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The replenishment of water resources in a space station is essential for achieving an astronaut's long-term and on-orbit residence. Recycling his or her urine is one of important and major ways of wastewater recovery. However, traditional urine treatment methods have the disadvantages of equipment that takes large space, complex procedures and low atomic utilization. Therefore, this paper designs a novel wastewater reuse system that treats urine based on urea electrooxidation technology, introduces methane fuel cell coupled with the Sabatier reactor and hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell to further utilize urine treatment products and to allocate water resources precisely in the space station through designing grading treatment and dynamic control systems. The wastewater reuse system designed in the paper contributes to saving valuable space and reducing energy consumption during urine treatment, thus improving water recovery rate and optimizing resource allocation.

Objective To evaluate the clinical value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) technology in the central nervous system (CNS) infection. Methods Utilizing the Infectious Disease Metagenomic Testing Platform at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, we conducted a retrospective analysis of clinical data, routine laboratory test results, and mNGS results of patients diagnosed with infectious CNS diseases from April to December 2022. The aim was to assess the diagnostic significance of mNGS technology in CNS infection. Results Among 39 patients clinically with CNS infection, suspected pathogenic microorganism-specific sequences were detected in 29 cases (74.4%). Among them, 11 cases (37.9%) were positive for bacteria, 13 cases (44.8%) for viruses, 3 cases (10.3%) for fungi, 1 case (3.5%) for both bacteria and viruses, and 1 case (3.5%) for both fungi and viruses, yielding a positivity rate of 74.4%. Ten cases reported negative results, resulting in a false-negative rate of 25.6%. The positivity rate of mNGS was significantly higher than that of conventional clinical pathogen detection methods (including cerebrospinal fluid smears, cultures, pathogen antigens, and nucleic acid polymerase chain reactions), with rates of 74.4% compared to 23.7%, respectively. Conclusions Compared to available conventional clinical pathogen detection methods, mNGS technology demonstrates a higher positivity rate in the diagnosis of infectious CNS diseases. This advancement could potentially contribute to the early diagnosis of CNS infection.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a widespread gastrointestinal disorder known for its multifaceted pathogenesis and varied extraintestinal manifestations, yet its implications for bone and muscle health are underexplored. Recent studies suggest a link between IBS and musculoskeletal disorders, but a comprehensive understanding remains elusive, especially concerning the role of bile acids (BAs) in this context. This study aimed to elucidate the potential contribution of IBS to bone and muscle deterioration via alterations in gut microbiota and BA profiles, hypothesizing that cholestyramine could counteract these adverse effects. We employed a mouse model to characterize IBS and analysed its impact on bone and muscle health. Our results revealed that IBS promotes bone and muscle loss, accompanied by microbial dysbiosis and elevated BAs. Administering cholestyramine significantly mitigated these effects, highlighting its therapeutic potential. This research not only confirms the critical role of BAs and gut microbiota in IBS‐associated bone and muscle loss but also demonstrates the efficacy of cholestyramine in ameliorating these conditions, thereby contributing significantly to the field's understanding and offering a promising avenue for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To evaluate the association between frailty and postoperative delirium (POD) in elderly cardiac surgery patients. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted of older patients admitted to the intensive care unit after cardiac surgery at a tertiary academic medical center in Boston from 2008 to 2019. Frailty was measured using the Modified Frailty Index (MFI), which categorized patients into frail (MFI ≥3) and non‐frail (MFI = 0–2) groups. Delirium was identified using the confusion assessment method for the intensive care unit and nursing notes. Logistic regression models were used to examine the association between frailty and POD, and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Results: Of the 2080 patients included (median age approximately 74 years, 30.9% female), 614 were frail and 1466 were non‐frail. The incidence of delirium was significantly higher in the frail group (29.2% vs. 16.4%, p < 0.05). After adjustment for age, sex, race, marital status, Acute Physiology Score III (APSIII), sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA), albumin, creatinine, hemoglobin, white