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Bound states in the continuum (BICs), which are characterized by their high-quality factor, have become a focal point in modern optical research. This study investigates BICs within a periodic array of dielectric resonators, specifically composed of a silicon rectangular bar coupled with four silicon rectangular blocks. Through the analysis of mode coupling, we demonstrate that the interaction between the blocks significantly modulates the eigenmodes of the bar, causing a redshift in all modes and enabling the formation of electromagnetically induced transparency based on BICs (EIT-BIC). Unlike typical EIT mechanisms, this EIT-BIC arises from the coupling of “bright” and “dark” modes both from the rectangular bar, offering novel insights for nanophotonic and photonic device design. Further, our systematic exploration of BIC formation mechanisms and their sensing properties by breaking structural symmetries and changing environmental refractive indices has shed light on the underlying physics. This research not only consolidates a robust theoretical framework for understanding BIC behavior but also paves the way for high-quality factor resonator and sensor development, as well as the precise control of photonic states. The findings significantly deepen our understanding of these phenomena and hold substantial promise for future photonic applications.

The impact of frequent water deficits on dominant tree species in boreal forests has received increased attention, particularly towards addressing the global climate change scenarios. However, the impacts of coupled light intensity and water deficit in the regeneration and growth of Larix gmelinii seedlings, a dominant species in China’s boreal forests, are still unclear. We conducted a dual-factor controlled experiment with four light intensities (natural sunlight, 50% shading, 75% shading, and 90% shading) and three soil water conditions (80%, 60%, and 40% soil saturated water content). The results showed that the coupling of light and water has a significant effect on the growth and development of Larix gmelinii seedlings. In 40% of the saturated soil moisture content, net photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, chlorophyll a, and total phenol—leaf were significantly lower than the same light conditions under 80% soil saturated water content. Under the coupling treatment of 60% soil saturated water content and 50% shading treatment, the plant height increment, net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, chlorophyll a, and phenolic compound content were significantly higher than those of other coupling treatments; however, more than 75% shading inhibited photosynthetic parameters, chlorophyll a, total flavonoid—leaf, and total flavonoid—branch. Our results have important implications for forest management practices; they provide a scientific reference for the early growth of Larix gmelinii seedlings under the coupling of light and water and promote the survival and growth of seedlings.

The oceans and seas are vital resources for human life and fundamental to global economic growth. With the expansion of globalization and increasing demand for resource exploitation, the ocean economy has emerged as a critical support for economic growth and a significant concern for many. However, the exploitation of marine resources often leads to ecological damage and environmental pollution, seriously threatening the long-term viability of the marine economy. Measures must be implemented to balance ecological protection and economic development for sustainable growth in the marine sector. This investigation synthesizes over a decade’s worth of data from various coastal cities, incorporating insights from national databases, international reports, and scholarly articles, resulting in an analysis of more than 500 data points. Through the application of a rigorous quantitative approach and a dual fixed-effect model, the study delves into the dynamics between ocean governance and economic development. By analyzing a broad and representative dataset, the research provides an exhaustive overview of global ocean governance frameworks and the current state of the marine economy. The statistical analyses unveil the complexity and diversity of factors influencing the development and governance of marine economies. This paper explores the interplay between marine economic development and ocean governance, evaluating the impact of governance on marine economic progression within the context of environmental optimization. Furthermore, it proposes policy interventions aimed at fostering the sustainable growth of marine economies, ensuring the conservation of marine ecosystems, and pursuing overarching long-term global growth ambitions.

We aimed to explore the anti-obesity mechanism from the microbiome, metabolome, and transcriptome viewpoints, focusing on the sulfated polysaccharides found in the cooking liquid of Apostichopus japonicus (CLSPAJ) to explore the potential mediators of the anti-obesity effects in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). The mice treated with CLSPAJ showed a decrease in obesity and blood lipid levels. Gut microbiome dysbiosis caused by the HFD was reversed after CLSPAJ supplementation, along with increased levels of indole-3-ethanol, N-2-succinyl-L-glutamic acid 5-semialdehyde, and urocanic acid. These increases were positively related to the increased Akkermansia, Lactobacillus, Roseburia, and Phascolarctobacterium. Transcriptome analysis showed that B cell receptor signaling and cytochrome P450 xenobiotic metabolism were the main contributors to the improvement in obesity. Metabolome–transcriptome analysis revealed that CLSPAJ reversal of obesity was mainly due to amino acid metabolism. These findings suggest that CLSPAJ could be a valuable prebiotic preparation for preventing obesity-related diseases.

Abstract Background Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a maternally inherited eye disease due to mutations in mitochondrial DNA. However, there is no effective treatment for this disease. LHON-linked ND6 14484T > C (p.M64V) mutation caused complex I deficiency, diminished ATP production, increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), elevated apoptosis, and impaired mitophagy. Here, we investigated if the allotopic expression of human mitochondrial ND6 transgene corrected the mitochondrial dysfunctions due to LHON-associated m.14484T > C mutation. Methods Nucleus-versions of ND6 was generated by changing 6 non-universal codons with universal codons and added to mitochondrial targeting sequence of COX8. Stable transfectants were generated by transferring human ND6 cDNA expressed in a pCDH-puro vector into mutant cybrids carrying the m.14484T > C mutation and control cybrids. The effect of allotopic expression of ND6 on oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) was evaluated using Blue Native gel electrophoresis and extracellular flux analyzer. Assessment of ROS production in cell lines was performed by flow cytometry with MitoSOX Red reagent. Analyses for apoptosis and mitophagy were undertaken via flow cytometry, TUNEL and immunofluorescence assays. Results The transfer of human ND6 into the cybrids carrying the m.14484T > C mutation raised the levels of ND6, ND1 and ND4L but did not change the levels of other mitochondrial proteins. The overexpression of ND6 led to 20~23% increases in the assembly and activity of complex I, and ~ 53% and ~ 33% increases in the levels of mitochondrial ATP and ΔΨm in the mutant cybrids bearing m.14484T > C mutation. Furthermore, mutant cybrids with overexpression of ND6 exhibited marked reductions in the levels of mitochondrial ROS. Strikingly, ND6 overexpression markedly inhibited the apoptosis process and restored impaired mitophagy in the cells carrying m.14484T > C mutation. However, overexpression of ND6 did not affect the ND6 level and mitochondrial functions in the wild-type cybrids, indicating that this ND6 level appeared to be the maximum threshold level to maintain the normal cell function. Conclusion We demonstrated that allotopic expression of nucleus-versions of ND6 restored complex I, apoptosis and mitophagy deficiencies caused by the m.14484T > C mutation. The restoration of m.14484T > C mutation-induced mitochondrial dysfunctions by overexpression of ND6 is a step toward therapeutic interventions for LHON and mitochondrial diseases.

