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Network architectures and learning principles have been critical in developing complex cognitive capabilities in artificial neural networks (ANNs). Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are a subset of ANNs that incorporate additional biological features such as dynamic spiking neurons, biologically specified architectures, and efficient and useful paradigms. Here we focus more on network architectures in SNNs, such as the meta operator called 3-node network motifs, which is borrowed from the biological network. We proposed a Motif-topology improved SNN (M-SNN), which is further verified efficient in explaining key cognitive phenomenon such as the cocktail party effect (a typical noise-robust speech-recognition task) and McGurk effect (a typical multi-sensory integration task). For M-SNN, the Motif topology is obtained by integrating the spatial and temporal motifs. These spatial and temporal motifs are first generated from the pre-training of spatial (e.g., MNIST) and temporal (e.g., TIDigits) datasets, respectively, and then applied to the previously introduced two cognitive effect tasks. The experimental results showed a lower computational cost and higher accuracy and a better explanation of some key phenomena of these two effects, such as new concept generation and anti-background noise. This mesoscale network motifs topology has much room for the future.

With wind power integrated into the power system on a large scale, the system has become vulnerable to the frequency stability issue. The battery energy storage system (BESS) is considered the key solution to improving the system frequency regulation performance due to its fast response ability. Furthermore, the construction of wind-storage combined frequency regulation systems has been developed for many years, in which the optimal capacity configuration of the wind-storage system is getting more attention. However, the secondary frequency drop (SFD) caused by wind turbines (WTs) participating in primary frequency regulation (PFR) is neglected in most existing capacity configurations, which is worthy of further study. In this paper, the optimal capacity of the wind-storage combined frequency regulation system is studied from the perspective of SFD. The time-domain expressions of two-stage system frequency response considering SFD are derived based on the wind-storage combined frequency regulation model. Next, considering the technical and economic characteristics of wind-storage combined frequency regulation, an optimization model of the energy storage capacity configuration is established with the objective of minimizing the sum of the maximum frequency deviations in two stages and the energy storage cost. The optimization model is solved by the multi-objective salp swarm algorithm (MSSA) to obtain the setting value of wind-storage combined frequency regulation parameters and the optimal energy storage capacity. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in MATLAB. The simulation results show that the proposed model can effectively improve the frequency regulation effect of the system and ensure the optimal capacity configuration with better economy.

Thousands of microbial species inhabiting the animal gut, collectively known as the gut microbiota, play many specific roles related to host nutrient metabolism and absorption, immune regulation, and protection from pathogenic bacteria. Gut microbiota composition is affected by several internal and external factors, such as the host genotype, dietary intake, breeding environment, and antibiotic exposure. As deer species are important members for maintaining ecosystem balance, understanding the effects of multiple factors on the gut microbiota of deer species, particularly endangered ones, is crucial. In this review, we summarize and discuss the factors that significantly affect the gut microbiota of deer and present the impacts of these factors on microbial composition. In particular, we focused on the changes in gut microbiota due to dietary differences under different conditions, including seasonal changes, different geographical locations, and captivity, as well as weaning and pathogen disturbance. Understanding the correlations between gut microbiota composition and its driving factors is important for evaluating and improving the captive breeding environment for better conservation of endangered deer species, and reintroducing wild deer populations in the future.

Summary: Few studies have characterized long-term exposure to lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), different glucose metabolism status, and their joint role in adverse cardiovascular outcomes risk. We consecutively enrolled 10,724 coronary heart disease (CAD) patients from January to December 2013 in Fuwai Hospital. Associations of cumulative lipoprotein(a) (CumLp(a)) exposure and different glucose metabolism status with major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) risk were evaluated using Cox regression models. Compared with participants with normal glucose regulation and lower CumLp(a), those with type 2 diabetes and higher CumLp(a) were at the highest risk (HR 1.56, 95% CI 1.25-1.94), and those with prediabetes and higher CumLp(a) and those with type 2 diabetes and lower CumLp(a) were at relatively higher risk (HR 1.41, 95% CI 1.14-1.76; HR 1.37, 95% CI 1.11-1.69; respectively). Similar findings concerning the joint association were observed in sensitivity analyses. Cumulative lipoprotein(a) exposure and different glucose metabolism status were associated with 5-year MACCEs risk and may be useful concurrently for guiding secondary prevention therapy decisions.

Many methods have been proposed to extract line segment (LS) correspondences for images with viewpoint variations. However, the matching performance on images with viewpoint variations is still limited due to the influence of discontinuous parallax and poor textures on images. Existing line segment matching (LSM) methods rarely consider the coexistence of these two situations. This study attempts to address this problem by proposing an adaptive feature region (FR)-based LSM method based on the observation that different FRs are suitable for different image scenes under image viewpoint change. In the proposed method, LSs are paired, and two types of FRs, symmetric FR centered on the line-pair intersection and asymmetric FR with the intersection as a vertex, are constructed for every line pair. The asymmetric FR of a line pair is a subregion of its symmetric FR. And the complement region of asymmetric FR in symmetric FR is called complement FR. To choose a suitable FR for the matching of each line pair adaptively, the asymmetric FR-based feature descriptor similarity and epipolar line-based constraints are combined to determine candidate line pair matches firstly. Then, the candidate matches with similar complement FR-based feature descriptors are considered initial matches and used to construct a topological constraint to check other candidates. Finally, we estimate an adaptive influence region-based local homography for each matched line pair to constrain the matching of unmatched individual LSs. The experimental results on the test images with viewpoint changes show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of Recall, matching precision (MP), and F-Measure (reflecting the overall matching performance of Recall and MP). Especially, it improves the average Recall and average F-Measure of the best method among the comparison methods by 45.20% and 25.83%, respectively.

Multiple morphological abnormalities of the sperm flagella (MMAF) are the most severe form of asthenozoospermia due to impaired axoneme structure in sperm flagella. Dynein arms are necessary components of the sperm flagellar axoneme. In this study, we recruited 3 unrelated consanguineous Pakistani families with multiple MMAF-affected individuals, who had no overt ciliary symptoms. Whole-exome sequencing and Sanger sequencing identified 2 cilia and flagella associated protein 57 (CFAP57) loss-of-function mutations (c.2872C>T, p. R958*; and c.2737C>T, p. R913*) recessively segregating with male infertility. A mouse model mimicking the mutation (c.2872C>T) was generated and recapitulated the typical MMAF phenotype of CFAP57-mutated individuals. Both CFAP57 mutations caused loss of the long transcript-encoded CFAP57 protein in spermatozoa from MMAF-affected individuals or from the Cfap57-mutant mouse model while the short transcript was not affected. Subsequent examinations of the spermatozoa from Cfap57-mutant mice revealed that CFAP57 deficiency disrupted the inner dynein arm (IDA) assembly in sperm flagella and that single-headed IDAs were more likely to be affected. Thus, our study identified 2 pathogenic mutations in CFAP57 in MMAF-affected individuals and reported a conserved and pivotal role for the long transcript-encoded CFAP57 in IDAs’ assembly and male fertility.

