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Abstract Desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT) is a highly aggressive soft tissue sarcoma that is characterized by the EWSR1-WT1 fusion protein. Patients present with hundreds of tumor implants in their abdominal cavity at various sites. To determine the genetic relatedness among these sites, exome and RNA sequencing were performed on 22 DSRCT specimens from 14 patients, four of whom had specimens from various tissue sites. Multi-site tumors from individual DSRCT patients had a shared origin and were highly related. Other than the EWSR1-WT1 fusion, very few secondary cancer gene mutations were shared among the sites. Among these, ARID1A, was recurrently mutated, which corroborates findings by others in DSRCT patients. Knocking out ARID1A in JN-DSRCT cells using CRISPR/CAS9 resulted in significantly lower cell proliferation and increased drug sensitivity. The transcriptome data were integrated using network analysis and drug target database information to identify potential therapeutic opportunities in EWSR1-WT1-associated pathways, such as PI3K and mTOR pathways. Treatment of JN-DSRCT cells with the PI3K inhibitor alpelisib and mTOR inhibitor temsirolimus reduced cell proliferation. In addition, the low mutation burden was associated with an immune-cold state in DSRCT. Together, these data reveal multiple genomic and immune features of DSRCT and suggest therapeutic opportunities in patients.

The present study sought to examine how sea buckthorn (SBT) oil impacts mitochondrial and overall functionality in Aspergillus flavus. In order to assess the effect of SBT oil, it was used to treat mycelia across a range of concentrations, after which mitochondrial structures were imaged via transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In order to explore the functional impact of this treatment, we additionally examined reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, enzyme activity, and shifts in mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) following treatment. We found that SBT oil induced mitochondrial damage in A. flavus in a dose-dependent manner, resulting in altered succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) and adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) activity, reduced ΔΨm levels, and markedly elevated MDA and ROS levels. Together, these findings suggest that SBT oil can mediate antifungal activity against A. flavus through a mechanism associated with its ability to disrupt the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and mitochondrial potential, leading to MDA and ROS accumulation.

Radiation damage and a low signal-to-noise ratio are the primary factors that limit spatial resolution in coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) of biomaterials using X-ray sources. Introduced here is a clustering algorithm named ConvRe based on deep learning, and it is applied to obtain accurate and consistent image reconstruction from noisy diffraction patterns of weakly scattering biomaterials. To investigate the impact of X-ray radiation on soft biomaterials, CDI experiments were performed on mitochondria from human embryonic kidney cells using synchrotron radiation. Benefiting from the new algorithm, structural changes in the mitochondria induced by X-ray radiation damage were quantitatively characterized and analysed at the nanoscale with different radiation doses. This work also provides a promising approach for improving the imaging quality of biomaterials with XFEL-based plane-wave CDI.

Abstract The accumulation of neurotoxic proteins characteristic of age-related neurodegenerative pathologies such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases is associated with the perturbation of metabolism, bioenergetics, and mitochondrial quality control. One approach to exploit these interactions therapeutically is to target the pathways that regulate metabolism. In this respect, the nutrient-sensing hexosamine biosynthesis pathway is of particular interest since it introduces a protein post-translational modification known as O-GlcNAcylation, which modifies different proteins in control versus neurodegenerative disease postmortem brains. A potent inhibitor of the O-GlcNAcase enzyme that removes the modification from proteins, Thiamet G (TG), has been proposed to have potential benefits in Alzheimer’s disease. We tested whether key factors in the O-GlcNAcylation are correlated with mitochondrial electron transport and proteins related to the autophagy/lysosomal pathways in the cortex of male and female mice with and without exposure to TG (10 mg/kg i.p.). Mitochondrial complex activities were measured in the protein homogenates, and a panel of metabolic, autophagy/lysosomal proteins and O-GlcNAcylation enzymes were assessed by either enzyme activity assay or by western blot analysis. We found that the networks associated with O-GlcNAcylation enzymes and activities with mitochondrial parameters, autophagy-related proteins as well as neurodegenerative disease-related proteins exhibited sex and TG dependent differences. Taken together, these studies provide a framework of interconnectivity for multiple O-GlcNAc-dependent pathways in mouse brain of relevance to aging and sex/age-dependent neurodegenerative pathogenesis and response to potential therapies.

The high performance of deep learning networks relies mainly on massive data. However, collecting enough samples of crop disease is impractical, which significantly limits the intelligent diagnosis of diseases. In this study, we propose Heterogeneous Metric Fusion Network-based Few-Shot Learning (HMFN-FSL), which aims to recognize crop diseases with unseen categories using only a small number of labeled samples. Specifically, CBAM (Convolutional Block Attention Module) was embedded in the feature encoders to improve the feature representation capability. Second, an improved few-shot learning network, namely HMFN-FSL, was built by fusing three metric networks (Prototypical Network, Matching Network, and DeepEMD (Differentiable Earth Mover’s Distance)) under the framework of meta-learning, which solves the problem of the insufficient accuracy of a single metric model. Finally, pre-training and meta-training strategies were optimized to improve the ability to generalize to new tasks in meta-testing. In this study, two datasets named Plantvillage and Field-PV (covering 38 categories of 14 crops and containing 50,403 and 665 images, respectively) are used for extensive comparison and ablation experiments. The results show that the HMFN-FSL proposed in this study outperforms the original metric networks and other state-of-the-art FSL methods. HMFN-FSL achieves 91.21% and 98.29% accuracy for crop disease recognition on 5way-1shot, 5way-5shot tasks on the Plantvillage dataset. The accuracy is improved by 14.86% and 3.96%, respectively, compared to the state-of-the-art method (DeepEMD) in past work. Furthermore, HMFN-FSL was still robust on the field scenes dataset (Field-PV), with average recognition accuracies of 73.80% and 85.86% on 5way-1shot, 5way-5shot tasks, respectively. In addition, domain variation and fine granularity directly affect the performance of the model. In conclusion, the few-shot method proposed in this study for crop disease recognition not only has superior performance in laboratory scenes but is also still effective in field scenes. Our results outperform the existing related works. This study provided technical references for subsequent few-shot disease recognition in complex environments in field environments.

