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Spin-orbitronics, exploiting electron spin and/or orbital angular momentum, offers a powerful route to energy-efficient spintronic applications. Recent research on orbital currents in light metals broadens the scope of spin-orbit torque (SOT). However, distinguishing and manipulating orbital torque in heavy metal/ferromagnet (HM/FM) remains a challenge, limiting the promising synergy of spin and orbital currents. Here, we design a HM/FM/FMSOC heterostructure and experimentally separate orbital torque contribution from spin torque by utilizing the distinct diffusion length of spin and orbital currents. Furthermore, we achieve the synergy of spin and orbital torques by controlling their relative strength, and obtain a 110% improvement in torque efficiency compared to the representative Pt/Co bilayer. Our findings not only contribute to a deeper understanding of SOT mechanisms and orbital current transport in HM/FM multilayers, but also highlight the promising prospect of orbital and spin torque synergy for optimizing the efficiency of next-generation spintronic devices. Eliminating the interference of spin current to distinguish and manipulate orbital torque in heavy metal/ferromagnet (HM/FM) heterojunction remains a challenge. Here, the authors design a HM/FM/FMSOC multilayer to separate orbital torque contribution and harness the synergy of spin and orbital currents for enhanced spin-orbit torque. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the role played by the oral microbiome in moderate to severe plaque psoriasis and its potential implications for disease management and development holds significant importance. With the objective of exploring correlations between the oral microbiota and severe psoriasis, this study involved 72 severe psoriasis patients and 16 healthy individuals, whose clinical manifestations and living habits were carefully recorded. Cutting-edge techniques such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing and bioinformatics analysis were employed to compare the microbial flora, investigating dynamic changes among severe plaque psoriasis patients, psoriatic arthritis patients and healthy individuals. The findings revealed noteworthy patterns including increased levels of Aggregatibacter in the psoriatic arthritis group, accompanied by a decrease in the level of Prevotella. Moreover, the enrichment o Capnocytandophaga (P = 0.009), Campylobacter (P = 0.0022), and Acetobacter (P = 0.0292) was notably more substantial in the psoriasis group compared to the control group, whereas certain bacterial species such as Bacteroides (P = 0.0049), Muribaculaceae (P = 0.0048) demonstrated decreased enrichment. Additionally, the psoriatic arthritis group exhibited significantly higher levels of Ralstonia, Bifidobacterium and Micromonospora. Based on these findings, it can be inferred that individuals with lower levels of Prevotella and higher levels of Corynebacterium may be more susceptible to psoriasis exacerbation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for tumor postoperative treatments aimed at recurrence prevention and tissue regeneration have raised wide considerations in the context of the design and functionalization of implants. Herein, an injectable hydrogel system encapsulated with anti-tumor, anti-oxidant dual functional nanoparticles has been developed in order to prevent tumor relapse after surgery and promote wound repair. The utilization of biocompatible gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) was geared towards localized therapeutic intervention. Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8@ceric oxide (ZIF-8@CeO2, ZC) nanoparticles (NPs) were purposefully devised for their proficiency as reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers. Furthermore, injectable GelMA hydrogels loaded with ZC NPs carrying doxorubicin (ZC-DOX@GEL) were tailored as multifunctional postoperative implants, ensuring the efficacious eradication of residual tumor cells and alleviation of oxidative stress. In vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted to substantiate the efficacy in cancer cell elimination and the prevention of tumor recurrence through the synergistic chemotherapy approach employed with ZC-DOX@GEL. The acceleration of tissue regeneration and in vitro ROS scavenging attributes of ZC@GEL were corroborated using rat models of wound healing. The results underscore the potential of the multifaceted hydrogels presented herein for their promising application in tumor postoperative treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the widespread application of optimal transport (OT), its calculation becomes essential, and various algorithms have emerged. However, the existing methods either have low efficiency or cannot represent discontinuous maps. A novel reusable neural OT solver OT-Net is thus presented, which first learns Brenier's height representation via the neural network to get its potential, and then obtains the OT map by the gradient of the potential. The algorithm has two merits: (1) When new target samples are added, the OT map can be calculated straightly, which greatly improves the efficiency and reusability of the map. (2) It can easily represent discontinuous maps, which allows it to match any target distribution with discontinuous supports and achieve sharp boundaries, and thus eliminate mode collapse. Moreover, we conducted error analyses on the proposed algorithm and demonstrated the empirical success of our approach in image generation, color transfer, and domain adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through pumping a spin current from ferromagnet into heavy metal (HM) via magnetization precession, parts of the injected spins are in-plane rotated by the lattice vibration, namely acoustic spin rotation (ASR), which manifests itself as an inverse spin Hall voltage in HM with an additional 90° difference in angular dependency. When reversing the stacking order of bilayer with a counter-propagating spin current or using HMs with an opposite spin Hall angle, such ASR voltage shows the same sign, strongly suggesting that ASR changes the rotation direction due to interface spin-orbit interaction. With the drift-diffusion model of spin transport, we quantify the efficiency of ASR up to 30%. The finding of ASR endows the acoustic device with an ability to manipulate spin, and further reveals a new spin-orbit coupling between spin current and lattice vibration. Controlling spin direction is the key for spintronic devices as it induces efficient and field-free switching. Herein, the authors propose using lattice vibrations in acoustic devices to replace the charge motion in conventional spintronic devices to realize the rotation of spin direction, that is, acoustic spin rotation. Acoustic spin rotation offers higher efficiency than spin rotation in conventional charge-current based spintronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep models have achieved impressive success in class-imbalanced