BackgroundPrevious studies have shown that dexmedetomidine (DEX) may be associated with reduced vasopressor requirements in septic shock patients, however, long-term DEX-only sedation in reducing vasopressor requirements is still controversial.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted among patients with septic shock on mechanical ventilation using the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database. The primary outcome was the ratio of norepinephrine equivalent dose to mean arterial pressure (NEq/MAP) in the first 72 h after DEX or other sedatives for sedation. The secondary outcomes were key organ function parameters, 28-day mortality, and 90-day mortality. Univariate, propensity score matching (PSM), and generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) analyses were performed.ResultsDEX was associated with decreased NEq/MAP in the first 72 h (difference = 0.05, 95% CI = –0.02–0.08, p = 0.002) after adjusting for confounders in the GLMM analysis. The DEX group was also associated with a lower heart rate, cardiac output (CO), lactate level, aspartate transaminase (AST) level, and higher PaO2/FiO2 ratio (p

BackgroundThere is limited evidence about vessel wall healing response following implantation of next-generation drug-eluting stents (DES) in patients admitted with a non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS). Cumulative data indicate that optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging can optimize percutaneous coronary intervention results and expedite stent endothelialization in the general population but there is lack of data in NSTE-ACS patients.MethodsThe EXPECT study is an investigator-initiated, prospective, randomized trial to assess early vascular healing response following next-generation DES implantation in patients admitted with NSTE-ACS based on OCT guidance and evaluation. Sixty patients are randomized at 1:1:1 ratio to OCT-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with 3-month follow-up OCT imaging (O3 group, n = 20), to angiography-guided PCI with 3-month follow-up OCT imaging (A3 group, n = 20) and to angiography-guided PCI with 6-month follow-up OCT imaging (A6 group, n = 20). The primary endpoint of the study is stent strut coverage rate at 3- or 6- month follow-up in the studied groups. The secondary endpoints of the study include OCT imaging endpoints, clinical endpoints, and molecular biology endpoints at the different time points. The clinical endpoints comprised of major cardiovascular adverse events and individual components. The molecular biology endpoints comprised of lipid levels and the levels of inflammatory indicators.DiscussionThe findings of the EXPECT study are anticipated to provide novel insights into vessel wall healing in NSTE-ACS population following implantation of next-generation DES, underscore the value of OCT imaging in expediting strut coverage in this setting, and explore the potential of an early discontinuation of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) in this population.Clinical Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04375319.

The Darboux transformation (DT) and generalized DT (GDT) have played important roles in constructing multisoliton solutions, rogue wave solutions, and semirational solutions of integrable systems. The main purpose of this article is to extend the DT and GDT to a conformable fractional two-component generalized Hirota (TCGH) equation for revealing novel dynamic characteristics of fractional soliton and semirational solutions. As for the main contributions, specifically, we propose a fractional form of the TCGH equation, provide the associated fractional Lax pair, and obtain fractional soliton and semirational solutions of the fractional TCGH equation by constructing its fractional DT and GDT. In addition, we find that the dominant role of fractional order leads to new dynamic characteristics of the obtained fractional soliton and semirational solutions, mainly including a certain degree of tilt of wave crests and the variations in velocities and wave widths over time during propagation, which are not possessed by the corresponding integer-order TCGH equation. Meanwhile, this study predicts the deceleration propagation of solitons in fractional dimensional media and brings the possibility of exploring the asymmetric regulation mechanism of rogue waves from the perspective of fractional-order dominance.

Absrtact: Hawthorn, the sliced and dried ripe fruits of Crataegus pinnatifida Bge. Var. Major N. E. Br. (Rosaceae), is an edible and medicinal substance with a variety of health-promoting benefits. Hawthorn needs to be stored in warehouses after harvesting to meet people's perennial demand. However, it is easily infested by insects of Plodia interpunctella and Tribolium castaneum during storage, which inevitably leads to poor quality and causes adverse effects on people's health. So far, there has been no report on insect-infested hawthorn. In this study, we analyzed the changes of metabolites in hawthorn before and after insect infestation and screened out potential biomarkers to effectively and quickly detect the occurrence of insect infestation. A combination analysis of 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) was used to identify the primary and secondary metabolites. By the comparison of hawthorn and insect-infested hawthorn samples, it was found that the differences were mainly manifested in the content of metabolites. The metabolites of 32 and 1463 were identified by 1H NMR and UPLC-MS analysis, respectively. According to the parameters of VIP >1 and P 1.0, P 1 or

This paper aims to address the issue of disturbance caused by excavation tunnel construction on nearby dense pipelines. Relying on the actual project of Nanchang Metro, the three-dimensional finite element numerical simulation method is used to establish a multi-condition numerical model. At the same time, key influencing factors such as the clear distance, intersection angle, surrounding rock parameter, and construction method are considered. The mechanical response of the dense pipeline adjacent to the dug tunnel was systematically studied, and the influence of key factors on the mechanical behavior of the pipeline was analyzed. The results show that when using the CRD method for construction and grouting reinforcement of the surrounding strata of the tunnel, the maximum settlement of the vault is located at the vault of the right guide tunnel, and the maximum settlement value is located at the bottom of the rainwater pipe directly above the tunnel. The vertical displacement, maximum principal stress, and minimum principal stress of the pipeline are arranged in descending order for the full-face, stepped method, and CRD method. The greater the disturbance to the soil caused by the construction method, the more unfavorable the effect on the pipeline.

Environmental pollution has stimulated cleaner and sustainable energy (CSE) resource consumption which fuels low-carbon electric-power growth. This consumption is particularly affected by two factors. One of them is the power grid’s capital size in the electricity supply chain (ESC) and the other is the carbon emission reduction level elasticity of electricity consumption. Further, the financial strategy directly exerts quantifiable influence on one of the factors of capital size, while the procurement strategy plays a role in another factor. However, the impact of strategic behavior on all participants in the ESC remains unexplored. Thus, we construct a game model for the ESC consisting of two heterogeneous power plants and a strategic power grid with financial constraints, in order to analyze the purchasing and financing strategies for low-carbon electric-power consumption and examine the profit scenario from the credit and option hedging. We find that for the power grid, high self-owned funds level or affluent credit line encourages procurement. And when considering the power grid funds are uniformly distributed on or are constant, this funds property variation surely imposes influence on the wind electricity purchases. We find price elasticity of demand shows monotonic on the purchase when the power grid funds are constant but not necessarily when funds are uniformly distributed. The two power plants pursue the most favorable scenario for profit-maximizing by means of credit interest rate. Whether the power plants increase the financial credit interest is contingent upon option portfolios, the grid’s fund property, and wind yield conditions. We also find whether the relations between the two power plants are competitive or complementary depending on the wind yield rate. Numerical study shows that when the power grid funds are uniformly distributed, executing the double option seems to be the most profitable choice for the power grid and the traditional energy power plant, whereas with the uniform distribution of the grid’s funds, executing the call option but abandoning put is the most profitable to the traditional energy power plant. Moreover, under the grid’s fund of uniform distribution, it can both motivate power user consumption for clean energy generation and expand the power grid’s capital size.

Since the implementation of pollution prevention and control action in China in 2013, particulate pollution has been greatly reduced, while ozone pollution has become gradually severe, especially in the economically developed eastern region. Recently, a new situation of air pollution has emerged, namely, enhanced atmospheric oxidation, ascending regional ozone pollution, and increasing particle and ozone synergic pollution (i.e., double-high pollution). Based on the long-term observation data from 2015 to 2021, we examined the spatio-temporal characteristics of urban PM2.5 and O3 pollution in the Yangtze River Delta and quantified the effects of meteorological and non-meteorological factors on pollution in four city clusters using stepwise multiple linear regression models. Temporally, PM2.5 decreased gradually year by year while, O3 increased in city clusters. Spatially, PM2.5 declined from northwest to southeast, while O3 decreased from northeast to southwest. Except for southern Zhejiang, other city clusters suffer from complex air pollution at different levels. In general, pollution intensity and frequency vary with city location and time. Single PM2.5 pollution mostly occurred in northern Anhui. Single O3 pollution occurred in central and southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. Synergic pollutions of PM2.5 and O3 mainly occurred in central Jiangsu. The contributions (90%) of non-meteorological factors (e.g., anthropogenic emission) to PM2.5 decrease and O3 increase are far larger than that of meteorological factors (5%). Relative humidity, sea level pressure, and planetary boundary layer height are the most important meteorological factors to drive PM2.5 changes during pollution. Downward solar radiation, total cloud cover, and precipitation are the most important meteorological factors that affect O3 changes during pollution. The results provide insights into particulate and ozone pollution in the Yangtze River Delta and can help policymakers to formulate accurate air pollution prevention and control strategies at urban and city cluster scales in the future.

