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Simple Summary: Different culturing modes have adopted different living spaces, foods, shelter, substrates, and surroundings for and human actions regarding animals. The Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) is one of most economically important turtles, and healthier culturing modes should be applied for high-quality aquatic products to remit serious environmental and health problems. The differences in growth performance, physiological indices, and related gene expression were compared between two culturing modes in the present study. The results indicated that rice–turtle-co-cultured turtles with limited natural foods grew slower than pond-cultured turtles fed with commercial feeds. The creatinine, uric acid, blood urea nitrogen, alkaline phosphatase, acid phosphatase, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase, and catalase were higher in co-cultured turtles than pond-cultured turtles. More differentially expressed genes were related to environmental information processing, metabolism, and human diseases when comparing pond-cultured turtles and co-cultured turtles. P. sinensis can adapt to different culture modes by adjusting their growth and physiology over a short culture period, and rice–turtle co-culturing proves to be a healthier culturing mode for turtles within the proper culturing strategies. The Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) is an important freshwater aquaculture turtle due to its taste and nutritional and medicinal value. More ecological culturing modes, such as rice–turtle co-culture, should be developed to meet the ecological benefit demand. We compared growth, physiological parameters, and transcriptome data to detect the physiological responses and regulatory mechanisms of pond-cultured turtles as compared to co-cultured turtles. The co-cultured turtles grew slower than pond-cultured turtles. The gonadosomatic index of co-cultured male turtles was lower than that of pond-cultured male turtles, and both the mesenteric fat index and limb fat index were lower in co-cultured turtles than in pond-cultured turtles (p < 0.05). The blood GLU of the co-cultured turtles was significantly lower than the GLU of the pond-cultured turtles (p < 0.05), while the values of CRE, UA, BUN, AKP, ACP, GOT, and CAT were higher in the co-cultured turtles than in the pond-cultured turtles (p < 0.05). In total, 246 and 598 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the brain and gut from turtles cultured in the two different modes, respectively. More DEGs were related to environmental information processing, metabolism, and human diseases. In the brain, the top enriched pathways of DEGs included the longevity regulating pathway, glycerolipid metabolism, cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, while in the gut, the top enriched pathways of DEGs included the cell cycle, DNA replication, cellular senescence, and p53 signaling pathway. The turtles acclimated to the different culturing conditions by adjusting their growth, physiological, and biochemical characteristics and related gene expression during a short culture period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactivating oil and gas wells, increasing oil and gas production, and improving recovery provide more opportunities for energy supply especially in the extraction of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. Due to changes caused by well completion and production in pore pressure around oil and gas wells, subsequently leading to changes in ground stress, and the presence of natural and induced fractures in the reservoir, the process of refracturing is highly complex. This complexity is particularly pronounced in shale oil reservoirs with developed weak layer structures. Through true triaxial hydraulic fracturing experiments on Jimsar shale and utilizing micro-CT to characterize fractures, this study investigates the mechanisms and patterns of refracturing. The research indicates: (1) natural fractures and the stress states in the rock are the primary influencing factors in the fracture propagation. Because natural fractures are widely developed in Jimsar shale, natural fractures are the main influencing factors of hydraulic fracturing, especially in refracturing, the existing fractures have a greater impact on the propagation of secondary fracturing fractures. (2) Successful sealing of existing fractures using temporary blocking agents is crucial for initiating new fractures in refracturing. Traditional methods of plugging the seam at the root of existing fractures are ineffective, whereas extensive injection of blocking agents, forming large "sheet-like" blocking bodies in old fractures, yields better sealing effects, promoting the initiation of new fractures. (3) Moderately increasing the pumping rate and viscosity of fracturing fluid is advantageous in forming "sheet-like" temporary blocking bodies, enhancing the complexity of the network of new fractures in refracturing. (4) When there is a high horizontal stress