visual recognition. In the view of optimal transport, the current evaluation protocol for class-imbalanced visual recognition can be interpreted as follows: during training, the neural network learns an optimal transport mapping with an uneven source label distribution, and during evaluation, this mapping is needed to transfer the instances to the uniform target label distribution. The label distribution's inconsistency leads to poor cross-entropy loss performance. In this paper, we first prove that the cross-entropy loss in the classification network is a smooth approximation to the optimal transport, enhancing the interpretability of the classifier. Motivated by this conclusion, we introduce a simple and effective method named Post Optimal Transport (Post OT). Post OT can match the arbitrary target label distribution, which may also be class-imbalanced by post-processing the predictions of a model. In addition, we propose Adaptive Bias Loss (ABL) based on optimal transport theory to shift the label distribution in the class-imbalanced training, which does not depend on the category frequencies in the training set and also can avoid the overfitting of tail classes. Extensive experiments verify that our methods achieve state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets such as CIFAR-100-LT, ImageNet-LT, Places365-LT, and iNaturalist 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic materials with unique magnetic properties have great potential for next-generation spintronic devices with high flexibility, easy controllability, and high heretointegrability. However, realizing magnetic switching with low power consumption at room temperature is challenging. Here, we demonstrate the room-temperature spin-orbit torque (SOT) driven magnetization switching in an all-van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure using an optimized epitaxial growth approach. The topological insulator Bi2Te3 not only raises the Curie temperature of Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) through interfacial exchange coupling but also works as a spin current source allowing the FGT to switch at a low current density of ~2.2×106 A/cm2. The SOT efficiency is ~2.69, measured at room temperature. The temperature and thickness-dependent SOT efficiency prove that the larger SOT in our system mainly originates from the nontrivial topological origin of the heterostructure. Our experiments enable an all-vdW SOT structure and provides a solid foundation for the implementation of room-temperature all-vdW spintronic devices in the future. Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) exhibits remarkable device endurance, while also offering potential operation speed and energy efficiency improvements compared to conventional random access memory. However, challenges remain, both in terms of efficiency, and miniaturization. Here, Wang et al demonstrate a van der Waals (vdW) based spin-orbit torque switching, in a Fe3GeTe2/Bi2Te3 heterostructure, paving the way for thinner and higher efficiency spin-orbit torque based vdW MRAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical reservoirs holding intrinsic nonlinearity, high dimensionality, and memory effects have attracted considerable interest regarding solving complex tasks efficiently. Particularly, spintronic and strain-mediated electronic physical reservoirs are appealing due to their high speed, multi-parameter fusion and low power consumption. Here, we experimentally realize a skyrmion-enhanced strain-mediated physical reservoir in a multiferroic heterostructure of Pt/Co/Gd multilayers on (001)-oriented 0.7PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3−0.3PbTiO3 (PMN-PT). The enhancement is coming from the fusion of magnetic skyrmions and electro resistivity tuned by strain simultaneously. The functionality of the strain-mediated RC system is successfully achieved via a sequential waveform classification task with the recognition rate of 99.3% for the last waveform, and a Mackey-Glass time series prediction task with normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) of 0.2 for a 20-step prediction. Our work lays the foundations for low-power neuromorphic computing systems with magneto-electro-ferroelastic tunability, representing a further step towards developing future strain-mediated spintronic applications. An energy-efficient physical reservoir is crucial for reservoir computing (RC). Here the authors demonstrate an all-electric skyrmion-enhanced strain-mediated physical RC system and achieve a benchmark chaotic time series prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and concurrent depression are predisposed to severer disease activity and a worse prognosis. Macrophage polarization toward the M1 phenotype may contribute to the exacerbation of IBD with comorbid depression. Moreover, interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) is involved in the pathogenesis of IBD. The aim of this study was to explore the role of IRF5 in macrophage polarization in the impact of depression upon colitis. Methods: Depressive-like behavior was induced by repeated forced swim stress. Colon length, disease activity index (DAI), colon morphology, histology, ultrastructure of epithelial barrier, lamina propria macrophage polarization, and expression of IRF5 were compared between DSS colitis rats with and without depressive-like behavior. IRF5 shRNA was constructed to affect the rat peritoneal macrophages polarization in vitro. After IRF5 shRNA lentivirus was introduced into colon by enema, the colitis severity, lamina propria macrophage polarization, and TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-10 of colon tissues were measured. Results: The study found severer colonic inflammation in depressed versus non-depressed DSS-colitis rats. Depressed DSS-colitis rats exhibited smaller subepithelial macrophages size and reduced intracellular granule diversity compared with nondepressed DSS-colitis rats. Increased polarization toward the M1 phenotype, elevated expression of IRF5, and co-expression of IRF5 with CD86 were found in depressed versus nondepressed DSS-colitis rats. Lentivirus-mediated shRNA interference with IRF5 expression switched rat peritoneal macrophage polarization from the M1 to the M2 phenotype, downregulated TNF-α, IL-1β expression to a greater extent in depressed versus nondepressed colitis rats. Conclusions: IRF5-mediated macrophage polarization may likely underlie the deterioration of DSS-induced colitis caused by depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces four advanced intelligent algorithms, namely kernel logistic regression, fuzzy unordered rule induction algorithm, systematically developed forest of multiple decision trees and random forest (RF), to perform the landslide susceptibility mapping in Jian'ge County, China, as well as well study of the connection between landslide occurrence and regional geo-environment characteristics. To start with, 262 landslide events were determined, and the proportion of randomly generated training data