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Interferons play a major role in innate immunity and disease resistance. Porcine interferon alpha has 17 subtypes, and their gene sequences, tissue expression profiles, and antiviral activities have been primarily studied in domestic pigs but not in minipigs. Bama minipigs are genetically stable disease-resistant and making them as laboratory animal models for bioscience studies. To define the potential mechanism for disease resistance, in this study, we cloned 17 subtypes of Porcine interferon alpha genes in Bama minipigs using high fidelity polymerase chain reaction and subsequent sequencing. Sequence alignment showed that the 17 porcine interferon alpha subtypes were 98%–100 % homologous in those of domestic pigs. However, significantly different tissue expression profiles of PoIFN-α subtypes were found in the two pig species using real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Among the 10 different Bama minipig tissues tested, significant expression of multi-subtype porcine interferon alpha was detected in the lymph nodes and spleen, whereas no or low expression of fewer subtypes was detected in the heart, lung, brain, and small intestine. Sequence analysis revealed that the porcine interferon alpha promoters were almost similar between the two pig species. A cytopathic effect inhibition assay showed that the recombinant 17 porcine interferon alpha subtypes purified from mammalian cells had significantly different antiviral profile against vesicular stomatitis virus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus compared with those in domestic pigs. Our findings provide evidence that porcine interferon alpha subtypes are highly conserved between Bama minipigs and domestic pigs but show varied tissue expression pattern and antiviral capabilities, which may contribute to their differences in disease resistance.

Drought and soil degradation are the key factors in desertification control. How to improve the utilization efficiency of water and fertilizer has always been the focus of research in desert areas. The conventional hydrogel-loaded fertilizer is not suitable because of the high salinity and large temperature difference in sandy land. Therefore we prepared a novel temperature/pH-responsive core-shell structured hydrogel and loaded urea in three ways: in situ polymerization, encapsulation, and immersion, and germination and seedling growth experiments on Artemisia absinthium and Cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. chinensis Makino) seeds. The results showed that the immersion hydrogel SAP4 (PCP-g-PAA/P(DMAEMA-co-AMPS))/urea had the best repetitive swelling performance, achieving 163.89 % of the original water absorption performance after 16 repetitions and the highest nitrogen release of 151.37 mg at 40 days. For A. desertorum, the treatment group applying the in situ composite hydrogel SAP2 (PCP-g-PAA/P(DMAEMA-co-AMPS)/urea) had the highest germination rate of 70 %; for B. campestris, the treatment groups applying SAP2, the encapsulated hydrogel SAP3 (PCP-g-PAA/urea/P(DMAEMA-co-AMPS)) and SAP4 hydrogels had higher germination rates, with SAP3 having a 100 % germination rate. This phenomenon suggests that the three urea-loaded temperature/pH-responsive core-shell structured hydrogels we have prepared are very promising as an aid to seed germination and seedling growth., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript, and the manuscript is approved by all authors for publication., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), encompassing ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), is characterized by persistent and recurrent gastrointestinal inflammation. Conventional IBD therapies often involve the use of antibiotics, NSAIDs, biological agents, and immunomodulators. While these medications can mitigate acute inflammatory symptoms, their long-term efficacy is frequently compromised due to cumulative toxic effects. In recent years, significant attention has shifted toward nanoparticle (NP)-based therapies as potential alternatives for IBD management. Various drug delivery strategies, including those targeting microbiota interactions, ligand-receptor binding, pH sensitivity, biodegradability, pressure response, and specific charge and size parameters, have been explored and optimized in animal studies. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current landscape of chitosan NP-mediated drug delivery systems for IBD treatment. Additionally, it will discuss the prevailing challenges and propose future research directions to advance chitosan NP-based therapeutic strategies for IBD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest Statement The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this manuscript.

Atmospheric fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) enters the human body through respiration and poses a threat to human health. This is not only dependent on its mass concentration in the atmosphere, but also related to seasonal variations in its chemical components, which makes it important to study the cytotoxicity of PM 2.5 in different seasons. Traditional immersion exposure cannot simulate the living environment of human epithelial cells in the human body, making this method unsuitable for evaluating the inhalation toxicity of PM 2.5 . In this study, a novel air-liquid interface (ALI) particulate matter exposure device (VITROCELL Cloud 12 system) was used to evaluate the toxic effects and potential mechanisms of human lung epithelial cells (A549) after exposure to seasonal PM 2.5 . PM 2.5 samples from four seasons were collected and analyzed for chemical components. After 6 h of exposure to seasonal PM 2.5 , winter PM 2.5 exhibited the highest cytotoxicity among most toxicity indicators, especially apoptosis rate, reactive oxygen species (ROS), inflammatory responses and DNA damage (γ-H2AX). The effect of autumn PM 2.5 on apoptosis rate was significantly higher than that in spring, and there was no significant difference in other toxicity indicators between spring and autumn. The cytotoxicity of summer PM 2.5 was the lowest among the four seasons. It should be noted that even exposure to low doses of summer PM 2.5 leads to significant DNA damage in A459 cells. Correlation analysis results showed that water-soluble ions, metallic elements, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were associated with most toxicological endpoints. Inhibitors of oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress significantly inhibited cellular damage, indicating that PM 2.5 -induced cytotoxicity may be related to the generation of ROS and ER stress. In addition, PM 2.5 can induce ER stress through oxidative stress, which ultimately leads to apoptosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Owing to the relentless growth of sewage sludge production, achieving low-carbon development in sewage sludge treatment and disposal (STD) is becoming increasingly challenging and unpredictable. However, the STD varied spatially, and city-specific analysis is deemed necessary for sustainable evaluation. Therefore, a lifecycle-based greenhouse gas (GHG), energy, and economic analysis were conducted by considering six local STD alternatives in Wuhan City, China, as a case study. The findings indicated anaerobic digestion combined with digestate utilization for urban greening (ADL) and incineration in existing power plants (INCP) exhibited the least GHG emissions at 34.073 kg CO 2 eq/FU and 644.128 kg CO 2 eq/FU, while INCP generated the most energy at -2594 kW.h/FU. The economic evaluation revealed that ADL and INCP were more beneficial without accounting for land acquisition. Scenario analysis showed that the energy recovery from ADL and INCP is significantly influenced by the hydrolysis yielding rate and sludge organic content. Perturbation sensitivity indicates that regional emission factor of electricity and electricity fee highly influence the overall GHG emission and cost. The results of this study could assist policymakers in identifying viable solutions to the cities experiencing the same sludge treatment burdens., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Abstract: T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive cancer with resistant clonal propagation in recurrence. We performed high-throughput droplet-based 5' single-cell RNA with paired T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing of paired diagnosis-relapse (Dx_Rel) T-ALL samples to dissect the clonal diversities. Two leukemic evolutionary patterns, "clonal shift" and "clonal drift" were unveiled. Targeted single-cell DNA sequencing of paired Dx_Rel T-ALL samples further corroborated the existence of the 2 contrasting clonal evolution patterns, revealing that dynamic transcriptional variation might cause the mutationally static clones to evolve chemotherapy resistance. Analysis of commonly enriched drifted gene signatures showed expression of the RNA-binding protein MSI2 was significantly upregulated in the persistent TCR clonotypes at relapse. Integrated in vitro and in vivo functional studies suggested that MSI2 contributed to the proliferation of T-ALL and promoted chemotherapy resistance through the posttranscriptional regulation of MYC, pinpointing MSI2 as an informative biomarker and novel therapeutic target in T-ALL., (© 2024 American Society of Hematology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.)