Fluvial terraces in the source of the Yellow River suggest that Ruoergai Basin was connected with the lower reach after ∼10 ka, much younger than the uplift chronology of the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, the geomorphology and sedimentation of the Cairima–Ningmute River at the exit of the Ruoergai Basin were investigated. Combined with the optically stimulated luminescence dating of the sediments, the reconstructed fluvial geomorphology processes are as follows: During ∼50–20 ka, coarse debris such as moraines and glacial mudflows from the Anyemaqen Shan and Xiqing Shan were unloaded to the Maqu valley in the bottleneck reach of the Ruoergai Basin outflow, causing river blockage and lake formation in the upper Ruoergai Basin; during ∼20–12 ka, the headward erosion of the river accelerated from the downstream to the upstream and the barrier dam eroded, forming terraces; since ∼12 ka, the Yellow River has cut through the Ruoergai Basin and has developed two levels of terraces based on lacustrine sediments. Our results suggest that glacial debris flow from the Anyemaqen Shan extensively accumulated at the basin-canyon bottleneck during the last glacial period, and when the amount of sediment accumulation exceeded the amount of river erosion, damming events occurred. The glacial-interglacial cycles during the Quaternary might generate repeated damming and cut-through of the Ruoergai Basin. The Ruoergai Basin should be connected with the lower reach before ∼50 ka.

As extreme surface processes, long-term river damming and outburst events can impact sediment supply and transportation in valleys and therefore significantly change the landscape. Lacustrine sediments were identified in the wide Xigaze Valley, in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, an area which has been considered to have been a paleodammed lake. However, the evolutionary process and damming mechanisms associated with this paleolake, and any subsequent impact on sedimentation within the valley, remain unclear. Here, we present a detailed geomorphological and sedimentary analysis of the proposed paleolake area, based on a study of a prominent valley fill found along a section of the Yarlung Tsangpo River and its tributary that flows into it from the south, the Menchu River. This section stretches from Xigaze to Dazhuka. Sedimentary facies analysis of two stratigraphic sections in Renbu Town showed that at least two paleolakes caused by debris flow related to glaciers developed in the Xigaze Valley and that the paleodam was located near the outlet of the Dazhuka Gorge. Chronological constraints suggest that the first damming event occurred between ∼48.6 and 33.7 ka in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 and had a minimum lake surface elevation of ∼3,820 m. The second damming occurred between ∼24.3 and 12.7 ka during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), producing a lake surface elevation of at least ∼3,760 m. During the development of the paleolakes in the Xigaze Valley, several small-scale damming and outburst events happened in the upper and middle reaches of the Menchu River, resulting in fluviolacustrine and outburst flood sediments accumulating in the main stream of the Yarlung Tsangpo River and forming thick-fill terraces. We presumed that the paleolakes in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River gradually drained as a result of continuous overflow undercutting instead of outburst flood events, thereby allowing fluvial aggradation of the upper reaches of the paleodam.

The incidence of pancreatic duct stones (PDS) is less than 1%. After the formation of stones, the lumen of the pancreatic duct is blocked, and the pancreatic juice cannot be discharged smoothly, resulting in the impairment of the internal and external secretions of the pancreas. Several national guidelines now recommend endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) as the treatment for PDS. The emergence of SpyGlass makes it possible to visualize the ERCP blind area of the pancreatic system directly. Electrohydraulic lithotripsy (EHL) under SpyGlass can crush large and pressure-resistant stones into smaller fragments, significantly improving the success of the endoscopic treatment of large stones. Here, we report a patient presented with acute alcohol-associated pancreatitis, found to have PDS on imaging, who underwent ERCP combined with SpyGlass (EHL), avoiding surgery, reducing trauma, and being discharged from the hospital with a rapid recovery. Therefore, endoscopic therapy is effective and safe for PDS patients. The combination therapy of this patient is the first use of SpyGlass for PDS in our centre, which marks a new stage in the application of endoscopic therapy for pancreatic diseases.

ObjectiveTo investigate the changes of brain network in epilepsy patients without intracranial lesions under resting conditions.MethodsTwenty-six non-lesional epileptic patients and 42 normal controls were enrolled for BOLD-fMRI examination. The differences in brain network topological characteristics and functional network connectivity between the epilepsy group and the healthy controls were compared using graph theory analysis and independent component analysis.ResultsThe area under the curve for local efficiency was significantly lower in the epilepsy patients compared with healthy controls, while there were no differences in global indicators. Patients with epilepsy had higher functional connectivity in 4 connected components than healthy controls (orbital superior frontal gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus, medial superior frontal gyrus and angular gyrus, superior parietal gyrus and paracentral lobule, lingual gyrus, and thalamus). In addition, functional connectivity was enhanced in the default mode network, frontoparietal network, dorsal attention network, sensorimotor network, and auditory network in the epilepsy group.ConclusionThe topological characteristics and functional connectivity of brain networks are changed in in non-lesional epilepsy patients. Abnormal functional connectivity may suggest reduced brain efficiency in epilepsy patients and also may be a compensatory response to brain function early at earlier stages of the disease.

Surface roughness has an important effect on the wettability and surface energy of coal. Although the predecessors had studied the effect of surface roughness on the wettability of coal, there were few researches on the effect of surface energy of coal, and the relationship between wettability and surface energy had not been thoroughly studied. This paper aimed to study the effect of surface roughness on the wettability and surface energy of coal, and revealed the relationship between the wettability and surface energy of coal. Based on the surface roughness of coal, this paper selected Hami lignite, Anyang coking coal and Zhaogu anthracite as the research objects, used the experimental methods to measure the surface roughness and experimental contact angle of coal under different conditions to study the effect of surface roughness on the wettability, and then applied the OWRK method to calculate the surface energy of coal to study the effect of surface roughness on the surface energy. The experimental results showed that the wettability of hydrophilic coal became better and the surface energy increased with the increase of surface roughness, while the results of hydrophobic coal were opposite. There was a positive correlation between the wettability and surface energy of coal, and the wettability of coal could be analyzed from the perspective of surface energy. Surfactant could change the wettability of coal, but unchanged the law of wettability with surface roughness.

Ozone variation, excluding meteorological effects, is very important to assess the effects of air pollution control policies. In this study, the Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter method and multiple linear stepwise regression are combined to study the impact of meteorological parameters on ozone concentration over the past 5 years (2016–2020) in a petrochemical industrial city in northern China. Monte Carlo simulations were used to evaluate the reliability for the potential quasi quantitative prediction of the baseline component. The average level of the city and the details of five stations in the city were studied. The results show that the short-term, seasonal, and long-term component variances of maximum daily running average 8 h (MDA8) ozone in Zibo city (City) decomposed by the KZ filter account for 32.06%, 61.67% and 1.15% of the total variance, for a specific station, the values were 32.37%–34.90%, 56.64%–62.00%, and .35%–3.14%, respectively. The average long-term component increase rate is 3.19 μg m−3 yr−1 on average for the city, while it is 1.52–5.95 μg m−3 yr−1 for a specific station. The overall meteorological impact was not stable and fluctuated between −2.60 μg m−3 and +3.77 μg m−3. This difference in trends between the city and specific stations implied that the O3 precursor’s mitigation strategy should be more precise to improve its practical effects.

