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Abstract Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) arises from prostate adenocarcinoma after endocrine treatment failure and implies lethality and limited therapeutic options. Deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying transdifferentiation from adenocarcinoma to NEPC may provide valuable therapeutic strategies. We performed a pan-cancer differential mRNA abundance analysis and identified that Kinesin-like protein (KIF1A) was highly expressed in NEPC. KIF1A knockdown impaired neuroendocrine(NE) features, including NE marker gene expression, stemness, and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), whereas KIF1A overexpression promoted these processes. Targeting KIF1A inhibited the growth of NE differentiated prostate cancer (PCa) cells in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, KIF1A bound with O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) and regulated its protein expression and activity. Nuclear accumulation of OGT induced by KIF1A overexpression promoted intranuclear O-GlcNAcylation of β-catenin and OCT4 in nucleus. More importantly, our data revealed that OGT was critical for KIF1A induced NE differentiation and aggressive tumor growth. An OGT inhibitor, OSMI-1, can significantly inhibited NE differentiated PCa cell proliferation in vitro and tumor growth in vivo. Our findings showed that KIF1A promotes NE differentiation to NEPC by regulating the OGT-mediated O-GlcNAcylation. Targeting O-GlcNAcylation may impede the development of NEPC for a group of PCa patients with elevated KIF1A expression.

Abstract Regular physical activity is widely recognized for reducing the risk of various disorders, with skeletal muscles playing a key role by releasing biomolecules that benefit multiple organs and tissues. However, many individuals, particularly the elderly and those with clinical conditions, are unable to engage in physical exercise, necessitating alternative strategies to stimulate muscle cells to secrete beneficial biomolecules. Histone acetylation and deacetylation significantly influence exercise-induced gene expression, suggesting that targeting histone deacetylases (HDACs) could mimic some exercise responses. In this study, we explored the effects of the HDAC inhibitor Trichostatin A (TSA) on human skeletal muscle myoblasts (HSMMs). Our findings showed that TSA-induced hyperacetylation enhanced myotube fusion and increased the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) enriched with miR-873-3p. These TSA-EVs promoted osteogenic differentiation in human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs) by targeting H2 calponin (CNN2). In vivo, systemic administration of TSA-EVs to osteoporosis mice resulted in significant improvements in bone mass. Moreover, TSA-EVs mimicked the osteogenic benefits of exercise-induced EVs, suggesting that HDAC inhibition can replicate exercise-induced bone health benefits. These results demonstrate the potential of TSA-induced muscle-derived EVs as a therapeutic strategy to enhance bone formation and prevent osteoporosis, particularly for individuals unable to exercise. Given the FDA-approved status of various HDAC inhibitors, this approach holds significant promise for rapid clinical translation in osteoporosis treatment.

The mucosal barrier is crucial for intestinal homeostasis, and goblet cells are essential for maintaining the mucosal barrier integrity. The proviral integration site for Moloney murine leukemia virus-1 (PIM1) kinase regulates multiple cellular functions, but its role in intestinal homeostasis during colitis is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that PIM1 is prominently elevated in the colonic epithelia of both ulcerative colitis patients and murine models, in the presence of intestinal microbiota. Epithelial PIM1 leads to decreased goblet cells, thus impairing resistance to colitis and colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC) in mice. Mechanistically, PIM1 modulates goblet cell differentiation through the Wnt and Notch signaling pathways. Interestingly, PIM1 interacts with histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2) and downregulates its level via phosphorylation, thereby altering the epigenetic profiles of Wnt signaling pathway genes. Collectively, these findings investigate the unknown function of the PIM1–HDAC2 axis in goblet cell differentiation and ulcerative colitis/CAC pathogenesis, which points to the potential for PIM1-targeted therapies of ulcerative colitis and CAC.

Abstract Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected magnetization vortices that form three-dimensional strings in chiral magnets. With the manipulation of skyrmions being key to their application in devices, the focus has been on their dynamics within the vortex plane, while the dynamical control of skyrmion strings remained uncharted territory. Here, we report the effective bending of three-dimensional skyrmion strings in the chiral magnet MnSi in orthogonal thermal gradients using small angle neutron scattering. This dynamical behavior is achieved by exploiting the temperature-dependent skyrmion Hall effect, which is unexpected in the framework of skyrmion dynamics. We thus provide experimental evidence for the existence of magnon friction, which was recently proposed to be a key ingredient for capturing skyrmion dynamics, requiring a modification of Thiele’s equation. Our work therefore suggests the existence of an extra degree of freedom for the manipulation of three-dimensional skyrmions.

Abstract Background Restless arms syndrome (RAS) is the most common variant of restless legs syndrome (RLS), which is easy to be ignored in clinical practice due to the lack of specific diagnostic criteria. When effective therapeutic agents induced RAS and symptoms persisted after briefly observation, clinicians will face the challenge of weighing efficacy against side effects. Case presentation A 67-year-old woman was admitted to a geriatric psychiatric ward with depression. Upon admission, the escitalopram dose was reduced from 15 mg to 10 mg per day, and the duloxetine dose was increased from 60 mg to 80 mg per day. The next night before bedtime, she developed itching and creeping sensations deep inside bilateral shoulders and arms, with the urge to move, worsening at rest, and alleviation after hammering. The symptoms persisted when escitalopram was discontinued. A history of RLS was confirmed. Treatment with 40 mg of duloxetine and 0.125 mg of pramipexole significantly improved depression, and the paresthesia disappeared, with no recurrence occurring 6 months after discharge. Discussion and conclusions This case suggests that psychiatrists should pay attention to RLS variants when increasing doses of duloxetine. Long-term improvement can be achieved through dosage reduction combined with dopaminergic drugs instead of immediate discontinuation.

Rechargeable magnesium-ion batteries (MIBs) are favorable substitutes for conventional lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) because of abundant magnesium reserves, a high theoretical energy density, and great inherent safety. Organic electrode materials with excellent structural tunability, unique coordination reaction mechanisms, and environmental friendliness offer great potential to promote the electrochemical performance of MIBs. However, research on organic magnesium battery cathode materials is still preliminary with many significant challenges to be resolved including low electrical conductivity and unwanted but severe dissolution in useful electrolytes. Herein, we provide a detailed overview of reported organic cathode materials for MIBs. We begin with basic properties such as charge storage mechanisms (e.g., n-, p-, and bipolar-type), moving to recent advances in various types of organic cathodes including carbonyl-, nitrogen-, and sulfur-based materials. To shed light on the diverse strategies targeting high-performance Mg-organic batteries, elaborate summaries of various approaches are presented. Generally, these strategies include molecular design, polymerization, mixing with carbon, nanosizing and electrolyte/separator optimization. This review provides insights on exploring high-performance organic cathodes in rechargeable MIBs.

Abstract In this paper, we study a holographic description of weak measurements in conformal field theories (CFTs). Weak measurements can be viewed as a soft projection that interpolates between an identity operator and a projection operator, and can induce an effective central charge distinct from the unmeasured CFT. We model the weak measurement by an interface brane, separating different geometries dual to the post-measurement state and the unmeasured CFT, respectively. In an infinite system, the weak measurement is related to ICFT via a spacetime rotation. We find that the holographic entanglement entropy with twist operators located on the defect is consistent in both calculations for ICFT and weak measurements. We additionally calculate the boundary entropy via holographic entanglement as well as partition function. In a finite system, the weak measurement can lead to a rich phase diagram: for marginal measurements the emergent brane separates two AdS geometries, while for irrelevant measurements the post-measurement geometry features an AdS spacetime and a black hole spacetime that are separated by the brane. Although the measurement is irrelevant in the later phase, the post-measurement geometry can realize a Python’s lunch. Finally, we discuss the thick brane construction for measurement and higher-dimension extensions of our model. For these general cases, our results above are still shown to be valid.

