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Islands, which provide multiple ecosystem services, are subject to increasing urbanization pressure due to the ongoing marine development, especially in developing countries. Insights into the island urbanization mechanism and its ecological consequences are essential to sustainable development. In the present paper, the satellite images, nighttime lights, and topographic data were integrated to characterize the spatially explicit urbanization process and mechanism during 1995–2011 in the Zhoushan Island, East China. Furthermore, the corresponding spatially explicit changes in ecosystem services, including net primary productivity (NPP), carbon sequestration and oxygen production (CSOP), nutrient cycling, crop production, and habitat quality, were quantified based on the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford Approach (CASA) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) models. The results showed that the Zhoushan Island had experienced a rapid urbanization over the years, with significant urban encroachment on the farmland and tidal flat. Moreover, the urban land expansion was positively correlated with that of the nighttime lights and negatively correlated with the elevation, slope, and the distance to shoreline. These indicated that the urban expansion was resulted from the enhancement of socioeconomic activities, and concentrated in the near-shore areas with low altitude and gentle slope. The urban encroachment on other land use types resulted in a decrease of 3.4 Gg C a −1 NPP, 8.7 Gg a −1 CSOP, 13.2 Gg a −1 nutrient cycling, and 12.3 t a −1 crop production, respectively. In addition, the habitat quality in 11% area of this island degraded substantially. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development of islands, it is urgent to implement more stringent policies, such as island spatial regulation, environmental impact assessment, intensive land use, and urban greening, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insights into the dynamics of coastlines and tidal flats at fine spatial and temporal resolutions are essential for sustainable development. Previous studies were generally conducted at relatively coarse temporal intervals, which hardly captured detailed coastal dynamics, especially in rapidly developing islands. In this study, we developed a new method to map the monthly changes in coastlines and tidal flats in the Zhoushan Archipelago during 1985–2017 using the full time series of Landsat images based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. First, we built the full time series of the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI). Second, we derived temporal segments of MNDWI using a binary segmentation algorithm. Third, we classified the corresponding coastal cover types (i.e., water, tidal flats, and land) for each temporal segment based on the features of MNDWI and regional tidal heights. Finally, we identified the change information including conversion types, and turning years and months. Results indicate that the proposed method can well identify turning years with an overall accuracy of 90% and map coastal cover types with overall accuracies of 89–94% in 1985 and 87–92% in 2017. Significant coastline expansions and declines in tidal flats were found in the study area. The areas of water and tidal flats decreased by 6% and 10% during 1985–2017, respectively, while the land area increased by 18%. The land reclamation was accelerated in the recent decade, and mainly occurred on the medium-large islands, their surrounding small islands, and the islands close to the mainland. The proposed framework based on the GEE platform is transferable to investigate coastal dynamics in other areas. The derived information of changes in coastlines and tidal flats is of great use for sustainable management and ecological studies in coastal areas. • We mapped monthly changes in coastlines and tidal flats at pixel level using all Landsat. • The derived coastal dynamics is reliable in detecting paces of land reclamation. • This study reveals detailed responses of coastlines and tidal flats to human activities. • The proposed framework based on the GEE is transferable to other coastal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The overall GLE of the BRI partner countries remains relatively low while there is a discernible upward trend annually. • The BRI exerts a considerable influence on the enhancement of GLE in partner countries. • The effect of efficiency improvement in middle-income countries is markedly greater than in high-income countries. • A time-varying DID model is utilized to mitigate biases from varied join times of partner countries in the BRI. As a crucial event in the process of China's trade cooperation and openness, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) relies on the logistics as the foundational industry for its sustainable development. This study measures the green logistics efficiency (GLE) of BRI partner countries using panel data from 2013 to 2019 and evaluates the BRI's impact on their GLE. We find that: (1) The GLE of BRI partner countries is generally low, with only 15.9% achieving effectiveness. High-income countries have notably higher GLE than middle-income ones. (2) The GLE of BRI partner countries shows an upward trend annually, especially in middle-income countries, which are closing the gap with high-income countries. (3) The BRI has a significant positive impact on the GLE growth of partner countries. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this growth effect is more pronounced in middle-income countries. These results indicate and enhance the understanding of GLE among BRI partner countries and addresses some skepticism regarding BRI's sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban vegetation phenology is essential for understanding climate change impacts on urban ecosystems, offering insights into ecological and health implications. Although previous studies have explored the response patterns of vegetation phenology along the urban-rural gradient, quantitative analysis considering the neighborhood and scale effects is still insufficient. In this study, we comprehensively assessed the responses of the start of season (SOS) on urban-rural gradients depicted by both impervious surface percentage (ISP) and its kernel density values (ISPKD) at different spatial scales in 32 large cities in the north temperate zone. Our results revealed that the ISPKD can moderately amplify the sensitivity of spring phenology responses to urban intensity compared to the direct ISP indicator, with a mean difference of 0.02 days per ISP or ISPKD unit increase among cities with a significant linear response. These changes are associated with the magnified urban-rural phenological difference when characterizing the urban-rural gradient using ISPKD compared to ISP, with an increased average urban-rural difference of 1.37 days across all study cities. Observations at coarser spatial resolutions made the overall advancing trends of spring phenology on the urban-rural gradient more pronounced. Specifically, the average trends across all study cities showing significant response trends across all spatial resolutions shifted from −0.07 days/% at 250 m resolution to −0.11 days/% at 2 km. In addition, coarser resolutions of 500 m, 1 km, and 2 km amplified the average urban-rural phenological differences by 0.69 days, 0.68 days, and 1.37 days, respectively, compared to 250 m. These findings provide quantitative evidence for understanding the impact of urban intensity on spring phenology, deserving attention when drawing conclusions from vegetation phenology products at different resolutions. • Urban vegetation phenology is crucial to understanding the carbon cycle in the future. • The study fills gaps in quantitative analyses of vegetation phenology to urbanization. • The neighborhood and scale effect may impact the derived conclusions significantly. • Conclusions on urbanization's impacts on vegetation phenology need to be cautious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a novel head and neck artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted diagnostic system based on a three-dimensional convolutional neural network (3D-CNN) could improve the accuracy, efficiency and working mode of intracranial aneurysm (IA) detection.Methods: A total of 212 patients who underwent computed tomography angiography (CTA) and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) were retrospectively included. We used three diagnostic modes to detect IAs with CTA: AI, physicians and AI + physicians. Taking the diagnostic results of DSA as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, mean reporting time, and interobserver consistency of the three diagnostic modes were calculated and compared at the patient and lesion levels.Results: Of 212 patients, 179 were diagnosed with IAs by DSA, and 224 IAs were analyzed. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the AI system in diagnosing aneurysms were 84.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 78.9-89.5%), 18.2% (95% CI, 8.2-34.8%) and 74.5% (95% CI, 68.3-80.0%) at the patient-level, and 77.2% (95% CI, 71.3-82.3%), 14.0% (95% CI, 6.2-27.6%) and 67.0% (95% CI, 61.2-72.4%) at the lesion-level, respectively. With AI assistance, junior physicians had the similar diagnostic performance as senior physicians at the patient (sensitivity 95.0% vs. 95.0%, specificity 48.5% vs. 57.6%, accuracy 87.7% vs. 89.2%, p = 0.690) and lesion levels (sensitivity 88.0% vs. 89.7%, specificity 32.0% vs. 38.0%, accuracy 77.8% vs. 80.3%, p = 1.000), especially for aneurysms < 5 mm (sensitivity 83.2% vs. 87.6%, specificity 60.0% vs. 63.2%, accuracy 75.4% vs. 78.9%, p = 0.424). The reporting efficiency of junior and senior physicians improved by 20.7% (141.1 ± 52.6 s to 111.9 ± 46.3 s, p = 0.004) and 18.8% (113.2 ± 42.5 s to 91.9 ± 41.2 s, p = 0.011), respectively.Conclusions: This 3D-CNN-based AI system significantly improved the accuracy and efficiency of physician detection of IA. The AI + physicians work mode could have a major influence on daily clinical practice and clinical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information of urban dynamics at fine spatiotemporal resolutions is crucial to urban growth modeling and sustainable urban development. However, there are still challenges in deriving the change information of urbanization in timing and location over a long period. In this study, we developed a framework to map urban expansion at an annual interval from 1985 to 2015 by using the time series of Landsat data. First, the time series of Landsat data (1985–2015) were grouped into three periods, i.e., 1985–2001, 2001–2011, and 2011–2015, according to the available National Land Cover Database (NLCD). Then, a temporal segmentation approach was implemented for each period using three indicators representing changes from vegetation, water, and bare land to urban. Turning years of the start and end of change were identified. Three temporal segments representing