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The kagome network is a unique platform that harbors a diversity of special electronic states due to its inherent band structure features comprising Dirac cones, van Hove singularities, and flat bands. Some kagome-based metals have recently been found to exhibit favorable properties, including superconductivity, charge order, and signatures of an anomalous Hall effect. The kagome system ScV6Sn6 is a promising candidate for studying the emergence of an unconventional charge order and accompanying effects. We use 51V nuclear magnetic resonance to explore the local properties of the charge ordered phase in single crystalline ScV6Sn6, aided by density functional theory. We show the local charge symmetry of V to reflect a commensurate modulation with q = 1 3 , 1 3 , 1 3 , the density of states to drop by about a factor of 2 during the phase transition, and an unusual orientation dependent change in the shift splitting symmetry to reveal orbital selective modulations of the local density of states. Kagome-lattice systems host a variety of condensed matter phenomena. Here, the authors use NMR spectroscopy to probe the orbital-selective modulations of the local density of states in the charge density wave phase of ScV6Sn6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show a new blow up criterion for regular solutions of the Navier–Stokes–Fourier system in terms of uniform bounds on the density and integral bounds on the absolute temperature. In comparison with the existing results, we remove the technical conditions relating the values of the shear and bulk viscosity coefficients. The result can be seen as a rigorous justification of Nash's conjecture concerning the character of possibly singularities in the equations of fluid dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the preparation of pre-alloyed powder and its effect on the properties of metal-bonded diamond tools were systematically studied. A co-precipitation process was used to prepare ultra-fine quaternary Cu-based pre-alloyed powder. The optimal parameters of preparing the precursor powder were precipitation temperature of 50 ℃ and reactant concentration of 1 mol/L. After the precursor powder was calcined and reduced by hydrogen, ultra-fine Cu-based pre-alloyed powder with an average particle size of about 0.55 μm was obtained and its main components were Cu, Fe, Ni, Cu–Sn, and Fe3Ni2. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of the bulks with pre-alloyed powders and the elemental metal powder mixture of equivalent composition were investigated. The results demonstrated that the mechanical properties of sintered bulks, including relative density, hardness and flexural strength, were improved using pre-alloyed powder. The optimal hardness and flexural strength values of the bulks with pre-alloyed powder were 110 HRB and 1056 MPa, respectively, which were 10.0% and 24.8% higher than those of the mixed powder matrix (100 HRB and 846 MPa). With the addition of diamond particles, the maximum flexural strength of the bulks reduced to 882 MPa, which was still 24.1% higher compared to the mixed powder matrix (711 MPa). In addition, the cutting ability of the diamond saw blade with pre-alloyed powder was superior to that with the elemental metal mechanical mixing powder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel miniaturized optical attenuator based on the evanescent-field coupling between two nanofibers. Benefiting from a wavelength-dependent waveguiding property of the coupled structure, a tunable attenuation with maximum extinction ratio of ~ 20 dB is demonstrated with an ultrawide optical bandwidth up to 0.7 μm in experiment. The wavelength-depended waveguiding properties of both one single nanofiber and coupled nanofibers are investigated in both theory and simulation. Using an adiabatic coupling structure, an attenuation range from − 0.16 dB to − 18.46 dB is obtained within a spectrum from 1.2 μm to 1.7 μm experimentally. Moreover, the simulated results indicate that, the attenuation only shows a slight change of ~ 0.1 dB with a lateral misalignment of 0.5 μm between the two nanofibers, indicating a high tolerance of this attenuator to the lateral misalignment. Considering the wide bandwidth as well as the ultracompact structure, this attenuator shows high potential in applications such as all-fiber optical sensing and communicating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a complex malignancy with poorly understood molecular mechanisms, necessitating the identification of genetic markers. Although Ubiquitin domain-containing protein 1 (UBTD1) has received significant attention in the study of human cancers, its specific role in CRC is yet to be fully clarified. This study sought to examine how UBTD1 expression was associated with various clinical and pathological characteristics of CRC, and to determine its prognostic significance and biological function, utilizing data from clinical samples and large-scale databases. Notably, UBTD1 expression was found to be upregulated in CRC, resulting in decreased survival rates and unfavorable clinical characteristics such as advanced T, N, and pathological stages. The findings of the multivariate Cox regression analysis illustrated that UBTD1 expression upregulation is a significant independent marker of unfavorable outcomes in CRC patients. An examination of the functional enrichment of UBTD1 and the genes it co-expresses indicated that it could serve as an oncogene by modulating the expression of genes implicated in crucial tumorigenesis pathways and functions. Additionally, immune cell infiltration analysis suggested a link between UBTD1 levels and various immune cells, particularly macrophages. In conclusion, the use of UBTD1 as a biomarker for both the prognosis and diagnosis of CRC has promising prospects for further investigation and therapeutic approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tetrandrine (TET) is a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid derived from Stephania tetrandra S. Moor, known for its potential use in attenuating the progression of silicosis. However, the precise effects and underlying mechanisms of TET remain controversial. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the pharmacological mechanism of TET using a network pharmacology approach, while also evaluating its effect on silica-induced lung fibrosis in mice and TGF-β1-stimulated pulmonary fibroblasts in vitro. We employed network pharmacology to unravel the biological mechanisms through which TET may exert its therapeutic effects on pulmonary fibrosis and silicosis. In a silica-induced mouse model of lung fibrosis, TET was administered orally either during the early or late stage of fibrotic progression. Additionally, we examined the effects of TET on fibroblasts stimulated by TGF-β1 in vitro. Through the analysis, we identified a total of 101 targets of TET, 7,851 genes associated with pulmonary fibrosis, and 80 overlapping genes. These genes were primarily associated with key pathways such as epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance, the vascular endothelial growth factor signaling pathway, and the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K)-protein kinase B (PKB or AKT) signaling pathway. Furthermore, molecular docking analysis revealed the binding of TET to AKT1, the catalytic subunit of phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase, and KDR. In vivo experiments demonstrated that TET significantly alleviated silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis and reduced the expression of fibrotic markers. Moreover, TET exhibited inhibitory effects on the migration, proliferation, and differentiation of TGF-β1-induced lung fibroblasts in vitro. Notably, TET mitigated silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis by suppressing the PI3K/AKT pathway. In conclusion, our findings suggest that TET possesses the ability to suppress silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis by targeting the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. These results provide valuable insights into the therapeutic potential of TET in the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis and silicosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on investigating the entire solutions to one certain type of non-linear binomial differential equations with respect to