Abstract Background Sea cucumbers exhibit a remarkable ability to regenerate damaged or lost tissues and organs, making them an outstanding model system for investigating processes and mechanisms of regeneration. They can also reproduce asexually by transverse fission, whereby the anterior and posterior bodies can regenerate independently. Despite the recent focus on intestinal regeneration, the molecular mechanisms underlying body wall regeneration in sea cucumbers still remain unclear. Results In this study, transverse fission was induced in the tropical sea cucumber, Holothuria leucospilota, through constrainment using rubber bands. Histological examination revealed the degradation and loosening of collagen fibers on day-3, followed by increased density but disorganization of the connective tissue on day-7 of regeneration. An Illumina transcriptome analysis was performed on the H. leucospilota at 0-, 3- and 7-days after artificially induced fission. The differential expression genes were classified and enriched by GO terms and KEGG database, respectively. An upregulation of genes associated with extracellular matrix remodeling was observed, while a downregulation of pluripotency factors Myc, Klf2 and Oct1 was detected, although Sox2 showed an upregulation in expression. In addition, this study also identified progressively declining expression of transcription factors in the Wnt, Hippo, TGF-β, and MAPK signaling pathways. Moreover, changes in genes related to development, stress response, apoptosis, and cytoskeleton formation were observed. The localization of the related genes was further confirmed through in situ hybridization. Conclusion The early regeneration of H. leucospilota body wall is associated with the degradation and subsequent reconstruction of the extracellular matrix. Pluripotency factors participate in the regenerative process. Multiple transcription factors involved in regulating cell proliferation were found to be gradually downregulated, indicating reduced cell proliferation. Moreover, genes related to development, stress response, apoptosis, and cell cytoskeleton formation were also involved in this process. Overall, this study provides new insights into the mechanisms of whole-body regeneration and uncover potential cross-species regenerative-related genes.

Distinct from familiar s-, p-, or d-wave pairings, the monopole superconducting order represents a novel class of pairing order arising from nontrivial monopole charge of the Cooper pair. In the weak-coupling regime, this order can emerge when pairing occurs between Fermi surfaces with different Chern numbers in, for example, doped Weyl semimetal systems. However, the phase of monopole pairing order is not well-defined over an entire Fermi surface, making it challenging to design experiments sensitive to both its symmetry and topology. To address this, we propose a scheme based on symmetry and topological principles to identify this elusive pairing order through a set of phase-sensitive Josephson experiments. By examining the discrepancy between global and local angular momentum of the pairing order, we can unveil the monopole charge of the pairing order, including for models with higher pair monopole charge |q_{p}|=1,2, and 3. We demonstrate the proposed probe of monopole pairing order through analytic and numerical studies of Josephson coupling in models of monopole superconductor junctions. This work opens a promising avenue to uncover the unique topological properties of monopole pairing orders and to distinguish them from known pairing orders based on spherical harmonic symmetry.

Microviridae is a family of phages with circular ssDNA genomes and they are widely found in various environments and organisms. In this study, virome techniques were employed to explore potential members of Microviridae in a poultry slaughterhouse, leading to the identification of 98 novel and complete microvirus genomes. Using a similarity clustering network classification approach, these viruses were found to belong to at least 6 new subfamilies within Microviridae and 3 higher-level taxonomic units. Genome size, GC content and genome structure of these new taxa showed evident regularities, validating the rationality of our classification method. Our method can divide microviruses into about 45 additional detailed clusters, which may serve as a new standard for classifying Microviridae members. Furthermore, by addressing the scarcity of host information for microviruses, the current study significantly broadened their host range and discovered over 20 possible new hosts, including important pathogenic bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori and Vibrio cholerae, as well as different taxa demonstrated different host specificities. The findings of this study effectively expand the diversity of the Microviridae family, providing new insights for their classification and identification. Additionally, it offers a novel perspective for monitoring and controlling pathogenic microorganisms in poultry slaughterhouse environments.

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) results from continuous and heavy alcohol consumption. The current treatment strategy for ALD is based on alcohol withdrawal coupled with antioxidant drug intervention, which is a long process with poor efficacy and low patient compliance. Alcohol-induced CYP2E1 upregulation has been demonstrated as a key regulator of ALD, but CYP2E1 knockdown in humans was impractical, and pharmacological inhibition of CYP2E1 by a clinically relevant approach for treating ALD was not shown. In this study, we developed a RNAi therapeutics delivered by lipid nanoparticle, and treated mice fed on Lieber-DeCarli ethanol liquid diet weekly for up to 12 weeks. This RNAi-based inhibition of Cyp2e1 expression reduced reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress in mouse livers, and contributed to improved ALD symptoms in mice. The liver fat accumulation, hepatocyte inflammation, and fibrosis were reduced in ALD models. Therefore, this study suggested the feasibility of RNAi targeting to CYP2E1 as a potential therapeutic tool to the development of ALD.

The operational stability of a power transformer exerts an extremely important impact on the power symmetry, balance, and security of power systems. When the grid load fluctuates greatly, if the load factor of the transformer cannot be maintained within a reasonable range, it leads to increased instability in grid operation. Adjusting the transformer capacity based on load changes is of great significance. The existing control methods for on-load capacity-regulating (OLCR) transformers have low timeliness, and the daily switching frequency of the capacity-regulating switch is not controlled. To ensure the safe and stable operation of transformers, this paper proposes a control method for OLCR transformers based on load prediction and fuzzy control. Firstly, the operating principle of OLCR transformers is analyzed, and a multi-strategy enhanced dung beetle optimizer (MSDBO) combined with a CNN−LSTM model is proposed for load forecasting. On this basis, the daily switching frequency of the capacity-regulating transformer is introduced, and hesitant fuzzy control is used to select the optimal capacity-regulating strategy relying on three factors: loss, economy, and switching frequency. Finally, simulation models are constructed using the MATLAB/SIMULINK platform and simulation analysis is conducted to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control method. For the three scenarios in this paper, the method reduces daily power loss by 28.5% to 56.3% and daily operating costs by 25.4% to 50.8%. The method used in this paper can sacrifice 3.5% to 9.2% of the loss reduction capability in exchange for reducing the number of switch operations by 28.6% to 57.1%, significantly extending the lifespan of the switches and thereby increasing the operational lifespan of the transformer.

Abstract Digitalizing optical signals through electric driving signals, electro-optic modulators (EOMs) are one of the cardinal elements in modern optical communications. Most of current EOM devices are targeting on-chip integrations, which routinely suffer from high coupling losses, complex optical alignments and single-band operations. In this study, we for the first time integrate a lumped EOM device on the endfaces of a single-mode optical fiber jumper for fast amplitude modulations. Profiting from ultrathin and high quality-factor plasmonic metasurfaces, nanofabrication-friendly and highly efficient EO polymers and coupling-free connections with fiber networks, our EOM is demonstrated to allow dual-band operations (telecom O band and S band) and high-speed modulations (~1 GHz at a bias voltage of ±9 V). This work offers an avenue to ‘plug-and-play’ implementations of EO devices and ultracompact “all-in-fibers” optical systems for communications, imaging, sensing and many others.