Abstract The heavy metal cadmium is proposed to be one of the environmental endocrine disruptors of spermatogenesis. Cadmium-induced inhibition of spermatogenesis is associated with a hormone secretion disorder. Letrozole is an aromatase inhibitor that increases peripheral androgen levels and stimulates spermatogenesis. However, the potential protective effects of letrozole on cadmium-induced reproductive toxicity remain to be elucidated. In this study, male mice were administered CdCl2 (4 mg/kg BW) orally by gavage alone or in combination with letrozole (0.25 mg/kg BW) for 30 days. Cd exposure caused a significant decreases in body weight, sperm count, motility, vitality, and plasma testosterone levels. Histopathological changes revealed extensive vacuolization and decreased spermatozoa in the lumen. However, in the Cd + letrozole group, letrozole treatment compensated for deficits in sperm parameters (count, motility, and vitality) induced by Cd. Letrozole treatment significantly increased serum testosterone levels, which were reduced by Cd. Histopathological studies revealed a systematic array of all germ cells, a preserved basement membrane and relatively less vacuolization. For a mechanistic examination, RNA-seq was used to profile alterations in gene expression in response to letrozole. Compared with that in the Cd-treated group, RNA-Seq analysis showed that 214 genes were differentially expressed in the presence of letrozole. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and KEGG signaling pathway analysis showed that steroid biosynthetic processes were the processes most affected by letrozole treatment. Furthermore, we found that the expression of the testosterone synthesis-related genes LHCGR (luteinizing hormone/choriogonadotropin receptor) and Hsd3b6 (3 beta- and steroid delta-isomerase 6) was significantly downregulated in Cd‐treated testes, but these genes maintained similar expression levels in letrozole-treated testes as those in the control group. However, the transcription levels of inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1β and IL-6, and oxidative stress-related genes (Nrf2, Nqo1, and Ho-1) showed no changes. The present study suggests that the potential protective effect of letrozole on Cd-induced reproductive toxicity might be mediated by the upregulation of LHCGR and Hsd3b6, which would beneficially increase testosterone synthesis to achieve optimum protection of sperm quality and spermatogenesis.

Abstract Background Renal fibrosis is a common outcome of various renal damage, including diabetic nephropathy (DN), the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. Currently, there are no effective therapies for renal fibrosis. The present study aimed to determine whether pentosan polysulphate sodium (PPS), a FDA approved medication for interstitial cystitis, protects diabetic renal fibrosis. Methods Cell viability and apoptosis were evaluated in mouse mesangial cells (SV40-MES13) after incubating with the advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which play important roles in the pathogenesis of DN. Western blot and ELISA were performed to determine the expression of transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-β1) and fibronectin (FN), two biomarkers of renal fibrosis, as well as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), two biomarkers of inflammation. The miRNA-mRNA regulatory network involved in the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Ser and Thr Kinase (AKT) signalling was investigated by miRNA deep sequencing and validated by RT-PCR and miRNA transfection. Results AGEs significantly inhibited cell proliferation and promoted cell apoptosis, which was associated with the overexpression of TGF-β1, FN, IL-6, and TNFα. PPS almost completely reversed AGEs-induced biomarkers of fibrosis and inflammation, and significantly altered the miRNA expression profile in AGEs-treated cells. Notably, the PI3K/AKT signalling was one of the most significantly enriched pathways targeted by PPS-related differentially expressed miRNAs. PPS significantly up-regulated miR-466a-3p, which was shown to target PIK3CA, and mediated the inhibitory effect of PPS on AGEs-induced activation of PI3K/AKT pathway. Conclusions The treatment of PPS protected against AGEs-induced toxicity in SV40 MES13 cells via miR-466a-3p-mediated inhibition of PI3K/AKT pathway.

Abstract Two-dimensional materials with ferroelectric properties break the size effect of conventional ferroelectric materials and unlock unprecedented potentials of ferroelectric-related application at small length scales. Using first-principles calculations, a sliding-induced ferroelectric-to-antiferroelectric behavior in bilayer group-IV monochalcogenides (MX, with M = Ge, Sn and X = S, Se) is discovered. Upon this mechanism, the top layer exhibits a reversible intralayer ferroelectric switching, leading to a reversible transition between the ferroelectric and antiferroelectric states in the bilayer MXs. Further results show that the interlayer van der Waals interaction, which is usually considered to be weak, can actually generate an in-plane lattice distortion and thus cause the breaking/forming of intralayer covalent bonds in the top layer, leading to the observed anomalous phenomenon. This unique property has advantages for energy harvesting over existing piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators. The interlayer sliding-induced big polarization change (40 μC cm−2) and ultrahigh polarization changing rate generate an open-circuit voltage two orders of magnitude higher than that of MoS2-based nanogenerators. The theoretical prediction of power output for this bilayer MXs at a moderate sliding speed 1 m s−1 is four orders of magnitude higher than the MoS2 nanogenerator, indicating great potentials in energy harvesting applications.

Abstract Background Inflammation plays a crucial role in coronary atherosclerosis progression, and growing evidence has demonstrated that the fibrinogen-to-albumin ratio (FAR), as a novel inflammation biomarker, is associated with the severity of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the long-term risk of cardiovascular events remains indistinct in patients with different level of FAR and different glycemic metabolism status. This study was to assess 5-year clinical outcomes of diabetic and non-diabetic patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with different level of FAR. Methods We consecutively enrolled 10,724 patients with CAD hospitalized for PCI and followed up for the major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) covering all-cause mortality, cardiac mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal ischemic stroke, and unplanned coronary revascularization. FAR was computed using the following formula: Fibrinogen (g/L)/Albumin (g/L). According to the optimal cut-off value of FAR for MACCE prediction, patients were divided into higher level of FAR (FAR-H) and lower level of FAR (FAR-L) subgroups, and were further categorized into four groups as FAR-H with DM and non-DM, and FAR-L with DM and non-DM. Results 5298 patients (58.36 ± 10.36 years, 77.7% male) were ultimately enrolled in the present study. A total of 1099 (20.7%) MACCEs were documented during the 5-year follow-up. The optimal cut-off value of FAR was 0.0783 by the surv_cutpoint function. Compared to ones with FAR-H and DM, patients with FAR-L and non-DM, FAR-H and non-DM, FAR-L and DM had decreased risk of MACCEs [adjusted hazard ratio (HR): 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.64–0.89, P = 0.001; HR: 0.78, 95% CI 0.66–0.93, P = 0.006; HR: 0.81, 95% CI 0.68–0.97, P = 0.019; respectively]. Notably, non-diabetic patients with lower level of FAR also had lower all-cause mortality and cardiac mortality risk than those in the FAR-H/DM group (HR: 0.41, 95% CI 0.27–0.63, P

Abstract Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs)-based contrast agents are widely used for T 2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in clinical diagnosis, highlighting the necessity and importance to evaluate their potential systematic toxicities. Although a few previous studies have documented the toxicity concerns of IONPs to major organs, limited data are available on the potential reproductive toxicity caused by IONPs, especially when administrated via intravenous injection to mimic clinical use of MRI contrast agents. Our study aimed to determine whether exposure to IONPs would affect male reproductive system and cause other related health concerns in ICR mice. The mice were intravenously injected with different concentrations IONPs once followed by routine toxicity tests of major organs and a series of reproductive function-related analyses at different timepoints. As a result, most of the contrast agents were captured by reticuloendothelial system (RES) organs such as liver and spleen, while IONPs have not presented adverse effects on the normal function of these major organs. In contrast, although IONPs were not able to enter testis through the blood testicular barrier (BTB), and they have not obviously impaired the overall testicular function or altered the serum sex hormones levels, IONPs exposure could damage Sertoli cells in BTB especially at a relative high concentration. Moreover, IONPs administration led to a short-term reduction in the quantity and quality of sperms in a dose-dependent manner, which might be attributed to the increase of oxidative stress and apoptotic activity in epididymis. However, the semen parameters have gradually returned to the normal range within 14 days after the initial injection of IONPs. Collectively, these results demonstrated that IONPs could cause reversible damage to the reproductive system of male mice without affecting the main organs, providing new guidance for the clinical application of IONPs as T 2 -MRI contrast agents. Graphical Abstract