Accurate segmentation of brain tumors from magnetic resonance images is the key to the clinical diagnosis and rational treatment of brain tumor diseases. Recently, convolutional neural networks have been widely used in biomedical image processing. 3D U-Net is sought after because of its excellent segmentation effect; however, the feature map supplemented by the skip connection is the output feature map after the encoder feature extraction, and the loss of original detail information in this process is ignored. In the 3D U-Net design, after each layer of convolution, regularization, and activation function processing, the detailed information contained in the feature map will deviate from the original detailed information. For skip connections, the essence of this design is to supplement the detailed information of the original features to the decoder; that is, in the decoder stage, the more original the skip connection-supplemented feature maps are, the more easily the decoder can achieve a better segmentation effect. To address this problem, this paper proposes the concept of a front-skip connection. That is, the starting point of the skip connection is adjusted to the front to improve the network performance. On the basis of this idea, we design a front-skip connection inverted residual U-shaped network (FS Inv-Res U-Net). First, the front-skip connections are applied to three typical networks, DMF Net, HDC Net, and 3D U-Net, to verify their effectiveness and generalization. Applying our proposed front-skip connection concept on these three networks improves the network performance, indicating that the idea of a front-skip connection is simple but powerful and has out-of-the-box characteristics. Second, 3D U-Net is enhanced using the front-skip connection concept and the inverted residual structure of MobileNet, and then FS Inv-Res U-Net is proposed based on these two ideas. Additionally, ablation experiments are conducted on FS Inv-Res U-Net. After adding the front-skip connection and the inverted residual module to the backbone network 3D U-Net, the segmentation performance of the proposed network is greatly improved, indicating that the front-skip connection and the inverted residual module help our brain tumor segmentation network. Finally, the proposed network is validated on the validation dataset of the public datasets BraTS 2018 and BraTS 2019. The Dice scores of the validation results on the enhanced tumor, whole tumor, and tumor core were 80.23%, 90.30%, and 85.45% and 78.38%, 89.78%, and 83.01%, respectively; the hausdorff95 distances were 2.35, 4.77, and 5.50 mm and 4, 5.57, and 6.37 mm, respectively. The above results show that the FS Inv-Res U-Net proposed in this paper achieves the same evaluation indicators as advanced networks and provides accurate brain tumor segmentations.

Abstract Since the handover of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, convergence between Mainland China and Hong Kong has gradually emerged. During this process, young people have engaged in demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction with government policies and limited socio-economic progression. However, the underlying reasons for their dissatisfaction have not been fully investigated. This study investigates their perceived challenges and opportunities during the convergence, with the objective of identifying the factors affecting the Mainland China–Hong Kong convergence and examining young people’s perceived challenges and opportunities during the convergence. Mixed research methods of focus groups and a survey were adopted. Ten focus groups with 83 participants were conducted to collect qualitative data on the factors relating to convergence. Based on the qualitative data, a questionnaire was constructed to investigate young people’s perceived challenges and opportunities during the convergence, using a sample of 1253 young people. Ordinary least-squares regression was applied to analyse the relationships among identified factors. The study found that Hong Kong’s youth tended to regard the Mainland China–Hong Kong convergence as an opportunity for socio-economic progression, and they identified three challenges during the convergence. It also revealed that young people’s higher education, perceived housing challenges, and perceived socio-economic challenges are negatively related to the convergence, whereas their perceived challenges associated with entrepreneurship and innovation are positively related to the convergence. The development of more well-balanced and mutually beneficial policies that satisfy the needs of young people will lead to a higher acceptance of the convergence. As such, young people will be more willing to embrace the opportunities and face the challenges brought about by the convergence, resulting in a more harmonious society and socio-economic progression.

Fibroblasts are important components of animal tissues such as muscle and skin, as they are the major producers of various matrix proteins. Matrix proteins such as collagen play an important role in meat products by providing unique nutrition, texture, and flavor. Cultured meat is an innovative meat alternative produced by culturing animal cells, but currently, relatively few studies have been conducted using fibroblasts as seed cells for cultured meat manufacturing. In this work, we first developed an innovative digestion-friction method for isolating fibroblasts from porcine skin efficiently and cost-effectively. After optimizing the enzymatic digestion and physical friction conditions, 2.39 ± 0.28 × 105 fibroblasts were obtained from 1 cm2 of porcine skin tissue, which was about 9 times higher than the conventional tissue explant method. In addition, we identified an edible bio-ink composed of gelatin and chitosan that has good printing properties and supports fibroblast adhesion and growth. Furthermore, we fabricated fibroblast-based cultured meat by 3D printing with an initial cell density of 1.0 × 107 mL−1 and evaluated its texture and nutritional properties. This work provides valuable insights and references for introducing fibroblasts into the production of cultured meat that is more comparable to structured animal meat.

