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Introduction Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumours in the world and has a high mortality rate. However, the pathogenesis of HCC remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the potential biomarkers of HCC. Methods ONCOMINE, HCCDB and THE HUMAN PROTEIN ATLAS were used to identify myelin expression factor 2 (MYEF2) as a potential biomarker for HCC. The Cancer Genome Atlas database was used to further validate and analyse the value of MYEF2. Kaplan–Meier Plotter was used for the prognostic analysis. The COX regression model and Kaplan–Meier method were used to investigate the clinical value of MYEF2 in the prognosis of HCC by reviewing the survival status of patients. Fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry were used to detect the expressions of the MYEF2 mRNA and protein in HCC tissues and cell lines. qPCR and Western blotting were used to validate the efficiency of MYEF2 knockout and overexpression in HCC cells. The invasion and migration abilities regulated by MYEF2 were detected by performing transwell and wound healing assays. Results MYEF2 is significantly upregulated in HCC and is mainly located in the nucleus of HCC cells. MYEF2 expression is significantly associated with the tumour stage, histological grade and TNM stage. High MYEF2 expression is an independent prognostic factor for patients with HCC. Functionally, elevated MYEF2 facilitated cell migration and invasion in vitro. In contrast, decreased MYEF2 inhibited cell migration and invasion. Conclusions MYEF2 may be a novel biomarker with potential diagnosis and prognosis values and as a potential therapeutic target for HCC.

Single-center two-electron integration is an important core technology in ab initio calculation of atomic and molecular structures. Therefore, this paper reviews and optimizes the method of Zhao et al., and draws a conclusion: Because this method is an accurate calculation without truncation error, it is superior to Slater-Condon integration method., Comment: Errors in the calculation process in the paper

Introduction: Sepsis is a primary cause of death in critically ill patients and is characterized by multiple organ dysfunction, including sepsis-induced acute kidney injury (AKI), which contributes to high mortality in sepsis. However, its pathophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. The kidney has one of the richest and most diversified endothelial cell populations in the body. This study was designed to investigate the effects of endothelial dysfunction in sepsis-induced AKI and explore possible intervention measures to offer new insight into the pathogenesis and treatment of sepsis-induced AKI. Methods: The circulating levels of endothelial adhesion molecules were detected in patients with sepsis and healthy controls to observe the role of endothelial damage in sepsis and sepsis-induced AKI. A murine sepsis model induced by cecal ligation and perforation was pretreated with a phosphoinositide 3-kinase gamma (PI3Kγ) inhibitor (CZC24832), and survival, kidney damage, and renal endothelial injury were assessed by pathological examination, immunohistochemistry, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and Western blotting. Lipopolysaccharides and CZC24832 were administered to human umbilical vein endothelial cells in vitro, and endothelial cell function and the expression of adhesion molecules were evaluated. Results: Endothelial damage was more serious in sepsis-induced AKI than that in non-AKI, and the inhibition of PI3Kγ alleviates renal endothelial injury in a murine sepsis model, protecting endothelial cell function and repairing endothelial cell injury through the Akt signaling pathway. Conclusions: In this study, endothelial cell dysfunction plays an important role in sepsis-induced AKI, and the inhibition of PI3Kγ alleviates endothelial cell injury in sepsis-induced AKI through the PI3Kγ/Akt pathway, providing novel targets for treating sepsis and related kidney injury.

Biema wanglangensis Huo & Zhao gen. et sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: E468D3B0-C9CC-41E7-A092-61F4E55BBF08 Figs 2–23 Diagnosis Mesonotum sparsely light yellow pollinose, only thickened on lateral sides before transverse suture; pleuron and scutellum sparsely pollinose; male tergite 4 with dark brown or yellow broad median fascia; female tergites 3 and 4 with yellow fasciae, not extended to the anterior margin; female tergites 5 to 7 with yellow maculae basolaterally. Etymology The specific name is derived from the locality where type specimens were collected. Material examined Holotype CHINA • ♂; Sichuan Province, Pingwu County, Wanglang Natural Reserve; 4 Aug. 2016; Ke-Ke Huo leg.; sub-alpine forest; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080001; SNUT. Paratypes CHINA • 6 ♂♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080002 to 2016080008; SNUT • 4 ♂♂, 3 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; Fei Lan Leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080009 to 2016080015; SNUT • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2016; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080016 to 2016080017; SNUT • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2016; Fei Lan Leg.; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080018; Genbank: ON067497; SNUT • 11 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 6Aug. 2016; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080019 to 2016080029; SNUT • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2017; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080030; SNUT • 1 ♂, 2 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; 6 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080031 to 2016080033; ZFMK • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 6 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifier: ZFMK-DIP-00097116; photographed in Figs 5–7; SNUT • 17 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080034 to 2016080050; ZFMK • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; specimen identifier: ZFMK-DIP-00097117; photographed in Figs 2–4; SNUT • 7 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080051 to 2016080057; SNUT • 3 ♂♂, 2 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080058 to 2016080062; ZFMK • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: ZFMK-DIP-00097118 and ZFMK-DIP-00097119; SNUT • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080065; SNUT. Description Male (Figs 2–4, 8–9, 11–12, 14–23) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5mm. HEAD (Figs 2–4, 8–9, 11). Hemispherical, deeply concave posteriorly with a concealed postpronotum. Eye bare, with eye contiguity longer than frons. Vertex slightly convex, black, yellow pilose and pollinose. Ocellar triangle equilateral, located at the anterior half of vertex. Occiput densely yellow pilose and pollinose on dorsal and upper half of lateral portions, yellowish white pilose and pollinose on lower half, obscures ground colour. Frons densely white pollinose obscures ground colour, short light pile along the margins. Lunule narrow, light yellowish brown. Face almost vertical in lateral view, facial tubercle rounded and produced, anterior margin of oral open not pointed. Face black and densely white to light yellow pollinose obscures ground colour, facial tubercle and lateral oral margins shiny black and bare. Face short light pilose laterally. Gena densely light yellowish white pilose and pollinose. Antennal sockets confluent. Antenna light yellow; basoflagellomere dark brown dorsally; arista dark brown with extremely short pile, thickened basally. THORAX (Figs 2–3). Black. Mesonotum metallic golden green, with subappressed short yellow pile; sparsely light yellow pollinose, thickened on lateral sides before transverse suture. Postpronotum light yellow pollinose. Scutellum shining black, metallic green, with subappressed short yellow pile, row of light yellow bristle-like pile on posterior margin and two pile elongated in middle. Subscutellar fringe short and sparse, absent medially. Pleuron shining black, light yellow pollinose. Posterior convex part of anepisternum and anterior anepimeron sparsely short yellow pilose. Katepisterum sparsely short yellow pilose, only with ventral pile patches. Metasternum not reduced, posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus, yellow, bare. LEGS (Figs 2–4). Light yellow to yellowish white; two apical tarsomeres of mid-tarsi light brown; hindtibiae, hind-tarsi and apical ½ of hind-femora black to blackish brown, hind-knees and apical of hindtibiae light yellow. Legs yellow pilose, apcial three tarsomeres of tarsi dorsally black pilose. WING (Figs 2–3, 14). Transparent, stigma light yellow, membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight, spurious vein rudimentary, corssvein r-m slightly inclined, located before the basal ⅓ of cell dm. Vein M 1 bent basally and formed s-shaped slightly. Vein M 1 and vein dm-cu parallel with wing margin. Alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c. Calypters narrow, yellowish white. Halters yellowish white, except yellowish green apically. ABDOMEN (Figs 2–3, 12). Male abdomen parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and widest part at end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown, yellowish white to yellow laterally; tergite 2 with two triangular yellow markings merged into yellow lateral margin and broadly separated on inner end; tergite 3 with broad median yellow fascia, sometime interrupted medially; tergite 4 with dark broad median brown fascia, sometimes absent.Terminalia yellowish brown.Tergites with light yellow pile on lateral margin, appressed black pile medially. Sternites light pilose; sternites 1 and 2 yellowish white, 3 and 4 brownish yellow. MALE TERMINALIA (Figs 15–23). Dark brown. Cercus small, weakly sclerotized, with yellow pile. Epandrium nearly quadrilateral in lateral view, broad slightly longer than high, basal margin broader than apical margin. Surstylus triangular in dorsal view, broadened basally, then gradually narrowed ventrad, with apex acute, and bent posterodorsally; in posterior view expanded into broad triangle towards middle line along posterior margin of epandrium, with pile on inner margin. Hypandrium circular and expanded basally, with transparent circular membrane area on postmedial portion ventrally, without lingula. Postgonite divided into dorsal and ventral branches, dorsal branch broadly striped, transparent on margins, with circular apex, bent posteroventrally in middle right angled. Ventral branch narrowly striped, expanded posteroventrally. Phallus unsegmented, with 2 ridges dorsally, apical end of ridges pointed. Female (Figs 5–7, 10, 13) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Figs 5–7, 10). Vertex and frons densely gray yellow pollinose and yellow pilose, with blackish brown spot in front of lunule. Antenna dark brown. LEGS. Tarsi with black pile dorsally. ABDOMEN (Figs 5–6, 13). Abdomen parallel-sided, blackish brown, yellow laterally. Tergite 1 yellow or dark brown. Tergite 2 with lateral yellow markings medially, separated at inner ends and merged into lateral yellow. Tergites 3 and 4 with broad anterior yellow fasciae, with its anterior and posterior margins projecting medially. Tergites 5 to 7 yellow laterally. Sternites yellowish white, with light pile. Female terminalia brownish yellow. Remainder similar to male. Immature stages Unknown. Distribution This species was collected from sub-alpine forest at Wanglang National Nature Reserve, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China (103º55′− 104º10′ E, 32º49′− 33º02′ N, 2300−4980 m a.s.l.) during 2016–2018 (Fig. 24)., Published as part of Huo, Ke-Ke, Zhao, Le, Mengual, Ximo, Li, Gang, Liu, Xin, Zhao, Lian-Jun & Chen, Zhen-Ning, 2022, Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov., a new flower fly genus (Diptera, Syrphidae) from China, pp. 98-116 in European Journal of Taxonomy 852 on pages 102-106, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2015, http://zenodo.org/record/7471148

