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Abstract Background Respiratory infectious diseases have the highest incidence among infectious diseases worldwide. Currently, global monitoring of respiratory pathogens primarily focuses on influenza and coronaviruses. This study included influenza and other common respiratory pathogens to establish a local respiratory pathogen spectrum. We investigated and analyzed the co-infection patterns of these pathogens and explored the impact of lifting non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on the transmission of influenza and other respiratory pathogens. Additionally, we used a predictive model for infectious diseases, utilizing the commonly used An autoregressive comprehensive moving average model (ARIMA), which can effectively forecast disease incidence. Methods From June 2023 to February 2024, we collected influenza-like illness (ILI) cases weekly from the community in Xuanwu District, Nanjing, and obtained 2046 samples. We established a spectrum of respiratory pathogens in Nanjing and analysed the age distribution and clinical symptom distribution of various pathogens. We compared age, gender, symptom counts, and viral loads between individuals with co-infections and those with single infections. An autoregressive comprehensive moving average model (ARIMA) was constructed to predict the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases. Results Among 2046 samples, the total detection rate of respiratory pathogen nucleic acids was 53.37% (1092/2046), with influenza A virus 479 cases (23.41%), influenza B virus 224 cases (10.95%), and HCoV 95 cases (4.64%) being predominant. Some pathogens were statistically significant in age and number of symptoms. The positive rate of mixed infections was 6.11% (125/2046). There was no significant difference in age or number of symptoms between co-infection and simple infection. After multiple iterative analyses, an ARIMA model (0,1,4), (0,0,0) was established as the optimal model, with an R2 value of 0.930, indicating good predictive performance. Conclusions The spectrum of respiratory pathogens in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, was complex in the past. The primary age groups of different viruses were different, causing various symptoms, and the co-infection of viruses did not correlate with the age and gender of patients. The ARIMA model estimated future incidence, which plateaued in subsequent months.

Abstract Despite the well-established significance of transcription factors (TFs) in pathogenesis, their utilization as pharmacological targets has been limited by the inherent challenges in modulating their protein interactions. The lack of defined small-molecule binding pockets and the nuclear localization of TFs do not favor the use of traditional tools. Aptamers possess large molecular weights, expansive blocking surfaces and efficient cellular internalization, making them compelling tools for modulating TF interactions. Here, we report a structure-guided design strategy called Blocker-SELEX to develop inhibitory aptamers (iAptamers) that selectively block TF interactions. Our approach leads to the discovery of iAptamers that cooperatively disrupt SCAF4/SCAF8-RNAP2 interactions, dysregulating RNAP2-dependent gene expression, which impairs cell proliferation. This approach is further applied to develop iAptamers blocking WDR5-MYC interactions. Overall, our study highlights the potential of iAptamers in disrupting pathogenic TF interactions, implicating their potential utility in studying the biological functions of TF interactions and in nucleic acids drug discovery.

Abstract Microbial communities play a crucial role in ocean ecology and global biogeochemical processes. However, understanding the intricate interactions among diversity, taxonomical composition, functional traits, and how these factors respond to climate change remains a significant challenge. Here, we propose seven distinct ecological statuses by systematically considering the diversity, structure, and biogeochemical potential of the ocean microbiome to delineate their biogeography. Anthropogenic climate change is expected to alter the ecological status of the surface ocean by influencing environmental conditions, particularly nutrient and oxygen contents. Our predictive model, which utilizes machine learning, indicates that the ecological status of approximately 32.44% of the surface ocean may undergo changes from the present to the end of this century, assuming no policy interventions. These changes mainly include poleward shifts in the main taxa, increases in photosynthetic carbon fixation and decreases in nutrient metabolism. However, this proportion can decrease significantly with effective control of greenhouse gas emissions. Our study underscores the urgent necessity for implementing policies to mitigate climate change, particularly from an ecological perspective.

