Search

The crystallization behavior of silica-filled polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was investigated in detail by 1H solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (1H SS-NMR) in combination with synchrotron radiation wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), and temperature-modulated differential scanning calorimetry (TMDSC) techniques. For neat PDMS, no apparent difference is observed for the crystallinity characterized by 1H SS-NMR and WAXS at low-temperature regions. However, upon filler addition, a 15%–35% lower difference in crystallinity is observed measured by 1H SS-NMR compared to WAXS. The origin of such mismatch was explored through multi-component structural, dynamics, and chain-order analysis of PDMS samples with different filler fractions. The 1D integrated WAXS results of PDMS with different filler fractions at different temperatures show that the packing structure as well as crystal size basically remain unchanged, but as the filler fraction increases from 0 phr to 60 phr, the rigid component's dynamics order parameter Sr obtained by 1H SS-NMR decreases from 0.70 to 0.55. The filler fraction-dependent crystallinity calculated based on Sr was compared with experimental values, revealing a behavior of decreasing order in the crystalline region. Combining with the results of accelerated chain dynamics in crystalline region as reflected by T2 values, the molecular origin is attributed to the formation of CONDIS crystals, whose conformational order is lost but the position and orientation orders are kept. Such hypothesis is further supported by the TMDSC results, where, as the filler fraction increases from 0 phr to 60 phr, the melting range widens from 8.77 K to 14.56 K, representing a growth of 166%. In addition to previous reports related to the condition for forming CONDIS mesophase, i.e., temperature, pressure, and stretching, the nano-sized filler could also introduce the local conformational disorder for chain packing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long arm of the Y chromosome (Yq) contains many amplified and palindromic sequences that are prone to self-reorganization during spermatogenesis, and tiny submicroscopic segmental deletions in the proximal Yq are called Y chromosome microdeletions (YCM). A retrospective study was conducted on male infertility patients of Zhuang ethnicity who presented at Reproductive Medical Center of Nanning between January 2015 and May 2023. Seminal fluid was collected for standard examination. YCM were detected by using a combination of multiplex PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis. Preparation of peripheral blood chromosomes and karyotyping of chromosomes was performed. 147 cases (9.22%) of YCM were detected in 1596 male infertility patients of Zhuang ethnicity. Significant difference was found in the detection rate of YCM between the azoospermia group and the oligospermia group (P < 0.001). Of all types of YCM, the highest detection rate was AZFc (n = 83), followed by AZFb + c (n = 28). 264 cases (16.54%) of sex chromosomal aberrations were detected. The most prevalent karyotype was 47, XXY (n = 202). The detection rate of sex chromosomal aberrations in azoospermia group was higher than that in severe oligospermia group and oligospermia group, and the differences were significant (P < 0.001). 28 cases (1.57%) of autosomal aberrations and 105 cases (6.58%) of chromosomal polymorphism were identified. The current research has some limitations due to the lack of normal men as the control group but suggests that YCM and chromosomal aberrations represent key genetic factors influencing spermatogenesis in infertile males of Zhuang ethnicity in Guangxi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma (GBM), a primary brain tumor, exhibits remarkable invasiveness and is characterized by its intricate location, infiltrative behavior, the presence of both the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and the blood–brain tumor barrier (BBTB), phenotypic diversity, an immunosuppressive microenvironment with limited development yet rich vascularity, as well as the resistant nature of glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) towards traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These formidable factors present substantial obstacles in the quest for effective GBM treatments. Following extensive research spanning three decades, the hepatocellular receptor A2 (EphA2) receptor tyrosine kinase has emerged as a promising molecular target with translational potential in the realm of cancer therapy. Numerous compounds aimed at targeting EphA2 have undergone rigorous evaluation and clinical investigation. This article provides a comprehensive account of the distinctive roles played by canonical and non-canonical EphA2 signaling in various contexts, while also exploring the involvement of the EphA2-ephrin A1 signaling axis in GBM pathogenesis. Additionally, the review offers an overview of completed clinical trials targeting EphA2 for GBM treatment, shedding light on both the prospects and challenges associated with EphA2-directed interventions in the domain of cancer therapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In recent decades, the occurrence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has outweighed that of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction by degrees, but few drugs have been demonstrated to improve long-term clinical outcomes in patients with HFpEF. Levosimendan, a calcium-sensitizing cardiotonic agent, improves decompensated heart failure clinically. However, the anti-HFpEF activities of levosimendan and underlying molecular mechanisms are unclear. Methods: In this study, a double-hit HFpEF C57BL/6N mouse model was established, and levosimendan (3 mg/kg/week) was administered to HFpEF mice aged 13 to 17 weeks. Different biological experimental techniques were used to verify the protective effects of levosimendan against HFpEF. Results: After four weeks of drug treatment, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, cardiac hypertrophy, pulmonary congestion, and exercise exhaustion were significantly alleviated. Junction proteins in the endothelial barrier and between cardiomyocytes were also improved by levosimendan. Among the gap junction channel proteins, connexin 43, which was especially highly expressed in cardiomyocytes, mediated mitochondrial protection. Furthermore, levosimendan reversed mitochondrial malfunction in HFpEF mice, as evidenced by increased mitofilin and decreased ROS, superoxide anion, NOX4, and cytochrome C levels. Interestingly, after levosimendan administration, myocardial tissue from HFpEF mice showed restricted ferroptosis, indicated by an increased GSH/GSSG ratio; upregulated GPX4, xCT, and FSP-1 expression; and reduced intracellular ferrous ion, MDA, and 4-HNE levels. Conclusion: Regular long-term levosimendan administration can benefit cardiac function in a mouse model of HFpEF with metabolic syndromes (namely, obesity and hypertension) by activating connexin 43-mediated mitochondrial protection and sequential ferroptosis inhibition in cardiomyocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Glioma is a leading cause of mortality worldwide, its recurrence poses a major challenge in achieving effective treatment outcomes. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have emerged as key contributors to tumor relapse and chemotherapy resistance, making them attractive targets for glioma cancer therapy. This study investigated the potential of FERMT1 as a prognostic biomarker and its role in regulating stemness through cell cycle in glioma. Methods: Using data from TCGA-GBM, GSE4290, GSE50161 and GSE147352 for analysis of FERMT1 expression in glioma tissues. Then, the effects of FERMT1 knockdown on cell cycle, proliferation, sphere formation ability, invasion and migration were investigated. The influences of FERMT1 on expression of glycolysis-related proteins and levels of ATP, glucose, lactate and G6PDH were also explored. Furthermore, the effects of FERMT1 knockdown on cellular metabolism were evidenced. Results: Significant upregulation of FERMT1 in glioma tissues was observed. Silencing FERMT1 not only affected the cell cycle but also led to a notable reduction in proliferation, invasion and migration. The expression of glycolysis-associated proteins including GLUT1, GLUT3, GLUT4, and SCO2 were reduced by FERMT1 knockdown, resulted in increased ATP and glucose as well as decreased lactic acid and G6PDH levels. FERMT1 knockdown also inhibited cellular metabolism. Moreover, FERMT1 knockdown significantly reduced sphere diameter, along with inhibiting the expression of transcription factors associated with stemness in glioma cells. Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that FERMT1 could be an ideal target for the advancement of innovative strategies against glioma treatment via modulating cellular process involved in stemness regulation and metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging evidence suggests an association between maternal hypertension during pregnancy and mental health in the offspring. However, less is known about the role of hypertensive pregnancy in behavioral symptoms and brain structures of the offspring as well as in their developmental changes. Here, we utilized neuroimaging and behavioral data from 11,878 participants aged 9–10 years and their 2-year follow-up from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to investigate the long-term effects of maternal hypertension during pregnancy on early adolescent behavior and brain anatomy. Specifically, adolescents born of mothers with maternal hypertension are at risk of long-lasting behavioral problems, as manifested by higher externalizing and internalizing behavior scores at both 9–10 years and 11–12 years. These participants additionally presented with a higher cortical thickness, particularly in the fronto-parieto-temporal areas at 9–10 years. Four regions, including the left parahippocampus, left lateral orbitofrontal lobe, right superior temporal lobe and right temporal pole, remained thicker 2 years later. These findings were partially validated in rats modeled with Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) preeclampsia. Therefore, clinicians and women who experience hypertension during pregnancy should be warned of this risk, and healthcare providers should recommend appropriate clinical interventions for pregnancy-induced hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound combined with ultrasound elastography for benign and malignant thyroid nodules is still controversial, so we used meta-analysis to seek controversial answers. The PubMed, OVID, and CNKI databases were searched according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The literature was selected from the establishment of each database to February 2024. The QUADAS-2 tool assessed diagnostic test accuracy. SROC curves and Spearman's correlation coefficient were made by Review Manager 5.4 software to assess the presence of threshold effects in the literature. Meta-Disc1.4 software was used for Cochrane-Q and χ2 tests, which be used to evaluate heterogeneity, with P-values and I2 indicating heterogeneity levels. The appropriate effect model was selected based on the results of the heterogeneity test. Stata18.0 software was used to evaluate publication bias. The diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound combined with ultrasound elastography for benign and malignant thyroid nodules was evaluated by calculating the combined sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, DOR, and area under the SROC curve. A total of 31 studies included 3811 patients with 4718 nodules were analyzed. There is no heterogeneity caused by the threshold effect, but there is significant non-threshold heterogeneity. Combined diagnostic metrics were: sensitivity = 0.93, specificity = 0.91, DOR = 168.41, positive likelihood ratio = 10.60, and negative likelihood ratio = 0.07. The SROC curve area was 0.97. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound and elastography show high diagnostic accuracy for thyroid nodules, offering a solid foundation for early diagnosis and treatment. Trial registration. CRD42024509462. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular ferroelectrics are attracting great interest due to their light weight, mechanical flexibility, low cost, ease of processing and environmental friendliness. These advantages make molecular ferroelectrics viable alternatives or supplements to inorganic ceramics and polymer ferroelectrics. It is expected that molecular ferroelectrics with good performance can be fabricated, which in turns calls for effective chemical design strategies in crystal engineering. To achieve so, we propose a hydrogen bond modification method by introducing the hydroxyl group, and successfully boost the phase transition temperature (Tc) by at least 336 K. As a result, the molecular ferroelectric 1-hydroxy-3-adamantanammonium tetrafluoroborate [(HaaOH)BF4] can maintain ferroelectricity until 528 K, a Tc value much larger than that of BTO (390 K). Meanwhile, micro-domain patterns, in stable state for 2 years, can be directly written on the film of (HaaOH)BF4. In this respect, hydrogen bond modification is a feasible and effective strategy for designing molecular ferroelectrics with high Tc and stable ferroelectric domains. Such an organic molecule with varied modification sites and the precise crystal engineering can provide an efficient route to enrich high-Tc ferroelectrics with various physical properties.The authors propose a hydrogen bond modification method to achieve introduction of polarization and enhancement of phase transition temperature in molecular ferroelectrics, exploring the piezoelectric prototype devices of the molecular ferroelectric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rare Metals is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Human cerebellum encompasses numerous neurons, exhibiting a distinct developmental paradigm from cerebrum. Here we conducted scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq and spatial transcriptomic analyses of fetal samples from gestational week (GW) 13 to 18 to explore the emergence of cellular diversity and developmental programs in the developing human cerebellum. We identified transitory granule cell progenitors that are conserved across species. Special patterns in both granule cells and Purkinje cells were dissected multidimensionally. Species-specific gene expression patterns of cerebellar lobes were characterized and we found that PARM1 exhibited inconsistent distribution in human and mouse granule cells. A novel cluster of potential neuroepithelium at the rhombic lip was identified. We also resolved various subtypes of Purkinje cells and unipolar brush cells and revealed gene regulatory networks controlling their diversification. Therefore, our study offers a valuable multi-omics landscape of human fetal cerebellum and advances our understanding of development and spatial organization of human cerebellum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has been widely employed in game industry, mainly for building automatic game agents. While its performance and efficiency has significantly outperformed traditional approaches, the lack of model transparency constrains the interaction between the model and the human operators, thus degrading the practicality of DRL methods. In this paper, we propose to mitigate this human-AI interaction issue in a game industry scenario. Previously, existing methods need repetitive execution of DRL or are designed towards specific tasks, which are not applicable for our deployment scenario. Considering that different games could have different DRL AI agents, we hereby develop a post-hoc explanation framework which regards original DRL as a black-box model and can be applicable to any DRL based agents. Within the framework, a specially selected student model, which has been already well explored for model explanation, is employed to learn the decision policies of the trained DRL model. Then, by giving explanation information for the student model, indirect but practical explanation results can be obtained for original DRL model. Based on this information, the interaction between human and AI agents can be enhanced, benefiting deployment of DRL. Finally, based on the dataset from a real-world production game, we conduct experiments and user studies to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedure from both objective and subjective perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A drug-loaded diaphragm is an easy-to-use and effective drug delivery system that is often used to treat mouth ulcers. In this study, an ultrafine fiber film loaded with capsaicin was successfully prepared using the electrospinning technology. poly-l-lactic acid and gelatin were selected as the matrix materials to form the composite fiber, and trifluoroethanol was used as a co-solvent for poly-l-lactic acid, gelatin and capsaicin to prepare the spinning solution, which was simple to fabricate. The prepared fiber films were characterized based on their microscopic morphology and tested to derive their mechanical properties. Thereafter, the capsaicin release behavior of the film was investigated. In vitro experiments revealed certain anti-inflammatory and antibacterial abilities while animal experiments revealed that the capsaicin-loaded ultrafine fiber film could promote the healing of oral ulcers in rats. Healing of the tongue tissue in rats administered 10% capsaicin-loaded fiber film was found to be better than that in rats administered the commercial dexamethasone patch. Overall, this development strategy may prove to be promising for the development of oral ulcer patch formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fasting blood glucose (FBG) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) are key indicators reflecting blood glucose control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. The purpose of this study is to establish a predictive model for blood glucose changes in T2DM patients after 3 months of treatment, achieving personalized treatment.A retrospective study was conducted on type 2 diabetes mellitus real-world medical data from 4 cities in Sichuan Province, China from January 2015 to December 2020. After data preprocessing, data inputting, data sampling, and feature screening, 16 kinds of machine learning methods were used to construct prediction models, and 5 prediction models with the best prediction performance were screened