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Abstract The N−N atropisomer, as an important and intriguing chiral system, was widely present in natural products, pharmaceutical lead compounds, and advanced material skeletons. The anisotropic structural characteristics caused by its special axial rotation have always been one of the challenges that chemists strive to overcome. Herein, we report an efficient method for the enantioselective synthesis of N−N axially chiral frameworks via a cobalt-catalyzed atroposelective C-H activation/annulation process. The reaction proceeds under mild conditions by using Co(OAc)2·4H2O as the catalyst with a chiral salicyl-oxazoline (Salox) ligand and O2 as an oxidant, affording a variety of N−N axially chiral products with high yields and enantioselectivities. This protocol provides an efficient approach for the facile construction of N−N atropisomers and further expands the range of of N−N axially chiral derivatives. Additionally, under the conditions of electrocatalysis, the desired N−N axially chiral products were also successfully achieved with good to excellent efficiencies and enantioselectivities.

Tumors are spatially heterogeneous tissues that comprise numerous cell types with intricate structures. By interacting with the microenvironment, tumor cells undergo dynamic changes in gene expression and metabolism, resulting in spatiotemporal variations in their capacity for proliferation and metastasis. In recent years, the rapid development of histological techniques has enabled efficient and high-throughput biomolecule analysis. By preserving location information while obtaining a large number of gene and molecular data, spatially resolved metabolomics (SRM) and spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) approaches can offer new ideas and reliable tools for the in-depth study of tumors. This review provides a comprehensive introduction and summary of the fundamental principles and research methods used for SRM and SRT techniques, as well as a review of their applications in cancer-related fields.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a new type of persistent organic pollutants that have received extensive attention in recent years. This article reviewed the population characteristics of environmental exposure to PFAS, as well as the potential health effects. Previous studies have verified that people are exposed to PFAS mainly through ingestion, and food and water are the dominant contributors. In terms of exposure characteristics, geographical, gender, age, and occupational differences have an impact on the level of PFAS exposure in the corresponding populations by influencing their behavioral characteristics and metabolic levels, with occupational exposure receiving more attention, especially in the exploration of novel PFAS. PFAS associate with a variety of adverse health effects caused by hepatorenal toxicity, immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, and carcinogenicity. However, some of the conclusions are not completely consistent, and the published epidemiological studies have focused on children and young people, lacking relevant data of the elderly. Future research can pay more attention to the elderly population and carry out validation exploration on controversial conclusions.

Abstract Background The purpose of this study was to identify neurogenic tumours and pleomorphic adenomas of the parapharyngeal space based on the texture characteristics of MRI-T2WI. Methods MR findings and pathological reports of 25 patients with benign tumours in the parapharyngeal space were reviewed retrospectively (13 cases with pleomorphic adenomas and 12 cases with neurogenic tumours). Using PyRadiomics, the texture of the region of interest in T2WI sketched by radiologists was analysed. By using independent sample t-tests and Mann‒Whitney U tests, the selected texture features of 36 Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and Gray Level Dependence Matrix (GLDM) were tested. A set of parameters of texture features showed statistically significant differences between the two groups, which were selected, and the diagnostic efficiency was evaluated via the operating characteristic curve of the subjects. Results The differences in the three parameters – small dependence low level emphasis (SDLGLE), low level emphasis (LGLE) and difference variance (DV) of characteristics – between the two groups were statistically significant (P

The discarding of spent fluorescent lamps, one of the most significant sources of mercury usage in industry, might cause mercury release into the environment when suffering from breakage. The reclamation disposal of fluorescent lamps for mercury recycling is essential, while how to achieve highly efficient conversion of various mercury species into elemental mercury vapor is a key challenge. Herein, the distillation method was adopted for mercury recycling from phosphor powder. The results show that the contents of elemental mercury and oxidized mercury vapor filled in the lamps were 150–3500μgand 5–20μg, respectively. The mercury release sustained for 13(±2) h, with a maximum mercury concentration of 4500μg/m3. The mercury in phosphor can be desorbed to an undetected level when distilling at 600 °C under vacuum for 30 min, while that would be achieved at 700 °C when distilling under atmospheric pressure. This suggests that the vacuum distillation was favorable for the conversion of oxidized mercury into elemental mercury. The variation of mineral phase, particle size distribution and morphology of phosphor after distillation was insignificant, which guaranteed the recycling of phosphor simultaneously accompanying with mercury recycling. This work clarified the mercury release behavior during lamps crushing and provided a feasible way for mercury recycling.

With the exponential growth of data and the company's cross-domain disaster recovery requirements, companies increasingly need to manage data across spatial domains.Cross-domain data management requires a distributed consensus algorithm to make the data consistent.However, the existing distributed consensus algorithms only consider the situation of a single data center, and do not consider the uncertainty of network communication between data centers, so they face long log synchronization delays and low system throughput in cross-space region scenarios and other issues.The current status and new challenges of distributed consensus algorithms in the cross-space domain were sorted out systematically, and the technical route to solve these challenges was looked forward.

The paradigm of near-data computing has driven banks and securities firms to build multiple data centers globally or nationally.In the traditional business model, transactions focused on accessing data within a single data center.With the changing business model, distributed transactions across data centers have become common, such as transferring money between bank accounts or exchanging equipment between game accounts, with data stored in different data centers in different regions.Distributed transaction processing requires the two-phase commit protocol to ensure the atomicity of the sub-transactions submitted by each participating node.In processing cross-domain transactions, traditional transaction processing technology needs to be expanded to ensure that the system can provide higher throughput due to the longer and more varied network latency between nodes.After analyzing the problems and optimizing space for crossdomain distributed transactions, this paper proposes a new distributed transaction processing algorithm called Harp.Harp delays the execution of some sub-transactions based on the difference in network latency while ensuring serializable isolation level, reducing the duration of transaction lock contention, and improving system concurrency and throughput.Experiments show that Harp improves the performance by 1.39 times compared with the traditional algorithm under YCSB workload.

Abstract Social engineering attacks are a growing threat to modern complex systems. Increasingly, attackers are exploiting people's "vulnerabilities" to carry out social engineering attacks for malicious purposes. Although such a severe threat has attracted the attention of academia and industry, it is challenging to propose a comprehensive and practical set of countermeasures to protect systems from social engineering attacks due to its interdisciplinary nature. Moreover, the existing social engineering defence research is highly dependent on manual analysis, which is time‐consuming and labour‐intensive and cannot solve practical problems efficiently and pragmatically. This paper proposes a systematic approach to generate countermeasures based on a typical social engineering attack process. Specifically, we systematically ‘attack’ each step of social engineering attacks to prevent, mitigate, or eliminate them, resulting in 62 countermeasures. We have designed a set of social engineering security patterns that encapsulate relevant security knowledge to provide practical assistance in the defence analysis of social engineering attacks. Finally, we present an automatic analysis framework for applying social engineering security patterns. We applied the case study method and performed semi‐structured interviews with nine participants to evaluate our proposal, showing that our approach effectively defended against social engineering attacks.