ObjectivesThis paper studies the transient effects, different frequencies of spectral peaks and meaningful excitation amplitudes on liquid sloshing. MethodsA numerical model is established using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, and the reliability of the numerical model is validated through comparison with the analytical solution of linear potential flow and experimental data. ResultsThe transient effects of random excitation have a significant influence on the fluctuation of the free water surface of liquid sloshing in the tank. By applying the buffer function, stable results can be obtained quickly. When the peak frequency of the excitation spectrum is close to the natural frequency of the tank, the energy of the wave-height response spectrum of the liquid sloshing in the tank is mainly concentrated at the natural frequency of the tank. When the peak frequency of the excitation spectrum is far from the natural frequency of the tank, the energy of the wave-height response spectrum is concentrated near the peak frequency. With the increase of the meaningful amplitude of the excitation spectrum, the amplitude deviation of the liquid sloshing response relative to the linear wave (the deviation degree is zero) increases, and the nonlinearity of the tank increases significantly. ConclusionsFor the random excitation simulation, especially when the excitation frequency is far from the natural frequency, it is necessary to buffer the excitation duration. It is found that when the peak frequency of the excitation spectrum moves away from the first natural frequency to higher frequencies, the energy is dominant at the i-th order of the natural frequency when the peak frequency is close to it.

Abstract Purpose Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (SONFH) is a refractory orthopaedic hip joint disease that occurs in young- and middle-aged people. Previous experimental studies have shown that autophagy might be involved in the pathological process of SONFH, but the pathogenesis of autophagy in SONFH remains unclear. We aimed to identify and validate the key potential autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH to further illustrate the mechanism of autophagy in SONFH through bioinformatics analysis. Methods The GSE123568 mRNA expression profile dataset, including 10 non-SONFH (following steroid administration) samples and 30 SONFH samples, was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Autophagy-related genes were obtained from the Human Autophagy Database (HADb). The autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were screened by intersecting the GSE123568 dataset with the set of autophagy genes. The differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were identified with R software. In addition, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses of the differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were conducted by using R software. Then, the correlations between the expression levels of the differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were confirmed with R software. Moreover, the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was analysed by using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING), significant gene cluster modules were identified with the MCODE Cytoscape plugin, and hub genes among the differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were screened by using the CytoHubba Cytoscape plugin. Finally, the expression levels of the hub genes of the differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were validated in hip articular cartilage specimens from necrotic femur heads (NFHs) by using the GSE74089 dataset and further verification by qRT-PCR. Results A total of 34 differentially expressed autophagy-related genes were identified between the peripheral blood samples of SONFH patients and non-SONFH patients based on the defined criteria, including 25 upregulated genes and 9 downregulated genes. The GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses revealed that these 34 differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were particularly enriched in death domain receptors, the FOXO signalling pathway and apoptosis. Correlation analysis revealed significant correlations among the 34 differentially expressed autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH. The PPI results demonstrated that the 34 differentially expressed autophagy-related genes interacted with each other. Ten hub genes were identified by using the MCC algorithms of CytoHubba. The GSE74089 dataset showed that TNFSF10, PTEN and CFLAR were significantly upregulated while BCL2L1 was significantly downregulated in the hip cartilage specimens, which was consistent with the GSE123568 dataset. TNFSF10, PTEN and BCL2L1 were detected with consistent expression by qRT-PCR. Conclusions Thirty-four potential autophagy-related genes involved in SONFH were identified via bioinformatics analysis. TNFSF10, PTEN and BCL2L1 might serve as potential drug targets and biomarkers because they regulate autophagy. These results expand the autophagy-related understanding of SONFH and might be useful in the diagnosis and prognosis of SONFH.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a useful device for people without relying on peripheral nerves and muscles. However, the performance of the event-related potential (ERP)-based BCI declines when applying it to real environments, especially in cross-state and cross-subject conditions. Here we employ temporal modeling and adversarial training to improve the visual ERP-based BCI under different mental workload states and to alleviate the problems above. The rationality of our method is that the ERP-based BCI is based on electroencephalography (EEG) signals recorded from the scalp’s surface, continuously changing with time and somewhat stochastic. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical recurrent network to encode all ERP signals in each repetition at the same time and model them with a temporal manner to predict which visual event elicited an ERP. The hierarchical architecture is a simple yet effective method for organizing recurrent layers in a deep structure to model long sequence signals. Taking a cue from recent advances in adversarial training, we further applied dynamic adversarial perturbations to create adversarial examples to enhance the model performance. We conduct our experiments on one published visual ERP-based BCI task with 15 subjects and 3 different auditory workload states. The results indicate that our hierarchical method can effectively model the long sequence EEG raw data, outperform the baselines on most conditions, including cross-state and cross-subject conditions. Finally, we show how deep learning-based methods with limited EEG data can improve ERP-based BCI with adversarial training. Our code is available at https://github.com/aispeech-lab/VisBCI.

Early fault features of large-scale and low-speed mechanical equipment with heavy duty are weak and exhibit strong non-stationary characteristics. The adaptive extraction and identification of highly relevant important features from such signals has attracted significant attention. In this study, a novel empirical variational mode decomposition and exact Teager energy operator are proposed to explore valuable information. To highlight the fault impact signal representation, we use the exact energy operator to enhance the weak-impact components in the early fault signal. The proposed binary mechanism effectively distinguishes irrelevant features based on the adaptive decomposition parameter construction strategy. Therefore, interference features are easily removed from similar mixed signals, and the independent mode features are determined. The experimental results of the simulation and collected data are compared with those obtained with existing signal decomposition methods, and the superiority of the proposed method, owing to its better modal distinction and less time consumption, is verified.

At present, researchers have made great progress in the research of object detection, however, these studies mainly focus on the object detection of images under normal lighting, ignoring the target detection under low light. And images in the fields of automatic driving at night and surveillance are usually obtained in low-light environments. These images have problems such as poor brightness, low contrast, and obvious noise, which lead to a large amount of information loss in the image. And the performance of object detection in low light is reduced. In this paper, we propose a low-light image enhancement method based on multi-scale network fusion to solve the problems of images in low-light environments. Aiming at the problem that the effective information of low-light images is relatively small, we propose a preprocessing method for image nonlinear transformation and fusion, which improves the amount of available information in the light image. Then, in order to obtain a better enhancement effect, a multi-scale feature fusion method is proposed, which fuses features from different resolution levels in the network. The details of low-light areas in the image are improved, and the problem of feature loss caused by too deep network layers is solved. The experimental results show that our proposed method can achieve better enhancement effects on different datasets compared with the current mainstream methods. The average recall value of the object detection with our method is improved by 38.25%, which shows that our proposed method is effective and can promote the development of autonomous driving, monitoring, and other fields.

This study aims to compare the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) with semen quality in men from couples with primary and secondary infertility. Semen samples were collected from 133 men who requested fertility evaluation. Seminal tract infection with Ureaplasma spp. (UU), Mycoplasma hominis (MH), Mycoplasma genitalium (MG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), and herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2) was assessed by PCR-based diagnostic assays. Among all patients, the prevalence of STIs was higher in men from couples with primary infertility than that in men from couples with secondary infertility (39.7% vs 21.7%, P = 0.03). The prevalence of UU was 28.8% and 13.3% in men from couples with primary and secondary infertility, respectively. Men from couples with primary infertility were more likely to be positive for UU than men from couples with secondary infertility (P = 0.04). Regarding the UU subtype, the prevalence of Ureaplasma urealyticum (Uuu) and Ureaplasma parvum (Uup; including Uup1, Uup3, Uup6, and Uup14) did not differ between the two groups. No associations between the prevalence rates of MH, MG, and CT were found in men from either infertility group. A lower sperm concentration was associated with STI pathogen positivity in men with primary infertility according to the crude model (P = 0.04). The crude and adjusted models showed that semen volume (both P = 0.03) and semen leukocyte count (both P = 0.02) were independently associated with secondary infertility. These findings suggest the importance of classifying the type of infertility during routine diagnosis of seminal tract infections.