several problems posed by Gundersen and Yang. We also illustrate the exponential polynomials solutions to this equation. Some examples are used to illustrate our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A radiation-self-Fenton system without the addition of H2O2 was developed for the efficient degradation of organic pollutants. We synthesized nickel-based metal–organic framework (Ni-BTC) as a catalyst for the in-situ generation of abundant hydroxyl radicals (·OH) and H2O2 under X-ray excitation, and the latter was further converted to ·OH in the Fenton reaction to synergistically accelerate the Methylene blue (MB) degradation. The embedded nickel sites and confined layered structure contributed to the stabilization and enrichment of ·OH within the framework. Consequently, the system could completely decolorize 150 mL of MB (20 mg/L) by absorbing 90 Gy dose. This study provided a novel technology for wastewater treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clostridium perfringens is one of the critical causative agents causing diarrhea in piglets, with significant economic losses to the pig industry. Under normal gut microbiota homeostasis and well-managed barns, diarrhea caused by C. perfringens could be controlled. Some reports show that probiotics, such as Bacillus subtilis, are beneficial in preventing necrotic enteritis (NE) in chickens, but few reports on piglets. Clostridium perfringens was found in the piglets’ diarrhea with intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in our survey. Bacillus subtilis G2B9-Q, which was isolated from the feces of healthy pigs, was found to have anti-Clostridium activity after screening. Clostridium perfringens was used to challenge mice by intraperitoneal injection for modeling to evaluate the anti-infective activity of cell-free supernatant (CFS) of B. subtilis G2B9-Q and different concentrations of B. subtilis G2B9-Q by oral administration. The results showed that G2B9-Q can mitigate intestinal lesions caused by C. perfringens infection, reduce inflammatory reactions, and modulate intestinal microbiota. The CFS of G2B9-Q can alleviate the pathological damage of intestinal tissues caused by C. perfringens infection, reduce the concentration of TNF-α and IL-10 in the sera of mice, as well as the relative expression levels of alpha toxin (CPA), perfringolysin O (PFO) toxin, IL-10, IL-22, and TNF-α in the jejunum and colon tissues, and alleviate the changes in gut microbiota structure caused by C. perfringens infection, which showed better therapeutic effects and indicated that the metabolites of G2B9-Q are essential mediators for their beneficial effects. Therefore, the CFS of G2B9-Q could potentially replace antibiotics in treating C. perfringens infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association between breastfeeding and the occurrence of allergic rhinitis (AR) and food allergy (FA) in offspring remains inconclusive. This review aims to comprehensively explore the potential relationships between various patterns and durations of breastfeeding and allergic diseases in offspring. We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane, WOS databases, and Google Scholar for observational studies published up to March 30, 2023, that investigated the link between breastfeeding and allergies in offspring. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Pooled odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated employing an appropriate model based on the degree of heterogeneity. A total of 68 studies, encompassing 772,142 children, were ultimately included. The findings indicated that breastfeeding for more than 6 months was associated with a reduced risk of AR (OR = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.79 to 0.98) but posed a risk for FA (OR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.27 to 2.25). Exclusive breastfeeding exhibited a protective effect against AR (OR = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.90 to 0.97), whereas non-breastfeeding was identified as a risk factor for AR (OR = 1.48; 95% CI: 1.03 to 2.12). No significant association was observed between breastfeeding patterns and FA. Conclusion: Breastfeeding for more than 6 months proves to be an effective preventive measure against AR. However, large prospective high-quality studies are needed to investigate the potential risk of FA in children with prolonged breastfeeding. What is Known: • The impact of breastfeeding on allergic rhinitis and food allergy in offspring is controversial. • Previous meta-analyses fail to prove the effect of breastfeeding on food allergy in offspring of all ages. What is New: • Breastfeeding for more than 6 months proves to be an effective preventive measure against AR. However, it potentially elevates the risk of FA in children. Non-breastfeeding is linked to an increased risk of AR in children, but there is no evidence of an association between breastfeeding patterns and FA in children. • The impact of breastfeeding on allergic rhinitis and food allergy in offspring may vary with the time and pattern of breastfeeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an inland dryland lake basin, the rivers and lakes within the Lake Bosten basin provide scarce but valuable water resources for a fragile environment and play a vital role in the development and sustainability of the local societies. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, combined with the geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) technology, we used the index WI2019 to extract and analyze the water body area changes of the Bosten Lake basin from 2000 to 2021 when the threshold value is −0.25 and the slope mask is 8°. The driving factors of water body area changes were also analyzed using the partial least squares-structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The result shows that in the last 20 years, the area of water bodies in the Bosten Lake basin generally fluctuated during the dry, wet, and permanent seasons, with a decreasing trend from 2000 to 2015 and an increasing trend between 2015 and 2019 followed by a steadily decreasing trend afterward. The main driver of the change in wet season water bodies in the Bosten Lake basin is the climatic factors, with anthropogenic factors having a greater influence on the water body area of dry season and permanent season than that of wet season. Our study achieved an accurate and convenient extraction of water body area and drivers, providing up-to-date information to fully understand the spatial and temporal variation of surface water body area and its drivers in the basin, which can be used to effectively manage water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of Covid-19 has led to the need for institutions to provide online learning to their students. In this context, it is important to understand the views of both students and teachers regarding online classes. This study aims to explore the opinions of English teachers and students in vocational colleges in China about online English learning. A convenience sampling technique was used in the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire survey from the respondents. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software. Focused on the perceptions of English teachers and students in vocational colleges about online English learning. The results of the study revealed negative perceptions of both students and teachers about vocational English education in an online learning environment. This study highlights the importance of addressing both teachers’ and students’ negative feelings about online learning. The findings of this study are useful for educators and academic departments in improving the online learning experience for vocational students. It also emphasizes the need for effective implementation of ICT modules to improve the quality of online education. The study suggested that ICT modules should be implemented in various media platforms and applications to improve the quality of online learning by academic departments. Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of understanding stakeholder perceptions in online learning environments and provides insights for improving the quality of online education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The early diagnosis of gastric cancer (GC) and overcoming chemotherapy resistance is challenging. The aberrant expression of zinc finger protein 281 (ZNF281) and the over-activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway are oncogenic factors and confer tumor chemoresistance. ZNF281 modulates the Wnt/β-catenin pathway to influence malignant tumor behavior. However, the role of ZNF281 in GC chemotherapy and the relationship with the Wnt/β-catenin pathway have not been elucidated by researchers. Methods: We explored differences in ZNF281 expression in Pan-cancer and normal tissues, the effect of its expression on prognosis of patients treated with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Cox regression was utilized to determine whether ZNF281 is an independent prognostic factor. Enrichment analysis was performed to explore the mechanism underlying ZNF281’s role in 5-FU treatment. We assessed the relationship between ZNF281 and the tumour microenvironment (TME) and combined bulk-RNA and single-cell RNA data to analyse the relationship between ZNF281 and immune infiltration. In vitro experiments verified the effects of ZNF281 knockdown on proliferation, invasion, migration, apoptosis, DNA damage of GC cells with 5-FU treated and the Wnt/β-catenin pathway proteins. Results: ZNF281 was highly expressed in seven cancers and correlates with the prognosis. It is an independent prognostic factor in 5-FU treatment. ZNF281 correlates with TME score, CD8T cell abundance. ZNF281 is primarily associated with DNA repair and the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. ZNF281 knockdown enhanced the effect of 5-FU on phenotypes of GC cells. Conclusion: We identified and verified ZNF281 as one of the potential influencing factors of 5-FU treatment in GC and may be associated with the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Low ZNF281 may contribute to improved 5-FU sensitivity in GC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flow field structure plays the key roles in the operating reliability and power output of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). This study investigates and compares two typical structural parameters of PEMFC with the trapezoidal flow channel (TFC) and the trapezoidal flow channel with block (TFCB). A three-dimensional (3-D) multiphase TFC model is first developed, and then the multi-objective optimization is performed by using the trained artificial neural network (ANN) surrogate model and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). Finally, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) is used to investigate the optimized structural parameters of TFC. The results show the net power output and the oxygen uniformity index of the optimized TFC are increased by 19.77% and 21.92% compared with the straight flow channel (SFC). Furthermore, it is also found using block in the trapezoidal flow channel (TFCB) can increase the performance of PEMFC, and it exhibits a 25.10% improvement for the net power output and 27.88% for oxygen uniformity index, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of shield tunnel seriously endangers the safety of urban subway construction and causes adverse social impact. In order to quantitatively evaluate the collapse risk of shield tunnel and ensure the normal construction of shield tunnel, the risk assessment model of shield tunnel collapse is established based on fuzzy theory and analytic hierarchy process. Taking the collapse risk assessment of the tunnel from Dahongmen South Station to Heyi Station of Beijing Metro Line 8 as an example, 4 first level indicators and 12 second level indicators are selected to define a fuzzy evaluation system. The weight set of evaluation factors is derived according to the hierarchy. According to the average membership degree of each index, the risk degree is calculated by fuzzy operator and the evaluation vector is obtained by applying the principle of multifactor fuzzy relation synthesis. The comparative analysis shows that the on-site monitoring results are very consistent with the lowrisk value obtained from the fuzzy evaluation, which proves that grouting reinforcement is the most effective method to prevent tunnel collapse. The engineering practice has verified the scientificity and rationality of this method, which gives full play to the advantages from qualitative to quantitative, and has high accuracy and universal applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current work analyzes the on-orbit performance degradation and physical properties of triple-junction InGaP2/InGaAs/Ge solar cells based on the Gaofen-3 (GF-3) satellite in low-earth orbit (LEO) with long-term shading and standard conditions. From a long-term perspective of 7 years, the temperature range of the solar array with shading is −60.9°C to +119.9°C, while the temperature range of the solar array with the same design and without shading is +48.5°C to +102.3°C. After calibrating the illumination angle, operating temperature, and sun–earth distance, the performance degradation of the solar cell array under long-term shading and standard conditions is comparatively analyzed. The annual degradation coefficients calculated for the solar array under shading and standard conditions are 0.980251 and 0.998199, respectively, which means that at the end of the satellite's 8-year life, the current degradation of the solar array with shading and standard working conditions is 14.75% and 1.43%, respectively. If the mission time is extended to 15 years, the on-orbit performance degradation of the solar array under shading and standard conditions will be 25.86% and 2.67%, respectively. This work thus provides a reference for the design of subsequent satellite solar arrays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of lithology is a crucial step in determining the characteristics of petroleum reservoirs, and many studies have investigated the application of deep neural networks in lithology identification. However, incorrect lithology labels as a result of manual interpretation can seriously affect network training when deep learning is used to identify lithology from well logging data. To address this problem, a method of learning with noisy labels (probabilistic end-to-end noise correction in labels, PENCIL) is applied to the network training process. Experiments are conducted on two real well logging datasets, and two types of label noise, random and pattern, are added to the lithology labels of the training data to simulate the lithology label noise that may exist in the actual data. To demonstrate the effect of this method, this study trains four network models, namely residual network (ResNet), bidirectional gated recurrent unit (Bi-GRU), ResNet-PENCIL, and Bi-GRU-PENCIL. The results of the experiments show that pattern label noise has a more serious effect on network training than random label noise, and network models that use the PENCIL framework effectively mitigate the effect of incorrect lithology labels on lithology identification results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of present work was clarified the structural information of complex silicate glass, find out links between basalt glass structures and basalt fibers, and provide theoretical support for the selection of raw materials for continuous basalt fibers as well as stable production and performance characterization. In this study, basalt glasses were prepared using four types of basalts from different origins and a portion of the prepared basalt glass was subjected to secondary fusion, after which, and basalt fibers was prepared. The above-obtained samples were analyzed and tested using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and other characterization techniques. The results showed that there was high crystalline tendency for the samples with high iron contents, the dielectric constant and dielectric loss of basalt glasses increased with increasing TFe2O3 content in raw materials, the fiber structures were consistent with the structure of water-cooled glasses, and the silicate glass tended to depolymerize with the gradual increase of the heat treatment temperature. Water-cooled basalt glass exhibits structural consistency with basalt fiber, inside which, the silicon oxygen network performs as layered and chain like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large amounts of tropical crop residues are produced and discarded or burned, causing a great waste of crop residue resources and serious environmental pollution. Pyrolysis is