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Ultrasound is a widely used screening tool for its portability and easy operation, and DCE-MRI can highlight the lesions more clearly and reveal the characteristics of tumors. They are both noninvasive and nonradiative for assessment of breast cancer. Doctors make diagnoses and further instructions through the sizes, shapes and textures of the breast masses showed on medical images, so automatic tumor segmentation via deep neural networks can to some extent assist doctors. Compared to some challenges which the popular deep neural networks have faced, such as large amounts of parameters, lack of interpretability, overfitting problem, etc., we propose a segmentation network named Att-U-Node which uses attention modules to guide a neural ODE-based framework, trying to alleviate the problems mentioned above. Specifically, the network uses ODE blocks to make up an encoder-decoder structure, feature modeling by neural ODE is completed at each level. Besides, we propose to use an attention module to calculate the coefficient and generate a much refined attention feature for skip connection. Three public available breast ultrasound image datasets (i.e. BUSI, BUS and OASBUD) and a private breast DCE-MRI dataset are used to assess the efficiency of the proposed model, besides, we upgrade the model to 3D for tumor segmentation with the data selected from Public QIN Breast DCE-MRI. The experiments show that the proposed model achieves competitive results compared with the related methods while mitigates the common problems of deep neural networks., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have declared no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Nowadays, the companion animals (dogs or other pets) are considered as members of the family and have established strong emotional relationships with their owners. Dogs are long lived compared to food animals, so safety, adequacy, and efficacy of dog food is of great importance for their health. Cereals, cereal by-products as well as feedstuffs of plant origin are commonly employed food resources in dry food, yet are potential ingredients for mycotoxins contamination, so dogs are theoretically more vulnerable to exposure when consumed daily. Aflatoxins (AF), deoxynivalenol (DON), fumonisins (FUM), ochratoxin A (OTA), and zearalenone (ZEA) are the most frequent mycotoxins that might present in dog food and cause toxicity on the growth and metabolism of dogs. An understanding of toxicological effects and detoxification methods (physical, chemical, or biological approaches) of mycotoxins will help to improve commercial ped food quality, reduce harm and minimize exposure to dogs. Herein, we outline a description of mycotoxins detected in dog food, toxicity and clinical findings in dogs, as well as methods applied in mycotoxins detoxification. This review aims to provide a reference for future studies involved in the evaluation of the risk, preventative strategies, and clear criteria of mycotoxins for minimizing exposure, reducing harm, and preventing mycotoxicosis in dog., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Silicosis is a chronic pulmonary disease characterized by diffuse fibrosis of lung caused by the deposition of silica dust (SiO 2 ). The inhaled silica-induced oxidative stress, ROS production and macrophage ferroptosis are key drivers of the pathological process of silicosis. However, mechanisms that involved in the silica-induced macrophage ferroptosis and its contributions to pathogenesis of silicosis remain elusive. In the present study, we showed that silica induced murine macrophage ferroptosis, accompanied by elevation of inflammatory responses, Wnt5a/Ca 2+ signaling activation, and concurrent increase of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and mitochondrial redox imbalance in vitro and vivo. Mechanistic study further demonstrated that Wnt5a/Ca 2+ signaling played a key role in silica-induced macrophage ferroptosis by modulating ER stress and mitochondrial redox balance. The presence of Wnt5a/Ca 2+ signaling ligand Wnt5a protein increased the silica-induced macrophage ferroptosis by activating ER-mediated immunoglobulin heavy chain binding protein (Bip)-C/EBP homology protein (Chop) signaling cascade, reducing the expression of negative regulators of ferroptosis, glutathione peroxidase 4 (Gpx4) and solute carrier family 7 member 11 (Slc7a11), subsequentially increasing lipid peroxidation. The pharmacologic inhibition of Wnt5a signaling or block of calcium flow exhibited an opposite effect to Wnt5a, resulted in the reduction of ferroptosis and the expression of Bip-Chop signaling molecules. These findings were further corroborated by the addition of ferroptosis activator Erastin or inhibitor ferrostatin-1. These results provide a mechanism by which silica activates Wnt5a/Ca 2+ signaling and ER stress, sequentially leads to redox imbalance and ferroptosis in mouse macrophage cells., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The complex and rigid floc structure often limits the reutilization of waste activated sludge (WAS). Electrochemical pretreatment (EPT) is one of the most effective technologies that can enhance WAS disintegration. But a comprehensive investigation into how multiple EPT conditions work was rarely reported. The study evaluated the effects of multiple EPT conditions, i.e., different electrolytes (NaCl, Na 2 SO 4 , and CaCl 2 ), electrolytes dosage (0 g/L, 0.5 g/L, 1.0 g/L, and 3.0 g/L), EPT current (0 A, 0.5 A, 1.0 A, and 3.0 A) and EPT time (0 min, 30 min, 60 min, and 90 min) on WAS disintegration. The results showed that NaCl was outstanding from other electrolytes in promoting more WAS disintegration. Besides, a relatively higher NaCl dosage, a higher EPT current, and a longer EPT time promoted more reactive chlorine species (RCS), thus enhancing WAS disintegration in terms of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) structure destruction and biodegradable organic matter release. After EPT for 60 min at NaCl dosage of 1.0 g/L and current of 1.0 A, the EPS multilayer structure destruction, biodegradable organic matters release, and soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) increase in the supernatant were enhanced by 17.2 %, 130.5 %, and 238.7 %, respectively. Then a predictive quadratic model was established and the impact significance of the above EPT factors for enhancing WAS disintegration followed dosage of NaCl > current > EPT time. Furthermore, response surface methodology (RSM) suggested NaCl dosage of 2.75 g/L, current of 2.0 A, and EPT time of 30 min were the optimal EPT conditions, bringing a 42.0 % increase in the net economic benefit of WAS treatment compared to without EPT., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The localization and segmentation of biomarkers in OCT images are critical steps in retina-related disease diagnosis. Although fully supervised deep learning models can segment pathological regions, their performance relies on labor-intensive pixel-level annotations. Compared with dense pixel-level annotation, image-level annotation can reduce the burden of manual annotation. Existing methods for image-level annotation are usually based on class activation maps (CAM). However, current methods still suffer from model collapse, training instability, and anatomical mismatch due to the considerable variation in retinal biomarkers' shape, texture, and size. This paper proposes a novel weakly supervised biomarkers localization and segmentation method, requiring only image-level annotations. The technique is a Teacher-Student network with joint Self-supervised contrastive learning and Knowledge distillation-based anomaly localization, namely TSSK-Net. Specifically, we treat retinal biomarker regions as abnormal regions distinct from normal regions. First, we propose a novel pre-training strategy based on supervised contrastive learning that encourages the model to learn the anatomical structure of normal OCT images. Second, we design a fine-tuning module and propose a novel hybrid network structure. The network includes supervised contrastive loss for feature learning and cross-entropy loss for classification learning. To further improve the performance, we propose an efficient strategy to combine these two losses to preserve the anatomical structure and enhance the encoding representation of features. Finally, we design a knowledge distillation-based anomaly segmentation method that is