is 70%, while the proportion of randomly generated validation data is 30%, respectively. Then, through the comprehensive consideration of local geo-environment characteristics and relevant studies, fifteen conditioning factors were prepared, such as slope angle, slope aspect, altitude, profile curvature, plan curvature, sediment transport index, topographic wetness index, stream power index, distance to rivers, distance to roads, distance to lineaments, soil, land use, lithology and NDVI. Next, frequency ratio model was utilized to identify the corresponding relations for conditioning factors and landslides distribution. In addition, four data mining techniques were conducted to implement the landslide susceptibility research and generated landslide susceptibility maps. In order to examine and compare model performance, receiver operating characteristic curve was brought for judging accuracy of those four models. Finally, the results indicated that a traditional model, namely RF model, acquired the highest AUC value (0.859). Last but gained a lot of attention, the results can provide references for land use management and landslide prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal transportation plays an important role in many engineering fields, especially in deep learning. By the Brenier theorem, computing optimal transportation maps is reduced to solving Monge–Ampère equations, which in turn is equivalent to constructing Alexandrov polytopes. Furthermore, the regularity theory of Monge–Ampère equation explains mode collapsing issue in deep learning. Hence, computing and studying the singularity sets of OT maps become important. In this work, we generalize the concept of medial axis to power medial axis, which describes the singularity sets of optimal transportation maps. Then we propose a computational algorithm based on variational approach using power diagrams. Furthermore, we prove that when the measures are changed homotopically, the corresponding singularity sets of the optimal transportation maps are homotopy equivalent as well. Furthermore, we generalize the Fréchet distance concept and utilize the obliqueness condition to give a sufficient condition for the existence of singularities of optimal transportation maps between planar domains. The condition is formulated using the boundary curvature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the real world, lacking paired training data makes image super-resolution (SR) be a tricky unsupervised task. Existing methods are mainly train models on synthetic datasets and achieve the tradeoff between detail restoration and noise artifact suppression based on a priori knowledge, which indicate it cannot be optimal in both aspects. To solve this problem, we propose OTSR, a single image super-resolution method based on optimal transport theory. OTSR aims to find the optimal solution to the ill-posed SR problem, so that the model can restore high-frequency detail accurately and also suppress noise and artifacts well. Our method consists of three stages: real-world images degradation estimation, LR images generation and model optimization based on quadratic Wasserstein distance. Through the first two stages, the problem of no paired image is solved. In the third stage, under the guidance of optimal transport theory, the optimal mapping from LR to HR image space is learned. Extensive experiments show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of both detail repair and noise artifact suppression. The source code is available at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal changes characteristics in the respiration of four reconstructed soil masses in a barren gravel land were monitored. The results showed that (1) Respiration and heterotrophic respiration of the four reconstructed soils with added meteorite, shale, sand increased gradually with increasing soil temperatures, reaching its maximum in summer and decreasing to its minimum in winter. the average annual respiration of reconstructed soil with sand was 4.87 μmol·m–2·s–1, which was significantly higher than the other reconstructed soils (p < 0.05). (2) The maximum and minimum values of autotrophic respiration for the four reconstructed soils appeared in August 2018 and January 2018, respectively. the proportion of autotrophic respiration to total respiration was 12.5–38.0%, 9.5–42.0%, 7.7–41.2%, and 5.0–39.3% for the soils with reconstituted meteorite, shale, sand, and soft rock, respectively. (3) The relationship between respiration and the temperature of reconstructed soils can be represented by an exponential function. The 90% to 93% changes in reconstructed soils respiration were caused by soil temperature. The temperature sensitivity (Q10) of reconstituted soil with added sand was significantly higher than that of the other three reconstituted soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we present an effective prismatic mesh generation method for viscous flow simulations. To address the prismatic mesh collisions in recessed cavities or slit areas, we exploit 3D tensors controlled anisotropic volume harmonic field to generate prismatic meshes. Specially, a well-fitting tetrahedral mesh is first constructed to serve as the discrete computation domain of volume harmonic fields. Then, 3D tensors are exploited to control the volume harmonic field that better fits the shape geometry. From the topological perspective, the generation of the prismatic mesh can be treated as a topology-preserved morphing of the viscous wall. Therefore, iso-surfaces in the volume harmonic field should be homeomorphic to the viscous wall while fitting its shapes. Finally, a full prismatic mesh can be induced by estimating the forward directions and visible regions in the volume harmonic field. Moreover, to be compatible with different simulation situations, the thickness of prismatic meshes should be variable. Our approach provides local adjustable thickness of prismatic meshes, which can be achieved by controlling local 3D tensors. The proposed anisotropic volume harmonic field based prismatic meshes are efficient and robust, and a full prismatic mesh can be guaranteed without low quality collisions. Various experiments have shown that our proposed prismatic meshes have obvious advantages in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tillage treatments have an important effect on soil microstructure characteristics, water thermal properties and nutrients, but little is known in the newly reclaimed cultivated land. For the reason, a long-term field study was to evaluate the tillage effects on soil physicochemical properties and crop yield in newly reclaimed cultivated land via the macroscopic and microscopic analysis. Three tillage treatments were tested: continuous conventional moldboard plow tillage (CT), sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage (ST) and no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage (NT). Under CT, the microstructure was dominated by weakly separated plates structure and showed highest bulk density (BD) (1.49 g cm−3) and lowest soil organic matter (SOM) (3.68 g kg−1). In addition, CT reduced the capacity of soil moisture retention and temperature maintenance, resulting in aggregate structure deterioration and fragility. Unlike CT, the soil was characterized by moderately separated granular structure and highly separated aggregate structure under conservation tillage practice of ST and NT. NT was associated with the highest soil moisture content (20.42%), highest quantity of macroaggregates (> 0.25 mm) by wet-sieving (34.07%), and highest SOM (6.48 g kg−1) in the surface layer. Besides, NT was better able to regulate soil temperature and improved the values of geometric mean diameter. Under NT and ST, a stable soil structure with compound aggregates and pores was formed, and the maize yield was increased by 12.9% and 14.9% compared with CT, up to 8512.6 kg ha−1 and 8740.9 kg ha−1, respectively. These results demonstrated the positive effects of NT and ST on soil quality and crop yield in newly reclaimed cultivated land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have demonstrated that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients are at an increased risk of developing anxiety and/or depression. IBD patients with depression/anxiety have higher rates of hospitalization and increased disease severity than those without. So far, there is a paucity of data concerning the impact of anxiety/depression on Chinese IBD patients. The aim of this study was to find out the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety/depression in Chinese IBD population and its impact on IBD-related features. This is a cross-sectional study from the southwest China IBD referral center. Eligible participants were divided into those with symptoms of anxiety/depression and those without based on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Demographic data and disease duration, IBD-related surgery, tobacco use, extra-intestinal manifestations, disease activity scores, endoscopic evaluation, laboratory data and current medication use were compared between two groups. A total of 341 IBD patients [221 Crohn's disease (CD) and 120 ulcerative colitis (UC)] were included. The prevalence of symptoms of anxiety/depression in IBD was 33.1%. CD patients with symptoms of anxiety/depression tended to have higher scores of simple endoscopic scores for Crohn's disease (SES-CD) (p = 0.0005). UC patients with symptoms of anxiety/depression had a significantly higher Mayo score (p = 0.0017) and ulcerative colitis endoscopic index of severity (UCEIS) (p < 0.0001) than their non-anxiety/depression counterparts. CD-related surgery (p = 0.012) and Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) (p < 0.0001) were identified as independent risk factors for symptoms of anxiety/depression in CD, while corticosteroid use (p = 0.036) as an independent risk factor for symptoms of anxiety/depression in UC. This study helps our understanding of the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety/depression in IBD patients and its impact on IBD course and reminds us to pay more attention on IBD management with anxiety/depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal changes in respiration and the components of four reconstructed soils (gravel + meteorite + lou; gravel + shale + lou; gravel + sand + lou; and gravel + soft rock + lou) in barren gravel land were monitored using the soil carbon flux measurement system. The results showed that (1) the monthly average respiration rate and the rates of the components in the four reconstructed soils were the highest in summer and lowest in winter. In winter, the monthly average respiration rates of the four reconstructed soils were not different (p > 0.05). In summer, the monthly average respiration rate of the sand or meteorite reconstructed soil was different from that of the other three (p < 0.05). (2) The heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration rates were different between the four reconstructed soils (p < 0.05). The contribution of heterotrophic respiration to total respiration in the four reconstructed soils was greater than that of autotrophic respiration throughout the year. In winter, autotrophic respiration accounts for the smallest proportion of total respiration. As the temperature rises, the proportion of autotrophic respiration to total respiration gradually increases and peaks in summer. In summer, the proportion of heterotrophic respiration in the total respiration is the smallest. With the decrease in temperature, the proportion of heterotrophic respiration in total respiration gradually increases and peaks in winter. (3) The maximum and minimum values of the monthly average respiration rate of the four reconstructed soils coincided with the months of maximum and minimum soil temperature. The soil volumetric water content changed with the amount of precipitation. The correlation between soil respiration and temperature was greater than that between soil respiration and volumetric water content. (4) The correlation in seasonal variation between respiration of the four remodelled soils and hydrothermal factors in the study area can be characterised by an exponential function and power-exponential function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an important problem in topology to verify whether two embeddings are isotopic. This work proposes an algorithm for computing Haefliger-Wu invariants for isotopy based on algebraic topological methods. Given a simplicial complex embedded in the Euclidean space, the deleted product of it is the direct product with diagonal removed. The Gauss map transforms the deleted product to the unit sphere. The pull-back of the generator of the cohomology group of the sphere defines characteristic class of the isotopy of the embedding. By using Mayer Vietoris sequence and Künneth theorem, the computational algorithm can be greatly simplified. The authors prove the ranks of homology groups of the deleted product of a closed surface and give explicit construction of the generators of the homology groups of the deleted product. Numerical experimental results show the efficiency and efficacy of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Respiration and hydrothermal characteristics of four reconstructed soils in barren gravel land at a site in Shaanxi Province were monitored before, during, and after two precipitation events. Both precipitation events significantly reduced soil temperature but there were great fluctuations in temperature after the second precipitation event. Moreover, precipitation increased the moisture content of the reconstructed soils. Before the first precipitation event, the soil volumetric water content was relatively stable, while it gradually decreased before the second precipitation event. The first precipitation event significantly stimulated the respiration rate for all reconstructed soils, while the second precipitation event generally inhibited it, especially during the precipitation event. The key factors influencing