Abstract Background Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) consists of six components of large/middle/small HBs proteins (L/M/SHBs) with non-glycosylated (ng)- or glycosylated (g)- isomers at sN146 in their shared S domain. g-SHBs plays a crucial role in hepatitis B virus (HBV) secretion. However, the host and viral factors impacting sN146 status in natural HBV infection remain revealed mainly due to the technical difficulty in quantifying g-SHBs and ng-SHBs in serum samples. Methods To establish a standardized Western blot (WB) assay (WB-HBs) for quantifying the SHBs isomers in serum samples of 328 untreated hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with genotype B or C HBV infection. The 1.3-mer HBV genotype B or C plasmids were transiently transfected into HepG2 cells for in vitro study. Results The median level of ng-SHBs was significantly higher than that of g-SHBs (N = 328) (2.6 vs. 2.0 log10, P

Abstract Background Cell pyroptosis has a strong proinflammatory effect, but it is unclear whether pyroptosis of liver macrophages exacerbates liver tissue damage during liver ischemia‒reperfusion (I/R) injury. Maresin1 (MaR1) has a strong anti-inflammatory effect, and whether it can suppress liver macrophage pyroptosis needs further study. Methods This study aimed to investigate whether MaR1 can alleviate liver I/R injury by inhibiting macrophage pyroptosis. The effects of MaR1 on cell pyroptosis and mitochondrial damage were studied by dividing cells into control, hypoxia/reoxygenation, and hypoxia/reoxygenation + MaR1 groups. Knocking out RORa was used to study the mechanism by which MaR1 exert its protective effects. Transcriptome analysis, qRT‒PCR and Western blotting were used to analyze gene expression. Untargeted metabolomics techniques were used to analyze metabolite profiles in mice. Flow cytometry was used to assess cell death and mitochondrial damage. Results We first found that MaR1 significantly reduced liver I/R injury. We observed that MaR1 decreased liver I/R injury by inhibiting liver macrophage pyroptosis. Then, we discovered that MaR1 promotes mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, increases the synthesis of ATP, reduces the generation of ROS, decreases the impairment of mitochondrial membrane potential and inhibits the opening of mitochondrial membrane permeability transition pores. MaR1 inhibits liver macrophage pyroptosis by protecting mitochondria. Finally, we found that MaR1 exerts mitochondrial protective effects through activation of its nuclear receptor RORa and the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. Conclusions During liver I/R injury, MaR1 can reduce liver macrophage pyroptosis by reducing mitochondrial damage, thereby reducing liver damage.

AIM: To investigate the distribution of refractive parameters and theirs correlation with spherical equivalent(SE)in preschool children aged 3 to 6 years, and evaluate the accuracy of each screening index in diagnosing refractive errors.METHODS: Cross-sectional study. A total of 791 preschool children, ranging from 3 to 6 years old, who consented to undergo mydriatic refraction were selected. Axial length(AL), corneal refractive power(K), and SE were measured after microcoria optometry and mydriatic optometry. Additionally, the corneal radius of curvature(CR)and the axial length/corneal radius of curvature(AL/CR)ratio were calculated.RESULTS: A total of 791 students participated in the study, out of which 400(50.6%)were male and 391(49.4%)were female. The mean values for AL, CR, AL/CR, and SE were 22.62±0.94mm, 7.81±0.29mm, 2.90±0.09, and +1.95±1.31D, respectively. AL, CR, and AL/CR increased with age. AL and CR were significantly higher in males than in females(all P

Abstract Since the identification of the first case of pneumonia of unknown cause in 2019, the COVID‐19 pandemic has spread the globe for over 3 years. As the most populous country in the world, China's disease prevention policies and response plans concern the health of the country's 1.4 billion people and beyond. During the course of the pandemic, scientific research has been accumulated and given evidence‐based support to the official guidance of COVID‐19 management. The National Health Commission of China have compiled, published, and updated a total of 10 versions of the “Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for COVID‐19 Patients” to better inform clinical practitioners and staff to effectively screen, diagnose, manage, treat, and care for cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. This paper compares and summarizes each version of the protocol in terms of etiology and epidemiology, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, treatment and nursing, disease control and management, presenting detailed changes, additions, deletions, and refinement of the protocols.

L-theanine, a non-protein amino acid in tea, has been widely studied as an immune enhancer in poultry, livestock, and rodents. However, no studies have been performed on the application of L-theanine in aquaculture feed. To fill this research gap, we investigated the effects of L-theanine as a feed additive on the growth performance, immune function, antioxidant capacity, and intestinal flora of female Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) using biochemical assays, real-time polymerase chain reaction, and 16 S rRNA gene sequencing. In total, 300 one-year-old female Chinese mitten crabs were randomly divided into treatment groups supplemented with 0 (control), 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0% L-theanine (L0–L4, respectively; n = 4 replicates per group with 15 crabs per replicate). After eight weeks, the total edible yield was significantly higher in all treatment groups than in the L0 group (P

Abstract Rare precipitation events with return periods of multiple decades to hundreds of years are particularly damaging to natural and societal systems. Projections of such rare, damaging precipitation events in the future climate are, however, subject to large inter‐model variations. We show that a substantial portion of these differences can be ascribed to the projected warming uncertainty, and can be robustly reduced by using the warming observed during recent decades as an observational constraint, implemented either by directly constraining the projections with the observed warming or by conditioning them on constrained warming projections, as verified by extensive model‐based cross‐validation. The temperature constraint reduces >40% of the warming‐induced uncertainty in the projected intensification of future rare daily precipitation events for a climate that is 2°C warmer than preindustrial across most regions. This uncertainty reduction together with validation of the reliability of the projections should permit more confident adaptation planning at regional levels.

ObjectThe aim of our study was to examine the alterations in microstructure in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and cognitive impairment (CI) using diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI). Additionally, we aimed to investigate the potential correlation between DKI parameters and cognitive function.Materials and methodsA total of 28 CAD patients and 30 healthy controls (HC) were prospectively enrolled in our study. All participants underwent routine and diffusion sequences of head imaging. DKE software was utilized to generate various diffusion kurtosis imaging parameters (DKI), including kurtosis fractional anisotropy (KFA), mean kurtosis (MK), axial kurtosis (AK), radial kurtosis (RK), fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity (MD). Nonparametric tests were conducted using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to compare the parameter values between the two groups. The parameter values of the significantly different fiber tracts were extracted and correlated with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores.ResultsCompared to the HC group, patients with coronary artery disease exhibited significant reductions in FA values in the bilateral Superior corona radiata, bilateral Anterior corona radiata, bilateral Posterior corona radiata, corpus callosum, left Posterior thalamic radiation, right Posterior limb of internal capsule, Anterior limb of internal capsule, and Cerebral peduncle, as well as in the left Superior longitudinal fasciculus. Additionally, KFA values decreased in the bilateral Anterior corona radiata, bilateral Anterior limb of internal capsule, and Genu of the corpus callosum. The MK values decreased in the right Posterior corona radiata, Retrolenticular part of the internal capsule, Posterior thalamic radiation (including optic radiation), Superior longitudinal fasciculus, and left Posterior thalamic radiation (including optic radiation). Moreover, the RK values decreased in the bilateral Retrolenticular part of the internal capsule, right Posterior thalamic radiation (including optic radiation), and Superior longitudinal fasciculus, as well as in the left Superior longitudinal fasciculus and Posterior thalamic radiation (including optic radiation) (p 0.01, TFCE corrected). The FA values of the right posterior limb of the internal capsule (r = 0.610, p = 0.001) and the right cerebral peduncle (r = 0.622, p

