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Efforts have been made to find a better therapeutic approach with fewer side effects in treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study investigated the effect of Buyuan decoction (BYD) on autophagy in COPD rats. An experimental model with Sprague-Dawley rats was established by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection and cigarette smoke exposure. Rats were randomly allocated into blank control (normal control), experimental model, low-dose BYD (8.0 g/kg/day), medium-dose BYD (16.0 g/kg/day), high-dose BYD (32.0 g/kg/day) and 3-MA (methyladenine) groups (6 rats/group). Cell and tissue morphology were observed using hematoxylin and eosin staining. Autophagic vesicles were examined with a transmission electron microscope. Protein expression of LC3-II/I, BNIP- 1, ATG7, p62, PI3K and p-PI3K in lung tissue was detected by Western blotting. Compared with the experimental model group, the inflammatory infiltrate in lung tissue was reduced, the nuclei of the pulmonary epithelial cells were restored to normal, and the expression of LC3, BNIP1, ATG7 and p-PI3K was significantly downregulated, while p62 expression was significantly upregulated after treatment with the BYD. The effect was most significant in the low-dose BYD group (P

Accurate extraction of farmland boundaries is crucial for improving the efficiency of farmland surveys, achieving precise agricultural management, enhancing farmers’ production conditions, protecting the ecological environment, and promoting local economic development. Remote sensing and deep learning are feasible methods for creating large-scale farmland boundary maps. However, existing neural network models have limitations that restrict the accuracy and reliability of agricultural parcel extraction using remote sensing technology. In this study, we used high-resolution satellite images (2 m, 1 m, and 0.8 m) and the U2-Net++ model based on the RSU module, deep separable convolution, and the channel-spatial attention mechanism module to extract different types of fields. Our model exhibited significant improvements in farmland parcel extraction compared with the other models. It achieved an F1-score of 97.13%, which is a 7.36% to 17.63% improvement over older models such as U-Net and FCN and a more than 2% improvement over advanced models such as DeepLabv3+ and U2-Net. These results indicate that U2-Net++ holds the potential for widespread application in the production of large-scale farmland boundary maps.

Global precipitation products (GPPs) are vital in weather forecasting, efficient water management, and monitoring floods and droughts. However, the precision of these datasets varies considerably across different climatic regions and topographic conditions. Therefore, the accuracy assessment of the precipitation dataset is crucial at the local scale before its application. The current study initially compared the performance of recently modified and upgraded precipitation datasets, including Climate Research Unit Time-Series (CRU TS v4.08), fifth-generation ERA5-Land (ERA-5), Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) final run (IMERG v07B), and Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP v2.8), against ground observations on the provincial basis across Pakistan from 2003 to 2020. Later, the study area was categorized into four regions based on the elevation to observe the impact of elevation gradients on GPPs' skills. The monthly and seasonal precipitation estimations of each product were validated against in situ observations using statistical matrices, including the correlation coefficient (CC), root mean square error (RMSE), percent of bias (PBias), and Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE). The results reveal that IMERG7 consistently outperformed across all the provinces, with the highest CC and lowest RMSE values. Meanwhile, the KGE (0.69) and PBias (−0.65%) elucidated, comparatively, the best performance of MSWEP2.8 in Sindh province. Additionally, all the datasets demonstrated their best agreement with the reference data toward the southern part (0–500 m elevation) of Pakistan, while their performance notably declined in the northern high-elevation glaciated mountain regions (above 3000 m elevation), with considerable overestimations. The superior performance of IMERG7 in all the elevation-based regions was also revealed in the current study. According to the monthly and seasonal scale evaluation, all the precipitation products except ERA-5 showed good precipitation estimation ability on a monthly scale, followed by the winter season, pre-monsoon season, and monsoon season, while during the post-monsoon season, all the datasets showed weak agreement with the observed data. Overall, IMERG7 exhibited comparatively superior performance, followed by MSWEP2.8 at a monthly scale, winter season, and pre-monsoon season, while MSWEP2.8 outperformed during the monsoon season. CRU TS showed a moderate association with the ground observations, whereas ERA-5 performed poorly across all the time scales. In the current scenario, this study recommends IMERG7 and MSWEP2.8 for hydrological and climate studies in this region. Additionally, this study emphasizes the need for further research and experiments to minimize bias in high-elevation regions at different time scales to make GPPs more reliable