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Despite significant advances in prenatal medicine, spontaneous miscarriage remains one of the most common and serious pregnancy complications, affecting an increasing number of women. Since many aspects of the pathogenesis of spontaneous miscarriage remain unexplained, the aim of this study has been to assess the involvement of the NLRP3 inflammasome as a potential causative factor. The concentrations of NLRP3, IL-1β, IL-18, and cytochrome C in the serum of patients after miscarriage were measured by means of the immunoenzymatic method. In the placental tissue, the expression of NLRP3, IL-1β, IL-18, and Caspase-1 as well as that of the classical apoptosis biomarkers Fas, FasL, Bcl-2, and Ca was evaluated by means of immunohistochemistry techniques. Additionally, in whole blood, the concentrations of elements crucial for pregnancy progression, such as Ca, K, Mg, and Na, were examined by means of the ICP-OES method. Significantly higher concentrations of NLRP3 and IL-18 were demonstrated in the serum of patients with miscarriage as compared to the control group. In the placental tissue samples, a higher expression of IL-1β, IL-18, and Caspase-1 proteins was noted in women who had experienced miscarriage as compared to the control group. At the same time, a significantly lower expression of FasL and Bcl-2 proteins as well as Ca deposits was observed in women after miscarriage as compared to those with a normal pregnancy outcome. Significantly lower concentrations of Ca and K were recorded in the blood of patients with spontaneous miscarriage as compared to pregnant women. The analysis of the results x indicated a greater involvement of the inflammasome in women with spontaneous miscarriage associated with oxidative–antioxidative imbalance than in the case of miscarriage related to NET formation. Our research has provided evidence for the involvement of the inflammasome in the process of spontaneous miscarriage and identifies a new direction for diagnostics that includes NLRP3 as a preventive element in prenatal care, particularly in light of the steadily declining number of pregnancies and the increasing number of reproductive failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gardenia flower not only has extremely high ornamental value but also is an important source of natural food and spices, with a wide range of uses. To support the development of gardenia flower products, this study used headspace gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC–IMS) technology to compare and analyze the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of fresh gardenia flower and those after using four different drying methods (vacuum freeze-drying (VFD), microwave drying (MD), hot-air drying (HAD), and vacuum drying (VD)). The results show that, in terms of shape, the VFD sample is almost identical to fresh gardenia flower, while the HAD, MD, and VD samples show significant changes in appearance with clear wrinkling; a total of 59 volatile organic compounds were detected in the gardenia flower, including 13 terpenes, 18 aldehydes, 4 esters, 8 ketones, 15 alcohols, and 1 sulfide. Principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and partial least-squares regression analysis (PLS-DA) were performed on the obtained data, and the research found that different drying methods impact the VOCs of the gardenia flower. VFD or MD may be the most effective alternative to traditional sun-drying methods. Considering its drying efficiency and production cost, MD has the widest market prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work aims to investigate the effect of heating temperature (400, 600 and 800 °C) and inoculating elements (Ca, Ca-Ba, Ca-RE) on oxidation behavior of ductile irons containing 5.25% Si and 4.8% Si-2.3% Mo in dry air and combustion gas containing water vapour (natural gas burning). The oxidation is influenced by the gas atmosphere type, the iron alloying system, and the inoculating elements depending on the heating temperature. The weight gain increases from 0.001%-0.1% (400 °C) to 0.05%-0.70% (600 °C) and up to 0.10%-2.15% (800 °C). No particular effects of the considered influencing factors are found when heating at 400 °C, while at 600 °C, mainly the oxidation gas atmosphere type shows a visible influence. At the highest heating temperature of 800 °C, a limited increase of the weight gain is found for dry air atmosphere (up to 0.25%), but it drastically increases for combustion atmospheres (0.65%-2.15%). The water vapour presence in the combustion atmosphere is an important oxidising factor at 600-800 °C. The alloying system appears to influence the oxidation behavior mainly at a heating temperature of 800 °C in the combustion atmosphere, as evidenced by the lower weight gain in 5.25% silicon cast iron. Positive effects of inoculating elements increase with the heating temperature, with Ca and Ba-FeSi inoculation generally showing better performance. Irons inoculated with CaRE-FeSi exhibit a higher degree of oxidation. These results are in good relationship with the previous reported data: Ca-Ba-inoculation system appears to be better than simple Ca for improving the graphite parameters, while RE-bearing inoculant negatively affects the compactness degree of graphite particles in high-Si ductile irons. As the lower compactness degree is typical for graphite nodules in high-Si ductile irons, which negatively affects the oxidation resistance, it is necessary to employ specific metallurgical treatments to improve nodule quality. Inoculation, in particular, is a potential method to achieve this improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: to determine clinical, anamnestic and molecular-genetic parallels in emergence of clinical chorioamnionitis (CA) and severe forms of intrauterine infections (IUI) in high-risk pregnant women.Materials and Methods. A single-center prospective cohort comparative case-control study was conducted by examining 58 pregnant female patients aged 18 to 42 years with a verified CA diagnosis during pregnancy and childbirth at different gestation stages (main group), and 35 age-matched pregnant women with uncomplicated pregnancy and no significant extragenital pathology, aggravated factors of obstetric and gynecological history and risk factors for developing CA (control group), observed and performed a delivery in Yudin City Clinical Hospital. All women underwent clinical, anamnestic, laboratory, instrumental and molecular-genetic examitation. We studied the polymorphism of genes FCGR2A (Fc fragment of immunoglobulin G receptor IIa), IFN-γ (interferon gamma), IL-10 (interleukin-10), IL-6 (interleukin-6) and MBL2 (mannose binding lectin 2) to determine their role in assessing a risk of maternal and neonatal infection.Results. Among the patients with developed clinical CA vs. control subjects, more of them had a history of abortion and miscarriages (17.24 %), comorbid with chronic arterial hypertension (13.79 %), previous surgical interventions (27.59 %), as well as chronic inflammatory diseases (chronic tonsillitis, bronchitis, pyelonephritis, sinusitis; 27.59 % vs. 17.14 %). In addition to risk factors directly related to the infectious and inflammatory unfavorable background, they also had a significantly higher rate of obstetric complications: moderate preeclampsia - 6 (10.34 %) cases, threat of miscarriage or premature birth - 14 (24.14 %) cases vs. 1 (2.86 %) case in control group (p = 0.007), polyhydramnions - 4 (6.9 %) cases, placental insufficiency - 6 (10.34 %) cases. The frequency of premature rupture of membranes was 31.03 % in women with CA. Questionable cardiotocography (CTG) type was found in 24 (41.38 %) women with CA vs. 4 (11.4 3%) women without CA (p = 0.003), the pathological CTG type was observed only in women with CA. In the group with clinical CA and neonatal IUI, the combination of genotypes AG rs1801274 FCGR2A, TT rs2430561 (IFN-γ)+874, GC rs1800795 (IL-6)-174 occurs in 80.65 % (25/31), whereas in women without severe neonatal IUI - in 37.04 % (10/27) (odds ratio (OR) = 7.08; 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 2.166-23.166). In addition, the combination of alleles TT rs2430561 (IFN-γ)+874, GC+CC rs1800795 (IL-6)-174, AA rs1800450 MBL2 codon 54 was detected in 90.32 % (28/31) vs. 44.44 % (12/27) in main and control group (OR = 11.667; 95 % CI = 2.842-47.886), respectively.Conclusion. The study data evidence about importance of identifying genes for developing CA and neonatal septic complications to optimize and personalize management of high-risk patients (premature birth, infections during pregnancy, premature rupture of membranes).

