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Simple Summary: Chaphamaparvovirus, a significant genus of the Hamaparvovirinae subfamily of the Parvoviridae family, can infect both dogs and cats. Given the evidence of cross-species transmission observed in canine and feline parvoviruses, it is pertinent to investigate the potential for similar cross-species transmission with Chaphamaparvovirus. This study aimed to investigate the basis for the ability of FeChPV and CaChPV to undergo cross-species transmission by evaluating phylogenetic analysis and codon usage analysis. The phylogenetic analysis revealed a close relationship between canine and feline chaphamaparvoviruses, and their strong adaptation to dogs and high similarity in codon usage patterns suggests the possibility of unidirectional or bidirectional cross-species transmission between dogs and cats. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring and examining the risks associated with cross-species transmission of canine and feline chaphamaparvoviruses. Chaphamaparvoviruses (ChPVs) are ancient viruses that have been detected in a variety of hosts. In this study, through a phylogenetic analysis and the adaptability of ChPV to multiple hosts, we evaluated the basis for the ability of feline (FeChPV) and canine ChPV (CaChPV) for cross-species transmission. Phylogenetic analysis showed that FeChPV and CaChPV were closely related. Notably, two strains of ChPVs isolated from domestic cats and two from dogs clustered together with CaChPVs and FeChPVs, respectively, suggesting that the stringent boundaries between canine and feline ChPV may be broken. Further analysis revealed that CaChPV and FeChPV were more adapted to dogs than to cats. Mutation analysis identified several shared mutations in cross-species-transmissible strains. Furthermore, the VP structures of FeChPV and CaChPV exhibited a high degree of similarity across both cross-species-transmissible and non-cross-species-transmissible strains. However, it is crucial to note that these results are largely computational, and limitations exist in terms of the number and diversity of samples analyzed; the capacity for cross-species transmission should be approached with caution and elucidated in further studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the elderly, depression is one of the most common mental disorders, which seriously affects their physical and mental health and quality of life, and their suicide rate is particularly high. Depression in the elderly is strongly associated with surgery. In this study, we aimed to explore the risk factors and establish a predictive model of depressive symptoms 1 month after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) in elderly patients. The study participants included 272 elderly patients (age > 65 years) undergoing VATS from April 2020 to May 2021 at 1 of 18 medical centers in China. The patients were divided into a depression group and a nondepression group according to the Chinese version of the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). The patients' pre- and postoperative characteristics and questionnaires were collected and compared. Then, binary logistic regression was used to determine the risk factors that affect postoperative depressive symptoms, and the predictive model was constructed. The prediction efficiency of the model was evaluated by drawing the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the value of the predictive model. Among all of the included patients, 16.54% (45/272) suffered from depressive symptoms after VATS. The results of the univariate analysis showed that body mass index (BMI), chronic pain, leukocyte count, fibrinogen levels, prothrombin time, ASA physical status, infusion volume, anxiety, sleep quality, and postoperative pain were related to postoperative depressive symptoms (all p < 0.05). The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that a high fibrinogen level (OR = 2.42), postoperative anxiety (OR = 12.05), poor sleep quality (OR = 0.61), and pain (OR = 2.85) were risk factors of postoperative depressive symptoms. A predictive model was constructed according to the regression coefficient of each variable, the ROC curve was drawn, and the AUC value was calculated to be 0.889. The prediction model may help medical personnel identify older patients at risk of developing depressive disorders associated with VATS and may be useful for clinical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of CO2 and CO2-derived chemicals into high value-added chemicals is an important method for reducing CO2 emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. Methyl formate (MF) is a critical C1 building block in synthesizing a wide range of important chemicals, such as formic acid, ethylene glycol, and formamide methyl propionate. Here, we report a green route for the sustainable synthesis of MF from CO2-derived formamides via the alcoholysis reaction catalyzed by supported CaO solid bases. The CaO/MgO catalyst with 13.5 wt.