blood cell count, type of surgery, alcohol use, smoking, cerebrovascular disease, use of benzodiazepines, and mechanical ventilation, multivariate logistic regression indicated a significantly increased risk of delirium in frail patients (adjusted OR: 1.61, 95% CI: 1.23–2.10, p < 0.001, E‐value: 1.85). Conclusions: Frailty is an independent risk factor for POD in older patients after cardiac surgery. Further research should focus on frailty assessment and tailored interventions to improve outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of potassium chloride (KCl) to be used as a substitute for sodium chloride (NaCl) was studied by monitoring the effects of salt treatment on thermal behavior, aggregation kinetics, rheological properties, and protein conformational changes. The results show that the addition of KCl can improve solubility, reduce turbidity and particle size, and positively influence rheological parameters such as apparent viscosity, consistency coefficient (K value), and fluidity index (n). These changes indicate delayed thermal denaturation. In addition, KCl decreased the content of β-sheet and random coil structures and increased the content of α-helix and β-turn structures. The optimal results were obtained with 2% KCl addition, leading to an increase in Tp up to 85.09 °C. The correlation results showed that Tp was positively correlated with solubility, α-helix and β-turn but negatively correlated with ΔH, turbidity, β-sheet and random coil. Overall, compared to NaCl, 2% KCl is more effective in delaying the thermal aggregation of LWE, and these findings lay a solid theoretical foundation for the study of sodium substitutes in heat-resistant liquid egg products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovering the complex periodic variations in soil moisture can provide a significant reference for climate prediction and hydrological process simulation. We used wavelet analysis to quantify and identify the multi-scale periodic variations of soil moisture in the desert steppe of Inner Mongolia from 2009 to 2019 and analyzed the differences between the multi-scale periodic changes in soil moisture at the bottom (BS) and upper slope (US). The results show that the interannual variability in soil moisture at the BS and US has a significant upward trend. Moreover, the amount and volatility decrease with the increase in soil depth in the range of 0–30 cm, and the soil moisture at the BS is 26.4% higher than the US. The soil moisture has periodic changes of 0.5a, 1a, 2a, 3a and 3.5a in the desert steppe environment of Inner Mongolia. The periodic structure and intensity of different slope positions are greatly different. Soil moisture at the US has more complex multi-scale periodic changes, and the periodic oscillations of 3.5a, 3a, and 1a are dominant. The periodic oscillations of 0.5a and 1a are dominant at the BS. At the BS, the intensity of periodic oscillation of 1a after January 2015 has weakened. The weakening of soil moisture by temperature, rainfall and soil temperature caused the change in the multiple time-scale periodic oscillation of soil moisture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and land cover (LULC) play a significant role in carbon regulation. South-China accounts for ~65% of China’s carbon sink. In Xishuangbanna (South-China), rubber is expanding rapidly creating an urgent need to understand and monitor LULC change and how spatial variation affects carbon storage (CS). This is vital for the formation and implementation of better land use management practices. We studied LULC changes of 22-year period; addressing how these changes have affected the CS. We quantified LULC changes between1988 and 2010 using remote sensing methods and calculated CS changes using InvEST. Results showed that between 1988 and 2010, the rate of deforestation accelerated to 203.2 km2 y−1 and ~23% of forest were lost. Conversion of natural forest to rubber was responsible for 78% of this deforestation. Rubber expansion rate was 153.4 km2 y−1. Changes to LULC drove a temporal CS reduction 0.223 Tg C/km2. Local stakeholders have strong economic interest in converting land to more profitable plantations. Government efforts is required to control land conversion through new policies and incentives to retain natural forest. Assessment of specific potential land use change will be required to avoid promoting the conversion of high carbon storage land uses to low carbon storage land uses.

A novel hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) is proposed to optimize the rotor structure of an IPM machine which is used in EV application. The finite element (FE) simulation results of the HGA design is compared with the genetic algorithm (GA) design and those before optimized. It is shown that the performance of the IPMSM is effectively improved by employing the GA and HGA, especially by HGA. Moreover, higher flux-weakening capability and less magnet usage are also obtained. Therefore, the validity of HGA method in IPMSM optimization design is verified.