Biema qilianensis Huo & Liu gen. et sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: D9DFD1A0-68B8-42E9-A50C-72F48AB60CC4 Figs 25–41 Diagnosis Mesonotum densely pollinose, anterior area with one pair of inconspicuous submedial pollinose vittae extended posteriad of transverse suture; scutellum densely pollinose; male tergite 4 without macula or with a small yellow macula/fascia anteromedially; female tergites 2 to 7 with broad yellow fasciae, extended to the anterior margin of tergites. Etymology The specific name is derived from the locality where the type specimens were collected. Material examined Holotype CHINA • ♂; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Zhugu village, Sigou township; 24 Jul. 2021; Ke-Ke Huo leg.; sub-alpine forest; specimen identifier: SYR-2021070001; SNUT. Paratypes CHINA • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; Xin Liu leg.; Genbank: ON067496; specimen identifier: SYR-2021070002; SNUT • 6 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 28 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2021070003 to 2021070008; SNUT • 1 ♂; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Xianmi village, Qihankai Nature reserve; 30 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers SYR-2021070009; SNUT • 1 ♀; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Xianmi village, Meihua township; 30 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2021070010. Description Male (Figs 25, 27–29, 31–41) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Figs 25, 27–28). Hemispherical, deeply concave posteriorly with concealed postpronotum. Eye bare, with eye contiguity longer than frons. Vertex slightly convex, black, yellow pilose and pollinose. Ocellar triangle equilateral,located at anterior half of vertex. Occiput densely yellow pilose and pollinose on dorsal and upper half of lateral portions, yellowish white pilose and pollinose on lower half of lateral portions, obscures ground colour. Frons densely white pollinose obscures ground colour, short light pile along eye margins. Lunule narrow, light yellowish brown. Face almost vertical in lateral view, facial tubercle rounded and produced, anterior margin of oral open not pointed. Face black, densely white to light yellow pollinose obscures ground colour, facial tubercle and lateral oral margins shining black and bare. Face short light pilose laterally. Gena densely light yellowish white pilose and pollinose. Antennal sockets confluent. Antenna light yellow; basoflagellomere dark brown dorsally; arista dark brown with extremely short pile, thickened basally. THORAX. Black. Mesonotum metallic golden green, subappressed short yellow pilose, light yellow pollinose and thickened laterally, anterior area with one pair of inconspicuous submedial pollinose vittae extended posteriad of transverse suture. Postpronotum light yellow pollinose. Scutellum shining black, metallic golden green, subappressed short yellow pilose, row of light yellow bristle-like pile on posterior margin and two pile elongated in middle. Subscutellar fringe short and sparse, central area of posterior margin bare. Pleuron shining black, light yellow pollinose. Posterior convex part of anepisternum and anterior anepimeron sparsely short yellow pilose. Katepisterum sparsely short yellow pilose, only with ventral pile patches. Metasternum not reduced, with posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus, yellow, bare. LEGS. Light yellow to yellowish white; two apical tarsomeres of mid-tarsi light brown; hind-tibiae, hindtarsi and apical ½ to ⅔ of hind-femora black to blackish brown, hind-knees and apical of hind-tibiae light yellow. Yellow pilose. WING (Fig. 31). Transparent, stigma light yellow, membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight, spurious vein rudimentary, corssvein r-m slightly inclined, located before basal ⅓ of cell dm. Vein M 1 bent basally and formed s-shaped slightly, Vein M 1 and vein dm-cu parallel with wing margin. Alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c. Calypters narrow, yellowish white. Halters yellowish white, except yellowish green apically. ABDOMEN (Fig. 29). Male abdomen parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and the widest part at the end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown, yellowish white to yellow laterally; tergite 2 with two triangular yellow markings merged into yellow lateral margin and broadly separated on inner end; tergite 3 with yellow broad median fascia, sometime interrupted medially; tergite 4 without macula, sometime with median small yellow macula or fascia anteriorly. Terminalia yellowish brown. Tergites with light yellow pile on lateral margin and appressed black pile medially. Sternites light pilose; sternites 1 and 2 yellowish white, 3 and 4 brownish yellow. MALE TERMINALIA (Figs 32–41). Yellowish brown. Cercus small, weakly sclerotized, yellowish brown with yellow pile. Epandrium nearly quadrilateral in lateral view, slightly longer than high, with the dorsal margin slightly convex. Surstylus elongated, slightly expanded inwards basodorsally, narrowly stripelike in lateral view, dorsal and ventral margins at basal ⅔ nearly parallel, apical ⅓ bent posterodorsally, ventral margin with circularly concave, apical with two triangular dentate-shaped point, inner surface with short brown setae. Hypandrium rounded and enlarged, with short brown setae posteroventrally and concave posteromedial margin. Postgonite bluntly basodorsally with a prominent tooth in lateral view, posterior part divided into dorsal and ventral branches, dorsal branch blunt and broad apically, ventral branch slightly sharp apically with dentate-shaped towards midline. Phallus unsegmented, in lateral view bluntly rounded apically, in dorsal view enlarged medially, arc-shaped laterally, two dentateshaped apically, arc-shaped between dentate-shape. Female (Figs 26, 30) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Fig. 26). Vertex and frons densely gray yellow pollinose and yellow pilose, with a blackish brown spot in the front of lunule. Antenna dark brown. LEGS. Tarsi with black pile dorsally. ABDOMEN (Fig. 30). Abdomen parallel-sided, blackish brown, yellowish laterally. Tergite 1 yellow or dark brown. Tergite 2 with lateral yellow spots medially, separated at the inner ends and merged into lateral yellow. Tergites 3 to 7 with broad yellow fasciae, anterior border of fasciae contacts anterior margin of tergites, covering about ⅔ of tergites 3 and 4, about ½ of tergites 5 to 7. Sternites yellow with light pile. Remainder similar to male. Immature stages Unknown. Distribution This species was obtained from sub-alpine forest at Qilian Mountain National Park, Qinghai Province, China (102º24′ E, 37º7′ N, 2600–3248 m above sea level) (Fig. 42).