In order to enhance the operational efficiency of the healthcare industry, this paper investigates a medical information diagnostic platform through the application of swarm and evolutionary algorithms. This paper begins with an analysis of the current development status of medical information diagnostic platforms based on Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Subsequently, a comprehensive exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of swarm and evolutionary algorithms within the medical information diagnostic platform is presented. Further, the optimization of the swarm algorithm is achieved through reverse learning and Gaussian functions. The rationality and effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm are validated through horizontal comparative experiments. Experimental results demonstrate that the optimized model achieves favorable performance at the levels of minimum, average, and maximum algorithm fitness values. Additionally, preprocessing data in a 10 * 10 server configuration enhances the algorithm’s fitness values. The minimum fitness value obtained by the optimized algorithm is 3.56, representing a 3 % improvement compared to the minimum value without sorting. In comparative experiments on algorithm stability, the optimized algorithm exhibits the best stability, with further enhancement observed when using sorting algorithms. Therefore, this paper not only provides a new perspective for the field of medical information diagnostics but also offers effective technical support for practical applications in medical information processing.

Summary: Mitochondria are dynamic organelles in cellular metabolism and physiology. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations are associated with a broad spectrum of clinical abnormalities. However, mechanisms underlying mtDNA mutations regulate intracellular signaling related to the mitochondrial and cellular integrity are less explored. Here, we demonstrated that mt-tRNAMet 4435A>G mutation-induced nucleotide modification deficiency dysregulated the expression of nuclear genes involved in cytosolic proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation system (OXPHOS) and impaired the assemble and integrity of OXPHOS complexes. These dysfunctions caused mitochondrial dynamic imbalance, thereby increasing fission and decreasing fusion. Excessive fission impaired the process of autophagy including initiation phase, formation, and maturation of autophagosome. Strikingly, the m.4435A>G mutation upregulated the PARKIN dependent mitophagy pathways but downregulated the ubiquitination-independent mitophagy. These alterations promoted intrinsic apoptotic process for the removal of damaged cells. Our findings provide new insights into mechanism underlying deficient tRNA posttranscription modification regulated intracellular signaling related to the mitochondrial and cellular integrity.

Epidemiologic studies have reported the positive relationship of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) exposure with the risk of lung cancer. However, the mechanisms underlying the relationship is still unclear. Plasma microRNA (miRNA) is a typical epigenetic biomarker that was linked to environment exposure and lung cancer development. We aimed to reveal the mediation effect of plasma miRNAs on BaP-related lung cancer. We designed a lung cancer case-control study including 136 lung cancer patients and 136 controls, and measured the adducts of benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide-albumin (BPDE-Alb) and sequenced miRNA profiles in plasma. The relationships between BPDE-Alb adducts, normalized miRNA levels and the risk of lung cancer were assessed by linear regression models. The mediation effects of miRNAs on BaP-related lung cancer were investigated. A total of 190 plasma miRNAs were significantly related to lung cancer status at Bonferroni adjusted P 2 between plasma samples before and after tumor resection surgery at Bonferroni adjusted P

Background: As commonly used harvest residue management practices in subtropical plantations, stem only harvesting (SOH) and whole tree harvesting (WTH) are expected to affect soil organic carbon (SOC) content. However, knowledge on how SOC and its fractions (POC: particulate organic carbon; MAOC: mineral-associated organic carbon) respond to different harvest residue managements is limited. Methods: In this study, a randomized block experiment containing SOH and WTH was conducted in a Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) plantation. The effect of harvest residue management on SOC and its fractions in topsoil (0–10 ​cm) and subsoil (20–40 ​cm) was determined. Plant inputs (harvest residue retaining mass and fine root biomass) and microbial and mineral properties were also measured. Results: The responses of SOC and its fractions to different harvest residue managements varied with soil depth. Specifically, SOH enhanced the content of SOC and POC in topsoil with increases of 15.9% and 29.8%, respectively, compared with WTH. However, SOH had no significant effects on MAOC in topsoil and SOC and its fractions in subsoil. These results indicated that the increase in POC induced by the retention of harvest residue was the primary contributor to SOC accumulation, especially in topsoil. The harvest residue managements affected SOC and its fractions through different pathways in topsoil and subsoil. The plant inputs (the increase in fine root biomass induced by SOH) exerted a principal role in the SOC accumulation in topsoil, whereas mineral and microbial properties played a more important role in regulating SOC dynamics than plants inputs in subsoil. Conclusion: The retention of harvest residues can promote SOC accumulation by increasing POC, and is thus suggested as an effective technology to enhance the soil carbon sink for mitigating climate change in plantation management.

IntroductionThe Omicron variant has rapidly spread throughout the world compared to the Delta variant and poses a great threat to global healthcare systems due to its immune evasion and rapid spread. Sex has been identified as a factor significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality, but it remains unclear which clinical indicators could be identified as risk factors in each sex group and which sex-specific risk factors might shape the worse clinical outcome, especially for Omicrons. This study aimed to confirm the relationship between sex and the progression of the Omicron variant and to explore its sex-biased risk factors.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study including 1,132 hospitalized patients with the COVID-19 Omicron variant from 5 December 2022 to 25 January 2023 at Shanghai General Hospital, and the medical history data and clinical index data of the inpatients for possible sex differences were compared and analyzed. Then, a sex-specific Lasso regression was performed to select the variables significantly associated with critical illness, including intensive care unit admission, invasive mechanical ventilation, or death. A logistic regression was used to construct a sex-specific predictive model distinctively for the critical illness outcome using selected covariates.ResultsAmong the collected 115 clinical indicators, up to 72 showed significant sex differences, including the difference in merit and the proportion of people with abnormalities. More importantly, males had greater critical illness (28.4% vs. 19.9%) and a significantly higher intensive care unit occupancy (20.96% vs. 14.49%) and mortality (13.2% vs. 4.9%), and males over 80 showed worse outcomes than females. Predictive models (AUC: 0.861 for males and 0.898 for females) showed 12 risk factors for males and 10 for females. Through a comprehensive sex-stratified analysis of a large cohort of hospitalized Omicron-infected patients, we identified the specific risk factors for critical illness by developing prediction models.DiscussionSex disparities and the identified risk factors should be considered, especially in the personalized prevention and treatment of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly prevalent malignancy and the third highest contributor to cancer-associated deaths globally. Research has increasingly demonstrated a strong correlation between long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and the incidence and progression of HCC. Nonetheless, the exact mechanism whereby the function of lncRNAs in HCC has not been elucidated. This study explored the pathological role of LINC00294 in HCC, as well as the modulatory mechanism involved. Based on the “The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)” database and validation in HCC cell lines and tissues, the expression of LINC00294 was discovered to be upregulated in HCC tissues and correlated with tumor grade and the prognosis of patients with HCC. Functionally, LINC00294 stimulated the proliferation of HCC cells as well as the Warburg effect (aerobic glycolysis) to enhance progression of tumor in vivo. Mechanistically, METTL3/YTHDC1-mediated N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification underwent a significant enrichment within LINC00294 and was shown to enhance its RNA stability. Moreover, LINC00294 promoted the interaction between YTHDC1 and HK2 and GLUT1 mRNA. Overall, our study illustrates the m6A modification-mediated epigenetic mechanism of LINC00294 expression and regulatory role in HK2and GLUT1 mRNA expression and indicate LINC00294 as a potential biomarker panel for prognostic prediction and treatment in HCC.

