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The underlying mechanisms and diagnostic biomarkers for the progress of COVID-19 in HIV patients have not been fully elucidated. In this study, the aim is to analyze the metabolomic profiles of HIV/AIDS patients co-infected with SARS-CoV-2 and to identify biomarkers indicative of co-infection. In this study, we conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of peripheral blood samples collected from 30 HIV/AIDS patients co-infected with SARS-CoV-2 (pc group) and 30 patients without SARS-CoV-2 (nc group). In this study, through non-targeted metabolomics and lipidomics analysis, 77 differential metabolites were identified in the plasma of patients co-infected with HIV and SARS-CoV-2 compared to the nc group, with vitamin K1 emerging as a significant feature. Moreover, the plasma of the pc group showed disturbances in lipid metabolism, with elevated triglycerides (TG) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) and decreased phosphatidylglycerol (PG) compared to the control group. Vitamin K1 may be a biomarker for SARS-CoV-2 in HIV/AIDS patients, and changes in the levels of TG, PC, and PG molecules appear to be the main features following HIV co-infection with COVID-19. The emphasis in our study is on the power of using comprehensive metabolomics (lipidomics) approaches to identify metabolic biomarkers and potential mechanisms of COVID-19 in HIV/AIDS patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the problem of dense object counting. In dense scenes, variations in object scales and uneven distributions greatly hinder counting accuracy. The current methods, whether CNNs with fixed convolutional kernel sizes or Transformers with fixed attention sizes, struggle to handle such variability effectively. Lower-resolution features are more sensitive to larger objects closer to the camera, while higher-resolution features are more efficient for smaller objects further away. Thus, preserving features that carry the most relevant information at each scale is crucial for improving counting precision. Motivated by this, we propose a multi-resolution scale feature fusion-based universal density counting network (MRSNet). It utilizes independent modules to process high- and low-resolution features, adaptively adjusts receptive field sizes, and incorporates dynamic sparse attention mechanisms to optimize feature information at each resolution, by integrating optimal features across multiple scales into density maps for counting evaluation. Our proposed network effectively mitigates issues caused by large variations in object scales, thereby enhancing counting accuracy. Furthermore, extensive quantitative analyses on six public datasets demonstrate the algorithm's strong generalization ability in handling diverse object scale variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Granuloma is a crucial pathological feature of tuberculosis (TB). The relationship between CD4+ T cells in both peripheral blood and granulomatous tissue, and the integrity of granulomas in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)–MTB co-infection, remains unexplored. This study collected biopsy specimens from 102 TB patients (53 with HIV-MTB co-infection and 49 only with TB). Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and immunohistochemical staining were performed, followed by microscopic examination of the integrity of tuberculous granulomas. Through statistical analysis of peripheral blood CD4+ T cell counts, tissue CD4+ T cell proportion, and the integrity of granulomas, it was observed that HIV infection leads to poor formation of tuberculous granulomas. Peripheral blood CD4+ T cell counts were positively correlated with granuloma integrity, and there was a similar positive correlation between tissue CD4+ T cell proportions and granuloma integrity. Additionally, a positive correlation was found between peripheral blood CD4+ T cell counts and the proportion of CD4+ T cells in granuloma tissues. Therefore, HIV infection could impact the morphology and structure of tuberculous granulomas, with a reduced proportion of both peripheral blood and tissue CD4+ T lymphocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolution of road freight transport in the context of Industry 4.0, focusing on management practices and technological advancements in transport and logistics companies' management information systems. By analyzing the latest international practices in road freight quality management within Industry 4.0 through regression and correlation methods, a model highlighting the significant influence of quality over price and institutional factors on the development of information and communication technology (ICT) goods exports was developed. It showcases how digital frameworks, alongside AI and big data, can enhance road freight quality in Industry 4.0, establishing a digital ecosystem for transport and logistics quality management. This study introduces a novel perspective on managing road freight transport as a digital ecosystem, offering insights into improving ICT goods exports in Kazakhstan by enhancing management information systems. It suggests a new management information system organization scheme to increase road freight quality management efficiency and ensure quality in Industry 4.0 settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant polyphenols with a catechol structure can form covalent adducts with meat proteins, which affects the quality and processing of meat products. However, there is a lack of fast and effective methods of characterizing these adducts and understanding their mechanisms. This study aimed to investigate the covalent interaction between myofibrillar protein (MP) and caffeic acid (CA), a plant polyphenol with a catechol structure, using molecular probe technology. The CA-MP adducts were separated via sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and