These characteristics are similar to that of the open hole. For cased holes in soft formations, the excitation curves of flexural and screw waves shift to low frequencies as the stress increases; and the dispersion curves corresponding to excitation curves also exhibit a similar shift, while open holes do not have this pattern. The wavefields excited by a dipole source and quadrupole source in the cased hole in soft formation have more prominent changes in the frequency spectra, and the changes in the integral amplitudes of the full waveforms are larger than those of the open hole. We found that responses of wavefields excited by dipole and quadrupole sources in cased holes in soft formation to the axial stress are more sensitive than those in the open hole.

Supplementary Table S1. Clinical characteristics of patients included in this study.

Liver metastasis, the leading cause of colorectal cancer mortality, exhibits a highly heterogeneous and suppressive immune microenvironment. Here, we sequenced 97 matched samples by using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics. Strikingly, the metastatic microenvironment underwent remarkable spatial reprogramming of immunosuppressive cells such as MRC1+ CCL18+ M2-like macrophages. We further developed scMetabolism, a computational pipeline for quantifying single-cell metabolism, and observed that those macrophages harbored enhanced metabolic activity. Interestingly, neoadjuvant chemotherapy could block this status and restore the antitumor immune balance in responsive patients, whereas the nonresponsive patients deteriorated into a more suppressive one. Our work described the immune evolution of metastasis and uncovered the black box of how tumors respond to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.Significance:We present a single-cell and spatial atlas of colorectal liver metastasis and found the highly metabolically activated MRC1+ CCL18+ M2-like macrophages in metastatic sites. Efficient neoadjuvant chemotherapy can slow down such metabolic activation, raising the possibility to target metabolism pathways in metastasis.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 1

Supplementary Table S2. Marker genes for all immune cell subsets.

Supplementary Table S4. Macrophage phenotypic gene signature.