Abstract Colon-targeted oral drug delivery systems (CDDSs) are desirable for the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC), which is a disease with high relapse and remission rates associated with immune system inflammation and dysregulation localized within the lining of the large bowel. However, the success of current available approaches used for colon-targeted therapy is limited. Budesonide (BUD) is a corticosteroid drug, and its rectal and oral formulations are used to treat UC, but the inconvenience of rectal administration and the systemic toxicity of oral administration restrict its long-term use. In this study, we designed and prepared colon-targeted solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) encapsulating BUD to treat UC by oral administration. A negatively charged surfactant (NaCS-C12) was synthesized to anchor cellulase-responsive layers consisting of polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) formed by negatively charged NaCS and cationic chitosan onto the SLNs. The release rate and colon-specific release behavior of BUD could be easily modified by regulating the number of coated layers. We found that the two-layer BUD-loaded SLNs (SLN-BUD-2L) with a nanoscale particle size and negative zeta potential showed the designed colon-specific drug release profile in response to localized high cellulase activity. In addition, SLN-BUD-2L exhibited excellent anti-inflammatory activity in a dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis mouse model, suggesting its potential anti-UC applications.

Five new wood-inhabiting fungi, Lyomyces albopulverulentus, L. yunnanensis, Xylodon daweishanensis, X. fissuratus, and X. puerensis spp. nov., are proposed based on a combination of morphological features and molecular evidence. Lyomyces albopulverulentus is characterized by brittle basidiomata, pruinose hymenophore with a white hymenial surface, a monomitic hyphal system with clamped generative hyphae, and ellipsoid basidiospores. Lyomyces yunnanensis is characterized by a grandinioid hymenial surface, the presence of capitate cystidia, and ellipsoid basidiospores. Xylodon daweishanensis is characterized by an odontioid hymenial surface, a monomitic hyphal system with clamped generative hyphae, and broad ellipsoid-to-subglobose basidiospores. Xylodon fissuratus is characterized by a cracking basidiomata with a grandinioid hymenial surface, and ellipsoid basidiospores. Xylodon puerensis is characterized by a poroid hymenophore with an angular or slightly daedaleoid configuration, and ellipsoid-to-broad-ellipsoid basidiospores. Sequences of ITS and nLSU rRNA markers of the studied samples were generated and phylogenetic analyses were performed with the maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian inference methods. The phylogram based on the ITS+nLSU rDNA gene regions (Fig. 1) included six genera within the families Chaetoporellaceae, Hyphodontiaceae, Hymenochaetaceae, and Schizoporaceae (Hymenochaetales)—Fasciodontia, Hastodontia, Hyphodontia, Kneifiella, Lyomyces, and Xylodon—in which the five new species were grouped into genera Lyomyces and Xylodon. The phylogenetic tree inferred from the ITS sequences highlighted that Lyomyces albopulverulentus formed a monophyletic lineage and was then grouped closely with L. bambusinus, L. orientalis, and L. sambuci; additionally, L. yunnanensis was sister to L. niveus with strong supports. The topology, based on the ITS sequences, revealed that Xylodon daweishanensis was retrieved as a sister to X. hyphodontinus; X. fissuratus was grouped with the four taxa X. montanus, X. subclavatus, X. wenshanensis, and X. xinpingensis; and X. puerensis was clustered with X. flaviporus, X. ovisporus, X. subflaviporus, X. subtropicus, and X. taiwanianus.

Objective Various surgical techniques have been reported in treating calcaneal malunions over the decades, while the operations on single plane were accompanied by respective limitations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel multiple reconstructive osteotomy for treating malunited calcaneal fractures without subtalar joint fusion. Methods From March 12, 2010, to August 17, 2017, 10 patients (10 feet) with malunited calcaneal fractures were treated with multiple reconstructive osteotomy with subtalar joint‐preserving operations. All patients were treated with a corrective osteotomy, joint realignment, soft tissue balancing, and secondary internal fixation at a mean of 5.6 ± 2.41 months since the initial injury. With the utilization of the multiple reconstructive osteotomy, the posterior facet was restored to preserve the subtalar joint. All patients were evaluated clinically and radiographically at a mean follow‐up of 3.04 ± 1.21 years. Results All patients were subjectively satisfied with the treatment. The average time to union was 12.2 ± 1.11 weeks. The American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle (AOFAS) ankle and hind foot score was 86.3 ± 4.45 (t = 27.64, P

Introduction: Epirubicin is widely used in many malignancies with good efficacy and tolerability. However, investigations about adverse events (AEs) using real-world information are still insufficient.Methods: We extracted Epirubicin-related reports submitted between the first quarter of 2014 and first quarter of 2023 from FAERS database. Four algorithms were utilized to evaluate whether there was a significant correlation between Epirubicin and AEs.Results: After de-duplicating, a total of 3919 cases were extracted. Among the 3919 cases, we identified 1472 AEs, 253 of which were found to be adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with Epirubicin. We analysed the occurrence of Epirubicin-induced ADRs and found several unexpected significant ADRs, such as hepatic artery stenosis, hepatic artery occlusion, intestinal atresia and so on. Interestingly, we found gait apraxia, a neurological condition, was also significantly associated with Epirubicin. To our knowledge, there haven't studies that have reported an association between gait disorders and the usage of epirubicin.Discussion: Our study identified new unexpected significant ADRs related to Epirubicin, providing new perspectives to the clinical use of Epirubicin.

