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Significant anomalies in frequency of summer extreme hot days (SEHDs) are broadly observed in the Asian monsoon region (AMR) in the post-ENSO summers. The delayed ENSO impacts are mainly conveyed by provoking the Indo-western Pacific Ocean capacitor (IPOC) effect that maintains the anomalous anticyclone in the western North Pacific. The related diabatic heating anomaly can trigger the westward-propagating Rossby wave to the Indian subcontinent, which increases the geopotential heights, reduces the cloud cover, and thus increases the seasonal surface temperature and SEHD frequency in the southern AMR. Besides, the reduced atmospheric moisture in the western North Pacific hinders the northward propagation of intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) and modulates the occurrence frequency of individual ISO phases, contributing to the significantly increased/decreased SEHDs in eastern China/Hokkaido, Japan, in the post–El Niño summers. The 25-model-ensemble mean of CMIP6 historical runs can reproduce well the observed SEHD anomalies in the southern AMR in the post-ENSO summers mainly due to the realistic simulation of ENSO impacts on the seasonal surface temperature, although a large intermodel spread exists due to different strengths of IPOC effect in each model owing to model biases in the mean state of the eastern tropical Pacific, the ENSO variance, and teleconnection to the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, future projections under the SSP5-8.5 scenario show that the delayed ENSO impacts on the southern AMR remain stable under global warming via a similar mechanism as in the observations and historical runs.

Understanding and predicting extreme weather and climate are ultimately important for adaptation and resilience. Here, we assess the prediction skills of frequency of summer extreme hot days (SEHDs) in the Asian monsoon region (AMR) by using the 1981–2014 hindcasts of the Predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia version 2 (POAMA-2) subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction system. Generally, the good prediction skills of SEHD frequency appear in the southern AMR south of 30°N including the Indian subcontinent, Indo-China peninsula, and the Philippines; the anomaly correlation coefficients between the observed and predicted region-mean SEHD anomalies are 0.72, 0.72, 0.70, 0.60, 0.61, and 0.61 at 1–6 months lead, respectively, all statistically significant at the 99.9% confidence level. The high prediction skills in POAMA-2 are due to its capacity on reproducing the observed delayed ENSO impacts on the large-scale atmospheric circulation, the seasonal surface air temperature, and thus the SEHD frequency in the southern AMR via provoking the Indo–western Pacific Ocean capacitor effect. Since POAMA-2 only provides the prediction at most half a year in advance, we also conduct the hindcasts in the SINTEX-F that can reproduce well the robust ENSO–SEHD relationship and has high prediction skill of ENSO itself. Results show that skillful prediction of the region-mean SEHD frequency can be up to 14 months in advance. These results are complementary to Part I of this study that ENSO can impact the SEHDs in the AMR and provide the sources of predictability.

The extreme precipitation (EP) in the early- and late-rainy seasons in Southern China is investigated from the perspective of moist static energy (MSE). At the synoptic timescale, the EP is accompanied by the charge-discharge paradigm of the vertically integrated MSE (); the positive anomaly reaches the peak one day before EP and decreases quickly during the event. The charge-discharge paradigm of is dominated by the horizontal and vertical advection, respectively. However, synoptic systems responsible for the charge in the early- and late-rainy seasons are different due to the different horizontal distributions of climatological MSE in the lower troposphere caused by the northward migration of solar radiation and monsoon system. At the interannual timescale, more EP in the early-/late-rainy season is associated with the higher seasonal-mean that can be caused by the anomalous anticyclone/cyclone in the western North Pacific induced by the SST anomalies in the tropical Indian Ocean and central North Pacific/the tropical Pacific. The multi-model ensemble mean of CMIP6 models reproduces well the observed -EP relationship in both the historical and SSP5-8.5 runs. Moreover, the mean state of increases in the SSP5-8.5 compared to historical runs along with more frequent occurrence of EP events. Hence, can serve as a useful metric for studying EP in Southern China at various timescales.