respectively. A total of 100,000 cases were included to establish the FBG model, and 2,169 cases were established to establish the HbA1c model. The best prediction model both of FBG and HbA1c finally obtained are realized by ensemble learning and modified random forest inputting, the AUC values are 0.819 and 0.970, respectively. The most important indicators of the FBG and HbA1c prediction model were FBG and HbA1c. Medication compliance, follow-up outcome, dietary habits, BMI, and waist circumference also had a greater impact on FBG levels. The prediction accuracy of the models of the two blood glucose control indicators is high and has certain clinical applicability.HbA1c and FBG are mutually important predictors, and there is a close relationship between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific layout design of the groundwater pollution monitoring network (GPMN) can provide high quality groundwater monitoring data, which is essential for the timely detection and remediation of groundwater pollution. The simulation optimization approach was effective in obtaining the optimal design of the GPMN. The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is an effective method for solving optimization models. However, the parameters used in the conventional ACO algorithm are empirically adopted with fixed values, which may affect the global searchability and convergence speed. Therefore, a parameter-iterative updating strategy-based ant colony optimization (PIUSACO) algorithm was proposed to solve this problem. For the GPMN optimal design problem, a simulation–optimization framework using PIUSACO algorithm was applied in a municipal waste landfill in BaiCheng city in China. Moreover, to reduce the computational load of the design process while considering the uncertainty of aquifer parameters and pollution sources, a genetic algorithm-support vector regression (GA-SVR) method was proposed to develop the surrogate model for the numerical model. The results showed that the layout scheme obtained using the PIUSACO algorithm had a significantly higher detection rate than ACO algorithm and random layout schemes, indicating that the designed layout scheme based on the PIUSACO algorithm can detect the groundwater pollution occurrence timely. The comparison of the iteration processes of the PIUSACO and conventional ACO algorithms shows that the global searching ability is improved and the convergence speed is accelerated significantly using the iteration updating strategy of crucial parameters. This study demonstrates the feasibility of the PIUSACO algorithm for the optimal layout design of the GPMN for the timely detection of groundwater pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsupervised opinion summarization is the technique of automatically generates summaries without gold reference, and the summaries that reflects aspects of information about the entity. Although there are more mature studies on unsupervised opinion summarazaiton, but these studies focus more on unsupervised training methods and ignore the extraction of information by the model. In this paper, we propose JointSum, an unsupervised opinion summarization method based on variational autoencoder model. JointSum first extracts aspect and sentiment information in reviews by joint attention and dictionary learning, respectively. Joint attention consists of text attention and auxiliary attention, which can extract key information in the input text from different fine-grained levels. Then we calculate the variance and mean of the Gaussian distribution in variational autoencoder model using aspect and sentiment information. In addition, we added the review score prediction subtask to increase the robustness of the model. Finally, in generation phase, we adopt pointer-generator network because it includes copy and coverage mechanism that can solve problems in text generation. Experiments on Amazon and Yelp datasets, the results show that the model has good performance in both automatic and human evaluation, the ROUGE-L value on the Yelp dataset gets 20.83. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated and accurate segmentation of retinal vessels in fundus images is an important step for screening and diagnosing various ophthalmologic diseases. However, many factors, including the variations of vessels in color, shape and size, make this task become an intricate challenge. One kind of the most popular methods for vessel segmentation is U-Net based methods. However, in the U-Net based methods, the size of the convolution kernels is generally fixed. As a result, the receptive field for an individual convolution operation is single, which is not conducive to the segmentation of retinal vessels with various thicknesses. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we employed self-calibrated convolutions to replace the traditional convolutions for the U-Net, which can make the U-Net learn discriminative representations from different receptive fields. Besides, we proposed an improved spatial attention module, instead of using traditional convolutions, to connect the encoding part and decoding part of the U-Net, which can improve the ability of the U-Net to detect thin vessels. The proposed method has been tested on Digital Retinal Images for Vessel Extraction (DRIVE) database and Child Heart and Health Study in England Database (CHASE DB1). The metrics used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method are accuracy (ACC), sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), F1-score (F1) and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The ACC, SE, SP, F1 and AUC obtained by the proposed method are 0.9680, 0.8036, 0.9840, 0.8138 and 0.9840 respectively on DRIVE database, and 0.9756, 0.8118, 0.9867, 0.8068 and 0.9888 respectively on CHASE DB1, which are better than those obtained by the traditional U-Net (the ACC, SE, SP, F1 and AUC obtained by U-Net are 0.9646, 0.7895, 0.9814, 0.7963 and 0.9791 respectively on DRIVE database, and 0.9733, 0.7817, 0.9862, 0.7870 and 0.9810 respectively on CHASE DB1). The experimental results indicate that the proposed modifications in the U-Net are effective for vessel segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of thermodynamically controllable synthetic strategy to manipulate the morphology of ZIF-8 without capping agent is essential to help understanding their facet effect and the structure-activity relationship of single atom catalysts derived from ZIF-8. Here, we prepared ZIF-8 with different morphologies (cube, truncated rhombododecahedral and rhombododecahedral) and thus area ratio of exposed {100}, {110} facets by a thermodynamically controllable synthetic strategy. When the reaction proceeds under room temperature (30 °C), the assembling of ZIF-8 followed an area-reducing layered growth mode, while switched to an integral layered growth mode at lower temperature −40 °C. Moreover, this strategy also works to obtain ZIF-8 encapsulated with metal precursors (Fe(acac)3, Cu(acac)2 and Co(acac)2). Single Fe atom anchored on nitrogen doped carbon catalysts (SA-Fe/CN) derived from Fe-ZIF-8 retain their original morphologies and the unsaturated surface-active sites on {100} facet, which further displays different catalytic performance towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This work not only reveals the different growth pattern of ZIF-8, but also points out a new direction for designing and synthesizing MOFs with different morphology rationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of N2-plasma-treated SiO2 interfacial layer on the interfacial and electrical characteristics of HfO2/SiO2/p-Si stacks grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) was investigated. The microstructure and interfacial chemical bonding configuration of the HfO2/SiO2/Si stacks were also examined by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Compared with the samples without N2-plasma treatment, it is found that the samples with N2-plasma treatment have less oxygen vacancy density for SiO2 interfacial layer and better HfO2/SiO2 interface. In agreement with XPS analyses, electrical measurements of the samples with N2-plasma treatment show better interfacial quality, including lower interface-state density (Dit, 9.3 × 1011 cm−2·eV−1 near midgap) and lower oxide-charge density (Qox, 2.5 × 1012 cm−2), than those of the samples without N2-plasma treatment. Additionally, the samples with N2-plasma treatment have better electrical performances, including higher saturation capacitance density (1.49 μF·cm−2) and lower leakage current density (3.2 × 10−6 A·cm−2 at Vg = Vfb − 1 V). Furthermore, constant voltage stress was applied on the gate electrode to investigate the reliability of these samples. It shows that the samples with N2-plasma treatment have better electrical stability than the samples without N2-plasma treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abundant chemical diversity and structural tunability make organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites (OIHPs) a rich ore for ferroelectrics. However, compared with their inorganic counterparts such as BaTiO3, their ferroelectric key properties, including large spontaneous polarization (Ps), low coercive field (Ec), and strong second harmonic generation (SHG) response, have long been great challenges, which