Selective T-cell depletion prior to cell or organ transplantation is considered a preconditioning regimen to induce tolerance and immunosuppression. An immunotoxin consisting of a recombinant anti-CD3 antibody conjugated with diphtheria toxin was used to eliminate T-cells. It showed significant T-cell depletion activity in the peripheral blood and lymph nodes in animal models used in previous studies. To date, a comprehensive evaluation of T-cell depletion and CD3 proliferation for all lymphoid tissues has not been conducted. Here, two rhesus macaques were administered A-dmDT390-SCFBdb (CD3-IT) intravenously at 25 μg/kg twice daily for four days. Samples were collected one day prior to and four days post administration. Flow cytometry and immunofluorescence staining were used to evaluate treatment efficiency accurately. Our preliminary results suggest that CD3-IT treatment may induce higher depletion of CD3 and CD4 T-cells in the lymph nodes and spleen, but is ineffective in the colon and thymus. The data showed a better elimination tendency of CD4 T-cells in the B-cell zone relative to the germinal center in the lymph nodes. Further, CD3-IT treatment may lead to a reduction in germinal center T follicular helper CD4 cells in the lymph nodes compared to healthy controls. The number of proliferating CD3 T-cell indicated that repopulation in different lymphoid tissues may occur four days post treatment. Our results provide insights into the differential efficacy of CD3-IT treatment and T-cell proliferation post treatment in different lymphoid tissues. Overall, CD3-IT treatment shows potential efficacy in depleting T-cells in the periphery, lymph nodes, and spleen, making it a viable preconditioning regimen for cell or organ transplantation. Our pilot study provides critical descriptive statistics and can contribute to the design of larger future studies.

PurposeIschemic stroke (IS) has a considerable impact on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients. A systematic review was conducted to summarize and synthesize the HRQoL reported from IS patients.MethodsAn electronic search was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases from inception to February 2022 for studies measuring utility values in IS patients. Basic information about the studies, patient characteristics, measurement of the utility values, and utility values were extracted and summarized. Utility values were pooled according to the time of evaluation, and disease severity was classified with modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores. The quality of the studies was assessed according to key criteria recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.ResultsA total of 39 studies comprising 30,853 participants were included in the study. Measured with EQ-5D-3L, the pooled utility values were 0.42 [95% confidential interval (CI): 0.13 to 0.71], 0.55 (95% CI: 0.43 to 0.68), 0.65 (95% CI: 0.52 to 0.78), 0.60 (95% CI: 0.43 to 0.78), and 0.67 (95% CI: 0.60 to 0.74) for patients diagnosed with IS within 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months or above among poststroke patients. Four studies reported utility values classified by mRS scores where synthesized estimates stratified by mRS scores ranged from 0.91 (95% CI: 0.85 to 0.97) for patients with an mRS score of 1 to−0.04 (95% CI:−0.18 to 0.11) for those with an mRS score of 5. As for the health dimension profiles, usual activity was the most impacted dimension, while self-care was the least impacted one.ConclusionThis study indicated that the utility values in IS patients kept increasing from stroke onset and became relatively stabilized at 6 months poststroke. Health utility values decreased significantly as mRS scores increased. These results facilitate economic evaluations in utility retrieval and selection. Further exploration was required regarding the factors that affect the HRQoL of IS patients.

Abstract Background Frailty describes an age-related state of deterioration in biological function. This study aimed to investigate the association between frailty and cognitive function and its combined effects with lifestyles. Methods A total of 3,279 participants from the Dongfeng-Tongji (DFTJ) cohort were tested the cognitive function by using the Chinese version of Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE). Frailty was evaluated based on a 35-item frailty index (FI). Frailty status was dichotomized into robust (FI

Background: Pectus excavatum is not rare in China. Many treatments for this disease have proved to have many shortcomings. Nuss procedure has been a ground-breaking technology, but it also has some disadvantages. Hence, this study was conducted to review our experience in the use of modified Nuss procedure in our hospital. Methods: Data from 259 patients suffered from pectus excavatum between August 2020 and August 2021 who were treated with modified Nuss procedure was analyzed retrospectively. Result: Age was from 3 to 37 years. The average was 15.54 years. The male was 213 cases and the female was 46 cases. The time patients or their family members found pectus excavatum varied. 10 cases had been repaired previously when patients were admitted in our hospital. The clinical symptoms also varied. Each case had an improvement in Haller index. The average of the postoperative hospitalization was 3.97 days. Most cases were inserted 1 bar. Complication rate was also very low. All patients or their parents or their guardians were satisfied with the appearance of the chest wall after operation. There was no death in the whole observation period. Conclusion: From our experience, this modified Nuss procedure have obtained optimistic outcomes with more minimal invasion and low complication rate. This surgical method may be applied to many other hospitals in the future.