Waste water reuse is an effective method for reducing the quantity of wastewater that enters the environment. As a result, the appropriateness was assessed in accordance with its composition and the global criteria for drinking water quality. This study aims to evaluate the quality of surface water of Brahmani River, Odisha, by adapting multivariate statistical approaches, namely Cluster Analysis (CA) and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods such as Simple Additive Weighting (SAW). Again, Geographical Information System (GIS) is employed to assess the drinking water's quality in relation to its application. Around 15 physicochemical parameters, gathered from seven distinct sites, following a period of 2022 till 2024. The results showed high values of EC, SO42−, NO3−, PO43−, F− and Ca2+, in three stations, while other studied parameters are within the permissible limits defined by WHO standards. The CA three distinct classifications of sites namely, low, medium, and high, based on how comparable the various physicochemical traits and pollutant levels were throughout the sampling locations. Sites H-(4–6) were included in cluster 1, site H-(3) and (7) classified under Cluster 2 and finally, H-(1–2) indicated as Cluster 3. Thus, as stated by CA, 42.86 % of tested water samples were fall into the group of good quality and about 57.14 % of examined locations resides in the poor category of water. The findings indicate which characteristics, as determined by the CA technique, were accountable for the alteration in the water quality and raise the potential of runoff from cities, farms, and industries. Subsequently, MCDM techniques has been implemented to facilitate rapid comprehension of surface water behavior and address problems with water resource management. The obtained SAW index ranges from 0.5 to 0.94. Here, H-(1), (2), and (7) grouped as highly polluted zone, and they seemed to be connected to runoff from farms and untreated industrial and municipal trash as well as local pollution sources. From this innovative study, it is found that even though the water is fit for drinking at 3 places, it is medium to highly suitable for human consumption. Therefore, there needs to be treated in some way before being used in addition to being protected against contamination. Most often, the findings indicate that appropriate management actions are important to restore the water quality of this catchment in order to support a robust and promising aquatic ecosystem. Additionally, the significance of this restoration for objective ecological policy and decision-making processes is underscored.

Abstract Different chemical solutions can significantly change the contact angle (CA) of soil, but few studies have studied the change rule and action mechanism of the CA from the mineral composition of soil essence. In unsaturated soil mechanics, the CA is an important parameter to calculate the wet suction between soil particles in unsaturated soil. When the chemical composition of the soil pore liquid changes, the CA will also change, which will affect the wet suction and other parameters, thus changing the macroscopic mechanical properties of the soil. In this study, the CA of air-solution-mineral phases with different solution components (pH, type and concentration of salt solution) of different minerals (quartz, orthoclase and plagioclase) were measured. The results show that the CAs of quartz, orthoclase and plagioclase all rise first and then drop with the rise of pH. The peak CAs are pH = 5, pH = 4 and pH = 3, respectively. Quartz, orthoclase and plagioclase all have valley values in different concentrations of NaCl and KCl solutions. In CaCl2 solution, only quartz has valley value, while orthoclase and plagioclase increase monotonously. Quartz in soil plays a main role in the influence of soil CA, followed by orthoclase and plagioclase. The CA of different minerals in different chemical solutions is mainly controlled by electric double layer interaction and functional groups interaction. In different salt solution environment, in addition to the above two effects, the mineral CA is also affected by the surface tension.

Abstract Background The quality of maize kernels is significantly enhanced by amino acids, which are the fundamental building blocks of proteins. Meanwhile, calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg), as important nutrients for maize growth, are vital in regulating the metabolic pathways and enzyme activities of amino acid synthesis. Therefore, our study analyzed the response process and changes of amino acid content, endogenous hormone content, and antioxidant enzyme activity in kernels to the coupling addition of sugar alcohol-chelated Ca and Mg fertilizers with spraying on maize. Result (1) The coupled addition of Ca and Mg fertilizers increased the Ca and Mg content, endogenous hormone components (indole-3-acetic acid, IAA; gibberellin, GA; zeatin riboside, ZR) content, antioxidant enzyme activity, and amino acid content of maize kernels. The content of Ca and Mg in kernels increased with the increasing levels of Ca and Mg fertilizers within a certain range from the filling to the wax ripening stage, and significantly positively correlated with antioxidant enzyme activities. (2) The contents of IAA, GA, and ZR continued to rise, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were elevated, which effectively enhanced the ability of cells to resist oxidative damage, promoted cell elongation and division, and facilitated the growth and development of maize. However, the malondialdehyde (MDA) content increased consistently, which would attack the defense system of the cell membrane plasma to some extent. (3) Leucine (LEU) exhibited the highest percentage of essential amino acid components and a gradual decline from the filling to the wax ripening stage, with the most substantial beneficial effect on essential amino acids. (4) CAT and SOD favorably governed essential amino acids, while IAA and MDA negatively regulated them. The dominant physiological driving pathway for the synthesis of essential amino acids was “IAA-CAT-LEU”, in which IAA first negatively drove CAT activity, and CAT then advantageously controlled LEU synthesis. Conclusion These findings provide a potential approach to the physiological and biochemical metabolism of amino acid synthesis, and the nutritional quality enhancement of maize kernel.