Biema qilianensis Huo & Liu gen. et sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: D9DFD1A0-68B8-42E9-A50C-72F48AB60CC4 Figs 25–41 Diagnosis Mesonotum densely pollinose, anterior area with one pair of inconspicuous submedial pollinose vittae extended posteriad of transverse suture; scutellum densely pollinose; male tergite 4 without macula or with a small yellow macula/fascia anteromedially; female tergites 2 to 7 with broad yellow fasciae, extended to the anterior margin of tergites. Etymology The specific name is derived from the locality where the type specimens were collected. Material examined Holotype CHINA • ♂; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Zhugu village, Sigou township; 24 Jul. 2021; Ke-Ke Huo leg.; sub-alpine forest; specimen identifier: SYR-2021070001; SNUT. Paratypes CHINA • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; Xin Liu leg.; Genbank: ON067496; specimen identifier: SYR-2021070002; SNUT • 6 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 28 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2021070003 to 2021070008; SNUT • 1 ♂; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Xianmi village, Qihankai Nature reserve; 30 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers SYR-2021070009; SNUT • 1 ♀; Qinghai Province, Menyuan County, Xianmi village, Meihua township; 30 Jul. 2021; Xin Liu leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2021070010. Description Male (Figs 25, 27–29, 31–41) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Figs 25, 27–28). Hemispherical, deeply concave posteriorly with concealed postpronotum. Eye bare, with eye contiguity longer than frons. Vertex slightly convex, black, yellow pilose and pollinose. Ocellar triangle equilateral,located at anterior half of vertex. Occiput densely yellow pilose and pollinose on dorsal and upper half of lateral portions, yellowish white pilose and pollinose on lower half of lateral portions, obscures ground colour. Frons densely white pollinose obscures ground colour, short light pile along eye margins. Lunule narrow, light yellowish brown. Face almost vertical in lateral view, facial tubercle rounded and produced, anterior margin of oral open not pointed. Face black, densely white to light yellow pollinose obscures ground colour, facial tubercle and lateral oral margins shining black and bare. Face short light pilose laterally. Gena densely light yellowish white pilose and pollinose. Antennal sockets confluent. Antenna light yellow; basoflagellomere dark brown dorsally; arista dark brown with extremely short pile, thickened basally. THORAX. Black. Mesonotum metallic golden green, subappressed short yellow pilose, light yellow pollinose and thickened laterally, anterior area with one pair of inconspicuous submedial pollinose vittae extended posteriad of transverse suture. Postpronotum light yellow pollinose. Scutellum shining black, metallic golden green, subappressed short yellow pilose, row of light yellow bristle-like pile on posterior margin and two pile elongated in middle. Subscutellar fringe short and sparse, central area of posterior margin bare. Pleuron shining black, light yellow pollinose. Posterior convex part of anepisternum and anterior anepimeron sparsely short yellow pilose. Katepisterum sparsely short yellow pilose, only with ventral pile patches. Metasternum not reduced, with posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus, yellow, bare. LEGS. Light yellow to yellowish white; two apical tarsomeres of mid-tarsi light brown; hind-tibiae, hindtarsi and apical ½ to ⅔ of hind-femora black to blackish brown, hind-knees and apical of hind-tibiae light yellow. Yellow pilose. WING (Fig. 31). Transparent, stigma light yellow, membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight, spurious vein rudimentary, corssvein r-m slightly inclined, located before basal ⅓ of cell dm. Vein M 1 bent basally and formed s-shaped slightly, Vein M 1 and vein dm-cu parallel with wing margin. Alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c. Calypters narrow, yellowish white. Halters yellowish white, except yellowish green apically. ABDOMEN (Fig. 29). Male abdomen parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and the widest part at the end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown, yellowish white to yellow laterally; tergite 2 with two triangular yellow markings merged into yellow lateral margin and broadly separated on inner end; tergite 3 with yellow broad median fascia, sometime interrupted medially; tergite 4 without macula, sometime with median small yellow macula or fascia anteriorly. Terminalia yellowish brown. Tergites with light yellow pile on lateral margin and appressed black pile medially. Sternites light pilose; sternites 1 and 2 yellowish white, 3 and 4 brownish yellow. MALE TERMINALIA (Figs 32–41). Yellowish brown. Cercus small, weakly sclerotized, yellowish brown with yellow pile. Epandrium nearly quadrilateral in lateral view, slightly longer than high, with the dorsal margin slightly convex. Surstylus elongated, slightly expanded inwards basodorsally, narrowly stripelike in lateral view, dorsal and ventral margins at basal ⅔ nearly parallel, apical ⅓ bent posterodorsally, ventral margin with circularly concave, apical with two triangular dentate-shaped point, inner surface with short brown setae. Hypandrium rounded and enlarged, with short brown setae posteroventrally and concave posteromedial margin. Postgonite bluntly basodorsally with a prominent tooth in lateral view, posterior part divided into dorsal and ventral branches, dorsal branch blunt and broad apically, ventral branch slightly sharp apically with dentate-shaped towards midline. Phallus unsegmented, in lateral view bluntly rounded apically, in dorsal view enlarged medially, arc-shaped laterally, two dentateshaped apically, arc-shaped between dentate-shape. Female (Figs 26, 30) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Fig. 26). Vertex and frons densely gray yellow pollinose and yellow pilose, with a blackish brown spot in the front of lunule. Antenna dark brown. LEGS. Tarsi with black pile dorsally. ABDOMEN (Fig. 30). Abdomen parallel-sided, blackish brown, yellowish laterally. Tergite 1 yellow or dark brown. Tergite 2 with lateral yellow spots medially, separated at the inner ends and merged into lateral yellow. Tergites 3 to 7 with broad yellow fasciae, anterior border of fasciae contacts anterior margin of tergites, covering about ⅔ of tergites 3 and 4, about ½ of tergites 5 to 7. Sternites yellow with light pile. Remainder similar to male. Immature stages Unknown. Distribution This species was obtained from sub-alpine forest at Qilian Mountain National Park, Qinghai Province, China (102º24′ E, 37º7′ N, 2600–3248 m above sea level) (Fig. 42)., Published as part of Huo, Ke-Ke, Zhao, Le, Mengual, Ximo, Li, Gang, Liu, Xin, Zhao, Lian-Jun & Chen, Zhen-Ning, 2022, Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov., a new flower fly genus (Diptera, Syrphidae) from China, pp. 98-116 in European Journal of Taxonomy 852 on pages 107-110, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2015, http://zenodo.org/record/7471148

Huo, Ke-Ke, Zhao, Le, Mengual, Ximo, Li, Gang, Liu, Xin, Zhao, Lian-Jun, Chen, Zhen-Ning (2022): Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov., a new flower fly genus (Diptera, Syrphidae) from China. European Journal of Taxonomy 852: 98-116, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2015, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2015