The wireless distributed transient shockwave testing system based on Nyquist sampling needs to keep high sampling rate and front-end data processing rate, which leads to the shortening of the life cycle of wireless nodes. In order to solve the above problems, the shockwave signal acquisition technology based on Sparse Fourier Transform is proposed in this paper. The specific method is to use the sparse characteristics of the frequency domain of the transient shockwave signal to collect the frequency domain by downsampling, reduce the amount of acquired data. The simulation results of the above experiments are compared with the simulation results of Compressed Sensing low sampling observation. The experimental results show that the time-domain acquisition accuracy error of the proposed framework is less than 10−4 when the Nyquist sampling rate is less than 8 times, and the mean relative error in time domain is only 0.01%. And compared with the acquisition framework based on Compressed Sensing theory, the reconstructed mean absolute error of the proposed method is reduced by 88.66% in the case of the same downsampling multiple. Moreover, this method does not need to store the high-dimensional random observation matrix similar to Compressed Sensing, which overcomes the defect of hardware implementation difficulty.

Abstract Background During male meiosis, the Y chromosome can form perfect pairing with the X chromosome. However, it is unclear whether mammalian Female germline stem cells (FGSCs) without a Y chromosome can transdifferentiate into functional haploid spermatid-like cells (SLCs). Results We found that spermatogenesis was restarted by transplanting FGSCs into Kit w/wv mutant testes. Complete meiosis and formation of SLCs was induced in vitro by testicular cells of Kit w/wv mutant mice, cytokines and retinoic acid. Healthy offspring were produced by sperm and SLCs derived from the in vivo and in vitro transdifferentiation of FGSCs, respectively. Furthermore, high-throughput chromosome conformation capture sequencing(Hi-C-seq) and “bivalent” (H3K4me3-H3K27me3) micro chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (μChIP-seq) experiments showed that stimulated by retinoic acid gene 8 (STRA8)/protamine 1 (PRM1)-positive transdifferentiated germ cells (tGCs) and male germ cells (mGCs) display similar chromatin dynamics and chromatin condensation during in vitro spermatogenesis. Conclusion This study demonstrates that sperm can be produced from FGSCs without a Y chromosome. This suggests a strategy for dairy cattle breeding to produce only female offspring with a high-quality genetic background.

Abstract Residual shallow neuromuscular block (NMB) is potentially harmful and contributes to critical respiratory events. Evidence for the optimal dose of sugammadex required to reverse vecuronium‐induced shallow NMB is scarce. The aims of the present study were to find suitable doses of sugammadex and neostigmine to reverse a residual vecuronium‐induced NMB from a time of flight (TOF) ratio of 0.3–0.9 and evaluate their safety and efficacy. In total, 121 patients aged 18–65 years were randomly assigned to 11 groups to receive placebo, sugammadex (doses of 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg), or neostigmine (doses of 10, 25, 40, 55, or 70 μg/kg). The reversal time of sugammadex and neostigmine to antagonize a vecuronium‐induced shallow residual NMB (i.e., TOF ratio of 0.3) and related adverse reactions were recorded. Several statistical models were tested to find an appropriate statistical model to explore the suitable doses of sugammadex and neostigmine required to reverse a residual vecuronium‐induced NMB. Based on a monoexponential model with the response variable on a logarithmic scale, sugammadex 0.56 mg/kg may be sufficient to reverse vecuronium‐induced shallow residual NMB at a TOF ratio of 0.3 under anesthesia maintained with propofol. Neostigmine may not provide prompt and satisfactory antagonism as sugammadex, even in shallow NMB.

The new genus and species Pulvinatusia xuegulaensis (Brassicaceae) are described and illustrated. The species is a cushion plant collected from Xuegu La, Xizang, China. Its vegetative parts are most similar to those of Arenaria bryophylla (Caryophyllaceae) co-occurring in the same region, while its leaves and fruits closely resemble those of Xerodraba patagonica (Brassicaceae) from Patagonian Argentina and Chile. Family-level phylogenetic analyses based on both nuclear ITS and plastome revealed that it is a member of the tribe Crucihimalayeae, but the infra-/intergeneric relationships within the tribe are yet to be resolved.

Nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) is a common cause of infertility and is defined as the complete absence of sperm in ejaculation due to defective spermatogenesis. The aim of this study was to identify the genetic etiology of NOA in an infertile male from a Chinese consanguineous family. A homozygous missense variant of the membrane-bound O-acyltransferase domain-containing 1 (MBOAT1) gene (c.770C>T, p.Thr257Met) was found by whole-exome sequencing (WES). Bioinformatic analysis also showed that this variant was a pathogenic variant and that the amino acid residue in MBOAT1 was highly conserved in mammals. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) analysis showed that the mRNA level of MBOAT1 in the patient was 22.0% lower than that in his father. Furthermore, we screened variants of MBOAT1 in a broader population and found an additional homozygous variant of the MBOAT1 gene in 123 infertile men. Our data identified homozygous variants of the MBOAT1 gene associated with male infertility. This study will provide new insights for researchers to understand the molecular mechanisms of male infertility and will help clinicians make accurate diagnoses.

Deep underwater color images have problems such as low brightness, poor contrast, and loss of local details. In order to effectively enhance low-quality underwater images, this paper proposes an enhancement method based on GAN (Generative Adversarial Network). This paper studies low-light image enhancement algorithms, aiming to improve the quality of low-light images by studying some technical means and methods, and restore the original scene information of low-quality images, so as to obtain natural and clear images with complete details and structural information. In order to verify the effectiveness of this method, image databases such as DIARETDB0 and SID are used as the research object, combined with multi-scale Retinex color reproduction contrast-constrained adaptive histogram equalization to compare the performance of the enhanced algorithm. The results show that the processed image is better than other image enhancement methods in terms of color protection, contrast enhancement, and image detail enhancement. The proposed method significantly improves the indicators proposed in the article.

We thoughtfully investigate the feasibility of reducing the mode-coupling caused crosstalk by optimizing the practical parameters of the few-mode fiber (FMF), based on the linear coupling theory. According to our simulation results, the low crosstalk FMF could be achieved with the small fiber core, the low refractive-index (RI) related parameters, the long operating-wavelength and the low core-eccentricity (CE). Moreover, the transmission behaviors over the fixed coupling and the random coupling scenarios are also discussed. The power distribution and the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) evolutions along FMF reveal the impacts from the mode-coupling induced crosstalk in the spatial division multiplexing (SDM) transmission system. The random nature of the mode coupling suggesting the turbulent results are obtained in our simulation, confirmed the observation in the SDM test. And only a 1.23 dB SINR degradation of 16-QAM signals can be realized after 100 km transmission with the optimized CE of lower than 4 × 10−3.