This paper investigates the issue of translating genderisms from Uzbek into English. It investigates and compares the approaches taken by both native and foreign translators to address this issue through a case study based on Uzbek author Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon’s unfinished dilogy, Night and Day. Originally written between 1933 and 1934 and translated into English by native translators Muminov and Khamidov in 2014 and foreign translator Fort in 2019, Cho’lpon’s work was specifically chosen, because it depicts women's repression in the male hegemonic cultures of Central Asian countries during the nineteenth century, particularly in the Uzbek context during the colonial period. Based on both the content analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), the researchers extracted the genderisms in the source text (ST) and compared them to their representation in the target text (TT). The CDA results revealed that genderisms in the ST manifest themselves in women's reliance on men, the limitations on their independence, their low status and powerlessness, and their abusive treatment and threats by men. Analysis of the translations showed that native translators mostly omitted genderisms in translation, attempting to protect their culture by avoiding the introduction of negative views of their nation. On the other hand, the foreign translator kept the genderisms in the TT, trying to realize the author's original goal of using genderism to encourage independence and selfconfidence in women. The results of this study serve to reduce the problems of expressing gender representation in translations from many Turkic languages into English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object detection model in UAV aerial image scenes faces challenges such as significant scale changes of certain objects and the presence of complex backgrounds. This paper aims to address the detection of small objects in aerial images using NATCA (neighborhood attention Transformer coordinate attention) YOLO. Specifically, the feature extraction network incorporates a neighborhood attention transformer (NAT) into the last layer to capture global context information and extract diverse features. Additionally, the feature fusion network (Neck) incorporates a coordinate attention (CA) module to capture channel information and longer-range positional information. Furthermore, the activation function in the original convolutional block is replaced with Meta-ACON. The NAT serves as the prediction layer in the new network, which is evaluated using the VisDrone2019-DET object detection dataset as a benchmark, and tested on the VisDrone2019-DET-test-dev dataset. To assess the performance of the NATCA YOLO model in detecting small objects in aerial images, other detection networks, such as Faster R-CNN, RetinaNet, and SSD, are employed for comparison on the test set. The results demonstrate that the NATCA YOLO detection achieves an average accuracy of 42%, which is a 2.9% improvement compared to the state-of-the-art detection network TPH-YOLOv5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: The quality of maize kernels is significantly enhanced by amino acids, which are the fundamental building blocks of proteins. Meanwhile, calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg), as important nutrients for maize growth, are vital in regulating the metabolic pathways and enzyme activities of amino acid synthesis. Therefore, our study analyzed the response process and changes of amino acid content, endogenous hormone content, and antioxidant enzyme activity in kernels to the coupling addition of sugar alcohol-chelated Ca and Mg fertilizers with spraying on maize. Result: (1) The coupled addition of Ca and Mg fertilizers increased the Ca and Mg content, endogenous hormone components (indole-3-acetic acid, IAA; gibberellin, GA; zeatin riboside, ZR) content, antioxidant enzyme activity, and amino acid content of maize kernels. The content of Ca and Mg in kernels increased with the increasing levels of Ca and Mg fertilizers within a certain range from the filling to the wax ripening stage, and significantly positively correlated with antioxidant enzyme activities. (2) The contents of IAA, GA, and ZR continued to rise, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were elevated, which effectively enhanced the ability of cells to resist oxidative damage, promoted cell elongation and division, and facilitated the growth and development of maize. However, the malondialdehyde (MDA) content increased consistently, which would attack the defense system of the cell membrane plasma to some extent. (3) Leucine (LEU) exhibited the highest percentage of essential amino acid components and a gradual decline from the filling to the wax ripening stage, with the most substantial beneficial effect on essential amino acids. (4) CAT and SOD favorably governed essential amino acids, while IAA and MDA negatively regulated them. The dominant physiological driving pathway for the synthesis of essential amino acids was "IAA-CAT-LEU", in which IAA first negatively drove CAT activity, and CAT then advantageously controlled LEU synthesis. Conclusion: These findings provide a potential approach to the physiological and biochemical metabolism of amino acid synthesis, and the nutritional quality enhancement of maize kernel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Trials evaluating the role of intravascular imaging in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for complex coronary artery disease have yielded mixed results. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of intravascular imaging specifically intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) with those from conventional coronary angiography in complex PCI. Methods: Comprehensive electronic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases was performed until March 2023 for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) comparing intravascular imaging with coronary angiography in patients undergoing complex PCI. Complex PCI was defined per each study, and included PCI for American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) type B2/C lesions, unprotected left main coronary artery disease, or multivessel stenting. The primary study outcome was major adverse clinical events (MACE). Results: The meta-analysis included 10 RCTs with a total of 6615 patients (3576 in the intravascular imaging group and 3039 in the coronary angiography group). The weighted mean-follow up was 28.9 months. Compared with coronary angiography, intravascular imaging reduced MACE (8% vs. 13.3%; relative risk [RR] 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.54–0.73), cardiac death (RR 0.47; 95% CI 0.31–0.73), definite/probable stent thrombosis (RR 0.48; 95% CI 0.24–0.97), target vessel revascularization (RR 0.62; 95% CI 0.46–0.83), and target lesion revascularization (RR 0.61; 95% CI 0.47–0.79). There was no difference between both groups in all-cause death (RR 0.79; 95% CI 0.53–1.18) and myocardial infarction (RR 0.80; 95% CI 0.61–1.04). Conclusion: In patients undergoing complex PCI, intravascular imaging—specifically IVUS—reduced MACE by decreasing the incidence of cardiac death, stent thrombosis, and target vessel and target lesion revascularization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problems of incomplete dehazing, color distortion, and loss of detail and edge information encountered by existing algorithms when processing images of underground coal mines, an image dehazing algorithm for underground coal mines, named CAB CA DSConv Fusion gUNet (CCDF-gUNet), is proposed. First, Dynamic Snake Convolution (DSConv) is introduced to replace traditional convolutions, enhancing the feature extraction capability. Second, residual attention convolution blocks are constructed to simultaneously focus on both local and global information in images. Additionally, the Coordinate Attention (CA) module is utilized to learn the coordinate information of features so that the model can better capture the key information in images. Furthermore, to simultaneously focus on the detail and structural consistency of images, a fusion loss function is introduced. Finally, based on the test verification of the public dataset Haze-4K, the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity (SSIM), and Mean Squared Error (MSE) are 30.72 dB, 0.976, and 55.04, respectively, and on a self-made underground coal mine dataset, they are 31.18 dB, 0.971, and 49.66, respectively. The experimental results show that the algorithm performs well in dehazing, effectively avoids color distortion, and retains image details and edge information, providing some theoretical references for image processing in coal mine surveillance videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the distribution and accumulation characteristics of metabolites and mineral elements in different parts of Peganum harmala L. (P. harmala), and the synergistic or antagonistic effects between them. In this study, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) were used to determine the contents of metabolites (proline, phosphorylcholine, choline, lysine, 4-hydroxyisoleucine, asparagine, acetic acid, sucrose, harmaline and vasicine) and mineral elements (Ca, Mg, K, P, Na, Cr, Cu, Fe, Zn, Mn, Ni, C, N) in five parts of P. harmala, including root, seed, testa, stem and leaf, and to analyze the relationship among the contents of metabolites and mineral elements. The results showed that the contents of acetic acid, proline, lysine, sucrose and Fe in the root were higher than those in other parts, and the contents of harmaline, phosphorylcholine, P, C, N and Zn in the seeds were the highest. The leaves were rich in vasicine, Na, K, Ca, Mg and Mn. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the cumulative variance contribution of the first two principal components was 69.00 %, and the loading values of K, Cu and sucrose were higher, which was consistent with the results of biplot and cluster analysis(HCA). Correlation analysis (CA) results showed that there was a strong overall correlation between the different components of seeds and leaves, and the correlation was greater than that of other parts. The results of this study are helpful to understand the correlation of functional traits among different parts of plants, and determine the internal mechanism of controlling functional traits and the proportional relationship between traits, so as to provide a reference for the resource utilization of plants.

Accurate identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is a critical step in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. Existing object detection methods struggle with the challenges posed by the varied morphology and size of M. tuberculosis in sputum smear images, which makes precise targeting difficult. To solve these problems, an improved YOLOv8s model is proposed. Specifically, an additional detection head is added to focus on small target information. Second, a multi-scale feature fusion module is introduced to adapt the model to different sizes of M. tuberculosis. In addition, a convolutional layer is added to the Coordinate Attention (CA) module to extract more advanced semantic features. Finally, a self-attention mechanism is added after the CA module to enhance the model's ability to accurately understand and localize the varied morphology of M. tuberculosis. Our model performed well with an average precision of 85.7 % when tested on a publicly available dataset. This clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed model in M. tuberculosis detection.

