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Abstract Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) is increasingly used in patients with lumbar disc herniation due to its less invasive nature and faster recovery. In this study, we aimed to investigate the prognostic factors associated with patient satisfaction index (PSI) in PELD. A retrospective study of 337 patients who underwent PELD between November 2015 and October 2020 in our department was conducted. Preoperative data of the enrolled patients were recorded. A logistic regression model was developed to explore the preoperative factors associated with postoperative PSI. After a mean follow-up of 28.7 ± 3.6 months, 310 patients were satisfied (NASS score of 1 or 2) and 27 patients were dissatisfied (NASS score of 3 or 4), resulting in a patient satisfaction rate of 91.99%. Demographic data, clinical symptom characteristics, and neurological physical examinations (including lower limb hypesthesia, muscle strength, and tendon flex) did not show any significant differences between the four groups (NASS1,2,3,4). The satisfactory group showed a higher rate of positive Lasegue sign (P = 0.010) and higher preoperative VAS (P = 0.002). The dissatisfaction group showed a higher rate of contiguous double-level disc herniation (P = 0.003). Our findings indicated that positive Lasegue sign and high preoperative VAS were prognostic factors for patient-reported satisfaction and PELD might not be the first choice for contiguous double-level disc herniation.

Abstract Purpose To analyze the characteristics of PEEK rods retrieved in vivo, specifically their wear and deformation, biodegradability, histocompatibility, and mechanical properties. Method Six PEEK rods were retrieved from revision surgeries along with periprosthetic tissue. The retrieved PEEK rods were evaluated for surface damage and internal changes using Micro-CT, while light and electron microscopy were utilized to determine any histological changes in periprosthetic tissues. Patient history was gathered from medical records. Two intact and retrieved PEEK rods were used for fatigue testing analysis by sinusoidal load to the spinal construct. Results All implants showed evidence of plastic deformation around the screw-rod interface, while the inner structure of PEEK rods appeared unchanged with no visible voids or cracks. Examining images captured through light and electron microscopy indicated that phagocytosis of macrophages around PEEK rods was less severe in comparison to the screw-rod interface. The results of an energy spectrum analysis suggested that the distribution of tissue elements around PEEK rods did not differ significantly from normal tissue. During fatigue testing, it was found that the retrieved PEEK rods cracked after 1.36 million tests, whereas the intact PEEK rods completed 5 million fatigue tests without any failure. Conclusion PEEK rods demonstrate satisfactory biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, chemical stability, and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, it is observed that the indentation at the junction between the nut and the rod exhibits relatively weak strength, making it susceptible to breakage. As a precautionary measure, it is recommended to secure the nut with a counter wrench, applying the preset torque to prevent overtightening.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to demonstrate and characterize a rare cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) with sciatica-like pain as the main clinical manifestation through case presentation and systematic review.MethodsFour cases of CSM with sciatica-like pain as the main clinical manifestation were retrospectively studied. A systematic review of electronic databases such as PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science was conducted to explore the clinical characteristics of CSM with sciatica.ResultsAll four cases of CSM symptomatic of sciatica-like pain were initially diagnosed with lumbar degenerative conditions. However, due to the presence of neurological signs such as hyperactive tendon reflexes, a positive Babinski sign, or a Hoffmann sign, they underwent further cervical MRI scans. Eventually, all four cases were diagnosed with CSM and experienced relief from sciatica after cervical decompression surgery. The systematic review analyzed a total of four studies with a combined sample size of 10 cases, all of whom experienced a reduction in sciatica-like pain following cervical decompression surgery.ConclusionCSM symptomized by sciatica-like pain can often be misdiagnosed as lumbar degenerative disease. Preoperative abnormal neurological signs associated with CSM may aid in diagnosing this condition. In addition, the clinical presentation of hyperextension of the cervical spine resulting in worsening lower limb pain may serve as diagnostic indicators for this disease.

BackgroundThe university stage is critical for cultivating and enhancing students’ practical English proficiency, encompassing listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation skills. Losing interest in English studies at this stage not only hampers the development of practical English competence but also has a negative impact on future employment and personal growth.AimsThis study aimed to explore to how English language learning anxiety (ELLA) affects academic burnout (AB) of freshman in China and explores the role of academic peer support (APS) and academic self-efficacy (ASE) in the relationship between the two.MethodsThe study involved 1,355 college students who completed English Language Learning Anxiety Scale, the English Academic burnout Scale, Academic Peer Relationship Scale, the Academic Self-efficacy Scale.ResultsAB was significantly impacted by ELLA. ELLA and AB were mediated by ASE. Another factor that acted as a mediator between ELLA and AB was APS. ELLA and AB were mediated by a chain reaction involving ASE and APS.ConclusionThe chain mediation model validated in this study, providing valuable insights into the effects of freshmen’s ELLA on AB in China, as well as practical insights into the prevention and intervention of ELLA and AB in other current college students.

Abstract Objective A questionnaire was administered to 936 college students to investigate the mediating effect of psychological resilience in the association between mindfulness and college student depression, as well as the moderating role of gender. Methods For this study, data was collected between 20 April and 1 May 2023 at three universities in Jiangxi Province using a random sampling method. 963 Chinese university students were surveyed using the Adolescent Mindfulness Scale, the Psychological Resilience Scale, and the Depression Self-Rating Scale.SPSS24.0 software was used for correlation analysis and linear regression analysis, and PROCESS v3.4 model 7 was used to analyze this mediated model with moderating effects. Results In the mediated effects model, the direct effect of mindfulness on college depression levels was significant (95% CI -0.43, -0.31); the indirect effect of mindfulness on college depression through psychological resilience was also significant (95% CI -0.34, -0.23); the interaction effect of mindfulness and gender was also found to be significant (95% CI 0.03, 0.16) in the mediated model with moderation. Conclusion Mindfulness not only affect depression directly, but also indirectly through the mediating effect of psychological resilience. At the same time, the prediction of psychological resilience by mindfulness was also moderated by gender, with girls' psychological resilience being more affected by the level of mindfulness compared to boys.