Biema wanglangensis Huo & Zhao gen. et sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: E468D3B0-C9CC-41E7-A092-61F4E55BBF08 Figs 2–23 Diagnosis Mesonotum sparsely light yellow pollinose, only thickened on lateral sides before transverse suture; pleuron and scutellum sparsely pollinose; male tergite 4 with dark brown or yellow broad median fascia; female tergites 3 and 4 with yellow fasciae, not extended to the anterior margin; female tergites 5 to 7 with yellow maculae basolaterally. Etymology The specific name is derived from the locality where type specimens were collected. Material examined Holotype CHINA • ♂; Sichuan Province, Pingwu County, Wanglang Natural Reserve; 4 Aug. 2016; Ke-Ke Huo leg.; sub-alpine forest; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080001; SNUT. Paratypes CHINA • 6 ♂♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080002 to 2016080008; SNUT • 4 ♂♂, 3 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; Fei Lan Leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080009 to 2016080015; SNUT • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2016; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080016 to 2016080017; SNUT • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2016; Fei Lan Leg.; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080018; Genbank: ON067497; SNUT • 11 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 6Aug. 2016; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080019 to 2016080029; SNUT • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 5 Aug. 2017; specimen identifier: SYR-2016080030; SNUT • 1 ♂, 2 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; 6 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080031 to 2016080033; ZFMK • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 6 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifier: ZFMK-DIP-00097116; photographed in Figs 5–7; SNUT • 17 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080034 to 2016080050; ZFMK • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; specimen identifier: ZFMK-DIP-00097117; photographed in Figs 2–4; SNUT • 7 ♂♂; same collection data as for holotype; 9 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080051 to 2016080057; SNUT • 3 ♂♂, 2 ♀♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080058 to 2016080062; ZFMK • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; specimen identifiers: ZFMK-DIP-00097118 and ZFMK-DIP-00097119; SNUT • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 10 Aug. 2017; Yan Bai leg.; specimen identifiers: SYR-2016080065; SNUT. Description Male (Figs 2–4, 8–9, 11–12, 14–23) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5mm. HEAD (Figs 2–4, 8–9, 11). Hemispherical, deeply concave posteriorly with a concealed postpronotum. Eye bare, with eye contiguity longer than frons. Vertex slightly convex, black, yellow pilose and pollinose. Ocellar triangle equilateral, located at the anterior half of vertex. Occiput densely yellow pilose and pollinose on dorsal and upper half of lateral portions, yellowish white pilose and pollinose on lower half, obscures ground colour. Frons densely white pollinose obscures ground colour, short light pile along the margins. Lunule narrow, light yellowish brown. Face almost vertical in lateral view, facial tubercle rounded and produced, anterior margin of oral open not pointed. Face black and densely white to light yellow pollinose obscures ground colour, facial tubercle and lateral oral margins shiny black and bare. Face short light pilose laterally. Gena densely light yellowish white pilose and pollinose. Antennal sockets confluent. Antenna light yellow; basoflagellomere dark brown dorsally; arista dark brown with extremely short pile, thickened basally. THORAX (Figs 2–3). Black. Mesonotum metallic golden green, with subappressed short yellow pile; sparsely light yellow pollinose, thickened on lateral sides before transverse suture. Postpronotum light yellow pollinose. Scutellum shining black, metallic green, with subappressed short yellow pile, row of light yellow bristle-like pile on posterior margin and two pile elongated in middle. Subscutellar fringe short and sparse, absent medially. Pleuron shining black, light yellow pollinose. Posterior convex part of anepisternum and anterior anepimeron sparsely short yellow pilose. Katepisterum sparsely short yellow pilose, only with ventral pile patches. Metasternum not reduced, posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus, yellow, bare. LEGS (Figs 2–4). Light yellow to yellowish white; two apical tarsomeres of mid-tarsi light brown; hindtibiae, hind-tarsi and apical ½ of hind-femora black to blackish brown, hind-knees and apical of hindtibiae light yellow. Legs yellow pilose, apcial three tarsomeres of tarsi dorsally black pilose. WING (Figs 2–3, 14). Transparent, stigma light yellow, membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight, spurious vein rudimentary, corssvein r-m slightly inclined, located before the basal ⅓ of cell dm. Vein M 1 bent basally and formed s-shaped slightly. Vein M 1 and vein dm-cu parallel with wing margin. Alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c. Calypters narrow, yellowish white. Halters yellowish white, except yellowish green apically. ABDOMEN (Figs 2–3, 12). Male abdomen parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and widest part at end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown, yellowish white to yellow laterally; tergite 2 with two triangular yellow markings merged into yellow lateral margin and broadly separated on inner end; tergite 3 with broad median yellow fascia, sometime interrupted medially; tergite 4 with dark broad median brown fascia, sometimes absent.Terminalia yellowish brown.Tergites with light yellow pile on lateral margin, appressed black pile medially. Sternites light pilose; sternites 1 and 2 yellowish white, 3 and 4 brownish yellow. MALE TERMINALIA (Figs 15–23). Dark brown. Cercus small, weakly sclerotized, with yellow pile. Epandrium nearly quadrilateral in lateral view, broad slightly longer than high, basal margin broader than apical margin. Surstylus triangular in dorsal view, broadened basally, then gradually narrowed ventrad, with apex acute, and bent posterodorsally; in posterior view expanded into broad triangle towards middle line along posterior margin of epandrium, with pile on inner margin. Hypandrium circular and expanded basally, with transparent circular membrane area on postmedial portion ventrally, without lingula. Postgonite divided into dorsal and ventral branches, dorsal branch broadly striped, transparent on margins, with circular apex, bent posteroventrally in middle right angled. Ventral branch narrowly striped, expanded posteroventrally. Phallus unsegmented, with 2 ridges dorsally, apical end of ridges pointed. Female (Figs 5–7, 10, 13) MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 5 mm. Wing length: 5 mm. HEAD (Figs 5–7, 10). Vertex and frons densely gray yellow pollinose and yellow pilose, with blackish brown spot in front of lunule. Antenna dark brown. LEGS. Tarsi with black pile dorsally. ABDOMEN (Figs 5–6, 13). Abdomen parallel-sided, blackish brown, yellow laterally. Tergite 1 yellow or dark brown. Tergite 2 with lateral yellow markings medially, separated at inner ends and merged into lateral yellow. Tergites 3 and 4 with broad anterior yellow fasciae, with its anterior and posterior margins projecting medially. Tergites 5 to 7 yellow laterally. Sternites yellowish white, with light pile. Female terminalia brownish yellow. Remainder similar to male. Immature stages Unknown. Distribution This species was collected from sub-alpine forest at Wanglang National Nature Reserve, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China (103º55′− 104º10′ E, 32º49′− 33º02′ N, 2300−4980 m a.s.l.) during 2016–2018 (Fig. 24).

Genus Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: A0AF4F68-7FD0-454A-B850-61565DD303DC Type species Biema wanglangensis Huo & Zhao gen. et sp. nov. Diagnosis Biema gen. nov. can be distinguished by the following morphological features: head deeply concave posteriorly with a concealed postpronotum; postpronotum without pile; head, mesonotum and scutellum black; metasternum not reduced, with posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus Le Peletier & Serville, 1828; alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c; male postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments, surstylus and postgonite complex, phallus unsegmented. In the identification key to bacchine and melanostomine groups by Thompson & Skevington (2014), the new genus keys out to couplet 2. Further, males of Biema key out to Baccha Fabricius, 1805 based on its short pilose antennal arista, unmodified hind tibia, distinct facial tubercle and bare metathoracic pleuron. Our new genus can be easily distinguished from Baccha by the incomplete postmetacoxal bridge (complete postmetacoxal bridge in Baccha) and by the sparse but present scutellar fringe (absent in Baccha). Females of Biema, with a parallel-sided abdomen, key out to couplet 11 and are morphologically related to Platycheirus, Argentinomyia Lynch-Arribálzaga, 1891 and Melanostoma. Etymology The new genus is named after the Biema Zang people, who live where the type specimens were collected. Description Small sized flies. Head hemispherical. Eye bare. Vertex, frons and face black, densely white pollinose obscures ground colour. Facial tubercle rounded and produced, bare and shinning. Arista extremely short pilose. Antennal sockets confluent. Scutellum black, row of short bristles on posterior margin and one pair of bristles elongated in the middle. Katepisternum only with ventral patches. Metasternum not reduced, posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus. Legs slender, not modified, hide-coxa without tuft of pile on anteromedial corner. Wing membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight; spurious vein rudimentary; crossvein r-m slightly inclined, located before basal ⅓ of cell dm; alula narrow, as wide as width of cell c. Male abdomen nearly parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and widest part at end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown with yellow maculae or fasciae. Male surstylus and postgonite complex, phallus unsegmented. Biology and distribution Biema gen. nov. occurs in forest areas, at or above 2300 m altitude in China (Sichuan, Qinghai) (Fig. 1).