respiration for different reconstructed soils were different between the precipitation events. When soil volumetric water content showed persistent variation before precipitation, soil moisture was the most influential factor. In contrast, if water content was stable, soil temperature was more influential. Soil moisture and temperature jointly influenced soil respiration before, during, and after the precipitation event, while soil moisture was always the most influential factor after precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase reserve farmland resources, ensure food security, and to improve the ecological environment, large-scale gully regulation projects in Yan'an area of the Loess Plateau have been undertaken in China since 2013. Understanding the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of slope soil moisture during the rainy season is, therefore, important for vegetation selection used in restoration measures in this area. The temporal stability of soil water content in the upper 100 cm soil depth in a gully regulation watershed was examined using six measurements taken during the rainy season (May–November 2016). Temporal stability analysis of the soil water content was undertaken using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and the relative difference method. Results showed that soil water content in the 0–50 cm and 0–100 cm soil depths demonstrated moderate temporal and spatial variability, and soil water content variability gradually decreased with increasing soil depth. Soil water content in both depths had strong temporal stability, having a positive correlation with soil depth. Furthermore, temporal stability may decrease with increasing soil water content (p < 0.05). The number and position of representative locations were not constant, which varies with the soil depth and the estimation method. Five methods (mean relative difference, minimum relative difference standard equilibrium, temporal stability index, mean absolute deviation and root mean square error) can be used to determine the representative location of temporal stability. However, the prediction accuracy of the soil water content at representative locations obtained using the different methods for mean slope water content differed. Comparatively, the mean absolute deviation method had a higher accuracy, followed by the minimum relative difference standard equilibrium method. Results indicate that the prediction accuracy of five methods increased with soil depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RING finger family protein gene SorRma1, comprising 735 nucleotides corresponding to a polypeptide of 231 amino acids, was cloned from Solanum nigrum L. The expression characteristics of SorRma1 gene in different organs were leaf > flower > stem > fruit > root, and the difference was significant. The gene could effectively improve the viability of the transgenic yeast with SorRma1 gene to 300 mM NaCl and 35 °C heat stress compared with the control yeast. The expression characteristics of SorRma1 gene in root and leaf (0, 1, 3, 5, 9, 12 h) of Solanum nigrum were further analyzed by qRT-PCR under abiotic stresses (drought, salt, alkali, high/low temperature). These results indicated that under drought and high/low temperature stress, the early response of SorRma1 gene in root were up-regulated at 1 h or 3 h, and at 9 h with salt/alkali stress, while ascended under alkali treatment and reached the highest level at 9 h in leaf. In summary, the expression of this gene in the root showed early responses and upward trend indicated that SorRma1 gene might be involved in these stress-resistant regulation processes of Solanum nigrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a parametric level-set-based topology optimization framework is proposed to concurrently optimize the structural topology at the macroscale and the effective infill properties at the micro/meso scale. The concurrent optimization is achieved by a computational framework combining a new parametric level set approach with mathematical programming. Within the proposed framework, both the structural boundary evolution and the effective infill property optimization can be driven by mathematical programming, which is more advantageous compared with the conventional partial differential equation-driven level set approach. Moreover, the proposed approach will be more efficient in handling nonlinear problems with multiple constraints. Instead of using radial basis functions (RBF), in this paper, we propose to construct a new type of cardinal basis functions (CBF) for the level set function parameterization. The proposed CBF parameterization ensures an explicit impose of the lower and upper bounds of the design variables. This overcomes the intrinsic disadvantage of the conventional RBF-based parametric level set method, where the lower and upper bounds of the design variables oftentimes have to be set by trial and error. A variational distance regularization method is utilized in this research to regularize the level set function to be a desired distanceregularized shape. With the distance information embedded in the level set model, the wrapping boundary layer and the interior infill region can be naturally defined. The isotropic infill achieved via the mesoscale topology optimization is conformally fit into the wrapping boundary layer using the shape-preserving conformal mapping method, which leads to a hierarchical physical structure with optimized overall topology and effective infill properties. The proposed method is expected to provide a timely solution to the increasing demand for multiscale and multifunctional structure design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: According to the specific conditions of the region, we sought to determine appropriate soil materials for improving soil conditions after the reclamation of hollow villages into cultivated land and for quickly restoring agricultural production. Materials and methods: The test plot consisted of seven treatments with an area of 5 m × 6 m (30 m2) each, and each treatment included three replicates. The plot was filled with raw soil (old wall soil) from an abandoned homestead in Yuzihe Village, Yaotou Town, Chengcheng County, Shaanxi Province, China. The test design was completely randomised with seven treatments: fly ash (T1), organic fertiliser (chicken manure) (T2), improver (ferrous sulphate) (T3), fly ash + organic fertiliser (T4), improver + organic fertiliser (T5), fly ash + improver (T6) and no fertilisation measures (T0). The modified materials were mixed evenly with raw soil then applied to a depth of 0–30 cm onto the test plot. Results and discussion: After adding the various modified materials, the soil bulk density decreased by 6.52–14.49% and total soil porosity, capillary porosity and non-capillary porosity increased by 7.09–15.75%, 3.14–12.67% and 15.57–38.47%, respectively. The soil permeability coefficient increased by 5.75–10.75×. Organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium in reclaimed