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Water pollution seriously affects the development of society and human life. There are various kinds of pollutants, including soluble pollutants and insoluble floaters on the water surface. Herein, the photocatalyst semiconductor BiOCl and superhydrophobic functional particles Mg(OH)2 were deposited on the surfaces of canvas and polyester felt to construct superhydrophobic canvas and polyester felt. The contact angles of the synthetic superhydrophobic canvas and polyester felt were measured as 152° and 155.3°, respectively. The selective adsorption of hexadecane was achieved using the wetting difference between the surface of water and pollutants floating on the surface. For dissolved pollutants, the surface wettability needed to be changed with the help of ethanol. The degradation efficiencies were all greater than 90%, demonstrating the versatility of the synthetic superhydrophobic canvas and polyester felt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alpine grassland is one of the most fragile and sensitive ecosystems, and it serves as a crucial ecological security barrier on the Tibetan Plateau. Due to the combined influence of climate change and human activities, the degradation of the alpine grassland in Gannan Prefecture has been increasing recent years, causing increases in ecological risk (ER) and leading to the grassland ecosystem facing unprecedented challenges. In this context, it is particularly crucial to construct a potential grassland damage index (PGDI) and assessment framework that can be used to effectively characterize the damage and risk to the alpine grassland ecosystem. This study comprehensively uses multi-source data to construct a PGDI based on the grassland resilience index, landscape ER index, and grass–livestock balance index. Thereafter, we proposed a feasible framework for assessing the comprehensive ER of alpine grassland and analyzed the responsive relationship between the comprehensive ER and comprehensive ecosystem services (ESs) of the grassland. There are four findings. The first is that the comprehensive ER of the alpine grassland in Gannan Prefecture from 2000–2020 had a low distribution in the southeast and a high distribution trend in the northwest, with medium risk (29.27%) and lower risk (27.62%) dominating. The high-risk area accounted for 4.58% and was mainly in Lintan County, the border between Diebu and Zhuoni Counties, the eastern part of Xiahe County, and the southwest part of Hezuo. Second, the comprehensive ESs showed a pattern of low distribution in the northwest and high distribution in the southeast. The low and lower services accounted for only 9.30% of the studied area and were mainly distributed in the west of Maqu County and central Lintan County. Third, the Moran's index values for comprehensive ESs and ER for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 were −0.246, −0.429, −0.348, −0.320, and −0.285, respectively, thereby indicating significant negative spatial autocorrelation for all aspects. Fourth, ER was caused by the combined action of multiple factors. There are significant differences in the driving factors that affect ER. Landscape index is the first dominant factor affecting ER, with q values greater than 0.25, followed by DEM and NDVI. In addition, the interaction between diversity index and NDVI had the greatest impact on ER. Overall, this study offers a new methodological framework for the quantification of comprehensive ER in alpine grasslands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stem canker and black scurf of potatoes, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, are economically important diseases. Although the field application of sodium silicate has been shown to improve potato's resistance against R. solani, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we examined this resistance using transcriptomic analysis. Potato stems inoculated with R. solani were treated with sodium silicate, while a control group received no sodium silicate treatment. The plants were grown under natural environmental conditions at the farm of Inner Mongolia Agricultural University. Potato stems were sampled 4, 8, and 12 days after treatment. Total RNA was extracted using the TRIzol reagent and transformed into cDNA. The cDNA was sequenced, the reads were aligned, and the expression levels of genes were quantified and compared between the treated and control groups. A total of 1491 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Furthermore, these DEGs were found to be involved in hydrolase activity, plant–pathogen interactions, hormone signal transduction, and the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway. To confirm the up- and down-regulation of DEGs, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was performed on randomly selected genes. The results showed that the application of sodium silicate induces a complex defense network in potato plants involving physical barriers, innate immunity, phytohormone signaling, and various phenylpropanoid compounds to combat R. solani infection. This study provides valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying sodium-silicate-induced resistance and its potential for reducing stem canker and black scurf in potato crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leptosphaerulina leaf spot, caused by Leptosphaerulina trifolii, is a major disease of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), leading to noticeable losses. From 2022 to 2023, we collected samples of alfalfa with symptoms of the disease from different locations in Inner Mongolia, China. Nine fungal isolates recovered from these samples were identified through morphological traits and a maximum likelihood phylogeny based on concatenated partial sequences of ITS, 28S, and rpb2. A pathogenicity test on alfalfa confirmed the pathogenicity of the isolates on alfalfa. Analysis of physiological traits of L. trifolii revealed optimal mycelium growth at 20 °C and a pH range of 5 to 7, with soluble starch as the preferred carbon source and yeast extract as the optimal nitrogen source. The pathogen thrived in V8-juice agar and oat agar media. This study confirms L. trifolii as the causative agent of Leptosphaerulina leaf spot of alfalfa in Inner Mongolia and provides valuable insights into its optimal growth conditions. These findings enhance the understanding and management of this disease in alfalfa fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweet clover (Melilotus albus) is a high-quality leguminous forage grass with salinity tolerance, drought tolerance, and cold hardiness. We selected four varieties of sweet clover with different sensitivities (061898, 061930, No. 55 white flower, and Ningxia white flower) and analyzed the effects of different concentrations of three sodium salts (Na2CO3, NaHCO3, and NaCl) on their physiology and biochemistry responses. Growth and development indexes (such as germination rate, root length, shoot length), chlorophyll content, osmotic regulators (proline, soluble sugar), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT) were determined under saline–alkali stress. Seed germination and seedling growth of all four clover species were significantly inhibited under saline–alkali stress. During germination, seed germination rate, root length, and shoot length decreased with increasing saline and alkaline concentration. Under saline–alkali stress, chlorophyll content tended to increase and then decrease, cell damage and death increased, and malondialdehyde, soluble sugar, and proline content tended to increase and then decrease. Moreover, the activities of SOD, POD, and CAT all increased and then decreased. Under Na2CO3 stress, the decrease in chlorophyll content of the resistant variety 061898 was less than in the sensitive Ningxia white flower variety. As the concentrations of Na2CO3, NaHCO3, and NaCl increased, the maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII was significantly affected. The resistant 061898 is capable of maintaining higher photosynthetic efficiency. Furthermore, under treatments with the three kinds of saline–alkali solutions, cell damage