Genus Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: A0AF4F68-7FD0-454A-B850-61565DD303DC Type species Biema wanglangensis Huo & Zhao gen. et sp. nov. Diagnosis Biema gen. nov. can be distinguished by the following morphological features: head deeply concave posteriorly with a concealed postpronotum; postpronotum without pile; head, mesonotum and scutellum black; metasternum not reduced, with posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus Le Peletier & Serville, 1828; alula narrow, as wide as basal width of cell c; male postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments, surstylus and postgonite complex, phallus unsegmented. In the identification key to bacchine and melanostomine groups by Thompson & Skevington (2014), the new genus keys out to couplet 2. Further, males of Biema key out to Baccha Fabricius, 1805 based on its short pilose antennal arista, unmodified hind tibia, distinct facial tubercle and bare metathoracic pleuron. Our new genus can be easily distinguished from Baccha by the incomplete postmetacoxal bridge (complete postmetacoxal bridge in Baccha) and by the sparse but present scutellar fringe (absent in Baccha). Females of Biema, with a parallel-sided abdomen, key out to couplet 11 and are morphologically related to Platycheirus, Argentinomyia Lynch-Arribálzaga, 1891 and Melanostoma. Etymology The new genus is named after the Biema Zang people, who live where the type specimens were collected. Description Small sized flies. Head hemispherical. Eye bare. Vertex, frons and face black, densely white pollinose obscures ground colour. Facial tubercle rounded and produced, bare and shinning. Arista extremely short pilose. Antennal sockets confluent. Scutellum black, row of short bristles on posterior margin and one pair of bristles elongated in the middle. Katepisternum only with ventral patches. Metasternum not reduced, posterior margin shallowly concave similar to that in Platycheirus. Legs slender, not modified, hide-coxa without tuft of pile on anteromedial corner. Wing membrane entirely microtrichose. Vein R 4+5 straight; spurious vein rudimentary; crossvein r-m slightly inclined, located before basal ⅓ of cell dm; alula narrow, as wide as width of cell c. Male abdomen nearly parallel-sided, slightly constricted at tergite 2 posterior margin, broadened from tergite 3 and widest part at end of tergite 4, postabdomen conspicuous more swollen than other segments. Tergite 2 slightly longer than tergite 3, and tergite 3 slightly longer than tergite 4. Abdomen blackish brown with yellow maculae or fasciae. Male surstylus and postgonite complex, phallus unsegmented. Biology and distribution Biema gen. nov. occurs in forest areas, at or above 2300 m altitude in China (Sichuan, Qinghai) (Fig. 1)., Published as part of Huo, Ke-Ke, Zhao, Le, Mengual, Ximo, Li, Gang, Liu, Xin, Zhao, Lian-Jun & Chen, Zhen-Ning, 2022, Biema Huo & Zhao gen. nov., a new flower fly genus (Diptera, Syrphidae) from China, pp. 98-116 in European Journal of Taxonomy 852 on pages 101-102, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.852.2015, http://zenodo.org/record/7471148, {"references":["Le Peletier A. L. M. & Serville J. G. A. 1828. Entomologie, ou histoire naturelle des Crustaces, des Arachnides et des Insectes. Encyclopedie methodique. Histoire naturelle des animaux 10: 1 - 833. https: // doi. org / 10.5962 / bhl. title. 82248","Thompson F. C. & Skevington J. H. 2014. Afrotropical flower flies (Diptera: Syrphidae). A new genus and species from Kenya, with a review of the melanostomine group of genera. Zootaxa 3847 (1): 97 - 114. https: // doi. org / 10.11646 / zootaxa. 3847.1.5"]}

Liver failure (LF) is a life-threatening clinical syndrome characterized by intense systemic inflammation and organ failure(s), leading to a high mortality rate. The pathogenesis of LF is multifactorial, immune response, and gut bacterial translocation are thought to be major contributing factors. Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells play a critical role in immune response and gut bacterial translocation. We aimed to investigate changes of the MAIT cell ratio in patients with LF and to explore the predictive value for long-term prognosis in patients with LF.We recruited 75 patients with LF from Nantong Third People's Hospital, isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and detected the proportion of circulating MAIT cells by flow cytometry. Statistical analyses were performed using the GraphPad Prism software.Our data showed that the proportion of MAIT cells alterations was independent of the cause of viral infection in patients with LF. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that LF patients with low level of MAIT cells had poor long-term prognosis. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the MAIT cell proportion was larger than that of the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score. More importantly, the combination of MAIT cell proportion and MELD score had a better effect in predicting long-term prognosis of LF patients than any single index (AUC = 0.91, 95% CI:0.84-0.97), and multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that the circulating MAIT cell proportion was an independent risk factor for LF.The proportion of MAIT cells in PBMC is an outstanding predictor for the long-term prognosis in patients with LF.

Although expression of interleukin (IL)-34 is upregulated in active ulcerative colitis (UC), the molecular function and underlying mechanism are largely unclear.To investigate the function of IL-34 in acute colitis, in a wound healing model and in colitis-associated cancer in IL-34-deficient mice.Colitis was induced by administration of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS), and carcinogenesis was induced by azoxymethane (AOM). Whether the impact of IL-34 on colitis was dependent on macrophages was validated by depletion of macrophages in a murine model. The association between IL-34 expression and epithelial proliferation was studied in patients with active UC.IL-34 deficiency aggravated murine colitis in acute colitis and in wound healing phase. The effect of IL-34 on experimental colitis was not dependent on macrophage differentiation and polarization. IL-34-deficient mice developed more tumors than wild-type mice following administration of AOM and DSS. No significant difference was shown in degree of cellular differentiation in tumors between wild-type and IL-34-deficient mice. IL-34 was dramatically increased in the active UC patients as previously reported. More importantly, expression of IL-34 was positively correlated with epithelial cell proliferation in patients with UC.IL-34 deficiency exacerbates colonic inflammation and accelerates colitis-associated carcinogenesis in mice. It might be served as a potential therapeutic target in UC.

The elderly may have unique, daily travel behaviour characteristics compared to other age groups, associated with age and physical ability. Defining these characteristics can inform urban infrastructure construction and planning. In this study, 20 elders aged between 60 and 70 years, living in the city centre of Tianjin, were selected to complete the survey. A total of 2232 hours of participant travel behaviour were collected via GPS equipment from July to August 2019. Data were used to create a space–time cube. Based on a statistical analysis of the GPS data, results indicated that the elderly mainly had six kinds of daily travel behaviours: visiting, shopping, outdoor exercise, eating out, going to the hospital and picking up and dropping off grandchildren. The main activity time was from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Their travel mode was mostly pedestrian-based, with an average single travel distance of about 1.01 km, and an average single travel time of about 0.5 hours. Using the space–time cube, characteristics of elderly daily travel behaviour were visualised. In addition, a typical space–time cube was summarised and presented. Data and methods from this study can provide reference and support for future-related research.

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In this study, we aimed to evaluate the toxic effects, changes in life span, and expression of various metabolism-related genes in Caenorhabditis elegans, using RNA interference (RNAi) and mutant strains, after 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA) treatment. C. elegans was treated with various concentrations of 3-BrPA on nematode growth medium (NGM) plates, and their survival was monitored every 24 h. The expression of genes related to metabolism was measured by the real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Nematode survival in the presence of 3-BrPA was also studied after silencing three hexokinase (HK) genes. The average life span of C. elegans cultured on NGM with 3-BrPA was shortened to 5.7 d compared with 7.7 d in the control group. hxk-1, hxk-2, and hxk-3 were overexpressed after the treatment with 3-BrPA. After successfully interfering hxk-1, hxk-2, and hxk-3, the 50% lethal concentration (LC(50)) of all mutant nematodes decreased with 3-BrPA treatment for 24 h compared with that of the control. All the cyp35 genes tested were overexpressed, except cyp-35B3. The induction of cyp-35A1 expression was most obvious. The LC(50) values of the mutant strains cyp-35A1, cyp-35A2, cyp-35A4, cyp-35B3, and cyp-35C1 were lower than that of the control. Thus, the toxicity of 3-BrPA is closely related to its effect on hexokinase metabolism in nematodes, and the cyp-35 family plays a key role in the metabolism of 3-BrPA.

Click-through rate (CTR) prediction is crucial for online sponsored search advertising. Several successful CTR models have been adopted in the industry, including the regularized logistic regression (LR). Nonetheless, the learning process suffers from two limitations: 1) Feature crosses for high-order information may generate trillions of features, which are sparse for online learning examples; 2) Rapid changing of data distribution brings challenges to the accurate learning since the model has to perform a fast adaptation on the new data. Moreover, existing adaptive optimizers are ineffective in handling the sparsity issue for high-dimensional features. In this paper, we propose to learn an optimizer in a meta-learning scenario, where the optimizer is learned on prior data and can be easily adapted to the new data. We firstly build a low-dimensional feature embedding on prior data to encode the association among features. Then, the gradients on new data can be decomposed into the low-dimensional space, enabling the parameter update smoothed and relieving the sparsity. Note that this technology could be deployed into a distributed system to ensure efficient online learning on the trillions-level parameters. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the algorithm in terms of prediction accuracy and actual revenue. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves a promising prediction on the new data. The final online revenue is noticeably improved compared to the baseline. This framework was initially deployed in Baidu Search Ads (a.k.a. Phoenix Nest) in 2014 and is currently still being used in certain modules of Baidu's ads systems.