considered an environment-friendly technology to dispose of crop wastes. In the present study, in order to compare the impact of pyrolysis temperature on the yield and characteristics of tropical crop residues biochar, four tropical crop residues (sugarcane bagasse and cassava, pineapple, and banana straw) were pyrolyzed at 200, 300, 400, and 500 °C for 1 h. The results showed that with increased pyrolysis temperature, the pH and carbon (C), nitrogen (N), ash, and fixed carbon contents were significantly increased. In contrast, the yield, oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), and volatile matter contents and the O:C, H:C, and (O + N):C ratios of the biochar were significantly decreased. Among the four biochar, sugarcane bagasse biochar had the lowest electrical conductivity value; cassava and banana straw biochar had the highest ash content; cassava straw biochar had the highest N content. Overall, tropical crop straw biochar has high pH and stability, and has the potential to improve tropical acidic soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The image outpainting based on deep learning shows good performance and has a wide range of applications in many fields. The previous image outpainting methods mostly used a single image as input. In this paper, we use the left and right images as input images, and expand the unknown region in the middle to generate an image that connects the left and right images to form a complete semantically smooth image. A cascaded refinement residual attention model for image outpainting is proposed. The Residual Channel-Spatial Attention (RCSA) module is designed to effectively learn image information about known regions. The Cascaded Dilated-conv (CDC) module is used to capture deep features, and more semantic information is obtained through dilated convolutions of different rates. The Refine on Features Aggregation (RFA) module connects the encoder and decoder to refine the result image for generating it clearer and smoother. Experimental results show that the proposed model is able to hallucinate more meaningful structures and vivid textures and achieve satisfactory results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dermatophagoides farinae (Acari: Pyroglyphidae) has been reported as one of the major sources of indoor allergens that trigger allergic disease in humans. In this study, the genetic diversity and differentiation of nine geographic populations of D. farinae were investigated by analyzing mitochondrial and nuclear genes (COI, Cytb, COI+Cytb, and ITS). The results showed high genetic diversity across the D. farinae populations. The BX (Benxi) population showed the lowest genetic diversity, possibly due to climatic causes. Significant genetic differentiation was observed among D. farinae populations based on mitochondrial genes. The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) results elucidated that the contribution to the rate of variation was primarily from among populations. Phylogenetic analysis and haplotype network based on mitochondrial genes both indicated significant geographic structure among D. farinae populations. The nine geographic populations of D. farinae were divided into two groups with the Qinling Mountains–Huai River Line serving as the boundary for spatial analysis of molecular variance analysis (SAMOVA). However, the Mantel test analysis showed no association between genetic differentiation and geographic distance because of the high level of gene flow among some populations through the transportation of stored food. Overall, these results indicate both significant genetic differentiation among D. farinae populations, but also significant gene exchange between them. Results from the analysis of the nuclear gene ITS differed from the mitochondrial genes due to differences in molecular markers between mitochondrial genes and nuclear genes. These observations improve our understanding of the genetic diversity and structure of D. farinae populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we establish an in situ visualization analysis method to image the spatial distribution of metabolites in different parts (sclerotium, coremium) and different microregions of Cordyceps cicadae (C. cicadae) to achieve the in situ visual characterization of tissues for a variety of metabolites such as nucleosides, amino acids, polysaccharides, organic acids, fatty acids, and so on. The study included LC–MS chemical composition identification, preparation of C. cicadae tissue sections, DEDI-MSI analysis, DESI combined with Q-TOF/MS to obtain high-resolution imaging of mass-to-charge ratio and space, imaging of C. cicadae in positive–negative ion mode with a spatial resolution of 100 μm, and localizing and identifying its chemical compositions based on its precise mass. A total of 62 compounds were identified; nucleosides were mainly distributed in the coremium, L-threonine and DL-isoleucine, and other essential amino acids; peptides were mainly distributed in the sclerotium of C. cicadae; and the rest of the amino acids did not have a clear pattern; sugars and sugar alcohols were mainly distributed in the coremium of C. cicadae; organic acids and fatty acids were distributed in the nucleus of C. cicadae more than in the sclerotium, and the mass spectrometry imaging method is established in the research. The mass spectrometry imaging method established in this study is simple and fast and can visualize and analyse the spatial distribution of metabolites of C. cicadae, which is of great significance in characterizing the metabolic network of C. cicadae, and provides support for the quality evaluation of C. cicadae and the study of the temporal and spatial metabolic network of chemical compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic diamond crystallites were successfully etched by MnO2 powder. The effect of etching behavior on the surface morphology and properties of the treated diamond crystallites was investigated. Results showed that the etching intensity of both {100} and {111} planes increased as temperature increases, and the {111} plane was etched more significantly than the {100} plane under the same conditions. After etching, the morphology of etched pits on the {100} plane transformed from quadrilateral to octagonal, while those on the {111} plane were distinguished by triangular conical bulges. The compressive strength of a single diamond particle declines from 255 to 202 N, and the impact toughness decreases from 90.11% to 86.3%. More significantly, compared with raw diamond, the maximum flexural strength of the Cu-matrix bonding diamond block with etched diamonds increased from 394.2 to 464.9 MPa, an increase of 17.9%, and the cutting ratio of the diamond saw blades decreases from 17.5 to 9.67 g/m2. The ability to produce an anchoring connection between the etched diamond and the matrix accounts for the performance increase in diamond tools. The etching mechanism is a reaction between MnO2 and the C atom on the diamond surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is the most commonly used environmental attitude measure around the world but is still plagued by its confusing dimensional structures. The same has existed in China for more than 10 years, and there are still significant problems with the improvement solutions available. From a psychometric perspective, the wording effect arising from mixed wording directions is considered the leading cause. Based on a Chinese national-level data set, our study examined this effect in the NEP scale using an emerging bi-factor modeling approach. The results indicate that all items can be loaded on a general NEP factor while negatively worded items need to be additionally loaded on a method factor. The absence of this method factor can lead to biased results. Overall, the optimal way to use the NEP scale is to retain all items and control the wording effect through a bi-factor model before further analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of digital music available on the internet has grown significantly with the rapid development of digital multimedia technology. Managing these massive music resources is a thorny problem that powerful music media platforms need to face where music genre classification plays an important role, and a good music genre classifier is indispensable for the research and application of music resources in the related aspects, such as efficient