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Abstract Background Studies have reported that polyphyllin I (PPI) had effective anti-tumor activity against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the precise molecular mechanism of this action and the direct target remain unclear. The aim of this study was to discover the molecular targets and the exact mechanism of PPI in the treatment of HCC. Methods Various HCC cells and Zebrafish xenotransplantation models were used to examine the efficacy of PPI against HCC. A proteome microarray, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, small molecule transfection, and molecular docking were conducted to confirm the direct binding targets of PPI. Transcriptome and Western blotting were then used to determine the exact responding mechanism. Finally, the anticancer effect and its precise mechanism, as well as the safety of PPI, were verified using a mouse tumor xenograft study. Results The results demonstrated that PPI had significant anticancer activity against HCC in both in vitro studies of two cells and the zebrafish model. Notably, PPI selectively enhanced the action of the Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing 16 (ZBTB16) protein by directly binding to it. Furthermore, specific knockdown of ZBTB16 markedly attenuated PPI-dependent inhibition of HCC cell proliferation and migration caused by overexpression of the gene. The transcriptome and Western blotting also confirmed that the interaction between ZBTB16 and PPI also activated the PPARγ/RXRα pathway. Finally, the mouse experiments confirmed the efficacy and safety of PPI to treat HCC. Conclusions Our results indicate that ZBTB16 is a promising drug target for HCC and that PPI as a potent ZBTB16 agonist has potential as a therapeutic agent against HCC by regulating the ZBTB16/PPARγ/RXRα signaling axis.

Evodiae Fructus (EF), an herbal medicine, possesses remarkable anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. It exhibits insecticidal activity as a potent insecticide candidate. However, the toxic characteristics of EF and the underlying mechanisms have not been comprehensively elucidated comprehensively. Thus, we comprehensively explored the toxic components of EF and established the relationship between the therapeutic and toxic effects of EF, encouraging its therapeutic use. We found that evodiamine (EVO), one of the main ingredients of EF, can truly reflect its analgesic properties. In phenotype observation trials, low doses of EVO (< 35 ng/mL) exhibited distinct analgesic activity without any adverse effects in zebrafish. However, EVO dose-dependently led to gross morphological abnormalities in the liver, followed by pericardial edema, and increased myocardial concentrations. Furthermore, the toxic effects of EVO decreased after processing in liver microsomes but increased after administering CYP450 inhibitors in zebrafish, highlighting the prominent effect of CYP450s in EVO-mediated hepatotoxicity. EVO significantly changed the expression of genes enriched in multiple pathways and biological processes, including lipid metabolism, inflammatory response, tight junction damage, and cell apoptosis. Importantly, the PPAR/PI3K/AKT/NF-кB/tight junction-mediated apoptosis pathway was confirmed as a critical functional signaling pathway inducing EVO-mediated hepatotoxicity. This study provided a typical example of the overall systematic evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and its active ingredients with significant therapeutic effects and simultaneous toxicities, especially metabolic toxicities.

Birds are sensitive to heavy metal pollution, and lead (Pb) contamination can negatively affect their liver and gut. Therefore, we used budgerigars to examine liver and gut toxicosis caused by Pb exposure in bird, and the possible toxic mechanisms. The findings showed Pb exposure increased liver weight and decreased body weight. Moreover, histopathological and immunofluorescence assay results demonstrated obvious liver damage and cell apoptosis increased in Pb- treated budgerigars. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) results also showed Pb caused an increase in apoptosis by inhibiting the PPAR-γ/PI3K/Akt pathway. The gut microbe analyses indicated Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were dominant microbial phyla, and Network analysis results shown Arthrobacter, Bradyrhizobium and Alloprevotella as the hubs of Modules I, II, and III, respectively. Phenylpropanoids and polyketides, Organoheterocyclic compounds, Organic oxygen compounds, and Organic nitrogen compounds were dominant metabolite superclasses. Tauroursodeoxycholic acid, taurochenodeoxycholic acid (sodium salt), and 2-[2-(5-bromo-2-pyridyl)diaz-1-enyl]-5-(diethylamino)phenol were significantly enriched in the Pb-treated group. It showed that 41 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) orthologues and 183 pathways differed between the Pb-treated and control budgerigars using microbial and metabolomic data. Moreover, orthogonal partial least-squares discrimination analysis (OPLS-DA) based on microbial and metabolite indicated distinct clusters in the Pb-treated and control groups. Additionally, the correlation analysis results indicated that a positive correlation for the Pb-treated and control groups between gut microbiota and metabolomic data, respectively. Furthermore, the microenvironment of the gut and liver were found to affect each other, and this study demonstrated heavy metal especially Pb may pose serious health risks to birds through the “gut–liver axis” too.

BackgroundCardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer are the first and second causes of death in over 130 countries across the world. They are also among the top three causes in almost 180 countries worldwide. Cardiovascular complications are often noticed in cancer patients, with nearly 20% exhibiting cardiovascular comorbidities. Physical exercise may be helpful for cancer survivors and people living with cancer (PLWC), as it prevents relapses, CVD, and cardiotoxicity. Therefore, it is beneficial to recommend exercise as part of cardio-oncology preventive care.ObjectiveWith the progress of deep learning algorithms and the improvement of big data processing techniques, artificial intelligence (AI) has gradually become popular in the fields of medicine and healthcare. In the context of the shortage of medical resources in China, it is of great significance to adopt AI and machine learning methods for prescription recommendations. This study aims to develop an interpretable machine learning-based intelligent system of exercise prescription for cardio-oncology preventive care, and this paper presents the study protocol.MethodsThis will be a retrospective machine learning modeling cohort study with interventional methods (i.e., exercise prescription). We will recruit PLWC participants at baseline (from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2026) and follow up over several years (from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2028). Specifically, participants will be eligible if they are (1) PLWC in Stage I or cancer survivors from Stage I; (2) aged between 18 and 55 years; (3) interested in physical exercise for rehabilitation; (4) willing to wear smart sensors/watches; (5) assessed by doctors as suitable for exercise interventions. At baseline, clinical exercise physiologist certificated by the joint training program (from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024) of American College of Sports Medicine and Chinese Association of Sports Medicine will recommend exercise prescription to each participant. During the follow-up, effective exercise prescription will be determined by assessing the CVD status of the participants.Expected outcomesThis study aims to develop not only an interpretable machine learning model to recommend exercise prescription but also an intelligent system of exercise prescription for precision cardio-oncology preventive care.EthicsThis study is approved by Human Experimental Ethics Inspection of Guangzhou Sport University.Clinical trial registrationhttp://www.chictr.org.cn, identifier ChiCTR2300077887.

Aims: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common chronic immune disease. Berberine, as its main active ingredient, was also contained in a variety of medicinal plants such as Berberaceae, Buttercup, and Rutaceae, which are widely used in digestive system diseases in traditional Chinese medicine with anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects. The aims of this article were to explore the therapeutic effect and mechanism of berberine on rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: Cell Counting Kit-8 was used to evaluate the effect of berberine on the proliferation of RA fibroblast-like synoviocyte (RA-FLS) cells. The effect of berberine on matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, MMP-3, receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-Β ligand (RANKL), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), and other factors was determined by enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) kit. Transcriptome technology was used to screen related pathways and the potential targets after berberine treatment, which were verified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Western blot (WB) technology. Results: Berberine inhibited proliferation and adhesion of RA-FLS cells, and significantly reduced the expression of MMP-1, MMP-3, RANKL, and TNF-α. Transcriptional results suggested that berberine intervention mainly regulated forkhead box O (FOXO) signal pathway, prolactin signal pathway, neurotrophic factor signal pathway, and hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) signal pathway. Conclusion: The effect of berberine on RA was related to the regulation of RAS/mitogen-activated protein kinase/FOXO/HIF-1 signal pathway in RA-FLS cells. Cite this article: Bone Joint Res 2023;12(2):91–102.