Supplementary Figure S1. The Cellular and Spatial Features of Infiltrated Immune Cells in CRLM, Related to Figure 1. (A) UMAP plot reveals the immune cell difference among patients, treatment types, and tissues. (B) Dot plot reveals the selected marker gene expression of main cell types. (C) UMAP plot reveals the selected marker expression distribution of main cell types. (D) Histogram showing the immune cell infiltration level of all patients. (E) Histogram showing the immune cell type difference between untreated samples and NAC treated samples. (F) The UMAP plot showing the sub populations of B cells, CD4 T cells, and NK cells. (G) The CD4 T cell score of spatial transcriptomics in CRC & LM. (H) The Plasma cell score of spatial transcriptomics in CRC & LM. - Supplementary Figure S2. Discovery and Validation of Tissue-Specific Immune Cells, Related to Figure 2. (A) UMAP plot reveals the tissue-specific or tissue-shared immune cells in adjacent colon, CRC, adjacent liver, LM, LN, and PBMC, respectively. (B) Kupffer cell signature of all LM-infiltrated myeloid cells reveals that MRC1+ CCL18+ M2-like macrophages potentially derived from hepatic Kupffer cells. (C) Validation of immune cells in another independent bulk microarray dataset of CRLM (Methods). *, P < 0.05; ***, P < 0.005; N.S.., not significant. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (D) The survival plot of SPP1+ Macrophages in TCGA CRC patients. P values were determined by log-rank test. - Supplementary Figure S3. Suppressive Immune Cells in Primary and Metastatic Tumors Showed Unique States, Related to Figure 3. (A) Cancer cell pathway enrichment analysis in CRC and LM. Cancer hallmark gene sets were used to perform the pathway enrichment analysis (Methods). (B) The volcano plot represents the differentially expressed genes of SPP1+ macrophages between CRC and LM. (C) The selected gene expression of SPP1+ macrophages in CRC and LM. ***, P < 0.005. P values were determined by Wilcox test. - Supplementary Figure S4. Metabolic Activity of Suppressive Immune Cells, Related to Figure 4. (A) The correlation between VISION, AUCell, and ssGSEA generated metabolism pathway score in scMetabolism pipeline. Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC), melanoma, Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC), and testis scRNA-seq data were tested. (B-E) The correlation between metabolism pathway score of simulated dropout, imputed, and raw HNSCC (B), PBMC (C), melanoma (D), and testis (E) scRNA-seq data. We tested the simulated dropout of 5%, 10%, 20%, and 30% of expressed genes. (F) Multiplex immunohistochemistry shows the proportions of SPP1+ macrophages which harbor high metabolic enzyme expression (GSTO1, IL4l1, and MIF). The y axis represents the proportion of triple positive cells of all CD68+ cells. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (G) Multiplex immunohistochemistry shows the selected imaging results of spatial distribution of metabolic enzyme expression (GSTO1, IL4l1, and MIF) in SPP1+ macrophages and CCL18+ macrophages. (H) The UMAP plot of cell type distribution and tissue distribution of all CD45+ cells in mouse CRLM samples. (I) The expression of selected markers of all CD45+ cells in mouse CRLM samples. (J) The cell type proportion among all CD45+ cells in mouse CRLM samples. (K) The score of phenylalanine metabolism of Mrc1+ macrophages and expression of Mif of Mrc1+ macrophages between CRC and LM. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (L) The phenotypic score of MRC1+ CCL18+ macrophages in LM and CRC. n.s., not significant. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (M) The phenotypic score of SPP1+ macrophages in LM and CRC. n.s., not significant. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (N) The selected gene expression associated with antigen processing & presentation and complement in CRC and LM -infiltrated MRC1+ CCL18+ macrophages. ***, P < 0.005. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (O) Correlation between phenotypic score and metabolic activity score in CRC MRC1+ CCL18+ macrophages. Only tumor high metabolic pathways were used for analysis. *, P < 0.05 and Rho > 0.3. P values were determined by Spearman's rank test. - Supplementary Figure S5. The Immune Cell Changes After Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy, Related to Figure 5. (A) The cell clustering of untreated samples.. (B) Pathway enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes of untreated and NAC-treated cancer cells in CRC and LM. Cancer hallmark gene sets are used to perform the pathway enrichment analysis (Methods). (C) The dot plot shows the alterations of immune cells in adjacent colon, LN, adjacent liver and PBMC bwtween untreated and NAC-PR samples. (D) The dot plot shows the alterations of immune cells in adjacent colon and adjacent liver bwtween untreated and NAC-PD/SD samples. - Supplementary Figure S6. Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Reprogrammed the Suppressive Immune Cells, Related to Figure 6. (A) Cellular proportional changes of SPP1+ macrophages in untreated and NAC-treated samples revealed by scRNA-seq. The y axis represents the proportion of SPP1+ M2 macrophages among all CD45+ cells. ***, P < 0.005; N.S., not siginicant. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (B) Cellular proportional changes of SPP1+ CD68+ cells in untreated and NAC-treated samples revealed by multiplex immunohistochemistry. The y axis represents the proportion of CD68+ SPP1+ cells among all CD68+ cells. The boxplot represents the mean value and the error bar represents the standard error value. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (C) Trajectory plot shows the treatment status, pseudotime, cell type, tissue, MRC1 expression and S100A9 expression of all myeloid cells in untreated and treated-PD/SD group. (D) Pathway enrichment analysis of highly expressed genes of myeloid cells in CRC (Untreated v.s. PD/SD and untreated v.s. PR respectively). KEGG gene sets were used to perform the pathway enrichment analysis (Methods). - Supplementary Figure S7. Immune Cells in Multifocal Metastasis Harbored Distinct Metabolic and Phenotypic Activity, Related to Figure 7. (A) The significantly differential metabolic activity of MRC1+ CCL18+ macrophages in P10. ***, P < 0.005. P values were determined by Wilcox test. (B) The phenotypic activity of MRC1+ CCL18+ macrophages in P10. ***, P < 0.005. P values were determined by Wilcox test.