organization, retrieval, recommendation, etc. Due to convolutional networks' powerful feature extraction capability, more and more researchers are devoting their efforts to music genre classification models based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, many models do not combine the musical signal features for effective design of the convolutional structure, which cause a simpler convolutional network part of the model and weaker local feature extraction ability. To solve the above problem, our group proposes a model using a 1D res-gated CNN to extract local information of audio sequences rather than the traditional CNN architecture. Meanwhile, to aggregate the global information of audio feature sequences, our group applies the Transformer to the music genre classification model and modifies the decoder structure of the Transformer according to the task. The experiments utilize the benchmark datasets, including GTZAN and Extended Ballroom. Our group conducted contrastive experiments to verify our model, and experimental results demonstrated that our model outperforms most of the previous approaches and can improve the performance of music genre classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a novel anisotropic model based on fractal theory for three-dimensional (3D) rough surface reconstruction to improve the large error associated with isotropic models. The proposed model comprises a fractal-based two-dimensional (2D) contour curve, a conversion operator and a coefficient vector ratio. The effects of the virtual random curve and fractal-based 2D contour curve in the conversion operator are discussed. The largest height ratio of the virtual contour curve and the measured surface discrete point curve of each column are used in the coefficient vector ratio. The rough surface is also smoothed using a five-point cubic smoothing algorithm. Compared with the isotropic model, the proposed model resembles the measured surface more closely with an average fitting error reduction of 49.84% and 64.7% before and after smoothing, respectively. The surface exhibits horizontal and vertical textures that can be controlled by the fractal dimension and roughness in the X and Y directions. Additionally, an asperity contact model is established and analysed. The proposed modelling method for anisotropic 3D rough surface contact condition is more consistent with the measured surface model. The transverse and longitudinal textures of the anisotropic surface can be changed by the fractal dimension and fractal roughness in the X and Y directions. This research provides insights into characterising 3D rough surfaces of high-precision gears and improving nominal contact area accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are concerned with the Cauchy problem of the three-dimensional isentropic compressible Navier–Stokes equations. We prove the global existence and uniqueness of classical solutions with large initial energy and vacuum, under the assumptions that the fluid is nearly isothermal (i.e., the adiabatic exponent γ is sufficiently close to 1), and that the far-field density ρ ~ is either vacuum or close to vacuum. To the best of our knowledge, we establish the first result on the global existence of large-energy solutions with vacuum to the three-dimensional compressible Navier–Stokes equations for the cases of vacuum and nonvacuum far-field constant states, which generalizes the result by Huang, Li and Xin (Commun Pure Appl Math 65:549–585, 2012) on classical solutions with vacuum and small energy (large oscillations). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is very important to identify the important nodes in heterogeneous target operational network (HTON) for target selection. Traditional methods, such as centrality based methods, only consider either network structures or node features to evaluate the importance of nodes. However, these methods ignore the rich semantic information between nodes formed by complex physical and logical relations. To solve this problem, we propose a novel node capability dependency importance evaluation method considering meta-path and capability dependency, called NCDI. Meta-path is an effective method of semantic capture, different meta-paths express different semantic informations. Some nodes could support or control other nodes, inter-node dependency can also be used as an indicator of importance evaluation. Compared to the degree centrality and other typical evaluation methods, the results show that our method can sort the node importance more effectively in HTON. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interaction between programmed death-1 (PD-1) ligand 1 (PD-L1) on tumor cells and PD-1 on T cells allows tumor cells to evade T cell-mediated immune surveillance. Strategies targeting PD-1/PD-L1 have shown clinical benefits in a variety of cancers. However, limited response rates in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have prompted us to investigate the molecular regulation of PD-L1. Here, we identify B cell lymphoma-2-associated transcription factor 1 (BCLAF1) as a key PD-L1 regulator in HCC. Specifically, BCLAF1 interacts with SPOP, an E3 ligase that mediates the ubiquitination and degradation of PD-L1, thereby competitively inhibiting SPOP-PD-L1 interaction and subsequent ubiquitination and degradation of PD-L1. Furthermore, we determined an SPOP-binding consensus (SBC) motif mediating the BCLAF1-SPOP interaction on BCLAF1 protein and mutation of BCLAF1-SBC motif disrupts the regulation of the SPOP-PD-L1 axis. In addition, BCLAF1 expression was positively correlated with PD-L1 expression and negatively correlated with biomarkers of T cell activation, including CD3 and CD8, as well as with the level of immune cell infiltration in HCC tissues. Besides, BCLAF1 depletion leads to a significant reduction of PD-L1 expression in vitro, and this reduction of PD-L1 promoted T cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Notably, overexpression of BCLAF1 sensitized tumor cells to checkpoint therapy in an in vitro HCC cells-Jurkat cells co-culture model, whereas BCLAF1-SBC mutant decreased tumor cell sensitivity to checkpoint therapy, suggesting that BCLAF1 and its SBC motif serve as a novel therapeutic target for enhancing anti-tumor immunity in HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoderma bovis (H. bovis) and Hypoderma sinense (H. sinense) are insects that cause hypodermosis in yaks and Bos taurus. Hypodermosis is a severe skin condition that not only impairs the development of local animal husbandry but also poses threats to human health as a zoonosis. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is known as the “Roof of the World.” Its unique geographical environment and climate conditions have supported the growth of a wide range of mammals, providing favorable conditions for Hypoderma spp. to complete their life cycles. In this study, the whole mitochondrial genomes of H. bovis and H. sinense collected from the QTP were sequenced and phylogenetically analyzed. We found that the whole genomes of H. bovis and H. sinense are 16,283 bp and 16,300 bp in length, respectively. Both the H. bovis and H. sinense genomes have 37 mitochondrial genes, which include two rRNA genes (16S rRNA and 12S rRNA), 22 tRNA genes, the control region (D-loop region), the light chain replication initiation region, and 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs). The phylogenetic tree generated based on the 13 PCGs revealed close phylogenetic relationships between H. sinense, H. bovis, and Hypoderma lineatum. A similar result was also found in our phylogenetic analysis based on 18S rRNA and 28S rRNA. However, analysis of cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) showed cluster of H. bovis, H. sinense, and Cuterebra spp. on the same branch, all belonging to Oestridae. The differentiation time generated based on 13 PCGs indicates that H. bovis and H. sinense differentiated and formed ~4.69 million years ago (Mya) and ~4.06 Mya, respectively. This timing coincides with the differentiation and appearance of yak and Bos taurus in the Pliocene (~4.7 Mya), indicating that the parasites and mammals diverged in close temporal proximity. Of note, this period also witnessed a rapid uplift of the QTP, causing significant climate and environmental changes. Thus, we conjecture that the differentiation of Hypoderma spp. is potentially related to the