effectively combined with the previous model to alleviate the challenge of insufficient supervision. Experimental results on a local dataset and a public dataset demonstrated the effectiveness of our proposed method. Our proposed method can effectively reduce the annotation burden of ophthalmologists in OCT images., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare autosomal recessive, X-linked or autosomal dominant disease. Few large-scale FA investigations of rare disease cohorts have been conducted in China., Methods: We enrolled 148 patients diagnosed with FA according to evidence from the clinical phenotype, family history, and a set of laboratory tests. Next, the clinical manifestations and correlation between the genotype and phenotype of FA pediatric cases were investigated., Results: The most common FA subtype in our cohort was FA-A (51.4 %), followed by FA-D2 and FA-P. Finger (26 %) and skin (25 %) deformities were the most common malformations. Based on family history, blood system diseases (51 %) had the highest incidence rate, followed by digestive system tumours. A set of new or prognosis-related mutation sites was identified. For example, c.2941 T > G was a new most common missense mutation site for FANCA. FANCP gene mutation sites were mainly concentrated in exons 12/14/15. The mutations of FANCI/FANCD2 were mainly located at the α helix and β corners of the protein complex. FA-A/D1 patients with splicing or deletion mutations showed more severe disease than those with missense mutations. Chromosome 1/3/7/8 abnormalities were closely linked to the progression of FA to leukemia., Conclusion: Our study investigated the clinical features and genotype/phenotype correlation of 148 Chinese pediatric FA patients, providing new insight into FA., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Although numerous studies have investigated that atmospheric fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) can be toxic to environmental organisms, the research on the reproductive toxicity of PM 2.5 is limited, and the key toxic components and underlying mechanisms remain unknown. In this work, PM 2.5 samples of four seasons in Nanjing from March 1, 2021, to February 28, 2022 were collected and the chemical components were analyzed. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) was employed to conduct the toxicological testing. The reproductive toxicity of PM 2.5 to C. elegans in different seasons was evaluated by multiple reproductive endpoints. Exposure to high concentrations of PM 2.5 significantly decreased the brood size and the number of fertilized eggs in utero. PM 2.5 exposure also increased the number of germ cell corpses and caused abnormal expression of apoptosis-related genes (ced-9, ced-4, and ced-3), which confirmed that PM 2.5 induced germline apoptosis. In addition, PM 2.5 exposure significantly increased the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in C. elegans and the fluorescence intensity of HUS-1 protein in of transgenic strain WS1433. Meanwhile, the expression of genes related to DNA damage (cep-1, clk-2, egl-1, and hus-1) and oxidative stress (mev-1, isp-1, and gas-1) also significantly altered in C. elegans, suggesting induction of DNA damage and oxidative stress. According to Pearson correlation analyses, DNA damage and oxidative stress were significantly correlated with multiple reproductive endpoints in C. elegans. Thus, it was speculated that PM 2.5 caused reproductive dysfunction and germ cell apoptosis in C. elegans may be by inducing ROS and DNA damage. In addition, heavy metals in PM 2.5 were significantly correlated with multiple endpoints at physiological and biochemical, suggesting that the heavy metals might be an important contributor to the reproductive toxicity induced by PM 2.5 ., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

The widespread adoption of Bt crops expressing insecticidal proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis has created a need to assess the potential effects of these toxins on non-target organisms, especially species such as Arma custos, a generalist predator that provides important biological control services in many field crops in Asia. Direct dietary exposure of A. custos to Cry1Ah and Vip3Aa proteins produced no adverse effects on life history traits, despite continuous exposure throughout development and early adult life to concentrations significantly higher than the Bt protein concentration likely encountered by A.custos in the field, even when feeding directly on Bt plants. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay confirmed the presence of Bt proteins in A. custos midguts, but quantitative real-time PCR analysis of 12 genes associated with detoxification, antioxidative responses, immune responses, and metabolism revealed no significant changes in expression in adult bugs. Indirect exposure to these toxins via consumption of intoxicated prey, larvae of Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner), likewise produced no negative impacts on survival, development, adult weight, or female fecundity in either the F0 (exposed) or F1 (unexposed) generation, but female fresh weight was reduced in the F0 generation by the Cry1Ah (50 μg/g) treatment. Finally, a competitive binding assay with labelled protein and a ligand blotting assay both demonstrated that the Cry1Ah protein could not bind to receptors on the midgut brush border membrane vesicles (BBMVs) of A. custos adults. Therefore, we conclude that Cry1Ah and Vip3Aa proteins are unlikely to have significant negative effects on A. custos populations if employed as plant-incorporated protectants in field crops., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Electrolytic oxygen aerobic composting (EOAC) effectively treats organic solid waste by using in-situ electrolytic oxygen for aeration. However, the fundamental mechanism of compost maturity is still unclear. Therefore, we comprehensively characterized dissolved organic matter (DOM) transformation closely related to compost maturity during EOAC. Excitation-emission matrix-parallel factor (EEM-PARAFAC) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis confirmed that EOAC quickly decreased organic matter and increased humus substances, accelerating the compost humification process compared with conventional aerobic composting. Electrospray ionization (ESI) Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) analysis reveals that the double bound equivalent and aromaticity index during EOAC are higher than in conventional aerobic composting (CAC), suggesting more aromatic compounds in EOAC. DOM's detailed transformation investigation suggested that low O/C and high H/C compounds were preferentially decomposed during EOAC. Our investigation firstly extends the in-depth molecular mechanisms of humification during EOAC, and reveals its practical engineering applications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The efficacy of 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) on invasive cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) remains to be improved due to the limited penetration of this treatment. Previous study showed that acitretin and ALA-PDT had synergistic effect on cSCC, but whether acitretin can enhance the cytotoxic effect of ALA-PDT on cSCC is unclear., Objective: To investigate whether acitretin can enhance the cytotoxic effect of ALA-PDT on SCL-1 cells, as well as the possible mechanism involved., Methods: Inverted microscopy, trypan blue exclusion assay, and flow cytometry were used to studied the morphology, viability and apoptosis of SCL-1 cells treated with acitretin, ALA-PDT and acitretin followed by ALA-PDT treatment, respectively. Confocal microscopy was applied to detect the ROS formation of SCL-1 cells treated with acitretin of four different concentrations. The ROS formation of SCL-I cells treated with acitretin of four different concentrations followed by ALA-PDT treatment was detected using confocal microscopy and flow cytometry., Results: SCL-1 cells exhibited a significant morphological alteration when treated with acitretin followed by ALA-PDT. The combination of acitretin and ALA-PDT induced a higher cell death rate and apoptosis than that with acitretin or ALA-PDT treatment alone. ROS could be induced when incubated with acitretin at a concentration of 6.4 × 10 -4 mg /mL or above. However, a higher level of ROS formation was observed when SCL-1 cells were treated with acitretin followed by ALA-PDT than that