Cell-derived extracellular matrix (ECM) has become increasingly popular in tissue engineering applications due to its ability to provide tailored signals for desirable cellular responses. Anisotropic cardiac-specific ECM scaffold decellularized from human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiac fibroblasts (hiPSC-CFs) mimics the native cardiac microenvironment and provides essential biochemical and signaling cues to hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of two detergent-based decellularization methods: (1) a combination of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate (EDTA + SDS) and (2) a combination of sodium deoxycholate and deoxyribonuclease (SD + DNase), in preserving the composition and bioactive substances within the aligned ECM scaffold while maximumly removing cellular components. The decellularization effects were evaluated by characterizing the ECM morphology, quantifying key structural biomacromolecules, and measuring preserved growth factors. Results showed that both treatments met the standard of cell removal (less than 50 ng/mg ECM dry weight) and substantially preserved major ECM biomacromolecules and growth factors. The EDTA + SDS treatment was more time-efficient and has been determined to be a more efficient method for generating an anisotropic ECM scaffold from aligned hiPSC-CFs. Moreover, this cardiac-specific ECM has demonstrated effectiveness in supporting the alignment of hiPSC-CMs and their expression of mature structural and functional proteins in in vitro cultures, which is crucial for cardiac tissue engineering.

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins play important roles in regulating plant growth and responses to various abiotic stresses. In this research, a genome-wide survey was conducted to recognize the LEA genes in Glycine max. A total of 74 GmLEA was identified and classified into nine subfamilies based on their conserved domains and the phylogenetic analysis. Subcellular localization, the duplication of genes, gene structure, the conserved motif, and the prediction of cis-regulatory elements and tissue expression pattern were then conducted to characterize GmLEAs. The expression profile analysis indicated that the expression of several GmLEAs was a response to drought and salt stress. The co-expression-based gene network analysis suggested that soybean LEA proteins may exert regulatory effects through the metabolic pathways. We further explored GnLEA4_19 function in Arabidopsis and the results suggests that overexpressed GmLEA4_19 in Arabidopsis increased plant height under mild or serious drought stress. Moreover, the overexpressed GmLEA4_19 soybean also showed a drought tolerance phenotype. These results indicated that GmLEA4_19 plays an important role in the tolerance to drought and will contribute to the development of the soybean transgenic with enhanced drought tolerance and better yield. Taken together, this study provided insight for better understanding the biological roles of LEA genes in soybean.

The wave-energy excitation of point absorbers is highly associated with their resonant movement, and harmonic characteristics are of increasing concern in affecting resonance. However, the commonly used linearized power take-off (PTO) systems underestimate the impact of harmonics. The purpose of this study is to address the knowledge gap in assessing the contribution of hydraulic PTO systems to higher harmonic wave loads and velocities. In the present work, higher harmonics in point-absorber wave-energy converters (PA-WECs) with hydraulic power take-off (PTO) systems are investigated through both experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. The fast Fourier transform is used to decompose the high-order harmonics. To account for the influence of nonlinear wave–wave interaction on harmonics, the isolated PA-WEC is used as a basis for comparison with the paired PA-WECs. The influence of wave steepness is also estimated at two resonance periods. Results indicate that the additional resonance of the paired PA-WECs may be attributed to the harmonic wave loads at longer wave periods. Harmonic wave loads of paired PA-WECs typically have a more substantial impact and increase more rapidly with increasing wave steepness compared to isolated PA-WECs. Furthermore, as the wave steepness increases, there are significant enhancements in both the harmonic wave loads and heaving velocity, which strongly correlate with the instantaneous maximum hydraulic power. Consequently, our study will contribute to enhancing the maximum power output in the design of future point absorber arrays.

In order to improve the resource utilization of recycled concrete powder (RCP), this study aimed to investigate the effect of RCP admixture, curing age, and alkali excitation on the strength of RCP concrete. In addition, the pore structure characteristics of RCP concrete were analyzed in combination with low-field NMR. Furthermore, a gray predictive GM (1, 4) model was established to predict the mechanical properties of the concrete based on the pore structure parameters, especially the compressive and flexural tensile strengths. The results of the study indicate that the mechanical properties, namely compressive strength and flexural strength, of RCP concrete exhibit an initial increase followed by a subsequent decrease with increasing RCP content at 3 d, 7 d, and 28 d curing ages. In particular, the concrete exhibits the highest mechanical properties when the RCP content reaches 10%. As the curing age increases, the RCP gradually achieves full hydration, resulting in further refinement of the concrete pores and a denser structure, which subsequently improves the mechanical properties. In addition, the strength growth rate of alkali-excited recycled concrete (ARC) showed a continuous increase, indicating that alkali excitation increasingly improved the mechanical properties of the concrete. Furthermore, the study accurately predicted the mechanical properties of RCP concrete by using GM (1, 4) prediction models for its compressive strength and flexural tensile strength using pore characteristic parameters.

Abstract Background Seed germination is a crucial process, which determines the initiation of seed plant life cycle. The early events during this important life cycle transition that called early seed germination is defined as initially water uptake plus radicle growing out of the covering seed layers. However, a specific genome-wide analysis of early seed germination in rice is still obscure. Results In this study, the physiological characteristics of rice seed during seed germination are determined to define key points of early seed germination. Transcriptome analyses of early phase of seed germination provided deeper insight into the genetic regulation landscape. Many genes involved in starch-to-sucrose transition were differentially expressed, especially alpha-amylase 1b and beta-amylase 2, which were predominantly expressed. Differential exon usage (DEU) genes were identified, which were significantly enriched in the pathway of starch and sucrose metabolism, indicating that DEU events were critical for starch-to-sucrose transition at early seed germination. Transcription factors (TFs) were also dramatic expressed, including the abscisic acid (ABA) responsive gene, OsABI5, and gibberellic acid (GA) responsive genes, GAI. Moreover, GAI transactivated GA responsive gene, GAMYB in vivo, indicating a potential pathway involved in early seed germination process. In addition, CBL-interacting protein kinase (CIPK) genes, such as CIPK13, CIPK14 and CIPK17 were potentially interacted with other proteins, indicating its pivotal role at early seed germination. Conclusion Taken together, gene regulation of early seed germination in rice was complex and protein-to-gene or protein-to-protein interactions were indispensable.

Aging is by far the most prominent risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and both aging and AD are associated with apparent metabolic alterations. As developing effective therapeutic interventions to treat AD is clearly in urgent need, the impact of modulating whole-body and intracellular metabolism in preclinical models and in human patients, on disease pathogenesis, have been explored. There is also an increasing awareness of differential risk and potential targeting strategies related to biological sex, microbiome, and circadian regulation. As a major part of intracellular metabolism, mitochondrial bioenergetics, mitochondrial quality-control mechanisms, and mitochondria-linked inflammatory responses have been considered for AD therapeutic interventions. This review summarizes and highlights these efforts.