Aiming at the rapid development of anti-hypersonic collaborative interception technology, this paper designs an intelligent maneuver strategy of hypersonic vehicles (HV) based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to evade the collaborative interception by two interceptors. Under the meticulously designed collaborative interception strategy, the uncertainty and difficulty of evasion are significantly increased and the opportunity for maneuvers is further compressed. This paper, accordingly, selects the twin delayed deep deterministic gradient (TD3) strategy acting on the continuous action space and makes targeted improvements combining deep neural networks to grasp the maneuver strategy and achieve successful evasion. Focusing on the time-coordinated interception strategy of two interceptors, the three-player pursuit and evasion (PE) problem is modeled as the Markov decision process, and the double training strategy is proposed to juggle both interceptors. In reward functions of the training process, the energy saving factor is set to achieve the trade-off between miss distance and energy consumption. In addition, the regression neural network is introduced into the deep neural network of TD3 to enhance intelligent maneuver strategies’ generalization. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to verify that the improved TD3 algorithm can effectively evade the collaborative interception of two interceptors under tough situations, and the improvements of the algorithm in terms of convergence speed, generalization, and energy-saving effect are verified.

Urban canopy coverage (UTCC) is a measure that reflects both the quantity and quality of urban green spaces. Understanding how UTCC responds to urbanization is crucial for developing comprehensive strategies to achieve sustainable urbanization. Our study presented a framework for understanding the response of UTCC changes to the urbanization process coupling state, transition, and drivers. Using high-resolution remote sensing interpretation data in 2002–2013–2019, we examined the spatiotemporal heterogeneity and comparative characteristics of UTCC status indicators, UTCC transition indicators, and urbanization factors within Beijing's urban area in 2002–2013 and 2013–2019. These indicators included annual UTCC change (AUTCCPC), annual mean patch size change (AMPSC), annual Euclidean minimum distance change (AEmnC), UTCC loss (UTCCloss), UTCC gain (UTCCgain), UTCC stability index (UTCCSI), impermeable surface proportion (P_IMP), road density (D_ROAD), population density (D_POP), and distance from urban center (DIS_UC). The findings indicated a “deceleration and balance” trend in UTCC changes from 2002 to 2019. The UTCC proportion, patch size, connectivity, and stability continued to increase, accompanied by a deceleration in increasing rate. The UTCC spatial distribution shifted from a ring road gradient pattern to a balanced pattern. The urbanization factors that impacted UTCC most were P_IMP and D_Road. The interaction impact intensity between factors was enhanced, with P_IMP ∩ D_READ and P_IMP ∩ DIS_UC having the most substantial impact on UTCC changes. Our study unveiled the phased response of UTCC changes to the urbanization process, providing a theoretical foundation for “how to promote more effective UTCC planning during rapid urban development” and aiding planners/managers in implementing sustainable forest management.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) based on nature experiences substantially contribute to public health and human well-being. However, CES’s supply-demand methodology remains scarcely explored on the coastal beach, and the demand relating to public preferences has not been sufficiently unveiled in spatial assessment. Here, we selected recreation services as a lens of CES and applied the knowledge of multi-source big data to better reflect public preferences. Point of Interests (POIs) refer to particularly valuable or interesting places. We proposed to integrate POIs and social media data (Weibo check-in) to quantify the demand for beach recreation services (BRS). We also used socio-ecological indicators to quantify the BRS’s supply. The supply-demand balance of BRS was further identified by quadrant analysis and coupling coordination degree. Our methodology was applied to a typical coastal zone, Shenzhen Dapeng New District, in the Greater Bay Area of China. Over 80% of the beaches in the study area exhibited an imbalanced or barely balanced supply-demand of recreation services. We found that POIs density had a significant influence on a balanced supply-demand of BRS. Multi-source big data (POIs and Weibo check-in) provided an efficient, low-cost, and across-scale approach for public preference mapping than traditional questionnaire surveys. The proposed CES’s supply-demand framework can identify coastal beaches with imbalanced recreation and support sustainable coastal management. Coastal beach management prioritizes not only waste prevention and sufficient safety signs but also proper infrastructure development that contribute sustainably to the human well-being of nature experiences.

The increasing integration of various energy sources and the adoption of smart grid technologies have revolutionized the way we generate, distribute, and consume energy. While these advancements offer numerous benefits, they also introduce vulnerabilities to cyber–physical attacks. To this aim, this paper investigates a resilient energy management strategy for integrated energy systems. By adopting a switched control approach and incorporating a local estimation mechanism, we have developed a resilient distributed energy management strategy to tackle the energy management problem (EMP) in integrated energy systems (IESs). This methodology demonstrates strong robustness and resilience, successfully detecting data integrity attacks and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Finally, we provide a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed strategy in a real-world scenario.

Change detection (CD) in remote sensing (RS) images aims to identify surface changes based on images acquired at different times. However, existing methods are still unsatisfactory in locating fine details of change in RS images, due to overlooking the inherent temporal information. To address the issue, we introduce a novel Triplet Fusion Temporal Relationship Network (FTRNet). FTRNet incorporates a triplet input backbone that enables the extraction of both spatial and temporal features. We design a change attention module to enhance bitemporal features, making the backbone network retain temporal information and fuse cross-scale features to extract the high-level location information. We evaluate our method on three benchmark datasets, including LEVIR-CD, WHU-CD, GZ, and DSIFN. The experimental results showcase that FTRNet achieves IoU scores of 83.60%, 77.06%, 73.67%, and 77.30% in LEVIR-CD, WHU-CD, GZ, and DSIFN datasets, respectively. These results surpass the second-best baseline by 1.20%, 0.49%, 1.31%, and 1.20%, respectively.

The bulkhead additional thrust during shield tunneling, the force of friction between shield and soil, and the additional grouting pressure can cause additional stress in the surrounding soil, thereby disturbing existing buildings and structures. However, few studies focused on the disturbance situation when the shield tunneling machine approaches the receiving well. If the additional stress and deformation of the receiving well are too excessive, it could result in the collapse of the receiving well. Based on the two-stage method, this study derived the calculation formula of the additional stress and deformation of the receiving well enclosure structure caused by shield tunneling. Taking a shield machine receiving engineering as the context, this study established a numerical simulation model and compared theoretical calculation, the results of numerical simulation model and on-site monitoring data. Finally, the additional stress of the receiving well is analyzed. The research findings demonstrate that the theoretical prediction results, numerical simulation calculation results, and on-site monitoring data exhibit relatively small calculation errors, which validated the applicability of the theoretical prediction formula and numerical simulation model. As the distance between the shield machine and the receiving well decreases, the disturbance to the receiving well increases sharply. When the distance between the cutter head and the receiving well is less than three times the shield length, it is crucial to enhance the deformation monitoring of the receiving well. The primary factors affecting the additional load and deformation of the receiving well enclosure structure are the force of friction between shield and soil and the additional thrust of the cutterhead. The disturbance caused by the additional grouting pressure on the enclosure structure can be ignored.