Chemotherapeutic drugs have low aggregation rates and short retention times in tumors, severely limiting their clinical application. Additionally, the development and spread of solid tumors is highly dependent on neovascularization. An RGD-modified acid-responsive peptide was designed to encapsulate the chemotherapeutic drug paclitaxel (PTX) and the antiangiogenic drug sorafenib (SF), enabling them to self-assemble into nanoparticles (NPs) in a physiological environment. In an acidic environment, the release of PTX and SF was achieved when the drug-loaded experimental peptide PS/Pep1 transformed from spherical NPs into aggregates containing nanofibers, which effectively prolonged the retention of the encapsulated drug and increased drug accumulation. Furthermore, in vivo experiments provided compelling evidence of the strong inhibitory effects of PS/Pep1 on tumor growth and metastasis, as well as its effective suppression of angiogenesis. This targeted NP system that undergoes a morphological shift in the tumor microenvironment holds promise for enhancing the efficacy of the combined administration of chemotherapeutic and antiangiogenic drugs to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis.

In tumor treatment, the highly disordered vascular system and lack of accumulation of chemotherapeutic drugs in tumors severely limit the therapeutic role of nanocarriers. Smaller drug-containing nanoparticles (NPs) can better penetrate the tumor but are easily removed, which severely limits the tumor-killing properties of the drug. The chemotherapeutic medication doxorubicin (DOX) is highly toxic to the heart, but this toxicity can be effectively mitigated and the combined anticancer effect can be enhanced by clinically incorporating curcumin (CUR) as part of the dual therapy. We designed a small-molecule peptide, Pep1, containing a targeting peptide (CREKA) and a pH-responsive moiety. These NPs can target the blood vessels in tumor microthrombi and undergo a morphological shift in the tumor microenvironment. This process enhances the penetration and accumulation of drugs, ultimately improving the effectiveness of cancer treatment. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that this morphological transformation allowed rapid and effective drug release into tumors, the effective inhibition of tumor angiogenesis, and the promotion of tumor cell apoptosis, thus effectively killing tumor cells. Our findings provide a novel and simple approach to nhibit the growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Abstract Epithelioid inflammatory myofibroblastic sarcoma (EIMS) is an aggressive subtype of inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour which rarely affects the chest cavity. We, for the first time, report a case of mediastinal EIMS with the EML4‐ALK fusion. A young woman presented to our hospital with cough, chest tightness and shortness of breath. Computed tomography (CT) showed a mixed attenuation soft‐tissue mass in the right middle and upper mediastinum. Negative results were obtained from bronchoscopy forceps biopsy and endobronchial ultrasound‐guided transbronchial fine needle aspiration. CT‐guided percutaneous biopsy was finally performed. However, due to the rapidly progressed EIMS that compressed the trachea and right main bronchus, the patient died of respiratory failure 1 day before diagnosis. EIMS progresses rapidly, and an early diagnosis is important. For mediastinal EIMS, CT‐guided percutaneous biopsy may be useful. Next‐generation sequencing of blood may be instructive to EIMS patients who are intolerant to invasive biopsy.

Stressors can interact to affect animal fitness, but we have limited knowledge about how temporal variation in stressors may impact their combined effect. This limits our ability to predict the outcomes of pollutants and future dynamic environmental changes. Elevated salinity in freshwater ecosystems has been observed worldwide. Meanwhile, heatwaves have become more frequent and intensified as an outcome of climate change. These two stressors can jointly affect organisms; however, their interaction has rarely been explored in the context of freshwater ecosystems. We conducted lab experiments using Daphnia pulicaria, a key species in lakes, to investigate how elevated salinity and heatwave conditions collectively affect freshwater organisms. We also monitored the impacts of various recovery times between the two stressors. Daphnia physiological conditions (metabolic rate, Na+-K+-ATPase (NKA) activity, and lipid peroxidation level) and life history traits (survival, fecundity, and growth) in response to salt stress as well as mortality in heat treatment were examined. We found that Daphnia responded to elevated salinity by upregulating NKA activity and increasing metabolic rate, causing a high lipid peroxidation level. Survival, fecundity, and growth were all negatively affected by this stressor. These impacts on physiological conditions and life history traits persisted for a few days after the end of the exposure. Heat treatments caused mortality in Daphnia, which increased with rising temperature. Results also showed that individuals that experienced salt exposure were more susceptible to subsequent heat stress, but this effect decreased with increasing recovery time between stressors. Findings from this work suggest that the legacy effects from a previous stressor can reduce individual resistance to a subsequent stressor, adding great difficulties to the prediction of outcomes of multiple stressors. Our work also demonstrates that cross-tolerance/susceptibility and the associated mechanisms remain unclear, necessitating further investigation.

The rate of urbanization is increasing, and solutions to the pollution issue are desperately needed. Urban street trees are an essential factor in improving the environmental quality of cities. Quantifying precise ecological benefits of individual trees is important for monitoring urban ecology. However, since street tree surveys are time-consuming and expensive, it is challenging to assess the ecological benefits of street trees. Besides, there is still a need for more investigation into the advantages of multi-source data for ecological benefits estimates. Effective living vegetation volume (eLVV) as an urban green space indicator is beneficial for providing the vertical structure of street trees and offering a possibility for estimating the ecological benefits. The objective of this study is to evaluate the accurate ecological benefits of street trees by calculating eLVV. We developed and validated a framework for evaluating the ecological benefits of urban vegetation using point cloud and image processing techniques. Terrestrial laser scanning and unmanned aerial vehicle data were used to predict indicators at the single tree scale and road scale. Models based on game theory were applied to score all the indicators and assess the ecological benefits. The results showed that: (1) The proposed framework demonstrated that multi-source data allowed for the exact indicators of ecological benefits. (2) The eLVV of the street trees on two roads was less on the north side than on the south side, reflecting the difference in the ecology of the street trees in terms of orientation. This paper explores the advantages of multi-source data in measuring detailed ecological benefits, which support the digital management of street trees and the sustainability of regional ecology.

In recent years, the growth rate of China’s real industry has slowed down while the financial industry has entered a phase of rapid development. Driven by the profit-seeking motive of capital, real enterprises tend to carry out financial investments, and the degree of corporate financialization has been rising. This paper selects A-share listed enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2020 as research samples to study the impact of corporate financialization on technological innovation and the mediating effect of financing constraints from the perspective of financial asset holding. The study found that the financialization of enterprises’ crowding out effect on technological innovation has led to the phenomenon of “turning from real to virtual”. We also found that the crowding-out effect had experienced lag. This conclusion still held when we controlled for endogeneity. The heterogeneity analysis showed that the financialization of non-state-owned enterprises had an excessive inhibitory effect on technological innovation, and the financialization of enterprises in eastern China has had a remarkable inhibitory effect on technological innovation. The influence mechanism analysis showed how financing constraints played a crucial mediating role in corporate financialization inhibiting technological innovation, and corporate financialization has inhibited technological innovation by exacerbating financing constraints. Based on this research, we propose targeted suggestions to prevent the excessive financialization of enterprises on both government and enterprise levels.