Cra a 4 is a heat stable allergen in oyster, the effect of Maillard reaction on the immunoreactivity and structure of Cra a 4 was investigated. Firstly, Cra a 4 was cloned, expressed and identified. The purified Cra a 4 was incubated with xylose at 100 °C, pH 8.5 for 30 min or with glucose for 60 min. After Maillard reaction, the IgE-binding activity of Cra a 4 and in vitro digested samples was reduced by about 50%. The unfold α-helix and higher surface hydrophobicity of glycated Cra a 4 were identified as the reason for hypo-immunoreactivity. The higher frequency of lysine (13%) in the primary structure and exposure on the surface of the spatial structure was attributed to the hypo-immunoreactivity of Cra a 4 after Maillard reaction. It comprehensively evaluated the effects of Maillard reaction on Cra a 4 and provids new methods for the industrial production of hypoallergenic oyster. The modified Cra a 4 by Maillard reaction could be a hypoallergenic therapeutic agent for allergy to oyster.

Due to the effect of solution kinetics and crystallization kinetics of quantum dot (QD) during inkjet printing, the inkjet printing technique is prone to form coffee-ring patterns and in-homogenous films. Pioneering efforts are usually limited to mixed solvent or additive inks, in this paper, we investigated polymer QD films with good uniformity obtained by inkjet printing, in order to control the uniformity of quantum dot films in pixels, the mechanism of action of wettability science on inkjet printing was considered through the action of nitrous oxide (N2O) on the surfaces of substrates and banks. In the absence of N2O treatment, the inkjet-printed QD droplets would pile up and adhere to the bank walls due to capillary forces before the pinning process. With the N2O surface treatment, the contact angle of the QD ink on the substrate was increased from 16° to 62°. The wettability of the QDs between the substrate and the bank was reduced, and the side build-up phenomenon was significantly reduced. By changing the thickness of the QD film from 4.5 μm to 15 μm, the color coordinates of the spectrum were changed from (0.2320, 0.1556) to (0.1480, 0.6933).

A lot of cancer patients are not responsive to anti-PD1 therapy. Here, the authors develop a network approach to identify genes, pathways and potential therapeutic combinations and develop an MHC-I gene immunoscore associated with tumour response to anti-PD1.

Arbuscular mycorrhiza support plant phosphate uptake. Here Das et al. show that PHR transcription factors permit arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis by promoting gene expression related to symbiosis development and maintenance.

A new kind of carbon dots based phosphor is developed for light emitting diodes (LED) by adsorbing carbon dots to starch particles. The bonding mechanism is based on hydrogen bonding of surface functional groups of carbon dots and starch particles. Aggregation-induced quenching is avoided and the thermal stability of the carbon dots phosphor is enhanced. The carbon dots phosphor is used as color convert material for white LED devices. The white LED device fabricated has an ultra-high color rendering index of 93.9, almost pure white CIE coordinate at (0.332, 0.336) and moderate CCT at 5498 K. The photoluminescence intensity (PL) under constant temperature and alternative condition is both tested to study the thermal stability of the phosphor. The PL intensity shows no obvious change after 3 days of aging; only 4% of PL loss after 10 cycles of 25 °C /85 °C alternation. Based on its good PL properties and thermal stability, this carbon dots phosphor has great potential for white LED lighting.

Summary: Metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) in bone induces bone-forming lesions. We have previously shown that PCa-induced bone originates from endothelial cells (ECs) that have undergone EC-to-osteoblast (OSB) transition. Here, we investigated whether EC-to-OSB transition also occurs during normal bone formation. We developed an EC and OSB dual-color reporter mouse (DRM) model that marks EC-OSB hybrid cells with red and green fluorescent proteins. We observed EC-to-OSB transition (RFP and GFP co-expression) in both endochondral and intramembranous bone formation during embryonic development and in adults. Co-expression was confirmed in cells isolated from DRM. Bone marrow– and lung-derived ECs underwent transition to OSBs and mineralization in osteogenic medium. RNA-sequencing revealed GATA family transcription factors were upregulated in EC-OSB hybrid cells and knockdown of GATA3 inhibited BMP4-induced mineralization. Our findings support that EC-to-OSB transition occurs during normal bone development and suggest a new paradigm regarding the endothelial origin of OSBs.

Zuogui Pill is a kidney-yin-tonifying formula in traditional Chinese medicine that is widely used to manage osteoporosis with kidney-yin-deficiency in China. Herein, an efficient and accurate high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to determine the concentrations of 5 bioactive compounds in rat plasma following oral administration of Zuogui Pill. Because drug absorption and distribution differ under physiological and pathological conditions, the established method was used to quantify blood components and dynamic change in osteoporotic rats with different syndrome types. Moreover, integrated pharmacokinetic study was conducted to describe the overall pharmacokinetic characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine. The results showed that the absorption, distribution, and metabolism of Zuogui Pill varied widely under different states. The bioavailability of most active components showed significant advantages in osteoporotic rats with kidney-yin-deficiency, which corresponds to the opinion that Zuogui Pill has the effect of nourishing kidney-yin. It is hoped that this finding could interpret the pharmacodynamic substances and mechanism of Zuogui Pill in the treatment of osteoporosis with kidney-yin-deficiency.

Kip-related proteins (KRPs), as inhibitory proteins of cyclin-dependent kinases, are involved in the growth and development of plants by regulating the activity of the CYC-CDK complex to control cell cycle progression. The KRP gene family has been identified in several plants, and several KRP proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana have been functionally characterized. However, there is little research on KRP genes in soybean, which is an economically important crop. In this study, we identified nine GmKRP genes in the Glycine max genome using HMM modeling and BLASTP searches. Protein subcellular localization and conserved motif analysis showed soybean KRP proteins located in the nucleus, and the C-terminal protein sequence was highly conserved. By investigating the expression patterns in various tissues, we found that all GmKRPs exhibited transcript abundance, while several showed tissue-specific expression patterns. By analyzing the promoter region, we found that light, low temperature, an anaerobic environment, and hormones-related cis-elements were abundant. In addition, we performed a co-expression analysis of the GmKRP gene family, followed by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) set enrichment analysis. The co-expressing genes were mainly involved in RNA synthesis and modification and energy metabolism. Furthermore, the GmKRP2a gene, a member of the soybean KRP family, was cloned for further functional analysis. GmKRP2a is located in the nucleus and participates in root development by regulating cell cycle progression. RNA-seq results indicated that GmKRP2a is involved in cell cycle regulation through ribosome regulation, cell expansion, hormone response, stress response, and plant pathogen response pathways. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify and characterize the KRP gene family in soybean.