difference, after sealing old fractures, the secondary hydraulic fractures initiate parallel to and extend from the old fractures. In cases of low horizontal stress difference, the complexity of secondary hydraulic fractures increases. When the horizontal stress changes direction, the secondary hydraulic fractures also change direction. It is recommended to use high-viscosity fracturing fluid and moderately increase the pumping rate, injecting blocking agents to seal old fractures, thereby enhancing the complexity of the network of refracturing. These findings provide important technical guidance for improving the efficiency of shale oil reservoir development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ophiopogonis Radix, also known as "Maidong" (MD) in China, is frequently sulfur-fumigated (SF) in the pretreatment process of MD to improve the appearance and facilitate preservation. However, the process leads to changes in chemical composition, so it is essential to develop an approach to identify the chemical characteristics between nonfumigated and sulfur-fumigated products. This paper provided a practical method based on UPLC-QTOF-MS combined Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) with multivariate statistical analysis for the characterization and discrimination of MD with different levels of sulfur fumigation, high concentration sulfur fumigation (HS), low concentration sulfur fumigation (LS) and without sulfur fumigation (WS). First, a number of 98 compounds were identified in those MD samples. Additionally, the results of Principal component analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal partial least-squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) demonstrated that there were significant chemical differences in the chemical composition of MD with different degrees of SF. Finally, fourteen and sixteen chemical markers were identified upon the comparison between HS and WS, LS and WS, respectively. Overall, these results can be able to discriminate MD with different levels of SF as well as establish a solid foundation for further quality control and pharmacological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leukemia stem cells (LSCs) constitute the critical barrier to the cure of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) due to their chemoresistance and immune evasion property. Herein, the role of anlotinib, a multiple tyrosine kinase inhibitor, in killing LSCs and regulating chemoresistance and immune evasion was explored. Anlotinib treatment induced apoptosis of LSC-like cells as well as primary AML LSCs, while sparing the normal mononuclear cells in vitro. Moreover, anlotinib could impair the regeneration capacity of LSCs in the patient-derived leukemia xenograft mouse model. Mechanistically, anlotinib inhibited phosphorylation of c-kit, JAK2/STAT3, and STAT5, and downregulated STAT3 and STAT5 expression. In addition, anlotinib downregulated the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, and upregulated Bax, thereby enhancing the sensitivity of LSCs to idarubicin in vitro. Intriguingly, anlotinib could also partially rescue the interferon-g production of T cells cocultured with LSCs by downregulating PD-L1 expression. In conclusion, anlotinib showed anti-LSC activity and the potential to enhance the sensitivity to idarubicin and inhibit the immunosuppressive feature of LSCs via JAK2/STAT signaling pathway downregulation in the preclinical study. Our results provided a rational basis for combinatory strategies involving anlotinib and chemotherapy or immunotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical pressure CO2 in vertical heating tube with 10 mm inner diameter under high mass flux were investigated by using an SST k-ω turbulent model. The influences of inlet temperature, heat flux, mass flux, buoyancy and flow acceleration on the heat transfer of supercritical pressure CO2 were discussed. Our results show that the buoyancy and flow acceleration effect based on single phase fluid assumption fail to explain the current simulation results. Here, supercritical pseudo-boiling theory is introduced to deal with heat transfer of scCO2. scCO2 is treated to have a heterogeneous structure consisting of vapor-like fluid and liquid-like fluid. A physical model of scCO2 heat transfer in vertical heating tube was established containing a gas-like layer near the wall and a liquid-like fluid layer. Detailed distribution of thermophysical properties and turbulence in radial direction show that scCO2 heat transfer is greatly affected by the thickness of gas-like film, thermal properties of gas-like film and turbulent kinetic energy in the near-wall region. Buoyancy parameters Bu < 10−5, Bu* < 5.6 × 10−7 and flow acceleration parameter Kv < 3 × 10−6 in this paper, which indicate that buoyancy effect and flow acceleration effect has no influence on heat transfer of scCO2 under high mass fluxes. This work successfully explains the heat transfer mechanism of supercritical fluid under high mass flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]