for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the intricate relationship between drought stress and corn yield is crucial for ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change. This study investigates the subtle effects of drought stress on corn physiological, morphological, and spectral characteristics at different growth stages, in order to construct a new drought index to characterize drought characteristics, so as to provide valuable insights for maize recovery mechanism and yield prediction. Specific conclusions are as follows. Firstly, the impact of drought stress on corn growth and development shows a gradient effect, with the most significant effects observed during the elongation stage and tasseling stage. Notably, Soil and Plant Analyzer Development (SPAD) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) are significantly affected during the silking stage, while plant height and stem width remain relatively unaffected. Secondly, spectral feature analysis reveals that, from the elongation stage to the silking stage, canopy reflectance exhibits peak–valley variations. Drought severity correlates positively with reflectance in the visible and shortwave infrared bands and negatively with reflectance in the near-infrared band. Canopy spectra during the silking stage are more affected by moderate and severe drought stress. Thirdly, LAI shows a significant positive correlation with yield, indicating its reliability in explaining yield variations. Finally, the yield-related drought index (YI) constructed based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Random Forest (RF) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) methods has a good effect on revealing drought characteristics (R = 0.9332, p < 0.001). This study underscores the importance of understanding corn responses to drought stress at various growth stages for effective yield prediction and agricultural management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PTFE coatings were deposited on YT15 carbide substrates using spray technology. A series of examinations were conducted, including the use of surface and cross-section micrographs to analyze the structural integrity of the coatings. The surface roughness, the adhesion force between the PTFE coatings and the carbide substrate, and the micro-hardness of the coated carbide were also evaluated. Additionally, the friction and wear behaviors were assessed through dry sliding friction tests against WC/Co balls. The test results indicated that while the PTFE-coated carbide exhibited a rougher surface and reduced micro-hardness, it also demonstrated a significant reduction in surface friction and adhesive wear. These findings suggest that the PTFE coatings enhance the overall wear resistance of the carbides. The lower surface hardness and shear strength of the coatings influenced the friction performance, leading to specific wear failure mechanisms, such as abrasion wear, coating delamination, and flaking. Overall, the deposition of PTFE coatings on carbide substrates presents a promising strategy to enhance their friction and wear performance. This approach not only improves the durability of carbide materials but also offers potential applications in industries where reduced friction and wear are critical for performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myxomycete communities in Taxodium distichum forests and the influence of substrates and seasons on myxomycete diversity were studied. In total, 80 substrates (40 living barks and 40 litters) were collected from the sample site in winter, spring, summer and autumn of 2023, followed by moist chamber cultures. A total of 733 records representing 34 myxomycete species in 21 genera were obtained. Arcyria cinerea and six other species were abundant (A). Six species were common (C), six species were occasional (O), and fifteen species were rare (R). Species diversity (H' = 2.04 ± 0.20) of corticolous communities was significantly higher than that (H' = 1.49 ± 0.31) of litter-inhabiting communities (p < 0.05). Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) analyses showed significant differences between these two communities (p < 0.01). Species diversity was slightly higher in summer and autumn compared to winter and spring. NMDS analyses indicated no significant differences among seasonal communities. Redundancy Analysis showed that the corticolous species were closely related to wind speed (p < 0.05), while litter-inhabiting species were mainly determined by temperature (p < 0.05). The study revealed that substrates and seasons influenced myxomycete communities in T. distichum forests, with the communities being particularly affected by the substrates in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To calculate the carrying capacity of spherical hydrostatic bearings, a numerical calculation model was presented. The influence law of dynamic pressure effect on the carrying characteristics of liquid hydrostatic spherical bearings is revealed. Under general working conditions, the dynamic pressure effect caused by the radial eccentricity of the bearing has little influence on the bearing load characteristics parameters; when the minimum width of the gap between the sealing edge is very small and the bearing rotational speed is high, the dynamic pressure effect is more obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]