We evaluated the association of disease outcome with T cell immune-related characteristics and T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in malignant ascites from patients with high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer. Ascitic fluid samples were collected from 47 high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer patients and analyzed using flow cytometry and TCR sequencing to characterize the complementarity determining region 3 TCR β-chain. TCR functions were analyzed using the McPAS-TCR and VDJ databases. TCR clustering was implemented using Grouping of Lymphocyte Interactions by Paratope Hotspots software. Patients with poor prognosis had ascites characterized by an increased ratio of CD8+ T cells to regulatory T cells, which correlated with an increased productive frequency of the top 100 clones and decreased productive entropy. TCRs enriched in patients with an excellent or good prognosis were more likely to recognize cancer antigens and contained more TCR reads predicted to recognize epithelial ovarian cancer antigens. In addition, a TCR motif that is predicted to bind the TP53 neoantigen was identified, and this motif was enriched in patients with an excellent or good prognosis. Ascitic fluid in high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer patients with an excellent or good prognosis is enriched with TCRs that may recognize ovarian cancer-specific neoantigens, including mutated TP53 and TEAD1. These results suggest that an effective antigen-specific immune response in ascites is vital for a good outcome in high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer.

The molecular determinants of lung cancer histologic subtypes are not well understood. Here the authors analyze lung cancers of mixed histology and find that histologic subtypes are associated with transcriptomic features rather than genomic profiles in most tumors.

Accurate sex estimation is crucial to determine the identity of human skeletal remains effectively. Here, we developed convolutional neural network (CNN) models for sex estimation on virtual hemi-pelvic regions, including the ventral pubis (VP), dorsal pubis (DP), greater sciatic notch (GSN), pelvic inlet (PI), ischium, and acetabulum from the Han population and compared these models with two experienced forensic anthropologists using morphological methods. A Computed Tomography (CT) dataset of 862 individuals was divided into the subgroups of training, validation, and testing, respectively. The CT-based virtual hemi-pelvises from the training and validation groups were used to calibrate sex estimation models; and then a testing dataset was used to evaluate the performance of the trained models and two human experts on the sex estimation of specific pelvic regions in terms of overall accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, F1 score, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Except for the ischium and acetabulum, the CNN models trained with the VP, DP, GSN, and PI images achieved excellent results with all the prediction metrics over 0.9. All accuracies were superior to those of the two forensic anthropologists in the independent testing. Notably, the heatmap results confirmed that the trained CNN models were focused on traditional sexual anatomic traits for sex classification. This study demonstrates the potential of AI techniques based on the radiological dataset in sex estimation of virtual pelvic models. The excellent sex estimation performance obtained by the CNN models indicates that this method is valuable to proceed with in prospective forensic trials.Key points Deep learning can be a promising alternative for sex estimation based on the pelvis in forensic anthropology. The deep learning convolutional neural network models outperformed two forensic anthropologists using classical morphological methods. The heatmaps indicated that the most known sex-related anatomic traits contributed to correct sex determination.

Soil microorganisms could affect the growth of plants and play an important role in indicating the change of soil environment. Cotton Verticillium wilt is a serious soil borne disease. This study aimed to analyze the community characteristics of soil microorganisms in cotton fields with different incidences of Verticillium wilt, so as to provide theoretical guidance for the prevention and control of soil borne diseases of cotton. Through the analysis of soil microbial communities in six fields, the results showed that there was no difference in fungal and bacterial alpha-diversity index before cotton planting, while there were differences in rhizosphere of diseased plants. For fungal beta diversity indexes, there were significant differences in these six fields. There was no significant difference for bacterial beta diversity indexes before cotton planting, while there was a certain difference in the rhizosphere of diseased cotton plants. The composition of fungi and bacteria in different fields was roughly the same at the genus level, but the abundances of the same genus varied greatly between different fields. Before cotton planting, there were 61 fungi (genera) and 126 bacteria (genera) with different abundances in the six fields. Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas and Burkholderia had higher abundances in the fields with less incidence. This study will provide a theoretical basis for microbial control of Cotton Verticillium wilt.

Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) have shown promising performance in plant disease recognition. However, these networks cannot be deployed on resource-limited smart devices due to their vast parameters and computations. To address the issue of deployability when developing cotton disease identification applications for mobile/smart devices, we compress the disease recognition models employing the pruning algorithm. The algorithm uses the γ coefficient in the Batch Normalization layer to prune the channels to realize the compression of DCNN. To further improve the accuracy of the model, we suggest two strategies in combination with transfer learning: compression after transfer learning or transfer learning after compression. In our experiments, the source dataset is famous PlantVillage while the target dataset is the cotton disease image set which contains images collected from the Internet and taken from the fields. We select VGG16, ResNet164 and DenseNet40 as compressed models for comparison. The experimental results show that transfer learning after compression overall surpass its counterpart. When compression rate is set to 80% the accuracies of compressed version of VGG16, ResNet164 and DenseNet40 are 90.77%, 96.31% and 97.23%, respectively, and the parameters are only 0.30M, 0.43M and 0.26M, respectively. Among the compressed models, DenseNet40 has the highest accuracy and the smallest parameters. The best model (DenseNet40-80%-T) is pruned 75.70% of the parameters and cut off 65.52% of the computations, with the model size being only 2.2 MB. Compared with the version of compression after transfer learning, the accuracy of the model is improved by 0.74%. We further develop a cotton disease recognition APP on the Android platform based on the model and on the test phone, the average time to identify a single image is just 87ms.

