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The retina is part of the central nervous system (CNS). Neurons in the CNS and retinal ganglion cells lack the ability to regenerate axons spontaneously after injury. The intrinsic axonal growth regulators, their interaction and roles that enable or inhibit axon growth are still largely unknown. This study endeavored to characterize the molecular characteristics under neurodegenerative and regenerative conditions. Data-Independent Acquisition Mass Spectrometry was used to map the comprehensive proteome of the regenerative retina from 14-day-old mice (Reg-P14) and adult mice after lens injury (Reg-LI) both showing regrowing axons in vitro, untreated adult mice, and retina from adult mice subjected to two weeks of elevated intraocular pressure showing degeneration. A total of 5750 proteins were identified (false discovery rate < 1%). Proteins identified in both Reg-P14 and Reg-LI groups were correlated to thyroid hormone, Notch, Wnt, and VEGF signaling pathways. Common interactors comprising E1A binding protein P300 (EP300), CREB binding protein (CBP), calcium/calmodulin dependent protein kinase II alpha (CaMKIIα) and sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) were found in both Reg-P14 and Reg-LI retinas. Proteins identified in both regenerating and degenerative groups were correlated to thyroid hormone, Notch, mRNA surveillance and measles signaling pathways, along with PD-L1 expression and the PD-1 checkpoint pathway. Common interactors across regenerative and degenerative retinas comprising NF-kappa-B p65 subunit (RELA), RNA-binding protein with serine-rich domain 1 (RNPS1), EP300 and SIN3 transcription regulator family member A (SIN3A). The findings from our study provide the first mapping of regenerative mechanisms across postnatal, mature and degenerative mouse retinas, revealing potential biomarkers that could facilitate neuro-regeneration in glaucoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Halitosis is a widespread health problem with complex factors, and therapeutic effects sometimes are unsatisfactory. Plenty of clinical trials have tried to prove the effectiveness of photodynamic therapy (PDT), but the results are indeterminate. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of PDT on halitosis. We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus from inception to August 10, 2022, and only studies about the PDT on halitosis were included. The criteria for meta-analysis comprised randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the treatment of PDT with tongue scraper (TS) immediately after the halitosis therapy and during a 7-, 14-, 30-, and 90-day follow-up. Eight eligible studies involving 345 patients were included in this study. It was shown that PDT (MD = − 34.49, 95% CI [− 66.34, − 2.64], P = 0.03) or PDT + TS (MD = − 67.72, 95% CI [− 101.17, − 34.28], P < 0.001) had better efficacy than TS on the H2S concentration reduction immediately after the halitosis therapy. No significant differences were observed in reducing the H2S among TS, PDT alone, and PDT + TS at the follow-up. Besides, no difference between PDT and TS was found in the reduction of CH3SCH3 and CH3SH. Based on the current evidence, PDT and PDT + TS demonstrate efficacy in the treatment of halitosis in the short term, and PDT was shown to be a beneficial and promising therapeutic method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rumen is the hallmark organ of ruminants and hosts a diverse ecosystem of microorganisms that facilitates efficient digestion of plant fibers. We analyzed 897 transcriptomes from three Cetartiodactyla lineages: ruminants, camels and cetaceans, as well as data from ruminant comparative genomics and functional assays to explore the genetic basis of rumen functional innovations. We identified genes with relatively high expression in the rumen, of which many appeared to be recruited from other tissues. These genes show functional enrichment in ketone body metabolism, regulation of microbial community, and epithelium absorption, which are the most prominent biological processes involved in rumen innovations. Several modes of genetic change underlying rumen functional innovations were uncovered, including coding mutations, genes newly evolved, and changes of regulatory elements. We validated that the key ketogenesis rate-limiting gene (HMGCS2) with five ruminant-specific mutations was under positive selection and exhibits higher synthesis activity than those of other mammals. Two newly evolved genes (LYZ1 and DEFB1) are resistant to Gram-positive bacteria and thereby may regulate microbial community equilibrium. Furthermore, we confirmed that the changes of regulatory elements accounted for the majority of rumen gene recruitment. These results greatly improve our understanding of rumen evolution and organ evo-devo in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A precipitation-based regionalization for the Tibetan Plateau (TP) was investigated for regional precipitation trend analysis and frequency analysis using data from 1113 grid points covering the period 1900-2014. The results utilizing self-organizing map (SOM) network suggest that four clusters of precipitation coherent zones can be identified, including the southwestern edge, the southern edge, the southeastern region, and the north central region. Regionalization results of the SOM network satisfactorily represent the influences of the atmospheric circulation systems such as the East Asian summer monsoon, the south Asian summer monsoon, and the mid-latitude westerlies. Regionalization results also well display the direct impacts of physical geographical features of the TP such as orography, topography, and land-sea distribution. Regional-scale annual precipitation trend as well as regional differences of annual and seasonal total precipitation were investigated by precipitation index such as precipitation concentration index (PCI) and Standardized Anomaly Index (SAI). Results demonstrate significant negative long-term linear trends in southeastern TP and the north central part of the TP, indicating arid and semi-arid regions in the TP are getting drier. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method shows an evolution of the main cycle with 4 and 12 months for all the representative grids of four sub-regions. The cross-wavelet analysis suggests that predominant and effective period of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) on monthly precipitation is around ∼12 months, except for the representative grid of the northwestern region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new kind of Sn-functionalized star-shaped styrene-isoprene-butadiene copolymer (Sn-SIBR) was synthesized using tin-containing organo-lithium (Sn-Li) as an initiator, tetrahydrofufury ethyl ether (ETE) and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) as polar modifiers by anionic polymerization. The kinetics of terpolymerization were studied, the microstructure, the glass transition temperature (Tg), and molecular structure of Sn-SIBR were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC), respectively. The polymerization rate of the monomers and NMR results show that random Sn-SIBR are being produced in the presence of ETE and SDBS. NMR results also show that the mass fraction of Total1,2 (the sum of Bd1,2 and Ip1,2) unit and Ip3,4 unit and the Tg of copolymers increase with the increase of ETE dosage or the decrease of polymerization temperature. However, the effects of SDBS dosage on them are not obvious. Mechanical and dynamic properties indicate that Sn-SIBR has a low rolling resistance and excellent wet skid resistance as well as good mechanical properties, and could satisfy the requirements of the rubber for high performance tire tread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient and accurate prediction of a precise tidal level in estuaries and coastal areas is indispensable for the management and decision-making of human activity in the field wok of marine engineering. The variation of the tidal level is a time-varying process. The time-varying factors including interference from the external environment that cause the change of tides are fairly complicated. Furthermore, tidal variations are affected not only by periodic movement of celestial bodies but also by time-varying interference from the external environment. Consequently, for the efficient and precise tidal level prediction, a neuro-fuzzy hybrid technology based on the combination of harmonic analysis and adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) model is utilized to construct a precise tidal level prediction system, which takes both advantages of the harmonic analysis method and the ANFIS network. The proposed prediction model is composed of two modules: the astronomical tide module caused by celestial bodies' movement and the non-astronomical tide module caused by various meteorological and other environmental factors. To generate a fuzzy inference system (FIS) structure, three approaches which include grid partition (GP), fuzzy c-means (FCM) and sub-clustering (SC) are used in the ANFIS network constructing process. Furthermore, to obtain the optimal ANFIS based prediction model, large numbers of simulation experiments are implemented for each FIS generating approach. In this tidal prediction study, the optimal ANFIS model is used to predict the non-astronomical tide module, while the conventional harmonic analysis model is used to predict the astronomical tide module. The final prediction result is performed by combining the estimation outputs of the harmonious analysis model and the optimal ANFIS model. To demonstrate the applicability and capability of the proposed novel prediction model, measured tidal level samples of Fort Pulaski tidal station are selected as the testing database. Simulation and experimental results confirm that the proposed prediction approach can achieve precise predictions for the tidal level with high accuracy, satisfactory convergence and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The styrene-isoprene-butadiene terpolymers were prepared using n-butyl lithium as initiator, cyclohexane as solvent, tetrahydrofuran as structure modifier and tin tetrachloride as coupling agent by a method of the change addition time of structure modifier through the anionic polymerization technique. The polymerization rate of monomers, molecular weight, microstructure, tanδ and morphology of copolymers were investigated. The results showed that addition of THF had a great effect on the polymerization rate of three monomers, especially styrene, and could tune copolymer composition by using different addition time of THF; the copolymer composition could vary gradually along the chain from block copolymers (isoprene-butadiene) to gradient copolymers (isoprene-butadiene-styrene isoprene-butadiene). It resulted in broadening of glass transition region and damping range. The monomer ratio and molecular weight that affected the mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties of copolymers were also investigated. At the same time, the microstructure, morphology and mechanical properties were compared with random terpolymer and solution styrene-butadiene rubber/butadiene rubber/nature rubber blend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an improved Gath-Geva clustering algorithm is proposed for automatic fuzzy segmentation of univariate and multivariate hydrometeorological time series. The algorithm considers time series segmentation problem as Gath-Geva clustering with the minimum message length criterion as segmentation order selection criterion. One characteristic of the improved Gath-Geva clustering algorithm is its unsupervised nature which can automatically determine the optimal segmentation order. Another characteristic is the application of the modified component-wise expectation maximization algorithm in Gath-Geva clustering which can avoid the drawbacks of the classical expectation maximization algorithm: the sensitivity to initialization and the need to avoid the boundary of the parameter space. The other characteristic is the improvement of numerical stability by integrating segmentation order selection into model parameter estimation procedure. The proposed algorithm has been experimentally tested on artificial and hydrometeorological time series. The obtained experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PD-L1 expression in pleural effusions (PE) of lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) was compared with pleural biopsies and the positive expression in PE was correlated with survival time. The matched slices from same patient’s pleura and PE were collected which both were pathologically verified positive. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to detect PD-L1 expression. A total of 51 eligible cases were enrolled, including 30 males and 21 females. The average age was (67.06 ± 12.10) years. PD-L1 expression wasn’t statistically significant in pleura and cell masses (P > 0.05) and the correlation was statistically significant (r = 0.585, P = 0.000). Using an IHC scores of 5 point as a cutoff, positive PD-L1 expression in the pleura was 11.63% and that in the cell masses was 23.26%, and difference was significant (P < 0.05). The correlation coefficient was 0.605. Among 35 cases underwent systemic anti-tumor treatment, the mean survival time with positive PD-L1 expression in PE was 17.370 ± 1.827 months, which was significantly shorter than that with the negative (29.944 ± 2.671 months) (χ2 = 4.507, P = 0.034). Positive PD-L1 expression in PE is higher than in the pleura and their correlation is well. It may predict the short survival time after systemic anti-tumor treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]