and death for Ningxia white flower were greater than in 061898. For 061898, the increases in soluble sugar and proline content were greater and the increase in malondialdehyde content was less, while the antioxidant enzyme activities were higher than those in Ningxia white flower. All four sweet clover varieties had higher stress resistance with neutral than with alkaline salts. When stressed by medium to high saline–alkali concentrations, sweet clover seedlings had increased osmotic substance content, enhanced antioxidant enzyme activity, and regulated physiological metabolism. Additionally, sweet clovers regulated the expression of WRKY33, GH3, CYCD3, OXI1, MKK2, MYC2, JAZ, COI1, PYL, PP2C, TGA, and MPK3 to adapt to the saline–alkali environment and improve saline–alkali tolerance. Our analysis of the sweet clover salinity tolerance mechanism contributes to its further use and is of significant importance for addressing land salinization and promoting sustainable agricultural and pastoral practices in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacillus subtilis, a probiotic bacterium with engineering potential, is widely used for the expression of exogenous proteins. In this study, we utilized the integrative plasmid pDG364 to integrate the hemagglutinin–neuraminidase (HN) gene from Newcastle disease virus (NDV) into the genome of the B. subtilis 168 model strain. We successfully constructed a recombinant B. subtilis strain (designated B. subtilis RH) that displays a truncated HN antigen fragment on the surface of its spores and further evaluated its immunogenic effects in mice. Using ELISA, we quantified the levels of IgG in serum and secretory IgA (sIgA) in intestinal contents. The results revealed that the recombinant B. subtilis RH elicited robust specific mucosal and humoral immune responses in mice. Furthermore, B. subtilis RH demonstrated potential mucosal immune adjuvant properties by fostering the development of immune organs and augmenting the number of lymphocytes in the small intestinal villi. Additionally, the strain significantly upregulated the relative expression of inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ in the small intestinal mucosa. In conclusion, the B. subtilis RH strain developed in this study exhibits promising mucosal immunogenic effects. It holds potential as a candidate for an anti-NDV mucosal subunit vaccine and offers a novel preventive strategy for the poultry industry against this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) is a key pathogen of periodontitis. Increasing evidence shows that P. gingivalis signals to mitochondria in periodontal cells, including gingival epithelial cells, gingival fibroblast cells, immune cells, etc. Mitochondrial dysfunction affects the cellular state and participates in periodontal inflammatory response through the aberrant release of mitochondrial contents. In the current review, it was summarized that P. gingivalis induced mitochondrial dysfunction by altering the mitochondrial metabolic state, unbalancing mitochondrial quality control, prompting mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and regulating mitochondria-mediated apoptosis. This review outlines the impacts of P. gingivalis and its virulence factors on the mitochondrial function of periodontal cells and their role in periodontitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial from the International Journal of Molecular Sciences discussing the advances in targeted cancer therapy and mechanisms of resistance. The article highlights that drug resistance is a significant clinical challenge in cancer treatment and is caused by the genetic heterogeneity of cancer cells. The tumor microenvironment and immune response also play a critical role in cancer progression and resistance to immunotherapy. The editorial presents a special issue featuring 13 papers that cover various aspects of clinical discovery, resistance mechanisms, and novel therapeutics in cancer treatment. The aim is to inspire researchers to develop effective solutions to overcome drug resistance and improve clinical outcomes for cancer patients. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates the microstructures and deformation mechanism of hetero-structured pure Ti under different high strain rates (500 s−1, 1000 s−1, 2000 s−1). It has been observed that, in samples subjected to deformation, the changes in texture are minimal and the rise in temperature is relatively low. Therefore, the influence of these two factors on the deformation mechanism can be disregarded. As the strain rate increases, the dominance of dislocation slip decreases while deformation twinning becomes more prominent. Notably, at a strain rate of 2000 s−1, nanoscale twin lamellae are activated within the grain with a size of 500 nm, which is a rarely observed phenomenon in pure Ti. Additionally, martensitic phase transformation has also been identified. In order to establish a correlation between the stress required for twinning and the grain size, a modified Hall–Petch model is proposed, with the obtained value of K t w i n serving as an effective metric for this relationship. These findings greatly enhance our understanding of the mechanical responses of Ti and broaden the potential applications of Ti in dynamic deformation scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG), the only current vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) that is licensed in clinics, successfully protects infants and young children against several TB types, such as TB meningitis and miliary TB, but it is ineffective in protecting adolescents and adults against pulmonary TB. Thus, it is a matter of the utmost urgency to develop an improved and efficient TB vaccine. In this milieu, virus-like particles (VLPs) exhibit excellent characteristics in the field of vaccine development due to their numerous characteristics, including but not limited to their good safety without the risk of infection, their ability to mimic the size and structure of original viruses, and their ability to display foreign antigens on their surface to enhance the immune response. In this study, the HPV16 L1 capsid protein (HPV16L1) acted as a structural vaccine scaffold, and the extracellular domain of Ag85B was selected as the M. tb immunogen and inserted into the FG loop of the HPV16 L1 protein to construct chimeric HPV16L1/Ag85B VLPs. The chimeric HPV16L1/Ag85B VLPs were produced via the Pichia pastoris expression system and purified via discontinuous Optiprep density gradient centrifugation. The humoral and T cell-mediated immune response induced by the chimeric HPV16L1/Ag85B VLP was studied in female C57BL/c mice. We demonstrated that the insertion of the extracellular domain of Ag85B into the FG loop of HPV16L1 did not affect the in vitro stability and self-assembly of the chimeric HPV16L1/Ag85B VLPs. Importantly, it did not interfere with the immunogenicity of Ag85B. We observed that the chimeric HPV16L1/Ag85B VLPs induced higher Ag85B-specific antibody responses and elicited significant Ag85B-specific T cell immune responses in female C57BL/c mice compared with recombinant Ag85B. Our findings provide new insights into the development of novel chimeric HPV16L1/TB VLP-based vaccine platforms for controlling TB infection, which are urgently required in low-income and developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In saline and salinity-affected soils, the global productivity and sustainability of cotton are severely affected by soil salinity. High salt concentrations hinder plant growth and yield formation mainly through the occurrence of osmotic stress, specific ion toxicity, and nutritional imbalance in cotton. A number of agronomic practices have been identified as potential solutions to alleviate the adverse effects induced by salinity. While genetic breeding holds promise in enhancing the salinity tolerance of cotton, agronomic practices that improve the root zone environment, ameliorate soil conditions, and enhance salinity tolerance are currently considered to be more practical. This compressive review highlights the effectiveness of agronomic practices, such as furrow seeding, plastic mulching, their