Background and aimsEpilepsy is a common and chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures that increase the risk of mortality. SUDEP is the most common seizure-related category of death. The study aimed to evaluate the key characteristics between SUDEP and not-SUDEP death cases.MethodsA retrospective study of forensic autopsy cases from 2002 to 2021, performed by the Academy of Forensic Science (Ministry of Justice, China), identified a total of 31 deaths associated with epilepsy. We compared the different characteristics between individuals who died of SUDEP (SUDEP group) and individuals with epilepsy died suddenly due to unrelated causes (not-SUDEP group).Results and conclusions13 cases met the general accepted definition of SUDEP; and 18 cases were classified as not-SUDEP. The mean age of the not-SUDEP group was significantly higher than that of the SUDEP groups (p < 0.05) and there were more cases without a clear cause of epilepsy in the SUDEP group than in the not-SUDEP group (p < 0.05). Death position differed significantly between the two groups, with more cases dying in the prone position in the SUDEP group (p < 0.05). Complete autopsies were performed in 24 of the 31 cases. There were no significant differences in heart, lungs and brain weights, or in ventricular thickness (p > 0.05) between the SUDEP and not-SUDEP groups. In addition, compared to the not-SUDEP group, the SUDEP group featured a significantly more cases with coronary lesions (grades 1-3, p < 0.05). Neuropathological lesions were identified in 12 of the 13 SUDEP cases (92.3%), cardiac lesions were present in 10 cases (76.9%) and pulmonary edema and pulmonary congestion were present in all cases. The primary cause of death in 13 of the 31 cases was seizure disorder or epilepsy. The primary mechanism of death in SUDEP group was mainly asphyxia while that in the not-SUDEP group was cardiopulmonary failure (p < 0.05). Patients in the prone position had a significantly higher risk of asphyxia than those who were not. Here, we investigated the key characteristics between SUDEP and not-SUDEP death cases, which may help to facilitate forensic diagnosis in presumed SUDEP cases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about one-third of people worldwide currently have a need for rehabilitation. This demand is expected to increase in the coming years due to changes in population health and characteristics. For example, with the intensification of global aging, the rehabilitation needs of patients with chronic diseases and disabilities, postoperative dysfunction, and cognitive impairment continue to grow, and emergencies such as conflicts, disasters, and epidemics may lead to a surge in rehabilitation needs. Early and sustained rehabilitation could reduce complications, improve function, and reduce disability in affected populations, but rehabilitation services are often underestimated due to underfunding and poor short-term outcomes. WHO sees rehabilitation as an essential part of achieving universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. With the development of China's economy and society and the trend of an aging population, the demand for rehabilitation therapists is growing rapidly. Since the development of rehabilitation education in China at the beginning of this century, great progress has been made in both the training mode and the number of people trained, especially in the construction of higher education of rehabilitation in related colleges and universities. Through descriptive qualitative analysis, this study collected information from national policy documents and official websites of colleges and universities on policies concerning degree systems, cultivating goals and ideas, courses, education internationalization, continuing education in practice, standardized training after graduation, the number of colleges and universities with rehabilitation therapy related majors in China, and summarizes the current situation of the development of rehabilitation personnel education in Chinese colleges and universities. Judging from the results, during the development of rehabilitation education, China has continuously improved in terms of policy support, educational goals and concepts, the number and quality of institutions, degree systems, and internationalization, while gradually adapting to China's development status. This also provides direction and feasible suggestions for China to improve the rehabilitation education development system and formulate a national rehabilitation education plan in the future to deal with the challenge of aging.

In vehicle–pedestrian accidents, the preimpact conditions of pedestrians and vehicles are frequently uncertain. The incident data for a crash, such as vehicle deformation, injury of the victim, distance of initial position and rest position of accident participants, are useful for verification in MAthematical DYnamic MOdels (MADYMO) simulations. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of an improved optimization algorithm combined with MADYMO multibody simulations and crash data to conduct accurate reconstructions of vehicle–pedestrian accidents. The objective function of the optimization problem was defined as the Euclidean distance between the known vehicle, human and ground contact points, and multiobjective optimization algorithms were employed to obtain the local minima of the objective function. Three common multiobjective optimization algorithms—nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), neighbourhood cultivation genetic algorithm (NCGA), and multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO)—were compared. The effect of the number of objective functions, the choice of different objective functions and the optimal number of iterations were also considered. The final reconstructed results were compared with the process of a real accident. Based on the results of the reconstruction of a real-world accident, the present study indicated that NSGA-II had better convergence and generated more noninferior solutions and better final solutions than NCGA and MOPSO. In addition, when all vehicle-pedestrian-ground contacts were considered, the results showed a better match in terms of kinematic response. NSGA-II converged within 100 generations. This study indicated that multibody simulations coupled with optimization algorithms can be used to accurately reconstruct vehicle-pedestrian collisions.

Melanin-inspired polymers have been widely used in biomedical applications due to their promising biocompatibility and antioxidant capacity. Although several works focusing on the eumelanin-like biomaterials such as polydopamine nanoparticles (PDA NPs) have been well documented, their free radical scavenging capability usually needed to be tailored and improved for some cases of antioxidative therapy. Herein, a kind of fungal melanin-like, poly-(1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene) nanoparticles (PDHN NPs) with uniform and controllable sizes have been synthesized via a facile ammonium persulfate (APS)-mediated oxidative radical polymerization. These resulting PDHN NPs exhibited excellent stability in water and many organic solutions, which could be used for long-term storage and various biological applications. Moreover, the as-prepared PDHN NPs and PDHN NPs incorporated hydrogels both showed excellent free radical scavenging activity in vitro and in vivo, resulting to the accelerated wound healing behaviors. This study would provide a simple strategy to develop new kinds of melanin-like materials with high stability and excellent antioxidative property for biomedical applications.

Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive disease with limited therapeutic options. Here the authors perform an immunogenomic analysis of limited-stage SCLC, revealing a homogeneous mutational landscape, but limited T-cell infiltration and a cold and heterogeneous T cell repertoire.

Abstract Background White lupin (Lupinus albus) is a leguminous crop with elite adaptive ability in phosphorus-deficient soil and used as a model plant for studying phosphorus (P) use. However, the genetic basis of its adaptation to low P (LP) remains unclear. ATPase binding cassette (ABC) transports G subfamily play a crucial role in the transportation of biological molecules across the membrane. To date, identification of this subfamily has been analyzed in some plants, but no systematic analysis of these transporters in phosphorus acquisition is available for white lupin. Results This study identified 66 ABCG gene family members in the white lupin genome using comprehensive approaches. Phylogenetic analysis of white lupin ABCG transporters revealed six subclades based on their counterparts in Arabidopsis, displaying distinct gene structure and motif distribution in each cluster. Influences of the whole genome duplication on the evolution of L.albABCGs were investigated in detail. Segmental duplications appear to be the major driving force for the expansion of ABCGs in white lupin. Analysis of the Ka/Ks ratios indicated that the paralogs of the L.albABCG subfamily members principally underwent purifying selection. However, it was found that L.albABCG29 was a result of both tandem and segmental duplications. Overexpression of L.albABCG29 in white lupin hairy root enhanced P accumulation in cluster root under LP and improved plant growth. Histochemical GUS staining indicated that L.albABCG29 expression increased under LP in white lupin roots. Further, overexpression of L.albABCG29 in rice significantly improved P use under combined soil drying and LP by improving root growth associated with increased rhizosheath formation. Conclusion Through systematic and comprehensive genome-wide bioinformatics analysis, including conserved domain, gene structures, chromosomal distribution, phylogenetic relationships, and gene duplication analysis, the L.albABCG subfamily was identified in white lupin, and L.albABCG29 characterized in detail. In summary, our results provide deep insight into the characterization of the L.albABCG subfamily and the role of L.albABCG29 in improving P use.

Daneshgar et al. investigated the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in ADPKD and mitochondria protective agents as potential therapeutics. The authors reported decreased mitochondrial complex activity and downregulation of mitochondrial and metabolic proteins in ADPKD, and proposed mCAT overexpression or SS31 treatment to slow cystogenesis.