A novel thermal integration approach is introduced for a biomass-driven gas turbine power plant that generates electricity, coolant, and liquefied hydrogen. The designed scheme encompassed an organic flash cycle, a bi-evaporator ejector refrigeration unit, a high-temperature water electrolyzer for hydrogen production, a multi-effect desalination cycle for supplying water for electrolysis process, and a Claude cycle for hydrogen gas liquefaction. The designed system's importance comes back to using biomass feedstock as the input fuel and utilizing the hydrogen liquefaction method. In addition to the possibility of deploying the system in remote areas, it provides the opportunity for hydrogen storage in a smaller volume for more accessible storage and transportation. On the other hand, using a comparative method for selecting an environmentally friendly fluid for the heat recovery subsystem is another crucial aspect of the present study from the environmental aspect. It is found that R161 is the appropriate choice among the seven studied working fluids. Subsequently, a comprehensive evaluation of the entire system's thermodynamic and environmental aspects is performed using an intelligent process. By considering energy and exergy efficiencies along with CO2 emissions as the objective functions, a thorough sensitivity analysis and a triple-objective optimization are carried out. Hence, artificial neural networks for the objectives are developed and integrated into the NSGA-II optimization method. Employing LINMAP decision-making, the values of objective are attained, exhibiting 39.6 % for energy efficiency, 36.1 % for exergy efficiency, and 631.7 kg/MWh for CO2 emissions. Considering the optimum solution, the proposed system is capable of producing electricity, cooling, and liquefied hydrogen with capacities of 4526 kW, 1875 kW, and 21.22 m3/day, respectively. Additionally, the scenario yields an exergoenvironmental index of 0.579 and an exergetic stability index of 0.61. and a liquefied hydrogen generation rate of 21.22 m3/day.

Abstract The biochar amendment plays a vital role in maintaining soil health largely due to its effects on soil microbial communities. However, individual cases and the variability in biochar properties are not sufficient to draw universal conclusions. The present study aimed to reveal how the biochar application affects soil microbial communities. Metadata of 525 ITS and 1288 16S rRNA sequencing samples from previous studies were reanalyzed and machine learning models were applied to explore the dynamics of soil microbial communities under biochar amendment. The results showed that biochar considerably changed the soil bacterial and fungal community composition and enhanced the relative abundances of Acidobacteriota, Firmicutes, Basidiomycota, and Mortierellomycota. Biochar enhanced the robustness of the soil microbial community but decreased the interactions between fungi and bacteria. The random forest model combined with tenfold cross-validation were used to predict biomarkers of biochar response, indicating that potentially beneficial microbes, such as Gemmatimonadetes, Microtrichales, Candidatus_Kaiserbacteria, and Pyrinomonadales, were enriched in the soil with biochar amendment, which promoted plant growth and soil nutrient cycling. In addition, the biochar amendment enhanced the ability of bacteria to biosynthesize and led to an increase in fungal nutrient patterns, resulting in an increase in the abundance and diversity of saprophytic fungi that enhance soil nutrient cycling. The machine learning model more accurately revealed how biochar affected soil microbial community than previous independent studies. Our study provides a basis for guiding the reasonable use of biochar in agricultural soil and minimizing its negative effects on soil microecosystem. Graphical Abstract

The rhizosphere is one of the key determinants of plant health and productivity. Mixtures of pesticides are commonly used in intensified agriculture. However, the combined mechanisms underlying their impacts on soil microbiota remain unknown. The present study revealed that the rhizosphere microbiota was more sensitive to azoxystrobin and oxytetracycline, two commonly used pesticides, than was the microbiota present in bulk soil. Moreover, the rhizosphere microbiota enhanced network complexity and stability and increased carbohydrate metabolism and xenobiotic biodegradation as well as the expression of metabolic genes involved in defence against pesticide stress. Co-exposure to azoxystrobin and oxytetracycline had antagonistic effects on Arabidopsis thaliana growth and soil microbial variation by recruiting organic-degrading bacteria and regulating ABC transporters to reduce pesticide uptake. Our study explored the composition and function of soil microorganisms through amplicon sequencing and metagenomic approaches, providing comprehensive insights into the synergistic effect of plants and rhizosphere microbiota on pesticides and contributing to our understanding of the ecological risks associated with pesticide use.

Abstract Identity‐based Matchmaking Encryption (IB‐ME) is an extension notion of matchmaking encryption (CRYPTO 2019), where a sender and a receiver can specify an access policy for the other party. In IB‐ME, data encryption is performed by not only a receiver identity but also a sender's encryption key. Nevertheless, previous IB‐ME schemes have not considered the problem of efficient revocation. Hence, the authors introduce a new notion of revocable IB‐ME (RIB‐ME) and formalise the syntax and security model of RIB‐ME. In particular, the authors give an effective and simple construction of RIB‐ME in the standard model, whose security is reduced to the hardness of decisional bilinear Diffie—Hellman problem and computational Diffie—Hellman problem. In addition, the authors show two extensions of our RIB‐ME scheme to consider chosen‐ciphertext security and forward privacy.