Abstract The plant hormone salicylic acid (SA) plays critical roles in plant innate immunity. Several SA derivatives and associated modification are identified, whereas the range and modes of action of SA‐related metabolites remain elusive. Here, the study discovered 2,4‐dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,4‐DHBA) and its glycosylated form as native SA derivatives in plants whose accumulation is largely induced by SA application and Ps. camelliae‐sinensis (Pcs) infection. CsSH1, a 4/5‐hydroxylase, catalyzes the hydroxylation of SA to 2,4‐DHBA, and UDP‐glucosyltransferase UGT95B17 catalyzes the formation of 2,4‐DHBA glucoside. Down‐regulation reduced the accumulation of 2,4‐DHBA glucosides and enhanced the sensitivity of tea plants to Pcs. Conversely, overexpression of UGT95B17 increased plant disease resistance. The exogenous application of 2,4‐DHBA and 2,5‐DHBA, as well as the accumulation of DHBA and plant resistance comparison, indicate that 2,4‐DHBA functions as a potentially bioactive molecule and is stored mainly as a glucose conjugate in tea plants, differs from the mechanism described in Arabidopsis. When 2,4‐DHBA is applied exogenously, UGT95B17‐silenced tea plants accumulated more 2,4‐DHBA than SA and showed induced resistance to Pcs infection. These results indicate that 2,4‐DHBA glucosylation positively regulates disease resistance and highlight the role of 2,4‐DHBA as potentially bioactive molecule in the establishment of basal resistance in tea plants.

Topic modeling is a widely utilized tool in text analysis. We investigate the optimal rate for estimating a topic model. Specifically, we consider a scenario with n documents, a vocabulary of size p, and document lengths at the order N. When N≥c·p, referred to as the long-document case, the optimal rate is established in the literature at p/(Nn). However, when N=o(p), referred to as the short-document case, the optimal rate remains unknown. In this paper, we first provide new entry-wise large-deviation bounds for the empirical singular vectors of a topic model. We then apply these bounds to improve the error rate of a spectral algorithm, Topic-SCORE. Finally, by comparing the improved error rate with the minimax lower bound, we conclude that the optimal rate is still p/(Nn) in the short-document case.

As one of the most severe natural disasters in the world, floods caused substantial economic losses and casualties every year. Timely and accurate acquisition of flood inundation extent could provide technical support for relevant departments in the field of flood emergency response and disaster relief. Given the accuracy of existing research works extracting flood inundation extent based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and deep learning methods is relatively low, this study utilized Sentinel-1 SAR images as the data source and proposed a novel model named flood water body extraction convolutional neural network (FWENet) for flood information extraction. Then three classical semantic segmentation models (UNet, Deeplab v3 and UNet++) and two traditional water body extraction methods (Otsu global thresholding method and Object-Oriented method) were compared with the FWENet model. Furthermore, this paper analyzed the water body area change situations of Poyang Lake. The main results of this paper were as follows: Compared with other five water body extraction methods, the FWENet model achieved the highest water body extraction accuracy, its F1 score and mean intersection over union (mIoU) were 0.9871 and 0.9808, respectively. This study could guarantee the subsequent research on flood extraction based on SAR images.

Abstract Background Fast track surgery has shown its effectiveness to accelerate recovery and gained acceptance in many operations. However, data for paramedics using fast track surgery are limited in China. The aims of our study are to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and application status of fast track surgery in paramedics and to provide suggestions for the better application of fast track surgery. Methods Two Hundred Ninety-one operating room paramedics were investigated by simple random sampling from October 20 to December 20, 2019 time. A self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data with five dimensions: demographic data, cognitive level, knowledge, attitude and application of fast track surgery. Data were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results 19.93% of participants never heard fast track surgery and only 3.32% of participants were very familiar with it. Gender (0.702, 95% CI 0.109–1.294), technical title (0.342, 95% CI 0.126–0.558) and awareness of the concept of fast track surgery (0.471, 95% CI 0.165–0.776) had a correlation with the knowledge level of paramedics towards fast track surgery. In terms of attitude towards fast track surgery, gender (− 1.944, 95% CI -3.830- -0.058), age (0.303, 95% CI 0.021–0.585) and knowledge score of fast track surgery (0.426, 95% CI 0.014–0.838) are related. Half of the paramedics believe the most difficult problem in the application of fast track surgery was the lack of multi-team communication and cooperation. Conclusion The knowledge of fast track surgery among paramedics in Wuhan is poor, and some paramedics have a negative attitude towards it. As the attitude is positively correlated with the knowledge, it is necessary to improve the knowledge level of fast track surgery among paramedics in Wuhan.

Abstract Form drag of the blunt object occurs from the pressure difference due to the physical dimensions of the object obstructing and altering the flow of the fluid. The innovative approach of form drag reduction is realized by changing the shape of the blunt object to a streamlined body by introducing a cavity. The construction of superhydrophobic interfaces is widely considered as the best solution for introducing a cavity, because water is prevented from penetrating the space between the nanoscale structures, leading to a Cassie–Baxter wetting regime and then water splashing outward. Here, by introducing Janus nanostructure coating on hydrophobic spheres, it is found that the position (impacting direction) and coverage ratio (r) of the nanostructures, accurately manipulate the performance of water film on the sphere surface. When the nanostructure faces upward, the detached thin film develops to a splash crown only if r increases to 1/3 or even above. Correspondingly, the remaining open aperture aids in increasing the subsequent air entrainment, and an air‐entrainment cavity is trapped on the sphere surface. However, if the nanostructure faces downward, only a tiny region of the nanostructures (r ≤ 1/8) can help a thin liquid film directly develop into a splash crown and cavity.