Background: Sex disparities in acute large vessel occlusion (LVO) following endovascular treatment (EVT) have been recently reported. However, there is uncertainty about the effect of sex differences on functional outcomes after EVT, particularly in an Asian population. The present study aimed to compare the clinical and safety outcomes between men and women with anterior circulation LVO treated with EVT. Methods: We analyzed data from the ANGEL-ACT (Endovascular Treatment Key Technique and Emergency Work Flow Improvement of Acute Ischemic Stroke: a Prospective Multicenter Registry Study) Registry, which was conducted at 111 hospitals from 26 provinces in China between November 2017 and March 2019. Men and women with anterior circulation LVO treated with EVT were matched using propensity scores. After a 1:1 propensity score matching, we compared the clinical outcomes including 90-day ordinal modified Rankin Scale distribution (primary outcome), procedure duration, successful reperfusion, symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage, and mortality. Furthermore, we explored sex modification on the primary outcome in subgroup analysis. Results: Of 1321 patients, 483 (36.6%) were women and 838 (63.4%) were men. The mean age for women and men were 68 and 62 years old, respectively. Among 578 patients identified after matching, there were no sex differences (men versus women) in 90-day ordinal modified Rankin Scale distribution (median [interquartile range], 4 [1–5] versus 3 [1–5], P =0.464), successful reperfusion (86.5% versus 91.0%, P =0.089), symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (6.5% versus 7.9%, P =0.512), and mortality within 90 days (17.7% versus 17.0%, P =0.826). However, men had a longer median procedure duration than women (86 [52–128] versus 72 [48–110] minutes, β=14.51, [95% CI, 4.19–24.84]; P =0.006). Subgroup analysis showed that in patients with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score P for interaction=0.032). Conclusions: Overall, this matched-control study from the ANGEL-ACT study showed similar clinical outcomes between men and women with anterior circulation LVO treated with EVT. However, in the subgroup of patients presenting with lower stroke severity (ie, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov ; Unique identifier: NCT03370939.

Knowledge graph completion (KGC) has attracted significant research interest in applying knowledge graphs (KGs). Previously, many works have been proposed to solve the KGC problem, such as a series of translational and semantic matching models. However, most previous methods suffer from two limitations. First, current models only consider the single form of relations, thus failing to simultaneously capture the semantics of multiple relations (direct, multi-hop and rule-based). Second, the data-sparse problem of knowledge graphs would make part of relations challenging to embed. This paper proposes a novel translational knowledge graph completion model named multiple relation embedding (MRE) to address the above limitations. We attempt to embed multiple relations to provide more semantic information for representing KGs. To be more specific, we first leverage PTransE and AMIE+ to extract multi-hop and rule-based relations. Then, we propose two specific encoders to encode extracted relations and capture semantic information of multiple relations. We note that our proposed encoders can achieve interactions between relations and connected entities in relation encoding, which is rarely considered in existing methods. Next, we define three energy functions to model KGs based on the translational assumption. At last, a joint training method is adopted to perform KGC. Experimental results illustrate that MRE outperforms other baselines on KGC, demonstrating the effectiveness of embedding multiple relations for advancing knowledge graph completion.

Different combinations of bimetallic active sites produced different streams of phenolic products due to their different catalytic selectivity.

Biomedical dressings have been comprehensively explored for wound healing; however, the complicated manufacturing process and mono-function of the dressing remain critical challenges for further applications. Here, a versatile extrusion three-dimensional (3D) printing strategy to prepare MXene and spidroin-incorporated microneedle scaffolds with photothermal responsive and self-healing properties for promoting wound healing is proposed. Inspired by the cactus, the microneedle scaffold is composed of a top porous scaffold, and microneedles whose inverse opal (IO) photonic crystal (PC) structure and the ample space between the scaffold gaps endow the microneedle scaffold with high drug-carrying capacity. Furthermore, the excellent electrical and photothermal properties of MXene allow the microneedle scaffold to perform sensitive wound movement monitoring and controlled drug release under near-infrared irradiation. Moreover, the extensive hydrogen bonding and Schiff base between the spidroin, polyurethane (PU), and aloe vera gel (avGel) molecules conferred high self-healing and mechanical performance to the microneedle scaffold.