combination, densely planting, and the appropriate application of fertilizer and plant growth regulators, in mitigating the negative impact of salinity on cotton. By implementing these agronomic practices, cotton growers can improve the overall performance and resilience of cotton crops in saline and salinity-affected soils. This review provides valuable insights into practical agronomic measures that can be adopted to counteract the adverse consequences of soil salinity on cotton cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weeds seriously affect the yield and quality of crops. Because manual weeding is time-consuming and laborious, the use of herbicides becomes an effective way to solve the harm caused by weeds in fields. Both 5-enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate synthetase (EPSPS) and acetyltransferase genes (bialaphos resistance, BAR) are widely used to improve crop resistance to herbicides. However, cotton, as the most important natural fiber crop, is not tolerant to herbicides in China, and the EPSPS and BAR family genes have not yet been characterized in cotton. Therefore, we explore the genes of these two families to provide candidate genes for the study of herbicide resistance mechanisms. In this study, 8, 8, 4, and 5 EPSPS genes and 6, 6, 5, and 5 BAR genes were identified in allotetraploid Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense, diploid Gossypium arboreum and Gossypium raimondii, respectively. Members of the EPSPS and BAR families were classified into three subgroups based on the distribution of phylogenetic trees, conserved motifs, and gene structures. In addition, the promoter sequences of EPSPS and BAR family members included growth and development, stress, and hormone-related cis-elements. Based on the expression analysis, the family members showed tissue-specific expression and differed significantly in response to abiotic stresses. Finally, qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the expression levels of GhEPSPS3, GhEPSPS4, and GhBAR1 were significantly upregulated after exogenous spraying of herbicides. Overall, we characterized the EPSPS and BAR gene families of cotton at the genome-wide level, which will provide a basis for further studying the functions of EPSPS and BAR genes during growth and development and herbicide stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purchasing decisions of consumers increasingly incorporate considerations of freshness and the carbon footprint of agri-foods. This study aims to investigate the impact of consumer preferences on decision-making behavior within dual-channel supply chains. Specifically, it classifies the structure of the supply chain channels into two types: producer-led and seller-led online channels, and examines two distinct decision-making scenarios: centralized and decentralized decision-making. The study applies the game theory modeling method to analyze the differences in the selling prices, freshness, low carbon levels, and profits of agri-foods in these scenarios. The findings indicate that as consumer preference for the online channel grows, it becomes more challenging to sell homogeneous agri-foods at higher prices through physical (entity) channels. Moreover, the introduction of online channels by sellers leads to higher selling prices for agri-foods in the supply chain under decentralized decision-making compared to centralized decision-making, and the freshness and low carbon level of agri-foods primarily depend on the cost structure of the supply chain. From the perspective of enhancing produce quality, promoting low carbon development, and attaining high-quality products at a reasonable price, centralized decision-making within the supply chain and seller-led online channels are more advantageous. However, it is important to note that pursuing these benefits may result in a certain amount of sacrifice in terms of supply chain profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial–temporal prediction is an important part of a great number of applications, such as urban traffic control, urban traffic management, and urban traffic planning. However, real-world spatial–temporal data often have complex patterns, so it is still challenging to predict them accurately. Most existing spatial–temporal prediction models fail to aggregate the spatial features in a suitable neighborhood during fixed spatial dependencies extraction and lack adequately comprehensive time series analysis for intricate temporal dependencies. This paper proposes a novel model named multi-scale spatial–temporal transformer network (MSSTTN) to deal with intricate spatial–temporal patterns. Firstly, we develop an improved graph wavelet neural network, which learns how to pass the spatial graph signals of different frequency scales to adjust the neighborhood of feature aggregation adaptively. Then, we propose decomposing the time series into local trend-cyclical parts of various scales during time series analysis, making the model capture more reliable temporal dependencies. The proposed model has been evaluated on publicly available real-world datasets. The experimental findings indicate that the proposed model exhibits superior performance compared to conventional techniques including, spatial–temporal transformer (STTNs), GraphWaveNet, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of plant sap flow has long been a traditional method for quantifying transpiration. However, conventional direct measurement methods are often costly and complex, thereby limiting the widespread application of tree sap flow monitoring techniques. The concept of a Virtual Measurement Instrument (VMI) has emerged in response to this challenge by combining simple instruments with Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to indirectly assess specific measurement objects. This study proposes a tree sap flow estimation method based on environmental factors and AI algorithms. Through the acquisition of environmental factor data and the integration of AI algorithms, we successfully achieved indirect measurement of tree sap flow. Accounting for the time lag response of the flow to environmental factors, we constructed the Magnolia denudata sap flow estimation model using the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Random Forest (RF), Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN), and Long Short-Term Memory network (LSTM) algorithms. The research results showed that the LSTM model demonstrated greater reliability in predicting sap flow velocity, with R2 of 0.957, MAE of 0.189, MSE of 0.059, and RMSE of 0.243. The validation of the target tree yielded an R2 of 0.821 and an error rate of only 4.89% when applying the model. In summary, this sap flow estimation method based on environmental factors and AI provides new insights and has practical value in the field of tree sap flow monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-energy-level dynamic compaction method is widely used in various foundation treatment projects, but its reinforcement mechanism still lags behind the practice. In view of this, a three-dimensional fluid–solid coupling dynamic analysis model was established on the basis of the FDM–DEM coupling method. The variation trends of crater depth, soil void ratio, vertical additional dynamic stress, and pore water pressure during the process of dynamic compaction were analyzed. The results indicate that the curvature of the crater depth fitting curve gradually decreases with the increase in strike times, tending to a stable value. The initial particle structure is altered by the huge dynamic stress induced by dynamic compaction. As strike times increase, the soil void ratio decreases gradually. The vertical additional dynamic stress is the fundamental reason resulting in foundation compaction. Precipitation preloading before dynamic compaction can improve the reinforcement effect of dynamic compaction, making up for the deficiency that the vertical additional dynamic stress attenuates rapidly along the depth direction. The simulated CPT results illustrate that the modulus of foundation soil can be increased by 3–5 times after dynamic compaction. The research