The response rate of relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia patients to PD-1 checkpoint blockade is low and unpredictable. Authors here show by single cell RNA sequencing, T cell receptor profiling and genomic analysis that the phenotypes and repertoire of CD8 + T cells and loss of chromosome 7/7q are important determinants of response.

HFP-co-PVDF/N6 hydrophobic/hydrophilic dual-layer membrane was used to study desalination with direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). A one-dimensional (1-D) model was proposed to predict the flux and thermal efficiency. Heat and mass transfer equations were solved numerically for the combined hydrophilic and hydrophobic layers. The membrane characteristics of the hydrophobic layer were considered for the calculation of the mass transfer coefficients, while the hydrophilic layer was ignored since it was assumed to be filled with water. However, the hydrophilic layer was taken into account during the calculations of conductive heat transfer. Therefore, the equations are different, compared to single-layer hydrophobic membranes. It was found that with the same hydrophobic membrane characteristics, the single-layer membranes performed with better flux and thermal efficiency than the dual-layer membranes. Furthermore, the improvement of flux and thermal efficiency by an addition of the hydrophilic layer has not been observed experimentally, and it is suggested that the improved performance for dual-layer membranes reported previously is due to improved permeability by using thinner and more porous hydrophobic layers that can be mechanically reinforced by the hydrophilic layer. The validation of the model was conducted by comparing the experimental results for single- and dual-layer membranes with the modelling results. The predicted flux and thermal efficiency by the modelling were within 10% error to the experimental results. HIGHLIGHTS Mathematical models for predicting the flux and energy efficiency of dual-layer membranes.; Experimental results have been used to validate the models.; It is found that the thickness of the hydrophilic layer has a large effect on the flux and thermal efficiency.;

The circadian clock is an internal time-keeping mechanism that synchronizes the physiological adaptation of an organism to its surroundings based on day and night transition in a period of 24 h, suggesting the circadian clock provides fitness by adjusting environmental constrains. The circadian clock is driven by positive and negative elements that regulate transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally. Alternative splicing (AS) is a crucial transcriptional regulator capable of generating large numbers of mRNA transcripts from limited numbers of genes, leading to proteome diversity, which is involved in circadian to deal with abiotic stresses. Over the past decade, AS and circadian control have been suggested to coordinately regulate plant performance under fluctuating environmental conditions. However, only a few reports have reported the regulatory mechanism of this complex crosstalk. Based on the emerging evidence, this review elaborates on the existing links between circadian and AS in response to abiotic stresses, suggesting an uncovered regulatory network among circadian, AS, and abiotic stresses. Therefore, the rhythmically expressed splicing factors and core clock oscillators fill the role of temporal regulators participating in improving plant growth, development, and increasing plant tolerance against abiotic stresses.

Pancreatic cancer is the 7th leading cause of cancer death worldwide, and its incidence and mortality rate have been on the rise in recent years in Western developed countries. The specificity of the disease and the lack of appropriate treatments have resulted in a 5-year overall survival rate of only 9%. In this study, we conducted a study based on the TCGA database and GEO database and analyzed using the energy metabolism gene set to establish a prognostic model with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator to identify 7-genes prognostic signature, and the gene expression was verified by Real-time PCR. The model was validated using a risk score calculation, and the OS rates of the 7 genes were analyzed using one-way Cox regression. The prognostic relationship between vesicle-associated membrane protein 2 (VAMP2) and pancreatic cancer patients was analyzed by OS and progression-free survival, and the prognosis was found to be significantly worse in the high-expression group. A Nomogram showed that VAMP2 was an independent prognostic factor in pancreatic cancer. Gene set enrichment analysis showed that VAMP2 upregulation was enriched in pathways associated with immune response and that VAMP2 downregulation was enriched in metabolism-related pathways. The association of VAMP2 with immune cell infiltration was analyzed for the enrichment results, and VAMP2 was found to be positively associated with all 6 immune cells. The results of this study suggest that VAMP2 is an independent prognostic factor associated with energy metabolism in pancreatic cancer and may be involved in the immune response.

The gene SYF2—an RNA splicing factor—can interact with Cyclin D-type binding protein 1 (GICP) in many biological processes, including splicing regulation, cell cycle regulation, and DNA damage repair. In our previous study we performed genome-wide identification and functional analysis of SYF2 in plant species. The phylogenetic relationships and expression profiles of SYF2 have not been systematically studied in animals, however. To this end, the gene structure, genes, and protein conserved motifs of 102 SYF2 homologous genes from 91 different animal species were systematically analyzed, along with conserved splicing sites in 45 representative vertebrate species. A differential comparative analysis of expression patterns in humans and mice was made. Molecular bioinformatics analysis of SYF2 showed the gene was conserved and functional in different animal species. In addition, expression pattern analysis found that SYF2 was highly expressed in hematopoietic stem cells, T cells, and lymphoid progenitor cells; in ovary, lung, and spleen; and in other cells and organs. This suggests that changes in SYF2 expression may be associated with disease development in these cells, tissues, or organs. In conclusion, our study analyzes the SYF2 disease resistance genes of different animal species through bioinformatics, reveals the relationship between the SYF2 genotype and the occurrence of certain diseases, and provides a theoretical basis for follow-up study of the relationship between the SYF2 gene and animal diseases.

Sepsis most often involves the kidney and is one of the most common causes of acute kidney injury. The prevalence of septic acute kidney injury has increased significantly in recent years. The gut microbiota plays an important role in sepsis. It interacts with the kidney in a complex and multifactorial process, which is not fully understood. Sepsis may lead to gut microbiota alteration, orchestrate gut mucosal injury, and cause gut barrier failure, which further alters the host immunological and metabolic homeostasis. The pattern of gut microbiota alteration also varies with sepsis progression. Changes in intestinal microecology have double-edged effects on renal function, which also affects intestinal homeostasis. This review aimed to clarify the interaction between gut microbiota and renal function during the onset and progression of sepsis. The mechanism of gut–kidney crosstalk may provide potential insights for the development of novel therapeutic strategies for sepsis.

Ice loads are an important and decisive factor for the safe operation of offshore wind turbines (OWTs). In severe environment load cases, it shall lead to prominent ice-induced vibration and ice-induced fatigue failure of OWT structures. Based on the cohesive element method (CEM) and considering the pile–soil interaction used by nonlinear distributed springs, the full interaction model of the ice and monopile OWT structure with an ice-breaking cone in a cold sea region is established in this study. Furthermore, the Tsai-Wu failure criterion and the empirical failure formula of maximum plastic failure strain are used to describe the mechanical behavior of ice bending failure in the collision simulation tool LS-DYNA, and the dynamic ice loads under different ice velocities and cone angles are statistically analyzed. Finally, according to the interaction process between sea ice and OWT containing the ice-breaking cone, the dynamic response of OWT under the combined wind and ice loads is studied, and the most reasonable ice-breaking cone angle is determined. The results show that the method adopted in this paper can well simulate the bending failure process of sea ice. Concurrently, the cone angle has a significant impact on the dynamic response and damage of the OWT, and the recommended optimal cone angle is 60.