Abstract The global crisis in antimicrobial resistance continues to grow. Estimating the risks of antibiotic resistance transmission across habitats is hindered by the lack of data on mobility and habitat‐specificity. Metagenomic samples of 6092 are analyzed to delineate the unique core resistomes from human feces and seven other habitats. This is found that most resistance genes (≈85%) are transmitted between external habitats and human feces. This suggests that human feces are broadly representative of the global resistome and are potentially a hub for accumulating and disseminating resistance genes. The analysis found that resistance genes with ancient horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events have a higher efficiency of transfer across habitats, suggesting that HGT may be the main driver for forming unique but partly shared resistomes in all habitats. Importantly, the human fecal resistome is historically different and influenced by HGT and age. The most important routes of cross‐transmission of resistance are from the atmosphere, buildings, and animals to humans. These habitats should receive more attention for future prevention of antimicrobial resistance. The study will disentangle transmission routes of resistance genes between humans and other habitats in a One Health framework and can identify strategies for controlling the ongoing dissemination and antibiotic resistance.

Chlorpyrifos is a widely used organophosphorus insecticide because of its high efficiency and overall effectiveness, and it is commonly detected in aquatic ecosystems. However, at present, the impact of chlorpyrifos on the aquatic micro-ecological environment is still poorly understood. Here, we established aquatic microcosm systems treated with 0.2 and 2.0 µg/L chlorpyrifos, and employed omics biotechnology, including metagenomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, to investigate the effect of chlorpyrifos on the composition and functional potential of the aquatic and zebrafish intestinal microbiomes after 7 d and 14 d chlorpyrifos treatment. After 14 d chlorpyrifos treatment, the aquatic microbial community was adversely affected in terms of its composition, structure, and stability, while its diversity showed only a slight impact. Most functions, especially capacities for environmental information processing and metabolism, were destroyed by chlorpyrifos treatment for 14 d. We observed that chlorpyrifos increased the number of risky antibiotic resistance genes and aggravated the growth of human pathogens. Although no clear effects on the structure of the zebrafish intestinal microbial community were observed, chlorpyrifos treatment did alter the metabolic capacity of the zebrafish. Our study highlights the ecological risk of chlorpyrifos to the aquatic environment and provides a theoretical basis for the rational use of pesticides in agricultural production.

Sewage sludge (SS) and wheat straw (WS) are wastes that need to be treated urgently. In this research, the co-pyrolysis of SS and WS was investigated utilizing a thermogravimetric analyzer (TG) and a fixed bed. Using the Coats-Redfern approach, the effects of the mix ratio and the interactions of the SS and WS were investigated, and the effects of mix ratio, N2 flow rate, and pyrolysis temperature were examined for fixed bed pyrolysis. The response surface method (RSM) was applied in fixed bed pyrolysis to optimize the process. Increasing WS ratio can reduce pyrolysis residual rate to 23.8% for TG analysis. The reaction activation energy (E) increased with WS ratio. For the co-pyrolysis, there were substantial interactions between 200 and 400°. For fixed bed pyrolysis, syngas and bio-oil yields were mainly affected by N2 flow rate and pyrolysis temperature. The components with the highest amount in bio-oil gradually changed from aliphatic to aromatic hydrocarbons as the WS proportion grew, demonstrating that WS pyrolysis produced mostly aromatic compounds whereas SS pyrolysis produced more aliphatic compounds. Temperature 600 °C, sludge mixing ratio 32%, flow rate 2.5L/min, anticipated maximum H2 0.0421 m3/kg, and maximum bio-oil of 50.7114 g/kg are the best circumstances according to RSM.

Abstract This paper considers secure communication in buffer-aided cooperative wireless networks in the presence of one eavesdropper, which can intercept the data transmission from both the source and relay nodes. It is assumed that the relays employ the randomize-and-forward (RF) strategy such that the eavesdropper can only decode the signals received in the two hops independently. Two cooperative secure transmission schemes, i.e., hybrid imitating full-duplex max-max-ratio relay selection (HyIFD) scheme and threshold-based link selection (TBLS) scheme are proposed for adaptive- and fixed-rate transmissions aiming at improving the secrecy throughput and secrecy outage probability, respectively. For adaptive-rate transmissions (ART), the proposed scheme switches among three sub-strategies according to different conditions such as the number of relays and transmit power. Different relays are chosen for reception and transmission according to the ratio of the legitimate channels to the eavesdropper channels to imitate the full-duplex transmission mode. For fixed-rate transmissions (FRT), a hybrid HD/FD transmission mode is designed to increase the transmission probabilities of two hops under the transmission quality constraint. Two parameters are introduced and optimized to minimize the secrecy outage probability. A sub-optimal TBLS (SO-TBLS) scheme is also given. Theoretical analysis of the secrecy throughput and the secrecy outage probability are provided and the closed-form expressions are derived, and verified by numerical results. It is shown that the proposed schemes outperform benchmark schemes in terms of secrecy throughput and secrecy outage probability.

