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Bletilla striata , a perennial herbaceous orchid, has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. Recently, a leaf spot disease on B. striata , resulting in plant mortality, was observed in Guangxi Province, China. In order to determine the pathogen causing the disease, we employed a conventional pathogen isolation method and conducted pathogenicity test. Based on morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses of the combined sequences of ITS, LSU, RPB2 , and TUB2 genes, the pathogenic fungus was identified as Epicoccum latusicollum. Koch's postulates, which were fulfilled by the re-isolation of the pathogens from inoculated plants and their re-identification, confirmed that E. latusicollum is the causal agent of the disease. This study contributes to the knowledge of diseases on B. striata and provides valuable information for the identification and prevention of the leaf spot disease caused by E. latusicollum. • Epicoccum latusicollum was identified as the causal agent of leaf spot on Bletilla striata. • The identification was confirmed by a multi-locus (ITS, LSU, RPB2 , and TUB2 genes) concatenated phylogenetic analysis. • This is the first report of E. latusicollum causing leaf spot on B. striata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ascending aortic aneurysm (AsAA) is a high-risk cardiovascular disease with an increased incidence over years. In this study, we compared different risk factors based on the pre-failure behavior (from a biomechanical point of view) obtained ex-vivo from an equi-biaxial tensile test. A total of 100 patients (63 ± 12 years, 72 males) with AsAA replacement, were recruited. Equi-biaxial tensile tests of AsAA walls were performed on freshly sampled aortic wall tissue after ascending aortic replacement. The aneurysmal aortic walls were divided into four quadrants (medial, anterior, lateral, and posterior) and two directions (longitudinal and circumferential) were considered. The stiffness was represented by the maximum Young modulus (MYM). Based on patient information, the following subgroups were considered: age, gender, hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia, diabetes, smoking history, aortic insufficiency, aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease, aortic diameter and aortic valve type. In general, when the aortic diameter increased, the aortic wall became thicker. In terms of the MYM, the longitudinal direction was significantly higher than that in the circumferential direction. In the multivariant analysis, the impact factors of age (p = 0.07), smoking (p = 0.05), diabetes (p = 0.03), aortic stenosis (p = 0.02), coronary artery disease (p < 10−3), and aortic diameters (p = 0.02) were significantly influencing the MYM. There was no significant MYM difference when the patients presented arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, or bicuspid aortic valve. To conclude, the pre-failure aortic stiffness is multi-factorial, according to our population of 100 patients with AsAA. Our research on the topic of "Aortic local biomechanical properties in case of ascending aortic aneurysms" is about the biomechanical properties on one hundred aortic samples according to the aortic wall quadrants and the direction. More than ten factors and risks which may impact ascending aortic aneurysms have been studied. According to our knowledge, so far, this article involved the largest population on this topic. It will be our pleasure to share this information with all the readers. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A dual-FPIs for simultaneous monitoring high temperature and strain is demonstrated. • A package is introduced, enabling it to resist external pollution and disturbances. • The high temperature and strain sensing characteristics of the sensor are analyzed. • The miniature tip-packaged dual-FPIs performs a good repeatability and stability. • The high temperature hysteresis errors are measured and analyzed. A miniature tip-packaged dual-FPIs sensor featuring an extremely simple fabrication process is introduced and experimentally demonstrated for simultaneously measuring high-temperature and strain. Under the specific splicing parameters, a piece of suspended-core fiber with micron-scale dimensions and the single-mode fiber are spliced, forming the effective part of the sensor, which includes an air cavity and a silica cavity. Due to the disparate temperature responses (silica cavity: 7.31 pm/°C at 25–300 °C, 16.08 pm/°C at 300–800 °C; air cavity: 0 pm/°C) and strain responses (silica cavity:1.23 pm/µε; air cavity: 3.97 pm/µε) of these two cavities, simultaneous measurement of both parameters could be realized through coefficient matrix demodulation. Repeatability and high-temperature stability of this sensor within 5.5 ℃ have been verified, while the maximum hysteresis error of 0.205 nm has been analyzed. This miniature sensor exhibits excellent repeatability and stability, rendering it appropriate for an extensive array