differentiation of their host species, as well as climate changes caused by the uplift of the QTP. Overall, our study can provide valuable data to support further studies on the phylogeny and differentiation of Hypoderma spp. on the QTP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption of a static environment is a prerequisite for most of the traditional visual simultaneous localization and mapping (v-SLAM) algorithms, which limits their widespread application in a dynamic environment. Furthermore, in many applications such as autonomous driving, robot collaboration and AR/VR, it is necessary to track the moving objects in the environment. In this work, we propose a v-SLAM method that can effectively track multiple objects in dynamic environments by integrating a 3D object detection thread into the ORB-SLAM2 framework. The dynamic objects were detected and tracked in three steps. Firstly, 3D object detection was performed on the current frame, and the 3D bounding box was projected into a bird's-eye view. Secondly, an association for the object is made based on the motion state of the object and the bounding box in the bird’s-eye view. Thirdly, we track the object and remove feature points corresponding to the dynamic region. In addition, we set up a multi-view constraint adjustment for static objects to jointly optimize the pose of the camera, object, and map point. Experiments have been conducted on the KITTI-odom and KITTI-raw datasets. The performance of our method was verified in challenging scenarios. We demonstrate that dynamic object tracking not only provides useful information for scene understanding, but also help to improve camera tracking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Small molecular PD‐1 inhibitors are lacking in current immuno‐oncology clinic. PD‐1/PD‐L1 antibody inhibitors currently approved for clinical usage block interaction between PD‐L1 and PD‐1 to enhance cytotoxicity of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL). Whether other steps along the PD‐1 signaling pathway can be targeted remains to be determined. Here, we report that methylene blue (MB), an FDA‐approved chemical for treating methemoglobinemia, potently inhibits PD‐1 signaling. MB enhances the cytotoxicity, activation, cell proliferation, and cytokine‐secreting activity of CTL inhibited by PD‐1. Mechanistically, MB blocks interaction between Y248‐phosphorylated immunoreceptor tyrosine‐based switch motif (ITSM) of human PD‐1 and SHP2. MB enables activated CTL to shrink PD‐L1 expressing tumor allografts and autochthonous lung cancers in a transgenic mouse model. MB also effectively counteracts the PD‐1 signaling on human T cells isolated from peripheral blood of healthy donors. Thus, we identify an FDA‐approved chemical capable of potently inhibiting the function of PD‐1. Equally important, our work sheds light on a novel strategy to develop inhibitors targeting PD‐1 signaling axis.

In order to investigate the structural and electrical properties of basaltic glass modified by ZnO, ZnO-modified basaltic glasses were prepared by the conventional melt-cooling method. The relationship between glass structure and electrical properties was investigated using XRD, FT-IR, Raman, DSC, dielectric properties tester and volume resistance tester. The results show that when ZnO doping is lower than 6 wt%, it does not lead to basalt glass crystallization. The ZnO doping shows roughly a linear relationship with the volume resistivity, but the trend is not obvious. The optimum doping of ZnO was 4 wt%, at this doping level, the glass network was the most connected with the lowest values of dielectric constant (6.5) and dielectric loss (0.005). This finding provides theoretical support for the replacement of E-glass fibers by basalt fibers in terms of dielectric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the scarcity of nighttime semantic segmentation datasets and the high demand for network models, the development of semantic segmentation of nighttime scenes is still very slow. This paper proposes a new network model, ContourNet, which can model multi-level features. In addition, a separate contour network module is designed to accurately predict object contours, improving performance for objects far away, small, or with high contour continuity. A large number of experiments demonstrate that the ContourNet proposed in this paper can significantly improve the semantic segmentation ability of existing models for nighttime images, and can also improve the semantic segmentation accuracy of daytime images to a certain extent, with good generalization abilities. Specifically, after adding the contour module in this article, MIoU has increased by 5.1% on the night dataset Rebecca; MIoU has increased by 2.5% on the daytime dataset CamVid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metabolic oligosaccharide engineering (MOE) is a classical chemical approach to perturb, profile and perceive glycans in physiological systems, but probes upon bioorthogonal reaction require accessibility and the background signal readout makes it challenging to achieve glycan quantification. Here we develop SeMOE, a selenium-based metabolic oligosaccharide engineering strategy that concisely combines elemental analysis and MOE,enabling the mass spectrometric imaging of glycome. We also demonstrate that the new-to-nature SeMOE probes allow for detection, quantitative measurement and visualization of glycans in diverse biological contexts. We also show that chemical reporters on conventional MOE can be integrated into a bifunctional SeMOE probe to provide multimodality signal readouts. SeMOE thus provides a convenient and simplified method to explore the glyco-world. Metabolic oligosaccharide engineering (MOE) is a classical strategy for carbohydrate perception but suffers from glycan quantification. Here the authors develop a selenium-based metabolic oligosaccharide engineering strategy (SeMOE), based on elemental analysis, to quantitatively detect and visualize glycans both in vitro and in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Named entity recognition is a traditional task in natural language processing. In particular, nested entity recognition receives extensive attention for the widespread existence of the nesting scenario. The latest research migrates the well-established paradigm of set prediction in object detection to cope with entity nesting. However, the manual creation of query vectors, which fail to adapt to the rich semantic information in the context, limits these approaches. An end-to-end entity detection approach with proposer and regressor is presented in this paper to tackle the issues. First, the proposer utilizes the feature pyramid network to generate high-quality entity proposals. Then, the regressor refines the proposals for generating the final prediction. The model adopts encoder-only architecture and thus obtains the advantages of the richness of query semantics, high precision of entity localization, and easiness of model training. Moreover, we introduce the novel spatially modulated attention and progressive refinement for further improvement. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our model achieves advanced performance in flat and nested NER, achieving a new state-of-the-art F1 score of 80.74 on the GENIA dataset and 72.38 on the WeiboNER dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geological faults are widely distributed in stratum and have an important influence on underground mining. To increase the mining rate of coal resources and reduce the occurrence of accidents such as rock bursts, the technology of gob-side entry formed by roof cutting and pressure release (GEFRCPR) was investigated in fault-affected areas. The mechanism of gob-side entry formation passing through a normal fault was studied by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, and control technology for entry formation was proposed. The results indicate that during the process of passing through a normal fault from hanging wall to footwall, the vertical stress of the solid coal side at the working face increased first, then decreased, rose and eventually reached a stable state. For the fault-affected area, a combined support of "door type supports + roof cutting guard stents" was proposed as a temporary support for the formed entry and was tested on site. On-site monitoring showed that the degree of final deformation of surrounding rock of the formed entry was like: at the fault > before the fault > after the fault. By applying the proposed support technology, the deformation of the surrounding rock in the fault-affected area was effectively controlled so that the formed roadway appeared thereafter can be reused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopted a 256-slice iCT scanner with the double low-dose mode in left atrial-pulmonary venous computed tomography angiography (CTA) and explored its effect on image quality. 