with ALA-PDT or acitretin alone., Conclusion: Acitretin can enhance the cytotoxic effect of ALA-PDT on SCL-1 cells, possibly via the ROS pathway., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Although neuropeptide corazonin (Crz) has been identified in numerous insect species, the research about its function in regulation of reproduction is still in its infancy. Herein, we characterized the Crz (GmolCrz) and its receptor (GmolCrzR) to investigate their reproductive function in Grapholita molesta. Both molecular docking result and cell-based receptor activity assay showed that GmolCrz could interact with GmolCrzR. Additionally, spatial expression patterns of GmolCrz and GmolCrzR in males were evaluated. Knockdown of GmolCrz or GmolCrzR significantly lengthened copulation duration and decreased fertility in males. In these males, we found that the production of sperm was normal, while the content of accessory gland proteins (Acps) in the accessory gland (AG) was strongly diminished. Furthermore, knockdown of GmolCrz or GmolCrzR in males had no effect on sperm and Acps transfer to females. RNA-seq and gene expression analyses further confirmed that genes involved in serine-type endopeptidase activity were significantly downregulated in the AG upon GmolCrzR knockdown. Finally, sperm activation assays demonstrated that this process was disrupted in the spermatophore of females mated with GmolCrz or GmolCrzR knockdown males, which may cause the decreased fertility in males. Our findings provide new insights into the functions of Crz signaling in a Lepidopteran insect., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Helicoverpa armigera single nucleopolyhedrovirus (HearNPV) has a long coevolutionary history with its host, exerting profound effects on larval development, physiology and immune responses, although the mechanisms mediating these effects remain unclear. We demonstrate that HearNPV infection constrains the growth and development of larvae by inducing high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which increase the expression of forkhead box O transcription factor (FoxO). FoxO upregulates the expression of peroxiredoxin 1 (Prx1) which serves to regulate larval development and immune responses following HearNPV infection. Collectively, our results provide novel insights into the role of Prx1 in larval development and immunity subsequent to HearNPV infection. Further investigation of the oxidative stress induced by HearNPV in H. armigera and its interactions with host immunity could yield novel insights useful in agricultural pest control., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Silicosis is caused by the continuous inhalation of environmental silica dust. The repetitive exposure of silica induces airway epithelial cell injury, leads proliferative exhaustion of epithelial stem cells, ultimately results in the lung remodeling and the development of silicosis. The B-cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1 (Bmi1) is a pivotal transcription factor in stem cell self-renewal and proliferation of many tissues including the lung, but its role in the airway basal cell proliferation and differentiation during the pathogenesis of silicosis in lung has yet been investigated. In this study, the function of Bmi1 in airway basal cell proliferation and differentiation in response to silica challenge was investigated in lungs of silicosis mice and primary human bronchial epithelia cells (HBECs) exposed to silica dioxide (SiO 2 ). Results showed a decreased expression of Bmi1 protein, epithelial basal cell markers Krt14 and Krt5, club cell marker Clara cell secretory protein, and ciliated cell marker acetyl-α-tubulin in silicosis lungs, compared to healthy mice. In consistence, a persistent exposure of SiO 2 reduced the capacity of cell proliferation and differentiation in HBECs, as ascertained by the reduction of differentiated epithelial cell markers and BMI1 expression, while an increased P21-positive senescent cell fraction. Moreover, an overexpression of BMI1 in HBECs reduced the SiO 2 -senescent cells, enhanced the potency of cell proliferation and differentiation, and increased capacity of airway epithelial regeneration in response to the persistent exposure of SiO 2 . These data suggest that Bmi1 is a key transcription factor engaging in maintaining the self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation of epithelial stem cells in lung during the development of silicosis disease., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pulsed dye laser (PDL) is the gold-standard therapy for port-wine stains (PWSs), but the therapeutic efficacies vary widely with each individual. Recent studies suggest that hematoporphyrin monomethyl ether-photodynamic therapy (HMME-PDT) is an effective alternative in the treatment of PWS. This retrospective study aimed to compare the effects of HMME-PDT and Cynergy dual-wavelength laser on red and purple color types of PWS METHODS: This retrospective study included 38 PWS patients who received Cynergy dual-wavelength laser treatment (PDL group) and 39 PWS patients who received HMME-PDT treatment (HMME-PDT group). Patients in each group received two treatments. The curative effect of purple or red PWS in two groups was analyzed., Results: After the first treatment, the total significant response rate and the total response rate of the HMME-PDT group were 43.59% and 74.36%, which were significantly higher than those of the PDL group (5.26% and 47.36%) (P < 0.05). After the second treatment, the total significant response rate and the total response rate of the HMME-PDT group were 69.23% and 100%, which were obviously higher than those of the PDL group (34.21% and 68.42%) (P < 0.05). For both groups, the total significant response rate of purple-type PWS was remarkably higher than that of red-type PWS (the HMME-PDT group: P = 0.004; the PDL group: P = 0.048). There was no obvious difference in terms of patient age and PWS location between the HMME-PDT and PDL groups. Furthermore, there was no considerable difference in the incidence of adverse reactions between the two groups (P > 0.05)., Conclusion: The single-center retrospective study suggested that HMME-PDT might have better efficacies on purple and red PWS than PDL treatment. The total treatment efficacy was greater in purple-type PWS than in red-type PWS., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Segmentation of infections from CT scans is important for accurate diagnosis and follow-up in tackling the COVID-19. Although the convolutional neural network has great potential to automate the segmentation task, most existing deep learning-based infection segmentation methods require fully annotated ground-truth labels for training, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. This paper proposed a novel weakly supervised segmentation method for COVID-19 infections in CT slices, which only requires scribble supervision and is enhanced with the uncertainty-aware self-ensembling and transformation-consistent techniques. Specifically, to deal with the difficulty caused by the shortage of supervision, an uncertainty-aware mean teacher is incorporated into the scribble-based segmentation method, encouraging the segmentation predictions to be consistent under different perturbations for an input image. This mean teacher model can guide the student model to be trained using information in images without requiring manual annotations. On the other hand, considering the output of the mean teacher contains both correct and unreliable predictions, equally treating each prediction in the teacher model may degrade the performance of the student network. To alleviate this problem, the pixel level uncertainty measure on the predictions of the teacher model is calculated, and then the student model is only guided by reliable predictions from the teacher model. To further regularize the network, a transformation-consistent strategy is also incorporated, which requires the prediction to follow the same transformation if a transform is performed on an input image of the network. The proposed method has been evaluated on two public datasets and one local dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is more effective than other weakly supervised methods and achieves similar performance as those fully supervised., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The oriental fruit moth Grapholita molesta is a cosmopolitan pest of orchard, which causes serious economic losses to