results can provide important reference for similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated the effects of different hydrogen bond types on the photophysical properties of diethylamino hydroxybenzoyl hexyl benzoate (DHHB) by systematically exploring the changes in the spectral properties of DHHB in protic and aprotic solvents. The formation and stability of hydrogen bonds were also studied, demonstrating that the system mainly existed in the form of intramolecular hydrogen bonds at low concentrations (≤5 μg/mL). In these circumstances, the fluorescent intensity, and molar absorption coefficient changed little, indicating that the intramolecular hydrogen bonds had little effect on the spectral properties of DHHB. With an increase in concentration, the number of intermolecular hydrogen bonds increased and the molar absorption coefficient significantly increased, indicating that the intermolecular hydrogen bonds were conducive to improving the UV absorption properties of DHHB. With an increase in temperature, the molar absorption coefficient of the system decreased, which reduced the UV absorption performance of DHHB. In the protic solvent, the system also contained DHHB–solvent intermolecular hydrogen bonds. With an increase in the proportion of protic solvent in the system, the fluorescent intensity of the system significantly decreased, and the UV integral area significantly increased, indicating that the hydrogen bond between DHHB and the solvent molecules was beneficial in terms of improving the UV absorption performance of DHHB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lane detection is a crucial task in the field of autonomous driving, as it enables vehicles to safely navigate on the road by interpreting the high-level semantics of traffic signs. Unfortunately, lane detection is a challenging problem due to factors such as low-light conditions, occlusions, and lane line blurring. These factors increase the perplexity and indeterminacy of the lane features, making them hard to distinguish and segment. To tackle these challenges, we propose a method called low-light enhancement fast lane detection (LLFLD) that integrates the automatic low-light scene enhancement network (ALLE) with the lane detection network to improve lane detection performance under low-light conditions. Specifically, we first utilize the ALLE network to enhance the input image's brightness and contrast while reducing excessive noise and color distortion. Then, we introduce symmetric feature flipping module (SFFM) and channel fusion self-attention mechanism (CFSAT) to the model, which refine the low-level features and utilize more abundant global contextual information, respectively. Moreover, we devise a novel structural loss function that leverages the inherent prior geometric constraints of lanes to optimize the detection results. We evaluate our method on the CULane dataset, a public benchmark for lane detection in various lighting conditions. Our experiments show that our approach surpasses other state of the arts in both daytime and nighttime settings, especially in low-light scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several experimental studies have suggested that individual essential metal(loid)s (EMs) could regulate the gut microbiota. However, human studies assessing the associations between EMs and gut microbiota are limited. This study aimed to examine the associations of individual and multiple EMs with the compositions of the gut microbiota in older adults. A total of 270 Chinese community-dwelling people over 60 years old were included in this study. Urinary concentrations of selected EMs, including vanadium (V), cobalt (Co), selenium (Se), strontium (Sr), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and molybdenum (Mo), were examined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The gut microbiome was assessed using the 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. The zero-inflated probabilistic principal components analysis PCA (ZIPPCA) model was performed to denoise substantial noise in microbiome data. Linear regression and the Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression (BKMR) models were utilized to determine the associations between urine EMs and gut microbiota. No significant association between urine EMs and gut microbiota was found in the total sample, whereas some significant associations were found in subgroup analyses: Co was negatively associated with the microbial Shannon (β = −0.072, p < 0.05) and the inverse-Simpson (β = −0.045, p < 0.05) indices among urban older adults; Ca (R2 = 0.035) and Sr (R2 = 0.023) exhibited significant associations with the altercations of beta diversity in females, while V (R2 = 0.095) showed a significant association with altercations of beta diversity in those who often drank. Furthermore, the associations between partial EMs and specific bacterial taxa were also found: the negative and linear associations of Mo with Tenericutes, Sr with Bacteroidales, and Ca with Enterobacteriaceae and Lachnospiraceae, and a positive and linear association of Sr with Bifidobacteriales were found. Our findings suggested that EMs may play an important role in maintaining the steady status of gut microbiota. Prospective studies are needed to replicate these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop rotation and intercropping are important ways to increase agricultural resource utilization efficiency and crop productivity. Alternate intercropping, or transposition intercropping, is a new intercropping pattern in which two crops are intercropped in a wide strip with planting positions switched annually on the same land. Transposition intercropping combines intercropping and rotation and thus performs better than either practice alone. Compared with traditional intercropping or rotation, it can increase yield and net return by 17–21% and 10–23%, respectively, and the land equivalent ratio (LER) by 20% to 30%. In crop growth and development, a balanced root–shoot relation is essential to obtain satisfactory yields and yield quality. Intercropping, rotation, or the combination can alter the original root–shoot relation by changing the ecology and physiology of both root and shoot to achieve a rebalancing of the relation. The crop yield and yield quality are thus regulated by the root–shoot interactions and the resulting rebalancing. The review examines the effects of above- and belowground interactions and rebalancing of root–shoot relations on crop yields under cotton-based intercropping, rotation, and particularly alternate intercropping with the practices combined. The importance of signaling in regulating the rebalancing of root–shoot relations under intercropping, rotation, and the combination was also explored as a possible focus of future research on intercropping and rotation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The types of fractured-vuggy reservoirs are diverse, with dissolution holes and fractures of different scales as the main reservoir spaces. Clarifying the connectivity between wells is crucial for improving the recovery rate of fractured-vuggy reservoirs and avoiding problems of poor water- flooding balance and serious water channeling. A traditional dynamic connected model hardly describes the geological characteristics of multiple media, such as karst caves and fractures, which cause multiple solutions from the calculation. The static analysis is the basis for connectivity evaluation. In this study, we designed an intelligent search strategy based on an improved A* algorithm to automatically find a large-scale fractured-vuggy connected path by seismic multi-attribute analysis. The algorithm automatically evaluates the interwell-connected mode and clarifies the relationship between the static connected channel and the fractured-vuggy space configuration. Restricted by various factors, such as seismic identification accuracy, a static connectivity study can hardly determine the filling and half-filling inside the channel effectively, even if it can identify the main connectivity channels. An injection-production response analysis based on dynamic production data can more accurately