phases of prior change, change, and post change, were generated accordingly. Thereafter, urban extents before 2001 and after 2011 were classified using a change vector analysis (CVA) based approach aided by the NLCD and identified temporal segments. Finally, urbanized pixels in each period were determined according to the identified turning years. Our approach of temporal segmentation is reliable for detecting changes caused by urban growth, with an overall accuracy of 90% in identifying turning years (±1 year). Using an independent validation sample set, the CVA based approach reaches an overall accuracy of 87%. The derived product of urban dynamics shows a relatively stable increment of urban growth in Des Moines and Ames, Iowa, US, and most urbanized areas were converted from vegetated lands within 2–3 years. The proposed framework is capable of mapping long-term dynamics of urban extents at an annual interval and the outcome is useful in effectively updating current products of urban extents and improving urban growth modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 (HPK1) is predominantly expressed in hematopoietic cells and is a negative regulator of T cell receptor (TCR) signaling. Recent studies have demonstrated that HPK1 is a promising therapeutic target for cancer immunotherapy. However, despite significant progress in the development of HPK1 inhibitors, none of them has been approved for cancer therapy. Development of HPK1 inhibitors with a structurally distinct scaffold is still needed. Herein, we describe the design and synthesis of a series of HPK1 inhibitors with a 7 H -pyrrolo[2,3- d ]pyrimidine scaffold, exemplified by 31. Compound 31 showed potent inhibitory activity against HPK1 with an IC 50 value of 3.5 nM and favorable selectivity within a panel of kinases. It also potently inhibited the phosphorylation level of SLP76, a substrate of HPK1, and enhanced the IL-2 secretion in Jurkat cells (human T cell leukemia). Our findings provide new clues for further optimization and development to generate HPK1 inhibitors for cancer immunotherapy. [Display omitted] • A potent inhibitor of HPK1 was designed, synthesized and evaluated. • Compound 31 showed an IC 50 value of 3.5 ± 0.7 nM against HPK1. • Compound 31 inhibited the phosphorylation of SLP76 in Jurkat cells. • Compound 31 significantly enhanced the secretion level of IL-2 in Jurkat cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil spills in the ocean pollute and harm the marine environment. Remote sensing has been widely used to examine and analyze marine oil spills. Refractive index is an important parameter for monitoring, evaluating, and mitigating marine oil spills, but its quantitative detection through remote sensing is still in the exploratory stages. In this study, we developed a quantitative inversion model at a pixel-scale to determine the equivalent refractive index (ERI) of the sea surface. The proposed model involved two important steps. First, we performed simulation experiments and found that the multi-angle Fresnel reflection coefficient ratio is not sensitive to the refractive index, which was further verified via real image geometry. Second, we proposed a sun glitter (SG) correction method by reanalyzing wind data and seawater refractive index in the background seawater area as constraints. High-resolution multi-angle sun glitter (MSG) images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer sensor were used to estimate the ERI. The ERI images with the resolution same as that of the original images (15 m) exhibited significant spatial variability. The estimated ERI exhibited a reasonable range as compared to the existing oil spill refractive index data in relevant literature, which were derived from laboratory measurements and through remote sensing inversion. Finally, the sensitivities of the SG correction model and multi-angle Fresnel ratio model were discussed. The results show that the MSG images can estimate high-resolution ERI of sea surface that plays a significant role in the observations of marine oil spills. • The ratio of multi-angle Fresnel coefficient is insensitive to refractive index. • A model is developed to estimate sea surface equivalent refractive index (ERI). • Multi-angle sun glitter (SG) images from ASTER are used to estimate ERI. • The evaluation results show the estimated ERI in two oil spills are reasonable. • A new method for the correction of multi-angle SG images is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aggregation behavior of the cationic drug/anionic surfactant vesicles formed by tetracaine hydrochloride (TH) and double-chain surfactant, sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate (AOT), was investigated. By controlling the molar ratio of TH to AOT, a transition from catanionic vesicles to micelles was observed. The catanionic aggregates exhibited different charge properties, structures, interaction enthalpies and drug release behaviors depending on the composition. To characterize the cationic drug/anionic surfactant system, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), conductivity, turbidity and zeta potential (ζ) measurements were performed. The drug release results indicate that the present drug-containing catanionic vesicles have promising applications in drug delivery systems. Furthermore, the percentage of drug distributed in the catanionic vesicles or micelles can be obtained by comparing the cumulative release of the corresponding aggregates with the pure drug solution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]