Abstract Background Hypercholesterolemia is closely associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. l-Arabinose exhibited hypocholesterolemia properties, but underlying mechanisms have not been sufficiently investigated. This study aimed to elucidate the mechanisms of l-arabinose on hypocholesterolemia involving the enterohepatic circulation of bile acids. Methods Thirty six-week-old male mice were randomly divided into three groups: the control group and the high-fat-high-sucrose diet (HFHSD)-fed group were gavaged with distilled water, and the l-arabinose-treated group were fed HFHSD and received 400 mg/kg/day l-arabinose for 12 weeks. Serum and liver biochemical parameters, serum and fecal bile acid, cholesterol and bile acid metabolism-related gene and protein expressions in the liver and small intestine were analyzed. Results l-Arabinose supplementation significantly reduced body weight gain, lowered circulating low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) while increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels, and efficiently alleviated hepatic inflammation and lipid accumulations in HFHSD-fed mice. l-Arabinose inhibited cholesterol synthesis via downregulation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR). Additionally, l-arabinose might facilitate reverse cholesterol transport, evidenced by the increased mRNA expressions of low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDL-R) and scavenger receptor class B type 1 (SR-B1). Furthermore, l-arabinose modulated ileal reabsorption of bile acids mainly through downregulation of ileal bile acid-binding protein (I-BABP) and apical sodium-dependent bile acid transporter (ASBT), resulting in the promotion of hepatic synthesis of bile acids via upregulation of cholesterol-7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1). Conclusions l-Arabinose supplementation exhibits hypocholesterolemic effects in HFHSD-fed mice primarily due to regulation of bile acid metabolism-related pathways.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have accelerated microbial threats to human health. Here, Zhang et al. analyze 4572 metagenomic samples to illustrate the global patterns of ARG distribution in diverse habitats. They quantitatively evaluate the health risk to humans of 2561 ARGs by integrating human accessibility, mobility, pathogenicity and clinical availability. With the machine learning, they map the antibiotic resistance threats in global marine habitats.

We present an inner-product matchmaking encryption (IP-ME) scheme achieving weak privacy and authenticity in prime-order groups under symmetric external Diffie–Hellman (SXDH) assumption in the standard model. We further present an IP-ME with Monotone Span Program Authenticity (IP-ME with MSP Auth) scheme, where the chosen sender policy is upgraded to MSP, and the scheme also achieves weak privacy and authenticity in prime-order groups under SXDH assumption in the standard model. Both of the schemes have more expressive functionalities than identity-based matchmaking encryption (IB-ME) scheme, and are simpler than Ateniese et al.’s modular ME scheme (Crypto’ 19). But our schemes only achieve a very limited flavor of security, which is reflected in the privacy.

With the widespread use of abamectin in agriculture, there is increasing urgency to assess the effects of abamectin on soil microorganisms. Here, we treated plant–soil microcosms with abamectin at concentrations of 0.1 and 1.0 mg/kg and quantified the impacts of abamectin on bulk and rhizosphere soil microbial communities by shotgun metagenomics after 7 and 21 days of exposure. Although abamectin was reported to be easily degradable, it altered the composition of the soil microbial communities, disrupted microbial interactions, and decreased community complexity and stability after 7 days of exposure. After treatment with abamectin at a concentration of 1.0 mg/kg, some opportunistic human diseases, and soil-borne pathogens like Ralstonia were enriched in the soil. However, most ecological functions in soil, particularly the metabolic capacities of microorganisms, recovered within 21 days after abamectin treatment. The horizontal and vertical gene transfer under abamectin treatments increased the levels of antibiotic resistance genes dissemination. Overall, our findings demonstrated the negative effects of abamectin on soil ecosystems in the short-term and highlight a possible long-term risk to public and soil ecosystem health associated with antibiotic resistance genes dissemination.