hinder their commercial applications. Here, a quasi-one-dimensional OIHP DMAGeI3 (DMA = Dimethylamine) is reported, with notable ferroelectric attributes at room temperature: a large Ps of 24.14 μC/cm2 (on a par with BaTiO3), a low Ec below 2.2 kV/cm, and the strongest SHG intensity in OIHP family (about 12 times of KH2PO4 (KDP)). Revealed by the first-principles calculations, its large Ps originates from the synergistic effects of the stereochemically active 4s2 lone pair of Ge2+ and the ordering of organic cations, and its low kinetic energy barrier of small DMA cations results in a low Ec. Our work brings the comprehensive ferroelectric performances of OIHPs to a comparable level with commercial inorganic ferroelectric perovskites. The authors report on a quasi-one-dimensional organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite, DMAGeI3 (DMA = Dimethylamine), with notable ferroelectric attributes at room temperature including large spontaneous polarisation, low coercive field, and strong second harmonic generation response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the prognostic impact of lymphovascular and perineural invasions in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue who received surgery-based treatment at our institution between January 2013 and December 2020. Patients were divided into four groups based on the presence of perineural (P−/P +) and lymphovascular invasions (V−/V +): P–V−, P–V + , P + V−, and P + V +. Log-rank and Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the association between perineural /lymphovascular invasion and overall survival (OS). Altogether, 127 patients were included, and 95 (74.8%), 8 (6.3%), 18 (14.2%), and 6 (4.7%) cases were classified as P–V−, P–V + , P + V−, and P + V + , respectively. Pathologic N stage (pN stage), tumor stage, histological grade, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, and postoperative radiotherapy were significantly associated with OS (p < 0.05). OS was significantly different among the four groups (p < 0.05). Significant between-group differences in OS were detected for node-positive (p < 0.05) and stage III–IV (p < 0.05) cases. OS was the worst in the P + V + group. Lymphovascular and perineural invasions are independent negative prognostic factors for squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Patients with lymphovascular and/or perineural invasion may have significantly poorer overall survival than those without neurovascular involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of longwall mining along the strike with steeply inclined coal seam, the coal face instability spalling seriously affects its safe and efficient mining. In order to explore the response law of damage and instability of coal face to its influencing factors, 3DEC numerical simulation was used to analyze the displacement characteristics and instability of coal face under different mining heights, inclination angles, coal cohesion and coal joint spacing in steeply inclined coal seam. The relationship between the above factors and the displacement of coal face is further obtained by multivariate nonlinear fitting, and the prediction model of coal face displacement is constructed. The results show that with the increase of coal seam mining height, the decrease of coal seam joint spacing and the decrease of coal cohesion, the horizontal and vertical displacement values of working face increase. With the increase of inclination angle of coal seam, the displacement value of working face decreases in a certain range, but the overall trend is increasing. The displacement (y) prediction model of working face based on coal seam mining height (x1), inclination angle (x2), cohesion (x3) and joint spacing (x4) is further obtained. The fitting degree R2 of the fitting value and the actual value of the horizontal displacement and vertical displacement prediction model are 0.9692 and 0.9979, respectively. In addition, according to the actual engineering situation of a mine, the model prediction and 3DEC numerical simulation are carried out. The obtained displacement results of the working face are basically consistent with the actual monitoring results, which further verifies the reliability and scientificity of the displacement prediction model of the working face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed at the preparation and evaluation of walnut meal-derived elastase inhibitory peptide loaded in chitosan-tripolyphosphate (CS-TPP) nanoparticles (NPs). It was shown that the maximum encapsulation efficiency of FFVPF could reach 94.58 ± 0.23%. TEM microphotographs, polydispersity index, and zeta-sizer reports indicated that FFVPF-loaded CS-TPP NPs were in nanometric range and were spherical, discrete, and uniform in size with PDI less than 0.3. FTIR analysis indicated that the peptides interacted with CS-TPP NPs through strong hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions. The CS-TPP FFVPF NPs showed better stability with heating treatment, pH treatment, or photochemical treatment. Moreover, the in vitro release profile of peptides was identified. The release rate of encapsulated FFVPF was released explosively to 77.22 ± 2.21% and gradually slowed down. These findings highlighted the prospect of CS-TPP NPs as an oral delivery system, and the application of peptides within food and pharmaceutical products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant childhood brain tumour1,2, yet the origin of the most aggressive subgroup-3 form remains elusive, impeding development of effective targeted treatments. Previous analyses of mouse cerebella3–5 have not fully defined the compositional heterogeneity of MBs. Here we undertook single-cell profiling of freshly isolated human fetal cerebella to establish a reference map delineating hierarchical cellular states in MBs. We identified a unique transitional cerebellar progenitor connecting neural stem cells to neuronal lineages in developing fetal cerebella. Intersectional analysis revealed that the transitional progenitors were enriched in aggressive MB subgroups, including group 3 and metastatic tumours. Single-cell multi-omics revealed underlying regulatory networks in the transitional progenitor populations, including transcriptional determinants HNRNPH1 and SOX11, which are correlated with clinical prognosis in group 3 MBs. Genomic and Hi-C profiling identified de novo long-range chromatin loops juxtaposing HNRNPH1/SOX11-targeted super-enhancers to cis-regulatory elements of MYC, an oncogenic driver for group 3 MBs. Targeting the transitional progenitor regulators inhibited MYC expression and MYC-driven group 3 MB growth. Our integrated single-cell atlases of human fetal cerebella and MBs show potential cell populations predisposed to transformation and regulatory circuitries underlying tumour cell states and oncogenesis, highlighting hitherto unrecognized transitional progenitor intermediates predictive of disease prognosis and potential therapeutic vulnerabilities.Integrated single-cell atlases of human fetal cerebella and MBs show potential cell populations predisposed to transformation and regulatory circuitries underlying tumour cell states and oncogenesis, highlighting hitherto unrecognized transitional progenitor intermediates predictive of disease prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endovascular treatment is widely used in the treatment of intracranial aneurysms. However, neurosurgeons are sceptical about endovascular access via the radial artery. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the effectiveness and safety of transradial and transfemoral artery access in patients with intracranial aneurysms. We systematically searched the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases for studies comparing the two approaches. The primary outcome was total complications, and the secondary outcomes were access site complications, intracranial haemorrhage, stroke, thromboembolism, silent infarct, re-treatment rate, mortality, complete occlusion of intracranial aneurysms, procedure duration, and length of hospital stay. A random-effects model was used to assess the pooled data. Of the 100 identified studies, 6 were eligible (a total of 3764 participants). There were no significant differences in total complications(odds ratio [OR] = 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.33, 1.45], p = 0.32), complete occlusion of intracranial aneurysms (OR = 1.02, 95%CI [0.77,1.37], p = 0.87), procedure duration (mean difference [MD] = − 6.24, 95%CI [− 14.75, − 1.54], p = 0.95), or length of hospital stay (MD = 2.204, 95%CI [− 0.05, 4.45], p = 0.95), access site complications (OR = 0.49, 95%CI [0.16, 1.52], p = 0.22), intracranial haemorrhage (OR = 1.07, 95%CI [0.49, 2.34], p = 0.86), stroke (OR = 0.59, 95%CI [0.20, 1.77], p = 0.35), thromboembolism (OR = 0.85, 95%CI [0.33, 2.17], p = 0.74), silent infarct (OR = 0.69, 95%CI [0.04, 11.80], p = 0.80), retreatment rate (OR = 1.32, 95%CI [0.70, 2.48], p = 0.39), mortality (OR = 1.41, 95%CI [0.06, 5.20], p = 0.61), immediate occlusion (OR = 0.99, 95%CI [0.64, 1.51], p = 0.95), and occlusion during follow-up (OR = 1.10, 95%CI [0.56, 2.16], p = 0.74) between the transradial and transfemoral groups. This study showed comparable safety and efficacy outcomes between transradial and transfemoral