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Human urine, which accounts for approximately 80% of the nitrogen and 50% of the phosphorus in domestic sewage, could be a high-quality medium for cultivating microalgae. However, soap wastewater (SW) is constantly mixed with human urine. This work explored Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Chlorella sp. culture using a high-loaded urine-SW mixture under non-sterilization, less inoculation dosage, and medium illumination. The Chlorella yields at human urine to blue-green algae medium (BG11) ratios of 3:6 and 4:5 were superior to those obtained at higher ratios of 5:4, 6:3, and 7:2 and even exceeded those with pure BG11. SW inhibited the production of Chlorella cultured in human urine. Although an SW-to-BG11 ratio of 1:49 was optimal, a higher ratio was acceptable for Chlorella sp., even as high as 5:45. The optimum yields and protein contents under SW addition were 0.57 g/L and 60.32% for Chlorella pyrenoidosa and 0.96 g/L and 53.55% for Chlorella sp. The maximal nitrogen, phosphorus, and chemical oxygen demand removals surpassed 74%, 74%, and 44% for Chlorella pyrenoidosa and 94%, 94%, and 86% for Chlorella sp. Studies elucidated the viability of microalgae culture using human urine sewage containing SW, accelerating low-cost production of microalgae and high-valued utilization of source-separated human urine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Lymph nodes (LNs) in the chest have a tendency to enlarge due to various pathologies, such as lung cancer or pneumonia. Clinicians routinely measure nodal size to monitor disease progression, confirm metastatic cancer, and assess treatment response. However, variations in their shapes and appearances make it cumbersome to identify LNs, which reside outside of most organs. Methods: We propose to segment LNs in the mediastinum by leveraging the anatomical priors of 28 different structures (e.g., lung, trachea etc.) generated by the public TotalSegmentator tool. The CT volumes from 89 patients available in the public NIH CT Lymph Node dataset were used to train three 3D off-the-shelf nnUNet models to segment LNs. The public St. Olavs dataset containing 15 patients (out-of-training-distribution) was used to evaluate the segmentation performance. Results: For LNs with short axis diameter ≥ 8 mm, the 3D cascade nnUNet model obtained the highest Dice score of 67.9 ± 23.4 and lowest Hausdorff distance error of 22.8 ± 20.2. For LNs of all sizes, the Dice score was 58.7 ± 21.3 and this represented a ≥ 10% improvement over a recently published approach evaluated on the same test dataset. Conclusion: To our knowledge, we are the first to harness 28 distinct anatomical priors to segment mediastinal LNs, and our work can be extended to other nodal zones in the body. The proposed method has the potential for improved patient outcomes through the identification of enlarged nodes in initial staging CT scans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) technology is highly favored in the field of speed measurement for its high accuracy and resolution. However, it has limitations in specific applications due to its single-point speed measurement capability. To address this issue, a method of axial multi-point laser Doppler velocimetry is proposed to expand the application range of this technology. This method is based on the dual-beam laser Doppler velocimetry mode, utilizing the diffraction characteristics of the reflected grating to achieve spatial separation of measurement points axially. To verify the feasibility of the method, a laser Doppler velocimetry system was constructed, enabling velocity measurements at three axial points within a range of 0–14 m/s, with an average measurement error of less than 4%. Measurements of water flow velocity in a water tank pipeline were conducted, and compared with a standard electronic flowmeter, resulting in an average relative error of approximately 0.77%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data sparsity has long been a problem in 3D geological modeling work. The geometric, topological, and attribute information of geological bodies in geological reports provide important constraint information during 3D geological modeling. However, manually extracting complex and diverse constraint knowledge from a large amount of textual data is a challenging and time-consuming task. The development of information extraction and text mining technology has made it possible to automatically extract textual constraint information. To this end, this study firstly summarized the textual description characteristics of geological body constraint information in geological reports, and used a span-based tagging scheme for data annotation; Secondly, a span-based joint entity and relation extraction framework was introduced to extract constraint information