In this study, the cyclodextrin glucosyltransferase (CGTase) was extracted from Bacillus xiaoxiensis. CGTase had negative effects on dough viscoelastic properties and gluten strength but had positive effects on bread baking qualities and anti-staling properties. Adding an appropriate amount of CGTase (less than 0.3 U/g) could improve the specific volume, crumb texture, crust color, moisture content, and crumb hardness of bread. The bread crumb with 0.4 U/g CGTase (based on flour weight) had the lowest retrogradation enthalpy of 0.53 ± 0.10 J/g and the lowest relative crystallinity of 16.1%, which indicated the alleviating effect of amylopectin crystallization. Moreover, CGTase reduced the moisture from forming crystal lattices and limited starch molecule migration. The T2 transverse relaxation results showed that the increase of immobilized water content in the bread with CGTase was lower than the control after 5 days of storage, which implied the water-holding capacity of the bread was enhanced and provided information on the inhibition of water migration. Hence, the CGTase could be a potential bread improver.

A graphene quantum dots (GQDs)-reinforced nickel-based composite coating was electrodeposited on the surface of a copper plate with a supercritical carbon dioxide fluid (SC-CO2)-assisted DC power supply. The effect of the current density on surface morphology, microstructure, average grain size, hardness, and corrosion resistance of the resulting coatings was investigated in detail. It was found that the GQDs composite coating showed a more compact surface, a smaller grain size, higher microhardness, and stronger corrosion resistance than the pure Ni coating produced in SC-CO2 and a texture coefficient indicative of a (111) preferred orientation. When the current density was 8 A/dm2, the surface morphology of the GQDs composite coating showed a high density, and the grain size was about 23 nm. In addition, the micro-hardness and corrosion resistance of the GQDs composite coating was greatly improved compared with those of the pure nickel coating; at the same time, its wear rate, friction coefficient, and self-corrosion current density were decreased by 73.2%, 17.5%, and 9.2%, respectively.

The influence of lactylated gluten and Freeze-Thaw Cycles on the water state, microstructure, and quality of frozen steamed bread dough was investigated. After three freeze-thaw cycles (3F/T), the specific volume of steamed bread with sodium lactate-treated gluten increased by 18.34% compared with the blank group and 5.73% compared with the wheat gluten (WG) group. Compared with wheat gluten, the texture properties of steamed bread with lactylated gluten increased significantly. Changes in rheological properties demonstrated that the frozen dough’s viscoelasticity increased significantly. The lactylated gluten could reduce water mobility and decrease the content of freezable water in frozen dough. Moreover, the free sulfhydryl (SH) content increased, revealing that the protein was depolymerized. Based on the microstructure and corresponding protein network analysis (PNA), the total area and the number of protein network connection points of the dough adding lactylated gluten were significantly higher than those of the blank group and the WG group. In conclusion, lactylated gluten enhanced the freeze-thaw tolerance of frozen dough.

Gluten is widely used as a high-quality protein material in the food industry, however, low solubility restricts its development and applications. In this study, gluten was treated with lactate and sodium lactate for lactylation. Lactylation of gluten altered surface charges of the protein, leading to a significant improvement in the solubility. An improvement in oil absorption capacity (OAC) could be attributed to a decrease in protein folding degree after lactylation. In addition, the emulsifying properties of gluten were significantly enhanced. The introduction of lactate group also significantly increased the viscoelasticity of gluten. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed there was a significant decrease in β-turns content and a significant increase in β-sheets content. The folded conformation of gluten was gradually extended after lactation by fluorescence spectroscopy measurement. Both in lactate and sodium lactate treatment, the maximum emission wavelength indicated a blue shift, and the UV intensity showed an increase. These results could demonstrate that lactylation could extend the structure and improve the functional property.