More than 10% of women suffer from endometriosis (EMT) during their reproductive years. EMT can cause pain and infertility and requires further study from multiple perspectives. Previous reports have indicated that an increase inapolipoprotein E (ApoE) may be associated with a lower number of retrieved mature oocytes in older women, and an association between ApoE and spontaneous pregnancy loss may exist in patients with EMT. The purpose of this study was to investigate the existence of an increase in ApoE in follicular fluid (FF) and the possible relationship between ApoE and EMT in Chinese women. In the current study, 217 Chinese women (111 control subjects and 106 EMT patients) were included. The ApoE genotypes were identified by Sanger sequencing. We found that ApoE expression in FF was higher in patients with EMT than in the control group. In addition, a significant difference in ApoE4 carriers (ϵ3/ϵ4, ϵ4/ϵ4) was found between the control subjects and the patients with EMT. Furthermore, a nonparametric test revealed significant differences in the numbers of blastocysts and high-quality blastocysts, but not the hormone levels of FSH, LH, and E2, between the two groups. We also established a multifactor (BMI, high-quality blastocysts, and ϵ4) prediction model with good sensitivity for identifying patients who may suffer from EMT. Our results demonstrate that ApoE expression in FF is increased in EMT, the ApoE-ϵ4 allele is significantly linked to EMT, and a combined analysis of three factors (BMI, high-quality blastocysts, and ϵ4) could be used as a predictor of EMT.

Recently, a large number of laboratory studies have focused on the aqueous-phase photochemistry of single organic compound in atmospheric condensed phases, yet few studies have been conducted on the aqueous-phase photochemical oxidation of real-world complex dissolved organic matter (DOM). Therefore, in this work, we report experimental results for the photochemical oxidation of DOM extracts from ambient fine aerosol samples upon direct photolysis or against OH oxidation, under both simulated sunlight and ultraviolet irradiation conditions. The products at different stages of photolysis were analyzed via UV-vis and spectroscopy and soot-particle aerosol mass spectrometry (SP-AMS) to investigate their optical and chemical characteristics. The results demonstrate the effective degradation of DOM under UV irradiation, and the

Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is an autoimmune liver disease characterized by the highly selective autoimmune injury of small intrahepatic bile ducts. Studies reported that the cholangiocytes from PBC patients expressed significantly higher levels of both receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B (RANK) and its ligand RANKL. However, the accurate role of RANK/RANKL axis in PBC remains unclear. Forty patients with PBC were enrolled according to the inclusion criteria. The biochemical parameters (alkaline phosphatase, ALP; gamma-glutamyltransferase, GGT; alanine aminotransferase, ALT; aspartate transaminase, AST; total bilirubin, TB) were collected at baseline and followed-up after 6 months of treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA, 15 mg/kg d). Stages of PBC were diagnosed based on liver biopsy histopathology according to Nakanuma’s criteria. RANK expression in hepatic tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry. The cellular immunofluorescence method was used to locate the distribution of RANK in the human intrahepatic biliary epithelial cells (HIBECs) cultured in vitro. HIBECs were treated with RANKL at a concentration of 100 ng/ml or transfected with RANK-overexpressing lentivirus (LV-RANK). CCK-8 assay and cell cycle assay were used to detect the cell proliferation. Real-time PCR was used to detect the expression of IL-6, E-cadherin, VCAM, ICAM-1, TNF-α, and CD80. RANK expression in liver biopsies from early PBC patients (stage I + stage II) was significantly lower than that from advanced PBC patients (stage III + stage IV) (1.7 ± 0.63 vs. 2.3 ± 0.45 scores, P

Objectives Collagen triple helix repeat containing-1 (CTHRC1) is a highly conserved extracellular matrix glycoprotein that is overexpressed in two murine models of cholestatic liver fibrosis. Elevated CTHRC1 has been found to attenuate liver fibrosis in these murine models, thus we aimed to study the expression of CTHRC1 in patients with cholestatic liver diseases and its correlation with hepatic conditions. Methods Ninety patients with chronic liver disease, including 48 had primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), 18 had primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and 24 had chronic hepatitis B (CHB), together with five healthy controls (HC), were recruited to this study. Participants' liver sections were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. Serum CTHRC1 levels in another cohort of 59 patients with PBC and 10 age-matched HC were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results CTHRC1 protein was primarily expressed in activated hepatic stellate cells (HSC). CTHRC1 expression was significantly increased in the PBC and PSC groups, compared with the HC and CHB groups. Importantly, the hepatic fibrosis stage of the PBC group was positively correlated with hepatic CTHRC1 expression (r = 0.425, P = 0.003). Meanwhile, there were significant correlations between serum CTHRC1 levels and both the degrees of hepatic inflammation and fibrosis stage in the PBC group (r = 0.300, P = 0.022; r = 0.321, P = 0.012). Conclusion CTHRC1 may play a role in hepatic fibrogenesis in PBC and that serum CTHRC1 may be a potential novel noninvasive biomarker in the assessment of liver fibrosis and inflammation.

In this paper, we study the generalized Abreu equation on a Delzant ploytope Δ ⊂ R 2 and prove the existence of metrics with prescribed scalar curvatures of homogeneous toric bundles under the assumption of an appropriate stability.

BACKGROUND: Some long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been found to contribute to cisplatin resistance. Here, we identified a novel lncRNA that was downregulated in cisplatin-resistant to ovarian cancer (OC) cells and aimed to examine the contribution of LINC01508 to cisplatin resistance in OC cells. METHODS: Differences in the lncRNA expression profile between OV2008 and C13K cells were assessed by lncRNA expression microarray. The expression of LINC01508 in ovarian epithelial cells, four OC cells, and OC, benign ovary tumor and normal ovary, cisplatin-resistant and non-resistant OC specimens were evaluated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The role of LINC01508 in OC cisplatin-resistant was evaluated by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), flow cytometry, colony formation, wound healing, Transwell, and tumor growth inhibition study in vivo. The clinical associations of LINC01508 in OC were evaluated using correlation analysis. The effects of verteporfin (VP) on cisplatin were explored to reveal the function of the hippo-YAP pathway on the cisplatin tolerance of C13K. RESULTS: LINC01508 was downregulated in cisplatin-resistant OC cells and platinum-resistant OC tissue (p

The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus on the proliferation, migration and invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells and analyze the regulatory mechanism of LncRNA FBXL19-AS1/miR-342-3 p pathway. MTT assay and plate cloning assay were used to detect the effect of flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus at different concentrations(1, 5, 10 mg·mL~(-1)) on the proliferation of liver cancer Huh7 cells. The effect of flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus on the migration and invasion of Huh7 cells was examined by Transwell chamber assay. qRT-PCR was used to detect the effect of flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus on the expression levels of FBXL19-AS1 and miR-342-3 p in Huh7 cells. The dual luciferase reporter assay was used to detect whether FBXL19-AS1 targeted at miR-342-3 p. The effect on the inhibition of FBXL19-AS1 expression or FBXL19-AS1 overexpression and then the proliferation, migration and invasion of Huh7 cells were examined by the above methods. Gelatin zymography was used to detect the activities of MMP-2 and MMP-9. The expression levels of cyclinD1, p21, MMP-2 and MMP-9 proteins were detected by Western blot. Flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of Huh7 cells(Plt;0.05), promoted the expression of p21 protein(Plt;0.05), and inhibited the expressions of cyclinD1, MMP-2 and MMP-9(Plt;0.05) in a dose-dependent manner, and could reduce the activity of MMP-2 and MMP-9(Plt;0.05). The expression level of FBXL19-AS1 was significantly decreased in Huh7 cells treated with flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus(Plt;0.05), whereas the expression level of miR-342-3 p was significantly increased(Plt;0.05). The dual luciferase reporter assay confirmed that FBXL19-AS1 targeted at the inhibition of miR-342-3 p expression. After inhibiting the expression of FBXL19-AS1, the inhibition rate of cell proliferation was significantly increased(Plt;0.05), the number of cell clone formation was significantly reduced(Plt;0.05), the number of migrated cells and the number of invasive cells were significantly decreased(Plt;0.05), and the expression levels of cyclinD1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 were significantly decreased(Plt;0.05), the activities of MMP-2 and MMP-9 were significantly reduced(Plt;0.05), while the expression level of p21 protein was significantly increased(Plt;0.05). The overexpression of FBXL19-AS1 reversed the inhibitory effect of flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus on the proliferation, migration and invasion of Huh7 cells. Flavonoids of Sophorae Fructus could inhibite the proliferation, migration and invasion of hepatoma cells by regulating LncRNA FBXL19-AS1/miR-342-3 p pathway.

Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic progressive cholestatic liver disease. In recent years, researchers have found that cysteine-rich angiogenic inducer 61 (Cyr61, also known as CCN1) has a potential role in reducing portal inflammation in patients with PBC. This study aimed to explore the relationship between Cyr61 and PBC to provide new ideas and an experimental basis for the clinical treatment of PBC.After induction of the overexpression of Cyr61 in a mouse model of PBC using recombinant adenovirus, hematoxylin and eosin staining and pathological scores were used to indicate intrahepatic inflammation and bile duct damage. Real-time PCR was used to detect changes in inflammation-related cytokines in the liver. To further study the mechanism, we assessed whether Cyr61 protects bile duct epithelial cells from cytotoxic effects.Serum and hepatic Cyr61 levels were increased in the murine model of PBC. Overexpression of Cyr61 alleviated hepatic inflammation and bile duct injury in vivo. Cyr61 inhibited the cytotoxic effects of CD8Our results provide novel insight into the pathogenesis of PBC and suggest that Cyr61 plays a dominant role in the cytotoxic effects on BECs in PBC. Consequently, therapeutic strategies targeting Cyr61 could be a potent therapy for PBC.

We report a comprehensive proteomic study of a 90-case cohort of paired samples of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in quantification, phosphorylation, and DNA-binding capacity. Four integrative subtypes (iP-1-4) are stratified on the basis of global proteome and phosphoproteome, each of which exhibits distinct molecular and pathway features. Scaffold and co-expression network analyses of three proteomic datasets, integrated with those from genome and transcriptome of the same cohort, reveal key pathways and master regulators that, characteristic of TNBC subtypes, play important regulatory roles within and between scaffold sub-structures and co-expression communities. We find that NAE1 is a potential drug target for subtype iP-1, and a series of key molecules in fatty acid metabolism, such as AKT1/FASN, are plausible targets for subtype iP-2. Libraries of proteins, pathways and networks of TNBC provide a valuable molecular infrastructure for further clinical exploration and in-depth studies of the molecular mechanisms of the disease.

To investigate the chemical composition and pollution characteristics of spring fine particles (PM

In order to investigate the effects of a Ce-based fuel-borne catalyst (FBC) on the catalytic oxidation of soot particles from a diesel engine, a naphthenic acid cerium solution was selected...

In this paper, the content service provision of information-centric vehicular networks (ICVNs) is investigated from the aspect of mobile edge caching, considering the dynamic driving-related context information. To provide up-to-date information with low latency, two schemes are designed for cache update and content delivery at the roadside units (RSUs). The roadside unit centric (RSUC) scheme decouples cache update and content delivery through bandwidth splitting, where the cached content items are updated regularly in a round-robin manner. The request adaptive (ReA) scheme updates the cached content items upon user requests with certain probabilities. The performance of both proposed schemes are analyzed, whereby the average age of information (AoI) and service latency are derived in closed forms. Surprisingly, the AoI-latency trade-off does not always exist, and frequent cache update can degrade both performances. Thus, the RSUC and ReA schemes are further optimized to balance the AoI and latency. Extensive simulations are conducted on SUMO and OMNeT++ simulators, and the results show that the proposed schemes can reduce service latency by up to 80\% while guaranteeing content freshness in heavily loaded ICVNs., Comment: IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (under revision)

In this paper, we design dynamic probabilistic caching for the scenario when the instantaneous content popularity may vary with time while it is possible to predict the average content popularity over a time window. Based on the average content popularity, optimal content caching probabilities can be found, e.g., from solving optimization problems, and existing results in the literature can implement the optimal caching probabilities via static content placement. The objective of this work is to design dynamic probabilistic caching that: i) converge (in distribution) to the optimal content caching probabilities under time-invariant content popularity, and ii) adapt to the time-varying instantaneous content popularity under time-varying content popularity. Achieving the above objective requires a novel design of dynamic content replacement because static caching cannot adapt to varying content popularity while classic dynamic replacement policies, such as LRU, cannot converge to target caching probabilities (as they do not exploit any content popularity information). We model the design of dynamic probabilistic replacement policy as the problem of finding the state transition probability matrix of a Markov chain and propose a method to generate and refine the transition probability matrix. Extensive numerical results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed design., Comment: 13 pages; 10 figures

The constructions of configuration interaction (CI) expansions from a matrix-product state (MPS) involves numerous matrix operations and the skillful sampling of important configurations when in a huge Hilbert space. In this work, we present an efficient procedure for constructing CI expansions from MPS using the Charm++ parallel programming framework, upon which automatic load balancing and object migration facilities can be employed. This procedure was employed in the MPS-to-CI utility (Moritz et al., J. Chem. Phys. 2007, 126, 224109), sampling-reconstructed complete active space algorithm (SR-CAS, Boguslawski et al., J. Chem. Phys. 2011, 134, 224101) and entanglement-driven genetic algorithm (EDGA, Luo et al., J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2017, 13, 4699-4710). It enhances productivity and allows the sampling programs evolve to their population-expansion versions (e.g., EDGA with population expansion [PE-EDGA]). Examples of 1,2-dioxetanone and firefly dioxetanone anion (FDO-) molecules demonstrated that 1) the procedure could be flexibly employed among various multi-core architectures; 2) the parallel efficiencies could be persistently improved simply by increasing the proportion of asynchronous executions; 3) PE-EDGA could construct a CAS-type CI wave function from a huge Hilbert space, with 0.9952 CI completeness and 96.7% correlation energy via ~1.66x10^6 configurations (only 0.0000028% of the total configurations) of a bi-radical state of FDO- molecule using the full valence active space within a few hours.

The joint roughness coefficient (JRC) is an index defined by geometrical characteristics and correlated to mechanical shear strength. It is empirical and subjective to evaluate JRC by visual comparison. The existing quantitative evaluations of joint roughness are based on statistical parameters (i.e., the root mean square Z2, the structure function SF, and the textural parameter RP ), which fail to describe the spatial variability of joint profiles. This paper presents a novel roughness descriptor, semivariogram parameter CA , to quantify roughness characteristics. Based on the theory of geostatistics , a semivariogram function is established. Furthermore, a Gaussian fitting model is applied to obtain the semivariogram parameter CA and its empirical equation, which can be used to evaluate the joint roughness coefficient. Finally, to verify the feasibility of this method, a comparison has been conducted between statistical parameters and the semivariogram parameter for the analysis of Barton's ten standard JRC profiles and 102 additional rock joint profiles.

Aqueous-phase chemical processing, as an essential formation pathway of secondary organic aerosol (SOA), has attracted widespread attention from within atmospheric chemistry fields. Due to the complicated reaction nature, reaction mechanisms, and product characteristics of aqueous-phase chemical processing, its contribution to the SOA budget is still not fully understood. In this work, we investigate how the initial concentration (0.03-3 mmol·L

Resilient modulus is an important response index for unbound graded aggregate materials (UGAM) as a drainage layer in pavement structure. In this paper, a large-scale dynamic triaxial test (300 mm ...

Two clinical ablation protocols, 2C3L and stepwise, have been routinely used in our group to treat atrial fibrillation (AF), but with a less than 60% long-term arrhythmia-free outcome achieved in patients. The goal of this study was to examine the underlying mechanism of low success in clinical outcome. MRI images from one patient were used to reconstruct a human atrial anatomical model, and fibrotic tissue was manually added to represent the arrhythmia substrate. AF was induced with standard protocols used in clinical practice. 2C3L and stepwise were then used to test the efficacy of arrhythmia termination in our model. The results showed that re-entries induced in our model could not be terminated by using either 2C3L or the stepwise protocol. Although some of the induced re-entries were terminated, others emerged in new areas. Ablation using only the 2C3L or stepwise method was not sufficient to terminate all re-entries in our model, which may partially explain the poor long-term arrhythmiafree outcomes in clinical practice. Our findings also suggest that computational heart modelling is an important tool to assist in the establishment of optimal ablation strategies.

We prove a Bernstein theorem for a class of nonlinear, fourth order partial differential equations. We also give a geometric interpretation for the partial differential equations at the end of the paper.