of practical applications in harsh environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A high-temperature fiber sensor based on cascaded FPIs and the harmonic Vernier effect is proposed, fabricated by only splicing and cleaving. • The beam interference occurs in a closed structure. Thus the sensor can be directly applied to high temperature measurement in harsh environments. • The reflected spectra exhibit distinct characteristics depending on the direction of incident light. • This sensor can achieve a high temperature sensitivity without any temperature-sensitive material and maintain a good temperature stability. A highly-sensitive miniature sensor based on cascaded FPIs and the harmonic Vernier effect is proposed for high-temperature measurement. The package-free sensor is fabricated by only cleaving and splicing single-mode fiber (SMF), suspended core fiber (SCF), and hollow core fiber (HCF). By carefully adjusting the lengths of SCF and HCF, the Vernier effect and harmonic Vernier effect are generated on two sensors built by the same method, respectively. The reflected spectra exhibit distinct characteristics depending on the direction of incident light. Leveraging on the harmonic Vernier effect, the sensor of this type could achieve the highest sensitivity of 109.72 pm/℃ and maintain a maximum temperature fluctuation of only 4.12 ℃ under 800 ℃ without any temperature-sensitive material. In addition, the repeatability has been verified and the hysteresis errors have been analyzed. This miniature sensor exhibits excellent repeatability and stability, making it well-suited for high-temperature measurements in harsh environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water quality in Lake Pontchartrain was deteriorating and recreational activities along the beach were restricted by the end of the 20th Century. A microbial source tracking (MST) study was conducted to determine the fecal contamination sources at public beach of the lake, so that effective pollution control strategies can be developed. Water samples were collected over an eight-month period at ten locations along the lake in 2016 and 2017. E. coli and Enterococcus were detected in 90.6% (culture) and 97.5% (qPCR), 95.8% (culture) and 91.8% (qPCR) of water samples from all sampling sites, respectively. Significant positive relationship between E. coli and Enterococcus results was observed for both qPCR and culture methods. HF183 marker was detected in 94.3% water samples (149 of 158), with concentrations ranging from 29.0 to 6073.5 GC/100 ml and from 129.8 to 38,465.6 GC/100 ml in summer and winter, respectively. The results also indicate that significant rainfall events have the potential to supply considerable loads of fecal bacteria to lake waters. Further research is needed to determine the contribution of other animals to fecal contamination in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] PdO x species are mainly dispersed on Al2O3-rich grains surface in fresh catalysts. [•] PdO x species migrate to (Ce,Zr) x O2-rich grains surface after aging treatment due to Pd-(Ce,Zr) x O2 interaction. [•] Interaction between PdO x species and (Ce,Zr) x O2 promotes the thermal stability. [•] Co-precipitation preparation method improves catalysts thermal stability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] PdO x species maintain oxidized state and good thermal stability on Pd–Ce interface. [•] PdO x species migrate from Al2O3-rich grains to ceria-based oxide surface after aging treatment. [•] Pd/Ce0.67Zr0.33O2–Al2O3 catalyst shows good thermal stability. [•] Surface reaction of CO, HC and NO x on the catalysts has been studied in detail by in-situ drifts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• XG and KG increased the peak viscosity and final viscosity of MRS. • XG and KG strengthened starch gel formation of MRS. • G' and G'' of MRS increased in the presence of KG and XG. • The summation of SDS and RS decreased in the presence of KG. The effects of different concentrations of xanthan and konjac gums on the pasting, rheological properties, microstructure, crystallinity, and digestibility of mung bean resistant starch (MRS) were investigated. Based on the results of pasting properties, the adjunction of gums increased the peak, breakdown, and final viscosities of resistant starch. Compared with resistant starch, the addition of gum significantly increased the K value and dynamic moduli (G', G") of MRS with increasing gum concentration. This finding indicates that the mixtures had higher viscoelasticity. Mixtures with xanthan gum of MRS had larger starch particle compared with MRS, as revealed by SEM. All starches showed B and V-type crystallinity with high crystallinity. MRS had the highest summation of resistant starch (RS) and slowly digestible starch (SDS) of 71.89%. MRS had the lowest hydrolysis rate, which obviously decreased from 71.89% to 57.71% with increasing konjac gum from 0 to 0.30%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and performance evaluation of the high-speed