in geological 3D modeling, which improves the extraction capability of the geological modeling constraint information by obtaining deep semantic information of the characters through the BERT model, in addition, the model has the joint extraction capabilities of entity classification and relation classification on candidate entities; Finally, in the experiments study, a Chinese geological survey report was used as training data for evaluation, and we validated our method's effectiveness through comparison of our results to those of different models. We further compared and analyzed the impact of different parameters and span representations on our model's performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The growth and development of rice (Oryza sativa L.) are affected by multiple factors, such as ROS homeostasis and utilization of iron. Here, we demonstrate that OsUGE2, a gene encoding a UDP-glucose 4-epimerase, controls growth and development by regulating reactive oxygen species (ROS) and iron (Fe) level in rice. Knockout of this gene resulted in impaired growth, such as dwarf phenotype, weakened root growth and pale yellow leaves. Biochemical analysis showed that loss of function of OsUGE2 significantly altered the proportion and content of UDP-Glucose (UDP-Glc) and UDP-Galactose (UDP-Gal). Cellular observation indicates that the impaired growth may result from decreased cell length. More importantly, RNA-sequencing analysis showed that knockout of OsUGE2 significantly influenced the expression of genes related to oxidoreductase process and iron ion homeostasis. Consistently, the content of ROS and Fe are significantly decreased in OsUGE2 knockout mutant. Furthermore, knockout mutants of OsUGE2 are insensitive to both Fe deficiency and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) treatment, which further confirmed that OsUGE2 control rice growth possibly through Fe and H2O2 signal. Collectively, these results reveal a new pathway that OsUGE2 could affect growth and development via influencing ROS homeostasis and Fe level in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous monitoring for immunosuppressive status, infection and complications are a must for kidney transplantation (KTx) recipients. Traditional monitoring including blood sampling and kidney biopsy, which caused tremendous medical cost and trauma. Therefore, a cheaper and less invasive approach was urgently needed. We thought that a breath test has the potential to become a feasible tool for KTx monitoring. A prospective-specimen collection, retrospective-blinded assessment strategy was used in this study. Exhaled breath samples from 175 KTx recipients were collected in West China Hospital and tested by online ultraviolet photoionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UVP-TOF–MS). The classification models based on breath test performed well in classifying normal and abnormal values of creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and tacrolimus, with AUC values of 0.889, 0.850, 0.849 and 0.889, respectively. Regression analysis also demonstrated the predictive ability of breath test for clinical creatinine, eGFR, BUN, tacrolimus level, as the predicted values obtained from the regression model correlated well with the clinical true values (p < 0.05). The findings of this investigation implied that a breath test by using UVP-TOF–MS for KTx recipient monitoring is possible and accurate, which might be useful for future clinical screenings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: Root hairs are required for water and nutrient acquisition in plants. Here, we report a novel mechanism that OsUGE1 is negatively controlled by OsGRF6 to regulate root hair elongation in rice. Root hairs are tubular outgrowths generated by the root epidermal cells. They effectively enlarge the soil-root contact area and play essential roles for nutrient and water absorption. Here, in this study, we demonstrated that the Oryza sativa UDP-glucose 4-epimerase 1-like (OsUGE1) negatively regulated root hair elongation and was directly targeted by Oryza sativa growth regulating factor 6 (OsGRF6). Knockout mutants of OsUGE1 using CRISPR-Cas9 technology showed longer root hairs than those of wild type. In contrast, overexpression lines of OsUGE1 displayed shorter root hair compared with those of wild type. GUS staining showed that it could specifically express in root hair. Subcellular localization analysis indicates that OsUGE1 is located in endoplasmic reticulum, nucleus and plasma membrane. More importantly, ChIP-qPCR, Yeast-one-hybrid and BiFC experiments revealed that OsGRF6 could bind to the promoter of OsUGE1. Furthermore, knockout mutants of OsGRF6 showed shorter root hair than those of wild type, and OsGRF6 dominantly expressed in root. In addition, the expression level of OsUGE1 is significantly downregulated