Abstract Introduction Trials evaluating the role of intravascular imaging in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for complex coronary artery disease have yielded mixed results. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of intravascular imaging specifically intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) with those from conventional coronary angiography in complex PCI. Methods Comprehensive electronic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases was performed until March 2023 for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) comparing intravascular imaging with coronary angiography in patients undergoing complex PCI. Complex PCI was defined per each study, and included PCI for American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) type B2/C lesions, unprotected left main coronary artery disease, or multivessel stenting. The primary study outcome was major adverse clinical events (MACE). Results The meta-analysis included 10 RCTs with a total of 6615 patients (3576 in the intravascular imaging group and 3039 in the coronary angiography group). The weighted mean-follow up was 28.9 months. Compared with coronary angiography, intravascular imaging reduced MACE (8% vs. 13.3%; relative risk [RR] 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.54–0.73), cardiac death (RR 0.47; 95% CI 0.31–0.73), definite/probable stent thrombosis (RR 0.48; 95% CI 0.24–0.97), target vessel revascularization (RR 0.62; 95% CI 0.46–0.83), and target lesion revascularization (RR 0.61; 95% CI 0.47–0.79). There was no difference between both groups in all-cause death (RR 0.79; 95% CI 0.53–1.18) and myocardial infarction (RR 0.80; 95% CI 0.61–1.04). Conclusion In patients undergoing complex PCI, intravascular imaging—specifically IVUS—reduced MACE by decreasing the incidence of cardiac death, stent thrombosis, and target vessel and target lesion revascularization.

AimsThe safety and feasibility of combining percutaneous catheter ablation (CA) for atrial fibrillation with left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) as a single procedure in the USA have not been investigated. We analyzed the US National Readmission Database (NRD) to investigate the incidence of combined LAAO + CA and compare major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) with matched LAAO-only and CA-only patients.Methods and resultsIn this retrospective study from NRD data, we identified patients undergoing combined LAAO and CA procedures on the same day in the USA from 2016 to 2019. A 1:1 propensity score match was performed to identify patients undergoing LAAO-only and CA-only procedures. The number of LAAO + CA procedures increased from 28 (2016) to 119 (2019). LAAO + CA patients (n = 375, mean age 74 ± 9.2 years, 53.4% were males) had non-significant higher MACE (8.1%) when compared with LAAO-only (n = 407, 5.3%) or CA-only patients (n = 406, 7.4%), which was primarily driven by higher rate of pericardial effusion (4.3%). All-cause 30-day readmission rates among LAAO + CA patients (10.7%) were similar when compared with LAAO-only (12.7%) or CA-only (17.5%) patients. The most frequent primary reason for readmissions among LAAO + CA and LAAO-only cohorts was heart failure (24.6 and 31.5%, respectively), while among the CA-only cohort, it was paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (25.7%).ConclusionWe report an 63% annual growth (from 28 procedures) in combined LAAO and CA procedures in the USA. There were no significant difference in MACE and all-cause 30-day readmission rates among LAAO + CA patients compared with matched LAAO-only or CA-only patients.