reflect the reservoir's actual connectivity and degree of filling. This paper further studies dynamic response characteristics based on multifractals combined with production data. To reduce the evaluation uncertainty, we combined the static and dynamic connected analysis results to comprehensively evaluate the main connected modes, such as large fracture connectivity, cavern connectivity, and fractured-vuggy compound connectivity. We use the Tahe oilfield as an example to carry out an automatic evaluation of the connected pattern. The comprehensive evaluation results of the new algorithm were basically consistent with the tracer test results and can better reflect the interwell space-configuration relationship. Our model has certain guiding significance for the adjustment of working measures during waterflooding in fractured-vuggy reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operation process of a virtual power plant is affected by many uncertainties, and how to ensure its comprehensive operation quality is a pressing challenge. For the virtual power plant incorporating electric vehicles, the interval number is used to describe the stochastic fluctuation of system uncertainties, and the optimization objectives are to (1) improve the operating economy, environmental protection, and grid load smoothing, (2) build a multi-objective interval optimal dispatching model considering the constraints of power balance and equipment operating characteristics, (3) solve the Pareto solution set by adopting the improved NSGA-II algorithm incorporating extreme scenario analysis, and (4) determine the optimal dispatching solution by the hierarchical analysis method. The median values of the determined optimal target intervals are 6456.11 yuan, 9860.01 kg, and 2402.56 kW. The algorithm shows that the proposed optimal dispatching strategy can effectively improve the economy of the virtual power plant and ensure that environmental protection and grid load smoothing requirements are met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wormlike micelles, which are linear aggregates created by the self-assembly of surfactants, may entangle to form dynamic three-dimensional network-like structures, endowing solutions with considerable macroscopic viscoelasticity. Recently, a pressing need has arisen to research a novel stimuli-responsive worm-like micelle that is efficient and environmentally friendly. CO2 is an inexpensive, abundant, non-toxic, biocompatible, and non-combustible gas, and it is anticipated that CO2 may serve as the trigger for stimuli-responsive worm-like micelles. In this paper, the formation of CO2-switchable pseudo-tetrameric surfactants, which subsequently self-assemble into CO2-switched wormlike micelles, is accomplished using a simple mixing of two commercial reagents, such as stearic acids and cyclen. The rheological characteristics switched by the use of CO2 are cycled between that of a low-viscosity (1.2 mPa·s) fluid and a viscoelastic fluid (worm-like micelles, 3000 mPa·s). This article expands the field of study on stimuli-responsive worm-like micelles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Accurate preoperative cervical lymph node metastasis (CLNM) prediction in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients is essential for clinical treatment effectiveness, particularly for surgeons assessing the degree of surgical resection and the requirement for cervical lymph node dissection. As a result, a definite diagnosis of CLNM before surgery can assist the surgeon in selecting the best surgical technique and reducing the likelihood of reoperation. This research used several machine learning models based on clinical risk factors in conjunction with radiomics features to preoperatively evaluate CLNM in PTC patients, which can assist clinicians to choose a suitable treatment strategy for patients. We aim to develop a clinical-ultrasound radiomic (USR) model based on USR features and clinical factors for the evaluation of cervical lymph node metastasis (CLNM) in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). This retrospective study used routine clinical and US data from 205 PTC patients. According to the pathology results, the enrolled patients were divided into a non-CLNM group and a CLNM group. All patients were randomly divided into a training cohort (n = 143) and a validation cohort (n = 62). A total of 1046 USR features of lesion areas were extracted. The features were reduced using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient (PCC) and Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) with stratified 15-fold cross-validation. Several machine learning classifiers were employed to build a Clinical model based on clinical variables, a USR model based solely on extracted USR features, and a Clinical-USR model based on the combination of clinical variables and USR features. The Clinical-USR model could discriminate between PTC patients with CLNM and PTC patients without CLNM in the training (AUC, 0.78) and validation cohorts (AUC, 0.71). When compared to the Clinical model, the USR model had higher AUCs in the validation (0.74 vs. 0.63) cohorts. The Clinical-USR model demonstrated higher AUC values in the validation cohort (0.71 vs. 0.63) compared to the Clinical model. The newly developed Clinical-USR model is feasible for predicting CLNM in patients with PTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small Rho GTPase acts as a molecular switch in eukaryotic signal transduction, which plays a critical role in polar cell growth and vesicle trafficking. Previous studies demonstrated that constitutively active (CA) mutant strains, of MoRho3-CA were defective in appressorium formation. While dominant-negative (DN) mutant strains MoRho3-DN shows defects in polar growth. However, the molecular dynamics of MoRho3-mediated regulatory networks in the pathogenesis of Magnaporthe oryzae still needs to be uncovered. Here, we perform comparative transcriptomic profiling of MoRho3-CA and MoRho3-DN mutant strains using a high-throughput RNA sequencing approach. We find that genetic manipulation of MoRho3 significantly disrupts the expression of 28 homologs of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rho3-interacting proteins, including EXO70, BNI1, and BNI2 in the MoRho3 CA, DN mutant strains. Functional enrichment analyses of up-regulated DEGs reveal a significant enrichment of genes associated with ribosome biogenesis in the MoRho3-CA mutant strain. Down-regulated DEGs in the MoRho3-CA mutant strains shows significant enrichment in starch/sucrose metabolism and the ABC transporter pathway. Moreover, analyses of down-regulated DEGs in the in MoRho3-DN reveals an over-representation of genes enriched in metabolic pathways. In addition, we observe a significant suppression in the expression levels of secreted proteins suppressed in both MoRho3-CA and DN mutant strains. Together, our results uncover expression dynamics mediated by two states of the small GTPase MoRho3, demonstrating its crucial roles in regulating the expression of ribosome biogenesis and secreted proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a class of quintic systems is investigated. The first 13 focal values are computed with the aid of MATHEMATICA. Then the necessary conditions of integrability and linearizability are obtained and the sufficiency of every condition is proved. Meanwhile, bifurcation of limit cycles is discussed, 13 limit cycles can be bifurcated from the origin. As far as the number of limit cycles enclosing an isolated singular point is concerned, this is so far the best result for elementary singular points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the multi-pulse chaotic dynamics of a sandwich plate with truss core under transverse and in-plane excitations. In order to analyze the complicated nonlinear behaviors of the sandwich plate model by means of the improved extended Melnikov technique, the two-degrees non-autonomous system is transformed into an appropriate form. Through theoretical analysis, the sufficient conditions for the existence of multi-pulse homoclinic orbits and the criterion for the occurrence of chaotic motion are