There are various types of crude oil in the Liaohe Depression, Bohai Bay Basin, among which heavy oil accounts for more than 50% of the oil and gas reserves and production. Therefore, it is of great significance for future exploration and development to study the main controlling factors of oil densification in the Liaohe Depression and to understand the distribution pattern of heavy oil. Based on the systematic understanding of heavy oil reservoir exploration and development in Liaohe oilfield for decades of years, and by aiming at the geological characteristics of heavy oil reservoirs such as "edge, shallow, unconsolidated, early, falling, loss, capping", this paper discusses the distribution and densification reasons of heavy oil from six aspects, including structural pattern, reservoir characteristics, reservoir burial depth, underground fluid, capping conditions, oxidation and biodegradation. The densification mechanism and controlling factors of heavy oil reservoirs in the Liaohe Depression are basically clarified. Through the study of heavy oil densification factors, it is found that structural pattern is the main factor controlling heavy oil distribution, geological conditions such as reservoir, burial depth, underground fluid and cap rocks are important factors controlling heavy oil densification, while biodegradation and oxidation are the keys for heavy oil densification. Oil and gas reservoirs accumulate around sags in the Liaohe Depression. There are three rings around the oil-generating sags from the inside to the outside. The inner zone is dominated by natural gas and condensate gas, and the buried depth is generally more than 3 500 m. The middle zone is dominated by light oil, partially enriched with natural gas and heavy oil, with a buried depth of 1 700-3 500 m. The outer zone is dominated by heavy oil, and the buried depth is generally less than 1 700 m.

Background Blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum), red currant (R. rubrum), white currant (R. rubrum), and gooseberry (R. uva-crispa) belong to Grossulariaceae and are popular small-berry crops worldwide. The lack of genomic data has severely limited their systematic classification and molecular breeding. Methods The complete chloroplast (cp) genomes of these four taxa were assembled for the first time using MGI-DNBSEQ reads, and their genome structures, repeat elements and protein-coding genes were annotated. By genomic comparison of the present four and previous released five Ribes cp genomes, the genomic variations were identified. By phylogenetic analysis based on maximum-likelihood and Bayesian methods, the phylogeny of Grossulariaceae and the infrageneric relationships of the Ribes were revealed. Results The four cp genomes have lengths ranging from 157,450 to 157,802 bp and 131 shared genes. A total of 3,322 SNPs and 485 Indels were identified from the nine released Ribes cp genomes. Red currant and white currant have 100% identical cp genomes partially supporting the hypothesis that white currant (R. rubrum) is a fruit color variant of red currant (R. rubrum). The most polymorphic genic and intergenic region is ycf1 and trnT-psbD, respectively. The phylogenetic analysis demonstrated the monophyly of Grossulariaceae in Saxifragales and the paraphyletic relationship between Saxifragaceae and Grossulariaceae. Notably, the Grossularia subgenus is well nested within the Ribes subgenus and shows a paraphyletic relationship with the co-ancestor of Calobotrya and Coreosma sections, which challenges the dichotomous subclassification of the Ribes genus based on morphology (subgenus Ribes and subgenus Grossularia). These data, results, and insights lay a foundation for the phylogenetic research and breeding of Ribes species.

Lonicera caerulea var. edulis, known as “blue honeysuckle” or “Haskap,” is a deciduous shrub that belongs to the Caprifoliaceae family. Characterized by the high cold hardiness and high quality of fruit, it has become a novel cash crop in cold regions worldwide. The lack of available chloroplast (cp) genome information limits studies of its molecular breeding and phylogeny. Here, the complete cp genome of Lonicera caerulea var. edulis was assembled and characterized for the first time. It was 155,142 bp in length with 38.43% of GC content, including 23,841 bp inverted repeat regions (IRs), an 88,737 bp large single-copy region (LSC), and an 18,723 bp small single-copy region (SSC). A total of 132 genes, including 85 protein-coding genes, 8 rRNA genes, and 39 tRNA genes were annotated. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that L. caerulea var. edulis was closely related to L. tangutica. These data and results provide a valuable resource for the development of breeding tools and genetic diversity studies for L. caerulea.

Hepatic cholesterol accumulation is an important contributor to hypercholesterolemia, which results in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). ATP-citrate lyase (ACLY) is a key lipogenic enzyme that converts cytosolic citrate derived from tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle) to acetyl-CoA in the cytoplasm. Therefore, ACLY represents a link between mitochondria oxidative phosphorylation and cytosolic de novo lipogenesis. In this study, we developed the small molecule 326E with an enedioic acid structural moiety as a novel ACLY inhibitor, and its CoA-conjugated form 326E-CoA inhibited ACLY activity with an IC50 = 5.31 ± 1.2 μmol/L in vitro. 326E treatment reduced de novo lipogenesis, and increased cholesterol efflux in vitro and in vivo. 326E was rapidly absorbed after oral administration, exhibited a higher blood exposure than that of the approved ACLY inhibitor bempedoic acid (BA) used for hypercholesterolemia. Chronic 326E treatment in hamsters and rhesus monkeys resulted in remarkable improvement of hyperlipidemia. Once daily oral administration of 326E for 24 weeks prevented the occurrence of atherosclerosis in ApoE−/− mice to a greater extent than that of BA treatment. Taken together, our data suggest that inhibition of ACLY by 326E represents a promising strategy for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

Metafibers expand the functionalities of conventional optical fibres to unprecedented nanoscale light manipulations by integrating metasurfaces on the fibre tips, becoming an emerging light-coupling platform for both the nanoscience and fibre optics communities. Current metafibers remain proof-of-concept demonstrations that mostly explore isolated bare fibres owing to the lack of standard interfaces with universal fibre networks. Here, we develop methodologies for fabricating well-defined plasmonic metasurfaces directly on the end facets of commercial single -mode fibre jumpers using standard planar technologies and provide the first demonstration of their practical applications in the nonlinear plasmonic regime. Featuring plug-and-play connections with fibre circuitry and arbitrary metasurface landscapes, the metafibers with tunable plasmonic resonances are implemented into fibre laser cavities, yielding all-fibre sub-picosecond (minimum 513 fs) soliton mode locked lasers at optical wavelengths of 1.5 μm and 2 μm, demonstrating their unusual polarimetric nonlinear transfer functions and superior saturation absorption responses. The nanofabrication process flow is compatible with existing cleanroom technologies, offering metafibers an avenue to become a regular member of functionalised fibre components. This work paves the way toward the next generation of ultrafast lasers, optical frequency combs, and ultracompact ‘all-in-fibre’ optical systems.