Objectives: This study aimed to describe the full scope of long-term outcomes and the ongoing pathophysiological alterations among COVID-19 survivors. Methods: We established a longitudinal cohort of 208 COVID-19 convalescents and followed them at 3.3 (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.3, 4.4, visit 1), 9.2 (IQR: 9.0, 9.6, visit 2), and 18.5 (IQR: 18.2, 19.1, visit 3) months after infection, respectively. Serial changes in multiple physical and psychological outcomes were comprehensively characterized. We, in addition, explored the potential risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 antibody response and sequelae symptoms. Results: We observed continuous improvement of sequelae symptoms, lung function, chest computed tomography (CT), 6-minute walk test, and the Borg dyspnea scale, whereas sequelae symptoms (at least one) and abnormal chest CT patterns still existed in 45.2% and about 30% of participants at 18.5 months, respectively. Anxiety and depression disorders were alleviated for the convalescents, although depression status was sustained for a longer duration. Conclusions: Most COVID-19 convalescents had an overall improved physical and psychological health status, whereas sequelae symptoms, residual lesions on lung function, exercise impairment, and mental health disorders were still observed in a small proportion of participants at 18.5 months after infection. Implementing appropriate preventive and management strategies for the ever-growing COVID-19 population is warranted.

A multi-polarization series-fed antenna working at 10 GHz is presented in this paper. The patch elements are built by eccentric rings which can realize the performance of circular polarization. The dual-port feeding allows us to switch the polarization of the antenna. The right-hand circular polarization (RHCP), left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), and Linear polarization (LP) polarization can be realized by properly feeding form. The changing of antenna polarization without switch controlling. Owing to the circular array arrangement, the antenna can form a compact structure. The key features of this array are multi-polarization and traveling-wave series-fed performance. The axial ratios are lower than 3dB measured. The $\vert \text{S}_{21}\vert $ is lower than −14 dB in the mentioned bandwidth. Then, a $4\times $ 4 MIMO array which has compact structure is designed and simulated. The circular array is processed and measured. The experimental and simulation results are in good agreement.

In recent years, cross-modal remote sensing image retrieval has attracted a lot of attention in remote sensing (RS) information processing. It is worth mentioning that land cover scenes, whether unimodal or cross-modal, are the primary research contents of remote sensing image retrieval, and there are few studies on vessel images captured by RS satellites, let alone cross-modal retrieval tasks. Vessel images have smaller scale, lower resolution, and less detailed information than land cover images, so it is difficult to retrieve the exact images we want. In this article, a hashing method called deep adversarial cascaded hashing (DACH) is proposed to address these problems. To extract the subtle and discriminative features contained in RS vessel images accurately, we build a deep cascaded network that fuses multilevel features boosted both in depth and width, and the self-attention mechanism can further enhance the fused features. Combined with hash learning, we also design a weighted quintuplet loss to supervise the transition of discrimination and similarity between different metric spaces, and reduce cross-modal discrepancy at the same time. In addition, we apply the deep adversarial constraint to both feature learning and hash learning, trying to bridge the modality gap and achieve a cross-modal retrieval as precise as unimodal retrieval. Comprehensive experiments on two public bimodal vessel image datasets compared with several excellent cross-modal retrieval methods are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our DACH, and the results show that the proposed method is effective and competitive on cross-modal vessel image retrieval tasks, outperforming state-of-the-art methods.

Polymers with low ceiling temperatures (Tc) are highly desirable as they can depolymerize under mild conditions, but they typically suffer from demanding synthetic conditions and poor stability. Here, the authors envision that this challenge can be addressed by developing high-Tc polymers that can be converted into low-Tc polymers on demand.

Aiming at the problems of insufficient global exploration ability and easy to fall into local extremes when dealing with high-dimensional optimization problems, an improved whale optimization algorithm is proposed. Firstly, an initialization strategy combining Fuch chaos mapping and optimized oppsition-based learning is used in the search space to generate good quality chaotic initial populations with good diversity by using higher search effi-ciency of Fuch mapping, and then combined with the optimized oppsition-based learning strategy to generate good whale populations while ensuring population diversity, laying foundation for the global search of the algorithm. Secondly, the parameter A is adjusted in the global exploration phase to help the whale populations to perform global search more effectively and avoid premature convergence while balancing global exploration and local exploitation.Finally, the Laplace operator is introduced in the local exploitation stage to perform dynamic crossover operation for optimal individual. Children generation is produced farther away from the parent generation in the early iteration to improve the global search ability to get rid of local extreme value binding, and points are produced closer to the parent generation in the late iteration to refine the search range to improve the solution accuracy. Ten standard test functions are selected for simulation in 100, 500 and 1000 dimensions. The results show that this algorithm is significantly better than other comparative algorithms in terms of convergence speed, solution accuracy and sta-bility, and can effectively deal with high-dimensional optimization problems.

Abstract Although aplastic anemia (AA) does not come under the category of blood malignant diseases, the infection that frequently occurs in this bone marrow failure can make it worse. Pulmonary infection is the most prevalent but limiting clinical diagnosis. To find biomarkers predicting bacterial or bacterial-combined fungal infections in the lungs, we reviewed 287 AA medical records including 151 without any infection, 87 with pure pulmonary bacterial infection, and 49 with bacterial and fungal infection were reviewed. There were substantial changes in IL-17F, IL-17A, IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 levels between the non-infected and lung bacterial infection groups (P

As an important part of the smart grid, home energy management system (HEMS) is closely related to power usage, in which consumers are not only the users of the power grid, but also the suppliers of distributed power. In this paper, an intelligent HEMS with three adjustable strategies is proposed to maximize economic benefits and consumers’ comfort. Besides, a novel objective function mainly focusing on satisfying users’ needs is developed by innovating a tri-objective model concerning different weight coefficients which is integrated into a new algorithm to reach a balance among the running costs, peak–valley balance index and the satisfaction index. Moreover, this paper innovates historical weather data to predict the outcome of photovoltaic power. The benefits of HEMS with photovoltaic and battery energy storage system which is beneficial for peak load shaving and grid stability utilizing three different strategies are analyzed by two different scenarios. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed model has highly cut the expenditure of electricity bill by 39.81% and maintain the balance of the power grid by reducing peak load by 50.37%, meanwhile, the index of users’ comfort improves about 1.6 times.