obtained. The damping coefficients and transverse excitation parameters are considered as the control parameters to discuss chaotic behaviors of the sandwich plate system. Numerical results and the maximal Lyapunov exponents are performed to further test the existence of the multi-pulse jumping orbits. The theoretical predictions and numerical results demonstrate that the chaos phenomena may exist in the parametrical excited sandwich plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is a crucial pathogenic mediator of inflammatory diseases. In tissue fibrosis, TGF-β regulates the pathogenic activity of infiltrated immunocytes and promotes extracellular matrix production via de novo myofibroblast generation and kidney cell activation. In cancer, TGF-β promotes cancer invasion and metastasis by enhancing the stemness and epithelial mesenchymal transition of cancer cells. However, TGF-β is highly pleiotropic in both tissue fibrosis and cancers, and thus, direct targeting of TGF-β may also block its protective anti-inflammatory and tumor-suppressive effects, resulting in undesirable outcomes. Increasing evidence suggests the involvement of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in TGF-β-driven tissue fibrosis and cancer progression with a high cell-type and disease specificity, serving as an ideal target for therapeutic development. In this review, the mechanism and translational potential of TGF-β-associated lncRNAs in tissue fibrosis and cancer will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic charging for electric vehicles has broad development prospects for meeting the personalized service experience of users while overcoming the inherent safety hazards. An identification and positioning approach suitable for engineering applications is the key to promoting automatic charging. In this paper, a low-cost, high-precision method to identify and position charging ports based on SIFT and SGBM is proposed. The feature extraction approach based on SIFT is adopted to produce the difference of Gaussian (DOG) for scale space construction, and the feature matching algorithm with nearest-neighbor search, which is a kind of machine learning, is utilized to yield the map set of matching points. In addition, the disparity calculation is conducted with a semi-global matching algorithm to obtain high-precision positioning results for the charging port. In order to verify the feasibility of the method, a complete identification and positioning experiment of charging port was carried out based on OpenCV and MATLAB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verticillium wilt (VW), a fungal disease caused by Verticillium dahliae, currently devastates cotton fiber yield and quality seriously, yet few resistance germplasm resources have been discovered in Gossypium hirsutum. The cotton variety Nongda601 with suitable VW resistance and high yield was developed in our lab, which supplied elite resources for discovering resistant genes. Early nodulin-like protein (ENODL) is mainly related to nodule formation, and its role in regulating defense response has been seldom studied. Here, 41 conserved ENODLs in G. hirsutum were identified and characterized, which could divide into four subgroups. We found that GhENODL6 was upregulated under V. dahliae stress and hormonal signal and displayed higher transcript levels in resistant cottons than the susceptible. The GhENODL6 was proved to positively regulate VW resistance via overexpression and gene silencing experiments. Overexpression of GhENODL6 significantly enhanced the expressions of salicylic acid (SA) hormone-related transcription factors and pathogenicity-related (PR) protein genes, as well as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and SA contents, resulting in improved VW resistance in transgenic Arabidopsis. Correspondingly, in the GhENODL6 silenced cotton, the expression levels of both phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) and 4-coumarate-CoA ligase (4CL) genes significantly decreased, leading to the reduced SA content mediating by the phenylalanine ammonia lyase pathway. Taken together, GhENODL6 played a crucial role in VW resistance by inducing SA signaling pathway and regulating the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). These findings broaden our understanding of the biological roles of GhENODL and the molecular mechanisms underlying cotton disease resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to propose an artificial neural network (ANN)-based tool for predicting the cantilever wall deflection in undrained clay. The excavation width, the excavation depth, the wall thickness, the at-rest lateral earth pressure coefficient, the soil shear strength ratio at mid-depth of the wall, and the soil stiffness ratio at mid-depth of the wall were selected as the input parameters, whereas the cantilever wall deflection was selected as an output parameter. A set of verified numerical data were utilized to train, test, and validate the ANN models. Two commonly used performance indicators, namely, root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE), were selected to evaluate the performance of the proposed model. The results indicated that the proposed model can reliably predict the cantilever wall deflection in undrained clay. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis showed that the excavation depth is the most important parameter. Finally, a graphical user interface (GUI) tool was developed based on the proposed ANN model, which is much easier and less expensive to be used in practice. The results of this study can help engineers to better understand and predict the cantilever wall deflection in undrained clay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction and H2 evolution from water, regarding renewable energy, has become one of the global solutions to problems related to energy consumption and environmental degradation. In order to promote the electrocatalytic reactivity, the study of the role of ligands in catalysis has attracted more and more attention. Herein, we have developed a copper (II) complex with redox-active ligand [Cu(L1)2NO3]NO3 (1, L1 = 2-(6-methoxypyridin-2-yl)-6-nitro-1h-benzo [D] imidazole). X-ray crystallography reveals that the Cu ion in cation of complex 1 is coordinated by two redox ligands L1 and one labile nitrate ligand, which could assist the metal center for catalysis. The longer Cu-O bond between the metal center and the labile nitrate ligand would break to provide an open coordination site for the binding of the substrate during the catalytic process. The electrocatalytic investigation combined with DFT calculations demonstrate that the copper (II) complex could homogeneously catalyze CO2 reduction towards CO and H2 evolution, and this could occur with great performance due to the cooperative effect between the central Cu (II) ion and the redox- active ligand L1. Further, we discovered that the added proton source H2O and TsOH·H2O (p-Toluenesulfonic acid) could greatly enhance its electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction and H2 evolution, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nickel cobalt manganese ternary cathode materials are some of the most promising cathode materials in lithium-ion batteries, due to their high specific capacity, low cost, etc. However, they do have a few disadvantages, such as an unstable cycle performance and a poor rate performance. In this work, polyethylene oxide (PEO) with high ionic conductance and flexibility was utilized as a multifunctional binder to improve the electrochemical performance of LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 cathode materials. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the addition of PEO can greatly improve the adhesion of the electrode components and simultaneously enhance the integrity of the electrode. Thus, the PEO-based electrode (20 wt% PEO in PEO/PVDF) shows a high electronic conductivity of 19.8 S/cm, which is around 15,000 times that of the pristine PVDF-based electrode. Moreover, the PEO-based electrode exhibits better cycling stability and rate performance, i.e., the capacity increases from 131.1 mAh/g to 147.3 mAh/g at 2 C with 20 wt% PEO addition. Electrochemical impedance measurements further indicate that the addition of the PEO binder can reduce the electrode resistance and protect the LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 cathode materials from the liquid electrolyte attack. This work offers a simple yet effective method to improve the cycling performance of the ternary cathode materials by adding an appropriate amount of PEO as a binder in the electrode fabrication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of how the host immune system thwarts bacterial evasive mechanisms remains incomplete. Here, we show that host protease neutrophil elastase acts on Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to destroy factors that prevent serum-associated, complement-directed killing. The protease activity also enhances bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics in sera. These findings implicate a new paradigm where host protease activity on bacteria acts combinatorially with the host complement system and antibiotics to defeat bacterial pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amorphous structures may play important roles in achieving highly efficient microwave absorption performance due to the polarization losses induced by the disorders, vacancies and other functional groups existed in them. Herein, a kind of amorphous TiO2/rGO composite (a-TiO2/rGO) was successfully fabricated via a facile one-step solvothermal method. The complex permittivity of the composites can be regulated by adjusting the addition of precursor solution. The minimum reflection loss of a-TiO2/rGO composites reached −42.8 dB at 8.72 GHz with a thickness of 3.25 mm, and the widest efficient absorption bandwidth (EAB) was up to 6.2 GHz (11.8 to 18 GHz) with a thickness of only 2.15 mm, which achieved the full absorption in Ku band (12 to 18 GHz). Furthermore, the EAB was achieved ranging from 3.97 to 18 GHz by adjusting the thickness of the absorber, covering 87.7% of the whole radar frequency band. It is considered that the well-matched impedance, various polarization processes, capacitor-like structure and conductive networks all contributed to the excellent microwave absorption of a-TiO2/rGO. This study provides reference on constructing amorphous structures for future microwave absorber researches and the as-prepared a-TiO2/rGO composites also have great potential owing to its facile synthesis and highly efficient microwave absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reservoir history matching is a well-known inverse problem for production prediction where enormous uncertain reservoir parameters of a reservoir numerical model are optimized by minimizing the misfit between the simulated and history production data. Gaussian Process (GP) has shown promising performance for assisted history matching due to the efficient nonparametric and nonlinear model with few model parameters to be tuned automatically. Recently introduced Gaussian Processes proxy models and Variogram Analysis of Response Surface-based sensitivity analysis (GP-VARS) uses forward and inverse Gaussian Processes (GP) based proxy models with the VARS-based sensitivity analysis to optimize the high-dimensional reservoir parameters. However, the inverse GP solution (GPIS) in GP-VARS are unsatisfactory especially for enormous reservoir parameters where the mapping from low-dimensional misfits to high-dimensional uncertain reservoir parameters could be poorly modeled by GP. To improve the performance of GP-VARS, in this paper we propose the Gaussian Processes proxy models with Latent Variable Models and VARS-based sensitivity analysis (GPLVM-VARS) where Gaussian Processes Latent Variable Model (GPLVM)-based inverse solution (GPLVMIS) instead of GP-based GPIS is provided with the inputs and outputs of GPIS reversed. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed GPLVM-VARS in terms of accuracy and complexity. The source code of the proposed GPLVM-VARS is available at https://github.com/XinweiJiang/GPLVM-VARS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs), an important part of Internet of things (IoT), have many promising applications in various scenarios. Signal transmission in natural soil undergoes path loss due to absorption, radiation, reflection and scattering. The variability and dynamic of soil conditions and complexity of signal attenuation behavior make the accurate estimation of signal path loss challenging. Two existing propagation models for predicting path loss are reviewed and compared. Friis model does not consider the reflection loss and is only applicable in the far field region. The Fresnel model, only applicable in the near field region, has not considered the radiating loss and wavelength change loss. A new two stage model is proposed based on the field characteristics of antenna and considers four sources of path loss. The two stage model has a different coefficient m in the near field and far field regions. The far field distance of small size antenna is determined by three criteria: 2 D2/λ, 5 D, 1.6 λ in the proposed model. The proposed two stage model has a better agreement with the field experiment data compared to Friis and Fresnel models. The coefficient m is dependent on the soil types for the proposed model in near field region. It is observed from experiment data that the m value is in the range of 0~0.20 for sandy soils and 0.433~0.837 for clayey silt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tumor vessels provide essential paths for tumor cells to escape from the primary tumor and form metastatic foci in distant organs. The vessel targeting strategy has been widely used as an important clinical cancer chemotherapeutic strategy for patients with metastatic tumors. Our review introduces the contribution of angiogenesis to tumor metastasis and summarizes the application of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vessel targeting drugs for metastatic tumors. We recommend the application and mechanisms of vascular targeting drugs for inhibiting tumor metastasis and discuss the risk and corresponding countermeasures after vessel targeting treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine rotavirus is a major cause of acute viral gastroenteritis in suckling piglets, and vaccination is considered to be an effective measure to control these infections. The development of a live mucosal vaccine using Bacillus subtilis spores as an antigen delivery vehicle is a convenient and attractive vaccination strategy against porcine rotavirus. In this study, a shuttle vector was constructed for the spore surface display of the spike protein VP8* from porcine rotavirus (the genotype was G5P[7]). A successful display of the CotB-VP8* fusion protein on the spore surface was confirmed by Western blot and immunofluorescence microscopy analysis. The capacity for immune response generated after immunization with the recombinant strain was evaluated in a mouse model. The intestinal fecal IgA and serum IgG were detected by enzyme-linked-immunosorbent serologic assay (ELISA). Importantly, recombinant strain spores could elicit strong specific mucosal and humoral immune responses. These encouraging results suggest that recombinant B. subtilis BV could provide a strategy for a potential novel application approach to the development of a new and safe mucosal subunit vaccine against porcine rotavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new flavonoids, calquiquelignan M (1), calquiquelignan N (2), along with nine known compounds (3–11), were isolated from the nuts of Areca catechu (Palmae). The new structures, including absolute configurations, were established by a combination of spectroscopic data and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculation. The known compounds were identified by comparing their spectroscopic data with reported in the literature. The flavonoids compounds (1–8) were evaluated for their cytotoxicity activities against three human cancer cell lines. Compounds 1 and 2 exhibited a moderate cytotoxic activity against HepG2 cell lines with IC50 values of 49.8 and 53.6 μM, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we