In this work, a novel methodology to design bifunctional ECL-luminophores with self-enhanced and TSA-amplified characteristics was proposed for improving the sensing performance of ECL-immunosensor toward trace cytokine analysis. Thanks to the qualitative- and quantitative- dual signal amplification technique, the as-prepared ECL biosensor demonstrated excellent detection performance. By analyzing the prospective cytokine biomarkers (IL-6), the ECL immunosensor exhibited a broad examination range with quite low detection limit and quite high selectivity, which was far superior to commercial ELISA kits and ever reported works. In particular, the novel ECL nanoprobe developed here could also be applied to monitor other immune toxicities or disease-related cytokines by using the respective antibodies corresponding to these targets. Moreover, the concept and construction strategy of self-amplified ECL-luminophores presented here could be further extended to design a series of Pdots-derived multicolored ECL probes to meet the needs of multipathway detection applications.

Although some reliability importance measures and maintenance policies for mechanical products exist in literature, they are rarely investigated with reference to weakest component identification in the design stage and preventive maintenance interval during the life cycle. This paper is mainly study reliability importance measures considering performance and costs (RIMPC) of maintenance and downtime of the mechanical hydraulic system (MHS) for hydraulic excavators (HE) with energy regeneration and recovery system (ERRS) and suggests the scheduled maintenance interval for key components and the system itself based on the reliability R i t . In the research, the required failure data for reliability analysis is collected from maintenance crews and users over three years of a certain type of hydraulic excavators. Minitab is used for probable distribution estimation of the mechanical hydraulic system failure times, and the model is verified to obey Weibull distribution. RIMPC is calculated by multiplying the reliability R i t and weighting factor W i and then compared with other classical importance measures. The purpose of this paper is to identify the weakest component for MHS in the design stage and to make appropriate maintenance strategies which help to maintain a high reliability level for MHS. The proposed method also provides the scientific maintenance suggestion for improving the MHS reliability of the HE reasonably, which is efficient, profitable, and organized.

Liver metastasis, the leading cause of colorectal cancer mortality, exhibits a highly heterogeneous and suppressive immune microenvironment. Here, we sequenced 97 matched samples by using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics. Strikingly, the metastatic microenvironment underwent remarkable spatial reprogramming of immunosuppressive cells such as MRC1+ CCL18+ M2-like macrophages. We further developed scMetabolism, a computational pipeline for quantifying single-cell metabolism, and observed that those macrophages harbored enhanced metabolic activity. Interestingly, neoadjuvant chemotherapy could block this status and restore the antitumor immune balance in responsive patients, whereas the nonresponsive patients deteriorated into a more suppressive one. Our work described the immune evolution of metastasis and uncovered the black box of how tumors respond to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Significance: We present a single-cell and spatial atlas of colorectal liver metastasis and found the highly metabolically activated MRC1+ CCL18+ M2-like macrophages in metastatic sites. Efficient neoadjuvant chemotherapy can slow down such metabolic activation, raising the possibility to target metabolism pathways in metastasis. This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 1

The development of a sensitive cytosensor is beneficial for the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Herein, highly sensitive cytosensing was achieved by applying triple signal amplification strategies with Fe

Object: To identify the expression profiles and demonstrate the potential functions of tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) in the formation of age-related cataract (ARC). Methods: Human lens epithelial cell line (HLE-B3 cells) were treated with H2O2, small RNA sequencing analysis was performed to identify expression profiles of tsRNAs in control and H2O2-treated HLE-B3 cells. Then, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were employed to illustrate the potential functions of differentially expressed (DE) tsRNAs and target genes in ARC. Finally, quantitative real-time PCR assay was used to verify the expression patterns of DE tsRNAs. Results: Totally 604 DE tsRNAs (329 upregulated and 275 downregulated) were obtained between control and H2O2-treated HLE-B3 cells. Bioinformatic analysis results showed that calcium signaling pathway may mainly participate in the formation of ARC. Conclusion: Our results indicated that tsRNAs may be associated with the pathogenesis of ARC, and thus might be potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets for ARC.