This study identifies the evolutionarily conserved Exportin 4 as an essential regulator in the nuclear export of circRNAs. Defective circRNA export results in R-loop formation and DNA damage in cells, as well as testis and neurological defects in mice.

IntroductionThe pathogenic gene CDH23 plays a pivotal role in tip links, which is indispensable for mechanoelectrical transduction in the hair cells. However, the underlying molecular mechanism and signal regulatory networks that influence deafness is still largely unknown.MethodsIn this study, a congenital deafness family, whole exome sequencing revealed a new mutation in the pathogenic gene CDH23, subsequently; the mutation has been validated using Sanger sequencing method. Then CRISPR/Cas9 technology was employed to knockout zebrafish cdh23 gene. Startle response experiment was used to compare with wide-type, the response to sound stimulation between wide-type and cdh23−/−. To further illustrate the molecular mechanisms underlying congenital deafness, comparative transcriptomic profiling and multiple bioinformatics analyses were performed.ResultsThe YO-PRO-1 assay result showed that in cdh23 deficient embryos, the YO-PRO-1 signal in inner ear and lateral line neuromast hair cells were completely lost. Startle response experiment showed that compared with wide-type, the response to sound stimulation decreased significantly in cdh23 mutant larvae. Comparative transcriptomic showed that the candidate genes such as atp1b2b and myof could affect hearing by regulating ATP production and purine metabolism in a synergetic way with cdh23. RT-qPCR results further confirmed the transcriptomics results. Further compensatory experiment showed that ATP treated cdh23−/− embryos can partially recover the mutant phenotype.ConclusionIn conclusion, our study may shed light on deciphering the principal mechanism and provide a potential therapeutic method for congenital hearing loss under the condition of CDH23 mutation.

IntroductionAccurate and fast identification of wood at the species level is critical for protecting and conserving tree species resources. The current identification methods are inefficient, costly, and complexMethodsA wood species identification model based on wood anatomy and using the Cyclobalanopsis genus wood cell geometric dataset was proposed. The model was enhanced by the CTGAN deep learning algorithm and used a simulated cell geometric feature dataset. The machine learning models BPNN and SVM were trained respectively for recognition of three Cyclobalanopsis species with simulated vessel cells and simulated wood fiber cells.ResultsThe SVM model and BPNN model achieved recognition accuracy of 96.4% and 99.6%, respectively, on the real dataset, using the CTGAN-generated vessel dataset. The BPNN model and SVM model achieved recognition accuracy of 75.5% and 77.9% on real dataset, respectively, using the CTGAN-generated wood fiber dataset.DiscussionThe machine learning model trained based on the enhanced cell geometric feature data by CTGAN achieved good recognition of Cyclobalanopsis, with the SVM model having a higher prediction accuracy than BPNN. The machine learning models were interpreted based on LIME to explore how they identify tree species based on wood cell geometric features. This proposed model can be used for efficient and cost-effective identification of wood species in industrial applications.

Abstract Pickering emulsions have been widely used for biphasic catalysis in the past decade. However, it remains a great challenge to achieve simple product collection and enzyme recovery. Poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)‐based microgels can endow Pickering emulsions with stimuli‐responsiveness, while most microgel‐stabilized emulsions are oil‐in‐water (O/W) type and not ideal for interfacial catalysis. Besides, altering temperature or pH value for demulsification is time‐ and energy‐consuming and may cause irreversible deactivation of enzymes. In this work, inverse water‐in‐oil (W/O) Pickering emulsions were formed using hexanoic acid‐swollen microgels as the sole emulsifiers. When lipase was added in the water phase, stable oil‐in‐water‐in‐oil (O/W/O) Pickering double emulsions could be formed through one‐step emulsification, owing to the synergistic effect of the hydrophobic microgels and hydrophilic lipase at the interface. Compared with other biphasic systems, such double emulsion systems represent a desirable platform for highly efficient biodiesel production because of the ultra‐high interfacial areas and fast mass transport between two phases. More importantly, the switchable transition between hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of microgels is controlled by the catalytic reaction. Therefore, double emulsions demulsify spontaneously when substrates are used up without the need for energy input or loss of enzymatic activity, enabling the facile collection of products and demonstrating the excellent recyclability of the biphasic catalysis system.

Curcumin is a BCPR inhibitor, antiproliferative agent and apoptotic inducer to cancer cells, which is poorly soluble in water. In order to broaden the application of curcumin, conjugations of quaternary ammonium substituted hydroxyethyl starch (QHES) with curcumin by thioether bond (QHES-2S-CUR), disulfide bond (QHES-SS-CUR), and carbon-carbon bond (QHES-CC-CUR) were implemented, respectively. The effect of above three linkers on the self-assembly behavior of QHES-curcumin prodrugs was evaluated. QHES-2S-CUR and QHES-SS-CUR could facilely self-assemble into spherical micelles in water, while QHES-CC-CUR was lack of conformational stability. In vitro drug release profiles of prodrug micelles were further investigated. Concretely, QHES-2S-CUR presented ROS-sensitive drug release, with 73.57 ± 4.22% of curcumin released under the addition of H2O2 over 24 h. The release of curcumin from QHES-SS-CUR lasted for 54 h due to the slower oxidization of disulfide bonds, and QHES-CC-CUR was insensitive to ROS. In addition, QHES-2S-CUR prodrug micelles demonstrated superior cytotoxicity to murine colonic adenocarcinoma (CT-26) cells compared to QHES-SS-CUR and QHES-CC-CUR, which were internalized by CT-26 cells with high efficiency. These results reveal the potential of QHES-2S-CUR prodrug micelles as tumor microenvironment-responsive anticarcinogen.