The diffused bit generator (DBG) is an entropy generator that generates a stream of random bits. DBG is realized using a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) and cellular automata (CA). LFSR and CA are realized using flip-flops and XOR gates. The flip-flops required are designed using true single-phase clock (TSPC)-based logic to minimize the area and power of the LFSR and CA circuits. The XOR gates used in the circuits are realized either using a 12-transistor (12T) or a 6-transistor (6T). To further reduce power dissipation in the DBG circuit, low-power techniques are incorporated. In the proposed 8-bit DBGs, the adaptive voltage level at source (AVLS) is incorporated to reduce power consumption. The circuits are realized using Cadence Virtuoso in CMOS 180 nm technology, and Specter is used for simulation and power analysis. The DBG functionality is assessed for frequencies ranging up to 1 GHz with a supply voltage of 1.8 V. From the results, it was inferred that at 1 GHz the proposed-1 DBG (using a 12T XOR gate) is 94.05% power efficient; while, the proposed-2 DBG (using a 6T XOR gate) is 90.27% power efficient when compared to the reference circuits. Implementation of the proposed-1 DBG was also carried out in CMOS 45 nm technology, the functionality was verified and the power was analyzed. A similar trend of power reduction was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cinnamon is one of the most popular spices worldwide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are its main metabolic products. The misuse or mixing of cinnamon on the market is quite serious. This study used gas chromatography-ion migration spectroscopy (GC-IMS) technology to analyze the VOCs of cinnamon samples. The measurement results showed that 66 VOCs were detected in cinnamon, with terpenes being the main component accounting for 45.45%, followed by aldehydes accounting for 21.21%. The content of esters and aldehydes was higher in RG-01, RG-02, and RG-04; the content of alcohols was higher in RG-01; and the content of ketones was higher in RG-02. Principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and partial least squares regression analysis can be performed on the obtained data to clearly distinguish cinnamon. According to the VIP results of PLS-DA, 1-Hexanol, 2-heptanone, ethanol, and other substances are the main volatile substances that distinguish cinnamon. This study combined GC-IMS technology with chemometrics to accurately identify cinnamon samples, providing scientific guidance for the efficient utilization of cinnamon. At the same time, this study is of great significance for improving the relevant quality standards of spices and guiding the safe use of spices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the effect of calcium (Ca) application on post-harvest fruit quality in Nanfeng tangerines, this study sprayed three calcium fertilizers (Calbit, Larry 8 Calcium, and Suspended Calcium) before harvesting. The fruit quality was assessed over a storage period of 0–60 d at a controlled room temperature of 20 ± 5 °C. The evaluation methods included principal component analysis (PCA) and linearly weighted summation. Pre-harvest calcium treatments increased the fruit calcium content and maintained higher firmness and shear. Compared to the control group, fruits treated with Calbit exhibited decreased levels of decay, weight loss, and respiration rates. Additionally, they demonstrated higher values of L*, b*, C*, and H° and lower values of a* and CCI. Moreover, the Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit treatments increased the levels of soluble solids, total soluble sugars, titratable acids, and VC content in the fruit. They accelerated the decomposition of tartaric, oxalic, and citric acids in the pulp, promoting the accumulation of sucrose and glucose. PCA and comprehensive evaluation scores indicated that the comprehensive scores assessing the storage quality of Nanfeng tangerine fruits treated with pre-harvest Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit were higher than those of the control group. The highest composite quality scores for Calbit-treated fruits were observed at 40 and 60 d, and the highest scores for Larry 8 Calcium were recorded at other intervals. These findings suggest that pre-harvest calcium application improved the post-harvest fruit quality of Nanfeng tangerines, with Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit emerging as favorable options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the changes in Paraoxonase (PON), Carbonic Anhydrase (CA), and β-glucosidase levels of different aged rats and scopolamine-induced memory impairment rats. This study used young, adult, and middle-aged male Wistar Albino rats. Scopolamine was administered as a single dose/multiple doses and a Morris water maze (MWM) was used for spatial learning testing in rats. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) were used to determine serum and liver PON and β-glucosidase levels. The CA enzyme activity was assayed following the hydration of CO2. As a result of the comparison of age-related and scopolamine-related changes in PON and β-glucosidase levels in liver and serum samples, no significant age-related and scopolamine-effective changes were observed in serum, while liver PON and liver β-glucosidase levels were found to change significantly. CA activity studies, on the other hand, showed that adults have the lowest CA activity compared to young and middle-aged groups and scopolamine inhibited CA activity in vivo. We found that adult rats modeled with memory impairment had statistically lower levels of liver PON and liver β-glucosidase. CA activity was also found to be significantly reduced. β-glucosidase and CA should be further investigated in terms of neurodegenerative disease risk factors, just like PON, whose importance has been determined by numerous studies in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the issues of remote sensing object detection algorithms based on deep learning, such as a high number of network parameters, large model size, and high computational requirements, it is challenging to deploy them on small mobile devices. This paper proposes an extremely lightweight remote sensing aircraft object detection network based on the improved YOLOv5n. This network combines Shufflenet v2 and YOLOv5n, significantly reducing the network size while ensuring high detection accuracy. It substitutes the original CIoU and convolution with EIoU and deformable convolution, optimizing for the small-scale characteristics of aircraft objects and further accelerating convergence and improving regression accuracy. Additionally, a coordinate attention (CA) mechanism is introduced at the end of the backbone to focus on orientation perception and positional information. We conducted a series of experiments, comparing our method with networks like GhostNet, PP-LCNet, MobileNetV3, and MobileNetV3s, and performed detailed ablation studies. The experimental results on the Mar20 public dataset indicate that, compared to the original YOLOv5n network, our lightweight network has only about one-fifth of its parameter count, with only a slight decrease of 2.7% in mAP@0.5. At the same time, compared with other lightweight networks of the same magnitude, our network achieves an effective balance between detection accuracy and resource consumption such as memory and computing power, providing a novel solution for the implementation and hardware deployment of lightweight remote sensing object detection networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to assess the monitoring system of surface water quality in Can Tho using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). Water samples were monthly collected in 2020 at 35 sampling sites and then analyzed for 18 parameters including temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), ammonium (NH4 + -N), nitrate (NO3ˉ-N), nitrite (NO2ˉ-N), orthophosphate (PO4 3 ˉ-P), chromium (Cr), fluoride (F- ), arsenic (As), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg) and coliform. These values were compared with the national technical regulation on surface water quality and calculated water quality index (WQI). The findings indicated that surface water quality in Can Tho was contaminated by organic matters, suspended solids, and microorganisms. TSS, BOD and COD were high in the dry season, while high level of coliform was found in the wet season. The results of computed WQI showed that the surface water quality was from good to excellent. The PCA results show that 77.2% of water quality fluctuations in the study area were potentially affected by domestic, agricultural, industrial activities and hydrological factors (rainwater runoff, riverbank erosion). Moreover, the results of PCA revealed that water quality parameters could be diminished from 18 to 14 parameters without the loss of important for evaluating surface water quality. CA suggested that total sampling sites and frequencies in the current monitoring program are likely to reduce from 35 to 27 sites and 12 to 6-7 times/year, respectively. It is suggested that these findings can provide essential scientific information for local environmental managers in adjusting the surface water quality monitoring network in Can Tho city, Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Condyloma acuminatum (CA), which is a highly contagious sexually transmitted illness generated by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, is characterized by abnormal proliferation of keratinocytes resulting in verrucous lesions. Although solute carrier family 30 member 1 (ZNT1) is highly expressed in CA tissues, the function of ZNT1 in CA remains unclear. Methods: HPV transfection was performed in HaCaT to simulate the CA pathological environment. The mRNA and protein levels were monitored using RT-qPCR and immunoblotting. Cell viability was found using the MTT test. Cell invasion and migration were probed using the transwell and wound healing. Results: ZNT1 expression was up-regulated in CA tissues, and HPV transfection increased the expression of ZNT1. Overexpression of ZNT1 promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion of Human immortalized keratinocyte (HaCaT) transfected with HPV. Meanwhile, ZNT1 knockdown repressed the proliferation, migration and invasion of HaCaT that HPV transfected. Further research displayed that ZNT1 promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion of HaCaT transfected with HPV through the PI3K/Akt pathway. Conclusion: Our research confirmed that ZNT1 regulated the proliferation, migration and invasion of HaCaT transfected with HPV through the PI3K/Akt pathway, providing a new target for the effective remedy of CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chromosome analysis (CA) and chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) have been successfully used to diagnose genetic disorders. However, many conditions remain undiagnosed due to limitations in resolution (CA) and detection of only unbalanced events (CMA). Optical genome mapping (OGM) has the potential to address these limitations by capturing both structural variants (SVs) resulting in copy number changes and balanced rearrangements with high resolution. In this study, we investigated OGM's concordance using 87 SVs previously identified by CA, CMA, or Southern blot. Overall, OGM was 98% concordant with only three discordant cases: (1) uncalled translocation with one breakpoint in a centromere; (2) uncalled duplication with breakpoints in the pseudoautosomal region 1; and (3) uncalled mosaic triplication originating from a marker chromosome. OGM provided diagnosis for three previously unsolved cases: (1) disruption of the SON gene due to a balanced reciprocal translocation; (2) disruption of the NBEA gene due to an inverted insertion; (3) disruption of the TSC2 gene due to a mosaic deletion. We show that OGM is a valid method for the detection of many types of SVs in a single assay and is highly concordant with legacy cytogenomic methods; however, it has limited SV detection capabilities in centromeric and pseudoautosomal regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gardenia flower not only has extremely high ornamental value but also is an important source of natural food and spices, with a wide range of uses. To support the development of gardenia flower products, this study used headspace gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC–IMS) technology to compare and analyze the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of fresh gardenia flower and those after using four different drying methods (vacuum freeze-drying (VFD), microwave drying (MD), hot-air drying (HAD), and vacuum drying (VD)). The results show that, in terms of shape, the VFD sample is almost identical to fresh gardenia flower, while the HAD, MD, and VD samples show significant changes in appearance with clear wrinkling; a total of 59 volatile organic compounds were detected in the gardenia flower, including 13 terpenes, 18 aldehydes, 4 esters, 8 ketones, 15 alcohols, and 1 sulfide. Principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and partial least-squares regression analysis (PLS-DA) were performed on the obtained data, and the research found that different drying methods impact the VOCs of the gardenia flower. VFD or MD may be the most effective alternative to traditional sun-drying methods. Considering its drying efficiency and production cost, MD has the widest market prospects.