Oomycete pathogens secrete numerous effectors to manipulate plant immunity and promote infection. However, relatively few effector types have been well characterized. In this study, members of an FYVE domain-containing protein family that are highly expanded in oomycetes were systematically identified, and one secreted protein, PsFYVE1, was selected for further study. PsFYVE1 enhanced Phytophthora capsici infection in Nicotiana benthamiana and was necessary for Phytophthora sojae virulence. The FYVE domain of PsFYVE1 had PI3P-binding activity that depended on four conserved amino acid residues. Furthermore, PsFYVE1 targeted RNA-binding proteins RZ-1A/1B/1C in N. benthamiana and soybean (Glycine max), and silencing of NbRZ-1A/1B/1C genes attenuated plant immunity. NbRZ-1A was associated with the spliceosome complex that included three important components, glycine-rich RNA-binding protein 7 (NbGRP7), glycine-rich RNA-binding protein 8 (NbGRP8), and a specific component of the U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex (NbU1–70K). Notably, PsFYVE1 disrupted NbRZ-1A–NbGRP7 interaction. RNA-seq and subsequent experimental analysis demonstrated that PsFYVE1 and NbRZ-1A not only modulated pre-mRNA alternative splicing (AS) of the necrotic spotted lesions 1 (NbNSL1) gene, but also co-regulated transcription of hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA shikimate/quinate hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (NbHCT), ethylene insensitive 2 (NbEIN2), and sucrose synthase 4 (NbSUS4) genes, which participate in plant immunity. Collectively, these findings indicate that the FYVE domain-containing protein family includes potential uncharacterized effector types and also highlight that plant pathogen effectors can regulate plant immunity-related genes at both AS and transcription levels to promote disease.

This study performed catalytic depolymerization of alkali lignin over Ni-based catalysts. Effects of different promoters (Zr and W), Ni loadings, reaction temperatures, and the addition of formic acid and catalyst on lignin conversion and products distribution were all investigated. The result showed that the highest oil yield (40.1% (mass)) was obtained at 240 °C over Ni1.2/γ-Al2O3 promoted by Zr and W species. Quantitative analysis indicates that Zr and W species prefer to lignin depolymerization while Ni active phase prefer to hydrodeoxygenation and hydrogenation. The interconversion of products derived from lignin depolymerization was determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer, which demonstrated that phenolic compounds were dominant products in all lignin derived bio-oils, wherein the proportion of vanillin was highest (65.7%) at 180 °C, while that of alkyl guaiacols increased with the increase of temperature (from 12.45% at 180 °C to 66.67% at 240 °C). Residual lignin obtained after lignin depolymerization was also investigated for detecting differences on functional groups, wherein the disappearing peaks at 1511 cm–1 (stretching of aromatic rings), 1267, 1215 and 1035 cm–1 (vibrations of guaiacyl and syringyl units) were detected by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry. Additionally, the higher O/C ratio measured by elemental analysis also confirmed that alkali lignin was depolymerized effectively under mild conditions.

Background: The role of stroke etiology subtype in patients with acute large vessel occlusion on the occurrence of hemorrhagic transformation (HT) after endovascular treatment is poorly studied, and which factors mediate their relationship remains largely unknown. We utilized nationwide registry data to explore the association of stroke subtype (cardioembolism versus large artery atherosclerosis) with HT and to identify the possible mediators. Methods: A total of 1015 subjects were selected from the ANGEL-ACT registry (Endovascular Treatment Key Technique and Emergency Work Flow Improvement of Acute Ischemic Stroke)—a prospective consecutive cohort of acute large vessel occlusion patients undergoing endovascular treatment at 111 hospitals in China between November 2017 and March 2019—and divided into large artery atherosclerosis (n=538) and cardioembolism (n=477) according to the Trial of ORG 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment criteria. The types of HT included any intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), parenchymal hematoma, and symptomatic ICH within 24 hours after endovascular treatment. The association between stroke subtype and HT was analyzed using a logistic regression model. Mediation analysis was done to assess how much of the effect of stroke subtype on HT was mediated through the identified mediators. Results: Stroke subtype (cardioembolism versus large artery atherosclerosis) was associated with increased risk of any ICH (29.8% versus 16.5%; odds ratio, 2.03 [95% CI, 1.22–3.36]), parenchymal hematoma (14.3% versus 5.4%; odds ratio, 2.90 [95% CI, 1.38–6.13]), and symptomatic ICH (9.9% versus 4.7%; odds ratio, 2.59 [95% CI, 1.09–6.16]) after adjustment for potential confounders. The more thrombectomy passes in cardioembolism patients had a significant mediation effect on the association of stroke subtype with increased risk of HT (any ICH, 15.9%; parenchymal hematoma, 13.4%; symptomatic ICH, 14.2%, respectively). Conclusions: Stroke subtype is an independent risk factor for HT within 24 hours following endovascular treatment among acute large vessel occlusion patients. Mediation analyses propose that stroke subtype contributes to HT partly through thrombectomy pass, suggesting a possible pathomechanistic link. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov ; Unique identifier: NCT03370939.