The impact of biochar application on crop yield has always been a topic of concern. However, most current research focuses on the short-term effects of biochar on crop growth. Investigating the long-term effects of biochar in increasing crop yields is crucial for food security and sustainable agricultural development. To address this issue, this study performed a coupling of meta-analysis and structural equation model (SEM) based on the establishment of a dataset containing 981 sets of observations. The results demonstrated that biochar significantly and durably boosted crop yield, and biochar also has shown an average increase of 36.2% in SOC over a monitoring period exceeding 2 years. Crop yields increased by an average of 16% after biochar application for the long-term scale, although the increase varied across crop types, and biochar application performed better on corn and wheat than paddy rice production. It is noteworthy that the yield still increased by 15% on average after 6 years of biochar application. According to SEM, the yield increase was positively correlated with the application amount of biochar, and the yield increase was higher under low nitrogen (N) input than under high N input. The long-term yield-increasing effect of biochar was more attributable to its enhancement of SOC rather than its effects on soil bulk density and pH.

In environmentally sensitive areas, especially the arid and semi-arid regions, the greening stability process and its influencing factors can directly affect the sustainable development of the ecological environment. In this study, multi-source remote sensing data such as land use/cover data, MODIS NDVI, and soil moisture, methods such as stability index, vegetation quantitative remote sensing, and Geodetector were employed to analyze the sustainability of the greening process in the Mu Us Sandy in 2000-2020, which were viewed from three aspects: changes in stability of land use types and function, soil moisture change and influencing factors on greening stability. The results showed that, (1) From the stability of land use types, continuous stable ecological land accounted for more than 50%, showing that decreased from northwest toward southeast. (2) From the functional stability, NDVI showed a fluctuated growth (0.035/a), with an increasing distribution pattern from northwest to southeast. Additionally, Vegetation changes were unstable and concentrated in the western part of the study area (OtogBanner and Otog Front Banner), while the eastern part was stable, in which vegetation improvement took the main position. Moreover, mobile dunes almost disappeared, and semi-fixed dunes decreased and gradually shrank to the west of the sandy area, while fixed dunes soared and were concentrated in the middle of the sandy land. (3) From the soil moisture change, soil moisture at different underground depths showed an overall increasing trend, but the deep soil moisture was higher than the shallow, and spatial distribution varied greatly. (4) From the influencing factors, natural factors significantly influence greening stability, among which precipitation had a particularly profound impact, and interactions with other natural and social factors were higher explanatory. The paper aims to explore whether the ecological environment is developing in a good and orderly direction in the Mu Us Sandy Land, and the potential factors that cause its changes, to provide a theoretical basis for scientific governance in the Mu Us Sandy Land and other arid and semi-arid areas in the future.

IntroductionIn recent years, the world has faced increasingly severe climate change and ecological environmental problems. As an important part of the ecological system, rural areas also face many challenges. Rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality, as a solution, have attracted widespread attention. However, achieving the coordinated development of rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality requires more in-depth research and effective methods.MethodsThis study aims to explore how to promote the coordinated development of rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality through the combination of a Transformer-RNN model and cross-attention mechanism. We propose a deep learning framework that combines the parallelism and global dependency capturing capabilities of the Transformer model with the temporal information handling capabilities of the RNN model. By integrating these two models, we leverage their respective strengths to improve the performance of the model. Furthermore, we introduce a cross-attention mechanism that enables the model to simultaneously focus on the relationship between rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality. Through cross-attention, the model accurately captures the impact of rural ecological construction measures on carbon neutrality and the feedback effect of carbon neutrality on the rural ecological environment. In our experiments, we collected relevant data on rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality, including environmental indicators, socio-economic factors, land use patterns, energy consumption, and carbon emissions.Results and discussionWe preprocess the data and train the combined Transformer-RNN model with the cross-attention mechanism. The trained model demonstrates promising results in capturing the complex dependencies and relationships between rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality. The significance of this study lies in deepening the understanding of the coordinated development relationship between rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality and providing a novel deep learning-based method to solve related problems. By introducing the Transformer-RNN model with a cross-attention mechanism, we provide decision-makers with more scientific and accurate decision support, promoting the improvement of the rural ecological environment and the achievement of carbon neutrality goals.

Simulations of land use/land cover (LULC) and ecosystem services (ES), which integrate national land policies, reflect the development of land and ecological functions under different scenarios and are crucial for accurately predicting and optimizing urban ecosystem sustainable development. To effectively characterize the urban development trend that complies with urban land policies and spatial differences, we combined major function-oriented zoning (MFOZ) and simulated LULC and ES [including water yield (WY), soil retention (SR), carbon storage (CS), and habitat quality (HQ)] within Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration under multiple scenarios. Based on the improved gray multi-objective optimization (IGMOP) model, the patch-generating land simulation (PLUS) model, and the integrated evaluation of ecosystem services and trade-offs (InVEST) model, three scenarios were designed: business as usual (BAU), economic development (ED), and ecological conservation (EC) scenarios. Results demonstrated higher accuracy with the LULC simulation coupling MFOZ. Under BAU, ED, and EC scenarios, the ecological land (EL) area was 924.99 × 104, 904.45 × 104, and 953.59 × 104 hm2, respectively. Compared to 2020, it increased by 0.77% and 1.95% under BAU and EC scenarios and decreased by 0.08% under ED scenario. The LULC changes under different scenarios influenced ES changes. Trade-offs occurred between WY&SR and CS&HQ under BAU and ED scenarios (WY&SR increased, CS&HQ decreased), while different ES types synergistically increased under EC scenario. Impervious surfaces and vegetation positively affected WY&SR, while forestland and impervious surfaces positively and negatively affected CS&HQ, respectively. The simulation coupling MFOZ may provide new insights for exploring more accurate ecological patterns, identifying potential sustainable spaces, and determining priority projects.