Climate model evaluation work has made progress both in theory and practice, providing strong support for better understanding and predicting climate change. However, at the weather scale, there is relatively little assessment of climate models in terms of daily-scale climate phenomena, such as storm frequency and intensity. These weather-scale variables are of significant importance for our understanding of the impacts of climate change. In order to assess the capability of climate models to simulate weather-scale climate patterns, this study employs Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) for weather pattern classification. By combining different evaluation metrics, varying the number of SOM types, changing the size of the study area, and altering the reference datasets, the climate models are evaluated to ensure the robustness of the assessment results. The results demonstrate that the size of the study area is positively correlated with observed differences, and there are correlations among different evaluation metrics. The highest correlation is observed between evaluation metrics in large-scale and small-scale spatial domains, while the correlation with SOM size is relatively low. This suggests that the choice of evaluation metrics has a minor impact on model ranking. Furthermore, when comparing the correlation coefficients calculated using the same evaluation metrics for different-sized regions, a significant positive correlation is observed. This indicates that variations in the size of the study area do not significantly affect model ranking. Further investigation of the relationship between model performance and different SOM sizes shows a significant positive correlation. The impact of dataset selection on model ranking is also compared, revealing high consistency. This enhances the reliability of model ranking. Taking into account the influence of evaluation metric selection, SOM size, and reanalysis data selection on model performance assessment, significant variations in model ranking are observed. Based on cumulative ranking, the top five models identified are ACCESS1-0, GISS-E2-R, GFDL-CM3, MIROC4h, and GFDL-ESM2M. In conclusion, factors such as evaluation metric selection, study area size, and SOM size should be considered when assessing model ranking. Weather pattern classification plays a crucial role in climate model evaluation, as it helps us better understand model performance in different weather systems, assess their ability to simulate extreme weather events, and improve the design and evaluation methods of model ensemble predictions. These findings are of great significance for optimizing and strengthening climate model evaluation methods and provide valuable insights for future research.

Blue honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea L.), which belongs to the Caprifoliaceae family, is an emerging fruit crop worldwide. For the development of a transgenic system and multipurpose tissue culture, this study for the first time established an in vitro regeneration system via somatic embryogenesis, as well as improving the previously established indirect organogenesis-based regeneration system. For embryogenesis, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) showed the highest induction rate of the embryogenic callus (97.6%), and MS supplemented with 0.1 mg/L 6-benzyladenine (6-BA), 0.1 mg/L α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), and 0.5 g/L activated carbon (AC) achieved the highest somatic embryo rate (28.3%). For indirect organogenesis, MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/L 6-BA and 0.1 mg/L NAA resulted in the highest non-embryogenic callus induction rate (98.9%) and adventitious shoot induction rate (51.6%). For adventitious root induction, MS supplemented with 1.0 mg/L indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) achieved the highest root induction rate (96.0%) and average root length (4.6 cm), whereas MS supplemented with 0.5 mg/L indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) resulted in the highest average regenerated root number (8.8). The total time for the regeneration from explants to soil-planted seedlings (10 euphylla) was 105 and 150 days with an efficiency of 44.1% and 23.9% through organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis, respectively. This study provides a powerful tool for rapid propagation, proliferation, and transformation, as well as laying a technological foundation for gene function research and genetic improvement of blue honeysuckle.

Mental stress has been recognized as an essential risk factor for hypertension. Therefore, experts specializing in cardiology, psychiatry, and Traditional Chinese Medicine organized by the Psycho-Cardiology Group of College of Cardiovascular Physicians of Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Hypertension Group of Chinese Society of Cardiology proposed the expert consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress-induced hypertension in March 2021, which includes the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of the mental stress-induced hypertension. This consensus will hopefully facilitate the clinical practice of this disorder. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the primary global sources of psychosocial stressors since the beginning of 2020, and the revision of this expert consensus in 2022 has increased the relevant content. This consensus consists of Part A and Part B. Part A includes (I) Background and epidemiological characteristics, (II) Pathogenesis, and (III) Diagnosis and Part B includes (IV) Treatment recommendations and (V) Prospects. This part presents the content of Part A.

Mental stress has been recognized as an essential risk factor for hypertension. Therefore, experts specializing in cardiology, psychiatry, and Traditional Chinese Medicine organized by the Psycho-cardiology Group, College of Cardiovascular Physicians of Chinese Medical Doctor Association, and Hypertension Group of the Chinese Society of Cardiology proposed the expert consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress-induced hypertension in March 2021, which includes the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of the mental stress-induced hypertension. This consensus will hopefully facilitate the clinical practice of this disorder. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the primary global sources of psychosocial stressors since the beginning of 2020, and the revision of this expert consensus in 2022 has increased the relevant content. This consensus consists of two parts. The sections of Part A include (I) Background and epidemiological characteristics, (II) Pathogenesis, and (III) Diagnosis. The sections of Part B contain (IV) Treatment recommendations, and (V) Prospects. This article presents Part B of the consensus.

Blackberry structure is a type of universal, stable, porous, single layered, hollow, spherical supramolecular structure with sizes from tens to hundreds of nanometers self-assembled by various macroions (1–6 nm-size) in dilute solutions of water or other polar solvents. This self-assembly process is driven by counterion-mediated attraction, and merely requires ions to be large enough and moderately charged. The blackberry structures possess important features including their spontaneous and reversible self-assembly with tunable assembly sizes, capability of selectively segregating counterions, permeability to small counterions and molecules, self-recognition, as well as chiral recognition and selection. Considering such simple requirements for the self-assembly process and the mentioned features, and the availability of various macroions on the prebiotic earth, we will discuss about the possible role of blackberry structures as a compartmentalizing system in the origin of life concentrating the precursors and preparing proper conditions for the reaction to synthesize building blocks of early lives. We also speculate that they could have played a key role in the evolution of homochiral biological systems by intensifying the small enantiomeric imbalance, that might have existed on the prebiotic Earth.

Facial emotion recognition plays an important role in social functioning. Patients with late-life depression (LLD) often have abnormal facial emotion recognition. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is beneficial in treating depression. This study examined whether MBCT can act as an effective augmentation of antidepressants and improve facial emotion recognition in patients with LLD and its underlying neural mechanism. Patients with LLD were randomized into two groups (n = 30 per group). The MBCT group received an eight-week MBCT in conjunction with stable medication treatment. The other group was treated as usual (TAU group) with stable medication treatment. The positive affect (PA) scale, negative affect (NA) scale, and facial emotion recognition task with an fMRI scan were performed before and after the trial. After eight weeks of treatment, the repeated ANOVA showed that the PA score in the MBCT group significantly increased [F(1,54) = 13.31, p = 0.001], but did not change significantly [F(1,54) = 0.58, p = 0.449] in the TAU group. The NA scores decreased significantly in both the MBCT group [F(1,54) = 19.01, p < 0.001] and the TAU group [F(1,54) = 16.16, p < 0.001]. Patients showed an increase in recognition accuracy and speed of angry and sad faces after 8 weeks of MBCT. No improvement was detected in the TAU group after treatment. A significant interaction effect was found in the change of activation of the left superior temporal gyrus (L-STG) to negative emotional expression between time and groups. Furthermore, a decrease in activation of L-STG to negative emotional expression was positively correlated with the increase in PA score. The MBCT is beneficial for improving affect status and facial emotion recognition in patients with LLD, and the L-STG is involved in this process.

Pedestrian tracking is an important aspect of autonomous vehicles environment perception in a vehicle running environment. The performance of the existing pedestrian tracking algorithms is limited by the complex traffic environment, the changeable appearance characteristics of pedestrians and the frequent occlusion interaction, which leads to the insufficient accuracy and stability of tracking. Therefore, this paper proposes a detector–tracker integration framework for autonomous vehicle pedestrian tracking. Firstly, a pedestrian objects detector based on the improved YOLOv7 network was established. Space-to-Depth convolution layer was adopted to improve the backbone network of YOLOv7. Then, a novel appearance feature extraction network is proposed, which integrates the convolutional structural re-parameterization idea to construct a full-scale feature extraction block, which is the optimized DeepSORT tracker. Finally, experiments were carried out on MOT17 and MOT20 public datasets and driving video sequences, and the tracking performance of the proposed framework was evaluated by comparing it with the most advanced multi-object tracking algorithms. Quantitative analysis results show that the framework has high tracking accuracy. Compared with DeepSORT, MOTA improves by 2.3% in the MOT17 dataset and MOTA improves by 4.2% in the MOT20 dataset. Through qualitative evaluation on real driving video sequences, the framework proposed in this paper is robust in a variety of climate environments, and can be effectively applied to the pedestrian tracking of autonomous vehicles.

