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Background: Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) has some limitations in diagnosis of Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). Materials and methods: Patients with histologically confirmed ICC who underwent both [18F]FDG and 18F-labeled fibroblast-activation protein inhibitors ([18F]FAPI)-04 PET/CT were prospectively analyzed. The maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax), tumor-to-background ratio (TBR), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG), [18F]FAPI–avid tumor volume (FTV), total lesion fibroblast activation protein expression (TLF) were compared between the two modalities by paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Mann–Whitney U test, and McNemar's test was used to assess the diagnostic accuracy between the two techniques. Results: In total, 23 patients with 389 lesions were included. Compared to [18F]FDG, [18F]F-FAPI-04 PET/CT demonstrated a higher detection rate for intrahepatic lesions (86.3% vs. 78.2% P = 0.040), lymph node metastases (85.2% vs. 68.2%, P = 0.007), peritoneal metastases (100% vs. 93.8%), and bone metastases (100% vs. 70.5%, P < 0.001). [18F]FAPI-04 PET showed higher SUVmax, TBR and greater tumor burden values than [18F]FDG PET in non-cholangitis intrahepatic lesions (SUVmax: 8.7 vs. 6.4, P < 0.001; TBR: 8.0 vs. 3.5, P < 0.001; FTV vs. MTV: 41.3 vs. 12.4, P < 0.001; TLF vs. TLG: 223.5 vs. 57.0, P < 0.001), lymph node metastases (SUVmax: 6.5 vs. 5.5, P = 0.042; TBR: 5.4 vs. 3.9, P < 0.001; FTV vs. MTV: 2.0 vs. 1.5, P = 0.026; TLF vs. TLG: 9.0 vs. 7.8 P = 0.024), and bone metastases (SUVmax: 9.7 vs. 5.25, P < 0.001; TBR: 10.8 vs. 3.0, P < 0.001; TLF vs. TLG: 9.8 vs. 4.2, P < 0.001). However, [18F]FDG showed higher radiotracer uptake (SUVmax: 14.7 vs. 8.4, P < 0.001; TBR: 7.4 vs. 2.8, P < 0.001) than [18F]FAPI-04 PET/CT for 6 patients with obstructive cholangitis. [18F]FAPI-04 PET/CT yielded a change in planned therapy in 6 of 23 (26.1%) patients compared with [18F]FDG. Conclusions: [18F]FAPI-04 PET/CT had higher detection rate and radiotracer uptake than [18F]FDG PET/CT in intrahepatic lesions, lymph node metastases, and distant metastases, especially in bone. Therefore, [18F]FAPI-04 PET/CT may be a promising technique for diagnosis and staging of ICC. Trial registration: Clinical Trials, NCT05485792. Registered 1 August 2022, retrospectively registered, https//clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05485792?cond=NCT05485792&rank=1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the construction of an offshore wind turbine (OWT) system, the lifting of the wind turbine blade requires setting up of jacks near preinstalled foundations, which could impact the existing adjacent foundations. To explore the movement characteristics of preinstalled caissons induced by the installation of rectangular footings, this study performs large deformation numerical analyses to quantify these influences. A numerical model is generated and validated against existing testing data in terms of penetration resistance of rectangular footings and soil deformation around the structure. An extensive parametric study is then conducted to quantify the influences of caisson aspect ratio, vertical distance between caisson and two rectangular footings, spacing between two rectangular footings, soil strength, the rectangular footing area, and roughness. It is found that the normalized distance between the caisson and the rectangular footing as well as the caisson aspect ratio play important roles in the movement of the adjacent caisson, with rotational angles of 0.05–0.9°, while the rest factors have limited impacts. Based on numerical results, empirical design formulae are proposed for estimating the maximum inclination angle of the caisson which can be used for engineering application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Donkey milk is recognized as a functional food due to its high whey protein content. It is especially beneficial for newborn nutrition because of its nutritional similarities to human milk and its hypoallergenic properties. It can be used to prevent hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis. However, donkey lactation is less productive in terms of liters/d than dairy cow lactation. It has been suggested that the energy content of the diet in late pregnancy is the main factor influencing the composition of postpartum colostrum in dairy animals. However, research on the influence of dietary energy in late gestation on the mineral content of postpartum jenny milk is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of dietary energy levels during late gestation on mineral contents in the colostrum milk of lactating jennies. The results showed that appropriately increasing dietary energy levels in late gestation increased the concentrations of Ca, P, K, Mg, Cu, Fe, Zn, and Mo in milk, but high dietary energy levels showed the opposite effect. The concentrations of these minerals in jenny milk decreased with the duration of lactation. This study investigated the effects of dietary energy levels during late gestation on mineral content in the plasma, colostrum, and milk of jennies postpartum. Twenty-four pregnant multiparous DeZhou jennies, aged 6.0  ±  0.1 years, with a body weight