ABSTRACT Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) poses a major threat to global TB control; consequently, there is an urgent need to develop novel anti-TB drugs or strategies. Host-directed therapy (HDT) is emerging as an effective treatment strategy, especially for drug-resistant TB. This study evaluated the effects of berbamine (BBM), a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid, on mycobacterial growth in macrophages. BBM inhibited intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) growth by promoting autophagy and silencing ATG5, partially abolishing the inhibitory effect. In addition, BBM increased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), while the antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) abolished BBM-induced autophagy and the ability to inhibit Mtb survival. Furthermore, the increased intracellular Ca2+ concentration induced by BBM was regulated by ROS, and BAPTA-AM, an intracellular Ca2+-chelating agent, could block ROS-mediated autophagy and Mtb clearance. Finally, BBM could inhibit the survival of drug-resistant Mtb. Collectively, these findings provide evidence that BBM, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved drug, could effectively clear drug-sensitive and -resistant Mtb through regulating ROS/Ca2+ axis-mediated autophagy and has potential as an HDT candidate for TB therapy. IMPORTANCE It is urgent to develop novel treatment strategies against drug-resistant TB, and HDT provides a promising approach to fight drug-resistant TB by repurposing old drugs. Our studies demonstrate, for the first time, that BBM, an FDA-approved drug, not only potently inhibits intracellular drug-sensitive Mtb growth but also restricts drug-resistant Mtb by promoting macrophage autophagy. Mechanistically, BBM activates macrophage autophagy by regulating the ROS/Ca2+ axis. In conclusion, BBM could be considered as an HDT candidate and may contribute to improving the outcomes or shortening the treatment course of drug-resistant TB.

This review explored the potential of edible insects to address the challenges of malnutrition and food security. Although grain production in China has met the Food and Agriculture Organization standards, the shortage of protein supply is still a big issue. Moreover, expanding livestock farming is considered unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly. Edible insects have become an alternative with higher sustainable and ecological properties. There are 324 species of insects currently consumed in China, and they have high nutritional value, with a rich source of protein and unsaturated fatty acids. Insect farming provides numerous benefits, including green feeds for livestock, poultry, and aquaculture, sustainable organic waste management, as well as industrial and pharmaceutical raw materials. The food toxicological evaluations conducted in China indicated that edible insects are safe for general consumption by the Chinese, but allergies and other related food safety issues should not be ignored. Consumer acceptance is another barrier to overcome, with different schemas between China and Western countries. More research on the potential functions of edible insects and their product development may enhance their acceptance in China. Overall, incorporating edible insects into our diet is a promising solution to address challenges related to protein supply and food security. To ensure safety and sustainability, appropriate legislation, quality regulations, large-scale insect farms, and acceptable processing techniques are necessary. Moreover, more scientific research and social awareness are required to promote the culture and utilization of edible insects in China.

Objectives The main focus of this study was to investigate the effect of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the mental health condition and sleep quality of college students in Macao. In addition, the students’ behaviours during the pandemic, such as drinking alcohol, taking sleeping pills, and seeking psychological counselling were analyzed. Method A cross-sectional survey of mental health and sleep quality status, as well as the possible behavioral risk factors, was conducted among the college students of Macao in August, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online self-report questionnaire survey method was applied to assess the general demographics and related lifestyle behaviors of students. The general mental health condition and sleep quality were evaluated through the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaires, respectively. The main statistical methods included the Chi-square test, Bonferroni correction, and Pearson correlation. Data analysis was performed using SPSS Version 24.0. Results A total of 980 students were investigated in the study, of which 977 completed the survey. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, overall college students in Macao were psychologically well adjusted and reported good quality of sleep. However, female students were in poorer psychological condition than males (P < 0.05). Moreover, the students over 20 years of age had poorer sleep quality than students aged less than or equal to 20 (P < 0.05). The significant differences were found among the students in different study majors for the mental health status and sleep quality (both P < 0.05), which were associated with certain behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, taking sleeping pills, and seeking for help in psychological counselling during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Conclusions Poor mental health status could be either the consequence or cause of sleep disturbance, which might further affected physical health. Therefore, regular assessment of mental health condition and sleep quality of college students is particularly necessary during public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and appropriate intervention should be provided to the students.