PurposeTo determine the long-term radiological outcomes of PEEK rods in patients with lumbar degenerative diseases.MethodsRadiological outcomes of cohort cases with lumbar degenerative diseases following PEEK rods were retrospectively studied. Disc height index (DHI) and range of motion (ROM) were measured by x-rays. The CT scans and reconstruction were used to determine screw breakage, rods fracture, screw loosening and intervertebral bony fusion status. The MRI scans were used to evaluate the changes of intervertebral discs at the non-fusion segments and adjacent segments in terms of Pfirrmann Classification.ResultsA total of 40 patients completed the mean of 74.8 ± 9.6 months follow-up, with 32 patients undergoing hybrid surgery and 8 patients undergoing non-fusion surgery. The mean DHI changed from preoperative 0.34 to 0.36 at the final follow-up and the ROM declined from 8.8° preoperatively to 3.2° at the final visit, however, both had no statistical differences. Of the 40 levels underwent non-fusion procedure, 9 levels showed disc rehydration with 7 patients from Grade 4 to Grade 3 and 2 patients from Grade 3 to Grade 2. The other 30 cases did not show distinctive change. No screw loosening or rods breakage were detected during the follow-up periods.ConclusionPEEK rods have obvious protective effects on degenerated intervertebral disc of non-fusion segments and the incidence of complications related to internal fixation is low. PEEK rods pedicle screw system is safe and effective in the treatment of lumbar degenerative diseases.

PurposeAfter spinal surgery, negative pressure wound treatment (NPWT) improves deep surgical site infection (DSSI) wound healing. This research compared the healing benefits of two sponge implantation strategies in NPWT for DSSI.Methods21 patients with DSSI utilized NPWT to improve wound healing following spine surgery were followed from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2021. After antibiotic treatment failure, all these patients with DSSI received extensive debridement and NPWT. They are grouped by sponge placement method: centripetal reduction and segment reduction. The two groups' hospital stays, NPWT replacement frequency, wound healing time, healing speed, and quality of wound healing (POSAS score) were compared.ResultsAll patients had been cured by the end of December 2022, and the mean follow-up time was 57.48 ± 29.6 months. Surgical incision length did not vary across groups (15.75±7.61 vs. 15.46±7.38 cm, P = 0.747). The segmental reduction approach had shorter hospital stay and NPWT treatment times than the centripetal reduction method (39.25±16.04 vs. 77.38±37.24 days, P = 0.027). Although there is no statistically significant difference, the mean wound healing duration of segmental reduction group is faster than that of centripetal reduction group (0.82±0.39 vs 0.45±0.28 cm/d, P = 0.238), wound healing quality (POSAS) (33.54±8.63 vs 48.13±12.17, P = 0.408) is better in segmental reduction group, and NPWT replacement frequency (2.62 ± 1.04 vs 3.88 ± 1.25, P < .915) is smaller in segmental reduction group.ConclusionsNPWT heals wounds and controls infection. Segmental reduction method accelerates wound healing, reduces hospital stay, and improves wound quality compared to central reduction method.

BackgroundSkull osteosarcoma is relatively rare, and it is difficult to be diagnosed according to medical history and imaging examination due to the complex structure and diverse components of the brain. Consequently, there is only a limited number of patients who can undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy before the operation. Although neoadjuvant chemotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of osteosarcoma, there is still a “bottleneck” in the current treatment method which when pulmonary metastasis occurs, or surgical treatment is not Enneking appropriate. Under such circumstances, the choice of treatment can be an issue.CaseA 16-year-old male patient with multiple metastases of skull osteosarcoma was reported. The patient suffered not only tinnitus and hearing loss in the right ear but also right facial paralysis and headache. The preoperative brain MRI showed a tumor in the right cerebellopontine angle (CPA) area. He underwent skull tumor resection at another hospital in November 2018, during which process the biopsy revealed epithelioid osteoblastoma-like osteosarcoma. The patient had supplemental radiotherapy 1 month after surgery because of tumor recurrence. 32 months afterward, pulmonary metastases and multiple bone metastases were found. Then the patient underwent multiple conservative treatments which include Denosumab, Anlotinib, and DIA (cisplatin + ifosfamide + doxorubicin) chemotherapy at our hospital. After a series of 6 cycles of treatment, the patient can walk without aid. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and Alkaline phosphatase (AKP) returned to a normal level. Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) metabolism in all bone metastases decreased to normal except for the ones in the proximal left femur, and the FDG metabolism in the left femur is significantly lower than that before treatment. Multiple bone metastases showed different extents of high-density calcification, and the volume of the local bone metastases has been reduced significantly. The patient‘s condition stayed stable at latest follow-up.ConclusionWe found that multiple conservative treatments, which include Denosumab, Anlotinib and DIA chemotherapy, can improve patients' life quality, and help avoid further osteolytic destruction for patients with skull osteosarcoma and multiple metastases. Its specific mechanism and scope of the application still need to be further studied.