This study aimed to investigate the influence of water-unextractable arabinoxylan (WUAX) and its hydrolysates on the aggregation and structure of gluten proteins and reveal the underlying mechanism. In this work, the WUAX was treated with enzymatic hydrolysis and the changes of their molecular weights and structures were analyzed. Meanwhile, the conformation and aggregation of gluten were determined by reversed-phase HPLC, FT-Raman spectroscopy, and confocal laser scanning microscopy. The results showed that the extra WUAX could impair the formation of high Mw glutenin subunits, and the enzymatic hydrolysis arabinoxylan (EAX) could induce the aggregation of gluten subunits. And, the gluten microstructure was destroyed by WUAX and improved by EAX. Besides, the interactions of WUAX and EAX with gluten molecules were different. In summary, these results indicated that enzymatic hydrolysis changed the physicochemical properties of arabinoxylan and affected the interaction between arabinoxylan and gluten proteins.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of water-unextractable arabinoxylan (WUAX) on the gluten network structure, especially on gliadins and glutenins. The results indicated that the free sulfhydryl (free SH) of gliadins increased by 25.5% with 100 g/kg WUAX, whereas that of glutenins increased by 65.2%, which inhibited the formation of covalent bonds. Furthermore, β-sheets content decreased 5.63% and 4.75% for gliadins and glutenins with 100 g/kg WUAX, respectively, compared with the control. WUAX increased β-turns prevalence for gliadins, while the content of α-helixes and random coils had less fluctuation. In glutenins, the contents of α-helixes and β-sheets decreased and β-turns increased. Moreover, compared with the control, the weight loss rate for gliadins and glutenins increased by 2.49% and 2.04%, respectively, with 60 g/kg WUAX. The dynamic rheological analysis manifested that WUAX impaired the viscoelasticity property of gliadin and glutenin. Overall, WUAX weakened the structure of the gliadins and glutenins, leading to quality deterioration of gluten.

The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) is the primary instrument onboard the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R) satellites, providing continuous weather imagery over the vast area in the Western Hemisphere. It is imperative to ensure consistent calibration accuracy within the instrument’s field of regard (FOR). This paper characterized the spatial uniformity in the east–west (EW) direction for the six ABI visible and near-infrared (VNIR) bands of the first two GOES-R satellites, GOES-16 (G16) and GOES-17 (G17), using a special collection of lunar chasing images during their post-launch testing and post-launch product testing (PLT/PLPT) periods. The EW response versus scan-angle (RVS) is examined with the normalized lunar irradiance ratios at varying scan angles combined from multiple lunar-chasing events. The impacts of straylight from the Earth were found in some of the B01–B03 lunar images. The straylight, including those scattered into the spacelook scenes near the polar regions and those leaked into space near the Moon, can cause RVS variation up to 1% for B01 and to a lesser magnitude for the other two bands. Straylight correction algorithms are applied for the accurate ABI lunar image irradiance calculation. After the corrections, the RVS variation is reduced to less than 0.3% for all the VNIR bands of both G16/17 in full-disk (FD) images. Results of this study also confirm that the Global Space-based Inter-Calibration System (GSICS) Implementation of the ROLO (GIRO) model has high relative accuracy for the ABI VNIR bands when the lunar images are collected within a relatively short time. The method described in this paper can be applied to validate the EW spatial uniformity for imagers on other geostationary satellites, including the recently launched GOES-18 and the future GOES-U satellites.

The high storage costs brought by the full-replication storage strategy adopted in most existing blockchain systems have become the main bottleneck to system scalability. To address the above, we propose an asynchronous committee-based blockchain storage strategy named lightweight BFT (LBFT), which can be applied to more diverse scenarios with better system performance. It is the first blockchain storage scheme that is designed on the conception of the zero-trust model, achieving higher-level security and fending off internal, as well as external attackers. In addition, it makes the following progress on system performance on the premise of maintaining the merits of the blockchain: (1) decreases communication complexity by involving only a part of the nodes in each decoding round; (2) enhances the robustness of the scheme regardless of the time assumption of the network; (3) improves the computational efficiency in the encoding and decoding process; and (4) reduces the storage costs and improves system scalability. In addition, we implemented experiments on LBFT and two other existing blockchain-based storage strategies, and the experimental results showed that LBFT indeed has significant improvements in system performance.

Tetrastigma hemsleyanum Diels et Gilg is a rare and wild medicinal resource. Metabolites, especially secondary metabolites, have an important influence on T. hemsleyanum adaptability and its medicinal quality. The metabolite proanthocyanidin (PA) is a polyphenol compound widely distributed in land plants, which can be used as antioxidants and anticancer agents. Here, we discovered that three types of PA accumulated in large amounts in purple leaves (PL), but not in green leaves (RG), based on widely non-targeted metabolomics. In addition, we further found that catechins and their derivatives, which are the structural units of PA, are also enriched in PL. Afterwards, we screened and obtained five key genes, DNR1/2, ANS, ANR and LAR closely related to PA biosynthesis through transcriptome analysis and found they were all highly expressed in PL compared to RG. Therefore, observed the regulatory relationship between the main compounds and genes network, and the PA metabolism regulatory pathway was complicated, which may be different to other species.