To investigate the characteristics of diurnal variation of humic-like substances (HULIS) in atmospheric aerosols during winter in Changzhou, a total of 64 fine particle (PM

Previous reports have demonstrated that melatonin exists in multiple extrapineal sites, and higher amounts of melatonin are present in human follicular fluid than in serum, which indicates that it might play key roles in human oocyte maturation and subsequent embryonic development. Melatonin has been shown to be a potent antioxidant and might be beneficial to human oocytes during in vitro maturation (IVM). However, the underlying mechanisms of melatonin action during IVM have not been thoroughly investigated.Immunofluorescence staining, western blotting, and ELISA were applied to investigate whether melatoninergic components are expressed in the cultured human ovarian cumulus cells. TMRE staining and Fluo-4 AM staining were performed to detect the mitochondrial membrane potential and intracellular CaFirst, cultured human ovary cumulus cells synthesized melatonin in vitro, and it expressed serotonin (the precursor of melatonin) and the two key enzymes, i.e. N-acetyltransferase (NAT) and hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase (HIOMT). Additionally, the results suggest that melatonin maintains the mitochondrial membrane potential and decrease excessive CaIn conclusion, we provide evidence that the melatoninergic components were expressed in cultured human ovarian cumulus cells, and melatonin might reduce oxidative stress of human oocytes by ameliorating mitochondrial function. In view of the significant clinical value that immature human oocytes have in assisted reproductive technology (ART), our findings highlight a potential treatment strategy of using melatonin to improve mitochondrial function and to enhance the quality of human oocytes during IVM.

To understand the characteristics and sources of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) and organic nitrogen (WSON) in atmospheric aerosols during spring in Changzhou, 84 fine particle (PM

In the second part of this two-part paper, we extend the study of dynamic caching via state transition field (STF) to the case of time-varying content popularity. The objective of this part is to investigate the impact of time-varying content popularity on the STF and how such impact accumulates to affect the performance of a replacement scheme. Unlike the case in the first part, the STF is no longer static over time, and we introduce instantaneous STF to model it. Moreover, we demonstrate that many metrics, such as instantaneous state caching probability and average cache hit probability over an arbitrary sequence of requests, can be found using the instantaneous STF. As a steady state may not exist under time-varying content popularity, we characterize the performance of replacement schemes based on how the instantaneous STF of a replacement scheme after a content request impacts on its cache hit probability at the next request. From this characterization, insights regarding the relations between the pattern of change in the content popularity, the knowledge of content popularity exploited by the replacement schemes, and the effectiveness of these schemes under time-varying popularity are revealed. In the simulations, different patterns of time-varying popularity, including the shot noise model, are experimented. The effectiveness of example replacement schemes under time-varying popularity is demonstrated, and the numerical results support the observations from the analytic results., Comment: 6 figures

Classic network utility maximization problems are usually solved assuming all information is available, implying that information not locally available is always truthfully reported. This may not be practical in all scenarios, especially in distributed/semi-distributed networks. In this paper, incentive for truthful reporting in network optimizations with local information is studied. A novel general model for extending network utility maximization (NUM) problems to incorporate local information is proposed, which allows each user to choose its own objective locally and/or privately. Two specific problems, i.e., a user-centric problem (UCP) and a network-centric problem (NCP), are studied. In the UCP, a network center aims to maximize the collective benefit of all users, and truthful reporting from the users regarding their local information is necessary for finding the solution. We show that the widely-adopted dual pricing cannot guarantee truthful information reporting from a user unless the resource is over-supplied or the price is too high for this user to afford. In the NCP, the network center has its own objective and preferred solution, and incentive needs to be provided for the users to adopt the solution it prefers. Truthful reporting from users is necessary for the center to determine the incentives and achieve its solution. For two-user and multiuser cases, we propose two mechanisms to motivate truthful reporting from users while guaranteeing nonnegative utility gains for both the users and the center. A case study on underlay D2D communication illustrates the application of the UCP and NCP. Simulations are conducted for the D2D application to validate the analytical results and demonstrate the proposed mechanisms., Comment: 29 Pages, 10 figures

In this paper, we propose a contention intensity based distributed coordination (CIDC) scheme for safety message broadcast. By exploiting the high-frequency and periodical features of the safety message broadcast, the application-layer design of the CIDC enables each vehicle to estimate the instantaneous channel contention intensity in a fully distributed manner. With the contention intensity information, the MAC layer design of CIDC allows vehicles to adopt a better channel access strategy compared to the 802.11p. This is because CIDC selects the initial back-off counter for each new packet deterministically, i.e., based on the contention intensity, instead of randomly. The proposed CIDC is modeled, and key performance indicators in terms of the packet collision probability and average contention delay, are derived. It is shown that the proposed change in the initial counter selection leads to a system model completely different from the classic Markov chain based model. Moreover, the proposed CIDC, fully distributed and compatible with the 802.11p, can achieve both a much lower collision probability and a smaller contention delay compared with 802.11p at the cost of a small communication and computation overhead. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the CIDC in both of the accurate and the erroneous contention intensity estimation scenarios., Comment: 25 Pages, 8 Figures

A new method for constructing a digital model of soil-rock mixture is proposed in this paper. Using this method, rock blocks of arbitrary shapes can be considered and the construction of soil-rock mixtures with different block size distribution and rock content can be realized. First, through digital image processing, a large number of rock block contours that are analogous with reality are obtained. Then, a corresponding rock block library is established. Next, an improved intersection detection algorithm based on axis-aligned bounding box is developed to construct the digital model of the soil-rock mixture slope. Furthermore, the stabilities of soil-rock mixture slopes with different block size distribution and rock content are investigated. The results show that the soil-rock mixture slope exhibits multiple sliding zone under the combined action of various plastic zone expansion. And the influence of block size distribution and rock content on the stability of soil-rock mixture slope has a coupling effect.

Collecting morphological characteristics of rock joint surfaces and building a digital rock joint library with abundant sample types and sufficient sample numbers is important for fractured rock mass analysis. To solve the “inflexible field operation” problem in existing contact type and non-contact type data collection procedures, this work presents a photogrammetric workflow in the field for the construction of a 3D rock joint surface database. Innovations in some steps make it practical for field scenarios: image collection procedures in the field and post-processing steps of the SfM-MVS-derived dense point cloud. The performance is considered as good as that of white light scanning, and sub-millimetre accuracy is achieved during batch processing. Two rock joint databases containing 310 samples are established, and two application examples show very good potential of the proposed photogrammetric workflow in the evaluation of rock joint roughness and rock joint anisotropy.

Early evidence indicates that the long non-coding RNA CCAL plays a critical role in cancer progression and metastasis. However, the overall biological role and clinical significance of CCAL in gastric tumourigenesis and progression remain largely unknown. We observed that CCAL was upregulated in gastric cancer tissues and was associated with the tumour-node-metastasis stage. Functional experiments showed that CCAL promoted gastric cancer cell proliferation and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Luciferase reporter assay indicated that CCAL directly bind to miR-149. Moreover, knockdown of CCAL significantly reduced the expression of FOXM1, a direct target of miR-149. We also showed that FOXM1 suppression by miR-149 could be partially rescued by CCAL overexpression. In addition, we identified a negative correlation between the mRNA expression of CCAL and miR-149 in gastric cancer tissues. Furthermore, we observed a negative correlation between the expression of miR-149 and FOXM1 and a positive correlation between CCAL and FOXM1 levels. These results demonstrated that the CCAL/miR-149/FOXM1 axis functions as a key regulator in gastric cancer metastasis and CCAL potentially represents a biomarker for diagnosis and potential target for therapy in the future.

Liquid water (cloud/fog droplets and aerosols) is ubiquitous in the atmosphere and can provide an important reaction media for aqueous-phase chemical reactions. Gaseous precursors (mainly VOCs) or their gas-phase initial or first-generation oxidation products (including intermediate-volatility and semi-volatile organic compounds; I/SVOCs) can undergo chemical reactions in the atmospheric condensed phase (aqueous phase) to form low-volatility, highly oxidized organic matter[e.g., some key tracer species such as organosulfates (OSs) and organonitrogens (ONs)]. These products largely remain in the particle phase upon water evaporation and are referred to as aqueous secondary organic aerosols (aqSOAs). aqSOAs have been emerging as a research hot topic in atmospheric chemistry, as they can contribute significantly to OAs and thus have important impacts on the environment, climate, and human health. Despite considerable progress, so far, aqSOAs remain poorly understood owing to their complex formation mechanisms. In this review, we focus mainly on the relevant research results on the SOAs formed in aerosol water-aqueous aerosol SOAs (aaSOAs)-including gas-phase precursors, formation mechanisms, laboratory simulations, and field observations, as well as SOA yield and contribution to OAs. Meanwhile, we propose future directions regarding studies of sources and formation mechanisms of aaSOAs, including identification of unknown aaSOA precursors and tracer products, photosensitizer-triggered radical chemistry, formation pathways of OS and ON compounds, field observations and model simulations of aaSOAs.