Few-shot fine-grained image classification aims to solve the learning problem with few limited labeled examples. The existing methods use data augmentation to randomly transform the original examples to get new examples, and then use the new examples to train the model to improve the robustness and generalization ability of the learnt model. Due to each iteration of these methods uses a random transformation to get a new example, it will cause the unstable problem of the class center in the feature measurement stage. To solve this problem, a Multi-view Metric Learning (MML) method is proposed, which is based on a new concept (View Bag) and its effective similarity measurement method to achieve better few-shot fine-grained image classification. Firstly, a new example obtained by a kind of data augmentation is defined as a view, and a set of views generated by multiple data augmentation is defined as a view bag. Then, the view bag is sent into the model to extract the features, and a multi-view metric method with the view bag as the object is proposed to overcome the unstable problem of the class center. Finally, classification is performed by measuring the similarity between view bags. Experiments are conducted on three public datasets, CUB-2011-200, Stanford-Dogs and Stanford-Cars. The proposed method achieves 71.61±0.87%, 57.78±0.96% and 74.02±0.84% for the 5-way 1-shot classification task, and 88.72±0.51%, 76.30±0.68% and 92.94±0.37% for the 5-way 5-shot classification task, which have the state-of-the-art performances. Under the condition of the same backbone network, the proposed multi-view metric method can measure the similarity between examples more effectively, and improve the robustness and generalization ability of the model.

The renewal and updating of the cadastre of real estate is a long and tedious task for land administration, especially for rural buildings that lack unified design and planning. In order to retain the required accuracy of all points in the register, huge extensive manual editing is often required. In this work, a precise cadastral survey approach is proposed using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery-based stereo point clouds. To ensure the accuracy and uniqueness of building outer walls, the non-maximum suppression of wall points that can separate noise and avoid repeated extraction is proposed. Meanwhile, the multiple cue weighted RANSAC, considering both point-to-line distance and normal consistency, is proposed to reduce the influence of building attachments and avoid spurious edges. For a better description of wall topology, the wall line segment topology graph (WLTG), which can guide the connection of adjacent lines and support the searching of closed boundaries through the minimum graph loop analysis, is also built. Experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively detect the building vector contours with high precision and correct topology, and the detection completeness and correctness of the edge corners can reach 84.9% and 93.2% when the mean square error is below 10 cm.

In the process of in situ zircon U–Pb dating, it is an effective means to overcome the matrix effect by using a matrix-matched external reference material. However, the limited number of available zircon reference materials still makes it difficult to meet the research needs. In this paper, we performed a preliminary analysis of the gemological characteristics, trace elements and U–Pb ages of natural zircon CAM18 to assess its suitability as a reference material for laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) U–Pb dating. This tawny, gem-quality zircon has no visible inclusions and weighs approximately 0.55 g. Its density, full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the Raman peak and alpha flux (Dα) indicate that the sample has suffered mild-to-moderate radiation damage without any thermal treatment. The LA-ICP-MS U–Pb dating results reveal that the trace elements content and U–Pb ages of the sample are fairly homogeneous at the 50 μm scale, and there is no obvious loss of radiogenic Pb. The 206Pb/238U age (571.0 ± 3.0 Ma, 2s) and 207Pb/235U age (573.4 ± 6.0 Ma, 2s) are consistent within the analytical uncertainty, and the calculated concordia age is 571.4 ± 1.4 Ma (2s, n = 20). The variation in the 206Pb/238U ages is small, with a measurement repeatability of 0.46% (RSD), which is within the uncertainty of the age accuracy obtained by LA-ICP-MS. The oscillatory zoning, Th/U ratio (0.2) and chondrite-normalized rare-earth element (REE) pattern imply a magmatic origin of zircon CAM18. The Ti-in-zircon temperature ranges from 714 to 742 °C, and the oxygen fugacity ranges from ΔFMQ−2.87 to ΔFMQ−3.17, suggesting that it is crystallized in a reducing environment. All the results show that zircon CAM18 may has great potential in LA-ICP-MS U–Pb dating.

Thymopentin (TP5) has exhibited strong antitumor and immunomodulatory effects in vivo. However, the polypeptide is rapidly degraded by protease and aminopeptidase within a minute at the N-terminal of TP5, resulting in severe limitations for further practical applications. In this study, the protective effects of water-soluble alginic acid (WSAA) on the N-terminal of TP5 were investigated by establishing an H22 tumor-bearing mice model and determining thymus, spleen, and liver indices, immune cells activities, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-2, and IL-4 levels, and cell cycle distributions. The results demonstrated that WSAA+TP5 groups exhibited the obvious advantages of the individual treatments and showed superior antitumor effects on H22 tumor-bearing mice by effectively protecting the immune organs, activating CD4+ T cells and CD19+ B cells, and promoting immune-related cytokines secretions, finally resulting in the high apoptotic rates of H22 cells through arresting them in S phase. These data suggest that WSAA could effectively protect the N-terminal of TP5, thereby improving its antitumor and immunoregulatory activities, which indicates that WSAA has the potential to be applied in patients bearing cancer or immune deficiency diseases as a novel immunologic adjuvant.

Image dense matching plays a crucial role in the reconstruction of three-dimensional models of buildings. However, large variations in target heights and serious occlusion lead to obvious mismatches in areas with discontinuous depths, such as building edges. To solve this problem, the present study mines the geometric and semantic information of line segments to produce a constraint for the dense matching process. First, a disparity consistency-based line segment matching method is proposed. This method correctly matches line segments on building structures in discontinuous areas based on the assumption that, within the corresponding local areas formed by two corresponding line pairs, the disparity obtained by the coarse-level matching of the hierarchical dense matching is similar to that derived from the local homography estimated from the corresponding line pairs. Second, an adaptive guide parameter is designed to constrain the cost propagation between pixels in the neighborhood of line segments. This improves the rationality of cost aggregation paths in discontinuous areas, thereby enhancing the matching accuracy near building edges. Experimental results using satellite and aerial images show that the proposed method efficiently obtains reliable line segment matches at building edges with a matching precision exceeding 97%. Under the constraint of the matched line segments, the proposed dense matching method generates building edges that are visually clearer, and achieves higher accuracy around edges, than without the line segment constraint.

Cold-formed steel channel beam components are increasingly used in lightweight steel buildings owing to the high strength–weight ratio. However, the influence of cold working processes, in relation to corner regions, and how this impacts the bending behavior of channel beams lacks thorough evaluation. In the present study, a series of coupon and bending tests were conducted and the numerical simulation and analytical derivation were supplemented, aiming to investigate the bending performance of cold-formed steel channel beams considering the reinforcement effect in corner regions. The results show that the engineering stress–strain relationships of the flat and corner coupons conformed to the trilinear models with different characteristic parameters. The yielding and ultimate strengths of the corner specimens was increased by 50% and 7%, respectively, compared to the flat coupons due to the cold-bending technique. The strain distribution of the cold-formed channel beams accord with the plane section while the stresses at the corners were 35% higher than those at the flanges, indicting the different mechanical response of the flat and corner regions. The component-based model for cold-formed steel channel beams was established to exactly describe the influence of the cold-bending action, which was greatly validated by the experimental and numerical data with the errors of typical parameters less than 9%.

The pollen morphology of 20 species from Blumea and Cyathocline Cass. was investigated using a light microscope (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to explore their taxonomic significance. This study showed that pollen grains of these species were usually tricolporate, rarely tetracolporate (B. sinuata). Nine pollen types were distinguishable through the exine sculpture characters and the number of apertures. It was easily distinguished Cyathocline from species of Blumea s. str. by its much smaller size (15.04 μm × 15.07 μm) and sparse and longer spines (24 spines, spine length 4.23 μm) with acute apex, which suggest that C. purpurea might not belong to the genus Blumea s. str. The palynological characteristics indicated that Section Macrophllae and Section Paniculatae of Blumea were not monophyletic groups. The pollen morphology differentiation of B. lacera clade is consistent with the interspecific relationship revealed by the molecular phylogenetic tree. However, the pollen morphology of the Blumea densiflora clade is inconsistent with the interspecific relationship based on molecular phylogenetic analysis. This palynology research can only partly support the previously published molecular phylogeny of Blumea s. str.