% CaO exhibited higher alcoholysis reaction efficiency and achieved 94.5% conversion of N-formylmorpholine and 100% selectivity of MF in methanol at 120 °C. Based on the kinetic studies, characterization results of structural and basic properties (XRD, and TEM, CO2-TPD, etc.), we found that the density of strong basic sites is linearly related to the activity of alcoholysis reaction, and the higher the base density on these catalysts, the greater the reaction rate. This study presents a sustainable route for the synthesis of MF by using CO2-derived formamides and green methanol, and a promising strategy for producing more efficient solid alcoholysis catalysts of amides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design and fabrication of efficient and stable photocatalysts are critically required for practical applications of solar water splitting. Herein, a series of WSe2/TiO2 nanocomposites were constructed through a facile mechanical grinding method, and all of the nanocomposites exhibited boosted photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. It was discovered that the enhanced photocatalytic performance was attributed to the efficient electron transfer from TiO2 to WSe2 and the abundant active sites provided by WSe2 nanosheets. Moreover, the intimate heterojunction between WSe2 nanosheets and TiO2 favors the interfacial charge separation. As a result, a highest hydrogen evolution rate of 2.28 mmol/g·h, 114 times higher than pristine TiO2, was obtained when the weight ratio of WSe2/(WSe2 + TiO2) was adjusted to be 20%. The designed WSe2/TiO2 heterojunctions can be regarded as a promising photocatalysts for high-throughput hydrogen production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cervical cancer (CC) is a common cancer in female, which is associated with problems like poor prognosis. Circular RNA (circRNA) is a kind of competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) that has an important role in regulating microRNA (miRNA) in many cancers. The regulatory mechanisms of CC immune microenvironment and the transcriptome level remain to be fully explored. Methods: In this study, we constructed the ceRNA network through the interaction data and expression matrix of circRNA, miRNA and mRNA. Meanwhile, based on the gene expression matrix, CIBERSORT algorithm was used to reveal contents of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs). Then, we screened prognostic markers based on ceRNA network and immune infiltration and constructed two nomograms. In order to find immunological differences between the high- and low-risk CC samples, we examined multiple immune checkpoints and predicted the effect of PD-L1 ICI immunotherapy. In addition, the sensitive therapeutics for high-risk patients were screened, and the potential agents with anti-CC activity were predicted by Connective Map (CMap). Results: We mapped a ceRNA network including 5 circRNAs, 17 miRNAs and 129 mRNAs. From the mRNA nodes of the network six genes and two kind of cells were identified as prognostic makers for CC. Among them, there was a significant positive correlation between CD8+ T cells and SNX10 gene. The results of TIDE and single sample GSEA (ssGSEA) showed that T cells CD8 do play a key role in inhibiting tumor progression. Further, our study screened 24 drugs that were more sensitive to high-risk CC patients and several potential therapeutic agents for reference. Conclusions: Our study identified several circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory axes and six prognostic genes based on the ceRNA network. In addition, through TIIC, survival analysis and a series of immunological analyses, T cells were proved to be good prognostic markers, besides play an important role in the immune process. Finally, we screened 24 potentially more effective drugs and multiple potential drug compounds for high- and low-risk patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fiber optic pressure sensor that can survive 2200 psi and 140 °C was developed. The sensor's pressure sensitivity was measured to be 14 times higher than bare FBG when tested inside stacks of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composite fabric. The sensitivity can be further improved 6-fold through the Vernier effect. Its tiny sensing length (hundreds of microns) and uniform outer diameter (125 µm) make it a suitable candidate for real-time point pressure monitoring under harsh environments with limited space, such as in composite-forming procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been successfully applied to solve optimization problems, its optimization performance still encounters challenges when dealing with complicated optimization problems, especially those with many interacting variables and many wide and flat local basins. To alleviate this issue, this paper proposes a differential elite learning particle swarm optimization (DELPSO) by differentiating the two guiding exemplars as much as possible to direct the update of each particle. Specifically, in this optimizer, particles in the current swarm are divided into two groups, namely the elite group and non-elite group, based on their fitness. Then, particles in the non-elite group are updated by