The high carbon emissions of vehicles traveling on horizontal curve road sections cannot be ignored. Facing the difficulty of accurately quantifying the carbon emission of driving on horizontal curves and the unknown causes of high carbon emission, this study proposes to construct a carbon emission prediction model applicable to road sections with different planar geometries. The direct and indirect effects of horizontal curve alignment on vehicle carbon emissions are represented in the model in terms of travel stabilization and speed changes, respectively. A lateral force coefficient parameter was introduced into the model to integrate the carbon emission quantification problem for different planar geometry sections. Meanwhile, field tests were conducted to assess the reliability of the model and the research findings. The model reveals that the geometric parameters of horizontal curves that affect carbon emissions are the radius of the circular curve, the superelevation, and the length of the gentle curve. The root causes of high carbon emissions on horizontal curve road sections are curve driving resistance and speed fluctuations. Under the free-flow driving condition of the highway, the maximum curve radius affecting the carbon emissions of passenger cars and trucks is 400 m and 550 m, respectively. The research results can realize the carbon emission quantification of vehicles on the road sections with different plane geometries. Also, it is helpful to control the high carbon emission of vehicles traveling on horizontal curve road sections.

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major opportunistic pathogen that can cause severe systemic infections. Here, we found that the type III secretion system effector ExoU was the main determinant of pathogenicity of a highly virulent clinical isolate strain, BSI_S5, of P. aeruginosa, which caused severe bloodstream infections and belongs to ST463/O4. Deletion of exoU showed significantly attenuated cytotoxicity and virulence in vivo, while deletion of two other unique genes from strain BSI_S5, chr_1696 and chr_4238, which encodes type I secretion system permease/ATPase or polysaccharide biosynthesis protein, respectively, caused no apparent loss of toxicity compared to the parent strain, and complementation of the ΔexoU mutant restored its virulence. The presence of ExoU-induced lung lesions and the mucosal damage of gallbladder in mice, and the replication of the ΔexoU mutant was hindered in vivo compared with the parent strain. We show here for the first time that a clinical isolate with intact exoU harbored a mutation of T→G substitution in the adjacent specific Pseudomonas chaperone for ExoU (spcU), which caused phenylalanine to valine change at amino acid 94 of SpcU, resulting in significant loss of cytotoxicity. This finding suggests that intact exoU is not sufficient for cytotoxicity, but a functional downstream SpcU is required for ExoU secretion and cytotoxicity. Finally, we found that BSI_S5 harbored two types of insertion sequences adjacent to exoU, suggesting the potential of exoU to be transferred to other strains. Our study opens an avenue for further mechanistic study of P. aeruginosa systemic infections regarding its high pathogenicity and clinical spread. IMPORTANCE The identification of decisive virulence-associated genes in highly pathogenic P. aeruginosa isolates in the clinic is essential for diagnosis and the start of appropriate treatment. Over the past decades, P. aeruginosa ST463 has spread rapidly in East China and is highly resistant to β-lactams. Given the poor clinical outcome caused by this phenotype, detailed information regarding its decisive virulence genes and factors affecting virulence expression needs to be deciphered. Here, we demonstrate that the T3SS effector ExoU has toxic effects on mammalian cells and is required for virulence in the murine bloodstream infection model. Moreover, a functional downstream SpcU is required for ExoU secretion and cytotoxicity. This work highlights the potential role of ExoU in the pathogenesis of disease and provides a new perspective for further research on the development of new antimicrobials with antivirulence ability.

The conservation of the ecosystem in the Yellow River source region (YRSR) has become a crucial national strategy in China, emphasizing the need for evaluating ecosystem integrity to identify priority conservation areas (PCAs). Current research has primarily employed a limited number of indicators or a single dimension to assess ecosystem integrity, which may overlook comprehensive considerations required for effective conservation planning. To address this, a multidimensional approach was adopted in this study to evaluate ecosystem integrity, incorporating three dimensions: biological diversity, ecosystem function, and stress components. The MaxEnt and Fragstats models were employed to create an ecosystem integrity map and Marxan was used to identify priority conservation areas within the YRSR. Our results showed that (1) the index of ecosystem integrity gradually declined from east to west, consistent with the spatial distribution of biodiversity and ecosystem function, whereas the stress component exhibits a decreasing trend from northeast to southwest. (2) the priority protected areas were distributed in Maduo, Ruoergai, Maqu, Maqin, Henan, Gande, and Jiuzhi Counties. Furthermore, to address existing protection gaps and enhance connectivity, it was recommended to incorporate an additional 27,644 km2 of southwest and central YRSR into the PCAs. Overall, the study offered practical recommendations for the conservation of the ecosystem in the YRSR. In addition, the method of PCAs determination in this study could provide a reference for the government’s growing nature conservation affairs, which will contribute to sustainable development.

Introduction: With the aggravation of aging and the growing number of stroke patients suffering from hemiplegia in China, rehabilitation robots have become an integral part of rehabilitation training. However, traditional rehabilitation robots cannot modify the training parameters adaptively to match the upper limbs’ rehabilitation status automatically and apply them in rehabilitation training effectively, which will improve the efficacy of rehabilitation training.Methods: In this study, a two-degree-of-freedom flexible drive joint rehabilitation robot platform was built. The forgetting factor recursive least squares method (FFRLS) was utilized to estimate the impedance parameters of human upper limb end. A reward function was established to select the optimal stiffness parameters of the rehabilitation robot.Results: The results confirmed the effectiveness of the adaptive impedance control strategy. The findings of the adaptive impedance control studies showed that the adaptive impedance control had a significantly greater reward than the constant impedance control, which was in line with the simulation results of the variable impedance control. Moreover, it was observed that the levels of robot assistance could be suitably modified based on the subject’s different participation.Discussion: The results facilitated stroke patients’ upper limb rehabilitation by enabling the rehabilitation robot to adaptively change the impedance parameters according to the functional status of the affected limb. In clinic therapy, the proposed control strategy may help to adjust the reward function for different patients to improve the rehabilitation efficacy eventually.

Although abundant transmission polarization conversion metasurfaces (T-PCMs) have been reported, a dual-band T-PCM has only received little attention. Moreover, a reconfigurable-phase design of the T-PCMs is limited to a single-frequency band operation. There is hardly any literature to integrate dual-band and reconfigurable-phase features into a T-PCM. Herein, a dual-band T-PCM is presented based on the Fabry-Pérot-like resonant cavity. Particularly, the T-PCM meta-atom contains dual anisotropic patches distributed in different layers, and the novel dual-patch structure introduces multiple current modes to implement dual-band operation. Further, a reconfigurable-phase design of the dual-band meta-atom is performed, and four PIN diodes are embedded in each meta-atom to realize a 1-bit reconfigurable phase. In this way, the T-PCM meta-atom can simultaneously achieve high-efficiency 90° polarization rotation and 1-bit dynamic phase manipulation in 2.3–3.0 GHz and 4.4–7.5 GHz. By changing the encoding of the T-PCM, both cross-polarized transmission and beam manipulation are demonstrated in two divided bands. A sample is fabricated and measured to validate our design, and the results confirm the simulations. With the advantages of ingenious design and a clear operation mechanism, the novel dual-patch structure can be extended to the terahertz and optics regimes.

Recurrent complete atrioventricular block induced by coronary spasm is rare. We present a case of a 47-year-old woman who suffered from two episodes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest within one year due to complete atrioventricular block caused by coronary vasospasm. No implantable cardioverter defibrillator was implanted after her first episode. As for the second episode, permanent brain injury was left behind despite successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She underwent a challenging rehabilitation process and an implantable cardioverter defibrillator was implanted before discharge. We captured the dynamic changes of the electrocardiogram during the episode with high temporal resolution. This case illustrates the importance of recognizing coronary spasm as a potential cause of complete atrioventricular block and highlights the need for implantable cardioverter defibrillator in such patients to improve survival and quality of life.