Background and aims Patients on hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD) often have insufficient energy and protein intake, resulting in poor nutritional status and adverse outcomes. Oral nutritional supplements (ONSs) are the most commonly used to increase such patients' energy and protein intakes. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we analyzed studies on nutritional status, inflammatory markers, and electrolyte levels in patients on dialysis receiving ONSs. We searched four electronic databases from inception until 31 December 2022, for randomized controlled trials comparing ONS treatment versus placebo or routine care. Results 22 studies with 1185 patients on dialysis were included in our meta-analysis. Compared with the control group, the ONS group exhibited significantly increased serum albumin levels [1.26 g/l (95%CI, 0.50–2.02, P  < 0.0001; I 2 = 80.4%)], body mass indexes (BMIs) [0.30 kg/m2 (95%CI, 0.09–0.52, P  = 0.005; I 2 = 41.4%)], and handgrip strength (HGS) [0.96 kg (95%CI, 0.07–1.84, P  = 0.034; I 2 = 41.4%)] from baseline to the end of intervention. No significant differences were observed between the groups in lean body mass, phase angle, C-reactive protein, and serum phosphorus and potassium levels. In terms of improving albumin, the subgroup analyses show that ONS use seems to be more inclined to three variations: HD patients, short-term use, and non-intradialytic supplementation. Conclusion In conclusion, ONS use can improve the nutritional status of patients on dialysis in terms of their serum albumin, BMI, and HGS without significant effects on serum phosphorus, potassium, and C-reactive protein levels. However, it remains uncertain whether these results translate to improvement in clinically relevant outcomes. Large-scale high-quality studies are still required in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The purpose of this study was to investigate the fermentation characteristics of five varieties of fig juices (Ficus carica cv. Siluhongyu, Siluhuangjin, Silufeicui, Jinaofen and Fengchanhuang) by two select strains (Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus acidophilus), based on the changes of physicochemical parameters, bioactive components, antioxidant activities and flavour volatiles. Viable counts were above 9.5 log CFU mL−1 throughout the fermentation process, indicating that fig juices were suitable substrates for strain proliferation. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were significantly enhanced during fermentation, particularly with Siluhuangjin by L. plantarum and Silufeicui by L. acidophilus, exhibiting the highest total phenolic (465 mg GAE L−1) and total flavonoid contents (152 mg RE L−1), respectively. Accordingly, antioxidant activities based on SOD, DPPH, ABTS and FRAP methods were significantly improved after fermentation (P < 0.05). SOD and ABTS were positively correlated with contents of protocatechuic acid and caffeic acid, respectively (P < 0.05). Furthermore, alcohols, ketones and terpenoids contents were increased, while aldehydes content was decreased significantly after fermentation (P < 0.05), suggesting the improved flavour characteristics of fermented fig juices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying robust breast cancer subtypes will help to reveal the cancer heterogeneity. However, previous breast cancer subtypes were based on population-level quantitative gene expression, which is affected by batch effects and cannot be applied to individuals. We detected differential gene expression, genomic, and epigenomic alterations to identify driver differential expression at the individual level. The individual driver differential expression reflected the breast cancer patients' heterogeneity and revealed four subtypes. Mesenchymal subtype as the most aggressive subtype harbored deletion and downregulated expression of genes in chromosome 11q23 region. Specifically, silencing of the SDHD gene in 11q23 promoted the invasion and migration of breast cancer cells in vitro by the epithelial–mesenchymal transition. The immunologically hot subtype displayed an immune-hot microenvironment, including high T-cell infiltration and upregulated PD-1 and CTLA4. Luminal and genomic-unstable subtypes showed opposite macrophage polarization, which may be regulated by the ligand–receptor pairs of CD99. The integration of multi-omics data at the individual level provides a powerful framework for elucidating the heterogeneity of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to conduct dynamic health assessment for the roller bearing and describe the dynamic process of its performance degradation accurately,by using the method of combining the Self-organizing map（ SOM） and restricted Boltzmann machine（ RBM） to implement the health assessment of rolling bearing. With the consideration of degradation induced changes for response features,unsupervised learning scheme based on SOM,with the help of multi-domain feature sets consist of features in time domain,frequency domain and time-frequency domain,the optimal feature domain is constructed by sorting the diverse features adopting the sequential forward selection（ SFS） regulation,the mapping relationship between the selected feature vectors and bearing health status is obtained. To avoid the problems of being easy to be run into local optimum,parameter adjustment difficulties and a long training process,when conducting the learning process using traditional neural network algorithms,the model for health assessment is constructed by using the RBM as an alternative.Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can identify the health status of rolling bearing during the dynamic process of performance degradation with a good engineering applicability.