In order to develop the strategy more suitable campus-based coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention programs for undergraduate students, it is critical to identify discrepancies in knowledge of COVID-19 prevention among students from different campuses in China. The present study examined the difference in preventive knowledge about COVID-19 pandemic in undergraduate students from two cities of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), which had very few cases of COVID-19 patients, and Zhuhai, which is borders Macao SAR. In August 2020, two cohorts of undergraduate students from universities in Macao (n = 977) and Zhuhai (n = 2,818) were recruited for online. The self-rating questionnaire was used to gain information about their knowledge in COVID-19 prevention. Macao and Zhuhai students had similar correct rates in terms of heat inactivation conditions of SARS-CoV-2, (76.8% vs. 76.9%, P = 0.950), etiquette when coughing and sneezing (75.9% vs. 75.0%, P = 0.562), and use of disposable masks (92.2% vs. 90.6%, P = 0.126). However, students from Macao had significantly higher rates in correct use of disinfectants against SARS-CoV-2 (24.6% vs. 17.5%, P < 0.001) and in the route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (84.5% vs. 79.6%, P < 0.001) than those from Zhuhai. In conclusion, the knowledge level of COVID-19 prevention differs among undergraduate students from Macao and Zhuhai, which warrants an appropriate region-specific health education strategie for COVID-19 prevention.

Biotransformation of the neo-clerodane diterpene, scutebarbatine F (1), by Streptomyces sp. CPCC 205437 was investigated for the first time, which led to the isolation of nine new metabolites, scutebarbatine F1–F9 (2–10). Their structures were determined by extensive high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS) and NMR data analyses. The reactions that occurred included hydroxylation, acetylation, and deacetylation. Compounds 2–4 and 8–10 possess 18-OAc fragment, which were the first examples of 13-spiro neo-clerodanes with 18-OAc group. Compounds 7–10 were the first report of 13-spiro neo-clerodanes with 2-OH. Compounds 1–10 were biologically evaluated for the cytotoxic, antiviral, and antibacterial activities. Compounds 5, 7, and 9 exhibited cytotoxic activities against H460 cancer cell line with inhibitory ratios of 46.0, 42.2, and 51.1%, respectively, at 0.3 μM. Compound 5 displayed a significant anti-influenza A virus activity with inhibitory ratio of 54.8% at 20 μM, close to the positive control, ribavirin.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) make up the majority of new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnoses among young people in China. Understanding HIV transmission dynamics among the MSM population is, therefore, crucial for the control and prevention of HIV infections, especially for some newly reported genotypes of HIV. This study presents a metapopulation model considering the impact of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to investigate the geographical spread of a hypothetically new genotype of HIV among MSM in Guangdong, China. We use multiple data sources to construct this model to characterize the behavioural dynamics underlying the spread of HIV within and between 21 prefecturelevel cities (i.e. Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, etc.) in Guangdong province: the online social network via a gay social networking app, the offline human mobility network via the Baidu mobility website, and self-reported sexual behaviours among MSM. Results show that PrEP initiation exponentially delays the occurrence of the virus for the rest of the cities transmitted from the initial outbreak city; hubs on the movement network, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan are at a higher risk of 'earliest' exposure to the new HIV genotype; most cities acquire the virus directly from the initial outbreak city while others acquire the virus from cities that are not initial outbreak locations and have relatively high betweenness centralities, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shantou. This study provides insights in predicting the geographical spread of a new genotype of HIV among an MSM population from different regions and assessing the importance of prefecture-level cities in the control and prevention of HIV in Guangdong province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We induced neural stem cells (NSCs) to neurons by olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC) conditioned medium and characterized their electrophysiological properties after neuronal differentiation. Methods: Fetal NSCs and OECs were cultured from embryonic day 14 SD rats and the conditioned medium was collected and stored at -20°C when the cell number was up to 80% of the culture flasks. The experiment groups were divided into a control group (cultured with DMEM/F12 without FBS) and an OECs induction group (cultured with OEC conditioned medium and DMEM/F12 without FBS). Immunocytochemistry staining was carried out to identify the neurons derived from NSCs and their electrophysiological properties were characterized after neuronal differentiation using a patch-clamp technique. Results: The NSCs divided rapidly in the expansion medium, forming small proliferating spheres after 7 days. The OECs induction group presented an evident neuron-like type 7 days after adding OEC conditioned medium, and the nestin immunochemistry staining was positive. The