6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate (6:2 FTSA) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant belonging to the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Previous studies showed that hydroxyl radical (

Efficient destruction of perfluoroalkyl compounds in contaminated waters remains a challenge because of highly stable C-F bonds. In this study, mineralization of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) with high concentration (∼30 mg/L) was realized in a needle-plate pulsed discharge reactor integrated with a water jet (NPDW) to which microbubbles (MBs) with different carrier gases (air, N2, and Ar) were introduced to enhance interfacial reactions. MBs effectively enrich dispersed PFOA from a bulk solution to a liquid surface to allow enhancing contact with reactive species and also expanding the plasma discharge area and channels. The PFOA removal efficiency in air and Ar discharge reached 81.5 and 95.3% in 2 h, respectively, with a defluorination ratio of no less than 50%. Energy requirements (EE/O) ranged from 216.49 to 331.95 kWh/m3. Aside from fluoride, PFOA was degraded to a range of short-chain perfluoroalkyl acids and, to a minor extent, at least 20 other fluorinated transformation products. PFOA degradation mechanisms were proposed, including decarboxylation, hydroxylation, hydrogenation reduction, and defluorination reactions. Real water matrices (groundwater, tap water, wastewater effluent, and surface water) showed moderate impact on treatment outcomes, demonstrating the robustness of the treatment process. The study demonstrated an environmentally friendly nonthermal plasma technology for effective PFOA degradation.

A Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Focused Topic Meeting (FTM) on the environmental management of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) convened during August 2019 in Durham, North Carolina (USA). Experts from around the globe were brought together to critically evaluate new and emerging information on PFAS including chemistry, fate, transport, exposure, and toxicity. After plenary presentations, breakout groups were established and tasked to identify and adjudicate via panel discussions overarching conclusions and relevant data gaps. The present review is one in a series and summarizes outcomes of presentations and breakout discussions related to (1) primary sources and pathways in the environment, (2) sorption and transport in porous media, (3) precursor transformation, (4) practical approaches to the assessment of source zones, (5) standard and novel analytical methods with implications for environmental forensics and site management, and (6) classification and grouping from multiple perspectives. Outcomes illustrate that PFAS classification will continue to be a challenge, and additional pressing needs include increased availability of analytical standards and methods for assessment of PFAS and fate and transport, including precursor transformation. Although the state of the science is sufficient to support a degree of site-specific and flexible risk management, effective source prioritization tools, predictive fate and transport models, and improved and standardized analytical methods are needed to guide broader policies and best management practices. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;40:3234-3260. © 2021 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.

Zwitterionic, cationic, and anionic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are increasingly reported in terrestrial and aquatic environments, but their inputs to agricultural lands are not fully understood. Here, we characterized PFAS in 47 organic waste products (OWP) applied in agricultural fields of France, including historical and recent materials. Overall, 160 PFAS from 42 classes were detected from target screening and homologue-based nontarget screening. Target PFAS were low in agriculture-derived wastes such as pig slurry, poultry manure, or dairy cattle manure (median ∑46PFAS: 0.66 μg/kg dry matter). Higher PFAS levels were reported in urban and industrial wastes, paper mill sludge, sewage sludge, or residual household waste composts (median ∑46PFAS: 220 μg/kg). Historical municipal biosolids and composts (1976–1998) were dominated by perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), N-ethyl perfluorooctanesulfonamido acetic acid (EtFOSAA), and cationic and zwitterionic electrochemical fluorination precursors to PFOS. Contemporaneous urban OWP (2009–2017) were rather dominated by zwitterionic fluorotelomers, which represented on average 55% of ∑160PFAS (max: 97%). The fluorotelomer sulfonamidopropyl betaines (X:2 FTSA-PrB, median: 110 μg/kg, max: 1300 μg/kg) were the emerging class with the highest occurrence and prevalence in contemporary urban OWP. They were also detected as early as 1985. The study informs for the first time that urban sludges and composts can be a significant repository of zwitterionic and cationic PFAS.

We evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of four doses of 20 or 60 ��g, and the immunogenicity and compliance of the short-term vaccination regimen (0, 1, and 2 months) among patients receiving MMT. We conducted a randomized controlled trial among 303 patients receiving MMT who were randomized to receive 3 or 4 doses of 20 or 60 ��g of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine. At month 7, the seroconversion rates in both IM20 �� 4 and IM60 �� 4 groups were numerically higher than the IM20 �� 3 group (P > 0.05). The high-level responses and geometric mean concentration (GMC) of anti-HBs in both IM20 �� 4 and IM60 �� 4 groups were significantly higher than the IM20 �� 3 group (P 0.05). The completion rate of the short-term high-strength vaccination group was significantly higher than the standard vaccination group (P 0.05), with similar immunogenicity (P > 0.05). Both the high-strength and standard-strength four-dose hepatitis B vaccine regimens could improve the immune response for patients receiving MMT. The high-strength short-term vaccination regimen could improve compliance and attain comparable immunogenicity with the standard vaccination regimen. The high-strength short-term vaccination regimen is recommended and the fourth dose is encouraged for this population considering the compliance and immunogenicity. ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03962816)

Shijuan Zhang,1 Yuhong Wei,2 Jinxia Liu,3 Yutian Zhuang1 1Department of Critical Care Medicine, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, Shandong, 262500, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Gastroenterology First Ward, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, Shandong, 262500, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology First Ward, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, Shandong, 262500, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yutian ZhuangDepartment of Critical Care Medicine, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, Shandong, 262500, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-13573698900Fax +86-0536-3277731Email zhuang76349@163.comIntroduction: Sepsis is a heterogeneous syndrome with a life-long threat caused by infection. This study aimed to investigate the clinical function of miR-940 and its influence on cardiomyocyte models.Methods: The relative expression of miR-940 was assessed by qRT-PCR and the roles in the clinical diagnosis of miR-940 were revealed by the ROC curve. The relationship between miR-940 and clinical parameters was validated by Pearson analysis. The sepsis rat models were established by treatment with cecal ligation and perforation (CLP) and clinical items including left ventricular systolic pressure (LVSP), left ventricular and end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), maximum rate of increase/decrease in left ventricular blood pressure (± dp/dtmax) as well as troponin (cTnl), creatine kinase isoenzyme (CK-MB), TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were detected.Results: The finding of qRT-PCR accentuated that the relative expression of miR-940 was significantly decreased in sepsis patients and CLP-stimulated models. The ROC curve proposed that miR-940 could be a satisfactory diagnostic biomarker for sepsis patients. Pearson analysis reinforced the expression of miR-940 was negatively associated with the PCT, WBC, CRP, Scr, SOFA score, and APACHE II score. The outcome of CLP-steered rat verified that overexpression of miR-940 inhibited the detrimental effects of CLP on myocardial dysfunction and inflammation reactions.Conclusion: The downregulation of miR-940 was reported and it might be an underlying diagnostic marker in sepsis patients. Overexpression of miR-940 protected myocardial function from damage and inflammation induced by CLP.Keywords: miR-940, sepsis, inflammation, myocardial disorder

AIEgen doped fluorescent nanodots (AIEdots) have attracted lots of attention, due to their superior characteristics as fluorescent probes, such as excellent photostability, large Stokes shift, high brightness and tunable emission. Unfortunately, most of the currently available AIEdots exhibit broad emission bandwidth, which limits their applications in multiplexed fluorescence imaging and detection. In this work, the strategy of designing and fabricating narrow emissive AIEdots (NE-AIEdots) with tunable wavelengths was presented by constructing a light-harvesting system with high energy transfer efficiency. Efficient intra-particle energy transfer from highly doped AIEgens, serving as the light-harvesting antenna, to the lightly doped narrow emissive fluorophore, resulted in high brightness and narrow emission. The emission band of NE-AIEdots with the full-width-at-half-maximum varied from 18 to 36 nm was 3-6.3 times narrower than that of traditional AIEdots. The single-particle brightness of NE-AIEdots was over 5-times that of commercial quantum dots under the same excitation and collection conditions. Taking advantage of the superior performance of these NE-AIEdots, multiplexed fluorescence imaging of lymph nodes in living mice was realized, which supported the future applications of NE-AIEdots for