Lignin, a biopolymer obtained from agricultural/forestry residues or paper pulping wastewater, is rich in aromatic structure, which is central to its adoption as a candidate to natural antioxidants. Through insight into its structural features from biomass, different functional groups would influence lignin antioxidant activity, wherein phenolic content is the most important factor, hence massive studies have focused on its improvement via different pretreatments and post-processing methods. Besides, lignin nanoparticles and chemical modifications are also efficient methods to improve antioxidant activity via increasing free content and decreasing bond dissociation enthalpy of phenolic hydroxyl. Lignin samples exhibit comparable radicals scavenging ability to commercial ones, showing their potential as renewable alternatives of synthesized antioxidants. Besides, their applications have also been discussed, which demonstrates lignin potential as an inexpensive antioxidant additive and consequent improvements on multiple functionalities. This review is dedicated to summarize lignin antioxidants extracted from biomass resources, methods to improve their antioxidant activity and their applications, which is beneficial for realizing lignin valorization.

Background Rosai–Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare form of non-Langerhans cell histiocytic disease. The aim of this study was to review the characteristics of RDD using 18F-FDG PET/CT and determine its efficacy in the disease management. Results A total of 28 RDD patients underwent 33 18F-FDG PET/CT scans for systematic assessment and follow-up. The common involved sites included the lymph nodes (17, 60.7%), upper respiratory tract (11, 39.3%), and skin (9, 32.1%). Five patients had more lesions detected in PET/CT images than in CT and/or MRI, including inapparent nodules (n = 5) and bone destruction (n = 3). After thorough treatment evaluation using PET/CT, the treatment strategies of 14 patients (14/16, 87.5%) were changed. Five patients underwent PET/CT twice during follow-up and the SUVs were significantly decreased (15.3 ± 3.4 vs. 4.4 ± 1.0, p = 0.02), which demonstrated disease improvement. Conclusions 18F-FDG PET/CT contributed to displaying the holistic characteristics of RDD, in particular during initial assessment, treatment strategy adjustment, or efficacy evaluation, and could compensate for some disadvantages of CT and MRI images.

Ulcerative colitis (UC), a type of inflammatory bowel disease characterized by recurring and incurable symptoms, causes immense suffering and economic burden for patients due to the limited treatment options available. Therefore, it is imperative to develop novel and promising strategies, as well as safe and effective drugs, for the clinical management of UC. Macrophages play a critical role as the initial line of defense in maintaining intestinal immune homeostasis, and their phenotypic transformation significantly influences the progression of UC. Scientific studies have demonstrated that directing macrophage polarization toward the M2 phenotype is an effective strategy for the prevention and treatment of UC. Phytochemicals derived from botanical sources have garnered the interest of the scientific community owing to their distinct bioactivity and nutritional value, which have been shown to confer beneficial protective effects against colonic inflammation. In this review, we explicated the influence of macrophage polarization on the development of UC and collated data on the significant potential of natural substances that can target the macrophage phenotype and elucidate the possible mechanism of action for its treatment. These findings may provide novel directions and references for the clinical management of UC.

In recent years, freeform surfaces have been widely used in various industries with the rapid development of manufacturing technology. However, the complex 3D structures and other surface properties of the freeform surface products challenge current visual inspection systems. To deal with the problem and meet the demand, we propose a novel, deep learning-based defect detection method for complex freeform surface structures in the injection industry. We first design a system of Multi-Lights Multi-Cameras with Polarizer, in which polarization is used to eliminate glare caused by freefrom surfaces and multi-illumination is used to enhance the visibility of certain defects. Then a convolutional neural network model based on YOLOv5 is utilized to detect small defects in images. Particularly, we raise several effective and easily-implemented strategies and improve the performance of the model significantly. Experimental results on our self-made dataset show that the improved model achieves a mean average precision (mAP) of 86.2% with 5.1% higher than the Baseline. Moreover, testing on the production line shows our detection system can benefit the related factory. Our work provides a promising approach to facilitate the development of visual inspection for products with complex freeform surfaces.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) account for the majority of energy storage devices due to their long service life, high energy density, environmentally friendly, and other characteristics. Although the cathode materials of LIB led by LiFePO4 (LFP), LiCoO2 (LCO), and LiNixCoyMn1-x-yO2 (NCM) occupy the majority of the market share at present, the demand of LiMn2O4 (LMO) cathode battery is also increasing year by year in recent years. With the rising price of various raw materials of LIBs and the need of environmental protection, the efficient recycling of spent LIBs has become a hot research topic. At present, the recycling of spent LIBs mainly focuses on LFP, LCO, and NCM batteries. However, with the continuous improvement of people’s safety of LIBs, LiMnxFe1-xPO4 (LMFP) batteries show better potential, which also improves the recycling value of LMO batteries. Therefore, this paper reviews current methods of spent LMO recovery, focusing on the characteristics of the recovery and separation process, which can serve as a reference for subsequent research on LMO recovery, increasing environmentally friendly recovery routes. Finally, the future development direction of LIBs recycling is prospected. Overall, this review is helpful to understand the current progress of LMO battery recycling.