the fruit production. Neuropeptides and their specific receptors (primarily G protein-coupled receptors, GPCRs) regulate multiple biological functions in insects and represent promising next-generation pest management strategy. Here, we generated a transcriptome of the central nervous system (CNS) of G. molesta. Overall, 57 neuropeptide precursor genes were identified and 128 various mature peptides were predicted from these precursors. Using peptidomic analysis of CNS of G. molesta, we identified total of 28 mature peptides and precursor-related peptides from 16 precursors. A total of 41 neuropeptide GPCR genes belonging to three classes were also identified. These GPCRs and their probable ligands were predicted. Additionally, expression patterns of these 98 genes in various larval tissues were evaluated using quantitative real-time PCR. Taken together, these results will benefit further investigations to determine physiological functions and pharmacological characterization of neuropeptides and their GPCRs in G. molesta; and to develop specific neuropeptide-based agents for this tortricid fruit pest control., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Objectives: To evaluate the Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of patients with a clinical diagnosis of tennis leg and to explore the pathogenesis of tennis leg., Methods: A retrospective review of 58 (45 men, 13 women; age range, 7-81 years; mean age, 46.7 years) patients with a clinical diagnosis of tennis leg at our hospital during a 64-month period (May 2014 through Sep 2019) was conducted. All patients underwent MRI scan. Follow-up MRI was performed on 4 patients. Images findings, including integrity of the myotendinous junction and tendon of the gastrocnemius and soleus, and presence of fluid collection were analyzed., Results: MRI revealed fluid collection between the medial head of the gastrocnemius and soleus in 44 cases (72.1%). In 25 cases (41.0%), the collected fluid spread to around the medial border of fascia cruris. Fifty-five cases (90.2%) had edema or disruption of the gastrocnemius, with most cases (n = 55) showing edema or disruption of the medial head of the gastrocnemius at the myotendinous junction. Twenty-two (36.1%) cases had edema or disruption of the soleus, with most cases (n = 17) showing edema or disruption of the soleus at the myotendinous junction. Plantaris tendon disruption was observed in 7 cases (11.5%). A thick area of reparative tissue at the distal myotendinous junction of the medial head of the gastrocnemius was observed in all 4 MRI patients followed up., Conclusion: Abnormalities of the medial head of the gastrocnemius at the myotendinous junction and tendon appear to be more common than those of the plantaris tendon. Reparative tissue at the distal myotendinous junction of the medial head of the gastrocnemius may be an important specific indication of chronic tennis leg injury., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There are no conflicts of interest to declare. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Methane (CH 4 ) emissions from thermophilic composting (TC) are a substantial contributor to climate change. Hyperthermophilic composting (HTC) can influence CH 4 -related microbial communities at temperatures up to 80 °C, and thus impact the CH 4 emissions during composting. This work investigated CH 4 emissions in sludge-derived HTC, and explored microbial community succession with quantitative PCR and high-throughput sequencing. Results demonstrated that HTC decreased CH 4 emissions by 52.5% compared with TC. In HTC, the CH 4 production potential and CH 4 oxidation potential were nearly 40% and 64.1% lower than that of TC, respectively. There was a reduction in the quantity of mcrA (3.7 × 10 8 to 0 g -1 TS) in HTC, which was more significant than the reduction in pmoA (2.0 × 10 5 to 2.1 × 10 4 g -1 TS), and thus lead to reduce CH 4 emissions. It was found that the abundance of most methanogens and methanotrophs was inhibited in the hyperthermal environment, with a decline in Methanosarcina, Methanosaeta and Methanobrevibacter potentially being responsible for reducing the CH 4 emissions in HTC. This work provides important insight into mitigating CH 4 emissions in composting., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Accurate segmentation of nuclei in digital pathology images can assist doctors in diagnosing diseases and evaluating subsequent treatments. Manual segmentation of nuclei from pathology images is time-consuming because of the large number of nuclei and is also error-prone. Therefore, accurate and automatic nucleus segmentation methods are required. Owing to the large variations in the characterization of nuclei, it is difficult to accurately segment nuclei using traditional methods. In this study, we propose a new method for nucleus segmentation. The proposed method uses a deep fully convolutional neural network to perform end-to-end segmentation on pathological tissue slices. Multiple short residual connections were used to fuse feature maps from different scales to better utilize the context information. Dilated convolutions with different dilation ratios were used to increase the receptive fields. In addition, we incorporated the distance map and contour information into the segmentation method to segment touching nuclei, which is difficult via traditional segmentation methods. Finally, post-processing was used to improve the segmentation results. The results demonstrate that our segmentation method can obtain comparable or better performance than other state-of-the-art methods on the public nuclei histopathology datasets., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Construction of fluorescent probe for highly sensitive and selective detection of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in water and biological samples is a very important strategy in related pollutant monitoring and environmental health risk appraisal. To overcome the drawback of low sensitivity caused by high-back ground signal of the conventional sensor, a molecularly imprinted near-infrared excitation ratiometric fluorescent probe was constructed and employed to determine PFOS. The sensing process was achieved through the selectively recognition of specific cavities in the probe surface with analyte, accompanied by fluorescence quenching due to the photoinduced electron transfer effect between upconversion materials and PFOS. Under optimized experimental conditions, the fluorescence quenching efficiency of the probe has good linearity against the concentrations of PFOS response divided into two segments within linear ranges of 0.001-0.1 nmol/L and 0.1-1 nmol/L, respectively, with low detection limit of 1 pmol/L. Selective experiment results indicate that the C-F chain length plays a dominant role in molecular recognition and high sensitively detection. The fabricated probe shows well detection performance in a wide pH range. Furthermore, real samples analyses indicate that such an efficient fluorescent probe has potentials in PFOS determination in surface water, human serum and egg extract sample analyses., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Bayer red mud (RM) occupies a large amount of land, which excessive Na + seriously damages groundwater resources. In this research, a RM based cementitious material (RMC) composed of RM and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was developed. It is interesting to find that a binary reaction consisting of cement hydration and geopolymer reaction in RMC. The mechanical and Na + consolidation rate of RMC were improved by the synergistic effect of binary reaction. The results indicated that the compressive strength of RMC is the highest and reaches 32.5R OPC when the mass ratio of CaO/(SiO 2 +Al 2 O 3 ) is 1.37, and the Na + leaching concentration is environmentally acceptable. The 7 days compressive strength of RM-based cementitious material No.2 (RMC2) can reach 93.80% of that of 28 days. As the predominant hydration products, cement hydration product (Ca 5 (SiO 4 ) 2 (OH) 2 ) and geopolymer (CaAl 2 Si 2 O 8 ·2H 2 O and Na 3 Al 3 Si 3 O 12 ·2H 2 O) were principally responsible for the strength development of RMC2 at 7 days. The optimal densification microstructure and [SiO 4 ] polymerization structure was presented in RMC2. The supreme Na + consolidation rate was 99.23% in RMC2 due to the cooperation of physical fixation and [Si(Al)O 4 ] charge balance principle. This paper provides a fresh