railway (HSR) communications are inseparable from the accurate and efficient high-speed channel simulator. The variation on path loss, shadowing and fast fading are the key characteristics of HSR channels. Although finite-state Markov chain (FSMC) channel models have been extensively investigated to describe fading channels, most of the previous channel simulators cannot reflect all the above key characteristics. In this paper, we propose a novel FSMC model based on channel simulator with the path loss, shadowing and fast fading in HSR. The accurate closed-form expression of state transition probabilities between channel states is derived to break the simplified assumption of first-order Markov chain. To validate the accuracy of the new FSMC channel simulator, the comparison analysis between the proposed channel simulator and the actual measurements are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4D flow MRI allows the analysis of hemodynamic changes in the aorta caused by pathologies such as thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA). For personalized management of TAA, new biomarkers are required to analyze the effect of fluid structure iteration which can be obtained from 4D flow MRI. However, the generation of these biomarkers requires prior 4D segmentation of the aorta. To develop an automatic deep learning model to segment the aorta in 4D from 4D flow MRI. Segmentation is addressed with a U-Net based segmentation model that treats each 4D flow MRI frame as an independent sample. Performance is measured with respect to Dice score (DS) and Hausdorff distance (HD). In addition, the maximum and minimum surface areas at the level of the ascending aorta are measured and compared with those obtained from cine-MRI. The segmentation performance was 0. 90 ± 0. 02 for the DS and the mean HD was 9. 58 ± 4. 36 mm. A correlation coefficient of r = 0.85 was obtained for the maximum surface and r = 0.86 for the minimum surface between the 4D flow MRI and cine-MRI. The proposed automatic approach of 4D aortic segmentation from 4D flow MRI seems to be accurate enough to contribute to the wider use of this imaging technique in the analysis of pathologies such as TAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study evaluated the antiviral effect of Verapamil against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and investigated its underlying mechanism. RSV-infected BALB/c mice were treated with Verapamil. Body weight, survival rates, viral load, lung damage, inflammatory factors, and the expression of RSV fusion (F) protein were analyzed. In cellular studies, intracellular Ca2+ and viral titers were measured in the presence of Verapamil, Calcium Chloride, and EGTA. A time-of-addition assay assessed the antiviral effect of Verapamil. Mice infected with RSV and treated with Verapamil exhibited a significant decrease in weight loss, an increase in survival rates, and reductions in viral titers, RSV F protein expression, inflammatory responses, and lung tissue injury. Verapamil reduced intracellular calcium levels, which correlated with reduced viral titers. The addition of calcium chloride reversed the anti-viral effects mediated by Verapamil, while EGTA potentiated them. The antiviral activity of Verapamil was observed during the early phase of RSV infection, likely by blocking Ca2+ channels and inhibiting virus replication. Verapamil effectively inhibits RSV infection by blocking calcium channels and reducing intracellular calcium levels, thereby impeding viral replication. Thus, Verapamil shows promise as a treatment for RSV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a built-in input matching technique capable of handling a wide variation of multi-array thermoelectric generator (TEG) impedances, from 5 Ω to 2.7 K Ω , which is called internal-resistance-adaptive (IRA) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique. The IRA circuit and delay synthesis circuit in the IRA-MPPT can track the dynamic changes of the internal resistance of the energy source in real time, and transmit the optimized switching time to the switching transistor to maximize the end-to-end efficiency (η E–E). The circuit is designed and simulated using 0. 18 μ m technology. An improvement of 23.23%@(R S = 2.7 K Ω , V S = 0.6 V) in η E–E is achieved with the proposed technique. Furthermore, the simulation results show that a higher than 46%@(R S = 5 Ω , V S = 0.03 V) efficiency can be achieved over an input resistance (R S) range of 5 Ω –2.7 K Ω and an power range of 12 μ W–50 mW with a 95.52%@(R S = 100 Ω , V S = 1 V) peak efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Surgery under high-dose propofol anesthesia could reduce memory loss compared to low-dose propofol anesthesia. • Surgery under low-dose propofol anesthesia could depolymerize actin cytoskeleton in hippocampus. • Surgery under high-dose propofol anesthesia could maintain the polymerization of actin in hippocampus. Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is a common postoperative complication observed in patients following. Here we tested the molecular mechanisms of memory loss in hippocampus of rat POCD model. We found that high-dose propofol anesthesia significantly alleviated spatial memory loss. The proteomes and transcriptomes in hippocampus showed that hippocampal cytoskeleton related pathways were abnormal in low group while not in high group. The protein assays confirmed that hippocampal actin cytoskeleton was depolymerized in low group while maintained in high group. This study confirms that high-dose propofol anesthesia could mitigate the development of POCD and provides evidences for actin cytoskeleton associated with this syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A slow-light interferometer with a footprint as small as 1.5 mm × 4 mm is proposed. • By introducing the MKR slow light into interferometer, the phase sensitivity of the interferometer is improved. • The slow light interferometer has a larger bandwidth of slow light. • The transmission and phase sensitivity of slow-light interferometer are analyzed theoretically and experimentally. High sensitivity interferometers are key building blocks in many areas of optical and photonic devices. In this letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a new scheme for improving the phase sensitivity of interferometer by using slow light in a microknot resonator (MKR). The slow-light interferometer with a footprint of 1.5 mm × 4 mm is fabricated by using microfiber with a diameter of 5.6 μm. By coupling MKR to one arm of the interferometer, the slow light is introduced to enhance the phase sensitivity of the interferometer. The experimental results show that the MKR has a Q-factor of 13520, and the time delay of slow light at resonance frequency is 28 ps. The phase sensitivity of Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with slow light is 25.54 rad/THz, which is 10.4 times that of a MZI without slow light. The proposed hybrid structure has the advantages of easy fabrication, small footprint, high sensitivity and wide slow light bandwidth, allowing for potential applications in miniaturization of spectrometer and high sensitivity sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brackish water samples from Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana were assessed for the presence of pathogenic amoeba Naegleria fowleri , which causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). In our study, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods were used to determine N. fowleri , E. coli , and enterococci in water collected from Lake Pontchartrain. N. fowleri target sequence was detected in 35.4% (56/158) of the water samples from ten sites around the lake. Statistically significant positive correlations between N. fowleri concentration and water temperature as well as E. coli (qPCR) were observed. Multiple linear regression (MLR) model shows seasonal factor (summer or winter) has significant effect on the concentration of N. fowleri , E. coli and enterococci (qPCR) concentration. Significant positive relationships between E. coli and enterococci was observed from both qPCR ( r = 0.25) and culture based method ( r = 0.54). Meanwhile, significant positive correlation between qPCR and culture based methods for enterococci concentration was observed ( r = 0.33). In our study, water temperature and E. coli concentration were indicative of N. fowleri concentrations in brackish water environment. Future research is needed to determine whether sediment is a source of N. fowleri found in the water column. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to contribute to a better knowledge of the dehydration and rehydration of blended SCMs(SF, FA, GGBS, LS)-cement pastes. To this end, a comprehensive experimental program combining QXRD, TG, SEM, isothermal calorimetry, MIP and mechanical tests was performed. The thermal activation temperature (TAT) has a significant influence on the rehydration properties of recycled blended cement (RBC) pastes, in particular, different optimum TAT was obtained in different RBC with various precursor components, resulting in pastes with different microstructure and mechanical properties. The RBC paste is formed by a 'dual structure' composed by internal hydration products (rehydrated from porous RBC particles) and external hydration products (surrounding dispersed particles, primarily AFt and AFm). The reformation of C(-A)-S-H from the thermal-activated dehydrated amorphous phases is found to be responsible for the reactivity and strength gain of the RBC as a binder. • Rehydration mechanisms of different RBC groups from different precursor materials were found to be different. • Different optimum TATs were obtained for different RBC, resulting different microstructure and mechanical properties. • The RBC paste is formed by a 'dual structure' composed by internal and external hydration products. • Rehydration of dehydrated amorphous C(-A)-S-H phases was responsible for the reactivity and strength gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]