Ear molding is an emerging technique that can correct auricular deformities. Treatment initiation time is the most important prognostic determinant of ear molding. Here, we aimed to examine why auricular cartilage plasticity appeared to diminish with age. Thus, we characterized age-related changes in the biomechanical, biochemical, and morphological properties of auricular cartilage.New Zealand rabbits were used as the experimental animal. We examined immature [postnatal 0 day (P0), 5 days (P5), 15 days (P15)], young [2 months (2M)], and mature [6 months (6M)] rabbits. Rabbits' ears were splinted and folded using adhesive fixation strips. Folding duration ranged from 1 day to 5 days to 10 days. Photographs were taken to calculate the retained fold angle. Cartilage morphology and extracellular matrix (ECM) content were examined histologically (using hematoxylin-eosin, Safranin O, elastic Van Gieson, and Masson's trichrome). Water content, DNA content, and cell density were also analyzed. Biomechanical properties were measured using a Nano indenter.Immature ears had smaller angles after strip removal, and the angled deformation lasted a longer time. Cartilage matrix compositions, including glycosaminoglycan (GAG), elastin fiber, and collagen, increased over development. The water content, DNA content, and cell density decreased with age. Young's modulus was significantly higher in mature cartilage.Here, we successfully established an animal model of ear molding and demonstrated that immature cartilage was associated with better plasticity. We also found that the cartilage's biomechanical property increased with the accumulation of ECM. The biomechanical change could underlie age-related shape plasticity.NA Laryngoscope, 2022.

In this study, lignin-based epoxy resins (EP) were fabricated using lignin, phenol and glyoxal as crosslinking reagents. For improving the flame retardancy, a bi-DOPO compound with bi-hydroxyl structure was successfully synthesized, containing excellent quenching and charring capacities. Good pyrolysis behaviors of as-synthesized flame retardant resulted in significant quenching effect via structure decomposition to release PO and PO

Recent years have witnessed considerable progress in the application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in smart transportation systems. The wider presence of Wi-Fi networks in subway gates allows passengers to use the Quick Response (QR) code of mobile phone applications for entrance. The network established by gates has become a medium which connects stations and passengers. However, in addition to directly monitoring the passenger flow, the potential application of the smart card usage data collected by the gates remains an open topic. Although there are several clustering-based works devoted to revealing passengers’ travel behavior patterns, research on the social attributes of subway passengers is very limited. To fill the gap, this paper proposes a novel method to mine similarity information of passengers by leveraging passengers’ communication behaviors hidden in subway card usage data. Passengers are first organized as a graph, which not only reflects the interactions between them but also incorporates the context information of subway stations. Then, the node embedding is used to encode the information contained in the graph and with the use of cosine similarity, the similarity between two passengers is measured. Extensive experiments on two real-world location-based social network datasets and extended experiments on a Shanghai subway dataset are conducted. The results show that the proposed method can effectively improve the accuracy of similarity measurement and provide social features that are distinguishable from travel behavior patterns.