electrophysiological characterization showed that the derived neurons presented a transient inward sodium current and slow outward potassium current under proper electric stimulus, which were blocked by tetrodotoxin (TTX) and tetraethylammonium (TEA). Conclusion: OEC conditioned medium can induce NSCs to form neurons, and electrophysiological characterization demonstrated that the derived neurons presented active electrophysiological properties which are essential for nervous excitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fournew polyketide synthase–nonribosomal peptide synthetase(PKS–NRPS) hybrid metabolites, pericoannosin A (1), with an unusual hexahydro-1H-isochromen-5-isobutylpyrrolidin-2-oneskeleton, and three cytochalasans, periconiasins D–F (2–4), were isolated from the endophyticfungus Periconiasp. F-31. Their structures and absoluteconfigurations were elucidated through extensive spectroscopic analyses,calculated ECD, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction (Cu Kα).A possible biogenetic pathway is proposed. Compounds 1and 4showed anti-HIV activity with IC50s of 69.6 and 29.2 μM, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting depth maps from monocular images has made an impressive performance in the past years. However, most depth estimation methods are trained with paired image-depth map data or multi-view images (e.g., stereo pair and monocular sequence), which suffer from expensive annotation costs and poor transferability. Although unsupervised domain adaptation methods are introduced to mitigate the reliance on annotated data, rare works focus on the unsupervised cross-scenario indoor monocular depth estimation. In this article, we propose to study the generalization of depth estimation models across different indoor scenarios in an adversarial-based domain adaptation paradigm. Concretely, a domain discriminator is designed for discriminating the representation from source and target domains, while the feature extractor aims to confuse the domain discriminator by capturing domain-invariant features. Further, we reconstruct depth maps from latent representations with the supervision of labeled source data. As a result, the feature extractor learned features possess the merit of both domain-invariant and low source risk, and the depth estimator can deal with the domain shift between source and target domains. We conduct the cross-scenario and cross-dataset experiments on the ScanNet and NYU-Depth-v2 datasets to verify the effectiveness of our method and achieve impressive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continual learning (CL) has emerged as an important avenue of research in recent years, at the intersection of Machine Learning (ML) and Human–Robot Interaction (HRI), to allow robots to continually learn in their environments over long-term interactions with humans. Most research in CL, however, has been robot-centered to develop CL algorithms that can quickly learn new information on systematically collected static datasets. In this article, we take a human-centered approach to CL, to understand how humans interact with, teach, and perceive CL robots over the long term, and if there are variations in their teaching styles. We developed a socially guided CL system that integrates CL models for object recognition with a mobile manipulator robot and allows humans to directly teach and test the robot in real time over multiple sessions. We conducted an in-person study with 60 participants who interacted with the CL robot in 300 sessions with 5 sessions per participant. In this between-participant study, we used three different CL models deployed on a mobile manipulator robot. An extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data collected in the study shows that there is significant variation among the teaching styles of individual users indicating the need for personalized adaptation to their distinct teaching styles. Our analysis shows that the constrained experimental setups that have been widely used to test most CL models are not adequate, as real users interact with and teach CL robots in a variety of ways. Finally, our analysis shows that although users have concerns about CL robots being deployed in our daily lives, they mention that with further improvements CL robots could assist older adults and people with disabilities in their homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies have reported that polyphyllin I (PPI) had effective anti-tumor activity against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the precise molecular mechanism of this action and the direct target remain unclear. The aim of this study was to discover the molecular targets and the exact mechanism of PPI in the treatment of HCC. Methods: Various HCC cells and Zebrafish xenotransplantation models were used to examine the efficacy of PPI against HCC. A proteome microarray, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, small molecule transfection, and molecular docking were conducted to confirm the direct binding targets of PPI. Transcriptome and Western blotting were then used to determine the exact responding mechanism. Finally, the anticancer effect and its precise mechanism, as well as the safety of PPI, were verified using a mouse tumor xenograft study. Results: The results demonstrated that PPI had significant anticancer activity against HCC in both in vitro studies of two cells and the zebrafish model. Notably, PPI selectively enhanced the action of the Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing 16 (ZBTB16) protein by directly binding to it. Furthermore, specific knockdown of ZBTB16 markedly attenuated PPI-dependent inhibition of HCC cell proliferation and migration caused by overexpression of the gene. The transcriptome and Western blotting also confirmed that the interaction between ZBTB16 and PPI also activated the PPARγ/RXRα pathway. Finally, the mouse experiments confirmed the efficacy and safety of PPI to treat HCC. Conclusions: Our results indicate that ZBTB16 is a promising drug target for HCC and that PPI as a potent ZBTB16 agonist has potential as a therapeutic agent against HCC by regulating the ZBTB16/PPARγ/RXRα signaling axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The effect of pre-rolling on the microstructure and fatigue crack (FC) propagation resistance of the Al-Cu-Li alloy was studied using tensile testing, fatigue testing, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results revealed that reducing the alloy thickness through pre-rolling by up to 12% enhanced both tensile strength and yield strength, albeit at the expense of reduced elongation. In addition, the FC growth rate decreased by up to 9% pre-rolling, reaching the minimum, while the application of additional mechanical stress during the pre-rolling increases this parameter. Deformations in the Al-Cu-Li alloy with less than a 9% thickness reduction were confined to the surface layer and did not extend to the central layer. This non-uniform deformation induced a compressive stress gradient in the thickness direction and led to an inhomogeneous distribution of T1 phase, resembling the structure generated by shot peening. The superior FC propagation resistance in the 9% pre-rolled alloy could be primarily attributed to the optimum balance of compressive residual stress and work hardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class incremental continual learning aims to improve the ability of modern classification models to continually recognize new classes without forgetting the previous ones. Prior art in the field has largely considered using a replay buffer. In this article, we start from an observation that the existing replay-based method would fail when the stored exemplars are not hard enough to get a good decision boundary between a previously learned class and a new class. To prevent this situation, we propose a method from the perspective of remedy after forgetting for the first time. In the proposed method, a set of exemplars is preserved as a working memory, which helps to recognize new classes. When the working memory is insufficient to distinguish between new classes, more discriminating samples would be swapped from a long-term memory, which is built up during the early training process, in an adaptive way. Our continual recognition model with adaptive memory update is capable of overcoming the problem of catastrophic forgetting with various new classes coming in sequence, especially for similar but different classes. Extensive experiments on different real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed model is superior to existing state-of-the-art algorithms. Moreover, our model can be used as a general plugin for any replay-based continual learning algorithm to further improve their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meta-learning approaches have recently achieved promising performance in multi-class incremental learning. However, meta-learners still suffer from catastrophic forgetting, i.e., they tend to forget the learned knowledge from the old tasks when they focus on rapidly adapting to the new classes of the current task. To solve this problem, we propose a novel distilled meta-learning (DML) framework for multi-class incremental learning that integrates seamlessly meta-learning with knowledge distillation in each incremental stage. Specifically, during inner-loop training, knowledge distillation is incorporated into the DML to overcome catastrophic forgetting. During outer-loop training, a meta-update rule is designed for the meta-learner to learn across tasks and quickly adapt to new tasks. By virtue of the bilevel optimization, our model is encouraged to reach a balance between the retention of old knowledge and the learning of new knowledge. Experimental results on four benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal and show that our method significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art incremental learning methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iodine is a crucial micronutrient that is indispensable for optimal physical growth and cognitive maturation. However, the dietary iodine intake status of Macao's population is unknown. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the dietary iodine intake of Macao secondary school students. Four hundred and twenty-four students filled in a self-developed, 61-item, iodine-specific food frequency questionnaire (I-FFQ). The dietary iodine intake was calculated based on the I-FFQ and food composition database. The median daily iodine intake of the students was 74.4 µg, which is lower than the 150 µg recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The intake frequency of dried seaweed and kelp was also low, with 49.3% and 64.2% of students consuming these foods infrequently over a month. In conclusion, the dietary iodine intake of secondary school students in Macao was inadequate. It is recommended that individuals should take the initiative to gain iodine-related knowledge. Students are advised to eat a variety of iodine-rich foods, such as seaweed and seafood, as part of a healthy, balanced diet to ensure sufficient iodine intake. Furthermore, it will be necessary to measure urinary iodine for the iodine status assessment of the Macao population in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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As data collection increases, more and more sensitive data is being used to publish query results. This creates a significant risk of privacy disclosure. As a mathematically provable privacy theory, differential privacy (DP) provides a tool to resist background knowledge attacks. Fuzzy differential privacy (FDP) generalizes differential privacy by employing smaller sensitivity and supporting multiple similarity measures. Thus the output error can be reduced under FDP. Existing FDP mechanisms employ sliding window strategy, which perturb the true query value to an interval with this value as the midpoint to maintain similarity of outputs from neighboring datasets. It is still possible for an attacker to infer some sensitive information based on the difference between the left and right endpoints of the output range. To address this issue, this article present two solutions: fixed interval perturbation and infinite interval perturbation. These strategies perturb the true query values of two neighboring datasets to the same interval and provide fuzzy differential privacy protection for the dataset. We apply the proposed method to the privacy-preserving problem of bipartite graph subgraph counting and verify the effectiveness by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering is the property of Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Nutritional status affects the health of the public and is one of the key factors influencing social-economic development. To date, little research on the nutritional status of the Macao university student population has been conducted. Objectives: To identify and evaluate the dietary pattern and the nutritional intake among Macao university students. Methods: The Macao students were selected by the stratified cluster random sampling method. A semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire was used to investigate food consumption. Data were analyzed through a t-test and factor analysis by using SPSS Version 24.0. Results: A total of 1230 questionnaires were distributed. From the respondents, 1067 (86.7%) were valid. In general, we identified three major dietary patterns in this population: (1) fruit and vegetable dietary pattern, characterized by abundant consumption of fruits and vegetables; (2) grain and high fat dietary pattern, characterized as high intakes of grains and animal foods; (3) high sugar dietary pattern, characterized by a large quantity of daily sugary drinks. The average daily intake of vitamin A, thiamine, calcium, and iodine were significantly lower than the Chinese Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) in the subjects. Conclusions: The dietary pattern of Macao students is similar to that of other Asians. Surprisingly, the daily intake of vitamin A, thiamine, calcium, and iodine by Macao university students is significantly lower than the Chinese RNI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristics of rare earth elements (REEs) in mid-ocean ridge (MOR) sediments are important indicators of hydrothermal activity. However, these sediments generally have multiple sources and different grain sizes, resulting in variations of the REE characteristics in bulk sediment samples, which create difficulties when interpreting the results. We studied the characteristics of REEs in sediments with different grain sizes collected proximal, a moderate distance, and distal to hydrothermal fields located on the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR). The results show that > 250 μm sediments comprised abundant local debris (especially in proximal sediments) and hydrothermal components with minor Fe–Mn oxides and hydroxides, while < 250 μm sediments comprised higher contents of hydrothermal components, Fe–Mn (hydr)oxides, and terrigenous dust. The REE features of > 250 μm sediments were significantly controlled by local mafic and ultramafic debris (heavy REE enrichment), while hydrothermal components, calcareous ooze, and Fe–Mn oxides played a more important role in the features of the 74–250 μm sediment REEs (light REE enrichment and negative Ce anomaly). The REE characteristics of the < 74 μm sediments were partially controlled by the occurrence of Mn oxides and eolian dust. With decreasing grain size, the sediments generally exhibited increasing negative Ce anomalies, probably the result of adsorption of REE onto hydrothermal Fe oxyhydroxides. In addition, with increasing distance from the hydrothermal fields, the influence of the hydrothermal components on the REE features decreased. The relative contributions of material source components to the sediments and feasible grain size for the identification of hydrothermal contribution were discriminated by the δEu–(Gd/Yb)N diagram. Overall, our results showed that the REE features of 74–250 μm MOR sediments are the most feasible for the identification of potential hydrothermal activity in studied segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Forensic Science & Technology is the property of Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Public Security and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)