In the context of the era of big data, the management of Alzheimer’s patients has aroused widespread concern in the society. What should the elderly and people with dementia do and how the society should accommodate these special groups have aroused heated discussions in the society. The goal of the medical-nursing integration model is to realize the integrated model of medical care-nursing-rehabilitation-old care, and to better satisfy the needs by providing medical services, rehabilitation care, and health management. The medical needs of the elderly can help the elderly maintain a healthy state; the elderly care needs can be better met through elderly care services, and the burden on families and society can be reduced. With the advancement of the medical-care integration model, new solutions have been provided for the management of senile dementia patients. Therefore, under the medical-care integration model, this paper managed Alzheimer’s patients based on the big data algorithm based on association rules and compared it with the management of Alzheimer’s patients under the traditional model, and drew the following conclusions: compared with the management satisfaction of Alzheimer’s patients under the traditional model, family members and patients’ total satisfaction with nursing management under the medical-care integration model was greatly improved; compared with the management of Alzheimer’s patients under the traditional model, the incidence of adverse events in the management of Alzheimer’s patients under the medical-care integration model was greatly reduced, which was reduced to 17.6%; under the medical-care integration model, the anxiety and depression scores of the elderly patients with dementia decreased rapidly; under the medical-care integration model, the living ability of senile dementia patients has been greatly improved; the use of the medical-care integration model to manage senile dementia patients has greatly improved the sleep quality, mental quality, and quality of life of senile dementia patients.

Aβ oligomers have been widely accepted as significant biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) detection, monitoring, and therapy since they are highly correlated with AD development. In this work, an electrochemical array-based sensing platform was successfully built using a group of functionalized graphene with different physicochemical features. Since the electro-insulated Aβ peptide species severely interfered with the electron transport on the electrode surface, the presence of Aβ led to a significant change in the electrochemical impedance signal. The resulting variety of the impedance was then classified and processed by linear discriminant analysis. The constructed sensing platform can discriminate different Aβ forms, the mixture of various Aβ forms, and different ratios of Aβ42 to Aβ40 with 100% accuracy by only the combination of dual probes. Furthermore, it also exhibited excellent performance for screening Aβ inhibitors and metal chelators. The strategy utilizes the infinitesimal general discrepancy instead of specific biomarker recognition, exhibiting the advantage of no requirement to know the exact information about the specific ligand and receptor in advance, which is promising to be widened for the other biosensing detection fields.

Anti-lipopolysaccharide factors (ALFs) are small basic proteins that exhibit broad-spectrum antiviral properties and antibacterial activity. In this research, we cloned and studied two Eriocheir hepuensis ALFs, EhALF2 and EhALF3. The results showed that the open reading frame lengths of EhALF2 and EhALF3 were 363 and 372 bp, encoding 120 and 123 amino acids, respectively. Their sequences both contained an Lipopolysaccharide-binding (LPS) domain and were highly similarity to other crab ALFs. qRT-PCR showed that EhALF2 and EhALF3 were detected in nine examined tissues and were expressed the highest in the haemocytes. After challenge with Vibrio alginolyticus, in the hepatopancreas, the expression levels of EhALF2 and EhALF3 reached the highest levels at 48 and 3 h, respectively. In the heart, the expression levels of the two genes were highest at 12 h. These results indicate that EhALF2 and EhALF3 could participate in the resistance of E. hepuensis to V. alginolyticus stress within a short time. They have potential applications in the study of environmental stress markers and disease-resistance factors in E. hepuensis.

The volume detection of medical mice feed is crucial to understand the food intake requirements of mice at different growth stages and to grasp their growth, development, and health status. Aiming at the problem of volume calculation in the way of feed bulk in mice, a method for detecting the bulk volume of feed in mice based on binocular stereo vision was proposed. Firstly, the three-dimensional point coordinates of the feed's surface were calculated using the binocular stereo vision three-dimensional reconstruction technology. The coordinates of these dense points formed a point cloud, and then the projection method was used to calculate the volume of the point cloud; and finally, the volume of the mice feed was obtained. We use the stereo matching data set provided by the Middlebury evaluation platform to conduct experimental verification. The results show that our method effectively improves the matching degree of stereo matching and makes the three-dimensional point coordinates of the obtained feed's surface more accurate. The point cloud is then denoised and Delaunay triangulated, and the volume of the tetrahedron obtained after the triangulation is calculated and summed to obtain the total volume. We used different sizes of wood instead of feed for multiple volume calculations, and the average error between the calculated volume and the real volume was 7.12%. The experimental results show that the volume of the remaining feed of mice can be calculated by binocular stereo vision.