Background It is documented that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) secrete extracellular vesicles (EVs) to modulate subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) development. miR-140-5p expression has been detected in MSC-derived EVs, while the mechanism of MSC-derived EVs containing miR-140-5p in SAH remains unknown. We aim to fill this void by establishing SAH mouse models and extracting MSCs and MSC-EVs. Methods After ALK5 was silenced in SAH mice, neurological function was evaluated, neuron apoptosis was detected by TdT-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling with NeuN staining, and expression of serum inflammatory factors (interleukin-6, interleukin-1β, and tumor necrosis factor-α) was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The effect of ALK5 on NOX2 expression was assessed by western-blot analysis. Targeting the relationship between miR-140-5p and ALK5 was evaluated by dual luciferase assay. Following extraction of MSCs and MSC-EVs, EVs and miR-140-5p were labeled by PKH67 and Cy3, respectively, to identify the transferring of miR-140-5p by MSC-EVs. SAH mice were treated with EVs from miR-140-5p mimic/inhibitor-transfected MSCs to detect effects of MSC-EV-miR-140-5p on brain injury and microglial polarization. Results ALK5 silencing increased the neurological score and reduced neuron apoptosis and neuroinflammation in SAH mice. ALK5 silencing inhibited M1 microglia activation by inactivating NOX2. ALK5 was a target gene of miR-140-5p. MSC-derived EVs contained miR-140-5p and transferred miR-140-5p into microglia. MSC-EV-delivered miR-140-3p reduced ALK5 expression to contribute to repression of brain injury and M1 microglia activation in SAH mice. Conclusions MSC-derived EVs transferred miR-140-5p into microglia to downregulate ALK5 and NOX2, thus inhibiting M1 microglia activation in SAH mice.

Based on a combination of spontaneous lithium migration and targeted electrically-driven lithiation, a two-step resting-output current process was conducted to directly regenerate retired LiFePO4 cathode, which can reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution.

A film sensor decorated with branch-shaped carbon nanofibers possessing extra branches achieves high sensitivity, good linearity, a wide sensing range, a fast response time, and great durability.

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is an important source of food and energy in the world, and is also widely cultivated in China (Frossard et al. 2017). Yam is rich in fiber and antioxidants, and can significantly reduce blood sugar. Therefore, it is also known as a medicinal crop with high medicinal value in China (Cao et al. 2021). In October 2021, leaf spots were observed on the seven month old yam leaves of a commercial yam field in Nanjing city, Jiangsu Province, China. The field had a disease severity of approximately 25% and an incidence of 30%, and the infected plants displayed poor development. Symptoms in the leaves included irregular yellow to brown spots of different sizes, and lesion spots later turned dark brown, resulting in necrotic leaves (Fig. S1A). Four symptomatic leaves collected from 3 yam plants were rinsed with water, cut into 2-mm small square leaf pieces and were surface-sterilized in 70% ethanol and 2% sodium hypochlorite for 2 min, then rinsed three times with sterile distilled water. The sterilized leaf tissues were plated onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) containing ampicillin and rifampicin, and then were incubated at 25°C in the dark for 3-5 days. Three isolates (NAU-1, NAU-2, and NAU-3) were obtained from a total of four leaf samples by purifying of single-spore culture. Nine agar plugs (6×6 mm2) were transferred into 8 mL of PDA in a 70 mm plate at 25°C to observe colony morphology. The three isolates had identical morphological features. For the representative isolate NAU-1, colonies were white and fluffy in appearance during initial 4 days, and became gray-brown with the onset of sporulation after 5 days (Fig. S1B). Microscopic observation showed that mycelia were smooth, branched, and septate (Fig. S1C) and conidia were single-celled, black, spherical to subspherical, measuring 10.7 ± 0.9 µm × 12.5 ± 2.6 µm in diameter (n=50) (Fig. S1D). Morphological features suggested that these isolates possessed the same characteristics. For accurate identification, the genomic DNA was extracted from each isolate using Fungi Genomic DNA Extraction Kit (D2300; Solarbio, Beijing, China). The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence, β-tubulin (TUB2) gene, and translation elongation factor 1-alpha (Tef-1α) gene, were amplified using the primer pairs ITS1/ITS4 (White et al. 1990), Bt2a/Bt2b (Glass and Donaldson 1995), and EF1/EF2 (O'Donnell et al. 1998), respectively. These sequences were deposited in GenBank (ITS: ON394529, OP735574, and OP735562; TUB2: ON427830, OP756526, and OP756528; Tef-1α: ON427831, OP756525, and OP756527 for NAU-1, NAU-2, and NAU-3, respectively). The ITS, TUB2, and Tef-1α sequences of three isolates showed high similarity (>98.5%) to the corresponding sequences (MT732051.1, KY019554.1, and KY019413.1) of Nigrospora oryzae in GenBank. Further phylogenetic analysis showed that the three isolates clustered with N. oryzae (Fig. S2). Therefore, based on morphological and molecular evidence, the three isolates were identified as N. oryzae. N. oryzae has been reported to cause leaf spot on cotton and ginger in China (Zhang et al. 2012; Liu et al. 2022). Furthermore, the pathogenicity of isolated N. oryzae was tested on healthy, potted 1-year-old yam plants. The 6-mm agar plugs-containing mycelia from 4-day-old PDA cultures and agar blocks (control) were used to inoculate sixteen wounded yam leaves, followed by maintaining in a growth chamber under 16 h day at 25°C and 8 h night at 20°C. After six days post inoculation, all the inoculated yam leaves exhibited similar symptoms observed in the field, whereas the uninoculated leaves remained symptomless (Fig. S1E). The experiments were repeated three times with similar results. N. oryzae was reisolated from the infected plants and confirmed to be the same pathogen by using morphological and molecular methods. To our knowledge, this is the first report of N. oryzae causing leaf spot disease of yams in China. Identification of this pathogen would assist in developing strategies to efficiently control the spread of the disease on Chinese yams.