Background: Bivalirudin reduces ischemic and hemorrhagic events in patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but the safety and efficacy for such individuals are unclear. Our aim was to evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of bivalirudin in patients undergoing elective PCI. Methods: We examined 957 patients with bivalirudin anticoagulation and 1713 patients with unfractionated heparin (UFH) anticoagulation with and without glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors (GPI). The primary endpoint was net adverse clinical events (NACE), a composite of death, myocardial infarction, revascularization, stent thrombosis, stroke, and bleeding. The secondary endpoints were bleeding and major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE). Results: In one year of follow-up, 307 (11.5%) NACEs, 72 (2.7%) bleedings, and 249 (9.3%) MACCEs occurred. Statistically, patients with bivalirudin anticoagulation had less NACE [hazard ratio (HR): 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.58–0.96, p = 0.021] and bleeding (HR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.34–0.99, p = 0.045) but not less MACCE, than did those with UFH anticoagulation. Furthermore, the risk of bleeding in the bivalirudin group was lower than in the UFH with GPI group (p = 0.001) but not lower than in the group of UFH without GPI (p = 0.197). Conclusions: In patients who undergo elective PCI, the use of bivalirudin significantly decreased the risk of NACE and bleeding without increasing the risk of MACCE; the reduction of bleeding risk with bivalirudin was mainly attributed to the presence of GPIs in the UFH group.

The geographic origin determination of ruby is increasingly important in the gem trade and geological research. Unlike metamorphic-related ruby, the rarer basalt-related ruby has gained significant attention, especially from Thailand, a major producer of such gems. Thai rubies are classified as magmatic-related origin rubies, which can be found as xenocrysts (xenoliths) hosted by alkali basalts. This paper focuses on the gemological characteristics, inclusion morphology, identification, and geochemistry of basalt-hosted ruby from the Chanthaburi-Trat area in Thailand. Various instruments, including gemological conventional ones, Raman Spectrometer, EPMA, and LA-ICP-MS were used for the analysis. This study aimed to identify the distinctive characteristics of rubies from Thailand and find feasible methods for their geographic origin determination, in comparison with rubies from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Mozambique. Thailand samples exhibit diverse inclusion scenes and contain a variety of crystal or mineral inclusions. Raman spectroscopy results indicate the presence of anorthite, titanium oxide, and gypsum inclusions. The main chemical composition of the ruby consists of Al2O3, with trace elements including Fe, Cr, Si, Mg, Ti, Ga, V, Ca, and Ni. The color of Thailand ruby is correlated with the content of Cr and Fe. Chemical diagrams illustrating the contents of Fe, Mg, Cr, V, Ti, and Ga offer reasonable discrimination tools for differentiating rubies from various deposit types. The chemical compositions and inclusion characteristics of rubies from Thailand serve as reliable indicators for their origin identification. This study is an advantageous supplement to the research on Thailand rubies.

This study aimed to reveal the energy loss characteristics of each part of the shaft tubular pump device (STPD) under stall conditions. Numerical simulations were conducted by using the SST k-ω turbulence model with curvature correction, and the reliability of the simulation results was verified by a model test. The entropy production method was used to evaluate and visualize the energy loss. The results show that turbulent entropy production (TEP) is the main source of energy loss in each component of the STPD, and the TEP increases significantly with the deterioration of stall. The energy loss in the impeller is mainly concentrated near the shroud and hub, while in the guide vanes it is mainly concentrated near the shroud and suction surface of the blades. In addition, with the deterioration of stall, the energy loss in the inlet of the impeller and guide vanes increases significantly. Influenced by the backflow from the impeller, there is a significant amount of energy loss at the outlet segment of the inlet passage, and the location of the high-energy-loss region is consistent with the backflow region. Affected by the flow separation vortex at the tail of the guide vanes, the energy loss in the outlet passage is mainly concentrated at the inlet segment.

Mitral regurgitation (MR) is the most common form of valvular heart disease in the United States, and there are established guidelines for indications for requiring mitral valve surgeries. However, there is an unmet clinical need for a subset of high-risk MR patients, especially those with advanced age, heart failure and/or secondary MR. Following the successes of transcatheter aortic valve replacements, significant advances have occurred over the last decade in transcatheter mitral valve interventions in order to manage these patients in both clinical practice and trials. The three main types of these interventions include a transcatheter edge-to-edge repair, percutaneous mitral annuloplasty (both direct and indirect) and transcatheter mitral valve replacement (including when applied to a prior prosthetic valve, annuloplasty ring and mitral annuloplasty ring). This review aims to discuss the contemporary techniques, evidence, indications, multimodality imaging evaluations and outcomes of the various transcatheter mitral valve interventions.

Modular steel buildings offer the advantages of time-saving construction, reduced on-site work, and less resource waste. The mechanical behavior of modular connections is complex, depending on the type of connecting method and the load-transferring path. The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the methods for creating inter-module connections. First, we discuss the existing inter-module connections, including vertical connections, horizontal connections, and module-to-concrete-core-wall connections. Then, the mechanical performance and simplified models of the inter-module connections are reviewed in detail; these have a significant influence on the development of modular steel buildings. Finally, the prospects of module-to-module connection are summarized. Despite the increasing amount of research that explores module-to-module connections, fully modular buildings have not yet been achieved, hindering the further development and use of modular steel buildings. In this context, self-locking connections and laminated double-beam connections are proposed, with the aim of promoting the increased use of modular steel buildings.

Leukocyte common antigen-related protein tyrosine phosphatase (LAR) is a member of the protein tyrosine phosphatase family that serves as a key regulator of cellular survival. It is also involved in neurodevelopment and brain disorders. This study was designed to investigate the role of LAR in a cell-based model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in which U251 and SH-SY5Y cells were used as models of astrocytes and dopaminergic neurons, respectively. Cell viability, cell death, cell morphology, protein phosphorylation and expression, ATP levels, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and mitochondrial membrane potential were analyzed in the wild-type (WT) and heterozygous LAR-knockout astrocytoma U251 cells to assess the cell state, signal transduction, and mitochondrial function. LAR downregulation showed a protective effect in rotenone-exposed U251 cells by increasing cell viability, reducing cell mortality, and restoring appropriate cellular morphology. LAR downregulation enhanced IGF-1R phosphorylation and downstream signal transduction as evidenced by increases in the Akt and GSK-3β phosphorylation, as well as the upregulation of NRF2 and HO-1. The downregulation of LAR also augmented DJ-1 levels in these cells. The enhanced Akt and GSK-3β phosphorylation contributed to a reduced Bax/Bcl2 ratio and suppressed apoptosis after rotenone exposure. Heterozygous LAR-knockout U251 cells exhibited higher mitochondrial function evidenced by increased mitochondrial membrane potential, ATP contents, and reduced ROS production compared to the WT cells following rotenone exposure. Further studies showed that the astrocytic protection mediated by the heterozygous knockout of LAR was associated with the activation of Akt. A specific Akt inhibitor, MK2206, reduced the cell viability, Akt and GSK3β phosphorylation, and HO-1 and NRF2 expression in U251 cells exposed to rotenone. Astrocytes provide structural and metabolic support to maintain neuronal health. Astrocytic glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) production is vital for dopaminergic neuron survival. Heterozygous LAR-knockout U251 cells produced higher amounts of GDNF than the WT cells. The SH-SY5Y cells cocultured with heterozygous LAR-knockout U251 cells exhibited greater viability than that of cells cocultured with WT U251 cells in response to rotenone. Together, these findings demonstrate that the heterozygous knockout of LAR in astrocytes can play a key role in protecting both astrocytic cells and cocultured neurons in a rotenone-induced cell-based model of PD. This neuroprotective effect is attributable to the augmentation of IGF1R-Akt-GDNF signaling and the maintenance of astrocytic mitochondrial function.