detected via Western blot and LC-MS/MS analyses. The Western blot analysis revealed that various specific adducts were successfully enriched and identified as bands around 220 kDa, 45 kDa, and two distinct bands between 95 and 130 kDa. Combined with the LC-MS/MS analysis, a total of 51 peptides were identified to be CA-adducted, corresponding to 31 proteins. More than 80% of the adducted peptides carried one adducted site, and the rest carried two adducted sites. The adducted sites were located on cysteine (C/Cys), histidine (H/His), arginine (R/Arg), lysine (K/Lys), proline (P/Pro), and N-terminal (N-Term) residues. Results showed that the covalent interaction of CA and MP was highly selective for the R side chain of amino acids. Moreover, the adducts were more likely to form via C-N bonding than C-S bonding. This study provides new insights into the covalent interaction of plant polyphenols and meat proteins, which has important implications for the rational use of plant polyphenols in the meat processing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesh quality is a major factor affecting the structure of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations. Traditional mesh quality evaluation is based on the geometric factors of the mesh cells and does not effectively take into account the defects caused by the integrity of the mesh. Ensuring the generated meshes are of sufficient quality for numerical simulation requires considerable intervention by CFD professionals. In this paper, a Transformer-based network for automatic mesh quality evaluation (Gridformer), which translates the mesh quality evaluation into an image classification problem, is proposed. By comparing different mesh features, we selected the three features that highly influence mesh quality, providing reliability and interpretability for feature extraction work. To validate the effectiveness of Gridformer, we conduct experiments on the NACA-Market dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that Gridformer can automatically identify mesh integrity quality defects and has advantages in computational efficiency and prediction accuracy compared to widely used neural networks. Furthermore, a complete workflow for automatic generation of high-quality meshes based on Gridformer was established to facilitate automated mesh generation. This workflow can produce a high-quality mesh with a low-quality mesh input through automatic evaluation and optimization cycles. The preliminary implementation of automated mesh generation proves the versatility of Gridformer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathological remodeling is the main detrimental complication after myocardial infarction (MI). Overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in infarcted myocardium may contribute to this process. Adequate exercise training after MI may reduce oxidative stress-induced cardiac tissue damage and remodeling. SET and MYND domain containing 1 (Smyd1) is a muscle-specific histone methyltransferase which is upregulated by resistance training, may strengthen sarcomere assembly and myofiber folding, and may promote skeletal muscles growth and hypertrophy. However, it remains elusive if Smyd1 has similar functions in post-MI cardiac muscle and participates in exercise-induced cardioprotection. Accordingly, we investigated the effects of interval treadmill exercise on cardiac function, ROS generation, Smyd1 expression, and sarcomere assembly of F-actin in normal and infarcted hearts. Adult male rats were randomly divided into five groups (n = 10/group): control (C), exercise alone (EX), sham-operated (S), MI induced by permanent ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery (MI), and MI with interval exercise training (MI + EX). Exercise training significantly improved post-MI cardiac function and sarcomere assembly of F-actin. The cardioprotective effects were associated with increased Smyd1, Trx1, cTnI, and α-actinin expression as well as upregulated ratio of phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)/AMPK, whereas Hsp90, MuRF1, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) expression, ROS generation, and myocardial fibrosis were attenuated. The improved post-MI cardiac function was associated with increased Smyd1 expression. In cultured H9C2 cardiomyoblasts, in vitro treatment with H2O2 (50 µmol/L) or AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) agonist (AICAR, 1 mmol/L) or their combination for 4 h simulated the effects of exercise on levels of ROS and Smyd1. In conclusion, we demonstrated a novel role of Smyd1 in association with post-MI exercise-induced cardioprotection. The moderate level of ROS-induced upregulation of Smyd1 may be an important target for modulating post-MI cardiac function and remodeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the first industrial revolution, urbanization level worldwide has increased rapidly. As the largest developing country in the world, China has witnessed a rapid improvement in its urbanization level in recent years. Nevertheless, the quality of urbanization has not been improved simultaneously. The relationship between the level and the quality of urbanization has thus become a hot topic for researchers. By introducing the concept and model of decoupling in the field of resources and environment into the analysis of urbanization level and quality, this study evaluated the relationship between urbanization level and urbanization quality of 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2014. It was found that: (1) The urbanization level and urbanization quality in China are unbalanced because the former is growing in a faster rate than the latter. The average urbanization level of China has increased by 27.40% from 42.99% in 2005 to 54.77% in 2014, while the increase of urbanization quality, however, is much slower with only 11.21% for the same