120 patients were included and randomly classified into the Observation group and Control group. Patients in the Control group underwent routine left atrial CTA, while patients in the Observation group performed a double low-dose mode. Other scanning parameters were consistent in the two groups. The Full model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR) technique was applied to fulfill image reconstruction in observation group. Continuous variables, ordered categorical variables were analyzed by statistical test. The CT values of left atrial in the Observation group were significantly higher than those in the Control group. The exposure doses (ED) and iodine intake were lower in the Observation group, as compared to the Control group. The left atrial-pulmonary venous CTA with the 256-slice iCT scanner in a double low-dose mode can reduce the ED of radiation and iodine contrast while providing high quality images. Comparatively, the ED in the Observation group was reduced by 13% compared with the control, and the iodine intake was reduced by approximately 33%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3-aminopyridine-2-carboxaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (3-AP) has broad-spectrum antitumor activity. However, its role in osteosarcoma (OS) remains unclear. Therefore, this study explored the effects of 3-AP on OS in vitro and in vivo using three human OS cell lines (MG-63, U2-OS, and 143B) and a nude mice model generated by transplanting 143B cells. The cells and mice were treated with DMSO (control) or gradient concentrations of 3-AP. Then, various assays (e.g., cell counting kit-8, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and western blotting) were performed to assess cell viability and apoptosis levels, as well as γH2A.X (DNA damage correlation), ribonucleotide reductase catalytic subunit M1 and M2 (RRM1 and RRM2, respectively) protein levels (iron-dependent correlation). 3-AP time- and dose-dependably suppressed growth and induced apoptosis in all three OS cell lines, and ferric ammonium citrate (FAC) blocked these effects. Moreover, 3-AP decreased RRM2 and total ribonucleotide reductase (RRM1 plus RRM2) protein expression but significantly increased γH2A.X expression; treatment did not affect RRM1 expression. Again, FAC treatment attenuated these effects. In vivo, the number of apoptotic cells in the tumor slices increased in the 3-AP-treated mice compared to the control mice. 3-AP treatment also decreased Ki-67 and p21 expression, suggesting inhibited OS growth. Furthermore, the expression of RRM1, RRM2, and transferrin receptor protein 1 (i.e., Tfr1) indicated that 3-AP inhibited OS growth via an iron-dependent pathway. In conclusion, 3-AP exhibits anticancer activity in OS by decreasing the activity of iron-dependent pathways, which could be a promising therapeutic strategy for OS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hippocampus is a complex structure that consists of several subfields with distinct and specialized functions. Although numerous studies have been performed to explore hippocampal atrophy at the sub-regional level in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), the results have been inconsistent especially for whether and which subfields can be served as the most potential biomarkers in MCI and AD. Herein, we used a meta-analytic approach to synthesize the extant literatures on hippocampal subfields in MCI and AD through PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase (PROSPERO CRD42021257586). As a result, a total of twenty studies using Freesurfer 5 and Freesurfer 6 were included in this investigation. These studies revealed that at the sub-regional level, hippocampal subfield volume reductions in MCI and AD were not restricted to specific subfields, and subiculum and presubiculum had the largest z-scores across most comparisons. However, none of the subfield performed much better in discriminating MCI and HC, AD and MCI, AD and HC as compared to whole hippocampus volume. These results suggested that we should explore the changes in the hippocampal subfields in subtypes of MCI or even at an earlier stage, that is subjective cognitive impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the asymptotic behavior of solutions to an initial-boundary value problem for a hyperbolic-elliptic coupled system of the radiating gas on half line, where the data on the boundary and at the far field are prescribed as u - and u + satisfying u + < u - . For the case of the travelling wave speed s = 1 2 (u - + u +) > 0 , we prove that the solution to the problem converges to the properly shifted travelling wave U (x - s t + d (t)) as time tends to infinity under small initial perturbation, where d(t) is first given in investigating the scalar viscous conservation laws by Liu and Nishihara (J Differ Equ 133:296–320, 1997). The proof is based on the energy method. The algebraic convergence rate is also given by applying the time weighted energy method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear arrays are popularly used for passive surface wave imaging due to their high efficiency and convenience, especially in urban applications. The unknown characteristics such as azimuth of noise sources, however, make it challenging to extract accurate phase-velocity dispersion information by employing a 1-D linear array. To solve this problem, we proposed an alternative passive surface wave method to capture the dominant azimuth of noise sources and retrieve the phase-velocity dispersion curve by polarization analysis with multicomponent ambient noise records. We verified the proposed method using synthetic data sets under various source distributions. According to the calculated dominant azimuth, it is deduced that noise sources are mainly classified as either inline or offline distribution. For inline noise source distribution, we are able to directly obtain the unbiased phase-velocity measurements; for offline noise source distribution, we should correct the velocity overestimation due to azimuthal effects using the proposed method. Results from two field examples show that the distributions of noise sources are predominantly offline. We eliminated the velocity bias caused by offline source distribution and picked phase velocities following higher amplitude peaks along the trend. After the azimuthal correction, the picked phase-velocity dispersion curves in dispersion images generated from passive source data match well with those from active source data, demonstrating the practicability of the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pulsed magnetic field (PMF) can cause significant grain refinement in solidified alloys. However, the evolution of forced flow and grain size by varying pulse length and the proposed mechanism of grain refinement driven by PMF are still controversial. The present paper systematically investigates the evolution of electromagnetic fields and fluid flow induced by PMF inside a Ga–20 wt pctIn–12 wt pctSn alloyed melt and the corresponding changes in grain size of Al–7 wt pctSi alloy with increasing pulse length in comparison with electric current intensity and frequency. It is found that the magnetic flux density adjacent to the mould wall almost remains constant, whereas the peak value of eddy current density and Lorenz force is reduced when the pulse length is increased from 1.6 to 12 ms. In addition, the flow intensity inside the melt firstly increases and then decreases when the pulse length is gradually enlarged. However, the magnetic flux density, eddy current density, Lorentz force and flow intensity inside the melt are all strengthened with an increase of the electric current intensity. The distribution and peak value of magnetic flux density, eddy current density and Lorentz force cannot be changed by the applied electric current frequency. Since the time over which the Lorentz force is applied is