To effectively improve students’ performance and help educators monitor students’ learning situations, many colleges are committed to establishing systems that explore the influencing factors and predict student academic performance. However, because different colleges have different situations, the previous research results may not be applicable to ordinary Chinese colleges. This paper has two main objectives: to analyze the fluctuation of Chinese ordinary college student academic performance and to establish systems to predict performance. First, according to previous research results and the current situation of Chinese college students, a questionnaire was designed to collect data. Second, the chi-square test was used to analyze the contents of the questionnaire and identify the main features. Third, taking the main features as input, four classification prediction models are established by machine learning. Some traits of the students who did not pass all the examinations were also discovered. It might help student counselors and educators to take targeted measures. The experiment shows that the support vector machine classifier (SVC) model has the best and most stable effect. The average recall rate, precision rate, and accuracy rate reached 82.83%, 86.18%, and 80.96%, respectively.

Estimating individual tree structures from 3-D space may improve the biomass statistics of the urban forest and provide tree-level information for ecological studies. The existing delineation algorithms developed for 3-D point clouds have difficulty in the tree mapping from nonvertical stems or overlapping crowns, and may fail to detect incomplete or occluded branches. Besides, those methods either focus on the individual tree segmentation or crown delineation from the forest, which inadequately estimates the growth fitting of urban street trees. The goal of this article is to present a framework for estimating the growth fitting of street trees' diameter at breast height and under branch height. Tree stems are identified from the achieved street trees' nonphotosynthetic components, including main stems and branches, over different urban trees from mobile laser scanning point clouds. To extract nonphotosynthetic components, a clustering method is proposed to group points from the same stem or branch. The proposed work was validated in both wearable laser scanning data and vehicle laser scanning data, and the experimental scenes contain a range of roadside trees in different structures. In the identification of tree stems, the achieved correctness and completeness are 94.5% and 92.5%, respectively. In the growth fitting, this article calculates a Gaussian model, with the R-square up to 0.81, to describe the growth fitting of Platanus acerifolia. Results show that the proposed approach succeeds in offering applicability over varying street tree types and the improvement for overlapping individual tree information extraction.

Late-life depression (LLD) is an important public health problem among the aging population. Recent studies found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can effectively alleviate depressive symptoms in major depressive disorder. The present study explored the clinical effect and potential neuroimaging mechanism of MBCT in the treatment of LLD. We enrolled 60 participants with LLD in an 8-week, randomized, controlled trial (ChiCTR1800017725). Patients were randomized to the treatment-as-usual (TAU) group or a MBCT+TAU group. The Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) were used to evaluate symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to measure changes in resting-state functional connectivity and structural connectivity. We also measured the relationship between changes in brain connectivity and improvements in clinical symptoms. HAMD total scores in the MBCT+TAU group were significantly lower than in the TAU group after 8 weeks of treatment (p < 0.001) and at the end of the 3-month follow-up (p < 0.001). The increase in functional connections between the amygdala and middle frontal gyrus (MFG) correlated with decreases in HAMA and HAMD scores in the MBCT+TAU group. Diffusion tensor imaging analyses showed that fractional anisotropy of the MFG-amygdala significantly increased in the MBCT+TAU group after 8-week treatment compared with the TAU group. Our study suggested that MBCT improves depression and anxiety symptoms that are associated with LLD. MBCT strengthened functional and structural connections between the amygdala and MFG, and this increase in communication correlated with improvements in clinical symptoms.Randomized Controlled Trial; Follow-Up Study; fMRI; Brain Connectivity

Autumn is the transitional season when the atmospheric circulation pattern changes from summer to winter. The temperature and precipitation in Southeastern China in autumn are significantly influenced by the change in circulation patterns, and both show significant uniqueness. The clustering method can be used to observe the changes of circulation patterns in detail and to observe and analyze the transition from warm to cold seasons from a detailed view of the daily circulation pattern perspective. This method may have important research implications on how to study the generation and dissipation of extreme weather events. The Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) method is used to a 500 hPa geopotential height and 850 hPa wind and sea level pressure for 1981–2020 to identify the characteristic weather patterns (WTs) in autumn (September–November) over Southeastern China. Characteristics of the captured WTs are also analyzed in terms of the distribution characteristics of weather patterns, occurrence frequency, typical progression, precipitation and extreme precipitation (EP), temperature and extreme high temperature (EHT), and the relationship with atmospheric teleconnection. Nine WTs were identified in autumn, which represents a series of weather situations consisting of troughs and ridges. On this basis, these WTs were used to carry out the differentiation of seasonal differences between early and late autumn. The maximum mean and extreme precipitation occur in several early season patterns (WT1, WT2, WT4, and WT7). It is highly likely that extremely high temperatures occur in the WT1 and WT2 patterns. The most common progression between WTs is WT7−WT1−WT2−WT4 in the early season. This seasonality allows us to distinguish between early and late seasons based on daily weather types. A preliminary trend analysis suggests that patterns in the early season occur more frequently and last longer in the early season, and patterns in the late season occur less frequently and later. That is, the longer cool season pattern is shifting to the shorter warm season pattern. In addition, the persistence of both cool and warm patterns increased during 2001–2020 relative to 1981–2000, and the risk of both flooding and drought occurrence is on the rise.

Renewable energy sources (RES) generation has huge environmental and social benefits, as a clean energy source with great potential. However, the difference in the uncertainty characteristics of RES and electric–thermal loads poses a significant challenge to the optimal schedule of an integrated energy system (IES). Therefore, for the different characteristics of the multiple uncertainties of IES, this paper proposes a type-II fuzzy interval chance-constrained programming (T2FICCP)-based optimization model to solve the above problem. In this model, type-II fuzzy sets are used to describe the uncertainty of RES in an IES, and interval numbers are used to describe the load uncertainty, thus constructing a T2FICCP-based IES day-ahead economic scheduling model. The model was resolved with a hybrid algorithm based on interval linear programming and T2FICCP. The simulations are conducted for a total of 20 randomly selected days to obtain the advance operation plan of each unit and the operation cost of the system. The research results show that the T2FICCP optimization model has less dependence on RES output power and load forecasting error, so can effectively improve the economy of IES, while ensuring the safe and stable operation of the system.

Listeria monocytogenes isolates are highly heterogeneous and exhibit different levels of virulence. Here, the authors identify hypervirulent isolates that represent a hybrid sub-lineage of the major lineage II harbouring virulence factors from Listeria ivanovii and wall teichoic acids found in major lineage I.