Recently, increased number of studies have demonstrated a relationship between the oral microbiome and development of head and neck cancer, however, there are few studies to investigate the role of oral bacteria in the context of the tumor microenvironment in a single head and neck subsite. Here, paired tumor and adjacent normal tissues from thirty-seven oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing and whole exome sequencing (WES), in addition to RNA sequencing for tumor samples. We observed that Fusobacterium was significantly enriched in oral tongue cancer and that Rothia and Streptococcus were enriched in adjacent normal tissues. A decrease in alpha diversity was found in tumor when compared to adjacent normal tissues. While increased Fusobacterium in tumor samples was not associated with changes in immune cell infiltration, it was associated with increased PD-L1 mRNA expression. Therefore, we examined the effects of Fusobacterium on PD-L1 expression in head and neck SCC cell lines. We demonstrated that infection with Fusobacterium species can increase both PD-L1 mRNA and surface PD-L1 protein expression on head and neck cancer cell lines. The correlation between Fusobacterium and PD-L1 expression in oral tongue SCC, in conjunction with the ability of the bacterium to induce PD-L1 expression in vitro suggests a potential role for Fusobacterium on modulation of the tumor immune microenvironment in head and neck cancer.

Estimation of continuous motion of human joints using surface electromyography (sEMG) signals has a critical part to play in intelligent rehabilitation. Traditional methods always use sEMG signals as inputs to build regression or biomechanical models to estimate continuous joint motion variables. However, it is challenging to accurately estimate continuous joint motion in new subjects due to the non-stationarity and individual differences in sEMG signals, which greatly limits the generalisability of the method. In this paper, a continuous motion estimation model for the human knee joint with a parameter self-updating mechanism based on the fusion of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and deep belief network (DBN) is proposed. According to the original sEMG signals of different subjects, the method adaptively optimized the parameters of the DBN model and completed the optimal reconstruction of signal feature structure in high-dimensional space to achieve the optimal estimation of continuous joint motion. Extensive experiments were conducted on knee joint motions. The results suggested that the average root mean square errors (RMSEs) of the proposed method were 9.42° and 7.36°, respectively, which was better than the results obtained by common neural networks. This finding lays a foundation for the human–robot interaction (HRI) of the exoskeleton robots based on the sEMG signals.

Rice has always been one of the major food sources for human beings, and the monitoring and planning of cultivation areas to maintain food security and achieve sustainable development is critical for this crop. Traditional manual ground survey methods have been recognized as being laborious, while remote-sensing technology can perform the accurate mapping of paddy rice due to its unique data acquisition capabilities. The recently emerged Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-computing platform was found to be capable of storing and computing the resources required for the rapid processing of massive quantities of remote-sensing data, thereby revolutionizing traditional analysis patterns and offering unique advantages for large-scale crop mapping. Since the phenology of paddy rice depends on local climatic conditions, and considering the vast expanse of China with its outstanding geospatial heterogeneity, a zoning strategy was proposed in this study to separate the monsoon climate zone of China into two regions based on the Qinling Mountain–Huaihe River Line (Q-H Line), while discrepant basic data and algorithms have been adopted to separately map mid-season rice nationwide. For the northern regions, optical indices have been calculated based on Sentinel-2 images, growth spectral profiles have been constructed to identify phenological periods, and rice was mapped using One-Class Support Vector Machine (OCSVM); for the southern regions, microwave sequences have been constructed based on Sentinel-1 images, and rice was mapped using Random Forest (RF). By applying this methodological system, mid-season rice at 10 m spatial resolution was mapped on the GEE for the entire Chinese monsoon region in 2021. According to the accuracy evaluation coefficients and publicly released local statistical yearbook data, the relative error of the mapped areas in each province was limited to 10%, and the overall accuracy exceeded 85%. The results could indicate that mid-season rice can be mapped more accurately and efficiently on a China-wide scale with relatively few samples based on the proposed zoning strategy and mapping methods. By adjusting the parameters, the time interval for mapping could also be further extended. The powerful cloud-computing competence of the GEE platform was used to map rice on a large spatial scale, and the results can help governments to ascertain the distribution of mid-season rice across the country in a short-term period, which would be well suited to meeting the increasingly efficient and fine-grained decision-making and management requirements.

Re-entrant auxetics offer the potential to address lightweight challenges while exhibiting superior impact resistance, energy absorption capacity, and a synclastic curvature deformation mechanism for a wide range of engineering applications. This paper presents a systematic numerical study on the compressive and flexural behaviour of re-entrant honeycomb and 3D re-entrant lattice using the finite element method implemented with ABAQUS/Explicit, in comparison with that of regular hexagonal honeycomb. The finite element model was validated with experimental data obtained from the literature, followed by a mesh size sensitivity analysis performed to determine the optimal element size. A series of simulations was then conducted to investigate the failure mechanisms and effects of different factors including strain rate, relative density, unit cell number, and material property on the dynamic response of re-entrant auxetics subjected to axial and flexural loading. The simulation results indicate that 3D re-entrant lattice is superior to hexagonal honeycomb and re-entrant honeycomb in energy dissipation, which is insensitive to unit cell number. Replacing re-entrant honeycomb with 3D re-entrant lattice leads to an 884% increase in plastic energy dissipation and a 694% rise in initial peak stress. Under flexural loading, the re-entrant honeycomb shows a small flexural modulus, but maintains the elastic deformation regime over a large range of strain. In all cases, the compressive and flexural dynamic response of re-entrant auxetics exhibits a strong dependence on strain rate, relative density, and material property. This study provides intuitive insight into the compressive and flexural performance of re-entrant auxetics, which can facilitate the optimal design of auxetic composites.

Hybrid latex particles combine the unique properties of inorganic nano/micro particles with the inherent properties of polymers, exhibiting tremendous potential for a variety of applications. Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the design and preparation of hybrid latex particles with well-defined size, structure and morphology. Due to its simplicity, versatility and environmental friendliness, the in situ (Pickering) emulsion polymerization has been demonstrated to be a powerful approach for the large-scale preparation of hybrid latex particles. In this review, the strategies and applications of in situ (Pickering) emulsion polymerization for the preparation of hybrid latex particles are systematically summarized. A particular focus is placed on the strategies for the preparation of hybrid latex particles with enhanced properties and well-defined core–shell, yolk–shell, multinuclear, raspberry-like, dumbbell-shaped, multipod-like or armored morphologies. We hope that the considerable advances, examples and principles presented in this review can motivate future contributions to provide a deeper understanding of current preparation technologies, develop new processes, and enable further exploitation of hybrid latex particles with outstanding characteristics and properties.