Biochar amendment to soils is regarded as the potential practice to mitigate climate change while also increasing yields. However, geographical differences in the effects of biochar on cereal production and greenhouse gas emissions are not well understood at the global scale. Random forest, a classic machine learning algorithm, was employed to reveal the drivers of geographical differences in the effects of biochar on cereals yield and greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for yield increases and greenhouse gas emission reduction was predicted in this study. The results indicate that nitrogen fertilizer rate is the most important factor determining the impact of biochar on cereal yield, while biochar application rate strongly affected greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the maximum increase in cereal crop yields under biochar application was 14.1%. To achieve the largest increment globally, recommended values of biochar application, mineral nitrogen application rate and pyrolysis temperature were predicted to be around 36.3 t ha−1, 193.7 kg N ha−1 and 420 °C, respectively. The maximum reductions of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from paddy fields around the world were 21.6% and 31.0%, and from maize and wheat fields 35.7% and 36.1%, respectively. Although biochar can potentially improve yields while reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide under proper management, the performance of biochar showed great heterogeneity.

3D seismic data recently acquired from the Ordos Basin shows three sets of regularly distributed fault systems, which overrides previous understanding that no faults were developed in this basin. Seismic interpretation suggests that the faults in the southwestern Ordos Basin have three basic characteristics, namely extreme micro-scale, distinct vertical stratification, and regularity of planar distribution. These NS-, NW-, and NE-trending fault systems developed in the Meso-Neoproterozoic – Lower Ordovician strata. Of these, the NS-trending fault system mainly consists of consequent and antithetic faults which show clear syndepositional deformation. The fault systems in the Carboniferous – Middle-Lower Triassic strata are not clear on seismic reflection profiles. The NW- and NE-trending fault systems are developed in the Upper Triassic – Middle Jurassic strata. Of these, the NW-trending fault system appears as a negative flower structure in sectional view and in an en echelon pattern in plan-view; they show transtensional deformation. A NE-trending fault system that developed in the Lower Cretaceous – Cenozoic strata shows a Y-shaped structural style and tension-shear properties. A comprehensive analysis of the regional stress fields at different geologic times is essential to determine the development, distribution direction, and intensity of the activity of fault systems in the Ordos Basin. Current exploration suggests three aspects in which the faults within the Ordos Basin are crucial to oil and gas accumulation. Firstly, these faults serve as vertical barriers that cause the formation of two sets of relatively independent petroleum systems in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata respectively; this is the basis for the ‘upper oil and lower gas’ distribution pattern. Secondly, the vertical communication of these faults is favorable for oil and gas migration, thus contributing to the typical characteristics of multiple oil and gas fields within the basin, i.e. oil and gas reservoirs with multiple superimposed strata. Finally, these faults and their associated fractures improve the permeability of Mesozoic tight reservoirs, providing favorable conditions for oil enrichment in areas around the fault systems.

IntroductionThromboembolic events associated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in clinical treatment are typical. Heparin coating has been widely employed as a surface modification strategy for ECMO tubes. However, its clinical application is often accompanied by unavoidable complications due to its mechanism of action. As a direct thrombin inhibitor with a single target, Bivalirudin (BV) has exhibited a lower incidence of adverse events and superior pharmacokinetic performance compared to heparin.MethodsA gelatin methacrylate hydrogel (GelMA) coating layer with BV was successfully synthesized on polyvinyl chloride, and the drug release ratio was close to complete release within 7 days.Results and discussionSimulated extracorporeal circulation experiments using roller pumps in vitro and jugular arteriovenous bypass experiments in rabbits demonstrated its outstanding anticoagulant efficacy. The systemic anticoagulant assay proved that BV hydrogel coating does not affect the coagulation level, and reduces the risk of complications such as systemic bleeding compared to intravenous injection. BV-Coating GelMA hydrogel tube has exhibited good biocompatibility and significantly improved anticoagulant performance, making it an optimal choice for surface materials used in blood-contacting medical devices.

Background/aimsTo investigate the specific effects of s odium-glucose transporter 2 inhibitor (SGLT2i) on cardiac energy metabolism.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted in eight databases. The retrieved studies were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and relevant information was extracted according to the purpose of the study. Two researchers independently screened the studies, extracted information, and assessed article quality.ResultsThe results of the 34 included studies (including 10 clinical and 24 animal studies) showed that SGLT2i inhibited cardiac glucose uptake and glycolysis, but promoted fatty acid (FA) metabolism in most disease states. SGLT2i upregulated ketone metabolism, improved the structure and functions of myocardial mitochondria, alleviated oxidative stress of cardiomyocytes in all literatures. SGLT2i increased cardiac glucose oxidation in diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiac FA metabolism in heart failure (HF). However, the regulatory effects of SGLT2i on cardiac FA metabolism in DM and cardiac glucose oxidation in HF varied with disease types, stages, and intervention duration of SGLT2i.ConclusionSGLT2i improved the efficiency of cardiac energy production by regulating FA, glucose and ketone metabolism, improving mitochondria structure and functions, and decreasing oxidative stress of cardiomyocytes under pathological conditions. Thus, SGLT2i is deemed to exert a benign regulatory effect on cardiac metabolic disorders in various diseases.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/, PROSPERO (CRD42023484295).

Abstract A zinc (Zn)‐based single‐atom catalyst (SAC) is recently reported as an active Fenton‐like catalyst; however, the low Zn loading greatly restricts its catalytic activity. Herein, a molecule‐confined pyrolysis method is demonstrated to evidently increase the Zn loading to 11.54 wt.% for a Zn SAC (ZnSA‐N‐C) containing a mixture of Zn−N4 and Zn−N3 coordination structures. The latter unsaturated Zn−N3 sites promote electron delocalization to lower the average valence state of Zn in the mix‐coordinated Zn−Nx moiety conducive to interaction of ZnSA‐N‐C with peroxydisulfate (PDS). A speedy Fenton‐like catalysis is thus realized by the high‐loading and low‐valence ZnSA‐N‐C for PDS activation with a specific activity up to 0.11 min L−1 m−2, outstripping most Fenton‐like SACs. Experimental results reveal that the formation of ZnSA‐N‐C−PDS* complex owing to the strong affinity of ZnSA‐N‐C to PDS empowers intense direct electron transfer from the electron‐rich pollutant toward this complex, dominating the rapid bisphenol A (BPA) elimination. The electron transfer pathway benefits the desirable environmental robustness of the ZnSA‐N‐C/PDS system for actual water decontamination. This work represents a new class of efficient and durable Fenton‐like SACs for potential practical environmental applications.