in Osgrf6 mutant. Taken together, our study reveals a novel pathway that OsUGE1 is negatively controlled by OsGRF6 to regulate root hair elongation in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban underground 3D geological modeling can accurately express various geological phenomena and provide a decision-making basis for urban planning and geological analysis. The construction of smart cities has put forward new requirements for the automation and intelligence of urban geological 3D modeling. Geological survey reports are important reference data for urban geological 3D modeling. However, a large number of geological maps, geophysical data, and other geographic quantitative data of geological science surveys have been buried in geological survey literature and have not been effectively used. Currently, the development of data mining and information extraction technology provides the possibility to integrate these data into 3D geological modeling. Therefore, this study designed the workflow of 3D geological modeling using a geological survey report. First, after the geological survey report was deconstructed, the geological text information was recognized and extracted using geological dictionary matching and pattern rule matching, and the integration of knowledge was provided in the form of a knowledge graph. Then, the drilling information and table data in the drilling histogram are automatically extracted. Through these methods, the unstructured geological survey report can be transformed into structured data and integrated into the 3D geological modeling process. Finally, the 3D geological modeling of the Bridge Group in Jinan based on the Jinan urban geological survey report was taken as an example to verify the feasibility of the proposed method and demonstrate the potential of text mining and information extraction of geological survey reports for 3D geological modeling, which provides geological data support for the transformation of old and new kinetic energy and the construction of major projects of government departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Echocardiography is the first-line diagnostic technique for heart diseases. Although artificial intelligence techniques have made great improvements in the analysis of echocardiography, the major limitations remain to be the built neural networks are normally adapted to a few diseases and specific equipment. Here, we present an end-to-end deep learning framework named AIEchoDx that differentiates four common cardiovascular diseases (Atrial Septal Defect, Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, prior Myocardial Infarction) from normal subjects with performance comparable to that of consensus of three senior cardiologists in AUCs (99.50% vs 99.26%, 98.75% vs 92.75%, 99.57% vs 97.21%, 98.52% vs 84.20%, and 98.70% vs 89.41%), respectively. Meanwhile, AIEchoDx accurately recognizes critical lesion regions of interest along with each disease by visualizing the decision-making process. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that heterogeneous diseases, like dilated cardiomyopathy, could be classified into two phenogroups with distinct clinical characteristics. Finally, AIEchoDx performs efficiently as an anomaly detection tool when applying handheld device-produced videos. Together, AIEchoDx provides a potential diagnostic assistant tool in either cart-based echocardiography equipment or handheld echocardiography device for primary and point-of-care medical personnel with high diagnostic performance, and the application of lesion region identification and heterogeneous disease phenogrouping, which may broaden the application of artificial intelligence in echocardiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy metals, including a hexavalent form of chromium (Cr(VI)) increasing accumulation in agricultural soil, cause a significant reduction in quality, yield, and growth of rice varieties worldwide. Screening for the selection of tolerant varieties is essential for conventional and molecular breeding. Shaheen basmati (SB) and basmati-385 (B-385) rice varieties, a subspecies of indica, show different sensitivity to Cr(VI), but the underlying mechanisms of this different sensitivity remain elusive. In the current study, we examine the sensitivity of SB and B-385 based on the root, which is the primary organ that encounters water and soil containing Cr(VI), elongation assay, and ethylene's possible role (a stress-responsive phytohormone) in the process. Our results show that SB's seedlings exhibit hypersensitivity as a higher root elongation inhibition than B-385 under different Cr(VI) concentrations. Hypersensitive SB consistently expresses a higher level of ethylene biosynthesis and signaling-related genes than B-385. Moreover, ethylene signaling antagonist (silver, Ag) and biosynthesis inhibitor (aminoethoxy vinyl glycine, AVG) alleviate the difference in Cr(VI)-induced root growth inhibition between SB and B-385, respectively. Taken together, we conclude that ethylene mediates difference in sensitivity based on the difference in root growth inhibition in different rice varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is causing enormous loss of life globally. Prompt case identification is critical. The reference method is the real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) assay, whose limitations may curb its prompt large-scale application. COVID-19 manifests with chest computed tomography (CT) abnormalities, some even before the onset of symptoms. We tested the hypothesis that the application of deep learning (DL) to 3D CT images could help identify COVID-19 infections. Using data from 920 COVID-19 and 1,073 non-COVID-19 pneumonia patients, we developed a modified DenseNet-264 model, COVIDNet, to classify CT images to either class. When tested on an independent set of 233 COVID-19 and 289 non-COVID-19 pneumonia patients, COVIDNet achieved an accuracy rate of 94.3% and an area under the curve of 0.98. As of March 23, 2020, the COVIDNet system had been used 11,966 times with a sensitivity of 91.12% and a specificity of 88.50% in six hospitals with PCR confirmation. Application of DL to CT images may improve both efficiency and capacity of case detection and long-term surveillance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the application of ultrafiltration (UF) technology to treat cadmium (Cd) pollution in surface waters is investigated. The effect of the UF membrane molecular weight cut-off (MWCO), Cd ion (Cd2+) concentration, solution pH and ionic strength on the removal, and mass balance of Cd were explored. In addition, the effect of the solution pH on UF membrane fouling was analyzed. The results indicated that UF membranes with a low MWCO resulted in an improved Cd removal rate. In addition, as the Cd2+ concentration in feedwater increased, the Cd removal rate decreased, while the Cd concentration in the permeate increased. Since the solution pH and ionic strength had a notable impact on the Cd removal rate, a high pH value and low ionic strength led to a higher removal rate of Cd. Under optimal Cd removal conditions, UF reduced the influent Cd concentration from 1.0 to 0.019 mg/L. For membrane fouling, increasing the solution pH led to more serious membrane fouling. This phenomenon was the result of Cd2+ reacting with OH− and forming a Cd (OH)2 precipitate. The precipitate and humic acid formed compact cakes on the membrane surface and blocked membrane pores. These results provided adequate evidence for the higher removal of Cd with increasing solution pH. In addition, SEM images under different pH conditions were in agreement with the conclusion mentioned above, which provided further support for the effect of the solution pH on Cd removal and membrane fouling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: A novel gene NbGIS positively regulates glandular trichome initiation through GA Signaling in tobacco. NbMYB123-like regulates glandular trichome initiation by acting downstream of NbGIS in tobacco.Abstract: Glandular trichome is a specialized multicellular structure which has capability to synthesize and secrete secondary metabolites and protects plants from biotic and abiotic stresses. Our previous results revealed that a C2H2 zinc-finger transcription factor GIS and its sub-family genes act upstream of GL3/EGL3-GL1-TTG1 transcriptional activator complex to regulate trichome initiation in Arabidopsis. In this present study, we found that NbGIS could positively regulate glandular trichome development in Nicotiana benthamiana (tobacco). Our result demonstrated that 35S:NbGIS lines exhibited much higher densities of trichome on leaves, main stems, lateral branches and sepals than WT plants, while NbGIS:RNAi lines had the opposite phenotypes. Furthermore, our results also showed that NbGIS was required in response to GA signal to control glandular trichome initiation in Nicotiana benthamiana. In addition, our results also showed that NbGIS significantly influenced GA accumulation and expressions of marker genes of the GA biosynthesis, might result in the changes of growth and maturation in tobacco. Lastly, our results also showed that NbMYB123-like regulated glandular trichome initiation in tobacco by acting downstream of NbGIS. These findings provide new insights to discover the molecular mechanism by which C2H2 transcriptional factors regulates glandular trichome initiation through GA signaling pathway in tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message : The most recent outcomes about the transcription factors and transcription complexes mediated auxin signaling pathway by the histone acetylation and deacetylation. Abstract: The phytohormone