The CO2-assisted oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODP) was investigated over titania based composite metal oxides, 10% MxOy-TiO2 (M: Zr, Ce, Ca, Cr, Ga). It was found that the surface basicity of composite metal oxides was significantly higher than that of bare TiO2 and varied in a manner which depended strongly on the nature of the MxOy modifier. The addition of metal oxides on the TiO2 surface resulted in a significant improvement of catalytic performance induced by a synergetic interaction between MxOy and TiO2 support. Propane conversion and propylene yield were strongly influenced by the nature of the metal oxide additive and were found to be superior for the Cr2O3-TiO2 and Ga2O3-TiO2 catalysts characterized by moderate basicity. The reducibility of the latter catalysts was significantly increased, contributing to the improved catalytic performance. This was also the case for the surface acidity of Ga2O3-TiO2 which was found to be higher compared with Cr2O3-TiO2 and TiO2. A general trend was observed whereby catalytic performance increased significantly with decreasing the primary crystallite size of TiO2. DRIFTS studies conducted under reaction conditions showed that the adsorption/activation of CO2 was favored on the surface of composite metal oxides. This may be induced by the improved surface basicity observed with the MxOy addition on the TiO2 surface. The Ga2O3 containing sample exhibited sufficient stability for about 30 h on stream, indicating that it is suitable for the production of propylene through ODP with CO2 reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nekton Maldives Taxonomic Workshop took place at the Maniyafushi Research Station in the Maldives between 12 and 23 February 2023. This workshop had two primary objectives. Firstly, it aimed to identify species from biological samples and underwater imagery collected during the Nekton Maldives Mission in 2022. Secondly, it sought to facilitate training and knowledge exchange sessions between early career researchers from the Maldives and international taxonomists. These sessions were designed to share knowledge and introduce fundamental taxonomy concepts and enhance practical identification skills for common reef benthic groups and major zooplankton taxonomic groups. A total of 24 people from 10 different countries were directly or indirectly involved with the workshop comprising nine taxonomic experts, eleven trainees and four organisers. Collectively, we identified 278 biological specimens including potentially undescribed species of hydroids, black corals, sponges and octocorals, 318 morphotypes for underwater footage and zooplankton composition congruent with previous reports from the Indian Ocean Region. Next steps will involve depositing the specimens into a more a permanent facility to facilitate the process of specimen description and knowledge transfer.

Molten salts such as 2LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe) have been proposed as coolants for advanced nuclear fission and fusion reactors. Critical to the design, licensing and operation of these reactors is characterization and understanding of the chemical behavior and mass transport of activation and fission products, corrosion products, and other solutes in the coolant. Electrochemical techniques are a powerful suite of tools for probing these phenomena. The design of an experimental cell for molten salt electrochemistry is described herein. As a demonstration of this design, details of the experimental methods used to conduct electrochemical experiments with molten FLiBe with addition of LiH are provided. Decommissioning of the cell is considered from the point of view of decontamination and waste generated. Main features of the cell include:•Suitable for operation up to 800 °C; suitable for operation inside and outside of a glovebox.•Enables sweep gas, gas sampling and analysis; enables addition of solid and liquid materials during operation.•Supports a variety of electrode materials and arrangements.

BackgroundUC San Diego Health System (UCSDHS) is the largest academic medical center and integrated care network in US-Mexico border area of California contiguous to the Northern Baja region of Mexico. The COVID-19 pandemic compelled several UCSDHS and local communities to create awareness around best methods to promote regional health in this economically, socially, and politically important border area.PurposeTo improve understanding of optimal strategies to execute critical care collaborative programs between academic and community health centers facing public health emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the experience of UCSDHS and several community hospitals (one US, two Mexican) in the US-Mexico border region.MethodsAfter taking several preparatory steps, we developed a two-phase program that included 1) in-person activities to perform needs assessments, hands-on training and education, and morale building and 2) creation of a telemedicine-based (Tele-ICU) service for direct patient management and/or educational coaching experiences.Findings.A clinical and educational program between academic and community border hospitals was feasible, effective, and well received.ConclusionWe offer several policy-oriented recommendations steps for academic and community healthcare programs to build educational, collaborative partnerships to address COVID-19 and other cross-cultural, international public health emergencies.

The object detection model in UAV aerial image scenes faces challenges such as significant scale changes of certain objects and the presence of complex backgrounds. This paper aims to address the detection of small objects in aerial images using NATCA (neighborhood attention Transformer coordinate attention) YOLO. Specifically, the feature extraction network incorporates a neighborhood attention transformer (NAT) into the last layer to capture global context information and extract diverse features. Additionally, the feature fusion network (Neck) incorporates a coordinate attention (CA) module to capture channel information and longer-range positional information. Furthermore, the activation function in the original convolutional block is replaced with Meta-ACON. The NAT serves as the prediction layer in the new network, which is evaluated using the VisDrone2019-DET object detection dataset as a benchmark, and tested on the VisDrone2019-DET-test-dev dataset. To assess the performance of the NATCA YOLO model in detecting small objects in aerial images, other detection networks, such as Faster R-CNN, RetinaNet, and SSD, are employed for comparison on the test set. The results demonstrate that the NATCA YOLO detection achieves an average accuracy of 42%, which is a 2.9% improvement compared to the state-of-the-art detection network TPH-YOLOv5.

The effects of Ca addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg–Zn–Sn–Mn alloys were investigated in this study. The Mg–6Zn–4Sn–1Mn–xCa (x = 0, 0.2, 0.5, 1 and 2 wt%) alloys consist of the α-Mg, Mg2Sn, Mg7Zn3, MgZn, α-Mn, CaMgSn, MgZn2, Mg2Ca and Ca2Mg6Zn3 phases. With increasing Ca content, the eutectic phase and grains were refined, and the morphologies of the CaMgSn phases changed from point-like to needle-like, rod-like and lath-like. At room temperature, small amounts of Ca can improve properties owing to refinement strengthening. The two-stage aged Mg–6Zn–4Sn–1Mn–0.2Ca alloy has the best comprehensive properties at room temperature, with an ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS) and elongation of 407 MPa, 392 MPa and 6.2%, respectively. When the Ca content increased, the number of CaMgSn phases increased, and the morphologies coarsened. Further, it was a brittle phase, resulting in the deterioration of alloy properties. At high temperatures, a small amount of Ca can improve the high-temperature plasticity. The elongations of the as-extruded Mg–6Zn–4Sn–1Mn–0.2Ca alloy were 76.9% (150 °C) and 133.8% (200 °C). A high Ca concentration can significantly improve the high-temperature strengths because of the good thermal stability of the CaMgSn phases, the best UTS and YS are 160 MPa and 136 MPa, respectively, in as-extruded Mg–6Zn–4Sn–1Mn–2Ca alloy at 150 °C.

The coaxial electrospinning method is widely used in a wide range of applications, including medical devices and sensing technology. This study proposes a novel optical dual sensor for simultaneous detection of oxygen (O2) and ammonia (NH3) based on coaxial electrospinning method to produce core-shell fiber membrane doped fluorescent dyes. The O2 (core) and NH3 (shell) sensitive dye membranes were successfully fabricated using coaxial electrospinning method by dissolving a polymer matrix, cellulose acetate (CA), with platinum (II) meso-tetrakis (pentafluorophenyl) porphyrin (PtTFPP) and Eosin-Y, respectively. The optical dual sensor was illuminated by an UV LED to monitor the intensity change and wavelength shift in the presence of selected analyte gases. The experimental data show that the sensitivities of optical dual sensor were found to be 6.4 and 3.2 for O2 and NH3, respectively. The response and recovery times of O2 and NH3 sensing probes were measured to be 12 s/29 s and 65 s/66 s, respectively. Also, when exposed to NH3 gas gradually from 0 to 500 ppm, the wavelength shift data of Eosin-Y was started at 569.5 nm, 573.9 nm, 578.4 nm, 579.4 nm, 580.8 nm, and 582.2 nm, respectively. In applications, the proposed optical dual sensor based on coaxial electrospinning method can detect O2 and NH3 gases simultaneously.