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) emissions and pollution are a growing concern due to their potential impact on ecosystems and human health, particularly in soil. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 2,451 publications spanning from 2006 to 2023. The aim is to assess the research landscape, trends, contributors, and collaborative efforts related to MNPs in soil. Moreover, it examines the extensive research on the effects of MNPs on soil organisms, including earthworms, nematodes, and other fauna as well as the physical–chemical impacts, nanoscale interactions, and ecotoxicological effects on soil microorganisms. Utilizing network analysis, this study explores the global distribution of research across countries, institutions, authors, and keywords, shedding light on the interconnected scientific exploration. The findings reveal a consistent rise in research output over the past decade, reflecting worldwide interest in soil MNPs pollution. It also identifies influential authors and interdisciplinary clusters, highlighting their significant collaborations. Moreover, it pinpoints key institutions and leading journals in this area. Keyword co-occurrence and time-series analysis uncover seven significant research clusters. All provide insights into crucial MNPs aspects and their environmental and health implications. Our findings guide future research and inform strategies to combat MNPs pollution in soils, underscore the need for interdisciplinary approaches to address this complex challenge. In essence, our comprehensive bibliometric analysis serves as a valuable resource, it benefits researchers, policy stakeholders by promoting further research and guiding strategies to mitigate MNPs pollution in soils, in support of ecosystem preservation and human health protection.

Purpose: Onychopapilloma is a rare benign nail tumor affecting the distal matrix and the nail bed. Currently, the only available treatment is surgical resection, which has a recurrence rate of 20% and may lead to various complications. Here we report a new method to treat onychopapilloma with pulsed dye laser (PDL). Materials and methods: We retrospectively analyzed 13 cases and evaluated disease classification, dermoscopic examination, laser treatment parameters, photographs before and after treatment, and treatment outcome. Results: The site distribution of onychopapilloma was consistent with previous reports. PDL treatment was performed with 595 nm laser, with 1.5 ms pulse duration, spot diameter 3–5 mm, and 11.5–13.5 J/cm2 fluence. Irradiation covered the telangiectatic area up to the edge of the nail folds, with the terminal response of purpura occurrence. The overall effective rate was 77%; the effective rates for erythronychia, leukonychia, and melanonychia were 88%, 67%, and 50%, respectively. Conclusions: PDL treatment for onychopapilloma provides an alternative to traditional surgery with comparable effectiveness but much less risk for complications.

Abstract Background Cataract is the primary cause of blindness globally, and surgery offers the only method by which to remove cataracts. We aimed to examine whether previous cataract surgery is associated with cognitive function. Methods Our study included 13,824 participants. Data from the baseline of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were used. The participants were categorized into two groups: with and without previous cataract surgery. Weighted multiple linear regression was used to obtain the β and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results The participants who had previous cataract surgery (n = 261) scored lower in cognition, including both memory and mental state, than those without previous cataract surgery. After adjusting for socioeconomic factors and metabolic measures, a negative association was evident between previous cataract surgery and cognition (β = −0.647, 95% CI: −1.244, − 0.049). Furthermore, the participants who were older and female demonstrated a decline in cognition, while living in cities and having higher levels education were associated with higher cognition. Conclusions Better cognitive function was associated with less previous cataract surgery or cataract occurrence. This suggests that a period of vision loss due to cataract leads to cognitive decline, however further studies are need to dissect the impact of vision loss and cataract surgery on cognitive decline.

Abstract. Background:. Microsatellite instability (MSI) is a key biomarker for cancer immunotherapy and prognosis. Integration of MSI testing into a next-generation-sequencing (NGS) panel could save tissue sample, reduce turn-around time and cost, and provide MSI status and comprehensive genomic profiling in single test. We aimed to develop an MSI calling model to detect MSI status along with the NGS panel-based profiling test using tumor-only samples. Methods:. From January 2019 to December 2020, a total of 174 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients were enrolled, including 31 MSI-high (MSI-H) and 143 microsatellite stability (MSS) cases. Among them, 56 paired tumor and normal samples (10 MSI-H and 46 MSS) were used for modeling, and another 118 tumor-only samples were used for validation. MSI polymerase chain reaction (MSI-PCR) was performed as the gold standard. A baseline was built for the selected microsatellite loci using the NGS data of 56 normal blood samples. An MSI detection model was constructed by analyzing the NGS data of tissue samples. The performance of the model was compared with the results of MSI-PCR. Results:. We first intersected the target genomic regions of the NGS panels used in this study to select common microsatellite loci. A total of 42 loci including 23 mononucleotide repeat sites and 19 longer repeat sites were candidates for modeling. As mononucleotide repeat sites are more sensitive and specific for detecting MSI status than sites with longer length motif and the mononucleotide repeat sites performed even better than the total sites, a model containing 23 mononucleotide repeat sites was constructed and named Colorectal Cancer Microsatellite Instability test (CRC-MSI). The model achieved 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity when compared with MSI-PCR in both training and validation sets. Furthermore, the CRC-MSI model was robust with the tumor content as low as 6%. In addition, 8 out of 10 MSI-H samples showed alternations in the four mismatch repair genes (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2). Conclusion:. MSI status can be accurately determined along the targeted NGS panels using only tumor samples. The performance of mononucleotide repeat sites surpasses loci with longer repeat motif in MSI calling.

Abstract High-performance refractory alloys with ultrahigh strength and ductility are in demand for a wide range of critical applications, such as plasma-facing components. However, it remains challenging to increase the strength of these alloys without seriously compromising their tensile ductility. Here, we put forward a strategy to “defeat” this trade-off in tungsten refractory high-entropy alloys by stepwise controllable coherent nanoprecipitations (SCCPs). The coherent interfaces of SCCPs facilitate the dislocation transmission and relieve the stress concentrations that can lead to premature crack initiation. As a consequence, our alloy displays an ultrahigh strength of 2.15 GPa with a tensile ductility of 15% at ambient temperature, with a high yield strength of 1.05 GPa at 800 °C. The SCCPs design concept may afford a means to develop a wide range of ultrahigh-strength metallic materials by providing a pathway for alloy design.

For the calculation of transient fluid–solid coupling temperature field of transformer, the traditional Galerkin finite element full order model has the defect that the calculation time is up to hours-level, which is difficult to meet the timeliness requirements of the digital twin model. Firstly, the implementation architecture of transformer digital twin based on IoT is established, and the necessity of multiphysical field simulation and model reduction technology for building the digital twin model is introduced. Then, based on the method of transformer digital twin implementation,it is proposed to combine the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) with the finite element (FE) to establish the Galerkin FE full order model for the governing equation of the transient temperature field, the reduced order mode composed of the first several bases is intercepted to build the reduced order model of transient fluid–solid coupling temperature field. Finally, the POD reduced order model is applied to calculate the temperature rise of a transformer. According to the actual transformer temperature rise test, the temperature values of different measuring points are selected to compare the calculation error and time of the reduced order model and the full order model. The results show that the error between the third order model and full order model meets the criterion of POD truncation error, and the calculation time is shortened by 192 times, which can meet the seconds-level calculation requirements.