period. It can be concluded that China has paid more attention to urbanization level than urbanization quality. (2) From 2005 to 2014, the relationship between China's urbanization level and quality showed a total of eight decoupling states, of which the main ones were strong negative decoupling (non-ideal state) and growth negative decoupling (close to ideal state), accounting for 38.32% and 33.49% of the total number of samples in China, respectively. (3) The change of urbanization level and urbanization quality in China can be divided into two stages: for the first stage from 2005 to 2010, with rapid improvement in urbanization level, and the other from 2011 to 2014, with rapid improvement in urbanization quality. (4) Spatially, the areas with significant decoupling between urbanization level and urbanization quality are mainly distributed in underdeveloped areas such as the west; and the decoupling presents the spatial pattern of the highest in the west, the second in the middle, and the lowest in the east. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is the carrier of the production and living activities of human society and the basis of survival and development of all living organisms. With the continuous development of the social economy, the unreasonable use of land is becoming more and more serious, aggravating the deterioration of the ecological environment. Most studies in this field have mainly focused on land use changes and the corresponding impacts on the ecological environment, but relatively few studies have delinked the relationship between land use intensity and the ecological environment. Based on data on these two factors for Gansu Province from 1998 to 2017, we used the Tapio decoupling model to evaluate the decoupling relationship between land use intensity and ecological environment. From 1998 to 2017, the comprehensive land use intensity in Gansu province increased by 107.77%, and the comprehensive ecological environment index increased by 63.76%. In general, the relationship between land use intensity and ecological environment experienced five states, namely weak decoupling, strong negative decoupling, strong decoupling, expansive negative decoupling, and declining decoupling. During 1999–2013 and 2013–2016, land use intensity and ecological environment had decoupled, and the main reasons were as follows: (1) The Chinese government introduced a series of farmland protection policies and measures, controlled the area of newly added construction land, and reduced urban land expansion; (2) ecological restoration projects for mountains, forests, fields, lakes, and grassland strengthened the environmental protection in Gansu Province; and (3) in the process of economic development, the increased investment of technology and capital improved the land use efficiency, finally realizing the "double growth" of land use intensity and environmental quality. Based on these results, land use intensity and environmental quality are not necessarily contradictory, and a moderate improvement of land use efficiency and environmental protection can probably result in increased land use intensity and higher environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new and eco-friendly mussel-inspired surface modification pathway for bamboo fiber (BF) is presented in this study. The self-assembly polydopamine (PDA) coating can firmly adhere on BF surface, which also serves as a bridge to graft octadecylamine (ODA) for hydrophobic surface preparation. The as-formed PDA/ODA hybrid layer could supply abundant hydrophobic long-chain alkyls groups and generated a marked increase in BF surface roughness and a marked decrease in surface free energy. These changes provided advantages to improve fiber–matrix interfacial adhesion and wettability. Consequently, high performance was achieved by incorporating the hybrid modified BF into the polybutylene succinate (PBS) matrix. The resultant composite exhibited excellent mechanical properties, particularly tensile strength, which markedly increased by 77.2%. Meanwhile, considerable high water resistance with an absorption rate as low as 5.63% was also achieved. The gratifying macro-performance was primarily attributed to the excellent interfacial adhesion attained by hydrogen bonding and physical intertwining between the PDA/ODA coating on the BF and the PBS matrix, which was further determined by fracture morphology observations and dynamic mechanical analysis. Owing to the superior adhesive capacity of PDA, this mussel-inspired surface modification method may result in wide-ranging applications in polymer composites and be adapted to all natural fibers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a synergistic treatment including dopamine (DA) modification and alkali pretreatment on bamboo fiber (BF) was used as reinforcement in a polylactic acid (PLA) matrix to improve the mechanical and thermal properties of BF/PLA composites. The effects of the sodium hydroxide loading rate on the performance of mussel-inspired dopamine-modified bamboo fiber and the BF/PLA composites were evaluated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), mechanical testing (examining flexural, tensile, and impact properties), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Analysis of the composites suggested that the optimal condition was treatment with a 4 wt % solution of NaOH and a 1 wt % concentration of dopamine. Compared with the untreated bamboo fiber/polylactic acid composites, the synergistic treatment improved the thermal properties and mechanical properties; flexural, tensile, and impact strengths increased by 16.1%, 34.4%, and 3.7%, respectively. It was further verified that appropriate alkali treatment was a promising approach in promoting the effect of dopamine-modified coating while maintaining the crystal structure of the cellulose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]