Based on the microscopic pore-throat characterization of typical continental tight reservoirs in China, such as sandstone of Cretaceous Qingshankou and Quantou formations in Songliao Basin, NE China sandy conglomerate of Baikouquan Formation in Mahu area and hybrid rock of Lucaogou Formation in Jimusaer sag of Junggar Basin, NE China the theoretical lower limit, oil accumulation lower limit, effective flow lower limit and the upper limit of tight oil reservoirs were defined by water film thickness method, oil bearing occurrence method, oil testing productivity method and mechanical balance method, respectively. Cluster analysis method was used to compare the differences in pore-throat structure of different tight reservoirs, determine the grading criterion of tight reservoirs, and analyze its correlation with the limit of reservoir formation. The results show that the boundary between tight reservoir and conventional reservoir corresponds to the upper limit of physical properties, the boundary of class II and class III tight reservoirs corresponds to the lower limit of effective flow, the boundary of class III and class IV tight reservoirs corresponds to the lower limit of reservoir forming, and the theoretical lower limit of tight reservoir corresponds to the boundary between tight reservoir and non-reservoir. Finally, the application results of the grading evaluation criterion show that the tight oil productivity is highly controlled by the type of tight reservoir, and class I and class II tight reservoirs are the favorable sections for high production of tight oil.

Abstract Abrus cantoniensis Hance, a native medicinal plant in southern China, is officially recorded in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Here, we presented the first high‐quality genome in Abrus genus, A. cantoniensis genome, as well as the detailed genomic information. The assembled genome size was 381.27 Mb with a scaffold N50 of 18.95 Mb, and 98.97% of the assembled sequences were anchored on 11 pseudochromosomes. The A. cantoniensis genome comprised 25,058 protein‐coding genes and 45.12% of the assemblies were repetitive sequences. Comparative genome analysis suggested that chromosome translocation and inversion played an important role in the differentiation of Abrus. In addition, 24 toxin‐related genes were identified, which formed two tandem gene clusters on chromosomes 2 and 3. The chromosome‐level genome of A. cantoniensis obtained in this work provides a valuable resource for understanding the evolution, active ingredient biosynthesis, and genetic improvement for A. cantoniensis and Abrus species.

The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs) are a diverse family of RNA binding proteins that are implicated in RNA metabolism, such as alternative splicing, mRNA stabilization and translational regulation. According to their different cellular localization, hnRNPs display multiple functions. Most hnRNPs were predominantly located in the nucleus, but some of them could redistribute to the cytoplasm during virus infection. HnRNPs consist of different domains and motifs that enable these proteins to recognize predetermined nucleotide sequences. In the virus-host interactions, hnRNPs specifically bind to viral RNA or proteins. And some of the viral protein-hnRNP interactions require the viral RNA or other host factors as the intermediate. Through various mechanisms, hnRNPs could regulate viral translation, viral genome replication, the switch of translation to replication and virion release. This review highlights the common features and the distinguish roles of hnRNPs in the life cycle of positive single-stranded RNA viruses.

The effective refuge area is a key indicator in the study of emergency shelters. Accurately extracting the effective refuge area and analyzing the effectiveness of emergency shelters are of great significance for site selection, spatial distribution, and the evaluation of suitability. Beijing is one of only three capitals in the world located in a high-seismic-intensity zone of magnitude 8. The fast and accurate monitoring of effective refuge areas and an analysis of the effectiveness of emergency shelters are conducive to evacuation planning and disaster prevention and mitigation, and they promote the construction of a resilient city. However, the extraction of effective refuge areas in existing studies is not only a time-consuming and labor-intensive task but also has accuracy and efficiency problems, resulting in less precise validity analyses. In this paper, a remote sensing monitoring technology system for the effective refuge areas of emergency shelters is proposed based on multi-source data. Different methods were used to extract various land features, such as buildings and collapsed areas, water, dense areas of understory vegetation, and steep slope areas that cannot be evacuated, to obtain the effective refuge area at a detailed scale, in combination with the service radius of emergency shelters, the population distribution, and the actual road network, the criteria for effectiveness analysis were established for the effective open space ratio, capacity, per capita accessible effective refuge area, and population allocation gap. Taking the area within the Fifth Ring Road of Beijing as an example, the effectiveness of emergency shelters was analyzed at both the whole scale and a local scale. The results show that the effective refuge areas of different emergency shelters in Beijing vary significantly, with the smallest effective refuge area being located in Rings 2–3 and the largest one being located in Rings 4–5; between different regions, there are differences in the effectiveness. This study provides a feasible method for the fast, accurate, and detailed extraction of the effective refuge areas of emergency shelters and also provides a reference for emergency planning for disaster prevention and mitigation.

Under the background of intensified human activities and global climate warming, the frequency and intensity of flood disasters have increased, causing many casualties and economic losses every year. Given the difficulty of mountain shadow removal from large-scale watershed flood monitoring based on Sentinel-1 SAR images and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform, this paper first adopted the Support Vector Machine (SVM) to extract the water body information during flooding. Then, a function model was proposed based on the mountain shadow samples to remove the mountain shadows from the flood maps. Finally, this paper analyzed the flood disasters in the middle and lower basin of the Yangtze River (MLB) in 2020. The main results showed that: (1) compared with the other two methods, the SVM model had the highest accuracy. The accuracy and kappa coefficients of the trained SVM model in the testing dataset were 97.77% and 0.9521, respectively. (2) The function model proposed based on the samples achieved the best effect compared with other shadow removal methods with a shadow recognition rate of 75.46%, and it alleviated the interference of mountain shadows for flood monitoring in a large basin. (3) The flood inundated area was 8526 km2, among which, cropland was severely affected (6160 km2). This study could provide effective suggestions for relevant stakeholders in policy making.