access in patients with intracranial aneurysms treated endovascularly. Future large randomised trials are warranted to confirm these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi-solid-state Zn-air batteries are usually limited to relatively low-rate ability (<10 mA cm−2), which is caused in part by sluggish oxygen electrocatalysis and unstable electrochemical interfaces. Here we present a high-rate and robust quasi-solid-state Zn-air battery enabled by atomically dispersed cobalt sites anchored on wrinkled nitrogen doped graphene as the air cathode and a polyacrylamide organohydrogel electrolyte with its hydrogen-bond network modified by the addition of dimethyl sulfoxide. This design enables a cycling current density of 100 mA cm−2 over 50 h at 25 °C. A low-temperature cycling stability of over 300 h (at 0.5 mA cm−2) with over 90% capacity retention at −60 °C and a broad temperature adaptability (−60 to 60 °C) are also demonstrated. Quasi-solid-state Zn-air batteries are limited by sluggish kinetics and low temperature incompatibility. Here, the authors use a single-atom catalyst and an organohydrogel electrolyte to enable a 100 mA cm−2 cycling current density at 25 °C and a −60 to 60 °C operational window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient character recognition is not only important for the study and understanding of ancient history but also has a profound impact on the inheritance and development of national culture. In order to reduce the study of difficult professional knowledge of ancient characters, and meanwhile overcome the lack of data, class imbalance, diversification of glyphs, and open set recognition problems in ancient characters, we propose a Siamese similarity network based on a similarity learning method to directly learn input similarity and then apply the trained model to establish one shot classification task for recognition. Multi-scale fusion backbone structure and embedded structure are proposed in the network to improve the model's ability to extract features. We also propose the soft similarity contrast loss function for the first time, which ensures the optimization of similar images with higher similarity and different classes of images with greater differences while reducing the over-optimization of back-propagation leading to model overfitting. Specially, we propose a cumulative class prototype based on our network to solve the deviation problem of the mean class prototype and obtain a good class representation. Since new ancient characters can still be found in reality, our model has the ability to reject unknown categories while identifying new ones. A large number of experiments show that our proposed method has achieved high-efficiency discriminative performance and obtained the best performance over the methods of traditional deep learning and other classic one-shot learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Until now, we have no thorough understanding the role of absolute humidity on influenza activity, especially in tropical and subtropical areas. In this study, we investigated the relationship between absolute humidity and influenza activity in seven municipalities/provinces covering different climatic zones in China. Weekly meteorological data and influenza surveillance data in seven provinces/municipalities in China were collected from January 2012 to December 2019. A distributed lag nonlinear model was adopted to investigate the association between absolute humidity (AH) and influenza activity in each study site. Then, seven study sites were grouped into three regions: northern, intermediate, and southernmost regions. A multivariate meta-analysis was applied to estimate the exposure-lag-response associations in three regions. The province-specific or municipality-specific curves appeared to be nonlinear, and the association between influenza activity and AH varied across regions. In Beijing and Tianjin, located in northern China, the cumulative relative risks (RRs) increased as weekly average AHmean fell below 3.41 g/m3 and 6.62 g/m3. In Guangdong and Hainan, located in southernmost China, the risk of influenza activity increased with rising average AHmean with 16.74 g/m3 and 20.18 g/m3 as the break points. In Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Chongqing, the relationship between weekly average AHmean and influenza could be described as U-shaped curves, with the lowest RRs when weekly average AHmean was 11.95 g/m3, 11.94 g/m3, and 15.96 g/m3, respectively. Meta-analysis results showed the cumulative RRs significantly increased as weekly average AHmean fell below 3.86 g/m3 in the northern region, whereas significantly increased as weekly average AHmean rose above 18.46 g/m3 and 15.22 g/m3 in intermediate and southernmost regions, respectively. Both low and high AH might increase influenza risk in China, and the relationship varies geographically. Our findings suggest that public health policies for climate change adaptation should be tailored to the local climate conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activating FLT3 mutations are the most common mutations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but the optimal threshold of FLT3/ITD allelic ratio (AR) among pediatric AML patients remains controversial. Here, we present the outcome and prognostic significance of FLT3/ITD AR analysis among pediatric patients with AML from the TARGET dataset. Applying fitting curve models and threshold effect analysis using the restrictive cubic spline function following Cox proportional hazards models identifies the cut-off value of 0.5 on FLT3/ITD AR. Moreover, we observe that high FLT3/ITD AR patients have an inferior outcome when compared to low AR patients. Our study also demonstrates that stem cell transplantation may improve the outcome in pediatric AML patients with high FLT3/ITD AR and may be further improved when combined with additional therapies such as Gemtuzumab Ozogamicin. These findings underline the importance of individualized treatment of pediatric AML. Activating FLT3 mutations are the most common mutations in AML. Here, the authors explore the relationship between the FLT3/ITD allelic ratio and prognosis in pediatric AML patients and identify an optimal threshold to stratify patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The relationship between frailty and mortality among individuals with varying diabetic statuses represents a burgeoning area of concern and scholarly interest within the medical community. However, there are limited studies that explore the relationship between frailty and mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality among individuals with non-diabetes, prediabetes, and diabetes patients. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the frailty statues and all-cause mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality in individuals with varying diabetic statuses using the data in the NHANES database.The study utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2018, incorporating a final sample size of 57, 098 participants. Both univariable and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses, as well as Cox regression analysis were employed to examine the relationship between frailty index (FI) and mortality.This study, found a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality non-diabetic [OR 4.277, 95%CI (3.982, 4.594), P < 0.001], prediabetic [OR 2.312, 95%CI (2.133, 2.506), P < 0.001], and diabetic patients [OR 3.947, 95%CI (3.378, 4.611), P < 0.001]. This correlation still existed even after adjusting for confounding factors including age, sex, BMI, poverty, fasting insulin, education, smoke, alcohol drink, waist, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, fasting glucose, HbA1c, eGFR, creatinine and total bilirubin. Our result also suggested a significant positive correlation between the frailty index and the increased risk of CVD mortality among non-diabetic [OR 3.095, 95%CI (2.858, 3.352), P < 0.001] and prediabetic [OR 5.985, 95%CI (5.188, 6.904), P < 0.001] individuals. However, in patients with diabetes, the correlation between frailty and CVD mortality lost significance after adjusting for possible confounding factors [OR 1.139, 95%CI (0.794, 1.634), P > 0.05].A nonlinear relationship has been identified between the FI and all-cause mortality, as well as CVD mortality in non-diabetic and pre-diabetic population. In diabetic patients, there was a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality, but not with CVD mortality. Renal function and liver function might potentially acted as an intermediary factor that elevated the risk of CVD mortality in frail patients with diabetes.Methods: The relationship between frailty and mortality among individuals with varying diabetic statuses represents a burgeoning area of concern and scholarly interest within the medical community. However, there are limited studies that explore the relationship between frailty and mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality among individuals with non-diabetes, prediabetes, and diabetes patients. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the frailty statues and all-cause mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality in individuals with varying diabetic statuses using the data in the NHANES database.The study utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2018, incorporating a final sample size of 57, 098 participants. Both univariable and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses, as well as Cox regression analysis were employed to examine the relationship between frailty index (FI) and mortality.This study, found a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality non-diabetic [OR 4.277, 95%CI (3.982, 4.594), P < 0.001], prediabetic [OR 2.312, 95%CI (2.133, 2.506), P < 0.001], and diabetic patients [OR 3.947, 95%CI (3.378, 4.611), P < 0.001]. This correlation still existed even after adjusting for confounding factors including age, sex, BMI, poverty, fasting insulin, education, smoke, alcohol drink, waist, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, fasting glucose, HbA1c, eGFR, creatinine and total bilirubin. Our result also suggested a significant positive correlation between the frailty index and the increased risk of CVD mortality among non-diabetic [OR 3.095, 95%CI (2.858, 3.352), P < 0.001] and prediabetic [OR 5.985, 95%CI (5.188, 6.904), P < 0.001] individuals. However, in patients with diabetes, the correlation between frailty and CVD mortality lost significance after adjusting for possible confounding factors [OR 1.139, 95%CI (0.794, 1.634), P > 0.05].A nonlinear relationship has been identified between the FI and all-cause mortality, as well as CVD mortality in non-diabetic and pre-diabetic population. In diabetic patients, there was a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality, but not with CVD mortality. Renal function and liver function might potentially acted as an intermediary factor that elevated the risk of CVD mortality in frail patients with diabetes.Results: The relationship between frailty and mortality among individuals with varying diabetic statuses represents a burgeoning area of concern and scholarly interest within the medical community. However, there are limited studies that explore the relationship between frailty and mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality among individuals with non-diabetes, prediabetes, and diabetes patients. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the frailty statues and all-cause mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality in individuals with varying diabetic statuses using the data in the NHANES database.The study utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2018, incorporating a final sample size of 57, 098 participants. Both univariable and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses, as well as Cox regression analysis were employed to examine the relationship between frailty index (FI) and mortality.This study, found a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality non-diabetic [OR 4.277, 95%CI (3.982, 4.594), P < 0.001], prediabetic [OR 2.312, 95%CI (2.133, 2.506), P < 0.001], and diabetic patients [OR 3.947, 95%CI (3.378, 4.611), P < 0.001]. This correlation still existed even after adjusting for confounding factors including age, sex, BMI, poverty, fasting insulin, education, smoke, alcohol drink, waist, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, fasting glucose, HbA1c, eGFR, creatinine and total bilirubin. Our result also suggested a significant positive correlation between the frailty index and the increased risk of CVD mortality among non-diabetic [OR 3.095, 95%CI (2.858, 3.352), P < 0.001] and prediabetic [OR 5.985, 95%CI (5.188, 6.904), P < 0.001] individuals. However, in patients with diabetes, the correlation between frailty and CVD mortality lost significance after adjusting for possible confounding factors [OR 1.139, 95%CI (0.794, 1.634), P > 0.05].A nonlinear relationship has been identified between the FI and all-cause mortality, as well as CVD mortality in non-diabetic and pre-diabetic population. In diabetic patients, there was a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality, but not with CVD mortality. Renal function and liver function might potentially acted as an intermediary factor that elevated the risk of CVD mortality in frail patients with diabetes.Conclusion: The relationship between frailty and mortality among individuals with varying diabetic statuses represents a burgeoning area of concern and scholarly interest within the medical community. However, there are limited studies that explore the relationship between frailty and mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality among individuals with non-diabetes, prediabetes, and diabetes patients. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the frailty statues and all-cause mortality, as well as cause-specific mortality in individuals with varying diabetic statuses using the data in the NHANES database.The study utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2018, incorporating a final sample size of 57, 098 participants. Both univariable and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses, as well as Cox regression analysis were employed to examine the relationship between frailty index (FI) and mortality.This study, found a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality non-diabetic [OR 4.277, 95%CI (3.982, 4.594), P < 0.001], prediabetic [OR 2.312, 95%CI (2.133, 2.506), P < 0.001], and diabetic patients [OR 3.947, 95%CI (3.378, 4.611), P < 0.001]. This correlation still existed even after adjusting for confounding factors including age, sex, BMI, poverty, fasting insulin, education, smoke, alcohol drink, waist, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, fasting glucose, HbA1c, eGFR, creatinine and total bilirubin. Our result also suggested a significant positive correlation between the frailty index and the increased risk of CVD mortality among non-diabetic [OR 3.095, 95%CI (2.858, 3.352), P < 0.001] and prediabetic [OR 5.985, 95%CI (5.188, 6.904), P < 0.001] individuals. However, in patients with diabetes, the correlation between frailty and CVD mortality lost significance after adjusting for possible confounding factors [OR 1.139, 95%CI (0.794, 1.634), P > 0.05].A nonlinear relationship has been identified between the FI and all-cause mortality, as well as CVD mortality in non-diabetic and pre-diabetic population. In diabetic patients, there was a significant positive correlation between the frailty and the increased risk of all-cause mortality, but not with CVD mortality. Renal function and liver function might potentially acted as an intermediary factor that elevated the risk of CVD mortality in frail patients with diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem of coal face failure of lower coal seam under the influence of repeated mining in close coal seams, with the working face 17,101 as a background, the coal samples mechanics test clarified the strength characteristics of the coal face under repeated mining, through similar simulation experiments, the development of stable roof structure and surrounding rock cracks under repeated mining of close coal seams are further explored. And based on this, establish a coal face failure mechanics model to comprehensively analyze the influence of multiple roof structural instabilities on the stability of the coal face. Finally, numerical simulation is used to further supplement and verify the completeness and rationality of similar simulation experiment and theoretical analysis results. The results show that: affected by repeated mining disturbances, the cracks in the coal face are relatively developed, the strength of the coal body is reduced, and the coal face is more prone to failure under the same roof pressure; During the mining of coal seam 17#, the roofs of different layers above the stope form two kinds of "arch" structures and one kind of "voussoir beam" structure, and there are three different degrees of frequent roof pressure phenomenon, which is easy to cause coal face failure; Under repeated mining of close coal seams, the roof pressure acting on the coal face is not large. The main controlling factor of coal face failure is the strength of the coal body, and the form of coal face failure is mostly the shear failure of soft coal. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for coal face failure under similar conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioma serves as the most common malignancy influencing modern people and is associated with severe morbidity and high mortality. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) as crucial regulators participate in multiple cancer progression. However, the role of lncRNA LINC01094 in the development of glioma remains unclear. Here, we aimed to explore the effect of lncRNA LINC01094 on the glioma progression and the underlying mechanism. Significantly, we revealed that the expression levels of LINC01094 were elevated in the glioma patient tissues compared to adjacent normal tissues. The LINC01094 expression was enhanced in the glioma cell lines. The depletion of LINC01094 inhibited cell viability and colony formation in the glioma cells. Meanwhile, the migration and invasion of glioma cells were impaired by the depletion of LINC01094. Mechanically, we identified that LINC01094 was able to sponge the miR-224-5p in the glioma cells and miR-224-5p inhibitor could reverse the effect of LINC01094 on glioma progression. In addition, miR-224-5p targeted CHSY1 and LINC01094 up-regulated CHSY1 by targeting miR-224-5p in the glioma cells. LINC01094 promoted glioma progression by the positive regulation of CHSY1. Moreover, tumorigenicity analysis showed that LINC01094 enhanced tumor growth of glioma in vivo. Thus, we conclude that lncRNA LINC01094 promotes glioma progression by modulating miR-224-5p/CHSY1 axis. Our finding provides new insights into the mechanism by which lncRNA LINC01094 contributes to the development of glioma, improving the understanding of lncRNA LINC01094 and glioma. LncRNA LINC01094, miR-224-5p, and CHSY1 may serve as potential targets for glioma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problems of difficult control law design, poor portability, and poor stability of traditional multi-agent formation obstacle avoidance algorithms, a multi-agent formation obstacle avoidance method based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is proposed. This method combines the perception ability of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with the decision-making ability of reinforcement learning in a general form and realizes direct output control from the visual perception input of the environment to the action through an end-to-end learning method. The multi-agent system (MAS) model of the follow-leader formation method was designed with the wheelbarrow as the control object. An improved deep Q netwrok (DQN) algorithm (we improved its discount factor and learning efficiency and designed a reward value function that considers the distance relationship between the agent and the obstacle and the coordination factor between the multi-agents) was designed to achieve obstacle avoidance and collision avoidance in the process of multi-agent formation into the desired formation. The simulation results show that the proposed method achieves the expected goal of multi-agent formation obstacle avoidance and has stronger portability compared with the traditional algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the fast growth of big data applications, it has brought about a huge increase in the energy consumption for big data processing in Cloud data centers. In this study, a frequency-aware and energy-saving strategy based on dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (abbreviated as FAESS-DVFS) is proposed to reduce energy consumption for big data processing in Spark on YARN. Energy saving in two layers (YARN layer and Spark layer) has been designed and implemented for the proposed method. First, an optimal CPU frequency is presented in YARN layer based on the minimum energy efficiency ratio (EER) which can be obtained from status monitoring module. Then, a task scheduling method in Spark layer is constructed to optimize the energy consumption by dynamically adjusting the CPU frequency of nodes in the life cycle of different stages. Test on Hibench, the proposed method can achieve substantial energy saving of up to 29.5% for big data processing compared with the default algorithm in Spark on YARN while satisfying SLA constrains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the current two major environmental problems of urban waste pollution and surface subsidence above the coal mine goaf, the technology of sealing and backfilling the goaf with urban waste is proposed. This technology takes "waste disposal" and "goaf backfilling" as the theme. Aiming at the processing of loose waste, the waste drying and briquetting integrated machine is designed, the entire processing technology ensures the strength of the loose waste materials and no filtrate. For the processing of solid aggregate waste, it is crushed into recycled concrete raw materials for goaf backfilling. Aiming at the goaf backfilling, the goaf backfilling coal mining method is designed, the backfilling hydraulic support is modified, and the backfilling mechanism is added to realize the integration of "mining-backfilling" in the working face. The backfilling technology embodies the key issues of the sealing of the backfilling space and the strength of the backfilling body with "three times of sealing" and "three times of strengthening". Using urban waste as the backfilling materials for the goal area, the waste pollution and the surface subsidence are turned into "two benefits", and the construction of waste-free cities and green mines is promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During deep buried hard-brittle rock tunnel excavation, the surrounding rock experiences a complicated stress path and stress adjustment process. Once the adjusted stress exceeds the ultimate bearing capacity of rockmass, a rock failure mode defined as stress-cracking type will occur. In order to investigate the effect of stress paths on failure mechanism and progressive damage of deep-buried rockmass, the cyclic loading-unloading, loading-unloading, uniaxial, conventional and unloading triaxial compression tests on samples of hard-brittle sandstone were conducted. According to the experimental results, increase in the confining pressure was beneficial to improve the mechanical parameters of rock, but it will reduce the brittle failure features. Compared with conventional triaxial compression, the sandstone under unloading state had more remarkable stress drop and unstable failure characteristics. Meanwhile, it was found that the energy dissipation and energy release in the whole process of rock deformation were the internal power of driven rock progressive damage. With the increase of confining pressure, the energy hardening and energy accumulation features of rock were weakened, while the progressive damage evolution characteristics could be enhanced. In unloading state, more energy could be converted into elastic energy in the energy softening phase (σeb-σP), so that the pre-peak damage rate of rock was lower than that of conventional triaxial compression state. Thus, the energy dissipation rate of rock after peak strength decreased linearly with the increase of confining pressure under conventional triaxial compression state, while in unloading state it showed the opposite law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aggregation of variably charged nanoparticles is usually induced by the changes in internal and external conditions, such as solution temperature, pH, particle size, van der Waals force, and electrostatic repulsion among particles. In order to explore the effect of pH on the aggregation of variable charge nanoparticles, this paper proposed an extended model based on the 3D on-lattice Cluster–Cluster Aggregation (CCA) model. The extended model successfully established the relationship between pH and sticking probability, and used Smoluchowski theory to calculate the aggregation rate of nanoparticles. The simulation results showed that: (1) the change of the aggregation rate of the variable charge nanoparticles with pH conforms to the Gaussian distribution, (2) the initial particle concentration has a significant effect on the aggregation rate of the nanoparticles, and (3) pH can affect the competition between van der Waals force and electrostatic repulsion between particles, thereby affecting the degree of openness of clusters. The research demonstrated the extended CCA model is valuable in studying the aggregation of the variably charged nanoparticles via transforming the corresponding influence factors into the influence on the sticking probability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impulsive synchronization of a fractional-order complex-variable network is investigated. Firstly, static impulsive controllers are designed and the corresponding synchronization criteria are derived. From the criteria, the impulsive gains can be calculated. Secondly, adaptive impulsive controllers are designed. Noticeably, the impulsive gains can be adjusted to the needed values adaptively. Finally, numerical examples are provided to verify the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oxidation of hydrocarbons to produce high value-added compounds (ketones or alcohols) using oxygen in air as the only oxidant is an efficient synthetic strategy from both environmental and economic views. Herein, we successfully synthesized cobalt single atom site catalysts (Co SACs) with high metal loading of 23.58 wt.