Zwitterionic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) used in aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) could face diverse environmental fates once released at military bases, airports, fire-training areas, and accidental release sites. Here, we studied for the first time the transformation potential of four electrochemical fluorination (ECF)-based PFAS zwitterions (two carboxyl betaines and two tertiary amines) in aerobic soils. The two perfluoroalkyl sulfonamide derivatives were precursors to perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), while the amide derivatives were precursors to perfluorooctane carboxylate (PFOA). These zwitterions and four other previously reported zwitterions or cations were compared for their transformation pathways and kinetics. Structural differences, especially the nitrogen head groups, largely influenced the persistence of these compounds in aerobic soils. The perfluoroalkyl sulfonamide-based compounds showed higher microbial stability than the corresponding perfluoroalkyl amide-based ones. Their stability in aerobic soils is ranked based on the magnitude of DT50 (time for 50% of substance to disappear): quaternary ammonium ≈ carboxyl betaine ≫ tertiary amine > amine oxide. The PFASs containing quaternary ammonium or betaine groups showed high stability in soils, with the longest DT50 likely to be years or decades, while those with tertiary amine or amine oxide groups showed DT50 of weeks or months. These eight ECF-based precursors provide insights into the degradation pathways and persistence in surface soils of other perfluoroalkyl cations and zwitterions present in AFFFs.

Delivering high fidelity virtual reality (VR) video over mobile networks is very challenging since VR applications usually require very high bandwidth and ultra low latency. With the evolution of 5G mobile networks, multi-cell multi-access edge computing (MEC) networks enable low latency data communication. However, even in this setting, the requirements of VR applications are tough to meet. To optimize the end-to-end latency for VR video delivery over multi-cell MEC networks, we propose a rendering-aware tile caching scheme. As a first step we propose collaborative tile caching in 5G MEC networks by enabling multiple cell sites to share caches so that the network caching performance is improved. Hence, the amount of redundant data delivered and eventually the latency are both significantly reduced. Second, our scheme offloads viewport rendering of VR video to the MEC server and closely couples this with cache placement, allowing thus the rendering-induced latency to be reduced. Finally, a low-delay request routing algorithm is integrated with the proposed cache placement scheme to further optimize the end-to-end latency of VR video delivery. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed rendering-aware caching scheme can achieve better latency performance than the state-of-the-art decoupled caching/rendering schemes.

Similar to conventional video, the increasingly popular 360 virtual reality (VR) video requires copyright protection mechanisms. The classic approach for copyright protection is the introduction of a digital watermark into the video sequence. Due to the nature of spherical panorama, traditional watermarking schemes that are dedicated to planar media cannot work efficiently for 360 VR video. In this article, we propose a spherical wavelet watermarking scheme to accommodate 360 VR video. With our scheme, the watermark is first embedded into the spherical wavelet transform domain of the 360 VR video. The spherical geometry of the 360 VR video is used as the host space for the watermark so that the proposed watermarking scheme is compatible with the multiple projection formats of 360 VR video. Second, the just noticeable difference model, suitable for head-mounted displays (HMDs), is used to control the imperceptibility of the watermark on the viewport. Third, besides detecting the watermark from the spherical projection, the proposed watermarking scheme also supports detecting watermarks robustly from the viewport projection. The watermark in the spherical domain can protect not only the 360 VR video but also its corresponding viewports. The experimental results show that the embedded watermarks are reliably extracted both from the spherical and the viewport projections of the 360 VR video, and the robustness of the proposed scheme to various copyright attacks is significantly better than that of the competing planar-domain approaches when detecting the watermark from viewport projection.