In the context of the impact of the post-COVID-19 pandemic on families, this study explores the impact of individual social capital and psychological resilience on the mental health of family caregivers of kindergarten children in mainland China. This study included a sample of 331 family caregivers from Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, and the researchers applied the Personal Social Capital Scale (PSCS-16), Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) to assess social capital, psychological resilience, and mental health. Findings indicate a positive relationship between bridging social capital and mental health, while psychological resilience is negatively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. Psychological resilience is identified as a mediator between social capital and mental health outcomes in this study. These insights highlight the importance of enhancing social capital and psychological resilience to improve family caregivers’ mental health and the need for targeted interventions.

As the electromagnetic environment becomes increasingly complex, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system with wideband active transmission and reception is vulnerable to interference from devices at the same frequency. SAR interference detection using the transform domain has become a research hotspot in recent years. However, existing transform domain interference detection methods exhibit unsatisfactory performance in complex interference environments. Moreover, most of them rely on label information, while existing publicly available interference datasets are limited. To solve these problems, this paper proposes an SAR unsupervised interference detection model that combines Canny edge detection with vision transformer (CEVIT). Using a time–frequency spectrogram as input, CEVIT realizes interference detection in complex interference environments with multi-interference and multiple types of interference by means of a feature extraction module and a detection head module. To validate the performance of the proposed model, experiments are conducted on airborne SAR interference simulation data and Sentinel-1 real interference data. The experimental results show that, compared with the other object detection models, CEVIT has the best interference detection performance in a complex interference environment, and the key evaluation indexes (e.g., Recall and F1-score) are improved by nearly 20%. The detection results on the real interfered echo data have a Recall that reaches 0.8722 and an F1-score that reaches 0.9115, which are much better than those of the compared methods, and the results also indicate that the proposed model achieves good detection performance with a fast detection speed in complex interference environments, which has certain practical application value in the interference detection problem of the SAR system.

Remote sensing image object detection is a challenging task in the field of computer vision due to the complex backgrounds and diverse arrangements of targets in remote sensing images, forming intricate scenes. To overcome this challenge, existing object detection models adopt rotated target detection methods. However, these methods often lead to a loss of semantic information during feature extraction, specifically regarding the insufficient consideration of element correlations. To solve this problem, this research introduces a novel attention module (EuPea) designed to effectively capture inter-elemental information in feature maps and generate more powerful feature maps for use in neural networks. In the EuPea attention mechanism, we integrate distance information and Pearson correlation coefficient information between elements in the feature map. Experimental results show that using either type of information individually can improve network performance, but their combination has a stronger effect, producing an attention-weighted feature map. This improvement effectively enhances the object detection performance of the model, enabling it to better comprehend information in remote sensing images. Concurrently, this also improves missed detections and false alarms in object detection. Experimental results obtained on the DOTA, NWPU VHR-10, and DIOR datasets indicate that, compared with baseline RCNN models, our approach achieves respective improvements of 1.0%, 2.4%, and 1.8% in mean average precision (mAP).

Abstract DNA contained in animal scat provides a wealth of information about the animal, and DNA metabarcoding of scat collections can provide key information about animal populations and communities. Next‐generation DNA sequencing technologies and DNA metabarcoding provide an efficient means for obtaining information available in scat samples. We used multifaceted DNA metabarcoding (MDM) of noninvasively collected bat guano pellets from a Myotis lucifugus colony on Fort Drum Military Installation, New York, USA, and from two mixed‐species bat roosts on Fort Huachuca Military Installation, Arizona, USA, to identify attributes such as bat species composition, sex ratios, diet, and the presence of pathogens and parasites. We successfully identified bat species for nearly 98% of samples from Fort Drum and 90% of samples from Fort Huachuca, and identified the sex for 84% and 67% of samples from these same locations, respectively. Species and sex identification matched expectations based on prior censuses of bat populations utilizing those roosts, though samples from some species were more or less common than anticipated within Fort Huachuca roosts. Nearly 62% of guano samples from Fort Drum contained DNA from Pseudogymnoascus destructans, where bats with wing damage from White‐nose Syndrome were commonly observed. Putative dietary items were detected in a majority of samples from insectivorous bats on Fort Drum (81%) and Fort Huachuca (63%). A minority of guano samples identified as the nectarivorous Leptonycteris yerbabuenae (28%) provided DNA sequences from putative forage plant species. Finally, DNA sequences from both putative ecto‐ and endoparasite taxa were detected in 35% and 56% of samples from Fort Drum and Fort Huachuca, respectively. This study demonstrates that the combination of noninvasive sampling, DNA metabarcoding, and sample and locus multiplexing provide a wide array of data that are otherwise difficult to obtain.

YM201636 and PI-103 are potent inhibitors of human two-pore channel 2 that act through a channel pore entrance blockade mechanism.

Abstract Radial bamboo strips are being widely used for structural applications due to the higher yield and high strength. However, there was a sharp taper at the top of bamboo which made nodal diaphragm removed incompletely during the process of stripping. The residual bump could bring about poor bonding strength between adjacent radial bamboo strips. In addition, the traditional radial bamboo strips should be weaved before the next step of processing, which caused a lot of material wastes and consumed a lot of labor and time. In order to address these problems, a novel lumber product made of laminated radial bamboo slices was developed by the proper arrangement of core layer and surface layer. The major and minor directions of a panel were defined as the parallel- and perpendicular-to-its arrangement ones in the core layer, respectively. It was found that (1) the layups with double-layer bamboo mats and radial bamboo slices could produce better mechanical properties. The effective modulus of elasticity in major and minor direction was about 7032.5 MPa and 5016.0 MPa, respectively. The effective modulus of rupture in major and minor direction was about 81.0 MPa and 43.6 MPa, respectively; (2) the density distribution tended to be uniform, with a density of about 0.7 g/cm3 that was lower than other similar bamboo-based materials (about 1.0 g/cm3); and (3) the failures occurred in bamboo slices rather than along the bond lines, suggesting good bond quality achieved in this study.