How to predict and study persistent extreme precipitation events (PEPEs) with a prediction period of 1–2 weeks is an important scientific problem faced by the meteorological circles at home and abroad. Based on the accurate description of the flood range caused by 14-day PEPEs, the comprehensive analysis method was used to obtain the weather characteristics related to 14-day PEPEs (including abnormal trough/ridge, westerly jet, atmospheric river (AR) activity, teleconnections, etc.). First, we selected three regions in China, North China (NC), the Yangtze River valley (YRV), and South China (SC), analyzed their 14-day PEPEs in summer (June to August), and composited them into an average circulation (500 hPa geopotential height field) to compare the weather patterns related to PEPEs in these regions. Then, several variables are composited to understand the evolution of the atmospheric state before and during the occurrence of PEPEs. Finally, potential applications of several teleconnection types and composites in advance prediction are studied. The main findings include: the common weather signals during the occurrence of PEPEs are characterized by obvious and continuous a high-low-high saddle field circulation configuration (conducive to the formation of frequent heavy rainfall), active westerly jet (westerly jet is the controlling factor of precipitation), and enhanced water vapor transport (significantly increased atmospheric river activity). In this study, some key characteristics and development of PEPEs were identified, the formation mechanism of China’s 14-day PEPEs was revealed, the role of ARs in PEPEs was recognized, and the PEPEs precursor signal was extracted. Furthermore, PEPEs in different regions were also compared, which played an important role in understanding and predicting similar events.

The spatial resolution of remote sensing images directly affects the accuracy, efficiency, and computational cost of extracting the fractional vegetation cover (FVC). Taking the Liyang woodland region, Jiangsu Province, as the study area, FVCs with varying spatial resolutions were extracted separately from Sentinel-2, Landsat-8, MOD13Q1, and MOD13A1. The variations in FVCs extracted from remote sensing images with varying spatial resolutions were analyzed at one specific time and time series within a year. The results show that (i) the overall mean FVC values of the four spatial resolution images did not differ substantially; however, FVCs with varying spatial resolutions present with a regular pattern of overestimation or underestimation at different vegetation levels. (ii) Taking the 10 m spatial resolution FVC as the reference, the accuracy values of FVC extraction at 30 m, 250 m, and 500 m resolutions were 91.0%, 76.3%, and 76.7%, respectively. The differences in the spatial distribution of FVCs are the most obvious at water–land interfaces and at the edge of each woodland patch. (iii) The highest accuracy of time-series FVC extraction from lower-resolution images is in the range of 0.6~0.7 for FVC. The degree of variation in FVC of time series varying spatial resolutions depends on the season and vegetation cover conditions. In summary, there are considerable differences in the need to monitor high-resolution images depending on the FVC level of the land surface. This study provides a reference for selection and accuracy research of remote sensing images for FVC extraction.

Traditional villages are historically, culturally, scientifically and aesthetically valuable, and a beautiful landscape is the primary embodiment of a traditional village environment. Urbanization and modernization have had a great impact on village landscapes. As an important aspect of traditional village landscapes, creating beautiful public spaces is an effective way to attract tourists and improve the well-being of residents. Landscape aesthetic activities are the result of the interaction between landscape objects and aesthetic subjects. Research on the relationship between the form of traditional village public spaces and subjective aesthetic preferences has long been neglected. This research examined 31 public spaces in traditional villages in the Dongshan and Xishan areas in Lake Taihu, Suzhou. An index system of public spatial forms in traditional villages was created, basic data of spatial forms were collected using a hand-held 3D laser scanner, and the value of the spatial forms index was calculated using R language. The scenic beauty estimation (SBE) method was improved, with the estimation of the beauty of the scenic environment based on VR panorama rather than traditional photo media. Parameter screening was performed using correlation analysis and full subset regression analysis, and four models were used to fit the SBE scores and grades. The results show that the majority of public spaces had lower than average SBE scores, and the four key indicators of average contour upper height, solid-space ratio, vegetation cover, and comprehensive closure predicted SBE. In addition, the linear model (R2 = 0.332, RMSE = 64.774) had the most accurate SBE level prediction and the stochastic forest model (R2 = 0.405, RMSE = 63.311) was better at predicting specific SBE scores. The model provides managers, designers, and researchers with a method for the quantitative evaluation of visual landscape preferences and quantitative landscape spatial forms and provides a reference for the protection and renewal of traditional village landscapes.

Although it is one of the promising candidates for pseudocapacitance materials, Ni(OH)2 is confronted with poor specific capacitance and inferior cycling stability. The design and construction of three-dimensional (3D) nanosphere structures turns out to be a valid strategy to combat these disadvantages and has attracted tremendous attention. In this paper, a 3D α-Ni(OH)2 nanosphere is prepared via a facile and template-free dynamic refluxing approach. Significantly, the α-Ni(OH)2 nanosphere possesses a high specific surface area (119.4 m2/g) and an abundant porous structure. In addition, the as-obtained α-Ni(OH)2 electrodes are investigated by electrochemical measurements, which exhibit a high specific capacitance of 1243 F/g at 1 A/g in 6 M KOH electrolyte and an acceptable capacitive retention of 40.0% after 1500 charge/discharge cycles at 10 A/g, which can be attributed to the sphere’s unique nanostructure. Furthermore, the as-assembled Ni(OH)2-36//AC asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) yields a remarkable energy density of 26.50 Wh/kg, with a power density of 0.82 kW/kg. Notably, two ASCs in series can light a 2.5 V red lamp sustainably for more than 60 min, as well as power an LED band with a rated power of 25 W. Hence, this 3D α-Ni(OH)2 nanosphere may raise great potential applications for next-generation energy storage devices.

Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is a foodborne zoonotic pathogen that causes listeriosis with a mortality rate of 20–30%. Serovar 4b and 1/2b isolates account for most of listeriosis outbreaks, however, no listeriosis vaccine is available for either prophylactic or therapeutic use. Here, we developed a triple-virulence-genes deletion vaccine strain, and evaluated its safety, immunogenicity, and cross-protective efficiency. The virulence of NTSNΔactA/plcB/orfX was reduced 794-folds compared with the parental strain. Additionally, it was completely eliminated in mice at day 7 post infection and no obvious pathological changes were observed in the organs of mice after prime-boost immunization for 23 days. These results proved that the safety of the Lm vaccine strain remarkably increased. More importantly, the NTSNΔactA/plcB/orfX strain stimulated higher anti-Listeriolysin O (LLO) antibodies, induced significantly higher expression of IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-17, and IL-6 than the control group, and afforded 100% protection against serovar 4b and 1/2b challenges. Taken together, our research demonstrates that the triple-genes-deletion vaccine has high safety, can elicit strong Th1 type immune response, and affords efficient cross-protection against two serovar Lm strains. It is a promising vaccine for prevention of listeriosis.

Corynebacterium glutamicum is an important strain for the industrial production of amino acids, but the fermentation of L-methionine has not been realized. The purpose of this study is to clarify the effect of reducing power NADPH on L-methionine synthesis. Site-directed mutagenesis of zwf and gnd genes in pentose phosphate pathway relieved feedback inhibition, increased NADPH supply by 151.8%, and increased L-methionine production by 28.3%; Heterologous expression of gapC gene to introduce NADP+ dependent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase increased NADPH supply by 75.0% and L-methionine production by 48.7%; Heterologous expression of pntAB gene to introduce membrane-integral nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase increased NADPH by 89.2% and L-methionine production by 35.9%. Finally, the engineering strain YM6 with a high NADPH supply was constructed, which increased the NADPH supply by 348.2% and the L-methionine production by 64.1%. The analysis of metabolic flux showed that YM6 significantly increased the glycolytic flux, including the metabolic flux of metabolites such as glycosyldehyde-3-phosphate, dihydroxyacetate phosphate, 3-phosphoglycate and pyruvate, and the significant increase of L-methionine flux also confirmed the increase of its synthesis. This study provides a research basis for the systematic metabolic engineering construction of L-methionine high-yield engineering strains.