The acidic hydrolysis of nicotinoylhydrazone-based fragrance precursors reveals that a strong electron-donating substituent speeds up the release rate, whereas a weak electron-donating group has the opposite result in buffered solutions and on cotton.

The global automotive industry sprayed over 2.6 billion liters of paint in 2018, much of which through electrostatic rotary bell atomization, a highly complex process involving the fluid mechanics of rapidly rotating thin films tearing apart into micrometer-thin filaments and droplets. Coating operations account for 65% of the energy usage in a typical automotive assembly plant, representing 10,000s of gigawatt-hours each year in the United States alone. Optimization of these processes would allow for improved robustness, reduced material waste, increased throughput, and significantly reduced energy usage. Here, we introduce a high-fidelity mathematical and algorithmic framework to analyze rotary bell atomization dynamics at industrially relevant conditions. Our approach couples laboratory experiment with the development of robust non-Newtonian fluid models; devises high-order accurate numerical methods to compute the coupled bell, paint, and gas dynamics; and efficiently exploits high-performance supercomputing architectures. These advances have yielded insight into key dynamics, including i) parametric trends in film, sheeting, and filament characteristics as a function of fluid rheology, delivery rates, and bell speed; ii) the impact of nonuniform film thicknesses on atomization performance; and iii) an understanding of spray composition via primary and secondary atomization. These findings result in coating design principles that are poised to improve energy- and cost-efficiency in a wide array of industrial and manufacturing settings.

Microencapsulation of pesticides is a promising attempt to reduce environmental pollution and prevent the active ingredients from the interference of external factors. In this paper, pendimethalin microcapsules were prepared by the interfacial polymerization of 4,4-methylenediphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) and ethylenediamine (EDA) based on microfluidic technology. Effects of the microchannel structure, reaction temperature, surfactant type, and fluid flow rates were investigated and evaluated. The results showed that pendimethalin microcapsules prepared under suitable conditions had a smooth surface, good monodispersity, a high encapsulation efficiency (96.7%), and excellent thermal stability. The size and morphology control of microcapsules were realized by adjusting the flow rates of the continuous phase and the hydrophilic monomer EDA aqueous solution. The release of pendimethalin had a sustained release characteristic that was closely related to the morphology of microcapsules. Compared with the pendimethalin emulsifiable concentrate, pendimethalin microcapsules exhibited outstanding herbicidal activity in the weed control experiments. Therefore, pendimethalin microcapsules with tunable properties were successfully obtained from the microfluidic device and showed great potential in agricultural applications.

Lignin can be used as a sustainable alternative to bisphenol A (BPA) to prepared lignin-based epoxy resins. Lignin effects including molecular weight, phenolic content, G/S unit ratio and flexible/rigid linkage ratio on epoxy synthesis and performance were summarized comprehensively. The incorporation of lignin with a higher molecular weight would lead to the higher rigidity of epoxy crosslinking network. Higher contents of ether bonds in lignin would provide higher structural flexibility of lignin incorporated epoxy thermosets. Lignin with higher contents of phenolic hydroxyls was more beneficial for improving the reactivity of its epoxy products after glycidylation. Due to the excellent charring capacity of lignin, higher contents of residue char can be produced at higher additions of lignin at high temperatures, while the loss of crosslinking density caused by the increasing lignin addition (especially for the macromolecular lignin) would deteriorate the thermal stability of their thermosets. Several applications of lignin-based epoxy resins were also mentioned based on their mechanical, thermal and chemical properties, such as coatings (with anticorrosion and UV-blocking), adhesives (with highly crosslinking network, excellent mechanical, and thermal properties) and flame retardants (with high charring capability).