There is an unmet clinical need for simple, accessible biomarkers to select patients who are more likely to respond to immune checkpoint therapy. Here the authors show that a lower neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with better overall and progressive-free survival, as well as higher rate of response, in a multi-cancer cohort of patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Landslidesusceptibility mapping (LSM) is the primary link of geological disaster risk evaluation, which is significant for postearthquake emergency response and rebuilding after disasters. Existing LSM studies applying deep learning (DL) methods have shortcomings such as easy overfitting, slow convergence, and insufficient hyperparametric optimization. In response to these problems, this study proposes an ensemble model based on ant colony optimization strategy and deep belief network (ACO-DBN). In ACO-DBN, DL optimization strategies were added to DBN and their combined parameters were optimized with ACO. Next, Pearson's correlation coefficient and random forest importance ranking methods were utilized to optimize landslide causative factors. Then, the Jiuzhaigou earthquake region was selected as an example to explore the applicability of this model. Besides, we conducted the Wilcoxon signed rank test in order to verify that the differences were statistically significant. In a comprehensive comparative all indexes and landslide density, the model proposed in this article shows good rationality, scientificity, and interpretability. The newly occurred landslide site further demonstrates that heuristically optimized DL could make scientific and accurate evaluation of landslide susceptibility.

Eugenol is a natural phenolic compound known for its health-promoting properties and its ability to add a floral scent to tea plants. Plant eugenol glycosides have been identified and shown to make important contributions to fruit floral quality. However, the details of their biosynthesis and metabolism in tea plants are still unknown. Here, eugenol glucoside was unambiguously identified as a native metabolite in the tea plant, and its biosynthesis was shown to be induced by low temperature treatment. Through the analysis of UGTs induced by low temperature, the glycosyltransferase CsUGT78A15 was identified in tea, and its encoded protein was shown to catalyze the glucosylation of eugenol. Vmax/Km ratios showed that eugenol was the most suitable substrate for CsUGT78A15. Sugar donor preference analysis showed that CsUGT78A15 had a higher selectivity for glucose, followed by galactose and glucuronic acid. The expression of CsUGT78A15 was correlated with the accumulation of eugenol glucoside in different tissues and genotypes of tea. Down-regulation of CsUGT78A15 led to a decreased eugenol glucoside content under cold stress, indicating that CsUGT78A15 plays an important role in the biosynthesis of eugenol glucoside under cold stress. The identification of eugenol glucoside in the tea plant and the discovery of a cold stress-induced eugenol glucosyltransferase in tea provide the foundation for the improvement of tea flavor under cold stress and the biotechnological production of eugenol glucoside.

Tight sandstone gas reservoirs have poorer porosity–permeability relationships, so conventional reservoir classification schemes can hardly satisfy the classification and evaluation demand of this type of reservoirs. To solve this problem, this paper took the Permian tight sandstone gas reservoir in the Linxing Block along the eastern margin of the Ordos Basin as an example to describe the micro-structures of the tight sandstone reservoirs by means of high-pressure mercury injection, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and so on. Then, the control effect of micro-structure parameters on the macrophysical properties was studied. Finally, classification and evaluation of tight sandstone reservoirs were carried out on this basis. And the following research results were obtained. First, NMR can identify the distribution of pores of different sizes, and high-pressure mercury injection can reflect the pore–throat configuration and percolation capacity of a reservoir. Second, both methods are better coincident in the description results. With an increase of the right peak of T2 spectra, the mercury intrusion curve presents a concave shape and the pore throat radius increases while the pore type gradually changes from intragranular dissolution pores and intercrystalline pores to intergranular pores and intergranular dissolution pores and the reservoir quality gets better. Third, micro-pore structure controls reservoir physical properties and fluid mobility. And the porosity of large pores is best correlated with the effective porosity, so it can be used to evaluate the reservoir capacity of tight sandstone. Fourth, the throat radius R15 obtained by high pressure mercury injection is in the best correlation with porosity and permeability, so it can be used to evaluate the percolation capacity of tight sandstone. Fifth, by combining the porosity of large pores with the R15, the tight sandstone reservoirs in the Linxing Block are classified into 4 categories, and the classification results are in a good agreement with the on-site well test data. It is concluded that the combination of high-pressure mercury injection and NMR can effectively identify the key parameters which reflect the reservoir capacity and percolation capacity of tight sandstone, and improve the reliability and integrity of reservoir classification. And by selecting the key parameters that reflect reservoir capacity and percolation capacity, it can provide guidance for the classification and evaluation of tight sandstone reservoirs.

Abstract Objective Endoscopic sinus surgery represents the gold standard for surgical treatment of chronic sinus diseases. Thereby, navigation systems can be of distinct use. In our study, we tested the recently developed KARL STORZ NAV1 SinusTracker navigation software that incorporates elements of augmented reality (AR) to provide a better preoperative planning and guidance during the surgical procedure. Methods One hundred patients with chronic sinus disease were operated on using either a conventional navigation software (n = 52, non‐AR, control group) or a navigation software incorporating AR elements (n = 48, AR, intervention group). Incidence of postoperative complications, duration of surgery, surgeon‐reported benefit from the navigation system and patient‐reported postoperative rehabilitation were assessed. Results The surgeons reported a higher benefit during surgery, used the navigation system for more surgical steps and spent longer time with preoperative image analysis when using the AR system as compared with the non‐AR system. No significant differences were seen in terms of postoperative complications, target registration error, operation time and postoperative rehabilitation. Conclusion The AR enhanced navigation software shows a high acceptance by sinus surgeons in different stages of surgical training and offers potential benefits during surgery without affecting the duration of the operation or the incidence of postoperative complications. Level of evidence 1b.

Landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) is significant for disaster prevention and mitigation, land use management, and as a reference for decision-making. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in deep learning have been successfully applied to LSM studies and have been shown to improve the accuracy of LSM. Although optimizing the quality of negative samples at the input step of a deep learning model can improve the accuracy of the model, the risk of model overfitting may increase. In this study, an LSM method based on the Gaussian heatmap sampling technique and a CNN was developed from the perspective of LSM dataset sampling. A Gaussian heatmap sampling technique was used to enrich the variety of landslide inventory at the input step of the deep learning model to improve the accuracy of the LSM results. This sampling technique involved the construction of a landslide susceptibility Gaussian heatmap neural network model, LSGH-Net, by combining a CNN. A series of optimization strategies such as attention mechanism, dropout, etc., were applied to improve the model structure and training process. The results demonstrated that the proposed approach outperformed the benchmark CNN-based algorithm in terms of metrics (Accuracy = 95.30%, F1 score = 95.13%, and Sensitivity = 91.79%). The Gaussian heatmap sampling technique effectively improved the accuracy of frequency histograms of the landslide susceptibility index, which provided finer-grained mapping details and more reasonable landslide density. By analyzing Gaussian heatmap at different scales, the approach proposed in this paper is an important reference for different regions and other disaster susceptibility studies as well.

Quickly and accurately extracting buildings from remote sensing images is essential for urban planning, change detection, and disaster management applications. In particular, extracting buildings that cannot be sheltered in emergency shelters can help establish and improve a city’s overall disaster prevention system. However, small building extraction often involves problems, such as integrity, missed and false detection, and blurred boundaries. In this study, EfficientUNet+, an improved building extraction method from remote sensing images based on the UNet model, is proposed. This method uses EfficientNet-b0 as the encoder and embeds the spatial and channel squeeze and excitation (scSE) in the decoder to realize forward correction of features and improve the accuracy and speed of model extraction. Next, for the problem of blurred boundaries, we propose a joint loss function of building boundary-weighted cross-entropy and Dice loss to enforce constraints on building boundaries. Finally, model pretraining is performed using the WHU aerial building dataset with a large amount of data. The transfer learning method is used to complete the high-precision extraction of buildings with few training samples in specific scenarios. We created a Google building image dataset of emergency shelters within the Fifth Ring Road of Beijing and conducted experiments to verify the effectiveness of the method in this study. The proposed method is compared with the state-of-the-art methods, namely, DeepLabv3+, PSPNet, ResUNet, and HRNet. The results show that the EfficientUNet+ method is superior in terms of Precision, Recall, F1-Score, and mean intersection over union (mIoU). The accuracy of the EfficientUNet+ method for each index is the highest, reaching 93.01%, 89.17%, 91.05%, and 90.97%, respectively. This indicates that the method proposed in this study can effectively extract buildings in emergency shelters and has an important reference value for guiding urban emergency evacuation.

Glycosyltransferases (UGTs) play diverse roles in cellular metabolism by altering regulatory metabolites activities. However, the physiological roles of most members of UGTs in crops in response to abiotic stresses are unknown. We have identified a novel glycosyltransferase CsUGT78A14 in tea crops, an important economic crops, whose expression is strongly induced by cold stress. Biochemical analyses confirmed that CsUGT78A14-1 showed the highest activity toward kaempferol and is involved in the biosynthesis of kaempferol-diglucoside, whereas the product of CsUGT78A14-2, which differs from CsUGT78A14-1 by a single amino acid, was identified as 3-O-glucoside. The accumulation of kaempferol monoglucosides and diglucosides was consistent with the expression levels of CsUGT78A14 in response to cold stress, as well as in different tissues and genotypes of tea plants. Down-regulation of CsUGT78A14 resulted in reduced accumulation of flavonols, reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capacity and finally reduced tea plant stress tolerance under cold stress. The antioxidant capacity of flavonols aglycon was enhanced by glucosylation catalyzed by CsUGT78A14. The results demonstrate that CsUGT78A14 plays a critical role in cold stress by increasing flavonols accumulation and ROS scavenging capacity, providing novel insights into the biological role of UGTs and flavonoids in plants.

The Fanconi Anemia (FA) pathway is a multi-step DNA repair process at stalled replication forks in response to DNA interstrand cross-links (ICLs). Pathological mutation of key FA genes leads to the inherited disorder FA, characterized by progressive bone marrow failure and cancer predisposition. The study of FA is of great importance not only to children suffering from FA but also as a model to study cancer pathogenesis in light of genome instability among the general population. FANCD2 monoubiquitination by the FA core complex is an essential gateway that connects upstream DNA damage signaling to enzymatic steps of repair. FAAP20 is a key component of the FA core complex, and regulated proteolysis of FAAP20 mediated by the ubiquitin E3 ligase SCFFBW7 is critical for maintaining the integrity of the FA complex and FA pathway signaling. However, upstream regulatory mechanisms that govern this signaling remain unclear. Here, we show that PIN1, a phosphorylation-specific prolyl isomerase, regulates the integrity of the FA core complex, thus FA pathway activation. We demonstrate that PIN1 catalyzes cis-trans isomerization of the FAAP20 pSer48-Pro49 motif and promotes FAAP20 stability. Mechanistically, PIN1-induced conformational change of FAAP20 enhances its interaction with the PP2A phosphatase to counteract SCFFBW7-dependent proteolytic signaling at the phosphorylated degron motif. Accordingly, PIN1 deficiency impairs FANCD2 activation and the DNA ICL repair process. Together, our study establishes PIN1-dependent prolyl isomerization as a new regulator of the FA pathway and genomic integrity.