% supported on carbon nitride (CN), which showed excellent catalytic properties for oxidation of ethylbenzene in air. Moreover, Co SACs show a much higher turn-over frequency (19.6 h−1) than other reported non-noble catalysts under the same condition. Comparatively, the as-obtained nanosized or homogenous Co catalysts are inert to this reaction. Co SACs also exhibit high selectivity (97%) and stability (unchanged after five runs) in this reaction. DFT calculations reveal that Co SACs show a low energy barrier in the first elementary step and a high resistance to water, which result in the robust catalytic performance for this reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing energy consumption and associated carbon emission of Bitcoin mining could potentially undermine global sustainable efforts. By investigating carbon emission flows of Bitcoin blockchain operation in China with a simulation-based Bitcoin blockchain carbon emission model, we find that without any policy interventions, the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin blockchain in China is expected to peak in 2024 at 296.59 Twh and generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emission correspondingly. Internationally, this emission output would exceed the total annualized greenhouse gas emission output of the Czech Republic and Qatar. Domestically, it ranks in the top 10 among 182 cities and 42 industrial sectors in China. In this work, we show that moving away from the current punitive carbon tax policy to a site regulation policy which induces changes in the energy consumption structure of the mining activities is more effective in limiting carbon emission of Bitcoin blockchain operation. The growing energy consumption and carbon emissions of Bitcoin mining could potentially undermine global sustainability efforts. Here, the authors show the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin blockchain in China is expected to peak in 2024 at 296.59 Twh and generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support materials play a significant role in heterogeneous nanocatalysis. In this work, β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) was used directly as a monomer to construct polymer networks for gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) immobilization. Using the simple nucleophilic substitution reaction, β-CD based polymer networks (β-CDP-N and β-CDP-C) were successfully prepared. Compared to β-CDP-C, the hydroxyl groups and N atoms in β-CDP-N played a synergistic role in immobilizing smaller Au NPs, thus leading to high catalytic activities. Notably, the apparent rate constant (Kapp) value for Au@ β-CDP-N in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol is 14.15 × 10−2 s−1, which shows a significant improvement over all previously reported Au NPs with solid supports under similar conditions. Considering the negligible porosity of the β-CDP-N support, we purposed a "capture-catalysis-release" model to explain the high catalytic activity of Au@ β-CDP-N. This explanation is supported by the guest-responsive properties of β-CDP-N. Moreover, the Au@ β-CDP-N is easily recycled and maintained its high catalytic efficiency after seven successful cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ground pressure control problem in the face area has a negative impact on the safety, production and productivity of a longwall face. This problem becomes worse due to the deeper cover depth and the larger vertical seam thickness. The powered supports can be used to improve the ground pressure control in the face area, thus the determination of support capacity plays an important role in the stability control of surrounding rock. In this research, the movement law of overlying strata and characteristics of roof broken in a thin-bedrock large-cutting-height longwall panel are studied through the physical and numerical modeling. A theoretical model is presented to determine the support capacity. The results show that: The lower main roof lost its stability by sliding while the upper main roof maintained the relative stability by forming a structure of 'masonry beam' according to the physical modeling; The stability of the support and coal face is most vulnerable during the roof weighting; The loading capacity of the support is determined to be 15,000 kN by a theoretical analysis according to the roof structure of a deep, thin-bedrock large-cutting-height longwall panel. The application of support in the field also validates the reasonability of the theoretical model. The results may provide guidance for the determination of support resistance in similar geological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ge films were prepared at different deposition temperatures and ion source bias voltage using the electron beam evaporation. The infrared refractive index was obtained by spectral inversion. Results show that the refractive index becomes larger as the deposition temperature increases. The maximum refractive index at the wavelength of 4 000 nm is 4.274 with the deposition temperatures of 210 °C. The refractive index of film decreases first and then increases as the bias voltage increases. When the ion source bias voltage is 120 V, the refractive index of the film is the smallest. The difference in extinction coefficient of Ge films prepared by different process parameters is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MYB Proto-Oncogene Like 2 (MYBL2) is a highly conserved member of the Myb family of transcription factors and plays a critical role in regulating cell proliferation and survival. Here we show that overexpression of MYBL2 is frequently observed in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and significantly correlates with advanced stage and poor patient survival. Knockdown of MYBL2 induced apoptosis in lung cancer cells and resulted in significant inhibition of cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Notably, we identified Non-SMC Condensin I Complex Subunit H (NCAPH) gene as a direct target of MYBL2. NCAPH expression is highly correlated with that of MYBL2 in LUAD cases and is tightly affected by MYBL2 knockdown or overexpression in vitro. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays also showed that MYBL2 directly binds to the transcription start site (TSS) of NCAPH. Moreover, we provided evidence that NCAPH functions as an oncogene in lung cancer and overexpression of NCAPH could partially rescue cell death and migration blockage induced by MYBL2 knockdown. Together, these results suggest that overexpression of MYBL2 promotes proliferation and migration of lung cancer cells via upregulating NCAPH, establishing their roles as novel prognostic biomarkers as well as potential therapeutic targets for the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leaf is the main site for plant photosynthesis and an important component of the maximally efficient plant architecture of rice. Early senescence of leaves affects directly both the yield and the quality of crops. Accordingly, it is very important to explore the mechanism of premature senescence of leaves for rice breeding to promote high photosynthetic efficiency. A mutant v301 with shorter plant height and wider grains increased brittleness in the main veins of leaves, and premature ageing at the leaf tip was obtained by treatment with ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS). Fine gene mapping and identification of candidate genes indicated v301 as a new BC12 allele mutant. Under field planting conditions, there was no significant difference in leaf colour between the wild type (WT) and v301 and before the booting stage, but yellowing and premature senescence appeared subsequently at the leaf tip in v301. Further analysis revealed that the chlorophyll content and net photosynthetic rate in the leaf tip of v301 are significantly lower than those of the WT, while both the content of photosynthetic pigments and the net photosynthetic rate in the leaf base are significantly higher. qRT-PCR analysis showed that in addition to the obvious reduction in gene expression related to chlorophyll synthesis and chloroplast development, the expression of ageing retarding genes expression level of OsCatB, OsETR2, OsAkaGal, JARIDIC, OsAPX1 and OsAPX2 was decreased, whereas SGR, OsL85 and OsH36 were significantly increased. At the same time, the gibberellin related genes GA2ox1, GA3ox2 were significantly reduced, and KO2 showed an extremely significant decline in the leaf tip. The contents of WT and v301 gibberellin GA3 were determined by liquid chromatography, and a significant decrease in gibberellin content was found in mutant v301. The activities of SOD, CAT and POD in the senescent leaf tips of v301 are significantly lower than in WT, whereas the activities of H2O2 and hydroxyl radicals are significantly higher. It is suggested that BC12 might affect the premature senescence of leaves via the peroxidation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purely organic room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) has attracted wide attention recently due to its various application potentials. However, ultralong RTP (URTP) with high efficiency is still rarely achieved. Herein, by dissolving 1,8-naphthalic anhydride in certain organic solid hosts, URTP with a lifetime of over 600 ms and overall quantum yield of over 20% is realized. Meanwhile, the URTP can also be achieved by mechanical excitation when the host is mechanoluminescent. Femtosecond transient absorption studies reveal that intersystem crossing of the host is accelerated substantially in the presence of a trace amount of 1,8-naphthalic anhydride. Accordingly, we propose that a cluster exciton spanning the host and guest forms as a transient state before the guest acts as an energy trap for the RTP state. The cluster exciton model proposed here is expected to help expand the varieties of purely organic URTP materials based on an advanced understanding of guest/host combinations. Purely organic ultralong room temperature phosphorescence (URTP) attracts attention but high efficiencies are rarely achieved. Here the authors use ultrafast spectroscopy to investigate a system of 1,8-naphthalic anhydride in organic hosts and reveal that a cluster exciton forms as a transient state before the guest acts as an energy trap for the URTP state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]