Abstract Introduction The relationship between relative hyperglycemia and ventricular arrhythmia (VA) in critically ill patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) remains unclear. This study aims to investigate the association between stress hyperglycemia ratio (SHR) and VA in this population. Methods This retrospective and observational study analyzed data from 4324 critically ill patients admitted to the ICU, obtained from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database. The SHR was calculated as the highest blood glucose level during the first 24 h of ICU admission divided by the admission blood glucose level. Based on the optimal cut-off values under the receiver operating characteristic curve, patients were stratified into high SHR (≥ 1.31) and low SHR (

Abstract Background Previous studies discovered the presence of abnormal structures and functions in the brain regions of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Nevertheless, whether structural changes in brain regions are coupled with alterations in dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) at rest in medicine-free patients with OCD remains vague. Methods Three-dimensional T1-weighed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and resting-state functional MRI were performed on 50 medicine-free OCD and 50 healthy controls (HCs). Firstly, the differences in gray matter volume (GMV) between OCD and HCs were compared. Then, brain regions with aberrant GMV were used as seeds for dFC analysis. The relationship of altered GMV and dFC with clinical parameters in OCD was explored using partial correlation analysis. Finally, support vector machine was applied to examine whether altered multimodal imaging data might be adopted to distinguish OCD from HCs. Results Our findings indicated that GMV in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and right supplementary motor area (SMA) was reduced in OCD, and the dFC between the left STG and the left cerebellum Crus I and left thalamus, and between the right SMA and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left precuneus was decreased at rest in OCD. The brain regions both with altered GMV and dFC values could discriminate OCD from HCs with the accuracy of 0.85, sensitivity of 0.90 and specificity of 0.80. Conclusion The decreased gray matter structure coupling with dynamic function in the left STG and right SMA at rest may be crucial in the pathophysiology of OCD. Trial registration Study on the mechanism of brain network in obsessive-compulsive disorder with multi-model magnetic resonance imaging (registration date: 08/11/2017; registration number: ChiCTR-COC-17,013,301).

Abstract In remote and inaccessible areas, the traffic request for Internet‐of‐Things (IoT) terminals is growing. This paper proposes a cognitive satellite‐aerial network (CSAN) to provide sufficient access services. The proposed CSAN consists of the primary beam‐hopping (BH) satellite and secondary aerial‐based station (ABS) systems. Since the two systems share spectrums, co‐channel interference (CCI) between the two systems is complicated, and the quality of service (QoS) is seriously degraded. To improve the QoS, the dynamic BH (DBH) pattern, ABS access in the time domain, and ABS power control in the power domain are studied. First, based on the sparsity of the DBH pattern, the greedy quick tracking (GAT) algorithm is proposed to design the DBH pattern quickly. Then, subject to the DBH pattern, a greedy access monitor (GAM) algorithm is determined for timely ABS access and power control. Since each ABS only serves terminals within a suitable distance, the placement and terminal cluster of multi‐ABSs in the space domain are required to ensure full terminal coverage. Thus, the mutual selection K algorithm is proposed to save required ABS numbers and improve service fairness among terminal clusters. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of time‐space‐power allocation for enhanced IoT‐terminal services in the proposed CSAN.

Commonly used reporters rely on a single property, such as the fluorescence of GFP and visible color of anthocyanins, therefore these reporters hardly handle the complicated condition in practice. Betaxanthins are a group of plant natural products derived from the amino acid tyrosine. Its visible yellow-orange color and green fluorescence under blue light make it a promising new reporter. Only two enzymatic reactions are required to convert tyrosine into betaxanthins. Here, we synthesized an open reading frame named Bx that contained all the betaxanthins biosynthetic genes and demonstrated its use as a powerful and efficient reporter in tobacco, carrot, and tomato.

Tumor vaccines trigger tumor-specific immune responses to prevent or treat tumors by activating the hosts’ immune systems, and therefore, these vaccines have potential clinical applications. However, the low immunogenicity of the tumor antigen itself and the low efficiency of the vaccine delivery system hinder the efficacy of tumor vaccines that cannot produce high-efficiency and long-lasting antitumor immune effects. Here, we constructed a nanovaccine by integrating CD47KO/CRT dual-bioengineered B16F10 cancer cell membranes and the unmethylated cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) adjuvant. Hyperbranched PEI25k was used to load unmethylated cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) through electrostatic adsorption to prepare PEI25k/CpG nanoparticles (PEI25k/CpG-NPs). CD47KO/CRT dual-bioengineered cells were obtained by CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, followed by the cell surface translocation of calreticulin (CRT) to induce immunogenic cell death (ICD) in vitro. Finally, the extracted cell membranes were coextruded with PEI25k/CpG-NPs to construct the CD47KO/CRT dual-bioengineered cancer cell membrane-coated nanoparticles (DBE@CCNPs). DBE@CCNPs could promote endocytosis of antigens and adjuvants in murine bone marrow derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) and induce their maturation and antigen cross-presentation. To avoid immune checkpoint molecule-induced T cell dysfunction, the immune checkpoint inhibitor, the anti-PD-L1 antibody, was introduced to boost tumor immunotherapy through a combination with the DBE@CCNPs nanovaccine. This combination therapy strategy can significantly alleviate tumor growth and may open up a potential strategy for clinical tumor immunotherapy.

Abstract Background Poor prognosis is linked to peripheral blood levels of preoperative platelet‐lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in many advanced cancers. Nevertheless, whether the correlation exists in resected early‐stage cases with non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) stays controversial. Consequently, we performed a meta‐analysis to explore the preoperative NLR and PLR's prognostic significance in early‐stage patients with NSCLC undergoing curative surgery. Methods Relevant studies that validated the link between preoperative NLR or PLR and survival results were found via the proceeding databases: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science. The merged 95% confidence interval (CI) and hazard ratio (HR) was employed to validate the link between the NLR or PLR's index and overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) in resected NSCLC cases. We used sensitivity and subgroup analyses to assess the studies' heterogeneity. Results An overall of 21 studies were attributed to the meta‐analysis. The findings indicated that great preoperative NLR was considerably correlated with poor DFS (HR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.37–1.82, p

Abstract The future muon collider can play as an ideal machine to search for new physics at high energies. In this work, we study the search potential of the heavy Higgs triplet in the Type II Seesaw mechanism at muon colliders with high collision energy and high luminosity. The latest neutrino oscillation data are taken into account for realizing the leptonic decay modes of the charged Higgs bosons (H ±± , H ± ) in the Type II Seesaw. We show the impact of neutrino mass and mixing parameters on the purely leptonic decays. The pair production of doubly charged Higgs H ++ H −− is through direct μ + μ − annihilation and vector boson fusion (VBF) processes at muon collider. The associated production H ±± H ∓ can only be induced by VBF processes. We simulate both the purely leptonic and bosonic signal channels of charged Higgs bosons in Type II Seesaw, together with the Standard Model backgrounds. We show the required luminosity for the discovery of the charged Higgses and the reachable limits on the leptonic decay branching fractions.