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over Http (DASH) -based video streaming applications are becoming increasingly prevalent over the mobile Internet. Many efforts have been made to optimize their performances. Multipath video streaming that simultaneously utilizes multiple wireless networks for video content delivery is a common method. Another effective approach is the cross-layer video streaming optimization that jointly takes the parameters at different protocol layers into account. However, multipath streaming schemes mainly focus on how to efficiently utilize multiple wireless networks and the collaboration of parameters at different layers in each network is neglected. Likewise, the cross-layer schemes normally optimize the parameters at different layers in purely one network without fully utilizing the aggregated bandwidths of multiple available wireless networks. Therefore, both of them are sub-optimal and might suffer from degrading performance. In this paper, we propose a joint Cross-layer DASH-based multipath video streaming scheme that takes advantage of bandwidth aggregation of multiple wireless networks and further improves the performance by optimizing the different layers’ parameters in each network with a cross-layer manner. In the proposed scheme, the LTE and 802.11ac networks are adopted. The bitrate of DASH-based video chunk at application layer, the rate allocation among networks and the Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) at physical layers in LTE and 802.11ac downlink are jointly optimized. We also compare our proposed scheme to state-of-the-art schemes using trace-driven experiments. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme outperforms state-of-the-art schemes in terms of PSNR, normalized QoE, and balance between video bitrate and rebuffering penalty.

Zwitterionic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are increasingly detected in aquatic environments. The magnitude of their concentration and increased frequency of detection worldwide raise questions on their presence in drinking water and associated health risk. Scientific knowledge on the identification of treatment technologies to effectively capture such zwitterionic PFAS from contaminated water sources remains largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the application of anionic organic scavenger ion exchange (IX) resins (A860), nonionic IX resins (XAD 4 and XAD 7), PFAS-specific resins (A694 and A592), and Ti

Research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in freshwater ecosystems has focused primarily on legacy compounds and little is still known on the presence of emerging PFAS. Here, we investigated the occurrence of 60 anionic, zwitterionic, and cationic PFAS in a food web of the St. Lawrence River (Quebec, Canada) near a major metropolitan area. Water, sediments, aquatic vegetation, invertebrates, and 14 fish species were targeted for analysis. Levels of perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) in river water exceeded those of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), and a zwitterionic betaine was observed for the first time in the St. Lawrence River. The highest mean PFAS concentrations were observed for the benthopelagic top predator Smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu, Σ

Liver fibrosis is a pathological process of multiple chronic liver diseases progressing to cirrhosis for which there are currently no effective treatment options. During fibrosis progression, the overproduction of extracellular matrix (ECM) collagen secreted by hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) greatly impedes drug delivery and reduces drug therapeutic effects. In this study, a glycyrrhetinic acid (GA)-conjugated prodrug micellar system with collagenase I (COL) decoration (COL-HA-GA, abbreviated as CHG) was designed to codelivery sorafenib (Sora/CHG, abbreviated as S/CHG) for potentiating ECM degradation and HSCs targeting on liver fibrosis therapy. In ECM barrier models established in vitro or in vivo, CHG micelles efficiently degraded pericellular collagen and demonstrated enormous ECM penetration abilities as well as superior HSCs internalization. Moreover, CHG micelles exhibited more SoraGA accumulations and activated HSCs targeting efficiencies in the fibrotic livers than those in the normal livers. More importantly, S/CHG micelles were more effective in anti-liver fibrosis by lowering the collagen content, inhibiting the HSCs activation, as well as down-regulating the fibrosis-related factors, leading to reverse the fibrotic liver to normal liver through the multi-mechanisms including angiogenesis reduction, liver fibrosis microenvironment regulation, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition inhibition. In conclusion, the developed COL decorated nano-codelivery system with fibrotic ECM collagen degradation and activated HSCs targeting dual-functions exhibited great potential for liver fibrosis therapy. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: A glycyrrhetinic acid (GA)-conjugated prodrug with collagenase I (COL) decoration (CHG) was designed for codelivery with sorafenib (S/CHG), potentiating extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation-penetration and hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) targeting on liver fibrosis therapy. In ECM barrier models, CHG micelles efficiently degraded pericellular collagen and demonstrated ECM penetration abilities, as well as displayed superior HSCs internalization. Moreover, S/CHG micelles were more effective in anti-liver fibrosis by lowering the collagen content, inhibiting the HSCs activation, as well as down-regulating cytokines, reversing the fibrotic liver to normal through various mechanisms. In conclusion, the developed fibrotic ECM degradation and HSCs targeting dual-functional nano-codelivery system provided a prospective potentiality in liver fibrosis therapy.