hollow village soil increased by 12.50–66.44%, 15.15–20.00%, 6.58–64.62% and 18.24–26.82%, respectively, relative to that of T0. Only T4, T2, T6 and T5 significantly increased maize yield and water use efficiency compared with T0. The other treatments did not significantly improve maize yield or water use efficiency. Conclusions: Organic fertiliser and fly ash composite was an appropriate amendment for improving reclaimed soil in a hollow village in a loess hilly gully region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycube construction and deformation are essential problems in computer graphics. In this paper, we present a robust, simple, efficient, and automatic algorithm to deform the meshes of arbitrary shapes into polycube form. We derive a clear relationship between a mesh and its corresponding polycube shape. Our algorithm is edge-preserving, and works on surface meshes with or without boundaries. Our algorithm outperforms previous ones with respect to speed, robustness, and efficiency. Our method is simple to implement. To demonstrate the robustness and effectivity of our method, we have applied it to hundreds of models of varying complexity and topology. We demonstrate that our method compares favorably to other state-of-the-art polycube deformation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the boundary blow up problem for k-hessian equation with nonlinearities of power and of exponential type, and prove their existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behaviour. Moreover we also show that their perturbed problem has a unique positive solution, which satisfies some asymptotic behaviors to unperturbed problems under appropriate structure hypotheses for perturbed terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Correction to: Natural Hazards (2022) 114:3327-3358 b https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05520-7 The affiliation of the corresponding author was wrongly fixed in the original online version of the article. The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05520-7. [Extracted from the article]

This paper studies the minimal monomial basis of the n-variable Birkhoff interpolation problem. First, the authors give a fast B-Lex algorithm which has an explicit geometric interpretation to compute the minimal monomial interpolation basis under lexicographic order and the algorithm is in fact a generalization of lex game algorithm. In practice, people usually desire the lowest degree interpolation polynomial, so the interpolation problems need to be solved under, for example, graded monomial order instead of lexicographic order. However, there barely exist fast algorithms for the nonlexicographic order problem. Hence, the authors in addition provide a criterion to determine whether an n-variable Birkhoff interpolation problem has unique minimal monomial basis, which means it owns the same minimal monomial basis w.r.t. arbitrary monomial order. Thus, for problems in this case, the authors can easily get the minimal monomial basis with little computation cost w.r.t. arbitrary monomial order by using our fast B-Lex algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors first apply the Fitzpatrick algorithm to multivariate vector-valued osculatory rational interpolation. Then based on the Fitzpatrick algorithm and the properties of an Hermite interpolation basis, the authors present a Fitzpatrick-Neville-type algorithm for multivariate vector-valued osculatory rational interpolation. It may be used to compute the values of multivariate vector-valued osculatory rational interpolants at some points directly without computing the interpolation function explicitly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multivariate Hermite interpolation is widely applied in many fields, such as finite element construction, inverse engineering, CAD etc.. For arbitrarily given Hermite interpolation conditions, the typical method is to compute the vanishing ideal I (the set of polynomials satisfying all the homogeneous interpolation conditions are zero) and then use a complete residue system modulo I as the interpolation basis. Thus the interpolation problem can be converted into solving a linear equation system. A generic algorithm was presented in [18], which is a generalization of BM algorithm [22] and the complexity is O( r) where r represents the number of the interpolation conditions. In this paper we derive a method to obtain the residue system directly from the relative position of the points and the corresponding derivative conditions (presented by lower sets) and then use fast GEPP to solve the linear system with O(( τ + 3) r) operations, where τ is the displacement-rank of the coefficient matrix. In the best case τ = 1 and in the worst case τ = r/ n, where n is the number of variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fungal chitin synthase of classes V and VI (or VII), which contain an additional N-terminal myosin motor domain, have been shown to play important roles in pathogenesis. To study the function of BcChsVI in Botrytis cinerea, BcChs6 gene was disrupted through Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. The Bcchs6 disruption mutant exhibited a 45.5 % increasing in its chitin content when compared with wild strain. The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that in Bcchs6 mutant the expression of BcChs6 was significantly decreased, while the expression of BcChs2 and BcChs3a was increased when compared with wild type. It is probable that the disruption of this gene provoked a compensatory mechanism regulating the cellular response to cell wall damage. Interestingly, the radial growth of Bcchs6 mutant was drastically reduced when 50 % solute was removed from the regular PDA medium, and they were more sensitive to Calcofluor white and other cell wall disturbing chemicals. Pathogenicity assays on tomato leaves indicated that they were significantly reduced in their ability to cause disease. Our results demonstrated that BcChs6 is necessary for proper hyphal growth and pathogenicity of B. cinerea on tomato leaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gastric cancer stem cells (CSCs), which require activation of Wnt signaling to maintain their self-renewal and tumorigenicity, are proposed to be critical targets for effective therapy of gastric carcinomas. Gene therapies that are delivered by adenovirus of serotype 5 (Ad5) or chimeric 5/35(Ad5/35) adenovirus have shown promise for treating various cancers. Here we aimed to develop a gene therapy strategy that targeted gastric CSCs (CD44⁺ cells).Methods: CD44⁺ cells were isolated by fluorescence activated cell sorting from both primary gastric cancer cells and cell lines. Expression of adenovirus receptors was examined in CD44⁺ and CD44⁻ cells. A potent Wnt antagonist Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) was delivered into CD44⁺ cells using Ad5/35 (Ad5/35-DKK1). The therapeutic outcomes were evaluated.Results: Expression of Coxsakievirus adenovirus receptor for Ad5 was significantly