Fritillaria is a well-known health-promoting food, but it has many varieties and its market circulation is chaotic. In order to explore the differences in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) among different varieties of Fritillaria and quickly and accurately determine the variety of Fritillaria, this study selected six varieties of Fritillaria and identified and analyzed their volatile components using gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS), establishing the characteristic fingerprints of VOCs in Fritillaria. In all samples, a total of 76 peaks were detected and 67 VOCs were identified. It was found that the composition of VOCs in different varieties of Fritillaria was similar, but the content was different. Combined with chemometric analysis, the differences between VOCs were clearly shown after principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and partial least-squares discriminant analysis. This may provide theoretical guidance for the identification and authenticity determination of different varieties of Fritillaria.

The absence of calcium decreases the production of peanuts compared to any other element. To investigate the influence of calcium (Ca) applications on the production and seed quality of four diverse peanut cultivars from different regions—USA (NC-7), Egypt (Giza-6) and Nigeria (Samnut-23 and Samnut-24)—under clay soil conditions, two experiments were carried out at the Agricultural Experimental and Research Station, Cairo University, Egypt, during the two seasons of 2016 and 2017. The experimental design was a randomized complete block in a spilt-plot arrangement with three replications. The main plots were allocated to four peanut cultivars (Giza-6, Samnut-23, Samnut-24 and NC-7), and the sub-plots were devoted to calcium applications (soil application in the form of calcium sulfate dihydrate, foliar application in the form of calcium oxide and the control treatment of distilled water). Results indicated that all four peanut cultivars responded differently to the application of calcium fertilizers. The calcium application significantly enhanced peanut growth, yield components, biological, pod, seed, oil yields, seed oil, free fatty acids and seed calcium percentages in different cultivars. Soil calcium application significantly improved peanut production compared to foliar calcium application. NC-7 cultivar treated with the soil Ca application resulted in the maximum values of biological yield (92.9-ton ha−1), pod yield (6.8-ton ha−1), seed yield (4.4-ton ha−1), oil yield (2247.0 kg ha−1), pod index (203.2 g) and seed index (84.1 g). The interaction between the NC-7 cultivar and soil calcium applications is recommended to attain the best combination, leading to the highest yield and seed quality of peanuts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inherent flammability of timber rises the concern of society about the stability and firmness of timber materials when exposed to fire. This study illustrated the fire resistance properties of low-density Neolamarckia cadamba timber to evaluate its charred area (CA), charred depth (CD), mass loss rate (MLR), and charring rate (CR). Three different burning durations - 60, 90, and 120 min - were subjected to the timber test pieces following the NIST PS1-09 2010 standard. The CA and CD of the test pieces were measured using ImageJ before the determination of MLR and CR. N. cadamba showed a statistically significant difference on the top CA (14040.56 mm²) at 90 min compared to its side CA (1957.93 mm²). CD remained statistically unchanged for three burning durations. Top CA increased gradually with burning durations. Side CA and CD, however, were reduced to 1957.93 and 17.84 mm², respectively, for 90 min, before being increased back to 120 min. For CR and MLR, a gradual dropped in trend can be seen in the burning durations. Significant differences were detected when comparing the CR (0.30 mm/min) at 60 min with that in 90 min (0.20 mm/min), whereas the MLR was 2.15 g/m²s at 60 min with 1.42 g/m²s at 120 min. Generally, top CA, side CA, and CD showed an increased trend in the area and depth value. whereas CR and MLR showed the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different countries have adopted different policies in their fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. In this work we aim to model these approaches with respect to the first wave of COVID-19 (from January to October 2020) in the five Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). By means of a multivariate approach based on principal component analysis and cluster analysis, we derived three clusters. Each of these represents a different strategy adopted by a group of governments in a given period of the first wave: pre-pandemic, initial reaction, and emergency scenarios. The contribution of these results is two-fold: on the one hand they may help us to understand differences and similarities among Central Asian republics during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak and guide future quantitative or qualitative studies; on the other hand, our findings suggest that, with the exception of Turkmenistan, the different countries adopted very similar strategies and that deaths, more than cases, pushed governments to impose restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) receptors are major polymodal nociceptors that generate primary pain responses in the peripheral nerve endings of the dorsal root ganglion neurons. Recently, we reported that the activation of TRPA1 receptors by reactive oxygen species (ROS) signaling, which is triggered by Ca2+ influx through T-type Ca2+ channels, contributes to prolonged pain responses induced by jellyfish toxin. In this review, we focus on the characteristics of the TRPA1 receptor involved in intracellular signaling as a secondary pain modulator. Unlike other transient receptor potential receptors, TRPA1 receptors can induce membrane depolarization by ROS without exogenous stimuli in peripheral and central sensory neurons. Therefore, it is important to identify the functional characteristics of TRPA1 receptors to understand pain modulation under several pathogenic conditions such as neuropathic pain syndromes and autoimmune diseases, which are mediated by oxidative signaling to cause chronic pain in the sensory system.

The present study was conducted to examine the changes in calcium and phosphorus levels during Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) infection in rabbits. The experimental procedures were carried out with 12 male New Zealand white healthy rabbits, divided into two equal groups - the experimental group (n=6, rabbits infected with S.aureus) and the control group (n=6, uninfected animals). Blood samples were collected at 0 hours before infection, as well on 6, 24, 48, 72 hours and 7, 14 and 21 days after the infection. The amount of calcium in infected rabbits decreased significantly by the 48-th hour (p

The potential effect of the element Ca on the precipitation behavior was investigated in an Mg-rare earth alloy. A combination of metastable β′′′ and β′ precipitates was observed for the peak aging condition at 200°C. Ca addition was found to have no significant effect on the precipitating phases and evolution sequence. Composition analysis showed that the Ca partitioned to both β′′′ and β′ precipitate phases. First-principles calculations indicated that Ca partitions to the rare-earth sublattice in the precipitate phase. This finding suggests the potential of Ca to partially replace costly rare-earth elements in precipitation-hardened Mg-rare earth alloys.