theoretical guidance for the utilization of RM and its Na + in building materials., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Red mud is an alkaline by-product produced by alumina plants. The accumulation of red mud is becoming an increasingly serious problem with the growth of the aluminum industry. Various waste treatment methods utilizing red mud as an environmental remediation material have been developed. Red mud environmental remediation materials (RM-ERMs) are environmental remediation materials prepared by activating red mud, synergistically using red mud and other ingredients, or by extracting effective components from red mud. There are three general categories of use for RM-ERMs: for waste water purification, waste gas purification and soil remediation. As well as providing an opportunity to improve the environment through purification technologies, the highly alkaline red mud is consumed in the production of RM-ERMs. The use of RM-ERMs has been shown to be a promising strategy for the simultaneous treatment of various wastes. In this paper, the developregeneration characteristics of various red mud granularent status of RM-ERMs is described, the physical and chemical properties of red mud are introduced, and the active mechanism of RM-ERMs on target pollutants in waste water, waste gas and soil is summarized. Moreover, a discussion on the current existing problems of RM-ERMs provides important tips and suggestions for future research on RM-ERMs., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Redox-active functional groups in dissolved organic matter (DOM) can mediate reductions in organic pollutants and the passivation of heavy metals, which are related to the humification process of composting. Hyperthermophilic composting (HTC) has been shown to promote changes in the composition and structure of DOM and accelerate humification. However, how HTC affects the redox properties of DOM remains unclear. Here, we fractionated DOM into humic acid (HA), fulvic acid (FA) and hydrophilic (HyI) fraction to study their electron transfer capacities (ETC) and the relationship between ETC and compositional characteristics using electrochemical method and excitation-emission matrix-parallel factor analysis. HTC accelerated the formation of component 3 containing quinone-like moieties, which mainly existed in the HA, improving the electron accepting capacity (EAC) of DOM. The rapid degradation of component 4 containing tryptophan-like substances of HA, FA and HyI strengthened the electron donating capacity of DOM in HTC. Partial least squares path model also showed that compositional changes and the stronger ETC of DOM in HTC had a positive effect on the maturity degree, revealing that the EAC of HA could be used as a maturity index for compost. This study advances our understanding of the humification process and the contamination control mechanism of HTC., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To investigate the effect of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) mediated photodynamic therapy (PDT) on the invasion and metastasis in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) cell line(SCL-1) and to study whether the effect was via the MTSS1 gene and p63 gene related pathways., Methods: SCL-1 cells were cultured and submitted to ALA-PDT treatment (ALA-PDT group), ALA treatment alone (ALA group), LED illumination alone (LED group) and remains untreated (control group). Scratch test, Transwell migration chamber assay and Matrigel cell invasion assay were used to detect the ability of migration and invasion of SCL-1 cells after treatment. The mRNA levels and protein expressions of tumor metastasis suppressor gene (MTSS1) and p63 gene were further detected by using quantitative real-time PCR and flow cytometry assay respectively after treatment., Results: The migration and invasion abilities of SCL-1 cells after treatment were significantly reduced in the ALA-PDT groups than that in ALA group, LED group and control group (P＜0.05). Both the mRNA and protein expression levels of MTSS1 gene were up-regulated, while the mRNA and protein expression levels of p63 gene were down-regulated after ALA-PDT treatment., Conclusion: ALA-PDT suppressed the migration and invasion of human cSCC cell line, probably via the MTSS1 gene and p63 gene related pathways. This study put forward a possible mechanism of invasion in SCL-1 cell, also providing a potential target for the therapy of cSCC., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) remains the second most common nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) worldwide. Both acitretin and 5-Aminolevulinic acid mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) have validated effect on SCC. However, the effects of both treatmens remain limited, and there has been no report concerning the potential synergistic effect of both treatments for SCC., Objective: To investigate the cytotoxic effect of acitretin on SCL-1 cells, and whether ALA-PDT enhances this effect., Methods: CCK-8 and trypan blue exclusion array were used to detect the cell cytotoxicity after acitretin treatment with different concentrations (1.6 × 10 -4 mg/mL, 1.6 × 10 -3 mg/mL, 1.6 × 10 -2 mg/mL and 1.6 × 10 -1 mg/mL) for 24 h, 48 h and 72 h. Flow cytometry and trypan blue exclusion assay were used to detect the apoptosis and viability of SCL-1 cells after treated with acitretin, ALA-PDT and ALA-PDT immediately followed by acitretin. Independent sample t test was used to analyze the different incubation time of acitretin and acitretin combined with ALA-PDT on SCL-1 cells. Bonferroni Test One-way Anova method was used to analyze the effect of different treatment on the SCL-1 cells., Results: A significant cytotoxic effect was observed after acitretin treatment, in an acitretin concentration-dependent manner within the range of 1.6 × 10 -4 mg/mL to 1.6 × 10 -1 mg/mL and an acitretin incubation time-dependent manner within 24 h-72 h. The total apoptosis rate and dead cells rate in group of ALA-PDT combined with acitretin were both significantly higher than that of acitretin, ALA-PDT group. A stronger apoptotic and cytotoxic effect detected 24 h after treated with acitretin than that of 12 h was observed in this study., Conclusion: Acitretin has a cytotoxic effect on SCL-1 cells, and ALA-PDT treatment enhances the the cytotoxic effect of acitretin., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management is a globally recognized environmental issue. The concepts of sustainability and the circular economy have progressed MSW management system from basic disposal to recycling and resource recovery. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the technique that has been widely used to analyse MSW management system. However, the reliability of results is deeply influenced by the methodology, quality of data, and robustness of the analyses. This raises two questions: how to improve the quality of LCA work, and how to select the appropriate MSW management strategy for practice? To answer these questions, we have conducted a critical review of 79 scientific studies from 36 low-to-high income countries. The review examines the scientific community's application of LCA to MSW management and identifies the best practices to follow for a good-quality study. Then after categorically assessing the results of the studies, a ranking of appropriate MSW management scenarios is made. Results reveal that the objective of an LCA study is subjective but a decisive factor that defines the procedure of subsequent steps. Differences are found among the practitioners, especially in study boundaries, selection of impact categories, choice of input data and analysis methods. Sensitivity analysis is critical for producing reliable results but was not performed in around 38% of the studies. Our analysis also reveals that the integration of recycling, treatment and disposal technologies is the most appropriate strategy. The choice of technologies and their performance, however, depends on the technological and socio-economic background of the studied region., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Electrolytic manganese residue (EMR) is a potentially harmful industrial solid waste that should be addressed. In the study, the red mud, carbide slag and blast furnace slag were used as stabilization/solidification (S/S) agents to S/S Mn 2+ , and simultaneous reused it as raw material to prepare road base material. The S/S behavior of