reduced, while abundance of CD46, the receptor for Ad5/35, was slightly higher in CD44⁺ cells. Accordingly, CD44⁺ cells were sensitive to Ad5/35 infection, but not to Ad5. Ad5/35-DKK1 introduced DKK1 into CD44⁺ cells and deactivated endogenous Wnt/β-catenin signaling efficiently. Overexpression of DKK1 inhibited survival, anchorage-independent colony formation, and invasion of CD44⁺ cells, which were restored by a GSK-3 specific inhibitor BIO-acetoxime. More importantly, introduction of DKK1 abrogated the tumorigenicity of CD44⁺ cells in vivo. However, Ad5/35-DKK1 only showed minimal cytotoxicity to normal tissue-derived cells, L-02 and GES-1.Conclusions: We developed, for the first time, a novel Ad5/35-DKK1-based approach to abrogate Wnt signaling in CSCs and demonstrated that gastric CSC-targeting gene therapy was effective in preclinical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is a pivotal event in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis. Pharmacological induction of HSC apoptosis could be a promising strategy for fibrosis regression. Natural product tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) exhibits potent antifibrotic activities in vivo. However, the molecular mechanisms remain to be defined. The present study aimed at investigating the anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects of TMP on HSCs and elucidating the underlying mechanisms. Our results demonstrated that TMP had no apparent cytotoxic effects on hepatocytes, but significantly inhibited HSC proliferation and induced cell cycle arrest at the G0/G1 checkpoint. These effects were associated with TMP regulation of cyclin D1, p21, p27 and p53. Furthermore, we found that TMP disrupted mitochondrial functions and led to activation of caspase cascades in HSCs. Mechanistic investigations revealed that TMP selectively blocked the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling and activated p53, which was required for TMP induction of caspase-dependent mitochondrial apoptosis in HSCs. Autodock simulations predicted that TMP could directly bind to ERK2 with two hydrogen bonds and low energy score, indicating that ERK2 could be a direct target molecule for TMP within HSCs. Moreover, TMP altered expression of some marker proteins relevant to HSC activation. These data collectively revealed that TMP modulation of ERK/p53 signaling led to mitochondrial-mediated and caspase-dependent apoptosis in HSCs in vitro. These studies provided mechanistic insights into the antifibrotic properties of TMP that may be exploited as a potential option for hepatic fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the factors that may affect the feasibility of performing elliptical anisotropy analysis on azimuthal PP- and PS-wave data in HTI media, with the aim of using the modeling results as guidance in real seismic data application. Our results reveal that there is an offset limitation for both PP- and PS-waves in elliptical anisotropy fitting, and that PS-waves show a wider applicable offset range and larger observable azimuthal anisotropy than PP-waves. The major axis of the elliptical fit to the amplitudes of the R-component is perpendicular to the fracture strike, which is opposite to that in PP-wave analysis. The azimuthal interval travel time of PS-waves shows a nearly elliptical distribution and the major axis of the fit ellipse is perpendicular to the fracture strike, which is same as that in PP-wave analysis. For data within the applicable offset range, the anisotropic magnitude obtained from amplitude and travel time attributes of PP- and PS-waves exhibits a dependence on fracture density, and the major to minor axis ratio of the fit ellipse may be used to infer the relative distribution of fracture densities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of the interactions between nervous, endocrine, and immune systems have been well established in human health and diseases. At present, little is known about the cellular bases for neural-endocrine-immune networks in the gastrointestinal mucosa. In the current study, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, cecum, colon, and rectum autopsies from 15 rhesus macaques and endoscopic duodenal biopsies from 12 rhesus macaques were collected, and the spatial relationships between the endocrine cells and immune cells in the intestinal mucosa were examined by transmission electron microscopy. Eight types of enteroendocrine cells similar to human enterochromaffin cells (EC), D1, G, I, K, L, N, and S cells were found to lie within a one-cell-size distance from immunocytes, in particular the eosinophils in the epithelia or lamina propria. Close apposition of large areas of plasma membranes between many types of enteroendocrine cells and immunocytes, especially between EC, K, S cells and eosinophils, were observed in the epithelia for the first time. These data indicate that complex interactions occur between diverse types of enteroendocrine cells and various immune cells through paracrine mechanisms or via mechanisms dependent on cell-to-cell contact; such interactions might play key roles in maintaining the gut mucosal barrier integrity of rhesus macaques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fitzpatrick algorithm, which seeks a Gröbner basis for the solution of a system of polynomial congruences, can be applied to compute a rational interpolant. Based on the Fitzpatrick algorithm and the properties of an Hermite interpolation basis, we present a Neville-like algorithm for multivariate osculatory rational interpolation. It may be used to compute the values of osculatory rational interpolants at some points directly without computing the rational interpolation function explicitly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface area is a fundamental parameter derived from terrain analysis in geographical information systems (GIS) for modeling the real world. Therefore, an evaluation of the techniques implemented by GIS models is important in order to obtain reliable area measurements. The study compares two raster-based methods with a TIN-based (triangulated irregular network) method for surface area approximation using a digital elevation model (DEM) with 25 m × 25 m resolution in six mountain regions of Shandong Province, China. Raster-based method I calculates surface-area grids from DEMs directly. Eight 3-dimensional triangles connecting the center point of each cell with the center points of the eight surrounding cells are generated and then the areas of the portions of each triangle that lay within the cell boundary are calculated and summed. Raster-based method II produces the surface area of each cell directly from the pixel size and the slope value for the pixel. The results demonstrate that the surface areas calculated by raster-based method I are equal to those of the TIN-based method. The results of raster-based method II are the lowest but the difference in areas between the two raster-based methods decreases with the decrease in terrain complexity. Compared to the method