prolonged with increasing frequency, a positive correlation between the flow intensity and the frequency is achieved. The results of corresponding solidification experiments in Al–7 wt pctSi indicate that the grain size experiences the same evolution with flow intensity by varying the electric current intensity, frequency and pulse length. It is most likely that the dominant mechanism of grain refinement under applied PMF is the fragmentation of dendrites induced by forced flow rather than heterogeneous nucleation promoted by PMF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is more common in women, and many reports of sex differences have been reported in various aspects of RA. However, there has been a lack of specific research on women's gut flora. To assess the association between the gut flora and RA patients, this study combined the microbiome with metabolomics. Fecal samples from RA patients and healthy controls were collected for 16S rRNA sequencing. Nontargeted liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry was used to detect metabolites in fecal samples. We comprehensively used various analytical methods to reveal changes in intestinal flora and metabolites in female patients. The gut flora of RA patients was significantly different from that of healthy women. The abundance of Bacteroides, Megamonas and Oscillospira was higher in RA patients, while the abundance of Prevotella, Gemmiger and Roseburia was lower than that of healthy women. Gemmiger, Bilophila and Odoribacter represented large differences in microflora between RA and healthy women and could be used as potential microorganisms in the diagnosis. Fatty acid biosynthesis was significantly different between RA patients and healthy women in terms of metabolic pathways. There were different degrees of correlation between the gut flora and metabolites. Lys-Phe-Lys and heptadecasphin-4-enine can be used as potential markers for RA diagnosis. There was an extremely significant positive correlation between Megamonas, Dialister and rheumatoid factors, which was found for the first time. These findings indicated that alterations of these gut microbiome and metabolome may contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of RA patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Heart failure (HF) remains a major cause of late morbidity and mortality after myocardial infarction (MI). To date, no clinically established 18F-labeled sympathetic nerve PET tracers for monitoring myocardial infarction are available. Therefore, in this study, we synthesized a series of 18F-labeled benzyl guanidine analogs and evaluated their efficacy as cardiac neuronal norepinephrine transporter (NET) tracers for myocardial imaging. We also investigated the preliminary diagnostic capabilities of these tracers in myocardial infarction animal models, as well as the structure-activity relationship of these tracers. Procedures: Three benzyl guanidine-NET tracers, including [18F]1, [18F]2, and [18F]3, were synthesized and evaluated in vivo as PET tracers in a myocardial infarction mouse model. [18F]LMI1195 was used as a positive control for the tracers. H&E staining of the isolated myocardial infarction heart tissue sections was performed to verify the efficacy of the selected PET tracer. Results: Our data show that [18F]3 had a moderate decay corrected labeling yield (~10%) and high radiochemical purity (>95%) compared to other tracers. The uptake of [18F]3 in normal mouse hearts was 1.7±0.1%ID/cc at 1 h post-injection (p. i.), while it was 2.4±0.1, 2.6±0.9, and 2.1±0.4%ID/cc in the MI mouse hearts at 1, 2, and 3 days after surgery, respectively. Compared with [18F]LMI1195, [18F]3 had a better myocardial imaging effect in terms of the contrast between normal and MI hearts. The area of myocardial infarction shown by PET imaging corresponded well with the infarcted tissue demonstrated by H&E staining. Conclusions: With an obvious cardiac uptake contrast between normal mice and the myocardial infarction mouse model, [18F]3 appears to be a potential tool in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further structural modification studies on the chemical structure of [18F]3 to improve its in vivo stability and diagnostic detection ability to achieve reliable and practical imaging effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The H3 methyltransferases ATXR5 and ATXR6 deposit H3.1K27me1 to heterochromatin to prevent genomic instability and transposon re-activation. Here, we report that atxr5 atxr6 mutants display robust resistance to Geminivirus. The viral resistance is correlated with activation of DNA repair pathways, but not with transposon re-activation or heterochromatin amplification. We identify RAD51 and RPA1A as partners of virus-encoded Rep protein. The two DNA repair proteins show increased binding to heterochromatic regions and defense-related genes in atxr5 atxr6 vs wild-type plants. Consequently, the proteins have reduced binding to viral DNA in the mutant, thus hampering viral amplification. Additionally, RAD51 recruitment to the host genome arise via BRCA1, HOP2, and CYCB1;1, and this recruitment is essential for viral resistance in atxr5 atxr6. Thus, Geminiviruses adapt to healthy plants by hijacking DNA repair pathways, whereas the unstable genome, triggered by reduced H3.1K27me1, could retain DNA repairing proteins to suppress viral amplification in atxr5 atxr6. Geminiviruses hijack the host DNA repairing proteins for their amplification. The authors report that Arabidopsis loses H3.1K27me1, a protector of genome stability, but gains resistance to geminivirus infection via retaining key factors like RAD51. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of polymer-based mimicry on cell surface to manipulate cell behaviors and functions offers promising prospects in the field of biotechnology and cell therapy. However, precise control of polymer grafting sites is essential to successful implementation of biomimicry and functional modulation, which has been overlooked by most current research. Herein, we report a biological site-selected, in situ controlled radical polymerization platform for living cell surface engineering. The method utilizes metabolic labeling techniques to confine the growth sites of polymers and designs a Fenton-RAFT polymerization technique with cytocompatibility. Polymers grown at different sites (glycans, proteins, lipids) have different membrane retention time and exhibit differential effects on the recognition behaviors of cellular glycans. Of particular importance is the achievement of in situ copolymerization of glycomonomers on the outermost natural glycan sites of cell membrane, building a biomimetic glycocalyx with distinct recognition properties. Constructing polymer-based mimics on the surface of cells has potential to manipulate cell behavior, but precise control of grafting sites is challenging. Here, the authors report a method for site selected radical polymerization on cell surfaces by metabolic labelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-resolved identification of surface-bound intermediates on metallic nanocatalysts is imperative to develop an accurate understanding of the elementary steps of CO2 reduction. Direct observation on initial electron transfer to CO2 to form surface-bound CO2•− radicals is lacking due to the technical challenges. Here, we use picosecond pulse radiolysis to generate CO2•− via aqueous electron attachment and observe the stabilization processes toward well-defined nanoscale metallic sites. The time-resolved method combined with molecular simulations identifies surface-bound intermediates with characteristic transient absorption bands and distinct kinetics from nanosecond to the second timescale for three typical metallic nanocatalysts: Cu, Au, and Ni. The interfacial interactions are further investigated by varying the important factors, such as catalyst size and the presence of cation in the electrolyte. This work highlights fundamental ultrafast spectroscopy to clarify the critical initial step in the CO2 catalytic reduction mechanism. Understanding the activity and selectivity of metal catalysts requires elucidating the dynamics of CO2•− radicals bound to the surface. Here, the authors use pulse radiolysis to directly observe the stabilization process of CO2•− radicals at nanoscale metallic sites from nanoseconds to seconds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]