of 292  ±  33 kg, an average parity number of 2.7  ±  0.1, and similar expected dates of confinement (74  ±  4 days), were randomly allocated to three groups and fed three diets: high energy (12.54 MJ/kg, HE), medium energy (12.03 MJ/kg, ME), and low energy (11.39 MJ/kg, LE). Blood samples were collected from the jugular vein of each jenny at time points of 0 h, 24 h, 48 h, 5 d, 7 d, and 14 d after parturition. Additionally, milk samples were collected through manual milking, and an analysis of the mineral content was conducted. The results showed that compared with HE, both ME and LE significantly increased the levels of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), zinc (Zn), selenium (Se), molybdenum (Mo), and cobalt (Co) in the plasma and Ca, P, magnesium (Mg), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), Zn, selenium (Se), molybdenum (Mo), and Co in the milk of jennies postpartum (p < 0.05); ME also increased the levels of potassium (K), iron (Fe), and Mn in plasma and K and Fe in milk (p < 0.05). The levels of Ca, K, Mg, P, Fe, Cu, Mn, Co, Se, Zn, and Mo in plasma and milk gradually decreased with increasing postpartum time. Their contents were the highest at 0 h postpartum, rapidly decreased after 24 h postpartum, and declined to the lowest on day 14 postpartum. The interaction between dietary energy level and postpartum time showed that although the concentrations of the minerals Ca, P, K, Mg, Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn, Co, Se, and Mo decreased in jennies' plasma and milk in the treatment groups with different energy levels as postpartum time increased, the pattern of change was also influenced by dietary energy level. The influence of dietary energy level in late gestation on the mineral content of milk and plasma during the postpartum colostrum phase was higher than that during the milk phase. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that, under the current experimental conditions, the mineral content of the colostrum, milk, and plasma of jennies after parturition was dependent on the dietary energy level during late gestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structure engineering is a powerful tool for tuning various properties and making CoFe2O4 (CFO) a prime candidate for electrocatalyst applications, especially in improving the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance. In this work, we explored rhenium substituents to replace cobalt and iron atoms of the CFO and obtained significant differences with the same doping level. The sol–gel process was employed to prepare the nanoparticles of Co1−zRezFe2O4 and CoFe2−zRezO4 (z = 0, 0.05). A detailed structural evaluation using Mössbauer spectroscopy verified the pure phase cubic spinel-type structure with a noticeable change in morphology by substituting Re. The OER and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were performed and showed better performance in the Fe-site doped structure. To explain the differences in the OER performance of the samples, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) on all elements, low-temperature Raman, and the density of states simulated by density-functional theory (DFT) were performed. We found that Re actively changed the properties of the structures and the doping on Fe-site enabled more oxygen vacancy and a higher ratio of cations in octahedral sites, which led to enhanced catalytic performance. This work provides a deep insight into the mechanism that influences the OER properties with Re doped in different sites, indicating a promising application of CFO as a catalyst material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adversarial training suffers from poor effectiveness due to the challenging optimisation of loss with hard labels. To address this issue, adversarial distillation has emerged as a potential solution, encouraging target models to mimic the output of the teachers. However, reliance on pre‐training teachers leads to additional training costs and raises concerns about the reliability of their knowledge. Furthermore, existing methods fail to consider the significant differences in unconfident samples between early and late stages, potentially resulting in robust overfitting. An adversarial defence method named Clean, Performance‐robust, and Performance‐sensitive Historical Information based Adversarial Self‐Distillation (CPr & PsHI‐ASD) is presented. Firstly, an adversarial self‐distillation replacement method based on clean, performance‐robust, and performance‐sensitive historical information is developed to eliminate pre‐training costs and enhance guidance reliability for the target model. Secondly, adversarial self‐distillation algorithms that leverage knowledge distilled from the previous iteration are introduced to facilitate the self‐distillation of adversarial knowledge and mitigate the problem of robust overfitting. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed method on CIFAR‐10, CIFAR‐100, and Tiny‐ImageNet datasets. The results demonstrate that the CPr&PsHI‐ASD method is more effective than existing adversarial distillation methods in enhancing adversarial robustness and mitigating robust overfitting issues against various adversarial attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stiffened caissons are a new kind of offshore platform foundation which has been widely used in recent years. Stiffeners are employed to avoid buckling during the installation process. However, they also create a significant challenge in terms of understating the soil-flow patterns and corresponding installation resistance prediction. Although centrifuge and in situ tests can simulate the caisson installation process very well, their high costs prevent their widespread application. Model tests have been widely used in research on caisson behavior during installation, as they are convenient and cost less compared to centrifuge and prototype tests. However, the quantitative conclusions of the resulting predictions of installation resistance have some uncertainties because it is quite hard to strictly follow the similarity principle in 1 g model tests. Therefore, it is important to establish a method to calibrate the data from model tests, providing better estimates of caisson behavior in field tests. In our research, large deformation finite element (LDFE) analyses were conducted to provide insights into differences in the outcomes of caisson installation approaches between prototype tests and 1 g model tests. Prior to carrying out parametric studies, validations were conducted with good results. The results show that normalized soil strength significantly influences the behavior of caissons of various dimensions in 1 g model tests. In uniform clay, caissons exhibit consistent installation behavior; otherwise, they show significant differences. Based on systematic research, this paper reveals the mechanisms of the difference between model tests and prototype tests with different sizes of caissons and identifies the factors influencing these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method for the synthesis of 2-(phenyl)indole via the cyclization of 2-(phenylethynyl)aniline in the presence of K2S was established, which was used to prepare 2-(phenyl)indole derivatives in high yields (66%-93%). Mechanistic studies have revealed that a trisulfur radical anion (S3•−) is generated from K2S, which acts as an initiator for the intramolecular addition of the alkyne and the amino group in o-alkynylaniline, ultimately leading to the formation of the indole derivative. This method provides a new way to prepare 2-(phenyl)indoles and a novel application of S3•− in organic synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enzymatically derived selenium-enriched peptides from Cardamine violifolia (CV) can serve as valuable selenium supplements. However, the industrial application of free enzyme is impeded by its limited stability and reusability. Herein, this study explores the application of co-immobilized enzymes (Alcalase and Dispase) on amino resin for hydrolyzing CV proteins to produce selenium-enriched peptides. The successful enzyme immobilization was confirmed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Co-immobilized enzyme at a mass ratio of 5:1 (Alcalase/Dispase) exhibited the smallest pore size (7.065 nm) and highest activity (41 U/mg), resulting in a high degree of hydrolysis of CV protein (27.2%), which was obviously higher than the case of using free enzymes (20.7%) or immobilized Alcalase (25.8%). In addition, after a month of storage, the co-immobilized enzyme still retained a viability level of 41.93%, showing fairly good stability. Encouragingly, the selenium-enriched peptides from co-immobilized enzyme hydrolysis exhibited uniform distribution of selenium forms, complete amino acid fractions and homogeneous distribution of molecular weight, confirming the practicality of using co-immobilized enzymes for CV protein hydrolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blue light photoreceptor cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) in herbaceous plants plays crucial roles in various developmental processes, including cotyledon expansion, hypocotyl elongation and anthocyanin biosynthesis. However, the function of CRY1 in perennial trees is unclear. In this study, we identified two ortholog genes of CRY1 (PagCRY1a and PagCRY1b) from Populus, which displayed high sequence similarity to Arabidopsis CRY1. Overexpression of PagCRY1 substantially inhibited plant growth and promoted secondary xylem development in Populus, while CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated knockout of PagCRY1 enhanced plant growth and delayed secondary xylem development. Moreover, overexpression of PagCRY1 dramatically increased anthocyanin accumulation. The further analysis supported that PagCRY1 functions specifically in response to blue light. Taken together, our results demonstrated that modulating the expression of blue light photoreceptor CRY1 ortholog gene in Populus could significantly influence plant biomass production and the process of wood formation, laying a foundation for further investigating the light‐regulated tree growth. Summary statement: Light is one of the most important environmental signals that govern plant growth and development. This study demonstrated that the blue light photoreceptor PagCRY1 substantially promotes wood formation and anthocyanin biosynthesis in Populus, and provides evidence showing that HY5 and BBX6 may act downstream of PagCRY1 to activate lignin and anthocyanin biosynthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]