studied the aggregation of amphiphilic polymer epoxy-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS-E) grafted gelatin (PGG) in water induced by methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, acetone, tetrahydrofuran (THF), and 1,4-dioxane. The aggregation pattern of the polymer was monitored by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. It was revealed that the aggregate morphology showed clear dependence on the solvent polarity. The PGG aggregates had regular spherical morphology in polar solvents, including water, methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, and acetone. The coating performance was evaluated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and friction experiment, and PGG and acetone coating exhibited excellent coating performance on the surface of pigskin. Gel was formed in acetone and tetrahydrofuran (THF) with the slow evaporation of solvent, and this property can possibly be applied to industrial sewage treatment. White precipitate and soft film were formed in non-polar 1,4-dioxane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyaniline has been widely used in high-performance pseudocapacitors, due to its low cost, easy synthesis, and high theoretical specific capacitance. However, the poor mechanical properties of polyaniline restrict its further development. Compared with polyaniline, functionalized carbon materials have excellent physical and chemical properties, such as porous structures, excellent specific surface area, good conductivity, and accessibility to active sites. However, it should not be neglected that the specific capacity of carbon materials is usually unsatisfactory. There is an effective strategy to combine carbon materials with polyaniline by a hybridization approach to achieve a positive synergistic effect. After that, the energy storage performance of carbon/polyaniline hybridization material has been significantly improved, making it a promising and important electrode material for supercapacitors. To date, significant progress has been made in the synthesis of various carbon/polyaniline binary composite electrode materials. In this review, the corresponding properties and applications of polyaniline and carbon hybrid materials in the energy storage field are briefly reviewed. According to the classification of different types of functionalized carbon materials, this article focuses on the recent progress in carbon/polyaniline hybrid materials, and further analyzes their corresponding properties to provide guidance for the design, synthesis, and component optimization for high-performance supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallel reservoir simulation is an important approach to solving real-time reservoir management problems. Recently, there is a new trend of using a graphics processing unit (GPU) to parallelize the reservoir simulations. Current GPU-aided reservoir simulations focus on compute unified device architecture (CUDA). Nevertheless, CUDA is not functionally portable across devices and incurs high amount of code. Meanwhile, domain decomposition is not well used for GPU-based reservoir simulations. In order to address the problems, we propose a parallel method with OpenACC to accelerate serial code and reduce the time and effort during porting an application to GPU. Furthermore, the GPU-aided domain decomposition is developed to accelerate the efficiency of reservoir simulation. The experimental results indicate that (1) the proposed GPU-aided approach can outperform the CPU-based one up to about two times, meanwhile with the help of OpenACC, the workload of the transplant code was reduced significantly by about 22 percent of the source code, (2) the domain decomposition method can further improve the execution efficiency up to 1.7×. The proposed parallel reservoir simulation method is a efficient tool to accelerate reservoir simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An approach is proposed to enhance the mechanical properties and work-hardening (WH) ability of low-alloy steels. Using asymmetric hot rolling (AHR) and subsequent direct quenching (DQ) prior to the quenching and partitioning (Q&P) process, an ultrafine-grained Q&P steel with excellent combination of tensile strength of ~1000 MPa and total elongation of ~35% was obtained, which exhibited high WH exponent at higher strain induced by the higher volume fraction and higher stability of film-like retained austenite located between the martensite laths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microstructure and mechanical properties of cold-rolled Fe-18Mn-3Al-3Si-0.03C transformation induced plasticity/twinning induced plasticity (TRIP/TWIP) steel in the temperature range of 25 to 600 °C were studied. The experimental steel exhibited a good combination of ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 905 MPa and total elongation (TEL) of 55% at room temperature. With the increase of deformation temperature from 25 to 600 °C, the stacking fault energy (SFE) of the experimental steel increased from 14.5 to 98.8 mJm−2. The deformation mechanism of the experimental steel is controlled by both the strain induced martensite formation and strain induced deformation twinning at 25 °C. With the increase of deformation temperature from 25 to 600 °C, TRIP and TWIP effect were inhibited, and dislocation glide gradually became the main deformation mechanism. The UTS decreased monotonously from 905 to 325 MPa and the TEL decreased (from 55 to 36%, 25–400 °C) and then increased (from 36 to 64%, 400–600 °C). The change in mechanical properties is related to the thermal softening effect, TRIP effect, TWIP effect, DSA, and dislocation slip. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B), which can directly dephosphorylate both the insulin receptor and insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1), thereby terminating insulin signaling, reportedly plays an important role in insulin resistance. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that O-GlcNAc modification regulates functions of several important components of insulin signal pathway. In this study, we identified that PTP1B is modified by O-GlcNAcylation at three O-GlcNAc sites (Ser104, Ser201, and Ser386). Palmitate acid (PA) impaired the insulin signaling, indicated by decreased phosphorylation of both serine/threonine-protein kinase B (Akt) and glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β) following insulin administration, and upregulated PTP1B O-GlcNAcylation in HepG2 cells. Compared with the wild-type, intervention PTP1B O-GlcNAcylation by site-directed gene mutation inhibited PTP1B phosphatase activity, resulted in a higher level of phosphorylated Akt and GSK3β, recovered insulin sensitivity, and improved lipid deposition in HepG2 cells. Taken together, our research showed that O-GlcNAcylation of PTP1B can influence insulin signal transduction by modulating its own phosphatase activity, which participates in the process of hepatic insulin resistance.

O-Linked N-acetylglucosamine, or O-GlcNAc, is a dynamic post-translational modification that cycles on and off serine and threonine residues of nucleocytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins. In addition to cancer and inflammation diseases, O-GlcNAc modification appears to play a critical role during cell apoptosis and stress response, although the precise mechanisms are still not very clear. Here we found that nitric oxide synthase adaptor (NOS1AP), which plays an important part in glutamate-induced neuronal apoptosis, carries the modification of O-GlcNAc. Mass spectrometry analysis identified Ser47, Ser183, Ser204, Ser269, Ser271 as O-GlcNAc sites. Higher O-GlcNAc of NOS1AP was detected during glutamate-induced neuronal apoptosis. Furthermore, with O-GlcNAc sites of NOS1AP mutated, the interaction of NOS1AP and neuronal nitric oxide syntheses (nNOS) decreases. Finally, during glutamate-induced neuronal apoptosis, decreasing the O-GlcNAc modification of NOS1AP results in more severe neuronal apoptosis. All these results suggest that O-GlcNAc modification of NOS1AP exerts protective effects during glutamate-induced neuronal apoptosis.