with TINs, raster-based method II can do better because it has some advantages, such as neighborhood analysis, more consistent output and faster processing speed. The results also demonstrate that the difference between surface and horizontal areas should be considered if more than 30% of the area of a region has slopes steeper than 18.2 degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical model for the dynamic response of anisotropic and inhomogeneous seabed under wave action is developed based on the element-free Galerkin method for Biot’s dynamic consolidation equations. Variations of the permeability and the elasticity of the soil in the vertical direction, which is an intrinsic feature of the stratified seabed, are considered. The numerical model is validated under isotropic and homogeneous conditions. The effects of the cross-anisotropy and inhomogeneity on the seabed response and shear failure are found to be remarkable. If the vertical increase of elastic modulus is taken into account, a significant decrease of the depth of shear failure can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an effective numerical model for the dynamic response of poroelastic seabed under wave action with enhanced performance. The spatial discretization is based on the Element-Free Galerkin (EFG) method and the time integration based on the GN11 scheme. A stability strategy that adopts a smaller number of nodes for the pore water pressure compared with those for the displacements of the soil skeleton is suggested to resolve the similar difficulty as encountered in the finite element method for a problem with mixed formulation when the pore water is incompressible and the soil skeleton impervious. The accuracy of the numerical model is verified through applying it to a typical case with critical permeability. Good agreement between computational and analytical solutions is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two influenza B virus lineages, B/Victoria and B/Yamagata, are co-circulating in human population. While the two lineages are serologically distinct and TIV only contain one lineage. It is important to investigate the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of two influenza B virus lineages in Beijing after the free influenza vaccine policy from 2007. Here, we collected the nasopharyngeal swabs of 12657 outpatients of influenza-like illness and subtyped by real-time RT-PCR during 2011-2017. The HA and NA genes of influenza B were fully sequenced. The prevalence is the highest in the 6-17 years old group among people infected with influenza B. Yamagata-lineage virus evolved to two inter-clade from 2011-2014 to 2014-2017. The amino acids substitutions of HA1 region were R279K in strains of 2011-2014 and L173Q, M252V in strains of 2014-2017. Substitutions L58P, I146V were observed in HA1 region of Victoria-lineage virus in 2011-2012 and I117V, N129D were showed in 2015-2017. Phylogenetic analysis of NA showed Yamagata-Victoria inter-lineage reassortant occurred in 2013-2014. Influenza B mainly infect the school-aged children in Beijing and the free influenza vaccine inoculation does not seem to block school-age children from infection with influenza B. The antigen characteristics of circulating influenza B were different to the recommended vaccine strains. We concluded that the Victoria-lineage vaccine strain should been changed and the free influenza vaccine should be revalued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil structure represents a basis for soil water retention and fertiliser availability. Here, we performed a micromorphological analysis of thin soil sections to evaluate the effects of 10 years of organic planting (OPP), pollution-free planting (PFP), and conventional planting (CPP) on greenhouse soil structure in the North China Plain. We also analysed soil bulk density, soil organic matter (SOM), and wet aggregate stability. The CPP soil microstructure included weakly separated angular block or plate forms and weak development of soil pores (fissured or simply accumulated pores) with the highest bulk density (1.33 g cm−3) and lowest SOM (26.76 g kg−1). Unlike CPP, the OPP soil microstructure was characterised by highly separated granular and aggregated structures and an abundance of plant and animal remains. OPP was associated with the highest total porosity (55.4%), lowest bulk density (1.17 g cm−3), and highest SOM (54.81 g kg−1) in the soil surface layer. OPP also improved the ventilation pore content (proportion of pores >0.1 mm, 44.09%). OPP aggregates showed different hierarchies of crumb microstructure and higher mean weight diameter and geometric mean diameter values than did CPP. These results confirm the benefits of long-term OPP for soil structure and quality in the greenhouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The control of magnetic order in nanoscale devices underpins many proposals for integrating spintronics concepts into conventional electronics. A key challenge lies in finding an energy-efficient means of control, as power dissipation remains an important factor limiting future miniaturization of integrated circuits. One promising approach involves magnetoelectric coupling in magnetostrictive/piezoelectric systems, where induced strains can bear directly on the magnetic anisotropy. While such processes have been demonstrated in several multiferroic heterostructures, the incorporation of such complex materials into practical geometries has been lacking. Here we demonstrate the possibility of generating sizeable anisotropy changes, through induced strains driven by applied electric fields, in hybrid piezoelectric/spin-valve nanowires. By combining magneto-optical Kerr effect and magnetoresistance measurements, we show that domain wall propagation fields can be doubled under locally applied strains. These results highlight the prospect of constructing low-power domain wall gates for magnetic logic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We described a nano-carbon ionic liquid electrode modified with palladium-doped graphene (Pd-GR/nano-CILE) for electrochemical analysis of dopamine (DA) and uric acid (UA). The surface morphologies of the electrodes and palladium-doped graphene (Pd-GR) were observed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used for investigating the electrochemical properties of the proposed sensor. The oxidation peaks of DA and UA were well separated at the Pd-GR/nano-CILE using differential pulse voltammetry. The sensor displayed good electrocatalytic activity toward DA and UA with increased peak currents and reduced peak potentials compared with conventional carbon paste electrode. Under optimal conditions, linear calibration plots for the analysis of DA and UA were obtained in the range of 5–200 μM, respectively. The detection limits (at an S/N ratio of 3) were 0.5 μM for DA and 0.8 μM for UA. The method was successfully applied to the determination of DA and UA in spiked human urine and serum samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]