manganese, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of road base material with different Al/Si ratios, leaching test and the S/S mechanisms were investigated. The results showed that the Mn 2+ can be well solidified when the S/S agents reach up to 20 %. The 7-day UCS of the road base material was 6.1 MPa with the Al/Si ratio of 0.48, which meets the highway standards. When Al/Si = 0.48, the formation amount of CaAl 2 Si 2 O 8 ·4H 2 O and ettringite increased, which promoted the adsorption and wrap of Mn 2+ . The content of active Al Ⅳ and Al Ⅵ increased after S/S. Mn 2 SiO 4 and Ca 4 Mn 4 Si 8 O 24 were produced by the charge balance effect, and the new chemical bond was formed. Meanwhile, the Mn 2+ is oxidized to more stable MnO 2 to achieve the S/S of Mn 2+ . This research provides an effective way to solidify Mn 2+ and solves the problem of large-scale utilization of EMR and other solid waste., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There is no conflict of interest in this article., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As a by-product of nickel production, the ferronickel slag (FNS) puts a lot of pressure on the environment. It is becoming more and more urgent to deal with the increasing FNS. The aim of this study is to explore the durability of concrete with FNS fine aggregate. Two kinds of FNS with different storage time were selected. The radioactivity detection, XRD test and stability detection of FNS were conducted to ensure FNS can be used as construction materials. Then the durability of concrete with 13%, 27%, 40% and 50% FNS (by weight of fine aggregate) was investigated, respectively. It was found that the properties of concrete prepared from FNS with different storage time had little difference. The results indicated that 27% FNS replacement showed improvement in resistance to sulfate attack by 22% but the resistance to chloride ion penetration was not significantly influenced. Moreover, 40% FNS addition brought a 33% abrasion reduction than that of original concrete. SEM analysis showed that FNS produced more C-S-H gels and improved the microstructure of concrete. This study indicated that proper content of FNS can be used as fine aggregate and it was beneficial to the durability of concrete, especially to the abrasion resistance., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Accurate measuring of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is vital for the research of many diseases. The localization and quantification of SAT and VAT by computed tomography (CT) expose patients to harmful ionizing radiation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe and painless test. The aim of this paper is to explore a practical method for the segmentation of SAT and VAT based on the iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least square estimation‑iron quantification (IDEAL-IQ) technology and machine learning. The approach involves two main steps. First, a deep network is designed to segment the inner and outer boundaries of SAT in fat images and the peritoneal cavity contour in water images. Second, after mapping the peritoneal cavity contour onto the fat images, the assumption-free K-means++ with a Markov chain Monte Carlo (AFK-MC 2 ) clustering method is used to obtain the VAT content. An MRI data set from 75 subjects is utilized to construct and evaluate the new strategy. The Dice coefficients for the SAT and VAT content obtained from the proposed method and the manual measurements performed by experts are 0.96 and 0.97, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method and the manual measurements exhibit high reliability., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background and Aims: Atherosclerosis is an important contributing factor to cardiovascular mortality. The role of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in atherosclerosis is inconsistent and sometimes controversial. The present study aimed to determine if H. pylori infection is associated with carotid atherosclerosis., Methods: 17,613 males and females with both carotid ultrasonic examination and 13 C-urea breath test for H. pylori infection were screened by a major Chinese university hospital from March 2012 to March 2017 for the study. Baseline demographics, cardiac risk factors, and laboratory studies were obtained. After exclusion for pre-specified conditions, 12,836 individuals were included in the analysis, including 8157 men (63.5%) and 4679 women (36.5%). Analysis was also made for 5-year follow-up data of 1216 subjects (869 males and 347 females) with and without H. pylori infection for development and progression of carotid atherosclerosis., Results: After adjusting for age, sex, body mass index, lipid profile, hypertension, renal function, diabetes mellitus, and smoking, H. pylori infection was found as an independent risk factor for carotid atherosclerosis in males under 50 years, but not in older males or females (odds ratio 1.229, 95% CI 1.054-1.434, p = 0.009). Follow-up data analysis showed that the incidence of carotid atherosclerosis from no atherosclerosis to detectable lesions was significantly higher in young males with persistent H. pylori infection than those without H. pylori infection (p = 0.028) after 3 years., Conclusions: These data suggest that H. pylori infection might be an important risk factor for carotid atherosclerosis in young Chinese males under 50., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The present study aims to prepare non-sintered permeable bricks using significant amount of electrolytic manganese residue (EMR), discharged by electrolytic metal manganese industry. Mechanical and environmental properties were investigated. The microstructure was analyzed by means of XRD, FTIR, TG-DSC and SEM-EDS. It was observed that the splitting tensile strength and permeability coefficient of the optimum proportion were 3.53 MPa and 3.2 × 10 -2  cm/s respectively. The main hydration products were found to be ettringite, C-S-H, aluminosilicates and C-A-S-H. The leaching test showed that Mn, Pb, Cd, total Cr and NH 3 -N in the non-sintered permeable bricks were solidified up to concentrations lower than groundwater standard. In addition to that, the NH 3 -N produced during the process was transformed into ammonia water which was in turn recycled and reused in manganese electrolysis. Besides, non-sintered permeable bricks have been produced at large scale and applied successfully as pavement materials in Songtao, China. Therefore, the use of EMR to produce non-sintered permeable bricks possesses important environmental and economic significance because the process not only utilizes large quantities of EMR and saves EMR disposal cost, but also saves a lot of natural resources and improves the urban environment., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The resource utilization of coal-based solid waste (CBSW) is an urgent problem needed to be addressed. This study was based on the principle of intermediate-calcium system to prepare a self-degradable eco-friendly sand-fixing material (SFM) by using CBSW and aeolian sand as main raw materials, and its hydration mechanism and environmental characteristics were investigated. The hydration products of SFM were characterized by XRD, TG-DSC, FTIR, and SEM, and the environmental friendly performances were discussed by leaching test. The results show that the compressive strength of SFM reached 12.4 MPa after 28d when the (CaO + MgO)/(SiO 2 +Al 2 O 3 ) was 0.75. After 150 freeze-thaw cycles, the recorded strength was 8.82 MPa which met the international standards but it get completely degraded into powders after 200 freeze-thaw cycles. The leaching test results indicated that the heavy metals in raw materials were solidified; the SFM before and after complete degradation were all eco-friendly. The main hydration products of SFM were ettringite, C-S-H and C-A-S-H, which play an important effect in strength development and solidification of heavy metals. At the same time, the pilot-scale test would reach the similar results. This work provides an effective solution of resource utilization of CBSW and improving the eco-environment of the desert., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