learning from those in the elite group, while particles in the elite group are not updated and directly enter the next generation. To comprise fast convergence and high diversity at the particle level, we let each particle in the non-elite group learn from two differential elites in the elite group. In this way, the learning effectiveness and the learning diversity of particles is expectedly improved to a large extent. To alleviate the sensitivity of the proposed DELPSO to the newly introduced parameters, dynamic adjustment strategies for parameters were further designed. With the above two main components, the proposed DELPSO is expected to compromise the search intensification and diversification well to explore and exploit the solution space properly to obtain promising performance. Extensive experiments conducted on the widely used CEC 2017 benchmark set with three different dimension sizes demonstrated that the proposed DELPSO achieves highly competitive or even much better performance than state-of-the-art PSO variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers studying heterogeneous catalysis are intrigued by single-atom catalysts (SACs) due to their ultrahigh atomic utilization. However, only a few reports on SAC-catalyzed classical organic transformations are available. In this work, atomically dispersed Pd sites are confined to a ZrO2 hybridized N-doped carbon skeleton with a smart design. UiO-66-NH2 is used to anchor Pd atoms by the coordination of the donor atoms including lone pairs of electrons and metal atoms. Subsequently, the in situ introduction of ZrO2 doping is achieved using pyrolysis, which helps improve the catalytic performance by modulating the electronic state. The Pd@ZrO2/N–C catalyst obtained from the unique design exhibits a high yield (99%) in eco-friendly media with an extremely low noble metal dosage (0.03 mol% Pd) for the Suzuki reaction. Moreover, Pd@ZrO2/N–C remains highly active after being reused several times and possesses versatility in a variety of substrates. This strategy offers a feasible alternative to designing SACs with atomically dispersed noble metals for heterogeneous reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the response of summer maize leaf senescence, photosynthetic characteristics, and yield to the depth of one-time base application of controlled-release urea, which provides a theoretical basis for the light and simplified production of summer maize. Seven treatments were set up with Zhengdan 958 as the material under field conditions, including no nitrogen fertilizer (CK), surface spreading (DP0), furrow application depth of 5 cm (DP5), 10 cm (DP10), 15 cm (DP15), 20 cm (DP20), 25 cm (DP25). The results showed that under the same nitrogen application rate, there are significant differences in the effects of summer maize leaf senescence and photosynthetic characteristics with the increase of fertilization depth, and DP10 and DP15 have the best effects. The LAI of DP10 and DP15 increased by 5.1% and 5.5% compared to DP0 at tasseling stage, and chlorophyll content increased by 6.8% and 7.3% in 10 days after tasseling. Compared with DP0, superoxide dismutase (SOD) increased by 13.1% and 10.5%, the content of soluble protein increased significantly, while the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) decreased by 9.8% and 10.8%, respectively. In addition, Pn and Gs of the ear-leaf significantly increased by 13.9%, 16.5%, and 26.1% and 31.9% at tasseling stage, respectively, over DP0, while Ci decreased by 22.3% and 26.4%, respectively; meanwhile, the photochemical quenching (qP) and quantum yield (ΦPSII) of the reaction center of photosystem II (PSII) of the ear-leaf were significantly improved, the non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) was significantly reduced. The yield of DP10 and DP15 heightened significantly; two-year average value increased by 5.7% and 6.0% compared with DP0; the kernels per spike and 1000-kernels weight increased by 4.8%, 5.2%, and 4.1%, 5.2%, respectively. Comprehensive analysis of LAI, chlorophyll content, various protective enzyme activities and MDA, soluble protein content showed that 10–15 cm is the appropriate fertilization depth when the nitrogen application rate of controlled-release urea is 225 kg N per hectare. In consequence, optimizing fertilization depth of controlled-release urea as a simplified fertilization mode could improve the nitrogen utilization efficiency and obtain higher yield in summer maize, which provides technical support for large-scale application of controlled-release urea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vienna rectifiers are widely used, but they have problems of zero-crossing current distortion and midpoint potential imbalance. In this paper, an improved hybrid modulation strategy is proposed. According to the phase difference between the reference voltage vector and the input current vector, the dynamic current crossing distortion sector is divided at each phase current crossing, and the discontinuous pulse width modulation strategy is adopted in the sector to suppress the redundant small vector mutation and improve the current crossing distortion. To solve the problem of midpoint potential balance, a space vector modulation strategy is adopted outside the sector to control the midpoint potential balance by allocating the time of small vector action by voltage balance factor. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation and experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using convolutional neural network (CNN) methods and satellite images for landslide identification and classification is a very efficient and popular task in geological hazard investigations. However, traditional CNNs have two disadvantages: (1) insufficient training images from the study area and (2) uneven distribution of the training set and validation set. In this paper, we introduced distant domain transfer learning (DDTL) methods for landslide detection and classification. We first introduce scene classification satellite imagery into the landslide detection task. In addition, in order to more effectively extract information from satellite images, we innovatively add an attention mechanism to DDTL (AM-DDTL). In this paper, the Longgang study area, a district in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, has only 177 samples as the landslide target domain. We examine the effect of DDTL by comparing three methods: the convolutional CNN, pretrained model and DDTL. We compare different attention mechanisms based on the DDTL. The experimental results show that the DDTL method has better detection performance than the normal CNN, and the AM-DDTL models achieve 94% classification accuracy, which is 7% higher than the conventional DDTL method. The requirements for the detection and classification of potential landslides at different disaster zones can be met by applying the AM-DDTL algorithm, which outperforms traditional CNN methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We establish both the uniqueness and the existence of the solutions to a hidden-memory variable-order fractional stochastic partial differential equation, which models, e.g., the stochastic motion of a Brownian particle within a viscous liquid medium varied with fractal dimensions. We also investigate the inverse problem concerning the observations of the solutions, which eliminates the analytic assumptions on the variable orders in the literature of this topic and theoretically guarantees the reliability of the determination and experimental inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of earth-abundant and highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reactions (HER/OER) is crucial for hydrogen production through overall water splitting. Herein, we report a novel nanostructure consisting of vertically oriented CoP hierarchical nanosheet arrays with in situ-assembled carbon skeletons on a Ti foil electrode. The novel Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-67 (ZIF-67) template-derived hierarchical nanosheet architecture effectively improved electrical conductivity, facilitated electrolyte transport, and increased the exposure of the active sites. The obtained bifunctional hybrid exhibited a low overpotential of 72 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a small Tafel slope of 65 mV dec−1 for HER, and an improved overpotential of 329 mV and a Tafel slope of 107 mV dec−1 for OER. Furthermore, the assembled C@CoP||C@CoP electrolyzer showed excellent overall water splitting performance (1.63 V) at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and superior durability. This work provides a structure engineering strategy for metal–organic framework (MOF) template-derived hybrids with outstanding electrocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, solar remote sensing instruments face problems regarding the short detection time for solar activity and the need to preheat the electronics before detection. The accurate orbit prediction function ensures that the maximum error of the payload electronics system preheating time is less than 8 s, enabling the electronics to obtain stable and reliable solar remote sensing data, and allowing the prediction function to adapt to the changes in preheating time and the limit position of turntable rotation. To achieve the complete detection of solar activity by a payload in orbit, a turntable with two directions of rotation was accurately controlled to achieve rapid capture and track the Sun's activity, and the delay time for tracking the Sun successfully was less than 8 s to ensure that the payload made full use of the solar detection time for full detection. The turntable's tracking error was less than 0.002°, allowing the payload to obtain high-precision solar remote sensing data in orbit. The above methods enable the payload to realize the complete, stable, and high-precision detection of solar activity in orbit for wavelengths ranging approximately from 165 nm to 2400 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphodiesterase 2 (PDE2A) modulates the levels of cAMP/cGMP and was recently found to be involved in mitochondria function regulation, closely related to multiple types of tumor