Aiming at the problems of incomplete dehazing, color distortion, and loss of detail and edge information encountered by existing algorithms when processing images of underground coal mines, an image dehazing algorithm for underground coal mines, named CAB CA DSConv Fusion gUNet (CCDF-gUNet), is proposed. First, Dynamic Snake Convolution (DSConv) is introduced to replace traditional convolutions, enhancing the feature extraction capability. Second, residual attention convolution blocks are constructed to simultaneously focus on both local and global information in images. Additionally, the Coordinate Attention (CA) module is utilized to learn the coordinate information of features so that the model can better capture the key information in images. Furthermore, to simultaneously focus on the detail and structural consistency of images, a fusion loss function is introduced. Finally, based on the test verification of the public dataset Haze-4K, the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity (SSIM), and Mean Squared Error (MSE) are 30.72 dB, 0.976, and 55.04, respectively, and on a self-made underground coal mine dataset, they are 31.18 dB, 0.971, and 49.66, respectively. The experimental results show that the algorithm performs well in dehazing, effectively avoids color distortion, and retains image details and edge information, providing some theoretical references for image processing in coal mine surveillance videos.

Cinnamon is one of the most popular spices worldwide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are its main metabolic products. The misuse or mixing of cinnamon on the market is quite serious. This study used gas chromatography-ion migration spectroscopy (GC-IMS) technology to analyze the VOCs of cinnamon samples. The measurement results showed that 66 VOCs were detected in cinnamon, with terpenes being the main component accounting for 45.45%, followed by aldehydes accounting for 21.21%. The content of esters and aldehydes was higher in RG-01, RG-02, and RG-04; the content of alcohols was higher in RG-01; and the content of ketones was higher in RG-02. Principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and partial least squares regression analysis can be performed on the obtained data to clearly distinguish cinnamon. According to the VIP results of PLS-DA, 1-Hexanol, 2-heptanone, ethanol, and other substances are the main volatile substances that distinguish cinnamon. This study combined GC-IMS technology with chemometrics to accurately identify cinnamon samples, providing scientific guidance for the efficient utilization of cinnamon. At the same time, this study is of great significance for improving the relevant quality standards of spices and guiding the safe use of spices.

To investigate the effect of calcium (Ca) application on post-harvest fruit quality in Nanfeng tangerines, this study sprayed three calcium fertilizers (Calbit, Larry 8 Calcium, and Suspended Calcium) before harvesting. The fruit quality was assessed over a storage period of 0–60 d at a controlled room temperature of 20 ± 5 °C. The evaluation methods included principal component analysis (PCA) and linearly weighted summation. Pre-harvest calcium treatments increased the fruit calcium content and maintained higher firmness and shear. Compared to the control group, fruits treated with Calbit exhibited decreased levels of decay, weight loss, and respiration rates. Additionally, they demonstrated higher values of L*, b*, C*, and H° and lower values of a* and CCI. Moreover, the Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit treatments increased the levels of soluble solids, total soluble sugars, titratable acids, and VC content in the fruit. They accelerated the decomposition of tartaric, oxalic, and citric acids in the pulp, promoting the accumulation of sucrose and glucose. PCA and comprehensive evaluation scores indicated that the comprehensive scores assessing the storage quality of Nanfeng tangerine fruits treated with pre-harvest Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit were higher than those of the control group. The highest composite quality scores for Calbit-treated fruits were observed at 40 and 60 d, and the highest scores for Larry 8 Calcium were recorded at other intervals. These findings suggest that pre-harvest calcium application improved the post-harvest fruit quality of Nanfeng tangerines, with Larry 8 Calcium and Calbit emerging as favorable options.

This study aimed to investigate the changes in Paraoxonase (PON), Carbonic Anhydrase (CA), and β-glucosidase levels of different aged rats and scopolamine-induced memory impairment rats. This study used young, adult, and middle-aged male Wistar Albino rats. Scopolamine was administered as a single dose/multiple doses and a Morris water maze (MWM) was used for spatial learning testing in rats. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) were used to determine serum and liver PON and β-glucosidase levels. The CA enzyme activity was assayed following the hydration of CO2. As a result of the comparison of age-related and scopolamine-related changes in PON and β-glucosidase levels in liver and serum samples, no significant age-related and scopolamine-effective changes were observed in serum, while liver PON and liver β-glucosidase levels were found to change significantly. CA activity studies, on the other hand, showed that adults have the lowest CA activity compared to young and middle-aged groups and scopolamine inhibited CA activity in vivo. We found that adult rats modeled with memory impairment had statistically lower levels of liver PON and liver β-glucosidase. CA activity was also found to be significantly reduced. β-glucosidase and CA should be further investigated in terms of neurodegenerative disease risk factors, just like PON, whose importance has been determined by numerous studies in the literature.

Introduction: Accurate grading identification of tea buds is a prerequisite for automated tea-picking based on machine vision system. However, current target detection algorithms face challenges in detecting tea bud grades in complex backgrounds. In this paper, an improved YOLOv7 tea bud grading detection algorithm TBC-YOLOv7 is proposed. Methods: The TBC-YOLOv7 algorithm incorporates the transformer architecture design in the natural language processing field, integrating the transformer module based on the contextual information in the feature map into the YOLOv7 algorithm, thereby facilitating self-attention learning and enhancing the connection of global feature information. To fuse feature information at different scales, the TBC-YOLOv7 algorithm employs a bidirectional feature pyramid network. In addition, coordinate attention is embedded into the critical positions of the network to suppress useless background details while paying more attention to the prominent features of tea buds. The SIOU loss function is applied as the bounding box loss function to improve the convergence speed of the network. Result: The results of the experiments indicate that the TBC-YOLOv7 is effective in all grades of samples in the test set. Specifically, the model achieves a precision of 88.2% and 86.9%, with corresponding recall of 81% and 75.9%. The mean average precision of the model reaches 87.5%, 3.4% higher than the original YOLOv7, with average precision values of up to 90% for one bud with one leaf. Furthermore, the F1 score reaches 0.83. The model's performance outperforms the YOLOv7 model in terms of the number of parameters. Finally, the results of the model detection exhibit a high degree of correlation with the actual manual annotation results (R2 =0.89), with the root mean square error of 1.54. Discussion: The TBC-YOLOv7 model proposed in this paper exhibits superior performance in vision recognition, indicating that the improved YOLOv7 model fused with transformer-style module can achieve higher grading accuracy on densely growing tea buds, thereby enables the grade detection of tea buds in practical scenarios, providing solution and technical support for automated collection of tea buds and the judging of grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With object detection technology, real-time detection of dense scenes has become an important application requirement in various industries, which is of great significance for improving production efficiency and ensuring public safety. However, the current mainstream target detection algorithms have problems such as insufficient accuracy or inability to achieve real-time detection when detecting dense scenes, and to address this problem this paper improves the YOLOv7 model using attention mechanisms that can enhance critical information. Based on the original YOLOv7 network model, part of the traditional convolutional layers are replaced with the standard convolution combined with the attention mechanism. After comparing the optimization results of three different attention mechanisms, CBAM, CA, and SimAM, the YOLOv7B-CBAM model is proposed, which effectively improves the accuracy of object detection in dense scenes. The results on VOC datasets show that the YOLOv7B-CBAM model has the highest accuracy, reaching 87.8%, 1.5% higher than that of the original model, and outperforms the original model as well as other models with improved attention mechanisms in the subsequent results of two other different dense scene practical application scenarios. This model can be applied to public safety detection, agricultural detection, and other fields, saving labor costs, improving public health, reducing the spread and loss of plant diseases, and realizing high-precision, real-time target detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]