Salt stress is one of the major environmental stresses that imposes constraints to plant growth and production. Abscisic acid (ABA) has been well-proven to function as a central integrator in plant under salt stress, and trehalose (Tre) has emerged as an excellent osmolyte to induce salt tolerance. However, the interacting mechanism between ABA and Tre in rice seedlings under salt stress is still obscure. Here, we found that the application of exogenous Tre significantly promoted the salt tolerance of rice seedlings by enhancing the activities of antioxidant enzymes. In addition, the expression of OsNCED3 was significantly induced by salt stress. The overexpression of the OsNCED3 gene enhanced the salt tolerance, while the knockout of OsNCED3 reduced the salt tolerance of the rice seedlings. Metabolite analysis revealed that the Tre content was increased in the OsNCED3-overexpressing seedlings and reduced in the nced3 mutant. The application of both ABA and Tre improved the salt tolerance of the nced3 mutant when compared with the WT seedling. OsTPP3 was found to be induced by both the ABA and salt treatments. Consistent with the OsNCED3 gene, the overexpression of OsTPP3 enhanced salt tolerance while the knockout of OsTPP3 reduced the salt tolerance of the rice seedlings. In addition, the Tre content was also higher in the OsTPP3-overexpressing seedling and lower in the tpp3 mutant seedling than the WT plant. The application of exogenous Tre also enhanced the salt tolerance of the tpp3 mutant plant. Overall, our results demonstrate that salt-increased ABA activated the expression of OsTPP3, which resulted in elevated Tre content and thus an improvement in the salt tolerance of rice seedlings.

Thin film transistors (TFTs) as the core devices for displays, are widely used in various fields including ultra-high-resolution displays, flexible displays, wearable electronic skins and memory devices, especially in terms of sensors. TFTs have now started to move towards miniaturization. Similarly to MOSFETs problem, traditional planar structure TFTs have difficulty in reducing the channel’s length sub-1μm under the existing photolithography technology. Vertical channel thin film transistors (V-TFTs) are proposed. It is an effective solution to overcome the miniaturization limit of traditional planar TFTs. So, we summarize the different aspects of VTFTs. Firstly, this paper introduces the structure types, key parameters, and the impact of different preparation methods in devices of V-TFTs. Secondly, an overview of the research progress of V-TFTs’ active layer materials in recent years, the characteristics of V-TFTs and their application in examples has proved the enormous application potential of V-TFT in sensing. Finally, in addition to the advantages of V-TFTs, the current technical challenge and their potential solutions are put forward, and the future development trend of this new structure of V-TFTs is proposed.

The energy absorption capacity of materials with negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) is attracting interest from both industry and academia due to the excellent impact resistance of the local shrinkage of materials. However, understanding the compressive behavior of 3D auxetic structures at different strain rates and developing design methods are challenging tasks due to the limited literature and insufficient data. This paper presents a study on the behavior of Poisson’s ratio of an advanced 3D chiral structure, which is formed of two orthogonally positioned 2D hexagonal nodes-based chiral structures. Firstly, both theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are conducted to identify the Poisson’s ratio of 2D chiral structures. The same theoretical value of −1 is obtained for 2D chiral structures with a bending-dominated ligaments assumption. Thereafter, the Poisson’s ratio of 3D chiral structures is determined numerically using a low-speed loaded model composed of 5 × 5 × 8 3D unit cells for eliminating the boundary effects. The results show that impact velocity can strongly affect the energy absorption and deformation behavior of the proposed 3D chiral structure. Increasing the beam radius results in reduced energy absorption capability. However, the energy absorption capability of the 3D chiral structure is not sensitive to the yield strength of nodes. Impact direction affects the energy absorption performance of the 3D chiral structure, depending on the crushing strain. The research results could be used to optimize the design of the proposed novel 3D chiral honeycombs for various applications, such as impact energy absorbers and vibration-resistant dampers.

This study presents a general framework for the control of unknown dynamic systems with unknown input delay. A concise output feedback control system is structured with tuning stabilization/dynamic response by an output feedback low gain, removing steady state error against step reference with a feedforward gain. A series of stability analyses are presented for the designed control systems, (1) a gain/phase margin theorem is proposed for stability analysis by regulating the feedback gain, and (2) a stability theorem based on rational function approximation of the time delay is presented for dealing with the transcendental polynomial characteristic equations, which is equivalent to the analysis from the algebraic polynomial characteristic equation. Both approaches give coherent results for stability analysis by regulating the feedback gain. The approaches are applicable to nonlinear systems, which are linearizable in the neighborhood of the operating points. The low complexity of the controllers does not require hard analytical derivation/numerical calculations to produce an acceptable control performance for the considered systems. Several representative simulation case studies provide demonstrations of computational experiments against those analytically derived and guidance for potential applications.

Raffinose synthase (Rafs) is an important enzyme in the synthesis pathway of raffinose from sucrose and galactinol in higher plants and is involved in the regulation of seed development and plant responses to abiotic stresses. In this study, we analyzed the Rafs families and profiled their alternative splicing patterns at the genome-wide scale from 10 grass species representing crops and grasses. A total of 73 Rafs genes were identified from grass species such as rice, maize, foxtail millet, and switchgrass. These Rafs genes were assigned to six groups based the phylogenetic analysis. We compared the gene structures, protein domains, and expression patterns of Rafs genes, and also unraveled the alternative transcripts of them. In addition, different conserved sequences were observed at these putative splice sites among grass species. The subcellular localization of PvRafs5 suggested that the Rafs gene was expressed in the cytoplasm or cell membrane. Our findings provide comprehensive knowledge of the Rafs families in terms of genes and proteins, which will facilitate further functional characterization in grass species in response to abiotic stress.

Micro-LED display technology has been considered a promising candidate for near-eye display applications owing to its superior performance, such as having high brightness, high resolution, and high contrast. However, the realization of polarized and high-efficiency light extraction from Micro-LED arrays is still a significant problem to be addressed. Recently, by exploiting the capability of metasurfaces in wavefront modulation, researchers have achieved many excellent results by integrating metasurface structures with Micro-LEDs, including improving the light extraction efficiency, controlling the emission angle to achieve directional emission, and obtaining polarized Micro-LEDs. In this paper, recent progressions on Micro-LEDs integrated with metasurface structures are reviewed in the above three aspects, and the similar applications of metasurface structures in organic LEDs, quantum dot LEDs, and perovskite LEDs are also summarized.