auxin, is required to regulate its accumulation spatiotemporally and responses to orchestrate various developmental levels in plants. Histone acetylation and deacetylation modulate auxin biosynthesis, its distribution and accumulation. In the absence of auxin, histone deacetylase represses the expression of auxin-responsive genes. Various transcription factors and transcription complexes facilitate the proper regulation of auxin signaling pathway genes. The primary and lateral root development, promotion of flowering and initiation of seed germination are all regulated by auxin-mediated histone acetylation and deacetylation. These findings conclude the auxin mode of action, which is mediated by histone acetylation and deacetylation, and associated phenotypic responses in plants, along with the underlying mechanism of these modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impurity-mediated near-infrared (NIR) photoresponse in silicon is of great interest for photovoltaics and photodetectors. In this paper, we have fabricated a series of n/p photodetectors with hyperdoped silicon prepared by ion-implantation and femtosecond pulsed laser. These devices showed a remarkable enhancement on absorption and photoresponse at NIR wavelengths. The device fabricated with implantation dose of 10 ions/cm has exhibited the best performance. The proposed method offers an approach to fabricate low-cost broadband silicon-based photodetectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper researches on methods of the color image segmentation method of Lingwu long jujubes based on the maximum entropy to achieve the accuracy of image segmentation and improve accuracy of machine recognition. According to law between the color of Lingwu long jujubes and characteristic of environment, starting from the hue information, this paper is first to explore the difference between the hue of Lingwu long jujubes and the environment which it lives and then use maximum entropy to segment image. It finds optimal threshold by mathematical criterion judging the accuracy of image segmentation. The method of pre-processing of image is mean filter firstly. Then, it extracts hue information of true color image and uses maximum entropy for image segmentation, judging accuracy of image segmentation by segmentation area whether it is in accordance with the 3σ principle. Mathematical morphology is used for smoothing image and eliminating small holes. Finally, segmented image will be obtained through labeling the image by using methods of labeled image and using characteristic parameters for extracting feature. By comparing the segmentation effect with artificial method of the 30 Lingwu long jujubes images, it proves that the color image segmentation method of Lingwu long jujubes based on the maximum entropy has good effect to extract the object region. The accuracy of segmentation rate is up to 89.60%. The time that the algorithm run is 1.3132 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of layered velocity vector imaging (VVI)-derived left ventricular (LV) mechanical parameters in the differential diagnosis of primary light-chain cardiac amyloidosis (AL-CA) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We recruited 35 subjects with histologically-diagnosed AL-CA, 35 subjects with HCM, and 30 age-matched healthy controls. We used conventional echocardiography and electrocardiogram to evaluate general heart function and electrophysiology properties. Furthermore, we applied two-dimensional VVI echocardiography to assess the layered mechanical parameters during systole, including endocardial and epicardial longitudinal strain (ENDO and EPI LSsys), circumferential strain (CSsys), radial strain (RSsys), rotation (ROT) and twist (TWI), in different LV walls and levels. Two groups of patients had similarly elevated LV wall thickness and mild diastolic dysfunction, but normal ejection fraction. ENDO LSsys of three circular LV levels and six LV walls was markedly decreased in AL-CA patients, with the most prominent reduction in the basal level. The reduction of ENDO and EPI LSsys in HCM subjects was less profound, and was restricted to certain LV wall and levels. AL-CA patients had significantly reduced RSsys in the LV basal level compared with control or HCM patients. Two groups of patients exhibited similar reduction in layered regional CSsys, ROT and TWI. ROC analysis revealed that the sensitivity and specificity of basal ENDO LSsys for predicting AL-CA was 86 and 89%. Assessment of layered LSsys of LV walls and levels by VVI appeared to provide a more sensitive and specific diagnostic index for the differential diagnosis of AL-CA from HCM than conventional echocardiography. Future studies are warranted to evaluate its diagnostic efficacy for AL-CA diagnosis in the large population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]