An early diagnosis of interstitial lung disease (ILD) is important for guiding treatments of rheumatoid arthritis (RA)-associated ILD (RA-ILD) in clinical settings. The non-canonical Wnt signaling representative ligand Wnt5a was recently found to involve in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and pathogenesis of RA. The goal of this study was to examine the clinical relevance of Wnt5a in RA-ILD. In this report, the clinical relevance of plasma Wnt5a protein was evaluated in 40 RA-ILD patients and 41 non-ILD RA cohorts. The results showed an elevated Wnt5a protein in plasmas of RA-ILD patients compared with non-ILD RA patients (p < 0.01), which was positively correlated with the plasma level of rheumatoid factor (RF). Of note, more abundant Wnt5a was also found in patients with usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) than those with nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) and other ILD patterns. More importantly, the disease severity was correlated with the circulating Wnt5a as ascertained by high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT)-UIP scores. The multiple-factor non-conditional logistic regression analysis further revealed that the age, RA duration, smoking and plasma Wnt5a were risk factors with clinical significance for RA-ILD. Interestingly, more Wnt5a-positive patients were identified in RA-ILD smokers relative to RA-ILD never-smokers, and longer smoking duration was strongly correlated with Wnt5a in RA-ILD patients. In consistence, ROC curve also suggested that the Wnt5a was a potential candidate biomarker for identifying patients with RA-UIP. These results demonstrate that the circulating Wnt5a may be a risk factor and potential biomarker for identifying UIP and accessing the severity and progression of ILD in RA patients., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Hyperthermophilic composting has been demonstrated to overcome the disadvantages of conventional composting in products with better quality. However, the complexation of heavy metals to hyperthermophilic compost (HTC)-derived HA remains unclear. In the present work, using Cu(II) as the representative heavy metal, we investigated the binding process of Cu(II) to HAs derived from HTC, thermophilic compost (TC), and sewage sludge (SS). The complexation ability of three HAs was analyzed by the method of parallel factor (PARAFAC) coupled with hetero two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy (hetero-2DCOS) analyses. Results showed that HTC-derived HA has the greater complexation ability (log K M  = 5.68, CC M  = 1.21) than both TC-derived HA (log K M  = 5.27, CC M  = 0.94) and SS-derived HA (log K M  = 5.19, CC M  = 0.586), likely due to the higher humification degree, as well as the faster response of carboxyl and phenols to Cu(II) binding with HTC-derived HA. This study demonstrated that the utilization of HTC might provide an effective approach for remediation of Cu(II)-polluted soils. Moreover, PARAFAC analysis integrated with hetero-2DCOS offers a unique insight into understanding the correlation between HAs fractions and functional groups during the Cu(II) binding process., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this work, a reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) coupling to hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) system has been constructed, combining with pulsed elution reversed phase liquid chromatography (PE-RPLC) and HILIC to comprehensively analyze P. ginseng root extract, which is rich in saponins. By the application of pulsed elution (PE) modulation technique, the proposed RPLC × HILIC system allows the chromatographic separation to be optimized independently in both dimensions. In the first dimension ( 1 D), PE modulation is achieved by the separation of a complex mixture, such as P. ginseng root extract, with a PE gradient. This PE gradient contains a set of pulses where the solvent strength increases gradually. Thus, the modulation of 1 D eluent is realized by stepwise-pulse fractionation, rather than by a traditional two-dimensional interface. Furthermore, the number of fractions and the fractionated period can be regulated independently, which leads to independent adjustment of the separation cycle in the second dimension ( 2 D) separation without the loss of D 1 separation efficiency. To overcome the inherent solvent incompatibility of RPLC × HILIC, we introduced a newly developed trapping interface, equipped with bypass. The result indicates excellent separation of saponins in P. ginseng root extract. Compared with the traditional modulation method, the proposed RPLC × HILIC system has extreme flexibility, those modulation time could be regulated in a large range without re-optimizing the 1 D PE gradient. Worthily mentioned, the proposed RPLC × HILIC system shows excellent orthogonality, and 20% more peaks could be obtained with current method compared to the traditional value based modulation method. Independent regulation of both dimensions could enable the proposed modulation method to be widely applied for complex samples analysis in ordinary laboratory., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) comprises ∼10% to 15% of childhood ALL cases, many of which respond exquisitely to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), for example, imatinib in PDGFRB -rearranged ALL. However, some cases developed drug resistance to TKIs and the mechanisms are poorly understood. In this study, we identified a novel PDGFRB fusion gene, namely AGGF1 - PDGFRB , and functionally characterized its oncogenic potential in vitro. Further genomic profiling of longitudinally collected samples during treatment revealed the emergence of a mutation, PDGFRB C843G , which directly conferred resistance to all generations of ABL TKIs, including imatinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, and ponatinib. PDGFRB -mutant leukemia cells are highly sensitive to multitarget kinase inhibitor CHZ868, suggesting potential therapeutic options for some patients resistant to ABL TKIs. In summary, we describe a complex clonal evolution pattern in Ph-like ALL and identified a novel PDGFRB point mutation that drives leukemia relapse after ABL TKI treatment., (© 2018 by The American Society of Hematology.)

Municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is a by-product of garbage incineration power generation, and its disposal is currently a world problem because it contains over standard heavy metals. This research aims to solidify the heavy metals in MSWI fly ash and make it to be utilizable construction materials under the guidance of intermediate-calcium cementitious materials (ICCM), and meanwhile figure out the solidification and hydration mechanism. The hydration characteristics of ICCM were characterized by XRD, FTIR, 29 Si MAS-NMR and SEM techniques, and the environmental properties are investigated by TCLP and EPMA. The results indicate that the optimal ratio of (CaO + MgO)/(SiO 2  + Al 2 O 3 ) for ICCM is at the range of 0.76-0.88. The compressive strengths of ICCM reach the 42.5R normal Portland cement level, and the leaching concentrations of heavy metals meet the Chinese integrated wastewater discharge standard GB 8978-1996. As predominant hydration products, ettringite, hydrocalumite and amorphous C-S-H gel are principally responsible for the strength development of ICCM, and the (Ca + Mg)/(Si + Al) ratio at 0.88 has the best polymerized structure. The heavy metals are well solidified through combining with the C-S-H gel or absorbed in the hydration pastes. This paper provides an effective solution to use the MSWI fly ash in building material., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We investigated the protection offered by the probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum CCFM639 against waterborne Al exposure in tilapia. Fish were allocated to control, CCFM639-only, Al-only or Al plus CCFM639 groups. The fish were exposed to 2.73mg/L Al ions for 4 weeks. The probiotic was incorporated into the fish diet at 10 8 CFU/g and provided twice daily. Our results showed that L. plantarum CCFM639 significantly enhanced feed utilization, growth performance and antioxidant ability in the absence of waterborne Al exposure. When fish were exposed to Al, dietary supplementation with the strain effectively decreased the death rate and accumulation of Al in tissues, and enhanced growth performance. Moreover, Al-induced changes in hematobiochemical parameters and hepatic oxidative stress and histopathology were also alleviated. Therefore, L. plantarum CCFM639 may be a novel dietary supplement for fish to enhance growth performance and prevent aquaculture and food safety problems induced by Al pollution., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.)