progression. This study aimed to estimate the prognostic significance and biological effects of PDE2A on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We comprehensively analyzed the PDE2A mRNA expression in HCC based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and investigated the effects of PDE2A on the proliferation and metastatic capacity of HCC cells. PDE2A was downregulated in 25 cancer types, including HCC. Lower PDE2A expression was a protective factor in HCC and was negatively associated with serum AFP levels, tumor status, vascular invasion, histologic grade, and pathologic stage of HCC. Moreover, tumors with low PDE2A expression displayed a decreased immune function. Then, the ROC curve was used to assess the diagnostic ability of PDE2A in HCC (AUC = 0.823 in TCGA and AUC = 0.901 in GSE76427). Patients with low PDE2A expression exhibited worse outcomes compared with those with high PDE2A expression. Additionally, GO functional annotations demonstrated the involvement of PDE2A in the ECM organization, systems development, and ERK-related pathways, indicating that PDE2A might regulate HCC growth and metastasis. The in vitro experiments confirmed that overexpression of PDE2A inhibited proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion in two HCC cell lines (HLF and SNU-368), while inhibition of PDE2A has the opposite results. The mechanism of PDE2A's effect on HCC cells is attributed to the change of mitochondrial morphology and ATP content. These data demonstrated that PDE2A closely participated in the regulation of HCC proliferation and metastasis and can be used as a predictive marker candidate and a potential therapeutic target for HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lymph node tuberculosis (LNTB) is the leading type of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) causing death in children. The Xpert MTB/RIF assay is a novel rapid test for the diagnosis of LNTB. Although previous evidence suggests that Xpert is reliably accurate in diagnosing EPTB in children, information is lacking for the specific type of LNTB in children. The aim of this study was to systematically assess the accuracy and reliability of Xpert for the diagnosis of LNTB in children. Methods: We systematically searched four databases, Embase, Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Web of Science, which extracted relevant data according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were analyzed by meta-Disc 1.4 and Stata 12.0 software to determine sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), etc. Results: A total of 646 samples from 8 studies were included in the analysis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, negative likelihood ratio (NLR), positive likelihood ratio (PLR,) and combined diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of Xpert for all samples were 0.79 (95% CI 0.70, 0.87), 0.90 (95% CI 0.86, 0.92), 0.29 (95% CI 0.19, 0.43), 7.20 (95% CI 3.32, 15.60), and 37.56 (95% CI 13.04, 108.15), respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) of the summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curve was 0.9050. Conclusion: Overall, Xpert showed moderate sensitivity and high specificity compared with culture in the diagnosis of LNTB in children. In addition, after analyzing the combined diagnostic odds ratio and positive LR, our study showed that Xpert has excellent diagnostic accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A time-fractional substantial diffusion equation of variable order is investigated, in which the variable-order fractional substantial derivative accommodates the memory effects and the structure change of the surroundings of the physical processes with respect to time. The existence and uniqueness of the solutions to the proposed model are proved, based on which the weighted high-order regularity of the solutions, in which the weight function characterizes the singularity of the solutions, are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Maytenus is a member of the Celastraceae family, of which several species have long been used in traditional medicine. Between 1976 and 2021, nearly 270 new compounds have been isolated and elucidated from the genus Maytenus. Among these, maytansine and its homologues are extremely rare in nature. Owing to its unique skeleton and remarkable bioactivities, maytansine has attracted many synthetic endeavors in order to construct its core structure. In this paper, the current status of the past 45 years of research on Maytenus, with respect to its chemical and biological activities are discussed. The chemical research includes its structural classification into triterpenoids, sesquiterpenes and alkaloids, along with several chemical synthesis methods of maytansine or maytansine fragments. The biological activity research includes activities, such as anti-tumor, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory activities, as well as HIV inhibition, which can provide a theoretical basis for the better development and utilization of the Maytenus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]