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The article discusses the establishment of the Emerging Leaders Committee (ELC) by the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology (APAGE) to support and develop emerging leaders in digestive health from the Asia-Pacific region. The ELC aims to create a community of young healthcare professionals and provide mentorship, networking opportunities, and leadership development. The committee has established focus groups and plans to organize webinars, forums, and collaborations with the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (JGH) to enhance education, research, and publication opportunities. The ELC also aims to foster international engagement and strengthen ties with other young chapters of global organizations. [Extracted from the article]

Research on soil contamination has become increasingly important, but there is limited information about where to sample for pollutants. Thus, the use of three-dimensional (3D) spatial interpolation techniques has been promoted in this area of study. However, the application of traditional interpolation methods is limited in geography, especially in the expression of anisotropy, and it is not associated with geographical properties. To address this issue, we used a test site (a factory in Nanjing) to develop a new research method based on the geographical shading radial basis function (RBF) interpolation method, which considers 3D anisotropy and geographical attribute expression. Drilling and uniform sampling were used to sample the contaminated area at this test site. This approach included two steps: i) An ellipsoid with anisotropic properties was constructed. Thus, the first step was to determine the shape of the ellipsoid using principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the main orientations and construct a rotational and stretched matrix. The second step was determining the ellipsoid size by computing the range using the variogram method for orientations. ii) During field measurement, the geospatial direction influences soil attribute values, so a shadowing calculation method was derived for quadratic weight determination. Then, the weight of the attribute value of known points can be assigned to meet the field conditions. Lastly, the model was evaluated using the root mean square error (RMSE). For the 2D space, the RMSE values of Kriging, RBF, and the proposed method are 6.09, 7.12, and 5.02, respectively. The R2 values of Kriging, RBF, and the proposed method are 0.871, 0.832, and 0.946, respectively. For the 3D space, the RMSE values of Kriging, RBF, and the proposed method are 2.65, 2.23, and 2.58, respectively. The R2 values of Kriging, RBF, and the proposed method are 0.934, 0.912, and 0.953, respectively. The resulting fitted model was relatively smooth and met experimental needs. Thus, we believe that the interpolation method can be applied as a new method to predict the distribution of soil pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To investigate the mechanism of IGF2/JAK2/STAT3 on learning and memory impairment induced by aluminum maltol in rats. Methods A total of 32 SD rats were divided into normal saline control group and low, medium and high maltol aluminum exposure groups (10, 20 and 40 µmol/kg) by random number table, respectively, and intraperitoneally injected every other day for three months. After exposure, Morris water maze was applied to examine the learning and memory ability of rats, and HE staining was used to check the arrangement of hippocampal neurons. Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR was applied to detect the relative expression level of IGF2 mRNA in hippocampus of rats. Western Blotting was used for detecting the relative protein expression levels of Cleaved Caspase3, IGF2, p-JAK2 (Tyrl007/1008), and p-STAT3 (Ser727) in the hippocampus of rats. Results With the increase of aluminum dose, the escape latency of rats in the same day was prolonged, and the residence time in the target quadrant and the times of crossing the platform were gradually reduced (F = 7. 900, P = 0.001; F = 6.693, P = 0.002) . HE staining results showed that the number of neurons in CA1 region of hippocampus gradually decreased and the arrangement of neurons was obviously loose with the increase of aluminum dose (F = 25. 947, P < 0.001) . With increasing aluminum dose, apoptosis-associated protein Bel-2 levels decreased gradually (F = 83. 235, P < 0.001), Bax (F = 153. 189, P < 0.001) and Cleaved Caspase3 (F = 11.636, P < 0.01) levels was gradually increased, and the relative expression levels of IGF2 mRNA and IGF2, p-JAK2 (Tyr1007/1008), p-STAT3 (Ser727) proteins decreased gradually with the increase of aluminum dose (F = 18. 423, P < 0.001; F = 11.072, P = 0.001; F = 55. 