This study examined the influence of consumers’ temporary affective states during ad exposure on their engagement with different types of ads that are categorized based on theoretically derived att...

Most knowledge representation learning (KRL) methods only use structured knowledge graphs (KGs); however, there is still much multi-modal (textual, visual) knowledge that has not been used. To address this challenge, we propose a novel solution called multi-modal knowledge representation learning (MMKRL) to take advantage of multi-source (structured, textual, and visual) knowledge. Instead of simply integrating multi-modal knowledge with structured knowledge in a unified space, we introduce a component alignment scheme and combine it with translation methods to accomplish multi-modal KRL. Specifically, MMKRL firstly reconstructs multi-source knowledge by summing different plausibility functions and then aligns multi-source knowledge using specific norm constraints to reduce reconstruction errors. We also select an adversarial training strategy to enhance the robustness of MMKRL, which is rarely considered in existing multi-modal KRL methods. Experimental results show that MMKRL can effectively utilize multi-modal knowledge to achieve better link prediction and triple classification than other baselines in two widely used datasets. Further, when relying on structured knowledge or limited multi-source knowledge, MMKRL still achieves competitive results in link prediction, demonstrating our model’s superiority.

In greenhouses, growth of plants is affected by accumulation of nitrate in the soil due to extended durations of nitrogen fertilizer application. Dopamine has been shown to play an important role in plant growth and stress resistance. We studied effects of dopamine on antioxidation, mineral nutrients, and fruit quality in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. “Jin You No. 1”) under nitrate stress. Excessive nitrate inhibited root growth, resulting in reduced root length, volume, and activity. The content of malondialdehyde and superoxide anion increased significantly, and the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and ascorbate peroxidase increased, whereas peroxidase decreased under high-nitrate conditions. We also found that the length, cross-sectional diameter, and total yield of fruits were significantly decreased under nitrate stress. Moreover, fruit quality, such as reducing sugar, soluble sugar, soluble protein, and vitamin C, was significantly reduced under high-nitrate conditions. Excessive nitrate caused accumulation of nitrogen and potassium in the roots, stems, and leaves of plants, but reduced accumulation of phosphorus. Conversely, dopamine promoted root growth and root activity, reduced malondialdehyde and superoxide anion content, increased activities of antioxidant enzymes, improved yield and quality, and balanced ion absorption. Our results show that dopamine plays an overall positive role for cucumbers under nitrate stress.

Objectives To compare the effective of preoperative factors based on gadoxetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pre-/postoperative factors in predicting early recurrence of hepatitis B virus(HBV)-related single hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after surgical resection. Methods This is a retrospective two-center study, from July 2013 to November 2018 consecutive patients underwent surgery for HCC with preoperative gadoxetate disodium (EOB)-enhanced MR were enrolled, to training and testing sets. In the training sets, multivariate Cox regression analyses of preoperative and postoperative high risk predictors of early HCC recurrence (EHR) were performed. Preoperative and pre-/postoperative prediction models were constructed. In the training sets and testing sets, using the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curves to evaluate the discrimination of the two prediction models, area under curves (AUC) were calculated. The diagnostic performance of each risk features and combine features were also calculated. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) were analysed by the Kaplan–Meier method with the log-rank test. Results Three MRI features were independently associated with EHR: (nonhypervascular hepatobiliary phase(HBP) hypointense nodule (NHHN) (Hazard Ratio(HR) = 3.700), non-smooth tumour margin (HR = 2.781), and hepatobiliary phase (HBP) peritumoural hypointensity (HR = 2.614). After adding postoperative histopathologic factors, presence of microvascular invasion (MVI) and one MRI features were independently associated with EHR: MVI (HR = 3.885), NHHN (HR = 4.320). In the training sets, AUCs for the two models were 0.821 (preoperative prediction models), 0.890 (pre-/postoperative prediction models). In the testing sets, AUCs for the two models were 0.748 (preoperative prediction models), 0.794 (pre-/postoperative prediction models). The diagnostic performance of each risk factor and combine factors were all lower than the two prediction models. Conclusions In this two-center study, the preoperative and pre-/postoperative prediction models demonstrate good performance for predicting EHR, the AUC of the two prediction model better than only the MVI risk factor. In the preoperative prediction model, NHHN, non-smooth tumour margin, and HBP peritumoural hypointensity can be used preoperatively to estimate the risk of early recurrence after resection of a single HCC. Such models might be useful to guide treatment strategies and enable a step forward for precise medicine.