Terpenoids play vital roles in tea aroma quality and plants defense performance determination, whereas the scenarios of genes to metabolites of terpenes pathway remain uninvestigated in tea plants. Here, we report the use of an integrated approach combining metabolites, target gene transcripts and function analyses to reveal a gene-to-terpene network in tea plants. Forty-one terpenes including 26 monoterpenes, 14 sesquiterpenes and one triterpene were detected and 82 terpenes related genes were identified from five tissues of tea plants. Pearson correlation analysis resulted in genes to metabolites network. One terpene synthases whose expression positively correlated with farnesene were selected and its function was confirmed involved in the biosynthesis of α-farnesene, β-ocimene and β-farnesene, a very important and conserved alarm pheromone in response to aphids by both in vitro enzymatic assay in planta function analysis. In summary, we provided the first reliable gene-to-terpene network for novel genes discovery.

Maintaining genomic integrity during DNA replication is essential for cellular survival and for preventing tumorigenesis. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) functions as a processivity factor for DNA replication, and posttranslational modification of PCNA plays a key role in coordinating DNA repair against replication-blocking lesions by providing a platform to recruit factors required for DNA repair and cell cycle control. Here, we identify human SDE2 as a new genome surveillance factor regulated by PCNA interaction. SDE2 contains an N-terminal ubiquitin-like (UBL) fold, which is cleaved at a diglycine motif via a PCNA-interacting peptide (PIP) box and deubiquitinating enzyme activity. The cleaved SDE2 is required for negatively regulating ultraviolet damage-inducible PCNA monoubiquitination and counteracting replication stress. The cleaved SDE2 products need to be degraded by the CRL4CDT2 ubiquitin E3 ligase in a cell cycle- and DNA damage-dependent manner, and failure to degrade SDE2 impairs S phase progression and cellular survival. Collectively, this study uncovers a new role for CRL4CDT2 in protecting genomic integrity against replication stress via regulated proteolysis of PCNA-associated SDE2 and provides insights into how an integrated UBL domain within linear polypeptide sequence controls protein stability and function.