161, P < 0.001; F = 10.481, P = 0.001). Conclusion Aluminum maltol can induce cell apoptosis by inhibiting IGF2/JAK2/STAT3 pathway, which could damage the learning and memory ability of rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the low-lying, river-rich Pearl River Delta in South China, an extensive network of flood defense levees, spanning over 4400 km, plays a crucial role in urban flood management. These levees are designed to withstand floods and storm surges, yet their failure can lead to significant human and economic losses, highlighting the need for robust urban flood defense strategies. This necessitates the development of a sophisticated geographic information system for the levee network and rapid, accurate assessment methods for levee conditions to support water management and flood mitigation efforts. This study focuses on the levees along the Hengmen waterway in the Pearl River Delta, utilizing airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to gather 3D spatial data of the levees. Employing the Cloth Simulation Filter (CSF) algorithm, non-ground point cloud data were extracted. The study improved upon the region-growing algorithm, using a seed point set approach for the automatic extraction of levee point cloud data. The accuracy and completeness of levee extraction were evaluated using the quality index. This method achieved effective extraction of four levee types, showing significant improvements over traditional algorithms, with extraction quality ranging from 72% to 83%. Key research outcomes include the development of a novel method for detecting localized levee depressions based on the computation of the variance of angles between normal vectors in single-phase levee point cloud data. An adaptive optimal neighborhood approach was utilized to accurately determine the normal vectors, effectively representing the local morphology of the levee point clouds. Applied in three levee depression detection experiments, this method proved effective, demonstrating the capability of single-phase data in identifying regions of levee depression deformation. This advancement in levee monitoring technology marks a significant step forward in enhancing urban flood defense capabilities in regions such as the cities of the Pearl River Delta in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrate (NO3‒) pollution poses significant threats to water quality and global nitrogen cycles. Alkaline electrocatalytic NO3‒ reduction reaction (NO3RR) emerges as an attractive route for enabling NO3‒ removal and sustainable ammonia (NH3) synthesis. However, it suffers from insufficient proton (H+) supply in high pH conditions, restricting NO3‒-to-NH3 activity. Herein, we propose a halogen-mediated H+ feeding strategy to enhance the alkaline NO3RR performance. Our platform achieves near-100% NH3 Faradaic efficiency (pH = 14) with a current density of 2 A cm–2 and enables an over 99% NO3–-to-NH3 conversion efficiency. We also convert NO3‒ to high-purity NH4Cl with near-unity efficiency, suggesting a practical approach to valorizing pollutants into valuable ammonia products. Theoretical simulations and in situ experiments reveal that Cl-coordination endows a shifted d-band center of Pd atoms to construct local H+-abundant environments, through arousing dangling O-H water dissociation and fast *H desorption, for *NO intermediate hydrogenation and finally effective NO3‒-to-NH3 conversion. Alkaline nitrate electroreduction to ammonia is restricted by insufficient H+ supply. Here, the authors propose a halogen-mediated H+ feeding strategy, by triggering dangling O-H water dissociation and fast *H desorption for *NO intermediate hydrogenation, to enhance the formation of ammonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asthma is the chronic pulmonary inflammatory response that could lead to respiratory failure when allergic reactions exacerbate. It is featured by type 2 immunity with eosinophilic inflammation, mucus, and IgE production, and Th2 cytokine secretion upon repeated challenge of allergens. The symptom severity of asthma displays an apparent circadian rhythm with aggravated airway resistance in the early morning in patients. Bmal1 is the core regulator of the circadian clock, while the regulatory role of Bmal1 in asthma remains unclear. Here, we investigate whether the myeloid Bmal1 is involved in the pathogenesis of house dust mite (HDM)–induced lung allergy. We found that knockdown of Bmal1 in macrophages suppressed the time-of-day variance of the eosinophil infiltration in the alveolar spaces in chronic asthmatic mice. This was accompanied by decreased bronchial mucus production, collagen deposition, and HDM-specific IgE production. However, the suppression effects of myeloid Bmal1 deletion did not alter the allergic responses in short-term exposure to HDM. The transcriptome profile of alveolar macrophages (AMs) showed that Bmal1-deficient AMs have enhanced phagocytosis and reduced production of allergy-mediating prostanoids thromboxane A2 and prostaglandin F2α synthesis. The attenuated thromboxane A2 and prostaglandin F2α may lead to less induction of the eosinophil chemokine Ccl11 expression in bronchial epithelial cells. In summary, our study demonstrates that Bmal1 ablation in macrophages attenuates eosinophilic inflammation in HDM-induced chronic lung allergy, which involves enhanced phagocytosis and reduced prostanoid secretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural variations (SVs) are commonly found in cancer genomes. They can cause gene amplification, deletion and fusion, among other functional consequences. With an average read length of hundreds of kilobases, nano-channel-based optical DNA mapping is powerful in detecting large SVs. However, existing SV calling methods are not tailored for cancer samples, which have special properties such as mixed cell types and sub-clones. Here we propose the Cancer Optical Mapping for detecting Structural Variations (COMSV) method that is specifically designed for cancer samples. It shows high sensitivity and specificity in benchmark comparisons. Applying to cancer cell lines and patient samples, COMSV identifies hundreds of novel SVs per sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]