ABSTRACT: Molecular clusters are valuable building blocks to synthesize hybrid macromolecules, and consequently achieve diverse supramolecular nanostructures via self-assembly. Hybrid macromolecules can be synthesized by covalently linking different molecular clusters and grafting organic molecules onto cluster surface, or through complexation via non-covalent interactions. Through regulation of solution conditions such as solvent polarity, ionic strength, and type of cations, well-defined hybrids exhibit versatile self-assembled behavior determined by their molecular structures including shape, composition, volume fraction, topology, and surface functionality. The incorporation of molecular clusters into polymers can tune the flexibility and architecture of cluster-based copolymers, which fills the phase diagrams with different molecular packings as well as supramolecular nanostructures. The complexation between molecular clusters and other organic molecules provides a promising approach to construct multi-dimensional nanostructures through non-covalent interactions.

The present study investigated functional connectivity and white matter integrity of the fronto-parietal network (FPN) to reveal the neural mechanisms that underlie late-life depression (LLD). Fifty patients with LLD and 40 non-depressed controls were included in the study. A multi-parametric approach was used by applying independent component analysis (ICA) to estimate functional connectivity of the FPN and by applying tract­based spatial statistics to examine white-matter integrity in tracts to the FPN. Patients with LLD exhibited functional abnormalities in the right inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and inferior parietal gyrus and lower white matter fractional anisotropy in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, anterior thalamic radiation, and uncinate fasciculus. Alterations of functional connectivity and white matter fractional anisotropy in these regions were negatively correlated with the severity of symptomatic anxiety in LLD patients. The right inferior frontal gyrus might be a crucial hub in transferring information between these abnormal regions. Significant correlations were found between anxiety symptoms and brain alterations, suggesting that impairments in the FPN network might be involved in symptomatic anxiety in elderly individuals with depression.

Using the self-organizing maps (SOM) method, we ranked and compared the simulation results of atmospheric circulation and precipitation for 32 global climate models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) over China, and found that the ranking of the GCM’s ability to simulate the frequency of sea level pressure (SLP) weather patterns (WPs) was not correlated with the ranking of its ability to simulate annual precipitation WPs. Then, we attributed the precipitation simulation differences and identified three main components for the differences in the multi-model simulation results: internal variability, frequency differences, and the combined term of the two, with internal variability being the largest of the three components. These three deviations depend ultimately on two factors: the ability to simulate the frequency of WPs and the ability to simulate the corresponding average daily precipitation generated by these WPs, with the second factor playing a decisive role. Then, to address the drawback that the model ensemble results cannot be effectively improved when each single model that makes up the ensemble model is dry or wet, a solution was proposed to correct for the simulation differences: the nodal precipitation differences of each WP were corrected. After the correction of the simulation differences, the simulation capability of all the individual models was greatly improved, which increases our confidence in using the CMIP5 models for future weather patterns and precipitation simulation and forecasting.

A statistical downscaling method based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), of which the SOM Precipitation Statistical Downscaling Method (SOM-SD) is named, has received increasing attention. Herein, its applicability of downscaling daily precipitation over North China is evaluated. Six indices (total season precipitation, daily precipitation intensity, mean number of precipitation days, percentage of rainfall from events beyond the 95th percentile value of overall precipitation, maximum consecutive wet days, and maximum consecutive dry days) are selected, which represent the statistics of daily precipitation with regards to both precipitation amount and frequency, as well as extreme event. The large-scale predictors were extracted from the National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) daily reanalysis data, while the prediction was the high resolution gridded daily observed precipitation. The results show that the method can establish certain conditional transformation relationships between large-scale atmospheric circulation and local-scale surface precipitation in a relatively simple way. This method exhibited a high skill in reproducing the climatologic statistical properties of the observed precipitation. The simulated daily precipitation probability distribution characteristics can be well matched with the observations. The values of Brier scores are between 0 and 1.5 × 10−4 and the significance scores are between 0.8 and 1 for all stations. The SOM-SD method, which is evaluated with the six selected indicators, shows a strong simulation capability. The deviations of the simulated daily precipitation are as follows: Total season precipitation (−7.4%), daily precipitation intensity (−11.6%), mean number of rainy days (−3.1 days), percentage of rainfall from events beyond the 95th percentile value of overall precipitation (+3.4%), maximum consecutive wet days (−1.1 days), and maximum consecutive dry days (+3.5 days). In addition, the frequency difference of wet-dry nodes is defined in the evaluation. It is confirmed that there was a significant positive correlation between frequency difference and precipitation. The findings of this paper imply that the SOM-SD method has a good ability to simulate the probability distribution of daily precipitation, especially the tail of the probability distribution curve. It is more capable of simulating extreme precipitation fields. Furthermore, it can provide some guidance for future climate projections over North China.

Abstract With the advent of wearable device technology, fabrication of inorganic semiconductor devices on flexible organic substrates is of great interest. In this paper, a fascinating method and a low-cost flexible substrate material polyvinyl alcohol (PVAL) have been utilized to embed ZnO microwire (MW) array to produce ultraviolet (UV) photodetector (PD) with decent photoresponsivity. The flexible PVAL substrate is relatively cheap and has better bendability as compared to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and other traditional flexible substrate materials, which makes it unique in comparison to traditional devices. The device shows a current photoresponsivity of 29.6 A/W in the UV spectral range (350 to 380 nm) and maintains an excellent detection performance with even a bending angle of 180°. In dark, a low current of 1.4 μA at 5 V bias and response time of 4.27 ms was observed. In addition to the excellent device performance at wide bending angles, the fabricated device also performs well with the bending radii close to 0. Therefore, ZnO MW array PD has a great potential for the real-time monitoring of harmful UV exposure to warn the users for the appropriate arrangement avoidance.

Linking sinuosity, a fairly recently developed metric, with high temperature extremes (HTEs) can be both useful and insightful to better understand the physical mechanisms behind HTEs. However, it is not clear whether there exists a relationship between the sinuosity changes and HTE changes in present and future climate conditions over southeastern China. In this paper, the anomalous characteristics of the atmospheric circulation are quantified by sinuosity. Three sinuosity metrics are used in this study: individual sinuosity (SIN), aggregate sinuosity (ASIN), and comprehensive sinuosity (CSIN). Furthermore, we examine the relationship between sinuosity changes and HTE changes in present and future climate conditions. ASIN is strongly correlated with surface air temperature (SAT). We find that the influence of individual sinuosity (SIN) at different latitudes on the SAT of southeastern China is different. The SIN of low (middle) latitude isohypses has significant positive (negative) correlations with the SAT of southeastern China. The SIN of high-latitude isohypses is rather limited and can therefore be ignored. The projected relationship between the sinuosity changes and HTE changes in the late 21st century suggests similar results. The change in SAT is related to the changes in climate variables over southeastern China in the future, and these changes increase with the increase in Z500 or V850 and the decrease in U500. Moreover, the frequencies of large (small) comprehensive sinuosity (CSIN) values at low (mid) latitudes will increase. At the end of the 21st century, Z500 isohypses at different latitudes will have an obvious poleward shift. Our results indicate that measuring the aggregate waviness of the midtropospheric flow (via sinuosity) can provide insight regarding HTEs, and the climate model output can be used to examine the future likelihood of increased HTE.