The carotenoid-derived volatile β-ionone makes an important contribution to tea fragrance. Here, we qualitatively and quantitatively analysed 15 carotenoids in tea leaves of 13 cultivars by UHPLC-APCI-MS/MS. The 13 cultivars were divided into two groups by PCA (Principal Component Analysis) clustering analysis of their carotenoid content, and OPLS-DA (Orthogonal projections to latent structures) indicated that the levels of β-carotene (VIP = 2.89) and lutein (VIP = 2.30) were responsible for much of the variation between the two groups. Interestingly, the β-carotene to β-ionone conversion rates in Group 1 were higher than in Group 2, while the β-carotene content was significantly lower in Group 1 than in Group 2. The β-ionone content was significantly higher in Group 1. Pearson Correlation Coefficient calculation between the transcription level of candidate genes (CsCCD1 and CsCCD4) and the accumulation of β-ionone indicated that CsCCD1 may involve in the formation of β-ionone in 13 cultivars. Prokaryotic expression and in vitro enzyme activity assays showed that 'Chuanhuang 1' had an amino acid mutation in carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases 1 (CsCCD1) compared with 'Shuchazao', resulting in a significantly higher β-ionone content in 'Chuanhuang 1'. Sequence analysis showed that 'Chuanhuang 1' and 'Huangdan' had different CsCCD1 promoter sequences, leading to significantly higher CsCCD1 expression and β-ionone accumulation in 'Chuanhuang 1'. These results indicated that the promoter and coding sequence diversity of CsCCD1 might contribute to the differential accumulation of β-ionone in different tea cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the application problem of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, this paper proposes application research based on dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in the staging diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) has a high value in evaluating the activity of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This paper discusses the correlation between hemodynamic parameters and omeractramris score, clinical laboratory indexes, and activity score (DAS28), analyzes its feasibility in evaluating the prognosis of RA, and provides a reliable basis for the rational formulation of an early RA treatment plan. After reviewing the previous cases, 33 patients with subclinical synovitis of RA were selected for wrist joint contrast-enhanced ultrasonography. The data were analyzed by contrastenhanced software, and the quantitative parameters of contrast-enhanced were obtained: start development time (AT), peak time (TTP), peak intensity (PI), grad gradient, and area under the curve (AUC). The synovial blood supply was classified by CEUS, and the CEUS blood supply classification and power Doppler (PDUS) blood supply classification were compared. The results of regression analysis showed that AUC (or = 1.026, 95% CI: 1.001-1.052) and PI (or = 1.561, 95% CI: 1.019-2.393) were independent risk factors for predicting the aggravation of the disease. The diagnostic eAcacy of AUC and PI in predicting the aggravation of the disease was analyzed. The areas under the ROC curve of AUC and PI were 0.935 and 0.927, respectively, and the diCerence between them was not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sequencing constraints are restrictions on the order of operations (statements, methods, or calls) during program execution. They trigger software failures if sequencing constraints are violated during software execution; this is a common defect in software systems. Sequencing constraint defects are difficult to find because they are specification-related. To resolve this issue, we propose a defect detection approach based on static analysis. In our approach, first, we formalize the sequencing constraints as regular expressions extracted from software specification, and define regular expression of defect patterns that violate sequencing constraints. Then, the software is converted into a control flow graph (CFG), and the CFG is labeled by the constraint information to generate a sequencing-constraint control flow graph (SC-CFG) that is converted into a path expression using algebraic representation. Finally, a suspiciousness defect report is outputted by pattern matching, which compares defect patterns with string patterns extracted by the path expression. The experiments are performed to validate the effectiveness of our approach. The evaluation results show that our approach is effective at detecting sequencing constraint defects before software testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) on nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and the incidence of complications. Between May 2010 and June 2012, 141 patients diagnosed with local recurrence of NPC due to cranial base lesions or cranial nerve symptoms, confirmed by pathology biopsy and/or by CT/MRI, were included in the present study. In accordance with the principle of randomized control, the patients were divided into three groups and treated with three different doses of 3D-CRT. The planned radiotherapy doses of 3D-CRT were 58/1.8-2 Gy, 62/1.8-2 Gy and 68/1.8-2 Gy, respectively. The survival rate, disease-free survival (DFS) rate and local control rate of the three groups of patients were compared as well as the adverse reactions observed after radiotherapy. The prognoses of NPC patients were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analyses. The follow-up rate of the study was 100%. The 5-year overall survival, DFS, and locoregional recurrence-free survival rates were: 43.2 vs. 64.53 vs. 75%, 29.13 vs. 42.82 vs. 39.7% and 30.76 vs. 44.19 vs. 45.4%, respectively. In addition, 62/1.8-2 Gy was similar in treatment effects to 68/1.8-2 Gy, but 68/1.8-2 Gy showed more adverse reactions than 62/1.8-2 Gy. Thus, 62/1.8-2 Gy can be used as a safe and effective dose for 3D-CRT treatment of NPC. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that age may be the main prognostic factor of patients with NPC. In conclusion, 3D-CRT with a dose of 62/1.8-2 Gy is a safe, effective and tolerable treatment for NPC patients with good clinical value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, a rather big challenge to model cyber-physical systems is to stand for the interactions between physical level and cyber level. Researchers are faced with the trouble in the analysis of information security property of noninterference in cyber-physical systems because of the physical components and behavior appended to cyber components and systems. A new method is put forward with Petri net for working out this problem effectively by composing the complicated and large systems with simple and small systems. Meanwhile, it accomplishes the noninterference information flow security property. In this paper, this method is used to analyze the information security property of noninterference and its parallel composition in cyber-physical systems. This research provides a new formal method to explore information security property of noninterference and a sufficiency and necessary condition of parallel composition of noninterference of information security model in cyber-physical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, a rather big challenge to model cyber-physical systems is to stand for the interactions between physical level and cyber level. Researchers are faced with the trouble in the analysis of information security property of noninterference in cyber-physical systems because of the physical components and behavior appended to cyber components and systems. A new method is put forward with Petri net for working out this problem effectively by composing the complicated and large systems with simple and small systems. Meanwhile, it accomplishes the noninterference information flow security property. In this paper, this method is used to analyze the information security property of noninterference and its iteration composition in cyber-physical systems. This research provides a new formal method to explore information security property of noninterference and a sufficiency and necessary condition of iteration composition of noninterference of information security model in cyber-physical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, a rather big challenge to model cyber-physical systems is to stand for the interactions between physical level and cyber level. Researchers are faced with the trouble in the analysis of information security property of noninterference in cyber-physical systems because of the physical components and behavior appended to cyber components and systems. A new method is put forward with Petri net for working out this problem effectively by composing the complicated and large systems with simple and small systems. Meanwhile, it accomplishes the noninterference information flow security property. In this paper, this method is used to analyze the information security property of noninterference and its alternative composition in cyber-physical systems. This research provides a new formal method to explore information security property of noninterference and a sufficiency and necessary condition of alternative composition of noninterference of information security model in cyber-physical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the method in Biodiversity Risk and Opportunity Assessment Handbook of British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership, we assess biodiversity risks and opportunities in BAT and China's cooperative tobacco-growing areas. The assessment results indicate that there are 8 risks and 1 opportunity. Action and monitoring plans have been made for medium and high risks as well as opportunity, to reduce impact on biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a phenomenon of air bubbles quickly bursting within several milliseconds on a “self-cleaning” lotus leaf was described. This observation prompted the synthesis of artificial surfaces similar to that of the lotus leaf. The artificial leaf surfaces, prepared by photolithography and wet etching, showed a similar air bubble bursting effect. Smooth and rough silicon surfaces with an ordered nanostructure or patterned microstructure were utilized to study the contribution of the micro/nano hierarchical structures to this phenomenon of air bubble bursting. Air bubbles were found to burst on some superhydrophobic surfaces with microstructure (within 220 ms). However, air bubbles burst much more rapidly (within 13 ms) on similar surfaces with micro/nanostructure. The height, width, and spacing of hierarchical structures could also affect air bubble bursting, and the effect of the height was more obvious. When the height of hierarchical structures was around the height found in natural lotus papillae, the width and spacing were significant for air bubble bursting. An original model was proposed to further evaluate the reason why the micro/nano hierarchical rough structures had an excellent air bubble bursting effect, and the validity of the model was theoretically demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is produced by a large number of pulmonary cells in response to diverse stimuli. Exaggerated levels of LIF have also been detected in the adult respiratory distress syndrome and other disorders. The biologic effects of LIF in the lung, however, have not been elucidated. To define the respiratory effects of LIF, we generated transgenic mice in which human LIF was selectively targeted to the mature lung. In these mice, transgene activation caused an impressive increase in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cellularity with a significant increase in BAL and tissue B lymphocytes. LIF also conferred protection in 100% O[sub 2] where it decreased alveolar-capillary protein leak and enhanced survival. This protective effect was associated with the induction of interleukin (IL)-6 mRNA and protein. LIF transgenic mice with a null mutation in IL-6 were more sensitive to the toxic effects of 100% O[sub 2] than LIF-transgenic animals with a wild-type IL-6 locus. These studies demonstrate that LIF induces B cell hyperplasia and confers protection in hyperoxic acute lung injury. They also demonstrate that LIF induces IL-6 and that the protective effects of LIF are mediated, in part, via this inductive event. LIF may be an important regulator of B cell-mediated responses and oxidant injury in the lung. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]